Category: Politics

Wall Street billionaire thinks Hillary Clinton was going to deliver precisely the correct amount of social justice

by philg

Lloyd Blankfein, who amassed a fortune of more than $1 billion while working at Goldman Sachs, was a supporter of Hillary Clinton, and therefore justice, back in 2016 (Business Insider). It made sense to Mr. Blankfein to have higher income tax rates, at least for individuals and corporations that did not push activities offshore (with help from Goldman?), to fund a larger welfare state.

If helping 50 percent of Americans with fatter government paychecks and welfare checks (Hillary) is good, then helping 80 percent (Bernie) has to be better, right?

Wrong! Apparently one can have too much social justice. “Bernie Sanders Would ‘Ruin Our Economy,’ Says Ex-Goldman Sachs Boss” (NYT, February 12):

Lloyd Blankfein warned on Twitter that Mr. Sanders was “just as polarizing” as President Trump.

Bernie Sanders has proposed a wealth tax on the richest Americans, blasted big businesses for turning huge profits while paying little in taxes and said he believed billionaires should not exist.

“If I’m Russian, I go with Sanders this time around,” he wrote, referencing that country’s efforts to support Mr. Trump in 2016.

(i.e., to discourage working class Americans from referring to The International Jew, a Wall Street billionaire Jew says that U.S. election outcomes are determined from a foreign capital; nobody would ever make the leap in reasoning from “The most important things in the U.S. are controlled by Putin and his buddies” to ” The most important things in the U.S. are controlled by international Jewish financiers”)

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Given that Donald Trump is our President, what products should be on sale for Presidents’ Day?

by philg

Happy Washington’s Birthday to everyone who wants to celebrate slaveholding, locating the capital city on the same river where you have a plantation and where you’ve invested in a canal, profiting from land stolen from the Native Americans, etc. For the rest of us, Wikipedia says

Colloquially, the day is also now widely known as Presidents’ Day and is often an occasion to honor the incumbent president and all who have served as president, not just George Washington.

What should merchants put on sale today in order to honor Mr. Trump?

My friends on Facebook refer to him as “Cheeto” so perhaps Cheetos should be on sale? (always a happy day for me!) On the other hand, The Donald is not on record as being partial to this ultimate snack food. Diet Coke, on the other hand, is high on the list.

The Boeing 757 and Citation X aircraft that Trump owns are no longer in production so they can’t be put on sale in a special Trump Edition. Sikorsky may not want to feature the S-76 so soon after the Kobe Bryant tragedy.

What non-food product would be Trump-related and fun for a Presidents’ Day sale?

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Michael Avenatti, as my friends saw him

by philg

Some posts from my Facebook friends, many of whom have coastal elite jobs (e.g., university professor), regarding Michael Avenatti:

And, in case you missed it, Avenatti has released a sworn declaration from an eyewitness who knows both Dr. Blasey Ford, Julie Swetnick and Brett Kavanaugh, ready to testify to the sordid behavior Kavanaugh engaged in.

It’s good that the GOP left time this week for the can of worms to crack open. Kavanaugh’s freshman year roommate at Yale believes her (Debbie Ramirez). Meanwhile, Kavanaugh has taken to campaigning on Fox News (as one does?). Avenatti has a fourth victim. Dr. Ford is not alone: her courage allowed others to come forward. And since probabilities multiply, the chances of all of them being actors in a Democratic plot to torpedo this nominee are roughly zero.

Are Trump and his cronies sleazy thugs? Yep. Would Avenatti, a canny lawyer, make a baseless allegation? Not a chance.

I’m watching history being made … Not only did we all—most of us—hear the audio of a sobbing child who had been separated from her parents and relatives. Tonight, according to the tough-talking attorney, Michael Avenatti, I heard that some of those kids and parents were told that the kid was just going to be taken for a bath. The parent told her child it would be all right. Then the child didn’t see her parent again. Let’s hope that’s fake news. Resist!

Avenatti was not idly boasting when he said Trump would not serve out his term.

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Why are people calling Michael Bloomberg a “racist”?

by philg

“The Notorious Michael R. Bloomberg: His racist stop-and-frisk policy as New York mayor can’t be forgotten.” (NYT):

“Ninety-five percent of your murders — murderers and murder victims — fit one M.O.,” Bloomberg said. “You can just take the description, Xerox it and pass it out to all the cops. They are male, minorities, 16 to 25. That’s true in New York. That’s true in virtually every city.”

That could be considered a sexist (“male”) or ageist (“16-25”) statement just as easily as “racist” (“minorities”; but actually a “minority” race in NYC was white at the time).

CommonDreams:

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said Thursday that Democratic presidential candidate and businessman Michael Bloomberg is “just a billionaire trying to cover up authoritarian and racist policy” if he does not commit to providing relief to those ensnared by the racist stop and frisk policy he supported as mayor of New York City.

Why isn’t Mr. Bloomberg’s (“Mini Mike’s”?) identification of a gender ID and age category objectionable to anyone?

[Loosely related: My own definition of “racist”: someone who disagrees with me.]

