Politics Post Trump

Out of all the post-impeachment theater, one moment stood out for me... as Republican Party committees and caucuses all over rallied for Trumpism by attacking defectors, like the (slightly) Magnificent Seven senators who (for a brief moment) put country and honor above lickspittle cravenness, what stood out was this news from Utah.

The Utah Republican Party released a statement Monday accepting the different votes of the state's Senators Mitt Romney and Mike Lee in last week's impeachment trial, marking a stark contrast with how some other state and county GOP party operations have pursued censure against Republicans who voted to impeach or convict former President Donald Trump.

"Our senators have both been criticized for their vote," the Utah GOP wrote. "The differences between our own Utah Republicans showcase a diversity of thought, in contrast to the danger of a party fixated on 'unanimity of thought.' There is power in our differences as a political party, and we look forward to each senator explaining their votes to the people of Utah."

Set aside the almost certainty that Sen. Lee is just another Foxite nutjob shill for Putinism and treason. The fact that the Utah GOP is even willing to entertain the possibility of anything other than pure Nuremberg-rally discipline in support of treason is actually quite telling. I said it in Polemical Judo and repeat it... Democrats should reach out to Utah! 

"We know you will never be majority-liberal. But you represent the kind of conservatism we can negotiate with and that will negotiate with us, dropping the demonization... an almost vanished American conservatism that's ethical, moral, principled, and willing to test its polemic against things called actual facts. 

"Your dilemma isn't unprecedented! In 1947 the Democratic Party split over whether or not to continue believing the monstrous lies of Joseph Stalin. We passed that test (with flying colors!) and we pray that American conservatives will pass this one. If enough of them do - sufficient to save the movement of rational citizens like Barry Goldwater and Robert Heinlein, then we expect one major center of that rejuvenation and rebirth of sane conservatism to be Utah."

== Stop Sweating Joe Manchin ==

Everyone's talking about the Senator from West Virginia. The deal-maker who sends liberals tearing their hair out... but who has mostly been there, when needed. And yes, he represents a state that is culturally deep, deep red, even when that runs against the actual best self-interest of WVa voters. Luring them back into the Union that their ancestors so bravely joined, in 1861, will take savvy and effort and we need to make allowances for Manchin's role in that project.

And yet, we also need for him to keep stepping up! So, get him to truly commit to the filibuster 'compromise' he spoke of, on-and-off:

 1- All future filibusters must be talk style like in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, with no yielding to colleagues or breaks... and the chair can force the speaker to "stay germane."   Manchin might agree that saves face, because that's what the public already thinks 'filibuster' means.

2- Adjust rules so that cloture (stopping debate) must be assertively STOPPED by 41 senators of the minority, instead of demanding that 60 senators to actively invoke cloture. The burden is on them. Do that and we'll manage.

3- Each Senator gets one per session, or per year.

These are measures that Manchin could get as part of his deal to "save" the filibuster. And yes, he has a point about 'minority rights... or would have a point, if McConnell's GOP ever intended to play fair, ever, even once, at all. Ever. Of course they don't.

But hen, let's test Joe M's sincerity. Do you actually want to ensure minority rights for legislators in a way that reduces partisan discipline and enhances the old American tradition of autonomous representatives and senators? Possibly freeing more Romneys and Murkowskis to grow the kind of courage shown by Adam Kinzinger? Well then... Included in my long to-do-list of proposed judo moves is this one that Nancy Pelosi could use to change Congress in ways that benefit us all. And especially Democrats... whether in the majority or some future minority.

Give every member of Congress a permanent right to issue one subpoena per session, to use as she or he sees fit!

Sure, some would donate theirs to their committee chairs. Most would hoard theirs to summon some witness for 3 hours of testimony to impress voters, back home. 

But many would use this power to investigate some unsual thing. And it would mean that Democrats would never again be unable to probe while in the minority. And it would be seen as utterly revolutionary and there will be no way for Foxites to bad-spin it.

 (Will goppers try to use it to clog things while they are in the minority? Sure, a bit, but surprisingly little. LIGHT unevenly helps justice. Anyway, many members will hoard their subpoenas, regaining a habit of defying their party leaders.)

Just... think about it. Someone. (Anyone?) It's in Polemical Judo.

== Simple. Un-Redact! ==

ONE THING Biden's folk can do right now that will have aggressively political effects without seeming ostensibly aggressive will be to without much fanfare just UN-REDACT the MUELLER REPORT! Or rather, leave redacted only those parts that the intel community and prosecutors actually asked to have redacted. Let us all see the portions William Barr chose to exclude, in service to his  patrons!

In a terrific twist, this move would call attention exactly to the parts Barr wanted to hide. They would leap off every page. And prosecutors would be asked to think again about their redactions, too.

Time for this delayed-fuse bomb to go off. Now.

