Teapot, meet tempest

If you tuned into Morning Joe on MSNBC today, you would have thought Michelle Wolf was the newly minted public enemy #1.   Her crime, at least in the eyes of Joe, Mika and the assorted sycophants who make a living on their guess at the hosts' views on the issue of the day, consisted of accusing the Spawn of Huck of lying to the American people.   There was also an implication she burned the truth and used the ashes to create a "smoky eye".  That was the sum total of Wolf's description of the aforementioned Press Secretary, but you would think she had disclosed the woman's weight and measurements in a mean spirited way.  No one characterized the criticism of Sander's continual lying to the media as a problem.  They pounced on a marginal shot at eye makeup to imagine a full blown attack on her looks.  I don't see it and I think there will be a backlash when the full text of Wolf's monologue is printed.  In other news, man bites two dogs.

Timing

It was a dark and stormy weekend on the NCR.   Below normal temperatures and copious rainfall made for a lost weekend in the garden.  I was able to fertilize the emerging garlic, but that was the extent of gardening.   It is still early, but we seem to be in a cool, wet regime featuring persistent rain.  The start of the growing season is being impacted for most growers.  We need a couple of weeks of above average temps and drying winds to balance the weather.  

Systemic war on poor people

Paul Krugman in today's NYT reminds us that amid the mounting scandals and self dealing in the tRump administration, the perverse war on the less fortunate among us goes on apace.   While most of us fixate on Stormy Daniels and her publicity savvy lawyer, the secretary of HUD, Ben Carson announced new rules which will have the effect of raising the rents in subsidized housing for the poor.  In some cases as much as tripling what recipients will be made to pay.  For a government which just voted to explode the deficit, Carson's claim that the program in question is unsustainable rings hollow.   Our *president refers to any safety net program as welfare in the most derogatory way.  Meanwhile, Mick Mulvaney, temporary head of the Consumer Fraud Protection Bureau is gutting the ability of the agency to protect consumers, especially low income people preyed upon by the payday lending industry.  Mulvaney infamously told a group of bankers that when he was a congressman he only talked to lobbyists if they contributed to his campaign.  Payday lenders gave him over $60,000.  Nuff said.  There are many other examples of grift and cruelty in this administration, but the motto these lizards seem to live by is the opposite of the golden rule.  The live to afflict the afflicted and comfort the comfortable.

A new arena?

Discussing the latest swamp creature unleashed by the tRump administration, Ronny Jackson, seems redundant with all the other scandals swirling around the Donald.  It's getting downright boring, although at least in Jackson's case, money doesn't seem to be the deciding factor in the alleged misdeeds.   So instead of flogging that dead horse, lets talk about golf!   Specifically the decision of the owners of the Grandview Golf Course in York, Pa. to call the cops on account of slow play by a group of 5 black women!   According to the women, interviewed by a reporter for the NYT, they secured permission to play as a fivesome before teeing off and at least some of them were members of the club.  In an age of declining participation in golf, membership in a club is the gold standard.  Anyway, the women were approached by a course employee and they skipped the 3rd hole to keep up with the pace of play.  As someone who has played with someone (myself included) having a bad day, searching for lost balls and deliberating over a putt for several minutes, I sympathize with the players in question.  It sounds like they made every effort to facilitate the pace of play.  However, at the conclusion of the 9th hole, 3 of the women left and the remaining twosome was ordered to leave by the owner, who called the police when they refused.  The cops realized this was a frivolous call and left without taking any action.  The mystifying happenstance is the treatment of members, seemingly on account of either race or gender.  Their money is green, and as noted above, golf is not exactly a booming sport.  The owners of this course will regret the stupidity of their actions.

Camp Swampy

OMB chief and temporary head of the Consumer Protection Bureau, Mick Mulvaney, presumably let the cat out of the bag when speaking to a group of bankers to implore them to lobby congress to gut the regulations of the consumer protection bureau he supposedly leads.  Referring to his time as a member of the House, Mulvaney said his policy was if you did not donate to his campaign he would not speak to you.  If you did donate, he might speak to you.  As one pundit put it, that is probably most GOP congressmen's policy, but kudos to Mulvaney for providing democrats with a ready made campaign ad!

