Getting a Feel for the Transition

From Frank Bruni in the New York Times:

[Obama is] a patriot, always has been, which is what’s so rich here. Trump bangs on about putting America first, when he really puts himself before all else. That shriveled, unhinged hood ornament of his, Rudy Giuliani, is on the record questioning Obama’s love for America. 

But Obama loves this country enough to summon the same grace for his successor that other presidents did for theirs, though his is a nasty, juvenile breed apart.

And he loves this country enough to try to calm it when it most needs calming, even if that means a willed optimism about Trump that’s oh so difficult to share.

From the New York Times:

WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald J. Trump’s transition was in disarray on Tuesday, marked by firings, infighting and revelations that American allies were blindly dialing in to Trump Tower to try to reach the soon-to-be-leader of the free world.

One week after Mr. Trump scored an upset victory that took him by surprise, his team was improvising the most basic traditions of assuming power. That included working without official State Department briefing materials in his first conversations with foreign leaders.

Two officials who had been handling national security for the transition, former Representative Mike Rogers of Michigan and Matthew Freedman, a lobbyist who consults with corporations and foreign governments, were fired. Both were part of what officials described as a purge orchestrated by Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law and close adviser.

The dismissals followed the abrupt firing on Friday of Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, who was replaced as chief of the transition by Vice President-elect Mike Pence. Mr. Kushner, a transition official said, was systematically dismissing people like Mr. Rogers who had ties with Mr. Christie. As a federal prosecutor, Mr. Christie had sent Mr. Kushner’s father to jail.

From Republican Eliot A. Cohen in the Washington Post:

Trump was not a normal candidate, the transition is not a normal transition, and this will probably not be a normal administration. The president-elect is surrounding himself with mediocrities whose chief qualification seems to be unquestioning loyalty. He gets credit for becoming a statesman when he says something any newly elected president might say (“I very much look forward to dealing with the president in the future”) — and then reverts to tweeting against demonstrators and the New York Times. By all accounts, his ignorance, and that of his entourage, about the executive branch is fathomless. It’s not even clear that he accepts that he should live in the White House rather than in his gilt-smeared penthouse in New York.

In the best of times, government service carries with it the danger of compromising your principles. Here, though, we may be in for something much worse. The canary in the coal mine was not merely the selection of Stephen K. Bannon for the job previously filled by John Podesta and Karl Rove, that of counselor to the president and chief strategist. Rather, the warning signs came from the Republican leaders excusing and normalizing this sinister character — and those who then justified the normalizers.

Squirrel!

In two of their last three presidential election victories, Republicans failed to win the popular vote but prevailed by winning a majority of the Electoral College vote. So of course social media is full of outrage from Hillary supporters. There's at least one on-line petition where you can demand a change to the Constitution.

Good luck.

Eliminating the Electoral College is the Squirrel! of this post-election period. Republicans are in the majority in 32 state legislatures. Republican governors hold office in 33 states. The Republicans would like nothing more than to have Democrats go chasing after trying to get the Constitution changed.

David Brooks, who's kind of a conservative guy, thinks Donald Trump will be a 1-year president – that he will either resign or be impeached in his first year. That may be wishful thinking, but maybe you'll agree there's a pretty good chance everything will be FUBAR by the midterm election in 2018.

Whadaya think? Pretty good chance? We're certainly off to a good start, and Trump hasn't even taken office yet.

Well, in 2018 EVERY seat in the House of Representatives is up for grabs. Although Democrats hold 23 of the 33 Senate seats up that year (and are theoretically more vulnerable), this year's election shows pretty clearly that expectations can be wrong.

Thirty-six states will be holding gubernatorial elections.

Fifty states will be electing legislators.

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) needs to make sure every Republican seat is contested, even if the chances of winning seem slim right now, and it needs to guarantee campaign assistance and resources. If they can get over the post-election blood-letting quickly, and show they finally understand what needs to be done, they should be able to make a good case for us to send some money their way.

In the four years leading up to Obama's 2008 victory, Howard Dean served as DNC chair. His 50-state strategy laid a lot of the groundwork for that historic win. Anybody at the DNC who doesn't think we need a 50-state strategy after this election is a Republican agent. [I'm lookin' at YOU, Terry McAuliffe!]

Howard Dean is willing to serve again. We should grab him.

Quotes Worth Quoting

From David Brooks' eulogy for Gwen Ifill:

These days it is normal to bash Washington, to want to “drain the swamp” and to attack the mainstream media. The populists are in and the establishment is out.

But I confess, when I looked at the front of The Times website on Monday and saw a photo of Stephen K. Bannon, on leave from Breitbart as chairman and rising in power, and then underneath it a photo of Gwen, who is passing from this world, I wanted to throw up. This is not progress and this is not good news.

 From Gail Collins, in a conversation with Arthur C. Brooks:

Reader email has informed me it’s way harder to leave the country than one might think. We Americans aren’t in all that much demand.

This Racist is Right (Wing)

You have perhaps heard the remarks made by North Carolina Congressman Robert Pittenger. While being interviewed for BBC Newsnight, the U.S. Representative for the people of Charlotte explained the city's recent riots like this:

The grievance in their minds — the animus, the anger — they hate white people, because white people are successful and they’re not. I mean, yes, it is, it is a welfare state. We have spent trillions of dollars on welfare, and we’ve put people in bondage, so they can’t be all that they’re capable of being. And, you know, America was - is - a country of opportunity and freedom and liberty. It didn't become that way because of a great government who provided everything for everyone; no, the destiny of America, the freedom to come to this country where they're still coming to our shores is because they can take their work ethic, and their hard effort, and put up their capital and their risk and build out their lives.

Congressman Pittinger makes a habit of saying asinine things

It would be hard to find a paragraph that so clearly illustrates the values of the free market conservative mind, which George Lakoff describes in Don't Think of an Elephant!

[There is a] connection between the strict father worldview and free market capitalism. The link is the morality of self-interest, which is the conservative version of Adam Smith's view of capitalism....[my emphasis]

... [I]f everyone pursues her own self-interest, then by the invisible hand, by nature, the self-interest of all will be maximized.

... A good person [this viewpoint holds] – a moral person – is someone who is disciplined enough to be obedient to legitimate authority, to learn what is right, to do what is right and not do what is wrong, and to pursue her self-interest to prosper and become self-reliant.

