Cheating and change... and clues about the Iran and NK wars.

==  Cheaters: Have we had enough? ==

I've inveighed elsewhere against the wide variety of ways that the Confederate lords and their devoted foot-soldiery slam their thumbs on the scales, shafting electoral fairness in order to defy the popular will. (The GOP won three of the last five presidential contests, but the popular vote just once.) 

Of course the biggest tension right now revolves around the vote of a single American, as the Supreme Court takes on not one, not two, but four different lawsuits about gerrymandering.

Those who have been here a long time know that I've been shouting about gerrymandering since way back in the last century. In fact, my "Minimal Overlap" solution was reviewed by a top U.S. federal judge and a major plaintiff in one of the cases. I hope it helps, a little.  Though how could it have come to this...? 

...That we must pray for the health of Justice Anthony Kennedy, because the destiny of our republic and the entire enlightenment experiment (and thus, possibly, the fate of the galaxy) revolves around one man? 

This should be a no-brainer. Justices Roberts and Alito, were they patriots and jurists -- not political hacks -- would demolish this systematic rape of democracy, with a blowtorch. Rest assured, they will be remembered. Only please, someone out there up Justice Kennedy's Secret Service protection! And test his food. 

== Investing in change ==

Paraphrasing (only slightly) Andrew Carnegie: “There are three things you can do with vast wealth: Spend it yourself on interesting or worthwhile things; leave it to the government; leave it to your children. Of these, number three is by far the worst.” 

Does this surprise you? Almost no one comments on the differing attitudes toward oligarchy and inherited aristocracy that tend to be expressed by those who made their fortunes by creating and selling real goods and services, vs. those who acquired immense wealth via Wall Street machinations, or lobbying, or through vices like gambling or organized crime, or cornering markets, or middle-man (‘golgafrincham’) parasitism, or subsidized resource extraction, or gilded cradle inheritance.

Today, most of the billionaires who got rich by working with engineers to invent or produce better goods and services are either Democrats or libertarians and most are sharply critical of the Republican policies like the 100% never-ever-worked “Supply Side” (voodoo) “economics.” 

Or the War on Science. Innovator billionaires show that competitive capitalism can be vital and generative! They already invest in R&D and jobs and production. They also denounce these tax cuts for a passive-income aristocracy that never, ever do any of those things.

== More cheats ==

Heck, while we're at it; here's one more cheat: The “Cross-Check” system to identify duplicate registrations has dumped thousands who simply had the same name and were verifiably different people.  Now we find that Cross-Check is easily hacked… and was probably designed from the beginning with that aim.

In fact, I've long said that I would have nothing against gradually rising voter ID requirements, even though almost no election day false voter fraud has been reported in 30 years. Many of you have heard me say this, but until someone out there in politics/punditry also points it out, I am behooved.

There is only one test to see if Voter ID is a "reform" or if it is blatantly partisan voter suppression:

"Has the state accompanied the new voter ID restrictions with substantial funding to help under-documented but legal US citizens to get the ID they need and to get registered?"

It is called compliance assistance, and corporations get it any time government imposes a new regulation. So, why cannot poor people get help with compliance for voter ID laws?  

If a state has sincerely done that, then I will admit that the demand for more voter ID might be honest and due to the rationalized declared reasons. (And you should admit it, too!)

Alas, not one red state that has passed restrictive voting laws has allocated a penny to help poor citizens of the state, or the elderly or the young, or divorced women, to comply with onerous new restrictions on their franchise. Not even fig-leaf funding. In fact, most of these gerrymandered GOP-cheat states have concertedly closed DMV offices in counties where many democrats live. Seriously? Can anything be more blatant?

In other words, they are exposed as lying-hypocritical, outright-cheating election thieves. And the same goes for anyone who defends this foul crime against democracy.

(Ah, Justices Roberts and Alito, is there any point at which you'll finally get fed up and realize that aiding cheaters will kill the Republic, as well as the Rule of Law?)

== The Coming War

You have to grab bits of insight where you can find them. Many can tell that some kind of war is coming. Out of all post-Eisenhower Republican presidents, only Gerald Ford didn't rush to throw our forces into major combat, on flimsy pretexts (some of them purely-concocted.) And Ford oversaw the final end-calamity in Vietnam. 

Is there a scintilla of chance that Donald Trump won't go there, ordering a distraction from his domestic troubles, overruling our faithful, devoted and wary military officer corps?

