The 1954-2019 Connection March 29, 2019 While Trump* calls House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff “pencil neck,” committee Republicans began Thursday’s hearing by joining Trump’s demand that he resign. If you’ve not already seen his response in its entirety (five minutes), you must. In oratory and importance, it exceeds even Joseph Welch’s famous 1954 response to Senator Joseph McCarthy. (“Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?“) That there is a connection between 1954 and 2019 is almost chilling. In 1954, Joseph McCarthy’s despicable right-hand man was Roy Cohn. Cohn went on to become Trump’s mentor and fixer. Later this year, you can see an entire Sony Pictures Classics film about that — Where’s My Roy Cohn. In a very real sense, Cohn and McCarthy live on through Trump. *Objectively: a vulgar, lying, cheating bully and narcissistic sociopath. No? Is there any part of that you would dispute?
Guilty Pleasure Time March 28, 2019March 27, 2019 So okay, maybe you don’t have a lot of money.*↑ Would you like to feel magnificently, juicily, deliciously superior to a bunch who do? Namely, to all but a couple of the characters in Edward St Aubyn’s Patrick Melrose novels? Dreadful, unhappy rich people, brilliantly observed, maliciously skewered? Fun! And exactly the sort of reading better done with ears than eyes. Just as with the first book I ever read “on tape” — Bonfire of the Vanities, written by the genius Tom Wolfe, read by the genius John Lithgow — here, also, you have two extraordinary talents at work for you — St Aubyn, as read by Alex Jennings. (Not sure who he is — but oh, my.) Notes: I am basing this on only the first of five novels that came with my purchase (one credit on Audible), called Never Mind. From the reviews, I expect the others are equally good. I am apparently the last to discover this guilty pleasure. Showtime turned the novels into a five-part series. For reasons likely known only to some participants in an epic contract dispute, the John Lithgow version of Bonfire, linked to above, is literally “on tape.” Audible offers a version read by someone else. I can’t imagine it’s better and find it hard to imagine it’s as good. I have weighed in with Audible to see if we can fix that. *Shockingly, only 1% of Americans are actually in the top 1%. ↑Fortunately, you don’t need a lot of money. You need food, shelter, a good internet connection; and, mainly, good health, good friends, and purpose. As I’ve quoted Barack Obama advising his daughters: “Be kind and be useful.” And as one of you generously wrote me, in that spirit, this week: “It’s frustrating that I can’t release the Mueller Report or treat children at the border with compassion. But I can help an old lady lost in the hardware store fix her remote control, or track down the stranger who lost his wallet on the sidewalk, or close my neighbor’s garage door for him while he’s asleep. Those are all real examples from the last six months. They’re small, but they were things I could do to help instead of focusing on myself.”
Mayor Pete . . . And A Couple Of Republicans March 27, 2019March 26, 2019 Whatever happens, it’s kind of thrilling to see Mayor Pete climb to #3 behind Biden and Bernie in the way-too-early-to-be-meaningful polls. We have so much great talent, announced and unannounced. I’d support virtually any of them with wild enthusiasm in a match-up against Trump. But what makes it particularly fun for me to see Pete become known — and so well liked — is that, oh, by the way, in addition to being brilliant, brave, and effective — a Rhodes Scholar Navy counterintelligence officer back from Afghanistan who reads Norwegian and Arabic and has done a fantastic job for South Bend — his husband Chasten is a great guy, too. To someone who grew up when the worst possible thing you could be was gay, it is just amazing and wonderful to see how for a lot of the country and the world, the prevailing response to this now is — as it ultimately was to Kennedy’s being Catholic or Obama’s being black or Clinton’s being female — “who cares?” Mayor Pete knows how to bring people together in common purpose. Once they had had a chance to kick the tires, South Bend voters reelected him by a margin of more than four to one (so he obviously got a lot of Republican votes, too). And amazingly, he knows to beat “the claw game,” as you can read in this excellent Indianapolis Monthly profile. Enjoy. And then, yes, of course, if you want to watch a Georgia-born, Alabama-educated, conservative long-time former Republican Congressman ranting all yesterday morning, click here. And here. And here. And that’s just for starters. But he’s right of course. And so was Lindsey Graham back when he called Trump unfit for office (“a race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot . . . undercutting everything we stand for“) and Hillary Clinton “one of the most effective secretaries of state, greatest ambassadors for the American people that I have known in my lifetime.” It is to cry.
