29 search results for "The Eunuch Caucus"

The Ongoing Adventures Of The Eunuch Caucus

by digby

Greg Sargent calls them WINO’s. Harold Meyerson dubs them Spineless Sages. I’m fond of my own moniker from back in 2006, the Eunuch Caucus. They all add up to the same thing — congressional GOP jellyfish who wring their hands and rend their garments about the war and other failures of the Bush administration and yet can never seem to actually vote against anything the administration wants or for anything they don’t. The worst cases, like McCain, Graham and Warner make a big show of being “elder statesmen” or “mavericks” and then turn around and engineer legislative atrocities like the Military Commissions Act.

This is one reason why I really hate calling the Democrats spineless. It’s true that they sometimes are, but compared to their single cell invertebrate comrades on the other side they are super-heroes. The Republicans laid down for Dick Cheney’s Unitary executive like a bunch of cheap hookers during fleet week with nary a thought for the constitution or even their own prerogatives. As I wrote back in ’06:

I am dumbstruck by the totality of the Republicans’ abdication of their duty. These men who spent years running on Madisonian principles (“The essence of government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse”) now argue without any sense of irony or embarrassment that Republican Senators are nothing more than eunuchs in President Bush’s political harem. They have voluntarily rendered the congress of the United States impotent to his power.

I’ve watched this invertebrate GOP caucus since 2000 as they submitted themselves to this lawless administration again and again, shredding every bit of self respect, every figment of institutional pride, every duty to the constitution. The look in their eyes, which is somehow interpreted as strong and defiant by the equally servile media, is actually a window to empty little men who have given up their manhood to oblige their master. The only reward they seek is unfettered access to the taxpayers money for their own use.

We are looking at fifty-five of the most powerful people in the country. Collectively the Republican Senators represent almost a hundred and fifty million citizens. And they have allowed a callow little boy like George W. Bush along with his grey eminineces Karl Rove and Dick Cheney to strip them of their consciences, their principles and their constitutional obligations. What sad little creatures, cowardly and subservient, unctuously bowing and scraping before Karl Rove the man who holds their (purse) strings and dances them around the halls of congress singing tributes to their own irrelevance at the top of their lungs. How pathetic they are.

And it continues to this day, even as their great leader has nearly destroyed their party and ruined the country.

Never make a bet that Republicans will do the right thing. You can’t even count on them to act in their own self-interest — witness their just tanking the immigration bill that will probably sink their chances of a real majority for many years to come. Their only purpose in government is to steal from the taxpayers, help their rich friends, cover up their leaders’ crimes and destroy Democrats. That’s it. That’s all they do.

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Low-Tech Sophisticates

by digby

This article by Walter Pincus in the Wapo indicates that the white house is coordinating with the Republicans on the Senate Intelligence Committee by providing them with selective, unclassified talking points for them to use. This is not surprising, of course, since they have treated the NSA spying as a political campaign and the Eunuch Caucus members on the committee have dutifully followed in lock-step.

The talking points are the usual drivel, but I especially like this one:

“Current law is not agile enough to handle the threat posed by sophisticated international terrorist organizations such as al-Qaeda”

Wow. Those terrorists sure are frightening. Here’s what we learned just this week in the Washington Post about the “sophisticated” methods of al Qaeda:

Faced with the most sophisticated technology in the world, bin Laden has gone decidedly low-tech. His 23 video or audiotapes in the last five years are thought to have been hand-carried to news outlets or nearby mail drops by a series of couriers who know nothing about the contents of their deliveries or the real identity of the sender, a simple method used by spies and drug traffickers for centuries.

“They are really good at operational security,” said Ben Venzke, chief executive officer of IntelCenter, a private company that analyzes terrorist information and has obtained, analyzed and published all bin Laden’s communiques. “They are very good at having enough cut-outs” to move videos into circulation without detection. “It’s some of the simplest things to do.”

It seems obvious to me that what they really want to do is spy on law abiding American muslims and political opponents and that is wrong on both practical and moral grounds. Radicalizing the first group is the Republicans’ most dangerous and stupid desire, but they seem intent upon doing it. It almost seems as if they are jealous of the Europeans who actually have a home grown threat while we don’t.

