California Free Press

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.

Off the Top of My Head

People Will Not Even Get a Vaccination to Fight the Pandemic. Would They Put Up With Rationing to Fight Climate Change?

by John Lawrence

In World War II, Americans sacrificed for the common good. Today some will not even get a free vaccination for the common good. On August 28, 1941, President Roosevelt’s Executive Order 8875 created the Office of Price Administration (OPA). The OPA’s main responsibility was to place a ceiling on prices of most goods, and to limit consumption by rationing. The OPA rationed automobiles, tires, gasoline, fuel oil, coal, firewood, nylon, silk, and shoes. Americans used their ration cards and stamps to take their meager share of household staples including meat, dairy, coffee, dried fruits, jams, jellies, lard, shortening, and oils. Resources were devoted to the war effort and not to Americans' consumption. Today we live in a consumer society. Would Americans resist if they lost their freedom to consume? That's what freedom means to most Americans. What if those resources were needed in the fight against climate change?

Would Americans put up with a shift from a consumer society to an all hands on deck building infrastructure to mitigate climate change society? Advertising budgets would dry up because the purpose of advertising is to get you to buy more stuff. What if your consumption was limited to essentials as it was during WW II? Freedom in America is the freedom to consume whatever you have the money to buy. What if you couldn't do that any more? What if the purveyors of nonessential products didn't have the freedom to sell you stuff that you really don't need in order to devote resources both human and material to Biden's building back better agenda? Is it some people's right to consume while other people are wiped out due to extreme weather events like fires and flooding? Should the rich be restricted from spending their money on luxury items like private jets and yachts? Should they be taxed heavily to provide the financial resources for mitigation and adaptation to global warming? Would billionaires have to give up their rocket ships? Do thy even care about the world that our children and grandchildren will inherit?

So if people are protesting that getting a free vaccination is against their concept of what being a free American is, how much more are they going to complain if they had to go without some consumer activity that they have become accustomed to? They are just not the type to roll up their sleeves and pitch in to do their part to mitigate or adapt to global warming. Just as the dying unvaccinated finally wish that they had heeded the warnings and got vaccinated, as long as some extreme weather event hasn't destroyed their home or impacted them in any way, they will continue to stick their heads in the sand and deny that global warming really exists. For them it will just be another government conspiracy theory while they will find charlatans in social media who will reassure them that global warming is still a hoax.

Global Cooperation, Not Endless War Should Be Future of US Foreign Policy

Hundreds of anti-war activists joined Iranian-Americans, Muslims, and communities of color in a rally at Foley Square to send a clear message: New York stand against endless wars, going to war with Iran and sanctions; demanding de-escalation and peace. (Photo by Erik McGregor/LightRocket via Getty Images)

 

Ours have been wars of hatred, not logic, and doomed to fail—at a mind-boggling human and financial cost.

 

Jeffrey D. Sachs

September 3, 2021 by the Boston Globe

During the past 60 years, the United States has suffered a series of failed wars in Indochina, Central America, the Middle East, and Afghanistan. Each of these wars produced mayhem and suffering, followed by an American retreat. While the American right wing has always argued that success needed just one more surge or bombing spree, the truth has been simpler and sadder. Ours have been wars of hatred, not logic, and doomed to fail—at a mind-boggling human and financial cost.

America has never cared to help those we have pretended to "save" by these wars. For that reason alone, America has never had the broad support of local populations that would have been essential for any kind of success in these misguided wars.

Americans didn't want to save the Vietnamese, Cambodians, and Laotians, who were despised in US popular culture; America wanted to stop communism and the supposed "falling dominoes" across Southeast Asia. America didn't want to save Salvadorans, Nicaraguans, and others in poverty-stricken Central America; it wanted to stop leftist radicals who threatened American investments in the region. America didn't want to save the Iraqis, Libyans, and Syrians; it wanted to topple regimes and replace them with US-backed regimes.

For the past 60 years, the United States has waged war after war for America's narrow interests alone, and has created havoc, destruction, and death in its wak

And America cared not a whit about Afghanistan, a point confirmed repeatedly by President Biden in recent days. Biden has noted, approvingly, that the United States went to Afghanistan for one reason and one reason only: to get Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda after 9/11, not to help the people of Afghanistan.

Tellingly, Biden has not been truthful about the real origin of US intervention in Afghanistan, following a pattern set by his predecessors. America's intervention in Afghanistan goes back to 1979, more than 20 years before 9/11, when the CIA secretly trained, armed, and funded Islamic jihadists in Afghanistan to fight the Soviet Union. The US-created fighting force morphed into Al Qaeda and the Taliban, but no president, including Biden, has honestly explained the basic facts to the American people.

America's right-wing culture has often been hostile toward the non-European world—the "shithole countries" in Donald Trump's disgusting yet telling phrase. For the past 60 years, the United States has waged war after war for America's narrow interests alone, and has created havoc, destruction, and death in its wake.

I have worked for decades in countries that all too many Americans find contemptible due to their poverty, religion, skin color, desire to migrate from hunger and violence, and insolence for trying to claim control over their own oil, uranium, and other minerals that America craves. Begrudging development assistance to these countries is a congressional pastime. People in those countries know all too well about American power, and its destructive potential. They try their best to stay out of harm's way.

In pulling the United States out of Afghanistan, Biden showed scant sympathy for the Afghan people. He mocked the idea of "nation-building," an American phrase of scorn that seems to mean being naïve enough to try to help another country. Is it any surprise that the regime in Afghanistan propped up by American power crumbled so rapidly just as America departed?

Lest any American mistakenly think that much of the roughly $1 trillion the US spent in Afghanistan for war and reconstruction went towards nation-building, it did not. Perhaps 2 percent of the total US spending went for purposes such as health, education, and civilian infrastructure. Almost all the money went for military and security purposes—troops, armaments, Afghan security forces, and the like. After 20 years, we left behind a country where 38 percent of the children are stunted due to chronic undernutrition.

In explaining America's exit, Biden played the typical American foreign policy tune, that the world is very dangerous place filled with foes of America. The job of the president, Biden emphasized, is to protect America from those enemies, just no longer in Afghanistan. Here is how Biden summarized the global scene:

"This is a new world. The terror threat has metastasized across the world, well beyond Afghanistan. We face threats from Al Shabab in Somalia; Al Qaeda affiliates in Syria in and the Arabian Peninsula; and ISIS attempting to create a caliphate in Syria and Iraq, and establishing affiliates across Africa and Asia … And here's a critical thing to understand: The world is changing. We're engaged in a serious competition with China. We're dealing with the challenges on multiple fronts with Russia. We're confronted with cyberattacks and nuclear proliferation. We have to shore up America's competitive[ness] to meet these new challenges in the competition for the 21st century."

Here is what he should have said instead: All countries—including the United States, members of the European Union, Russia, China, Iran, and, yes, Afghanistan—are destabilized by the COVID-19 pandemic; the effects of the climate crisis (floods, droughts, hurricanes, forest fires, heatwaves); widening income inequality further dividing the haves and have nots; the upheavals of digital technologies; and the dangerous political influence of plutocrats. All of these are shared problems across the globe, and all require intensive global cooperation rather than confrontation.

Biden was right to pull out of Afghanistan, yet wrong on the larger picture.

America's mortal enemies are not China, Iran, and Russia. Our real enemies are the common scourges facing humanity today. Global problems cannot be solved by individual nations alone.

It is uncertain whether America will change its relentless aggressive foreign policy for our own good, and the world's. Our nation has been at war for centuries. Our repeated failures have led the political right to double down, calling with increasing fervor for more weapons, and further escalation with China, Iran, Russia, and other alleged foes. Yes, we have pulled out of Afghanistan—42 years too late—and that is good. But will the United States adopt a new foreign policy based on peace and problem-solving? That's the real question.

---

© 2021 Boston Globe

Jeffrey D. Sachs

Jeffrey D. Sachs is the Director of The Earth Institute, Professor of Sustainable Development, and Professor of Health Policy and Management at Columbia University. He is Special Advisor to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on the Millennium Development Goals, having held the same position under former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. Sachs is the author, most recently, of "A New Foreign Policy: Beyond American Exceptionalism" (2020). Other books include: "Building the New American Economy: Smart, Fair, and Sustainable" (2017)  and “The Age of Sustainable Development," (2015) with Ban Ki-moon.

Off the Top of My Head

Why Were There Tens of Thousands of American Citizens and Foreign Nationals in Afghanistan?

by John Lawrence

There were only 2500 American military and 50,000 American citizens? What's wrong with this picture? And now a ragtag group is taking over the whole country having defeated the world's mightiest military force? What's wrong with this picture? This is totally F-ed up. I assume that all these civilians were there to make money. Maybe there were a few who genuinely wanted to help the Afghan people, but sending in the US military to facilitate that is not the way to do it. The US should be providing aid to people in the world that have less than we do. When you have a hammer, it seems like every problem is a nail. When you have the world's mightiest military every problem seems to have a solution by sending in the military to solve it. Having 50,000 American citizens in a war zone is completely nuts. and then the only way to extract ourselves from the situation is to have a massive, chaotic airlift as we are experiencing now?

So now Biden has at least established the principal that the US military doesn't have to remain forever in every country it invades. But that seems to be the MO. There are almost 40,000 troops in Germany, 28,000 in Korea and 55,000 in Japan. The military of the United States is deployed in most countries around the world, with between 150,000 to 200,000 of its active-duty personnel stationed outside the United States and its territories. The US military maintains close to 800 military bases in more than 70 countries and territories abroad. So is it even possible for the world to function without the presence of the US military in practically every country? What if they just all were withdrawn? Would the world's economic and political structure, such that it is, completely collapse?

Every empire in world history has collapsed due to its being overextended. The Roman Empire which lasted for about 1000 years (compared to the US' less than 100) collapsed because it extended itself into northern Europe instead of being content with just controlling lands around he Mediterranean. While the US vision of the world is that the US military will effectively occupy almost every country with the notable exceptions of China, Russia, Iran and now eventually Afghanistan, China's vision seems to be its Belt and Road initiative which ties many countries of the world to China economically. Can the US pivot from military occupation to peaceful economic and humanitarian development? Or even pivot to being a constructive force to ameliorate climate change in cooperation with China and Russia? Military assets could be converted to more peaceful purposes and be integrated into the Peace Corps. But that would take the incentives for glory and patriotism out of the equation. Could purple hearts ever be given to members of the Peace Corps? The principal that Biden has established that the US can leave a country is a game changer. It doesn't mean that the US will never have anything to do with Afghanistan again. It means that US involvement will be more along the lines of humanitarian assistance.

Off the Top of My Head

Whoever Thought It Would Be This Difficult to End a War? A Good Reason Not to Start One.

by John Lawrence

Not Like the old days when you had a ceasefire, signed a peace treaty and everyone went home respectfully. George W Bush started two wars, the first of which - the Iraq war - was based on the lie that Saddam Hussein was developing weapons of mass destruction which he wasn't, and that he had something to do with 9/11 which he didn't. The second war in Afghanistan had some dubious plausibility that Osama bin Laden was stationed there. The fact of the matter is that you didn't need a land invasion of a country to get Bin Laden which Obama amply proved by sending in special ops forces to get him. Now we are faced with the messy and sticky problem of extracting ourselves from Afghanistan. Once done, Biden will be remembered for having the guts to actually do it. The messiness will be forgotten except for right wing pundits who will attempt to keep it alive.

Another question: why are approximately 20 high schools students from El Cajon, CA, where I happen to live, allowed to travel to a war zone to visit relatives? Aside from that the major question is can the Taliban really govern Afghanistan? Oh what tangled webs we weave! Afghanistan has been sucking at the American teat for 20 years. Now that we're soon to be gone, where will the money come from, the money that has kept the country running for 20 years? Or will Afghanistan become another basket case like so many Third World countries? Will China and Russia step in to throw them a lifeline? The Taliban are finally wising up that all the talent has been leaving the country on American evacuation flights. It seems like a large percentage of the Afghan population has been helping the Americans so we feel a moral obligation to get them out. But do the Taliban really want to kill them or do they just want their services as doctors, professors and other professionals? Do they really want to roll the clock back 500 years or are they smarter than that?

Meanwhile, the US just wants to get back to normal: overconsumption. We want a large share of the world's resources so we can overconsume and continue to pour carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere. The largest percentage of greenhouse gasses already in the atmosphere was put there by Americans. We just want to get back to normal and continue doing so. Just think of the consequences if we didn't continue to overconsume: our GDP would decline. Less consumption equals lower GDP. It's as simple as that. To reorient our society so that we underconsumed so that the rest of the world had enough food to eat and a roof over their heads is something that we as Americans have been programmed not even to consider in going about our daily lives. Our freedom, primarily, is the freedom to consume. That is about 50% of our population, those invested in the stock market and enjoying generational transfers of real estate assets, has the freedom to consume while about 50%, those doing the menial but necessary jobs are living paycheck to paycheck. Even college graduates, single mothers primarily, are still sleeping on their parents' couches because you can't make it on one salary in today's America particularly if you still have a lot of student loan debt to pay off.

Trump's base are those who not only say to hell with considering the planet as a whole or those in other countries, they say to hell with other Americans who disagree with their right not to get vaccinated and who might die from their very germs. How selfish can members of the human race be? What is civic duty if not pulling together and doing what's necessary to defeat our arch enemy: COVID? Especially when vaccinations are free. They'll even pay you to get one. Now we've reached the pass where you have to pay Americans to fight. Actually, we reached it years ago when they ended the draft.

Off the Top of My Head

Why Were There So Many Private Contractors and Translators in Afghanistan?

In 2012 there were 88,000 contractors. There were 7800 this July. There are tens of thousands of Afghani interpreters. In 20 years why couldn't the US military have trained their own people in the Afghan language? Now it seems everyone in Afghanistan was an interpreter who should have gotten, but didn't get, an SIV. When you add in all their family members, it runs into the hundreds of thousands who want to get out of Afghanistan and into the US. Well, why wouldn't they? Everyone from every hell hole around the world wants to get into the US. The number of Afghans who will get in dwarfs by comparison those arriving on our southern border. Since 2008, approximately 70,000 Afghans have been resettled in the US on an SIV .

Smithsonian magazine reports:

"Congress approved the Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) program in 2009, and some 9,200 Afghans have received an SIV, along with 17,000 of their dependents. But the number of visas has lagged behind the demand, as has the pace at which the State Department awarded them. By law, an application is supposed to be processed within nine months; it often takes years. And now, unless Congress extends the program, it will close to applicants at the end of this year. An estimated 10,000 interpreters may be left vulnerable—a prospect that the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. John W. Nicholson, warned could “bolster the propaganda of our enemies.”"

It's no wonder that extracting the US from Afghanistan is so messy. We had our tentacles deep into that country by design. The privatization of the US military is one aspect of the problem. The US military itself should not have had to hire contractors with all the resources they have. They should have trained their own people. The same goes for interpreters. Now everyone in Afghanistan is claiming to be an interpreter. The Taliban will have its hands full trying to rule that unruly country now that all the talent has left on SIVs and without the constant flow of US dollars coming in. It's good that Joe Biden finally had the guts to extricate the US from that hell hole. We're out and we should stay out. Maybe it would be a good thing to try and create some friends around the world instead of creating so many enemies that we have to guard ourselves against. Then maybe we could deal with all the American domestic terrorists right here at home. Because the US military is leaving Afghanistan, it doesn't mean that we can't provide aid in some form to the Afghan people going forward. I'm sure the Taliban would welcome our constructive help. But they sure wouldn't welcome the US military back any time soon.

