June 27, 2019: Permanent Political Gridlock, World Upside-Down,

In case you are wondering why the the political process in the United States stands paralyzed in what seems like permanent political gridlock, consider this:

“Number of the twenty least prosperous US congressional districts that are represented by Republicans : 16

Number of the twenty most prosperous US congressional districts that represented by Democrats:20” (1)

That's right! The 'workingman's party' known as the party of Labor, the Democratic Party, now represents all twenty of the most prosperous congressional districts in the United States. Conversely, the party of Wall Street, now represents 16 of the twenty least prosperous districts. The political world has been stood on its head.

Consider the case of our most prominent congressional curb-crawler Mitch McConnell. Economist Paul Krugman writing about an entirely different subject—whether the Democrats are tracking 'too far leftward'--writing that rich states subsidize poor states in the federal scheme of things, had this to say about McConnell's Kentucky:

...”In 2017, the state received $40 billion more from the federal government than it paid in taxes. That's about one-fifth of the state's G.D.P; if Kentucky were a country, we'd say that it was receiving foreign aid on an almost inconceivable scale.

“This aid, in turn, supports a lot of jobs. It's fair to say that more Kentuckians work in hospitals kept afloat by Medicare and Medicade, in retail establishments kept going by Social Security and food stamps, than in all the traditional occupations like mining and even agriculture combined.” (2)

So here you have old Mitch, assaulting the Affordable Care Act, moving to savage Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare. Here he stands for all to see servicing the interests of his billionaire paymasters as well as the shipping company owned by his wife's family, representing a state on the public dole. Meanwhile, Chuck Schumer, Senator from Wall Street meets with his counterpart, the Speaker of the House representing one of California's richest districts.

The problem is that both parties are now politically schizophrenic. While the old Republican guard clings precariously to power, buying time by supporting and enabling a faux populist, the progressive Democratic insurgency, likewise impotent, rails against the mossbacks representing not the 'people' but the money.

“And don't speak too soon

for the wheel's still in spin

and there's no telling who
that it's naming
and the loser now
may be later to win
for the times they are a-changin”

                        -----Bob Dylan.

'An Br'er Putin, he jus' laugh and laugh”

Impeach and Imprison.

________________

1. Harper's Magazine Vol. 338, No. 2027. April 2019. Page 9
2. Krugman, Paul. “The Moochers of Middle America” The New York Times. Tuesday, July 2, 2019. Page A19.

June 26, 2019: Welcoming Russian Interference, Ultimate Partisan Hack, Thirty Million Rubles

“Russia, if your listening”...intoned the modern Benedict Arnold as he issued a clarion call to a foreign adversary to come to his political rescue. But Caesar Disgustus was not the only one.

Jamelle Bouie writing in The New York Times attempts to answer the question of why Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell welcomes Russian interference.

“Why won't Mitch McConnell protect our elections from outside interference?” (1) Good question.

Noting bipartisan support for measures to, among other things, require Facebook and other mediums to disclose those who purchase political ads and impose “mandatory sanctions on anyone who attacks an American election” (2) McConnell, nevertheless, refuses to allow any such measure to come before the Senate. Why?

The easiest explanation, according to Bouie, is fearing the wrath of GOP or, its present incarnation, tRUMP. McConnell, according to this reasoning, is fearful of raising the issue lest Disgustus go off in a rage because even the hint of Rooskie involvement brings the legitimacy of this president* into question.

The second explanation is that as long as our orange Caesar retrieves from the slag-heap judicial nominees suitable to the knuckle-dragging political base, then Disgustus serves his purpose.

The third possible explanation is that McConnell has always been a common political curb-crawler. As Bouie points out, Mitch was a strong advocate of campaign reform until he reasoned that such reform would favor his opponents. At one time McConnell was pro labor until he realized that his political party is no friend of the working man. Ditto Pro-Choice. According to this line of reasoning McConnell, blissfully unencumbered by any principles or ethics, is the ultimate partisan hack.

All of these are plausible arguments. But what went unmentioned in the essay was the most important and obvious: The ReSCUMlickans are beholden to the Rooskies. It was the political contributions the Russians had made in 2016 to McConnell and his Republican Senate Re-election Committee—the clearinghouse of Republican efforts to retain control of the Senate. Likewise, there were no mentions of the contributions made by the Rooskies to several Republican U.S. Senate campaigns. This is what holds the Senate Republicans together. Quash the investigation, turn a blind eye to the clear and present national security threat facing our electoral system, pretend and insist that 'there is no there...there” because to admit the obvious, to investigate it, would reveal the lengths and depths to which the conservative movement will go in order to hold power.

