On the Subject of Torture . . . .

As long as we're discussing torture, I should point out that there is a certain subset of conservative thugs who justify their support for waterboarding by insisting that waterboarding is not torture.  Personally, I'm more inclined to accept the opinion of a Republican politician who has actually been tortured, or failing that, of someone who has actually been waterboarded.

So to Newt Gingrich, Ted Cruz, Karl Rove, Tom Cotton and anyone else who insists waterboarding is not torture, I'd like to make a suggestion.  Arrange to have yourselves waterboarded on live television, before a bi-partisan panel of witnesses.  If you do that, I promise I will strongly consider your opinion that waterboarding is not torture.

Until then, please shut the hell up.

On Torture: An Open Letter to Mike Pence

Mr. Pence,

Today on Face the Nation, you left open the possibility that the incoming administration will use waterboarding and other forms of torture on prisoners.  You refused to contradict the statements of your profane running-mate that he would approve not only waterboarding, but "more than that", regardless of whether it is effective as an interrogation technique, because "they deserve it anyway, for what they're doing".  Torture is inherently odious and immoral, and so it is exactly what I expect from your profane running-mate, but it is especially so because he is advocating torture of prisoners WHO HAVEN'T BEEN CONVICTED OF ANY WRONG-DOING VIA DUE PROCESS.

Apparently, despite your many years of experience in the House of Representatives, you need an ordinary citizen like me to remind you that torture is illegal under both U.S. and international law, immoral, and unconstitutional.  In January, you will take an oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution, the 8th amendment of which reads:

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

The current president, a man who is worth several thousand of you and your profane running-mate, and who is also a professor of constitutional law, understood his obligations under the Constitution, and correctly stated upon taking office:

First, I can say without exception or equivocation that the United States will not torture . . . . America's moral example must be the bedrock and beacon of our global leadership.

Since it seems that you don't understand this, you cannot faithfully carry out the responsibilities of the office for which you have been chosen.  I therefore urge that if you have any shred of honor, you must refuse the office of the Vice-Presidency, and you must persuade your profane running-mate to refuse the office of the Presidency as well.  I have no doubt that you will dismiss this suggestion, as I am sure you and your profane running-mate are both entirely without honor.  I also realize that it would create a constitutional crisis for our country for both the President and Vice-President elect to refuse the oath of office at this point.  However, the crisis it would cause would be far less than the crises we will face if you and your torture-loving crony are allowed to set foot in the White House.

I would further suggest that once you have left politics, that you both search for entry-level jobs in the service industry, possibly working as janitors at a halfway house or a juvenile detention facility.  You might learn some humility and some compassion for others, and whether you do or not, you would be doing more to make America great than you're likely to accomplish leading the government.

(Readers are encouraged to write their own letter to Mr. Pence, and are free to use this letter as a starting point, or copy it in its entirety.  For the next month or two, I would imagine that Mr. Pence can be contacted here.)

Surviving the Trumpocalypse: Part 1 - The Courts

Here's a study in contrasts.  In an entirely predictable development, The Stain's election victory has emboldened the more deplorable of his supporters to act on their worst impulses:

There have been 437 reported acts of verbal and physical harassment recorded by the Southern Poverty Law Center since voters elected Donald Trump president of the United States. 

 Appointments such as Steve Bannon to Trump's administration and a failure to seriously address the hateful Trump campaign rhetoric, the social justice watchdog organization says there’s no telling how high that number will grow. 

Fortunately, the Obama administration is still in office for another 62 days, which includes an Attorney General who takes the rule of law seriously:

Attorney General Loretta Lynch announced Friday that the Justice Department is investigating whether the dozens of incidents of intimidation and harassment reported in the days since the election qualify as federal hate crimes.

“The FBI is assessing, in conjunction with federal prosecutors, whether particular incidents constitute violations of federal law,” Lynch said in a videotaped statement.

