The President Pence Gambit is now openly discussed. And doubling down on insanity

The cycle time for my sci fi forecasts becoming reality keeps getting shorter. See below, how the GOP lords are now openly calling for a scenario to impeach a President Trump and install Mike Pence, exactly as I described.

First...

In an earlier political blog, I showed how those states that have invested in infrastructure, universities and people have vastly outperformed those slashing taxes and services according to Supply Side Voodoo “Economics” (SSVE) theory. Now yet more for the mountain of evidence. Across the nation in August, employers added  151,000 new jobs, meaning that California accounted for 42% of all U.S.job growth with 63,100 jobs. 

Meanwhile the vigorous-moderate California state legislature has been busier than any other session, passing adjustments to archaic laws and helping the state adapt to the 21st century… all the while consulting closely with citizen groups and companies, negotiating compromises under the most open and transparent politics in the country…

…exactly opposite behavior to the Paul Ryan-led US Congress, which has been the laziest in 150 years, unable once since 2010 to even pass a budget. Once. Perfectly happy to leave in place every obsolete code from the 20th Century. Hardly holding any hearings that weren't about Clintons. And never de-regulating a single thing.

Contrast booming California to the archetype, gerrymandered and GOP-run Red State… Kansas. Where they have doubled down on SSVE because slashing taxes on the rich ought to result in greater tax revenues. Right? It ought to work THIS time. Right?

Donald Trump says that his tax cut would cost $4.4 trillion over 10 years, including the childcare plan he announced this week. But he proclaims the cost would be compensated by economic growth. 

Oh. That voodoo again? Does anyone recall Scotty saying “Fool me once; shame on you. Fool me ninety times? Shame on me.”

That is about how often “supply side economics” has been pulled on us by the party of oligarchs, crooning the mantra that slashing taxes on the rich will induce moguls to then invest it all in productive plants and equipment, increasing “supply” so much that the resulting boom will reduce deficits.  The forecast never came true.  Ever.  Even once across 30 years of relentlessly repeated experiments, including the recent spectacular fiscal melt-down in Kansas.  To repeat, SSVE has never had one successful outcomes prediction. Once.  Ever. Yet they double down again and again. Proving what they say about insanity.

  
== Fleeing rats? ==

Below, I will re-describe the gambit being pondered by the topmost GOP leaders. Meanwhile, a swarm of Republicans are ditching Trump... with suspicious correlation to how tight their re-election races happen to be.  As explained by Paul Krugman:

"The probability of a House Republican jumping off the Trump train is strongly related to the Obama share of a district’s vote in 2012. That is, Republicans in competitive districts are outraged by Mr. Trump’s behavior; those in safe seats seem oddly indifferent."

Krugman's appraisal of moral hypocrisy is stinging and on-target. He lists a long series of sexual predator politicians from Hastert to Foley to Ailes, and asks: "Why do all these stories involve Republicans? One answer may be structural. The G.O.P. is, or was until this election, a monolithic, hierarchical institution, in which powerful men could cover up their sins much better than they could in the far looser Democratic coalition.
There is also, I’d suggest, an underlying cynicism that pervades the Republican elite. "

I'm not sure I'd go that far.  Yes Bill Clinton and Anthony Weiner engaged in more consensual, less predatory misbehaviors. Still, there seems to be a bit of a problem with men.  Maybe time to take a break from one at the top.  See my assessment of the second presidential debate.

== And we’re supposed to be impressed? ==

They're baaaaack! The two worst (by far) presidents of the 20th Century. The only living ex-presidents not to even be *mentioned* by name at their own party's recent convention. Presidents whose outcomes across their terms were so universally bad for the nation that historians scratch their heads for a comparison. (Also never mentioned by today's GOP, the words: Cheney, Rumsfeld, (pervert) Hastert, (felon) DeLay, (pervert) Ailes, Boehner and McConnell... what kind of party is so ashamed, with such good reason, that it veers for Trump, thinking: "well, at least he's not like the other leaders we keep choosing!" 

