General misconceptions #1

 

General Misconceptions #1

(“Stuff” some people some folks think they know and probably don’t)

National health care “doesn’t work.” “Medicare for All” is too expensive”

        I’ve written at length on various aspects of universal health care, so this will be a summation. In my opinion, the measure of any health care system should be first and foremost, “How soon can I get care when I need it? Following on the heels of that is, “How good is it?” We hear fragmented “horror stories” of other nations with national health care, and a frequent topic is something like “You have to wait too long.” A better question might be “In comparable countries, what percentage of adults have quick access to a doctor or a nurse when they need it?”

        In fact, real data (not partisan bloviation and rhetoric) shows that the average number of persons in all comparable countries who were able to make same or next day appointments was 57%. Germany (53%), France (56%), The UK (57%), Australia (67%) and the Netherlands were all above that number with the Netherlands at 77%.  Health care consumers surveyed in the UK were 10% more likely to respond positively than those in the US. US was 51%, below the 57% average.  It is noteworthy that all these nations except the US have some sort of mandatory health care provision, be it private insurance or  national health care, or what have you.

        As for “wait” times: opponents of national health care are quick to cite long wait times the see physicians as if it is universally true. It varies by country and population density. The UK National Health system “shoots” for, in all cases, 15 days or less to schedule a non-urgent doctor’s appointment. At present, this year (2019), the NHS is averaging more like 16 days. Remember, this is to see a doctor in a non-emergency situation.

        I know, you’re thinking, “16 days?” Wow, we sure have it better here! Really? Try this on:  The longest US wait to see a doctor is in Boston, where the average wait is 52 days to schedule an appointment with a family physician, dermatologist, cardiologist, orthopedic surgeon or obstetrician/gynecologist.    

        Perhaps an even more relevant issue is “What percentage of initial care options was an emergency room visit vice a regular doctor visit?  Why does this matter? It matters primarily because an ER visit may well find the patient seeing a non-specialist who is totally unfamiliar with the patient’s medical history. This is especially true in these cases where the patient has no regular primary care medical professional relationship because they have no health insurance.

        Another survey was run to determine what percentage of initial care options was an emergency room visit vice a regular doctor visit. Again, results were not surprising, with the US and Canada significantly more likely for an initial care option being an ER. This is not totally unexpected in Canada, which has a very scattered population in a very large area at just around 10 persons per square mile. Many Canadians are sufficiently isolated that a local hospital is the closest as small communities cannot support a practice.  The USA, while less dense than most European nations, has more than nine times higher population density at 95 per square mile. This matters, because the US still has 16% of initial medical care incidents at ERs, while Canada is at 17%. Sweden, which has a relatively low population density (48 per square mile) with much of it rural, still uses ERs 25% less than the US. The UK has less than half the percentage of initial care ER visits as the US. 

        Some factoids (I have the data:):

  The US leads all surveyed nations in frequency of medical, medication and lab errors!

“How does the frequency of hospital admissions for preventable diseases vary by comparable nation regardless of healthcare system?”  Expressed as percentages of hospital admissions for preventable/controllable diseases the numbers are" Congestive Heart Failure: admission percentage -USA 48% higher (than average for comparable nations), Asthma – USA 110% higher (!!), Hypertension – USA 90% higher. Diabetes – USA 35% higher. So what? So, these preventable diseases are, in the uninsured sector, not seen by primary care specialists when they should be because of lack of affordable health care.

Summarizing: nations with universal health care generally do it better overall. (All the summaries and interpretations of data in the above are from a Peterson-Kaiser Health System Tracker, the section titled “Commonwealth Fund International Health Policy Survey.”)

         As for the economic predictions of financial doom and gloom for Medicare for all, they are in a word, lies. How do we know? Because, as a scare tactic, opponents consider all Medicare expenditures (adults over 65, and a large population share based on the baby boom) and use the cost average for that group as if all citizens (12year olds , 25yr olds, etc) are as expensive when, in fact, average health care expenditures for under 54 are about half of that figure, with the “under 19” group at just about $2,000. This figure also ignores the significant amount of money being spent currently by employers and individuals. If this money went to national health insurance, vice private, where profit drives cost and admin costs for multiple payers is very high, it would. for most workers and employers, be a break even, not extra cost and perhaps even less.   

        Additionally, there is great pressure from the insurance industry which lobbies strenuously against Medicare for all because the current “Medicare Advantage” plans are the producers of golden eggs. The devious part of Medicare advantage is that, for over 65 consumers, it seems like (and is) a good deal. For the rest of taxpayers, think again.   

        For a “numbers” example:  Consider my personal situation: as a Medicare aged individual, my Social Security is reduced by $144.60 monthly for Medicare Part B (hospitalization). My wife’s SS is hit the same amount, for a family total of $3470 annually. This represents insurance, still with deductibles, similar to Part A which covers doctor visits, labs, etc.

        Now: The Insurance salesman tells you that if we simply sign up with them, they will provide us with a Medicare Advantage plan which has some advantages such as reduced co-pays, “Network providers” etc. and they’ll do it if we simply cede our monthly Part B deduction to them, and they do all the paperwork. So how is that not a great deal? It depends on who you ask. For the senior on Medicare? It’s fine, for the most part, which is why many use Medicare Advantage plans. For the rest of the tax paying populace, not so much. We use a Medicare Advantage plan only because our primary care provider, who we really like, is part of a network which required us to change or leave. I also have secondary coverage as a military retiree, so I pay no copays and use Tricare’s drug plan which is superb.

        Medicare is “use based.” This means that, as a reasonably healthy individual I probably only pay for routine primary care visits (quarterly) and two semi-annual specialist visits, and labs. I’d estimate that the amount billed paid to the insurer is significantly less than $3500 (a high-end estimate) annually. If we were on Medicare that would be the amount paid to the providers. Medicare is billed only for what the patient uses.

        Medicare advantage plans, however, don’t work like that. However they managed to do it, (intense lobbying!)  Medicare advantage providers are paid a monthly amount in addition to the Part B contributions, and that contribution varies nationwide. In Sumter County, Florida where we live, that monthly figure is $956.77 per insured individual per month! The little known and far less publicized secret is that doctors working for Medicare Advantage networks make roughly the same as any doctor who accepts Medicare, so the extra money goes to….you guessed it, the insurers! No Virginia, Medicare Advantage plans are all about profit, there is no Santa Claus!

