* Thank goodness Andrew Yang is qualifying for the third and fourth presidential debates. Yang's UBI proposal is the most important public policy proposal since the 1880s with Henry George's Single Tax to stop profiteering off land. MSNBC executives must be gnashing teeth this morning. My love for Yang's proposal is it begins the conversation that we should separate income from work in an age where the robots are coming. Paul LaFargue saw it in his 1883 book, "The Right to be Lazy" and Bertrand Russell's 1932 essay, "In Praise of Idleness," speaks to at least part time work paid as full time on a productivity and societal basis. My criticism of Yang's proposal is Yang somehow refuses to give this UBI payment of $1,000 a month to a poor mom's with one or two children unless she gives up food stamps for her children (as Yang's UBI does not apply to anyone under 18). Worse, he wants to repeal the entire federal minimum wage and wants minimum wage laws pushed back to the states, thus repealing the Fair Labor Standards Act (FSLA) of 1938 on the federal minimum wage. Some states will then abolish their state minimum wage laws, which will make things even worse. I don't get why Yang thinks he can't have both UBI and give poor women food stamps for their children plus have a $15 minimum wage. They are complementary and frankly, the cost for food stamps in the US budget is minute.
* Elections have consequences. Say what you want about HRC, add this modification of a regulation that regulates and limits the number of hours a truck driver drives to the large list of regulatory changes that HRC would not have sought. I know, from litigation experience, what happens when truckers are tired. It ends in death. It ends in tragedy.
* Glad to see labor unions remembering the song that says in part "Solidarity forever." I support the Southern California grocery workers and did so in their strike sixteen years ago.
* The corporate media showed far more deference to the executive branch in 1971 and 1972 when Nixon and Kissinger, for re-election politics, suddenly sidestepped the administration's Strategic Arms Limitations Talks (SALT) negotiations, led by Gerard Smith, in giving the Soviets more weapons to keep and making what is the fateful promise to China on Taiwan's status. Nixon and Kissinger got their photo-opportunities with Brezhnev and Mao, and the old Red-baiting Cold Warrior, Nixon, was able to bask in the glow of what his administration's handlers called his administrative triumph.
Trump is clearly wanting to see that occur again in North Korea. However, if Trump gives in on sanctions with no permanent promise, or continues to stop the joint South Korean-US military exercises in such circumstances, I have a sense the corporate media will not be as deferential in this Internet age. This article shows how the leaks are legion, with Bolton losing influence to petty, short term politics--I am fine whenever Bolton loses influence, him being a warmonger---and Pompeo wanting to join in Trump's diplomatic photo-opportunistic triumph. This may explain why Trump pulled back on the Iran strike, as I have said he is really looking forward to his July 4th Nuremberg Rally and did not want a war taking up more headlines than himself.
lf Trump gets a short term, open ended "deal," with North Korea, the irony is it will be much worse than what Trump called the weak, open ended deal with the Iranians, as the Iranian leaders are far more in the range of leaders who abide by deals they enter into, while Kim is mercurial to say the least. Also, if Trump is truly as cynical and dumb as I take him for, he has a choice when top corporate media commentators make the comparison with Obama/Kerry's Iran deal: Either declare victory over the Iranians and go back to the very good deal Obama/Kerry had with the Iranians (with a minor change or two), or else let Bolton have his Middle East war to keep Bolton from bolting. That, of course, will come after the July 4th Nuremberg Rally, so one never knows which way a cynical showman such as Trump will go.
Marx's dictum that history repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce, applies to this situation when we compare the Nixon-Kissinger years to Trump-Bolton-Pompeo years.
* Elections have consequences. Say what you want about HRC, add this modification of a regulation that regulates and limits the number of hours a truck driver drives to the large list of regulatory changes that HRC would not have sought. I know, from litigation experience, what happens when truckers are tired. It ends in death. It ends in tragedy.
* Glad to see labor unions remembering the song that says in part "Solidarity forever." I support the Southern California grocery workers and did so in their strike sixteen years ago.
* The corporate media showed far more deference to the executive branch in 1971 and 1972 when Nixon and Kissinger, for re-election politics, suddenly sidestepped the administration's Strategic Arms Limitations Talks (SALT) negotiations, led by Gerard Smith, in giving the Soviets more weapons to keep and making what is the fateful promise to China on Taiwan's status. Nixon and Kissinger got their photo-opportunities with Brezhnev and Mao, and the old Red-baiting Cold Warrior, Nixon, was able to bask in the glow of what his administration's handlers called his administrative triumph.
Trump is clearly wanting to see that occur again in North Korea. However, if Trump gives in on sanctions with no permanent promise, or continues to stop the joint South Korean-US military exercises in such circumstances, I have a sense the corporate media will not be as deferential in this Internet age. This article shows how the leaks are legion, with Bolton losing influence to petty, short term politics--I am fine whenever Bolton loses influence, him being a warmonger---and Pompeo wanting to join in Trump's diplomatic photo-opportunistic triumph. This may explain why Trump pulled back on the Iran strike, as I have said he is really looking forward to his July 4th Nuremberg Rally and did not want a war taking up more headlines than himself.
lf Trump gets a short term, open ended "deal," with North Korea, the irony is it will be much worse than what Trump called the weak, open ended deal with the Iranians, as the Iranian leaders are far more in the range of leaders who abide by deals they enter into, while Kim is mercurial to say the least. Also, if Trump is truly as cynical and dumb as I take him for, he has a choice when top corporate media commentators make the comparison with Obama/Kerry's Iran deal: Either declare victory over the Iranians and go back to the very good deal Obama/Kerry had with the Iranians (with a minor change or two), or else let Bolton have his Middle East war to keep Bolton from bolting. That, of course, will come after the July 4th Nuremberg Rally, so one never knows which way a cynical showman such as Trump will go.
Marx's dictum that history repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce, applies to this situation when we compare the Nixon-Kissinger years to Trump-Bolton-Pompeo years.
