How A Would-be Thanksgiving Argument Can Spawn a Revolution

-by Sam Husseini
Founder, Vote Pact

It's become something of a cliché: Many people dread Thanksgiving in part because they have to break bread with friend-- and especially relatives-- who they adamantly disagree with politically.

One is pro-immigration, the other wants to build a bigger wall, etc.

But what if this apparently annoying encounter was actually a blessing?

I don't identify as either a Democrat or a Republican, but I recognize that there are millions of people who identify as "Democrats" for some good reason and there are lots of people who identify as "Republican" for good reason.

Thing is, those "good reasons" mostly have to do with how bad the other party is.

And a further rub is that many rank and file Democratic voters and Republican voters agree on certain core issues: They are sick of Wall Street and big business domination. They are skeptical of perpetual wars, etc. This is in spite of the fact that the establishment of both the Democratic and Republican parties are deeply tied to Wall Street and back perpetual wars, occational rhetoric to the contrary.

Indeed, when a somewhat popular figure comes before the base-- whether it's Democratic Obama or Republican Trump-- they take the guise of being critical of Wall Street and of war.

But that's not how they govern.

They back Wall Street.

They back wars, occasionally what speaking against them.

And they get away with it.

Why?

Because if you're not at the table, you're on the menu.

Rather than the bases being divided by the establishment of the parties, seemingly hypnotized by the venom spewed by Fox and MSNBC against the other, they need to have honest, and even loving, dialogue to break out of their partisan boxes.

They key may be to engage and turn the discussion in way that what could be an annoyance is blissful food for the soul.

Manna from heaven, even.

That's what the VotePact strategy is about.

Instead of a disenchanted Democrat and disenchanted Republican (relatives, coworkers, partners, lovers, friends) cancelling out each other-- one self-loathingly voting for Biden and the other for Trump at year from now, they could both vote for candidates they deeply believe in.

Imagine if instead of "Trump sucks and everyone who likes him sucks" it's "Hey, I understand, you think Biden is corrupt. I prefer her to Trump, but I actually agree that he's corrupt. So, instead of you voting Trump and me voting Biden-- let's both vote for other candidates." That could be Greens, Libertarians, etc.

Of course, part of the victory of the establishment is that voting for independent or third party candidates seems unthinkable to many right now. That's because it's a hate-fueled system.

The establishment wants you to hate and be driven by it.

It doesn't want you to see that while you are arguing about immigration for example, keeping you in your partisan boxes, the Democratic and Republican party "leaderships" are actually work together on the causes of desperate immigration: Interventions and wars in Latin America and the Mideast, drug polices and trade policies that all fuel desperate migration.

Of course we're now in primary season. But we need to be thinking along these lines and get other people to be doing so because it frames the debate now.

Consider that Carlos Rojas recently confronted former Vice President Joe Biden about the Obama administration’s record on immigration.

How did Biden respond?

“Well, you should vote for Trump," Biden said. “You should vote for Trump.”



That's the mindset of the Democratic-- and Republican-- establishment: I don't have to deliver for you. Because the other guys are worse. You're my prisoner.

But you can break out of the and others can too. As hokey as it sounds, through dialogue and love. That person who annoys you across the Thanksgiving day table can be your salvation. You can both stop being a pawn of the DNC or RNC.

If this isn't challenged now, then less stablishment candidates like Bernie Sanders and Tulsi Gabbard (who merit criticism, but are clearly distinct from Biden and other candidates) will be further marginalized.

We need to be talking about a radical center emerging now. And doing so can help those more anti-establishment candidates.

Thus, the Sanders campaign is wrong when it says there's "No Middle Ground."

There should be no middle ground for the establishments.

But there should be a radical middle ground.

A common ground.

Where principled progressives and conscious conservatives can break out of the establishment that has at its heart being an Empire, fueling wars, oppression, exploitation in every community and on a global scale.

It would be most fitting that the turning away from Empire would take a step forward on Thanksgiving Day tables considering the original mythology that spawned the U.S. as Empire centuries ago.

Cooking A Trump Branded Turkey-- Trade My Funny Bone For Your Wishbone?

-by Harper Thorpe

Today, we present a refresher on
the basic steps for cooking a “Don”
It’s really a turkey we’ve POTUS branded
The Trump Turd-bird, ’cause it’s underhanded

First thing, take the packet out, minuscule fowl balls
Search Don’s anal regions, between his southern walls
Besides the little gonads, you’ll find some nasty giblets
Put them in a frying pan, and cover in water driblets

Save them for the gravy, or add them to the stuffing
If you hear the Turd-bird tweet, the brain-dead Don is bluffing
Rinse the bird inside and out, then slap it and pat dry
Toilet paper’s best, please don’t get Turd-bird in your eye

If you stuff the Turd-bird, you should only stuff it loosely
Not like the golf khakis that the POTUS stuffs profusely
Bind drumsticks together, best for handcuffs to be used
Baste thin skin with snake oil and the drumsticks won’t be bruised

Place the Turd-bird on a rack, in a clean bedpan
Preheat oven three-five-oh, that’s the dead game plan
Monitor the temp with an anal thermo meter
Stick it where Don’s thickest, since (thank God) you’ll see no peter

Like a lobster in hot water, Don will act harassed
Also watch the veggies, the Turd-bird’s supporting cast
Instructions I’m providing have majority approval
Turd-bird should be done by now and ready for removal

Lastly, I am often asked should Turd-bird bake face-down?
Maybe Don should be face-up to get an orange-ish brown?
Side dish, desserts, other questions, even pairing wine?
Questions: call the Stormy Daniels’ Turkey-Spank hotline!

Happy Thanksgiving!!


©2019 HHThorpe. All rights reserved.

Midnight Meme Of The Day!

by Noah

For Thanksgiving I will make a wish: I hope that someday we will have a president who is pro-Americans and pro-America again, instead of this THING.

Did Trump Make You Want To Puke Today?

A top physician in New York-- down the street from Trumpanzee Tower-- told me (and she knows) that the reason for Trump's behavior today is because of a larger than usual, earlier than usual testosterone shot. It doesn't just accentuate the orange hue or enlarge his head and hands, it causes the aberrant behavior we've been witnessing all day.