        Summarizing: while the Medicare Advantage provider does get our combined $144.60/month they are also receiving from Medicare, at taxpayer expense, an additional monthly capitation of $956.77 (2020 figure) each. This means that instead of paying for actual usage, they are getting, for Emily and me, $26,432 annually. Remember, the actual annualized average Medical expense for “over 65s” is just over $10,000 each, so the Insurer is getting about 26% in excess of costs. Not bad, huh? And, their admin costs are about 18%, compared to the UK which does the job at half that rate. Experts generally agree that overbilling under Advantage plans is also significantly worse than under Medicare. Medicare advantage plans are a Congressional valentine to the Insurance Industry which pays well for the gift.   

        None of this addresses US grotesquely overinflated drug cost, which does contribute significantly to overall spending.

        For one last point - a comparison: The UK spends (all sources) about £197 billion annually on healthcare, equating to £2,989 per person, which today is about $4100. US average health care expenditures per individual, over the same period averaged $10,739. The first several paragraphs imply we are doing less; this points out that we’re doing it at over twice the cost.  

A Sonnet by John Cleese

 

Have to share this first off:

Ode to Sean Hannity

Aping urbanity, Oozing with vanity

Plump as a manatee, Faking humanity

Journalistic calamity, Intellectual inanity

Fox Noise insanity, You’re a profanity,

Hannity

                                                by John Cleese:

 

       In the almost unthinkable case that the reader doesn’t know who John Cleese is, he is a diehard Trump critic for the last four years, a former Python, A knight who says “Ni,” an ascerbic innkeeper named Basil Fawlty, Tim the wizard, and the head of the ministry for the development of silly walks.

        Reading this, and laughing as I did, I was flooded with several thoughts at once (it could happen). The first was remembering being at weekend parties with Navy friends in the late 60s and early 70s. It mattered little whose house, what ranks/ratings were in attendance or what the occasion, but at 11:00 pm, the television was turned on and tuned to PBS to watch Monty Python’s Flying Circus.

        As I said, this was the late 60s, very early 70s, and there was nothing even remotely comparable on American television at the time. the late Steve Allen and Ernie Kovacs had done some sketch comedy with zany premises, but neither were as outré and socially critical as the Pythons.

          Allen’s best shows ran from 1956 to 1961 and then in syndication several years later. The primary difference was that Allen, a genuinely funny man and TV icon, was always the host and left that role only briefly to do a sketch-based role. In the main, Steve was always Steve. To give props where they are due, he did have a cast of regulars, several of whom launched careers with his show. Allen was also a man who appreciated comedic talent and was the only mainstream TV host to give the stage to Lenny Bruce. For those who don’t remember, Bruce was the man who paved the way for Carlin, Pryor, Williams and many modern stand-up comics and paid for it with his life.

        Ernie Kovacs died in 1962 at just 42 years of age. In that shirt lifetime he, like Steve Allen, was a tv comedy pioneer. Ernie did characters which were closer to the Pythons in outrageousness, and occasionally pushed the envelope in doing so. His gay poet, Percy Dovetonsils, was hilarious, but sexuality was never mentioned (standards and practices censors). His Nairobi Trio (three guys in ape suits) was also innovative. Kovacs did sketch comedy on the edge much of the time and was instrumental in beginning to change some of what was allowable and wasn’t.

        That aside, America had never seen anything quite like the Pythons. First off, none of them ever appeared in the show as themselves, and the characters they did appear as in the show, which was completely sketch based, were often caricatures of British “types”. While it took some American viewers some time to adjust to “local jokes” which were only local if you lived in the UK, there were plenty of sketches so brilliant that it didn’t matter who or where the settings were.

     Only the Pythons could craft a sketch based entirely on Spam. (“We have spam,spam, spam, spam, eggs and spam”) American audiences were treated to grandmothers in drag, blustering Army officers, philosophers playing soccer, dead parrots, cheese shops with no cheese, and a government bureau devoted to the development of silly walks. Although the Flying Circus as a TV show only lasted for four seasons, it remains in eternal syndication. What followed were a series of three equally brilliant movies and, thanks to Python Eric Idle, an equally entertaining Broadway musical as well. While each remaining Python is still active to some degree, Terry Jones and Graham Chapman are gone.

         That however is all preface to a question which arose (for no related reason) while I was cleaning cat litter pans shortly after reading Mr. Cleese’s poem. I found myself wondering how much, if any, influence the Pythons, which aired in the US until 1973, had on a young Lorne Michaels, when he pitched Saturday Night Live to NBC management. As I think about it, I believe that there must have been some significant influence.

        Prior to SNL there were American shows which did sketch comedy, but not only sketch comedy.  More significantly, SNL, while showing all players in the opening credits, always had (has) them in character throughout the show. We never saw Dan Ackroyd performing as himself, but he cracked us up as Julia Child, Beldar Conehead, a Festrunk brother, or the Bass-O-Matic pitchman. Perhaps the only time real names were used was the “news” sketches, where real names were used, but still in character. Even the continuing inside jokes (Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead” and the entire “Buckwheat saga” have a Pythonesque tone. Of course, once SNL showed that off the wall comedy works and the networks figured it out, we soon saw In Living Color, Second City TV and others. However, Graham Chapman, Terry Jones, John Cleese, Michael Palin, Eric Idle and Terry Gilliam showed the way. And remember, always, “No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!”                           

It's What They Do!

 

  

    Kudos to mainstream media for four years of respectfully doing no more than acknowledge the existence of Barron Trump. As it should be, the youngest child of the president, 10 years old when his father was inaugurated and just 14 now, was off limits to responsible media members. The question of his personality or emotional issues if any, is moot. Private. Personal. Goodness knows, it seems his mother has tried to distance him from his father as much as possible, for obvious reasons.

    Why even mention this? Because Fox News who, predictably, also had a very much "hands off" take on Barron Trump, apparently had many fewer scruples when it came to the Obama daughters, barely older than Barron Trump. When she was just 14, Fox News host Andrea Tantaros called into question Malia Obama’s sex life after Obama stated he supported providing Plan B to girls as young as 15 in cases of rape. “Are they gonna put her on birth control?” Tantaros questioned. “Because he’s very concerned with contraceptives and pharmaceuticals that are going in the mouths of everybody else’s 15-year-old daughter.”

    Other Right leaning media outlets also failed to respect what had been previously sacrosanct turf - first families’ younger children. After Thanksgiving in 2014, Elizabeth Lauten, a former communications director for State Rep. Stephen Lee Fincher (R.Tenn.), bashed Malia Obama and younger sister Sasha Obama, who were 16 and 13 at the time, for their outfits and facial expressions at the annual turkey pardoning. Malia Obama has faced backlash from the media since her father first took office. At just 11 years old, she was called “a typical street whore” and “ghetto street trash” after wearing a shirt with a peace sign on it.

In truth, it hasn’t been just the Obamas who have been victimized by Right Wing media. The loathsome Rush Limbaugh called Chelsea Clinton “a dog” when she was just 12 years old and described Amy Carter as “the most unattractive presidential daughter in the history of this country.”

