The party of, by, and for the rich

       According to IRS documents, more than 1,000 taxpayers who earned more than one million dollars per year failed to file tax returns for at least one year between 2017 and 2022.  Collectively, the 2,000 biggest tax cheats owe more than 900 million dollars in back taxes.   Meanwhile, the IRS disproportionately audits middle and working class Americans.  This is mostly because Republican Congresses in the past have denied the agency the resources it needs to match the legal resources available to upper class tax cheats. 

     Republicans claim the IRS is coming after the middle class.  What they don't tell you is they are the reason for the disparity and it is costing the government billions of dollars of lost revenue every year.  If we had a media which really cared about publishing inconvenient truths, more people would know the falsity of Republican claims on this and many other issues where they claim with no validity the party is for the working class.

What if nobody came

        Some random Republicans debated last night.  I watched about 5 minutes of it and saw an elderly looking Chris Christie pull out a one liner about tRump he must have painstakingly rehearsed for hours.  For the rest, they were invited by the scary Fox moderators to comment on the apparent hellscape they believe this country has become.  The candidates favored solution is to lock up lots of "those people" and arm as many citizens as possible so they can take justice into their hands.  I assume the other topic covered was how the candidates could lick tRump's shoes as publicly as possible.   It's hard to believe many people tuned into this farce.

It's the Republicans, stupid!

        As Democratic strategists melt down and the mainstream media bothsides the imminent government shutdown, there are a few voices suggesting that a tiny minority of GOP members of the House from safe, gerrymandered districts are responsible for the current impasse.   The NYT, WaPo and most of the media blame "Congress", implying that both parties are equally feckless.

       Some pundits claim the mythical ''average american'' knows who is responsible and will plan their vote in the upcoming election accordingly.  This is giving way to much credit to Mr. and/or Mrs. Average, most of whom in polls can't name their congressional representative or know who is the House Speaker.  However, a constant barrage of quotes from moderate Republicans and especially those who won in districts which voted for Joe Biden to the effect the crazies in their caucus are responsible for the looming shutdown will likely reach most voters.   Dems need to hammer home this message at every opportunity between now and the 2024 election.

Will October be the new September?

        We are in a stretch of Chamber of Commerce weather here in the north country of NY.   Lows in the upper 40's and highs in the upper 60s to low 70s for days on end.   After a cloudy, rainy summer this weather is nearly ideal.  The long range forecast features more of the same.   The late season vegetables are doing well, except for the spinach planting which is suffering in the shade most of the day.  Next year I'll plant late spinach in a sunnier area of the yard.

      I have a feeling the El Nino system controlling global weather will continue the present status well into October this year.   That would mean no frost before mid to late October.  Unfortunately, there won't be enough sunlight by that time to grow anything but grass.  

My Kev is heading for a reckoning

        Kevin McCarthy may go down in history as perhaps the least effective Speaker in US history, and that's probably the best he can hope for.  Worst case, he will be remembered as the catspaw of an authoritarian clown who dismantled this country's democracy.  He will forever be known by the sobriquet, "My Kev'', a casual reference by tRump to his number one toady.

      He is an incompetent toady to boot, judging by the crisis his promises to the extreme right wing of his caucus has generated.   He can't even get a spending bill to the floor, let alone debate it.  The nihilistic yahoos who hold the real power seem to think they can govern by temper tantrum and McCarthy is doing little to disabuse them.

     A government shutdown will do much harm to our economy an our reputation in the world as a sober nation.  The GOP and McCarthy will shoulder the lion's share of blame for the chaos which is the House of Representatives.  However, their voters must also share the blame for electing these clowns in the first place.  Allowing the party to come to this pass is a cooperative effort.

AI is coming for your job

     Bill Gates appeared on MSNBC last night to tell us all that artificial intelligence is going to make us all smarter and more productive!   In the short run, he may be right.  As computing power increases, it will take over some of the tedious tasks in the knowledge economy.   AI can already scan ponderous legal briefs and documents to find nuggets off information which might otherwise be missed.  So far, so good.  However, what happens when true AI, with an IQ many times higher than any lawyer is put in charge of the case?

     Make no mistake, when true artificial intelligence is available, it will rapidly replace humans in 99% of cases.  From Supreme Court judges to the people who clean hotel rooms, true AI is coming for your job.  It won't happen overnight, or maybe it will.  With an intelligence of Einstein squared, who among us can tell what will happen?   Bill Gates, of all people should tell us the truth about the coming revolution.  

Ginning up the rubes

       While I don't put myself in the same category as the average MAGA tRump supporter in some significant ways, in some ways I am a mirror image of these conspiracist loons.  The average tRump supporter listens to hours of Fox News every day.  I listen to hours of MSNBC.    There is a qualitative difference of course, but Rachel Maddow has often indulged in breathless conspiracy theories which have  subsequently been debunked.   Those of us who subscribe to papers like the NYT and Washington Post and read some of the less partisan blogs get a somewhat more nuanced view of current events, but listening to Rachel's latest rant about Republican perfidy can certainly be satisfying in a visceral way.  