He's continued his no-wn battle with Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts and the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals; picked a fight with chief of staff John Kelly and Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen-- who he hinted he's going to fire; simultaneously disgraced himself and made an idiot out of himself while he stumbled over how to talk with military men and women; got in another pissing match with the CIA over his devotion to fellow autocrats in Saudi Arabia; threatened to shut down the government if he doesn't get money for his wall; then claimed he would shut down the whole border if immigration gets uncontrollable; and told reporters at his sleazy country club in Florida, where he's hunkered down instead of going to visit the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan like real presidents do, that what he's thankful for on this Thanksgiving holiday is that he "made a tremendous difference in the country. This country’s so much stronger than it was when I took office and you wouldn’t believe it."

If you decide to get testosterone replacement therapy when you're in your 70s, be sure not to overdo it-- or you'll turn out like him. And say "cosentiny wire."

It's That Time Of Year: Time For "Crazy Republikook Uncle" Buzzword Bingo!

by Noah

I haven't posted one of these in several years but, just in time for Thanksgiving, I'm providing a sample bingo card that you can use to amuse yourselves if you have any crazy Republican relatives you feel compelled to celebrate Thanksgiving with. I choose not to break bread with such people, but those of you who do can just print this card out and/or make some similar ones just by using any bingo card generator found on the internet. Choose your words. Print the cards out. Distribute them to the non-Republicans around your Thanksgiving table and check off each box as the likely words or phrases come spitting out of the mouths of any reality-challenged knuckle-dragging Republikooks or bots that are holding back evolution on your family tree. See how long it takes before they realize that you're involved in some sort of humorous game and they are not. Behold the puzzlement!

Once they discover that all the normal people around the table have this bingo card and they don't, they're soon to start whining even more than usual. What to do if that happens? Well, for one thing, please don't stop laughing. Just grab those red MAGA hats that never leave their heads, fill them with nice warm turkey gravy, and put them back where they were!

Personally, if it was me, any family Republicans would get a separate and, ironically, unequal table in the garage, with the car motor running, and the doors locked. More turkey for you next year! How mean! How greedy! That's kind of act any Republican can relate to down to their last breaths.

Midnight Meme, Special Edition: The 12 Days Of Christimemes #5

-by Noah

The Thanksgiving Day Parade is a big thing in New York every year. Each year tens of thousands of people line Broadway to watch the parade. It's even broadcast live on local TV. One of the biggest points of interest in the parade is the speculation on what the new giant balloons will be. This year did not disappoint.

Midnight Meme Of The Day!

-by Noah

Dear Donnie, If you really want to be praised for an action you took in your heinous life; if you really want to be considered a patriot: Do it! Do it now!

If only. If Señor Trumpanzee would take that step tonight! Black Friday would never be known as Black Friday again. It would be something like VE Day was in 1945; much celebration in the streets, and so much relief and happiness in so many homes across America. We could call the Friday after Thanksgiving "National Euphoria Day." If he'd join hands with Republicans in Congress and they would all jump like a bunch of lemmings, even better. Best of all would be if we could park McConnell and Ryan in a Russian car on the street below, and he landed, splat, right on top of them.

Given advance scheduling, the World Pay-Per-View profits would be so high that we could pay to fully fund a national healthcare program, repair our infrastructure, and maybe even find a cure for cancer; all without using taxpayer dollars! And, of course, one big orange tumor of a humanoid would be gone. Bring on the hazmat team to clean up the mess.

If only.

Midnight Meme Of The Day!

-by Noah

Imagine if there was something called RA. You know, a 12 step program for those who suffer the shame of having a Republican in their family. For me, it would go something like this: "Hello, my name is Noah and I have a Republican in my family."

Imagine being in a room with others who could say the very same thing. For too many suffering Americans, that is what they face every Thanksgiving. The problem is, though, that all too often, that Republican is in the same room, the dining room. That is not the case with me! When it comes to my family, I adopted a Republican-Be-Gone solution. Yes, I am genetically related to a couple of Republicans, but I didn't need no stinking 12 step program. I simply ignore their existence. A 1 step program! Perhaps, for you, that would be hard. Perhaps, you considered setting up a TV table or a card table in the corner of the dining room for the family goon. Not me. Not the "kiddie table" approach. Not the porch. Not the garage. Not on my property! I'm a get off my lawn guy. I mean, come on! We all know what happens to that patch of grass when the dog pees on it.

Look, I know it's probably too late. You've probably already, in some ridiculously misguided moment of tolerance, invited the family Republican to Thanksgiving dinner, but, there's always next year, or, perhaps you could quickly build a wall around your property, one that is high enough that no Republican could ever jump over it; one that is deep enough that no Republican could tunnel under it. Think of the delicious irony!

But, enough of this. Assuming that you might have some FOX "News"-Alex Jones-Breitbart loon in your midst today, why not give everyone else in your house some sort of Buzzword Bingo game or drinking game and just count the seconds before the family wacko pukes out the words "Entitlements," "Chem Trails," "Benghazi," "Crooked Hillary," "Birth Certificate," "Kaepernick," or, best of all "Black Lives Matter." Warning: If you've chosen the drinking game approach, you are going to have an extra black Black Friday.

Anyway, I chose today's memes with all of this in mind. They're just a quick refresher course of a few talking points. You know, after all, that Psycho Paul Ryan is going to come up as your crazy uncle or whatever starts talking about the "It's about time!" Trump/Repug Tax "Reform" scam. First of all, try calling it what it really is. Call it a Screw Americans Tax Plan, or, more politely, if you must, a Raise Taxes Plan. Whatever you decide to call it, it's a Tax Scam, and it's being put forward by psychopaths who are incapable of doing anything but hurting anyone who isn't in position to give them big bags o' money for their "campaigns."

