796 Scandals, Color-Coded July 16, 2020July 15, 2020 It’s impossible to read all 20,000+ lies and misleading claims Trump has made since taking office. (In eight years, the same fact-checking apparatus found Obama had made 28.) But it’s almost impossible not to read or at least meander amongst these 796 mostly-short paragraphs . . . “A Catalog of Trump’s Worst Cruelties, Collusions, Corruptions, and Crimes.” Color-coded, no less. Remember when people used to at least pretend to value honesty, decency, and competence? These days, forty percent of us don’t seem to. Good people, for the most part, they’ve been misled. Encouraged to feed the wrong wolf.
Engelhardt, Schwartz, & Marx (Not A Law Firm) July 15, 2020July 14, 2020 [FIRST +AND+ SECOND ESTIMATED TAX PAYMENTS DUE TODAY] We got Trump in part, I think, because for decades only the rich have been getting ahead. (And, boy, have we ever.) So . . . much as I’d rather tell you my recipe for healthy summer pizza . . . today I offer the thoughts of a pen-pal who cares deeply about his fellow earthlings. (Cut a big cold tomato into slices onto which you sprinkle garlic salt, pepper, oregano, and Parmesan cheese; drizzle amply with olive oil; eat each slice with your fingers; lick your fingers.) (Think about it! No carbs! No heat! Nothing to clean but the cutting board and the knife! And yes, I know you think tomatoes should not be refrigerated before slicing. It’s summer. Everything should be refrigerated.) It began with this link: The Age of Disappointment? Or How the American Century Ends, a gripping rant by Tom Engelhardt. Does it work well to have “the wealth of 162 global billionaires equal that of half of humanity?” It’s a rant worth your time. (Engelhardt doesn’t raise these suggestions specifically, but . . . what about a Universal Basic Income of the type Andrew Yang advocates? What about a wealth tax on the uber-rich? What about putting people to work at good wages revitalizing our infrastructure, smartening our electric grid and providing rural broadband as we once provided rural electrification?) One friend who read the Engelhardt piece, Brian Schwartz, an expat living in China, the afore-referenced pan-pal to whom I cede the balance of my time, reacted to it this way: There is so much for each of us to say in these profound times. Every one of us needs to reflect and consider and yes, face the truth of our lives and times. Especially those of color and disabilities and sexual minorities and women have long standing legitimate grievances that need to addressed. This is the moment to rally for the essence of our democracy. Tom Engelhardt is my contemporary. I identify powerfully with his memories with the addition of having been heavily involved in the civil rights movement and helping to lead NYU’s faculty and student response to Dr. King’s assassination. Those were heady and, to some degree, naive days of great hope in the face of the successive murders of John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X and Dr. King. Two months later so much of that hope was shattered by the assassination of Robert Kennedy and the ascension of liberal sell-out Hubert Humphrey to the Democratic Party nomination of 1968 after Chicago’s police riot. Back then I and others, sadly a tiny minority, saw the handwriting on the wall of the decline of the American Empire. It was evident not so much in our military might or national wealth but in the “heart of darkness” exemplified by ongoing racism at home and the state violence used to suppress domestic dissent while at the same time exporting that same violence to maintain dominance over most if not all of the rest of the world. Though most people of good intentions were asleep at the wheel of democracy, failed Supreme Court nominee William Powell issued the manifesto in 1971 that laid out the strategy for the oligarchic transformation of the American Republic. Those who saw this coming have been marginalized and seen as traitors to the USA or conspiracy theorists or extreme radicals or dangerous revolutionaries. Our social lives, even professional lives, have been truncated by our being proponents revealing the ugly truths of American society. Contrary to the charges against us, we have been true believers in the ideals set forth by the Founding Fathers, imperfect but hopeful advocates of the essential truths laid out in that wonderful beacon of humanity emanating from the Age of Enlightenment. Tom Engelhardt’s genuine angst has been a daily state of mind and emotion for this small minority of Americans who could see past the insidious corporate propaganda broadcast by mainstream news sources. [DISCLAIMER: I’M NOT AS RADICAL AS BRIAN. I’M GRATEFUL FOR LOTS OF THINGS CORPORATIONS HAVE ACCOMPLISHED FOR MANKIND! ENLIGHTENED CAPITALISM, SENSIBLY REGULATED, IS A GREAT THING! EVEN SO . . . ] There have been uprisings galore in the USA starting with the House UnAmerican Activities Committee protests of the late 1950’s and early 1960’s. We beheaded that monster and expanded to the free speech and academic protests of the early 1960’s. I was proud to vote for the strike at my college in the spring of 1961 as our Student