Author: A.T.

Hey, Jane!

I have always thought the Clintons had it right: abortion should be safe, legal, and rare.  

Now that the Court is poised to strip poor women of their reproductive freedom (anyone else can just travel to a blue state or neighboring country), there is even more reason to make people aware of Hey, Jane.

“Get the care you need from home — safe, fast and effective.”  

And affordable ($250).

I hope no one you know ever finds herself needing their help; but if she does, she should read the reviews and the FAQ.

The problem is that Hey, Jane can help only if you live in five states where it’s legal.  But various smart people are working on that, so help may be on the way even if you live in a Republican state.

Meanwhile, can we all try to see a little bit of merit in the opposing side’s view?  Abortion is a sad and serious thing.  Very few women take it lightly.  But  a majority of the country believes the government should not get between a woman and her doctor — least of all in cases of rape or incest, for crying out loud — in deciding what to do. 

So much of this angst could be avoided altogether with enthusiastic promotion — from both sides — of Plan B.

*Full disclosure: I have a small stake in this one.

 

Beware Inflation Hawks

If Paul London’s analysis resonates with you as it did me, please share it widely.  Inflation is for sure a serious problem.  But we’d be wise to keep it in perspective.

Switching gears: a warning from Reagan/Scalia/Pence world.  (Ted Cruz clerked for him.)

Given Luttig’s prominence as a giant in conservative legal circles, a written piece like this one packs a serious punch.

It won’t persuade cultists like Carl, of whom there are tens of millions . . . just as in Russia millions believe the butcher of Moscow is engaged in a glorious cause.

(Did you know it took 300 years to persuade the Church that the earth revolves around the sun?)

But the Ukrainians have to defeat Russia, even so.

And the Democrats — with the Liz Cheney winglet of the Republican Party — have to defeat Rudy Giuliani, Michael Flynn, Lauren Boebert, Jim Jordan, Paul Manafort, Steve Bannon, Q-Anon, Roger Stone, Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, David Duke, and so many more, all led by the disgraced former president who kept a book of Hitler’s speeches by his bedside.

We just have to.

*Hey, don’t be so quick to judge, muses that disgraced former president: “Hitler did a lot of good things.“

 

The Metaverse Explained

But first:

Take two minutes to watch Nancy Pelosi.  Where does she find the strength?  And I’m not talking about her quick to Ukraine.  She is my hero.

And now:

Take a ridiculously long time to watch Whitney Tilson explain the metaverse.  I know him.  He is a good guy.  So don’t be put off by the “but wait, there’s more!” infomercial style of the video, off-putting though to some it surely will be.  It costs nothing to watch.

Whether you buy shares in Facebook, as he eventually gets around to recommending, is up to you.  Likewise, shares in the four other stocks you’d have to pay $49 for him to reveal.  But wait!  You can save so much more with a $398 lifetime subscription!  But wait . . . !

My point is that, free for nothing, you’ll get a pretty good sense of the metaverse — the Internet in 3D — and how it might change your life as dramatically as the Internet has.

Have a great week.  Much of it, perhaps, spent reading This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden, and the Battle for America’s Future, the book whence all those audio tapes of Kevin McCarthy lying, etc., are emerging.

 

Have A Brain!

A friend made this 90-second argument for rejoining the Iran nuclear deal.

What do you think?

(Here was the argument President Obama made for it at the time.)

Take 15 minutes a week to keep sharp and prevent dementia — or your parents’ or grandparents’ dementia.

(Mothers Day is May 8.  Father’s Day is June 19.)

The 700 patients who did just 10 hours of exercises and then nothing for ten years experienced a 33% lower rate of dementia at the end of those ten years than the 700 who did 10 hours of crossword puzzles.  The 700 who did 10 hours and then a “booster” of 4 more hours the fourth year experienced a 48% lower rate of dementia at the end of ten years.

Fifteen minutes a week = 13 hours a year.  Wayt more than 10 hours once and a 4 hour booster.

I’m guessing that people who get into this habit will be at little risk of dementia.

The latest study (they just keep coming): Positive Results for People with Pre-dementia Conditions.

Start exercising.

Have a great weekend.

 

Have A Heart!

