More than Anybody

 

More Than Anybody 

OK, we know he lies whenever he speaks, but there are two which keep resounding as desperate hopefulness that if he says them often enough, they will become true.

        The first is Trump’s constant repetition that he and/or his administration was responsible for enacting the Veteran’s Choice bill which allowed veterans in the VA system who live more than 40 miles from a clinic to opt to use private health care providers. This resounds with those too ignorant or, more likely, too naïve to simply Google it. Doing so would reveal the following: President Obama signed the Veteran’s Choice Act into law in October 2014. Read it again. Trump claimed this in June, 2018: “So it’s now my great honor to sign the VA Mission Act, or as we all know it, the Choice Act, and to make Veterans Choice the permanent law of our great country,” the president said, standing in the Rose Garden. “And nobody deserves it more than our veterans.”

        The germ of truth is that the original Choice bill mandated that within 40 miles of a clinic, the veteran would be required to use VA facilities. The Mission Act did not, as Trump has implied too often to count, initiate, or allow a “new” concept. What it did do, in what amounts to a valentine to private health care providers, was to ease the 40-mile restriction in some cases. The other part of that is that the original Choice Act, passed by a hostile GOP controlled Congress, badly underfunded the original act. The Mission Act, passed by the Trump crony US Senate, in the main, simply added appropriate funding and several other administrative measures. Choice was already the “law of the land” halfway through Obama’s second term.

        Even more insulting, and to a much larger segment of the population, are statements such as: “My Administration has done more for the Black Community than any President since Abraham Lincoln.” This analogy, in almost always the same words, has been reiterated numerous times, usually when he can’t honestly answer a legitimate query posed by another individual. He even used it with Bob Woodward during interviews for his recent Book, Rage. It’s another sort of “but whaddabout” response. You know as in “Mr. President how do you respond to charges that you encourage white supremacists?” and Trump says, “But, I’ve done more etc.…”  

        We’ve all seen and heard him do it. He said during the recent debate that he was, “The least racist person in the room!” Of course, the best laboratory in which to prove or disprove this is the public acts and statements of the man himself, Accordingly I’ve saved my readers the trouble of research and found several relevant examples, either quotes or anecdotal observations.

·       “Black guys counting my money! I hate it. The only kind of people I want counting my money are short guys that wear yarmulkes every day. … I think that the guy is lazy. And it’s probably not his fault, because laziness is a trait in blacks. It really is, I believe that. It’s not anything they can control.” (commenting on a casino employee)

·       “When Donald and Ivana came to the casino, the bosses would order all the black people off the floor,” (a former employee of Trump’s Castle, in Atlantic City, New Jersey) verified by eyewitness reporter several times

·       “Who the f*** knows? I mean, really, who knows how much the Japs will pay for Manhattan property these days?” (Pre-White House)

·       By June 2020, two hundred of Trump's judicial nominees had been confirmed to lifetime appointments as Article III judges. Neither of his two Supreme Court judges, none of his 53 appeals court judges, and neither of his two Court of International Trade judges are Black. One is Latino American, and seven are Asian Pacific American. The remainder of Trump's 200 judicial appointments were to district courts. Nine of these 143 district court judges (6%) are Black

·       August 2019, Trump's anti-immigrant rhetoric was widely criticized, especially remarks regarding Hispanics and his repeated warnings about an immigrant "invasion", the same wording used by the El Paso shooter in his anti-immigrant manifesto in which he wrote, "this attack is a response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas." Representative Veronica Escobar, whose district includes a large part of the city, said "Words have consequences. The president has made my community and my people the enemy. He has told the country that we are people to be feared, people to be hated." Presidential candidate Beto O'Rourke, who is from El Paso, stated: "Anyone who is surprised is part of this problem right now—including members of the media who ask, 'Hey Beto, do you think the president is racist?' Well, Jesus Christ, of course he's racist. He's been racist from day one.

    

       While I doubt that these examples are revelations to most sentient Americans, it  is worth noting that this skewed sense of social reality was learned early from Fred Trump Sr. The Trump paterfamilias got rich using Government loans to build apartment housing, primarily in Brooklyn and to some extent in in New Jersey in the post war housing shortage. While all taxpayers’ money theoretically contributed to the financial backing with which Fred Sr. built this empire, eventually totaling more than 27,000 apartments and a few row houses, only white taxpayers were allowed to live in it.

       The usual process was to simply claim there were “no vacancies” when persons of color applied. This came to a head when a white operative for the NY Housing authority applied immediately after an earlier operative (a person of color) had been denied on the grounds of "no vacancy". The white applicant was assured there were several apartments available and offered a tour. The resultant federal lawsuit was settled out of court with a large fine. Donald’s statement to an attorney during the prolonged litigation was, “You know, you don’t want to live with them either.”

 

       In the present this has continued in much the same vein. The Trump administration reversed the 2015 Obama administration Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Rule which was enacted to promote equal housing opportunities and level the playing field so that neighborhoods provided equal opportunities for all. (making “red-lining” and deed restrictions based on race or social intangibles, other than ability to afford the house, illegal)  Eugene Robinson called Trump's decision "Maybe be the most nakedly racist appeal to White voters that I’ve seen since the days of segregationist state leaders such as Alabama’s George Wallace and Georgia’s Lester Maddox.”

 

       Apparently, in Trump World, a suburb is the kind of community where great Americans live because “we've” limited it. He thinks it's just straight-up racializing this idea of housing, after all he and his dad did it in the 1970s. The Trump position seems to be, “I’m going to tell you that these people are good, (or some version of “us versus them.”) We are, the good people; they’re the bad people and we have to keep them out to keep our greatness.”'