To call Donald Trump a break from that tradition is iffy.  Sure, he expresses the contempt the confederate masses rightfully feel toward the Bush-Cheney-Murdoch-Ailes cabal that so betrayed them. But his behavior is just an extension – a multiplication – of the Fox-Limbaugh ethos. “If my side does anything it is automatically fine, and it’s good to make up things to hate the other side for, out of thin air!”

Though I admit that the following news made me (briefly) consider dropping Hillary Clinton - till I recalled the guilt-by-association should be limited:  Former Republican president George H.W. Bush plans to vote for Democrat Hillary Clinton in November rather than his party’s presidential nominee, according to a family friend. 

To be clear, I deem Bush Senior to be the worst US president of the 20th Century, having done America and the world relentless harm. Even worse than his catastrophic son. No wonder there was no mention of either Bush, or Cheney, Hastert, DeLay or any GOP leader between Reagan and Ryan, at the recent RNC. Still, without a doubt, Trump would eclipse them both.  

So will Reince Priebus “punish” the elder Bush for this betrayal? “The head of the Republican Party suggested that he might punish the fellow 2016 presidential candidates who don't support Donald Trump.” In a sense it is easy to see his problem. First, his initials are the same as Republican Party, so maybe he feels entitled. 

Second, for 25 years the GOP was the most tightly disciplined partisan force in US history. Any talking point issued by Roget Ailes had to be repeated within 48 hours by every Republican office holder or Fox would punish them. Even organize a primary challenge against them.  Now that Ailes is exposed as a sexual pervert-predator and GOP cohesion seems shattered, the party elders are still rallying their media empires to try reinforcing that old discipline.

Shatter it.

== Finally, what I hope will remain a sci fi scenario ==

On Quora someone asked… “What will happen if Trump becomes President?"

First thing out the gate? Revenge, that will be Donald Trump’s first priority, if he is ever sworn into the presidency. Against every slight he imagines that he ever suffered.  Um duh?

(Late breaking examples! His threats against disloyal Republican office holders and his debate-vow to send prosecutors after Hillary Clinton, the moment he's in office.) 

Beyond that, once in office he will scurry to find allies - including some liberal ones — because of one big problem that he has. It outweighs every other consideration.

That problem is Mike Pence.

Pence was Trump’s olive branch to both the GOP establishment and the very far-right culture warriors. In theory, it could keep them calm and loyal enough to get the ticket elected. But in picking someone acceptable to the establishment, he made a huge mistake.

Because Pence is a hack and trivially controllable by the Murdoch-Koch-Saudi masters of the GOP. And he is beloved by the fundies. With him as figurehead, they might rebuild the Bushite Cabal.

This means Mike Pence is impeachment bait. And though it seemed science fiction when I first mentioned this, right during the Rebublican convention, the scenario is now being offered up in Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal - I kid you not. It's simple. A win-win for Rupert.

The very instant that President Donald Trump commits some over-the-top public relations calamity - and it will happen swiftly, as he reflexively seeks revenge for past slights - Paul Ryan will be out there making deals! Ryan & Murdoch will count on Democrats to scream for Trump’s head, while the Speaker deftly makes his move.

As Democrats foolishly fall for the trap, McConnell and Ryan will provide JUST enough Republican votes to carry a Bill of Impeachment, then Trump’s conviction and removal —

—leaving Mike Pence in the White House, puppeted by Murdoch and the Bushites. What about all the angry Trump supporters? Those Fox-Watchers will be diverted to froth hate and blame for Trump’s ouster on Democrats!

Not only is this a possible scenario… it is the only possible scenario, should Donald Trump get into office. Seriously, do you think that anything else is even plausible?

He shoulda picked Gingrich.

== Think it through ==

This scenario has an even deeper purpose. Yes, it offers the Murdoch-Bushite-Romney lords a way out, if Trump wins. It also offers them a rationalization to offer the myriad rats... um, defectors... bolting from the GOP. It's their way of saying: "Come back and help get out the vote for down ticket races. Because even if Trump wins, it won't be for long!"

Donald, you are boned. Better take your revenge on those lords now, before the election.

