California Free Press

Off the Top of My Head

US Would Like to Forget It Invaded a Sovereign Country Recently

by John Lawrence

The hypocrisy is appalling. The US invaded Iraq, a sovereign country, in 2003. Joe Biden voted for that war. Many children and civilians were killed as a result. The rationale for the invasion was that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. He didn't and George W Bush knew it. The invasion and consequent death and destruction in Iraq was based on a lie. The Guardian reported:

"Two decades ago, the United States invaded Iraq, sending 130,000 US troops into a sovereign country to overthrow its government. Joe Biden, then chairman of the Senate foreign relations committee, voted to authorize the war, a decision he came to regret.

"Today another large, world-shaking invasion is under way. Biden, now the US president, recently traveled to Warsaw to rally international support for Ukraine’s fight to repel Russian aggression. After delivering his remarks, Biden declared: “The idea that over 100,000 forces would invade another country – since world war II, nothing like that has happened.”

"The president spoke these words on 22 February, within a month of the 20th anniversary of the US military’s opening strike on Baghdad. The White House did not attempt to correct Biden’s statement. Reporters do not appear to have asked about it. The country’s leading newspapers, the New York Times and Washington Post, ran stories that quoted Biden’s line. Neither of them questioned its veracity or noted its hypocrisy."

The Iraq war and the war in Ukraine are similar in that a sovereign country was invaded on false pretenses. The difference is that Iraq was no threat to the US. Ukraine is within what Russia would consider its "sphere of influence," much like Cuba is within the US' sphere of influence. The invasion of Cuba by the US turned out not to be too successful. However, Cuba has been punished by the US for going on 70 years because it had the impertinence to ally itself with the Soviet Union. By the same token Russia considered it a threat if Ukraine allied itself with NATO. The war could have been prevented if NATO had given any credence to Russia's concerns in pre-war negotiations.

The Guardian article continues:

"While Washington forgets, much more of the world remembers. The flagrant illegality of bypassing the United Nations: this happened. The attempt to legitimize “pre-emption” (really prevention, a warrant to invade countries that have no plans to attack anyone): this mattered, including by handing the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, a pretext he has used. Worst of all was the destruction of the Iraqi state, causing the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and nearly 4,600 US service members, and radiating instability and terrorism across the region.

"The Iraq war wasn’t the only law- or country-breaking military intervention launched by the US and its allies in recent decades. Kosovo, Afghanistan and Libya form a tragic pattern. But the Iraq war was the largest, loudest and proudest of America’s violent debacles, the most unwarranted, and the least possible to ignore. Or so it would seem. Biden’s statement is only the latest in a string of attempts by US leaders to forget the war and move on."

Today Fareed Zakaria said, "America's unipolar status has corrupted the country's foreign policy elites." American foreign policy too often consists of making demands and issuing threats and condemnations. There is very little effort to try to understand the other side, never giving any credence or credibility to it. Fareed's column in the Washington Post is "America’s foreign policy has lost all flexibility." America's foreign policy is sclerotic, the policy of an aging empire. Meanwhile the rest of the world has moved on.

Off the Top of My Head

Biden Has Changed the Narrative on Taxes

by John Lawrence

One of the great things that Biden has done is to take the tax issue away from Republicans. Remember when George H R Bush said, "Read my lips. No new taxes." The conventional wisdom at that time was that if taxes were raised, they would be raised on everyone from Joe Six Pack to Warren Buffet. It was also conventional wisdom that tax cuts would apply to everyone from the very rich to the very poor. The American public was not sophisticated enough to know that Republican tax cuts, although they would apply to everyone, were much more favorable to the rich than they were to the poor. Now Joe Biden has completely altered that narrative. In Joe Biden's world tax increases apply only to the rich and tax cuts apply only to the poor. What a major paradigm shift! Biden has repeated his mantra so many times that he wouldn't raise taxes on anyone making less than $400,000 that now that scenario is starting to take hold in the American mind.

It's about time. The American public is starting to wake up to the reality that the very rich pay taxes at a lower rate than a nurse or a teacher or a fireman. If you're a hedge fund manager, you can take advantage of the 'carried interest' loophole to pay less than your fair share. As economic inequality has soared in the era of easy money, the very rich could take advantage of all sorts of games to make themselves even richer while most working people are living paycheck to paycheck. One way to restore some measure of equality is to increase taxes on the rich while cutting them on the poor. This idea was unheard of even a few years ago. Republicans rue the day when it was heard of thanks to Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders among others. Another way to restore some semblance of equality would be to tax wealth in addition to taxing income. People with assets, say, more than $50 million should pay a tax on their wealth while middle class and poor should be given help to start creating wealth for themselves. That would probably be something to do with home ownership since this is the way most middle class people have been able to create wealth for themselves.

However, it is becoming increasingly difficult for people of modest means to create wealth through home ownership because real estate prices have gone through the roof. It has become increasingly difficult for young people to come up with a down payment for a house, much less to make their monthly mortgage payments. The net result is that more and more people are forced into the situation of never owning property and being life time renters. This is the plan as private equity and hedge fund managers have accessed easy low interest money to buy up real estate and then rent it out so that the typical middle income young family is now renting a home from a hedge fund. NBC News reports: "The lack of supply of single-family homes has pushed up housing prices in many markets across the country — but would-be homebuyers find they are being outbid not just by other home seekers, but also by hedge funds." Hedge funds like the Blackstone group come in with all cash offers which are more attractive to sellers than the terms that average Joes and Janes can come up with. The Real Deal reports:

"Blackstone Group is planning to buy about 5,800 apartment units in San Diego for more than $1 billion.

"The New York-based private equity and investment firm has agreed to purchase 66 complexes across the city from the Conrad Prebys Foundation, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune. It also plans to make $100 million in improvements to the properties.

"With the deal, Blackstone will own 6,700 units in the Southern California city. It already owns $4.5 billion of assets in the city, including the Legoland theme park and the historic Hotel del Coronado.

"“We look forward to ensuring that these properties continue to provide the community with a high-quality rental option at a good value,” Blackstone Real Estate’s global co-head, Kathleen McCarthy told the Union-Tribune.""

According to the San Diego Union, "The deal makes Blackstone one of the biggest real estate holders in San Diego County." The writing on the wall is that, if you want to own a home, you have to move out of San Diego where the median home price is $855,000. For instance the median home price in Indianapolis is $229,900.

Off the Top of My Head

Should we Have a Second Pentagon ... Devoted to Peace?

by John Lawrence

So we have a Pentagon of War. We should have an equally funded Pentagon of Peace, a huge 5-sided building where all they do is plan and seek to implement various peace scenarios. Unimaginable? That's because the human race has so little imagination, and the result is ... continuous warfare since the dawn of civilization and before including the wiping out of another species, the Neanderthals, by our species, homo sapiens. The history of the human race is one of war with some technological progress in the interstices. Let's face it. Human beings especially of the masculine variety get off on war. Most warmongers are completely bored by peace. They can't wait to get back into action and cover themselves in glory on the battlefield, to prove their mettle, to prove their masculinity. Right now the US spends close to a trillion dollars a year on war, the weapons of war and planning for war. We spend a pittance on peace, the implementation of peace and planning for peace. As a result the human race has been heading for some time to Mutually Assured Destruction. We will probably get there whether or not it happens by means of a nuclear holocaust or whether it happens by neglect of the things that need to be done to forestall climate change.

The war in Ukraine and the looming Cold (and maybe even Hot) War between the two sides that are lining up represents at least a dithering while the planet heats up and eventually burns becoming a Venus like uninhabitable hellscape. So we have the US and Europe on one side and Russia, China, Iran, Cuba, Venezuela and North Korea on the other. Of the not quite aligned nations, most of Africa is siding with the Chinese. Why? Because the Chinese have put great energy into developing African infrastructure with their Belt and Road initiative. The US on the other hand has put great energy into building military bases all around the world. "There are roughly 750 US foreign military bases; they are spread across 80 nations! After the U.S is the UK, but they only have 145 bases. Russia has about 3 dozen bases, and China just five. This implies that the U.S has three times as many bases as all other countries combined." So this goes to show the relative priorities of the various countries. The priorities of peace vs the priorities of war. Helping improve the economies of other people directly is something that the Pentagon of Peace should be about. Sad to say China did that first, but there's always hope. As my Dad used to say, you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. Sure China's goal was to make friends and influence people with its Belt and Road initiative. What's the US doing in the meantime ... building military bases.

The Peace Pentagon should have a budget equal to the War Pentagon's budget - roughly a trillion dollars. I'm not saying do away with the Department of War and become defenseless. No, keep a robust defense but counterbalance it with a robust Department of Peace. So if possible peace initiatives will carry the day, but, if worse comes to worse, well there's always the fantastic array of weapons of war that the US already possesses. The war capabilities are enormous. The peace capabilities are meager. There's a difference between pursuing our interests by becoming friends with other people and pursuing our interests by guarding ourselves from other people. One of the ways to avoid war is to recognize the legitimate interests of other countries as stated by them. The war in Ukraine could have been avoided if NATO and the US had acknowledged Russia's stated security interest in Ukraine's not becoming a member of NATO. But that interest was totally discarded by the West - not even put on the table, not even some sort of compromise which would have recognized that stated interest. I'm not saying if that interest was legitimate or not - only that that was the stated interest on the Russian side that was completely ignored and never even negotiated. The result of that non-negotiation and non-compromise was the mess in Ukraine right now - a grinding war of attrition in which only Ukraine civilian lives and only Ukraine real estate are being destroyed. Ukraine would like nothing better than to have advanced weapons such as F-16 fighter jets which would allow them to spread the war into Russian territory, and then you have World War III. That seems to be where we are heading.

Off the Top of My Head

The Glory of War

by John Lawrence

Throughout history men have gone to war to cover themselves in glory and prove their masculinity. In World War I, many young British men were gung ho for going to war. They intended to cover themselves in glory and be home before Christmas. Instead many of them died face down in muddy trenches or were impaled on barbed wire. According to historycrunch.com: "...one of the main reasons for the excitement of the war was that many viewed it as an adventure. They read stories about soldiers bravely marching into battle and dying heroically on the battlefields for their countries. For many of these young soldiers, they viewed the Great War as their opportunity to play a role in the ‘glory of war’ and follow in the path of earlier soldiers in earlier European conflicts. To them, war seemed adventurous and a show of bravery that many claimed they ‘did not want to miss’." It was forever so but in general only the victors were able to cover themselves in glory.

War, I would contend, is primarily a masculine pursuit. It represents an attempt by men to prove their manhood. Even some American Indian tribes cultivated a warrior tradition. Their women would have nothing to do with men until they had proved themselves in war. According to Wikipedia: "What evolved among the Plains Native Americans from the 17th to the late 19th century was warfare as both a means of livelihood and a sport. Young men gained both prestige and plunder by fighting as warriors, and this individualistic style of warfare ensured that success in individual combat and capturing trophies of war were highly esteemed." Not for nothing were they called Braves. Martina Sprague in her book The Glory of War: The Way to Historical Immortality writes:  "What motivates men to go to war? The answer is the desire for recognition and the opportunity to gain eternal fame. War is perhaps the most common way in which a man can become a hero. We tend to romanticize war. War is portrayed as a daring adventure for a sacred cause, where the soldier will ultimately reach the highest level of self-actualization. As demonstrated by the great military figures in history, the promise of honor and heroism can help a man conquer the world."

Covering oneself in glory, proving one's masculinity, becoming a hero, these are ultimately traps which cause the perpetuation of war. Some men become addicted to war, the excitement of war. If one war ends, they will seek out the next one. Life is never so dull as life without war. It is the ultimate football game because the stakes - life or death - are so high. Witness the volunteers from other countries who are putting their lives on the line in Ukraine. The problem is that the pursuit of peace is never as exciting as the pursuit of war. Until peacemaking becomes as noble and glorious a pursuit as war, there is no hope for the human race to live peaceably and cooperatively side by side with each other. Until they give out as many medals and honors for peace heroes as they do for war heroes, the human race will go down fighting and ultimately extinguish each other.

I'm afraid that the war in Ukraine is only the latest example of people preoccupied with the excitement of war. Sure it was a clumsy and ignoble thing for Russia to do to so overtly invade Ukraine. They should have taken a page out of the CIA's book and been more subtle and covert about it. For example, the CIA undermined the democratically elected regime of Salvador Allende in Chile because he was a socialist and a Marxist ushering in the regime of Augusto Pinochet and his reign of terror. "According to the Chilean government, the number of executions and forced disappearances was at least 3,095 [under Pinochet]. Operation Condor, a U.S.-supported terror operation focusing on South America, was founded at the behest of the Pinochet regime in late November 1975, his 60th birthday." I'm afraid that Zelensky is following the same playbook of promoting the war based on 'glory for Ukraine' and his David and Goliath symbolism. His insatiable lust for American artillery shells and other advanced weaponry is duly granted by President Biden and the European allies with the goal of "winning the war." No one except the Chinese seem the least interested in creating a peaceful solution to the war. Instead the war will only be escalated when Ukraine gets F-15 fighter jets. Then they will be able to hit Russian targets in Russia escalating the war even further. Until now tragically it's only Ukrainian civilian lives and property that are being destroyed.

It seems like revenge, hatred for Russia and glory for Ukraine are the ultimate factors at work here not a search for compromise which both sides can live with. Does Russia have any legitimate national security interests in Ukraine's not becoming a member of NATO? Did the US have any legitimate national security interests in Chile nor becoming a socialist and Marxist state? There are always many reasons for war, but few for peace. Meanwhile, a lack of cooperation among the world's nations is hastening the day in which global warming will put an end to human civilization unless we can wake up and see that peace and cooperation are more glorious than war.

Off the Top of My Head

The Only Way to Create Affordable Housing Is For Government to Set the Price of Rent

by John Lawrence

As long as the market sets the price of rent, rents will become increasingly unaffordable especially in highly desirable areas like San Diego. Remember public housing? Some version of this is necessary or homeless will be relegated to shelters and/or time limited stays in subsidized housing for eternity. Why isn't public housing feasible? It's NIMBYism (not in my back yard) and NMTMFTism (not my tax money for this). What most people don't realize is that the Federal government can build public housing with no tax implications because unlike state governments, the Federal government has a sovereign fiat currency, the US dollar. The only non-artificial restraint on Federal expenditures is inflation so right now is probably not a good time to allocate dollars for public housing. Of course we expect that lessons have been learned so that public housing does not degenerate into the kind of situation like the notorious Cabrini-Green development.

Crime and neglect created hostile living conditions for many residents, and "Cabrini–Green" became a metonym for problems associated with public housing in the United States. In 1995, the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) began tearing down dilapidated mid- and high-rise buildings, with the last demolished in 2011. Today, only the original two-story rowhouses remain. The area has seen major redevelopment due to its proximity to downtown, resulting in a combination of upscale high-rises and townhouses, with some units being CHA-owned, creating a mixed-income neighborhood. Dispersal of affordable units throughout an area is necessary in my opinion to prevent concentration of crime and gangs in certain areas. There is no need for public housing to be concentrated like the Cabrini-Green development. It can be dispersed so that an area is mixed income, and less likely to attract gang activity which seems to happen in pockets of poverty.

Of course the US Federal government, based on the two party system can hardly rationalize spending money on public housing as long as Republicans have any say about it or as long as they can filibuster it to death. Progressives have been lucky to get a modicum of progressive legislation passed during the Biden administration. Biden has had to tone down much of the progressive legislation he attempted to pass at first. Nevertheless he has accomplished much. Public housing is not even on the table as a solution to the homeless and housing affordability problem. Rents just continue to increase way beyond a family's ability to pay them. State and local governments are throwing millions of dollar at the homeless problem without even putting a dent in it. It will take some radical ideas to solve it of which disbursed public housing is one. It totally goes against prevailing notions of a capitalist based, profit oriented society, not the least of which is that an ample supply of public, affordable housing units would undermine landlord profits by keeping the cost of housing in the for profit market under control. It would put a base line under housing costs.

Off the Top of My Head

Mass Murderers Get Much More Than Their 15 Minutes of Fame

by John Lawrence

The perpetrator of the recent mass murder in the Q night club wants to be addressed as "they" and "them" because he is "non-binary." How about if we address him as "you sonofabitch." Barely, have we gotten done with one mass murder in the news cycle than another one comes along to take precedence. The news these days consists mainly of covering one mass murder after another. Mass murderers are lining up. Next? Better make sure the news cycle is clear so that your atrocity takes over the headlines. Then we hear all about the perpetrator's messed up childhood, and, if there is a court trial, the news media dutifully covers it giving the murderer another 15 minutes of fame at least. Recently, families of the victims were upset when a mass murderer was given a sentence of free room and board for life with no possibility of ever having to make a living for himself rather than the death penalty. The news media and a coterie of lawyers, not to mention gun manufacturers and merchandisers are making a small fortune off of the mass murder business. Here's an idea; mass murderers caught in the act should immediately be taken out and shot thus avoiding the news cycle, numerous lawyers, pundits pontificating, authors hawking books and displays of grieving and mourning. It's all become a predictable big business. Yes, the GDP would decrease slightly, but who cares. We have become a mass culture of mass murder spectacles.

So the Second Amendment says: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." What is well-regulated, much less militia-like about individuals going out and buying an AK-47 and committing mass murder over some real or perceived grievance? By the way, the news media informs us that "the police have not yet discovered a motive." They never do. What possible motive could there be for mass murder that would justify it? The motive is the fact that the mass murderer is fucked up. Saying that he - and it always is a "he" - is mentally ill, is a means of evoking sympathy for someone who deserves none. But if individual mass murderers are fucked up, so is the Second Amendment. The Supreme Court decided in the Heller case that the Second Amendment gave individuals the right to own (and use) guns. What about the "well regulated militia" bullshit? The Supreme Court basically backed the rights of mass murderers. Now according to recent reports: Six million Americans carried guns daily in 2019, twice as many as in 2015. And this: "The trend is expected to continue, after the supreme court ruling earlier this year overturning strict limits on public gun-carrying." Whose side is the Supreme Court on? 

Pogo said: "We have met the enemy and he is us." True. The enemy is not "out there." It is the very wonderful American people themselves and the very vaunted Supreme Court which is so concerned about preserving life in the womb and so unconcerned about preserving life once it's outside the womb. After spending a trillion dollars a year on our military and military-industrial complex, it seems we as a nation are powerless to stop Americans from self immolating. So Americans have to come to expect one mass killing after another in assembly line like fashion. Next? They are already getting in line. Fame and fortune and a free meal ticket for life awaits. Meanwhile, the rest of us are reminded of John Milton's poem: "we also serve who only stand and wait." The rest of us go to our boring jobs, take care of our traumatized families and hope for a better life for us and our children if the world doesn't burn up due to global warming. Please, President Biden, do something about assault rifles.

Off the Top of My Head

The Mid Terms: Out of the Frying Pan Into the Fire

by John Lawrence

Voters are going to vote Republican because they don't like the economy. Really? What have the Republicans proposed to do about that? Cut social security and Medicare. Yeah, that'll fix the economy all right. Give more tax breaks to billionaires? That'll fix the economy for sure. Take away Biden's forgiveness of student loan debt? That'll really fix it. "Kitchen table" voters don't like inflation? What are Republicans proposing to do about that? The only tool in the arsenal for inflation cutting is the Fed's raising interest rates and the Fed is independent of both parties. Besides the only tool the Fed has is probably not the right tool for fixing this inflation. But it will eventually destroy what seems to be a pretty good economy despite inflation. The biggest way to fight inflation is to end the war in Ukraine which will bring gas prices down. Additionally, all the weaponry that is being "given" to Ukraine is really being bought from US weapons manufacturers and defense contractors like Lockheed Martin. This is pouring more money into the American economy at a time when money needs to be extracted from the American economy to fight inflation. The Fed's raising of interest rates is an attempt to increase unemployment which is the traditional way that the Fed fights inflation. The so-called Philips curve says that inflation is directly caused by too much employment, and, if you increase unemployment, it will bring inflation down. There is a direct correlation between unemployment and inflation. So the Fed, although no politician will say it, is trying desperately to increase unemployment. This hurts poor people the most, and, whether it will decrease inflation under the present circumstances, is debatable.

However, the war in Ukraine amounts to a protracted stalemate. As long as the west supplies Ukraine with weapons and North Korea, Iran and China supply Russia with weapons, the war will continue. No one on either side wants to talk peace. Each side wants to win at all costs. So the war will drag the world economy down into inflation and recession. Russia holds the winning cards in terms of its ability to literally destroy Ukraine from the air regardless of what is happening on the battlefield. This is not World War II where success on the battlefield was the key to winning the war. It's more like World War I where trench warfare and stalemate predominated. Territorial Russia remains virtually untouched since the rules are that the war will be entirely fought on Ukraine's territory, and the west to its credit doesn't want an expansion of the war. In the final analysis this gives Russia the advantage. Ukraine is fighting a defensive war, and Russia is fighting an offensive war. It's likely that neither party will run out of resources. That means the longer the war goes on, the more of Ukraine will be destroyed. There needs to be a peace commission and a peace process in which both sides can air their grievances and aspirations. What makes the most sense? I'm sure there is a possible way out, but neither side seems to want to compromise in the interests of ameliorating the lives of the Ukrainian people and getting back to normalcy. For each side their national pride is more important than the lives of their citizens.