    With the Obamas, race was added to the mix in the vilest of manners. Mad World News posted an article about the girls around Thanksgiving 2014 as well. “I don’t think you would have ever seen the Bush daughters in dresses that short,” the article wrote. “Class is completely absent from this White House.” 

    Oddly enough, it was the Bush girls who slipped their secret service detail and were caught drinking with fake IDs in 2006. Classy, huh? We’ve seen none of this from the left side of the aisle. And strictly as a personal P.S: When you say “classy” in the context of first families, the first name which comes to mind is Michelle Obama. To that list we now add Dr. Jill Biden.

    It seems the Far Right has been in the juvenile character assassination business for more than the last four horrible years.

In the Cold Light 0f Reason

 

               In the Cold Light of Reason

    Now that (many of us hope) the Trump era is truly over and done, it might be useful to examine with data and reason, not emotion, the results of four years of the most morally challenged man to hold the office of POTUS (It’s actually probably a three- way tie Buchanan/Harding/Trump, but Trump’s open support of insurrection on his behalf gives him the edge in my opinion)

        Rather than rehash the several poor character issues, which are common knowledge, even if his acolytes ignore them, I will analyze those actions which can be evaluated with data or by analyzing the reactions of others affected by them.

Border Security:

 “Mexico will pay for the wall!”  No, just no, they haven’t, and they won’t. Period.

          In terms of detaining attempted undocumented crossings, the Trump years have seen an increase over the four years span, but the fact is that 86% of U.S. adults believe it also very or somewhat important to increase the number of judges handling asylum cases, and 82% said it is important to provide safe and sanitary conditions for asylum seekers once they arrive in the country. This same survey was very critical of fragmenting detainee families.

        While the raw numbers of detainees are high, it must be noted that coincident with the first Trump year and continuing throughout his term there was a huge increase in families from below Mexico, seeking asylum from violent and corrupt regimes. Even so, here is some raw data: The peak “Trump year”, 2018, saw 337,281 “removals” by both ICE and Border patrol. In 2013, under the Obama administration, 432,281 removals were enacted by those same agencies. In a single sentence, the border was more effectively, and at the same time, humanely policed during the Obama administration. 

        While Trump has seemed to glory in splitting families, the Obama administration did not, and in fact, for families remaining here until asylum hearings, more than 90% were present for those hearings; those with attorneys were present more than 95%. I cite these stats because Trump, as he is prone to do, stated in a debate with President elect Biden, that “less than 1 percent” of undocumented immigrants showed up for their hearings, He continued with: “When you say they come back, they don’t come back, Joe. They never come back. Only the really — I hate to say this — but those with the lowest IQ, they might come back.”  This has been proven blatantly false by every study ever conducted. It is, in short, a typical Trump lie.

Economic Policy:

One has to wonder that Trump actually graduated from a university which prides itself on having one of the nation’s premiere business schools. Trump, who once described himself as having graduated with “One of the highest GPAs ever”, in fact just “graduated”. Period. No honors. And definitely no MBA (advanced degree).

        In considering economic policy, context is important.  In saying that, I mean that events which are outside the control of POTUS can, and do, influence economic conditions such as Budget deficit and policy decisions. In considering the Trump record it is not only fair, but essential, to disregard a significant portion of the 2020 deficit due to the pandemic. It is, however, certainly germane to consider Trump’s reactions to it later in this op-ed9.  

        Budget: While campaigning as a deficit hawk, Candidate Trump said:  "We’ve got to get rid of the $19 trillion in debt. ... Well, I would say over a period of eight years. And I’ll tell you why.” He then made several generalities re: debt/deficit. During the 2016 primaries, he was again asked about the national debt, this time by Bob Woodward:
 Trump: “I think I could do it fairly quickly, because of the fact the numbers —”.    Woodward: “What’s fairly quickly?”    Trump: “Well, I would say over a period of eight years.”

In fact. When Trump made this statement, eliciting raspberries from every credible economist in the nation, the federal debt was, as he said, about 19 trillion, much of which was the result of extended federal stimulus during the great recession. This alone should have been the trumpet call signifying that Trump was an economic dunce. In fact, the debt service (interest payment) alone on the national debt then was over 11% of annual federal spending and, naturally increases as the debt does. Four years later, while admittedly partially due to the global pandemic, the US federal deficit is 29.5 trillion, an increase of almost 50%. Factoring out COVID-19 related spending it is still over 25 trillion.   

        I mention context earlier because the president in large measure “inherits”, the economy as it is when he is elected. As an example, Barack Obama was inaugurated and handed the housing bubble collapse, along with economic recession, 9.5% unemployment which would eventually reach 10%, and a bailout package signed by his predecessor. The great Recession, as it came to be known, brought with it, housing foreclosures, bankruptcies, even the failure of one of America’s largest commercial banks. Unemployment remained above 8% well into 2013, when the slow recovery began. In the interim, Congress had passed, and Obama signed into law, the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. This legislation was aimed at reforming and/or limiting those practices which had either led to or exacerbated the housing bubble collapse and subsequent almost 5-year recession.

        By contrast, when Donald Trump was inaugurated in January 2017, the economy was on a continuous rise which began in the second Obama term and unemployment was 4.7%. In simplest terms, Trump inherited a healthy economy, yet he has overseen the fastest increase in the debt of any president—almost 36% from 2017 to 2020. Trump has not fulfilled his campaign promise to cut the debt. Instead, he's done the opposite. 

        Job growth had been remarkably consistent since the end of the recession in 2010. The 3.6 million jobs added in the period since Trump took office were roughly comparable to the 3.9 million added in the previous 19 months under Obama. Likewise, unemployment steadily declined, and wages rose up at a slow and fairly constant rate. On a graph of any of these metrics, the period before Trump took office is virtually indistinguishable from the period since.  I point this out only because Trump constantly (until COVID-19) trumpeted the “world’s strongest economy” from 2017-2019.

        Almost immediately, Trump pushed for erosion of Dodd -Frank, especially lending limitations in commercial banks, citing that he had “Friends with ‘nice’ businesses who can’t borrow.”   This, by the way is, and was, false, as at the time there was no lack of available business funding and no one who had legitimate creds was denied.

       To understand this paradox, understand Trump via this quote: “I’m the king of debt. I’m great with debt. Nobody knows debt better than me. I’ve made a fortune by using debt, and if things don’t work out, I renegotiate the debt. I mean, that’s a smart thing, not a stupid thing.” When asked by Norah O’Donnell on CBS to explain “How do you renegotiate the debt?” he responded, “You go back and you say, hey guess what, the economy crashed, I’m going to give you back half.”  Apparently, we are to believe that China, Japan and the UK as well as our own holders of US government debt are expected to “take half” and shut up?  Now we can understand why Trump the “tycoon” has been essentially cut off from borrowing by US commercial banks and, finally, even Deutsche bank. Trump’s cavalier attitude towards debt may explain his apparent lack of concern for the deficits he has run in a strong economy.