  

POST DEBATE EXTRA - She won, yet I'm bummed

I am so bummed. Oh, sure, she dealt with him pretty well personally, including his huge self-indulgence promising a special prosecutor against her, if he's elected. (24 years and half a billion dollars in investigations and you guys still got nothing.)

Still, she left standing every one of his doom-gloom lies about the state of the nation. For example, assertions that:

- The EPA is killing energy companies.
- Health care costs are rising at the fastest rates ever.
- Manufacturing is in decline. 
- Crime is at its worst.
- Isis is an existential threat worth allying ourselves with Assad and Russia and Iran.

All of these are lies of such stunning magnitude - diametrically opposite to all facts - that she could have sent viewers to a neutral site -- instead of ludicrously suggesting HillaryClinton.com! To leave standing the right's all-out assault on American self-confidence is - itself - an act of betrayal.

In fact:

- Old-dinosaur carbon companies are in trouble because the U.S. has discovered so much oil and gas that we are now energy independent again, for the first time since the 1960s, allowing us to stop catering to petro princes in the Middle East. This plus the vast progress made in solar and sustainables have us in better shape than ever... except for those dinosaurs. 

... and the price of gas is half of what it was under GW Bush. So is the cost of a rooftop of solar panels. And US car companies are thriving under far better mileage standards and quality.

- Health care costs are NOT rising at the fastest rates ever. Since Obamacare, what was a disaster has become a mere irritant. What had been a skyrocket in health costs has slowed down to only slightly above inflation. It is a huge victory! Even though, in fact, Obamacare (which was originally the GOP's own plan) should be replaced with something simpler ASAP... once we get a sane Congress.

(By the way, no Canadian would trade their health system for ours - pre or post Obamacare. Not one. Watch. If we get a sane Congress, the first move will be simple: put all children on Medicare.)

- Manufacturing is NOT in decline. Spurred by cheap natural gas and good policies and new tech, manufacturing in the U.S. is rapidly rising. Why Clinton did not brag about the longest period in U.S. history without a recession, with major job growth the entire time since Obama took office, is beyond me.

Yes, the middle class and jobs would be far healthier if Congress passed the decade delayed Infrastructure Bill that has been entirely blocked by the Republican Party. Let me get back to that.

- Crime is at its worst? Another towering Trump lie. There have been small upticks this year, in a few cities, after 30 years of steady declines in crime in the U.S. Declines that were even faster across most of the Obama Administration. In fact Americans have never been - on average - more safe.

- Then there's this Trumpism. 'Isis is an existential threat worth allying ourselves with Assad and Russia and Iran.' What wimps! Americans have suffered almost no casualties per capita from those incompetent wretches. We must fight them and stop them - and it is happening without U.S. casualties, a switch from GOP ways to doing war. Nevertheless, panic is for losers.

SIDE NOTE: Notice how Trump went on and on about Mosul? Did you remark on that? Why did he do that? 

I suspect it is because he has had security briefings and now believes Mosul will fall to Iraqi forces soon! He does not want this to be an October Surprise to make the Democrats look good. Hence, he prepped the way for his response when Mosul falls, concocting a story that, by telegraphing the attack, our side allowed the ISIS leaders to "slip away."

The nerve! You don't 'sneak up' to a major city. You surround it and take the neighboring countryside. If there weren't a single news report, ISIS would know they were surrounded and doomed in Mosul. He knows his talking point to be fabulation. (And so does the military officer corps, so why doesn't HC speak of the far greater numbers of retired officers supporting her?) Moreover, for any Republican to accuse Clinton or Obama of letting the Jihadist leadership get away is hilarious! Beyond bin-Laden, they have snuffed almost a hundred major jihadist leaders, compared to the Bushite score of .... zero. (Though in fairness, vastly more Americans died under the Bushes.)

But there you get to my biggest complaint. She hardly mentioned the words "republican" or 'Congress' or "Bush." Or the fact that not a single GOP leader between Reagan and Ryan was even mentioned during the recent RNC, out of shame over twenty wretched, accomplishment-free, harm-doing, America-undermining leaders like both Bushes, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Dennis-pervert-Hastert, Tom-convicted-felon-DeLay and Roger-Sexual-predator-Ailes.

