While most eyes were on the leaked draft of the Supreme Court decision this week, the Biden administration continued its work to move the country forward, demonstrating that investing in ordinary Americans creates a strong economy. Since the 1980s, Republicans have insisted that the way to establish strong economic growth is to cut business regulations and taxes in order to free up innovation and capital for investment. Rejecting the system in place since 1933 that used the government to keep the economic playing field level and protect the rights of workers, Republicans argued that the economy worked best when business leaders ran it. Government should support the employers on the supply side of the economy rather than the workers and consumers on the demand side.
We need votes for democracy. Don't sit wringing your hands & mind. Get out the vote in your own community and state. Help others with your example. Give young people your support. Work with your local League of Women Voters. Ukraine is our best example. They are losing everything but their will to fight, and their do or die attitude
“We must make sure within our own country, we are calling out those people who are giving aid and comfort to Putin, who are talking about what a genius he is, what a smart move it is — who are unfortunately being broadcast by Russian media.”@HillaryClinton
Unfortunately, though, since there wee Republican majorities in both the House and Senate in 2016, I think that if Hillary had won the Electoral College votes, we would have been subjected to nonstop "Benghazi!" and "E-mails!" and evil Mitch smirking as he said "No!" to proposal that would actually be helpful...
Every republican president messes things up irrevocably. We never would have had the Iraq war if Gore had been elected; we might not be dealing with this climate crisis if Gore had been elected; we would not have invaded Cambodia if Nixon hadn't been elected; social security would not have been taxed if Reagan hadn't been elected, and our education system might be better and social services might be more equitable if Regan hadn't been elected; on and on.
And don’t forget Comey who held a press conference to announce he found more Hillary emails 9 days before the election, which all turned out to be duplicates.
She won the popular vote but only lost the electoral college with the help of Paul Manafort sharing “sensitive polling data” to a Russian intelligence officer. That data I believe was particular counties in the swing states needed that extra dose of Russian interference: amplified bot likes, flooded with trolls, and focused propaganda.
It has always seemed to me strange the way in which the recount in Michigan (Flint) was ended. Very suspicious, at least to me. That recount could well have changed the outcome.
Me too! When I was watching Madeleine Albright’s funeral, I noticed a lot of people flocking to Hillary and Bill. However, we need younger people in this fight, let’s just let Hillary and Bill be wise counsel.
Hillary ran a lousy campaign in 2016. If she had stopped looking at the polls and run a better campaign, she would have won, and we would not have had to endure Trump. Sorry to have to say that (and I pounded the pavement for her), but we need to be as clear-eyed as we can.
Jon that is one factor. There was also Russian interference, the trump effect and slavish media attention he received, the misogyny that still runs in our Country, the low voter turnout, the Bernie faction and the Comey bomb that was dropped in late October. Also please remember that Secretary of State Clinton won the popular vote by 2.9 million. Then there was the "Reconstruction effect". Henry Louis Gates has written a wonderful look at how the Reconstruction was a boomerang against the Civil War and the freeing of the slaves and the after effect of having a black President.
Could a more charismatic, more hardworking and just plain more liked candidate have overcome all of this? Question of our time isn't it.
She had the right, the left, the media and a Russia (who was supporting both the right and left) against her. She did not run a bad campaign. She still won the popular vote as you pointed out. Thank you for your succinct and cogent summary of what happened.
The right (or wrong, depending on your outlook) were hot on her case since Bill was in office. They always have the long game in their sights, and knew that she'd probably be a threat in the future. They called her a criminal, and worse, from that time. Then, they were aided by the Kremlin and all of the oligarchs. Turns out, they're the real criminals.
Bill Clinton had advised Hillary to campaign in those three states (PA, Wisc, and Mich, if I remember correctly) that gave the election to Trump, but she didn't do it. I voted for her in the general (Sanders in the primaries), and I urged others to do so.
But she was not a good campaigner. Also don't forget that statement she made about the "deplorables."
I'd vote for her again if she were the nominee, because the GOP has gone batshit crazy.
Don't be sorry for telling the truth Jon. It is time that both parties stopped trying to recast the last couple of elections and focus on the future. The GOP needs (whether they recognize it or not) to DUMP TRUMP and get back in touch with America and the Democrats need to start tapping some of the talent in the post-Boomer generations to get some energy back in their presentations. Tim Ryan in Ohio is a good start and, in the state that elected Sherrod Brown, has a chance against a trumpista looneytune. In Missouri, Lucas Kunce has a serious shot at the Senate if he can get past a moneyed (Busch family) party elder and get to the former governor the Republicans appear ready to try to rehabilitate.
