The Night King Cometh

    Sunday night's episode of the Game of Thrones series was among the most and least satisfying of recent memory.  The Night King, an existential threat on a par with a second term for tRump, defied all of the heroes' best efforts, including a bath of dragonfire and seemed on the verge of triumph over the most potent adversaries he was likely to face when a teenager with a Valerian steel dagger dispatched him and by extension his entire zombie army.

     How does this television event relate to the real life threat of the Donald and his seemingly unstoppable zombie horde of MAGAots?   As has been shown time and again, revelations which would have ended the presidency or at least the popularity of the man in question bounce off tRump like so many ping pong balls.  As he famously opined he could shoot someone on 5th Avenue and not loose supporters!  But, perhaps our president* has a secret vulnerability as spectacular as the Night King's susceptibility to Valerian steel.  Perhaps his tax returns are that vulnerability.

    The quality most tRumpians' cite as proof of their hero's fitness is his business success.  Despite his multiple bankruptcies and many business failures and the revelation he was a trust fund baby continually propped up by his father's fortune, his fans' continue to think of him in terms of his success at marketing himself.  Think of the long term effects of his appearance as the business tycoon in charge of aspiring tyros in The Apprentice.  This is the foundation of the tRump mystique.  However, if his tax returns were laid bare, could he sustain the same aura of invincibility?

    Instead of Arya Stark, we will have to depend on Richard Neal and his House Ways and Means Committee to reveal the Emperor has no Clothes moment when tRump is revealed for the lying petty billionaire wannabe he has always been.  Then we will see if the zombie army of tRumpists dissolves like the Night King's minions.

Real life intrudes

With temperatures in the low 30s and bright sunshine it feels like a nice day in late February rather than late April.  I know I am overly pessimistic about weather trends here in the North Country, but despite having lived here for 18 years it is hard to be on the doorstep of May and still fearing a killing frost.  The garlic has finally pushed out of my straw mulch and is defining the rows like so many little green soldiers.  The onions which have so far survive depredations by birds mistaking the red shafts as worms seem to be doing well and the second planting of spinach is starting to break through.
    Meanwhile, in the political world, there was another shooting at a synagogue on the west coast.  The shooter, a white supremacist, seemed to be following in the footsteps of Dylan Root by admitting he was trying to ignite a race war, this time against Jews.  In Wisconsin, the Pinocchio of the Potomac was spewing more lies at a rally, accusing women and doctors of "executing" babies at or near birth.  This type of egregious behavior is one of the reasons mass shootings occur at a record breaking pace.  It's no wonder so many of retreat to fantasy worlds like the Game of Thrones universe or the promise of heroism promised by The Avengers.  

Real life GOT

    It occurs to me the coming battle between democrats in Congress and the tRump administration has eerie parallels to the HBO epic Game of Thrones!   This is especially true in the 2nd episode of the eighth season, "A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms".  For those of you who either don't have access to HBO or are uninterested in the series, GOT is all about a struggle for power in a fictional world which much resembles the European Middle Ages and the era of chivalry.  The inhabitants are also facing the existential threat of the White Walkers who simultaneously want to bring eternal winter to the world and wipe out all human life (think republicans and their repudiation of scientific evidence of global warming).
    In the aforementioned episode, the last best hope of humanity (congressional democrats) girds for battle with the Night King and his horde (tRump and his merry band of  nihilists).  They arm for battle with dragonglass weapons which can slay the undead (subpoenas) and plan a vigorous defense of Winterfell (democracy).   Many expect to be slain (defeated for re-election), but they hope to bring down the King (tRump?) in the process.  Episode 3 depicts the battle between the opposing forces.  Unfortunately for democrats, but not for viewers of the series there are three more episodes before the series ends, so regardless of the outcome this week (anytime before the 2020 elections), the folk of Winterfell and democrats will have to keep the battles going long after the appetite for conflict is sated.   I have grave forebodings in both cases, but I will keep watching (participating).

