California Free Press

Off the Top of My Head

by John Lawrence, November 25, 2020

Why Janet Yellen is the Perfect Choice for Treasury Secretary?

Because as former Fed Chairman she knows where the bodies are buried, figuratively speaking of course. She was the first woman to head the Federal Reserve from 2014 to 2018, and now will be the first female Treasury Secretary. She knows that the Federal Reserve has the capacity to just print money and that money does not get added to the national debt or the deficit. The charade that goes on between Mnuchin and Nancy Pelosi represents an unnecessary exercise in futility The Fed has printed trillions of dollars to bail out the banks, and it has swallowed large amounts of Treasury bills if nobody wants to buy them at auction. The Fed's charter is 1) to insure full employment and 2) to check inflation. With all the money the Fed has printed so far with their policy of "quantitative easing", there has been no inflation. So money printing is a viable strategy to keep the economy functioning, but so far it has only functioned well for rich people. Now there can and should be a policy of "quantitative easing for the people." If Congress won't cooperate, Janet Yellen could do an end run around Congress and make a deal between her and the present Fed Chairman, Jerome Powell.

Joe Biden is going to need a lot of money to build green infrastructure, and Congress, if under Republican control, will deny him that money. Is that blunt enough? If MItch McConnell is leader of the Senate, he will make sure that what he did to Obama, he will do to Joe Biden, that is to deny him the wherewithal for any of his progressive programs even if they are less progressive than the left wing of the Democratic party wants. So let's expose this fiction that money is not available for a Green New Deal which amounts to doing what might not even be sufficient to forestall climate change. It would also create millions of good paying jobs by the way. What's wrong with that? Republicans will say that it will add trillions of dollars to the national debt. But did the trillions spent bailing out the big banks add trillions to the national debt? No, it didn't add a penny. That's because the Fed just printed the money, and it didn't increase inflation either. So the money is available for much needed social programs involving renewable energy and green infrastructure. A by product is eliminating unemployment and creating good paying jobs just like the Federal Reserve is tasked to do.

Fed Chairman Jerome Powell has spoken out to encourage more spending to help the economy. He knows that the Fed can and will pick up the slack by buying Treasury bills and deep sixing them on the Fed's balance sheet even as politicians keep up the fiction that Congressional leaders are concerned about the deficit:

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell on Tuesday urged Congress to spend more money to limit the economic damage of the COVID-19 pandemic, the latest in a chorus of current and past Fed officials to tell lawmakers that inaction could lengthen the recession.

“There’s a reasonable probability that more will be needed both from you, and from the Fed,” Powell told the Senate Banking Committee, echoing nudges he has made in nearly every public statement since the pandemic began.

Powell has noted that COVID-19’s economic devastation has fallen hardest on low-income workers — 40 percent of individuals making under $40,000 lost their jobs during the crisis.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., asked whether congressional spending would be a more effective response than the Fed’s monetary policy.

“In the short and medium term, yes: fiscal policy,” Powell said, adding that, in the long term, fiscal and monetary policies encouraging maximum employment were the way to go.

Powell’s urging has been voiced more explicitly by other Fed leaders past and present in recent days. Former Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke co-wrote a letter to congressional leadership Monday that was also signed by Janet Yellen, another former leader of the Fed, and 131 other economists.

“Insufficiently bold congressional policy responses to the Great Recession unnecessarily prolonged suffering and stunted economic growth,” Bernanke wrote, along with Washington Center for Equitable Growth CEO Heather Boushey and Cecilia Rouse, dean of the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton. “Congress should not make this mistake again.”

In the past week, regional Fed presidents have also asked Congress to do more — not just to respond to the pandemic, but to encourage more inclusive growth as Black Lives Matter protests continue across the nation.

“Systemic racism is a yoke that drags on the American economy,” Raphael Bostic, president of the Atlanta Fed and the only African American to lead a regional Fed bank, wrote in a blog post on the regional bank’s website. “A commitment to an inclusive society also means a commitment to an inclusive economy.”

Those comments have been matched by the heads of the Fed’s San Francisco, Richmond and Dallas branches in recent days.

These comments reveal the barely disguised fiction that Congress has to act first in order to open up the flood gates of Federal Reserve money printing. However, even if that is the case, Congress needs to get off its butt. Because of arcane laws, the Fed can't act directly. Powell's barely disguised Fed speak is implying that money is available for bailing out the economy, and that the powers that be should just go ahead and use it. The argument that it would add to the national debt is null and void. The secret that some Congressional leaders want to maintain is that the Fed's trillion dollar bailout of the big banks in 2008 did not add to the national debt. Nevertheless, some Congressional leaders are aware of Modern Monetary Theory which maintains that Deficits Don't Matter. In 2014 the author of this book, Stephanie Kelton, was designated as Chief Economist for the Democratic Minority Staff of the Senate Budget Committee and later became an economic advisor to the Bernie Sanders campaign.

So money is available for a massive Green New Deal which will benefit both the economy and the salvation of the planet from global warming. Other aspects of Joe Biden's and Kamala Harris' agenda are also doable if the US can get off its butt and use the facilities that were available to bail out the big banks for the benefit of middle class and poor Americans and save the planet while doing it.

Off the Top of My Head

What Can Joe Biden Do to "Restore the Soul of the Nation"?

by John Lawrence, November 24, 2020

The Biden Administration has its work cut out for them. Rejoining the Paris Accords on climate change, rejoining the World Health Organization, appointing a head to the Environmental Protection Agency who is actually not trying to destroy the Environment etc etc. All of these things while so necessary are kind of obvious. To restore the soul of the nation, the number one thing Biden needs to do is to demilitarize the nation. The US spends about a trillion dollars a year on its military more than the ten next highest spending countries combined. It's not just a question of the defense budget; it's all the spending in the military-industrial complex as well. This is at a time when the main threat to the US is domestic not foreign terrorism. Dwight Eisenhauer warned about the encroaching military-industrial complex. "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children... This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron."

The violence, discord and division that we see within the United States is a direct reflection of the violence and discord the US has perpetrated in Vietnam and Iraq, two wars which Presidents of the US lied about. The 80 million refugees living in horrible refugee camps in the world are a direct result of US military policy which currently stations soldiers at nearly 800 military bases in more than 70 countries and territories abroad. The US military is the largest employer in the US. The next largest employer, Walmart, employs 1.5 million people. There were a total of 1.3 million active duty military and more than 800,000 reserve forces as of September 2017, according to Defense Department personnel data. But this doesn't count the number of civilians in the military-industrial complex employed by companies like Lockheed Martin (110,000 employees), Boeing (161,133 employees), Raytheon (195,000 employees), BAE Systems (85,800 employees), Northrop Grumman (90,000 employees), General Dynamics (107,000 employees) and many more.

The fact of the matter is that high school graduates who have neither the money nor prospects for college usually go into the military where many benefits await them like free advanced and specialty training, a guaranteed paycheck, free health and dental care, enlistment bonuses, free room and board, educational benefits, a pension and much more. Going into the military right out of high school does not deprive you of a college education. The military can help pay for college or pay off college loans. Most enlistees are eligible for up to 100 percent of college tuition through the Tuition Assistance Program (TAP) while on active duty. Additionally, the Air Force has the nation’s largest community college, the Community College of the Air Force for which enrollment is automatic upon enlistment in the Air Force. Armed Forces education benefit programs include the Forever GI Bill, Army, Navy, Marine and Navy College Funds, College Loan Repayment (including Student Loan Forgiveness) and Student Loan Deferment and Forbearance. As an Uber driver I pick up a lot of military people. One Navy guy told me he joined the Navy so that after 5 years he could get free training to become a helicopter pilot at a civilian school. They even can get a pension after 5 years.

Now the high school graduates like me who have college prospects often like me,, end up in the military-industrial complex. I worked at General Dynamics Convair Division in San Diego for several years, later at the Naval Electronics Lab on Point Loma which has changed its name several times to protect the guilty as they say. So many college graduates especially in the engineering fields end up in the milkitary-industrial complex while high school graduates that don't go to college end up in the military, not because they love the military, but because they love the generous benefits. When you add up all the people in the military plus all the people in the military-industrial complex, it's clear that the US is a militarist state whose employment base is military related. This is nonsensical when a greater threat is from domestic terrorism than foreign terrorism, and there is no threat from foreign nation states only from scattered terrorists which could be dealt with with a fraction of the military and military-industrial complex budget that presently exists.

Now consider the benefits accruing to those who join the peace Corps and AmeriCorps. What there still is a Peace Corps. You never hear a word about it in the media. The Peace Corps provides each Volunteer with housing and a living stipend that enables them to live in a manner similar to people in their community of service. Unlike other international volunteer programs, there is no charge to participate in the Peace Corps. There is no application fee, although costs may only be partially covered for required medical examinations during the application process. Upon completion of two years of service, the Peace Corps provides each Volunteer with more than $10,000 (pre-tax) to help with the transition to life back home. This money is yours to use as you wish. AmeriCorps has some educational benefits after completion. The Segal AmeriCorps Education Award is a post-service benefit earned by individuals who complete approved terms of national service in AmeriCorps programs. Well, suffice it to say, the benefits of joining the Peace Corps or AmeriCorps don't compare with the benefits of joining the military and the funding available for these two programs is meager compared to the military budget.

So what Joe Biden can do is to increase the benefits for Peace Corps and AmeriCorps while increasing the funding for those programs and decreasing the funding for the military and the military-industrial complex. This will have the effect of demilitarizing the consciousness of American citizens and will actually do a lot of good in America and the world. When I was in the military-industrial complex, they encouraged you to vote Republican because Republican administrations would increase military funding while, Democratic administrations would reduce it. The message was clear: If you wanted there to be funding for your job, you'd better vote Republican. That's why there should be a pathway for transitioning to a Peace economy from the Militarist economy which guarantees jobs in the Peace-Industrial complex for those presently employed in the military-industrial complex. In the same way there should be a guarantee of employment in the renewable energy field for those losing their jobs in the fossil fuel field.

A transition to a Peace economy away from the military economy in parallel with a transition to a renewable energy economy away from the fossil fuel economy will do a lot to make the United States and the world a better place, and also, by the way, to restore the soul of the nation.

Off the Top of My Head

Why Do We Need All These People to Rubber Stamp Election Results?

by John Lawrence, December 23, 2020

If Dr Seuss were alive, he might write a book, "Oh, the Votes We Can See." Run the Star Belly Sneetches through the voting machine and they come out with certified votes on their bellies. Run the Sneetches without stars on their bellies through the voting machine and they uncertify the votes. This is nonsense. The US electoral system is nonsense. Why do we need a four member board in Michigan to certify a vote? Why do we need to send a board of electors whose whole purpose is just to rubber stamp the electoral votes that have already been decided? Layers of lawyers are going to sue Star Belly Sneetches to change their stars from Biden to Trump. Other layers of lawyers will sue to get the Sneetches without stars on their bellies to put a Biden on their belly. Meanwhile Joe Biden is Bidin' his time.This is all ridiculous. The United States of Ridiculousness that can't even modernize its election system from the time when electors at least had to ride their horses to Washington with election results.

I think the electors should have to ride horses to Washington, and once there they could be put up in the Trump hotel where they would be coddled and catered to in order to persuade them to cast their electoral vote for Trump. Biden could put up his electors at the Notel Motel where they would get a continental breakfast and a promise of a better job if they cast their vote for Biden. Star Belly Sneetches would pull up their horses outside the Trump hotel and Sneetches without stars could pull up their donkeys at the Notel. Star Belly Sneetches would dine on filet mignon and chant "USA USA" while Sneetches without stars would dine on bologna sandwiches and chant "Black Lives Matter." All the layers of lawyers for both sides would be invited either to the White House for a convocation or to Greene Memorial Stadium for a pep rally. The purpose of these rallies would be to get the electors either to cast their electoral vote for Trump or for Biden irregardless of whether they had a star on their bellies or not.

On the designated day the electors would gather at Union Station to cast their electoral votes except for a last minute challenge in court by the layers of lawyers who want a revote, a recount, a reaudit and a recertification. Hold the phone folks. We must ascertain whether or not there were enough eyeballs on the volunteers who counted the votes. They will be challenged in court because it is alleged that they don't know how to count. Their arithmetical skills must be recertified. One by one they must come before a judge and count from one to a hundred and then do it backwards. If they can't accomplish this simple test, they will be required to go back to the third grade and all votes counted by them will be declared to be tainted. Tainted votes must of necessity and by prudent jurisprudence be thrown out. Because of all these legal challenges this case will be taken to the state Court of Appeals, then to the state Supreme Court. Reaching no decision there the case will be taken to the Federal Court of Appeals and then to the Federal Supreme Court where the Justices will rubber stamp the outcome according to which candidate they are pledged to which is the candidate that appointed them.

When all is said and done the new US President will be sworn in 16 months after the election having denied his opponent's transition team the right to transition. However the layers of lawyers will go back to state court, then Federal court, then Supreme Court to assert their right to transition. I submit to you sir that every worthy gentleman should be able to transition if he feels a need to. The will of the Court turned out to be that the lawyers were directed to the transition room where they could transition to their heart's content in whatever manner they deemed appropriate. But wait a minute. Senator Mitch McConnell just received a letter from one of his constituents, little Johnny Harwood, 8 years old. "Dear Mr McConnell, Why couldn't all the votes be counted in one place and the winner decided then and there. One person, one vote. Just think of all the horse manure that could be alleviated if you simply did just that."

Off the Top of My Head

Why Are Republicans Being So Deferential to Trump?

by Kay Oss and Pam Dennick, November 22, 2020

Why are Republicans still going along with Trump's fantasy that he won the election? Why aren't they speaking out telling him it's over and recognizing Joe Biden as the next President of the United States? The answer is that they realize that the Republican base is really Trump's base. 70 million Americans voted for Trump, and these people are more loyal to Trump than they are to the Republican party. If Trump wanted to, he could take these voters with him and form his own party. Then where would that leave the Republican party? It would be a head without a body. Trump could effectively decapitate the Republican party. That's why the Republican leadership is handling Trump with kid gloves.

The Republican party is an incongruous amalgam of an old line Republican head exemplified by Mitch McConnell, Lindsay Graham and Mitch Romney and a base consisting of white supremacists and other disgruntled people with a multitude of grievances. These two quasi Republican groups have little in common. The Republican head represents rich people and are mainly interested in using politics as a means to wealth and power. The Republican base, which is really Trump's base, consists of aggrieved and uneducated people who are readily amenable to conspiracy theories and the entertainment value of political theater. The problem with the Republican party is that the head needs Trump's base in order to even have a viable political party. Without this ill fitting base they represent very few people. So Trump only needs to repudiate the Republican party and tell his base that he is forming his own party. This spells doom for the Republican party which needs Trump's base to get elected.

Trump has already formed a PAC, and most of the money he is raising is money that he has complete control over. Trump is very interested in monetizing his popularity. This money could be used for political purposes or it could be used for paying off Trump's humungous debts once he leaves office. This is money that would be evacuated from Republican coffers and be used to fill Trump's personal coffers. If Republican leadership repudiates Trump, they will live to rue the day as Trump takes his base and goes home with it. Republican leadership must maintain the fiction that their values and the values of Trump's base are really compatible. They're not.

The fact is that the Republican party doesn't stand for anything but sheer ambition for wealth and power. On the other hand the Democratic party stands for helping the middle class and the poor and saving the earth from the ravages of global warming. We are very soon arriving at the stage of global warming where fire season and hurricane season are year round events. In other words they are no longer seasonal. The seasons are getting longer year after year. Nevertheless, despite the fact that wealthy Republicans are taking measures to protect their wealth from the ravages of global warming, they must keep up the fiction in public that global warming is a hoax. Hoaxes and conspiracy theories are the stock in trade which Trump uses to feed his base and keep them entertained. Without them there would be nothing to keep them interested. Reality just is not as much fun. Fact based science is boring. The problem is that fact based science will help us get better; conspiracy theories will lead us down the rabbit hole of self-deception and disaster.

It can only be hoped that Joe Biden and the Democratic party will have the courage to do what is necessary to get the United States on the right track, to build on a constructive agenda which benefits the American people and the world, extracts Trump's base from their rabbit hole and heals the underlying condition of the complete denial of reality which Trumpism represents. America has come very close to a fascist takeover of democracy, and we're not out of the woods yet. Trump is still a force to be reckoned with in or out of office.

Off the Top of My Head

Are We Really All in This Together?

by John Lawrence, October 21, 2020

The pandemic in terms of dying has affected mainly old people and minorities, but also there have been many at the highest level White House related cases including 87 year old Senator Chuck Grassley. I assume that these high level cases have been and will be treated with monoclonal antibodies like Remdesivir which "cured" President Trump. These treatments it should be noted are not available to everyone. Why not if they are so efficacious. Those who have the best treatments available can subscribe to the thesis that the coronavirus is no big deal. Mainly others are doing the dying.

Pope Francis' words of wisdom, Fratelli Tutti, his encyclical letter on Fraternity and Social Friendship represents a plea that we all should be in this together even though it's clear that in many parts of the world we're not. His words of wisdom follow:

"All too quickly, however, we forget the lessons of history, “the teacher of life”. Once this health crisis passes, our worst response would be to plunge even more deeply into feverish consumerism and new forms of egotistic self-preservation. God willing, after all this, we will think no longer in terms of “them” and “those”, but only “us”. If only this may prove not to be just another tragedy of history from which we learned nothing. If only we might keep in mind all those elderly persons who died for lack of respirators, partly as a result of the dismantling, year after year, of healthcare systems. If only this immense sorrow may not prove useless, but enable us to take a step forward towards a new style of life. If only we might rediscover once for all that we need one another, and that in this way our human family can experience a rebirth, with all its faces, all its hands and all its voices, beyond the walls that we have erected.

"Unless we recover the shared passion to create a community of belonging and solidarity worthy of our time, our energy and our resources, the global illusion that misled us will collapse and leave many in the grip of anguish and emptiness. Nor should we naively refuse to recognize that “obsession with a consumerist lifestyle, above all when few people are capable of maintaining it, can only lead to violence and mutual destruction”. The notion of “every man for himself” will rapidly degenerate into a free-for-all that would prove worse than any pandemic."

Yet in the US we are divide into two nations fundamentally at war with each other. Even religious institutions fan the flames of political divides. Masc wearing has become something that freedom loving Americans feel free to not do on Constitutional grounds. Caring about the welfare of others is unAmerican when it takes away from some Americans' freedoms. That's the American way: freedom trumps "Fraternity and Social Friendship" as the Pope would say. Is freedom the only value worth supporting? Must it dominate all other values? Must saving the earth from global warming be politicized into a Left-Right issue? Those who want to convert to renewable energy are characterized as "too far Left?" It isn;t a matter of Left Right. It's a matter of what is the right thing to do.

When it comes time to give the American people a tax break, there's no hue and cry about deficit spending. When the big banks were bailed out costing trillions of dollars, there was no hue and cry about deficit spending. Even though many of the bankers had committed fraud, none of them went to jail and the fines were just a slap on the wrist. But when a government program that forgives student loan debt or funds a massive green infrastructure program is mentioned, all of a sudden Republicans are concerned about deficit spending. It's "too far Left." Providing affordable housing, feeding the hungry, creating jobs for the unemployed - all those ideas are "too far Left." It's more important to preserve American values than it is to solve social problems. In other words despite the Pope's pleas, we are not all in this together. Freedom is more important than social cohesion.

Off the Top of My Head

Trump's Götterdämmerung

by John Lawrence, November 20, 2020

As Russian troops were entering Berlin in the last days of WW II, Hitler, deep in his bunker in Berlin, issued his final orders that all German bridges and roads were to be blown up. Anything of value in Germany was to be destroyed. He didn't want anything but a destroyed Germany turned over to the Allies. Fortunately, the German Generals ignored his orders. Similarly, Trump, still the most powerful man in the world, for the next two months, is taking his revenge for losing the election, as Hitler did for losing the war, by destroying as much of the US as possible before handing it over to Joe Biden. Hitler had lost faith in the German people because they had betrayed him by losing the war. Trump is showing his total disregard for America for turning him into a loser.

Götterdämmerung is the last in Richard Wagner's cycle of four music dramas titled Der Ring des Nibelungen in which Valhalla is destroyed by flames. It can be interpreted as a death wish for society if the leader himself must die. It has been interpreted as Hitler's wanting to destroy German society if he himself must be destroyed. If he could not prevail, he wanted to totally bring Germany down with him. Trump is acting in a similar manner. He is presiding over the worst pandemic in US history while steadfastly refusing to do anything about it. He will not do anything at this point to help the American people. There will be no stimulus or relief package as long as Trump remains as President. He has ordered an end to the Federal Reserve's emergency relief funds just today. Neil Bradley, US Chamber of Commerce VP & Chief Policy Officer said, "A surprise termination of the Federal Reserve's emergency liquidity programs ... prematurely and unnecessarily ties the hands of the incoming administration, and closes the door on important liquidity options for businesses at a time when they need them most." Of course Trump's main goal is to "tie the hands of the incoming administration." He wants to make Joe Biden's job as the next President as difficult and hamstrung as possible. Why do you think he won't let the GSA give access to the normal transition funds and office space? Why do you think he won't cooperate with the incoming Biden administration in any way?