Reiterating: a U.S. - Iran "war" has always been openly yearned for by every anti-democratic faction on the planet, including the GOP, their overseas petro-boyar and oil-sheik and coal-baron masters, and even the Tehran mullahs, themselves.

Yet, most attention seems to warn against a tussle with North Korea. Read this. But in fact, I deem such a scenario unlikely!

1) Kim has what he wanted, a nuclear deterrent that is far, far cheaper than his immense and bankrupting standing conventional army.  Now he can offer arms reductions -- which he needs far more than anybody else! -- as a bargaining chip to get bribes from the South.

2) Anyone who thinks he got both H Bombs and ICBMs without direct and knowing aid from certain neighbors is a bona fide fool. Neighbors that have owned and operated NK since 1950, using that potemkin regime as a tool for Plausible-Deniability War against the West. 

There are a few simple statements we could make, that would cauterize such scenarios and threats, overnight. Alas, it won't happen.

== And... ==

This article misses the point. It used to be inconceivable that the Fox lie machine could be undermined by boycotting American patriots, angry at the Murdoch's hate-campaign against all US fact professions. But that's changed. There is blood in the water and we all can do our bit to deal with this pack of outright traitors, helping sell us out to foreign dictators. See: Fox News sponsors.

There's little you can do so easily that will be more effective.

Listen to this: Congressman Hakeem Jeffries dismantles Jeff Sessions in epic 5-minute cross-examination.

Can cheating be combatted?

As I mentioned, earlier, liberals should start practicing judo. Start by accepting Trump’s demand for a commission to investigate electoral fraud. A call that is now echoed in this article from Salon. Watch, as they scurry to back away from the demand.

Indeed. Former Attorney General Eric Holder has signed on to lead the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, a newly formed political group aimed at untangling the creatively drawn districts that have helped cement the Republican Party in power, both in Washington and many state capitals. Mind you, Gerrymandering is a crime against the American people by the entire political caste and for years both parties practiced the foul art, as I dissected here. Along with ways that you personally and all by yourself can defeat it, here. And yes I mean you, all by yourself.

Recent years have seen citizen uprisings in many blue states, where ballot measures instituted nonpartisan commissions to draw the districts for Congress and state legislatures. This as happened only in blues like California, Washington, Oregon and so on, leading to much hand-rubbing glee, at first, among republicans, who saw this as “political suicide” by democratic voters. 

(Libertarians note: these are the same states that are decriminalizing marijuana and doing other things top get oppression off your back. They are also thriving vastly better than red states.)

Only lo and behold, a funny thing happened. With more neutral districting, Democrats did better at the polls. It seemed that voters trusted those legislators more, not less, when they had to work hard, each election, rather than taking their constituents for granted. 

Which led to my call for Democrats to abandon gerrymandering altogether, especially in DP dominated states that still use it, like Illinois and Maryland. All those exceptions have accomplished, overall, was to let Republicans cry “See? Everybody does it!”

I doubt that Holder or Obama actually listened to me. Still, it seems my advice is being carried out. Obama and Holder will jawbone Illinois, Maryland and others to abandon gerrymandering, so that it will become strictly a Republican crime. Instead of just mostly a Republican crime.

At which point we might see whether Justice Roberts and Justice Alito -- and Justice Gorsuch -- are still able to stomach the utterly intolerable. Or whether those three can rouse themselves to be citizens first, before and above being partisan hacks. (We will see a number of occasions, over the next few years, when those three might hold the fate of our Great Experiment in their hands.)

== The simplest solution to a cheat ==

As it happens, Roberts and Alito earlier held back from meddling in gerrymandering, because they saw no clear way to prescribe a redistricting process. Only here’s the thing: you don’t even have to demand impartial redistricting commissions! I have long reponded with a three sentence solution:

(1) Set some upper limit to all districts’ perimeter-to-area ratio. (You can be generous; just forbid the absurdly contorted.)

(2) The legislature – or some commission -- may establish the boundaries, but…

(3) There must be minimal overlap between the boundaries of districts for state assembly, state senate and Congress. They must be as different from each other as practically possible. Hence, if they gerry one house to benefit their own party, fine! They’ll mess themselves up in the other two. 

There you go.  No need for formulas or “commissions.” Problem solved. Do it. Just do it.

There is, of course, a way for we citizens, ourselves, to defeat gerrymandering cheats, at least a bit, even if the crooks manage to cling to their criminal practice. If politicians have contrived things so that only one party can ever win in your district, then register as a member of that party! That way, you can vote in the only election that matters in your district, the primary. 

