Rauner Finds an Opportunity to Move Up in "Most Detested Governors" Race.

Rauner Finds Chances to Move Up in Most “Detested Governor” Race?

“Ding Dong, Chris Christie’s gone”; and suddenly the most disliked Governor in the United States ploddingly exits stage right only to leave disruption and angling for the remaining Republican Governors to jostle and elbow their way into the significantly large breach. 

Favorites to earn the most despised position, like Snyder of Michigan (51% unfavorable rating) and Walker from Wisconsin (53% unfavorable rating) are revving their engines, battling unions, minimizing wages, and stymying various efforts to provide equal rights. 

And, when I remark “favorites,” I am of course identifying the kind of Governors that Bruce Rauner emulates in commercials as the conqueror he has yet to become because he is sadly still trying to be “in charge” of the state of Illinois.  He uses the former two (as well as others) to bash Madigan in a commercial promoting the incumbent Governor's reprised run for office. 

The other governor in Rauner’s commercial taunting Mike Madigan was Republican Missouri Governor Eric Greitin, who was later accused of blackmailing a woman with whom he’d had an extra-marital affair.  Rauner’s political ad was quietly pulled from airing shortly thereafter.

As you guessed, it has not been a stellar couple months for Governor Rauner.  But – not to worry – it got worse on Tuesday.

According to the Chicago Tribune and other political pundits, Illinois Policy Institute/Representative Jeanne Ives dispatched Bruce Rauner effectively and unceremoniously a day ago in the wood paneled editorial board room.  Ouch!  And the Illinois Policy Institute was a recipient of so much of Rauner’s monetary largesse as well as hired/fired staff for his Springfield office.

Positioned in 8^th place of the most disliked governors in the country -  a poll taken in 2017/see below), Christie’s departure opens a possibility for Rauner to move up; and (lucky stars, Bruce!) serendipitously another loathed Republican governor is making his way to Washington to serve in the Trump Cabinet.  Republican Sam Brownback of Kansas (66% unfavorable rating) is leaving his infamous position as second most unpopular governor behind Christie to go to Washington.

 http://www.newser.com/story/241143/americas-10-most-unpopular-governors.html

And Voila, an opportunity appears in the midst of crisis. 

Rauner may have earned a political pedigree for consistent failures and bumbling incompetence mishandling the state budget, but he’ll be hard-pressed to accomplish the kinds of disasters Governor Brownback of Kansas has wrought in poor Kansas. Rauner earned “an epic F” from the Chicago Tribune in leadership this last year.  The National Review declared Rauner probably  the worst governor this fall.  His Turnaround Agenda of nearly 50 items has been whittled unsuccessfully down to five.  His budget battles have left post secondary education institutions in tatters.  He’s found ways to lose his right wing base and job growth rates in Illinois have fallen precipitously. 

Rauner's really bad, but he’ll have to work hard to tarnish the absolute madness that is Sam Brownback.

Case in point: In preparation for his ascension to Trump’s post as Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom, Governor Sam Brownback called for all Kansans to spend today (January 31^st) fasting or/and praying.  There’s a lot to unpack here. 

Delusions of grandeur.  Religious righteousness.  Forced asceticism as political purpose.  Or, as Jenee Osterheldt of the Kansas City Star pointed out, “He has mistaken the podium for a pulpit.”

http://www.kansascity.com/living/liv-columns-blogs/jenee-osterheldt/article197313034.html

A poll by the same paper found only 3% of Kansans planned on fasting for Brownback Tuesday.  92% will not fast, and one might believe binge instead, taking comfort food in his departure.  4% say they will pray, but I recall my old-country Grandfather’s prayers for his enemies quite well.  It might go something like “Brownback, you rubbish, may you find the bees but never the honey, and may you marry one who blows wind like a stone from a sling.” 

