FEBRUARY 2018 IGNOMINIOUS ABSURDITY AWARD: THE IGGY

1. Devin Nunes (R-Ca). We are still struggling to understand why, specifically, California-based Rep. Devin Nunes has wagered his entire career and future place in the history books on a collaborative effort with the White House to shut down the investigation of Russia's espionage and intelligence efforts against the United States during the 2016 presidential elections.

It cannot seemingly be explained as an attempt to get Trump off the hook for, for example, the Trump Tower meeting we now know about between his top campaign staff and/or family and agents who represented themselves as being "part of" the Russian government's support for Trump's campaign. There would be no reason for Nunes to insert himself in that, at least not to the extent of himself inviting obstruction of justice charges. But he persists, and persists some more, and doubles down.

Listen to him sputter on the Sean Hannity Screaming-Shouty Hour, spouting things about his latest "memo" that even Glenn Beck's chalkboard would find too humiliating to put up with. The man isn't just chewing the scenery, he's dousing it in an expensive vinaigrette first.

“There's clear evidence of collusion—that the Democratic Party and the Hillary Clinton campaign colluded with the Russians,” Nunes said, using his appearance on prime time’s top-rated cable-news show to decry the supposed “crickets from the media” about the biggest political story of the past week.

What planet is Nunes living on? Somehow Nunes conveniently forgot that law enforcement had been alerted about possible Russian interference well before the Stele revelations. This is what landed Trump's new (and old) campaign buddies on the counterintelligence radar. The Democratic Party (in addition to, lest we forget, a passel of Trump's fellow Republicans) hired a firm to do opposition research on Trump. The opposition research included the efforts of a well-regarded British ex-spy with the sort of worldwide contacts you would expect a British ex-spy to have; it turned up such a trove of information about shady Trump ties that the researchers felt obliged to contact the FBI about what they had learned, for fear that Trump was, at the least, a potential blackmail target.

Perhaps the Hannity audience enjoys watching the Nunes circus, but to the rest of us it looks like a clown lighting himself on fire and daring us all to watch. Nunes repeatedly told Hannity that his memo had turned the tables on Democrats, saying “the counterintelligence investigation should have been opened up against the Hillary campaign when they got ahold of the dossier.” He added: “I just go by the old rule: Whatever they accuse you of doing, they’re actually doing,” Nunes said.

Nunes is quite wedded to this concept that the real crime here is not that anyone on the Trump campaign team, or transition team, or within the White House did anything wrong, but that Democrats found out. He is all-in on the notion that, after going to law enforcement with the information they had learned about Trump's potential Russian ties, not just the investigators, but the Hillary Clinton campaign itself, ought to have been treated as enemies of the state.

This is, lest we forget, batshit. It's utterly insane. It is beyond the realm of rational speech as we know it, and then some. And there's no way to interpret a sitting congressman saying these things other than as an attempt to throw a flash-bang grenade into the discourse and duck out the back before anyone notices.

There is no rational reason for Devin Nunes to be climbing so far out on this limb for the likes of bragging, bleating nobody Carter Page. There is no rational reason for Nunes to go to these rhetorical lengths to shutter an investigation into money laundering by people Trump claims to have barely known. Congress critters are deeply selfish and self-absorbed people, and do not readily torpedo their own careers for the sake of random consultants and advisers. Nunes is a piece of work.

JANUARY 2018 IGNOMINIOUS ABSURDITY AWARD: THE IGGY

1.  Trump spokesperson Kellyann Conway.  Conway continues to be a factory for a mind-boggling combination of ridiculous nonsense and terrifying nonsense. Donald Trump’s leading non-Ivanka woman continues to assail the media for harping on her reference to blatant lies as “alternative facts”—gosh, why would that draw notice, especially when it’s such a perfect statement of how your boss plans to govern? Conway launched into a rant about how media figures who criticized Trump should be fired:

“Not one network person has been let go. Not one silly political analyst and pundit who talked smack all day long about Donald Trump has been let go. They are on panels every Sunday. They’re on cable news every day.”

