The big left turn

Now that it is necessary for any legitimate democratic presidential candidate to espouse healthcare for all, $15.00/hr. minimum wage, progressive taxation and any number of right wing shibboleths, how does the party cobble together a winning message.  All the aforementioned points are wildly popular with the American in the street, but the media gatekeepers will focus on whatever divisions they can find to craft their "dems in disarray narrative.  I think this is the campaign to bring out the slogan from Bill Clinton's first campaign, namely, " it's the economy stupid".   While the economic indicators look vastly different from 1992, the economy today is only working for a pretty small minority of very wealthy people.  As the lower middle class tips into the working poor and even a degree from a state university is no longer a passport to a comfortable life, we need the democrats to come up with programs that address the crushing inequality we see today.  We don't need Howard Schultz to tell us how anyone can become a billionaire.

It may never be Mueller time

As the Mueller investigation grinds on with continuing indictments and hints of more to come, masses of fans  continue to watch hours of MSNBC in the hope of hearing about the smoking gun which inevitably leads to the current resident of the Oval Office doing a perp walk.  I confess to being one of these along with the Divine Mrs. M.  However, I am starting to get the sinking feeling that even a recently fired sub-machine gun found in tRump's stubby fingers will not be enough to get rid of him.  As Mueller's team unearths more and more information and the president* gets even cozier with Putin, the goalposts continually recede.  The evidence already gathered would have lead to the impeachment of virtually any previous president, including St. Ronald.  However, The Donald remains popular with his base and both republicans and democrats are loathe to kick over that hornet's nest.  The final report on Russian meddling in the 2016 election will be devastating, but in the end, I don't think it will change many hearts and minds.

New/Old voices

Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren have blown out of the starting gate for the democratic nomination for president and have established themselves as front runners.  Both are offering the electorate programs which are at least as radical as anything Bernie Sanders was touting in 2016 and probably further left than what Hillary finally ran with.  Harris wants a big middle class tax cut, while Warren wants to tax the 75,000 households which make up the superrich .01%.  Joe Biden and his advisors are probably huddling to see if they can come up with something to the left of the Obama centrism he spent 8 years cultivating.  The other supposed competitors must also offer compelling visions of the future or risk being frozen in some parking lot in Des Moines or Manchester this winter.  It will be an interesting few months until we see who has the correct reading of the American zeitgeist.  One thing for sure, it won't be Howard Schultz, the billionaire from Starbucks.

Stoned

So, Roger Stone was finally indicted by the Special Counsel's office on Friday.  As virtually everyone agrees, Stone was the go between who supplied the tRump campaign with prior notice to Wikileaks' dumps of Clinton campaign e-mails stolen by the Russians.  Whether Robert Mueller has evidence to that effect remains to be seen.  He chose to indict Stone for what the Faux News commentators call "process crimes"; lying to Congress.   They make  it seem like this is no big deal.  However, it is still a felony to lie to House and Senate investigators.  Also, why lie if there is nothing to hide?  Since virtually everyone who has speculated about the various moves made by Mueller has invariably been wrong, I won't indulge.   But it would be nice if more indictments continue to come down, like the snow which continues to fall over the North Country this winter of our discontent.

Banality of Evil Squared

Hannah Arendt must be spinning in her grave as various Trumpistas, including the Donald himself weigh in on the plight of furloughed federal workers.  From Wilbur Ross' ruminations about bank loans to Kevin Hassett's opinion these workers should be glad not to have to use vacation days to an unnamed official who speculated these workers are unnecessary anyway to the final indignity of tRump suggesting the local grocery store would "work with" unpaid workers it is a cornucopia confirmation of the banality of evil in real life.  The unfortunate part is that nearly 62 million of our fellow Americans voted for this travesty of  government and some part of that population continues to support these maniacs.   The next 24 hours will feature nonstop coverage of Roger Stone's arrest, so the plight of  well over a million of our fellow citizens will be on the back burner as the media speculates the next development in the tRump saga.  I hope the local food pantries around the nation are well stocked.

Not with a bang

As the federal government lurches ever closer to a crisis it can't deal with due to lack of funds, it behooves us to wonder how this horror show came to pass.  How have we become so polarized as a nation that a handful of right wing anti-immigration zealots can hold a nation of 325 million people hostage?   I would say the easy answer is  probably the correct one.  A majority of the white population of this country are uneasy about the number of people of color  who either live here already or who are applying for asylum as refugees.  Their silence in the face of this administration's perverse behavior regarding these refugees has emboldened the haters on the right to demand a wall across our southern border to halt the influx.  It doesn't matter to them  that illegal immigration has slowed to a trickle and their is actually a net out migration of illegals.  The principle that America must remain white is what drives them.  The silent sympathy of millions of our fellow citizens is what sustains them.  Having written this, I realize I have done nothing myself, so I will call my congressional representatives today and demand they pass a clean funding bill to end the shutdown.