As a LOSER, Trump is becoming the most dangerous man in the whole world. If he can't be America's Führer, he wants to destroy America just as Hitler issued orders to destroy Germany. It is the American Valhalla. Just as in Trump's America, Hitler's Germany was rife with conspiracy theories. The historian John Roberts suggested that the killing of Siegfried by Hagen with a stab in the back gave inspiration for the myth that the German Army did not lose World War I, but was instead defeated by a treasonous "stab in the back" from civilians, in particular Jews and Socialists. So Trump did not actually lose the election, but a vast conspiracy was concocted to overturn its results. How else could Joe Biden win? Richard Wagner himself was a notorious anti-Semite. In America circa 2020. there are too many conspiracy theories to shake a stick at, the flames of which are fanned by numerous conservative talk show hosts and passed around on social media, one of the biggest of which is that George Soros, a Jew, is responsible for the fact that the Democrats have defeated Donald Trump.

The New York Times reported:

On both sides of the Atlantic, a loose network of activists and political figures on the right have spent years seeking to cast Mr. Soros not just as a well-heeled political opponent but also as the personification of all they detest. Employing barely coded anti-Semitism, they have built a warped portrayal of him as the mastermind of a “globalist” movement, a left-wing radical who would undermine the established order and a proponent of diluting the white, Christian nature of their societies through immigration.

In the process, they have pushed their version of Mr. Soros, 88, from the dark corners of the internet and talk radio to the very center of the political debate.

As in Germany, so in America: conspiracy theories, the entertainment value of hate and anger purveyed by vitriolic blowhards including Hitler and Trump themselves, the blaming of "the other" for their problems. Trump could make his Götterdämmerung complete by launching a military strike on Iran thus starting World War 3. It has just been reported that Iran is stockpiling more fissile material than it was supposed to although Trump vacated the JCPOA nuclear agreement with Iran so he left them free to do so. Trump seems determined to leave Joe Biden an unholy, unmanageable, ineffably destructive mess. His determination to tie Joe Biden's hands as much as he possible can before he leaves office is apparent. If he cannot overturn the results of the election, Trump will pull America down with him.

Off the Top of My Head

Trump's Scattershot Foreign Policy

by John Lawrence, November

Trump never had a foreign policy per se just a lot of disconnected impulses and hunches some of which might have borne fruit if there had been some coherent plan for following up. Take Kim Jong Un for instance. I think it was a good thing that he managed to have a personal relationship with him. But nothing came of it because there was no attempt to continue the relationship with any concrete plan. Trump's latest move is to withdraw more troops from Iraq and Afghanistan. But he should have gone ahead and withdrawn them all and ended those ongoing disasters once and for all. Instead he leaves a "token" force there. This is the US military establishment's basic problem; they want a token force in every country of the world. If Trump wanted to be consistent, he would have removed the 50,000 troops from Germany and the 30,000 troops from South Korea. There is no need to occupy all these countries - at great expense to American taxpayers, I might add - since the US has excellent intelligence of all kinds including satellite and human intelligence so that it knows what's happening anywhere in the world and can react almost instantaneously if the need be. A troop presence is unnecessary. Remember the drones?

Trump made a point that NATO - meaning basically Germany - was not paying its fair share. They should have been paying more and doing more to defend themselves and not relying so much on the US. So far, so good. He did get Germany to increase its defense budget, but then he turns around and increases the US defense budget instead of reducing it commensurately. Plus he could have withdrawn the 50,000 US troops from Germany saving a ton of money. Trump's inconsistency is the hallmark of his foreign policy since to call it even a policy is a stretch. A policy connotes some kind of intelligent forethought and planning neither of which were in Trump's skill set.

As far as becoming friends with Vladimir Putin, I think this was a good thing. It is better to have warm personal relationships with the leaders of countries with whom we have potentially tense or adversarial relationships. It is important also not to let those leaders take advantage of or manipulate the US by means of these relationships. It's not clear if this was what was happening. Trump started out with China on the same wavelength which was also a good thing until he decided that it was in his interests to blame China for the "China virus" and start another cold war with China. It is extremely important to have good relationships with Russia and China at this point because cooperation on global warming is essential. Also China is going to come out of the pandemic with the world's leading economy. America will be relegated to number 2. It was more or less tied before the pandemic, but China got the pandemic under control and reopened its economy several months ago.

Trump's attitude towards Iran is not constructive. He withdrew from the JCPOA, and is now contemplating evidently a strike on Iran which would be disastrous. Despite Trump's possible personal business interests in Russia and/or China which led him to be initially more friendly towards those countries, I still think that his detente with them was a positive thing. The Democratic leadership on the other hand seems intent on demonizing Vladimir Putin instead of working with him in a more friendly fashion. I suspect that a Biden administration will try to have a more constructive and positive relationship with China than the Trump relationship devolved into. The boneheaded attempts by Trump to compete with China by demonizing Tik Tok and Huawei will come to an end, I hope. Again the importance of cooperation with regard to global warming between the world's two largest economies cannot be overstated.

Trump's delight in selling billions of dollars worth of weapons to Saudi Arabia was just abhorrent. Fanning the flames of war because it's good for the economy is reprehensible. Let us hope that the Biden administration takes a more constructive approach to reducing the US' occupation forces in many countries of the world, reducing the US footprint, ending finally by means of a total troop withdrawal the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and working cooperatively with the major countries of the world with whom somewhat adversarial relationships have been developing unfortunately. Cooperation and diplomacy should be the watchwords as we try to repair the harm that that US military forces have inflicted in the Middle East and elsewhere putting more emphasis on constructively rebuilding those countries and resettling the millions of refugees that these wars have caused.

Who Wins from Trump’s Final Travesty?

by Robert Reich

Tuesday, November 17, 2020

Leave it to Trump and his Republican allies to spend more energy fighting non-existent voter fraud than containing a virus that has killed 244,000 Americans and counting.

The cost of this misplaced attention is incalculable. While Covid-19 surges to record levels, there’s still no national strategy for equipment, stay at home orders, mask mandates or disaster relief.

The other cost is found in the millions of Trump voters who are being led to believe the election was stolen and who will be a hostile force for years to come – making it harder to do much of anything the nation needs, including actions to contain the virus.

Trump is continuing this charade because it pulls money into his newly formed political action committee and allows him to assume the mantle of presumed presidential candidate for 2024, whether he intends to run or merely keep himself the center of attention.

Leading Republicans like Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell are going along with it because donors are refilling GOP coffers.

The biggest beneficiaries are the party’s biggest patrons – the billionaire class, including the heads of the nation’s largest corporations and financial institutions, private-equity partnerships and hedge funds – whom a deeply divided nation serves by giving them unfettered access to the economy’s gains.

Their heist started four decades ago. According to a recent Rand study, if America’s distribution of income had remained the same as it was in the three decades following the second world war, the bottom 90% would now be $47 trillion richer.

A low-income American earning $35,000 this year would be earning $61,000. A college-educated worker now earning $72,000 would be earning $120,000. Overall, the grotesque surge in inequality that began 40 years ago is costing the median American worker $42,000 per year.

The upward redistribution of $47 trillion wasn’t due to natural forces. It was contrived. As wealth accumulated at the top, so did political power to siphon off even more wealth and shaft everyone else.

Monopolies expanded because antitrust laws were neutered. Labor unions shriveled because corporations were allowed to bust unions. Wall Street was permitted to gamble with other peoples’ money and was bailed out when its bets soured even as millions lost their homes and savings. Taxes on the top were cut, tax loopholes widened.

When Covid-19 hit, Big Tech cornered the market, the rich traded on inside information, and the Treasury and the Fed bailed out big corporations but let small businesses go under. Since March, billionaire wealth has soared while most Americans have become poorer.

How could the oligarchy get away with this in a democracy where the bottom 90% have the votes? Because the bottom 90% are bitterly divided.

Long before Trump, the GOP suggested to white working-class voters that their real enemies were Black people, Latinos, immigrants, “coastal elites,” bureaucrats and “socialists.” Trump rode their anger and frustration into the White House with more explicit and incendiary messages. He’s still at it with his bonkers claim of a stolen election.

The oligarchy surely appreciates the Trump-GOP tax cuts, regulatory rollbacks and the most business-friendly Supreme Court since the early 1930s. But the Trump-GOP’s biggest gift has been an electorate more fiercely split than ever.

Into this melee comes Joe Biden, who speaks of being “president of all Americans” and collaborating with the Republican party. But the GOP doesn’t want to collaborate. When Biden holds out an olive branch, McConnell and other Republican leaders will respond just as they did to Barack Obama – with more warfare, because that maintains their power and keeps the big money rolling in.

The president-elect aspires to find a moderate middle ground. This will be difficult because there’s no middle. The real divide is no longer left versus right but the bottom 90% versus the oligarchy.

Biden and the Democrats will better serve the nation by becoming the party of the bottom 90% – of the poor and the working middle class, of black and white and brown, and of all those who would be $47 trillion richer today had the oligarchy not taken over America.

This would require that Democrats abandon the fiction of political centrism and establish a countervailing force to the oligarchy – and, not incidentally, sever their own links to it.

They’d have to show white working-class voters how badly racism and xenophobia have hurt them as well as people of color. And change the Democratic narrative from kumbaya to economic and social justice.

Easy to say, hugely difficult to accomplish. But if today’s bizarre standoff in Washington is seen for what it really is, there’s no alternative.

'It's Even Worse on Video': Trump Adviser Welcomes Killing Loved Ones With Covid-19 as This May Be 'Their Final Thanksgiving' Anyway

Published on Tuesday, November 17, 2020

by Common Dreams

"Eat, drink, and be merry, because tomorrow my policies may kill you."

by Julia Conley, staff writer

 

8 Comments

Dr. Scott Atlas, a top White House coronavirus adviser, said Monday that Americans should flout public health guidance and gather as normal for the holidays as this may be "the final Thanksgiving" for many. (Photo: screenshot)

In his latest anti-science appeal to Americans, White House coronavirus adviser Dr. Scott Atlas on Monday night called on families to ignore the guidance of public health experts who say the holiday season should not include indoor gatherings—suggesting to Fox News that families should take the risk even for elderly or sick relatives this Thanksgiving because they will no longer be alive next year.

"This kind of isolation is one of the unspoken tragedies of the elderly who are now being told don’t see your family at Thanksgiving," Atlas, who has no public health expertise, told Fox host Martha MacCallum. "For many people this is their final Thanksgiving, believe it or not. What are we doing here?"

Stanford University, where Atlas was a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution before joining President Donald Trump's coronavirus team, promptly distanced itself from the doctor's comments, while political observers expressed shock on social media.

 

Talking Points Memo founder Josh Marshall wrote that for many Americans it will be their last Thanksgiving "because they're attending Thanksgiving."

Protecting the elderly from Covid-19 is one of the main reasons infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci and other officials have called on Americans to skip indoor family gatherings and traveling this year. Last week he advised Americans to wear face coverings at any gatherings they do have if they don't know the Covid-19 status of all attendees. 

Meanwhile, Atlas has falsely stated that face masks don't reduce transmission of Covid-19 and is a proponent of the U.S. government taking a "herd immunity" approach to the pandemic—encouraging people who are relatively young and healthy to go about their daily lives with no regard for mask-wearing, social distancing, or the existence of a virus that's killed more than 246,000 people in the U.S. this year, while using unspecified methods to separate them from people who are elderly or at high risk for severe Covid-19 infections.  

The "herd immunity" approach, euphemistically rebranded as "focused protection" by some proponents, has been denounced as "fringe" by seasoned public health officials. 

On Sunday, Atlas also called on Michigan residents to "rise up" against public health guidance after Gov. Gretchen Whitmer announced that in-person learning, indoor dining, organized sports, and other activities would be shut down for three weeks to mitigate the spread of Covid-19.

"This guy is a public health menace and it needs to stop now," tweeted one emergency room physician on Monday evening following Atlas's comments about Thanksgiving.

---

Everything Seems Quieter

Dear friends,

Everything seems quieter. The collective unconscious has exhaled. Not that all our issues are gone, but many feel we will now see some serious efforts to solve them.  For those of us in the Spiritual community, as it were, our part now is to charge the atmosphere with love and compassion.  Gloating is not a healthy response.  Neither is shaming and blaming.  It was, and is, our shared creation whether we like it or not.  Now is our best chance to shape our future by being in the Light, not succumbing to the temptation of the Dark.

Emerson: “It is greatest to believe and to hope well of the world, because he who does so, quits the world of experience, and makes the world he lives in.” 

     Our personal day to day life is filled with our own thoughts and not much else.

The quality of our experience is the content of our mind.  Knowing that, let’s not give any space to anger, resentments or fear.  Let’s take up the hue and cry of the evolved “Life is Good right where I am.” Jesus. Buddha, Eckhart, and my Grandma all pointed us to Love as the highest healing energy.  Are we ourselves big enough to widen the circle to include those we thought were our enemies?  It is important for those who know the power of mind to use it wisely.  If we want peace, we must be peaceful.  Our inner awareness is the Cause of our immediate reality.

Affirm: “I use my mind to shape a glorious experience for all of us.”

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes www.carol-carnes.com

Off the Top of My Head

Why Isn't Monoclonal Antibody Therapy Widely Available?

by John Lawrence, November 17, 2020

Monoclonal antibody therapy similar to what knocked out COVID for Donald Trump has been shown to knock out the virus if administered within the first couple days of showing symptoms. Trump is a living example that it works, but now as of November 9 the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has issued an emergency use authorization for the monoclonal antibody therapy bamlanivimab for the treatment of mild-to-moderate COVID-19. A study in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) showed that Eli Lilly's COVID-19 convalescent plasma–derived virus-neutralizing monoclonal antibody treatment reduced viral loads, lowered the severity of symptoms, and had no serious adverse effects in outpatients. So it knocks out the virus and also may give short term immunity. "It is important to treat people with COVID-19 as soon as possible after diagnosis in order to forestall development of more severe disease," said Peter Chen, MD, of Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles and first author of the NEJM study. "Our findings indicate that neutralizing antibodies may have the potential to be useful in this early-stage intervention," he added.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announced that starting November 13, Medicare beneficiaries can receive coverage of monoclonal antibodies to treat COVID-19 with no cost-sharing during the public health emergency. CMS’ coverage of monoclonal antibody infusions applies to bamlanivimab, which received an emergency use authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

“Today, CMS is announcing a historic, first-of-its kind policy that drastically expands access to COVID-19 monoclonal antibodies to beneficiaries without cost sharing,” said CMS Administrator Seema Verma. “Our timely approach means beneficiaries can receive these potentially life-saving therapies in a range of settings – such as in a doctor’s office, nursing home, infusion centers, as long as safety precautions can be met. This aggressive action and innovative approach will undoubtedly save lives.”

The only problem is that this life saving treatment is not widely available. The President got it in the form of Remdesivir, and it worked for him. Why are so many people dying who could have been treated with this therapy? The question remains as to why this therapy was not factory produced in the millions of doses just in case it worked like several of the potential vaccines have been.So many Americans are dying just because they have not had access to the same therapy that the President of the US had access to.

Off the Top of My Head

Will Trump Detach His Base From the Republican Party?

by John Lawrence, November 15, 2020

It is becoming clear that the base of the Republican party is more loyal to Trump than they are to the Republican party. The base has really become the Trump party and old guard Republicans like Mitch McConnell are getting nervous that they will not remain loyal to the Republican party. That's why Republicans are showing deference to Trump and his pique that the election was illegitimate. They know he lost the election, but they won't come out and say so. Trump's base even held a huge post election rally last Saturday showing their loyalty to Trump not necessarily the Republican party. This makes it more likely that Trump will take his base with him when he leaves office. Effectively, they would become the Trump party. Whether Trump creates his on media empire or associates himself with Fox news or some other media empire, it's clear that there is an audience he can count on.

The Republican party made a deal with the devil in the 1960s after the Democrats passed the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. Hitherto southern white supremacists and racists had been loyal to the Democratic party.They decided en masse that, if the Democrats were not going to continue to represent their racism and white supremacy, they would switch parties. Republicans then made a deal with the devil and accepted them with open arms because, while Republicans basically represent the interests of the rich, there are not enough of them to form a majority in a constitutional democracy. So far Trump has represented the interests of the old line Republicans by signing into law huge tax breaks for the rich and deregulating everything that could be regulated. His base hardly noticed except for the pittance of a tax break they got. They were more interested in Trump's conspiracy theories and ongoing campaign rallies where Trump sowed his racist and nativist sentiments and stoked their anger. Now it's clear that, if Trump so desired, he could detach his base that is the Republican base and take them with him forming a separate party devoted to Trump and his conspiracy theories. Trump and his henchmen in the alternative and social media world could create their separate entity and reality, which they've already to a large extent, created. So doing would continue the deep divides within the United States and further sow discord and division.

Aligning themselves with Mitch McConnell and a Republican controlled Senate, if the elections in Georgia don't result in two Democratic Senators, will hamper Joe Biden's attempts to enact any of his agenda in the same way that they blocked Obama's agenda for eight years. Then Trump and/or his family members could storm back in 2022 and 2024 to win back what they perceive they have unfairly lost in the 2020 election. They have labeled any middle of the road Democratic programs as far left or socialist and they will use the same tactics to demonize Joe and particularly Kamala as not representative of their racist and white supremacist values. Meanwhile, all the good work which Joe Biden's agenda represents will not get accomplished just like Obama's agenda was prevented from getting much of anything done except for a watered down version of Obamacare which they demonized ever since its enactment. Democrats, heretofore, have tried to cooperate with Republicans and be nice guys while Republicans have been playing hard ball using every bit of their power to promote their interests without any compromise whatsoever. They even went to the extent of denying Ruth Bader Ginsburg's dying wish that the next President replace her on the Supreme Court. This was after they swore up and down that the next President should replace a Supreme Court Justice a year before the end of the Obama Presidency thus denying Obama that privilege.

Joe Biden could fall into the same trap of watering down his agenda just to please Republicans under the guise of cooperation. He supposedly wants to "work across the aisle." He thinks he can get Mitch McConnell to cooperate with him. My advice is to "speak softly and carry a big stick" in the immortal words of Teddy Roosevelt. He mustn't fall into the same trap that Obama - and for that matter Bill Clinton - fell into by playing nice with Republicans. Trump's base will continue to be more loyal to Trump than they will be to Mitch McConnell or the Republican party. Trump will be more concerned about staying out of jail and deferring his $431 million debt repayment so he will enlist his base along those lines. Trump knows that his personal concerns will diverge from legitimate Republican party concerns once he's out of office, and he will enlist his minions to give him their support. Prodigious and ongoing conspiracy theories will fuel the anger of Trump's base, and there will be demands for his reinstatement as the rightful President of the United States.

Off the Top of My Head

It's Almost Thanksgiving: Let's Talk Turkey

by John Lawrence, November 14, 2020

So what are Republicans saying about a Biden administration? That the progressive wing of the Democratic party will push him too far to the left. Well, what exact policies would be "too far to the left"? Defund the police? That's just a radical slogan that means about as much as "Lock her up." In other words it means nothing in terms of either Biden's agenda or progressives in the Democratic party. Reform the police - that would be more like where the Democratic party actually stands. As far as Medicare for All, Biden favors Medicare for All Who Want It. I guess there are those Republicans who so love their employer based health insurance that they are terrified by the possibility that it might be taken away from them and replaced with something better. So Biden's position is go ahead and keep it. He just wants to make it possible that those who do want it will be able to have it or a public option which amounts to the same thing.

So Republican concerns amount to whipping up a bunch of meaningless hysteria just like Trump has always done. It's his stock in trade. So what about the Green New Deal? Who could object to creating jobs to build infrastructure and combat global warming? Oh maybe it's that they fear their taxes will go up? There's actually no reason why anyone's taxes should go up based on the realities as they exist in the 21st century. The government has shown that any amount of money can be found and spent to bail out banks or to add to the debt to give people tax breaks. Trump's tax cuts added a trillion dollars to the debt. Quantitative easing and the money to bail out the big banks amounted to several trillion dollars and yet it has had no adverse effect on inflation or anything else. Modern Monetary Theory has shown that Deficits Don't Matter whether those deficits originate from bailing out the banks or a Green New Deal or Biden's Green Deal which is more or less the same. Expect Republicans to cry bloody murder any time government threatens to formulate a program to combat global warming or to create jobs for poor people or to raise wages for essential workers to $15. an hour.

Money spent constructively on infrastructure or other things will never cause inflation. What will cause inflation is money that is pissed away frivolously or unconstructively. Reorienting out priorities can and should be done even if deficit spending is required to do it. When the economy is rebalanced, it eventually will mean that the rich will have to pay their fair share of taxes in order to reduce inequality. That's the main thing that Republicans are afraid of - that eventually the rich will have to pay their fair share of taxes. In the meantime economic history since 2000 has demonstrated the fact that, if trillions of dollars were found to bail out the banks and give tax cuts to the rich, trillions of dollars can be found to repair and rebuild infrastructure and prevent the world from the disaster of global warming. Private enterprise has done nothing but accelerate global warming because private enterprise consists of the fossil fuel industry. Private enterprise profits from pollution that it doesn't have to compensate for. Therefore, it's up to government to balance out what private enterprise seems incapable of doing. That's not to say that private enterprise is unimportant. It does some things very well, some things that government does not do well. It's a matter of finding the correct balance between private enterprise and government enterprise.

Does any fossil fuel worker object to working in the renewable energy industry providing they are guaranteed a job in that industry? I don't think so. There's no one that loves fossil fuels per se or just because they are fossil fuels. They are not like Scrooge who just loves the look and feel of money. Are there people who so much like the look and feel of oil that they can't bear the thought of working in an industry that doesn't pollute the planet? There are new industries coming - a straw with the look and feel of a plastic straw that biodegrades and doesn't stay in the ocean for hundreds of years like the plastic straw does. These straws are being manufactured today. If government can assist in the ramping up of this private enterprise - Newlight Technologies - we will be all better off except for the plastic straw manufacturers which are using mainly robots to produce their straws so there are not that many jobs involved there.