Profiling, warrantless spying, conflating their religion with fascism — all this seems designed to make American muslims feel as if they are being blamed for Islamic terrorism. If they persist in doing this kind of thing they will likely succeed in turning some of those Americans into extremists too. But then, Republicans are desperate to make this threat greater than it already is in order to justify their overblown hysteria; if they have to actually create homegrown terrorists themselves, they will.

As for spying on political opponents, well — that’s just a Republican traditional value. And we know how they love traditional values.

Update: For another example of not-so-latent wingnut muslim bigotry, read this. (via)

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Ain’t Nobody’s Business

by digby

Here’s a terrific idea. Just fantastic:

The Bush administration acknowledged yesterday that it had long known about Pakistan’s plans to build a large plutonium-production reactor, but it said the White House was working to dissuade Pakistan from using the plant to expand its nuclear arsenal.

“We discourage military use of the facility,” White House spokesman Tony Snow said of a powerful heavy-water reactor under construction at Pakistan’s Khushab nuclear site in Punjab state.

Pakistan has begun building what independent analysts say is a powerful new reactor for producing plutonium, a move that, if verified, would signal a major expansion of the country’s nuclear weapons capabilities and a potential new escalation in the region’s arms race.

The reactor, which reportedly will be capable of producing enough plutonium for as many as 50 bombs each year, was brought to light on Sunday by independent analysts who spotted the partially completed plant in commercial-satellite photos. Snow said the administration had “known of these plans for some time.”

And yet (I know this will shock you) they didn’t bother to tell the congress, not even members of the Eunuch Caucus:

The acknowledgment came as arms-control experts and some in Congress expressed alarm about a possible escalation of South Asia’s arms race. Some also sharply criticized the administration for failing to disclose the existence of a facility that could influence an upcoming congressional debate over U.S. nuclear policy toward India and Pakistan.

“If either India or Pakistan starts increasing its nuclear arsenal, the other side will respond in kind,” said Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), co-chairman of a House bipartisan task force on nonproliferation. “The Bush administration’s proposed nuclear deal with India is making that much more likely.”

Pakistan is reportedly the new home of Osama bin laden and all indications are that it is the epicenter of the next generation of Islamic fundamentalist terrorism. But no matter. Let’s let the whole sub-continent nuke itself up to the gills. Nothing bad can come of it, right?

Still, I can’t help but recall the immortal words of our Dear Leader when he said:

Tonight I want to take a few minutes to discuss a grave threat to peace, and America’s determination to lead the world in confronting that threat.

The threat comes from Iraq. It arises directly from the Iraqi regime’s own actions – its history of aggression, and its drive toward an arsenal of terror.

[…]

We also must never forget the most vivid events of recent history. On Sept. 11, 2001, America felt its vulnerability – even to threats that gather on the other side of the earth. We resolved then and we are resolved today to confront every threat, from any source, that could bring sudden terror and suffering to America.

[…]

Some ask how urgent this danger is to America and the world. The danger is already significant and it only grows worse with time. If we know Saddam Hussein has dangerous weapons today – and we do – does it make any sense for the world to wait to confront him as he grows even stronger and develops even more dangerous weapons?

[…]

We know that Iraq and the al-Qaida terrorist network share a common enemy – the United States of America. We know that Iraq and al-Qaida have had high-level contacts that go back a decade. Some al-Qaida leaders who fled Afghanistan went to Iraq.

[…]

Iraq could decide on any given day to provide a biological or chemical weapon to a terrorist group or individual terrorists. Alliances with terrorists could allow the Iraqi regime to attack America without leaving any fingerprints.

[…]

There is no easy or risk-free course of action. Some have argued we should wait – and that is an option. In my view, it is the riskiest of all options – because the longer we wait, the stronger and bolder Saddam Hussein will become. We could wait and hope that Saddam does not give weapons to terrorists, or develop a nuclear weapon to blackmail the world. But I am convinced that is a hope against all evidence. As Americans, we want peace – we work and sacrifice for peace – and there can be no peace if our security depends on the will and whims of a ruthless and aggressive dictator. I am not willing to stake one American life on trusting Saddam Hussein.

The military dictator Pervez Musharraf, however, he’s willing to trust with an entire nuclear arsenal and a population full of Islamic fundamentalists who hate the United States with every fiber of their beings. Now he’s keeping Pakistan’s secret development of plutonium from the congress. I sure hope he looked into Musharraf’s soul and saw a guy who could guarantee an iron grip on events because if not, Pakistan holds a lot of very scary cards.