Since Republican plans to cut Social Security, Medicare, Food Stamps, Childcare, Obamacare, Veterans benefits and any other benefits they can think of so they can hand billionaires more billions in tax cut favors, will come up, and since Paul Ryan, who enjoys healthcare on our dime and who used his father's Social Security benefits to pay for his own education, has summoned his inner Wisconsin Jeffrey Dahmer in order to get House approval and send this Big Scam to the $enate and then the Big Obese Orange Freak's desk so he can use his crayons to sign off on it before he goes back to eating a Playdough sandwich, here you are. Have at it, not that the family loon has enough functioning brain synapses to even begin to understand or reason. They only think emotionally or just in some reptilian way. Maybe the best thing to do is have one of your kids pick his pocket. Then your crazy Republican uncle will know how it feels, at least until the word "Benghazi" pops into what's left of his mind.

Ready To Eat? Mark Takano Has Some Useful Suggestions For Thanksgiving

With Trumpf giving a certain air of acceptance to blatant lying this season, California Congressman Mark Takano has put together some useful suggestions about stuffing the predictable arguments with the Limbaugh-lovin' brother-in-law with actual facts. I know, I know... they don't care about facts but what's the alternative? Make them all watch the John Kasich ad about Trumpf/Hitler?

Eat hearty! I think everyone at the dinner I'm going to tonight is either a Democrat or an Independent. Although I guess I can imagine a fight breaking out between Hillary and Bernie supporters. Gee, I hope not. How do you argue with someone unpatriotic/uncaring/uneducated... enough to back Hillary? Sorry for that. I was joking. Bernie admirers will just ignore the Hillary louts. Meanwhile though, Joe Conason offered a worthy Thanksgiving meditation I thought was worth quoting from.

At this moment, millions of immigrant families confront fear and insecurity, as political demagogues vilify and threaten them. Muslim Americans face intimidation from those same opportunistic bigots. Black Americans suffer resurgent racist assaults, especially when speaking out in their own defense. And on the other side of the world, hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees seeking only to save themselves and their children from murder and enslavement know that much of the supposedly civilized world, including many political leaders in this country, is coldly turning them away.

That is why I want to express thanks that Barack Obama is president of the United States.

Last year on this day I noted, while acknowledging his flaws and errors, “how much worse our situation might be” had Obama’s opponents been in control from January 2009 to the present instead of him. To me, “the undeniable truth is that Obama righted the nation in a moment of deep crisis and set us on a navigable course toward the future, despite bitter, extreme, and partisan opposition that was eager to sink us rather than see him succeed.” None of that has changed, of course-- and in the current atmosphere of bigotry, recrimination, and psychopathic rhetoric, the president’s calm, rational, decent voice is more vital than ever.

The presidential nominating process of one of our two major political parties is elevating an ambitious television personality whose campaign is based on sinister appeals to xenophobia, suspicion, and anger. Like a Queens-born version of Mussolini, Donald Trump tells big lies about Mexicans and Muslims, encourages violence among his fanatical followers, and issues hollow, bombastic rants about “making America great again.” Most of Trump’s Republican rivals seem envious of him, when they should be disgusted by his plans to “register” Muslims or his promise to deport millions of undocumented immigrants; their objections to his outrages have largely been equivocal, indirect, feeble, halting. In his wake, they have been all too eager to denigrate the innocent refugees as potential “terrorists”-- and to dispose of cherished American values without a backward glance.

Trump promises to make Americans proud of our country again, but the spectacle of furious thousands cheering him at a rally evokes revulsion and shame.

So when President Obama speaks out to defend immigrants and refugees from the scurrilous abuse of Trump and the Republicans, I feel a deep sense of gratitude-- just as I do when he chooses diplomacy over war, as he did in the nuclear negotiations with Iran, and science over propaganda, as he continues to do in his diplomatic and domestic efforts to address climate change.

With his own admirably cool style, shaking off the vicious attacks of his adversaries every day, the president upholds our venerable ideal of malice toward none and charity for all. In different ways that ideal was embodied in his predecessors, the presidents who originated and revived this most generous of national holidays-- George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt-- and its endurance is reason to be thankful indeed.

Don't let a fascist buffoon spoil your Thanksgiving.

Why Do So Many Republicans Crave Being Lied To?

Earlier in the campaign for the Republican nomination, did anyone feel another candidate could possibly eclipse Carly Fiorina as the most compulsive liar in American politics? After she was thoroughly outed as someone who just made shit up, her meteoric rise-- even among the Fox/Hate Talk Radio base of the GOP-- was halted and within weeks her aspirations to be anything more than Ted Cruz's running mate came crashing down to earth, voters left with two impressions: her lies about being a successful CEO at Hewlett Packard and her lies about personally seeing some Planned Parenthood video that doesn't exist and has never existed. Her national polling went from a high of 15% when CNN found her the second most popular Republican candidate after Trump in mid-September back down to also-ran status in the newest Fox News poll last week (just 2 months later)-- in a 3-way tie for 6th place with Huckabee and Christie and with a mere 3%, approximately the poll's margin of error. (And, yes, she's still lying her ass off on every subject that comes her way, although now no one is paying much attention to anything she says.)

And then we all remember how Trump skillfully managed it tank his closest rival, poor ole Dr. Ben, with an-emperor-has-no-clothes strategy and a generous use of the word "pathological." The fact that most of the statements by Carson that have been checked by Politifact-- 23 so far-- are either "mostly false (26%), "false" (43%) or "pants on fire (13%) for a grand total of 82% with not even one "true" statement and only 1 that was found to be "mostly true," played right into Trump's hands. It's impossible to come away from a look at what Carson says and think he's less of a liar, even pathological liar, than Fiorina. And after another crazy whopper yesterday-- claiming, like Trump, that he had "seen" thousands of Muslims in New Jersey celebrating the collapse of the World Trade Center on 9/11, he backed away saying something about having mixed up Jersey City with Raqqa or someplace in the Middle East.

OK, but what about Trump himself. Monday the papers were bursting with examples of his bold-faced lies-- his fake statistic from a neo-Nazi website smearing blacks and his bullshit about having seen with his own eyes New Jersey Muslims celebrating the collapse of the World Trade Center on 9/11. Not just lies, but malicious, incendiary fascist propaganda aimed right at the tiny brains of Republicans who are now incapable of, largely thanks to Fox News, differentiating between reality and reality TV. Denounced by fact-checking services, by former New York Governor George Pataki, by Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop, and even, gingerly, very, very gingerly, by political coward Chris Christie, it's just another in a long series of exposed Trumpoid lies that are like water off a duck's back in terms of the Republican Party base. They could care less if he's telling the truth or not, as long as he feeds their own primitive bigotry and prejudices, and the sense of rage, anger and frustration that permeates the Foxified GOP base right now.

