Can we not pick the “safe” one who always seems to lose?

I pretty much agree with everything this guy says, except for the clumsy Batman analogy, but I fear it might be too late. I don’t have much hope that today’s primaries will change the trajectory of the electorate towards the moderate centrist. Ick.

But sure, vote for whoever wins the nomination. You know, the Democrats had a low bar to hurdle this time around, it’s rather depressing that they picked the guy that barely clears it.

Which is scarier, spiders or the stock market?

I don’t follow the stock market at all. Nope, not interested — I have no direct personal investment, although I am sure a lot of my retirement funds may be attached to stocks of some sort. What do I know? Ask me about spiders, cephalopods, or zebrafish and I’ll respond enthusiastically, but money? I don’t have much, so it’s not on my radar.

But I do know enough to guess that “cratering” is not a word you want to see in the financial news. Probably “plunge”, “big losses”, “panic”, and “apoplectic” are not good things to hear from the grown-ups, either.

“The stock market is looking at the oil price plunge as a canary in the coal mine of a disinflationary one-two punch, driven partly by cratering demand for transportation fuels and a wanton price war among the major oil producers” that will result in big losses for U.S. and Canadian producers.

Global markets were apoplectic. Japan’s Nikkei closed down more than 5 percent, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index shed more than 4.2 percent. European markets were tumbling more than 7 percent across the board in midday trading.

Panic pushed the yield on the U.S. 10-year Treasury below 0.4 percent for the first time in history Monday as investors fled for safe havens. The trajectory could be an ominous sign of a weakening economy, because a low yield can indicate a lack of confidence in economic growth. Yields decline as bond prices rise. Gold, another safe haven, was up 0.4 percent in early trading.

On top of that, Maxine Waters tells some Wells Fargo board members to resign, and…they do! Either Waters is even scarier than I thought, or Wells Fargo is more rotten than I expected and its executives know it, or both. The rats are scurrying to leave the ship.

I don’t like this subject. Can we talk about spiders instead?

Something I wish Democrats would stop doing

They’re still talking about “electability”. STFU, please. Sandersistas are saying Biden couldn’t beat Trump in the election; Bidenites keep arguing that Socialist Sanders can’t possibly win against Trump. Both are wrong.

I’ll pick on Biden for a moment, because I agree that he’s a terrible candidate, just the worst of the Democrats. He’s got baggage. He favors weak policies that don’t correct any of our systemic issues. He’s a patronizing old fool. But, and this is the important thing, Trump is worse on all counts. And if Trump was electable, then Biden is electable. I detest the thought of a Biden nomination and think he would be bad for the country, but he’s better than Trump, so I’ll vote for him and hope he doesn’t screw up so bad that there’s a Republican rebound in 2024.

If the weakest candidate we’ve got is better than the Republican candidate, build on that and beat the Republican in the fall. It’s that simple. What would be better is if Sanders sweeps the remaining primaries (it could happen!) and soars to the nomination. We could also get 150 million people to turn out for the general election and the majority write in “Elizabeth Warren” for president, but I’m not holding my breath for that one.

What isn’t so simple is figuring out why the Democratic party goes through a painful winnowing process that somehow ends up promoting the chaff rather than the wheat.

The dilemma: to fly or not to fly

My wife is currently in Longmont, Colorado. She is scheduled to fly back home in 10 days, which is the problem. Look at the ratfuckery our administration is up to with coronavirus recommendations. They just don’t care what the CDC says, and I trust the CDC far more than I do Trump/Pence.

The White House overruled health officials who wanted to recommend that elderly and physically fragile Americans be advised not to fly on commercial airlines because of the new coronavirus, a federal official told The Associated Press.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention submitted the plan as a way of trying to control the virus, but White House officials ordered the air travel recommendation be removed, said the official who had direct knowledge of the plan. Trump administration officials have since suggested certain people should consider not traveling, but have stopped short of the stronger guidance sought by the CDC.

So now Mary is considering not flying, and instead renting a car to drive back — it’s 800+ miles and 12 hours of driving. Yikes. I have concerns about that, too.

  • Maybe the CDC recommendations don’t apply to her. She’s a healthy, active 62 year old (yes, I’m a cradle-robber, and I’m not ashamed to admit it). Which also means she’s capable of the drive.
  • If she has to rent the car and return it to an airport, she’s still going to be exposed to all those diseased world travelers.
  • You may not have noticed, but this time of year has unpredictable weather. She could have to drive through a blizzard, an ice storm, or a flood.
  • She flew there, and could already be infected. She might turn into a zombie on the drive back.

I am not helped by the dithering of the incompetents in the White House. I am also not helped by the vague recommendations of the CDC; I don’t consider either of us to be elderly or physically fragile in our ability to respond to disease…although I mentioned that a high school acquaintance of ours just lost her husband to COVID-19, so maybe we are.

Indecision can have terrible consequences, and the Republicans have so thoroughly politicized what ought to be scientific decision-making that now I’m being indecisive.

How many times must Maher show his stripes before he’s seen for what he is?

I knew there was a good reason I long ago stopped watching Bill Maher. His latest: furiously defending Tweety.

Maher claimed that all Chris Matthews did was make a poor “analogy” when he compared Bernie Sanders, a Jew, to the Nazis (“I hope the victims got some closure,” the comic sarcastically cracked); that Matthews was basically branded a “Klansman” for mixing up Jaime Harrison and Tim Scott, two African-American politicians; and that people overreacted to Matthews being “mean” to Elizabeth Warren when he pressed her on why people should believe Mike Bloomberg’s female accusers over the billionaire himself.

