My Facebook feed is alive with people mourning Ruth Bader Ginsburg, often specifically mentioning that she advocated “equality”. Our government-sponsored broadcasting network describes her as “a champion of gender equality”:
“Justice Kavanaugh made history by bringing on board an all-female law clerk crew. Thanks to his selections, the Court has this Term, for the first time ever, more women than men serving as law clerks,” she said, according to remarks released by the court.
Her remarks come several months after Kavanaugh, who was confirmed to the court last year after a fraught confirmation battle that centered around allegations of sexual misconduct, followed through on a promise he made during the nomination process to appoint an all-female team of law clerks.
(Why is that private employers can be sued by plaintiffs alleging gender discrimination in employment if our top government officials brag about doing this?)
Perhaps RBG could legitimately be described as having been an advocate for 1 out of 50+ possible gender IDs. But why is she is an example of someone who advocated “equality” among people with 50+ gender IDs?
Separately, if Mother-of-7 Amy Coney Barrett is appointed to this demanding job (though apparently it wasn’t too demanding for an unhealthy 87-year-old?), will that stop stay-at-home American helicopter moms-of-1-or-2 from complaining that they are exhausted from doing the most difficult job on the planet?
Although politicians don’t generally campaign here in Maskachusetts (the outcome of almost every election is predetermined and, in fact, most candidates run unopposed), they do sometimes favor us with letters. Let me share one from Nancy Pelosi!
People tell me it must be a tough job to be Speaker of the House when the president belongs to the opposite party, lives in a world without facts or decency, and has nearly every Republican in Congress marching in unthinking lockstep behind him.
I’ve had a tougher one. I raised five kids born in six years. It taught me that children deserve our love and our caring.
What else did Mom Pelosi learn about children while the five brats milled around her ankles?
Trump and his followers on Capitol Hill want to take away women’s most fundamental rights.
Your generous contribution of $15, $25, $35 or more to the DCCC’s Headquarters Account will help the DCCC sustain and expand Battlestations across the country.
We will not let them end the right to choose in America.
Take it from a mom: We can’t do this alone. Together there’s no limit to what we can achieve.
Then there is a postscript:
The most formative experience in my life has been being a mother to five children.
So half the letter is about how being a mom makes a person (not to foment anti-LGBTQIA+ hatred by saying “makes a woman“, since men can also be moms) better. And the other half is about how babies should be aborted.
Presumably this was tested and actually did result in recipients getting out their checkbooks.
My Facebook friends like to conjure a bogeyman somewhere in the South or Midwest. He is wearing camo, carrying an AR-15, driving a car with a Trump/Pence bumper sticker, and spouting an absurd conspiracy theory about Wall Streeters manipulating American politics far beyond their coastal elite districts.
Showing just how wrong this conspiracy theory is: “Bloomberg pledges $60M to boost House Democrats” (The Hill). (This will also be great for allaying the concerns of those who believe that rich Jews have too much influence in the U.S.!)
Readers: What do we think of all of these campaigns that are financed by money from outside the districts that politicians are supposedly representing? I see Facebook ads all the time for politicians who are running states where I don’t live.
“The age of incrementalism is over,” Markey said. “Now is our moment to think big.” (Boston.com)
Ed Markey, who might be running to replace President Harris in 2028 when he will be a young 82 years of age, defeated Joe Kennedy III in the Maskachusetts Senate primary by declaring that Kennedy was not progressive enough and winning the endorsement of AOC. Yet ProgressivePunch says that, during the 2019-2020 session, AOC had a “Progressive Score” of only 94.94 percent (based on her votes). Kennedy, by contrast, voted correctly 96.2 percent of the time.
In other words, a candidate who was actually more progressive than AOC lost the election here in Massachusetts.
(This was the only race on my Democratic primary ballot in which there was a choice; all other candidates were running unopposed.)
