text:
Tag: Ronald Reagan
November is likely to fatally maim the Republican Party
On: July 16, 2020 July 16, 2020 By: Mark
In January 2019 I wrote this post about how Trump was likely to kill the Republican Party. At the time, a Marist poll noted that 57% of voters surveyed said they would never vote for Trump, which if true pretty much doomed his reelection prospects. I said then it was likely to kill the party. Since then of course Donald Trump has been busy making sure to do his best to definitely kill the party.
Of course, it's not entirely Trump. It's also circumstances, specifically the covid-19. My hairdresser, who lost sixty percent of her customers due to covid-19, asked me if I thought I'd ever see a pandemic. And the truth was yes. We were overdue for one, and we've had a number of mini-pandemics recently to use as an example. There was the SARS outbreak (severe acute respiratory syndrome) of 2002-2004 that caused 8000 cases and 774 deaths, including four deaths in the United States. The last big pandemic was about a hundred years ago, the so-called Spanish Flu. It was badly named, as its origin was likely at an army base in Kansas. Fortunately, covid-19 is unlikely to be quite as lethal as that disease, which took an estimated seventeen to 50 millions lives worldwide. But its impact is going to be far more than the lives lost and the millions affected by it.
What would it take to destroy the Republican Party? The party is actually a loose conglomeration of capitalists, libertarians, racists and evangelicals, with skin tone being the main thing they have in common. Take away too many of these groups, and the party as a whole is unlikely to endure. The party's symbol, the elephant, might offer a clue. Elephants are deeply familial creatures, deeply protective of their children and their tribes. Break those bonds and the party may crumble.
That of course is exactly what Republicans are doing to themselves and the rest of us. While a conglomeration of interests, the party is actually controlled by the capitalists. And its capitalists have no problem inflicting pain on those in the party that emphasize family and stability.
This is best evidenced by Trump and the party's obsession to open schools, damn the costs and objections. Trump wants schools to open next month, five days a week, in person in the classroom, damn the torpedoes. He is threatening to cut federal funding to states that don't comply, which he can't do. In any event, federal funding accounts for less than ten percent of local school funding. So it's a pretty empty threat. For it to be effective, he needs to convince governors to open the schools. In states like Florida, he is finding receptive governors.
If this prevails, the outcome is already obvious based on how the disease has progressed. Children will carry the disease home and spread it among the community. Most children will be passive carriers and probably won't know they are carriers, but some will get it and die too. Much more likely to die are their teachers and others at the school and the children's parents. Why is this being done? Because Donald Trump wants to get the economy roaring again because he believes that's how he will win a daunting reelection. As a consequence, teachers feel stuck between a rock and a hard place. Some are writing their wills.
Parents will soon have to decide where their priorities lie. Do they send their kids to school where they might contract the disease, or pass it on to others, like them? Or do they keep them home and maybe try remote learning instead? Remote learning is at best a poor teaching experience, but given the unpleasant choice between risking their or their children's lives to making Donald Trump happy, most are probably going to keep the kids home. They have to keep their family safe. Mass disobedience on this sort of scale cannot be enforced by truant officers.
It also breaks the compact between Republicans. If Republicans are going to put the family unit in such direct jeopardy, Republican with kids in the public schools finally have a deeply emotional rationale for bailing on the Republican Party. Their own party will have betrayed them. Come November, it will be in their own interest to vote out Republicans who can't be bothered to protect their children. This may explain the 15-point lead that Joe Biden has amassed in the latest Quinnipiac Poll.
What would the Republican Party look like without most of its so-called value voters? Most likely it would look like a party on its last legs.
The November election is going to blow a devastating hole in the Republican Party. Democrats will retake the White House, Congress and probably a majority of governorships and possibly many state houses. Democrats need only two pickups to control the governorships. We're going to see states we never thought would vote for Biden vote for him, like possibly Texas, but most likely Arizona, North Carolina and Georgia.
It all amounts to citizens needing a government that governs. Republicans only know how to drown government in a bathtub. It is likely that not just Trumpism that will die in this election, but Reaganism too. When we hear "I'm from the federal government, and I'm here to help" we'll likely say, "Please". Republicanism will prove a textbook case for why we need government.
If the party survives, let's hope it looks a lot more like the party of Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt. If it doesn't, it probably won't survive.
Category: Politics 2020 Tagged COVID-19, Democratic Party, Donald Trump, Joe Biden, Reaganism, Republican Party, Republicans, Ronald Reagan, SARS, Spanish flu, Trumpism Leave a comment/
The needless suffering all around us
On: December 6, 2019 By: Mark
My wife is volunteering at the local survival center. Twice a week during the dinner hour she volunteers there, helping to serve 40 to 80 families (sometimes more) survive during her shift.
The center takes all comers, so the undocumented and homeless are served. It's not mostly these people that the center serves though. It's neighbors who look a lot like me, but unlike me (I'm largely retired) they are working. They work whatever they can get and whenever they can. There are virtually no freeloaders that come through their doors.
Our community is not unique. About eleven percent of the population is food insecure. Thank goodness the survival center keeps them from starvation. That's because these days you can't count on much if anything from the government. That's because Ronald Reagan convinced Americans that welfare queens driving Cadillacs were using food stamps to buy steaks. For forty years the Republican Party (and to some extent Democrats like Bill Clinton) have been making it harder and harder for people to simply survive.
Some of these people are homeless, but most are not. Most of their income is going to keeping a roof over their heads. Housing prices keep going up and almost all of them rent because they can't afford to buy a home. Demand can't keep up with supply, and certainly their wages can't, so they are squeezed.
I live in Massachusetts which is reasonably progressive. Our minimum wage is currently $11/hour, and will rise to $15/hour by 2023. Still, it's clear that this amount does not come close to providing a living wage.
Most of the people at the survival center are working two or more jobs, and it's still not enough. Lots have dependents. An increasing minimum wage helps, but it is being raised slowly. The sorts of jobs these people work rarely pay much more than the minimum wage. That's because despite low overall unemployment rates, the pool of relatively unskilled labor is still pretty high, so employers usually don't have much of a problem filling these jobs. Our area is somewhat rural. Aside from some colleges and one university, there isn't a whole lot of higher paying jobs.
What often tips the balance for these people is unemployment or health costs. Probably the biggest variable is unexpected health costs. The good news is that it's hard to be uninsured in Massachusetts, as the Affordable Care Act was based largely on our program. The bad news is that most of these plans are still not that affordable. Since it's required, they usually buy high deductible plans. While they often get catastrophic protection, in some ways its a worse system: they must pay for health plans they cannot really afford, plus they pay huge deductibles before they can get what are largely catastrophic benefits. These deductibles can wipe out the money for things like paying the rent or buying groceries. It also puts them on a treadmill of getting by, if you can call it that.
In short, the standard of living they require simply to get by is not close to what society is willing to pay them to let them achieve it. A lot of these people end up at the survival center because they run out of government benefits. And every year, our betters make things worse. Just yesterday, the Trump administration announced it is finalizing rules that will amount to kicking 700,000 more people off of food stamps.
It's being done by changing the criteria of how high a state's unemployment rate must be for it to get a federal waiver. Right now these SNAP benefits cannot exceed three months over 3 years for an individual without being enrolled in an education or training program for 80 hours a month, so if that happens these people are already at risk of homelessness and hunger. With the new rules, states could not seek a waiver unless their unemployment rate was at least six percent.
It's based on the assumption that these people are lazy welfare queens who could easily get a job when in fact the vast majority are already working. In fact, most work a lot more than the rest of us. Most of the rest of us probably could not endure the superhuman amount of effort it takes for these people to survive. Without food stamps, they have to depend on their local survival center and hope there is food. My wife sees these people every day she volunteers. Fortunately, there are many giving individuals and organizations in the area willing to step up when the government clearly won't. We give them $100 a month, in addition to volunteer work.
Prescription drug costs can also be killer costs. Recently, I sent $50 to an online friend, Jeff, whose state of Utah won't provide Medicaid benefits. He's currently homeless, living with a friend and despite having two jobs he can't afford the $500 his specialized diabetes medicine costs. This is merely the most critical of his costs because he has other high cost prescriptions he needs and can't afford because he is uninsured. He has no place to call home and his infrastructure crumbling around him. His car is giving out. He keeps looking for a cheap apartment, but there are none, at least not requiring very long drives from Salt Lake City. Oh, and he's recently divorced, has a transgender teen and his ex expects him to pay for child support.
He's hardly alone. I recently documented my friend Tom's situation, which thankfully is not as dire at Jeff's. They're all over my community and they are all over yours too. All because those with money are largely in charge, they think these people are lazy, and they don't want to contribute a dime to help them escape their misery or even keep them from going hungry. Ironically, a lot of these people are virulently pro-life.
These same people also tend to believe that we live in the greatest country. If we did, we wouldn't tolerate the poverty and suffering of our fellow citizens.
No wonder candidates like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have such support. Republicans are clueless, but the rest of us understand this suffering. We insist on a decent society that doesn't allow it. For those of us who haven't experienced it, we feel its closeness, knowing we are one job loss away from entering this hell.
It's largely all because we allowed our energies and productivity to go to stockholders instead of the people whose sweat earned these profits. Moreover, we let people lead us who cut us off at the kneecaps. They turned our states into right-to-work states, which makes it hard for unions to form, but easier to give employers the upper hand.
As this Trump proposal demonstrates, there is no end to the level of cruelty Republicans will inflict on us to put yet more money into their pockets at our expense. If you are looking for a revolution, they may get one sooner than they expect. And they may be the ones found beneath the local hanging tree.
Category: Politics 2019 Tagged Food insecurity, Poverty, Republicans, Ronald Reagan Leave a comment/
Whites are being horribly exploited … by other whites
On: September 1, 2018 By: Mark
Fox News host Laura Ingraham drew some attention in August when she said this on her Fox News TV show:
"In some parts of the country, it does seem like the America we know and love don't exist anymore," she said, with videos of agricultural work playing over her shoulder. "Massive demographic changes have been foisted upon the American people. And they're changes that none of us ever voted for and most of us don't like."
Donald Trump's election proved there are plenty of white people worried that America isn't quite white enough for their tastes anymore. It's making them nervous and scared and not coincidentally is causing many of them to stock up on guns.
The browning of America is hardly new but for decades Republicans have been riding this anxiety to political power. Richard Nixon's 1968 Southern Strategy (as well as his Silent Majority strategy in his 1972 reelection) harnessed this fear. Ronald Reagan stoked it too, with images of imaginary welfare queens buying steaks and driving Cadillacs. Donald Trump of course made this anxiety the center of his campaign and his presidency. Fear, particularly fear of "the other" is a powerful motivator.
Reagan's imaginary welfare queen was probably not a white person. This is strange because whites receive the majority of food stamps. In 2015, 40% of SNAP recipients were white. That's more than blacks (26%) and Hispanics (10%) combined. If you are one of those whites on food stamps though, it may be scary though because it suggests that you can't do any better economically than those other "lesser" races in our country. That can be unsettling. But whites traditionally have always been the biggest recipients of food stamps because they are a majority of the country.
Still, Laura Ingraham's remarks are awfully odd considering that she has an adopted Guatemalan daughter. With images of brown agricultural workers in the background during her tirade, you have to wonder how long it's been since most of our agricultural workers were white. Whites don't want to work agricultural jobs, even for increased wages. I live in Western Massachusetts where local farmers advertise heavily for agricultural workers but get few takers. That's because these jobs are brutal, far away and don't pay well. Just 23% of agricultural workers in the United States were born here. I was born in 1957 and I'd be very surprised if in my 61 years the majority of agricultural workers were ever white.
As for Ingraham's assertion that none of us ever voted on these changes, what a load of malarkey! Congress makes immigration law so we have only ourselves to blame. Agricultural interests though doubtless pushed these laws. They succeeded with guest worker programs and policies that gave short shrift to immigration enforcement on our Mexican border. This was not bad. It allowed our agricultural section to flourish and keep their prices low. With native born Americans unwilling for the most part to take these jobs, that we still have an agricultural sector is due principally to these workers we're told to despise. To this day, it's largely unheard of for an employer to be held liable for undocumented workers they employ.
Yes, America certainly did look a lot whiter in 1957 than it does today. The places I lived in when I was young were so far in upstate New York that I don't recall even seeing a black person until I was in high school. Lots of these places still exist, but in cities like Hazelton, Pennsylvania they are finally coloring up. And it's making lots of whites in Hazelton anxious. In 2013, a Hazelton-area chief of police channeled his frustrations with a crazy YouTube video.
