Optimists aren't the ingrate betrayers.

I just finished 9 weeks of relentless speechifying around the globe, from the Arctic and Russia to South China to LA, to a dozen events in DC. More than 25 talks! Culminating in last week’s commencement at UC Santa Cruz (Crown College.) Time to get back to writing.

== But first…

Two minutes. Watch this, you Americans. Two minutes for your country. (And you others, learn from this!) As for those cardboard election mailers you were getting, and will get again, come November? Do what you should do with anything received over the web. Start by looking at the return address. (The "paid-by" is usually some made-up shill phrase.) 

There's lots more we need to do, to shred the veil of lies. But that should only be a start. 

It truly is simple. One party wants a return to the campaign accountability laws that worked mostly-well in the past. Ronald Reagan was elected under them, by the way. Vote for that party and against the one that has adopted wholesale cheating supported with acts of war by foreign powers.

Better yet, join Lawrence Lessig's campaign to bring all the funding into the light.

== Is there any protection from the inevitable meltdown? ==

With Paul Ryan announcing his retirement (to spend time with family), and the last professionals leaving a White House in full melt-down mode, talk of a bill to protect Robert Mueller is going nowhere, because GOP pols are desperately afraid of Rupert Murdoch. And yes, just in time, the Murdochs are getting a huge, cash war chest of $70 Billion they can spend on perverting the Enlightenment. Thanks a bunch, Mickey.

What happens when a toddler with presidential powers enters full panic mode? What are the skilled and grownup men and women of the officer corps, the civil service, and adults both in and out of the "deep state" to do, when faced with a life-or-death choice between their duty to all of us, and the chain-of-command?

There is a solution! It can pass, quietly, in a three sentence resolution from both houses. Far less daunting or traumatic than impeachment, it would give our military officers and others a place to turn, if they are ever given "spasm" commands.

Three sentences -- that could be slipped into almost any bill -- that would quietly let us sleep at night. Give it another look... and pass it along to anyone you know who might know someone who knows someone...

== We haven’t lost… yet ==

Long ago I learned something from my friend Ray Bradbury... that people want to be optiminstic, but they are worried about looking naïve or foolish. Still, they can be chided into seeing the advantages of a positive attitude.

Hated on by both the far-left and the entire-right, Steven Pinker dares to beat the drum of optimism in an era of stylish cynicism and self-indulgent gloom. He and I choose different examples, and reasons to feel guarded hope. But first, ponder this Pinker excerpt:

"Consider the U.S. just three decades ago. Our annual homicide rate was 8.5 per 100,000. Eleven percent of us fell below the poverty line (as measured by consumption). And we spewed 20 million tons of sulfur dioxide and 34.5 million tons of particulate matter into the atmosphere.

"Fast forward to the most recent numbers available today. The homicide rate is 5.3 (a blip up from 4.4 in 2014). Three percent of us fall below the consumption poverty line. And we emit four million tons of sulfur dioxide and 20.6 million tons of particulates, despite generating more wealth and driving more miles.

"Globally, the 30-year scorecard also favors the present. In 1988, 23 wars raged, killing people at a rate of 3.4 per 100,000; today it’s 12 wars killing 1.2 per 100,000. The number of nuclear weapons has fallen from 60,780 to 10,325. In 1988, the world had just 45 democracies, embracing two billion people; today it has 103, embracing 4.1 billion. That year saw 46 oil spills; 2016, just five. And 37% of the population lived in extreme poverty, barely able to feed themselves, compared with 9.6% today. True, 2016 was a bad year for terrorism in Western Europe, with 238 deaths. But 1988 was even worse, with 440."

Pinker has mountains of such examples, enraging those who think that only hand-wringing guilt trips can possibly motivate people to take action to improve things further.

Fools. It's confidence that spurs action, not despair! See his new book: Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism and Progress.

Along these lines, famed statistician Hans Rosling's final book (published posthumously): Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World - and Why Things Are Better Than You Think, explores the upward trend of human progress, which Bill Gates calls "One of the most important books I've ever read."  As a matter of fact, Bill Gates is giving a free ebook of Factfulness to all 2018 college graduates.

Have things improved? Enjoy this vivid video of Hans Rosling: 200 Countries, 200 years in 4 Minutes -- joyfully detailing statistical progress across the globe, over decades.

Here's an example or two of my own.

If you were around in 1985, when Star Trek IV came out, would you have bet that in 2018 all species of whale would still be around, and in greater numbers than ever? 

Oh, but can they survive long with idiots denying that the oceans are going acid? It's not to late to stop the bad trend and save the good. It's that mix of confidence-building accomplishment with urgency that might empower us to save the world.

Seriously, any of you who would trade places with any generation of our ancestors need to get a grip. Try actually, actually confronting the facts of feudal oppression, inquisitions, and the plain reality that nearly all of those forebears had experienced the smoke, blood, screams and terror of a burning city or village, not once in their lives, but several times. 

Spoiled rotten, do not add ingratitude to your list of faults. Confront your place on the slope of progress! Gaze briefly (with Pinker's help) across how far we've come... then dig in your feet and get to work climbing further.

== Infopacalypse? ==

Which brings us to another big perspective... and what it says about our disruptive era.

