Failed Right Wing Failed Policies and White Mortality Rates

I frequently post the cartoon image above to make the point that much of the Republican Party base is being played for fools (mostly by playing on their racism and bigotry) and convinced to vote against its own best interest.  But the problem goes far beyond foolishly supporting tax cuts for the rich and the slashing on regulations that protect citizens from vulture capitalism.  It goes to cheering the dismantling of social safety net programs and the right's refusal to put America's healthcare system on a par with that of other advanced industrial nations.  The irony, however, is in the fact that many angry white voters are rallying to support Republican candidates who, if allowed to do so, would make the plight of these individuals and their families even worse.  A column in the New York Times looks at the phenomenon and the way in which right wing policies are literally killing portions of the GOP base.  Here are highlights:

A couple of weeks ago President Obama mocked Republicans who are “down on America,”  . . . .  He had a point: With job growth at rates not seen since the 1990s, with the percentage of Americans covered by health insurance hitting record highs, the doom-and-gloom predictions of his political enemies look ever more at odds with reality.

There has been a lot of comment, and rightly so, over a new paper by the economists Angus Deaton (who just won a Nobel) and Anne Case, showing that mortality among middle-aged white Americans has been rising since 1999. This deterioration took place while death rates were falling steadily both in other countries and among other groups in our own nation.

Even more striking are the proximate causes of rising mortality. Basically, white Americans are, in increasing numbers, killing themselves, directly or indirectly. Suicide is way up, and so are deaths from drug poisoning and the chronic liver disease that excessive drinking can cause. We’ve seen this kind of thing in other times and places – for example, in the plunging life expectancy that afflicted Russia after the fall of Communism. But it’s a shock to see it, even in an attenuated form, in America.

 Yet the Deaton-Case findings fit into a well-established pattern. There have been a number of studies showing that life expectancy for less-educated whites is falling across much of the nation.

But what’s causing this epidemic of self-destructive behavior?   If you believe the usual suspects on the right, it’s all the fault of liberals.. . . . But (surprise!) this view is very much at odds with the evidence.

For one thing, rising mortality is a uniquely American phenomenon – yet America has both a much weaker welfare state and a much stronger role for traditional religion and values than any other advanced country. Sweden gives its poor far more aid than we do, and a majority of Swedish children are now born out of wedlock, yet Sweden’s middle-aged mortality rate is only half of white America’s.

Life expectancy is high and rising in the Northeast and California, where social benefits are highest and traditional values weakest. Meanwhile, low and stagnant or declining life expectancy is concentrated in the Bible Belt.


Most notably, Hispanic Americans are considerably poorer than whites, but have much lower mortality. It’s probably worth noting, in this context, that international comparisons consistently find that Latin Americans have higher subjective well-being than you would expect, given their incomes.

So what is going on? In a recent interview Mr. Deaton suggested that middle-aged whites have “lost the narrative of their lives.” That is, their economic setbacks have hit hard because they expected better. Or to put it a bit differently, we’re looking at people who were raised to believe in the American Dream, and are coping badly with its failure to come true.

I’m not the only observer who sees a link between the despair reflected in those mortality numbers and the volatility of right-wing politics. Some people who feel left behind by the American story turn self-destructive; others turn on the elites they feel have betrayed them. No, deporting immigrants and wearing baseball caps bearing slogans won’t solve their problems, but neither will cutting taxes on capital gains. So you can understand why some voters have rallied around politicians who at least seem to feel their pain.

But while universal health care, higher minimum wages, aid to education, and so on would do a lot to help Americans in trouble, I’m not sure whether they’re enough to cure existential despair.

Yes, the Great Recession was brutal to many.  But cutting off your nose to spite your face as angry whites rallying to the GOP doesn't solve the overarching problems.  Like the columnist, I believe that universal health care, a higher minimum wage, improved education , etc., are not the whole answer.  Other elements are needed such as ending the embrace of ignorance, ending adherence to Bronze Age religious beliefs, and walking away for GOP dog whistle racism are also needed.  The GOP and Koch brothers may malign "Old Europe" yet Europe's nations for the most part are affording their citizens a better life style without rising mortality rates. 

Vatileaks: Vatican Properties Used as Brothels and Massage Parlours for Priests

Last month the bitter old men at the so-called Synod on the Family at the Vatican voted to maintain the Church's anti-gay and anti-woman.  Now, perhaps in retaliation or to merely humiliate the  corrupt and homophobic Roman Curia, a purported mole in the Vatican has leaked information suggesting that numerous Vatican owned properties in Rome are being used as brothels and massage parlors frequented by Catholic priests.   A piece in The Independent looks at this latest scandal and again notes that the Vatican owns the property that is home to Europe's largest gay sauna.  Equally delicious are reports that the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith, a/k/a The Inquisition, is involved  with some of the properties.  Here are highlights:

Vatican-owned properties in Rome are operating as seedy saunas and massage parlours where priests pay for sex, according to the latest in a series of leaked reports to embarrass the Church.