Senate defied the censorship being imposed upon us. I listened mesmerized to Marxist speakers, banned at my college but allowed to speak at nearby Columbia University, presenting a version of history informed by Karl Marx’s critique of capitalism. It was a scientific deconstruction of all that I had been propagandized to believe in from childhood. I rejected the Stalinist and Maoist versions of Marxism and embraced the democratic socialism of Trotsky, Rosa Luxembourg and others seeking a more democratic and humane approach to the ills of mankind. I was captain of the pickets at each entry to the college and sophomore Mario Savio went on to lead the free speech movement at Berkeley three years later. Tom Engelhardt here tells the story, to a great degree, of my own journey. (He doesn’t mention the political battles of the 1980’s and the horrific Reagan policies that have brought us the massive movement of refugees from the increasing collapse of Central American and several South American societies. The crimes of the American Empire in those lonely days of protest in the 1980’s and the scars of Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala run deep. Americans ignored most of that horror and have forgotten that misery attached to today’s immigration debates.) If anyone still fails to see the class warfare being waged amid increasing intensity as our country suffers a wealth disparity the worst since the Gilded Age, then they continue to be part of the problem. The incrementalists and centrists are very much a part of the problem. The times call for revolutionary change and that is what will mark the next 10-20 years whether one likes it or not. Extreme wealth disparity is obscene and morally indefensible. How can the six heirs to the WalMart fortune have greater wealth than the 50% bottom of American citizens? How to justify the existence of billionaires when so many go to bed hungry or without jobs or without basic medical care? It’s insane and maddening to those who have a sense of humanity and justice. Eldridge Cleaver was no saint but he was a powerful writer and when he said, “If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem.” he put his finger right on the nub of the issue of one’s legitimacy as a political agent in a democracy. Jesus was a social revolutionary who understood that love was the greatest force in the Universe and that those who worshiped power and money and status were as likely to go to Heaven as a camel to be threaded through the eye of a needle. Shakespeare and Freud and Marx and Einstein all told us in their unique ways that true human happiness is built on love/relationships and our passion for our work, work which satisfies our need for material goods necessary for survival if not comfort and which contributes to the overall benefit of society. How far our country has become lost in the infinitesimal journey we each of us take through the Cosmos. So much attention paid to inanimate things, so little attention paid to the human spirit of each of us. That magnificent document that serves as the cornerstone of our nation, the Declaration of Independence, boldly states that all human beings are born with inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. White privilege, the Chinese Communist Party, the Tories, Orban and his protofascist Hungarian allies, Duterte and his allies, Bolsanaro and his allies, Putin and his fellow thugs are all responsible for the massive affliction not only of the virus but the looming environmental disaster that awaits human and all living matter on the other side of this pandemic. Solutions abound but the most promising are quite radical and thrust us to the hope of Karl Marx and a birth of a socialism he advocated that leads to the increased happiness of all life on this planet. He was a man well ahead of his times but moved by the same vision that moved Isaiah, Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha and so many of the great prophets who have walked this Earth. To survive, we, as species, must find harmony and balance with Nature as there is no other sustainable reality to ensure life on this speck in the Universe. Our current systems are wholly inadequate to the task and we need to reinvent our way forward. The political will that is required to right the longstanding wrongs of massive income and wealth inequality is not yet there but that battle for the hearts and minds of all of humankind is now in motion. None of us, as individuals, have the wisdom or knowledge or power to change things but we are part of the great collective of humanity and what each of us decides to do going forward will determine the outcome. There are more of us than the 0.0001 who currently hold most of the power. What will you do? With whom? When? Towards what hopeful end? I am sure many on this list will consider my words traitorous or crazy or extreme or overly harsh. You are, in our dying democracy, entitled to your opinions. Yet those who fail to see the handwriting on the wall at this auspicious moment in time will have missed the opportunity of a lifetime. Consequential times. The solution may not be more tax cuts for the rich.
