Month: April 2017

by William Skink

May 21st, 2017, is the scheduled date for the return of Twin Peaks (I think I can trust the NYT for entertainment info).

In preparation, I finished reading Mark Frost’s Secret History of Twin Peaks this morning, which followed my leap into the disturbing secret diary of Laura Palmer, written by David Lynch’s daughter.

So bring it on, Mr. Missoula, Montana Eagle Scout!

With a cup of damn good coffee, and a slice of Norma’s pie, maybe we’ll figure out things like UFOs, backward talking, BOB and the origin of the evil that emanates from the Pacific Northwest.

By JC

Listening to Trump’s chief economic adviser Gary Cohn and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin revealing their tax cut package during a briefing at the White House today ( I know, torture time…), I heard the following response by Secretary Mnuchin to a question about whether or not Trump would sign the legislation if wasn’t deficit neutral:

“…when we look at the deficits, and the deficit has gone from 10 to 20 trilion dollars in the last administration…”

At this point I realized just how fucked we are, when the Treasury Secretary of the U.S. doesn’t know the difference between the national debt and a deficit (or maybe he is too intellectually sloppy to articulate the difference, or is such a poor communicator he can’t think on his feet). Basic Economics 101 stuff. A deficit or surplus is the measurement (usually annually) of how out of balance the budget is — income and expenses. The national debt is an aggregate of annual deficits or surpluses over time.

While there are many different ways to look at debt and deficits (and Steve K. has had some interesting posts on that at Piece of Mind lately), and we can argue about them till the cows come home, when the person in charge of the nation’s finances (outside of the Fed — and that’s a whole ‘nother story) is not coherent enough to use the proper wordage in what will become another huge battle in Congress — tax “reform” — how can we trust any of the other words he/they use?

Obviously we can’t, which is why everything we see and hear in public is nothing more than a charade for the public and the media to focus on while the real looting goes on behind a smokescreen. Those people are idiots and tools, and they take us for less than idiots.

by William Skink

Common Defense is supposedly a group of progressive veterans, at least that is how it is described in the bio that always accompanies Joshua Manning’s posts at Cowgirl:

Josh Manning is a combat veteran and serves on the leadership team of Common Defense, a group of progressive veterans who want to affect political change. You can follow him on Twitter @joshuamanning23

And here is Common Defense’s mission:

Common Defense is a diverse, grassroots organization of U.S. veterans and military family members who are fighting to preserve the core values we swore to uphold and defend. Together we vow to protect our communities from hate and violence, to serve on the front lines for social, economic, and environmental justice, and to champion a truly equitable and representative democracy.

And here is the problem: Joshua Manning is a neoliberal-supporting Hillary cheerleader who warned Montana Democrats against supporting Bernie in the primaries. Don’t believe me? Just read this:

Watch the Benghazi hearings or just the highlights. Tell me that is not a president who would stand up against the far right. Imagine Sanders in the same chair, what would he be doing and saying? Maybe he would not have taken action in Libya. Maybe Qadaffi would have wiped out the eastern half of Libya’s population. Imagine that hearing.

Could she turn in the general election to the triangulating Clinton we all fear? Sure. The passion for Sanders is real and understandable for just that reason. But he will not sustain it. Clinton has made so many promises short of what Sanders has said, and in some cases to his left, that she would have a hard time turning back on them, I trust her, I trust the team around her. As president, I cannot think of anyone more qualified to take on the risks of running an imperial presidency against Congress to do the right things despite the risks. I think she, more than anyone else, would love the challenge and risks associated with doing whatever is good and necessary to spite the right.

I can’t imagine anyone who considers themselves a progressive making a statement like this. But it gets worse. Manning is now decrying the militarism of Trump in a brazenly disingenuous manner.

Before getting to the Cowgirl post, here is a piece by Manning from last December at Foreign Policy dot com. In this post Manning adds his voice to the clamor for Michael Flynn’s head. I will mention before the quote that the removal of Flynn was a precursor to Trump’s pivot to the neolibcon lust for military intervention. From the link:

In choosing Flynn as his national security advisor, the president-elect has elevated a man who leans toward conspiracy theories as justification for action. Flynn wants to take assertive action in the Muslim world and I think he will push for that no matter what the facts may be.