A member of our comment community corrected my impression that the American democracy has lasted longer than the Athenian:  

“Athenian democracy lasted from around 594 BC when Solon instituted the Ecclesia to when Phillip II conquered Athens in 338 BC, a total of 256 years. It started in revolution because a very small elite had turned all the others into debt slaves. Solon made the very deep reforms thereby avoiding civil war. It lasted for through many existential crises but was eventually brought down by hubris brought about by empire, a lost war and afterwards a general slump into insignificance all in 256 years. Our democracy started in 1788 so if democracies have a lifespan then we will reach our end around the year 2044. In the critical stage Athens produced Pericles, the best of leaders, but it also produced Alcibiades who was brilliant, from the best family and had been a pupil of Socrates but was totally devoid of principles. Who is our Alcibiades these days?” 

Well, yes, sort of. Athens went through wilder swings, across those 256 years, including stretches when the oligarchs resumed control, and others when democracy resembled more a mob than a deliberative assembly of adults. (In fact, the U.S. has gone through swings, as well, which I call "phases of our ongoing/recurring Civil War.")

Much of this came to mind while watching Mark Zuckerberg testify to Congress.  I've been to Facebook twice, in the last year or so, advising one of the teams trying to come up with ways to make facts and reliability more a part of that online roiling stew. (In EARTH (1989) I predicted social media would become a morass of self-reinforcing echo-chambers.) Alas, people keep inviting me to come and consult... and never take my simple advice.

== How to defend Truth ==

Which brings us to this chilling revelation about foreign electoral meddling and our current "Infopocalypse Now.”

Those with less education are more biased by false information - even once they know it's false. Scientific American recently published an excellent analysis of the research on fake news, misinformation, and cognitive ability. The nut of it is this: those with low cognitive ability are more likely to believe false information even after they've been explicitly told it's false.

Cognitive ability also correlates with education, which teaches meta-cognitive skills - the ability to monitor and regulate one's own thinking, which can be used to combat the effects of misinformation on worldview.

Among the disturbing findings:

· The Trump campaign targeted low cognitive-ability voters.

· Repeated exposure is more convincing than one-time exposure.

· Fake news is more viral than real news.

Case in point: "The ice caps were going to melt, they were going to be gone by now. But now they're setting records. They're at a record level." - Donald Trump, to Reuters, quoted on msn.com.

You and I find it hard to believe we are members of the same civilization – nay, species – as people who are able to murmur such an incantation, knowing full well that – if they allowed any fact person to speak, the nostrum would prove diametrically opposite to truth. The word “Idiocracy” comes to mind.

But is this surprising? The Confederacy always relied upon this: Aristocrats pay for propaganda to get the most dimwitted whites to march off and fight for the rights of the richest.

And yes, this is using democracy to destroy itself. When the war on all fact professions is done, and the aristocracy is the only power left standing, you can bet that democracy will be curtailed. The one thing puzzling me is how - once all the fact and skill professions are pounded down - the feudal lords expect that strategy to ultimately go well for them.

(Source: Berit Anderson's SCOUT site and the Strategic News Service).

== And finally... ==

Ex-Speaker John Boehner Joins Marijuana Firm's Advisory Board. Seriously. How many times have we seen this? These guys scream at Martin Luther King... then later proclaim themselves to be his heirs. They cry out: "cars don't cause smog!" And "it's okay that rivers catch fire!" And "tobacco is good for you!" And "Russia is our pal!"  And "glaciers are expanding!"... and a jillion other fact-hating nostrums.  Then, when utterly disproved and the delaying tactic is used up?

It's "who, me? I never!" 

The last thing they'll admit it that being always, always, always wrong should affect a jerk's credibility.

Experts and reformers aren't always right! But you troglodytes have such a horrid record that you bear the burden of proof.  And hence your all-out war on every single fact-using profession.

Light-up, John. Inhale. Maybe it will deaden the dull ache in some residual stump of a soul, after a lifetime spent betraying your nation, world and civilization.

Clutching Electoral College straws? I rank the (complicated) odds.

Seriously? You have hopes? Oh, for certain there are plenty of sci fi-ish scenarios to ponder, before the Electoral College votes are tallied on December 19.  Scroll down to get my odds-handicapping of all the EC gambits! But first, much-needed context:

Okay, so a lawsuit filed by two Colorado presidential electors aimed to free them from penalties for defecting. A federal judge then ruled that Colorado's electors "must" vote for Hillary Clinton. 
     But "must"... or else what? Face a tiny fine? 
     Backed up by both the Constitution and the Founders own words -- and precedent, with past defectors going unpunished -- nothing prevents electors doing whatever they like. Which is both heartening and scary. And (as we'll see) likely irrelevant.

The Electors Trust is publicly offering both discreet legal advice and to pay any legal costs incurred by such defectors… who I'm sure are enduring terrible denunciations and threats, as well.

      Now a bipartisan collection of over twenty Electors (and growing) request security clearance so they can see the evidence that Russia meddled in the 2016 election to get Trump elected. 

(GOP Electors! At least hint you're wavering. Demand an "assurance call" from Trump himself. You'll get one! Plus maybe dinner: do you like frog's legs?)