Unfortunately, more than 61 million Americans either didn't understand or didn't care that this would happen, and decided it would be a good idea to put The Stain and his cronies in charge of the U.S. government for the next 4 years.  And unless the U.S. Senate does its job, Loretta Lynch will be replaced by an Attorney General who isn't quite so concerned with civil rights:

 Sessions defended Trump’s proposed ban on Muslims from entering the United States and Trump has embraced many of Sessions’ proposals, like “canceling federal funds to sanctuary cities,” slowing legal immigration and challenging the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of birthright citizenship. In January, a top aide to Sessions, Stephen Miller, joined the Trump campaign as senior policy adviser, and Sessions’ Chief of Staff Rick Dearborn is the executive director of Trump’s transition team.

In 1986, a bipartisan majority of the Senate Judiciary Committee rejected his nomination to a federal judgeship in the midst of charges of racial bias.

No matter who replaces Loretta Lynch as Attorney General, the Muslims, blacks, Latinos, LGBTQs and others who are the targets of The Stain's deplorables will be losing a powerful ally in the legal system.  This is why the most important and effective way those of us in the reality-based community can begin to fight back against The Stain is to support independent legal organizations who will step into the void left behind when the U.S. no longer has a competent Attorney General.  My recommendations are:

• The American Civil Liberties Union
• The Southern Poverty Law Center
• The Human Rights Campaign

The ACLU and SPLC are probably the foremost legal organizations for defending civil rights in America and fighting hate.  The Human Rights Campaign also defends civil rights, but it is focused on LGBTQ rights.  Pick your favorite, or pick them all.  If you can manage it, sign on to make regular monthly donations.  For the next four years, these organizations will be the best response we have to all forms of bigotry championed by The Stain and his supporters.

Of course, fighting them in the courts is just the beginning.

Stupid

A few days ago, someone posted a link to an article in the Washington Post about a Muslim woman who voted for The Stain.  I made the comment that this particular woman is stupid, and provided reasons to support my position (I also added a particular vulgar gerund at one point).  A number of other people chastised me for this, saying that it should be possible for adults to disagree without resorting to name-calling.  And I've seen other people argue that the 'adult' thing to do is for Stain supporters and Clinton supporters to agree to disagree.

While that argument sounds polite and reasonable and all, it's completely wrong.  'Stupid' is the friendliest possible description for Stain voters, which should be obvious to anyone who's been paying attention.  But since there seem to be a lot of people who don't get it, let me remind everyone of a few of the reasons why The Stain is utterly unqualified for the job the Electoral College is about to hand him:

• He's an enthusiastic supporter of torture, promising to authorize torture "a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding" on suspected terrorists.
• He's an enthusiastic supporter of the murder of innocent people, if they have a family member who is a suspected terrorist.
• He wants to ban all Muslims from entering the U.S., which is unconstitutional and uncomfortably close to Nazi policies towards Jews and Catholics.
• He is a self-identified sexual predator.  And as at least 15 different women have stated, The Stain's 'grab em by the p***y' statements aren't just talk; he actually does things like this.
• Essentially every single security professional, newspaper editor, and politician who knows what the job of president requires has publicly stated that he's not qualified for the job.

If a friend or coworker expressed did any of these first four things, the appropriate response --- at a minimum --- would be to shun the person.  A more appropriate response would be to try to gently explain to them why their attitude/behavior is immoral.  To support or condone those attitudes or behaviors in any way is morally indefensible.

But roughly 60 million people did MORE than just condone these behaviors from The Stain, THEY VOTED FOR HIM TO BE PRESIDENT!!!  Especially considering his complete lack of qualifications for the job, the people who voted for The Stain are 'stupid' at best.  If he actually follows through on any of the first three items, one could argue that they are complicit in war crimes!  This isn't a simple difference of opinion; this is about a moral imperative to speak out against evil.

Now, I have the good fortune not to have any Stain supporters among my friends or family (so far as I know).  So I can't imagine how difficult it must be for someone with a close friend or relative who voted for The Stain.  So I don't fault anyone for the choice they make about how to handle that relationship --- though again, I believe the best choice is to attempt to gently bring that person around to understand just how horrible The Stain is.

At the same time, however, please don't scold me for speaking up.  Someone needs to.  The failure to do so could have profoundly awful consequences.

