Back to late 1982. I moved to the northeast to start my first adult job. Housing was horrendously expensive. Reagan had cut income taxes, people had more income, and that inflated the markets for houses and rentals. From my point of view it was a zero sum event. The extra money in my paycheck all went to pay for housing. Without the tax cuts, I calculated, I would have taken less money home but spent less on housing. Some people benefited. Realtors and home builders topped that list. Older. long established homeowners were a tier down. Higher selling prices were offset in part by capital gains taxes.
Six years later, I moved again. Home prices were down, cancelling out the Reagan tax cut infused bubblet.
Here's the point. If Reagan had maintained -- not cut -- income tax rates, the government's extra funds could have produced lasting value. Schools, roads, scientific research, upgrading the electrical grid, and fighting AIDS. Didn't happen. In the end we had neither tangible benefits nor home equity. The money went poof.
Sound familiar? Trump's tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations fueled a stock market boom. Companies bought back their own stock. People at the top, wise enough to cash out before November did great. All other investors watched their portfolios drop 15% in just three weeks. Reagan redux. The nation has again been taken for a ride and left with nothing to show. No infrastructure, no added health care, no Federal projects supporting renewable energy. Just another Poof!
Republicans cannot learn. They make the same stupid mistakes again and again. Their anti-tax fetishism produces the same predictable results.
Throw the bums out. Now
Saturday, December 22, 2018
Friday, December 21, 2018
An Infinitely Deep Swamp
Yesterday I finished listening to the final episode of Rachel Maddow's podcast, "Bagman," which is the mostly untold details of Spiro Agnew's crash & burn. Agnew was, even more than Nixon, the index case of the modern Republican party. He did not mention the charges against him publicly. No. Agnew played to the rubes and racists in his party. Disdain for the press, hatred of liberals, and unrepentant racism. The Republican base remained attack dog loyal.
I remember watching a televised get together of VP candidate Agnew and a group of college age or early-20's African-Americans. The event was presented as the Republican's olive branch to the black community following some of Agnew's racist remarks. I was stunned. Agnew would not -- perhaps could not -- understand anything the black people said. Not a word penetrated. He blathered over them and around them. Not even whitesplaining as much as not even being in the same room or possessing the same vocabulary. Now, I understand that Agnew was playing to his base. He was verifying his racist bonafides to them and pumping up Nixon's southern strategy.
He started out in politics taking bribes and kickbacks when Baltimore County Executive, increased the sleaze when Governor of MD, and then increased again as Vice President. The guy was accepting envelopes filled with $100 bills in his White House office. Although Doc Maddow repeats herself frequently in the podcast as she does on her TV show, she lets the listener draw the connections between then and now.
The Republicans pushed their VP out to avoid the highly likely double play of both Nixon and Agnew impeached and removed from office for their respective crimes. Then, as will happen in less than two weeks, a Democrat was speaker of the house. But, before Nixon threw Agnew under the bus, they conspired to obstruct justice by trying to coerce a Maryland Senator to get his younger brother, the US attorney who was running the Agnew investigation, to shutter the investigation. Nixon and Agnew's conspiracy can be heard on one of the White House tapes. (Hugs and kisses to you, Alexander Butterfield.) Melvin Laird was Nixon's first choice for emissary to the Maryland Senator. When that didn't work -- not clear why -- he found another flunky: George Herbert Walker Bush. That good soldier was then head of the Republican National Committee.
"Bagman" gives me hope. The good guys won 45 years ago. I was a junior in college, sitting in a computer programming course lecture. My memory says about 50 students in an old-fashioned lecture room with two or three sets of chalkboards that could be raised and lowered like window blinds. The room sloped upward from front to back. Chairs were bolted to the floor in neat, slightly curved rows, and a small writing surface would fold up onto the right side armrest like the tray tables on the seats at airplane bulkheads. A teaching assistant strode down from the back of the lecture hall, taking the shallow steps two at a time, until reaching one of the blackboards where he wrote, "Spiggy is out!"