Brownback’s Kansas is possibly a land Rauner might nave clicked his heels together and dreamed about just a few years ago:  an elimination of Medicaid expansion, an executive order to remove protections for gay, lesbian and transgender people, millions of dollars taken from public education funding, the destruction of job security for state workers, limiting wage negotiations by local unions, etc.  Since then, however, Kansas has made a quiet and complete refusal to accept the kind of trickle down and right reformed Koch policies that have left the state decimated. 

So, it appears that Sam Brownback will now get to rub shoulders with another religious ideologue – Vice President Mike Pence – and discuss the terrible dangers of a country beset by alternative religions, equality in unions, and the general blasphemy of inclusiveness. 

Nevertheless, an opening is opportunity, and Bruce Rauner may find himself able to fill that void easily – especially as Ives undercuts him, as Uihlein promotes the position of the IPI and fills Ives’ coffers, as Pritzkers swallows the media time slots, as Madigan is Madigan, and as Rauner blunders about trying to be the leader he never was. 

Senator Jeff Flake's Speech Denouncing Trump on 1/17/2018

A Vital Statement; A Worthy Read

Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona’s speech before the US Senate on January 17, 2018.

“Mr. President, near the beginning of the document that made us free, our Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson wrote: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident...' So, from our very beginnings, our freedom has been predicated on truth. The founders were visionary in this regard, understanding well that good faith and shared facts between the governed and the government would be the very basis of this ongoing idea of America.

“As the distinguished former member of this body, Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York, famously said: 'Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts.' During the past year, I am alarmed to say that Senator Moynihan’s proposition has likely been tested more severely than at any time in our history.

“It is for that reason that I rise today, to talk about the truth, and its relationship to democracy. For without truth, and a principled fidelity to truth and to shared facts, Mr. President, our democracy will not last.

“2017 was a year which saw the truth – objective, empirical, evidence-based truth -- more battered and abused than any other in the history of our country, at the hands of the most powerful figure in our government. It was a year which saw the White House enshrine 'alternative facts' into the American lexicon, as justification for what used to be known simply as good old-fashioned falsehoods. It was the year in which an unrelenting daily assault on the constitutionally-protected free press was launched by that same White House, an assault that is as unprecedented as it is unwarranted. 'The enemy of the people,' was what the president of the United States called the free press in 2017.

“Mr. President, it is a testament to the condition of our democracy that our own president uses words infamously spoken by Josef Stalin to describe his enemies. It bears noting that so fraught with malice was the phrase 'enemy of the people,' that even Nikita Khrushchev forbade its use, telling the Soviet Communist Party that the phrase had been introduced by Stalin for the purpose of 'annihilating such individuals' who disagreed with the supreme leader.

“This alone should be a source of great shame for us in this body, especially for those of us in the president’s party. For they are shameful, repulsive statements. And, of course, the president has it precisely backward – despotism is the enemy of the people. The free press is the despot’s enemy, which makes the free press the guardian of democracy. When a figure in power reflexively calls any press that doesn’t suit him 'fake news,' it is that person who should be the figure of suspicion, not the press.

“I dare say that anyone who has the privilege and awesome responsibility to serve in this chamber knows that these reflexive slurs of 'fake news' are dubious, at best. Those of us who travel overseas, especially to war zones and other troubled areas around the globe, encounter members of U.S. based media who risk their lives, and sometimes lose their lives, reporting on the truth. To dismiss their work as fake news is an affront to their commitment and their sacrifice.

“According to the International Federation of Journalists, 80 journalists were killed in 2017, and a new report from the Committee to Protect Journalists documents that the number of journalists imprisoned around the world has reached 262, which is a new record. This total includes 21 reporters who are being held on 'false news' charges.

“Mr. President, so powerful is the presidency that the damage done by the sustained attack on the truth will not be confined to the president’s time in office. Here in America, we do not pay obeisance to the powerful – in fact, we question the powerful most ardently – to do so is our birthright and a requirement of our citizenship -- and so, we know well that no matter how powerful, no president will ever have dominion over objective reality.

