The road to hell and other unsavory places

       By the time most of us are sitting down to dinner this evening, the Senate will probably vot to acquitt president* tRump of the two articles of impeachment the House brought against him.  This, after the "world's greatest deliberative body" voted not to hear witnesses or subpoena documents related to the charges.    While this should not surprise anyone who follows politics even in a desultory manner, it is disappointing.
       Ex senator, Jeff Flake, opined recently if there was a secret ballot on impeachment, at least 30 republicans would vote to oust tRump.   As it now stands, Mitt Romney may be the only vote from the republican caucus to register against the walking advertisement for corruption which now inhabits the oval office.  A majority of the country feels he should be removed, but only one GOP senator (Maybe), feels the same way.  Not to mention there may be one or two democrats who may also vote for acquittal now that they see which way the Beltway breeze is blowing.
      Many Americans will feel the democratic system has failed us, allowing a manifestly corrupt and unfit man to continue in office for at least another year, during which he may do untold damage to our republic.   The only response is to work our collective tails off to make sure it is only one year.  There will be plenty of criminal charges waiting for tRump when he leaves office next January.  Let's make sure it happens!

Parody, sarcasm and their deaths

     At least a few of the republican senators who will vote against calling witnesses tomorrow will need to wear some makeup to cover their red faces.    After the performance of the president*'s lawyers in yesterday's question and answer session, both irony and sarcasm died on the Senate floor.
     Alan Dershowitz, the supposed neutral expert employed in the defense posited a president could do virtually anything if he believed it was in service of his re-election which he also believed was in the national interest.   As one wag suggested, Dershowitz might have second thoughts if his torture and execution was believed by tRump to be in the this nebulous "interest".
     This seemed to be the zenith of the president*s defenders' argument.   The rest of it was encapsulated in tRump's declaration that "we have the material.  They don't have the material", meaning the documents which would further prove the prosecution's case.   The defense claimed the prosecution couldn't produce any first hand witnesses.  They were reminded by Adam Schiff this was because the administration withheld the witnesses from testifying.
     It is almost as if republicans are doing their utmost to mobilize the democratic base in the coming elections.   By making a mockery of the impeachment trial, they are outraging democrats, independents and the tiny fraction of republicans who actually care about democracy.  I think it is partially because they know witnesses and documents will so overwhelmingly prove the case against tRump they will be accused of rank partisanship if they vote to acquit.  So instead they will vote against any testimony and hope this episode will disappear in our collective memory hole before November.   It's a bad bet, but at this point the only one they have.

No upside

      Democrats have desperately chasing the witness car at the tRump impeachment trial and they may have finally caught it, hopefully not to their dismay.
       The trial has so far gone according to plan.  Both sides have energized their bases with tales of the other side's perfidy and despite a mountain of evidence clearly showing the president's* guilt, he is on the verge of acquittal.  This was never in doubt, despite the outrage of the House managers and Senate democrats.   Now comes the John Bolton surprise and it fuels more outrage.
       If I was Moscow Mitch, I would allow four republicans to join democrats calling for a witness.  Bolton's book is going to come out anyway, so McConnell's reasoning goes, so let's limit the evidentiary part of the trial to a single witness.  Bolton will confirm the charges and not a single republican will defect anyway.   Now they can all say the trial was fair and quite a few moderate dems and independents will agree.  Instead of a sham trial that will keep their partisans engaged until election day, many will despair and drop out.   Meanwhile, tRump supporters will still be outraged at this witch hunt and will probably even re-elect Susan Collins.  I know this is a cynical view of the likely outcome, but I hope McConnell has his 51 votes so the trial has a quick, unhappy ending.