 

Off the Top of My Head

Was Biden Supposed to Micromanage the Logistics of the Withdrawal?

by John Lawrence

What were all those people in the Pentagon doing once Biden announced the end of the war? Biden announced on July 8, 2021 that the war would end as of August 31. Why wasn't the US Defense Department working overtime to do contingency and logistics planning. Why weren't Americans and Afghans who helped us being taken out of the country as of that date? Why did they wait for Kabul to fall? This is incompetency on the part of the Pentagon and the Defense Department. Biden shouldn't have had to micromanage the logistics. Why didn't they expect chaos? Why didn't our military hold Kabul until everyone was out safely? Instead they let the Taliban waltz into Kabul. It just goes to show the incompetency of the top echelon of US military planners.

Hopefully, the secure air corridor, similar to the Berlin airlift, will be sufficient to get most of the people, who need to get out, out. The troops Biden sent in will have to do crowd control and secure the airport for the next few weeks. The whole operation in Afghanistan was a disaster. Evidently, the Afghan military couldn't do anything without the support of American contractors? You mean that the bloated American military is incompetent to do anything without private contractors? Evidently, so. Now a bunch of war apologists are rueing the day that the American military is leaving Afghanistan. Oh, Al Qaeda will come back; ISIS will establish themselves there. Why don't they stop and ask the question why all these Islamists are so upset with the US? Is it because the US has been killing them for years. It's not too late for the US to become a constructive force in the world instead of just trying "to protect American interests." China is building infrastructure throughout Asia and beyond. The US could cooperate with China in becoming a builder rather than a destroyer. Besides, unless the two major polluting countries of the world get together, the earth is already doomed to a climate catastrophe.

It's not about forcing the rest of the world to bow down to us. It's about time that the world's wealthiest country becomes a constructive player on the world scene instead of threatening everyone with sanctions or our military might. It's time to guarantee the Palestinians their own homeland. This would do a lot to dispel the rancor against the US. Instead of "defund the police" we should be chanting "defund the military". The 800 military bases around the world need to be abandoned and the troops sent home from there just like they were abandoned in Afghanistan. By the way why wasn't all the military equipment and resources just left there to fall into the hands of the Taliban? Oh I see. There will be money to procure a lot more once the Defense Department submits its budgetary needs post Afghanistan. When the US becomes a force for peace in the world and uses its abundant resources to alleviate poverty and fight climate change, then the US will be playing a constructive role in the world and not just defending US interests.

Off the Top of My Head

Evidently, There's No Federal Law Against Fomenting a Coup

by John Lawrence

It's now clear that Donald Trump did everything within his considerable power as President to foment a coup and overturn the result of the 2020 Presidential election including directing a mob of insurrectionists to attack the Capitol and the Congress persons and staffers inside. Trump also called on Georgia's Secretary of State to overturn the result of Georgia's election results and then pressured the DOJ to do the same. "Just say that the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the R. Congressmen," Trump said in a December phone call with former Acting Attorney General Jeff Rosen, according to handwritten notes of the conversation. What more proof is needed, and why isn't Trump in jail? Some say the Constitution is vague on this point, and there's no Federal law that Trump violated. Really? Well then, they had better rewrite the Constitution.

The House select committee investigating the attack by pro-Trump rioters who were trying to stop the certification of the presidential election will undoubtedly find even more information about Trump's role in overturning a US election, especially after they investigate his phone logs from January 6 and interview Defense Department officials who Trump may have pressured not to come to the aid of Capitol and Metropolitan police. What is clear is that the US came to about a hair's breadth of a coup on that day. If either Nancy Pelosi or Michael Pence had been apprehended by the rioters, that in and of itself may have enabled Trump to "leave the rest to him."

US Today reported:

"Donald Trump urged the Justice Department to say publicly that "the election was corrupt" even as its top officials tried unsuccessfully to convince him that claims of widespread voter fraud were false, according to newly released documents about conversations between the former president and the agency's leadership. ...

"The disclosures provide more insight into how Trump tried to use the country's top law enforcement agency to back claims that the last election had been stolen from him even though the Justice Department had found no evidence of widespread fraud that would've changed the results. The notes, written by Rosen's deputy, were released Friday by the House Oversight and Reform Committee, which is investigating efforts by Trump to overturn President Joe Biden's win."

How much detail does Congress need for the result to be that Trump is charged for sedition. Sedition is overt conduct, such as speech and organization, that tends toward rebellion against the established order. Sedition often includes subversion of a constitution and incitement of discontent toward, or insurrection against, established authority. Surely, there was both overt conduct and speech on the part of Trump that qualifies his speech and action as sedition. Yet there is no Federal law that would put him in jail awaiting trial? Give me a break. Evidently, the Constitution has all kinds of holes in it not the least of which is allowing every nut case to own as many AK-47s as he can afford. Also the free speech that is tolerated on the internet regarding reinstating Donald Trump as President or misleading people about COVID can't be reined in by law? Evidently, the President of the US can choose to send people into battle in a foreign country whenever he wants to like George W Bush did by lying to Congress, but the President of the US can't mandate that everyone get vaccinated in order to halt the destruction of the American people by a pandemic? What is evident is that the destruction caused by a virus is greater than the destruction wreaked by all wars in the US' history. Yet the President is powerless to do what is needed to bring it under control. He should just declare a state of emergency and mandate that everyone get vaccinated.

Off the Top of My Head

Just When We Thought the War Was Won, the Enemy Surprised Us With a Blitzkrieg

by John Lawrence

Reminiscent of the blitzkrieg in the Second World War when Germany overwhelmed France in just a few days, Americans had been led to believe that the war with COVID was winding down. Just then COVID mutated and launched a surprise attack. Americans were taken by surprise. Like Yogi Berra said, "It ain't over till it's over." So now we have to pivot and take on the enemy again just as we were starting to relax and go back to our privileged lifestyles. The problem has been exacerbated by so many Americans not doing their patriotic duty and getting vaccinated. It's a sad commentary on American culture when President Biden has to offer the unvaccinated $100 to get vaccinated. It's not just about your freedom, it's about saving the nation from an unmitigated disaster.

The Delta variant is a game changer and not in a good direction. Americans who haven't gotten vaccinated have been far too casual about it. And uninformed and downright stupid. In a war some people are going to be sacrificed for the greater good of winning the war. When the General sends people into battle he knows that some of his troops are going to be killed. The Civil War was a war of attrition. The North won because they could afford to sacrifice so many more of their troops than the South could. By contrast the war against COVID doesn't require much if anything in terms of sacrifice. Getting vaccinated doesn't mean that you're taking a chance of being killed or harmed by the vaccine. It means that you are increasing your chances of staying alive. Sure some people will die despite the fact of being fully vaccinated, but the vast majority of vaccinated people will live while the vast majority of unvaccinated people will die. It's as simple as that.

The Delta variant is the virus equivalent of a blitzkrieg. It's military potential is far mightier than the US defenses which rely on convincing people rather than mandating people to get vaccinated.  It's like a war in which people are free to decide whether or not they want to join the battle. Some are saying, "I don't give a fuck whether I die or I infect those around me and they die. My freedom of choice is more important. Isn't that my right according to the Constitution?" With this attitude Germany would have won the Second World War. Oh I have to wear a mask. Boo Hoo! What babies! What selfish A holes. No wonder so many of them are following the former A hole in Chief who only thought of his own selfish interests. They are a perfect reflection of his values.

Even the best guidance from the doctors and scientists was too rosy glowed compared to the situation on the ground. They never emphasized the fact that, even if you are fully vaccinated, you can still get infected with the virus. They told us that, if you were fully vaccinated, you could go anywhere, do anything unmasked and unsocially distanced and never have to worry about getting COVID, This was too pollyannish. Yes, chances are you won't die fom COVID, but it was never emphasized enough that the vaccines were 90% effective - not 100%. That means that 10% of the fully vaccinated could still get COVID and potentially even die. Now with the Delta variant being COVID on steroids, even though statistically you are much better off, it's still a statistical possibility you could die, and the best way to prevent yourself from being a statistic is to stay away from large gatherings of people especially when some of them might not be vaccinated.

We know children can get the virus. Those summer camps where a lot of them got it are a case in point. So now we are sending them back to school unvaccinated which is a disaster in the making. Why are we doing this? Because we had planned to do it thinking the pandemic would be over by the time children went back to school? Well now the situation has changed. We can't pivot because we had promised that children would be back in school sans masks? This is ridiculous. Sure vaccinations are super important, but children under 12 cannot be vaccinated due to the fact that the authorities haven't cleared them for vaccinations. So now, since they were promised it, we have to go ahead and send the largest unvaccinated group into a situation where they are most likely to get infected? Does this make any sense at all? Even if the adult population were 100% vaccinated, the children would still be at risk. Ironically, we have the capability of remotely educating them at home. Parents can even home school them. But the American people are being told that their children should go back to school masked or unmasked. They still insist on children going back into the classroom. The Delta variant is watching and waiting. And then comes the blitzkrieg.

Why Aren’t Biden and the Democrats Going All Out for Democracy?

by Robert Reich

Tuesday, July 27, 2021

You’d think President Biden and the Democratic Party leadership would do everything in their power to stop Republicans from undermining democracy.

So far this year, the GOP has passed roughly 30 laws in states across the country  that will make voting harder, especially in Black and Latino communities. With Trump’s baseless claim that the 2020 election was stolen, Republicans are stoking white people’s fears that a growing non-white population will usurp their dominance.

Yet while Biden and Democratic leaders are openly negotiating with holdout senators for Biden’s stimulus and infrastructure proposals, they aren’t exerting similar pressure when it comes to voting rights and elections. In fact, Biden now says he won’t take on the filibuster, which stands firmly in the way.

What gives? Part of the explanation, I think, lies with an outside group that has almost as much influence on the Democratic Party as on the Republican, and which isn’t particularly enthusiastic about election reform: the moneyed interests bankrolling both parties.

They fear that a more robust democracy would make it easier for the majority of Americans who aren’t wealthy to raise taxes on the wealthy to finance all sorts of things the majority may want, from better schools to stronger safety nets. 

So at the same time white supremacists have whipped up fears about nonwhites usurping their dominance, America’s wealthy have spent vast sums on campaign donations and lobbyists to prevent majorities from usurping their money.

They’ve already whipped up resistance among congressional Democrats to Biden’s plan to tax capital gains at 39.6% — up from 20% — for those earning more than $1 million. And they’re on the way to convincing Democrats to restore the federal tax deduction for state and local taxes, of which they’re the biggest beneficiaries.  

In recent years these wealth supremacists, as they might be called, have quietly joined white supremacists to become a powerful anti-democracy coalition.

Some wealth supremacists have backed white supremacist’s efforts to divide poor and working-class whites from poor and working-class Black and brown people, so they don’t look upward and see where most of the economic gains have been going and don’t join together to demand a fair share of those gains.

By the same token, white supremacists have quietly depended on wealth supremacists to bribe lawmakers to limit voting rights, so people of color continue to be second-class citizens. It’s no accident that six months after the insurrection, dozens of giant corporations that promised not to fund members of Congress who refused to certify Biden as president are now back funding them and their anti-voting rights agenda.

Donald Trump was put into office by this anti-democracy coalition. According to Forbes, 9 percent of America’s billionaires, together worth a combined $210 billion, pitched in to cover the costs of Trump’s 2020 campaign. During his presidency Trump gave both parts of the coalition what they wanted most: tax cuts and regulatory rollbacks for the wealth supremacists; legitimacy for the white supremacists.

The coalition is now the core of the Republican Party, which stands for little more than voter suppression based on Trump’s big lie that the 2020 election was stolen, and tax cuts for the wealthy and their corporations.

Meanwhile, as wealth supremacists have accumulated a larger share of the nation’s income and wealth than at any time in more than a century, they’ve used a portion of that wealth to bribe lawmakers not to raise their taxes. It was recently reported that several American billionaires have paid only minimal or no federal income tax at all.

Tragically, the Supreme Court is supporting both the white supremacists and wealth supremacists. Since Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito joined in 2005 and 2006, respectively, the court has been whittling away voting rights while enlarging the rights of the wealthy to shower money on lawmakers. The conservative majority has been literally making it easier to buy elections and harder to vote in them.

The Democrats’ proposed “For the People Act” admirably takes on both parts of the coalition. It sets minimum national standards for voting, and it seeks to get big money out of politics through public financing of election campaigns.

Yet this comprehensiveness may explain why the Act is now stalled in the Senate. Biden and Democratic leaders are firmly against white supremacists but are not impervious to the wishes of wealth supremacists. After all, to win elections they need likely Democrats to vote but also need big money to finance their campaigns.

Some progressives have suggested a carve-out to the filibuster solely for voting rights. This might constrain the white supremacists but would do nothing to protect American democracy from the wealth supremacists.

If democracy is to be preserved, both parts of the anti-democracy coalition must be stopped.

As Delta Wreaks Havoc, Biden Faces Growing Pressure to Force Big Pharma to Share Vaccine Recipes

President Joe Biden speaks during an event on the Covid-19 response and vaccination program at the South Court Auditorium of Eisenhower Executive Office Building on July 6, 2021 in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images)

 

"Millions of people have lost their lives waiting for such desperately needed action."

 

Jake Johnson

July 28, 2021

With a proposed patent waiver for coronavirus vaccines still mired in fruitless talks at the World Trade Organization, U.S. President Biden is facing growing calls to use his legal authority to force pharmaceutical giants to share their vaccine recipes as governments around the world race to combat the fast-spreading Delta variant.

"The U.S. government has power to share vaccine manufacturing knowledge and help other countries scale up production."
—Peter Maybarduk, Public Citizen

The U.S. government currently owns the patent for critical spike-protein technology developed by the National Institutes of Health. That technology, which helps trigger an immune response against the coronavirus, has been utilized by at least five companies in the development of vaccines, including Moderna, Pfizer, and Johnson & Johnson.

Thus far, the Biden administration has declined to leverage the government's ownership of the so-called '070 patent to force Big Pharma to share its vaccine formulas with manufacturers around the world, despite being urged to do so by the NIH scientist who helped develop the spike-protein technology.

But with the ultra-contagious Delta variant ripping through undervaccinated regions of the world, public health campaigners are ramping up pressure on Biden to act as pharmaceutical giants refuse to voluntarily take part in technology-sharing efforts.

“The U.S. government has power to share vaccine manufacturing knowledge and help other countries scale up production and finally end this pandemic. Millions of people have lost their lives waiting for such desperately needed action," Peter Maybarduk, director of Public Citizen's Access to Medicines program, said in a statement Tuesday.

Maybarduk said he is encouraged by recent comments from Gayle Smith, head of the global Covid-19 response at the U.S. State Department. In an interview with the Financial Times earlier this week, Smith urged U.S. vaccine makers to help develop low-cost manufacturing hubs overseas and share their technological expertise.

