Wildcat strikes from the true essential workers; Trump cavorts with CEOs

Krystal Ball, and then she and Saagar, spoke this morning about how workers on the front lines are being treated, and how they are engaged in spontaneous strikes.  Compare and contrast Trump standing with the CEOs (link is from a website that reprinted the Washington Post article).  Anyone who thought Trump could be a populist is deluded at this point.  He is fascistic, racist, and xenophobic, but not a populist in any economic sense.  

And the two Hill: Rising commentators are fairly solid on the limits of Pelosi's worldview, and how she is taking care of people who are wealthier than the vast majority of Americans.  They are correct how corporate Democrats are handing more power to Republicans who play the populist card with cultural issues, which again is racist, etc.  I should note, in states such as CA, NJ, NY, and MA, where property values are much higher, there are a lot of people who are definitely well-off, but not in the top 1%, paid more federal income taxes with the State and Local Taxes (SALT) limit of $10,000. 

Bernie, meanwhile, tries to tell people through the Internet, having been largely pushed aside again in nightly corporate media newscasts, is saying we need fundamental rethinking about how our society is organized.  But, sure. Keep thinking Biden is "electable."

The Machine Stops

I never heard of this E.M. Forster short story before today.  It is called "The Machine Stops." It is from 1909.  It is about people having to live underground, and in isolation, as the Earth is no longer habitable. People have grown to worship The Machine, forgetting humans designed and built it.  Humans no longer have the capacity to fix it, and, as its defects become apparent to some, people believe the bad things happening are because The Machine is punishing the human race.

Melanie Safka always speaks to me, especially now

Melanie's hit song from over 50 years ago, "Candle in the Rain (Lay Down)," with the Edwin Hawkins Singers, remains a powerful classic rock-pop song. Its lyrics about us catching the same disease and dreaming of peace is especially powerful now. I used to say in the mid to late 1980s how Madonna could re-record the song and have a hit. Today, I would say Katy Perry could re-record the song and have a hit. It is a timeless sound and a universal message.

If I had to name my favorite Melanie song, it is "Peace Will Come (According to Plan)."  Here is the best version, a live one with an opening verse that is not in the single release version.  This live version is from 1971 or 1972, I think. Melanie was an anthem writer. 

For those tempted to start talking about the growing suffering as God's will

Randy Newman explained the cruelty behind this sort of thinking many years ago, and then re-recorded about fifteen years ago.  Here is the original version from 1972.

The Silence of the Feminist Beat Pundits

As we note the corporate media hypocrisy about the Reade allegations against Biden, it is time to get specific. We already know how "TimesUp" ignored Reade. We already know how Elizabeth Warren, who made gender so front and center as her campaign sputtered, has been silent. But let's start looking at the feminist columnists who would have been heralding Reade as the great truth teller if this was an allegation made against Bernie (never mind, Trump, as Trump already has, what, sixteen of these types of allegations?).

It's been a good week of silence for Salon feminist beat writer, Amanda Marcotte, and it is clear Reade has been trying to get this more known since at least January 2020. I am open to others adding to the others who remain silent, say over at The Nation for instance (cough, cough, Joan Walsh and Katha Pollitt)? And these women write in progressive and "woke" journals.  One can check their regional and local press for those who are on the so-called "feminist" beat, and see if there is anything about Reade's allegations against Biden.  

As people know, I have said there are reasons to doubt the accuracy of Ms. Reade's sexual assault claim, but that doesn't stop the corporate media feminist writer factory from grinding their wheels and saying things like "Believe women!" when they want to hurt a man who they don't like.  I have always supported the sentiment behind the phrase, and I generally believe women in these matters. However, the silence regarding Reade's allegations against Biden is deafening at this point. Whatever they say now is likely to be a nuanced dodge most wouldn't give to Al Franken.

UPDATE March 31, 2020:  Amanda Marcotte is on the job!  Here is her article in Salon today.  Notice the nuance throughout Marcotte's article, which I predicted above. Note, too, how Marcotte first, and mainly, focuses on the discussions online by individuals and the few media reports outside of mainstream corporate television and radio, instead of highlighting corporate broadcast media silence--including not a single question asked of Biden on the topic at CNN's Town Hall a few days ago. Marcotte's article also obscures how Time's Up expressly told Reade they could not assist Reade because of electoral issues, when there is more to the story than Marcotte reports, as lawyer and former MSNBC commentator, Dan Abrams, detailed here. Abrams shows, through a timeline of events, how Times Up was initially supportive, but, how Anita Dunn, active with both the Biden campaign and Times Up's organization, could have easily played a role in the organization's later refusal to help Reade. And really, if Times Up does public relations, it should make absolutely no difference if Biden is an active candidate.  By supporting Reade, it would be acting consistently with its non-profit charter, to help women anywhere and everywhere, particularly against powerfully situated men. Grimm's reporting on Times Up refusal makes a similar point that the Times Up reasoning is not anywhere as reasonable as Marcotte believes. Worse for Marcotte, Marcotte completely ignores what Ryan Grimm reported in his story, which is how Reade had gone to Senators Warren and Harris months ago, and how the two female senators' offices spurned her.  I can only imagine what Marcotte would have said if male senators, running or having campaigned for president, spurned Reade, had the allegation been against Bernie Sanders, not Biden.*

Notice, too, Marcotte's phrasing throughout. When first mentioning Ryan Grimm, the reporter from The Intercept who essentially broke the Reade-Biden story, Marcotte does more than insinuate Grimm writes for a highly biased publication, The Intercept, stating The Intercept is "strongly supportive of Bernie Sanders and critical of Biden." It is only later in her piece, in a parenthesis (!), that Marcotte lets readers know it was Grimm, at the very aforementioned and supposedly biased online magazine, The Intercept, who broke the story of the letter Dr. Ford wrote to Senator Feinstein about Kavanaugh's sexual assault against her. Marcotte is a clever writer who knows how to obscure inconvenient facts, and lead her readers into thinking Reade's allegation against Biden must somehow be treated differently than the allegations against Kavanaugh when first raised.

From reading Marcotte over the years, today's op-ed may be the first time Marcotte has, with any true detail, acknowledged a campaign besides Bernie's--in this case, Biden's--has some flamer-jerk supporters who harass people on the Internet. Marcotte could have easily learned this fact before, but she obviously has had no interest in fairness regarding Bernie Sanders fans on the Internet. Until now, as she tries to strike the moderating pose.

After reading Marcotte's op-ed, I decided to go back into Marcotte's archives at Salon magazine's website to see what she first said about Dr. Ford's allegations against Kavanaugh. I found what I believe is Marcotte's first discussion regarding the topic. There is no showing Marcotte was aware of any vetting of Dr. Ford's claims, as Marcotte did not even appear to know Dr. Ford's name at the time she wrote her article. However, with the allegation against Kavanaugh, Marcotte was all-in to fully and publicly investigate the still anonymous allegations--meaning, with no additional private vetting. At that point, Marcotte had already published various opinion articles highlighting the horrible record Kavanaugh had on abortion and a host of other issues likely to be heard at the Supreme Court (For the record, I was completely opposed to Kavanaugh, too. See here, before Dr. Ford's allegations, and here, after the allegations for my own blog posts). What is telling to me, in comparing Marcotte's first reaction to Dr. Ford's allegations, which were, again, still anonymous at the time she wrote, and Reade's allegations against Biden now, is how quick Marcotte was to rip Republicans for not wanting to air the anonymous accusations, while we now find her defending, however obliquely, corporate broadcast media's non-interest in Reade's allegations, and Marcotte's willingness to whitewash Time's Up's failure to assist Reade.

Overall, Marcotte's first formal foray (I have not delved much into her Twitter account) into this allegation against Biden is another exhibit for why I consider Marcotte a hack.  I am still waiting to see if the other hack I mentioned, Joan Walsh, is going to opine over at The Nation.  So far, there is only continued silence from Walsh.

