Day 823 Tuesday April 9, 2019
573 Days to the 2020 election and 651 Days to Inauguration Day
The Agenda – The Summary
Shame & Guilt, Type II Diabetes, Otto von Bismarck, The Bismarck, Pete Buttigieg’s Speech, Christian Conservative homophobia, Republican hypocrisy and homosexuality, the limits of toadyism in the age of Trump, the tax returns, the acting power play, the acting and the playing government and a modest proposal.
Do I need to expound? Isn’t it obvious? No?
See this is where I get into trouble. I think it’s obvious so I don’t explain then people think I’m an idiot. Idiot no more! I’ll explain.
First off, Shelby was in Denmark. She was one of eight speakers at a Nova Nordisk event in their series called “Deep Talk.” She was the fifth speaker. It’s on their website and you can probably find it on their facebook page. Many of the speakers I had heard threads of what they had said before. However, the first woman who spoke talked about the shame and guilt of having type II diabetes. She at first, like many people, felt ashamed that she had what many consider a preventable condition. She felt guilty that she had gotten this disease. Shame and Guilt.
Wow.
We’ll come back to that concept, but now it’s time to talk about Otto von Bismarck. The man who united Germany. He employed a tactic that he called “the whip and the sugarplum” to get all the little German principalities to ban together to form what is today the country of Germany. He was so revered that in world War II the biggest battleship ever built was named after him. The Bismarck was thought to be unsinkable. Huge and heavily armored with some of the biggest guns ever created. It was going to harass and sink ships trying to resupply Britain.
On it’s first time out of port it engaged the HMS Hood, the pride of the British navy, and as the Johnny Horton song, “Sink the Bismarck” says, “The Bismarck started firing sixteen miles away…” Do you have any idea what sixteen miles at sea looks like? I doubt the ships could see much of each other. Maybe a little smoke from their stacks. To fire shells from that distance you have to take into account the time to get to your target, the parabolic nature of your shot, the Earth’s rotation, and the direction and speed of your ship and your target – other than that it’s a piece of cake.
The Hood’s nickname was “The Mighty Hood.”
The Bismarck landed a direct hit on the Hood and blew up it’s powder magazine. As Johnny Horton’s song says in the next line, “The mighty Hood went down.” In three minutes.
To say the Brits were pissed off is an understatement. The battle cry was “Sink the Bismarck!” and was the name of the movie that came out the same year as Horton’s song. The Brits looked for the Bismarck in the fog of the North Atlantic. Every ship they had was put in pursuit. One plane found it and buzzed over top of it until reinforcements could join in an attack. The Bismarck was returning to port when attacked by obsolete torpedo planes. Although the forward part of the Bismarck was well armored the aft was not. (Typical, German thinking. They’d always becoming at you so why worry about your ass?) One torpedo struck the rudder and left the Bismarck with the ability to only go to its left. British ships and planes continued to harass The Bismarck taking out her guns and destroying her superstructure. The ship was a shambles but one British ship, The Rodney, came in close, lowered it guns and fired directly at the Bismarck at point blank range. It didn’t have to do that, but you don’t mess with the British navy.
There’s the saying, “a shot across the bow,” which is a warning shot to let you know that you better stop or the ship firing will send a shell into your boat. The phrase is also used as a metaphor or warning given by someone in a speech or via a policy move.
Whether Pete Buttigieg’s speech was a shot across the bow or a direct hit is hard for me to say at the moment. Maybe, it was more like Robert Kennedy’s comments after Martin Luther King was assassinated. However, you want to characterize it, it was powerful, genuine, and heartfelt. He spoke of being gay. Of wishing he could have taken a pill to change that, or to take a knife to cut it out, but he couldn’t. He called out Mike Pence directly and said that why he was gay was above his, Pete’s, pay grade and that Mike would have to ask Pete’s creator why.
Buttigieg is being hailed as having his Reverend Wright moment. Of emerging from the field, or at least being at the national level now. It was interesting to watch the Republican commentators on Nichole Wallace’s show yesterday simultaneously praising and downplaying what Buttigieg had done.
What Buttigieg had done was confront the question of his being gay and land either a shot across the bow, or a direct hit, on the phony Christian conservative anti-gay movement. There’s the attempt at shame and guilt – Boom. Gone. There are the seemingly gay “I’m not gay!” (“I just act like I am.”) folks who make up the conservative Christian gay therapy folks, like Mike Pence’s wife “mommy” whatever her name is, and Michelle Bachman’s closet gay husband and countless others. How many fire and brimstone preachers have we seen railing against the gay community only to be caught with a young boy in a hotel room?
Pete is a mid-western intellectual guy. He’s interesting, self deprecating, and smart. I think his speech was a point blank range shot at the ship of gay therapy and all that phony crap that comes with it.
