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.