Year: 2019

Nick Kristof in the indispensable New York Times: She May Have Saved A Life.  Then She Was Arrested:

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. . . I’m simply a mom who saw a child in need and pulled over to try to help,” she said. “The whole time I was by the side of the road, I was thinking: What country am I in? This is not the United States.

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Speaking of which, the Times’ David Leonhardt reminds us how Trump is helping slide the world from democracy toward autocracy:

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In Germany, Italy, Poland, Denmark, Sweden and Spain, far-right politicians have received an alarming level of support in recent elections. In Hungary, Brazil and Turkey, far-right authoritarians run the government.

Yesterday, President Trump hosted one of those authoritarians at the White House, Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary.

Since his last visit to the White House — in 2001, during his previous stint as prime minister — Orban has transformed himself from a pro-democracy, center-right politician to a strongman. He has gerrymandered and changed election rules to undermine his political opponents, taken over much of Hungary’s media, packed the country’s courts with allies and demonized Muslim immigrants and Jews.

So Orban’s meeting with Trump is an important legitimizing moment for the global far right. “In normal times, he would be condemned by the occupant of the White House,” writes Vox’s Zack Beauchamp. “The fact that he isn’t shows just how serious the threat to democracy in the West is.”

The visit fits a wider Trumpian pattern: allying himself with authoritarian leaders, based on shared nationalistic, anti-immigrant and antidemocratic values. “In a way, it is the ultimate irony: The nationalists, the anti-globalists, the people who are skeptical of international laws and international organizations — they, too, now work together, across borders, for common causes,” The Washington Post’s Anne Applebaum wrote recently. Trump is using the presidency to enhance the global standing of authoritarianism.

He’s also imitating far-right tactics at home, by rejecting American traditions like balance of power and the rule of law. As David Cornstein, a longtime friend of Trump’s who is now the American ambassador to Hungary, told The Atlantic’s Franklin Foer in a recent piece about Orban’s Hungary: “I can tell you, knowing the president for a good 25 or 30 years, that he would love to have the situation that Viktor Orban has, but he doesn’t.”

Related: I visited Hungary last year and found it both normal and chilling.

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Trump’s 1989 ad calling for the death penalty for five black teenagers (later proven innocent) concluded with this idea: “CIVIL LIBERTIES END WHEN AN ATTACK ON OUR SAFETY BEGINS!”

And if we know anything from Trump*, it’s that our safety is under attack . . . by rapists and murderers streaming across the border and treason at the highest levels of the FBI and socialists who want universal health care . . . so, really, all this liberal “civil liberties” “rule of law” stuff needs to be put in perspective.  Putin doesn’t have to deal with it.  Kim Jong Un doesn’t have to deal with it.  Orban and Erdogan and Duterte and MBS don’t have to deal with it.  Why should Trump?

*Other than that he would “absolutely” release his tax returns, and that he had the largest crowd in history at his inauguration, and that investigators he sent to Hawaii to establish Obama’s Kenyan birthplace were finding some incredible things, and that the Trump Tower meeting was about adoption, and that he knew nothing about a pay off to a porn star — and so many other facts he’s told us directly (all 22 of his women accusers are lying and he will be suing them).

In case you haven’t yet enjoyed these three minutes with Jimmy Kimmel and George Clooney, you’re welcome.

Heading for vacation this summer?

George Mokray: “Have a great time; and if you need a carbon offset, I have used the Heifer International’s bundle of trees ($60 for region appropriate seedlings and saplings that are ready to plant) on the rare occasions I fly anywhere.”

Last month, I offered help writing your commencement speech.  You responded.

Alan Silverstein: “Though not technically a commencement speech, Mary Schmich’s, Chicago Tribune column of June 1, 1997 — her commencement speech if you will — ‘Wear Sunscreen,’ should be included in a list of all time bests.”

David Andrews: “Here’s a collection of Kurt Vonnegut’s commencement speeches. Lots of fun, as usual.”

Of course, the best commencement speech ever (or surely tied for that honor):  Admiral McRaven’s “Make Your Bed.” You’ve seen it, no?

