It was primary week (again) here in New York , where our political leaders see fit to have more than one primary per election season and place one of them bizarrely on a Thursday. Seems like a good time to do some short takes on the stuff and nonsense that has been dominating our news this past week. Where to begin?
Super Storm. Hurricane Florence is bearing down on the east coast of the U.S., and is his wont, the President’s first comments centered on, well, himself and the amazing job he did when Hurricane Maria battered Puerto Rico last year. He is flatly denying the veracity of the revised casualty figures that put the death toll from Maria above that of Katrina, saying that the higher numbers were made up by Democrats to make him look bad. I’m betting George W. Bush looks at this with envy and wonders why he never thought of just totally and persistently making shit up about New Orleans.
Fear. Woodward’s book has been all over the airwaves this past week. In many respects, it is remarkably similar to the anonymous op-ed published in the New York Times by someone who refers to him/herself as a member of the “resistance”. Any “resistance” that includes individuals who think the GOP tax plan, environmental policy, immigration policy, and other efforts are “bright spots” is frankly not worth a dime. Similarly, Woodward’s take on some of the core issues he writes about is from the perspective of an imperial scribe. I agree that Trump is a dangerous imbecile when it comes to foreign policy, but the idea that a permanent and aggressively postured military presence in the Korean peninsula and eastern Europe somehow prevents World War III is flatly insane. It is, in fact, the very thing that brings us to the brink of terminal nuclear war again and again. The only thing that saves us is dumb luck, at this point.
What March? Hear about that major day of action against global warming this past weekend. No, neither did I. Democracy Now! had some good coverage of this, and I always find it enlightening to listen to Amy Goodman’s activist on the street interviews. It’s a great way to hear about specific, localized movements from across the country and around the world.
Kavanaugh. I can’t read that guy’s name without hearing the voice of my old friend and Big Green co-founder Ned Danison reciting it with an affected tone (a reference to a certain guitar player of our acquaintance back in the day). That alone is enough to disqualify him for the highest court in the land.
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Trump attended a fundraiser for Tenney that was supposed to be a closed-door, no-press event, but at some point they allowed pool reporters in to record his remarks, which were about typical. It amounts to the Democrats wanting to raise your taxes, open the borders wide, and take away your guns. Of course, the president was talking to a crowd of heavy-wallet donors: the cheap seats were $1,000 and sponsors paid $15,000. So, for once, he may be right about Democrats wanting to raise the taxes of the people in that room – they richly deserve it.
Trump’s fundraiser for Tenney, reportedly, will be private, not open to the public, no lying media allowed. Like most politicians (Tenney included), he prefers a controlled crowd of sycophants to any even nominally open forum. At Fort Drum, however, Trump will be howling and baying his praise of Tenney, Stephanik, and others for co-sponsoring another crap piece of legislation that will pour more money into the base and build a fence around the former installation known as Griffiss, which still houses a raft of military contractors mostly working on high tech. (So, in effect, it’s still an air base, with a landing strip that can accommodate pretty much any military aircraft up to and including the C-5 transport.)