Killing them loudly

     It must be killing the democratic senators running for president that they must sit through the tRump team's "defense" during the president*s trial.   A first grader with reading skills could poke holes in the ridiculous arguments.   They are mostly about process, since the evidence is overwhelmingly against their client.   Meanwhile, the primary season grinds on without some of the polling leaders.
     The Bolton revelations in yesterday's NYT threaten to drag out the trial, since now there is mounting pressure for actual witnesses to present evidence.   It will not materially change the verdict unless someone introduces a video of the president raping an underage girl and then paying for her abortion.   Even something like that will be spun by the conservative media as a momentary aberration in an otherwise spotless life.  Meanwhile, all the oxygen is sucked out of the room and Sanders, Warren, Klobuchar and Bennett lose precious chances to convince us their vision for America's future is in tune with our own.

Passings

    It was with heavy hearts the Divine Mrs. M and I bid farewell to Chazz, our faithful cat on Saturday.   He had been diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a blood cancer, and he declined to the point we decided it was time to end his suffering.   It was sad, but a peaceful end and we were left with the memory of a loving friend.
     I think it is amazing we can give our pets the gift of an end of suffering while simultaneously forcing our fellow humans to suffer untold indignities at the end of life.   Surely it makes more sense to allow someone to ease themselves off this mortal coil than to eke out a few more days at the cost of losing what made us cherish them in life.  I know the arguments against suicide and the slippery slope it represents, but I firmly believe in the right of an individual to go gently into this good night.  On the other hand, if someone wishes to extend their life at all costs, they should have that right also.

Last gasps

      I didn't watch much of the televised coverage of the impeachment trial of Donald J. Trump yesterday.   After months of coverage, I know most of the details and the repetition did nothing to calm the existential dread of the coming week of back and forth before the inevitable vote to dismiss charges.
     It now appears the republican senate caucus has indeed sold its soul to tRump in the laughable attempt to ingratiate themselves.   As one pundit said, there were never going to be 4 GOP senators voting to hear witnesses in this mirror image of a show trial.  It was either going to be more than 4 or less, because no one wants to be the 51st and the primary target of tweet wrath.   The democrats looked disheartened even after Adam Schiff's impassioned plea for at least the appearance of fair play.
      The hard right will cheer and most of us in the center or left will weep, but both sides represent a small portion of the electorate.  Most will not even begin to think about the election to come until after Labor Day.   It is America's shame that most of us are so politically disengaged that republicans feel no shame as they dismantle our democracy.

Late night with Mitch

      Having been forced by more moderate members of his caucus to at least forego the "dark of night' strategy of forcing impeachment managers and defenders to make the bulk of their arguments after most Americans are in bed, Mitch McConnell gave both sides 3 eight hour days too make their arguments to the Senate.
      This call will have absolutely no effect on the ultimate verdict, but at least it will call in to question McConnell's latest nickname, Midnight Mitch.   Meanwhile, the impeachment trial drags on and people are treated to the serious legal argument being made by the managers from the House vs. the nearly incoherent stylings by tRump's "legal" team.   In a real courtroom, the president's* lawyers would have been laughed out of the proceedings by now.   If this team had represented OJ, he would have never seen the light of day.  Many people have said Bill Barr is tRump's Roy Cohn.  Well, he has his Johnny Cochrane also.  His name is Midnight Moscow Mitch.

#2 for the money

      Derek Jeter was elected to the Hall Of Fame on Tuesday.  He was nominated on all but one of 397 voters and thus denied the perfection achieved by his teammate, Mariano Rivera.  Unlike the soft spoken and self effacing Rivera, Jeter was supremely confident and dismissive of those who sought to penetrate the persona he always projected to the public.
       In 1995, the year Jeter joined the Yankees, I was skeptical he would do anything to change the team's fortunes.   Since the glory days of the late 70s the Yankees had suffered through some mediocre seasons and this fresh faced kid who inspired my oldest daughter to squeal whenever he appeared on TV was not likely to turn things around.  Subsequent seasons proved me wrong, and though I have only followed baseball intermittently since moving to the North Country, Jeter always stood out as the consummate spokesman for the game I have loved.
    I would like to attend his enshrinement in Cooperstown this July, but I'm guessing every hotel room within a hundred miles of the place is already booked and the crowds will be overwhelming.  I will be thinking of all the moments during his career when he showed fans what true greatness is and can be.  Truly, he is the pride of the Yankees.

