The Party of Moral Eunuchs

 Yet again the Republican Party proved itself to be the party of moral eunuchs. This is my fifth blog calling out Republicans as moral eunuchs. (See:  Shulmaven: The Republican Moral Eunuchs and the Magnificent 13,  Shulmaven: The Coming Political Realignment: Part II, Shulmaven: A Funeral in Washington, Shulmaven: An Open Letter to Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell) Save for 10 members of the House and 7 members of the Senate, congressional Republicans refused to acknowledge guilt in the impeachment of Donald Trump for inciting a riot that sacked the Capitol building, caused death and injury to the Capitol Police and the near assassinations of Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Vice President Pence. 

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has a portrait of his hero Henry Clay in his office. If he acted like Clay, who worked to save the Union from 1820-1850, he would have voted to convict Trump. My guess is that if he now looks closely at that portrait he would see tears in the eyes of Clay.

All I can say to the Republican eunuchs is to quote Oliver Cromwell, "You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately... Depart, I say; and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!  It will be up to the voters to render the ultimate verdict.

My Amazon Review of Roger McNamee's "Zucked: Waking Up to the Facebook Catastrophe"

Move Fast and Break Things

Roger McNamee, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist and part-time rock musician who hangs out with Bono, has levelled an indictment against Facebook. As an early investor in Facebook McNamee has seen the company from the inside as it moved fast to become a mega-cap colossus that is now playing a major part in breaking our democracy. He mentored Mark Zuckerberg and helped broker Sheryl Sandberg’s move from Google to Facebook. And as he notes he has not had meaningful contact with them for several years. Perhaps he is not telling us something about his relationships with them.

Simply put Facebook is in the business of manipulating its users through artificial intelligence to spend more and more time on the website thereby generating huge advertising dollars. Facebook then sells its user data to advertisers, some of whom were Russian cutouts seeking to elect Donald Trump.

To McNamee the worst aspect of social media in general and Facebook in particular is that it makes it far too easy for people to silo themselves into groups with similar interests and beliefs. When that happens political polarization occurs where people only hear what they want to hear in a self-reinforcing mechanism. Because Facebook is almost frictionless it easily conveys misinformation that the silo-heads believe to be true. To paraphrase Mark Twain from a much earlier era, “a lie races half way around the world before the truth puts its shoes on.”

Aside from being a venture capitalist and a musician, McNamee is a political junkie of the liberal democratic variety. His use of the term “neo-liberal” is a “tell.” Over the past few years he has spent quite a bit of time with the California congressional delegation, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi. He also briefed both House and Senate panels ahead of Zuckerberg’s testimony.

McNamee’s solution to the problems is stricter antitrust enforcement. He wails against the Chicago School of antitrust regulation. He would also prefer a subscription model a la Netflix to the current advertising model. Both are good ideas.

Where I would differ with McNamee is his view that the internet was all wonderful until the technological revolution of wider bandwidth, cloud computing and smart phones came along that enabled social media. Perhaps he conveniently forgets that the early internet was built on porn and the secure payment processing system that came with it.

In the interests of full disclosure I do not have a Facebook account, but I do have Twitter and LinkedIn accounts, use Google a lot, and check my smart phone way too often. I too am addicted.

The full Amazon URL appears at: https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R3KOO1E8M4OD9R?ref=pf_ov_at_pdctrvw_srp

The Sexual Harassment Purge Trials of 2017 - ?

The very serious and likely criminal allegations against producer Harvey Weinstein have opened the floodgates for all sorts of sexual harassment charges in Hollywood, the media and politics. The charges range from child molestation in the case of Senate Candidate Roy Moore to groping in the case of Senator Al Franken. But given the mob mentality and the media firestorm most of the charges are being conflated.

However there are real differences and they range from what I would call petty infractions (boorish behavior) all the way up to felony rape. I am afraid that over the near term the very real distinctions are not going to matter. Thus the near innocent will be punished along with the really guilty.

In the case of the Congress, hypocrisy reigns; no surprise here. Pro-choice Democrats shouldn’t get a pass because they line up on the feminist side issues. If they do it would be akin the middle age practice of the Catholic Church where indulgences were sold to the highest bidder. Similarly conservative Republicans shouldn’t get a pass because they vote for tax cuts and support right leaning judges.  Simply put, sexual predators know no party labels.

Indeed my guess is that once we find out, and we will find out, where the $15 million paid out by Congress to settle employee disputes went, heads will really roll. Further it is my educated guess that both Speaker Paul Ryan and former Speaker Nancy Pelosi were informed. Both of them know where the bodies are buried.   What will happen to them? Instead of passing bipartisan legislation we are now witnessing a bipartisan scandal. All the while the head “pussy grabber” is still the president.

My fear is that a short run unintended consequence of the enveloping scandals is that many men will become reluctant to mentor women. As a professor, a leader in a mentoring program and as a managing director I have had the occasions to mentor many women who have gone on to do great things. However with the temperature rising the simple solution for too many men might be to adopt the Mike Pence and Orthodox Jewish rule of never being alone with a woman not their wife. As a result the mentoring of women by men would likely decline. That would hardly be a consequence that even most feminists would desire.

A Bad Night for the Democrats; A Good Night for Shulmaven

As we predicted on Sunday the Republicans did very well last night as Democratic hopes of forestalling a Republican turnover in the Senate crashed and burned. As of this morning the Republicans have picked up seven seats and are likely to win Alaska later today. Along with a likely win in the Louisiana runoff in December the Republican majority will expand to 54. Its better to be lucky than smart, but it looks like we were on the money. Moreover we noted, contrary to conventional wisdom, that the races in Virginia and New Mexico would be close. with a recount coming in Virginia we were dead right there, but not so right in New Mexico where Udall won by 10 points.

