No Dem Good Deed Goes Unpunished

David Horsey today gives us something to ponder in his op-ed No good deed … The Seattle Times:

But, in much of the commentary about the need for Democrats to focus their storytelling, there is an underlying assumption that may prove fallacious. That assumption is that voters will be receptive to a message about all the good stuff in the Democrats’ legislative product and will reward the party accordingly. Is that really true?

Republicans have achieved quite a bit of success by dispensing with any coherent legislative agenda. They run on red-meat issues like abortion, immigration fears, wars on Christmas, creeping socialism, antifa fantasies and stolen elections. The most pertinent current example is the success of the Republican gubernatorial campaign in Virginia, where suburban female voters were scared away from the Democrats by GOP rants about racial propaganda being foisted on schoolkids.

Elections are decided by about 10% of citizens in the middle of the political spectrum who do not pay a lot of attention to the details of legislation. Polls show that a disturbingly high number of Americans are unaware of the hundreds of billions of dollars the Biden administration pumped into the economy last year to keep businesses afloat and to keep solvent the many people who lost their jobs due to pandemic shutdowns. It is quite likely that, next year, Democrats will not get the credit they deserve for the important and possibly transforming legislation they are passing now, no matter how smart their messaging campaign may be.

The real lesson is this: Democrats need to accomplish as much as they can now while they control Congress, not because it will help them win in 2022, but because it is the right thing to do.

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Author: patd

“But I don’t want to go among mad people," Alice remarked. "Oh, you can’t help that," said the Cat: "we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad." "How do you know I’m mad?" said Alice. "You must be," said the Cat, "or you wouldn’t have come here.” ― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

54 thoughts on “No Dem Good Deed Goes Unpunished”

  1. “Do you think it is a vain hope that one day man will find joy in noble deeds of light and mercy, rather than in the coarse pleasures he indulges in today — gluttony, fornication, ostentation, boasting, and envious vying with his neighbor? I am certain this is not a vain hope and that the day will come soon.”
    ― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

    [“the day will come soon”? BTW, he wrote that more than a century ago]

  2. when uncle joe & co. do do us a good deed, it’s not long before we gripe “what have you done for me lately” – so soon we forget, fidget and fuss for more

     

     

  3. in the meantime, a chicken little alert. get ready to duck. THE SKY IS FALLING!!! again.

    The Guardian

    Nasa is in final preparations to launch the world’s first planetary defence mission. The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (Dart) is scheduled to launch on 23 November and is a joint mission with the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory.
    Dart is designed to collide with the asteroid Dimorphos and change its orbit as a test for spotting an asteroid on collision course with Earth and deflecting its path.
    At 160 metres across, Dimorphos is about the size of the Great Pyramid of Giza. It is a moon to the larger asteroid Didymos and completes an orbit of its parent rock once every 11.9 hours.
    In October 2022, Dart will collide with Dimorphos at a speed of 6.6 km/s. This will change the asteroid’s velocity by about 0.4 mm/s, altering its orbital period by about 10 minutes.
    If imparted early enough, small changes to an Earth-heading asteroid could be enough to avoid catastrophe.
    [continues]

  4. Due to inflation and the shortage of housing, it’s just “the economy, stupid,” again. The influx of immigrants from our southern border is going to feed the Republican narrative.

    How folks FEEL about their world will determine how well Dem actions impact voters.

    Republicans are master manipulators of human feeling. Dems need to focus on more than just actions. Dems need to counter the Republican, emotional propaganda machine.

  5.  I hope they line that Dart thing up carefully – wouldn’t want to inadvertently have a galactic bank shot sending an asteroid moon the size of the Great Pyramid of Giza into our little planet.

  6. Interesting times.  CNn states that Americans are quitting their jobs in high numbers.  Cnn also states that Americans are more pessimistic about the economy in decades.  Strange.  I, not an economist but with a bit of MBA in me, would logically think that if you expect the economy to tank you would want to not be unemployed.  Another reason we are in very strange territory because of the pandemic.

  8. Interesting column Pat. I say run against anti-democratic Republicans trying to steal your vote and your constitutional rights, so they can start a dictatorship.
    Slogan: Save Democracy

  9.  

    Trump Defends Threats to Pence…

    In a taped interview with Jonathan Karl Trump defended, quite extensively, supporters who threatened to “hang” former Vice President Mike Pence (AXIOS).

    Jonathan Karl: “Were you worried about him during that siege? Were you worried about his safety?”

