Enjoying it less

I am enjoying the Republican race for the bottom, er, presidency a lot less than I expected.

True, the stupidity level is even higher than it was in 2012 when Bachmann and Santorum defined the lower level. This year, heaven help us, they'd be in the top 2 quintiles. Well, top 3 anyway.

It's the meanspiritedness that's taking the joy out. It's hard to believe that I could ever miss Reagan's pollyannish high spirits, and I don't. But it turns out there's worse things in a politician than being an ignorant, superstitious soap salesman.


 And no, I'm not thinking here of Trump. Everybody else is doing that. Penn Jillette already said all that needed saying last year.

I am thinking of Jeb Bush and his hard-to-believe response in the second debate about his brother:

“As it relates to my brother, there’s one thing I know for sure,” Bush quipped. “He kept us safe. I don’t know if you remember, Donald. Do you remember the rubble, you remember the firefighter with his arms around him? He sent a clear signal that the United States would be strong and fight Islamic terrorism. And he did keep us safe.”

The blogosphere jumped on Bush, posting pictures of the flaming world Trade Center.  That was useful but unfair.

Clearly, Bush was not referring to what Bush II did or didn't do prior to the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001; and we can argue fruitlessly about whether that could have been avoided.

Just as clearly, what Bush III meant was what Bush II did after Sept. 11. So it is fair and necessary to parse what Bush III must think about that.

The invasion of Afghanistan failed but it was at least intended to address the situation revealed by September 11. But no one can assert that the invasion of Iraq had anything to do with al Queda.

And Bush II did not keep Americans safe in Iraq. If you can believe Wikileaks, the total was something over 3,000 killed. (The apparent total during Bush's presidency was 3,771 "friendlies," that is, Americans plus our allies.)

I am old enough to remember how the rightwing savaged Jimmy Carter for saying that the Iran hostage crisis ended without loss of American life. It was clear that Carter was limiting his remark to the hostages, but he was ripped for leaving out the 8 Americans killed in the Keystone Kops rescue mission.

Meanspirited but arguably within the boundaries of fair political discourse.

Bush's statement beggars belief. It was not merely insensitive and callous toward the thousands who died for a mistake (not to mention the tens of thousands who were maimed), but it proves that he doesn't understand anything about what happened.

That ought to disqualify him from further consideration; but Trump's birtherism hasn't disqualified him; Huckabee's theocratic beliefs haven't disqualified him. Fiorina's business incompetence hasn't disqualified her. Walker's cheesiness hasn't disqualified him.

I am enjoying Fiorina. She is a sad, deluded example of the Peter Principle at its most disheartening, sort of like Harold Stassen, who also had some youthful success that ruined him. But she is funny.

Not meanspirited.

But most of the rest of them? A decent person wouldn't stay in the same room with them.

Tea Partier spills beans

One of the odder outbursts of rightwing know-nothingism (this week, anyway) was a flap created by a homeschooling mom in (my home state of) Tennessee, who alleged that the local public school was recruiting kids into Islam, when everybody knows the purpose of public schools is to recruit kids into Southern Baptism.

This is such routine crap that even obsessives like People for the American Way didn't react.

But wait! There's more!

It will not surprise you to learn that obnoxious bigot busybody Patty Kinkead has written and self-published a book for children explaining the Tea Party view of society.

But it will delight you to learn that the Tea Party mascot/recruiter in the story is a squirrel and his mission is to gather nuts.

Perfect.

Fish where the fish are

I often see, in comments on crime stories, statements like: "You never see anyone rob a gunshop."

Like every other gun nut mantra, it's easily shown to be nonsense.

As part of my other blog (Kamaainaloan.com), I scan the Internet once a week or so for "pawn shop news."  Most weeks, there's a story about a robbery at a pawn shop. (Pawn shops are not especially robbery-prone; there are something like 13,000 of them, and they don't get knocked over more often than, say, ice cream parlors.)

Most pawnshops -- over 90%, probably -- are gun dealers. But that doesn't keep bad guys from robbing them. In fact, it seems to be an attractant for robbers. It unquestionably is for burglars.

This week's survey turned up two examples of armed robbers robbing gun shops. and getting away with it, at least for a time. In one robbery, it appears the goal was to get a gun.

If you keep a gun around, and somebody gets shot, it's likely to be you.

UPDATE, Monday, Sept. 14

In case anyone thinks the original examples were unusual, we have this example from Houston of serial robberies of gunshops. I am familiar with the area and its pawnshops. It is where I get my pastrami fix when I'm in Houston, at Kenny & Ziggy's deli.

The Bentley getaway car and the AK-47 were nice touches.

If you are curious about the mental life of gun nuts, I suggest reading the comments. Have Maalox handy. It's revolting.

Generous to a fault

So, the Vatican is going to give residence to two -- count 'em, 2! -- Syrian refugee families:

The Vatican Will Take in Two Refugee Families as the Pope Asks Catholics to Help with Europe's Migrant Crisis

 There's room for more. The Vatican sheltered way more Nazi mass murderers who were refugees from Allied justice in 1945.

The Republicans are coming for your freedom

You may have heard the foofaraw over Kim Davis referred to (among leftist commenters) as an attempt to impose a theocracy on America, and if you are not well-acquainted with holy rollers, you may have sighed and thought, 'That's a bit overwrought, don't you think?'

But in fact a theocracy is precisely what the rightwing is after. Not all the rightwing, perhaps, but clearly most of it, as this compilation of rightwing political statements proves.

