Post Turkey, pre Christmas

     We are now at that perfect moment sandwiched between a symbolic, inclusive holiday asking us to be thankful for the many things most of us take for granted, and the relentless commercialization of the looming Christmas holiday.

       So far, no one has really figured how to sell a significant amount of merchandise for Thanksgiving.   Somehow, the dour, genocidal Pilgrims and their story does not lend itself to a Madison Avenue treatment.   Even the traditional Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade barely mentions the holiday it commemorates and instead makes the celebration a kickoff of its Christmas sales.

      Meanwhile, we have taken a pagan holiday, the yuletide celebration of increasing daylight and turned it into a gigantic celebration of the birth of a child which must needs be celebrated by buying and distributing gifts to all and sundry.  

      I will probably be decried as a grinch by many friends and relatives, but I don't believe in a war on Christmas.  Rather we should strive for a little more thanksgiving in the upcoming holiday.  

Thanksgiving... or not

    While the vast majority of my fellow countrymen will sit down to a Thanksgiving Day feast tomorrow with their biggest concern being a political discussion started by a crazy uncle or grandfather, many native Americans will have a day filled with existential terror as they mark another celebration of their stolen birthright.
      Most of us grew up and marked the Pilgrim's first "Thanksgiving" with their native sponsors.   With nearly half the Massachusetts Bay colony having perished during their first winter in the New World, they came together, probably a lot earlier than the fourth Thursday in November to celebrate their continuing existence and supposedly thank "Squanto" for teaching them how to grow native American crops.
     That's the Thanksgiving most of us are familiar with.  However, thanks to modern day historians who documented the systemic violence against their native benefactors, the Wampanoags and the cheating of the tribe which resulted in the Pilgrim's expropriation of native land, we can now feel guilty even before that extra helping of turkey.  
     It turns out that many, if not all of the historical events we commemorate during the course of the year are built on a foundation of racism, misogyny and cultural appropriation.  We may not appreciate being reminded that these myths are finally being exposed for the horrors they visited on natives, blacks and women, but we need to acknowledge them and try to live up to the ideals we piously express, especially on Thanksgiving.

Enabling the president*

    Many of us gnash our teeth nearly every day as Cheetolini and his henchmen make a mockery of the rule of law in America.   Even when he loses a battle, as when a federal judge ordered his former White House counsel, Don McGahn to testify regarding his knowledge of tRump's obstruction of justice during the Mueller probe, his DOJ will appeal the ruling, effectively running out the clock.  This makes us frustrated with the system.   However, it is not the system which is failing us, but the men and sometimes the women who operate the levers of government.
    Hitler did not create Nazi Germany single handedly.  He was aided and abetted by a fairly large slice of the men who operated the Wiemar government.   Some of them agreed with his vision of a Germany of ubermenschen or at least a reinvigorated country and were willing to indulge some of his more outre policies.  Others supported even the "final solution" right up until the bunker doors were closed in 1945.    This is how democracies really die.
      The next time our president* says or does something which strips us of another right or pushes us a little further down the road which leads to authoritarianism, remember, he is not doing it alone.

Gardening strikes again

       I am still not sure what next spring holds for me as far as gardening, but I did receive 2 seed catalogs on Saturday.   For some people, gardening is a hobby, but in my case it is a lifestyle choice bordering on obsession.   I pore over catalogs, imagine planting layouts and fertilizing schedules.  As retirement and its supposed abundance of free time looms, ever more elaborate schemes are afoot.
      The fly in the proverbial ointment is lack of space.   The latest edition of Casa Monzeglio does not boast large sunny areas in which to pursue my passion.   I still look longingly at the wide open spaces at our previous abode.   18 years of steady soil improvement have made my old gardening space extremely productive.  Should we not sell the property by the time spring 2020 rolls around, the temptation to continue farming/gardening will become stronger.   I guess time will tell.   Excuse me while I fantasize.