Joe Biden could propose a solution to the war which would also go a long way to ameliorating inflation. Unfortunately, Biden is only interested in demonizing Putin. This is not a productive way to create peace. Biden is only fueling the war, and Putin won't back down due to pride. The more Putin is demonized, the more his hackles are raised. The west should be trying to lower Putin's hackles, not raise them. Ukrainian lives hang in the balance. Russian soldiers' lives are also in the balance although Russian civilians so far have escaped most of the suffering. Ukraine taking back real estate will not in the final analysis win the war because Russia can lob missiles into Ukraine ad infinitum. Only a peace process, compromise, consideration for civilian lives and reintegration of Russia into the world community will make it possible for people in that region of the world to again lead normal lives. Winning the war for either side is not a realistic option.

Off the Top of My Head

Is There an Off Ramp to Peace in Ukraine?

by John Lawrence

In a hypothetical handshake between Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin, the agreement was that the war would be fought entirely within Ukraine's borders, and that the US and the west would provide no boots on the ground in Ukraine. Until recently that unacknowledged agreement has been honored by both sides. The US has sought to contain the war also by not providing Ukraine with any long range missiles with which it could attack Russian territory. The idea was that the two sides would slug it out on the conventional military battlefield although Russia clearly has the means by which it could attack anywhere in Ukraine with missiles. The recent attack on the Kerch bridge followed by missile strikes on Kyiv represents an escalation of the war. In the "conventional" war Russia has evidently been losing. From Russia's perspective they have other modes of attack than just a conventional battlefield war. In the words of one Russian general, Russia should bomb Ukraine back to the 18th century. At this point Ukraine has little or no air defense capabilities, and Russia could do just that. So will Russia violate the unwritten agreement that the war will be won or lost on the battlefield? Probably "yes" if they are losing on the battlefield. Russia has long range missiles; Ukraine doesn't. Russia has an air force; Ukraine doesn't. Ukraine has no air defense system. The US and the west will not use their air force resources within Ukraine. This, as Joe Biden rightly observes, would start World War 3.

So why is the West deluding itself by thinking Ukraine could win this war and things could peacefully continue from there? Why is Russia trying to win a conventional war that it clearly is losing. Why are there no negotiations to try and settle this conflict in order to prevent further human suffering and devastation of Ukraine? Why is there no peace process underway? The US air force is not going to come to the aid of Ukraine. The US is not going to give Ukraine long range missiles so that it could attack inside Russia's borders. As atrocious as the Russian side has been made to seem by western media, Russia has exercised at least some restraint by not wiping Kiev off the map with missile strikes. Now that dynamic seems to have changed. Russia can inflict much damage on Kyiv and western Ukraine that it has recently refrained from doing. But now the gloves may be off. So my prognosis is that the war will get even more destructive because Kyiv and western Ukraine are essentially sitting ducks for Russian missile strikes. So why should Russia continue to fight a war on the ground that it is losing? The US and the west is concerned that Russia could use a battlefield nuclear weapon. Russia does not need to do that in order to devastate Kyiv and western Ukraine.

Unless there is some attempt at a peace process or a negotiated settlement, the destruction of Ukraine and the suffering of its people will only get worse. Modern wars are not constrained to military troops on the battlefield as they were in Napoleanic times. Increasingly in modern warfare, more civilian than military lives have been lost. Demonizing Putin will not win the day for Ukraine. Ukraine has belonged to Russia more often than not for hundreds of years. It was essentially peacefully "given" to Ukraine by Nikita Krushchev in 1954. Nina Khrushcheva, the political scientist and great-granddaughter of Nikita Khrushchev, the then First Secretary of the Communist Party, said of Khrushchev's motivation "it was somewhat symbolic, somewhat trying to reshuffle the centralized system and also, full disclosure, Nikita Khrushchev was very fond of Ukraine, so I think to some degree it was also a personal gesture toward his favorite republic. He was ethnically Russian, but he really felt great affinity with Ukraine." Russia clearly has a historical interest in Ukraine, not to mention the fact that the Russian Black Sea fleet is based in Sevastopol which is in Crimea.

The US and the west continues to ignore Russian history at it's and Ukraine's peril. Russia will obviously not let the country that harbors its Russian military fleet become a part of NATO. That would almost be a contradiction in terms. The negotiated solution to this war, an off ramp to peace, seems unthinkable at this point, but decent human beings on both sides better start thinking about it. Unless they do, there will be even more destruction of Ukrainian civilians and of the Ukrainian civilization.

Off the Top of My Head

Republicans Hate Socialism ... Except When They Need Help Themselves

by John Lawrence

When Superstorm Sandy hit, then Congressman DeSantis voted against giving help to New York state. Now after the Hurricane Ian disaster, Governor DeSantis is asking the Federal government for every dollar he can possibly get. This is typical Republican behavior. After all socialism is about helping people. Republicans want every ounce of help they can get for themselves while denying it to others. All of a sudden DeSantis is Joe Biden's best friend. Joe wants to help people, but he should think twice about helping DeSantis. First of all a hard look should be given to rebuilding on hurricane prone barrier islands. DeSantis, of course, wants the increased economic activity that rebuilding will entail for construction companies especially if the Federal government pays for it. Building Back Better in hurricane prone areas is not good economic sense. And it will cost a fortune in an inflationary era while only adding to inflation as the Federal government injects more money into the economy.

Robert Reich wrote in a recent email:

"No Republican governor has been more vocal in his opposition to what he describes as “socialism” than Florida’s Governor Ron DeSantis. “I stand against socialism,” DeSantis thundered in Florida’s 2018 gubernatorial election. “Socialist policies have failed time and time again.” In June, DeSantis signed an education bill directing Florida’s Department of Education to develop a curriculum educating students on the evils of socialism (as well as communism)."

But now, when his state needs the money, DeSantis is either a full on socialist or a full on opportunist who, once he gets his, will be against anyone else getting theirs. In 2013 DeSantis said: "I sympathize with the victims of Hurricane Sandy and believe that those who purchased flood insurance should have their claims paid. At the same time, allowing the program to increase its debt by another $9.7 billion with no plan to offset the spending with cuts elsewhere is not fiscally responsible." So now after Hurricane Ian, which will run into the tens of billions, is giving the state of Florida the money DeSantis is requesting from the Federal government "fiscally responsible"? Reich poses the question: "So, would DeSantis call any form of government assistance to those in need “socialism?” Obviously, not when it's his ox that's being gored. DeSantis' hypocrisy is immense here, but it will probably work for him. He will take credit for "getting Florida and Floridians back to normal" as he enters the 2024 Presidential contest. Before Biden gives DeSantis all the money he wants, DeSantis should do a mea culpa, stating that he was wrong to vote against disaster relief for New York state after Superstorm Sandy.

DeSantis website headlines: "Governor Ron DeSantis Requests President Biden Approve Major Disaster Declaration and 100 Percent Federal Cost Share for 60 Days for Hurricane Ian" This isn't the first time that DeSantis has used Federal cash to tout his own agenda. Just prior to the fatal hurricane, DeSantis held a press conference in Jacksonville where he gave $1,000 checks to individual firefighters and law-enforcement officers that were being made available through this year’s state budget. Of course he didn't mention that this was cash the state of Florida got from the American Rescue Plan, Federal money which provided more than $8.8 billion to the state of Florida.DeSantis will likely continue to bash President Joe Biden and the Democrats for pushing policies that he says have caused inflation — which includes the massive spending included in the American Rescue Plan. I've got news for Gov. DeSantis: if he cared about inflation, he would take the money to recover from Hurricane Ian out of state taxes instead of letting the American taxpayer foot the bill while all the time giving Joe Biden no credit. He will take all that for himself.

 

Off the Top of My Head

How Liz Cheney Can Defeat Trump in the 2024 Election

by John Lawrence

Run for President as a third party candidate. She will siphon off enough Republican votes to insure Trump's loss. She has the name recognition and chutzpah to run for President. She's already raising money with her super PAC - The Great Task. There are enough disaffected Republicans that will vote for her, and, even though she would probably come in third in a Presidential race, she could guarantee that Trump or a Trump-like candidate would lose. Therefore, a Democrat will win. Cheney obviously has no affection at this point for the Republican Party, a party that oversaw her defeat in a landslide for her incumbent Congressional seat in Wyoming. She is more interested in a win for America and the principles of the Constitution, and, as an American patriot, she is committed to Trump's losing the 2024 Presidential election.

The US has a history of third party candidates handing wins to the party that they are least aligned with. In 1992, Ross Perot ran unsuccessfully as an independent candidate for President of the United States. Perot was a Texas industrialist who had never served as a public official, but he had experience as the head of several successful corporations and had been involved in public affairs for the previous three decades. Although Perot received no votes in the Electoral College, he won several counties, placed second in two states, and ended up far ahead of any other non major party candidate finishing in third place overall, receiving close to 18.97 percent of the popular vote, the most won by a third-party presidential candidate since Theodore Roosevelt in 1912. His presence in the race may have been enough to deny George H W Bush a second term.

Even more salient was the 2000 Presidential election. The 2000 presidential campaign of Ralph Nader, political activist, author, lecturer and attorney, began on February 21, 2000. He cited "a crisis of democracy" as motivation to run. He ran in the 2000 United States presidential election as the nominee of the Green Party. Nader siphoned off enough votes from Al Gore, who was the Democratic candidate, that George W Bush won the election despite the fact that Gore won the popular vote and despite the fact that, at Bush's request, the Supreme Court stopped the recount in Florida which would have nailed the state of Florida for Gore and the Presidential election itself.

Third party candidates can wreak havoc for the party that they're most closely aligned with. In 2000 Nader was more aligned with Democrats than Republicans. Yet he helped cinch the race for the Republican since he siphoned off Democratic votes. The same goes for Perot in the 1992 Presidential election in which he helped defeat the candidate of the party he was most closely aligned with - in this case the Republican party. Liz Cheney knows all this. She's no dummy. She knows she can guarantee a Trump defeat in 2024 if he should run by running for President herself as a third party candidate. No doubt Adam Kinzinger and other influential Republicans will join her in an effort to overthrow the Republican party which has become the party of Trump. Liz is well known enough that she does not suffer from any name recognition deficit. Polling shows that in the neighborhood of 30% of registered Republicans are disenchanted with Trump and Trumpism. They are appalled at the January 6 insurrection by devotees and sycophants of Trump. Liz Cheney can guarantee that the United States of America will be able to turn over a new leaf and start a new day with a new party dedicated to the principles of the rule of law and the American Constitution - sort of what the old Republican party used to be like. She is in a position to relegate Trump to the dustbin of history if he should somehow escape the grip of all the lawsuits he's now entangled with.

Off the Top of My Head

What Have You Done For Me Lately, Mr. Biden?

by John Lawrence

So you put thousands of dollars in my bank account with the American Recovery Act, but that was so like last year. You've brought down the price of gas by releasing millions of gallons from the Strategic Oil Reserve, but gas is still too high. You ended a 20 year fruitless war in Afghanistan saving us hundreds of billions of dollars, but you micromanaged the withdrawal so sloppily. You got a bipartisan infrastructure bill passed, but I haven't seen any bridges getting repaired in my neighborhood. You got a chips bill passed, but so what? How does that affect me? You killed Al-zawahiri. Al Who? That's so 20 years ago. You got the Burn Act passed. Burn pits? Finally you passed a bill allowing Medicare to negotiate with pharmaceutical corporations over drug prices and limited out of pocket costs to $2000 a year, but that only affects old people. Well, you also got about $370 billion for climate change, but I haven't seen any rebates at my dealer yet. Taxing billionaires? How does this affect me?

See the American people can't see the value or the worth of anything that doesn't directly affect them immediately. They want instantaneous gratification in the same way babies do. Anything that Biden or the Democrats do that doesn't put dollars in my pocket immediately is worthless as far as I'm concerned. That's why I like the Republican agenda. Tax cuts for every one now. What do I care if the rich get a bigger tax cut than I do as long as I get my tax cut. See Biden raised taxes on the rich, but he didn't use that money to cut taxes on me. Therefore, it was a worthless maneuver. Democrats are always doing good stuff "for the good of the country" and now with climate change "for the good of the world." but I like my 52 Corvette classic car gas guzzler. As an American citizen I'm entitled to drive any car I want including gas guzzlers. So I repeat, Mr. Biden why haven't you brought down the price of gas to last year's level or for that matter to what it was in the 1950s. Inflation has eaten up all my wage gains and profits, and you still haven't gotten it under control, and It's been months.

Off the Top of My Head

The Way to Cure Inflation: More Immigrant Workers

by John Lawrence

There is a supply shortage which means that there is not enough supply to meet consumer demand. At the same time there is a worker shortage. The worker shortage causes the supply shortage as companies have to cut back on their supply of product because they don't have enough workers to make more. They have to pay workers more because they are in a competition for workers. So there is a gap between supply and demand because there is a gap between available jobs and the supply of workers. The solution: increase the supply of immigrants to fill the demand for workers. Then companies could ramp up supply to meet demand, and wage price spirals would diminish. Instead, the government has restricted immigration. This limits the supply of workers especially those who are in demand for the lower skilled jobs. Republicans are all concerned about immigration when the solution to the inflation problem is to let more immigrants into the country to fulfill the need for essential workers. This would fill the void in the job market and increase supply of goods and services. This in turn would lower prices and go a long way to taming inflation. The Fed cannot solve the problem of inadequate supply of workers by raising interest rates. This will only tend to rein in asset prices which in and of itself is a good thing since housing and rents are too expensive. But it will not increase the supply of commodities for which there is more demand than supply.

After noting that reversing the Trump tariffs on Chinese products would lower inflation, Fareed Zakaria also noted the following:

The second one, he noted, would be immigration reform. This is the time to reverse more of Trump’s restrictions on immigration, many done by executive action and hundreds of which are still in effect, which have caused severe worker shortages in industries such as farming, construction and health care.

The problem, however, is not one relating to facts or logic. No one seriously disputes the validity of these claims. During the campaign, Biden lambasted Trump’s tariffs on China and much of his immigration policy. Yet after entering office, the Biden White House has behaved on these issues like a deer caught in the headlights — paralyzed by fear that any major shifts might get attacked by Republicans.

I also might add that cranking up the Cold War rhetoric regarding China is not the way to lower the price of consumer products most of which are manufactured in China. China is learning the lesson that Russia learned during their ongoing war with Ukraine. If you have a product or commodity that the west wants or needs, you can cause a lot of damage by withholding that product or in other ways making it more expensive. As Russia has made the price of gas more expensive, they have directly caused inflation in the US and Europe. One could also point out that sanctions on Russian oil by western governments have contributed to rising inflation so in that sense the Biden administration has shot itself in the foot. China could take a page out of Russia's book, and increase costs to western consumers. In fact it already has as container ships (wholly owned by Chinese companies) have raised their prices to transport goods from China to the US. The US needs to cooperate with China if it wants the trade relationships so vital to consumer spending, which is 70% of the US economy, to remain on a salutary basis.

It is to be noted that China turned the tables on the US by sanctioning Nancy Pelosi and her family after her trip to Taiwan. It's as if they're saying, "See, you guys aren't the only ones that can do sanctions." China could get into a sanctions war with the US if tensions between the two countries continue to escalate. China could take steps to increase the cost of Chinese produced consumer goods which are essential to the functioning of the US economy. Or it could even withhold some essential manufactured goods altogether. As Russia has us over a barrel with regard to gas prices, China could put us over a barrel with respect to any number of consumer goods that we are dependent on them for. On the other hand, if we cooperated rather than competed with China, that might go a long way to solve the climate change problem. Ditto for Russia. Those 2 countries have a lot to do with whether or not planet earth gets a handle on climate change. Can we afford not to cooperate. In the long run the fate of Taiwan or Ukraine is less important than the fate of the whole planet.

Off the Top of My Head

Never Has a President Accomplished So Much While Getting So Little Appreciation

by John Lawrence

President Joe Biden will go down in history as having accomplished more than any President except perhaps Franklin D Roosevelt. For starters, the $1.9 trillion COVID relief bill, guiding the country through the worst pandemic since 1918. Secondly, ending a 20 year war in Afghanistan. Thirdly, killing Ayman al-Zawahiri, leader of Al-Qaeda, without killing a single other civilian. Fourthly, a bipartisan $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill. Fifthly, unemployment at 3.5%, the lowest in history. Sixly, the bipartisan gun safety bill, the first gun safety bill in decades. Seventhly, keeping the US out of World War III while providing military assistance to Ukraine. Eighthly, the Inflation Reduction Act which will not only provide money to mitigate climate change but will, for the first time in history, let Medicare negotiate with Big Pharma to reduce drug prices. It will also tax large corporations who previously have paid nothing in taxes and also lowers ACA health care premiums for millions of Americans. Also worth mentioning - bringing down the price of gas although it was not his responsibility that gas prices soared in the first place. Ninthly, appointed a black woman to the Supreme Court. tenthly chose a black and Indian mixed race woman as his running mate. Tenthly, the CHIPS and Science Act. The bipartisan bill contains $52 billion in subsidies and tax credits for any global chip manufacturer that chooses to set up new or expand existing operations in the United States, along with more than $200 billion toward scientific research in areas like artificial intelligence, robotics and quantum computing. Biden has fulfilled his pledge to pass more bipartisan legislation, the first President to accomplish this feat in a long time.

Still just a few days ago Biden's approval rating was hovering around 30%. Recently it has bounced back to 44%. So what are people thinking? Biden has been totally result oriented in pursuing good stuff for the American people rather than pursuing what is politically expedient. Yet less than half way though his first term he has accomplished more than any other President with the exception of FDR. And he still has a long way to go even if he only serves for one term. He still is in a position to cancel student loan debt at the time of his own choosing. By the way he already has suspended payments for many months. So why is not the vast majority of Americans giving President Biden a massive thumbs up? The American public by and large wants everything and they want it now. They demand that their President give it to them. If he doesn't they will vote for the next guy that promises them everything. They will believe conspiracy theories and snake oil salesmen who posture and prattle about everything that is irrelevant but which they take with the utmost seriousness. They want their rights and freedoms without any sense of obligation to American society that would restrict those rights and freedoms. They want everything while giving nothing. Such is the character of far too many Americans. They'll take everything that Biden will do for them without giving him any credit for it. They want what they want for themselves but they don't want anything for anybody else. Some Americans, Liz Cheney comes to mind, are making a colossal effort, even at their own expense, to turn this country around and make it stand again for a shining beacon to the rest of the world.

Off the Top of My Head

We Need a Department of Peace to Balance and Offset our War Department

by John Lawrence

Let's face it. the Department of Defense is a euphemism. It was called the Department of War until 1949. So let's call it what it really is. Don't get me wrong. There are times when war is necessary as occurred in WW II. However, we spend about $1 trillion on our War Department while spending little or nothing on peace. Is there really a Peace Corps? Yes, and its budget is about $400 million. That's about 4 ten thousandths of the War Department budget. My point is that we should be making at least the same effort towards peace as we're making towards war, and we should be putting our money where our mouth is. This doesn't mean we totally disarm ourselves. It means that we are making an effort towards creating peace in the world if at all possible and are willing to devote an equal amount of resources towards it. In our present state it's all about threatening war in order to to create a state of peace. It's Pax Americana similar to the Pax Romana which meant that you didn't mess with Rome or else you were threatened with violence. Instead of creating peace by means of a threat of war, we should be actively pursuing a peaceful world instead.

What would a Department of Peace actually do? Well, diplomacy would be under this department instead of the State Department for starters. Second, the American equivalent of China's Belt and Road initiative. Building infrastructure around the world just as China is doing. But what's most important at the present time is converting the world to green infrastructure. The middle class in India is growing. They want to live just like Americans. As more Indians enter the middle class they are consuming more fossil fuels to provide the energy to do so. This is contributing to the looming climate disaster. Just what we don't need is more carbon dioxide going into the atmosphere as a result of more people gentrifying into the middle class. Therefore, a Department of Peace, which should include the Peace Corps, would step up the efforts not only to change the fossil fuel habit in the US, but to actively change it around the world. About a half a trillion dollar budget would be about right while decreasing the War (Defense) budget which is 10 times the combined budgets of the rest of the world to half a trillion.

President Biden wants a Civilian Climate Corps reminiscent of the Civilian Conservation Corps which President Roosevelt established to build parks and plant trees during the Great Depression. An excellent idea in view of the fact that planting a trillion trees would suck the carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. Unless we do that there is already enough carbon dioxide in the atmosphere at 410 ppm to melt both poles. Why not require participation in the Civilian Conservation Corps for people receiving welfare benefits who aren't otherwise employed or who are unemployable in the prevailing economy. I'm thinking about the homeless and others for whom this might be a first step to getting back on their feet in the so-called real world. I'm in favor of the government being the employer of last resort, and employment in a Civilian Climate Corps is the perfect solution both for them and for the environment.

Building the elements of peace around the world would entail looking out for the health care needs of people outside the US in our era of pandemics. This is also good sense in a selfish way since viruses can transmit world wide in a matter of days if not hours. They don't respect national boundaries. People to people cultural contacts with people of other nations brings about understanding and the realization that, no matter what the religious or ethnic differences seem to be, human beings are all essentially the same deep down and all have the same needs and aspirations. Helping others to realize their aspirations creates peace in the world. Cultural and educational exchanges are an important way to increase mutual understanding. There are many ways to create peace in the world. The US shouldn't be always taking the stance of trying to put down those peoples and countries who don't follow the US way of life. Others might have a different way of setting up their societies, but rather than taking this as a threat, we should engage diplomatically and peacefully if at all possible knowing that in the final analysis, if push came to shove, we also have the means to defend ourselves. A Department of Peace and a Department of War should go hand in hand. Today it is lopsided in favor of war.