This is what the ReSCUMlickan congressional caucuses have in common with tRUMP. They have all accepted directly, or indirectly, the assistance of a foreign adversary. Disgustus received tens of millions from the Russians, laundered through the National Rifle Association. So did McConnell and the RNC. That's why Congressional ReSCUMlickans, nearly every man and woman, have not come to the aid of their country. They have sold Lady Liberty for thirty million Rubles.

“An Br'er Putin, he jus' laugh and laugh”

Impeach and Imprison

_____________

1. Bouie, Jamelle. “Mitch McConnell, Too, Welcomes Russian Interference” The New York Times. Friday, June 14, 2019. Page A22
2. Ibid

June 25, 2019 tRUMP's Concentration Camps, American Depravity, Orange Twitler.

It is time to call them what they are: Concentration Camps. Oh the tRUMPists will wail, yet another reference to Hitler and the Holocaust. Perhaps. But it worth remembering that decades before the horrors of Auschwitz it was the United States that set up concentrations camps in Cuba during the Spanish-American conflict, as the Brits did during the Boer War.

The memory of the detention of Japanese-American citizens during the Second World War still haunts us although, in perhaps a more than a bit of government propaganda, Pathe newsreels showed tidy rows of houses, much like a Marine barracks behind fenced enclosures. No one accused the government of separating children from parents and guardians, or denying them basic hygiene.

As despicable as were those historical events, they did not—according to near universal observation—involve packing human beings into standing-room-only enclosures, denying basic facilities for hygiene, or seizing children from the arms of their parents. This is Nazi stuff. This are acts worthy only of the Third Reich or Pol Pot's Cambodian experiments in cruelty. The United States has fallen to a new low in the never ending quest of the Conservative movement to plumb the depths of American depravity.

Charles Blow reported today in The New York Times that “last week, an attorney for the Trump administration argued before an incredulous panel of judges on the Ninth Circuit that toothbrushes, soap and appropriate sleeping arrangements were not necessary for the government to meet it's requirement to keep migrant children in 'safe and sanitary' conditions.

“As one of the judges asked the attorney:

“Are you arguing seriously that you do not read the agreement requiring you do something other than what I described: Cold all night long. Lights on all night long. Sleep on the concrete floor and you get an aluminum blanket?

“Stop and think about that”, wrote Blow, “not only do these children in question not have beds, they are not even turning off the lights so they can go to sleep. Sleep deprivation is a form of torture, plain and simple.” (1)

Blow put the term Concentration Camps in quotations. He shouldn't have. There is no need for qualification. This is not hyperbole, it is accomplished fact.

One must always be careful not to engage in headlong comparisons between this third-rate Mussolini and the genuine article. But it is not a disparagement of those who suffered and died at the hands of Hitler and his henchmen to make this comparison. Let's be clear: these are not death camps—at least not yet. But they are, by any historically objective definition, concentration camps.

Chris Matthews, of MSNBC, is one of those who recoil at the comparison, citing the term as “extremely charged” and preferring to use the phrase “detention camps” instead. (2) I disagree.

There are pronounced elements of cruelty involved here. Packing human beings into small confined spaces, denying basic human hygiene—many have not had a shower in over a month. Even going so far as to turn away civic groups who came to the border stations with soap, toothbrushes, toothpaste and other supplies. Ripping infants and children from the arms of their parents and guardians with no intention of re-uniting them. No! This administration exhibits the hallmarks of sadism so prevalent in authoritarian and totalitarian regimes. Our Caesar Disgustus does these things not simply because he can and has gotten away with it, but because he likes it. It is not hard to imagine the orange Twitler alone in the White House with his cheeseburger masturbating to tales of wailing children and sobbing and distraught parents being separated at the border. I.C.E. No doubt sends him videos.

Charles Blow summed it up as well as anyone writing:

“Folks, we can use any form of fuzzy language we want, but the United States under Donald Trump is currently engaged in an unconscionable act. He promised to crack down on immigrants and yet under him immigrants seeking asylum have surged. And he is meeting the surge with indescribable cruelty.

“Donald Trump is running concentration camps on the border. The question remains: What are we going to do about it?” (3)

An' Br'er Putin, he jus' laugh and laugh

Impeach and Imprison.

