WITW Archives

The Unconscionable Claim that Medicaid Fueled the Opioid Crisis (Washington Monthly, Jan 23)

The Republican attack on Medicaid has taken a new turn after decades of attempts to defund the signature program that provides medical care for poor Americans.  "While we’ve all be talking about shithole countries and government shutdowns, the Republicans have launched what might be their most malicious attack yet on Medicaid. The country is facing a severe opioid crisis, and they are actually trying to blame it on Medicaid. "  

After refuting the Republican arguments, Nancy LeTourneau concludes her piece: "Republicans are twisting data to support a conclusion they reached previously—which is that they want to undermine Medicaid in order to justify their attempts to kill it. That would be malicious even if we weren’t in the midst of a crisis. But given the exponentially rising death toll from opioids, .... it is absolutely unconscionable for Republicans to be undermining Medicaid—the very program that so many states depend on to save lives."

The Pathological Cruelty of Trump’s Medicaid Work Requirement

(New York Magazine, January 11)

"Having proven itself completely unable to solve actual problems in the American health-care system, the Trump administration is setting out to solve imagined ones: Americans who are lured into sloth by free access to medical care. The administration is issuing guidance to states, allowing them to deny Medicaid to people who don’t have jobs. ...The failure of Obamacare repeal was a signal defeat for American conservatism. The cruel half-measure of urging states to deny Medicaid to the unemployed indicates that, despite the defeat of their ultimate goal, the fanatical ideology that inspired it remains in place."

A Tale of Two Firings

POSTED 3/17/2018

Rex Tillerson is out at State and Andrew McCabe was fired from the FBI on the eve of his retirement.  Two very different long-running stories but totally in line with some of the worst tendencies of the Trump administration.  The disrespect shown Tillerson (fired in a tweet three hours before the Donald told him in person) and the sheer nastiness of McCabe's firing (less than 2 days before he was to become eligible for a pension for 20 years of government service) are just more evidence of how toxic this administration is.  

Trumpocracy: Tracking the Creeping Authoritarianism of the 45th President

Is Donald Trump a threat to democracy?  Mother Jones has prepared "a running timeline tracking Trump’s numerous displays of authoritarian behavior, beginning from the day he was sworn in. Mother Jones capped this running account on April 5, 2018.

Advice from America's oldest ally

POSTED 5/4/2018

French President Macron's address to Congress last week gathered less attention than  Bibi's babblings on Iran.  His words spoke to the long relationship between France and the United States and had much to say about global leadership, climate change and Iran. Macron's complete address can be found here.

Hurricane Maria death toll may be more than 4,600 in Puerto Rico

POSTED 5/30/2018 - UPDATED 9/13/2018

An estimated 4,645 people died in Hurricane Maria and its aftermath in Puerto Rico, according to an academic report published Tuesday in a prestigious medical journal. That figure dwarfs Puerto Rico's official death toll of 64, which the article's authors called a "substantial underestimate" of Hurricane Maria's death toll. "These numbers ... underscore the inattention of the US government to the frail infrastructure of Puerto Rico," authors from Harvard University and other institutions wrote in the New England Journal of Medicine. (CNN, May 29)

Maine Judge Orders Governor to Stop Stonewalling Voter-approved Medicaid Expansion 

The Week, June 5: "On Monday, a Maine Superior Court judge ordered Gov. Paul LePage (R) to move forward on a Medicaid expansion law approved by nearly 60 percent of voters in 2017, saying his administration's "complete failure to act" by the April 3 deadline "cannot be considered substantial compliance" with the new law...Justice Michaela Murphy said the law was "clear and unambiguous" that LePage's administration had to send the federal government a plan to accept the Medicaid expansion by April 3, allowing lower-income residents to obtain coverage by July 2, and she gave him until June 11 to send the paperwork to Washington. A LePage spokeswoman said the governor's office is reviewing the ruling and did not say if he will appeal to the Maine Supreme Court."

The Supreme Court’s big anti-union ruling

POSTED JUNE 29, 2018

Last month, the conservative Supreme Court majority delivered a major blow to workers' rights, ruling for the first time that workers may not band together to challenge violations of federal labor laws.  

On Wednesday [June 27] "the Supreme Court issued what is probably its single most consequential ruling of the year. Janus v. AFSCME is a devastating blow against public sector unions, barring them from charging 'agency fees' to the public employees for whom they negotiate pay increases and benefit bumps if those employees decline to join the union as full members.

"Alito’s opinion was even more anti-union than many observers expected. Not only did it end agency fees for public employees, but it required, for the first time, that union membership for new public employees be “opt-in” rather than opt-out.

"Janus is a rare Supreme Court decision (though the second in this term) that overrules a previous judgment of the Court. The Supremes generally abide by a principle known as "stare decisis", Latin for “to stand by things decided.” That means that even if justices believe a past decision was wrongly decided, they generally accept it as precedent and rule in accordance with it going forward...In her dissent, Kagan issues a passionate defense of Abood against Alito’s criticisms, answering him point by point. But her more fundamental concern is that Alito and the Court’s conservatives are effectively abandoning 'stare decisis' and saying that they can throw out precedents they dislike whenever they want to do so."  

Justice Kagan in her dissenting opinion wrote: “There is no sugarcoating today’s opinion. The majority overthrows a decision entrenched in this Nation’s law — and in its economic life — for over 40 years. As a result, it prevents the American people, acting through their state and local officials, from making important choices about workplace governance. And it does so by weaponizing the First Amendment, in a way that unleashes judges, now and in the future, to intervene in economic and regulatory policy."

Related read: "Unions have been down before, history shows how they can come back"

More news like this (Democracy Watch)

On Taking the Long View

POSTED JULY 30, 2018

Global Climate Action Summit

POSTED SEPTEMBER 14, 2018

As California battles forest fires, the Carolinas brace for Hurricane Florence and the death toll in Puerto Rico from Category 4 Hurricane Maria is confirmed as "at least 2,975", Gov. Jerry Brown of California is hosting a Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco.  The three-day conference (Sep 12 - 14) brings together hundreds of scientists, political figures, and business leaders to discuss topics like reducing greenhouse gas. 

"Occurring between the Paris climate discussions of 2015 and 2020 and integrated with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, the GCAS aims to showcase progress made towards curbing greenhouse gas emissions while encouraging ambitious commitments towards this goal. More specifically, the GCAS will ask different entities to reduce emissions so that worldwide warming will be limited to an increase of 1.5 °C instead of the 2 °C ceiling that was established in the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement."  The summit sessions address five themes:  Healthy Energy Systems, Inclusive Economic Growth, Sustainable Communities, Land and Ocean Stewardship, and Transformative Climate Investments.  (Forbes, Sep 13)

Brown has emerged as a leader in the fight against global warming. On Monday (9/10), Brown signed Senate Bill 100, a measure requiring California to get 100 percent of its electricity from zero-carbon sources such as wind and solar by 2045. He is also pushing for carbon neutrality by tackling transportation emissions. He aims to have 5 million electric cars on the road by 2030.  

Brown is leading the way even as "the Trump administration continues to push U.S. environmental policy in the opposite direction...The United States is falling behind its Paris accord pledge...[and] to make matters worse, the federal government pursuing policies that would hasten, not slow, global warming. This week, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed to roll back the Obama-era methane limits...Methane, which can leak during the extraction or transportation of natural gas, oil, or even coal, is a super pollutant more potent than carbon dioxide in warming the planet." The Administration's proposal would double the time companies have both to fix leaks and to conduct leak inspections. (Slate, Sep 12)

With the Trump Administration abdicating its responsibility in the environmental area, others are taking up the challenge of climate change.  One of these organizations is We Are Still In, a coalition of government and business leaders formed in response to President Trump’s announced plan to withdraw from the Paris Agreement.  Now numbering over 3,500 institutions across government, the private sector, faith communities and higher education institutions in all 50 states, the members in WASI collectively represent nearly half of the U.S. population (more than 157 million Americans) and half of the country’s GDP ($9.46 trillion). Since April 2018, nearly 900 coalition members submitted plans and detailed 300 new commitments to increase climate action.   These commitments were delivered at the Global Climate Action Summit on Wednesday.

WNV's interview with author of "The Defiant: Protest Movements in Post-Liberal America"

POSTED SEPTEMBER 26, 2018

Three Weeks to Election Day

The Republican Playbook: Islamophobia and Voter Suppression

POSTED OCTOBER 15, 2018 / UPDATED OCT 18, 20, 22, 24, and 27 and NOV 2, 3,5 2018

With three weeks to the elections, Democrats continue their uphill struggle to regain control of the House.*   The Republican strategy to retain control of the government - partisan and racial gerrymandering, voter suppression**, appeals to white nationalism, unlimited dark money - has been long in the making and much of it has been enshrined as law by the conservatives on the Supreme Court.  The strategy is playing itself out in the final weeks of this election.  

This year's tactics include a greater appeal to Islamophobia- a defining trait of the Trump presidency.   In my Republican-held district, the Democratic candidate's role in the Obama administration advising against the use of torture has become "promoted legal rights for terrorists" and his support for the Iran nuclear deal became "dangerously weakened our national security."  Juan Cole at Informed Comment notes how today's Islamophobia resembles the rabidly anti-Communist McCarthy-ism of the 1950's as a Republican scare tactic.  And the tactic has been remarkably effective: "The Islamophobia of President Trump, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, National Security Advisor John Bolton, and others in the administration, aided and abetted by the megaphone that Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News offers, has had a distinct impact on public opinion. Attacks on Muslim-Americans have, for instance, spiked back to 2001 levels. A recent poll found that some 16% of Americans want to deny the vote to Muslim-Americans, 47% support Trump’s visa restrictions, and a majority would like all mosques to be kept under surveillance."

TomDispatch.com points out the greater danger of the Trump Administration's Islamophobia - launching a gratuitous attack on Iran: "After all, the president’s National Security Advisor John Bolton...and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo are both Iranophobes (as well as Islamophobes) of the first order, as is the president who has already torn up the nuclear pact the Obama administration negotiated with Iran and seems to be careening toward some kind of a conflict there. If so, given the American experience of the last 17 years in the region, what could possibly go wrong? As British journalist Patrick Cockburn ominously pointed out recently, “The exaggeration of ‘the Iranian threat’ by the Trump administration this week at the U.N. General Assembly in New York was very like what was being said about Iraq 15 years earlier.”

Having achieved all they could possibly hope for in terms of legitimizing partisan gerrymandering, voter roll purging  and voter ID laws aimed at suppressing the vote of Democratic-leaning constituencies, Republicans are turning to a final tactic - limiting access to polling places and holding up voter registrations.  CNN reports how clashes over voting rights in two states this past week have renewed focus on the issue less than four weeks from the midterm elections. 

