Republicans' Defense Against Impeachment...

So... let's just summarize the Republican talking points regarding the impeachment:

 

• Republicans feel that the testimony being held behind closed doors during the initial grand jury testimony was wrong.  
• You know, the testimony that is generally performed behind closed doors prior to a trial? The trial itself comes AFTER the person has been charged with a crime.  If the House votes to impeach the President, that vote is them charging the President with a crime.  
• Republicans feel that it was important to let the President, or his lawyers, cross examine witnesses and face his accusers.  
• It is typically after you have been charged with a crime that you cross examine the witnesses and have the right to face your accuser.  I've never heard "I want to face my accuser" as the response to being questioned by police before a charge is made.  So, again, slow your roll.
• Republicans say that without the whistle blower coming forward, there is no way to judge the case.... oh, and that the whistle blower can't be believed because they don't have first-hand knowledge... I mean, if the latter is so critical, why does the former even matter?
• First off, you also keep telling us to just read the transcript.  We did and that is essentially one of the witnesses.
• Secondly, let's say there are 10 witnesses to a crime.  One of them talks to a friend and that friend goes to the cops to let them know the crime was committed.  If 7 of the 10 witnesses then get brought in by the cops and they testify to what they witnessed... what does anything about the friend matter?!?
• Speaking of witnesses, Republicans are complaining that those coming forth now are still not close enough to the President... they're just the ambassador to Ukraine, and similar level,  who were directly going between the White House and Ukrainian officials
• Ok, but you've told everybody with more direct connections to the President not to testify so how about you let them testify instead of saying "we don't think you're bringing enough of the evidence that we're withholding from you."
• The President says there was nothing wrong
• I'm amused by this but it can hardly be considered a surprise given that ...
• virtually everybody has told him that it's wrong to accept political aid from a foreign power and yet he keeps saying that it's totally reasonable and that everybody does it.
• he lies about everything.  The size of the crowd at his inauguration, how people behave around him (all those people crying during an event we have a video recording of which show NOBODY crying), whether he has reason to believe Russia tampered in the election (first he said he had no reason to believe they did and then he "clarified" that he meant to say "he had no reason to not believe they did"... yeah, that's a helpful clarification and one that's totally believable... you could have just said "I was just told x by Putin but believe my team" rather than "I was just told x by Putin and I have no reason to believe anything else")
• Republicans point out that there can't be a quid pro quo because the Ukrainian President never ended up giving Trump what he wanted but we did end up giving Ukraine the funds.  Ok, this is the hardest one.  It's the most reasonable one I've heard... thus why I saved it for last.  It also happens to be the one I've heard the least, which tells you something about the messaging of the Republican party on this matter... why try a rationale response when you can lie or use irrational responses?... but let's try to figure this out, shall we?
• Alright, so... if I go into a bank and pull out a gun and tell the bank teller to give me $1,000... and someone apprehends me... I still can be charged and convicted for attempted bank robbery.  My getting caught doing the illegal thing and prevented from getting the outcome I wanted doesn't prevent the illegal thing from happening in the first place.  Essentially, what I'm saying is that, even though Trump was essentially forced to send the money to Ukraine, the month that he had been directed by Congress to send to Ukraine... even though he sent it days before the Ukrainian President was scheduled to go on TV... the fact that he was caught doing this and forced to send the money doesn't stop us from recognizing that he was trying to do this. Interesting information on his being forced to release the money came out a few days ago: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-11-09/state-department-freed-ukraine-money-before-trump-says-he-did  In addition to this, the investigation into the situation started roughly at the same time as the Ukrainian President was scheduled to announce the investigation.

Trump Condemns White Nationalists...

Unlike many of my friends, I'm going to give Trump credit for saying that we need to confront white nationalism... hear me out though... Trump has made it his modus operandi of creating a problem and then solving it. So... here he is again, stoking the pre-existing racism in this country into a frenzy and then finally, years later, condemning it. Ok, so maybe he didn't create the racism that I'm essentially giving him credit for but he's also not solving the problem this time either... so... I guess I'm not giving him credit for his statements after all.