== The Russian Connection ==

An ex-KGB agent spills the beans about how early Trump was groomed for his role, as detailed in Craig Unger's American Kompromat. Though I yawn at how “of course” it all is. What’s more significant is how few defectors we get these days. Ex-KGB colonel Putin knew that was a fatal flaw in the old Cold War and he has systematically terrorized potential defectors and used agents like Trump to wreck our biggest draw... the moral high ground.

Robert Mueller - whose nitpicking to evade decisive results caused us so much frustration... while unleashing other prosecutors to charge and convict a myriad trumpists... said repeatedly that he would have charged Donald Trump, if he had not been president. Here he also says decisively that the Russians had plenty of material to blackmail Trump, even without a ‘pee tape” or the Deutsche Bank money laundering papers. 

== And political miscellany ==

A U.S.-bound caravan thwarted in Guatemala as pressure against migrants continues. 

One win-win aspect to Biden addressing immigrations problems would be simple. Go after the oppressive ruling elites and the criminal gangs in Honduras and other mafia states, who terrorize their people and turn many into refugees. Assisting local democracy activists to establish justice and rule-of-law would help make up for past US crimes in the region, it would burnish our rep, it would do tons of pragmatic good…. and it would dry up sources of refugees, thus luring some others of our own US neighbors out of their paranoid “MAGA” funk.

Amanda Gustafson wrote on my FB thread: “I recently learned that Fox News gets a big part of its funding by being part of cable channel bundles. What if a bunch of us reached out to our cable providers and said we don't want it as part of our bundle and that we do not want to pay for it? and that we will shift cable unless they take us seriously? what if Fox news was something that people had to pay extra for like the fringe it is?”

It’s not too soon for at least some of us to note the lineup that is forming for 2024, and there is zero doubt in this observer’s mind that Nikki Haley sees herself seizing the helm of the Republican Party, whatever the anointed prince-in-waiting – Paul Ryan – has to say about it.  

One of you observed that “totalitarianism in general is predicated on the assumption there's one born every minute - and I suspect we won't find the folks with whom the BS is originating putting up stakes.  In fact, I wouldn't be at all surprised if some of the folks in whatever constitutes the 'QAnon Core' have been making a bit of side money betting against their own prophecies.”  

And it’s all of a similar mindset overseas. Rob Atkinson offers a cogent comparison of Germany’s trade predation 1900-1945 to similar tactics being used today. The number of blatant overlaps makes for riveting reading. “In writing about Germany in 1941, Douglas Miller, former U.S. commercial attaché to Germany, could easily have been writing about China today: “We must get this straight once and for all: There is no such thing as having purely economic relations with the totalitarian states. Every business deal with them carries with it political, military, social, propaganda implications.” 

The economy has fared far better under Democrats. The gap, as one academic paper puts it, is “startlingly large.” A key element: Republican presidents over the past 40 years have pursued one economic policy above all other — tax cuts, skewed heavily toward the affluent — and there is little evidence that they do much for economic growth. Find it all here.

Future shock? Or inevitability? Plus making facts back into "things."

Before getting into other prophecies, first a word about the master. Alvin Toffler was among the greatest of all modern forecasters and author of FUTURE SHOCK. That best seller’s coming 50th anniversary inspired a new volume AFTER SHOCK, with inputs from some towering modern minds. (And my poor self, for comic/pity relief.)

Fascinating reading for those who believe there will be - or can be - a future. Pre-order for its February release.

Meanwhile, already available and causing ripples is my own recent volume about our current political crises and whether the patterns of 60 centuries can be broken, at last. Free chapters of Polemical Judo can be sampled here. Including the chapter on "end games," much of it coming true before your eyes.

== Who'd a thunk this in 2020?==
While it’s good news that Moscow Mitch was cornered into letting some funds - a fraction of what experts requested - go to increased election security, he made sure it was block grants to the states, which red-cheater states will likely just use to line pockets and to put lipstick on their process pigs, doing nothing to ensure paper receipts and audits, for example.
Meanwhile… Timing is everything. Nixon resigned just before impeachment so he could be pardoned. Now it appears too late for Trump, with it clear that Mike Pence would not be able to.  But Ol' Two Scoops probably figured “New York will come after me anyway. So let’s slug it out.”
Oh, while the news is filled with Ukraine and Russia, let me remind you how cleverly the "ex" communists surrounding Vlad Putin changed their "spots"... but not their goal of our demise.

== More on the "Russia thing ==

For 70 years, the Comintern/Politburo tried to suborn the American left, with only modest success among a few famously gullible saps. But within a few years after dropping the hammers and sickles and worker-rhetoric, they virtually took over American conservatism. Here’s a cogent article describing how it happened. The ease with which the Kremlin has suborned the U.S. right must have shocked even the “former” KGB agents and “ex” communist conspirators who still run the place, almost as much as it has appalls longtime rightist apologists like George F. Will.

According to Anne Applebaum (and her many sources) it has always been less about Russian/Soviet successes at governance (there were never any but a few) than about a good western trait that all-too often goes sour… our propensity to encourage vigorous self-criticism. This Hollywood-taught reflex to carp and point at errors is healthy! But it can be exploited by enemies, turned into sourpuss treason and, indeed, has been turned against us.

