Year: 2016

This is Called Getting Your ducks in a Row

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Bernie Sanders and his allies are looking at replacing the Democratic Party leaders at the state and local levels.

Good.  This is how to make real change, and make it stick:

The revolution is back in business.

 Supporters of Bernie Sanders’ failed presidential bid are seizing on Democratic disarray at the national level to launch a wave of challenges to Democratic Party leaders in the states.

 The goal is to replace party officials in states where Sanders defeated Hillary Clinton during the acrimonious Democratic primary with more progressive leadership. But the challenges also represent a reckoning for state party leaders who, in many cases, tacitly supported Clinton’s bid.

 “I think the Bernie people feel very strongly that they were abused, somehow neglected during the primary process and the conventions,” said Severin Beliveau, a former Maine Democratic Party chairman who supported Sanders in the primary. “In Maine, for instance, where Bernie got 70 percent of the caucus vote, they are emboldened and in effect want to try to replace [Maine Democratic Party chairman] Phil Bartlett, who supported Clinton.”

I hope that they can make this work, but they are fighting the Iron Law of Organizations Institutions, which states that power WITHIN an organization is pursued at the expense of the power OF that organization. 

Quote of the Day

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But it is not her theme alone. Regardless of who leads it, professional-class liberalism seems to be forever traveling on a quest for some place of greater righteousness. It is always engaged in a search for some subject of overwhelming, noncontroversial goodness with which it can identify itself, and under whose umbrella of virtue it can put across its self-interested class program.

—Thomas Frank, on Hillary Clinton, and what constitutes her true base.

Frank is a bit more reductive that I wold like, but it does a pretty good job of explaining Hillary Clinton’s real base.

I would further argue that his description accurately describes the DLC/New Democrat identity politics that have served to decimate the Democratic party and the American working man.

Read the rest.

Another Silver Lining

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The Obama administration has given up on the idea of passing the TPP during the lame duck session of Congress.

This is unsurprising. Trump was uncharacteristically precise on his position on the trade deal during the campaign, and as such, it is highly unlikely that Obama would get the necessary support from Congressional Republicans that he would need to pass the trade agreement:

White House officials conceded on Friday that the president’s hard-fought-for Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal would not pass Congress, as lawmakers there prepared for the anti-global trade policies of President-elect Donald Trump.

Earlier this week, congressional leaders in both parties said they would not bring the trade deal forward during a lame-duck session of Congress, before the formal transition of power on 20 January.

The Democratic senator Chuck Schumer, who will be minority leader in the next Congress, told union leaders the trade deal would not pass. Senator Mitch McConnell, the chamber’s Republican majority leader, told reporters “no” when asked if Congress would consider the TPP.

So, Barack Obama loses one items that he hoped would cement his legacy as President, and the rest of us win.

My heart bleeds borscht for you, Mr. President.

Schrödinger’s Coolness

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Vice President Joe Biden seems to have the ability to be totally cool and totally uncool at the same time.

When I made this comment, my son observed that this was “Schrodinger’s Coolness,” in that he is simultaneously cool and not cool, much like the famously indeterminate cat.

Case in point are reports that Biden made a friendship bracelet for Barack Obama for his 55th birthday:

Vice President Biden on Thursday celebrated President Obama’s 55th birthday with a touching note on Twitter.

Happy 55th, Barack! A brother to me, a best friend forever. pic.twitter.com/uNsxouTKOO

— Vice President Biden (@VP) August 4, 2016

I’m gonna miss him when Bond villain wannabe Mike Pence takes the seat.

Considering the explosion of Biden memes on Facebook, I do not think that I am alone in this.

Well, That Only Took 4 Years

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It appears that Barack Obama has finally decided that overthrowing the Assad regime is not at the forefront of US interests, if I were a cynic, and I am, I would suggest that the timing of the decision to make al Qaeda in Syria a primary target, even though they are the most effective anti-Assad force, was only made because there is no longer a domestic political cost to the decision:

President Obama has ordered the Pentagon to find and kill the leaders of an al-Qaeda-linked group in Syria that the administration had largely ignored until now and that has been at the vanguard of the fight against the Syrian government, U.S. officials said.

