The Deplorables

Chris Hayes on MSNBC has taken a lot of heat from right wing media and some supposedly centrist pundits for saying what has been self evidently true, namely that a significant slice of tRump loyalists are racist, authoritarian and thoroughly deplorable.   Hillary was right, although she should have called the entire shitshow more forcefully and not apologized.  Ben Shapiro, posing as a right wing #never Trumper trolled Hayes, saying that calling out the hard core base just drives them into the arms of would be authoritarians.  Of course that is like saying the right's calumnies regarding Hillary, Nancy Pelosi, Obama, et. al. is driving the left toward the fringe.  The lefties have had such people.  Alan Grayson and Cynthia McKinney come to mind, but so far, people like that have been marginalized in the Democratic party.  No so in the GOP.  It seems the sleazier and more hateful the candidate the more the base supports him or her.  It is on the leadership of the party to denounce the Alex Jones, Rush Limbaughs and all the rest of the wingnuts the republicans have come to depend on.  Don't hold your breath waiting for Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell to grow a spine.  It's not going to happen until their party is crushed in congressional districts across the country.

Free Speech and the consequences thereof

Certainly Roseanne Barr is free to fire up any racist rant on her twitter account.  However, she is also liable for the consequences; in this case the cancellation of her hit reboot of the old Roseanne show.  In the days before social media on the internet became a thing, racists like Barr could offer up comparisons of black women with apes and then deny it if anyone called her on the comment.  Now, with screenshots capturing the tweet for posterity, even deleting the offensive reference does not provide deniability.  The intriguing question is how the tweeter in chief seems to remain immune to the consequences of his internet blathering.

Climate Change, agriculture and miscellaneous

Now, when tropical storms impact the US we are suddenly talking about feet of rain instead of inches!  Tropical Storm Alberto is dragging gigatons of moisture in its wake and flash flooding is occurring from Florida into North Carolina and up the US east coast.  Agriculture does not work well in situations like this.  Most cultivated cropland is susceptible to erosion under the intense rainfall of these storms.  Climate change theory predicted this as one of the many weather effects driven by the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere.  Heavy soils especially are difficult to work or grow when inundated by heavy rainfall.  The lack of oxygen in saturated soils kills roots and crops.   Here on the NCR we haven't had extreme precipitation so far this year, but high water tables have prevented some soils from drying and has delayed planting.  Heavy rains at any time in the next month could be a disaster for some growers.   One my micro farm I have several different soil regimes and most of them are dry, but a single 5 inch or more event could drown several areas and make them unplantable for several weeks, effectively ending my growing season for several crops.  Has there been any admission from government sources regarding evidence of climate change?

Cruelly incompetent

The theme for today running through the blogs and pundits I follow on a regular basis is nothing new.  The tRump administration is by turns both cruel and incompetent and nothing proves this thesis better than the news from ICE.  It seems after forcibly separating children from their parents after the families were caught crossing the border illegally, the government lost track of nearly 1500 children supposedly placed with foster parents, "or whatever" in the immortal words of White House chief of staff John Kelly.   These children may have now fallen into involuntary servitude, sex trafficking or they may have merely been misplaced.  Just another day in the reign of error of Orange Caligula.

Prom night jitters

Many analogies have been trotted out to explain Cheeto Jesus' cancellation of the "Summit" with North Korea's Kim Jong Un.  I think the most persuasive narrative is that of the mean girls scenario.  One or the other of these two narcissistic idiots was going to cancel and it looks like mean Donald was quicker on the trigger than his North Korean counterpart.  Alas, in this case the whole prom will be called off!

Grifter in Chief

Now it is revealed that the Ukraine paid as much as $600,000 to Michael Cohen for the purpose of arranging a meeting between their president and ours.  Right up until the last moment it appeared the Ukrainian might be embarrassed by getting a handshake and a photo op with Cheeto Jesus, but he was finally granted a sit down meeting with tRump.  Amazingly, when Poroshenko returned home, the prosecutor's office in Ukraine informed Robert Mueller's investigators they would no longer be working to supply evidence regarding |Paul Manafort's doings in their country.  Can we spell quid pro quo!

gigging economy

Kevin Drum points out the so-called "gig economy" employs less than 1% of all workers in the US.  It's basically Uber drivers, plus a few other companies which employ so called "independent contractors.  This allows them to not pay benefits such as overtime, health insurance, vacation time, etc.   However, what Drum misses is the large number of companies which under employ the people they do hire.  A case in point are the local supermarkets in this area.   They are always hiring, but as one woman who gained employment at the local Market 32 store, she scheduled for 10 hours/week, with no promise of more time.    Also, her schedule varies from week to week, making it difficult to line up other jobs to make ends meet.   If  this isn't part of the gig economy, I don't know what is.  I'm sure if you count all the under employed minimum wage workers in the country it would probably be closer to 10% of all employees.