Lake OrovilleEach year this lake helps water a quarter of the nation's crops,
Historic
heat wave brings 100-degree heat to 40 million in western U.S.
More than 40 million Americans are
in the crosshairs of extreme triple-digit heat this week, with some
spots soaring over 120 degrees as records fall across the West. The
heat in many areas is downright dangerous, prompting excessive heat
warnings in seven states where temperatures will be hazardous to
human health.
The heat
also reinforces a devastating drought that continues to reshape the
landscape of the West while simultaneously bolstering worries of what
lurks ahead in the fall come fire season. More than half of the
western U.S. is gripped by “extreme” or “exceptional” drought
according to the U.S. Drought Monitor, in the two most severe categories.
The above news is from the 06/15/21Washington Post. It could very well
be an imagined news item in some 1970's dystopian sci-fi movie with
the “greenhouse effect” as we called it then as the grim
backdrop to the story (see Soylent Green (1973) with Charlton
Heston). Well' folks we're there now. It's real; we did it. We let
CO2 and methane trap so much heat that every summer is a crisis
ridden mess – heat waves, Cat 5 storms, droughts, forest fires, deluges, mud slides and so on.
It's just as they predicted. It got too GD hot. We did not do
jack shit and we are still not doing jack shit to confront this very
special world historical crisis. In the all important USA one
entire political party believes it's all BS or at the very least
an overblown other party's 'hobby horse'. The other party for it's part (until recently
anyway) has responded weakly with do-gooder “green” talk about
“sustainability' and “moving away from fossil fuels” but effectively doing little considering the gravity of the situation. But with so many
distractions sapping the public's attention what can one expect It's hard to keep your eye on the ball what with
a grossly mismanaged pandemic, a home grown demagogue blowing away
democratic norms, nuclear armed rivals vying for geopolitical power. And behind it all global capitalism creating a new
plutocratic world order. This while reactionary medieval religio-cultural fanaticism attracts the young, underemployed and alienated. That leaves little bandwidth left for the biggest crisis of all time- global ecocide. One wonders when the scientific commodity and the IPCC will
finally throw in the towel and say. “Hey fuck it! It's too late
now!”.
This
half a billion dollar monstrosity is being built for Amazon tycoon Jeff Bezos.
Ostentatious
displays of wealth have always been a way for the rich and wannabe rich to
show off. But recently it has gotten way uglier as millions suffer
from a global economy suffocating pandemic while ole Jeff shows
off the killing he made off of a literal killing. His wealth has
gone up something like $57B since Covid19 hit as many people are stuck at
home being forced to use his services.
Vast
wealth concentrated in the coffers of a few Scrooge McDucks who
figure out how to game the system has existed since the early days of
capitalism. Their monopolistic ascent is usually accomplished by
cornering a market for some essential commodity more recently PC
operating systems, social media and in Bezos' case online retail. In Econ 101 we learn that such market dominance is called a monopoly
and is considered a market deformity. And as such is illegal being deemed unfair even by the harsh standards of capitalism.
Monopolies are seen as the very antithesis to our economy's primary engine - market
competition. So way back in 1890 the Sherman Anti-Trust Law was enacted
with others such legislation to follow (enforcement on the other hand has been
another matter).
Beyond
the known problem of greedy opportunists cornering markets, French economist Thomas Piketty in his landmarkCapital
in the Twenty-First Century(2013)
has painstakingly laid out another even deeper problem. Piketty shows mathematically how something else has gone wrong
over the last 250 years. Thereturns
on investment
have gone well beyond theopportunitiesfor investment.
Thus massive amounts of money (AKA capital) has a perverse tendency to accumulate uselessly, sitting
idly in the hands of individuals, families, financial institutions or
whatever with nowhere to go in terms of productive investment
opportunities. So it ends up backed up and churning around
uselessly (and often dangerously) in speculation,
or
simply pissed away in wasteful show-off purchases known as
'conspicuous consumption'. See Thorstien Veblen's Theory
of the Leisure Class (1899).
