A TALE OF TWO CRASHES

Heather Heyer, Slaughtered Innocent

My sorrow and anger for the monstrosity of what has been allowed to happen in Charlottesville...no words. 

But check this.

First, Taylor Lorenz, a reporter for The Hill, discovered this reality at the police station: "Every witness here claims the act was deliberate." This stands in stark contrast to "..several police officers at the station here think the guy running people down wasn't malicious. They said the driver was scared." 

The reporter discovered that those officers hadn't been on the scene or even viewed the videos of the attack. 

Setting aside the accounts of how the authorities stood aside and let this situation spin out of control, isn't it troubling that these officers reflexively minimize the assailant's actions? It seems incredible that they wouldn't just say that they were waiting to gather more information. Instead, they offered their opinions in the absence of evidence. Their ill-informed opinions differed from what came forward at the official press conference  where the police chief announced that this was no accident - it was premeditated.

Also note the coverage of the (take your pick) murderer/terrorist/hate crime perpetrator/Nazi. He is humanized into a sympathetic figure with stories of his upbringing. Oh the adversity this "quiet little boy" suffered! 

Now, keep all this in mind as we step back in time to compare this to the deaths at SXSW in 2014. Remember how a driver crashed his car into a crowd, too? How was this reported?

The assailant, a young "aspiring rapper," panicked when police tried to pull him over. He sped off through barricades and into the crowd gathered for the festivities. Check Heavy.com's report on his background, "Top Ten Facts You Need to Know." No details of growing up in adversity - in fact, no details about his childhood at all. Instead, we get an utterly unsympathetic portrait. 

Compare this to the same site's coverage of the Charlottesville killer, "Five Fast Facts You Need to Know". Notice any difference? 

While held in a police cruiser at the scene of the crime, the SXSW killer cried to an officer "Sir, all I care about is me not killing nobody. I didn't mean to hurt nobody. I was just scared. I didn't mean to."

Maybe those officers in Charlottesville raising unsubstantiated doubts about the premeditated killing on their beat could have spoken sympathetic words for the SXSW killer, too. Oh, but I forgot to mention an important detail - the murderer in Charlotte was white, and the SXSW? Do I even have to say it?  

###

CNN'S COMING PRESIDENTIAL SERIES!

Coming soon, the sequel to CNN's "Race for the White House" - featuring The Donald.

REBEL YELL IN TEXAS: CRUZ, ABBOTT CALL FOR SECESSION

Sen. Cruz, Gov. Abbott with AG Paxton, Lt. Gov. Patrick

Conservative outcry over the past week's Supreme Court rulings ensuring the survival of Obamacare and enshrining Marriage Equality as a fundamental right reached a fever pitch in Texas today as Governor Greg Abbott let out what state Attorney General Ken Paxton described as a "Rebel Yell" calling for secession from the United States. 

"Aside from dragging our feet, Ken here says we've run out of legal options," said Abbott. "What I am suggesting here is really not new, but is a time-honored approach that honors our heritage. We are calling for other Republican-led states who share this heritage to join Texas. This new nation will not just be free from Obamacare. It will be free from any healthcare coverage whatsoever for poor or middle class people. However, we will provide universal coverage for Reparative Therapy. That will resolve the so-called 'Marriage Equality' issue."

At the press conference in Austin, Ted Cruz resigned from the United States Senate and withdrew his candidacy for the Republican nomination for the President of the United States. Instead, he offered to serve as the President of the new nation, what he termed the "Neo-Con." He called for his former rivals for the Republican nomination including Rick Perry, Mike Huckabee and "Bobbie" Jindal and Jeb! to join what he said was "the ultimate destiny of the Republican Party." 

"It's really what you might call the ultimate 'Southern Strategy'," said Cruz. "No more fooling around with code words and dog-whistles." 

When asked about whether GOP Presidential hopefuls Carly Fiorina and Ben Carson, too, would be invited to participate, Cruz pointed to other contrasts setting the Neo-Con apart from the United States.

"I'm not sure whether women and African Americans will be allowed to vote much less hold public office," Cruz said. "I'm sure there are those that will misconstrue this, but what we're about is heritage, not hate." 

Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick said that he, too, wished to take a leadership role. 

"I'm not sure about a title for what I have in mind, something Old Testament to be sure. You know - 'Protector of the Faith' - that sort of thing," Patrick said. 

Patrick added that the Supreme Court's rulings simply precipitated what seemed to him to be an inevitable showdown following the coming Presidential election.

"Hillary is going to win anyway, and so we may as well secede now."