Indeed, DT himself disavows one of GW Bush's only two accomplishments... the Iraq War. Now if only he'd also drop Supply Side voodoo.

No, I cannot begin to measure my fury at HC's advisers. Yes, she seemed to have dealt with Bill Clinton's sexual past in a way that worked, by simply blowing past and ignoring DT's attempts to get a rise. I'd have preferred to get a couple sentences out of her, like: "This is you and me now, Donald."

But the thing I cannot comprehend is her refusal to make an issue of Congress. The public despises Congress! And for good reason. She could say that for 20 of the last 22 years it has been the laziest in U.S. history, seldom in session, holding hardly any hearings that did not involve Hillary Clinton, and blocking almost every effort to adapt to 21st Century problems. The word "lazy" would judo outside the normal left-right divide and she could slip in that those were years of GOP control.

She must do this! HC is acting as if winning the presidency is everything. It's not! Without a Congress, she'll be almost impotent and we'll be stuck with years and years of hell, with Paul Ryan both blocking her every move and sitting there 2nd in line to the presidency.

She could tell Republicans... "Hey, take your lickings in Congress now, and come back in two years with better GOP candidates who negotiate like adults." But for now? Well...

...Donald Trump is not a temporary 'disease' on conservatism. He is a symptom of a deeper aliment inflicted on U.S. conservatism and the Republican Party and America foremost by one man --

-- by Roger Ailes. Whose similarity to Donald Trump in all ways is no accident.

---

PS... I left out how she should mention the War on Science and all other knowledge professions. 

Or how desperately urgent it is to dare DT to help name a commission to do both fact checking and look into his accusations of election stealing.  

If his "election stealing" gambit is left standing un-refuted, then we are in for a tsunami of Timothy McVeighs, after November.  So please Hillary Clinton, grab this one by the horns.

New Sci Fi media and messages and... fun?

Traditionally, I try to avoid politics on the weekend and focus instead on much less disgusting goings on... like dystopias, apocalypses and science fiction! Still, we're in a sci fi world right now... Robert Heinlein predicted the "Crazy Years" and we've been spiraling into something truly weird.

So tune in at the end of this posting for what I am hoping, for this Sunday's U.S. Presidential Debate.

For now, though -- sci fi!

ASU’s Imagination and Climate Futures Initiative just published Everything Change: An Anthology of Climate Fiction: a free digital collection featuring 12 stories from ASU's global Climate Fiction Short Story Contest. The book includes a foreword by Kim Stanley Robinson (the lead judge for the contest) and an interview with Paolo Bacigalupi. Free to download.

How about the new Star Trek? Sure, I have some disagreements with the J.J. Abrams conceptual reboot… but it’s still way cool stuff.  Frankly, we need the ambiance and underlying assumptions of Trek… that our children might – conceivably – be better than us.  It’s what we want. Yet the gloom and stupidity industries (Hollywood) seem to think you cannot tell a story that will sell tickets, if you let even a glimmer of hope raise its head.  See where I appraised this in my published piece on Trek…

See this speculation about how Game of Thrones will end leaves out one factor… that George R. R. Martin has been trying hard to show readers and viewers how bloody awful feudalism is! Okay, so none of you got that.  Wallow in the blood and oppression and infantile behavior and extremes of human nastiness while rooting for the marginally less-nasty!

But maybe, just maybe, the underdog common folk may have the last say.

== Rant-mode on! ==

 It may surprise you, given that I deem Yoda to be the most evil character ever, in the history all versions and forms of human storytelling... but I have no objections to his appearing in Episode 8 of Star Wars. After all, he lied to Luke endlessly about everything, so why not about "dying"? 

Poor Luke is an okay dude but a very dim bulb and on Dagobah he fell for the old Jedi "death fade-away" trick, which the vile green oven mitt pulled, just when Luke was ready to demand some answers!

