With all due respect, Governor Shapiro . . .

. . . when was the last time you or one of your loved ones was denied access to lifesaving medical care or medication, or faced bankruptcy because such coverage was denied?

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My thoughts on the Penny verdict, as someone who has been a resident of NYC for 43 years . . .

I believe the jury erred greatly.

Look, I ride the subways every day. The experience of being in a subway car, from which there is no exit as the train travels between stations, while a clearly disturbed individual rants and raves and seems to be menacing, is indeed a scary one, and it's an experience that nearly every New Yorker has had at some point. But to green-light physical intervention absent an actual physical attack on anyone is to issue an open invitation to vigilantism.

I believe the judge erred in permitting evidence of Jordan Neely's criminal record to be aired at the trial. Why? Because neither Daniel Penny nor anyone in that subway car knew anything about his criminal past. So to allow it to be used as a justification for putting someone in a 6-minute chokehold is an absurd, ex post facto rationalization, not a justification, for Penny's actions.

I'm sorry, but I don't want every Tom, Dick and Harry to be making his or her own judgments as to whether someone who is ranting and raving -- irrespective of what they are saying -- constitutes a threat sufficient to warrant a physical intervention from that Tom, Dick or Harry! Neely was unarmed, and hadn't attacked anyone, despite whatever he might have been saying. And I believe that for the jury to say that such intervention is fine and good is extremely dangerous for the civic life of this city!

On the investigation of the murder of the UnitedHealthcare CEO

It has been widely reported that the shooter fled on a Citibike. Citibike is operated by Lyft. As of two hours ago, more than seven hours after the murder, per the Washington Post, Lyft claimed that it was ready to assist in the investigation, but the NYPD had not contacted them.

That seems like a pretty egregious delay, if you ask me!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/12/04/unitedhealthcare-ceo-brian-thompson-fatally-shot-new-york/#link-DJALU4M2L5DQLNK5X75NEI76DA

Republican Cabinet Picks, Past and Present

It occurred to me that Trump's antics with respect to his cabinet picks were in many ways presaged by the cabinet picks of Republican presidents going back to at least Reagan. Reagan and both Bushes (Bush I to a lesser extent) in some cases chose people for cabinet-level positions who were ideologically hostile to the government agencies they were appointed to lead, despite the fact that those agencies were created for specific purposes by acts of Congress.

By right, if a president wishes to undo the proper functioning of those agencies, he should have to get Congress to decommission them. But doing that is harder, and often politically problematic. But we've allowed Republican presidents to undermine the functioning of government agencies whose mission they happen to disagree with by appointing ideologically hostile persons to head those agencies, all in the name of giving presidents the "team" of their choosing.

And lest anyone think I am unfairly singling out Republicans, I would point out that Democrats are not, unlike Republicans, hostile to the founding mission of these various government agencies.

Election post-mortem nonsense

I have seen and heard countless election post-mortems over the last several days, and frankly, I don't really buy any of them. I see where Bernie Sanders has come out with some pretty blistering criticism of the leadership of the Democratic Party, saying essentially that the shift towards Trump on the part of African American and Latino men is because the party abandoned labor.

While I think that criticism of the party is valid, I don’t think that fully accounts for the shift, particularly among Black and Latino men. And neither is that criticism exactly new. Look, the Democratic Party abandoned organized labor in the 1990s, when, concerned at how much corporate money was flowing to Republicans, they went in search of their own share of corporate largesse. And they did that largely by dropping organized labor concerns from the party platform entirely, and they never really restored it (although Biden was the most pro-labor president we’ve had since Johnson). But I’m not convinced that even if the party had warmly reembraced labor, that it would have made enough of a difference in the 2024 election. Actually, I think the real moment when those concerns could have had a major impact was in 2016, when Bernie challenged Hillary in the primary. But I think that moment has long passed.

I don’t believe this election was lost on policy issues, nor the economy, nor because of liberals being “too condescending,” nor because of pronouns or the rights of trans persons, nor any of the other Monday-morning quarterback explanations. All of these explanations start with the assumption that there was a rational basis for voters to make the choice they made. But if you buy into, say, Bernie's explanation, for example, how does voting for Republicans in general, let alone Trump, make any rational sense at all?

And for those who say "identity politics" caused Democrats to lose, I would point out that the only candidate who has even been talking at any length about, say DEI, pronouns and trans people has been Trump.

No, I think there is something much deeper -- and far darker -- going on here. For certain voters – and evidently far more voters than I ever realized – Trump appeals to the id. These voters actually like Trump's bottomless vulgarity and non-stop cruelty. They didn't vote for him because of his "policies" or any of the other reasons people are citing. They voted for him knowing exactly who and what he is, because they truly LIKE his worst attributes! They love him because he hates the same people they hate, and because he provides a permission structure for them to be open about many of their most vile bigotries!