Collision course

It is looking more and more like Senator Bernie Sanders is eying another run at the presidency in 2020.  He is now calling for the federal government to supply a $15.00/hr. job with benefits to anyone who wants one.  There are no details yet, as his office is still crafting a plan.  Considering there are probably in the range of 20-30 million people presently working for less money than that, the cost of implementing such a program would be astronomical.  I assume Sanders has poll tested the promise and has had good responses.  This would amount to a real populist challenge to the Donald, who despite his agenda of "winning" for the average voter has thus far pursued the usual republican agenda of tax cuts for the rich and deregulation of business.  While Bernie's offer is truly "pie in the sky", it offers program democrats can rally around and move the overton window to the left.  All of a sudden, a $15.00/hr. minimum wage seems doable.  I doubt republicans will seriously compete in that arena.  However, if Bernie secures the Democratic nomination in 2020 it will set up a battle between a real populist and the faux version.  Two men in their mid 70s trying to appeal to the tattered American middle class.   It will be an interesting couple of years.

Seasonal reflections

The first round of local golf coincides quite neatly with the closing of Whiteface mountain's ski slopes.  It was a beautiful weekend on the NCR and it finally looks like spring may make a much delayed appearance.  I was able to make first plantings of parsley, beets, carrots and spinach as well as transplanting lettuce seedlings into the coldframes and beginning another seedbed planting.  The ground is drying out and the birds are singing, although they are still utilizing the feeder.  The next couple of days are set to feature temps in the upper 60s, followed by showers on Wed. and Thurs., so it looks like spring may finally get the upper hand over old man winter.

Looking for the other

Despite my protestations to the contrary and possibly due to the glow induced by the joy of seeing grandchildren live their dreams for a week, I have to admit there is a certain guilty pleasure indulging in Disneyworld.   For a week, we lived and breathed the vision that Walt and his brother Roy bequeathed to an America desperate for nostalgia.  The baby boom generation was seduced by Disneyland and the "Wonderful World of Disney", which appeared on network TV each Sunday night and shamelessly plugged each new Disney project.  Our children grew up during the second golden age of Disney animated fairy tales and their children have Disney 24/7 on cable.  It's no wonder a cross section of visitors to the Magic Kingdom would show a fair number of representatives from all age groups.  But the lure of Main St. USA, Cinderella's castle and all the other attractions baking in the Florida sun is stronger than most of us will admit.  From my 3 1/2  year old grandson who relished his Prince Charming outfit to the oldest, wheelchair bound visitor, we are all longing for a place which perfectly embodies our desire for perfection.  The people who carry on the legacy of Disney understand that and do their best to fulfill that desire.  When it comes time for the next batch of my descendants to make their pilgrimage, me and my aching knees (or their replacements) will be there once more.

Sprung

Maybe this weekend we will get a preview of spring.   After a week in Orlando, the NCR still feels like Siberia!  However, the first planting of lettuce seedlings is up in the cold frame, the garlic has made an appearance through the thick straw mulch covering the beds and I planted tomato seeds and put them on a heating pad with plenty of light.  With a little cooperation from Mother Nature this weekend I hope to get parsley and spinach planted in the garden.  There will be plenty of frenetic activity in the next few weeks as gardeners in the Northeast try to catch up with spring plantings that have been delayed. 

nuclear on steroids

To listen to the talking heads on MSNBC last night you would think the FBI raid on The Donald's lawyer, Michael Cohen, you would think the end of the Reign of Error was nigh.   That's a big maybe.  The more likely prospect is the *president will try to remove the special counsel and deal with the fallout after that move.  As most people outside the right wing media bubble know, Cohen is the key to the petty crime empire of the tRump organization.  Now that the action has moved to New York, even the removal of Robert Mueller will not stop the attorney general of New York from bringing charges in state court.  The Donald has no jurisdiction in this venue.  It may not be nuclear, but the explosion will be heard around the world.

Armageddon Lite

Either most people were not paying attention to politics over the weekend, or else not much was going on besides the Masters golf tournament.  A few new scandals about the grifters in the tRump administration; this time Mick Mulvaney using the public trough to hire a few former aides at salaries higher than any member of congress, a fire at the tRump Tower in New York which killed a resident partly because no fire sprinklers were ever installed and the usual speculation about the coming end times sparked by the accession of John Bolton to the position of National Security Advisor.  In other words, it was a slow news weekend.  That's about all we can hope for in this era of American decline. 