Medicare on the Chopping Block

Two days after the election, and already we have the first victim of the incipient presidency of The Stain.  Republican Speaker Paul Ryan is proposing to phase out Medicare as part of the promised repeal of Obamacare.

As the article notes, Obamacare has actually improved the financial picture for Medicare, and the two programs are linked.  So if the Republicans want to repeal Obamacare --- thus robbing an estimated 20 million people of health insurance --- there's no reason for Medicare to be affected at all.  But Ryan wants to push Medicare recipients into private insurance plans anyway.

Of course, president Clinton wouldn't have allowed any of this to happen.  But with The Stain in the White House --- well, I don't like the chances of 20 million of our poorest citizens, plus all of our nation's elderly, to get decent health insurance.

Making America Great!

UPDATE: President Clinton would have protected Obamacare, of course, but she also would have added a public option, which likely would have helped to keep insurance rates under control.  And far from privatizing Medicare, she actually would have given people ages 55 - 65 the option of buying into Medicare.

But remember, Clinton and The Stain were both equally terrible candidates!

The Pottery Barn Rule

Well, congratulations, Trump supporters.  It looks like you got what you wanted.  What you think you wanted, anyway.  So go ahead and celebrate.  Shoot your gun, drink some beer, grab someone by the 'whatever' --- whatever you do to celebrate.  No sense in everyone being miserable.

But when you're done celebrating, I have an important message for you: you own this.  You break it, you bought it.  It appears that a lot of you had removed yourselves from the democratic process because you didn't think any of the candidates spoke for you.  Apparently, Trump won mainly by energizing a large group of people who don't normally vote.  You're the ones I'm talking to now.

The time is coming, and it's going to be soon, when you realize that you've made a horrible, horrible mistake.  I give it a year, tops.  And when that happens, you DON'T get to go back to not caring about the system.  Like I said, YOU OWN THIS.  So in 4 years, after it's become clear that Trump has driven our country straight into oblivion, it is ON YOU to fix the mess you made.

That means voting for whoever the Democrats nominate.  And I mean WHOEVER the Democrats nominate, even if she's a transgender lesbian Mexican.  AND for every other Democrat on your ballot.

You voted for Trump because you think he'll 'shake things up', and he will.  So will an earthquake or a tornado.  So when that's over, YOU need to work with people like me to 'shake things up' in the right way by getting Trump out of the White House and getting enough Democrats in Congress to make sure she can fix everything that needs fixing.

That is all.

Closing Argument

I'll keep this as brief as possible.  With the election only 3 days away, it is imperative that you vote for a Democrat in every race on your ballot.  If you can't bring yourself to vote for Hillary, then vote for the rest of the Democrats anyway.  Do NOT vote for Trump.  Here's why.

Only Two Choices
Let's get this out of the way first.  Come January, either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump will be taking the oath of office.  Not Gary Johnson, not Jill Stein, not Evan McMullin or any other flavor-of-the-month candidate.  You may not like it, but those are the facts.  So you need to choose between Hillary and Trump; if you do anything else, you're letting other people choose for you.  And between those two candidates, the choice is blindingly obvious.

#NeverTrump
The case against Trump breaks down into three categories: his policies, his behavior, and his war against American democracy.  We will bullet-point items from the first two categories here, and discuss the last category at the end of this post.

First, his policy positions:

