When my friend Joanne Freeman and I were hosting the Now & Then podcast, it became a joke at our weekly planning meetings that I almost always suggested we should focus the following week’s episode on tax policy. Since it appeared that other people have a lower tolerance for tax policy than I do, we usually didn’t end up landing on that topic.
The ultra wealthy, or at least those of the 1% for whom the "love of money" trumps any other possible consideration, are keen on installing the dynamics of feudalism in the 21st Century; the essence under the gobbledygook of "Reaganomics". For those for whom unlimited accumulation of money and power is their raison d'etre, there is no room for compromise.
"This is what I mean by my constant insistence upon “moderation” in government. Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are H.L. Hunt (you possibly know his background), a few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid."
Just after WWII, there were questions about what party Ike preferred. In fact, there were serious efforts by Democrats to have him run on their ticket.
I grew up in one of those "I like Ike" households. My folks had served under him in the war. Their loyalty was solid. But their dearest and closest friends were dedicated Democrats. There was a time (for some of us) when religion and politics were less important than who won at bridge and what brand of beer was brought to the table.
Then came Vietnam, Nixon, Watergate. That sent me politically to the left. And my folks never spoke of politics again. They were disgusted. Their political party was the party of corruption and shame.
Senator Angus King (ME-I) was courted by the Republican Senate Caucus to join them. Senator Collins (ME-R) and King still collaborate quite often.
It would be interesting to have a President that declared themselves to be Independent, but in all likelihood, both parties would do what they could to undermine them.
My wife and I were at the airport in Portland, Me and both Senator Olympia Snowe (who I have the utmost respect for) and Senator Collins were waiting for the same flight. The entire time we were waiting to board the flight they didn't even look at each other.
Olympia retired when the Maine Republican Party trolled her incessantly to become uber conservative. She chose to retire instead. Too bad Collins didn't do the same.
Gary, Suzie Q is all talk and no walk. How many times have we heard her proclaim some principle (in that god-awful voice) only to have her vote to overturn that principle.
Leonard Leo hosted a fundraiser for her in his home in Northeast Harbor (They must have lost my address) and also found millions of dollars so she could buy her reelection in 2020.
Her 20 minute speech when she tried to justify voting to approve Kavanaugh was an embarrassment. I can never forgive her for voting for him.
I had thought of voting for McCain in that election, BEFORE he put Palin on the ticket.
I am very distantly related by marriage to Palin. My sister's husband is the link. Interestingly, both of them, and of course, my two nephews by my sister, had a very close call with nonexistence in the autumn of 1620, somewhere in the north Atlantic, when their ancestor fell off of the Mayflower during a gale. Here's that story:
"In the fall of 1620, the Mayflower's ability to steady herself in a gale produced a most deceptive tranquillity for a young indentured servant named John Howland. As the Mayflower lay ahull, Howland apparently grew restless down below. He saw no reason why he could not venture out of the fetid depths of 'tween decks for just a moment...
"The Mayflower lurched suddenly to leeward. Howland staggered to the ship's rail and tumbled into the sea.
That should have been the end of him. But dangling over the side, and trailing behind the ship was the topsail halyard, the rope used to raise and lower the upper sail. Howland was in his midtwenties and strong, and when his hand found the halyard, he gripped the rope with such feral desperation that even though he was pulled down more than ten feet below the ocean's surface, he never let go. Several sailors took up the halyard and hauled Howland back in, finally snagging him with a boat hook and dragging him up onto the deck."
--Nathaniel Philbrick, Mayflower, a story of courage, community, and war
Funny!! I just bought a new 4-pack deck of cards to replace my worn out ones. I want to feel the cards when I play solitaire! I still remember the giant penny jar my folks would pull out when the aunts & uncles came over for pinochle or poker....Don't say good old days, Terry, please don't!!
I LOVE bridge, but haven't played in eons because nobody knows how to play anymore. We played in college a lot ('70s), along with Spades and Hearts. For a while my family was enamored with Italian canasta, which my grandmother brought back with her after a lengthy sojourn in Italy in 1970. It's lots of fun -- you use 3 decks of cards, plus all 6 jokers! I came from a real card-playing family (bridge, set-back, rummy, poker, hearts, even Mille Bornes!) -- poker games on Christmas Eve was our family tradition. Kids now look at you like you're from another planet if one suggests just about any card game! Sad.
I miss playing bridge. I used to play a cutthroat game with a group of plaintiffs' attorneys. They played a killer game, like kill or be killed. I would go home with my shoulders up around my ears, I was so tense.
My Dad was a Life Master at bridge. It's really an enjoyable game, if one isn't faced with an attorney who would rather disembowel you than let you take a trick.
In college, we played Spades and Hearts, usually sitting on the floor and passing around a bottle of Cheracol cough syrup. Original formula with cocaine in it. Good times.
I'm old enough to remember reading Omar Sharif's column on bridge to learn whatever I could, and I suspect most of the folks reading this don't recognize Sharif as either a bridge expert or one of the finest actors of his generation.
It was the only card game I liked. I had some native ability with it, but never wanted to get as technical as serious players are. I like the fact you got to play hands solo, with a teammate, and also as a "dummy", which let you go for a snack.
Ah, Bill, i do remember the good old days when who won at bridge and beer brands were more important than politics. My mother passed on before things got really awful, but my father remained a R until he got dementia. He listened to Rush and I can only wonder if he would support death star. I can't remember what exactly sent me to the left, but I was always a D as a voter. It caused no end of arguments when I was home as if that would have changed my mind.
It's interesting. They had 18 formative years to get their point across yet think another argument will help their progeny see the light, rather than being curious about the reasoning of their family member's point of view. Example: my MAGA car parts manager brother expounded upon the reasons for homelessness and asked zero questions nor wanted to hear the opinions of his psychiatrist sister and public policy son. (Love that Dunning Kruger effect!).
And I have my Mother’s for Stevenson in my life’s collection of Democrats we’ve voted for these many decades. She loved Stevenson for his intellect and humor.
You did not know Stevenson. As good as we want to remember Ike, Adalie Stevenson was an excellent alternative to good old Ike. He had more government experience. But a war hero close to the end of the war was hard to beat.
Truman refused to participate in the overthrow of the Mossadegh government. Eisenhower approved it in his first year in office. We will never shed our responsibility for that, and nobody reading this will live to see an end to its malign consequences.
"banana republic" outlook... Was Iran thing about oil mainly, and/or fear of social revolution? Whatever, Iran got islamic fundamentalism back in spades for that. And you might want to ask what all the motivations behind that were....
Frank, probably both. We have done so many awful things in the pursuit of oil and also the worry about socialism and communism, creating problems we still see today. i think we can thank the recently passed Kissinger for some of this.
Kissinger, J Edgar Hoover, and the "Rumsfield and Cheney" duo were some of the most long-lastingly toxic players ever involved in policy. The hubris of these men has poisoned the world.
Michele, May this give you a laugh: my college roommate when I visited her in the 1970’s (?), told me in all seriousness that, having known Kissinger’s wife in high school (Bronxville,NY), that we could not trust anyone that she married. As she was a very bright friend from a very bright family, I never forgot the story and conclude that she was correct.
You left out the biggest motivation- the Soviet Union operation to forcibly take over the government of Iran.
Growing up as a confirmed liberal/progressive I didn’t credit the concern about the international spread of communism. However, public examination of government archives since the fall of the USSR have revealed how powerful and extensive was international communist movement and it was directed by the USSR. They were willing to sacrifice the well being of their citizens to use their resources to spread their ideology.
I was shocked to learn a few years ago that the American communist party was followed day to day orders directly from the USSR.
If you are speaking of the the Overthrow Mossadegh, what the US and Britain opposed was Mossadegh's desire to nationalize Iran's oil industry using a payment formula that had been used by the British. The oil was under Iran after all. The installation of the Shaw gave us today's aggressive theocracy.
The USSR was a brutal dictatorship that was indeed a threat to the West, but the "red" witch hunts were out of line. And somehow Hitler-supporting rich guys seemed to get a pass, even in WWII. Fanatics and despots of any sort have always been the problem.
Prime Minister of Iran in 1952 to 1953 elected as such by the Iranian Parliament at a time when parliamentary elections were in fact considered legitimate in Iran, William P.
Oh, Mossadegh. I took a college course from Richard Cottam, who was with the CIA and participated in the overthrow of Mossadegh and the reinstatement of the Shah.
A few years ago, I was taking a class in International Relations at the local community college and I brought it up (I'm really old, compared to my fellow students) and they all gaped at me. Granted, 1953 was a while ago, but still...
I like that. Yes, I think from now on, I'll be an Eisenhower Democrat. That sounds better than the "yellow-dog democrat" I am now (but my voting habits won't change).
I don't feel any partisan loyalties, but on the basis of party values, I always voted for Democrats, save for two of three (back in the day) Repubs for minor offices.
I still do too. When I was 7 years old, in 1952, my sister and I would march proudly on the sidewalk in front of our house with little American flags, chanting "I like Ike!" I was going to say, I bet he wouldn't be a Republican today. But instead, I'll say, I bet if he were alive today, the GOP might still be a Grand Old Party.
I view Ike as a great military commander and a reasonable president. I think he would loathe Trump, as would Lincoln. No doubt he'd have a thing or two to say to "Republican" leaders.
SCOTUS making decisions that effect the course of American life based on cases made up of outright lies
When judges so blatantly ignore the obvious in order to shape society, when their political loyalties can be seen even by the myopic, the Supreme Court has left behind their stated role in Government and have become, ironically, UnConstitutional in the whole
I see one possible silver lining in this current court. They like their power and don't want to give it up to a dictator. There are a lot of Trump related rulings coming, ---- I don't think they will go his way. At least I hope not.
Jeri, I have found that many people, both liberal and conservative, often accuse their opponents of being stupid simply because they don’t agree with a point of view. This is a major mistake which undermines one’s ability to see their opponents clearly.
Repubs are not stupid so much as they are greedy, ignorant, and without scruples. Dems are far from perfect, but never in my long life have they matched republican’s evil aims.
The wealthy have generations of experience in perfecting and bringing the strategies necessary to prohibit the making of laws or enforcement of tax policies that would put their gains at risk. HCR is right. This is fascinating stuff to follow. I won't put my meager investment portfolio up as collateral for any effort to hold the wealthy or Supreme Court accountable, least of all be fair about their responsibility for 99% of American's needs for a well funded government that works on our behalf. Their legal teams get more in fees, I suspect, than net taxes paid by them.
Be careful of generalities. Half of my extended family are Republicans. They are not stupid or evangelical; they hold religious and economic views diametrically opposed to mine. And due to the algorithms in all kinds of social media, they have found like-minded people. Unfortunately, as explained on NPR, research finds that social media not only reinforces their preexisting beliefs but also reduces their empathy for others with opposing viewpoints. Which is why there is a lot of silence at family gatherings!
Mine too. Large family so there are the ignorant, the religious nuts, the stupid, the greedy, the haters (of whatever stripe), and some who have changed stripes.
Agreed that they are greedy, ignorant, and without scruples, but not certain why that isn’t stupidity. Surely it doesn’t show intelligence to be consumed by all of the above.🤣
I think of ignorance as a sometimes deliberate lack and stupidity as a trait that can't be educated. Not saying that there is not a lot of stupid out there. Cults can attract both it seems, especially by the greedy with zip scruples. Just my take, need to check Webster
Totally agree. Malign/demeaning ad homina is considered the less valid of argument forms, but it is also the most widely practiced. This, for example, is what the right eco chamber has done with Biden.
They have morals all right, THEIR morals. Immense wealth is an essential foundation for an aristocracy philosophy of governance and civilization. Check out Edward Gibbons. Fascism/communism were run by people who existantially figured "they knew better". That feeling has hardly gone away, albeit somewhat muted.
Ike did not imagine concentration and deregulation of media. I know "smart" and educated MAGAs. The vulnerability to lockstep cult ideology. It is clear that cult adherence can allow people to believe practically anything and abandon morality. Terrorists do that.
Today's Dems are yesterday's Reps; things have gone only right. This has happened because of the concept of "compromise"—but, with perhaps a few exceptions, the only ones to compromise are the dems. That this still works shows the weakness of the dems. It is frightening—and all they can do is beg for money through emails. They have my vote, my support but I've no money. Whatever happened to reforms in campaign financing? Seems that its been "privatized" (like Fox News)....Citizens United and the disgusting "Corporations are People" (what about these international corporations?) I'm ranting, and this is why I so appreciate Heather Cox Richardsons clear and informed voice.
Like almost everything else in America, money is so important. The Dems have to appeal to the rich to receive enough money to compete in elections. They have been very successful with rich liberals, but rich liberals have different expectations than poor Democratic Socialists. It's pay to play.
I like the “stupid” part best. That’s my thought about many Republicans in Congress. They look stupid and they seem greedy. Others are crafty and mean. Finally: all who voter against certifying the election are traitors. Time for a total “restructuring.”
For someone who is an economic dunce, Heather, you and some of the comments below have educated me more than my economics teachers in college and the main stream media. I am old now, however, you have made economics come alive. Thank you!
You are right to couple money and power, every bit the two strands of a DNA-like double helix, just as are those parallel strands of race and class economy in America. As to feudalism, you are right. Most here put the focus on ‘saving democracy’, when it was killed off long ago.
We’ll have democracy under a socialist umbrella, worker co-ops, etc., or we won’t have it all. The ‘insurrectionists’ on 1/6, and those who supported them, are not the enemy, no matter how hard current media darling Lynn Cheney tries to make it so. Jeff Bezos is. Yanis lays it out in less than two minutes here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKJ3hp0E20Q
What I think he means is the the Jan 6 people were the pawns who were manipulated by the very rich by using racism, fear of communism, sexism and religion to get those folks to do the dirty work. They are still at it today.
Brown Shirt Pawns ?? Not responsible for their own stupid actions?? “He made me do it”??
I don’t disagree that the rich and powerful manipulate the MAGA Mass ( think tumor) but the definition is clear and the two classes are only dangerous when they work in concert
Pawns? No. Adults do not get to claim they were manipulated by rich folks. The Redcaps were not children, so they are entirely to blame for January 6. They rampaged because they wanted to. .
1776 much? The ‘insurrectionists’, and by that I mean the rather minuscule number of those who met that definition at the Capitol on 1/6, didn’t have the wrong idea, just the wrong target. Had they stormed the corporate offices of Raytheon, Bank of America, Pfizer, etc., as long as they didn’t hurt human beings present in those offices, and confined their protest to property damage/messaging only, they would have been, as the Brits would say, spot on.
They might have been just as unaware as is a liberal class of people who think Republicans are a bigger threat to democracy than corporate capture of the duopoly.
Tom, wealth is omnipresent in modern society, no sense picking on Bezos. Wealth finances much if not most of modern politics. Did before i was born too. Modern corporations feel dutibound to contribute financially to the parties, often with indifferent allegiance, eg 60/40 according to who's in power. Not that the wealthy dont have champions! And i think Im gonna read Liz Cheney's new book. Rachel Maddow interviewed her Monday night, just watched it over morning coffee.
Plenty of books you should read before Cheney’s, if you haven’t already, like The Devil’s Chessboard, The Jakarta Method, Silent Coup, The Division of Light and Power, Glass House, Democracy Incorporated, etc.
Feudalism: yes! Their idea of a perfect world is assuring that workers from childhood through senescence are competing for poorly-paid jobs, with no safety requirements or <horrors!> unions. Kind of like Monty Python and the Holy Grail, where the peasants are toiling in the dirt. King Arthur (a billionaire) rides by on a white horse. One peasant says “there goes the king” and the other peasant says, “how do you know he’s the king?” Peasant #1 says “He ain’t got any shit on him.”
I think the billionaires finally realized they don’t need a middle class to buy their products; there are billions of people in other countries who can be consumers.
"The word 'free' is used three times in the Declaration of Independence and once in the First Amendment to the Constitution, along with 'freedom.' The word 'fair' is not used in either of our founding documents." - Reagan mentor Milton Friedman
Yet the words "just" and "justice" are. What's unfair about that?
Under the current trajectory of SCOTUS, the 1% will have justice, the rest of us will be left with "Just Us". At its best, justice can be a restorative process, loving even, righting errors in a way that benefits all those involved and society in general. At its worst, our legal system can be an exploitive hope extinguishing nightmare. With the safety valve of justice gone, things tend to explode - something that almost never benefits anyone.
Wilhoit: Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.
Thanks for showing me that quote again. What conservatives want to conserve is the in-group and what makes them happy. They are happy to have all the wealth and to assert their moral superiority over members of the out-group
It seems to me to be a case of malignant ego. We all have one, the word is Latin for "I", but when I seeks to dominate others, it can become a big problem. It's the antithesis of the notion of unalienable rights; the antithesis of compassion.
also
"Conservatism" sounds too respectable. There is a use for the word I admire. A prudently cautious "conservative" estimate, or what we used to call "conservationists" (now "environmentalists). I consider the scientific method conservative. Like the word "Republican" for a movement bent on dismantling our republic, or "Citizens United" for rule by the rich, it just seems like one more attempt to mislead.
I would argue even the 1% will not be experiencing justice when the table is tipped their way. They will live in fear of being othered and when resources dwindle sufficiently, they will turn on and prey upon each other.
I recall reading about South American oligarchs who live in armed compounds and always travel with a retinue of machine-gun toting guards. Sounds like a gilded prison to me. Seems to me like a nasty way even for the lords of the manor to live.
My dad knew colleagues working in Bogota in the 1950s. Your house had to have bars on all of the windows, and you should keep your lifestyle very modest so as not to be a target of thieves or kidnappers.
He seems to have been clever, but clever need not be moral or wise. I am more aware of his impact than his biography, but my guess is that much of the celebration of his sociopathic attitude had to do with pleasing the very rich and powerful. I think that thumb on the scale majorly influences much of our aggregated social perceptions.
What was the benefit of slavery for the struggling poor white, as compared to a thriving and equitable working middle class? Or a brand of Christianity that subjugates itself to the wealthy, and embraces aggressive wars, justifies torture?
Or his trickle-down economics, the biggest economic con job since Ponzi, which cemented him forever in the Rich and Corporate Hall of Fame. (And reinforces your notion of why he was so celebrated by sociopaths--he made them trillions from tax cuts.)