This is who they have

     It looks like the House Intelligence Committee is about to wrap up its part in the impeachment inquiry.   After taking the testimony of a bunch of civil servants willing to put themselves through the ordeal and one political appointee who is wealthy enough not to care what republicans think about his perfidy, Adam Schiff and the democrats on the committee have elicited not a smoking gun, but an artillery battery of evidence the president* conducted a bribery scheme to force the government of Ukraine to announce an investigation of a political rival.
     Needless to say, bribery is front and center as a "high crime and misdemeanor" as written in the US Constitution.   Meanwhile republicans are doing everything in their power to throw distractions into the process.   Aside from a few fanatics and opportunists; Jim Jordan is poster boy for the former and Elise Stefanik for the latter, most republicans privately abhor the president's* behavior and would gladly oust him if the political and economic cost was not so high.   Even retiring GOPers are hesitant to criticize tRump for fear the wingnut welfare system will shun them in retirement.  Thanks to his iron grip on the mostly racist base of the modern republican party, tRump can thumb his nose at the rule of law and will be safe from prosecution if he can win the 2020 election.   This possibility is what animates the zombie GOP.

Why the 99% can't have nice things

     In case you hadn't heard, the democrats had a presidential debate last night.  I doubt many people tuned in anyway after a full day of impeachment hearings in the House.  Politics overkill.  I listened through a couple of commercial breaks and came away a little disheartened.
     Although Bernie and Elizabeth Warren continue to flog their Medicare for All plans, virtually everyone else on the stage feigned mock horror at the spending it would take to cover all Americans with adequate medical care.  This, despite the trillions we spend to prop up the American Empire which mainly benefits the top 1% of the population.  To his credit, Bernie attacked the military industrial complex and its contribution to the national debt.   Unfortunately, the hand wringing over said debt was in full evidence.
     Republicans propose a 1.5 trillion tax cut and propose to pay for it with magic beans.   Democrats propose spending for health care and the media wants a 100 page white paper showing how it will be paid for.   That is our supposedly liberal media in action.   It's why we can't have nice things, like universal health insurance, family leave, etc.

For whom the Sondland tolls

     With an abrupt turnabout from his first deposition before the House Intelligence committee, Gordon Sondland threw a good number of administration officials under a rather large bus.  tRump, VP Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo were deposited beneath the wheels as Sondland testified that indeed there was a quid pro quo involved in releasing military aid to Ukraine and he kept everyone in the loop throughout the attempted extortion.
     Up until now, the republicans on the committee have claimed there is no witness who can provide first hand testimony.   Sondland is the man to do that, especially after being outed for calling Cheetolini from an unsecured cell phone in a Ukrainian restaurant.   However, having changed his testimony, he will be an easy target for the minority's attacks on his credibility.   It will be a long slog for Sondland, but so far it seems he is more interested in avoiding perjury charges than protecting the president*.   Time to start the popcorn.

Weatherunwise

     It's slightly past mid November and here in the North Country we have already had a 6-8 inch snowfall and we are experiencing a dangerous freezing rain event as I write this.   While this kind of weather is not historically unusual here, it has been the exception over the last few years.   The local golf courses were open for business at Christmastime in 2015!
     October 2019 is in the books as the 2nd warmest October since worldwide recordkeeping started.  Unfortunately for those who hope mankind will stir before the apocalypse a large part of the US was experiencing below normal temperatures.  This emboldened climate change deniers to proclaim the rest of the world is embracing a Chinese hoax meant to deny righteous Murcans their pickups and SUVs.
      Amazon deforestation has spiked, oil drilling continues apace and our grandchildren will look back at the early 21st century as probably the last chance to avert catastrophic climate disruption.  I will not be around for the reckoning, but I hope we can step back from the brink, starting with the 2020 elections.   We need to address the problem now.  I'll get right on it, as soon as I scrape the ice off the sidewalk.

Out of touch

      The democrat taking on the odious Elise Stefanik in my congressional district raised nearly a million dollars thanks to Elise's partisan antics during the impeachment inquiry hearings last week.   Tedra Cobb was languishing in her second bid to unseat Stefanik until the latter's tRump polishing enraged democrats nationwide.   Cobb will probably not beat Stefanik in 2020.  NY 21, which stretches from just north of Albany to the Canadian border and west to Watertown could be transplanted to northern Alabama and would probably feel right at home if not for liberal enclaves like Plattsburgh, Potsdam and Canton.
     Stefanik, along with most of the republicans in the House have already decided they will hitch a ride in the tRump clown car.  The only things they have to lose is their dignity, self respect and identity as patriotic Americans.  

Collateral Damage

    As the impeachment inquiry wends its way through Congress with the inevitable failure of the Senate to convict and remove the president*,  Paul Krugman in today's NYT lists at least one of the ways in which our failure to rid ourselves of Cheetolini is actually causing preventable deaths in the general population.
     Krugman cites a study by the Bureau for Economic Research which estimates the rollback of environmental regulations under tRump will probably cause 10,000 preventable deaths each year.  But of course for his base, owning the libs is far more important than dying of lung disease!

