Prairie Weather

Oops. The pope really goofed. Big time.

He lied.  He didn't tell a little fib; he ducked the truth in a very insulting way. 

On Tuesday night, her lawyer, Mathew D. Staver, said in a telephone interview that Ms. Davis and her husband, Joe, were sneaked into the Vatican Embassy by car on Thursday afternoon. Francis gave her rosaries and told her to “stay strong,” the lawyer said. The couple met for about 15 minutes with the pope, who was accompanied by security guards, aides and photographers. Mr. Staver said he expected to receive photographs of the meeting from the Vatican soon. ...NYT

This may not have been the pope's personal decision; it may have been a Vatican ploy.  What's wrong is not  the visit with Kim Davis, a minor Kentucky bigot.  What's wrong is that it was hidden and he effectively lied about it, playing both ends against the middle, ducking responsibility.

Boehner as coward

Well, put it this way:  Bullies and cowards are the same thing.  One breeds the other.  A bunch of us have harped on the  current makeup of the Republican party -- 1994, that date is generally cited as the jumping off place for Republican bullying or perhaps the triumph of  "me" over "us" -- and good sense tells us that it can't go on forever. 

Twenty years is plenty.  The bullies/cowards may finally be fading into the background or beyond. The right wing's bête noir -- compromise, governing -- should return.  We'll see.  That self-important weepster, John Boehner, has taken the first step.  And on his political tombstone, are these words:

When Boehner announced his impending departure, he expressed pride that he had kept the government open (after a sixteen-day shutdown in 2013) and raised the debt limit. This, to paraphrase a famous Republican, reflects the soft bigotry of low expectations. Keeping the government open and paying its debts are the minimal undertakings of an elected body, not legislative triumphs. But Boehner could point to almost nothing else that happened on his watch, because the Tea Party would tolerate nothing else.

And what did Boehner’s cowardice in the face of the Tea Party stalwarts get him? They forced him out anyway. Boehner built his career around keeping his job, and he still failed. ...JeffreyToobin,NewYorker

Toobin calls Boehner's cowardice "pointless."  And that may extend to the two decades of Republican cost and waste -- of resources and of human lives.  Pointless, and unforgivable is how history will see the bad manners, cruel wars, dangerous corporatism, and savagery of 1995 to present.  A big chunk of those were Boehner years.  Gee he must be proud...

An embarrassing senator with little if any personal support

Texas Senator Ted Cruz, once thought to be an effective if dangerous, mover and shaker, is now the most ineffectual member the Senate -- or so it seems.  Rand Paul is all over him.

"Ted has chosen to make this really personal and called people dishonest in leadership and call them names, which really goes against the decorum and also against the rules of the Senate, and as a consequence he can’t get anything done legislatively," he told Fox News Radio.

 

"He is pretty much done for and stifled, and it’s really because of personal relationships, or lack of personal relationships, and it is a problem." 

 

Paul's comments come after Cruz was unable to garner enough support among his colleagues to get a roll call vote on an amendment Monday, with Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) the only senator to back him. It's the second time since late July that his Republican colleagues have helped deny the Texas Republican a "sufficient second."...TheHill

Planned Parenthood is here to stay

Though it seems unlikely, it's possible the Republicans could put a end to Planned Parenthood, I guess.  But pretty damn quick it would be replaced by another group providing the same services.  You can pretty much take that to the bank.

A new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll finds that Americans have a more favorable view of Planned Parenthood than of any other entity tested, including the Republican Party and presidential candidates. The group’s favorable/unfavorable impression, 47 percent to 31 percent, is actually up slightly from July. What’s more, 61 percent oppose eliminating federal funding of Planned Parenthood. ...DanaMilbank,WaPo

So go on.  Worry.  Shorten  your life with increased anxiety.  The radicals -- like that embarrassing GOPer from the proudly antediluvian right wing in Utah -- would love to see libruls dying from apoplexy.

That very same member of Congress was knocked to his knees at the hearing after presenting false evidence of Planned Parenthood's misdeeds.  One by one the allegations were tossed out. 

But these aren't men who are looking for the truth.  When time came for a vote, they voted in lockstep once again to impose governmental controls on women who, of course, need guidance from a group that has no experience of conception, pregnancy and childbirth and from a political party that is openly suspicious of empathy.

Is it that bad?

Most of the debaters at the Times thinks it is.

Volkswagen’s blatant cheating on auto emissions is only the latest example of dishonesty by corporations and others, many of whom have gone unpunished. Banks have admitted to massive fraud with no executive going to jail. And even some of the most powerful officials in some of the wealthiest states have been charged with or convicted of corruption.

Has the pervasiveness of cheating made moral behavior passé? Is honesty for suckers? ...NYT

Among the debaters is one, an economist, who wobbles and then defines the damage in  economic, rather than moral, terms...

Morality is such a bore.

A special kind of death for the enthusiastic capitalist

Sure!  Before Social Security there was a really cool way to age. Remember reading about tontines?  No, they are not the carts that haul you to the guillotine. Those were tundrels.

Tontines fund your retirement, kind of...

Tontines, you see, operate on a morbid principle: You buy into a tontine alongside many other investors. The entire group is paid at regular intervals. The key twist: As your fellow investors die, their share of the payout gets redistributed to the remaining survivors. 

In a tontine, the longer you live, the larger your profits — but you are profiting precisely off other people’s deaths. Even in their heyday, tontines were regarded as somewhat repugnant for this reason.

Now, a growing chorus of economists and lawyers is wondering if the world wasn’t too hasty in turning its back on tontines. These financial arrangements, they say, have aspects that make a lot of sense despite their history of disrepute.

Some academics even argue that with a few new upgrades, a modern tontine would be particularly suited to soothing the frustrations of 21st-century retirement. It could help people properly finance their final years of life, a time that is often wracked with terribly irrational choices. Tontines could even be a cheaper, less risky way for companies to resurrect the pension. ...JeffGuo,WaPo

Think of the joy! the triumph!  as old friends and dear family members predecease you.  There goes your bud, your old college roommate!  Now you can have yet another month in the Seychelles!