 

       Bob Woodward, in “Rage” describes a recorded interview with Trump in which he (Woodward) talks about white privilege. Woodward asked Trump if he was working to "understand the anger and the pain, particularly, Black people feel in this country.” Trump replied “No. You really drank the Kool-Aid, didn’t you? Just listen to you. Wow. No, I don’t feel that at all.

 

       Admittedly, all the above mentioned examples could be subject to the interpretation of the reader, so let’s look at the “Done more for Blacks than anyone since Lincoln” mantra which is Trump’s almost daily fallback when pressed on the issue of his racism. Let’s look it in terms of concrete “civil rights” activities or legislation.

 

       Obviously, one could look at actual positive legislative initiatives which have been the product of the Trump administration’s efforts in the field. Unfortunately, that’s not possible because there have been none. Actually, Since Trump took office in January 2017, his administration has worked aggressively to turn back the clock on America's civil and human rights progress. I will limit this to just a few of the more blatant examples of this retrograde approach:

 

·       On February 22, 2017, the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division and the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights jointly rescinded Title IX guidance clarifying protections under the law for transgender students.

·       On October 2, 2017, ED Sec. DeVos rescinded 72 guidance documents outlining the rights of students with disabilities.

·       On November 16, 2017, the Federal Communications Commission voted to gut Lifeline, the program dedicated to bringing phone and internet service within reach for people of color, low-income people, seniors, veterans, and people with disabilities, with particularly egregious consequences for tribal areas. (“Red” persons!)

·       On June 18, 2018, Nikki Haley, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, announced that the United States was withdrawing from the UN Human Rights Council.

·       On October 1, 2018,  a policy change at the Department of State took effect saying that the Trump administration would no longer issue family visas to same-sex domestic partners of foreign diplomats or employees of international organizations who work in the United States.

·       On May 22, 2019, the Department of Housing and Urban Development proposed changing the Obama-era Equal Access Rule to allow homeless shelters to deny access based on a person’s gender identity.

 

       This is, believe, me, but a tiny smattering of the body of retrograde civil rights actions taken either by Trump executive order or cabinet level officials with his approval. I can find not one piece of legislation signed by Trump which furthers civil rights for anyone

 

       On the other hand, re: the “more than anyone” claim, Consider the Civil Rights legislation personally pushed, especially in the Senate and signed into law by Lyndon Johnson. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 alone are momentous. Add to that Medicare and Medicaid and it’s obvious Trump is delusional, Sadly, LBJ, a flawed man himself, committed to US military engagement in South East Asia which, for many overshadowed his Civil Rights record.

 

        It is worth mentioning, in closing that, in 2013, the USSC  declared the Voting Rights act defunct as written  because the data regarding various voter suppression tactics, on which the original law was based, was 40 years old. The late Ruth Bader Ginsburg phrased her dissent thus: “Throwing out the act when it has worked and is continuing to work to stop discriminatory changes is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet." Her words were prophetic, since Harry Reid and John Boehner, with both houses under GOP control, stifled any attempt to rewrite and repass. As a result, within three years after the ruling, 868 polling places had been closed down. Within five years, in 2018, nearly a thousand polling places had been closed in the country, with many of the closed polling places in predominantly African American counties. Trump’s ongoing attempts at voter suppression are proof positive of his racial bias, present since he was a boy.  

It's in the Mail

 

        Food for thought: I just returned from picking up the mail and, as I sometimes do, I chatted a bit with Trish, the 40-something lady who delivers and sorts our mail, She also makes home deliveries in the neighborhood of packages too big for the lockers at the mailbox kiosk. It’s really a building with several hundred individual mailboxes and around 50 larger lockers. Trish has delivered packages on Sundays from time to time. 

    She is unfailingly positive and outgoing although she works very hard at the job, since she picks up all the neighborhood mail at the central post office and then re-sorts it into our family boxes later. That said, while I don’t know how much she is paid, she works her butt off for it. I am more than pleased with our mail service and believe that national mail service should be something the nation does, not with profit as the first consideration, but with service foremost.

         This is especially true in the age of prescription drug delivery by mail, since an estimated 70 million Americans benefit from this as the primary way, they get the prescriptions they need.  We have heard a lot from the President regarding Postal Service revenue shortfalls. In his mind, if the post office doesn’t make a profit (or at least break even) then perhaps we should scrap it.

        This seems odd considering that he (Donald J.  Trump) was the beneficiary of about half a billion in untaxed, or grossly undertaxed, money from his father, Fred Trump. Trump senior built his real estate empire of low- and middle-income apartments with the aid of large sums of guaranteed government money provided to help builders meet the demands of the post war housing market. I repeat. No government help, perhaps no Trump empire which still provides a steady stream of rents as a foundation for the Trump organization.

         Using other peoples’ money has also become a way of life for Donald Trump. As of yet, unlike his father, he has never really paid it all back and turned profits from his efforts. He has, by recent estimate, about the same dollar value of debt in personal loans as that initial nest egg his father cheated to give him. Donald Trump has turned half a billion in free money into half a billion in unsecured personal debt. In the process, unlike the Postal service which is, for many, a critical government service, Trump really has done no one much good. 