... When the good children are mature, they either have learned discipline and can prosper, or have failed to learn it. From this point on the strict father is not to meddle in their lives.

This translates politically into no government meddling.

From Congressman Pittinger's pespective, the inequality of "success" among the races is attributable to government meddling in the form of welfare. It is implicit in his statement that he believes black people are on welfare, and white people are not. Welfare has put black people "in bondage" because it has destroyed their work ethic. As a result, white people are successful, and black people are not.

So their anger is not about another black person being shot by a policeman. It is about hating white people for being (financially) successful. Great analysis, Congressman.

Okay, I promise this is the last post about Don't Think of an Elephant!

Reframing "Concealed Carry"

[Edited Friday, September 23]

A few months ago, we talked about the importance of how political ideas are "framed" when we talk about them. In his book, Don't Think of an Elephant!, George Lakoff, a cognitive scientist and political thinker at UC Berkeley, says this about "frames":

Frames are mental structures that shape the way we see the world. As a result, they shape the goals we see, the plans we make, the way we act, and what counts as a good or bad outcome of our actions. In politics our frames shape our social policies and the institutions we form to carry out policies. To change our frames is to change all of this. Reframing is social change.

But reframing is not easy. As an illustration, Virginia Ted (who repeats himself) provided a quote from Will Storr's book, The Unpersuadables: Adventures with the Enemies of Science:

By the time you have reached adulthood, your brain has decided how the world works—how a table looks and feels, how liquids and authority figures behave, how scary rats are. It has made countless billions of little insights and decisions. It has made its mind up. From then on, its treatment of any new information that runs counter to those views can sometimes be brutal. Your brain is surprisingly reluctant to change its mind. Rather than going through the difficulties involved in rearranging itself to reflect the truth, it often prefers to fool you. So it distorts. It forgets. It projects. It lies.

All of which is true. But it is also true that the brain can change its mind. As evidence of this I offer the history of attitudes about homosexuality and same-sex marriage. I could dig up the statistics about it, but I'm sure there's no need. We all know there's been a massive change in the last three decades. Straight people thought they knew what homosexuals were. When millions of gay men and lesbians showed incredible courage and "outed" themselves, there was new information. "So-and-so says he is gay. I have always held so-and-so in great esteem, and still do. My understanding of what it means to be gay is now different." In Lakoff's terms, I have reframed my understanding of homosexuality. And "reframing is social change."

Politically, you can try to change people's frames, but you often don't have to. You just need to choose the right language, so that what you are describing fits their frame. Lakoff gives this example:

Think of the framing for relief. For there to be relief, there must be an affliction, an afflicted party, and a reliever who removes the affliction and is therefore a hero. And if people try to stop the hero, those people are villains for trying to prevent relief.

When the word tax is added to relief, the result is a metaphor: Taxation is an affliction. And the person who takes it away is a hero, and anyone who tries to stop him is a bad guy. This is a frame. ...The language that evokes the frame comes out of the White House, and it goes into press releases, goes to every radio station, every TV station, every newspaper. And soon the New York Times is using tax relief. And it is not only on Fox; it is on CNN, it is on NBC, it is on every station because it is "the president's tax-relief plan." And soon Democrats are using tax relief – and shooting themselves in the foot.

It is remarkable. We have seen Democrats adopting the conservative view of taxation as an affliction when they have offered "tax relief for the middle class."

They were accepting the conservative frame. The conservatives had set a trap: The words draw you into their worldview.

And they've done it again and again. The "inheritance tax", which most people didn't think about, became "death tax"; a tax on death is ridiculous, so the inheritance tax now becomes ridiculous. Counseling for people facing the end of their life became "death panels." And so on.

This all came to mind this morning while reading Gail Collins' column in the NY Times about the big role gun control issues are playing in the Missouri Senatorial campaign. It seemed like the words used in the debate had been chosen by the NRA:

How does entering a grade school with a loaded gun tucked in your pants become "concealed carry"?

How does walking around in the local hardware store brandishing a loaded automatic rifle become "open carry"?

Bevis and friend at Home Depot

Should we allow the debate to be framed like this?

More Reasons not to Like Gary Johnson

Kevin Drum (yes, again!) lists reasons not to vote for Gary Johnson:

• He supports TPP.
• He supports fracking.
• He opposes any federal policies that would make college more affordable or reduce student debt. In fact, he wants to abolish student loans entirely.
• He thinks Citizens United is great.
• He doesn't want to raise the minimum wage. At all.
• He favors a balanced-budget amendment and has previously suggested that he would slash federal spending 43 percent in order to balance the budget. This would require massive cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and social welfare programs of all kinds.
• He opposes net neutrality.
• He wants to increase the Social Security retirement age to 75 and he's open to privatization.
• He opposes any kind of national health care and wants to repeal Obamacare.
• He opposes practically all forms of gun control.
• He opposes any kind of paid maternity or medical leave.
• He supported the Keystone XL pipeline.
• He opposes any government action to address climate change.
• He wants to cut the corporate tax rate to zero.
• He appears to believe that we should reduce financial regulation. All we need to do is allow big banks to fail and everything will be OK.
• He wants to remove the Fed's mandate to maximize employment and has spoken favorably of returning to the gold standard.
• He wants to block-grant Medicare and turn it over to the states.
• He wants to repeal the 16th Amendment and eliminate the income tax, the payroll tax, and the estate tax. He would replace it with a 28 percent FairTax that exempts the poor. This is equivalent to a 39 percent sales tax, and it would almost certainly represent a large tax cut for the rich.

But 26 percent of young voters support him. The Reagan myth that smaller government = better government lives on. And it's going to kill us.

What Short Memories We Have

Via Kevin Drum, Kevin Lamarque reminds us that "The George W. Bush White House 'Lost' 22 Million Emails."
The money paragraphs:

... Between 2003 and 2009, the Bush White House “lost” 22 million emails. This correspondence included millions of emails written during the darkest period in America’s recent history, when the Bush administration was ginning up support for what turned out to be a disastrous war in Iraq with false claims that the country possessed weapons of mass destruction (WMD), and, later, when it was firing U.S. attorneys for political reasons.

Like Clinton, the Bush White House used a private email server—its was owned by the Republican National Committee. And the Bush administration failed to store its emails, as required by law, and then refused to comply with a congressional subpoena seeking some of those emails....

... According to the Boston social media analytics firm Crimson Hexagon, which ran a study for Newsweek, there have been 560,397 articles mentioning Clinton’s emails between March 2015 and September 1, 2016.