It is also claimed that Vatican officials are allowing buildings to be rented out at peppercorn rents as favours to powerful colleagues and turning a blind eye to shady property deals, as well as allowing addresses to be used as red-light establishments.

Among the properties mentioned in the document, made public by a Vatican mole, are premises in two streets close to the Italian Parliament and a solarium near Piazza Barberini, according to press reports.

One particular Vatican department, the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith, has been highlighted in the list. It owns hundreds of high-value properties in central Rome, worth hundreds of millions of euros.

Two years ago it emerged the Vatican had purchased a €23m (£16m) share of a Rome apartment block, 2 Via Carducci, which housed the Europa Multiclub, Europe’s biggest gay sauna. Tales of visiting priests were legion, and a section of the sauna’s website promoting special “bear nights” included a video of a hirsute man stripping down and changing into a priest’s outfit.

Meanwhile, sources quoted by Ansa news agency said that Pope Francis hoped to close the leak investigation and draw a line under the affair before the Vatican’s special Jubilee Year, which begins on 8 December. Some observers believe the leaks are part of a campaign to undermine his effort to reform the Curia.

One senior figure, Monsignor Lucio Vallejo Balda, and another official have been arrested by Vatican police over the leaks, while it has emerged that four cardinals have also been questioned.

Why do I find the word "hypocrites"  on my lips? 

Tuesday Morning Male Beauty

The GOP’s Embarrassing Vetting Season

As a number of recent posts have noted, the crop of 2016 GOP presidential candidates seems to be unusually filled with pathological liars with Ben Carson being but one of the candidates challenged when it comes to truth and veracity.  A column in the Washington Post looks at the GOP's problem of dishonest candidates - a phenomenon which should come as no surprise given the party's embrace of ignorance and self-prostitution to Christofascists who lie seemingly more than any other segment of society.  Here are column excerpts:

Welcome to the vetting season, in which presidential candidates’ résumés are pumped full of air, submerged in water and tested for bubbles like an inner tube. 

None of the Republican candidates, even the few with actual governing experience, has ever suffered the level of scrutiny given to a top-tier presidential prospect. It is part journalism, part tax audit, part fraternity hazing and part, especially when it comes to Republicans, ideological hit job. Only Democrat Hillary Clinton has made a career of sailing in this hurricane.

Carson’s claim that his treatment is unique — “I have not seen that with anyone else” — is disproved by, well, just about everyone else. Marco Rubio is being called to account for questionable purchases as a state representative on a GOP American Express card, including some flooring.

For Jeb Bush, the vetting process has been more about performance. How does he distinguish himself from the wallpaper in the debates? His town hall meetings, by one media account, are “charmingly anachronistic,” apparently because political discourse is better served by Twitter sarcasm. The real question: Is Bush’s stated refusal to be an “angry agitator” disqualifying in a political party that seems to view angry agitation as the sum of the political enterprise?

All the while, Donald Trump lobs sarcastic tweets, appears on late-night television and leads the RealClearPolitics average of polls. Trump is somehow enjoying the presidential vetting season as a spectator instead of a target. For about a quarter of the Republican electorate, there is apparently no scandal that could rock their high regard.

[W]hat does it mean that a significant portion of prospective GOP voters are seriously considering a leader who can’t be embarrassed because he is incapable of shame? A leader who can’t be disgraced because expectations are already so low?

The choice of a president, at least in theory, should have something to do with character, policy views, temperament, governing record and political philosophy. Trump is judged by his followers on an entirely different set of standards, imported from reality television. Is he entertaining? Check. Is he angry? Check. Does he demolish political correctness and political convention? Double check. Is he authentic? Ah, here is the rub.

By one definition, political authenticity is defined by the impulsive expression of everyman instincts. By another definition, authenticity means taking serious things — such as rhetoric and political ideas — seriously. The former unleashes and rides political passions. The latter channels passions into useful public purposes through political and governing skill. The former culminates in the cutting tweet. The latter in Lincoln writing and rewriting the Gettysburg Address or his second inaugural, which were made authentic through thought and craft.

So far, this is the sad, overall summary of the 2016 campaign: They took unserious things seriously.

