Elizabeth Warren For President? Not this time around.

Before Bernie Sanders stepped forward to run for president in 2015, I was one of those who signed petitions for Elizabeth Warren to run for president. I adored her from her first studies as a law professor about the correlation between personal bankruptcy and medical expenses. I was very disappointed when she refused to run for president against Clinton, which would have avoided the whole "Bernie Bro" sexism divisiveness. Then, Warren's silence after Bernie stepped forward became deeply disappointing to me as the primaries wore on, and Bernie showed his viability. I thought at the time Warren's refusal to endorse Bernie was because Warren had her eye on challenging Chuck "Wall Street" Schumer for leader of the Democrats in the Senate. Then, she just fell in and let Schumer continue to be the Senate Dem leader without any challenge at all, which then made me angry with her for not stepping forward to support Bernie the way Tulsi Gabbard and Nina Turner, both initial supporters of HRC, did with Bernie.

I have heard people say they hate Warren's schoolmarm/shushing librarian's voice, and how they find her voice grating. Admittedly, I hear this about Joe Kennedy III, too. With Warren, it still pains me deeply as I find it largely offensive and sexist, especially if the person doesn't say the same about Kennedy III. It is also trivial and diverting us from a discussion of policy. And frankly, I have heard this sexist and offensive criticism enough to make me wonder about my initial choice for Warren to be a presidential candidate as I wonder, is this how it will go if Senator Warren wins the nomination? I also thought Warren taking the DNA test was a great idea to put the whole "Pocahantas" issue to rest. However, so many, many people, and the Kewl Kidz in corporate media, just attacked her more. To me, the test proved her family's stories were essentially correct all along, that is she is part Native American--yet, I watched with incredulity the way in which she was attacked from nearly all sides, including Native Americans who were angry for the worst "identity politics" reasons that were primarily cynical reasons.

Still, I am glad Warren is forming an exploratory committee. She is properly testing waters. She will see if progressives like me return to our original presidential candidate superstar. I for one am not returning. I find Sanders to be more impressive than when Sanders first announced in 2015, though I followed Sanders' career from way back to his days as mayor of Burlington, VT. On Sanders' announcement, I was concerned the primary season would be too grueling for him at his age. Instead, Bernie proved to be Baron Von Munchausen (who gets younger when the fight is on, and gets older when the fight is over or he is not in the fight at all). Bernie, to use a different analogy, is like an Energizer Bunny, he just kept going and going...and going. I took to calling Bernie an Energizer Bernie, as he energizes not only himself, but also so many of us, to think about public policy ideas and positions so many other politicians have been afraid to utter. And what has most impressed me about Bernie is his continuing and amazing energy and enthusiasm in bringing out important issues to the people of our nation with his finally and long overdue notice in the national media, owing to his impressive run for president in 2016. I continue to believe, however, to silence the age issue, he should pick a younger person as a VP candidate to run through the primaries with.  Oh, and next time someone says, Bernie ran, and lost, remind them Ronald Reagan ran hard against Gerry Ford in the 1976 Republican presidential primaries, lost (many noted bitterly at the time), and came back, in 1980, as the then oldest person running for president in a major party--and won.

For me, Elizabeth Warren is a great senator. I would also love to see her on the US Supreme Court if she did not remain in the senate to finally take away the gavel from Schumer. As for president, I no longer see Warren as a top choice. What I hope is that the same people who obviously pressured Warren (1) not to run against Hillary Clinton in 2016, (2) not to support Bernie after Bernie announced, and (3) not to take on Schumer for senate leadership, are not pressuring her to run for president in order to split the progressive base of the Democratic Party. If her decision to consider the presidency this time around stems from that same pressure, my sadness will turn into the deepest anger.

"The 28th Amendment" and why it seems Baby Boomers and Oldsters are fooled...again

In the nearly past ten years, some Baby Boomer or Oldster sends me a private message telling me to pass on what is called the 28th Amendment. Snopes has the breakdown of what is correct, not much, and what is more incorrect about it, which turns out to be a lot incorrect. The reason I would be cautious about even the idea around the proposed amendment is some judge will eventually find this amendment applies to employees of the federal government, and then it would destroy the lives of many people who work as civil servants in the US government, something that Hamilton and Adams, among others, would have found appalling. Note, too, that the two people who finally introduced what was initially some stupid meme includes Ron DeSantis, the newly elected racist right-wing governor of Florida. 

Anyone who believes in the ideas behind this amendment, but believes Americans should have the same privileges as Congressman have gotten for themselves (not immunity of lawsuits, of course, which Congress does not in many instances, either), should instead be focused on the abject hypocrisy of voting for any Republican or even corporate Democrat who wants to deny you and me the same perks of health insurance and pensions they get. How does anyone not go up to Paul Ryan and Ron DeSantis and slap them hard in the face, and say, "You goddamn evil hypocrite?!" 

I am normally not one to focus on hypocrisy, as I find it often distracts us from the substance of a situation or issue. For example, I have not joined in the criticism of Ayn Rand for her having taken Social Security and Medicare in her later and last years. She paid into it as anyone else, and so what that she was philosophically opposed to it? If it helped her, I am glad for her. That is the point of a universal program--even for those with whom we disagree or despise receiving the benefit, and even those who may not need it receiving the benefit. And yes, even those for whom it would be hypocritical to receive the benefit.  It is not "means-tested" because it is not mean and you don't have to pass a test to get it. It's for everyone.  Rather than pushing these silly memes, let's try to remember these congresspeople like Ryan and DeSantis are the ones who pass oppressive laws, or in the case of Medicare for All or shoring up public pensions, stop nice laws from being passed. And that is why I admit to finding it so disgusting Paul Ryan and even DeSantis are getting a federal pension for the destruction each has left in the wake of their selfish tenures as public servants.

Bottom line: The answer is not the 28th Amendment. This proposed amendment is merely a long bumper sticker. The answer remains something that eluded Baby Boomers for most of our adult lives: Stop electing people who claim to hate government, claim to hate your getting medical care and pensions through the government, yet get it for themselves. How many of these people do we have to keep electing? If you want a pension and you want Medicare for All, then vote for people who will support and pass it. 

In closing, I must note I never once have received this long meme from a Millennial or younger person. Only us Baby Boomers and my folks' generations, and maybe a few GenExers, send this crap. Some education we got that we are such suckers. Think of how simple it would have been, before sending this around, to check with Snopes--and reading the links at Snopes if you're one of those who does not like Slopes. 

Kids, you know what to do. Vote even more in 2020. Save us. Save yourselves. Save the planet. We suck.

First Amendment right to overturn a collective bargaining agreement, but not get contraception. Part II.

Why am I not surprised a presumably white male, who works in information technology for the New Mexico State government, has filed a lawsuit in the Federal District Court in New Mexico saying he doesn't want to pay union dues?  Libertarians looking at sociological demographics care to guess, though see here? "I am an individual!  I will always be who I am no matter what my race, creed, or location where I was born--and no matter if I am poor, working class, middle class, or rich!  I will always do better on my own, negotiating for my wages!"  The guy is probably like "Tom" in "It's a Wonderful Life."

Anyway, the reporter at the ABQ Journal has written an excellent article about the lawsuit, has done a great job tracking down people to speak with, and does a good job explaining the basic legal issues.  Great reporting.  