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Price-fixing in the U.S. healthcare system, by the numbers

by philg

A bill arrived for a (routine and negative) medical test today. Due to the artificially restricted supply, the provider attempted to fix the price at $150 (ask a physician who #resists Trump and welcomes migrants if European doctors should be able to come to the U.S. and start offering medical services!). Via the miracle of monopsony, however, Blue Cross dictated to them a price of $47.08 (why the .08?) and thus a paper-in-the-mail process was initiated to collect the cost of a local restaurant meal (annual deductible not yet met so this $47.08 has to be paid on top of the $10,000-ish cost of the policy).

My favorite thing about Bernie Sanders is that he is the only politician with the courage to say “this is dumb; we should try something else.”

Sanders seems to have done well in Iowa (though not as well as the politician that I thought, six months ago, should be #1 among the Democrats). Maybe the enthusiasm for Sanders is partly driven by consumer rage on receiving explicit disclosures like this of how the U.S. health care system is not representative of an ordinary market (you can’t buy food insurance and get 2/3rds off your next McDonald’s bill; McDonald’s doesn’t make that much profit at its headline prices).

I wonder if Sanders’s opponents from all parties (Socialist, Green, Libertarian, Democrat, and Republican) would be wise to start their fight against Sanders by proposing a law that forbids providers to charge a higher price to individuals than to insurers.

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Are any of the Kansas City Chiefs from the same tribe as Elizabeth Warren?

by philg

So many questions after watching part of the Super Bowl with an Irish friend.

“Are any of the Kansas City Chiefs from the same tribe as Elizabeth Warren?” Turns out that this was already answered by the New York Times:

On Sunday, the Kansas City Chiefs will play the San Francisco 49ers in the Super Bowl. Chiefs fans will don headdresses and mark themselves with red paint to perform the “tomahawk chop,” a wordless chant complete with a swinging motion of the forearm, caricaturing what they believe is Native American culture.

A 2005 resolution by the American Psychological Association recognized research that found that Native American team mascots and symbols harm our children’s self-esteem. Racial stereotypes are harmful, no matter the intent.

How do multiple “chiefs” play together as a team? (No answer so far.)

Inevitably from a person accustomed to soccer: “Why is this game so f*cking slow?” (I timed the last 2.5 minutes of the game… more than 20 minutes.)

A minor question: Why couldn’t the 49ers concede with a few seconds left in the game? Why were the players collectively forced to run out the clock?

My own question: Fox and Fox News are owned by the same parent company. Watching the Super Bowl thus puts cash into the pockets of the Official Channel of the Deplorables. Why would people who proudly #resist and who claim that Fox News is responsible for the parlous state of our nation watch regular Fox at any time for any reason?

Readers: How can anyone who purports to be resisting Donald Trump tune into a Fox station?

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Pete Buttigieg is the rich white guy with one black friend

by philg

How is my favorite Democratic Presidential candidate, Pete Buttigieg, doing? (previous post) Will he win the Iowa caucuses tonight or will it be one of the (barely) living fossils who get more press coverage?

In Bermuda, a comedian of color said “Pete Buttigieg is the rich white guy with one black friend”. I still think that he is by far the most soothing candidate and therefore ought to win.

How do my neighbors here in Boston feel? They’d like to “move on,” but still display bumper stickers from the 2016 election:

They don’t want anyone to think that they’re Republican:

And it turns out to be all about love:

(Perhaps a sign of the American Zeitgeist, but the driver who wants to communicate a message of “love” has a bumper sticker featuring former divorce plaintiff Elizabeth Warren. (see “Americans separating children and parents at the border and within”))

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War and military glory invade Washington’s Mall

by philg

We went down to Washington, D.C. for Women’s March Weekend.

On Sunday, a park ranger showing us the World War II Memorial explained that the Mall was originally intended to be dedicated to peace. “Then the Vietnam Veterans demanded a memorial [1982] and who can say ‘no’ to a Vietnam Vet,” he opened. “After that, people said that the Korean War was literally called ‘The Forgotten War’ so they got a memorial too. Then people said ‘What about the Big One?’ so now we have this World War II memorial.”

“World War II was primarily prosecuted by American women?” asked an immigrant friend and companion for this outing. “Maybe Elizabeth Warren and Hillary Clinton were here one midnight chiseling out the stone.”

Authentic picture of the crowd gathered for the Donald Trump inauguration:

View from the ground:

In front of the memorial to the man great enough to free all of the slaves in states over which he had no authority:

(Would this be like saying “I am donating all of the cars in Massachusetts, except for the one that I own and am driving, to charity”?)

Organic gender binarism at the Flower Child restaurant:

The D.C. area is so political that the Rockville, Maryland CVS carries a replica Bernie Sanders campaign bus:

Back to the War on the Mall theme… if we add up the reverential stories from Democrats and Republicans about our great military and the sacrifices that they’ve made for us (even those who simply worked a desk job while in uniform), the only logical conclusion is that these people are so great and so heroic that they should run everything.

Readers: If our military took over the Mall in the past 40 years, is it likely that they will also take over the government within the next 100?

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