Whataboutism November 15, 2017 I had never heard this term before — “whataboutism.” As in: Sure, Trump is a pathological liar who’s destroying our government and our standing in the world, but what about the child porn ring Hillary ran out of a pizza parlor? What about the four Americans she killed at Benghazi? What about the uranium deal?! The attorney general needs to appoint a special prosecutor! I have two things to say about that. If you haven’t already seen it, here’s Shepard Smith on Fox News explaining the uranium deal. Guess what: Hillary did absolutely nothing wrong. Here is John Oliver explaining whataboutism. Warning: it’s very funny and, yes, very irreverent. Trump supporters, just like Judge Roy Moore supporters, will find it deeply disrespectful, elitist, snide — all that. And they will stick with the alternative facts with which they are comfortable. But the rest of us? Until this nightmare ends — as soon as possible, because it’s truly an emergency — we can never be reminded too often how absurd and deeply dangerous Trump’s presidency is. Putin is winning, bigly. Have a great day.
So How Does It End? November 14, 2017November 13, 2017 Bang!!!!! (I can’t emphasize that enough.) After which it took 8.8 billion years for Earth to form 5 billion years ago . . . and then another 800 million years or so for “life” to emerge. Microbes, according to Life at the Edge of Sight. But plants? Plants didn’t evolve until a mere 500 million years ago. What do I know? But that’s a long time, if you ask me — 3.7 billion years — to go from microbes to plants. What was so hard about plants? Humans appeared half a minute ago (200,000 years?) — and with them, presumably, human intelligence — but we didn’t really figure anything out until a second ago. And now we’re figuring things out faster and faster — so exponentially so that it’s all almost surely coming to an explosively glorious beginning for us — or end — over the next second. (And conducting humanity’s crescendo we had people like Obama, Biden, Clinton, and the Pope. Now we have people like Trump, Bannon, Kushner, and the Pope. It’s enough to turn me Catholic. But I digress.) Did you know that when I was a little kid you couldn’t direct-dial from New York to California? It could take five operators to put through a long-distance call. Here’s that story. Now, barely an instant later, you can reach a friend in China in seconds. Or in Kenya. Or in Tonga. Virtually free! A video call!! While you’re walking in the park!!! And when you don’t even know where the friend is!!!! I was listening to “Hamilton” yet again — “Look around! Look around! How lucky we are to be alive right now!” — and realized that (a) it’s more true than ever; and that (b) I’m nearly a third as old as America. “American history,” which seems so imposing when, as kids, we first encounter it, is in fact a very short story. So, too, really, human history. And weeeeee have the astounding good fortune — and daunting responsibility — to help determine how it all ends. Will it be “the end of history” as Francis Fukuyama suggested as the Cold War drew to a close? Bye-bye, KGB; hello, the universal adoption of liberal Western democracy — and they all lived happily ever after? Or — because we couldn’t find ways to live with each other sustainably on our spaceship — will it be, after the 13.8 billion years it took to get to this miraculous point, merely The End? Too much for a Tuesday morning? Okay, how about this: I just learned you can take beer out of the refrigerator if you over-estimated demand. (They went for the hot-buttered-rum instead.) It won’t go “skunky,” and you can reclaim all that refrigerator space. Oh, happy day.