For me, I am not happy about the 2018 US Supreme Court decision in the Janus case, which gave an individual government (not private) employee a "First Amendment" right to individually reject a collective bargaining agreement which the workers and management had voted on and agreed to enact.  What makes me angry with the US Supreme Court is that, just a few years before, the US Supreme Court told individual female workers at Hobby Lobby that the for-profit company they work for had a "religion," and the corporation's "religious views" prevailed so as to deprive the female employees from receiving free contraception through the group insurance plan, as insurance companies had agreed to provide free contraception to all insureds under the ACA/Obamacare. As for those women employees, the Supreme Court's response was, "Hey, individual employees!  If you don't like it, go work for someone else!" Yet, somehow in 2018, the majority of Supreme Court justices waxed philosophical about the government employee's individual right to overturn what workers and management decided in enacting a collective bargaining agreement.  No "Go work for a non-union shop if you wish!" to Mr. Janus.  I know, I know. If one looks at the history of the the judiciary and labor unions, one finds a fairly consistent bias against labor unions. And the US Supreme Court is largely not too happy about helping women as women, but they like their wives, sisters, daughters more than labor unions. 

Anyway, the reason this class action lawsuit may succeed is perhaps two weeks to decide to join or reject a labor union's collective bargaining agreement will be deemed not long enough for a waiver of the right to reject the collective bargaining agreement, and maybe there can be no waiver at all with respect to the First Amendment. A reasonable argument for the unions and the state is that two weeks, meaning fourteen days, is more than sufficient time to decide whether to reject paying union dues, and frankly, the fellow can always wait till the collective bargaining agreement renegotiation rolls around.  In other words, the argument for the unions and the state will be the burden on the First Amendment right is not unreasonable--you know, kind of like how the US Supreme Court thinks women should watch movies about heart-beating fetuses before they can go get an abortion, have to go through a waiting period, and then, can be told, "Sorry, too late, you should have acted earlier" if they wait "too long." However, since the Courts are as politicized as they ever have been, and with right wing bomb throwers in various judicial positions, including in the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, and the US Supreme Court, we will see how this goes. 

Serious Commentators on Television. "We know better than you."

Elizabeth Drew, one of the senior "serious" commentators in corporate media, who began her career as a talking head in the early 1970s, has written an op-ed published in this morning's New York Times.  It is called "The Inevitability of Impeachment."  I then imagined the following group conversation:

"Serious" Commentators for the Past Nearly Two Years:  Impeachment will never happen.  It is naive to think so.  Don't even think about it, let alone talk about it.

Cut to Summer 2019.  Mueller report has been released.  Impeachment articles are drawn up in the House.  A vote is taken.  A majority agree to begin impeachment hearings. 

"Serious" Commentators on Cable Television:  Nobody could have predicted this.  Nobody saw this coming. But when we think about it, it was always inevitable.  Let's have Elizabeth Drew on now, to explain how she saw it just before the year began.  She was the oracle, the sage on this.  Nobody before her saw this as a possibility.  This is all just like nobody knew Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction.  This is just like nobody saw Hillary Clinton was not popular in the Mid-West and could lose the election to Trump.  Just one shock after another.

Me: But, but, but, I said all of that before those things happened.  I said Saddam did not have the weapons of mass destruction.  I was worried Hillary Clinton would lose to Trump.  I said we should talk impeachment and we should see how this drip, drip, drip of information would go, considering how Trump had been tied up with Russian oligarchs since the 1990s.

"Serious" Commentators on Cable Television:  Who are you?  You are nobody.  You didn't go to an Ivy League college.  You are not famous like we are.   We know better.  We are on the inside.  We see these political leaders every day.  We are the realists--

Me: C. Wright Mills called people like you "crackpot realists."

"Serious" Commentators on Cable Television:  See?  You are not serious.  And you're a radical, too.  Nobody listens to radicals.  You hardly watch us, so what do you know? Did you even hear what Trump tweeted today?  Did you hear what some celebrity said about Trump's tweet?  And anyway, Bernie's too old.  Nancy Pelosi, who is more than a year older than Bernie, is not too old.  And that Joe Biden, oh, we like him, though he is only a year younger than Bernie.  And that Beto, too.  Maybe Biden and Beto will run together.  

Me:  I like Beto a lot, but I am concerned he may be less than meets the eye.  Beto lost to a guy nobody likes, albeit this was Texas politics.  Beto's wife is a real estate heiress, whose family has engaged in the type of business activity which early on defined Trump, which you guys barely discuss in your latest discussions about Beto.  Just what is up with that?  And his record in Congress was somewhat sketchy for a guy who won't call himself "progressive" when people who watch you "serious" folks think he is a progressive.  I worry because I wonder why you "serious" people on television are hyping him?  It reminds me of the hype surrounding Obama in 2005 and 2006, when Ken Silverstein warned us about Obama in 2006 in his article, "Barack Obama, Inc." in Harpers' Magazine.  During the 2008 primaries, I used to call Hillary and Obama "HillObama," as I never understood why those who were partisans of Obama and Hillary hated each other so much...Remember the PUMAs? 

"Serious" Commentators on Cable News:  What the heck are you talking about?  See?  You are not only not serious, you are just so negative. You never see us saying anything negative.  Bernie's too old, don't you get that?  And he's a radical!   You are just a naive purist who will cause Trump to win again!

Otherwise Non-Racist, Sane People Who Watch Cable News:  See, Mitchell?  They are serious.  You are not.  You are naive.  And yes, you are most certainly a radical!  We only believe people who are serious...and who the people on television tell us are "moderate."  Yes, we agree with a lot of what Bernie says, and we know the majority of Americans agree with Sanders' positions, but you heard them say it on television:  Bernie's a radical!  A far leftist!  Nobody who is serious likes him!

Me:  Kids?  Save us.  Save yourselves.  Save the planet.  Please vote in 2020 even more than you did this time.  We have reached a Pogo moment.

Kids: Who or what is a "Pogo?"  Oh.  Just looked it up on Wiki.  Yeah, wow.  That's cool. Looks like when the guy who wrote Pogo did that comic strip about "We have met the enemy and he is us," he was talking about the environment, too.  Wow.  But hey, don't worry, old man.  There are more of us going to vote in 2020.  And with any luck, more of your generation and your parents' generation will be dead or too enfeebled to vote in 2020.  And hey, cheer up, maybe there will be a Season 4 for "Rick and Morty!"

People Who Watch Cable News (Racist, Non-Racist, Insane, Sane):  Who or what is a "Rick and Morty?"

Kids and Me:  Don't worry. It's a show.  But you wouldn't understand it even if you watched it.  This single episode tells us about the way racism works in a society, how racism is internalized where minority cops may sometimes be as bad as white racist cops, our society's anomie, our society's corruption--

Me: --and it takes The Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again" into realms of sublime irony.  And multi-verses.

Kids: And the end of the episode has Blonde Redhead's "For the Damaged Coda."  Awesome.

Me: Wow.  I had no idea.  Cool.  I loved that!

Otherwise Non-Racist, Sane People Who Watch Cable News:  These kids.  And you, too, Mitchell.  You are not serious!  You watch stupid cartoons on television, but you don't watch cable news like we do.  You don't keep up with what's going on.  Wait.  Another Trump Tweet!  Oh my God---

Kids and Me: (Face palm)

Dissolve as the Cable News Watchers go back to watching cable news--again.