The folks on Nichol’s show tried to say, “Oh well South Bend isn’t that big a city.” Yeah? Neither was Wasilla, Alaska. In fact, the town hall was a shoebox storefront in a strip mall. Yet, Sarah Palin was enough of a mayor to run for VP. The black guy said they’ll be questions about what Mayor Pete did about the black police chief. The police chief had illegally recorded other police officers making racist comments. Pete downgraded the chief, fired the communications director because he had continued to make the recordings after knowing it was illegal. What would the black guy on Nichol’s show have wanted? Naturally, he didn’t say, just hinted that there would be questions about it. Then it was the white guy’s turn. South Bend isn’t that big, and the head of Indiana University has more people reporting to him. Yeah? So what? See Palin, Wasilla comment earlier. Then they both started in on the “Well, we’ll have to see after Iowa and New Hampshire when he gets to South Carolina” line.
Okay, let’s wait and see. In the meantime who else is talking about things that matter to voters? Who has a track record of actually doing something? Mayor Pete has a track record of doing things, of being helpful, and kind. He’s also super smart and is the only candidate so far that has put forward interesting ideas that aren’t just talking points.
In other news Kirstjen Nielsen who was fired/resigned and has her last day tomorrow, that is unless Trump can figure out some more cruel and humiliating thing he can do to her before she leaves. She did everything he asked, up until he asked her to break the law. And as Meatloaf sang, “I’d do anything for love, but I won’t do that.” Okay, this ain’t love, this is toadyism and Nielsen apparently got a call from Donald at like 3am bitching because Lou Dobbs and Sean Hannity said on their programs that Trump hasn’t stopped the migrant surge.
Some say Stephen Miller is gaining more power within the White House and that’s kind of a “Yeah, maybe” but clearly this is a Trump fingerprints all over it move. I have a boffo idea: why don’t Miller, Trump, and the young Barron Trump go down to the border and show the guards and security folks how to do it? I mean they could snatch the babies out of the arms of young mothers seeking refuge. It would make great video! Think of the ratings! Big numbers. Okay, so while Stephen and Donald are busy showing off, and before some starving central American seeking asylum beats the shit out of one of them, one of the ICE officers could entice Barron to come with them into another room, where he’d immediately be whisked away to an undisclosed location where he’d be put in a cage, given a mylar blanket and told he’d see his parents again in two years if ever. Meanwhile, Trump and Miller would be holding raw steak to their eyes and the prez would ask where is kid is and the authorities would say they don’t know. They lost the paperwork if there ever was any.
Oh then there’s the tax returns. Mick Mulvaney, “The Acting White House Chief of Staff,” which is a funny title in and of itself because there is no such thing as an Acting White House Chief of Staff, because it’s not a Senate confirmed position so you either are, or you are not, the White House Chief of Staff. Speculation is that he was given this title so he’d know Donald had him by the short hairs and if Sean or Lou bitch he’s gone. Mick is toadying up, he’s claiming that the president never said he was going to release his tax returns (which is a lie), and furthermore he said, “The Democrats will never see the tax returns.”
Fascinating, to make it more interesting Steve Mnuchin, the foreclosure king of California, and husband of lookalike Cruella de Vil cum Elvira Mistress of the night, whatever her name is, has been instructed to get in the middle of this. Nice. Slight problem. The one thing the Secretary of the Treasury is forbidden by procedural statue and law is to get in the middle of is this. Maybe, he should go talk to William Barr who is trying to stand on this sort of thing to not release the Mueller Report. Of course, in Mnuchin’s case, there really is stuff in place to prevent his interference, and it was put there to specifically prevent what Trump and MM (Mick Mulvaney – get it? I’m so clever.) want him to do.
So the question is, “If Stevie breaks the law will Willie “redaction” Barr go after him?”
Okay, this leaves us with one double question for today. Trump likes to appoint people as “acting” whatevers. He likes it better than going through Senate confirmations where someone might criticize his choice of “the best people.” I mean who could think Herman Cain wasn’t qualified for the Fed? Or that idiot Moore? Or Kris Kobach for anything? Okay. So we have so may “Acting” that we really don’t have much in the way of “functioning” government. So we have folks “acting” like they are governing and we have Jared and Ivanka who are “playing” at governing, and we have a president who is only interested in the ratings and how he looks to his base.
And that wraps it up for today. Looking forward to William Barr’s meeting on Capital Hill today and tomorrow. Slimy and slippery.
Eric Swalwell announced he’s running. At least he goes on Fox News. Can’t say that for any of the other Dem candidates.
573 Days to the 2020 election and 651 Days to Inauguration Day
PS Eat your heart out Paul Satre.
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