Off the Top of My Head

Why the Fed's Raising Interest Rates Won't Work

by John Lawrence

Inflation is a supply and demand problem. The Fed only sees it as a demand problem: there is too much demand. Therefore, it seeks to reduce the public's ability to demand by reducing wages and creating more unemployment. Problem is that businesses are short staffed. They are trying to hire more workers, not laying them off. There is no "industrial reserve army" of people competing for jobs. Businesses are competing for workers. The reason why prices are going up (hence inflation) is not that there is too much demand, but that there is too little supply. This is caused by supply chain problems which comes down to the fact that most things Americans consume are produced overseas, mainly in China. Also the sanctions on Russian gas and oil combined with Russia cutting off supplies even beyond the sanctions means that everything that is transported including consumer goods is even more expensive. The problem is that the US does not produce much of what it consumes. Again it's a supply problem. Container ships coming from China raise their rates because gas is more expensive. This makes the goods they transport more expensive. When the major things Americans consume come from China (consumer goods) and Russia (energy costs), America is at the behest of countries that it considers enemies. And so is Europe.

The traditional way of fighting inflation is for the Fed to raise interest rates and drive up unemployment. When unemployment increases, demand decreases because unemployed people don't have as much money to spend. In other words money is withdrawn from the economy. This is of course to the detriment of the unemployed people which are usually those on the lowest rung of the economic ladder. But as we've seen during the pandemic, those at the bottom of the economic ladder are usually those who are indispensable workers - grocery workers, agricultural workers, truck drivers, nurses, caregivers. The economy cannot function for anyone without their services. So the only way the Fed can achieve its goal is to drive businesses into bankruptcy. Then all those workers will be in the ranks of the unemployed and be forced to underconsume. Actually, the more that Americans consume, the more greenhouse gasses are created. Underconsumption could have a very salutary effect on the atmosphere and the environment.

Another way to withdraw money from the economy in order to reduce demand is to raise taxes. Again taxes are usually raised on the poor and middle class further immiserizing them. Congress refuses to raise taxes on the rich which Joe Biden has proposed doing. This would help inflation to some extent, but the rich don't consume basic items to the extent that the middle class and poor do. So in order to reduce demand to the point where it is more or less equal to supply, money must be taken out of the pockets of the poor and middle class. The other alternative is to increase supply. But since the US is dependent on supply from foreign suppliers, this is not that easy to do. Long range, the solution is for the US to make more stuff, but corporations have settled on a model of getting stuff produced where labor is cheapest and that means overseas.

The Pitchforks Aren't Coming

For the last two years, Joe Biden has been talking about raising taxes on large corporations and wealthy Americans. It's not happening.

Stephanie Kelton

 

Nearly a decade ago, tech entrepreneur Nick Hanauer warned his fellow billionaires that “the pitchforks are coming.” The economy was still reeling from the financial crisis, and for the vast majority of Americans the policy response had been a near total failure. There were too few jobs, too many foreclosures, and way too much inequality. Eventually, Hanauer wrote, the masses would rise up.

If we don’t do something to fix the glaring inequities in this economy, the pitchforks are going to come for us. No society can sustain this kind of rising inequality. In fact, there is no example in human history where wealth accumulated like this and the pitchforks didn’t eventually come out. You show me a highly unequal society, and I will show you a police state. Or an uprising. There are no counterexamples. None. It’s not if, it’s when.

Instead of fixing the glaring inequities, Republicans used their majorities to deliver huge tax cuts that overwhelmingly benefited people like Hanauer.

It was on the heels of the Trump tax cuts that billionaire hedge fund investor, Ray Dalio, started to worry that the pitchforks were coming. Capitalism, he argued, “was not working for the majority of Americans.” Unless policies were put in place to generate better economic outcomes—including a better distribution of wealth and income—a “revolution” was coming.

Around the same time, fellow billionaire Jamie Dimon wrote in his annual letter to shareholders that “far too many people were living on the edge.” He described a system in crisis and urged “a call to action.” Like Dalio, Dimon stressed the urgent need to build a more “inclusive economy.” Keeping the pitchforks at bay meant improving life—if only modestly—for those who might otherwise take to the streets.

Instead of taking to the streets, COVID kept many of us home. And while the pandemic caused immeasurable harm, the policy response was so much better that life did improve—at least financially—for millions of ordinary people.

The financial lifeline that started with the $2.2 trillion CARES Act in March 2020 culminated with the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan (ARP) Act in March 2021. The ARP was intended to put a punctuation mark on the economic recovery, not to permanently tackle the sort of inequities Hanauer described in his “memo to fellow zillionaires.”

To deal with the more structural problems, President Biden offered his Build Back Better agenda, explaining that “for too long, the economy has worked great for those at the top, while working families get squeezed.” No more tax breaks for billionaires. Instead, Biden wanted to tax them. In addition to a slew of other taxes, Biden proposed a “billionaire’s tax” on the top 0.0001, those with annual incomes over $100,000,000. The pitchforks were coming, and the rich were in the crosshairs.

It was time to rebuild the economy from “the bottom up and the middle out,” the president said in his State of Union address. To wring some of the inequality out of the system, he offered a plan that would have raised taxes on those at the top while investing trillions in child care, elder care, housing, education, climate, and more. For a while, Congress seemed poised to act on a $3.5 trillion package.

And then this happened.

Senator Manchin (D-WV) refused to vote for a package that wasn’t “fully paid for,” while Senator Sinema (D-AZ) refused to vote for the sweeping tax hikes that Biden insisted were necessary to “pay for” the spending. I wrote about the whole saga at length last year.

Anyway, the media teased us (again) last week, reporting that constructive negotiations with Senator Manchin were underway and democrats might yet pass portions of what was once part of the Build Back Better agenda. And then Lucy yanked the football once again.

As Washington Post columnist Greg Sargent reported on Friday:

This will surprise only people who haven’t paid even cursory attention to the last year of Democratic politics, but Sen. Joe Manchin III may have just killed any hopes for a resuscitated version of the Democratic agenda.

The West Virginia Democrat reportedly told party leaders late Thursday that he won’t support any new incentives to combat climate change or any new tax hikes on corporations or the wealthy.

So there you have it. The pitchforks aren’t coming. At least not the way some had expected. The top marginal tax rate isn’t going back up to 39.6 percent. We are not going to tax capital gains at the same rate as ordinary income. The corporate income tax rate isn’t going up. We’re not ending the step-up-in-basis or closing the carried-interest loophole. There will be no “billionaire’s tax.” None of it is happening.

President Obama once told a room full of bankers that his administration was “the only thing standing between [them] and the pitchforks.” Today, there’s a tendency to paint Senator Manchin as the lone obstacle. But for that single missing vote, action on climate, prescription drugs, and more would sail through Congress with higher taxes to “pay for” it all. I doubt it.

I think Jonathan Chait is probably right about this:

A key faction of Democrats in the House, along with Senator Kyrsten Sinema, blanched at the tax hikes. Moderates have been privately coordinating their opposition, and it seems very likely that Manchin’s sudden opposition to raising taxes on the rich comes not from him, but from them — he sometimes takes the heat for fellow Democratic moderates. In this case, he is likely channeling their concerns and passing them off as his own.

Whether it’s Manchin or Manchin & Co., it’s looking bad for millions of Americans, the future of the democratic party, our democracy, and life on earth.

There’s a lot we can’t predict in life. But one thing is for sure. Climate change is an accelerant on inequality. Within a few decades, billions of people will be forced to migrate due to extreme weather, rising sea levels, and damaged ecosystems. Fires will continue to ravage communities, rivers will swallow more homes, heat-related deaths will mount, and food shortages will lead to mass starvation. That is not a world in which the pitchforks can be kept at bay.

We need to act now!

Is Biden too old?

by Robert Reich

At 79, Joe Biden is the oldest president in American history. Concerns about his age top the list for why Democratic voters want the party to find an alternative for 2024.

I don’t think this reflects an “ageist” prejudice against those who have reached such withering heights so much as an understanding that people in their late 70s and 80s wither.

I speak with some authority. I’m now a spritely 76 — lightyears younger than our president. I feel fit, I swing dance and salsa, and can do 20 pushups in a row. Yet I confess to a certain loss of, shall we say, fizz.

Joe Biden could easily make it until 86, when he’d conclude his second term. After all, it’s now thought a bit disappointing if a person dies before 85. My mother passed at 86, my father two weeks before his 102nd birthday (so I’m hoping for the best, genetically speaking). Three score and ten is the number of years of life set out in the Bible. Modern technology and Big Pharma should add at least a decade and a half. Beyond this is an extra helping. “After 80, it’s gravy,” my father used to say.

Joe will be on the cusp of the gravy train.

Where will it end? There’s only one possibility, and that reality occurs to me with increasing frequency. I find myself reading the obituary pages with ever greater interest, curious about how long they lasted and what brought them down. I remember a New Yorker cartoon in which an older reader of the obituaries sees headlines that read only “Older Than Me” or “Younger Than Me.”

Yet most of the time I forget my age. The other day, after lunch with some of my graduate students, I caught our reflection in a store window and for an instant wondered about the identity of the short old man in our midst.

It’s not death that’s the worrying thing about a second Biden term. It’s the dwindling capacities that go with aging. "Bodily decrepitude," said Yeats, "is wisdom." I have accumulated somewhat more of the former than the latter, but our president seems fairly spry (why do I feel I have to add “for someone his age?”). I still have my teeth, in contrast to my grandfather whom I vividly recall storing his choppers in a glass next to his bed, and have so far steered clear of heart attack or stroke (I pray I’m not tempting fate by my stating this fact). But I’ve lived through several kidney stones and a few unexplained fits of epilepsy in my late thirties. I’ve had both hips replaced. And my hearing is crap. Even with hearing aids, I have a hard time understanding someone talking to me in a noisy restaurant. You’d think that the sheer market power of 60 million boomers losing their hearing would be enough to generate at least one chain of quiet restaurants.

When I get together with old friends, our first ritual is an “organ recital” — how’s your back? knee? heart? hip? shoulder? eyesight? hearing? prostate? hemorrhoids? digestion? The recital can run (and ruin) an entire lunch.

The question my friends and I jokingly (and brutishly) asked one other in college—"getting much?"—now refers not to sex but to sleep. I don’t know anyone over 75 who sleeps through the night. When he was president, Bill Clinton prided himself on getting only about four hours. But he was in his forties then. (I also recall cabinet meetings where he dozed off.) How does Biden manage?

My memory for names is horrible. (I once asked Ted Kennedy how he recalled names and he advised that if a man is over 50, just ask “how’s the back?” and he'll think you know him.) I often can’t remember where I put my wallet and keys or why I’ve entered a room. And certain proper nouns have disappeared altogether. Even when rediscovered, they have a diabolical way of disappearing again. Biden’s secret service detail can worry about his wallet and he’s got a teleprompter for wayward nouns, but I’m sure he’s experiencing some diminution in the memory department.

I have lost much of my enthusiasm for travel and feel, as did Philip Larkin, that I would like to visit China, but only on the condition that I could return home that night. Air Force One makes this possible under most circumstances. If not, it has a first-class bedroom and personal bathroom, so I don’t expect Biden’s trips are overly taxing.

I’m told that after the age of 60, one loses half an inch of height every five years. This doesn’t appear to be a problem for Biden but it presents a challenge for me, considering that at my zenith I didn’t quite make it to five feet. If I live as long as my father did, I may vanish.

Another diminution I’ve noticed is tact. A few days ago, I gave the finger to a driver who passed me recklessly. These days, giving the finger to a stranger is itself a reckless act. I’m also noticing I have less patience, perhaps because of an unconscious “use by” timer that’s now clicking away. Increasingly I wonder why I’m wasting time with this or that buffoon. I’m less tolerant of long waiting lines, automated phone menus, and Republicans. Cicero claimed "older people who are reasonable, good-tempered, and gracious bear aging well. Those who are mean-spirited and irritable will be unhappy at every stage of their lives." Easy for Cicero to say. He was forced into exile and murdered at the age of 63, his decapitated head and right hand hung up in the Forum by order of the notoriously mean-spirited and irritable Marcus Antonius.

How the hell does Biden maintain tact or patience when he has to deal with Mitch McConnell? Or Joe Manchin, for crying out loud?

The style sections of the papers tell us that the 70s are the new 50s. Septuagenarians are supposed to be fit and alert, exercise like mad, have rip-roaring sex, and party until dawn. Rubbish. Inevitably, things begin falling apart. My aunt, who lived far into her nineties, told me “getting old isn’t for sissies.” Toward the end she repeated that phrase every two to three minutes.

Philosopher George Santayana claimed to prefer old age to all others. "Old age is, or may be as in my case, far happier than youth," he wrote. "I was never more entertained or less troubled than I am now." True for me too, in a way. Despite Trump, notwithstanding the seditiousness of the Republican Party, the ravages of climate change, near record inequality, a potential nuclear war, and a stubborn pandemic, I remain upbeat -- largely because I still spend most days with people in their twenties, whose fizz buoys my spirits. Maybe Biden does, too.

But I’m feeling more and more out of it. I’m doing videos on TikTok and Snapchat, but when my students talk about Ariana Grande or Selena Gomez or Jared Leto, I don’t have clue who they’re talking about (and frankly don’t care). And I find myself using words –- “hence,” “utmost,” “therefore,” “tony,” “brilliant” — that my younger colleagues find charmingly old-fashioned. If I refer to “Rose Marie Woods” or “Jackie Robinson” or “Ed Sullivan” or “Mary Jo Kopechne,” they’re bewildered. The culture has flipped in so many ways. When I was seventeen, I could go into a drugstore and confidently ask for a package of Luckies and nervously whisper a request for condoms. Now it’s precisely the reverse. (I stopped smoking long ago.)

Santayana said the reason that old people have nothing but foreboding about the future is that they cannot imagine a world that’s good without themselves in it. I don’t share that view. To the contrary, I think my generation — including Bill and Hillary, George W., Trump, Newt Gingrich, Clarence Thomas, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, and Biden – have fucked it up royally. The world will probably be better without us.

Joe, please don’t run.

Off the Top of My Head

Manchin and Sinema Should Be Kicked Out of the Democratic Party

by John Lawrence

They have blocked Biden's agenda every step of the way. Biden and his team have spent countless hours "negotiating" with them to no avail. They have treated them with kid gloves to no avail. Now they should call them out. They are effectively blocking the codification of Roe v Wade, voting rights legislation, Biden's Build Back Better initiative and every other thing every other Democrat stands for. They are Democrats in name only - DINOs. Instead of being treated with kid gloves, they should be treated like the pariahs they are. Democrats are too nicey nice. Biden got a little testy and said he was open to ending the filibuster in order to codify Roe. Who's standing in the way of ending the filibuster? Manchin and Sinema. Who's standing in the way of every other thing Biden and most Democrats want to get done? Manchin and Sinema. If it weren't for them, Democrats could get rid of the filibuster today and codify everything the Supreme Court is torpedoing plus do a lot more. As it is, Biden is hamstrung by two quasi Democrats who are really Republicans in sheep's clothing.

The filibuster is an anti democratic rule of the Senate that prevents decisions being made by majority rule. There's no good reason for it to exist. Democrats think that, if they get rid of it, Republicans will go wild with their legislation when they control both Houses of Congress and the Presidency. But they are just wrong. When Republicans control both Houses of Congress and the Presidency but don't have 60 votes in the Senate (the number of votes necessary to overcome the filibuster), they can just vote to end or suspend the filibuster to get their legislation passed and signed into law. They don't care whether or not Democrats "observed" the traditions of the Senate by not voting to end the filibuster for their purposes. They will just do it themselves when it suits their interests. That's what the Democrats don't get. Democrats are afraid to end a "rule" when they theoretically have the power now to do so which is anti Democratic in order to get good things passed for the American people. And who are standing in the way of that? Not Republicans but 2 Democrats - Manchin and Sinema. If it weren't for them, abortion rights could be codified. A whole host of other things which the Supreme Court is casting to the wind, could be codified. In fact everything that was considered settled law is not because, if it hasn't been codified, it is under attack by the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court has pointed out that it's not enough to win a case before the Supreme Court. It must be codified by the Congress and signed into law by the President before it is "settled law." Therefore, the Supreme Court will throw out every so called "Constitutional protection" because nothing is constitutionally protected just because somebody has won a case before the Supreme Court. As sclerotic and underperforming as Congress is, the Supremes know that throwing things back to Congress effectively overturns every decision the Supreme Court has ever made! Forget about Roe v Wade. They are now attacking the EPA so that the US can do nothing about climate change except to sit back and let it happen. The US is fast becoming a backwater among nations and all because Trump had the power to appoint 3 conservative Justices to the Supreme Court. So what will be next on the Republicans' agenda? Getting rid of social security and Medicare? The Supreme Court will help them with that. Their only talent is using arcane language to do the Republicans' dirty work.

Off the Top of My Head

Biden Could Solve the Gas Crisis Today by Taking Sanctions Off Russian Oil

by John Lawrence

Sanctions on Russian oil have been an abysmal failure. Russian oil profits are up 50% from last year! Just as American and British oil corporations have been scoring record profits, so has Russia. Oil prices are set on the world market and soaring prices result in record profits for Russia. If Putin had designed the sanctions himself, he couldn't have wreaked more havoc on the US and European economies. It's time for Biden to admit that his policy of sancti0ns against Russia has failed. They haven't deterred Russia from pursuing a war of attrition against Ukraine. They have demonstrated the abject failure of using US sanctions to control the actions of other countries. They are a total lost cause now and in the future. That's the lesson of the war in Ukraine for the west.

Bloomberg reported:

Russia’s oil revenues are up 50% this year even as trade restrictions following the invasion of Ukraine spurred many refiners to shun its supplies, the International Energy Agency said.

Moscow earned roughly $20 billion each month in 2022 from combined sales of crude and products amounting to about 8 million barrels a day, the Paris-based IEA said in its monthly market report. 

Russian shipments have continued to flow even as the European Union edges towards an import ban, and international oil majors such as Shell Plc and TotalEnergies SE pledge to cease purchases. Asia has remained a keen customer, with China and India picking up cargoes no longer wanted in Europe.

The IEA, which advises major economies, kept its outlook for world oil markets largely unchanged in the report. Global fuel markets are tight and may face further strain in the months ahead as Chinese demand rebounds following a spate of new Covid lockdowns, it said. 

Reduced flows of Russian refined products such as diesel, fuel oil and naphtha have aggravated tightness in global markets, the agency noted. Stockpiles have declined for seven consecutive quarters, with reserves of so-called middle distillates at their lowest since 2008.

But for all the disruption, Moscow has continued to enjoy a financial windfall compared with the first four months of 2021. Despite the EU’s public censure of the Kremlin’s aggression, total oil export revenues were up 50% this year. 

The bloc remained the largest market for Russian exports in April, taking 43% of the country’s exports, the IEA said.

So where is this "world market" that is setting the price of oil? Is it on Wall Street? I'd like to have a word with whoever is in charge of this "world market." Lord knows the US produces enough oil to supply all the US' gas needs so why not take US oil production off the world market and just sell it to the American people at a reasonable price? Oh, I guess that's not how capitalism works. Ironic, isn't it, that a formerly communist country like Russia is now profiting from capitalist markets! So even if the US, Canada and Europe are having record inflation with recessions predicted in the near future, Biden won't take the sanctions off of Russian oil, and basically this is all for spite, all because he hates Putin so much. Biden has staked American prestige on fighting a proxy war with Russia based on the almighty dollar and the power it supposedly possesses over every financial transaction going on in the world. Problem is that all the sanctions on Russia have only proven the weakness and futility of using sanctions to achieve policy goals. Russia has demonstrated that the sanctions just don't work. They haven't deterred Russia in the least. China and India have taken up the slack in Russian oil purchases.

Besides that, what Biden fails to understand is that like the US, Russia's currency, the ruble, is a fiat currency. That means that unlike China, it is not pegged to the US dollar. Russia's central bank can print as many rubles as it wants without asking US permission. The US can of course do the same thing - print as many dollars as it wants except the limiting factor is inflation. So the US can't print dollars right now, but Russia can still print rubles. That means that Russia controls Russian investment in Russia and Russian control of internal consumer markets. Imported products come mainly from China, and China is Russia's friend. Russia is demanding payment for its gas in rubles rather than dollars, and this supports the value of the ruble as a convertible currency just as Nixon's demand that the Saudis price their oil in dollars supported the value of the dollar and made the dollar the world's reserve currency.

All this boils down to the fact that Russia is in the driver's seat with respect to the war in Ukraine. It's hard to see how the unending supply of western weapons is sufficient to win the war for Ukraine now that the policy of sanctions has failed. Demonizing Putin is not a policy that is likely to have an effect on the war one way or other. Putin still has a lot of friends in the world and US inflation, while being primarily a function of sanctions on Russian oil, is also dependent on the supply chain of products coming from China, Russia's friend. Biden should be careful about whom he demonizes. After demonizing MBS, he's now about to get back in bed with him and the Saudis. Biden's Build Back Better policy could have helped the American people, and even now could fight inflation, but alas, after promising that it would be passed "in tandem" with the bipartisan infrastructure bill, it never was. What up with that?