I have always wondered why this was not questioned during the run-up to the war. Pakistan always made the Iraq invasion absurd. Still does, more than ever.

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Codpiece Fatigue

by digby

Do you remember the term “Clinton fatigue?” You know, back when everybody was really, really tired of peace and prosperity and talking about oral sex? (You can understand why everyone wanted our long national nightmare to be over…)

It occurs to me that some conservatives, at least the educated ones, must be feeling some serious “Bush fatigue” about now. When they hear ignorant, puerile drivel like this come out of his mouth, some of them (a couple of them?) must look at the calendar and count the days until their personal nightmare is over:

“It didn’t say we couldn’t have done — couldn’t have made that decision, see?” Mr. Bush said at a news conference in Chicago. “They were silent on whether or not Guantánamo — whether or not we should have used Guantánamo. In other words, they accepted the use of Guantánamo, the decision I made.”

I’m the decider, see. They accepted my decision, see.

Whenever he sounds this moronic I’m reminded that it’s probably how it was explained to him. That “see” is the tip-off. He can’t actually understand the decision and then go out and expect that people won’t think he’s a complete idiot for saying what he just said. He doesn’t get it. Nobody can spin that badly, not even him.

As TBOGG put it, this is Bush’s version of: “That chick at the bar? She’s totally digging on me.”

Update: Jeff Jacoby apparently thinks that because Bush says he takes the Supreme Court decsions “seriously” it means he isn’t seizing dictatorial powers. After repeating Andrew Jackson’s famous saying “John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it” Jacoby writes:

President Bush learns the court’s ruling in Hamdan has gone against him. A five-justice majority held the military commissions created by the administration to try the Guantanamo detainees are invalid, since they were never authorized by congressional statute. The justices seem to have repudiated Bush’s claim that the Constitution invests the president with sweeping unilateral authority in wartime. “The court’s conclusion ultimately rests upon a single ground,” Justice Stephen Breyer pointedly notes in a concurrence. “Congress has not issued the Executive a ‘blank check.’ “

Whereupon Bush says — what? “The justices have made their decision; now let them enforce it”? Something even more acid? Perhaps he repeats a statement he has made previously — “I’m the decider, and I decide what is best”?

Not quite. He says he takes the court’s decision “seriously.” A few moments later he says it again. And then comes this: “We’ve got people looking at it right now to determine how we can work with Congress, if that’s available, to solve the problem.” There is no disdain. No bravado. No criticism. Just an acknowledg ment that the Supreme Court has spoken and the executive branch will comply.

Some dictator.

It isn’t 1832 anymore. Even presidents who are aggressive in their claims of authority don’t flout Supreme Court decisions. Harry Truman relinquished the steel mills, Richard Nixon turned over the Watergate tapes, Bill Clinton submitted to Paula Jones’s deposition. Al Gore conceded the 2000 election. Now Bush will acquiesce as well.

For better or worse, our legal system as it has evolved makes the judiciary, not the president, “the decider.” Bush presses his claims forcefully, as he is entitled to do — but only to a point. We remain a nation of laws, not of men. For all the promiscuous talk about dictatorship, was that ever really in doubt?

Perhaps Jacoby doesn’t know that congress tried to strip the court of jurisdiction in any cases such as this — even going so far as to insert a bogus debate into the record so that the court would be misled as to the intent of the congress when that failed.

There is no guarantee that the Eunuch Caucus would not happily hand over all its constitutional powers to Bush — and strip the court of all of it powers while they’re at it. The only thing keeping them from it is the fact that they haven’t figured out how to finesse stealing an election where the polls have the GOP down by more than a few points before election day. But they’re working on it.

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Down The Hatch

by digby

In the Feingold hearings today, Orrin Hatch said that censure is unconstitutional. Like all the rest of the hypocritical weasels of the Eunuch Caucus, he has a very short memory:

Republicans believe their aggressive pursuit of impeachment is not only required by the Constitution but also satisfies their more conservative political base.

The growing debate about punishment for Clinton short of removal from office stems from a hard political count. Hatch said proponents of ousting the president will almost certainly be short of the required two-thirds vote in the Senate.