Getting tired

The pun in this post's title refers to a report the FBI is scavenging tires from out of service vehicles to replace flats and try to keep their cars on the road.  Since the government shutdown started they have run out of funds for supplies like the aforementioned tires, but also DNA test kits, ammunition and other mundane items which keep the agency running.  This scenario is playing out in other government agencies which lack funding.  It will reach a critical level soon as unpaid government employees miss a second paycheck.  The pressure on many will lead to resignations which will impair government functionality when the shutdown is eventually over.  The damage being done to the infrastructure of government is incalculable and ongoing.   I don't know what the answer is, but I know something needs to be done before a cataclysmic event occurs.

Oh Rudy

Virtually everyone on the liberal side of the current divide has Rudy Giuliani's number.  As most pundits appearing on MSNBC or writing on left leaning blogs would say, Rudy is blowing smoke up the nation's backside, hoping his brand of scattershot argle bargle mixed with an occasional admission of some potentially damaging evidence against his boss will confuse and redirect the conversation and eventually, when tRump has to admit that the news might be true, it will be old news.  It's as if Bill Clinton's lawyer first admitted he had sex with "that" woman, then claimed it was great sex and finally proclaimed that any man would want to have great sex, so what's the problem.  Well, the problem for Giuliani is that his act is becoming increasingly transparent and pretty soon, most people will start treating it as such and rightfully pinning the blame on the current president*.  I don't know what the average Faux News watcher is thinking, but even a moderately intelligent conservative has got to be feeling somewhat bemused at the show Mayor 9/11 is putting on.

It's snow fun

With temperatures hovering around 0 and over 12 inches of snow on the ground, I bundled up and turned the key on my trusty tractor so I could start blowing and plowing snow.  Even with a  battery charger on all night, all I got was a feeble attempt to get the ice cold engine to turn over.  At that point, I knew it would be a long day!  Thanks to my son-in-law and two trips to the nearest auto parts store in Plattsburgh, I was able to get the driveway open as darkness and really cold wind chills closed in.  I should have realized the 9 year old battery in the tractor was not up to another North Country winter.   I have said this many times, but for the record, I hate winter.

Another Day

It seems like every day brings a new revelation of corruption and obstruction of justice which, in any other administration, would have led to either immediate impeachment hearings or the tearful resignation of a thoroughly abashed president.  However, the report that Michael Cohen was instructed by the president* to lie to congress about the timeline of negotiations for a tRump Tower in Moscow is being treated like a normal day in D.C.  The democrats will wring their hands and their GOP counterparts will remain silent, so the media pundits will continue their "he said, she said" coverage.  It would seem we will need a smoking bazooka to bring this administration and its corrupt head to justice.

Riders on the storm

In a classic illustration of "both siderism", NYT columnist, Bret Stephens wrings his hands over the chaos currently enveloping the capitalist west.  He decries his fellow conservatives embrace of the tRump presidency and its corruption for the purpose of securing tax cuts, deregulation and conservative jurists.  He implies these same erstwhile conservatives loudly denounced Bill Clinton for his womanizing but meekly endure the Kaiser of Chaos and his band of nihilists.  Of course, Clinton was not perfect, but he did believe in governance for the common good.  All The Donald wants is self aggrandizement.  Stephens recalls the success of Margaret Thatcher and George H.W. Bush in rolling back Saddam Hussein's conquest of Kuwait.  He contrasts this with the abject failure of Theresa May to manage Brexit and tRump's failure at almost everything and wonders where we all went wrong.  If you strip off ideological blinders Mr. Stephens it is pretty easy to see the utter failure of conservative ideology in the 21st century is mainly due to its fealty to the whims of old white men who can't stand the challenge to their authority.  He uses the metaphor of a rudderless ship to speculate who will repair the rudder and rigging before the next storm.  It won't be another old white man Bret.  A new generation of leaders is rising and they are not necessarily white, old or men.  We will ride out the storm following their lead.

Now is the time...