Seriously, though, I'm tired of Republican presidents blowing racist dog whistles consistently and then condemning racism when something tragic happens. In the case of Trump, he's been using racist blow horns at every rally and until now has not condemned white nationalists for any of the events that have happened. This statement he had written up for him to read is as empty and as sincere as my offer of credit for it. Now, mind you, all Presidents have statements written for them, the significance here is that Trump has a tendency to say things that are the polar opposite of the written statements when he is off script.

No, not all Republicans are racists, of course they aren't. Yes, there are plenty of racist Democrats. And yes, we've had racist Democratic presidents. But the racism that Trump has stoked since even before his run for the presidency and through to just last week (and likely in the next campaign rally or potentially the next press briefing) dwarfs what we have seen in recent history. Add to that, the frequency of bald-faced lies Trump and his team hold firmly to and you can see why I don't believe for a moment that Trump actually feels that we need to confront white nationalism. At best, he's trying to make it ok for his supporters to support him. At worst he's trying to deflect and cause more chaos, as is his underlying main modus operandi.

Is Every Trump Supporter a Racist? Does it matter?

There's been a lot of talk of whether Trump supporters are all racist.  The Right keeps saying this is nonsense, that you simply can't paint his supporters with that brush.  Perhaps we should start with some facts though.

Fact one: Trump is a racist, or at a minimum, he plays one on his reality tv show that he's going going on: "The President."  He plays one to such a degree that his rally-goers chant and proclaim racist statements all the time.  He plays one to such a degree that it's not a question of whether he knows what the dog whistles have underlying them.  And he has played one to this degree for well over a decade (go look up The Central Park Five, where, after the true murderer admitted his actions, Trump continues to say the 5 falsely accused were guilty).

Fact two: Racist acts and hate crimes have been on the rise since Trump became president.

Fact three: Trump's supporters are, for the most part, unwilling to say something about Trump's racism in public.

Fact four: When Obama was president, there were plenty of Obama supporters who called him out on a variety of issues.  The most common ones I saw were overseas military actions (bombings) and deportations (note, this is deportations, not separating children from their parents when they come asking for asylum).

Alright, so, for the non-fact-based portion of this thought experiment... let's acknowledge that you can support someone without supporting all of what they do and say.  Obama is a great example given the fourth fact, above.

There is the potential that people aren't willing to acknowledge that Trump is a racist because "racism" is such a negative by the general populace that they think they lose every argument attached to Trump if the acknowledge it.  In most cases, that identifies that the thinker of this feels that the racism being promoted IS THAT BAD.  I suppose there could be the idea that the general populace thinks racism is bad but that the thinking doesn't believe the general populace is right.  Certainly, there are many on the Left that feel that it is that bad and cannot be tolerated, though we haven't seen a scenario play out yet where we have someone on the Left being racist in this manner without being called out in any way by the Left.  We have had individuals be racist, but they tend to be called out as such.


All that said, one of the biggest tactics Trump uses is racism to divide the country.  He does this in so many different ways and so openly.  He sometimes tries to claim he's not using it, like when he initially claimed to the news that he had didn't like the "Send Her Back" chant at one of his rallies.  What's really amusing about these attempts is that he has nothing to stand on so when he makes these claims, anybody with a memory and access to the video of the earlier event or his twitter feed can easily see that he's lying.  In the case of the "Send Her Back" chant, he initially claimed that he tried to stop it by talking very quickly.  A few things about this claim:
1) It's false.  He didn't start talking quickly.  He in fact stepped back and let the chant wash over him like a victorious speaker appreciating the crowds cheers.  Only after the chant died down did he start talking again, and at that point he didn't talk quickly.
2) That's not how you stop a chant!  You only have to go back to when Senator McCain ran President Obama to understand what a dignified individual does in the face of a crowd throwing racism about.  Senator McCain, say what you will about him, and I can say a lot, on a number of occasions did not stand for the crowd bringing racism into his race for the presidency.  He would receive a question from the crowd and immediately take control and explain calmly but sternly that Obama was not whatever the crowd member was suggesting and explaining that while the two have differences of philosophies, Obama was a citizen of the US or was a dignified human being and not someone to be "scared of."  If you're going to try to say that racism is wrong, you say it.  You don't just continue with your rant trying to talk over a chant and you CERTAINLY don't just step back and listen to the chant.  You call it out.  You tell your supporters that they're wrong to use that language.  But Trump doesn't believe that they're wrong to use that language and he doesn't believe that the racism involved is reprehensible.

