Year: 2019

Read The Unbelievable Story Of The Plot Against George Soros (thanks Pete) — which could just as well have been titled, “How Evil Prevails.”  This is not some fringe conspiracy theory, just jarring facts.  Arthur Finkelstein, Roy Cohn, Paul Manafort, Roger Stone, Senator Joe McCarthy, Donald Trump . . . of these, only Finkelstein is the focus here.  But it’s hard not to see the connections.

To take you to a happier place:

1.  View these amazing photographs.  (Thanks, Glenn.)
2.  Binge on The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and/or A Very English Scandal.

Have a great weekend.

. . . as Frank Bruni explained a while back.  George Will adds: “What a misery it must be to be Donald Trump.”

But now, the important stuff:

Have a new Apple iPhone without the home button?  Then in addition to “if lost, please email me@wherever.com for a reward,” you should tape THIS reminder to the back of your phone: “If the screen suddenly goes black even though you have lots of battery left . . . or if you need to reboot for any other reason . . . just press the UP volume button, then the DOWN volume button, then hold the ON/OFF button for a few seconds until it starts up again.”  If I had known that, I would have saved 12 hours’ worry and an hour of actual travel time.  At first, I was overcome with gratitude when the Apple genius took 15 seconds to “fix” my phone.  But my gratitude — my awe! — were soon mixed with annoyance that crucial little secrets like this do not come engraved on the back of the phone.

Question: Is it still weight-watching if you eat four 70-calorie English Toffee Crunch ice cream bars one after another? And how is it possible that they be 70 calories per bar, as advertised on the carton, when one serving — two bars — is listed as 150 calories?  Is this “weight-watching for the innumerate?”  Have I been reduced to copy-editing ice cream containers?

It’s been a while since I veered off into the culinary — long-time readers know I am slowly simmering Volume One of Cooking Like A Guy™ — so let me just note two things I’ve recently learned.

First, not only is broccoli good for you — broccoli stalks are just as nutritious as the florets.  So snack on the florets, raw; but boil the stalks to eat hot or cold with salt and pepper.  You will live longer and healthier, for which I expect credit.

Second, to save energy and water, while you’re boiling those broccoli stalks, gently drop in a dozen eggs.  After 13 minutes, remove the broccoli and dump out most of the water.  Refill the pot with ice water . . . peel the eggs (this is the only time it will be quick and easy to do) . . . and place them in a water-filled container.  You now have a dozen snacks in the refrigerator that will stay good quite a long time.

I had heard of TB12 but not PB2.  You know one of my hobbies is eating expired food.  People ask how long I’ve owned my condo and I say I’m not sure — I date it by the Kraft Fat-Free Italian Caesar Dressing in the refrigerator, “best purchased by October 6, 2001” but still good.  So I must have had the apartment since 2000.  Americans waste way too much food.

Which is why it killed me to discover that some 12-year-old peanut butter I had been storing in a cupboard for a rainy day had turned to something that looked fine and spread fine but had taken on the properties of metallic paste.  I threw it out.  Yes!  Me!

A friend, upon hearing this, told me about PB2.  “TB12?” I asked him?  He’s a huge Tom Brady fan.  “No, PB2 — powdered peanut butter.  It’s great.”  IT’s at least not bad — I’ve tried some.  My sense is that it could easily last 20 years.  Let me know your thoughts.

David Leonhardt:

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I keep hearing that the Democratic presidential candidates are suggesting “radical” economic ideas. It’s not true.  The candidates are not seeking radical change with their main proposals — like Elizabeth Warren’s tax on wealth or Kamala Harris’s big anti-poverty tax plan. They are instead trying to undo some of the radical increases in economic inequality over the past 40 years. My column today makes the full version of this case and explains why keeping the version of the United States that we have long known — optimistic, future-oriented and more powerful than any other nation — depends on undoing extreme inequality.

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If you missed this last month, take a look:  “What’s Really Radical? Not Taxing the Rich: It’s time to reverse the extreme upward redistribution of the last 40 years.”

[I am in a foreign land this week with abundant rum but uncertain Internet access.  If anything dramatic has happened — Pence resigned? life on Mars? — this post will seem weirdly oblivious. It was pre-posted before I left to honor the terms of your subscription.]