Unfortunately, the column's author fails to  acknowledge that the party leadership welcomed the crazy and extreme elements into the GOP and that they are now reaping the whirlwind that they put into motion.

Mormon Church Wages New War Against Gays and Their Children

Like the Roman Catholic Church, the Mormon Church is more or less run by a bunch of bitter old men who take supreme joy in flexing their power over those in the pews and in punishing those who fail to adhere to their fairy tale beliefs (If the Bible is based on myth, the Book of Mormon is truly based on fairy tale).  Having lost the battle to stop civil law same sex marriage, the gaggle of old men at the top of the Mormon Church have decided to punish gays by attacking their children and barring them from participation in the Mormon Church until they reach 18 years of age and with the proviso that they dishtowel same sex marriage and, by extension, their parents.  Once again we see the least Christian conduct on display by those who most loudly proclaim their own piety.  Hopefully, what these bastards achieve will turn out to be an acceleration of the exodus Church members.  The New York Times looks at this ugly new tactic.  Here are highlights:

The changes to the Mormon handbook — disseminated last week to church leaders around the world — say that being in a same-sex marriage warrants ousting from the religion and that children of gay parents must wait until they are 18 and disavow homosexual relationships to be baptized.

The revisions set off a wave of anger, confusion and sadness for a growing faction of L.G.B.T.-supportive Mormons who were buoyed in recent years by church leaders’ calls for more love and understanding for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender members.

In a video interview posted Friday night on a church website, a Mormon leader, D. Todd Christofferson, said the changes had been prompted by questions that arose after the United States Supreme Court in June made gay marriage legal throughout the United States.

The church, he said, considers same-sex marriage a particularly egregious sin that requires mandatory church discipline.

“There was the need for a distinction to be made between what may be legal and what may be the law of the church and the law of the Lord,” said Mr. Christofferson, a member of the religion’s governing Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. “It’s a matter of being clear. It’s a matter of understanding right and wrong. It’s a matter of a firm policy that doesn’t allow for question and doubt.”

The new rules stipulate that children of parents in gay or lesbian relationships — be it marriage or just living together — can no longer receive blessings as infants or be baptized at about age 8. They can be baptized and serve missions once they turn 18, but only if they disavow the practice of same-sex relationships, no longer live with gay parents and get approval from their local leader and the highest leaders at church headquarters in Salt Lake City.

The handbook revisions also for the first time list being in a same-sex relationship as an offense that can lead to being ousted from the religion. This is a category known as apostasy, which until now has been reserved primarily for people who practice polygamy, teach inaccurate doctrine or publicly defy guidance from church leaders. 

Ms. Montgomery said news of the new rules left her son sobbing and forced her and her husband to consider leaving a religion they have been desperately trying to stay in, despite a harsh reception to their son’s coming out.

Ms. Montgomery echoed a response shared by many on social media: She can somewhat understand the hard stance on same-sex marriage, but she can’t comprehend singling out gay couples’ children.

“We just put a scarlet letter on these kids,” she said. “This isn’t my church. I don’t see God in it. I don’t see divinity it. It just feels evil.”

It is pure evil and sadly it reflects religion's main contribution to the world: hate, division, and the desperate attempt of the few to control the lives of the many.  A religion free world would be a better place.

Another Campaign Untruth: Ted Cruz’s Father’s Story of Fighting for Castro

Ted Cruz and Rafael Cruz- two consummate liars and nutcases

It increasing seems that being a shameless liar is a prerequisite to being a Republican presidential nominee contestant.  Either the candidates themselves are telling the lies or close family members are providing the false story lines.  Candidly, as the Christofascists have risen in power within the GOP, the level of lying and demagoguery has directly increased.  Now, Ted Cruz finds himself under fire for his father's fraudulent lies that have been woven into Cruz's own fairy tale narrative.  The older Cruz - who in my opinion belongs in an insane asylum - has made claims of "fighting for freedom" in Cuba as a young man.  The trouble is that many of the details he used to embellish his story simply are not true.  The New York Times looks at the truth about the elder Cruz's made up narrative.  Here are excerpts:

Since he was a boy, Senator Ted Cruz has said, all he wanted to do was “fight for liberty” — a yearning that he says was first kindled when he heard his father’s tales of fighting as a rebel leader in Cuba in the 1950s, throwing firebombs, running guns and surviving torture.

Those stories, retold by Mr. Cruz and by his father, Rafael, have hooked Republican audiences and given emotional power to the message that the Texas senator is pushing as a contender for the party’s presidential nomination. 