Colin Kaepernick

For several days I've been mulling through thoughts about San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick's refusal to stand for the National Anthem, with the aim of putting something here.

As life has pointed out to me on many occasions, sometimes procrastination is the best policy. In this case, unknown to me, my eldest brother was composing the perfect response, and he has agreed to let me share it here:

Dear Mr. Kaepernick,

I happened to be watching the 49ers on the first day you became quarterback. I was amazed that you performed so well on your first appearance. When you weren't throwing the ball and connecting with your receiver, you were running it and outdistancing the competition.

Therefore this recent brouhaha about you not standing for the national anthem was a great disappointment. You see I am a gay person and spent eight years in the Navy. I was always concerned that someday I would be outed. I even had a gay sailor in my division whom I tried to protect. Unfortunately he was as we say "a screaming queen." It was a difficult job keeping him from being dishonorably discharged (and I include in that the general discharge that was in vogue when I was on active duty). Unfortunately he attempted suicide and then there was no protecting him. One day he was aboard the ship and the next day he was gone.

I also spent a year in country in Vietnam while in the Navy. I met three other gays while serving there. Again all of us were in fear of being outed. We all felt  kindred with Sgt. Leonard Matlovich, an Air Force Sergeant whose epitaph reads "When I was in the military they gave me a medal for killing two men and a discharge for loving one." After Vietnam I worked for the Navy as a civilian and again had to keep my sexual orientation a secret. I was always hopeful whenever something came along that appeared to allow me more freedom, such as "Don't ask don't tell" but was always suspicious that someone was lying. That's the way things were.

Now I am retired and I cannot believe the changes that have been made. After more than 200 years (Yes, you could be put in stocks in early America for being gay) we are now free to even marry. All the members of my generation wanted, was not to be kicked out of the service, military or civilian. We wanted to serve our country.

The point of all this is, is that in all that time I never once refused to stand for the national anthem. This was my country warts and all. But we do try and sometimes we even win! I do wish you had picked another way of expressing your understandable anger at the way things have been going recently. It is of course your right. But things do change. I am now 80 years old can attest to that. Please don't lose faith in our country, like I said we do try.

 I have nothing to add to that.

Should You Vote Libertarian?

The best reason we've found for voting for the Libertarian Party!

Some very well-meaning people are tempted to support the Libertarian candidate, former Republican governor of New Mexico Gary Johnson, and his running mate, former Republican governor of Massachusetts William Weld.

So let's have a look some of the tenets of the Libertarian platform (bolded and underlined words are by me):

Section 2.1

As respect for property rights is fundamental to maintaining a free and prosperous society, it follows that the freedom to contract to obtain, retain, profit from, manage, or dispose of one’s property must also be upheld. ... For voluntary dealings among private entities, parties should be free to choose with whom they trade and set whatever trade terms are mutually agreeable.

• Translation: Overturn the Civil Rights Act of 1965. We don't want to rent to Blacks, Mexicans, or Jews, or, for that matter, serve them in our restaurants.

Section 2.2

Competitive free markets and property rights stimulate the technological innovations and behavioral changes required to protect our environment and ecosystems. Private landowners and conservation groups have a vested interest in maintaining natural resources. Governments are unaccountable for damage done to our environment and have a terrible track record when it comes to environmental protection.

• Translation: We think the best way to protect the environment is to leave it to people who are trying to make a profit. We are living in La-La Land. 

Section 2.4

All persons are entitled to keep the fruits of their labor. We call for the repeal of the income tax, the abolishment of the Internal Revenue Service and all federal programs and services not required under the U.S. Constitution. We oppose any legal requirements forcing employers to serve as tax collectors.

• Translation: We are going full-bore Social Darwinism. No welfare. No Social Security. Every man for himself. And really, since "all persons are entitled to keep the fruits of their labor," no taxes. We are bat-sh*t crazy!

Section 2.6

Individuals engaged in voluntary exchange should be free to use as money any mutually agreeable commodity or item. We support a halt to inflationary monetary policies and unconstitutional legal tender laws.

• Translation: Back to the gold standard! Viva bitcoin! We are loons!

Section 2.8

Employment and compensation agreements between private employers and employees are outside the scope of government, and these contracts should not be encumbered by government-mandated benefits or social engineering.

• Translation: Women should be paid less than men for doing the same job, because that's what the market will bear, and we can get away with it. If a woman doesn't want that, she can work for someone else. If somebody is so desperate that they'll work for 25 cents and hour, by golly that's what we'll pay them.

Section 2.9

Education is best provided by the free market, achieving greater quality, accountability and efficiency with more diversity of choice. Recognizing that the education of children is a parental responsibility, we would restore authority to parents to determine the education of their children, without interference from government. Parents should have control of and responsibility for all funds expended for their children’s education.

• Translation:  Grandma never got past the third grade, and she turned out fine, so why should I send Suzie Jean to school? Besides, I need her at home.

Section 2.11

Retirement planning is the responsibility of the individual, not the government. Libertarians would phase out the current government-sponsored Social Security system and transition to a private voluntary system. The proper and most effective source of help for the poor is the voluntary efforts of private groups and individuals. We believe members of society will become even more charitable and civil society will be strengthened as government reduces its activity in this realm.

•  Translation:  Because a private voluntary system is what we had before Social Security, and it worked out so well.

Section 3.5

Libertarians embrace the concept that all people are born with certain inherent rights. We reject the idea that a natural right can ever impose an obligation upon others to fulfill that “right.” We condemn bigotry as irrational and repugnant. Government should neither deny nor abridge any individual’s human right based upon sex, wealth, ethnicity, creed, age, national origin, personal habits, political preference or sexual orientation. Members of private organizations retain their rights to set whatever standards of association they deem appropriate, and individuals are free to respond with ostracism, boycotts and other free-market solutions.

• Translation: Well, really, we know what that one's all about, don't we. 

A Legitimately Sinister Figure?

Why has former KKK grand wizard David Duke decided to get back into politics? Because he sees something in Donald Trump that excites him.

It's not a common thing for Sempringham to refer you to a "conservative" web site, but Ben Shapiro, former editor-at-large for the Breitbart web site knows Steve Bannon, Donald Trump's new campaign manager.  He thinks we should be concerned about the next couple of months.