Off the Top of My Head

Did Biden Shoot Himself in the Foot by Putting the Kibosh on Russian Oil?

by John Lawrence

If Putin wanted to ruin the US economy, he couldn't have done it more successfully than if he himself had refused deliveries of Russian oil. The US and European embargo on Russian oil has driven the price of oil on the world market sky high, and Putin is benefiting from the price increase! In fact he has made more money from the sale of oil this year than he did last year! No wonder Putin is smiling. He's laughing all the way to the bank as his war in Ukraine not only devastates Ukraine but drives inflation in the US, UK and the rest of Europe while US sanctions on Russia's economy does little or no damage. Do they really need imports from Europe or the US when China is the world's manufacturer of practically everything, and China is an ally of Russia? Not every financial transaction in the world involves the US dollar. Furthermore, Russia's blockade of Ukrainian grain is causing food prices to rise which makes for another increase in inflation. But even worse than that, countries that depend on that grain consumption will likely find their citizens going hungry further contributing to world political instability.

Biden's insane pandering to Saudi Arabia after declaring them a pariah country will not do much to lower the price of gas even if Saudi Arabia increases production to their limit. They don't have the ability to fully replace the potential supply of Russian oil. So win or lose the war in Ukraine, Putin is having a debilitating effect on the US economy while there is not that much of a debilitating effect on Russia's economy. Another reason this is so is that the Russian ruble is a fiat currency not pegged to the US dollar so the Russian central bank can spend as many rubles as necessary to keep consumers and businesses going. Even MacDonald's has been "Russianized" so that MacDonald's pull out has had little or no effect on the Russian preference for US fast food. Furthermore, Russia and China, among a few other nations, have been hard at work to limit the US dollar as the world's reserve currency. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) envisions a prosperous, inclusive, resilient, and sustainable Asia and the Pacific, while sustaining its efforts to eradicate extreme poverty in the region. China's Belt and Road initiative also is furthering the cause of dedollarization of the world economy. However, China's currency is pegged to the US dollar so China needs to hold dollars in its account at the Federal Reserve, but Russia's currency is fully convertible. That's how it can demand that Finland pay for its gas in rubles thus supporting that fully convertible currency. Russia, therefore, is not dependent on the US dollar. It just needs to import anything that it doesn't produce domestically and China can provide that.

Meanwhile, the US is dependent on the supply chain from China which has been disrupted lately causing more inflation. Dependency on China for most of its products while trying to cast China as an adversary is not a very good idea. The proposed Cold War with China is only pushing Russia and China closer together. Meanwhile the war in Ukraine is becoming a money pit for the US government which is spending billions and billions to give Ukraine a never ending supply of weapons. This is also inflationary because, whereas the product is shipped to Ukraine, the money is spent right into the US economy via the US weapons manufacturers. To fight inflation money needs to be extracted from the US economy hopefully by means of taxing the rich and not taxing anyone making less than $400,000 a year as Biden has proposed. Whatever the outcome of the war in Ukraine, Putin has proven that by withholding Russian oil from world markets, he can drive up the price of gas and cause inflation in car centric America.

Off the Top of My Head

Bush V Gore Set Precedent for Trump v Biden

by John Lawrence

Remember when George W Bush took over the Presidency because the Supreme Court sided with him in his lawsuit to get the vote counting stopped? If it had continued Gore would have won the Presidency in 2000. If Gore had become the rightful President, there probably would not have been the disastrous and illegal Iraq wars. As is evident now Saudi Arabia was more to blame for 9/11 than Iraq or Afghanistan, but Bush wanted to be a war time President. The US government, during the George W Bush administration, kept documents secret that would have implicated Saudi Arabia as the sponsor of the 9/11 attack that killed 3000 Americans. Families of the 9/11 victims have had to retrieve documents from the British government that implicate Saudi Arabia whom they now blame for 9/11 and are suing for compensation.

In 2000 conservative justices on the Supreme Court voted to stop the counting of votes in Florida overruling the Florida Supreme Court. Wikipedia reported:

"Bush v. Gore, 531 U.S. 98 (2000), was a decision of the United States Supreme Court on December 12, 2000, that settled a recount dispute in Florida's 2000 presidential election between George W. Bush and Al Gore. On December 8, the Florida Supreme Court had ordered a statewide recount of all undervotes, over 61,000 ballots that the vote tabulation machines had missed. The Bush campaign immediately asked the U.S. Supreme Court to stay the decision and halt the recount. Justice Antonin Scalia, convinced that all the manual recounts being performed in Florida's counties were illegitimate, urged his colleagues to grant the stay immediately. On December 9, the five conservative justices on the Court granted the stay for Bush, with Scalia citing "irreparable harm" that could befall Bush, as the recounts would cast "a needless and unjustified cloud" over Bush's legitimacy. In dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote that "counting every legally cast vote cannot constitute irreparable harm.""

Media organizations later analyzed the ballots and found that, under specified criteria, the originally pursued recount of undervotes of several large counties would have confirmed a Bush victory, whereas a statewide recount would have revealed a Gore victory. So Gore actually won the 2000 election. There would have been no illegal invasion of Iraq, and the US would have been well on the road to combating climate change because that was Gore's primary issue. How history might have been changed, if only ... So Trump probably figured, among his other plans to overturn the Biden victory in 2020, that the Supreme Court would probably be on his side in overturning the election since he had appointed 3 conservative justices to the Supreme Court, and the Court had essentially overturned the 2000 election in favor of George W Bush. However, Trump never got to the point of approaching the Supreme Court as Bush had done because Pence went ahead after the insurrection and presided over the vote count which assured that Biden had won the election. If the insurrectionists had sufficiently interrupted the proceedings on January 6, Trump's lawyers might then have petitioned the Supreme Court to rule in favor of Trump especially since the Court was overwhelmingly conservative, three of the Justices having been appointed by Trump himself. We'll never know, but what is clear is that Trump attempted a coup on January 6. It just didn't come off quite as he had planned.

Off the Top of My Head

If Huge Numbers of People Believe Something, Does It Make It True?

by John Lawrence

Huge numbers of people believe Trump won the election. By all objective measures, it's a false belief. Huge numbers also believe some particular religious doctrine. Does that make it true? When it comes to religion though, there are no objective measures. Did God actually give Moses two stone tablets containing the Ten Commandments at the top of Mount Sinai or was it Mount Horeb as it says elsewhere in the Bible. Or was it Mount Serbal or Mount Catherine where Christians built a monastery in the belief that one of these mountains is where Moses received the stone tablets. Biblical scholars cannot even agree exactly which mountain corresponds to Mount Sinai. Or, is it possible that Moses had the stone masonry skills to have carved the stone tablets himself and then just told the story that he had received them from God? After all if people believed the tablets were created just by Moses and not by God, they would have given the Ten Commandments a lot less consideration as something they should be concerned about.

The January 6 Committee is attempting to prove that Trump knew he had lost the election, but misled his followers to believe in what others have called his Big Lie. Is there a willingness on the part of "followers" to believe anything their "leader" tells them? We'll never know the factual truth about Moses and the stone tablets, but we actually have factual data about the truth or falsehood of Trump's contention that the election was stolen from him. As Bennie Thompson, chair of the January 6 committee said, "Numbers don't lie." It doesn't matter what millions of Trump supporters believe because beliefs have to be measured with respect to objective facts whenever they're available, and in this case they are. With respect to religion we are free to believe whatever we want since there are no objective facts available no matter how hard anyone wants to believe that their beliefs are in fact the true facts.

So why do people believe stuff that isn't true? Why did all those people believe that the Emperor's new clothes were in fact a most wonderful set of threads? It took a little boy to point out that the Emperor was in fact naked. People will tend to believe whatever a person in power tells them because they don't want to be punished either directly or by other believers who could make them social outcasts for not believing what all of the rest of them believe. You don't want to say the Emperor is a fake if the Emperor could throw you in prison or worse. People didn't contradict the Roman Caesars when they told them they were actually gods. A lot of the wars have been between groups with contrary religious beliefs. After the Protestant Reformation, there followed the Thirty Years war in Europe between Catholics and Protestants. The war in Yugoslavia was among three religious groups: Eastern Orthodox Christians, Roman Catholics and Muslims. They were all ethnically the same southern Slavs, the only difference among them which resulted in them killing each other was in their professed religious beliefs. Croats were largely Roman Catholic, Serbs were mostly Eastern Orthodox and Bosnia is majority Islamic. Different religious beliefs have resulted historically in human beings killing each other.

Trump's Big Lie resulted in his true believer followers almost fomenting a successful coup on January 6. It also helped Trump and other Republicans raise huge amounts of campaign cash from his followers based on their belief that the election was stolen from their "leader." Tolerance among people with different religious beliefs is a necessary component if earthlings ever hope to attain Peace on Earth, Good Will Among Men (and Women). Democracy is based on an accurate counting of votes. It's all about the numbers. It's not about beliefs. It's not about believing what some leader tells you to believe. Objectivity and science establish what is undisputedly true. Fortunately, democracy has a way to establish what is objectively true. Religion doesn't.

Off the Top of My Head

Biden Alternately Fights, Fuels Inflation

by John Lawrence

Normally the government spending money into the economy is a good thing. It promotes economic growth and prosperity. But when the economy overheats causing inflation, the government needs to extract money from the economy. It does that by, among other things, raising taxes. Also the Fed, like it's doing now, raises interest rates. This puts a damper on major purchases because of interest costs. The American Rescue Plan injected a lot of money into the economy that kept the wheels turning during the worst parts of the pandemic. That was a good thing, but too much of a good thing is a bad thing. The traditional way the Fed controls inflation is to squeeze the economy in such a way as to cause higher unemployment. The Phillips curve is a theoretical economic tool that shows the relationship between inflation and unemployment, the higher unemployment, the lower inflation and vice versa. At present, however, businesses are begging for workers, not laying them off. This is good news for workers, bad news for inflation.

Biden is trying to blunt the cost of inflation to low wage workers by getting Congress to pass some of the remnants of his Build Back Better plan. However, some of these items would cause the government to spend more money into the economy causing even more inflation. Biden doesn't want to tell the truth about inflation which is that the traditional solution is to cause even more pain for low wage workers by squeezing the economy to the point that they will lose their jobs thus increasing unemployment as the Phillips curve dictates. So basically there is nothing Biden can do except to decrease government spending. Republicans would cut programs that benefit the poor and raise taxes on the middle class to do just that.

Biden is continuing to spend money into the economy by purchasing billions of dollars worth of weapons which are then sent to Ukraine. This is inflationary in and of itself. As of May 20, 2022, the US has spent $54 billion on Ukraine, and, evidently, even more will be allocated. Ukraine has become a ward of the US with the US taking responsibility not only for supplying weapons but also for keeping the whole economy afloat. All this money spent on Ukraine is money not spent on programs for the American people unless you are an employee of the military-industrial complex for which Ukraine spending has become a bonanza. Of course there are other causes of inflation than too much government spending. The loss of Russian oil is causing gas prices to rise. Chinese COVID lockdowns are exacerbating the supply chain crisis. This is not a traditional inflation, but too much government spending is certainly a part of it. Biden's good intentions of protecting the American people during the COVID pandemic by flooding the economy with money had the concomitant effect of also causing inflation. Biden will never, of course, tell Americans the truth which is that in order to fight inflation the government will have to turn around and cause them more pain especially low wage workers.

Off the Top of My Head

UN Secretary General: "There is no way a war can be acceptable in the 21st century"

by John Lawrence

Really, Mr. Guterres? Did you forget about the Iraq war that killed over a million Iraqis, approximately 100,000 of them civilian? In the 21st century? That war, by the way, was based on the lie that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction which the Bush administration knew he didn't have. And as far as a dictator goes, did George W Bush have a declaration of war from Congress? No, he did not. There was a resolution ginned up by the Bush administration that was used as an excuse for the invasion of Iraq. As far as war crimes, this war in Ukraine is getting all sorts of scrutiny by the media that the Iraq war didn't get. The fact is that in modern wars more civilians are being killed than military. That's an unfortunate fact of urban combat. It's not like the Napoleonic wars or even the US Civil War in which armies lined up on fields far away from cities and fought it out. The Battle of Gettysburg took place in a rural setting. Pickett's charge was across a hay field not an urban boulevard. The only difference in terms of time period between the Iraq war and the Ukraine war is that we are much more aware now that global warming is upon us destroying lives and livelihoods. So we don't need another war to do that. Probably much more real estate and many more lives will be destroyed this year by the effects of global warming than by the Russian military.

So the west wants to get off of Russian oil? Then why aren't they building green infrastructure and converting to non polluting energy as quickly as possible? The answer is that the fossil fuel corporations are lobbying hard to get us not do that. And they have billions of dollars to spend to get their way whereas the green protest movement has pennies to spend by comparison. The renegade Democrats, Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, themsleves have profited by Big Oil's huge donations to their campaign funds. But for them we could have had a substantial effort to rebuild American infrastructure along non-polluting lines. But Joe Biden presented himself as not someone who wanted to go full steam ahead to get off of fossil fuels. No, he wanted to do it in a more moderate way, a way that did not inconvenience the American people in any way. They could still have all the toys and appurtenances they were used to. As opposed to the progressive wing of the Democratic party which wanted to go full steam ahead to green the economy. So the Big Oil executives are on the same page with the Russian government. Both could care less about global warming because both are profiting immensely from the sale of fossil fuels.

So why is there not a concerted western effort to get the poor and elderly civilians out of the war zone where they are sitting ducks? The young and the rich have already got out. Only the poor and elderly remain. There is plenty of money for weaponry that the US and other NATO nations are sending into Ukraine. No effort, diplomatic or otherwise, is being made to get the poor and elderly civilians out. There have been some humanitarian corridors, but the poor and elderly don't have the money to support themselves even if they got out. Someone else would have to pay for their transportation and for their support even if they got out. Why isn't that forthcoming? Does NATO want them still sitting there in the war zone as a deterrent to the Russian army? That's nonsense and suicidal. There needs to be direct talks between Ukraine, the west and Russia about getting those civilians out. Then the two armies can fight it out. Instead, western media bemoans the fact that civilians are being killed while doing nothing to get them out. I repeat only the rich and the young, those with the means to pay, and probably pay bribes, are getting out of Ukraine and are able to support themselves outside of Ukraine. Money should be forthcoming from NATO to get the rest of the civilians out of there. They are effectively being used as human shields. I have not heard Biden or anyone else speak of money being set aside for this purpose. Only more money for weapons.

Off the Top of My Head

Tie Build Back Better Aid for Americans with Weapons Aid for Ukraine

by John Lawrence

Funny how all the concern about inflation doesn't apply to the billions being spent with US weapons manufacturers for javelins, stingers, howitzers and other weaponry. The aid for Ukraine is not money being spent in Ukraine. It's money being spent right here in America going into the coffers of the military-industrial complex. Then the deliverables are shipped to Ukraine, not the money. Since it's being spent right here in the US, it is increasing inflation because more money going into the money supply increases inflation. But hardly anyone is concerned about the inflation that that is causing. When it comes to Biden's Build Back Better plan, it's dead in the water because that would cause inflation. Congress persons are so concerned about that inflation, but they're not at all concerned about the inflation being caused by the billions being spent to make weapons of war. The original BBB package was supposed to be tied with the physical infrastructure legislation that has already passed. They were supposed to be approved in tandem, but they never were. This was a huge failure and huge mistake by the Biden administration which essentially sold out the progressive wing of its party in order to get something, anything, passed. As a result, physical infrastructure, but not human infrastructure, alone got passed, and, more importantly, a huge amount of the global warming infrastructure didn't get passed. So now why don't they tie BBB to the expenditure for more weapons for Ukraine?

According to resources.org:

"The [BBB] legislation allocates $1 billion over the next few years to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Federal Highway Administration for efforts that support the use of low-carbon materials in highway construction projects. It authorizes $4.225 billion for the US General Services Administration (GSA) for its acquisition of green products and its portfolio of environmental sustainability programs, including initiatives that range from securing fuel-efficient vehicles for the federal fleet to setting net-zero energy and water targets for newly constructed GSA properties. An additional $8.98 billion are slated to go toward the purchase of electric vehicles (EVs) and associated infrastructure (e.g., charging stations) by the GSA and the US Postal Service."

Not too much to ask, really, to save the planet. By the way subsidizing the purchase of electric vehicles for consumers would help offset the price of gas at the pump. The US may help Ukraine to win the war or at least achieve a protracted stalemate, but at the same time it is letting global warming proceed with minimum intervention. So what is more important - influencing the outcome of a war between two countries or dooming every country on earth which is what will happen if we don't proceed full steam ahead to forestall global warming. Is funding the war in Ukraine being penny wise and pound foolish? Better, if all countries put their money towards combating global warming instead of weapons of war, there might be a slight chance of saving the planet. As it is now, the human race would rather fight wars than save the planet. War is one addiction the human race is not willing to give up even if it means our grandchildren will inherit a planetary hell.

Off the Top of My Head

US Weapons Manufacturers Profiting From War in Ukraine

by John Lawrence

So far the US has spent $13.6 billion on the war in Ukraine. The money includes weapons, military supplies and one of the largest infusions of U.S. foreign aid in the last decade. But it also covers the deployment of U.S. troops to Europe and money for domestic agencies to enforce sanctions. Stock prices for Lockheed-Martin, Northrop Grumman and Raytheon are up. They are making money from all the Javelins and Stinger missiles they are selling to the US government which is giving them to Ukraine free of charge. Raytheon Technologies and Lockheed Martin Corp jointly produce Javelins, while Raytheon makes Stingers. EU countries are buying even more US weaponry from the US military-industrial complex. Germany even wants F-35 aircraft from Lockheed Martin. U.S. weapons exports rose 2.8% to $175 billion in fiscal 2020. The Ukraine war is a field day for the weapons industry. As far as they're concerned, the more arms shipments to Ukraine the better. They are bullish. CEOs will probably get a substantial increase in pay, and the weapons contractors will be able to buy back more of their own stock boosting stock values even more. The US policy so far is no boots on the ground, but plenty of taxpayer money going up in smoke, money that could have been spent on bettering the lot of the American people.

The is always money available for war, but when it comes to Biden's Build Back Better package, Congress gets very stingy. So a localized war is more important than the fate of the whole planet due to global warming. Or it's more important than affordable health care. Or it's more important than imposing a tax on multi-billionaires who, by the way, are not paying for the war because they pay no taxes. If they have defense contractors in their portfolio, they are profiting from the war. Politico reported:

More than 25 nations have joined in purchasing and delivering weapons to support Ukraine’s war effort. The U.S. has sent billions of dollars in missiles, ammunition and other items to the front. The EU signed off on a €500 million ($551 million USD) package — a first for the 27-country European bloc — to help arm Ukraine. And both Finland and Germany have rewritten long-standing policy that barred exporting weapons into war zones.

At the same time, there are tens of thousands of troops being activated and deployed by NATO countries in Eastern Europe.

Using a resource guide retrieved from the Forum on the Arms Trade that mostly relies on official government statements and reports in the media — and backfilled with our own independent research — POLITICO has worked to track and compile weapons and materials that have been announced or directed to Ukraine by various countries since January.

This non-exhaustive list focuses on lethal weapons and some non-lethal material. It does not count humanitarian and developmental aid that has been sent to Ukraine in the same period. Arms trade research organizations have noted the timeline and official receipt of equipment is hard to confirm due to security concerns. In some cases, such as with France and Turkey, an official tally has not been made public.

While US taxpayers are paying for the war in Ukraine and for the delivery of weapons to Europe, Saudi Arabia and other places in the world, billionaires are paying nothing. Congress will not even pass a tax on billionaires so that they would be forced to pay, as Biden says, "their fair share." Their fair share is zero, zip according to Congress which is basically on the side of the billionaires. So planet earth diminishes in importance, as far as global warming is concerned, because fighting and paying for war is so much more important. In fact not only is war more important than peace, which doesn't move the stock market, it's more important than renewable energy. All of a sudden there is a need for more oil, more fossil fuel, all of which produces more greenhouse gasses. The attitude is if we need to destroy planet earth in order to win this war, then that is the price we'll have to pay.

Off the Top of My Head

Problems of American Democracy - Part 4: The Easter Bunny Approach to Good Citizenship

by John Lawrence

Voters usually turn against the party in power in the mid term elections. Why? Because the party in power has promised voters all kinds of Easter goodies, and they haven't delivered on all of them. They haven't delivered all of them because the job of the party out of power is to prevent the party in power from doing so. Meanwhile, the party out of power promises voters a different bag of goodies if only they elect them. After all the party in power hasn't delivered all of the goodies promised. The result is the voters vote for the party out of power in the mid term elections. They've gotten all the goodies they're likely to get from the party in power, and their vote is cast in such a way that they are expecting a new bag of Easter goodies that has been promised by the party out of power if only the voters will vote for them which they willingly do. Why? Because voters don't vote for the party most likely to provide the country with good government. They don't vote for the party that is most likely to provide them with intelligent government. They vote for the party that has promised them a new and different bag of Easter goodies than the party in power which hasn't fulfilled all its promised goodies.

So the mid term elections are coming up. Republicans have done their job of obstructing many of Biden's campaign pledges. He did get an infrastructure package passed and got enormous COVID economic relief for citizens, but his hallmark campaign platform pledge, the Build Back Better plan has gone unfulfilled, thanks largely to the Republicans and two Republican wolves in Democratic sheep's clothing. The fickle voters do not assess how Biden has handled the chores of government, whether or not he's handled them in an intelligent and proficient manner. Their fickleness only assesses whether or not they've gotten all the Easter goodies Biden and the Democrats had promised. They have not. Therefore, it has been decreed by pundits, one and all, that Democrats don't have a snowball's chances in Hell of getting reelected in the Halls of Congress come this November.

