Update no.878

Update from the Sunland

No.878

29.10.18 – 4.11.18

Blog version:  http://heartlandupdate.blogspot.com/

            To all,

            I do not do this often, but there are occasions.  I unabashedly plug one particular episode of the CBS series “Madam Secretary” – Season 5, Episode 4, aired on 28.October.2018.  Whether you happen to watch the series or even care a hoot about such television programming, I strongly urge everyone to watch this particular episode, in toto, before next week’s election. They did an exceptional job of portraying why every eligible American citizen should vote by whatever means available.

            The Oh So Great Orange One (I said sardonically and sarcastically) decided he just had to tweet out his wisdom during the days of mourning after the Pittsburgh synagogue murders.  The BIC said to the world:

“There is great anger in our Country caused in part by inaccurate, and even fraudulent, reporting of the news. The Fake News Media, the true Enemy of the People, must stop the open & obvious hostility & report the news accurately & fairly. That will do much to put out the flame...”

5:03 AM - 29 Oct 2018

He continued:

“....of Anger and Outrage and we will then be able to bring all sides together in Peace and Harmony. Fake News Must End!”

5:07 AM - 29 Oct 2018

Of course, his loyal, sycophant, mouthpiece, press secretary thought it prudent to reinforce the BIC’s words at her 29.October.2018 press conference, later that day.  “The very first thing that the President did was condemn the attacks both in Pittsburgh and in the pipe bomb (sic). The very first thing the Media did was blame the President and make him responsible for these ridiculous attacks.”

            Hey, Sarah . . . read the President’s freakin’ tweets.  The Press did not make them up; they only reported them.  He, the BIC, wrote those words.  This is not about what he said AFTER the bloody freakin’ tragedies last week.  It is ALL about what he has said continuously and persistently for the YEARS BEFORE these events, and whether you like it or not, words matter.

            First, neither of these attacks were spontaneous events.  They were days, weeks, months and years in the making.  The Press and more than a few of We, the People, are blaming the President for his inflammatory rhetoric during those days, weeks, and months before the attacks—not what he said after the deeds were done.  The BIC did not directly order or call for these violent attacks . . . and neither did Adolf Hitler; but, his words have enabled, incited, encouraged and permitted these attacks.  NO!  The BIC does not and will not get a pass for his foolish, caustic and toxic rhetoric.  NO, I say!  He is culpable.  I do not care a twit for the denials by the BIC and his sycophant Press Secretary.  I am angry, really angry, at what he has brought to full flame in this Grand Republic.  I recall the words of my oath of office as an officer of Marines, and I am induced to wonder what the threshold is for the invocation of action under that oath?

            I am really freakin’ tired of these damnable mouthpiece, rational-izers to justify the BIC’s speech by claiming he did not create racism, sexism, anti-Semitism, hatred of immigrants, xenophobia, et cetera ad infinitum ad nauseum. NO, HE DID NOT CREATE THESE ABHORRENT ANOMALIES IN OUR SOCIETY!  However, what he has done is give voice and sanction to those darkest elements of this Grand Republic.  He has allowed and enabled those dark forces to boil up to full presence in our culture.  I would not be surprised even a little if one of these . . . these . . . perpetrators did not claim he was acting upon instructions from God.  Both the Synagogue killer and the mail bomber have come very, very close to such a claim in their words.  This is what happens when you unleash these dark forces.  So, no, just like Hitler, the BIC did not order or even condone these despicable acts of violence . . . but, just look at his freakin’ words—HIS WORDS (no one else’s)—copied verbatim above.  “Fake News Media, the true Enemy of the People” . . . really . . . what are we supposed to take from that?

            Not all of the BIC’s supporters and advocates subscribe to his inflammatory rhetoric or the consequences of those words.  But, I really must ask of Republicans and other supporters of the BIC, when is enough, enough? What is your threshold of tolerance?

            I will add this punctuation to my thoughts . . . silence means consent.  I am not and will not be silent.

            I offer the following editorial opinion for your review.

“The Oldest Hatred – All good Americans stand in solidarity against anti-Semitism.”

by The Editorial Board

Wall Street Journal

Published: Oct. 28, 2018; 5:09 p.m. ET

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-oldest-hatred-1540760984?mod=djemMER_h

The attackers last week were not one-off aberrations.  By definition, we have bad Americans, especially in this context, among us.  I want those bad people out in the sunlight where we can see them.  I also want all citizens to assist law enforcement to intervene before their hatred is transformed into violence.  We all must do our part.

            So, the BIC was on a roll this week. As with so many things in BIC-dom, he unilaterally decided to defy the Constitution with his public announcement that he would strike down birthright citizenship by executive order. Since the BIC has apparently not read the Constitution, or perhaps he simply does not understand or cannot comprehend the words, let us recall:

14^thAmendment, Section 1, first sentence:

“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.”

