silly season

        Who knew the governor of North Dakota was a candidate for the Republican nomination for president?   I certainly didn't until I saw a piece in the NYT this morning.  A billionaire by virtue of selling his software company to Microsoft, as one Democrat put it, every morning while shaving, he looks in the mirror and sees a president.

       This is the time in the election calendar when money, time and ego conspire to make almost any wealthy American believe they have a claim to the highest office in the land.  After all, look at the example of tRump.   What these hopefuls don't seem to remember is the decades of self promotion Donny Two Scoops engaged in before running.  But, for the moment, Doug Burgrum has just as many delegates as any of the candidates.   At least his policy prescriptions are the supposedly tried and true GOP talking points.   Low taxes, less government and entrepreneurship, along with the new litmus tests of anti-abortion, anti-LGBTQ rights and whatever other baggage any serious Republican must carry.   Anyway, it' s still June.

NYS funded fun in the slush

       In an interview broadcast on my local NPR station this morning, Bryan Mann, who used to work at the station and has written extensively about issues in the north country, spoke about the latest state boondoggle.   It seems the state has boosted the Olympic Regional Development Authority (ORDA) budget by hundreds of millions of dollars.

     ORDA has responded to this cash infusion by spending much of it on venues which are not only likely to add to its revenue stream, but will require frequent and expensive maintenance.   Ski jump gondolas and biathlon trails may indeed attract such events as the recent World University Games, but the costs for staging such events run into tens of millions of dollars and ticket sales were in the $700,000 range.  Meanwhile, climate change may render the winter venues in Lake Placid obsolete in the near future.  That shiny new bobsled track won't work very well in a January downpour.

    Mann's reporting doesn't tell us who exactly benefits from the avalanche of cash from Albany, but it would be interesting to know why scarce resources are being spent on  a winter slush fund!!

     

The GOP protects all its potential felons

      The fundamental difference between today's Democratic and Republican parties is one stands for the rule of law and the other is essentially lawless.

     There is no clearer illustration of this dichotomy than Dem and GOP reactions to tRump's indictment for the mishandling of classified documents .  Most Democrats said we should let the legal system do its work and abide by the outcome.  Most Republicans on the other hand went into a full blown attack on the justice system in this country.   All you have to do is imagine the positions were reversed and Barack Obama was in tRump's position.  

An angry old man

        I spoke to one of my brothers-in-law yesterday on the occasion of Father's Day and he enthusiastically harangued me about the candidacy for President of left leaning grifter, Cornell West.   As we talked, the lyrics of Billy Joel's song, An Angry Young Man, played in my mind.  West is the consummate radical grifter whose politics sound pure until you look at the company he keeps.  

      West uses his academic position to mouth liberal politics for fun and profit.  He recently defended Ron DiSantis' educcation policies in a Wall Street Journal op-ed co written by a company standing to make a huge profit if Florida adopts their tests instead of the SAT.   West sits on the board of that company.  He made the announcement   of his presidential campaign on a right wing website that traffics in conspiracy theories.   He has decried Russia's invasion of Ukraine but insists the US has no moral standing to oppose it.

      All it will take to swing the 2024 election to the GOP candidate is a small minority of "protest" votes in a handful of swing states by Democrat defectors.   West knows this, much as Jill Stein and Ralph Nader did in 2016 and 2000.   The problem is, he doesn't care.  As the song says, he'll "go to his grave as an angry old man".  Unfortunately, in this case he may also take democracy to the grave as well.

How to succeed in tRumpworld

       Just tell a 77 year old narcissist what he wants to hear and you are automatically a trusted advisor, even if you have no expertise in the subject.

      That's the gist of a recent story in the Washington Post.  Tom Fitton, whose academic CV includes a BA in English managed somehow to get on the right wing outfit called Judicial Watch.   He then parlayed that grift into as many as 170 appearances on Faux News, arguing most of the time for tRump's position on whatever issue was being covered.   In the lead up to the twice impeached and now twice indicted disgraced former president's latest brush with the law, it appears that Fitton was tRump's svengali when it came to presidential records, maintaining with little regard for the law that Donnie Two Scoops had every right to keep and display classified documents after his return to private citizenship.  With advice like this, who needs  real lawyers.

And the grift goes on...

       My congresscritter, the execrable Elise Stefanik has a new fund raising e-mail.  After decrying the "persecution" of tRump by the supposedly out of control DOJ, Elise urges us to "Rush a donation to our official trump defense fund to stand with president trump".   However, if you check a box which will show you how the money will be allocated, the division of funds is on the order of 1% for the tRump fund and 99% for Elise.  A $500 donation nets $5.00 for the tRump fund and $495.00 for Elise's re-election.  And if you don't uncheck another small box, your contribution becomes a recurring monthly bill.  

High time and misdemeanors

       I'm guessing tRump won't miss his tee time in New Jersey this morning.  After being released on his own recognizance in a Florida courtroom, the now twice indicted, twice impeached, disgraced former president spent some time in little Havana, basking in his fans' adulation.  Then it was back to his golf club where he can count on a steady supply of sycophantic followers to prop up his notoriously fragile ego.

    As Heather Cox Richardson pointed out in a recent post, failing to hold previous highly placed wrongdoers to account has led us to this sorry state of affairs.   I didn't know that Jefferson Davis was never prosecuted for leading an attempt to destroy the country, but thanks to Andrew Johnson, he and many other leaders of the Confederacy were pardoned, leading to the myth of the "lost cause''.   

     Gerald Ford's pardon of Nixon was another failure to hold highly placed elected officials accountable for their crimes.   As Richardson points out, had Nixon been tried and convicted it might have changed the actions of future presidents such as Reagan and Clinton.   

     Instead, we find ourselves trying to save our democracy from a 77 year old lying, thieving, traitorous blowhard who has beguiled a significant portion of the electorate into believing him innocent without even looking at the evidence.   Ah, America in 2023...