“It may be that if more hasn’t come out or if people do not feel we can get 67 votes, it may be that that is the time when something else can be resolved,” Hatch said.

Even though censure is not mentioned in the Constitution, Hatch said he believes it is within Congress’ right.

“But it would have to be done very carefully” to avoid transgressing the Constitution’s prohibition on “bills of attainder,” or a legislatively enacted punishment, he said.

“This is a lot more difficult than people today realize,” Hatch said.

Of course this impressive legal thinker is also the guy who says this:

“It would be unconstitutional for the Congress to say, ‘You have to go through the FISA court.’ We could pass a law that says, ‘We want you to go through the FISA court,’ and I think the president would probably try to live with that. The problem is, you cannot do what they’ve been doing to protect us through the current FISA statute.”

Interesting new theory. The congress passes laws the country must abide by. Except for the president. For him laws are just polite requests.

God Save The King.

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Empty Veto

by digby

So Bush says he’ll veto any legislation to block the port deal. He says that his government knows what it’s doing and wouldn’t have ok’d the deal if it would harm the nation’s security. This is the same government that did such a great job with Hurricane Katrina and the aftermath of the Iraq invasion.

Assuming that we aren’t seeing some sort of kabuki here, it appears that the Eunuch Caucus is getting an earful from their constituents and see no margin in working with the lame albatross right now. He’s threatened vetoes before and the invertebrate Republicans have always fallen into line. This time appears to be different.

If this is true, the Bush administration may be effectively over.

Update: Dan Bartlett is going on and on about the “rigorousness” of the process the administration undertook with this port deal. He keeps saying that they have a lot of experience with this company and that the department of Homeland Security will be in charge of security. Apparently, they have no idea that they have lost the trust of the people on exactly these kinds of things. The rigor of their planning, the “experience” with private companies and the ineptitude of Homeland Security.

They have fear mongered their way to victory for four long years, going on and on about how “the oceans don’t protect us” anymore and now they act as if port security is just another contract and claim it’s important for “our image” to give security contracts to state owned middle eastern companies with ties to terrorism. Wow.

They are left with nothing but the president’s “resolve” to govern. They believe that if he digs in his heels everyone will capitulate out of sheer admiration for his machismo. At 39%, the power of his machismo has shrunk to a fraction of what it once was. He’s in very icy water now.

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Filling In The Blank Check

by digby

Be sure to read Glenn Greenwald’s piece today about the undercurrent in DC that suggests that the Republicans aren’t so sanguine about the NSA scandal accruing to their benefit after all. This is clearly becauase of the pressure coming from within, but I think that mostly has to do with Bush’s unpopularity generally (as I write below.) The bottom line is that the Eunuch Caucus needs some viagra, and quick.

Glenn links to this very revealing editorial in Pat Roberts’ home paper:

Many Kansans, including members of The Eagle editorial board, have long admired Sen. Pat Roberts for his plainspokenness and reputation for fair brokering of issues.

So it’s troubling that Roberts, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, is fast gaining the reputation in Washington, D.C., as a reliable partisan apologist for the Bush administration on intelligence and security controversies.

We hope that’s not true. But Roberts’ credibility is on the line. . . .

What’s bothering many, though, is that Roberts seems prepared to write the Bush team a series of blank checks to conduct the war on terror, even to the point of ignoring policy mistakes and possible violations of law.

That’s not oversight — it’s looking the other way.

This is Kansas we’re talking about.

It’s also a sign that Rovism may have run its course. His MO, after all, is to entirely dominate the party from the top down, something that only works if the “top” can wield the whip. The Cheney episode was a window into the inner workings of the white house in this respect and it’s quite clear that Rove does not have the clout he once did. He couldn’t control Cheney. It’s going to be harder and harder for him to control this nervous congress. All lame ducks have a hard time retaining control — a lame duck at 39% is an albatross around his party’s neck.

Of course, Rove is probably a little bit distracted by certain personal matters too. And that’s one very good reason to keep the pressure on. Even if we can’t advance our own agenda, we can certainly help make it difficult for them to advance theirs. That’s just as important to successful politics as anything else.