And while Applebaum’s essay lays out several plausible contributing factors, I have long asserted that only one thing can explain the tidal wave of inexplicable reversals and treasons by once respected conservatives like William Barr.
That reason is blackmail, a standard KGB operational tool that expanded under facilitation by folks like David Pecker and Jeffrey Epstein and aboard princely yachts. And I devote a chapter to it in Polemical Judo.

Seriously, read the Applebaum piece, especially for the hypocrisy of US rightist/foxite adoration of a Russia that “defends traditional values” ... while their suddenly adored Russia has double our abortion rates, double the divorce, STD, domestic violence and alcoholism rates of even Red America, and less than a quarter the rate of church attendance, with six times the muslim population percentage and one province that is actually ruled under Sharia Law. Yet last time I cited how a major, US-led Christian org recently met in Moscow and pleaded with the Kremlin to "save us from the West."

How blatant can it get? Russian media and oligarchs laughingly are open about Trump being “their man” and some even use the word “agent.” Rossiya TV talks about welcoming him when he goes into exile. “Should we get another apartment in Rostov ready?” said a top TASS pundit, referring to Viktor Yanukovych, former president of Ukraine, who was forced to flee to Russia in 2014 and settled in the city of Rostov-on-Don. Both Trump and Yanukovich were top clients of Paul Manafort, who was Trump’s campaign manager, now in prison, but still funneling memes and tactics to Mitch McConnell. This article is thorough, disturbing, and needs to be thrust under the nose of your patriot-in-denial who still watches Fox.

Hatred of Obama, H. Clinton and George Soros, for helping rob away “his” Ukrainian buffer state, led to Putin fulminations reminiscent of the final scene of the movie Downfall.

It's time to call Republicans the Putin shills they are, and make them blink with the accusation - easily supported - of "commie."

Oh yes, Christopher Walken had it right. You've got to hand it to them.

== The only thing that corners them ==

You all by now sigh when I bring this up. And to my knowledge I am shouting into the wind, as almost no member of the blue coalition to save the Enlightenment will ever try what blatantly works. But, again, here’s the response to right wing maniacs that always shuts them down.

Arguing with them seems futile. They writhe and distract and “whatabout” and hurl KGB-generated links…

... until you repeatedly demand money wagers!

At which point they flee, with “coward” the word chasing their lame “macho” asses. Top dismissing it with a shrug; actually try it! Here’s a script you can use, if you have the guts.

“Baloney. Let’s bet on it!. Deposit $5k in escrow with a reputable law firm so I’ll know I’m not wasting my time with another Kremlin-boy blabbermouth. If you’ve got the cojones to do that, like a man, then we can wager over some of this, like -

- whether there are any fact-centered professions your Fox/Putin cult is NOT waging war against, from scientists, teachers and journalists to a million dedicated civil servants and officers in the FBI, law, intel, foreign and military services who saved us from Hitler, Stalin and bin Laden, but who you now dismiss as “deep state” traitors, without one scintilla of real evidence...

. . . all the folks who can't afford to ignore blatant facts, like climate change and the GOP’s deliberate destruction of all of our alliances. All of them can also see that your confederacy has sold out to foreign enemies and mafia oligarchs. NAME AN EXCEPTION to your cult’s mad war against our strengths. Put up or shut up.

- Or whether the tidal wave of turpitude and lies in the GOP outweighs the Democrats by merely 20x… or 1000-fold. I’ll pay if it is merely 20x! But before you bet, maybe you should look up the ratio of convicted sex offenders and gruesome divorces in top GOP leadership posts across the last 30 years. Oh, what role models.

- $100 says you can’t find a top GOP or Fox person who has offered to help set up a truly neutral fact-checking service, to solve the “fake news” problem, once and for all. Instead of shrieking “fake news!” at anything they don’t like, why not help set up fact-checkers to either prove their case or help us out of this mess? Oh, right. Because facts are the top enemies of the New Right. Bet on it!

- The cities are dens of sin, right? Okay I’ll put down cash that Red States score far worse on almost any measure of moral living, from divorce and STDs to teen sex/pregnancy/disease, to gambling and domestic violence. To preaching endlessly how much more moral they are. Except for Utah. Decent folks there.

'- The best one: "Let's randomly pick ten from the list of 16,000 Trump lies. If any ONE of them is a proved, deliberate falsehood, you should be outraged. But I will pay off if it isn't MORE THAN THREE.

- The simplest bet: Ocean Acidification. Fox doesn't even try to deny it's happening, it's deadly and humans are causing it. Nail your redder with offers of proof! Get a glass of tapwater, a straw and two swimming pool test strips to prove CO2 turns water acidic. Offer to take the fool to a shore with a Ph meter, or to visit the local community college chem teacher. Watch him panic and run!