“No politician will ever get to tell us what the truth is and is not. And anyone who presumes to try to attack or manipulate the truth to his own purposes should be made to realize the mistake and be held to account. That is our job here. And that is just as Madison, Hamilton, and Jay would have it.

“Of course, a major difference between politicians and the free press is that the press usually corrects itself when it gets something wrong. Politicians don’t.

No longer can we compound attacks on truth with our silent acquiescence. No longer can we turn a blind eye or a deaf ear to these assaults on our institutions. And Mr. President, an American president who cannot take criticism – who must constantly deflect and distort and distract – who must find someone else to blame -- is charting a very dangerous path. And a Congress that fails to act as a check on the president adds to the danger.

“Now, we are told via twitter that today the president intends to announce his choice for the 'most corrupt and dishonest' media awards. It beggars belief that an American president would engage in such a spectacle. But here we are.

“And so, 2018 must be the year in which the truth takes a stand against power that would weaken it. In this effort, the choice is quite simple. And in this effort, the truth needs as many allies as possible. Together, my colleagues, we are powerful. Together, we have it within us to turn back these attacks, right these wrongs, repair this damage, restore reverence for our institutions, and prevent further moral vandalism.

“Together, united in the purpose to do our jobs under the Constitution, without regard to party or party loyalty, let us resolve to be allies of the truth -- and not partners in its destruction.

“It is not my purpose here to inventory all of the official untruths of the past year. But a brief survey is in order. Some untruths are trivial – such as the bizarre contention regarding the crowd size at last year’s inaugural.

“But many untruths are not at all trivial – such as the seminal untruth of the president’s political career - the oft-repeated conspiracy about the birthplace of President Obama. Also not trivial are the equally pernicious fantasies about rigged elections and massive voter fraud, which are as destructive as they are inaccurate – to the effort to undermine confidence in the federal courts, federal law enforcement, the intelligence community and the free press, to perhaps the most vexing untruth of all – the supposed 'hoax' at the heart of special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.

“To be very clear, to call the Russia matter a 'hoax' – as the president has many times – is a falsehood. We know that the attacks orchestrated by the Russian government during the election were real and constitute a grave threat to both American sovereignty and to our national security. It is in the interest of every American to get to the bottom of this matter, wherever the investigation leads.

“Ignoring or denying the truth about hostile Russian intentions toward the United States leaves us vulnerable to further attacks. We are told by our intelligence agencies that those attacks are ongoing, yet it has recently been reported that there has not been a single cabinet-level meeting regarding Russian interference and how to defend America against these attacks. Not one. What might seem like a casual and routine untruth – so casual and routine that it has by now become the white noise of Washington - is in fact a serious lapse in the defense of our country.

“Mr. President, let us be clear. The impulses underlying the dissemination of such untruths are not benign. They have the effect of eroding trust in our vital institutions and conditioning the public to no longer trust them. The destructive effect of this kind of behavior on our democracy cannot be overstated.

“Mr. President, every word that a president utters projects American values around the world. The values of free expression and a reverence for the free press have been our global hallmark, for it is our ability to freely air the truth that keeps our government honest and keeps a people free. Between the mighty and the modest, truth is the great leveler. And so, respect for freedom of the press has always been one of our most important exports.

“But a recent report published in our free press should raise an alarm. Reading from the story:

“’In February…Syrian President Bashar Assad brushed off an Amnesty International report that some 13,000 people had been killed at one of his military prisons by saying, “You can forge anything these days, we are living in a fake news era.’

“In the Philippines, President Rodrigo Duterte has complained of being 'demonized' by 'fake news.' Last month, the report continues, with our President, quote 'laughing by his side' Duterte called reporters 'spies.'

“In July, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro complained to the Russian propaganda outlet, that the world media had 'spread lots of false versions, lots of lies' about his country, adding, 'This is what we call 'fake news' today, isn't it?'