Voters would rather elect a nincompoop like Trump who knew nothing about government except for the fact that it made him the most powerful man in the Free World, and, therefore, he could do and say most anything he wanted. He also promised voters the Republican bag of goodies - lowered taxes. Thoughtfully, Biden has carefully changed the Democratic meme from raising taxes on everyone to raising taxes only on the rich thus depriving Republicans of their main accusation towards Democrats: "They will raise your taxes." However, Biden doesn't seem to be getting very far in fighting inflation by raising taxes on the rich. Why? Because most Congress persons and Senators are the rich, and they've been lobbied very thoroughly by the rich. Of course this is all very legitimate. It's the American way of doing government unlike the Russian way where a rich businessman just offers cash to a member of parliament if they'll vote a certain way. In America the rich lobby and make generous campaign contributions in order to get Congress persons to vote a certain way. There's also an implied, though not explicit, wink, wink, nod, nod that the Congress person will get a lucrative job on a Fortune 400 Board when they retire from Congress in order to spend more time with their family. Of course this is not considered corruption, but the result is the same. In Russia politicians and government officials do the bidding of the rich; in America politicians and government officials do the bidding of the rich. What else is new?

Off the Top of My Head

According to Biden's BBB Plan, Buyers of Electric Vehicles Would Receive up to $12,500 in Tax Credits

by John Lawrence

So where is this incentive to buy electric vehicles now that gas (in CA) is about $6 a gallon? Now is the time when we need this subsidy, but, alas, the Democrats couldn't even stick together to pass this and other incentives and measures to get off fossil fuels. How about this as an incentive: preventing daily tornadoes in the heartland of the US? As extreme weather gets more extreme, Congress can't even pass programs to combat global warming and the consequent damage that's being done to people's lives and the economy in general. Not to mention the fact that major portions of the population will not be able to get property insurance which is happening right now and will only get worse. If you have a lot of brush around your house, you're an insurance liability. If you live in a flood plain, you're an insurance liability. We are told by people who know that we only have a few years to do something before we can expect catastrophic consequences from climate change and global warming. Yet we are taking our time getting off fossil fuels. There is even regret that we didn't go ahead with the Keystone pipeline.

The New York Times reported:

"In the coming decades, as global temperatures continue to rise, hundreds of millions of people could struggle against floods, deadly heat waves and water scarcity from severe drought, the report said. Mosquitoes carrying diseases like dengue and malaria will spread to new parts of the globe. Crop failures could become more widespread, putting families in places like Africa and Asia at far greater risk of hunger and malnutrition. People unable to adapt to the enormous environmental shifts will end up suffering unavoidable loss or fleeing their homes, creating dislocation on a global scale,[according to a recent UN report]."

We do know the things we need to be doing. It's just that we're not doing them or doing them at such a slow pace that we will still experience the worst effects of climate change. If you think the refugee problem is bad now, climate change will exacerbate and accelerate the refugee problem. People will be fleeing their homes and homelands when it becomes apparent that they can't make a living there. They will be coming to parts of the world where countries are wealthy enough to mitigate the worst effects of climate change. Basically, that means that people will flee poor countries and attempt at all costs to enter rich countries. That's why the US, as the richest country in the world, should be going full speed ahead to transition away from fossil fuels and into a new era that consists of renewable energy production and more environment friendly lifestyles. Instead, Americans are determined to lead lifestyles of maximum consumption right up to the hilt of their financial resources and beyond in a last gasp of over consumption.

Common Dreams reported:

In the wake of a United Nations report that activists said showed the "bleak and brutal truth" about the climate emergency, a leading economist on Friday highlighted a step that supporters argue could be incredibly effective at combating the global crisis: nationalizing the U.S. fossil fuel industry.

Writing for The American Prospect, Robert Pollin, an economics professor and co-director of the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, noted the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and high gas prices exacerbated by Russia's war on Ukraine.

"If we are finally going to start taking the IPCC's findings seriously," Pollin wrote, "it follows that we must begin advancing far more aggressive climate stabilization solutions than anything that has been undertaken thus far, both within the U.S. and globally. Within the U.S., such measures should include at least putting on the table the idea of nationalizing the U.S. fossil fuel industry."

Asserting that "at least in the U.S., the private oil companies stand as the single greatest obstacle to successfully implementing" a viable climate stabilization program, Pollin made the case that fossil fuel giants should not make any more money from wrecking the planet, nationalization would not be an unprecedented move in the United States, and doing so could help build clean energy infrastructure at the pace that scientists warn is necessary.

The expert proposed starting with "the federal government purchasing controlling ownership of at least the three dominant U.S. oil and gas corporations: ExxonMobil, Chevron, and ConocoPhillips."

"They are far larger and more powerful than all the U.S. coal companies combined, as well as all of the smaller U.S. oil and gas companies," he wrote. "The cost to the government to purchase majority ownership of these three oil giants would be about $420 billion at current stock market prices."

So for roughly half of the defense budget, the US taxpayers could own the oil industry and phase it out at the speed required to save the planet from the worst effects of global warming. Instead we're treated to the Big Oil CEO's defiance that they are not price gouging because prices are set by the world market. Does anyone question why prices have to be set by the world market? No. Obviously, the world market exists to serve the interests of the oil producers, not oil consumers. Maybe the US should get off the world market because we produce enough oil to meet all current consumer demands. So why do we even need the world market? The world market exists to serve the interests of the OPEC nations who won't even open their spigots in a time of crisis, and it exists to serve the interests of the western Big Oil corporations like ExxonMobil, Chevron and Shell.

Americans would like to have one more blast of consumption rather than buckle down and do what's necessary to combat climate change, an effort that would be at least as great as the effort and sacrifice put forth to fight World War II. Billionaire's would rather blast off into space than use their money to fight climate change. Their lifestyles are major contributors to the emission of greenhouse gasses. They don't want to be told that they can't overconsume with numerous 27,000 square foot mansions and a fleet of luxury cars. That's the American Dream, or is it. It's soon going to turn into the American Nightmare but probably not for them. They have the resources to escape the worst effects of global warming. Instead the nightmare will be mostly visited on the least among us as well as randomly due to tornadoes, floods and fires.

Off the Top of My Head

Joe Biden's Policy: Speak Loudly but Carry a Small Stick

by John Lawrence

As opposed to Theodore Roosevelt's policy: speak softly but carry a big stick. I think Biden's policy is correct. By all means we don't want World War III. As Ellen Brown makes clear on Web of Debt blog, sanctions will not do much except hasten the day when the US dollar is not the only world's reserve currency. There are so many workarounds to sanctions, and billionaires can always replace their super yachts. Russia has a fiat currency just like the US dollar. Modern Monetary Theory has shown that a country with a fiat currency can have its central bank print as much of that currency as it wishes. The only constraining factor is inflation. Right now the US is more constrained by inflation than Russia is. There is no need for Russia's domestic economy to suffer because of inflation. Businesses can continue to receive investment loans from the central bank. International trade will continue with friendly countries like India, China, Venezuela and Turkey. Turkey is a member of NATO by the way, and India is the world's largest democracy.

Daily Sabah reported on March 11, 2022 in Turkish businesses expect progress on using rubles in trade with Russia :

"Since the currency dispute with shipping companies is causing problems in the delivery of goods passing through customs, Turkey should actively work to develop a mechanism to facilitate trade with Russia in rubles, Istanbul Chamber of Commerce (ITO) head Şekib Avdagiç said Friday. Avdagiç stated that the companies working with Russia see the withdrawal of Western countries from Moscow as a new opportunity and emphasized that it is important to enable the use of the national currency of Russia. The issue was also brought up during President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s phone call with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, he reiterated. Erdoğan told Putin that, apart from the euro and dollar, trade between the two countries can be carried out using the Russian ruble and Chinese yuan."

Aljazeera reported:

Mumbai, India–Indian authorities are actively considering dedicated payment mechanisms for trade with Russia to enable existing trade obligations in the wake of sanctions imposed on the Kremlin, a move that will also pave the way for cheaper oil imports to meet the country’s energy demands. In the past month, as sanctions have been imposed on Russia, the scope of a payment mechanism in local currencies has expanded from being a means to sustain ongoing trade to possibilities of deeper engagement, including increasing bilateral trade.

Of course, US authorities are managing the news here just as they are in Russia. They don't want you to know that our erstwhile ally, India, the world's largest democracy is doing workarounds to avoid US sanctions. As Ellen's article points out, we in the US may be better off once the US dollar is not the only world's reserve currency. At that point we may have to rely more on our domestic economy and infrastructure just as Russia is being forced to do now. So we won't have to be at the mercy of supply chains from other parts of the world. More stuff will be manufactured here in the good old USA, and that's a good thing.

Off the Top of My Head

There are Two Ways War in Ukraine Could Have Been Prevented

by John Lawrence

One, Ukraine could have been made a member of NATO before war began, and (2) Putin could have been given a guarantee that Ukraine would never become a member of NATO. So why didn't either one of these two possibilities prevent a destructive war which has brought death and destruction to the people of Ukraine? The fact is that NATO didn't want Ukraine as a member. Ukraine didn't meet NATO's high standards especially with regard to corruption. According to Wikipedia:

""Corruption is widespread in Ukrainian society. In 2012 Ernst & Young put Ukraine among the three most-corrupt nations of the world—alongside Colombia and Brazil. In 2015 The Guardian called Ukraine "the most corrupt nation in Europe". According to a poll conducted by Ernst & Young in 2017, experts considered Ukraine to be the ninth-most corrupt nation in the world. According to Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index (a scale of least to most corrupt nations), Ukraine ranked 122nd out of 180 countries in 2021, the second most corrupt in Europe, ahead of Russia. United States diplomats described Ukraine under Presidents Kuchma (in office from 1994 to 2005) and Yushchenko (in office from 2005 to 2010) as a kleptocracy, according to WikiLeaks cables."

Who knew? So NATO didn't want Ukraine as a member at least until it had cleaned up all the corruption. That gave Putin an open door to invade because Biden had declared that there would be no American involvement in terms of boots on the ground in Ukraine because he didn't want to start World War III. Plausible enough. However, Putin probably would never have invaded Ukraine if it had been a member of NATO which would mean that Russia would have to have been subjected to the collective wrath of all the European countries plus the United States. So instead of starting WW III, we would sanction the hell out of Russia. This, however, is not preventing Russia from wreaking havoc on the Ukrainian people.

Putin's chief demand was that Ukraine never become a member of NATO. Sweden and Finland are non-aligned so why couldn't Ukraine have agreed to the same status thus meeting Putin's main demand and prevented an invasion. All NATO had to do was offer Putin a piece of paper which was signed and dated and contained words to the effect that Ukraine would never become a member of NATO, and, furthermore, if Putin invaded Ukraine, the treaty would be abrogated. Instead the NATO negotiators would not even consider Putin's main concern. His logic was that the US would not allow missiles to be placed right on its border or anywhere in the western hemisphere for that matter. The US had been involved in the overthrow of democratically elected governments in all the Americas. According to Wikipedia:

"In Argentina, military forces overthrew the democratically elected President Isabel Perón in the 1976 Argentine coup d'état, starting the military dictatorship of General Jorge Rafael Videla, known as the National Reorganization Process. Both the coup and the following authoritarian regime was eagerly endorsed and supported by the United States government with US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger paying several official visits to Argentina during the dictatorship.

"After the democratic election of President Salvador Allende in 1970, an economic war ordered by President Richard Nixon, among other things, caused the 1973 Chilean coup d'état with the involvement of the CIA due to Allende's democratic socialist leanings. What followed was the decades-long US-backed military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet."

In 1981, President Ronald Reagan authorized the Central Intelligence Agency to support the Contras, a right-wing Nicaraguan political group to combat the influence held by the Sandinistas in the Nicaraguan government. Various anti-government rebels in Nicaragua were organized into the Nicaraguan Democratic Force, the first Contra group, at the behest of the CIA. The CIA also supplied the Contras with training and equipment, including materials related to torture and assassination. There have also been allegations that the CIA engaged in drug trafficking in Nicaragua.

The US even sold weapons to its purported enemy, Iran, and used the money to fund the contras after the US Congress refused to do so. So while the US saw fit to protect its hemispheric interests, No one in the present US administration can see why Putin could possibly view Ukraine as a potential member of NATO as a threat even though geographically Ukraine can be seen as a dagger into the midsection of Russia. As a member of NATO, missiles might be stationed right on Russia's border with Ukraine, but why should Russia be concerned about this? NATO are, after all, good guys who wouldn't even let Ukraine join their club unless it cleaned up its act. While the US used the covert operations of the CIA to overthrow democratically elected governments and replace them with brutal military dictatorships, Russia has used its own military troops to do the same thing to protect its interests. That's the only difference.

The heart of the matter goes back to the end of the Cold War. According to The Untold History of the United States:

"Though willing to allow for the radical transformation of eastern Europe, Gorbachev hoped the end of the Cold War would lead to the dissolution of NATO as well as the Warsaw Pact. Recognizing that that might not happen, he insisted that NATO at least not expand farther to the east. He was even willing to allow for reunification of the two Germanys as long as NATO troops and weapons were not permitted on former East German soil. But he and other Russian leaders, who believed they had received ironclad U.S. and German promises that eastward expansion by NATO would never be permitted, were in a for a rude awakening when the Clinton and second Bush administration continued expanding right up to Russia's doorstep. Russian leaders expressed outrage and a sense of betrayal. Although U.S. officials, over the years, have insisted that no such promises were ever given, recently released documents appear to substantiate Russian claims."

So NATO could have proffered a treaty to Putin which guaranteed that Ukraine would never become a member of NATO or they could have negotiated a time period when Ukraine would not be permitted to join. Instead they refused to even negotiate that demand with disastrous results. A hundred years from now NATO might not even exist. It may have been replaced with a new organization that better takes care of the security interests of all European countries including Russia. But the memory of the war in Ukraine will persist a hundred years from now. It represents in the final analysis a total failure of NATO to protect the security interests of all Europeans and not just a select few.

Biggest Oil Giants Made 'Eye-Popping' $205 Billion in Profits in 2021: Report

Gas prices of more than $7.00 per gallon are posted at a downtown Los Angeles gas station on March 9, 2022. (Photo: Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images)

Now, fossil fuel giants are trying to "cash in on inflation and the crisis in Ukraine," said one critic.

 

Kenny Stancil

March 15, 2022

While millions of working people have been hurt by surging gas prices, a new analysis out Tuesday shows that 25 of the world's biggest fossil fuel corporations collectively pulled in an "eye-popping" $205 billion in profits last year—and Big Oil is exploiting Russia's war on Ukraine to charge even more at the pump in 2022 and advance its financial interests.

"All this money helps to line the pockets of wealthy oil executives who receive massive chunks of their compensation in company stock."

According to a new report from government watchdog Accountable.US, top oil and gas companies took "full advantage" of last year's sky-high prices and record profits. Fourteen firms rewarded shareholders with more than $35 billion in stock buybacks and dividend bumps.

As the report details, Big Oil has been bragging to investors about its windfall profits on recent earnings calls. Chevron, for instance, called 2021 one of its "most successful years ever." Shell CEO Ben Van Beurden described it as a "momentous year." Meanwhile, Coterra CEO Tom Jordan characterized high gas prices as "good," and Equinor CEO Anders Opedal marveled at how the industry has been "capturing value from high prices."

Last year's record profits came as average gas prices in the U.S. steadily increased—hitting around $3.40 per gallon in December 2021, up from $2.10 a year before. As consumer demand rose last year following a brief coronavirus-driven decline in 2020, shareholders pressured fossil fuel corporations to restrict supply to drive prices higher.

Oil and gas costs have soared even higher during the first three months of 2022. Since President Joe Biden announced one week ago that the U.S. would ban imports of Russian fossil fuels in response to Moscow's deadly assault on Ukraine, the average price for a gallon of gas in the U.S. has continued to climb, surpassing $4.31 on Tuesday.

Given that the United Kingdom and the European Union have also taken steps to clamp down on imports of Russian oil and gas, fossil fuel executives are reportedly salivating at the prospect of forcing consumers to accept higher costs amid the war.

According to Accountable.US, the fossil fuel giants responsible for hiking prices have already announced plans to buy back nearly $80 billion in stocks in 2022, boasting of their ability to deliver "even better" returns for shareholders this year. Devon Energy, for example, said last month that doubling down on share buybacks is the "clear thing for us to do."

"All this money helps to line the pockets of wealthy oil executives who receive massive chunks of their compensation in company stock," states the report.

When Biden announced the U.S. boycott of Russian petroleum products, he stressed that this is "no time for profiteering or price-gouging."

The Congressional Progressive Caucus followed up with a call to swiftly pass legislation to prevent more "shameless" price hikes, ramp up investments in renewable energy, and raise wages and lower the costs of necessities for working families amid high levels of inflation, which 82% of U.S. voters attribute to "corporate greed."

Big Oil, meanwhile, has sought to deflect blame for worsening pain at the pump, baselessly accusing Biden—who approved more permits for drilling on public lands and waters in 2021 than former President Donald Trump did in 2017—of suppressing domestic extraction.

As Biden bragged last week, U.S. fossil fuel corporations "pumped more oil during my first year in office than they did during my predecessor's first year."

Domestic oil and gas production is "approaching record levels," said Biden, "and we're on track to set a record for oil production next year." The president, who has ordered the release of tens of millions of barrels of oil from the nation's strategic reserves, argued that any blame for untapped extractive potential should be placed on the shoulders of those who are sitting on millions of acres of federal property.

"They could be drilling right now, yesterday, last week, last year," Biden said, referring to leaseholders who possess thousands of unused permits.

Kyle Herrig, president of Accountable.US, said in a statement that "as Americans encounter higher prices to fill their gas tanks or heat their homes, Big Oil is grasping at straws to explain why they are swimming in unused leases and hundreds of billions of dollars in profits—money they hand over to wealthy oil and gas company executives and shareholders rather than struggling consumers."

Last decade's drilling and fracking boom turned the Permian Basin into the most productive oil and gas field in the world, transforming the U.S. into a major exporter of fossil fuels but keeping prices low, much to the chagrin of shareholders.

The unwillingness of oil and gas companies to boost production in recent months "has been driven by investor sentiment," Helima Croft, head of global commodity strategy at RBC Capital Markets, told CNN last year. Wall Street, she said, doesn't want producers "to spoil the party" by expanding supply.

As Pavel Molchanov, an analyst at Raymond James, told the news outlet earlier this month: "Oil and gas companies do not want to drill more. They are under pressure from the financial community to pay more dividends, to do more share buybacks instead of the proverbial 'drill baby drill,' which is the way they would have done things 10 years ago. Corporate strategy has fundamentally changed."

Herrig argued that "it's time for Big Oil to stop lying about the Biden administration's public land policies, quit using it as a cover to cash in on inflation and the crisis in Ukraine, and pass the benefits of their massive profits on to consumers."

On Thursday, as Common Dreams reported, congressional Democrats introduced the bicameral Big Oil Windfall Profits Tax. The measure would hit large fossil fuel companies with a per-barrel tax—whether the oil is domestically produced or imported—equal to 50% of the difference between the current price of a barrel of oil and the average price per barrel between 2015 and 2019. An estimated $45 billion in annual revenue would be redistributed to U.S. households in the form of quarterly rebates.

Dems Introduce Windfall Tax on Big Oil So Companies 'Pay a Price When They Price Gouge'

Andrea Germanos

Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Biden said last week, "should motivate us to accelerate the transition to clean energy."

"Loosening environmental regulations and pulling back clean energy investment... will not lower energy prices for families," said the president. "But transforming our economy to run on electric vehicles powered by clean energy, with tax credits to help American families winterize their homes and use less energy—that will, that will help."

"If we do what we can," he added, "it will mean that no one has to worry about prices at the gas pump in the future."

Earlier this month, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned that humanity has a "brief and rapidly closing window" to avoid the worst effects of the fossil fuel-driven climate emergency, which is on track to exacerbate deadly extreme weather, with especially catastrophic consequences for the world's poorest and most vulnerable.

While progressives have long urged Biden to exercise his executive authority to the fullest possible extent to improve the lives of working people and help secure a livable planet in the face of staunch opposition in Congress, they also have not given up on pushing for further legislative action.

On Monday, nearly 90 House Democrats urged Biden to revive the party's stalled reconciliation package—which has been approved by the lower chamber but blocked in the Senate by every Republican plus right-wing Democrats Joe Manchin (W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.)—by prioritizing measures designed to mitigate and adapt to the climate crisis. 

In addition, more than 120 advocacy groups called on Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) to swiftly translate the party's domestic priorities into a reconciliation package that can reach Biden's desk by next month.

"We cannot wait another day," said Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.), "to safeguard the future of humanity."

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Republican & Media’s Distortive, Overdone Critique of Biden’s Leadership

by Frank Thomas

U.S. liberal and conservative right media outlets are constantly nit-picking and belittling Biden's presidency in a number of small and big ways - some in constant subtle ways (CNN) but most in lying, misinforming ways e.g., Fox News, other conservative news outlets, and Republican national and local politicians. It's sickening to see this happening. I think Biden's fumbles are grossly repetitively overstated or untruthfully attributed to him. Can you imagine what Trump would have done wrong if he were in office 2021 to now and through 2024? 