Fait Accompli

       Anyone who expected anything but a quick vote for acquittal in the impeachment trial of Donald J. Trump probably still believes in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.   With Mitch McConnel firmly in charge of a spineless republican caucus tRump will be able to start his State of the Union speech with an account of how he beat the rap.
      It is especially ironic that a book "A Very Stable Genius", by two Washington Post reporters is coming out today.  I'm sure there is much damning information in the book, but the money passage is tRump's diatribe against the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act in 2017.   The act specifically prohibits Americans from paying bribes in foreign countries to secure business deals.  The Donald railed at his Secretary of State, saying this was so unfair and that it would change.  He then demanded Secretary Tillerson "get rid of" the law.   This from a president* who's legal team will make the argument he held up military aid for Ukraine due to concerns about corruption in that country.   Surely, irony is dead.
     

The winter of content

      I will make a confession.   Instead of the usual pastimes I indulge in over the course of a winter weekend; skiing, reading, planning next year's garden or cooking, I spent a large part of my awake time binge watching a TV show.   That is something I never thought I would have to admit.
      Looking for a show to pass an hour or so before bedtime, I stumbled upon a program called "Designated Survivor".   The premise is a typical fish out of water conceit.   The lowliest member of the president's cabinet is sequestered in an unknown, secure location during the state of the union address and would become president in the vanishingly unlikely event the entire government is wiped out by an attack.   In the show, of course, the event comes to pass and the secretary of Housing and Urban Development, who had also been canned by the president that morning becomes the leader of the free world as the entire administration and congress perishes.  From there, the show caroms from one doomsday scenario to the next as Keifer Sutherland undergoes on the job training, helped by a loyal cadre of idealists and protected by a plucky FBI agent with seemingly relentless drive to track down the perpetrators of the horrific attack.
      I freely admit it is a cliché ridden mess of a show, by each successive episode hooks you further.  After watching the first and a good part of the second season, I look forward to president Kirkman's adventures.  It is a lot easier and in some ways more believable and heartening than the ugly reality we endure each day with our current president*.   Kirkman firmly believes in the ultimate goodness of America, unlike tRump, who caters to the dark side of human nature.

The Forgotten

     As the media, both liberal and conservative, chase the new shiny objects of impeachment and the Parnas story, many other stories are being ignored.   Besides the banishment of the democratic primaries, the ongoing suffering and anonymity of Puerto Rico and the continuing problems besetting America's children are being sidelined by most papers and television stations.
    In today's NYT, Paul Krugman asks why America hates children.   He points out every developed country provides maternal leave as a right.  Most also provide high quality universal child care for those parents who either want to or have to work.  As a grandparent who helps provide some of the infrastructure which enables my daughters to work, I find our system to be expensive and cruel.   Also, children in countries such as France are taught to eat a healthy diet.  America's children serve as a disposal site for our farm surpluses.
     Puerto Rico, still reeling from huge hurricanes in 2017 is now at the epicenter of a series of earthquakes which are still shaking the island, nearly 10 days after the first shocks.   Meanwhile, the tRump administration is withholding congressionally approved aid because of concerns regarding corruption.  This is obviously another case of projection!   Even the commonwealth's decision to mandate $15.00/hr. pay on federally funded projects has been countermanded.  Virtually none of this is being reported by the media.   But don't worry, we'll all be treated to impeachment trial happenings on a minute by minute basis.

Crime spree or business as usual

      Rachel Maddow's interview with Lev Parnas last night was riveting for the calm demeanor Parnas showed as he detailed the influence peddling, extortion and intimidation he and Rudy Giuliani's merry band of reprobates carried out in Ukraine in 2018 and early 2019.  As one pundit said, it was as if one of the Watergate burglars appeared on the McNeil-Lehrer report and implicated Nixon et al. The key difference between then and now is in 2019 no one's mind was changed by last night's revelations.
       I suppose there will be further evidence coming to light, or even new foreign adventures revealed, but unless there is video of tRump handing bags of cash to the Ukrainian president somehow the president*s true believers will continue their delusions.