Huntington Beach, California-based Newlight produces an ocean-degradable biopolymer called PHB using air and greenhouse gas. Newlight's methods are supported by more than a decade of research and development as well as an extensive patent portfolio. Newlight's Series F finance round coincides with the commissioning of a new commercial-scale production facility in California called Eagle 3 and the launch of branded products including a line of cutlery and drinking straws for the food-service industry. Newlight's foodware products deliver a unique level of material safety and certified sustainability, resulting in high-performance, ocean-degradable foodware that works for people and the planet. 

Government can provide an assist to private enterprise as long as that enterprise is headed in a new direction which doesn't pollute and which doesn't produce greenhouse gasses. Which is more important - hanging onto the familiar past or striking out in a new direction that saves the planet and makes it better for our grandchildren? Are we pioneers and adventurers like our ancestors or what?

Off the Top of My Head

Trump's Purported Coup d'Etat

by John Lawrence, November 12, 2020

Trump's path to a second term goes through the Courts and the Republican state legislatures. It is up to the state legislatures to choose the electors who cast the state's electoral votes. So far they have always chosen those electors that are committed to cast their votes for the candidate that won the popular vote. But, as the song says: "It ain't necessarily so." It is conceivable that Trump could win the electoral votes in states in which Biden won the popular vote. Take Georgia for example. Here's how it would work. The Republican Secretary of State decides that there will be a hand recount of all 5 million votes cast in Georgia. That takes time. If the hand recount doesn't get done by November 20, Trump's lawyers could step in and ask the Supreme Court, which is controlled by conservative justices three of whom Trump appointed himself, to decide the election. This is not unprecedented. In 2000 George W Bush asked the Supreme Court to stop the recount process in Florida which they did costing Al Gore the election. If the recount had continued Gore, who won the popular vote not only in Florida but in the US generally, would have been elected. If something like this happens this year, this would give Georgia's 16 electoral votes to Trump instead of Biden.

However, Georgia's 16 electoral votes would not be enough to change the results of the election. Trump's lawyers would have to do the same process in a number of other states as well. In particular they would have to overturn the results in Pennsylvania with its 20 electoral votes. Pennsylvania, it is to be noted, also has a state legislature controlled by Republicans so it is not inconceivable. Currently Trump has 217 electoral votes including Alaska. He is winning in North Carolina with its 15 electoral votes so let's give him that. If he could use the courts and the state legislatures to flip Georgia and Pennsylvania, he would then have another 36 electoral votes for a total of 268, still not the 270 required to win the election. He needs another 2 electoral votes. Where could he find them? Let's see. Arizona's state legislature is controlled by Republicans. Let's assume Trump can do the same thing there. That would give him another 11 electoral votes bringing him to 279. Ipso facto Trump wins the election.

When the framers of the U.S. Constitution outlined the workings of the electoral college system, they didn’t specify how presidential electors should or must be chosen, leaving it up to the various state legislatures to each decide for themselves how to appoint their electors. However, the courts have decided that the states can't change the way they choose their electors after an election. This would throw the whole process into chaos. But chaos is precisely what we have now with Trump refusing to concede the election. Conservative talk show host Mark Levin has tweeted the following:

REMINDER TO THE REPUBLICAN STATE LEGISLATURES, YOU HAVE THE FINAL SAY OVER THE CHOOSING OF ELECTORS, NOT ANY BOARD OF ELECTIONS, SECRETARY OF STATE, GOVERNOR, OR EVEN COURT. YOU HAVE THE FINAL SAY -- ARTICLE II OF THE FED CONSTITUTION. SO, GET READY TO DO YOUR CONSTITUTIONAL DUTY

— Mark R. Levin (@marklevinshow) November 5, 2020

So if Trump and his allies can sow enough confusion into the process of determining certain states' election results, for example, calling for recount after recount, it's conceivable that Trump's lawyers will then ask the Supreme Court to intervene, and they might do the same thing they did in Bush v. Gore in 2000 and award the election to Trump. They might go even further and decide that, since the US Constitution does not specify that state legislatures must pick a slate of electors dedicated to the popular vote, they can decide for any candidate they please. This would effectively make Trump dictator because no one could ever trust election results again. Trump has a considerable base of support in the American electorate and could rely on the fact of this tremendous public support although half the nation at least wants Biden to be the next President, not Trump. After all Biden won the popular vote by over 5 million votes. But Hillary won the popular vote in 2016 and Al Gore won the popular vote in 2000. Having delegitimized the democratic process with his refusal to concede among other things, Trump hardly needs widespread skepticism about the electoral college to sow doubt about the voting process itself. Many people feel that the electoral college should be abolished and that the President should be elected by popular vote. This is only the latest blow to the American political system which is based on the wisdom of a few white men and their understanding of how things should be over 200 years ago. Yet the process can not be changed without three quarters of the states agreeing to a Constitutional amendment.

Off the Top of My Head

Expand Habitat for Humanity in Honor of Jimmy Carter

by John Lawrence, November 11, 2020

The best way to build wealth among poor people is to expand a program that gets them into a house. The debt industry profits off of poor people whether it's Payday lenders, student loan debt, car loan debt, credit card debt or mortgage debt. The debt industry, aka the banking industry, profits off of poor people's debt. That's why the poor need to build wealth which will also close the economic inequality gap. Home ownership is the main way the middle class builds wealth which is then intergenerationally transferable. Habitat says "In fiscal year 2019, we helped more than 7 million people, and an additional 2.3 million gained the potential to improve their housing conditions through training and advocacy." It's not clear how many new houses that 7 million figure represents because they also help people by doing housing improvements. Looking at Habitat's Form 990 reveals some interesting data. They have annual revenues of approximately $300 million. Revenues less expenses for FY 2018 was about $13 million. Without doing an exhaustive analysis of this Form 990, it would seem that $13 million is a paltry amount of money to build new homes if in fact it all went to building new homes. It is to be noted that the CEO made about $400,000. They also seem to spend an enormous amount on advertising and fundraising.

A government program based on the Habitat model could magnify the number of new affordable homes built per year and could be combined with AmeriCorps which is already working with Habitat. Government service building affordable homes should be an alternative to military service with comparable benefits. One drawback of Habitat is that it does not serve homeless or low income families who can't afford a modest mortgage. So a government program based on the Habitat model should look at improving on the Habitat model. Another thing is that Habitat claims to be a "Christian organization." Does that mean that religiously nonChristian families are not eligible? A government program should not have connections to a particular religion but should be open to people of all or no religions. It should be nondenominational. The people who eventually own the homes have to put in a certain amount of "sweat equity." This is good because it makes the homes more affordable. A program based on FDR's Civilian Conservation Corps could employ youths in public service for 2 years building houses in return for free college education and other benefits. These homes need to be solarized and be built in such a way as to be non-emitting of greenhouse gasses.

The best way to co-opt Trump voters is to offer them economic opportunities. Promised economic opportunities (promised but not delivered) are the thing that pushed Trump over the top in 2016 in the rust belt states. A program of building houses ala Habitat not only would help poor people, who are disproportionately minorities, but would tend to placate poor whites who are mainly Trump voters. That's why programs helping the poor can't be labeled "Black Lives Matter" programs. They can't be just for black people although black people would disproportionately benefit. To design a program only for black people would further alienate Trump voters. Bringing this country together, as Joe Biden has professed he wants to do, means that all programs to help people must of necessity be color blind. Another benefit is that people who contribute to public service in AmeriCorps or the Peace Corps will tend to vote Democratic because they will have seen how Democratic programs have benefited not only themselves but other people as well.

Many people who join the military do so for the benefits and because they have no better prospects after high school. Military service for 5 years gains them a free college education plus many other generous benefits, even a pension. They also get brainwashed to vote Republican. Even those working in the military-industrial complex are brainwashed to vote Republican. As a college graduate the jobs available to me were mainly in the military-industrial complex. Once there I was pressured to vote Republican because it was believed that Republicans would expand funding for the military and hence the military-industrial complex. It was thought that a Democratic administration would cut funding for the military-industrial complex and we could be RIFd (Reduction in Force). Expanding programs in the peace industry should have the opposite effect. I left the military-industrial complex many years ago fortunately, and my economic future doesn't depend on future funding it. Many others are not in the same position.

As the nation transitions from fossil fuels to renewables, it's important that workers in the fossil fuel industry have a path to transition to new jobs. The same holds true in transitioning workers in the military-industrial complex to the peace-industrial complex. It's also important to give young people the possibility of serving their country in a way that contributes to peace and economic stability with comparable benefits instead of serving in the military. The peace industry (like building houses here and abroad) needs to become more important than the war industry. The issue of global warming in particular means that all nations of the world must cooperate and foster a spirit of cooperation while putting their antagonisms aside. Peace, renewable energy, economic development for poor and middle class people need to replace a power structure that fosters political antagonism among the nations of the world. Jimmy Carter not only wields a hammer for Habitat for Humanity in his nineties, but also put solar panels on the roof of the White House (which Ronald Reagan took down). If we had had Jimmy Carter for a second term and Al Gore instead of George W Bush (with his fossil fuel loving vice President, Dick Cheney), we would be further along the path toward replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy and further along the path of dealing with global warming.

Off the Top of My Head

Democrats: Don't Let Republican Narratives Define You

by John Lawrence, November 9, 2020

Labels and sloganeering are not important. Global warming is not a question of Left and Right. It's a question of Smart and Dumb. If science shows that we have to get to net zero carbon emissions by 2035, then we have to do whatever it takes to get there. It's not enough to compromise to get half way there. Half way is not good enough. Half way means that the destruction of the earth is a certainty. This is not a political football. It's something that needs to be done post haste. That's why it's important to force the appropriate legislation through Congress based on the power to do so. If Democrats win the 2 Senate runoff races in Georgia, they will have the power to do so. If not Republicans will still control Congress, and all bets are off.

Republicans are adept at defining people and issues with labels, and then getting us to fight over the labels even defining the labels as too far left or too far right or meeting in the middle. How is a Green New Deal too far left if it saves the planet from global warming? It is not constructive to fight over this label. We just have to do what needs to be done. Already we are seeing the destructive power of nature caused by global warming with intense and widespread wild fires all over the world and relentless, destructive hurricanes and flooding in the Gulf states and elsewhere. This year alone several powerful hurricanes have hit the Gulf states, and they are still coming. They are coming so frequently that people have not recovered from ones 3 hurricanes ago. We have to go full steam ahead on attacking global warming not half speed ahead. Call it a Green New Deal or a Biden Green Deal or whatever you want to call it. The label is unimportant. The action taken is.

What put Trump over the top in 2016 was his appeal to working class voters. Trump's support of the fossil fuel industry appealed to all the workers in that industry especially in Pennsylvania and Texas. Let's be clear. Workers in this industry are not wedded to that industry; they are wedded to their jobs. They don't want their jobs to go away. If Joe Biden and the Democrats guarantee fossil fuel workers jobs in the renewable energy industry at higher wages, they will abandon whatever allegiance they had to fossil fuels in a heartbeat. This needs to be the message. And with it will come a flip of Texas from red to blue. Pennsylvania will stay squarely in the Democratic column. Republicans know this so they will do whatever they can to obfuscate, confuse, demonize and obstruct a transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy. That's why it's so important for Democrats to control the Senate. Otherwise, Mitch McConnell will block any progressive legislation including legislation designed to get us to net zero carbon emissions by 2035.

Republicans obviously don't care about the issue of global warming. Their tactic is to demonize the label: "Green New Deal." That's how they operate. They have money at stake in fossil fuels. They could care less about the workers. They care about the investors and the financial class that's invested in fossil fuels. The Democratic strategy should be to care about the workers by guaranteeing them jobs in the renewable energy field and let the investing class fend for themselves. Once they see the profits to be made in renewable energy they also will flip in a minute and abandon fossil fuels investments. Already many of them are divesting. When humans discovered the efficacy of metals they left the stone age and left the remaining stones in the ground. We need to do the same thing with fossil fuels: leave them in the ground.

Joe Biden has been very careful about the slogan: Defund the Police. Republicans are trying to hang that label around the Democrats' necks also. Nobody in his right mind wants to defund the police. Allocate more funds to social workers who may be better able to deescalate mental health situations? Of course. So nuance is important, but Republicans don't deal in nuance; they deal in labels and in particular the use of labels to demonize the other side. Joe Biden has threaded the needle very agilely. Also Republicans have not demonized Joe like they did Hillary for 25 years or more. That's why Joe is considered "more likable." In the final analysis labels are not important. The label - socialism - is not important. What is important is to make contructive - I will not even say progressive - change in this country, first to save the earth from global warming, and, secondly, to put the US on a more constructive track with regard to a host of other issues. Let Smart win over Dumb!

'Great News for Progressives Around the World': International Applause After US Voters Fire Donald Trump

Published on Sunday, November 08, 2020

by Common Dreams

"It's time to get back to building bridges, not walls." Leaders from around the world congratulate the Democrats, but say much damage done by Trump requires repair.

by Jon Queally, staff writer

 

30 Comments

A young girl walks past Kenyan daily newspaper with headline "Donald Trump Fired" in the capital Nairobi on November 8, 2020. (Photo: Simon Maina/AFP via Getty Images)

Celebrations took place across the globe and congratulations from world leaders for U.S. President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-election Kamala Harris poured in Saturday and into Sunday after the Democratic ticket was declared the decisive winner in the 2020 election and results showed that President Donald J. Trump had been soundly "fired" by the American people.

"Great news for progressives around the world that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have defeated Trump," tweeted former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn from the United Kingdom, one of America's longest and closest allies. "Let's work together internationally to build a better, fairer, greener, peaceful and more equal world."

From London, the city's progressive Mayor Sadiq Khan—who often clashed with Trump and denounced the U.S. president's racism—congratulated both Biden and Harris on their victory. "London looks forward to working with you," Khan tweeted. "It's time to get back to building bridges, not walls."

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Arden, who recently won a landslide reelection victory in her country, sent well-wishes to the incoming U.S. leaders.

"Congratulations President-elect Joe Biden and Kamala Harris on your victory in the U.S. presidential election," Arden declared in an Instagram post. "With so many issues facing the international community, your message of unity is one we share. New Zealand looks forward to working with you both!"

While Trump, as of this writing, has still refused to acknowledge his defeat or issue a concession, Slate's Ben Mathis-Lilley on Saturday explained that Biden's victory is quite decisive in historical terms:

Defeating a sitting United States president is an extraordinarily hard thing to do, but with the vote count mounting in his favor, Biden turns out to have done it with relative ease. Per current estimates, he will receive something like 51.3 percent of the national popular vote, 3 percentage points more than Hillary Clinton and a higher total than any candidate challenging an incumbent president since FDR got 57 percent against Herbert Hoover in 1932. That’s more than Ronald Reagan got (50.7 percent) in his 1980 win over Jimmy Carter, which is still (accurately!) heralded as a paradigm shift in American politics.

Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian Authority, also congratulated the pair in a Sunday statement and urged the new U.S. administration to "strengthen the Palestinian-American relationship" as a way to foster "peace, stability, and security" throughout the Middle East region. Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, meanwhile, tweeted: "Joe, we've had a long & warm personal relationship for nearly 40 years, and I know you as a great friend of Israel."

From Iran, Foreign Minister Javad Zarif—who criticized Trump relentlessly for imposing brutal sanctions on the Iranian people and pulling out of the international nuclear agreement that was implemented under the Obama-Biden administration—suggested it was a new day for future relations between the two nations. "The American people have spoken," said Zarif.

Separately, Iran's Vice-President Eshagh Jahangiri said his government hopes for "a change in the destructive policies of the United States, a return to the rule of law and international obligations, and respect for nations" now that Trump will soon be leaving the White House.

And President Hassan Rouhani said Sunday that Biden must work to repair the damage done by Trump and the betrayal committed against previous international commitments made by the United States.  

"An opportunity has arisen now for the next U.S. administration to make up for the past mistakes and return to the course of commitment to international obligations by respecting international principles," Rouhani said. "The Islamic Republic," he added, "considers constructive interaction with the world to be its strategy."

Mexico President Andrés Manuel López Obrador took a more hesitant approach to the U.S. election results, indicating in a Saturday statement that he would withhold his congratulations until any legal challenges related to vote count were resolved or when the results are officially certified.

"With regard to the U.S. election, we are going to wait until all the legal matters have been resolved," López Obrador said at a news conference.  "I can't congratulate one candidate or the other. I want to wait until the electoral process is over."

Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta said the "emphatic win" by Biden and Harris in the U.S. was "a demonstration of Americans' confidence in the leadership credentials of the former vice-president." And in Nigeria, President Muhammadu Buhari said Trump's ouster arrived at "time of uncertainty and fear in world affairs" as he congratulated Biden. "His election," Buhari added, "is a reminder that democracy is the best form of government because it offers the people the opportunity to change their government by peaceful means."

But most people of the world—like most within the United States—have been able to see that Biden's win was decisive, and despite Trump's refusal to concede and his continued unhinged proclamations that he won when all the evidence shows he clearly lost, led to street celebrations both in the U.S. and abroad.

As Slate reports, fireworks erupted across Europe and people across the continent were queuing up for champagne at local shops and dancing in the streets.

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Let's Stop Calling Things Political When They Are Human Issues That Affect Us All

Dear friends,

You cannot predict what will be your teacher. It could be a wildly inappropriate leader or a pandemic. With a bit of hindsight, we might see how the worst of times led to the best of times, or at least the beginnings of a higher level of awareness.  While we would never be thankful for the effects the disease had on so many, if we can pull back to a more expanded point of view, we might see how “even this” is a kind of gift.  Anything that awakens humanity to its inner power and its oneness with all life, is beneficial.

Are you not a bit more compassionate, loving, appreciative, caring, generous, self-aware than you were, say, a year ago?  I believe our collective consciousness has been accelerated by the threat of the loss of freedom and the violent rhetoric coming from so-called leaders.  We woke up and we got up and we voted them out! Now we have more work to do, but we know we are up to the task.

We need to stop calling things “political” when they are issues that affect us all. We must address them, not as adherents to a particular party, but as human beings who care about the entire population of this planet.  It is time for us to see how powerful we are.  When we care about our future together and are willing to give up some unwarranted prejudices that have held us back for too long, we unleash tremendous healing energy.

 “We are the ones we have been waiting for.”

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes

http://www.carol-carnes.com

Off the Top of My Head

Robots Will Not Replace Us

by John Lawrence

Joe Biden wants to bring the country together. Here are 3 programs guaranteed to do it. 1) Guarantee that every worker who loses his job in the fossil fuel industry, as the energy industry transitions to renewables, is guaranteed a job in the renewable energy industry including free retraining if necessary. 2) Free apprenticeship programs for electricians, plumbers and other occupations for which no robot can replace them. Let's change that white supremacist chant to "Robots will not replace us." 3) A huge build-up of a Habitat for Black Humanity program (open to participants of all races) in honor of Jimmy Carter who famously wields a hammer for Habitat for Humanity. At $171,000, the net worth of a typical white family is nearly ten times greater than that of a Black family ($17,150) in 2016. Gaps in wealth between black and white households reveal the effects of accumulated inequality and discrimination, as well as differences in power and opportunity that can be traced back to this nation’s inception. The black-white wealth gap reflects a society that has not and does not afford equality of opportunity to all its citizens.

Middle class Joe knows that the main way the middle class has built up wealth is through home ownership - equity in a home. This equity also facilitates the intergenerational transfer of wealth which the black community is notorious in lacking. Blacks are less likely to receive wealth transfers from parents than whites, and conversely, they’re under more pressure to transfer their own limited wealth to parents or relatives than whites. So whereas each white generation starts from somewhere above zero, each black generation is more likely to start from zero. A greater proportion of white adult children receive financial support from their parents than blacks in all three categories of parental support. The share of whites receiving financial support from their parents is 34% for higher education, 12% for home ownership, and 26% for other purposes. The comparable figures for blacks are 14%, 2%, and 19%, respectively.

Trump supporters in the Rust Belt could rest assured that their means of livelihood will not be taken away from them as the country transitions from fossil fuels to renewables. Biden has assured workers that he will not ban fracking. Then it's a logical next step to guarantee those workers a job as the country transitions away from fracking. Leave it in the ground should be our motto, but just because we do that, there is no necessity for workers to suffer. Biden has said that he will create millions of new jobs in infrastructure and green industries. Then let's guarantee that the first workers to get those jobs will be old fossil fuel workers. Let's transition the workers as well as the source of energy. This will go a long way towards placating Trump supporters in Pennsylvania and Texas and also adding supporters to the Democratic party which more represents the interests of workers than does the Republican party.

Similarly, the Black Lives Matter Movement should embrace the Black Home Ownership Matters movement. When we talk about creating wealth, it's not in the context of Lamborghinis or yachts or multimillion dollar houses. We're talking about wealth on the order of the price of a middle class house. Wealth distributed among a large number of people not just ridiculous amounts of wealth of the 1% and billionaire class. Reducing economic inequality starts with an ambitious program to create wealth among the 99%. Debt reduction and forgiveness is also important especially for student loan debtors. Joe Biden can redeem himself here. Formerly known as the Senator from MBNA (MBNA is now a subsidiary of Bank of America), Biden voted for a provision to take bankruptcy protection away from student loan debtors. The senator was a key supporter of a bill -- the "Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005" -- that actually made it harder for consumers to get protection under bankruptcy.