I found these two pieces on Brazil’s rapid descent dismaying:

How Police Violence Paves The Way To Authoritarianism: “Brazil’s new president, Jair Bolsonaro, believes the only good criminal is a dead one. Many Brazilians agree.”

Brazil Is About To Show The World How A Modern Democracy Collapses: “Far-right president Jair Bolsonaro is a threat to Brazilian democracy — and a model for authoritarianism that leaders around the world will follow.”

But my main concern is helping to prevent the collapse of our own increasingly shaky, increasingly disrespected democracy.

Part of our job, as I see it, is to channel the dismay and alarm many people feel into logical, constructive action.

So when a centi-millionaire recently sent me an article declaring, in effect, a state of emergency — he sends me really good stuff like this once or twice a week — I replied:

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Appalling – no?  Thanks for sending.

Ready to help?  I’ve attached a big project we just launched to recruit 1000 college juniors now, in 7 swing states, to learn to be organizers, register new voters on and around campus, and then throw themselves into the 2020 campaign when they graduate next year and we have a nominee.

Join me in funding this?

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I’ve been asking his help for years.  I thought this project — Organizing Corps 2020 — might finally push him over the edge.

He replied:

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Absolutely not.  I hate big, undifferentiated projects where my cash would go into the vast and bottomless mosh pit of the Democratic Party.  I am much more motivated to try to get rid of both Devin Nuñes and Kevin McCarthy – both Californians from the Central Valley. I LOATHE both of them.  They are so antithetical to what this state stands for. Devin Nuñes is a partisan apologist and enabler for Trump – so appalling his “midnight run to the White House.” And that pathetic sycophant, Kevin McCarthy – I cannot bear to see him standing behind the Buffoon-in-Chief emotionlessly endorsing this traitor President.  However, if cogent political analysis shows that either or both are unbeatable in 2020, I’m happy to look at other key congressional races to see where we can make a difference. I want to see the differentiated results of any “investments” I make in the political process.

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So you can see he’s (a) real smart; (b) passionate; and (c) did I mention he’s a centi-millionaire?

I replied:

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I share your view of Nunes and McCarthy – and so many others.

I don’t share your view that defeating them is a top priority.  Now that they’re in the minority, they’re largely irrelevant.

It would FEEL good to get rid of them – I am totally with you there — but isn’t it a million times more important to get back the White house and the Senate gavels?

But even if the main goal IS to defeat Nunes, et al  (or maybe put them in jail?), I also don’t share your view that the most effective way to beat them is by targeting their races.

Money to a specific congressional race is largely spent on advertising.

It makes the candidates feel good.  It makes their supporters feel good.

But advertising doesn’t inspire many people to register to vote . . . or to turn out to vote . . . or to switch tribes.

The leveraged thing to do, I think, is to invest in organizers, early, who will have time to recruit and train volunteers (free labor!), who will have time to register millions of new voters and organize what ultimately becomes a massive blue turn-out.

Because once one of our folks does get to the polls, he or she will likely vote for ALL our candidates.  Whether or not they saw any of their ads on TV.

Getting voters to the polls gives us their vote for president, senator, governor, congressperson, state assemblyman, state senator . . . all of it.

So the attached $10 million plan to recruit and train 1,000 college juniors to become organizers . . . ramping up registration and turn-out among young people and minorities in 7 key states . . . strikes me as really well thought out and vastly more leveraged and powerful than dumping $10 million more into a sea of TV ads in a couple of congressional races.

Not, of course, that it’s the only thing that needs doing.  In the context of a multi-billion-dollar election cycle, $10M is a drop in the bucket.  But I think THIS drop will be far more potent than most . . . and in close races in those 7 swing states could make the difference.  We lost the Electoral College last time, as you well know, by just 77,000 votes in three of those 7 states.

What am I missing?

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No reply, as of yet.

I had heard of SoFi and, more recently, Common Bond . . . but it turns out there are at least 10 alternatives worth considering.

(And an eleventh, at least for federal student loan debt: just elect Democrats.  They have long called for allowing borrowers to refinance at today’s lower rates, as a homeowner might refinance a high-interest mortgage — see, for example, page 28 of the 2016 Democratic Party platform, “Providing Relief From Crushing Student Debt.”  The Republicans, in their wisdom, have refused to allow refinancing.)