Corbyn, Brexit, the British media, and the EU

It is too bad how The Guardian has so many reporters who do not like British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, and so have lost their ability to comprehend what should have been understood by most reporters and editors at The Guardian. Please read this article which followed this other article, which was an interview with Corbyn.

The headlines in The Guardian articles are misleading.  Corbyn does not want to say he is definitively for or against Brexit. Instead, Corbyn wants negotiation leverage if he assumes the prime minister position.  For years, Corbyn railed against the EU, not for the reason right wingers in Great Britain do, which is a xenophobic sort of nationalist reason. Corbyn's critique of the EU remains largely the same as Yanis Varoufakis' critique of the EU, which is the EU is worth supporting and developing, but too often has been led by those who are pro-austerity and who have pro-bankers' interests. See this interview (starting at the 20 minute mark) between the two men, where one sees how wise Corbyn is on the subject of the EU and Brexit, and how he speaks to the conflicting views of the majority of British citizens--if only the British media would allow people to listen.

Corbyn wants to leverage Brexit negotiations to secure reforms within the EU, which is admittedly a daunting task. If, however, the Brits crawl back to the EU, existing EU policies, and what the bankers who control the EU will demand during the next, inevitable recession, will likely push Great Britain further toward a status of a PIIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain) nation. Corbyn, like Bernie Sanders here in the US, often bristles at corporate media triviality which has the effect of obscuring pressing policy issues affecting millions of people.  The interview is well worth reading as one sees, in the interview, his bristling at the latest trivial things the British media is covering.

Knowing how much the British media owners (and, in the case of the BBC, executive officers) which media ownership unfortunately includes The Guardian, do not like Corbyn, and never have (Chapter 10 of the Nunns book linked to here), the British media is now expected to promote the nation's "third" party, The Liberal Democratic Party, whose leaders will promise to be good little boys and girls to the European bankers-parents. We can expect to see British media propaganda over the next months calling The Liberal Democratic Party leaders "responsible and serious" through their wanting to "steadfastly remain" with the EU, though their idea of "remain" is to allow the EU's banker interests to continue to predominate. This is a dangerous time for the British electorate, as the Liberal Democrats will end up pursuing much of the same austerity policies as the Tories, and, as the nation continues to suffer, the Liberal Democrats will be more willing to privatize important public institutions. 

Again, the British media has always hated Corbyn. They perceive, correctly, Corbyn is not "one of us," meaning them. This is partly why the British media never misses a trick to trivialize and criticize Corbyn. This also explains the breathless headline in The Guardian, when, in other circumstances, The Guardian's editors would know better. For those Labour MPs who are wavering about Corbyn's position on the EU, they better get their acts together, watch the interview Varoufakis does with Corbyn from a few months ago, greet and remind their constituents as to how the EU treated nations such as Greece, and make sure they stand with Corbyn, whose election to prime minister will present an historic opportunity for cross-border agitation against the EU banker interests. The EU can be a wonderful institution which can truly lead to a peaceful unification of Europe, and, in the process, help people across the continent--and our planet. However, right now, too many in the "Remain" position are forgetting how the EU's current bankers' perspective has helped fuel a rise in fascism, and xenophobic, nationalist parties, throughout much of the continent--something even someone at The Guardian has noticed. 

Oh well. I am not currently optimistic a sufficient number of Brits will listen to the above perspective, just as I found many Greeks did not have the stomach for a "general strike" approach to the EU when Varoufakis was trying to rally Greek citizens.

UPDATE January 4, 2019:  Bernard Porter, who has written books on the British empire (see here and here), has written a post dated December 28, 2018 at the London Review of Books website, showing he essentially agrees with me.  At least someone who understands British society and politics still has some comprehension and politically strategic abilities. :)

The Washington Consensus is what led us to Trump

It is too bad this post-2018 elections analysis from Michael Tomasky is behind the subscription wall at the New York Review of Books. Tomasky is a liberal-left leaning corporate media pundit (he originally wrote for The Village Voice), which means he has read some Noam Chomsky, but is unable to apply Chomsky's insights. Tomasky was one of those who thought Hillary Clinton would defeat Trump, and, during the 2015-2016 Democratic Party primary, had a hard time dealing with the  implications of the Bernie Sanders candidacy. No matter, as Tomasky has written the best analysis from a corporate media pundit, largely because he recognized the blue wave moment, the way in which Republicans suppressed votes in various States, and, conversely, the rural-urban divide in voting patterns across the nation. Tomasky restates, in a compelling manner, the "city mouse/country mouse" dichotomy. And here is another analysis of this rural/suburban-urban divide, which the online magazine, Axios, has highlighted.  My critique of the city/country mouse divide is embedded in this post, where I show how people are more united than we think on issue after issue which Bernie Sanders has done so much to raise, and how we push the dichotomy of rural v. urban/suburban to our electoral peril in various States in our nation.

But let's explore this analysis in the context of former President Barack Obama recent admissions to a fawning elite group in Texas. Specifically, here is Obama admitting what he never wanted to admit when he ran for office in 2008 and again in 2012, or while in office: That the Washington Consensus was one which promoted globalization, and how that consensus leadership watched with indifference the decline in many former industrial areas of the nation and rural areas of our nation.  This is extraordinary because it shows Obama knew what Noam Chomsky, and also Ralph Nader, the Institute for Policy Studies' John Cavanaugh, Public Citizen's Lori Wallach, and labor oriented economists like Robert Kuttner and Thea Lea, and others, understood, and yet...Obama refused to admit any of this while he held and exercised power, and refused to do anything about it, which is most damning.*  

In 2016, I took the time to re-read the works of the great 20th Century American historian, Richard Hofstadter.  He was born in 1916 (the same year as my mother's parents, trivially enough) and his centennial was 2016 (Hofstadter died of a heart attack in the fall of 1970).  One of the books I re-read was The Age of Reform, which is about the period in American history of 1870-1935. The book reveals how the growing industrialism in the United States displaced and left behind rural areas and farmers across the land, and how this resulted in a political backlash historians have referred to as a populist "revolt."  Hofstadter also inter-splices the labor-management wars of that era, and how the rising proletariat/industrial workers were also in revolt.  But all the while, because Hofstadter was writing in the shadow of the New Deal, he had less than what I think is required sympathy for the populists, highlighting their ignorance and willingness to embrace racism and anti-Semitism, and assuming our leaders had learned the lessons he was imparting. To read him now, and with a Chomskyian interpretation, is to recognize Hoftstadter's overall brilliance, but also Hofstadter's limitations in terms of how one should see the populist rural and urban unrest of that period--and to see how important a guide Hofstadter's book remains for our current era.**