Joe Biden will resuscitate America's reputation in the rest of the world as he had a wealth of experience in dealing with foreign policy for 8 years in the Obama administration. He has to be careful both in how he treats black citizens and how he treats white former Trump supporters in order to build a coalition for the Democratic party. If he does it right, the Democratic party will predominate for a generation or more. The US dodged the bullet of fascism by voting Trump out of office. The US was heading down the rabbit hole of fascism and a second 4 years of a Trump administration would have sealed the deal. By the way including a public option in Obamacare would practically be a guarantee of a transition to Medicare for All. Many of Joe Biden's positions amount to the same as Bernie Sander's positions but in a less stark and abrupt way and for more care placed in the transition process. Let's hope that Democrats take control of the Senate with the two yet to be resolved Senate races in Georgia. Working across the aisles is nice, but Republicans have never backed away from using raw power to get their way. Democrats should follow that example also.

'Nightmare Coming to an End': Vanquishing Donald Trump, Joe Biden Wins US Presidential Election

Published on Saturday, November 07, 2020

by Common Dreams

"We, the voters, decided this!"

by Common Dreams staff

 

30 Comments

Beryl McCrainey Slevin from California and who voted using a mail in ballot stands in front of the mural of Joe Biden on November 7, 2020 as locals celebrate in anticipation of Biden being elected as the next US President in Ballina, Ireland. (Photo: Charles McQuillan/Getty Images)

After days of uncertainty amid concurrent global crises, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden was declared the winner of the closely-watched contest that denied President Donald Trump a second term Saturday morning, after votes tallied in the battleground state of Pennsylvania pushed Biden over the 270 electoral vote threshold.

According to NBC News: "The former vice president amassed 273 Electoral College votes after winning Pennsylvania’s 20 electors, according to NBC News, surpassing the 270 needed to win the White House and defeat President Donald Trump."

The Associated Press, which put both Arizona and Pennsylvania in Biden's column, also called the race:

The determination in Pennsylvania put Biden at 273 electoral votes to Trump's 214—a deficit the president has no way of overcoming even as five other states—Alaska, Georgia, Nevada, and North Carolina—continue to process their results. Adding Arizona's eleven electortal to Biden's column, put his electoral count to 284.

Shortly after the news broke, Biden said in a tweet addressed to the nation that he was "honored that you have chosen me to lead our great country."

"The work ahead of us will be hard," he added, "but I promise you this: I will be a President for all Americans—whether you voted for me or not. I will keep the faith that you have place in me."

Progressives immediately celebrated Biden's victory and expressed elation over Trump's pending departure.

"This nightmare is coming to an end. Despite every attempt to silence our voices and block our vote, the will of the people won," declared George Goehl, director of the grassroots advocacy group People's Action.

"We, the voters, decided this!" said Tamara Toles O'Laughlin, North America director for 350 Action, in a statement when the news broke. "By working together, our unapologetic movement for people and planet has been steadfast and patient as our votes were counted. People power stood up to Donald Trump's fascist vision for America and elected Joe Biden and Kamala Harris into the White House. The government we chose must be sworn in because this is the people's democracy."

The subject line in an email from the Sunrise Movement was expressive: "We fucking did it."

"Excuse my language," said the group's executive director Varshini Prakash, "but we fucking did it. It's official. We WON."

"We won. And this is a big win," said María Urbina, acting co-executive director and national political director of Indivisible. "A record number of voters turned out amidst a pandemic to express the will of the people, and to put a historic ticket in the White House by clear margins. Come January, we'll move forward together to swear in a President and Vice President who are serious about governing and will be expected to deliver on an agenda of dignity and justice for all."

"Together," Urbina added, "we can make good on the promise of an America that works for all of us, that prioritizes the most vulnerable, and that ensures we can all live with dignity. For now, we celebrate. This victory belongs to all of us."

Biden's victory comes in the midst of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and related economic crisis, a monthslong national reckoning over systemic racism, seemingly endless U.S. war, and the global climate emergency. There have been more than 9.7 million Covid-19 cases and nearly 236,000 deaths in the United States out of over 49 million infections and 1.24 million deaths worldwide.

On top of that is the broader crisis of Trump's presidency, which has featured rollbacks of environmental and public health protections at the behest of deep-pocketed polluters, a "pro-corporate, anti-worker agenda," efforts to degrade the rights of historically marginalized groups, inhumane immigration policies—including forcibly separating migrant children from their parents at the border—and constant lies.

Since Election Day, Trump has escalated his attacks on American democracy by falsely declaring victory early Wednesday, tweeting disinformation about the election, and delivering on Thursday evening what one reporter called "the most dishonest speech he has ever given." His campaign has also filed multiple lawsuits this week related to the race, validating pre-election warnings that he would try to steal the vote to retain power.

The president's actions sparked nationwide demonstrations demanding election officials "count every vote." Amid fears that Trump may refuse to concede, Biden campaign spokesperson Andrew Bates said in a statement on Friday that "the United States government is perfectly capable of escorting trespassers out of the White House."

Born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, in 1942, Biden studied history and political science at the University of Delaware then earned a law degree at Syracuse University. After practicing law as a public defender and at a firm, and entering local politics in Delaware's New Castle County, he was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1972.

Biden represented Delaware in the Senate for nearly four decades—with stints chairing the Foreign Relations and Judiciary committees—before serving as vice president for both terms of President Barack Obama's administration. After declining to run in 2016, Biden beat 27 primary competitors to secure the 2020 Democratic nomination.

Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), Biden's running mate, was among his primary competitors. Born in 1964, Harris hails from Oakland, California. After graduating from Howard University, she earned a law degree from the University of California, Hastings. She was district attorney of San Francisco and attorney general of California before being elected to the U.S. Senate in 2016. She will be the first woman, as well as the first Black and South Asian American, to serve as vice president.

Since Biden selected Harris in August, progressives have pledged to continue engaging with the pair and pushing them to embrace bold, popular policies including Medicare for All and a Green New Deal. As climate campaigners have pressured Biden and Harris to pursue more ambitious proposals, they have also emphasized that "Trump's climate policies are a raging dumpster fire." On Wednesday, the U.S. ditched the 2015 Paris climate agreement at Trump's direction; Biden has vowed to reenter the accord.

While progressives—including former primary rivals Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.)—have rallied behind Biden's bid to oust Trump, the future president has also faced extensive criticism for his political track record on numerous fronts, such as his support for the Iraq War, his primary role in the 1994 crime bill, and his refusal to back universal public healthcare or a ban on fracking for fossil fuels.

"The evident defeat of Donald Trump would not have been possible without the grassroots activism and hard work of countless progressives," Norman Solomon wrote in a column for Common Dreams early Friday. "Now, on vital issues—climate, healthcare, income inequality, militarism, the prison-industrial complex, corporate power, and so much more—it's time to engage with the battle that must happen inside the Democratic Party."

Some news outlets, such as Vox and Business Insider, declared Biden victorious on Friday morning, based on a determination from their election-calling partner, Decision Desk HQ, at 8:50 am ET that the former vice president had won Pennsylvania—hours before other election-calling operations or major news network announced a winner.

"The race is over, as far as our call is concerned, because of the vote totals coming out of Philadelphia this morning," Drew McCoy, the president of Decision Desk, told Vox senior politics correspondent Andrew Prokop. "It became pretty obvious that as the remaining votes across the state and in Philadelphia are counted, Biden's lead will continue to grow."

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Off the Top of My Head

Whither Goeth the Republican Party?

by John Lawrence, November 11, 2020

It may be whimsical for me, a Democrat, to speculate about the future of the Republican party, but I am a speculator at heart and curious to see how all this plays out after the demise of Donald Trump. The Republican party, as it exists today, is an unholy alliance of Trump's base - mainly white supremicists - and the financial elite, the wealthy. The party could split in two which would result in Trump's cult like following which I've labeled the WPP (white people's party) and an assortment of principled and unprincipled conservatives. The unprincipled conservatives are only in it for the money and the power. Their problem is that they are a small minority while the WPP represents the vast majority of Republicans.

But let's examine for a moment what a principled conservative represents: fiscal prudence and propriety. A principled conservative wants government to only spend the money that it takes in in taxes and no more. In other words principled conservatives don't want the government to run deficits and further increase the national debt. Given that there are still decisions to be made about what to spend the money on, that is also what conservatives need to be concerned about. Here, in the past, conservatives have mainly made the wrong decisions. In short they've mainly decided to spend it on the military instead of on the well being of the American people. This has clearly been a major mistake on the disbursement of government monies when you consider that in the last 50 years the US has engaged in two disastrous wars - the Vietnam and the Iraq wars. These wars have involved duplicity and mendacity on behalf of two US Presidents - Lyndon Johnson and George W Bush - not a particularly good track record. The money might have been better spent. Principled conservatives, who want taxpayer money spent wisely, should be more alarmed.

So going forward I see the role of principled conservatives as being making sure that the government spends its money wisely. We have seen that the issue of deficit spending is moot. If the government can add a trillion dollars to the deficit (and hence the debt) to give tax breaks to the rich, as Trump and formerly Reagan have done, and government can spent a few trillion bailing out the too big too fail banks with its continued policy of quantitative easing, it has been made clear that deficits don't matter as Modern Monetary Theorists maintain. The US has a sovereign currency and the Federal Reserve can print as much money as it wants although this power should not be used frivolously for a number of reasons. But there is much flexibility here. So if the money is available for government to spend, the question for principled conservatives is how to spend that money wisely not how little to spend. What is clear is that spending a trillion dollars a year on the military is not spending money wisely. What's also clear is that taxation policy is necessary to redress the balance between rich and poor because economic inequality is getting out of hand. This also means that there will be less and possibly no reliance on deficit spending at all.

The wise use of government money at this point in time is exactly what is contained in Joe Biden's agenda. Addressing global warming by creating green infrastructure as well as repairing and rebuilding existing infrastructure is of paramount importance. Mitigating the effects of global warming by undergrounding utilities so that violent storms don't consistently take down the power grid is important. Creating more renewable energy installations and power plants as well as modernizing the power grid is important. Repairing roads, bridges, levees and dams is important. More dams should be built in areas where considerable rainfall is experienced. This can prevent flooding and prevent potable water just going to runoff. It also generates renewable power. Wise use of government money would also be relief of student loan debtors since this would also mean that money would be in private hands which then would go into expanding GNP. Building a reasonable national health care system which contains the runaway costs of drugs and hospitalizations would be a wise use of money that conservatives should be in favor of. Other countries have better health outcomes at half the cost of the US fragmented system. Conservatives are concerned about getting the most bang for the buck. Currently, that's not the case with our health care system. Spending government money on virus research and pandemic prevention should be an obvious investment at this time.

Some people think that Trump will continue to be a major player in Republican politics, but I don't. First of all he will lose a lot of followers just because he will be proven to be a loser. Their whole ethos is based on winning and power, and, when it becomes clear that Trump has neither power nor has he won, many of his followers will turn on him. Secondly, an out of power Trump will have to face numerous lawsuits over his taxes and his debts. The hundreds of millions of debt which Trump is personally liable for (no liability limitations for this debt) cannot be paid so he will go down as not only a loser but a deadbeat debtor with millions in tax liabilities as well, not to mention lawsuits over his sexual peccadilloes. So I suspect that the thankfully shortlived Trump era will be soon over and at last sanity will be restored to the White House. Biden has a long road ahead of him restoring the respect and prestige that the US formerly had with regard to the other nations of the world, and I think he will make much progress in this area. Rejoining the Paris Accords on global warming and the JPCOA will be the first steps.

Greta Thunberg Tells Trump to 'Chill, Donald, Chill' After Unhinged, Lie-Filled Ballot Tirade

Published on Friday, November 06, 2020

by Common Dreams

"Donald must work on his Anger Management problem, then go to a good old fashioned movie with a friend!"

by  Andrea Germanos, staff writer

 

11 Comments

Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg protests during a "Fridays for Future" protest in front of the Swedish Parliament Riksdagen in Stockholm on October 9, 2020. (Photo: Jonathan Nackstrand/AFP via Getty Images)

International climate leader Greta Thunberg on Thursday cleverly mocked President Donald Trump's all-caps, unlawful demand that election officials "stop the count" of ballots in several states, with a response using the same words the U.S. leader had directed at her last year.

"So ridiculous. Donald must work on his Anger Management problem, then go to a good old fashioned movie with a friend! Chill Donald, Chill!" Thunberg tweeted.

As of this writing, the climate activist's tweet has been "liked" over 1.5 million times.

Fellow youth climate leader Vanessa Nakate responded to Thunberg's taunt with her own sarcastic quip:  "He actually seemed like a very happy man looking forward to a bright and wonderful future."

Democratic candidate Joe Biden even weighed in as well:

Thunberg's suggestion to Trump mirrors one the president issued in December in response to Thunberg's being chosen TIME's 2019 Person of the Year for her role in sparking the global youth climate strike movement. The president seemed to suggest that the world's youth, hundreds of thousands of whom have been taking to the streets to demand urgent climate action, were unfounded in their anger over global leaders and fossil fuel companies setting the planet on fire.

Weighing in on the U.S. elections in October, Thunberg endorsed Biden, who's now leading in electoral votes. She said that while she "never engage[s] in party politics... the upcoming U.S. elections is above and beyond all that." Thunberg also urged Americans to "get organized and get everyone to vote" for the former vice president.

Thunberg further appealed to U.S. voters in an Election Day tweet, writing, "Your vote will affect billions of people around the world" and "will affect countless of generations to come."

"Every election is a climate election," she added.

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Off the Top of My Head

The Urbanization of the Electorate Means That the US is Turning Left

by John Lawrence, November 6, 2020

Urbanization is happening not only in the US but all over the world. In the US the phenomenon is that the rural/urban split signifies also a liberal/conservative split. People in the rural hinterlands supported Donald Trump and people in the cities supported Joe Biden. As the country urbanizes, there are now more people living in cities than in rural areas. The voting maps in some states showed huge areas of red and only small areas of blue, and yet there were more people in the blue areas who voted Democratic than there were in the red areas who voted Republican.

This election was notable because of the huge turnout which was facilitated by the extensive use of mail in balloting. It's clear at this point that Biden will win the Presidency. What's not clear is how the crucial Senate races will pan out. If Republicans maintain control of the Senate, their leader Mitch McConnell will do to Biden what he did to Obama. He said after Obama was elected that his number one priority was to make Obama a one term President. He did this by blocking almost every progressive measure that the Democratic controlled House put forward. These measures never reached Obama's desk for his signature. In order for any progressive legislation to be enacted into law, it must be passed by both the House and the Senate. Mitch McConnell saw to it that no progressive legislation got passed the Senate. So a lot of the things that Obama would have liked to have done didn't stand a chance because of one man who in the last analysis is as powerful or more powerful than the President of the United States.

Right now two Senate races in Georgia are headed for run offs. If the Democrats win both races, it's possible that there would be a 50 - 50 tie in the Senate. In this case vice President Kamala Harris would cast the deciding vote in any legislation. This would be a good thing since it means that progressive legislation developed by the House could not be blocked by the Senate. The only caveat is that the filibuster rule would have to be eliminated because, if it were not, any Republican Senator could nix any legislation. It's not clear how this would play out with the Supreme Court whether or not they would play the role of declaring any progressive legislation unconstitutional. At any rate with Joe Biden as President we will be rejoining the Iran nuclear deal - the JCPOA. What is also clear is that we will be rejoining the Paris Accords on global warming. These are two crucial things that Joe Biden can do singlehandedly.

What is clear about this election is that there was a record turnout. The massive use of mail in ballots favored Democrats. Traditionally Republicans have won elections by suppressing the vote of the other side. Conservative political activist Paul Weyrich famously said: "So many of our Christians have what I call the goo-goo syndrome: good government. They want everybody to vote. I don't want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of people, they never have been from the beginning of our country and they are not now. As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down." That quote says it all. Leaving Aside the fact that Weyrich was encouraging Christian voters to go along with him in suppressing the voting rights of some Americans - a not very Christian thing to do, Republicans have always used voter suppression as a tactic. This year, thanks to mail in voting, that Republican strategy was not so successful. Many essential workers who would probably vote Democratic have had to work rather than taking off a day to wait in long voter lines at the polls. This year they did not have to make that decision to lose a day's pay in order to vote. That's why the voter turn out was so high.

It is clear that a new era is dawning. What is not clear yet is whether or not Democrats will be able to go full steam ahead with Joe Biden's agenda to strengthen Obamacare by adding a public option, something Republicans blocked in the original legislation, launching a full on attack on global warming, augmenting social security for seniors, easing student loan debt for debtors, launching a massive infrastructure program, reducing economic inequality by taxing the rich and other progressive measures. This will depend on how much control Democrats wield in Congress.

Off the Top of My Head

Trump Campaign Rallies COVID Superspreader Events

by John Lawrence, November 2, 2020

A Stanford study concluded that Trump's campaign rallies ultimately resulted in more than 30,000 confirmed cases of Covid-19 and likely led to more than 700 deaths, though not necessarily among attendees. One benefit of the election no matter how it turns out is that Trump will not be holding any more superspreader events thus saving the American public from even more cases and deaths from COVID. Today I will be glued to the tube (except for my 11:15 AM reservation for a lane at the Y pool). This election like no other will set the course for human history on planet Earth. Will we have a humane society or will we have a super narcissistic egotist at the helm? Four more years of Donald Trump will doom the Earth to a fiery and a watery (depending on where you live) demise. The effort to mitigate global warming will be for nought and it will be full steam ahead for the superspreading of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere.

Bishop Gerald Green a 66 year old prominent evengelical pastor in Chesterfield, Virginia, exhorted his congregation on the fourth Sunday in March not to fear the virus. Like many ecumenical leaders, Glenn, a former police officer, didn't heed the advice of Virginia governor Ralph Northam and others who warned against gatherings of more than 10 people. "I firmly believe that God is larger than this dreaded virus," Glenn told his parishioners. "If I had to deliver my own eulogy, I'd say, 'God is greater than any challenge you and I face.' That would be my epitaph." Glenn died from COVID-19 three weeks later. His religious faith never appeared to waver, but neither did the deadly resolve of the virus.

I wonder if his preferred epitaph is emblazoned on his gravestone. It seems that Glenn's beliefs about God were somewhat invalid. After all God created viruses as well as every other living being or entity (is the virus a being?) on planet Earth. Perhaps we would be better served by a belief in God that acknowledged that we better take care of the planet or else suffer the fate of extinction as many other animals have. Perhaps God wants us to heed his warnings or else suffer the consequences. So far humans have exploited the planet for profit. We have not been good stewards. Money has been more important than saving the environment. Trump has exemplified this by putting lobbyists for the fossil fuel industry in charge of the Environmental Protection Agency. His message is hardly indecipherable: go ahead pollute all you want and maximize your profits. President Trump's first EPA Administrator, Scott Pruitt, resigned effective July 6, 2018, amid a series of scandals. Deputy Administrator Andrew Wheeler, a former coal industry lobbyist, started serving as Acting Administrator on July 9, 2018. Wheeler was confirmed as EPA Administrator on February 28, 2019.

Before his short stint in the Federal government, Scott Pruitt was elected Attorney General of Oklahoma. In that role, he opposed abortion, same-sex marriage, the Affordable Care Act, and environmental regulations as a self-described "leading advocate against the EPA's activist agenda." In his campaigns for Oklahoma Attorney General, Pruitt received major corporate and employee campaign contributions from the fossil fuel industry, taking in at least $215,574 between 2010 and 2014 even though he ran unopposed in the latter year. As Oklahoma's Attorney General, Pruitt sued the Environmental Protection Agency at least 14 times regarding the agency's actions. In 2012, Pruitt was elected as chairman of the Republican Attorneys General Association and re-elected for a second term in February 2013.

How ironic that a pandemic which arguably came about due to environmental degradation was unleashed on a nation the President of which didn't give a damn about the environment, and then President Trump completely mismanaged the response to this pandemic. He doesn't deserve another 4 years as the most powerful man on the planet when he clearly has no regard for the planet. Anyway today's outcome will be known soon enough. The American citizens will decide which road they want to go down, the road of a narcissist who cares about nothing but himself or the road of a man dedicated to making the country and the world a better place.

I voted for Joe Biden. I hope you did too. I think God gave us a brain so that we could figure out the correct way to take care of planet Earth. If we could figure out how to use fossil fuels as an energy source, we are intelligent enough to know when we should stop using them. Instead of a nation led by a self serving President and his cult like followers, I pray we elect a President who is not only religious but compassionate and intelligent.

Off the Top of My Head

Trump's 'Cull the Herd' Philosophy wrt COVID

by John Lawrence, November 2, 220

Trump's philosophy is that people who succumb to COVID are 'suckers and losers' which is what he said about those who die in war. He himself exemplifies this survival of the fittest philosophy. Take him as an example. He got COVID and bounced back within a couple of days. He's out there doing four or five campaign rallies a day, quite remarkable for a 74 year old man. So he must have some superior constitution to overcome the virus and be bouncing back big time. His example is that people with superior constitutions will hardly be affected with COVID, and that the US should cull the herd of suckers and losers that are so affected. Especially since most of the suckers and losers that succumb to COVID are blacks Latinos and old people who were going to die anyway.

Hitler had a somewhat similar philosophy. In addition to Jews, he was culling the herd of mentally defectives, homosexuals and non-Aryans, in other words people he considered to be weaklings or inferiors. Trump has the same philosophy: why let the American economy go down the tubes in order to try and save the lives of suckers and losers especially since a preponderance of them are minorities ^i.e. non-Americans. Beyond that Trump and his followers are only interested in short term profits for themselves. They adhere to the Ayn Randist philosophy of extreme selfishness. Nobody counts for anything except themselves. It's the extreme opposite of the philosophy of caring which the Biden campaign represents. Trump and his cultlike following don't care about anyone but themselves.They don't want to diminish their own prospects in order to do anything (example: mask wearing) to help anyone else, especially those whom they consider inferior to themselves. Hitler would smile on this philosophy.