There are plenty of reasons for whites to be anxious, but it's not because the nation is coloring up. It's because pathways for whites to enter the middle and upper classes are narrowing. Things are particularly bleak for blue-collar whites, the base of Trump's support who he's largely left out to dry. A good paying blue-collar job is hard to find and harder to retain. When lost these workers usually quickly fall into jobs that don't pay a living wage, even if they work two or three of them. People like Amazon warehouse workers, many of whom are on food stamps. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is worth $164B but can't pay his warehouse workers a living wage. He'd rather let the U.S. government try to fill in the difference with food stamps instead. Amazon is hardly alone, which is why a $15/hour living wage proposal polls so well.
It's the rise of wealth inequality that is driving most of this white anxiety. While courting whites though Republicans (and sometimes Democrats) have worked instead for their real masters: corporations and rich people. They've enacted tax cuts that disproportionately allow the rich to keep more money. They cut services and when possible entitlements that principally benefit the rest of us, like affordable public college tuitions, that used to be free in many states. Corporations use their tax cuts to buy back their own stocks rather than raise wages for their employees or invest in the future. Minimum wage laws rarely move upward, making it impossible for people falling through the cracks to reach for the next rung. So-called Right to Work laws make it hard for workers to organize for higher wages. Moreover, Republicans shamelessly feed the myth that if you work harder and try hard enough you can scale the economic ladder. In most cases though they took the rungs out of the ladder decades ago. Middle and lower classes have been disenfranchised not by accident, but by design. Bernie Sanders long ago recognized the real issue: the system is rigged against working people.
The game is rigged but there are some signs that whites may be waking up at last. Midterms in two months should be revealing. In deeply red states like Oklahoma, West Virginia and Arizona teacher strikes have drawn the sympathy of the public, including working and middle class whites. They are even electing politicians who commit to raising their taxes in exchange for more services. They can certainly understand how teachers are struggling economically on substandard wages. It may be that Republicans have played the race card about as far as it can be played.
In any event, it's absolutely clear that the rich and the powerful, who are principally white men, have been systematically and cynically abusing middle income and working class whites, feeding their anxieties and promoting false rationalizations for their anxieties. Curiously the best way to make this anxiety ebb is for whites to rise up against their economic masters and elect people who will put rungs back in the economic ladder again, many of whom will be brown, black or female. White politicians are horribly misleading and abusing them.
Category: Politics 2018 Tagged Amazon, Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump, Economic ladders, Election 2018, Food stamps, Income inequality, Jeff Bezos, Laura Ingraham, Oligarchy, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, SNAP, White anxiety Leave a comment/
Stoking toxic white masculinity or why we're going postal
On: October 26, 2017 October 27, 2017 By: Mark
Go on. Take a look at Mother Jones's Google sheet showing mass shootings in the United States.
The spreadsheet starts in 1982. Prior to that these were rarely a problem. Since then incidents of mass homicide by gun have increased in general year by year, with the number of fatalities and injured increasing too, often exponentially.
As I have noted before, in most cases the perpetrator was male and white. Of the 91 major incidents noted, a woman carried out only 2. A man and a woman carried one out. There are a scattering of these attacks carried out by Asians and blacks, but 80% or more were perpetrated by white men.
The spreadsheet does not begin to capture the extent of the problem, but does document the worst of the worst. Business Insider notes that through September there have been 273 mass shootings in the United States in 2017, which averages out to about one a day. They are so common they rarely make it beyond the local paper.
Obviously something is going on in our culture, even beyond the looser gun laws that we have now compared with 1982. A postal employee carried one of these first major incidents out. In 1986 postal worker Patrick Sherrill killed 15 and injured 6 others in a post office in Edmond, Oklahoma and then killed himself. Since then workplace shootings have become common, as the spreadsheet attests. There was another "gone postal" incident in 1991 that killed 5 and injured 5, this one from a laid off postal worker. In 2006 a forcibly retired and mentally ill woman killed 8 at her former post office in Goleta, California.
It's hard to draw causation from correlation. But in general things were okay until around 1980. In 1981 Americans elected Ronald Reagan. He was the first president since Roosevelt to fundamentally change the implicit American "contract". He quickly demonstrated the change by firing air traffic controllers who went on strike. Prior to Reagan it was generally possible for a man to provide for his family. Since then obviously many more women have entered the workforce. Women are often paid less than men for the same work, an obvious cost savings to employers. The man as family breadwinner slowly went the way of the milkman. This made men, particularly white men, feel disenfranchised. It was like living in a Twilight Zone.
Republicans piled it on in two ways. First, they promoted the idea of rugged individualism. They said men (particularly white men) should all be Marlboro men. We were all cowboys of sorts: loners, independent and self-sufficient. Only loser men couldn't step up to the plate and provide for their family when necessarily.
Second, Republicans appealed to racists. Until the last election it was rarely overt. Nixon famously won based on a "southern strategy" which amounted to getting support from white Southerners that had previously voted Democratic. Southerners were played for their racist tendencies, just not overtly. Their prejudices were masterfully channeled against the "others" which amounted to people not like them: not white and working class.
At the same time they (often with the help of Democrats like Bill Clinton) unleashed forces that undercut their prosperity. They pushed right to work laws that had the effect of cutting wages by making it hard to collectively organize. They unleashed the forces of the free market that quickly found cheaper places to manufacture stuff, mostly outside the United States, jobs traditionally held mostly by white men. These actions exacerbated the tensions on the white working class, and white men in particular. I have seen these tensions borne out in my own family and among my friends. Many rightly feel shafted by what happened to them, particularly during economic downturns. More often they simply feel ashamed, as if there is some defect in them.
If your economic floor drops out from under you, your social safety net is shredded, you learn that you can't provide for your family but you feel that you must do so anyhow and thus your status in society is dropping you are going to be severely stressed.
The NRA masterfully harnessed this anxiety by promoting a gun culture, not to emphasize sporting, but to sell the illusion that with a gun at least a man can still be a man. This anxiety is hardly covert. We saw it recently in Charlottesville. White men, self-identified Nazis and white supremacists were chanting, "You will not replace us". They were asserting their special status as white men and those they saw responsible for their decline (such as Jews) would pay the price, perhaps with the guns they openly carried.
Now Donald Trump promises to make America great again. He rose to power on this very anxiety. Of course since becoming president he's gone out of his way to not address these problems but to actually make them worse. Just yesterday Congress passed a bill that won't permit consumers to file class action lawsuits against their banks. Vice President Pence broke the tie vote.
This though is pretty minor stuff compared to the way Trump is undermining Obamacare. It makes health insurance ever more costly and problematic, and if the government won't subsidize it for middle and lower income Americans it becomes largely unaffordable again. This simply feeds more economic anxieties.
Trump though doesn't seem too worried. He's got a great game of distraction going on where he puts the blame on others, like undocumented workers. Even Congress is getting into the game. A tax reform package in Congress proposes to limit deductions into 401K plans. This amounts to a tax increase on the middle and lower class, all to give tax cuts to the richest Americans. Trump and Republicans believe — probably with good justification — that they can keep their base distracted and blame others for their policies that make things worse for their base.
All this really does is make bad much worse. The fundamentals of our economic and social anxiety haven't changed and Republicans are actively trying to worsen them. The working class will still get fleeced. As for this Mother Jones table of mass shootings, it's pretty easy to predict the number of incidents and their lethality will continue to increase as our politicians throw ever more wood onto this ever bigger bonfire of anxiety and hate.
Category: Politics 2017, Sociology Tagged "Gone postal", Bill Clinton, Donald Trump, Future shock, Mass murders, NRA, Racism, Republicans, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Southern strategy, Toxic masculinity, White males Leave a comment/
Trump's nuclear no-no
On: September 23, 2017 By: Mark
Oy! It was another week of bellicose theatrics from our president. Trump, ever eager for more attention, went places that no recent president would have ever dreamed of going. As usual Trump picked the worst location to threaten nuclear war: the United Nations, an organization we helped create to promote peace and understanding and reduce the likelihood of war through the promotion of civil dialog.
Trump's target this time was North Korea, which keeps lobbing missiles over Japan and recently concluded a likely hydrogen bomb test. Trump's implicit threat to utterly destroy North Korea is today only possible using our nuclear arsenal. This means, if it's true, that Trump is considering proactively using our nuclear weapons. He's also assuming it can be done in a way that won't send a nuclear warhead at us or our allies, a dubious assumption at best.
Trump isn't the first president to threaten North Korea with nukes. President Eisenhower did too, mostly out of frustration because the interminable peace talks at the time were going nowhere. We were basically the only nuclear power at the time, with the USSR just getting into the game, so it was a viable threat. The threat didn't bring peace in 1953, but it did lead to a cessation of hostilities, making the 38th parallel a neutral zone and an exchange of prisoners.
All these years later we are still grappling with a way to bring true peace to the Korean peninsula. Trump's strategy seems to be to try Eisenhower's strategy again, as if you can still scare the North Korean government into submission. All it has done so far is ratchet up the tensions and lead to ever more bizarre and bellicose statements from the "leaders" of both sides. With each exchange of insults, these "leaders" look more puerile. If only the United Nations could take them out of the sandbox and give them long timeouts instead.
As for utterly destroying North Korea, that's exactly what our air force did during the Korean War with conventional weapons. It wasn't enough. We had total dominion over the Korean skies. Toward the end of the war North Korea looked pretty much like Dresden after World War Two. The Chinese helped of course by supplying soldiers and material. As the Vietcong also learned, there are ways to move militaries without being seen. North Korean and Chinese soldiers were very fast with their feet and traveled mostly at night. So total destruction did not mean winning the war. Nuking North Korea would not end this war either. It would also not necessarily destroy North Korea's nuclear program or its arms caches, which are likely well underground. It would likely kill tens of millions, including millions of South Koreans, and at best provide the illusion of peace. It would leave a generational memory that would resurface again and again.
Not content with chastising just North Korea, Trump excoriated Iran during his U.N. speech too. He called our nuclear deal with Iran the worst deal ever. Yet even his administration agrees that Iran has fully complied with the terms of the agreement. If the United States were to cancel the deal, the effect would likely be disastrous. Iran would be free to continue to develop its nuclear stockpile and work on nuclear weapons. It's understandable that Republicans would be upset by what the deal doesn't do. It doesn't keep Iran from developing long-range missiles, but it wasn't designed to be comprehensive. It was designed to keep a new nuclear power from forming in the worst possible part of the world. So far it's succeeding in those goals. The Trump administration could open talks on these other issues, probably multilateral talks like the Obama Administration used. Or we can start a war with Iran instead. Which is likelier achieve our aims?
Like it or not, the United States can no longer use military power to achieve its aims, at least not with countries beyond a certain size. Most use of military power like this is counterproductive both in the short and the long term. The conflicts we are dealing with are much more complex than they used to be. Today they are less nationalistic than ideologically driven, and that includes here in the United States where a great conflict of ideology is underway. With Republicans in charge, the bias is toward using the military to achieve its goals, which means there is a bias not just toward war, but also toward creating wars.
Because Republicans respect force, they think it is the solution to all these problems. While certainly Democratic administrations have had similar proclivities (Kennedy and Johnson in particular, although they inherited the Vietnam War), it's been mainly Republicans that have proctored our involvement in new wars. Eisenhower proctored proxy wars in Iran and Guatemala that were covertly run by the CIA. Our meddling in Iran eventually saw the eviction of the Shah and the creation of a deeply anti-American Islamic Republic there. In essence our involvement caused the animus Iran now has toward us. Reagan's meddling in El Salvador led to civil war and right wing death squads that continue to this day. It certainly did not lead to stability in Central American. Nixon's secret war in Cambodia and Laos exposed a larger war but also proved ineffectual. George W. Bush's war in Iraq has proven to be disastrous and also based on lies. It led to among other things the creation of the Islamic State and the collapse of Syria.
Trump seems almost eager to continue this Republican losing streak, perhaps reigniting the Korean War as well as setting off a potential war with Iraq. It's really about showing American potency and relevance. It's effectively being the muscular guy on the beach and taunting guys coming by so you can kick sand in their faces.
Solving these problems is going to be very hard and requires new thinking. It will require a bias toward multilateral solutions and diplomacy rather than force, in short using bodies like the United Nations more rather than less. It will mean dialog and engagement, particularly with those we find most difficult to engage with. It will take time and trust and verification. It will mean we will have to make concessions to affect a greater deal.