Georgia

"In Georgia, a coalition of civil rights groups is suing Republican Secretary of State Brian Kemp after an Associated Press report found 53,000 people -- nearly 70% of them black -- had their registrations put on hold because minor mismatches on documents like their driver's licenses violate the state's new "exact match" requirement. Kemp's office says voters who have pending registrations will still be able to vote on November 6.  Kemp is running for governor against Democratic nominee Stacey Abrams, who is seeking to become the nation's first black female governor. The Abrams campaign has called on Kemp to resign his position as secretary of state.  "When you know that what you are doing is going to have a disproportionate affect on people of color and on women and you do it anyway, that erodes the public trust in the system and that's problematic," Abrams told CNN's Jake Tapper during an appearance on "State of the Union" Sunday.

Update Oct 18: Dozens of black senior citizens were ordered off a bus bound for the polls in Louisville, Georgia, by county officials.

Update Oct 22: The GOP voter suppression effort has been underway for almost a decade.  This Mother Jones analysis of the Georgia race notes that Republican candidate Kemp's many years of championing and enforcing suppression efforts may payoff in November.

Update Oct 24: According to The Hill, an APM Reports analysis found that 107,000 people were removed under the law, which starts a process for purging people from voter rolls if they fail to vote, respond to a notice or make contact with election officials over a three-year period.  Republican Secretary of State Brian Kemp...oversaw the removal immediately after he declared himself a candidate for governor, according to The Hill.

Update Oct 27: Thousands of vote-by-mail applications have gone missing in DeKalb county, one of Georgia's largest and most liberal counties.

North Dakota

"In North Dakota, ... Native American tribes, who largely vote for Democrats, are confronting the implementation of a law that requires voters to provide a form of identification that includes their legal name, current street address and date of birth. The problem, for some Native Americans, is the street address requirement. Native Americans who live on reservations or in rural areas that lack street addresses often instead use P.O. boxes."

Update 11/5: A federal judge rejected on Thursday a lawsuit brought by Native American voters disenfranchised by North Dakota’s draconian voter ID law. The decision likely means that hundreds, perhaps thousands of citizens will not be able to cast a ballot in November because they live on reservations. Following Democratic Sen. Heidi Heitkamp’s narrow victory in 2012, North Dakota’s Republican lawmakers passed a new law requiring voters to present an ID that lists their current residential street address. The measure plainly targeted Native Americans, many of whom live on rural reservations with no street names or residential addresses. Previously, residents could vote with a valid mailing address, allowing rural tribal voters to list their P.O. Box. Now they must provide an ID with their exact residency—something that many Native Americans don’t have and can’t get. 

Kansas

Update 10/20: Dodge City, Kansas moves its only polling place out of town.  Dodge is 60% Hispanic.

Update 11/2: Kris Kobach’s Kansas Voter ID Law Could Make Him Governor in a Tight Race  Mother Jones notes that "since Kobach became secretary of state in 2011, more than 1,200 ballots have been rejected in Kansas because would-be voters like Jones showed up without the right ID, and far more Kansans have been dissuaded from trying to vote. The voter ID law caused a 2 percent decrease in turnout in 2012, according to a study by the Government Accountability Office, with the largest drop-off among young, black, and newly registered voters. If the law leads to a similar reduction in turnout among Democratic-leaning constituencies in 2018, that could be enough to put Kobach, who won his primary by just 350 votes, in the governor’s mansion. He’s currently locked in a dead heat with Democratic candidate Laura Kelly, the assistant minority leader in the state senate, in a race that also includes independent candidate Greg Orman."

FLORIDA

Florida 11/3:  How Thousands of Already Cast Florida Ballots Could Be Tossed Aside Without Voters Knowing - Mother Jones "In a state with razor tight races for governor, US Senate, and many House of Representatives seats, absentee ballots rejected over signature issues could prove greater than the candidates’ margins of victory. Signature problems affect voters of all of all parties and demographics, but data shows young and minority voters, as well as registered Democrats more broadly, are more likely to have their ballots rejected. While Florida counties are required to notify and provide voters with signature problems a chance to correct them before Election Day, county procedures vary widely, and the same demographic groups are less likely to be given an opportunity to fix any error. In Florida, each county’s three-member canvassing board decides whether a signature matches. “There’s no expert or standard,” says Daniel Smith, the head of the political science department at the University of Florida. 'It’s in the eye of the beholder.'  Well that's one way to defeat the vote by mail effort.

There have been some successes fighting voter suppression in the courts  - an Indiana judge voided the last minute purge of 450,000 voters and a Missouri judge blocked implementation of the voter ID law.  Republicans have been playing the voter suppression game since Obama was elected.  They will not give up.  Neither should anyone who cares about our democracy.

*Democrats have pretty much abandoned hope that they will take back the Senate where they have to defend 26 seats to the Republican majority's 8.

**Republicans use almost non-existent voter fraud to try to justify their strict voter ID laws which disproportionately target people of color, the young and the old.  An instructive story on how actual cases are handled: in Texas, a black woman previously convicted of a non-violent felony voted - unaware that Texas denied people convicted of felony their right to vote while on probation.  She was sentenced to 5 years in prison.  In Iowa, a white woman who deliberately tried to vote twice for Donald Trump was given a $750 fine and sentenced to 2 years probation.

Democratic Socialism is Healthy

Lancet article: US plummets 21 places in life expectancy analysis

POSTED OCTOBER 21, 2018

A recent GOP mid-term election blurb warned that voting for Democrats would result in "socialism."  They've apparently added that (and "dangerously liberal") to their Islamophobic message to hold onto Congress.  What could be worse, after all, than Medicare for all and free college education?  Unfortunately, warning against a socialist state still is an effective message for those of a certain age that have no idea what democratic socialism is all about or how nations that practice it are doing.

The medical journal Lancet just published an analysis showing the US to fall to 64th place by 2040 in life expectancy. Among the other projections and comments:

• Spain, which spends 10% of its GDP on health care will earn the first-place spot by 2040 with a life expectancy of 85.8 years, topping Japan which has had the longest life expectancy in the world for years. Its 85.8-year life expectancy will just surpass the 85.7-year life expectancy in Japan and the 85.4-year average in Singapore. 

• The remainder of the top 10 will feature Switzerland, Portugal, Italy, Israel, France, Luxembourg, and Australia, according to the study.  

• Spain ranks highly in lists of healthy countries; most recently, it tied for first in the World Economic Forum's "Global Competitiveness Report."

• Globally, the average rise in life expectancy between 2016 and 2040 is estimated to be 4.4 years, though the US will be far below.  Americans' average life expectancy will go up only 1.1 years to 79.8, and the US will drop from 43rd to 64th place in world rankings.

• China, which had a life expectancy of 76.3 years in 2016, is predicted to hit an average of 81.9 years by 2040. The increase would put China in 39th place, surpassing the US.

Most of the countries in the projected top 10 and nearly all of Western Europe (see Lancet summary map below) have a form of socialized medicine in place.  This leads Juan Cole at Informed Comment to argue: "Our billionaire class is fighting tooth and nail against medicare for all, some version of which most Europeans have. People can’t afford a doctor’s visit to get advice on weight, diet and exercise. Some states have global south levels of death in childbirth because working class mothers can’t afford doctor visits while pregnant. The US barracuda capitalists poisoned Flint’s water to save a few bucks."

Trump is inspiring his followers - including the unhinged

POSTED OCTOBER 25, 2018

Trump's nationalist, anti-immigrant, and anti-press rhetoric is doing a good job inspiring his base for the midterms.  Republicans have been turning out in greater numbers than Democrats for early voting in California House districts that Democrats hoped to flip.  Republican candidates across the country have seen a bump upwards in the polls as Trump appeals to the country's white nationalists by channeling Mussolini, rouses the xenophobes by blaming Democrats for the asylum seeker caravan (which Trump says also contains  "unknown Middle Easterners"), and praises a candidate who body-slammed a reporter.

Perhaps it was inevitable.  His hostile words have inspired at least one of his more unhinged supporters to threaten violence against two former Presidents, his rival in the 2016 general election, a potential Democratic rival in 2020, two high profile Democrats (George Soros and Robert DiNiro) and the offices of CNN.  The story of the bomb scare, an act of political terror, continues to unfold, but at least no one, so far, has been injured.  

Just two hours after an explosive device was mailed to CNN’s headquarters in New York, President Donald Trump’s campaign sent out a fundraising email slamming the network.  “It’s time for us to give the media another wake-up call from the American people,” the email, which was signed by Trump campaign advisor and daughter-in-law Lara Trump, said. CNN President Jeff Zucker had this response: “There is a total and complete lack of understanding at the White House about the seriousness of their continued attacks on the media. The President, and especially the White House Press Secretary, should understand their words matter. Thus far, they have shown no comprehension of that.” 

It makes you wonder what this country has become.  Trump's appeal to "nationalism" (aka racism and xenophobia), thuggery, antagonism against the press and rivals, and disregard for the truth has brought out the worst in an America already moving toward its own form of nationalist fascism.  Decades of glorified militarism (Trump's parade is still on for 2019 - how fascist is that!), decades of lies about failed "trickle down" capitalism, right-wing diatribes against all progressive causes and Supreme Court rulings skewering voting rights have brought us to this junction. 

This did not begin with Trump.  His role as the divider-in-chief, though, is unprecedented.  His assaults against the free press are an order of magnitude greater than any of the previous distortions about the so-called liberal media.  And his appeals to racists and xenophobes have not been as openly present on the national scene since the days of George Wallace.

With one or two exceptions, Republican politicians have not held Trump accountable or spoken against his dangerous rhetoric.  Why would they?  His popularity with the right-wing fringe will help them keep control of Congress.  Democrats are making a great effort to turn out the vote and that is a good thing.  The voter suppression measures and partisan gerrymandering in place in GOP-controlled states may be too big of a hill to climb.  

For now, we can vote, encourage others to vote, and try to alert moderates and independents to the dangers of this country's present course.  Democrats may not win back either body of Congress this year but, in the long run, I believe that history is on democracy's side and we will make America "America" again.

*For their part, the conspiracy theorists in MAGA-land are bizarrely speculating that the bomb scare was a "false flag" operation.  Yeah, just like George Soros is funding the asylum caravan and Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

A chance to denounce white supremacists and right-wing terror

POSTED OCTOBER 30, 2018

U.S. President Donald Trump, shrugging off objections from some critics that he was unwelcome, arrived in Pittsburgh on Tuesday to offer condolences for the 11 Jewish worshipers shot to death in their synagogue, as thousands of mourners attended the first funerals for victims of the massacre.  

Some local leaders are opposing Trump’s visit, including the former leader of the synagogue, Lynette Lederman, who called Trump “the purveyor of hate speech.” The comments came as a group of Jewish leaders also told the president he is not welcome in Pittsburgh until he “fully denounces white nationalism.” Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto has called on Trump to delay any visit; meanwhile, the synagogue’s current rabbi has said Trump is welcome.

