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".

More to This Guy than Meets the Eye

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau explains quantum computing:

A Re-Post

This is a re-post of a video I posted in 2008, of Sting and Cheb Mami singing Desert Rose. As I said 8 years ago, "that should be good enough. But instead of the usual music video, you get to look at some of the amazing images created by my favorite photographer, Steve McCurry."

Make sure you click that little thing in the lower right-hand corner to make the images full-screen.



Makes me want to pick up my camera again.

The thing I love about McCurry's photos is the dignity he sees in every subject.

The Sound of Another Shoe Waiting to Drop

You've no doubt seen coverage of the leak of 11.5 million documents (2.6 terabytes, in more modern parlance) from a law firm in Panama, Mossack Fonseca, whose business, one of its partners claims, is "95% ... selling vehicles to avoid taxes." And he didn't mean Buicks.

Already the Prime Minister of Iceland has had to resign because of the leak.

Kevin Drum writes:

In any case, you might find this whole thing a bit boring because it implicates only a bunch of foreigners, mainly in countries already well known for their casual relationship with bribery and corruption. What about the United States? 

[Snip]

Editor of Süddeutsche Zeitung responded to the lack of U.S. individuals in the documents, saying "Just wait for what is coming next" — Mathew Ingram (@mathewi) 

So stay tuned. Maybe Hillary Clinton has millions of dollars stashed away in the Isle of Man! 

I'm not sure if Drum was being sarcastic, but if either Clinton's name comes up it will be the end of Hillary's campaign. 

What I hope to see, though, are the names of some of the biggest financial donors to the extremist right wing of the Republican Party. And I don't mean the Cokes.

We'll see.

But as Liam Stack reports in the NY Times:

One reason there may be relatively few Americans named in the documents is that it is fairly easy to form shell companies in the United States. James Henry, an economist and senior adviser to the Tax Justice Network, told Fusion that Americans “really don’t need to go to Panama.”

“Basically, we have an onshore haven industry in the U.S. that is as secretive as anywhere,” he said.

 Feel better now?
 

E.J. Dionne Jr. Channels Sempringham

From Dionne's column in the Washington Post:

Trump’s troubles threaten to go beyond Wisconsin. He could now lose in other big states that vote next, including Pennsylvania, California, New Jersey and possibly even his home state of New York. If this happens, it will be far easier for the Republican Party bosses (such as they are these days) to deny him the nomination. Trump will come to look less like the rank-and-file Republican favorite and more like a flash in the pan.

Second, Democrats Hillary Clinton or Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) would lose their ideal opponent. From their point of view, Trump’s collapse may come too early. It’s true that if the very right-wing Cruz were the Republican nominee instead of Trump, the Democratic winner — it’s still likely to be Clinton, despite Sanders’s current surge — would be favored.

But an utter Trump implosion might free the Cleveland convention to turn to someone entirely outside the current crop of candidates, someone unsullied by the ugly and vulgar GOP primary campaign. A sinking Trump would have far less power to resist such an outcome. Democrats need to prepare now for the strong possibility that they will not be lucky enough to run against The Donald. [My emphasis.]

Or even, for that matter, Ted Cruz.

I'm going back to a prediction I made several months ago: Paul Ryan will be the Republican nominee.

A Must Read ...

... with a boffo opening graphic:

It's right here.

Cruz

Click on it for full size view.

John Oliver on France

He beats me to it again.

Trevor Noah Covers the GOP Debate

Why was Ted Cruz's performance like a Greek tragedy? Trevor Noah has it here (scroll to the bottom and sit through the ads; it's worth it).

Welcome to Sempringham, Trevor.

Is There a Difference Between Republicans and Democrats?

[W]hile Democrats were participating in a candidates forum, Republicans Mike Huckabee, Bobby Jindal and Ted Cruz were guests at "religious freedom" event led by a pastor who preaches that homosexuality should be punished with death.

Rachel Maddow has the story here.

P.S. Whatever you do, don't start making comparisons with Nazis, as that is a sign that you are not a serious person.

Don't Worry, Carson Will Never Get the Nomination

And it's not just because of his peculiar approach to history.

From Laura:

Immigration Reform II

Well, I never thought I'd ever say anything remotely like this, but if you want to see the best argument I've ever seen for deporting illegal aliens, it's right here. [Warning: This will be rough on the ears and eyes of most Sempringham readers, who don't talk like this.]

Note that this professionally prepared video was created by a political PAC. I doubt many minds were changed favorably to immigration reform by it.