Self-Controlling the Way We Age December 4, 2017December 2, 2017 You absolutely don’t want to miss this TED talk. You will learn why we age, and how you might extend your “health span.” This is not hokum: this is Nobel-prize-winning science combined with wisdom and grace. Your readership extends my telomeres. Seriously: don’t miss this one. It’s fascinating, wise, and free. The tax bill, meanwhile — horrifying, unwise, and a trillion dollars shy of being free — passed the Senate before it could even be typed, let alone read. Does Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski still think the Senate is “earning back its reputation as ‘the world’s greatest deliberative body’?” Just because she got a provision added that opens the Arctic Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling? That gets her vote for this dreadfully wrong-headed tax bill? These would be such great days to be alive (today: telomeres! tomorrow: Mars!) had Putin — who murders journalists and political opponents — not so successfully destabilized our democracy and ended our world leadership. Thanks to him, we have an unhinged, unfit president praised by Nazis, who lies preposterously and perpetually. Never more than when he says the tax bill will “cost me a fortune, believe me.” Call your Republican Senator/s (202-224-3121) and/or Congressperson (202-225-3121). We just need a few of them to put their constituents ahead of their donors. The last thing we should be doing is increasing the National Debt to lower taxes on the rich while our infrastructure continues to decay. How is that smart or responsible in any way? And no, it will not create jobs — it could well move more of them overseas. OK. Made your voice heard? Now watch Elizabeth Blackburn’s wonderful TED talk.
Richard Viguerie – Marketing & Direct Mail December 1, 2017November 30, 2017 But first — if you’re coming to New York, add Come From Away to your wish list. A friend took me. I wasn’t expecting much. But guess what? It’s terrific. Filled with humanity and humor and foot-stomping energy. (And no annoying intermission to interrupt the flow — what a concept!) You will leave the theater feeling great. Meanwhile, if you happen to be gay (or have lots of gay friends), see Bright Colors and Bold Patterns. Again, I wasn’t expecting much. The website “trailer” didn’t grab me. But the director is a friend, and both the Times and the New Yorker called it “hilarious” — so I got tickets. Well! It’s quite the one-man show! You’ll swear you see four characters on stage the whole time. And how odd to juxtapose that recommendation with this one, because my friend Richard Viguerie — king of right-wing direct mail — is staunchly anti-equality. And most other things I care about. We were once on a panel, back when Charles was alive and gays were not included in America’s hate crimes law and could not serve openly in the military — let alone marry — and I finally boiled it down to this: “Look, Richard. You know me, you know Charles. I know you like us and wish us well, as we do you. And you know we pay our taxes as you pay yours. So just tell me: If it were up to you, which rights would you allow us and which would you not? May we live together? Hold hands? Sleep together? Serve in the military? You’re in charge. Just tell us.” Richard squirmed. His faith told him he couldn’t start allowing us rights because that slippery slope would lead to marriage and who knows what else.* He said he wanted time to think about it. We agreed that I’d ask him again the following year, which — given the vagaries of panel scheduling — I did not get to do. Anyway, I happened to come across this 2016 interview on YouTube yesterday. If your job involves marketing or direct mail — or you’d just like to put a human face on “the enemy” (because no one has done more than Richard to move America to the right) — watch. He brims with energy and — in his way — good will. But, oh, the harm his team has caused. Never more than this year. Speaking of which . . . here is a report of the speech in which the President lied massively, blatantly, and consequentially for all to see — saying that he and his wealthy friends would be paying much more under the Republican plan than the relatively little they pay now. It’s not a gray area; it is a knowing, enormous, colossal lie. That he is not universally condemned for it by Congressional Republicans is appalling. And scary. And ominous. Have a great weekend. *Polygamy! Bestiality! And Gomorrah stuff like that. Like go-Moore-ah 32-year-old man molesting a 14-year-old and then running for Senate.