It's painfully clear none of this will happen until not just Trump is gone, but Republicans no longer control the White House.
Category: Politics 2017 Tagged Bush, Eisenhower, Iran, Iraq War, Korean War, Multilateralism, North Korea, Nuclear war, Ronald Reagan, Trump, United Nations, Vietnam War Leave a comment/
The folly of voting third-party for president
On: September 17, 2016 August 12, 2017 By: Mark
It's post Labor Day and it's a presidential election year. You know what that means. According to our press, it means people are now starting to seriously pay attention to the upcoming election.
I find this hard to believe. Granted that I am something of a political junkie but it must be a very, very remote corner of Appalachia that hasn't heard the endless thoughts spewing from the mouth and Twitter feed of Donald J. Trump. He's the mouth that has roared for over a year now. And Hillary Clinton has spent decades in the public spotlight. We all have firmly baked opinions about her.
Perhaps to stir up some excitement, the press is agog about tightening polls showing Hillary Clinton's lead dropping. It's still a rare poll that shows her numbers below Trump's, at least nationally but polls are generally showing her numbers moving to within margin of error numbers. It's clear that large majorities of Americans don't particularly like either Clinton or Trump and wants someone else to vote for. Unsurprisingly some are looking at third party candidates instead: Jill Stein of the Green Party and Gary Johnson of the Libertarian Party. Those voters who follow through seem to want to make a statement.
And they will make a statement if they don't mind shooting themselves in the foot. This happened to me in 1980 when I voted for John Anderson for president. I hate to say our electoral system is rigged but when it comes to the presidential vote it certain is and it's by design. This is because an Electoral College actually votes a president into office and because 48 of the fifty states have laws that whichever candidate wins a plurality of the votes in the presidential race gets all of the state's electoral delegates.
This means the system is rigged so as to make it virtually impossible for any candidate not in a major party to win. But it also means that if you are voting third party, you are throwing away your vote. The only exception is if your third party candidate wins a plurality of the votes in your state. And while that may garner some electoral votes for your third party candidate, a whole lot of other states have to do the same for your candidate to actually win. In short, you have to bet that both the Democratic and Republican party candidates are so dysfunctional that a wholesale national voting rebellion is going to happen, something that has never happened in our country as best I can tell and probably can't happen now in our polarized political environment.
In practical terms, this means to a Massachusetts resident like me that if I would have otherwise voted for Hillary Clinton and I vote for Jill Stein instead, I am effectively voting for Donald Trump since it will bump up his share of the votes as a percent of the state's votes. And if I am a non-racist Alabaman that normally votes Republican but I am so disgusted by Trump's racism that I vote for Gary Johnson instead, I am helping elect Hillary Clinton.
In my case in 1980 as a 23-year-old voting for third party candidate John Anderson, I was effectively voting for Ronald Reagan, the last candidate I would have voted for. Fortunately in the blue-state of Maryland, it didn't matter as Maryland's electoral votes went for Jimmy Carter. Nationwide though John Anderson took 6.6% of the popular vote. Conceivably had Anderson not run and those votes had gone to Carter instead (as research suggests) then that election would at least have been a lot closer. Carter lost by nearly 10% of the popular vote but where it matters, he received only 49 of the 270 electoral votes needed to win. Reagan's election was a landslide by any standards, thanks probably to John Anderson's spoiler effect. As bad as that was the 1984 election was worse. Walter Mondale garnered only 13 electoral votes (his home state of Minnesota and Washington D.C.) Reagan got the rest (525) and that was with no serious third party opposition. For a more recent event that shows the folly of voting third party, look at the 2000 election. Had the Green Party votes in Florida gone to Al Gore, there would have been no President George W. Bush.
Trump is right that the presidential voting system is rigged, but it's always been that way. The Electoral College mess was designed by our founding fathers to get a commitment from southern states at the time the constitution was ratified. Without it, southern states would have probably never been able to elect a president. With slaves counting as 2/3 of a free person for a state's share of electoral votes, with a few exceptions (like John Adams) for decades it made it virtually impossible for a non-southerner to become president.
So hopefully I've convinced you not to vote for Jill Stein or Gary Johnson. If still not convinced, consider that the Green Party and Libertarian Party are minority parties because their views are simply not mainstream views. I find a lot to admire about the Green Party but it's a party of ideologues, not a party of pragmatists. For example, GMO foods are not going away and it's folly at this time to try. Libertarians are easy to dismiss because it is wholly unworkable. Imagine selling all our roads, sewers and schools. Imagine no laws against pollution. It would be an unmanageable nightmare.
Which leaves you dear voter ultimately holding your nose while you vote for either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump. (I realize there are some voters, particularly Trump voters who are actually enthusiastic about their candidate. Weird.) The other option is not to vote, but not voting is effectively the same as voting third party. You will effectively give more power to those that do vote.
So suck it up for democracy. Democracy ain't pretty sometimes and it won't be in this election. However, you have a duty to perform so do it mindful that the system is not perfect and your candidate won't be either. If you really want the Green or Libertarian parties to grow, you have to do it the hard way by getting local and state candidates elected. With enough of them they may become a majority party in your state. Then you will have leverage, at least on the state level. Or you can work for a constitutional amendment to get rid of the Electoral College and make it based on actual votes.
Oh, and those polls? I'm still not worried. I think Clinton is still going to win based on state polls, which are the only ones that matter. With a majority of Americans saying they will never vote for Trump, the only way that Trump wins is if a lot of those voters stay home or vote third party instead of voting for Hillary. It's unlikely but it can happen, and it could happen this year if you don't vote with the left side of your brain instead of the right side.
I'll be using the left side and voting for the imperfect Hillary Clinton.
Category: Best of Occam's Razor, Politics 2016 Tagged Donald Trump, Electoral college, Gary Johnson, Green Party, Hillary Clinton, Jill Stein, Jimmy Carter, John B. Anderson, Libertarian Party, Libertarianism, Ronald Reagan Leave a comment/
State of the presidential race: April 2016 edition
On: April 28, 2016 By: Mark
So it's looking like Hillary vs. The Donald in November. Hillary is not too much of a surprise. The only real surprise was how close Vermont senator Bernie Sanders came to unseating her for the Democratic Party nomination. It is still technically possible for Sanders to pull an upset, but not realistic. He seems to be getting the drift by laying off staffers and concentrating resources on delegate rich California, the last major primary. Given that Sanders appeal is mostly with whites, it's unlikely he'll pull an upset in a state heavy with Latinos and Asians.
Just a week ago, it was even money that Republicans would have a brokered convention. It's still possible but the odds are now probably only twenty percent, if that. Trump swept all five states in this week's primaries, and in most states by convincing margins. Clinton lost only Rhode Island but squeaked by in Connecticut. Clinton trounced Sanders badly in Maryland and Delaware by 2:1 margins. Sanders will probably win Oregon, Montana and the Dakotas, but Oregon is the only state with significant number of delegates and California simply trounces it. Sadly, it's over for Bernie. Rest assured he knows it too.
There is no viable path for Ted Cruz either in these remaining states and his "agreement" with John Kasich is mostly vapor, and proactively picking Carly Fiorina as his running mate will only make things worse. Indiana may be a pickup but none of the remaining states that are delegate rich are likely to break his way. Barring some unforeseen dynamic it's over for the Republicans too. This brings some clarity for the general election. Both Clinton and Trump are underwater (are more disliked than liked), but Trump is much more so. Barring some bad foreign policy or economic news (the economy grew just .5% in the last quarter), Clinton looks like our likely next (and first female) president. Except for Clinton supporters though few will be enthusiastic about her as our next commander in chief.
This primary season has certainly been unusual, showing in general that the electorate (or those at least passionate enough to vote in primaries and caucuses) really would prefer someone completely different. Trump fills that bill, but scarily so. Clinton is true and tried but hardly exciting. The 73-year-old Sanders strangely fit the bill, but not enough to overwhelm the current Democratic establishment, which has a better lock on its base than the Republicans do. Oddly enough both Clinton and Trump are considerably older than presidential nominees tend to be. Clinton is 68 and Trump is 69. Trump is the same age as Ronald Reagan when he ran for president. Reagan was our oldest president but if elected Trump will be older.
One lesson that should be obvious is that our parties increasingly don't represent the people very well, particularly those who claim allegiance to their party. Trump's ascent proves that the issues that animate the party's rank and file don't animate Republican voters. As I noted, what Republicans really care about is maintaining white privilege and anything else is negotiable. Democrats too are undergoing a change in state. Establishment Democrats may titter at the idea of "democratic socialism", but Sanders proves it's the party's future. The days of Democrats gaining power through triangulation and close ties to Wall Street (Bill Clinton's strategy) are over. Hillary would be wise to acknowledge this reality.
The Republican Party is in much worse shape, but Trump may do the party a favor by reconnecting it with its base. What it will stand for in the future may be loathsome to the majority of Americans, but it seems to be what the modern Republican base wants. It's not a way to grow an expanding party unless the party can shed its xenophobia, which is the catalyst for Trump's unexpected rise. However, it could keep the party around and relevant for at least a while longer.
Despite the bluster, the odds certainly don't favor The Donald. With two thirds of Americans basically saying they won't vote for him, it's hard to imagine how Trump can convince them otherwise. This is particularly true when he makes things worse by opening his mouth and saying stupid stuff, such as his latest comments on women and voting. Trump knows how to deliver sizzle, but there's simply no steak there, much like his branded Trump Steaks. So the odds definitely favor Democrats, both in the presidential contest but also in recapturing the Senate. Even Republicans are concerned this may be a wave election that could remove their hold on power not just in the Senate but also in the House. It appears that lots of Republicans will sit this one out as they have no motive to vote for Trump, and thus no motive to vote at all.
Clinton's instinct will be to tack toward the center but I think that would be a mistake. There is little point in holding power if you can't wield it. Obama at least had two years of it, thanks to the Great Recession and Democrats holding both houses of Congress. It allowed the Affordable Care Act to get passed. Clinton may be setting her expectations too low. By tacking left instead of right, she can fire up the Democratic base. When they show up in force, as they did in 2008, they demonstrate who is really in charge. Gerrymandering and vote suppression are facts of life but since they affect principally red states, they won't buy Republicans much in a general election year.
So for those of us reading the tealeaves, the voters sort of have spoken now. Much of what will follow is pretty well scripted. Trump has to hope for a Hail Mary pass to change the dynamics. Our economy is not great but unemployment is below five percent and our economy is still the envy of the rest of the world. Obama is unlikely to let a foreign policy problem fester to the point of explosion, but there are always wildcards. The dice are pretty much cast. Let's see how they tumble.
Category: Politics 2016 Tagged Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump, Election 2016, Hillary Clinton, John Kasich, Ronald Reagan, Ted Cruz Leave a comment/
Unwinding the crazy (or why Obama and Mitt Romney need to talk)
On: March 13, 2016 By: Mark
So my daughter has been chatting with me on Skype. She wants to know: "Dad, have politics ever this crazy?" She would actually take some comfort in knowing that demagogues like Donald Trump have actually arisen before and have had a stake put through their hearts.
I had to tell her no, not in my lifetime anyhow and not within the United States. There are plenty of demagogues out there all the time, but few come around as Donald Trump has to create cyclones of ill will all for the purpose of acquiring something close to the pinnacle of political power in the world: being president of the United States. I see him getting the Republican nomination; hopes of a brokered convention are just fantasies. There have been deeply evil politicians and presidents. Richard Nixon comes to mind but at least he was trapped by a political system of checks and balances. It's not clear if Trump becomes president whether the system still has the backbone to deal with someone like him. I'd like to think so, but I am skeptical.
Over the years this blog has been around, I've made something of a second career cataloguing these demagogues. Democrats are not entirely clean, with John Edwards leaping to mind. Both sides of the party can be pandered to and inflamed. Mostly though these demagogues have limited appeal. Some of the many I have blogged about include Bill O'Reilly and Glenn Beck. I have read enough history though to know that Donald Trump is not quite unprecedented. Early in our history we had a president arguably as bad as Trump: Andrew Jackson whose portrait mysteriously adorns our ten-dollar bill.
We've also had our share of bad presidents but who were not demagogues. Woodrow Wilson was a racist who purged blacks from the government. President Harding dropped his pants for more than one woman not his wife and got embroiled in the Teapot Dome oil scandal. Herbert Hoover and a top-heavy Republican congress ushered in the Great Depression. Lyndon Johnson made the Vietnam debacle much worse. And I've shown 12 years ago that Ronald Reagan was pretty much a disaster of a president. Then of course there is George W. Bush. Still with the possible exception of Jackson none of these presidents rise to Trump's level. None had the mentality that the ends justified the means. Trump's success makes him a singular danger to our democracy.