###

Tips? Suggestions? Ideas? Drop a line to carl (at) inanityofsanity (dot) com

Twitter: @inanityofsanity

GRANTING AN AUDIENCE TO A PROFESSIONAL TROUBLEMAKER

A lot of bull rounded up this week

The post-election spin and counter-spin continues and is unlikely to abate for awhile.

The victors, of course, have the expectation that they get to write the history. On the national level, the soon-to-be Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell is mumbling the usual about elections "meaning something" and the "will of the people." Translation? "We'll do what we want to do and don't take responsibility for any of it."

Ian Reifowitz in the Daily Kos takes a good, hard look at how well McConnell has heeded the "will of the people" over time. As it happens, when that will swung in the direction of Democrats, well...not so much. He points to how different things were in 2009 following an election where both houses of Congress went strongly Democratic along with the executive branch. More than that, "just over 57 percent of eligible voters actually turned out to vote, the highest level in four decades."

How well did the GOP respect that reality?

And now, "after midterm elections that saw the lowest voter turnout since 1942 at barely 36 percent," suddenly Democrats are supposed to get in line.

Meanwhile, up in Southlake, one of the wealthiest communities in the United States, Tea Party favorite, Rep. Giovanni Capriglione, claims that "In Texas, the results were an overwhelming confirmation of our state’s approach to governance."

Honestly, how overwhelming was that confirmation? 

There's a great deal of attention on how Gov-elect Abbott resoundingly defeated Sen. Wendy Davis. But what's not spoken of is how the Abbott vs. Perry race came out. That is to say, how many GOP voters turned out to 

Looks like we're turned onto a dead end

confirm Abbott compared to those that showed for Perry in 2010?  Abbott's "overwhelming confirmation" was, in fact, significantly smaller than what Perry got. Though the final numbers aren't in, about 50,000 more people did vote for Abbott than Perry. That's about a 2% increase. But between 2010 and 2014, the number of registered voters rose 6.7%. Abbott had to polled 100,000+ more to match what Perry did in terms of the percentage of registered voters. It['s even worse in terms of the eligible-to-vote. So rather than an "overwhelming confirmation,"it's more like a resounding "meh."

The Contrarian Chorus:

Meanwhile, the contrarians make more convincing, less self-serving arguments. It seems clear that what we really saw was the ultimate triumph of money in politics and the confirmation of the oligarchy that goes with it. 

Ben Ptashnik in TruthOut puts it simply:

Let's not hesitate to say what is obvious: This was an entirely corrupt and rigged election. What we witnessed last Tuesday, on Election Day, is just how dirty the right-wing corporate and fossil fuel oligarchy is willing to play. They exceeded our worst expectations and cheated so boldly that despite all we know about them, it still sent shivers up our collective spine.

In addition to the Supreme Court opening the floodgates to allow billionaire bucks to drown out the Voice of the People, there's also GOP voter suppression including the Voter ID law here in Texas. How many were kept away won't be clear for some time. It will take a concerted effort from well-funded social scientists to tease that out of the data, according to Drew DeSilver, a Senior Writer at the Pew Research Center.  I asked him if it was knowable, and if so - what would it take? 

First off, you'd need to wait for the full, official tallies of votes, down to at least the county level (and ideally the precinct level), which I assume won't be out for several weeks. I don't know what voting-law changes Texas has made between 2010 and 2014, but you'd want to account not just for those changes, but for differences in how strictly/loosely they were enforced in different localities. Then you'd also need a model of expected 2014 turnout absent any voting-law changes, which would have to take into account population growth, demographic changes, which races were on the ballot, and other factors that you'd expect to influence turnout. You’d want a good demographic portrait of the 2014 electorate, better than you get from the exit polls, but that comes from the Census Bureau's Current Population Survey, which won't be out for a few months. And you'd probably also want to compare 2010-14 turnout differential in Texas to other states that had made similar changes to their voting laws. 

So it's a major undertaking. Perhaps Greg Abbott, in one of his last acts as Attorney General, could commission an independent study to get the facts? I mean, he's going to want to argue for Voter ID when it comes before the Supreme Court. Won't he want the facts to be sure that justice is done?

While you're holding your breath, Juan Thompson in The Intercept collects the anecdotal evidence to show "How Voter Suppression Helped Produce the Lowest Turnout in Decades."

Speaking of the Supreme Court, it look like, at long last, New York Times court reporter Linda Greenhouse has reached a tipping point. Now that the conservative block on the court has taken it upon themselves to gut Obamacare, there's no use kidding ourselves any longer:

In decades of court-watching, I have struggled — sometimes it has seemed against all odds — to maintain the belief that the Supreme Court really is a court and not just a collection of politicians in robes. This past week, I’ve found myself struggling against the impulse to say two words: I surrender.

