What's next

After a brief period of unthinking acceptance of the Barr memo's "total exoneration" of the president*, most of the media, Faux News excepted, have begun the drumbeat demanding the release of the entire Mueller report.  I believe Cheetolini and his advisors thought the 4 page exculpatory massage of Mueller's conclusions would be enough to quiet the masses.  His decision to try to kill Obamacare in the courts by instructing the DOJ to not defend the law may have been designed to deflect our attention with another shiny object.  However, unlike the Trumpanzees, most of us can walk and chew gum at the same time and we will be defending health care and demanding the release of the report at the same time.  tRump and his enablers are trying the same end run around the process as he employed on the question of the release of his tax returns.  First, they would be released as soon as the non existent audit was finished, then he declared no one really cared if he released them or not.  We will hear the same story regarding Mueller's findings.  Barr will release a heavily redacted summary in the coming weeks and The Donald will claim that's all there is to see and only the librul media would be corrupt enough to insist on seeing the whole report.  What we really need is a Daniel Ellsburg who will smuggle the original report out of the DOJ and get it to the NYT or the Washington Post ala the Pentagon papers.  That would be true patriotism in action.

Good Cop/Bad Cop

Now that the Barr Memo has been out for a couple of days, the president* is telling us he has no problem with the entire Mueller report being released to the public.  A commenter with more snark than yours truly would add he also said he had no problem releasing his taxes and doing a personal interview with Bob Mueller.  We know how those proclamations worked out.  I think what will happen in the next few weeks as the GOP and its enablers continue their chest beating denigration of anyone who questions Barr's essential honesty.  The attorney general will patiently explain that the report must be extensively vetted before it eventual release.  Then small sections of the report with the least damaging evidence will be released so Faux News can exult in Cheetolini's innocence.  By the time the most incriminating stuff is released it will be so heavily redacted as to be meaningless and tRump's defenders will say it is time to move on to more weighty matters, like taking health care away from the poors or installing more child containment units (i.e.- cages) at the border.  Welcome to America circa 2019.

The struggle for America's soul

So it begins.  As anyone who viewed William Barr's confirmation hearings in a dispassionate manner could have told you, the man would perform double backflips on a wire above Niagara Falls to put the best spin on the Mueller report.   The fact he could not completely exonerate the president* of obstruction of justice means he knows that at the very least parts of the report will eventually be released.  I, along with many fellow countrymen hoped Robert Mueller was the deus ex machina which would end the tRump reign of idiocy.  Knowing there will never be 67 votes in the Senate to remove Cheetolini barring a taped phone call with Putin in which the two conspired directly to steal the 2016 election, I baselessly hope the former FBI director would save America from itself.  However, despite a word by word reading of Barr's obviously flawed summary which pundits claim reveals The Donald's guilt for betraying the country, it looks like it will be up to an informed citizenry to defeat the GOP and its nominee next November in what I hope will be free and fair elections.  Until then, it will be up to various House investigative committees to give this administration the proctologist's exam it so truly needs.

Do the issues matter?

Facing an existential crisis which could lead to the extinction of most life on earth you would think the press and the public might be focusing on the issues and policies advocated by various presidential candidates.  Of course, you would be wrong.  Instead we are treated to a twitter war between tRump and the husband of his lying consigliere, Kellyanne Conway.  On the other side, the obsession is over Joe Biden's choice of a running mate.  Incidentally, Biden hasn't even declared yet.  Most people hoped that after the disastrous coverage of the 2016 election in which an obsession with Hillary's emails dominated all media platforms there would be a more measured coverage of real issues.  Instead, we might as well be treated to coverage of a run for student council president in the local school.  I'm afraid it will only get worse unless one of the major newspapers and/or television stations changes their focus and is rewarded by increased attention.  Then we may find out if the public is driving the media or vice versa.