So sorry daughter, we are living the Chinese curse of living in interesting times. Polls suggest a Trump election win will be quite a stretch, but if anyone could pull it off Trump is demonstrating he has the skills and oratory to do it. Trump though is not unique, but simply the most articulate spokesman for the Republican brand. It's a brand full of chest thumping, racism, classism and staking out unequivocal positions that have devolved into concerns about the size of Trump's hands and penis. They are all doing it without qualification, except possibly John Kasich. These candidates will denounce Trump on the one hand but won't take the next obvious step: saying they will not support him if he wins his party's nomination.
This is because for all their claims of principle they really don't have any. It's not principle that drives them; it's the lust for power. This puts them ever further on the extreme right as well as makes them back down from taking principled stands like saying they won't support Trump if he wins their party's nomination. They are all jockeying for power as best they can by keeping their options open. I was puzzling through Chris Christie's endorsement of Donald Trump shortly after dropping out. Why was he doing this? The easy rationalization is that both are bullies and he identifies with a fellow bully. But the same can be said for most of the Republican candidates. I think Christie is hoping to be nominated as his running mate. I think he is further expecting that if Trump wins office he will eventually be impeached and removed, leaving him as president. It's a tactic worthy of Frank Underwood; he was just the first to go there. While Christie may admire Trump for being a master bully, I think his real motivation is simply a lust for power.
The larger question is how do you undo something like this? It's not like we are at the precipice. Lots of people are already jumping off the cliff into the political unknown. It's time for the grownups not just to speak up but also to take real action. Mitt Romney says he won't vote for Trump but did not suggest an alternative, which is hardly helpful. Establishment Republicans are trying to persuade voters in keystone states like Florida and Ohio to vote for someone else, but they appear too late to the game to change the dynamics. President Obama recently spoke out, but it was at a fundraiser. Changing the dynamics here though is pretty much impossible when the other party will refuse to even listen to you. Just for starters Republicans in Congress won't even allow Obama's budget director to present his budget, the first time this has ever been done. A Republican Senate also refuses to entertain a nominee for the Supreme Court.
We need an elder statesman with mojo and credibility to bring the parties together to tone down the rhetoric and is some marginal way change the conversation and up the civility factor. There is no one such person, unfortunately. Jimmy Carter comes to mind but Republicans would dismiss him.
We urgently need a national timeout. All these key muckrakers need to have a private conclave and hash this out. If I were President Obama I'd be on the phone with Mitt Romney. I'd be penciling in a date in a couple weeks at a private retreat like Camp David and use the power of shame (if it works) to bring all these blowhards together in one place to hash this out. This would include Republican and Democratic leadership in Congress and all the presidential candidates on both sides. It would also include chairs of the Democratic and Republican national committees. I'd include trained facilitators and psychologists to help ensure the meeting moves forward productively The topics would include: setting baselines for acceptable political behavior and setting up a process involving some compromise so that Congress and the President can work together in some minimal fashion through the election.
Would it work? The odds are against my proposal but someone needs to step forward and we need two brave people on both sides of the aisle. I don't see any others who can play this role.
Sadly, nothing like this is likely to happen, but it needs to happen. Is there a grownup in the room?
Category: Politics 2016 Tagged Andrew Jackson, Barack Obama, Bill O'Reilly, Bush, Chris Christie, Donald Trump, Election 2016, Glenn Beck, Jimmy Carter, John Edwards, John Kasich, Mitt Romney, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan Leave a comment/
How to take down Trump
On: January 8, 2016 January 26, 2016 By: Mark
One of my nightmares is waking up the first Wednesday of November and finding out that Donald Trump is our president elect. There are lots of sane reasons to think that this simply can't happen. The Donald's negatives are through the roof. Last July a Washington Post/ABC News poll reported 61 percent of voters would never vote for Trump, but that was before he started running in earnest. In December, according to a Quinnipiac survey, fifty percent of registered voters last month said they would be embarrassed if he were our president. One thing that makes me leery is that people were saying the same things about Ronald Reagan but mainly by force of his personality plus that certain intangible something that people saw in his eyes he became president anyhow. We are still stuck in the Reagan wreckage, and arguably Donald Trump is the latest creature to crawl out of it.
There is no question that Trump has charisma, although lots of people see past it. So many factors affect who will be our next president. Much could hinge on the economy, but a lot of it will simply have to do with who gets nominated and how enthusiastic each party is about their candidate. Republicans probably won't be enthusiastic if Trump is nominated, at least not establishment Republicans. But Trump though is going for a bigger audience and he is attracting principally disaffected whites, many of which haven't voted in recent elections. They like his brash style and take charge attitude and see it as authentic, but mostly he plays on their fears, an unstated fear of losing white privilege. While Trump has high negatives, so does Hillary Clinton. Trump is a master persuader, Clinton not so much considering how President Obama managed to win the 2008 Democratic nomination. So yes, it's possible, although I would like to take comfort in polls that suggest it just won't happen.
Back in 2012 as that process went forward I offered my thoughts on how to deal with political bullies. Four years later the post still gets regular hits. The Republican presidential field has many bullies. Trump certainly is one but (among those still in the running) others include Ted Cruz, Chris Christie and Carly Fiorina. All are used to getting their way and will use tactics fair or foul to achieve it.
Trump though combines bullying with other non-bullying tactics including humor, demagoguery, flippant remarks and a well-practiced technique of staying in the news. Pretty much every day he will say or do something controversial specifically so he will stay at the top of the news. Most recently was a deprecating remark about Ted Cruz being born in Canada and how that could be a problem. While a lot of what he spews is crazy, it's actually quite well thought out. Rest assured that Trump has lots of lines and tactics in reserve that he will use to cut down the competition. He has a keen sense of when to release a quip or barb so that it will be most wounding.
Trump is a different kind of bully, most of who have only a couple of tactics they repeat ad nauseam. With Trump, you never know what will come out of his mouth next, but you do know it will be something and it will be controversial and entertaining. Surprise is one of his unique weapons. Hillary Clinton, if she wins the Democratic Party nomination, is likely to be too civilized to go for the jugular like Donald. Trump excels at getting people off their gait and you know he has some waiting for her when their time is optimal. Ideally Clinton needs to get Trump off his gait, which no one seems to be able to do. She (or Bernie Sanders should he win the nomination) needs to channel their inner Molly Ivins. Also, she to plant a meme in the voters mine now that will grow and win. Identifying that meme and planting it early may be crucial to winning in November.
In 2012 the winning meme was that Mitt Romney didn't understand ordinary working people. The surreptitious recordings that he thought 47% of us were moochers made it stick like superglue. Due to Trump's wealth and disdain for all sorts of groups, this can potentially work again. However, it will be harder because Trump is drawing many of these people. Trump is running a Fox News election by creating a theme and hammering it in relentlessly. You must have been asleep for the last six months not to know it: Make America Great Again.
What could be Clinton's meme? Perhaps she could borrow portions of Trump's theme. Here is my suggestion for an election meme for the Democratic candidate: Make America Whole Again. She could appeal to the disaffected by promising to be the president not to push a liberal agenda but to bring America together again. She could say that if elected she will champion the cause of moderates. She could promise to end gerrymandering, which simply removes moderates from the political process. For example, she could promise to pass a law that requires states to draw districts that are politically neutral and are overseen by impartial federal judges. She could run a campaign for the people, not just those with wealth.
She could say that our current poisonous partisanship is a cancer on our society and our government, and that Trump is exploiting it. (In fairness, Bernie Sanders has been saying this throughout his campaign.) In fact, she could say that Trump embodies this cancer and is making it metastasize. Fortunately Trump has quite a record that would be easy to exploit, for example his statement earlier in the campaign that Americans were being paid too much and aren't working hard enough. This is laughable to anyone actually in the workforce today.
"Make America Whole Again" is the perfect rejoinder to Trump's slogan. It plays on his slogan but makes it positive and sounds like something your mother would say. It acknowledges that things have gotten seriously off track but that she is the right one to fix it. She could even say that as a woman and mother, she knows it is true. She can play on the lessons that she learned, from her failure by being too insular in her health care legislation that she championed as First Lady, to her work as Secretary of State to help bind the wounds of a complex world. She can recall the real America she grew up with, that was hopeful and where America's leadership was earned and based on respect and our beneficence. Trump's entire demeanor is disrespectful. It could be a campaign about restoring our respect by making our government representative of everyone.
A campaign message of wholeness and integrity I think would have real legs, because it is authentic, not weaselly. One thing that is totally clear about Donald Trump is he lacks integrity. If the 2016 campaign becomes an integrity meme, then I think Trump can be neutered.
Category: Politics 2016 Tagged Bernie Sanders, Bullies, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Memes, Ronald Reagan Leave a comment/
The first debate
On: October 5, 2012 October 5, 2012 By: Mark
It's not October in a presidential election year without a number of presidential debates. Therein we largely–already-decided-voters get to watch the candidates jostle and parry with each other on national TV. The talking heads go into overdrive. Who won? Who lost? Why? What does it mean? What it mostly means is not a whole lot. Presidential debates rarely change the outcome of the election and these series of debates probably will not either.
On points most analysts give Romney a solid win, and I have to say the analysts are probably right for whatever it is worth. President Obama was in full Mr. Spock mode acting eminently logical and civil and when necessary flashing his proprietary toothy grin. The surprise was that, at least for ninety minutes, Mitt Romney emerged from his green eyeshades mode and resembled something animated and human. Moreover, his arguments sort of made sense, as long as you were ignorant of how he constantly contradicted his positions during the rest of the campaign. This matters little to most of the debate viewers, who could care less about previous statements and campaign minutia, and most of who were tuning into Mitt Romney for the first time.
I watched the debate on cnn.com where the screen was split between Obama and Romney, allowing us to watch the reaction of one candidate while the other blathered. Obama took a lot of hits for seeming disinterested. He was not quite the eloquent debater we saw four years ago when he was debating Hillary Clinton. Obama looked mostly tired and like he wished to be elsewhere. No doubt spending the evening romancing his wife of exactly twenty years was far more appealing than trying to focus on Mitt and his frequently meandering arguments. Obama would have been wise to simply say that Mitt was having many "Etch-a-sketch" moments. Unexplainably, Obama mostly let these many moments pass.
Like his infamous dog Seamus forced to endure much of a family vacation in a pet carrier strapped to the roof of the family sedan, Mitt really looked like he was a dog straining at the leash. He wore a half smirk, half phony smile and the longer it went on the more I was looking for things to throw at my monitor. Toward the end it became nearly unendurable. I shudder to think of him as president. How can we be expected to endure that "I am more superior than you" smirk for at least four years? And yet the press gave him a pass, and concentrated on Obama's dispassionate and civil performance, which at least is standard behavior from him. Mitt looked the epitome of someone of high school age desperately wanting to be class president, not president of the United States. Gosh, he wanted to be popular! He wanted to sell himself, like a box of detergent.
Moreover, he looked and sounded like a bad imitation of Ronald Reagan. From the slicked back hair to the thick eyebrows, you could almost mistake him for Reagan, except he had none of his gravitas or his sincerity. He also looked Reagan-old. He looked more like the Ta-la-la-la guy than a human being, with a smile that seemed due to a surgical wire under his cheeks and wrinkles around the eyes that looked Botoxed. I found him to be more Martian than human, but at least he was animated. Obama looked like he was on sedatives.
For all the hoopla, there was little of substance exchanged, which was probably by design. Maybe it's good that Romney's spouse Ann is into horse dressage. Romney looked like he was competing in a human dressage contest. The debate for Romney was more about pomp and circumstance, gestures and body posture, tone of voice and arm pumping and reused zingers ("you are not entitled to your own facts") than it was about substance. In that sense, regardless of who won the debate on technical points, the American people lost, since so little policy was actually discussed.
So Obama loses points for being cerebral and disengaged. He is smart enough though not to make the same mistake twice, and will learn how to exploit Romney's weaknesses in subsequent debates. While Romney "won" the debate, what people are remembering is not so much his quirky animation, but some of his surreal comments. Two nights later what is really making the rounds is not Romney's animation, but his remarks about firing Big Bird. Fire Big Bird, Cookie Monster, Count von Count, Elmo and all the other Sesame Street characters, not to mention PBS and NPR? This has garnered a huge amount of attention on line, and it's not good attention. It says more about the real Mitt Romney than any eloquence he managed during the debate. I expect that by the next debate he will be walking those statements back. Actually, I expect before the weekend is over he will have walked the statements back.
I hope the next debate will at least have some substance in it.
Category: Politics 2012 Tagged Barack Obama, Debates, Election 2012, Horse Dressage, Mitt Romney, Ronald Reagan Leave a comment/


