Posts of Conviction

       Sorry for the rather indifferent approach to blog posting lately.   In the current political climate all I have felt like doing is posting screeds of impending doom which turns most people off.  However, on a more hopeful note, justice was served in a courtroom in New York yesterday and it deserves a post.

      Donald tRump was convicted on 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up a scheme to influence the 2016 elections.   The American system of justice worked in this particular case, unlike the other 3 criminal trials the newly convicted felon is still facing.  Of course, instead of accepting the jury's verdict, tRump and his surrogates immediately went on the attack, blaming everyone in sight instead of looking in the mirror.

     We are about to test the validity of tRump's assertion he could commit murder in broad daylight and not lose support among his faithful.  My execrable congresscritter, Elise Stefanik, has already attacked the system for holding criminals to account in this case.  Many more will follow this dangerous path.  It is up to the rest of us to uphold the rule of law on November 5.

When the bottom falls out

      For the last 6 months or so, I have been doing what I advise everyone else not to do, namely following the trajectory of the stocks in our portfolio on a daily basis.  Some days it's a high and others a miserable bust.   Recently the Dow Jones Average topped 40,000 for the first time in history.  You would never know it happened if you listen to right wing media outlets.  If the same milestone had been surpassed while tRump was in office, a mighty fanfare would be played by these same outlets.   

      As Paul Krugman points out, the stock market is a lousy forecaster for the overall economy, but it does have a cachet among the general population.   I will start to worry when the NYT starts publishing stories about the middle class getting into the market.  Shades of 1929!

Small town treasures

      The Divine Mrs. M and I participated in the Champlain Valley Voices spring concert yesterday.   The weather was picture perfect and the audience was larger than many expected as there were two other concerts scheduled at the same time.  A good time was had by all.

      Living in a small, rural area in upstate NY, we have a vibrant musical community with many excellent musicians who perform on a  regular basis.  Even non musicians like yours truly are welcomed into groups like the CVV which operate on shoestring budgets.   Like many other musical groups it depends on the dedication of its members to raise the money necessary to bring high quality choral music to our area.  We often take the hard work for granted, but these people  are truly local treasures.

Empathetic Uncle Joe

       Democrats face a conundrum, according to most pundits.   the economy is doing well, inflation and crime are down and wages and employment are up.  Yet, Biden gets little or no credit for the economic numbers and it is seemingly driving him crazy.   

      Instead of empathizing with voters' concerns even if they are driven by a media environment where a minor blip in inflation is a chicken little moment, Biden's latest speeches are becoming more and more shrill.  Lecturing voters is not the way to win their hearts and minds.  There is no easy answer to combatting an overwhelming desire to educate people who can't distinguish fact from fiction.   However, what Biden and company are doing now is manifestly not working according to the latest polls.

What Democrats do understand about rural America

        Today, the NYT offers up yet another screed about Democrats abandoning the voters in rural America.   The authors, two Democrats who won a state senators' race in backcountry Maine, seem to think knocking on 20,000 doors and listening to voters concerns is the way to win elections.  In a perfect world, that may be so, but in a rural world dominated by Fox News and populated by elderly voters who would prefer you to get off their lawns,  their campaign is more a one off than a blueprint for a successful strategy.

      For years, congressional Democrats have pushed rural based programs to help mostly Republican areas.   They have gotten little or no credit from the natives.  The GOP runs on culture war issues like same sex marriage, abortion, immigration and crime and though voters consistently say they are more interested in the economy, that is not the way they vote.  In my own congressional district, the execrable Elise Stefanik will be re-elected again this year despite having done nothing for the district except to try and take credit for infrastructure spending courtesy of the Inflation Reduction Act which passed with no republican votes.

      This is the reality of rural America.   

Is the electorate this dumb?

       In the wake of a new bunch of swing state polls showing tRump ahead of Biden with less than 6 months remaining before the election I think it is fair to ask if the children is learning, to steal a phrase from the Shrub.

      Thanks in part to the compartmentalization of the media, as much as half the voters live in a media bubble inflated by the likes of Fox News, Newsmax, OAN, and other fact free news sites.  In this bubble, crime is rampant, the economy is imploding most Democrats live in an urban hellscape and illegal immigrants are bankrupting the country.   Oh, and Joe Biden is a senile tool of George Soros and at the same time a criminal mastermind.

       If you can hold all of this in your head without it exploding, you are probably a tRump voter.  They  may or may not be dumb, but their decision about who to vote for this November will probably decide the fate of our democracy.   Is the children learning, indeed.

Stupidity hurts

      In the furor surrounding the tRump hush money trial, the everyday stupidity we are being subjected to by House Republican is mind numbing.  They recently voted on the "Hands off our home appliances Act'' which would prohibit the Department of Energy from setting energy efficiency standards on washing machines, refrigerators, etc.   All in the name of "freedom".

     The GOP has fallen into the abyss of crazy and seems determined  to drag the rest of us down with them...