September 2023 Archives

Dear America,

Donald Trump's two favorite words to describe his adversaries and their deeds are "d" words: disgusting and disgrace.  Unfortunately for all of us, those words apply to our current House of Representatives majority party.  Republican speaker Kevin McCarthy is so afraid of losing the speakership, which he coveted and pursued even though he was obviously unqualified and to which he was almost unelectable, that he has now put his self-interest and vanity ahead of the welfare of the nation.  A reactionary cadre of Republicans...a small one at that...is using the Byzantine rules of the body to prevent even a vote on a "CR," or Continuing Resolution, so as to avert a government shutdown when current funding runs out...today!  He could circumvent their effort, at least as to calling the vote needed, but they threatened to put him through another vote on his speakership if he does that.  And since what's important to McCarthy is, well, McCarthy and his ego, he won't take the risk. That's disgusting.  It became obvious how unfit McCarthy was when he attempted to get the speakership the first time in 2015.  He stated on national television that among his qualifications was participating in depriving Hillary Clinton of the Democratic presidential nomination (he failed to do so in the end) with his committee's investigation of the attack on the Benghazi U.S. Consulate.  Even members of his own party cringed at what a patent misunderstanding of politics was evinced by his contretemps, even though what he said was an admission of the truth.  It dried up all those Republican Benghazi crocodile tears instantly with a single imprudent political breast-pocket handkerchief.  McCarthy is a disgrace.

As to disgusting, that adjective is reserved for the entire Republican Party.  The plaint of that Republican coven of political warlocks is that the budget needs to be balanced so as to reduce the national debt, but that can't happen as long as the budget runs at a deficit.  The deficit is the amount by which spending exceeds income, so if there is one, the debt not only doesn't decrease, it increases.  So, as anyone can see, there are two ways to approach rectifying the deficit: one is to reduce spending, but the other is to increase income.  But the latter never gets mentioned by the Republicans.  Neither does the income-tax reduction that favored the rich preponderantly, Donald Trump particularly.  Trump is expected to reap a yearly tax reduction of about $15 million personally.  How much did you save?  And as more than half of all members of congress are now millionaires, they all benefited disproportionately when their tax windfalls are compared to their constituents'.  And in light of the estimates of the non-partisan CBO (Congressional Budget Office) that the Trump tax cuts will by themselves result in an increase in the national debt of over $3.4 trillion over the ten years of its existence, it seems obvious that repeal of that law would be a big first step in reducing the national debt.  And Joe Biden and the Democrats have proposed not a total repeal of the Trump tax cuts, but repeal of the provisions that favor all the tax payers in the top 10%, that is everyone making over approximately $200,00. I assume that is not you.  I know it isn't me.

But they, that is the conservatives in the Republican Party, are in favor of reducing Social Security benefits, Medicare and Medicaid benefits to make a dent in the deficit.  And for that matter, they want to reduce the benefits in all social programs, you know, the ones that help the poorest of us stay fed and housed.  So the solution for Republicans isn't helping us down here at all, and in fact, it will likely hurt us if they get their way.  And a lot of them go to church every Sunday, or temple every Saturday, and tell God that they are doing good as they cut fellow worshippers off as they try to get out of the parking lot.  It's the hypocrisy of it all that offends me, and it seems to me that the Republicans have more than their share of it in their policies.

I suppose that the bottom line isn't the tax cut and who it favors.  Nor is it the reductions in entitlement benefits that Republicans favor.  The bottom line is us, America.  We continue to elect these people, but as long as we do, nothing will change.

Your friend,

Mike

Dear America,

Very little is being said about the current labor issues in the news.  But both the entertainment industry and the auto manufacturing industry are manifesting in their attitudes toward their workforces the attitude that is effectively putting American capitalism on trial.  Don't misunderstand me; I am a capitalist philosophically, but there are limits as to my fealty to the system, and corporate management in these two industries are laying those issues bare.  What I mean is that in both striking scenarios, the issue of how much corporate management impunity there should be in divvying up the wealth created by our nation's labor forces in their respective businesses and industries.