     I hate the idea that after 72 years and a degree with a political science major, I'm no more resistant to conspiracy theories than a recent high school graduate, but here we are in 2023.   It's Donald tRump's world and I'm just living in it.

once and again

       Now comes a biography of Mittens, telling us about how the noble protagonist listened to many elected Republicans, especially in the Senate, mock the twice impeached, 4 times indicted disgraced former president behind his back while swooning on TV.  The ghost of JFK should add a chapter for Romney in a revised edition of Profiles in Courage.   

      Romney has become an accidental hero to those opposing tRump and his assault on American democracy.   Having been elected to the Senate from his home state of Utah, I think Mitt figured he would serve a term in relative obscurity while working on a conservative, help the rich, agenda.  tRump's first impeachment and his vote to convict put paid to that narrative.  Thrust into the spotlight by those in the party who agreed with him in private while supporting the criming of tRump in public, Romney remained and remains the conscience of his party when it comes to tRump.

Too old or not too old

       Nate Silver, who made his reputation in the world of sports prognostication, has moved on and decided to try political punditry.  Besides boosting Meatball Ron for the presidency, Silver has taken to criticizing the "Dem leaning media" for not running endless stories speculating on Joe Biden's age and how he should drop out of the race.  This morning he was echoed by David Ignatius on NPR.  Ignatius is a superannuated columnist for the Washington Post who should take his own advice and retire.  However, there seems to be no age limit for bloviating wankers like him.

      Personally, I don't know how Biden manages the demands of the presidency at 80 years of age.  He is the leader of his party and is probably still has the best shot at beating tRump in a 2024 rematch.  Biden has been the most consequential Democratic president in the last 50 years.  If he feels he is up to the task, far be it for me or asshats like Silver or Ignatius to gainsay him.

Stupidity

       According to data collected by major city police departments, crime has been declining since the early 1990's.  There was a slight uptick during the covid lockdown, but that has ebbed also.  Likewise, by every metric, the economy has improved over the last two years and inflation has fallen to withing the Federal Reserve's target.   Then, why do pluralities of my fellow Americans perceive crime as rampant and the economy as failing despite opining that their own local area is safe and they are doing just fine economically?

      Paul Krugman in today's NYT makes the polite excuse.  People have lives to live, children to raise, etc.   They depend for information on crime and the economy on unreliable sources who lie to them.  I say poppycock.   If you feel safe and empowered, why should you think people in other areas of the country don't feel the same?   Tuning into Fox News or youtube or Tik Tok is a choice.  So is believing the toxic stew of misinformation  these outlets serve up on a daily basis.  "Doing your own research" by listening to Joe Rogan is stupidity, plain and simple.   I'm guessing the conspiracy theories we are exposed to every day satisfy some craving of our lizard brain.   

Victims of the system

       Most of us went about our business yesterday as if nothing unusual happened 22 years ago on September 11.   The tragedy of 9/11 has faded into history, despite some people's best efforts to make the remembrance relevant.  Similarly, 22 years after Pearl Harbor was attacked, I was an earnest 6th grader still reeling from the shock of JFK's assassination.   WW2 was ancient history as far as I was concerned.  Similarly, elementary students today consider the events of 9/11 as something you remember without too much understanding  of the underlying causes of the tragedy.

    Although  both Pearl Harbor and 9/11 will live in infamy, history will continue and the significance of both events in the daily lives of Americans will recede in our collective rear view mirror.  In a sense, the nearly 3 thousand who lost their lives 22 years ago are victims as much as they will be remembered as heroes.   The historical forces which resulted in their deaths as well as the millions who died in the second world war will continue to shape our perceptions of these events.

Much is owed

       My mother died last Wednesday.   There, I said it.  This post is part remembrance, part obituary and partly a celebration of a life lived with purpose.

      Jean Alice Higgins was born after a shotgun wedding  in Brooklyn in 1930 as America came to grips with the great depression.  She was passed around and raised by various relatives until her mother married another man and was able to support her.   Mom rarely spoke of her hardscrabble early life, except to remember running errands for her mother and the occasional treats of penny candy she enjoyed.

      Mom graduated from the Brooklyn School of Homemaking in 1948  She was the Valedictorian of her class, although she was never enamored with many of the skills she was taught.  She much preferred to read novels as escape from her rough and tumble existence.  Her mother's extended family bought a couple of small parcels of land on Long Island and built a cottage where they spent summer vacations in the late 1940's.   Jean was a reluctant participant in these jaunts to the country, much preferring the hurly burly of city life.    She got a job at Macy's and spent summer weekends in Manorville.

     Mom picked beans at a local farm during her vacation and a chance meeting with one of Emil Monzeglio's sons, a Cornel graduate named Robert changed the trajectory of her life forever.  She married him in 1950 and remained tethered to Manorville til the end of her life.

      Her early life on my father's chicken farm resembled a dark version of "The Egg and I", a light hearted book chronicling a woman's life on a dilapidated farm.  A poor business plan and a generally depressed farm economy led to the farm's failure by the early 1960's and the growing family which by this time included three sons and a daughter wound up in a new home on land provided by my grandfather on his farm.