To all of you blinking in astonishment, over an obscure constitutional relic that has only caused trouble - till now - but might have value after all, well, Alexander Hamilton, in the Federalist Papers, said one purpose of the EC is to keep foreign powers from capturing the presidency. 
       Another passage extolls the EC to deal with dogmatist candidates who are outrageously unqualified. 
      Wow. What prescient Founders.

== The Siberian Candidate ==

OK. Just a bit more context before getting the the odds.

Declaring last week that "I'm, like, a smart person" and refusing security briefings, DT exacerbated all the drama with remarkable lack of self-control. He had only to lay low and say peaceful things, for all 'electoral college gambits' to be moot. Think. If he cannot keep it lidded now, how about when all leashes have slipped?

  

Heck, is a CIA report necessary? Could the Kremlin have picked a more favorable U.S. cabinet than Trump has, e.g. Rex Tillerson for Secretary of State, who received lavish honors - and billions in favored contracts - directly from the Putin regime and who hangs with Russian klepto-oligarchs? Paul Manafort was a longtime consultant to Viktor Yanukovich, the Russian-backed Ukrainian president who was overthrown in 2014, when Ukraine swung westward, the event for which Putin swore revenge on the Democratic leaders Obama and Clinton. The list is so extensive, we need no "CIA report."

Would any 20th Century sci fi author - even on LSD - have foreseen the bootlicking devotion of today's right wing to Moscow? 

The Siberian Candidate, indeed. 

Ah, but all of that is prelude and scene setting.  Today's topic is wagering the odds.   We have a betting pool over how many elector-defectors there will be. And given all we've seen, it ought to be a tsunami. But, although I do expect some, even a large number won't matter as much as folks hope. 

== All the possible scenarios - barring an asteroid strike ==

Asteroids*. Yeah. At this point, something biblical almost sounds merciful. But all right, since many have asked… here’s my forecast:

1- What are the odds that 37+ Republican electors will demonstrate awesome maturity, sanity and patriotism by switching to Hillary Clinton on the 19th? (She might cleverly increase the odds by offering olive branches - as I described in my previous posting - and perhaps even promising to resign, after a year.)

But sorry. There's no chance of this, whatsoever.

2- What are the odds that 37+ Republican electors might demonstrate some maturity, sanity and patriotism - and ad-hoc organization - by choosing another Republican? Perhaps elevating John Kasich or Paul Ryan for top-three consideration by the House? I give that a generous 15%! Then subtract 5% because of my own “jinx factor,” whenever I want something. 

3- That 37+ Republican electors will demonstrate at least a little maturity, sanity and patriotism by independently and separately or impulsively abstaining or defecting to some random protest person – disorganized but still throwing it to the House? This one I give 20% (minus 10% jinx.)

4- Okay, now it gets interesting. If #2 happens: say Ohio’s delegation goes en masse for Kasich, or Utah’s republican electors find they can’t vote Trump without alcohol, or a cabal goes for Ryan, will the House then actually replace Trump?  

Alas, I give this almost no chance. 

Oh, Ryan could deliver one fantastic and historic speech, if he had the patriotism and guts. And if he read my Contrary Brin posting before this one.

But he knows the very next day Trump would unleash a veritable tsunami of Timothy McVeighs, across the land. We'd cope! With historic courage and triumph over treason. We are made of the same stuff as the Greatest Generation. But I doubt that GOP reps in the House - the laziest and most cowardly in the history of the republic - will have the cojones.

Give it 10% (of the already low 10% in case #2).

5- And if the House decides, based on #3? Just take my answer to #4 and cut it in half. (That's 10% of 10%, again, for those keeping score.)

6- Far more likely, if either #2 or #3 were to happen, and Trump falls below 270, is that the GOP-controlled House of Representatives will admonish Donald Trump, then make him president anyway. Perhaps extracting from him some changes in his cabinet or a promise not to make enemies lists. (Like asking a shark not to bite.) None of those promises or changes would affect the interests of Koch-Murdoch-Goldman puppeteers, though the Moscow strings might be made less blatant. This I deem plausible… though remember it starts with the low probability events in #2 & #3. 

7- Side bet. If #2 or #3 happen, maybe one or two defectors will proclaim the truth -- that the GOP has gone crazy. But most of the defecting electors will still vote in Mike Pence as VP, to prove their party loyalty. 

But even if we suppose Pence also fell below 270, he would still likely be chosen as Vice President by the Senate. Unless three GOP moderate senators were to actually show some courage. We'll never know, because it won't come to that.

Only... might some electors flip ballots? Voting Pence for President and Trump for VP? The perfect way to both do your duty and deflect angry fanatics! Just tell the screamers: "But I did vote for them!"  

It's the closest thing to a possible win-win for conscience-wracked GOP electors... and hence it will never occur to them.**

There are even more far-out sci fi scenarios. I got a million of em. But I won't offer that list of weird possibilities here. They belong in the genre of fantasy. As does all of 2016.

8- Now let’s speculate! Suppose major proof of cheating emerges, not just Russian meddling but also voting machine fraud. (Billionaires: it's still not too late to offer my Henchman's Prize! Ten million dollars for a Diebold defector could save American democracy.) 