What's goin on

     I was all set to write a summation of my thoughts regarding last night's debate.   As usual, it would not have been wildly different than what most of the pundits who are actually paid to publish the drivel on offer at major media outlets.   Then I chanced to read two rants and it changed my direction.       Over on the First Draft blog, the writer posits if she was to be paid the sum of 80 million dollars for screwing up the largest airplane manufacturer on the planet and being fired in disgrace, she would skip the accidents which killed nearly 300 people, just do some non lethal stupidity and then retire to her private island.   The effrontery which allows a-holes like the Boeing CEO to do things which would lead to summary firing without benefits for most of us is never captured by the media.  For some reason, the golden parachute he is leaving with is par for the course.  Meanwhile, in Witchita, Kansas, 2700 workers are being laid off as a result of decisions he made or was responsible for.  WTF.
     The other rant which caught my attention was the description of a video made of a Sanders supporter.   He slandered and vilified every candidate running against Bernie.   At one point he advocated dragging every MSNBC anchor by their hair into the street and lighting them on fire.   Now, obviously Sanders would never advocate for such things, but his grumpy persona and the "revolution" he continuously advocates has definitely unhinged a certain subset of Berniebros.  This is toxic and he needs to get people like this out of his campaign.  
     For what it's worth, I think the women on the stage won the debate and Joe Biden looked like the not crazy uncle at Thanksgiving who had too much turkey and fell asleep while mumbling about how he would straighten out this country.   Dog help us if he wins the nomination.

Lies and the liar-in-chief

      Now that our president* has given up on the "imminent threat" lie given as cover for the assasination of an Iranian general and basically said "whatever" to those who would hold him to account, it's time to hold the media to account for its coverage of the affair as well as the latest whopper now being amplified by the megaphone it affords tRump.
      To even a casual political observer, the conflicting stories coming out of the administration after the Suliemani killing was the tipoff it was an ill thought out and increasingly embarrassing moment for tRump and his henchmen who obviously had not gamed out the responses from Iran and the rest of the world.
      Meanwhile, the hapless pundits were either in the Faux News camp and accepted every explanation as gospel or on the fact based side they tied themselves in knots trying to fact check the Liar-in-chief.  Most finally threw in the towel and had to point out that despite the stakes; war with a powerful adversary, tRump had lied to us once again.
      Now we move on to an even more egregious falsehood.  We are now told by tRump that he single handedly saved the preexisting conditions portion of Obamacare.  Meanwhile, his DOJ is sponsoring a lawsuit to invalidate the whole law with nothing to replace it if that happened.  Yet here again we will be talking about healthcare instead of impeachment.  As Don Maclean would say, my hands are clenched in fists of rage....

Perception is all

     How Americans look at the world is shaped by their education, which is in turn shaped by tribal loyalties.   That is the takeaway from a NYT report on a study of how states take the same textbook and customize it for their political viewpoint.
      Both California and Texas use the same history textbook, but the Texas version extols free enterprise, fails to mention "white flight" from the cities in the 1960s and in general promotes so called "republican values".   The California version promulgates a watered down version of whites fleeing to the suburbs, but it tends to glorify the union movement and in its history of the gilded age and our latest iteration of same it focuses on inequality.  In both cases, the books credit the same authors.
     As one pundit put it, this is how red America will glorify the idiocies of the current president* in future textbooks.  While much of the country will get a straightforward account of the horrors of the present administration, parts of America will treat tRump as the second coming of Ronald Reagan.  So don't wonder why some  of us seem to have a twisted view of history.  It's all in the book!

