In Case You Missed It (v85)

Another week is in the books; here's a recap of last week's post, in case you missed anything.

Among the folks making the Sunday School rounds was Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Where the Dead Things Are); he chatted with Dana Perino on Fox News Sunday. They talked about Ukraine, and things on the home front, and about the upcoming midterm election. 

He suggested that the Biden administration "just can't seem to get their act together on the economy," but that's only part of why "the American people are so down on the president."

The economy, the precipitous withdrawal from Afghanistan, the domestic energy issue we've already been discussing, crime, problems in public education, this administration has really got its hands full and I think they're headed toward a pretty good beating in the fall election.

And if the Rs retake the majorities in the House and Senate, all those issues will be part of the agenda, as will increasing military spending; Biden's current request "doesn't even keep up with inflation." And, McConnell said, "We've got a war going on in Ukraine." 

Some of those things he mentioned were discussed in other classrooms as well.

For your Sunday School Extra Credit, I sat in on a couple of the panel discussions, including the one on This Week with George Stephanopoulos, with Jon Karl hosting. The endorsements being handed out by the Former Guy garnered some attention, including the recent glowing recommendation of Dr. Oz for Senate in PA. Trump said that being on television is "kind of like a poll" and Oz was on for a long time, so people must like him. Rick Klein (ABC News) and Laura Barron-Lopez (Politico) chimed in on that.

After the laughter subsided, they got down to the nitty gritty: the fact that it seems Trump is endorsing "candidates that don't appear to be on track to win," including Oz. Klein says it's "totally fascinating" that Trump's putting himself on the line, and that, "in a bunch of cases, it could blow up in his face." A notable example? Trump's efforts to get rid of Georgia's governor and secretary of state.

So, this is a big moment, I think, for Donald Trump. I think the conventional wisdom about him is this kingmaker, as the biggest force in the Republican Party. It's going to be tested when you have actual Republican primary voters in a range of states, starting next month.

Barron-Lopez said none of this means he has lost his grip on the party, 

because we see Republicans, time and time again, repeating, whether it's the big lie, or repeating, you know, other claims and attempts to try to change election laws in -- in states, in order to make it so Republicans have a better edge in future elections. So that's continuing. That isn't going anywhere.

And that's pretty much the way it goes with the Former Guy, right? They need him, and they feed him, all the while not really knowing how things are going to end up.

I was Wondering on Wednesday about elections, and election security, and goofballs - and that was just this one entry.

Lauren Boebert, who represents a couple of people somewhere, I guess, wondered out loud about the recent election in France.

The socialist nation of France held elections today.

In that election there was no mail-in voting, early voting, or use of voting machines.

There was a mandatory proof of ID to vote.

Why can’t we get that basic election security here?

I wonder if she's figured out yet that we can't do here what they do there, because (a) we're not a socialist nation, (b) we don't have one set of election rules that everyone must follow, (c) we don't have automatic voter registration, and (d) she doesn't want us to be or have any of those things? 

I was grumpy on Thursday when I did this Sidebar on how we allow folks - the talking heads, for sure, but they're not the only ones - to just toss stuff out there, unchallenged, and how easy it is to find information to refute what they say. A case in point was the panel discussion on Fox News Sunday, where Brit Hume opined that the Biden administration needed to "throw open the regulatory barriers" and that would allow oil companies to increase production here in the US.

If we did that, he said, we could supply countries in Western Europe with energy to make up for what they're not going to be getting anymore from Russia. And that would "cut off the flow of Western funds into Vladimir Putin's war chest." Perino said Hume's answer "makes sense to me. We'll see if it makes sense to them going forward." 

Of course, it makes sense to Perino and Hume: if we're cutting regulations, everything will be fine, right? Well, no; what Hume's selling, the oil industry isn't buying.

Here's where it gets interesting; there's this great reporting from Freightwaves.com, which covered CERAWeek (emphasis added).

Even as Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm was using the platform of a major energy industry conference to call on the nation’s oil producers to ramp up production, what was being said during other sessions made clear that was not likely to happen. 

And there was a lot more from CERAWeek, which "has been described by the Financial times as the 'Davos of energy,' and by Politico as the "industry's Super Bowl," among other accolades - so it's not a bunch of people like me making stuff up - it's experts who disagree with what the pundits are throwing out there. And boy, I wish it would stop.

I did a total 'good week' TGIF - it seemed like something we could all use. Here's one example.

Moving on, we've got a nine-year-old fashion designer. Kaia Aragon, a third-grader, designs and sews her own clothes, after being taught to sew by her mom when she was five. You can see her designs via a link in the article; she shares them on her mom's TikTok page. 