And then things got really ugly, as the HBO host targeted Laura Bassett, who accused Matthews of sexually harassing her when she was a guest on his program.

Isn’t it astonishing how being sexually harassed makes you a target again, if you’re forthright enough to tell others the truth? And how dinosaurs like Maher crawl out of the swamp to declare that he did nothing wrong?

According to Maher, Matthews “said some things that are kind of creepy to women,” continuing, “You know, I just, guys are married for a million years, they want to flirt for two seconds. He said to somebody, Laura Bassett, four years ago, she’s in makeup, he said, ‘Why haven’t I fallen in love with you yet?’ Yes, it is creepy. She said, ‘I was afraid to name him at the time out of fear of retaliation. I’m not afraid anymore.’ Thank you, Rosa Parks. I mean, Jesus fucking Christ! I guess my question is: Do you wonder how Democrats lose?”

I’ll tell you why Democrats lose: because they refuse to stand up for any robust principles of ethical behavior, favoring expediency over everything. Because “liberals” allow any old fraud, like Maher, to pretend to be the standard bearer for reason and virtue.

Then, every week, he brings in a goon squad of terrible conservatives with the pretense of balance.

One of his roundtable guests, the anti-#MeToo writer Caitlin Flanagan of The Atlantic, proceeded to further mock Bassett, saying of her, “How fragile can one woman be?” and insinuating that she was only booked on Matthews’ show because “she probably looked good on camera.”

With that, Maher chimed in: “Is she a compliment-victim or a compliment-survivor?”

Enough already. Maher is just a horrible faux-liberal shit-stirrer who provides a megaphone for even worse people. He belongs on Fox News.

We’re doomed

Jesus fucking christ. Trump is claiming he has a natural ability to do science.

Here’s what really makes me mad, though. Look at that scene; there are 6 other people standing around listening to that buffoon, and at least one more behind the camera. Not a single one of them speaks up. No one corrects this deluded liar or raises an objection. This is the ongoing social cowardice that allows a dangerous fool to persist.

I would have said, “You know nothing about this subject. Your uncle’s competence in physics is not heritable and is irrelevant here. I guarantee you that none of the scientists you’ve talked to actually respect your knowledge of science.” That’s the least any of those people should have done.

Trump is hopeless, but the rest of you are required to correct him.

I have irked the Bernie Bros

It was inevitable, I guess. Because I said that the Democratic field has narrowed to a couple of old white men, and that all candidates are flawed, the Bernie Bros have decided that I am anti-Semitic. It doesn’t matter that I voted for the guy, or that I think Biden is far worse, just the fact that I question his perfection means I must hate the Jews.

I can’t even.

It’s objectively true that they’re not perfect. All of the remaining candidates are too freakin’ old. This is a worry, because we don’t have a very deep bench that will inevitably be truncated by death. Bernie Bros should definitely be concerned, because I don’t see any sign that Sanders has established any kind of plan for a succession. When he dies (is it anti-Semitic to point that out?), will his movement die with him? All signs say yes. This is another of those systemic problems in the political system that won’t be addressed by the current crop of candidates. I sure hope the next generation of Democratic Socialists isn’t coming from the ranks of the Bernie Bros.

It’s delusional to pretend all of the candidates aren’t obviously flawed. Think back to months ago when we had a milling mob of potential candidates. Every one had strengths and weaknesses, and the process, in our perfect world, was supposed to filter them to select the very best. And who did we end up with? Biden. This is no meritocracy, since we ended up with one of the weakest, least inspiring candidates leading the field. If we selected our choice by a process that picked the most competent, smartest, strongest person, Elizabeth Warren would be the last person standing, no question. Instead, I’m probably going to have to cast a ballot for a blithering ninny in the pocket of the financial industry.

So don’t try to tell me I have to worship the products of this broken system. I’m not gonna.

Random thoughts about the course of this election

Just what I think, nothing more.

  • It’s alright to detest any of the candidates — Bloomberg was a rich goblin, go ahead and say so. I like Warren, but if you don’t, I’m not going to try and change your opinion. Fire away with your dissent.
  • All of the candidates, current and past, are deeply flawed. If you’re trying to argue that your favored candidate is a saint who will make every segment of the electorate happy and win in a landslide, you are delusional. Own their shortcomings, work to reduce them, preferably by getting the candidate himself to admit to them.
  • We’re not going to get a revolution in January, even if your preferred candidate gets into office. Face the facts: this is going to take a long struggle over decades. Longer with Biden than Sanders, I think, but Biden is the cautious choice that a surprising (to me) lot of people favor.
  • One of the reasons it’s going to take a long time is that changing figureheads doesn’t change the direction of the ship. We’ve got to work on informing the electorate. You’re going to have to win over 330 million people, not just the one at the top. The US has systemic issues that aren’t going to disappear in a single election.
  • To accomplish change, you’ll need to get along with the supporters of the other Democratic candidate, win or lose. There’s a lot of bridge-burning going on. Stop it.
  • That doesn’t mean you stop criticizing the other guy, or your guy. He’s your representative, not your boss. Let them know what needs to change in their approach.
  • Disappointingly, as the field has narrowed, it’s obvious that we’re not going to get a woman or person of color in the oval office. Don’t forget all the other elected positions that we need to fill! Fight to build a coalition that supports your goals, and that reflects the diversity we need.
  • The enemy is Donald Trump and the whole damned Republican party. Fight them with the army you’ve got, not the one you wish you had.