Dave, If Trump isn't in a jumpsuit (which is unlikely) I hope he runs for president because he will LOSE! Image The TRUMP losing twice. Don't you get a thrill from watching a sick nincompoop worshiped by millions go BAT **** (I'm no TC)? Truly, I think this would solve a few of our problems.
The cheating will be on steroids compared to 2020. They left no stone unturned, and are churning the ground as we post; when Kevin bowed down so did all the lunatics in the land, as well as every republican politico, save two.
Hillary (like her husband) abandoned Unions. Those former union workers voted for Trump in the rust belt. THAT, folks, is truth and why she really lost!!!!!
Bradford, you make an important point here that more need to realize. What counties have the least funded public education? Which counties have lost the most manufacturing jobs with union benefits? Which counties have been hit the hardest by the opioid crisis? And then by Covid? These are counties that voted for Obama, but then voted tfg in 2016.
Indeed. One could make the argument (and it has been made many times) that the creation of Unions under FDR and their dissolution after Reagan and Clinton is the VERY core of our economic challenge. The question has and is always begging: Does government support the working class or the Capital/Money class??? Our country did fairly well for almost 50 years until Reagan got elected. The economy has gone south for the masses while the 1% have gotten (and still during a pandemic) obscenely wealthy. It is literally unsustainable.
I refuse to sign up for Twitter. Until recently, I at least could read these posted links and replies by clicking on an X in the pop-up asking me to register but now that's not possible.
This is a twitter thread from Wesley Hunt to Eric Swalwell, a Texas (?) Rep.
"Hi Eric, my name is Wesley Hunt, I’m a Republican nominee in a Congressional District that is 70% white. I’m black, I’m in an interracial marriage, and my wife and I have two biracial daughters. Republicans are celebrating diversity while white liberals like yourself race-bait."
And Swalwell's reply:
"Hey Wesley, your problem isn’t with me. It’s with @SenatorBraun
who said states should be able to ban interracial marriages like yours. He’s a senator in YOUR party. Looks like you’re just another Republican who is in denial of what your colleagues say. Party over country, right?"
If we get young people involved in local affairs today, that investment will pay off 20 years from now after all the Frightened Old White Men have aged out. This is too important to leave up to the GOPers.
Christine: After reading your comment, I asked my wife if I'm kneaded. Seriously, after marveling at the Women's March in 2017, to which she traveled across the country, and admiring the work of women like Stacey Abrams, Sally Yates, Jacinda Ardern of New Zealand, and many others, I concluded that men need to sit down, shut up, and start taking orders. It's women who will deliver us from this madness.
The "orders" for men do include supportively speaking up, donating, and acting on behalf of these issues of social justice and rights to self-determination!
Thinking the fundamental right at risk is love. Whom to love, how to love, when to love, managing the outcomes of love in the most loving way... working on my signboard slogan for the women's march.
Thank you for these links, Ellie. My nephew (age 33) is very active in his world registering younger people to vote and encouraging them to run for office. I have encouraged him to run for office. I'd love to see him on the Ashland (OR) City Council.
Good nephew! If he doesn't already know, relay commenter Gary Mengel's reminder about Run For Something, who supports novice candidates through the process:
Morning David. Not sure why, but found myself thinking ‘bout something after your comment.
I will never forget…ever….Trump leaning into the microphone and sharing the buzz about injecting bleach into a vein to rid oneself of Covid infection and then looking over to the doctors, who are literally cringing under the press conference lights and wanting to be anywhere but there, and saying “so, eh, we can look into that, right?” And then continued as if he hadn’t just said the stupidest thing in the world. It’s still so vivid to me. I remember being incredulous for a minute, realizing it wasn’t a joke he was making, and then wondering if he would callously suggest at some point in time bombing another country to get rid of some “foreign”humans he considered scum. You know, eh, to cleanse the veins of America.
Yikes. Oy vey. Really?
Wonder what motivates Esper to reveal such things? His book or true compassion for this country and not wanting the likes of anyone like trump being “in charge” again.
For me, moments like the “bleach cleansing” press conference are recognizing true colors and refusing to acquiesce to total and utter nonsense.