[Tech Nostalgia ON]

Jeff S.:  “Sorry if this is unintelligible. I’m nearly blind from the glare of my 32 inch monitor. That’s a little surprising because it should be broken by now. I’ve been throwing things at it.  Because of Quicken 2019.  It’s the latest in a long, sad series of Quicken releases over the past few decades. This newest version is bigger!, slower!, and features more dancing baloney than ever before.  On my 4-core computer running at multi-gigahertz speeds, it takes 13 seconds and 7 mouse clicks to make a minor edit to a transaction.  I really miss MYM. Even after all these years, I still think fondly of it. I ran my business on MYM (with a Mac IIcx), and I can’t remember it ever crashing or giving the wrong answer.  Which is not something that can be said about Quicken.”

→ What fun all that was.  (And, yes, I still use MYM.)  (And, no, there’s no way to revive it.)  Hats off to Jerry Rubin and all the other geniuses who took my wish list and made it our software.  And to Chris Lee and his team who did Mac-MYM.

[Tech Nostalgia OFF]

The ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, Jim Jordan, began Wednesday’s excoriation of convicted liar Michael Cohen by castigating the chair, Elijah Cummings, for scheduling this as the very first hearing of his chairmanship.

Only in Elijah Cummings’ remarkable closing statement, hours later, do we learn that this was the third, not the first, hearing of Cummings chairmanship, preceded by hearings on the opioid crisis and on a bill that deals with corruption and voting rights.

In short: Jordan opened the Republicans’ day-long castigation of a liar — with a lie.

Lie is a strong word and only pertains (in my view) when it is knowing.  If Jordan had not known his committee had held these two other important hearings, it would be merely a misstatement, not a lie.  But he was at those hearings — watch him here and here. And because he had participated in them just weeks earlier — not years or decades — it is hard to accept he could have forgotten about them.

Think about it:  Jordan well knew he’d be the opening salvo for the Republicans in this hearing. He wasn’t ambushed by some reporter in the hall.  These were the very first words he would speak, carefully chosen — and they were a lie.

Third is not first.

The irony that the ranking member would lead off a hearing castigating lies with a lie strikes me as stark.

That he would do so in single-minded defense of a president who has told thousands of lies — “a dangerous con man,” to quote Marco Rubio, “a pathological liar,” to quote Ted Cruz — makes it worse.

Listen to Elijah Cummings’ remarkable closing statement.  Is it really possible that he — and, for that matter, the lifelong Republicans who led the FBI (Mueller, Comey, and McCabe) or the New York Times and the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal — are the dishonest ones?

That it’s the National Enquirer and bone-spur Trump to whom we should look for bravery and rectitude?

Really?

I side with Lindsey Graham, who called Trump a race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot . . . undercutting everything we stand for and Colin Powell who branded him a national disgrace.

Shame on you, Jim Jordan.  Michael Cohen did bad things; has owned up to them; is trying to atone.  What are you doing?

I never met my second cousin, André Previn — I was great pals with our mutual uncle, the delightful and hugely talented Charles Previn.  But André loomed large in my family and I’ve always been proud to share a strand or two of his DNA (albeit none of the musical ones).  According to yesterday’s New York Times, he is the only person ever to have won three Academy Awards in a single year. I had not known that. His third wife left Frank Sinatra to marry him. And, mainly, the music!  A remarkable life.

Speaking of obituaries, have you been listening to Mo Rocca’s podcast?  Mobituaries?  They are superb.

Have a great weekend.

The problem is, the TRUTH is liberal. It believes in science. It believes in crowd size. It believes in facts.

It opposes bullying, tax fraud, injustice, illogic, voter suppression — misstatements and lies.

Is the National Enquirer really more professional and reliable than the New York Times or Washington Post?  Are Fox News and Rush Limbaugh really more professional and reliable than CBS and NBC?  Can the leaders of the Republican Party really believe that?

It made me a little nuts to hear a Republican congressman branding the FBI’s Andrew McCabe a liar — in defense, no less, of Donald Trump.  Yet it’s the party line.

HAVE YOU READ OR LISTENED TO ANDREW McCABE’S BOOK?

It’s really not possible, I think, to listen to his accounts of busting the Russian mafia, reacting to 9/11, overseeing the Boston Marathon bombing, investigating the Clinton emails — everything he’s done in his life and how and why he’s done it — and imagine that he’s anything but the best America has to offer.  Honest, brave, and in it for all the right reasons.