Rachel’s List; Bernie’s Letter November 30, 2017November 29, 2017 The tax thing is horrifying (see below) and could get voted on — even passed — today. If either or both your senators is Republican, call 202-224-3121 to register your dismay. 1. Rachel’s Russia list. You don’t want to miss this. As she says, the evidence just mounts and mounts. 2. Her visual explanation of the Republican tax bill. (People protesting, “Kill the bill, not us!”) 3. Bernie’s letter: Andrew – For the past 40 years, the financial and political elite of this country have rigged the tax code to redistribute wealth and income to some of the richest and most powerful people in this country. The result: we are moving rapidly toward an oligarchic form of society in which the top 1 percent is doing phenomenally well, the middle class continues to decline and 40 million Americans are living in poverty. And it will probably not surprise you to learn that just as our tax code benefits the wealthiest people in this country, it also benefits some of the largest and most profitable corporations in the world with a myriad of tax breaks, deductions, credits and other loopholes. As a result, one out of five large profitable corporations today pays nothing in federal taxes. The current Republican “tax cut” bill, paid for by the Koch brothers and other billionaire campaign contributors, continues the push to make the rich richer at the expense of everyone else. It would raise taxes on middle class families making $75,000 a year or less and would throw 13 million Americans off of health insurance. And it would do all of these things to provide permanent tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans and profitable corporations that ship American jobs to China while moving their American profits to the Cayman Islands. But let’s be clear. This legislation goes well beyond taxes. Its ultimate goal is to radically transform American society and the role that government plays in the lives of the working families of our country. This legislation will increase the deficit by at least $1.5 trillion over ten years. Mark my words. If passed, the Republicans will then rediscover the “deficit crisis,” and push aggressively for massive cuts in Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, education – higher education in particular – nutrition, affordable housing and more. They will seek to undo every major piece of legislation passed in the last 80 years designed to help working families, the elderly, the children, the sick and the poor. This is the Republican plan. Huge tax breaks for the rich and powerful. Massive cuts to life and death programs for the middle class and working families of our country. This is not moral. This is not what the American people want. This is not what our country and our pledge for “liberty and justice for all” is supposed to be about. That is why I am going on the road this week to talk directly to working people in Kentucky, Ohio, and Pennsylvania about this disastrous piece of legislation. If we stand together – black, white, Latino, Asian American, Native American, male and female, young and old, gay and straight – we can defeat this horrific bill. But I need you to make your voice heard as well. We need to stand together. Please sign my petition calling on Congress to REJECT the Republican “tax cut” plan that would take from the working families in this country to give a massive tax break to people and corporations who already are doing extremely well. At a time of grotesque levels of income and wealth inequality, we must not make a bad situation even worse. Today in America, more than 40 million Americans, including 20 percent of all children, live in poverty. Many in extreme poverty. Almost 28 million Americans have no health insurance. Millions of bright kids can’t afford to go to college without facing a lifetime of debt. Seniors and disabled veterans are struggling to stay alive on inadequate Social Security checks. Despite all of that pain, the greed of the billionaire class in this country knows no limits. No. We will not allow them to take away from those in need in order to give a trillion dollars in tax breaks to the very rich. Here’s a radical idea for my colleagues in the Republican Party: instead of just listening to the rich and powerful few in this country, maybe just maybe Congress should listen to the majority of the American people who want a fair tax system. Maybe just maybe corporate tax reform should start by preventing profitable companies from sheltering profits in tax haven countries like the Cayman Islands. Here is something you may not know: A 2008 Government Accountability Office report found that 83 of the Fortune 100 companies use at least one offshore tax scheme to lower their taxes. A 2016 study found that one of every five large, profitable corporations paid no federal income taxes at all in 2012. The practice of stashing profits in places like the Cayman Islands has become so absurd that one single, five-story office building there is now the official legal “home” to more than 18,000 corporations! Our tax code has essentially legalized tax dodging for large corporations. We must stop this bill. We must stop the Republicans from moving this country into an oligarchy. And that starts with all of us standing up, fighting back and making our voices heard. Three weeks ago progressives from coast to coast ran for office at the local and state level – and they won. We have to continue that progress and build on that momentum. Please sign my petition calling on Congress to REJECT the Republican “tax cut” plan that would take from working families in this country all to give a massive tax break to people and corporations who already have it all. Brothers and sisters. We must do exactly the opposite of what Trump is attempting to do. He wants to divide us up by the color of our skin, our gender, our religion, our sexual orientation or our country of origin. He wants us fighting with each other while Wall Street and the billionaire class laugh all the way to the bank. Our job is to bring our people together around an agenda that creates an economy and government that works for all, not just the 1 percent. Defeating this terrible piece of legislation will be an important step forward. This bill is a moral abomination. I hope you’ll add your name if you agree. In solidarity, Bernie Sanders Again: If either of your senators is a Republican, call 202-224-3121 — right now — to register your dismay. If it’s the middle of the night, swell: you’ll get their voice mail.
