Monday Reading

As always, please go to the links for the full article/ op ed.

The National Rifle Rampage Association is led by shameless grifters vacuuming money out of the pockets of ammosexual loons/suckers. Discuss:

A former pro football player who serves on the National Rifle Association board was paid $400,000 by the group in recent years for public outreach and firearms training. Another board member, a writer in New Mexico, collected more than $28,000 for articles in NRA publications. Yet another board member sold ammunition from his private company to the NRA for an undisclosed sum.

The NRA, which has been rocked by allegations of exorbitant spending by top executives, also directed money in recent years that went to board members — the very people tasked with overseeing the organization’s finances.

In all, 18 members of the NRA’s 76-member board, who are not paid as directors, collected money from the group during the past three years, according to tax filings, state charitable reports and NRA correspondence reviewed by The Washington Post.[snip]

Among the revelations that have burst into public view: CEO Wayne LaPierre racked up hundreds of thousands of dollars in charges at a Beverly Hills clothing boutique and on foreign travel, invoices show. Oliver North, forced out as president after trying to oust LaPierre, was set to collect millions of dollars in a deal with the NRA’s now-estranged public relations agency, Ackerman McQueen, according to LaPierre. And the NRA’s outside attorney reaped “extraordinary” legal fees that totaled millions of dollars in the past year, according to North.

Be it the Extremely Stable Genius, his Fox "news" boosters, Bible- banging hypocrites, the NRA, or any collection of right- wingers, the common denominator is selling fear to the suckers. 

Another common denominator is corruption:

A real estate company part-owned by Jared Kushner has received $90m in foreign funding from an opaque offshore vehicle since he entered the White House as a senior adviser to his father-in-law Donald Trump.

Investment has flowed from overseas to the company, Cadre, while Kushner works as an international envoy for the US, according to corporate filings and interviews. The money came through a vehicle run by Goldman Sachs in the Cayman Islands, a tax haven that guarantees corporate secrecy.

Kushner, who is married to Trump’s elder daughter Ivanka, kept a stake in Cadre after joining the administration, while selling other assets. His holding is now valued at up to $50m, according to his financial disclosure documents.

Who's the incompetent little sleazeball doing government favors for now in exchange for the $90 million, you ask?

Virginia Heffernan identifies and expands on one of many bad character traits of the Extremely Stable Genius:

The Mueller report amply chronicles President Trump’s staggering, decades-long crime spree. Like an iron skillet to the head, the extent of Trump’s corruption seems to have stupefied voters, legal scholars and, of course, Congress, all of whom are currently at a loss for a remedy.

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, in her run for the Democratic nomination for president, put it best: “If he were any other person in the United States, based on what’s documented in that report, he would be carried off in handcuffs.”

But because our norms appear to be inadequate to the current catastrophe in the White House, Trump is not yet in handcuffs. So while Congress equivocates about the Mueller report and its implications for impeachment, voters ought to recognize a more homespun truth that it doesn’t take a degree in con law to understand.

The president is a cheater.

Brian Cranston won a Tony award for Best Leading Actor in a Play for his portrayal of Howard Beale in "Network." After the requisite thank- yous, he had this to say:

“Howard Beale is a fictitious TV newsman who found his way into the line of fire because of his pursuit of the truth, and I would like to dedicate this to all the real journalists around the world, both in the press and the print media and also broadcast media, who actually are in the line of fire with their pursuit of the truth.  The media is not the enemy of the people. Demagoguery is the enemy of the people. Thank you very much, good night.”

You can see Cranston's full remarks at the link.

Joshua Zeitz looks back at the early 20th century Progressive era for lessons progressives today should take to heart:

... Being a progressive in the opening years of the 20th century didn’t require strict adherence to a party line or blanket support for a set of specific legislative proposals. Because there was no progressive “movement,” in the singular and definitive meaning of the word, progressivism could draw freely from all sectors of society without demanding even broad consensus on basic questions like the morality of economic concentration or the right of women to vote. It was a malleable and shifting coalition of people who recognized common problems, believed in a rational and fact-based approach to resolving the challenges of modern society and animated public life with an innovative and optimistic spirit.

That's just one of many "finds" in Infidel 753's latest link round- up.  Many links, many topics, so little time.  Go!

Monday Reading - Democrats Finding Their Backbones

Is it possible?  Democrats actually standing up and fighting for progressive policies?

Paul Krugman takes a crack at why this might be the way of the electoral future:

Part of the answer is that Democrats, despite defeats in midterm elections, believe — rightly or wrongly — that the political wind is at their backs. Growing ethnic diversity is producing what should be a more favorable electorate; growing tolerance is turning social issues, once a source of Republican strength, into a Democratic advantage instead. Reagan was elected by a nation in which half the public still disapproved of interracial marriage; Mrs. Clinton is running to lead a nation in which 60 percent support same-sex marriage.

At the same time, Democrats seem finally to have taken on board something political scientists have been telling us for years: adopting “centrist” positions in an attempt to attract swing voters is a mug’s game, because such voters don’t exist. Most supposed independents are in fact strongly aligned with one party or the other, and the handful who aren’t are mainly just confused. So you might as well take a stand for what you believe in.

E.J. Dionne, Jr., focuses on Hillary Clinton's role in this new, muscular, progressive offensive:

... Clinton is trying to forge a new consensus and is unashamed to pile up policy proposals: on family leave, child care, college affordability, incentives to employers for higher wages, immigration reform, clean energy and limits on the power of wealthy campaign donors.