They also complain a lot about immigration and refuse to change the policy. I think this is because they like to use the border issues as a tool to beat on Dems.
That and employing the cheapest labor possible. CEO's will hire children to work. As Tyson Foods does. CEO's love to hire illegal immigrants. That's why they don't want the problem fixed. It pays for their private jets.
Oh, the churches are being opportunistic. But definitely the same people - many of whom are lay people - that are behind the uber-wealthy mega churches are also behind a more general feudalisation.
"The real deal breaker is the wealthy want all government spending to benefit only them, but they do not want to pay any taxes."
Yep. "Welfare for white people" completely dwarfs the sum total of ALL other forms of government support for the people of the United States if you include tax cuts for the wealthy PLUS massive giveaways to the wealthy.
Just look at the period from 2007 to 2014 on the below government debt chart which shows government debt increase as a function of time.
We had "shovel ready" money to "shovel" into big banks for YEARS, from 2007-2014, vastly increasing the deficit. Unfortunately, Obama, not mentioned by Dr. Richardson, was one of America's biggest deficit spenders of all time. A huge fraction of that money went to big banks. It's OK though, because, Obama's first speech after he left office was at a big NY Bank where they paid him $400,000 for an hour and a few minutes of "speech".
Similarly, Mr. "Fiscal Responsibility", Ronald Reagan is also one of the bigger deficit growers while simultaneously giving TV speeches about "fiscal responsibility". See the graph below.
The truth is EVERY American President since Jimmy Carter, who paid down debt during his entire administration role modeling "fiscal responsibility", has been irresponsible with debt.
Sometimes Clinton gets a pat on the back and he did, after initially ramping the debt up quite a bit, then rolled it off a tiny bit. Not much.
It has been a drunken party of welfare for white people my entire adult life.
As HCR said in today's letter, tax cuts are the chief drivers of the deficit, not spending on social projects or entitlements. Just as tax law shows what a society values, budgets also reveal the values of those who write them. A few years ago, I discovered I was eligible for a little known mortgage assistance program offered by the federal government (I did not apply). At the time. my income was in the low six figures. I also discovered the federal government spent roughly 3 times the amount on mortgage assistance programs as on affordable housing. Money is not going where it is most needed.
While there was much to admire about the Obamas and his presidency, you are spot on when it came to economics. Much of that money to bail out financial institutions could have been rerouted to those who had been scammed with ridiculous mortgages - documents that were designed to destroy the dream of home ownership and send that equity into the hands of the very same nobles who created the financial mess.
The propaganda about the big banks failing was just that. For every failure, there would have been vulture capitalists ready to swoop in and eat up what assets remained. The stock market and retirement portfolios were hardly spared anyway. So my IRA and 401k would have dropped 55% instead of 45%? (Fortunately, we patient ones became whole again over time).
Instead, millions of Americans - who couldn't understand the incredibly complex loans they signed on to - either walked away from their homes or lived financially "under water" for many years. This caused economic punishment and stagnation - if you can't afford to move because if you sell your house you can't pay off the mortgage, what are your job choices? It was like jail.
Obama suffered from the influence of the nobles. He wanted to be a president of "all the people" - but he was too impressed by the con men on Wall Street.
And he didn't respond forcefully to the Russian war theft of Crimea. And here we are. Dealing with an emboldened Putin who plays the long game of chess.
But I really like Obama. I wish we would hear more from him right now. He has been active and supportive. But Obama has the chops and media pull to blast into every TV studio and to dominate social media if he put more into it.
He has the speaking talent and charisma that few of today's leaders enjoy. I wonder why he hasn't become a more vocal partner in the campaign called "Biden/Harris"? The tradition of past presidents remaining silent after leaving office has been decimated. Time for one who has the respect and admiration of the nation to get on the hustings full time - overtime, maybe even. I'd like to see him launch a full on broadside towards what has become a drift towards fascism in the GOP and among those Wall Street con men he helped in 2008.
This is a war. We need all the big talent guns we can recruit.
Mr Alstrom, I’d like to “like” your comments about President Obama, whom I too greatly admire. But I can’t. Your assessment of his presidency, of his moral fiber, is infuriating:
“Obama suffered from the influence of the nobles. He wanted to be a president of "all the people" - but he was too impressed by the con men on Wall Street.”
Seriously? Obama was brand new in the job as President of the United States. Thank the Higher Power the man is brilliant, surrounded himself with a brilliant, agile, adaptive staff, and availed himself of the guidance of the best and brightest minds he knew to come to decisions about a pending global financial collapse. (His process must have worked, right? You admit: “Fortunately, we patient ones became whole again over time.” Dare we say “patient AND PRIVILEGED”?)
Yes, I agree President Obama’s guidance would be so welcome and comforting to so many of us right now. But we need to remember: His presidency, that of a BRILLIANT BLACK AMERICAN, is what riled up these fools, this crazy Zeitgeist. It’s what led to the likes of fascist strongmen crawling out from under rocks, what gave MAGAs permission to say out loud and proud the hate and fear roiling in their hearts. President Obama is already in their sights. He needn’t martyr himself. I think we need to be satisfied that he continues to work behind the scenes with the other leaders who have backbone and moral certitude, and can help our defense against this Dark Age.
It's a variation of the claim one still hears today that the Confederate casus belli had nothing to do with slavery, and that Lee was preparing to free the slaves had he only got the chance.
Wow! Heritage Foundation published that? He himself was “racially divided.” I naively thought that would show bigots that they might be wrong. But I forgot . . . African ancestry is so, so powerful it can wipe out any trace of European ancestry, to the great-great-grandparent generation.
Imagine how Obama's process might have lifted us out of a Great Recession much faster if the true victims of the manufactured mortgage crisis had been made whole instead of the uber rich. A parallel concept was applied when the Pandemic was addressed financially. Checks written directly to the people. There were errors along the way, of course. But it helped Jack and Jill Everyday and boosted the economy nicely.
A few big institutions going bust and being absorbed by others was blown out of proportion by the ruling class.
And the creators of those instruments of mortgage doom went unpunished - many were rewarded for their careers of plunder.
Obama was hardly alone in his naivety. The whole nation bought the scam.
I am still am fond of him. There were so many days when the news cycle was wonderfully boring as he competenly and gracefully handled the office. After the Bush insanity, there was a sense of trust and international respect.
Obama’s big mistake was overestimating the American people. He, like many of us, thought that the Tea Party was so off base it would be obvious to everyone. He was also aware how much he was limited by being a Black man. He couldn’t be aggressive. He had to be charming.
Yes Bill, every time I hear Obama speak, either currently or a replay of a former time, I long to hear more from him. He is intelligent, engaging, and so charismatic. More peptalks for our home team would certainly be welcome. Hopefully, these will be coming soon...
Do remember, however, that the wealthy and slightly less so in fact almost entirely finance the federal government. Also, growing wealth inequality has become global in nature. And for sure the GOP has been successfully engineering lower taxes which they want to be covered by reduced social support spending. I certainly agree they should pay more, by a bit! here's Oxfam's take on the wealthy and taxes.
No, I disagree. The very wealthiest World billionaire club does not pay a higher tax rate than the lower middle class. Yet, they are quite successful at having #ALL# the spending directed at their interests, rather than the interests of the people who need roads to go to work.
i didnt say they pay a higher rate. Even at their lower rates (likely mostly tax deferred, so eventually it comes to roost) they pay for the federal government. Easy to check that out. The single biggest expenditure i believe is military. Last thing GOP would cut.
My thanks to him. Corruption as been growing since Nixon's "pardon". We should never have stood for it this long and let it spread this far, but it's high time for more Americans to call it by its name.
Leonard Leo's picks for SCOTUS have already had tragic and perhaps irreversible consequence way beyond Dobbs.
Dobbs was a tragedy but there have been several others as HCR points out that are terrible. Thomas, Alito and Robert's need to retire so we can reverse some of their terrible decisions.
JL Graham, I agree. As HCR and others have red circled before - the absolute weight of consequences must be paud in a democracy by those who defy the common good in the rule if law. Shame is a real thing.
And lack of shame (or rather the capacity for experiencing guilt) and conscience is an evil "superpower". Evil sociopaths often attract a rapt following, but they will sell out anything or anyone to maximize their dominance.
Alexandra - Can you imagine the brilliant school kids we'd have coming up if only a Sheldon Whitehouse-like teacher were in every school? Maybe we could tape his whiteboard lessons for the classrooms? Hell, tape them and broadcast them to our living ooms at 7PM each evening! He's brilliant.
A glass eye in a duck's ass can see our right wing Supreme Court is owned and operated by the brotherhood of the ever growing JB bigoted boys billionaires club. This is corruption at the highest levels of our government. Fist pump to Senator Whitehouse. The man is like a dog with a bone fighting for us. Democrats protect people, Republicans protect property. They believe, we the people are their property.
They protect property, which is OK up to a point. The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable government searches and seizures, but also against thieves. The big controversy is the right to monopolize wealth and power. We as a society decided to dial back some to that monopolization, in the form of abolition in the 1800s, and women's rights, civil rights, gay right, antitrust, regulation of campaign financing, fairness doctrine, etc. especially after the the excesses and corruption of the Gilded Age. We as a nation fell for a well financed and organized propaganda campaign to abandon important portions of those reforms with the embrace of "Reaganomics".
That headline from Public Notice is about as clear as it can be: "SCOTUS is making major decisions based on outright lies." The whole article is horrifying but really worth reading.
"If this was before a normal Supreme Court, rather than our current hyper-conservative one, this would be a major scandal, one which would, at minimum, earn the Moore lawyers an ethical complaint for failing to be truthful to the Court and, at maximum, would result in the case being thrown out. But since we have the current Court, there’s no sign this bombshell will even be an issue for conservatives at the oral argument tomorrow.
And why would it? The Court has already proved it is perfectly comfortable with litigants who lie to it and, worse still, with justices who write majority opinions that wildly mischaracterize the facts before the court."
I wasn't aware of Public Notice until this HCR mention. Thank you.
This article, and the Kagan article in the Times (or WaPo) are just terrifying. Read them with the lights on.
The Republicans on the SCOTUS are too busy enjoying the good life their sponsors are giving them to even both having their clerks fact check the amicus briefs--they just cut & paste anything from one of Leonard's boys.
Actually, it's not a bad idea to have the Justices show names of their sponsors on their robes--like NASCAR drivers. It's not like some of them can sink any lower....
"In 2016, Kavanaugh reported having between $60,000 and $200,000 in debt accrued over three credit cards and a loan. Each credit card held between $15,000 and $50,000 in debt, and a Thrift Savings Plan loan was between $15,000 and $50,000. The credit card debts and loan were either paid off or fell below the reporting requirements in 2017, according to the filings, which do not require details on the nature or source of such payments." -- WaPo
It seems to me that financial transparency should be a requirement of public service. And avoidance of certain sorts of potential conflicts of interest should be a legal requirement. Our officials tend to gain more and more impunity as they rise in the ranks; a feature of despotic governance, not a functioning representative democracy.
SCOTUS making decisions that effect the course of American life based on cases made up of outright lies
When judges so blatantly ignore the obvious in order to shape society, when their political loyalties can be seen even by the myopic, the Supreme Court has left behind their stated role in Government and have become, ironically, UnConstitutional in the whole
It may be that to save our democracy from this radical SCOTUS is to "pack the court." It looks as though the Justices are hell bent to destroy the administrative state and a tax system that would tax the wealthy.
"Packing the court" could be replaced with the phrase "making the court more representative of the people". Maybe the Court should be even more than 13. Maybe the Chief Justice Job should be rotational. Certainly, there should be term limits. Why should anyone get a job for life - making decisions as potential dementia sets in.
Anyway, we really should stop calling them "justices" now. Puppets would seem more appropriate.
It gets tricky. I was rooting for RBG till the bitter end, and while I am concerned about Biden's age, I don't think it's a deal-breaker. No one in goverment, however, should wield autocratic powers. The job description needs more structure while providing sufficient flexibility. That's a tough call, bit I think we as a society need a lot more discussion about what justice really is. As in "de facto segregation" the ultimate test is in the outcome.
I remember reading some years ago (10? 15?) that Roberts was worried about the "legacy" of the Roberts Court. I now see why. This court will be forever known; whether as the court that toppled the United States, or as one that led to the drastic overhaul of foundational policy and the eventual rebirth (under a different CJ) of a true Supreme Court. There is NOTHING positive in the legacy of "his" Court
As long as we’re talking outright lies, let’s get real. Our democracy is a lie. And was long before Trump. We live under corporate totalitarianism, under a corporate coup funded by capitalists, who delight in the liberal left attacking the Federalist Society and GOP extremists every bit as much as they do conservative populists and religious kooks attacking scary ghosts in the culture wars.
Janet Yellen’s soothing BS about how we can afford wars in Ukraine and Gaza is a perfect example of Reagan’s kernel of truth (welfare queens, or gubmit is the problem) extrapolated into a big , fat lie.
All our ills lie at the feet of end-stage capitalism. The sooner we all realize it, the better. And right now, I see no indication that liberals will get it any quicker than the average MAGA lemming.
“The ongoing massacre in Gaza is happening because the US empire wants it to happen. They could stop the bloodshed at any time, but they don’t, because they do not want to. This is because the US empire is run by sociopaths who only care about global domination, and nonstop violence from Israel is a key component in the domination of a crucial geostrategic region on this planet.”
"Our democracy is a lie". OK, I am often critical of our system but, I must disagree with your wholesale condemnation of "Our Democracy".
It is true that big business is favored in "Our Democracy" relative to all other entities. BUT, other entities CAN make a difference when energetic and monied enough.
An example is the current increase in manufacturing on-shore here in the United States. Not far from me, in upstate NY, there will be several chip fabrication plants built (I hope). Biden's work has led to that outcome and that outcome is because you and I voted for him.
Also, if you go to Alexandria Ocasia-Cortez district, you will talk to people that are helped by her without walking around much. She is one of the MOST active representatives FOR HER PEOPLE in American history. I tune in to all of her zoom updates and meetings. She is truly interested in only one thing: The people of her district.
So, good things CAN happen here Tom assuming the right people are elected. UNLIKE Russia, or Saudi Arabia, or China.
As Churchill noted: Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.
Tom lives in a place where the solutions are a fantasy. I am just as angry at the oligarchs, the military industrial complex, the "purchased" politicians as anyone else. But ranting without acting practically was something I have been trying to grow out of for 50 years. I am semi-successful :)
In the mean time, the rest of us will work on applauding the progress you refer to and supporting the people who want to fix this totally imperfect experiment in democracy.
I think the answer lies with the newest generations and getting them to vote. Examples: Robert Hubbell's "focus on action". Jessica Craven's activism inspires. Registering 9,000 18 year olds in Santos' NY district. And there will be millions of young people who could tip the 2024 election away from fascism and back to a very flawed but much better version of democracy. Our success depends on the degree of their involvement.
I don’t live in a place where solutions are a fantasy, I live in a place where solutions are out there, and corporate-owned politicians, of both parties, refuse to implement them, and the tribal supporters of both parties would prefer to blame the other party than look in the mirror and acknowledge their own complicity in the dysfunction.
You want a youth voting surge? I’d suggest you pressure your party leadership to end their support of a genocide, for starters, and that is not hyperbole. Those are our bombs falling on Gaza.
Unfortunately governments, religions and businesses are comprised of people. And people have the seeds of selfishness and evil in them as well as generosity and goodness. All we can do is water the seeds we'd like to see grow, not just complain about the weeds.
I want Democrats to try to communicate a vivid vision of an alternate to tax cuts and bailouts for the rich and austerity and insecurity for the serfs.
No, you can kill/pull weeds, and I’m encouraging people to do that, not just plant new seeds. Unfortunately, each tribe only wants to pull the other tribe’s weeds, never their own.
Mike: And yet Stefanik voted against the CHIPS and Science Act, the legislation passed to boost funding for semiconductor manufacturing in upstate NY - legislation that impacts her own district!!
Mike, due respect, but I think you are living under an illusion, that being, to use your specific example, that the ‘right people’ can be elected. Don’t misunderstand me, I’m not advocating authoritarian rule, as is the case in both Russia and China, even though both of those nations are doing a far better job reigning in their oligarchs than we are. But our corporate duopoly prevents the nomination of, much less the election of, the right people in sufficient numbers to throw off the corporate donor yoke.
AOC had a chance to speak truth to power with force the vote on M4A, and she balked, just like Bernie did after being screwed by the DNC in ‘16. I don’t want to hear about constituent services; Jesse Helms was stellar there as well. Again, all better than the GOP, but all, always, fold like a cheap suit when it comes to meaningfully standing up to capitalists, always siding with party over country, every bit as much as the knuckle-dragging denizens in the GOP.
Big business is not ‘favored’ in our democracy, it owns it. When the liberal left begins to understand the difference, we might have a shot a better future, instead of a continuation of the ratchet effect that further cements corporate rule.
Democracy is badly corrupted here. It always had been, but now we have to fight even harder to retain it. Were it gone, this Internet discussion would not be happening. We can get a sense of what no functioning democracy is like from viewing some other nations.
I have not been to Saudi Arabi or Russia but I have been to China. Loved it. Travelling around as a woman on my own was a joy. No hassles, quite a lot of kindness and absolutely no fear.
Tom, I will be the first to say our democracy is very flawed, corrupted by patriarchy and the original sin of slavery. Progress is a painful, glacial process. But the "US empire" is made up of some very different people, morally. Some of them are irredeemable narcissists and sociopaths. Some of them are working with all their being to do the right thing about appalling situations. it's not really that hard to tell the sociopaths from the public servants, and it is simply wrong to say ALL our leaders are "sociopaths who only care about global domination."
I think the corrupt capitalist system, coupled with the desire for American hegemony and all the imperialist underpinnings that come along with it, forces the sociopathic behavior on everyone, regardless of intention or morality.
Biden is a perfect example. He does have a better moral compass than Trump (lowest of bars), or Bush/Clinton/Obama. But that didn’t stop him from supporting racist domestic policy, supporting mendacious corporate financial legislation, and proxy war and genocide in Ukraine and Gaza.