From Newburyport, MA yesterday, a multilingual Hate Has No Home Here message that welcomes migrants right next to a No Trespassing sign. The owner is also apparently an Ed Markey fan:
Related:
“It is the duty of the revolution to put an end to compromise, and to put an end to compromise means taking the path of socialist revolution.” (i.e., the age of incrementalism was also over in 1917; V.I. Lenin)
My Facebook feed remains alive with those who are convinced that Donald J. Trump will win the election via making it more difficult to vote, e.g., by shutting down the U.S. Post Office and/or discouraging voting by mail. Donald Trump is literally Hitler and nobody will vote against him unless voting is extremely convenient.
Some New York Times articles:
“The Power Trump Can Wield Like a Dictator” (February 12, 2020! Who knew that, just a month later, state governors would be suspending what had been thought to be Constitutional rights!)
“If You’re Not Scared About Fascism in the U.S., You Should Be” (October 15, 2018); this one makes me nostalgic for a time when Americans were scared about something other than COVID-19! (NYT put together a video in which Trump’s head is placed on Nazi-uniformed bodies in some old photos)
In other words, Trump is the biggest danger to the U.S. in the history of U.S. politics. But if lines at the polling station are longer than usual, Democrats, who are smart enough to recognize Trump as the dictator he is, will simply walk away. “Yes, Trump is a dictator and the U.S. is turning into Nazi Germany, but I can’t spare a whole hour or take a 1 in 100,000 risk of contracting coronaplague to save democracy.”
(Conundrum: if masks work, why is there any risk at all in masked adults gathering in a wide-open polling place? if masks don’t work, why are we demanding that elementary school children wear them?)
At least for the moment, I am not interested in the truth of these propositions. I am just fascinated by how it is possible for people to believe that (1) a second term for Trump will cement a U.S. descent into a dictatorship, and (2) the people who recognize this will not bother to vote against the dictator if there is any obstacle in their path.
The conventions are almost over. Did either the Democrats or Republicans present something that could be characterized as a coherent philosophy or clear plan?
I struggle with the use of “left” and “right” in the U.S. because it seems as though these terms presuppose a philosophy of some sort and I haven’t been able to discern any (Group A trying to use government power to grab money from Group B is not a philosophy, but an expedient).
What did either party promise to do? For the Republicans, did they promise to do some stuff starting in 2021? If so, why didn’t they do deliver the promised items back in 2017 when they had a larger share of Congress? For the Democrats, what do they say that they will do?
Finally, did either party essentially make the same promises as Hugo Chavez? As I wrote in this book review:
According to Carroll, Chavez promised the same things as leaders in other countries:
To a country that already had a free public health care system for the poor he promised additional health care services/schemes
To government workers and people whose skills were not in demand he promised that they would be enriched through taxes on the most successful private sector workers (and that the new higher taxes would not discourage those private sector workers from continuing to work as hard as they formerly had)
To most voters he promised that they could enjoy a better standard of living without either working more diligently or learning new skills (i.e., the government would either raise wages or reduce prices).
That he would protect citizens from foreign invasion/influence via an expensive military.
That he would reduce income inequality.
I’m convinced that Chavez was the greatest politician of our age. He kept getting reelected in fair elections despite the country’s downward economic and social spiral.
There once was a general who fought a war to protect slavery. That’s not how he would have described it. He would have said he was fighting to protect his way of life from a foreign invader. Whatever construction he put on it, his so-called way of life rested on the sweat wrung from forced labor on plantations and gold earned from buying and selling black flesh.
That general was Samori Touré. The West African chieftain is honored today by black nationalists for resisting French imperialism in the Mandingo Wars of the late nineteenth century, but thousands of Africans were enslaved by Samori’s raiders in the course of building up his empire. After his final defeat in 1898, for more than a decade, columns of refugees tramped into French Guinea to return to their home villages as they escaped or were liberated from Banamba or Bamako or wherever Samori’s men had sold them.
Ta-Nehisi Coates named his son Samori, after the great resister. That means that Between the World and Me, the best-selling anti-racist tract of the current century, which takes the form of letters from Coates to his son, is addressed to someone named after a prolific enslaver of black Africans.