It is telling to me how Obama's statements have not been well-publicized in our corporate media.  I doubt there was any significant discussion of Obama's statements on MSNBC, for example, and certainly not, CNN--and if there was, it was only to highlight how smart Obama is compared to the ignoramus currently occupying the White House.  I can bet there has been no critique of the remarks in any way that would resemble the type of critique one only gets reading intellectually left political journals--and people wonder why I so support social media while recognizing its dangers.  What is also revealing is how Obama describes the immediate post-WWII consensus among the elites in our nation.  Obama only sees the bright side, and not the dark side, of that consensus.  We like to focus on the Marshall Plan, which admittedly helped millions in Western Europe.  Yet, we refuse to realize the flip side of that consensus was one which was terribly racist and imperialistic against the rest of the people around the globe.  The U.S. literally recruited Nazis to help us formulate our foreign policy (it is not only the scientists we recruited) and formulated a doctrine designed to arm right wing dictators in what we called "Third World" nations.  We spoke of spreading democracy against Communism, but what we ended up promoting most of the time was fascism and religious fundamentalism.  We should be even more precise: The U.S. fanned Christian religious fundamentalism at home, fostered Jewish religious fundamentalism in Israel, and Islamic religious fundamentalism against pan-Arabists, who had as much Alexander Hamilton nation-building within their worldview as anything else we may have otherwise found unpalatable.  As I am fond of citing, here is Egyptian President Gamel Abdul Nasser in the mid 1960s making light of the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, and how silly it would have been to force Muslim women in Egypt to wear a hijab.  During that time in which Nasser was speaking, U.S. media, and the Washington Consensus the U.S. media dutifully followed, portrayed Nasser as the Devil Incarnate.  However, was Nasser really worse than the dictators we armed in Central and South America, or even the dictators we were forcibly holding up in Vietnam and Laos?  We never ask the question this way on corporate media television and radio, as asking the question would expose the propaganda behind "we're fighting for democracy against godless Communism," something my generation and my parents' generation bought into in large numbers, and still can't get their heads around. As for Nasser's hatred of Israel, Michael Oren, in the paperback version of his masterful book on the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, wistfully sees far more nuance regarding Nasser (see pages 334-335 of the book, which is part of an interview with Oren in the paperback edition).  The point here is that the War Against Vietnam, the systemic murder of priests and nuns, and civil society people, in Central and South America in the 1970s and 1980s, and that embrace of Wahhabist Islamic fundamentalism were features, not bugs, of American foreign policy.

The saddest, though most hopeful, part is our children and grandchildren have learned more about the malevolence of American foreign policy from Iron Man films and Captain America: Winter Soldier than they would in a lifetime of watching cable news, listening to talk radio, or the consensus news of Cronkite/Huntley-Brinkley, which has remained the propaganda of choice for Baby Boomers and oldsters for over 60 years.  See my blog post essay on superhero films and this snippet from the Captain America: Winter Soldier film.  Yes, if we read Christopher Simpson's Blowback, one learns all about "Operation: Paperclip" and the extensive recruitment of Nazis after World War II.  While the film snippet says it was scientists, it was far more than scientists, as Simpson's book details.

People wonder why I keep harping on supporting Bernie Sanders in 2020, and strongly supported Sanders as the best candidate for president in 2015-2016.  The reason is Bernie Sanders knows how to speak to rural white America in a manner where many of them properly find him credible and genuinely interested in helping them.***  He speaks to their best values, while Republicans and Trump speak to their worst values.  Some have cynically criticized Sanders for this very reason, as if Sanders is not a pro-Black Lives Matter person, when the fact is he stood more with those seeking to change the systemic racism in the criminal justice system than nearly any other politician in the past forty years. Sanders' worldview speaks to the best among the supposedly divided city and country folks.  And this time around, Sanders has something he lacked the first time he ran for president, which is name recognition and national popularity unique among current American politicians.  

* The majority of Americans have largely and consistently been wary and not supportive of the globalist trade deals the American elite, with the important assistance from American corporate media, foisted on the nation.  See, for starters, Harper's writer, John MacArthur's, outstanding journalistic history of the "selling" of the NAFTA and WTO.

**Those who know Hofstadter's work may be surprised I am not citing his work on what he called paranoid worldviews in American history and politics. However, I find that long essay fairly overwrought for its trying to tie in the Populist movement, which, while it had certain elements of right wing paranoid groups that formed in the 20th Century, were still far more economically radical and had an economic basis.  Hoftstadter is correct to connect loss of white status to the rise of paranoid right, and Hofstadter's paranoid style essays bear more re-reading in the age of Trump.  He was still a product of his time, and in parts reads far too complacent in his assumption the Washington Consensus would continue to save our republic. That of course is not his fault, as he cannot be expected to be fully clairvoyant.  I adore Hofstadter and should not have been as dismissive of the paranoid style essays he wrote in the 1950s and 1960s.  Right now, they look like prophecy in lots of ways.  (UPDATED: July 17, 2019).

*** I got a kick out of how this former mine worker, in the West Virginia town hall discussion Chris Hayes of MSNBC had Bernie appear at, talked about Bernie being a senator from the "northeast" who cared more about him and others in West Virginia than Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell.  It reminded me of the first episode of Trial and Error where the wealthy brother-in-law wants to hire a "northeastern" lawyer, a euphemism for "Jew."  Back in the 1960s, in places such as the American South and in West Virginia, one heard New York described as "Jew York."  Again, I get there is sometimes racism and anti-Semitism among some white folks in rural areas especially.  However, we should speak to their positive values and re-affirm our best values for inclusiveness and pluralism in a manner which shows them they will no longer be left behind.  People are complicated and have multiple motivations and viewpoints.  

Republican officeholders love a federal government shutdown

What we should always keep in mind is these current Republican officeholders love shutting down the federal government. This is Confederacy 101 and is not a bug, but a feature of their view toward governmental institutions. Also, where there are cruel outcomes from this latest government shutdown, such as governmental employees not getting paid during the holidays, these Republican officeholders revel in that cruel outcome. It is pre-Ghost Visit Scrooge meets Jefferson Davis.

This is why I have said, as a whole, modern Republican officeholders are no longer interested in governance. There is now a difference between Republicans and Democrats that would have been unheard of two or three generations ago. My Father used to say, when he was in municipal government during the 1960s: "There is no Republican or Democratic way to pick up the garbage or clean the streets." Now, there is a difference.

This is about more than the delusion of our government building a wall along the Mexican-US border that somehow significantly lowers the number of incoming undocumented immigrants from Mexico and locations south of Mexico.* This is also about how, once again, Republican officeholders have revealed themselves as reckless and petulant, and have no real interest in effective governance.

*It is delusional on multiple levels: First, a high plurality of undocumented workers come by plane or boats now, and a majority of "illegals" are those who overstay their visas, meaning they had legally entered our country.  Second, with Obando elected president in Mexico, it is more likely there will be a major infrastructure redevelopment program in Mexico, which will keep people in Mexico, and maybe start a movement of Mexicans living here returning to Mexico. Third, many Americans who own property along the border are wary or opposed to building a wall, as they see a government built wall on their property as an interference with their private property rights. This is in addition to the delusions which motivate the desire to build a wall, where those so deluded ignore how undocumented workers pay more taxes to the government than the benefits such immigrants receive from our government, and how employer exploitation of undocumented workers contributes to lower consumer prices as greedy employers give consumers a sliver of the profits employers reap from that exploitation. As with those who are members of the Fetus Cult, my question for those obsessed with "illegal immigration" is, Why is "illegal" immigration your priority, especially when we realize we do not have enough workers here if we were to embark on a much needed infrastructure re-development program?

The dirty secret of intellectual magazines

Here is a nice round up from Jacob Heilbrunn, at the NYRB, of what's going on with the right wing Mandarins* who do not go in for Traitor Trump. The occasion is a discourse on the demise of "The Weekly Standard." Hard to see much daylight of clear thinking in much of those otherwise "conservative" and "right wing" quarters. I do, however, think "The American Conservative" and "American Affairs" are a better source for interesting and sane thinking than "The Weekly Standard" ever was. Heilbrunn, while castigating "The Weekly Standard" in general terms for its neo-con foreign policies, forgets how snark-filled "The Weekly Standard" was in the late 1990s before it got "serious" about invading half the Muslim world on the basis of promoting democracy, while propping up the other half of the Muslim world's dictators--a recipe for chaos and blowback.