* I get that Marcotte has written several articles which were against Biden, starting in 2019, at least. However, she has been a noted Bernie hater since the 2015-2016 presidential primary, and we are now at a point where Marcotte, who has shown she despises Bernie more than Biden, despite claiming fealty to some of Bernie's progressive issues, knows which side of the corporate-progressive divide she is ultimately on.

UPDATE April 1, 2020:  Krystal Ball thinks Marcotte is full of it, too--and went through Marcotte's Twitter account, showing Marcotte's hack hypocrisy.  And here are both Krystal and Saagar on the lack of corporate media coverage. 

No, a person is not likely to be a better governmental leader just because the person runs a business

I dare anyone to read this article from William Saletan, a true neo-liberal, from Slate. It is filled with supporting links for its statements and assertions. I dare anyone reading the article to tell me how this is wrong. Anyone? Trump fans? Just try it. It is devastating. 

Anyone not faulting the president at this point is simply covering his or her ears and eyes. When we see so many business people, right down to the disastrous Republican-businessman mayor of ABQ, NM for eight years, I am wondering when we will wake up as a populace and realize being a business person confers no pedigree in running a government. CA residents learned the lesson the hard way with a movie star-businessman being governor (The Arnold), and then, exhausted, put back a now-old pol, Jerry Brown, and presto! deficits turned into surpluses, and the state went from the 9th largest economy in the world to 5th. The festering problem in CA, of course, is what plagues large population centers across the planet, which is homelessness. Brown's successor, another careerist pol, Gavin Newsom, has done more than any governor in the past 40 years to confront the homeless issue, even joining with libertarians and progressives to confront NIMBYism before this crisis hit. Newsom has, as with Cuomo in NY, shown far more and better leadership than the business person in the White House (though let's not overrate Cuomo, either).

But sure, Trump fans. Avert your eyes. Do not read this article. Do not check the links if you doubt the statements made.

Film reviews during the virus outbreak

One unexpected joy of the coronavirus outbreak is people may see first-run-in-theater films on television if they have Amazon Prime.  We have seen a couple of them this past week, including Emma and Birds of Prey.  And then, last night, we stumbled upon a 2010 comedy film, The Trotksy, that merits much discussion and should be seen by anyone familiar with the intellectual Marxist history of the first thirty years of the last century, and familiar with Marxist philosophers of the 1960s and 1970s, and those who remember high school.  Yes, it is that funny.

Emma--This is a new adaptation of the great Jane Austen novel of the same name.  This was previously done as a miniseries, which had the advantage of developing characters, including especially the lead character, in a way a two hour film cannot do.  I say this because, in this adaptation, one is liable to not like this film's Emma as much because one sees far more of her aristocratic arrogance than her fear of emotional commitment.  However, the actress, Anya Taylor-Joy, turns an outstanding acting performance to give us enough of a reason why Mr. Knightley would ever fall in love with her.  What makes this film compelling is the way in which characters walking are done in a choreographed style, which heightens the drama and comedy in the story. There are also clever camera cuts and angles, which give brisk pace to the story and keeps us in thrall in each moment. Autumn de Wilde, a photographer and portraiture artist, and daughter of a legendary late 1960s rock music scene photographer, made her debut as director, and one hopes to see more direction work from her in the future.  

Bids of Prey--This is the latest DC Universe film, and one which The Daughter highly recommended we see.  I admit I had trepidation about the film because I saw a fundamental contradiction between woman power and vengeance against men who treat women as sex objects, and sexy women in scantily dressed clothes exuding and exhibiting their sexuality in a way that asks us all to define them by their sex appeal. I am happy to report The Daughter's schooling of me to relieve me of this trepidation. Margot Robbie, and director, Cathy Yan, ensured a far less sexualized clothing for the lead women characters, and changed camera angles that would have highlighted breasts and buttocks.  The film made the sociological point about women having to deal with male physical domination and objectification, and deftly allowed Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie's character) to pivot away from her abusive sado-masochistic relationship with The Joker, and reclaim independent agency.  Each of the women characters--and yes, Rosie Perez is on the scene and brilliant as usual--is on a journey to reclaim independent agency, and to kick some patriarchal butt.  This film has the same high quotient of choreographic-cartoonish violence that makes Deadpool films so compelling, and the fight scenes show Margot Robbie is as capable of stunts as Tom Cruise.  I admit I still find the New Yawka accent from this Aussie actress to be a bit too caricatured, but it works in line with the cinematic fantasy.  The film has some of the Marvel sardonic dialogue and was a welcome return to some intelligence, after the vacuous dialogue in Aquaman.  I am admittedly at a personal peak superhero film genre, and have not gone out of my way to see the recent films in theater runs or even to watch on television. However, Birds of Prey is well worth viewing, and is a worthy addition to the pantheon of superhero films. It deserves status next to the Patty Jenkins-Gal Gadot Wonder Woman film, for which I am so looking forward to the sequel.  No matter all the political, economic, environmental and even cultural calamities of our time, we should be glad to see women superheroes who are not defined by their clothing.  For even the Wonder Woman sequel trailers are showing less skin on Diana (aka Wonder Woman) and have a promise of more character development than in the first, still otherwise brilliant film.

The Trotsky--See the trailer here for this Tribeca Film Festival winner from 2010.  I am still not sure how this one popped up on our Amazon Prime, but I am so glad it did.  This is a high school comedy set in Canada, where the writer-director and producer are from.  It is about a high schooler named Leon Bronstein, who thinks he is reincarnation of Leon Bronstein aka Trotsky.  In fact, he is a spoiled rich son of a very, very, very wealthy manufacturer-merchant who lives with his second wife--a kind hearted and well meaning shiksa (the only one with no agenda and a true moral center)--and two children, and one adult son who shows up with wife and child in tow.  The film opens with the father giving Leon a summer job at the factory, but Leon insists on working on the factory floor and then organizing the workers to have a hunger strike--after Leon researches and finds the father has violated various wage and hour laws. The father retaliates by calling the police to remove Leon from the factory and punishing him by sending him to--egad--a public school!  Leon is devastated, but knows, from having read Trotsky's biography, My Life, that trials and tribulations are good for the soul and the revolutionary.  Leon enters a sort of arts public charter school, where the new principal and vice principal are determined to bring order to unruly arts oriented students.  

The film veers into creepy territory as Leon meets an older woman (age 27) who is completing law school named Alexandra, which is the name of Leon Trotsky's first wife. He stalks the woman, breaks into her apartment to bring her flowers for her successfully completing her exams, but ultimately wins her over, when Alexandra comes home drunk from her graduation party, after hearing from a close woman friend how it is good to bed a younger man. Still, in 2020, we can see how culturally times have changed. Yet the film never loses its overall charm, so this element becomes part of the merriment and satiric send up of highly intellectual revolutionaries in an apathetic world.  Michael Murphy plays an old near retired radical lawyer who initially finds Leon a pathetic pest, but who finds sympathy in Leon as Leon knows the lawyer's personal and lawyer career history as well as the lawyer who lived it. Genevieve Bujot--yes, her--is the exasperated liberal-left school board commission chair who has no patience for this high school intellectual poser, but who begins to learn Leon's obsessive nerdy behavior casts a revolutionary influence over otherwise apathetic high schoolers in the face of the school administrator's arbitrary and oppressive authority moves. The dialogue throughout the film is fast, sharp, and witty, and as the film reaches its crescendo, the speeches from Leon and another student who is influenced by Leon become remarkably profound. The film credits open with Leon's bedroom bookshelf, which contains Trotsky's My Life, the three volume Isaac Deutscher biography of Trotsky, The Prophet, and, most amazingly to me, a volume from the legendary Russian-French revolutionary, and friend to Trotsky, Victor Serge.*  On the left side of Leon's bedroom bookshelf and screen is a volume from the brilliant 1960s-1970s era Marxist intellectual, Terry Eagleton. Leon quotes directly from Eagleton later in the film, using Eagleton's interpretation of Marx's philosophy to wiggle out of what looks like a contradiction in Leon's words and actions.  Throughout the film, Leon has a recurring nightmare of being the baby in the baby carriage in the Eisenstein silent film, Battleship Potemkin (1925), but each time with different people in his life playing the mother and the guard. 

