Reader Feedback January 31, 2020February 2, 2020 Glenn: Did you see Elizabeth Warren’s question? Click here to watch Chief Justice Roberts read it: “At a time when large majorities of Americans have lost faith in government, does the fact that the Chief Justice is presiding over an impeachment trial in which Republican senators have thus far refused to allow witnesses or evidence contribute to the loss of legitimacy of the Chief Justice, the Supreme Court, and the Constitution?” David: “After the Senate acquits, the Dems should simply announce that the trial was a sham since no witnesses were called, and so the case will be appealed to the higher tribunal of the American people November 3 and the whole campaign can be wrapped strategically in this concept.” Peter (responding to last week’s Note To Bernie Bros): “I despise the Bernie Bros. They worked very hard to get Trump elected in 2016. They bought, full on, the Russian Propaganda that the DNC had ‘cheated’ Bernie. Those 3 million+ Democratic voters who preferred Clinton to Sanders? Bernie was robbed! And they tried their hardest, based on that Russian Propaganda, targeted specifically to them, to convince Democrats to either stay home and not vote or to vote for Stein. In their eyes, all Democrats who vote for somebody else are corporate shills.” → I love the Bernie bros, so long as they recognize that this time it’s necessary to elect whoever gets the nomination . . . with a Democratic Senate, to boot. And I think they would, if it turns out not to be Bernie — and that Bernie himself would forcefully urge them to — because this time it’s different: > First, Trump has proved to be dramatically worse than even we expected. > Second — unlike last time, when everyone “knew” there was no real chance Trump could win — now we know. (Indeed, to get him to leave, it may not be enough simply to win; to be on the safe side, it’s urgent that we try to win huge, both in the Electoral College and the popular vote.) > Third, all our other candidates share Bernie’s goals of affordable healthcare and a more just society where the rewards aren’t skewed so heavily to the top tenth of one percent. Some of his opponents might actually be more effective than Bernie in moving the ball down the field toward those goals, if only because they are perceived as more moderate . . . though there’s no way to know for sure, either before the election of after the fact. Susan S: “Please share which of those Democratic candidates you believe can get this country out of this mess — domestic and international. Please explain which policies they have articulated you believe will make the USA move ahead and why.” → The short form is: any of them. They’re all bright, competent, and decent — not sociopaths — who would surround themselves with smart, competent, decent people — not sycophants and felons. Kind of the way it was under Obama, Bush, Clinton, the better Bush, Reagan, Carter, Ford, Nixon, LBJ, JFK, Truman, FDR, Hoover . . . albeit some proved far more capable than others, and none of them — least of all in my book Bush 43 or Nixon — was perfect. Michael M.: “I had an epiphany. We currently exist at a time of tribulation in which the Antichrist has seized the helm of world leadership to lead the masses of evil. The Republicans today are made up entirely of evangelical Christians who espouse faith but do not live it. And thus we must answer the question of where the true Christians who live their faith have gone? The epiphany that enlightened me is simple: the rapture has already occurred! All the true Christians have ascended to heaven, leaving only the false Christians to follow the Antichrist. This more clearly explains the world in which we find ourselves today than any other explanation I have heard.” → Hmmm. Carl asks . . . (reacting to Just 162 Billionaires Have The Same Wealth As Half Of Humanity / “If everyone sat on their wealth piled up in $100 bills, most people would be sitting on the floor, a middle-class person from a rich country would be the height of a chair, and the world’s two richest men would be sitting in space.”) . . . “What do the wealthy do with those bills? Hide them in caves? If they put them in bank accounts what do they do with the interest? What do the banks do with all that money? The fact is they don’t ‘sit on their wealth piled up in $100 bills.’ They build or invest or research or construct — isn’t that producing jobs or helping the world? The point is money is useless unless it is being spent. Everybody including middle and lower class benefit from wealthy spending.” → By that logic, we could have a really prosperous world if one person had all the money. Instead, of course, I think it’s a balance — with lots of incentives and rewards for hard work, innovation, and risk-taking; but also mechanisms as varied as the progressive income tax and Nixon’s Earned Income Tax Credit. And right now, a lot of people think it’s gotten out of balance. Check this out for more: the Nick Hanauer clip I’ve been linking to for the past eight years. The pendulum has swung too far. The rich are not the job creators — though many of them have made