 The decision to deploy more drones and intelligence assets against the militant group formerly known as Jabhat al-Nusra reflects Obama’s concern that it is turning parts of Syria into a new base of operations for al-Qaeda on Europe’s southern doorstep, the officials said.

 The move underlines the extent to which Obama has come to prioritize the counter­terrorism mission in Syria over efforts to pressure President Bashar al-Assad to step aside, as al-Nusra is among the most effective forces­­ battling the Syrian government.

 That shift is likely to accelerate once President-elect Donald Trump [Gaah!!!!] takes office. Trump has said he will be even more aggressive in going after militants than Obama, a stance that could lead to the expansion of the campaign against al-Nusra, possibly in direct cooperation with Moscow. The group now calls itself Jabhat Fatah al-Sham — or Front for the Conquest of Syria — and says it has broken with al-Qaeda, an assertion discounted by U.S. officials.

………

Obama’s new order gives the U.S. military’s Joint Special ­Operations Command, or JSOC, wider authority and additional intelligence-collection re­sources to go after al-Nusra’s broader leadership, not just al-Qaeda veterans or those directly involved in external plotting.

But aides say Obama grew frustrated that more wasn’t being done by the Pentagon and the intelligence community to kill al-Nusra leaders given the warnings he had received from top counter­terrorism officials about the gathering threat they posed.

In the president’s Daily Brief, the most highly classified intelligence report produced by U.S. spy agencies, Obama was repeatedly told over the summer that the group was allowing al-Qaeda leaders in Pakistan and Afghanistan to create in northwest Syria the largest haven for the network since it was scattered after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Officials also warned Obama that al-Nusra could try to fill the void as its rival, the Islamic State, lost ground.

Lisa Monaco, Obama’s White House homeland security and counter­terrorism adviser, said Obama’s decision “prioritized our fight against al-Qaeda in Syria, including through targeting their leaders and operatives, some of whom are legacy al-Qaeda members.”

“We have made clear to all parties in Syria that we will not allow al-Qaeda to grow its capacity to attack the U.S., our allies, and our interests,” she said in a statement. “We will continue to take action to deny these terrorists any safe haven in Syria.”

………

A growing number of White House and State Department officials, however, have privately voiced doubts about the wisdom of applying U.S. military power, even covertly, to pressure Assad to step aside, particularly since Russia’s military intervention in Syria last year.

U.S. intelligence officials say they aren’t sure what Trump’s approach to U.S.-backed rebel units will be once he gets briefed on the extent of the covert CIA program. Trump has voiced strong skepticism about arming Syrian rebels in the past, suggesting that U.S. intelligence agencies don’t have enough knowledge about rebel intentions to pick reliable allies.

Needless to say, the Russians are pleased about the decision, though they are hoping for some independent confirmation of the shift in policy.

This is a major move in the direction of the Russian position, which is that fighting the Salafist jihadists in Syria is the first priority, and that regime changes under the current condition is likely to benefit no one,

Our Broken Military Industrial Complex

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One of the justification for the Zumwalt class destroyers is that they would be able to engage in shore bombardment up to miles inland using their advanced cannon.

In any case, its capabilities proved too expensive, so only 3 ships are going to be constructed, and now we learn that the high tech shells that were to allow for long distance shelling have been canceled because they were too expensive:

The USS Zumwalt (DDG-1000) is the US Navy’s latest warship, commissioned just last month—and it comes with the biggest guns the Navy has deployed since the twilight of the battleships. But it turns out the Zumwalt‘s guns won’t be getting much of a workout any time soon, aside from acceptance testing. That’s because the special projectiles they were intended to fire are so expensive that the Navy has canceled its order.

Back when it was originally conceived, the Zumwalt was supposed to be the modern-day incarnation of the big-gunned cruisers and battleships that once provided fire support for Marines storming hostile beaches. This ability to lob devastating volleys of powerful explosive shells deep inland to take out hardened enemy positions, weapons, and infrastructure was lost after the Gulf War’s end, when the last of the Iowa-class battleships were retired. To bring it back, the Zumwalt’s design included a new gun, the Advanced Gun System (AGS). As we described it in a story two years ago:

The automated AGS can fire 10 rocket-assisted, precision-guided projectiles per minute at targets over 100 miles away. Those projectiles use GPS and inertial guidance to improve the gun’s accuracy to a 50 meter (164 feet) circle of probable error—meaning that half of its GPS-guided shells will fall within that distance from the target.