Alabamans, Indianans, Veterans November 13, 2017November 11, 2017 ALABAMA: So let’s recap. The former Republican Alabama Senator, Jeff Sessions, now attorney general, may have lied under oath to Congress. The current Republican nominee to fill Sessions’ seat, Republican Roy Moore — twice removed from the Alabama Supreme Court and president of the Foundation for Moral Law — is an alleged child molester. Republican Alabama state auditor, Jim Zeigler, defends that molestation, comparing it to adult carpenter Joseph’s relationship to the teenage Virgin Mary. (Stephen Colbert notes that the Virgin Mary was a virgin — that was pretty much the miracle of the thing — so there’s no reason to think Joseph kept anything but a respectful, appropriate distance before, during, and after her pregnancy.) Just what will happen with Moore’s candidacy is in part up to Kay Ivey, who recently replaced Alabama’s Republican Governor Robert Bentley in the wake of a sex and corruption scandal. Could it be time for the many, many good people of Alabama to elect a Democrat? INDIANA: South Bend, Indiana’s young mayor, Pete Buttigieg (pronounced: BUTT-edge-edge), was Howard Dean’s choice for DNC chair and is likely to go far. He’s started Hitting Home, because real-life stories like Jennica’s and Becky’s really do. Three minutes each. VETERAN’S DAY: One of you wrote me Saturday, “Why do you and other Libs not mention Veterans and the sacrifices they made for this country? At least on THIS day? Why?” (This was in apparent response to Friday’s post, “Time To Ask Why,” about Trump’s decimation of the foreign service, ceding world leadership to China and Russia.) Actually, many of us liberals do. Here’s an email one liberal sent Saturday, in case you’re not on his list: Andrew — Today is a day to recognize those who have honored our country with its highest form of service. We owe our veterans our thanks. Our respect. Our freedom. Today, we humbly acknowledge that we can never truly serve our veterans in quite the same way that they served us. But we can try. We can practice kindness. We can volunteer. We can serve. We can respect one another. We can have each other’s backs. Yesterday, I dropped by a service project in Northeast D.C., where a group of veteran volunteers were preparing for a project to help revitalize the Langston Terrace public housing project. Langston Terrace, the first federally funded housing project in D.C., was built in the 1930s as part of President Roosevelt’s Public Works Administration. Its 274 units provided affordable shelter for families trying to get back on their feet after the Great Depression. And today, a group of veterans are fixing it up, working alongside members of their Washington, D.C., community. Just think about that for a moment. On a day dedicated to honoring their sacrifice, these veterans chose to honor their fellow citizens. Lift up their own communities. They chose, on this day, to roll up their sleeves and ask, “Now, what else can I do?” That is true service. The pure and selfless personal agency that makes us who we are as Americans. Thousands of you are doing this every day, in your own communities. Folks like Kyle, from Germantown, Maryland. Kyle wrote Michelle and me earlier this year to tell us about Washington D.C.’s Dog Tag Bakery, where she works. Dog Tag helps support disabled veterans, military spouses, and caregivers during their transitions into civilian life by providing them with valuable work experience. (They also happen to bake, as Kyle puts it, “the most amazing brownie you’ve ever had.”) Kyle told us how inspired she was by her colleagues’ strength and commitment to service. She wrote that we should all “support this transition for those who have sacrificed so much for our country and well being” — and I couldn’t agree more. Notes like Kyle’s remind me that one of the many ways we contribute as citizens is by holding each other accountable — by encouraging each other to stand up and do better. We’ve been asking folks all around the country to share with us what they’re committed to changing in their communities in the next few months. Join them by making a commitment of your own today. Every day, we walk among citizens willing to lay down their lives for strangers like us. Today, we can show our own love for our country by loving our neighbors as ourselves. By rolling up our sleeves, and asking: “Now, what else can I do?” May God bless all who served, and still do. — Barack Amen.
Time To Ask Why November 10, 2017 But first: Take three minutes to meet James Mackler. Yes, it’s Tennessee: but I sure wouldn’t bet against this guy to fill Bob Corker’s Senate seat — would you? And now: read Ambassador Stephenson’s letter and then, if her question strikes you as important, watch Rachel Maddow’s answer. Time to Ask Why ADVANCE COPY December 2017 Foreign Service Journal President’s Views By AFSA President Ambassador Barbara Stephenson I begin with a reminder that we, the members of the career Foreign Service, have an obligation as stewards of our institution to be effective advocates for why diplomacy matters. . . . The cover of the Time magazine that arrived as I was writing this column jarred me with its graphic of wrecking balls and warning of “dismantling government as we know it.” While I do my best, as principal advocate for our institution and as a seasoned American diplomat, to model responsible, civil discourse, there is simply no denying the warning signs that point to mounting threats to our institution—and to the global leadership that depends on us. There is no denying that our leadership ranks