Seriously, you betray nothing by registering as a Republican, if that’s the party that owns your district. You can then help moderates to win the local nominations and to withstand Tea Party/Breitbart bullying challenges. (And note, you conservatives who live in Santa Monica or some other liberal enclave, this can work both ways!) Think about it.

This proved unnecessary after California's brilliant reforms, with non-partisan primaries and top-two runoffs in the fall. It has led to amazing outcomes, with moderates winning in both parties and the minorities in each district gaining clout!

 == Our side: Reduced to essentials ==

Exaggerating a bit to make a powerful point, this essay by Yonatan Zunger asserts provocatively that Tolerance is a Peace Treaty, not a moral precept. A powerfully important treaty, yes, that allows us to create far more complex, effective, productive and happy societies. But ultimately one based on pragmatism, which is vastly stronger than any "value system." 

When tolerance, diversity and all those nice things are called moral-axiom absolutes, that weakens them! Because someone else can simply shrug and cancel your hifalutin Core Value by saying "I have different core values. Different axioms." (Like holy writ telling me that your kind are filth.)

Our tolerant, diverse, positive-sum society needs no such axiomatic crutches! Amid our complexity, we've prospered and achieved more, in a few generations, than all others combined, across all continents and 6000+ years. There are zero positive metrics - from art to fun to prosperity to happiness, to soulful contemplation - in which this approach has not been rewarded multiplicatively, not arithmetically. When it comes to science and knowledge - gathering the tools and powers of creation - we've been rewarded exponentially. That is one heap of validation for free speech, tolerance, flat class structures and the rule of law.

There are powers who see where this is going. If the Enlightenment thrives for just one more generation, we'll reach a critical mass of bright youths and citizens committed to their own blatant self interest, in this positive sum miracle. Those aiming to reinstate traditional humangovernance styles of oligarchy and feudal-inherited privilege know that they have just a narrow window of time in which to bring the experiment crashing down.

Their chief tool - fomenting frantic, anti-future populism among a fact-averse lumpenproletariat - worked somewhat in 1930s Europe. It took grit and courage - yes, militancy - to face down that last major oligarchic putsch. Indeed, our Great Experiment will only be rescued by determined will and goodwill, as it was from evil empires in the 1860s, the 1940s and across the Cold War.

It requires that we view Tolerance and Freedom of Speech and class-flatness not only as our core tenets but also as the greatest tools ever discovered for achieving positive sum outcomes. Tolerance is our oxygen, our practical need, not a catechism that can be used against us.

Read this piece. Then recall how I have been poking at audiences for decades with a deliberately aggressive call to arms, rousing appreciative, if nervous laughter: 

"We must go forth and crush every worldview that does not accept diversity and tolerance!"

If that does not wring from you a tense, ironic smile -- maybe a chuckle that is both nervous and determined -- then you just don't get it. How dissonant, contradictory, yet necessarily militant we are obliged to be, to save the fecund, wondrous peace our predecessors won. See my essay: The Dogma of Otherness (from my collection Otherness).

Oh but alas. Here’s your openness and transparency.  “Paul Ryan Proposes Ban on Live-Streaming From House Floor.”

== Let the comparisons begin! ==

I’ve recommended that the fact-centered half of our civil war use wagers!  I'll offer a major missive about that, soon. Meanwhile though, note that the maneuver can only work if you parse the bets so clearly that there’s no wriggle room and the facts are overwhelmingly clear. Like defying  your favorite confederate cultist to name fact-based professions that are not warred upon by Fox.

Or to name a major metric of U.S. national health that does not do vastly better, across the span of democratic presidencies.  

Case in point: U.S. consumer confidence has boomed to its highest level since 2001 -- yes, higher than at the peak of the housing boom.  Reinforcing the almost perfect correlation that every single large and attributable metric of U.S. national health does better across the span of democratic administrations than across their republican predecessors.  Usually “oppositely” better. (In other words, most such metrics plummeted across both Bush Administrations.)

More comparisons here.

Let’s gather these.  If the pattern persists, it will help us to pry some intelligent “ostrich” conservatives’ head out of holes-of-denial.  And all it will take is a few… million… of them to make the difference that saves us.

And it begins.