Here’s the Admiral profiled on CBS Sunday Morning. (In case the next president is looking for, say, a Secretary of Defense.  Or in case she’s looking for a strong running mate.)

Michael Lewis’s new 7-part podcast, Against The Rules is a “must listen.”  (How does he keep doing such amazing, important stuff? Have you read The Fifth Risk?)

Start with the 7-minute intro to the series, but under no circumstances miss episode #2, “The Seven Minute Rule,” about his identity theft and your student loan debt, or any other fine-print financial transaction you may be party to.

“And so the head of Navient makes $6 million a year while Katie Highland’s teeth fall out one by one.”

It’s the story of the frustration that Trump (and Sanders) voters rightly felt in 2016 — the system is rigged against them.  Only, tragically, as it turns out, the 2016 election has made things worse. It’s hard for me to believe many Trump voters will find themselves empathizing with Navient and not Katie Highland.  Listen!

Bonus: At last! An honest Republican congressman!  Because, well, duh?

But first a soybean rant . . .

In addition to wrecking our relations with our allies . . . walking out of the Paris Climate Accords we had led the world in adopting, walking out on the nuclear deal with Iran that, had we been able to get the same thing with North Korea would have been touted as a spectacular win (instead, we seem to be flirting with, perhaps even trying to provoke, a catastrophic war) . . . in addition to all that, look what Trump has accomplished for our farmers.

A third of the soybeans we grow are sold to China.  It took 40 years to develop those trade relationships; Trump has ended them overnight, to the everlasting benefit of Brazil and other alternative soybean sources.  Even if Trump does get a deal with China soon, as we all hope he will, much or most of those customer relationships will not snap back.  Why would they?  So Trump has badly hurt America’s farmers (and, at least with respect to this export, made our trade imbalance with China worse).

In the meantime, he’s giving $15 billion chunks of money to to farmers to lessen their current pain.  But as the losses from these now-lost customers will last a very long time, will that make them whole?  And where, exactly, do those $15 billion chunks come from?  Either: your taxes that could otherwise have gone to, say, funding basic research or infrastructure revitalization or high-interest student-debt relief or aid to Central America to lessen the desperation that leads to migration . . . or from the tariffs you are now, or will soon be, paying for almost everything you buy at Walmart . . . or from your kids and grandkids, by simply adding this money to the National Debt that Republicans only care about when Democrats are in power.  To be running trillion-dollar deficits when unemployment is 3.6% is crazy — and means two-trillion-dollar deficits, come the next recession.

And a portfolio suggestion . . .

As mentioned last month, the same smart guy who suggested FANH at $5.40 five years ago (it’s around $30 today) recently suggested a similar Chinese company, CNF (similar in the sense that it’s in the financial services industry and, like FANH, he knows it very well).  There’s no guarantee history will repeat; but I’ve taken most of my profit in FANH and built up a position in CNF (most recently at $5.35).  The company is growing at 20% a year and selling at 3 times earnings.  There are risks; but if five years from now it were selling at 15 times earnings, and those earnings had grown (or even if they had not), well . . . only for money you can truly afford to lose.

And now!

What do you think of Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur’s argument?  When she first arrived in DC, with Ohio’s congressional districts sensibly drawn, she was among 10 Democrats and 11 Republicans.  In 2018, with Ohioans favoring Republicans by a margin of 52%-47% . . . a definite edge but hardly a rout . . . she is now among 4 Democrats and 12 Republicans.  As you’ll read, Ohio’s Republican attorney general is working to keep it this way, even though Ohioans voted 75%-25% in favor of sensible redistricting.

And the problem of course, is not just that the 2010 Republican REDMAP project skewed Congress their way (read it here) . . . but that it empowered the extremes, who didn’t have to appeal to the moderate middle . . . that is, to voters who want compromise for progress.

I’ve got to think a lot of Republicans agree.  How else could the tally in favor of bi-partisan redistricting have been 75%-25%?

Meanwhile, in Florida, by a margin of nearly two-to-one, voters last November passed Amendment 4, “to automatically restore the right to vote for people with prior felony convictions, except those convicted of murder or a felony sexual offense, upon completion of their sentences, including prison, parole, and probation” . . . bringing Florida in line with almost every other state in the union.  (Many are even more liberal in their rules; a couple even allow felons to vote while behind bars.)