And then there were 20

     Another old white guy will be joining the race for the democratic presidential election today.  Joe Biden, whose main qualification for running, besides being old and white, is that he hung out with Barack Obama for eight years.   Biden is the personification of a certain breed of democratic pol.  He takes big donations from corporations whose interests he has championed while appealing to the average voter as someone who is looking out for the culture war issues many of them prize in a candidate.
      I received a fund raising e-mail from his campaign and promptly wrote back requesting that he not run.  In hindsight, that is probably a mistake.   Come on in Joe, the water is fine.  If you really believe you can appeal to today's democratic voter with a Clinton era message of social liberalism and conservative economics, then have at it.  Let's see how long you can hang with Bernie, Buttigieg and the rest.  Your 76 year old body is going to get the workout of a lifetime in the next 12 months.  I hope you are up to it.

The question

    To impeach or not to impeach is the question many democrats are struggling with these days.   It would seem like a no brainer after the Mueller report detailed many of the flagrant obstructions of justice perpetrated by Cheetolini and his followers.   However, the right wing spin machine has been in overdrive ever since William Barr's four page whitewash of tRump's many crimes was released before the redacted but still powerful report of election meddling by the Russians was made public.
    All of us have friends on the right who can 't conceive there is any wrongdoing by the president*, no matter what Mueller's report says.   They will fall back on Barr's and Faux New's assurances there was nothing to see and we need to move on.  The 35-40% of tRump's diehard fans will presumably go to the barricades for their hero, although most of their elderly white bodies would fail miserably in that endeavor.
    Democrats are left with a Hobson's choice;  do the right thing in the face of opposition by nearly 40% of Americans, or punt and hope their fellow Americans will see the light in 2020.  Of course there is a third way.  Do the diligence and investigate the clues Mueller left for them and let the chips fall where they may.  The Donald's intransigence and rage tweets may force the Judiciary committee to commence impeachment hearings in order to enforce subpoenas for information and witnesses in any case.  It is time to show their fellow countrymen that at least one political party puts America's best interests above its own.

Thinking ahead

    Kevin Drum writing at Mother Jones published a new chart from the Social Security Trustees showing the SS trust fund will be depleted in 2035.   That is a year later than the prediction last year, thanks to the continuing Obama recovery from the Great Recession.  There will also be a great number of dumb stories telling the younger generation all their contributions to Social Security will have been in vain and there will be nothing left for them as the greedy geezers sack the vault.  Of course that is arrant nonsense.  The day after the fund is exhausted, everyone's benefits would be cut by 25-35% and the system would continue.
    However, whoever is serving in Congress in 2035 will quickly pass a fix to increase taxes as the aforementioned geezers assemble with pitchforks and AR 15s.   The quick fix could be passed at any time.  Merely raise the salary cap which limits taxpayer's and business contributions to the trust fund.  Instead of the current cap of $130,000, make it unlimited.  Yes, the millionaires would be granted social security benefits commensurate with their contribution, but the immediate benefit to the system would outweigh this minor disadvantage.  The wealthy would likely keep working as they are normally in much better health than the general population.
    A minor increase in the tax for the rest of the workers who make less than the current maximum would put the entire system on a sound footing at least until the climate change apocalypse makes the entire question of retirement moot.

Renewal

    Judging by the facebook posts from friends and relatives it would seem a good Easter and Passover were had by all and sundry.  The weather in the North Country and the northeast generally was good to excellent and conducive to outdoor activities, despite wetness from the Friday night deluge.  I was able to clean off the asparagus bed in the Secret Garden and apply a much needed dose of compost.
    The variability of the weather so far this spring has been depressing to this erstwhile farmer.  Instead of a gradual warm up we have cycled from cold to freezing and back several times this month.  April in this area is on its way to one of the coldest in recent memory.  Here's hoping May will make up for it and set growers and gardeners alike on a more normal path.

Confimation of Bias

     The Mueller report is out.  That is the good part.  It is also the bad part.  After reading the summaries of Volume 1 and 2 of the report it is pretty evident the candidate Donald tRump viewed Russian interference in the 2016 elections as transactional event which benefitted him personally.  To my mind, the most damning indictment of  the president* is his and his campaign's failure to report Russian contacts to the FBI immediately.  That he and his handlers accepted the help of a foreign adversary to subvert our democracy is reason enough to revile him and the republicans who continue to call the Mueller report an absolution.   Chief among the culprits is William Barr, who could have released the report's summaries 26 days ago.  If he had done that instead of issuing a 4 page memo, "summarizing the conclusions" of Mueller's summaries we would probably be in the midst of impeachment hearings by the House Judiciary Committee.  Instead, Barr threw just enough shade on Mueller with the assistance of a presumably spineless Rod Rosenstein to allow Faux News, Limbaugh, Breitbart and others in the right wing media to spin the story as "old news".
     Impeachment is the right thing to do, but the electoral consequences for democrats would probably be catastrophic if they choose that route.  The aforementioned right wing media outlets would attack the process relentlessly and even fair minded citizens would probably conclude  there is more smoke than fire in the charges.  Realistically, the only way to convince tRump's base of his perfidy is an e-mail from him to Putin thanking him for his help.  Even then, a depressingly large slice of our fellow citizens would probably applaud instead of condemn.
      Democrats are left with the job of continuing to investigate the obvious corruption of this administration from now until election day in 2020 and hope they can show the average tRump voter how misplaced their loyalty actually is.   I won't hold my breath waiting for this particular Godot.