Quick Recap November 29, 2017November 29, 2017 The Republican tax bills would: Cut the tax rate on billionheirs — from 40% (already down from 55%) to ZERO. This would help them — Trump’s kids would save billions — but do nothing for the bottom 99.8%, whose inheritances fall below the estate tax minimum. Hurt charities. (Because the after-tax cost of bequeathing $100 million would jump from $60 million to $100 million. When something costs more to do, people do less of it.) Eliminate the alternative minimum tax, which would have saved Trump $20+ million in 2005, the one year we know he paid tax, but which would do nothing for most. (The AMT hits about 5 million of us, and is annoying, to be sure; but we need the revenue.) Keep the carried-interest loophole — a great gift to a few thousand very fortunate folks who pay a lower tax rate than their secretaries. Push US jobs and factories abroad (now there’s one you didn’t expect) as explained by Bob Pozen here in the Financial Times. Balloon the deficit — and not for the purpose of revitalizing our infrastructure (something worth borrowing for, that would create good jobs) but, rather, to enrich the already rich — and the corporations that they own. Crimp badly needed spending, e.g., cutting $25 billion from Medicare next year alone. (How would that help Trump voters?) And more. So: TAXES: Aid the rich at everyone else’s expense. HEALTH CARE: Repeal it. Sabotage it. Roll back the tax on the wealthy that helps subsidize it. CONSUMER PROTECTION: Bludgeon it. Watch Barney Frank explain. He challenges the CFPB critics to name one specific thing the CFPB has done in fighting for consumers that they wish it hadn’t. They can’t. Consumers like it when Wells Fargo is called to task for setting up millions of unauthorized accounts. They like it when those who victimize unsophisticated borrowers are called to task. CLIMATE CHANGE: Deny it. DIPLOMATIC CORPS: Decimate it. ONGOING RUSSIAN ATTACK ON OUR HOMELAND: Ignore it. Or, really, abet it. Because the attack is designed to heighten the divisions in our society and to destroy trust in the institutions that make our system work — the free press, the judiciary, the electoral process, norms of common decency and mutual respect. Trump may or may not have actively colluded with the Russians — I don’t know — but he is abetting all those goals and has already taken our national brand down from #1 in the world to #6. In less than a year. Is ignoring an attack from our chief adversary of the past 70 years not a form of treason? Or does treason have to be as explicit as, say, revealing classified information to them in the Oval Office (oh, wait, he did that, too). Is bragging about grabbing women’s genitals not some form of misdemeanor? What about constant lying (albeit not yet under oath)? Any issues with the emoluments clause? Obstruction of justice? I think you know where I’m headed with this.