The only clink in the film's excellent historical use of Trotsky's life and meaning, and Marxist intellectual battles, is when Murphy talks about his being at Berkeley at some point in the 1960s.  He strangely says Leon should not define Berkeley by the 1974 Patty Hearst kidnapping and the 1968 Democratic Party convention protests and police riot in Chicago, which have nothing to do with Berkeley's Free Speech Movement, and where Leon had not brought up either post-FSM event. In the scene, Murphy is telling Leon that most young people don't want a revolution in the sense Trotsky or any political revolutionary meant, and that apathy is the greater enemy, something the principal laughingly and contemptuously tells Leon throughout much of the film.  Murphy said Leon needs to reach the students where they are, and, again, strangely says this apropos of Berkeley in the 1960s.  There is some truth to this, but with no context, it is misleading.  The reason for the Free Speech Movement was because the UC Regents ordered UC Chancellor Clark Kerr to clamp down on Berkeley students being too engaged with the burgeoning civil rights movement.  Kerr, ever the technocrat, decided to ban all political activity on the Berkeley campus in the fall term of 1964.  This led the students of all political stripes, from radical civil rights movement and early Vietnam War protestors to the right wing Young Americans for Freedom, to band together and protest against the banning of political speech. It led to the legendary Mario Savio's off the cuff speech that should be as known to every high schooler (in a just world) as Liincoln's Gettysburg Address.  The most recent and great book on the FSM, and the way in which the Regents, Clark Kerr, and eventually Ronald Reagan, with the help of the FBI, crushed that movement, is in the book, Subversives, by Seth Rosenfeld. However, other than that clink, the acting is outstanding, the direction sure and fast-paced, and the ending is preciously funny. 

I am certain most American (and Canadian) audiences would not really get this film, though young people who are engaged will, I think, love the film, though not understanding the references along the way.  For me, the reason Trotsky remains a compelling historical figure because of Trotsky's wide ranging knowledge of not only politics, economics, philosophy, and military strategy, and, on top of that, literature.  It is Trotsky's failure to succeed Lenin which leaves open the romantic possibility that the Soviet Union would not have descended into the totalitarian madness exemplified in Joseph Stalin. And his murder in 1940 at the long-reaching hands of Stalin into Trotsky's exile in Mexico also lends a literary and romantic air. That this, again, romantic view of the Bolshevik revolution is faulty is one learns from Victor Serge himself, as well as Chomsky, I.F. Stone, and others who said Trotsky's suppression of the sailors' mutiny at Kronstadt in 1921 showed Trotsky, had he ended up succeeding Lenin, would have cunningly and horribly used the military-police state apparatus which developed within the Bolshevik government during the Western Allies' intervention on behalf of the Czar, and the ensuing Russian Civil War (1918-1921).  Whenever a Western intellectual or political radical gave up on the Soviet Union, it became known as the person having had his or her "Kronstadt moment."  The late, great sociologist Daniel Bell once quipped his Kronstadt moment was, well, Kronstadt.  What happened in that instance did not surprise either Emma Goldman, who was already critical about the direction taken, nor Bertrand Russell, who had already critically written about what the Bolsheviks were doing in 1920. Ultimately, I have seen no reasonable way out of the totalitarian result in most time lines one may envision, though I do not think the direction was in the DNA of the revolutionaries Lenin and Trotsky, unlike Chomsky. I read Victor Serge's Year One of the Russian Revolution, and saw how the Czar and Western Allies' contemptible and violent acts against the Russian people played a major role in the creation of the Cheka, the forerunner to the GPU and KGB. The revolutionaries had initially opened the Russian jails, ended pogroms against Jews, and early in the civil war, twice captured Czarist generals, only to let them go on the naive promise the generals would bring back to the Czarist forces and the Allies the word for peace. Serge's analysis was that the Bolsheviks learned violence solves problems in a manner that is ultimately not true, but convenient for those holding power. 

Nonetheless, Trotsky remains an extraordinary, almost Shakespearean historical figure, and will continue to fire the imagination of many creative minds for years to come. In watching this film, I thought a couple of times, about the Monty Python extended routine about the British man who has multiple personalities, one of which is Leon Trotsky--and how, as Trotsky, ends up journeying to the Soviet Union to reclaim his power.  I was also reminded of the late Anthony Burgess' brilliant novel, The End of the World News, where part of the novel consists of an operatic libretto about Trotsky's time in Greenwich Village, New York City, not long before the Bolshevik Revolution of October 1917. The Trotsky is a great and fun film, and deserves a revival house double feature with the bitingly funny satire about Western intellectual romance with Bolshevik Communism, Children of the Revolution (1996).  

* Serge remains one of my top intellectual and revolutionary heroes, having devoured last year the finally translated into English notebooks Serge left behind. I have read every single thing from Serge that has been translated into English, and never tire of his fiction, non-fiction, memoirs, or other writings.  He is the true witness, most extraordinarily objective about even his enemies, and most insightful about the nature of human history and institutions.  I recall Robert Conquest personally telling me (we met at the LA Times Book Festival long ago) how Serge was the most reliable guide to the history of the Bolshevik Revolution and Stalin's reign over the Soviet Union.

Trump approval rate surging? Not really. Not much at all.

I think some people are overstating Trump's approval "surge." Here is the Real Clear Politics round up. Trump has reached just about 50% approval, which is a high for him. However, in any times of crises, under our presidential system, people tend to rally around the president, no matter how they otherwise feel about him. George Herbert Walker Bush reached massive heights of popularity once the first Iraq War began in 1991, and, in 2004, people voted in a higher number for his son, despite the second Iraq War not going so well at that point, because they did not want to change horses in midstream of a general war situation. Trump is barely registering 50% in this time of a pandemic and an economic shut down the likes of which we have not seen since the Great Depression.  And note how the latest polling shows him drifting down after he ridiculously said people should attend Easter services and get back to work.

I think we should also take solace in Biden's polling against Trump better than it's been for some time, despite the obvious and glaring faults people such as myself see with Biden. Whether those polls stay strong for Biden is another question, of course, but, when considering those polls in tandem with the RCP polling roundup of Trump's approval ratings, again, I think Trump is not doing all that well with the public as people want us to think.

And of course, leave it to Teen Vogue, as usual, to help us over our Governor Andrew Cuomo man-crush.  It is a striking commentary for our times that the best political analysis tends to come more from fashion magazines, such as Teen Vogue and GQ, than anything on corporate owned television cable news.  Cuomo has been astute, strong, and caring in his leadership during this crisis, there is no doubt.  But there is a reason Cuomo, who had presidential ambitions, did not try and join the other 100 people running for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination.  There is a reason actress-activist Cynthia Nixon, with no elective office experience, and never having run for public office, garnered nearly 37% of the vote in a primary in 2018 against Cuomo.

A serf survives the coronavirus in feudal America

Joey Camp is a 30 year old white guy, who lives in Georgia, and is primarily a line cook at Waffle House. Mr. Camp was the first person in Georgia known to have contracted the coronavirus.  Due to his having been crashing on a friend's couch, and the friend having a young child, Mr. Camp had nowhere to go if he did not wish to infect anyone.  So, Mr. Camp ended up in a state government-subsidized trailer, taken care of for free, and, while recuperating, was able to watch Star Wars films on his cellphone.

A little further background regarding Mr. Camp:  Mr. Camp graduated high school in Georgia, joined the military and served in Afghanistan. He returned to the United States, served some time in the National Guard, and then worked as a trucker for awhile, before losing that job.  Along the way, Mr. Camp married and divorced.  Mr. Camp recently has had two part time jobs.  One was at Waffle House, working his way up to line cook to earn $10.65 an hour, and the other job, a party driver, making a similar wage. He had his own apartment at one time, but was evicted, presumably too expensive for him to stay, and he ended up homeless for a spell, before ending up living with the friend with the child.  Oh, and he has diabetes, which means he must pay for the insulin he needs to survive.