A Professional's Pride:

Finally, following up on my maudlin Veteran's Day recollection of what I did during the run-up to the Iraq war, I found this delightful online comment that came a few years after as I got into another political fracas in 2006. This person's revisionism is amazing. I spoke out against the lies that brought us to war. I was lucky enough to have a public platform to say, loud and proud, that there were NO WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION. 

Well, the fact that I was vindicated must have been too much to bear. So this is what he made of it instead:

###

Tips? Suggestions? Ideas? Drop a line to carl (at) inanityofsanity (dot) com

Twitter: @inanityofsanity

VETERANS DAY REMEMBRANCE: 2002-2003

11/11/1918 Peace Breaks Out

With Armistice Day (aka Veterans Day) just past, let's take a moment away from the political battleground here in Texas. 

Yesterday, I ran across this recording and now find myself drifting back to some twelve years ago. The clip is dated 3/26/03, near the end of my last stint on AM talk radio. That lasted  from the run-up to the invasion of Iraq to shortly after the war started. 

Though I've never served in the military, this brings me to my "what I did during the war" story, inadequate as it is. 

In 2002 when I moved to Portland, Maine, I'd been doing talk radio fill-ins in New Hampshire for almost a decade. It was something of a hobby. When I started subbing at a station in my new town, I decided to get more serious about it. WGAN-AM was/is a classic news/talker with a decent news operation to spice up the usual slate of conservative programming. Being on a Maine radio station doesn't sound like much except that George H.W. Bush was in our listenership. Also, the radio group General Manager at the time was something of a noted figure in talk radio for discovering and developing talent.

My views about the coming war were quite clear. The past summer, just as the full-on marketing of it was about to get underway, I did a show about the run-up to the Gulf War in 1990. I explained why we should be extraordinarily skeptical of the Bush Administration's claims that would soon come. Still, that fall and winter, war talk didn't define my increasing presence at the station. By springtime, it actually offered a breakthrough for my career. When the invasion of Iraq began on March 19, they expanded local coverage pulling the syndicated programming from nine to noon and putting me there instead. I followed the morning show and did the lead in to Rush Limbaugh! 

Most definitely open-carry

From the start, my show pushed the boundaries for the mostly conservative listeners. One morning, our troops paused for a moment before taking Baghdad in what was expected to be a bloodbath. On air, I pondered "what if George Bush had ANOTHER Christian conversion and became a pacifist" and refused to allow the slaughter? Conservative Christians were outraged and called to insist that Jesus would certainly be pro-war. I shared my wonder at why, if so, some call him "The Prince of Peace."

I was edgy, but not completely over-the-edge until I was cornered on-air by one caller about the Weapons of Mass Destruction, supposedly the reason for the war. I had raised the mystery at hand, wondering why none had been discovered. He pressed me about it. It was just a few days after the invasion and I'd held back from saying what I had been thinking - that there were none. But he pressed and I said it. "THERE ARE NO WMD!"

"You're going to eat a lot of crow when they're found," he warned me. 

I turned it into a bet. Yes, I'd eat REAL crow, live on-the-air, if he was right. BUT - if he was wrong? His part of the wager was that he'd call for the impeachment of the President of the United States.

After my shift that day, I ran into the GM in the break room.

"Be sure to let me know when the first death threats come in," I joked.

He didn't have the heart to tell me they'd had some already.

NOTHING accomplished - still not finished

Of course, I didn't last long enough at WGAN to collect on my bet. Soon after, the excitement of the invasion turned to "Mission Accomplished." They cut my shift to return to network programming. I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised that the regular calls I'd been getting to fill-in did not resume. I did get one such request awhile later - to step in for the garden show (yes, I tried despite total ignorance on the subject...just to show my hosting chops).  Except for being interviewed on air in the years since, I haven't been on the broadcaster side again till recently.

So that's my "what I did during the war" story. No, I never served in the military. But I did serve my country as best I could, brandishing my First Amendment rights trying to turn swords into plowshares. 

What I sacrificed was small - just that opportunity in talk radio. Sorry to say, my sacrifice was in vain. I wish there had been some way truth-telling - mine and others - could have saved our soldiers from making the sacrifices they made in Iraq. Many of them offered - and gave - their lives in good faith. We need to remember that - and that those who led them to it were operating in bad faith.