Tired of the BS, Beto

It's been a trying day in the produce business, but in between crises, I took time to read the latest political tea leaves and if anything I'm crankier now than I was at noon.  It seems the pundits are already framing the democratic race for the presidential nomination as Biden vs. Beto, or as I would put it old BS vs. new BS.  Aside from his "Uncle Joe" persona honed for 8 years as Obama's gaffe prone sidekick, Biden has nothing new to add to the political dialogue.  He has a long record of kowtowing to the rich and a political philosophy which is exemplified by his support of Clarence Thomas over Anita Hill and his introduction of the bankruptcy bill which earned him the scorn of Elizabeth Warren.   It is just barely possible Biden has had a road to Damascus moment on these issues, but I doubt it.  Besides, he will be 78 in 2020.  Meanwhile, Beto seems to be positioning himself as the middle of the road white guy you probably would have voted for if he was running for city council.   I'm tired of democrats who preach how they'll bring us all together in  Kumbaya moment of reconciliation.  Sorry, we tried that for 8 years with a far better man and it was an utter failure.   We need a fighter and we need a woman.  Hopefully Beto will drop out of the race early enough to run for the senate next year.  The only way President Warren will save the world is with a solid Dem majority in the senior house.  Meanwhile, if Uncle Joe really wants to help his country he should go on an extended vacation.

New beginnings

My micro CSA took off yesterday after a post on Facebook.  Since I won't be spending my Saturdays prepping for and cleaning up at the Farmer's Market in Plattsburg, I decided to offer the surplus through a Community Supported Agriculture scheme.  For $200.00/season for a half share and $400. for a full share I will supply more veggies than most of these people can imagine on a weekly basis.  I'm thinking I would be growing the surplus anyway and this would be a good way to distribute it without the hassle of the market.  It's a small start, but along with supplying a couple of restaurants in town as well, the CSA will satisfy my craving to keep growing.

Warning

She is older, white and she can't wait to vote for Beto O'Rourke.   While I know for a fact this description fits my 89 year old mother, I believe there are many elderly, politically involved women out there looking for the reincarnation of Jack Kennedy to sweep them off their feet.   50's nostalgia is a powerful drug.  For the same reason she eagerly supports Beto, my mother is lukewarm at best toward the women in the race.  She blames Kirsten Gillibrand for Al Franken's ignominious resignation from the Senate because of documented accusations of sexual assault.  As progressive as she is on many issues, Mom, and I think many women of a certain age don't believe a woman is capable of being commander in chief of the world's superpower.  This is a by product of growing up in a man's world where women were understood to be second class citizens who cooked, cleaned the house, raised children and deferred to the men in their lives.  The political operatives for the various candidates ignores my mother's demographic at their peril.  There are millions of "Grannies for Beto" waiting to pull the lever for a chance to revive Camelot.

The problem of rural America

Paul Krugman has a thoughtful piece in the NYT today regarding the impoverishment of rural America.  He lays out the issues facing large parts of the hinterlands and admits he has no idea of how to deal with them.  As a resident of far upstate New York, I see the population in a way Krugman probably can't.  He has lived all his life in the Acela corridor, named after the "high" speed Amtrak line which connects DC to Boston.  Even the area where I live is impacted positively by its proximity to Montreal.  Much of the industry and trade which makes life here a little less hardscrabble is provided by our Canadian neighbors who also fuel tourism.  In addition, we have an outpost of the State University of New York and a major regional hospital to fuel the local economy.   Still, life in this area is a struggle and drugs and the crime they engender is an all to familiar story to many residents of the North Country.  The pull of big cities is stronger than ever and many of the young people who graduate from local schools leave the area.  This creates and older and less hopeful population and leads to a  vicious cycle of depopulation.  Like Krugman, I have no idea of how to reverse the decline of our rural areas.  Neither do the candidates who are now criss crossing Iowa and New Hampshire in preparation for the quadrennial presidential sweepstakes.  Maybe they should at least address the concerns of the citizens whose votes they covet.