There are more:

“A state official in Myanmar recently said, ‘There is no such thing as Rohingya. It is fake news,’ referring to the persecuted ethnic group.

“Leaders in Singapore, a country known for restricting free speech, have promised 'fake news' legislation in the new year.

“And on and on. This feedback loop is disgraceful, Mr. President. Not only has the past year seen an American president borrow despotic language to refer to the free press, but it seems he has in turn inspired dictators and authoritarians with his own language. This is reprehensible.

“We are not in a 'fake news' era, as Bashar Assad says. We are, rather, in an era in which the authoritarian impulse is reasserting itself, to challenge free people and free societies, everywhere.

“In our own country, from the trivial to the truly dangerous, it is the range and regularity of the untruths we see that should be cause for profound alarm, and spur to action. Add to that the by-now predictable habit of calling true things false, and false things true, and we have a recipe for disaster. As George Orwell warned, 'The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those who speak it.'

“Any of us who have spent time in public life have endured news coverage we felt was jaded or unfair. But in our positions, to employ even idle threats to use laws or regulations to stifle criticism is corrosive to our democratic institutions. Simply put: it is the press’s obligation to uncover the truth about power. It is the people’s right to criticize their government. And it is our job to take it.

“What is the goal of laying siege to the truth? President John F. Kennedy, in a stirring speech on the 20th anniversary of the Voice of America, was eloquent in answer to that question:

“’We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.’

“Mr. President, the question of why the truth is now under such assault may well be for historians to determine. But for those who cherish American constitutional democracy, what matters is the effect on America and her people and her standing in an increasingly unstable world -- made all the more unstable by these very fabrications. What matters is the daily disassembling of our democratic institutions.

“We are a mature democracy – it is well past time that we stop excusing or ignoring – or worse, endorsing -- these attacks on the truth. For if we compromise the truth for the sake of our politics, we are lost.

“I sincerely thank my colleagues for their indulgence today. I will close by borrowing the words of an early adherent to my faith that I find has special resonance at this moment. His name was John Jacques, and as a young missionary in England he contemplated the question: 'What is truth?' His search was expressed in poetry and ultimately in a hymn that I grew up with, titled 'Oh Say, What is Truth.' It ends as follows:

“’Then say, what is truth? 'Tis the last and the first,

For the limits of time it steps o'er.

Tho the heavens depart and the earth's fountains burst.

Truth, the sum of existence, will weather the worst,

Eternal… unchanged… evermore.’

“Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.”

Please read full transcript and thoughts from Politico.  See below:

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/01/17/full-text-jeff-flake-on-trump-speech-transcript-343246

Going to Norway?

Maybe I’ll Go To Norway – No "X"-Hole Country

Some of the best fishing is found in the fjords of Norway.  Really, I am not kidding.  Huge Halibut. Mammoth Sea Trout.  Pollock – and we’re not talking Jackson’s splashes here.  Good eating and a fight beforehand that leaves you famished. I love to fish.  And for that reason:

I’ve been looking in to ways to emigrate to Norway. 

Not so easy.  I thought maybe as an American – coming from a beautiful soon-to-be-walled land everyone else is desperate to enter – I’d find myself quite welcome in a cold country with an average temperature in warm months in the 60’s.  Cold months might require hunkering down or learning to fish through ice many feet thick.  

Unfortunately, like most nations, I will first have to qualify for acceptance into the country of Norway. 

“If you wish to come to Norway to work, you need a residence permit. You must normally have found a job first. What residence permit you should apply for depends on your competence and the type of work you will be doing in Norway.”

https://www.udi.no/en/want-to-apply/work-immigration/?c=usa

Grrr.  My wife is a shoe-in.  A nurse with a higher education (or an engineer); no questions asked.  But then again, a health worker with some vocational training – like many of the Haitians who cared for my mother in her last days in Florida – are also acceptable.  Or, if you are a seasonal worker, like a picker of crops, forestry labor, fish processing, or restaurant work; well, you are okay to go.