Americans across the board have little trust in government, according to a new poll, but Republicans are nearly three times as likely as Democrats to say they are "angry" at the government as the 2016 election approaches.

And voters' level of anger has a significant impact on their preferences for the next president, the Pew Research Center poll out Monday showed.

Only 19% of Americans say they can trust government always or most of the time, close to the lowest level in the past 60 years, according Pew.

Republicans on average, though, are much more likely to express dissatisfaction with government than Democrats. They are nearly three times as likely to say they are "angry" with it, at 32% of Republicans and GOP leaners compared with 12% of Democrats and Democratic leaners.

...GOP front-runner Donald Trump fares far better among Republicans who identify as angry than among those who do not.

The Republican Establishment is freaking out that their party has been taken over by an angry mob of racists and bigots too stupid to, or interested in, discerning between objective truth and blatant lies. The Republican Party Establishment made this bed; now they can try sleeping in it. Yesterday Chuck Todd dubbed Trump the post-truth 2016 candidate. As he acknowledges, "almost all presidential candidates exaggerate, dissemble, take statements out of context and, yes, lie. But from the start of Donald Trump's presidential campaign (remember Mexican rapists?), he has taken this to a level we haven't seen before in American politics."

And Trump has dragged the whole GOP Deep Bench down the rat-hole with him. Hillary may defend herself from Bernie allies mentioning she is taking bucketfuls of Dark Money from Wall Street predators by claiming you can't compete without this kind of corrupting cash. But the the Republicans-who-are-not-Trump are saying the same thing about not being able to compete against Trump without lying. Politifact ratings on the percent of statements by presidential candidates that are "true" or "mostly true" give you an idea about what has happened to the GOP in the Age of Trump. From most honest to least honest, you'll notice the most "traditional" politicians are least likely to lie and the least traditional are... well, compulsive liars or, in Dr. Ben's and Trump's words, "pathological liars":

• Bernie- 53%
• Hillary- 50%
• Jeb- 46%
• Chris Christie- 41%
• Rubio- 38%
• Lindsey Graham- 34%
• Fiorina- 28%
• Ted Cruz- 21%
• Trump- 7%
• Dr. Ben- 4%

Do those numbers startle you? They should, especially those of Ted Cruz, a United States Senator. Only one statement out of 5 that Cruz makes is even "mostly" true. The chances of Ted Cruz saying something true are, remote. And he's five times more honest than Dr. Ben! Let these numbers sink in. PPP found a different, perhaps more amusing, way to look at this pretty disturbing phenomenon. For their holiday survey they asked participants nationally, and from both parties, which candidate for president would be most likely to say something inappropriate at the table and ruin Thanksgiving Dinner. Trump got more votes than all the other candidates combined!

• Trump- 46%
• Hillary- 22%
• Bernie- 7%
• Dr. Ben- 6%
• Jeb- 6%
• Ted Cruz- 4%
• Rubio- 1%

Several things apart from the obvious were clear: no one wants a gross slob like Chris Christie at their Thanksgiving dinner table; few people understand exactly what Ted Cruz is; and people really do see Marco Rubio as an innocuous, frightened little boy. Asked who they would most like having over for Thanksgiving dinner, most people chose Hillary (24%), Dr. Ben (18%), Trump the TV star (17%) and Bernie (11%). No one else was in double digits. Could you imagine having to sit down to Thanksgiving dinner with Carly Fiorina or Mike Huckabee or Rick Santorum?

This morning's Washington Post featured OpEds from Dana Milbank-- The GOP is running out of time to find the anti-Trump-- and Michael Gerson-- Republicans are still in ‘denial mode’ over Donald Trump-- that both emphasize the GOP Establishment hand-wringing over the FrankenTrump monster they've created. "Trump," Gerson reminds them, "has, so far, set the terms of the primary debate and dragged other candidates in the direction of ethnic and religious exclusion. One effect has been the legitimization of even more extreme views-- signaling that it is okay to give voice to sentiments and attitudes that, in previous times, people would have been too embarrassed to share in public. So in Tennessee, the chairman of the state legislature’s GOP caucus has called for the mobilization of the National Guard to round up Syrian refugees and put them in camps. Many Republicans are now on record saying that Islam is inherently violent and inconsistent with constitutional values (while often displaying an ironic and disturbing ignorance of those values)... As denial in the GOP fades, a question is laid upon the table: Is it possible, and morally permissible, for economic and foreign policy conservatives, and for Republicans motivated by their faith, to share a coalition with the advocates of an increasingly raw and repugnant nativism?"

Milbank was less sympathetic: "Republican elites are panicky about the durable dominance of Trump (and to a lesser extent Ben Carson) in the presidential race. They are right to worry, but I don’t feel much sympathy. Trump is a problem of their own creation. Trump gets ever more base in his bigotry-- and yet, with few and intermittent exceptions, rival candidates, party leaders and GOP lawmakers decline to call him out. So he continues to rise, benefiting from tacit acceptance of his intolerance... The longer Republican leaders take to find their anti-Trump voices, the more their quiescence becomes an endorsement." Today, by the way, the Republican establishment seems to be about to try Christie-- at least according to shameless establishment mouthpieces like Joe Scarborough and Michael Barbaro. That should be a laugh and a half. Funnier than even the deflated Kasich trial balloon of a few weeks ago... or are they going to try that again too?

"Where else in our weak economy are there so many good job opportunities as in racketeering?" (Charles Simic)

Relax, Mr. Crook! If you're big and powerful
enough, there's no need to hide your face!

"It ought to be obvious by now that if we ever become a genuine police state, it will not arise from an authoritarian ideology necessarily, but as the end result of that insatiable greed for profit that has already affected every aspect of American life from health care to the way college students are forced into debt."

