Snatching defeat etc.

       Yes, they went there.   A  talking head on a morning program said Democrats were in the process of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory by failing to pass the half assed "bipartisan" infrastructure bill favored by the chattering class.  Of course, the inevitable failure of the Build Back Better human infrastructure bill is taken as a given.   Hardball politics explains all.

      It is widely supposed that Democrats must do something or they will inevitably be portrayed as "do nothings".  Meanwhile, progressives stand strong against passing the one bill without the other.  As pressure mounts to save the so called Biden legacy, they need to stay together and cause political discomfort to Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema for holding out against the most far reaching social programs since the inception of Medicare.   This nation must stand for something other than the interests of the 1%.

Watered down

       It seems ironic the guts of President Biden's climate change legislation is being ripped out of the Build Back Better bill just as a freak Nor' Easter dumped multiple inches of rain in the NYC metro area causing billions of dollars of damage.   Speaking to a grower in Goshen, NY, I was told the area received 7 inches of rain on Tuesday.  This after nearly 5 inches fell in the same spot 6 weeks ago.   To use a term the Divine Mrs. M abhors, this is unprecedented!

     When the damages from these storms are toted up, they will probably not include the damage to drainage systems in the area, lost late season crops and potential losses from crops that may never get planted.   The grower I mentioned in the first paragraph still has 12 acres of garlic to plant and the window to get it done is fast closing on him.

    The climate change portion of Biden's and Congressional Democrats' legislation would have cost several hundred billion dollars over a 10 year period as a down payment in the fight against the rising amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.  The cost of not doing that will easily amount to trillions of dollars in mitigation and lost GDP over the same period.   Not to mention the human suffering the disastrous weather changes will bring.  

     I haven't given up on legislating to fight climate change, but if the mid-term elections bring about a Republican majority in the House or the Senate, we can pretty much give up short term solutions to the most dangerous crisis in the history of the human race.

Baseball

        As a confirmed, dyed in the wool Yankee fan, my tolerance for baseball is usually extinguished as soon as my team has been eliminated from post season play.   However, this year I find myself strangely fascinated by the ongoing tournament.

        At first it was to root against the hated Red Sox.   Although I will never buy into the Boston mystique, I had to admit the Sox showed resilience as they beat the Rays and fought to a 2-2 tie in the ALCS before falling to the even more hated Astros.  This is the team who supposedly cheated their way to a World Series victory in 2017, beating the Yankees along the way.

      So, I find myself rooting for a National League team for the first time in my life.   The Braves are a scrappy team with an underdog vibe and I will tune in again tonight to see if they can steal another game in Houston.   At least this November I will still have a rooting interest in baseball.  Go Braves!

Pretty depressing

        It's hard to be a liberal in the United States in 2021.   The Biden administration' s signature legislation, the Build Back Better bill is being effectively gutted by two putative Democrats in the Senate.  tRump and his minions are doing their best to stall the investigative work by the House Select Committee on the events leading up to the January 6 insurrection.   The DOJ, led by Merrick Garland is turning into a toothless tiger when it comes to the misdeeds of the previous government.  We seem to be careening inexorably toward ecological disaster.   The Covid pandemic continues to propagate around the world with devastating effects on the supply chains which keep the economy humming.  I could go on, but you get the idea.

      There are solutions to all the problems mentioned above.   The common denominator to resistance to amelioration is the Republican party.   Because letting things fester for the next year is the surest way back to power for the GOP.   A dispirited Democratic party and an energized MAGA base spells at least two more years of gridlock leading up to the 2024 Presidential election.  

     It doesn't have to be this way.  However, unless Democrats score some decisive legislative victories soon, we can look forward to a Congress controlled by a band of nihilists bent on destroying our democracy.

Facebook and the end of democracy

       A recent report in the NYT based on a whistleblower's account said Facebook planted a fictional character in the social media giant.   The new person was represented to be a thirty something republican woman who was not active politically, but said she was curious.    Within days, her account was swamped with Q Anon friendly posts urging her to follow the most radical content on the site.  A steady stream of hate followed.   This is the result of algorithms which respond to anyone showing any amount of sympathy to a  Republican point of view.   

      This is a two pronged attack on democracy.   First, you have a social media giant who puts profit above all.  Next comes a political party playing with the tools of fascism.  This unholy alliance is killing our democracy and it must stop.