Thursday, November 15, 2018
A Cancer
It really is cancer. The metaphor is accurate. Malignancy may start in a myriad of locations and a myriad of ways. But, the progression towards death follows a narrowing path as rapidly multiplying tumor cells mutate and mutate, ever progressing towards the worst case, deadliest genetic changes. Victims are bystanders at a light-speed craps table. Cancer rolls the dice again and again, always faster, until, inevitably, snake eyes.
Violent, murderous anti-Semitism was a certain destination for right wing America's modern trajectory. Only the starting points and initial steps were unpredictable. The disease simmered, boiled, went cold, and popped. Some anti-Semites were shamed into quiet by the Holocaust and they, instead, focused on racism. Communist witch hunts including the Rosenbergs' executions were cover for low level anti-Semitism.
The 2008 crash marked the transition from Stage II to Stage III. The cancer spread from initiation to nearby tissue. The old tropes emerged. Cabals of Jewish bankers. Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Rothschilds. Goldman, Sachs, Rubin and Blankfein.
Now, stage IV. Nazis in Charleston chanting, "Jews will not replace us." A Senator from Iowa allowing George Soros possible involvement behind women protesting Brett Kavanaugh, "It fits in his attack mode and how he uses his billions and billions of resources." A US Senator born in 1933. High school students in Wisconsin giving the Hitler salute in their class photo. Swastikas and vandalism at synagogues and Jewish cemeteries.
Mass murder in Pittsburgh.
Violent, murderous anti-Semitism was a certain destination for right wing America's modern trajectory. Only the starting points and initial steps were unpredictable. The disease simmered, boiled, went cold, and popped. Some anti-Semites were shamed into quiet by the Holocaust and they, instead, focused on racism. Communist witch hunts including the Rosenbergs' executions were cover for low level anti-Semitism.
The 2008 crash marked the transition from Stage II to Stage III. The cancer spread from initiation to nearby tissue. The old tropes emerged. Cabals of Jewish bankers. Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Rothschilds. Goldman, Sachs, Rubin and Blankfein.
Now, stage IV. Nazis in Charleston chanting, "Jews will not replace us." A Senator from Iowa allowing George Soros possible involvement behind women protesting Brett Kavanaugh, "It fits in his attack mode and how he uses his billions and billions of resources." A US Senator born in 1933. High school students in Wisconsin giving the Hitler salute in their class photo. Swastikas and vandalism at synagogues and Jewish cemeteries.
Mass murder in Pittsburgh.
Wednesday, October 17, 2018
Global Warming Science: The Basics
Listening to Republicans talk about global warming is like listening to middle-schoolers talk about sex. Lots of ignorant bluster, and not much else.
Larry Kudlow, Trump's senior economic advisor spewed word salad when asked by George Stephanopoulos about the UN IPCC report, “I’m not denying any climate change issues, George, I’m just saying, ‘Do we know precisely ― and I mean worth modeling ― things like how much of it is man-made, how much of it is solar, how much of it is oceanic, how much of it is rainforest and other issues?" Gibberish, straight up.
Nearly all of the basic science about global warming was known before the end of the 19th -- yes, 19th, not 20th -- century. The remaining piece was completed by the early 1960's: global warming was real and caused by human activity. Understanding the basic science starts with common sense life experience. The sun warms the Earth. The sun's effect is obvious. Early mornings are the coolest times of the day. Temperatures rise with the sun and continue to increase throughout the day. We see the sun's light, feel its warmth on our skin, and know it is cooler in the shade than in direct sunlight.
Then, in late afternoon or early evening, as the sun starts to set, temperatures drop. Where does the day's heat go? That's a question few people ponder. Nighttime cooling just happens. When I ask non-scientists, most just shrug or say, "Up." That is a reasonable answer because we know that heat rises. But, rises to where? And how? If the adage of heat rising is truly correct, then why is it cooler in the mountains than at low elevations? Why is the temperature outside an airplane about 40 below? "Up" doesn't really answer the question.