Preserve CHOICE. That is everything. Including the VOTE.
The common thread behind these republican assertions is that they know better than scientists which path to take. A Supreme Court justice should not be deciding whether or not masks should be worn to quell a pandemic, when life begins (a religious ideology) and whether abortion should therefore be illegal, or which treatments to use to treat covid (bleach). With Republicans leading the way, our laws are starting to be based on superstition, not science. Does that make us a third world country?
I lived in Honduras as a kid. My brother and I hung out what you would call peasant kids. Families were very close, religious (not crazy fundamentalists like we are stuck with). I was young and nieve. Now I am old and cynical but I think I prefer the peasants to many of my Ivy League contemporaries.
Think of Shrek, and the farmers with pitchforks agreeing to anything that was said to them. My reference was made with peasants from other parts of the world in mind.
This is too long for a bumper sticker, but : If your candidate makes you fearful or angry, choose another one; if your candidate makes you hopeful and proud of your country, vote for them.
You are so right. GOTV (and visible protesting a la the size of the Women's March in 17) are what Democrats (and any concerned American) needs to be doing right now.
Get the young voters who say voting doesn't matter to see why it does. I have friends whose kids didn't vote in 2016 even though we kept saying 'Supreme Court!'.
“[The Bipartisan Innovation Act] would bring home production that the U.S. has ceded to China…”
The US “ceded” nothing. Those manufacturing jobs were brought to China on a platter by the people who own the politicians who preach that tax cuts and de-regulation pay for themselves and create domestic jobs. These are the same people who are now price-gouging us all, creating record profits, and blaming Biden and the Democrats for the resulting inflation.
Beating quarterly profit objectives and share price rises bring bonuses to the senior managers. Replacing expensive, if productive, American workers, killing communities and driving national depression with cheap workers and automated factories in China is a step up the "richness" ladder for them. Now the shipping companies have taken the place of the old railroad trusts and are sucking blood and profits out of the system by their "ransome" rates. Sounds familiar! America has globalized her 1899 economy. A new Teddy Roosevelte is required.....and not just a safe pair of hands.
Okay, okay, Stuart. It's a fact that you and I have never met face-to-face. But it doesn't keep me from bragging about my "ties" to a friend overseas...morning!
True, the last time I checked, there were no Chinese nationals, illegal aliens, or working class Americans sitting on the boards of major corporations making the decisions to outsource jobs.
Inflation is being contributed to mightily by corporations exercising their “pricing power.” Simply put, companies are raising prices because they can, not necessarily because of real world costs Raising interest rates won’t help drive down that situation.
In some cases those people became the politicians that plagued us, we had one of those parasites here in GA, his name is David Perdue, he lived in China for 3 years facilitating companies moving production from the US to China and made a fortune, nothing wrong with making a fortune unless you do it by selling out American workers. We threw Perdue out in the last election, you know the one where the election was stolen, at any rate he’s now trying to replace our Govenor and failing miserably. I begged him every day during the impeachment trials to just look at the evidence and vote accordingly, but the spineless parasite who had his head up the insipid one’s ass voted to acquit both times, so we voted him out, he to this day has not removed his head from the insipid one’s ass, 🤷♂️ He must like it in there. Go figure…
Amen and AMEN! We may be rid of Perdue after the midterms, but he might be replaced with a Herschel Walker and that is even scarier. I hope once the spotlight shines on Walker and exposes just how completely unsuited he is for public office, he'll be history too. He will in all likelihood be the Republican candidate for Senate, which I simply cannot get my head around. All the while, Warnock and Ossoff are both doing really good jobs representing our state.
When corporations think their ONLY responsibility is a great return on investment for shareholders, they will chase that profit across the globe. They wanted to go to China because China was seen as such a huge market. Companies did not want to be left out.
One aspect that is often overlooked is the role Unions played in driving Companies overseas to cheaper labor. The Unions had done an excellent job of getting more and more benefits for their members. I applaud this but at the same time this collided with Corporate greed. Boom. Factories closed, generations were cast out of a good living, Cities turned into ghettos and the spawning of a resentful disenfranchised middle class who then ended up voting for TFG and who still wants to burn it all down in order to "own the libs."
And oops I just read Stuart's response so I duplicated his. Sorry Stuart.