Vive La France! July 14, 2020July 13, 2020 But first . . . Two minutes from a lifelong Republican. Powerful. One minute on The Law And Order President. And now . . . Jim Burt: “Happy Bastille Day! A good day to remember that without the help of French loans, French troops, French munitions, and the French navy the American Revolution would have been strangled in its crib. Most Americans will likely recognize the name Lafayette, but he was only one of the thousands of French soldiers who served alongside Americans, and who outnumbered the Americans at Yorktown, where the French fleet prevented the escape of Cornwallis’s army, directly leading to its surrender, the climax (though not the end) of the American Revolution.” → The same Lafayette after whom was named the site of recent peaceful protest, violently disbursed so Trump could walk through for his upside-down Bible photo-op. So, finally . . . this. Arguably the greatest two minutes in the history of cinema. Vive La France!
Time To Push Back July 13, 2020July 13, 2020 Republican Voters Against Trump — 38 seconds worth sharing. Five minutes on just how numb we’ve become. Trump has wrecked our standing in the world, wrecked the dignity of the Presidency, and — to take just one specific example — wrecked our forward-deployed ability to protect against pandemics. Putin is succeeding beyond his wildest dreams. And in ways you may not realize: “Kremlin intelligence is manipulating the far-right. It’s time to push back.“ The Charlottesville Observer published this three years ago. Yet even as Russia offers bounties to kill our troops, Trump and the Republican Senate still haven’t pushed back. The weekend’s bloody chaos in Charlottesville, Virginia, where a far-right protest devolved into rioting and murder, has shaken the country and shocked the world. . . . The accused killer, James Alex Fields, age 20, was quickly taken into custody, and he turns out to possess all the expected traits: a young man with an unstable home life and mental health problems serious enough to have kept him out of the military, possessing an affection for Nazi memorabilia and views. These are precisely the sort of maladjusted young people—nearly all of them male—who under slightly different circumstances turn to jihadism. Our domestic radicalism problem knows no specific background, religion, or ideology. The Charlottesville mayhem has concentrated minds on the continuing presence of the kook-right among us: angry young white men who assemble, brandishing flags of the Confederacy and Nazi Germany. Make no mistake: the weekend was their triumph . . . Nothing about the weekend’s ugliness has received more criticism than our president’s stunning inability to condemn these neo-Nazis and their violence. . . . The Nazified far-right thereby has joined the highly select pantheon of people whom President Trump won’t denounce no matter how badly they misbehave—whose only other member is Vladimir Putin. It bears examining whether Trump’s stunning silence may not be a coincidence. Our extreme right, with very few exceptions, are super-fans of the Russian president, in whom they see a strong, traditional leader who runs the world’s only white nuclear-armed great power. Their websites brim with adulation for Putin . . . Although our country has always had white supremacists, Russia has given them renewed focus and energy, as well as a ready-made worldview. This take on the world includes overt white nationalism which despises the United States as a decadent and multiracial society. The Moscow menu suspiciously includes support for a range of foreign issues such as adulation of Bashar al-Assad and his nasty Syrian regime. Assad just happens to be a Russian client, which explains why American neo-Nazis profess deep admiration for him and his bloody dictatorship, even though one wonders how many of these extremists could locate Syria on a map. . . . Ideological synchronicity between the American neo-Nazis and the Kremlin approaches complete overlap. Take the case of Richard Spencer, who was in Charlottesville as the de facto leader of the rising far-right in our country. Young and photogenic with his famously fashy haircut, Spencer too is a strong Putinphile, exuding praise for Russia and its strongman . . . [h]is connections are more than ideological. His wife, Nina Kouprianova, is a Russian far-rightist herself with Kremlin connections. As Nina Byzantina on Twitter, she is a full-fledged Kremlin troll who reliably follows the Putin line on virtually any issue, foreign and domestic, while Kouprianova has also served as the English translator for Aleksandr Dugin, a quixotic political theorist and self-proclaimed “geostrategist” who functions as Moscow’s ambassador-at-large to the Western extreme right. Although Dugin possesses little actual influence in the Kremlin, he is highly esteemed among his legions of foreign fans, who detect in his mystical racist screeds a genius which others cannot. He plays a key role in propaganda outfit controlled by Russian intelligence which I detailed last year . . . This is classic Kremlin disinformation, a