And these are just a few of so many wagers for redder cowards to flee-from. For lots more, see chapter 15 of Polemical Judo.

==There are so many you could use... and they will NEVER ante-up ==

Continuing the standard challenge: 

"If you were truly confident in the crazy things you ‘learn' from Fox, you’d be eager to bet and take MY money! But deep inside you know all that crap is a pile of magical incantations to make you feel good. And if you put real money on any of it, you’d lose your house. You are cultists in frantic denial that the US right - once represented by sages like Buckley and Goldwater - has gone insane.

'So go ahead. Deposit that $5k, Kremlin boys. Once you have, it will be worth my while to negotiate neutral parties to judge the bets and exactly which Fox incantation we’ll bet on. Of course you'll find excuses. You will squirm and wriggle. But “coward!” will follow you, all the way.

'Go ahead. Let’s bet over that, as well.'

The polemical power we don't use. Wagers and Exceptions!

Alas, we have poor generals. One thing that Dems and libs never seem capable of understanding is the importance of polemical technique, a skill displayed daily by the Kremlin/GRU, by Rupert Murdoch’s expert manipulator-shills, and by Donald Trump. Take for example the way that social media bots and Russian trolls have been spreading disinformation about vaccines on Twitter to create social discord and distribute malware.

As we speak, top officials of Facebook, Google and Twitter are testifying before Congress about their near helplessness before tsunamis of manipulative lies. Wringing hands, they explain that they are trapped between those lies and the accusations of bias and censorship that whirl, each time they try to cull away the worst of them. The most orwellian enemies of freedom will accuse them of acting as a "Ministry of Truth." 

There are countless ways to counter the oligarchy’s mastery of this manipulative art. But liberal or moderate pols and pundits – even neutral-minded or independent grownups -- seem obdurately incapable of even noticing how bad they are at it! 

Take the recent attempt by several dozen prominent news outlets to link arms and denounce Trump’s war against the profession of journalism, calling it "fake news" and an “enemy of the people.” Talk about falling for a blatant and obvious trap!

All right, you ask what methods might work? Let’s dial in here. 

Try to grasp the top Foxoid tactic.  When we trot forth a myriad facts, members of the alt-right cult deflect them with irrelevant anecdotes and assertions.  And, to your endlessly repeated blinking astonishment, it keeps working, as you stammer “But… but… I just showed you facts that…”

Look, I’m all in favor of enlisting facts as soldiers in this fight. Take my proposal for a twelve-part FACT ACT that a new Congress could enact, using neutral, competitive techniques that nimbly evade any accusations of “Ministry of Truth.” Good methods…if we ever had a Congress. 

But 99% of today’s confederates are already immunized against every such effort with magical incantations that have playground-level purity.

“Oh yeah? Well I say YOUR the liar!”

That’s all it takes. And fie on stupid dems/pundits for not realizing they need better tools of seriously pragmatic polemic! There are dozens, even hundreds of possible riffs that could work better than announcing “pants-on-fire” and “pinnocchios” or joint editorials that only reinforce the notion of a “Fake News" conspiratorial community. 

One trick, above all others, has real potential, and forgive me for repeating a point I’ve belabored ad nauseam:

Wagers. Bets. Dares. Challenges. Sure, we saw Mitt Romney try it, once, only to get shot down as a rich man trying to bully truth. So? There are ways to set up a bet that stand firm, in the face of deflections. 

The fact remains that a wager is still the one place where a good-old confed will admit the vital importance of objective reality — that factual evidence matters.

It may take care and experimentation. But this could be a chink through which ten thousand facts and truths might pour. It’s certainly worth more than one try

== How to counter the immunity against all facts ==

Again, demanding “put up or shut up” - with cash on the line - is the one realm where even a confederate admits that objective reality and facts still matter.  In confronting your neighbor or mad uncle (MU), you are free to pick any of the 7000+ outright Trumpian falsehoods listed by the Washington Post’s “Fact-Checker” Glenn Kessler. 

Start with giant howlers that offer your confed no wriggle room.  Like Donald Trump’s assertion that ice caps are “setting records” when photographic evidence shows that much of the world’s ice from the Alps to the Andes is melting amid global warming. As we saw after the “biggest inauguration, ever!", photography can be deflected, except in a wager.

Or demand that your mad uncle accompany you to the beach with a simple Ph meter and measure for himself ocean acidification. (It has only one possible cause: human-generated CO2, which is why Fox-heads quickly change the subject, instead of denying it.) When your MU shrugs and calls it an exaggeration or exception, answer “tell our grandchildren that!” And then demand he actually, actually pay the bar bet! Then corner him with another. Taking his money helps to make it all worthwhile!

See: "Greenhouse gases aren't just warming the planet. They're also acidifying our oceans."  

(The best example of a Fox-incantation and stunning intellectual dishonesty was the catechism of the right for decades that "There's been no warming for 15 years!" Then "There's been no warming for 16 years!" Then 17 years.  And I grew curious why so specific? If this one is tried on you… come to me.)