My Head Butler, Jesse Kornbluth, writes:

“MUST READ.” I don’t think I’ve ever said that here. And how unlikely it is that I’d say it about an article in…the Harvard Gazette. I get the Gazette early each morning and usually just scan the headlines— subjects of no great interest to me. A few days ago, one of the articles was titled “How consequential life came from a dying heart.” I read it. I watched the video: 23 years after a mother donated her dying son’s heart, she’s visited by the Harvard med student who received it. The mother holds a stethoscope to his chest and listens to his heart. If my reaction is typical, you will find yourself re-reading this piece and watching the video again, and sharing it with friends and family, and thinking about the deepest meaning of “the gift of life.” 

Grapefruit is not lame (though I can see why this young doctor wants to believe that) — I love grapefruit — but otherwise this is indeed a wonderful story.

Jesse advises: “Don’t miss the video!”

Watching it, I found myself wondering what Putin would think if he watched it?

Would he tear up?

Would he order the bombing of a few more children’s hospitals?

Maybe we could get Putin a new heart, as he clearly lacks one.

My friend Martine Rothblatt could get him one.

(Note to Sirius Satellite Radio subscribers: Martine invented that.  Note to electric helicopter enthusiasts: Martine pilots them and founded a company to make them.  Note to capitalists: Martine was the highest paid female CEO in 2013 and the top paid biopharmaceutical CEO in 2018.  Note to fans of traditional marriage: Martine and Bina remain happily married after 40 years and have four kids.  It is an interracial marriage.  Martine transitioned from male to female 28 years ago . . . living proof that love is love, and that transgender Americans have enormous contributions to make to our great country.)

Putin admires Stalin.  Trump admires Putin and kept a book of Hitler’s speeches by his bedside.  (Hey, don’t be so quick to judge: “Hitler did a lot of good things.”)

 

A Few Words About Slime

“In an escalation of partisan warfare, a little-known dark-money group is trying to thwart the President’s entire slate,” writes Jane Meyer in the New Yorker.

The Slime Machine Targeting Dozens Of Biden Nominees

. . . An explicit purpose of the American Accountability Foundation—a politically active, tax-exempt nonprofit charity that doesn’t disclose its backers—is to prevent the approval of all Biden Administration nominees.

While the [Katanji Brown Jackson] hearings were taking place, the A.A.F. publicly took credit for uncovering a note in the Harvard Law Review in which, they claimed, Jackson had “argued that America’s judicial system is too hard on sexual offenders.” The group also tweeted that she had a “soft-on-sex-offender” record. As the Washington Post and other outlets stated, Jackson’s sentencing history on such cases was well within the judicial mainstream, and in line with a half-dozen judges appointed by the Trump Administration. When Jackson defended herself on this point during the hearings, the A.A.F. said, on Twitter, that she was “lying.” The group’s allegation—reminiscent of the QAnon conspiracy, which claims that liberal élites are abusing and trafficking children—rippled through conservative circles. Tucker Carlson repeated the accusation on his Fox News program while a chyron declared “jackson lenient in child sex cases.” Marjorie Taylor Greene, the extremist representative from Georgia, called Jackson “pro-pedophile.”

. . . {T]he A.A.F.’s approach underscores the growing role that secret spending has played in deepening the polarization in Washington. Rather than attack a single candidate or nominee, the A.A.F. aims to thwart the entire Biden slate. The obstructionism, like the Republican blockade of Biden’s legislative agenda in Congress, is the end in itself. . . .

Worth reading in full.

What the Republicans have done to Saule Omarova, for example, is similar to what Putin has done to Zelensky, telling the Russian people that Zelensky is a Nazi without mentioning that he is Jewish whose ancestors were killed in the Holocaust.

Up is down, black is white.

(Saule Omarova is not a communist — she worked for a Wall Street law firm and served in the Geroge W. Bush Treasury Department.  As she notes, it was not her choice to be born in the Soviet Union.)

It’s one thing for Putin or Stalin or Goebbels to do this kind of stuff.  But in falling into line behind Trump’s Big Lie — even after 61 judges found zero evidence of foul play in the election — have the Republicans gone a step too far as they purport to  fight for morality?

BONUS

Dead oligarchs.  Just Putin’s way of saying, “You’re fired”?  (Thanks, Nick.)

 

Walking Fast: Key To A Long Life?

Pick up the pace, kids.