       Pre-CoVid, his budgets ran huge deficits in 2017, 18 and 19. Apparently, economics isn’t his strong suit, a fact made clear by the horribly ill-advised tariffs he personally ordered. The cost just in increased and unbudgeted agricultural subsidies directly attributable to these tariffs would have funded the US Postal Service shortfall, using last year’s numbers, for about 3 ½ years. Read it again. We are giving, at most, 100,000  families an extra $30 billion or so because the President apparently learned very little in economics class at Penn, where he couldn’t get into grad school, having not been an honors student, according the  graduation program for his class. Now the clincher: Non- partisan Industry experts have calculated that the cost of these tariffs (the non- agricultural ones China retaliated with) have cost an annual average, nationwide, of about $850 per household. No, Jethro, he lied; China doesn’t pay them, you do. You know, just like Mexico isn’t paying for a wall? Multiplying this by some 128.5 million US households, yields $108 trillion. This alone would cover the postal service shortfall for more than 12 years!

        Putting it more simply, if every household in the USA paid $6 per month, with no increase in postal rates, the Postal Service would be self-sustaining. Taking another, user specific, tack, the USPS delivers about 66.5 billion first class letters annually. Adding ten cents to each would largely defray the operational shortfall. It is a specious argument to claim that USPS and other commercial deliverers do the same job. They don’t, simply because the mandate of the USPS is to deliver mail to everyone, which, in some cases, means to places other carriers simply refuse to service due to cost.   

        These are simply a few ways to overcome the USPS operational shortfall which Trump denounces. The truth is that he’d probably rather see the whole thing commercialized so his friends can make a buck at it. Appointing Louis DeJoy, a man previously heavily involved in “for profit” mail and parcel operations (and a Republican Mega-donor) to supervise the USPS was a first step, It also was aimed at using this supposedly independent and apolitical service to suppress voting by mail.  

We deserve better. Vote!   

 

  

A History and an Analogy

 

A History and an Analogy

 

        Once upon a time there was a small-town judge in Wisconsin named Joe. His job was “boring,” and he had loftier political ambitions so, when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, he requested and received a commission as a first Lieutenant. He was assigned as a Marine intelligence officer to the South Pacific, where his duties were limited to debriefing returning pilots who had actually been in harm’s way. After some time, when essentially all Japanese aircraft were either jungle rubble or in the ocean, units such as Joe’s still flew reconnaissance flights against empty skies.

        Eventually it became a free “ride-along” for non-combatants such as Joe, who knew he needed to “punch up” his record for future public consumption. The now largely observation flights (Japanese were long gone) became a quest for “records” of sorts. Joe claimed the record for most bullets fired as a tail gunner (4,700 on one flight) earning a humorous “award” from pilots as the record holder “for destroying the most vegetation on Bougainville.”   Along the way, he wrote for himself several citations describing his (non-existent) combat prowess, all dutifully forwarded by him to Fleet commanders who signed and returned these decorations to a man they had never met. At one point he hurt an ankle during a line-crossing initiation (transiting the equator) which left him with a slight limp he later claimed was due to several pounds of non-existent shrapnel from non-existent combat missions.

        He sent numerous accounts of his valor back home to Wisconsin in preparation for his glorious return and political career as “Tail Gunner Joe.” It worked. He resigned his commission in 1945, while war still raged, after a short leave in Wisconsin convinced him the time was ripe for political fortune.

        In 1946, running against a man, Senator Bob Lafollette, who had been 46 when the war began, and remained at his desk in Washington, Joe slandered his opponent with charges of cowardice, and unsubstantiated profiteering allegations. Meanwhile, his platform, such as it was, supported veterans’ pensions and the creation of an all-volunteer army—issues he knew would resonate with returning veterans and their families. His speeches on foreign affairs were laced with vague generalities that appealed to both isolationists and internationalists. His main theme was that America had the duty either to lead the world or to play no part in it at all. He never specified which alternative he favored.

        He won election to the US Senate in 1946, and after 4 years of less than stellar performance was in trouble by 1950. Angry colleagues accused him of lying, of manipulating figures, and of disregarding the Senate’s most cherished traditions. He was up for reelection in 1952, and most political analysts expected him to lose. At this point Joe desperately needed a “cause.” According to anecdotal accounts the suggestion for his career saving strategy came from a priest back home in Wisconsin.  

        Accordingly, during a routine dinner speech before a women’s Republican club in Wheeling, West Virginia, he declared that he held a “list of 205 communists” actively shaping policy in the State Department. He didn’t, but that soon became irrelevant, considering legitimate and increasing US concerns over Soviet Union policies and ambitions. This was a rich doctrinal field which Joe plowed with great vigor. Overnight, Joe’s notoriety grew a thousandfold, as he claimed that he could “Make America Safe Again” if allowed to “root out these card-carrying Reds and their “fellow travelers.”

        Our Joe didn’t invent the "big lie" strategy of claiming communist infiltration, but he was uniquely gifted in using it to promote himself publicly. He convinced an increasingly frightened America that the Reds and their fellow travelers had orchestrated a conspiracy so immense that he—and he alone—could be trusted to deliver the nation from it.

        Along the way, Joe took on an attorney named Roy, who became his “fixer”, as Joe’s alcohol fueled problems multiplied. Meanwhile, The US Senate,  more in the “cover our ass” mode because many of their constituents had bought into the Red Scare and expected their representatives to support the Brave Wisconsin “Commie fighter,” authorized his “investigation” by a vote of 85–1. Oddly enough Joe’s downfall started with his hired gun attorney, Roy who, while furthering the allegation that any gay individual in the government was a prime target for blackmail by Soviet spies, was himself a practicing homosexual.