The dirty secret not quite told is in the beginning of the article, where the rich guy owner of "The Weekly Standard" just pulled the plug, saying the magazine was not making money. Heilbrunn should have let readers know the dirty truth: Few of these magazines over the past 100 years make money, and if they do, it is fleeting, and more of riding a fad. Rich people have subsidized these journals since before the start of the 20th century,** and have been and are the playthings of rich people until they become bored, or, in the case of "The Weekly Standard," where the bottom line of the rich person's business interests are threatened, and outweigh the status and fun in owning an intellectual journal. Heilbrunn is certainly correct, however, that the neo-con journal was no more successful in regime change regarding the Republican Party than the now departed magainze's prescriptions regarding regime change in the Middle East.

*Chomsky was correct to refer to media and university intellectuals as Mandarins back in his first book of essays from over a half century ago.

** William Dean Howells' delightful novel, "A Hazard of Good Fortunes" (1892/1893), is largely about a writer who has the opportunity to edit a new magazine a rich guy wants to start.  It is a powerful novel, sometimes poignantly funny (as when the main character and his wife search for housing in Manhattan), but very much understanding the war between labor and capital in late 19th Century America.  Its overtones for today go without need for any further explanation.

A Biden reminder, and Bernie

Just in case anyone wants to forgive Joe Biden for the Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas imbroglio, or his vote for trade treaties that will make him as hated as Hillary Clinton in those states Clinton lost the popular vote, which most Democrats concede should have been won, or Biden's vote for the Iraq War II, his support for Bill Clinton's decimation of "aid to dependent families and children" (AFDC, commonly called "welfare") in 1996,  votes for mass incarceration...well, one could go on...here is a brief story of how Joe Biden earned the nickname Senator from MBNA, a credit card company, and how Biden worked hand-in-glove with Republicans to make it harder for tens of millions of Americans to discharge credit card and student loan debt.

My point to people right now, as to why I support Bernie 2020, is that too many voters we don't know are only into name recognition, particularly in the Southern primaries, which are crucial, as we Bernie supporters learned to our chagrin in early 2016.  Bernie now has name recognition, and, as he is over a year younger than Nancy Pelosi (just keep saying that so it sinks in, folks), and only a year older than Biden, I think the "he's too old" argument is getting a bit old itself.  Also, the last time I looked, Energizer Bernie has been running around the nation continuing to help change the discourse for the better--and he looks younger to me today than he did three years ago.  What are Biden and Clinton, to take two examples, doing? Showing up at rich people soirees, and mostly resting, as old people typically need to do. But let's compare Bernie to someone such as, say, Kamala Harris.  What's she doing?  She's been on the travel schedule, too, but that only goes to show she is no better than Bernie in handling the travel schedule--and she shows up for herself, not to promote the policies the nation longs to hear.  The "he's too old" argument to me is a dodge, too often from those who do not want to admit they are not really into combatting income inequality, for example.

I note, too, how some Biden boosters are saying Biden is talking to Beto about being Biden's running mate even before primaries start, something I have advocated for a year or so for Bernie if he chooses to run.  Meaning, I am not saying Bernie should choose Beto, but simply choose a progressive as a VP candidate to close the "he's too old" loop.  There is no reason for any compromise non-progressive VP candidate when the majority of voters in our nation stand with Bernie on issue after issue, and where Bernie remains the only high name-recognition candidate who can speak to urban non-white folks and rural white folks.*  

Ever wonder why corporate media hates social media?  Because people like me get to be read by a few hundred people, and that adds up when we realize there are plenty of us out there willing to post things without being paid for it.

* And let's remember corporate Democrats have never cared about "balance" when their candidate gets the presidential nomination.  Bill Clinton chose corporate Democratic Party candidate Al Gore (both were charter members of the Democratic Leadership Council, ground zero for corporate Democratic Party policies and strategies) in 1992.  Al Gore chose Joe Lieberman.  Obama chose Joe Biden.  Hillary Clinton chose Tim Kaine.  The problem each time was these politicians had lots of baggage where their policy views did not reflect the majority of Americans.  Let's pick candidates who are genuinely committed to the policies the majority of Americans support.  Worrying about "balance" with corporate Democrats is a poor strategy.

They said there's be snow at Christmas...

Donny Deutsch knows the other Donald fairly well as they traveled in somewhat overlapping circles in NYC. Both came outta Queens, too, though Deutsch is my age, meaning about eleven years younger than that other Donald (though all three of us are Baby Boomers).

As I listened to Deutsch's short, succinct and calm (and correct) rant,* it re-enforced my belief Trump's worst nightmare was his winning the presidency. Too many years cavorting with Russian oligarchs and borrowing money from Deutsche Bank, a known launderer of Russian oligarch money. Too many oligarchs who rented space at Trump Towers, the oligarch whose plane followed Trump's campaign plane around during 2016, and the way in which Trump's friendship over those years with Paul Manafort metastasized into Trump's reliance on his now old ex-friend. All these things add flesh to the bone of why he is a compromised president.

It is sad to think how much damage Trump has done to our nation with the type of appointments he has made, and the refusal to appoint people to operate departments of government in other areas of the government. It is sad to think of the lost opportunities to help heal our planet.  It is sad to think so many addled white older Americans think Trump's governance is what Trump states in tweets, as Trump ranks as the laziest president in American history. It is sad to see how the Bully Pulpit works in reverse, in scapegoating people who are not seen by white, Christian, rural America as "American." Maybe next time, we won't hear silly defenses of Obama for his not using the Bully Pulpit for nice things or drawing people together as workers and as Americans.

I hope we as a nation survive this.  I do have more optimism than I had before Election Day November 2018. I have hope our children will save us. I have hope Trump and Pence will be exposed for their conduct leading up to the presidential election in 2016 and the transition period into assuming office. I have hope the Argument Among the Rational will result in moving our nation not only back on track, but a track that begins to restore New Deal politics.

Still, this song from the non-Rock and Roll Hall of Fame band lingers in my head as I write this around Christmas Season.

* Here is a transcript from November 29, 2018 MSNBC appearance where we learn how Deutsch was friends with Traitor Trump's consigliere, Michael Cohen.  Small circles, indeed.

The Cloying, Ananchronistic Mrs. Maisel

Thank you, thank you, thank you, Emily Nussbaum of The New Yorker.  Ms. Nussbaum hits exactly why I was so disappointed in this award winning show from the start.  The Wife, The Daughter, and I watched this for a few shows in the first season, and the word Emily Nussbaum uses not enough, "cloying" and "anachronistic," were exactly what I thought.  The Wife and The Daughter were merely unimpressed with the show.