         The World Bank compares countries based on their total debt-to-gross domestic product (GDP) ratio. It considers a country to be in trouble if that ratio is greater than 77%. Although the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the U.S. federal debt held by the public would reach 98.2% of GDP, or $20.3 trillion, by the end of 2020, the figure is actually slightly higher, at essentially 100%. In laymen’s terms, the nation owes as much as the combined economic output in that same year! 

Economic Policy decisions:

           Tax Cut:  Trump’s tax plan to significantly reduce business and personal taxes: The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) reflecting President Trump's plan went into effect on Jan. 1, 2018. While many economists warned that this act would increase the deficit, the Trump planners were apparently following the line used by other tax cutters, all proven wrong, in the flawed assumption that tax cuts lead to a dollar for dollar (or more) economic and federal revenue growth because those “saved” dollars are returned into the economy at a greater than 1 to 1 ratio as increased spending of saved revenue, This is actually one of the oldest economic fallacies extant, on a par with “trickle Down” theory and Supply Side fantasies. In fact, numerous studies show that only about half of the saved (untaxed) money makes its way back as federal revenue. Again, in simplest terms, $50 saved in tax can mean a $25 decrease in the next year’s federal revenue. So far, the Trump tax cut hasn’t decreased federal revenues to that extent (yet), but its proponents fail to mention that neither have they increased, as GDP has grown, revenues remain essentially flat. If supply side theories are relevant as Dr. Laffer, himself, postulated, it is only (as he also postulated) when the highest marginal rate is over 50%. When the Trump corporate tax cuts were enacted the rate was just 37%, but apparently learning nothing from the Reagan cuts and following recession, the Trump tax plan lurched onward. 

        "After eight straight years of slow growth and underperformance, America is ready to take off," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said when the tax cut passed two years ago. He was, as usual, lying and Obama shaming because he failed to mention the effects of the Great Recession. He also was wrong in that real GDP growth in 2015 was higher than any Trump year before or after the tax cut. Hampered in part by the president's trade war, the economy grew only about 2% in 2019. That's below the average growth rate since 2010.

        So, in summary, how has Trump economic policy affected the deficit? Remember, we’re looking only at those things not COVID-19 related. Considering the Great Recession, it is unsurprising that Obama had some large deficit years, and Republicans scathingly chastised him for all of them. By the last 2 years of his administration and the first of Trump’s (still an Obama budget) the deficit averaged $807 trillion, a large (too large) number. However, while supervising the “greatest economy ever”, from 2018 to 2020 (minus COVID-19 impact) Trump deficits ran half again as high, at $1.22 trillion. This doesn’t factor in the COVID-19 cost, which will make the 2020 deficit $ 4.226 trillion!!!

        Simply put, Trump policies did little or nothing for the US economy except deregulate in some areas which was largely to satisfy Trump’s cronies and contributors in industry and finance, and especially Energy.

Trade: Trump’s simplistic view of trade deficits was a driving force behind his derisive attacks on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which, in fact, had supporters and detractors in both parties. What was not really in question was that TPP would have a strong positive effect on the economy over time. TPP negotiations were initiated in the Bush 43 years and completed in the Obama years. While there was some debate regarding if there would or might be manufacturing decreases in the US as a result, what was certain was a significant gain for the US in the areas of intellectual property and drug patent rights, formerly almost ignored by major Asian players. What Trump has proudly proclaimed as an improvement has resulted in a non-US participation version of the same treaty, encompassing the other original parties, minus all the intellectual and drug protection verbiage. Meanwhile nothing is better, just different. Trump floated the idea of rejoining TPP briefly, in 2018, but caved to pressure from interest groups.         

        Trade Policy: Most high school Economics students understand tariffs far better than Donald Trump, whose statement that “China will pay the Tariffs!” should have gotten an immediate gong and a hook from offstage. The importing nation’s consumers pay tariffs. Always. Period. Amen.

         Simple example: a BMW x7 Xdrive 40i costs (in the USA) $74,900 (the base model!) the tariff portion of that price is about $1800. Germany doesn’t pay it. The importer (BWM USA) does, and then they add it back into the price so you, the US purchaser, pay it.  Thus, it is, and always has been, whether tobacco, TV sets, soybeans, cars, cotton, or whatever. At least that’s how it was when nations still went to war over trade. Now those wars are economic and we’re losing.

         In more recent years the US has had essentially free trade and few, if any, tariffs for either party with China in most areas. Trump’s ill- advised tariffs on various Chinese products predictably resulted in corresponding tariffs levied by China. American farmers, traditionally huge exporters of soybeans to China were slammed because China simply found new, tariff free, sources (such as Brazil). It’s childishly simple: “If you make it harder for your guys to buy our products (as in adding tariffs to the cost), we’ll retaliate by doing the same.  As a result, American farmers, the original welfare class, got even more farm subsidies as their crops became unsaleable, as China shopped elsewhere.

         In this area alone, Trump’s tariffs have cost the rest of us tens of billions more in Farm aid (subsidies) than usual in each of the last two years. To the individual non-farmer this is usually of little notice, since farm subsidies aren’t generally voted on in Congress, however the Trump tariffs have also cost the average American household an extra $852 annually over the last two years in increased prices on Chinese products. Only $852? Multiply those two years ($1704 total per household) by 128.45 million households and, to date, Trump’s ill-advised tariff war has cost US consumers about $219 billion, not including farm bailouts.

Foreign Relations:  Reading former National Security Advisor John Bolton’s book is illuminating in this area, not for his opinions, but for the factual descriptions of Trump behavior. Bolton, like so many others in the administration, originally on the Trump Train, finally could stand no more of Trump’s incompetence, demonstrated almost daily. It essentially a tale of a, man who knew little or nothing about word affairs yet ignored advisors who do. After coaxing two such honorable men out of retirement, he largely ignored them both and finally fired both SecState Rex Tillerson and SecDef Jim Mattis.

        Per Bolton’s eyewitness accounts (seasoned by his previous experience in the Bush 43 administration); whereas the normal procedure for national security briefings is for the President to listen to advisors present current situations, Trump did most of the speaking, many times on topics of which he had no understanding. Along the way he: glossed over a Saudi correspondent’s assassination, almost certainly at the behest of a Saudi Prince, had a love affair on paper with the insane North Korean head of state, and characterized Vladimir Putin as “nice,” refusing to allow any investigation of charges that Putin sanctioned bounties for dead US soldiers in Afghanistan.