        Roy had a boyfriend, David,  who was of draft age and was, accordingly, drafted. Since being an enlisted man was beneath such a worthy individual, David applied for, and was denied, a commission. In what would become a fatal gaffe, Joe agreed, urged by attorney Roy, to allege that the US Army, itself was rife with Communists. The resultant televised hearings were arguably the birth of reality television. Televised confrontations with the Army’s lead attorney, Judge Joseph Welch marked the beginning of the end for Joe.

         Eight months later, the Senate, several of whose members had apparently grown testicles, condemned him by a vote of 67–22. Eight months after that it would crush his spirit—and what remained of his career—by voting, 77–4, to censure him. Crushed and unelectable, Joseph McCarthy entered Bethesda Naval hospital on April 28, 1958. He died on May 2. The official cause of death was listed as acute hepatitis—or inflammation of the liver. While there was no specific mention of cirrhosis or delirium tremens, the press hinted, correctly, that he drank himself to death.

        Attorney Roy Cohn, however, motored along. Along the way he was indicted four times from the mid-’60s to the early ’70s—for stock-swindling, obstructing justice, perjury, bribery, conspiracy, extortion, blackmail, and filing false reports. Apparently made of Teflon, he was aquitted thrice and was the beneficiary of a mistrial. In 1973 he again latched on to a purveyor of the big lie, becoming Donald Trump’s attorney and fixer, the role he had honed under Joe McCarthy, He would occupy that role until his death in 1985.  

        Yeah, I know, so what? History has a way of circling back around and the current Rudy Giuliani and Donald Trump dyad screams for comparison to McCarthy/Cohn. At the center if it all is the big lie, which in Trump’s case is probably best expressed as any of his assertions that he (Trump) actually cares about anything other than his own self-aggrandizement. Unlike McCarthy, one cannot tease out just one Big Lie without ignoring a host of whoppers of similar dimension. That said, the rest is a striking parallel, from the character assassination, to the shyster lawyer, himself a master of dirty tricks, to the doctrinal accusations devoid of merit.

         Up to now, much like the Senate facilitated Joe McCarthy for fear of offending their constituency, The Republicans in that same body have apparently suffered character-ectomies. Faced with a self-aggrandizing TV star business failure, they have largely shrunk from their duties to the truth. One can only hope that voters in the upcoming month will show more backbone.         

Fascism For Dummies

 

        “Fascism: A form of far-right, authoritarian ultranationalism characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition and strong regimentation of society and of the economy which came to prominence in early 20th-century Europe.”

    “Antifa: a political protest movement comprising autonomous groups affiliated by their militant opposition to fascism and other forms of extreme right-wing ideology.”

    Trump’s continued reference to Antifa is primarily aimed at shifting attention from his continued and increasing cult of personality/oligarchy/isolationism. America’s relationship to and with Fascism is not, I think, generally very well understood, if at all, by the majority of her population.

    On the simplest level, it is noteworthy that most multigenerational US families have, or have had, family members whose military service they venerate. If this service was in either of the two World Wars, the opposition was Fascist in both. In WWI, Germany was, although a nominal monarchy, in essence fascist in some of the areas as listed in the definition.

        However, the aftermath of that war was, almost predictably, the breeding ground for a far more vicious version: Sven Reichard, in a 2009 book, summed it up thus: "The experience of World War I was the most decisive immediate precondition for fascism.”  In other words, without that war there would have been neither fascism in Italy nor National Socialism in Germany. “Without the First World War and its consequences, but also without the October revolution and the symbolic strength of Leninism, fascism would have remained a sectarian movement.”

        Although peripheral, it cannot be overlooked that the Versailles treaty, while endeavoring to make things better for colonial subjects, also condemned Germany to post war economic struggle, always a fertile field for a rabble rouser, and Germany found one. Additionally, Hitler availed himself of a sort of “reverse” religious zealotry, not the usual muscular support of a specific faith, but the brutal condemnation and demonization of one. 

    Blaming Jews was nothing new to Germans.  German Crusader Knights had slaughtered indigenous German Jews before leaving for the Crusades. Even reformer, Martin Luther, had, in his last years, become a rabid anti-Semite. Hitler simply took it to the next level, blaming Jews, not just for the “denial of Christianity” but for essentially every ill Germany endured in the late 1920 and early thirties, having been devastated by the great depression. 

    Into this misery, Hitler revived every Germanic heroic legend, implying that they had been part of a “golden age” (they hadn’t) and as Benito Mussolini would in Italy, called for a return to a  largely manufactured “heroic age.” Hitler’s speech, the infamous prophecy on 30 January 1939, is significant: “Today I will once more be a prophet: If the international Jewish financiers in and outside Europe should succeed in plunging the nations once more into a world war, then the result will not be the Bolshevizing of the Earth and thus the victory of Jewry, but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe.”

        Subsequent events are well known, as both Germans and Italians succumbed to propaganda and “manufactured histories” to become text-book fascist states. What is less emphasized (by some) in the US is that, while we properly venerate those who (eventually)  landed at Normandy and fought and died valiantly in Italy, North Africa and Western Europe, we hear far less about how long many Americans opposed US entry into the war.

        The America First movement was amalgam of groups from liberal to conservative, united under the banner of “Stay the hell out of the “European war.”  Underlying this however, and under emphasized, In this writer’s opinion, was the sense of some Americans that the Germans and to a lesser extent the Italians were “Christian folks like us” added this was the undercurrent of American anti-Semitism, reflected by the refusal of US authorities to allow the 900 passengers on the MS Saint Louis, all Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany seeking sanctuary, to land in America. The vessel was forced to return to Europe where eventually, about a third of those passengers were executed.