___________

1. Blow, Charles M. “Trump's 'Concentration Camps', The New York Times. Monday, June 24, 2019. Page A25.
2. Ibid
3. Ibid

June 7, 2019: Constitutional Myth, Preeminent Branch, Collective Misunderstandings

“We must disabuse ourselves of the myth that the federal government is composed of three equal branches of government. It isn't. It was never intended to be.”

                 ---from The Quotations of Chairman Joe

In an interesting essay appearing recently in The New York Times, Yuval Levin agrees with House Speaker Pelosi that the Congress is the preeminent branch of government.

Of course we were all taught in our grade school civics, high school government and college political science classes that the three branches of the federal government are equal, at least theoretically. It turns out that this is but another piece of balderdash passed down to us by our well-meaning school masters as they made their contributions to our collective misunderstandings. “(T)he structure of the Constitution and the words of its framers contradict that view” writes Levin. “'In republican government the legislative authority necessarily predominates,' James Madison wrote in Federalist 51.

“Congress has broad leeway to make the laws, within its enumerated powers, while the president has to enforce those laws and the courts have to interpret them. (2) That means the second and third branches are meant to operate within the frameworks created by the first. The veto and judicial review can trim this power at the margins, but they are far from making the other branches equal to a Congress eager to assert itself.” (3)

It stands to reason why Madison would declare the Congress the greatest of all the federal institutions. The revolutionary experience was not led by a single man, nor a small clique, but the armies were raised and appointments made by the Continental Congress. It was to the Congress that Washington reported, for the 'president' was then merely the presiding officer of the body and served for only a year. And, since the continental congress met only a few months of each year the tenure of the 'president' was short indeed. In fact, the Continental Congress acted as an executive committee of the whole, in effect, running the government. It is worth noting that at the Constitutional Convention, convened in the wake of Shay's Rebellion  in order to strengthen the central authority, that the drafters of the Constitution came within a vote of making the United States Senate an executive committee of the whole.  This, in effect, would have made the Senate the executive branch with the president reduced to head of state who would preside over the body. The revolutionary experience posited the authority of the conventions and the congresses it created on the will of the people, in whose name they acted. Accordingly, the power of the people being most directly represented in the conventions and then the House of Representatives made the House the most powerful organ of government. Indeed, it is also worth noting that when peace was finally at hand and freedom won, Washington repaired to his home at Mount Vernon and went, for seven years into political retirement. No, this was not a twentieth century-style revolution led by charismatic figures, it was a revolt informed by the voice of the people in whose name it was conducted.

Accordingly, it was the House, being most representative and most accountable (elected every two years) that wielded the most significant power until well into the middle of the 19^th century. Indeed, when John Quincy Adams was turned out of the White House, he returned to the Congress where the real power lay. And, speaking of the Adams' family and Congress, John Quincy's father John, the second president of the United States lost re-election and was widely reviled for signing the alien and sedition acts; bills passed by Congress designed to keep the country out of the Napoleonic Wars.  John Adams signed the bills into law not because he agreed with them but because he felt they were an expression of the will of the people as embodied in acts passed by both houses of Congress.  John Adams, therefore, felt that he couldn't veto the bills and thwart the will of the people, so powerful were the views held by the founders that the veto, in this case, was seen by one of the authors of the Constitution to be wildly inappropriate.   Congress wasn't seen by our founders nor our early practitioners of republican rule to be a mere appendage to the executive, it was seen as preeminent among the institutions of governance, representing the will of the people to whom all others are accountable.

To re-assert it's authority this means, according to Levin, that the congress must take oversight seriously, must decentralize decision making so as to involve members in legislating rather than grandstanding and doing running commentaries.  Congress must once again empower committees to draft legislation. It also means calling to account an administration that contends, with a straight face, that the congress has no business interfering in foreign affairs nor conducting 'presidential* harassment' by conducting investigations.

It means reigning in on Disgustus, forcing confrontation, compelling compliance with legislative oversight and, if the courts interfere, impeaching judges and justices who get in the way.

We have a constitutional crisis on our hands and, while the Republic is slowly being strangled, the Congress, like the ancient Roman Senate, dawdles. Michelle Goldberg, also writing in The Times, quotes from a new book written by Michael Wolff. Wolff says that “Steve Bannon, Trump's former chief strategist, suggests that Pelosi has been waiting for the president to self-destruct ever since he was inaugurated. 'Pelosi, Bannon felt, saw the greater truth: The Trump administration would undo itself,' Wolff wrote.