Yes, yes, Mr. Abrams - while an absolute genius with characters - seems unable to imagine an original plot. He portrays Luke's new Jedi destroyed in exactly the same way that the original Jedi were. (Did I mention Luke is dim?) Luke then (The Force Awakens, Episode 7) goes on to precisely repeat Yoda's and Obiwan's cowardly actions - hiding away from the world, instead of trying to fix your own mistakes.

Only, if you actually think Yoda is anything but flat out super-Hitler, actually try sometimes tabulating the tens of billions of deaths he caused. And please, please come up with one... even one... genuinely wise and helpful thing the gnasty gnome ever really says.

He senses Anekin may be dangerous, yet foists him off to be trained by the most inexperienced master. He over-rules Mace every time Windoo says "let's tell the Republic what's going on!" Never once does he do his duty to the republic. 

There is zero reason to believe that the super smart gene crafters of Planet Kamino weren't telling the truth when they say that Yoda ordered up the clone army. Lucas doesn't even TRY to offer an alternative explanation. After all, who takes delivery of the clone army? Yoda!

When does he take delivery? Before he goes and orders all the Jedi into a suicide charge that kills 2/3 of them. He conveniently arrives with the clones JUST in time for that slaughter to be almost done.

Are you freaking kidding me? You noticed none of that? Yoda "dies" conveniently at the very instant when his dupe, poor Luke, is ready to look him in the eye and demand answers? W... T... F?

See this explored in more detail in Star Wars on Trial. I am giving you the tip of the iceberg, here.

The challenge stands. ONE genuinely wise and helpful thing that the little monster says. One. One. Offer up one.

Instead you have shit like "there is no try." Ooooooooooog

== a better Jedi ==

 Ursula LeGuin is deservedly praised as a giant of American letters. I also learned important things when I took a class from her, in grad school.  I am glad she has been receiving waves of commendation and recognition, almost-annually, all across the 21^st Century. (See her latest: The Complete Orsinia.) 

Still, LeGuin also represents the purest archetype of a literary maven who was given everything by science fiction – the liberty to express and develop a vast range of notions, ideas and thought experiments – and who was treated with respect by her SF peers and readers long, long before any discovery by the doyens of erudition... who has thereupon taken relentless pains to kick aside and spurn her first and most-generous love. From The New York Times: Le Guin has earned a rare honor. Just don't call her a Sci Fi writer. 

Oh, it is a fairly typical pattern. Kurt Vonnegut did it, as has Margaret Atwood, though both amended their disparagements at times, when brain and blood surged with that rare but precious trait called gratitude.  Heck, even Harlan Ellison gave in to the temptation, across a stretch of years when sycophants did what sycophants do – urging him to drop the pejoratively “career harmful” Science Fiction label. A harm that only happens because so many titans of exploratory fiction listened to the devil on their shoulders.

Fortunately, that era is passing. The best and brightest of a new generation – e.g. Paolo Bacigalupi, Michael Chabon, and Neil Gaiman  -- want no part of nasty ingratitude.  All refuse every invitation to re-name their writings “magic realism” or any other shill-concoction. They openly and proudly say: “I write science fiction; live with it.”  And the effects are starting to show.

Oh, it is still a very rare university lit or English department that promotes its science fiction lecturer with tenure. Hatred of SF – ironically the boldest and most-American of all genres – is still bilious and venom-drenched in those sections of campus.  But in New York literary circles, there’s been real movement. 

For example, The Atlantic, New Yorker and Harpers used to trade off a cycle of running hit pieces, savagely dissing SF, every 5 years or so. That cycle is shattered now, replaced by excellent survey articles by very with-it reviewers, every year.   

In other words, there is no longer even a fig leaf reason to perform rituals of churlish ingratitude toward the audacious genre of Mary Shelley, H.G. Wells, Huxley, Butler and Kress.

It’s a habit. And it is never too late to outgrow such childish things.

...At the HIGH end!... 

Seth Rogen and partners are preparing a pilot for a TV series about… the Singularity.  Got some funny ideas on that.

Hip-hop scifi? Gift of Gab and Blackalicious, especially their excellent pop-rap song “Powers,” which is joyful and stunningly original. Follow Gift of Gab over to The Mighty Underdogs doing “Droppin’ Science Fiction!” Sci-fi rap!  Seriously!