Choose carefully, and learn to recognize in advance wager matters that have any ambiguity, that leave any room for squirming. And remember how to phrase it: “You’re so sure of this crap that you’re willing to bet the lives of our planet and nation and children, but not a hundred bucks?”

Why bother? Because “Heaven rejoices at a sinner, redeemed.” Seriously, there is nothing more damaging to the Putin-Murdoch-Oligarch cabal than a wakened RASR (Residually Adult-Sane Republican.) If you waken one such “ostrich” enough for his head to lift out of sand-of-denial, that oasis of roused sanity and loyalty to America will infect and vaccinate others. 

(Lefties are fools to ignore this central fact about phase 8 of the American Civil War – that some of our neighbors are decent citizens who are clinging desperately to an obsolete loyalty, and can be talked -- some of them -- back into the light.)

== Devil in the details ==

Okay, okay. I hear the objection: "All the confederates I know will wriggle out of any wager with a million excuses!"

 I agree that any wagering system is unlikely to work at all with confed squirmers who, when they see they are being cornered by hated “facts” will fall back upon magical, murdochian incantations. But you can make it harder on them by saying:

1) “Let’s pick agreed-upon neutral parties who will adjudicate the terms of the bet, making its language clear, unambiguous, and in-advance what it will take for either side to win.

2) "Those 3rd parties will hold the stakes in advance, and distribute them according to agreed rules." 

If the confed you are cornering is a friend or relative, you can probably find a respected friend or relative.  If the red-reb is hostile, demand to talk to his lawyer, after $1000 has been deposited with said attorney. And it’s agreed that the loser pays all lawyer bills. And you can taunt -- 
"till I hear from your attorney, it is simply given that you do NOT believe the nonsense you've been howling at us. Because if you truly believed it, you'd be willing - eager! - to test them with facts and take... my... money! The fact that you are squirming and evading is the behavior of a coward and a liar. And till I hear from your lawyer, we'll leave that as the central, proved fact."

Dig it. Almost never does it reach the point of actual wagers. The hostile ones run away and hide. More importantly, the somewhat friendly, residually sane ones start squinting at the notion, at the outlines, and some of them start to get a dawning sense of realization, how far out a limb they have let themselves be drawn by the madmen and hypnotists on Fox. Before it gets to actual money on the table, they start to budge.

That is the actual objective! To be so confident, so sure that the facts support you, that you are the one pushing for a test, a trial, and they are the ones constantly squirming away.  If you can get an ostrich to realize this, then maybe… sometimes… often enough… one of them will lift his bleary head out of the insanity, blink, and rejoin civilization.

== Name an exception! ==

Another approach to wagers is challenging your RASR to Name An Exception!

This one is more sophisticated, but also more effective. Think about this, carefully, because it applies well beyond politics.

If I make a specific accusation, say about a particular crime, then the burden of proof is on me. Fair enough. 

But when I challenge you to disprove a General and Universal Accusation, well, it should be easy for you to do, by finding one exception. And hence, your failure to do so proves me right!

Not in a court of law. Indeed, if they can name exceptions, then the argument falls back under rules of preponderance of evidence. Any member of the Denialist Cult can cite weather examples that seem to violate global warming, hence it cannot be proved by Name an Exception, only by tediously showing the overwhelming factual basis for why 99% of scientists agree about climate change.

 But when a general accusation is very broad, and your opponent cannot name even one counter-example, it has profoundly effective import. Then the generality enters territory like “the sun always comes up at dawn,” or “a rock thrown in the air will always come down.”  

One counter-example – even one – will destroy the word “always.” 

But failure to cite any counter-example makes the “always” very powerful.  Especially when the assertion is in history or politics. Jiminy, almost everything in those fields has exceptions! If you can’t find even one….

== Use it in our political civil war ==

For the following general assertions, the burden of proof is on your conservative friend or MU to show how these six general accusations have any exceptions. Any at all! And if your RASR fails, then they are true. 

Moreover, if any of these cannot be refuted with even a single counter-example, then your opponent’s movement is not a political party, it is a dangerously insane and incompetent cult.

1-  Can you NAME ONE fact-centered profession of high knowledge and skill that’s not under attack by Fox/Trump &cohorts?  Teachers, medical doctors, journalists, civil servants, law professionals, economists, skilled labor, professors… oh, yes and science. Above all, science. Thirty years ago, 40% of U.S. scientists called themselves Republican, now it is 2% and plummeting. They are voting with their feet, the smartest, wisest, most logical and by far the most competitive humans our species ever produced. 

And now?  The FBI and law professionals plus the U.S. military and intelligence officer corps; all are dismissed as "deep state" enemies. Oh no, this is not your daddy's conservatism.  Name one exception.

