This week in Republican politics

A blur, and it's only Tuesday -

C is for (a buncha) crap.

C

crony capitalism • īl·’skraCH  yo͝or·’bak ·and·’yo͞o

        terminus politicus

        1. the only kind

crony • bak·’slap·ər

        noun

        1. anybody that can be prevailed upon to lend you a few bucks under 
            the table

as in: 

“Just let it go,” Paul Ryan said of the Export-Import Bank, when he was running for Vice-President in 2012. “Absolutely. Most of the benefits go to a few very large companies [that frankly haven’t been all that helpful in our campaign]. I see it as crony capitalism.”

        (Bank officials contend that closing the bank would hurt American workers, but to hell with them.*)

According to the Washington Post online– 

Tea-party-aligned groups such as the Club for Growth, Heritage Action and FreedomWorks began campaigning against the bank several years ago, describing it as an example of “crony capitalism” . . . .

“True supporters of free enterprise must oppose corporate welfare of any kind,” Marc Short, president of Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce, the network’s main financial arm, wrote to members of Congress on Thursday.

Koch Industries, the Wichita-based diversified manufacturing company run by the Koch brothers, is lobbying against the bank’s renewal — even though its subsidiaries have benefited from its financing in the past. For example, overseas customers of Georgia Pacific, the Koch-owned paper products company, received loan guarantees from the bank.

“We’ve lobbied against corporate welfare and will continue to vocally do so,” said Philip Ellender, the company’s president of government affairs. “Koch has never lobbied in favor of Ex-Im, but we will not place ourselves at a competitive disadvantage by not participating in programs that are in place. [It would be against our principles to let principle stand in the way of making money.]”

_______________

     * workers! - not bank officials

The Bible says . . .

Yes, it does. Play this hymn in the background while you’re reading: Holy, holy, holy . . . .

I got an email from a guy I know – okay, it was my sister. And it was about George Will’s net worth, estimated at $3,000,000. (See here.) “That’s just not that much these days,” my sister wrote.

   Yes, it is.  Until one million is worth about one thousand, it is. It will be.

   Go Around Back’s position on wealth is biblical.  1 Timothy 6:10 – “Money is the root of all evil.”

   “Wait,” I can hear my sister saying. “You’re taking that out of context; the entire verse says: For the love of money is the root of all evils.”

   Actually, I’m letting the current context speak for itself. As long as we live enslaved to capitalism as we are, the love of money is the root of everything.

Who butters my bread . . .

Headline of the day:

____________________
     Will's essay is here.
     Find one response here.
     Net worth?

Hitching a ride

I have loved newspapers, since even before one started paying me – at age fourteen – ten cents per column inch for writing high school sports. But I love the newspapers of my imaginings more than the real thing – isn’t that always the way?

        My imagination works particularly on headlines and letters to the editor. Today: about headlines.

        When I started, newspapers often dressed up, explained, and occasionally even subverted their main heads with what I was taught to call “riders,” though, when I tried looking up the term, I found they’re more often called “kickers” in the U.S. and “standfirsts” in Great Britain. These are the small headlines, often italicized and usually underlined, placed above the main head. As in

To take position in administration

Hoolock College coach resigns

I don’t see these often any more. Instead, the papers I read employ “subheads,” which give whoever is writing them more freedom as they can run somewhat longer

Hoolock College coach resigns

Taking position as assistant

to President Ed Gibbon

I don't know which form I like better. What I do know is I’d like to see more riders/kickers/subheads that actually tell the truth rather than simply provide another fact or dimension. And maybe this is why, wherever you put it, I like the term “rider.” Think of two definitions of the term:

• a condition or proviso added to something already maintained.
• a small weight positioned on the beam of a balance for adjustment.

So, I like the term "rider," but the adjustment may ride best in the subhead position; so, we get the statement, then the proviso. In any case, expect to see in this space some headlines I find ridden into the sunset . . . of truth. For example, this one – the headline is from the Washington Post online. (The subhead will always be mine)

Netanyahu apologizes for comment about Arabs

    Since it’s already done the trick

Stalking the Christian conservative vote

R is for robbyist.

R

a precipitous decline*

reality check • ‘wil·fəl  ‘blīnd·nəs

     nominal

     1. asking the opinion of someone unlikely to tell you a 
     truth you don’t want to hear

       “The number of [registered lobbyists has] dropped from 13,367 when Obama took office to 11,509 last year, according to . . .James Thurber.”  
               - Juliet Eilperin in the Washington Post  









_____________
*That is from 24.985 to 21.512 per congressperson.

Reality Check

Kevin Sutherland and Rosalind S. Henderman on "How the Clintons' Haiti development plans succeed - and disappoint" in washingtonpost.com/politics:  

"The [Clinton Foundation] has accepted large donations from corporations and foreign countries, raising concerns that the Clintons are creating conflicts of interest by blurring the lines between their political, business and charitable interests."

No mention of vision clinics.

 

S is for screw you.