======

Addendum.  One of you in comments pointed out: "It's not only blue states that have created redistricting commissions: Arizona has one, too. But it took a citizens' initiative to create it and years in court to defend it from the GOP legislature and state-wide officers who wanted it dead, dead, dead." Yes, well, okay. Blue in spirit, somewhat.  Look, Arizona has a huge, independent, libertarian streak. And they draw half their electricity from coils arrayed around the spinning in Barry Goldwater's grave.

Buckle your seatbelts... October surprises, cheating, and the things Clinton won't say...

This posting will be hurried, geting it in before the final debate. Like the rest of you, I am both fascinated-addicted and so, so, so eager for it to end.

First off, Trump challenged Clinton to take a ‘blood test” before the next debate. She should reply: 

“Sure Donald, we’ll both do that. But in return, you have to accept one of MY challenges! You (Trump) must appoint five sages to a fact-checking commission you’d accept as non-partisan. Including fact checking claims of electoral fraud. I’ll appoint five and Sandra Day O’Conner can appoint five.” 

If HC did that, she’d corner him, even if he refused! Refusing would look awful. And he’d know that accepting would eviscerate him.

== An October Surprise? ==

All my life there’s been talk of October Surprises, before any big U.S. election.  Ronald Reagan pulled one on Jimmy Carter and there were others in the small to intermediate range.  Today, the Trumpists are proclaiming such timing for the Access Hollywood “locker room” video and subsequent accusers of Trump's sexual predation. (See: Donald Trump self-sabotage gambit in Salon.) 
     Certainly, Julian Assange’s WikiLeaks collusion with Russian state hackers is aimed at knifing Hillary Clinton. Will there be more?

In this election cycle? Count on it! Assange is doubtless saving the worst for November. And Trump is already railing that the Iraqi assault on Mosul has been timed to give Barack Obama a big victory over ISIS, just before the election. (DT spent minutes in the 2nd debate pre-criticizing the Mosul assault for not being done ‘by surprise’ and thus allowing ISIS leaders to escape… proving that he has the military expertise of a 9-year old video gamer.)

Seriously, buckle your seatbelts.  There will be revelations of electoral hacks and sexual matters and foreign meddling and maybe a spilled Trump tax return.  These are Heinlein’s “crazy years.” 

Oh… one of you in the comments section suggested a scenario: “that the "Jail Hillary" bit was a stroke of genius! ‪Not for the election but for after, when the Donald's crows come home to roost. ‪Rape, tax evasion, fraud ....  Only now all of the "sensible" voices have said that you can't jail the losing candidate. ‪Donald now has a "get out of jail free card" - just before he needs to use it.”

Hm.

== Cheating at the polls?  Really? And WHO will do it? ==

If the election is rigged, who is doing the rigging? 

Trump never says. But note: in most battleground states – those he and HC are fighting over – elections are run by Republican politicians or appointees. In Florida, Arizona, Colorado, North Carolina, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio and Utah, the chief elections officer of the state is a Republican. (In Pennsylvania, Minnesota and Missouri it’s a Democrat.) 

        

Republican-run states do far more gerrymandering and voter suppression. The voting machines that do not offer audit ability with paper-backups are supplied by companies with GOP connections. So if there’s any fire under this smoke, Trump supporters should aim their ire at the GOP establishment.

Indeed, the presidential race is too closely watched for anyone to risk sneaky tactics. But I would bet you a dollar and a swallowed-bug that there will be tons of cheating down at the level no one is watching – state Assembly and Congressional races, where the Fox cabal is sweating real bullets, right now. (More on this, below.)

  

== How Might Trump Pull it out? ==

That’s the question some trumpist shill asked on Quora, in what must be the brashest and most delightfully impudent political move I have seen.  Almost no one on Quora supports Trump (since they have curiosity and ask questions.) Yet this prize challenge dares folks to compete (for a measly $250) offering the best suggestion how the GOP candidate might improve his flagging chances.  And plenty could not help themselves!  They answered.

I did too! * Though I deem it nearly impossible that DT will actually follow my advice. And here it is:

First and foremost, Donald Trump should stop with the damned rallies. The rallies have destroyed him. They cater to his frail-huge ego, feeding it with cheers for every outrageous thing he says, encouraging him to both ramp up the outrageousness and to gather a spectacularly unrealistic view the U.S. population, convincing himself that the narrow slice of Americans who attend his rallies is actually representative of the nation.