Lindevaldsen told students in a speech entitled, 'Do Government Officials Have Authority to Impose Their Morals on Others?' that any law that is not 'consistent with Scripture' -- or, more accurately, their interpretation of scripture -- is no law at all, and therefore, officials are obligated to break such laws since 'civil government only has the authority that God has established.'

You never heard of Lindevaldsen, but she's dean of the Liberty law school, who replaced Mat Staver, Davis's attorney, in that job. (Liberty Counsel, by the way, describes itself as "this ministry," in case you think it is a law firm.)

More to the point, of the 5 theocrats singled out by Rightwing Watch, two have been serious contenders for the Republican nomination for president.

Although they are far out there, they are not at all fringe figures. They are mainstream GOP.

You may also have seen commenters compare Davis with Gavin Newsom who as mayor of San Francisco declared a "sanctuary city" and declined to cooperate with immigration sweeps.

The relevant distinction is that Newsom did not declare that a higher, non-governmental power justified his policy. And, in fact, (probably) rightwing elected officials have for decades declined to cooperate with immugration and Defense requests for assistance, and no one at Liberty has raised a peep.

That is, if you can imagine that Texas sheriffs are sometimes rightwingers.  The evidence is in Joseph Schott's 1975 autobiography, "No Left Turns: The FBI in Peace and War."

When assigned to liaise with rural sheriffs, Special Agent Schott discovered they would pick up deserters only for the Navy. The Navy got preferential service because it paid sheriffs $40 a head for deserters, while the Army and Air Force paid less.

Lindevaldsen told students in a speech entitled, “Do Government Officials Have Authority to Impose Their Morals on Others?,” that any law that is not “consistent with Scripture” — or, more accurately, their interpretation of scripture — is no law at all, and therefore, officials are obligated to break such laws since “civil government only has the authority that God has established.” - See more at: http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/five-bizarre-ways-kim-davis-supporters-have-defended-her-lawbreaking#sthash.MiVxuvFI.dpuf

Lindevaldsen told students in a speech entitled, “Do Government Officials Have Authority to Impose Their Morals on Others?,” that any law that is not “consistent with Scripture” — or, more accurately, their interpretation of scripture — is no law at all, and therefore, officials are obligated to break such laws since “civil government only has the authority that God has established.” - See more at: http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/five-bizarre-ways-kim-davis-supporters-have-defended-her-lawbreaking#sthash.MiVxuvFI.dpuf

Lindevaldsen told students in a speech entitled, “Do Government Officials Have Authority to Impose Their Morals on Others?,” that any law that is not “consistent with Scripture” — or, more accurately, their interpretation of scripture — is no law at all, and therefore, officials are obligated to break such laws since “civil government only has the authority that God has established.” - See more at: http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/five-bizarre-ways-kim-davis-supporters-have-defended-her-lawbreaking#sthash.MiVxuvFI.dpuf

One reason to welcome NextEra

One thing about being a newspaper reporter: You don't have to have a good memory, because you take notes about everything. And I saved mine when I retired.

RtO has no opinion one way or the other about NextEra, but RtO does have an opinion about Hawaiian Electric Industries. It stinks. Anybody would be better running our electric utility.

In case you, and Gov. Ige and Mayor Arakawa and -- apparently -- everybody in the state of Hawaii but me have forgotten, following Hurricane Iniki in 1992, HEI stiffed the poor shmucks who had bought homeowners' insurance from HEI's wholly-owned subsidiary Hawaiian Insurance and Guaranty.

Then president Bob Clarke said it would wreck HEI if he honored its contracts, so HEI just didn't pay. If your house blew away, tough.  It's a dog eat dog world out there, and your dog was Clarke's lunch.

Clarke is retired now, although he continues to offer his worst in state history mismanagement advice at the Shidler College of Business (which is why I have no respect for the school), but as Mitt Romney reminded us, corporations are people too.

Not decent people, though. Since 1992, HEI has earned enough to make its Iniki victims whole.

Did it? Of course not. It may be a person but it's a corporation too. Decency is not in its bag of tricks. Some people have consciences but corporations never do. 

Living in sin

So there's this bigot named Kim Davis who's getting a lot of attention. Way more than she deserves, considering that there are over 3,000 counties in the United States and all but three are now marrying homosexual couples.

Since nobody else is stating the obvious, it's time for RtO to do it. I prefer to let other people do it and then give them a hat tip.

Probably what's going on is, the reporters don't know much about evangelical Christianity, and the Christian bigots making hay out of Davis's cause are not going to point out the obvious because then there'd be no more hay.

Davis's position is that she's defending god's rules about marriage. Her version of god is quite clear about this, you gotta marry your brother-in-law's widow (if one is available) and stay married. Stay married in any case. (There are other requirements but they don't enter into the instant case.)

Back in the day, Davis was a marryin' fool. Four times and nary a chance to wear those fetching widow's weeds.

Well, that was before she became a Christian. Well, up to four years ago, she was one but she either didn't take it personal or she was in one of those slack cults.  So she got in a real hard-nosed cult and learned she shouldn't have been doing all that divorcing and sinning against the Eighth (or Ninth, depending on who's counting) Commandment. She repented and was forgiven.

Except she's still sinning. She should go back to husband #1, to whom she is still married in the rules of the Bible; or at least stop cohabiting with husband #4 (who was also #2).