Her platform is more progressive because the political center is in a different place in 2015 than it was in 1991 when Bill Clinton touted his “New Covenant.” Americans are more socially liberal now. The financial implosion of 2008 fostered a deep skepticism about Wall Street. Growing resentment of inequality, stagnating wages and blocked social mobility is justified not by ideology but by the often-bitter facts about contemporary capitalism.

Hillary Clinton’s kickoff here on Saturday sent all these messages. The venue itself, Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park, oddly captured the vast diversity and glorious contradictions of the country she hopes to lead.

Doubtless, we owe a lot to principled progressives like Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Sen. Bernie Sanders for being the conscience of the party (i.e., "the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party").  That their fight for progressive values has led the way for others to follow should not be lost in the discussion.

Saturday Reading - "Lesser-Evilism We Can Believe In"

Michael Tomasky writes on why it's vitally important that progressives support the Democratic Party nominee, whoever she is:

... With the Republican Party controlled by the radical right, a Republican presidency doesn't mean merely that you're going to have to see that distasteful reactionary with the cracker-ish accent on your TV screen for the next few years. It means that thousands of people are going to be making many thousands of deeply reactionary decisions, across all federal agencies and departments. This stuff doesn't make the front pages. It rarely makes the news at all. But it goes on, and it affects all of us every day: decisions about civil-rights and environmental enforcement, about the protection of public lands, about the ethical questions raised in scientific research, about the safety of consumer products (and now financial instruments, thanks to Elizabeth Warren), about which polluting or swindling corporations to investigate and with how much zeal… You get the picture.

When you think of the presidency in these terms, Hillary Clinton's various and real ideological impurities become less central, and the idea that the executive branch will be staffed either by people who think they ought to carry out the mission of the agency they work for, or by people who are scheming to subvert that mission, becomes pivotal. And this is why I say that no matter who the candidate is—no matter how deeply in hock to Wall Street, no matter how tepid her (ahem) inequality platform—the responsible person of the left must vote for the Democrat. Not strategically, but on principle. And not sometimes, or only in the states where it might truly matter. Everywhere, and every time.  (our emphasis)

After presenting examples of reactionary Republican "governance" and what it means when you have the Executive Branch salted with people who subscribe to anti-tax monomaniac Grover Norquist's philosophy of dismembering government to the point where you can "drown it in the bathtub," he addresses the Naderite purists on the left and the consequences of a "protest vote:"

This is what you're helping unleash on this country with your "protest vote." And something else I've noticed over the years: protest votes tend to be cast by people who don't have much skin in the game when it comes to the direct delivery of government services. That is, their own day-to-day lives won't really be affected much by which party controls the White House. But most people who are direct beneficiaries of government programs and services can't afford the luxury of being protest voters. Yes, millions of them vote Republican, because their guns (or whatever) are more important to them than their pay packet. But most poorer people still vote Democratic, and I can't imagine that you could have gone to, say, the corner of 145th Street and Lenox Avenue in early November of 2000 and found many Ralph Nader voters.  (our emphasis)

At this point in American politics, we would have to agree with Tomasky that it's not a question of a potential choice being between "the lesser of two evils";  the question is, which party will bring people into government who will enforce laws and regulations that protect and benefit average Americans, versus which party will bring people in to actively subvert those protections.

Monday Reads: Fighting and Rebuilding

Several interesting articles today for your reading pleasure:

-- Russell Muirhead, a professor of government at Dartmouth College, gives us reasons why (contrary to the fretful conservaDem and No Labels crowds) President Obama should be more partisan.

-- E.J. Dionne, Jr., gives Democrats a roadmap for advancing their agenda in the next two years, while disregarding the squeals from the wingnuts:

... Starting in the Reagan era, when Democrats controlled Congress, the Heritage Foundation and other conservative groups put out studies and books attacking “the imperial Congress” because they didn’t like any interference with a president from their own side. It seems that altered political circumstances can lead to neck-snapping changes in convictions that are allegedly rooted in constitutional principle. 

Obama and progressives should spend the next two years accomplishing as many useful things as they can, blocking regressive actions by Congress, and clarifying the choices facing the nation’s voters. And they’ll get much further by doing all three at once. 

-- Ruth Conniff at The Progressive, writes about what Wisconsin progressives are doing to build a strong progressive candidate base for the long haul:

This year, Wisconsin Progress has decided to narrow its focus. Instead of casting a big net and trying to recruit and train hundreds of candidates, as it has in the past, it is focusing more narrowly on building long-term relationships and providing continuing support to a smaller, target group. 

“We want to train fewer people, but the people we do train we want to train in a more significant ways—ways that transcend one election cycle,” [Wisconsin Progressive executive director Scott] Spector says.

Sunday Morning Reading

Charles Blow wants us to "take the long view" in politics. Since the long view would seem to favor progressives, we'll do just that.

The Myth of Conservative America

A fascinating report by Media Matters for America argues that, contrary to conventional wisdom, America is not fundamentally conservative but rather is progressive across a wide range of issues -- and getting more progressive all the time. Utilizing data from nonpartisan sources, the report demonstrates how, from issues such as the economy, security, role of government, health care, the environment and more, the public holds progressive positions and supports progressive solutions. This has been a steady trend over the last 3 decades, the report shows.

What makes this all the more interesting is the trend over the past decade, at least, of conservative media expansion and consolidation (the Murdoch empire, the Clear Channel and Sinclair radio empires, ABC/Disney, etc.), not to mention the "MSM" with its Glenn Becks, *ucker Carlsons, Mark Halperins, Tweetys, etc., trivializing politics with their focus on John Edwards' haircuts, Al Gore's weight, Barack Obama's middle name, and Hillary Clinton's "bitchiness." It gives one reason to hope.