       Mom helped harvest various crops on the farm, especially strawberries for the farmstand established by my uncle.   She worked at the vegetable stand during the summer along with her mother.  The clientele included many Italian immigrant women who wanted to negotiate prices with these two Irish women.  Hilarity ensued!  My father parlayed his college degree into a teaching job at the local elementary school and we settled into a middle class lifestyle for a few years.

     Jean's life was upended when a long illness resulted in my father's death in 1972.  She had already started working as a clerk at a local sand and gravel company in the late 60's.  Again, she didn't talk about it very much, but she put up with the indignities heaped on women in the workforce at that time.  She had to fend off unwanted advances from men on the job at the very least.  Casual comments of a sexual nature were not uncommon at the time.

     Fortunately, Jean was able to get a civil service job with the county as a clerk-typist.   It was a job with good benefits that enabled her to keep the family going forward as her husband's illness spiraled downward.  Working full time and caring for her children consumed the next phase of her life.   It is fairly common now for women to work full time and raise children, but in that faraway time, the mark of middle class success was a stay at home mom who presided over a spotless house and 3 or more well scrubbed children.   So, in a way, Jean was a proto-feminist.   However, she longed for the cultural ideal of a man providing for the family.

     Having seen her children into adulthood, Jean continued to work as a senior clerk-typist until her retirement.   She married again to Rhinehart Christoffersen, but the union ended in bitterness and recrimination.   I think by this time, she had moved beyond the desire for a dominant male in her life and she was unwilling to submit to one at this stage.   After moving in and out  of a couple of apartments, she settled in a retirement community in of all places, Manorville.

     She threw herself into the life of her community, participating in the various celebrations throughout the year.   She also traveled with friends to Alaska and Ireland as well as trips with children and grandchildren.   Jean never lost her nostalgia for Brooklyn and was happy when one of the grands and his spouse actually moved into the borough.  

     Health issues made the last decade and a half a challenge.  A minor stroke 11 years ago left her with physical and cognitive impairments.  However, she soldiered on and made the best of what was an increasingly bad situation.   In quiet conversations with her children over the last several years she professed herself ready to move on to the next plane of existence.   Although raised Catholic, she always expressed a healthy skepticism of church dogma.  Also, being Irish, I don't think she expected the church approved afterlife to be that welcoming.

     The guiding star of her life was family.  Having been raised as unloved baggage by her own mother, she was determined to show what love she had to her own children.  It was hit and miss, but looking back, she got it right far more often than wrong.   Jean is survived by her 4 children and their spouses, 13 grandchildren and 13 great-grandchildren.  She loved us dearly from this old guy to Cameron Vocaturo who has yet to see his first birthday and everyone between us.

      Jean Alice Higgins-Monzeglio- Christoffersen was not perfect, but she lived every day of her life with conviction.  Those who knew her will love and remember her for as long as we draw breath.  Rest in Peace, Mom.

School Days

       I passed the teachers' parking lot at Peru Central this morning and while not full (school starts on Thursday) many teachers were attending training sessions or preparing their classrooms for their students in anticipation of the first day of attendance.

      An article in the NYT this morning points to historically low attendance at schools across  the country.  According to stats compiled by various states, at least 10% of students qualify as chronically absent which means they were out of school  at least a quarter of the time.  Anecdotally, it doesn't seem our local schools have that much of a problem, at least at the elementary level.

     The article goes on to say the Covid shutdown is the probable cause for much of the attendance crisis which is attributable to anxiety on the part of the kids.  Personally, I think the premise is way overhyped.  

State of Labor

        As the patron saint of this blog, Jerry Shulman, always had the same answer when asked why he required his employees to work on Labor Day.  Aside from proving to local famers we were working for them 24/7, he claimed Labor Day meant we should honor the concept by working on the nation's collective day off.  HaHa.

       As unions finally exercise their muscle after 60 years of decline in the Labor movement it is worth asking what leaders should be asking their members to do in the third decade of the 21st century.   The rise of AI will increasingly reach into the workplace as management seeks to replace troublesome workers with robots who will work around the clock for no remuneration.  White collar workers, traditionally anti union will feel the pinch also.  Long before Skynet comes for us, many, if not most jobs will be performed by AI.   What is to be done?

    A lot of pundits say not to worry, new jobs will be created by the AI revolution.  However, if artificial intelligence can do all the old jobs, by definition it will surely be able to do all the new jobs better than humans.   Handled well, the transition to a no work world should lead to a golden age for humanity.  It is up to people like today's labor leaders to manage the transition and advocate for their members as the change accelerates.

Costs of living

       I tend not to take notice when stories of inflation, either up or down, appear in the media.  I am reliably informed of the situation regarding inflation by the bottom line of the family budget.   If we get to the end of the month without spending more than our income, inflation is not a problem.  However, official data does not take into account such expenses as family weddings, unexpected medical expenses or other unplanned events.   By those metrics, 2023 is shaping up to be far more inflationary than 2022 at Casa Monzeglio.  I'm not complaining, just making an observation.