It is past time for all men of good will to contemplate the reality of a woman president of these United States.  It seems democratic primary voters will have a veritable smorgasbord of female choices next year.  So far, Senators Elizabeth Warren and Kirsten Gillibrand have jumped into the contest and many more are not far behind in announcing candidacies.  There is even talk of an all woman ticket.   Gillibrand in particular is a challenging figure in the race to unseat the moron who now occupies the Oval Office.   She has explicitly pushed woman power as a senator, most notably in her campaign to force the resignation of Al Franken from the senate after allegations he groped women surfaced.  Men and women have tiptoed around the subject of the patriarchy and the subjugation of women which is its implicit goal, but Gillibrand has taken the gender hierarchy on in a way no other woman in a position of power has up to now.   She has alienated many of the party's megadonors, including George Soros.  Many women who support feminism in many respects are turned off by her strident appeals to overturn the dominance of men in politics, business and life in general.  My own mother has said she would never vote for Gillibrand, although if faced with a choice between her and tRump I believe she would do the right thing.  While she is a longshot to win the Dem nod for president, Gillibrand's run will shine a light on a subject which is mostly acknowledged by silence.  As the father of 3 women and grandfather to 2 young ladies, I hope Ms. Gillibrand is able to widen their horizons.

Let them eat whatever

As many furloughed government employees and out of work contract workers are finding out, the tRump administration does not have their backs.  From recommendations for having yard sales to what kind of second jobs might be available to actually speculating that the shutdown is good because workers can have time off without using vacation days tRump and his merry band of saboteurs are wrecking an infrastructure built over generations.  If this shutdown drags on, many of our best scientists, managers and workers will move on to other jobs.  When the issues which provoked this horror show are settled, there could literally be thousands of unfilled positions which will impact the economy in unknown ways.  Longer term, how many people will decide a lower paid government job with decent benefits and a steady paycheck is no longer a good career option.  The damage being done now will take many years to correct.

Yin and Yang

The "polarization" of our political parties is a staple of pundits on both the left and the right.  We are being whipsawed between the politics of Steve King on the fascist side of the spectrum to Alexandra Ocasio Cortez on the scary socialist side.  Therefore we must make obeisance to Michael Bloomberg or Joe Biden or some other old white man who will save us from our worse natures.  As has been pointed out in this blog many times this is a false dichotomy.  On the GOP side you have a party which has been taken over by a non leadership who allow the very worst elements of its base dictate policy.  The misogynist, racist homophobic impulses of roughly 30% of the population, the deplorables if you will are being given a loud voice in the nation's governance.  AOC and the left side of the democratic party are the corrective to this descent into intolerance.  The slew of women and people of color who were elected in the recent blue wave are the way to bring us fully into the 21st century.  So, the choice, if that is what you call this is whether we respond to the better or worse angels of our natures.  I'm betting on the former, and we don't need Mssrs. Biden and/or Bloomberg to tell us that.

Crybaby in Chief

The NY Daily News went back to the well and reprised a front page it made famous in 1996.  I refer to the famous cartoon of Newt Gingrich's face atop a diapered toddler's body, implying the government shutdown engineered by the House Speaker's party was the equivalent of a tantrum.  23 years later, The Donald is shown in a similar situation.  It is apropos of course that Gingrich, ever the party loyalist has endorsed tRump's tantrum.

Low energy

Neither the president* or the tag team of Pelosi and Schumer were up to the task last night.  Somebody needed to make a compelling case for ending the government shutdown and articulating an endgame for the dispute over a southern border wall.  tRump dutifully read the lies and the litany of crimes committed by illegal immigrants, but he looked like he would rather be having a root canal sans painkillers.   Even his "so help me god" was half hearted.  Pelosi and Schumer looked equally uncomfortable while sharing a single lectern.  While the facts and the moral weight of their arguments were overwhelmingly correct, they didn't seem very passionate either.  The losers of this farce are the government workers and contract workers who are pawns in the dispute.  The latter will probably never be paid for the lost time.  Those actually employed by the government will be made financially whole, but at what cost to their self perception and dedication to the important work they are doing.  This shutdown, as opposed to those in the past are changing citizens' perception of government in a way that is not good for our political economy.

a wall of BS

Tonight, those Americans with a high tolerance for BS will be tuned in a 9 p.m. to listen to that virtual funnel of lies and misanthropy also know as the president*  of the US.  tRump will tell us the terrorists, drug smugglers and gang members are swarming across our southern border and will drag us out from under our beds and do unspeakable things to us and our loved ones if we don't approve of his border wall boondoggle.  He will undoubtedly use most of the 8 minutes he assures us will be all that is necessary to blame democrats for the government shutdown for which he originally claimed credit   The major networks have agreed to air this blatant partisan rant because of the "crisis" claimed by our supposed leader.  Meanwhile, they refused Obama's request for airtime 4 years ago to make a speech regarding racism as "too partisan".   In sports, this ploy is known as working the refs.  To have refused to carry tRump would have caused the conservative media complex to have a collective stroke.  So instead we will be treated to another wall.   Total BS.