        Even earlier, such prominent Americans as Henry Ford had stoked the fires of anti-Semitism. A business acquaintance recalled that, on a 1919 camping trip, Ford had lectured a group around the campfire. He "attributed all evil to Jews or to the Jewish capitalists," the friend wrote in his diary. "The Jews caused the war, the Jews caused the outbreak of thieving and robbery all over the country, the Jews caused the inefficiency of the navy…"(??)

     In 1918, Ford acquired a newspaper, The Dearborn Independent. A year and a half later, he began publishing a series of articles that claimed a vast Jewish conspiracy was infecting America. The series ran in the following 91 issues. Ford bound the articles into four volumes titled "The International Jew," and distributed half a million copies to his vast network of dealerships and subscribers. "I regard Henry Ford as my inspiration,"(!!!!) Hitler told a Detroit News reporter two years before becoming the German chancellor in 1933, explaining why he kept a life-size portrait of the American automaker next to his desk. Actually, both Ford and GM readily retooled German plants to build the military machines which were used to invade Poland in 1939.

          In July 1938, four months after the German annexation of Austria, Henry Ford was awarded and accepted the highest medal that Nazi Germany could bestow on a foreigner, the Grand Cross of the German Eagle. The following month, a senior executive for General Motors, James Mooney, received a similar medal for his "distinguished service to the Reich." As one of the most famous (yet markedly undereducated) men in America, Henry Ford legitimized ideas that otherwise may have been given little authority.

        FDR realized that the fortunes of the US were tied to a free Europe and tried in several ways (not going into details here for brevity’s sake) to ease the nation farther toward open alliance  (And armed participation with) Britain and France. We’ll never know how long that might have taken, because another Fascist State halfway around the world attacked the US Naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. It was easy to get an almost unanimous declaration of war against Japan, since pre-existent anti-Asian racism and religious intolerance fueled the fire. When we declared war on Japan, Germany and Italy (the Axis Powers) actually honored their treaty with Japan and declared war on the USA.

        I know, “That’s fine Mike, but why the history lesson?” It’s Simple really, because as Santayana (a philosopher, not a guitarist) famously said, “Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it.”

        It could well be argued that a significant portion of Trump policy and rhetoric reads and sounds like precursors of Fascism. Look at those he admires, beginning with Vladimir Putin, who rules Russia with the collusion of a handful of oligarchs, responsible to no elected body, willing to sanction the poisoning of political rivals, controlling all media and glorifying the state above all else.

        Then examine Mohammad Bin Salman, Absolutist ruler of Saudi Arabia, whose $1.3 trillions make Trump salivate, while ignoring the brutal dismemberment of a journalist at his (MBS’s) order, (yes the CIA told Trump so, but he chose to disbelieve, because, “Hey, he’s rich?”)

    Trump has described both of these individuals as “very nice, very fine, people.”

        In conclusion, nothing I can write will change the xenophobic, racist, religiously intolerant, economic elitist attitude of Trump many supporters, but I would hope they would at some point acknowledge that, by condemning Antifa at Trump’s bidding, they are supporting a political philosophy against which some of their predecessors fought and died in Europe and the Pacific, less than a century ago.

What If?

 

    Some folks have raised the question, which has been rattling around my brain since Julie called me last night and asked it. That being, what happens if, or when, a candidate dies this close to or even after election day. I have constructed what I believe to be the probable answers to these possibilities.

    “But first”, as the say in those annoying infomercials, some  history relevant to how we got here. There are two major considerations which Madison and Hamilton might have foreseen but didn’t. The first – divisive partisan politics, the second, an offshoot of the first – most states adopting a “winner takes all" approach to choosing electors.

        Jump back, Jack; all the way back to 1800. In what is sometimes referred to as the "Revolution of 1800", Vice President Thomas Jefferson of the Democratic-Republican Party defeated incumbent President John Adams of the Federalist Party. Four years previous, in 1796, John Adams had defeated Jefferson. 

        Under the rules of the electoral system that were in place prior to the 1804 ratification of the 12th Amendment (a direct result of the preceding 2 elections!), each member of the Electoral College cast two votes, with no distinction made between electoral votes for president and electoral votes for vice president. This meant that there was no “ticket” of POTUS and VPOTUS candidates who were “on the same page” (or even in the same book!)

         This, in 1796, also was the first real indicator that the existing system where electors each cast two votes for president and election could be (was) potentially unworkable. Although Washington in his farewell address had specifically inveighed against the “divisive” nature of Parties, Jefferson and Adams were so diametrically opposed on numerous issues that Jefferson spent much of his term as Adams’ VP at his home in Monticello. They would not speak to or communicate to one another again for 12 years.

        By 1796, and even more so, by 1800, parties were the primary banner carriers of policy and opinion. A major component of the division was, then as now, the argument over division of power between states and the Federal government.  

        In 1800, unlike in 1796, both parties formally nominated tickets. The Democratic-Republicans nominated a ticket consisting of Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr, while the Federalists nominated a ticket consisting of John Adams and Charles C. Pinckney. Each party formed a plan in which one of their respective electors would vote for a third candidate or abstain so that their preferred presidential candidate (Adams for the Federalists and Jefferson for the Democratic-Republicans) would win one more vote than the party's other nominee, This rather odd proviso was because, still in1800 votes were cast only for President with the second highest electoral vote getter becoming Vice President.  