Yeah, funny, being critical of a political candidate—even of the president—is not a firing offense in a country with a free press. Which the United States still technically is, though apparently not for long if the Trump team gets their way. Conway and the rest of the fabricators really think people should be fired for having insulted the man in the tackily gilded tower. She went on:

“Who’s the first editorial -- the first blogger that will be left out that embarrassed his or her outlet? We know all their names. I’m too polite to call them by name. But they know who they are, and they’re all wondering, will I be the first to go? The election was three months ago. None of them have been let go.”

There are lots of reasons to fire lots of cable pundits, but pointing out what Donald Trump is? Not one of them. Then maybe, just maybe, Conway realized she’d gone a little too far and tried to sound righteous. All of this, by the way, is part of one epic rant, not responses to a series of different questions:

“And yet we deal with him every single day. We turn the other cheek. If you are part of team Trump, you walk around with these gaping, seeping wounds every single day, and that's fine. I believe in a full and fair press.  I’m here every Sunday morning. I haven't slept in a month. I believe in a full and fair press.”

Notice she doesn’t say she believes in a free press, but a “full and fair” one, whatever that means. Fair to Trump, as Trump sees it? But mostly, here’s a statement that requires more than the world’s tiniest violin. We need the world’s tiniest symphony playing a requiem for poor Kellyanne and her gaping, seeping wounds and lack of sleep.

The amount of whining and weakness here is astonishing. If you are part of team Trump, you are participating in keeping people out of the country on the basis of their religion (and failure to come from a country where Donald Trump does business), you are working to strip health insurance from tens of millions of people, you are supporting a sick tax scam, you are pushing white supremacy and misogyny and bigotry … but let’s talk about your gaping, seeping wounds from some cable pundits saying mean things about your boss, in an election in which CNN specifically hired pro-Trump pundits to wax adulatory about everything he said and did.

This is pathetic. Except that the threat to the country that this mindset represents can’t be underestimated.

OVERCOMING TRUMP FATIGUE

By Ronald T. Fox

Are you tired of being bombarded with news about Donald Trump? About his half-truths, lies, fabrications, and contradictions, his well-documented bigotry, greed, name-calling, intimidation and vindictiveness, his hypocrisy, bullying, misogyny,  xenophobia, and disrespect for our allies and blustering threats to our enemies? What about his narcissism, boasting, false claims and blame avoidance, or his fox-in-the-hen-house administrative appointments? How about his cuts in social programs, deregulating, and looting of the nation to enhance the wealth of his one-percenter friends? Does Trump’s utter contempt for our Constitution and principles of democracy, including speech, press and religious freedom, make you want to vomit? Are you sick of all the media attention he attracts—his every utterance treated as “breaking news” (often at the expense of more important issues)? Are you terrified by what this visibly mentally disturbed man might do at home and abroad?

Has all this become overwhelming? If it has, then you could be suffering from Trump Fatigue.

DECEMBER 2017 IGNOMINIOUS ABSURDITY AWARD: THE IGGY

1. Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA). The federal estate tax applies to money over $5.49 million dollars that a person leaves behind when they die—$10.98 million for a married couple. Here’s what Republican Sen. Grassley thinks of all those bums who didn’t bother to leave $5.49 million apiece and therefore won’t benefit from an estate tax repeal:

"I think not having the estate tax recognizes the people that are investing,” Grassley (R-Iowa) told the Des Moines Register, “as opposed to those that are just spending every darn penny they have, whether it’s on booze or women or movies.”

Yes, if you’d just stopped spending every darn penny your $40,000-a-year job paid on booze and women and movies, you’d have the nearly $6 million that would mean your heirs would benefit from Republicans repealing the estate tax. Why, when you think about it that way, it’s not about massive generational wealth at all!

In reality, of course, the estate tax isn’t about some people who can’t lay off the booze and movies, it is about massive generational wealth transfers, with only two out of 1,000 estates paying any federal estate tax at all. Because it turns out that even if you drink no booze and watch no movies and invest pretty damn carefully, you can’t save $5.49 million in a lifetime of work, not if you’re making the average American salary-- or twice the average American salary, for that matter. To have estate tax-level money, you either have to have inherited a lot yourself, been paid an amount that only a couple percent of Americans are paid, or hit a lottery jackpot. Oh yes, you couldn’t have been a lucky early investor in Apple.

Shame on you if you don’t have $5.49 million to leave your heirs.

2. Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT). More hypocrisy on the tax cut plan. During the Senate “debate” over the Tax cuts and Jobs Act, Hatch was challenged over the implications of the proposed cut for the children’s Health Insurance Program, which covers nine million children, whose funding lapsed two-months ago and has not been renewed. Hatch insisted that “the reason CHIP’s having trouble is because we don’t have money anymore.”

Hatch uttered these words just as he voted for a trillion-and-a-half tax cut that will mainly benefit the wealthiest Americans and corporations. If this wasn’t enough hypocrisy, Hatch went on to say:

“I have a rough time wanting to spend billions and billions and trillions of dollars to help people who won’t help themselves, won’t lift a finger and expect the federal government to do everything.”

To whom might Hatch be referring? Food stamps that help children, the elderly and disabled? Maybe he’s talking about Medicaid, which again mainly benefits the same groups? Ah, could it be he’s thinking about hard-working people whose jobs don’t provide for healthcare, or people who can’t make ends meet? I could go on and on. The fact is there are very few Americans who willingly “don’t lift a finger” because they can get some government subsidy.

He surely couldn’t be thinking about Americans who inherit large estates, even though most didn’t lift a finger to earn it. On second thought, maybe he is. Maybe that’s why he supports the Republican tax plan that will increase the estate tax exemption to $22.4 million. The hypocrisy is sickening: gut assistance programs for children, the elderly and disabled while padding the pockets of super-rich folks. Make no mistake about it, this is the entitlement reform the GOP has in mind.

Not that any of this bothers Hatch; quite the contrary. When asked about the GOP Christmas gift to the super-wealthy, Hatch had this to say:

“I’m going to just say to you that I … come from the poor people. And I’ve been here working my whole stickin’ career for people who don’t have a chance. And I really resent anybody saying that I’m just doing this for the rich. I think you guys overplay that all the time and it gets old. And frankly you ought to quit it.”

Hatch may claim that he came from “the poor people,” but, if so, that was many decades in the past. Because the 83-year-old Hatch is now one of the richest members of Congress. Oh how perspectives change.

3. The Mormon Church. One thing that most religions are good for is trying to control people’s morality by shaming them for their natural sexual impulses. Newsweek has published the findings of a leaked 1981 Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ guidebook, provided by a group called MormonLeaks. Here’s an important bit of information to pass on to your children.

“Early masturbation experiences introduce the individual to sexual thoughts which may become habit forming and reinforcing to homosexual interests,” the guidebook claims. “Self-masturbation is almost universal among those who engage in homosexual behavior, and is a very difficult habit for most to overcome.”

The Mormon church believes homosexuality is “of grave concern” because it may involve violent or criminal behavior and is as sinful as heterosexual adultery and fornication, the guidebook says. The book also claims that homosexuality is a learned behavior influenced by unhealthy development in early childhood, and says that absentee fathers and dominant mothers are among the main culprits for these developmental problems leading to homosexuality. The guidelines also include excommunicating LGBT people from the church as well as from any Latter-day Saints’ affiliated institutions (schools, etc).

Since that time the Mormon Church has loosened up some of its more restrictive rhetoric around the issue of homosexuality—including finally coming out against conversion therapy and other barbaric homophobic practices. But it’s still a big “no-no” for the church. The tweaks to the religion’s official rhetoric, however, do not include changes in its doctrine. Being LGBT is still considered a “sin” in the Mormon Church.

4. The Republican Party. Well, they did it! In the dead of night, Republicans passed the giant giveaway to corporations and the wealthy that they like to bill a “middle-class tax cut” or “tax reform.” The Republican tax bill is the most unpopular major legislation in decades and economists say it will not help the economy in the ways Republicans keep promising, but that wasn’t going to stop them. The House voted on Tuesday afternoon, passing the bill by 227 to 203, with 12 Republicans joining every Democrat in voting no. The Senate voted after midnight, passing the bill 51 to 48 on a party-line vote (Sen. John McCain was absent).

As a good citizen, I hope the “tax cut” will work out as Republicans predict, but there is virtually no chance this will happen. In the past, gigantic tax cuts have not spurred the kind of in vestment and growth that raises wages and improves the lives of ordinary Americans. They have overwhelmingly benefited the wealthiest citizens. This one will be no different. It will predictably raise taxes for many middle-class Americans (especially after 2018), increase the cost of medical coverage for most Americans, and undoubtedly widen our already obscene inequality.