See no evil...etc.

      The democrats opened the tRump impeachment hearings with perhaps the best witnesses they have;  William Taylor, a decorated Vietnam vet and George Kent a lifetime 2nd generation diplomat with impeccable credentials.  They might have been named Frick and Frack for all the respect the republicans on the intelligence committee showed them.
      While they were smart enough not to impugn their personal reputations, the republicans rejected their sworn testimony and instead insisted they were second hand witnesses with little knowledge of the real story, which was obviously all about Crowdstrike, Ukraine's intervention in the 2016 elections and Hunter Biden's corruption.  Whatever.
      What they were unprepared for was Taylor's testimony that one of his assistants overheard a telephone call between Gordon Sundland and tRump the day after the infamous call in which our president* demanded investigations into the "scandals" involving Joe Biden.   Taylor's assistant said he heard tRump demanding to know if the Ukrainian president was on board with the investigations.  Sundland told him he was.
      As Nicholas Kristoff noted in a column in today's NYT, if the manager of a Social Security office stopped payment of a widow's check and told her if she wanted it back she had to give him her husband's rare coin collection he would be subject to firing and a criminal investigation.  Why should the chief executive of our country be any different?

The circus come to town

     Live, televised impeachment hearings start today.   As a survivor of the Watergate hearings in 1973-74, I am somewhat surprised at the notoriety of today's open sessions.   My local paper plastered the information on the front page along with a "who's who" of the initial witnesses.  I don't recall the media being so attentive in the 70s until Watergate transformed political culture after the Nixon tapes were revealed.
     I think many people feel the tRump impeachment hearings are too partisan, with democrats saying the facts matter and republicans disputing the concept entirely.   Unfortunately, the same thing happened with Watergate.   There again, republicans rejected the entire premise until the actual tapes showed Nixon orchestrating the coverup of the break in at the DNC headquarters.  I believe that unless or until an audio of Cheetolini demanding the Ukrainians investigate the Bidens as a prerequiste for receiving  hundreds of millions of dollars of military aid is uncovered, these hearings will only harden the partisan divide.

Climate change and perception

    The urgent need to combat climate change will take another hit tonight.  According to the National Weather Service more than 200 locations across America will register new record low temperatures between now and Friday.   In the North Country we are expecting up to a foot of snow tonight, followed by  temps in the low single digits the following night.  That is more like a January forecast.
     What we will be told by our president* and his enablers is this is prima facie evidence that climate change is a hoax and if anything, we need to worry about a new ice age!  The fact the rest of the globe has been broiling all year and indeed, 2019 will probably go down as one of the hottest on record will have no significance to many Americans.   They will look at this cold blast as permission to drive gas guzzling pickups and continue business as usual.

Suffocating centrism

     Aside from the control of most traditional media by aging boomers, the singular ideology which unites the opinion shapers is a creepy centrism which treats the views held by a majority of Americans as unworthy.  
      One of the founders of Politico, which along with Morning Joe on MSNBC is seen as must consume media by Washington Insiders, confesses to a reporter at Vox that he has a bad case of centrism.   He reflexively dismisses populists like Bernie or Liz Warren precisely because they violate the tenets of the bipartisan fantasy centrists celebrate, even though they know it hasn't been in effect in over 40 years.
     The average American these pundits prefer is socially liberal and economically conservative.  According to polls, that label describes less than 4% of the public.  Many, if not most of us are either socially and economically liberal or in the case of many tRumpists, socially conservative and economically liberal.   Most of us don't fret over the national debt and are willing to fund things like the expansion of social security.   But media elites self identify with the wealthy establishment wisdom that debt is bad, social security is unsustainable and foreign wars are great.  Until someone like Sanders and/or Warren is elected, the best we can hope for is a return to the status quo pre tRump.   As someone who lived through the Clintons, Bushes and Obama eras, I believe that is not enough!