Let’s add to my list of sci fi comics Star Power, which appears to have a more uplifting motif and sensibility. The sort of attitude we need more of, these days. 

... and finally... yes... the crazy (political) year...

Hillary Clinton seems determined to obey advisers, who urge her to fight Donald Trump using political "Sumo"... grunting and shoving for margins of undecideds over this or that exchange of insults or tax returns.  It is a bloody awful mistake.  

Oh sure... fight those fights.  But only doing that is exactly why Tim Kaine did badly, last week. What would work better is Judo!

I've offered riff after riff that could be effective.  But all of them depend on HC wanting to win the OVERALL election. Which means taking back what was once the greatest deliberative body on the planet from monsters who have turned the U.S. Congress into the laziest, most dogmatic and worthless in US history.  

What? Does she want to accomplish anything? Or is she content to commence 4 years of pure hell, the moment she enters office?

In the first debate, she used the word "Republican" just once! Coached to try to win over marginal republicans, she has played nice to a party that has become a travesty. How about actually taking this seriously?

-  Cite Reagan!  He famously said "The Democratic Party left me." Brilliant.  So USE THAT! Say "the Republican Party has left you, abandoned you to cozy up to oligarchs and ONLY oligarchs."

- Point out that no GOP leader between Reagan and Ryan was even mentioned during the recent RNC.*  Bush, Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Hastert, Ailes... a long list of which the party is clearly ashamed, helping propel the Trump insurrection. And do not be afraid to mention the Bushes. You do not need their "support."

- Use the word LAZY to describe a Congress that almost never meets, passes no budgets, hates science, and avoids hearings about things that matter.  Lazy goes straight to character, bypassing typical divides. And it applies to republicans.

- Demand Trump appoint 5 distinguished conservatives to a commission to (1) check on accusations of election cheating AND (2) to supervise a trusted fact-checking service. With 5 democrats and 5 appointed by (say) Sandra Day O'Conner. Demand he name these sages THIS WEEK!  Or else admit he was bluffing.

- Lots of republicans dismiss Trump as a temporary disease-aberration. He is a symptom. Portray him as the natal outcome of Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes's takeover of US conservatism.

- Most metrics of US national health do far better across democratic administrations, even military readiness and the curve of change in deficits, which accelerate under republicans and slow down under democrats. And we'd be father along if the GOP congresses had passed the damn infrastructure bill.  Folks can understand this. 

- List the professions that Fox & pals attack! Not just science, teaching, journalism, medicine, economics… but all of them. Dare DT to name an exception.

Enough.  I got a million of them. But she's not reading this.  Nor are any of her stodgy, unimaginative and dismally-sumo-obsessed advisers.  All we can do is hope for the best.

=====
* Okay, Newt Gingrich got some time at the RNC. But think that one through. 

Politics not as usual - the crazy preference for "divided government"

Median income in the U.S. rose at its fastest rate last year while inequality shrank. What’s more, the income gains were larger for the poor and middle-class than for the wealthy, thus cutting into inequality. In addition, the poverty rate fell by 1.2 percentage points, the steepest decline since 1968. There were 43.1 million Americans in poverty this year, 3.5 million fewer than in 2014. The share of Americans who lack health insurance continued a years-long decline, falling 1.3 percentage points, to 9.1 percent.

This anchors in what has been utterly universal. Every major metric of U.S. national health improves across the span of democratic administrations. and almost all decline across Republican ones. Across the board, including deficits! Anyone who cares about actual outcomes would never trust the GOP with a burnt match.

Especially since this rapid rise should have happened 4+ years ago, had the GOP-run Congress passed the Infrastructure Bill, repairing our corroding bridges and roads, injecting high velocity cash into our sluggish money supply. (Supply Side tax cuts for the rich have only inflated asset bubbles while widening disparity, actually slowing money velocity.)

In fact, it is less the federal-level democrats than state level ones who should brag. Stymied by Congressional GOP blockage, blue states have been doing Keynsian stimulus and infrastructure investing - and it's working, as they surge in every way ahead of red states like Kansas, which keep doubling-down on Supply Side voodoo. This answers the key question posed by the CSMonitor article, as to why rural folk are lagging.