Under Bannon's leadership, Shapiro says, Breitbart "has become the alt-right go-to website, with Yiannopoulos pushing white ethno-nationalism as a legitimate response to political correctness, and the comment section turning into a cesspool for white supremacist mememakers."

I don't think Breitbart OR Ben Shapiro are usually worth reading, but this and this are exceptions.

Why People Who Disagree with Us Won't Listen to the Facts

Here at Sempringham we've been trying to figure out how to enlighten people who are clearly misguided on policy issues.

In Feelings vs Facts, we looked at the insights of cognitive scientist George Lakoff, who believes people can be usefully categorized by their attitudes concerning child rearing. Conservatives, in his model, are people who instinctively adhere to a family structure with a strict father. Liberals, on the other hand, believe in a "nurturant" [hate that word – why not just say "nurturing"?] parent for whom discipline is not a critical focus.

Lakoff believes we see events through these "frames", and, to put words in his mouth, this explains why liberals are more likely to see Black Lives Matter as people who who are seeking justice while conservatives are more likely to see them as people who are misbehaving.

David Ignatius brings another dish to the party in this morning's Washington Post.  Ignatius cites the work of some social scientists who have demonstrated "that attempts to refute false information often backfire and lead people to hold on to their misperceptions even more strongly."

Trying to correct misperceptions can actually reinforce them .... [Researchers] documented what they called a “backfire effect” by showing the persistence of the belief that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction in 2005 and 2006, after the United States had publicly admitted that they didn’t exist. “The results show that direct factual contradictions can actually strengthen ideologically grounded factual belief,” they wrote.

...[A]ttempts to debunk myths can reinforce them, simply by repeating the untruth. [Researcher Christopher Graves] cited a 2005 study in the Journal of Consumer Research on “How Warnings about False Claims Become Recommendations.” It seems that people remember the assertion and forget whether it’s a lie. The authors wrote: “The more often older adults were told that a given claim was false, the more likely they were to accept it as true after several days have passed.”

When critics challenge false assertions — say, Trump’s claim that thousands of Muslims cheered in New Jersey when the twin towers fell on Sept. 11, 2001 — their refutations can threaten people, rather than convince them. Graves noted that if people feel attacked, they resist the facts all the more.

...The study showed two interesting things: People are more likely to accept information if it’s presented unemotionally, in graphs; and they’re even more accepting if the factual presentation is accompanied by “affirmation” that asks respondents to recall an experience that made them feel good about themselves.

...The final point that emerged from Graves’s survey is that people will resist abandoning a false belief unless they have a compelling alternative explanation. That point was made in an article called “The Debunking Handbook,” by Australian researchers John Cook and Stephan Lewandowsky. They wrote: “Unless great care is taken, any effort to debunk misinformation can inadvertently reinforce the very myths one seeks to correct.” 

It seems a shame that you have to be so manipulative in order to help someone understand what the Kochs are doing to him.

Trump's Success Explained, Part 2

As we learned last week, 99 percent of new jobs created since 2010 have been filled by people with college degrees or at least some college, and Donald Trump is more popular with non-college-educated voters than with college-educated voters.

If you've been paying attention during the campaign, you know that another profile of Trump supporters is that they're white men. That being the case, consider this chart from Kevin Drum:

White men, alone among the ethnic groups and genders charted, have had a net loss in income over the past 40 years.

For years, all the smart guys have been saying that education is the key to "getting ahead" during the technological revolution. And they've been right. So our efforts have concentrated on education: Common Core, charter schools, and the like. And the smart guys have sat back and patted themselves on the back for being so right.

But there's a problem they didn't address: a huge part of the population ain't good at book larnin'. They're smart, but not in that way. Emily's late father-in-law didn't finish high school, but he could take an automobile apart and put it back together when he was a teenager. In World War II, he kept his Army unit's trucks on the road. When the war was over he took classes in electricity and got a job at a plant where he learned about something called metal spinning, a high-skill industry that shapes metal into Weber grills and rocket nose cones. He moved from shop to shop to learn the secrets of the metal spinning masters, and they did keep secrets.

Finally, he started his own business which he and his wife grew into a shop with 60 employees and millions of dollars worth of specialized machinery.

The business is still operating today, but many of its competitors have closed their doors and sold their machinery to China, where much of the metal spun products we buy is now made.

We have shipped our no-college-needed jobs overseas. What's going to happen to these guys?

One thing that's going to happen is that some are going to get angry about it, and look for someone to blame. And they'll look for a leader who will focus their anger. Like Donald Trump.

Or worse.

Lyin' Hillary

Via Kevin Drum, who writes, "Hillary is one of America's most honest politicians".

Feelings vs Facts

Last week John Oliver did a hilarious take-down of speakers at the Republican Convention who expressed their "feelings" that things were awful in the country. If you haven't seen it, go there now, then come back.

I bring it up because of the segment with Newt Gingrich:



Gingrich says, "The current view is that liberals have a whole set of statistics which theoretically may be right, but it's not where human beings are."

And despite our laughter and disdain, Gingrich is probably right.

The reason this is so is explained by cognitive scientist George Lakoff in his book, Don't Think of an Elephant! : Know Your Values and Frame the Debate, who speaks of "a set of myths believed by liberals and progressives:"

These myths come from a good source, but they end up hurting [progressives] badly.

The myths began with the Enlightenment, and the first one goes like this:

... If we just tell people the facts, since people are basically rational beings, they'll all reach the right conclusions.

But we know from cognitive science that people do not think like that. People think in frames. The strict father [conservative] and nurturant parent [progressive] frames each force a certain logic. To be accepted, the truth must fit people's frames. If the facts do not fit a frame, the frame stays and the facts bounce off. Why?

Neuroscience tells us that each of the concepts we have – the long term concepts that structure how we think – is instantiated in the synapses of our brains. Concepts are not things that can be changed just by telling us a fact. We may be presented with facts, but for us to make sense of them, they have to fit what is already in the synapses of the brain. Otherwise facts go in and then they go right back out. They are not heard, or they are not accepted as facts, or they mystify us. Why would anyone have said that? Then we label the fact as irrational, crazy, or stupid. That's what happens when progressives "just confront conservatives with the facts." It has little or no effect, unless the conservatives have a frame that makes sense of the facts.

Similarly, a lot of progressives hear conservatives talk and do not understand them because they do not have the conservatives' frames. They assume that conservatives are stupid.