Sorry, went off on a bit of a tangent there.  Again, it's clear that Trump is racist or is, at a minimum, ok with playing the racist.  And his supporters are ok with his doing so as well.  So, back to the question, does being ok with your leader being a racist make you a racist?  I would suggest that it's a matter of degrees but that, if you are ok with your leader being a racist and you don't complain about it and point it out every time he does something racist, that makes you an accomplice at best.

I have yet to hear or read of a Trump supporter acknowledging the obvious racism publicly though.
 So, yeah, Trump supporters may not themselves be racist, but as long as they're not speaking up, they might as well be.

PS - Racism isn't the only dividing issue Trump plays on.  He also is very much a sexist and plays into anti-LGBTQ tropes.  The last bit is somewhat interesting to me because he pretended at the Republican National Convention in 2016 that he was proud of the party for being welcoming of his pro-LGB-rights messages.  So add these to the lists of things Trump supporters are buying into if they're not openly upset by. It's astonishing to see this culture war being pushed openly by the Right when they have been pushing most of it a little more descretely (though still obviously for those who could read between the lines and understood the tropes and dog whistles).

Fix the MBTA...

The Red Line of the T recently had a derailment which is causing all kinds of problems.  The accident caused damage to the signaling for that line and is going to cause slower service for the rest of the summer.  But this isn't the start of the decline of service, no, that has been happening for years.

WBUR conducted a poll that shows a majority of those polled disapprove of the way the MBTA has been managed by the Baker administration (https://www.wbur.org/news/2019/06/27/wbur-poll-mbta-transportation-baker).  I hate to say I told you so, but, yeah, I'm pretty sure I did.

There are now calls for the T to not increase fares until service issues are resolved.  But you can't resolve the issues the T has without increasing the funding.  Yet I agree that fare increases are not the way to go.  But what can we do?

How about this... how about we identify that public transportation needs to be publicly supported and needs to be considered one of the major lifebloods of our society... how about we not just identify it but we show it in how we pay for it.  Instead of having the riders pay 40% of the operating costs, let's decrease that significantly and increase the general burden to those living and working in Massachusetts.  This change in how we sustain the program will help shift the mentality around public transportation from something that's a luxury to something that is essential to the very fabric of our state.  Instead of saying "it's a partnership between the tax payer and those other people that make use of it" we're saying "this is something we want a majority of the people who work and travel in the metropolitan area to use."  The change in where we get the funding would change then change the philosophy within the administration and make it more important to improve service and reliability rather than seeing this part of our government as being a burden to reduce.  Yes, we should be efficient but we should be efficient while providing this desperately needed service to our people.  We should also go a step above just shifting where the money comes from and put a lot of money, not just some, into repairing and upgrading what we have.

But here's the question I pose to you now: Baker has announced that we will spend some extra money over the next few months to pay for repairs that are needed... it's far less expensive if you space these over years rather than months due to overtime and ramp-up inefficiencies. So... why didn't we start making these repairs and upgrades after the terrible winter breakdowns early in Baker's administration?  Why didn't we follow through with what Baker claimed he would do, which was to fix the MBTA?  Simple, he doesn't see the value of it.  It all goes back to it being a partnership between us, the taxpaying drivers, and them, the commuters.

It's time to shift this understanding of what the service is that the MBTA provides.  Instead of us vs them, it should be simply us.  We, the residents and workers in Massachusetts, need this transportation to exist and function well.  I may not need to take the T to work (right now), but that doesn't mean that it's not hugely beneficial to me to have the Greater Boston area thrive from a functioning transportation system. 

It's time to start funding the MBTA and push the improvements we need, not just the extension of the Green Line but the repairs and improvements to all branches, and not just in ways that are visible to the riders but those that are felt by them as well.  We need the infrastructure supporting the trains to be worked on and we need that work to be sustained.  Let's do what Baker said he was going to do after his first year in office, let's finally fix the MBTA.

The case for and against "not all men"

Alright, let's start off by my acknowledging that I am indeed the enemy, the evil, the oppressor, in the form of a white, cis, heterosexual, middle-class male who works for a corporation, but not just any corporation, one that works for pharmaceuticals, yes, those evil-doers that are only outclassed by companies that make weapons and cigarette companies.