Roller coasters

Due to a temporary sanity loss, I somehow was convinced to accompany the Divine Mrs. M and my eldest daughter and her family to Disneyworld next week.  So at some point during this homage to American tackiness I'll get on a real life roller coaster.  My perception of reality may be skewed somewhat since my and millions of fellow Americans have been on a figurative financial roller coaster for the past few weeks as the stock market gyrates to the tunes being played by our *president.   tRump declares a trade war and the market plunges.  An administration spokesman says we don't really mean it and the market recovers.  Rinse and repeat.  As Paul Krugman puts it, it's "the art of the flail".   We are being "governed" by the whims of a narcissistic asshole whose idea of policy is whatever Fox and Friends spouts on any given morning.  If Ann Coulter is mean to him we have to send the National Guard to the border to keep our so called caravans of immigrants.  The daily scandals surrounding most of his cabinet appointees require The Donald to roil the news cycle with outrageous declarations, firings and appointments.  I'm reasonably sure to survive Disneyworld.  I'm not so sure my finances will survive the next couple of years.

Perception is all

Reading most liberal pundits on a regular basis would make you think the tRump administration is so corrupt it makes Warren Harding's government look like Boy Scouts.  On the other side, from Faux News and other right wing outlets all you hear is crickets.  This includes the ongoing Mueller investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election.   Of course, if any of the Obama cabinet appointees had done what Pruitt, Zinke, Mnuchin, et. al. are credibly accused of, every relevant congressional committee would be 24/7 nonstop in session to "get to the bottom of this corruption".  By the same logic, if Hillary had actually won the election by the same electoral sleight of hand as the republican candidate I'm not sure she would have been inaugurated before the impeachment proceedings would have begun.  So, we are being treated to a tale of two elections and their aftermath.    I guess we'll have to wait until November to see which point of view is getting through to  Americans who are interested in the truth.

50 years later

Dr. King told us he had been to the mountain top and had seen the promised land and although in an eerily prescient moment he also said he didn't think he would make it to that land of racial equality, he did say his followers would.   Tragically, 50 years ago today, King became a civil rights martyr and an icon to his generation.  He was slain by a racist in Memphis as he led garbage workers in a strike against the city which had forced them to work for peanuts and denied them safe equipment.  After the passage of civil rights legislation in 1965, King moved on to oppose the Viet-Nam war and advocate for social justice.  While rightly credited with being the catalyst for redress of racist policies, he was vilified when he advocated for equal pay.  He pointed out that poor whites had more in common with blacks than with their employers.   This was a dangerous message and I wonder if Dr. King's legend might have been tarnished by Wall St. if he had more years to drive home his message of solidarity.   So, in 2018 we have conservatives who would have opposed him in life singing his praises as long as he is comfortably deceased and no longer questioning their gospel of exploitation.

Digging deeper

That would be the holes that rural and rust belt areas are digging for themselves with policies designed to inflict the most economic pain on the inhabitants.  Paul Krugman points out in 1930, Mississippi had an average per capita income only 30% of Massachusetts.  Thanks to New Deal policies and overall growth, that disparity shrank and by 1970 Mississippi was up to 70% of Massachusetts income on a per capita basis.  Since that time the pendulum has swung back and now the average is back to 55%.  Meanwhile, Kansas and Oklahoma, which were both prosperous in the 70's  have enacted tax cutting policies which have gutted their education systems which have turned out an increasingly poorly prepared work force.  This has reinforced the advantages of coastal areas who have consistently encouraged information based jobs and supported their education infrastructure.  Meanwhile, Kevin Drum points to a study which shows that instead of voters influencing their elected officials, it seems the opposite is true.  Senators seem to form their opinions and communicate them to voters, who in tribal fashion adopt those views as their own.   This would explain the bulk of republican voters who continue to embrace policies which do them economic and in the case of environmental laws actual physical harm.   We are headed in the direction of two nations; a highly educated tech society contrasted with an ignorant and increasingly authoritarian flyover country with isolated pockets of post industrial power.  How this mess is reconciled along with the many other problems we face will determine if this nation remains e pluribus Unum.