More of the jobs went to automation than to dollar-a-day Chinese workers. In any event, all those low-skill, high wage jobs were gone. It was presidential candidate Hillary Clinton who talked about cheap/free retraining of dispossessed workers but those workers were made to be more concerned with her gender and “those emails” and they stepped into the voting booth and cut off their nose to spite their face.
Are you serious? Please reread my comment where I said "one aspect" and then I said "collided with Corporate greed". I pretty much echoed Stuart and also said so. You agreed with what I said and then you posted the second comment.
Hmmmm . . . Unions may have contributed unwittingly, the blame however, largely lies with the corporations and their greed. Corporations have long taken to heart the dictum their duty is to their shareholders only.
Morning, all!! Morning, Dr. R!! To add to today's Letter, let us welcome incoming press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, to the podium. She will be replacing Jen Psaki in a few days. I have been reading about her impressive "credentials." She capped it for me with this story about how she intervened on behalf of then candidate for president Kamala Harris in 2019. Her quick action demonstrated her ability to both think on her feet, and then talk about it afterward. I am confident she will do well in the coming days as the new presidential press secretary.
Yes, Lynell. And suddenly, everywhere, women are playing the game “telephone” again. What will be discovered is that technology has perfected our communication and we will stand very firm and clear on the leapfrogging message.
CHOICE
IT IS WHAT MAKES US HUMAN. SO GET YO’ GRUBBY HANDS OFF.
Good morning, Lynell. Thank you for this video. I remember that happening, and certainly Karine articulated well and strongly what happened after. I will miss Psaki as well, but can already imagine how this woman will stand up to the white men in the press corps.
I saw Biden’s speech today, in Ohio. He hit hard about explaining what and why inflation exists. It was necessary to do that because he had to combat the Pro-Rape party’s attacks. He explained exactly what the Professor said about how great the economy is in spite of all the negativity from the opponents and the war in Ukraine. What other president can boast these accomplishments in the short amount of time?
The talking heads want to quickly erect all manner of conspiracy theories regarding the leaked draft of a ruling overturning Roe vs. Wade. The ingenuity of these theories leads one to wonder why their creators aren't running for office themselves; after all, truth is no longer a political currency; probably never was, in fact. What's new today is just how unhinged and outrageous the degree of deceit has become. Perhaps the leak has some impact on May primary races? Beyond that, I'm not sure how disclosure in May versus July makes all that much difference in the long run. Aside from the various aides and clerks to 9 justices, I can easily imagine some night-shift custodial staff coming across a discarded copy of the draft document in the outgoing trash and imagining the potential for a paid vacation to Hawaii courtesy of someone in the press for the price of sending one less item through the shredder. I seriously doubt that Hizzoner Alito does all of his own typing, editing and printing (isn't the document over 60 pages?) for distribution to his peers. I wonder if he failed to use the "top secret" stamp and bright red ink for marking these drafts? With the rapidly rising heat on an increasing number of individuals over the Feb 6 committee findings and upcoming public hearings, I can image the potential value of shifting focus onto such a potent perennial hot button issue as pro-life vs. pro-choice. Sadly for the Republicans, the distraction at their immediate disposal is one for which they are equally in the minority as public opinion about an attempted coup. I can appreciate the difficulty they are having getting the appropriate spin on the issue, having to soft pedal the substance and attempt to divert attention to the occurrence and source of the leak. The public, outside of the Fox echo chamber, isn't buying that distraction however.
This political season has been endowed with so many noteworthy themes; 2/6/21 and the committee disclosures, imperial behavior of southern Governors, the undiminished egomaniacal presence of TFG, obvious parallels between our recent executive and the behavior of Putin, the very obvious freedom fight in Ukraine, COVID mass disinformation campaign, and now the re-emergence of RoeVWade. How could these opportunities to make political hay while the sun shines possibly be squandered between now and November? Voting blocks that can distinguish the right and wrong sides of any or all of these ought to be sufficient to annihilate traditional mid-term election trends. Give this administration a REAL majority in Congress and see what happens in the final half of the term...
Would Elaine Chao (McConnell’s wife) have possible influence on shipping costs and manipulation of inflationary costs/industry profits? That and Arab refusal to increase production sound ominously political in nature and deliberately unseat current administration.