mix of opinion-masquerading-as-fact and outright fabrications. This crackpottery, however, has regime imprimatur. To anyone versed in Russian intelligence tradecraft, Spencer and those of his kook-right ilk who espouse nakedly pro-Kremlin views, are at least agents of influence, to use the proper Chekist term. However, there are connections between Moscow and the Western far-right which are more troubling than mere ideological fellow-traveling. In Europe, security services have tracked the activities of Russian military intelligence, known as GRU, and in recent years their operations have included violence. Russian football hooligans who caused mayhem in Europe last summer, leading to dozens of casualties, many of them seriously injured, included known Kremlin special operatives—some of them possessing GRU tattoos. More ominously, GRU has been training and arming neo-Nazis in Europe, with sometimes lethal consequences. . . . The weekend tragedy in Charlottesville was at least partly inspired by Moscow’s propaganda. If we don’t start to take this problem seriously, like Europe we will soon be facing more and worse extremism with a distinct GRU footprint. . . . Although it’s painfully evident that the Trump White House will do no such thing, the longer we wait to tackle this problem, the worse it will get, and more lives will be lost. John Schindler is a security expert and former National Security Agency analyst and counterintelligence officer. A specialist in espionage and terrorism, he’s also been a Navy officer and a War College professor. He’s published four books and is on Twitter at @20committee. Pushing back starts here.
Tammy Duckworth Nails It July 11, 2020July 10, 2020 A long time ago, a candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives came to Charles’ shop on Gansevoort Street for what may have been her smallest fundraiser ever — not every New Yorker in 2006 was loaded with bucks to support an unknown from Illinois — and I still remember how gracious she was, and how she and Charles bonded, and how Charles wound up designing shoes for her. (A challenge, as you can imagine.) I’ve been a fan ever since, never more than now: Tammy Duckworth: Tucker Carlson Doesn’t Know What Patriotism Is Neither does President Trump. By Tammy Duckworth Ms. Duckworth is a Democratic senator from Illinois. July 9, 2020 A little over 240 years ago, two of my ancestors put on the uniform of George Washington’s Continental Army and marched into battle, willing to die if it meant bringing their fledgling nation inches closer to independence. Centuries later, in 1992, I followed in their footsteps and joined the Army. Even knowing how my tour in Iraq would turn out, even knowing that I’d lose both my legs in a battlefield just north of Baghdad in late 2004, I would do it all over again. Because if there’s anything that my ancestors’ service taught me, it’s the importance of protecting our founding values, including every American’s right to speak out. In a nation born out of an act of protest, there is nothing more patriotic than standing up for what you believe in, even if it goes against those in power. Our founders’ refusal to blindly follow their leader was what I was reflecting on this Fourth of July weekend, when some on the far right started attacking me for suggesting that all Americans should be heard, even those whose opinions differ from our own. Led by the Fox News host Tucker Carlson and egged on by President Trump, they began questioning my love for the country I went to war to protect, using words I never actually said and ascribing a position to me that I do not actually hold. Mr. Carlson disingenuously claimed that because I expressed an openness to “a national dialogue” about our founders’ complex legacies, people like me “actually hate America.” One night later, he claimed that I called George Washington a traitor even though I had unambiguously answered no when asked whether anyone could justify saying that he was. Then he argued that changes to monuments of our founders “deserve a debate,” which, somehow, was different and more acceptable to him than the “national dialogue” that led him to question my patriotism just 24 hours earlier. Setting aside the fact that the right wing’s right to lie about me is one of the rights I fought to defend, let me be clear: I don’t want George Washington’s statue to be pulled down any more than I want the Purple Heart that he established to be ripped off my chest. I never said that I did. But while I would risk my own safety to protect a statue of his from harm, I’ll fight to my last breath to defend every American’s freedom to have his or her own opinion about Washington’s flawed history. What some on the other side don’t seem to understand is that we can honor our founders while acknowledging their serious faults, including the undeniable fact that many of them enslaved Black Americans. Because while we have never been a perfect union, we have always sought to be a more perfect union — and in order to do so, we cannot whitewash our missteps and mistakes. We must learn from them instead. But