Now further imagine that John Roberts and Samuel Alito might - conceivably – remember to be more Americans than Republicans. Then we could see something unprecedented. Not the fantasy nursed by some – installing Hillary Clinton - but maybe an election do-over.  In which case, I would urge Clinton to bow out. Get the DNC to nominate Biden and Bernie. Or the nation goes up in flames. Odds of any of this happening? Almost zero.  

Face it. Roberts and Alito aren’t ready yet to face their duty. Oh, but they will. A time may come when those two become (choke) the bulwark (alas) of everything we hold dear.

== And it all boils down to... ==

After all this, what are our chances of avoiding misery, in 40 days? 

Forget about it. Gird yourselves for a fully fulminating, multi-year phase of the U.S. Civil War, in which all the Americans who actually know stuff and believe there are "facts" will have to wake up, grit their teeth, and win-or-die. 

Literally, because we – the scientists, teachers, doctors, statisticians, engineers, meteorologists, journalists, professors, economists, civil servants, intelligence officers, tech entrepreneurs, law professionals, skilled labor and all the others declared to be enemies by Fox -- could yet find ourselves up against walls. 

I exaggerate? Look up Steve Bannon’s open and repeated admiration of Lenin, Stalin -- and Darth Vader.)

Still, the question we will face, on Inauguration day, after all the clutched straws float away, is this: are we a nation that will put up with thin-skin screeching, enemies lists, abuse of office, foreign control, vengeance vendettas and Delirium Tremens outbursts for a complete 4 years? I am about to wager… no. Which brings us to:

9- Might Paul Ryan and the House – as well as Alito and Roberts -- come around, well before the 2018 midterms? Facing a looming train wreck, I’ve already bet that they will reach their limit of DT outrages and begin a process of removal. 

But cleverly, Ryan will first say to the Democrats “you put forward articles of impeachment and we’ll provide just enough Republican votes for it to pass.” Thus, they will aim for a win-win-win.  A fresh face for the midterms, a presidential puppet obedient to Murdoch and the Kochs (though perhaps less-so to Russia)… 

...plus ensuring that DT’s enraged followers will blame the democrats for his ouster. As I said, a perfect win-win-win for Ryan and the GOP oligarchy. Of all our straw-clutching scenarios, this one actually seems plausible. (Unless DT has blackmail on Pence.) 

I give it 30%+

And hence my final forecast:

10- The Democrats… will their political lobotomization be over by then? Will they fall for that trap? 

Or will they have the guts to say: “Do your own dirty work, Paul. We will provide a few votes, if you need them to clean up your own mess. But this is all on you.”

What odds do I give that the Dems will ever be that smart?

Practically zero.

=

=

=

* Asteroids. Republicans hate em. You can expect all asteroid-related NASA missions to be canceled, in favor of joining Russia, China, India and Europe scooting back to repeating Apollo-style landings on the almost-useless Moon.  Another topic, alas. 

** Heck DT’d find being VP way more fun than the Oval Office.

Trump, Tribalism and Diatribes

Both Fareed Zakaria and 538’s legendary Nate Silver have issued apologias and post-mortems for having failed so utterly to predict Donald Trump’s ascendancy to the Republican Party’s presidential nomination.  Interesting reading.  And yet they seem determined to double down on mistakes.

For example, Silver lists three general reasons.

1. Voters are more tribal than I thought.
2. GOP is weaker than I thought.
3. Media is worse than I thought.

Oh, certainly these have some general truth. And yet, does Donald Trump’s triumph in GOP primaries reflect on all “voters”? Or on the 6% or so of qualified U.S. citizens who cast ballots in his favor in primaries, so far?

More significant is the fact that another 4% or so backed raving reactionaries like Ted Cruz, with very few supporting the mainstream GOP pols whom Rupert Murdoch is used to having at his beck and call.  Sure, Trump is appealing to “tribalism.” But he has swayed a subset of a subset, so far.  

It will only be fair to impugn American voters, in general, if the supporters of Bernie Sanders prove too “tribal” to see the practical value of joining the general democratic alliance.

Is the media “worse” than Nate Silver thought?  Oh sure. But the tribes supporting Donald Trump are not swayed by general media, rather by a subset that was fine-tuned, at great expense, by the Murdochian machine, by Clear Channel svengalis and by Heritage/AEI  incantation-rationalizers. After inciting millions into a resentful, grievance-driven froth that includes a bilious war against science and every other “smartypants” profession in American life, the owners of that specialized wing of media now blink in astonishment at what they have wrought. Having whipped their horse into a populist frenzy, they cannot believe it when an expert rider hopped aboard their already-raging beast and snatched the reins right out of their hands.  

(As happened to the so-smart 1930s German Junkers lords who thought they could control racist populists because “we own the newspapers.")

Nate Silver blames the “weak” GOP on a failure of coordination, ignoring the fact that the 21st Century Republican Party was - until very recently - the most tightly disciplined political entity in the history of the republic.  

For a couple of decades no major GOP officeholder dared utter a word that did not comply with talking points issued by Roget Ailes. And woe unto any who violated the (Dennis) Hastert Rule by negotiating with democrats over matters of public substance. It was for that sin, rather than his divorce scandals, that Newt Gingrich suffered exile into the political wilderness. (And contemplate Newt's possible revenge.)