You’re right that, in many cases, progress is a glacial process. But sometimes it isn’t. And the reluctance of the liberal left to understand when radical change is necessary, and fight for it tooth and nail, opens the door for authoritarian rule, either by corporate totalitarianism, which we now live under, or autocratic dictatorial despot, which is on the horizon.
You have hope that democracy can win out and reform capitalism. I don’t share that hope. I think climate chaos is coming, and neither political party is wiling to fully turn its back on corporate donors to realistically address it. Neither party will address the chokehold fossil fuels have on the world’s economies.
All the endless war originates with oil. And we’re going to burn the earth, and ourselves, before we do anything meaningful about it.
I’m as much a coward as the next person. Were I truly committed to the radical change I support, I would have burned myself alive in front of the White House a couple decades ago when I saw the corporate coup coming.
I have this compelling desire - actually a need - to identify and fix things. One little thing at a time. I can't fix everything. So I focus on what I can control and hope that if I am part of a larger effort, my little bit of energy was devoted to the right stuff. Many of us pick up litter when we come across it. Others complain about the local government not cleaning it up.
The climate chaos you mention is already here. And the horrors of it have barely begun. Yes, oil is the cause and the tool of the oligarchs who don't care about their own planet. I think billions of people will probably suffer and perish.
In the mean time, perhaps we all can try to make whatever tiny differences we can achieve. Maybe, together, we could minimize some of the damage.
I wish for you some hope and a more cheerful outlook. Hey! Maybe after you leave this forum you have some serious pleasures - hope so. No way for us to know.
My daily outlook is that realistically, we (everyone) could count the days we have left to be conscious. Then it is over. Done. While I try to fix some things everyday, if I can't truly enjoy that day, I have handed my happiness over to the enemy. Not my game plan. Good luck to us all.
“I wish for you some hope and a more cheerful outlook. Hey! Maybe after you leave this forum you have some serious pleasures - hope so. No way for us to know.”
Bill, respectfully, that made me laugh (cheerful outlook) in a Christian witnessing sort of way. I guarantee you that I have a broader sense of humor, and laugh more daily, than 90% of Americans, and commenters here. I could link Jonathan Winters YouTubes to prove it, but that would probably be appreciated here as much as my anti-corporate rants.
I have a great family, dogs, good friends, a half-acre garden, a bucolic setting just outside a college town in NC. All in all, a much better place to watch the world burn than most.
I don’t have a problem recognizing that it is equally true that each of us is a unique miracle of life in our existence, and also as meaningless as a grain of sand on a wide beach in the grand scheme of things. Most people prefer to focus on the former; I give each equal time.
You state that you are into identifying and then fixing things. My issue here is that I don’t feel people are identifying correctly; they think Trump/GOP/Reagan are why we can’t have nice things. So identify = GOP. Fix = Vote Blue No Matter Who. Meanwhile, the monied interests tighten their grip on government.
Bill, a very thought provoking response and I thank you for it. I tend to be more like Tom in my thinking but try real hard to undo that part of my brain from thinking that way. It's a daily struggle but I keep trying. Thank you.
If you don't like our capitalist system, what do you suggest as an alternative?
I despise the total capture of our government by corporatists, because it leaves us no means to regulate the hell out of the private sector when needed. But our base system of publicly regulated capitalism is as good as an ideal gets. What would you change, or do we actually agree on this?
Yesterday Marcia Coyle, PBS News Hour’s Supreme Court expert made no mention of the fictional basis of the Moore case. Hmm. Too controversial to mention, or not widely known yet? It does seem kind of relevant, does it not? Same with wedding website case.
When you see, in writing, just how many millions of dollars could bring people out of poverty, house the unhoused, provide really affordable healthcare, and educate those who want it, it is truly mind-boggling. This tax system would stop aiding and abetting the filthy rich if we get rid of Criminals United. Did I say that? HA! Meant Citizens United but you already that. I honestly dread how SCOTUS will rule tomorrow. I will not be surprised but I will be very very angry.
SCROTUS, in my mind. The "R" stands for "RepubliKan", and is pronounced like a part of the male anatomy, with an "S" rather than an "M", and in my junior high brain is one of the derogatory terms used when describing conduct of a person as being less than on the up and up.
Could we entertain a Blue Tsunami and cleansing sweep ? The Big LieS are not just the election was rigged ...before the fact (supposition) is PLANTED for convenience -tells the reality or what’s about to be..pointed accuracy as I can see. Case in point...today...the chess game of rich/con men.
I’ve asked ‘where will you go’ IF ...there are SO MANY who think they’d not be a part of the cascade...HA!
I had no idea. Thank you, once again and always, HCR, for bringing an important truth to light, be it historical or contemporary or both.
Isn’t there some kind of perjury involved in knowingly bringing a case to court based on a fictional event? Shouldn’t decisions based on such fictional events be nullified?
The New American Nazi Party sees fit to create its own reality out of whole cloth when the facts are inconvenient or even non-existent.
Ralph, your question sent me down a rabbit hole. I know that when testifying in a criminal court of fact, a witness must swear or affirm, under penalty of perjury, to "tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth" which usually pertains to the facts of the case at issue. I could find nothing regarding perjury in the appellate process, which is where original cases go after the adjudication at the lowest level "on appeal" when one side or the other can make claims that violations occurred at the trial level. (I have testified, under oath, hundreds of times, if not thousands, in an original "trial of record". I have never testified in an Appeals Court, because, if I am correct, that is only done on "paper" and not having actual witnesses testify. I am NOT an expert.)
I have no idea how a "wrong" which never occurred could get as far as a State Appellate Court, much less a Federal Appeals Court, and even less to the Supreme Court.
Byran Sean McCowan to the white courtesy telephone.
Good to see ...and is the last hope , blue sweep and close the loopholes. That such accepted understandings prevailed set the stage for an inevitable upset. We have this election cycle ONLY , ‘they’ SAW the mistakes made and set in place remedy. Many including Heather , Joyce, Ruth, Steve , Simon and many more warned us. The House of Cards came into play , and the movie was amazingly accurate. There appears many aware, jumping ship, the midterms and current elections lead and are promising . And Biden focus is steeled, experienced, knowing.
But...America’s weakness (partly our own undoing) is vulnerable . Foreign influence at dangerous levels with our OWN loud ‘moles’ contributing. The age old plot to undo The American Dream has insidious lust to finalize , and they can taste it!
Well, I think most of us wrestle with our own greed. The thing is that what makes greed greed is the element of deprivation/harm to others. "The well known phrase "Greed is good" was a live spoken by a bad guy in a movie, but Republicans embraced it as a motto, attempting to obscure the moral taint of "greed" as opposed an ethical desire to prosper. The notion that commerce should be an ethics-free zone is just bananas, logically, at least from a societal point of view, or ethically.
Tax and spending policies have the potential to benefit millions of Americans and already have. Payroll taxes fund social security and Medicare. Those programs make many millions of Americans more financially secure in retirement. The challenge is making the system as fair as possible. Taxation based on the ability to pay seems a reasonable approach. Republicans are locked into tax reduction and tend to blame Democrats for overspending. In reality, both parties spend but only one party wants to pay for spending.
Old school Republicans created a graduated income tax to pay for a war not of their making. GWB pushed massive, top heavy tax cuts while declaring two wars.
The reason for the $33 trillion national debt is because the large corporations and the wealthy have virtually stopped paying taxes commensurate with their profits and the benefits that they derive from our system. The oligarchs have been amazingly successful in gaming the system, suckering in the gullible with the wedge issues. At the moment, race is the winning wedge issue for them.
Until a few years ago, I was not aware of that non-citizens who live and work in America pay Federal and sometimes State income taxes. (https://blog.taxact.com) Nor was I aware until a few years ago that a large number of wealthy individuals paid relatively little to no State or Federal taxes.
Our taxes help pay for our military to protect us and our interests. It pays for our government, justice system, law enforcement, public schools (now private ones too, it seems), public libraries, social services, postal services, maintenance of roads and bridges, etc.
Ultra wealthy people don’t seem to have any need or desire to be a tax-paying citizen of any one country when they can instead buy politicians and law enforcement wherever they have business interests and property.
If a country they reside in experiences war or natural disaster, they can pick up and leave with very little pain while the rest of the residents must stay and suffer.
They who have so much wealth, seem contribute so little of the percentage of that wealth compared to working people of little to average income, and yet they are better protected and benefit most from regular people’s hard-earned tax dollars (both citizens and non-citizens).
It is sickening that our military, largely made up of regular people, sacrifice so much for our country, protect the little tax-paying wealthy too, who even financially profit from their pains.
It is sickening that the salaries of the law enforcement and justice systems are largely collectively paid for by regular people hard-earned tax dollars seem to better protect the rights and property of the wealthy who pay less.
It is sickening that the wealthy and their companies who greatly use our roads and bridges to travel and make profit pay very little towards their maintenance compared to collective burden on regular people.
The Supreme Court is largely paid by for by regular people, but clearly controlled by gifts from the wealthy is just another example of how the unfair tax distribution system is working against regular people. If the wealthy can afford to own the members of the Supreme Court, they’re way under taxed.
It is a continuous outrage that unfair (immoral?) policies get cemented in place, using bunk, hooey, balderdash, and fairytales as aggregate and reinforcement.
Ah, tax policy - and HCR is interested in it. We all need to pay more
attention to this crucial aspect of our economy.
'U.S. Deficit, Pegged at $1.7 Trillion, Effectively Doubled in 2023' (NYTimes, excerpt)
'The widening gap between what the government spends and what it earns comes as Congress continues to spar over the proper levels of federal spending.'
“The Biden administration continues to focus on navigating our economy’s transition to healthy and sustainable growth,” Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen said in the release. “As we do, the president and I are also committed to addressing challenges to our long-term fiscal outlook.”
‘The widening gap between what the government spends and what it earns comes at an uncomfortable moment, as the president looks to a divided Congress for aid to Israel and Ukraine amid concerns about government spending and whether the United States can afford to finance two wars.’
‘Republicans — who helped run up big budget deficits with tax cuts and increased spending when they were in power — have begun insisting on deep budget cuts in order to reduce the federal deficit. The fact that the shortfall widened could make it even more challenging to get Congress to agree on a series of spending bills that must pass by next month in order to prevent a government shutdown.’
‘On Friday, Mr. Biden’s administration formally asked Congress to approve more than $100 billion in emergency spending that includes military aid to Ukraine and Israel, humanitarian assistance in those countries and in Gaza, and a range of new efforts to improve America’s border security.’
“America can certainly afford to stand with Israel and to support Israel’s military needs, and we also can and must support Ukraine in its struggle against Russia,” Ms. Yellen told Sky News.’ (NYTimes) See gifted link below.
‘Despite growing concern in Washington and on Wall Street about the grim fiscal trajectory, lawmakers have been unable to coalesce around plans to enact meaningful spending cuts or tax increases. ‘
MEANWHILE!
'THE MONEY ISSUE (NYTIMES MAGAZINE, EXCERPT)
'How Many Billionaires Are There, Anyway?'
'— America has some 735 billionaires now according to Forbes, collectively worth more than $4.7 trillion. A decade ago, Forbes counted only (“only”) 424. A decade before that, 243. They keep multiplying, and their collective wealth grows, even, or especially, as the rest of us fall behind.'
'So where are they all coming from? Depends who you ask. An optimist might tell you that an economy producing so many billionaires is an economy that’s growing, which is certainly true of ours. Nothing wrong with that. In the 1950s, the economist Simon Kuznets popularized the idea that inequality was an unfortunate but self-regulating side effect of economic growth; whenever it got too high, Kuznets reasoned, the political process would rein it in. This was known as the Kuznets curve, a parabola that showed inequality soaring before being slowly brought back to Earth through redistribution. Kuznets believed that the richest societies would eventually be the most equal.'
'But in the last 12 years, the American political system has delivered Citizens United, a top marginal tax rate of 37 percent (down from a high of 94 percent in Kuznets’s day) and a billionaire president openly hostile to the democratic process — along with 332 new billionaires. The Kuznets curve has fallen out of favor, too, replaced by something called the Kuznets wave, which shows successive peaks and valleys of inequality. Branko Milanovic, the economist who put forward this revised model, thinks it might take at least a generation to tamp down the current peak.'
'In his book “Ages of American Capitalism,” the University of Chicago historian Jonathan Levy describes the era of capitalism we live in as the Age of Chaos: a time in which capital has become more footloose, liquid and volatile, constantly flowing into and out of booms and busts, in contrast to the staid order — and widely shared prosperity — that characterized the industrial postwar economy. Levy begins the story in 1981, the same year Forbes thought of his list. That was the year the Federal Reserve, under its chairman, Paul Volcker, raised interest rates to 20 percent with the goal of ending inflation. Volcker’s Fed succeeded at that, but the decision, Levy notes, had far-reaching consequences besides, accelerating America’s transition away from the production of goods to a form of capitalism never seen before. The dollar skyrocketed in value, making American exports even less attractive and imports even cheaper; many factories that remained profitable were closed, because compared with the incredible returns money could earn in such a high-rate environment, they simply weren’t profitable enough. When the Fed began to loosen its grip, the widely available credit unleashed a speculative bonanza, which benefited a newly empowered corporate class that felt little obligation to the work force and profound obligations to shareholders.'
'Typically the economy expands when investments are made in productivity, but this expansion was different: It was, Levy writes, “the only one on record, before or since, in which fixed investment as a share of G.D.P. declined.” In other words, our industrialists were investing less in productive stuff — ships, factories, trucks — while making more money doing so. In fact, they were often tearing that stuff up and shipping it abroad; this was the age of the corporate raiders, who would book enormous profits while putting Americans out of work. You can see this, in crude terms, as the birth of the Wall Street-Main Street divide: a severing of the finance industry from the “real” economy.'
'This shift to a highly financialized, postindustrial economy was helped along by the Reagan administration, which deregulated banking, cut the top income tax rate to 28 percent from 70 percent and took aim at organized labor — a political scapegoat for the sluggish, inflationary economy of the ’70s. Computer technology and the rise of the developing world would amplify and accelerate all these trends, turning the United States into a sort of frontal cortex for the globalizing economy. Just as important, the tech revolution created new ways for entrepreneurs to amass enormous fortunes: Software is by no means cheap to develop, but it requires fewer workers and less fixed investment, and can be reproduced and shipped around the world instantaneously and at practically no cost. Consider that the powerhouse of 20th-century capitalism, Ford Motors, now employs about 183,000 people and has a market capitalization close to $68 billion; Google employs about 156,000 people and has a market cap of around $1.8 trillion. This new economy would be run by, and for, knowledge workers, who would reap most of the gains, and therefore have more money to spend on services — a sector that would come to sort of, but never fully, replace the manufacturing this transformation did away with.'
“During the Reagan years,” Levy writes, “something new and distinctive emerged that has persisted down to this day: a capitalism dominated by asset price appreciation.” 'That is, an economy in which the rising price of assets — stocks, bonds, real estate — would be, somewhat counterintuitively, a fuel for economic growth. It has been a good time, in other words, to own a lot of assets. And owning assets is mostly what billionaires do.'
'In his book “Capital in the Twenty-First Century,” the French economist Thomas Piketty notes that the new economic order has made it difficult for the superrich not to get richer: “Past a certain threshold,” he writes, “all large fortunes, whether inherited or entrepreneurial in origin, grow at extremely high rates, regardless of whether the owner of the fortune works or not.” (NYTimes) See gifted link below.
Fern, thanks for the links as always. I cut this section as well
"Many of the votes were roundly bipartisan: More than 85 percent of the projected debt added over the last six years passed with a majority of Democratic votes in both chambers. Almost an identical amount of debt passed with at least a third of Republican votes in the House or Senate. Chief among them were a series of Covid-19 relief measures totaling more than $3 trillion and passing with landslide majorities in 2020.
Some of the laws passed entirely along party lines. In those cases, on net, Republicans added slightly more to the debt than Democrats.
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That’s because of the sweeping corporate and individual tax cuts that Mr. Trump signed into law at the end of 2017, which cost $2 trillion. Despite Republican claims that the tax cuts paid for themselves, the C.B.O. estimated last month that Mr. Trump’s corporate tax cuts alone would cost the federal government hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue in the years to come. Earlier C.B.O. analyses suggest that the full slate of tax cuts have already cost the government $1.2 trillion through the 2022 fiscal year.
The tax cuts’ price tag outweighed the net cost of the two most fiscally consequential bills that Mr. Biden and Democrats passed along party lines: a $1.9 trillion economic aid bill in 2021 and a climate, health and tax bill approved late last summer, which is projected to reduce future deficits by nearly $300 billion."
Anne Applebaum addressed the Ukraine funding & NATO Article 5 issues this morning in an interview on 'Morning Joe' about 8 minutes into Segment A. Anne Applebaum also has the most important article among many other on-point articles in the current issue of The Atlantic', the one with the all red 🔴 cover. Anne lives in Poland & is probably the top historian on Ukraine in the World.
Thank you, Bryan. Are you familiar with Timothy Snyder's books, lectures, substack called 'thinking about... ' ? I follow Anne Applebaum's writing and also, most strongly recommend Timothy Snyder's work to all interested in Democracy, Eastern Europe, Ukraine, the Holocaust...
'Timothy David Snyder is an American historian specializing in the history of Central and Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, and the Holocaust. He is the Richard C. Levin Professor of History at Yale University and a permanent fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna.'
'On Tyranny' is a call to arms and a guide to resistance, with invaluable ideas for how we can preserve our freedoms in the uncertain years to come.
'Our Malady'
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller On Tyranny comes an impassioned condemnation of America's pandemic response and an urgent call to rethink health and freedom.
'The Road to Unfreedom'
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the author of On Tyranny comes a stunning new chronicle of the rise of authoritarianism from Russia to Europe and America.
“A brilliant analysis of our time.”—Karl Ove Knausgaard, The New Yorker
'Black Earth'
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “[Timothy] Snyder identifies the conditions that allowed the Holocaust—conditions our society today shares. . . . He certainly couldn’t be more right about our world.”—The New Republic
A “gripping [and] disturbingly vivid” (The Wall Street Journal) portrait of the defining tragedy of our time, from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of On Tyranny
ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR—The Washington Post, The Economist, Publishers Weekly
'Bloodlands' is a new kind of European history, presenting the mass murders committed by the Nazi and Stalinist regimes as two aspects of a single history, in the time and place where they occurred: between Germany and Russia, when Hitler and Stalin both held power. Assiduously researched, deeply humane, and utterly definitive, Bloodlands will be required reading for anyone seeking to understand the central tragedy of modern history.