Neil Diamond quote: "You have to go out there and give a piece of yourself -- your life, your soul. And you better give the audience everything you can -- physically, emotionally, musically. Then maybe they'll accept you and give you a standing ovation at the end."
You have to go out there and give a piece of yourself -- your life, your soul. And you better give the audience everything you can -- physically, emotionally, musically. Then maybe they'll accept you and give you a standing ovation at the end.
HARRY YOU Your parents, they give you your life, but then they try to give you their life.
ANN MARIE AGUILAR You have to fill your cup. You then give away the overflowing, but you keep a cupful for yourself.
WYNONNA JUDD You have to fill your cup. You then give away the overflowing, but you keep a cupful for yourself.
WYNONNA JUDD To enjoy the beauty of life and the joy of your soul, serve, love, and give the best you can.
JOSH THOMPSON Give me your soul and I will give you a unified humanity.
KIM GROSHEK You give but little when you give of your possessions.
ANA LEE You must give a piece of yourself to gain a bigger piece of yourself.
KOWSALAPATHY If you have much, give of your wealth; if you have little, give of your heart.
ARABIAN PROVERB If you have much, give of your wealth; if you have little, give of your heart.
ABHIJIT NASKAR The greatest gift that you can give yourself is a little bit of your own attention.
BRANDI CHASTAIN If you give an audience a chance they will do half your acting for you.
ROSA M. BETANCES If you give an audience a chance they will do half your acting for you.
BETTY GILPIN If you give yourself to your task at once, you won't have to do it twice.
VIPIN BHATTI When you give of yourself, it's draining.
, I GOT THIS: HOW I CHANGED MY WAYS AND LOST WHAT WEIGHED ME DOWN, 2012 I don't have anything to give you, except to show you a way to better yourself.
WILLIAM PAUL YOUNG You can make of your life anything you wish. Create your own life and then go out and live it.
JENNIFER ASHLEY You can make of your life anything you wish. Create your own life and then go out and live it.
ROY T. BENNETT If you have to give up, give up your fear.
MARIANNE WILLIAMSON If you give one to your insurance adjuster, you go to the front of the line.
BRENT NEISER If you have to give up, give up your fear.
NEIL DIAMOND We're happy that you're here and that you remember us, ... Remember Me.
NEIL DIAMOND I'm lucky. Hard work is the key, but luck plays a part.
NEIL DIAMOND Song Sung Blue took a lot of compressing and refining, and it has one of my favorite lyrics.
NEIL DIAMOND I thought love was more or less a giving thing.
NEIL DIAMOND When you're on a merry-go-round, you miss a lot of the scenery.
NEIL DIAMOND Be as a page that aches for a word/ Which speaks on a theme that is timeless.
JARED DIAMOND Arouse the mind without resting it on anything.
DIAMOND SUTRA I'd rather spend my leisure time doing what some people call my work and I call my fun.
JARED DIAMOND This is the largest of all the upgrades that have ever taken place.
JARED DIAMOND It's a clear signal that Pennsylvanians have awoke from their long slumber.
JARED DIAMOND I am on sabbatical as of right now, been too busy to think of about my OWN needs as of late.