A taxing subject

Thanks to freshman congress critter Alexandra Ocasio Cortez, we woke up this morning to a debate on taxes.  It seems AOC is advocating for a maximum federal tax rate of up to 73% for high earners.  She is backed by solid evidence that "soaking the rich", and using the money in ways which invigorate the economy actually works much better than the trickle down theory which most GOP politicians and their house economists back.  Paul Krugman in the NYT published a chart showing that when the US had the highest marginal tax rate in the world just after WW2, the economy was supercharged.  As we successively reduced the tax rate the rich pay, the economy has followed a downward trend.  As Krugman points out, we are not in a perfectly competitive economy as the GOP would claim.  Instead, there are many built in or legislated inequalities which those at the top of the economic pyramid use to maintain their power and pass it on to their children at the expense of the majority.  The rich can pay vastly higher taxes without any damage to the economy.  At rates in excess of 80%, the incentive to work is greatly reduced, but as my old boss and patron saint of this blog pointed out, "you can only drink one bottle of wine at a time".   A man with an income of 10 million dollars/year paying a 70% tax rate (including state and local taxes) would still have 3 million dollars available each year to buy whatever.  The fact AOC's policy prescriptions are making republican heads explode is a sign she may be on to something.   In any case, we need to have this debate in a vibrant democracy.

So it begins

Surrounded by her grandchildren and the offspring of many new members of congress, Nancy Pelosi reclaimed the Speaker's gavel and brought the 116th Congress of the United States to order yesterday afternoon.  As one MSNBC pundit opined it was the start of the worst year in Donald Trump's life.  Pelosi's first order of business was to pass bills ending the government shutdown.  Of course, Mitch McConnell said the Senate would not consider any bill the president* might veto.   This is not a good look for either McConnell or the cretin in  the Oval Office, but for the moment neither is budging.  As if to highlight the differences between the wonderfully diverse Democratic side of the House and the White house, tRump appeared facing the press with a gaggle of bald white men behind him.  After reading a statement congratulating Pelosi, our chief executive ducked out of the confab without entertaining questions.  I think this will become fairly common this year.

Climate change and what to do

I wrongly assumed the new congress was meeting yesterday, when in reality Nancy Pelosi and company take power today.  Among the most pressing issues is climate change and what we need to do about it.  Most of us keep our heads down and do our jobs each day without thinking too much about the weather.  But climate scientists tell us we are on the cusp of events which will remake our environment in ways which will be difficult if not impossible to remediate.  The Arctic is warming faster than any other area on earth and while this phenomenon is contributing in the short run to relatively cold winters in the northeast US, the long run consequences will be catastrophic. Ms. Pelosi's house must put forward a blueprint for action which can be acted on in 2021 as soon as Dems get a majority in the Senate and a new president.  Jay Inslee, the governor of Washington is already running for president on the single issue of climate change.  He may not win, but he will put the issue in the forefront of the nation's agenda.  I hope...

2019

As always, it is difficult to remember to write the new year on anything from checks to blog posts.  I think this is part of the human makeup.  We resist the new and cherish the old, even if it is eminently forgettable, like 2018.  Today begins with the inauguration of a new Democratic House and the election of Nancy Pelosi to the speakership.  While the newly energized House may not get a lot of new legislation passed into law, the diverse caucus of the dems will have 2 years to flesh out an agenda to present for voters to decide on in 2020.  A green new deal should be the cornerstone of that presentation.  Of course investigating the tRump administration will probably make the most headlines as will the continuing Mueller probe.  The Donald will probably continue the government shutdown to deflect the public's attention from his manifest incompetence unless and until Mitch McConnell and republicans in the Senate threaten to send a Continuing Resolution sans border wall money with the threat of a veto override.  It looks like nonstop fun coming up this year.

Everything old is new again

Happy 2019!  It's a new year and I have a new computer, a new phone and a new office.  I am now back in the Jerry Shulman Produce fold.   It has been a long and mostly productive association with my Canadian friends, but it is time to move on to new challenges.  I look forward to meeting new friends and continuing relationships with old ones.