enormous contributions to our health, happiness, and well-being. (They should be celebrated and thanked! But sensibly taxed, too. They don’t deserve all the rewards.) Fred C: “Yes, I’m an idiot. But I was so excited you mentioned finance the other day, I went and blindly bought 3,000 shares of ANIX (with money I can truly afford to lose). Any chance you could write a paragraph or two explaining why I bought it? And still waiting for another update on Bank of Utica. Or maybe you should write a column telling how you feel about Trump.” → LOL. Not crazy about Trump. BKUTK last traded at $432, and is exactly the same (sans voting rights) as BKUT, that last traded at $567. Its $15.50 dividend is 3.5% here, not terrible in today’s world; and I like to think it might one day be bought out at $750 or whatever — but that could be a long, long, long time from now, if ever. Or things could go south. ANIX has three potential home runs in the cancer detection / treatment field and enough cash, I’m told, to go another year without needing to raise more. I bought a chunk because — while I understand none of it — someone I trust does. Which in no way means it will succeed. Tons of promising things fail. So I only bought it with money I could truly afford to lose. Good luck to us both! Jonathan: “Could we have a word from you about BOREF?” → It dropped 50% to $3 Friday — on volume of 2,400 shares. Presumably, someone put in an order to sell “at the market,” and the only standing order to buy was at $3. Or maybe it was a typo. Later in the day I think I saw it at something like “$5 bid, $6 asked.” As you know, I think $6 is also ridiculously low — not because the company may not ultimately fail, but because if it succeeds it should be worth a great deal more. Only take that bet with money you can truly afford to lose!
What You’re Doing This Weekend January 31, 2020January 30, 2020 I hope it’s seeing Just Mercy, the film with a 99% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes (from 9,940 verified audience reviewers).
“I’m Leaving The Republican Party — Here’s Why You Should, Too” January 30, 2020January 29, 2020 From LEO Weekly, “Publishing Louisville’s arts and entertainment news, community-focused stories, and colorful local commentary since 1990.” Spread the word: I Guess I’m A Democrat Now: I’m leaving the Republican Party — here’s why you should too By Aaron Price I didn’t originally vote for President Obama… But man oh man, I miss him. Well, crap. How did this happen? . . . I was a door knocker for a Republican congresswoman. I interned for the GOP get out the vote effort in 2004. I had a leadership position in College Republicans. More recently, as a lawyer and political consultant, I helped elect numerous Republicans in four states while flipping the State House in one and the State Senate in another. On paper, I’m that “five for five” primary voter that steadfast party loyalist politics is built on — and I’m leaving the Republican Party. That discrepancy, between paper and reality, is just one of those contradictions that defines modern American life. I’m a well-educated, straight, white man from one of the whitest and politically reddest states in the country. I regularly (OK, semi-regularly) attend church. My wife is one of our deacons. I’m a small business owner who, without exaggeration, would likely have to close our business upon the passage of progressive policies. My family tree is more military than civilian. After 22 years in the Marine Corps, my father told me that one of his only career regrets was that he retired in early 1993 instead of a tad sooner. He wanted George H.W. Bush to have signed his papers instead of Bill Clinton. Both my parents are Republicans. I’m privileged. Those same parents, still married, have worked hard to improve their economic circumstances throughout my life. At every turn, like their parents before them, they have sacrificed to help me do the same. Even when we had very little money, they spent time and energy teaching me, supporting me, and ensuring I was taken care of. My wife’s parents fit that same mold. We’ve worked long hours to build a stable life for our family (and we’ve got a seemingly endless distance yet to go) — but I’ve never quite had to face the economic, systemic or prejudicial obstacles that others have. I’ve been able to do it all with the belief that, no matter what, everything will be OK. I’ve had a personal safety net of support — emotional and financial — that many others don’t. I’m a father. A dad who loves data. Is that a dadatician? Wocka wocka! (My kids are 2 and 4, so I’m working on my dad jokes.) Like my parents and every other parent I know, I want my kids to grow up in a world that is better than the one I grew up in. I want them to have a shot at a better life and a better America. And, as I look at the data — that’s becoming increasingly unlikely. The joint combination of the GOP’s eroding principles and the U.S.’s emerging challenges has pushed me to the point of switching parties. Somehow, without trying and while avoiding it as long as possible, I’ve become a Democrat. I’m not quite comfortable in my new political