There are other important books written by Timothy Snyder, and I recommend the links provided above to be more acquainted with the depth of Timothy Snyder's knowledge and the understanding he contributes to the ways we may lose or grow democracies in Ukraine, the US and around the world.
FERN, I have read a few Snyder posts but. I will check him out further. Thank You.
On Moore v US, I will be monitoring the transcript of oral arguments at SCOTUS on Moore (the 2012-2017 CEO) definitely versus the U.S. & evidence of corruption in the case upon which "Cert" was granted & other Docket fraud.
Bryan, T. Snyder reaches me more consequentially than I could have imagined. It may sound unlike me, but he does reach my soul. He is very human, lively, engaged and it as though he is wedded to knowing what he can and, mostly, teaching with art, music, caring and knowledge that he does not showcase; it seeps out of him with grace and intensity. To see his gentle and serious sides, I suggest that you watch his substack as well as starting with a book.
I will follow your posts about Moore and whatever else you may be covering.
'I voted in the Judiciary Committee to authorize issuing subpoenas to Harlan Crow and Leonard Leo as part of our Supreme Court Ethics probe.'
'Republicans have claimed that our investigation into billionaire influence at the Court will destroy the institution. Their refusal to cooperate raises the question: What are they so concerned we’ll find? Whatever it is, you deserve to know about it. These subpoenas are a step toward learning the truth.'
'And while it’s good news that the justices recently announced a code of ethics for themselves, their pledge is all but useless if there’s no way to file a complaint, investigate potential violations, or make the findings public. The justices are their own judge and jury, which won’t stem further misconduct.'
'We’re making progress, but we still have to pass my Supreme Court ethics bill – the SCERT Act – which includes an enforcement mechanism that would hold the justices accountable to the American people.'
'That’s why I’m asking you today: If you are able, can you pitch in $40 to support my reelection campaign? The powerful people who have been rigging the Court for years are dead set on preventing me from getting to the bottom of what they’ve been up to.'
'Thank you for donating and for your support as I work to restore integrity to the Supreme Court,'
Thank you for following this subject, Helen. I hope the Letter will address how the country's current tax policy effects the socio- economic classes within our society and how changes would greatly reduce our extremely deep economic divide. This is a major area of consideration, understanding and concern of Elizabeth Warren's. Spelling this out and educating the public could also reduce our deep social divide.
Today's GOP, and its Federalist Society Supreme Court, is defined by populist racial injustice and movement conservatism economic injustice. A nation which will not protect equality before the law and equal representation, will not uphold government regulation and equitable taxation. The former 'culture wars' gets most of the publicity, while the latter is the primary purpose. It's why Charles Koch et al funnel immense amounts of money through innumerable shell companies to a myriad of antidemocratic causes - and fill the war chests of GOP legislatures to craft inequitable tax policy and grease the palms of GOP jurists to select and decide cases in their favor. It is no coincidence that Speaker Mike Johnson's religious extremism is spotlighted but his long association with Leonard Leo is not. Nor is it any surprise that Johnson's first legislative proposal was to defund the IRS - specifically to remove money the Biden administration requested to hire accountants with the expertise to efficiently process tax returns which are thousands of pages long documenting the shifting of money through shell companies, accounts, and not for profits to avoid taxation. While the 1% has grown in number, IRS staffing is around 12 expert accountants.
Did I mention, Koch bagman and court capture operative Leonard Leo - who infamously recently got $1.6 billion tax free - in addition to the routine millions - is being investigated for improperly shifting money from his non profits to his pocket? Here on Mt. Desert Island he's purchased two estates. Under an LLC arrangement he's also purchased a church building from the Catholic diocese which he plans to use as a Catholic cultural center and he is funding extensive renovations of the church still run by the diocese. All most likely with what should be our tax money. Leo has also influenced impressionable and sympathetic police and town officials to arrest and other wise intimidate people protesting his agenda. While implicated in compromising some local media outlets. Leo is in effect using this small island as a lab for the repurposing of the American democratic republic to a clerical fascist state. In a predominantly Democratic voting municipality. It can happen here.
I wish we could excommunicate Leo from Maine to maybe the Vatican. I cringe to think that some of his 7 kids are as deplorable as he is. I take comfort in the fact that women's health and abortion is protected here, but he certainly ruined women's healthcare in a large part of the country.
Well Maine, and specifically Mt Desert Island, has long been the playground of plutocrats. Many snakes in Eden. But having Leo here is an opportunity to educate people about the harm he does. There are now millions of tourists who've seen 'google Leonard Leo = Corrupt Courts' messaging. And some percentage have shared that they've educated themselves.
This Letter unintentionally highlights something I've wondered about for a while, namely, the form of wealth assessed and taxed. For instance, Jeff Bezos is estimated to be worth ~170 billion dollars, but I'm sure that the vast majority of it is in the form of "non-liquid" financial instruments such as stock, property, etc. For all I know, he barely has $10 in cash to his name.
But taxes have to be paid in cash, so I understand. Presumably, this means that a wealthy individual (or corporation) would need to sell the assets that were used to calculate the tax in order to pay the tax.
So, what would be the effect of allowing the government to receive tax payments in the form of stocks and bonds, rather than in cash, and hold those assets in their non-liquid form, realizing the benefit of appreciation of those assets when it's most advantageous, just like the original owner? What would happen if the government, after a suit for tax delinquency, became a majority owner of a corporation -- must the government then immediately have to sell the asset to satisfy the tax debt? What would be an alternative?
I freely admit to being a tax/finance numbskull, so I hope that a more knowledgeable commenter will enlighten me. While this current case before the Court is an open attempt to eliminate the capital-gains tax, at least, even if the current right-wingers rule against the Moores the case does raise deeper issues, too.
Maybe they could donate a couple of billion to NASA since NASA can’t afford to pay for their own rockets. Privately owned space programs boggle my mind.
I'm very sorry for your loss, Jeri. Becoming suddenly single was not on my to-do list either (and definitely not hers), but life does what it wants. Have a gentle holiday.
I suspect most if not all of these "privately owned space programs" are merely fantasy Earth escape pods. These rich boys realize they have assisted in destroying humanity's environmental planetary support system and are trying to develop some type of interplanetary lifeboat for themselves and their rich buddies.
As an old NASA junkie, it hacks me off like little else. The program and its successes (despite failures) was such a boost for America's image at home and around the world. As Borman said, Apollo 8 saved 1968. Budget cut to bones right after Apollo 11, almost like deliberate killing of the science of the time. But then we had Russia to help????
Considering inflation/deflation and the money market, the value of the dollar seems like a gamble, too.
I just recall two relevant things: 1) rich people whining that they can't be taxed on their enormous wealth because it's value can't be precisely calculated (why not just look at the appraised/listed value of the instrument as of the day the tax is due, then take the instrument itself?), and 2) back in '08 when the TARP money was used to buy up the "bad" debt the "too big to fail" jerks had loaded themselves with, the debts, after being sold back to the private sector for pennies, subsequently performed fairly well. The jerks got paid twice, first with taxpayer money, then with the performance of the debts themselves.
And looking at the other posters on this thread, I agree -- I wish I had more cats and spacecraft in my life! (Preferably combined.)
Bezos recently moved to Florida. Most likely because we are the “ billionaire enabler state” with recently passed legislation that helps hide family fortunes.
“ But legislative, corporate and campaign-finance records suggest that DeSantis and the Legislature enacted the laws, at least in part, as a favor for the richest family in the world: The Waltons, the heirs to the Walmart empire.”
I strongly suggest that you read the excellent book on Modern Monetary Theory by economist Stephanie Kelton "The Deficit Myth". She explains that one way the government makes the dollar important is that it requires one to pay his obligations to the government in dollars so I doubt they will ever take stock certificates instead of greenbacks.
Considering the US government is the sole issuer of our fiat currency rather than a user (vastly different rules apply) the parts of this "letter" and the comments discussing taxation seem to me to be off the mark. The first of the myths discussed by Dr. Kelton is "The federal government should budget like a household." when the reality is "Unlike a household, the federal government issues the currency it spends."
The recommended book made it very easy for me to understand why we recently had a bolt of inflation shoot through the economy and why said bolt is now history.
I’ve wondered if our government pays money on the interest of our debt where does the money come from and where does it go? I assume it is piling up somewhere or being spent somewhere. I’m curious and confused.
Great place to start. Dr. Kelton explains that the federal government issues two kinds of dollars (green and yellow) and she explains it like this. The green ones we're quite familiar with and while they pay no interest they are used with almost all of our transactions in society and all of our transactions with the federal government. The yellow ones are treasury bills and bonds that do pay interest and occasionally the government removes some of the green dollars from the economy by offering the yellow ones in their place. Those with extra green dollars gladly trade them for the yellow ones to earn that interest you mention.
Both of the dollar types come from the government printing presses or computer keyboards and while the yellow ones usually go into some type of saving institution the green ones are used in the billions (trillions) of transactions that make up our economy.
When extra green ones end up in the hands of the middle class or below they are usually spent while if the extra end up with the already rich they are piled up. The rich have what they need (except they usually crave more dollars) so they aren't as ready to spend. One of the reasons we haven't had much inflation for the past 20-30 years is all the extra dollars were channeled by tax cuts to the richest who kept them out of the general economy by squirreling them away. If they chose to use foreign bank accounts for their savings the money was even further removed from the domestic economy, hence no or very little inflation. The money added across the economy at the end of the pandemic was put into the hands of those who would spend it rather than hiding it, hence a bout of inflation.
Finally, I'm not a Ph.D on this subject but have thought about it quite a bit. This seems sensible to me but I have a lot more to learn and this may be mistakenly simple or just plain off the mark.
Oh, I hear you loud and clear, there's no question that good ol' Jeff can acquire any good or service he pleases at the snap of his fingers. I just don't know if he paid $500 mil in cash. For I know, he paid for it with $500 million in Amazon Web Services. Besides, I doubt that he owns the yacht in his own name, it undoubtedly a B2B thing.
It's just that on the fairly rare occasion that I try to really think hard about tax policy and asset valuation, I quickly get lost in the deepness and complexity of the rabbit hole.
Thank you, Professor. History can be painful but also rewarding. It comes down to greed and lack of compassion for everybody in America from those who have the most. I fear that there will never be a sense of fairness in that regard.
Poor bastards "can't get no satisfaction" from their more and more and more and MORE, and..."
GUARANTEED DISSATISFACTION, but...
as Ike, a respectable human being, pointed out...
THEY ARE STUPID.
Worse, not only stupid, but raving mad.
Instead of breaking away from their idiot, impossible-to-assuage greed...
THEY WANT IT ALL...
To make matters worse, they are no longer so few
and their generously kept slaves are many and have been parachuted into the highest of high places
to do the will of imbeciles.
*
Heaven help us!
It's plain enough we must help ourselves
and cure this dreadful disease that's sapping the nation
before it brings everything crashing down on the madmen and on us all.
*
I never read F. Scott Fitzgerald's THE DIAMOND AS BIG AS THE RITZ...
When I spoke to my wife of my outrage at so much impossible greed, idiocy and clever slaves whoring in high places, she brought the tale to my attention.
I vaguely recalled the first progressive form of income tax was during the Civil War, but appreciate the fuller history.
It cannot be a coincidence that the show "The Gilded Age" is currently on PBS. And I'm reminded of something Romney said when filmed at a fundraiser at either a country club or someone's mansion: "Democrats think no one should live like this, and Republicans think everyone should." Neither is true, of course,; but it's definitely true that Republicans don't think like that at all based on their tax plans.
The real deal breaker is the wealthy want all government spending to benefit only them, but they do not want to pay any taxes.
The ultra wealthy, or at least those of the 1% for whom the "love of money" trumps any other possible consideration, are keen on installing the dynamics of feudalism in the 21st Century; the essence under the gobbledygook of "Reaganomics". For those for whom unlimited accumulation of money and power is their raison d'etre, there is no room for compromise.
"This is what I mean by my constant insistence upon “moderation” in government. Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are H.L. Hunt (you possibly know his background), a few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid."
- Dwight Eisenhower 1954
I still like Ike
I call myself an Eisenhower Democrat
Just after WWII, there were questions about what party Ike preferred. In fact, there were serious efforts by Democrats to have him run on their ticket.
I grew up in one of those "I like Ike" households. My folks had served under him in the war. Their loyalty was solid. But their dearest and closest friends were dedicated Democrats. There was a time (for some of us) when religion and politics were less important than who won at bridge and what brand of beer was brought to the table.
Then came Vietnam, Nixon, Watergate. That sent me politically to the left. And my folks never spoke of politics again. They were disgusted. Their political party was the party of corruption and shame.
Senator Angus King (ME-I) was courted by the Republican Senate Caucus to join them. Senator Collins (ME-R) and King still collaborate quite often.
It would be interesting to have a President that declared themselves to be Independent, but in all likelihood, both parties would do what they could to undermine them.
My wife and I were at the airport in Portland, Me and both Senator Olympia Snowe (who I have the utmost respect for) and Senator Collins were waiting for the same flight. The entire time we were waiting to board the flight they didn't even look at each other.
Olympia retired when the Maine Republican Party trolled her incessantly to become uber conservative. She chose to retire instead. Too bad Collins didn't do the same.
Gary, Suzie Q is all talk and no walk. How many times have we heard her proclaim some principle (in that god-awful voice) only to have her vote to overturn that principle.
OMG, you are so right.
Leonard Leo hosted a fundraiser for her in his home in Northeast Harbor (They must have lost my address) and also found millions of dollars so she could buy her reelection in 2020.
Her 20 minute speech when she tried to justify voting to approve Kavanaugh was an embarrassment. I can never forgive her for voting for him.
You've got that exactly correct! Snowe is held in great esteem to this day, Collins--not so much,
McCain wanted a bipartisan ticket initially, if one calls Joe Lieberman another party.
He was talked out of a ticket of 2 old, white men in favor of Palin
Steve Schmidt: now the campaign manager for (wishful thinking) Democrat spoiler, Dean Phillips.
I had thought of voting for McCain in that election, BEFORE he put Palin on the ticket.
I am very distantly related by marriage to Palin. My sister's husband is the link. Interestingly, both of them, and of course, my two nephews by my sister, had a very close call with nonexistence in the autumn of 1620, somewhere in the north Atlantic, when their ancestor fell off of the Mayflower during a gale. Here's that story:
"In the fall of 1620, the Mayflower's ability to steady herself in a gale produced a most deceptive tranquillity for a young indentured servant named John Howland. As the Mayflower lay ahull, Howland apparently grew restless down below. He saw no reason why he could not venture out of the fetid depths of 'tween decks for just a moment...
"The Mayflower lurched suddenly to leeward. Howland staggered to the ship's rail and tumbled into the sea.
That should have been the end of him. But dangling over the side, and trailing behind the ship was the topsail halyard, the rope used to raise and lower the upper sail. Howland was in his midtwenties and strong, and when his hand found the halyard, he gripped the rope with such feral desperation that even though he was pulled down more than ten feet below the ocean's surface, he never let go. Several sailors took up the halyard and hauled Howland back in, finally snagging him with a boat hook and dragging him up onto the deck."
--Nathaniel Philbrick, Mayflower, a story of courage, community, and war
You do realize that most of the people reading this won't have any idea what bridge is or why it was played.
Funny!! I just bought a new 4-pack deck of cards to replace my worn out ones. I want to feel the cards when I play solitaire! I still remember the giant penny jar my folks would pull out when the aunts & uncles came over for pinochle or poker....Don't say good old days, Terry, please don't!!
They really don't even know what to do with a deck of cards. (Old woman here shaking her head at "kids these days").
In my youth, college kids played bridge.
Indeed, and if I show this to my daughter, I'll get "OK Boomer."
I LOVE bridge, but haven't played in eons because nobody knows how to play anymore. We played in college a lot ('70s), along with Spades and Hearts. For a while my family was enamored with Italian canasta, which my grandmother brought back with her after a lengthy sojourn in Italy in 1970. It's lots of fun -- you use 3 decks of cards, plus all 6 jokers! I came from a real card-playing family (bridge, set-back, rummy, poker, hearts, even Mille Bornes!) -- poker games on Christmas Eve was our family tradition. Kids now look at you like you're from another planet if one suggests just about any card game! Sad.
I miss playing bridge. I used to play a cutthroat game with a group of plaintiffs' attorneys. They played a killer game, like kill or be killed. I would go home with my shoulders up around my ears, I was so tense.
My Dad was a Life Master at bridge. It's really an enjoyable game, if one isn't faced with an attorney who would rather disembowel you than let you take a trick.
In college, we played Spades and Hearts, usually sitting on the floor and passing around a bottle of Cheracol cough syrup. Original formula with cocaine in it. Good times.
We're about the same age, and share game history. Rummy and gin rummy were breaks from bridge and canasta.
Really? Not ever to have heard of bridge? But then my linen chest is “floored” with a McGovern poster.
I'm old enough to remember reading Omar Sharif's column on bridge to learn whatever I could, and I suspect most of the folks reading this don't recognize Sharif as either a bridge expert or one of the finest actors of his generation.
Your closet may not be the only one.
It was the only card game I liked. I had some native ability with it, but never wanted to get as technical as serious players are. I like the fact you got to play hands solo, with a teammate, and also as a "dummy", which let you go for a snack.
Oh I don’t think that’s accurate! I would bet that most do!!
Depends on how old you think we all are.
Ah, Bill, i do remember the good old days when who won at bridge and beer brands were more important than politics. My mother passed on before things got really awful, but my father remained a R until he got dementia. He listened to Rush and I can only wonder if he would support death star. I can't remember what exactly sent me to the left, but I was always a D as a voter. It caused no end of arguments when I was home as if that would have changed my mind.