The
obvious solution which Piketty advocates is to hoover it all up or part of it in taxes
and use it for the public good, which as we all know there is an
overflowing immediate need for in every direction. But retrieving
such accumulated wealth especially in the USA is not easy. In fact an
entire political party has based anti-taxation as their one and only
public policy position. And it's a popular one. People have always
hated taxes. It has been historically a form of oppression especially by monarchies and other autocracies. However in
recent times in the USA especially we have overdone it. We have embarrassingly
let our entire physical infrastructure rot right out from under us. Anyone who has
been to another developed country recently, even ones known to have
suffered greatly after the 2008 recession, knows the shock upon
returning and seeing the shabby conditions we now take for granted .
We have been left behind in the dust still bumper to bumper,
stranded in our no-exit traffic hell on our so-called “free”ways.
Our
politicians on the left of the political spectrum like Bernie Sanders
or Elizabeth Warren and now (surprisingly) “moderate” Joe Biden
realize that some of this accumulated sterile wealth must freed up
for the greater good. The manifold disparate and desperate needs that
surround us on every side need attention. But the Bidens of the world
must walk on eggshells regarding the T-word lest they attract
dangerous incoming artillery from the right. Yet only by restoring
corporate and individual tax rates back to 1950's levels (the same
50s' that MAGA types so nostalgically long for) can we afford all
that needs to be done. Furthermore, the obscenely huge fortunes that
have grown like tumors all over the world need to be shrunken back
through taxation.
But
besides suggesting an increase in taxes
(the dreaded T-word), but for only top
tiers of income, the Biden administration is also vulnerable to
attack due on the other right wing shibboleth, the dreaded I-word:
Inflation.
Growth in the past was usually bought at the expense of some degree
of rising prices. It was an acceptable trade-off. High levels of
employment equals some inflation. In fact the relationship is
schematically depicted by the Phillips Curve which shows the
relationship between growth and inflation. This acceptable trade-off
broke down in the 1970s when inflation and
high unemployment occurred
simultaneously: It was called “stagflation”. It was primarily due
to an inordinate rise in oil prices thanks to the formation of, yes,
an oil quasi-monopoly – an oil cartel: OPEC. And it in a way it
ended bipartisan support Keynesian government spending based fiscal
policy and paved the myth of “supply side” Reagonomics.
Now
fast forward to 2021 and Biden's progressive agenda. Already it has
headwinds. The stock market is reacting negatively to minor inflation
probably due to pandemic induced global supply chain disruptions and
a hacker attack on an East Coast oil pipeline. It is not clear
whether the massive Covid19 relief and vaccine distribution spending
has led ot any inflation yet.. Most economists believe the very low
interest rates on government bonds make it a good time to go deeper
into debt since the needs are so great. But debt should not pay for
all of it. Also increasing taxes on the Bezos types and corporations
is way overdue.Both have been skating for
too long. The Biden Administrations proposed massive expenditures,
trillions!,
only shows their recognition of the gravity of what we. It's a Triple
Whammy: 1) a Covid19 induced economic crash; 2) a crumbling
infrastructure; 3) a world historic ecological crisis requiring a
never before done,aforced transition
to another source of energy.
Yet
dark clouds hover. If the Trump-deranged GOP has its way and jiggers
enough State vote counting apparatuses and undermines enough ballot
box access as they are attempting of do (to “correct” something
even the Federalist Society member Trump-appointed judiciary was not
able determine was a problem) and they
return to power in 2024, we are indeed headed for a descent into a
dystopian nightmare.
“We will heal, once the rough beast in the White House
slouches off. Something wicked this way goes.”
Maureen Dowd , NY Times Jan 9 2021
Ms Dowd borrowing from the poet John Keats and the novelist Ray
Bradbury made for a powerful final thought in her column today. I
sincerely hope her optimistic forecast will come to past. The dark
vermin-like swarms of figures crawling all over the iconic Capitol
Building, hanging from balconies and jamming into any open orifice,
was truly an alarming sight. Was this merely an incoherent and
disorganized attempt at invading the sacrosanct halls of Congress while it was in session to make a point
– or more? It looked like much more. The Trump family and their shrinking cadre of
acolytes after having encouraged this act of sedition instead of
leading it as promised, the chickenshits then retired to the warm
confines of the White House and comfortably watched it on TV letting
their shock troops do the dirty work. In the 60's they used to say
“the revolution will not be televised”. It now seems attempted counter revolutions
are - replacing a democracy with an autocracy. Had Trump had the military or key portions of it on his
side, this would have been the first stage of a coup de' etat.
