The Trump Narrenschiff

       Nothing vital has changed in the last two weeks on Citizen Kane.  Other than Rick Perry and Scott Walker, two actual conservatives, having left the GOP field, little has transpired in the presidential race.   Large numbers of highly deluded conservatives still regard Citizen Kane as the nation's only hope.   This group includes Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin, and Michael Savage.   Ann Coulter, the pundit for those who lack a gag reflex, has not only joined this group, but has led the pack in pure stupidity.  Coulter asked "how many f*cking Jews" were in the country, making (in her view) Israel an issue for no good reason.  Anti-semitism. . . .check!   Then she went on a tear about Pope Karl.  Those who have read Q.E.D. know that Estase is far from enthusiastic about the direction Pope Karl has taken the Church.   All the same, when Ann Coulter opined that it was right for nativists to deny Catholics the vote, and went further to say that Catholicism only became acceptable when it stopped being Roman and started being American, Estase wanted to chuck it all and register as a Democrat.  Really?  Leaving aside the character of the current pontiff, this is just about as Jack Chick a thing as I've ever heard anywhere.  The Catholic Church is led by a Pope.  The Pope's home is Rome.  The political structure of the Catholic hierarchy is based on ancient Rome.  There is no such thing as American Catholicism, just as there is no such thing as German Catholicism or Italian Catholicism.  Look up the word "catholic," Ms. Coulter.  "He had catholic interests."  "His sympathies were catholic."  Catholic means universal, dumbass!  Now that Ann Coulter has appealed to bottom-feeding troglodyte Catholic-haters, what more needs to be done to quash Republican hopes for 2016?  Maybe Coulter can say that blacks need to be shipped back to Africa?  Are you kidding me?  How will Citizen Kane get elected, now that his acolytes have insulted hispanics, Jews, and now Catholics?   Kiss the pro-life Catholic vote goodbye, Donald.

         On a lighter, and completely different topic, Estase has been thinking of a horror movie that could also be considered film noir--the 1960 Alfred Hitchcock classic Psycho.  It starts out as a crime caper, where Marion Crane leaves her husband and steals a fortune from her employer.  Thus, you have the film noir theme of a bad guy versus a horrible guy.  Crane thinks she has the monopoly on dirty dealing, but doesn't realize that her motel is run by someone with and Oedipal complex and a split personality.  Then you have the private dick Arbogast, who was pretty hardboiled, but completely unprepared for Norman Bates.

Vlad Typische

       The Saudis refuse to accept any Syrian refugees, but offer to build 200 mosques in Germany.  That's big of them.  Assuredly, they will also provide Wahabi clerics to staff them.  Germany--once the home of Nazi Jew-haters, soon to be the home of Muslim Jew-haters.  Some things never change.

Thought for the Day

"I would only wish that equality in politics consisted of everyone being equally free and not, as one hears so often in our days, of everyone being subjugated to the same master."
                                                    Alexis deTocqueville

Legislative Nostalgia, Part Six

From the Carthage (IL) Republican, (which, ironically, favored the Democratic party):

RECROWNING OF THE CZAR

The nomination of Hon. Thomas B. Reed for speaker by the republican caucus was forseen a year ago, and only a languid interest can attach to that circumstance.  What he would say in accepting the nomination, equivalent to an election, could not be anticipated.  Reed is a humorist, as well as a despot, and is, or has been, capable of surprised.  It was, therefore, by no means certain that a man of his nimble wit might not say something readable in his speech.

        Power, however, brings responsibility, and responsibility begets conservatism.  There is little of the flavor of the Romanoff in the czar's latest utterances.  Not only has he a lively recollection of the manner in which he wrecked his party in the session of congress which began six years ago, but he is now {1896}a candidate for the presidency.  Somehow it has come to be a sort of axiom among the theological disputants of a former age, in their frank and free ecclesiastical billingsgate, called "dumb dogs," are available for presidential nominations.  When it is not possible for them to be wholly dumb, they open their mouths to enumerate platitudes or deal in generalities that are absolutely unintelligible in their application to current problems.

       Mr. Reed was Delphic from the beginning of his speech.  Returning thanks for the honor was purely prefunctory, and it was lukewarm, as became a man who knew that no real opposition could have been offered, and who also doubted in his heart whether this nomination would make or mar him.  But his next sentence was constructed with admirable art to leave the hearer in doubt.  "History," said he, "will accord us praise for what we did in the 51st congress, and it may accord us praise in this for what we do not do."

       This is not the note of the Reed of six years ago.  "High-reaching Buckingham grows circumspect."  He talks now of a divided government, of small results, and warns his party of the danger of crude and hasty legislation.  Can this be the man who thanked God that the house of representatives was no longer a deliberative body?  But what does Mr. Reed mean by "history?"  Has not the 51st congress already passed into history?  Has not the judgment of the people been passed upon it over and over, and always in condemnation?  Does Mr. Reed desire to appeal from the judgment of 1890, 1891 and 1892 to that of the next century?  He cannot appeal to 1894 and 1895, for the work of his congress was not then in issue.

       When Mr. Reed said that if the republicans had possession of all branches of the government they would possibly not create a perfect world, but that they would make a world more fit to live in than the one we have at present, we recognize a touch, faint, indeed, of his old humor.  But even back of the humor there is a suggestion, not quite so faint, of that partnership with God which the republicans have always claimed as the peculiar characteristic of their party.  Every intelligent man in the country knows full well that if this part of the world is not so pleasant to live in as it once was, the difference is due to the legislation of the 51st congress to a greater extent than to any other cause.

       It would be interesting to know for what Mr. Reed thinks the country will accord praise to the 51st congress?  Is it for the McKinley bill?  If so, Maj. McKinley is the logical candidate for 1896, and Mr. Reed's aspirations to the presidency are an impertinence.  Is it for the Sherman silver purchase act, which by confession of republicans brought on the panic?  Then why did Mr. Sherman and Mr. Reed urge its repeal?  Is it for the passage of the force bill by the house?  If so, why do republicans now say there will never be another force bill?  These were the measures which occupied most of the time of the 51st congress, and if they give it a standing in history, then history will be singularly deaf to contemporary evidence.
       As to the question of revenue Mr. Reed is equally enigmatical.  He says that all parties will maintain the rigor of the house to initiate taxation, which is true in a general way of everybody but the senate, which has frequently provoked remonstrance by originating measures of taxation under the pretext of proposing amendments. He then says that no man can doubt that the majority of the house will furnish adequate revenue for the government, "according to our sense of public duty."  This last clause makes the whole sentence ambiguous.  Unfortunately, there are a good many men who not only can but do doubt whether the house will furnish revenue according to the sense of public duty of the majority.  Many of us would move to strike out the words and substitute "according to their sense of personal or party interest."-- Louisville Courier-Journal