This and that

     So much is happening in the world this week it is hard to focus on any one issue.   Australia continues to burn; the Iran crisis has subsided for the moment, but could reignite if either side blinks; dems in congress are trying to reassert Congress' war making power, but face opposition by most of the president*'s party, including my own congresscritter; finally, it looks like despite the best efforts of the DOJ, they couldn't find any crimes committed by Hillary Clinton.
    Tackling them in reverse order, it is probably cold comfort to Hillary that Jeff Sessions hand picked prosecutor is not finding any wrongdoing by the Clinton Foundation.  Also, she will be cleared in the "Uranium One" matter, the bete noir of GOP conspiracy theorists.   I hope whoever gets the democratic party's presidential nomination commits to investigating The Donald's various scandals after he is ejected from office in November.
     In the wake of the latest Iran crisis it looks like the partisan makeup of the Senate will frustrate any efforts by dems to reclaim war making authority.  To be sure, most members of the legislative branch have historically avoided this particular duty and the executive have arrogated more and more authority in this regard.
      The Iran crisis continues to simmer, with the crash of a Ukrainian airliner shortly after takeoff from Teheran taking away some of the immediacy from both sides.   If it was a mistaken take down by the Iranians the crash will serve to cool hot heads on both sides.
      Of course the number one crisis in the world today, the massive Australian bush fires are leading many environmentalists to despair.  If even the inhabitants of the island continent can't unite around the climate change enhanced wildfires which their own experts predicted several years ago, what hope is there we will rally around Mother Earth before it's too late.
   

Last stand of the deniers

     As the wildfires continue to rage in Australia, Rupert Murdoch's media empire is deliberately spreading misinformation that confuses and spreads blame for the fires to arsonists instead of climate change.   The Australian, Murdoch's flagship paper is telling its readers more than 200 people have been arrested in connection with the fires.  Further reporting by others has put the actual number of perpetrators as more like 2 dozen people or fewer.  Even if arsonists started some of the fires, the doomsday aspect remains.  More bushland has burned so far this season than the last 15 years together.
    This is the kind of insidious damage being promulgated by climate change deniers in Australia and being picked up by the usual suspects in the US media who use the arsonist story to divert attention from the real and present danger the fires represent.  Unfortunately this kind of misinformation will continue until denial is untenable.   Then we will be told we really can't do anything to mitigate climate change and we had best accept this hell on earth as the new normal.

Food Basics

      As we wait for more Iranian and American shoes to drop on our way to another war of choice in the Middle East, I am not going to spend these few words trying to suss out what our idiot leader is thinking.   Let's talk about healthcare and food availability instead.
      A new study shows our country on average spends about $8,000 per person more than the next most expensive healthcare system, Switzerland.   That adds up to more than a trillion per year.  As Kevin Drum points out, most of that extra cost is money being paid to doctors, nurses, drug companies and device makers.  Even if you are feeling the Bern, you know even Medicare for all is not going to lower healthcare costs in the short term.   Even if all the profits of all the insurance companies, drug makers and device makers were confiscated, the elevated salaries of everyone in the system would make covering every American with the benefits Mr. Sanders envisions wildly expensive.   The cost curve would bend over time, but short term, the fallout would make the fight over Obamacare look like a playground scuffle.  
       Food and diet is part of the health care puzzle also.   While it is true many people eat absolutely horrible food choices and live to 100 and others eat all the right stuff and drop dead at 50, for most of us, eating well is the key to a long and healthy life.   Yet our country is in the midst of an obesity crisis as many subsist on unhealthy diets of ultra processed foods which have been shown to encourage the aforementioned obesity, plus cancer, heart disease and cognitive impairment.   Another commentator points out there is a big correlation between income and the ability to feed one's family a healthy diet.  Give people enough income to buy healthy food and time to cook them and they will eat healthy.   What is stopping this from happening?  