Trump's Success Explained in Two Sentences

I spotted this as a "Noted" comment at the bottom of page 16 in the July 15 This Week magazine. It seemed so ridiculous I couldn't believe it, so I went looking for verification elsewhere. I found it at Bloomberg:

Of the 11.6 million jobs added since the rebound took hold in 2010,  about 99 percent — or 11.5 million jobs — were filled by people with either at least some college education, a bachelor's degree or better, according to a study by Georgetown University's Center on Education and the Workforce. Only 80,000 spots went to workers with a high school diploma or less ....

That's amazing, and I'm still having trouble believing the numbers, if not the direction the statistics are pointing.

Although we saw plenty of articles claim that the median income of Trump supporters was as high as any of his primary opponents, that did not tell the whole story.

According to Politico in March:

[V]oters without a college education are Trump’s core base of support. More non-college-educated voters than ones with college degrees have supported Trump in every single primary and caucus so far, according to exit polls. In those states, voters without degrees were over 11 percentage points more likely to support Trump, on average.

Our failure to create a balanced economy – one in which there are employment opportunities for everyone – is the cause of this threat to the Republic named Trump. We've got work to do.

The Republican Convention Odds and Ends

• Am I the only one that thought Trump resembled Mussolini in the way he strutted, gestured, and preened during his speech? I went looking for some videos to capture what I mean, and discovered that it's been a YouTube subject for some time now, though I think they should all be updated after last night's performance.

• I know it's not nice to say something mean about a 9-year-old kid, but I was fascinated with watching the face of Donald's son, Baron, as he regarded the great unwashed below his feet.

Baron's on the left

The picture above just captures the typical 9-year-old bored-with-it-all expression.

• Continuing with my theme of making inappropriate attacks on candidates' children (although she's 21, at least), did you hear that Mike Pence's daughter, Charlotte, is suspected of being a vampire? You laugh? Then you explain why her reflection does not appear in this photo, shared by Governor Pence himself!

Maybe Trump was warning us about a Zombie Apocalypse!

History

The British, though, did exactly that.

The issue of whether to allow Syrian refugees into the United States has been a political hot button for months now. In light of which it was interesting to read this, from American Refugee Policy and European Jewry, 1933-1945, by Richard Breitman and Alan M. Kraut (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987). Describing the sentiments of some American officials in late 1940 (when the German borders had already been closed, and any Jew [with few exceptions] who hadn't gotten out was not going to get out):

Even George Messersmith (now the ambassador to Cuba), often praised by Jewish spokesmen for his fairness and sympathy toward Jewish refugees when he was consul general in Berlin, took seriously reports of Jewish loyalty to Germany and treated them as cues to recommend tighter restrictions. From his new post in Havana he cited rumors that some Jewish refugees allegedly celebrated the fall of Paris to the German army. The stories included a naval attaché's report that he had heard Ursula Einstein, the scientist's grandniece, herself a refugee in Port-au-Prince, express similar sentiments. Messersmith hoped that Congress would pass legislation permitting consular officials to assess whether the admission of each applicant to the U.S. would be "in the public interest." For national security reasons, Messersmith argued, "our government can no longer delay giving very specific instructions to consular officials with respect to the degree to which they must go into the character and opinions of aliens desiring immigration visas and visas for a temporary stay in the United States."

Several moths later William C. Bullitt, former ambassador to France, further fueled concern by telling a Philadelphia audience that "more than one half the spies captured doing actual military work against the French army were refugees from Germany." Though Bullitt's contention was unconfirmed and contradicted by others, it added to the general apprehension that had already reached as far as the White House.

The president did not hesitate to state publicly that he was haunted by the specter of a fifth column whose members included some of the refugees.

It's deja vu all over again.

The Art of the Grifter

Via Andrew Tobias comes this link to a 2016 New Yorker article about Tony Schwartz, the ghostwriter of Donald Trump's The Art of the Deal. In Trump's campaign announcement speech, the one after his famous ride down the escalator in Trump Tower, he said, “We need a leader that wrote ‘The Art of the Deal.’ ”

Excerpt from The Art of the Deal

"If that was so, Schwartz thought, then he, not Trump, should be running."

Howard Kaminsky, the head Random House when the company published the book, confirmed, "Trump didn't write a post card for us."

Yet Trump insisted in a recent phone call, "I wrote the book. I wrote the book. It was my book. And it was a No. 1 best-seller, and one of the best-selling business books of all time. Some say it was the best-selling business book ever.”

And I think he believes all that.

This may shed a little light on Melania Trump's speech at the Republican Convention last night.

A longer extract from the Esquire article:

... Schwartz believes that Trump’s short attention span has left him with “a stunning level of superficial knowledge and plain ignorance.” He said, “That’s why he so prefers TV as his first news source—information comes in easily digestible sound bites.” He added, “I seriously doubt that Trump has ever read a book straight through in his adult life.” During the eighteen months that he observed Trump, Schwartz said, he never saw a book on Trump’s desk, or elsewhere in his office, or in his apartment.

Other journalists have noticed Trump’s apparent lack of interest in reading. In May, Megyn Kelly, of Fox News, asked him to name his favorite book, other than the Bible or “The Art of the Deal.” Trump picked the 1929 novel “All Quiet on the Western Front.” Evidently suspecting that many years had elapsed since he’d read it, Kelly asked Trump to talk about the most recent book he’d read. “I read passages, I read areas, I’ll read chapters—I don’t have the time,” Trump said. As The New Republic noted recently, this attitude is not shared by most U.S. Presidents, including Barack Obama, a habitual consumer of current books, and George W. Bush, who reportedly engaged in a fiercely competitive book-reading contest with his political adviser Karl Rove.

Trump’s first wife, Ivana, famously claimed that Trump kept a copy of Adolf Hitler’s collected speeches, “My New Order,” in a cabinet beside his bed. In 1990, Trump’s friend Marty Davis, who was then an executive at Paramount, added credence to this story, telling Marie Brenner, of Vanity Fair, that he had given Trump the book. “I thought he would find it interesting,” Davis told her. When Brenner asked Trump about it, however, he mistakenly identified the volume as a different work by Hitler: “Mein Kampf.” Apparently, he had not so much as read the title. “If I had these speeches, and I am not saying that I do, I would never read them,” Trump told Brenner.

The article is by Jane Mayer, author of the excellent book, Dark Money,  the best recounting I have seen of how a couple of dozen billionaires have corrupted American politics.

