Author: A.T.

I didn’t know Land O’ Lakes was a Fortune 500 company, but it is, and its new CEO, Beth Ford, is openly gay — only the third after Apple’s Tim Cook and Dow Chemical’s Jim Fitterling.  If you round up, 1% of Fortune 500 CEOs are now openly LGBT!

If you had told me in 1973, when I first wrote about this stuff, that the world’s first trillion-dollar company would be run by an openly gay man (or that the 44th President of the United States would be black) — or that one of the country’s three largest cooperatives would be run by an openly gay woman (or that I would prefer a thing called Smart Balance to actual butter, however stupid that might be) — I would have considered you unhinged.

But here we are.

It’s still tough for many to be openly gay — this study tells the tale.  But boy have we ever made progress. And at no cost to the taxpayer!

(If you had told me, further, we would win the first Cold War without firing a shot at Russia, but that Russia would be winning the second, having helped to elect a sociopath, I would have offered you three ways to fight back.)

Have a great weekend.

Check it out — I think you may be heartened.

Short form: The DNC has enhanced its voter file with the purchase of 94 million more cell phone numbers . . . has identified 25 million likely Democratic voters who are not yet registered . . . has funded registration of Puerto Ricans displaced to Florida and Pennsylvania . . .  is raising millions in small-dollar contributions directly for candidates in tough races (including special-election winners like Doug Jones and Conor Lamb) . . . is providing cybersecurity guidance to the state parties . . . and a lot more.

Most important (if you ask me): it is funding field organizers to engage the tens of millions who vote our way in Presidential years but normally sit out the mid-terms.  We don’t have enough money to reach them all, which is why I keep asking. (And thanking you the minute I see your contribution come thru.)

THREE WAYS TO VOLUNTEER

1. Join Team Blue.
2. CrushTheMidterms.  It even designs an action plan for you.
3. MobilizeAmerica.

No need to choose: sign up with all three.

Spread the word.

[HOUSEKEEPING: For those of you who get this post delivered by email (because you entered your email address in the box to the right), you’ve been getting them automatically, as soon as I click “publish.”  Now WordPress (or is it MailChimp?) no longer supports the plug-in that made that happen, so you may experience a delay.  My apologies in advance for any you don’t get in a timely way.]

1. Join Team Blue.
2. CrushTheMidterms.  It even designs an action plan for you.
3. MobilizeAmerica.

No need to choose: sign up with all three.

Spread the word.

It seems the White House did not intentionally edit out a key couple of seconds of the Putin-Trump Helsinki news conference, as many understandably assumed (given that those seconds were, unquestionably, missing).

At least that’s the view of the Washington Post.  Rachel Maddow back-tracked a bit but emphasized that even once alerted, the White House did not correct the transcript.  Then, ten days after Helsinki, they did — but not the video.

So there’s almost surely no “there” there to the notion of an intentional effort to erase from history what we all saw live, in real time.  I, too, stand corrected.

And yet can objective observers much fault us for assuming the worst?

This is the man who said he had investigators in Hawaii who couldn’t believe what they were finding about Obama’s true country of birth . . . who promised he would “absolutely” release his tax returns if he ran for office . . . who claimed the largest Inaugural crowd on the Mall ever . . . who said his new tax law would cost him a fortune . . . who has made more than 3,000 false or misleading statements since being sworn in, or six-and-a-half a day.

Over the weekend, he touted last quarter’s 4.1% GDP growth rate as “amazing” — I mean, my God, only a superman president could produce results like that!  Who ever even heard of results like that?

Except that, as noted on Morning Joe yesterday (thanks, Steve Rattner), President Obama had two quarters during his first term and another two during his second term when growth was significantly better.  If 4.1% is amazing, how about 4.5%, 4.7%, 4.9%, and 5.1%?

Bill Clinton, meanwhile, beat Trump’s “amazing” quarter 13 separate times in his two terms.

And both Obama and Clinton did this while raising taxes on the best off to get the National Debt back to shrinking relative to GDP, as it had from 1946 all the way up until Ronald Reagan . . . and then the Bushes and now Trump, with full backing of the Republican Party . . . exploded it.

(Yes, the Debt grew under Clinton and Obama — it takes a while to turn battleships around.  But it shrank relative to GDP under Clinton almost from the get go; and under Obama once he averted the total financial collapse and imminent global depression that he was handed.)

As also noted, in these past 18 months under Trump, monthly job growth has averaged 193,000 — less good than the 206,000 average of the preceding 18 months under Obama.

Wage growth has also fallen when you compare those two 18 month periods.  Better under Obama than Trump.

And this 4.1%?  Most economists think it’s a blip largely caused by purchases to get ahead of Trump’s grossly ill-advised tariffs.

Granted, everybody now has “great healthcare at a tiny fraction of the cost.”  It’s hard not to love that.

And we can all sleep soundly now that North Korea is no longer a threat.

And sure enough, as promised ad nauseam, Mexico has paid for the wall.