But Maybarduk made clear that—given the Biden administration's legal authority to compel their participation—the U.S. government can do much more than plead with profit-driven pharmaceutical companies to willingly act in the best interest of the world.

"If the U.S. government acts swiftly, it can help save hundreds of thousands of lives and stem the spread of variants," said Maybarduk. "Moderna and Pfizer's resistance to sharing the knowledge needed for countries to make vaccines is unforgivable. President Joe Biden has authority under existing law to order the sharing of vaccine recipes."

In exchange for allowing Moderna and other pharmaceutical giants to use the NIH technology, progressive advocacy groups argue, the U.S. government should require the companies to help other nations produce vaccines by sharing formulas and manufacturing know-how.

"U.S. taxpayers have invested over $2.5 billion in the development of mRNA-1273," a coalition of public health organizations wrote (pdf) in March, referring to the Moderna vaccine. "Now it is time for our government to ensure that this critical lifesaving technology be made available to all."

Biden has faced criticism for remaining largely on the sidelines following his May endorsement of the proposed vaccine patent waiver, which would lift legal barriers that are stopping manufacturers around the world from producing generic shots for the developing world. Rich members of the WTO, including Germany and the United Kingdom, continue to block the waiver.

"It is unconscionable that high-income nations of the WTO would continue to turn their backs on people of the Global South, desperate for immunity from the highly transmissible Delta variant," Asia Russell, executive director of Health GAP, said Tuesday. "Leaders of the E.U., Germany, the U.K.—and by extension, the Biden administration for abetting their TRIPS waiver obstruction—must stop their cruel and self-defeating indifference to vaccinating the world through suspending the monopolies of profiteering pharmaceutical companies."

But proponents of the patent waiver have emphasized that temporarily suspending intellectual property protections—while a necessary step—would not be sufficient to address global supply shortages and vast inequities in distribution, which have left the people of low-income nations largely without access to live-saving vaccines.

Public Citizen is calling on the U.S. Congress to support a $25 billion global vaccine manufacturing program aimed at helping developing nations produce billions of doses at home, instead of being forced to rely on restrictive bilateral deals with Big Pharma and inadequate donations from rich countries. Progressive U.S. lawmakers are also pushing for a $34 billion investment in global vaccine production and distribution in an emerging reconciliation package.

"No investment in the fight against Covid-19 is more urgent and cost-effective now than an investment in getting the world vaccinated as quickly as possible," Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), and other lawmakers wrote in a letter to congressional leaders last week.

As Politico reported Tuesday, two manufacturers in Africa—which has vaccinated just 1% of its population—are working to establish "an mRNA vaccine technology-transfer hub at the tip of the continent that could let it produce its own vaccines, on its own terms."

But the effort is predictably running into resistance from pharmaceutical giants, which have also refused to join the World Health Organization's technology-transfer campaign.

"To get the [Africa] hub up and running in a year—when it could still help end the pandemic—its partners need Big Pharma's help," Politico noted. "And Big Pharma isn't keen: Neither Moderna nor Pfizer has signaled interest in working with the facility."

Nick Dearden, director of the U.K.-based advocacy group Global Justice Now, said it is "no surprise that Pfizer and Moderna aren't participating" in development of the hub, which he described as "hugely important."

"They will need to be compelled to do so," argued Dearden, "because they ain't giving up this revolutionary technology without a fight."

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Off the Top of My Head

I'm Glad To Be an American Where at Least I Know I'm Equal

by John Lawrence

Ah yes. America, Home of the Equal and Land of the Brave. Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, on this continent, a new nation dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Later women were added. Equality - our founding principal. Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Preamble to the Constitution: "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Equality to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." Well, I've changed a word here and there except that Lincoln really did extol equality. Did Jefferson only want to promote the general white man's welfare or did he mean by "general" everybody including African Americans and Native Americans?

Liberté, égalité, fraternité, French for "liberty, equality, fraternity", is the national motto of France. The American motto is Liberty period. Equality got lost in the shuffle. Fraternité implies some sense of responsibility to fellow citizens. In America that doesn't exist in the American lexicon or consciousness. When asked why they haven't gotten vaccinated, Americans almost universally respond, "I'm young and healthy, and I don't think I'll get sick." The next logical question which is never asked is "Yes, but don't you want to protect others?" It's never asked because responsibility to fellow citizens, fraternité, is not an American value despite the fact that Lincoln said America was dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Politicians and fellow Americans have been, as thy say "walking it back" ever since. The only difference is that now Jim Crow doesn't just apply to African Americans. It applies to immigrants of all stripes, ethnicities and religious persuasions as well. We have equalized out prejudice.

Selfishness is the main American principle at this time. I'm free to be selfish; I'm free to be self interested. Wall Street exemplifies this. Profits über alles. Ayn Rand even made it a virtue in her book The Virtue of Selfishness. So naturally, the unvaccinated feel no responsibility to their fellow citizens to get vaccinated. The fact that they can impregnate others with the virus is no concern to them as long as they don't get sick themselves. It's endemic to America. Politicians have no allegiance to the truth only to their own selfish reelections. Corporate executives have no responsibility except to maximize short term  profits for their shareholders and themselves. While Joe Biden and the Democrats are trying to "promote the general welfare," Republicans are only trying to promote their own welfare and that of their constituency which is mainly rich white voters. Otherwise, they would be "primaried." Increasingly, their constituency also includes white, angry voters. They are angry that whites are in danger of losing control of the country, and people in these other groups will become equal.

Will the unvaccinated stick to their political principles at the risk of losing their lives? Probably. They think it can't happen to them, and them is all they care about. Anything to give Joe Biden a defeat, and the perpetuation of the pandemic will give Biden a defeat. Eliminating the pandemic would be a victory for Biden, and we can't have that. As Mitch McConnell said, "‘100%’ of my focus is on blocking the Biden agenda." Senator Barrasso went even further. He said he wants "to make Joe Biden a one-half-term president." This means that they will double down on not getting vaccinated. This amounts to an American Götterdämmerung. This was the Wagner opera that inspired Hitler to destroy Germany and himself if he couldn't win the war. So if Republicans can't beat Biden, they would prefer to bring the whole world down around our ears. The unvaccinated will cause another spike in hospitalizations and deaths. Some will beg for the vaccine as they are dying, but by then it will be too late.

Off the Top of My Head

Why Doesn't Biden Mandate That All Federal Employees Get Vaccinated?

by John Lawrence

Mr. Biden, stop pussyfooting around. Mandate that all 9 million Federal employees including military get vaccinated. Also Governors and Mayors can mandate that their employees be vaccinated. California has 2 million employees that work for the state. Governor Newsom could mandate that they all get vaccinated. New York City has 325,000 municipal employees. Mayor De Blasio could mandate that they all be vaccinated. And so on. It's time to get tough. The unvaccinated are putting everyone else at risk including 48 million school children under the age of 12 who can't get vaccinated. Businesses and corporations can mandate that their employees get vaccinated. Of course this will still leave out a lot of southern states under the control of Republicans who won't mandate that their employees get vaccinated. So in these states and municipalities and for these business owners all I can say is that, as the Delta variant sweeps through the population of the unvaccinated, there will be fewer people to vote Republican which may be a good thing.

An article in Rolling Stone June 10, 2021 reported:

The Biden administration announced that the government will not require federal employees to be vaccinated for Covid-19 in order to work in federal buildings.

Recommendations by the Safer Federal Workforce task force on Thursday state that the administration “strongly encourages” all Americans to get the vaccine, vaccination “should generally not be a pre-condition for employees or contractors at executive departments and agencies to work in-person in Federal buildings, on Federal lands, and in other settings as required by their job duties.”

The guidance also says that employees should not be mandated to disclose their vaccination status, but if an employee does disclose they are unvaccinated, “agencies should use that information to implement CDC-recommended mitigation measures, including masking and physical distancing.”

But things have changed very rapidly since June 10. There is a current surge in hospitalizations and deaths from COVID just as unvaccinated children are heading back to school.

The New York Times reported on June 22, 2021:

The spread of the super-contagious Delta variant has prompted new restrictions around the world and spurred stark new warnings from public health officials.

“The Delta variant is more aggressive and much more transmissible than previously circulating strains,” Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said at a White House briefing on Thursday. “It is one of the most infectious respiratory viruses we know of and that I have seen in my 20-year career.”

First identified in India, Delta is one of several “variants of concern,” as designated by the C.D.C. and the World Health Organization. It has spread rapidly across the world and poses a particular threat in places where vaccination rates remain low.

The variant is now responsible for more than 80 percent of infections in the United States, largely among unvaccinated people, according to the C.D.C. It is already fueling new outbreaks in states with low vaccination rates, including Missouri, Nevada and Arkansas.

Joe Biden has to get tough about this. The time for encouraging people to get the vaccine on a voluntary basis is over. There is a disaster in the making on top of the disaster represented by 625,000 deaths already in the US. Biden should use every tool in his toolbox to force people to get vaccinated or else face dire consequences.

Off the Top of My Head

Should We Hold Them Down Kicking and Screaming While We Jab Their Arms?

by John Lawrence

Oh, I forgot. We're not an autocracy. We are free to infect others, free to not get vaccinated, free to die and cause others to die. That's what makes us so great. We're not like one of these autocratic countries where they can mandate that everyone get vaccinated ... or else. Freedom has reached its rational limit and become toxic. We are also free to shoot people. We are not an autocratic country where they can mandate that with a few exceptions no one can own a gun. So we are free to kill each other, commit mass murder, assemble an arsenal in our parents' basement or read up on the internet about how to build a ghost gun or a bomb. Then Joe Biden wonders why autocrats laugh at the US' version of democracy. It's not about democracy, Joe. It's about too much freedom. We have created a nation of spoiled brats. America has forgotten the concept of community responsibility. Other democracies limit freedom, limit guns and limit the freedom to infect other. We have also let the virus be free to mutate to more virulent strains which might escape the vaccines that we have painstakingly developed.

There was just too much hoopla around having everyone mask free by July 4. Even Joe Biden was promoting that. Oh we'll all be free to hug Grandma and Grandpa, but wait a minute. No sooner had we hugged Grandma and Grandpa than we did a switchroonie and woke up to the fact that only 48% of the people had been vaccinated and the Delta variant had arrived on our shores. Now we are starting to realize that fully vaccinated people are getting COVID and even suffering quite severe symptoms. However, they are not dying so that's a good thing. The lesson is don't just go about living normally even if you're fully vaccinated especially if you're a senior citizen. The few fully vaccinated people who have died were over 65. So now we are having to pay people to get vaccinated? Just like we have to pay them to join the military? It's because we are too free. We are fee to ignore what's best for the community. We are free to think only of ourselves.

So what is public health? What is public anything? Ronald Reagan said the 9 most feared words in the English language are, "We're from the government, and we're here to help." Translation: Don't trust the government. The government can't do anything to help you so why should you do anything to help the government, including but not limited to, paying taxes. So everyone who can hire a financial advisor to tell them how to avoid paying taxes, which includes most rich people, proceeds to not do so. Not paying taxes is endemic among rich people who then have more money to spend on space ships. They give lip service to helping those of us who are earthbound after they have seen the curvature of the earth as if that triggered a moral awakening which they never had an inkling of before.

So Joe Biden, who I think is doing a fantastic job (but he can't do everything all at once), thinks that American democracy has the wherewithal to compete against his friends Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin who are openly skeptical about it. When it comes to vaccinations and guns, he may be wrong. Like Yogi Berra sid, "It ain't over till it's over" Truer words have never been said when it comes to COVID. The virus has one up on us with the Delta variant, and it may have others up its sleeve. Celebrating on July 4th like everything was back to normal was just a little bit premature.

Off the Top of My Head

What Will Happen to All Those Vaccines That Have Passed Their Use-By Date?

by John Lawrence

Joe Biden, with the help of various corporations, produced enough vaccine to give every American 2 shots. Only problem is that over half of Americans have refused to get them. So are those vaccines not taken going to spoil? After all they do have a finite shelf life. Some Americans' refusal to get vaccinated is putting more Americans at risk - vaccinated and unvaccinated, particularly children who aren't even eligible to get vaccinated. The Delta variant is causing many more "breakthrough" cases of COVID, which demonstrates that, even though you may be fully vaccinated, you're still at risk. As time passes with COVID still not under control, the virus has increased chances to mutate to an even more virulent strain, one which can escape the vaccine completely.

COVID is spreading like wildfire among the unvaccinated. Yet the US is incapable of imposing a mandate that everyone get vaccinated for fear that it would infringe on Americans' "freedom." Yes, Americans have the freedom to die and also to cause others to die. The unvaccinated will say that they are free to take their chances without even mentioning or considering that they're not only putting their own lives at risk, they are putting other lives at risk as well. They will say that they are young and healthy and think that their immune system is strong enough to fight off the virus. Meanwhile, they are transmitting it to others even if they are asymptomatic. What if the World War II generation took the same attitude about sacrificing for the war effort. Chances are we would be speaking German today.

CNN reported on July 20:

The surge in Covid-19 cases fueled by the Delta variant and vaccine hesitancy has now led to increasing rates of hospitalizations and deaths.

Data from Johns Hopkins University shows:

 

-- The average number of new Covid-19 cases each day the past week was 32,278. That's a 66% jump from the average daily rate the previous week, and 145% higher than the rate from two weeks ago.

 

-- An average of 258 Americans died from Covid-19 each day this past week -- up 13% from the rate of daily deaths the previous week.

 

The US has a glut of life saving vacciines while at the same time a majority of Americans who refuse to avail themselves of them. Most of these are in red states, states controlled by Republicans and states that voted for Donald Trump. Fox News and other right wing media is responsible for the dumbing down of the already dumbed downed. They see their job being to make stupid Americans even stupider in return for sending them money. They're missing the "entertainment" that Trump provided for them. Marjorie Taylor-Greene is doing her best to pick up Trump's dropped mantle. Facebook is not being aggressive enough in suspending the accounts of the worst offenders of bogus information providing. The whole free speech conundrum is causing big problems. A benign dictator wouldn't allow free speech which amounts to misinformation and disinformation, but the US is in a quandary about what free speech actually is and relies too heavily on the court system to settle all disputes. Instead of outright outlawing certain things, the attitude is "Let them fight it out in court."

Off the Top of My Head

Billionaires in Space and One on the Ground

by John Lawrence

We have been treated to media coverage of billionaires in space squandering their fortunes to have a "wonderful experience" while one has not gone to space. Instead he has spent billions eradicating disease and poverty in the world, furnishing children with computers and contributing to the effort to control the pandemic. In fact he warned us a pandemic was coming in 2015 in a Ted talk. Bill Gates is a true hero while Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos are spoiled brats relishing their "experiences" and astronaut wings. Of course it's Bill Gates who is denigrated on right wing media and those peddling conspiracy theories. Anyone who tries to do good in the world usually ends up with a similar fate. Such are human beings. For rich billionaires their rocket ships represent nothing more than "boys with their toys."