………

The “less cost” part, however, turned out to be a pipe dream. With the reduction of the Zumwalt class to a total of three ships, the corresponding reduction in requirements for LRLAP production raised the production costs just as the price of the ships they would be deployed to soared. Defense News reports that the Navy is canceling production of the LRLAP because of an $800,000-per-shot price tag—more than 10 times the original projected cost. By comparison, the nuclear-capable Tomahawk cruise missile costs approximately $1 million per shot, while the M712 Copperhead laser-guided 155-millimeter projectile and M982 Excalibur GPS-guided rounds cost less than $70,000 per shot. Traditional Navy 5-inch shells cost no more than a few hundred dollars each.

When we are discussing the subject of swamps that need draining, the Pentagon should be at the top of the list.

Some IP Sanity out of the EU

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One of the differences between something like patents and copyrights and trademarks is that the first two are of limited duration, and the latter is forever.

This is why I am heartened that the EU Court Of Justice has ruled that the basic form of the Rubik’s cube cannot be trademarked:

You all should be familiar with a Rubik’s Cube, the three-dimensional puzzle toy that for some reason your grandmother kept on her coffee table to frustrate you while she watched Matlock. This invention of the 1970s still enjoys widespread popularity, with hundreds of millions of them being sold every year. The toy has been patented for some time, but ten years ago, a British company that manages the intellectual property rights for the toy also applied for trademark protection on the cube’s design in the EU. The reason for this should be obvious: patent protections last for limited amounts of time, while trademark rights exist essentially in perpetuity, so long as it’s actively used in the marketplace. It’s an end-around to patent law designed to lock up a monopoly.

But, in the case of the Rubik’s Cube, it didn’t work, as the European Union Court of Justice has correctly determined that the trademark applied for by Seven Towers was for a functional and technical solution, not one of branding. German competitor Simba Toys had challenged the trademark, and it won.

ECJ judges agreed with Simba Toys’ arguments. Their decision is final and cannot be appealed.

“In examining whether registration ought to be refused on the ground that shape involved a technical solution, EUIPO and the General Court should also have taken into account non-visible functional elements represented by that shape, such as its rotating capability,” they said.

EUIPO will now have to issue a new decision based on the ECJ judgment.

Trade and service marks are to protect branding, not functionality, and what the Rubik;s folks were doing was trying to apply a trade mark to functional characteristics, because any patent has long since expired.

Good call by the court.

Hail, Hydra! Immortal Hydra! We Shall Never Be Destroyed! Cut off a Limb, and Two More Shall Take Its Place!*

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It looks like the Clintons are now grooming Chelsea for a potential run for Congress:

While some pundits are declaring the Clinton political dynasty dead, sources tell us that it is far from over. Chelsea Clinton is being groomed for the New York seat held by Rep. Nita Lowey.

Chelsea could run for the seat in NYC’s 17th Congressional District once Lowey, a respected, 79-year-old career politician with nearly 30 years in office, decides to retire, we have exclusively learned.

Lowey’s district includes parts of Rockland and Westchester counties and, conveniently, Chappaqua, the Clinton family home base.

The only thing that I can think to add is a Sam Kinnison quote:

YOU DON’T HAVE TO LEAVE YET, DO YOU?!….YOU HAVEN’T SHOVED A CHAINSAW UP MY ASS YET!….MY HEAD’S STILL ON MY TORSO!!….I’M GLAD YOU F%$#ERS CAN HANDLE YOUR HIGH!

Seriously, too soon.  Way too soon.

Hell………This century is too soon.

*H/t Lambert Strether for the title.

This May be My Best Writing of the Decade

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A participant at the Stellar Parthenon BBS was commiserating about how he had to buy health insurance, and it was all expensive and crappy coverage.