    • Trump: “No, I thought he was well-protected, and I had heard that he was in good shape. No. Because I had heard he was in very good shape. But, but, no, I think — “

    Karl: “Because you heard those chants — that was terrible. I mean — “

    • Trump: “He could have — well, the people were very angry.”

    Karl: “They were saying ‘hang Mike Pence.'”

    • Trump: “Because it’s common sense, Jon. It’s common sense that you’re supposed to protect. How can you — if you know a vote is fraudulent, right? — how can you pass on a fraudulent vote to Congress? How can you do that? And I’m telling you: 50/50, it’s right down the middle for the top constitutional scholars when I speak to them. Anybody I spoke to — almost all of them at least pretty much agree, and some very much agree with me — because he’s passing on a vote that he knows is fraudulent. How can you pass a vote that you know is fraudulent? Now, when I spoke to him, I really talked about all of the fraudulent things that happened during the election. I didn’t talk about the main point, which is the legislatures did not approve — five states. The legislatures did not approve all of those changes that made the difference between a very easy win for me in the states, or a loss that was very close, because the losses were all very close.”

  12. they were trying to stretch my garland patience toward its outer limits, and I might be tempted to say that they almost stretched it unto snappage…….but I knew dat my homie garland was going to press ahead with the utmost of  utterly and carefully managed kick-assedness.   Or something like that.
    Come Watson, the game is afoot!

  13. If Bannon is as smart as his background suggests he should be, he’s not having a great afternoon. WaPo. 

    Former White House adviser Stephen K. Bannon was charged Friday with contempt of Congress after refusing to comply with a subpoena from the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on Congress.

    He was indicted by a grand jury in Washington.

    Attorney General Merrick Garland said the charges reflect the Justice Department’s commitment to “show the American people by word and deed that the department adheres to the rule of law, follows the facts and the law and pursues equal justice under the law.”

    Bannon, 67, was subpoenaed on Sept. 23, one of a number of former advisers to President Trump who have balked at answering the select committee’s questions about the events before and during the pro-Trump riot that sought to prevent Congress from formally certifying the election of President Biden.

    This is a developing story and will be updated.

    So apparently Merrick Garland was being quiet about his referral rather than lazy.

  14. This should be an interesting evening and weekend.  The SFB plane can’t fly, so that method of going to Belarus is shut off.  Train to Alabama or Mississippi?  Those states might hide him.  Maybe he will be found at ticket counter out in Dulles?  He has friends in low places, maybe one of them might take him in for a while.

  15. I think he’ll show up and try to baffle ‘em with bullshit.
    Like he probably did in school 

  17. Ms. Bronc, and there are a lot of them.

    A record 4.4 million Americans quit their jobs in September as workers took advantage of the surge in job openings across the country, a sign of how labor market imbalances continue to complicate the economic recovery 20 months into the pandemic.

    The number of people quitting in September constituted a whopping 3 percent of the workforce, according to a monthly Bureau of Labor Statistics survey released Friday. That number is up from the previous record set in August, when 4.3 million people quit their jobs — about 2.9 percent of the workforce. In February 2020, before the big wave of pandemic-related layoffs began, 2.3 percent of workers quit their jobs.

    The new statistics reflect how severely in flux the labor market remains after the pandemic upended the course of business and life across the country in 2020.
    …

    What the hell could they be thinking?

  18. Haha…..Columbo, “No Time to Die”   the opening……at the wedding of Columbo’s nephew.   Wedding band is playing….”I can’t help falling in love with you” as an instrumental….then some kind of”La Bamba” sounding thing as a smooth instrumental.
    Fantastic renditions in a manner of a certain type of playing. As if the band were…….wallpaper.

    lol the Fanfare for the announcements.

  20. It takes a bit sometime for the federal govt to get its hackles totally up, but when it does, it’s usually not anything good for those who been fuggin widditt.

    We went across the damn ATLANTIC OCEAN to whup nozzie ass while kickin japanese ass across the WHOLE OTHER OCEAN, and this bunch of goobers think their nozzie asses are gonna somehow prevail right here at home?

    Smock smock. It is to laugh. You bet your sweet bippy. Wocka wocka .

  21. Just the other day I was thinking that Orange Adolf and his extended mob family might get on a plane and do a disappearing act.  

  24. the indictment refers to Jan. 6 as a “domestic terrorist attack”.  
    oooooooh, that’s cold…….

    I try hard not to gloat as gloating is non-productive, but sheeeez……sometimes you just gotta.
    *********************
    But then, he’ll surrender Monday. No arrest, no perp walk. Make bail and walk out like he got a traffic ticket. And begin a long, long legal process with midterms one year away.
    –Don Winslow

  26. Oh how I love the irony here , that is Garland isn’t sitting on the Big Court, and he didn’t go gently into that good night. 
    He’s running Federal Grand Juries. 
    “How you like me now , Mitch?” 
     