2- NAME ONE major metric of U.S. national health that did better across the spans of GOP administrations, than across the spans of the Clinton and Obama admins.  Nearly all such metrics declined - many plummeting - across both Bush regimes.  Nearly all rose, many of them by a lot, across both DP terms. The record of almost perfect mal-governance would make any sane or scientific-minded person flee the GOP screaming and never trust them again. 

Clinton& Obama scored better in every sane conservative desideratum, including rate of change of deficits and military readiness!  The condition of our alliances. Small business startups. Entrepreneurship. Name one exception.

The next is a doozy.

3- NAME ONE MAJOR GOP LEADER between Reagan and Ryan who was even mentioned at the 2016 Republican Convention. Except for Newt, all were brushed under the rug, including both Bushes, Cheney, Rumsfeld, former House Speaker Dennis (friend to boys) Hastert, former GOP majority leader Tom (convicted felon) DeLay, former Speaker John Boehner.

In fact, name a republican top leader between EISENHOWER and Ryan who was even mentioned by the party at the RNC, other than Reagan and Newt! This shows how writhing ashamed Republicans are, of their record at governance.  And if you disavow those past Republican administrations as incompetent, Russia-hating, enterprise-destroying, warmongering liars, then where is your party’s credibility? Name one exception.

4- Name one of the DARK FANTASIES about Obama, from black UN helicopters to taking away all our guns, that happened or was even tepidly tried.  Indeed, after 25 years and half a billion dollars of Clinton Investigations… well… see number 6. Name one exception.

5- NAME ONE TIME WHEN SUPPLY SIDE (Voodoo) "Economics" made a successful prediction?  One? Ever?  One time when slashing taxes on the rich led to reduced deficits and to vastly stimulated economic activity, or even much investment in "supply" capital? Or increased money velocity or middle class health? Once. One time when this cult religion actually delivered?  Name one exception.

A related riff? When was “America Great”? I say it's great right now! While we’re sending probes past Pluto, and rovers across Mars, discovering thousands of planets across the galaxy, curing diseases, raising billions of children out of poverty around the world and so on, as we're inventing like mad, ending the insane Drug War, and creating generations who are vastly, vastly nicer and smarter than Baby Boomers. 

But sure. You fox-folks please tell us when you think it was all better!  The1950s? Run by the Greatest Generation… who adored FDR? They knew the dangers of oligarchy and passed many rules to control it. Rules like forbidding companies to waste money on stock buybacks, on which nearly all of the recent Trump Tax Cut was frittered away, without tangible investment in R&D or factories.

“Supply Side” is doing exactly what it was designed to do, stealing from the middle class that the Greatest Generation built and augmenting the oligarchy that great generation defeated. Every major retraction away from the Rooseveltean social contract resulted in lower growth, wider wealth disparity, lower money velocity, shorter commercial ROI horizons, declines in R&D and increasing dominance by a crazy MBA caste.

Name an exception!

6- Name one other time in American — or human — history, when an administration spanning 8 years had zero scandals or indictments concerning malfeasance in the performance of official duties. It has happened twice in American — or human — history. The administrations of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.  Name another!

You can’t. There was one four year U.S. administration that had no malfeasance-of-office scandals… that of Jimmy Carter.  (Yes, there were a few scandals outside that description, “malfeasance in the performance of official duties,” though fewer than any month of a Trump or Bush administration.)

Let’s be clear. The Reagan, Bush and Bush administrations looked hard for evidence, some smoking-gun, to pin on Carter, Clinton and Obama. When they owned every federal department and record, they held endless hearings, rifled every filing cabinet, sifted like crazy, wasting hundreds of millions looking for something — anything.  “W” ordered FBI agents away from counter terror duties to join this witch hunt, before 9/11… arguably treason that cost thousands of American lives.  And they found… nothing but a husband fibbing about some 3^rd base infidelity and a wife making the same email mistake as both Bushes, Colin Powell, Condi Rise and Jared Kushner.  

Howl away "lock her up!" But not a single Hannity-shouted accusation was ever, ever, ever proved. Not one, ever. In contrast, GOP administrations – all of them -- were rife with indictments, convictions and pardons.

7- Name a counter-example to the pure record of Republican damage to every single strength that won the Cold War. Almost every thing that bolstered us during that struggle is being systematically dismantled, from our alliances to science, from dedicated intelligence and law agencies to the moral high ground and the rule of law and the respect of the world.  There may be exceptions, though I know of none. Name one.

Oh, winning these bets takes you to the next bulwark of insane treason. Watch out for the last resort of the RASR, who admits: “I know my side is crazy and has done nothing right at all! I know everything they say is a lie and that all their outcomes were negative and they act like cranky 4 year olds. But… but… but liberals are just as bad or worse!!"

Treat it as another cause for a wager. (Admitting that the lib-side does have some stunningly awful lefty flakes.  Some.)

It still comes down to one thing. Take their money.

== Outcomes? ==

Okay, I’ve had limited success in my own wager demands. Generally, when I confront folks with these challenges, they shout “squirrel!” and point offstage at some assertion or distraction, concocting scenarios and excuses to explain why they cannot answer any of these… or dozens of other… challenges. 
Or else they run away. 