skin. I struggle with the idea of joining a party I disagree with rhetorically and, in some ways, culturally. Where I do rhetorically relate, I disagree with the party’s ideas. I’m not sure I can support many of its candidates outright — but you’re welcome to join me on the Yang Gang. I haven’t changed my core beliefs, and Justin Amash (also no longer a Republican) remains one of my favorite members of Congress. But, even if they differ only in scope or scale, the partisan distinctions of old seem more like a relic of time gone by than a prescription for the future. The world has changed, or is changing, and it seems that many of our core economic assumptions just don’t fit the challenges that lie before us. I didn’t “choose” the Democratic Party. I still believe that most of their proposed solutions evince a fundamental misunderstanding of both economics and business. I believe that most of their ideas come with dark, unintended consequences that will harm the very people they seek to help. But in the end, I’d rather debate the people whose hearts are in the right place than those whose heads are in the sand. And so to the extent there is a “choosing,” I’m sandwiched between what I believe to be bad ideas and an intellectually bankrupt opposition that increasingly has no ideas at all. I tried to describe the modern GOP platform. I thought it might help me figure out why I don’t feel at home anymore. The problem? I have no idea what it is. I’m not sure the GOP actually has a real platform outside of “Making America Great Again” or combining increased governmental borrowing with tax cuts and increased military spending. It has a policy agenda dead set on short-term gain for a specific subset of people. It’s willingly blind to the troubles we increasingly face. As long as the stock market is high, there won’t be nary a peep about how everyday people are increasingly squeezed by the rising combined cost of housing, healthcare, fuel and food. As long as unemployment remains low, you won’t hear about underemployment. Nor are there proposals to deal with the consequences of automation. Their plan to address globalization seems to be demonizing everyone else around the globe. The president doesn’t really have a foreign policy. The party doesn’t really have a backbone, so now it doesn’t have a foreign policy, either. But hey, we abandoned the Kurds for no strategic gain, and we just took one more step toward war. There’s no real plan to control healthcare costs. They aren’t small-government conservatives anymore — they’ve voted for increased spending at every turn. They aren’t no-one-is-above-the-law anti-elitists — they turn a blind eye to the president’s increasing corruption and profiteering. They aren’t in favor of free trade and free markets — they gleefully support tariffs that are hurting America more than anyone else. To make matters worse, the Republican Party has not only abandoned its core conservative principles but has seemingly abandoned reality. Just two years ago, a slew of respected conservative economists and advisors argued that: The opposition of many Republicans to meaningfully address climate change reflects poor science and poor economics and is at odds with the party’s own noble tradition of stewardship. Does it feel like we’ve made any headway since then? Nope. The administration is, instead, scrubbing the words from its website. The party that routinely mocked liberals for their “bleeding hearts” has emotionally chosen to ignore the facts. It shouldn’t have to feel like pulling teeth to get someone to acknowledge that: > Having the highest incarceration rate in the world is both unnecessary and shameful. > The war on drugs has failed. > Our complicated, government-driven and anti-competitive healthcare system is more expensive and less universal than those of every other developed nation. > Increased immigration has been good for the economy and helped limit the impact of our aging population. > We are under-spending on infrastructure and accruing huge liabilities via deferred maintenance. > We have too much rent-seeking, regulatory capture and corruption. > The 2018 tax cuts did not “pay for themselves” and have only increased deficit spending. > Climate change is real. This one is particularly vexing — have modern Republicans just stopped going outside these last few years? It gets even worse when shifting from policy and cost to principles and character. Can you imagine the outrage if Hillary Clinton won the 2016 election, then didn’t divest conflicts of interest and let Chelsea Clinton control her finances? If it was patently obvious that the president and her family were profiting off the presidency itself? At virtually every turn, the president has sought to advance his own interest through his office and at the expense of anyone in his way. As long as it gets the judges it wants, I guess the GOP won’t do a thing to stop him. Sure, just like President Trump, AOC shares a shocking proclivity to bend facts and attack anyone who challenges her. Elizabeth Warren’s most well-known plan is to replicate European failure. Bernie Sanders doesn’t acknowledge either the lessons