The Trumpistas worship power whether that power is political, financial or athletic. They relish powerful pickup trucks flying Trump flags, sports bars, football and anything else that represents power and winning. They could care less about what happens to the earth 10 years or 100 years from now. They want their selfish interests to be realized now. They're not interested in doing anything about gloabal warming because it's not in their immediate interests. Wall Street seconds this emotion by only promoting those who can demonstrate short term profits. As in football winning is the only thing that matters, winning by any means necessary. The values of Trumpistas are that people who care for those who are poor or sick or vulnerable are suckers and losers. People who succumb to COVID are weaklings. People like Trump who get over it in a few days are the winners. They want to cull the herd of the losers who get COVID and die.

There are those like Joe Biden and mostly other Democrats who want to take care of those like the elderly and the sick and the weak rather than letting them die and have the herd culled from their prescence. After all they are someone's loved ones too. Nixon had a philosophy of "benign neglect." In other words just let them die. And let the earth die as well if it gets in the way of corporate profits which it does if respect and caring for the environment is taken into consideration. So let's just have another maskless motorcycle rally or campaign event and see who is superior and who is a loser that gets COVID and dies. After Trump's Tulsa rally Herman Cain, former black Presidential candidate and Trump supporter, got COVID and died. In Trump's view probably he was just another loser. Since mostly minorities are doing the dying, this just proves the superiority of the white race. Hitler would seem to be vindicated.

So the opposite philosophy from the philosophy of power and selfishness and winning is the philosophy of caring. It is exemplified by the Hippocratic Oath which all doctors take. It requires doctors and health care professionals to save every life if at all possible. If it were not for this attitude and philosophy, in a Trumpian value system, doctors might make the decision to let people die who couldn't pay for their services or to let people die who weren't of the same race or to let old people die who were going to die shortly anyway or to let people die who they considered to be suckers and losers. Joe Biden and the Democrats generally have the opposite philosophy, the philosophy which the Pope has called a  'preferential option for the poor,' a philosophy of caring for the weakest among us. In a few days we shall see which philosophy will hold sway in America and quite possibly in the rest of the world as America sets the example.

Off the Top of My Head

The Biden Plan for Senior Citizens

by John Lawrence, October 30, 2020

Joe Biden realizes that senior citizens are being underserved by social security. Many are receiving less in social security payments than what is considered necessary to be above the poverty line. One in four Americans rely on Social Security for all, or almost all, of their income. The Biden plan will "Implement a true minimum benefit for lifelong workers. No one who has worked for decades and paid into Social Security should have to spend their retirement in poverty. The Biden Plan will revolutionize the Social Security’s minimum benefit, which has deteriorated over time to the point of being entirely ineffective. Under the Biden Plan, workers who spent 30 years working will get a benefit of at least 125% of the poverty level." Additionally, the oldest Americans, those who have been receiving social security for 20 years will get an additional benefit. Right now some social security recipients are receiving as little as $500. a month after they pay the rising Medicare Part B premiums. That means they are in the homeless income range.

Republicans have been whittling down social security payments for years. The COLAs for social security have been going up slower than the rising premiums for Medicare Part B. I wrote this previously: "In 2016 I received a monthly social security benefit of $735.90. My Medicare monthly premium was $104.90. So the amount that the Social Security Administration deposited in my checking account each month was $631. Now despite the fact that I'm still working and paid $430. self employment tax in 2017, which should have given me an increase in my monthly social security check because the amount you get depends on the total amount paid in and I'm still paying in, the amount deposited in my account each month has gone down to $618. How could this be possible, you might ask? The answer is simple. I was given a paltry $1 a month increase in social security based on the fact that I paid $430 into it so the government made $418 off me in self employment tax for 2017. However, my monthly Medicare premium went up to $134. So my Medicare premiums are going up much more than the paltry amounts the government thinks I should get because I'm still working and paying into social security. In short I'm getting ripped off as an elderly person who still works."

So Joe Biden's plan makes the minimum social security payment 125% of the poverty level which is $12,760 for a single person. That means the minimum payment would be $15,950 a year or $1329.17 a month. This would more than double my current monthly payment. However, is this before or after they take out for Medicare Part B? Also The Biden Plan will provide the oldest beneficiaries – those who have been receiving retirement benefits for at least 20 years – with a higher monthly check to help protect retirees from the pain of dwindling retirement savings. I thought a previous version of Biden's website specified how much this amount would be. The current website doesn't. The bottom line is that older Americans should be provided with enough money to sustain themselves even if it is means tested. Many older Americans including myself have other income, but a lot have only social security and that's it. For them $1300. a month is not enough to live on with rents being as much as $1000. a month. At any rate Joe Biden wants to increase social security payouts to older Americans especially the oldest older Americans. That is a good thing.

Off the Top of My Head

Raising Taxes on Those Making More Than $400,000 While Lowering Them on Everybody Else - What a Novel Concept!

by John Lawrence, October 28, 2020

Politicians have been stuck for centuries in the mind set that you either have to raise taxes on everyone or lower them on everyone. Republicans have taken advantage of this by lowering taxes significantly more on the rich while giving the middle class a pittance of a tax break. Let's face it: this is the only arrow in Republicans' quiver! Now Democrats are finally getting smart. Joe Biden will raise taxes on the rich while keeping them the same on everybody else. This means that whatever break everyone making less than $400,000 got from the Trump tax breaks will remain in effect. Joe should have gone even further and lowered taxes on everyone making less than $400,000 while raising them on everyone making more than $400,000. Trump added a trillion dollars to the deficit with his tax cuts. Since then trillions more have been added to the deficit with coronavirus relief packages. But as we know from Modern Monetary Theory and from the Federal Reserve's own recent examples of Quantitative Easing, Deficits Don't Matter. They don't matter because the US dollar is a sovereign currency. The Fed can print money any time it wants. It's not a good idea to use this facility frivolously, but money is always available which should only be used for a good cause.

This makes the old antagonisms between "tax and spenders" and "deficit hawks" moot. There is no need to tax in order to spend. The need to tax at this point is only the need to address income and wealth inequality. Spending is not dependent on taxation and there is an almost limitless amount of money available. The old concepts of Left and Right, of Liberal and Conservative can be relegated to the scrapheap of history. The only political spectrum that makes any sense at this point is the one between progressives and regressives. For instance, there are those (like Trump) who want to preserve the fossil fuel industry even though we know the fossil fuel industry is destroying the planet. These guys I would call regressives. Then there are those (like Joe Biden) who want to phase out the fossil fuel industry while replacing it with renewable energy. These guys I would call progressives. Regressives want to preserve the status quo because their financial interests are with the status quo. Progressives want to replace jobs in the fossil fuel industry with jobs in the renewable energy industry.

Financial interests wedded to the fossil fuel industry will lose money, no doubt. However, investors are already divesting from fossil fuels and investing in renewables. The smart money is getting ahead of the inevitable curve in the knowledge that the fossil fuel industry is already on the way out due to the fact that renewables are already cheaper than fossil fuels. Progressives would hurry this process along in the knowledge that planet earth is not waiting for humans to sort this process out. Mother Earth has its own timeline, and will bring about change in the planet's ecosystem in a destructive way if humans cannot get their act together and stop emitting greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere. We don't want to become another planet Venus where greenhouse gasses elevate the surface temperature to 900 degrees F.

Hopefully, in a few days the Trump era will be over, and we can get down to work rebuilding infrastructure, which Trump promised to do and then never did, while at the same time creating green infrastructure while at the same time creating good paying jobs. This is essentially what Joe Biden has promised to do. In order to do it, they need a Democratic Senate as well as a Democratic House. They also need to get rid of the filibuster rule as, if there is even one Republican in the Senate, he or she will torpedo every progressive act of legislation using the filibuster. I think this time Democrats will go for broke as Republicans have done for years using every bit of power available to them. Democrats should do the same and not let what happened to Obama, who was essentially neutered by the Republican filibuster, happen to them. Republicans will try to throw every roadblock in the way of Democrats' progressive legislation so those potential roadblocks have to be systematically removed or a Democratic administration will get nothing done.

Of course Republicans will take every legislative act to the Supreme Court in the hopes that a conservative court will squelch it there. That's why a Democratic administration should consider packing the court. Joe Biden would have been within his rights to say he wouldn't do it and then to go ahead and do it since Republicans swore up and down that in an election year the next President should fill a Supreme Court vacancy, and then totally did the opposite when it was in their interests to do so. But Joe is a more honorable man than Lindsay Graham and the other Republicans who put Amy Coney Barrett on the court at the last minute while saying they would never do such a thing. Instead Joe finally came up with a reasonable answer to the question demand "Would you pack the Court?". A bipartisan panel. Hmmm.

"Socialism" is the Slur du Jour

by Frank Thomas

 

I fully agree there's a dire need for an intelligent Democratic counter strategy, Jerry, to the non-sensical lashing out of  the label "socialism" by the right and its standard barrage of ad hominem one-liners. This labeling often reaches a desperate, severely insulting, even vitriolic level, e.g., calling Obama a fascist, and a socialist, and a communist - calling his health care plans a massive leap into central government planning and control. The right has become politically powerfully adept resorting consistently to attack ad hominems like, "socialism and socialistic," or  "any form of socialism leads to Big Brother government control and loss of freedoms."  Another example is Wayne LaPierre's (chairman of the NRA lobby syndicate) response to a public call for prompt, concrete, strict gun restrictions: "Socialists, in typical European style, want to take away our God given freedoms, the next one the right to own a firearm." Then he warns us, "You must be afraid." 

"

"Socialism" is the slur du jour ad hominem of the conservative right to denigrate, demean, distort, deflect, demonize liberals and ideas the right disagrees with. We have a long history of lumping "socialism" with almost all things "liberal." Today for many, the label continues to serve as an effective, if cynical sledgehammer against civil, rational, constructive give-and-take policy decision-making. Now Trump is becoming the new master socialist-accuser by tweet. The conservative right's long standing traditional fear is that America will turn into a decadent, socialistic age-old Europe. Thus, given our nation's long history of anti-socialist sentiments, it's good conservative strategy, e.g., to associate universal health care with "socialism." This applies to most government interventions. So Medicare and Medicaid are carrying us into the abyss of run-away socialism as is happening in Canada and Europe - so goes the ideological rant! American conservatives hold this philosophy sacrosanct for most government interventions while the 2009 great financial meltdown crisis of all crises showed once again how laissez faire capitalism is prone to extremely dangerous, costly market failures - given pure capitalism's natural inclination of blatant abuses and concentration of money in fewer and fewer hands. And this leads to a concentration of power. 

 

Since the New Deal, ideological battle lines over socialist or governmental intrusions into American lives have increased. For conservatives the political cry is liberty through capitalism and free markets. For liberals the political cry is equality through equal opportunity, government oversight, and social responsibility. Both liberty and equality have made great contributions to our nation since its founding. As I've said in previous writings, it's all about getting the right balance between capitalistic and social elements that fit a particular culture.  In Europe, the  political norm is that, "Whatever promotes the general welfare will also promote personal happiness and motivation as well as economic progress." This contrasts with the U.S. indoctrinated conservative norm starting in 1980 that , "Whatever promotes the corporate and individual welfare promotes the general welfare."  

 

The reality is that democracy needs a healthy balance and tension between these two elements to survive. Looking way back, it seems a miracle that at the high point in our cold war with Russia, a limited form of socialized medicine - Medicare - passed Congress and resistance by the insurance industry and the American Medical Association. Those forces now have teams of lobbyists influencing every key (and bought) Congressman in the policy-making process. The ordinary American ends up in effect having: no right to life if an insurance firm can deny one's coverage because of a prior illness history or inability to pay; no right to elect his or her leaders if a fair election or governing process is unjustly compromised or corrupted; no right to an equitable income if tax cut programs are designed to overwhelmingly favor the upper social class with the greater material influence.   

 

The European Way sorts out conflicting and competing interests behind capitalism's tremendous wealth creating capacity so that income and social benefits are broadly and fairly shared. Europe's  social democracies and market economies embrace the principles of both pursuing a free market and serving humanity. As one researcher explained, social democracy is all about a healthy, well-managed, thriving public system in education, health care, transportation, clean environment, child care, libraries, parks. It's all about government programs and blends of policy in concert with a competitive capitalistic dynamic that improve (or do not improve) the conditions of people's lives. In Europe, It's in general a very self-critical, exceptionally transparent process supported in most countries by multi-party systems and coalition governance where constructive compromise is a sine qua non. But the American conservative right disingenuously derides Europe's social-economic democratic model with the idiotic ad hominem one-liner it's essentially a welfare state. A better one-liner is workforce state. 

 

Meaning all social networks operate as part of a comprehensive system of institutions and policy decision-making that's geared towards keeping individuals and families healthy, productive, free working individuals to insure a vibrant, sustainable economy. This approach was originally conceived as a security revolution, NOT a socialist revolution by the conservative politicians - Churchill, Monnet, Adennauer, Schuman. In the words of Monnet, "Europe  will be attained by concrete achievements generating an active community of interest." The result since 1950?  There are as many if not more European Fortune 500 companies than U.S. China or Japan. The Netherlands, for example, is a small land one-half my state of Maine with nearly 18 million people with some very reputable, innovative world firms including Unilever, Phillips, Royal Dutch Shell, Heineken, KLM, DSM, ASML.   

 

Europeans in general don't see their unique form of hybrid capitalism with its high degree of economic freedom AND socialist elements as a conflicting societal norm ... but rather as a mutually reinforcing norm for improving the lot of ALL citizens. The developed economies of mature European countries are in essence "hybrids" that are constantly being refined. The private management is capitalistic while being the home also of public oversight and social institutions, providing strong job protections, well-trained labor markets and centralized unions, affordable quality health care and good coverage, relatively low-cost trade schools and colleges. Success has NOT been achieved by being more Right or more Left, by being more Capitalistic or more Socialistic. Labeling people, policies, programs socialistic and capitalistic as a discussion norm is seldom if ever done to evoke emotional reactions or to make prejudgements or charges that distort reality. The degree to which American conservatives automatically invoke the frightful specter of "socialism" serves no constructive purpose in advancing inclusive, creative, balanced, policy discussions and actions in Europe within multi-party and coalition governing systems. 

 

Here are a few words on "socialism" in 2009 by Jefferson Cowie and Nick Salvatore, American History Professors, Cornell University  

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

"When socialism can be used interchangeably with fascism - as it often is in the heat of contemporary political debate - Americans 

are playing with historical fires they do not understand. America has not had a politically meaningful socialist movement since that 

of Eugene Debs early in the last century. The Soviet Union has perished, the Berlin Wall has fallen, and capitalistic China is our 

No. 1 industrial competitor. Against such a political landscape, what meaning could socialism have even as an epithet?

 

Those who hurl the "s-word" misunderstand the role of the state in American history. While they accurately point to the enormous 

growth in government since the Civil War and claim that it has stripped Americans of their individualism and self-reliance, the focus 

of the state's activities has been subsidizing and promoting "private" enterprise. Government growth promoted by Gilded Age 

Republicans, New Deal Age Democrats, and Reagan revolutionaries has been one of the most enduring constants in American 

history. Despite regular election cycle pleas to shrink the size of government, a unifying theme of political experience has been the 

government's growing intervention in the market on behalf of the business community.

 

For an exceptional few decades, however, things were different. Sparked by the Great Depression and the rise of the New Deal, the 

government expanded its responsibilities to include working people as well as business. It was not accidental that between 1945 and 

1972, while business grew drastically, income inequality declined significantly for Americans while posing no threat to the nation's 

wealthiest. Nor was it accidental that in the decades of growth since the early 1970s, a reversion to uniformly pro-business policies

promoted a significant rise in income inequality with the top 1% of all incomes enjoying the largest percentiles of growth. This too is

partly a direct result of government's beneficience to the private sector (business).  

 

The issue, therefore, is not government intervention, yes or no; rather it is on behalf of whose interests government intervenes. When

the government assists business by bailing out the financial markets - as it often should - it is called supporting the market. When 

government helps regular folks, as with health care reform, it stirs fears of something called "socialism."

 

Republican Theodore Roosevelt understood the central role of property for American individualism and citizenship - much like those 

who wield the fear-laden charge of "socialism" today. But, he argued in 1910, when human rights are in conflict with property rights,

"human rights must have the upper hand, for property belongs to man and not man to property." Some today would call this "socialism." 

My summary one-liner advice to Democrats: they should stop hiding and running from the words "socialism" and "socialistic." They should make the policy blend of social welfare and capitalism their way to  best achieve a humanly, democratically and financially sound, just, equitable, social-economic-political environment. They should talk up the good parts of it, take the heat when necessary and be transparently on the offensive for ALL Americans every day - especially for the bottom 90% to counter our movement into autocracy.

Off the Top of My Head

Conservatives Argue That Phasing Out Fossil Fuels is Socialism. They Argue That Saving the Planet from Global Warming is Socialism. They Argue That Universal Health Coverage is Socialism. I Say Bring It On!

by John Lawrence, October 27, 2020

So anything that would benefit the people as a whole or the planet is socialism. Creating jobs by a government sponsored infrastructure program is socialism. Yet private enterprise has not built any infrastructure. It won't do so unless the money is provided by the government. Rebuilding roads and bridges is not something private enterprise is equipped to do. If it was, they'd build roads and bridges and then charge tolls to recoup their investment. Private enterprise is good at inventing things and starting entrepreneurial enterprises, but not large picture enterprises which are properly the domain of government or require government cooperation with the private sector. A government that makes sure that everyone has health care complements private enterprise. They want healthy workers after all. Private enterprise benefits from safe roads, tunnels and bridges more so than does the average citizen. They use infrastructure in the conduct of their business.

President Reagan declared that “government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem.” Yeah, it's the problem when it doesn't do its proper job. It's the problem when President Trump doesn't take any responsibility for the pandemic or attempts to do anything about it. Reagan also said that the nine most terrifying words in the English language were, "I'm from the government, and I'm here to help." Really? We could use a little help from the government in the midst of a pandemic. The private enterprise system is doing its part inventing a vaccine, but they're doing it with the help of government money. Pfizer got $1.95 Billion to produce a coronavirus vaccine by the end of the year. Johnson & Johnson got a billion dollars. Without government being "here to help" there would be no vaccine on the horizon. Private enterprise would not take that money out of its own research budget especially if it didn't figure to make a profit selling the vaccine.

So socialism will be responsible for developing a coronavirus vaccine and eventually ending the pandemic. It will be done with the "government help" that Ronald Reagan thought was so terrifying. The problem is that we have socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor. The rich spend tons of money lobbying Congress to pass legislation in their favor. In a truly free market they wouldn't be spending money making sure government was doing their bidding in their interests. They would be spending money on research, development and promoting their products. Rich people don't want government so small that they can "drown it in the bathtub" as Republican lobbyist Grover Norquist said. No, they are manipulating government everyday to get government just the right size to suit their financial interests. Defense contractors lobby to get the government to spend more money on the military-industrial complex. Pharmaceutical corporations lobby to get government not to allow Medicare to negotiate with them for lower drug prices. This is something Joe Biden said he would do: allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices with Big Pharma.

Most civilized nations have universal health care. The US is the only outlier. Most civilized countries want to do something about global warming. The US under Trump is the outlier. Most civilized countries have a social safety net so that people don't suffer needlessly. At the same time most countries facilitate a partnership between government and private enterprise that works for entrepreneurs and business people and the citizenry as a whole, in partnership and cooperation. There is a balance between capitalism and socialism that works for the benefit of all the people. That's what makes for a successful nation. Right now this is very out of whack in the US. A bloated military has wasted trillions of dollars on disastrous wars that have made the nation less safe. And yet the military was absolutely impotent to do anything about COVID-19. The money would have been better spent strengthening our knowledge and preparations for a pandemic and for better health among Americans so that they don't have so many underlying conditions that have led to more deaths from the coronavirus.

As jobs are being destroyed by automation, robotization and AI, it's imperative that jobs be created addressing the needs of infrastructure and the need for renewable energy. This endeavor can be in part a joint mission for both government and private enterprise, but without government's input the nation will keep on spewing fossil fuel emissions into the atmosphere because that's what's in the interests of existing corporations. That dynamic needs to change and government has to be instrumental in bringing about that change. That's why it's important to elect Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. Many vested interests will continue making money by polluting and emitting greenhouse gasses unless government changes the dynamics of energy production. This means countering the demand of lobbyists and putting government in a direction that benefits the people as a whole and not just special interests.

VOTE!

 

 

How to Reverse the GOP’s Power Grab

by Robert Reich

Sunday, October 25, 2020

Barring a miracle, Amy Coney Barrett will be confirmed on Monday as the ninth justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. 

This is a travesty of democracy.

The vote on Barrett’s confirmation will occur just eight days before Election Day. By contrast, the Senate didn’t even hold a hearing on Barack Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland, who Obama nominated almost a year before the end of his term. Majority leader Mitch McConnell argued at the time that any vote should wait “until we have a new president.”

Barrett was nominated by a president who lost the popular vote by nearly 3 million ballots, and who was impeached by the House of Representatives. When Barrett joins the court, five of the nine justices will have been appointed by presidents who lost the popular vote.

The Republican senators who will vote for her represent 15 million fewer Americans than their Democratic colleagues.

Once on the high court, Barrett will join 5 other reactionaries who together will be able to declare laws unconstitutional, for perhaps a generation.

Barrett’s confirmation is the culmination of years in which a shrinking and increasingly conservative, rural, and white segment of the U.S. population has been imposing its will on the rest of America. They’ve been bankrolled by big business, seeking lower taxes and fewer regulations.

In the event Joe Biden becomes president on January 20 and both houses of Congress come under control of the Democrats, they can reverse this power grab. It may be the last chance – both for the Democrats and, more importantly, for American democracy.