This is Trump's chance to apologize for his hateful rhetoric directed towards immigrants, refugees, and Muslims; to denounce right-wing terrorism and white supremacists.  I doubt he will do so.  After sending 5200 more troops to the border in the fake refugee crisis***, Trump just announced his intent to end birthright citizenship by executive order- in violation of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution*.  The move doesn't stand a chance in the courts, but with the way Trump has packed the courts with right wing and partisan judges, anything is possible.**

The White House continues to deny that the toxic stew of hate and fear-mongering that issues from Trump's lips contributes to the violence.  Meanwhile, attorneys for three Kansas militia members who conspired to bomb a mosque and apartment complex housing Somali immigrants have asked the court to take into account what they called President Donald Trump's violent rhetoric at next month's sentencing.

The photo of Trump addressing MAGA-land is from the Informed Comment article "The GOP’s Dark Side: Trumpism puts Jews and other Minorities in the crosshairs".  In his article Juan Cole argues that the Republican Party is indirectly responsible for the spike in hate crimes toward minorities in three ways:

"1. The party has largely allowed itself to be captured by the alien ideology of Trumpism

2. The party is running at least 16 far, far right extremists [with two ‘fars’] for national office, and many more far right extremists [with just one ‘far’].

3. Media catering to the GOP, such as Fox Cable News and right wing talk radio, is vicious toward minorities..."

Below are a quote from Democracy Now!'s interview with David Glosser (left) and a link to a Democracy Now! interview with the Guardian's Lois Beckett, senior reporter covering gun policy, criminal justice and the far right in the United States (right).  

*“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” 

** Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham has since that he is introducing legislation, a constitutional amendment, that would get it done.  The legislation would have to pass 2/3 of both houses of Congress and be ratified by 3/4 of the states.  An impossible long shot, but  a useful political play to anti-immigrant feeling a week ahead of the mid-terms.

***The security crisis concerns are phony trumped up nonsense.  Yes, there is a crisis just that it has nothing to do with US national security.  The crisis is that 7,000 Central Americans, vast numbers of them women and children, are walking 2000 miles to escape violence in their home country.  

Midterms are over.  Now what?

POSTED NOV 7, 2018

Democrats took back the House of Representatives.  A massive GOTV effort and Trump's unpopularity in blue states clinched a narrow victory.  Republicans took back several Democratic Senate seats in red states and increased their majority in that body. 

Republicans also retain control of the majority of governor offices.  Although Democrats won a few governor races against Republican incumbents, the results from two key races - Georgia and Florida - were disappointing for progressives.  Georgia Democrat Stacey Abrams has not yet conceded, but it appears that the race there will be decided by the widespread voter suppression and voter roll purges carried out under the Republican candidate, Georgia's current Secretary of State.

Some good news at the state level: ballot initiatives to expand Medicaid won in 3 Republican states; a fourth extended its existing Medicaid expansion; and Florida passed Amendment 4, restoring voting rights to non-violent felons.

When Democrats in the House take office in January, 2019, it will be the first time they have been in the majority since 2011.  This should put an end to threats to the Affordable Care Act, Social Security and Medicare.  The Mueller investigation into 2016 election shenanigans will likely not be stopped. 

[Update 11/8, Mueller investigation: On Wednesday afternoon, Trump requested AG Jeff Sessions' resignation, and, after stating his desire to act in bi-partisan way with the House Democrats threatened them  with a "warlike" response if they investigate him.  Sessions is replaced with an acting AG, Trump loyalist Matthew Whitaker.  Whitaker then was named to replace Mueller's boss, Rod Rosenstein.  By replacing Rod Rosenstein with just-named Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker as Mueller's boss overseeing the investigation, Trump appears to be undercutting the independence of the investigation. Whitaker has publicly outlined strategies to stifle the investigation, and has referred to Mueller's team as a "lynch mob,"]

Democratic control of the House also raises the possibility of a new Voting Rights Act to re-enfranchise voters, a War Powers act to control Trump, and gun control legislation to stop the country's epidemic gun violence.  I say possibility because these measures would need to be approved by the Republican-controlled Senate and avoid a Trump veto.

Regardless of the Democratic gains in the House, Donald Trump still holds the presidency.  He has at least (but hopefully only) two more years to wreak havoc on the national and international stage; two more years to appoint right-wing, far-right-wing and partisan judges; two more years to divide the country with his fear-mongering, nationalist rhetoric.  Trumpocalypse years three and four are upon us and everything needed to resist it is the same as in years one and two.  

What else?

Activism and support of initiatives at the state and community levels provide some hope - as the ballot initiatives above demonstrate.  Income inequality, gun violence, inadequate medical care, the death penalty are issues that can be addressed at the state level.  I'm not sure how we can closes the national divide, but perhaps we can take notice of words in a political ad of my incoming congressman: "I reject fear."  Perhaps we can help others overcome their fear of change and of the Other. 

Finally, progressives will need to continue their vigilance fighting the voter suppression laws enacted since the election of President Obama.  In the run-up to these mid-terms, it seemed that every few days we learned of some new item in the GOP bag of voter suppression tricks - exact match requirements, denial of the vote to Native Americans with a PO Box address, moving polling places - to name some.  I doubt that either Congress or the Courts are up to the task of changing these laws and tactics. In states under Republicans control, what may work is a massive registration and re-registration effort that complies with all of the draconian provisions of the voter id/suppression laws already in place.  

For elections beyond 2020, the Trump administration has cooked up a new suppression tactic - the citizenship question on the census form.  The census question is being challenged in court in New York.  Mother Jones reporter Ari Berman** explains why this is so important in a Democracy Now! interview:

"The census is basically the DNA of our democracy. It determines so many things that we do, from how $675 billion in federal funding is distributed to how political districts are drawn to how many electoral votes states get. And if the census is rigged, then all of American democracy will be rigged, as well.  This question about U.S. citizenship...could have a massively suppressive effect on [census] participation among noncitizens, among citizens, among Latinos, Native Americans, Asian Americans, other minority groups. If that happens, what that means is that areas with lots of immigrants, like New York and California and Texas, will get less political power, will have fewer political seats. So it’s really, really important for the fairness of the census..."

*UPDATE 11/8: 

**Berman's original article was posted Nov 5 at Mother Jones:  "Trial Over Census Citizenship Question Kicks Off Amid Revelation of Trump Administration Deception" 

Chief Justice Roberts responds to Trump's attacks on the judiciary

POSTED NOVEMBER 24, 2018

A free press, a right to vote, and a rule of law upheld by an independent judiciary are three of the most important elements of a democracy. Trump has attacked each but has not yet provoked a constitutional crisis (although he may be on the verge of doing just that should he take any further action to undermine the Mueller probe).  

On the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, his latest rant against the judiciary provoked a response from the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.  Trump's months-long campaign to discredit the judiciary whenever they rule against one of his policies had finally reached a breaking point for Justice Roberts.

The "Buried" US Climate Change Report

POSTED NOVEMBER 24, 2018

No one in the Trump Administration has yet claimed to be behind the Black Friday release of the multi-agency National Climate Assessment but the intent is obvious.  Release it at a time when everyone is recovering from Thanksgiving dinner, busy shopping and getting ready for Christmas.  Maybe no one will notice.  

The multi-agency report, originally scheduled to be published in December, warns "repeatedly and directly, that climate change could soon imperil the American way of life, transforming every region of the country, imposing frustrating costs on the economy, and harming the health of virtually every citizen.  Most significantly, the National Climate Assessment—which is endorsed by NASA, NOAA, the Department of Defense, and 10 other federal scientific agencies—contradicts nearly every position taken on the issue by President Donald Trump." (The Atlantic)

The Summary Findings note that nearly every aspect of our lives and the economy will be affected if sufficient action is not taken soon.  Among the report's warnings:

Communities - "Climate change creates new risks and exacerbates existing vulnerabilities in communities across the United States, presenting growing challenges to human health and safety, quality of life, and the rate of economic growth." 

Economy - "Without substantial and sustained global mitigation and regional adaptation efforts, climate change is expected to cause growing losses to American infrastructure and property and impede the rate of economic growth over this century. 

Health - "Impacts from climate change on extreme weather and climate-related events, air quality, and the transmission of disease through insects and pests, food, and water increasingly threaten the health and well-being of the American people, particularly populations that are already vulnerable."

Agriculture - "Rising temperatures, extreme heat, drought, wildfire on rangelands, and heavy downpours are expected to increasingly disrupt agricultural productivity in the United States. Expected increases in challenges to livestock health, declines in crop yields and quality, and changes in extreme events in the United States and abroad threaten rural livelihoods, sustainable food security, and price stability."

Speaking of the mitigation efforts necessary to avert substantial damage, the report concludes: "While mitigation and adaptation efforts have expanded substantially in the last four years, they do not yet approach the scale considered necessary to avoid substantial damages to the economy, environment, and human health over the coming decades."

As The Atlantic notes. the "report is a huge achievement for American science. It represents cumulative decades of work from more than 300 authors. Since 2015, scientists from across the U.S. government, state universities, and businesses have read thousands of studies, summarizing and collating them into this document."  

White House reaction was as might be expected.  A White House spokeswoman had this comment: "this new assessment was based on the 'most-extreme scenario,' [in fact several scenarios were studied] and promised any future report would have a 'more transparent and data-driven process'  [as if the work of 300 scientists over 4 years was not data-driven].

"The Atlantic" [link below left] and the Informed Comment website [link below right] summarize the findings. 

Trump shuts down government over border wall; stocks suffer worst week since 2008

POSTED DECEMBER 21, 2018/UPDATES  DEC 31 & JAN 3

And so the Trumpocalypse continues...

House Republicans went home without reaching a compromise with Senate Democrats on border "security".  Senate Republicans do not have the 60 votes needed to pass the almost $6 billion Trump proposal.  Trump will not get his wall, as Senator Schumer said, "Not today, not next week, and not on January 3 when Democrats control the House."   Wall Street responded to the Trump-induced chaos with its worst week since the crash of 2008.

Update 12/31: "The Dow Jones industrial average and the Standard & Poor's 500 each closed with declines of about 6 percent for the year, the worst showing for the indexes since 2008. The tech-heavy Nasdaq slumped about 4 percent for the year. Most of the declines occurred in the last three months of the year as fears heightened over rising interest rates, the Trump administration’s global trade war and a potential slowdown in economic growth around the world." (Washington Post)

Update 1/3: The Dow was down nearly 500 points after Apple CEO issued a revenues warning.  "Apple CEO Tim Cook laid some of the blame for the company's shock revenue guidance downgrade on the trade war between the US and China.  In an interview with CNBC on Wednesday, Cook said tariffs imposed by the US and China on products from the opposite country contributed to an economic slowdown in China. The Chinese economic slowdown in turn decreases retail sales in the country and hurt Apple's overall business." (Business Insider, Jan 2)

I saw a Trump/Pence bumper sticker today - a truly sickening sight.  It's hard to believe anyone would leave it on his car.  But then I find it incredible that Trump still has a 43 percent approval rating.  He has done a masterful job at confusing the country.  