Trump is the embodiment of what is commonly called “toxic masculinity.” And toxic males appeal to other toxic males in a big way. (And let’s be honest: both the African American and Latino communities have their share of “toxic males.”) And if you don’t like the term “toxic masculinity,” then I will throw out another term coined by the New York Times: hegemonic masculinity. By whatever term you call it, it refers to an expression of masculinity (and particular white Christian masculinity) that is pathetically insecure in the face of strong women or non-traditional males operating on a level playing field with them.

Sorry, but I will listen to no more excuses for these folks!

There have already been, and will continue to be in the coming days and months, no shortage of persons coming out with their prescriptions for what Democrats need to do going forward. Many of them will try to tell us, in effect, that if we want to win elections, we will have to become more like Republicans: that we will have to abandon our concern for the fair and equal treatment of the historically marginalized and oppressed, or that we need to stop talking about abortion. These kinds of prescriptions must be emphatically resisted, because these issues, regardless of the political challenges they represent, are far bigger than merely questions of political success or failure; these are fundamental questions of basic human decency and of right versus wrong! If Democrats cease to defend these values, there will be no one left in this country who will do so!

And finally, I reject out of hand those who offer glib assurances to the effect that "we'll be fine" or that "everything will be okay." You don't know that and I don't know that, and neither does anyone else!

An old trick is playing out before our eyes

In the wake of the disgusting, racist rally at Madison Square Garden, we are seeing an old trick playing out among many Republicans. It’s the very same trick once used by genteel, white Southerners, who tried to make everyone believe that because they themselves avoided saying or doing anything that was overtly racist, that they themselves were therefore utterly free of any racist intent. They would support politicians who carried out vile, racist policies, and if called out on their support, would retreat behind statements such as, “Well, I don’t necessarily agree with Politician X on everything, but I am supporting him because I like his policies.”

To which I say, “Besides that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?”

I have long argued that when a person provides plenty of food, water and sunshine to a bigoted politician (i.e., supports them politically despite ample evidence that said politician supports policies that person claims to oppose), it matters not a wit of the person claims not to be a bigot himself/herself. We ALL have a share of responsibility for the things the politicians we support do and say. And it is all too convenient for these folks to claim that they aren’t, for example, racist, while they support politicians who will do the dirty work of racism so these folks don’t have to sully themselves with all of the nastiness.

J.D. Vance, of course, is trying to say that outrage over the vile comments heard at MSG is just liberals feigning outrage over a “joke.” Sorry, no. When an entire group of people is vilified at a political rally by a national politician, that is NEVER a joke.

Most have heard the famous quote by Maya Angelou: “When a person shows you who they are, believe them the first time.” Donald Trump has shown us who he is time and time again. And the only people deserving less respect than his hardcore supporters are those who continue to willfully refuse to believe that Donald Trump is exactly what he has repeatedly shown himself to be!

Posted this to FB today, after hearing Trump's comments about Arnold Palmer in the locker room

Gotta wonder...

Given the homophobia that is so rampant in MAGA world, I wonder how many of those Trump supporters who swayed with Trump to the strains of Village People's "YMCA" understood that they were swaying to one of the signature gay anthems of the '70s -- a song written as a euphemistic celebration of men cruising other men for sex at the local Y. Inquiring minds want to know!

The depth of the rot at the Supreme Court

Yesterday, a thought occurred to me regarding the outrageous immunity ruling by the Supreme Court. Although that ruling is unprecedented, I realized that it does have a historical parallel.

The ruling, as well all know, came from the six conservative justices, all of whom were essentially handpicked by the Federalist Society. So what federal judge was an early patron and promoter of the Federalist Society? Why, that would be Robert Bork!

Bork is mostly remembered today for the fact that his Supreme Court nomination got shot down. But he is also the same Robert Bork who, as solicitor general in the Nixon administration, carried out Nixon's order to fire Watergate prosecutor Archibald Cox (after Cox requested the White House tapes), after Nixon's AG Elliot Richardson, and Deputy AG William Ruckleshaus, both refused to do so and resigned in protest. But Bork saw nothing wrong with trying to shut down the investigation and prosecution of a criminal Republican President by firing Cox.

So how can we be at all surprised, then, that the six justices that were handpicked by the very organization of which Bork was an early patron would try to shut down the criminal prosecution of another criminal Republican President by granting him immunity?

It all goes to show, I think, that the rot among the conservative justices today predates Trump by several decades, and is part of the very same corruption that has been ongoing within the conservative movement going back possibly as the Powell Memo in 1971!