He ruefully observed that  his cheapest option (he’s a Jew) was to join “Medi-Share”, an evangelical Christian health co-op, but that would require him to, “Declare a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Somehow or other, my muse grabbed my hands, and this flowed from my fingers:

You know, back in the day, Jesus and I went drinking and engaged in pig contests.

The person who beds the ugliest babe wins.

He never lost, and once he came 1st, 2nd, AND 3rd.

Damn! That guy could work miracles with women.

And he could make a Tequila Sunrise like no one’s business.

Eventually though, he flunked out of school.

Test problems, he got nailed on the boards.

I am so glad that (at least until January 21) I live in a nation where blasphemy is legal.

Some More Silver Linings

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First, we had a historically large (but still small) number of batsh%$ insane district attorneys turfed out of office, because they are sick and tired of abuse of prosecutorial power.  (In Houston, the DA jailed a mentally ill rape victim, and they were given the boot, for example)

Also, in conservative San Diego, voters rejected another huge give away to a pro sports franchise for a gold plated stadium complex.

I hope that both of these are the beginnings of a trend.

It’s a little thing, but it is a good thing.

A Silver Lining

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The racist sh%$ bag Sheriff Joe Arpaio has lost his bid for reelection in Maricopa County Arizona:

Sheriff Joe Arpaio, an enduring symbol of Arizona’s unforgiving stance toward illegal immigration, lost his bid for a seventh term on Tuesday, effectively ending the career of perhaps the most divisive law enforcement figure in the country.

In the end, Sheriff Arpaio’s bid for re-election as sheriff of Maricopa County was undone by Latino voters who responded to his hard-line position on illegal immigration, which included workplace raids, frequent traffic stops and harsh talk.

“The people Arpaio targeted decided to target him. He lost his power when undocumented people lost their fear,” said Carlos Garcia, executive director of Puente, an advocacy group formed in 2007 to counter the sheriff’s embrace of a federal program that allowed his deputies to act as de facto immigration agents.

“We knew that losing an election was only a matter of time,” Mr. Garcia said. “For us, what is most important now is to undo the damage and culture of hate that he has brought upon this county.”

This man was a cancer on law enforcement and the body politic of Arizone.

It could only get better if he dies as a prisoner in what used to be his own jail, which is possible, as he is facing a criminal contempt citation from a Federal judge.

Generally, I Find Trotskyites Pretty Useless………

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But the folks at the International Committee of the Fourth International have put out a righteous rant regarding yesterday’s election.

It’s worth a read, if just to understand the mind of the Trots:

The victory of Donald Trump in the US presidential election is a political earthquake that has exposed before the entire world the terminal crisis of American democracy. Such is the degeneration of bourgeois rule that it has elevated an obscene charlatan and billionaire demagogue to the highest office in the land.

 Whatever conciliatory phrases he may issue in the coming days, a president Trump will lead a government of class war, national chauvinism, militarism and police state violence. In addition to the executive branch, all the major political institutions in the United States—including both houses of Congress and the Supreme Court—will be in the hands of the far right.

 Under Trump, America will not be made “great again.” It will be driven into the dirt.

Of course, since they are Trotskyites, it is full of sound and fury, signifying nothing, but it is a diverting read.

Quote of the Day

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The even larger problem is that there is a kind of chronic complacency that has been rotting American liberalism for years, a hubris that tells Democrats they need do nothing different, they need deliver nothing really to anyone – except their friends on the Google jet and those nice people at Goldman. The rest of us are treated as though we have nowhere else to go and no role to play except to vote enthusiastically on the grounds that these Democrats are the “last thing standing” between us and the end of the world. It is a liberalism of the rich, it has failed the middle class, and now it has failed on its own terms of electability. Enough with these comfortable Democrats and their cozy Washington system. Enough with Clintonism and its prideful air of professional-class virtue. Enough!

—Thomas Franks

I agree, though I am not yet ready to join the Official Monster Raving Loony Party ……… Yet.

Drunk Blogging the Election

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For those of you on Facebook, please click through for updates.