Horrific

Over 50 people dead in New Zealand after an islamophobic white supremacist from Australia went on a killing spree at 2 mosques.   After waiting too long, our president* sent his "warmest sympathies to the people of New Zealand.  What doses that even mean?  When asked if the killer's citation of tRump as an inspiration was troubling, Cheetolini's spokesman Mercedes Schlapp could only stammer that it was wrong to say the "deranged gunman" was influenced by the world's most powerful hater.  I find it intriguing that muslim shooters are always described as terrorists, while whites who do the exact same thing are always considered mentally ill.  White supremacy is an ideology as surely as Christianity is a religion.  One gives cover to the other.  It's time for all white Christians who truly believe in the gospel to call out and condemn the white supremacists who use the religion of peace and forgiveness to advance a hate filled and murderous agenda.  It needs to start from the top.

Killer Bees

Beto, Biden, Booker, Bernie and Buttigieg.  Beto is the latest B to throw his hat in the dem presidential ring.  Before going any further, I stipulate I will support whoever wins the nomination.  That being said, I will not donate a penny to Mr. O'Rourke unless and until he comes up with a better reason to vote for him other than being the coolest kid in the class.  I know the pundits are agog at the moment because Beto can move a crowd as well as Cheetolini but without appealing to its basest instincts.  Beyond that, however, the congressman from El Paso seems not to have a coherent narrative as to how he will deal with the mess he will have to clean up after the present resident of the White House is evicted.  As citizens of the world, we face unprecedented challenges in the next decade and we need someone who not only grasps that idea but who has the wit and wisdom to deal with them.   Offering platitudes about "bringing us together" and reaching across the aisle might have worked before the existential crisis of climate change, but with only one political party even acknowledging the problems we face, we need someone who not only excites us but also encourages all of us to bring our best natures to the fore.  Personally, I am supporting Elizabeth Warren for president.  She at least has a policy agenda which lays out a strategy to solve our most pressing problems. Beto might make a good VP candidate if he gets his act together.

Paulie and the modern GOP

Paulie got another sentence yesterday, boosting his total to 7.5 years in the slammer.  On top of that, the Manhattan D.A. brought state charges of mortgage fraud against him, effectively nullifying the president's* ability to pardon Manafort.  So, this "very good man" who led an "otherwise blameless life" is the latest casualty of the Mueller investigation.  Paulie may have more to answer for when the final indictments are issued.  Despite his lawyer braying "no collusion" from the courthouse steps, it remains to be seen what Mueller has regarding various meetings where said collusion was discussed.  In any case, Cheeto Jesus will likely be getting even less sleep in the coming months.  So, tRump's campaign manager is headed to jail, his national security advisor will be sentenced in the coming months and Paulie's assistant, Rick Gates will also be checking into a crowbar hotel in the near future.  Play along with me.  If the Obama administration had produced this many convicted felons, or even one for that matter, how would republicans have reacted?  I rest my case.

The party of fear

In the wake of Nancy Pelosi's declaration that any impeachment of the president*will have to be bipartisan in nature, the GOP is already trotting out its theme for 2020;  fear.  Of course this is the same thing republicans have run on since 1968.  Nixon fanned the fear of the "dirty hippies" who crashed the democratic convention in Chicago that year.  He also implemented the Southern Strategy of appealing to the racists who abandoned the dems in the wake of LBJ's civil rights legislation.  Since then the party has raised fear of Arab terrorists, civil rights activists, health care for all and lately fear of immigrant terrorists, a twofer!  This is the moral bankruptcy which leads to a tRump presidency.

Damned if you do...

In a statement guaranteed to animate the pearl clutchers on both sides, Nancy Pelosi said she is not in favor of impeachment unless there is overwhelming evidence of crime and it is a bipartisan movement to hold the president* accountable.   Of course liberals were outraged, claiming there is ample, compelling evidence of "high crimes and misdemeanors" committed by The Donald.   As one host on MSNBC opined it is evidently the duty of democrats to go it alone and show the world their purity of purpose.  After the failure of said impeachment with the associated political costs, the same host would opine dems should have known the process was flawed and ultimately a fool's errand.  The GOP had a different take on Pelosi's announcement.  They are united in the opinion there is obviously no evidence to back an impeachment.  Amplified by the megaphone of Faux News, they are preaching to a choir containing as much as 35% of the population.  As Nancy Smash rightly calculates, the effect of impeachment would be to tear the country apart without the buy-in of republicans.   Democrats will continue to use their committee chairmanships to showcase administration wrongdoing as the electorate gears up for the 2020 elections.  Even the most obdurate fan of Cheeto Jesus is likely to be affected by the constant drumbeat of scandal being unearthed.  I think Pelosi's strategy is the most likely one to succeed against this lawless administration and the putrefied excuse for a human being who leads it.

