Starvation is apparently not an emergency

Instead of handing out Halloween candy I went to see the movie Blue Moon. It is about Lorenz Hart of the musical team Rogers (music) and Hart (lyrics) who dominated the 1920s and ‘30s. The show is about ninety minutes of the evening of the opening of the musical Oklahoma! in 1943. If you remember much of musical history you know this was the first show by the team Rogers and Hammerstein. Hart leaves watching the show before it ends and goes to Sardi’s, where the after-party is to be held. He talks to the bartender, to the piano player, and to author E. B. White about how bad the lyrics of “Oklahoma-Exclamation-Point” are (“Corn as high as an elephant’s eye”? There are no elephants in the Midwest). There are hints that Hart was gay or bisexual. He can tell that, as bad as he thinks the show is, it will be a success. But not his success. Hart talks to his protegé and dear friend Elizabeth. He does a lot of talking. Eventually the theater crowd comes in and Rogers explains to his dear friend Hart why he turned to Hammerstein as Hart pitches ideas for another show. Along the way we’re introduced to George Roy Hill (who later made The Sting) and a preteen Stephen Sondheim. The real Lorenz Hart was quite short. Ethan Hawke, who played him, isn’t. So through the movie I wondered how tall Hawke is (almost a foot taller than his character) and what kinds of things the director and camera crew had to do to make the actor appear short. I mostly enjoyed the show but this one may be for theater nerds. Hart does a lot of talking and not much happens. I think Hawke will be mentioned as awards season comes around. Margaret Qualley, who played Elizabeth, might also get a mention as a featured actress. The screenplay might get a nod too. Once home after the movie I joined the neighbors around a bonfire. While I was there one child came by. Oliver Willis of Daily Kos, as part of his series on Explaining the Right, tackles the question “Why Republicans want you to die – and fast.” Willis has many examples of Republicans wanting us to die. The current government shutdown because Republicans refuse to restore health care subsidies. Back in the 1960s the creation of Medicare and Medicaid were claimed to open the door to communism. In the early 1990s the health care reform promoted by first lady Hillary Clinton was killed. Obama did get the Affordable Care Act through Congress with a great deal of pushback and long-term efforts to kill it. Add to that the constant lack of any sort of a plan from Republicans. Willis concludes:

Conservatives have devoted themselves to destroying and undermining government assistance on health care while failing to provide any real alternative. The right supports a world where health care is so nonexistent that the alternative is sickness, suffering, and death—and the quicker the better.

I think Willis has provided enough examples showing that Republicans don’t want much of the country to have health care. I don’t think he got to the why. So I’ll add a bit from my own understanding, which is the same as I’ve written previously. Those high in the social hierarchy – which Republicans desperately claim to be – demonstrate their position in society by the oppression they can inflict on those below them. And denying health coverage is as good a tool of oppression as is a much too small minimum wage. Speaking of tools of oppression, Lisa Needham of Kos discussed the nasty guy’s refusal to extend SNAP food support beyond the end of October. There is a $5 billion SNAP contingency fund that should be used in an emergency, though starvation is apparently not an emergency. That’s even though previous government shutdowns didn’t pause SNAP payouts. As is typical the nasty guy and Republicans are blaming Democrats using bogus reasons. Needham included a tweet by lawyer Mike Davis ranting that the people with SNAP benefits are from the ghetto, don’t have jobs, and have too many kids while the program gives benefits to immigrants. Needham responded:

Shhh, nobody tell him that no matter how you slice and dice the government’s own data, white people are the largest racial demographic of SNAP recipients. Definitely don’t tell him that the majority of SNAP recipients who can work do work. Withholding SNAP funds is nothing but abject cruelty toward some of the most vulnerable people in America. Meanwhile, when it comes to Immigration and Customs Enforcement goons or the military, the cash flows freely. The administration is making its priorities crystal clear.

In Halloween’s pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin quoted the first verse of “The Raven of the Republic” by David Shuster of Blue Amp Media. It is definitely inspired by that poem by Edgar Allen Poe. Here’s that first verse.

Once upon a term infernal, through a midnight dark, nocturnal, While I watched the news external, trembling at Trump’s fresh uproar— While I pondered, weak and weary, over the state of freedom’s theory, Suddenly there came a query, echoing through the chamber door— “Is this justice still?” I whispered, staring through that oaken door— Answer came: “Not anymore.”