The mechanism of daytime warming is obvious but the mechanism of nighttime cooling is not. Why the difference? The answer helps explain why it's so easy to hoodwink so many people about global warming. Our senses tell us about daytime heating. We see the sun and feel its warmth. But, our senses fail when it comes to nighttime cooling. Our eyes and skin don't provide any information. The situation would be different if we could see infrared light. We can't. Yet, if we could, we would know as instinctively as we know about the sun's warmth that everything around us glows with infrared light. Warm objects glow more brightly than cool ones. And, it would be easy to understand that warmth gets broadcast up into the night sky. Infrared light streaming up from Earth, through the atmosphere and in to outer space carries the day's heat away. Temperatures drop.
Infrared eyesight would also let us know that air is not transparent to infrared light the way it is transparent to visible light. Some infrared wavelengths zip through the air unimpeded. Other wavelengths get absorbed by gases in the air. Carbon dioxide is the most significant of those gases. The absorbed light never makes it to outer space. It heats the carbon dioxide that, in turn, warms the rest of the atmosphere. When more carbon dioxide is added from burning fossil fuels, more of the infrared light gets absorbed. Less escapes into outer space. Nighttime cooling becomes less efficient. The planet warms.
Larry Kudlow, Trump's senior economic advisor spewed word salad when asked by George Stephanopoulos about the UN IPCC report, “I’m not denying any climate change issues, George, I’m just saying, ‘Do we know precisely ― and I mean worth modeling ― things like how much of it is man-made, how much of it is solar, how much of it is oceanic, how much of it is rainforest and other issues?" Gibberish, straight up.
Nearly all of the basic science about global warming was known before the end of the 19th -- yes, 19th, not 20th -- century. The remaining piece was completed by the early 1960's: global warming was real and caused by human activity. Understanding the basic science starts with common sense life experience. The sun warms the Earth. The sun's effect is obvious. Early mornings are the coolest times of the day. Temperatures rise with the sun and continue to increase throughout the day. We see the sun's light, feel its warmth on our skin, and know it is cooler in the shade than in direct sunlight.
Then, in late afternoon or early evening, as the sun starts to set, temperatures drop. Where does the day's heat go? That's a question few people ponder. Nighttime cooling just happens. When I ask non-scientists, most just shrug or say, "Up." That is a reasonable answer because we know that heat rises. But, rises to where? And how? If the adage of heat rising is truly correct, then why is it cooler in the mountains than at low elevations? Why is the temperature outside an airplane about 40 below? "Up" doesn't really answer the question.
The mechanism of daytime warming is obvious but the mechanism of nighttime cooling is not. Why the difference? The answer helps explain why it's so easy to hoodwink so many people about global warming. Our senses tell us about daytime heating. We see the sun and feel its warmth. But, our senses fail when it comes to nighttime cooling. Our eyes and skin don't provide any information. The situation would be different if we could see infrared light. We can't. Yet, if we could, we would know as instinctively as we know about the sun's warmth that everything around us glows with infrared light. Warm objects glow more brightly than cool ones. And, it would be easy to understand that warmth gets broadcast up into the night sky. Infrared light streaming up from Earth, through the atmosphere and in to outer space carries the day's heat away. Temperatures drop.
Infrared eyesight would also let us know that air is not transparent to infrared light the way it is transparent to visible light. Some infrared wavelengths zip through the air unimpeded. Other wavelengths get absorbed by gases in the air. Carbon dioxide is the most significant of those gases. The absorbed light never makes it to outer space. It heats the carbon dioxide that, in turn, warms the rest of the atmosphere. When more carbon dioxide is added from burning fossil fuels, more of the infrared light gets absorbed. Less escapes into outer space. Nighttime cooling becomes less efficient. The planet warms.
Sunday, October 14, 2018
Are People This Stupid?
Yes. They are. The mantra: Half of all people are below average intelligence. First corollary: average intelligence ain't much.