Killing Boo Boo November 28, 2017November 25, 2017 Boo Boo was a bear. (Click for the photo.) My friend Danny Sebright, formerly of the Defense Department and the Defense Intelligence Agency, knows a thing or two about weapons. I found his post affecting: Facebook Friends, I post below with some amount of sadness and trepidation. As you all know, I am not a big fan of “rants” on FB, whether they be about jobs, friends, politics, or each person’s latest malady or general state of malaise. However, I feel that I am owed a rant this morning! Boo Boo was legally shot by a hunter near my home in PA on Saturday! Boo Boo visited my property on a regular basis over the last 12 months. He was the sweetest, most gentle animal. He occasionally “played” with a bird feeder or two, but let it be said that he was more afraid of me and my dogs than we were of him. What is the purpose of killing a noble animal like this? Certainly, the hunter who killed Boo Boo is not going to eat the meat. Maybe he/she will make Boo Boo into a carpet, or stuff or mount his head on the wall. But, why and for what purpose? Is it the adrenaline rush that comes from killing a helpless animal when you know you are already at the top of the food chain in the animal kingdom? Sort of pathetic when you use a high power weapon to track, hunt, and kill a defenseless animal. Wow, is that called stacking the odds? Or, is it a Napoleon Complex of trying to over compensate for your own small penis? They have medical devices and implants these days that might do a better job of helping you make up for your own personal inadequacies. God gave us the earth and everything on it to wisely use what we need and conserve the rest. My father, who is a lifelong farmer, taught me to respect the land and all of the creatures who live on it. Why is it that today so many are so fixated on needlessly raping, pillaging, and consuming all of the bounty and glory of God’s wonderful gifts to us? And please, before any of you start with responses back to me of “over population” or of the importance of “thinning the herd,” just stop! We would not be in this position to begin with if we as humans had not over-populated the earth, and, over the last 100 years had not caused significant impact to our climate and earth’s eco systems. Hunters in my area: get your license and kill a deer every year IF YOU MUST for the bounty of its meat on your table, but please let the rest of God’s creatures alone and try to learn to live with them in peace in this world. Rant over: I will miss Boo Boo every day!
No, Of Course He’s Not Hitler November 27, 2017November 25, 2017 As explained well here. In small part: . . . Trump is unquestionably unpresidential (this is the man who mocked a disabled reporter), but he’s nothing like Hitler. I encourage everyone to challenge and condemn the immoral and unfeasible ideas that Trump has, such as the proposal to deport 11 million undocumented migrants, but comparing Trump to Hitler is not only inaccurate, ineffective, dishonest, and dangerous, it also trivializes the tragedy of the Holocaust in the name of scoring political points. . . . Right. No question. But to compare the nature of Trump’s appeal and his rhetoric to Hitler’s . . . and to note, as I have, repeatedly, that, according to his ex-wife, he frequently read from a book of Hitler’s speeches by his bedside . . . and to note his affinity for journalist-murdering dictators like Putin and Duterte . . . and to find it telling that he defended some “very fine people” among the white nationalists carrying torches in Charlottesville chanting “Jews will not replace us” — well, it seems to me, these are data points that someone evaluating Trump’s world view and fitness to be president should take into account.
Can You Recycle Bubble Wrap? November 24, 2017November 18, 2017 I’m not an idiot, and my neighbors are not idiots — and many of them have housekeepers who are not idiots — but do many of us really have any idea what happens to the stuff we “recycle?” And what goes where? Now I do! If you live in New York City, here it is in one minute. New York is a “two-stream” city (basically: paper stuff in one stream, glass, metal, and plastic) except now the city has begun picking up “compostables” separately (click here for instructions, here if you want them in Bengali) and electronics even more separately still. If you live in Winnipeg, here it is in 3 minutes. At least as of this 2o13 video, Winnipeg was a one-stream city — everything recyclable in one big bin. That’s possible because — if you live anywhere — this 8-minute video shows you just how all your stuff is sorted once it gets to the “murf” and then what happens to it after that. Which I found both interesting and helpful. Now I get why I’m supposed to do this. Don’t worry about the staples in your magazines or the glassine windows in your junk mail. But Styrofoam and plastic bags? Nope. If you watch these videos, you’ll have a better sense of what goes where and why. And how. Ideally, Google will turn up a video for your own town, because some of the things you can recycle in New York you can’t in Winnipeg. E.g., aluminum. How nuts is that? (See? Canada isn’t perfect either, though it comes close.) Or you could find ways to recycle stuff yourself. Here are 38 things you can do with plastic bottles. I will do none of them; but I do save the clear plastic bags the dry cleaner folds my shirts into (even Charles got with that program). And I save those red plastic cups everybody uses at parties. “Do you recycle?” my guests ask. “No!” I cry, alarmed, as they appear ready to toss them trashward — “I reuse!” I mean, how dirty does a cup of beer get? Rinse immediately in really hot water; air dry; reuse.