“Perhaps he will, but meanwhile, Trump is undoing American governance” observed Goldberg. (4)

He is also making the United States a pariah in the community of nations.

An Br'er Putin, he jus' laugh and laugh

Impeach and Imprison

_______________

1. Levin, Yuval. “What if Congress Did Its Job?” The New York Times. Wednesday, June 5, 2019. Page A23
2. The courts routinely consult, through statements made by members of Congress during floor debates among other records, the intent of Congress as it passes laws in order to reach judgments about applying law. Additionally, as the framers outlined the powers and responsibilities of each branch of government it was the legislative that was listed first, followed by the executive and judicial in that order.
3. Op. Cit.
4. Goldberg, Michelle. “Democratic Voters Want Impeachment. The House Dawdles” The New York Times. Tuesday, June 4, 2019. Page A26.

June 6, 2019: This President*, Stench of Disgustus, What An Idiot

Congress should forbid this president* from leaving the country. It should ground Air Force One for the duration of this presidency*. Every time he leaves the country he does material damage to our alliances while making a pubick ass of himself in the process. The latest foray abroad only reinforced an all-too-familiarly ugly pattern. First in the far East and now in Europe.

Of course it would seem somehow inappropriate to conduct solemn services commemorating the 75^th anniversary of D-Day without the president* of the United States in attendance, but it seems somehow inappropriate to have this jackass involved in any exercise of reverence. And, true to form, we find this bastard president* once again defiling the occasion; first by going off on a tirade against speaker Pelosi and his domestic opposition while at a military cemetery in Normandy and then his disgraceful behavior while in the British Isles.

One openly questions the wisdom of the crown and the government inviting this fool to prance about the palaces, rub shoulders in such elevated company, and then tour the war rooms of Winston Churchill for doing so only defiles whatever he touches.

He began before touching down at Heathrow, twitting criticisms of London's Mayor. Upon arriving he did a running commentary about the relative abilities of the leading contenders to replace Prime Minister May, falling upon Boris Johnson—the Brexit leader—as his personal favorite. Johnson, for his part declined to meet with the fool, as did Labor Leader Jeremy Corbyn and leaders of other minor parties. This left the crown and the soon to depart May to put up with his insufferable behavior as the stench of Disgustus permeated the capital. Imagine, if you will, sitting through a dinner with the tRUMP family. Prince Charles, reportedly, tried to engage the president* on environmental issues only to be told that the United States has the cleanest air and water and wasn't materially contributing to environmental problems and that pollution came from China, Russia and the assorted 'shit hole' countries. It makes one feel sympathy for the royals and what they are, on occasion, compelled to endure.

Next it was off to Ireland with similar results. Disgustus wanted to meet the Irish Prime Minister at his golf course but the Irish government refused to allow Disgustus to use a state visit to promote his real estate investments. Finally, it was agreed that they would meet at the Dublin airport next to the vending machines, a wholly appropriate place to engage in any 'negotiations' with this blithering idiot. Not missing an opportunity to further inflame a situation, Disgustus promptly informed the Irish Prime Minister—in full public view—that like the U.S., Ireland needs a wall between itself and the six counties that comprise Northern Ireland. Anyone remotely familiar with the recent strife in this region and the role that normalizing the border played in ending the civil strife would know that this is, perhaps, the most ignorant statement that anyone—most of all a president* of the United States—could possibly say given the situation. For it is unclear how this 'border' which, if Britain exits the E.U, would function given that Ireland remains in the European Union and Britain does not. How do they conduct business between Ireland and Northern Ireland and will this re-ignite hostilities? Disgustus, ignorant of everything, just blows past all these complexities and, like the bull in the china shop, makes a wreck of everything.

Mostly, he has made a wreck of the stature of the United State in world affairs as one leader after another comes in close contact with him, they invariably walk away concluding that the United States is currently in the clutches of a complete idiot.

Disgustus has been pressuring the Brits to pull out of the European Union cold turkey. May has been negotiating for a soft exit, but Disgustus—along with a sizable percentage of the British electorate are pressing for a 'hard' exit. Disgustus, while in Britain, offered up the prospect of American trade deals as an alternative to the European Common Market. The Brits, for good reason, are skeptical. The word of Disgustus in any context isn't worth a tinker's damn. Why would anyone trust this clown?

“To many in Britain, Mr. Trump appeared less a friend tossing a lifeline than an opportunist angling to exploit Britain's estrangement from Europe....