The Republican legislature aims to render the referendum moot, just as for years and years they delayed and distorted implementation of Florida’s “Fair Districts” referendum that voters had passed by a similarly wide margin.

What do everyday Republicans think about this?  Most Republicans are fair-minded.  My guess is, it makes a lot of them uncomfortable.

Maybe it’s time they became Independents.

Friday Bonus:  What Did Rashida Tlaib Really Say About The Holocaust?

Have a great weekend.

But first . . .

Somebody finally got his money’s worth from this page:

Peter J.: “After reading your post about lost and abandoned property, I decided to search for my name with the Secretary of State of NH. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any money with my name on it.  HOWEVER, my wife did. She had two grand (TWO GRAND!) coming her way from an old, sold home’s escrow refund. For the LIFE of me I can’t figure out why it didn’t reach her 15 years ago when she sold the house. While it’d be nearly $4000 today had we conservatively invested it 15 years ago, it’s still money we didn’t have yesterday. We decided to give $1000 to Jay Knower’s campaign, as he runs to defeat Governor Sununu, as we dearly hope he will. The other half, we’re saving (for now).”

And now, the Derby . . .

Mike Martin: “You mentioned the Kentucky Derby in reference to Trump but I beg to differ. The quote, like most I’ve read about the incident, says that the winner “clearly impeded the paths of two other horses.” Oh my, those poor little horseys had some minor impediment. Except there is much much more to this incident. . . . Okay, you were in Italy and didn’t see the race. But this was as a group of horses went into the turn for home, which is where most races see the competitors increasing their efforts. At the crucial point of the race, where the horses necessarily must bunch to go around the turn, the horse on the inside began to be passed by a horse on the right. Admittedly, the horse on the right had just moved to where its forelegs were passing the rear legs of the leader, but this is crucially where the turn for home becomes important. All of the horses want to be on the inside of the turn to reduce the mathematical distance around the turn. Once past the turn it doesn’t matter where you are on the right or left. . . . However, at precisely this point IN THE TURN the lead horse moved to the right when there was a horse attempting to pass on the right. This didn’t just “impede the path” — it threatened to have the legs of the two horses become entangled and if you watch the actual video you can see that it was amazing they didn’t. Consider, then, what would have occurred if their legs had entangled: it is highly likely that one or both horses would have fallen while they were at the head of a group of horses. The highly likely result would have been several horses crashing into a pile of people and horses, some of whom would have died.  What bothers me is the notion that what occurred merely involved “impeding the paths” when the reality is that a major disaster was narrowly averted. This seems crucial to me: narrowly averting a disaster requires a massive response such as disqualification at a very minimum. . . . We already have examples of Boeing 737-Max aircraft that narrowly averted a disaster without any response until an actual disaster occurred. We live in a time where we cannot wait for disasters to actually happen before we respond, such as climate change. We have to use our intelligence to recognize when disasters are narrowly averted and respond NOW. . . . That is the true story of Trump: the Republicans are waiting until there is an actual disaster from his administration. The Mueller report cites several instances where others averted his orders and thus disasters didn’t happen. The Democrats, meanwhile, are saying wait for 2020 rather than confront Trump. The House Sergeant at Arms should be empowered to arrest and incarcerate Mnuchin until the tax forms are produced because the law is clear, the only question is whether the stewards of the Constitution will have the courage of the stewards at the Kentucky Derby to take unprecedented action to avert a disaster. . . . IMHO.”

(If you’re curious what a brutal sport this is for the horses, click here.  At Churchill Downs, 43 horses have died since 2016.  But even with a gentle sport — golf, say — there can be sharply political inferences to be drawn.  I care nothing about golf — but Commander In Cheat: How Golf Explains Trump is a complete page-turner.)

Click here.

Here.  A forty-five minute town hall answering pretty much all the questions you, too, would have asked.

Rachel Monday night: “The Mueller report details all those [Russian] contacts in incredible factual specific detail, but then the Mueller report says nothing about whether that’s important . . . about whether there’s a national security consequence or intelligence consequence or anything to worry about when it comes to the fact that one of the two major party presidential candidates had a pending secret side business deal being negotiated with the Kremlin for potentially hundreds of millions of dollars while he was lying about it to the American people.  No discussion in the Mueller report as to whether or not that might be a bad thing.”