Now, Mr. Camp survived the virus, and he wants to tell his story. Mr. Camp wants us to know he stands firmly with the billionaires and Trump who say America needs to stop overreacting, and get back to work.  If some old people die, it is better than killing the economy.  As Mr Camp himself said to the Los Angeles Times reporter, “It’s not going to kill the vast majority of the population...People are hearing 3.4% mortality. They’re not hearing the 96.6% survival rate.”*

Mr. Camp has fully ingested that whatever has happened to him is simply his fault, or something that just happens. It is nobody else's fault. Mr. Camp is content and grateful to work for Waffle House part time, and not making a livable wage to even rent a place outside Atlanta in a fairly rural community.  Mr. Camp knows his place, and has accepted his lot in life.  Mr. Camp does not wonder, if he ever did wonder, how it is that Waffle House, which earns $1 billion year over year, cannot afford to pay him a decent full time wage.  Mr. Camp has no belief there could ever be union of workers to demand better pay and conditions.  

However, Mr. Camp is not without rage.  As he told the reporter at the Daily Mail (UK), "A person who makes $50,000 or $60,000 a year just isn’t understanding what this (societal reaction to the virus) means." Mr. Camp can't even imagine someone making $75,000, or $125,000, or a million.  Not where he lives, and don't you get any ideas, either, as the Los Angeles Times writer learned when talking to a 22 year old diner worker, who knew Mr. Camp, and who also struggles to survive.  Mr. Camp considers himself a libertarian, but voted for Trump in 2016 and will do so again.  He says he watches FoxNews and CNN on his cellphone because he owns no computer and has no high speed Internet available except on his cellphone. Again, he accepts his lot in life, and thinks you whiney snowflake libs in the suburbs, and on college campuses, should, too.

But Mr. Camp sounds hopeful he will survive economically now that he beat this virus. As he said to the Los Angeles Times reporter:

“If I have to, I’ll make a bow and arrow and go hunting in the woods,” he said after driving past the nearly deserted Waffle House.

If things got really desperate and society collapsed, at least his roommate, Trey, has a couple of pistols, an AR-15 and a 12-gauge shotgun.

Mr. Camp even provided a Mad Max reference, where he says to the LA Times reporter:

“It’s like ‘Mad Max,’” he said as he drove down a four-lane highway, passing very few cars. “It’s kind of weird. It’s like everybody’s holding their breath, waiting for either society to collapse or society to get back to normal.”

But, don't worry.  He told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution newspaper, when he was suffering from the virus, how he was a Christian and his faith would get through it.  And he did get through it, with free government health care, though he would likely tell us it was also thoughts and prayers.

In the context of defending superhero films, I have written about Mad Max: Fury Road (though I would bet Mr. Camp is more of the fan of the original film with Mel Gibson) that the film was less about feminist socialism, which comes later in the film and the end, and more about how fascism intertwines itself with religion, patriarchy, and feudalistic behaviors, but with capitalists at the helm.  Those who have seen Mad Max: Fury Road know who Mr. Camp is, and it is not Max.

I tell this story about Mr. Camp because Mr. Camp personifies my frustration with nearly 40 years of Democratic Party politics, which has become more representing what Barbara Ehrenreich coined as the Professional-Managerial Class, while the Republicans push fascism, racism, xenophobia, and a frustrated cynicism on a significant number of working class people. Mr. Camp is not dumb. He does not believe an Obama, Biden, Bill or Hillary Clinton will ever look out for him, and he has a good reason to believe that. Mr. Camp thinks Trump has his back, though his watching CNN and FoxNews, and reading Trump tweets, doesn't enlighten him about Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and the Swamp Monster corporate lobbyists who fill the Trump administration, and who also own Congress. On the other hand, Mr. Camp has a message for progressives like me. As a libertarian, he also doesn't believe in that pie-in-the-sky-give-away-free-stuff Bernie Sanders line, either. Again, he has accepted his status as a part time line cook and party driver.  He has accepted his lot as a divorcee living with a friend, sleeping on a couch.  

Mr. Camp reminds me of the nightmare scene in It's A Wonderful Life, where George Bailey (Jimmy Stewart playing him) tries to tell Ernie, the taxi driver, how he knows Ernie's wife and child, and Ernie, not knowing Bailey because the angel has given Bailey his wish to have never been born, says to Bailey, "You saw my wife?  She left me six months ago.  I ain't seen her since."  Ernie is deeply unhappy with his life, but knows that is the way life is. Ernie is a realist, you see. However, in the timeline Bailey knew Ernie, we know Ernie is married, has a child, and is happy he was able to buy a home on his earnings, in large part because Bailey was like the super-mayor who ran the financial co-op (more than even a credit union).  And in the extended nightmare scene, the viewer sees how so many residents accept "Pottersville," which Mr. Potter, the rich guy, essentially owns, and renamed, as the town was formerly known as Bedford Falls. A lot of the residents seem to admire, if not fear, Potter.  He's rich and he lets them live, at least. 

Mr. Camp does not believe in George Bailey's speech to the Building & Loan's Board about helping what Mr. Potter called the "rabble."  Mr. Camp is "Tom" in the bank run scene, who wants his money back and up front right away, or else he is selling his co-op shares to Potter, as the Great Depression of the early 1930s deepens. "Tom" and Mr. Camp live moment to moment.  Life is a burden and one lives by accepting that burden, never looking up, never looking forward. I continue to think Mr. Camp may be reminded of his youthful optimism, if he ever had it, if there was a political party that actually and consistently showed him solidarity and looked first and foremost for his economic interests. My hope in that direction may well be wrong at this point. However, I know, and I mean, I know, Mr. Camp will never vote for a corporate Democrat.  And, contrary to people I meet inside the Democratic Party (more in CA than here in NM, I will say), I also know it is not enough to look to see if Mr. Camp is racist or a xenophobe. It is not enough to just leave Mr. Camp in the dust for thinking he doesn't like "homos" or thinking abortion is a big issue to vote for or against someone running for public office. 

Right now, our nation is sliding towards second world economic status, and the language people use increasingly fits a pattern we would have called, in a different time, fascism. See here for Bertrand Russell's 1935 essay on the loss of reasoned debate as part of fascist "discourse," and this article showing how fascism oppresses the "other" but lets the "non-other" have a welfare state. This helps us understand why no "New Deal"/"democratic socialism" light went on in Mr. Camp's head after getting free government health care which saved his life. 

It grieves me to say we are slowly sliding toward a society that resembles Mad Max: Fury Road. For me, my personal political radicalism is grounded in my being a parent who cares about young people, which includes Mr. Camp and other white youth, but most definitely includes African-American, Latino, Asian, and LGBTQ youth. My political radicalism is grounded in a belief that public policy and government can make a positive difference in people's lives. My political radicalism is grounded in a belief that when we do better for the economically vulnerable and the oppressed, we as a society do better. Mr. Camp and I would have a big argument, I'm sure, but he would likely say, You're a nobody like me, so why should I care what you say? And he would be correct again, at least in a time where money counts, and where nearly any otherwise good and caring guy my age can be #MeToo'ed at some point or another.**

But, let's leave behind profound films such as Wonderful Life and Mad Max: Fury Road, which are still fiction, and understand the basic point, which is lots of people live like Mr. Camp in America today.  In fact, 44% of Americans working full time make just at or less than a living wage. If we don't believe in reforming government policies in a fundamental way to be able to make better lives for ourselves and others in our communities, then we are eventually going to be grabbing for our AR-15s, and hoping to get some glory in a Mad Max world. I know that dichotomy seems too extreme for those making, year over year, $75,000, or $250,000, or who are millionaire Democrats living in a big house in a wealthy suburb, and who lead a wonderful life overall. That is, however, part of the problem.  We really do not understand Mr. Camp's life, and we do not see how Mr. Camp's bravado, Christian beliefs, and "I'll-tough-it-out" manliness hide his otherwise quiet desperation, and unhappiness, based upon alienation.   