Barring the door

     The  Mueller report is the latest Rorschach test for an increasingly skeptical American electorate.  Depending on whether you are a consumer of Faux News and its ilk or liberal cable news shows on MSNBC or CNN, the impending release of Mueller's opus is either an exoneration or condemnation of the president*.  Or perhaps it will be neither.  Mueller, as we have been told numerous times is a "by the book" investigator who presumably stayed within the investigative lanes he was assigned.   A previous report he wrote for the NFL on the domestic abuse case of Ray Rice was meticulous, but refused to indict the front office of wrongdoing in covering up Rice's behavior because of insufficient evidence.  I have a feeling that unless he uncovered an e-mail from tRump to Putin thanking him for his assistance, he would again conclude there was not enough evidence to bring charges.
    The report will be analyzed six ways from Sunday and digital forests will be cut to enable talking heads to proclaim the guilt or innocence of various players in this saga.  Unfortunately, at the end of the day it will probably only confirm both sides in their chosen verdict.

Willful blindness

     Tomorrow morning, the redacted Mueller report will be made public by the grace of serial liar William Barr.  As most of us who live outside the Faux News bubble have heard by now, Barr has participated in a similar scam in a previous stint in the justice department.  He "summarized the conclusions" of a legal opinion he authored as head of the Office of Legal council for the Shrub's father's administration.   When the full opinion was released after Barr left office, it gave the lie to his summary.   That alone would have recommended him to Cheetolini.

      Until the full, unredacted Mueller report is released, suspicion of the Attorney General's motives in keeping much of it secret will abound.  Even Mueller's summaries of the various sections of the report will supposedly be censored.   

      I have a feeling the president's* supporters will be loudly proclaiming his "total exoneration" when Barr's version of the report comes out.  The hard work of forcing the release of the full text will start in earnest on Good Friday.  Unlike Jesus, it will take more than three days to resurrect the truth of this matter.   In the meantime, partisan blindness will be the order of the day.

Defining moments

It was as riveting as it was horrifying .  Flames licking the soaring spire of Notre Dame cathedral and finally causing it to fall into the roaring inferno which until hours before had been one of the religious and cultural touchstones of Christianity and western civilization.  Even before the final embers are extinguished in coming days, hundreds of millions of dollars have been committed to its rebuilding.
    It may be too soon to take stock of Notre Dame's meaning to Catholics, Christians in general and the wider religious and secular worlds.  But of course many will try as pictures of the ruined nave and the alter flash around the globe.  The Divine Mrs. M and I were lucky enough to have walked the hallowed ground contained in the cathedral during a trip to France and England in 2017. After touring Our Lady's house  during the day we attended a concert that night.  It was one of the highlights of our trip and inspired a meditation on the place of religion in the 21st century.
    Despite its dedication as a manifestation of mankind's fascination with spirituality, the truth is the cathedral had been falling into decay as France and most advanced countries have become less religious and more secular.  Without the world cultural landmark status and the hordes of tourists willing to pay for entrance, Notre Dame would have been well on its way to a picturesque ruin.
    There is no doubt it will be rebuilt, but what is the motivation for the reconstruction?   Are we rebuilding a house of worship, or a cultural icon defining our journey from the Middle ages to modernity.  