Had it not been for the rallies, DT would likely have done the expected veer to center. He could have - as a 'maverick’ - stunned us all and destabilized Clinton by behaving well at the debates and by abruptly dropping the most-insane GOP stances inflicted on the party by Murdoch-Ailes-Fox.

He could have dropped: (1) the war on science, (2) climate denialism, and (3) Supply Side never-once-right-voodoo economics.

Back in the spring he showed some hints he might! Had he done this, he’d have done a judo grab of moderates and college educated whites and even some women and some minorities, while keeping most of the rest of his conservatism.

This would also have done the nation a great service, by trashing those three insanities forever. Even in losing, he would have been credited for that.

Too late. His addiction is now in full fury. The tougher things get, the more he relies on the drug high he gets at the rallies, which in turn encourage him to behave in public and at debates in the same way that gets cheers at those testosterone-fests.

Watch one some time: you’ll see an addiction, playing itself out. (I can relate - slightly - as a public speaker. Audience response is a huge high.) Alas, he is not just torching himself and the GOP; he is also stoking maybe 15% of the population - his most zealous followers - with a frothing-volcanic hate that we’ve not seen since Timothy McVeigh, or perhaps the 1930s Nuremberg rallies.

They share his feedback loop. They will rage that he could only have lost by rigging. They will - at his urging - turn this civil war hot. Except for the rallies, he might have had a lining that was silver, and not flaming horror.

* (Go to that quora contest and vote for me! I'll spend the prize on a party at the 2018 worldcon! ;-)

== Back to the Cheat Below ==

Time to reiterate a point that no one else – I promise you – is making. Paul Ryan is discrediting Donald Trump’s allegations that the election will be “rigged.” And yes, that serves Ryan well, because it makes him look like an adult next to the tantrum-threatening Donald. Ryan is lining himself up for 2020.  And yet… the sci fi thriller side of me has another explanation.  That Ryan is pooh-poohing the likelihood that the PRESIDENTIAL election will be rigged… so that no one will look to closely at the election he really cares about…

…which is the equally important panoply of races for Congress and state assembly, all over the nation! Think about it.  Assume for a moment that the voting machines in many red states - which have no paper receipt systems for precinct count auditing (paper-audits exist in most blue states) - can be altered almost at-will. And why not? Without auditing, what is to stop the mostly-republican owners of voting machine companies from having a back door and using it?

Then they will not use that power to try to fix an already lost election for the White House.  They do not want scrutiny or attention focused lower down.  Even though those lower down races are where the real power in the nation (and corruption) can be found.

== Why evangelicals support Trump? ==

Given that he’s a philandering, twice divorced gambling lord with mob ties, who has ripped off his employees and contractors and bragged about abusing women… there truly is no other explanation for evangelical support than “he hates the same enemies that I hate!” In this exploration-article, it becomes clear that’s why fundamentalist Christians are rallying to Trump.

There is also an apocalyptic current. “For Trump, it’s not morning in America, it’s just a few seconds before midnight on the doomsday clock…. He’s been slouching toward just about every kind of Armageddon imaginable, except the genuine planetary ones that are — or should be — almost unavoidable these days.” 

(In the Trump-Ryan vision of America, fervidly believed at those nuremberg-style rallies - "crime is running wild, inner cities are war zones, and hordes of violent immigrants are pouring across our open border. In reality, murder is at a historic low, we’re seeing a major urban revival and net immigration from Mexico is negative. And the counterfactuals go on and on...)

His “un-Christ-like” behavior contrasts with Clinton’s -- a church-going United Methodist who has long ties to leaders in the evangelical community. She taught Sunday school and, as a senator, attended weekly prayer breakfasts. ‘But white evangelicals’ anger toward Clinton, while at a fever pitch now, has been building for decades.’

The central pretext is, of course, abortion. Though here, yet again, the journalist misses a key point. HC has repeatedly said that her aim is to keep abortion, “safe, legal and rare.” The argument is that liberal actions like Sex Education, availability of contraceptives and family planning empower women and girls to control their choices and outcomes, resulting in fewer abortions.  The success of this approach is supported by facts and decisive statistics. For example, wherever the emphasis has shifted to “abstinence only” programs, the rates of teen sex, teen pregnancy, STDs and domestic violence go up. All have gone down in Blue America.

Refusal to face such blatant cause-and-effect outcomes comparison has become a hallmark of the re-ignited Confederacy’s culture war, especially the War on Science.