“'This orange blow-in is brashly telling us how to conduct our own international affairs,' wrote Zoe Williams, a columnist at the Guardian, 'and listening to him it is clear that a close relationship with Trump's America would be as far removed from regaining sovereignty as it is possible to imagine. Allied to Trump, we'd be more of a satrapy than a nation state. We would be dominated by a power that was as raw as it was distant” (1)

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn “warned that a trade deal with the United States would amount to 'offering up our precious National Health Service to private American Companies'

'We will not stand for that,' Mr. Corbyn thundered to a crowd that waved placards with the slogans, 'No Brexit. No Trump' and 'Brexit=Trump'” (2)

Meanwhile thousands gathered at Trafalgar Square to demonstrate against Disgustus being in the country, carrying signs expressing outrage and marching under a giant balloon of Disgustus seated on a golden toilet twitting his birdbrain ideas.

Once Disgustus got safely airborne out over the Atlantic one could hear a sharp sign of relief and a collective groan as Europeans throughout the region were heard to murmur “what an idiot”.

And still, Congress refuses to act.

An' Br'er Putin, he jus' laugh and laugh

Impeach and Imprison.

_____________________

Note: Hereafter the word “President”, when referring to Caesar Disgustus will, because of the bastard nature of it, be accompanied with an asterisks.

1. Landler, Mark and Haberman, Maggie. “Pushing Brexit, Trump Dangles A Trade Deal. Britons Are Leery” The New York Times. Wednesday, June 5, 2019. Page A7
2. Ibid

June 5, 2019: Fake News, Forked-tongued Million-pound Colossus, Our Very Eyes Deceive Us

Disgustus tells us not to believe our eyes and ears, not to read, but simply follow. Any criticism is 'fake news', always accusing his critics of generating 'fake news' and fabricating lies. This from a man who, posturing as tRUMP's publicist John Barron, Disgustus planted stories in New York Tabloids favorable to himself. Disgustus was one of the inventors of 'fake news'.

Disgustus, ever smearing with a mighty hand, helped spread a doctored video of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in which the sound-track was 'tweaked' by slowing her speech ever so slightly so as to make her speech appear slurred, as if she were drunk or unwell. Facebook refused to take down the video, causing a minor uproar, but that's not the problem according to Farhad Manjoo writing in The New York Times.

“I understand the fear about digital fakery. But to focus on Facebook instead of Fox News is to mistake the symptom for the disease.

“The disease is a well-funded, decades-in-the-making, right-wing propaganda network, one that exists to turn rumor into full-blown politically convenient narratives. Its tentacles now infiltrate every form of media—magazines, books, talk radio, social networks—but it still finds its most effective outlet in the Murdoch cable empire.

“And it is devastatingly effective: Just about every political lie that has dominated American discourse in the past two decades—the Swift Boaters and the birthers, death panels, the ideas that undocumented immigrates pose an existential threat but climate change does not—depended, for its mainstream dissemination, on the Fox News machine.” (1)

Indeed, Fixed News did its own editing, creating a separate video aired on Lou Dobbs Tonight in which “Misleadingly spliced...small sections of a news conference” were made to make Speaker Pelosi stammer “worse than Porky Pig”. (2) This led the Fox pundits to comment that the Speaker appeared '”worn down' by the demands of her 'very big job'”.

“While Facebook moved quickly to limit the spread of the doctored Pelosi clip, Fox is neither apologizing for airing its montage nor taking it down, because this sort of manipulated video fits within the networks ethical bounds.” (3)

While Manjoo is right in citing Fox as “the million-pound, forked-tongue colossus that dominates our misinformation menagerie” that represents a clear and present danger, he is missing the point of concern entirely. That is, the way that technology is trending.

Already pornography exists wherein the faces of recognizable political figures, usually women—Sarah Palin, Hillary Clinton, Angela Merkel  are affixed to naked bodies engaged in unspeakable acts of degradation. The technology is so far, crude. But it is improving and the time is not far distant when it will be impossible to discern the real from the unreal, and the ability to make 'fake' tapes, or fabricate fake narratives of any description, will be within the reach of every malignant force. It will also make possible the outright discrediting of legitimate videos by claiming that they are fabricated. The public will not be able to discern one from the other. Already Disgustus, after having 'apologized' for the Access Hollywood Tapes, is now claiming that they are 'fake'.