His "fake news" charges reported by the biggest fake news network in America and its even more unhinged brethren on the internet have enabled Trump to "win attention for his diversions, no matter how absurd ('Obama wiretapped me!!!'). His chaff-throwing has prevented core truths of the scandal from shining through... Trump and his conservative handmaids in politics and right-wing media have done everything they can to prevent a clear-eyed reckoning with what happened in 2016." (Mother Jones, Dec 21)  The Trump campaign's work with the Russians seems to be on the order of magnitude of Nixon's Watergate. 

Meanwhile, back at the border, Trump was dealt a blow when the Supreme Court refused to reverse lower court rulings that said federal law doesn’t allow the president to make changes to the asylum law by denying asylum to anyone who does not enter the country at a designated entry point. The statute says an asylum application must be accepted from any alien “physically present in the United States or who arrives in the United States whether or not at a designated port of arrival . . . irrespective of such alien’s status.”  Chief Justice Roberts joined the more liberal justices to block the Administration.

Border Wall vs. Healthcare

ACA back in the courts and Dems unite against Trump's border wall

POSTED DECEMBER 15, 2018

Two key issues in the midterms were healthcare and immigration policy.  On both, the Trumpster and the Republicans got pretty well thumped.  In spite of the fear-mongering about "socialist health care" and an "immigrant invasion", Democrats took control of the House.  Voters in several Republican-controlled states approved or extended the ACA's Medicaid expansion.  For most voters, the desire for health care exceeded the fear of Central Americans fleeing violence.

Healthcare

Enter U.S. District Court Judge Reed O’Connor.  Politico reports: "O’Connor ruled on Friday night that the entire ACA should be struck down because the health law’s mandate was repealed. That verdict takes direct aim at the majority ruling Roberts wrote in 2012 that the law could stand even though Roberts believed that part was unconstitutional — a decision that is unlikely to endear O’Connor’s decision to the chief justice."  The ruling will be appealed - all the way to the Supreme Court.  The disruption (i.e. denying affordable health care to as many as 20 million Americans) that this ruling would cause to the health care system will be delayed until all appeals are complete.

"The lawsuit was brought by the attorneys general of Texas and other conservative-led states, who are expected to continue the legal fight for years. But if the case is appealed all the way to the Supreme Court, legal scholars — including Jonathan Adler, a law professor who was the architect of a previous challenge to strike down the ACA — say they’re deeply skeptical that the arguments will sway Chief Justice John Roberts or Justice Brett Kavanaugh, the court’s newest addition. “The states would be lucky to get two votes at SCOTUS, and there's no way Roberts or Kavanaugh goes along,” Adler told POLITICO."

Tragedy at the border

Our country's inhumane immigration enforcement policies again came under scrutiny after the death of a seven-year-old Guatemalan girl in Border Patrol custody.  "What happened to Jakelin Caal? The death of the 7-year-old Guatemalan girl in Border Patrol custody has sparked an investigation and renewed questions about the detention and treatment of migrants, as well as the consequences of strict border policies that encourage more of them to attempt entry via more dangerous routes through unguarded sections of the border." (Yahoo News, Dec 14)

Threatening a government shutdown, Trump continues to push for a border wall - even trotting out one of his oft-used lies about Democrats and Iran.  Senate Minority Leader Schumer and the Senate Democratic Caucus are no longer willing to compromise after the mid-terms.  Schumer has pulled together more than enough Senate Democrats to filibuster the wall even if it means Trump will shutdown the government.  Politico reports: 

The Senate minority leader called his members on the phone and buttonholed them in his office — eager to see where they stood on the president’s $5 billion border wall request, according to a person familiar with his interactions.  Several moderate Democrats had previously endorsed or considered supporting the funding, but after the midterms, the whip count was clear. There aren’t even close to nine Democrats who would join Republicans to break a filibuster.  The bottom line? Mexico isn’t paying for the border wall, and neither is Congress — even if there’s a Christmastime shutdown.

The Democratic unity is already having its desired effect: After digging in on Tuesday in a remarkable back and forth with Schumer and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) in a televised Oval Office debate, Trump is actively considering ways out of the wall fight to avoid a partial shutdown next Friday. ...The Senate Democratic Caucus [made a] rapid shift left since the midterms, when House Democrats took the majority and Schumer stopped worrying about protecting his most vulnerable red-state incumbents. Simply put, there’s now very little incentive for Schumer or anyone in his conference to compromise with Trump, and even past olive branches are now being snapped.

Finally, a few good news items from the Trumpocalypse

POSTED DECEMBER 19, 2018/update DEC 21

Item 10 on the Trumpocalypse Survival Guide is: " Keep your mind open for reasonable pronouncements from the Trump Administration.  Perhaps it won't be as bad as we imagine."  It's taken a while but just this week we have seen three such developments.

1.  The Senate passed, with Trump Administration support, a long-delayed criminal justice reform bill, 87-12. Relatively mild reforms, but still the "biggest changes to the federal criminal justice system in decades.  The bill, known as the First Step Act, will take modest steps to alter the federal criminal justice system and ease very punitive prison sentences at the federal level. It would affect only the federal system — which, with about 181,000 imprisoned people, holds a small but significant fraction of the US jail and prison population of 2.1 million.  Essentially, the bill will allow thousands of people to earn an earlier release from prison and could cut many more prison sentences in the future." (Vox, Dec 18)  Approval is expected in the House.

2. As a small step towards relieving the administration's self-imposed immigration debacle, the administration is "reversing a controversial policy implemented this summer that immigration advocates say caused thousands of unaccompanied migrant children to remain in shelters for extended periods.  The Department of Health and Human Services is no longer requiring fingerprint checks for all adult members of a sponsor's household when the sponsor applies to take in unaccompanied minors, a spokesperson for the agency said. Sponsors must still be fingerprinted and undergo background checks before unaccompanied minors are released into their care."(CNN, Dec 18)

3. The Trump administration is planning to pull all U.S. troops out of Syria, a defense official said Wednesday (12/19). His statement came shortly after news organizations reported that the White House had decided on Tuesday to abruptly remove the entire U.S. force of more than 2,000 troops from Syria. (Washington Post, Dec 19)

Just 640 days 'til the 2020 elections

POSTED FEBRUARY 2, 2019

Senator Corey Booker declared his candidacy for president a couple of days ago, becoming the ninth Democrat to do so - with many more likely to come.   Recent polling shows that almost anyone the Democrats nominate would beat Trump if the election were held today.  But we know how those polls are, especially this far out*, and how they totally fail to take into account the Electoral College.  Democrats need ~5 million more popular votes to win the electoral college and the Presidency.  The last time a Democrat won with less than this margin was Jimmy Carter in 1976.  So unless your favorite Democrat is leading Trump by at least 4 percentage points, you can pretty well ignore the national polls.  

The Democratic field is certainly the most diverse it's ever been.  As The Atlantic put it ("10 New Factors That Will Shape the 2020 Democratic Primary", link below right):

There’s never been a presidential-primary race with more than one female candidate. There’s never been a presidential-primary race with more than one black candidate. There’s never been a presidential-primary race with more than one candidate running from the left of the base.  All those patterns will be broken in 2020. And that means the traditional calculus about who gets which voter groups is out the window. 

But whether any of the candidates will, in the end, actually be able to beat Trump is uncertain.

The race already has a wild card - the potential independent "centrist" candidacy of former Starbucks chairman and CEO Howard Schultz, who considers himself a lifelong Democrat.  Such a move would certainly take votes from the Democratic candidate and probably ensure Trump's second term.  Though a third party candidate has little chance of winning the presidency, they have affected several of the last elections.  Bill Clinton won the popular vote by more than 5 million votes BUT independent businessman Ross Perot received 19 million votes.  Al Gore lost Florida and the presidency by 537 votes BUT third-party candidate Ralph Nader received 97,000 votes in Florida. 

Another billionaire independent who despises Trump's politics, Michael Bloomberg, warned, "In 2020, the great likelihood is that an independent would just split the anti-Trump vote and end up re-electing the President. That's a risk I refused to run in 2016 and we can't afford to run it now."  Sherrod Brown probably had the best comment on Schultz' exploratory efforts. "Yeah, I mean you got this idiot Schultz running, maybe," Brown replied. "He's an idiot. I mean, he's a total idiot." 

The Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary are still a year away, but the Democrats will hold their first debates as soon as this spring.  Getting onstage for that first debate will be the first hurdle the candidates face.  Rolling Stone has started a ranked, Democratic primary leaderboard of twenty-seven announced and possible candidates (link below left).  Kamala Harris, Sherrod Brown and Elizabeth Warren topped the RS leaderboard last week.  My (still) favorite, Bernie Sanders, is #6.  He has a much better chance of beating Trump than any of RS' top three.   It will be fun to see how this develops.  

*Before the Comey "we found more emails" announcement just 12 days before the 2016 election, Hillary Clinton had a six point lead over Trump.

Fact-checking Trump's SOTU, "a faux populism that's really about race"

Stacey Abrams' Democratic response highlights voting rights, "the next battle for our democracy"

POSTED FEBRUARY 6, 2019

In the interests of full disclosure: I got a good night's sleep last night, having opted to ignore Trump's state of the union.  I figured he would double down on his racist, hateful wall.  

From the morning reports, he apparently did.  

The Washington Post reports on 30 dubious statements in Trump's SOTU [link below left], including these two doozies:

"Working-class Americans are left to pay the price for mass illegal migration — reduced jobs, lower wages, overburdened schools, hospitals so crowded you can’t get in, increased crime, and a depleted social safety net." Washington Post: "Trump exaggerates the link between immigration and crime; almost all research shows legal and illegal immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than the native-born population....The consensus among economic research studies is that the impact of immigration is primarily a net positive for the U.S. economy and to workers overall, especially over the long term."

"The lawless state of our southern border is a threat to the safety, security and financial well-being of all Americans. We have a moral duty to create an immigration system that protects the lives and jobs of our citizens.” Washington Post: "By any available measure, there is no new security crisis at the border."

Vox called Trump's speech what it was: "an ode to an imaginary America -a kind of faux populism that’s really about race." Contrary to Trump's claims of being on the side of the little guy:

"Trump’s tax cut helped the wealthy, not the working class, and his attempt to weaken Obamacare is taking away health care from Americans who couldn’t otherwise afford it. There’s no evidence his trade policies are helping the working class. His policies on immigration have terrorized an untold number of working-class migrant families, who live in fear of an ICE raid targeting their loved ones. If Trump’s goal is to help the little guy at the elite’s expense, he’s doing a terrible job of it.

"But like all myths, the central one in Trump’s State of the Union does contain a real message. The tension between Trump’s State of the Union message and his actual record reveals the core of his administration’s thinking: Not populism, but ethno-nationalism. An ideal of a country whose politics center the interests of one ethnic group, the white majority."