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Leaders Lead

by digby

So it looks like the Judiciary Committee is going to do the big el-foldo on the NSA spying scandal and some Democrats in the congress are going to simply vote with the Republicans make the president’s illegal program legal and call it a day. Once again their losing strategists have misunderstood why Americans believe that they are weak on national security. Indeed, if they capitulate on this they will have reinforced that image much more than if they oppose it outright.

This article by Walter Shapiro on Salon discusses what is driving some Dems to play down the NSA spying issue:

Typical was my lunch discussion earlier this week with a ranking Democratic Party official. Midway through the meal, I innocently asked how the “Big Brother is listening” issue would play in November. Judging from his pained reaction, I might as well have announced that Barack Obama was resigning from the Senate to sell vacuum cleaners door-to-door. With exasperation dripping from his voice, my companion said, “The whole thing plays to the Republican caricature of Democrats — that we’re weak on defense and weak on security.” To underscore his concerns about shrill attacks on Bush, the Democratic operative forwarded to me later that afternoon an e-mail petition from MoveOn.org, which had been inspired by Al Gore’s fire-breathing Martin Luther King Day speech excoriating the president’s contempt for legal procedures.

A series of conversations with Democratic pollsters and image makers found them obsessed with similar fears that left-wing overreaction to the wiretapping issue would allow George W. Bush and the congressional Republicans to wiggle off the hook on other vulnerabilities. The collective refrain from these party insiders sounded something like this: Why are we so obsessed with the privacy of people who are phoning al-Qaida when Democrats should be screaming about corruption, Iraq, gas prices and the prescription-drug mess?

Again, aside from the ridiculous fantasy that they will be able to “neutralize” the terrorism issue and move on to prescription drugs (again!), they have made a huge error in their analysis of why the Republicans have the edge on national security and every time they genuflect to the administration’s wacky plans they drive the image home. The problem for Democrats isn’t that they are seen as soft on national security. It’s that they are seen as not believing in anything and therefore are not strong on national security.

Every time the Democrats first speak out strongly and then fall in behind Republicans on national security like this, selling out their principles and the deep concerns of their constituents, they reinforce the image that there is nothing the Democrats are willing to fight for and the national security vote goes to the Republicans who have shown they are willing to fight for everything.

Via Rick Perlstein’s book “The Stock Ticker and The Super Jumbo” here are some typical focus group answers about what people think of Democrats:

“I think they lost their focus”
“I think they are a little disorganized right now”
“They need leadership”
“On the sidelines”
“fumbling”
“confused”
“losing”
“scared”

Republicans openly defied the polls when they impeached a president who had a 60 percent approval rating. (They had the help of the press, of course, but it never made any difference in public opinion.) They used the language of principle and “the rule of law” and paid no price for what they did beyond the loss of a few seats in 98. People do not hold it against politicians for standing up for principle even if they know there is political intent. They do hold it against politicans if they are seen as having no principles at all.

Capitulating on issues of such huge importance is even more damaging when it’s clear that it’s the Eunuch Caucus who are truly soft on this issue, not the Democrats. The Republicans hold both houses and have the power to defy this presumptuous administration on a matter of fundamental principle to the conservative cause: unfettered government power. The few who managed to squeak out a tiny protest just caved in response to arm twisting from president Dick Cheney. Apparently when he wasn’t drunkenly shooting old men in the face, he found time to put the metaphorical shotgun to the heads of his own party who promptly fell to their knees and kissed his ring. They are invertebrate, cowardly eunuchs who cannot even muster enough courage to defy this lame duck jerk when he openly regards the US Senate as his personal pack of spayed retreivers.

The polls today show that more than half of the country believes the president broke the law with this program and that it was wrong for him to have done it. And the press is in the most danger they’ve been in since since the Pentagon Papers, which was the last time whistleblowers came forward with such important revelations about government secrecy and lawlessness. So Democrats do not have to fear the press on this — particularly if they remind them who their friends are on this issue. The Republicans are split on it, with the libertarian wing and the doctrinaire conservatives finding themselves having to swallow their disgust or break with the party. Democrats are in a much better position than they think to turn this into a positive and drive a wedge through the Republican coalition while they do it.

If the Democrats in congress simply stood together on principle instead of listening to overfed, out of touch strategists who have misdiagnosed the problem for years, they would begin to crawl out of this hole on national security. In order for the nation to trust them to defend the country the first thing they must do is stop believing that going along with the Republican Eunuch Caucus will ever improve their lot. People trust leaders who lead not followers who fall in line.

