The Fray - 2Q20

In other news...

POSTED APRIL 4, 2020

As the nations of the world confront the biggest global crisis since World War II, climate change deniers, deregulation proponents, and neocons here at home have been busy implementing their reactionary and hawkish agendas.   On March 30, Slate summarized Administration actions using the coronavirus to achieve  long sought-after items on the right-wing's wish list ... On April 2, Vox reported: "President Trump’s new fuel economy standards...will result in almost a billion more tons of greenhouse gases emitted over the next five years."...Meanwhile, Trump and Pompeo have increased the threats against Venezuela and Iran as hawks and neocons pursue regime change in those countries...READ MORE

Democracy under attack: the Roberts court strikes again

POSTED APRIL 8, 2020

Even before Monday's decision to throw out tens of thousands of Wisconsin mail-in ballots*, the Roberts court had established itself as one of the most partisan and democracy-challenged Supreme Courts in our nation's history.  Decisions by the court's conservative majority has allowed unlimited money to flow into political campaigns (Citizens United, January 2010), gutted the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (Shelby County v Holder, June 2013), and upheld partisan gerrymandering (Rucho v Common Cause, June 2019).  By giving additional political influence to wealthy donors and corporations, by removing voting protections for minorities and by not defending the concept of one person/one vote,  these three decisions were a trifecta of blows to the right-to-vote - the most fundamental and distinguishing right in a democracy...READ MORE

Mega-killers, existential threats, and the need for global cooperation

POSTED APRIL 16, 2020

In 2017, Hans Rosling, an adviser to WHO and UNICEF, co-founder of  Médecins Sans Frontières in Sweden, and named by Time as one of the 100 most influential people in the world, co-authored an optimistic assessment of the world's situation.  Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World - and Why Things are Better Than You Think describes ten "instincts" that distort our perspective on how things actually are.  Rosling contends that when we worry about everything, we can lose our ability to focus on the things that threaten us the most.   The "things that threaten us the most" are what Rosling calls the mega-killers - the existential threats to humanity and humanity's progress.  Dr. Rosling identifies five such threats - global pandemic, financial collapse, world war, climate change and extreme poverty.  These threats, Dr. Rosling says, can only be avoided by "acting collaboratively and step-by-step."  Three of these - pandemic, financial collapse, extreme poverty - are in play right now as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.  READ MORE

The Elections: MAGA-land, coronavirus and voter suppression

POSTED APRIL 22, 2020/UPDATED APRIL 23                                                                                                                            (5 min read)

Here's a sobering thought.  In spite of Trump's epic fail in responding to the coronavirus, his job approval rating remains near its all-time high.  Getting their news from Fox and Sinclair and right-wing social media engines, the cult-like denizens of MAGA-land are unlikely ever to change their opinion.  But surely some independents and a few moderate Republicans are beginning to lose confidence in Trump, right?  Apparently not. 

Six months before the elections, the Trumpublican narrative on the coronavirus beginning to take shape looks something like this:  (1) Scapegoat China for the Administration's failed response; (2) Blame Democratic governors for keeping the economy in tatters.  

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No halt to the cruelty, injustice and threats

POSTED APRIL 25, 2020                                                                                                                                                                  (4 min read)

Consumed with the COVID-19 pandemic, we may have missed the recent and continuing cruelties of Trump's foreign policy.  As devastating to a progressive and civil society as his domestic policies and rhetoric are, Trump's foreign policy and disdain for international law pose an even greater threat to a humanitarian, just and peaceful world.  