In the official Democratic response, Stacey Abrams focused on voting rights as a key issue for American democracy, calling it the "next battle for our democracy".   Last year, she was denied the governorship of Georgia likely because of the voter purges and other voter suppression measures put in place over the years by her opponent and Georgia Republicans.  In 2017 alone, more than 668,000 voter registrations were canceled in Georgia.  For an estimated 107,000 of those people, their removal from the voter rolls was triggered not because they moved or died or went to prison, but rather because they had decided not to vote in prior elections.  Abrams lost the election by 55,000 votes.

Since the election of Barack Obama, Republicans have waged an all out campaign to deny voting rights to key Democratic Party constituencies - minorities, the young, and the poor.   They've been aided and abetted in this effort by the democracy-challenged conservatives on the Supreme Court - most notably in their ruling that gutted the Voting Rights Act, but also in their upholding of voter purges, gerrymandering, and restrictive voter ID laws struck down by lower courts.  Republicans know that the more people who vote, the better the chance that they will be voted out of office.  Mitch O'Connell admitted as much when he called the proposal in HR-1 that would make Election Day a national holiday a "power grab."

The Democratic House made HR-1 its first piece of legislation when it became the majority in January.  It includes sweeping anti-corruption measures aimed at stamping out the influence of money in politics and expanding voting rights.  Mitch McConnell will not allow the bill to come to a vote on the Senate floor and Trump would veto it even if it did pass the Senate.  So, it should be seen as more a symbol of what Democrats stand for and what may become law should they take back the Senate in 2020.

Under the Radar 

Recent news you may not have heard

POSTED FEBRUARY 9, 2019

Here are a few recent news items a bit out of the media's limelight

The House Had Its First Gun Hearing in Years. The Parents of Parkland Victims Refused to Let the GOP Lie. (Mother Jones)

On Wednesday, January 5, the House held its first hearing on gun violence since 2011. The flurry of mass shootings and federal inaction on the issue in the interceding years had created pent-up frustration, which erupted into full view Wednesday from Democrats and a packed room of gun violence victims and activists—especially when Republicans and GOP witnesses pushed unsubstantiated claims about gun violence.  

Related: Gun Violence: Parkland Santa Fe and the Aftermath

Report: U.S.-Based Plane Caught Bringing Arms into Venezuela (Democracy Now!)

McClatchy is reporting Venezuelan authorities have uncovered 19 assault weapons, 118 ammunition cartridges and 90 military-grade radio antennas on board a U.S.-owned plane that had flown from Miami into Valencia, Venezuela’s third-largest city. The Boeing 767 is owned by a company called 21 Air based in Greensboro, North Carolina. The plane has made nearly 40 round-trip flights between Miami and spots in Venezuela and Colombia since January 11, the day after Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro was sworn in to a second term.  

Related: Fueling a right-wing coup in Venezuela Jan 25; Dawn of a new era of US Imperialism in Latin America, Nov 15, 2018

John D. Dingell, a Michigan Democrat who served in the U.S. House from 1955 to 2015, was the longest-serving member of Congress in American history. He dictated these reflections to his wife, Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.), at their home in Dearborn, on Feb. 7, the day he died. (Washington Post) 

Dingell looked back on his early years in Congress with some wise advice for today. Here are some excerpts: 

"In our modern political age, the presidential bully pulpit seems dedicated to sowing division and denigrating, often in the most irrelevant and infantile personal terms, the political opposition. "

"Think about it: Impoverishment of the elderly because of medical expenses was a common and often accepted occurrence. Opponents of the Medicare program that saved the elderly from that cruel fate called it “socialized medicine.” Remember that slander if there’s a sustained revival of silly red-baiting today."

"Not five decades ago, much of the largest group of freshwater lakes on Earth — our own Great Lakes — were closed to swimming and fishing and other recreational pursuits because of chemical and bacteriological contamination from untreated industrial and wastewater disposal. "

"And there was a great stain on America, in the form of our legacy of racial discrimination. There were good people of all colors who banded together, risking and even losing their lives to erase the legal and other barriers that held Americans down. In their time, they were often demonized and targeted, much like other vulnerable men and women today."

The Unholy War 

POSTED MAR 3, 2019

Some years ago, in a discussion with my soon-to-be father-in-law, I tried to explain features of European social democracies - free college education, universal health care, a strong social safety net.  He was nodding in agreement until I said, "Well, that's socialism."  At which point, he said, "I was with you up until then.  You shouldn't call it socialism."  Many of the "Greatest Generation" associated the term exclusively and unfortunately with Stalin's Soviet Union.  

The Republicans are gearing up for the 2020 elections with a nugget that was used successfully for decades by the Right - confusing voters about the nature of socialism and conflating socialism with Stalinist communism.  This time it is in the guise of attacks on the Democratic Party's shift leftward or, as Trump ranted at the CPAC convention this weekend, "socialism".   The Administration's attempt to legitimize its support for the right-wing coup attempt in Venezuela uses the same trope.  

So what do Republicans want you to fear today? And is anyone buying it? (1)

In the decades before the fall of Soviet Union, the US used the discredited "domino theory" and fears of an "international communist conspiracy" to justify its military interventions, arms sales, coups and support for groups as diverse as Afghan mujahideen (who morphed into Al-Qaeda), paramilitary death squads and dictators in Latin America, and unpopular anti-communists in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War era.  In reality, US actions were interventions into post-colonial nationalist movements or, in the case of Latin America, movements to replace dictators and oligarchies with governments that would help break the hold of these elites.  

"Democracy" had (and has) nothing to do with it. US support for right-wing authoritarians and military dictators and for the overthrow (2) of democratically elected left-leaning presidents and prime ministers stems from the desire to prevent the establishment of a non-capitalist economic model anywhere in the world.   They are definitely afraid of the success of a system that would provide a more just and equitable society than the capitalist or the oligarchic/feudalist model.  The attack on socialist governments includes economic warfare in the form of sanctions to destroy their economies and propaganda attacks to denigrate their accomplishments.  

A particularly odious example of American behavior and propaganda is towards Cuba's universal health care system.  Cuba not only has universal health care but they send their doctors, nurses and medical technicians to provide care in developing nations, e.g., in the West African ebola epidemic of 2013-16.  At that time, according to the World Health Organization, "there [were] more than 50 000 Cuban-trained health workers in 66 countries."  What has been the US response to Cuba's massive outpouring of medical assistance to developing nations?  One example revealed in Wikileaks: "a cable was sent...from the US interest section in Havana in 2006, during the runup to the Non-Aligned Movement conference.  He notes that he is actively looking for 'human interest stories and other news that shatters the myth of Cuban medical prowess.' " The nastiness took another step upwards a few years later. In January 2011, the US government "acting as middle-man disburser, saw fit to to seize $4.27 million in funds allocated to Cuba by the United Nations Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria for the first quarter of 2011." (3)

The most heard argument from the American right is that socialism is not democratic.  The hypocrisy of this argument coming from the Republican Party is mind-boggling:

-Since the election of Barack Obama, Republicans have unceasingly worked to disenfranchise millions of voters of the Democratic persuasion - by partisan and racial gerrymandering, by voter suppression laws, by voter roll purges, and by cutting down access to the polls.  

- Even when Democrats win state governorships, Republican-held legislatures pass laws to strip them of powers the outgoing Republican governor had.  This has happened both in North Carolina and Wisconsin after the 2016 and 2018 elections, respectively.

-When a Medicaid expansion measure passed in a Maine referendum, the Republican governor delayed its implementation for more than a year until a judge ruled against him.  When Utah passed a similar referendum, Republicans there began introducing laws to repeal the referendum and limit its scope.

- The Republican president has just declared a national emergency to bypass the legislative power of the purse and it is likely that the Supreme Court will let him get away with it.  A closer look at the National Emergency Act of 1976 shows just how much damage can be done to our democracy by a president with a penchant for abuse of power.  As currently legislated, an emergency declaration can only be undone by a veto-proof Congressional vote.  The Brennan Center for Justice explains:

"The law gives the president complete discretion to declare a national emergency; there is no definition of emergency and no criteria that must be met. As a result, most judges would tend to defer to the president’s determination that an emergency does exist, however much of a stretch it might seem...[While] an emergency declaration [does not] give the president unlimited powers, it gives him access to specific authorities contained within 123 laws that Congress has passed over several decades."

You read that right: President Trump, provided with a willing court, can declare emergencies to supersede 123 laws! 

So, next time you hear the fear-mongering on the right about loss of freedom and democracy, be aware of the hypocritical source, and, to paraphrase the old Who song, "don't get fooled again."

(1) It may be scaring some older voters but not the millennials. "Roughly one out of three millennials (31%) say they are a democratic socialist, a socialist, or would identify as either, according to a [2018] poll." (Business Insider)

(2) Among the democratically elected leaders whose overthrow was engineered or supported by the US are:  Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh (Iran, 1953), President Jacobo Árbenz (Guatemala, 1954), and President Salvador Allende (Chile, 1973).   In some cases US intervention was to prevent a free election - the most notorious being Vietnam, where it was clear that the nationalist WWII hero Ho Chi Minh would easily win election in a united Vietnam. 

(3) America's Deadliest Export: Democracy, William Blum, Fernwood Publishing and Zed Books, 2013.  This is one of the most clear-sighted and well-documented analyses of US foreign policy that I've read.  Journalist, author and historian William Blum died in December, 2018.  He left the State Department in 1967 in opposition to what the United States was doing in Vietnam, founded the Washington Free Press, and worked as a free-lance journalist from the '70's through the '90's.  His critiques of US foreign policy include Rogue State and Killing Hope.

Speaking Truth to Power

POSTED MAR 9, 2019

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn) is a Muslim woman - one of the first two to be elected to Congress.  She has been harassed and threatened by Islamophobes and Muslim haters.  In addition to death threats and stalking, she was the subject of an anti-Muslim poster hung outside the West Virginia Capitol by a  group sponsored by the state’s Republican Party.  The poster attempted absurdly and hatefully to link Omar (and, by inference, all Muslims) with 9/11.  

Over the past couple of weeks,  Rep. Omar has drawn the ire of some for her comments on the US-Israel relationship and on the power of the Israel lobby.  Her comments, taken out of context and misconstrued with meanings that she did not intend, led to a showdown between House leadership and the progressive and black caucuses.   Fortunately, the attempt by Democratic (!) leadership to rebuke Omar was discarded, and, instead, a wide-ranging anti-hate resolution passed overwhelmingly in the House.  The only votes against the resolution were from 23 Republicans.

The furor over Ilhan Omar's comments masks the truth that she is speaking.  Yes, there is a powerful right-wing Israel lobby that spends a lot of money in the US political system and has great influence on US politics.  AIPAC raises more than $100 million a year, which it spends on lobbying politicians and sending members of Congress on trips to Israel. (Wall Street Journal, Feb 14).  AIPAC does not spend directly on campaigns but other right-wingers do.  Casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson and his wife alone poured at least $98 million in 2012 and at least $82 million in 2016 into Republican campaign coffers.  His influence on Trump is apparent. Within 18 months of his election, Trump handed Adelson two of his biggest asks - withdrawing from the Iran Nuclear Deal and moving the US embassy to Jerusalem. 