Also:

The Jonathan Haidt piece you’ve probably already read:

It’s been clear for quite a while now that red America and blue America are becoming like two different countries claiming the same territory, with two different versions of the Constitution, economics, and American history. But Babel is not a story about tribalism; it’s a story about the fragmentation of everything. It’s about the shattering of all that had seemed solid, the scattering of people who had been a community. It’s a metaphor for what is happening not only between red and blue, but within the left and within the right, as well as within universities, companies, professional associations, museums, and even families.

. . .

The story I have told is bleak, and there is little evidence to suggest that America will return to some semblance of normalcy and stability in the next five or 10 years. Which side is going to become conciliatory? What is the likelihood that Congress will enact major reforms that strengthen democratic institutions or detoxify social media?

Yet when we look away from our dysfunctional federal government, disconnect from social media, and talk with our neighbors directly, things seem more hopeful. Most Americans in the More in Common report are members of the “exhausted majority,” which is tired of the fighting and is willing to listen to the other side and compromise. Most Americans now see that social media is having a negative impact on the country, and are becoming more aware of its damaging effects on children.

Will we do anything about it?

When Tocqueville toured the United States in the 1830s, he was impressed by the American habit of forming voluntary associations to fix local problems, rather than waiting for kings or nobles to act, as Europeans would do. That habit is still with us today. In recent years, Americans have started hundreds of groups and organizations dedicated to building trust and friendship across the political divide, including BridgeUSA, Braver Angels (on whose board I serve), and many others listed at BridgeAlliance.us. We cannot expect Congress and the tech companies to save us. We must change ourselves and our communities.

Pray that Macron beats Le Pen/Putin by a wide margin Sunday!  And pray for the Ukrainians fighting Putin.

Les Rosenbaum:  “Will your new book be published as a Kindle or Audible like the previous edition? I am visually impaired and am unable to read the print edition.”

→ Yes.  Thanks for your interest — and patience.

Have a great weekend.

 

If I Had $100 Million . . .

But first, treat yourself to this wonderful speech.  We will not let hate win.  Critical race theory?  Groomers?  Wow.  Four minutes.

We are at such a crossroads.

Will the forces of autocracy win here in America?

Will Putin — who believes he has the right to subjugate and/or murder 40 million Ukrainians and who has already made so much progress dividing us against ourselves– win abroad?

There are some even in America who hope he does.

Video of the conference on Saturday showed Fuentes and attendees cheering for Russian President Vladimir Putin, as well as approving of comparisons between Putin and Adolf Hitler. Fuentes also called the attack on the U.S.  Capitol  on January 6 “awesome.”

Putin openly admires Stalin, who among other atrocities starved millions of Ukrainians to death.

He does not admire Hitler (at least not openly), and presumably never kept a book of Hitler’s speeches by his bedside.  Yet he follows much the same script.

And you have to admit (the nation’s leading Republican once told his chief of staff) “Hitler did some good things.”

So will Putin prevail?

Will Trump succeed Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House?

A friend worth $100 million didn’t know that was a thing — that you don’t have to be a member of Congress to be elected Speaker.

I tossed it into our conversation, suggesting that if I had $100 million, I might deploy $5 or $10 million of it to Democratic registration and organizing to try to save democracy because, by my math, that would still leave more than half for my golden years; and because, as sacrifices go, it would beat having to fight and die in Mariupol.

My centi-millionaire friend is a wonderful person (truly); but lots of wonderful people — indeed, I would guess, most wonderful people — can’t quite believe this is real.  That everything is on the line.

I’ll let you know what he decides to do.

But it’s true:  If Democrats lose control of Congress seven months from now, do you think Kevin McCarthy could keep Trump from taking Nancy’s gavel if he wanted it?

Ah, you say — but why would he want it?

Why would he want to be the center of attention, with everyone begging him for favors, hanging on his every word?

The question, my long-suffering reader, answers itself.

So two last things.

First: we can pick up seats in the Senate and hold the House. 

The odds are against us, but so were they against our picking up two Senate seats in the Georgia run offs.

We just all have to lean in and get out there care do it.  Join your local chapter of the League of Women Voters!  Join Field Team 6!  Join Vote Forward!  Fund the Party!

Second, try to find time for this: 

Mar-a-Lago Machine: Trump as a Modern-Day Party Boss. Hoarding cash*, doling out favors and seeking to crush rivals, the former president is dominating the G.O.P., preparing for another race and helping loyalists oust officials who thwarted his attempted subversion of the 2020 election.

*a war chest more than double that of the Republican National Committee itself

I think you’ll find yourself forwarding it widely.