It's interesting. They had 18 formative years to get their point across yet think another argument will help their progeny see the light, rather than being curious about the reasoning of their family member's point of view. Example: my MAGA car parts manager brother expounded upon the reasons for homelessness and asked zero questions nor wanted to hear the opinions of his psychiatrist sister and public policy son. (Love that Dunning Kruger effect!).
Sounds like my mother. She listened to ALL the right wing radio programs, and she got dementia as well. Wonder if it's a precursor? ;)
I am SURE that listening to Rush is a precursor ..or, a cause, of brain damage.
Same with my elderly aunt! Prayed for Limbaugh every night, she told me. ARGH. Now she's got dementia. God has answered her prayers!
Yikes !
I have my folks’ “I Like Ike” button in my desk drawer.
me too!
And I have my Mother’s for Stevenson in my life’s collection of Democrats we’ve voted for these many decades. She loved Stevenson for his intellect and humor.
Wear it!...I have one ...somewhere.
You did not know Stevenson. As good as we want to remember Ike, Adalie Stevenson was an excellent alternative to good old Ike. He had more government experience. But a war hero close to the end of the war was hard to beat.
But imagine, we once had that choice: gold OR platinum, Stevenson OR Eisenhower. There was no bad option. Now? Trump or DeSantis? Gag.
He would be considered a traitor by current crop of repubs. John Birchers called him a “commie” early on
Stevenson was both brilliant and would have been a good successor to the presidents of the time.
First section of one of the major highways is named for him! He was governor of IL before I was born.
I have been on that highway more than once!
Truman refused to participate in the overthrow of the Mossadegh government. Eisenhower approved it in his first year in office. We will never shed our responsibility for that, and nobody reading this will live to see an end to its malign consequences.
American hubris in foreign policy is a topic for serious students of history. G.W.
Bush was the front man for Chaney, 9the father), Rumsfeld, Rice who somehow felt American power was capable of controlling any situation.
"banana republic" outlook... Was Iran thing about oil mainly, and/or fear of social revolution? Whatever, Iran got islamic fundamentalism back in spades for that. And you might want to ask what all the motivations behind that were....
Frank, probably both. We have done so many awful things in the pursuit of oil and also the worry about socialism and communism, creating problems we still see today. i think we can thank the recently passed Kissinger for some of this.
Kissinger, J Edgar Hoover, and the "Rumsfield and Cheney" duo were some of the most long-lastingly toxic players ever involved in policy. The hubris of these men has poisoned the world.
Michele, May this give you a laugh: my college roommate when I visited her in the 1970’s (?), told me in all seriousness that, having known Kissinger’s wife in high school (Bronxville,NY), that we could not trust anyone that she married. As she was a very bright friend from a very bright family, I never forgot the story and conclude that she was correct.
You left out the biggest motivation- the Soviet Union operation to forcibly take over the government of Iran.
Growing up as a confirmed liberal/progressive I didn’t credit the concern about the international spread of communism. However, public examination of government archives since the fall of the USSR have revealed how powerful and extensive was international communist movement and it was directed by the USSR. They were willing to sacrifice the well being of their citizens to use their resources to spread their ideology.
I was shocked to learn a few years ago that the American communist party was followed day to day orders directly from the USSR.
If you are speaking of the the Overthrow Mossadegh, what the US and Britain opposed was Mossadegh's desire to nationalize Iran's oil industry using a payment formula that had been used by the British. The oil was under Iran after all. The installation of the Shaw gave us today's aggressive theocracy.
The USSR was a brutal dictatorship that was indeed a threat to the West, but the "red" witch hunts were out of line. And somehow Hitler-supporting rich guys seemed to get a pass, even in WWII. Fanatics and despots of any sort have always been the problem.
Never knew that. I like to blame John Foster Dulles for any Ike failure.
Thank you for that chronology. By the time I knew that history, it was far too late to protest. Then there’s Chile.
Prime Minister of Iran in 1952 to 1953 elected as such by the Iranian Parliament at a time when parliamentary elections were in fact considered legitimate in Iran, William P.
Oh, Mossadegh. I took a college course from Richard Cottam, who was with the CIA and participated in the overthrow of Mossadegh and the reinstatement of the Shah.
A few years ago, I was taking a class in International Relations at the local community college and I brought it up (I'm really old, compared to my fellow students) and they all gaped at me. Granted, 1953 was a while ago, but still...
And the Roosevelt kid had a hand too.
I still will never buy products from BP, nor trust machinations of government that don't see cleansing sunlight.
I like that. Yes, I think from now on, I'll be an Eisenhower Democrat. That sounds better than the "yellow-dog democrat" I am now (but my voting habits won't change).
I don't feel any partisan loyalties, but on the basis of party values, I always voted for Democrats, save for two of three (back in the day) Repubs for minor offices.
I still do too. When I was 7 years old, in 1952, my sister and I would march proudly on the sidewalk in front of our house with little American flags, chanting "I like Ike!" I was going to say, I bet he wouldn't be a Republican today. But instead, I'll say, I bet if he were alive today, the GOP might still be a Grand Old Party.
I view Ike as a great military commander and a reasonable president. I think he would loathe Trump, as would Lincoln. No doubt he'd have a thing or two to say to "Republican" leaders.
I like Ike, too. My dad thought he was a terrific president.
Certainly Ike was better than any Republican president since.
Their numbers are no longer negligible and they are not stupid, just with no morals.
Jeri
SCOTUS making decisions that effect the course of American life based on cases made up of outright lies
When judges so blatantly ignore the obvious in order to shape society, when their political loyalties can be seen even by the myopic, the Supreme Court has left behind their stated role in Government and have become, ironically, UnConstitutional in the whole
And the new "Ethical Guidelines" amount to nothing but used dishwater. Where there is no accountability, justice itself becomes fiction.
No argument here, they have become our “monarchy.” They who must be obeyed…
I see one possible silver lining in this current court. They like their power and don't want to give it up to a dictator. There are a lot of Trump related rulings coming, ---- I don't think they will go his way. At least I hope not.
SCOTUS Gang of 6 is beholding to Leonard Leo and Citizen’s United
They’ve already abdicated their power to him. Without him, a MAGA President will crush the Court
Jeri, I have found that many people, both liberal and conservative, often accuse their opponents of being stupid simply because they don’t agree with a point of view. This is a major mistake which undermines one’s ability to see their opponents clearly.
Repubs are not stupid so much as they are greedy, ignorant, and without scruples. Dems are far from perfect, but never in my long life have they matched republican’s evil aims.
The wealthy have generations of experience in perfecting and bringing the strategies necessary to prohibit the making of laws or enforcement of tax policies that would put their gains at risk. HCR is right. This is fascinating stuff to follow. I won't put my meager investment portfolio up as collateral for any effort to hold the wealthy or Supreme Court accountable, least of all be fair about their responsibility for 99% of American's needs for a well funded government that works on our behalf. Their legal teams get more in fees, I suspect, than net taxes paid by them.
Be careful of generalities. Half of my extended family are Republicans. They are not stupid or evangelical; they hold religious and economic views diametrically opposed to mine. And due to the algorithms in all kinds of social media, they have found like-minded people. Unfortunately, as explained on NPR, research finds that social media not only reinforces their preexisting beliefs but also reduces their empathy for others with opposing viewpoints. Which is why there is a lot of silence at family gatherings!
Mine too. Large family so there are the ignorant, the religious nuts, the stupid, the greedy, the haters (of whatever stripe), and some who have changed stripes.
Agreed that they are greedy, ignorant, and without scruples, but not certain why that isn’t stupidity. Surely it doesn’t show intelligence to be consumed by all of the above.🤣
Not stupidity, but lack of wisdom.
I think of ignorance as a sometimes deliberate lack and stupidity as a trait that can't be educated. Not saying that there is not a lot of stupid out there. Cults can attract both it seems, especially by the greedy with zip scruples. Just my take, need to check Webster
Dumb like Foxes?
Totally agree. Malign/demeaning ad homina is considered the less valid of argument forms, but it is also the most widely practiced. This, for example, is what the right eco chamber has done with Biden.
And confirmation bias should be in the forefront of our vision.
But when you see real stupidity, better to recognize it!
They have morals all right, THEIR morals. Immense wealth is an essential foundation for an aristocracy philosophy of governance and civilization. Check out Edward Gibbons. Fascism/communism were run by people who existantially figured "they knew better". That feeling has hardly gone away, albeit somewhat muted.
Ike did not imagine concentration and deregulation of media. I know "smart" and educated MAGAs. The vulnerability to lockstep cult ideology. It is clear that cult adherence can allow people to believe practically anything and abandon morality. Terrorists do that.
I think tricky Dick did plant the germ of media control, and he would have pursued it but for those pesky tapes. My take anyway.
“Love of money” trumps everything. So well put. Thank you. That sums up so much.
Today's Dems are yesterday's Reps; things have gone only right. This has happened because of the concept of "compromise"—but, with perhaps a few exceptions, the only ones to compromise are the dems. That this still works shows the weakness of the dems. It is frightening—and all they can do is beg for money through emails. They have my vote, my support but I've no money. Whatever happened to reforms in campaign financing? Seems that its been "privatized" (like Fox News)....Citizens United and the disgusting "Corporations are People" (what about these international corporations?) I'm ranting, and this is why I so appreciate Heather Cox Richardsons clear and informed voice.
Like almost everything else in America, money is so important. The Dems have to appeal to the rich to receive enough money to compete in elections. They have been very successful with rich liberals, but rich liberals have different expectations than poor Democratic Socialists. It's pay to play.
Isn't money the American culture?
I like the “stupid” part best. That’s my thought about many Republicans in Congress. They look stupid and they seem greedy. Others are crafty and mean. Finally: all who voter against certifying the election are traitors. Time for a total “restructuring.”
For someone who is an economic dunce, Heather, you and some of the comments below have educated me more than my economics teachers in college and the main stream media. I am old now, however, you have made economics come alive. Thank you!
You are right to couple money and power, every bit the two strands of a DNA-like double helix, just as are those parallel strands of race and class economy in America. As to feudalism, you are right. Most here put the focus on ‘saving democracy’, when it was killed off long ago.
We’ll have democracy under a socialist umbrella, worker co-ops, etc., or we won’t have it all. The ‘insurrectionists’ on 1/6, and those who supported them, are not the enemy, no matter how hard current media darling Lynn Cheney tries to make it so. Jeff Bezos is. Yanis lays it out in less than two minutes here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKJ3hp0E20Q
“The insurrectionists aren’t the enemy”??? IOW, overthrowing the government is ok on its face?
When did definitions disappear?
What I think he means is the the Jan 6 people were the pawns who were manipulated by the very rich by using racism, fear of communism, sexism and religion to get those folks to do the dirty work. They are still at it today.
Brown Shirt Pawns ?? Not responsible for their own stupid actions?? “He made me do it”??
I don’t disagree that the rich and powerful manipulate the MAGA Mass ( think tumor) but the definition is clear and the two classes are only dangerous when they work in concert
"Not responsible for their own stupid actions?? “He made me do it”??" Nuremburg trials. Banality of evil.
Pawns? No. Adults do not get to claim they were manipulated by rich folks. The Redcaps were not children, so they are entirely to blame for January 6. They rampaged because they wanted to. .
1776 much? The ‘insurrectionists’, and by that I mean the rather minuscule number of those who met that definition at the Capitol on 1/6, didn’t have the wrong idea, just the wrong target. Had they stormed the corporate offices of Raytheon, Bank of America, Pfizer, etc., as long as they didn’t hurt human beings present in those offices, and confined their protest to property damage/messaging only, they would have been, as the Brits would say, spot on.
“Minuscule”?
“Didn’t have the wrong idea”?
But they “didn’t” storm private business. Why deflect?
Definition mean things to serious people
They might have been just as unaware as is a liberal class of people who think Republicans are a bigger threat to democracy than corporate capture of the duopoly.
Deflect that.
Tom, wealth is omnipresent in modern society, no sense picking on Bezos. Wealth finances much if not most of modern politics. Did before i was born too. Modern corporations feel dutibound to contribute financially to the parties, often with indifferent allegiance, eg 60/40 according to who's in power. Not that the wealthy dont have champions! And i think Im gonna read Liz Cheney's new book. Rachel Maddow interviewed her Monday night, just watched it over morning coffee.
Maddow and Cheney deserve each other - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5lVPIJPn1Y
Plenty of books you should read before Cheney’s, if you haven’t already, like The Devil’s Chessboard, The Jakarta Method, Silent Coup, The Division of Light and Power, Glass House, Democracy Incorporated, etc.
JL, The more I hear them prattle on, my mind keeps getting drawn to the "Divine Rights of Kings."
Feudalism: yes! Their idea of a perfect world is assuring that workers from childhood through senescence are competing for poorly-paid jobs, with no safety requirements or <horrors!> unions. Kind of like Monty Python and the Holy Grail, where the peasants are toiling in the dirt. King Arthur (a billionaire) rides by on a white horse. One peasant says “there goes the king” and the other peasant says, “how do you know he’s the king?” Peasant #1 says “He ain’t got any shit on him.”
I think the billionaires finally realized they don’t need a middle class to buy their products; there are billions of people in other countries who can be consumers.
Wow, that was almost 80 years ago!
They complain a lot about Social Security but they reject any proposals to raise the gap and pay their fair share.
"The word 'free' is used three times in the Declaration of Independence and once in the First Amendment to the Constitution, along with 'freedom.' The word 'fair' is not used in either of our founding documents." - Reagan mentor Milton Friedman
Yet the words "just" and "justice" are. What's unfair about that?
Under the current trajectory of SCOTUS, the 1% will have justice, the rest of us will be left with "Just Us". At its best, justice can be a restorative process, loving even, righting errors in a way that benefits all those involved and society in general. At its worst, our legal system can be an exploitive hope extinguishing nightmare. With the safety valve of justice gone, things tend to explode - something that almost never benefits anyone.
Wilhoit: Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.
Thanks for showing me that quote again. What conservatives want to conserve is the in-group and what makes them happy. They are happy to have all the wealth and to assert their moral superiority over members of the out-group
It seems to me to be a case of malignant ego. We all have one, the word is Latin for "I", but when I seeks to dominate others, it can become a big problem. It's the antithesis of the notion of unalienable rights; the antithesis of compassion.
also
"Conservatism" sounds too respectable. There is a use for the word I admire. A prudently cautious "conservative" estimate, or what we used to call "conservationists" (now "environmentalists). I consider the scientific method conservative. Like the word "Republican" for a movement bent on dismantling our republic, or "Citizens United" for rule by the rich, it just seems like one more attempt to mislead.
I would argue even the 1% will not be experiencing justice when the table is tipped their way. They will live in fear of being othered and when resources dwindle sufficiently, they will turn on and prey upon each other.
I recall reading about South American oligarchs who live in armed compounds and always travel with a retinue of machine-gun toting guards. Sounds like a gilded prison to me. Seems to me like a nasty way even for the lords of the manor to live.
My dad knew colleagues working in Bogota in the 1950s. Your house had to have bars on all of the windows, and you should keep your lifestyle very modest so as not to be a target of thieves or kidnappers.
Thnx. Some thoughts to knaw on at breakfast! Thank you🤗
Friedman was a fraud, to put it mildly.
Nobel should repossess his Prize.
He seems to have been clever, but clever need not be moral or wise. I am more aware of his impact than his biography, but my guess is that much of the celebration of his sociopathic attitude had to do with pleasing the very rich and powerful. I think that thumb on the scale majorly influences much of our aggregated social perceptions.
What was the benefit of slavery for the struggling poor white, as compared to a thriving and equitable working middle class? Or a brand of Christianity that subjugates itself to the wealthy, and embraces aggressive wars, justifies torture?
Or his trickle-down economics, the biggest economic con job since Ponzi, which cemented him forever in the Rich and Corporate Hall of Fame. (And reinforces your notion of why he was so celebrated by sociopaths--he made them trillions from tax cuts.)
They also complain a lot about immigration and refuse to change the policy. I think this is because they like to use the border issues as a tool to beat on Dems.
That and employing the cheapest labor possible. CEO's will hire children to work. As Tyson Foods does. CEO's love to hire illegal immigrants. That's why they don't want the problem fixed. It pays for their private jets.
Our food chain would be almost nonexistent without the migrant farm workers doing the work that ‘Americans’ won’t do!
All the House GOP does is whine and complain with absolutely no substance for solutions!
Every right wing Govt. in the west is using immigrants as fodder. They know it makes people scared for their jobs and healthcare.
But you can bet, Jean Mueller, they’re cashing their own SocSec checks!!!
It's properly feudal. Even the churches are in on it, as in the 13th Century.
Annis, you could even say the churches are behind it.
Some churches definitely are.
Oh, the churches are being opportunistic. But definitely the same people - many of whom are lay people - that are behind the uber-wealthy mega churches are also behind a more general feudalisation.
And the "divine right of kings", even if they wear a red hat rather than a crown.
mike,
"The real deal breaker is the wealthy want all government spending to benefit only them, but they do not want to pay any taxes."
Yep. "Welfare for white people" completely dwarfs the sum total of ALL other forms of government support for the people of the United States if you include tax cuts for the wealthy PLUS massive giveaways to the wealthy.
Just look at the period from 2007 to 2014 on the below government debt chart which shows government debt increase as a function of time.
https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/government-debt
We had "shovel ready" money to "shovel" into big banks for YEARS, from 2007-2014, vastly increasing the deficit. Unfortunately, Obama, not mentioned by Dr. Richardson, was one of America's biggest deficit spenders of all time. A huge fraction of that money went to big banks. It's OK though, because, Obama's first speech after he left office was at a big NY Bank where they paid him $400,000 for an hour and a few minutes of "speech".
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-39710529
Similarly, Mr. "Fiscal Responsibility", Ronald Reagan is also one of the bigger deficit growers while simultaneously giving TV speeches about "fiscal responsibility". See the graph below.
https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/government-debt
select MAX at the top for the timeline.
The truth is EVERY American President since Jimmy Carter, who paid down debt during his entire administration role modeling "fiscal responsibility", has been irresponsible with debt.
Sometimes Clinton gets a pat on the back and he did, after initially ramping the debt up quite a bit, then rolled it off a tiny bit. Not much.
It has been a drunken party of welfare for white people my entire adult life.