While the Democratic-Republicans were well organized at the state and local levels, the Federalists were disorganized and suffered a bitter split between their two major leaders, President Adams and Alexander Hamilton. According to historians and still visible in copies of party “news” papers each wed to one candidate and true progenitors of “fake news,” the blatant pandering and jockeying for electoral votes, regional divisions, and the propaganda smear campaigns created by both parties made the election recognizably modern.

        Jefferson a Deist, was the “godless atheist” per the Federalist paper, the “Gazette of the United States”, while the “Philadelphia Aurora” a Democratic Republican mouthpiece, hinted that Adams was trying to marry his son John Quincy into the British royal family, with an eye towards transitioning to a monarchy!

        I’ll ignore the actual political issues except one, still relevant today. for the sake of this lesson and cut to the chase. The Democratic-Republicans also denounced the Alien and Sedition Acts, which the Federalists had passed to make it harder for immigrants to become citizens and to restrict statements critical of the federal government. Ring any bells?

        At the end of a long and contentious campaign, Jefferson and Burr each won 73 electoral votes, a majority, but a tie. Under the provisions of the Constitution, the outgoing House of Representatives had to choose between Jefferson and Burr. Each state delegation cast one vote, and a victory in this process required one candidate to win a majority of the state delegations. After 35 ballots(!) no state had budged. In what would prove to be a fatal decision, Alexander Hamilton, who personally favored Jefferson over Burr, convinced several Federalists to switch their support to Jefferson, giving Jefferson a victory on the 36th ballot of the contingent election. This led to a duel in which the Burr, then Vice President of the United States, would fatally shoot Hamilton at Weehawken New Jersey, in July 1804, while still in office.   

        The two consecutive elections in which POTUS and VPOTUS were “less than besties” led Congress to propose the Twelfth amendment to the Constitution which, ratified in June 1804, stipulates that: “The Electors shall meet in their respective states and vote by ballot for President and Vice-President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves; they shall name in their ballots the person voted for as President, and in distinct ballots the person voted for as Vice-President, and they shall make distinct lists of all persons voted for as President, and of all persons voted for as Vice-President, and of the number of votes for each.

Now back to today:

        Assuming a death between election day and elector voting day, The RNC could hold an emergency meeting and nominate another candidate. Technically (and legally, actually) since electors are required by the 12th amendment to cast "separate votes for President and Vice President, the election would still be up to the count of elector's votes cast in their state capitol and opened in the US Senate.

        Since the electoral votes are counted by the new Congress in January, it comes down to two issues in the case of an "elected" candidate dying prior to formal electoral vote count in DC and the election itself. The first is exactly when do electors in each state cast their votes? 

        This year that will be December 14th. Assuming, as almost all states do, (save Nebraska and Maine) that all the state's electors are chosen based on a simple majority of the popular vote, any change to the candidacy right up until that day could be responded to by those electors. The second is the "faithless elector" issue, in which an elector votes their conscience vice the party line. This happens from time to time and did in 2016. Three faithless electors voted for Colin Powell while John Kasich, Ron Paul, Bernie Sanders, and Faith Spotted Eagle each received one vote. So, seven  electors, even though selected on a partisan basis, threw a big "screw you" to the party.

    In other words, if candidate "A" dies on December 12, the National Party committee could simply say, "reset; this is our candidate now, vote for him (or her). Once cast, several copies of the electoral votes are prepared. One goes to the president of the Senate (the current VP), who must receive it by Dec. 23, and  who will open and read those votes on Jan 6th. 2021. The transition period for the new administration, should one have been selected, is the period from Jan 6 to 20th. Other copies go to the state's secretary of state, the National Archives and Records Administration, and the presiding judge in the district where the electors meet (this serves as a backup copy that would replace the official copy sent to the president of the Senate if it is lost or destroyed).

    It would be in this period between the electors voting and the inauguration on Jan 20, 2021 that it gets really dicey and enters completely uncharted waters. Take, as a hypothetical example, Nixon/ Agnew, 1968. Electors would have cast votes specifically (as mandated by Amendment 12, remember) for both men in the respective offices to which they were nominated. Agnew was the Vice president elect. His status, should Nixon have died in the interim, say December 27, would not change by current law. Again by the letter of the current law, the second highest vote getter for President should have become been the President elect, since Agnew was never a candidate for that office, and could only succeed under the provisions of the 25th Amendment. Without some sort of previously uncharted intervention by the USSC, I believe the law would have required the 1968 President to have been the second highest electoral vote getter for President - Hubert Humphrey….. and VP Spiro Agnew. Let the games begin!

Dumb and Dumber

 

        There is a popular “when all else fails” Trump worshiper fall-back which goes something like this: “Donald Trump is the only president to give his salary to charity!” (as if this excuses the lies and shitty policy decisions.)  Trump has made that claim himself, numerous times. He’s been wrong every time, too! In fact, two other 20^th century presidents gave their entire salaries to charity. They just didn’t think it necessary to stroke their own egos by bragging about it.

        Trump has made a show of giving away his paycheck, donating his salary to the National Park Service, the Department of Education, the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Small Business Administration, the Surgeon General's office and the Department of Agriculture.

        Thirty-first president Herbert Hoover was the first American executive in chief to refuse a salary. Hoover was a multimillionaire before assuming office from a previous career as an engineer and businessman and donated his paycheck to charitable causes.