You would think that anyone watching this spectacle of a mob
attempting to invade the legislative branch of the government would
be truly alarmed. And maybe most were. But 52% of Republicans still
believe that the election was actually “stolen” by the Democrats. If that's the case, it logically follows that many Republicans will see this mob
as simply brave patriots trying to correct a major injustice.
The durability of festering
disinformation is at heart of this. Even such craven political
opportunists as Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham have grudgingly
admitted that the Biden/Harris victory was honestly won and that the
claims of far reaching electoral misdeeds by the Democrats are
without merit. But not the guys in the photo above. Even Trump's erstwhile
loyal Attorney General, Bill Barr has abandoned this ship of fools. Meanwhile White
House staffers are fleeing right and left. Republican leaders across
the board are now having to make the difficult decision– should I
go or should stay aboard SS Trump. With 74 million Americans having
fallen for his ongoing scam and again voted for him, and moreover 52%
still clinging to their Dear Leader's panoply of lies regarding the
election, Trump is not a spent force.
Sedition is a serious charge and like most words that carry heavy
meaning it is often carelessly thrown around. But what else is it
when a someone loses a presidential election and refuses to
acknowledge the outcome? This despite a multitude of failed appeals
to courts in every direction including the Supreme Court, many
presided over by of judges that were appointed during his tenure. Yet
this Big Lie along with host of smaller ones and an interconnected
tangle of of outlandish conspiracy theories has circulating through
an alternate-reality media ecosystem. The unsubstantiated allegations
of result reversing misdeeds by the Demos has gained enough credibly
among the masses of 'the disappointed' appear to have given Trumpism
a post-election second life. Enter Senate GOP bottom feeder pols like
Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz and a hoard of wannabe players in the House who have cynically taken up the cause and smelling opportunity
instigated the theatrical Congressional proceedings to
overturn an election. Even the GOP's devious
Senate leadership could not swallow the preposterous proposal to
again reexamine
the election results by some cobbled together special commission. Yet
legally they had to go through the motions.
Is it not undermining of the basic tenets of our democracy to have
Donald Trump traitorously encourage a huge demonstration to coincide
with this Congressional sham? Then disastrous result - thousands of
misguided, mal-informed, passionately angry citizens believing
themselves to be “true patriots” many armed traveled to Washington DC from
all over the country to express their wrath over a 'stolen election'.
Proudly displaying the Stars and Stripes they so adored, they
apparently never realized they were taking a giant step toward
negating the very democracy their fluttering flags stood for.
Unfortunately despite all of this, a majority of Republican voters
still believe Trump was cheated out of his rightful victory. They see
it as their side's version of the BLM demonstrations that often got
out of hand. Their pundits are comparing the January 6 melee in terms
property damage to the BLM demonstrations throughout the summer. BLM
demonstrations, albeit an unfortunate subset of looters and
arsonists, did not attack Congress. BLM was a response to seemingly
never ending series of videos of what amounted to extrajudicial
execution of Blacks by police and racist vigilantes. The overwhelming
majority of BLM supporter did not support property damage, etc. And
they never attacked a Congress while in session. Whereas the
pro-Trumpian demonstrators from interviews mostly supported the
storming of the Capitol even if they never made it inside themselves.
They did not see it as dangerous precedent aimed at the very
fundamentals of democratic process. As this sorts itself out how
many of ordinary GOP stalwarts will side with the Trumpian
insurrectionists and how many will choose a different faction in their now fractured
party?
G
M
T
Text-to-speech function is limited to 200 characters
This was written yesterday December 30th . But things are about
the same today..
Covid-19 patient who has had a stroke is prepared to be flown to
another hospital.
One word about today's news – bad! Living in California I
appear to be if not in the exact epicenter of the global pandemic in its vicinity. All hell is breaking loose in Southern California.