Imagine if it had been Obama instead of Trump. Would Republicans have read this 448-page report and been unconcerned?  Insistent that it exonerated Obama?

Ed: “Though It’s NOT exactly summer reading, Art and I downloaded the Mueller Report. It will take your breath away…it is worse than a severe gut punch. It is terrifying because it shows in black and white just how beholden the GOP is to Russia. The Russians have understood that the best way to bring down our democracy is by buying it.  The connections are so clearly drawn by Mueller, yet nobody talks about them.”

Ed and Art started Googling some of the names in the report, looking for more context.  They write:

“Do you remember Oleg Deripaska? He is one of the richest men in Russia and a close friend to Putin. Deripaska plays a prominent role in the Mueller Report as being a leading architect of the cyber attacks and hackings that targeted our elections. Recently, Mnuchin’s Treasury Department lifted sanctions against Deripaska. Mitch McConnell has vigorously defended the lifting of these sanctions and, as you know, has done everything he can to kill any funding or legislative initiative to combat ongoing and future attacks on our elections. Now we learn that Rusal, Deripaska’s vast aluminum and steel company, is investing over $200 million in a Kentucky steel plant.  McConnell, of course, is from Kentucky.

“But wait, there is another player hidden behind the curtain: Blavatnik. He is the second largest shareholder of Rusal after Deripaska. Blavatnik has a long history with Mnuchin: they co-owned a Hollywood finance company called RatPac Dune. They go way back. Deripaska and Blavatnik are close friends and tightly connected business partners. Blavatnik recently gave over $3.5 million to McConnell’s PAC and another $1.5 million to the GOP Senate Leadership Fund, $800,000 to Lindsey Graham, and $1.5 million to Marco Rubio. And this is just what we know…much more may have been contributed under the table. And we wonder why Republicans are so quiet about Russian meddling in the elections?

“And then there is Yuri Milner, a Russian billionaire who lives in Silicon Valley. Milner befriended Mark Zuckerberg way back in 2009 and subsequently became one of the largest investors in Facebook by channeling $1 billion of Gazprom money into purchasing shares. Milner also has long ties in the upper echelon of the Bank of Cyprus, which is known as the biggest money laundering operation on the planet for Russia. Milner helped fund Jared Kushner’s start-up real estate company, Cadre. Wilbur Ross, Trump’s Commerce Secretary, co-chaired the Bank of Cyprus until 2017.

“This summary doesn’t even scratch the surface. There is Alexander Shustorovich, who contributed $1 million to Trump’s inaugural committee, which was gleefully accepted. Shustorovich attempted to donate $250,000 to George W. Bush but had his contribution returned because of his ties to the Russian government. Rybolotev, known as Russia’s ‘fertilizer king’ and who is a stake owner of the Bank of Cyprus, is the man who bought Trump’s mega-mansion in Palm Beach back when trump couldn’t unload it.

“One could go on and on.  It is painfully obvious that the Russians have bought the entire GOP.”

☞ Well, or Trump, anyway.

Putin is winning.  Click here.

Rich: “I have a friend like Carl.  A talented plastic surgeon who operated on me, my wife, and my late mom (not cosmetic stuff.) He’s in the I-hate-Hillary-and-Obama, Fox news, ‘you can’t handle the truth’ camp. It amazes me, as he’s a good guy, smart, and thoughtful. I understand that he’s politically conservative—no problem. I might have even voted for Kasich. So, if he told me he held his nose and voted for Trump, I sort of get it. But he doesn’t. That’s what amazes me about otherwise OK people who support him—they ignore all the obvious crazy stuff. I always read Michael Lewis’ books, and his latest is truly alarming.  I fear for my kids and grandkids, with a huge debt we’ve given them, an impossible environmental situation, etc. All that falls on deaf ears.”

I’ve been urging you to read that book, The Fifth Risk, for some time now.  Here’s Michael Lewis last Friday with Bill Maher.  They even discuss the Agriculture Department.  (Did you know it has its own air force?)