It's not OK Boomers

     Being of a certain age, I confess to not always being up on the latest slogans regarding the culture wars.   I'm certainly old enough to remember my generation's rallying cry, "Don't trust anyone over 30".   If that was a truism, I guess I can't even trust my youngest daughter, who passed that milestone last year.   But the latest generational rallying cry, "OK Boomer" is a little mystifying.
     Just like every generation that came before us, boomers include all classes, political outlooks and life experiences.   We are certainly not a monolithic bloc.  It pains me that quite possibly a majority of my fellow boomers are tRumpists, but it is not something I can do much about.   I see the angry facebook posts by my contemporaries and remember all the Archie Bunkers I had to deal with as I made my way in the post 60s world.
     Every generation has a large cohort which as it ages longs for a certainty that never existed in the imaginings of the youth they have lost.   They tend to be bitter and also support those of their generation who would demonize and disempower the following generation.   If each generation can remember that bit of "boomer" wisdom, perhaps they will not be so quick to criticize.

Truth and Consequences

    Even with a visit from tRump and state so deep red that republicans won every other state wide office, Matt Bevin was unable to eke out a win against Andy Beshear  and so Kentuckians elected a democrat governor of the state.
    Democrats may gloat about that victory, but it took an unusual set of circumstances for it to happen.   Bevin managed to alienate teachers, police and virtually every labor oriented organization.  He also tried to reverse and destroy the state's popular Obamacare clone, Kynect which was installed by the last democratic governor, Beshear's father, Steve.   Even  though he proved he is a thoroughly loathsome human being, Bevin still only lost by a half percent and will probably demand a recount.  Of course, his national avatar won the state by over 30 points in 2016, so any margin of defeat for Bevin is a stern rebuke.   I guess there are some lines even a tRump crazed electorate will not cross.
     In other election news, dems consolidated their hold in Virginia, winning both houses of the state legislature and effectively turning the state blue.    Despite gerrymanders, voter suppression and sundry dirty tricks, the handwriting is on the wall for all to see.

Looking for the new bogeyman

     Since the media and republicans can't seem to entice Hillary out of retirement, it looks like it's time to find another scary bogeywoman under our collective bed.   Step up Elizabeth Warren and show your socialist face!
       A new poll being brandished by the NYT supposedly shows Warren, as well as Bernie and Biden being toast in the same battleground states which gave Cheetolini his electoral college victory in 2016.    Since Warren is either leading the democratic gaggle or running second to Biden in most polls, she is the target of the MSM and republican leaning pundits.  There have been a flurry of op-ed pieces pointing out the flaws in many of her famous plans, but especially of  her Medicare for All details.
       It seems the mostly male opinion makers can't seem to deal with a strong woman who is fighting for structural changes which will cost them money.   Even tRump, with all his baggage would seem preferable to Warren's brand of enlightened capitalism according to many.   If Warren manages to win the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary, look for an all out attempt by a "sorrowful" media to take her down.  Since the Pocahontas meme won't fly anymore and the latest trial balloon launched by the NYT regarding her work for corporations in the 80s died quickly, the search for an e-mail like scandal will jump into high gear.

Where we are

      With a few minor exceptions, the garden is rapidly approaching its seasonal end.   We finally had the killer frost which ended the galinsoga plague in the spinach patch.  Unfortunately, the dead leaves will weld themselves to the healthy spinach leaves, rendering them useless.  That will probably be  moot point as increasingly cold weather begins to damage even the collards and kale.  The torrential rains and wind we experienced last Thursday and Friday added to the stress on late season vegetables, so I guess it is time to turn the page and start looking for spring catalogs!
     Meanwhile, a couple of stories related to energy production caught my eye this morning.   Increasing oil production from Norway, Canada, Brasil and Indonesia will keep the price of the commodity stable or lower for at least a few years.   A second story about the increasing demand for oil from the countries of Southeast Asia in coming years sounds even more dire.   If we can't wean humanity from fossil fuels in the face of climate change, we may as well write our race's obituary.   It seems these nations are spending money of fossil fuel exploration instead of solar and wind research.  Why is this?

Moving the goalposts

     My local congresscritter, rising GOP star Elise Stefanik voted with every other republican in the House against the authorization of the rules for an impeachment inquiry.   This, after Stefanik has been echoing the party line which up until now was all about demanding the authorization vote.  Now, it is all about the chairmen of various committees "abusing" their power and limiting the rights of the minority.  What she really means is limiting the ability of republicans to turn the hearings into a media circus and discredit witnesses.  I'm sure if the chairman of the intelligence committee, Adam Schiff offered to step down in favor of Devin Nunes republicans may be satisfied.  Short of that outcome, they will keep moving the goalposts and nattering about process.  That is all they have, and unfortunately for American democracy it may be enough to prolong this farce of an administration for another year.