Heretofore, we have relied upon what our eyes could verify when confronted with rumor and innuendo. Not so anymore. We are quickly entering an era where our very eyes will be easily deceived and we will be taught—as Disgustus is already teaching us—not to believe what we can plainly see. Fake News has taken over. So successful has he become that Disgustus can now obstruct justice in plain sight. In a world where you can trust no one, the vacuum is filled by the tyrant. Disgustus and his minions have learned their lessons well. Fascism awaits us, it is lurking just around the corner.

An Br'er Putin, he jus' laugh and laugh

Impeach and Imprison.

_________________

1. Manjoo, Farhad. “The Problem Is Fox News, Not Facebook” The New York Times. Friday May 31, 2019. Page A26
2. ibid
3. Ibid

June 4, 2019: Nobody Has Our Backs, American Underclass, Increasing Quiet Desperation

On May 28^th, The New York Times featured two front page articles on the plight of working Americans. “Where Jobs Vanished, 'Nobody Had Our Backs'” read one headline. And, right next to it, was the headline “Google Relies On Underclass of Temp Labor”. (1) The first article described the sense of abandonment by both parties of an Ohio town devastated by the closing of the Lordstown General Motors plant, the second about how high tech companies, in this case Google, have made a mockery of technology's promise by the ubiquitous use of temp agencies.

None of this is new. In the early 90's, I spent four months working at a factory in Lowell, Michigan. Hired along with 16 others by a temp agency I found myself, at the end of my short tenure, the only surviving member of that class still working at the plant and the only one to leave on my own terms. I discovered that nearly half of the workers at the factory were temporary employees, one woman having worked as a 'temp' for three years. In America, I learned, 'temp' is a permanent job description.

Google, it transpires, now employs more temps than permanent full-time workers (2) . In this, they are not alone. Somewhere between a quarter and a third of the U.S. workforce are now 'temps', with little or no benefits, no retirement, usually no health insurance. Combine this with the passage of so-called 'right to work' which, translated, means 'right to starve' laws enabling employers to hire and fire at will, and the evisceration of organized labor and the return to 'capricious and arbitrary' behavior by capital is now rampant. In my experience in Lowell, women were let go for taking a day off to take their children to the doctor, or because their car wouldn't start and they failed to make it to work. A rich response from the capitalist who pays starvation wages.

Similarly, I saw a line of more than a dozen workers dismissed one afternoon because two of them were sleeping on the job. Never mind, the foreman called the temp agency and told them to send in an entire new crew.

Add to all this the rise of the 'gig' economy in which largely middle aged men can be seen at any hour in Lowe's or Home Depot heading back to their trucks with the magnetic signs advertising their services plastered upon the panels and doors. Men who once held regular jobs now working in a catch- as-catch-can marketplace, advertising on Craigslist, living hand to mouth as 'independent contractors'. This isn't the America we were brought into all those years ago.

Capital has been unfettered and nobody has our back. Oh yes, the political elites, having discovered the anxiety, are sure to make the rounds but as Rick Marsh, recently of the Lordstown plant, told The Times, “These people really don't have a clue...They are so out of touch with reality and real people. All of them.” (3)

Similarly a farmer from Iowa was interviewed recently telling the reporter that he voted for tRUMP the last time but wouldn't do it again. Asked if he were going to vote Democratic he said no. Neither party, in his view, has a clue promising to vote third party.

There is a lot of truth to that. For nearly half a century the vast middle stretch of this country has suffered not-so-benign neglect. It isn't just infrastructure, it isn't just education, it isn't just jobs and economic security, but the deterioration of all of these has been accompanied by an assault upon the safety-net that was supposed to step in and address these problems as they emerged. They didn't and they haven't.

The freeing of capital from all civilized restraints has also, observes New York Times columnist David Brooks, altered the nature of poverty. “(M)ost Western systems were not designed to confront the kind of poverty prevalent today”, writes Brooks. “When these systems were put in place in the 1950's and '60's, unemployment was more often a temporary thing that happened between the time you got laid off from a big employer and the time you got hired by a new one. Now, economic insecurity is often a permanent state, as people patch together different jobs to make ends meet. Health issues for people in the welfare system are often chronic—obesity, diabetes, many forms of mental illness.

“our legacy welfare structures are ill suited to today's poverty.” (4)

Indeed, our welfare system—or social safety net—is ill suited to today's economy. Fewer than half of those unemployed, for instance, qualify for unemployment insurance.

Google is justifiably singled out for tapping into the permanent underclass as a way to drive down the cost of labor, doing so by availing itself of temporary employment agencies. But Google is only the latest and, perhaps, the most notorious example of what has gone terribly wrong in this country.