are being depleted at a dizzying speed, due in part to the decision to slash promotion numbers by more than half. The Foreign Service officer corps at State has lost 60 percent of its Career Ambassadors since January. Ranks of Career Ministers, our three-star equivalents, are down from 33 to 19. The ranks of our two-star Minister Counselors have fallen from 431 right after Labor Day to 369 today—and are still falling. . . . Were the U.S. military to face such a decapitation of its leadership ranks, I would expect a public outcry. Like the military, the Foreign Service recruits officers at entry level and grows them into seasoned leaders over decades. The talent being shown the door now is not only our top talent, but also talent that cannot be replicated overnight. The rapid loss of so many senior officers has a serious, immediate, and tangible effect on the capacity of the United States to shape world events. Meanwhile, the self-imposed hiring freeze is taking its toll at the entry level. Intake into the Foreign Service at State will drop from 366 in 2016 to around 100 new entry-level officers joining A100 in 2018 (including 60 Pickering and Rangel Fellows). . . . As the shape and extent of the staffing cuts to the Foreign Service at State become clearer, I believe we must shine a light on these disturbing trends and ask “why?” and “to what end?” Congress rejected drastic cuts to State and USAID funding. The Senate labeled the proposed cuts a “doctrine of retreat” and directed that appropriated funds “shall support” staffing State at not less than Sept. 30, 2016, levels, and further directed that “The Secretary of State shall continue A-100 entry-level classes for FSOs in a manner similar to prior years.” Given this clear congressional intent, we have to ask: Why such a focus on slashing staffing at State? Why such a focus on decapitating leadership? How do these actions serve the stated agenda of making the State Department stronger? Remember, nine in ten Americans favor a strong global leadership role for our great country, and we know from personal experience that such leadership is unthinkable without a strong professional Foreign Service deployed around the world protecting and defending America’s people, interests and values. Where then, does the impetus come from to weaken the American Foreign Service? Where is the mandate to pull the Foreign Service team from the field and forfeit the game to our adversaries? Sincerely, Ambassador Barbara Stephenson Rachel Maddow led off Thursday with these questions, and — in her trademark long-form way — surrounded them with context, color (did you know that Ben Carson hired Eric Trump’s wedding planner to run much of the Housing Department?) — and at least the hint of an answer. Watch. Finally, for those who may have missed it, both Donna Brazile and Elizabeth Warren have now made it clear that no, the 2016 primary was not rigged. Have a great weekend!
More Tax Nightmares: Education November 8, 2017November 8, 2017 But first, Mark Cuban’s two-minute plan for getting rich. I’m in love. And what a fantastic result at the polls yesterday! Had it not been for the full-scale, sustained attack by the former Soviet Union and the systematic Republican voter suppression that cost us states like Wisconsin, it’s the sort of day we would have had a year ago. Voter suppression is one of the basic differences between the two parties: Democrats want to make voting easier; Republicans want to make it harder. Listen: “Our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.” — Paul Weyrich, beloved by Republicans like Mike Pence. Another basic difference is taxes. Republicans are all about easing the burden on the rich, however relatively-light the burden has become — even if it means exploding the National Debt, as Reagan, Bush, and Bush massively did. (Leaving Clinton and Obama to get it back to growing slower than the economy). Yesterday, I covered the inheritance tax. The Republicans have long wanted to eliminate it, which would help not a single middle class family (but save the Trump kids $4.5 billion). Today, consider what the Republican tax bill would do to the cost of education. Handing the mike over to a pro, Dana Chasin, who writes, in part: The bill that House Ways and Means is marking up hikes taxes in various ways, with the heaviest burden falling on middle and working class students and families — and the changes don’t even raise much revenue in the process. Student Loan Interest Deduction, Gone? Under the GOP plan, people who are repaying their student loans would lose their current $2,500 deduction. . . . Teacher Supply Deduction, Ditto? [Today], teachers can deduct up to $250 in expenses for classroom and supplemental supplies. For two-teacher households, the deduction can total $500 annually. The GOP tax bill would eliminate this deduction completely. . . . University Endowments An unexpected provision in the Republican tax bill introduced a 1.4 percent excise tax on the investment income of private universities with an endowment of at least $100,000 per full-time student. . . . The New America Foundation and the National Association of College and University Business Officers estimate that around 160 universities would meet the proposed taxation threshold. The average loss per educational institution is $187.5 million. . . . Charitable Deduction Donations constitute the primary funding source for university endowments. Such donations can be deducted as charitable giving. With the move to filing taxes on a postcard under the House legislation, the number of itemizers is expected to