Bad Faith

        The Fugitive Uterus Act, by which the Texas legislature empowers vigilantes to enforce a clearly unconstitutional law is just another example of Republican bad faith when it comes to individual rights.   The same party that would seemingly defend to the death your right to spread a deadly pandemic by refusing a safe and effective vaccine now says women cannot get a safe and legal medical procedure in consultation with her doctor if she waits longer than 6 weeks after conception.  Most women are not aware of their pregnancy until after this artificial and medically dubious deadline.   This is your modern Republican party...cherish it.

Still no frost

      When I moved to the North Country from Long Island in 2001, the common wisdom regarding Fall was most areas received the first killing frost sometime in mid September.   Mountainous areas a little earlier and the Champlain Valley of New York and Vermont a little later, but by the end of the month, the growing season was officially done.

     In the 20 years since that move, the frost date has varied, but seemingly has come a little later on average each year.   This year is exceptional.   We still have not had a frost.   Local farmstands still offer tomatoes and sweet corn.  Most golf courses are still open and Canadian geese fly aimlessly instead of heading south.  If this is a harbinger, I will be planning  spinach in September next year for Thanksgiving and Christmas harvests!

Sausage for all

       The journey of the  Biden administration's Build Back Better plan to actually passing into law is looking suspiciously like the fight over Obamacare in 2008.   Both Obama and Biden mostly left the drafting of the legislation to their congressional allies, the former also encouraged a bipartisan approach to the health care bill.  

      The ACA was compromised nearly to death to satisfy Republicans who voted against it anyway.   This time around, the BBB legislation looks like it will be watered down to please Democrats Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema.  Biden's bill may come through the process more intact than  Obama's, but the dilatory process and the Democrats' infighting may spell doom for the party in the 2022 midterms, just as it happened in 2010.   

      I don't think voters are turned off by legislative sausage making, especially if the final product has a positive impact on their lives.   In the case of Obamacare, many, if not most of the bill's provisions were set to kick in over a number of years.   This diluted public support at a crucial time for Democrats.  Hopefully the party learned its lesson and will have the benefits of the BBB flowing to voters in the run up to next year's elections.

They are ***holes, but they are our ***holes

       The giant sucking sound you hear is Joe Biden's agenda circling the bottom of the congressional toilet.   It also looks like two senators; Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema are responsible for potentially flushing Biden's Build Back Better plan.

       At first blush, it seems to many that neither senator is serving the interests of the people who elected them.  Both states, West Virginia and Arizona, would greatly benefit from both the clean energy and human infrastructure aspects of the bill.  Manchin's state is among the poorest in the country and although coal is the titular king of the state's economy, in reality, coal has been declining as a share of West Virginia's economy since the Reagan era.   The fracking boom which has turned the state into an oil and gas producer mostly benefits interests outside the state.

      Giving him the benefit of the doubt, perhaps Manchin really feels workers in his state should be beholden to the vagaries of the market for their livings.   It is increasingly a Republican way of looking at the economy, but considering Trump won the state by nearly 40 points, you can at least see why Manchin is balking at Biden's bill.   A less charitable view is that, much like the former guy, Manchin is a narcissistic asshole who just likes to see his name in print.

       This brings us to the other narcissist in this morality play.  Kyrsten Sinema is an enigma.  A Green Party candidate in the 90's and early aughts, she is now a howlingly bad imitation of a reactionary Democrat with all the bad instincts of a Dixiecrat without the ideology to match.   In the end, Manchin will probably deal with the rest of his caucus.  It's an open question if Sinema is even  listening to anybody but the voices inside her head.

Can Democrats get it done

       It's hard not to be cynical about the chances of Democrats passing the Biden administration's Build Back Better bill anytime soon.   Even if centrists in the House wind up supporting a slimmed down bill, either Joe Manchin or Kyrsten Sinema could torpedo the legislation in the Senate and there is very little majority leader, Chuck Schumer, can do about it.

     Let's face it, Manchin and Sinema are Republican Lite and if either thought they could get the GOP nomination for the Senate in their respective states, they would be caucusing with Moscow Mitch right now.   That, unfortunately, is the reality Democrats have to deal with.   The trick is getting something that improves Americans' everyday lives approved through reconciliation.   It won't be what progressives originally envisioned, but it will be something they can point to and exhort voters to elect more like minded Senators so we can finally overcome the inertia which continues to bedevil this Congress.

Take this job and...

      There has been much handwringing lately about the state of the job market.  Many small businesses cannot seem to hire enough workers, even when resorting to offer higher wages and signing bonuses.  This is after the pandemic benefits have mostly stopped across the country.   What is happening?