The result of this influence is clear.  No matter what Israel does in its treatment of the Palestinians, the US can be counted on to oppose investigations or censures, even resolutions calling for less use of force against demonstrators - as seen in the UN votes after the Gaza Massacre last year.  Any criticism of Israeli policies - whether it be its illegal settlements on Palestinian land in the West Bank, the devastating Gaza blockade, or the apartheid practices that cause misery day-to-day  - is condemned as evidence of anti-semitism.  

In a post at "In These Times", Phyllis Bennis, fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies and serving on the national board of Jewish Voice for Peace,  reminds us "Why False Accusations of Anti-Semitism Against Ilhan Omar Are So Harmful":

"False accusations of anti-Semitism—usually linked to criticism of Israel or Israel's supporters in the United States—are on the rise as well. And we need to be clear: It is not anti-Semitic to support Palestinian rights, demand a change in U.S. policy towards Israel, expose the kind of pressure that the pro-Israel lobby brings to bear on elected officials, or call out Israel's violations of human rights and international law.­­ False accusations of anti-Semitism are used to undermine Palestinian rights, violate the First Amendment and demonize social movements. They also serve as a powerful diversion from the urgent task of combating the real thing."

Even as some were castigating Omar for her comments, the UNHRC released a report on Israel's response to the weekly Great March of Return. The inquiry found Israeli forces may have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity by targeting unarmed children, journalists and the disabled in Gaza.  The investigators found that Israeli forces have killed 183 Palestinians—almost all of them with live ammunition. The dead included 35 children. Twenty-three thousand people were injured, including over 6,000 shot by live ammunition.  US support, its continued military aid and shielding of Israel from accountability has resulted in what The Nation called, during the 2014 War on Gaza, a "cycle of impunity" - of which these casualties are just the latest. The Israeli government reaction to the UN inquiry into the Gaza Massacre was typical - they dismissed it.

The Israeli human rights group B’Tselem speaking at the UN in October characterized Israeli treatment of Palestinians as "reminiscent of South Africa's Grand Apartheid".  South African apartheid did not end until the United States got behind the international sanctions movement.  The same will probably be the case here.  As long as the US does not hold Israel accountable - by stopping military aid and/or by joining the Boycott-Divest-Sanction movement, Israel will continue to deny Palestinians their rights and their homeland.   After taking on the Israel lobbyists and Israeli policies, she spoke at Busboys and Poets in D.C. and again drew fire.  This time her critics focused on a single sentence reference to Marc Rubio's anti-BDS legislation recently passed by Congress.  You can hear what Rep. Omar actually said at Busboys and Poets in the Democracy Now! segment [link below left].  

Israeli journalist Gideon Levy , Haaretz columnist and member of the newspaper’s editorial board, wrote an article headlined “Keep It Up, Ilhan Omar."  Democracy Now! interviewed Levy [link below right] who voiced his support for the courage and truth that Omar has brought to the discussion.

"It’s about time to say the truth, and... to ask: Do we support automatically and blindly the occupation? Is it legitimate to criticize the occupation? Maybe it is legitimate to handle Israel as South Africa was handled. Maybe BDS is something that we should consider. Those questions are even not legitimate to raise in the United States. And maybe now this vicious circle will be broken, and people will have the courage, the guts and the power to ask questions."

Levy is optimistic that there is a change in the air - that the "vicious cycle" of labeling every act of criticism of Israeli policies and actions as anti-semitic to stop discussion will end.  Sofie Werthan at Slate expresses a similar optimism that the Ilhan Omar controversy represents a turning point.  But Werthan and Levy are expressing the feelings and hopes of the Jewish-American and Israeli left.  The rest of us also need to get on board.  It will not be easy.  For the next two years at least, the right will be in control of the government. Yes, the Democratic House will pass much good legislation but even if it gets to the Senate floor and somehow then passes, it will be vetoed. The right-wing lobbyists and media will still be out there to distort the truth. And the anti-immigrant Islamophobes will be right there with them.

Related article: "The Ilhan Omar controversy shows how little we care about Palestinian lives" (Vox, Mar 7) 

Headline Updates

POSTED MAR 19, 2019

H.R. 1 

One of the first orders of business for the newly-elected Democratic majority in the House was to craft a far-reaching ethics and voting rights bill, H.R. 1 (aka, the "For the People Act").  In the Senate, Republican majority leader Mitch McConnell will not even bring up the bill for a vote.  An excerpt from the Palm Beach Post editorial, "Blocking H.R. 1, the GOP seems afraid of democracy", of March 17: 

For anyone who doubts that Americans are fighting a war today over the future of democracy, take a look at what’s happening in the U.S. Congress.  On March 8, the House of Representatives voted for the Democrats’ major reform bill, 234-193 -- an important blow against the incessant erosions of our political process. All 13 of Florida’s Democratic congressmembers voted for it; none of the 14 Republicans did.  And in the Republican-controlled Senate, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell won’t even bring the measure, H.R.1, up for debate. Instead, he and his allies are attacking the “terrible bill.”

What makes this bill so dastardly? Why, it seeks to lessen the influence of super-rich donors. To tighten ethics rules for Congress and force presidential candidates to reveal their tax returns. Most important, it would ban the most common forms of voter suppression and greatly expand voter participation.

California announces a death penalty moratorium.  

The US is the only advanced democracy to have a death penalty.  In the mid-1990s, more than 300 people were sentenced to death each year. By contrast, 39 people were sentenced to death last year. The end of the death penalty in the US may be approaching. An excerpt from a Washington Post guest post, "The end of the death penalty in America as we know it":

On Wednesday [March 13], California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced a moratorium on the death penalty, saying he would grant clemency to all 737 people on death row in San Quentin. The closing of the nation’s largest death row (you can see photos of the death chamber at San Quentin being dismantled already) brings us much closer to the end of the death penalty in America... as the Death Penalty Information Center has pointed out, more than one-third of the nation’s death-row population is in states in which governors have said no executions will take place. 

Republican state legislatures continue to limit ballot initiatives passed by voters

I've already posted on the efforts in Maine, Utah, North Carolina, and Wisconsin to limit ballot initiatives or strip an incoming Democratic governor of traditional executive branch powers.  The latest is the Florida legislature's attempt to restrict the application of Amendment 4, which returned the right to vote to people convicted of a felony after they had completed their sentence.  The Orlando Sentinel reports:

A bill to be considered Tuesday [March 18] in a Florida House committee would create new obstacles to restoring ex-felons’ voting rights mandated by Amendment 4, activists said Monday.  The House Criminal Justice Committee’s bill is the culmination of months of arguments about whether Amendment 4, which passed in November with almost 65 percent of the vote, would be watered down by the Legislature – or even whether lawmakers needed to pass any implementation bill at all.  The bill “is an affront to Florida voters,” said Kirk Bailey, political director for the ACLU of Florida, who said it was “overbroad, vague, [and] thwarts the will of the people … This is exactly what we were worried about from the beginning.”

SCOTUS conservatives endanger habeas corpus in 5-4 immigrant detention ruling.  

Vox reports:

Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have the power to arrest people who aren’t US citizens and detain them for months or years, based on past convictions, with no chance of release on bond. They can do this even to green card holders, and even if the convictions were fairly minor and the immigrant completed the sentences (or paid the fines) years ago. ...The court’s liberals appear increasingly worried that the mandatory-detention law itself is unconstitutional. “I fear,” wrote Justice Stephen Breyer in a dissent for the Court’s four liberals, that Tuesday’s ruling “will work serious harm to the principles for which American law has long stood” — principles that say that, as a rule, the government can’t detain anyone indefinitely without showing cause and that people who have served criminal sentences can’t be summarily reimprisoned for the same crime. 

Gun violence

Daily Kos, Mar 15: 

In poll after poll, for more than a decade, Americans have overwhelmingly supported requiring universal background checks on all purchases of firearms. At the beginning of this month, the House of Representatives passed a bill to require background checks of all would-be gun buyers...Some 200 survivors of shooting victims, informally led by Frank Guttenberg, whose 14-year-old daughter Jaime was murdered in the Parkland shooting, have written a letter to Democratic senators calling them out for not championing universal background checks and urging them to “fight for us” on gun-law reform. 

As the most important gun control legislation in two decades languishes in the Senate and faces a certain veto at Trump's desk, states are moving on their own. 

New Hampshire House passes background checks and waiting period legislation

Giffords Mar 19: “Someone in New Hampshire every 3 days dies from a gunshot—forever changing the lives of hundreds of families,“ said Molly Voigt, state legislative manager at Giffords. “After decades of politicians refusing to do anything to address this epidemic, New Hampshire has a new majority of leaders taking action to pass two lifesaving measures. Background checks will help keep guns out of the hands of individuals who shouldn’t have them, and a waiting period can stop someone in a crisis from impulsively committing suicide. We thank lawmakers in the House who stepped up to fight for this legislation and urge the senate to move quickly to get this to the governor’s desk so we can make New Hampshire safer from gun violence.”

Maryland House Approves Bill Requiring Background Checks for Long Gun Purchases

WGMD, Mar 19: "The Maryland House of Delegates passed a bill requiring background checks for purchases of all long guns, including shotguns and rifles on Monday night."

And then there's this insanity coming from a Missouri state legislator as a counter to sensible anti-gun violence legislation.  

A Republican Representative in Missouri just introduced two bills that if passed, would require residents of Missouri that are over a certain age to purchase a gun. The first bill would require Missouri residents that are 21 or older and who are legally allowed to carry a gun, to purchase a handgun. The second bill would require Missouri residents that are between the ages of 18 and 35 and who are legally allowed to carry a gun, to purchase an AR-15.  "A Missouri lawmaker who’s introduced measures that would force adults to own handguns and young adults to own AR-15 semi-automatic rifles said he’s trying to make the point that mandates are bad and doesn’t actually want to require gun ownership. " (Washington Post, Mar 15)

The Greatest Hits of the Trumpocalypse (so far)

POSTED APRIL 2, 2019

Trump voters are sticking with him, and, if the economy doesn't crash before November 2020*, we may be in for another four years of "The Donald".  Several recent personal observations:

- Someone who hangs with a conservative Republican crowd mentioned to me the other day that "everyone was saying what a great job Trump was doing."  I have no doubt they believe it - particularly if they watch Trump's state media channel.  One of my acquaintances said that watching anything but Fox News was listening to "fake news".  

- Waiting to check out at the neighborhood supermarket a couple of months ago, I was harangued by a MAGA-land denizen when I said I didn't watch Trump's SOTU because I thought he was divisive.  To which he replied, "You know who was divisive? Obama.  He was the divider-in-chief."  I didn't come back with a reply.  Ignorance and bias that deep cannot be reasoned with.  