So you can see why Trump’s popularity among Republicans is — as he noted this past weekend — is the highest in history.  (Except that Eisenhower’s and Reagan’s popularity was higher among Republicans at this point in their first terms.)

And why a state like Wisconsin — that he proudly notes hadn’t gone Republican since 1952 — chose him in 2016.  (The only slight correction to that presidential statement is that Wisconsin went Republican in 1956 and 1960 and 1968 and 1972 and 1980 and 1984.)

And on and on and on.

Putin is winning.  The autocrats are winning.  The kleptocrats are winning.  Democracy is losing.  Decency is losing.  Integrity is losing.

Everybody needs to volunteer to fix this nightmare.  And, if they can, fund the effort as well.

The election is in 98 days.

I never knew Dick Leitsch, a Kentucky boy turned New Yorker, who died last month.  But what courage it must have taken to be openly gay back in the Fifties — even in New York — when he first began advocating for equal rights. (A New York Times headline describing his work at the time: “3 DEVIATES INVITE EXCLUSION BY BARS.”)

Read his life here.  And the wonderful way he handled his death, here.  (“If I knew dying was this fun, I would have done it years ago!”)

Love is love.

Friendship is everything.

And guess who else liked MY LIFE ON A DIET?  The New York Times!  (Here.)  Lots of good little press prior to the opening and afterward, but we were worried about the Times, because, well, it’s not exactly Shakespeare.  But they seemed as charmed as everyone else.  (” There is something spicy going on at the Theater at St. Clement’s. Ms. Taylor mixes reminiscences about her childhood and beginnings as an actress and writer with a lighthearted look at her self-image and quest for love. A veritable depository of old-fashioned zingers … one-liners and well-timed pauses.”)

As our tag line says, “You’ll drop 300 calories laughing.”

And won’t it be fun to be one of the youngest members of an audience, for a change?

But the youngsters I saw it with, 22 and 33, really enjoyed it, too.

So don’t be put off by the octogenarians in the crowd — for all you know, they’re each as special, in their own ways, as the octogenarian on stage.

So fun.

“There’s A Genius Street Artist Running Loose In The Streets, And Let’s Hope Nobody Catches Him.”  (Thanks, Mel!)

Once few jobs are truly “necessary” and a Universal Basic Income scheme is deployed so all can enjoy the fruits of the technology that has rendered them obsolete (and everything is powered “virtually free” by the sun), we should pay talented folks to do this EVERYWHERE!

So horrifying.

Rachel takes a long time to lay this out, but it comes down to this: We all saw Putin asked in Helsinki whether he wanted Trump to win the Presidency.  We all saw him say yes, and explain why.  Both the White House and the Kremlin have edited that out of the official transcripts — and the White House has edited it out of the video.  So it never happened.  Can you define Orwellian?

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“Orwellian” . . . denotes an attitude and a brutal policy of draconian control by propaganda, surveillance, misinformation, denial of truth, and manipulation of the past, including the “unperson”—a person whose past existence is expunged from the public record and memory, practised by modern repressive governments. Often, this includes the circumstances depicted in his novels, particularly Nineteen Eighty-Four . . .

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And while we’re at it, can you define sociopath?

Have a great weekend.  (Oh, and look at this: WheelTug signed a second airline this week.  Can you define speculation?)

But first:

“Mr. Trump likes to call anyone who disagrees with him ‘fake news.'” writes the White House stenographer who quit after five years because she couldn’t stomach working for a liar.  “But if he’s really the victim of so much inaccurate reporting, why is he so averse to having the facts recorded and transcribed?”  Read her story here.

Also:

Have you read Elizabeth Holzman’s resignation letter?

. . . As an author of the Refugee Act of 1980 . . . I believe the treatment of refugees by you and President Trump violates that law and our treaty obligations to refugees. . . . The Act was adopted against the background of the Holocaust, in which the US took only a tiny handful of refugees from the Nazis [and] also in response to the massive exodus of boat people from Vietnam. There was a time that the US welcomed refugees.We readily accepted and absorbed more than 600,000 refugees from Cuba, 750,000 refugees from Vietnam, and more than 100,000 Jews from the Soviet Union. Considering that history, the thought that the U.S. government is afraid today of 2,000 children and their parents is both laughable and appalling.

Under your administration and that of Donald Trump, OHS has been transformed into an  agency that is making war on immigrants and refugees. . . .

The final straw has been the separation of children from their parents at the Southwest border.  This is child kidnapping, plain and simple. Seizing children from their parents in violation of the constitutional rights of both is bad enough (mentally harmful to the children and infinitely painful to both the parents and children), but doing so without creating proper records to enable family reunification shows utter depravity on the part of the government officials involved.

Although it is I who am resigning in protest against these policies, it is you who should be tendering your resignation instead.

Penultimately:

With regard to yesterday’s post one of you writes: “You think you can convince these folks? They know Trump is flawed, but believe he is sent from God to save America.”  Seriously.  Trump: God’s gift to mankind.