Now that we've got that out of the way (and what god-awful writing that was, but what do you expect from a college dropout... yes, we're starting up by pulling out all the stops in reminding myself why I'm the Dark Wind),  let's get down to business.  There was a commercial that came out this week that shows men doing the right thing by standing up to other men who are behaving poorly or by stopping a fight.  In response, as you can easily imagine, a small segment of the population has cried foul and, at least based on my social news feed (and the expectation of the company in question, otherwise they wouldn't have made the ad), a much larger segment of the population has cheered and told the smaller population that they can take their complaints and stick up... well, you get the idea.  Some of these responses to the response to the ad (responses to the response to the... yeah, that's it) have been so keen as to avoid saying anything about how many men are responding negatively or even if it's only men that are responding negatively and instead focusing on the ridiculousness of that negativity in the face of an ad suggesting people should behave kindly and courteously and do the right thing.  There are some others, however, that run something along the lines of the following:

Ads for Women: Be thin, be thick, love your body, your boobs look better in this, dye your hair, embrace your grays, these pants are slimming, be feminine, wear makeup, look natural, hide your age....
Women: K.
Gillette: Men should be less shitty.
Men: Don't tell us what to do!

My immediate reaction is to feel attacked by this and respond with "not all men" but I know that I can't respond publicly this way.  That is not my place, I would be doing evil by doing so and called out as such.

A much later reaction is to point out that men also are told by ads to be thin, have no gray hairs, have some gray hair, be rugged, enjoy trucks and the outdoor, and love power tools.... but this is even easier for me to put aside because I know that this is like a puddle saying it's also wet when talking to a lake.... sure it's true but....

So, back to the "not all men" reaction... is it reasonable to not be permitted socially to have this reaction without repercussions?  Most other situations "not all ..." is not only accepted but warranted and right.  Examples easily come to mind: "not all Muslims are terrorists (and really almost none are)", "not all illegal immigrants are murderous thieves (and really almost none are)", "not all recipients of welfare are cheating the system (and really almost none are)."  But then why is "not all men" inappropriate to say?  It's actually quite simple.  Men are privileged in the US.  A privileged group is does not get to defend themselves in this way for it suggests they do not understand that it's understood that not all are being implicated (and yet there are those who would respond to someone saying "not all" with "yes all") and because ... well... they are the privileged group in the pairing.

There is another argument in favor of "not all men": by attacking all men and not providing the opportunity for men to say "not all" it causes us to move further into our corners.  Men who feel attacked by these memes and statements will often back down from the fight to make the bad actors among us behave better.  Ok, but there's a counter to this one, and it's something that we have been learning lately from a variety of political studies.  People don't get convinced by logical arguments, or really any arguments.  It turns out it's nearly impossible to convince people that their beliefs are wrong and to change political sides.  So these memes are not meant to convince anyone, they are meant to give voice to frustration and anger and they are meant to rally those who agree.  So to respond with "not all men" in these instances, similar to the memes themselves, would not be helpful to the conversation and would only antagonize those that are oppressed and expressing their frustration and anger at the situation... which seems not only useless and unnecessary but indeed hurtful and wrong.

So, yes, I believe not all men, but it is more than reasonable that I should refrain from responding this way.... oh, and as many would point out, yes, all men.

Offices and pod coffee

I've noticed that various offices have taken to having pod coffee... my office recently switching to keurig.... this is very wasteful (both financially because individually wrapped coffee pods are more expensive and environmentally because they're individually wrapped).

But what's the alternative? The main ones offered currently are coffee shops, pot coffee, and other non-conventional (in the US) forms of single brew (french press, cold brew...). All of these have negative elements to an office's needs.

• If you don't provide coffee, your employees now are missing out on a perk that competitors have.  Worse still, if they decide to go to a coffee shop, you're essentially promoting a transition out of the office which is costly in efficiency.
• If you go with only having pot coffee available, while this is at least a little bit closer to the common scenario, it's not going to be quite the perk that is expected by your employees because they can't pick and choose and personalize their coffee selection.