Still, there is one more riff you can hurl at their retreating, cowardly backsides.

When something happens relentlessly, systematically, and without recognized exception, it is time to invoke Goldfinger’s Rule:

Goldfinger’s Rule: 

“Once, Mr. Bond, may be happenstance. 

"Twice could be coincidence.

“Three times is enemy action.”

Satire, dares and wagers -- in a war against facts

== Laugh… because it hurts ==

The Onion can make you cry, when the humor is so on-target.

Har! If only! We are counting on the Supreme Court to save us. Which means the superhero Anthony Kennedy.

Study Finds First Life Forms Migrated To Earth Via Interplanetary Land Bridge.

And (faux but accurate) quoth Paul Ryan: “This Shooting Isn’t About Gun Control We Refuse To Pass, It’s About Access To Mental Health Care We’re Continuing To Gut.”

And in what should have been satire… So it turns out the one thing that Fox-ists had that was factual, offering any evidence at all that the Obama Administration was out to get them, was a chimera, after all. After multiple investigations, inspectors found as many liberal-leaning groups were targeted for IRS attention as conservative ones. All the rest was paranoid fantasy, like black helicopters and lib’tards coming for yer guns.  

== ...and hence, today's theme is... ==

Demand wagers! See the latest hysterical conspiracy theory, that this Saturday all the liberals will secretly, and in perfect-competent unison, pounce  on all American conservatives, in a Night of the Long Knives. Say... wha...?

There is only one way to defeat conspiracy-addict loons. Not one dire prediction about Obama's concentration camps for white people, run by UN black helicopters spraying alien-vegan contrail tofu while confiscating all the guns ever came true, even symbolically: hundreds of thousands of ravings! Sure, pointing that out only stokes their hatred of all facts and fact-people. But there is one method I've found: demand wagers! These confeds make bar-room bets all the time. It is the last place where they admit facts do matter.

"If you're so sure of your latest fantasy, and willing to torch the nation over your certainty, then put money down! Collect MY money when Alex Jones proves right! About anything. Ever!" 

These good ol' boys have a name for a coward who yowls utter certainty, but shrinks back from putting money on it. And a worse name for someone who doesn't pay up.

Watch and laugh as your crazy uncle scuttles back and finds excuses. Oh sure, you won't make any money, but ... his wife is listening, quietly. And your aunt has a vote.

I'll get back to this theme, below... but first....

== Examples ==

Masha Gessen’s latest book about Vladimir Putin’s Russia: “The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia,” is ambitious, timely, insightful and unsparing. See it reviewed in The Washington Post.

Trump To Values Voters: In America 'We Don't Worship Government, We Worship God'

Um, maybe. But when it comes to governance, you worship inherited plutocracy. No GOP policy doesn't serve the modern plantation lords.  

What the founding fathers actually meant... An interesting, though certainly political, look at what gun laws were like in England and the American colonies and early in the republic. Claims of historical justification for “stand your ground” and open or concealed carry are, at-best, highly flawed.

Struggling to keep offering rationalizations for a shattering conservative alliance, the Worst Man in America keeps at it. “Democrats are the real abortion extremists.” Catering to the Confederate need for anecdotes and symbolism, and hatred of facts or statistics, George F. Will helps to maintain the outright lie that Democrats and liberals and leftists and all that mélange are as dogmatic, purist and crazy as conservatives have become. But he knows that’s not true. For every anecdotal far-lefty crazy (and I freely avow there are enough to leave a noxious stink) there are hundreds of moderate and reasonable American fact-loving pragmatists who know that protecting abortion rights should be accompanied by concerted efforts at education and health that will make abortion rare.

== Dares and wagers! ==

Okay so back to today's topic. Jiminy.  Donald Trump raves about his “high IQ” 22 times. Please, oh I dare you to submit to a test set by neutral parties and not a sycophant. In fact, where is the Trump opponent who consistently maintains an “I dare you!” site?  

Oh, you shills for oligarchs and New Feudal Lords… all you have is anecdotes, anecdotes, anecdotes, anecdotes, anecdotes, anecdotes, anecdotes, anecdotes, anecdotes, anecdotes, anecdotes, anecdotes, anecdotes, anecdotes, anecdotes, and more anecdotes.

Now let's try statistics and facts. Name for me one unambiguous statistical metric of U.S. national or economic or middle class or even military health that could be both attributed to GOP policies and that markedly improved across the spans of either Bush administration.  One... at all. Nearly all such metrics plummeted - and steeply - across the span of both Bushite regimes.

More than half of such metrics improved - especially for the middle class, but also all economic measures and yes, military readiness - under Clinton and Obama. These are hard outcomes, not anecdotes, and outcomes should matter to pragmatic adults. Outcomes like small business startups, entrepreneurship and other health signs of capitalism that ALWAYS plummet under GOP rule. Also military readiness, which was 100% for all units under Clinton and plummeted to 0% under Bush and is now back above 50%.