To crystallize my point, Robert Iger is the current CEO of Disney, which is no longer just the animated film producer it was when I used to watch the Mickey Mouse Club on television as a child, but is now a gigantic media conglomerate.  Iger is in his second stint as top panjandrum at Disney, which he became again after the abysmal failure of his successor, chosen and hired by the very same board of directors that had hired him upon Iger's initial retirement in 2020.  That successor, Bob Chapek, took a supportive position toward the "don't say gay" legislation launched by that governmental voice of enlightenment, Florida governor Ron DeSantis, and thus ensured that his own limited tenure at Disney would end abruptly.  In his wake came Iger again, who was virtually begged to resume his tenure as leading light at Disney.  Chapek received a "golden parachute" that would dwarf the life savings of anyone below the management level at Disney in an amount in excess of $20 million, and he got it for doing a lousy, some might say repellant, job.  Iger's compensation approximates $34 million, about $10 million more than Chapek got each year for failing.  And to Iger's credit, he was at the helm during Disney's rise to entertainment giant and its quintupling in corporate size, but that doesn't necessarily justify his obscene compensation relative to the remuneration received by the writers and actors who produce what Iger sells.  It certainly doesn't lend legitimacy to the comment he made about the strikers demands.

When Iger was interviewed on the evening news one day recently, he said that the striking members of the screen actors' and screen writers' union members had to realize that their demands--they are asking for a living wage in a business that is significantly less reliable as a career year to year than the jobs of the vast majority of us--were "unrealistic."  That was the considered opinion of a man making a salary that is as unrealistic as salaries get.  Mind you, Forbes magazine estimated his wealth at just shy of $700 million, and even with a pocket that deep, he could muster the audacity to criticize people for only wanting to know with some reliability that they will be able to pay their mortgages next month.  And apparently Iger isn't alone in corporate management.  The auto workers' union has reported that the management of the American automobile manufacturing "Big Three" have given themselves raises totaling 42% over the past three years, the duration of the contract now being renegotiated.  The union is saying that if management was entitled to 42%, the people who actually built the cars they sold deserve a similar boost in the next three year contract...this after getting only an aggregate of 10% under the old contract in a period in which inflation ran at an annual rate of 9% for a while.  The management has upped its offer from another 10% over three years to 15%, and has promised reductions in workforce attendant to the advent of electric automobiles in the bargain.  The union characterizes that offer as "insulting."  

So there are two examples of the avarice of corporate management in light of the relative penury of the people who actually do the work from which they prosper.  I'm not suggesting that there aren't parallel inequities in the realms of socialism and communism, but we should understand that the United States is competing for the subscription of the masses in a world in which authoritarianism and alternate economic systems surround us and seem to be gaining the credence of perhaps billions of people.  In other words, the ground swell in the United States of support for the unions in these two examples is a microcosm of what the world at large could look like in a couple of decades if something isn't done to curb executive greed and ensure that the workers get their fair share.  It is seldom pointed out that in the 1950's, the average CEO made ten times what the average worker on the assembly line made.  Today it is a ratio more like 300 to 400 times.  And the wealth disparity between the top .1% and the bottom 50% has grown astronomically.  At  some point, those who get their hands dirty are going to say enough is enough, or in the case of management, way too much.  It isn't just the prosperity of two industries that is at stake, it is our way of life.