Sure, that formerly tight discipline appears to have been shattered, this year.  But look underneath. House and Senate republicans are still marching in utter lockstep, with no one breaking ranks, except a few gutsy senators daring to diss Trump. As far as policy is concerned? Sticking to the GOP method of doing almost nothing for the republic? Anything at all?  No change.

No, Nate, the fault does not lie in GOP "failure of coordination." My own theory is that Murdoch and his ilk deliberately bent their wills and massive resources to re-igniting our 250 year old, ever-simmering American Civil War. "Red" America is gray, and we have been down this path before. And setting fire to this match was not just treason.  It was spectacularly stupid.

== How does Donald Trump do it? ==

Scott (Dilbert) Adams has analyzed how DT's most outrageous or fact-free statements aren't meant to convince, they are designed to move the Center of Narrative, so that we're arguing over how much or little DT has exaggerated a core truth. The essence is "there must be some fire under all this smoke I am blowing, right?"  Now see an even closer analysis of Trump's polemical method, which is brilliant. While it seems he's babbling, a simple word analysis reveals fiendish precision.

Watch this video! Share widely this appraisal of how Donald Trump’s polemic is so skillfully planned and executed, down to the number of one, two and three syllable words. A brilliant svengali! It will not persuade a single fervid Trumpist. But it can affect fence-sitting conservatives. Above all, it will show the True America of Jefferson and Franklin and Clemens and decent argument and of science and of people who can talk at a tenth grade level... that this truly is a fight worth taking very seriously.

After that amazing decryption of DT’s method, Nerdwriter then analyzes how news media and politicians and citizens helped make the Trump phenomenon. Though I'll warrant only for the 40% who are confederates. The greater number of blue/Union Americans will send him packing as we did Jeff Davis. 

See this: a guide to the almost-endless list of conspiracy theories espoused by Donald Trump.

== Vice Presidential choices ==

Recently I posted my own quirky take on the factors that Trump must consider in picking his running mate... a choice made far more problematic by the fact that few seem to want the job... and that whoever he does select may betray him for political advantage, either before the election or else - in the unlikely event they win -- very soon after. If you haven't seen these almost-scifi scenarios, go see how plausible they are, and how closely DT himself should pay attention to the minefield.

In this parsing of possible Democratic VP picks, I lean strongly toward Al Franken. Also Virginia’s TIm Kaine. Both reach out beyond their obvious traits, are sharp-witted and truly substantial minds.

As for the other veep choice? Okay I'll dip back in, since it is so fascinating.  This article from The Washington Post shows how, with Trump, the spread is so wide, it’s like an entire Dr. Seuss bestiary -- alas most of it similarly nonsensical.  Does he want his veep choice to help shore him up with the establishment? That is starting to seem likely. Only then that will mean he’s NOT planning a hard veer to the center. 

If he does veer toward the middle (and I elsewhere called that a potential benefit for the country, if (say) the GOP presidential candidate were to publicly drop insane voodoos like supply side and climate denialism) then in that case he’d need a veep from the radical right who would protect his base, while he performs his centrist feint.

A deciding factor between those two options? Donald Trump always thinks of #1 first. And picking a mainstream, establishment republican politician would be political - perhaps even real - suicide.  Follow the logic. If he chooses an establishment republican who is in Rupert Murdoch’s pocket (meaning nearly all of them), then the gopper lords could solve their Trump Problems by getting rid of DT on any pretext, after the inauguration. Forget the “JFK” scenario. Just impeach him! On any excuse at all. Most dems in Congress would go along (possibly foolishly) so Murdoch would not even have to supply his own majorities.  And then? DT fades into an historical footnote. Your establishment puppet is in and you get all the Supreme Court picks and possibly a re-election.

What a perfect plan! What on Earth could prevent it? DT will provide some pretext, early on. And the dems would never have the discipline to stand back and tell Paul Ryan: "do your own dirty work." Indeed, if the election looks lost, this betrayal could happen a month or so before the November polls.  (Okay, I repeated some of my earlier argument. But see it all laid out clearly here.)

This is why - for his own protection from both kinds of lynching - I am putting $5 on him nominating a maniac.

Though given how DT thinks?  A woman for sure. He’ll think that helps. Wait. Did I just describe Sarah Palin? Eep!  Far better… Ivanka Trump?  Oooooh. This year is giving me a headache.

== Paul Ryan embraces Trump ==

This stunningly Orwellian puff piece for Paul Ryan proclaims: “Paul Ryan in many ways is the antithesis of Donald Trump; he’s everything that Donald Trump is not. He’s a decent human being. He is a conservative. He is steeped in public policy. He cares about ideas. He’s a person who conducts himself with civility and grace in public life. He doesn’t put down his opponents.  He’s aspirational in his message and philosophy. He’s inclusive. He’s an admirable human being, and Donald Trump is not.”  

What stunning malarkey! Mr. Ryan may be softer-spoken, but he has been an utter partisan warrior on behalf of the pro-oligarchy madness that has transformed American conservatism from a movement containing some real intellect, respect for science and willingness to engage in adult negotiation into what we now see – a frothing frenzy of fervidly intransigent dogmatic hate-peddling.