iPhone Tips And The KGB March 26, 2019March 25, 2019 Have you toured the new KGB Espionage Museum down on West 14th Street? I just did — sort of — via Russ Baker’s report. Remember when the KGB was our enemy? Steve Israel writes in The Hill: . . . But if there is one damning conclusion of the Mueller report that ought to unite the left and the right it is this: Russia meddled in our democracy. The summary by President Trump’s own appointed attorney general reflects that the Mueller investigation has laid-out a clear and comprehensive case of such Russian meddling. That case has been backed up by multiple indictments. President Trump has said that “it is a shame that our country had to go through this. It’s a shame that your president has had to go through this.” No, Mr. President. The Mueller investigation revealed that a strong adversary opposed to our strength and influence in the world did, in fact, embark on a massive effort to sway our presidential election. The job of a president is to protect and defend the Constitution, not to complain about the inconvenience of it all. . . . Have you got an iPhone? Here are some tips. (Mark Jansen already shared his hold-down-the-space-bar-to-turn-the-keyboard-into-a-trackpad tip. These are more extensive.) And this point of personal privilege: My dad, who died in 1983, would have turned 100 today. A man of exceptional talent and integrity. How lucky were my brother and I to have had such amazing, loving parents. And what a century it has been. I wish he’d gotten to see a lot more of it.
Of Deficits And That Mechanical Swan March 25, 2019March 24, 2019 From New York Magazine: Trump Nominates Famous Idiot Stephen Moore to Fed Board. From government statistics: U.S. Posts Largest Monthly Deficit In History As Corporate Tax Receipts Plunge. Please note: the corporate tax rate was slashed in 2017 by a Republican Senate and Republican House, signed into law by a Republican President. Democrats have long been ridiculed as the “tax and spend” party. But there’s a lot government needs to do and Democrats think it makes sense not only to do it — but to pay for it. Republicans are the “borrow and spend” party. They spend, too — they just don’t pay for it. Some might call that fiscally irresponsible. Or even immoral. Reagan/Bush41 inherited a National Debt under $1 trillion — and quadrupled it. Clinton raised taxes on the best-off and by the end of his second term was able to hand Bush 43 a balanced budget with the prospect of “surpluses as far as the eye could see.” Bush 43 slashed taxes on the best-off even further than Reagan had and handed Obama the largest deficit in history. Obama raised taxes on the best-off and, by the end of his second term, was able to hand Trump and the Republicans a National Debt once again shrinking relative to the economy as a whole. Trump and the Republicans have exploded the deficit once again. If you’re “socially liberal and fiscally conservative,” consider this: you lean Democrat on both fronts. Erich Almasy: “The swan story you attributed to the late, great Hermione Gingold (what a wonderful baritone giggle she had) is an oft-told opera story starring Leo Slezak, an Austrian tenor who performed in the 20’s and 30’s. As told to me by my father (a Viennese opera lover) and by Leo’s granddaughter, ‘Papa told her about a Lohengrin performance. It was just before his first entrance. He was ready to step into the boat, which, drawn by a swan, was to take him on-stage. Somehow the stagehand on the other side got his signals mixed, started pulling, and the swan left without Papa. He quietly turned around and said: What time’s the next swan?‘” Jonathan Cartby: “That story about the swan is an old one indeed. I have seen it quite a number of times, first around 1969, generally in the following context. In Wagner’s opera Lohengrin, the hero departs, as he came, on, or with, a mechanical swan. In one production, the stagehands mistimed the swan so that it crossed the stage before the tenor could get there. He then said, more or less to the audience, Wann faehrt der naechste Schwann ab? I can’t imagine someone writing a play in which people are hauled off by a swan after Wagner’s opera was written (around 1850) — it would have looked like a burlesque.”