Bill Gates latest book, "How to Avoid a Climate Disaster," should be read by everyone and touted by the media. He didn't need to go to space and look back at the earth to have a mind altering experience. I'm so tired of these billionaires like Branson saying things like, "Well after I saw the curvature of the earth, it made me feel a common bond with all humanity." Yeah. Blah. Blah. Blah. Now he wants to do something about climate change? Well, let's see what. He is a mental and philanthropic lightweight compared to Gates. Where's his book about climate change and his Ted talk about the pandemic? He's all show and no action. It's all about showmanship and "wonderful experiences", and maybe you too will win a raffle and be able to go into space, or maybe some day when the price comes down, then you'll be able to go. Hooray and Hallelujah! It's just the way it is, you see. First the rich people get to go, and then some day it'll be cheap enough even for the middle class just like it was with air travel.

Google the Gates Foundation and these words come up: "We are a nonprofit fighting poverty, disease, and inequity around the world." This is what the other billionaires should be about as well as other rich nations of the world. I think the US, temporarily at least during the Biden administration, is about that. But that could change quicker than an augenblick if another Trump like government comes along. For the year ending in 2019, the Gates Foundation spent more than $5 billion on 1869 grants helping people all over the world. The US government by contrast spent $1 trillion on its military-industrial complex, something even Joe Biden has not had the nerve to change at least so far. He gets massive kudos, however, for ending the war in Afghanistan despite all the military-think Generals who want us to stay there in perpetuity just in case another bin Laden might be born some day.

Some good verbiage from the Gates website: "From poverty to health, to education, our areas of focus offer the opportunity to dramatically improve the quality of life for billions of people. So we build partnerships that bring together resources, expertise, and vision—working with the best organizations around the globe to identify issues, find answers, and drive change. Our work depends on grantees and partners across the United States and in more than 130 countries who have on-the-ground expertise, a deep understanding of the issues we care about, and strong ties with the communities in which we aim to make a difference. At the same time, we have learned the value of having foundation representatives based in key regions—to help us build relationships with partner organizations and governments, better understand the policy environment, and remain culturally sensitive. We focus on issues we think are the biggest barriers that prevent people from making the most of their lives. For each issue we work on, we fund innovative ideas that could help remove barriers. Some of the projects we fund will fail. We not only accept that, we expect it—because we think an essential role of philanthropy is to make bets on promising solutions that governments and businesses can’t afford to make. As we learn which bets pay off, we adjust our strategies and share the results so everyone can benefit."

Going into space is like getting a sugar high. The self indulgent billionaires who do it are wasting their money on frivolities. The Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, despite the fact that the Gates's are getting divorced, are doing the work that needs to be done to bring the planet into alignment with our best natures. At the same time others are peddling bullshit misinformation to make as much money as possible even if it kills people. Expect the Republican base to be decimated because of right wing talk hosts like Tucker Carlson who are discouraging people from getting vaccinated. His watchers are the ones who will die from COVID. Democrats can stand by and watch while their competitors in the Republican party losing their constituents. It is a war by other means that Democrats are winning by default. Less people voting Republican is not an entirely bad thing even though health care workers will be working overtime to do their best to save them. Oh what tangled webs we weave.

Off the Top of My Head

Radicalized Veterans Supporting Trump in the Vanguard of January 6 Insurrection

by John Lawrence

Time magazine has an excellent article by Vera Bergengruen/Arab, Ala. and W.J. Hennigan/Washington, "From Combat to Conspiracy" detailing how radicalized veterans led the insurrection on January 6. I wrote about this previously in an article The Militarization of the American Mind. The fact of the matter is that the US military-industrial complex is composed not only of active military and corporations profiting from military hardware, but also a large number of civilians who are ex-military. The whole meme about honoring veterans - "Thank you for your service" - presupposes that these people are loyal Americans, not an out of control mob attempting to overthrow the government. Veterans are routinely honored at least in lip service and discounts, but the truth is far more disconcerting. These men and women have been processed through a system that has taught them not to think critically but to follow orders. They are more or less taught to espouse conservative politics.The Times article continues: "Of the more than 500 people arrested in connection with the Jan. 6 riot, at least 1 in 10 was a current or former member of the U.S. military, according to a George Washington University analysis. Many had served in the protracted post-9/11 conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, returning home to a country that paid them lip service but moved on without much notice to the wars they had fought."

The insurrectionists' attitude is a reflection of the fact that the US is a militarized nation with over 800 bases in almost every country of the world. Defense contractors like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman and others form the economic backbone of the nation. Is it any wonder then that at least a sizable minority of the nation's people favor an autocrat like Donald Trump to an experienced public servant like either Hilary Clinton or Joe Biden? When I worked in the military-industrial complex for General Dynamics and the Naval Electronics Laboratory, we were encouraged to vote Republican for fear our funding would decline under a Democratic administration and we would be RIFed (Reduction in Force-ed). This is how insidious the militarization of the American mind actually is. The Times article continues: "[One veteran] became involved with local chapters of the Oath Keepers in central Florida, whose recruiting materials reminded members that their oath was forever. “America’s veterans truly are like a sleeping giant. It is time to awaken them and fill them with a terrible resolve to defeat the domestic enemies of our Constitution,” says one chapter’s mission statement, according to documents reviewed by TIME. “If we can’t get the veterans to step up … to save our Republic, then how can we expect to get the rest of our people to do what must be done?”"

"As with other veterans whose involvement in right-wing groups like the Oath Keepers led them to the Capitol on Jan. 6, James’ descent into alleged extremism seemed less an expression of long-held political fervor than the desire to be part of a larger patriotic cause.

"Little data is kept on how often and why veterans get involved with extremist groups, but there are plenty of high-profile examples throughout American history. Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Confederate army general, was the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. George Lincoln Rockwell, a Navy veteran, founded the American Nazi Party. Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, both Army veterans, were convicted of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.

"Founded by a former Army paratrooper in 2009, the Oath Keepers has quickly become one of America’s largest antigovernment extremist groups. It heavily recruits current and former military and law-enforcement members, encouraging them to see themselves as “the last line of defense against tyranny,” according to Oath Keepers websites. The group’s name refers to the oath sworn by members of the military and law enforcement “to defend the Constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic.” Some members falsely believe that the federal government has been taken over by “a cabal of elites actively trying to strip American citizens of their rights,” according to the FBI."

The military had become for many veterans a way of life that they missed after returning to civilian life. "“Militia groups have really familiar structures of command,” [author] Belew says. “They have structures of fraternal bonding, they have the organizational social elements that are very similar to the armed forces—and they’re built that way deliberately.

"Only now are federal authorities formally drawing up a strategy to handle the problem of military veterans’ joining extremist groups. The Biden Administration’s strategy to combat domestic terrorism includes plans to prevent veterans from being recruited by extremists. Currently, there are no efforts that focus on veterans once they have left service, despite evidence that they are increasingly the targets of online misinformation and extremist recruitment.

"Security analysts, veterans’ groups and experts say it will be vital to combat both the isolation and the fear-mongering that lead former service members to think of their fellow Americans as the enemy or, worse, take the law into their own hands. “It’s important not to fixate too much on the Oath Keepers as an organization but to think of them as a concrete example of a broader phenomenon in America,” says Sam Jackson, a homeland-security expert at the University of Albany who wrote a book on the group. The alleged radicalization of James, the growth of local chapters and the national organization should be “seen as a Russian nesting doll” that shows a much larger movement, he says, “of people who view America as being hijacked by internal and external enemies.” But little is likely to change unless more Americans come to agree on what it means to be an extremist and what it means to be a patriot."

Wake up, America, and smell the coffee. The militarization of the American mind reflects the militarization of America's purported purpose in the world which is to exert military force projected over the whole world. A person like exPresident George W Bush, who lied us into the war in Iraq, has the nerve to criticize Joe Biden for withdrawing American forces from Afghanistan after a 20 year futile war which accomplished nothing. We got Bin Laden in an operation which had nothing to do with boots on the ground in Afghanistan. He was in Pakistan. Afghanistan had nothing to do with 9/11. The attitude of both civilian and military leaders from the top down legitimizes the US' continued military presence throughout the world and thoroughly indoctrinates American veterans and civilians in the military mindset. Until the US becomes a nation which is more interested in promoting development throughout the world and contributing to the betterment of peoples' lives throughout the world, a large number of Americans will favor right wing causes and conservative politics.

'This Summit Was a Failure': Biden-Merkel Meeting Ends With No Deal on Vaccine Patent Waiver

U.S. President Joe Biden and German Chancellor Angela Merkel hold a joint press conference in the East Room of the White House in Washington, D.C. on July 15, 2021. (Photo: Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)

Biden's inability to persuade Merkel to drop her opposition to the patent waiver "delivers a punishing blow to efforts to end the pandemic," said one critic.

 

Jake Johnson

July 16, 2021

The brief bilateral summit between U.S. President Joe Biden and outgoing German Chancellor Angela Merkel ended Thursday without any commitment from the European leader to drop her opposition to a temporary patent waiver for coronavirus vaccines, a result that public health campaigners dubbed a major failure as infections continue to surge across the globe.

"Tens of millions of lives and livelihoods worldwide are left in peril, including here, given that raging Covid outbreaks anywhere increase the chances for a vaccine-resistant strain emerging."
—Lori Wallach, Public Citizen

Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch, said in a statement that Biden's inability to move Merkel on the patent waiver "delivers a punishing blow to efforts to end the pandemic."

"People around the world dying for lack of vaccines were relying on Biden to get Merkel to stop blocking the waiver given that he promised that if elected president, he wouldn't allow Big Pharma monopolies to block global vaccine and treatment access," said Wallach. "Tens of millions of lives and livelihoods worldwide are left in peril, including here, given that raging Covid outbreaks anywhere increase the chances for a vaccine-resistant strain emerging. We urge the president to redouble his efforts to get the waiver enacted."

While Biden reportedly raised the patent waiver during his private meeting with Merkel on Thursday, it's unclear to what extent he pressed the German leader on the issue—and the president did not mention the proposal during a news conference following their discussion.

Merkel, who was also silent on the patent waiver during the media briefing, said that "we are convinced... that overcoming this pandemic is only possible if as many people as possible are vaccinated in our countries."

"We have to also support the rest of the world with vaccines. We work together with COVAX," the German leader said, referring to the World Health Organization-backed global vaccination initiative that has struggled to meet its goals due to supply shortages.

Experts and public health advocates have argued that the only way to ensure the speedy production and equitable distribution of at least 11 billion vaccine doses—the number believed to be necessary to end the pandemic worldwide—is to temporarily suspend intellectual property protections that are allowing major pharmaceutical companies to maintain a vice grip on vaccine formulas and key technology.

Activists amplified that message outside the White House and across the nation during Merkel's U.S. visit, lining up body bags in the nation's capital to symbolize the preventable deaths caused by the European leader's continued obstruction of the waiver proposal, which India and South Africa first introduced at the World Trade Organization (WTO) back in October.

Proponents argue that a suspension of certain intellectual property protections for the duration of the pandemic would help facilitate the production of generic vaccines, which could then be distributed to low-income nations that have struggled to obtain doses thanks in part to hoarding by wealthy countries.

"As long as Germany withholds its approval of the TRIPS waiver, it threatens the lives of millions of people around the world and our ability to crush the virus."
—Rep. Pramila Jayapal

According to Our World in Data, just 1% of people in low-income countries have received at least one vaccine dose. Haiti—in the midst of a political crisis following the assassination of its president—had yet to administer a single vaccine dose as of Thursday, when 500,000 doses donated by the U.S government through COVAX arrived in the country.

Jean Gough, UNICEF's regional director for Latin America and the Caribbean, said in a statement that "thanks to this donation, hundreds of thousands of Haitians will receive their shots against Covid-19."

"Yet, despite the collective efforts to kickstart the vaccination campaign soon, most of the Haitian population is at risk of remaining unvaccinated due to the limited availability of doses currently in the country," Gough warned.

Biden garnered widespread applause after he voiced support for the temporary patent waiver in May, but the president has since come under fire for not doing enough to convince other world powers—including Germany, Canada, and the United Kingdom—to follow suit. Because the WTO operates by consensus, a handful of rich countries have the power to block a proposal backed by more than 140 countries.

"This summit was a failure," Wallach said Thursday, "and we urge Biden to prioritize getting the WTO waiver enacted ASAP so more Covid vaccines and treatments can be produced worldwide."

With Germany and other rich countries stonewalling the patent waiver, the ultra-contagious Delta variant of the coronavirus is running rampant in undervaccinated regions of the world, including Africa, South America, and pockets of the United States. The World Health Organization said Thursday that Africa reported a million coronavirus cases in just the past month, the fastest surge of new infections on the continent thus far.

"As long as Germany withholds its approval of the TRIPS waiver, it threatens the lives of millions of people around the world and our ability to crush the virus," U.S. Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said in a statement Thursday, referring to the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights agreement.

"The pandemic isn't over until it's over everywhere," Jayapal added.

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Report Card: Six Months Into Biden’s Presidency

by Robert Reich

Wednesday, July 14, 2021

Joe Biden has a good chance of getting America back to where it was before the pandemic. Covid-19 is in retreat. So far, almost half of the adult population has been fully vaccinated. The economy is roaring back – still 7 million jobs short of where it was in January 2020 but on track to return to the starting gate by the end of the year. Biden’s “American Rescue Plan” is a major success.

But it’s not clear Biden will get America back to where it was before Trump. His initial slew of executive orders erased most of Trump’s executive orders, but he hasn’t yet demolished all of Trump’s cruel immigration policies. Trump’s xenophobic rhetoric is gone but Biden hasn’t repaired relations with China. Many of Trump’s tariffs are still in place. And even with a bare Democratic majority in the US Senate, there’s little chance Congress will repeal all of Trump’s tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy.

What about Biden’s big plans to remake America? Depending on your point of view, they’re either on hold or stalled. He’ll likely get bipartisan support for over half a trillion dollars of new spending for “hard” infrastructure. That’s not nothing. Beyond that, it’s anyone’s guess what Senate Democrats will agree to on legislation covering childcare, the environment, and healthcare and education that can circumvent a Republican filibuster.

The biggest potential disaster concerns voting rights. As Republican-dominated states continue to restrict voting on the basis of Trump’s big lie about 2020 election fraud, and the Supreme Court signals its reluctance to get in the way, the only hope lies in what was supposed to be the Democrats’ highest priority – the For the People Act, setting minimum national standards for voting, and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, restoring the potency of the old Voting Rights Act after the Court gutted it in 2013. But Senate Republicans won’t go along, and the refusal of a few Senate Democrats to alter the filibuster rule to allow them to be passed by a bare majority has condemned them to limbo.

Biden’s failure to make the right to vote his highest priority  – to visibly fight for it, make it his own personal cause, and go on the road to take that cause to the American people – is not only bad policy for the nation. It’s also bad politics. It may cost Democrats dearly in next year’s midterm elections, and beyond.

Off the Top of My Head

One Million French Sign Up For Vaccinations After Macron Demands Passes for Restaurants, Cafes

by John Lawrence

French vaccination rates were lagging in France as they are here. Then French President Emmanuel Macron got on TV and told Frenchmen they would not be able to go to cafes and restaurants unless they had a vax pass. Qelle horreur! A Frenchmen not allowed to enter a French cafe or even bicycle home with a batard? It is, je ne sais quoi, impensable. So why couldn't Joe Biden do the same thing here? Just get on TV and inform the American people that they won't be able to go to bars and restaurants or baseball games or theme parks unless they are fully vaccinated and show their card proving this at the entry gate? Because in America you have to tread lightly around what Americans think are their rights. In this case they think they have a right to infect not only themselves but those around them and to demand service from overworked doctors and nurses when they get sick.