The last Republican leader to actually engage in “politics” – or argument aimed at advancing policy in service to the American people – was Newt Gingrich who – while a sometimes-offensive culture warrior – would also pause now and then to negotiate with Bill Clinton, getting actual bills and debt-reducing budgets passed.*

Gingrich was toppled by a cabal of neoconservatives led by Dennis “role model for all boys” Hastert, Tom “convicted felon” DeLay, Tearful John Boehner and Paul Ryan, who combined to establish the Hastert Rule that any Republican who ever again negotiated with a democrat would be harshly punished. Their dedication to electoral cheating – e.g. gerrymandering – was unprecedented even in Tamany Hall days. 

The Congresses they led were not only the most dogmatic but also the laziest and most worthless, not even trying, feebly, to pass long stated Republican goals – not even when the GOP owned all three branches of government and could do anything they wanted (2001 to 2007).  All that passed during that span were gifts to Wall Street and the uber-rich and resource extractors. That… is… it. That and utterly absurd wars.

The rest of this insipid rationalization by Mike DeBonis is worth scanning if only to make sure that you don’t exist in an isolation booth. You blues are better than confederates because you are willing sometimes lift your gaze to hear other sides. At least you should be.

More from Ryan: “It’s a question of how to move ahead on the ideas that I — and my House colleagues—have invested so much in through the years. It’s not just a choice of two people, but of two visions for America,” Paul Ryan said today in endorsing Donald Trump. But unlike every other commenter or pundit, I care less about  surfaces like this endorsement than the utter gall of Ryan, contending that he has a "bold and clear vision" of ambitious actions on the GOP agenda.

What a towering liar. Okay, this bears repeating. The Republicans have held the House for 20 of the last 22 years and both houses for 16. For 6 years (2001-2007) they owned every single branch of government, Congress, the Courts and the presidency and could have passed anything they chose.  What did they choose... from their long, long list of ranted grievances?

Did they deregulate or banish any departments? Not a-one. (In contrast, democrats have deregulated many things, the ICC, CAB, AT&T, GPS and the whole freaking Internet.) Did twenty years of GOP Congresses cancel environmental regs? Did they do a push on abortion?

Nope, except for the Bushite disaster trillion-dollar wars, all they did was pass gusher arterial wealth transfers into the open maws of Wall Street, bankers, resource extractors and other parasites. That... is... it. NAME another major thing they did with all that power!

Again, because no one else will say it -- the last five GOP-run Congresses have been the laziest in the history of the republic. Members spend nearly all their time fund-raising. Or passing futile-bizarre retractions of Obamacare. They achieved not only record breaking lows in legislation proposed or passed, but lows in the number of days in session, hearings held, subpoenas issued.  And if you subtract frippery Benghazi and Email hearings, almost none at all.

The utter nerve and Chutzpah of Ryan, to use an "ambitious agenda" as his reason to support that screaming svengali Donald Trump?  Hypocrisy exponentiated, as we would expect from an apprentice to Dennis "role model for all boys" Hastert, convicted felon Tom De-Lay and Tearful-John Boehner.

When I assert they are all traitors, that is political polemic. But when I call them, lazy perverts, that is a matter of record.

== Splitting parties ==

Conservative columnist Thomas Friedman calls for a “New Republican Party” to become the healthy center-right movement in America. He’s not the only one. Elsewhere I describe how Jennifer Rubin, the “Right Turn” columnist for the Washington Post, has said similar things, citing Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb) as a (rare) example of sanity on that side, who might serve as a crystallization seed for such a reborn conservatism, rising from the well-earned ashes of the mad confederacy ignited by Rupert Murdoch.

Alas, if Friedman and Rubin and their ilk weren’t so blinded by stereotypes, they’d realize that the party they’re calling for already exists. It's HALF of the Democratic Party.

Let me explain. Today's Democratic Party is not a center right party... It *contains* America's center right party.  The DP is - in fact - the entire spectrum of moderate politics in America. It is where people who truly want to argue and negotiate pragmatic mixes of state and private and corporate views gather to try to concoct solutions to 21st century problems. Want to see this in every detail?  Look at California, where the 3/4 democratic majority has resulted is far more vigorous debate, not less. The far-more-moderate-than-national republicans in the state assembly are very influential, using their votes to horsetrade between the DP's liberal and moderate wings.  Oh and by the way, California under Jerry Brown is the best-run, cleanest and most effective state in the Union.

Hence the DP is ill-disciplined and hard to typify… a good thing!

In effect, the Democratic Party is the House of Commons and the GOP is the House of Lords and when the Lords have a majority they have just two priorities - to perform rip-offs of the people and (2) to prevent politics from functioning at all.

If the GOP vanished tomorrow, Thomas Friedman's wish would instantly come true as the DP would then almost instantly split in half. San American moderate conservatives would get a party that loves science and the Earth but is also pro-enterprise and flat-fair business competition... one that argues like adults with the somewhat pink wing of slightly socialists.

If the GOP vanished tomorrow. Oh, not till November.  Then make it so.

Wait for the Ryan Express

It appears that the Republican Party establishment  is coalescing around a White Knight who might save them from multiple, self-inflicted disasters, in 2016. The scenario is a surprising one -- and yet eerily familiar.  But first...