Is there anything ambiguous in that statement?  Born is a binary word.  Either you are or you are not; there are no qualifiers of any sort.

            I understand that the BIC does not like the pesky Constitution and feels he is omnipotent, to change the Constitution as he alone deems appropriate, but I suspect the Supreme Court will not see it that way.  I can assure the BIC and those who ascribe to his sense of omnipotence and singular importance, he does not have that authority.

            Of course, being the BIC, he decided to double down.  He tweeted:

“So-called Birthright Citizenship, which costs our Country billions of dollars and is very unfair to our citizens, will be ended one way or the other. It is not covered by the 14th Amendment because of the words “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” Many legal scholars agree.....”

6:25 AM - 31 Oct 2018

Later in the day, after Speaker of the House Ryan publicly called out the President that he was not authorized to ignore the Constitution, the BIC tweeted:

“Paul Ryan should be focusing on holding the Majority rather than giving his opinions on Birthright Citizenship, something he knows nothing about! Our new Republican Majority will work on this, Closing the Immigration Loopholes and Securing our Border!”

Oct. 31, 2018, 12:43 p.m.

If Adam Sorkin had written those words for his vaunted series “The West Wing,” no one would have believed him.

            A segment of the birthright issue is birthright tourism, i.e., pregnant women who come to this country under the tourist visa specifically to birth their child here and by law gain U.S. citizenship for their child.  It is a loophole that has been exploited, especially since international travel has become readily available and comparatively swift.  In this sub-topic, I actually agree with the BIC. Although it may be arguable amongst the Supremes as to whether precedent and practice have applied qualifiers (or lack of same), I do believe Congress can pass and the Executive can enforce specific restrictions upon access to this country, including pregnancy and restrict visitor visas for all genders to eight or nine months, or perhaps even six months, renewable as appropriate (if the individual is not pregnant or intending to become pregnant).  The Judiciary might not look kindly on such a law, but that is closer to being constitutional than the BIC’s outright ban of birthright citizenship.  I do share the BIC’s perspective; I do not want to be taken advantage of by anyone.  However, I strongly disagree with his chosen means to accomplish the desire end state.

            On Monday, the administration announced they were deploying 5,000 active duty military combat troops to the land border with Mexico.  By Wednesday, the BIC up the ante to 15,000 troops.  These are not National Guard personnel, as previous presidents have deployed; they are active duty soldiers who continue to deploy to Afghanistan, Iraq and other hot spots.  There is no invasion at the southern border.  There is only political optics intended to inflame the xenophobes and racists among us.  This is a foolish and extraordinarily wasteful expenditure of a precious resource.  We have had insufficient active duty troops to carry on the war on Islamic Fascism from the get-go. That stress on the active duty military has only worsened over time.  Contrary to the BIC’s common and popular public argument, I am against deploying combat troops to the border, but that does NOT mean I am inversely for open borders.  I am against illegal border crossings, as I am equally against people who over stay their authorized visa.  We have never had an immigration enforcement system in depth, as I have long advocated.  As I have written before, give the man his bloody, damnable wall, if that is the price for comprehensive immigration reform that plugs the loopholes, enables the DACA folks to gain citizenship, provides for guest-worker visas, and most importantly, provides defense in depth, including accurate tracking of every non-citizen who enters the jurisdiction of this Grand Republic. If the government will not complete comprehensive immigration reform, then I say screw the damn wall; it was wrong from the BIC’s first brain-fart before he was elected; and, just because he said it, does not make it the correct expenditure of our precious tax dollars.

            We have debated the basis, merits and detractors of the U.S. Electoral College in this humble forum.  A friend and frequent contributor to this debate sent along the following article and link.

“Electoral College confusions”

by Lawrence Lessing, Opinion Contributor

thehill.com

Published: 10/31/18; 08:20 AM EDT

https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/politics/413998-electoral-college-confusions

To which, I responded:

            This is one of the better opinions regarding the Electoral College.  Well done, Lawrence Lessig.

            From my perspective and understanding of history, the Electoral College has always been a state’s rights provision of the Constitution.  Since Maryland became the first state to pass a law that began the National Popular Vote Movement (10.4.2007; [379]), I have supported the rights of states to decide how they wish to use their electoral votes. After all, state law, not the Constitution, established the winner-takes-all position held by most states, as the Constitution directs the states to determine how they wish to allocate their electoral votes.  If states decide to abandon the winner-takes-all position they have held since the Founding, then that is their choice and their choice entirely.

            As a footnote, I would quibble with the notion that the Electoral College was conceived to enforce slavery; that notion is simply a bridge too far based on my understanding of history.  It was a necessary compromise solution to establish and preserve the Union, just as Article IV, Section 2, Clause 3 was part of that compromise.