decline from 33 percent today to about 5 percent. So the millions of taxpayers who itemize the charitable deduction today will no longer be able to do so if the bill becomes law. As a result, colleges and universities would almost certainly see a substantial reduction in philanthropic donations. [Not to mention the impact eliminating the estate tax would have — suddenly, giving $100 million would no longer provide a $45 million estate-tax break, and so become nearly twice as expensive.] Employer-Sponsored Educational Assistance The GOP plan would also eliminate the tax break for employer-sponsored educational assistance programs . . . Teaching Assistant Tuition Waivers The House legislation includes a little-noticed provision in which graduate students who receive tuition waivers while working as teaching assistants or research assistants would see those waivers taxed as if it were standard income. This would require all graduate students to pay taxes on up to $50-60,000 of tuition, limiting this avenue of education to the wealthiest students who can bear that kind of burden (and driving up student debt for those who can’t). One place the bill would be more generous? “The Republican tax plan would allow unborn children to be named as the beneficiaries of 529 Plans. Anti-abortion groups have praised the measure,” Chasin reports, “while Planned Parenthood has slammed this as a likely vehicle for restricting access to abortion.” But by and large, the tax bill would make education more expensive, to help off-set tax cuts for the rich. Student debt outpaces even auto and credit card debt. The Democrats have a few simple ideas on this score. The most glaringly compelling? Let those with federal student loans refinance at today’s low rates — just as you can refinance a mortgage when rates fall. We proposed it; they nixed it. Better still: make higher education debt free, as called for in the 2016 Democratic Party platform. May I make a suggestion? Let’s keep up the momentum. If everyone who favors middle-class priorities over tax cuts for the rich comes out to vote Democrat next year, we can begin to get the country back on a progressive track.
Brazile: “NOT Rigged” ; The Tax Plan: Even Worse Than You Thought November 7, 2017 But first — as we wait for the election results today — can we just give Donna Brazile the last word? On CBS Morning News today she stated clearly that, no, the 2016 primary process was NOT rigged, “it was a fair fight.” No disrespect to Bernie, but according to Donna, Hillary won millions more votes, fair and square. (She also says she thinks the new DNC chair, Tom Perez, is doing the right things.) Needless to say, it would be have been more helpful for her now-famous Politico excerpt to have been framed this way — but there you are. Watch. Now let’s talk about the awful Republican tax proposal. Taken as a whole, it would widen the deficit, widen inequality, and starve the government of funds needed to revitalize our infrastructure and invest in our future. The proposal is not a massive tax cut for the middle class, it is a massive tax cut for the already-best-off. So start with just the most obvious, most glaring example of this . . . and I don’t mean the proposal to eliminate the Alternative Minimum Tax, which would have saved Donald Trump $31 million in 2005 (the only year for which his tax return leaked [because, perhaps, the only year he paid any?]). That’s a good example, too, but the best example, obviously, is the Republicans’ long-sought elimination of what they like to call “the death tax.” It’s not a death tax. Dead people don’t pay it. They’re dead. It’s an inheritance tax. Their kids and grandkids are the ones nicked — and they didn’t work a day in their lives to earn it (other than being sweet and adorable and obedient, but so were you and no one’s giving you $250 million). If Trump is really worth the $10 billion he claims, his kids would save $4.5 billion in federal taxes. How is that a massive middle-class tax cut? The middle class would save not one cent from elimination of the estate tax. Almost no one would. Even most of “the top 1%” aren’t wealthy enough to have pay it. And it’s actually worse than ever: Paul S. Ward, CPA: “The atrocious Republican tax bill provides for stepped-up cost basis on ALL inherited assets along with repeal of the estate tax. In the past, estate-tax repeal efforts have included at least some semblance of taxing at least some capital gains on inherited assets. No more. See today’s Washington Post Fact Checker. (“Two words in the GOP tax bill mean tens of billions for the superwealthy.”) The tax bill is tailor-made for people like Trump. No AMT, no estate tax, no capital gains tax on inherited assets, and much lower income tax on pass-through income. Today I voted the straight Democratic ticket in Virginia.” ☞ Amen, brother.
John Boehner? November 6, 2017November 5, 2017 Yes. Lots else to talk about, but in the meantime, read this really terrific profile of John Boehner. A decent, sensible guy. You think the Democratic Party has problems? (Well, yes, of course, we do: but our basic premises include fairness, opportunity, inclusion, community, and investing in the future . . . so that gives us a head start. Where we look for ways to make health care more affordable, student loans refinanceable, and voting easier, they look for ways to kill the tax on investment income that helps make health care more affordable, to eliminate the estate tax on billionheirs, and to make voting more difficult.) Read about John Boehner and try not to like him. I don’t think you’ll be able to.