I have worried about this for most of my adult life, as I maneuvered through the upper middle professional-managerial class, watching, with horror and anger, the loss of our manufacturing base, the selfishness that became a political creed in libertarians, Reagan-Trump Republicans, and corporate Democrats, and which culminated in the ultimate "I've Got Mine" vs. "Get Off My Lawn," presidential election of 2016, which is what I called the Hillary Clinton-Donald Trump presidential race. Maybe Mr. Camp is to be written off for conversion this year.  But, Mr. Camp speaks for a lot of people who live like serfs in a feudalist economy we still call "capitalist," within a political oligarchy we still call a "republic." We who are privileged to live in a stable economic environment owe Mr. Camp, and people like him, the duty to pull ourselves out of our ideological blinder that tells us all we need is a little tinkering with the economy, and how we just have to get rid of the vulgar guy sitting in the White House.  We owe Mr. Camp, and others like him, even if he calls people like me "libtards."  We owe him just the same. However, if we deny that duty or say, "Who's 'we'? 'We' don't owe him anything," then we are, as I have said, our own meteor.  We are all in this together, and we ought to find the sentiment to believe in, and act to create, a government representative of our best values, and those consistent with our Founders' best values.  And those values include a government which protects and develops infrastructure, helps people in the main and in need (which our Founders called "the general welfare"), and believes all people are created equal.

____________________

* Never mind that would mean about 10 million would die from this virus, an astronomical figure Mr. Camp was undoubtedly taught would be bad when a Communist dictator like Stalin killed, or let die from starvation and disease, seven million in Ukraine. But, hey buddy. You don't compare us to Stalin. This is America! We only killed millions of Native Americans over three centuries. As Stalin understood, and our fellow American conservatives and libertarians have ingested, A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths are a statistic.

** I am not sure what to make of the woman's sexual assault assertion against Biden which dropped this week, and remain amazed nobody has stepped forward in that manner against Bernie (yes, yes, I am aware of how Bernie's 2016 campaign had some leches).  Also, here is an article from New York Magazine, from less than a year ago, where Biden's accuser describes the encounters she had with Biden as a staffer in the early 1990s as non-sexual, and goes into detail about a more typical Biden encounter than the one she now discusses.  And let's remember, conservatives only care about these things when it involves "libs" or "Democrats," not someone running as a conservative.  It is why Trump survived multiple assault and adultery claims against him. 

Great interview with Bruce Bartlett on the history of the macro economic debates of the past century

Bruce Bartlett, an original Reagan adviser and supply sider who has become much more of a Keynesian, provides an excellent history of economic theories and the people who pushed for the theories in this interview at Salon.com. 

My only quibble with Bartlett is his still taking the conventional view that WWII, not the New Deal, ended the Great Depression. Fact is people in the New Deal job programs were still considered "unemployed," as southern Dems and conservatives who went along demanded they not be deemed "employed." It allowed for political arguments that the New Deal was not working. If one counts those in the WPA, PWA, CCC, etc. as employed, unemployment in 1939 was between 5-7%, and 6% in 1941, as the nation was transitioning from domestic production to war production.  Conrad Black, in his majestic biography of FDR, lays this out, and can be seen through word searching various pages with the word "employment."  Also, why is it any less "New Deal" to build a tank in 1942 than a library or a road in 1936?  The key is government programs to employ the unemployed, and to have people doing useful work, whether that is building or fixing roads, building dams, bridges, canals, libraries, public buildings, restoring forest land, developing parks, etc., as well as building rockets, tanks, and other munitions.

There is a reason we know the official unemployment rates make no sense to draw a conclusion about the New Deal, and that is the largely spectacular growth in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) which began within a year after FDR took office in 1933. See the chart in this otherwise conventional and therefore misleading and wrong article about FDR's New Deal and WWII leadership (The author fails to note the sharp decline in GDP in 1938, owing to FDR cutting back on the New Deal jobs programs, and thinking the private market was ready to take back the workers; FDR then put the pedal to the metal in putting people back to work on useful public works, as Black explains in his FDR biography). In short, GDP growth that is often in double digits makes no sense if unemployment is in double digits and demand for products and services is assumed to be down from high unemployment rates. 

Anyway, Bartlett provides important background to understand the last 90 years of political economy, with insights into the 2008 Great Recession and subsequent bailout, the bad faith his then former colleagues in the Republican Party continue to exhibit, and the importance of velocity of money to get things truly moving again. He recognizes demand side economics makes much more sense, and a robust infrastructure program (he doesn't mention the Green New Deal, but it fits with his velocity of money point) would do wonders for the nation and our people.  Just as the original New Deal in the 1930s greatly increased money velocity, and had positive collateral effects--people had money to go out and spend at local businesses--, so would a Green New Deal, as Bernie Sanders has envisioned.  Heck, even Scientific American agrees there would be a significant net increase in employment.

NM harder hit in its economy than the virus--so far

Joe Monahan is on the job: He notes the irony is the economy is hitting NM harder than the virus--so far. Very few NM people travel, which appears to be the biggest factor in whether one tests positive for the virus or has symptoms of the virus. This is a state so economically poor that nearly half the people in the state have either Medicaid, VA, or some other government program assisting them. My first choice candidate for CD-3, Kyle Tisdel (strategically, I may vote for Teresa Leger Fernandez in the seven person race), has properly called NM a colony of the fossil fuel industry, and, he says, as with any colony, the resources are extracted for profit to everyone but the people who live in or near the land. The stimulus package cannot come quickly enough for many here. And maybe people will realize--finally!--two things (1) we now have a rainy day to start tapping the $24 billion in funds, one of the highest of any state (California's is "only" $21 billion, and CA is the fifth largest economy in the world and has 20 times the population); and (2) maybe it is time to be creative and diverse in pursuing an economy that is not so reliant on the booms/busts of fossil fuel.

Oh, and Joe, now a FB friend, quotes another FB friend, Steve Cabiedes in Joe's latest blog post.

The evil that is Hobby Lobby and its representation of an ideology called capitalism

This letter is stunning in revealing the evil which animates this for-profit company. There is not a word about what the company will offer its workers during the crisis other than telling them to tighten their belts. The letter is basically a bunch of religious-based bromides which incidentally tells the employees how blessed the owners are to have made so much money, while again the employees should be tightening their own belts.

Hobby Lobby represents exactly how capitalism replicates feudal relations through the medium of money, and how capitalists use religion to justify their wealth and your (meaning the employees') subservience to them.

The case of the per curium decision effectively overruling Heller

For the past several years, I have been trying to explain, to anyone who would listen, how Justice Scalia's conservative jurist majority opinion in Heller had re-affirmed a narrow scope as to what type of weapons were within the 2nd Amendment protections. See my discussion here, regarding a particularly brazen misreading of Heller by a very right wing judge in Southern California. In the post, I stated only the types of weapons in "common use" in 1791 were within the 2nd Amendment's protection, i..e. pistols and muskets/rifles, and basic modern handguns and rifles, not the particularly modern weapons, such as AR-15s, which fire, at the mere touch of a finger, a bunch of rounds in seconds.  In that linked to post, I had admitted, however, with the death of Scalia and retirement of Anthony Kennedy, we may see an overruling of this portion of Heller.

Yesterday, I had a dust up on Facebook with a respected former law colleague, and big gun owner fan, over Scalia's use, in Heller, of the phrase "in common use at the time." The colleague said it meant currently, not historically. I showed, through a word or phrase search, there are five instances where Scalia used that phrase in Heller, and all were in historical contexts, not current contexts. Indeed, Scalia, at one point, discussing the US Supreme Court Miller case from over 80 years ago, spoke of the 2nd Amendment protecting those weapons which "were in common use at the time," again in a historical context, not a current context or context of the time of particular litigation.  Had Scalia meant current use, he would have used a phrase such as "current use at the time of the litigation." Plus, Scalia would never have felt the need to explain, in detail, later in the opinion, that the singular fact there is now a vast gap between what the US military currently has in weaponry and what the 1791 militias had, does not change the narrow scope, and therefore gun owners can't get an "M-16 and the like," let alone a tank or Stealth bomber. Also, as noted in my initial linked to post from last year, pro-gun constitutional law professor Dave Kopel, would never have had to talk about whether multiple firing rounds were in "common use" in 1791 in his 2014 Washington Post article trying to make an argument to come within the Heller holding.