When confronted by the success of liberal programs at reducing the overall number of abortions, they respond with a purist stance, that “even one is too many.” Indeed, that might have been at least philosophically defensible, if it weren’t that every single anti-abortion measure taken in Red States – across the last decade – has been about making abortion incrementally more difficult for women experiencing a life choice.

In other words, using supply side methods to reduce the number and rate… as opposed to the democrats’ approach to achieving the same end, via the demand side.

(This supply-side/demand-side aspect just occurred to me!  You punctilious checkers out there, have you seen anyone ever raise this direct comparison between approaches to abortion policy and the two parties’ diametrically opposite economics? 

(As usual, the demand side approach seems to work, while supply side reduces to an insanely cruel methodology that has not ever – even once – correlated with reality.)

Note – though – the core hypocrisy. To maintain purism as a defense against the superior practical effects of liberal policy – incrementally reducing the overall number of abortions by educating and empowering women. Yet the pro-lifers have put forward only incremental means to make abortion more difficult, accomplishing nothing.

No. This is entirely about symbolism. The U.S. right once had an element that liked objective reality and pragmatism (e.g. post-1968 Barry Goldwater, often Richard Nixon and (at times) Ronald Reagan). Now it is 100% about symbolism, (exemplified by the GOP Congress obsessing on the naming of ships) and never on negotiated politics.

Symbolism-obsession also served the 1860s Confederacy well, for a while. At first. Till the America of science, pragmatism, negotiation and adulthood woke up and discovered its resolve. That same awakening is happening now. So dig this, dear red-neighbors. We will save the nation and planet and civilization for you folks.  In fact, I’ll bet that deep-down, it’s what you’ve been counting on, all along.

== A final direct appeal to Hillary Clinton ==

Seriously Madam Secretary, is your only aim to win the election and live in the White House again?  Maybe nominate a couple of Supreme Court justices?  If so, I'll still vote for you, but I am disappointed.  Because just running against Donald Trump will poison your term in several ways.

First, pundits and historians… certainly Republicans … will attribute your victory to the toxicity of your opponent.  They'll rationalize that you have no mandate and that the GOP deserves to come roaring back, in 2018, after shrugging off the ‘Trump Illness.’ 

Even worse, by focusing only on DT -- you mentioned the word “republican" only once in your first debate and hardly at all, in the second! And did not mention "Congress" at all — you are thus complicit if the GOP manages to hold onto their majority in the House of Representatives. With Paul Ryan then 2nd in line for the Presidency, you will experience four years of unrelenting hell. No “honeymoon' at all - and zero legislative accomplishment. Just ever-more nastiness from the laziest U.S. Congress in the history of the republic. Was that your goal?

It’s time to stop cozying up to fence sitters, hoping to peel away a few more presidential votes. All that will accomplish is to leave Trump-averse republicans pleased to split and vote for down-ticket GOP politicians. If you want your presidency to mean anything, you must:

- Cite Ronald Reagan, who famously (and effectively) said: "I did not leave the Democratic party, the democratic party left me." 

That was brilliant, effective and people remember it. Use that! You can say: "I did not agree with Reagan about that.  But there’s no way Reagan would be a Republican today. Blatantly the Republican Party leaders have abandoned all sense. They have ‘left’ Ronald Reagan and they have left *you*.”

- then deliver a zinger: "Did any of you notice at the recent Republican convention that they did not even mention the names of any GOP leaders between Reagan and Ryan?  Bush, Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Hastert, DeLay, Ailes… "  (Emphasize Hastert and Ailes! Recently-confirmed sexual predators.) 

Yes, yes, I know you've been cozying up to the Bushes, lately, hoping to sway more ‘moderate’ republicans to defect. Stop it! They are of no use to you. Not compared to the possible chance of getting their grip off of Congress.)

- Talk about the sheer laziness of GOP Congresses! For 20 of the last 22 years, they have hardly met in session at all, or even held any hearings, except those that uselessly and futilely and obsessively hounded you!  Seriously.  Laziness is a charge that (1) is off-axis from usual politics, (2) is blatantly true, and (3) is a devastating attack on their character.

- Talk about the GOP war on science, education, medicine and every other profession that deals with facts and knowledge.

Seriously.  Stop making this about Trump!  That case has been made and 3/5 of Americans are sold on it.  Time to move forward!  It is time to get moderate conservatives to leave the undead elephant. 

You can do this.  Show us leadership and boldness.  In the next debate… mention the Republican Party!  It has ‘left’ America.

