Tag: MAGA

It’s a problem when it impacts me

Meghan McCain realizes the US needs paid maternity leave after she has a baby. That sums up my problem with a lot of Republicans: it’s only a problem that needs a solution if it impacts me (and, maybe, someone I love). Otherwise it’s something you did to yourself and you are a lazy bum for looking to the government for a solution. The Ayn Rand view of non-me people.

Net neutrality is awful … hey, why is this service provider treating my content differently? Private businesses should be free to refuse service to anyone based on the owner’s beliefs … hey, why is this company refusing to host my service? At-will employment is the ultimate free-market solution … wait, why am I being fired for trying to overthrow the government? The meme-ified version is “The Leopards Eating Faces” party decrying “why are these leopards eating my face”. And it’s why I think private charity is considered more acceptable than more efficient, coordinated social safety net programs … it’s someone “like me” being helped.

As much as I dislike approach, I’m thinking there are about to be some areas where conservatives are open to supporting liberal positions. The three already mentioned (net neutrality, businesses refusing service, at-will employment) and … I expect insurrectionists will discover the problem with felony disenfranchisement now that they are felons.

And, on a related note, they may want to read through [18 U.S.C. § 922]. Specifically:

 
(g) It is unlawful for any person —
(1) who has been convicted in any court of, a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year
 
to ship or transport in interstate or foreign commerce, or possess in or affecting commerce, any firearm or ammunition; or to receive any firearm or ammunition which has been shipped or transported in interstate or foreign commerce.

Monolithic Extremism

From The Nation:

‘The report did warn that individuals from a far-right social media group had “called for far-right provocateurs to attack federal agents, use automatic weapons against protesters.” (The Nation is withholding the name of the group in order to not disrupt any potential law enforcement investigations.) ‘
 
The report basically says they’ve not found any evidence that Antifa is involved in the rioting. I guess we have the monolithic communism theory applied to extremist organizations. Monolithic extremism? Other non-entities are equally not involved — alt-right is a loosely defined association of a bunch of different groups to … it itself probably doesn’t have coordinated involvement in anything.
While they cannot link Antifa to the riots, the FBI did find a far-right group promoting violence. That is a logical extension of ‘Bernie Bros” — it’s not like a protest verifies the identity and online history of every participant to ensure they’re legitimately concerned about racial equality and/or police practices. But someone within a couple blocks of your protest loots Macy’s & you’ve become Antifa rioters to the MAGA crowd.

Just like Helsinki

When Trump first trotted out his hypothesis that logging would have somehow saved the large swaths of construction from forest fires, I rolled my eyes and thought back to his campaign touted secret plan to defeat ISIL … which turned out to be consulting Generals. Which, as far as a military tactic goes is, worked about as well as all of the previous approaches (which, I suppose in his head, did not include this brilliant consulting step). Logging — which generally takes the big solid part of the tree (a.k.a. the trunk) and leaves behind all of the little bits (twigs, branches, leaves, underbrush) seems more apt to promote conflagrations — all of those little twigs, branches, leaves, and whatnot lay around, dry up … insta-kindling.

But yesterday’s proclamation that we’d be fine if we were only cleaning up the forest floor like Finland really bothers me. Not because of the obvious climate differences between a country averaging 27″ of rain (and I believe had an above average precipitation total last year) and an area that got, what, not quite 5″ in the last July-June season? Or the twenty or thirty degree temperature difference. But because of the absolute ignorance of international news. This is the sort of thing people at the White House get paid to keep track of. Finland had an unusual number of fires this last year.  Sweden too.

The Spoils System

How a company, political organization, or non-profit spends their money doesn’t bother me that much — it’s a factor I consider when donating to “the cause” or purchasing from a company. I can appreciate that one feels betrayed when, say, some of your University tuition is used to pay off women and pizza delivery people who have been attacked by the school’s hockey team, thus suppressing reporting and criminal charges (then bragging to prospective students about the ZERO on-campus crime rate). Or the quasi-celebrity fronted charity uses donations to settle legal disputes involving the quasi-celebrity. Or your political party offers a decent salary to someone they simultaneously claim is a terrible employee who needed to be fired. *But* those were all choices you made. And you’re free to make new choices next time around based on new information. I can even see how it would really suck to believe the Republican party has the right way of things, and you *want* to provide financial support, but you also have to accept that some percent of your contributions are going to salary for unqualified individuals who they want to keep quiet.

What bothers *me* is that Trump has essentially admitted he handed a 179,700$ per year job to an utterly unqualified individual because of their personal relationship.

*I* didn’t chose the grifter-in-chief, but it’s still my tax money going to his friends (at that, to his “racist dude’s obligatory non-white, I cannot be a racist because Bob’s my friend” friend … although there are *whole binders full* of unqualified old white dudes grifting in Trump’s administration too.)

Our tax money going to political supporters who are unqualified for the job? That’s why we’ve got the Pendleton Act and the subsequent civil service system — every politician could find somewhere for their friends and supporters to suck up taxpayer money for a few years. And the inverse: a politician could garner key supporters by offering them cushy government positions. And an unlucky politician could garner a supporter who considered himself key, anger the chap by not giving him one of those cushy jobs, and get shot. Maybe it’s time to eliminate the remaining “at the pleasure of the president” job appointments.

Fixing The Problems You Create

I’ve thought of Trump’s EO on child separation like a fireman torching buildings and “saving” people from the inferno. But his actions are more like throwing the person a dodgy life preserver he knows was recalled a few years back and calling himself a hero as soon as the person touches the thing. Anyone bother dragging the dude to safety? Anyone care that the preserver takes on water and sinks ten seconds later? Nope – I threw the thing, so I saved the guy.

The Obama admin took the “family detention center” approach to the issue. Flores v Lynch 212 F.Supp.3d 907 (2015) found that this violated the 1997 Flores Agreement *and* ordered the release of (I’m too lazy to look up how many) both detained children and their parents. Flores v. Lynch, 828 F.3d 898 (2016) determined that the *parents* did not have an affirmative right of release under the agreement … and what do you do if you are legally barred from holding the kids but *could* hold the parents. You either separate families or release both parents and children.

So Trump signs an EO saying to take measures consistent with the law to avoid separating families. What’s that fix? Either they do what they are doing today (and cite Flores v. Lynch as REQUIRING they separate families because the kids are not actually being detained but rather waiting for accommodations whilst their parents are detained during their transit of the legal system) or they go the family detention center route & pretend like they’re trying to convince some judge how this is materially different than when Obama did it.

Crystal Balls

Because no one could foresee tragedy when dumping thousands of young kids in tents across a part of the country that gets more than a little warm. The forecast for Fort Bliss (oh, the irony!) on Saturday is 105 degrees Farenheit.

I’ll concede that’s cherry picked data – today’s high is 99, tomorrow it’s 100. Thurs 101, Fri 104, and Sun – Tue are 101. But I’m not sure “it wasn’t 105 F *every* day” is going to be a lot of comfort to kids suffering from heat stroke in some overcrowded tent.