With the Mueller probe behind him, Trump has swung into full campaign mode - attacking the ACA and spewing his anti-immigrant venom across the landscape.  It worked in 2016, but not as well in 2018.  Anyway, the next time a Trumpist tells you what a great job the president's doing, you could ask which of these Administration "accomplishments" he or she is most delighted with?  Here's a dirty dozen to suggest as a start.

1. The number of Americans without health insurance has increased by 7 million since Trump took office. (Vox, January 23 analysis of Gallup National Health and Well-Being Index Survey)

2. The unilateral withdrawal from the JCPOA (Iran nuclear deal) and the reimposition of sanctions in spite of Iran's complete compliance with the agreement. None of the other signatories have left the agreement.

3. Trump's withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement.  The US, the world's second largest greenhouse gas emitter, is the only nation not in the agreement.

4. The "kids in cages" immigration policy at the Mexico border, which saw thousands of children separated from their families, and an unknown number still not reunited. (NBC News, Jan 17)

5.  The rollback of the DACA protections against deportation which has thrown into turmoil the lives of 3.6 million immigrants who came here as children. (Splinter News, Mar 29)

6. Cutting off all aid to the Palestinians - one of the most marginalized and oppressed peoples in the world - and acting in concert with the apartheid state of Israel to destroy Palestinian hopes for a homeland.

7. a) Withdrawal from the Intermediate Nuclear Forces agreement with Russia. b) Production of a new, low-yield nuclear warhead for its Trident missiles that arms control advocates warn could lower the threshold for a nuclear conflict. (The Guardian, Jan 28)

8. EPA decisions: 1) to scrap Obama's clean power plan, 2) to loosen toxic air pollution regulations, 3) to reduce the Obama administration's fuel economy targets. (National Geographic, Feb 15)

9. Trump's executive order calling for a 30% increase in logging on public lands. (National Geographic, Feb 15)

10.  The Administration's continued support of the Saudi Arabian regime, whose actions in Yemen have made that country the site of the world's biggest current humanitarian crisis.

11. The Muslim travel ban and Trump's contribution to Islamophobia.

12. a) The record high number - 1020 - of US hate groups active in 2018. (SPLC) 

 b) The 226 percent increase in hate crimes in counties that hosted political rallies with Trump as the headliner in 2016 over comparable counties that did not host such a rally in subsequent months.  (The Washington Post, Mar 22)

*Since Reagan's election in 1980, no Democrat has taken back the presidency in a year without recession.

Updates: Democracy, immigration, the Mueller report, Trump & nukes, Iran sanctions

POSTED APRIL 24, 2019/ UPDATED APRIL 28 & JUNE 27

The Supreme Court heard arguments on the 2020 census' citizenship question and appear poised to give the Trump administration a victory on what Ari Berman of Mother Jones and The Nation Institute calls "one of the most important cases for democracy in decades."  The question, designed to scare non-citizens into not responding, would lead to a vast undercount in states with large immigrant communities -  6.5 million according to census officials.  "The census determines so many things in our society: how $880 billion in federal funding is allocated, how voting districts are drawn, how many House seats, how many Electoral College votes states have."  It is a move carefully calculated to reduce the electoral power of states with large immigrant populations - such as California, New York, and Texas - and preserve white power in the face of changing demographics.   

UPDATE April 28, 2019 

The success of Democrats, particularly in minority communities, in the 2018 midterms appears about to unleash another wave of Republican voter suppression similar to what happened after Barack Obama's election in 2008.  Tennessee Republicans are advancing a bill that would penalize voter registration drives.  In a clear attack on the successful efforts to register black voters, "The bill in the senate would create some of the most aggressive regulations on large-scale voter registration in the nation — like civil penalties for groups that unintentionally file incomplete voter registration forms. It would impose criminal sanctions on organizers who don’t attend training sessions run by local officials and on groups that fail to mail in voter registration forms in a short 10-day window."  (New York Times, April 24)  The tactic could become even more widespread than the vote-suppressing voter ID laws enacted in Republican-held states after Obama's election.   

UPDATE June 27, 2019

Chief Justice John Roberts sided with the court's liberals today to temporarily block the question from getting on the census questionnaire until the government can prove an adequate reason. The question has been sent back to the lower courts. In response, Trump has threatened to delay the census.

In yet another uninspiring story about Trump's inspiration of the wrong kinds of people, "armed vigilantes [have been] illegally detaining 300 migrants, including young children, near Sunland Park, New Mexico."  The far-right, pro-Trump group calls itself United Constitutional Patriots, which the American Civil Liberties Union described as an “armed fascist militia organization.”  The good news is that just days after the ACLU issued a complaint, the FBI "arrested the head of an armed vigilante group that has repeatedly filmed itself detaining migrant border crossers at gunpoint."

The redacted Mueller report issued - complete with a press conference in which the nation's top prosecutor described the feelings of the man under investigation.  Contrary to the AG's characterization, the Mueller report in no way exonerates Trump from charges of obstruction of justice.  Slate's Mark Joseph Stern writes: "Special counsel Robert Mueller found ample evidence to convict President Donald Trump of obstruction of justice. His investigation uncovered multiple attempts by the president to hamper his investigation into potential misconduct by Trump and his associates."  While Mueller did not issue an indictment, his report notes that he is handing this over to Congress and "that Congress may apply the obstruction laws to the President’s corrupt exercise of the powers of office accords with our constitutional system of checks and balances and the principle that no person is above the law." 

There are many concerns about a second Trump term [link below left].  The greatest is that Trump does not extend New START, the nuclear weapons agreement which since 2011 has limited the strategic nuclear arsenals of Russia and the United States.  New START expires in 2021, and Trump has expressed no interest in extending it.  In his first term, Trump has withdrawn from the Iran Nuclear Agreement and the INF (Intermediate Nuclear Forces) agreement and is in the process of deploying "the world's most dangerous nuclear weapon" - an easily fireable nuke that arms control advocates warn lowers the threshold for a nuclear conflict.  Abandoning New Start (which after all is another of Obama's agreements) would signal an end to America's commitment to the nuclear non-proliferation protocol.  2021 would "mark the first year since 1972 [SALT I and SALT II] without a legally binding agreement in place to control and reduce the deadliest arsenals ever constructed."(The Atlantic)

In its continuing effort to overthrow Iran's government, the Trump administration announced that it would cease granting waivers to countries allowing them to buy Iranian petroleum as of May 2.  "Iran is only exporting 1.1 million barrels of petroleum per day, down from 2.5 million before the Trump administration violated the 2015 Iran deal and imposed unilateral severe sanctions. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says he wants to take the exports down to zero...The legitimacy of these US sanctions is rejected by the European Union, the UN Security Council, Turkey, Russia, China and India, and of course by Iran itself."  Juan Cole at Informed Comment notes that countries have found ways to circumvent the US economic sanctions, that even if the US and its Gulf allies could replace Iran’s petroleum reliably, they can’t make marketed oil cheaper than discounted black market oil, and that Iran is a country of 80 million with a complex economy that in some ways is held back by the petroleum. Cole concludes:

That Trump will be able to overthrow the Iranian government in this way seems doubtful, though the US and Britain did pull off something like it in 1953. Note that the US and Britain only got what they wanted for 15 years before the Islamic Republic arose to give them a major decades-long headache. They’d certainly have been better off leaving the Mosaddegh government alone. Lord knows what monstrosity yet another US coup in Iran will produce. But perhaps the way Bush managed to create ISIL by overthrowing Saddam Hussein can give us an inkling.   

Trump, Guns, and Terrorism

POSTED APRIL 28, 2019

"Last week a federal judge announced that Christopher Hasson, a US Coast Guard lieutenant accused of plotting to kill politicians and journalists, may be released from jail ahead of his trial. US District Judge Charles B. Day said that while he had “grave concerns” about Hasson, a 50-year-old white supremacist from Maryland who had been stockpiling weapons for at least a decade, he could not fairly deny bond because Hasson had only been charged with gun and drug offenses and not a crime like terrorism." (Mother Jones, Apr 26)

There is a loophole in the US terrorism laws that allows a white supremacist to get away with something another terrorist would not.

According to Mary McCord, a longtime federal prosecutor who was formerly deputy assistant attorney general for national security at the Justice Department, there’s no terrorism statute that applies to someone who uses a firearm or a vehicle to commit violence motivated by white supremacy...Some experts argue it’s time to close this loophole. “Our outdated laws, or complete lack thereof in the domestic terrorism space, have created a double standard,” says Jason M. Blazakis, director of the Center on Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism at the Middlebury Institute. Whether white supremacy or jihad are the motivating factor behind an attack, adds McCord, acts of violence that are intended to scare people should be treated on the same moral plane. Creating a terrorist statute to this effect, she argues, would lead federal law enforcement to devote more resources to investigating far-right extremist violence, ideally to prevent it from happening so much in the first place. (Mother Jones, Apr 26)

Early in his Administration, Trump made clear that the only terrorism worth worrying about was that of Islamic jihadists.  That the vast majority of terroristic crimes in this country after 9/11 were committed by white hate groups and individual deluded white nationalists did not seem to bother him in the least.  Okay, it's all part of his fear campaign against Muslims and a bone to the racists and Islamophobes in his base.  Still, this past Friday at the NRA convention in his continuing payback to the NRA's $30 million investment in his 2016 campaign, the Donald took a step that was bizarre even for him.  

Donald Trump said Friday he would remove the United States from a global arms treaty, the latest example of his administration’s disdain for international agreements and restrictions on weapons sales. His pledge to abandon the “badly misguided” Arms Trade Treaty, which restricts the transfer of weapons to terrorists and other malicious actors outside of the country, drew a standing ovation at the annual National Rifle Association meeting in Indianapolis, where Trump was speaking. .“THIS IS INSANE,” Alexandra Bell, a former State Department official, said on Twitter. “The whole point of the Arms Trade Treaty is to get the rest of the world to follow American principles on how and when to sell arms. We are pulling out of a treaty that is based on American values.” (Mother Jones, Apr 26)

Apparently preventing terrorism globally takes a back seat to the Second Amendment.  Until Trump's speech Friday, the only countries that had opposed the 2013 arms trade treaty were North Korea, Iran and Syria.

But how shall we pay for it?

POSTED JUNE 12, 2019 - JUNE 25, 2019 - JULY 13, 2019

A friend speaking to her more progressive daughter: "Free college, free healthcare...that's all very nice. But how shall we pay for it?"  When conservatives don't cry "socialism" at programs that help anyone but the rich, they fall back on "we can't afford it" or "raising taxes will slow economic growth" or, more spitefully, "they just want a handout."  These arguments do not stand up to scrutiny.  

A three-part series that explores how we could have an economically just twenty-first century America.

