Political Potpourri: Wedge Issues, Romney, Bridgegate, Trump as Candy Man, Couturiers

In the wake of the Orlando massacre, another wedge issue has moved to the forefront in defining the race for the presidency as well as campaigns for control of the House and Senate: gun control, specifically, the ability to deny the legal sale of firearms to those on the Do Not Fly and Terrorist Watch lists or to those with mental health issues. A subsidiary issue is the availability of assault rifles such as the AR-15 to the general public. The Orlando shooter, as well as the San Bernadino shooter and other mass killers, used an AR-15 rifle.

Wedge issues this year include abortion rights, Planned Parenthood, the Supreme Court, immigration, income inequality, same-sex marriage, the Israel-Palestinian conflict, Islamic terrorism, campaign finance, and the minimum wage. 

The essence of each wedge issue can be summed up as the forces of fear and bigotry vs. the forces of hope and tolerance.  . . .

The Democrats’ best friend in this election might be Mitt Romney. The 2012 Republican standard bearer has been vocal in his antipathy, even animosity, toward Donald Trump. If he can sway fellow Mormons to withhold their votes for Trump, Hillary Clinton could win some Mountain States that are a challenge to any Democrat (http://nyti.ms/1XR6ktS).

But Trump’s negative coat tails might not paint the Senate blue as Mormons and other anti-Trump voters might prefer to keep the Senate red as a counter-balance to a liberal president.  . . .

Just when you think this election season can’t get any weirder two reports this week evoked Watergate memories. First came word that Democratic Party files had been breached, not physically as in Watergate but electronically. Not by Republicans but by Russians who wanted to gather data on Trump.

Second, the spirit of Rosemary Woods lives on.  The 18-1/2 minute gap in Richard Nixon’s White House tapes, allegedly created by an inadvertent contortion Woods performed at her secretarial desk while transcribing them, possibly has been matched by lost or erased emails and texts from New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, communications linked to the investigation into Bridegate, the allegedly illegal disruption of traffic across the George Washington Bridge to punish the Democratic mayor of Fort Lee for not endorsing Christie’s reelection bid.  . . . 

Donald Trump and his fellow Republicans want to reduce tax rates, especially for the wealthy. They also profess a desire to return to simpler times, as life was in the 1950s. They lambast Democrats for wanting to impose higher taxes on the rich. Elizabeth Warren, says Trump, wants to impose a 95% income tax rate. 

Sounds Draconian, until you realize that back in the 1950s under President Eisenhower, when unions were strong and  the middle class grew, the top effective tax rate was 91%.  . . . 

Trump is not alone in issuing damning statements about Hillary Clinton. The other week on NPR I heard U.S. Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.—one of the three female House members who prefer to be called “congressman”) attack Clinton, saying she lies and cheats while “Trump is a candy man” who gives people what they want.

I seriously doubt Blackburn knows that “candy man” is street talk for drug dealer. It would be an appropriate description for a candidate who is trying to dupe the electorate. . . 

Should Hillary Clinton win the presidency, the most negatively impacted group would be couturiers. After eight years of stunning gowns, dresses and ensembles showcased by first lady Michelle Obama, fashionistas would no longer have a White House muse to clothe. There are, after all, just so many variations on the tuxedo Bill Clinton can be expected to wear.


Your election witticism of the day, courtesy of whowhatwhy.org:

Don’t buy a single vote more than necessary. I’ll be damned if I’m going to pay for a landslide. —Joseph P. Kennedy

Marcomentum Assaults the Constitution

Next January 20th the president-elect will swear the following oath of office: “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

Does anyone see a conflict with the following statement?:

“We are clearly called, in the Bible, to adhere to our civil authorities, but that conflicts with also a requirement to adhere to God’s rules. When those two come in conflict, God’s rules always win (emphasis added). In essence, if we are ever ordered by a government authority to personally violate and sin, violate God’s law and sin, if we’re ordered to stop preaching the gospel, if we’re ordered to perform a same-sex marriage as someone presiding over it, we are called to ignore that. We cannot abide by that because government is compelling us to sin.”

Pundits are calling his surge in the polls “marcomentum,” but, to my way of thinking, with that statement, handsome and wholesome-looking Marco Rubio has disqualified himself from being president by asserting that God’s laws—if there is a God—supersede man’s. That might hold true in a theocracy like Iran or the ISIS caliphate but here in the United States we have always valued separation of church and state. 