        On the other hand, after charging that Obama made a “terrible deal” and gave Iran billions of “our” money (it was already theirs, seized/frozen decades earlier) and blasted the US signing onto an agreement which would have limited Iran’s ability to produce weapons grade enrichment of Uranium, Trump withdrew us from said agreement to the great concern of our allies in Europe. In fact, Trump began a series of reversals of Obama executive orders related to the environment and other topics, many of which were aimed at lessening regulations on some of the greatest US polluters.

        As a result of withdrawing from both the Iran agreement and the Paris Accords, related to reducing greenhouse gasses to combat global warming, our European allies drew farther away. Stripped of US involvement, Iran has announced intentions to markedly increase Uranium enrichment, previously limited by agreement.

         Both the tariffs discussed earlier and the Trump attempts to blame China for the current pandemic, which, while starting there, was already destined to spread world-wide by the time he began shaming them, further damaged relations with a market critical to world and US trade. Meanwhile, China and the other original signatories to the TPP (minus, of course, the US) have forged a new trade agreement which is very like the TPP except it deletes the two cardinal concessions critical to the USA – intellectual property protection and drug patent protection. Additionally, these nations haver extended feelers to the UK and Europe, which if accepted could further isolate the US in a widening trade limbo. Trump fails to understand this, as he failed to properly face the facts of Covid-19.

        I cannot recall any time since I’ve been politically aware, (60 years or so) that our relations and general “sameness of purpose” with Western Europe allies have been at such a low ebb. This becomes even more depressing, considering the high esteem and political concert of the Barack Obama era. Having been in the vast majority of western European nations and in North Africa during that period, I can attest to that high regard, having actually had locals start conversations to tell me that. 

In a recent interview, former SecState, Rex Tillerson, summed it up in a statement elegant in both content and brevity: “His  (Donald Trump’s) understanding of global events, his understanding of global history, his understanding of even U.S. history was really limited. It’s really hard to have a conversation with someone who doesn’t even understand the concept for why we’re talking about this.”

Domestic Policy: 

        Following the events of January 6^th, 2021, it is almost unnecessary to expand on Trump’s role in the polarizing of America. So, I’ll do it quickly.

        Race: Donald Trump’s “race problem” was inbred by a father who openly discriminated in housing which he built with Government loans. It was obvious in Trump’s insistence that persons of color be “cleared” from parts of his Atlantic City casino when he and the wife du jour were there. It was clear when he said to a reporter that “Blacks are genetically lazy” (a paraphrase of a longer rant.) Events in Charlottesville, Va., when he refused to condemn white supremacists even when one ran his car into a crowd, along with his relationship with Steve Bannon, left no doubt in a rational mind. He was certainly aware, of yet has failed to speak out about, the facts related to unarmed black shootings by police at three times the rate of whites under similar circumstances. Maybe the most damning comment was his statement during the Housing discrimination trial: “You know you don’t want to live with ‘them’ either.”

        Gender:  While proclaiming his apparent love and respect for women (just like he has been the “best President” for persons of color since Lincoln.) He has body-shamed women in public, paid off a porn star to keep shtum about an affair while his wife was pregnant, and publicly used his favorite epithet “nasty” (it was his father’s, too) to condemn women who dare to disagree with him. The rest of Trump’s relationships with women including his serial wives is in the public record.

        The Military:  While bragging about military pay raises, which he falsely claimed were the “highest ever,” Trump has denigrated the leaders of all branches of service. He has (per John Bolton and at least one other who was there) berated the Joint Chiefs of staff en-masse for daring to urge caution in matters in which he, himself has zero real world experience. This has included showboating about pulling US forces from Syria against advice from those who actually understood the situation, and then, when that fuckup became evident, ordering them back. He has interfered in the Military Justice System several times, not for justice’s sake but for political reasons. (SEAL assassin, Eddie Gallagher, Capt. Brett Crozier). 

Personal attacks included George W. W Bush:

At least twice since becoming president, according to three sources with direct knowledge of his views, Trump referred to former president George H.W. Bush as a “loser” for being shot down by the Japanese as a Navy pilot in World War II.

On the Joint Chiefs (eyewitness account):

 “Trump by now was in one of his rages. He was so angry that he wasn’t taking many breaths. All morning, he had been coarse and cavalier, but the next several things he bellowed went beyond that description. They stunned nearly everyone in the room, and some vowed that they would never repeat them.

“I wouldn’t go to war with you people,” Trump told the assembled brass. Addressing the room, the commander in chief barked, “You’re a bunch of dopes and babies.”

On a visit to France:

        “Why should I go to that cemetery? (US cemetery at Normandy) It’s filled with losers.” In a separate conversation on the same trip, Trump referred to the more than 1,800 Marines who lost their lives at Belleau Wood as “suckers” for getting killed. … Later, (on that same trip), he asked aides, “Who were the good guys in this war?” (An American President who doesn’t know who our WWI allies were?!!)

        “I would have been honored” to serve, Trump has said, “but I think I make up for that right now. Look, $700 billion I gave last year, and this year $716 billion. (“He” gave nothing, we all did)) And I think I’m making up for it rapidly, because we’re rebuilding our military at a level it’s never seen before.”

         The first lie is that he believed his defense budget was an all-time peacetime high. Accounting for inflation, Obama’s 2010-11 budget of $711.34 billion, in today’s dollars is $855 billion. He lies because he can. Unbelievably, this man conflates signing a bill authorizing military spending with personal sacrifice.   Likewise, total force strength is actually lower than any time since 1960, with the exception of the Marine Corps which has remained relatively constant.

Overall leadership:

While most of what has preceded this portion reflects in some fashion on leadership, the Corona Virus pandemic has been an almost constant display of how not to lead a nation.

        First, as admitted to Bob Woodward (preserved on audiotape, at that) and recounted in Woodward’s book “Rage” we have the real Trump contradicting his public comments. In public comments, Trump minimized/downplayed the coronavirus threat, asserting the virus would “go away quickly”, “vanish” when it warmed up, and compared it to a mild flu, emphasizing the need to reopen the country to try to get the economy going again.

         To Woodward, however: Trump warned about the risks of the virus in frank and scary terms, calling it “the plague,” acknowledging it’s deadlier than the flu, and saying it could spread by air. This was deliberate. As Trump also told Woodward on March 19, “I wanted to always play it down. I still like playing it down, because I don’t want to create a panic.”