As HCR said in today's letter, tax cuts are the chief drivers of the deficit, not spending on social projects or entitlements. Just as tax law shows what a society values, budgets also reveal the values of those who write them. A few years ago, I discovered I was eligible for a little known mortgage assistance program offered by the federal government (I did not apply). At the time. my income was in the low six figures. I also discovered the federal government spent roughly 3 times the amount on mortgage assistance programs as on affordable housing. Money is not going where it is most needed.
Well said, Mike.
While there was much to admire about the Obamas and his presidency, you are spot on when it came to economics. Much of that money to bail out financial institutions could have been rerouted to those who had been scammed with ridiculous mortgages - documents that were designed to destroy the dream of home ownership and send that equity into the hands of the very same nobles who created the financial mess.
The propaganda about the big banks failing was just that. For every failure, there would have been vulture capitalists ready to swoop in and eat up what assets remained. The stock market and retirement portfolios were hardly spared anyway. So my IRA and 401k would have dropped 55% instead of 45%? (Fortunately, we patient ones became whole again over time).
Instead, millions of Americans - who couldn't understand the incredibly complex loans they signed on to - either walked away from their homes or lived financially "under water" for many years. This caused economic punishment and stagnation - if you can't afford to move because if you sell your house you can't pay off the mortgage, what are your job choices? It was like jail.
Obama suffered from the influence of the nobles. He wanted to be a president of "all the people" - but he was too impressed by the con men on Wall Street.
And he didn't respond forcefully to the Russian war theft of Crimea. And here we are. Dealing with an emboldened Putin who plays the long game of chess.
But I really like Obama. I wish we would hear more from him right now. He has been active and supportive. But Obama has the chops and media pull to blast into every TV studio and to dominate social media if he put more into it.
He has the speaking talent and charisma that few of today's leaders enjoy. I wonder why he hasn't become a more vocal partner in the campaign called "Biden/Harris"? The tradition of past presidents remaining silent after leaving office has been decimated. Time for one who has the respect and admiration of the nation to get on the hustings full time - overtime, maybe even. I'd like to see him launch a full on broadside towards what has become a drift towards fascism in the GOP and among those Wall Street con men he helped in 2008.
This is a war. We need all the big talent guns we can recruit.
Mr Alstrom, I’d like to “like” your comments about President Obama, whom I too greatly admire. But I can’t. Your assessment of his presidency, of his moral fiber, is infuriating:
“Obama suffered from the influence of the nobles. He wanted to be a president of "all the people" - but he was too impressed by the con men on Wall Street.”
Seriously? Obama was brand new in the job as President of the United States. Thank the Higher Power the man is brilliant, surrounded himself with a brilliant, agile, adaptive staff, and availed himself of the guidance of the best and brightest minds he knew to come to decisions about a pending global financial collapse. (His process must have worked, right? You admit: “Fortunately, we patient ones became whole again over time.” Dare we say “patient AND PRIVILEGED”?)
Yes, I agree President Obama’s guidance would be so welcome and comforting to so many of us right now. But we need to remember: His presidency, that of a BRILLIANT BLACK AMERICAN, is what riled up these fools, this crazy Zeitgeist. It’s what led to the likes of fascist strongmen crawling out from under rocks, what gave MAGAs permission to say out loud and proud the hate and fear roiling in their hearts. President Obama is already in their sights. He needn’t martyr himself. I think we need to be satisfied that he continues to work behind the scenes with the other leaders who have backbone and moral certitude, and can help our defense against this Dark Age.
This right here 1000%⬇️⬇️
"But we need to remember: His presidency, that of a BRILLIANT BLACK AMERICAN, is what riled up these fools..."
And they blame HIM for America's racism. ("Obama rekindled a racial divide that had been steadily disappearing in American society."
https://www.heritage.org/political-process/commentary/obamas-legacy-weaker-and-more-divided-america)
It's a variation of the claim one still hears today that the Confederate casus belli had nothing to do with slavery, and that Lee was preparing to free the slaves had he only got the chance.
Wow! Heritage Foundation published that? He himself was “racially divided.” I naively thought that would show bigots that they might be wrong. But I forgot . . . African ancestry is so, so powerful it can wipe out any trace of European ancestry, to the great-great-grandparent generation.
Yikes, Becky. I didn't see a "COMMENTS" section; otherwise, I would have left them with one word..."Bull***t!
Imagine how Obama's process might have lifted us out of a Great Recession much faster if the true victims of the manufactured mortgage crisis had been made whole instead of the uber rich. A parallel concept was applied when the Pandemic was addressed financially. Checks written directly to the people. There were errors along the way, of course. But it helped Jack and Jill Everyday and boosted the economy nicely.
A few big institutions going bust and being absorbed by others was blown out of proportion by the ruling class.
And the creators of those instruments of mortgage doom went unpunished - many were rewarded for their careers of plunder.
Obama was hardly alone in his naivety. The whole nation bought the scam.
I am still am fond of him. There were so many days when the news cycle was wonderfully boring as he competenly and gracefully handled the office. After the Bush insanity, there was a sense of trust and international respect.
Obama’s big mistake was overestimating the American people. He, like many of us, thought that the Tea Party was so off base it would be obvious to everyone. He was also aware how much he was limited by being a Black man. He couldn’t be aggressive. He had to be charming.
Interesting about overestimating us. A friend thought he must be in constant fear of assassination.
Yes Bill, every time I hear Obama speak, either currently or a replay of a former time, I long to hear more from him. He is intelligent, engaging, and so charismatic. More peptalks for our home team would certainly be welcome. Hopefully, these will be coming soon...
"I wish we would hear more from him right now." Exactly. Wonder what's holding him back.
Agreed, and the rich have gotten their way, on the backs of the poor. "Poverty, by America," by Matthew Desmond, offers a devastating argument.
Do remember, however, that the wealthy and slightly less so in fact almost entirely finance the federal government. Also, growing wealth inequality has become global in nature. And for sure the GOP has been successfully engineering lower taxes which they want to be covered by reduced social support spending. I certainly agree they should pay more, by a bit! here's Oxfam's take on the wealthy and taxes.
https://www.oxfamamerica.org/explore/stories/do-the-rich-pay-their-fair-share/#:~:text=According%20to%20a%202021%20White,same%20year%20paid%2013%20percent.
No, I disagree. The very wealthiest World billionaire club does not pay a higher tax rate than the lower middle class. Yet, they are quite successful at having #ALL# the spending directed at their interests, rather than the interests of the people who need roads to go to work.
i didnt say they pay a higher rate. Even at their lower rates (likely mostly tax deferred, so eventually it comes to roost) they pay for the federal government. Easy to check that out. The single biggest expenditure i believe is military. Last thing GOP would cut.
Mike, that’s it in a nutshell!
Senator Whitehouse has been very good at pointing out the corruption in the Supreme Court.
My thanks to him. Corruption as been growing since Nixon's "pardon". We should never have stood for it this long and let it spread this far, but it's high time for more Americans to call it by its name.
Leonard Leo's picks for SCOTUS have already had tragic and perhaps irreversible consequence way beyond Dobbs.
Dobbs was a tragedy but there have been several others as HCR points out that are terrible. Thomas, Alito and Robert's need to retire so we can reverse some of their terrible decisions.
Instead they call Democrats “libtards.”
JL Graham, I agree. As HCR and others have red circled before - the absolute weight of consequences must be paud in a democracy by those who defy the common good in the rule if law. Shame is a real thing.
And lack of shame (or rather the capacity for experiencing guilt) and conscience is an evil "superpower". Evil sociopaths often attract a rapt following, but they will sell out anything or anyone to maximize their dominance.
Whitehouse is a treasure and a force.
Alexandra - Can you imagine the brilliant school kids we'd have coming up if only a Sheldon Whitehouse-like teacher were in every school? Maybe we could tape his whiteboard lessons for the classrooms? Hell, tape them and broadcast them to our living ooms at 7PM each evening! He's brilliant.
A glass eye in a duck's ass can see our right wing Supreme Court is owned and operated by the brotherhood of the ever growing JB bigoted boys billionaires club. This is corruption at the highest levels of our government. Fist pump to Senator Whitehouse. The man is like a dog with a bone fighting for us. Democrats protect people, Republicans protect property. They believe, we the people are their property.
Oh, my! "A glass eye in a duck's ass"! I absolutely LOVE that!
They protect property, which is OK up to a point. The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable government searches and seizures, but also against thieves. The big controversy is the right to monopolize wealth and power. We as a society decided to dial back some to that monopolization, in the form of abolition in the 1800s, and women's rights, civil rights, gay right, antitrust, regulation of campaign financing, fairness doctrine, etc. especially after the the excesses and corruption of the Gilded Age. We as a nation fell for a well financed and organized propaganda campaign to abandon important portions of those reforms with the embrace of "Reaganomics".
That headline from Public Notice is about as clear as it can be: "SCOTUS is making major decisions based on outright lies." The whole article is horrifying but really worth reading.
"If this was before a normal Supreme Court, rather than our current hyper-conservative one, this would be a major scandal, one which would, at minimum, earn the Moore lawyers an ethical complaint for failing to be truthful to the Court and, at maximum, would result in the case being thrown out. But since we have the current Court, there’s no sign this bombshell will even be an issue for conservatives at the oral argument tomorrow.
And why would it? The Court has already proved it is perfectly comfortable with litigants who lie to it and, worse still, with justices who write majority opinions that wildly mischaracterize the facts before the court."
I wasn't aware of Public Notice until this HCR mention. Thank you.
https://www.publicnotice.co/p/moore-v-us-brief-charles-kathleen-kisankraft?utm_source=substack&utm_campaign=post_embed&utm_medium=web
This article, and the Kagan article in the Times (or WaPo) are just terrifying. Read them with the lights on.
The Republicans on the SCOTUS are too busy enjoying the good life their sponsors are giving them to even both having their clerks fact check the amicus briefs--they just cut & paste anything from one of Leonard's boys.
Actually, it's not a bad idea to have the Justices show names of their sponsors on their robes--like NASCAR drivers. It's not like some of them can sink any lower....
Great idea. How about the same for Congress?
maybe. small donors still matter in districts, though. The SCOTUS has no small donors
Soooo true!
Citizen60 - Requiring justices to show names of sponsors of a certain level on their robes is an awesome idea. True transparency.
No shame
Big banners hung across the courtroom. "This decision brought to you though the generosity of Leonard Leo", "Things go better with Koch".
"In 2016, Kavanaugh reported having between $60,000 and $200,000 in debt accrued over three credit cards and a loan. Each credit card held between $15,000 and $50,000 in debt, and a Thrift Savings Plan loan was between $15,000 and $50,000. The credit card debts and loan were either paid off or fell below the reporting requirements in 2017, according to the filings, which do not require details on the nature or source of such payments." -- WaPo
It seems to me that financial transparency should be a requirement of public service. And avoidance of certain sorts of potential conflicts of interest should be a legal requirement. Our officials tend to gain more and more impunity as they rise in the ranks; a feature of despotic governance, not a functioning representative democracy.
Yes for once the WAPO came up with a very succinct article by Kagan.
Terrifying.
"If this was before a normal Supreme Court..."
Can it even be considered a legitimate court?
J L Graham - you know my answer to that. Hell to the no.
Alexandra,
Don't hold back!
Mike, I love it that you know I was holding back. :)
One of my favorite utterances. Oh, HELL to the no.
Disclaimer; repeat comment
SCOTUS making decisions that effect the course of American life based on cases made up of outright lies
When judges so blatantly ignore the obvious in order to shape society, when their political loyalties can be seen even by the myopic, the Supreme Court has left behind their stated role in Government and have become, ironically, UnConstitutional in the whole
Roberts and his GOP cohort just reek of hubris.
It may be that to save our democracy from this radical SCOTUS is to "pack the court." It looks as though the Justices are hell bent to destroy the administrative state and a tax system that would tax the wealthy.
"Packing the court" could be replaced with the phrase "making the court more representative of the people". Maybe the Court should be even more than 13. Maybe the Chief Justice Job should be rotational. Certainly, there should be term limits. Why should anyone get a job for life - making decisions as potential dementia sets in.
Anyway, we really should stop calling them "justices" now. Puppets would seem more appropriate.
Injustices. Term just lyin' there...
Hmmm. "Chief Injustice of the Kangaroo Kort". It has a certain ring to it.
Bootlickers, perhaps. Although, to me more accurate, it could be "yacht lickers" or some such.
So long as they are feted for an occasional cruise.
It gets tricky. I was rooting for RBG till the bitter end, and while I am concerned about Biden's age, I don't think it's a deal-breaker. No one in goverment, however, should wield autocratic powers. The job description needs more structure while providing sufficient flexibility. That's a tough call, bit I think we as a society need a lot more discussion about what justice really is. As in "de facto segregation" the ultimate test is in the outcome.
Of course, all these cases have been aired and discussed by Fox guests, so SCOTUS knows how to rule.
And Roberts wonders why the Court has lost its legitimacy and blames us for not understanding.
I remember reading some years ago (10? 15?) that Roberts was worried about the "legacy" of the Roberts Court. I now see why. This court will be forever known; whether as the court that toppled the United States, or as one that led to the drastic overhaul of foundational policy and the eventual rebirth (under a different CJ) of a true Supreme Court. There is NOTHING positive in the legacy of "his" Court
Yes, Ally, exactly. I fully agree.
As long as we’re talking outright lies, let’s get real. Our democracy is a lie. And was long before Trump. We live under corporate totalitarianism, under a corporate coup funded by capitalists, who delight in the liberal left attacking the Federalist Society and GOP extremists every bit as much as they do conservative populists and religious kooks attacking scary ghosts in the culture wars.
Janet Yellen’s soothing BS about how we can afford wars in Ukraine and Gaza is a perfect example of Reagan’s kernel of truth (welfare queens, or gubmit is the problem) extrapolated into a big , fat lie.
All our ills lie at the feet of end-stage capitalism. The sooner we all realize it, the better. And right now, I see no indication that liberals will get it any quicker than the average MAGA lemming.
https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/the-horrors-in-gaza-are-happening?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=139452767&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=eov1&utm_medium=email
“The ongoing massacre in Gaza is happening because the US empire wants it to happen. They could stop the bloodshed at any time, but they don’t, because they do not want to. This is because the US empire is run by sociopaths who only care about global domination, and nonstop violence from Israel is a key component in the domination of a crucial geostrategic region on this planet.”
Tom,
"Our democracy is a lie". OK, I am often critical of our system but, I must disagree with your wholesale condemnation of "Our Democracy".
It is true that big business is favored in "Our Democracy" relative to all other entities. BUT, other entities CAN make a difference when energetic and monied enough.
An example is the current increase in manufacturing on-shore here in the United States. Not far from me, in upstate NY, there will be several chip fabrication plants built (I hope). Biden's work has led to that outcome and that outcome is because you and I voted for him.
Also, if you go to Alexandria Ocasia-Cortez district, you will talk to people that are helped by her without walking around much. She is one of the MOST active representatives FOR HER PEOPLE in American history. I tune in to all of her zoom updates and meetings. She is truly interested in only one thing: The people of her district.
So, good things CAN happen here Tom assuming the right people are elected. UNLIKE Russia, or Saudi Arabia, or China.
As Churchill noted: Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.
Mike, well said (again).
Tom lives in a place where the solutions are a fantasy. I am just as angry at the oligarchs, the military industrial complex, the "purchased" politicians as anyone else. But ranting without acting practically was something I have been trying to grow out of for 50 years. I am semi-successful :)
In the mean time, the rest of us will work on applauding the progress you refer to and supporting the people who want to fix this totally imperfect experiment in democracy.
I think the answer lies with the newest generations and getting them to vote. Examples: Robert Hubbell's "focus on action". Jessica Craven's activism inspires. Registering 9,000 18 year olds in Santos' NY district. And there will be millions of young people who could tip the 2024 election away from fascism and back to a very flawed but much better version of democracy. Our success depends on the degree of their involvement.
Yeah, fantasy.
I don’t live in a place where solutions are a fantasy, I live in a place where solutions are out there, and corporate-owned politicians, of both parties, refuse to implement them, and the tribal supporters of both parties would prefer to blame the other party than look in the mirror and acknowledge their own complicity in the dysfunction.
You want a youth voting surge? I’d suggest you pressure your party leadership to end their support of a genocide, for starters, and that is not hyperbole. Those are our bombs falling on Gaza.
Unfortunately governments, religions and businesses are comprised of people. And people have the seeds of selfishness and evil in them as well as generosity and goodness. All we can do is water the seeds we'd like to see grow, not just complain about the weeds.
I want Democrats to try to communicate a vivid vision of an alternate to tax cuts and bailouts for the rich and austerity and insecurity for the serfs.
No, you can kill/pull weeds, and I’m encouraging people to do that, not just plant new seeds. Unfortunately, each tribe only wants to pull the other tribe’s weeds, never their own.
Government of the people, by the people, for the people. It's the requirement as well as the outcome.
Right on, Mike. Thanks.
Mike: And yet Stefanik voted against the CHIPS and Science Act, the legislation passed to boost funding for semiconductor manufacturing in upstate NY - legislation that impacts her own district!!
I think Republicans would try to kill a demonstrated cure for cancer if it had any connection to the Democratic Party.
Mike, due respect, but I think you are living under an illusion, that being, to use your specific example, that the ‘right people’ can be elected. Don’t misunderstand me, I’m not advocating authoritarian rule, as is the case in both Russia and China, even though both of those nations are doing a far better job reigning in their oligarchs than we are. But our corporate duopoly prevents the nomination of, much less the election of, the right people in sufficient numbers to throw off the corporate donor yoke.
AOC had a chance to speak truth to power with force the vote on M4A, and she balked, just like Bernie did after being screwed by the DNC in ‘16. I don’t want to hear about constituent services; Jesse Helms was stellar there as well. Again, all better than the GOP, but all, always, fold like a cheap suit when it comes to meaningfully standing up to capitalists, always siding with party over country, every bit as much as the knuckle-dragging denizens in the GOP.
Big business is not ‘favored’ in our democracy, it owns it. When the liberal left begins to understand the difference, we might have a shot a better future, instead of a continuation of the ratchet effect that further cements corporate rule.