Covid-19 has besieged the entire world for 11 long months and now
it is attacking California with a vengeance. The US is fairing worst
than any other country in the world both in terms of the shear number
of reported cases over 19.5 million (with
183,058 added
today) and our number of of fatalities so far with 338,769. The NY Times'
color coded world map denoting the degree of
seriousness shows the US with a darkrougecolor (the color coding shades out to beige in countries where Covid-19 is under control,
with shades of orange in the middle) Also, interestingly the Times has changed the way they
sort countries maybe to lessen our embarrassment. They no longer show
them descending from most cases which usually correlates with most deaths
where we would be firmly at the top. Instead they now sort them by the
fatality rate (deaths per 100,000 in the last 7 days). This leads
to obscure small countries with serious outbreaks and limited
resources to lead the pack like Liechtenstein and Croatia with 3.8
and 1.6 deaths per 100,000 respectively). But here the USA even by
that metric we are still not doing well. We, the richest
country in the world of over 190 countries, are still way up in 18th
place in terms of death rate with 0.7. We are tied with a a whole host of
well off European countries that have well endowed state-of the-art
medical care but serious outbreaks.
So much for Governor Gavin Newsom's great leadership and Californians'
feeling of self righteousness and superiority with our low numbers all
spring and summer. We are now looking a lot like southern Europe or
NY City earlier in the year in crisis mode. Los Angeles, Riverside
and San Bernardino counties are being hammered with hospitals filled
beyond capacity, and being driven to battlefield triage measures.
Ambulances, unable unload critically ill suffering patients, are
forced into a holding patterns. Lobbies, corridors, gifts shops are
filled with beds. The staff are working 12 hr plus shifts. They have
descended into a ring of hell.
. Yet on other fronts things also suck. 'The Trump' despite being
voted out of office continues to cling to outrageous claims of vague
unfounded, ill-defined widespread vote counting conspiracies
engineered by the (otherwise inept) Democratic Party. Or else he is claiming
that huge quantities of ballots should be simply thrown out. The problem is
that Trump knows that nearly half of the country (but
importantly not more thanhalf) voted for his
fat ass even as he lost. And as we know the
hoards of of MAGA hat wearing fools believe anything this world
renown liar says. So, despite like 86 court decisions against him and Republican
sanctioned counts, he still claims he actually won. To his many acolytes he was
cheated by the evil, baby eating, liberal/socialist, corrupt, latte
drinking Coastal Elites. He with his minions in
tow want to cling to the absurdity that he really won
in not only in the three swing states (that he only barely won in
2016) but also Georgia, where Republicans ran the elections. And
now, and you can't make this up, Trump is calling for the Republican
governor of Georgia to resign. All of this hopefully will help the two senatorial run-off Demo candidates, Ossoff and Warnott, win Now today(12/30) a
proto-fascist aspiring 2024 GOP presidential candidate, from
Missouri (with the redneckian name of Josh Hawley) wants to vote against
the Congress's procedural proforma certification of the Electoral
College vote next week. Apparently he wants to set up some kind of Biden-eliminating Congressional fight. But most legal analysts see this as simply cheap political theater that will go nowhere.
Trump is not introspective or self
critical enough to realize how close he came to actually
winning had he not been so anti-science and stubbornly adverse to
listening to people who know more than he does. He could
have let the experts at CDC and NHC guide our national response to
the pandemic from its inception. A rational response would made a world of difference. His criminally negligent handling of
the Covid-19 response was not lost on many potentially pro-Trump ordinary voters
who vote based on their personal financial well being and pay little attention to the
never ending psychodrama of Dems vs Repubs. Despite the Mueller
Investigation, the Impeachment, immigrant children being put in
cages, and the daily batch of Tweeted lies and fairy tales, enough
apolitical non-ideological voters in the swing states would have put
him back in – legally. But his full-a-shit, know-it-all style
finally caught up with him. Let's hope as a disgraced one-term
President his influence will wain as he confronts his many
upcoming legal and financial challenges – that is if he can be
physically pried out of the White House come January 20.
It's got to get better once Biden
takes over as uninspiring and charisma-challenged as he is. At least
he still believes in a democratic transfer of power. If badly needed
restructuring and serious reform are not in the cards, at least we
don't have some dude as president that aspires to be a Valimir Putin
or a Mohammed bin Salman.
* Numbers from NY Times based on Johns Hopkins data base
As we are distracted by a global pandemic raging out of control and a mad king as President of the United Stated trying desperately to perpetuate his reign, it's difficult to realize that the pandemic is only the beginning.