Jury duty two weeks ago. A one and done. Jury selection, trial, and deliberation all completed between 8 AM and 5 PM. That includes 90 minutes wasted as the jury pool was seated, reseated, and questioned. The case ended without resolution. 8-to-4 to acquit on the first count and an even 6-6 split on the second. The judge said it was OK for us to discuss the trial, then reversed herself after the DA went up to the bench to explain that the State might retry the case and might even select jurors from the same pool. Not bloody likely when the jury was so far from conviction. But, that's just one part of the day's stupid.
One juror looked exactly like the Gilda Radner's Roseanne Rosanadana character from SNL. The makeup matched. The real woman's hair was even worse. Straw thatch dyed blue-black and covering half her face. Everything she said was painfully stupid. i don't know how she can get out of bed without getting hurt.
The case was a domestic dispute. One detail is that the father was annoyed by his 7-year-old son's disrespectful comment over the phone. Several jurors including RR referred to the boy's attitude. His lip. (We never learned what was said. Only that the content was disrespectful.) Men and women shook their heads, clucked their tongues, became indignant about the boy's sassiness.
Jurors projected their experience onto the poor schlubs whose lives were exposed to us in court. "There's still a lot of love, there," the fat middle-aged guy told us. Two women explained how they had dealt with emotionally abusive partners and damned the women for not doing the same. She didn't go for counseling! She didn't take photos! She didn't have her mother testify! The youngest juror, a woman with green hair, became exasperated: She is not you. Her experiences are not your experiences. Blank looks in response. Average intellects grinding on data and spitting nonsense.
A few days later the NY Times published over a dozen pages describing the Trump crime family's financial history. About 10% tax evasion and 90% tax fraud. In response, not a creature stirred, not even a mouse. Numbers and math. Boring. Reading and understanding the lengthy article required time and focus. And several days after that the most conservative international climate study organization -- the UN's IPCC -- published an exceptionally scary report on global warming. Blink. Blink. Snore.
Politicians and most reporters have learned that people don't respond to global warming news. Reporters blame scientists for lacking communications skills. Have you ever tried to explain science to a newsman? Simplify, simplify, simplify until there's nothing left. You have to travel so far back to find a common bit of shared understanding that the forward process takes forever. John Oliver once tried to cover the long term effects of annual fees paid on 401(k) funds. He kept having to slap the audience in the face to keep viewers awake, "I know this sounds boring, but it's really important." Imagine, having to condescend to your audience when you are explaining how their savings are being pissed away. But, numbers and compounded interest. Too much to expect average people to understand.
Jury duty two weeks ago. A one and done. Jury selection, trial, and deliberation all completed between 8 AM and 5 PM. That includes 90 minutes wasted as the jury pool was seated, reseated, and questioned. The case ended without resolution. 8-to-4 to acquit on the first count and an even 6-6 split on the second. The judge said it was OK for us to discuss the trial, then reversed herself after the DA went up to the bench to explain that the State might retry the case and might even select jurors from the same pool. Not bloody likely when the jury was so far from conviction. But, that's just one part of the day's stupid.
One juror looked exactly like the Gilda Radner's Roseanne Rosanadana character from SNL. The makeup matched. The real woman's hair was even worse. Straw thatch dyed blue-black and covering half her face. Everything she said was painfully stupid. i don't know how she can get out of bed without getting hurt.
The case was a domestic dispute. One detail is that the father was annoyed by his 7-year-old son's disrespectful comment over the phone. Several jurors including RR referred to the boy's attitude. His lip. (We never learned what was said. Only that the content was disrespectful.) Men and women shook their heads, clucked their tongues, became indignant about the boy's sassiness.
Jurors projected their experience onto the poor schlubs whose lives were exposed to us in court. "There's still a lot of love, there," the fat middle-aged guy told us. Two women explained how they had dealt with emotionally abusive partners and damned the women for not doing the same. She didn't go for counseling! She didn't take photos! She didn't have her mother testify! The youngest juror, a woman with green hair, became exasperated: She is not you. Her experiences are not your experiences. Blank looks in response. Average intellects grinding on data and spitting nonsense.