Unless the U.S. is packed with hidden Deplorables that poll-takers can’t find, at some point in 2021, the U.S. will be led by a president who identifies as “Black” (though we also have to accept the possibility that Kamala Harris changes her racial and/or gender ID between now and then).
Every day of the Obama administration was a day in which life for Black Americans became more challenging (see “Effects of Immigration on African-American Employment and Incarceration,” NBER 2007) Yet as long as there was a person in the White House who identified as “Black,” it apparently did not bother lower-income Black Americans that their jobs, apartments, and infrastructure were taken over by immigrants
The 74-year-old Ed Markey is running for reelection to the Senate here in Maskachusetts, The 39-year-old Joe Kennedy III, whose primary qualification is being a Kennedy, is running against him. Whom to vote for?
Text: “Progressive leadership isn’t about your age. It’s about the age of your ideas and your commitment to fighting for what’s right, even when it isn’t easy. That’s what my partnership with @AOC is all about.”
If we average Markey’s age and AOC’s age (30), we would get the age of a person whom an American business might trust to serve as a manager?
No Republican can win in November, so the real contest is the September 1 primary among Democrats. (Though, in fact, all of the other candidates on my primary ballot are running unopposed. So there will be two successive ballots in which nearly every candidate is unopposed!)
Why doesn’t AOC like Joe Kennedy III? Wikipedia says that he supported the Green New Deal (we can prevent climate change from killing anyone who somehow escapes coronadeath). Kennedy has an elite educational background: BB&N (where students actually got taught this year, unlike in the Massachusetts public schools), Stanford, Harvard Law School. Maybe AOC is worried that Kennedy will follow the old rule: “If you’re not a liberal at twenty you have no heart; if you’re not a conservative at forty you have no brain.” As Kennedy gets older he will begin to listen to his buddies from Stanford and Harvard Law School about how taxes are too high?
Readers: How should I vote in the primary? (Wisdom of crowds: Markey leads Kennedy)
(Among registered Republicans, those who #BelieveScience and #RespectScience have the option to vote for a real scientist (PhD in systems biology), Shiva Ayyadurai (also the inventor of email). A sign among the righteous suburbanites, many of whom have “We Believe… Science is Real” signs in their yards:
Next best thing to voting for Dr. Fauci! The inventor of email’s opponent in the tilting-at-the-windmills exercise in futility (a Republican primary in MA) is a law firm partner, Kevin O’Connor.)
Related:
“Kennedy allies sweat as Massachusetts Senate race tightens” (Politico, August 12): Single-issue climate groups — including the Environment America Action Fund and another super PAC called United for Massachusetts — have spent nearly $3 million boosting Markey’s campaign.
Presumably Joe Biden will expire by early 2021, thus turning a vote for Biden into a vote for President Kamala Harris. What are President Harris’s weak and strong points?
As Attorney General of California, Harris denied gender affirmation surgery to transgender inmates, claiming in a state brief that “any “disappointment” Ms. Norsworthy might feel at the denial could be assuaged with psychotherapy.”
Harris opposed California’s ban on affirmative action. She asked the Supreme Court to “reaffirm its decision that public colleges and universities may consider race as one factor in admissions decisions.” Harris filed legal papers in the Supreme Court case supporting race as an admissions factor at the University of Texas. She also filed papers supporting affirmative action in a different Supreme Court case involving the University of Michigan.
How about immigration, the policy that economists say has the largest effect on the Black Americans whom President Harris promises to assist? (see NBER, for example) From archive.org, May 8, 2020:
As president, Kamala will fight to pass immigration reform with a pathway to citizenship for the 11 million people living in our communities and contributing to our economy. While she wages that fight, she will immediately reinstate DACA and expand the program to ensure more DREAMers feel safe and secure in the only country they call home. She’ll protect parents of American citizens and legal permanent residents, as well as other law-abiding immigrants with ties to our communities, from the prospect of deportation. She will also restore and expand Temporary Protected Status for hundreds of thousands of immigrants who would face war or catastrophe if forced to return home.