Westeros and climate change

As someone who binge watched bits and pieces of Game of Thrones to get up to speed for the beginning of the last season of said show, I doubt I am saying anything new by comparing the " Winter is Coming" scenario of the show's premise with climate change.  What had periodically threatened Westeros before, the inevitable years long winter, is now fraught with the doomsday of the Night King and his army of zombies.
   Meanwhile, in the NYT this morning, we are being told we all need to move to Duluth, Minnesota to avoid the perils of climate change.  This relatively small city with a population of about 80,000 can probably accommodate another 150,000 people, so don't delay, move today.  That's about like Cersei Lannister declaring she will stay at King's Landing while the Night King destroys all of her enemies and she picks up the pieces.  Unfortunately for her, we know that is not going to happen.  Neither will the supposed safe haven of Duluth work for us.  We are all part of a complex web we call civilization and the transformation of much of the earth from human friendly to deadly will not spare safe havens.
    That is why the majority of the surviving cast members find themselves at Winterfell as the final season begins.  They know if the Night King is not defeated there will be nowhere left to flee.  The same is true of climate change.   If we do not fight with everything we have, the next generation may be scrounging for scraps in the mean streets of Duluth.

the boutique candidates

Environmentalists have Jay Inslee, Medicare for all advocates have Bernie, millennials have Pete Buttegieg, feminists have Kirsten Gillibrand.  Anyone with a hobby horse is likely to find a democratic candidate espousing their pet views.  Even the centrists will soon have joe Biden to cheer.  What we all need to remember is the eventual opponent in 2020.  No matter who you support now, every democrat must rally around the party's nominee because no matter who we pick, they will need everyone's support in the battle for America's soul next year.

Can it be done in America

The New Zealand Parliament voted 119-1 to ban assault weapons less than a month after an Australian man ran amok and killed dozens of people with an assault rifle in that country of 3 million people.  Meanwhile, in America, literally thousands of people have died by gunfire in mass shooting incidents since a lone deranged man killed 2 dozen children at Sandy Hook elementary school.  Why can't we do the same thing in the land of the free and the home of the brave?  Why do we need to possess souped up killing machines for which there is no other reason than to kill fellow human beings.  Eric Swalwell, the congressman from California is running for president with the promise to ban assault rifles and he is being inundated with hate mail and phone messages threatening imminent death.  Having never been enamored of guns, I can't speak to their attraction, but I believe gun manufacturers and their mouthpiece, the NRA, have taken a utilitarian object and made it a fetish.  Until and unless we educate a new generation, we will be unable to join the people of New Zealand in a future without weapons of mass destruction.

To be or not to be

Now that the democratic party has moved left in response to the GOP's continuing surge to the right, many political scientists are saying the dems are heading to defeat in 2020 if they nominate a lefty firebrand.   I would like to know who they consider the most liberal among the contenders.  Is it Elizabeth Warren, who wants to take on multinationals and is in the mold of Teddy Roosevelt or is it Bernie Sanders who advocates for a watered down  version of Northern European social democracy.  Maybe it is Andrew Yang, an entrepreneur who is calling for Universal Basic Income.  Some are even calling for reparations to be paid to descendants of slaves.   What all these positions have in common is they call for a fundamental change in income distribution.  That is why the media, more and more controlled by the .01%, will undermine these campaigns in subtle and also very public ways.  The goal of the media and its enablers is the economically anodyne and socially liberal views of the Joe Biden wing of the party.  These people would have us contend on social issues while they continue to exacerbate the economic disparities among us.

The continuing debasement of America

The nomination of deadbeat Steven Moore and scammer Hermain Cain to the Federal Reserve Board as well as the firing of numerous leaders of the Department of Homeland Security are part of this administration's semi-conscious plan to turn the nation into a banana republic.  Some history first.
    The aforementioned nation's associated with a fruit comes from US policy during the early years of the last century when many central American countries were basically run by the United Fruit company (the precursor of Dole and Chiquita banana) with the aid and assistance of the US Army.
    With the elevation of tRump's personal picks to the Fed, we can expect the latter to become an adjunct to the administration instead of an independent actor.  Where most American presidents where fearful of violating the Fed's freedom, Cheetolini wants to make it his plaything.  Remember this if a financial crisis occurs during his term.
    Meanwhile, with the connivance of the psychopathic Steven Miller, the leadership of DHS is being removed and presumably be replaced by people willing to violate immigration law in service of the dear leader.  Family separation at the border will become the norm.  Automatic denial of asylum to brown skinned people, ditto.   Even the present leadership's refusal to violate laws regarding immigrant rights while condoning casual cruelty will seem positively courageous when the next head of DHS flouts the law with the support of the commander in chief.
    This combination of hacks and lawlessness is rapidly debasing the already tarnished reputation of our country.   What happens next is up to us.