learned from failed socialist states or the free market and free trade reforms of his Nordic examples. I’ve got a lot of issues with these three, but that’s for a different piece. For me, what it comes down to is this: Democrats paint with too broad of brush. They’re every bit as partisan. They have their own issues with ideology — including a problem with large centralized businesses but a blind spot for an increasingly large and centralized government. They speak holistically and evaluate their plans in isolation. Their economics can be shaky. Their evidence untested. And yet… The evidence regarding the problems they are trying to solve is quite real. They have legitimate debates about solutions. The Republicans can’t participate in those debates because they won’t acknowledge underlying facts. Despite growing consensus and mounting evidence on a number of fronts, the Republicans have seemingly become deniers in every degree. In some cases, the GOP has led an all out assault on science, facts and truth. Shouldn’t we have: > A system of shared prosperity with a broad social safety net, including some type of universal healthcare? > A restrained and engaging foreign policy that responds to global trends, ensures peace and protects the environment? > A morally just and inviting immigration policy that benefits the economy and promotes the “American Dream”? > A society where we have access to clean air, clean water and public land? > A government that roots out corruption, prosecutes corporate crime and preserves the free market? > An economy that promotes entrepreneurship while also endeavoring to protect those most harmed by the transition to an information age? > A plan to reform the criminal justice system, end mass incarceration and begin repairing the damage done by Jim Crow laws and modern segregation? > A modern tax system that isn’t rigged in favor of the rich and powerful? > An upgrade to our declining infrastructure and more investment in research with broad, public application but little private incentive to pursue? Ultimately, I don’t think any of these ideas are that controversial. Or, at least they shouldn’t be. Republicans once advocated for free trade, free markets, environmental conservation, universal basic incomes, increased immigration and pathways to citizenship. They were civil libertarians concerned with abuses of police power and skeptical of foreign interventionism. They funded and advanced infrastructure projects. Milton Friedman, the Nobel Prize-winning economist and adviser to Ronald Reagan, once wrote: “Suppose one accepts, as I do, this line of reasoning as justifying governmental action to alleviate poverty; to set, as it were, a floor under the standard of living of every person in the community.” What did F.A. Hayek, conservative stalwart and another Nobel Prize winner, think? “The assurance of a certain minimum income for everyone, or a sort of floor below which nobody need fall even when he is unable to provide for himself, appears not only to be a wholly legitimate protection against a common risk to all, but a necessary part of a Great Society … “ They weren’t alone. Richard Nixon almost implemented a minimum income in 1969. Who oversaw his initial Universal Basic Income experiments? Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney. Teddy Roosevelt’s legacy is one great quote and 230 million acres of public land. Dwight Eisenhower helped create interstate highways. Reagan and George W. Bush both supported a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. It’s not just social issues either. Which party do you hear talk about corruption and the rules of the game? Which one is concerned with combating technical monopolies? Which wants to evaluate our systems as we enter the information age? We’ve somehow reached the point where anyone who reads the above largely assumes I’m a dyed-in-the-wool liberal. These ideas have not just fallen out of Republican favor, but the very ideas underlying them have fallen out of the Republican platform. Leaving the GOP is easy. But, what do you do when you agree with one party’s premises while abhorring their conclusions? When the other isn’t premised on much of anything? If you don’t want to end up independently irrelevant, where do you go? Someday the Democratic Party might split, and we’ll see the rise of a moderate/centrist party focused on practical solutions to everyday problems instead of using them to pursue a broad ideological agenda. It can be home to independents as well as disaffected Ds and Rs. Until then, whether I’ve intentionally chosen them or not — I guess these are my people now. So, here I am. A Democrat. I’m uncomfortable, but I’m OK. That’s more than I can say for the party I called home. The party of the free market, checks and balances, the rule of law, principles and restraint — the party acutely aware of the corrupting power of government — abandoned all of that in blind loyalty to an authoritarian strongman and a small cadre of crony corporatists getting rich at our expense. That’s just not a party I can be party to. Aaron Price is a lawyer, business owner and political consultant.