Ms. Nussbaum hits the manner in which the parents and in laws are played, but does not mention the two unmentionables which inspired the show's writer:  the Seinfeld show (which I think is the single most overrated sit-com in television history, edging out "MASH," and by far the meanest, most morally vacuous sit-com that still defines white, urban aging Baby Boomers and our parents), and the now dead and gone, Philip Roth, who is, as those who know me well, not a very good guide, and highly overrated himself during his life (I expect Roth's literary reputation to fall off a cliff following his generation's demise; trust me on this one). Roth's hostility and then, again, cloying attitude toward his Jewish neighborhood's strivers was at once petulant and tone deaf, as if Roth wished he could be the anti-phony phony Holden Caufield and the idiotic and shallow Jack Kerouac.*

I found the show's dialogue so self-conscious as to make me wince in pain. Nussbaum compares this dialogue writing to Aaron Sorkin, but I think it is worse, and I happen to have loved Sorkin's dialogue in "The Newsroom."  For me, the show is the bad and later Neil Simon and bad and later Wood Allen, where every single person who speaks are simply Simon's and Allen's ventriloquist's dummies.  I, too, found the weird and twisted rip off, posing as an homage, to Joan Rivers to have been a fatally misplaced effort, and I am ecstatic Nussbaum spoke so brightly about early Rivers' trailblazing ways.** And man, am I glad to not have wasted my time with Season 2 of this terribly overrated show.  Nussbaum's characterization of the other character nemesis in Season 2 definitely sounds like the "bad" Joan, though Joan was never overweight.

The only thing the show's writer got right in those first three or four episodes I saw was Lenny Bruce, and the guy who plays him nails him.  But it sounds like the show's writer has sanitized Lenny into what I used to ironically call "St. Lenny."  I knew Lenny was not so nice to his wife then ex-wife, and that he was definitely a man of his time regarding women in general. Other than that, this show has been an exhibit for the failure of even elite white Baby Boomers and my parents' generations. Plus, there is, as Nussbaum says, much better television out there. I think this particular show only appeals to white, suburban/urban late Baby Boomers and our parents, and it shows how pathetic we've become.  Having worked for years for a guy who was the model for the boss in "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend," I find I only watch that musical comedy/drama show in snippets The Daughter sends as it is a bit PTSD for me--but from what I see, that show is both brilliant and highly creative, and the dialogue and singing sizzle.  And "Broad City" is rough around the edges, meaning it is very, very edgy, but hits home almost every single time.   

I find people my age have a hard time with "Rick & Morty," "Bojack Horseman," "The Good Place,"  and similar shows.  I note too that when I post on FB the latest brilliance in "South Park's" Season 22, most Baby Boomers and oldsters on my FB page run away rather than engage with what is going on with the episodes.  My age group and our parents remind me of how my grandparents could never stomach "The Twilight Zone" and would literally say they didn't really follow plot lines or understand the ironic endings.  I find I have more fruitful dialogues with thoughtful younger people about the feminist oriented shows Ms. Nussbaum mentions and the shows I am mentioning that are not directly feminist.  Oh well. Again, I am so, so glad someone has finally come forward in print/Internet in a major cultural magazine to say what I felt since the start of this overrated show. 

* Some explanations: Seinfeld is mean because the humor is Calvinist, not Jewish humor,  but mouthed by whiny New York Jews.  Jewish humor is, "I fell in the mud, isn't that funny, because we all fall in the mud at sometime in our lives."  Calvinist humor is, "You fell in the mud. You're a loser." It's Nelson Muntz.  Also, too many people, including me, who loved "MASH," now must admit how much the laugh track grates on us, how the show was so full of itself, especially as it aged, and just how mediocre it all really was.  As for Roth, let's simply compare Roth to John Steinbeck, and ask who better describes his characters' surroundings. When we visit Salinas after reading Steinbeck, and this happened to The Wife and me, we felt like we had seen it before.  No such luck with Roth.  I find the only people who understand the environment in Roth novels had to have grown up, like Roth, in it. The other point about Roth, made in the body of the post, stands as my other criticism of Roth. Roth lacked Sinclair Lewis' subtle observation skills, where Lewis likes Babbitt and Gantry, to take two early examples of Lewis' writings. Where Roth liked his characters, he shouldn't have, as in the petulant, misplaced confident male lead character in "Goodbye, Columbus."  Holden Caufield, the fictional anti-hero of "Catcher in the Rye," is most misunderstood by readers as he raves against phonies and barely sees until the end how much he has been wearing a different kind of mask. Finally, I wish Paul Goodman's take down of Jack Kerouac's "On the Road" was on the web. It is a 1930s radical making fun of the ultimate consumerism in Kerouac's rebellion (cruising around the new and old highways looking for burgers, as if that is a revolutionary act).  It can be found in Appendix E to Goodman's "Growing up Absurd" (1960), which main book I recall so angered George Will for decades (no links, but I tried as nothing of Will showed up from the 1970s or 1980s), but now Goodman has nearly as much in common with poet Robert Bly about "manliness," which for modern readers, may likely drown out Goodman's otherwise cogent, trenchant insights, particularly about male criminals and MBAs, and what modern social anthropologist David Graeber calls "bullshit jobs."

** When I saw Mrs. Maisel rip off her top, I said to myself, "Oh my, is this Rusty Warren they are channeling here?"  I could not make up my mind if this is Rusty Warren or Joan Rivers to which the show was trying to pay some sort of homage.  

Logan Mohtashami is a smart guy!

Logan Mohtashami, who lives in Orange County, CA, friended me on FB some years ago. I consider him one of the brightest people I know, but have never met. I love his latest FB analysis of the deficits and debt he just posted twenty minutes ago. It is a free form sort of talk, with an irrelevant aside about the Trump nominees to the Supreme Court, quickly forgotten, thank goodness. I believe it is well worth watching, and hope it is not too hard to follow.

Where I would love to have a face to face conversation or debate with Logan is on the edges. I would ask, how are Democratic Party politicians lying about the debt/deficits in any way comparable to the Republicans? The austerity Dems are a pain, but they are not as reckless and harsh as the Republicans. More substantively, I would ask, Wouldn't lifting the cap on Social Security and Medicare lessen the deficits coming in those programs?  Wouldn't an investment in infrastructure redevelopment dramatically increase payroll tax revenue which would improve at least somewhat significantly the hockey stick on deficit and debt growth we both see coming? Wouldn't wiping off the books the student loan debt immediately improve cash flow for lots of people who would spend money on consumer goods and expand the economy, and sales taxes, and eventually income tax revenue increasing? 

Logan, on this point about erasing student loan debt, is one of those who uses gross numbers to say only wealthier professionals would be helped with wiping out that debt. However, I think he misses the manner in which young people, with little assets, face much more limited prospects with even $30,000 in debt, for example. He is too macro and not enough micro-economic on this issue. Again it is an argument among the rational at that point.

Both Logan and I recognize the GDP and assets of our nation, our nation's size and military capacity, make it so we are not the PIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Greece, and Spain), which are nations too small to be able to overcome bond market vigilantes who would demand high yield rates for borrowing. Both of us recognize the EU can be helpful, though at this point, I dissent from him and enter Varoufakis territory to say reform the EU so it helps the PIGS, not punishes the people there. It is the reason I want to help Mississippi, not punish the people there.

For those who fetishize the national debt and deficits as if this was akin to our household budget, Logan helps us recognize what Alexander Hamilton was one of the first people in Western society to understand: The issue is nation building and nation sustaining. It is far more important to concern ourselves with what the government spends money on than whether debt is accumulated. One may suppose, theoretically, a point where the public debt is no longer something to ignore, but Trump was channeling Keynes, wasn't he, in saying in the long run, we're all dead?* The difference is Trump is a carnival barker, and Keynes was only expressing, in an exasperated way, those who refused to support priming the pump and using the government to get people working again.