Now, as a person who had to finish her junior high sewing project during the summer break, in order to avoid taking an incomplete, I can't even comprehend how Kaia does what she does. My project? A denim skirt, in case you were wondering. Which I'm pretty sure I never wore, but at least I finished the darn thing. In August. Ugh.

That's all I had for last week. I'll see you tomorrow for a recap of the Sunday School classrooms. 

If you're celebrating Easter, Passover, or Ramadan, I wish you the blessings of your holiday. 

If you're celebrating spring, or colored eggs, bunnies, and chocolate, or family time, or simply enjoying a quiet Sunday, I extend blessings to you as well.

Wondering on Wednesday 4/13/22

Ready... Set... Wonder!

Do you think, if people ever got their heads out of Hunter Biden's laptop, they might wonder how on earth Jared Kushner managed to get his hands on $2,000,000,000 of sovereign money from Saudi Arabia for his new private equity fund, called Affinity Partners?

Do you think wonder how Kushner got the investment, against the better judgment of the panel that screens investment opportunities for the Saudi billions, and why that panel was overruled by Jared's WhatsApp messaging friend, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, given these issues:

the "inexperience of the Affinity Fund management"; the possibility that the kingdom would be responsible for “the bulk of the investment and risk”; due diligence on the fledgling firm’s operations that found them “unsatisfactory in all aspects”; a proposed asset management fee that “seems excessive”; and “public relations risks” from Mr. Kushner’s prior role as a senior adviser to his father-in-law, former President Donald J. Trump...

I wonder if any of them ever think about why they're so quick to find fault with inexperienced, unqualified oh-what-a-jerk-he-is Hunter Biden currying favor with other countries while his father was a senator or even when he was vice president, and don't give a MAGA-hat's worth of crap about what Jared is doing now? And may have done before, in his role as an official representative of the United States? 

I wonder why the jerks who get in fights on airplanes because oh-the-horror-they-have-to-wear-a-mask don't just pack their families and their freedom into the SUV and drive to wherever the heck they want to be, instead of getting on a plane in the first place?

I wonder if Mark Meadows regrets saying his official residence was a rusty trailer on Scaly Mountain? He's been removed from the voter rolls in NC, the state where "his" trailer lives, while an investigation is conducted into potential voter fraud. Or, if he at least regrets the 'Scaly Mountain' part?

Lauren Boebert, who represents a couple of people somewhere, I guess, wondered out loud about the recent election in France.

The socialist nation of France held elections today.

In that election there was no mail-in voting, early voting, or use of voting machines.

There was a mandatory proof of ID to vote.

Why can’t we get that basic election security here?

I wonder if she's figured out yet that we can't do here what they do there, because (a) we're not a socialist nation, (b) we don't have one set of election rules that everyone must follow, (c) we don't have automatic voter registration, and (d) she doesn't want us to be or have any of those things?

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott bused illegal immigrants to Fox News in Washington DC so their 'coming to America' moment could be memorialized for eternity. He also set up state inspections of commercial vehicles crossing the Texas/Mexico border through legal checkpoints in another stunt to draw attention to the border, immigration, and how effective he is as governor, or something. 

He's so effective, he's causing his own set of supply chain issues, much to the dismay of truckers, the Customs and Border Protection folks, the Mexican government and, you know, consumers everywhere. 

Oh - did I mention the truckers blocking the Mexican side, in protest of Abbott's initiative? I wonder if Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Cancun) will go visit the truckers and share their 'Freedom from Stupid Texas Mandates' message with right-wing media outlets? Or was that only good for his home country of Canada?

What are you wondering about tonight?

Trump in Transition (v37)

Ah yes - the man who knows more about everything than everybody strikes again.

The American president knows more than French firefighters and historians and experts on 850-year-old structures it seems, and has offered his unsolicited advice to Parisians who were fighting the fire at Notre Dame:

Was his advice helpful? Um, that's a big fat no. To the point where the experts in France took the time to tweet a response - in English, since the man who knows more about everything than everybody I guess doesn't know how to speak French.

But that's not all!  

Wondering on Wednesday (v131)

A little late with tonight's Wondering; entertaining friends and doing some heavy-duty wondering ourselves, about winners and losers and loser winners, and a whole mess of other stuff.

One of the things I'm wondering about is how the president's doctor could be an over-prescribing, drunk-driving, on-the-job-boozing meanie, after all the time he's spent literally wandering around the bodies of presidents. I expect I might get some flack here, but why does this remind me of Anita Hill?