=====

* PS.  Some have realized how Reagan could be used against the hijackers of American conservatism. 

The political circus

The true issue dividing Donald Trump from the rest of the Republican Pack? He has realized something that strikes terror into the hearts of the Kochs and Murdochs and Saudis who have grown accustomed to treating the Republican Party as their private legislature.  That the angry white men who make up the GOP's core-base are ready for some populism to mix with their gruel of guns and confederate values. 

Hence, Trump has called -- then pulled back -- but will certainly call again for tax increases on the uber-rich, while Jeb Bush and the rest reiterate their wish for ever-lower rates for the skyrocketing oligarchy, long after Supply Side (Voodoo) "Economics" has been proved never to have made one successful outcome prediction. 

Ever. Even once at all. Ever.

Heck, Trump has also spoken for campaign finance reform (if a bit hypocritically, given he's a self-funding billionaire).

Sure, he's repulsively crazy in many of his own (entertaining) ways. But if Donald Trump is leveraging the disappointment of millions of angry white males, perhaps we should cheer a bit that at least he is pointing out: “hey, the foxes and goppers have been lying to you, like mad, too.”

But what's his secret?

== Trump - Comic or Genius? ==

Scott Adams of Dilbert fame has a blog - Clown Genius - that decrypts the salesmanship methods of Donald Trump.  The essay is revealing and fascinating: 

“As far as I can tell, Trump’s “crazy talk” is always in the correct direction for a skilled persuader. When Trump sets an “anchor” in your mind, it is never random. And it seems to work every time. Now that Trump owns FOX, and I see how well his anchor trick works with the public, I’m going to predict he will be our next president. I think he will move to the center on social issues (already happening) and win against Clinton in a tight election.”

Um… did I also mention that Scott is also – though a genius – a bona fide crackpot much of the time? “Trump owns Fox,” my patoot.  The Donald’s truce with Roger Ailes is based on mutual self- interest that shifts from day to day.  And the notion that Trump might actually become president is based upon comparisons to 1980’s Ronald Reagan that are not pertinent.  

Reagan was likeable, for one thing, and would have lost anyway, but for two things: the Iran hostage crisis and Jimmy Carter’s patriotic willingness to let Paul Volcker cure inflation, even in an election year. (Something no other politician would have done for the country – Carter was our only grownup president.) 

See also: Insane Clown President: Dispatches from the 2016 Circus, by Matt Taibbi. 

How deep can the madness go? As we see the very-right-wing John Boehner canned from House Speaker for not being right-wing enough, we should consider where this could all lead.  Here is a very thoughtful essay that plumbs the 1950s roots of "Movement Conservatism" that is based upon fundamental "values" that cannot be argued-with through evidence or cause and effect.  (To be clear, there is a wing of the Left that is also exactly like this, only smaller and (presently) less dangerous.)

What this writer's analysis fails to do is:

1) Apply the word "confederacy" and thus show that this has a context, a clash of cultures that goes back to 1775 as we reach a frenzy of phase 8 of the American Civil War.

2) Reveal the danger that this movement poses to its cynical instigators. As we've noted, Donald Trump is getting huge response from white males with not only his anti immigrant etc slogans, but also sniping at Rupert Murdoch, whose Fox News is used to utterly controlling the right's narrative.  Including the "do everything for the rich" policies that are the sun that the GOP revolves around.  Ironically it is Trump, the rogue billionaire, who now rails against that centerpiece, drawing millions of former sheep to look up, blinking amid an awakening populism that the Koch-Saudi-Murdoch cabal ought rightfully to fear.

Watch as Mike Huckabee or one or two others take moves in that direction, as they see their options wane. Seeing a chance for a Hail Mary gambit, they may start lacing in some anti-oligarch populism, hoping to strike a chord with those angry white males.

Hence, like all the talk show comedians, I am rooting for Donald to last a good while.  He’s mixing things up and shaking people out of ruts, and drawing white males to at long last question their confederate loyalty to Marse Rupert. By questioning the GOP reflex -- that tax cuts for the rich are the core and central sacredness -- he is laying seeds for a different sort of middle-class right-wing.  One that - while still raving crazy - finally glances at self-interest.

 Now… please… Jerry Brown and Jon Stewart… do the same thing!  Get in and have some fun.

== The banal insatiability of evil ==

The thing about evil is that it is insatiable*.  Republicans already control every lever of power in Alabama. Yet they bend heaven and earth to stymie voting by their minority citizens. Now, after passing a strict voter ID law, they are closing nearly all of the DMV offices in counties where most black citizens reside, making it much harder to get ID. 