I can try to get in an exchange program, but at age 70 I will not likely make the sprint, cross country skiing, or even high hurdles for which the Norwegians are so well known. 

And seafaring?  Quite honestly, I don’t know if I have the “grit” at this point in my life to do a job on the high seas that Arne Duncan or Norway would find acceptable for a permanent residency. 

Maybe I can argue that I’m a good fit.  After all, Norway is nearly 95% white – a fact and cause not lost on our current President. I just need to find the willing Scandinavian to consider making a switch.

And POTUS would prefer that Norwegians come to the United States, rather than those from “%&^# hole countries like in Africa or Haiti.  Making America Great Again requires bringing in the right kind of people, and by kind we’re talking the sub textual code color, like white.  30% of us have been waiting, a disturbed assemblage of birthers and "some fine people" who have been on hold and fruitlessly seething for the last eight years. 

It might be a hard sell.  I imagine if some hopefully foolish Norwegian named maybe Lief, Ola, or Nels is contemplating emigrating to Trump’s “Great Again” America, he’ll have to rationalize coming to a place where 28 out of 100,00 pregnancies end in death as opposed to 5 in Norway.  His average chance of dying will be reduced by nearly 4 years.  His pay will be seriously reduced, but his taxes will also be significantly cut.  Remember, Sven, your system allowed for complete health care, for which you paid and a splendid infrastructure with a payment of nearly 45% of your income.  And, of course, your free education system is considered one of the best in the world.   

You may get what you pay for in Norway, Sven, but here in U.S.A. you’ll find we try not to pay for anything or anyone else – that road in front of your house is an entitlement.  Healthcare?  Let's just say, it won't be a burden to your taxes.  

Maybe that’ s why we have double the public debt as a country than Norway.  Also, perhaps why we have nearly 20% less purchasing power than a citizen in your country despite your high taxation rates.   And when you arrive with your qualifications in hand, be intrepid, be persistent – our unemployment rate is at nearly three times Norway’s.  

http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/compare/Norway/United-States/Economy

 

Of course, your government in Norway has also made a strategic goal to become climate change neutral by 2030, not 2050 as previously planned.  Following the Paris Accords, Norway, not even a member of the EU, has made the decision to trade in Carbon emissions to lessen the impact of using coal and fossil fuels as the nation searches for means to generate renewable energy sources.  Your country has refused to wait any further for fear of what your scientists agree is a man0made increase in global temperatures.

Not here, Sven.  We don't buy into that stuff, our evolution, or free press.  In fact you’ll find the greatest assortment of pesticides and herbicides flavoring the air over our crops in the coming spring.  Climate change is fake news, my blond and blue-eyed friend.  The media is never to be believed, and we are all educated as we can afford to be - or on average nearly $25,000 in loans per student.  

And, if I am fortuitous enough to convince Sven or whoever to come here in my place, I welcome him to the current amoral leadership in the White House and spineless Congress.  Paraphrasing our leader, #45,  as you arrive on our shores, I bid you -

Velkommen til shit-hullet

#45 - Tweeter in Chief

Book Your Flight Now!

This morning, #45 tweeted, “Since taking office I have been very strict on Commercial Aviation. Good news - it was just reported that there were Zero deaths in 2017, the best and safest year on record!

8:13 AM - Jan 2, 2018  (@realDonald Trump)”

The tweet, like so many others, prompted a moment of head scratching and confusion.  Is #45 saying what I think he is saying?

According to a quick Google search of the terms Cause & Effect and Correlation:

“Theoretically, the difference between the two types of relationships are easy to identify — an action or occurrence can cause another (e.g. smoking causes an increase in the risk of developing lung cancer), or it can correlate with another (e.g. smoking is correlated with alcoholism, but it does not cause alcoholism).Jul 3, 2013”

We already know that VP Mike Pence would never consider the veracity of the explanation by Google.  After all, he willingly pocketed thousands of dollars acting as an earlier political sycophant for the smoking industry to deny any cause and effect between the millions emulating the Marlboro Man and – like his - their own untimely deaths choking on sputum.  Then again, no one sychophants like Pence! 