It's an understatement to say the
Election 2020 was bittersweet. It was bitter
in that there was nothing close to a 'Blue Wave'. It was sweet in that Joe
Biden won decisively, and Donald Trump was given the hook. Unfortunately most of the craven and
corrupt GOP Senate Republicans survived. Observers all over the world who had hopes that
the US would lead the world out of its of its ecocidal and
proto-fascist death spiral were dashed. There was no solid
rejection of the Republican Party's obstructionist and reactionary
non-agenda. But most alarmingly over 73,000,000 Americans voted for Donald Trump
even as he was leading many of them to ICU wards and ventilators.
And now most of the same fools have been deceived into believing the Democrats cheated and
he should have won.
The myth on the left that the
40% of the electorate who seldom voted harbored progressive tendencies if only they could be
persuaded to participate was dispelled. A record number of Americans voted
including those who usually don't. And, alas, many of them apparently voted for Donald Trump or
if not split their ballot and still voted for Repubs for legislative seats. The US is bitterly divided.
The Demos not winning a decisive
majority in the Senate killed all hopes for real change. The level of Trump's support gave the Frankenstein monster of Trumpian Republicanism a mainline hit of meth. A
significant number of voters must have voted
to oust Emperor Nero but for retaining his Republican Party consorts.
Pollsters were again deceived. And now everything hinges on flipping
two Senate seats in a cracker-infested Deep South state which
Biden surprisingly narrowly carried. This will be a very heavy lift. And if successful there will still be only a tenuous 50-50 split with the Demo VP giving the
Demos a measly one vote majority - hardly a Blue Wave. It hard to admit but it appears that had not Covid19 intervened and had not Trump fumbled the
response so tragically, he probably would have a waltzed into a
second term. Too many Americans have lost their way. It
is very sad.
Barring the discovery of some serious
administrative error by Rudy Giuliani's crew of legal beagle
scumbags, that can be framed as the tip of some evil iceberg, Trump will be gone Jan
20th 2021. No way will the Joint Chiefs of Staff allow him to pull
off some kind of banana republic style coup with his 'irregular troops'
of training-in-the-woods militias and
dull normal range intelligence members of the Proud Boys. Not after Mr. Bone Spurs dissed
all those who gave their lives in past wars.That is not say the above crew of 'irregulars' especially the militias who fancy themselves as "armed patriots" and "heroic defenders liberty" won't or can't cause serious problems in future days.
In his series of presidential campaign
rallies Trump predicted that if Biden won, it would be only
through 'mass voter fraud'. This was obviously a characteristically Trumpian veiled threat of refusing to leave even if he lost. So surprise
surprise he lost and is now refusing to concede or cooperate on the transition. And his MAGA hat wearing Kool Aid drinking hoards
are angry, yelling “we wuz robbed”. Where all of this is headed is
unclear. Hopefully it will dispel at some point and Trump will slink
off to Mira Logo and concentrate on staying out of a New York jail
cell.
This present charade would seem
unthinkable - except most of the GOP is going along with it as if it
were a perfectly normal post election process. Trump's absurd refusal
to acknowledge reality and his ability to drag along his political
party only goes to show what depths of depravity and dishonesty the
Grand Old Party has sunken to.
Mustering enough Deep South Georgia
voters to bump out not one but
two corrupt knuckle draggers is a thin reed to depend on.
Difficult but not impossible. Otherwise things look very bleak.
McConnell and the Senate Repubs without Trump as President know
Trumpism still alive and well. They no doubt will feel the wind in
their sails. They will be encouraged to be evermore recalcitrant in
hopes of gaining more seats back in the future if nothing significant
gets done wing. It will be Obama redux minus Obama's charm and charisma -
total obstructionism and with an even harder right wing Supreme Court as a
backstop.
I sincerely hope I am being overly pessimistic but we could see:
As Biden tries to re-invigorate a post-pandemic economy with multi-billion dollar 'green' infrastructure oriented
spending proposals the GOP rediscovers the Dreaded Deficit as
it moves deeper into multi-trillion dollar territory.
Only an inadequate stimulus spending clears the GOP held Senate and the post-pandemic
economy flounders allowing the Republicans to claim the
Democrats ruined Trump's “Greatest Economy Ever”.