Hold on

The revelations of the tRump presidential campaign's law breaking are starting to pile up and forcing both democrats and republicans to reckon with the results.  The Mueller report is still not complete, despite the drumbeat of "any day now" from the media and those who would benefit from the findings being exposed while the 2020 election is still 2 years away.   The shady ties among some of the Super PACs which supported tRump with Manafort are steadily being revealed and it is looking more and more like a conspiracy.  The campaign polling data and possibly even voter rolls shared with the Russian troll farms may very well have led to Cheeto Jesus razor thin wins in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania which in turn led to his electoral college victory.  That The Donald and his corrupt family may have never received a quid pro quo from Putin does not change the equation.  Having to show a benefit for having engaged in a conspiracy does not protect you from the charge.  Ironically the failure of tRump to actually get rich from the tRump Moscow Tower scam may actually sway the MAGA crowd against him.  There is nothing like a failure to turn the rubes hostile.

Cue the deserved outrage

While I'm sure most of the 3 or 4 people who might read this blog know the name Paul Manafort, I'm betting that a plurality of the population have no idea of who he is and what crimes he was convicted of.  I may be wrong, depending on the coverage of Faux News, but I doubt it.  Suffice to say, if he wasn't Cheeto Jesus' campaign manager for a few months in 2016, he might have lived out his criminal life in obscurity.  However, he put himself in the crosshairs of the Special Prosecutor and crimes he committed that were unrelated to the investigation into Russian meddling in our elections were discovered and duly prosecuted.  The judge in this case, instead of "throwing the book" at Manafort for the white collar crimes he committed, essentially threw the book away and after telling everyone he "lived a blameless life" ( except for bank fraud, tax evasion, and sundry other crimes) he ignored the sentencing guidelines and gave this disgraced felon 47 months in the slammer.  Fortunately for justice, he will be sentenced next week for crimes in another jurisdiction and the judge is likely to correct Judge Ellis' miscarriage.   The point is Manafort's sentence reflects the prevailing attitude that rich white men deserve a different kind of justice than the rest of us.  Committing crimes while being white is obviously the opposite of doing anything while being black (or fill in the appropriate class, gender or race).  The final disposition of this case will probably be a presidential* pardon, because as our fearless leader has already opined, "He's  a very good man".  Whose goodness mainly comes from his observance of omerta regarding the president*.

Bidenmania

There isn't a lot going on in the democratic presidential sweepstakes.  The media has duly welcomed each potential nominee with a litany of their weaknesses in a faceoff with the president* in 2020.  However, the horserace handicappers are salivating at the prospect of vetting  a couple of pols who haven't yet declared.  Beto O'Rourke and Joe Biden have been coy about their intentions, but both are stockpiling staff and assuring would be supporters they are actively considering running.  Beto still has plenty of time to run in 2024 or even later.  Biden, on the other hand is 76 and would likely be the oldest candidate to ever run for president.  He also carries a staggering amount of baggage and several failed candidacies.  As an elderly white man, Biden will have to live with his opposition to bussing for racial balance in schools, his mean spirited dismissal of Anita Hill's complaints about Clarence Thomas and many other positions which would have looked normal to the electorate 40 years ago.  However, most of us on the democratic side have moved on.  I don't know if Biden has any honest people advising him, but I hope someone is telling him the best thing he can do in terms of his legacy is to loudly support the eventual democratic nominee from the sidelines.