My worry is that Flynn will start laying a path for conflict or war against Iran. He will have the ear of President Trump, not known as a reader, so Flynn will have a dominant role in telling the president what is going on.

For me, that represents a nightmare scenario. It is not a question of whether it will happen, it is when and how it will. I am genuinely fearful.

I don’t believe for a second that Manning’s concern is that Flynn represented a path for conflict with Iran. What Flynn represented was a threat to the Deep State’s desire to stop any chance of deescalating tensions with Russia.

If you think Manning is coming at this from a progressive position, please consider that his warning against Bernie included labeling Sanders as being “extreme left”. Sure.

And did I mention Manning’s “most trusted” economic thinker is Paul Krugman?

All this brings me to the most recent, cringe-worthy post by combat veteran Joshua Manning. Here are the opening paragraphs:

I spent a year and a half of my Army career in Iraq. I know what it takes to fight terrorism and foreign adversaries. The solution is not the President Donald Trump brand of hyper-militarism and stupid wars. Unbridled defense spending and giving the reigns to the generals and defense contractors is not what our military and veterans need or want. There are many people who voted for Donald Trump, and you can imagine many of them will vote for Gianforte, but they did not vote for one thing: Forever War.

We are still nearly a decade and a half into Bush’s wars and Trump wants to start more. Seriously, look at the posturing towards Syria, Iran, and North Korea. If you think these are just empty threats and military bluster, then take moment to think about how playing Russian Roulette with Kim Jong Un plays out.

There are glaring omissions in these two paragraphs, like Obama’s perpetuation and expansion of Bush’s military intervention, Hillary’s SOS reign of terror in places like Libya, Honduras and Ukraine, our Arab allies supporting the same jihadists Manning claims to know how to fight after a deployment in Iraq, and the full weight of the Deep State attacking Trump until he acquiesced to the hyper-militarism Manning is pretending to oppose.

Manning is trying to parlay his war experience into a one-side partisan attack on Trump and GG. Don’t buy the bullshit. Manning is a neoliberal shill who supported forever-war candidate Hillary Clinton and now is trying to bash Trump after the Deep State got their way and reshaped Trump by pushing him relentlessly with the anti-Russia hysteria into their interventionist mold.

by William Skink

One would think Trump’s support would be tanking after his myriad reversals and lack of accomplishments during the first 100 days, but if Democrats were hoping for a tidal wave of (justified) buyer’s remorse, recent polls tell a different story:

Among Americans who say they voted in the 2016 election, 46 percent say they voted for Hillary Clinton and 43 percent for Trump, very close to the 2-point margin in the actual popular vote results. However, while Trump would retain almost all of his support if the election were held again today (96 percent), fewer of Clinton’s supporters say they’d stick with her (85 percent), producing a 40-43 percent Clinton-Trump result in this hypothetical re-do among self-reported 2016 voters.

Adding to the narrative of dysfunctional Dems, the insider account of the Clinton campaign shitshow, titled Shattered, further undercuts the preferred narrative of blaming Putin and sexism and Bernie Bros for Hillary’s impressive implosion.

Despite all the evidence that Democrats need to strategize a comprehensive reset, opportunities to reclaim populist positions against unpopular positions, like military intervention, are being willfully ignored. When a rogue like Tulsi Gabbard emerges, the Democratic establishment is prone to attack, not acquiesce.

Closer to home, Montana Republicans are jettisoning fiscal conservatism by burdening counties with the cost of the special election while continuing to block job-creating infrastructure investment. How are Democrats responding?

Well, one prominent Missoula Democrat is already busy making plans for the future. I appreciate this response to Rep. Hill’s presumptuous Facebook post from Logicosity. In particular, the conclusion:

While on the bench, Hill would do well to reflect on what makes a legislator a proficient lawmaker and to contrast her style and accomplishments with those of others elected representatives who seek the spotlight far less often and still manage to rack up impressive achievements.