Tom January 29, 2020January 27, 2020 But first: I’ve heard Republican spokespeople argue that, with this impeachment thing, Democrats are simply trying to “overturn the will of the people.” This is not true. They are trying to act responsibly. (As I hope at least some Republicans were when they impeached Clinton on far less serious charges.) But leave that aside. The irony is: “the will of the people” was clear. By a 3 million vote margin, they wanted Hillary.* And now: Your fellow reader Tom and I both love our country, both care about the truth, and have both owned chunks of BOREF for a long time now. What’s more, he’s written some very kind words about my investment guide. Yet we totally disagree on Trump. “Gosh,” I wrote him in the middle of a recent exchange. “It’s remarkable that two good, smart people can see things so differently. Let me ask you this [hoping we could find something clear-cut on which we could agree]: do you think Trump has obstructed the impeachment investigation by defying all subpoenas for documents?” Tom: “Of course not. He shouldn’t give the opposing party the time of day.” Me: “So the Administration is exempt from Congressional oversight whenever it wants to be?” Tom: “Congressional oversight applies ONLY to that which is read into legislation.” Me: “I don’t think your interpretation of the Constitution is correct. But even if it is, Congress legislated – and the Department of Defense approved after its corruption review – the appropriation of $391 million taxpayer dollars to an ally under lethal attack from an enemy whom Mitt Romney famously characterized as our greatest geopolitical threat . . . an enemy that had staged a surprise attack on us in 2016 and that our intelligence agencies all agree plans to keep attacking us in 2020. “So with 15,000 Ukrainians dead and the stability of our democracy at stake . . . (how stable can it be if people don’t trust the integrity of its elections and psychological warfare is effectively used to promote division and distrust between good folks like you and me?) . . . could it not be a “high misdemeanor” to withhold that desperately needed aid in order to gain personal political advantage? “Could Trump’s motive in doing that — and in sending Giuliani and Barr and Perry on missions to do that — have been to bolster our national security? I don’t think so. I think his motive was to hurt Biden’s chances. You disagree. You think Trump gave this matter so much attention because — of all the corruption in the world — the corruption that MOST needed to be investigated was the possible corruption (debunked by all the evidence) of only one human on the planet . . . who just happened, in a crazy bizarre coincidence, to be his leading political opponent. “Fair enough. We disagree. BUT THAT’S WHY WE SHOULD HEAR WITNESSES to help decide which of us is right. Ambassador Sondland agrees with me, Lev Parnas agrees with me, a whole lot of House witnesses agree with me. But maybe Bolton – though he apparently described the Giuliani/Perry thing as “a drug deal” – agrees with you.** Maybe Mick Mulvaney will show all these others to have been wrong – and you to have been right. I’m all ears. “To argue, as Lindsey Graham and Ken Starr did, that a president’s lying to cover up a consensual sexual affair DOES justify removal from office, but — as they argue now — this little matter, with 15,000 dead and our leading geopolitical adversary attacking us, doesn’t even justify calling witnesses or subpoenaing documents . . . well, I find that inconsistent. “What am I missing? If the president’s conduct was ‘trivial,’ as you’ve written, why did his people work so hard to hide it, immediately going to White House counsel with concerns and moving the record of the phone call to a top secret server? “Does it strike you as odd that Trump would have secret meetings with Putin that not even his chief of staff is privy to? Or that from the get-go he wanted to lift sanctions on Russia? Or that he lied so many times about the Trump Tower meeting? Or that his first secretary of state was someone he had basically never met but had been awarded Russia’s medal of friendship? Or that his campaign manager had a contract with pro-Putin oligarch? That the one and ONLY thing Trump’s campaign fiddled with in the Republican platform was its condemnation of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine? What’s YOUR theory on why that happened?” Tom: “I’m sorry Andy, I’m just not interested in these issues. The House had their chance to investigate and formulate Articles of Impeachment. Why didn’t they do it, thoroughly, openly, and completely? Why did they stop with only two Articles. According to you, there must be 10 issues that could easily be proved. The Trump haters in the FBI, CIA, DOJ, DOD, etc., will be exposed, and I assure you that more than five (and I believe Brennan) will have jail time. “Donald J. Trump is the most qualified person ever to become president. He has proven his ability with his accomplishments, even with the Democrats in full opposition. He already knew all the World and business leaders. He is genius