How?

For starters, increase the size of the Supreme Court. The Constitution says nothing about the number of justices. The court changed size seven times in its first 80 years, from as few as five justices under John Adams to ten under Abraham Lincoln.

Biden says if elected he’ll create a bipartisan commission to study a possible court overhaul “because it’s getting out of whack.” That’s fine, but he’ll need to move quickly. The window of opportunity could close by the 2022 midterm elections.

Second, abolish the Senate filibuster. Under current rules, 60 votes are needed to enact legislation in that chamber. This means that if Democrats win a bare majority there, Republicans could block any new legislation Biden hopes to pass.

The filibuster could be ended with a rule change requiring a mere 51 votes. There’s growing support among Democrats for doing this if they gain that many seats. During the campaign, Biden acknowledged that the filibuster has become a negative force in government.

The filibuster is not in the Constitution, either.

The most ambitious structural reform would be to rebalance the Senate, and thereby the Electoral College. 

For decades, rural states have been emptying as the U.S. population has shifted to vast megalopolises. The result is a growing disparity in representation, especially of nonwhite voters.

For example, both California, with a population of 40 million, and Wyoming, whose population is 579,000, get two senators. If population trends continue, by 2040 some 40 percent of Americans will live in just five states, and half of America will be represented by 18 Senators, the other half by 82.

This distortion also skews the Electoral College, because each state’s number of electors equals its total of senators and representatives. Hence, the recent presidents who have lost the popular vote.  

This growing imbalance can be remedied by creating more states representing a larger majority of Americans. At the least, statehood should be granted to Washington, D.C. And given that 1 out of 8 Americans now lives in California – whose economy, if it were a separate country, would be the ninth largest in the world – why not split it into a North and South California?

The Constitution is also silent on the number of states.

Those who recoil from structural reforms such as the three I’ve outlined warn that Republicans will retaliate when they return to power.

That’s rubbish. Republicans have already altered the ground rules. In 2016, they failed to win a majority of votes cast for the House, Senate, or the presidency, yet secured control over all three.

Barrett’s ascent is the latest illustration of how grotesque the Republican power grab has become, and how it continues to entrench itself ever more deeply. If not reversed soon, it will be impossible to remedy.

What’s at stake is not partisan politics. It is representative government. If Democrats get the opportunity, they must redress this growing imbalance – for the sake of democracy.  

Consciousness is a Continuum

Dear friends,

Good old Marcus Aurelius with his stoicism. He often has just the right advice for us when we may be floundering a bit.  He said to do what is in front of you and to do it “as if it were the last thing you would ever do.”  Now, if we want to combine that with the wisdom of the Buddhists, we might add “because the way you do the last thing you do is the consciousness you will take with you into the next incarnation.”  I think the point Aurelius was making is that we do not have all the time in the world to get it right. He is encouraging us to be here now and to not wait to be happy, useful, kind and in love with things as they are.

Consciousness is a continuum.  It flows forward, like everything does. When I was teaching classes in New Thought spirituality, I would use the analogy of the cowboy hero in old westerns.  He would do what he came to do in the little town needing help, then we would mount his horse and ride out and he would ride into the next town on the same horse!

Nothing changes until we adopt some new ideas and act on them.  Do it now and do it in the consciousness of gratitude.  That is the best way to build a future, wherever that may be.

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes www.carol-carnes.com

Off the Top of My Head

The Future of Jobs

by John Lawrence, October 26, 2020

Any job done in a factory will be robotized. But when you call a plumber, they will not send a robot out to your house. That's a job that will be have to be done by a human being. Same for an installer whether it be solar panels or an electrician. Any job required for a household cannot be robotized. You're not going to greet a robot at the door. Any job that does not involve routine, repetitive movements at one location will probably never be robotized. Th robots must be firmly rooted on the factory floor.

Teachers will probably never be replaced by robots although some teaching materials can be filmed and put online. Doctors, nurses and caregivers will never be replaced by robots. Any job which requires a multiplicity of different movements combined with empathy for another human being cannot be entirely robotized. Entertainers and sports players will probably always be with us. You don't want to watch a bunch of robots play football, do you? Lawyers and judges will necessarily have to be human beings and not robots. Anything that requires negotiation and coordination will have to have a human not a robot involved. In fact robots are basically only good for taking manufacturing jobs away from humans. And driving jobs which involve mostly repetitive, routine movements. Driverless 18-wheelers are already on the road. Delivery drivers will probably be replaced by drones.

Psychiatrists and psychologists will of course have to be human beings. A robot cannot understand your emotions. Janitors and maids will also have to be humans. A robot cannot make a bed. Musicians, writers and artists - anything that requires human creativity can't be automated. As well, research will always require human beings although robots and Artificial Intelligence can help to do the job, but they shouldn't be making final decisions. Installation of solar and wind farms, installation of green technology upgrading of infrastructure all require a lot of human jobs. This is why a Green New Deal or Biden's New Deal is very important for the creation of jobs. There is no lack of work that needs to be done to bring the US into the 21st century and put the US on a par with other countries that are developing infrastructure rapidly. Wind and solar technicians are the jobs forecast to grow in the immediate future. Also nurses and physical and occupational therapists.

Robots will never replace most jobs that require a specific combination of rational thinking, common sense, flexibility, manual dexterity, worldly and special knowledge, empathy, and communication skills And people prefer and trust humans over machines for all jobs which require judgment, decision-making and, complex reasoning. Because no machine can replace a REAL HUMAN, any job that requires the human heart and brain will NEVER be fully automated.

The most vulnerable jobs are low-skill positions in very structured and predictable settings, such as heavy-machinery operations and fast-food work. Significant parts of white-collar jobs that involve collecting and processing information — paralegal work, accounting and mortgage origination, for example — are also likely to be automated. “The jobs that will go away are the jobs that are routine in nature,” said Joseph B. Fuller, professor of management practice at Harvard Business School. Jobs that don’t require much deviation from a central task, he noted, are the easiest to describe in an algorithm and thus prime candidates for automation.

This is why it's important to elect Joe Biden not just to create the middle class jobs but to make sure the jobs of caregiver and janitor receive a living wage. If we can harness all of our energy and talents, and unmatchable American innovation, we can turn this threat [of global warming] into an opportunity to revitalize the U.S. energy sector and boost growth economy-wide. We can create new industries that reinvigorate our manufacturing and create high-quality, middle-class jobs in cities and towns across the United States. We can lead America to become the world’s clean energy superpower. We can export our clean-energy technology across the globe and create high-quality, middle-class jobs here at home. Getting to a 100% clean energy economy is not only an obligation, it’s an opportunity. We should fully adopt a clean energy future, not just for all of us today, but for our children and grandchildren, so their tomorrow is healthier, safer, and more just.

HISTORICAL COMPOSITION OF WHITE, RACIAL, ETHNIC VOTING TRENDS AND 2020 ELECTION TURNOUT FORECAST

by Frank Thomas

Data below will give some "big picture insights" into VOTER TURNOUT in U.S. Presidential Elections and Changing Racial and Ethnic VOTER Mix.

In 2016, there were about 245.5 million of the voting age population of ages 18 and older. Turnout is usually calculated based on estimated voting-age population which was 137.5 million for a 55.7% turnout in the 2016 presidential election. However, political scientists define voter turnout as a share of the voting-eligible citizens after subtracting non-citizens, ineligible felons from the voting-age population and adding eligible overseas voters. This calculation approach gave a 2016 total U.S. turnout result of about 60% in the presidential election of 2016.

That result compared to 70% for the U.S. voting age citizens registered in 2016 - versus 91% in Canada (2015), 96% in UK (2017), 97% in Sweden (2017). Registered voters clearly represent a much smaller share of potential voters in the U.S. than just about any other OECD country. Millions of Americans are not registered millions are registered but do not vote.

CHART I. PEW U.S. TURNOUT DATA BY AGE GROUP – PAST PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS

AGE GROUP            2000            2004           2008           2012            2016

18 - 29                        40.3%         49.0%          51.1%         45.0%         46.1%

30 - 44                        58.5%         62.4%          61.8%         59.5%         58.7%

45 - 64                        67.8%         70.4%          69.2%         67.9%         66.6%

65 and Older             69.6%          71.0%         70.3%          72.0%        70.9%

2016 Actual Turnout = 60%

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Frank Thomas:  2020 WEIGHTED FORECAST OF TOTAL VOTER TURNOUT 

2020 Turnout %     Share of Total Registered Voters  2020 Forecast Voter Turnout

53.0%              x                20%                   =                    10.6% )

64.6%              x                25%                   =                    16.2% ) Weighted

71.9%              x                31%                   =                    22.3% ) Averages

74.4%              x                24%                   =                    17.9% )

  100%                                         67% = 2020 Total Turnout

The 67% FORECAST TOTAL VOTER TURNOUT % for the Nov. 3, 2020 presidential election may well be on the low side and could reach the 70% range! Americans are well aware this is perhaps one of the most important, if not the most important, presidential election in the history of our country. They are very likely coming out in record numbers not seen since WWII.

SOURCE: CHARTS I-IV - PEW Research Center - "The Changing Racial and Ethnic Composition of U.S. Electorate," by Ruth Igienik and Abby Budiman.

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CHART II. U.S. ELIGIBLE VOTERS BY RACE & ETHNICITY

                2000     2010     2018     Eligible Citizen Voter Population     TOTAL 2000-2018     Increase % of Total Increase

WHITE      67%      72%     76%                    157.5 Mil.                                  9.8 Mil.                                    24%

HISPANIC 7%       10%      13%                     29.8 Mil.                                   15.5 Mil.                                  39%

BLACK     12%      12%     13%                     29.2 Mil.                                    6.8 Mil.                                   17%

ASIAN      2%         4%        4%                     10.3 Mil.                                    5.7 Mil.                                   14%

OTHERS  2%         2%        3%                       6.8 Mil.                                    2.4 Mil.                                     6%

TOTAL INCREASE 40.3 Million 100%

The strong 24% increase in White voters is largely due to the sharp increase in women voters who will vote mainly for Joe Biden for president. Same applies to a strong 39% increase in Hispanic voters and high 31% increase in Black and Asian voters who will also vote mainly for Joe Biden. In short, these Race & Ethnicity voter trends benefit the Democrats in coming November 3 elections.

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CHART III. HIGH VOTER TURNOUT OF WHITE AND BLACK IN PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS Percentage of Eligible Voters Who Say They Voted in 2016 - 2020 % Forecast of Voter Turnout

                      2000         2004         2008         2012         2016          NOTE: 2020 F. Thomas Forecast

WHITE          62%           67%           66%         64%         65%                 68%

HISPANIC    45%            47%           50%         48%         48%                 54%

BLACK        57%             60%           65%         67%         60%                71%

ASIAN         43%             44%            47%         47%        49%                 55% ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

CHART IV. ALL RACIAL & ETHNIC VOTER GROUPS FAVOR DEMOCRATS, EXCEPT WHITES

                                 2018/2019                                 1994                             NOTE: 2020 F. Thomas Forecast

                           Democrat Republican           Democrat Republican               Democrat Republican

WHITE                    42%       53%                      39%           51%                           46%       51%

HISPANIC               63%           29%                       57%           29%                           66%       31%

BLACK                   83%           10%                        81%          11%                           84%        11%

ASIAN                    72%           17%                        53%           33%                          75%          19%

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These Racial and Ethnic data trends strengthen the Democrat Voter Turnout much more than they do the Republican Party Voter Turnout base. The White Voter Group is the one notable exception, but current polls show this that this voter group is becoming more equally divided between both parties. This is in no small part due to the powerful Black, Hispanic, Asian Voter Groups, Young and Older Age Groups as well as the fast growing White Woman Voter sector.

These groups have always usually voted mainly for the Democrat Party. The extraordinary social-economic culturally polarized Mess our nation is in on many fronts has Americans coming out now in record droves to vote for MAJOR changes and improvements in our political leadership that will benefit ALL citizens - especially the well-being of the grossly marginalized Average Joe Doe now making up 90% of our working population.

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ADDED EXPLANATION OF HISTORICAL OF WHITE, RACIAL, ETHNIC VOTING TRENDS – 2020 ELECTION TURNOUT FORECAST

The CHART II 24% (2000-2018) increase of White eligible voters is mainly from higher the White women voter turnout for Democrats, thus helping Joe Biden. But White gender partisan preferences differ widely. As noted in Chart IV, partisan preference differences are evident across Racial and Ethnic groups, i.e., Black, Hispanic, Asian groups and the White women group benefit Democrats far more than Republicans do. The Black, Hispanic, Asian groups also benefit Democrats far more than White men do. In 2018/2019, the Democratic Party had a wide advantage with 56% of women identified as Democrats versus 38% of women identified as Republicans. In sharp contrast, 42% of men were identified as Democrats while 50% of men were identified as Republicans.

Since 1994, gender and party identification gaps in voter turnouts have grown, but especially during 2018-2020. This is due to women's greater support than men's for policy priorities associated with the Democratic Party, e.g., handling of Covid-19 pandemic, preserving the Affordable Care Act, fighting climate change, addressing discrimination against Black and LGBTQ Americans, implementing gun controls, protecting women's control of their bodies.

In general, experts say that gender role socialization differences make women sensitive and alert to policy issues involving human vulnerability and care. It would be societally healthy if one day Democrat, Republican, Independent male voters could catch up a bit with women’s social well-being sensitive qualities and concerns.

In CHART IV, I noted that the White Voter Group of men does not strengthen the Democrat Voter Turnout as much as Racial and Ethnic groups do. This is due in part to the historical and 2018-2019 weak 42% of the White Voter Group (from Chart IV) favouring Democrats versus 53% favouring Republicans. In my forecast, I increased the White Voter Group number for Democrats to 46% and lowered the number for Republicans to 51%. This reflects my expected increased women vote for Democrats. Despite this, the White male and female forecast 46% vote for Democrats is still below vote percentages of the Black, Hispanic, Asian voter groups and White women group.

In summary, the vast majority of both men and women voters in all Racial and Ethnic groups and White Voter Group will impressively come out in strong support for Joe Biden.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

NOTE: As already mentioned, given the treacherous new wave the Covid-19 pandemic is on and its impact on the economy , my forecast of a Total Voter Turnout of 67% may (hopefully) be much understated.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

'We're Rounding the Corner Beautifully,' Trump Lies Just Before US Hits Another Record: 85,000+ New Covid-19 Cases

Published on Saturday, October 24, 2020 by Common Dreams

"Trump's lies and his rejection of science have cost us tens of thousands of lives. We need a new president," said Sen. Bernie Sanders.

by Jake Johnson, staff writer

 

17 Comments

President Donald Trump speaks during his campaign event on October 23, 2020 in The Villages, Florida. (Photo: Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

President Donald Trump late Friday repeated his lie that the United States is on its way to defeating the coronavirus pandemic just before the country reported a single-day record of more than 85,000 new Covid-19 infections, nearly 10,000 more cases than were tallied at the height of the devastating surge in mid-July.

But the president's remarks during a campaign rally Friday at The Villages, a Florida retirement community, conveyed zero indication that the U.S. is entering what could be the worst phase of the pandemic yet.

"It's true that country is rounding the turn of the pandemic. We are spiraling out of control."
—Dr. Zoë McLaren,School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County

"I mean, you look at what's going on and we're rounding the turn. We're rounding the corner. We're rounding the corner beautifully," Trump said, recycling an egregious falsehood that has become a staple of his stump speech even as infections and hospitalizations surge nationwide.

The New York Times reported late Friday that "since the start of October, the rise in cases has been steady and inexorable, with no plateau in sight... By that measure, Friday was the worst day of the pandemic, and health experts warned of a further surge as cold weather sets in. The number of people hospitalized with Covid-19 has already risen 40 percent in the past month."

Consistent with his reckless downplaying of the pandemic from the very start, Trump once again peddled the lie that the U.S. is "rounding the turn" during a late Friday rally in Pensacola, one of many largely maskless and closely packed in-person campaign events the president has held in recent days against the warnings of public health officials.

Watch:

"It's true that country is rounding the turn of the pandemic," responded Dr. Zoë McLaren, associate professor in the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. "We are spiraling out of control."

In addition to the record number of cases, the U.S. also reported more than 940 coronavirus deaths on Friday, bringing the nation's death toll to nearly 224,000—the highest in the world.

"This is only getting worse," tweeted epidemiologist Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding, warning that the U.S. could soon reach 100,000 new cases per day as the winter months approach.

With the November 3 election less than two weeks away, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) tweeted Friday that "Trump's lies and his rejection of science have cost us tens of thousands of lives."

"We need a new president," Sanders said.

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The 4 Biggest Takeaways from The Final Debate

by Robert Reich

Friday, October 23, 2020

Biden was more passionate and forceful than he’s been in any debate so far – including in the primary debates. But Trump’s lies and bizarre outbursts were no less toxic. 

Here are the 4 biggest takeaways.

1. Trump tried to run the same campaign he did in 2016 – but it doesn’t work as an incumbent.

Trump accused Joe Biden of being a “typical politician.” He promised, again, that he would release his tax returns “as soon as possible.” He claimed that he would replace Obamacare with something “much better.” And he rehashed some of his favorite racist tropes, like calling some immigrants “low IQ.” 

Sound familiar? It should — he said exactly the same things in 2016. But then he was an outsider. Now that he’s been president for almost 4 years, we can see right through them. 

He’s had an entire term to release his tax returns and replace Obamacare – and he’s failed to do either. He’s filled his administration with lobbyists, corporate insiders, and his own family members — the exact opposite of draining the swamp. And he’s proven himself to be the very worst kind of lying, conman politician he used to rail against. 

They were the same old attacks, but they fell flat.

2. Trump’s conspiracy theories were beyond comprehension.

$3.5 million from Russia? Hunter Biden’s laptop? Spying on Trump’s campaign? 

We all know Trump has a penchant for conspiracy theo ries, but last night he took them to an incoherent low. The conspiracies he conjured up were indecipherable, even to the most ardent Fox News viewer. 

He’s slipping in the polls, his campaign’s cash is evaporating, and he can’t run on COVID or the economy or anything else that matters to the American people. So he’s latching on to more and more bizarre lies. Swing voters have no idea what he’s talking about when he rambles on about Hunter Biden’s laptop and the mayor of Moscow. They have more important problems on their minds, which Trump has failed to address – or has worsened.

3. Biden put a human face to the harm Trump has inflicted on our country.

Throughout the night, Biden refused to sink to Trump’s childish lows. Biden highlighted the human suffering that Trump’s failed coronavirus response has caused. 

He looked directly into the camera and spoke to the American people, talking about our staggering death toll of 220,000; about how firefighters, nurses, teachers, and first responders were going to lose their jobs because Trump was more concerned about playing politics than helping the country; letting them know he understands the grief so many are going through right now. 

And he promised to be a president for all Americans – not just those who voted for him. After four years of Trump’s divisiveness, malignant narcissism, and abject cruelty, Biden’s message of unity and healing could not be more of a contrast – and more welcome.

4. Trump’s lies were more outrageous than ever.

Trump claimed he was “the least racist person in the room,” and that he’d done more for Black Americans than any president since Abraham Lincoln. He also downplayed the devastating toll of coronavirus, and even declared that he knew “more about wind” than Biden. 

It was the performance of a desperate con man whose ignorance and racism have been on full display for far too long.

Look, the choice couldn’t be clearer. But we can’t be complacent. We know that Trump will do anything to hold on to power, and there’s no telling what he’ll do as he gets more unhinged. 

So please: Organize. Volunteer. Make a plan to vote. Mobilize your neighbors. We can’t afford anything less than a blowout victory for Joe Biden and Democrats all the way down the ballot.

Just 11 days to go. Let’s make every second count.

Off the Top of My Head

Trump Holds Super Spreader Events with Old People as COVID Sets Record in US

by John Lawrence

Yesterday a record was set: 83,000 COVID infections, the highest ever. Meanwhile, Trump was holding a mainly maskless event in the Villages, a retirement community in Florida.The New England Journal of Medicine reported on October 8, 2020:

Covid-19 has created a crisis throughout the world. This crisis has produced a test of leadership. With no good options to combat a novel pathogen, countries were forced to make hard choices about how to respond. Here in the United States, our leaders have failed that test. They have taken a crisis and turned it into a tragedy.

The magnitude of this failure is astonishing. According to the Johns Hopkins Center for Systems Science and Engineering, the United States leads the world in Covid-19 cases and in deaths due to the disease, far exceeding the numbers in much larger countries, such as China. The death rate in this country is more than double that of Canada, exceeds that of Japan, a country with a vulnerable and elderly population, by a factor of almost 50, and even dwarfs the rates in lower-middle-income countries, such as Vietnam, by a factor of almost 2000. Covid-19 is an overwhelming challenge, and many factors contribute to its severity. But the one we can control is how we behave. And in the United States we have consistently behaved poorly.

Is this Vietnam's revenge? Vietnam is the country we ravaged burning women and children alive with Agent Orange while affecting our own soldiers as well. The number of Vietnam veterans affected by the chemical Agent Orange is astonishing. Roughly 300-thousand veterans have died from Agent Orange exposure -- that's almost five times as many as the 58-thousand who died in combat. Be that as it may, the fact that the death rate from COVID in the US is 3000 times greater than the death rate in Vietnam is astonishing. Could it have to do with the fact that Vietnam is the least obese country in the world while the US is among the most obese? Out of 191 countries Vietnam has an obesity rate of 2.1% while in the US the obesity rate is 36.2%. As we know obesity is an underlying condition for COVID morbidity. The American diet may be the main underlying condition. Burgers, pizza and fast food may have been a contributing factor to the COVID death rate.