I think France is a democracy, but Macron seems to have a lot more power than a US President who evidently cannot mandate that the American people do anything. This is definitely not the roll up your sleeves and get to work World War II generation. This is not Gen X or Gen Y. This is Gen Selfish. Gen not give a damn about anyone but themselves. No wonder they like Trump so much. He exemplifies their values. Even in France young people think they should be able to do what they want. “I’m getting vaccinated because I want to have a social life and go on holidays,” law student Marius Chavenon, 22, said, adding: “I don’t think vaccination should be compulsory. We live in France, we should be able to do what we want.” Man the barricades, the ancien regime is about to fall. Instead of Marie Antoinette saying "Let them eat cake," Macron is saying "Let them get vaccinated."

The US central government is weak because of states' rights. States have the prerogative of overruling Federal mandates. Oh excuse me, has Joe Biden overstepped his bounds when he demands that people get vaccinated? Not in my state says the governor of Florida and the other southern states. We will not be told what to do by the central government. This does not happen in most democracies. The provinces are subordinate to the central government, but not in the US. This is one of the flaws in the American version of democracy. It doesn't have to be this way for a nation to qualify as a democracy. America is a nation of spoiled brats. They are a bunch of selfish misinformed, stupid A holes. They figure that that's their right as an American.

The virus has its own methodology. It has no respect for American sensitivities. While Joe Biden has to walk on eggshells, COVID does not. It doesn't care about the fact that Americans want to get back to their normal life of going to bars and restaurants, baseball games and theme parks. It doesn't care about Americans' right of self-indulgence. Facebook should be mandated to take down any misinformation about getting vaccinated, but that's how they make their money and the central government would be overstepping its bounds if they mandated Facetime to do so. So what to do? Local governments and businesses can mandate that their employees get vaccinated. They have more power than does the US government in this circumstance evidently.

Off the Top of My Head

Joe Biden's Infrastructure Deal is Pure Political Genius

by John Lawrence

Joe Biden is a consummate deal maker. With slim majorities in Congress he is going to get his massive infrastrucure deal including human infrastructure done in a 2 step process. First he gets Manchin to agree that, if there's a bipartisan deal on conventional infrastructure, he will vote for an all Democrat budget reconciliation bill for human infrastructure. The genius is putting 11 Republicans on the bipartisan committee and then getting them to agree on the bill. That way they know that those 11 Republicans will vote for it in the Senate giving Democrats a veto proof win there (even if one renegs) and also proving that bipartisanship is possible. So the $1.2 trillion conventional infrastructure deal is locked in, and also Manchin is locked into the $3.5 trillion all Democrat reconciliation bill for human infrastructure. So it's a win-win in two steps - first getting 10 Republicans to vote for something, and then getting Joe Manchin to vote with Democrats so that they have 50 votes plus Kamala's tie breaking vote in the Senate for human infrastructure. Furthermore, part of the deal is that, if more than one of the 11 Republicans on the bipartisan committee renegs on their vote, Manchin will be on board with adding that $1.2 trillion to the $3.5 trillion for the budget reconciliation bill. It's pure political genius, and it had to revolve around Joe Manchin. It doesn't matter to Biden that he had to go out of his way to placate Manchin as long as in the final analysis his landmark infrastructure bill gets done.

So all the behind the scenes sausage making has paid off. It's a done deal even though all the i's have not yet bee dotted nor have all the t's been crossed. Chuck Schumer expects the legislation to be on Biden's desk before the August break. So this all bodes well for future legislation as Biden will continue to outsmart and outfox Republicans. Look next on the voting rights act. It will need either another budget reconciliation or a carve out of the filibuster. Again Manchin will be the key player that will have to be placated. Here's how it could happen. Another bipartisan committee that will settle on Manchin's own voting rights act, something Manchin has already put forward and which Stacey Abrams approves of. Shazam! Another done deal or else, if there is no successful outcome for the projected bipartisan committee, Manchin will agree to a carve out of the filibuster. The argument that, if Democrats negate the filibuster, then they will not have it as their prerogative when they are the minority party, is specious. Just because Democrats keep the filibuster in place is no guarantee that Republicans will not do away with it when they are the majority party. It can be eliminated by a simple majority vote of the party in power. And you can't count on any "gentlemen's agreements" with Republicans. So Democrats should do carve outs if Manchin will agree to them if he gets his own voting bill passed and after some bipartisan maneuverings that don't pan out.

So the lesson is let's be patient and let Biden and his teams work their political magic. I think it will work despite hostile Republican opposition to everything Democrats put forward. Democrats might as well go for broke on voting rights, immigration reform, police reform, gun reform and everything else they want to do providing they can placate the sentiments of Joe Manchin's sensibilities. They have learned their lesson that you can't expect any help from Republicans - that is unless you form a bipartisan committee first and then maybe not even then. But as long as you have all Democrats on board anything is possible. I also expect Biden to forgive student loan debt at least a portion of it as was his campaign promise right before the 2024 election if not before. Also please, Mr Biden, do what you promised regarding social security.

Off the Top of My Head

The Graveyard of Empires

by John Lawrence

After 20 years of occupation and war, nothing has been accomplished. Afghanistan is truly the graveyard of empires.Yet there are those who argue that the US should stay there in perpetuity. Why? It's in their economic interests to perpetuate the US war machine. Afghanistan is the same old story as told first in Vietnam. The only good news is that, after the US lost the war in Vietnam and cleared out completely, Vietnam became a normal country again and a success story. The same cannot be said of Korea where a draw produced one implacable enemy of the US armed with nuclear arms. The militarists will find another preoccupation somewhere else in the world to justify spending trillions of dollars and untold numbers of human lives to protect US interests which would be better protected in the first place by just providing economic aid for development which is something by the way that China is already doing. The puppet government the US set up in Kabul only siphoned off all the money the US provided while the Taliban was actually helping fellow Afghanistanis. Why does the US think that it can invade a country, set up a puppet government and try to create a society which mirrors the US?

The lesson is that other societies have their own unique cultures. They don't want to become little Americas. The individuals there who do want to emulate the US are only interested in becoming rich themselves off of US provided "aid." Corruption has been the downfall of US efforts in Afghanistan as it was in Vietnam. The US could create more peace in the world by helping to resolve and reconcile the Korean peninsula which would have been better off if the US had never invaded there. It would be more like Vietnam today. As for Afghanistan providing a haven for terrorists, the US has sufficient surveillance and intelligence capabilities, so called "over-the-horizon capabilities, that that is highly unlikely. The US doesn't need boots on the ground to take out any terrorist assets in Afghanistan or elsewhere. The US should turn its attention to more humanitarian activities in Afghanistan and around the world as it did recently in opening up a distribution route for providing necessities to refugees in Syria. Finally, we have a President, Joe Biden, who finally gets it - that the road to peace in the world is alleviating poverty and providing developmental help to other societies but letting them run their own societies without the US trying to mold them in the US' image.

But isn't that what China is already doing by reaching agreements with other societies in which China provides developmental aid without trying to tell them they have to recreate themselves in China's image? If the US wants to compete with China, maybe we should take a page out of China's book and provide developmental help rather than military intervention. You can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar meaning the US can advance its interests more by showing respect for the traditions and cultural heritages of other societies than trying to order them around and using bullying tactics, insults and sanctions. Probably Putin also would be more amenable to helping the US track down the ransomware criminals if he weren't treated as a pariah. After all he is the most popular leader in the world among his own people.

Off the Top of My Head

As an American, You Are Free to Be Stupid AND Carry a Gun

by John Lawrence

The definition of a rational person is one who would not go out of his way to increase the chances of his own death. The definition of a stupid person is one who would do the opposite. Right now the Republican party is advising its adherents to not get a vaccination that could save their life. Forget about protecting those around them as well which is not even on their radar. Many in the Trump wing of the Republican party are swallowing the Kool-Aid reminiscent of Jim Jones who convinced 900 Americans to commit mass suicide. Until the September 11th attacks, the tragedy in Jonestown on November 18th, 1978 represented the largest number of American civilian casualties in a single non-natural event. It is unfathomable now, as it was then, that members of a San Francisco-based religious group called the Peoples Temple died after drinking poison at the urging of their leader, the Reverend Jim Jones, in a secluded South American jungle settlement. The same thing is happening today due to Trump and his conspiracy minded followers in the Republican party like Wayne Dupree openly urging their followers not to get vaccinated after COVID has killed more than 600,000 of their fellow Americans. However, Trump evidently told his followers at CPAC half heartedly to go and get vaccinated. Let's see if that has any effect.

The Jonestown phenomenon demonstrates how a charismatic leader who holds his followers in total sway can convince them to do anything including even killing themselves. Trump has this kind of sway over his followers. They will believe and do whatever he tells them including invading the Capitol on January 6. The only thing I don't understand about that insurrection is why the insurrectionists weren't openly carrying AK-47s which evidently is their Constitutional right. Maybe next time they will be. So the Republican party has become similar to the followers of Jim Jones who believed anything he told them regardless of whether it was in their self interest or not. This is pretty close to the Trump followers who will believe anything he tells them regardless of whether or not it bears any resemblance to the factual truth or whether or not its in their self interest. You might think that Trump followers would put their self interest in preserving their own lives ahead of their interest in demonstrating their allegiance to the Republican party. The followers of Jim Jones demonstrated the opposite. People who have loyalty to a strong leader will believe anything he tells them regardless of the verifiability of his pronouncements. They don't need any verification, only belief. Even Ronald Reagan said, "Trust, but verify."

This is a problem of religious fanatics as well. Religious fanatics such as the Jonestown crew place more stock in their beliefs than they do in verifiable facts. Time after time religious pronouncements have had to give way, at least among rational people, to verifiable facts. The Catholic church used to persuade people that the sun went around the earth. Gallileo proved the opposite yet had to renounce his proof to save his own life. The matter was investigated by the Roman Inquisition in 1615, which concluded that the fact that the earth went around the sun was foolish, absurd, and heretical since it contradicted Holy Scripture. Galileo later defended his views in Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems (1632), which appeared to attack Pope Urban VIII and thus alienated both the Pope and the Jesuits, who had both supported Galileo up until this point. He was tried by the Inquisition, found "vehemently suspect of heresy", and forced to recant. He spent the rest of his life under house arrest. The Catholic church did not officially admit Gallileo was right until 1992!

The lesson here is not to believe anything that isn't subject to verification especially if it would lead you to harm yourself or others. Right now Republicans are urging their followers to harm themselves by not getting vaccinated just because Joe Biden, a Democrat, wants them to. This freedom to be contentious, of course, is allowed by the Constitution and, apparently, is endemic to the human race! Utter nonsense is allowed by the right of free speech. Ironically, in the US, which has a glut of life saving vaccines, some people are dying because of their freedom to refuse to get vaccinated while people in other countries are begging for vaccines in order to save lives. A country like China, if they had enough vaccine for every citizen, would mandate that they all get vaccinated. In America no mandate is possible because of the First Amendment. This is where a country like China will outcompete a country like the US because it will not stand for this nonsense. The US has to place limits on both the First and Second Amendments in order not only to compete with other countries but in order to just hold our own with other countries. In the mean time, the only alternative is for private companies and local governments to insist or "mandate" that people get vaccinated.

Off the Top of My Head

The Militarization of the American Mind

by John Lawrence

From seemingly rational thought processes that would make it impossible to end the war in Afghanistan to the insurrection at the Capitol to the "American movie" chock full of violence to the "well regulated militia" justification of gun proliferation, there is no end of rationalizations for the American military-industrial complex and gun culture on every level. Why does it come as a surprise to some journalists that many participants in the January 6 insurrection were current or ex military or police officers? They are exactly the ones with the mind set that believes Trump won the election, and that it was OK to do what their leader commanded them to do - invade the Capitol. The Generals who say that Biden shouldn't end the Afghanistan war on the grounds that the Kabul government will collapse are exactly the ones that argued we shouldn't end the Vietnam war because the South Vietnam government would collapse. Sure when the US sets up a puppet government and then props it up with money and a military presence, it probably will collapse when the US leaves that country which it never should have invaded in the first place. Afghanistan is Vietnam all over again or as Yogi Berra would say deja vu all over again.

The division among Americans into two tribes can be understood in terms of the two paths Americans take after high school graduation. There are those who go to college and there are those who go into the military. Those are basically the two choices high school graduates have. Those who go to college are taught to think critically to some extent, while those who go into the military are taught to obey orders. Unfortunately, Trump, as their Commander-in-Chief gave them the order to invade the Capitol, and they felt justified in following it because that is what their training led them to do. The choice to go into the Peace Corps or AmeriCorp is not really viable for most high school graduates because the perks of going into the military greatly exceed the perks of going into more peaceful pursuits, and they are less glorious. This is also a characteristic of the militarization of the American civilian mind. The military-industrial complex including, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and Northrop Grumman, profits greatly from ongoing militarization and military thought processes, employs most of the college graduates and provides debate ending rationalizations for American military preparedness despite the fact that their extremely expensive hardware doesn't work half the time, and the threats to America are primarily cyber in nature as well as domestic terrorism.

The divide and contrast between high school graduates who go into the military and are taught to follow orders and those who go to college is reflected in the political divide between those on the right and those on the left.The military is all about symbolism including snappy uniforms, medals for valor in combat, saluting the flag and honoring themselves for their patriotism. On the left results in the improvement of the lives of the American people - and not just the elite civilian Officer's Corps - are more important than symbols of glory. They are more likely to question authority rather than unquestionably following orders. The January 6 insurrectionists were following Trump's orders at least that's what they were thinking in their own minds and by their own admission. I would like to see the FBI release to the public the number of insurrectionists who were military or former military. I bet that would be most of them, especially the males. A lot of ex military go into police work because of the familiarity with weaponry which they gained in the military. Since guns are a familiar way of life for them, naturally they become arch supporters of the Second Amendment, "well regulated" or not. They are used to classifying groups of people as either friendly or the enemy, and this mind set lends itself to police work.

In the final analysis, America is so used to being the world's policeman and profiting in various ways therefrom, that it is unthinkable that we should cooperate with our supposed adversaries to forestall global warming or to thwart future pandemics let alone the current one. We must always have an enemy or at least an adversary to justify our existence. A peaceful world in which everyone gets along and cooperates to solve the problems we earthlings face and have to deal with is unthinkable. Even though the US has a glut of vaccines while the rest of the world is begging for them, Americans feel free not to have their arms jabbed because after all they are free - free to be stupid, free to ignore the safety of other Americans and free to get infected with the virus and die taking others with them.. They just want to get back to normal entertaining themselves to death and ignoring totally any responsibility to their fellow citizens not to mention fellow citizens of the world, many of which they would like to maintain in their necessary roles as the enemy.