        “It goes through air, Bob. That’s always tougher than the touch. You know, the touch, you don’t have to touch things, right? But the air, you just breathe the air, and that’s how it’s passed. (is this the speech of a college graduate?) And so, that’s a very tricky one, that’s a very delicate one. It’s also more deadly than your — you know, your, even your strenuous flus. … This is more deadly. This is five per — you know, this is five percent versus one percent and less than one percent. You know? (Say Whaat??) So, this is deadly stuff.”  April 13, to Woodward: “This thing is a killer if it gets you. If you’re the wrong person, you don’t have a chance. … So this rips you apart. … It is the plague.”

    This was definitely not what he was telling America at the too numerous photo-op briefings where Dr Anthony Fauci and other real medical persons were shoved aside while Trump ranted about his “ratings” and touted unproven and, in some cases, unsafe treatments. At times he even gave undeserved credibility to pillow salesmen and witch doctors, and the gap between Trump’s actions and good public policy widened to an abyss. What he was saying was:

February 26, at a press conference: “When you have 15 people [infected by the coronavirus in the US], and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero, that’s a pretty good job we’ve done.”

February 27, at a White House meeting: “It’s going to disappear. One day it’s like a miracle, it will disappear.”

March 9, on Twitter: “So last year 37,000 Americans died from the common Flu. It averages between 27,000 and 70,000 per year. Nothing is shut down; life & the economy go on. At this moment there are 546 confirmed cases of CoronaVirus, with 22 deaths. Think about that!” (As of today, there are 392,000 dead and counting. This is 10 times the flu toll in an average year, and it ain’t over.)

         As avid as Trump’s acolytes are, if he had personally urged masks, and enforced social distancing, it would have become a religious obligation to most of them. Instead, he threw several Governors (Democrats, of course) under the bus for trying to do what he should have done. While impossible to foresee, it is reasonable to conclude that maybe 50,000 Americans might still be alive, had Trump led, vice lied. This is not simply hindsight, since all the signs and warnings were there, but ignored.

         Capable leaders choose good people to do important tasks. Trump, the master of nepotism, chose son-in-law Jared Kushner to over-see mask acquisition and, what ensued was a barrage of dead ends and Kushner associates benefitting from some of them. This tragedy is amplified by the fact that the Obama transition team had provided a hands-on pandemic simulation 3 years earlier, in early 2017, for several incoming Trump cabinet members, including the recently resigned Transportation Secretary, Elaine Chao (also known as Mrs. Mitch McConnell). McConnell would later, as he has done until it became politically unattractive to continue doing so, allege that the Obama administration left no “playbook” for a pandemic. In 2019, the Trump administration conducted a second pandemic simulation which they dubbed ‘Crimson Contagion.” This run- through was not publicly released during early part of the Trump COVID-19 response because doing so would have revealed just how much of a leadership failure was occurring: 

        The simulation is so close to the later reality as to be almost indistinguishable.   The New York Times reported it thus: “The outbreak of the respiratory virus began in China and was quickly spread around the world by air travelers, who ran high fevers. In the United States, it was first detected in Chicago, and 47 days later, the World Health Organization declared a pandemic. By then it was too late: 110 million Americans were expected to become ill, leading to 7.7 million hospitalized and 586,000 dead.” That scenario, code-named “Crimson Contagion” and imagining an influenza pandemic, was simulated by the Trump administration’s Department of Health and Human Services in a series of exercises that ran from last January (2019, 13 months before COVID-19) to August. The simulation’s sobering results — contained in a draft report dated October 2019 that had not previously been reported — drove home just how underfunded, underprepared and uncoordinated the federal government would be for a life-or-death battle with a virus for which no treatment existed.”

        Presented with this, the Trump administration did, literally, nothing. Meanwhile, Mitch McConnell’s “non-existent" Obama playbook, used in the simulation, had been further refined.

        Again, while it is impossible to determine what might have been, it’s certainly arguable that a concerted effort to prepare the nation might have helped a bit. Imagine if all states had immediately received the results of the simulation and were urged, regardless of partisan concerns to prepare on the local level.

        Governors trying to do as the CDC recommended have had to fight the Trumpists who, like their leader, believed that it was overhyped and really not all that bad.  Trump even contradicted his own administration’s recommendations to push a rosy image of the country’s fight against Covid-19, demanding that states reopen quickly, before they met his administration’s recommendations, and getting parts of the public to think (wrongly) that masking is unhelpful or unnecessary, as his administration recommended, but failed to mandate, public use of masks. (a recommendation he largely ignored).    

        In the final analysis, Donald Trump’s failure to lead, in the face of overwhelming good advice to the contrary, is unsurpassed in my 60 years as a follower of US politics. This, alone, should cement his position as one of the worst presidents in our history. There never was a Wizard behind the curtain, but simply an incompetent, and not really very bright, reality television star, who has mastered the “big lie” school of   public relations. The nation is worse off because of it and far too many of us are dead. If there was a heaven and, in that heaven, a Bad Presidents Club, Trump would be met at the door by James Buchanan and Warren Harding, both grateful to no longer be tied for last.

"But Whaddabout?"

 

                                       But Whaddabout?

"Whaddabout": An attempt to divert attention from reality by attempting to shift focus to another and usually hugely irrelevant subject. (Example: "the assault on the Capitol building was abhorrent and Trump encouraged it by his comments,"  Response: "But whaddabout that black guy in the crowd? It was all BLM's fault.")  

        I'm really sick and tired of the "Whaddabouts" circulating about the recent Capitol riot and the election leading up to it. The general theme seems to be that if anyone Black was visible in the crowd, then BLM had "infiltrated" the mob and bore responsibility for the whole thing. The fact that there even are actual Black Trump supporters is a mystery to me, but there are, but they are a micro minority, and primarily media whores, like Stacy Dash and a few others who have fashioned a career of being a rarity, like a virgin in a brothel. There are several categorical truths re: this mess.

        First, consider the comments that Congressman Jim Jordan (R, Ohio) made in the weeks before the riots which stoked the fire, He alleged that Trump won because, “He got more votes than in 2016”, while failing to mention that Biden also got even more than Mrs. Clinton did in the same election which Trump won in the Electoral College. He also specifically stated “I’ve never said that this election was stolen,” a claim easily disproved by an article that covered his appearance at the Pennsylvania “Stop the Steal” rally. “President Trump got 11 million more votes than he did in 2016, and House Republicans won 27 of 27 toss-up races,” said Jordan. “But somehow the guy who never left his house wins the election?  Eighty million Americans, 80 million of our fellow citizens, Republicans and Democrats, have doubts about this election; and 60 million people, 60 million Americans think it was stolen.”(This last is a run-on "whaddabout." What is missing is the fact that even if Trump did get 11 million more votes than 2016, Hillary Clinton received 2.8 million more in that same 2016 race. Trump who, after criticizing the Electoral college all through the race, won only because of it.