My colleague, again, a very bright lawyer, apparently decided to re-read Heller, and reached an initial "Ah ha!" moment, seizing upon different language from the early part of Heller, which reads:

Some have made the argument, bordering on the frivolous, that only those arms in existence in the 18th century are protected by the Second Amendment. We do not interpret constitutional rights that way. Just as the First Amendment protects modern forms of communications, e.g., Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union, 521 U.S. 844, 849 (1997), and the Fourth Amendment applies to modern forms of search, e.g., Kyllo v. United States, 533 U.S. 27, 35–36 (2001), the Second Amendment extends, prima facie, to all instruments that constitute bearable arms, even those that were not in existence at the time of the founding.

It was a gallant attempt, I thought. However, the language earlier in the opinion, as Scalia is warming up for the majority holding. Scalia is doing what judges often do in long, historically based opinions, which is to talk about what "some" say.  Yes, the "bordering on the frivolous" phrasing is a hard one to get around. However, the language my former law colleague primarily focused on is the fragment in the last sentence, "...the Second Amendment extends, prima facie, to all instruments that constitute bearing arms, even those that were not in existence at the time of the founding."

"Prima facie," is a Latin term meaning, "at first view." Therefore, Scalia is merely setting us up for his continued referencing of the phrase "in common use at the time" in its historical context, and, again, talking about the wide gulf between what militias had at the time in 1791, and what the U.S. military has now, and why contemporary gun owners can't have what the military has now.  

Game over, right?  I mean, really.  We can't believe the US Supreme Court is going to upset the Miller decision or the previously narrow scope of the 2nd Amendment, and open the door to people getting modern weaponry soldiers use in war.  To think the 2nd Amendment allows us to bear arms that include modern weaponry is analogous to saying the First Amendment protects what is published on the Internet as much as a newspaper or a pamphlet misses a fundamental factual distinction. It is a difference of me carrying around my cellphone with Internet access and you carrying around a bazooka.  

Well, enter Ms. Caetano, a homeless woman, hanging around in Massachusetts, who was in a relationship with an abusive boyfriend, and who decided to borrow a friend's stun gun to protect herself from him.  A Massachusetts law said a stun gun, which electrically shocks, but not necessarily kills (It may have killed me with my electrical heart issues, I say as an aside), is illegal to possess. The homeless woman was prosecuted under the law, and the case went to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, the top court in Massachusetts.  The Court affirmed Caetano's conviction, holding in multiple places how stun guns were not in existence, let alone "common use," in 1791.  See here for the unanimous Court decision.  Again, game over, right?  Heck, the Court even quoted from a 1980 Oregon Supreme Court case, which came to a similar conclusion as Scalia when interpreting Oregon's own version of the 2nd Amendment. In State v Kessler, 289 Ore. 359 (1980), the Oregon Court concluded its analysis of Oregon's constitutional gun guarantee, stating: "If the text and purpose of the constitutional guarantee relied exclusively on the preference for a militia 'for defense of the State,' then the term 'arms' most likely would include only the modern day equivalents of the weapons used by colonial militiamen." (Emphasis added). In Kessler, the Oregon Supreme Court said a person may own a club, and a law forbidding that violated Oregon's 2nd Amendment equivalent. Still, so far, so good for Scalia's majority opinion in Heller.  

But....Scalia died in February 2016, while the US Supreme Court is considering Ms. Caetano's case. Less than a month later, in March 2016, the now Scalia-less Supreme Court issues a per curiam opinion summarily rejecting the Massachusetts high court.  A per curiam decision is unsigned by any justice, and is issued without oral argument or extensive briefing.  It is here where I think this per curiam decision did terrible mischief and effectively overruled Heller's limitation of the scope of the 2nd Amendment. The per curiam decision is only five paragraphs long, consistent with a summary decision.  It states in pertinent part:

The Court has held that “the Second Amendment extends, prima facie, to all instruments that constitute bearable arms, even those that were not in existence at the time of the founding,” District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U. S. 570, 582 (2008) , and that this “ Second Amendment right is fully applicable to the States,” McDonald v. Chicago, 561 U. S. 742, 750 (2010). In this case, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts upheld a Massachusetts law prohibiting the possession of stun guns after examining “whether a stun gun is the type of weapon contemplated by Congress in 1789 as being protected by the Second Amendment.” 470 Mass. 774, 777, 26 N. E. 3d 688, 691 (2015).

The court offered three explanations to support its holding that the Second Amendment does not extend to stun guns. First, the court explained that stun guns are not protected because they “were not in common use at the time of the Second Amendment’s enactment.” Id., at 781, 26 N. E. 3d, at 693. This is inconsistent with Heller’s clear statement that the Second Amendment “extends . . . to . . . arms . . . that were not in existence at the time of the founding.” 554 U. S., at 582.

Catch that? The U.S. Supreme Court used the "some say" paragraph containing the "prima facie" to erase the historical context of "in common use at the time" language throughout Scalia's Heller decision.  Then, as with a club in the Oregon case of State v. Kessler, the Court disposed of the remaining arguments in allowing this homeless woman to use a stun gun to protect herself from an abusive boyfriend. The Court the stun gun could only be prohibited if it is both "dangerous and unusual," and, while relatively unusual, a stun gun is not as dangerous as a regular gun. The Court further held a stun gun it is not "readily adaptable to use in the military," say, as with an M-16 (and its predecessor, the AR-15) or AK-47. But my view about Scalia's limited scope argument in Heller being overruled is hinted at in the Alito-Thomas concurring opinion in this per curiam case. Those two Justices really want to take a club and a stun gun, not to mention an axe, to Heller's re-affirmation of the limited scope of weapons protected under the 2nd Amendment.  That concurring opinion is a sight to read, as it challenges even the modern US military v. militia argument, where it states:

...(T)he Second Amendment therefore protects such weapons as a class, regardless of any particular weapon’s suitability for military use. 554 U. S., at 627; see id., at 624–625. Indeed, Heller acknowledged that advancements in military technology might render many commonly owned weapons ineffective in warfare. Id., at 627–628. But such “modern developments . . . cannot change our interpretation of the right.” Ibid.

Wow!  Alito and Thomas appear to have reversed Scalia's U.S. military v. 1791 militia point in Heller. Scalia had written the fact the U.S. military has a whole bunch of deadlier toys does not change the limited scope of arms protected under the 2nd Amendment to the type of guns in common use in 1791.  

Folks, fasten your seatbelts.  Kavanaugh and Gorsuch, two bomb-throwing right-wing judges, have replaced Scalia and Kennedy, and I have little hope they will join the Court's liberals in saying, "Hey, wait a minute. Our 2016 decision in Caetano v. Massachusetts was decided in the wake of a dear friend's death, and concerned our wanting to protect a homeless woman who borrowed a stun gun to protect herself from an abusive boyfriend. We didn't agree with Alito's and Thomas' concurring opinion, and realize now there was a little mischief in how Heller was described in the per curiam opinion. You are not going to get us to agree that even military weaponry and weapons, such as the AR-15, which was the precursor of the M-16, are suddenly within 2nd Amendment protection." Nope. I don't see those two new justices saying that, unless they happen to discuss the case with their wives, and their wives say, "Whaaaat?"