      Paul Krugman in the NYT applauds workers for avoiding the poorly paying, high stress jobs like those on offer from fulfillment warehouses like those run by Amazon.   Unlike the supply chain woes that should be cleared up as the pandemic wanes, worker dissatisfaction with low paying, no future jobs will be with us for the long term according to Krugman.   He is not sure why this reluctance to step back into the low wage, menial work rat race is so pronounced.   Perhaps it has to do with the pandemic sharpening the difference between the 1% and the rest of us.   It may not be an unalloyed blessing, but the unorganized revolt of those who do the dirty jobs for low wages and an uncertain future is a step in the right direction.

Of the Beatles and Captain Kirk

       The denizens of Morning Joseph took a few minutes off from their endless pontificating about the state of our politics to remind us of two icons of baby boomer culture.  Captain Kirk in the person of 90 year old William Shatner blasted off to a place where over 500 people have gone before.  Meanwhile, in less than a month, director Peter Jackson will present a 3 part history of the breakup of the Beatles and the making of the album "Let it Be".  

      Shatner's excellent adventure was definitely more relevant to the present, but the news media covered the early part of his post touchdown reflections, omitting his warning to all of us that we are destroying the thin skin of atmosphere which protects us.   As soon as the Captain began to expound on the existential crisis confronting the human race, Jeff Bezos steered the conversation back to Shatner's anodyne experience in the Blue Origin capsule with 3 other astronauts.   If the billionaires' space race has taught us nothing else, it has shown with present technology, space flight can be a literal amateur hour.   Now if only Shatner could have warbled a few notes of "Space Oddity"...

Is the death of democracy greatly exaggerated?

       With apologies to Mark Twain, the paraphrase of his famous quote is becoming increasingly relevant when applied to American democracy, at least by the left and right wing media.   It is hard to watch either Fox news or MSNBC without hearing a commentator opine we are losing democracy as we know it because of the machinations of either Democrats or Republicans, depending  on which network you are listening to.   The Divine Mrs. M and I imagine many liberals are becoming depressed by the steady drumbeat of doom.

     The emergence of radical right wing candidates for Secretaries of State in many swing states is one bell wether to watch .   These "true believers" in the Big Lie are telling us they will reverse any Democratic victories if elected.   I hope the citizens of red states take their statements seriously.   Nearly 80% of Republicans profess to believe tRump was the actual winner of the 2020 election.    That means you and I know or know of someone in our social circle who is delusional.

      Aside from working for the election of Democratic candidates and donating to the party, i think the continual debunking of these election myths is the main thing we can do between elections.

A heady blend

       Despite the many hot takes on the Democrats imminent doom in the mid term elections, the one that stands out is the usual blather about how the party has lost the white working class.   Somehow, the aforementioned, educationally challenged white men and women have become alienated from the Democrats "woke" agenda of police and immigration reform and actually doing something about income inequality.

     There is something attractive about this theory, especially if it dovetails with the agenda being pushed by the consultant class of the party.   Repudiate all liberal positions, or at least tailor your message to appeal to the gettable white voter.    What this prescription fails to account for is the increasing alienation of what has become  the new Democratic base;  working class people of color and highly educated millenial whites.  These people are turned off by a strategy which calls for the use of racist and sexist tropes to appeal to a voter who has already experienced the unleashed white nationalism of tRump and has responded by joining the cult that is today's Republican party.

     Racism, misogyny and white nationalism is a heady brew which especially appeals to poorly educated and/or white middle class voters who resent our rapidly developing multicultural society.   Trying to pry more than a small percentage of these people away from tRump and his minions is a fool's errand.  Tomorrow's Democratic party will primarily be dominated by people of color and women.   White men will represent a small percentage of the party's voters.   Mobilizing the true base of the party is the way to go next year and into the future.

Hotober

       As I was walking my dog this morning the temperature was around 60 degrees.   For anyone familiar with the weather at latitude 44 in the US,  that should give you pause.  The fact the long range forecast is for no frost at least through the 20th is even more remarkable.   In this area we usually get an untimely freeze somewhere between the last week of September and the first week of October.  An "indigenous peoples" summer usually follows, but this year there was no freeze.  Even old timers have reacted with incredulity to the lack of a real autumn.   The leaves on most trees have turned and are falling, but some are resisting the call to change.   Nothing to see here...

chickening out

        As most commentators opined, Mitch McConnell chickened out, blinked, etc. and put off the debate over the "debt ceiling" for another couple of months.   Expect your Christmas to be ruined by tRump and the GOP as they try to score political points over a made up crisis.