They Don’t Just Serve The Homeless On Thanksgiving November 23, 2017November 17, 2017 This six-minute Philadelphia story starts out nicely and just gets better and better. (Thanks, Mel!) Have a beautiful day. I’m thankful for your readership!
Jefferson, Madison, and Washington on the Estate Tax November 22, 2017November 25, 2017 But first — hey, look at this! FANH, first suggested here at $5.40 (when the symbol was CISG) closed last night at $23.75. Profits are way up and they have begun to pay a dividend. Sometimes, patience is rewarded. I’m selling half and letting the rest ride. And also — turns out, now that I’ve read it, there’s much to recommend in Donna Brazile’s book, the unfortunate excerpt that fueled the notion the primary was rigged, notwithstanding. That the news media seized on that excerpt is understandable, but later in the book Donna writes, more plainly: [Bernie] had legitimate reasons to complain about the actions of a handful of people at the DNC, and I had been totally forthcoming to him about that. But overall the game was not rigged against him. He knew this and has said as much, but his staunchest supporters refused to accept it. Personally, I would go a little further in characterizing the situation. My own perspective is that, especially in context, there was even less legitimate room for complaint than most Bernie supporters came to believe. But however you look at it, nothing the DNC did could possibly be construed to have won Hillary 4 million more votes than Bernie. For better or worse, as Donna has gone on to say, Hillary won fair and square. Where the rigging was real, aggressive, and almost surely history-changing — as you’ll see in some pretty scary detail if you read Donna’s book and continue to follow the news — was in the general election. Russia rigged it. That we as a nation are not going batshit over this successful attack on our democracy is just part of Russia’s victory. (Donna’s book also devotes quite a few pages to the CNN debate question she was fired for having given Hillary in advance. If you read her account, I think you’ll believe her when she says she honestly has no recollection of ever having done this; can’t find any record of it on her computer; and can’t say for sure, but thinks this may have been Russian one more example of Russian disinformation, designed to screw things up.) Because: disinformation is real, and a lot of Americans really do seem to be disinformed. Here’s why — arguably — Hillary won by only 3 million votes when it should have been 30 million. (There’s no sound; just watch the captions that flash by. E.g., 40% of Trump voters think he won the popular vote; 39% believed the stock market went down under Obama; 67% believe the unemployment rate went up under Obama; 46% believe Hillary helped run a child sex slave ring out of a DC pizza parlor.) And now! Jim Burt on the estate tax (which they call the “death” tax but should really be called the “inheritance” tax, because it burdens not dead people, or estates, but inheritors of great wealth): Our Founding Fathers considered the concentration of wealth in a few families dangerous to a free republic. They didn’t have tools like income taxes or inheritance taxes, as those had not yet been invented, but they wrote three measures to fight hereditary inequality into our earliest laws. The Constitution prohibits titles of nobility, with their baggage of hereditary status and privilege – ‘privilege’ being a word from two French roots, meaning ‘private law’. The other two measures were written into the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, enacted by a unanimous Congress before ratification of the Constitution and re-enacted by the first Congress under the Constitution. One of these prohibited primogeniture, the other, entail — two major devices for massive wealth accumulation in the 18th Century. If the Founding Fathers had thought of the inheritance tax — a tax on wealth accruing to people by virtue of their wise choice of parents — the evidence suggests they would have adopted it, and likely at a high rate. How do we know this? Well, the laws I summarize above are the best evidence, but we can also look to their words: “A power to dispose of estates for ever is manifestly absurd. The earth and the fulness of it belongs to every generation, and the preceding one can have no right to bind it up from posterity. Such extension of property is quite unnatural.” — Thomas Jefferson “There is no point more difficult to account for than the right we conceive men to have to dispose of their goods after death.” — Adam Smith (not a founding father, but an inspiration to them) “The great object [of political parties] should be to combat [this] evil: . . . by withholding unnecessary opportunities from a few, to increase the inequality of property, by an immoderate, and especially an unmerited, accumulation of riches . . .” — James Madison “[America] will not be less advantageous to the happiness of the lowest class of people, because of the equal distribution of property.” — George Washington “I am conscious that an equal division of property is impracticable. But the consequences of this enormous inequality producing so much misery to the bulk of mankind, legislators cannot invent too many devices for subdividing property, only taking care to let their subdivisions go hand in hand with the natural affections of the human mind. The descent of property of every kind therefore to all the children, or to all the brothers and sisters, or other relations in equal degree is a politic measure, and a practicable one. Another means of silently lessening the inequality of property is to exempt all from taxation below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions of property in geometrical progression as they rise. Whenever there is in any country, uncultivated lands and unemployed poor, it is clear that the laws of property have been so far extended as to violate natural right. The earth is given as a common stock for man to labour and live on. If, for the encouragement of industry we allow it to be appropriated, we must take care that other employment be furnished to those excluded from the appropriation. . . . [I]t is not too soon to provide by every possible means that as few as possible shall be without a little portion of land.” — Thomas Jefferson (in reaction to the evils observed in France) Our Founding Fathers considered vast disparities in wealth and the concentration of wealth in a few hands to be pernicious to the survival of a free republic. They were right. The inheritance tax is the least we should do to further the founding principles of our country. Have a great weekend. a short, heart-warming clip tomorrow, while the turkey bastes.
We’re #6! We’re #6! November 21, 2017November 21, 2017 As you know, Trump often re-read a book of Hitler’s speeches by his bedside. From the foreword to that 1941 volume — a passage that might be seen to apply equally well to Trump: Hitler is past master of throwing up verbal smoke screens to conceal his intended moves. He knows equally well the effectiveness of massive oratorical assaults that shake the nerves of his victims and opponents and break down their resistance. He knows how to give pledges that will be broken later but will serve temporally to divide and confuse and to create the illusion of Security. He uses insults and lies in the same manner as his generals use Stuka planes and tanks to break the respectable but often weak front of his adversaries. He contradicts himself constantly but his contradictions often produce the effect of a psychological pincer-movement which crushes the best defenses of logic and ordinary morality. It is in that unhappy context that I offer these sober stocking-stuffer suggestions: The Dictator’s Learning Curve: Inside the Global Battle for Democracy, written in 2012 — and “prescient,” as Fareed Zakaria recently told us (4 minutes well worth watching). The Despot’s Apprentice . . . Donald Trump’s Attack On Democracy. Collusion: Secret Meetings, Dirty Money, and How Russia Helped Donald Trump Win. America’s brand ranked #1 worldwide under Obama. Now the headline is: Germany Takes Top ‘Nation Brand’ Ranking, As U.S. Drops to Sixth. According to a survey of 20,185 people in 20 countries conducted this past July: . . . global perception of the United States saw a substantial decline over the past year, causing the U.S. to drop from first to sixth place in Anholt-GfK’s annual Nation Brands Index (NBI). Germany moved from second to first place; France rose to second place from fifth; and the U.K., which lost some ground after the Brexit vote, improved its score and maintained its third-place ranking. Japan saw a large (2.12-point) jump in its score and made the top 10 ranking for the first time since 2011, tying with Canada for fourth place. Italy rose to sixth place, from seventh. Switzerland, Austria and Sweden maintained their eighth, ninth and tenth places, respectively. Who would have thought, in 1945, that one day Germany and Japan would outrank us in world esteem? We have a lot of work to do to regain our footing. I don’t believe Steve Bannon, Jared Kushner, Donald Trump, Kellyanne Conway, Sam Clovis, Sean Hannity, and Vladimir Putin are the bunch we need to do it. And — given, as the latest evidence, their terrible tax plan — I don’t think the Republicans in the House and Senate are, either.