March 6, 2017--Kool Aid

Anyone who thinks Barack Obama during the last months of his presidency had anything to do with bugging Donald Trump's Trump Tower email server is drinking the Kool Aid. This time with Steve Bannon, his Brietbart News, and talkshow lunatic Mark Levin pouring refills.

That Obama would commit a felony, literally a felony in support of Hillary Clinton's candidacy, when it was universally thought she had a commanding lead, is delusional. Starting with Trump who, dangerously, believes this stuff.

The explanation is a lot simpler--

The coverup being perpetrated by the current president and his flunkies is coming undone. Even poor attorney general Jeff Sessions sold his chief out, deciding on his own, without consulting Trump, to plead recusal when it comes to the Russian connection, basically abandoning the president to twist slowly in the wind as one piece of fabrication after another peels away, leaving Trump and his senior staff vulnerable to further exposure.

What happened is as follows--

As part of their routine monitoring of Russian electronic communications chatter, the NSA or CIA or FBI stumbled on conversations between the Russian ambassador and Trump operatives such as Michael Flynn and Paul Manafort, both of whom have longstanding ties to high-level Russians, have been on various Russian payrolls, and as a result are significantly compromised, including, as Flynn finally fessed up, engaged in perhaps illegal discussions before taking office about reducing the sanctions the Obama administration imposed on Russia in retaliation after they were caught red-handed (pun intended) hacking into Hillary Clinton's campaign.

Digging deeper, members of the intelligence community discovered other connections, including, in his own words, Donald Trump, Jr. boasting about all the Russian money "pouring into" various Trump projects. Minimally from black-money laundries such as Wilber Ross' Bank of Cyprus.

With this evidence in hand, including transcripts of these back-channel discussions, it was easy for the FBI (not Obama) to secure FISA-court approval to monitor further conversations between Trump campaign operatives, transition team staff, and various Russian spies. As a result, intelligence officials discovered that the campaign outreach to the Russians and more recently the coverup reached very high into the Trump organization.

So, in the aggregate thus far, we have flunkies such as Flynn and Manafort directly involved in encouraging the Russians to sabotage Clinton's campaign, minimally inappropriately talking with them about what the compromised Trump administration would do after taking office to "compensate" Russia for its help in the campaign, and now of course the massive coverup that likely reaches to Trump himself.

Then of course there is what is revealed in the infamous BuzzFeed dossier about Trump and his Russian capers.

This explains the towering rage Trump unleashed on his staff on Friday after Sessions recused himself without even talking with Trump about his intentions. He opted not to take a bullet for the boss and has as a result already outlived his usefulness. Expect him to be exiled and as the drip, drip, drip continues and various members of the Trump team to begin to peel away. I suspect that this will soon include Rex Tillerson who refuses to drink the Kool Air because he doesn't want the coda to his remarkable career to be that he went down with the Trump ship. And, yes, Watergate style, FBI director James Comey to be fired.

October 14, 2015--Talk Radio

I'm a notoriously poor sleeper.

I manage to fall asleep without trouble, but it's the staying asleep that's the problem.

I have found that one thing that interrupts my early morning obsessing and allows me to resume sleeping is listening to overnight talk radio. The shows tend to be so repetitive and inane that they literally bore me to unconsciousness.

Sports talk of the sort found on WFAN, where callers and hosts obsessively fret about the Jets, Giants, and Knicks gets me slumbering in less than half an hour.

And then there are the political shows. All right wing and full of hate (mostly directed toward Barack Obama) and paranoia (most fears and conspiracies attributed to Obama) and so predictable and repetitive that they too soon lull me back to dreamland.

Then there is Coast to Coast, a nationally syndicated show that is devoted to the paranormal. Guests and callers share stories about flying saucers and how they were abducted and poked in all their bodily cavities by Martians before being returned to Earth. The good news--no one on these shows seem much interested in the president. Though occasionally he is thought to be an alien.

Usually, if I manage to acquire a strong C to C signal, I'm snoring again in less than 15 minutes. There are just so many trips to Venus I can handle even when staring fretfully at the 3:00 a.m. ceiling.

It is interesting that with two exceptions, political talk radio is all so stridently conservative. The two exceptions are the Alan Colmes and Al Sharpton shows. The former has 1.75 million listeners while the Reverend typically attracts 1.0 million.

Compare this with the king of talk, Russ Limbaugh, who has 13.25 million followers; the prince of paranoia, Sean Hannity with 12.5 million; delusional Glenn Beck and Mark Levin with 7.0 million each; and the Michael Savage show that pitches to 5.25 mad-as-hell insomniacs.

All the latter specialize in savaging (pun intended) liberals and especially Obama, who, frequently, is thought to be the Antichrist or at the very least a Kenyan Muslim. Nothing he is doing or did in the past is without fault. The goal is to overturn everything he accomplished, especially Obamacare, and even to delegitimatize him. Yes, he was elected two times with majorities, but if he can be proven to be foreign born or the literal Devil, they can make him go away. It would be as if he never existed.

To give their assault on Obama and other liberals the patina of credibility, these hosts and their callers frequently make things up.

Since they cannot marshall facts to support most of their allegations and grievances, they create them, disproving Daniel Patrick Moynahan's oft-quoted assertion that we are entitled to our opinions but not our own facts.