We also know that countries that have got the pandemic under control have been able to reopen their economies successfully. China is on track to expand by roughly 5% in the third quarter roughly at the same rate as in 2019 before the pandemic hit. On the other hand countries that haven't gotten the pandemic under control such as the US have not been able to reopen successfully see sawing back and forth between reopening and reshuting as the COVUD infection rate see saws back and forth. Consumers are wary to come out in public as long as the infection rate is high. Since consumption is 70% of the US economy, much larger than the European consumption rate of 50%, it is more important in the US that consumption remains high in order for the economy to sustain itself. After the election, providing Biden wins, there will probably be another installment of the CARES Act putting money directly in consumers' hands thus preventing the US economy from free fall.

Expert opinion holds that US leadership, namely Trump and his cronies, has abjectly failed in its response to the COVID pandemic. Elections have consequences. Electing clowns like George W Bush, who lied us into a tragic war in Iraq, and Trump who was Missing in Action with respect to the COVID pandemic shows the ignorant mistakes the American electorate has made. Gore and Hillary Clinton would have been infinitely more competent in dealing with the crises that America has had to face. Let's not make the same mistake again! This time we must elect Joe Biden or the US is finished as a world leader. A democracy is only as good as the competence and intelligence of the citizens comprising it. So far the American people - some of them - have displayed their ignorance and incompetence by not wearing masks and complaining that they have a right not to do so. Freedom may just be another name for nothing left to lose as the Kris Kristofferson song says.

Off the Top of My Head

Increase Taxes on the Rich. Reduce Taxes on the Middle Class

by John Lawrence, October22, 2020

Finally, the Democrats are getting smart. Republicans have won on one issue: reducing your taxes. Unfortunately, they reduce them a lot more on the rich than they do on the middle class. So now Joe Biden has introduced some nuance. Can the American people comprehend it? Reducing taxes on everyone making less than $400,00 per year and raising them on everyone making more than $400,000. What a great idea! What took them so long? It's absolutely necessary if we want to decrease economic inequality which is out of control. So Joe Biden would increase taxes only on the upper 1%. To be among the upper 1%, a family needs an income of $421,926. In terms of wealth the upper 1% owns 38.5% of the nation's wealth. The upper 1% owns more wealth than the bottom 90%. The bottom 80% of Americans are net debtors. Debt is negative wealth; that should be obvious, but many Americans are financially illiterate. Financial literacy should be a course in high school. Wealth and income are two separate but related issues. Middles class Americans who own homes pay a wealth tax: property taxes. Rich people don't pay wealth taxes on most of their assets which are in stocks and bonds.

Wealthier Americans don't spend all their income on consumption. A portion of it just goes to add to their wealth. Middle class and poor Americans spend all their income on consumption, even going into debt to consume. So the wealthy extract rent and interest from the middle class and the poor who devote a huge share of their incomes to rent and interest. Now more than ever, Americans are drowning in debt. Prior to the Great Recession of 2008, many Americans were struggling to keep their heads above water. When the bubble burst, those with the most debt were left drowning in a sea of financial insolvency. While the country has since recovered financially, the COVID-19 pandemic is threatening to derail the economy once more. In order to diminish not only income inequality but wealth inequality, policies should be undertaken to tax both the wealth and income of the wealthy while encouraging the middle class and poor to build wealth and get out of debt. A small financial transactions tax would tax the wealth of the rich which is mostly comprised of stocks and bonds and real estate. If every stock trade were taxed, this would create a huge pool of money which could be spent in more constructive ways than simply adding to the wealth of the rich.

While the rich can go bankrupt and bail themselves out with golden parachutes, most struggling student loan debtors have no such option. The laws preclude them from going bankrupt. They cannot discharge their debts in bankruptcy. In addition to student loan debt, most middle class people who own a home have a lot of mortgage debt. So they don't really own the home; the bank does. They have the privilege of making payments on a home which include a lot of interest. If they are successful in paying off their mortgage, they will have an asset which represents wealth. This is the main way the middle class creates wealth for itself. Unfortunately, this wealth takes a life time to create so is unavailable to most middle class people until it's too late to enjoy it. The good thing though is that their children can inherit it. This represents an intergenerational transfer of wealth so that their children or grandchildren start out not from zero, where most children of the poor start out, but from a positive accumulation of wealth no matter how small.

Since most Americans overconsume and under save in many cases by necessity but in some just by predilection, they have nothing to fall back on when there is a disruption in the economic system like a pandemic. Since American GDP is predicated on 70% consumption, the American economy cannot stay out of recession if people stop consuming. That's why the Republican controlled government, understanding this, came up with the CARES Act. It was not so much out of a concern for the middle class and the poor as it was a consideration to keep up consumption which is essential to maintaining GDP and hence a necessary economic statistic. A Joe Biden administration will get the economy back on the right track which will increase the income and wealth of the poor and middle class while diminishing that of the wealthy. Financial literacy should make clear the importance of not going into debt but of creating wealth no matter what your income statistics are at the beginning of this process.

Off the Top of My Head

Can American Democracy Survive?

by John Lawrence, October 21, 2020

Democracy is predicated on two things: an educated electorate and an ethical electorate. President Trump exemplifies the demise of both. The Founding Fathers were the most well read and educated people of their time, and also the most ethical despite the fact that a lot of them were Deists. Thomas Jefferson extracted Jesus' ethical principles from the Bible while leaving out everything having to do with belief systems. It's called the Jefferson Bible. Deists believed there was a Supreme Being that created the universe, but didn't interact with it. They also believed in Christian ethics while believing Jesus was only human, not divine. Today the ethos of America, while nominally Christian, is actually based on an extremely selfish version of Freedom. Christian ethics, as Thomas Jefferson believed, has to do with each citizen's responsibility to the demos, not with a solipsistic narrow view that the only thing that matters is yourself. "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Love your neighbor as yourself." This is the essence of Christian ethics that is a fundamental principle of democracy. Today's Americans, as exemplified by Trump, are more followers of Ayn Rand ("The Virtue of Selfishness") than they are followers of Jesus Christ's ethics. Americans have taken the value of freedom and have made it an absolute ideal instead of balancing it with equality and brotherhood as the French did with their slogan: Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite. Americans have totally forgotten about Fraternite.

Consider how American history would have been changed if Jimmy Carter had been elected in 1980 and Al Gore (who actually won) had been elected in 2000. Jimmy Carter put solar panels on the White House. Ronald Reagan took them down. If we had had a Jimmy Carter Presidency, we might have actually gotten a handle on global warming. Instead now it's too late to prevent destruction of the earth's environment even if we do everything right from now on. If Al Gore had been elected in 2000, we would have had a huge lead on dealing with global warming as Al Gore was a champion for an intelligent response to global warming. "An Inconvenient Truth" is a 2006 American concert/documentary film directed by Davis Guggenheim about former United States Vice President Al Gore's campaign to educate people about global warming. The film features a slide show that, by Gore's own estimate, he has presented over 1,000 times to audiences worldwide. Instead we got George W Bush who lied us into war with Iraq and squandered trillions of dollars and countless lives contributing to a world in which there are 80,000 refugees and turmoil in the Middle East.

This is from Time magazine, October 19, 2020 by Justin Worland:

American Presidents typically use their annual U.N. General Assembly speech to argue that U.S. leadership can shape the world for the better. Instead, on Sept. 22, President Donald Trump took the opportunity to condemn the global fight against climate change. "They only want to punish America, and I will not stand for it," he said, addressing the assembly virtually from the White House. The U.N. instead should "focus on the real problems of the world," he added.

Trump's rejection of climate change as a "real problem" is nothing new. But his comments, coming just weeks before Election Day, underscore the threat four more years of his leadership poses to the planet.

The Trump administration has rolled back myriad U.S. environmental regulations, including a rule designed to reduce power-plant emissions, another requiring energy companies to stop methane leaks and yet another mandating that automakers build more efficient vehicles. Internationally, Trump has pulled the U.S. out of the Paris Agreement, a multilateral deal meant to curb climate change; his decision will become official the day after November's election. (His rival, Joe Biden, has promised to undo Trump's environmental deregulation.) Trump has also pushed other countries to invest in fossil fuels. "There has been nothing like [this] Administration on the environment in the last 50 years," says William Reilly, who led the Environmental Protection Agency under President George H.W. Bush.

Climate experts consider the Trump years to be lost time - while also warning that we don't have four more years to waste. Scientists say we need to keep the rise in average global temperature well below 2 degrees C to avoid catastrophe - think collapsing ice sheets that raise sea levels and make many coastal cities uninhabitable, in turn driving mass migration.

What is driving Trump's antipathy to the remediation of climate change is a desire to maximize U.S. economic output, increasing U.S. GDP and making him palatable to his voters who selfishly value short term prosperity over long term habitability of the earth. Those who selfishly value their own perceived immediate well being over that of their children and grandchildren. This is exactly the kind of rejection of Christian values (aside from any actual Christian beliefs which many Trump voters claim to have) that the Founding Fathers and others consider to be necessary to maintain a democracy. A democracy can't exists for long if the ethos is everybody for themselves. If people only consider their own selfish interests and not the well being of the polity, the necessary substrate of democracy is missing. The preamble to the American Constitution, "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, ...", includes the words "to promote the general welfare." It's not just about a radical interpretation of "freedom" which encourages people to ignore the general welfare or to ignore the welfare of the planet earth. This solipsistic interpretation of freedom which encourages people to only consider their own selfish interests and to ignore the general welfare is conducive to the demise of democracy.

Off the Top of My Head

If You Thought American Inequality Was Bad Before COVID, You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet

by John Lawrence, October 19, 2020

Pandemics should be the great equalizer, but COVID has exacerbated inequality. The rich have gotten richer. The poor have not only gotten poorer, they've slipped into poverty and homelessness. Around the world the Economist estimates that about 100 million people are falling back into extreme poverty, that is they are living on less than $2 a day. In the US between 6 and 8 million people have been pushed into extreme poverty within the last few months. CNBC reported that nearly 40% of cash-strapped Americans can't last a month on their savings. But there are success stories if you want to call them that. Amazon has seen its market cap increase by $750 billion to around $1.7 trillion. Jeff Bezos' net worth is now around $200 billion. Clearly the COVID economic depression has not been bad for everyone.

Americans are not encouraged to save for a rainy day, and 2020 has seen a series of the all time rainiest of days. We are encouraged to consume, consume, consume. Consumption is 70% of GDP in the US, much higher than the 51% share in Europe and 57% in China. The problem now is that Americans can't consume if they don't have the money to do it. That is why the CARES Act  was so important and why a further relief package is as important. If people don't spend to consume, the US will go into a depression. Consumer spending is important for the US economy much more so than elsewhere in the world.

China's economy will be the only one to grow this year while the US economy shrinks. China got COVID under control months ago, and its economy now is in full swing. It goes to show the wisdom of getting COVID under control first no matter how severe the measures that have to be taken to do so. Then the economy can open with no problem. The US, under the leadership of President Trump, did a half ass job of getting COVID under control with the result that opening the economy was done in a half ass way also. Now COVID is on the upswing in the US, and Trump is holding super spreader event rallies as he seemingly wants to take his supporters down with him if he fails to win on election day. The economy is on a roller coaster of half openings and half closings.

Clearly, there has been a K shaped recovery with the rich doing very well and the poor slipping into poverty. Poor essential workers such as meat packers and agricultural workers presumably still have their jobs. Nonessential poor workers such as maids in the hospitality industry and restaurant and bar workers have lost their jobs as those industries have either shut down or are struggling. The worst thing for these struggling industries would be to have to shut down completely again although that may be necessary if COVID cases continue to spike. Although the situation is bad for poor people in the US, it's worse in the rest of the world. The World Bank has revised its analysis of the effects of COVID, and they now estimate that the COVID pandemic is likely to push between 88 and 115 million people into extreme poverty in 2020, setting back poverty reduction by around three years. Meanwhile, billionaires saw their wealth climb 27.5% to $10.2 trillion from April to July this year, according to a report from Swiss bank UBS.

The US' response to COVID has been among the poorest in the world with the result that America's influence in the world, already on the downswing, is further eroding. Inevitably China will take over as the world's largest economy just based on its superior response to the COVID pandemic alone. That makes this year's elections crucial to resuming some semblance of American influence and respect in the world community. Not to mention that if Trump is reelected there is no hope for a remediated response to global warming and climate change. Either the US will get on the right track in several different dimensions with Joe Biden as President or Trump, if he serves another 4 years, will take America and the world down with him.

Critics Say Deregulatory Rush Shows Even If Defeated the Trump White House Willing to 'Scorch the Earth Before They Go'

Published on Saturday, October 17, 2020

by Common Dreams

From bomb trains to biometrics to workers' rights, the administration is pushing for last-minute rollbacks that could prove hard for its successor to overturn.

by Brett Wilkins, staff writer

 

64 Comments

President Donald Trump signs an executive order in the White House. (Photo: Andrew Harrer/Getty Images) 

With President Donald Trump's re-election very much in doubt, his administration is rushing to ram through regulatory rollbacks that could adversely affect millions of Americans, the environment, and the ability of Joe Biden—should he win—to pursue his agenda or even undo the damage done over the past four years. 

Reporting by the New York Times details how the administration is cutting corners as it scrambles to enact as much of its agenda as possible before ceding power on January 20 if Trump loses the election. Required public comment periods and detailed analyses, according to the Times, are being eschewed in favor of streamlined approval processes that have left even staunch deregulation defenders sounding the alarm. 

"Two main hallmarks of a good regulation is sound analysis to support the alternatives chosen and extensive public comment to get broader opinion," Susan E. Dudley, director of the George Washington University Regulatory Studies Center and formerly head of regulation in the George W. Bush White House, told the Times. "It is a concern if you are bypassing both of those." 

Russell Vought, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, told the Times that the president has always "worked quickly... to grow the economy by removing the mountain of Obama-Biden job-killing regulations." 

However, critics are warning that some of the proposed changes are being rushed through with insufficient regard to the harm they might cause. Some of the issues that are raising red flags include: 

• Refusing to lower limits on dangerous particulate and ozone pollution, which cause thousands of annual premature deaths.
• Allowing so-called "bomb trains" that transport highly combustible liquefied natural gas on freight trains.
• Determining when workers can be classified as employees or independent contractors. 
• Exempting certain commercial drivers from mandatory hour limits and rest periods. 
• Placing limits on how science is used in the air pollution rule-making process.
• Expanding regulation of immigrants by requiring citizenship applicants to submit biometric data, by forcing sponsors of immigrants to stay off welfare and prove their financial independence.

In response to the reporting, critics of the administration like writer Matthew Kressel said that it helps make clear that if the Republicans in the White House cannot win reelection, they'll "scorch the earth before they go."

And Matthew Gertz, a senior fellow at Media Matters for America, tweeted: "I think people underestimate the amount of time and energy that is going to be needed just to climb out from under the mountain of shit this administration leaves behind."

Many of the changes reflect the agendas of the powerful corporate and other business interests whose key players have donated generously to Trump, belying the president's oft-repeated claim that he is "draining the swamp." Other regulator rollbacks come despite warnings from career officials within federal agencies about the harm they could cause. 

Alarmed by the administration's rushed rate of regulatory rollbacks, a group of over 15 Democratic senators earlier this month sent a letter (pdf) to Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia warning of "profound economic implications" for some 143 million U.S. workers that would result from curtailing public comment periods for the proposed rule change regarding independent contractors. 

"Workers across the country deserve a chance to fully examine and properly respond to these potentially radical changes, and a 30-day comment period is not nearly enough," the letter states.

---

 

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The Garden

Dear friends,

Ralph Waldo Emerson loved life. He was effusive in his joy at being alive. Here is a quote from him: “I will at least be glad of my days, I who have so many of them, and having been informed by God, though in the most casual manner that my funds are inexhaustible, I will believe it with all my heart.”

Can we be glad of our days?  Can we believe that our supply is inexhaustible? The casual manner he speaks of, I believe, is his intuition, his inner knowing, his relationship with Nature.  It is as if he were saying “look around, pay attention, Life is complete in and of itself.”  The error in most minds is our tendency to think little of ourselves.  This comes from religions that are rooted in sin’ those that teach us we are guilty of something terrible, which most of us have yet to define, yet we feel unworthy of the inexhaustible supply that we intuit to be real.

It seems to me that humans have misspent their days on earth trying to repent for something we did not do. How sad to be kicked out of the Garden because the feminine aspect of our nature said “eat the fruit! Be happy! Enjoy the days you are here!”  But the masculine had to make it into a battle with the natural forces of his body.  He had to see his freedom to name everything as some kind of retribution, as an obligation.   Without the influence of the Feminine he went to war with God, with his perception of evil, with Nature.

None of us knows how many days we have here.  Emerson’s advice would be to relish every moment, to be like a child discovering her freedom again and again.  We have never actually left the Garden. Only our perception of separation from God makes it seem so.

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes www.carol-carnes.com

Off the Top of My Head

Why Should Joe Biden Answer the Question?

by John Lawrence, October 18, 2020

Lindsay Graham effectively swore on a stack of Bibles that, if a Supreme Court vacancy occurred during an election year, the next President would get to fill that vacancy. Now he's presiding over getting President Trump's choice on the Court just a couple of days before the election. So Joe Biden would be totally within his rights to swear he would not pack the Court, and then go ahead and do it once elected. Or he's certainly within his rights to equivocate and not answer the question. After all it isn't even certain he will be elected. Second, it's not within his sole power to pack the court. Third, that might not be the most efficacious way to go. Then again, it might.

What's important here is that a progressive agenda gets implemented especially with respect to climate change. Republicans can be expected to block this agenda to the extent they have the power to do so. This whole drama is deja vu all over again. President Roosevelt faced the same dilemma over his New Deal. He had a Supreme Court not predisposed to approve his New Deal. So the whole issue of court packing came up way back in the 1930s. The Judicial Procedures Reform Bill of 1937, frequently called the "court-packing plan", was a legislative initiative proposed by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt to add more justices to the U.S. Supreme Court in order to obtain favorable rulings regarding New Deal legislation that the Court had ruled unconstitutional. The central provision of the bill would have granted the president power to appoint an additional justice to the U.S. Supreme Court, up to a maximum of six, for every member of the court over the age of 70 years and 6 months.

The Supreme Court that Roosevelt was faced with had 4 conservative judges, 3 liberals and 2 swing judges. The Supreme Court that a potential President Biden will face will have 6 conservative and 3 liberal judges. It seems a weak point in the US Constitution that the worst President in US history has gotten to appoint one third of the Supreme Court Justices. Be that as it may, and assuming the progressive legislation comes before the Supreme Court in a Biden administration, then the composition of the Court becomes of paramount importance. At that point it would be crucial to consider the question of appointing more Justices to the Court in order to change the conservative bias. First of all in order for any piece of legislation to get to the Supreme Court, Democrats would have to control both branches of Congress and they would have to get rid of the filibuster. Otherwise, if there were even one Republican Senator, he or she could quash any progressive legislation. So the issue of packing or not packing would be moot. Supposing that some Green New Deal legislation gets enacted into law, the court suits would begin and undoubtedly would come before the Supreme Court.

Whatever the political differences among the justices of the 1937 Supreme Court, the clash over the constitutionality of the New Deal initiatives was tied to clearly divergent legal philosophies which were gradually coming into competition with each other: legal formalism and legal realism. This debate spilled over into the realm of constitutional law. Realist legal scholars and judges argued that the constitution should be interpreted flexibly and judges should not use the Constitution to impede legislative experimentation. One of the most famous proponents of this concept, known as the Living Constitution, was U.S. Supreme Court justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., who said in Missouri v. Holland the "case before us must be considered in the light of our whole experience and not merely in that of what was said a hundred years ago". The conflict between formalists and realists implicated a changing but still-persistent view of constitutional jurisprudence which viewed the U.S. Constitution as a static, universal, and general document not designed to change over time.

Roosevelt did one of his famous Fireside Chats advocating for legislation that would pack the Supreme Court. The public was equivocal about its approval. On average, about 46% of each polling sample indicated opposition to President Roosevelt's proposed legislation. And it is clear that, after a surge from an early push by FDR, the public support for restructuring the Court rapidly melted. In the 18th and 19th centuries the size of the Court had been variously expanded and contracted so there is precedent for changing the size of the Court. Despite all this Roosevelt was unsuccessful in packing the Court. Yet he did win out due to the fact that some of the Justices died and some retired leaving FDR with the ability to appoint 8 new Justices to the Court. This enabled FDR's New Deal legislation to get Court approval and become accepted law. If not for this stroke of fate, there probably wouldn't have even been a New Deal.

There are a number of lessons here for Joe Biden if he gets to be President and attempts to pass a "Biden Green Deal." He and progressive Democrats should study the history of FDR's Court packing attempts and hopefully learn lessons thereby.

When Things Look the Worst

Dear friends,

Many of us are facing scary financial situations with the loss of income due to this pandemic. I remember the title of a book by Rev Chet Castellaw “When Things Look the Worst.” That is the time our beliefs are really put to the test. That is the time we must reinforce our spiritual connection to the Source of all. We may be tempted to think there is no way our coffers will be filled. With unemployment running out, no possibility of income looks real. My living mantra has always been “Spirit has never failed me and it won’t fail me now.” I look back on my life and see the many gifts that have come my way seemingly “out of the Blue” that were exactly what was needed in the moment.

The great Emmet Fox used to say God provides “money or molecules” depending on our situation.  With all that in mind I offer an affirmative statement regarding our supply:  Know this for yourself:

There is only One Life being all life, the Cause of the universe and everything in it. It is pure Love and Absolute Intelligence. That one life is right where I am, all the time, all of it, all at once. It hears my call and responds in kind. I declare that I am wealthy, debt free and always have plenty of money to spare and share. I know that my supply may come through many avenues here on earth. I am grateful and delighted at how creative Spirit is in fulfilling my request. I have everything necessary to live this life with boundless enthusiasm and with deep peace.  So it is.