Seriously, compare outcomes! That is what they never, ever want you to do - the incantation-pushers at Fox and Breitbart. It is why they wage war on every knowledge and fact based profession. (Name an exception.) Especially science. It's why fact-checking their candidates feels so futile. Nevertheless, see my analysis of: Fact-checking the First Presidential Debate.

== Let's Bribe Trump to release his taxes! ==

A 26 year old Marine Corps veteran started a campaign on CrowdPac to raise money - to be donated to ten veteran's groups - if Trump releases his tax returns by the final debate on Oct. 19. Entrepreneur Reid Hoffman (co-founder of LinkedIn) made a $5 million matching pledge, bringing the total over $6 million for this CrowdPac campaign. This is an excellent example of citizen involvement. Wage this phase of our Civil War with wagers!

Demand they back up the spectacularly, actinically insane things they assert and believe - from 'Obama's a Kenyan Muslim' to 'no climate change' to 'the GOP is fiscally responsible and governs well' - and put money on it! Find a trustworthy person to hold the stakes. Watch how they run, and change the subject.

== Worst Congress in US History: Hint - it's the party ==

Oh, but let's get back to Americans' least favorite institution. After years of scaffolding and refurbishment, the US Capitol has been returned to its former glory. If only they could do the same to Congress. The Congress that broke all records for laziness, shattering the previous records held by every GOP led session since 1998, just finished its longest recess in U.S. history, to return to pass a year-delayed Zika Bill and yet another emergency 3 month funding bill, because it has not been able to do a simple budget since 2010, when the Republicans took over.

“Americans are worried and angry about the big issues: stagnant wages, immigration, trade deals, health care, entitlement programs, the tax code, the Zika virus, tainted drinking water. Yet the best Congress can do for the moment is to keep the government running on autopilot for a few more months, and even this isn’t guaranteed,” writes Dana Milbank in The Washington Post.

As House Democrats point out, 195 of the 219 ‘bills’ that Paul Ryan’s House brags of having passed have been minor “suspension” bills, such as post-office namings. That's 195 out of 219.

Seriously, you think cynicism and pessimism and dismissing Congress as an “institution” and a “corrupt political caste” will get you off the hook? Bull. It is not the institution but the drooling insane party that has gerrymandered its way into control over what was once the greatest deliberative body on the planet. 

In California, the other party only loosely guides its majority, who argue openly like adults, listening to business and community leaders about what needs to be done. Individual legislators negotiate in almost perfect transparency… and laws adapting to the 21st Century get passed… and constituents discuss pending bills and grownup POLITICS happens!

Republicans used to do this, back in even Gingrich’s day. Before a merely conservative party went stark, jibbering insane. You conservatives, know that Trump is not a disease but a symptom. You will only regain a sane conservatism by understanding a word. "Cauterize." Better yet... immolate and hope for a phoenix.

== Libertarians rise? ==

Straight from the old heart of the Confederacy: The Richmond Virginia Times-Dispatch dumps Trump and endorses Gary Johnson for president. And yes, I forecast that there would be a rush by “quasi-sane” American conservatives to the Libertarian Party candidate, perhaps even enough to get him on the coming presidential debates. At which point the bleed could become a gusher.

Clinton is not eager for all this, because she knows Johnson would bleed her a bit, too… and open a possible door for lefty-green Jill Stein. (I think she’s being shortsighted; getting ten million saner republicans to shift to the Libertarian Party could help us all.) But let’s keep it all in context. With Virginia turning blue, Richmond is no longer Jefferson Davis’s town. The re-ignited confederacy treason, sparked deliberately by Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes and their pals, is aflame mostly elsewhere, in states that did not invest in education.

The Libertarians have some ideas and promise. Mostly pro-transparency and leaving peoples’ bodies to themselves. But their current cult of “government = always bad!” is lunacy contradicted by all of American history. Our parents in the Greatest Generation would have been appalled. Half of our current wealth we owe to sci & tech advances, many of which emerged from taxpayer funding of R&D. From the 1790’s National Road to rails to highways and airways, from space to the web, government infrastructure investments were crucial every decade... till the last two. When fanatical GOP Congresses ended a two hundred year partnership of public and private.