Part I - Cut the defense budget and raise the minimum wage

Part II - Wealth and income taxes: fairness, loopholes, and the trickle down myth

Part III - 21st century challenges - universal health care, global warming, automation

READ MORE

Trump's Unofficial Campaign Kickoff: The Racist Tweet of July 14, 2019

POSTED JULY 15, 2019/UPDATED JULY 16 & 18

On the weekend that ICE agents were raiding immigrant communities looking for people to deport, Donald Trump signaled the unofficial start of his 2020 campaign.  He did it in his most racist, vile tweet yet - telling progressive Congresswomen of color to go back to their "worst, most corrupt, and inept" home countries.  Never mind that three of the four apparent targets* were born in the US.  The starting gun has been fired and Trump's racist base is energized.

The Congresswomen fired back.  Ilhan Omar's response turned Trump's words on him: "As Members of Congress, the only country we swear an oath to is the United States. Which is why we are fighting to protect it from the worst, most corrupt and inept president we have ever seen."  And observed, "You are stoking white nationalism bc you are angry that people like us are serving in Congress and fighting against your hate-filled agenda."

We can rest assured that Trump will continue to tweet his anti-immigrant and racist invective for the rest of the campaign.  And that Congressional Republicans, in fear of Trump's angry base, will remain silent as long as their agenda is being fulfilled.  As Stephen Collinson at CNN notes:

The most shocking thing about Donald Trump's racist tweets is that possibly the most fundamentally un-American outburst of modern presidential rhetoric did not come remotely as a surprise.  The second most shocking aspect of an episode that would have rocked any other administration is that the President knows he can trade in such base tactics because he will pay no price in a Republican Party cowed by his fervent political base.

Chauncey Devega at Salon reminds us that love it or leave it "troglodyte patriotism, low and unseemly coming from a drunk on a barstool, and nearly impossible to believe coming from the president of the United States" is not new.

This kind of "Love it or leave it!" patriotism has always been infused with white supremacy. Such language has have routinely been directed towards nonwhites and others — especially liberals, progressives and socialists — who want to make the United States a better country. Those who throw these rhetorical bombs imagine the nation as one being a "real American" is synonymous with being white and Christian.

But will the dog whistle that was so successful in 2016 work in 2020?  Although Trump is betting the house on it, Frida Ghitis at CNN thinks that this electoral strategy will backfire:

The America I have known is made up primarily of people who are intrigued and attracted to people of different backgrounds.  And although there has always been a segment that does not trust outsiders -- and bigots who consider non-whites inferior -- most Americans are not racists, not bigots, and not nativists....This is not 2016. In 2016, the entire world was terrified by ISIS terrorists beheading hostages and blowing up nightclubs. The Great Recession was recent enough that people still feared the recovery might unwind, making it easier for many people to believe that immigrants were taking away their jobs. He could frighten people by talking about rapists at the border, promising better health care, and an administration of "only the best people." Back then, we didn't know quite how much Trump lied, and how many of his promises he would be unable to keep.

I hope Ms. Ghitis is right.  In the meantime, with mainstream media not calling Trump out for the racism that he stokes and the divisions he creates, we would do well to heed the advice of Mr. Devega:

If those white Americans who feel themselves perpetually shocked and surprised by Donald Trump's racism and other foul behavior could answer the following questions, perhaps we could expect a better result in the 2020 presidential election and the years to follow.

When we told you that Trump and his supporters were white supremacists, why didn't you listen to us then? Three years in, have you learned anything about why you were in such denial? What are your biases and blind spots? Will you listen to us next time?**

Hope is a good thing. Hope can also be a foolish thing. Holding one's breath while waiting for answers to these questions will likely be dangerous to one's health.

"The Squad" reminds us that we should not be distracted by Trump's vicious tweets.  The Democracy Now! piece [link below right] presents their response - the issues they were elected by their constituents to fight for and the abuses of the Administration of true American values.

*Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan.  All four women are U.S. citizens. All but Omar were born in the United States. Omar is originally from Somalia, from which she fled as a refugee before settling in the U.S. (NPR, July 14)

**Journalist Jonathan M. Katz summarized this perfectly on Twitter, writing on Sunday: "Donald Trump was an authoritarian white supremacist with fascist tendencies in 2015, and every single public figure and publication that did not make that clear from the moment he announced is complicit in the #ICEraid, the concentration camps, and everything happening today." (Salon, July 15)

Anti-fascist action: the Portland demonstrations

POSTED AUGUST 20, 2019

Portland took a stand this weekend against white supremacy and hate groups.  Antifa stood with residents to protect against ultra-right groups whose members had engaged in violence on other occasions.  The counter-demonstrators outnumbered the ultra-right, who, after 45 minutes, decided to leave the city.  They asked for a police escort out of the city.  The City of Portland provided the escort, and the demonstration and counter-demonstration ended peacefully.  

One of the more absurd notes on the demonstrations was Trump's tweet that major consideration was being given to naming Antifa a terrorist group, a proposal made by some Republican lawmakers and right-wing provocateurs.  The right-wingers demonstrating in Portland had organized around the issue, calling their demonstration a march to end domestic terrorism.  So once again Trump played to his white supremacist base in a manner reminiscent of his "fine people" support of neo-Nazis and racists in Charlottesville.  That 300 people have been killed by members of extreme-right groups in the last two years and none by Antifa ever was another fact Trump chose to ignore and distort.  His tweet was also in perfect accord with his Administration's attempt to prosecute humanitarian aid workers for saving lives in the desert near the US-Mexico border.

Democracy Now! interviewed Portland Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty and Shane Burley, a Portland-based freelance journalist and film maker, to gain some insight and background.  

Commissioner Hardesty on the "unhelpful" Trump tweet:

"...quite frankly, antifa has not been the problem in Portland. The problem has been Proud Boys and white supremacists sending out messages all over the country encouraging other white nationalists and white supremacists to come to Portland and beat up on community members. I mean, that’s just pretty appalling. "

Shane Burley on Proud Boys, one of the ultra-right groups in the demonstration:

"Proud Boys are a kind of far-right street gang that have been kind of taking the streets all around the country, having these kind of Trumpist events that are really focused on demonizing immigrants, propping up traditional gender roles and basically victimizing anyone that comes out and protests them. And they’ve been coming to Portland almost monthly for the last three years to stage these kind of vague political events where they end up staging really brutal, gang-style attacks on counterprotesters. "

...and on Patriot Prayer:

"Patriot Prayer is a far-right group that’s [from] the Portland area, and they’ve been staging kind of right-wing protests for the last few years.... [Patriot Prayer] started as kind of pro-Trump rallies with really deep anti-immigrant rhetoric, with transphobic rhetoric, with all kinds of like kind of bigoted speeches, and it’s turned into a much more militant, kind of almost militia-style organization, where they are coming out, looking for counterprotesters and trying to basically find clashes wherever they can and victimize people on the street. And this has been responsible for dozens of acts of violence around the city, really serious injuries for counterprotesters and lots of kind of targeted acts outside of protest realm. So, people have been very wary about Patriot Prayer, including that one of their attendees murdered two people in an Islamophobic attack on a Portland train two years ago. 

...and on Antifa:

Antifa just means anti-facist...And so, the Proud Boys, for example, left on their own devices, have proven that they’re going to attack people, they’re going to threaten people, they’re going to essentially lay siege with political violence on an area.  Anti-facist protesters, on the counterside, just want to create a defensive situation, where they’ll block them from moving around the city, block them from being able to victimize marginalized folks, and to create a really strong countermessage and countermovement to what the goals of those far-right groups are. 

Commissioner Hardesty on what Portland learned 

What I hope that our city has learned from this weekend is that when we come together, even if we don’t agree on a whole bunch of stuff normally, when we come together and stand up against hate groups and stand up against people coming in and trying to take over our streets, they leave. They understand that we’re not going to accept that. 

[Link below] to the entire interview.

"It's (still) the economy, stupid."

POSTED AUGUST 23, 2019

In an April post, I suggested asking our Trumpist friends what they think Donald was doing that was so "great" next time they mentioned it.  I listed his "greatest hits" as I saw them (dropoff in number with health insurance, "kids in cages", rise in hate crimes, reckless nuclear weapons decisions, etc.) and suggested the Trumpist pick his or her favorite. 

Of course, the answer would be "none of the above" because as Bill Clinton in his first run for President famously said to himself, "It's the economy, stupid!"  Many Americans  just do not care enough about most issues other than how those issues affect their pocketbook.  How they are doing personally, along with their perception of how the economy is doing, informs their vote. 

No Democrat since Jimmy Carter in 1976 has re-taken the White House from a Republican when the country was not in a recession year.  As for Carter's victory, although the economy - the GDP at least -had rebounded from the 1975 recession, unemployment was still near 8%. The July 2019 unemployment rate is less than half that -  3.7%.  

The economy is still doing quite well, Trump's job approval rating is hovering near his first term high, and about 1/3 of the electorate say that they will definitely vote for Trump in 2020.  

The economy has done well, though not as well as Trump has claimed ("greatest in history").  Many of the economic indicators are improving at the same rate as in Obama's presidency as we came out of the Great Recession.  The Washington Post has a thorough analysis comparing the Trump years with the Obama years [link below left].  Two in particular stand out to Trump's advantage - consumer confidence and average hourly pay.  And these two are perhaps the best indicators of what the average voter thinks of the economy.  

Paul Starr's Atlantic article (May 2019) warns of the longer term consequences of a second term, which is "more likely than most people think":

After four years as president, Trump will have made at least two Supreme Court appointments, signed into law tax cuts, and rolled back federal regulation of the environment and the economy. Whatever you think of these actions, many of them can probably be offset or entirely undone in the future. The effects of a full eight years of Trump will be much more difficult, if not impossible, to undo.  Three areas—climate change, the risk of a renewed global arms race, and control of the Supreme Court—illustrate the historic significance of the 2020 election. The first two problems will become much harder to address as time goes on. The third one stands to remake our constitutional democracy and undermine the capacity for future change.

Don't look to Joe Biden's occasional double-digit lead over Trump as a cause for celebration 14 months before the election.  Trump's base will not abandon him regardless of (and, in some cases, because of) the toxicity of his policies.  It will take an enormous get-out-the-vote effort - bigger by far than that of 2018 that helped Democrats regain the House  - to remove Trump from office.  This effort will be in the face of voter suppression measures passed by Republican legislatures in many states and with an economy likely to be still chugging along at a decent pace.  

In the meantime, I'm dusting off my Trumpocalypse Survival Guide [link below right].   These past 2-1/2 years have been worse than I ever imagined.

*At least 224 of the 435 members of the House of Representatives have said they support an impeachment inquiry of President Donald Trump.  (Time)

**Political analysts have been advising Democrats that they were taking the wrong lessons from the Republican effort to bring down Clinton.  I could be mistaken but I don't think so.  Granted, Clinton's "high crimes and misdemeanors" were trivial compared to Trump's record over the past several years.  On the other hand, the fanaticism of the Trump base and their willingness to overlook his abuse of power in return for continuation of his toxic policies is still at a high level.