        In like manner, John F. Kennedy was born into wealth and prestige. When Kennedy took the oath of office in 1961, he was the richest man in history to do so. The Kennedy family fortune was valued at $1 billion and allocated a $10 million trust fund to JFK. Kennedy refused both his congressional salary from the House and Senate and his presidential salary, though he kept his $50,000 expense account for “public entertaining he must do as President.” Unlike Trump, the bulk of whose donations went to governmental agencies, Kennedy quietly donated primarily to The Boy Scouts and Girls Scouts of America, the United Negro College Fund, and the Cuban Families Committee. See any difference there?

        The other huge difference between the previous two and Trump is that both men placed their assets in a blind trust and made zero profit from the presidency.  Trump, however, has enriched the Trump organization in numerous ways, yet none of the taxpayer dollars have been reimbursed.

        The U.S. government (you know – taxpayers) has paid at least $1.3 million to President Trump’s company since Trump took office — including payments for more than 1,600 nightly room rentals at Trump’s hotels and clubs, according to federal records. None has been reimbursed. Add to this, the fact that both Donald Junior and Eric (Forrest) Trump have done several overseas sorties strictly for Trump Organization business   with secret service protection. These are not government business, but profit opportunities for the Trump Organization, and, by extension, its de facto ruler. All protective services costs should be, but aren’t, billed to that entity, not the Government.

        Eric Trump visited a Trump property in development in Uruguay from January 8 to 9, 2019, a two-day business trip that cost taxpayers at least $80,786. Records obtained  through the Freedom of Information Act add to the massive bill of Secret Service protection related to the Trump family’s management of the president’s business empire. The 2019 trip brings Eric Trump’s total up to at least $178,616 in taxpayer funds to work on development of the Trump Organization’s Punta Del Este property alone.

        Another time, Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr's trip to the United Arab Emirates cost taxpayers a minimum of $73,000 in Secret Service fees. Donald Trump’s eldest sons travelled to Dubai to meet business partner Hussain Sajwani and visit Trump-brand properties in the area, according to a Trump Organization spokesperson. The two conducted no government business.  This isn’t family travel or family vacay, this is Trump Organization business, with protection paid for on the taxpayer’s dime. Private business for private profit, paid for by you and me.

        Even odder, Trump's businesses got paid, not only when he visited, — but, sometimes, when he didn't. This past spring marked the first known instance of a Trump club billing the government while it was closed. The Bedminster club temporarily closed down operations on March 17, after the N.J. Governor imposed new restrictions on businesses and social gatherings because of the pandemic. Bedminster's general manager, David Schutzenhofer, wrote to club members in an email that day, that the club would be closed, with staff offices open but employees encouraged to work from home. No golf, no visitors, no President, no secret service.

        On that same day, Schutzenhofer signed a contract allowing the Secret Service to rent the club's Sarazen Cottage for the next 13 nights. When that contract expired, the Secret Service signed another for 16 more nights, until April 15, according to copies of the contracts released by the Secret Service. The rate was $567 per night. Although the club was vacant through April, the charges continued. In fact, on some nights the Secret Service appears to have been charged for even more rooms than usual — not just the Sarazen Cottage, but one or two additional rooms as well. The rates for the extra suites ranged from $142 to $283 per night. Considering the cottage alone, that’s another $17,000 plus for an empty cottage in an empty club. Of course, the money went to the Trump Organization.

        In summary:  giving away $400,000 annually and taking in more than that from the same government to whom you “donated” is almost money laundering. I find it interesting that those same folks who cried crocodile tears every time the Obamas took a family vacation, even though the expenses were paid to local economies, are silent as Trump enriches his business with private business trips by his adult children with the taxpayer being billed for what should be business expenses.  

 

        On another and even more amazingly stupid note: Two words - Ben Carson. Housing and Urban Development are hard to fuck up and Carson’s hands-off style is probably for the best.

In case you forgot just how dumb the man is, where are a couple of quote “reminders” up front:

" Fox News as the only thing keeping the United States from becoming Cuba."….Or…."Hey guys, everybody attack him. He may shoot me, but he can’t get us all,'"…..or…."Obamacare is really I think the worst thing that has happened in this nation since slavery." And “First of all, we have to understand how the Constitution works. The president is required to carry out the laws of the land, the laws of the land come from the legislative branch. So, if the legislative branch creates a law or changes a law, the executive branch has a responsibility to carry it out. It doesn’t say they have the responsibility to carry out a judicial law. And that’s something we need to talk about.” (No, Ben, YOU need to understand how the Constitution works!)

Here’s my all-time Carson fave:

        “The pledge of allegiance to our flag says we are one nation under God. Many courtrooms in the land on the wall it says, ‘In God We Trust.’ Every coin in our pocket, every bill in our wallet says, ‘In God We Trust.’ So, if it’s in our founding documents, it’s in our pledges, in our courts and it’s on our money, but we’re not supposed to talk about it, what in the world is that? In medicine it’s called schizophrenia and I, for one, am simply not willing to kick God to the curb.”

        Sounds good, doesn't it? Sort of like “Hot Fudge Sundae.” Say it fast enough and you might almost think Carson knows some shit. Relax, he doesn’t even suspect all that much. The problem is that both Ben Carson's statements and the implications thereof are egregiously incorrect.   Where to begin?

        First and foremost, our pledge of allegiance wasn’t written until 1892, when all the “founders” were long dead. If a national pledge of allegiance was even moderately important, I’ll bet the writing team of Hamilton and Madison could have written a hum-dinger to include in the Constitution…. but they didn’t, did they? Actually, it came from the pen of a Socialist (gasp) Baptist minister, Francis Bellamy.