But give the GOP credit. If this is part of a larger scheme (scam!) to please wealthy donors, explode deficits which will lead to spending cuts (except for defense), and lay the groundwork for replacing social security and Medicare with market-driven schemes, then their strategy is brilliant. Republican disregard for expert analyses of the plan and their behind-the-scenes rush to passage lead me to suspect that this is exactly what they're up to. Brace yourselves.

5. President Donald Trump. I couldn’t resist one little tidbit. Commenting on the East Coast cold spell, the Donald brilliantly observed:

“In the East, it could be the COLDEST New Year’s Eve on record. Perhaps we could use a little bit of that good old Global Warming that our Country, but not other countries, was going to pay TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS to protect against. Bundle up!”

The moron equates weather with climate change. Maybe next he’ll bring a snowball to his golf resort New Year’s Eve party as his evidence that the planet isn’t warming.
-------------------------------
AND THE WINNER IS . . .

Grassley is undoubtedly worthy of an IGGY, but for its duplicity, hypocrisy and contempt for ordinary Americans, this month’s winner is THE REPUBLICAN PARTY.

THE REPUBLICAN PARTY IS ROTTING

By Ronald T. Fox

My parents were life-long Republicans—or nearly life-long. My father in 2008, nearing his ninth decade of living, voted Democrat for the first—and only--time. He had been alienated from the GOP by the party’s cheer leading for the wealthy, George W. Bush’s fictitious weapons of mass destruction, and “that little smirk” Bush seemed to always have on his public face. In retribution, he joined the ranks of the ‘independents,” noting that he didn’t much like either party. He would not vote for a president in 2016.

GUEST COMMENTARY ON “ALTERNATIVE FACTS”

Kellyanne Conway’s defense of Trump Press Secretary Sean Spencer’s false statement about the attendance numbers of the president-elect’s inauguration, by referring to the falsehood as “alternative facts,” ushered a new term (though not the practice) into our political vernacular. While not the first to practice mendacity, the Trump administration has taken the disregard for facts and contempt for truth to a new level. We shouldn’t be surprised. Donald Trump told us about his affection for the Orwellian practice in his book Trump: the Art of the Deal.

An indifference to truth has now pervaded our political culture. People believe what they want to believe, regardless of the facts. Political debate falls largely along partisan lines and is usually conducted at the level of emotion disconnected from facts. Factual rebuttals of false claims are ignored. Welcome to America’s post-truth political world.

Professor Buzz Fozouni, a former colleague of mine in the Political Science Department at California State University Sacramento, offers his observations about America's post-truth problem.

NOVEMBER 2017 IGNOMINIOUS ABSURDITY AWARD: THE IGGY

NOTE: A-number-of Phronesis readers have requested that because President Trump is a certified ignominious “human,” who would predictably saturate the monthly list of IGGY-worthy statements, I should eliminate him from future consideration. While acknowledging that Trump is indeed an evil, despicable “human being,” I’ve decided to continue to include him, but will limit his monthly absurd expressions to one.


1. President Trump. in the monthly ignominious award Trump lying is nothing new, but lying to politicize a tragedy is disgusting in the extreme. This is what we come to expect from the Donald. Trump’s ignorance, looseness with facts, and insensitivity to the human condition bodes ill for our country.

In the aftermath of the most recent terrorist (i.e., jihadist sympathizer) attack, the President decided to blame Chuck Schumer and Democrats. Using a program that no longer exists, Trump fumed:

“The terrorist came into our country through what is called the "Diversity Visa Lottery Program," a Chuck Schumer beauty. I want merit based.” … We are fighting hard for Merit Based immigration, no more Democrat Lottery Systems. We must get MUCH tougher (and smarter).” … Senator Chuck Schumer helping to import Europe’s problems." … We will stop this craziness!” 

Republican Senator Jeff Flake promptly exposed this lie in a tweet to Trump, while defending Democratic Senator Schumer in the process.

“Actually, the Gang of 8, including @SenSchumer, did away with the Diversity Visa Program as part of broader reforms. I know, I was there.”

And, so it goes . . .