Newly selected House Speaker Paul Ryan is crowing about a spectacular accomplishment… getting his GOP majority to allow debate and then passage of a bipartisan transportation & infrastructure bill.... the first in ten years. As noted in one of my earlier postings, Republicans have strenuously blocked any substantial sums being used on infrastructure repair for one simple reason....

 .....such funds stimulate jobs with high-velocity money, instantly spent by lower middle class workers, as opposed to super-low-velocity cash transfers to aristocracy, in vain hope they'll invest it in productive “supply side” industry. (They don't.) I'll talk more about the Infrastructure Bill, below.  

Also my weird scenario for how Paul Ryan might yet become the Republicans’ 2016 presidential nominee. Sound far-fetched? Preparations are being made, as we speak, due to the Donald Trump Effect. 

"Republican officials and leading figures in the party’s establishment are now preparing for the possibility of a brokered convention as businessman Donald J. Trump continues sit atop the polls and the presidential race. (With almost-equally unacceptable Ted Cruz and Ben Carson picking up most of the rest of support from the GOP base.) More than 20 of (GOP power brokers) convened Monday for a dinner held by Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus...the party’s establishment must lay the groundwork for a floor fight, in which the GOP’s mainstream wing could coalesce around an alternative...."

To be clear, Mr. Ryan, who as speaker will also serve as chairman of the Republican National Convention in Cleveland this summer, said he would strongly support any Republican nominee. Yet he said "he believed that congressional Republicans must set a policy agenda that offered a clear contrast to the angry insurgent refrain blasting into the winter primaries." 

In other words, seizing the till-now vacant niche in Republican politics, that of being the adult-in-the-room.  So, let's start with Ryan's opening moves.

== Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy. ==

Upon taking up the gavel as Speaker, Paul Ryan’s first act was removing a portrait of Dennis Hastert from the Speaker's lobby outside the House floor. Hastert, who served in the same position - second in line to the presidency - from 1999-2007, pleaded guilty in a $3.5 million hush money case last week.  

“Two sources with knowledge of the federal investigation told CNN in June that Hastert was paying a former student to stay quiet about allegations of sexual abuse from when he was a wrestling coach and teacher in Yorkville, Illinois.” The plea bargain means that no details will come out in open trial.

You’re kidding, right?  The same Dennis Hastert who called the Clintons the “most-corrupt” politicians of our lifetime? (When not one Clintonite wound up even indicted for malfeasance of office, the first time after a two term presidency.) The Dennis Hastert who screeched at Bill Clinton’s immorality for consensual-adult, hetero-rubbing in a hallway? Who denounced previous speaker Newt Gingrich for the twin sins of divorce and actually negotiating (shudder) with democrats to pass legislation for the good of the nation? 

The Dennis Hastert whose “Hastert Rule” (punish any republican who works on compromise with a democrat) did more than even Fox News to destroy politics as a problem solving methodology in the U.S.?  Thus wreaking more harm on the republic than anyone since Josef Stalin? In other words, Dennis Hastert the deliberate traitor… and now exposed as perjurer, briber, pervert and hypocrite?

Oh… this could not have happened to a more apropos guy. And making that contrast plain by disowning Hastert from the start proves Ryan's ability to grasp the obvious.

Now let's add another factor Ryan must contend with. On the near horizon is a possible limit on electoral cheating. For example, blue Maryland (with a red governor) seems poised to finally end gerrymandering.  Once a cheat performed equally by both parties’ political castes, the practice is now being dumped by ever-more voters in democratic-leaning states.  Republicans are rubbing their hands because not one red state has followed suit.  But that glee is shortsighted.  Yearly, the foul practice is becoming more and more identified as a republican crime, lined up along with rigged voting machines and voter suppression.

And now it looks as if reddish-turning-purple Virginia may do the same. If democrats win, in 2016, there may be a full-court press against these cheats.  And if cheating goes away, then the GOP's demographic problems, failing popularity and starkly horrific governance Outcomes Metrics could add up to disaster for them.

== Presidential politics: The Paul Ryan Gambit? ==

Okay, so the table is set. On to the main topic. I don’t believe in prediction. But I do think folks should offer wagers!  If you think something has a substantial – say 20% -- chance of happening, then offer 1:4 odds!

Here’s one of mine: There is only one ‘mainstream’ Republican office-holder of stature to whom the secret masters of the GOP can turn, if they want to keep ahold of the reins. That’s Paul Ryan.  The new Speaker of the House has gravitas and is growing a Lincolnesque beard… and in the classic GOP pattern, it’s his “turn” as the most-recent Republican Party vice presidential nominee. (Recall I made this point a year ago.)

Oh, sure, it’s too late for Ryan plausibly to enter the debates and primaries.  But that didn’t stop Ryan from recently delivering a major stump speech that one observer said “amounted to a delayed inaugural address.” 

As columnist E. J. Dionne put it: “the most striking aspect of Ryan’s speech is that for all its emphasis on progressives relying on old ideas (they “are stuck in the past,” he said) and conservatives supposedly being more in tune with changing times, his arguments were rooted in the nostrums Washington Republicans have been offering for decades. The angry Republican working class rallying to Trump to express its disillusionment with the status quo will find little in Ryan’s homily to make it reconsider.”   