So — switching gears only slightly — here’s Paul Krugman in the indispensable New York Times:

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Trump Is Terrible for Rural America
His biggest supporters are his biggest victims

Economists, reports Politico, are fleeing the Agriculture Department’s Economic Research Service. Six of them resigned on a single day last month. The reason? They are feeling persecuted for publishing reports that shed an unflattering light on Trump policies.

But these reports are just reflecting reality (which has a well-known anti-Trump bias). Rural America is a key part of Donald Trump’s base. In fact, rural areas are the only parts of the country in which Trump has a net positive approval rating. But they’re also the biggest losers under his policies.

What, after all, is Trumpism? In 2016 Trump pretended to be a different kind of Republican, but in practice almost all of his economic agenda has been G.O.P. standard: big tax cuts for corporations and the rich while hacking away at the social safety net. The one big break from orthodoxy has been his protectionism, his eagerness to start trade wars.

And all of these policies disproportionately hurt farm country.

The Trump tax cut largely passes farmers by, because they aren’t corporations and few of them are rich. One of the studies by Agriculture Department economists that raised Trumpian ire showed that to the extent that farmers saw tax reductions, most of the benefits went to the richest 10 percent, while poor farmers actually saw a slight tax increase.

At the same time, the assault on the safety net is especially harmful to rural America, which relies heavily on safety-net programs. Of the 100 counties with the highest percentage of their population receiving food stamps, 85 are rural, and most of the rest are in small metropolitan areas. The expansion of Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, which Trump keeps trying to kill, had its biggest positive impact on rural areas.

And these programs are crucial to rural Americans even if they don’t personally receive government aid. Safety-net programs bring purchasing power, which helps create rural jobs. Medicaid is also a key factor keeping rural hospitals alive; without it, access to health care would be severely curtailed for rural Americans in general.

What about protectionism? The U.S. farm sector is hugely dependent on access to world markets, much more so than the economy as a whole. American soybean growers export half of what they produce; wheat farmers export 46 percent of their crop. China, in particular, has become a key market for U.S. farm products. That’s why Trump’s recent rage-tweeting over trade, which raised the prospect of an expanded trade war, sent grain markets to a 42-year low.

It’s important to realize, by the way, that the threat to farmers isn’t just about possible foreign retaliation to Trump’s tariffs. One fundamental principle in international economics is that in the long run, taxes on imports end up being taxes on exports as well, usually because they lead to a higher dollar. If the world descends into trade war, U.S. imports and exports will both shrink — and farmers, among our most important exporters, will be the biggest losers.

Why, then, do rural areas support Trump? A lot of it has to do with cultural factors. In particular, rural voters are far more hostile to immigrants than urban voters — especially in communities where there are few immigrants to be found. Lack of familiarity apparently breeds contempt.

Rural voters also feel disrespected by coastal elites, and Trump has managed to channel their anger. No doubt many rural voters, if they happened to read this column, would react with rage, not at Trump, but at me: “So you think we’re stupid!”

But support for Trump might nonetheless start to crack if rural voters realized how much they are being hurt by his policies. What’s a Trumpist to do?

One answer is to repeat zombie lies. A few weeks ago Trump told a cheering rally that his cuts in the estate tax have helped farmers. This claim is, however, totally false; PolitiFact rated it “pants on fire.” The reality is that in 2017 only about 80 farms and closely held businesses — that’s right, 80 — paid any estate tax at all. Tales of family farms broken up to pay estate tax are pure fiction.

Another answer is to try to suppress the truth. Hence the persecution of Agriculture Department economists who were just trying to do their jobs.

The thing is, the assault on truth will have consequences that go beyond politics. Agriculture’s Economic Research Service isn’t supposed to be a cheering section for whoever is in power. As its mission statement says, its role is to conduct “high-quality, objective economic research to inform and enhance public and private decision making.” And that’s not an idle boast: Along with the Federal Reserve, the research service is a prime example of how good economics can serve clear practical purposes.

Now, however, the service’s ability to do its job is being rapidly degraded, because the Trump administration doesn’t believe in fact-based policy. Basically, it doesn’t believe in facts, period. Everything is political.