Meanwhile the laboring classes live lives of increasing quiet desperation, pogo-ing between parties in desperate attempts to gain the attention of the political elites with very little success, fueling the rise of frustration, alienation and cynicism. Meanwhile, having shredded the social contract, the Koch Brothers and the Mercers and the Adelson's and the tRUMPs dance to the bank as they apply their hands about the throat of the republic.

An Br'er Putin, he jus' laugh and laugh

Impeach and Imprison

______________

1. See the Front Page of The New York Times. Tuesday, May 28, 2019. Page 1 as well as A20 and A18 respectively.
2. Ibid. “Google Relies On Underclass of Temp Labor” Page 1
3. Op.Cit. “Where Jobs Vanished, 'Nobody Had Our Backs'. Page 1
4. Brooks, David. “The Welfare State Is Broken, Here's How to Fix It” The New York Times. Tuesday May 28, 2019. Page A26

June 3, 2019: Admiral McCain Meets General Bone Spurs, The Name of John McCain, Told By An Idiot

“Disgustus mocks with his every move, his every utterance, his very existence, every standard of conduct and leadership.”

             ----from The Quotations of Chairman Joe

Every time Disgustus leaves the country on a foreign mission he either creates another international incident or he deeply humiliates the nation. This week proved no exception.

He was in Japan on a state visit during which he aped the North Korean dictator Kim Jung-Un's criticism of former Vice President Joe Biden, an act that brought not only outrage from Democrats but criticism from his own party. The old 'norm' of not criticizing fellow Americans while on foreign soil is just another standard of civilized and patriotic behavior that has been shit-canned by this jackass. Then to make matters even worse, reports surfaced that White House operatives had the Navy cover the name of the ship John S. McCain covered over and the crew confined to the ship so that there would be no chance that our ever insecure potentate would encounter the name and set off yet another 'presidential' rage. No matter that the ship is named after the late Senator's grandfather who, like his father, was an admiral in the U.S. Navy, his grandfather during the Second World War. Just the name of John McCain, it appears, is enough to set off this unstable, insecure and woefully sorry excuse for a human being.

Very stable genius indeed. Disgustus mocks with his every move, his every utterance, his very existence, every standard of conduct and leadership. As former Republican operative Rick Wilson has noted: everything tRUMP touches dies; his every utterance full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. For this tale is indeed told by an idiot.

An Br'er Putin, he jus' laugh and laugh

Impeach and Imprison

June 2, 2019: Despicable Dirty Disgusting, Obstruction and Obfuscation, Only The Surface

Our Caesar Disgustus calls himself 'a stable genius' which, in tRUMPspeak means 'unstable moron'.

               ----from The Quotations of Chairman Joe

Our Caesar Disgustus has gone 'round the bend. This week Special Counsel Mueller took to the podium and put some clarity surrounding the conclusions of his report, telling the nation that if he could have exonerated the 'president' he would have. But exonerate him he could not do.

Disgustus, confronted with a man of courage and integrity, is beside himself, concocting a story that Mueller “a never tRUMPer” is out to get him—part of a grand conspiracy to bring down this bastard presidency, because bastard presidency Disgustus knows in his heart is what it is. He has accused career law enforcement officials of concocting a scheme to, in effect, conduct a palace coup, going so far as to charge former FBI Director James Comey and others of “treason”.

In tRUMPspeak this means, of course, that Disgustus himself is guilty of treason. Disgustus always projects onto others is own crimes.

The upshot is that there is now growing pressure upon the House to act. About a tenth of the Democratic caucus now favors outright impeachment, while an unknown number support or are now leaning toward beginning impeachment proceedings.

Disgustus has gone to referring to the groundswell as a coup and cannot bring himself to say the word “Impeachment”, instead referring to the “I” word, calling it despicable, dirty and disgusting—all one will note adjectives readily applied to himself and his behaviors.

Former Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan has called on Congress to censure the swine. It isn't enough. Censure is a mere slap on the wrist. The crimes of Disgustus require a more thorough probe, a more complete public hearing and an the ultimate sanction: impeachment, conviction and removal from office, trial and imprisonment.