In the governor races the Republican did far better than what we thought. We had an above consensus pick-up a net gain of one governorship. As of this morning the Republicans are up 3. We were right on Scott Walker and were pleasantly surprised to see Republican wins in Democratic Massachusetts and Maryland. With Democrat Gina Raimondo winning in Rhode Island and Republican Bruce Rauner winning in Illinois, the public employee "Blue State" model suffered major defeats. Unfortunately education reformer Marshall Tuck lost to teachers union backed Tom Torlakson in the Superintendent of Public Instruction race in  California. It is clear that the Republican Party in California is still not ready for prime time.

In the House it looks like the Republicans will pick up between 15-20 seats. We had them up by 10-15 seats. A big loss for the Democrats and look for Nancy Pelosi to step down as Democratic Leader. The other big Democratic loser was Harry Reed whose $100 million PAC outspent everybody. Look for Schumer to challenge him in January.

On the Republican side the big winner was John Kasich who reelected Ohio governor by 30 points. He will be much talked about in the coming weeks as presidential candidate. Just to note he expanded Medicaid in his state. Also a big winner was Chris Christie whose leadership of the Republican Governors Association brought in a $100 million and provided the sinews of victory.

The Republican was victory opens the way for real legislative progress in 2015. Why? The Republicans have to govern and President Obama needs a legacy. If cooler heads prevail, admittedly an heroic assumption, there is the potential to do corporate tax reform, trade promotion, Keystone Pipeline, partial immigration reform, a minimum wage increase and some relief on student debt. Remember Mitch McConnell is a deal maker and he has worked very well with Vice President Joe Biden. Of course if the Republicans go after Obamacare on day one or if President Obama does a major executive order on immigration the well will be poisoned. As of today the ball is in the President's court. Watch his news conference this afternoon.

On Strike, Shut it down

Taking their lead from the student anti-war protesters of the 1960s, the wrecker caucus in the Republican Party led by Senator Ted Cruz is on the verge of shutting down the government. Unlike their 1960s counterparts ( I know they just hate that analogy), today's ideologues can cause real damage. Recall that in the 1960s all the students succeeded in doing was shut down a bunch of universities for a few days. All the university employees got paid, and, for the most part, a good time was had by all. Not to be so cavalier, more than a few people were seriously injured. In the interests of full disclosure I was a participant and sometimes close to being a leader.

To be sure the students highlighted their opposition to the Vietnam War, but along the way they helped set the stage for a conservative revival with the election of Ronald Reagan to California's governorship in 1966 and Richard Nixon to the presidency in 1968. That was hardly the outcome the students were seeking.

Today the situation is far different. The stakes are much higher. Hundreds of thousands of people will be furloughed, others will lose their jobs and essential government services will not be provided. Nevertheless, the House Republicans did one very politically smart move in preparing a continuing resolution that will exempt the Defense Department, but the rest of government will feel the full brunt of the shut down. I remember the 1995-6 shutdown under President Bill Clinton. People got really pissed and Clinton ended up smelling like a rose. And remember the Republican had just come off their great 1994 triumph and controlled the Senate as well as the House. This time they are coming off losing the presidency and seats in both the House and Senate.

Simply put, the Republicans can't win this fight. In the eyes of the American people the Democrats are the party of government and the Republicans are the party of at best limited government, or at worst anti-government. So guess who the American people will blame. This would be true even if President Obama were 100% totally at fault. Thus as a matter or pure politics the government shutdown could very well be setting the stage for the return of Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House.

To the the wrecker caucus it is all about defunding or delaying Obamacare. I hate to break it to them, it ain't going to happen. No way the Democrats or President Obama will give up on their signature program. My guess is that the wreckers fear that it will work, and therefore they have to abort the program in the womb. I think that is wrong headed thinking. If Obamacare is going to fail, it will fail of its own weight. My guess is that in 10 years time neither the proponents or the opponents of the health care law will recognize it. In its current form it is way too complicated, but over time it will change, likely for the better.

Post Mortem on the Tax Deal

After nearly two months of needless skirmishing the Congress and President Obama finally agreed on a tax compromise that could have been done at the outset. The final accord was pretty much along the lines of my November 7 post with called for tax increases for families making over $400,000 a year($450,000 enacted), a 20% dividend tax rate (enacted), elimination of all deductions save for charitable contributions for those earning over one million dollar a year (gradual phase out of exemptions and deductions for families making over $300,000 a year enacted) and a top rate of 37.5% (39.6% enacted). Why it took so long is a tribute to the dysfunction in the Capitol.

Of course nothing was done to solve the real fiscal issue facing our country which is runaway entitlement spending. The fundamentalists in the Democratic Party held the line here even unwilling to go along with a modest change in the indexing formula for social security. Just remember that that the Democratic Party's lack of interest in entitlement reform does not mean that entitlement reform is not interested in them. It will come and the longer we wait the more severe it will be.

Meantime I would note that there were a few adults in the room. Credit for the passage of the compromise should go to the much maligned House Speaker John Boehner, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, Vice President Joe Biden, and as much as I hate to admit it, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. The cry babies in the room were House Republican Leader Eric Cantor and his acolytes who almost torpedoed the final deal and thereby prevented the Republican for taking credit for at least common sense partial compromise. Simply put, Cantor, doesn't know how to say "Yes". On Democratic side the cry baby was Sentate Majority Leader Harry Reid who simply refused to do what senators do, cut a deal.