-- Charles Simic, in a NYRB blogpost, "A Thieves' Thanksiving"

by Ken

Earlier tonight Howie pointed out ("Corruption At The Top -- In China They Punish It . . . For Real") that the People's Republic of China is becoming known for seriously prosecuting corruption at the upper levels of government and Communist Party ranks, in rather stark contrast to certain other economic powerhouses, including one whose initials are U.S.A. This might be a good time to look back at the jolly little blogpost I've cited above, served up for Thanksgiving by the poet and trenchant essayist Charles Simic.

As I noted in a June 2013, post, "'I thank God there is no God to see what we've done to the world' ('part-time pessimist' Charles Simic)": "I'm not much of a poetry guy, so I'm not up much on Charles Simic's poetry. But over the years he has become a cherished companion thanks to his cultural and historical ruminations in the New York Review of Books." For Thanksgiving, Charles begins his ruminations:

It’s never been such a good time to be a crook. In what other country of laws does one enjoy so much freedom to defraud one’s government and fellow citizens without having to worry about cops showing at the door? Small-time crooks sooner or later end up in the slammer, but our big-time con artists, as we’ve come to learn, are now regarded as the untouchables, too well-heeled and powerful to lock up.

What's more, he notes, "the most famous among them" rouse the admiration, not just of "peers and politicians on the take" but by such worthies as the president, "who, six years after the worst financial crisis since the Depression, calls them good businessmen." And so our best and brightest come out of prestigious schools boasting of their intention to follow in their footsteps. "Besides," he adds, "where else in our weak economy are there so many good job opportunities as in racketeering?" And, he notes, the career white-collar crminal now faces "so few risks."

Everyone knows about Wall Street bankers having their losses from various scams they concocted over the years covered by taxpayers. But now, even when bankers lose billions for their bank by making bad or reckless deals, or have to pay regulatory penalties, as Jamie Dimon, the current chairman, president, and chief executive officer of JPMorgan Chase did earlier this year, they are more likely to get a 74 percent raise, as he did, than to lose their jobs. As for the federal agencies that are supposed to watch over them and the Justice Department that is supposed to haul these hucksters into court, if they so much as bestir themselves to confront the banks, they simply ask them to pay fines, thereby avoiding a judge or a jury and making sure that the details of their swindles can remain secret from the public.

And that's nothing comparied to "the kind of thievery that went on in Iraq and Afghanistan," which also seems to have lost its once-deadly stigma. (He recalls President Abraham Lincoln's admonition during the Civil War, "Worse than traitors in arms are the men who pretend loyalty to the flag, feast and fatten on the misfortunes of the Nation while patriotic blood is crimsoning the plains of the South and their countrymen mouldering in the dust," and President Franklin Roosevelt's declaration with the U.S.'s entry into World War II, "I don't want to see a single war millionaire created in the United States as a result of this world disaster.") He contrasts this with the bipartisan Commission on Wartime Contracting's finding regarding Iraq and Afghanistan that "somewhere between $31 billion and $60 billion of US government money has been lost through contract waste and fraud," not to mention the more than $400 billion shelled out "to companies that had previously been sanctioned in cases involving fraud," the very same companies, by and large, that continue to suck at the teat of "the new homeland security–industrial complex."
"However shocking," Charles insists, "these revelations don’t really come as a surprise."

Can anyone imagine a candidate for office talking about war profiteering and demanding accountability from both the military and civilian contractors and those who hired them? I cannot. Nor can I imagine a reporter asking Presidents Bush and Obama what happened to all that taxpayer money. The days when the subject could be raised are long gone. We now live in a country whose political system is too corrupt to defend itself from crooks. Should some senator or congressman have a sudden attack of conscience and blurt something out, “dark money” brings them to their senses and reminds them that their job is to facilitate the transfer of public funds into the pockets of the few and to not ask too many questions. Almost $4 billion was spent on this year’s midterm election and out of that $219 million on dark money, all with the blessing of the Supreme Court, which in its 2010 Citizens United decision made bribing men and women running for office legal and turned politicians who could not be bought into an extinct species.

Finally, Charles recalls Mark Twain, "while pondering by what process our own republic may turn into monarchy," recalling being taught in school: "Rome's liberties were not auctioned off in a day, but were bought slowly, gradually, furtively, little by little."

It ought to be obvious by now that if we ever become a genuine police state, it will not arise from an authoritarian ideology necessarily, but as the end result of that insatiable greed for profit that has already affected every aspect of American life from health care to the way college students are forced into debt. Huge fortunes are also made from spying on us and coming to regard every American as a potential enemy. They are right to think that way. If we ever as a nation grasped that criminality on such an immense scale is bound to lead the country into ruin, there might be serious consequences for the perpetrators. At the present time, the only ones likely to get in trouble are the leakers who want to let the rest of us know what goes on behind our backs. No doubt about it, in the coming holiday season our crooks will have a lot to be thankful for and a lot to celebrate.

#

Have a happy Charles Ives-accompanied Thanksgiving!

"Certainly one of the things Ives wants to do is to provoke us, to challenge us to think about music in ways we never have," says Michael Tilson Thomas as he talks about and performs Charles Ives's Holidays Symphony with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra in their PBS series Keeping Score. You can watch the Ives show here.

by Ken

We've done it before, and by gosh, we're going to do it again: celebrate Thanksgiving with the symphonic poem the American original composer Charles Ives (1874-1954) created to depict Thanksgiving, which formed part of his Holidays Symphony (or New England Holidays), made up of Washington's Birthday, Decoration Day, The Fourth of July, and lastly Thanksgiving, which fall somewhere between independent pieces and movements of a collective whole.

This commentary appeaers on the webpage accompanying the Keeping Score show devoted to the Holidays Symphony.

A hundred years ago, Charles Ives composed a portrait of a year in New England. The Holidays Symphony veers between tender sentiment and savage chaos, a sonic three-ring circus. Beautiful and provocative, the composition, like the rest of Ives' music, encourages the listener to think about sound in new ways.

The poet Walt Whitman makes an interesting comparison with Ives. Both men experimented with their art forms, juxtaposed serious themes with frivolous beauty, and spent decades editing and revising their masterpieces. Also like Whitman, Ives imagined various musical strains from around the world merging into a single song of mankind, but whereas Whitman used music as a metaphor, Ives used music as his medium.