text:
Q: UWSGI block incoming connections when all threads are busy I have a simple UWSGI app put behind a LB with the following .ini config
[uwsgi]
socket=0.0.0.0:5071
chdir = src/
wsgi-file = uwsgi.py
processes=2
threads=1
protocol=http
plugins=python
exit-on-reload=false
master=true
# Cleanup of temp files
vacuum = true

When all 2x1 threads are busy, the application keeps serving incoming connections by queueing them, waiting for a thread to free.
This is somehow an unwanted behavior in my case, as I would like UWSGI to return a 5xx status code which will allow me to not oversaturate the resources of a single distribution.
Client testing code
Attaching the test client code for the UWSGI application
proxy = {
    'http':'http://localhost:5071'
}

@threaded
def f():
    print('Sending request')
    response = requests.get('http://dummy.site',proxies=proxy)
    print(str(response.status_code )+ response.text)

for i in range(5):
    f()

Test (1)
Adding listen = 2 to .ini and firing 3 requests simultaneously would just print:
*** uWSGI listen queue of socket "0.0.0.0:5071" (fd: 3) full !!! (3/2) ***
while the third connection seems to still be somehow accepted, queued and later executed instead of a 5xx error being thrown.
Test (2)
Adding listen = 0 to .ini and firing 5 requests simultaneously would just execute two requests at a time. The full queue output is not showing anymore. Somehow, the requests are somewhere still queued and executed when threads get freed.
How can I block incoming connections to the UWSGI application when all threads are busy?

A: This is a truly bizarre request, but if you really want to do this, you can try reducing the listen queue (to zero), i.e. --listen 0. I haven't tested this and don't know if zero is even considered a valid value. This is something that is normally increased as a site gains traffic, not decreased.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
/*
 * To change this license header, choose License Headers in Project Properties.
 * To change this template file, choose Tools | Templates
 * and open the template in the editor.
 */
package org.highj.data.transformer;

import org.derive4j.hkt.__;
import org.derive4j.hkt.__2;
import org.derive4j.hkt.__3;
import org.derive4j.hkt.__4;
import org.highj.data.Either;
import org.highj.data.transformer.error_arrow.ErrorArrowArrow;
import org.highj.data.transformer.error_arrow.ErrorArrowArrowChoice;
import org.highj.data.transformer.error_arrow.ErrorArrowArrowError;
import org.highj.data.transformer.error_arrow.ErrorArrowArrowTransformer;
import org.highj.data.transformer.error_arrow.ErrorArrowCategory;
import org.highj.data.transformer.error_arrow.ErrorArrowSemigroupoid;
import org.highj.typeclass2.arrow.ArrowChoice;

/**
 *
 * @author clintonselke
 */
public class ErrorArrow<EX,A,B,C> implements __4<ErrorArrow.µ,EX,A,B,C> {
    public static class µ {}

    private final __2<A,B,Either<EX,C>> _run;

    private ErrorArrow(__2<A,B,Either<EX,C>> run) {
        this._run = run;
    }

    public static <EX,A,B,C> ErrorArrow<EX,A,B,C> errorArrow(__2<A,B,Either<EX,C>> run) {
        return new ErrorArrow<>(run);
    }

    public __2<A,B,Either<EX,C>> run() {
        return _run;
    }

    public static <EX,A> ErrorArrowSemigroupoid<EX,A> semigroupoid(ArrowChoice<A> a) {
        return () -> a;
    }

    public static <EX,A> ErrorArrowCategory<EX,A> category(ArrowChoice<A> a) {
        return () -> a;
    }

    public static <EX,A> ErrorArrowArrow<EX,A> arrow(ArrowChoice<A> a) {
        return () -> a;
    }

    public static <EX,A> ErrorArrowArrowError<EX,A> arrowError(ArrowChoice<A> a) {
        return () -> a;
    }

    public static <EX,A> ErrorArrowArrowChoice<EX,A> arrowChoice(ArrowChoice<A> a) {
        return () -> a;
    }

    public static <EX,A> ErrorArrowArrowTransformer<EX,A> arrowTransformer(ArrowChoice<A> a) {
        return () -> a;
    }
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Tags: acorn | voters
Former ACORN Employee: More Than Half Voter Registrations Invalid
By Ronald Kessler Thursday, 19 March 2009 11:00 AM Current | Bio | Archive
More than half the voter registrations turned in by ACORN canvassers during the last election were not valid, according to testimony to be presented before a House Judiciary subcommittee.
The testimony is from Anita MonCrief, a former employee of an affiliate of the Association of Community Organizations. MonCrief, who was fired for improperly charging personal expenses to the ACORN affiliate, originally testified under oath as part of a request by the Republican State Committee in Pennsylvania for an injunction against ACORN. The request was denied. The FBI has been investigating the liberal community organizing group for possible voter registration fraud.
MonCrief will appear at the congressional hearing Thursday with Heather Heidelbaugh, who represented the Republican committee in the civil suit and is on the executive board of the Republican National Lawyers Association. She will provide a legal analysis of MonCrief's testimony.
"We will be presenting evidence that ACORN is engaged in voter registration irregularities and fraud," Heidelbaugh tells Newsmax,
According to MonCrief, ACORN considered 40 percent an acceptable level of accurate voter registrations turned in by its workers. She said ACORN barely trained its workers in how to register voters properly and would fire employees if they did not meet a quota of 20 new voter applicants daily. If the registration cards turned in did not meet the quota, supervisors were told to "fire them right there; don't let them waste your money for the day."
If a canvasser was caught committing fraud, ACORN threw the individual "under the bus," MonCrief said. ACORN employees were briefed on how to deny that voter registration fraud existed, she said.
According to MonCrief, the Obama presidential campaign called her in October 2007 asking for coordination in soliciting donations from people who had already made the maximum contribution to Obama allowed by election laws. MonCrief testified that she was given a massive database of Obama donors who had already reached the limit. Her task was to cull it for potential donors who would then donate to Project Vote, an ACORN affiliate which targets individuals and entities to solicit donations.
If true, MonCrief's allegations constitute violations of the Internal Revenue Code, federal campaign finance laws, and laws against voter registration fraud, according to a memo by Cleta Mitchell, co-chairman of the Republican National Lawyers Association.
MonCrief said she worked as a development associate from 2005 until early 2008 for Project Vote. Project Vote was so closely aligned with ACORN that they were essentially one and the same, she said.
Project Vote national spokesman Michael McDunnah has denied that the donor list MonCrief worked on came from the Democratic nominee or his campaign. The Obama campaign has denied the allegation.
Two ACORN officials from Pennsylvania have insisted that the group has policies in place to train new employees and to spot and flag applications that appear to be fraudulent.
Ronald Kessler is chief Washington correspondent of Newsmax.com. View his previous reports and get his dispatches sent to you free via
e-mail. Go here now.
Posts by Ronald Kessler
Ronald Kessler: Biden's 'Over-the-Horizon' Hoax Will Jeopardize US Safety
Behind Biden's Catastrophe in Afghanistan
View More Posts by Ronald Kessler
RonaldKessler
More than half the voter registrations turned in by ACORN canvassers during the last election were not valid, according to testimony to be presented before a House Judiciary subcommittee.	The testimony is from Anita MonCrief, a former employee of an affiliate of the...
acorn,voters
Thursday, 19 March 2009 11:00 AM