It's the weather, stupid

     January in the North Country is not for the faint of heart.  For generations, people in this area made sure their firewood supply was plentiful and near at hand.   Even as recently as our tenure (2001-present) we faced weeks on end of below freezing temperatures, often well below zero.
     This winter started early with a pre Thanksgiving snowstorm and garden ending temps.  We eventually thawed and got more seasonal as the Christmas season rolled around although calling the few patches of snow on the ground a White Christmas was wildly optimistic.  The holiday was followed by several days above freezing with sleet and rain.  Then more snow and now predictions of fifty degrees on this coming Saturday.  We seem to be on the dividing line between warmth to the east and cold to the west.
     In a forest and trees sense, we can loose sight of the harbingers of climate change and call a warm spell in January a traditional thaw.  However, in the long run, I believe our traditional cold and snowy winters will give way to wild swings between extremes of cold and warmth which will disrupt millenia of adaptation of plants and animals in the area.   I write this as snow showers continue, but the rains coming soon will wash the snow away and we can start another round of this vicious cycle.

Frustration

       Even though I'm an old white man, or maybe because I am, I remain a skeptic of the efficacy of putting an old white man as the face of the democrats in the coming election.   White men make up a small minority of the party and old whites a vanishing trace.  So why are we on the cusp of nominating either Joe Biden or Bernie Sanders to run against a demented old white man for the presidency?
      I believe if you ask an ordinary man in the street from either party, she would express support for a woman or POC presidential candidate, if there were no question of "electability".  Once that word is factored in, support for alternatives to white men drops.  I had the opportunity to visit my 89 year old mother over the weekend and she was a perfect test case for this theory.  While saying she supports both Liz Warren and Amy Klobuchar, she was adamant that neither could be president.  When pressed for a reason, she said she just didn't think a woman was up to the job.
      Meanwhile, the most powerful woman in the country, Nancy Pelosi, continues to make tRump look like a first grader having a tantrum as she shepherds the impeachment of the president* through Congress.   I rest my case.

The Fires next time

     The ecological catastrophe now occurring in Australia and the coming war our dear leader is probably provoking with Iran are twin nightmares greeting the new decade.
      Scenes of Australians huddling on beaches as wildfires rage is on its way to normalization.  An area of that country the size of West Virginia is being rendered uninhabitable by scorching temperatures, lack of water and the ubiquitous flames.  It is estimated half a billion animals have already perished and any survivors are probably doomed.  Meanwhile, the country's leaders rally behind a coal industry determined to export this climate change poison to the rest of the world.
     Meanwhile, a US drone strike in Baghdad killed a powerful Iranian general in a deliberate provocation of his government in Teheran.  The man was despicable and was responsible for hundreds of deaths of American soldiers during the Iraq war, so few tears should be shed for his passing.  However, the retaliation and escalation of the tensions between the US and Iran make me wonder if the killing was just a way to get the war so many people so evidently want.
     In both the killing in Iraq and the climate induced wildfires in Australia, our species is being tested.  What we do next will set the stage for our salvation or damnation.  Unfortunately, in both cases we have chosen heedless idiots as leaders.  I am not optimistic.

Of which no one will speak

      Today begins a new year and a new decade.  I have wished many friends and acquaintances felicitations and good fortune, but a feeling of disquiet has overwhelmed my default cheerfulness in the face of imminent disaster.  Whether it is an economic meltdown, the climate apocalypse or just the feeling of irrelevance that comes with aging, I  can trace all of these trepidations back to the 2020 elections and the kind of country we will become in their aftermath.
      As one commentator opined, it is amazing that so many in the white working and middle classes can look on the thuggish, billionaire buffoon who was elected by a minority of voters and who has never taken their side on any issue and see a champion.   Likewise, how many so called Christians can look at someone who embodies virtually everything the Bible warns us against in terms of behavior and see a savior.   It would seem a willful blindness has overtaken many of our fellow citizens.  
     How to navigate the coming months and retain our collective sanity is something I will come back to again and again.   There is little to no chance the impeachment of tRump will result in his removal from office, and since facts matter so little to devotee's of Faux News, things will only get worse for those of us who value honest truth.   So, what to do in the face of disaster?  I don't know for sure, but if there was ever an election which demands our attention, this is it.