what I actually said isn’t the reason Mr. Carlson and Mr. Trump are questioning my patriotism, nor is it why they’re using the same racist insults against me that have been slung my way time and again in years past, though they have never worked on me. They’re doing it because they’re desperate for America’s attention to be on anything other than Donald Trump’s failure to lead our nation, and because they think that Mr. Trump’s electoral prospects will be better if they can turn us against one another. Their goal isn’t to make — or keep — America great. It’s to keep Mr. Trump in power, whatever the cost. It’s better for Mr. Trump to have you focused on whether an Asian-American woman is sufficiently American than to have you mourning the 130,000 Americans killed by a virus he claimed would disappear in February. It’s better for his campaign to distract Americans with whether a combat veteran is sufficiently patriotic than for people to recall that this failed commander in chief has still apparently done nothing about reports of Russia putting bounties on the heads of American troops in Afghanistan. Mr. Trump and his team have made the political calculation that, no matter what, they can’t let Americans remember that so many of his decisions suggest that he cares more about lining his pockets and bolstering his political prospects than he does about protecting our troops or our nation. They should know, though, that attacks from self-serving, insecure men who can’t tell the difference between true patriotism and hateful nationalism will never diminish my love for this country — or my willingness to sacrifice for it so they don’t have to. These titanium legs don’t buckle. The hateful vision for America parroted by Mr. Trump and Mr. Carlson will not win. Their relentless efforts to drive wedges between us will not work forever. We are too resilient a nation, too diverse a people, to let them. In his farewell address, George Washington not only recognized his own imperfections, he also urged Americans to “guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism” and be wary of excessive partisanship. In the generations since, too many patriots, including many in my own family, have sacrificed too much to let our guard down now. So when Tucker Carlson questions the patriotism of those willing to sacrifice for his freedom, or when Donald Trump promotes those smears — after having threatened to veto a pay raise for our troops to try to ensure the military continues honoring Confederate traitors who took up arms against our Union — remember Washington’s words. Remember that part of what has always made America not just great but good is that every American has the right to question those in charge. Anyone claiming to stand up for “patriotic” values should recognize that, because, without it, the country these impostor patriots claim to love so much would not exist. Our nation deserves leaders mature and secure enough not to race-bait or swift-boat anyone who dares disagree with them. After these past four years, and especially after these past four months, it’s clearer than ever that we must choose public servants who will focus on the serious issues facing our country — from the spread of the coronavirus to systemic racism to foreign adversaries threatening our troops’ lives — rather than cynical bullies who use schoolyard tactics to distract from their own shortcomings. So while I would put on my old uniform and go to war all over again to protect the right of Tucker Carlson and Donald Trump to say offensive things on TV and Twitter, I will also spend every moment I can from now until November fighting to elect leaders who would rather do good for their country than do well for themselves.
John Oliver Nails It July 10, 2020July 9, 2020 One minute of Republican advice to voters. I hate the “ominous voice over” ads like this always use — “cue the ominous voice over.” But you know what? This ad is true. If you had been smart enough to pay someone to take your SATs, wouldn’t that have attested to your character, intelligence, and work ethic? Same with paying a doctor to get you out of military service. Or stiffing contractors. Or not paying taxes. Or obstructing justice. Or firing anyone investigating you. Smart, smart, smart, smart, smart, smart. “When you’re a celebrity, you can get away with anything.” John Oliver on Confederate statues. More than 20 million people have seen this since it first aired nearly three years ago, but I hadn’t. So, so good. Have a great weekend.
The Biden/Trump Debates . . . July 9, 2020July 8, 2020 . . . should only be agreed to, Tom Friedman argues, on these two conditions. A taste of Mary Trump’s forthcoming book. As older brother Fred, Jr., was rushed to the hospital, where he died, Donald went to the movies. Redlining, in eight minutes. The very segregated New Deal. (Paragraph g. of Underwriting Procedure Under Title II of the National Housing Act is titled: “Prohibition of the occupancy of properties except by the race for which they are intended.”) Love FDR, but nobody’s perfect. Have you read White Fragility?