Dr. Fauci wondered why we couldn't all unite to fight the common enemy  - COVID - instead of fighting among ourselves about taking the vaccine. Uniting to fight a common enemy like COVID or climate change just isn't the way Americans and maybe humanity in general do things. We need to disagree even about things that are crucial for our continued existence as a species. As a nation we need an enemy whether it be Russia or China seemingly to justify our existence.

Off the Top of My Head

A Word to the Wise Falling on Deaf Ears

by John Lawrence

All those unvaccinated people who refuse on principle to get vaccinated are food for fodder for the delta variant of the coronavirus. They insist they are free to remain unvaccinated and bear no responsibility to society to not infect others should they be infected. Furthermore, those who believe in conspiracy theories and other nonsense that has no basis in fact and those who have been politicized to believe that "doing the right thing" is so Democratic, those who are too macho to get a vaccination, are the ones who are going to get sick and die, and they will take down their unvaccinated friends with them. But they are too proud to do the right thing either to save their own lives or the lives of those around them. They are too proud and macho to have "common sense" or to act "rationally". That's what eastern elites do. They are beer drinking, pick-up driving, tatooed-to-the-hilt good 'ol boys who go duck hunting and treasure their gun collections. No namby pambyness for them.

These people who refuse to get vaccinated even when the more transmissble and deadly delta variant is running rampant are self nominating for the Darwin award. The Darwin award recognizes individuals who have contributed to human evolution by selecting themselves out of the gene pool by dying via their own foolish actions. Or by their own stupidity or ignorance. Those who are proud of their ignorance. "Oh, fuck it", they say, "I aint wearing no mask and I'm tough enough that no virus is going to bring me down." Ignorance and stupidity has been politicized to be a hallmark of the Republican party. They feel like they are the "real Americans." They are by and large Trump supporters and true believers in lies and conspiracy theories that Fox new, Republican leaders and social media spew forth. They could give a shit about putting themselves or others at risk. They just want to see President Biden fail in his goal of getting 70% of the American people vaccinated by July 4. They are looking forward to their victory in that regard.

Some people have been wondering why the Republican base seemingly votes against their own interests economically. Well we don't have to wonder any more. Tribal interests trump even economic interests for them. If you voted your economic interests, everyone except the upper 10% would vote Democratic. But that would mean they would have to throw in their lot with immigrants, people of color, poor people and the homeless, something they re too proud to do. So they remain staunch supporters of showmen, entertainers and snake oil salesmen, so-called leaders who can get them riled up, leaders who can get their red blooded blood boiling. Trump rallies have the flavor of the crowd at a wrestling match or a Mixed Martial Arts event. Blood lust, sweat and orgiastic hate, the impetus of the mob. Mob violence is what Trump rallies subtly evoke. Us against them, them being people of color and immigrants who happen to be people of color.

As Yogi Berra used to say, "It ain't over till it's over," and that's certainly true of the coronavirus. The longer it persists in the human population, the human population of the world, the longer the virus has to mutate and evolve into more deadly and transmissable variants. It's a war between the virus and us. It doesn't matter if the US population has herd immunity. What is necessary to defeat the virus is herd immunity of the entire population of the world.

'Move Forward' on Infrastructure, Ocasio-Cortez Says Amid GOP 'Fury' Over Two-Track Approach

Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) talk as they arrive for a discussion about the potential benefits of a Civilian Climate Corps at the U.S. Capitol on June 23, 2021. (Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

 

She says to "rebuild infrastructure and draw down carbon, lower the age of Medicare and extend it to cover vision and dental, expand childcare and housing accessibility, and serve the American people."

 

Jessica Corbett, staff writer

June 26, 2021

Some progressives are celebrating President Joe Biden's commitment to a two-track approach to infrastructure despite reports of GOP "fury" over his comments that the $579 billion bipartisan deal and a Democratic reconciliation bill must come to his desk "in tandem."

In a pair of Friday tweets about the Republican reaction to Biden's remarks, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) addressed some of the progressive priorities that are expected in a reconciliation bill that could be passed by Democrats without any GOP support.

"It's time to move forward, rebuild infrastructure and draw down carbon, lower the age of Medicare and extend it to cover vision and dental, expand childcare and housing accessibility, and serve the American people," she said. "That is bipartisan too, with two-party support among the electorate."

The congresswoman also accused GOP lawmakers who may now withdraw their support of the bipartisan infrastructure deal—which focuses on physical infrastructure like roads and bridges and is far smaller than Biden's American Jobs Plan—of negotiating with the White House in bad faith:

Josh Miller-Lewis of More Perfect Union responded to her tweets with a video from Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.)—who co-sponsors various climate legislation with Ocasio-Cortez—highlighting GOP behavior on a key climate bill over a decade ago.

"The last time Democrats were in power in Washington, I watched as climate action took a backseat to other legislative priorities, wasting precious time and political power," said Markey, then a member of the House. "We are in danger of making the same mistake."

Even though Democratic leadership in Congress has long been working on the dual-track approach, Biden's confirmation Thursday—the same day the bipartisan deal was officially announced—that he wouldn't sign just one of the bills thrilled progressives but outraged Republicans, including some who were involved in the recent negotiations.

The Washington Post revealed that senators who negotiated the bipartisan deal held a call about the president's position Friday afternoon.

"Many in the group were irritated about having stuck their necks out to back Biden's agreement in the first place and having just been at the White House less than 24 hours before," reported CNN. "Agreeing to the bipartisan deal was always going to put them at odds with some of their conservative colleagues, and they viewed the president's words as having undercut their good-faith deal."

According to Politico, "Democrats were privately confident afterward that their Republican colleagues would stay on board and that their outrage would pass."

Biden ally Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), who endorsed the deal, told the outlet that "having spoken with several colleagues, I'm optimistic that despite some hiccups, the historic scope and widespread public support for this bipartisan infrastructure deal will keep it moving forward."

Despite that optimism, Biden's promise to block bipartisan legislation without a reconciliation bill could be "a potential dealbreaker" for Republicans, Politico noted, citing GOP aides:

One aide said that clearly linking the two infrastructure bills was never discussed—not within the group of 10 senators who met Biden on Thursday, the bigger group of 21 senators who endorsed their work, or with the White House. A second aide said that frustrations run far deeper than Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who began griping publicly late Thursday.

"In endorsing the deal, Biden praised the group for 'keeping their word,' but then immediately broke his," said a third Republican aide.

"No deal by extortion!" Graham, who had endorsed the deal, tweeted Friday. "It was never suggested to me during these negotiations that President Biden was holding hostage the bipartisan infrastructure proposal unless a liberal reconciliation package was also passed."

In a series of tweets, NBC News policy editor Benjy Sarlin noted that while everyone involved with the talks knew a reconciliation effort was possible, Biden's clear requirement that the bills come together is new.

Ocasio-Cortez and others, meanwhile, pointed to previous comments from the president as well as GOP lawmakers that suggested everyone involved expected both a bipartisan deal and a reconciliation bill.

In a call Friday with Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), who led the bipartisan talks along with Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), "the president reiterated strong support for both the bipartisan infrastructure bill and a reconciliation bill containing the American Families Plan moving forward on a two-track system," according to a readout from the White House.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki echoed that message during a Friday briefing, telling reporters, "I think the American people are quite focused on how we're getting work done on their behalf—less focused on the mechanics of the process."

"Now, it is up to Republicans… to decide if they are going to vote against a historic investment in infrastructure that's going to rebuild roads and railways and bridges in their communities simply because they don't like the mechanics of the process," she added. "That's a pretty absurd argument for them to make. Good luck on the political front on that argument."

Though progressives welcomed Biden's commitment to a reconciliation bill Thursday, the bipartisan deal has generated concerns on several fronts—including its potential impact on unemployment benefits, its push for privatization, and the fact that it could exacerbate the climate emergency. 

"On infrastructure, the Biden administration has now presented a package where the contents are so far from what needs to be done it's impossible to even celebrate the dollar value," Alexander Sammon wrote Thursday for The American Prospect.

"It would be better to let the country's crumbling, outmoded, fossil fuel-heavy infrastructure continue to fall into disrepair," Sammon suggested, "than to take a deal that would extend the life and use of calamitous land and water use patterns further."

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'It's One Deal': Warren Says She Won't Vote for Bipartisan Infrastructure Plan Without Climate, Child Care

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) speaks to reporters prior to a vote on June 22, 2021 in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Olivier Douliery/AFP via Getty Images)

 

Jake Johnson, staff writer

June 24, 2021

 

"We can't let the infrastructure train leave the station while child care and clean energy get left on the platform—or while billionaires and big corporations don't pay their fair share in taxes."

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren made clear late Wednesday that she will not go along with a newly announced bipartisan infrastructure framework unless the Democratic leadership simultaneously presses ahead with a legislative package that includes child care, major investments in green energy, and other progressive priorities that are excluded from the emerging deal with Republicans.

"They may be voted separately, but it is one infrastructure deal," Warren said in an appearance on MSNBC. "I can't vote for some small subset that, you know—the infrastructure train leaves the station and child care gets left on the platform, green energy gets left on the platform."

"It's that all of the pieces have to move because, ultimately, it's one deal," added the Massachusetts Democrat, who also cited tax hikes on the wealthy as a necessary component of any infrastructure agreement.

Warren's comments came just as a bipartisan group of senators led by Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) announced a tentative deal with White House aides on an infrastructure blueprint calling for $559 billion in new spending over the next five years—a package far smaller than President Joe Biden's original $2.2 trillion American Jobs Plan.

"We demand no climate, no deal. Any Democrat who votes for this inadequate version of an infrastructure bill that doesn’t channel massive investments towards stopping the climate crisis is betraying our generation."
—Lauren Maunus, Sunrise Movement

While senators in the 21-member bipartisan group stressed that details still need to be ironed out at a meeting with Biden on Thursday, one unnamed source familiar with the negotiations told Politico that the agreement "is basically cooked."

"All that's left are the handshakes," Politico reported.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), the two top Democrats in Congress, told reporters Wednesday that they "support the concepts that we have heard about" but are awaiting additional details on the bipartisan framework.

In an apparent effort to assuage progressives' fears that climate action and other key priorities could be left on the cutting room floor, the Democratic leaders vowed Wednesday to use the filibuster-proof budget reconciliation process to simultaneously advance legislation that includes key agenda items omitted from the bipartisan deal. Given Democrats' slim margins in the House and Senate, they cannot afford many defections, meaning progressives have significant leverage over infrastructure developments if they're willing to use it.

"We can't get the bipartisan bill done unless we're sure we're getting the budget reconciliation bill done," said Schumer, who has been working with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on a sprawling $6 trillion reconciliation package that includes Medicare expansion and major climate investments.

"We can't get the budget reconciliation bill done unless we're sure of the bipartisan," Schumer added, alluding to conservative Democrats' opposition to using reconciliation without a bipartisan infrastructure deal in hand. "I think our members are—you know, across the spectrum, realize that."

Asked when the public can expect a vote on the bipartisan deal in the House, Pelosi responded, "As soon as we see a reconciliation bill."

Pelosi made similar comments to reporters on Thursday. "We will not take up a bill in the House until the Senate passes the bipartisan bill and a reconciliation bill," she said. "If there is no bipartisan bill then we'll just go when the Senate passes a reconciliation bill. But I'm hopeful that we will have the bipartisan bill."

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), the whip for the nearly 100-member Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC), welcomed Pelosi and Schumer's remarks as a positive sign, noting that "it was always unlikely for many members to support a bipartisan bill on infrastructure without a guarantee on a bold reconciliation bill moving simultaneously."

"It's time to deliver big on behalf of our constituents," Omar added.

Speaking to Punchbowl News on Wednesday, CPC chair Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) stressed that both the bipartisan package and the Democrat-only reconciliation bill—which can pass with a simple-majority vote—must advance at the same time to win her support, preemptively rejecting any leadership promises to tackle the reconciliation bill at some later date.

“We don't have a lot of faith in, 'I promise I'll do this,'" said Jayapal.

Huge questions remain about the contents of both packages as lawmakers continue to haggle over the details and demand inclusion of their priorities.

In recent days, as Common Dreams reported, advocacy organizations have raised concerns about the bipartisan group's proposal to finance their infrastructure package using so-called public-private partnerships and "asset recycling," practices that progressives rejected as thinly veiled attempts to hand public infrastructure over to corporations and Wall Street investors.

It's unclear whether progressives in Congress would be willing to tank the bipartisan deal over objections to those proposed pay-fors, which have not yet been finalized.

In a statement on Thursday, the youth-led Sunrise Movement reiterated its position that any agreement on infrastructure must come with substantial public investments in combating the climate crisis as the Western United States experiences a record-breaking heat wave and atmospheric carbon dioxide levels reach all-time highs.

"Not since 2009 have Democrats held control of both houses of Congress and the White House. This is a historic, narrow opportunity to combat the climate crisis, and we can't afford to kick the can down the road any further," said Lauren Maunus, Sunrise's advocacy director. "We demand no climate, no deal. Any Democrat who votes for this inadequate version of an infrastructure bill that doesn’t channel massive investments towards stopping the climate crisis is betraying our generation."

“Our leaders must step up," Maunus added. "We expect Schumer to pass the boldest budget resolution as soon as possible, go through reconciliation in July, and pass a robust infrastructure package by August recess. There can be no compromise and no excuses to get this done for the American people."

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Off the Top of My Head

Americans Getting Tired of All the Delays

by John Lawrence

Shit or get off the pot. Politicians of both parties are going round and round ad infinitum. A couple of Democrats are helping Republicans with their policy of making Joe Biden spin his wheels until they can take over again. They talk and talk or they don't even do that since they can't even vote in the Senate to debate something. Gridlock, political constipation and never-get-anywhereism. They just are not doing their job. They're letting 2 conservative Democrats control the party's agenda. Republicans are very pleased. They are carrying the Republicans' water. They will be even more pleased if Joe Biden gets nothing done other than what he's already accomplished which is considerable. Mitch McConnell wants to defeat Biden's entire agenda. Republicans are only too happy to sit back and let Manchin and Sinema do their dirty work. Meanwhile, China surges ahead not being restrained by any of these problems. After they delay and delay, they will be going on vacation for the August recess. They don't deserve a recess. They are proceeding at a glacial pace, and then finally they will have a vote which will not have enough Republican support to pass.

C'mon, guys. You're living in the pony express days. This is the age of computers. Expedite. Expedite. Don't spend so much time dialing for dollars. You can work remotely during your recess. These guys are overpaid for what they do, and then what they do doesn't amount to much. Juneteenth is a federal holiday. Clap. Clap. Symbolism is about as far as bipartisanship can go. MSNBC reported:

"Mitch McConnell's come under a lot of criticism for saying, at one point, he wanted to make sure that Barack Obama was a 'one-term president,'" [Wyoming Senator John] Barrasso said last Thursday at an event hosted by the Ripon Society, a centrist Republican think tank, which posted the remarks Tuesday. "I want to make Joe Biden a one-half-term president."

Problem with American Democracy: No sooner has one administration been elected, Republicans are getting ready for the next one in which they hope to regain power. So of necessity they have to do everything they can to make the current administration fail. No thoughts of doing something for the American people. It's all about defeating Democrats who just might do something constructive for the American people. Then when the Republicans get in power, they will reduce taxes on the rich which is about all they can think about doing, and they will do this without any worries or concerns about "pay fors." But anything Democrats want to do has to be covered by "pay fors."