With #45, we have an even deeper problem.  Cause and effect is blurred even to the point that climate science is openly denied regardless of the preponderance of international science, measurements, and political movements to reduce carbon emissions or reverse some of the damage of man-made green house gases.  

“Global warming has been proven to be a canard repeatedly over and over again.

The left needs a dose of reality.

12:43 PM - Mar 28, 2012 (@realDonald Trump)”

And correlation may be another theory just beyond the reach of the current occupant.   For example, after learning from his intelligence sources that Russia and Vladimir Putin were undeniably involved with hacking our recent election, Trump was quick to respond to the figures and information:

“Putin & I discussed forming an impenetrable Cyber Security unit so that election hacking, & many other negative things, will be guarded..

5:50 AM - Jul 9, 2017 (@realDonaldTrump)”

I feel safer now.  And I guess I should on an airline this next year too, given #45’s careful shepherding of people in the skies this year.  On the other hand, a thoughtful response by David A. Graham in The Atlantic this morning this may be once again a sign of the narcissistic, despotic nature of our current occupant to praise himself for what he had/has never accomplished or even understood. 

“The president’s claim can’t withstand even slight scrutiny. The 2017 milestone is worth celebrating, but changes in statistics like air safety are achieved over long time scales, and given the small number of crashes involved, minor deviations in the number are unlikely attributable to any specific presidential action—especially one take in the just under a year Trump has been in office.

“But the problems with Trump’s claim don’t end there. First, the statistic involved is crashes worldwide. American aviation has already been extremely safe. No U.S. airline has had a fatality since 2009, when a commuter turboprop crashed near Buffalo, New York, and there hasn’t been a fatal passenger jet accident since 2006, when a plane crashed during takeoff in Lexington, Kentucky. (Foreign carriers have had fatal accidents in the United States, like the 2013 Asiana Airlines crash landing at San Francisco that killed three people.) Trump wishes to take credit for what’s happened overseas—matters both beyond the control of American power, and given the small sample size, also a product of good luck.”

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/01/trumps-bogus-claim-of-credit-for-aviation-safety/549461/

In another 18 days, I will have been under the reign of a man who considers all good things originating from him alone.  And, all bad things originating from him as good.

I have undergone almost a full year of pundits, economists, political suck-up’s, and the intelligentsia of the media trying to ascribe some deeper or cognitive reasoning to #45, and I find myself becoming inured to the ludicrosity of it all. 

The other day, NPR was reviewing some of the behaviors and history of Idi Amin Dada’s dictatorship over the Ugandan people.  It is not so easy driving a car while you fall into an echo chamber.

Amin Dada used to say, “The problem with me is that I am fifty or one hundred years ahead of my time.  My speed is very fast.  Some ministers have had to drop out of my government because they could not keep up.” 

Trump: As for Tillerson's reported "moron" 'comment, the president said, "I think it's fake news. But if he did that, I guess we'll have to compare IQ tests. And I can tell you who is going to win."

And, like watching Spicer defending the number of people attending #45’s inauguration as the largest in history, Amin Dada warned us all that “If we knew the meaning to everything that was happening to us, then there would be no meaning.”  Thank goodness for alternative facts. 

So my New Year’s resolution is to shelve any hope of #45 utilizing Cause & Effect, Correlation, or even Coincidence in his labored fingering of the Tweet in the early hours of the morning. 

The real Correlation, followed by a legitimate Cause and Effect occurred in Alabama last month.  It will not happen again by Coincidence.  It is time for all of us to go to work.

Have a Happy New Year.

PS – If you plan to fly somewhere, you can be assured this is the time to do it.