So, here is the bottom line:  I am still correct as to how to properly read Heller regarding the scope of weapons protected under the 2nd Amendment. Other high courts agree with that interpretation, i.e. the US Supreme Court in Miller, the Massachusetts high court in Caetano, and the Oregon Supreme Court interpretation of Oregon's own version of the 2nd Amendment in Kessler.  However, I am now wrong in fact because a per curiam opinion in the US Supreme Court, issued less than a month after Scalia's death, without extensive briefing, has effectively reversed that portion of Heller, and made it much more difficult for states and the Congress to outlaw or prohibit various deadly weapons that have come into modern common use. Alito, Thomas, and their conservative brethren simply refuse to realize--at least not yet--the anarchic ramifications from such an effective reversal. For justices who think the Supreme Court's economic function is to enforce corporate power over society, they may find this type of reasoning they are employing will undermine society itself.

As I am wont to say, when shocked on Facebook, Wow.

Politics and disease

If the talk is about public policy after a disease outbreak, then that is not only fine, but consistent with human history.  See this article discussing a recently released book called Epidemics and Society: From the Black Plague to the Present.  The book's author is Frank Snowden, professor of medicine at Yale University.

My letter to the editor regarding NM's red flag law

The Rio Rancho Observer has finally posted online my red flags law letter. You can read my letter and then, read the first comment comment from a pro-gun guy who posits the tired argument, which did not materialize in fact (or at least rarely) about how the laws will more likely take away guns from law-abiding owners. Tellingly, the commenter makes two attacks against "old aunts" taking a guy's--yes, a guy's--gun away, which shows, statistically, at least, he knows this is a guy's problem. Worse for his argument, the commenter ignores NM's law's requirement that a police officer must swear out the warrant for the rapid due process, not a live-in, roommate, or family member residing in the house, nor does he posit the aunt is even a neighbor. 

The commenter attempts to minimizes effects on suicides and fatal domestic violence following the enactment of these laws by blaming Mayor Bloomberg, as if Bloomberg's mere financial (and certainly not sole financial) support for a single pro-gun control group (Everytown for Gun Safety), is all one needs to know. The Indiana and Connecticut laws' effectiveness in reducing suicides is here. There is another study about domestic violence and mass shootings, which also supports the need for a red flag law, and an Ohio domestic violence group shows how guns are used over 70% of the time in fatal domestic violence cases that are reported. I must admit I am having trouble now finding where I saw the fatal domestic violence gun rate decline, and so far, I am seeing no studies on that sub-topic. Also, the commenter is mixing up the decline in the murder rate with the more targeted reasons for the law, which are increasingly and primarily about suicides and domestic violence. As people study the numbers, it is suicides and domestic violence which have increased over time, and which has led to the many states passing these laws since 2018, even though the Parkland, FL massacre was the initial spur. 

The fellow ignores the 2nd Amendment analysis in the letter and ignores Trump's own stance following the Parkland, FL massacre. The commenter simply assumes the commenter is correct that this law violates the 2nd Amendment, without dealing with any particular decision, especially Heller.Here is a backgrounder article from CBS News regarding red flag laws. Here is a link to Heller v. DC, and here are links to the police officer suicide and domestic violence rates.

UPDATE March 20, 2020: See how I am now wrong, thanks to a 2016 US Supreme Court per curiam decision, issued about a month after Justice Scalia's death, that effectively overrules an important part of Scalia's Heller v. DC opinion.

Bernie over Yang if we want to really help people

YangGangers have to stop the nonsense that this Trump proposal is better than Bernie Sanders' proposals for income guarantees up to $60,000 annually, $2,000 a month for households, mortgage/rent relief, unemployment benefits for up to 100% of salary or weekly wages, and medical treatment beyond the coronavirus. One can make fun of Sanders' proposals as things that still won't fly, but maybe it is time for more Americans, especially YangGangers, to start demanding the possibilities be more directly confronted, especially as I see YangGangers calling for general online strikes.

As for Trumpists, you may keep denying things can change except when Trump calls for it. And Bidenites, keep thinking this is only a temporary crisis, instead of the very type of crisis which exposes the rot in our economic, medical, and political systems. In other words, go back to corporate cable television. Nothing to see here.

As dust is settling, and Bernie is fading from contention in the presidential race

Bernie may suspend his campaign at this point--if I read his latest official email sent to me this morning. I am so angry those elections were held yesterday, as the majority of the voters were the corporate media herded older Democrats. I laughed, however, when I saw last night, regarding Florida, how Bernie was up 20 points among voters under 40. They saw through the argument that Bernie was pro-Castro and a no-good Commie. Also, ironically, a poll released yesterday showed Bernie coming back against Biden nationally. I think, had there been no elections, we would have seen Bernie gain more momentum, especially as he is to speak today in the senate on the virus issues. 

I am more convinced than ever corporate media won this primary season, and how the corporate media manufactured, for Democratic Party voter consumption, Biden's solidifying lead for the nomination. This despite my plea to fellow Dems not to fall for the media narrative.  I hope my FB friends who have fallen in line can find enough "moderate" Republicans to vote for Biden against Trump. That is Biden's "electability" argument, isn't it? As I have said, my old law firm boss, a woman, is the full personification of a "moderate Republican," and she said last week to me she will easily vote for Trump over Biden. She said the same for Bernie, but that is not where Bernie's electability is located. Bernie's electability is located in working class neighborhoods and among the young. We may say they didn't vote enough, or are manipulated, too, but I saw those long lines and one voting place in various college and other Bernie oriented areas. And I for one am really concerned about the more than 4% (sometimes as much as 11%) disparity in exit polling data and official results, when the OAS and UN use such disparities of 4% or more to question the propriety of an official election. And there is no, I repeat, no enthusiasm for Biden, unlike white enthusiasm for Trump. 

I see Biden winning the national popular vote, but I don't see Biden winning the Rust Belt, after Trump and the Republicans highlight Biden's trade votes, bankruptcy votes, and his lies and plagiarism. The only way I see Biden defeating Trump is if enough swing voters in the Rust Belt decide Trump did badly in handling the virus crisis. However, that is why Trump suddenly went into YangGang territory yesterday. Trump knows how to win this re-election, and must be giddy how the establishment/corporate Democratic Party stalwart Joe Biden is solidifying his nomination. You can expect Joe to get hounded on Ukraine, his son Hunter and Joe's own brother. Bernie didn't hit Biden on this vulnerability. Yes, I know the arguments against Biden are wrong and in bad faith when it comes to his own conduct and Ukraine. Just read James Risen in the Intercept for the dishonesty of the Ukraine attack on Biden. I should add I felt the same about Hillary's emails, as there was no competent evidence of any national security violation, though she and Obama never gave that benefit of the doubt to others who were negligent in handling national security matters. Fat lot of good it did for Bernie to not attack Hillary on her emails, and the same will be said with Bernie not attacking Biden for being vulnerable about Ukraine matters.

In short, Democratic Party stalwarts: If Biden is the nominee (assuming he does not stroke out by July, and the DNC chooses another candidate from their establishment roster), I will vote for Biden in November. Okay? Satisfied? I will say I will not waver in saying Biden is the very personification in what is wrong with the Democratic Party for the past forty years, and is a liar who has had bad judgment on major policy issues over the time he has served as a senator. But yes, he is still better on judicial appointments and a few around the edge issues than Trump will ever be.

For me, if Bernie suspends or drops his bid for president, I am focused on downticket races more than ever. Beating McConnell and the Senate Republicans is a key thing to ensure we have no more right wing bomb throwing judges. However, I am also watching to see what happens after November. I am waiting to see if there will be a new movement for a non-money corrupted progressive oriented party--beyond what the late Gore Vidal called The Property Party and its two wings, Democratic and Republican. I am ready to join the activist kids, Sunrise Movement, BlackLivesMatter, and other organizations for a #DemExit after the election. The Democratic Party, for the last and most damning time--a time of multiple existential crises (climate chaos, systemic inequality, medical care for less and less, student debt beggaring the younger people, and now virus crises), has made clear how much the party hates people like me. I get it. You have no respect for people like me, have only a condescending contempt for people like me, and have no use for me other than as a follower for your corporate, neo-liberal, pro Empire candidates.