Dying on Tax Hill

Through all the twists and turns of the tRump presidency*, there has been one absolute.  Cheetolini originally agreed to release his tax returns as soon as the audit he was under was finished.  3 years later, we are still waiting and with the Ways and Means Committee ready to subpoena the returns, the Donald is ready to fight the release all the way to the Supreme Court.  The law is pretty clearly on the side of transparency, and even his hand picked justices would have to do legal backflips to justify a ruling against Congress.  Some have even speculated that if all legal rulings go against him he will still refuse to hand over the returns.  Being the half hearted dictator that he is, I doubt it will come to a guns drawn showdown, but tRump will make every effort short of that to ensure we never see those documents.  That alone should tell us there are huge problems for the president* should we ever see his financial records.  He has made it clear he is willing to die on that hill.

Shoes continue their dropping

While our demented president* continues his victory lap regarding his culpability in 2016 election shenanigans, a funny thing happened.  The previously leak proof Mueller team in finally starting to crack under the enormous pressure the AG has applied with his continued refusal to release the full report without heavily redacting almost every page.  Indeed, the safe money bet is the only words not being covered are "no", "collusion", "best" and "president".  Another safe bet is that William Barr, who famously orchestrated the Iran Contra scandal in the late 1980s will lose what little integrity he ever had in service to Cheetolini.   The public pressure is such that the leisurely roll out of a sanitized version of Mueller's report is now impossible and soon at least the judiciary committee will see what the investigation discovered.

April Blues

On a cloudy, cool April morning, nothing seems right with the world.  Our laughingstock of  a president* is inspiring left leaning cable news to recruit psychiatrists to explain his latest gaffes regarding his father's birthplace, his inability to pronounce the word origins and his paranoid rant that a speech being covered by C-Span would be released to the media.  Although his enablers at Faux News will undoubtedly explain these bobbles away, most of the rest of us are either horrified or terrified by the implications.
   Meanwhile, the weather is proving elusive to those of us who would rather be golfing or gardening than worrying about our nation's leadership.  The seedlings in the basement are starting to outgrow their present digs and it is still too cold to transplant the peppers and eggplant into cold frames.  It is turning into the April of discontent.

Health care and aging

I was of two minds when deciding what to write about this morning, especially since without my publisher (brother Neil) to post this blog to facebook very few eyes are likely to see it.  However, I will persevere.  The first topic was health care and the republican push to take it away from anyone they feel doesn't deserve it.  Although I have not researched the dawn of the social security era in the 1930s, what reading I have done indicates to me that the GOP was hell bent on destroying what is arguably the most popular government program of all time.  They continued to try to undermine the program until the mid 1950s and still scratch around the edges in an attempt to make it less available.  They are trying the same game plan with health care.  People have finally come around to if not love then at  least like the ACA as it  has inched toward the goal of universal health care coverage.  If not destroyed now it may be the precursor to a Medicare for All program which will join social security on the third rail of American politics, i.e., touch it and you die!
     The second point I wanted to make is the role of aging and what it means in politics at this time.  As Joe Biden contemplates joining Bernie Sanders and tRump as septuagenarians running for the presidency, I think most Americans who have crossed the threshold of Medicare wonder what he is thinking.   While I am still working, I can't even imagine taking on the 24/7 demands of the modern presidency.  I am not talking about the present occupant of the oval office who spends more time watching Faux News than fulfilling the duties of his office.  We need a vision of the future from someone who is still closer to his or her birth than to their funerals.  Yes, there are plenty of older folks who defy the ravages of time, but do we want to gamble our future on the ability of a 76 year old to keep it together for 4  stressful years?

The Cruelest Month

April is definitely the cruelest month for gardeners in the North Country.   Whoever wrote the song about April showers bringing May flowers must have been living in Southern California.  I write this as we are greeting April 1 with a temperature in the low 20s this morning.  The local drive in hot dog emporium, Clare and Carl's is open for  the season and at least one golf course was luring local golfers with 9 holes of golf if you are willing to dodge the remaining snow on the north side of many fairways.  But the truth is April in northern New York has a lot more in common with early December than May.  I will dutifully plant some beets. carrots and spinach this week, but I won't be holding my breath watching for seedlings.