* The link is worth reading because it shows why Niall Ferguson is sometimes an out and out jerk. Simon Taylor (of the Cambridge Business School) schools Ferguson if not skewers him on the context and meaning of the Keynes quote. 

The continuing tragedy of Israel

I wish American Jews still enamored with Israel would have the temerity to read beyond the headline of this Gideon Levy article from Ha'aretz, which is still in my view the NY Times in Israel. This article is not praising Netanyahu; the closest to praise is calling him a poor man's consolation. The thrust of this article is Levy's disgust with Labor Party and assorted liberal and even left Zionist politicians, several of those quoted who are merely defectors from the Likud Party in the guise of being for peace, but time and time again, show their true Jabotinsky-tinged colors. 

One has to put in the front of the article, from the near ending, to see what Levy is getting at: "Only a complete lifting of the Gaza blockade will solve Gaza’s problem, which is also Israel’s problem, and only a direct dialogue with Hamas can bring this about."

For too many supporters of Israel, who tend to skew older among both Jews and evangelical Christians, the most difficult point for such folks to grasp is the blockade of Gaza is a continued attack on Gazans. And worse, the blockade enables the worst elements in Hamas to demand revenge.* 

From America's stance, the immediate answer is to end all military and economic aid to Israel and say, We mean it this time. Get to the damned peace table. Stop this slow moving ethnic-cleansing land grab. Israel's military destroyed settlements in Sinai when peace was achieved in Egypt, and Arik Sharon destroyed settlements in Gaza at the time Israeli troops pulled out of Gaza (before formally enacting the blockade), and settlements in the West Bank can still be dismantled along with ending the Gaza blockade. If the "two-state" solution is lost, then the most likely choices will be either pro-apartheid or pro-BDS, as both favor a single-state from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River. Right now, the two-state solution is, practically speaking, dead because of Israeli leadership and the views of at least half of Israeli Jews who vote (Palestinians, having seen what happened after the Oslo Accords, with more settlements built and more control of water and other resources than before, have been cynical about the two-state solution for some time now). So why won't Israel act? Because the people running things in Israel know they are "winning," as they look at these admittedly somewhat exaggerated anti-Zionist maps and only see more opportunity, not disgust at what has happened with respect to the Palestinian people. 

And so, the stop-start-bombings- retaliation-all-while-building-settlements-throughout-the-West Bank, goes on.  And I retreat into reading liberal Zionist novelists who share my hopes, my fears, and my resignation regarding what was supposed to be a light unto the nations.

*There has been a nascent non-violent movement among Palestinians, including in Gaza. It has been there for a longer time than too many of us ever imagine.  However, American corporate media does not talk about this in any sustained way, if at all, and Israel's response remains as violent as if the protesters are acting violently--so the canard of "Well, Israel has no peace partner" remains a self-delusional, yet effective propagandistic mantra.

A Chanukkah Message

To me, this recognition of the dark side of the Macabees is merely an allegoric expression of the unease a growing number of American Jews feel about the actions of modern Israel.  I believe a growing number of American Jews see Israeli leaders as acting unjustly, and the Israeli Jews who support those leaders, as acting as zealots who disdain the best rabbinic universalist and pluralistic values (recognizing the Talmud is full of contradictions and things we like in certain times, not so much in others, and outright horrid positions vis a vis those who are non-Jews).

People in my and my parents' generation had hope for Israel as "a light unto nations,"* and coming into being with the vanquishing of Haman, as if we were living in a real live Purim, where Israel represented the triumph of Jewish people against a tyrant and tyranny in general. And the idea that the Jewish girl in the Purim story, Esther, marries the non-Jewish king, was seen as a triumph of assimilation while maintaining one's identity as a Jew, which is the story we like to tell each other in America.  But, as the Palestinian issue continues to wear on, and with the rise of religious zealots in tandem with right wing Zionists controlling the policies of the Israeli government, this dark side of Hanukkah becomes more and more salient to more and more American Jews.

It is wrong to push too much presentism on an ancient world, but it is interesting to me how some aspects of the ancient world become illuminators for us in the present.

* The great early 20th Century American political writer, Randolph Bourne, wrote often about his disdain of the excesses of the nation-state, particularly in the context of his opposition to the rampant nationalism which led us into World War I, which he also opposed.  His one hope for an exception to his transnationalist position was his support for the Zionist movement.  To say this colloquially, he had hope the Jews would do nationalism right.  Alas...

South Park Season 22 has been on fire

The Son says the last three years of South Park (Seasons 20-22) has had the best writing in the series, and I fully agree. The last two seasons were extraordinary in their meditation on the culture of the Internet, political correctness, and growing anomie in our society. This season has been even more amazing. The two episodes about climate change denial/skepticism were brilliant, and last week's South Park's insight into how we are slaves to our cellphones broke ground on the topic while being side-splittingly funny. The idea of wearing boxes on our heads so as to avoid anyone interfering with our cellphone activity is a perfect and profound metaphor. 

This week, South Park took on Amazon and gave us a wildcat labor strike, with a short homage to "Billy Elliott," and lots of Marxian analysis. Literally Marxian. As with the ManBearPig/climate change episodes, it is a two-parter. 

It is so satisfying to see Parker and Stone, South Park's creators, graduating from their early intelligent and funny libertarian petulance to this global Marxian sensibility, with less petulance and more pathos. It is perhaps a sign of middle age in Parker and Stone, one may suppose, or perhaps left writer/activist Naomi Klein and the right wing libertarians who deny climate change are correct: A belief in anthropomorphic climate change can sometimes congeal into a socialist sensibility. Klein agrees with the scientific consensus because she is ultimately an empiricist. The right wing libertarians deny climate change because they view any belief in using the government as a tool to fight the effects of climate change to be a succumbing to socialism. This is becoming a bit less true, as shown here. 

In any event, if you can find South Park on Comedy Central, or if you have Hulu, this season, Season 22, is must see television. Bravo South Park!

Reagan 1980; Bernie 2020?

The Week's Brendan Morrow thinks Bernie is running again.

People can say all they want against Bernie Sanders: He's too old; he is not a registered Democrat; he's too far left, in that phony corporate media parlance where the words liberal, conservative, moderate, etc. are never defined; etc. 

But what amazes me about Bernie are: (1) his stamina as he continues a grueling travel schedule supporting progressive Democrats around the nation, showing he is in great shape to run for president; and (2) the way in which Bernie continues to contribute to a positive discourse about public policies which, as I have long noted, a majority of Americans now agree. Bernie changed worldviews of people across our nation, and did so while not even winning the Democratic Party's 2016 primaries.

For those searching for historical parallels, I am wondering if Bernie Sanders is Ronald Reagan in this respect: In 1976, Ronald Reagan mounted a primary challenge to Gerald Ford, the incumbent president. Reagan lost to Ford, and there was much bitterness in the Republican Party as Ford lost a close election to the Democratic Party's candidate, the upstart Jimmy Carter. In 1980, Reagan ran again, and faced multiple challengers, including the establishment Republican's favorite, George Herbert Walker Bush. Reagan was older than nearly any other candidate running, and was one of the oldest presidents ever elected president. Reagan was also a hard right ideologue, but it was Reagan's likability that helped him with swing voters, the way I think Bernie keeps topping polling as the most popular politician in the nation ("He speaks his mind; he's honest", etc. is what people tend to think when they think of Bernie). 