One small example--On the well-named Red Eye Radio program the other night--a widely syndicated show pitched to truck drivers--they were ranting about Obama's intention to ignore the Second Amendment and to begin to confiscate everyone's guns. Even hunting rifles. That he was using the most recent campus slaughter in southern Utah as a "political opportunity" to justify his fascistic agenda.

"If he's in favor of more gun control," one of the hosts shouted, "why doesn't he come forward with detailed proposals? He talks in generalities but offers no specifics."

His cohost and a procession of folks called in agree.

In fact, three years ago, after the murders at the Sandy Hook School in Newtown, Connecticut, Obama proposed a full program of legislation to limit the size of ammunition magazines for automatic weapons, increased requirements for those who sell semi-automatic assault rifles at gun shows, and the like.

I thought, why aren't any people calling in to present these facts? Where are the liberals who care about these issues? Why are they, we, so passive when faced with the phenomenon of right-wing talk radio?

If we can't sustain shows that present a progressive perspective (including on television--MSNBC failed while Fox News is thriving) why not at least organize a campaign to flood the airwaves with callers who will take on the lies and vitriol of the Glenn Becks, Michael Savages, and Mark Levins?

Liberals recognize the influence and power of these shows on political life and their ability to articulate a vision for the extreme right. A segment of the activist population that is more and more influencing and even shaping the Republican agenda.

Why have we ceded this on-air ground to the untra-conservatives? Even if these shows' producers began to screen out liberal callers, that in itself would make quite a story when publicly exposed.

It is curious that progressives spend passive time tuning in to the Jon Stewarts, Steven Colberts, and Bill Mahers, but are not motivated enough to get up off the couch to take on the calumnies of Limbaugh and Hannity.

Sorry, but if we don't get mobilized, we will get what we deserve.

October 4, 2013--Rite Aid

On Wednesday, while in Camden in 80 degree weather, we stopped at the Rite Aid pharmacy to buy a bottle of water. Forget for the moment that 18 ounces was $1.95 and Rona couldn't resist making a point about what must be the profit on selling "free" water.

What was most interesting was the chat I had with a Rite Aid staffer who was set up with a computer at a desk near the prescription counter.

He was with a customer but we caught each other's eye and I mouthed, "Obamacare?"

He nodded and when the person with whom he was talking got up--seemingly quite happy--I stepped closer and we chatted about what he was doing and how it was going. Counseling people, he said, about the Obamacare options available to them in Maine and how the public he was encountering was reacting to what they were learning about it from him. Very positively he reported.

He told me that at every Rite Aid around the country, not just in communitarian Maine, there were people like him who had been trained to help uninsured people think about what might be best for them.

I told him I was not waiting to have him describe the options to me, that I am on Medicare and have Aetna in addition, but since there was no one waiting he seemed eager to chat.

"They come in here having gotten most of their information about the Affordable Care Act from listening to fear-mongers such as Glenn Beck, Michael Savage, and Mark Levin on the radio in the middle of the night and, as you might imagine, are very worried about what having to purchase insurance will mean for them and their families and how much it will cost them to sign up."

"I can only imagine," I said, "Though to me it's far from perfect, I support Obamacare; but feel he hasn't done as good a job describing it, selling it, as people such as Rush Limbaugh have done to denigrate it and instill fear in unsuspecting listeners."

"Pretty much everything they tell me that they 'know' about Obamacare is wrong. For example, there is still the belief out there that if you sign up for it you and your family members will be under the control of death panels and if you currently have coverage you will not be able to keep it but will be required to join a plan endorsed personally by Obama."

"What about cost issues? Are people worried about how much it will cost them?"

"Initially, pretty much universally yes. But when I sit them done and run the numbers--based on their family income--considering incomes here are in general not that high, they discover that it will likely cost them a manageable amount to select a health care plan."

"Can you be specific?"

"Sure. For a couple making less than about $62,000 a year (and that would be almost everyone here) with the tax credits available, on average it could cost them about $100 a month. Which almost any working couple can afford. For a family of four, tax credits kick in up to about $94,000 of annual income; and the cost for the plan selected--and there's a range of them--would run from a couple of hundred dollars a month to $1,000 or so for those opting for the low-deductable, so-called 'platinum' one. On the other hand, if a family of four makes less than $32,000 a year, the cost of the basic plan will be about zero. Like for those of you on Medicare. The government subsidies will cover pretty much the entire cost. Which, to say the least, is a good and big deal."

"Do they know about how with Obamacare there are no lifetime caps on how much will be covered and how, no matter one's preexisting conditions, coverage can't be denied?"

"Some have heard about that but most haven't. And when I tell them about that--almost everyone I've spoken with thus far does in fact have a preexisting condition--they think I'm not telling the truth. That I'm a shill for Obama."

"So Mark Levin and company have been ironically successful in spreading misinformation . . ."

"And lies," he said. "That's what this computer's for," he tapped the screen, "I show them the truth in black and white, so to speak."

"How's business? I mean, how many people have you seen?"

"Between yesterday and thus far today maybe a couple dozen. But here's the most interesting part."

"What's that."

"Already today I'm seeing people who had friends or relatives who I spoke with yesterday coming here now based on what their friends learned. It's too early to generalize, but word of mouth seems quite positive."

A couple of middle-aged people had joined the line behind me so I turned to leave.

"They're not positive about me," he laughed, "but about Obamacare."

"I wonder if this will find its way to the media or will they continue to insist on covering the negative?"

"That would be a first," he said, winking and waving as I left.