“Meddled?” “Rigged?” November 3, 2017November 3, 2017 There is a character in Steve Martin’s brilliantly funny new play, Meteor Shower, who suffers from “exploding head syndrome.” I think I may suffer from a touch of it myself because there’s just so much to say (which accounts for this post’s being late) that I don’t know where to start — or how to keep it from being book length. So let me just throw out some data points: WheelTug followers: Here’s Jan Vana’s recent presentation from earlier this month at the Smart Airports conference in Munich. Inch by inch, we approach the Promised Land (or so I hope) . . . Tax cut followers: If you saw my post yesterday, you know my thoughts and saw me waving my arms around. Now that we’ve seen the details, and heard Republicans saying no, it’s not a gift to billionheirs (etc.) . . . well, how could your head not explode? It would be just nuts to pass this thing, or anything like it, adding to our deficit, robbing us of funds needed to revitalize our infrastructure, making inequality yet worse. Nut, nuts, nuts. DNC followers: I love Donna Brazile (and virtually all that Bernie stands for), but if you’ve been following the hoo-ha, please take a minute to read this: Primary Error: Donna Brazile Mixed Up Two Different Clinton-DNC Agreements. It seems she made a really big error. I’ve ordered the book and expect there will be much in it of interest. Donna is a spectacular human being. But no, to my knowledge, the primary election was not “rigged.” That’s just way too strong an assessment. I tried to address this ages ago and may take another stab at it after I’ve read her book. But for now, check out that link. Meanwhile . . . Civilized humans: Just as “rigged” is way — way — too strong a word for what went on in the 2016 Democratic primary (even if with hindsight some judgments could have been made better and more transparently and there were, for sure, some management weaknesses) so is “meddling” way — way — too weak a word to describe Russia’s involvement in the 2016 general election, as becomes ever more increasingly clear. You don’t reach 126 million Facebook users and 288 million Twitter users without having an impact. To say Trump would have won Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin without the massive Russian assault — remember, he won those states by less than one percent — strains credulity. The Russians were expert at turning people off to Hillary, turning Bernie people against Hillary — are probably, as we speak, working to amplify the Donna controversy — and, I would guess (though it’s just a guess), played a role in Brexit and have been stoking passions in Catalonia and have been doing something weird with sound waves in Cuba, all to sow discord and division. That Trump never refers to Russia’s ongoing war against us and our allies is reason enough to consider him a traitor to our democracy. CNN watchers: Do you even have a TV? If so, do you watch Fareed Zakaria without fail every Sunday morning? It is so sober, professional, and informative and important. Here’s the transcript from last week. It begins with a quick assessment of the damage Trump has done to our standing in the world (“Countries like Australia, The Netherlands and Canada now all have a more favorable view of China than of the US. Many of the countries surveyed including Germany, Chile and Indonesia have greater confidence in the leadership of Xi than of Trump.”) Then quickly segues into a riveting six minutes with Bill Browder, whose lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, Putin had murdered, which ties back to the meeting in Trump Tower, where Russians were hoping to get the Magnitsky Act repealed. Watch! Have you seen Tom Steyer’s ad? He calls for impeachment. Sixty seconds. Have a great weekend. Don’t let your head explode. Spread the word.
Oh, Boy! Tax Cuts! November 2, 2017November 2, 2017 I don’t know the details of the Republican tax cut scheduled to be released today, but it’s almost certain to be directed mainly to the rich and powerful. It’s nuts to cut taxes with unemployment at 4.2% and the deficit and Debt so large relative to the economy as a whole. It’s nuts to cut taxes for the rich when inequality is already so high. It’s nuts to cut taxes when our long-decaying infrastructure is so badly in need of repair. The way to juice the economy and create good jobs isn’t yet more tax breaks for the wealthy. It’s massive tax-payer-funded infrastructure renewal. Yes: if there are revenue-neutral ways to reform the corporate tax code to make life simpler and provide less incentive to move jobs abroad, I’m all for them. But the general thrust of Republican tax “reform” is always to lower taxes for the best off — directly as individuals and indirectly as corporate shareholders — which will not create good new jobs or juice the economy or fund revitalization of our national infrastructure. So . . . while we await details . . . here’s a 90-second video that frames the big picture. Should I have worn a tie?