Biden does not play the political role of being an inspiring man - but he certainly knows what he is doing, and that he’s not perfect. He's open and honest in going for fundamental changes to the many huge, severe societal problems facing us. He tries to work with Republicans. But they are determined to block his every policy move by a constant wave of lies and personal defamation of his leadership capability. This madness and that of the media are only ensuring that the mentally deranged Trump will win his 2nd rerun for the presidency in 2024. Any global professional poll (e.g. the Gallup poll) taken of the Europeans' choice between Biden and Trump for President of America in these menacing times would show Biden as the overwhelmingly choice by at least 70% of Europeans. Constantly, claims of Biden’s fumbles or omissions are taken out of context, repetitively overstated or untruthfully attributed to him. 

The mix of internal, critical problems Trump left behind and new ones hitting America like Russia's invasive, murderous, warring machine against Ukraine have been literally gigantic and complex ... but Biden has remained, with few exceptions, cool and strategically well-focused. He has a smart, alert and wise thinking administration around him that mutually and respectively listen to each other - unlike leaders like the tyrannical Putin and maniacally egocentric, divisive Trump. 

For example, Biden with his administration took the initiative on going for very TOUGH sanctions' in his response to the Putin regime. The West now finances Russia's war by sending Putin over $700 million dollars per day for gas-oil supplies. Biden is aware how the EU and others have made themselves dependent, and have been naive and soft in dealing with Putin. The late John McCain's words are right on, "Russia is a 'tank station' disguised as a land." 

That raises the obvious question, what if we in the western world or Putin's regime stop the tanking? The transition to green energy is not possible overnight. But we can work together with other nations on that challenge and that is going to accelerate the transition to green energy.  As one Dutch analyst wrote, “Don Quichot fought against windmills. The assumption was he was fighting against dangers which really didn't exist. But we are confronted with dangers now that are becoming the reality. We must fight back with wind molens, the sun, all forms of sustainable energies and related actions.”  

Biden is way ahead on the climate problem as he has been on many other serious problems. The Republicans are killing all his efforts in their eagerness to regain full political power. They use the standard Republican hyped attacks  and propagandistic, ad hominem arguments that have cumulatively gotten the U.S. in its current social, economic, political MESS over the past 40 years. Biden knows this and wants to reach constructive compromise with Republicans. But all they do is shovel disgracefully false critique upon our president every chance they can to disgrace his presidency.  

I Thank God for the ordinary, straight thinking, down-to-earth Joe Biden and his leadership presence in the White House in these incredibly polarized, unstable, perilous times ... Thank God NOT DONALD TRUMP - our roundly defeated ex-president who was an absolute, disastrous failure at the job … and would be again if elected in 2024.  

                    

Frank Thomas

March 3, 2022

The Netherlands

 

 

Off the Top of My Head

The US Produces as Much Oil as It Consumes. So Why Should Gas Prices Go Up?

by John Lawrence

The US is the world's largest oil producer at about 18 million barrels per day. Saudi Arabia is number 2 while Russia is a close number 3. The US is also the largest consumer or oil at about 18 million barrels a day. So the US produces about as much oil as it consumes. So why doesn't the US control the price of its own oil? Because oil is put on the world market so the price is determined by the supply and demand for oil on the world market. If there is a shortage on the world market, the price of gas goes up for US consumers. That is what is happening now because of the Russia Ukraine situation and the US sanctions on Russian gas and oil. Because of the sanctions, the price of gas for US consumers will increase so President Biden is essentially shooting US consumers in the foot. Why couldn't he take US oil out of the US market and just let US oil be consumed by US consumers. Since supply and demand would be about equal, there would be no surge in US oil prices.

The problem is that the US government does not own US oil resources. They are privately owned, and it's in the interests of the oil corporations to get as much for a barrel of oil as they possibly can. This means that when there is a shortage on the world market, and the price of a barrel goes up, US oil corporations profit from the price increase. There is an analogy which makes this process easily understandable.Say you are a grower of tomatoes. In the early days of your tomato business you just sold the excess tomatoes that your family didn't eat to your neighbors directly at what you both thought was a fair price. As time went on you decide to take your tomatoes to the local market where other tomato growers were also bringing their tomatoes to sell. The price of your tomatoes was then determined by the market price and not the "fair" price you charged your neighbor. If there was a shortage of tomatoes at the market compared to the cumulative demand for tomatoes by consumers, you made a lot more per tomato than you would make selling them directly to your neighbors at the "fair" price. When your neighbor comes to you for tomatoes, you tell him that he has to buy them at the market at the market price because this represents progress.

Now say there is a glut of tomatoes at the local market and the price of tomatoes drops. Now you offer to sell your neighbor tomatoes directly at the "fair" price, but your neighbor says that he can get them at the market for much less than the "fair" price. Such are the vagaries of the market place. So getting back to oil, when there is a glut on the world market, gas prices plummet. When there is a scarcity, prices can skyrocket which is what is happening now not due to the war in Ukraine but due to sanctions on Russian gas and oil which constitutes a major component of the world supply. President Biden can do little or nothing about the price of gas because oil and gas resources are privately owned and they will profit immensely as the price of oil soars above $100 a barrel. However, much of Russia's oil industry is state owned. Therefore, Putin can control the price of gas and energy inside Russia so Russian drivers will pay less at the pump than will American drivers in all probability.

So now while the world needs to transition from fossil fuels to renewable non-polluting energy sources in order to combat global warming, all anyone can think about is how desperately we need oil and the price of gas. This is a foreboding situation for the future of planet earth. We need to get off of our addiction to oil. However, there are trillions of dollars wound up in the oil industry and none of the owners whether they be private or government concerns are willing to give up their investments. Maybe surging gas prices are a good thing. People will drive less, use public transportation more and work remotely from home instead of commuting. Less tailpipe carbon dioxide will be emitted into the atmosphere. In the long run we should thank President Biden for sanctioning Russian oil and the NORD stream 2 pipeline. It will help the global warming situation although American consumers will not be pleased with Biden because they will blame him for gas prices being so high.

Off the Top of My Head

Trump Reverses Advice on COVID Vaccinations

by John Lawrence

Since most of the anti-vaxxers are Trump voters and mostly the unvaccinated are the ones who are dying, Trump voters are dying off faster than Biden votes. Sensing this, Trump has recently reversed course and told people to get vaccinated. However, Trump was booed when he suggested getting vaccinated which goes to prove that once you've invested heavily in a particular point of view, it's not easy to all of a sudden do a 180 and tell people something different. So as the pandemic gets drawn out mainly due to Trump's base not getting vaccinated,Trump is sweating it that so many of his supporters are dying from COVID. Of course Democrats aren't too chagrined when another Trump voter bites the dust. They are keeping up their steady drumbeat of investigating the January 6 insurrection and compiling damning evidence that Trump and many of his henchmen were complicit in it. It didn't just happen spontaneously. It seems that much planning went into it.

At the same time the southern district of New York is looking into the dealings of the Trump business empire. They are finding the shocking revelations that it was based on defrauding both investors and the IRS. When it came to a valuation of a particular property, Trump told the IRS that it was practically worthless while inflating its value when it came to getting loans from a bank with that property as collateral. That's a pretty neat trick if you can pull it off, but it seems that now the chickens are coming home to roost, and Trump's main hope is that his base will continue to send him money. Fundraising is of the essence when all else fails. It leaves me wondering if all of Trump's shenanigans could land him in jail. He seems to have more escapes hatches than a cat has lives. He is a slippery eel indeed. Even though he has done this dastardly deed and that dastardly deed, it is as though none of them come with criminal penalties. The crucial question is "Can he go to jail for that?" After decrying to the max something Trump has done, when asked, the same pundit is apt to reply "No" with a bemused look on his or her face.

Evidently, defrauding investors and underpaying taxes is so routine with the Trump organization that it has ceased to be a bombshell revelation. It has become so normalized that nobody goes to jail for it especially an ex-President of the United States. As Nixon said, "When you're President, it's not a crime." The Nixon interviews were a series of conversations between former American president Richard Nixon and British journalist David Frost. They were recorded and broadcast on television and radio in four programs in 1977. In part 3, Frost asked Nixon whether the president could do something illegal in certain situations such as against antiwar groups and others if he decides "it's in the best interests of the nation or something". Nixon replied: "Well, when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal". The criminal implications of Trump's misdeeds seem to fall into the same category. If the President of the United States does it, you can't send him to jail.

The question is could Trump run for President in 2024 if he is sitting in jail or convicted of a felony? There seems to be nothing in the Constitution that forbids it. So it's possible that the American people and indeed the people of the world could be treated to the spectacle that an elected President could be commander-in-chief while presiding from a jail cell.

Off the Top of My Head

Russia's Assurance that NATO Would Not Expand an Inch Eastward After the Cold War

by John Lawrence

Does Putin have a point? It is something no western leader will even acknowledge. The fact is that assurances were given to Gorbachev in return for his agreement to let Germany reunify that NATO would not expand an inch eastward. The New York Times reported:

"The biggest obstacle [to the reunification of Germany] was, of course, the Soviet Union. Despite economic hardship at home, the Soviets maintained 380,000 troops in East Germany and still held legal rights of occupation emanating from the unconditional German surrender in 1945. Bonn and Washington thus wanted Moscow to remove its troops and to renounce its claims, without forcing NATO troops out as part of the bargain.

"What would Mr. Gorbachev demand in return? To learn the answer, Mr. Baker [U.S. Secretary of State] and Mr. Kohl [German Chancellor] journeyed to Moscow within a day of each other. On Feb. 9, 1990, Mr. Baker asked Mr. Gorbachev, “Would you prefer to see a unified Germany outside of NATO, independent and with no U.S. forces or would you prefer a unified Germany to be tied to NATO, with assurances that NATO’s jurisdiction would not shift one inch eastward from its present position?” Mr. Gorbachev, according to Mr. Baker, answered that “any extension of the zone of NATO would be unacceptable.” Their meeting ended without any final deals made. Mr. Baker left behind a secret letter, detailing what he had said, for Mr. Kohl in Moscow.

Back in the U.S. President George H W Bush was not happy with Baker's assurances to Gorbachev, and he formulated his own letter to Mr. Kohl that didn't contain the assurances Gorbachev requested. However, in talks with Gorbachev Kohl chose to emphasize Baker's assurance that "NATO would not move an inch eastward" which resulted in Gorbachev agreeing to the reunification of Germany. The New York Times article continued:

"Mr. Kohl chose to echo Mr. Baker, not Mr. Bush. The chancellor assured Mr. Gorbachev, as Mr. Baker had done, that “naturally NATO could not expand its territory” into East Germany. The documents available do not record Mr. Kohl using the presidential phrase — “special military status” — that the National Security Council had rushed over to him. Mr. Kohl’s foreign minister, Hans-Dietrich Genscher, visiting the Kremlin as well, assured his Soviet counterpart, Eduard Shevardnadze, that “for us, it stands firm: NATO will not expand itself to the East.”

"Crucially, the Gorbachev-Kohl meeting ended with a deal, as opposed to the Gorbachev-Baker session the previous day. After listening to Mr. Kohl, Mr. Gorbachev agreed that Germany could unify internally. Mr. Kohl and his aides publicized this major concession immediately at a press conference. Then they returned home to begin merging the two Germanys under one currency and economic system."

No U.S. President or leader has ever acknowledged the truth of this situation that, despite the fact that no formal treaty or agreement was ever made, informal assurances were given to Gorbachev that NATO would not expand an inch eastward. So today Russia and the US are on the brink of war in Ukraine because, basically, the U.S. will not acknowledge that Putin has a point. They refuse to concede even that and instead choose to demonize him. This is not how to create peace in the world - by heaping bad intentions on a foreign leader without acknowledging that he has a legitimate complaint. One of the pundits on CNN had the right idea. He said that the west should acknowledge the legitimacy of Putin's position and agree to pull back NATO forces from eastern Europe for at least 25 years or so. Making some sort of concession like this could avoid war and create some manner of peaceful relations between Washington and Moscow. Instead the U.S. - even under Biden! - takes a hard line and insists that Ukraine has a right to choose to be part of NATO. By formally putting off the date at which that could happen, Putin's legitimate concerns could be acknowledged. Instead the U.S. has essentially double crossed Russia on the deal Gorbachev made that "NATO would not expand one inch eastward."

Off the Top of My Head

Oh No, Joe, Say It Isn't So

by John Lawrence

Despite prior commitments to Joe Biden and House Democrats, Joe Mancin is a "No" on Biden's Build Back Better bill which will provide child care, eldercare, universal Pre-K and more. Dr. No made his position clear yesterday. He's tired of farting around aka negotiating. Democrats need all 50 votes in the Senate to pass the bill. 49 are on board and this gives Mancin extraordinary power. It's his way or the highway. Mancin has said he would support a bill totaling $1.5 trillion, but the house and Senate Democrats have been gingerly "negotiating" with Joe for more. Here's an idea: take what you can get and go home. Cuz you ain't gonna get no mo. Let Mancin write the bill. Throw in voting rights as well, and pass both in the same bill by reconciliation. Mancin has already essentially written a voting rights bill he would support. Again it's not everything progressives want, but it's better than nuttin.

Conservatives have traditionally broken inflation on the backs of the poor. The Phillips curve which is gospel among conservative economists says that you need to increase unemployment in order to rein in inflation. Problem is at this time there is hardly any unemployment. So what else can you do to keep poor people poor? Don't give them any more government benefits. That's the ticket. Of course, progressives say the Phillips curve is hogwash. All you need to do is to extract money from the economy by taxing the rich. But tell that to rich corporation who are spending billions on lobbyists to convince quasi conservative Democrats like Joe Mancin otherwise. And then there is conservative activist Paul Weyrich who famously said, "“I don’t want everybody to vote . . . our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.” Translate that into economic terms and you get, "I don't want everyone to be middle class. Who would do the necessary back breaking labor to keep the economy growing if not for the poor."

So conservatives don't want the poor to vote and they also don't want them to work their way into the middle class. They want to keep the poor poor so the economy has a goodly supply of backbreaking and menial labor which it badly needs, especially if you want to buy American. Otherwise, we would have to export the backbreaking labor to other countries where there is a plentiful supply of poor people. Right now conservatives are aghast at how the shortage of labor is fueling demands for higher wages. This is a blow to their very way of life which is predicated on keeping the poor poor. They don't want to be flooded with immigrants to take the menial labor jobs so those who came in 20 years ago can progress to the middle class like Joe Biden wants them to do. The best way to keep them poor is to not give them any more government benefits.

So progressive Democrats in the House and Bernie Sanders in the Senate have been screwed once again. The whole deal was that both the infrastructure bill and the Build Back Better bill were supposed to pass in tandem. Then after farting around (excuse me, "negotiating") for months and months, finally Joe Mancin has put the kibosh on Build Back Better after successfully delinking the two. Screwed again. Lucy with the football. So here's the solution. Stop negotiating. Let Mancin write the bill and then everybody genuflect. And while you're at it, throw  Mancin's voting rights, bill written by him, into the package and pass the whole ungodly stew by reconciliation and be done with it.

Off the Top of My Head

Problems of American Democracy - Part 1

by John Lawrence

When my father was a high school teacher in Highland Park, NJ, he taught a course - Problems in American Democracy. So I'm hopefully carrying on a family tradition by trying to elucidate these problems which, to put it mildly, are probably much different today than they were in 1941! The big problem today is that so many people are detached from reality in terms of being in touch with what the real problems are. One of the real problems is climate change, how to get from here to net zero carbon emissions before planet earth becomes uninhabitable. Another real problem is homelessness and affordability of housing. Another real problem is the 80 million refugees in the world. Another real problem is for Americans to be concerned about world problems and not just confine their attention to what goes on inside the borders of the US.  Another real problem is physical and social infrastructure which will be addressed by Biden's Build Back Better bills. But the biggest problem of all, as I see it, is that elections every 2 years make continuity of direction for the US impossible especially when the 2 parties have become diametrically opposed. So today we have the reality that the American government could possibly swing back and forth between Trumpism and what we might call Bidenism. Back and forth between ignorance and enlightenment. To boot the American people are no longer tuned in to authoritative news sources. Too many are only tuned into social media which is greatly responsible for cultivating the divide between two American tribes - the no nothings and the do somethings.

People in the Trump camp could care less about voting for or against their own economic interests. You would think a lot of them would benefit from the initiatives that the Democrats have put forward. But either they are ignorant of them or are willing to vote against their interests just because of the tribe they belong to or out of spite. They are completely irrational. Rationality is not even on the table. Their hate and their spite rules everything as far as they are concerned. They are willing to go down numerous rabbit holes and believe all kinds of conspiracy theories because critical thinking or a concern about human welfare, their own and others, has no place in their consciousness. Their concern and understanding remains at the level of symbols like the American flag. A deeper understanding or analysis of situations is beyond them. What's more this misinformed and ignorant part of the population is significant in number and can easily be responsible for electing ignorant and conspiracy theory infused lawmakers who will do whatever is necessary to pander to their constituents. Thus America as a nation could swerve back and forth between ignorance and rationality as exemplified by Trump's withdrawal from Obama's climate initiatives like the Paris accords and Biden's reinstating them.

Contrast the instability of American democracy with the Chinese system of government in which stability is of utmost importance. They don't want anyone rocking the boat including tennis stars. While this heavy handedness does curtail some of the aspects of western notions of freedom, it preserves the priorities of the long term interests of China itself which has been going in what most experts concede is a very positive direction. According to the World Bank: "Since China began to open up and reform its economy in 1978, GDP growth has averaged almost 10 percent a year, and more than 800 million people have been lifted out of poverty. There have also been significant improvements in access to health, education, and other services over the same period." China has had the goal of eliminating poverty altogether and claims as of 2021 to have done so. According to a Chinese source which admittedly may be biased: "Through continuous efforts, the final 98.99 million impoverished rural residents in China had all been lifted out of poverty, and all 832 impoverished counties and 128,000 villages had been removed from the poverty list by the end of 2020. The strategy of targeted poverty alleviation is China's strongest "weapon" in its final battle against poverty, and a major innovation in the theory and practice of poverty reduction. China's success in poverty alleviation has proven that the problem of poverty, in essence, is how the people should be treated: the people-centered philosophy is the fundamental driving force behind this cause." Independent confirmation of these claims is unclear. The World Bank which is an unbiased source essentially agrees with the Chinese government at to its elimination of poverty: "In 1990 there were more than 750 million people in China living below the international poverty line - about two-thirds of the population. By 2012, that had fallen to fewer than 90 million, and by 2016 - the most recent year for which World Bank figures are available - it had fallen to 7.2 million people (0.5% of the population). So clearly, even in 2016 China was well on the way to reaching its target. This suggests that overall, 745 million fewer people were living in extreme poverty in China than there were 30 years ago. World Bank figures do not take us to the present day, but the trend is certainly in line with the Chinese government's announcement."

So what weapons does the US have in its arsenal for the alleviation of poverty and homelessness? Not many. Biden's Build Back Better plan will help, but the US in recent years has been more interested in funding weapons systems built by the military-industrial complex, weapons that destroy rather than weapons that build. It's only "progressives" that even care about solving the problems of poverty and homelessness in America or in doing something about climate change or about the refugee problem in the world and not just at our southern border. I note that not one Republican voted for Biden's Build Back Better bill in the House. Instead Republican leader Kevin McCarthy went on an 8 hour diatribe in a futile attempt to prevent the bill's passage.

Off the Top of My Head

If Trump Didn't Commit Treason, What is Treason?

by John Lawrence

It's clear Trump tried to overthrow the results of the 2020 election and fomented a coup to keep himself in power. I'd like to know why that isn't treason and why Trump is not in jail. It would have to be done by Democrats because now the government IS Democrats. Republicans don't even participate except to try to roadblock everything Democrats try to do. So Democrats would have to put Trump in prison, and I think they are afraid to do so. Wishy washiness is their name. First Trump's famous call to Raffensberger, Secretary of State of Georgia, in which he implored him to "find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have". Then his attempt to corrupt the Department of Justice in order to get it to declare the election was corrupt, then his attempt to get Pence to not certify Biden's victory and on and on. There is so much documented proof that Trump did all of these things and more not to mention fomenting a coup on January 6. I repeat why isn't he in jail and being tried on charges of treason?

Trump is not only not in jail, he's contemplating another run for President in 2024. The US cannot withstand another run for President by Trump. The scenarios for future coups will make January 6 look like a dry run. Republican states have already changed laws making it more likely that state legislatures can take over elections and select their own slate of electors if they don't like the outcome of the voting process. Trump and his cronies have already cast doubt on the validity of elections. Poll workers have already received death threats as has anyone else connected with the democratic process or anyone who stood in the way of Trump's attempted coup. The January 6 committee will dig up enough dirt to put Trump in jail, but I doubt if they will go all the way and get that done. Democrats are too afraid of the reaction of Trump's supporters if they put him in jail. They're afraid it will look like a partisan effort. Well, it will be because there is no Republican support for chastising Trump in any way whatsoever. But that shouldn't stop Democrats and maybe Liz Cheney from doing the right thing.

Finally, just tell me what treason is if it is not all the things Trump did to overthrow a democratically elected government in the US. No wonder the rest of the world doesn't trust us.