Mueller tells us that there was “insufficient evidence” to cite Disgustus for conspiracy with a foreign power or foreign agents to subvert the electoral process. Mueller tells us in the report that his effort was stymied by obstruction, obfuscation and lies. Yet he cites over 140 instances of contact between campaign operatives and Russian nationals, many of whom with ties to Russian intelligence and military. He also says that messages and documents were destroyed, some were encrypted and could not be deciphered, many witnesses were removed from U.S. jurisdiction and could not be questioned or put on trial, and many witnesses—including tRUMP larvae and Disgustus himself either would not testify or would only do so under constricted circumstance. Further, section two of the report details many attempts to obstruct justice including intimidating witnesses, hold out the prospect of presidential pardons, and lying to authorities over the existence of illicit contact and the nature of it.

All this is well documented. What isn't getting much attention is the nature of the Russian attack itself and the damage done. Oh yes, there are plenty of references to the adroit use by the Russians of American anti-social media, particularly Facebook and Twitter, but there is no information in the report on the nature of the hacking into the voter registration rolls, possible hacking into the voter tabulation systems and other electronic election machinery in over 2O states. Nor, for that matter, was the sharing of polling data by tRUMP campaign manager Paul Manafort with Russian operatives and the use of that information in subsequent hacking discussed at all.

Then, of course, as noted in the previous post, suspicious financial transactions between Jared Kushner and Russian nationals were flagged by Deutsche Bank employees during the campaign. It appears that Mueller, for all his thoroughness, has only scratched the surface.

This isn't the end of the investigations, it is only the beginning.

An Br'er Putin, he jus' laugh and laugh

Impeach and Imprison

June 1, 2019: Vandal At 'Work', Approaching The Jungle, The Bastard Populist

The editors of The New York Times recently recited a litany of actions taken by the hirelings of Caesar Disgustus “allowing self-regulation contrary to evidence and experience.”

The editors noted that this maladministration “is seeking to roll back some of the stringencies imposed on offshore oil drilling after the Deepwater Horizon blowout in the Gulf of Mexico in April 2010. Before the blowout, which caused the largest maritime oil spill in American history, the government allowed oil companies to inspect and certify the safety of their own equipment. In the aftermath, the Obama administration required the use of third-party inspectors approved by the government. The proposed rule would let companies choose their inspectors.

“Similarly, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission voted this year to reverse some safeguards imposed on nuclear power plants following the march 2011 tsunami that caused a meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi plant in Japan. And Annie Caputo, a member of the commission, told industry executives last month that she was open to letting plants assume responsibility for some safety inspections.” (1)

This comes on the heels of regulatory changes putting lead back into bullets, re-introducing asbestos into the environment, embracing coal and the fossil fuel industry generally, reversing Obama-era regulations banning a chemical known to cause brain damage in children in the popular weed-killer Round Up, relaxing restrictions on off-shore oil drilling and, recently, lifting environmental safeguards on over seven thousand miles of inland rivers. These are just the tip of the iceberg, as the troglodytes manning the 'ship of state' scour the decks seeking to destroy anything that smacks of sound public policy. Now comes an attempt to restore to the pork industry responsibility for monitoring the slaughterhouses.

The editors note that the Clinton Administration approved a pilot plan to allow five hog plants to implement self-regulation, adopting a temporary experimental program that has somehow lasted “two decades without proving that it works”. (2)

Indeed, “(I)n 2013, the Agriculture Department's inspector general reported that the pilot program had not demonstrably improved food safety. In response, the government defended the new system as no worse than the old one.

“But there is some evidence of increased risk. Last year the nonprofit Food & Water Watch used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain more recent inspection records for the plants in the pilot program. It found 22 instances between 2012 and 2016 in which companies were cited by the remaining federal inspectors for failing to identify and remove from the slaughter line a hog carcass that could cause food poisoning” (3)

Removing federal inspectors will save an estimated 6.4 million dollars a year, according to The Times, with increased profits accruing to the industry of an estimated 47.3 million. But that's “because slaughterhouses would be allowed to move hogs down the line at even higher speeds”, (4) making life more difficult to those working in the slaughterhouses. Ghosts of Upton Sinclair loom in the wings as we are once again approaching The Jungle.

Welcome to the nineteenth century where every Capitalist's wet dream is realized. A behavioral sink where dog-eat-dog competition creates a race to the bottom in a no-hold-barred struggle for existence with an eviscerated government that cannot call the capitalist to account. This is where the bastard populist is leading us as all the while he promises to defend the middle class and 'Make America Great Again'.

An Br'er Putin, he jus' laugh and laugh

Impeach and Imprison

______________________

1. Editors. “You Say Industry Can Regulate Itself? Prove it” The New York Times. Friday, April 12, 2019. Page A22.
2. Ibid
3. Ibid
4. Ibid