at meeting. He never gives up, i.e. the wall, restricting 7 countries visiting the USA…and about to add more. The rallies are overflowing, everywhere he goes. He is stronger today than when he was elected. Unlike under Obama, the USA is truly respected around the world. Forget about what he says, watch what he does. HE FOLLOWS ALL ASPECTS OF THE CONSTITUTION. Democrats would like to destroy most of the Constitution. “Adam Schiff is a very dishonorable man….so who could ever believe anything he says? Yes, he is very smart, but also dishonorable. Blatant lies. President Trump has followed the Constitution more faithfully than Obama. The reason Republicans didn’t impeach Obama is because they are not partisan hacks, and are in Washington to make the country a better place to live…not to undermine the Constitution with trivial, meaningless attacks on the President.” Me: “Oy.” → But it’s instructive, no? I can’t imagine most Republican senators don’t recognize that Trump is lying, or believe Trump is the most qualified person ever to become president. But I don’t doubt Tom’s sincerity for a second. And that’s scary. Putin is winning — big-time. *Not to gild the lily, but when you add in the third-party candidates, it was the will of 53.9% of the people he not be president. **This was before the latest revelations.
Note To Bernie Bros January 27, 2020January 27, 2020 Ezra Klein explains why Democrats still have to appeal to the center, but Republicans don’t. Glenn Price: “I was especially struck by this startling passage: ‘It is, eventually, a legitimacy crisis that could threaten the very foundation of our political system. By 2040, 70 percent of Americans will live in the 15 largest states. That means 70 percent of America will be represented by only 30 senators, while the other 30 percent of America will be represented by 70 senators.” . . . America isn’t a democracy. Republicans control the White House, the Senate, the Supreme Court and a majority of governorships. Only the House is under Democratic control. And yet Democrats haven’t just won more votes in the House elections. They won more votes over the last three Senate elections, too. They won more votes in both the 2016 and 2000 presidential elections. But America’s political system counts states and districts rather than people, and the G.O.P.’s more rural coalition has a geographic advantage that offsets its popular disadvantage. To win power, Democrats don’t just need to appeal to the voter in the middle. They need to appeal to voters to the right of the middle. When Democrats compete for the Senate, they are forced to appeal to an electorate that is far more conservative than the country as a whole. Similarly, gerrymandering and geography means that Democrats need to win a substantial majority in the House popular vote to take the gavel. And a recent study by Michael Geruso, Dean Spears and Ishaana Talesara calculates that the Republican Party’s Electoral College advantage means “Republicans should be expected to win 65 percent of presidential contests in which they narrowly lose the popular vote.” The Republican Party, by contrast, can run campaigns aimed at a voter well to the right of the median American. Republicans have lost the popular vote in six of the last seven presidential elections. If they’d also lost six of the last seven presidential elections, they most likely would have overhauled their message and agenda. If Trump had lost in 2016, he — and the political style he represents — would have been discredited for blowing a winnable election. The Republican moderates who’d counseled more outreach to black and Hispanic voters would have been strengthened. Instead, Republicans are trapped in a dangerous place: They represent a shrinking constituency that holds vast political power. . . . This is why one of the few real hopes for depolarizing American politics is democratization. If Republicans couldn’t fall back on the distortions of the Electoral College, the geography of the United States Senate and the gerrymandering of House seats — if they had, in other words, to win over a majority of Americans — they would become a more moderate and diverse party. . . . I love the energy and the idealism of the Bernie bros. It comes from a good place and we need it. Their goals and grievances, if not their rhetoric and proposed solutions, are all, or almost all, widely shared by moderate Democrats — and even moderate Republicans. But Ezra Klein’s analysis in the indispensable New York Times, above, does suggest that a moderate might have a better chance of beating Trump — and thus advancing the Bernie agenda — than Bernie does. Because, of course, even if Bernie is our nominee — in which case I’ll do everything I can to help elect him — and even if he wins, he won’t simply be able to wave a magic wand and pass his agenda. Someone else — a Biden or a Bloomberg or a Buttigieg or a Klobuchar — who is perceived as less threatening and polarizing, might ultimately be able to move Bernie’s ball further down the field than he himself could. (Here’s a likable ticket: How about Amy Klobuchar / Deval Patrick?)