I have oft pointed out that sincere Voter ID advocates would push also for compliance assistance to help poor citizens, married-or-divorced women, and young people to comply with an onerous new burden applied by the state.

Not one red state has done this, even a cent! Proving them utter hypocrites. (GOP legislators often appropriate Compliance Assistance funds for big business, when new regulations come down. Alabama did it this year, in amounts that could have kept those offices open.)

Read this.  There is no clearer illustration of the depth to which the red-gray side of our re-ignited Civil War has sunk. 

Oh… and the rationalization of “budget balancing”?  When a state is so poorly run and its economy so wretched that it cannot keep open its DMVs? The most basic service citizens need, in order to have freedom of movement and ID necessary for so many modern tasks? Nothing better illustrates a party's utter incompetence at the craft of government.

Oh, but this is the tip of the iceberg...

== Electoral Dishonesty ==

And now comes evidence that the Confederate cabal is willing to take cheating much farther. "Days after tea party republican Matt Bevin shocked the state of Kentucky by winning the election for governor in a landslide despite having been notably behind in every poll, political experts are still trying to figure out what happened. Initially the blame was directed at registered democratics, who appeared to have turned out to vote in historically small numbers. But now numerical evidence is pointing to the possibility that the election may have simply been rigged in favor Bevin."

Is this more "loser whining?" Or does fact after fact indicate that we should get ready...

... for the most cheating in a U.S. federal election in modern times.  This will happen for two reasons. 

First: "legal cheating" such as gerrymandering and voter suppression laws have reached their effectiveness limits and they can no longer compensate for  increasing demographic disadvantages facing the Republican Party, as well as the hemorrhage of intelligent conservatives (e.g. scientists, law professionals and military officers) who can no longer rationalize any continued relationship with the GOP’s plummet into lunacy. 

The second reason for panic on the right is simpler – if a Democrat enters office in 2016, the courts will eventually rule that corporations are not “people.” They will rule that it is okay to limit the buying of elections. The courts will also (winds are blowing) finally end the travesty of gerrymandering.

Fortunately for Rupert Murdoch, the Kochs and their Saudi partners, there is an ace up their sleeve. Through shells, they own every company that makes voting machines in the U.S. Machines that have proved to be easily hackable.  In blue states, this does not much matter, since most of them require that voters be provided with a paper receipt that then goes into a box, the old-fashioned way. Back-door hackers and machine company owners do not dare attempt major exploits, wherever random precinct audits could nail them.  

But voters in red states like Kentucky don't get such paper audit trails.  They seem blithely trusting of electronics – so long as it’s mostly white males who own the chips and levers.

Is Kentucky an isolated case? Then try these smoking guns. 

1) Virginia’s voting machines were built with a literal back dook… a locked USB port whose physical key was the same for every WinVote machine ever made.  Read this scandalous story.... Virginia Ditches 'America's Worst Voting Machines.'

2) Without paper audit trails, the cheaters in pyrotechnically-corrupt Kansas thought they were safe, till mathematicians arrived!  “Analyzing election returns at a precinct level, Wichita State mathematician Beth Clarkson found that candidate support was correlated, to a statistically significant degree, with the size of the precinct. In Republican primaries, the bias has been toward the establishment candidates over tea partiers. In general elections, it has favored Republican candidates over Democrats, even when the demographics of the precincts in question suggested that the opposite should have been true.” 

Hence, shouldn’t Tea Partiers be just as angry at the Murdoch Machine as democrats are?  Shouldn’t they make common cause over just this one issue?  

“According to their analysis, Mitt Romney could have received over a million extra votes in the 2012 Republican primary, mostly coming at the expense of Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich. President Obama also ceded significant votes to John McCain due to this irregularity, as well.”

Could this underlie some of the support for Donald Trump – the only GOP candidate with the guts to tell off Murdoch and his machine? Read this article and see how Clarkson has been blocked at every level with a consistency that shows complete, Orwell-level contempt for even figleaf accountability.

====

* I just spent 3 weeks as Distinguished Visiting Scholar in Residence at the Hannah Arendt Center at Bard College, in New York.  Arendt famously commented on how insipidly mundane and inferior one often finds evil men to be, seldom mad-genius types. Far more often one sees -- as she put it -- the "banality of evil."  Banal, yet nearly always insatiable.