Your friend,

Mike

Dear America,

Now that most of the Trump dust has settled, at least until early March when his first trial will begin in Washington, D.C.,  it may be time to discuss other more fundamental things, like the 2024 election and whether there is a way to obviate running the risk of him being elected president again.  I keep harkening back to a Trump rally in 2020 at which the crowd started chanting the trite old phrase, "four more years..."  Trump took to the microphone and said with his bare face hanging out, plain enough for everyone, including the press to hear, "If you really want to make them crazy, ask for twelve."  At the time it seemed nothing but bombastic, especially considering the source.  He should have two middle initials: S for Snake-oil-salesman and B for Bloviator-in-chief.  But in light of the aftermath of the election, it seems more like a profane promise.  All Americans should resign themselves to the fact--and yes, I think it is a fact not an opinion--that should Trump win in 2024, we will never get rid of him.  He will seek--and given the poltroons whom the Republicans keep electing to congressional office no one in power will have the guts to resist his effort,--to change the constitution back to its pre-Roosevelt, pre-22nd Amendment state, under which Roosevelt was allowed to seek and win a fourth term.  And should he succeed, when he sees his own biological end coming, he will manipulate his blind sycophants into elevating his son, Donald, Jr.--a miscreant if I ever saw one--to succeed him and initiate a Trump dynasty, and with that he will shuffle off this mortal coil with a sadistic smile on his face.  I know this all sounds parodical, but think about it.  What part of that scenario seems unrealistic?

However, we do have recourse from two sources, both of which I have mentioned in the past, but both of which I think must be raised as a possible last hope again.  The first is a provision in section 3 of the 14th amendment of the constitution.  That provision bars anyone who took an oath to defend the constitution when taking the office of president, or any other government office for that matter, from holding public office again if he has given aid or comfort to the enemies of our government.  And the same proposition exists in the statutes of the United States: Chapter 115, Title 38, section 2383, which proscribes inciting or "set[ting] on foot" rebellion or insurrection against the authority of the United States or the laws thereof.  The companion statute has been in the news a great deal recently: Chapter 115, Title 38, section 2384 proscribes seditious conspiracy.  The leadership of the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers have been pared back to nothing pursuant to that statute, which makes conspiring to effect the overthrow of the government of the United States a federal crime, and that's what they tried to do on January 6, 2021.  Those guys are going to a new home for more than a decade, and we should be thankful.  Should Trump rise again, they would be right by his side as he rose, probably as cabinet members once he seized office.  The problem with section 2383 and section 3 of the 14th amendment is that someone has to implement them.

For section 2383, that would have to be Jack Smith, the federal prosecutor who brought the charges against Trump in Florida for Trump's unlawful attempt to keep classified documents that he should have relinquished control of when he left office, and certainly when they were subpoenaed by the appropriate federal authorities, and Smith again in Washington, D.C. for his conduct at the time of the January 6th insurrection.  But Smith chose to forego citation of section 2383 for some reason, which brings me to what I think should occur next.  Another special prosecutor, one with guts, should be appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland to consider whether section 2383 was violated before or during the events of January 6th, and if so, whether anyone should be prosecuted for doing so.  In the matter of violation of section 3, that's a different matter.  Section 3 includes a provision for waiving the sanctions it prescribes, specifically prohibition from holding political office in this country, by virtue of a 2/3 vote of each house.  By implication then, the section 3 sanction could be imposed by such 2/3 vote of the two houses, and there's the rub...Republicans again.

Not to put too fine a point on it, even though Trump's reelection should be precluded by law, by default our best hope of keeping Trump out of office may be him losing the 2024 election.  He's a shoe-in for the Republican nomination, but I think Biden can beat him in the election for the same reason that led him to do so in 2020: there are enough sane and prudent people in the country to counteract what I see as the dementia of Republicans everywhere.  As to a prosecutor rising to the occasion, if Smith didn't do it and Garland doesn't have the fortitude to get someone else in to assume the prosecutorial mantle, that seems unlikely.  And no tidal wave is going to sweep through the capital building and flush all the Republicans out into the Atlantic ocean, so the constitutional remedy seems too farfetched to even discuss, even though its intent is plain to see.  So we have two hopes: first that Garland or Smith rises to the occasion, which as I have postulated seems unlikely, or second, that Joe Biden will.  It isn't hopeless, but it has to give us all pause.

Your friend,

Mike