###

Tips? Suggestions? Ideas? Drop a line to carl (at) inanityofsanity (dot) com

Twitter: @inanityofsanity

GOV-ELECT ABBOTT: THE LANCE ARMSTRONG OF TEXAS POLITICS

Too good to be true

The lopsided election returns are too good to be true for Texas Republicans. The outsize results are like the stats in sports distorted by performance enhancing drugs. The dope boosting Republican numbers? Governor-elect Greg Abbott's unconstitutional Voter Suppression Law, aka "Voter ID". Winning with it makes Abbott the Lance Armstrong of Texas politics. 

As Texas Attorney General, Abbott used his public office for personal and partisan advantage by successfully petitioning the Supreme Court to keep Voter ID alive for his election. This came just before early voting began and on the heels of the court's ruling that a similar law in Wisconsin was unconstitutional. Why strike it down there but not here? Abbott argued that since the law had previously disenfranchised eligible voters, the last-minute change would cause chaos. Apparently, voters are accustomed to having their constitutional rights violated in Texas. It would cause confusion to stop doing that suddenly. Or, is it that conservative voters are accustomed to seeing the rights of Hispanics and others in Texas violated - and their tranquility should not be suddenly disturbed? Either way, this left as many as 800,000 voters without the credentials needed to vote - more than the margin for victory in past gubernatorial races.

As intended, Abbott's Voter Suppression Law proved toxic to his opponent Wendy Davis' campaign by undermining its core strategy. Legions of volunteers working in Battleground Texas, its sister organization, spent the past year beating the bushes for the very voters disenfranchised by Abbott. So the election was over before it even began. Still, Wendy Davis soldiered on, holding out for the miraculous. After all, she faced a similar situation as Republicans tried to shut down her celebrated filibuster.

That evening, her GOP Senate colleagues sought to inflict a humiliating defeat by whatever means necessary. They discarded decorum and decency, trampling Texas Senate traditions. This literally triggered a public outcry. A shout rose up in the gallery, spontaneous outrage at the misconduct. The shout was loud and long and made it impossible for Republicans to deliver the coup de grâce. The so-called "Unruly Mob using Occupy Wall Street tactics" ran out the clock, finishing Davis' filibuster for her.

Nothing like The Shout happened on Election Day. Davis, a true statesman, encouraged voters to head to the polls to "respect and honor...those voices who want to be part of this process but who Greg Abbott denied the opportunity to do so." Still, a different kind of public outcry may come when the Supreme Court strikes down the law. At the very least, Abbott's tainted victory will be seen for what it is. Perhaps an asterisk will have to be placed next to the results on the Secretary of State's final tally, just like the stats for sports seasons tainted by doping.

Wouldn't Abbott and other Texas Republicans have won with-or-without robbing voters of their rights? Lance Armstrong, no doubt, would have been a champ without cheating, too. Unlike Armstrong, Governor-elect Abbott will not have his title taken from him. Certainly he should be stripped of whatever laurels he and his cohorts may claim for a mandate based on their boosted election results. Worse, it casts a shadow over his administration. Abbott opened his victory speech addressing everyone "whether you voted for me, against me or didn't vote at all..." He forgot those he denied the vote, a telling omission. The Governor-elect is NOT for all Texans.

Far from being humiliated by the seeming magnitude of the Republican sweep, Wendy Davis and the other Democrats on the ticket should be emboldened by it. It is a sure sign of the unconstitutional swindle that defines this election, and a true reflection of the dishonest characters behind it.

###

Tips? Suggestions? Ideas? Drop a line to carl (at) inanityofsanity (dot) com

Twitter: @inanityofsanity

OF MOBS & MILLENIALS: WENDY'S FILIBUSTER A YEAR ON

Now, a year on

This week marks a year since the fracas in Texas went into full-gear with Wendy Davis' celebrated filibuster. 

I happened into it almost inadvertently. 

I followed the rumblings building up to it, watched the "people's filibuster" that had gone on in the days before. Hundreds of activists poured in to testify against the Texas GOP's anti-abortion legislation. The idea was to go the distance with the Far Right legislators, force them into exhaustion with testimony around-the-clock. What got my attention was the anti-abortion zealot's response - axing the public's right to give testimony. 

Many women who had traveled great distances to share their heart-rending stories were sent away. What did the Texas GOP accomplish by this?  They put the lid on the pressure cooker and turned up the heat. I made my plans to attend the real-deal filibuster. I managed to finish my work early that afternoon and headed over with some camera gear at around 3pm.  