Democracy is badly corrupted here. It always had been, but now we have to fight even harder to retain it. Were it gone, this Internet discussion would not be happening. We can get a sense of what no functioning democracy is like from viewing some other nations.
I have not been to Saudi Arabi or Russia but I have been to China. Loved it. Travelling around as a woman on my own was a joy. No hassles, quite a lot of kindness and absolutely no fear.
Except from the government. But it says a lot about the values of our culture that you can't feel the same way here.
Tom, I will be the first to say our democracy is very flawed, corrupted by patriarchy and the original sin of slavery. Progress is a painful, glacial process. But the "US empire" is made up of some very different people, morally. Some of them are irredeemable narcissists and sociopaths. Some of them are working with all their being to do the right thing about appalling situations. it's not really that hard to tell the sociopaths from the public servants, and it is simply wrong to say ALL our leaders are "sociopaths who only care about global domination."
I think the corrupt capitalist system, coupled with the desire for American hegemony and all the imperialist underpinnings that come along with it, forces the sociopathic behavior on everyone, regardless of intention or morality.
Biden is a perfect example. He does have a better moral compass than Trump (lowest of bars), or Bush/Clinton/Obama. But that didn’t stop him from supporting racist domestic policy, supporting mendacious corporate financial legislation, and proxy war and genocide in Ukraine and Gaza.
You’re right that, in many cases, progress is a glacial process. But sometimes it isn’t. And the reluctance of the liberal left to understand when radical change is necessary, and fight for it tooth and nail, opens the door for authoritarian rule, either by corporate totalitarianism, which we now live under, or autocratic dictatorial despot, which is on the horizon.
You have hope that democracy can win out and reform capitalism. I don’t share that hope. I think climate chaos is coming, and neither political party is wiling to fully turn its back on corporate donors to realistically address it. Neither party will address the chokehold fossil fuels have on the world’s economies.
All the endless war originates with oil. And we’re going to burn the earth, and ourselves, before we do anything meaningful about it.
I’m as much a coward as the next person. Were I truly committed to the radical change I support, I would have burned myself alive in front of the White House a couple decades ago when I saw the corporate coup coming.
Tom,
I have this compelling desire - actually a need - to identify and fix things. One little thing at a time. I can't fix everything. So I focus on what I can control and hope that if I am part of a larger effort, my little bit of energy was devoted to the right stuff. Many of us pick up litter when we come across it. Others complain about the local government not cleaning it up.
The climate chaos you mention is already here. And the horrors of it have barely begun. Yes, oil is the cause and the tool of the oligarchs who don't care about their own planet. I think billions of people will probably suffer and perish.
In the mean time, perhaps we all can try to make whatever tiny differences we can achieve. Maybe, together, we could minimize some of the damage.
I wish for you some hope and a more cheerful outlook. Hey! Maybe after you leave this forum you have some serious pleasures - hope so. No way for us to know.
My daily outlook is that realistically, we (everyone) could count the days we have left to be conscious. Then it is over. Done. While I try to fix some things everyday, if I can't truly enjoy that day, I have handed my happiness over to the enemy. Not my game plan. Good luck to us all.
Cheers.
“I wish for you some hope and a more cheerful outlook. Hey! Maybe after you leave this forum you have some serious pleasures - hope so. No way for us to know.”
Bill, respectfully, that made me laugh (cheerful outlook) in a Christian witnessing sort of way. I guarantee you that I have a broader sense of humor, and laugh more daily, than 90% of Americans, and commenters here. I could link Jonathan Winters YouTubes to prove it, but that would probably be appreciated here as much as my anti-corporate rants.
I have a great family, dogs, good friends, a half-acre garden, a bucolic setting just outside a college town in NC. All in all, a much better place to watch the world burn than most.
I don’t have a problem recognizing that it is equally true that each of us is a unique miracle of life in our existence, and also as meaningless as a grain of sand on a wide beach in the grand scheme of things. Most people prefer to focus on the former; I give each equal time.
You state that you are into identifying and then fixing things. My issue here is that I don’t feel people are identifying correctly; they think Trump/GOP/Reagan are why we can’t have nice things. So identify = GOP. Fix = Vote Blue No Matter Who. Meanwhile, the monied interests tighten their grip on government.
We’ll see. Cheers to you as well. peace, t
Bill, a very thought provoking response and I thank you for it. I tend to be more like Tom in my thinking but try real hard to undo that part of my brain from thinking that way. It's a daily struggle but I keep trying. Thank you.
Being able to compartmentalize, and having activities that bring pleasure/laughter, are key for me. Peace, t
If you don't like our capitalist system, what do you suggest as an alternative?
I despise the total capture of our government by corporatists, because it leaves us no means to regulate the hell out of the private sector when needed. But our base system of publicly regulated capitalism is as good as an ideal gets. What would you change, or do we actually agree on this?
I align myself with Richard Wolff, both in description of the problem, and how to fix it.
https://humanityinaction.org/knowledge_detail/how-to-fix-democracy-with-richard-wolff-s2e6/
Thanks, Tom, I'll read. Happy week to you.
American culture has always been money oriented. I don't know why people do not see this.
Yesterday Marcia Coyle, PBS News Hour’s Supreme Court expert made no mention of the fictional basis of the Moore case. Hmm. Too controversial to mention, or not widely known yet? It does seem kind of relevant, does it not? Same with wedding website case.
When you see, in writing, just how many millions of dollars could bring people out of poverty, house the unhoused, provide really affordable healthcare, and educate those who want it, it is truly mind-boggling. This tax system would stop aiding and abetting the filthy rich if we get rid of Criminals United. Did I say that? HA! Meant Citizens United but you already that. I honestly dread how SCOTUS will rule tomorrow. I will not be surprised but I will be very very angry.
SCOTUS has become RATROTUS--Republican Anti Tax Rulers Of The U S. They buy the laws they want.
SCROTUS, in my mind. The "R" stands for "RepubliKan", and is pronounced like a part of the male anatomy, with an "S" rather than an "M", and in my junior high brain is one of the derogatory terms used when describing conduct of a person as being less than on the up and up.
Could we entertain a Blue Tsunami and cleansing sweep ? The Big LieS are not just the election was rigged ...before the fact (supposition) is PLANTED for convenience -tells the reality or what’s about to be..pointed accuracy as I can see. Case in point...today...the chess game of rich/con men.
I’ve asked ‘where will you go’ IF ...there are SO MANY who think they’d not be a part of the cascade...HA!
Too Late!
💙💙VOTE ALL THE COMPLICIT OUT💙💙
I had no idea. Thank you, once again and always, HCR, for bringing an important truth to light, be it historical or contemporary or both.
Isn’t there some kind of perjury involved in knowingly bringing a case to court based on a fictional event? Shouldn’t decisions based on such fictional events be nullified?
The New American Nazi Party sees fit to create its own reality out of whole cloth when the facts are inconvenient or even non-existent.
Ralph, your question sent me down a rabbit hole. I know that when testifying in a criminal court of fact, a witness must swear or affirm, under penalty of perjury, to "tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth" which usually pertains to the facts of the case at issue. I could find nothing regarding perjury in the appellate process, which is where original cases go after the adjudication at the lowest level "on appeal" when one side or the other can make claims that violations occurred at the trial level. (I have testified, under oath, hundreds of times, if not thousands, in an original "trial of record". I have never testified in an Appeals Court, because, if I am correct, that is only done on "paper" and not having actual witnesses testify. I am NOT an expert.)
I have no idea how a "wrong" which never occurred could get as far as a State Appellate Court, much less a Federal Appeals Court, and even less to the Supreme Court.
Byran Sean McCowan to the white courtesy telephone.
“I have no idea how a "wrong" which never occurred could get as far as a State Appellate Court…”
It makes one wonder how many other fictional “wrongs” may have led to court decisions that affect us all.
Thank you, Ally, for your thoughtful response to my comment.
BINGO! ‘right’ MO ...there has to be a reckoning , without sets up autocracy.
These fictional test cases are Stalinist. Talk about show trials! It's truly crazy they are allowed.
Why are they allowed? No rules for those who determine what rules all of us??
Fictional cases are not permitted, but there is no mechanism to stop them. They are a rogue runaway super legislature at this point.
No mechanism to stop them. How quaint…
Jeri,
We COULD stop them if we could just PAY them more than their current overlords.
You're a dreamer. Nothing wrong with that.
Yep, easily bought
Good to see ...and is the last hope , blue sweep and close the loopholes. That such accepted understandings prevailed set the stage for an inevitable upset. We have this election cycle ONLY , ‘they’ SAW the mistakes made and set in place remedy. Many including Heather , Joyce, Ruth, Steve , Simon and many more warned us. The House of Cards came into play , and the movie was amazingly accurate. There appears many aware, jumping ship, the midterms and current elections lead and are promising . And Biden focus is steeled, experienced, knowing.
But...America’s weakness (partly our own undoing) is vulnerable . Foreign influence at dangerous levels with our OWN loud ‘moles’ contributing. The age old plot to undo The American Dream has insidious lust to finalize , and they can taste it!
It’s all hands on deck, and we HERE know it.
Jeri,
Why are they allowed? you know the answer.
The justices are PAID to take these cases and rule for their overlords.
There was a time when conscience and greed were not mutually exclusive, well, sort of
Well, I think most of us wrestle with our own greed. The thing is that what makes greed greed is the element of deprivation/harm to others. "The well known phrase "Greed is good" was a live spoken by a bad guy in a movie, but Republicans embraced it as a motto, attempting to obscure the moral taint of "greed" as opposed an ethical desire to prosper. The notion that commerce should be an ethics-free zone is just bananas, logically, at least from a societal point of view, or ethically.
I thought that would shame the greedy bastards from the junk bond fiasco. Had no idea that it would be their script for the party platform
Jeri, the Gang of 6 are now using the “invented” Major Questions Doctrine to make law
And the SC runs amok with no barriers. Chump can’t wait, nor can the hogs at the trough
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes ? - yes, indeed.
Had to look this up, but on target
I think the answer is that it has to be us.
Yep, no savior coming to save us from the god of the Pharisees. (I think the Pharisees were a cut above our cult nuts)
Show trials is a good moniker. No doubt.
Tax and spending policies have the potential to benefit millions of Americans and already have. Payroll taxes fund social security and Medicare. Those programs make many millions of Americans more financially secure in retirement. The challenge is making the system as fair as possible. Taxation based on the ability to pay seems a reasonable approach. Republicans are locked into tax reduction and tend to blame Democrats for overspending. In reality, both parties spend but only one party wants to pay for spending.
Old school Republicans created a graduated income tax to pay for a war not of their making. GWB pushed massive, top heavy tax cuts while declaring two wars.
Another SC debacle
The reason for the $33 trillion national debt is because the large corporations and the wealthy have virtually stopped paying taxes commensurate with their profits and the benefits that they derive from our system. The oligarchs have been amazingly successful in gaming the system, suckering in the gullible with the wedge issues. At the moment, race is the winning wedge issue for them.
Until a few years ago, I was not aware of that non-citizens who live and work in America pay Federal and sometimes State income taxes. (https://blog.taxact.com) Nor was I aware until a few years ago that a large number of wealthy individuals paid relatively little to no State or Federal taxes.
Our taxes help pay for our military to protect us and our interests. It pays for our government, justice system, law enforcement, public schools (now private ones too, it seems), public libraries, social services, postal services, maintenance of roads and bridges, etc.
Ultra wealthy people don’t seem to have any need or desire to be a tax-paying citizen of any one country when they can instead buy politicians and law enforcement wherever they have business interests and property.
If a country they reside in experiences war or natural disaster, they can pick up and leave with very little pain while the rest of the residents must stay and suffer.
They who have so much wealth, seem contribute so little of the percentage of that wealth compared to working people of little to average income, and yet they are better protected and benefit most from regular people’s hard-earned tax dollars (both citizens and non-citizens).
It is sickening that our military, largely made up of regular people, sacrifice so much for our country, protect the little tax-paying wealthy too, who even financially profit from their pains.
It is sickening that the salaries of the law enforcement and justice systems are largely collectively paid for by regular people hard-earned tax dollars seem to better protect the rights and property of the wealthy who pay less.
It is sickening that the wealthy and their companies who greatly use our roads and bridges to travel and make profit pay very little towards their maintenance compared to collective burden on regular people.
The Supreme Court is largely paid by for by regular people, but clearly controlled by gifts from the wealthy is just another example of how the unfair tax distribution system is working against regular people. If the wealthy can afford to own the members of the Supreme Court, they’re way under taxed.
Near-perfect analog of the hypocrisy: they readily pay club (restricted) membership fees. Then deduct them from their income.
It is a continuous outrage that unfair (immoral?) policies get cemented in place, using bunk, hooey, balderdash, and fairytales as aggregate and reinforcement.
No wonder I’ve been angry most of my life.
Ah, tax policy - and HCR is interested in it. We all need to pay more
attention to this crucial aspect of our economy.
'U.S. Deficit, Pegged at $1.7 Trillion, Effectively Doubled in 2023' (NYTimes, excerpt)
'The widening gap between what the government spends and what it earns comes as Congress continues to spar over the proper levels of federal spending.'
“The Biden administration continues to focus on navigating our economy’s transition to healthy and sustainable growth,” Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen said in the release. “As we do, the president and I are also committed to addressing challenges to our long-term fiscal outlook.”
‘The widening gap between what the government spends and what it earns comes at an uncomfortable moment, as the president looks to a divided Congress for aid to Israel and Ukraine amid concerns about government spending and whether the United States can afford to finance two wars.’
‘Republicans — who helped run up big budget deficits with tax cuts and increased spending when they were in power — have begun insisting on deep budget cuts in order to reduce the federal deficit. The fact that the shortfall widened could make it even more challenging to get Congress to agree on a series of spending bills that must pass by next month in order to prevent a government shutdown.’
‘On Friday, Mr. Biden’s administration formally asked Congress to approve more than $100 billion in emergency spending that includes military aid to Ukraine and Israel, humanitarian assistance in those countries and in Gaza, and a range of new efforts to improve America’s border security.’
“America can certainly afford to stand with Israel and to support Israel’s military needs, and we also can and must support Ukraine in its struggle against Russia,” Ms. Yellen told Sky News.’ (NYTimes) See gifted link below.
‘Despite growing concern in Washington and on Wall Street about the grim fiscal trajectory, lawmakers have been unable to coalesce around plans to enact meaningful spending cuts or tax increases. ‘
MEANWHILE!
'THE MONEY ISSUE (NYTIMES MAGAZINE, EXCERPT)
'How Many Billionaires Are There, Anyway?'
'— America has some 735 billionaires now according to Forbes, collectively worth more than $4.7 trillion. A decade ago, Forbes counted only (“only”) 424. A decade before that, 243. They keep multiplying, and their collective wealth grows, even, or especially, as the rest of us fall behind.'
'So where are they all coming from? Depends who you ask. An optimist might tell you that an economy producing so many billionaires is an economy that’s growing, which is certainly true of ours. Nothing wrong with that. In the 1950s, the economist Simon Kuznets popularized the idea that inequality was an unfortunate but self-regulating side effect of economic growth; whenever it got too high, Kuznets reasoned, the political process would rein it in. This was known as the Kuznets curve, a parabola that showed inequality soaring before being slowly brought back to Earth through redistribution. Kuznets believed that the richest societies would eventually be the most equal.'
'But in the last 12 years, the American political system has delivered Citizens United, a top marginal tax rate of 37 percent (down from a high of 94 percent in Kuznets’s day) and a billionaire president openly hostile to the democratic process — along with 332 new billionaires. The Kuznets curve has fallen out of favor, too, replaced by something called the Kuznets wave, which shows successive peaks and valleys of inequality. Branko Milanovic, the economist who put forward this revised model, thinks it might take at least a generation to tamp down the current peak.'
'In his book “Ages of American Capitalism,” the University of Chicago historian Jonathan Levy describes the era of capitalism we live in as the Age of Chaos: a time in which capital has become more footloose, liquid and volatile, constantly flowing into and out of booms and busts, in contrast to the staid order — and widely shared prosperity — that characterized the industrial postwar economy. Levy begins the story in 1981, the same year Forbes thought of his list. That was the year the Federal Reserve, under its chairman, Paul Volcker, raised interest rates to 20 percent with the goal of ending inflation. Volcker’s Fed succeeded at that, but the decision, Levy notes, had far-reaching consequences besides, accelerating America’s transition away from the production of goods to a form of capitalism never seen before. The dollar skyrocketed in value, making American exports even less attractive and imports even cheaper; many factories that remained profitable were closed, because compared with the incredible returns money could earn in such a high-rate environment, they simply weren’t profitable enough. When the Fed began to loosen its grip, the widely available credit unleashed a speculative bonanza, which benefited a newly empowered corporate class that felt little obligation to the work force and profound obligations to shareholders.'
'Typically the economy expands when investments are made in productivity, but this expansion was different: It was, Levy writes, “the only one on record, before or since, in which fixed investment as a share of G.D.P. declined.” In other words, our industrialists were investing less in productive stuff — ships, factories, trucks — while making more money doing so. In fact, they were often tearing that stuff up and shipping it abroad; this was the age of the corporate raiders, who would book enormous profits while putting Americans out of work. You can see this, in crude terms, as the birth of the Wall Street-Main Street divide: a severing of the finance industry from the “real” economy.'
'This shift to a highly financialized, postindustrial economy was helped along by the Reagan administration, which deregulated banking, cut the top income tax rate to 28 percent from 70 percent and took aim at organized labor — a political scapegoat for the sluggish, inflationary economy of the ’70s. Computer technology and the rise of the developing world would amplify and accelerate all these trends, turning the United States into a sort of frontal cortex for the globalizing economy. Just as important, the tech revolution created new ways for entrepreneurs to amass enormous fortunes: Software is by no means cheap to develop, but it requires fewer workers and less fixed investment, and can be reproduced and shipped around the world instantaneously and at practically no cost. Consider that the powerhouse of 20th-century capitalism, Ford Motors, now employs about 183,000 people and has a market capitalization close to $68 billion; Google employs about 156,000 people and has a market cap of around $1.8 trillion. This new economy would be run by, and for, knowledge workers, who would reap most of the gains, and therefore have more money to spend on services — a sector that would come to sort of, but never fully, replace the manufacturing this transformation did away with.'