What If? And Will He? January 25, 2020January 25, 2020 Nick Kristof asks: What if Trump Gave Alaska to Putin? And then asks: What if It Were Obama on Trial? Captain Sulu: What Star Trek episode does this remind you of? And finally — for those not put off by Bill Maher’s earthy language — New Rules. Will Trump leave if he loses? Maher argues that this is not a frivolous question. (Also: terrific segments with Megan Kelly; with PETA founder Ingrid Newkirk; and with Alex Witt, Michael McFaul, and Erick Erickson.) Enjoy the rest of your weekend!
Short Takes January 23, 2020January 23, 2020 Back in Arkansas, the Clintons lost $30,000 (of their own money) in Whitewater. Trump — while President — has directed millions (of our tax dollars) to himself. Kenneth Starr was hired in both cases — to impeach Clinton and defend Trump. Violation of the “emoluments” clause is just one of several additional “articles” the House could have brought but did not. If the Senators are true to their oath — which, sadly, few expect them to be — Adam Schiff’s magnificent introduction yesterday made clear the two articles they did bring are enough. If the Republican senators violate their oath, as people assume they will, it’s more evidence democracy is dying, bit by bit. Here’s another example: the decline of locally-owned radio stations that accompanies the decline of local newspapers and tightens the grip of the top tenth of one percent. Just 162 Billionaires Have The Same Wealth As Half Of Humanity. It’s not “radical” to think the pendulum has swung too far. Yet Republicans keep wanting to push it further. To eliminate the estate tax, for example. We have a chance to lean against that pendulum and start it swinging back toward a more sensibly shared prosperity 285 days from now. But early voting starts sooner, and early organizing, thanks to your support, is already underway.
Talk About Crazy Coincidences! January 22, 2020 There are a quarter billion adult Americans, some small percentage of whom are, or at least might be, corrupt — say 1%? (Two and a half million.) Isn’t it an amazing coincidence that the one — and only! — possibly-corrupt person out of all those two and a half million whose possible corruption the President sent his personal attorney and the Attorney General of the United States all over Europe to investigate — just happened to be . . . drum-roll please (and this is why I think you’ll agree it’s a crazy, crazy coincidence) . . . his leading political opponent? I mean: what are the odds?!* The one guy, to pursue whose possible corruption, he held up $391 million in Congressionally appropriated aid to an ally under attack by Russia? Even when his own Department of Defense had certified the military aid as good to go? Such a lifelong zeal to root out corruption, all focused on just one single American, and that American just happens to be . . . I just can’t get over the coincidence. *Zero! And while we’re doing footnotes: Joe Biden is not remotely corrupt, and no well-informed person has ever claimed he was . . . anymore than any credible person has ever claimed Obama was born in Kenya or Hillary ran a child sex ring from the basement of a pizza parlor. Or diverted $2 million from the Clinton Foundation to pay for Chelsea’s wedding. Also: the Clintons did not murder Vince Foster; the climate crisis is not a hoax; unemployment in Obama’s last year was not “as high as 42%.” Finally, though Barr acts as though he is Trump’s personal lawyer, he’s not supposed to be. You and I pay him to be ours. Ken Scigulinsky: “Re Charlie Chaplin Speaks To Strongmen yesterday . . . if your readers are under 40, Sasha Baron Cohen does it even better !! Great rail against a dictatorship.” [Two minutes.] “There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.’” —Isaac Asimov PRKR closed at 61 cents yesterday, up from a dime last month; but before we rush to sell, we should remind ourselves it seemed like a good bet a year ago at $1, so maybe it still is? “Famous last words,” I know. Meanwhile: I’ve been buying ANIX with money I can truly afford to lose. What can I say? I’m living life on the edge.