S

supply side economics • ‘dam nə b(ə)l  lī

     terminus technicus

     1. Theory that lower taxes on the rich and lower wages for the rest will 
         increase supply of capital for capitalists.

Mad Tweet

Because some of you pretended you didn't get it: yesterday's point -

that Twitter is a bad genre for anything that even pretends

to be more substantive than nanny-nanny-boo-boo.

Tweet, tweet, tweedle-lee-deet

Clinton Launches Substantive Discussion 
on the Role of Women in American Society

Arguing there’s no better way to discuss all the nuances of political issues than Twit

Dark Money

Thanks to Katie Zezima of TheWashington Post

Headline: Ted Cruz renews call for unlimited campaign contributions  

“I believe in free speech and the First Amendment, which means everyone here has a right to speak out in politics as effectively as possible,” Cruz said. “To speak out and make your views known, whether that is standing on a street corner on a soap box, whether that is printing out a yard sign, whether that is spending money to run a radio ad or a TV ad, effectively communicating.”

Sporting snazzy shirley-temple curls at the late evening event on a dark road outside Barrington, NH, Cruz neglected to point out that standing on a street corner on a soap box was normally a public act done in the light of day; last year almost four inches shorter in his flats, his hair parted as usual, neatly on the left, the senator from Texas “introduced legislation . . . that would eliminate limits on direct political contributions,” day or night.

B is for "the Bubble."

B
bubble, the • ˈbəb (ə)l, T͟Hē

     place name

     1. geographically extensive but of limited population, surrounds people that own more than one residence and the means of getting from one to the other(s)

Kathleen Parker is right – in today’sWashington Post:

The Clintons have been around so long, they are the essence of bubble life. Removed from the hubbub of ordinary existence — escorted, driven, valeted, catered to, styled, fluffed and obeyed — being Clinton means never having to hear the word “no.” It must be easy to forget that you have to live by the same rules as everyone else.

Parker is right, though my guess is she lives in one of TB’s sububbles.

A is for adelocracy.

A

adelocracy • ā də 'lŏ krə sē

     noun

     1. form of capitalist democracy governed by the desires of casino owners,
     disregarding the needs of mechanics, grocery clerks, and self-respecting 
     barbers.

One variant of the comb over was patented in 1977. Click here. 

In the land where under "ethics," the dictionary says, "See strategy."

From today’s Washington Post (See here.):

“Had this story been responded to in two or three days instead of in eight days, it would not be as big,” said Robert Gibbs, a former White House press secretary under President Obama. “They are the ones who put air in this balloon in a way that was not necessary at all.  It's clear they lack an apparatus. She's a candidate without a campaign."

“ . . . said Robert Gibbs, a former White House press secretary” and another “head” so in the bubble as to believe that it’s always about logistics, never about ethics.  And by “it,” I mean everything.

Tall Cotton

Thanks to Lee Fang of The Intercept, three days ahead of me.

Cotton's "invitation" looks like this.  Note that "All remarks are Off the Record and strictly Non-Attribution" is not intended to suggest that anyone has anything to hide ($$$).

On, Wisconsin: Governor Walker at Work

D is for deef.

T
tone deaf • t­ōn def

     adjectival

     1. above or below sound
     2. in a big chair 35,000 feet above it all with people all of whom will 
         laugh at your joke if you knew how to tell one

Revised 3/10/15.

S is for secret

S

Super PAC • 'soo-per pak

     nominal

     1.plutocracy 
        (See capitalist democracy.)

O is for eyes open

C
cynic • sĭ-nĭk
     noun
     1. realist

cynical • sĭ- nĭ-kal
    adjective
     1. awake

Sentio.  There are days, however peacefully I’ve slept, however halcyon my dreams, I wake up angry at everyone and everything. The squeaky, spotty young man in the apartment below me – and his sisters and his cousins and his aunts. John Boehner and Bibi Netayahu. Barack Obama, Barbara Boxer, and the Pope.  All leaders and all followers and all the loyal (to itself) opposition. Gentiles, Jews, and Jains; Animists and Ancestor-worshippers; Protestants and Catholics; Sunnis, Shias, and Sikhs. The rich and the poor alike. Authors and actors, musicians; all artistic muckabouts and the men and women that mouth and pen their names (and draw flowers around them like teenage girls on their

S. Mallarmé by E. Manet

notebooks around the names of their boy friends). My parents and my children, and their parents and their children. There isn’t a speck of dust or a drop of water on which there aren’t creatures I don’t despise.

Other days, however restless my sleep, however dreadful my nightmares, I open my eyes to light shining into darkness, a golden sky, the sweet silver song of the lark, and I love . . . one or two or three, though when I wake up not including the young man in the apartment below, his relatives however connected; not including politicians, clerics, or plutocrats; nor “artists,” cultural critics, or their relatives or friends.  By the time I swing my feet out of bed, depending on gravity to bring them safely to the floor, there isn’t a speck of dust or a drop of water on which or in which there are not creatures I am falling out of love with.