Modern Monetary Theory explains that the US government doesn't need to tax before it can spend. The way the system works is that the Federal Reserve puts enough money into the US Treasury's account to cover any payments the US government has to make whether or not there is tax money to pay for it. The only thing to be concerned about is inflation if too much money in the economy is chasing too few goods and services or if enough human resources aren't available to soak up the spending. Most politicians are still living in the world that the US needs to tax before it can spend. They are totally ignorant in this regard. They don't know how the system actually works. The US has a sovereign currency. Therefore, it can never go bankrupt. It does not have to borrow money in the capital markets and pay the going rate of interest. It sets the interest rate on US debt. If no entity wants to buy US debt it ends up on the Fed's balance sheet where it can remain indefinitely. It never has to be paid off.

Forget about competing with China. The Chinese are running circles around the US because they don't have to deliberate ad nauseum before they act. They don't have to argue with states about states' rights. They don't go on August recess for a month when no work gets done. The US law stipulates that “unless otherwise provided by the Congress,” both Houses must adjourn no later than July 31 each year or the first Friday in August that occurs 30 days before the first Monday in September, until the second day after Labor Day. How many American get the entire month of August off?

Off the Top of My Head

US Is Not a Democracy. It's a Republic if We Can Keep It.

by John Lawrence

Benjamin Franklin said, “It's a republic, if you can keep it.” when asked if we had a monarchy or a republic. We almost didn't keep it when Trump tried to turn it into a monarchy with him as the first monarch. However, the US is not a democracy. A democracy would be a nation governed by a majority of the people. There are a lot of reasons why this is not the case. #1 States' rights: The Federal government is not a national government. It's not a central government with power over the whole nation. Because of states' rights, the US federal government is a weak form of government that shares powers with the states which can veto an administration's agenda if they feel so inclined. States can overrule the central government. A country with a strong central government can set its agenda at the national level and then pursue it without any obstructions from various states or regions or provinces. All things being equal, a nation with a strong central government will surge ahead of one with a weak central government in a competitive enironment.

#2 Representative instead of direct democracy. A representative democracy does not necessarily govern in the same way a direct democracy would. Representatives are subject to lobbying which distorts their votes and makes them represent their donors more than their constituents. Opinion polls show that a majority of Americans want gun control, affordable health care and addressing the issue of climate change among other things. Yet the US government does little if anything regarding these issues because vested interests are funding politicians to vote "No" on these issues.  #3 Gerrymandering or political party control of district boundaries. When a political party controls district boundaries they can draw the districts in such a way as to favor the electability of their party's candidate. They can also practically guarantee that their party's candidate will be elected in perpetuity.

#4 The Electoral College. The electoral college makes it possible for a Presidential candidate to win the popular vote and lose the electoral college vote and hence the Presidency. Again it's minority rule not majority rule.

#5 The winner-take-all two party system eliminates representation for minorities. The way the US districting system is set up, it is impossible for third party candidates to win. They can be spoilers though taking votes away from the party that they're closest to ideologically. A parliamentary system is more amenable to multiple parties being represented.

#6 A Constitution set in stone whose barriers to change are seemingly infinite. The Constitution can be amended but not change except for amendments. The amending process requires a two thirds vote, not a majority vote, and hence is undemocratic. Other countries have procedures whereby the whole Constitution could be changed or updated or rewritten.

#7 Lack of continuity: Elections every 2 years can change the direction of government or the government's agenda or lack thereof. #8 Gridlock: An administration's agenda can't go forward due to the filibuster. In short, while other countries are surging ahead, America has the political equivalent of constipation. Gridlock is the outcome of a divided country controlled by the minority.

Fareed Zakaria wrote in an article in the Washington Post, The decay of American democracy is real:

"One aspect of the United States’ power remains substantially diminished: its role as a beacon of democracy. Among countries surveyed, 57 percent of people said the United States is no longer the model for democracy it used to be. Young people worldwide are even more skeptical about America’s democratic institutions.

"In one fundamental way, things look worse now than in prior periods of crisis. After Watergate, many were surprised that the world looked up to the United States for facing and fixing its democratic failures. It was a sign of the country’s capacity to course-correct. But imagine if after that scandal, the Republican Party, instead of condemning Nixon, had embraced him slavishly, insisted that he did absolutely nothing wrong, settled into denial and obstructionism and proposed new laws to endorse Nixon’s most egregious conduct? Imagine if the only people purged by the party had been those who criticized Nixon?

"The decay of American democracy is real. It’s not a messaging or image problem. Until we can repair that, I’m not sure we can truly say America is back."

 

Off the Top of My Head

Without Majority Rule Is The US Still a Democracy?

by John Lawrence

The US Senate is not ruled by a majority. Arguably that makes the US not a democracy or a democracy in name only. The filibuster is an artificial rule that precludes majority rule in the Senate, and, therefore, in the US since the Senate is a representative body of the people. A majority of the people want gun control, but, because the Senate is not a democratic institution, there is no gun control. A Pew Research Center survey conducted in 2019 found that 60% of Americans say gun laws should be tougher. Conclusion: the US is no longer a democracy. Strong majorities of voters across party lines view access to clean water, a quality public education, adequate food, and housing as basic human rights that should be secured by the federal government. A survey by Harvard University found the following: "The right to clean air and water, for example, was considered important by 93 percent of those surveyed; protection of personal data, by 93 percent; the right to a quality education, by 92 percent; racial equality, by 92 percent; affordable health care, by 89 percent; and the right to a job, by 85 percent."

The filibuster precludes democracy. It is not in the Constitution. Neither is the right to own a gun. The Second Amendment states: "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." At the time of the American Revolutionary War, militias were groups of able-bodied men who protected their towns, colonies, and eventually states. They were state based armed groups that later became the National Guard. It was these groups that were allowed by the Constitution to bear arms, not every idiot who came down the pike. Other more mature societies regulate gun ownership the way the US regulates drivers.

NPR reports:

"It's illegal for Russian citizens to own automatic and semi-automatic guns. It's possible to apply for a handgun or shotgun license, though citizens are required to provide reasons such as hunting or target shooting. Applicants face strict background checks, including criminal history, a full psychological evaluation and a medical exam. They must pass a test on firearm laws and safety. Each weapon is then registered by the police during a home visit. Police take bullet patterns, test bullets and cartridges so bullets can be matched if the gun is used in a crime. A license lasts five years, after which applicants must go through the whole process again."

The US is falling apart because groups with lots of money are lobbying Congress to perpetuate their income stream from gun sales regardless of what the majority of US citizens want. Yet the US lectures other countries about human rights. Is it a human right to own a gun? I don't see it listed in the UN Declaration of Human Rights. What is listed is the following:

1. Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.
2. Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.

The controlling interests of US society are not the majority of the people. US society is controlled by wealthy interests which lobby Congress providing them with financial incentives to do their bidding. One of the main reason companies lobby Congress is to preserve their rights not to have to pay for externalities. Externalities are byproducts of the production process that pollute the environment. It would lower their profits if they had to pay for them. William D Nordhaus writes in The Spirit of Green:

"One prominent example is the activities associated with the Koch brothers and their companies. Koch Industries is a privately owned company holding companies with major environmental impacts and with revenues of around $115 billion in 2017. As reported by the Center for Public Integrity, one of Koch's holdings, Georgia-Pacific, is significantly impacted by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) decision on dioxin. They write that Koch has intervened 'in various regulatory proceedings to dilute or halt tighter federal regulation of several toxic by products that could affect its bottom line, including dioxin, asbestos and formaldehyde, all of which have been linked to cancer.' According to Greenpeace, 'Koch Family Foundations have spent $145,555,197 directly financing 90 groups that have attacked climate change science and policy solutions, from 1997 - 2018.'"

So it's understandable why Republicans especially don't want Joe Biden's climate change agenda to pass even though a majority (actually two thirds!) of Americans want the government to do something about climate change according to a Pew poll. "A majority of Americans continue to say they see the effects of climate change in their own communities and believe that the federal government falls short in its efforts to reduce the impacts of climate change." But since the Koch brothers and others like them have the Republican party in their pockets, the filibuster assures them that nothing will get done. And this is happening in a democracy where democracy rule supposedly prevails? The US, sadly to say, is no longer a democracy if it ever was.

Off the Top of My Head

The Infrastructure Bill and How to Pay for It Are Two Separate and Distinct Issues That Have Nothing to Do With Each Other

by John Lawrence

We know that the US government does not have to tax in order to spend since the US has a sovereign currency (See Modern Monetary Theory), and the Federal Reserve can just place the requisite amount of money for the infrastructure bill in the Treasury's account at the Fed. The problem is that, according to US law, if there is not enough money in the Treasury's account to pay for stuff, it must issue and sell Treasury bonds to make up the difference. These bonds then contribute to the deficit which is added to the national debt. We also know that the national debt never needs to be paid off, but Treasury bonds do need to be paid when the holder asks for the money when they come due. In addition interest does need to be paid on them. If the Fed keeps the interest rate for Treasuries at zero, this is not a problem. So why would anyone purchase Treasury bonds if they get zero interest? Well, countries that peg their currencies to the dollar (like China) need dollars in order to conduct business. Besides if someone comes to them with a basket full of renminbi and asks for US dollars, they have to be able to pay them the dollars and accept the renminbi. So there is always a market for US Treasury bonds. Even if there wasn't, the Fed would end up purchasing them and taking them onto its balance sheet where they would essentially disappear into a black hole never having to be paid back.

So what is the problem with just having the Fed create the money and place it in the Treasury's account without "paying for" it with taxes. No problem really. Joe Biden just wants to kill two birds with one stone. The first bird is the money for infrastructure. The second bird is doing something about the widening economic inequality by taxing the rich. There is no actual need to issue Treasuries in the first place except that US law requires it. The money could just go directly on the Fed's balance sheet without the intermediate step of selling Treasuries. There are however some good reasons for not taking too much advantage of this possibility. One is inflation. As more money floods into the economy through deficit spending, inflation could heat up whether or not the money comes from taxes. The other issue is that as other countries accumulate more and more Treasury bonds with or without interest being paid on them, they start to have the ability to use those dollars to purchase US assets. It's not inconceivable that a particular country - let's say China - couldn't accumulate enough Treasuries to buy up cities.

New York City has the most valuable real estate in the U.S. at $2.8 trillion — slightly more than the entire GDP of the United Kingdom for 2019. In fact, this is greater than the GDP of all but just five countries — India, Germany, Japan, China and the United States. The value of New York is comparable to the combined market value of tech giants Apple and Microsoft. China owns about $1.1 trillion in US Treasuries. If they demanded it all tomorrow, the Fed would have no problem paying them, but then they could buy up more than a third of New York City or almost all of San Francisco valued at $1.3 trillion. This could eventually become a problem so it would be better not to even make up the difference by issuing Treasuries in the first place. The alternative is for the Fed just to create the money and place it in the Treasury's account as authorized by Congress without the Treasury having to sell bonds to make up the difference between the amount of taxes and the amount of the authorization.

Then the issue becomes inflation. There is already wage inflation as employers are forced to pay more for employees, for a number of reasons, thus raising the price of products and services. This is "good" inflation since wage earners have not seen an increase in their income for 40 years. There is also "bad" inflation in that the increasing wealth of the upper 10% , and especially the upper 1%, is causing asset inflation in terms of the increasing cost of real estate and rent. Asset inflation is also happening in the stock market although it's hard to see how this is a bad thing except for the fact that about 50% of the people don't own stocks so that gap between rich and poor is only increasing. The third form of inflation occurs when there is too much money chasing too few goods and services. This could be caused by too much deficit spending. The fourth kind is the "super bad" inflation known as hyperinflation. This is the kind of inflation that affected the Weimar republic in Germany before the Second World War and also affects poor countries. It also recently affected Greece because Greece gave up its sovereign currency when it adopted the euro. Hyperinflation occurs when a country needs to borrow money from the capital markets subject to increasing interest rates. As their economy declines interest rates go up until finally they are paying more in interest than their economies can keep up with. The US can never be put in this position since it never has to go to the capital markets to borrow money. The Federal Reserve can just issue whatever money is needed and can set its own interest rate since the US dollar is a sovereign currency.

So while there are limits to the amount of prudent deficit spending, one of them is not paying for it through taxes. The US Federal government never has to tax in order to spend. It can pass a bill to build infrastructure with the only limitation being the physical and material resources that are available to do it.

https://www.cnbc.com/video/2019/03/01/stephanie-kelton-explains-modern-monetary-theory.html

 

Off the Top of My Head

How to Pay For Infrastructure

by John Lawrence

Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) points out that neither social programs nor tax cuts need to be "paid for." A government such as the US with a sovereign currency can issue the money without having to tax first. Taxes are only necessary to control inflation. The biggest amount of inflation in the economy right now is the inflation of billionaires' wealth assets because their increases in wealth are not taxable. The IRS only taxes workers' incomes, not billionaires increasing asset wealth. That's why economic inequality is growing by leaps and bounds, and we need a wealth tax. But as for infrastructure, the Fed can just create the money in the Treasury's account at the Fed with a few keystrokes on a computer like it did when it bailed out Wall Street in 2008.

In The Deficit Myth, Stephanie Kelton writes (circa 2015):

"No one [on Capitol Hill] questioned the significant need for infrastructure investment. A trillion dollars, while ambitious, would have only taken a bite out of the problem. No one blanched at the price tag, but there was considerable debate about whether (and how) to pay for it.

"Before I tell you about that debate, it's important to understand what those words mean to lawmakers and their staffers on Capitol Hill. In truth, there is only one way to pay for anything. All federal spending is carried out in exactly the same way - that is, the Federal Reserve credits the appropriate bank account(s). But in Washington speak, you "pay for" your spending by showing that you can "find" enough money to cover the cost of whatever it is you're proposing to spend. It's all a game, really, and it's rooted in the flawed mental model [that the government needs to tax and/or borrow before it spends] that holds back so much of our potential. To avoid adding to the deficit, lawmakers look for ways to cover the costs of their proposed spending without borrowing. That means they usually go looking for new tax revenue."

As Kelton points out, the US doesn't need to tax before it can spend. Biden's wanting to pay for infrastructure by taxing the rich is not necessary to pay for infrastructure per se, but it is necessary to get unbounded economic inequality under control.

Kelton continues:

"So back to the debate over the trillion-dollar infrastructure ill. The conversation began with staffers being asked whether we thought a so-called pay-for should be attached to the bill. It was my first week on the job, so I was relieved when another staffer spoke up first. "No," this person began, "I think we should just do it as a clean bill." A clean bill meant writing a spending bill that didn't include any language abut how to pay for it. Another staffer agreed, and soon I echoed their sentiments. Our country desperately needed to make these investments. There was clearly enough fiscal space to do it, and infrastructure is one of the things that has traditionally enjoyed bipartisan support. Since the GOP was in control of the Senate, we reasoned, the bill would need at least some support from Republicans to pass. [Ha. Ha] Proposing a tax increase would guarantee defeat. Not everyone agreed. Another staffer objected that the press wouldn't take the legislation seriously unless it specified exactly how it would be paid for. In the end, the bill included a proposal to raise revenue by closing a variety of tax loopholes that overwhelmingly benefit the rich. Needless to say, the legislation did not pass. Meanwhile, the latest ASCE [American Society of Civil Engineers] report card shows how deferred maintenance is catching up with us, as the cost of our needed improvements has climbed to a whopping $4.59 trillion."