And let's play out this historical parallel a bit further: Would Reagan still have won if third party "liberal" Republican John Anderson not run an independent campaign in the fall 1980 campaign, after Anderson was one of the Republicans Reagan beat in the very rancorous Republican primary? I think the final election result in a Carter v. Reagan election race would have been much closer (The 1980 results were:  Anderson with roughly 7%, Reagan 49% and Carter 42%, with less than 1% for the Citizen's Party of Barry Commoner and Ladonna Harris) but Reagan would likely have won in any event. Note, too, Reagan had some coattails in Senate races as people like George McGovern (D-SD) and John Culver (D-IA) lost to much more ideologically conservative Republicans. 

The one thing I would say to those wanting to repeat this historical incident is my advice to Bernie is pick a like minded but young progressive for VP almost immediately to run to Iowa and NH and elsewhere, and a person who is a woman or a person who is not "white." Reagan, of course, had given in to Establishment Republicans and chose Bush as his VP, hoping Bush would coalesce ideologically, which Bush, sad to say, did.  This, however, is a different time in one respect: Bernie's ideas and platforms, as noted before, are what the majority of Americans want to see enacted.  Bernie has no reason to compromise with neo-liberals and corporate Democrats.  The point is to win the majority of Americans' support, and to show America Democrats mean what they say as a party of the "people" or as I like to say, let's have a true Labor Party the way we thought of Democratic Party policies in the New Deal and post-New Deal era.

All in all, I say, let's roll, Bernie.  Let's roll!

Oh, and if someone wants to say Hillary Clinton's parallel is Richard Nixon, who lost in 1960, lost a gubernatorial election in 1962, and then roared back to squeak out the presidency in 1968 with 44% of the vote, in an election where third party candidate George Wallace won 13% of the vote, and Humphrey the Democrat won 43% of the vote, I would call that a stretch.  Hillary Clinton is more akin to that other HC in American history, Henry Clay.  Henry, like Hillary, had done too many compromises so that nobody really trusted him, and Clay was never able to convince a majority of Americans he would have their overall interests at heart.  I liked Henry Clay in lots of ways as his best biographer, Carl Schurz, explained in an 1888 biography (never have I seen a better bio, and one should be written with Schurz's gravitas), but he was still a compromised candidate.  So, sorry to Hillary Clinton fans, which have dwindled considerably, as I always said her support is a mile wide and inch deep, but this nation cannot afford a Hillary Clinton candidacy in 2020.  It is a dangerous time, and we need to go with our best hopes, not compromised candidates, when going up against a candidate who emotionally affects people the way Trump does.  Trump runs on fear and hate. The best candidate must run, substantively and stylistically, on trust and love.

Dream until your dreams come true

This is a rare moment for me to say something like this: Someone on cable news had something important to say. Imagine that.

CNN corporate media pundit Jeffrey Toobin's points: The evidence is now largely gathered to demonstrate (1) Trump was trying to cut a deal for a Trump Tower in Moscow during the presidential campaign; (2) Trump was in consistent contact with Roger Stone about what Wikileaks was up to in terms of illegally releasing private emails from the DNC or those high up in the DNC, when there is also evidence of Wikileaks contact with Russian operatives in this regard; and (3) Trump was aware of his son's meeting with the Russians, and it was about more than adoption policies; and instead about foreign policies including the sanctions Obama had enacted against Russia, and about Russian policies in Ukraine. Of course, Trump's position on both policy subjects has been out in the open, which is to support Russia's position on both counts.  The evidence is sufficiently solid for a fairly sober reporter, Craig Unger, to connect the dots as to Trump's long time alliance with Russians and the obvious desire of Putin to install someone like Trump at the top of the U.S. government.

For those who think, well, isn't it still largely circumstantial, it is important to recognize that fraud and conspiracy are often proven with circumstantial evidence. And conspiracy is a very broad legal concept where one may be held strictly liable for the overt acts of others, even when one does not participate in that particular overt act. And consider how the normal hearsay prohibition is no protection in conspiracy cases because of the manner in which one person is held liable for the statements of others which constitute an "overt act" in the conspiracy.  This is also how and why the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and Racketeer Influenced and Corruption Act (RICO) have come into view with respect to Trump's actions during his campaign for president, not only with respect to paying off a prostitute but trying to do business with Russia when running for president. 

If the evidence and understandings already publicly reported concerned a president who was a Democrat or, say, Bernie Sanders, and this was during the time of the Soviet Union's existence, with Gorbachev or especially Brezhnev as the Soviet leader, we know exactly where the Lee Greenwood song fans who so adore Trump would be standing, and what they would be saying. The articles of impeachment would already have been approved, with Blue Dog Democrats joining in, and the Senate Republican leaders would have said this impeachment trial would easily result in conviction.

I know, I know. I have never liked the criminalization of policy differences. I have never liked the Espionage Act of 1917, the Sedition Act of 1918, or the Smith Act of 1940. And I have shared some of Justice Stevens' misgivings of the broad interpretation of the RICO Act, as in his dissent in Boyle v. United States, 556 U.S. 938 (2009).  But, considering how most right wingers in this nation believe they are the true patriots, and "libtards" are the ones who don't love their country, and considering how the Cold War discourse in our national and local corporate media was structured in a manner that made anyone left of center feel less than American ("Oh, you like national health insurance? So does the Soviet Union. You must be one of those Commie traitors!"), it is time, well, really past time, to put that shoe on the feet of these so-called patriots who support Traitor Trump.

Maybe, once Trump is vanquished, we can recognize that maybe criminalizing politics is not a good thing. We can further recognize secrecy is overrated, and only primarily helps the power of the National Security State. We can also then begin to recognize one can be against the Empire and still be pro-American. I know, I know. Cue Aerosmith's Dream on....But wait, isn't the full line, "Dream on. Dream on. Dream until your dreams come true?" Yes. Yes, I think it is. So, I dream. 

And for those who say, Whoa, what about "President" Pence? That is easy at the point where even Nancy Pelosi (known as The Follower Who is Somehow Leader) agrees with impeaching Trump: (1) Pence is the fruit of the poisonous tree and (2) I think ol' Mueller has got some stuff on Pence for his cavorting with the treasonous general, Mike Flynn. So, let's talk about all of this and let's see what happens.  The noise may be enough to swing the 2020 elections harder toward Dems anyway, just as the Republicans used the impeachment of Clinton in a manner that led Al Gore not to have Clinton even near him for much of his 2000 campaign, though the economy was hot at the time and the federal government had a surplus, not a deficit, for a couple of years at that point. In any event, the evidence is sufficient for a legitimate impeachment investigation, though I think it may be better to allow Mueller to complete his investigation so we avoid undermining Mueller's criminal investigation as happened to some extent during the Iran-Contra scandals when Ollie North received partial immunity to testify in the Congressional investigation.  My sense is Mueller will complete his report in the next few months, as he completes his review of the Deutsche Bank records and Trump's tax returns, and finishes connecting dots as to how Trump ran his companies and how he ran his presidential campaign.  This will make it easier for congressional investigators to get up to speed as they consider whether to issue articles of impeachment. And again let's not worry about how Republicans in Congress behave, and how venal and cynically they act.  The key is to talk about it, agitate, and educate.  The pressure will get stronger each day this occurs.  Jeffrey Toobin is correct.  These are significant developments and it is time to agitate against those still calling the investigation a witch hunt or a hoax.