            At the end of the day, the states should and will decide how they wish to allocate their electoral votes.  I swore an oath to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic; I stand by that oath, whether the Constitution stands as-is or is amended by proper, prescribed means.

 . . . with follow-up comment:

“One grammatical quibble, one general comment, and two Constitutional points: 

“-- ‘. . . the right of States to decision . . .’ echoes something I once heard in a banking environment.  It gives me pain in my grammarian's brain.

“-- I support the National Popular Vote Movement as the most available means to the end of making the United States more democratic.  Other tools of the goal include reducing or ending gerrymandering; eliminating large payments to candidates, campaigns, or politicians; and very likely addressing Congressional powers and procedures

“-- Constitutional point 1: the Constitution was not intended as a sacred text, and the nation as a whole has or should have evolved since the Continental Congress attempted to establish a confederacy of semi-autonomous former colonies. ‘States' rights’ is essentially an artifact of the sectional conflict enabled by the Constitution that became the Civil War, and should have been settled then.

“-- Constitutional point 2: you have as much capacity as anyone to study the origin of the Electoral College (and the mechanism that's called proportional representation as well). Tell me what is the purpose of that if not the support of slaveholders?”

 . . . my response to the follow-up comment:

            My apologies for the faux pas. . . decide rather than decision.  Thank you for the call out.

            I think the National Popular Vote Movement is a bad idea . . . tinkering with precedent and history, et al; however, I do support the process.  The states are exercising their right to decide; abdication is a choice. They are deciding; they could have done the same thing two centuries ago, but they did not.  So, if the majority of states now decide to relinquish their strength, then so be it.  The Electoral College will be a pro forma relic of history.

            I have never claimed the Constitution is a sacred text.  After all, it has been amended 27 times.  There is an established process for amending it in the future.  BTW, we have seen newspaper advertisements lately that the Equal Rights Amendment is one state short of ratification and Arizona is one of those states—one state ratification short and holding. The amendment is not on the ballot for this election.

            As I have written numerous times, the Electoral College was one of several compromises that reflect the wariness of the Founders/Framers with simple popular votes, even among the educated, landed elite of the day.  They sought insulation (or perhaps insurance) against the whims and emotions of a simple majority, popular vote.  The southern states used their state’s rights in their effort to retain slavery, which they saw as vital, if not essential, to their agricultural profitability (cotton & tobacco), and as a bulwark against the populous states of the day: New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia.  The Electoral College was not solely to enforce slavery. After all, the Electoral College gave unusually dominant voice to Iowa & New Hampshire.

 . . . and a concluding comment:

“One further point: Lessing's article points out that swing states benefit the most from the Electoral College at this point. Iowa and New Hampshire get attention; Ohio, Florida, et al. get spending, thus surely defeating the Founders' apparent intention to favor small states.”

 . . . and mine:

            Point well taken.

            Since the economic recovery from the Great Recession was well rooted and progressing smoothly, I abandoned the News from the economic front section at Update no.801 (23.4.2017) {begun at Update no.361 (10.11.2008), as the Great Recession gripped this Grand Republic}.  Yet, in all fairness, the Labor Department reported U.S. nonfarm payrolls increased a seasonally adjusted 250,000 in October.  The unemployment rate held steady at 3.7% in October, matching the lowest rate since December 1969.  Wages increased last month and advanced 3.1% from a year earlier, the best year-over-year gain for average hourly earnings since 2009.  There is no question the current administration is the beneficiary of a strong economy that began in the previous administration.  We should all be grateful.  Most certainly, I am quite appreciative.

            Comments and contributions from Update no.877:

Comment to the Blog:

“I dismiss the article you discuss based on the sentence ‘the left . . . hates America.’  No large group of Americans hates America, even the more radical groups.  We disagree, often vehemently, on what’s good or going wrong about America and how to make it better, but we don’t hate America.  That premise renders the article unworthy of public attention, including here.

“I also subscribe to political and other newsletters, as well as the New York Times online and other legitimate news sources.  I have begun to delete most of the campaign communications without opening them and have stopped around a dozen assorted email lists.  I still spend a good bit of time on news sources, but not as much and less focused on anything partisan and/or political.  (Important events happen that have not yet been politicized.)

“At this time, the immigrant caravan is strictly a distraction from whatever politicians are concocting.

“The New York Times this morning has a discussion of Trump’s role in the mass violence we have experienced.  To be clear, he has not caused people to be mentally unstable.  That happens worldwide and always has.  Nor do his policy positions cause these incidents.  (We could debate the firearms question again later.)  What he must be held responsible for is his tone, his wording, and his use of concepts that offer potentially violent deranged people a set of targets, a hopelessness about peaceful change, and implied permission to attack people, all coming from the highest official source in the land.  I have noted that Trump has learned to make appropriate statements in the immediate aftermath of large incidents.  That means nothing while the bulk of his public comments contradict the sane moments.