  28. Hmmm – this Friday, is Bannon a favorite of the former guy or is he a worthless pig?  It is so difficult to keep up with the mutterings of a mad man.

  29. Buzzer –
    This is an over the air channel running game shows from the seventies and before. 
    Included is Alex Trebek  hosting “Concentration”  wearing these huge puffy pop art sweaters ,
    2 days ago , I watched him give away a “Yugo EV valued at over $4,500 dollars!”
    Once again I was reminded that me and Toto weren’t in Kansas any more. 
     
     

  30. Speaking of the 70’s and the Yugo –
    One of the great SNL skits of all time was ” The Adobe ”
    Tagline –  ” German Engineering and Mexican Know How ”
    Phil Hartman. doing the voice over. 
    The entire car was made of wet terra cotta clay .
    Among it’s features was a cup holder , they then showed a hand grinding a coffee mug into the console. 
     
    God that was a funny bit. 

  31. Documents reveal new details of Trump political interference in COVID-19 response
     
    During a press briefing on Feb. 25, 2020, former senior CDC official Nancy Messonnier warned about the coming dangers of COVID-19. She told reporters that the spread of the coronavirus was essentially inevitable.

    “It’s not so much a question of if this will happen anymore but rather more a question of exactly when,” she said.
    Her statement angered Trump, and the administration subsequently stopped granting CDC officials permission to brief the public. The agency held no briefings from early March until June, during some of the earliest and most confusing times of the pandemic.
    https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/581322-documents-reveal-new-details-of-trump-political-interference-in-covid
     
     
     

  32. Lie, deny, rinse , repeat .
    After nearly 30 years  of this , no wonder  “No good deed goes ………… ” 
    Where’s that Lt Governor  from Penn. ? 

  33. Interesting column Pat. I say run against anti-democratic Republicans trying to steal your vote and your constitutional rights, so they can start a dictatorship.Slogan: Save Democracy

     
    I would add a pro death cult posing as a party.  Get that guy from Frontline , and  tell the tale of American dead .  By next Sept.  it’ll be over a million. 

  37. Not one rural voter is going to listen to AOC , but they will listen to this guy.  And he is no fool , he understands what we are up against. 
     
    By the way  , I fear Biden will die in office .  The shit storm of troubles is eating him alive. 
     
    His speeches  are a pinball  machine.  

  43. I was painting the Gas Company   at 2 AM  .  Big Momma  showed up with her very wired side man from LA. 
     
    ” Here’s Houston White ?  Here’s Houston White ? ”
    (The owner of the Gas Company .)
    Me –
    He’s home in bed. 
     
    Big Momma –
    “Get him up ! I am tired  and I want to go to sleep.” 
     

     
     
     
     
     

  45. But the best  was  when Muddy Waters  showed up.
    A purple Pontiac station wagon towing a tiny U-Haul trailer  painted  purple . 
    I was over the Moon. 
    He was supporting  Electric Mud 

  50. Speaking of “Electric Mud” :
    Staten Island’s Greg Hansen and I were stationed in Memphis in 68-69 and remained friends until he passed this year. Two of his kids, Marc and Matty are in a band now which they called “Electric Mud” in homage to The great Muddy Waters. Both former navy seals they now live and play music in San Diego.   (Their uncle by marriage is a Rolling Stone)
    http://www.electricmudofficial.com/band

  51. Music  is our balm  to festering wounds. It is the  thread of our lives we all know our own songs that froze a moment in time.
     

     
     
     
     
     
     

  52. Their brother Dave, also a navy seal, played Chief Dave (as a seal) in the Movie “Act of Valor”.  Their uncle, Al Hansen was a hollywood low-level character actor, whose biggest shot was in Mike Myers’ movie billed as BAD ACTOR, who was in the movie kicked off the set by Myers and replaced with Charlton Heston during the Graduate spoof part of the movie.   He actually did pretty good landing parts on TV shows, like grizzly adams, little house on the prairie, etc. 
    great family. 
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     

  53. He is playing this thing out like Abbie Hoffman ,making these subpoenas into a joke, referenced Chris Hayes last night.  But this time, Trump is not the Chief.  I am talking about Bannon, who just ridicules DOJ every day.  He’ll learn…won’t he?  I keep hearing the January 6 final rulings may be way off yet…months, a year, more.   

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