A few days later the NY Times published over a dozen pages describing the Trump crime family's financial history. About 10% tax evasion and 90% tax fraud. In response, not a creature stirred, not even a mouse. Numbers and math. Boring. Reading and understanding the lengthy article required time and focus. And several days after that the most conservative international climate study organization -- the UN's IPCC -- published an exceptionally scary report on global warming. Blink. Blink. Snore.
Politicians and most reporters have learned that people don't respond to global warming news. Reporters blame scientists for lacking communications skills. Have you ever tried to explain science to a newsman? Simplify, simplify, simplify until there's nothing left. You have to travel so far back to find a common bit of shared understanding that the forward process takes forever. John Oliver once tried to cover the long term effects of annual fees paid on 401(k) funds. He kept having to slap the audience in the face to keep viewers awake, "I know this sounds boring, but it's really important." Imagine, having to condescend to your audience when you are explaining how their savings are being pissed away. But, numbers and compounded interest. Too much to expect average people to understand.
Experiment
What will the religious right do with their lives should the Kavanaugh-containing Supreme Court overturn Roe? Abortion was the perfect issue for the religious right. It let mean-spirited, hateful, authoritarians claim to protect innocent children. These cynics cry on cue, wave gruesome photos, and demonize Planned Parenthood. But, the tells have always been there. Too many men in charge. Can anyone believe Ralph Reed, that pasty-faced opportunist, gives a damn about children? The wretched lying about late-term abortions. Conservatives can't stop punching down. Can't stop mocking other people's tragedies. Malformed, dead or dying, fetuses were portrayed as cherubic Gerber babies. Grieving, devastated women portrayed as lazy sluts terminating pregnancies so they could fit into prom dresses.
And, the biggest tell of them all: abortions allowed in cases of rape or incest. Why? Are those fetuses any less innocent? Any less alive? Former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop is the only politician I've heard -- this was many years ago -- decry those exceptions. It did not make him popular among the anti-abortion crowd who needed the double standard. Forcing a woman to carry to term her rapist's baby was too cruel to be popular. Yet, few people among the pro-choice crowd say the obvious: fights against abortion are fights against women's rights and have nothing to do with children.
Speaking of being on cue, Rep Steve King of Iowa tweeted a photo of a sleeping infant and an anti-abortion message. Steve King: bigot, white supremacist, and pro-pollution toady.
Speaking of being on cue, Rep Steve King of Iowa tweeted a photo of a sleeping infant and an anti-abortion message. Steve King: bigot, white supremacist, and pro-pollution toady.
Friday, October 5, 2018
Kavanuts
The title of one opinion piece is, "How We Know Kavanaugh Is Lying." I don't bother to read more than the lede because the answer is obvious: his mouth is open.
Republicans are standing by their man. They set out to find a SCOTUS justice who will overturn Roe, protect Trump from investigation, and destroy workers' rights. No way they were surprised when a pig applied for the job. Who else would appear? Bill Kunstler? It was also a given that the pig would show up carrying pig baggage. A bit inconvenient, but not surprising. He is, after all, a pig. It was just another week for the Republican PR machine.
If the Senate votes Kavanaugh down, then the Republicans will nominate Kavanaugh 2.0 or 3.0 or 4.0. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of them are waiting for the call. And, somewhere a factory manufactures even more soul-less, Kavanauvian droids and programs them to protect the wealthy by riling the rubes. Think of the truck loads of pods in "Invasion of the Body Snatchers."
Republicans are standing by their man. They set out to find a SCOTUS justice who will overturn Roe, protect Trump from investigation, and destroy workers' rights. No way they were surprised when a pig applied for the job. Who else would appear? Bill Kunstler? It was also a given that the pig would show up carrying pig baggage. A bit inconvenient, but not surprising. He is, after all, a pig. It was just another week for the Republican PR machine.
If the Senate votes Kavanaugh down, then the Republicans will nominate Kavanaugh 2.0 or 3.0 or 4.0. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of them are waiting for the call. And, somewhere a factory manufactures even more soul-less, Kavanauvian droids and programs them to protect the wealthy by riling the rubes. Think of the truck loads of pods in "Invasion of the Body Snatchers."
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