The emotional material for Ives' music came from his experiences growing up in the town of Danbury, Connecticut, the son of the town bandmaster, George Ives. George had been a Union Army bandmaster in the Civil War and had a playful relationship with music that he that he passed on to his son. Once, George had two bands march toward each other while playing different songs, just to know what it would sound like.

Ives wrote most of his music between 1900 and 1920, a period in which the United States became a world power. He worried that prosperity was leading Americans to lose touch with their values. In an attempt to enshrine the America he cherished, Ives composed four movements that trace boyhood memories of seasonal celebrations, an American "Four Seasons." This was the Holidays Symphony.

NOW WE HEAR TWO PERFORMANCES OF THANKSGIVING,

including one conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas -- an earlier recording with the Chicago Symphony. Along with the performances we have the Keeping Score Web commentary on Thansgiving.

IVES: Holidays Symphony:
iv. Thanksgiving and Forefathers' Day


Baltimore Symphony Chorus and Orchestra, David Zinman, cond. Argo, recorded September 1994

Chicago Symphony Chorus and Orchestra, Michael Tilson Thomas, cond. CBS-Sony, recorded 1986

The Thanksgiving movement can be traced to Ives' college days at Yale. Music originally written for the organ at Center Church in New Haven was reworked into the final movement of the Holidays.

Thanksgiving illustrates the changes that occur when ideas confront one another. Once again Ives divides the orchestra into groups playing hymns in two opposing keys. Most prominent is the traditional Thanksgiving hymn, "The Shining Shore." Again, the bottom drops out, and we hear the swing of a scythe—either the harvest or the Grim Reaper has arrived. The ultimate question is asked again and as the music picks up again toward celebration and noise, the listener expects a confrontational crunch.

Instead, Ives surprises us. A large chorus sounds out Thanksgiving hymns. The choir sings a round and the whole procession passes into the distance. The different songs merge into one universal hymn of mankind.

Recognition came late to Ives. Thanksgiving was first publicly performed at the premiere of the complete Holidays Symphony in April of 1954, just a month before Ives' death.

Happy Thanksgiving! (And also Forefathers' Day, though that's not till December 22.)

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Ready For A Thanksgiving Day Dust-Up?

Banning political discussion from Turkey Day would probably be a great idea in many families. But if you have a brother-in-law who parrots, verbatim, the most recent Rush Limbaugh or Michael Savage show every time he opens his mouth, it's probably hopeless. Place settings of the nice red, white and blue illustration above aren't likely to solve anything. Facts don't penetrate the conservative mind. As Ken made clear when he defined "the whole hulking Modern American Right" Tuesday: "Our brains are like a fortress, and no way can you come in."

That isn't going to stop someone like Twitter superstar @LOLGOP from trying. Yesterday he published 5 Things To Tell Your Republican Relatives At Thanksgiving Dinner. "[I]f," he suggests, "you make it to dessert and your uncle wants to rub in some election results, here are a few truth nuggets to salt his defensive wounds. To make sure he takes you seriously, tell him you read them all in email forwards."

1. More net jobs have been created under Obama than under both Bushes combined.

That’s right. In less than 6 years, more new jobs have been created under this president than in 12 full years of George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush. As of last August’s jobs report, 5,142,000 net jobs have been created since February 2009. Compare that to 2,637,000 under H.W. and 1,282,000 under W. And we’ve had about 200,000 new jobs a month since then.

Of course, if you don’t subtract the millions of jobs that were lost as Obama inherited W.’s economy, Obama’s number would grow to over 10 million.

Savvy Fox viewers will throw out two counter-spells to undo this unbearable fact. First, we still haven’t recovered all the full-time jobs lost in the Great Recession. Also, the labor force participation rate is at its lowest point since the 1970s. You could then point out that Baby Boomers have started retiring, which is a good thing, and people are spending more time in school. But I’d concede the point. “You’re right,” you can say, as UC Berkeley economist Brad DeLong has. “The economy is crappy. Just far less crappy than it was under both Bushes. And better than just about every other economy in the world.”

And it’s getting better. The rolling average of new unemployment claims-- our best measure of layoffs-- is at its lowest point since 2000. There haven’t been this many job openings since the end of the Clinton administration, and this could easily be the best year of job creation since 1999. And it could be a lot better-- if Republicans weren’t intentionally sabotaging it.

2. If Obama had grown spending the way Reagan or W. did, we’d be much better off.

Like Barack Obama, Ronald Reagan inherited a recession and unemployment over 10 percent. And, much as it did under Obama, our national debt doubled during Reagan’s first term.

Unlike Reagan, who grew spending by 40 percent in his first four years, Obama has cut the deficit every year he’s been in office. The deficit is now lower than it has been since 2008, and even lower this year than what it would have been if we’d implemented Paul Ryan’s radical 2011 budget plan.

Given low inflation and millions of Americans still out of work, this is bad economic strategery. If spending had grown under Obama as it did under W., our gross domestic product would be 2 percent higher and millions more people would be working. And a larger labor force is the only sustainable way to cut the deficit.

“Grumble, grumble, shovel-ready stimulus Solyndra,” your uncle will answer.

Ah. I was hoping he’d bring that up.

3. We need more Solyndras.

Everything Republicans believe about the stimulus is wrong. About 97 percent of economists agree that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act lifted the economy. And the most maligned part of that law was one of its most successful aspects.

In 2012, Michael Grunwald, who literally wrote the book on the stimulus, countered the GOP’s constant harping on the failure of Solyndra Corp., beneficiary of a loan program that fed billions into clean energy, by saying, “More, please!”

“Solyndra was one of the losers, but the winners might change the world,” he wrote.

Grunwald was right-- and the right was wrong. The loan program is now expected to just about break even, but even more important, it has helped create a green-tech industry that barely existed in this country before 2009.

How successful were these profitable cash injections into clean energy?

“The cost of providing electricity from wind and solar power plants has plummeted over the last five years, so much so that in some markets renewable generation is now cheaper than coal or natural gas,” reports the New York Times' Diane Cardwell.

And how did the stimulus make this possible? By doing little things like helping the largest solar plant in the U.S. get up and running.