        The words “under God” weren’t added until 1954. So, neither our pledge nor the words “under God” have anything to do with our Founding Fathers, documents, or the values on which this nation was founded.  In fact, 104 years lapsed between the Constitution's adoption and the Pledge of Allegiance. Another 62 years passed before in a flurry of McCarthy fueled jingoism, we added "Under God."   As far as “In God We Trust” being on our currency, that didn’t happen until 1864. Again, 77 years after our nation had already been founded. And, again, after the founders were long dead. As far as our nation’s motto becoming “In God We Trust,” that didn’t happen until 1956, again during the Cold War as some kind of asinine knee jerk response to “Godless” Communism. Once again, this was a move that had nothing to do with our Founding Fathers or the creation of this nation.

        For folks like the Carsons, Pences, etc., it is insufficient for us to allow them the freedom to worship the cosmic muffin of their choice. We must, as one, bend over backward, say "Ahh", and swallow it too.

The Diabetes Industry

 

    Anyone paid $250 for half an ounce of water recently? Didn’t think so. When Trump, between shouts and interruptions made the outrageous claim that “He” had made insulin as “cheap as water”, insulin dependent persons who had ever voted for him must have been at least a little surprised.  With a coupon, Humalog insulin right now, as I write, costs $230 for a box of five 3 milliliter shots. That’s about half an ounce. “But”, you will say in his defense, “So he exaggerated a little.”  No, Jethro, he lied his ass off!

    Like Polio vaccine, insulin was seen by its discoverers as so important a breakthrough that profiting from it would be immoral. Three researchers discovered insulin back in 1921.  Dr. Frederick Banting and Charles Best were the main two, along with Dr. James Collip — all three had their names attached to the patent awarded in January 1923 to their method of making insulin. Their original intellectual property rights were sold for just $3 Canadian. When the researchers were ready to turn over the patent of their discovery to the University of Toronto for production purposes in 1923, they agreed to receive only $1 each (the equivalent of $14 today) in compensation.

    Here’s a narrative of the early days from a 2002 article: “For $1.00 to each, the three discoverers assigned their patent rights to the Board of Governors of the University of Toronto. The application had stressed that none of the other researchers in the past had been able to produce a nontoxic anti-diabetic extract. A patent was necessary only to restrict manufacture of insulin to reputable pharmaceutical houses who could guarantee the purity and potency of their products. It would also prevent unscrupulous drug manufacturers from making or patenting an impotent or weakened version of this potentially dangerous drug and calling it insulin.”

    The university granted Lilly several and other pharma companies the right to make it, royalty-free, and also offered them the ability to improve the original formulation and patent anything they created down the road.

    Looks like Insulin should be really inexpensive, right? That’s before the “business” of diabetes was invented. Lilly who owns the patent in Humalog, a synthetic insulin, admits to shareholders that their profits have recently been driven by arbitrary price hikes to Insulin. Of course, there is little market pressure on the drug, since neither Medicare nor Medicaid can, by law, bargain cheaper pricing. The VA, as an example does negotiate drug prices, however; this results in a 30-day supply of Humalog insulin for about $8.

    Once upon a time, drug companies used to claim that R & D costs were what made drugs costly. This simply isn’t true for any major drug company at present. What’s today’s number one on the cost side of the balance sheet? Advertising!   Well, OK then, perhaps insulin is just expensive to produce, right? Wrong again Rufus. A 2018 study estimated that one vial of human insulin costs $2.28-$3.42 to produce, and one vial of analog insulin costs $3.69-$6.16 to produce. Meanwhile a vial (the same 10 ml size) of the human insulin retails at $95 and the analog at $185. I did the math, since it’s easy. That’s a 3000% profit per vial for analog insulin.  The 2018 study concluded   that a year's supply of human insulin could cost $48-$71 per patient, and analog insulin could cost $78-$133 per patient per year.  The dismal reality is that for most patients 3 vials a month is typical, meaning the yearly retail cost of diabetes for an analog insulin user could be $6,660 annually (might well be less to the patient depending on insurance, but someone’s going to pay)! For the drug company that equates to quite a handsome profit, as is, but wait…there’s more.

        Considering the success of the Epi-pen and the huge profit to be made for selling a simple plastic auto injector at another huge profit, Lilly also sells the Kwik Pen. Does the same thing a syringe does, hurts about the same as a plastic disposable syringe but costs sooo much more. This is from Lilly’s own web site: “The list price1 of a 5-pack of 3 mL Humalog U-100 KwikPens (15 mL or 1,500 units) is $530.40.”  Again, breaking it down, three of these packs would be an average monthly dosage. Yes, that’s right, the annual cost of diabetes if you pay retail and use Kwikpens is over $19,000!  That’s a bit more than the cost of water.

        The coda to this song of woe is that contrary to Trump’s blustering, he didn’t do jack to lower drug costs. Some governors, Colorado’s as an example, have, however by simply banning the sales of insulin at more than $100 monthly. And here’s the odd part…they still sell insulin in Colorado.

        In truth and in direct contrast to Trump’s bloviation the latest attempt to enact meaningful drug price control legislation was introduced as the Affordable Drug Act by Senator Liz Warren, who, the reader is reminded is not of Trump’s party. As expected in a McConnell controlled Senate, it died a slow death fueled by massive Pharma lobbying efforts. Hopefully next January will see the dawn of a new day,

VOTE, Dammit!