Off the Top of My Head

Why Manchin and Sinema Don't Trust Progressives in the House and Vice Versa: Earmarks

by John Lawrence

As Ronald Reagan said, "Trust, but verify." An earmark is some piece of legislation that a senator or congressperson slips into a bill in the middle of the night and hopes it goes unnoticed by everyone concerned. The theory is that no one will notice an unagreed upon paragraph in thousands of pages of legislation. The most famous earmark was the "Bridge to Nowhere." The Gravina Island Bridge, popularly known as the "Bridge to Nowhere", has become shorthand for frivolous earmarks. In 2002, it was proposed that a for-profit prison corporation, Cornell Corrections, build a prison on an Alaskan island. To connect the island with Ketchikan, it was originally planned that the federal government spend $175 million on building a bridge to the island, and another $75 million to connect it to the power grid with an electrical intertie. The Ketchikan Borough Assembly turned the proposal down when the administration of Governor Tony Knowles also expressed its disfavor to the idea. Eventually, the corporation's prison plans led to the exposure of the wide-ranging Alaska political corruption probe, which eventually ensnared U.S. Senator Ted Stevens. The bridge idea persisted. The 2005 Highway Bill provided for $223m to build the Gravina Island Bridge between Gravina Island and nearby Ketchikan, on Revillagigedo Island. Despite the demise of the bridge proposal, Governor Sarah Palin spent $26 million in transportation funding for constructing the planned access road on the island that ultimately served little use.

This is why Manchin and Sinema won't come out and say they support the House legislation on the Build Back Better plan until they see the actual legislation and not just a "framework." They want to make sure that progressives in the House don't slip Family Leave back into the framework in the middle of the night. Likewise, House Progressives want the two bills to go to the Senate "in tandem" so that Manchin and Sinema don't tank the Build Back Better bill while passing the conventional infrastructure bill. I don't understand why the pundits haven't figured this out. It makes perfect sense. Neither side wants to be screwed. Capische? I'm sure the bills will both be passed in tandem according to the framework that Joe Biden got both sides to agree on. I don't think either Manchin or Sinema will go back on their word to Joe Biden. However, they don't want to be put in the position of agreeing to a framework publicly, and then having the Progressives slip something into the bill at the last minute that they hadn't agreed to. They want to see the actual legislation first before they agree publicly that they will vote for it. Progressives want Manchin and Sinema to agree publicly to their legislation before they will vote on the bipartisan package.

I don't see why CNN's pundits haven't figured this out. It will get done but it needs to get done according to the process that both sides originally agreed upon and no sooner. That only makes sense. Why are the pundits in such a great hurry to get it done bemnoaning Biden's falling approval ratings? From Biden's viewpoint he knows that this legislation will be transformative, and he will go down in history for having negotiated a settlement between both sides. He could care less about his approval ratings. As he said, "It doesn't matter whether it takes 6 days or 6 weeks just so long as it eventually gets done." It will be quite an accomplishment given the fact that the Democrats have the slimmest of margins in the Senate. Biden probably won't run again anyway. Americans just need to be patient.

Capische?

Off the Top of My Head

Snake in the Grass Kyrsten Sinema Sells Out to Corporate Lobbyists

by John Lawrence

Corporations, especially the pharmaceutical, can thank Kyrsten Sinema for selling out to them. The least objectionable parts of Biden's Build Back Better plan are the ones Sinema vetoed. Biden's plan would have been much better if corporate lobbyists hadn't gotten to her. But not to worry. She's set for life with probable promises of corporate board positions paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for a few hours "work." With Democrats like her, we don't need Republicans. She's a Republican wolf in Democratic sheep's clothing. But never fear. Biden's Build Back Better Bill will eventually pass within the next couple of weeks, and it's still truly transformational. Too bad that every Democratic Senator had effectively a veto over any provision of it. Joe Mancin was at least up front with the public about his concerns, some of which were at least plausible. Sinema sprung her demands on Biden at the seeming last minute forcing him to renegotiate the whole deal and delaying the whole process. While pundits quibble over Biden's ratings, I don't think he's too concerned about that. He knows he has a BIG DEAL or a BIG FUCKING DEAL as he once whispered to Obama. He'll go down in history as a transformational President.

So what do the Republicans have to offer? Election denialism and insurrection denialism. It wouldn't be so bad except for the fact that they could spring back to life in two or maybe four years. Too bad for the rest of the world's confidence in America. Although the US decries Soviet and Chinese authoritarianism in which one leader can remain in power for a number of years, while the whole US relationship with the rest of the world could change every four, what about Angela Merkel, who remained in power for 16 years, in a putative democracy. Longevity of intent is not a function necessarily of type of government. The US is back? Biden would like to convince others it's so. But Trump has a different perspective which is that Biden's version of the US is back until he, Trump, takes over again in 2024. The US could veer wildly back and forth without any continuity whatsoever. While Democrats are doing their best to help families and bring the US into the modern world, Republicans offer warmed over conspiracy theories aided and abetted by social media. The US needs to get serious about denying Trump a chance of ever running again. In fact he should be in jail for attempting to overthrow a legitimately elected US government which is treason. Yes, the T word applies to him. The S word, sedition, as well. Yet as of now he can run again and possibly win in 2024.

I think that, after the twin Build Back Better bills finally pass, Democrats will turn their attention to voting rights. Will Sinema and Mancin go along with holding the filibuster in abeyance to get voting rights passed? That's the big question. If not, Democrats are sunk in 2022 and 2024. And so is the US as a world leader. The US will become a backwater and a latter day banana republic with an outsize military, corporate lobbyists run amuck and a fast fading US dollar as the world's reserve currency. Runaway global warming will be a given if Trump is elected again in 2024. The US will become a billionaire's paradise with unrestricted limits in economic inequality and a burgeoning homeless population that neither Republicans or Democrats seem to be able to do anything about. Rents will soar out of sight as more people live in their vehicles and on the streets without adequate sanitation. The rest of the developed world will leave the US in its dust, but they alone will not be able to solve the problem of climate change which will eventually make parts, if not all, of the earth uninhabitable. So there is a lot riding on a Federal voting rights bill overriding the Republican state efforts to gerrymander and restrict access to the ballot in order to favor the electability of Republicans.

Off the Top of My Head

Getting Biden's Build Back Better Plan Over the Finish Line

by John Lawrence

These guys are experienced negotiators. You'd think by now they would have designed multiple plans containing most of the things progressives want and most of the things Joe Manchin wants. Obviously, he has to approve the final plan. There are various ways to get the cost down from eliminating entire programs to shortening the lengths of some or all programs. Also, as Manchin wants, you can means test some of the programs. I think the emphasis should be on children. That means the expansion of Medicare could go by the wayside. As a Medicare recipient, I wouldn't be too upset to see that happen. In its place, at a later time, I would like to see legislation to implement Biden's agenda item that calls for an increase in social security benefits. Under his plan, eligible workers would get a guaranteed minimum benefit equal to at least 125% of the federal poverty level. People who have received benefits for at least 20 years would get a 5% bump. Widows and widowers would receive about 20% more per month. The Federal poverty level for a single person is $12,760. 125% of that would be $15,950. The cost of living increase would add another 5.9% or $941.05 for a total of $16,891.05. This comes out to be $1407.59 a month. For 2020, the minimum Social Security benefit at 62 was $628. So Biden's agenda would call for more than doubling it. Of course the cost for Medicare Part B, which is $148.50 is deducted from your monthly social security check. This means that the minimum social security monthly check for some people is less than $500., hardly a living wage at the present time.

So leaving out benefits for seniors and means testing pre-K and community college could bring the price tag for Biden's Build Back Better plan considerably lower. Manchin wants to scale back the climate change component, but he's not wanting to cancel it altogether. Again, this item can be revisited later or as part of a separate bill. The child tax credits, which benefit lower income families, should be left in as well as the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit. The Earned Income Tax Credit Expansion could stay in as well as the benefit that lets seniors receive care at home rather than having to go to a nursing home. In short there are a lot of things in the American Families plan that could be modified or left out or revisited later. Climate change will be an ongoing issue that won't be resolved for at least 50 years. Since climate change is the main sticking point as far as Manchin is concerned, that provision, as important as it is, for sure needs to be modified.

Since there a lot of moving parts in the Build Back Better plan, there are lots of modifications that can be made. Several versions of these plans should be set out with the proviso that at least one of them needs to be agreed upon by all parties. The fact that Manchin and possibly Sinema has veto power needs to be accepted as reality, but some plan needs to be nailed down and soon. Playing chicken with Biden's Build Back Better plan is not acceptable. Democrats need to accept a win for all parties. They can't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Watson-Watt, who developed early warning radar in Britain to counter the rapid growth of the Luftwaffe, propounded a "cult of the imperfect", which he stated as "Give them the third best to go on with; the second best comes too late, the best never comes." Economist George Stigler says that "If you never miss a plane, you're spending too much time at the airport." Democrats need to pay the pipers (Manchin and Sinema) and get on with it. They are wasting too much time. It should be obvious where the compromise lines are to be drawn by this time.

While Roadblocking Party Agenda, Sinema Absconds to Europe for Fundraising

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) attends an event hosted by the Arizona Chamber of Commerce & Industry at the Arizona Biltmore Resort in Phoenix on May 17, 2019. (Photo: Gage Skidmore/Flickr/cc)

 

"She might as well start fundraising for McConnell at this point."

 

Jake Johnson

October 14, 2021

With President Joe Biden's popular legislative agenda hanging in the balance largely due to her obstruction, Democratic Sen. Kyrsten Sinema left the country this week to raise campaign cash in Europe—a trip that was reported as new polling showed she is completely underwater with Arizona voters.

"⁦She's not only endangering her own reelection, but the reelection of Dems across the board."

According to survey results

>released Thursday by the progressive polling outfit Data for Progress, 70% of likely Democratic primary voters in Arizona disapprove of Sinema's job performance and overwhelmingly prefer candidates floated as potential primary challengers—a sign that she's poised to lose her seat in 2024, assuming she runs for reelection.

Infuriated by Sinema's conduct throughout the reconciliation talks, Arizona activists who helped elect the Democratic senator are already laying the groundwork for a primary in an effort to ensure she doesn't win another six-year term.

"While 2024 may seem a long way away, the damage Sinema is doing is happening right now, and she’s acting this way because she thinks she won’t face political consequences," political strategist Steve Phillips wrote in a column for The Nation on Wednesday. "In fact, she thinks these actions will add up to electoral success. But her math is wrong, as is her moral compass."

In a summary of its new findings, Data for Progress noted that "Arizona Democratic primary voters say they would be more likely to support a candidate who votes in favor of every major provision of the Build Back Better plan we tested."

"From universal pre-K to expanding Medicare benefits," the group said, "Arizona voters—those Sinema would be courting in a 2024 primary—express they are more likely to support candidates who back these Build Back Better agenda items by wide-ranging margins."

Rahna Epting, executive director of MoveOn, warned Thursday that by threatening tank Biden's popular Build Back Better reconciliation proposal, Sinema putting both her own political career and her party's fragile control of Congress at risk.

"She's not only endangering her own reelection, but the reelection of Dems across the board—thereby making it easier for the MAGA-hijacked GOP to regain power in '22," Epting argued on Twitter, pointing to the upcoming midterm elections.

Responding to Sinema's trip to Europe in the middle of negotiations over the reconciliation bill that she's holding up, Epting quipped, "⁦She might as well start fundraising for [Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch] McConnell at this point."

How Trump Might Save the Democrats

by Robert Reich

Monday, October 11, 2021

[Please consider subscribing to my substack, at robertreich.substack.com, from which the following is drawn]

The unofficial kickoff of the former guy’s presidential campaign was a rally Saturday night in Des Moines. Unfortunately for the GOP, Trump’s speech focused on his Big Lie that the 2020 election was stolen rather than on Joe Biden, whose approval ratings keep sliding because of the Delta variant’s continuing impact as well as fumbles at the border and in exiting Afghanistan.

All indications are that Trump is going to cast the midterm elections as a referendum on himself rather than on Biden. That’s hardly surprising, given Trump’s sociopathic ego. He cast his entire presidency as a referendum on himself. 

What’s surprising is how quickly the rest of the Republican Party is falling prey to this. We’ve already observed it at the state level: Trump’s Big Lie has moved 18 Republican-dominated states to enact 33 laws suppressing the votes of likely Democratic voters, on the false pretext of eliminating “voter fraud” that doesn’t exist. Several of these state laws will also let Republican legislatures ignore future electoral results they dislike. Under the same pretext, Republican states have undertaken bogus “audits” of the 2020 election.

But for a brief time it seemed as if senior Republicans in Washington would try to move the party away from Trump. They now appear to have given up. Several who in January criticized him for provoking the Capitol insurrection are now defending him and minimizing the attempted coup – including, notably, Senator Chuck Grassley, who showed up at Saturday’s Des Moines rally, and former vice president Michael Pence, who is now minimizing and excusing the riot.

For Trump to make the midterm elections into a referendum on himself and his Big Lie is useful for the Democrats. It takes the focus off Biden, reminds Americans how vile the former president is, and forces Republicans to try to defend him. If you watched Fox News Sunday, you might have seen Chris Wallace repeatedly ask House Minority Whip Steve Scalise whether he thought the 2020 election was stolen, and Scalise repeatedly squirm to avoid answering the question.

Scalise also refused to say whether he would vote to hold in contempt of Congress Trump advisers, such as Steve Bannon, who are resisting subpoenas issued by the January 6 Committee. Bannon is invoking executive privilege, at Trump’s request — an absurd position because by the 2020 election Bannon hadn’t worked in the White House for years. 

January 6 Committee Chair Bennie Thompson and Vice Chair Liz Cheney say they “will not allow any witness to defy a lawful subpoena or attempt to run out the clock, and we will swiftly consider advancing a criminal contempt of Congress referral.”

This means even more of an ongoing focus on Trump and his attempted coup. Before Congress can refer a criminal contempt to the Justice Department for prosecution, the full House has to vote on it. So you can expect a near party-line vote, which will put Republicans further on record as supporting Trump and, by implication, others who instigated the insurrection. 

The criminal contempt of Congress statute, enacted in 1857 and only slightly modified since, provides that any person who willfully fails to comply with a properly issued committee subpoena for testimony or documents is punishable by a substantial fine and imprisonment for up to one year. Once the House votes in favor of criminal contempt, the Speaker is required to report it to the Department of Justice, which then determines whether to prosecute. (Unfortunately, Attorney General Merrick Garland so far has not distinguished himself for holding Trump or his cronies accountable for anything.)

House Republicans could soon find themselves in an even more awkward position as the January 6 Committee investigates the roles several of them played in the insurrection. Senate Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin has asked the committee to investigate the help Rep. Scott Perry gave Trump in pressuring the Justice Department to overturn the election, as well as Rep. Jim Jordan’s contacts with the White House before and during the insurrection. (You may remember that in the 2016 presidential election, Jordan, the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, dug into allegations of impropriety at the FBI and Justice Department, and defended the power of the subpoena to compel testimony from executive-branch officials.)

The January 6 Committee also issued a subpoena last week to Ali Alexander, the leader of the pro-Trump “Stop the Steal” organization, who has claimed he worked on the pre-insurrection rally with several GOP lawmakers, including Reps. Paul Gosar, Mo Brooks, and Andy Biggs.

Trump’s speech in Iowa Saturday night suggests we’re already in the gravitational field of the 2024 midterms. But in making that speech mostly about himself, Trump may have given Democrats more leeway to do what Americans – including most Trump supporters – need them to do.

Off the Top of My Head

The US Debt Ceiling is Totally Artificial and Unnecessary

by John Lawrence

Fact: the US has a sovereign fiat currency and can create and spend as many dollars as it wants. Fiat means that the US dollar has value only because the government says it does. It is not redeemable for gold or any other precious metal. Sovereign means that is not pegged to any other currency. It can't be exchanged at a fixed rate for any other currency or anything else. The exchange rate for other currencies is floating. Fact: the US creates its own money and can spend it as it pleases. Fact: "deficit" spending adds money to the real economy which creates and enhances economic activity and adds to GDP. Fact: most recessions occur when the US tries to balance its budget. Long story short: the debt ceiling allows the US to hoist itself on its own pitard!

The Federal Reserve prints the money. That's why the dollars your are carrying around in your pocket say "Federal Reserve Note" on them. It can print as many dollars as are authorized by the US Congress. The US government budget is not dependent on having tax dollars to spend. When the US "deficit spends" it creates Treasury bonds which it sells to the public. However, the Federal Reserve and other central banks are buying back a lot of these Treasury bonds so, effectively, US debt just becomes a number on the Fed's balance sheet which is of no consequence. The Federal Reserve can create with a few keystrokes on a computer as much money as it wants and deposit it in the US Treasury's account. The moral of the story is that the national debt can not and should not ever be paid off. To do so would ruin the economy since it would extract money from the real economy which would lower GDP. The correct assessment of the national debt is that it is just a number on the Fed's balance sheet!

The conversation.com reports:

"There is no limit to the quantity of money that can be created by a central bank such as the Bank of England. It was different in the days of the gold standard, when central banks were restrained by a promise to redeem their money for gold on demand. But countries moved away from this system in the early part of the 20th century, and central banks nowadays can issue as much money as they like.

"This observation is the root of modern monetary theory (MMT), which has attracted new attention during the pandemic, as governments around the world increase spending and public debts become all the more burdensome.

"MMT proponents argue that governments can spend as necessary on all desirable causes – reducing unemployment, green energy, better healthcare and education – without worrying about paying for it with higher taxes or increased borrowing. Instead, they can pay using new money from their central bank. The only limit, according to this view, is if inflation starts to rise, in which case the solution is to increase taxes."

The addition of too much money by government to the real economy can cause inflation. Taxes extract money from the real economy. Joe Biden's Build Back Better human infrastructure bill is totally paid for so it will not cause inflation. It does this by extracting as much money from the real economy as the government is spending into the real economy, and it does this by taxing the rich which has the added salubrious effect of reducing economic inequality. This is one of the goals of the Biden administration: to reduce economic inequality which is what the human infrastructure reconciliation bill actually does. This is why a higher amount spent on this bill is better. The more spent on human infrastructure, the more money is transferred from the rich to the poor and middle class. Progressives know this. Republicans do their best to obfuscate this. Recognition of this fact will help to move the US and other countries with sovereign currencies into a post-capitalist world, and allow for more resources to be dedicated to fighting climate change.

Off the Top of My Head

So What's Wrong With Means Testing Biden's Human Infrastructure Plan?

by John Lawrence

Progressive Democrats want universal free Pre-K. Joe Manchin wants to means test it. That means that rich Americans would still pay and poor Americas would not. Not a big problem, I say. In fact I think social security should be means tested. Why should billionaires or people with retirement pensions of over $100,000 a year get social security? Spend the money on the poor and middle class. I'm with progressives on most things, and I certainly want Joe's Build Back Better program implemented. But if you can bring the cost down by means testing and this would lead to its passage, let's get on with it. Furthermore, the military budget can be cut because we are no longer spending $300 million a day in Afghanistan. Manchin is actually for most of Biden's Build Back Better plan. He just wants it in a different form so that it's not universal meaning a giveaway to all concerned, rich and poor alike. Progressives want rich families and poor families to enjoy free pre-K and free community college.

Manchin is not against taxing the rich or a modest effort towards climate change either. His objections seem to be more about fiscal prudence than any of the elements of Biden's plan. Sinema, on the other hand, is the more sinister of the two when it comes to tanking Biden's plan. She doesn't want taxes raised on the rich, for example, and she doesn't want Medicare to be able to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies in order to bring the cost of drugs down. Manchin wants the Hyde amendment included in the bill which prohibits Federal funding for abortions. Big deal. That's the way it is now. Progressives should be able to live with the Hyde amendment. Nothing is changed. Manchin is an old line fiscal hawk when it comes to deficit spending, but as Modern Monetary Theory has made clear Deficits Don't Matter. Inflation, however does, but taxing the rich removes money from the economy and reduces inflation while paying for everything in Biden's reconciliation bill is inflation neutral.

When all is said and done, the proposed money to be spent on social infrastructure pales in comparison with the money spent on the military budget over the next 10 years. A conservative estimate is that the US spends $725 billion a year on defense. It's actually closer to a trillion when you factor in other costs not usually counted like the cost of nuclear weapons and intelligence services. For instance, future medical and disability costs for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans will total between $2.2 trillion and $2.5 trillion. So over a ten year period, military related costs will approach $10 trillion. Progressives want $3.5 trillion for social infrastructure over a ten year period, a pittance compared to military related costs. However, progressives and moderates will haggle over the cost until, eventually some compromise will be come up with, probably around $2 trillion or $200 billion per year. Reducing the defense budget will also calm fears over inflation as will the Fed's backing off from quantitative easing. Manchin is a reasonable person, but Sinema is the wild card who singlehandedly could tank both bills.They need to get the reconciliation bill fully fleshed out and negotiated on and ready to go so that both the bi-partisan and reconciliation bills can be voted on simultaneously in both Houses of Congress.

‘We couldn’t be more inconsistent’: discordant Democrats imperil Biden’s agenda

Divisions between progressives and moderates in Congress are threatening to scuttle a $3.5tn social spending program and a $1tn infrastructure bill

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is one of two faces of a 193-year-old Democratic party confronting fundamental questions about what it stands for and what it wants to be. Photograph: Stephen Lovekin/REX/Shutterstock

 

David Smith in Washington

 

@smithinamerica

 

Sat 25 Sep 2021 02.00 EDT, from the Guardian

Last modified on Sat 25 Sep 2021 02.02 EDT

 

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez cannot have been surprised that wearing a “Tax the Rich” dress to New York’s Met gala would trigger performative outrage from the right. But it also earned blowback from closer to home.