        Fact:   In 2020, Joe Biden polled 15.2 million more than Clinton did in 2016 and, in the final analysis, 7 million more popular votes than Trump in 2020. By any metric, Biden won handily, and every single state and, even those with Republican supervisors of elections and secretaries of state, has validated the vote. Voter turnout percentage was the highest since 1900.    

        Fact: No state election official, Republican or Democrat actually questions the election results. This has been the most closely scrutinized election in our history and baseless Republican allegations stem from the fact that Trump supporters simply can’t face the fact that their icon lost. This disappointment has been systematically inflamed by Trump’s own inability to admit that he lost. Statements by Trump, Giuliani, and a cast of complicit sycophants, in and out of government, have led the Trump faithful, never really good at critical thinking anyway, to believe blatant lies. More than 50 Federal Judges, several of them Trump appointees, have unanimously rejected every single allegation of impropriety and several states even performed extra hand counts of ballots to certify the validity of their results. Yet, the Jordans, Cruzes and Giulianis, et al, continued stoking the fires as Trump, consummate liar that he is, did the same. We have seen the result. The majority of American voters rejected Donald Trump, and the ironic part is that Trump, himself a malignant narcissist, will never understand, or at least be able to acknowledge, that he is the problem.  

        Fact: The mob that met at the Capitol was/were not organized lucid individuals with focus or beliefs other than that Trump was, somehow, “their guy” and that they were, in some alternate reality, “On the side if the angels.”  In truth, Trump wouldn’t touch the majority of them or allow them on the premises of any of his properties. It is a possibility, although not one these folks will acknowledge, that if you have failed to avail yourself of opportunities provided during your formative years or if you are suffering from some sort of personality disorder which has resulted in your adulthood being less than you would like it to be, you may actually be responsible for your own circumstances. If you feel it a better option to blame persons of color, LGBT folks, immigrants, successful women or just political liberals in general, then we have identified the problem, and it isn’t in Washington DC.

        Add to this, political ignorance and borderline mental illness and you might, like the unfortunate Ashli Babbitt, find yourself as a former, often disciplined, mediocre ex-military member, failed and deep in debt small businessperson, desperately clinging to the false belief that your problems are someone else’s fault and that Donald Trump somehow will make your life better. As a result, half a continent away from home, you find yourself in a mob storming the US Capitol building which, tragically, you won’t leave alive. Truth told, you  were fatally scammed by an, also deep in debt, businessman whose history of bankruptcies, stiffing workers and small business like yours should have been a warning rather than a siren song.     

         A real and, I feel, under realized yet significant part of the Trump saga is that some of the major corporations in America who benefitted from Trump’s pandering to their ceaseless pleas for deregulation, made obvious by his systematic dismantling of Dodd-Frank and systematic cancelling of Obama executive orders related to environmental protection, have, by their acquiescence, encouraged his actions right up until it became expedient to sense the sea change in opinion caused by the Capitol assault.  Then, in a flurry of patriotic fervor, some of them have suddenly become righteously indignant and vocal about how much they loathed the actions of the man they had quietly enabled for four years by massive campaign contributions. I am sometimes reminded (and I’ll close with this) of a song in the rather mundane Broadway musical “L’il Abner.” The ditty was entitled, “What’s Good for General Bullmoose is Good for the USA.”  Its hard to shake the feeling that many US corporate heads whistle that while they work.      

Post postmortem

 

                             Post Mortem

 

        Even when he’s caving in, he’s lying. Below are three snippets from a WaPo article. They are not Op-Ed, but rather quotes from Trump’s “canned,” flat affect, video speech of Tuesday night. My comments are below each item  

“President Trump promised a smooth transition in a video message posted on Twitter Thursday night, saying that his supporters had “pursued post-election challenges in good faith, but “now tempers must be cooled, and calm restored.”

        Any actions which might be called “good faith” were nullified by the decidedly mob violence aspect of the assault on the Capitol by what seemed, in large part, more like a drunken, meth fueled, weekend at Sturgis than any sort of orderly protest. It resembled the worst costumed amateur production of Les Mis ever staged. The “good faith” remark undoubtedly refers to Trump’s continued delusion (strike that, he doesn’t believe it either)…continued blatantly false claim that the most rigorously examined election in our History was somehow hijacked so cleverly that 50 separate federal judges, some appointed by Trump, himself, were all duped into denying every single phony suit brought by his sycophants.

“Trump claimed he immediately deployed the National Guard to help secure the building and expel the intruders. Other officials have disputed that account. Trump also claimed his attempts to overturn the election results were simply his efforts to “ensure the integrity of the vote.”

        As stated above, the integrity of the vote has been affirmed ad nauseum. Vague claims have failed to reveal any irregularities on a scale such as Trump has claimed. In fact, in one district in Michigan where Giuliani had vaguely claimed “illegal voting” it turns out he was right, there had been three verified instances of illegal voting but, (wait for it) all three cases involved registered Republicans. Every single such allegation has failed to stand the smell test, the data test and the truth test. And no, he didn’t call out the guard. The DC mayor asked, and the Army Secretary responded. "Yesterday was a horrible and shameful day here in the capital, and the nation at large," Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy said on the call. "The Mayor of the District of Columbia asked the Army for help, and our National Guard responded. No other requests were made."

 “Trump released a statement pledging “an orderly transition,” even as he continued to falsely claim the election was riddled with fraud. The statement was tweeted by White House social media director Dan Scavino as Trump remained locked out of his account. “Even though I totally disagree with the outcome of the election, and the facts bear me out, nevertheless there will be an orderly transition on January 20th,” Trump said.”

        Of course, he disagrees. Not because he knows anything we all don’t, but because, as a man who has played with a stacked deck all his business life and even then, failed six times, he simply cannot allow himself to admit that he is the problem. His toxic narcissism simply won’t allow it. Sadly, three of his four adult children are cast from that same mold. There are no, repeat no “Facts which bear me (him) out.” In the classic “big lie” tactic he apparently has convinced himself that the big lie, told often enough with sufficient vitriol in the delivery, will become fact in the minds of those preconditioned to believe it. It’s difficult to evaluate which is more pitiful – the failed narcissist, driven by failure to get his own way and going to extreme lengths to avoid confronting it, or the numbers of equally deluded unhappy conspiracy theorists ever ready to blame others for their own personal failures. Either is pathetic. Both are dangerous.  

The Final Insult?

 

                               The Final Insult?

“The devil called down to Georgia,

He was looking for some votes to steal.

He was in a bind ‘cause he was way behind.

and was lookin’ to make a deal!”