Less is less

Well, it seems the republicans' big tax cut is not only pissing off many Americans who won't see a tax refund this year, it also won't pay for itself.  I know that is mind boggling to anyone who has lived most of their life listening to GOP supply side and "trickle down" economics.  The mantra goes we must cut rich people's and corporate taxes and not only will increased economic activity pay for the cuts, but the benefits will percolate through the economy and boost everyone's income.  In practice, every republican administration since Reagan has made this argument and seen the budget deficit explode when their tax cuts fail to spark the increased tax receipts they promised.  It was then up to the democrats to try and clean up the mess.  It looks to be no different this time.  Tax collections from corporations are down 22% in the first quarter and spending is up.  The deficit is exploding and at least one senator, Perdue from Georgia is now bleating that we must look into "entitlement" spending.  Social Security and Medicare must be cut.  I'm surprised he didn't at least wait a few more months before letting the cat out of the bag.

The selfish ape

Whether you dispute the theory of evolution or not, no one can dispute we are a selfish and litigious species.  Our social organization began with tribes and as the climate apocalypse bears down on us it looks like we are becoming more tribal once again.   The Green New Deal has been touted by many as the project that will reverse or at least halt climate change.  But when you look for specifics, there are none.  So far, no one has been asked to sacrifice anything for the cause.  Those who crafted the  policies which undergird the GND know the minute they get into specifics, support, even on the left, will disappear.   I would love to have an electric car and a solar house, but I also want to keep living the energy profligate lifestyle my present car and house represent.  I know my grandchildren will be dealing with weather conditions I probably can't imagine, but unless all my fellow primates agree to the sacrifices necessary to achieve a carbon neutral goal, it won't happen.  Kevin Drum neatly sums up the argument against the grand, top down strategy requiring sacrifice by noting that we have been touting plans like the GND for more than 20 years and have nothing to show for it.  As he says, the only way climate action will occur is if it doesn't cost anything.  He mentions a massive R&D program to develop new technologies.  That might be something even republicans will get behind, especially if it is developed with public funds and given free to corporations to sell.  That's the kind of "democratic socialism" the GOP supports.  An appeal to our selfish natures may be the only way to save the planet.

Not so springey

It was probably around 0 degrees this morning as the sun came up.  That qualifies as cold, even in the  North Country for March fifth.   I wouldn't be surprised if you could walk to Vermont from here across the frozen surface of Lake Champlain.  Nontheless, I am persisting.  I planted seeds for peppers, eggplant and several varieties of flowers which take up to 100 days to flower from seed.  The germination trays are huddled in the basement on heating mats with fluorescent lights and I am checking them for moisture each morning.  Meanwhile, daylight savings time starts this week and I am hopeful it will bring warmer weather.  I have a feeling it will be getting crowded downstairs in the coming weeks.

Trolling the Libs

David Leonhardt of the NYT thinks the democrats should tone down the lefty rhetoric and appeal to the "moderate" voter who will supposedly elect the next president.  Obviously Leonhardt didn't check the political ID of voters who participated in the massive dem victory in the last election.  Young voters, women, especially women of color and older economically secure liberals like yours truly combined to power the takeover of the House.  Most of these voters are ready to buy what Bernie, Kamala, Kirsten and other so called "socialists" are selling.  Universal health care, enhanced social security, low or no cost college tuition are popular with all democrats and many on the supposed right who only vote that way because of issues such as abortion.   Upper class columnists at papers like the NYT  love  to chase the non-existent so called "moderate voter"  who exists mainly in their imaginations.  The 40% of the population who say they will vote for tRump in 2020 wouldn't  vote for a democrat no matter what policies they favor, so we might as well have a candidate who appeals to the core of what it means to be a democrat.

And so it goes

Hard on the heels of Michael Cohen's testimony regarding The Donald and his alleged complicity with his BFF Vlad, we have newer scandals involving the next generation.   Son-in-Law in chief Jared Kushner was granted the highest security clearance in the government by the president* after being turned down by career bureaucrats in charge of the process.  Meanwhile, Daughter-in-chief Ivanka tells the great unwashed masses they really want to work for whatever success they may achieve.  This, in response to the aspirational Green New Deal which promises every American who wants to work a job.  Tone deaf does not even begin to describe someone who's entire adult life has been built on trading in the cachet of her father's name (although the utility of doing that may be somewhat devalued in the future!).   I can only imagine what the next generation of tRumpies will do with the enormous wealth they have become accustomed to.  And so it goes.....