Is it deja vu all over again? Is it gridlock or spinning our wheels as infinitum? Is it Republicans thinking it is more important to defeat Obama's and now Biden's agendas than it is to prevent bridge collapses?

Kelton's point is that the US doesn't really need to "pay for" anything by taxing first or finding the money first. "In 2017, a 1215-page bill, known as the National Defense Authorization Act, sailed through the Senate with a vote of 89-9. The White House had requested $700 billion, but the Senate had authorized $737 billion, kicking in another $37 billion without hint of concern about where to "find" the money. They simply voted in an overwhelmingly bipartisan way to increase the Pentagon's discretionary budget."

Yet the Pentagon budget has not protected us from international ransomware attacks nor domestic terrorists. May I submit that the money is misspent and misdirected? Instead of going where the money is really needed it goes to the vested interests in the military-industrial complex who continue to justify war in order to line their own pockets.

Kelton continues: "That might seem like a double standard. As Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez put it, "We write unlimited blank checks for war. We just wrote a $2 trillion check for the GOP tax cut, and nobody asked those folks, 'How are they going to pay for it?' She's right. Somehow, there's always money for war and tax cuts. For just about everything else, however, lawmakers are expected to show that they can "pay for" their spending."

As MMT has shown, the US government does not need to tax or borrow in order to spend. Taxation is necessary to control inflation, to extract money from the economy if there is too much of it out there chasing too few goods or services. Right now there is too much money out there in the hands of billionaires that should be extracted in order to prevent runaway financial inequality. But it is not necessary to tax before money can be spent on infrastructure or anything else. There are limits, and the limits are the material and human resources that are available to soak up that money by providing constructive economic activity like building infrastructure. Hyperinflation like what happened in the Weimar Republic or even Greece cannot happen in the US because the US never has to go to the capital markets to borrow money at prevailng interest rates. The US central bank, the Fed, issues whatever money is necessary to pay US bills and that includes any money appropriated by Congress whether for war, tax cuts or building infrastructure.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9pAPIUYXxQ

 

Off the Top of My Head

“The choice is so clear,” said one Cheney ally. “Is it okay to be in leadership and tell the truth?"

by John Lawrence

It seems that the only Republican with guts enough to tell the truth is Liz Cheney. Every other Republican bows down and kisses the ring of Donald Trump. This just illustrates what a bunch of sycophants the Republican party really is. Their only interest is political power and money. They are not the least bit interested in the American people much less in the vulnerable, poor and people of color. Not that Liz Cheney is really interested in helping the most disadvantaged among us either. She is just against Donald Trump and is standing up for telling the truth. She's opposed to basing the Republican party on a bunch of lies. No other Republican is willing to do so. They are all shameless hypocrites and their mendacity is appalling. They are willing to sell their souls for money and power.

And then there is Mitch McConnell, the leader of the Senate Republicans who is devoting his entire efforts not to help the American people but to stop Joe Biden from helping the American people. "One-hundred percent of our focus is on stopping this new administration," McConnell said. Vanity Fair reported:

"Something you’ve probably picked up on by now is that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell literally cares about nothing but amassing and maintaining power. Whereas even some of the worst people in Washington typically have something they care about beyond power for power’s sake, or a set of beliefs to guide them, the Kentucky lawmaker truly has none. “Give up,” someone who knows McConnell well told The New Yorker’s Jane Mayer last year when she set out to find “the larger principles or sense of purpose that animates” the senator. “You can look and look for something more in him, but it isn’t there. I wish I could tell you that there is some secret thing that he really believes in, but he doesn’t.”

"Perhaps to remind people that, despite being an elected official ostensibly sent to D.C. to work on behalf of the Americans who pay his salary, he doesn’t give a fuck about anything but his own interests, McConnell on Wednesday told reporters that while he could spend his time helping to end the pandemic, or aiding the economic recovery, or stopping mass shootings, he’s actually got something else in mind: blocking Joe Biden’s entire agenda. “One hundred percent of my focus is standing up to this administration,” the Kentucky Republican said at a press conference in his state in response to questions about fighting among House Republicans. “What we have in the United States Senate is total unity from Susan Collins to Ted Cruz in opposition to what the new Biden administration is trying to do to this country,” he said, referring to his colleagues from Maine and Texas. What sort of things has Biden proposed that McConnell is dead set on opposing? In a word, everything."

Well put: "Mitch McConnell doesn't give a fuck about anything but his own interests." Can you say that on CBS? Who cares. Maybe Liz Cheney should say the same thing about Donald Trump. She is intent about calling him out, and she's not going to relent even if she's removed from her leadership position. So what? She's still a member of Congress, right? She can still speak out, right? She is still Vice President Dick Cheney's daughter, right? If anyone can take down Donald Trump and diminish his place in Republican politics, she can. Meanwhile, Joe Biden is soldiering on even though Trump supporting Republicans don't give a fuck about all the good stuff he's trying to do. They only care about themselves. That's America's downfall. So many of us have adopted the Ayn Rand philosophy of selfishness, even solipsistic selfishness. Freedom has become synonymous with selfishness. Some 40% of Republicans will not get the COVID vaccine simply because Joe Biden wants them to do it. These A-holes are only shooting themselves in the foot because it is they who will be doing the dying in the waning days of COVID infectiousness.

I trust that Joe Biden has his agenda carefully planned out for his first two years since this may be the only time period he will get anything done if Republicans take control of the House or the Senate in 2022. He has a limited time frame in which to work, and very slim majorities in both the House and the Senate with which to work. I imagine he will get the big budget stuff done first since he can get that passed in the Senate with only Democratic support - 51 votes including Kamala Harris' tie breaker although he will have to water it down because of Joe Manchin. Then I imagine he will have to talk Joe Manchin into supporting a filibuster carve out for voting rights, police reform and immigration reform. Let's hope all goes well.

Off the Top of My Head

Republicans Represent a Diasporized Ku Klu Klan

by John Lawrence

America First was also a credo of the white supremacist Ku Klux Klan organization. This assertion rated true by Snopes. Now Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz are embarking on an "America First" tour of the USA. It seems that the US can not get over its racist past. Republicans are basing their party on lies like that Trump won the election. Maybe the biggest lie was the one Thomas Jefferson wrote when he penned the preamble to the Constitution: All men are created equal. That was patently a lie because Jefferson himself was a slave owner as was George Washington and many of the other Founding Fathers.Obviously, Native Americans were not created equal. Neither were African Americans. So why did Jefferson create the first BIG LIE which Trump and the likes of Marjorie Taylor Greene are only perpetuating. On the other hand the sentiments embodied in Jefferson's preamble can be seen as aspirational and that is the tack the Democratic party is taking at the present time. Let's make this a country where all men, women and children are in fact created equal.

The Ku Klux Klan has become normalized in the Republican party which pretends to exemplify our Anglo Saxon heritage. So let's just go back to the era of King George, why don't we? Republicans could change their name to the Tory party. The term Tory or "Loyalist" was used in the American Revolution for those who remained loyal to the British Crown. Since early in the 18th century, Tory had described those upholding the right of the King over Parliament. During the war of independence, particularly after the Declaration of Independence in 1776, this use was extended to cover anyone who remained loyal to the British Crown. The US has already become a neo-feudal society with great wealth concentrated in the upper one percent, and great poverty concentrated among black and brown people. "America First" is just a slogan for perpetuating the idea that those who are superior by dint of their having acquired great wealth should be the nobiity and the lesser among us should just be content with their lot of a few crumbs from the table. They surely shouldn't be given de facto equal rights despite the fact that the Constitution says that they were created equal.

A diaspora is a spreading out of a people or a philosophy. The Ku Klux Klan used to be concentrated mainly in the South. The Republican party is still based there, but the philosophy has metastasized to include white supremacists in the heartland as well. "Republican" is a more respectable name for a philosophy that bears an eerie resemblance to that of the Ku Klux Klan. "America First: really means "white people first." Let's just keep the example that white people were the ones that first officiated over the construction of a so-called democracy, one that denied women, African Americans and Native Americans the vote. The only reason they let in eastern and southern  Europeans was that they needed their labor power. Asians were discriminated against and even put in concentration camps during the Second World War. What has been consistent about America is the fact that white people have held the reins of power ever since the country began. African Americans, who have been here as long as white people have, were first enslaved and then subjected to Jim Crow laws. Native Americans were herded onto reservations.

At the beginning of the 1830s, nearly 125,000 Native Americans lived on millions of acres of land in Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, North Carolina and Florida–land their ancestors had occupied and cultivated for generations. By the end of the decade, very few natives remained anywhere in the southeastern United States. Working on behalf of white settlers who wanted to grow cotton on the Indians’ land using black slaves as labor power, the federal government forced them to leave their homelands and walk hundreds of miles to a specially designated “Indian territory” across the Mississippi River. This difficult and sometimes deadly journey is known as the Trail of Tears.

So get the picture? All men, let alone women, were not created equal in fact despite Jefferson's words which he didn't really believe himself. At best they were aspirational. Well how long do some people have to wait for aspirations to become realized? Joe Biden's administration is trying to correct some of these historical wrongs which go back to the BIG LIE that was embodied in the US Constitution with the flowery words of Thomas Jefferson. Today Trump supporters like Marjorrie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz with their America First tour are only trying to perpetuate the BIG LIES that go back to the beginning of the country. They didn't start with Trump. He only exemplified them, and now Republicans are doing their best to carry on that American tradition.

Off the Top of My Head

Our Grandchildren Won't Have to Pay Back Money Spent on a Green New Deal, But They Will Pay With Their Lives if We Don't Do It Now

by John Lawrence

It's a myth that a sovereign country with a sovereign currency and a floating exchange rate has to borrow money to pay its bills. The US can just issue the money. It doesn't need to tax in order to spend. So why isn't the US as well as all the other nations with sovereign currencies such as Japan, Britain and China going all out to supply as much money as necessary to prevent global warming from "going viral" as they say? The only restraint is the question of whether the human and physical resources to do the work are available. In a society such as China, if the government wanted its people to stop whatever they were doing and become part of the work force to forestall global warming, it would be done. In the US it would not be so easy to commandeer workers to leave their jobs as servers, bartenders, chefs, dealers, workers at Disneyland, workers on cruise ships etc to leave their jobs and go to work in Joe Biden's global warming and infrastructure rebuilding work force. The businesses large and small would have a conniption fit like they're having now getting these workers back to work because their pandemic unemployment has not run out.

The only time when workers went all out to solve a major global problem was World War II. Rosie the Riveter and all the others joined the work force to defeat Hitler. They even were willing to defer consumption so that the financial and material resources that were necessary weren't spent in the consumption market thus letting the necessary physical resources be available for the war effort. Today we have a nation consisting of a bunch of spoiled brats who wouldn't do anything the government asked them to do crying that their "freedom" to do whatever they wanted was paramount. We live in a society composed of consumers who demand to be endlessly entertained by movies, TV, theme parks cruise ships, athletes, restaurants, social media and Las Vegas. Half the country works as servers, baristas, bartenders, housekeepers, actors, athletes, dealers, entertainers and such like jobs to entertain the top half. Some of these are highly paid; most are not. Such was the nature of the "full employment" society before COVID hit. It was a full employment society consisting of trivial jobs at minimum wages for the most part. Biden will have to persuade workers to leave their jobs in the "entertainment" industry in order to create actual results in the real world such as building green infrastructure. The entertainment industry will not be pleased nor will the upper half of society which demands to be continually entertained. 70% of US GNP is consumption and a lot of what people want to consume is encompassed by sports bars, travel and tourism, the leisure and hospitality industry in general. The spoiled brats think its their birthright to have such services available, and the last thing they want to do is to roll up their sleeves and join a union.

Together with the presumed right to be entertained, we have a large percentage of the country that has been processed through the military and developed this consciousness that military prerogatives should prevail uber alles. These are the insurrectionists and Trump supporters that want civilian society to reinforce military values such as command and control. They want an autocrat for President. Freedom is the only value that counts for them. Democracy, equality, fraternity, social equity don't matter. They want to preserve the American way of life which, in addition to a right to be entertained wherever and whenever they have the resources to consume, includes also the right to exclude the prerogatives of minorities for social justice. Is it any wonder that the insurrectionists in January 6 contained a large number of current and former members of the military and police forces? Their attitude is that whatever is good for the military is good for American society in general. The military has become a way of life and consciousness for them. They think that, because they served, they are entitled. Spoiled brat militarists I'll call them. The endless wars, bloated military-industrial complex budget and the military bases in practically every country in the world provides the economic and job base of the nation unfortunately.

Biden thinks he is out to prove that American democracy can compete in the civilian world on an equally competent basis with other countries. That will be a hard nut to crack. The US is dooming itself in two ways: the First and Second Amendments to the Constitution. Let's take the Second Amendment first. In no other major country in the world do citizens have a right to unlimited uncontrolled gun ownership including military style weapons. This is producing news cycles when, hardly is one mass murder out of the way, than another one comes along to dominate the news. The news channels can hardly keep up with them all. No other society including The US' major competitors would tolerate such a situation. The Second Amendment has become toxic and perverted, and in and of itself is enough to doom the US to second class status. In addition to that the First Amendment has become toxic and perverted, and the major reason for that is social media. Social media makes possible the vicious spread of toxic lies and untruths. Witness Trump's use of Twitter to corral and consolidate his followers around the thesis that he, not Biden, actually won the election. Social media allowed him to rally his supporters based on angry themes and memes connected with white supremacy and a return to the good old days when white, Protestant Anglo Saxons ran the country, the good old days when Negroes knew their place in society, the good old days when you didn't have multiple nationalities and religious groups asserting their rights under the Constitution to live freely and enjoy all the perquisites of American society, the good old days when gas guzzlers were the only vehicles in town and no one need be concerned about anything except maximizing their profits and living the American Dream, where the American Dream consisted of having more stuff than your parents did.

Joe Biden's first 100 days have been remarkable in that he has been able to get as much accomplished with slim majorities in both Houses of Congress. Is this enough though to move America forward at the pace that China, for instance, is moving? China is a more or less unified society. 99% or more of Chinese citizens are on the same page as the Chinese government. China is winning friends and allies all over the world with its Belt and Road initiative while the US withers away its resources on endless wars and confuses its allies with the possibility of radical swings with each change of administrations. China's military budget of $183.5 billion is dwarfed by a US military budget 5 times that amount. The US is a divided country where one of the major parties base their appeal on lies and deception, and its supporters are only too willing to eat it up because it's entertaining and represents military values of command and control. Good government, as Biden has illustrated, is somewhat boring because it is based on solving real human problems. Let's hope that Biden's version of reality based on truth and problem solving wins out over the lies based reality of the other side, and the US, even if it doesn't remain the world's dominant power, can become a constructive member of the world community helping to solve problems at home and abroad.