Charlie Chaplin Speaks To Strongmen January 21, 2020 Tony B.: “To mark the onset of the impeachment trial, I wish each Senate juror could absorb this perspective-rattling speech first thing Tuesday morning as she or he begins to parse truth from falsehood, to put constitutional principal over personal gain: Charlie Chaplin’s eight-minute exhortation to defend democracy at the end of The Great Dictator.” (Hey: why are there no women dictators?) And while we’re watching movies, have you seen The Great Hack? Just as the book Rat F**ked explains the RedMap plan by which Republican gained control of Congress and state legislatures with a minority of the vote, so this Netflix explains how we got Trump. It’s the Cambridge Analytica story . . . and it’s gripping. Gripping, too — The Report, free on Amazon Prime, with Adam Driver and Annette Benning (as Senator Feinstein) . . . and John McCain as John McCain. I almost stopped watching in the middle of the torture scenes (oh, sorry: enhanced interrogation; we don’t torture) because what we did was so truly awful. But don’t quit. And as it ends, consider that Trump believes torture is okay. If anything, says the man with the bone spur, “I would bring back waterboarding, and I’d bring back a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding.”
China’s Greatest Strength Is America’s Greatest Weakness January 20, 2020January 18, 2020 But first: Kenneth Starr? Really? The man who thought a president should be removed from office for lying about a consensual affair . . . not to win re-election or defying the will of Congress or playing into the hands of Vladimir Putin . . . not endangering the lives of allies under attack by Russia . . . but simply to spare himself and (his country) extreme embarrassment? If the bar is that low (and the Barr lower still), shouldn’t we be hiring him to make our case? With Starr with be Alan Dershowitz, who defended O.J. Simpson and — with Starr — admitted child molester Jeffrey Epstein. When you’re as guilty as those guys were, Alan Dershowitz is the man to call. And then there is Lindsey Graham. Can anyone sink lower than Lindsey Graham has? It is truly pathetic. And second: I bought PRKR at $1 two years ago, as described here, having been told that if it won its patent-infringement suits, the stock could easily jump to $10 — or fall to 20 cents if it lost. “This has all the hallmarks of failure,” I concluded — “but I couldn’t resist.” I hope you resisted, because last month, it was a dime. At which point I suggested it was a good lottery ticket and doubled down (which meant buying 10 times as many shares as I did at $1). With luck, you threw caution to the wind and — with money you could truly afford to lose — bought a few thousand shares. (When a stock’s a dime, it’s not hard to buy thousands of shares.) It closed Friday at 46 cents, so you’ve quadrupled your money. It seems that Qualcomm, one of the deep pockets PRKR has been suing, was denied its latest motion for summary judgment. Here’s the press release. With the company now valued around $38 million (fully diluted, there would be something like 83 million shares outstanding), and with many, many hundreds of millions of dollars at stake, it’s not hard to imagine a much higher price one day if the suits are won or settled. Nor is it hard to imagine a total loss. I liked the odds at $1.10. I liked the odds better at a dime. At 46 cents, I’m not buying more — I already have a ton. If you bought at a dime, maybe sell enough to recoup your bet and let the rest ride? And now: David Leonhardt assesses “What Americans Don’t Understand About China’s Power.” . . . Instead of building a coalition to manage its rise — including the Asian nations in China’s shadow — Trump is alienating allies. Instead of celebrating democracy as an alternative to Chinese authoritarianism, he is denigrating the rule of law at home and cozying up to dictators abroad. Trump, as Keyu Jin, a Chinese economist at the London School of Economics, says, is “a strategic gift” for China. . . . There’s much more to the article than that — well worth reading in full. If only Trump hadn’t pulled out of the TransPacific Partnership. A colossal unforced error.