The affordability of new energy sources, along with America’s oil boom, may be behind Saudi Arabia’s decision to flood the oil market and lower gas prices in hopes of stunting both industries. (Thanks, Obama.)

But the genie is out of the bottle and the world we save may be the one we all currently share.

4. Republicans are paying the richest to get richest-er.

While your uncle is recovering from that news, slip this in: “I really hope Mitt Romney runs in 2016.”

“Me too, I think,” he may reply. “But why?”

“Well, I love documentaries about Mitt Romney losing. Also, I still want to see his tax returns. I think they’re the most important historical documents of the early 21st century. It’s important to know your tax rate is higher than a quarter-billionaire.”

“Um. More pie, please.”

One big reason that President Obama had an easy time making a case about the economy in 2012 is that Mitt Romney was a living example of what’s gone so wrong. Mitt pays around 13 percent in taxes, he claims, while nurses and plumbers pay far higher rates. The richest 400 Americans pay 18 percent on average, probably because they don’t donate as much to their church as Mitt does. That’s down from 30 percent in 1996, just before the GOP demanded a huge capital gains tax cut for the rich in exchange for giving poor kids health insurance. W. cut those rates again and added a huge cut for stock dividends. Because we all know going to the mailbox to get a check is harder work than unclogging a sewer or caring for a sick child.

Tax breaks for investments-- and the people who manage them-- are supposed to grow the economy. Instead, they massively grow the wealth of the richest .01 percent. Between 1929 and 1980, half of all wealth went to the bottom 90 percent. Since then, only 12 percent has.

Inequality is higher than it’s been since 1928. And you know what happened in 1929.

“Then why hasn’t that libturd Obama done anything about it?”

He has. You’ve just been trained to hate it. But here’s the good news.

5. The Affordable Care Act makes you freer-- even if you hate it.

Even if you aren’t one of the 1 in 4 uninsured Americans who has gained health insurance this year, the president’s health law helps you.

At this point your uncle may yell that he lost the plan he loved, or read about someone somewhere who did. Have sympathy. That certainly sucks, and Democrats should have pointed out that some people would lose their plans as the nation moved toward a more secure system-- but no more than lose their plans in a typical year. But what about premiums!? They’re much lower than expected and better, in most cases, than they were before the law took effect.

Now if you lose your insurance, you can still get coverage even if you have a pre-existing condition. This gives you the freedom to start a business or retire early. And the law has added at least a decade of solvency to Medicare so it will be there when you retire. Even people who hate the word Obamacare enjoy the coverage they’re getting.

Under eight years of George W. Bush, 7.9 million Americans lost their health insurance. In just this year, 10.3 million Americans have gained coverage.

But the law isn’t perfect, sure. So invite your uncle to help give the insurance industry some competition by fighting for the right for all Americans to buy into Medicare, regardless of how old they are (or how much pie they’ve eaten).

BONUS: Benghazi!

Now that an eighth investigation has shown that Benghazi was a tragedy, not a scandal, be aware that your uncle will not be ready to accept this inconvenient fact. Urging him to do so may lead to a full-on Bill O’Reilly-type break from reality that could unsettle everyone’s stomachs.

So if at any point you want to change the subject, just say, “Benghazi!” And he’ll start talking about anything else.

It's All About The Money-- It's Not About The Thanksgiving

Last summer we looked at legislation Alan Grayson proposed to end the over-militarization of local police departments, long before "Ferguson" became synonymous with overly militarized local police departments. Grayson's amendment failed-- by a lot-- 62-355, only 19 Republicans and 43 Democrats having the foresight and wisdom to back it. One of the 43 Democrats who did vote correctly was Hank Johnson, who represents the suburbs west of Atlanta all the sway out past Covington. He's using the issue to try to raise money. His e-mail sounds creepy:

Dear justice seeker,

We are gaining some serious momentum, and I’m confident this won’t be our last chance for victory-- as long as we keep spreading the word through DontMilitarizeMainStreet.com and putting pressure on Republicans. The Justice Fund will keep pushing police militarization as a major national priority, but we can’t do it without your support.

Will you become a Justice Fund 2016 monthly sustainer TODAY for $10 a month?

I will never stop pushing this legislation, but we don’t know what the next legislative session-- with Republican majorities in both chambers-- will bring. Likely, two more years of gridlock. We have to take advantage of the next two weeks, and we need to be prepared to fight hard next year.

That’s why we need you to step up by midnight tonight. Give $25 for the most impact.

For one thing, OK, Hank, you voted right. Good. In a gerrymandered majority minority district with a PVI of D+21 that Obama won with 74% that isn't exactly a profile in courage. And there's something unseemly about pushing to the front of the parade and trying to solicit contributions from people based on it. It's also misleading to insinuate that the problem was "Republicans." Are Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer, Jim Clyburn, Steve Israel, Ben Ray Luján, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Joe Crowley, Xavier Becerra and Rosa DeLauro Republicans? Every single member of the House Democratic Party leadership team, except Donna Edwards, voted against Grayson's amendment. So it isn't just a Democrat vs Republican problem. It's an out-of-touch political elite problem.

Today Rep. Johnson should step back from his crusade for a moment and think about doing something substantive for Walmart workers who are being treated unfairly over this holiday. It's another issue he can take a cue from Grayson on. This was-- at least in part-- Grayson's Thanksgiving message yesterday:

Thanksgiving was once a holiday reserved for spending time with our loved ones-- families across America gathered around the table to enjoy a meal with their families and give thanks.

But Thanksgiving’s importance has faded in recent years. The holiday is now merely a precursor to Black Friday-- the day in which stores like Walmart slash prices in an attempt to generate larger profits for themselves, at the expense of their employees. For Walmart’s corporate owners, Thanksgiving has become “Black Friday Eve”-- a day to pry families apart and work employees to the bone for next-to-nothing in wages.

Already, Walmart’s workers are severely underpaid and incredibly overworked. They’re often fired for reasons ranging from the inane to the unbelievable. They are unable to earn benefits. They have no stability in their schedules and no guarantee that they will have a job tomorrow. And at no time of the year is Walmart’s abhorrent treatment of its employees better demonstrated than on Thanksgiving.