The allegations are extreme, they are bizarre, and they are hard to believe, under the circumstances. Even if you don't like president Trump (as don't I) and even if you think Ronny Jackson might be uniquely unqualified like so many other Trump nominees (as do I), it would seem that there might be a better way to get your point across than accuse the guy of things that should be easy to disprove, right?

Speaking of Trump's choices, are we really going to see the end of EPA paranoiac-in-chief? You know, the guy with the $43,000 secure phone booth; the guy who flies first class because he's afraid the little people in the cheap seats will pick on him... you know, that guy. The GAO has said that the phone booth expenditure was done using an EPA credit card without prior approval, which is wrong, and appropriate punishment should ensue.

But I have to wonder why the issue at the GAO, and at Trey 'Benghazi' Gowdy's House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, isn't more about asking why the hell the EPA Administrator needs a secure phone booth in the first place?

I doubt he has many secrets to keep from us - drill baby drill, science = bad, clean air and water are over-rated, yadda yadda yadda - that's been his mantra since he was an industry lackey as Oklahoma Secretary of State, so why the need for the booth?

And not for nothing, but why did his cost $43,000 when you can get a nice one here for under $300?

And, I wonder, will he blame his wife like uniquely unqualified HUD Secretary Ben Carson did when he (I mean she) ordered that fancy dining room set for the conference room?

Finally, tonight, I'm wondering about this version of the Trump hand jive, also referred to as 'Dandruff diplomacy', and this version of the Trump hand jive, also referred to as 'Keep your filthy stinking porn-star fondling hands off me, you disgusting pig.'

That this is not the first time we've seen the latter move in public proves that the First Lady plays the game as well as the president - and I wonder if he enjoys this little turn of the table as much as the rest of us do?

Poll Watch: Looking Back at 2017

In a fascinating look at some of 2017's poll findings, the folks at Pew Research Center put numbers around some of the things we may think we know, or think we see. 

Let's take a look, starting with partisanship. 

If someone asked you about that, would you think that things had gotten worse of late?

You'd be right. According to polls taken in June and July of this year,

The average gap between the views of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents and Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents across 10 political values has increased from 15 percentage points in 1994 to 36 points today. 

And, it seems even when the parties tend to agree with each other, the partisan gap can actually grow; here's just one example.

For the first time, a majority of Republicans (54%) favor acceptance of homosexuality; just 38% did so in 1994. Yet over this period, the increase in the share of Democrats saying homosexuality should be accepted has been much larger (54% to 83%).

Even when they move in the right direction, the Republicans fall further behind... 

What about how the world views America - do you think this has changed in the first year of the Trump Administration? You'd be right if you answered yes.

Looking broadly at global confidence in the US, there was a sharp downturn from the Obama administration (64%) to the Trump administration (22%). There was an even greater shift in the 'no confidence' rate, which went from 23% under Obama to 74% under Trump.

All but two of the 37 countries surveyed noted a decline in confidence in the US president doing the right thing.  The outliers? Israel (+7 for Trump over Obama) - and Russia (+42). No surprise there.  Countries with steep declines in confidence include Germany (-75), South Korea (- 71), France (-70), Spain (-68), Canada (-61) and the UK (-57).

Another interesting finding has to do with the effect of post-secondary education on the country.

Nearly six-in-ten Republicans and Republican leaners (58%) now say colleges have a negative effect. Two years ago, by contrast, 54% of Republicans said colleges were having a positive effect. Democrats and Democratic leaners have consistently held positive views of the effect of colleges on the US: 72% of Democrats and Democratic leaners say this today.

Those negative Republicans? Last year, the number was only 45%.

And the last one we'll look at has to do with the media. Not #fakenews, but opinions on the watchdog role the media plays.

• 70% of US adults believe that criticism from news organizations keeps political leaders from doing things that shouldn't be done; while 28% think that media criticism keeps political leaders from doing their jobs. 
• But in a survey from March of this year, there's a 47 point gap between Democrats and Republicans on this question, with 89% of Dems thinking the watchdog role is a positive and only 42% of Reps believing the same. 
• As recently as early 2016 (January/February), 74% of Democrats and 77% of Republicans shared that same supportive role for the watchdog media!

These days, it's almost hard to imagine there being a time when the Rs were more supportive of the media than the Ds, isn't it? 

There are other interesting findings in the report, including opinions about automation; race and privilege; religions; and living without partners.  It's a great snapshot of this remarkable year, helped in large part because the folks at Pew have asked the same questions over time, some of them for decades.  

I'm thinking it'll be fun to look at these same surveys again next year, to see whether the Trump effect continues, or if things establish a sense of balance - even if it's an out-of-whack version of balance.