Conservatives should care about all of those things.  One sign of a rigid mind is to ignore facts and outcomes in favor of dogma.

As your first wager, demand that your crazy uncle name one exception. One  fact using professions not warred upon by the Fox cult. A list that ranges from scientists, teachers, journalists, doctors, civil servants etc... now all the way to the FBI, Intelligence agencies and other "deep state" enemies of the confederacy, including the US military officer corps. Have him name one exception.  Dare  him to name one!

One. Even one.  Just one.

== International ==

Reports The Guardian: “Saudi authorities have taken an “unprecedented” step to tackle Islamic extremism by setting up a council of scholars to vet religious teachings around the world.”  
   Yeah?  I’ll believe it when your textbooks for children aren’t state secrets, because of all the “death to Jews and infidels” stuff therein. When the madrassas you finance around the world stop preaching hatred. When radicals like ISIS and Taliban stop importing Saudi textbooks for their own schools, scratching out and replacing just a few paragraphs here and there supporting the monarchy, but accepting the baseline Wahabbism as paramount. And when you stop waging war against America and its values through your well-paid shills and politicians on the US right.

Putin says Americans should not disrespect Trump: "the president of the United States does not need any advice because one has to possess certain talent and go through this trial to be elected, even without having the experience of such big administrative work."

==  The war on expertise and knowledge and facts ==

I'll repeat till I am blue in the face. This is the one issue they cannot evade! Their all out war on all folks who know stuff.

“There has always been a disturbing strand of anti-intellectualism in American life… but never has an occupant of the White House exhibited such a toxic mix of ignorance and mendacity, such lack of intellectual curiosity and disregard for rigorous analysis (despite his untested boast that his IQ is “one of the highest,” certainly higher than Obama’s and a host of other worthies’).” writes Ariel Dorfman in Trump's War on Knowledge.

“The experts are terrible,” Donald Trump said during his campaign. “Look at the mess we’re in with all these experts that we have.” … except, that it’s another lie. Almost every measure of national and international health, peace, prosperity etc has improved and guess what, the folks who know stuff actually know stuff.

Yes, America’s lower middle class has felt things slip. But the villains are the Rupert Murdochs, Robert Mercers and Donald Trumps who are rebuilding feudalism. Read this article! 

Then parse the right’s central mythos! It goes like this:

We all know that: "Just because someone is smart and knows a lot, that doesn't automatically make them wise."

But after 25 years of Fox hypnosis, this true statement has been twisted into something cancerous:

"Any and all people who are smart and know a lot, are therefore automatically unwise."

I am astonished it’s not been clearly and openly elucidated. The first statement is true. The second - jibbering loony - is now a core catechism of the confederacy.

== for more on the war against fact users... ==

See Tom Nichols: The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters.

Of course, blatantly, the average person who has studied earnestly and tried to understand is wiser (again, on AVERAGE) than those who deliberately chose to remain incurious and ignorant. When cornered, even the most vehement alt-righter admits that. But cornering them takes effort.

Hatred of universities and people with knowledge and skill now extends from the war on science to journalism, teaching, medicine, economics, civil servants… and lately the “deep state” conspiring villains of the FBI, the intelligence agencies and the U.S. military officer corps.

This bedlam serves one purpose, to discredit any “elites” who might stand in the way of a return to feudalism by the super rich, which was the pattern of 6000 years that America rebelled against. The Confederacy has always been a tool to restore feudalism. only this time it has done what it could not do in the 1860s. Taken Washington.

Trump is not the disease, he is a surface symptom.

Concluding this section… I wouldn’t put things the way my dear friend Harlan Ellison puts it, below. In fact, I never put things the way Harlan does. No adult would. But his brilliance is always at work:

“I have to admit to being an elitist, I'm sorry. You know, one of the few things you can be arrested for is being an elitist. You can run around the street saying God is dead, and people won't like you, but you're not going to be hated. You can preach the violent overthrow of McDonald's and you'll get away with it, but all you have to say is that, in fact, there are some people who are better than others, and it has nothing to do with race or ethnic background or color or anything like that. What it has to do with is who's got the brains.”

--Harlan Ellison

Just so we’re clear… The UK Brexit campaign was also a war on expertise.

== The Fact-Compiler ==

Plop your beloved confederate aunt and uncle down before a TV and have them sit through a complete Rachel Maddow segment. Promise you’ll sit through an equivalent amount of Hannity! And compare the ratio of lies. Pick and choose. Maddow is always cogent and fact-filled, but once a week or so, she absolutely kills. In this one (October 19) she connects the dots showing one reason why four American soldiers died in Niger, and why then the President strenuously ignored and then distracted from it. And yes, it is worse than Benghazi.

Only when Maddow calls the precipitating event "inexplicable," consider that most decisions made by this administration have an explicable root... orders from Moscow.