The crisis of immigration and
undocumented citizenry continuing to fester as the xenophobes and
nativists within the GOP resist any reasonable compromise.
Any formal legislation required to patch
up the damage of four long years of Trump swinging his wrecking
ball in the pottery shop goes nowhere and the hard won regulatory apparatus continues to atrophy including many environmentally crucial restraints.
As Single Payer health care becomes a dead
letter, improvement of the Affordable Care Act with the promise of
'a government option' gets short circuited and demonized as
'socialized medicine' leaving millions still without any health care.
That is if ACA even survives further Supreme Court challenges.
The Republican Party continues
to stand for nothing but pseudo libertarianism, Second Amendment
gun rights, low taxes (for the rich) and criminalization of abortion – and get away with
it as the 6-3 Supreme Court finally throws out Roe vs Wade. Church and State fuse further into a theocracy.
Biden goes down in history as a
weak, do-nothing President. One of Trump's bozo sons wins in 2024 with a refined version of Trumpism, which has now morphed into full bodied Christian-evangelical fascism. This as the planet continues heats to a point of no return thus creating a self fulfilling prophesy of the End Times straight out of the Book of Revelations.
G
M
T
Text-to-speech function is limited to 200 characters
Oregon,
Washington and California are all under assault from a wildfire
season of historic proportions, with the firefighting effort
compounded by the coronavirus pandemic and misinformation
online. Already, California has seen more than 3.1 million acres
go up in flames, about 26 times as much as had burned at this point
last year, and officials warn that more fires are likely.
NY Times 09/12/20
The West is on fire. As I sit here on a
gloomy socked-in September afternoon, epic fires burn north, south
and east of me.The air quality index shows us deep into the Red zone
(Unhealthy) one notch below Friday's Purple Haze reading (Extremely
Unhealthy). It seems we have now finally entered the Climate Crisis
for real – and decades early. As I write this, here in the Bay
Area we are hunkered down indoors not only due to Covid19 but also
because our air is essentially un-breathable. And in the Southeast
yet another hurricane bears down on Louisiana . Global Warming
starting to begin really show its teeth – droughts, fires, weird
lightning storms, more and bigger hurricanes, super cell driven
tornadoes out of season. And then of course there is the Pandemic
killing thousands daily, another story of environmental carnage. This
time the ongoing habitat invasion has resulted in the transmission to humans of to a new brand ' novel virus'
and a mass human die-off. The ongoing expansion of human population into
areas previously undisturbed has lead to consumption of animals
never before eaten by humans in turn introducing a slew of new and
highly contagious viruses – like Ebola, SARS, Avian Flu and now
Covid19 technically known as SARs-CoV-2. Pandemics are just another deleterious effect of our
heedless exploitation of our planet's myriad life forms. We are
getting what we so richly deserve.
All of this would have occurred in some
form regardless of what happened here in the USA. But unfortunately
our particularly version of democracy has made it worse for us. Our
two political parties at some point had ceased to reflect real
alternatives, both presenting versions of the same thing, but with
branding that tried to portray choice. In time the false binary mutated
from some kind of limited class differentiation into what has become cultural warfare. The
result was by 2016 a crucial the sector of the working class did not see much difference on the ground between
either party and participated in the voting process (those that did)
in a half-hearted, ill informed way. Many had gravitated to a political party that
was diametrically opposed to their class interests but re-enforced their tribal proclivities. And in 2016 they chose what they saw as a wealthy likable rogue who offered emotionally appealing politically incorrect racist and
xenophobic answers to complex problems capitalizing on divisive cultural issues above all
else. In other words they fell for a demagogue, and furthermore one devoid
of any governing experience or any identifiable political-economical
philosophy. The result has been the disaster named Donald Trump.
That said, this round the clock Trump
hate-a-thon really does not really move the needle. The cottage
industry of insider disclosures from those who were unlucky to have
to interact with the Orange One makes for fine nightly
entertainment. But the audience needing to be targeted, undecided
voters in 'swing states', probably does regularly tune into the ongoing Trumpian expose on MSNBC and CNN every night - only liberal and left political junkies who already abhor Trump.