  • 9:00 PM:  I just turned on the TV, and I am alternating between MSNBC and CNN.
  • 9:02 PM: I just hard that Evan Bayh lost his race for the Senate.  Good.  I hate that smarmy entitled asshole.  He is the archetype of a preening corrupt conservative Democrat.  Joe Lieberman with a bit more charm.  Take a drink in celebration.
  • 9:07 PM: CNN is doing a county by county breakdown.  I love it on the screen or on paper, but on the TV, not so much.
  • 9:09 PM: On MSNBC, Rachel Maddow is unbelievably chipper.  She really loves this stuff.
  • 9:15 PM: Reports that Tammy Duckworth has beaten Mark Kirk.  Take a sip.
  • 9:21 PM: Trump is definitely outperforming polls.  Take a shot.
  • 9:30 PM: Florida is too close to call.  Not again!  Take a shot. 
  • 9:35 PM:  My cat, Meatball, is demanding my attention.  It’s hard to focus on politics when a cat is demanding your attention, particularly when I am already a little bit toasted.
  • 9:41 PM: The crawl on MSNBC says that Fl, PA, OH, GA. MI. NC. VA. MN. NH, ME.  This is going to be a long evening.  Take a sip.
  • 9:50 PM: A picture for your perusal.
  • 9:55 PM: I hate listening to listening to Chris “Tweety” Matthews.
  • 10:16 PM: Rubio beat Murphy.  Not a surprise.  You cannot beat an incumbent, even an incumbent nothing like Rubio, with a nothing like former Republican trust fund baby Patrick Murphy..
  • 10:20: Trump wins Ohio.
    • We are  completely f%$#ed.  Take a drink.
  • 10:24 PM: This is as close as it is because the status quo is 
  • 10:26 PM: MSNBC just called Virginia for Hillary Clinton. 
  • 10:33 PM: I hate Steve Schmidt on MSNBC, but I hate everyone on CNN more.
  • 10:36 PM: I should note that the entire Democrat Party establishment really needs to be fired.  ……… Out of a cannon, into the Sun.
  • 10:39 PM: If you are Jewish, here is the link for aliyah, if you want to trade Netanyahu for Trump.
  • 10:41 PM:  Dow Jones futures are down by something like 600 points, and the Mexican Peso is in freefall.  People are panicking, which means that people with level heads are doing them like a drunk sorority girl.
  • 11:03 PM: Russ Feingold was defeated by the wingnut Ron Johnson. A truly decent man lost to a walking piece of sh%$.  Take a shot.  I am bumming. 
  • 11:05 PM:  Sh%$.  The Daily Show is on.  Changing Channel. 
  • 11:15 PM: Meh. On today’s Daily Show.
  • 11:30 PM: Trump is called to win Florida and Utah.  I am drunk and depressed, and I think that Donald Trump will be President-elect in the morning.  I am done for the evening.

    Something Else to Watch Election Night

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    Needless to say, big pharma is blowing a gasket over this:

    One of the election season’s most fiercely fought campaigns is over a California ballot initiative that promises to control drug prices, but would affect only a fraction of the state.

    Yet it’s making the drug industry very nervous.

    Proposition 61 requires California state agencies to pay no more for drugs than the price paid by the US Department of Veteran Affairs, which, by law, receives a 24% discount on drugs, and can negotiate even lower prices. While the cost savings could be significant, most Californians don’t receive drugs from the agencies covered, which include universities, state prisons, and some parts of the state’s low-income insurance program, Medi-Cal. Depending on whose numbers you believe, the number of people covered ranges from 4.4 million to 7 million, in a state with about 40 million residents.

    Despite the relatively small impact, the drug industry has been working furiously to defeat the referendum, raising $109 million as of Nov. 2, according to Ballotpedia, a website which tracks such things. Merck & Co., Johnson & Johnson, and Pfizer each contributed at least $9.3 million to the campaign, while dozens of other companies also have chipped in. Combined with the $16.9 million spent by advocates—mostly the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, which runs a chain of clinics—it’s the most costly ballot initiative in US history.

    Here’s the hoping that the good guys win on this one, but I initiative petition in California tends to be driven by money, and pharma has been dumping a lot of money into this.