So, I get it... there are certainly reasons why companies are all converting to pod coffee of one fashion or another.  Taking that as a given, maybe there's an option that would allow for something more economical, environmental, AND providing the same perks we've come to expect in the office? I know it sounds ridiculously inefficient, but, I've been thinking about the reusable pods available for keurig.  I don't think people would accept filling their own reusable pods, but, what if someone at the office were to be responsible for filling the pods, in similar fashion to someone currently being in charge of stocking them?  

• I can imagine having a small device for holding several pods at a time while their filled, making it slightly more efficient than when a person fills one pod.
• You could get different flavors and mark different reusable pods as each flavor, thus allowing the same diversity as is available today.
• For the most environmentally concerned companies, the remains of the coffee grounds could be composted instead of just tossed in the trash. 

The main problems I foresee with this plan are that you need someone to take a bit more time with stocking the coffee and that you would want some way to keep the freshness of the grounds in place once placed in the reusable pod.  For the former, I'm not really sure what can be done aside from using tools to make the process of resetting the pods quicker, such as the aforementioned holder for holding the pods while refilling or a funnel for the same part of the process.  For maintaining freshness, I wonder if you could get a rubber cap to put over the pod.

Looking just at my office, I expect there would be a decent start-up cost but that it would pay for itself relatively quickly.  Let's say you expect to need 24 cups of each of 12 varieties per day.  

• You would need around 288 reusable pods; $10 for 4 pods; $720
• 12 bags of coffee; let's say $8/bag; $96
• Miscellaneous equipment such as funnel... let's say $50?

Total: ~$870 (assuming you already have a keurig, given that we're replacing the current offering...if that Keurig machine already in place is based on a service provider, then we're adding a Keurig to bring us to about $925-$975)

So, yes, that's a large starting point but consider the financial savings of such an arrangement.  That 12 bags of coffee covers roughly 360 cups of coffee, or around $225 worth of Keurig cups.... so you can see how a savings of $130 nearly every day would cover that initial investment into the reusable pods real quick.... the initial investment would be covered within 2 weeks.

What are your thoughts?  Do you work in an office where lots of pods are used?  Do you think the office could make the switch?

Senator McConnell Targets Social Safety Nets

Senator McConnell recently said that he feels we need to tackle "entitlements" and that there's a bipartisan attempt not to because they're too popular....

Ok, I promise this will be quick, there's not much to dig into but let's get started.

1) The GOP Congress last year reduced taxes, especially on corporations and, not surprisingly, the rich.  At the same time, they gave a big boost to military spending... spending the military didn't ask for.  That's why we are so deep in the red this year.  Let's not pretend this is anything but what they planned: reduce the money coming into the Federal Government (and increase non-social spending) so you can claim to e forced to reduce spending on the non-military.  It's a manufactured crisis.  Don't think of it in any other terms.

2) If a program is popular, and it works, both of which are true for these social nets, why are you so hung up on tearing into them?  And boy are they hung up on it... I can't remember a time when the leadership of the GOP wasn't trying to break the contract with the American people.  Oh, it's because you feel it has something to do with the deficit spending that Conservatives like to rail against in times of Democrat leadership of the government and love to indulge in when the Republicans are in power.

3) Ok, so, let's talk about their impact on the deficit... there is none.  Ok, it's even better than that, these programs are funded by a separate revenue stream to the general tax system and they bring in more money than they spend... so far.  That's right, the Social Security and Medicare elements you see in your paycheck more than cover these programs.  They never have caused a deficit.  They, in fact, have been used to offset the deficit spending from time to time.  "But Peter, you said 'so far'... won't they eventually go bankrupt?"  Well, sure, if we don't do anything, eventually the money the Government takes in for Social Security won't cover the costs of the program.  There are a number of different ways that we can resolve this however, and one of those is to change it from a regressive program to ... less of a regressive program.  See, your income is taxed for Social Security but only up to a certain cap... and that's currently $127.200.  We could simply remove the cap and those of us fortunate enough to make more than $127,000 would pay an equal percentage into Social Security as everyone else.  And the benefits aren't capped in the same way, so a person making $127,200 and a person making $1,270,000 pay the same into Social Security but the former gets back significantly less when they retire.  So just remove the cap on the taxable income and you're pretty much covered.

So really, what the fuck are GOP leaders talking about when they say that we don't have the resources to support these programs and need to find ways to cut costs?