       While McConnell was excoriated by the likes of Ted Cruz and the former guy, most people realized  the majority leaders patrons were really calling the shots.   The 1% don't want to see the American economy crash and burn under the supervision of the ideologues.   They have created a monster in the Republican party, and without the majority leader holding his caucus together and providing the votes to at least kick the can down the road for another couple of months, we would be staring down the barrel of the gun of debt default.  It remains to be seen if the oligarchs can continue to hold the leash of the GOP and the crazy person in charge of it.

Anti Vax idiots

       As Duncan Black at the blog Eschaton put it, while most doctors are not like the idiot in California who addressed a crowd of anti-vaxxers before being escorted from the campus of the UCLA medical center, there are enough of them to stain the whole profession.   I respect the medical profession in general, but there are far too many arrogant men and women whose specialized knowledge is grossly over rated and which leads them to believe they are infallible in many areas about which they know very little.  The doctor in question is an anesthesiologist.   What has that got to do with immunology?   So far, i have not heard of an immunologist suggesting the Covid vaccines are unsafe.   So, Dr. Lake, please STFU and let the experts opine on the subject.

Another season of futility

      The Yankees' 2021 season ended with a whimper on the field at Fenway park in Boston.  Let the post mortem begin!   Having personally watched dozens of games since the All Star break, it seems obvious to me the team sleep walks through too many contests and the back half of the lineup is sub par.   As currently constituted the Yankees will continue to win more than they lose, but will not challenge for another World Series title.   Maybe it's time to give the minor league prospects a chance to surround Judge and Stanton with the talent and enthusiasm which players like Gary Sanchez and Gleber Torres seem to lack.   Aaron Boone's excuses for poor play and lack of hustle are getting tired.

     I know in the grand scheme of things my fixation on a poorly managed baseball team seems petty.   The perfidy of the GOP, climate change and our unequal society and the continuing dysfunction of the Democratic party demand our attention and the work needed to correct the problems.   However, problems, even existential threats have always been with us.  Rooting for a sports team is a way to deal with the tensions of everyday life.  I may not be able to fix the Yankees' problems any more than I can fix the climate, but sometimes we all need a break from reality.

The problem with Facebook

      Facebook went down yesterday.    For many people, this represents an existential crisis.  For others the news sparks a "so what" response.   While I am in the latter camp, an attempt to post something on my page did make me mildly upset.   Facebook has become the background noise of our lives.  Many of us only notice when, like yesterday, the noise ceases.

     Does Mark Zuckerberg and company need regulation?   Is Facebook the equivalent of a public utility?   These are legitimate questions which demand answers.  I hope Congress addresses the future of facebook in the wake of a whistleblower testifying before lawmakers today.  However, I doubt much will come of it considering the firehose of money the company can direct in defense of the status quo.

     In the meantime, I will continue to share photos of my puppy and the grandkids and weigh in on the important issues of the day, secure in the knowledge that most of the people who eyeball my posts are either friends or frenemies who wish me no harm.   Facebook, with almost 3 billion followers can be the source of great good or equally great evil.   We need to deal with those possibilities.

This and that

      It was a wild news weekend for sports fans and policy wonks.   The Yankees made the playoffs in the bottom of the ninth as Aaron Judge singled home the only run of the game.   This sets up a wild card game with the Red Sox in Boston on Tuesday.  Meanwhile, the football Giants and Jets tempted their long suffering fans with flashes of real talent as they both won in overtime against better teams.  All I can say is don't hold your breath waiting for a championship run.

    In the world of politics, it was the Manchin-Sinema show as the two senators holding the Biden administration's legacy in their hands showed no signs of movement toward the Dems multi-trillion dollar reconciliation bill.   Sinema in particular seems laser focused on derailing the whole deal in service to her corporate paymasters.   It's going to be a long month in Washington.

     It is October 4th and it looks like local growers and gardeners will have ample time to harvest everything before the first frost of the season except in some mountain locations.   The long range forecast for the month shows above normal temperatures for most of the country.   Then again, what do we expect in a time of human induced climate change.

Republicans' selfishness

      There are so many examples of Republican selfishness occurring right now that it is hard to focus on which are the most egregious, but vaccine refusal and failure to support raising the debt ceiling are on my mind today.

       Vaccine mandates are finally moving the needle as far as overall immunization is concerned, although the minority of holdouts are getting outsize media attention.  I'm sorry, but I have zero sympathy for registered nurses who have taken innumerable mandatory vaccinations who now say they want to control what goes into their bodies.   Two of my daughters are R.N.s and have both received their shots.

      Meanwhile, Republicans in Congress are providing no help to Democrats as they struggle to raise the debt ceiling to pay for the former guy's tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy.   The hypocrisy involved is mind boggling, but in today's GOP, it's just another day at the office.