Until now, apparently. Besides, who’s to say who gets to interpret God’s law? Catholics? Jews? Muslims? Protestants? Hindus? Shintos? Mormons? Which of their respective sects gets to adjudicate what God meant, which of the laws must still be followed? The Bible and Koran condoned slavery, prohibited the eating of pork, permitted multiple wives and admonished believers to live according to rules modern cultures consider barbaric. 

The Framers of the Constitution were quite clear in creating a separation between church and state. No pope, no ayatollah, no cleric would be supreme above the law. Neither would a president. 

Sadly, Rubio is not alone among Republicans who would place their religion above executing the law. Among candidates still in the race, include Ted Cruz. And through his comments on restricting Muslims from entering the country, even U.S. citizens, count Donald Trump among those who would violate the Constitution. 

Also sadly, acceptance of religious diversity is fading in our land. During his visit to a Baltimore mosque Wednesday, President Obama appealed for tolerance. But derision greeted his visit from quarters that have reviled almost all of his actions during the first seven years of his presidency. How could it not when almost three out of 10 Americans (43% of Republicans) think he is secretly a Muslim, according to a CNN/ORC poll last September? 

A Woman's Place (Is Up to a Man)

Ann Romney Blinked: Post-conventions, there was lots of talk about which candidate’s wife conjured up a more touching, if not so truthful, remembrance of the tough financial times she and her husband had starting out their lives together. 

Ann Romney pictured their struggle in a basement Boston apartment, eating tuna casseroles and pasta off an ironing board doing its best impression of a dining room table, while Mitt studied for his Harvard law and business degrees at a desk made from an old door propped up on two sawhorses. 

Not to be outdone, Michelle Obama related how she could see the pavement whizzing by from the holes in the floorboards of Barack’s car; his best pair of shoes were a size too small. 

Oh, how far the seemingly destitute have come!

I’m not sure if the First Lady has retracted any of her depiction, but Ann Romney fessed up to David Gregory on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday, “We have not had a financial struggle in our lives, but I want people to believe in their hearts that we know what it is to struggle.” 

For sure they did, as Ann began suffering from multiple sclerosis in 1998. Good thing her husband can afford quality health insurance, or to pay for her treatment out of pocket in case a new insurance company would deny her coverage because of a pre-existing condition. Unless, of course, she’d choose to be covered under provisions of Obamacare that requires insurance companies to extend coverage even for pre-conditions. 

For the record, I was less than impressed by David Gregory’s big moment with Mitt. I watched Meet the Press after returning home from my weekly softball game. Gregory’s questions were softer than the pitches I hurled. What a wasted opportunity to pin Romney down to specifics. He tried once or twice, but for the most part he failed to ask probing questions. 

It also was interesting to hear Romney talk about the country’s Judeo-Christian heritage, considering many Christian sects don’t consider Mormons to be part of their faith. 

A Woman’s Place: Recent articles and events struck me as indicators the world is far from accepting women as equals with men. First there was the controversy in Missouri generated by Rep. Todd Akin on the issue of “legitimate rape” and the ability of a woman’s body to fend off uninvited sperm. That an elected congressman in this day and age could harbor such nonsense is beyond the pale. He’s a deeply religious man. I wonder how much his ignorance is engendered by his religious teachings.

Which brings us to the first article, (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/05/world/middleeast/05iht-letter05.html?_r=1&bl), a depiction of a woman’s place according to the new rulers of Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood. In case you haven’t yet clicked on the link, here’s how the writer, Mona El-Naggar, started her article, “Women are erratic and emotional, and they make good wives and mothers — but never leaders or rulers. That, at least, is what Osama Abou Salama, a professor of botany at Cairo University and a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, told young men and women during a recent premarital counseling class.”

The Muslim Brotherhood apparently does not believe such women as Margaret Thatcher, Indira Ghandi, Benazir Bhutto, or Golda Meir were good leaders or rulers. It doesn’t look promising for the women of Egypt, many of whom protested last year in Tahir Square in the hope they would achieve equal status from a post-Mubarak government.

It doesn’t look too rosy to the northeast of Egypt, either. Israel made the desert bloom, but it cannot cultivate tolerance among its religious zealots. Even with their lives at stake, Haredim, the ultra Orthodox, adhere to dictates that endanger the Jewish state. A long-time deferment from compulsory military service has been lifted, so Haredim are now being drafted. The Israeli military has long been an assimilator and equalizer, but the Haredim are offering stiff resistance to modernity, as can be seen in last Sunday’s Review submission in the NY Times by Shani Boianjiu, “What Happens When the Two Israel’s Meet” (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/09/opinion/sunday/what-happens-when-the-two-israels-meet.html?partner=rss&emc=rss). 

No, the world does not look very egalitarian these days.