Having delivered absolutely nothing for working class whites who make up the core of Trump support, you can bet the Cheneyite-Murdochian-Saudi owners of the party are already lighting candles in hope of a brokered convention.  If Donald Trump can be kept below 40% in the delegate count, then it will be a Sumo Match. Those deal-makers versus the big casino deal-maker, with both blocs sifting for swing delegates, and boy will the bribe offers flow! (Hint to all GOP delegates in Ohio, this summer; take recording devices! You’ll get bigger deals!) 

Oh sure, Trump might still prevail! But never underestimate Dick Cheney in a knife-fight. And the Saudis have lots more bribe money than even Donald could come up with.

== The Great Ryan Hope ==

Okay, let’s go with this. Suppose the SMORPs (Secret Masters of the Republican Party) hold the line. They get the 60% non-Trumps to stand fast and throw the convention into a fifth ballot, when it all shifts to horse-trading. And let’s suppose Ryan is the obvious, go-to compromise nominee, unsullied from the previous year of awful gaffes, mud-slinging and hate toxins spewed by the debate participants. Then what?

If by then the fundie-teaparty wing has coalesced around Ted Cruz, then odds are Cruz would get Ryan’s nod to be the ticket’s running mate. 

That would, after all, be in keeping with the GOP’s other grand tradition – of almost never choosing a VP candidate who is remotely qualified to be president. Almost always they choose an unqualified caricature, to pander to the crazy wing and to make the main nominee look sage, by comparison.  That is, after all, how we got Richard Nixon.  All right, except Romney chose Ryan. That jury is still out.

(Democrats have a different tradition.  Their VP nominees are always extremely well qualified and moderate... and stunningly boring.)

Yes, some are asserting that Ted Cruz's growing punch among fundie-tea-partiers and his big war chest make him a strong contender for the #1 spot. I disagree, offering 1:3 odds that Cruz -- despite the fact that most GOP politicians loathe him intensely -- will be the VP pick of any GOP nominee. Moreover I reckon that has been his goal, all along. In that case - win or lose in November 2016 - he becomes the presumptive heir.

Which leaves the Donald. What will he do,if the SMORPS pull the nomination out from under him?   

Under those conditions, he’d naturally teeter toward an angry, third party run! (Oh, please?) The bluster and anger will be volcanic! 

And yet… my guess is the fix will be in. Under the table. Only to calm down Trump will require - literally - billions.

Again, I give this whole scenario 20%.  Which is huge, given how many dice are in the air, right now.  Less than likely? Sure. But you can bet there are moguls on golf courses discussing exactly this.

== Do you think it actually matters? ==

Dig this well.  Choosing among the whole bestiary, from Rubio and Cruz to Carson and Jeb, any Republican president - except maybe Donald Trump - will enter office accompanied by the entire panoply of Cheney-Bush factotums.  Period.  Their cabinet and sub-cabinet functionaries -- and bill-writing lobbyists -- will be drawn from the same well. Almost all of them either crooked or else compliantly banal, and determined to use the citizen-taxpayers as cattle.

You aren’t voting just for the top guy — (though any Bush is automatically a cadet member of the Saudi Royal House) — you are voting for their whole community. At least 10,000 of them, the same stunningly corrupt and incompetent ‘brain trust’ that sent steeply downward every single unambiguously attributable metric of US national health, across both Bush administrations.

== Oh… about the Infrastructure Bill… ==

… the legislation that Paul Ryan is so proud of?  So why has the GOP-dominated House finally passed an infrastructure bill?  Two reasons.  Delay any longer and bridges will start collapsing, and people will know whom to blame.  Also, they now realize it is too late to sabotage the economy anymore.  They managed to slow recovery for 7 years, hoping to pin it on Obama.  Now the rate of improvement is so high they might as well give up and turn to other tactics.

But don’t worry, they are still true to form, as when the GOP passed Medicare Part D, the only entitlement without provision how to pay for it. On this occasion, rather than raise the 22 year old gas tax — which has always paid for roads — they “funded” the transportation bill by raiding Peter to pay Paul:

“Transportation traditionally has been funded by the federal gas excise tax, on the sound reasoning that people who drive on highways should help build and maintain them. Yet this tax, stuck at 18.4 ­cents per gallon since 1993, no longer raises sufficient revenue. And for political reasons the House leadership ruled out an increase — blocking Democrats from even bringing the issue to a vote on the new, more open House floor. Instead, the six-year bill cobbles together financing from expedients: one-time strategic petroleum sales; ostensibly improved tax compliance; and, most dubiously, a raid on the Federal Reserve’s capital.”

Selling our petroleum reserve? When oil prices are low? Say what? 

That is the diametric opposite of how governments are supposed to behave.  Ask any Pharaoh or Caesar.  They knew — you stockpile the warehouses when grain or other resources are cheap — both building a reserve and boosting producer prices when farmers etc are in pain.  Then you sell when prices are high, both lessening scarcity and re filling the Treasury to do it over again. But for twenty years, the GOP has made a concerted effort to do the diametric opposite, selling not only from the petroleum reserve precisely at market-bottom, but nearly all of our strategic reserve of helium and other resources in sweetheart deals, at dirt-cheap prices.  

The helium thing was so egregious that people should have gone to prison.