“All economic booms come to an end, and this one is overdue. The Fed et al. are ignoring that. I expect Trump’s tariffs and general pugnacity will aggravate the ‘correction.’”

My response to the Blog:

            The left-hates-America article induced the same reaction in me.  I was not so quick to dismiss it, since I see the implication in his words. Hate is a very strong word, and I surmise the word was chosen for specific reasons.  Further, the claim that the BIC is just an exaggerated form of the average American is actually what instigated my fingers to tinkle away on the keyboard.  I will concede that he is a grotesquely exaggerated form, but of a very small, vociferous minority, not the majority, and the flow he has created has sucked in loyal partisans and those who subscribe to the end-justifies-the-means segment of our society.  The BIC does not represent the majority of this Grand Republic.  He does not even represent the majority of citizens who voted in 2016.  Through all of this turmoil created, stoked and fueled by the BIC does reflect a serious undercurrent that has existed for decades in this country, and he has allowed and encouraged that element to percolate into full, celebrated view in the public domain.

            I would unsubscribe to whatever source(s) generates or enables these damnable Republican campaign messages, but they have cleverly disguised that source(s).  Like you, I pay considerable attention to the sources of all material I receive.  The subject material at issue here generally gets deleted outright . . . but it is still a nuisance; and, I hope these damnable political spam messages end next week.  This has been a particularly tiring silly season.

            You are precisely correct in full . . . the “caravan” is a nasty distraction intended to stoke the fears of a minority. Immigration reform remains the national priority it has been for decades.  Unfortunately, the BIC is so bloody single-mindedly focused on his damnable “wall” that he has stifled the several bipartisan efforts to even go part way.

            I agree.  The BIC’s contribution to the violence has been his consistent, persistent, and relentless words for weeks, months and years, not what he says in the aftermath, although the aftermath of Charlottesville was an exception.  It is that history of incitement that is the real issue.  He has vilified an entire group of people for political purposes not based upon fact . . . as the BIC has publicly acknowledged.

            I tend to agree with your assessment about economic booms, and especially regarding the BIC’s potential contribution to the timing and severity of the correction.  I still retain hope that the means the BIC has chosen will yield the necessary results with respect to trade equality and practices, although I still do not think the end will justify the means; but, he is POTUS; he has the authority; you and I do not.

 . . . Round two:

“Regardless of analysis, that article is unworthy of public attention.  Don’t feed that career.

“I'm not sure how you received unsolicited material like that article.  I have been able to unsubscribe and/or use the ‘spam’ button to cull the aggressive and ignorant senders from my email and similar methods in my social media.  (Hover your mouse over the "sender name" to get the sender's email. That will tell you enough in most cases.) I don't have the energy to put into that.  I listen to viewpoints other than mine by using relatively neutral sources that provide outlets for various views.  I don’t waste time on the likes of the article I won’t discuss.

“I would see many other issues as more important than immigration reform.  Election finance; the opioid; the private prison industry; the effects of climate change; and our military misadventures, budget, and arms sales all ought to be more important.

“The bizarre thing about the tariffs is that there's a grain of truth to the statement that others are violating norms and treaties, particularly the Chinese.  The tariffs are a dramatically wrong method of seeking redress.”

 . . . my response to round two:

            Thank you for your perspectives, as always. Yet, as I see things, ignoring the topic does not seem wise to me, comfortable perhaps, but not constructive.  Nonetheless, so be it; topic closed.

            Thank you also for your counsel.  I have tried all that and more.  The article was via a normal news outlet. The spam is from some other source(s) all together.

            I did not suggest that immigration reform is the no.1 highest priority issue in this Grand Republic.  I am certainly open and eager to debate any topic you may wish to raise.

            Yes, the PRC has been conducting industrial espionage for decades, as have the Russians, French, and others.  I would say there is much more than a grain of truth to the violations of free trade treaties, agreements and ethics. I want the president to be successful.  I am with you; I strongly disagree with his choice of tariffs to accomplish the objective; but alas, he is the president, I am not.

 . . . Round three:

“I sent you an article by Lawrence Lessig separately.  I had a very difficult time getting it to send, but I think it finally went through.  He makes a couple of interesting points.  The one that hadn't occurred to me is that swing states, rather than small states, benefit from that process nowadays.”

 . . . my response to round three:

            The article link worked first time; came through just fine.  I’ve read the article several times now.  I’ll respond to the article (see above).

            My very best wishes to all.  Take care of yourselves and each other.

Cheers,

Cap                        :-)