And who will pay the price for this degradation? Rural Americans. Trump’s biggest supporters are his biggest victims.

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I’m sorry: Putin is winning.  And Carl and Rich’s plastic surgeon — and so many others — are somehow okay with that.

Click here.

Did you see the “Central Park Five” story on CBS yesterday morning?  The five black 14- and 15-year-old boys — now 44- and 45-year-old men — falsely accused and convicted of raping a jogger in 1989?

Nowhere in the CBS report was real estate developer Donald Trump mentioned, but older readers will recall that, at the time, he he ran full-page BRING BACK THE DEATH PENALTY ads, saying . . .

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Mayor [Ed] Koch has stated that hate and rancor should be removed from our hearts. I do not think so. I want to hate these muggers and murderers. They should be forced to suffer and, when they kill, should be executed for their crimes. They must serve as examples so that others will think long and hard before committing a crime or an act of violence. Yes, Mayor Koch, I want to hate these murderers and I always will. I am not looking to psychoanalyze them or understand them, I am looking to punish them. If the punishment is strong, the attacks on innocent people will stop. I recently watched a newscast trying to explain “the anger in these young men.” I no longer want to understand their anger. I want them to understand our anger. I want them to be afraid.

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As you’ll see when you watch, if anyone should have gone to jail  . . . other than the actual rapist, of course (who would later confess and whose DNA was the only DNA that fit the crime) . . . it should have been the police, not those entirely innocent boys.

Yet, faced with indisputable evidence that they had been false convicted and imprisoned, candidate Trump in 2016 showed no remorse for having suggested they be killed — indeed, he continued to maintain they were guilty.

One more reminder that we have a sociopath at the head of our government . . . a man Republican senators who once publicly called him a pathological liar now support . . . a man whose “malignant narcissism,” in the words of psychiatrist John Gartner, is “a personality disorder shared by most murderous dictators.”

Putin is winning.  Click here.

But first:

Clarence Penn: “You asked for feedback on MisfitsMarket.  I get it every week — $19 + $4.50 shipping. If you cook a lot, it’s great (as some of the veggies need to be used quickly). It ships in this material made of starch which you dissolve under water. It’s amazing.  I’ve never seen such a way of packing to cut down on waste. We both know how expensive it is to buy organic. This is def a win.”

Italy is so great.

OK, now:

Lindsey Graham on impeachment.  I’ve got to admit he makes a strong case.  Under a minute.  Watch.

Especially as more than 800 former federal prosecutors say Barr was wrong — Trump’s conduct has been indictable.  It’s not even a close question.

What apparently is a close question is why an ancient Department of Justice memo saying a president can’t be indicted while in office is “controlling” decades later.  How about a new memo arguing the opposite view; or letting the question work its way up through the courts?  Perhaps a memo arguing that you can’t indict him or her for minor or irrelevant things — lying about a sexual affair, perhaps.  But that you can for things of national import like obstructing justice in matters of national security.

We’re under attack.  Putin is winning.  Have a great weekend.

All I can tell you is that when I saw five upside-down artichokes sitting on a platter with their chokes clipped off, glistening in oil, my night was made.  We were among the last to the restaurant, so I figured everyone else had ordered and received their artichokes . . . but by the time our waiter came by it looked to me as though there were only two left so I used all my Italian skill (which consists of speaking English very slowly and distinctly) to indicate that we wanted them both — please save them for us! — and got an enthusiastic “Si!  Si!  Artichokes!  Multabene!” and we said still water would be fine, plus a liter of house wine.  It came.  We ordered.  I was as excited as I get — and you know I get excited.

Three minutes later, our waiter returned to announce “artichokes end.”  Would I like something else?

Yes.  World peace, aggressive action on climate change, and a massive blue wave in 2020.

Some further items for your consideration:

> Bankrupt and corrupt?  Last week’s New Yorker report, if you missed it: Secrecy, Self-Dealing and greed at the N.R.A.

> Unfair? Profitable Giants Like Amazon Pay $0 in Corporate Taxes. Some Voters Are Sick of It. — The New York Times

> And have you read the Mueller report?

> And have you read The Fifth Risk?