This has a tiny bit more hope than Poe’s original. In the comments is a cartoon by Dennis Goris of a woman trying to pay for groceries. The clerk says, “Your SNAP card has been declined, but you do have a large deposit of thoughts & prayers.” Liberal Jane posed a meme with the message, “No one chooses to need welfare.” Around that are many of the types of people who do need it, including low-wage workers, foster kids, veterans, seniors, and those on disability. A meme posted by exlrrp, who included a link to the full story, says:

Trump is found to have paid for most of the January 5th [sic] protesters. Jack Smith’s new document drop shows that the Trump Campaign PAID for travel, hotels, expenses, and organizing efforts to bring outside radical organizers to the Capitol on January 6th. Trump and his lackeys planned the assault on our Capitol.

A couple more memes posted by exlrrp:

Watching poor people go hungry is a wet dream to MAGA Republicans. They have dreamed of doing this for years. Prove me wrong.

And...

If 42 million people going hungry makes you happy, you might be a bad person. Might? There’s no might. You are a bad person.

Needham wrote “The East Wing never had a chance.” She then listed the steps the nasty guy took to make sure no one opposed his demolition of part of the White House. He asked Meredith O’Rourke, a top fundraisers, to ask for donations from corporations willing to bend a knee. So when the proposed price kept rising, no problem! He found an architectural firm to create plans on the cheap. He had cronies loot the East Wing, emptying it of anything of value, without telling anyone else about what is coming. I’m not sure if “loot” should be replaced with “preserve”... Gabe Gutierrez, Monica Alba, Peter Alexander and Dareh Gregorian of NBC News reported all the stuff was stored under the supervision of the National Park Service and the White House Historical Association. I wonder what it cost him from them to keep their mouths shut. This article also shows a model and position of the ballroom, and it is indeed bigger than the rest of the White House. Avoid the mountain of approvals by gutting the National Capital Planning Commission and installing cronies. Back to those architectural plans. Needham says the problem is there are multiple sets. Is the ballroom to hold 650 people or 1350? Another source (that I mentioned) said it would hold 999. One rendering appears to have a stairway to nowhere. So how can construction begin if he hasn’t definitely decided on one set of plans? Is construction subject to his daily whims? Does he not care about quality, but only about how much gold is used to decorate the surfaces? In Saturday’s pundit roundup Dworkin included a pair of tweets from Aaron Rupar. The first:

Kristi Noem: “We will continue to do this work until there are no longer anybody in our communities that's here illegally.”

Rupar’s response:

note how the messaging has shifting from "we're targeting criminals" to "we're deporting everyone"

In the comments is a meme from Seth Myers discussing the nasty guy:

If you take a dementia test and think it’s an IQ test, then I’m sorry to say you failed both the IQ test and the dementia test.

And a meme by David Pakman, showing Putin and Xi:

How does Trump fall for the same playbook every time, where an authoritarian mildly praises him, completely plays him, and he comes away thinking he “won” even though he got manipulated?

He falls for it every time because he hasn’t figured out he’s been played. He’s satisfied with the mild praise. His minions are also satisfied with the mild praise, also haven’t figured he’s been played, or won’t contradict him. Alan Austin of the Kos community posted an edited version of an article published on Monday in Independent Australia.

Federal U.S. debt has just clicked over 38 trillion dollars for the first time, bringing total borrowings in Trump’s second term to an eye-watering $1.81 trillion. Most of this has been added since the so-called Department of Government Efficiency ostensibly cut wasteful spending in order to reduce the deficits and the debt. One trillion dollars was added in just eight weeks in August and September, by far the deepest peacetime increase anywhere in the world.

Interest paid on that dept in the fiscal year just ended is reported (though maybe not accurately) to be $1,218.5 billion. Which is also $1.2185 trillion. Paying interest on all that debt is above a trillion a year. So how did a trillion get spent in eight weeks?

Fraud and theft are rampant now Congress refuses to monitor White House decisions, Trump has fired the inspectors general, and the Supreme Court has given Trump monarchic powers.

We know about the $40 billion currency swap with Argentina, which didn’t get Congressional approval (and Congress doesn’t seem to care). How much has been handed out in similar payments to other people? How much has been given to Putin? We probably won’t know until the nasty guy vacates the Oval Office.