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
The 15 Best Bars in Washington, D.C.
Your Trip to Washington, D.C.: The Complete Guide
Best Breweries
Washington, D.C. Airports
48-Hour Itinerary
The Best D.C. Tours
Where to Ski Near D.C.
Beaches Near D.C.
Camping Near D.C.
Best Parks
Top Museums
Family-Friendly Restaurants
United States Washington, D.C.
Lani Furbank
Despite contentious politics and cutthroat careers, there's one thing Washingtonians have in common: they know how to drink. The nation's capital is one of the best places to enjoy a craft cocktail, find a rare brew, get to know a unique spirit, sip a special glass of wine, watch a game with cold beer, or share a pitcher of mimosas at a drag brunch. These are the best bars in D.C.
Barmini
501 9th St NW, Washington, DC 20004, USA
José Andrés' cocktail lab neighbors his two-Michelin-starred tasting menu restaurant, and it's called a lab for a reason. Barmini is a hub for innovative techniques and recipes. Reserve a tasting flight and you'll witness modern and awe-inspiring twists on classic cocktails. You can also sip one of more than 100 drinks on the menu.
Bar Pilar
1833 14th St NW, Washington, DC 20009-4475, USA
Bar Pilar is a true neighborhood hang, where you'll find unpretentious drinks, nods to Ernest Hemingway, and food sourced from regional organic farms. The rotating seasonal slushies are crowd favorites, but don't miss the unusual house cocktails or classic sips like the Hemingway Daiquiri.
ChurchKey
1337 14th St NW, Washington, DC 20005, USA
By the numbers, ChurchKey has 5 casks, 50 drafts, and 500 bottles of beer. The selection itself is impressive, with über rare brews and limited edition bottlings, but there's also devout attention to detail in the way the list is organized (by flavor profile) and how each pour is served (in the perfect glass at the perfect temperature).
Columbia Room
124 Blagden Alley NW, Washington, DC 20001, USA
The résumé of this versatile cocktail bar is overflowing with accolades, all of which are well-deserved. No matter the occasion, Columbia Room is the perfect place to grab a drink—whether it's a bright spritz on the rooftop Punch Garden, a distinguished whiskey in the Spirits Library, or a seasonal four-course cocktail tasting menu in the Tasting Room.
1219 Connecticut Ave NW, Washington, DC 20036, USA
You can party like it's whatever era you like at this four-story retro nightclub in Dupont Circle. You'll hear the greatest hits from the '80s, '90s, '00s, and today while enjoying bottle service and dancing the night away, throwback style.
Dacha Beer Garden
1600 7th St NW, Washington, DC 20001, USA
Dacha is one of D.C.'s favorite beer gardens, so the outdoor space is always bustling. The beer list consists of German, Belgian, and American brews, as well as meads, ciders, draft cocktails, and wine. The food menu is inspired by traditional Bavarian fare and Dacha is dog- and family-friendly.
Espita Mezcaleria
1250 9th St NW, Washington, DC 20001-4202, USA
As the name implies, this is the place to explore the smoky agave spirit, mezcal. Each of the cocktails feature a type of mezcal, whether it's espadín or pechuga. You can also embark on a more dedicated study of the spirit with a mezcal flight, made up of several of the 100 or so choices available. Pours are accompanied by sal de gusano and oranges.
Jack Rose Dining Saloon
The more than 2,600 bottles of whiskey lining the walls of Jack Rose draw connoisseurs from all over the world to sample rare and coveted pours. You'll find everything from single malt scotch to Japanese whisky, as well as cigars to complement your dram. While whiskey is the star, the beer, wine, and cocktail selections also hold their own.
Maxwell Park
At this playful spot in Shaw, the sommeliers know that wine bars don't have to be stuffy in order to be serious about wine. There's a chalkboard bar where doodling is encouraged, but behind the bar, the experts can tell you anything you want to know about the 50 wines by the glass served via a high-tech refrigeration system.
Nellie's Sports Bar
Photo courtesy of Nellie's Sports Bar
900 U St NW, Washington, DC 20001-4048, USA
There's something happening every single night of the week at this popular gay bar on U Street. Take part in ping pong madness, paint night, drag bingo, karaoke, trivia, DJ sets, dance parties, drag brunch, all day happy hour, and more.
800 16th St NW, Washington, DC 20006, USA
In the basement of the Hay-Adams Hotel sits a discreet bar where you can be "seen and not heard." The crimson walls are accented by humorous caricatures of political figures and corner tables are ideal spots for crucial meetings of the mind.
3000 12th St NE, Washington, DC 20017, USA
Tucked away in Brookland, this French-inspired wine bar transports visitors to a Parisian bistro, with ostrich feather chandeliers and ornamental ceiling tiles. The wine list features glasses and bottles from small and natural producers in France and Virginia. Dishes like duck liver mousse, steak frites, and salmon en croute complement the pours.
Service Bar
926-928 U St NW, Washington, DC 20001, USA
This neighborhood cocktail bar serves up refreshingly affordable classic drinks, seasonal creations, and cocktails showcasing each major spirit (gin, rum, mezcal, tequila, vodka, whiskey, brandy). For a private experience, book the snug—a hidden room with direct access to the bar via a service window.
ANXO Cidery & Pintxos Bar
300 Florida Ave NW, Washington, DC 20001, USA
ANXO kickstarted D.C.'s cider scene with a bar that takes inspiration from the Basque country in Spain. You can sip ciders that are funky, fruit-forward, or vibrant, while snacking on pintxos like croquetas, montaditos, or buñuelos. Anxo also makes their own ciders at their own facility and in collaboration with other cideries.
Ventnor Sports Cafe
The key games of the season will always be playing at this sports bar, but another major draw is the food, like stacked sandwiches and short rib gruyere mac and cheese. It's also a gathering place for alumni groups and special events like trivia night.
The Best Breweries in D.C.
Where to Find the Best Brunch in Washington, D.C.
The 15 Best Restaurants in Copenhagen
Where to Find the Best Nightlife in Copenhagen
Best Brunch Restaurants in Washington DC
The Best Bars in Richmond, Virginia
Nightlife in Guadalajara: Best Bars, Clubs, & More
The 15 Best Bars in Charlotte
Nightlife in Columbus, Ohio: Best Bars, Clubs and More
The 15 Best Beer Pubs and Breweries in Washington, DC
The 11 Best Bars in Salt Lake City
Superior Sipping: The Best 20 Bars In Los Angeles
The 9 Best Washington, D.C. Hotels of 2021
The 15 Best Bars in Georgetown, Washington D.C.
15 Great Rooftop Bars in Washington, DC
The Best Bars in Downtown Toronto


text:
Biglerville, PA
Solar in Biglerville PA
How much do solar panels cost in Biglerville, PA in 2022?
As of January 2022, the average solar panel cost in Biglerville, PA is $2.91/W. Given a solar panel system size of 5 kilowatts (kW), an average solar installation in Biglerville, PA ranges in cost from $12,368 to $16,732, with the average gross price for solar in Biglerville, PA coming in at $14,550. After accounting for the 26% Federal Investment Tax Credit (ITC) and other state and local solar incentives, the net price you'll pay for solar can fall by thousands of dollars.
Average solar panel cost by system size in Biglerville, PA
2022 average solar panel cost graph in Biglerville, PA
Top solar installers in Biglerville, PA
See more solar companies in Biglerville, PA


Micah 5.2-5a, Psalm 80.1-7, Hebrews 10.5-10, Luke 1.39-55; Why was Bethlehem such a little town? What does Christ's peace look like? Is is a good thing to look like an idiot from the pulpit? These questions and more on this episode of Strangely Warmed with guest Scott Jones from the Synaxis podcast.


text:
Home US NEWS Experts shocked as Gorsuch angrily accuses Colorado of forcing anti-LGBTQ baker into...
Experts shocked as Gorsuch angrily accuses Colorado of forcing anti-LGBTQ baker into 're-education program'
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch appeared angry and even hostile at several points throughout Monday's oral arguments in a case brought by a Colorado right-wing evangelical Christian website designer who is suing the state because she wants to be able to discriminate against same-sex couples who are getting married.
The case, 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis, promises to be one of the most important of the term, and arguments extended more than two hours.
During one of the more heated moments, conservative Justice Gorsuch attacked Colorado Solicitor General Eric Olson, claiming the state forced an infamous anti-LGBTQ baker who also went before the Supreme Court, winning his 2018 case in a very narrow ruling, into a "re-education program."
RELATED: 'What the Hell, Sam': Justice Alito Slammed for Making 'Joke' About Black Children in KKK Costumes
Jack Phillips, a business owner who refused to bake cakes for same-sex weddings, citing his religious beliefs, was required to attend a class so he could become familiar with Colorado anti-discrimination law.
The Supreme Court's ruling at the time called it, "additional remedial measures, including 'comprehensive staff training on the Public Accommodations section'" of Colorado's anti-discrimination law.
Justice Gorsuch instead called it a "re-education program," and slammed the state's Solicitor General, Eric Olson, with it on Monday.
"Mr. Phillips did go through a re-education training program, pursuant to Colorado law, did he not, Mr. Olson?" Gorsuch asked the solicitor general.
"He went through a process that ensured he was familiar –" Olson responded, before Gorsuch cut him off.
"It was a re-education program, right?" the justice blared.
"It was not a 're-education program,'" Olson replied, holding his ground.
"What do you call it?" Gorsuch, dissatisfied, pressed.
"It was a process to make sure he was familiar with Colorado law," Olson explained.
"Some might be excused for calling that a 're-education program,'" Gorsuch snapped.
"I strongly disagree, Justice Gorsuch," Olson said, defending the law.
Gorsuch presses Colorado Solicitor General Eric Olson to say that Colorado forced Jack Phillips, the anti-gay baker in Masterpiece Cakeshop, to undergo a "reeducation training program." Olson resists. pic.twitter.com/AIQQA6B1Ia
— Mark Joseph Stern (@mjs_DC) December 5, 2022
Slate's Mark Joseph Stern, who provided the clip above, warns: "It does not bode well for the future of civil rights law that Gorsuch believes a state imposes 'reeducation training' on employers when it reminds them how to comply with nondiscrimination rules."
"Astounding that Gorsuch, A Supreme Court Justice," tweeted Adam Cohen of Attorneys for Good Government, "Refers to Colorado giving courses on following civil rights law, As 'reeducation training.'"
"Like being taught not to discriminate against LGBTQ is the same as being sent to a gulag for protesting communism in the Soviet Union," he added.
Professor Elizabeth Sepper of the University of Texas at Austin School of Law says, "Justice Gorsuch describes education about antidiscrimination law and compliance as a REEDUCATION PROGRAM. This is beyond offensive. It was a central and SOFT tool of many civil rights movements and was essential to targeting market discrimination."
Columbia Law School's Elizabeth Reiner Platt, the Director of The Law, Rights, and Religion Project responded, "OMG Gorsuch repeatedly insists that a training on civil rights law is a 'reeducation program.' Good grief."
Attorney Andrew L. Seidel, Vice President of Strategic Communications for Americans United for Separation of Church and State tweeted, "WHOA. Gorsuch asks a very hostile question about sending the bakery to 'a re-education program.' He spits the phrase with venom and repeats it several times. He's regurgitating right wing talking points."
Previous articleMiami-Dade detective wounded after gunman fires at his unmarked car
Next articleEx-senator unleashes on 'criminal' Republicans like Trump who lied when they swore to uphold the Constitution