Until she and other D’s take stock in those realities, they are destined to remain in the minority.

To understand this response, here is Rep. Hill’s full statement:

SAYING GOODBYE: Today was my last (8:00 am) Saturday session at the Capitol for awhile. After four sessions in the Montana House of Representatives, I need a break for my family and for myself. I do plan to come back to run in Senator Dick Barrett’s Senate seat (my House District) in 2020. I have endorsed Missoula’s City Council President, Marilyn Marler, to run in my House seat and I hope you will support her and give her some money. I have also endorsed my dear friend, Representative Bryce Bennett, to run in Senator Tom Facey’s seat, as we are all term limited out, as well as Representative Nate McConnell in 2020 in Senator Sue Malek’s seat (also termed). During my break, I am going to work to elect women and true progressives. Let me assure you that not all politicians– and Democrats– are the same. I plan to start saying that more. I am going to be an activist again and become a huge pain in the ass to Trump and Daines and the rest of these Neanderthal, mouth breathers, who are scaring the shit out of me and moving our country dangerously backwards. I am going to practice law, fiercely, for the indigent and accused and whose rights have been trampled. I am going to write a book with Mark Parker, my favorite member of the vast right wing conspiracy. I am going send thank you cards and no longer miss your birthdays and I am going to spend time with my family, uninterrupted. I am hoping to fall in love with politics again because for now, we’re breaking up. I’m tired and I am ready to go home to my sweet Missoula, where I don’t serve in the “minority”. But, I will be back, with my fist in air forever! #Solidarity

by William Skink

I’m not sure the science of it, but after forest fires do their thing, delicious fungi emerge, but only when the ground gets warm enough.

This was the bounty from mother nature I sought today with my family, not the useless MARCH FOR SCIENCE I saw people plastering Facebook with.

I get the political context of marching for science. Trump and Republicans (and Christians) are lumped into the anti-science category, so of course the resistance to that now manifests as a march in the streets for that. For science.

I wonder how many people out marching for science today gave any thought to how the application of science in the pursuit of war has created weapons capable of destroying life on earth? Not all life, but definitely ours, which is all we really care about, right?

I’m not pointing this out thinking I’m any better. I’m really not. I have the same kind of phone my friends on Facebook have to post their pictures with, the same phone that requires certain mineral elements with fancy, scientific names, like lithium. Minerals that just so happened to have been “discovered” 9 year into America’s longest war, in Afghanistan:

WASHINGTON — The United States has discovered nearly $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan, far beyond any previously known reserves and enough to fundamentally alter the Afghan economy and perhaps the Afghan war itself, according to senior American government officials.

The previously unknown deposits — including huge veins of iron, copper, cobalt, gold and critical industrial metals like lithium — are so big and include so many minerals that are essential to modern industry that Afghanistan could eventually be transformed into one of the most important mining centers in the world, the United States officials believe.

An internal Pentagon memo, for example, states that Afghanistan could become the “Saudi Arabia of lithium,” a key raw material in the manufacture of batteries for laptops and BlackBerrys.

After getting dirty today hunting for mushrooms, I took a shower. But my hands are not clean. I type this post on a product that comes to me through the exploitation and suffering of others.

The way I deal with my complicity is by making art and helping others. Another thing I find helpful is refusing to allow myself to get sucked in to the dangerous political red/blue binary that blinds people to the anti-war consensus of the public, and the pro-war consensus (Republicans AND Democrats) of the political establishment.

Last weekend it was Trump’s taxes, this weekend it’s science. With war on our doorstep, what’s next on the march menu to nowhere?

When Trump launched missiles into Syria–missiles we wouldn’t be able to create without science–why did so many miss their mark? If it was a Russian missile defense system shooting them down, or a Russian hacking of the guidance technology directing the missiles, that means direct military action between two nuclear-armed nations has already occurred.

Why isn’t resistance to war the reason people are marching in the streets? We are on the verge of the lid blowing off, yet becoming cheerleaders for science on Earth Day is all the resistance can think to do?

What other conclusion is there other than we are fucked?