We already knew that Donald Trump was a first class swine and
greedhead. That was all readily apparent going back to his New York
City days of multiple bankruptcies and playboy shenanigans – all
boring and easily ignored. It is to our eternal shame that we as a
people and members political parties across the political spectrum
allowed this renown fore flusher and upper class grifter to
commandeer the highest political office in the land.
The media needs to drone on less about
the never ending exposes of Trumpian vitriol past and
present and instead concentrate their journalistic horsepower on
cataloging the damage his administration has done to our governmental
institutions. There must be hundreds of mid level managers within the
vast government bureaucracies who are sitting on a treasure trove of
pertinent material that could be anonymously disclosed. What tales they must have to tell of the
destruction, corruption and mismanagement of essential popular
programs. For instance where is OSHA when we need them to
protect our workforce from Covid19 in the workplace. What studies,
research and oversight responsibilities have now been eliminated
from Dept of Agriculture, Dept of Energy, Dept of Interior, etc?.
What devastation and personnel carnage has occurred in agencies like
EPA or FDA? Michael Lewis's excellent 2017 book The Fifth Riskjust scratches the surface and what a surface it was.
After all as the election approaches
the real target audience, as always is the un-committed voter in the
so-called battleground states. Wouldn't these voters be interested in
the shambles that these programs have become? Enough preaching to the
converted. Whether Trump's manifold failure as a leader is due to his
supreme ineptness or simply a crude monarchical quest for power, is
beside the point. We are stuck with him for at least 3 1/2 more
months. That is if he can be democratically ejected when his party
the corrupt and complicit GOP controls much of our electoral
machinery, and it's in the midst of a pandemic in which voting by
mail is necessary but the USPS is being crippled.In fact that is now crucial question.
But there is the hope that these voting
obstacles can be overcome and removal of Trump can be affected
leading to a major rebuild of everything – better, fairer and
environmentally sustainable.
G
M
T
Text-to-speech function is limited to 200 characters
Trump is in trouble. His poll numbers
even those done by Fox are in the toilet. He is desperate. And like a
cornered rat he is becoming ever more dangerous and vicious. This law
'n order gambit worked for Nixon in '68 and '72. Portland is Trump's
test case. If it works there, it can used on demonstrations all
across the land. Street demonstrations made worse by police overreaction coupled with the criminally mishandled Pandemic could lead to an upward spiral of public anxiety beyond what now exists. BLM inspired
demonstrations are largely composed of peaceful types but mixed in
are some who see
themselves as serious revolutionaries and believe this is some kind
of 'October Revolution' moment and feel encouraged to engage in 'direct action'. Along with them are always opportunists who are out for a
little plunder and mayhem just for the fun of it. So property damage,
vandalism and looting (probably also abetted by pro-Trump agent
provocateurs) will enviably crop up in any large demonstration making
good television as well as alarming the good citizens of the politically centrist
burbs. Add to this the serious effort of BLM and their white
supporters to relieve the South of their statues that are tributes to
the old Confederacy as well as ugly reminders of the Jim Crow era.
Trump hopes this racial discord will
get people's minds off the fact that the Pandemic is totally out of
control. Any and all resulting mayhem can be blamed on the so-called
'Antifa' thus giving Trump a rationale to take another giant step
into 'Amerikan fascism'. So he has assembled without any authority
an armed-to-the-teeth camouflage clad corp of 'American federalies'
to wade in and exacerbate things if the local cops don't. A
feedback loop of violence is thus created. The more Trump's new
Federalies beat, gas and extra-legally arrest people, the more
concerned progressive types feel compelled to come out and
demonstrate. And thus the more possibilities for random property
damage incidents to occur. Trump is hoping for many Portlands across
the land so he can have both an election issue and take another giant
step closer to a full-on police state. The House Democrats must fight
back. But with the Senate still in Trump-enabling GOP hands, the
House's authority over the budget is Nancy Pelosi's only weapon. But,
alas, passing a relief bill ASAP is paramount. The need to provide financial
support for the millions of American who are suffering from the economic carnage of this Pandemic will hold
hostage any important budgetary confrontation to Trump's latest dangerous power
grab. Thus we slowly inexorably descend into a post-democratic state.
Text-to-speech function is limited to 200 characters