The outrageous conduct of the Republican senators stays in my mind. It was clear that they would stop at nothing to stop Wendy. Decorum? Tradition? Basic respect? Forget it. They showed themselves to be bullies intent on humiliating a political enemy. When things didn't quite turn out the way they expected, their bellyaching after about being bested by a breach of decorum was laughable.

AAS's Arnold Garcia's laconic style

In any case, I tried putting this experience into perspective in the Austin American Statesman. I submitted "Of Mobs & Millennials" and it was accepted immediately. Usually, I'd honor the publication by simply providing a link here. 

Unfortunately, my piece didn't survive the editing process whole. Through some editing error, the concluding paragraph somehow got axed in the print edition. Numerous kindred problems plagued the online version. Despite repeat requests to get these sorted out (they did manage to correct their misspelling of ""Legilslators" that had been in the title), it still sits mangled on their website. For example, instead of opening with my opening, a paragraph removed towards the end (at the request of the editor) somehow appears as the opening sentence!   

So, here's what they published under the headline "Legislators hear roar of Millennials" - as intended.  Does it hold up? 

***

Of Mobs & Millennials

                                                       - By Carl Lindemann

Who is behind the “unruly mob using Occupy Wall Street tactics” that shut down the Texas Senate? It isn’t Wendy Davis. The Republican Establishment has worse to fear. What they heard wasn't just a few young women rattling the rafters. It was a shout-out from the millennial generation.

Millennials are the more than 100 million Americans born from 1983 to 2003. They like to vote. With each passing election cycle, millions more of them can and do go to the polls. According to the Center for American Progress, millennials accounted for 20 percent of the ballots cast in 2008, some 25 million nationwide. In 2016, that should grow to 33 percent, 46 million ballots.

That millennials are ethnically diverse and politically progressive does not bode well for the status quo in Texas. In 1988, conservatives outnumbered progressives here by 14 percent among 18- to- 29-year-olds. In 2008, that shifted drastically, with progressives leading by 9 percent — a 23-point swing. Millennials are a lost generation to the GOP that has hitched its wagon to aging white tea party members.

The one ray of hope for conservatives is abortion. Millennials have the same mixed feelings about it that their parents do. But millennials have little interest in the Culture Wars that have divided us into red and blue states. Despite deep differences over abortion, they won’t let it split them.

Are millennials an unruly mob? Making noise inside the Capitol is nothing new to Austin’s contingent. Hundreds gather there regularly to “Om the Dome.” They sit in still silence meditating for the better part of an hour, then let out a joyful sound that reverberates throughout the building.

This isn’t just an Austin thing. It is an offshoot of MedMob, a quintessential millennial phenomenon that started here in 2011. Since, it has spread worldwide. Its mission? The “unification of our inner selves in public spaces.”

MedMob goes about this through “flash mobs,” albeit of a different sort than the carefully choreographed street theater often posted on YouTube. MedMobs are organized only to the extent that they synch-up over 300 cities on five continents. Maybe you’ve seen a horde of 20-somethings congregating calmly on the ground downtown. That’s it.

So millennials aren’t an unruly mob. This crew just operates by a different set of rules. That explains what happened in the Senate last week. The young women in the gallery held their breath and noses witnessing a brutal beat-down on Wendy Davis. In the end, it was a matter of conscience. They could not just stand by watching such injustice. So they shouted with a great shout and the wall came down.

And about the “Occupy Wall Street tactics”? That millennial signature shout comes from being close-knit. They are tribal at heart, communitarians. Their connection with Occupy, a protest organized by middle-aged anarchists? For most just a passing phase, a first few stumbling steps into politics. Now they are beginning to find their own feet.

While Republicans feel the heat in Texas, Democrats will soon have their turn. President Obama is not the man millennials hoped for when they took him over the top in 2008. Consider his penchant for punishing whistleblowers. Though Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden may be an anathema to the Washington establishment, they are millennials par excellence.

Politicians of all stripes should brace for the coming quarrel with millennials. The first clash will be over the crushing weight of student debt. They will revolt against backbreaking interest rates on these no-risk loans. Those holding the paper will get payback — but of a different kind than the windfall profits they expect.

More immediately, during the special session, Republicans might remember one thing while plotting revenge on the upstarts that upset their agenda. The issues alone didn’t send millennials into a frenzy over Occupy.

It was the cavalier way issues dear to them were cast aside. Being brusque now is the sure way to elect Wendy Davis Governor - if not in 2014, then in 2018.

###

Tips? Suggestions? Ideas? Drop a line to carl (at) inanityofsanity (dot) com

Twitter: @inanityofsanity