Start your Alverno journey here.
Whether you are a high school student, a transfer student or an adult looking to start or finish an undergraduate or graduate degree, all Alverno students have this in common: the drive to be better.
If you are ready to realize the greatness inside you and create change in the world around you, complete our free admissions application today. Our undergraduate application for Fall 2019 is now open!
The best way to find out if Alverno is the right college for you is to come visit us. Set up a tour or register for one of our events. We can't wait to show off our campus!
Living in our residence halls provides a built-in network of support and fun! Our application for Fall 2019 housing is available.


The European Forum at the Hebrew University hereby announces the Michael Zeff z"l Thesis Award and Michael Zeff z"l Fellowship for the first time.
For further information, please see the call for the Michael Zeff z"l Thesis Award and Michael Zeff z"l Fellowship.
Slideshow in Memory of Michael Zeff z"l.


This year's Emerald Cup couldn't come at a better time.
This year marks the Cup's 15th anniversary, and its first foray under Proposition 64's legal framework. What should the 26,000 expected attendees attendees do at the million-dollar event? Read on for Leafly's picks.
When: Saturday and Sunday, Dec. 15-16.
Cost: Tickets start at $80.00 per day (plus taxes and fees).
First things first: Willie Nelson. After years of invitations, the outlaw country legend Nelson will make an off-season appearance at this year's Emerald Cup as the recipient of a newly-renamed lifetime achievement award. Willie Nelson will receive the Willie Nelson Award as part of the Cup's awards ceremony on Sunday, 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. at the Emerald music stage. Nelson has made huge strides in both cannabis activism and music throughout the 20th century, so after half a decade of asking he is finally showing his face at a large-scale cannabis event. Bob Snodgrass, a progenitor of modern borosilicate glass pipes and bongs, will also be honored with his own namesake award.
If you can't make it Sunday, or don't want to experience history, there will be a seperate stoner celebrity appearance for day one. Kevin Smith and Jason Mewes (of Clerks fame) film a live episode of their comedic podcast, "Jay & Silent Bob Get Old," on Saturday at 2:45 p.m. at the Harvest music stage, across the way from the Cannacraft Village mega-tent.
Prepping For The Emerald Cup 2018?
Around 400 entrants in 27 categories will either taste sweet victory or bitter defeat during the ceremony Sunday, where judges hand out artistic glass trophies for the best sativa, indica or hybrid flowers. New categories this year include the best extracts derived from hydrocarbon solvents like butane.
If you'd rather learn than burn, each day is chock full of more speakers and panels than ever before. According to the Cup's Associate Producer Taylor Blake, some are hourly, but many are condensed into 15-minute mini-seminars for attendees with a full itinerary.
There's someone for everyone: regulators, entrepreneurs, patients, farmers, the Instagram-famous, and more. These events take place at four different locations, Finley Hall, Kraft Hall Garden, Building and Hall of Flowers, so check the Emerald Cup schedule and event map for more information.
Others not to miss are executive director of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies Dr. Rick Doblin, organic farm and certification Dragonfly Earth Medicine, Dr. Reggie Gaudino of Steep Hill Labs, and Minority Cannabis Business Association co-founder Jesce Horton.
Performances start at 12 p.m. on both days, hosted by the canna-celeb comedians Doug Benson and Ngaio Bealum. The lineups are split between two stages on opposite sides of the venue, Emerald and Harvest, so be sure to check the event map on the Emerald Cup website for time slots.
On Saturday, we recommend catching reggae star Protoje, Jurassic 5's Chali 2na, Dirty Dozen Brass Band and the genre-bending headliners Gogol Bordello, who plan to play past midnight.
On Sunday, sway to the throbbing bass of electronic music collective STS9, rock to the blues guitar of Funky METERS, or keep it country with Nashville-based Margot Price.
Don't worry, you can still buy stuff. This year's Emerald Cup features over 150 vendors spread across multiple big-top tents, including the Flow Kana market, Cannacraft Village and Elyon Market. This is the world's only dual, state-local licensed cannabis event with both adult-use sales and on-site consumption. California beat Nevada, Colorado, Washington, and everyone else to the vision of a modern, licensed, cannabis-integrated festival. Expect a mix of farms, extracts, accessories, media outlets, and non-profits, plus food stands like "Fresh Fusion Loaded Tots and Mac." Two live cooking demonstrations by chefs Joe Lewi and Luke Reyes have just been added.
Royal Budline, Flow Kana, and 3 Bros Grow are always sure bets for flowers. The elusive Royal Key Organics and more accessible Beezle Extracts will be present to dish out the dabs. There will be plenty of soil, cartridge and equipment vendors too, if you need that.
If you want to consume any of your goods, there are three designated consumption areas: one in front of Hall of Flowers; one by the venue entrance; and one across from the VIP Emerald Lounge, next to the Redwood Stage.
Check the vendor map once it's available online for exact placements.
The Cup will be held at Sonoma County Fairgrounds from Saturday, Dec. 15 at 10 a.m. to Sunday Dec. 15 at 9 p.m. Sunday.
To abide by state law, no one under 21 is allowed in—medical recommendation or not. Samples, unfortunately, cannot be entirely "free." You'll buy a wristband that entitles you to a certain number of samples or purchases. Users without doctor's recommendations have an ounce cap on their purchases.
Tickets are available on the Emerald Cup website, and local participating vendors, like Barbary Coast Dispensary in San Francisco. Early Bird passes are all sold out, but Advance Weekend, Saturday, Sunday, and Emerald VIP passes are still available for sale until the day before the event, provided they aren't sold out.
Blake, who has been assisting with Emerald Cup production for a decade, stands ready to face a recreational cup head-on.
What is your must-do at Emerald Cup 2018? Let the Leafly community know in the comments below!


This quote summarizes my last post on comparing the typical objectives – cycle time, development cost, product cost, etc. – in the same units (profit, aka dollars, technical term: skrilla).
Product developers are endlessly comparing these various objectives and considering trade-offs, so putting everything into an economic framework makes those comparisons easier.
One of the most critical things to quantify economically is the cost of delay. Don makes extensive use of the cost of delay throughout the book, which makes a lot of sense.
If you have no idea how much it will cost you to launch late, you will have little grounds for justifying expenses which expedite or facilitate the product development process.
So how do you calculate the cost of delay? You guessed it – there's no single method that works for everyone.
Perhaps most important? Get Buy-in.
I would recommend getting the marketing and sales team together and spending an hour or so to establish a general methodology. The critical thing is to have people trust the process and the end result. The cost you come up with is not going to be exactly correct – and Don spends a number of pages acknowledging this – but that's not the point. The point is to have a trusted, good-enough estimate for the cost of delaying the product X number of days, weeks, and months.
Armed with that estimate, you as a product developer have a much better chance of making good decisions (i.e. decisions driven by economic logic as opposed to gut feeling) regarding your development process.


First harvest!! I thinned the radishes and discovered that there was a fat bunch of 'em ready to eat already. Picked a pile of lettuce, too, and enjoyed salad with some turkey burgers (a rare grilling attempt by yours truly, I'm determined to learn).


Mark Warburton is still on the lookout for a centre-back – and a striker – as it looks almost certain a deal will not be struck for Oguchi Onyewu.
The former American national team captain, 34, spent the last ten days with the squad on trial in the United States and played two spells in Wednesday's 2-1 win over Charleston Battery.
Warburton held further discussions with Onyewu last night before flying back to Scotland and it seems unlikely that a deal will now be done. However, a centre-back and a striker remain priorities for Warburton.
Warburton used 19 players in the 2-1 victory over Charleston Battery. Josh Windass and Harry Forrester scored the goals in what was a satisfactory workout.


Pen-and-ink and wash drawing by an Indian draftsman of a figure of Mahavira in the Meena Basti at Aihole, from an album of 31 folios of drawings of sculpture in the rock-cut caves and temples at Aihole and Badami, dated 1853.
Aihole was one of the capitals and an important commercial centre of the Early Western Chalukya, a powerful dynasty which ruled the Deccan from the sixth century. Together with the two other capitals of Badami and Pattadakal, the site has preserved many Hindu and Jain temples which belong to a period that goes from the sixth to the 12th centuries, belonging to the Early and Late Chalukya periods and to the Rashtrakuta era. The Meena Basti is a rock-cut Jain cave temple situated south of the village. It was excavated in the late sixth century. It has a long verandah supported by four pillars and two pilasters. The drawing depicts the figure of Mahavira, the twenty fourth Tirthankara or Jain teacher, carved on the back wall of the shrine of the cave temple. Mahavira is seated in padmasana (lotus posture) in dhyana mudra (meditation) on a lion throne. Above him is a triple umbrella. On his two sides are chauri-bearers (fly-whisk bearers) attendants.