Pins And Groats — Be It Ever Thus March 22, 2019March 22, 2019 Ben Franklin apparently did not say: “In wine there is wisdom. In beer there is freedom. In water there is bacteria.” But why ruin it? Below some things he apparently did say. But first: Gray Chang: “I periodically search for unclaimed property for friends, relatives, and acquaintances. The most I ever found was $3,000 for my kid’s schoolteacher and $2,000 for a co-worker. When you find something, notify your friend by phone or in person, not by e-mail or text, because it looks exactly like a scam message!” Groucho Marx roasting Johnny Carson, many years ago. Give yourself 2 points for each face you recognize. And the last name mentioned? Hermione Gingold? Author of What Time’s The Next Swan? (an autobiography so obscure, even Amazon doesn’t know about it; only her second, decades later, How To Grow Old Disgracefully)? She was my high school junior year “profile.” (The title refers to a mechanical swan she rode out onto the stage at a particular point in a show she was starring in; but she did like to drink; and after a while you can grow a little bored with a matinee performance; and, missing her cue and seeing the swan crossing the stage without her, she simply remarked to those nearby, “what time’s the next swan.” At 16, I found it all — the cigar she was smoking, the leering friend who ushered me in to see her, the rococo apartment — eye-widening. But 55 years later, I remember it well. Four points for me!) John S.: “While I don’t claim expertise after spending about five minutes on the internet investigating this, as the father of a student on an IEP, I’m horrified that your description of Success Academy schools yesterday has no hint of this story: Success Academy violated the civil rights of students with disabilities, New York state investigation finds.” –> Thanks, John. I hadn’t seen that story. It doesn’t describe any specific student or situation so it’s hard for me to get a sense of how horrifying the abuses may or may not have been. But overall, results for Success students with disabilities have been good. Where only 16% of NYC students with disabilities read and do math at grade level, 74% (English) and 90% (math) of Success students with disabilities do. Any abuses, oversights, and insufficient paperwork should, for sure, be addressed. I’m with you — and to the extent the criticisms are substantive, I’m quite sure Success is with you, too. But please be horrified, too, that only 16% of the disabled students in NYC’s traditional public schools are succeeding at English and math. That’s a problem Success Academy schools are working hard to address. And now, finally, the pins and groats. All I really did in writing my investment guide was convert them into dollars and cents, Roth IRAs and index funds. Thanks, George Mokray: Hints to Those That Would Be Rich: From Poor Richard’s Almanac, 1737 The use of money is all the advantage there is in having money. For £6 a year you may have the use of £100, if you are a man of known prudence and honesty. He that spends a groat a day idly, spends idly above £6 a year; which is the price of using £100. He that wastes idly a groat’s worth of his time per day, one day with another, wastes the privilege of using £100 pounds each day. He that idly loses 5 shillings worth of time, loses 5 shillings, and might as prudently throw 5 shillings into the river. He that loses 5 shillings not only loses that sum, but all the other advantage that might be made by turning it in dealing, which, by the time a young man becomes old, amounts to a comfortable bag of money. Again, He that sells upon credit, asks a price for what he sells equivalent to the principal and interest of his money for the time he is like to be kept out of it; – therefore, He that buys upon credit pays interest for what he buys, And he that pays ready money, might let that money out to use; so that He that possesses any thing he has bought, pays interest for the use of it. Consider then, when you are tempted to buy any unnecessary household stuff, or any superfluous thing, whether you will be willing to pay interest, and interest upon interest for it as long as you live, and more if it grows worse by using. Yet, in buying goods, ’t is best to pay ready money, because, He that sells upon credit, expects to lose 5 per cent by bad debts: therefore he charges on all he sells upon credit, an advance that shall make up that deficiency. Those who pay for what they buy upon credit, pay their share of this advance. He that pays ready money, escapes, or may escape, that charge. A penny saved is two pence clear. A pin a day is a groat a year. Save and have. Have a great weekend!
Demand Your Carbon Dividend March 21, 2019March 20, 2019 Here is the Carbon Dividend everyone would get . . . funded by the carbon tax we need to confront climate change. I have a question: what are we waiting for? Here is Students for Carbon Dividends. Know a student who might want to join? Their effort supports the largest expression of economic expertise in our nation’s history — 3,508 U.S. economists, 27 Nobel laureates, 15 former Chairs of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers, every single former Fed Chair. Conservatives are for it! Take a look? (And for a thoughtful look at where well-intentioned environmentalists have gone too “us versus them,” see The Environment Is Too Important To Leave To The Environmentalists. Though I still say we should eat less meat: better for our planet, better for our budgets, better for our arteries, better for the cows.)