Eric Adams, a Black police veteran who won the party’s mayoral primary by appealing to its centre, argued that “when you talk about just blanketly saying ‘tax the rich’ in this city”, it would potentially drive away firefighters, teachers and other taxpayers on whom the city depends. He advocated cutting wasteful spending instead.

The pro-business Adams and the democratic socialist congresswoman are two faces of a 193-year-old Democratic party confronting fundamental questions about what it stands for and what it wants to be. While Democrats have moved left on both economic and social issues since the 1990s, this remains a broad and unwieldy coalition by global standards.

Now its diverse and at times discordant voices in Washington are imperiling the agenda of Joe Biden, a longtime centrist who has nevertheless embraced some of the radically transformative ambitions of past Democratic giants such as Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson.

Divisions between progressives and moderates in Congress are threatening to scuttle a $3.5tn social spending program, which includes childcare, education and green energy measures, and a $1tn bipartisan infrastructure bill that has passed the Senate and is pending in the House of Representatives.

“Unfortunately for us, at a time when it’s so very important for Democrats to make it clear to the people that we serve where we stand, we couldn’t be more inconsistent with our values right now,” said Yvette Simpson, chief executive of the progressive group Democracy for America. “We can’t get all on the same page to get this done.”

For four years of the Republican Donald Trump’s presidency, Democrats of all stripes united against a common political foe. Since January, however, they have controlled all the levers of power – with House and Senate majorities so razor-thin that every disagreement is thrown into sharp relief against staunch Republican opposition.

Democrats cannot afford to lose more than three votes in the House, and none in the Senate, if they are to pass the social package that has earned comparisons with Roosevelt’s “New Deal” and Johnson’s “Great Society” in its reassertion of government’s power to improve lives.

There is added pressure from the expectation that Republicans are likely to win back the House and possibly the Senate in midterm elections in November of next year. The clock is ticking.

Moderate Democrats back a vote on the $1tn bill for roads, bridges, ports and broadband connections scheduled for the House on Monday. But they have also raised objections to the size of the $3.5tn social spending package, warning against government overreach that will drive up the national debt.

Senator Joe Manchin, who represents heavily Republican West Virginia, has said he will not vote for $3.5trn, preferring instead a total of $1tn to $1.5tn. His Senate colleague, Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, also wants to trim the cost.

But progressives have vowed to defend the price tag of $3.5tn over 10 years, having already come down from $6tn. They have also said they will not vote for the infrastructure plan without first passing the social spending program, using a manoeuver called “reconciliation,” which avoids the Senate requirement for a supermajority.

Progressives argue that opinion polls show broad bipartisan support for the plan and accuse the moderates of being beholden to corporate interests. Manchin, for example, owns a big stake in a private coal brokerage and his election campaigns have received donations from lobbyists for the oil giant Exxon.

Simpson said: “If we have certain members of our caucus who want to take money from Big Pharma, Big Oil, Big ‘insert name here’, then we’re never going to have a Democratic majority that’s willing to actually serve real people first.”

She added: “It’s really not Democrat versus Republican. It’s the ultra wealthy and the corporations versus all the rest of us because a bill like this in the midst of a pandemic should be very easy to pass. This is a part of Biden’s agenda. It’s actually already a compromise position because progressives wanted way more.”

The scale of ambition is a marker of how far the party has journeyed since, from the ashes of a third consecutive election defeat in 1988, it turned to Arkansas governor Bill Clinton to lead the “New Democrats” (later an inspiration for Tony Blair’s New Labour) to the political centre ground and back to the White House.

Al From, who founded the Democratic Leadership Council in 1985 and handpicked Clinton for the job, is still putting the case for centrism. He points out that Biden comfortably beat Senator Bernie Sanders, a democratic socialist, in last year’s primary and contends that the significance of progressives is “exaggerated” by cable news networks and Twitter.

From also notes that the six progressives who comprise “the squad” in the House are from safe Democratic strongholds, whereas the moderates are from competitive swing districts. “The voters that are going to decide who’s controlling the Congress are probably going to be suburban voters and college graduates, and women are going to be key to that also,” he said. “The suburban voters tend to be more fiscally moderate.

“The vote on the $3.5trn bill is automatic for the progressive caucus because they want to spend all the money in the world. But for the moderates, it may be an election deciding vote because the constituencies that they need to win often vote Republican and tend to be more conservative on economic issues. Part of what this fight is about goes back to who you represent and whose votes you need to get elected.”

From cautioned against viewing the debate as evidence a Democratic identity crisis, however. “We’ve always been a coalition party,” he added. “We’ve always been a very broad tent stretched all across the spectrum. It’s probably less now, in terms of the breadth of a party, that it has been historically. Thirty or 40 years ago it was even a lot more divided.”

The current impasse has led to some terse exchanges on Capitol Hill and forced Biden, a 36-year veteran of the Senate, to step in this week by hosting both moderates and progressives for talks at the White House. Much also depends on Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker, and Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, displaying their political chess-playing skills.

It is a sign of progressive gains in recent years that Pelosi and Schumer have expressed support for their goals and that Sanders is now chairman of the influential Senate budget committee (he has warned plainly: “No infrastructure bill without the $3.5tn reconciliation bill.”) Biden, a surprise radical at 78, appears to have set the tone for the party.

Matt Bennett, executive vice-president for public affairs at the Third Way thinktank and a former official in the Clinton White House, said: “When your party has the White House, you have an identity and the identity is personified by the president for good or bad.

“Republicans for a time were having an identity crisis under Trump because you saw people exiting the party in large numbers, particularly their intelligentsia. The core of the Bush administration announced they were opposed to a Republican president. That’s an identity crisis. What we’re having is a debate.”

It is a debate set to rage on, further complicated by Republicans reasserting their vow not to help Democrats raise the federal government’s debt limit before a mid-October deadline. The various moving parts look set to make or break Biden’s presidency and prove a defining chapter in the Democratic party’s long history.

Leah Greenberg, co-founder and co-executive director of the Indivisible Project, a progressive nonprofit organisation, said: “There’s a cohesive identity of a big faction of the Democratic party, ranging from the president to progressives; it really shows the total ideological and political incoherence of the conservative Democratic bloc.

“They just have random feelings about the price tag, various preferences around not taxing the rich, not actually limiting corporate power, et cetera. The fight here is not even between moderates and progressives. It’s between people who are trying to deliver on the full Democratic agenda and people who are trying to take bites out of it for complicated, incoherent reasons, usually involving delivering for corporate donors.”

And while Manchin and Ocasio-Cortez belonging to the same party might seem a recipe for political dysfunction, it is still in a different league from events across the aisle over the past decade.

Greenberg added: “The dominant story in American politics is not necessarily the changes in the Democratic party. It is the fact that the Republican party has just been completely unmoored from political reality, from any commitment to democracy, and is hell bent on using the tools it has in order to maintain and exert power.”

Off the Top of My Head

The Good Things the Biden Administration is Doing That You Never Hear About

by John Lawrence

Even CNN goes on and on trying to create excitement over the differences withing the Democratic Party between the Moderates and the Progressives without talking about 3 great things the Biden Administration has done recently. They are

(1) EPA will slash the use and production of hydrofluorocarbons which one of the most toxic of greenhouse gasses — often found to be leaking from U.S. supermarket freezers — by 85 percent over the next 15 years; (2) the US will end its involvement in the war in Yemen and (3) the US has recently exchanged prisoners with China involving Huawei Technologies’ chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou. Instead of touting these very significant accomplishments, CNN goes on and on trying to create excitement over the divisions within the Democratic party and Biden's lowering approval ratings. So I say to CNN: so what, who cares? Approval ratings mean Nada. Any President is presented with situations not of his own making and the government agencies tasked with responding to said situations don't always do it in the best possible fashion. Case in point: the withdrawal from Afghanistan. The significant point is that he ended it. Let's move on.

The New York Times reported:

A top executive and daughter of the founder of the Chinese tech giant Huawei was arrested on Saturday in Canada at the request of the United States, in a move likely to escalate tensions between the two countries at a delicate moment.

The arrest of Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer, unfolded on the same night that President Trump and President Xi Jinping of China dined together in Buenos Aires and agreed to a 90-day trade truce. The two countries are set to begin tense negotiations in hopes of ending a trade war that has been pummeling both economies.

So Biden is still unwinding some of Trump's self-inflicted messes. At a time when cooperation with China is imperative in order to prevent the worst exigencies of global warming, arresting a top Chinese executive was not likely to help. Releasing her is.

The Washington Post reported:

The Biden administration finalized its first new climate rule Thursday, slashing the use of powerful greenhouse gases widely used in home refrigerators and air conditioners and often found to be leaking from U.S. supermarket freezers.

The regulation from the Environmental Protection Agency establishes a program to cut the use and production of chemicals known as hydrofluorocarbons by 85 percent over the next 15 years.

Curbing these super-pollutants is a rare climate issue with broad bipartisan support. When emitted, the chemicals can warm the planet at a rate hundreds to thousands of times higher than carbon dioxide. The new rule implements a law passed by Congress last year.

White House officials said the new rule tackles global warming while supporting jobs to manufacture new alternatives.

The Biden administration is committed to doing good work on precventing and mitigating cimate cange. This is just another example the likes of which frequently go unbreported in the mass media because it doesn't creat the necessary excitement to support all their advertisers of which CNN has tons who come on the tube for 4 and a half minutes after every few minutes of "news." CNN must be making a forune and it show since they have money to support the making of CNN "films" on a weekly basis.

Common Dreams reported:

Anti-war groups on Thursday welcomed the U.S. House's passage of an amendment to the annual defense bill that would cut off the flow to Saudi Arabia of U.S. logistical support and weapons "that are bombing civilians" in Yemen. "This is BIG," tweeted the Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL) following the afternoon 219-207 vote, which fell largely along party lines, with just 11 Democrats voting "no." At issue was Rep. Ro Khanna's (D-Calif.) amendment to H.R. 4350, the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). It's one of dozens of amendments to the NDAA under consideration by the House this week. According to Khanna, the vote "sent a clear message to the Saudis: end the bombing in Yemen and lift the blockade." Speaking on the House floor Wednesday, he made a succinct case for why the measure is so needed.  Khanna said his amendment "would end all U.S. logistical support and transfer of spare parts for Saudi warplanes that are bombing Yemen, that are bombing schools, that are killing children, that are bombing civilians in the largest humanitarian crisis around the world."

Back in February Biden had ended at least some of the support for that war as reported by the New York Times:

It didn’t happen in 2016, after a Saudi jet had dropped American-made bombs on a funeral in the Yemeni capital, Sana, killing more than 140 people. It didn’t happen in 2018, after a Saudi jet hit a Yemeni school bus with an American-made bomb, killing 44 boys on a field trip. But on Thursday, nearly six years after Saudi Arabia and its Arab allies launched a punishing military intervention in the Arab world’s poorest country, President Biden announced that he was ending U.S. support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen, including some arms sales. “This war has to end,” Mr. Biden said, calling it a “humanitarian and strategic catastrophe.”

Now the Democrat controlled Congress has finalized this. Trump, of course, was excited about the prospect of sales of weapons to Saudi Arabia. He welcomed the influx of dollars into the US Treasury without caring a hoot about innocent Yemeni victims of the bombing with US made bombs. As an Uber driver I picked up once a Saudi pilot who was being trained over here. Now the Biden administration along with Democrats in Congress has put the kibosh on aiding and abeting Saudi Arabia in their nasty war. Bien has shown his dedication to peace and has made efforts to bring peace to the world in the recent prisoner exchange with China and with doing what he can to end war in Yemen.

Off the Top of My Head

American Troops Have Left Afghanistan. So Has American Money - $300 Million Per Day

by John Lawrence

Afghanistan's economy must be in freefall. The US was spending $300 million a day each and every day there for 20 years! Now the US is spending nothing. American troops have left and, more importantly, American money has left. So can we now cut the defense budget? It would have been better if, instead of sending in American troops 20 years ago, we had sent in the Peace Corps for a fraction of the money the American military presence has cost. By now much could have been accomplished like roads, bridges, schools, hospitals, water and sewage systems and other critical infrastructure. Instead we spent $300 million a day for 20 years blowing things up and getting blown up ourselves. It's a testament to the folly of warfare. Now, hopefully, diplomacy and resettlement of refugees and building infrastructure will take place both there and here at home where efforts in the domain of Peace are badly in need as well. The US has infrastructure needs, resettlement of refugee needs (think the growing homeless population), both hard and human infrastructure needs, building things up instead of blowing things up.

All the generals who were shuffled in and out of Afghanistan couldn't think of what we could have done better there because all they could think was in military terms. They couldn't conceive of the possibility that the reason they were all so unsuccessful was precisely because any and all military solutions were not the right ones. They could not conceive of building peace there, only fighting an enemy. Well, it got them substantial pay raises, and it made money for the military-industrial complex. Now we need a peace-industrial complex. If we want to save the planet and not just indulge the present American inhabitants of planet earth to the max, we need to build green infrastructure all over the world. But even before we do that, we need to solve the worldwide pandemic which we can not seem to solve even here at home because there are so many people who won't believe in the obvious solution until one of their family members dies.

Forever wars have stunted the mindsets of the American people leading them to embracing far right jingoistic and chauvinistic militarism. The mindset would be considerably different if the US had put as much energy as it has put into militarism into peace activities, if peace had even been given due consideration as an alternative to war. In fact it's not too much of a stretch to say War is Us. This mindset came to fruition on January 6 with the insurrection. Biden is trying to turn the corner but he can only do so much per unit time. He has done considerable so far ending the war in Afghanistan and doing everything humanly possible to end the pandemic. His human and hard infrastructure agenda is still pending, but I believe it will eventually pass because it has been set up in such a way that either everybody wins if it passes or everybody loses if it doesn't. The way the twin bills were constructed, one that will pass by budget reconciliation and one bipartisan, represents political ingenuity. It's making the most of the slim Democratic majorities in both Houses of Congress. Even after those twin bills pass and get made into law, there is much to be done, voting rights reform in particular. I think Biden will get the major part of his agenda accomplished - probably in 2 years. After that who knows what will happen if Republicans win one or both Houses in the midterm elections.

Off the Top of My Head

Biden's Goal of 50% Electric Vehicles by 2030 in Peril Because of American's Freedom of Choice

by John Lawrence

Fast forward to 2029 and we find ourselves in the situation that many Americans are insisting on purchasing gas fueled vehicles because of their freedom of choice. Even though the government has subsidized electric vehicles to the tune of $10,000 per vehicle, and electric vehicles outperform gas powered ones in every category, even though electric vehicles have more bells and whistles than the same identical gas powered one, Americans are insisting that their freedom of choice is more important than helping President Biden reach his goal of 50% electric vehicles on the road by 2030. Wolf Blitzer's son, Chip Blitzer  interviewed Joe Blow of Shrevesport, Louisiana. Blitzer: "Why do you want to purchase a gas powered vehicle when the electric one is cheaper and a better performer?" Blow: "My Daddy drove a Ford F-150 with an internal combustion engine which was the pride of America as did his Daddy before him. The internal combustion engine is what built this country. It's how we won every war we ever fought in. My Daddy was a roustabout in the oil fields and my family has a long history of fossil fuel products. You won't ever catch me in an electric vehicle as long as I have my freedom of choice."

President Biden is considering mandates to get gas powered cars and trucks off the road, but some southern Governors are balking at that. Governor P.T. Abernathy of Texas said this: "The Federal government is overstepping its bounds when it comes to telling us here in the south what kind of vehicles we can drive. I've always preferred a gas powered vehicle myself, and, as long as I'm Governor, I will let our citizens decide for themselves what kind of vehicle they want to drive. It's unAmerican to dictate to American citizens that they have to drive an electric vehicle. We also won't be following Federal government incentives to get people to move out of flood plains." Back in Shrevesport Mr. Blow had this to say. "I ain't moving out of my house even though it is in a flood plain. My Grandpappy built this house. We Blows have lived here for generations, and no Federal government is going to order me to move out of my house." It is notable that 2 years ago, FEMA gave Blow $350 K to rebuild his house after Hurricane Upsilon totally destroyed it. Yet Blow said at the time: "I've never seen anything like it before in my life, but I will rebuild. I'm not going anywhere. This is America."

We note that in blue states people are 90% compliant with Biden's goal. They are buying electric vehicles at a fast rate taking advantage of the generous government incentives in doing so. Red state Governors on the other hand are imploring their residents to support the oil and gas industry by buying gas powered vehicles making it less likely that Biden will reach his goal of 50% electric vehicles on the road by 2030. Despite the cleaner air that has come with more electric vehicles on the road not to mention helping in the effort to forestall and mitigate global warming, many in southern states primarily are insisting on their right to choose as Americans citizens. Ex-President Donald Trump said at a CPAC convention: "Global warming is a hoax. We have so many wonderful oil and gas resources in this country that we'll never have to import another barrel of oil. Yet these socialists like Biden want to cripple that industry destroying the livelihoods of red blooded Americans to feed their families." As a result of American hesitancy to go ahead and buy electric vehicles, Biden will probably not be able to reach his goal. One guy from Alabama said: "Have these electric vehicles even been FHA fully approved. I heard that they were just provisionally approved. When there is full FHA approval, then I might consider buying one. In the meantime I'll just stick with my F-150 with the American internal combustion engine, the engine that made America great. Don't tell anyone, but I take off that godforsaken catalytic converter every time I buy a new pickup. Internal combustion rules, baby! Let 'er rip!"

Off the Top of My Head

Good on President Biden for Using His Visit to the Flood Zones to Give a Tutorial on Climate Change

by John Lawrence

Previously, after a natural disaster no one mentioned climate change. There was much bemoaning and commiserating, but Biden took a different tack. He lectured the American people about climate change and how it contributed to the disasters that had befallen the unfortunate. What's more he said they would continue and get worse unless we undertake to do something about it. No more attributing the disasters to one in 500 year events. That language is totally out the window. No more statements like "I've never seen anything like this my entire life." Get used to it. People are going to see a lot more of these climate disasters from now on. As President Biden said, we can't prevent these disasters from happening on a regular basis, but we can do something about them getting a lot worse. Meanwhile the fossil fuel industry is running ads on TV about how wonderful the oil and gas industry is, and they are lobbying their evil little hearts out to get politicians on their side.

“The nation and the world are in peril,” President Biden said after touring storm damage in New York and Jersey. “And that’s not hyperbole. That is a fact.”

"Folks — and we have to take some bold action now to tackle the accelerating effects of climate. If we don’t act — now I’m going to be heading, as Chuck knows, as the senator knows, I’m going to be heading from here to Glasgow, Scotland, for the COP meeting [United Nations Climate Change Conference], which is all the nations of the world getting together to decide what we are going to do about climate change. And John Kerry, the former secretary of state, is leading our effort, putting it together.

"We are determined, we are determined that we are going to deal with climate change and have zero emissions, net emissions by 2050. By 2020 [sic] (he meant 2030), make sure all our electricity is zero emissions. We’re going to be able to do these things. But we’ve got to move. We’ve got to move. And we’ve got to move the rest of the world. It’s not just the United States of America.

"And so, folks, this summer alone, communities with over 100 million Americans — 100 million Americans call home — have been struck by extreme weather. One in every three Americans has been victimized by severe weather. The hurricanes along the Gulf, the East Coast, up through this community. And I saw the human and physical cost firsthand, as I said, in Louisiana.

"And, folks, the evidence is clear. Climate change poses an existential threat to our lives, to our economy, and the threat is here, it’s not going to get any better. The question: Can it get worse? We can stop it from getting worse.

"And when I talk about building back better — and Chuck is fighting for my program, for our program on the Hill — when I talk about building back better, I mean you can’t build to what it was before this last storm. You got to build better so that if the storm occurred again, there would be no damage. There would be.

"But that’s not going to stop us, though, because if we just do that, it’s just going to get worse and worse and worse. Because the storms are going to get worse and worse and worse. And so, folks, we’ve got to listen to the scientists and the economists and the national security experts. They all tell us this is code red.

"The nation and the world are in peril. And that’s not hyperbole. That is a fact. They’ve been warning us the extreme weather would get more extreme over the decade, and we’re living in it real time now."

Biden is telling it like it is. The American people are in for a lot more of these climate disasters, and we can't stop them immediately. It's going to take decades to get this problem under control, and that's only if we go full steam ahead by taking measures to get it under control. Meanwhile, there are measures which can be taken to mitigate the costs both human and financial from these climate disasters. People must move out of flood plains and areas prone to forest fires. We must underground utilities so that the power doesn't go out during hurricanes and wildfires. That goes for cell phones and cable TV too. People have to have secure means of communication even during a climate disaster. Building codes need to be upgraded. Water management needs to improve so that torrential rains do not just become runoff that turns into floods. That water is precious and needs to be transported to parts of the country that are in more or less perpetual drought. The power grid needs to be hardened. Transportation needs to be electrified. Power generation needs to use renewable sources, and advanced nuclear needs to be developed. Ways of making steel and concrete need to be developed that don't use fossil fuels and the methods of doing so need to be scaled up and spread throughout the whole world. Agriculture needs to be made organic and factory farms eliminated. It's not enough for the US and the developed world to do the right things. Green infrastructure must be developed and spread to the whole world. We must partner with China in a Green Belt and Road Initiative. They are very advanced in building infrastructure throughout the world. While the US has been fighting needless wars, China has been building infrastructure albeit not green infrastructure. From now on coal fired power plants in India and China need to be eliminated and replaced with renewable energy and advanced nuclear power generation.