• He wants to torture suspected terrorists, and who knows who else.  In addition to being morally wrong and couterproductive, U.S. law has long considered the use of torture illegal.
• He has said on multiple occasions that he would kill the families of suspected terrorists.  Put bluntly, he would kill innocent people, including children, when they are related to someone America merely suspects of being a terrorist.  This would clearly be highly immoral and criminal.
• His signature issue is his desire to build a wall between the U.S. and Mexico.  This wall is estimated to cost the U.S. taxpayer between $15 - $25 billion, and is unlikely to have much effect on illegal immigration or drug trafficking.  (You're fooling yourself if you believe Trump's promise that Mexico will pay for it; he's not running for president of Mexico)  Additionally, it is a solution in search of a problem, as illegal immigration from Mexico has been steadily decreasing for the past decade.
• He wants to create a deportation force to deport most or all of the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S.  In addition to the human cost of splitting up families and communities, this plan is estimated to cost up to $300 billion and drain nearly $1 trillion from the U.S. economy.
• Typical of Republican candidates, Trump would enact a huge new tax cut, the main benefit of which would go to the wealthiest Americans and to corporations, and which would increase the national debt by an estimated $7 trillion over the next decade.  We all remember how well George W. Bush's huge tax cuts supercharged the economy, don't we?
• He has called to ban all Muslims from entering the U.S., and although he has formally changed his policy since then, this seems to be mostly driven by a desire to avoid comparisons to Nazi Germany's treatment of Jews, and not a change in his view of all Muslims as potential terrorists.  In effectively declaring war on Islam, there is no doubt Trump has aided ISIS in recruiting new terrorists.
• He supports the so-called "stop and frisk" policy for police, which as Jamelle Bouie explains, essentially amounts to sanctioned police harrassment of minorities.  Also, it's unconstitutional.
• Finance experts agree that Trump's policy statements about the national debt are nonsense at best, and disastrous at worst.
• He has publicly stated that as president, America might not fulfill its defense obligations to its NATO allies.
• He supports both South Korea and Japan becoming nuclear powers, and possibly Saudi Arabia as well.
• "A Donald Trump presidency poses a top-10 risk event that could disrupt the world economy, lead to political chaos in the U.S. and heighten security risks for the United States, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit."

Next, his behavior:

• As his statements about reducing the debt, meeting our obligations to our NATO allies, and nuclear proliferation demonstrate, Trump has no idea about how the U.S. or world economies or international security works, and he has no interest in developing the expertise required to be president.
• He offers as his main qualification his alleged success as a businessman.  But he has had multiple business failures, including as recently as last week, and that doesn't even include his epic Atlantic City casino fiasco.  His record of failure is so extensive, U.S. banks will no longer work with him.
• Whatever business success he's had has come largely from running scams like Trump University, and refusing to pay people money he owes them, knowing that he has enough legal muscle to prevent most people from getting justice in court.
• But he does love tying up the courts for his personal gain.  USA Today estimates that Trump is currently involved in 4,095 lawsuits and counting.
• He has a history of racism, including his insistence on the guilt of the so-called Central Park Five after DNA tests exonerated them from any wrongdoing.  Evidence of his ongoing racism can be seen in his support for "stop and frisk" policing.
• He is a sexual predator, a fact he was caught bragging about in a 2005 recording, and corroborated by (so far) 15 different women.  Given his recent derogatory statements about Hillary, Carly Fiorina, Rosie O'Donnell and Megyn Kelly, there's no reason to believe he's changed his ways (a man with a newfound respect for women wouldn't say such things).  Indeed, Trump's good friend Howard Stern confirms "This is who Trump is".
• He is a legendary misogynist.  In addition to being a sexual predator, it seems that he got into the business of running beauty pageants mainly so he could go leer at the contestants in the dressing room, including girls as young as 15.  He also agreed with Stern that his own daughter, Ivanka, is "a piece of ass".
• He lies as easily as he breathes (warning: page takes a long time to load.  I'm not kidding).
• He poses as a generous philanthropist, even setting up the Trump Foundation, but he's not.  He only made a promised $1 million donation to a veterans' organization after he was shamed into it.
• He insults, belittles and demeans practically everyone, including women, veterans and the disabled.

The final, and really most damning, arguments against Trump have to do with his efforts to undermine American democracy, with the eager assistance of the Republican party.  But we'll get to that later.

Benghazi! And the Clinton Foundation! And Emails!

At this point, you may be persuaded that Donald Trump is the worst candidate ever nominated by a major party in U.S. history.  And you'd be right!  So go vote!

