Sidebar: TGIF 2/16/24

In yesterday's TGIF, I put Jon Stewart on my good week list; here's what I said.

Jon Stewart returned to the host's chair on Comedy Central's The Daily Show, and I thought he did fine. Of course, I'm not afraid of pointing out shortcomings on the Dem side of the aisle, just as I'm not afraid of pointing them out on the aisle's other side.

While I thought his monologue was entertaining, it didn't pull any punches. 

• He talked about Biden not being able to remember things in his deposition and he showed a clip of not one, but four people named Trump not being able to recall things in their depositions;
• he blasted Biden's handlers, who aren't keeping a good handle on him, allowing him to make bad decisions, and bad appearances, like going on TikTok instead of doing the traditional Super Bowl Sunday presidential interview;
• he mocked just one of Trump's absurd statements - that Pennsylvania would change its name if he didn't win the election;
• he said Trump and Biden are "similarly challenged" age-wise, and gaffe-wise and
• he lamented that the strong, focused, on-his-game Biden that all of his staffers, appointees, and friends see is never filmed.

Lots of people, including the former president's niece, Mary Trump, were beside themselves after the show. For example, Ms. Trump tweeted  "Not only is Stewart's 'both sides are the same' rhetoric not funny, it's a potential disaster for democracy." And, she added, "I know Donald, and the media has to stop with the both sides bullshit."

She also penned an email newsletter titled Jon Stewart's Danger To Democracy, in which she blamed him for low voter turnout in 2012 and 2016 - and for helping her uncle get elected. 

Mary Trump, and the many others who jumped all over Stewart for "both-side-ism," missed the real point of his monologue. I added emphasis for her, and them.

We are not suggesting neither man is vibrant, productive, or even capable - but they are both stretching the limits of being able to handle the toughest job in the world. What's crazy is thinking that we're the ones, as voters, who must silence concerns and criticisms. It is the candidates' job to assuage concerns, not the voters' job not to mention them.

Stewart goes out of his way to say Biden isn't Trump, and lists the many ways they are not the same, and then says

But the stakes of this election don't make Donald Trump's opponent less subject to scrutiny - it actually makes him more subject to scrutiny. And if the barbarians are at the gate, you want Conan standing on the ramparts, not "chocolate chip cookie man."

The 'chocolate cookie man' comment is not a slap at Biden per se; it's a slap at the people who kept him away from - or didn't get him into - the Super Bowl Sunday interview and instead posted a bad TikTok video. Those folks, he said, deserve to be fired. 

Stewart told us that "The next nine months or so, depending on the coup schedule - they're gonna suck." We're going to be bombarded with emails, phone calls, and more,

and it's all going to make you feel like Tuesday, November 5th is the only day that matters. And that day does matter, but man, November 6th ain't nothing to sneeze at, or November 7th. If your guy loses, bad things might happen but the country is not over, and if your guy wins, the country is in no way saved.

He continued, after admitting that the old Jon Stewart was "too glib" and "too dismissive" of the fact that

... the work of making this world resemble one that you would prefer to live in is a lunchpail fucking job day in and day out where thousands of committed anonymous smart and dedicated people bang on closed doors and pick up those that are fallen and grind away on issues until they get a positive result and even then, have to stay on to make sure that result holds. 

So, the good news is, I'm not saying you don't have to worry about who wins the election - I'm saying you have to worry about it every day before it and every day after it. For ever. Although on the plus side, I'm told that at some point, the sun will run out of hydrogen.

If Mary Trump and all the others who jumped all over Stewart had paid attention to his full monologue, they'd understand that he's not "a danger to democracy," he's promoting participation in our democracy, and he's promoting accountability on the part of people who put these candidates before us. 

Is he wrong? 

Wondering on Wednesday 3/24/21

Ready... Set... Wonder!

I've got an eclectic set of wonderment today. Let's dive in, shall we?

According to this article, the Biden administration is putting accountability back into the government, because "(a)gencies were clear, and unanimous, in their desire to have the earlier framework reinstated," according to an OMB official. The guidelines, which were removed on Christmas Eve, relieved agencies from having to set performance goals and track progress against them. One reason for the removal was that folks weren't reading the reports on Performance.gov. Another reason? The Trump administration was focused on getting rid of work that "doesn't lead to impactful change or measurable efficiencies." I'm wondering, how you can determine if measurable efficiencies have been made if you're not measuring them?

Moving from DC to Tennessee, if everything goes as State Rep. Jerry Sexton planned, the Bible will be the official book of the Volunteer State. Sexton gave a couple reasons why the Bible should be the official book, including to "reflect family heritage and underscore the multi-million-dollar industry that is Bible printing in Tennessee." Now, obviously the Bible is not critical to many Americans, including "Buddhist, or Muhammad or any of those religions," as Sexton called them, trying to be respectful to everyone's concerns and "just put the Bible where I feel that it belongs." 