But the family narrative that has provided such inspirational fire to Mr. Cruz’s speeches, debate performances and a recently published memoir is, his father’s Cuban contemporaries say, an embroidered one.

The elder Mr. Cruz, 76, recalls a vivid moment at a watershed 1956 battle in Santiago de Cuba, when he was with a hero of the revolution, Frank País, just hours before he was killed in combat.  In fact, Mr. País was killed seven months later and in a different place and manner.

In interviews, Rafael Cruz’s former comrades and friends disputed his description of his role in the Cuban resistance. He was a teenager who wrote on walls and marched in the streets, they said — not a rebel leader running guns or blowing up buildings.

Leonor Arestuche, 79, a student leader in the ’50s whom the Castro government later hired to verify the supposed exploits of revolutionary veterans, said a term existed for people like Mr. Cruz — “ojalateros,” or wishful thinkers.   “People wishing and praying that Batista would fall,” she said, “but not doing much to act on it.”

There is no question that Rafael Cruz, who is now a pastor and his son’s most effective and popular campaign surrogate, was beaten in 1957 at the hands of agents for Fulgencio Batista, the Cuban dictator.

The reason Mr. Cruz was arrested, however, is less clear, and he has offered different explanations. In an interview alongside his son in March, Mr. Cruz said he had sought to recruit to the revolutionary cause someone who turned out to be an informant working for Batista’s regime. The 1959 account, though, did not mention any informant . . . . 

Mario Martínez, who Mr. Cruz confirmed was part of his small revolutionary cell, said he did not recall Mr. Cruz’s being apprehended for trying to recruit someone and said he believed that the cause of his old comrade’s detainment was possession of a revolver — one that Mr. Cruz had never used. 

[N]one of the Cuban historians, former comrades of Mr. Cruz in his hometown or veterans of the Santiago battle reached by The Times could corroborate his story. 

[V]eterans of the operation questioned Rafael Cruz’s account of his involvement.  Luís Clergé, who prides himself on knowing the names of the commandos he served with in the Nov. 30 operation, had no memory of Mr. Cruz.   Mr. Cruz’s name also drew blanks from Luís Solá Vila, a leader of the Federación Estudiantil Universitaria, a campus-based activist group in Santiago, and Luís Gálvez Taupier, a university leader who worked closely with the movement’s youth brigades, among others.

In his book “A Time for Truth,” published in June, Ted Cruz writes that the rebels who attacked the Santiago Police Headquarters met devastating resistance, and “All of the students were killed, as was their leader, Frank País.”

But of the scores of rebels who participated in the attack, only a few were killed, according to eyewitness accounts and historical documents.

It looks like Ben Carson is not the only GOP candidate challenged by truth and veracity.  Both Carson and Cruz are pushing narratives that play well with the idiots and Christofascists of the GOP regardless of whether or not they bear any semblance to reality.  Among most normal and honest people, this amounts to lying.  Deliberately lying.

More Monday Male Beauty

Poll: The More GOP Voters Hear About Bush, the Less They Like Him

I am keeping my fingers crossed hoping that Jeb Bush will soon be forced to shutdown his campaign, but the good news is that many do seem to think that Jeb Bush's hubris filled campaign may be in a final death spiral despite Jebbie's effort the "reset" the campaign.  Now, Politico is running a piece that reports that the more GOP primary voters have learned about Jebbie, the less they like him.  Admittedly, we are talking about GOP primary voters who are nowadays by definition, insane.  Here are some article highlights:

The more that Republican voters hear about Ben Carson, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, the more they like them. Jeb Bush, not so much.

A new McClatchy-Marist poll conducted from Oct. 29 through Nov. 4 found that Carson has the most appeal as voters are more exposed to him, with 67 percent expressing that favorable view, and 20 percent saying they have a less favorable view the more they hear about the retired neurosurgeon. Rubio comes in second at 58 percent to 27 percent, followed by Cruz with 51 percent to 31 percent.

But the news isn’t as good for Bush, who has been attempting a reset from flagging poll numbers and a series of underwhelming debate performances. For the former Florida governor, 58 percent of Republican voters like him less after hearing more about him, compared with 32 percent who like him more.

The McClatchy-Marist poll also found that a majority of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents — 59 percent to 39 percent — say it’s more important to have a candidate who stands for conservative principles than one who can win.

Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, beats all candidates in hypothetical general election matchups, according to the poll, though she was just 2 percentage points ahead of Carson, 50 percent to 48 percent.