                   (With minimal apologies to Charlie Daniels, a great fiddle player but a Trump fanatic)

        I had planned to write only positive things for the rest of the Trump reign of stupidity, but sometimes an individual does something so incredibly venal, yet poorly though out, that one simply cannot help but react. I have analogized a great many of Trump’s attempted power grab/criminal activities as worthy of a mob boss, but I now realize than not even John Gotti, the “Teflon Don” would ever have been stupid or brazen enough to state the request for election fraud that Donald Trump made personally over an (apparently) unsecure and recordable communications connection.

        Extortion is unworthy of the office of POTUS, yet this marks a second attempt by Trump to solicit illegal actions by another and doing it himself! You’d think after the first time, (the Ukraine phone calls, followed by impeachment), he’d either have figured out the folly of his actions or had it explained to him.  No self-respecting (or at least marginally) bright underworld figure would be as blatantly stupid as to personally expose themselves in such a manner. That’s what a consigliere is for, and the fawning Rudy Giuliani has proven numerous times that no lie is too outrageous, no scam too risky, and no threat so empty that he won’t make it. I’ve likened Trump to a mob boss, as I stated up front. This, however, makes the Mafia look like Mensa by comparison!  

        I guess the one real difference is that even though an underworld Czar may have disdain for the law, they realize that they are still culpable if proven to have violated it. Donald Trump, however, seems to feel as if that simply doesn’t apply to him. The ego required to actually think and act like that is off whatever scale, if any, by which malignant Narcissism is gauged.

        On a parallel note, unless the several Senators who planned to disrupt the formal announcement of the Electoral College vote are as stupid (or ego/partisan driven) as their icon has shown himself to be, they might want, or ought, to rethink their plans for creating a scene, even if they think their constituents would like it. I can almost imagine some Texas Republican Good Ole Boy, a bit embarrassed by Raphael Cruz’s planned obstructionism, deciding, “That right there, that’s a bunch of shit; screw him.” Probably not, but hope springs eternal.

This story broke after I posted the above. being lazy I'm just appending it.

Let's get this straight. Sen Perdue (R Ga) calls the fact that the Georgia Secretary of State recorded the President attempting to get him to commit election fraud "disgusting?" Perdue, who was a guest on "The Next Revolution," said he was "shocked" that a member of the Republican Party would tape a sitting president and leak it to the media. "It’s disgusting in my view," he said.

How far up Trump's ass can his head reach? We're waaaay past "brown nose" here. First of all, Secretary Raffensberger had previously made it clear to those around him that he hesitated to take such a call, probably because of precisely what happened. Fearing the President might do exactly as he DID do, he recorded it.

This is simply following in the footsteps of every President since LBJ. Without this recording Trump would have been free to slander and debase Raffensberger in a "he said/ he said" arena. Raffensberger was protecting himself, which in a sane world he shouldn't have had to do, but Trump proved the wisdom of the decision to tape the call.

    

Mr. Raffensberger is a man of caution and of character. Sen. David Perdue is neither. He's fine with POTUS committing election fraud, just don't record it.

Unparalleled Ignorance

 

 Unparalleled ignorance

        A recent letter in the local rag's OPED section hit a new low for rational discussion regarding climate change. After conceding that somewhere around 97% of the scientific community agrees that human activities are responsible for most of the current global warming trend, the writer says, "Ignore that, even if true, because reducing carbon emissions might be expensive." I'll save the really insane comments for later. read on, it's worth the wait.

        I've concluded that there are basically three separate schools of thought, if indeed actual thought has occurred, in the climate change denier community, which are in some ways about as grounded as Holocaust deniers and “flat earthers.” They are:

        a: Climate change can't be “real” (they really mean caused by humans) because if we admit it is, our wealthy Corporations which make money on energy and utilities will have to spend more and profit less. We're here, we want cheap gas and electricity, so fuck the next generation(s). The reality is that most of this group don't really care if climate change is real or, for that matter, strenuously deny it; they just don't want to act on it. The current Lame Duck POTUS actually said this in 2020 during a debate with President-elect Biden: “The fumes coming up, if you’re a believer in carbon emission … for these massive windmills is more than anything we’re talking about with natural gas which is very clean”. (Blatantly insane word salad! Windmills produce zero emissions.)

        b: Since many major corporate donors to far right causes and candidates are deniers (or ignorers) the sycophant candidates they own are also rabid deniers. It's in their financial interest to be so, and those who blindly listen to and parrot the rhetoric of the Gohmerts, Jindals, Perrys, Pences and Trumps become, reflexively and without critical analysis, global warming deniers, even to their own potential detriment. It's politics, not principles.

        c: The third and, in many cases, the most vociferous group of deniers seem to be the Far-Right evangelical fundamentalist Christians.  I believe that this knee jerk anti-global warming bias stems from their belief that 1. God made the Earth 2. God can do anything he/she/it wants, and therefore:  3. It borders on apostasy and sacrilege to believe that insignificant, puny mankind could ever have that same impact. (note: If they truly believe that, then they are forced to believe that all natural disasters are just God’s way of “thinning the herd”, right?)

     This is convenient for the Far Right since most Evangelicals lean that way. This quote from American Family Association director Bryan Fischer is self-explanatory: “That’s (climate change denial) kind of how we’re treating God when he’s given us these gifts of abundant and inexpensive and effective fuel sources, God has buried those treasures there because he loves to see us find them.”  OK, Bryan, now I get it; your God wants us to foul the air and pollute streams because it makes him/her/it happy?

        Now for the truly astounding wrinkle introduced by the writer:  In an act of hubris blended with equal portions of sheer gall and stupidity beyond anything I've ever even heard, the following assertion was made. I'll paraphrase to give it more flow and form. "Even if all these scientists around the world agree that Global warming is a real issue, that is relatively meaningless, since, after all Galileo and Einstein, both were going against the established beliefs of their day."  The assertion here apparently being that Global warming deniers are analogous to Galileo and Albert Einstein!

         What the person obviously didn't think through, or more likely understand, is the fact that in Galileo's case, he wasn't arguing against science, he was using science (you know, hypothesis, observation, data accumulation, etc.) to refute Christian dogma "the earth is the center of the universe because we humans are God's creation, ergo more important than everything else." This is the diametric opposite of what he thinks he said!

        In the case of Einstein, he wasn't arguing against science, he was using higher math to explain and amplify some physics concepts that science hadn't yet explained.  Far from being opposed by the scientific community, Einstein was awarded the Nobel in theoretical Physics in 1921. Of course, the aforementioned Galileo was threatened with excommunication and forbidden to write.

        Seldom, if ever, has anyone been so drastically and diametrically incorrect and ill informed.  Hopefully, 2021 will bring serious change to US climate actions.