However, you may still have reservations about Clinton, due almost entirely to a massive disinformation campaign on the part of the Republican party and its various organs (FOX News and, increasingly, Breitbart).  The short answer is: there's nothing to these faux 'Clinton scandals', or at least not much.  I've written detailed explanations about Benghazi and the emails already, and I've waded through quite a bit of refuting Clinton Cash.  But what you really need to know is much simpler.

Congressional Republicans hate Hillary Clinton, and will do anything in their power to destroy her.  And it has recently come to light that some FBI agents bear this same hatred, and have been working feverishly through the Clinton Cash accusations in an effort to take her down.

And you know what they all found?  Nothing.

There is no doubt that Hillary broke State Department rules in using a private email server for official business, and she has admitted her mistake.  But the worst that can be said is that she put some low-level classified information at risk --- at risk, mind you, which is a far cry from, say, selling state secrets.  Hardly a reason to lock her up, as Trump has been calling for.

When the FBI and multiple congressional investigations spend years trying to make a case against someone, and they're unable to find any evidence of wrongdoing, do you know what you call that person?

Innocent.

#ImWithHer

So what will Hillary do as president that's so great?  I'm glad you asked.

• A former Bernie Bro explains why he's come around to supporting Clinton.
• The Nation provides a dozen reasons for backing Clinton.
• And Kevin Drum really pulls out the stops, stating that "The progressive case for Hillary Clinton is pretty overwhelming".
• She supports reproductive rights more fully than probably any candidate for president in history, and her Supreme Court nominees are likely to reflect that fact.
• She's been working to improve the health care system for at least the last 25 years, and wants to improve Obamacare by adding a public option and introducing a Medicare buy-in for people aged 55 and up.
• Her immigration policy is pretty much 180 degrees away from Trump's.
• She supports universal early childhood education, which not only benefits all of America's children, but which is an extremely cost-effective way of reducing crime rates, welfare costs, health care costs, and providing other societal benefits.
• She supports raising the federal minimum wage to $12/hour (not as good as $15/hour, but still better than Trump).
• She has plans to reduce the burden of college debt.
• She's committed to equal treatment under the law for both LGBTQ and racial minorities.
• The Clinton Foundation. Republicans have (successfully, I'm afraid) conned people into believing the whole operation is a scam, but it actually does a lot of good, and the Clintons deserve a lot of credit for creating and running it.
• Lots of other good stuff.
• She would actually PAY for her proposed policy changes by increasing taxes, primarily on the wealthiest 1%, as opposed to Trump's giveaway to the wealthiest and corporations.

What Others Are Saying

Although it seems that a lot of everyday Americans support Trump, practically no one with any depth of knowledge of the issues does, unless they work for the Republican party, the Trump campaign, or FOX or Breitbart news.

• 30 retired Republican lawmakers have signed a letter stating that Trump lacks the intelligence and temperament to be president.
• 50 Republican national security officials have signed a letter stating that a Trump presidency "would put at risk our country's national security and well-being".
• Practically all of the newspapers making an endorsement in the election have endorsed Hillary.  Many of these papers have rarely if ever before endorsed a Democrat, including the Arizona Republic, the Cincinnati Enquirer, the Dallas News, and the San Diego Union-Tribune.
• Trump, on the other hand, has only received endorsements from eight traditional newspapers, plus the National Enquirer and the official newspaper of the Ku Klux Klan.
• Despite Trump giving Clinton the nickname of 'Crooked Hillary', and his success in persuading the public that she is somehow corrupt, all independent fact checkers find that Trump is, by far, the bigger liar.

So, you know, if you STILL think Trump is the better choice of president, you'd better go back and check your work, since a whole lot of people --- most of them probably smarter than you --- think differently.

But the Most Important Reason to Vote for Hillary (and every other Democrat you can find) is . . . .

The Republican party is actively working to disrupt and undermine American democracy.  This may sound like I've gone into tinfoil hat territory, or that I'm using hyperbole.  But the facts could not be clearer, and it's important to come to grips with that now, before it's too late.