“During the Reagan years,” Levy writes, “something new and distinctive emerged that has persisted down to this day: a capitalism dominated by asset price appreciation.” 'That is, an economy in which the rising price of assets — stocks, bonds, real estate — would be, somewhat counterintuitively, a fuel for economic growth. It has been a good time, in other words, to own a lot of assets. And owning assets is mostly what billionaires do.'
'In his book “Capital in the Twenty-First Century,” the French economist Thomas Piketty notes that the new economic order has made it difficult for the superrich not to get richer: “Past a certain threshold,” he writes, “all large fortunes, whether inherited or entrepreneurial in origin, grow at extremely high rates, regardless of whether the owner of the fortune works or not.” (NYTimes) See gifted link below.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/20/business/treasury-report-shows-1-7-trillion-deficit.html?unlocked_article_code=1.Dk0.nZWz.PkSdcJq3Qd6I&smid=url-share
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/07/magazine/billionaires.html?unlocked_article_code=1.Dk0.o5QV.NcFtiiw6N_jZ&smid=url-share
The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. From my Momma as I was growing up, many years ago.
Fern, thanks for the links as always. I cut this section as well
"Many of the votes were roundly bipartisan: More than 85 percent of the projected debt added over the last six years passed with a majority of Democratic votes in both chambers. Almost an identical amount of debt passed with at least a third of Republican votes in the House or Senate. Chief among them were a series of Covid-19 relief measures totaling more than $3 trillion and passing with landslide majorities in 2020.
Some of the laws passed entirely along party lines. In those cases, on net, Republicans added slightly more to the debt than Democrats.
Editors’ Picks
Live Music Is a Time Machine
Henry Kissinger, Social Fixture
What’s Your Favorite Airport Amenity? We Want to Know.
That’s because of the sweeping corporate and individual tax cuts that Mr. Trump signed into law at the end of 2017, which cost $2 trillion. Despite Republican claims that the tax cuts paid for themselves, the C.B.O. estimated last month that Mr. Trump’s corporate tax cuts alone would cost the federal government hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue in the years to come. Earlier C.B.O. analyses suggest that the full slate of tax cuts have already cost the government $1.2 trillion through the 2022 fiscal year.
The tax cuts’ price tag outweighed the net cost of the two most fiscally consequential bills that Mr. Biden and Democrats passed along party lines: a $1.9 trillion economic aid bill in 2021 and a climate, health and tax bill approved late last summer, which is projected to reduce future deficits by nearly $300 billion."
Mike S, did you intend to include 'Editors Picks' and other such unrelated lines in your reply?
Anne Applebaum addressed the Ukraine funding & NATO Article 5 issues this morning in an interview on 'Morning Joe' about 8 minutes into Segment A. Anne Applebaum also has the most important article among many other on-point articles in the current issue of The Atlantic', the one with the all red 🔴 cover. Anne lives in Poland & is probably the top historian on Ukraine in the World.
Thank you, Bryan. Are you familiar with Timothy Snyder's books, lectures, substack called 'thinking about... ' ? I follow Anne Applebaum's writing and also, most strongly recommend Timothy Snyder's work to all interested in Democracy, Eastern Europe, Ukraine, the Holocaust...
https://timothysnyder.org/
'Timothy David Snyder is an American historian specializing in the history of Central and Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, and the Holocaust. He is the Richard C. Levin Professor of History at Yale University and a permanent fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna.'
https://snyder.substack.com/
'On Tyranny' is a call to arms and a guide to resistance, with invaluable ideas for how we can preserve our freedoms in the uncertain years to come.
'Our Malady'
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller On Tyranny comes an impassioned condemnation of America's pandemic response and an urgent call to rethink health and freedom.
'The Road to Unfreedom'
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the author of On Tyranny comes a stunning new chronicle of the rise of authoritarianism from Russia to Europe and America.
“A brilliant analysis of our time.”—Karl Ove Knausgaard, The New Yorker
'Black Earth'
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “[Timothy] Snyder identifies the conditions that allowed the Holocaust—conditions our society today shares. . . . He certainly couldn’t be more right about our world.”—The New Republic
A “gripping [and] disturbingly vivid” (The Wall Street Journal) portrait of the defining tragedy of our time, from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of On Tyranny
ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR—The Washington Post, The Economist, Publishers Weekly
'Bloodlands' is a new kind of European history, presenting the mass murders committed by the Nazi and Stalinist regimes as two aspects of a single history, in the time and place where they occurred: between Germany and Russia, when Hitler and Stalin both held power. Assiduously researched, deeply humane, and utterly definitive, Bloodlands will be required reading for anyone seeking to understand the central tragedy of modern history.
There are other important books written by Timothy Snyder, and I recommend the links provided above to be more acquainted with the depth of Timothy Snyder's knowledge and the understanding he contributes to the ways we may lose or grow democracies in Ukraine, the US and around the world.
FERN, I have read a few Snyder posts but. I will check him out further. Thank You.
On Moore v US, I will be monitoring the transcript of oral arguments at SCOTUS on Moore (the 2012-2017 CEO) definitely versus the U.S. & evidence of corruption in the case upon which "Cert" was granted & other Docket fraud.
Off to SF now.
Bryan, T. Snyder reaches me more consequentially than I could have imagined. It may sound unlike me, but he does reach my soul. He is very human, lively, engaged and it as though he is wedded to knowing what he can and, mostly, teaching with art, music, caring and knowledge that he does not showcase; it seeps out of him with grace and intensity. To see his gentle and serious sides, I suggest that you watch his substack as well as starting with a book.
I will follow your posts about Moore and whatever else you may be covering.
Salud!
'Last week was a busy one in the Senate, Fern.'
'I voted in the Judiciary Committee to authorize issuing subpoenas to Harlan Crow and Leonard Leo as part of our Supreme Court Ethics probe.'
'Republicans have claimed that our investigation into billionaire influence at the Court will destroy the institution. Their refusal to cooperate raises the question: What are they so concerned we’ll find? Whatever it is, you deserve to know about it. These subpoenas are a step toward learning the truth.'
'And while it’s good news that the justices recently announced a code of ethics for themselves, their pledge is all but useless if there’s no way to file a complaint, investigate potential violations, or make the findings public. The justices are their own judge and jury, which won’t stem further misconduct.'
'We’re making progress, but we still have to pass my Supreme Court ethics bill – the SCERT Act – which includes an enforcement mechanism that would hold the justices accountable to the American people.'
'That’s why I’m asking you today: If you are able, can you pitch in $40 to support my reelection campaign? The powerful people who have been rigging the Court for years are dead set on preventing me from getting to the bottom of what they’ve been up to.'
'Thank you for donating and for your support as I work to restore integrity to the Supreme Court,'
'Sheldon Whitehouse'
https://whitehouseforsenate.com/
Thank you Fern
Thank you for following this subject, Helen. I hope the Letter will address how the country's current tax policy effects the socio- economic classes within our society and how changes would greatly reduce our extremely deep economic divide. This is a major area of consideration, understanding and concern of Elizabeth Warren's. Spelling this out and educating the public could also reduce our deep social divide.
Thanks for this, Fern. Numbers and I do not get along, but this assessment is understandable.
Today's GOP, and its Federalist Society Supreme Court, is defined by populist racial injustice and movement conservatism economic injustice. A nation which will not protect equality before the law and equal representation, will not uphold government regulation and equitable taxation. The former 'culture wars' gets most of the publicity, while the latter is the primary purpose. It's why Charles Koch et al funnel immense amounts of money through innumerable shell companies to a myriad of antidemocratic causes - and fill the war chests of GOP legislatures to craft inequitable tax policy and grease the palms of GOP jurists to select and decide cases in their favor. It is no coincidence that Speaker Mike Johnson's religious extremism is spotlighted but his long association with Leonard Leo is not. Nor is it any surprise that Johnson's first legislative proposal was to defund the IRS - specifically to remove money the Biden administration requested to hire accountants with the expertise to efficiently process tax returns which are thousands of pages long documenting the shifting of money through shell companies, accounts, and not for profits to avoid taxation. While the 1% has grown in number, IRS staffing is around 12 expert accountants.
Did I mention, Koch bagman and court capture operative Leonard Leo - who infamously recently got $1.6 billion tax free - in addition to the routine millions - is being investigated for improperly shifting money from his non profits to his pocket? Here on Mt. Desert Island he's purchased two estates. Under an LLC arrangement he's also purchased a church building from the Catholic diocese which he plans to use as a Catholic cultural center and he is funding extensive renovations of the church still run by the diocese. All most likely with what should be our tax money. Leo has also influenced impressionable and sympathetic police and town officials to arrest and other wise intimidate people protesting his agenda. While implicated in compromising some local media outlets. Leo is in effect using this small island as a lab for the repurposing of the American democratic republic to a clerical fascist state. In a predominantly Democratic voting municipality. It can happen here.
Iin+ I always look forward to your comments--like Fern, you are a great source of information 🗽
Agreed, lin+'s is an excellent post.
I wish we could excommunicate Leo from Maine to maybe the Vatican. I cringe to think that some of his 7 kids are as deplorable as he is. I take comfort in the fact that women's health and abortion is protected here, but he certainly ruined women's healthcare in a large part of the country.
Well Maine, and specifically Mt Desert Island, has long been the playground of plutocrats. Many snakes in Eden. But having Leo here is an opportunity to educate people about the harm he does. There are now millions of tourists who've seen 'google Leonard Leo = Corrupt Courts' messaging. And some percentage have shared that they've educated themselves.
Best to leave children out of it.
Hopefully, the children don't follow in Daddy's footsteps.
This Letter unintentionally highlights something I've wondered about for a while, namely, the form of wealth assessed and taxed. For instance, Jeff Bezos is estimated to be worth ~170 billion dollars, but I'm sure that the vast majority of it is in the form of "non-liquid" financial instruments such as stock, property, etc. For all I know, he barely has $10 in cash to his name.
But taxes have to be paid in cash, so I understand. Presumably, this means that a wealthy individual (or corporation) would need to sell the assets that were used to calculate the tax in order to pay the tax.
So, what would be the effect of allowing the government to receive tax payments in the form of stocks and bonds, rather than in cash, and hold those assets in their non-liquid form, realizing the benefit of appreciation of those assets when it's most advantageous, just like the original owner? What would happen if the government, after a suit for tax delinquency, became a majority owner of a corporation -- must the government then immediately have to sell the asset to satisfy the tax debt? What would be an alternative?
I freely admit to being a tax/finance numbskull, so I hope that a more knowledgeable commenter will enlighten me. While this current case before the Court is an open attempt to eliminate the capital-gains tax, at least, even if the current right-wingers rule against the Moores the case does raise deeper issues, too.
The value of a dollar is fixed. The value of stock or bonds can & does vary. A company can go bankrupt, which would make your asset worth nothing.
Kind of akin to gambling?
Maybe they could donate a couple of billion to NASA since NASA can’t afford to pay for their own rockets. Privately owned space programs boggle my mind.
Jeri,
When do you sleep?
mike :-)
Hard since my husband died, but cats help
❤️
They like to eat at 3am, but they are kind and “cuddily” and keep me focused on love in a world of loss.
I'm very sorry for your loss, Jeri. Becoming suddenly single was not on my to-do list either (and definitely not hers), but life does what it wants. Have a gentle holiday.
Widowhood is a different world, as is yours. Thank you
I can only imagine. Much love.
Oh Jeri, I’m so sorry--please take care ☮️💟
I suspect most if not all of these "privately owned space programs" are merely fantasy Earth escape pods. These rich boys realize they have assisted in destroying humanity's environmental planetary support system and are trying to develop some type of interplanetary lifeboat for themselves and their rich buddies.
As an old NASA junkie, it hacks me off like little else. The program and its successes (despite failures) was such a boost for America's image at home and around the world. As Borman said, Apollo 8 saved 1968. Budget cut to bones right after Apollo 11, almost like deliberate killing of the science of the time. But then we had Russia to help????
Considering inflation/deflation and the money market, the value of the dollar seems like a gamble, too.
I just recall two relevant things: 1) rich people whining that they can't be taxed on their enormous wealth because it's value can't be precisely calculated (why not just look at the appraised/listed value of the instrument as of the day the tax is due, then take the instrument itself?), and 2) back in '08 when the TARP money was used to buy up the "bad" debt the "too big to fail" jerks had loaded themselves with, the debts, after being sold back to the private sector for pennies, subsequently performed fairly well. The jerks got paid twice, first with taxpayer money, then with the performance of the debts themselves.
And looking at the other posters on this thread, I agree -- I wish I had more cats and spacecraft in my life! (Preferably combined.)
Bezos recently moved to Florida. Most likely because we are the “ billionaire enabler state” with recently passed legislation that helps hide family fortunes.
“ But legislative, corporate and campaign-finance records suggest that DeSantis and the Legislature enacted the laws, at least in part, as a favor for the richest family in the world: The Waltons, the heirs to the Walmart empire.”
https://open.substack.com/pub/jasongarcia/p/after-taking-money-from-walmart-heirs?r=fqsxl&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
I strongly suggest that you read the excellent book on Modern Monetary Theory by economist Stephanie Kelton "The Deficit Myth". She explains that one way the government makes the dollar important is that it requires one to pay his obligations to the government in dollars so I doubt they will ever take stock certificates instead of greenbacks.
Considering the US government is the sole issuer of our fiat currency rather than a user (vastly different rules apply) the parts of this "letter" and the comments discussing taxation seem to me to be off the mark. The first of the myths discussed by Dr. Kelton is "The federal government should budget like a household." when the reality is "Unlike a household, the federal government issues the currency it spends."
The recommended book made it very easy for me to understand why we recently had a bolt of inflation shoot through the economy and why said bolt is now history.
I’ve wondered if our government pays money on the interest of our debt where does the money come from and where does it go? I assume it is piling up somewhere or being spent somewhere. I’m curious and confused.
Great place to start. Dr. Kelton explains that the federal government issues two kinds of dollars (green and yellow) and she explains it like this. The green ones we're quite familiar with and while they pay no interest they are used with almost all of our transactions in society and all of our transactions with the federal government. The yellow ones are treasury bills and bonds that do pay interest and occasionally the government removes some of the green dollars from the economy by offering the yellow ones in their place. Those with extra green dollars gladly trade them for the yellow ones to earn that interest you mention.
Both of the dollar types come from the government printing presses or computer keyboards and while the yellow ones usually go into some type of saving institution the green ones are used in the billions (trillions) of transactions that make up our economy.
When extra green ones end up in the hands of the middle class or below they are usually spent while if the extra end up with the already rich they are piled up. The rich have what they need (except they usually crave more dollars) so they aren't as ready to spend. One of the reasons we haven't had much inflation for the past 20-30 years is all the extra dollars were channeled by tax cuts to the richest who kept them out of the general economy by squirreling them away. If they chose to use foreign bank accounts for their savings the money was even further removed from the domestic economy, hence no or very little inflation. The money added across the economy at the end of the pandemic was put into the hands of those who would spend it rather than hiding it, hence a bout of inflation.
Finally, I'm not a Ph.D on this subject but have thought about it quite a bit. This seems sensible to me but I have a lot more to learn and this may be mistakenly simple or just plain off the mark.
Thanks! I've been hearing about MMT for a while now but haven't taken the time to push my head through it. Kelton, eh? I'll look for it.
Yet, somehow Jeff managed to scrape together $500 million for his new yacht delivered earlier this year. Hmmmm.
Oh, I hear you loud and clear, there's no question that good ol' Jeff can acquire any good or service he pleases at the snap of his fingers. I just don't know if he paid $500 mil in cash. For I know, he paid for it with $500 million in Amazon Web Services. Besides, I doubt that he owns the yacht in his own name, it undoubtedly a B2B thing.
It's just that on the fairly rare occasion that I try to really think hard about tax policy and asset valuation, I quickly get lost in the deepness and complexity of the rabbit hole.
Thank you, Professor. History can be painful but also rewarding. It comes down to greed and lack of compassion for everybody in America from those who have the most. I fear that there will never be a sense of fairness in that regard.
"A BRIBE TO GOD"
*
Poor bastards "can't get no satisfaction" from their more and more and more and MORE, and..."
GUARANTEED DISSATISFACTION, but...
as Ike, a respectable human being, pointed out...
THEY ARE STUPID.
Worse, not only stupid, but raving mad.
Instead of breaking away from their idiot, impossible-to-assuage greed...
THEY WANT IT ALL...
To make matters worse, they are no longer so few
and their generously kept slaves are many and have been parachuted into the highest of high places
to do the will of imbeciles.
*
Heaven help us!
It's plain enough we must help ourselves
and cure this dreadful disease that's sapping the nation
before it brings everything crashing down on the madmen and on us all.
*
I never read F. Scott Fitzgerald's THE DIAMOND AS BIG AS THE RITZ...
When I spoke to my wife of my outrage at so much impossible greed, idiocy and clever slaves whoring in high places, she brought the tale to my attention.
My goodness...!
IT'S ALL THERE -- the Perfect Metaphor for NOW!
A Diamond.
THE Diamond.
As people don't read anything longer than a tweet
MAKE IT A FILM
N O W
Fitzgerald's diamond.
Not even a metaphor. A description.
A hundred-year-old prophecy, grounded in how
history gets hiccups...
A society that defines itself and chooses leaders who are motivated solely by “love of money “ is not a healthy one.
I vaguely recalled the first progressive form of income tax was during the Civil War, but appreciate the fuller history.
It cannot be a coincidence that the show "The Gilded Age" is currently on PBS. And I'm reminded of something Romney said when filmed at a fundraiser at either a country club or someone's mansion: "Democrats think no one should live like this, and Republicans think everyone should." Neither is true, of course,; but it's definitely true that Republicans don't think like that at all based on their tax plans.
I recently showed portions of that show to my HS juniors, in history class. I hope they see how relevant it is to current events.
Recall Romney’s back stage comment on social beneficiaries in 2011, “They are takers.”
"47% are takers, totally dependent upon government hand-outs. We'll never get those voters."
Oh, I remember it well. I was on SSDI at the time, for a near fatal illness.
Actually the show is on HBO and Max.
thanks
“Tax policy shows what a society values.”