But mainly:

My Life On A Diet opened last night for a limited run.  If you were a fan of The Nanny, or of Marilyn Monroe, or of Perry Como — if you know who Jack Paar was or have ever struggled with your weight — well, this is a lovely little piece of theater.  “A sheer delight.” “Dishes out laughs.“ Let’s hear it for 85-year-olds (specifically, Renée Taylor) and 53-year marriages (hers, to Joe Bologna).  Full disclosure: if you buy a ticket, I am one step closer to retirement.

Jim Burt writes . . .

Let’s assume for a moment that “Christian” teaching and notions of morality track the teachings of Jesus as reported in the gospels.  Namely, that the corporal acts of mercy, feeding the hungry, nursing the sick, visiting the imprisoned, clothing the naked, etc., are both sufficient and necessary to enable a person to receive a favorable nod on Judgment Day, while mere belief is insufficient.

It’s fair to say that most self-characterized “fundamentalists” and “evangelicals” don’t accept this as the essence of Christianity, adopting various theological gymnastics instead; or else regard it as merely a consequence of true and enthusiastic belief, rather than as the sine qua non of salvation . . . as Matthew tells us Jesus said unequivocally it was:

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When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne.

All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.

He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

Then the King will say to those on his right, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’”

Then the righteous will answer him, “Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?”

The King will reply, “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”

Then he will say to those on his left, “Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.”

They also will answer, “Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?”

He will reply, “Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.”

Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.

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One wonders, then, why 80% or so of self-characterized “fundamentalists” and “evangelicals” (hereinafter “fundagelicals” for short) embrace as their political leader a sociopath who not only rejects the corporal acts of mercy for his own behavior and for our nation but is a virtual poster boy for lying, cheating, abusing, sexually assaulting, debt-welching, family-destroying, and generally criminal behavior . . . and has a track record of never, ever, doing anything in his life for anyone but himself and, possibly, his immediate family.

It has been suggested that this is “tribal behavior.”  It has been suggested that his supporters obtain their information about him and public affairs generally in a state of “epistemic closure” in which the only information they receive is tailored to exclude the negative truth and reinforce the positive falsehoods.

I suggest, though, that even if one or both these explanations are true, what has provided the necessary foundation for this situation is that the 80% or so of fundagelicals who support Trump have been schooled in sects which reject science, reject logic, reject the application of reason to any of their foundational propositions . . . accepting at face value the claims of their leaders and denying reality.

Worse, this group appears to hold the balance of electoral power for Republican officeholders at all levels.

Almost a century ago, the ancestors of today’s fundagelicals achieved substantial political power, resulting in Prohibition, the first Red Scare, and other negative developments, but they were shamed back into the shadows and largely withdrew from active involvement in politics after the famous Scopes Monkey Trial and the Depression, the latter of which showed the inadequacy of church-based charity and the efficacy of using government to — as the Preamble to the Constitution suggests — “promote the general welfare”.

What will it take this time to break their grip this time?

Dunno.

A massive Democratic turn-out in November and continued progress in “fair districting” (to combat gerrymandering) would be terrific first steps.

WheelTug just signed another airline, flydubai. That makes 24, I think.  It remains a speculation, for sure; but don’t sell your Borealis.

Our RSPP, suggested in March at $40, got acquired at $45 in the stock of Concho Resources CXO.  My smart friend had hoped for a lot more, but likes the combined company anyway, and is holding on.  Not least because — while he hopes, with the rest of us, that fossil fuels will eventually fade away — he sees oil prices shooting back up first.

I just signed up to grow my own vegetables.

“Hey — I love this pitch,” I wrote my microbiome Ph.D. genius pal Matt Wipperman, “but I’m curious to know what you think.  Could it possibly be true that lettuce loses 90% of its nutritive value within 24 hours of being picked?”

He checked out the pitch and replied:

“Very cool idea — I love it!   The lettuce assertion is incredibly misleading (aka, false). Sure, some nutrients like Vitamin C are lost after picking (see here). But it is highly misleading to say that 90% is ‘lost’ after 24h of picking.  Lettuce that is picked and several days old has TONS of nutrients — fiber! vitamins A, E, and K and minerals like iron and calcium, etc.  So why should people grow their own food? They learn about cooking, it makes them think about how their choices impact the environment, and it’s fun. Also, cooking is a good way to prevent yourself from eating junk food, since you’re more aware of what you eat.”

. . . made you this little video.  Pass it on to everyone you know?

Of less interest — except to me — Farnborough’s official 5-minute video recap of last week’s biennial air show.  There are something like 1,400 exhibitors at the show, but once the camera takes you past the giant Boeing sign outside the hall, the first exhibit you’ll see inside — albeit briefly — is WheelTug.  First of 1,400.  “That and 15 cents will get you a ride on the subway,” as we used to say.  But take it as a good sign.

And back to saving our democracy from Putin for a minute . . . given our stable genius’s affinity for dictators and the book he used to dip into by his bedside . . . here is a piece I missed this past winter that’s cause for hope.  By Theda Skocpol: “Middle America Reboots Democracy.”

Let’s hope.