From his first days in office, Trump exhibited a profound animus for much of the world - particularly those parts that were not "white".  In time, he gradually destroyed what little progress his predecessor had made in making the world safer and more humane....READ MORE 

The coronavirus conspiracy theories - from the mundane to the "insane"

POSTED MAY 5, 2020

According to a survey from the Pew Research Center's Election News Pathways project  (link sidebar), Fox News viewers are unique in their belief that Trump's COVID-19 response is excellent. 63% percent of Fox viewers believe so compared to 23% of all US adults.  I'm not sure how many of those Fox viewers believe one or both of the two main coronavirus theories: "a hoax" and "originated in a Chinese lab".  But they probably are the major portion, perhaps all, of the "29 percent [who] believe that the threat of the virus was being exaggerated to hurt President Trump’s chances at reelection, and 31 percent [who] believe that the virus was created and spread on purpose." (The Atlantic, April 30)...READ MORE

Trump, Pompeo, and the end of US credibility

POSTED MAY 26, 2020

After the Second World War, most of the world looked to the United States for leadership.  In the days of the Soviet Union and the Cold War, the president of the United States was often referred to as the "leader of free world."  No more.  The 21 st century has seen a diminished role for the United States on the world stage.  The position of trust we once held began to erode badly with George W. Bush's invasion and occupation of Iraq. Barack Obama attempted to restore America's credibility and leadership but his efforts and triumphs have been thoroughly savaged during Trump's first term...Today Trump's chief enabler in this destruction of American credibility and international leadership is his Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.  

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Racism, Police Violence, and the Death of George Floyd

POSTED JUNE 3, 2020

On Memorial Day, a white police officer killed George Floyd, a 46 year old black man, by keeping a knee on the side of his neck for almost nine minutes while Floyd was handcuffed and lying face down.  In the ensuing days peaceful demonstrations against Floyd's death and in honor of Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old EMT shot by police in her apartment in Louisville in March, escalated into turmoil.  This comes in the midst of a pandemic which has disproportionately killed people of color and during which 40% of people earning under $40,000 per year have lost their jobs.  The death of George Floyd could have been a learning moment on "race, inequality and police violence" in America.  Instead the conversation, inflamed by a divisive president given to racist and violent rhetoric, has shifted to "riots and looting."  READ MORE

A clear and present danger (with apologies to Tom Clancy)

POSTED JUNE 6, 2020

In the early days of the Trump Presidency, the news journal Mother Jones began a running account titled Tracking the Creeping Authoritarianism of the 45th President.  They stopped that particular feature 14 months into his presidency.  Over the ensuing few years, Trump's authoritarian tendencies have been on full display for all who wish to see.  

In the past few weeks, his "creeping authoritarianism" has turned into a gallop...READ MORE 

Dark and Delusional: the new right-wing echo chamber 

POSTED JUNE 9, 2020

Over the past few weeks, I've spent some eye-opening time on social media.  Normally, I am not a regular user.   I occasionally upload travel photos or wish a friend happy birthday or share a post on a particularly outrageous current event.  But not much more.  With Covid and the death of George Floyd, I found myself spending more and more time on Facebook.  After several weeks examining the bowels of MAGA-land as exhibited by the denizens' shared posts and "likes", I came to one conclusion: these people are bat-shit crazy.  READ MORE

Beware: you too may be "antifa"

POSTED JUNE 19, 2020

...after the suspect who killed the federal officer in Santa Cruz during the anti-racism protests had been linked to the far-right Boogaloo movement, the Trump-Pence campaign ads warning against "antifa" were taken down by Facebook "for violating our policies against organized hate."  The ad included a symbol used by the Nazis to identify political prisoners in concentration camps.  So what is it with "antifa" that Trump wants to make us fear?  In May, as sporadic incidents of looting occurred during the George Floyd protests, Trump declared that the Radical Left and "antifa", a loosely organized group of anti-fascist activists, were responsible for the violence.  He followed up this dangerous and baseless accusation [sidebar] with the statement that the administration would declare "antifa" a "domestic terrorist organization" - a designation that has no basis in US law.  READ MORE

Acts of Unfathomable Cruelty

POSTED JUNE 26, 2020

Republican governors, currently proving themselves as inept as the president at addressing the COVID pandemic (Informed Comment, sidebar below), have a suit before the Supreme Court that would invalidate the entire Affordable Care Act.  Late on Thursday, in what House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called an "act of unfathomable cruelty," the Trump Administration joined the Republican suit asking the Court to invalidate the entire ACA.  The Administration's request comes in the midst of a pandemic which has killed 125,000 Americans and during which nearly a half million Americans turned to the Affordable Care Act for assistance.   READ MORE NATIONAL NEWS