This Isn't Funny Anymore

Charles P. Pierce writes in Esquire:

CLEVELAND, OHIO—A while back, we here at the shebeen decided that Donald J. Trump's act was no longer funny. That he no longer was a goofy guy with three wives and a ferret on his head, a freak candidate who devoured an incredible passel of unpopular lightweights on his way to a freak nomination. That he was more than just a vessel for the barely camouflaged rage and fear of an aging white American majority terrified of so many barbarians at so many gates. But not until Wednesday did we realize the true magnitude of the threat that this reckless clown poses to American democracy. Not until Wednesday did we hear clearly the echoes of shiny black boots on German cobblestones.

On Wednesday, in several venues, He, Trump accused "some people"—he never said who they were, nor will he, ever—of calling for a moment of silence for Micah Johnson, the mass murderer of police in Dallas, Texas. We have had some experience with this. Back when he was still considered something of a sideshow attraction, He, Trump said that he's "seen" Muslim-Americans in New Jersey celebrating as the World Trade Center towers burned on September 11, 2001. He never said who they were, nor will he, ever. But at least there was a level of detail to the lie. There is in fact a state called New Jersey. There are in fact Muslim-Americans living there. And the attacks of 9/11 did in fact happen.

Emboldened because this and other whopping untruths did not immediately sink his campaign, He, Trump now has taken his truthless palaver to another level entirely. This is what he said on the stump in Indiana on Wednesday, when he was taking auditions for the men who care so little for their country that they are desperate to be on a ticket with a serial arsonist.

"The other night you had 11 cities potentially in a blow-up stage. Marches all over the United States—and tough marches. Anger. Hatred. Hatred! Started by a maniac! And some people ask for a moment of silence for him. For the killer!"

To be blunt, this didn't happen.

There is no evidence from any news source that this happened. By anyone. Anywhere. Nobody can find anyone who "called for a moment of silence" for the mass killer of policemen. Nobody has counted "11 cities" that are potentially on the verge of a racial holy war. RaHoWa, cry the white-supremacists. And now the presumptive Republican presidential nominee has joined the chorus. That's where his rhetoric has led him, and far too many people have followed along.

Yeah, but it was Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg who "crossed the line." Jesus, these people.

Carl Icahn

Be sure to read Andrew Tobias's "My Carl Icahn Story".

The Best the Tea Party Has to Offer

Joe Walsh is a one-term, former Congressman from Illinois. He's now a talk radio blatherer on one of those stations for right wing deep thinkers.

Here's his comment on the shooting in Dallas:

Impressive, no?

In today's Chicago Tribune he clarifies, "Of course I didn't mean, 'Let's go kill Obama and Black Lives Matter.' I was not trying to incite violence against Obama and Black Lives Matter. That's crazy and stupid and wrong."

Sure am glad he clarified that. I might have gotten the wrong idea.

Two Unrelated Notes

The Battle of the Somme

Today marks the 100th anniversary of the beginning of the Battle of the Somme. On the first day of the 5-month battle, the British incurred 60,000 casualties. An example of "attrition warfare," when the battle was over, combined casualties exceeded 1 million men, and the battle line had advanced 6 or 7 miles.

The French and British generals should have been court martialed for their incompetence, but it was considered unpatriotic to point that out.


My Amazon Profile has Changed

I am working on a book about Emily's mother's escape from Nazi Germany at the age of 10. In the course of my research, I came across the name of a man who was Hitler's "idea man" when it came to anti-Semitic conspiracies and theories. I made one Amazon search to see if his opus magnus (said with a sneer) is available at a reasonable price.

Since then, Amazon has been offering to sell all sorts of anti-Semitic and Holocaust-denying books to me, "based on your interest" in Holocaust denial. But, hey – it's just an algorithm, right?

Not Your Father's Israel

Barack Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu

The July/August issue of Foreign Affairs has a series of articles concerning the changing relationship between Israel and the United States. Behind it all is the changing nature of Israel itself.

The journal's managing editor, Jonathan Tepperman, summarizes:

In important respects, [Israel] no longer resembles the image many Westerners still picture – the liberal Zionist state of David Ben-Gurion, Abba Eban, Golda Meir, and Yitzhak Rabin. The socialist Ashkenazi elite that used to dominate Israel's politics has long since fractured and faded away. Sephardic Jews, Soviet immigrants, settlers, the religious right, secular Jews, and Arab Israelis now vie for influence. In foreign policy, meanwhile, what Israel stands for, and who it stands with, is also in play. [My emphasis.]

Aluf Benn, editor-in-chief of Haaretz, Israel's oldest daily newspaper, writes about "The End of the Old Israel":

Israel – at least the largely secular and progressive version of Israel that once captured the world's imagination – is over. Although that Israel was always in some ways a fantasy, the myth was at least grounded in reality. Today that reality has changed, and the country that has replaced it is profoundly different from the one its founders imagined almost 70 years ago. Since the last elections, in March 2015, a number of slow-moving trends have accelerated dramatically. Should they continue, they could soon render the country unrecognizable.

Already, the transformation has been dramatic. Israel's current leaders – headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who metamorphosed after the election from a risk-averse conservative into a right-wing radical – see democracy as synonymous with unchecked majority rule and have no patience for restraints such as judicial review or the protection of minorities....

Meanwhile, the two-state solution to the conflict with the Palestinians has been taken off the table, and Israel is steadily making its occupation of East Jerusalem and the West Bank permanent. Human rights groups and dissidents who dare criticize the occupation and expose its abuses are denounced by officials, and the government has sought to pass new laws restricting their activities. Arab-Jewish relations within the country have hit a low point, and Israel's society is breaking down into its constituent tribes.
Netanyahu thrives on such tribalism, which serves his lifelong goal of replacing Israel's traditional elite with one more in tune with his philosophy.

Brexit

Tomorrow the Brits vote on whether to leave or stay in the European Union. It's a decision that will eventually affect us here in the United States.

Jonathan Pie is, according to Andrew Tobias (who sends us this link and the John Oliver link, below), "the British John Oliver." In this 10-minute clip, Pie expresses his frustration at the level of the pro- and anti-Brexit debate.

Warning: It's not for children's ears.

Warning: It is progressively hilarious. It really gets going at about the 4:30 mark.



If you promise to watch the Jonathan Pie clip, too, then watch John Oliver himself on Brexit:

Colbert Explains Donald Trump

Warning: Uses language we don't use on Sempringham.