Success! Why Do New York’s Mayor And City Council Resist It? March 20, 2019March 18, 2019 From time to time I make the case that charter schools are like animals: some, like skunks, stink. Others are our very best friends. So to say you’re “for” or “against” charters schools — or animals — is not very helpful. I mention this because I’m six months late in passing on yet another data point in the extraordinary track record of the now-47 New York City Success Academy public schools and their more than 17,000 students selected by lottery. Most of them children of color; with a median household income about one-fourth and one-tenth of, say, the Chappaqua and Scarsdale median incomes. When last year’s state exam results came in, the Success Schools — larger than 95% of the school districts in the country (if, taken together, they were a school district) — were the highest-performing in New York State, “outpacing the most affluent suburban districts and even gifted-and-talented programs.” There are 53,000 children on waiting lists for public charter schools in NYC. There are 100,000 empty seats in NYC school buildings. The math is simple, but Mayor de Blasio refuses to give parents and kids the space they need, the space Success needs to open new schools. Only 1 in 3 students of color in this city, out of 750,000, are being equipped by their schools to read and do math. Parents and children are being failed. They know it. They feel it. Without the knowledge and skills that only a world-class education delivers, these children will be locked out of access to college and careers and the prosperity that brings. Mayor de Blasio brushes aside these high stakes by arguing the city’s system is “steadily improving.” And maybe, based on this rate of improvement, it will actually be helping the families who need it most — in the year 2050. But every child deserves a high-quality education today. I’d love to see traditional public schools — all of them well-intentioned, for sure — adopt the Success Academy teaching methods that have been proven to work. Even if it’s uncomfortable for some of their teachers and administrators. To my mind, the kids have to come first. Do the mayor and City Council feel the same way? “Charter schools” — like “animals” — are not the answer. Methods that some charter schools have proven to work surely would seem to be. (Since 1982 there has been a thing called the National Blue Ribbon Schools Program that last year named 349 “exemplary high performing schools” out of more than 132,000 public and private schools nationally — roughly 1 in 400 made the cut, just 9 of them in New York City. Two were Success Academy public schools.) (And no, it’s not true that once the Success students are chosen by lottery, all but the really smart ones are kicked out. In a recent year, about 150 kids who transferred into Success public schools from the traditional NYC public schools saw their grade-level reading and math ability rise from 40% or so to 85% or so. In a single year. Can that REALLY be the result of cherry-picking? How?) (For more on all this . . . here and here and here . . . )
The Other Kind Of Bankruptcy March 19, 2019March 18, 2019 But first . . . Have you ever thought of jumping off an alp aiming to rendezvous with a passing propeller plane? It would not have occurred to me to attempt this. (Thanks, Alan.) Mike Gavaghan: “Thanks for the tip on looking up unclaimed property! I tend to keep a close eye on my finances so I thought, ‘Nah, I’m not missing anything.’ But, holy cow! I now have $175 from two accounts coming my way from the State of Texas!” And now, from the indispensable Washington Post (“Democracy Dies In Darkness”): The GOP’s declaration of moral bankruptcy By Max Boot “How did you go bankrupt?” Bill asked. “Two ways,” Mike said. “Gradually and then suddenly.” That famous exchange from Ernest Hemingway’s novel “The Sun Also Rises” comes to mind when contemplating the intellectual and moral bankruptcy of the Republican Party. You can debate when the GOP’s road to ruin began. I believe it was more than a half century ago, when Barry Goldwater and Richard Nixon showed their willingness to pander to racists to wrest the segregationist South from the Democrats. The party’s descent accelerated with the emergence of Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich and Fox News in the 1990s, of Sarah Palin in the 2000s, and of Ted Cruz and the tea party in the 2010s. There were still figures of integrity and decency such as John McCain, Mitt Romney and Jeb Bush. But the GOP evinced no more enthusiasm for any of them than it had for George H.W. Bush. With the election of Donald Trump in 2016, the party’s plunge into purgatory picked up momentum. Republicans now found themselves making excuses for a boorish, ignorant demagogue who had no respect for the fundamental norms of democracy and no adherence to conservative principles. The party of fiscal conservatism excused a profligate president who added $2 trillion in debt and counting. The party of family values became cheerleaders for what Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg has witheringly and accurately called the “porn star presidency.” The party of law and order became accomplices to the president’s obstruction of justice. The party of free trade did nothing to stop the president from launching trade wars. The party of moral clarity barely uttered a peep at the president’s sickening sycophancy toward the worst dictators on the planet — or his equally nauseating attacks on America’s closest allies. The party that once championed immigration eagerly joined in the president’s xenophobic attacks on refugee caravans. And the party that long castigated Democrats for dividing Americans by race pretended not to notice — or even cheered — when the president made openly racist appeals to white voters. Faster and faster went the GOP’s descent into oblivion. Now its bankruptcy is complete. It has no more moral capital left. The Republican Party as we once knew it — as a party of limited government — officially ended on March 14. That was the day that 41 of 53 Republican senators voted to ratify President Trump’s blatantly unconstitutional and transparently cynical declaration of a national emergency so that he can spend money for a border wall that Congress refuses to appropriate. This comes 16 days