== The fallback of sane Republicans: divided government!”

What's John McCain's re-election slogan now? "Elect me in order to put a 'check' on President Hillary!" Wow what a mantra. Of course it is based on the Fox-ite litany that divided government is best. Which they never said back when the GOP controlled every branch and lever of government from 2001-2007, setting a record for laziness that only the recent Boehner-Ryan congresses have matched. No attention to the people's business, not even funding to fight Zika. No adjustments to fit an onrushing 21st Century. Just favors for the oligarchy.

Oh, it was not for lack of determination or focus. For 25 years the GOP was the most disciplined and tightly run partisan group in American history. Every Republican pol repeated any talking point issued by Roger Ailes, within 24 hours. But that focus, that discipline was aimed at doing nothing. Not even passing a budget on time. Even once. Ever.

The incantation that "gridlock is good" is stunning drivel. Despite recent excellent economic news, the overall pace of this recovery, from the pit we fell into during the last Bush years, has been way too slow. Why? According to a deep and extensive study that weighed many factors for cause and effect: "As the U.S. economy enters its eighth year of its recovery from the Great Recession, one major factor is slowing its growth: Government gridlock." 

What can we expect if the Democrats take Congress? Reiterating a point that deserves it: just look at California, where the prospect of a 2/3 Democratic Assembly and Senate triggered screaming forecasts of instant communist dystopic hell. Except those Democrats did as Dems always do in power – they separated into individual legislators, negotiating pragmatically. And, to everyone’s surprise, the GOP minority became both moderate and influential!  Tipping the balance between DP factions. And California state government has been – without question – the most effective in the United States at responding to citizen concerns while adapting to an ever-changing 21^st Century.

Yet even as the Republican intelligencia are fleeing their toxic candidate, with many of them stepping up to support H. Clinton, because “at least she’s knowledgeable, moderate and stable,” some are repeating the mantra... "elect her to avoid Trump, but keep Congress red, so we can make her life a living hell, and make sure nothing at all gets done."

No, the issue is not divided vs. undivided. It is whether to trust a party with zero positive accomplishments and mountains of negative ones, ever again.

Take this example: At the recent National Security Forum, Trump again expressed his admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin. 

Are you offended? Well, stop blaming Donald Trump for embracing things like the cult of Putin-worship that have been spread by Sean Hannity, O'Reilly, Limbaugh and the confederate media for years! Again and again: Trump is not the disease. He is a symptom.

Addenda Miscellany: In his "charity" foundation, Donald Trump became expert at one thing. He found a way to give away somebody else's money and claim the credit for himself.

Meet Rebekah Mercer, the powerful hedge fund heiress who is now the money-mogul appointing almost every top official in the Donald Trump campaign, replacing the Koch Brothers and Sheldon Adelson as the top GOP feudal patron.

== Finally ... but most important... SCIENCE! ==

Lawrence Krauss and his colleagues at ScienceDebate, supported by nearly every major science organization in the country, have spent two decades heroically asking political candidates to answer a series of questions about science and technology policy, in recognition of the fact that these matters will ultimately present the most important challenges to the next President. 

After getting predictably detailed -- somewhat wonkish, but scientifically enthusiastic -- answers from the Clinton campaign, and predictably lefty answers from Jill Stein, Donald Trump’s campaign finally sent in his answers. They were released on the Science Debate Web site.

Krauss makes no bones about his own reactions, which he lays out in the New Yorker. But then, if there were no other loathsome traits to the re-ignited Confederacy, their incessant and volcanic War on Science, is enough of a lethal threat to our children that nothing else would be needed.  It is the marrow-deep cancer that decent American conservatives must burn out of their movement, if it is to survive. 

Last minute item.  You think those talking about a "war on science" are exaggerating? Have another look at the biliously anti-science House GOP.  Again and again and again.... this is not about Donald Trump. He is not a disease.  He's a symptom.