Do You Speak Scottish? July 7, 2020July 8, 2020 You gotta love that the Ayn Rand Institute — and even Grover “drown-government-in-a-bathtub” Norquist — took government assistance to cope with COVID. Thinly-traded BKUT last traded at $570. Meanwhile, the shares we own, BKUTK — the exact same stock without voting rights — were $360 bid, $374 asked yesterday. Whoever paid $570 for BKUT clearly thinks it’s worth more (or why buy it?). I hope they’re right, because if it’s worth more than $570, it’s surely worth more than $374. I’m not adding shares; but I’m sure not selling, either. An interesting mea culpa from Wendell Potter: I must come clean about a lie I spread as a health insurance exec: We spent big $$ to push the idea that Canada’s single-payer system is awful and the U.S. system much better. It was a lie and the nations’ Covid responses prove it. The truth: Canada is doing much better than the U.S. when it comes to COVID-19 testing and treatment. On a per capita basis, more Canadians are being tested and fewer getting sick and dying. This may shock Americans who still believe the lies I told about the Canadian healthcare system. Here’s the truth: Our industry PR and lobbying group, AHIP, supplied my colleagues and me with cherry-picked data and anecdotes to make people think Canadians wait endlessly for their care. It’s a lie and I’ll always regret a disservice I did the folks on both sides of the border. In Canada, no one gets turned away from doctors due to lack of funds. In America, exorbitant bills are a defining feature of the system. What about quality of care? When it comes to COVID-19, there’s been 21 deaths per hundred thousand in Canada versus 34 per thousand in the US. Remember, in Canada there are no co-pays, deductibles or coinsurance ever. Care is free at the point of service. And those laid off in Canada don’t face the worry of losing their health insurance. In the US, millions are losing their jobs and coverage, and scared to death. Canada’s single-payer system is saving lives. The US profit-driven corporate model is failing. I’ll regret slandering Canada’s system for the rest of my life. Mask instructions from a Scot. (Translated.) Sixty seconds. Thanks, Joey! Listen to What Went Wrong in Brazil from “The Daily.” It aired a few days ago, before Bolsonaro tested positive after months of dismissing the seriousness of the virus. Though Trump is never explicitly mentioned in the podcast (unless I missed it), the parallels to their leadership skills — short of that last little detail — are hard to miss. If you wade through this recent ruling, you’ll see that PRKR‘s trial in its lawsuit against Qualcomm has been moved to May 3rd. Years ago, a jury awarded PRKR $173 million but the judge overturned the award and was affirmed on appeal — read the saga here. Yet former FBI director Louis Freeh’s law firm joined the case last year; and the firm that initially won the verdict remains engaged, with skin in the game. Among our fellow shareholders is the old-line investment manager Ingalls & Snyder. That they all think the lawsuit has merit gives me some comfort. I read email snippets like this one dated February 4, 1999 from Qualcomm’s Don Schrock to Rich Sulpizio — “this is critical technology that we must land” — and I think, well, who knows? As happened once before, a jury might decide that “nothing” was not a fair price for QCOM to pay for PRKR’s hard work. (And, PRKR argues, in the intervening years, billions of cell phones have been sold with its technology, so the award could perhaps be many times higher?)
Winning At Last July 6, 2020July 5, 2020 WINNING Too much. Twenty powerful seconds. Could we win in Alaska? This analysis says yes. (Also handicapped: the other 33 Senate races.) I know the candidate — and I’m psyched. AT LAST FOX finally covers the President the way they should.* OH! AND . . . . . . did you manage to find 12 minutes to watch this retired 4-star general, as suggested over the weekend? “In 50 years I’ve Never Seen Anything Like This.” *This was actually posted a year and some ago. But just as good now.
Does This Strike You As Important? July 5, 2020July 4, 2020 Take 12 minutes to hear them out: a retired 4-star general and a former Bush/Trump national security analyst. “In 50 years I’ve Never Seen Anything Like This.” To me it seems profoundly important. Share it widely?