Oh, and one more thing: If Massachusetts progressives decide to primary Elizabeth Warren, count me in as a money supporter (not that I have much to give, but I will).  What Warren and Yang did, in not lining up with Bernie upon their departures from the presidential sweepstakes, is unconscionable and was a corrupt, petty move on the part of each. Yang may survive, but Warren has clearly lost credibility for many more people than just me.  Historians of this period, when analyzing the progressive movement, will pinpoint Warren as petty, and ultimately a phony who betrayed the progressive movement.  She is damned as far as I am concerned.  Damned.  Had Bernie done the same in reverse, I would say the same about Bernie.  This is not about gender.  This is about integrity and fealty to what you claim to believe in.

Biden's laugh and the institutional rot in our nation, the two party system, and the corporate owned media

You know, for a corporate media which destroyed Howard Dean's 2004 campaign over him yelling with joy after the 2004 Iowa caucuses, I find it interesting how nobody has commented on how many times Biden laughed in Bernie's face when Bernie confronted Biden about Biden's record and Biden lying about his past positions.

I know that laugh.  I have been laughed at in that precise way by Democratic Party insiders I have met over the year. It was the same type of contemptuous, condescending laugh. 

The laugh is a metaphor for how the corporate class in the Democratic Party actually feels about progressives in the party.

I left the Democratic Party in the period of 1994-1998 (I returned for Gray Davis' gubernatorial campaign in CA in 1998, and saw him lie once he got into office in 1999), and then left the party again for the period of 1999-2003. I reluctantly came back for the 2004 election and have stayed ever since, always with frustration at what I see as institutional corruption inside the party--but recognizing how binary most Americans are about party politics.

Right now, however, I am ready to join the kids, the Sunrise Movement, BlackLivesMatter, and other progressive groups to create a new political party, which does not contain the institutional barriers to true change and reform, IF they decide they have had enough after this November. The kids are not as much into binary politics and this is healthy.  We can only stop the Property Party--as Gore Vidal called the Democrats and Republicans starting in the 1960s through his death in 2012--if we destroy one or the other of the duopoly. 

Democrats are wrong to call Trump an existential crisis. Trump is not an existential crisis. Trump is the RESULT of the four existential crises, of climate change, systemic inequality, medical care, and student debt.  If the kids and progressive groups don't leave the Democratic Party, I may leave again anyway. The rot of our nation's economy, its systemic inequality, its reliance on fossil fuel industry subsidies, tax credits, exemptions, etc., and its war machine and Empire, and its completely rotted corporate media that spews propaganda for the ruling class in our society, make it imperative that we get out of this cycle of madness, delusion, and self-immolation.

Even The Wife, while happy Biden did not show his dementia after a week's rest in last night's debate, was disgusted by Biden's behavior and lies about his record. She remembered, as I do, about how the Clintons and Obama lied about their pro-corporate Democratic Party positions to get elected.

For anyone who detests Trump's lies, and lets Biden slide for his lies and distortions last night, feel free to return to your regularly scheduled propaganda on CNN and MSNBFox.

Biden's lies and last minute conversions. It always seems to work with the Boomers and upwards.

Let's start with Biden's lies tonight.

1. Bankruptcy bill.  To listen to him, he was the hero who helped make the bankruptcy bill better.  This article from GQ shows the reality behind the lie.  Joe Biden used to be called, at that time, the Senator from MBNA, which was the name of a major credit card company, which happened to be located in Delaware, where Biden was from.  See also this American Prospect article on how bad Biden was in the bankruptcy bill negotiations and amendments.

2. Social Security.  Joe Biden was an important behind-the-scenes guy with the odious Simpson-Bowles bill that would have cut individual benefits over time and raised the minimum ages for procuring Social Security benefits.  He is lying to pretend otherwise.

Now, a distortion.  Biden tried to make it sound like he stands against the Chinese political dictatorship.  Yet, it was Biden who supported most favored nation status with China in 2000, along with corporate Democrats starting with then President Bill Clinton, and the Republicans. Bernie opposed it for the proper reasons, and was again correct about what would happen when our leaders opened our markets to China and its near slave and slave wage workers.  But sure.  Bernie somehow loves dictators.  

Oh, and folks, Bernie defended the Sandinistas in Nicaragua in the 1980s from US attacks and sanctions. Bernie also opposed the much more horribly oppressive and murderous dictators in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. Biden? AWOL or marginally supporting the Reagan policies that trained the very murderers of priests and nuns in those other nations. As I used to publicly debate for the Democrats against Republicans in those years, if you or I were to choose which regime we would like to be in and be a known dissident, you or I would choose Nicaragua over any of those other three nations, based upon information from Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the Maryknoll Nuns' human rights organization, and other human rights organizations.

Biden also laughed off Italy's single pay system and the coronavirus, but South Korea has done a good job with its single pay system. Read this Reuters article to show having single pay is not enough, but it sure helps identify people early and effectively. 

And now, Biden's last minute conversions. On fracking, on the bankruptcy bill, student debt, and other subjects tonight was par for the course for politicians like Joe Biden. I am convinced Warren's sudden proposal for bankruptcy reform and Biden's support for it is more than a coincidence. It shows Warren is actively undermining the progressive movement as she should know better that the Senator from MBNA, as Biden was known all over DC back in the day, will ever change on this. Biden has already assured his billionaire donors nothing will fundamentally change. 

Also, let's see how Biden has suddenly evolved on the Hyde Amendment, which banned federal dollars going to abortion clinics for decades. Biden supported it, openly and proudly, for decades and then, after trying to still say he supported it in June 2019, found he had to reverse his long held stance to run for president.

However, based upon how corporate media spinning goes, Bernie needed a hard punch to Biden's gut. He didn't land that punch, unless people want to start adding up the Biden lies, distortions, and last minute conversions designed to fool voters into thinking he would actually fight for these issues, if somehow elected. After the debate, CNN's commentators said nothing about the lies, distortions and changes in positions for the campaign. I wish Bernie, during the debate, had talked about corporate media's free advertising for Biden, which was worth far more than the spending on ads from Bernie's individual donors. I wish Bernie did more than a drive by on corporate media bias. And not one question about Ukraine, which will be a major talking point no matter what is not said now. If one reads James Risen in the Intercept from a few months ago, there is truth to what Trump pushes about Biden. But few understand and another lie takes wing with uninformed voters--how ironic for Biden, who had to lie and distort his own long record in this debate with Sanders.

I watched Obama lie to voters in 2008 about his supposedly being against trade deals, but consistently supporting them. I watched Bill Clinton lie about "putting people first." I have heard the lies from neo-liberal/neo-conservative politicians for 50 years. But I marvel at the way in which they get people on board, as they meant what they say on a campaign trail when they have to hold votes.  The lies have consistently worked, and sadly, they will work again tonight and in the days to come.  I also kept saying to my wife and others on FB, Biden will not falter tonight, at least for most of the debate, because he is now well rested.  He was even able to stand at the podium tonight. Low bar, just as with Reagan in 1984.  Boomers and Oldsters fooled again.

Also, with all the technology available, CNN and its post-debate commentators could not bother to research what I did?  Not in real time, either? It would have been great for Jake Tapper to roll the video of Biden talking about raising the minimum age and cutting individual benefits in the Social Security program, or the article linked to above about how he was pushing for Social Security and Medicare cuts to be on the table through Simpson-Bowles and other initiatives from the 1990s through the Obama administrations.

I have little hope for Sanders tonight, but he must stay in this race, and we must hope social media will blunt the impact of corporate media about what Biden did tonight.  I truly fear Biden will not fare well against Trump, and we will have four more years of Trump.  But we will see how this all unfolds.

But I must say one more thing: Did anyone else notice how much Biden laughed at Sanders during the debate?  I took this as one shining emotional example of how much contempt corporate Democrats have toward progressives. It is why I am seriously considering DemExit after the November elections if I see progressive groups and the kids decide they have had enough of this corrupt party and the corrupt corporate media.