It started with systematic voter suppression efforts early this century, under the guise of preventing vote fraud.  Although there are practically no documented cases of in-person voter fraud (someone attempting to cast a vote under another person's name), Republican legislatures in 30 states have passed laws requiring a voter to prevent some form of ID before casting a ballot.  Although this sounds like a reasonable and harmless requirement, it exists mainly to reduce voter turnout among economically disadvantaged groups --- groups who tend to vote for Democrats more than Republicans.  Of course these laws face challenges in the courts, and in some cases they have been overturned.  The most egregious of these laws is probably in North Carolina, where a federal court found that the voter ID law was enacted to suppress turnout among black voters, who were targeted "with almost surgical precision".  And there's no reason to believe the voter ID laws in other states are any better.

Ironically, despite the Republican party's efforts to rig the polls in their favor, their nominee Trump is publicly claiming exactly the opposite, that the polls are 'rigged' against him --- but never providing any proof.  Because, well, there is none.

And this isn't the only way in which Trump and the Republicans are undermining the democratic process.

In a normal election, the candidates campaign --- they campaign on the issues, and/or they attack their opponent.  And then the voters vote, and the loser graciously accepts defeat.  This has become such an ingrained part of American democracy that we take it for granted.  And we shouldn't.  People who wave the American flag --- usually Republicans --- like to remind us that our freedoms were gained at the cost of great sacrifice on the part of brave soldiers in places like Gettysburg, or Normandy, and that their sacrifice must not be forgotten.  And they're right.

At the same time, Donald Trump and the Republican party are currently shredding everything those soldiers fought for.  Trump repeatedly tells his supporters that his opponent belongs in jail, and has promised to prosecute her if elected.  He has even gone so far as to obliquely suggest she should be shot.  For months, he has been warning of a 'rigged' election, and refuses to pledge to respect the outcome should he lose.  He's even gone so far as to suggest that the election should be cancelled, and that he should just become president by fiat (or unanimous agreement or something).

Meanwhile, Republicans already in office are doing all they can to pre-emptively delegitimize a Clinton presidency.  We've already seen government shutdowns and threats of government shutdowns.  Now Republicans are promising that they will leave the vacant seat on the Supreme Court open forever if Clinton is sworn in, and they've also promised to impeach Clinton as soon as they can.  There are no charges, mind you, they name no specific 'high crimes and misdemeanors'.  Presumably they'll impeach her first and figure out what her exact crime was later.  But this is what one expects from a banana republic, not the country we proudly think of as the example of democracy for the world.

But it gets worse.  As noted above, we now know that certain agents in the FBI have been pursuing an investigation into the Clinton Foundation for partisan reasons.  And of course the FBI director himself, James Comey --- in breach of long-standing Justice Department protocol --- sent a letter to Congress last week suggesting that there was new evidence in the interminable investigation into Clinton's emails, even though no new evidence exists.  What we have is the nation's top law enforcement agency abusing its power in an effort to influence an election.  And there's reason to believe these actions took place in coordination with the Trump campaign.

But it gets even worse! There are credible reports that Trump's whole campaign has coordinated with Moscow to discredit Clinton, including carefully timed email dumps from Wikileaks to keep the whole 'Crooked Hillary' narrative alive for the past 8 months.  Republican patron saint Ronald Reagan once made America swoon by referring to Russia as the 'evil empire', but now it seems that the Republicans are perfectly happy to let the Russians meddle in American politics, and hack American web servers as much as they like, so long as it helps Trump get elected.

None of this is normal.  It is very serious, and very dangerous.  And no matter what you think of Hillary, or Democratic policies or Democrats in general, it must be met with the starkest rejection possible.  This is why no one should vote for a Republican for any office.  The Republican party has become corrupt down to its roots, and the only way to address it is to make sure no one carrying the stench of Trump holds any elected office, ever.

In Conclusion

Clinton is clearly far superior to Trump on the merits, and even if that weren't true, a Trump presidency promises to bring with it corruption and abuse of power on an unprecedented scale.  It's time to teach the Republican party a lesson, that those who run for office should be concerned mainly with serving their country and promoting democracy, rather than with playing dangerous games which undermine it.  There is no better way to teach them that lesson than at the ballot box on Tuesday.