Glenn has more on this, here.

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The Eunuch Caucus

by digby

I’ve been digesting this morning’s hearings and I am dumbstruck by the totality of the Republicans’ abdication of their duty. These men who spent years running on Madisonian principles (“The essence of government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse”) now argue without any sense of irony or embarrassment that Republican Senators are nothing more than eunuchs in President Bush’s political harem. They have voluntarily rendered the congress of the United States impotent to his power.

I’ve watched this invertebrate GOP caucus since 2000 as they submitted themselves to this lawless administration again and again, shredding every bit of self respect, every figment of institutional pride, every duty to the constitution. The look in their eyes, which is somehow interpreted as strong and defiant by the equally servile media, is actually a window to empty little men who have given up their manhood to oblige their master. The only reward they seek is unfettered access to the taxpayers money for their own use.

We are looking at fifty-five of the most powerful people in the country. Collectively the Republican Senators represent almost a hundred and fifty million citizens. And they have allowed a callow little boy like George W. Bush along with his grey eminineces Karl Rove and Dick Cheney to strip them of their consciences, their principles and their constitutional obligations. What sad little creatures, cowardly and subservient, unctuously bowing and scraping before Karl Rove the man who holds their (purse) strings and dances them around the halls of congress singing tributes to their own irrelevance at the top of their lungs. How pathetic they are.

Barry Goldwater is rolling over in his grave.

Update: Oh, and don’t get excited about Huckleberry Graham’s “tough” questions. This is his schtick. Going all the way back to the impeachment hearings, he has done this. He hems and haws in his cornpone way how he’s “troubled” by one thing or another until he finally “decides” after much “deliberation” that the Republican line is correct after all and he has no choice but to endorse it.

Update II: Matt Yglesias notices the same thing and wonders why the senators don’t have a hunger for pwoer. I say it’s because they are craven, bedwetting cowards who are afraid of Karl Rove and addicted to stealing from the American people.

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People wonder what’s happened to the Republican party that they are all lining up like a bunch of robots behind their dear Leader. Here’s a reporter in USA Today:

Back in 1999, I spent a long day tooling around Iowa with Lamar Alexander. At the time of our travels in a Winnebago, accompanied by a couple of aides and a press corps consisting of me and an AP photographer, he was a former Tennessee governor and a presidential candidate trying to compete with the rock star campaign of George W. Bush.

What I remember most from that day was a dramatic back story that, to my puzzlement, he did not mention in his pitch to voters. President Bill Clinton had been impeached by the House and tried in the Senate in a consuming saga of sex, lies and investigations. Voters seemed ready for someone of, as they say, unimpeachable character. Enter Alexander, at least theoretically.

Who would be more perfect for the moment than a man who had taken over a state amid a gubernatorial pardon-selling scandal so serious that he was sworn in three days early in a secret 1979 ceremony, to cut short outgoing Gov. Ray Blanton’s corruption spree? So sensational they made a movie about it, called “Marie,” in which a lawyer (and future senator) named Fred Thompson played himself. The obvious narrative was that Alexander knew how to restore trust in government — he had already done it in Tennessee.

Alexander never became president, but in 2002, he was elected to his first of three terms in the Senate. He was known in Washington for pragmatic bipartisanship — a senator who quit leadership in 2011 so he could work across the aisle more often, and who made good on that most recently in partnership with Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., on education and health policy.

Now Alexander’s just another Republican cowering at the prospect of crossing President Donald Trump, one of the many people I don’t recognize despite having covered and followed them for years or even decades.

What happened? The truth is that these so-called sane Republicans were always primed to follow their leader. They followed Reagan, they followed the Bushes and they are following Trump. There’s a reason John McCain was called “maverick” and it’s because he was one of the few to buck the leadership. (Now we know that his little sidekick Lindsey Graham was just trying to bask in the reflected glow of the lights and cameras that followed him around.)

The people who refused to fall in line were right-wing ideologues like Gingrich and the new Freedom Caucus types, not the establishment. Now that the nuts are in charge the establishment is doing what it always does.

The Republican establishment has always been a bunch of lemmings. I’ve written about it for years.