Report from the Lowest Common Denominator

The Gallup organization reports that their polling currently has the approval rating of Congress at 16 percent. Its approval rating among Republicans, who have built their franchise on not approving of anything related to the government, is even lower – 12 percent. In September and November of last year, the approval rating among Republicans was 8 percent!

When you take into consideration that both houses of Congress are controlled by the Republican Party, you begin to get a sense of how successful their franchise has been.

In contrast, President Obama's approval rating – in a poll taken since the probable Republican nominee insinuated the President's complicity in the Orlando shootings – is up another point to 53 percent.

This chart has nothing to do with this story, but it's fun to look at anyway.

*** BULLETIN *** BULLETIN *** BULLETIN ***

This just in: Donald Trump has just announced that he is barring Sempringham journalists from his events.

Reached by phone, Sempringham blogger Bob Miller responded, "This was a shock to me, first, because Sempringham has no journalists, and second, because I have never had nor intimated that I had a desire to attend any Donald Trump event."

Miller went on to say that he was honored to be in the company of Politico, The Huffington Post, BuzzFeed, Gawker, Foreign Policy, Fusion, Univision, Mother Jones, the New Hampshire Union-Leader, the Des Moines Register, the Daily Beast, and most recently, the Washington Post.  After a moment's pause, he asked that the New Hampshire Union-Leader be removed from his list. "Not such an honor," he explained.

Fareed Zakaria

Among the list of people I'd most like to have over for dinner, Fareed Zakaria is certainly near the top. Here are a couple of topical examples of why.

Trump, Conspiracy Theorist

Andrew Tobias points us to this collection of 58 Donald Trump conspiracy theories.

Did you know that Barack Obama not only did not attend Columbia University, but also got bad grades there? Now there's a conspiracy!

154 Cuts

Lynn Sweet, a political reporter for the Chicago Sun-Times, writes in today's column:

On Friday, Trump, pointing to a [supporter] at a rally in California said, 'Oh, look at my African-American over here. Look at him,' Trump said. 'Are you the greatest?'

Under questioning Sunday from MSNBC's Chris Matthews, Gregory Cheadle, an African-American Republican running for a California congressional seat, told Matthews he was indeed at the rally and was the man Trump singled out. Cheadle told Matthews he was not sure he would vote for Trump.

Almost every day, it's something.

Let's pause for a moment here to give everyone a chance to raise his/her slacked jaw.

Then I'll again quote Michael Gerson, a conservative columnist in the Washington Post:

Make no mistake. Those who support Trump, no matter how reluctantly, have crossed a moral boundary. They are standing with a leader who encourages prejudice and despises the weak. They are aiding the transformation of a party formed by Lincoln’s blazing vision of equality into a party of white resentment. Those who find this one of the normal, everyday compromises of politics have truly lost their way. [My emphasis.]

Can we start of list of politicians who have crossed the moral boundary? Let's see, there's:

Paul Ryan
Mitch McConnell
Rand Paul
Rob Portman
Chuck Grassley

Oh, wait! We don't have to list them all here, because Wikipedia has already done the job for us!

We have 154 days until the election, and almost every day Trump is going to say something stupid, crude, and disgusting, and on each those days these guys are going to have to separate themselves from the man they have endorsed to be President of the United States.

Go watch Hillary's speech. Her criticism of Trump needs to be expanded to a criticism of the Republican Party itself. The Republic is in danger.

Hillary Starts Hitting the Right Notes

Hillary will never be a great orator, but her San Diego speech this week was the first to take aim, throughout, at Donald Trump. And it was a winner, from beginning to end. The only critical words I've heard about it have been from Faux and the Donald.

You can watch it here:



Or read it here. Warning: If you read it, there's one of those irritating videos that starts automatically when you connect to the page.. You'll need to turn it off quickly or your blood pressure will take a hit.

A special note to Bernie supporters in California: There's a lot I like about Bernie Sanders. But he is not going to win the nomination, even if he wins this week in California. Hillary IS going to get the nomination, but she'll have a harder time winning the election if she looks weak in the California primary. Please consider that when you're in the ballot box voting booth. (Please stay out of the ballot box!)  And please watch or read her speech if you're hesitant. There's a lot at stake here, as if I needed to tell you.

God Help Us

Are you ready for this? I'm guessing not.

Iconic Chicago Tribune Building now.

Newspaper chain Tribune Publishing announced today that it is changing its name to "tronc" and will switch its stock exchange listing from the New York Stock Exchange to Nasdaq. It will start trading on Nasdaq on June 20. The company described Tronc's mission as being "a content curation and monetization company focused on creating and distributing premium, verified content across all channels."

Got that?

Chicago Tribune Building after name change.

No, that didn't come from The Onion, it came from Politico. It's for real

There's no word yet on whether the Chicago Tribune will actually be renamed. I'd say "of course not",  but John McCain has endorsed Donald Trump, so there really are no standards anymore. Meanwhile, I'm getting all misty-eyed about how the Constitution guarantees freedom of content curation and monetization. Freedom!

Time for Wasserman Schultz to Show Some Class

Whatever you may think of the job that Debbie Wasserman Schultz has done as chair of the Democratic National Committee for the past several years, it's clear that things have gone seriously off track during the Presidential campaign. Bernie Sanders doesn't believe she has been an honest broker of the competing interests of his and Hillary's campaigns. He is so convinced of it that he has endorsed her primary opponent for her seat in the House of Representatives. According to some insiders, there are talks of some kind of coup to remove her from her position.

Regardless of whether Sanders' beliefs are justified, he is the candidate of a large and important wing of the Democratic Party. The last thing the Democrats need is a bitter split when they're about to go against the greatest threat to the Republic in 150 years.

Every day that is wasted on this business is a disaster. It will not end until Wasserman Shultz is either removed or steps down. And that's what she should do: step down.  I've prepared a statement for her:

Over the past several months it has been clear that a significant group of people in the Democratic Party do not believe I have served as a neutral actor in the Democratic primary process. I strongly disagree. I have worked hard always to provide fair treatment, without prejudice, to all of the candidates' campaigns, and I believe that fairness has been reflected in every word I have spoken and every action I have taken.