Walmart is the country’s largest employer, which means that Walmart’s employment practices generally set the standard for businesses all over the U.S. When Walmart refuses to give its workers a few measly hours off to celebrate Thanksgiving with their families, other businesses must do the same. Instead of forcing hardworking Americans to pay the price for Walmart CEO’s corporate gain, Walmart should be setting an example for all retailers: give hardworking families a well-deserved break. Give them a few hours to spend with their families on Thanksgiving. Treat them with the dignity and respect that they deserve.

  I support the planned Black Friday protests because I believe that workers should be treated like human beings.

Rep. Johnson, I know you're seeking justice. Why not contribute some of the bucks that come in by midnight from your Justice Fund to the Walmart workers who wind up getting fired over this holiday?

TV Watch (among other things): It's been a quiet Thanksgiving Day here in the Big Apple

With all three DVD players loaded for action, one of today's TV Watch objects was Michael Palin's most recent travel series, New Europe, his look at the eastern part of the continent, previously so little known to him, and the location of the largest amount of change on the continent in recent decades.

by Ken

It's been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon . . . no, wait, that's that other guy's franchise. What I meant to say was, it's been a quiet Thanksgiving Day here in the Big Apple, or anyways in my little corner of it. I haven't been out of my apartment, and haven't even done the media plug-in to find out how the Macy's parade turned out -- there was much anxiety in the preceding days over whether the winds would be stiff enough to ground the parade balloons.

I don't need to go outside, since it's quite cold enough inside to give me a feel for the season. The days are long since past when NYC landlords pumped up so much heat in winter that a person had to open windows to keep the inside temperature manageable. Last winter, I got weary enough of resorting to an overcoat (over a sweater) and a knitted cap to make the indoor freeze bearable that I invested in a couple of those cheapie digital thermometers, sure that my landlord must be shamefully below the city's legally mandated temperature minimums, only to find out that in fact the readings were pretty consistently well above those minimums. Which was small comfort to me, huddled in my winter outdoor garb.

This morning, though, when I finally dragged myself out of bad (what a joy it was not to have to answer an alarm's summons, as I've had to do lately even on weekends, thanks to planned activities), I had the inspiration, in the interest of going along to get along, that no law prevented me from wearing two sweaters -- and, yes, the knitted cap. That served me well enough to get my holiday kitchen labors accomplished, to the accompaniment of the first DVD of the complete Larry Sanders Show box set that's been sitting unwatched for ages. And what a treat to reencounter that wonderful cast -- no surprise in the case of Garry Shandling himself as Larry and the inimitale Rip Torn as his producer, Artie, and so much of the supporting cast, but I found that much as I'd previously admired Jeffrey Tambor's performance as announcer "Hey Now" Hank Kingsley, I hadn't properly appreciated a truly majestic piece of work. Hank himself is such an, er, problematic character, that even such a transecendantly accomplished performance comes out looing, well, problematic.

As it happens, I had discs from assorted DVD boxes loaded in the DVRs of all three TVs. This is thanks to the successful near-conclusion of an infinitely complex shuffle that followed my second TV acquisition in less than six months, which included the forced retirement of an ancient 19-inch Sharp TV I've had for nearly 40 years (and in fact bought used from the neighbor of a friend, who I thought shamefully overcharged me, little imagining that the thing would still be in use all these decades later, simply refusing to die) and the shift of a 20-year-old 31-inch Panasonic into its spot in the kitchen, where it just barely fits. That 31-inch Panasonic has for some years been held together with bubble wrap and duct tape, following a seemingly catastrophic forward tilt; I wan't able to reconstruct the plastic of the upper part (hence the bubble wrap), but in its ramshackle repaired state the thing has continued to function pretty well, and to be honest, I'm happy not to have to part with it.

But I've formed quick emotional bonds with the new HD TVs -- first a 40-inch Samsung for the bedroom (replacing what was the newest of my TV's, which died about a week before my scheduled knee-replacement surgery in the spring, at which point I decided it was too late to do anything about it and so had no TV in the bedroom during the early weeks of recuperation; well, it got me out of bed!) and now a 50-inch Toshiba for the living room. The terrible part is that a person becomes accustomed to the new state of the art so quickly that he's all too likely to begin taking it for granted. When in my life did I ever imagine I might ever have such a TV picture as the new set produces? (From, as it happens, the very same DVR cable box that I was using with the old 31-inch Panasonic, which turned out, as I discovered upon taking it in to Time Warner Cable for swapping and waiting an hour for help -- to produce HD as well as analog output.) And now after a week and a half I turn the set on and think I've always had a picture like that.

So from the kitchen I could venture into the living room, where I had the first disc of Michael Palin's New Europe loaded, or into the bedroom, where I had just loaded the first disc of my Amazon Gold Box Friends set. I've seen the Friends episodes a lot in syndication, of course. But now, starting from the start and watching them in order and uncut, I was more impressed than I expected. I always thought the show should have been a little better than it was. Now, by comparison with what the networks, both broadcast and cable, are dumping onto the air, it looks brilliant -- certainly a lot wiser about the process of discovering what Life is all about than Girls (but then, what isn't?)

Then in mid-afternoon there was an inordinately pleasant, and inordinatley long, time spent on the phone with Howie, which developed into another extended look back at our high school days, triggered in part by the conversations he reported recently which we each had with the peculiar classmate who, as best we can figure out, is going through the James Madison HS directory that was published . . . um, I don't remember when, let's just say it was published, and apparently calling members of the class of '65. In neither of our conversations did our long-lost classmate give any indication of actually remembering us, let alone knowing anything about our post-'65 lives. (In the interest of accuracy, let me correct Howie's attribution to me of a "photographic memory," unless the photographs in question are of the kind usually associated with pictures of the Loch Ness Monster. Yes, In once had a pretty good memory. Not great, but pretty good. Now, however . . . .

With the coast-to-coast time difference, Howie had been marking time till he had to leave for his traditional Thanksgiving-dinner hosts. Eventually he realized that after that inordinate time warp, he was now late. For me it was a remarkably pleasant bridge to Thanksgiving evening, with quite happy results for both the pea soup and the pork shoulder roast.

I hope everyone out there has had and continues to have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

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