UK Study: 3 Glasses of Champagne a Week Is Good For Your Brain

The husband and I love champagne - either straight up or in a French 75, a cocktail we have come to like.  Now, we can drink bubbly and say it is for medicinal purposes based on the findings of a new study done in the United Kingdom.  Indeed, the study found that 3 glasses of champagne a week can increase spatial memory and help prevent dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.  Here are excerpts from Details:

There’s always a fitting occasion for a cool glass of bubbly—whether to toast in celebration, sip away the workday blues, or perhaps, just to keep your brain healthy. No, really. Drinking three glasses of champagne per week can potentially boost your spatial memory and help prevent dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, according to some new research from across the pond. 

Specifically, scientists say a compound found in the black Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier grapes, which are used to make champagne, can prevent the onset of such brain diseases. The findings come from an experiment conducted by researchers at the UK’s Reading University, which showed that, when tested on rats, the fancy fizz has some significant health benefits. 

“The results were dramatic,” Professor Jeremy Spencer told The Mail on Sunday. “This research is exciting because it illustrates for the first time that moderate consumption of Champagne has the potential to influence cognitive functioning such as memory.”

French 75

U-Va. Fraternity Files $25 Million Lawsuit Against Rolling Stone

(AP Photo/The Daily Progress, Ryan M. Kelly)

Rolling Stone's utterly irresponsible story from last year that alleged that a brutal rape and abuse took place at the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity on the University of Virginia's fraternity row continues to rightly bite Rolling Stone in the ass.  I often complain about lazy journalists not ferreting out the truth, but the Rolling Stone piece was a piece of pure fiction.   Now, Phi Kappa Psi has filed a $25 million lawsuit against both Rolling Stone and worthless journalist Sabrina Rubin Erdely who never bothered to check behind the wild and easily refuted claims of "Jackie," the alleged rape victim.  Not only did the fraternity have no party on the night of the alleged rape, but no one with the name of supposed date/rapist was ever a member of the fraternity.  The Washington Post looks at the new lawsuit.  Here are highlights:

The Phi Kappa Psi fraternity chapter at the University of Virginia filed a $25 million lawsuit Monday against Rolling Stone magazine, which published an article in 2014 that alleged a freshman was gang raped at the house during a party.

The lawsuit focuses on a Rolling Stone article titled “A Rape on Campus,” which detailed a harrowing attack on a freshman named Jackie at the Phi Psi house on Sept. 28, 2012. The article, written by Sabrina Rubin Erdely, described how Jackie was raped by seven men while two others watched in a second floor bedroom while a fraternity party raged downstairs. The article alleged that the attack was part of a hazing ritual at the long-time U-Va. fraternity.

The Washington Post found significant discrepancies in the Rolling Stone account, including that the fraternity did not host a party that night in 2012 and that a student identified by Jackie as her main attacker was never a member of the fraternity and did not attend U-Va.

Two investigations — by the Columbia University journalism school and the Charlottesville Police Department — later confirmed that there was no gang rape at the fraternity.

“The fraternity chapter and its student and alumni members suffered extreme damage to their reputations in the aftermath of the article’s publication and continue to suffer despite the ultimate unraveling of the story,” the Phi Psi chapter said in a statement Monday. “The article also subjected the student members and their families to danger and immense stress while jeopardizing the future existence of the chapter.”

Rolling Stone retracted the story in April, and the magazine’s editor, Will Dana, later resigned.

In the wake of the Rolling Stone article’s publication, the Phi Psi house was vandalized, windows were broken and anonymous activists scrawled “UVA Center for Rape Studies,” on the building.

“In the most scurrilous traditions of yellow tabloid journalism, Rolling Stone published a devastating story it knowingly failed to verify, in reckless disregard for truth or falsity, or the essential safety, dignity, and welfare of the organization or of those lives it was willing to crush with its defamatory article,” the fraternity contends in the lawsuit. “The story was simply too tempting, too sensational, to let facts get in the way.”

In the complaint, filed in state court in Charlottesville, the 54 undergraduate members of the fraternity describe living through the backlash of the article’s publication in November 2014.

The fraternity brothers say they faced vicious threats online, taunts in classrooms and suffered in recruiting new prospects to join the house.

Many alumni removed their affiliation with the fraternity from their résumés out of concern that Phi Psi membership could hurt their job prospects.

According to the fraternity’s complaint filed in state court: “This defamation action is brought to seek redress for the wanton destruction caused to Phi Kappa Psi by Rolling Stone’s intentional, reckless, and unethical behavior.”

I hope Phi Kappa Psi wins the lawsuit. One of my daughters had friends in the house while at UVA and many years ago as I student I attended parties at Phi Kappa Psi as well as at my own fraternity.