But first:

Have some onerous student debt?  Know someone who does?  (Want to help your employees with their debt?)  CommonBond might be able to help.

And now:

I met Zeus (the dog, now seven) when he was just weeks old.  His pal Marc believes it’s important to acknowledge that we’re all in the same boat.  A one-minute video.  Check it out.  (And then, perhaps, the three-minute “about” video where you meet Zeus.)

And by the way?  “I didn’t meet a single one of the models in the video,” Marc writes. “They are all virtual. It’s done with a site called placeit.net and it is amazing.”  Twenty-nine bucks a month — but cheaper than hiring an art department.

In real life, Marc is a communications coach.  He teaches elevator pitches.  On-line, from the comfort of your desk.

You may have seen clips of the Dutch history, Rutger Bregman, who spoke truth to power at Davos.

Tucker Carlson apparently thought this would fit well this his brand of sticking up for the little guy against the elites, so invited him on his show, as described by TV critic Erik Wemple.

But, oh, did it ever go wrong for Tucker.

So much so that he decided not to air it.

So Bregman did.

Take a look.

(For the record, I think Bregman needs to put less emphasis on sky-high nominal tax rates, which the rich and corporations have traditionally spent a lot of time and money to avoid actually paying, and more emphasis on closing the loopholes and tax havens and generation-skipping trusts, etc., etc., that allow them to pay much less than the nominal rate.  Better, in my view, fairly steep rates that can’t be avoided than confiscatory rates that won;t in fact be paid.  Still, the overall point he made it Davos — here, in 60 seconds — clearly struck a nerve, and led to the Carlson interview.)

HAVE YOU READ OR LISTENED TO ANDREW McCABE’S BOOK?  YOU MUST.  IT’S WAY MORE THAN YOU’VE SEEN ON TV.

It’s really not possible, I think, to listen to his accounts of busting the Russian mafia, reacting to 9/11, overseeing the Boston Marathon bombing, investigating the Clinton emails — everything he’s done in his life and how and why he’s done it — and imagine that he’s anything but the best America has to offer.  Honest, brave, and in it for all the right reasons.  I’m not sure how you can say that about the Trumps and the Manaforts, the Michael Cohens and Roger Stones, the Flynns and the Zinkes — and on and on.  Wilbur Ross?  Tom Price?  And wait til you read about Jeff Sessions.

If Democrats won back the Senate and White House in 2020, they could — with a simple majority vote in both houses, argues this audacious proposal —  reset the size of Congressional districts.  And that would change everything. (Thanks, Jim Burt.)

There were only 224,000 of us per Congressional District when the number of CDs was set at 433 in 1913 (raised to 435 in 1929).  Today: 735,000 per district.

What if Congress reset it to 500,000?

Wait — what?  More politicians?  More Congressional staffers?  Where would you put everybody?  We all hate Congress (though we like our Congressperson)!

So this is not at first an appealing idea.

But, as you will read, it would eliminate the distortions of gerrymandering and of the Electoral College.

I don’t see it gaining traction.  The prospects for the National Popular Vote effort strike me as more realistic, with 172 of the needed 270 Electoral College votes already secured and 89 more having passed at least one legislative chamber in 11 other states.

But that would only solve the Electoral College piece, not gerrymandering.

(To help fix gerrymandering, visit the National Democratic Redistricting Committee.)

Still . . . what do you think?  Make our democracy more democratic?

Republicans will hate it.  But they’d still have as many senators in North Dakota and Wyoming (combined pop: 1.4 million) as Democrats have in California and New York (combined pop: 60 million).  So at least they’d still have that unfair advantage.

HAVE YOU READ OR LISTENED TO ANDREW McCABE’S BOOK YET?  YOU MUST.  IT’S WAY MORE THAN YOU’VE SEEN ON TV.

It’s really not possible, I think, to listen to his accounts of busting the Russian mafia, reacting to 9/11, overseeing the Boston Marathon bombing, investigating the Clinton emails — everything he’s done in his life and how and why he’s done it — and imagine that he’s anything but the best America has to offer.  Honest, brave, and in it for all the right reasons.  I’m not sure how you can say that about the Trumps and the Manaforts, the Michael Cohens and Roger Stones, the Flynns and the Zinkes — and on and on.  Wilbur Ross?  Tom Price?  And wait til you read about Jeff Sessions.