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes www.carol.carnes.com

Off the Top of My Head

Has China Won?

by John Lawrence, October 16, 2020

Ian Bremmer wrote in Time magazine: "You might think 2020 had been a pretty good year for China, at least when compared with the West. Though COVID-19 began its global march there, China’s recovery has been remarkable. The government’s unprecedented capacity for surveillance, large-scale testing, contact tracing and quarantine helped contain the outbreak inside China within two months. That success allowed for the restart of supply chains and enabled a state investment-led rebound. China could be the world’s only large economy to grow this year. And as second waves of COVID-19 appear in Europe and the U.S., China hasn’t had any serious outbreaks over the past month. Life there is nearly back to normal."

The Chinese and the US economies were neck and neck prior to COVID. The fact that China has handled its response much better than has the US means that China will emerge as the world's largest economy by 2021. In his book, "Has China Won?", author Kishore Mahbubani sums up the strengths and weaknesses of both societies. He contends that the "Chinese Communist Party" is a misnomer. It should be called the Chinese Civilization Party as it owes more to China's 3000 year civilization than it does to communism. China values stability over chaos. It has pulled 800,000 Chinese citizens out of poverty in the last 40 years, largely because it has privatized large swaths of its society. Chinese citizens are well satisfied with their lot in life because among other things they have access to as wide a variety consumer goods as do the developed western societies.

So what has been the US response to China's rapid economic growth and expansion particularly with regard to its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) which is building infrastructure all over the world with the intention of recreating the ancient Silk Road trade route? Obama initiated the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) which would have been a trade alliance rivaling the BRI. Trump immediately withdrew from the TPP as well as withdrawing from other global initiatives and alliances under his America First go-it-alone philosophy with the result that even US allies are giving Xi Jinping and China more credibility than the US. Under the Trump administration the response to China's rise has been to try and put roadblocks in the way of Chinese corporations. They had Meng Wanzhou, the CFO of Huawei, China's largest privately held company, arrested on December 1, 2018 in Canada under the pretext that Huawei had sold equipment to Iran violating US sanctions. Subsequently, she was extradited to the US. On February 13, 2020 Meng was personally indicted by the DOJ on charges of trade secrets theft which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years' imprisonment.

Similarly, the Trump administration sought to prohibit the popular Chinese app Tik Tok from being downloaded by American consumers. Tik Tok, however, received a reprieve in September 2020 from an American federal court when a judge put a temporary stop to the Trump administration's ban. The government had argued that Tik Tok may have a "back door" through which it could share American data with the Chinese government. A ban would “be no different from the government locking the doors to a public forum,” said John Hall, a lawyer for TikTok. “We’re pleased that the court agreed with our legal arguments and issued an injunction preventing the implementation of the TikTok app ban,” a spokesman for TikTok said after the judge’s decision.

The American response to the success of Chinese private corporations might have been to cheer the at least partial privatization of the Chinese economy, a laudable development in accordance with US free enterprise, capitalistic principles. Instead, the US under Trump has sought to hinder Chinese corporations every step of the way even when they have won competitions fair and square. It is what I would call the Tonya Harding response. In January 1994, skater Tonya Harding became embroiled in controversy when her ex-husband, Jeff Gillooly, orchestrated an attack on her fellow U.S. skating rival Nancy Kerrigan. Both women then competed in the February 1994 Winter Olympics, where Kerrigan won the silver medal and Harding finished eighth. Harding was later banned from the sport. The US response to China over China's pulling ahead of it is reminiscent of Tonya's response to Kerrigan. If you can't beat your opponent with your natural talent, try to injure them (in this case sanction or ban them) instead.

This leaves aside the legitimacy of the US use of sanctions to demand that another country (in this case China) must not do business with some other country if the US says it can't. A Biden administration would reenter the Iran nuclear agreement which reduced sanctions against Iran, and, supposedly, Meng would be released. Tik Tok also would be allowed to continue its ability to sell its app all over the world. The US should engage constructively and diplomatically with China to allay any fears about "back doors." Diplomatic treaties and agreements are the way to go, not retaliation over imagined and ill defined fears. It's important that the US and China cooperate especially when it comes to global warming. They are the 2 largest greenhouse gas (GHG) emitters, and their cooperation is necessary in working with the rest of the world (in particular India) in bringing GHG emissions to net zero in the shortest time. The destructive effects of global warming are manifesting themselves now all over the world in addition to the wildfires on the US west coast and hurricanes in the Gulf states.

Off the Top of My Head

China Back to Normal. US COVID Surging.

by John Lawrence,, October 14, 2020

According to The Lancet: "As of Oct 4, 2020, China had confirmed 90,604 cases of COVID-19 and 4739 deaths, while the USA had registered 7,382,194 cases and 209,382 deaths." Clearly, China has had a much better response to the pandemic than has the US. Mike Ryan, executive director of the WHO Health Emergencies Programme, offered “deepest congratulations...to the front-line health workers in China and the population who worked together tirelessly to bring the disease to this very low level”. Fareed Zakaria in his excellent book, "Ten Lessons for a Post-Pandemic World," writes:

The pandemic has accelerated America's selfish turn - its abandonment of its role as leader of the free world and provider of public goods within the multilateral system. Perhaps the most striking example came with its vaccine strategy. Far from coordinating a global effort, or even encouraging its allies to pool resources, the Trump administration was simply looking to "win," edging out other countries in a race to get the vaccine first. The German press reported that the American government offered "large sums of money" to secure a German company's vaccine "for the US only." Meanwhile, partners like France, Brazil and Canada accused the US of swooping in on deals to acquire critical medical equipment and outbidding them, or even blocking shipments.

But it has been to no avail. The Trump administration's botched handling of its response to the pandemic has landed the US up in the situation that COVID is on the upsurge 9 months after Trump first knew about it. The denouement is that China is surging ahead with its economy while the US is surging ahead with the virus. What's more is that people are dying at a rate of some 700 a day  while the President himself, having caught the virus, was given Regeneron's monoclonal antibodies cocktail which seems to have killed off the virus in short order. Unfortunately, that treatment isn't available to everybody.

Zakaria opines on the US relationship with China. Trump can't condemn China too much as a huge amount of American products from American corporations are manufactured in and imported from China. The two countries are intertwined despite Trump's "Made in America" push. American corporations will not make their products in America as long as they can get cheaper labor elsewhere. After all their imperative is the bottom line and maximizing profits. Wall Street has told them this is what they must do, patriotism be damned.

Zakaria details the US response to the rise of China, its growing influence in the world even among US traditional allies, who seem to have more respect for Xi Jinping than for Trump. Trump is considered a loose cannon in the world today. The US can degenerate into Cold War II with China or America can play a more constructive role with its chief rival, which rivalry has come about rather suddenly. For example, the US can quibble with China about the situation in the Xinjiang region with the Uighurs, an Islamic minority, while ignoring its own history of forcing the Indians off their lands and onto reservations. In the long run, more is at stake in the US-China relationship them petty rivalries. As the two largest emitters of greenhouse gasses (GHGs), the US and China must cooperate to achieve net zero carbon emissions in short order or the earth will become uninhabitable. Scientists think Venus was inhabitable for billions of years before runaway GHGs made it uninhabitable. The same thing could happen to earth unless we take the situation seriously. For this reason the US and China must cooperate, not compete. We must avoid Cold War II or else the winner of this rivalry will win nothing more than a scorched earth.

Off the Top of My Head

It's Not the Quantity of Government. It's the Quality.

by John Lawrence, October 13, 2020

Fareed Zakaria has written a brilliant book: "Ten Lessons for a Post-Pandemic World." In it he says that the old debates between the Left and the Right are invalid. He notes that most major countries are a part of the world economic system. That system was set up after WWII by the US. China became a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001. The WTO deals with regulation of trade in goods, services and intellectual property between participating countries by providing a framework for negotiating trade agreements and a dispute resolution process aimed at enforcing participants' adherence to WTO agreements. So China which is arguably the world's largest economy is playing on the same field and under the same rules as the US, the EU and 123 other nations. It's fair to say that all countries party to the WTO are hybrids of capitalism and socialism, some leaning more one way and some leaning more the other way.

Zakaria writes: "... the old ideologies are obsolete. The divide that has organized politics for centuries has been between left and right. The Left has advocated a larger role for the state in the economy. The Right has staunchly defended free markets. For the twentieth century, the great political debate was about the size and role of government in the economy - the quantity of government. But what seems to have mattered most in this [pandemic] crisis was the quality of government." Zakaria argues that the US' response to the pandemic was hindered by the fact of US federalism. The creation of a national strategy for dealing with the pandemic was "complicated by the existence of 2,684 state, local and tribal health departments each jealously guarding its independence. To make matters even messier, the US has 90,126 units of state and local government, many of which were tasked with devising their own rules on mask-wearing and public gatherings."

Zakaria continues: "But this patchwork of authority is a nightmare when tackling a disease that knows no borders. The fragmentation of standards is especially acute when handling Covid-19 tests. ... (It is a far cry from Taiwan's system of 'health cards', which link up with a single data base for all relevant medical information.)" Imagine if every US citizen was covered by a health card that linked up with a national data base. It will never happen as long as the US remains a fragmented national state with so many conflicting jurisdictions. This fragmentation contrasts with a country like Canada which has one health card which any citizen can use anywhere, and the doctor can access all that patient's records. The medical visit costs the Canadian citizen nothing. This streamlining of medical records saves a lot of money and effort compared to the hodge podge of American medical record keeping.

This hodge podge and fragmentation of the US extends to many other areas. It has made police reform almost impossible as there are 18,000 police departments across the country. The fact of the matter is that this Federalism precludes any coherent national strategy when it comes to the COVID pandemic or much of anything else. It's the reason that the medical system in the US is so expensive while returning mediocre results. China and some other countries have handled the pandemic in an intelligent and coherent way with the result that they have controlled COVID. Therefore, their economies have gotten more or less back to normal while the US is still struggling to get a handle on the pandemic with the result that the US economy is still a shambles.

Is the US in the Grip of a Madman?

Frank Thomas thinks so. He sent me this:

News just out is that the FBI is charging six men accused in a plot to KIDNAP the Michigan Governor!!

This is an example of the extent Trump has been spreading hatred throughout the U.S. Just 3 days ago,

David Gergen, an admired advisor to a number of presidents said, very unexpected of him, that our nation 

is in the grip of a MADMAN! AMEN to THAT!!

Trump is a mentally sick man and 90% of the Republican House of Representatives and Senate are not

standing up to him. They are all bloody COWARDS willing to put our nation at risk by ignoring fact we 

are in the hands of a president who has been judged in a letter by 27 psychologists and psychiatrists as 

being UNFIT for the presidency because he is, obviously in their view, an extremely unstable leader

who has all the mental disabilities of a NARCISSISTIC SOCIOPATH. 

GOD HELP OUR NATION.

More and more, much respected men and women are coming out and saying more or less the same thing. Does it matter to Trump's base? Probably not. It might matter to some of the swing voters, however. There are indications that a lot of them have had it up to here with Trump's shenanigans. And the polls show Biden and Harris well ahead of Trump and Pence. But what really matters is just a few voters in battleground states where the vote was extremely close last time. Trump just squeaked by in a few states, even in those states where the polls showed Hillary was ahead. The popular vote will probably not even be close this time, but the electoral college distorts the popular vote making just a few key voters in a few key districts overwhelmingly important.

The best case scenario is that Biden-Harris voters show large returns early. The fact that more Democrats than Republicans seem inclined to vote by mail might show an early lead for Trump which will evaporate later as all the votes are counted. This could be problematic though as Trump might declare victory before all the votes are counted and then claim that the election was rigged when it becomes clear that Biden has won. In the final analysis, if Biden and Harris win decisively, there won't be much Trump can do but to leave office.

Off the Top of My Head

Quantitative Easing = Printing Money

by John Lawrence

In her book, "Deficits Don't Matter," author Stephanie Kelton makes the case that we don't have to worry about deficit spending. That's when the US government spends more than it takes in in taxes. So in a sense taxes don't matter either at least as far as balanced budgets go. The US dollar is a sovereign currency. This means we don't have to ask anyone's permission to print money. The US dollar was taken off the gold standard in 1971 under President Nixon. It is a fiat currency meaning that it is not backed by anything other than the word of the US government. The US has experienced the phenomenon of printing money to bail out the banks in the Great Recession of 2008. As of September of this year, the Fed's balance sheet was $7.1 trillion. As of January 2008, the Fed's balance sheet was less than $1 trillion. That means that the Fed has printed money to the tune of over $6 trillion since 2008. Yet there has been no inflation in the US economy which is the danger a lot of economists had predicted from printing so much money.

The Federal Reserve bank can print US dollars just by a few keystrokes on a computer. Approximately $3.5 trillion was printed to bail out the banks during the Great Recession. Another $2.5 trillion has been printed so far to deal with the COVID pandemic. The question arises that, if the Fed can print money any time it wants, why can't there be Quantitative Easing (QE) for the people? In other words, if the Fed can bail out the banks, why can't it bail out the homeless, why can't it bail out the $4 trillion deficit in infrastructure spending, why can't it bail out the hungry and the poor? The answer is that it can do all those things, but this tool, QE, for that is what it is - a tool - should be used judiciously. It should be used to accomplish useful and necessary goals. It should not be used frivolously. It should be used in conjunction with other tools like tax policy. It should be used to promote a full employment economy and achieve socially useful goals.

Tax policy should be used to raise most of the money needed for government spending, and it should be used to redress the balance of the high amount of inequality in the American economy. Taxing the wealthy both in terms of income and wealth while giving tax breaks to the middle class and poor while implementing policies to help them build wealth is one of the major things US Federal tax policy should do. Additional money can be obtained by reducing the bloated military and military-industrial complex budget. If, however, there are additional goals that should be met like hastening the switch to renewable energy or a fuller safety net for the American people, then QE for the people should be implemented. The goal is to have a balanced and useful economy, one that promotes net zero carbon emissions, one that promotes sustainable development on other parts of the world, one that hastens the day when no child goes hungry or uneducated, one that reduces financial inequality.

It has already been demonstrated that deficits don't matter because the Great Recession of 2008 was quelled by the Fed's policy of printing money with no adverse effects on the economy. We have seen again the salubrious effects pf printing money or QE, if you want to call it that, during the COVID pandemic during which another $2.5 trillion has been printed so far. There is no reason why any country that has a sovereign currency like the US does cannot print money. Since the US dollar is the world's reserve currency, other countries and individuals are willing to buy up most if not all of US debt. But if they didn't buy up any of it, the Fed could still take it - or as much as necessary - on its balance sheet. In other words the fact that other countries are buying US debt means that the Fed doesn't have to print as much money. Any country with a sovereign currency can do the same even if their currency is not much in demand on world markets. Since the US dollar is used a lot in world trade, other countries need a supply of US dollars and are willing to buy US debt to get them.

There is no reason why any American should go hungry or be homeless or lack health care. Speaking of health care, Medicare for All would not eliminate private health care as some have suggested. Even with Medicare some doctors refuse to see patients because they don't like the reimbursement Medicare provides. There would be a private market for the wealthy who would just pay out of pocket to doctors who refused to accept Medicare patients. The wealthy don't even need health insurance. It could not be made illegal for such a market to exist. So even though everyone would have health care under a Medicare for All plan, the wealthy would still hire private and presumably better doctors at their own expense.

The policy of the Fed's buying US debt, which is equivalent to printing money, should be used wisely and the money not wasted.  QE for the people combined with the fact that deficits don't matter should lead to a more productive society providing that those additional tools and resources are used in a constructive way and not used to further militarize the society and the world. Any tool can be used for good or for ill. QE for the people could be used for a more healthy, beneficial and well balanced society for all people, could eliminate poverty in the US and the world, bring US infrastructure into the modern era and combat global warming and future pandemics.

Health Experts 'Stunned' as Trump Says He Will Resume In-Person Rallies While Infected With Covid-19

Published on Friday, October 09, 2020

by Common Dreams

Trump and White House officials have repeatedly refused to say whether the president has tested negative for the coronavirus since his diagnosis last week.

by Jake Johnson, staff writer

 

16 Comments

President Donald Trump greets a crowd during a campaign rally at Smith Reynolds Airport on September 8, 2020 in Winston Salem, North Carolina. The president also made a campaign stop in South Florida on Tuesday. (Photo: Sean Rayford/Getty Images)

After refusing to say whether he has tested negative for Covid-19 since his diagnosis late last week, President Donald Trump told Sean Hannity of Fox News Thursday night that he is hoping to hold a pair of in-person rallies this coming weekend in the key battleground states of Florida and Pennsylvania despite the potential risk of spreading a virus that has now killed more than 212,000 Americans on his watch.

"I'll tell you, I took this Regeneron, it's phenomenal," Trump said, blowing past Hannity's question about whether he has recently tested negative for Covid-19. "Eli Lilly has something very comparable, it's phenomenal. It's a whole new day."

When asked later in the interview if he's had a coronavirus test since his diagnosis, Trump said, "Well, what we're doing is probably the test will be tomorrow, the actual test, because there's no reason to test all the time. But they found very little infection or virus, if any. I don't know that they found any—I didn't go into it greatly with the doctors."

Watch:

Amid ongoing questions about the president's condition following his release from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on Monday, White House doctors and administration officials have repeatedly declined to say when Trump's last negative coronavirus test was, prompting concerns that the president is still contagious and poses a risk to others.

"I don't want to go backwards," White House physician Dr. Sean Conley said Monday when asked about the president's last negative test result. White House Deputy Press Secretary Brian Morgenstern told reporters that he doesn't know when the president last tested negative for the coronavirus and is not interested in finding out.

"We're not asking to go back through a bunch of records and look backwards," Morgenstern said, parroting Conley's line.

In a brief memo on Thursday, Conley—who has come under fire for evading reporters' questions and omitting crucial information during his briefings on the president's condition—wrote that "based on the trajectory of advanced diagnostics the team has been conducting," he believes Trump will be able to safely "return to public engagements" as early as Saturday.

 

But public health experts immediately voiced skepticism in response to Conley's proposed timeline. Dr. Leana Wen, an emergency physician and visiting professor of health policy and management at the George Washington University's Milken School of Public Health, said she was "stunned" by Conley's claim that the president is nearly ready to return to public activities.

Saturday is "day 10, according to White House's own time course," Wen noted. "Patients with severe Covid-19 can be infectious for 20 days."

Dr. Krutika Kuppalli, an infectious-disease physician based in South Carolina, told the New York Times Thursday that while "everyone is going to have a different point of view," he would "err on the safe side, and keep [Trump] isolated for 20 days."

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that "for most persons with Covid-19 illness, isolation and precautions can generally be discontinued 10 days after symptom onset and resolution of fever for at least 24 hours, without the use of fever-reducing medications, and with improvement of other symptoms." Based on the White House's public statements, it's unclear when Trump began showing coronavirus symptoms.

"This is bigger than him," Kuppalli said, alluding to the public health risks associated with the president resuming public events.

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4 Key Takeaways from the Harris-Pence VP Debate

by Robert Reich

Thursday, October 8, 2020

The Vice Presidential debate didn’t have the fireworks of the first presidential debate but Pence’s lies were just as egregious as Trump’s.

The only honest thing about Pence last night was the fly on his head.

From the moment he was tapped to be Donald Trump’s second-in-command, Mike Pence has served a single purpose: To put a placid, half-way respectable face on the disastrous, cruel policies of his boss. And that’s exactly what he did last night. Pence lied just like his boss, he flouted the debate rules like his boss, he evaded hard questions like his boss.

1. And just like Trump last week, Pence refused to condemn white supremacy.

After Harris highlighted Trump’s 2017 comments characterizing neo-Nazis in Charlottesville as “very fine people”, Pence attacked the media and tried to justify Trump’s despicable remarks. He touted the fact that Trump has Jewish grandchildren, as an apparent excuse for Trump’s repeated refusal to condemn white supremacy and tackle the lethal threat it poses. He concluded his non-answer by omitting any outright condemnation of white supremacy – instead claiming, outrageously, that systemic racism doesn’t exist.

2. He said he hoped Amy Coney Barrett would get a “fair hearing.”

As Kamala Harris pointed out, 4 million people have already voted in this election and 56 percent of Americans think the winner should fill the Supreme Court vacancy. Meanwhile, Pence’s boss has instructed Senate Republicans to stop negotiations over the stimulus, so Republicans can focus on ramming through Trump’s nominee, after they refused to give Obama’s nominee a vote for 293 days. There’s nothing fair about this process – and Pence knows it.

3. He doubled-down on Trump’s dangerous conspiracy theories. 

When asked about Trump’s refusal to commit to a peaceful transfer of power, he rehashed Trump’s conspiracies about impeachment and the Russia investigation, and pushed Trump’s absurd claim that mail-in voting creates a “massive opportunity for fraud.” Rubbish. The right-wing Heritage Foundation, after examining 36 years of mail-in ballots, found only 1,285 cases of voter fraud out of nearly two billion votes cast — a rate of .0000007 percent.

4. Most importantly, Pence refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power if Trump loses. This is a worrisome sign of what may be to come.

Throughout the entire debate, Pence talked over Kamala Harris and moderator Susan Page – who allowed him to go way overtime, avoid her questions, and lie endlessly. He showed utter contempt for the debate process. He even had the gall to demand Harris answer his own questions – in typical misogynistic fashion – even as he repeatedly evaded the moderator’s questions. 

Make no mistake: Pence is a slick version of Trump, and just as dangerous as the liar-in-chief.