after 182 out of 195 House Republicans voted the same way. Only 13 Republicans in the House and 12 in the Senate dared to block this flagrant assault on the Constitution. So only 10 percent of Republicans in Congress have any — any — principles left. By an interesting coincidence, that’s also the percentage of Republican voters who disapprove of Trump. The party of Lincoln — the party that freed the slaves and helped to win the Cold War — is now devoted exclusively to feeding Trump’s insatiable ego and pandering to his endless lust for power. And to think that some commentators hailed the Senate’s abysmal failure to muster a veto-proof majority as a victory for principle because, why, 12 whole Republicans dared to defy their supreme leader. There were indeed some pleasant surprises in that list, such as Roy Blunt (Mo.), a member of the Senate leadership, and Roger Wicker (Miss.), who typically votes with robotic predictability for whatever Trump desires. But only one Republican who is up for reelection next year — Susan Collins (Maine) — had the guts to defy the president. Other senators stared into the abyss and blinked. Ben Sasse (Neb.), who prides himself on his devotion to the Constitution and his independence from Trump, was among the sellouts. No one should take his claims to be a serious person seriously ever again. So too supposed constitutional conservatives such as Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.), Charles E. Grassley (Iowa), Cory Gardner (Colo.) and John Cornyn (Tex.) revealed themselves to be rank hypocrites and craven partisans. We ask soldiers to risk their lives to defend the Constitution, but these cowards would not even risk their political careers. Cruz (Tex.) was a particularly choice study in situational ethics. He thundered in 2014 that “it’s incumbent on Republicans in Congress to use every single tool we have to defend the rule of law, to rein in the president, so that the president does not become an unaccountable monarch imposing his policies.” But his devotion to the rule of law ended with the Obama presidency. Somehow Thom Tillis (N.C.) managed the difficult feat of making himself even more ridiculous than Cruz. As recently as March 5, he proclaimed his intention to vote against the state of emergency. “It’s never a tough vote for me,” he said, “when I’m standing on principle.” Turns out reelection mattered more to him than any principle. Facing threats of a primary challenge next year, he folded like an accordion. Trump won’t be president forever — he could be gone in less than two years. The GOP can always find a new leader. But where will it find new principles? Because it has none of the old ones left.
Free Money March 18, 2019March 16, 2019 But first (to lighten the mood): The white supremacy threat. The very White Reverend Paul Brandeis Raushenbush asks: “What are white people doing about it?” It’s time, he says, “to treat white supremacist terrorism as the global threat it is.” . . . Over the past few years we have seen white supremacist attacks in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, Charleston, South Carolina, Quebec City, Canada, Otoya Island, Norway, Pittsburgh, PA and most recently ChristChurch, New Zealand [among others] and yet the response is still piecemeal, treating each incident as somehow an aberration rather than manifestations of an ideology with objectives and violent strategies to achieve them. The global rise of white supremacy must be confronted . . . with urgency and resources. The fact that this is not completely clear is evidence of how deep white supremacist logic is embedded in many western countries, including America. It is up to each of us to insist that this threat be taken seriously with immediate action, and make clear that silence can only be understood as acquiescence. . . . And from the Washington Post: The strongmen strike back: Authoritarianism has reemerged as the greatest threat to the liberal democratic world — a profound ideological, as well as strategic, challenge. And we have no idea how to confront it. . . . [A]uthoritarianism has emerged as the greatest challenge facing the liberal democratic world . . . with strong nations such as China and Russia championing anti-liberalism as an alternative to a teetering liberal hegemony. It has returned as an ideological force . . . and just at the moment when the liberal world is suffering its greatest crisis of confidence since the 1930s. It has returned armed with new and hitherto unimaginable tools of social control and disruption that are shoring up authoritarian rule at home, spreading it abroad and reaching into the very heart of liberal societies to undermine them from within. . . . And now: Fonde Taylor: “Wish I had ‘invested’ in your book 30 years ago. My wife and I are already implementing some of your suggestions — we cut the cable and turned off our subscription to the local newspaper resulting in several hundred dollars saved for the year. [Oh, God: I’m helping to kill local newspapers! Maybe sign up for the digital Washington Post? Democracy Dies In Darkness.] Meanwhile, I wanted to add a suggestion: Some years ago I was helping my 80 year old father go through some financial things. A friend had told me about ‘unclaimed property/money’ that the state treasury has. I did some research and Dad’s name popped up on about half a dozen items. We filed the claims and he received a check for about $3000. He was a retired doctor and it was from some patient health insurance payments that were returned to the insurers when he retired and closed his practice. Apparently he didn’t leave a forwarding address. The process for looking up ‘unclaimed property/money’ is fairly simple. All you do is go to the web site for your State Treasurer and search for your name in the search field under ‘Unclaimed Property/Money.’ I have since searched for family and friends and found claims for four of them. I forwarded a link to each — one of them is always complaining about not having any money. I told them how the process works and how simple it was. And now for the punchline — to my knowledge, not one of them followed up on it and their ‘unclaimed money’ still sits in the state treasurer’s bank account.” –> I just tried this — and have $279 heading back my way from some deposit ADT had not tried very hard to return to me. Thanks, Fonde!