Kamala also believes we must fundamentally overhaul our immigration enforcement policies and practices—they are cruel and out of control. As president, she’ll close private immigrant detention centers, increase oversight of agencies like Customs and Border Protection, and focus enforcement on increasing public safety, not on tearing apart immigrant families.
For Kamala, this is about making America a place that welcomes immigrants searching for a better life. It’s why she’ll reverse President Trump’s Muslim Ban on Day One and fix the family visa backlog.
Kamala also will immediately change course on President Trump’s disastrous and cruel border strategy. She understands that for many immigrant families, leaving home and arriving at our Southern border is not a choice.
So… open borders for anyone who can recite a tale of abuse.
“My heart aches for those who have lost loved ones to this horrific illness,” she wrote. “As we remember the more than 100,000 people in the United States who we have lost to COVID-19, we must recognize that much of this suffering was preventable and commit to speaking the truth about what we face in the months to come.”
“This administration’s glaring failures made this pandemic worse than it had to be. They downplayed the threat and failed to secure the testing kits, supplies, and personal protective equipment needed to save lives,” she wrote. “The president himself has spread dangerous misinformation and conflicting messages; and has made clear that he is more concerned with deflecting blame and scoring political points than fulfilling his responsibility to protect public health. The Trump administration must start listening to the experts and following the science. Lives depend on it.”
So good news for “scientists” (except the MD/PhDs in Sweden who are “not scientists” and “not experts” and should not be followed; also, don’t follow the Dutch MD/PhDs who say not to wear masks). Also, good news for humans. Under President Harris’s administration, we will get the opportunity to choose how many of us are killed by any given virus, including coronavirus.
From a late February trip (!) to Los Angeles. In the Federal Courthouse, a celebration of African Americans being able to vote. Just outside, a residence occupied by an African American.
Related:
“Former S.F. Mayor Willie Brown writes about dating Kamala Harris, appointing her to posts” (USA Today, January 2019): “Brown was married at the time he and Harris dated … When they met, she was 29 and Brown was 60. … ‘Yes, I may have influenced her career by appointing her to two state commissions when I was Assembly speaker,’ Brown wrote Saturday. Brown was the speaker from 1980 to 1995, prior to his stint as San Francisco mayor.”
Of Ark Restaurants’ five Manhattan restaurants, only two have reopened, while its properties in Florida — where the virus is far worse — have expanded outdoor seating with tents and tables into their parking lots, serving almost as many guests as they had indoors.
“There’s no reason to do business in New York,” Mr. Weinstein said. “I can do the same volume in Florida in the same square feet as I would have in New York, with my expenses being much less. The idea was that branding and locations were important, but the expense of being in this city has overtaken the marketing group that says you have to be there.”
But New York today looks nothing like it did just a few months ago.
In Manhattan’s major retail corridors, from SoHo to Fifth Avenue to Madison Avenue, once packed sidewalks are now nearly empty. A fraction of the usual army of office workers goes into work every day, and many wealthy residents have left the city for second homes.
For four months, the Victoria’s Secret flagship store at Herald Square in Manhattan has been closed and not paying its $937,000 monthly rent. “It will be years before retail has even a chance of returning to New York City in its pre-Covid form,” the retailer’s parent company recently told its landlord in a legal document.
Faith in human action:
New York’s stringent lockdown and methodical reopening may have brought the virus to heel, Mr. McCann said, but it is also wreaking havoc on businesses with so few people going to work, virtually no visitors and many residents “a little loath to go out” and worried for their health.
It can’t be that the virus ran out of suitable hosts in NYC! Bold action by the governor and mayor defeated the virus.
Democrats in New York assert that Donald Trump is corrupt and acts out of personal financial interest. Donald Trump is known to own a lot of real estate in NYC that would get a big lift from a federal bailout of NYC. Putting these things together, wouldn’t it therefore make sense for New Yorkers to rally behind Donald Trump for the 2020 election? What other politician is certain to divert rivers of federal cash in New York’s direction?
From January 2019, NYC subway:
Now they know that the real minimum wage is actually $0 and/or $600/week…