My desire and instinct are to carry on as Chairman of the Democratic National Committee in this extremely important election year. However, my obligation is to do what is best for the Democratic Party and, therefore, I believe, my country. I am now convinced that the distraction from the important job before us that would result from continuing to serve as chairwoman would be detrimental to the prospects of our eventual nominee. It is, consequently, my duty to resign the position and find other ways to serve my country and my district.

Although I am personally deeply saddened by this turn of events, and, I will admit, feel considerably misused, I ask – beg! – that my supporters and detractors put their disagreements on my actions aside until after the election. We have an important job in front of us; upon our success may depend the safety of the Republic. This is no time for personal squabbles. 

My resignation will become effective as soon as a replacement is named by the Democratic National Committee. Thank you.

Authoritarianism and Donald Trump

Thought you might enjoy this little video that describes an analysis of authoritarianism in America by political scientists.  It includes some of Trump's Greatest Hits.

Gerson Gets His Head Back on Straight

A few months ago, we had great fun reading a Michael Gerson column that blamed the craziness in the GOP on ... are you ready? ... Obama! It was a uniquely non- introspective column.

Gerson, whom I've always held in high esteem despite his conservative stances, seems to have regained his senses:

Make no mistake. Those who support Trump, no matter how reluctantly, have crossed a moral boundary. They are standing with a leader who encourages prejudice and despises the weak. They are aiding the transformation of a party formed by Lincoln’s blazing vision of equality into a party of white resentment. Those who find this one of the normal, everyday compromises of politics have truly lost their way.

This is not even to mention Trump’s pledge to limit press freedom, or his malicious birtherism, or his dangerous vaccine skepticism, or his economic plans that would bring global recession, or his lack of relevant qualifications, or his temperament of brooding and bragging, egotism and self-pity, or his promise to emancipate the world from American leadership, or his accusation that Ted Cruz’s father was somehow involved with Lee Harvey Freaking Oswald.

Some are trying their best to act as though all this were normal. But we are seeing, in the words of G.K. Chesterton, “lunacy dancing in high places.” None of this requires a vote for Hillary Clinton. But it forbids a vote for Donald Trump.

Pithy Quotes

E.J. Dionne had some accurate observations in today's column: The Irony of Celebrity Populism:

We need to think hard about the multiple weaknesses Trump is exposing in our politics. How has he been able to convert fame and outrage into votes without even a moment of apprenticeship in public service?

One reason is the anger in a large segment of the Republican Party that has been stoked by its leaders. You might say they have now lost control of the beast they were feeding. There is also the utter contempt toward government that their ideology encouraged. Trump has played on the fragility of our media system, which, in its search for ratings, can’t get enough of him, and on a pervasive pain among the many who have been cast aside by our economy. They had been ignored by elites of all kinds.

[Snip]

... a phony celebrity populism plays well on television at a time when politics and governing are regularly trashed by those who claim both as their calling. Politicians who don’t want to play their assigned roles make it easy for a role-player to look like the real thing and for a billionaire who flies around on his own plane to look like a populist. 

Small World

John Boehner has called Ted Cruz "Lucifer in the Flesh". This is, of course, an exaggeration.

But Cruz HAS been endorsed by Lucifer's wife.

Carly Again

Well, Cruz has chosen Carly Fiorina as his running mate, although we might be excused for wondering, "Running mate for what?" Ted Cruz isn't going to win the nomination. But it confirms a position I was taking last fall (though sadly not here, so I could point to it and say 'I told you so') that Carly was never running for the presidential nomination; she realized that whoever the GOP nominee was,  a woman would be an attractive ticket addition in a race against Hillary.

Okay, so she's not dumb. Evil, maybe. But not dumb.

Repeating a quote from Frank Bruni:

The Washington Post just published a humiliating account of her sluggishness to pay bills from that 2010 campaign. That she stiffed several vendors until January 2015 wasn’t really the damning part: That’s sadly common in politics.

But The Post reported that one of the people stiffed was the widow of the pollster Joe Shumate, who dropped dead of a heart attack, “surrounded by sheets of polling data” for Fiorina, shortly before Election Day in 2010. Fiorina mourned him as “the heart and soul” of her operation, then neglected for years to fork over at least $30,000 that she owed him.

Martin Wilson, who managed that campaign, told The Post that he occasionally implored her to settle up. “She just wouldn’t,” he said.

It’s striking that he’d tattle like that on Fiorina. She apparently doesn’t leave much love in her wake. Reuters interviewed about 30 people who worked for her in 2010, 12 of whom said: Never again. “I’d rather go to Iraq,” one unidentified campaign aide groused.

Cruzus Rafaelis Edwardi ?

Via Paul Krugman's Twitter feed:

Yes, it's for real.

The National Review for Twits

Kevin Drum quotes a National Review blogger laughing at dumb libruls:

Perhaps some of the voices calling for Tubman on the $20 just wanted any prominent African-American woman to replace one of the white males on our currency. If it was political correctness that drove this decision, who cares? The Obama administration has inadvertently given Tubman fans of all political stripes an opportunity to tell the story of a deeply-religious, gun-toting Republican who fought for freedom in defiance of the laws of a government that refused to recognize her rights.

Drum observes:

Yeah. That's the ticket. All those folks in the Obama administration had no idea who Harriet Tubman really was. They were all just, check this out Jack: black, female, helped slaves, done. Boxes checked. Identity politics satisfied. Put her on the twenty.

The poor fools. She was religious! She carried a gun while helping slaves escape! She was a Republican! She fought for freedom against a tyrannical government! If you think about it, she's basically the poster child of the modern-day Tea Party. And none of those idiots in the White House had a clue.

Seriously. That seems to be what they think. Next they're going to remind us that Abraham Lincoln was a Republican too.

 Yup.

Oh, This Is Sweet

Nothing can start my day off with a happier glow than a conspiracy theory that links Ted Cruz's father, a known nut-case named Rafael, with Lee Harvey Oswald. This takes the Kennedy Assassination conspiracists in a whole new direction, and guarantees another decade of life for the franchise.

This picture is the evidence:

The guy in the foreground is Oswald. The guy to his left, also in white shirt and tie, is a man who sorta looks like he could be Rafael Cruz (or a few thousand other men), who was known to be in either Dallas or New Orleans when this picture was taken.

Sempringham's Razor applies: If it's too good to be true, it probably isn't.

Anyway, if this is just too sweet for you to pass up, you can read about all the other ... um, evidence ... at Wonkette. Or, you can just do a search on "Lee Harvey Oswald Rafael Cruz".