His feelings aside, I wonder about the choice. While Bible publishing may be a multi-million- dollar industry," the healthcare industry in Tennessee is a multi-billion-dollar industry. Maybe the state's official book should be the manual on how to read an insurance claim form?

A researcher asked groups of voters to imagine that the Republican Party and the Democratic Party were each one person, and to identify the characteristics each of those people would have, or, as he put it, to “pretend that the attributes you associate with the Republican party were encapsulated in one person.”

• Five independents and one Democrat defined the Republican Party 'person' using these terms: Stubborn, Conservative, Unreliable, Selfish, Greedy, Ultra-capitalist, Closed-minded, Ultra-religious, Anti-immigrant, and Hypocritical.
• Three Republicans, two independents, and one libertarian used these terms: Fiercely loyal, Fiscally conservative, Responsible, Egotistical, More extreme, Rudderless, Narcissistic, Controlling, Elitist, Fearful, Passionate, Inconsistent, and Divided.

The same groups were asked to define the Democratic Party 'person.'

• The first group used these terms: Community-minded, Humanitarian, Open-minded, Fun, Caring, Globally aware, Accepting of other humans, Diverse in interests, Racially/gender diverse, Futuristic.
• And the second group? Stereotyping, Critical of ideas/of things they don’t like, Underdogs/Uncomfortable in the majority, Empathetic, Patronizing, Hypocritical, Messiah-complex, Utopian-driven, Spend a lot/not fiscally conservative,

I don't see any revelations there, but I do wonder about the Republican-Independent-Libertarian group being so harsh on their own party, and what that will mean going into the next election cycle.

Speaking of the next election cycle, C-SPAN is kicking off the "Road to the White House 2024" this Friday, with former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo talking up the Westside Conservative Club in Iowa. Whether Pompeo gets to run or not depends on whether The Former Guy decides to run again. With that decision seeming to be on hold until after next year's midterms, everyone else interested in running is forced to get out in front of voters - or at this point, are they just donors?  I also wonder who else will jump into the early fray.

And speaking of elections, how horrible must it be in Israel, I wonder? Yesterday's election apparently has resulted in another no-winner decision, for the fourth time in two years, if the exit polls are right. I can't even imagine having to go through that - it's hard enough having to put up with the mid-terms here. And if those polls are right, there'll be a fifth election later this year. 

Finally, news is breaking that New York's Senate, Assembly, and the Sonofa Gov have agreed to legalize adult recreational marijuana. I haven't seen the bill yet, but it was reported that Gov. Andrew Cuomo has said getting this done is "essential" to the state's social and economic well-being - and by that, he means the 9% state sales tax is essential. Some local governments can tack on an additional 4% sales tax. There's more - a whole nother hunk of burning bureaucracy to manage the weed, and fights over what to do with the tax money, naturally. I'm not wondering about all of that - that's the New York way, adding taxes and layers of bureaucracy, and fighting about all of it. 

Well, what am I wondering about? How do I go about getting "Don't Bogart That Joint" installed as our new state song? I respect the folks who picked "I Love New York," our current state song, but I just want to put this song where I feel it belongs. 

What are you wondering about?

Noodling Around: A More Perfect Union (Part 1)

Steaming hot noodles

In what seems like a lifetime ago, back in January of 2014, I posted this quote from President Barack Obama's State of the Union address. 

We owe it to the American people to say what we're for, not just what we're against.

He was talking about Republicans and their then forty votes to repeal the Affordable Care Act; his point was that if they had ideas to make it better, to save money, or whatever, they should tell us what they'd do differently. But the truth is, he could have been talking about any bill, idea, plan, or pipe dream.

We see this all the time, the things everyone's against: the Dems are opposed to ABC if the Rs are for it, and the Rs are totally against XYZ if that's what the Dems support. And what makes thing worse? The American people probably have different priorities than the people we elect do - and we agree on them. 

It's true: polls have long shown there's agreement on what needs fixing, even if there are dozens of ideas on how to fix what ails us. And with people on both sides of the aisle unhappy with each other and with their own parties, with extraordinarily thin majorities in both chambers,  and with folks even arguing about what unity means, how on earth is anything going to get done?

I've been doing some noodling around on this for a while now. To me, the first step is to figure out what's important to us - to the majority of us, not just the loudest yellers. All we know for sure is, what matters most to the politicians (i.e., staying in office while amplifying the voices of the yellers) doesn't seem to jive with what most of us want for ourselves, our families, our neighbors, or even for perfect strangers.