Everyday one of the first things I do is to read the HCR letter from an American. It usually gives me some hope. But, we are under attack of losing so many things right now. The debacle of the SCOTUS situation is absolutely terrifying or should be for all women and marginalized people. The Biden administration is doing everything it can to build up America while scoundrels and crooks seem to rule! Why people still vote for these people is beyond me. I totally agree with another comment today. We dare not sit back wringing our hands while these criminals and their cronies take our democracy away from us. We have to be involved to stop the madness, no matter how depressed and discouraged we feel today.
Who said “Fight Truth Decay”. She does every day, as does Steady and Robert Hubbell and so many more. Yet, Rupert’s megaphone drowns out any voice of reason, at least where I live
They vote for them because Rupert has never told the truth on any day since 1996 and likely since 1980. His support for Ronnie gave him permission to take over our “Walter Cronkite” media and give us Goebbels propaganda. I have watched it play out with friends who couldn’t get enough of the absolute insanity.
Yes, like the guy in Indiana who is in jail for murdering his wife and still won. This tells me that the so called patriots and Christians in Indiana are the hypocrites I have long known them to be.
chump is the antithesis of everything Jesus stood for. Yet the "christians" pray and somehow conclude that he is the one god told them to vote for. The lack of logic alone should make them think twice about their position.
Well, a lot of them will soon have their biggest dream come true with the Supremes doing in Roe. Logic and thinking are not in their toolbox. These are the people who think that God tells them when to fart. I have sat in restaurants with these people at the next table (before COVID) and heard them taking about how they have consulted God for every mundane thing in their lives. Are they able to get out of bed on their own. The capper was a relative of our neighbors who said God wanted her to clean houses and I guess we do need people who are willing to do that.
No, she was not an immigrant....just a fundamentalist....nothing happens to them that is not in God's plan. I wish I could remember the literary allusion I made at the dinner table....went right past her.
I'm about to go and pour my second cup, and continue perusing the comments. To answer your question about "why people still vote for these people" I am beginning to think that Mike S has the answer in that it is what they are told to do (having been conditioned to do so) by the white man at the front of the church.
If we could improve employment prospects in the so-called Rust Belt, chances are the anti-government militias would decline in power, and the popularity of Christian fundamentalism, which cedes personal automony to an authoritarian church organization, might decline as people are more self actuated. Both of which would be good for democracy.
But, I think that part of the appeal IS relying on the church to tell them what to do, so that they don't have to think. They just simply don't want to think, and don't have the faculty to ask questions or to see the chasms in their (or their leaders') logic.
I've remarked on this before, that there are particular brands/sects/cults of Christianity that are purely authoritative. They rely on others to make all their decisions for them and trust them to tell them what to do. They're too lazy, or ignorant, to think on their own. Mindless automatons. Scary.
I guess life is easier if you don't have to think for yourself. Perhaps they think they're doing the right thing by relying upon others for their "wisdom."
...or the trivial fact that "some Patriot Missiles" are air defense missiles (I mean, they've only been prominently shown on the news since 1991 shooting down other missiles), and not surface-to-surface missiles, or that several nations could easily obtain and release intelligence proving it was us who did it. What a stable genius...
What chilled me about the Esper excerpt was the confidence Trump had in his ability to just lie and change the reality. He did this in so many dangerous ways. And his followers just accepted his lies. I agree we have to mobilize to elect Democrats in order to save our democracy from such threats.
This is the mark of an autocrat: create "reality" to suit your purpose. Anyone who objects to an autocrat's version of "reality" is disloyal and can be imprisoned. chump learned this from his dictator friends.
You beat me to it as I was going to point this out about Patriot missiles being surface-to-air missiles, not missiles for ground targets. Just shows how totally "ignurnt" TFG is. Esper's still an idiot and even after being fired, STILL worships at the altar of The Orange One. One minute he's saying publicly T***p lost touch with reality, and then turns around and was against invoking the 25th Amendment that T***p is a nut-burger.
Week after week, I am struck by a growing disparity between LFAA’s justifiably favorable assessment of the Biden Administration’s performance on several fronts and the somewhat dismal public perception. Because I mostly attribute the discrepancy to the Dem’s ineffective messaging, I write to propose that a few highly accessible, straightforward points be repeatedly amplified.
To start, it must be stressed, that contrary to Trump, who declared the White House was not a shipping clerk, the Biden Administration, in its first days, set out to make the COVID vaccine free of charge and available to everyone, thus essentially saving our lives and, in short measure, saving our jobs. As stated in today’s LFAA, the Administration, to date, has created 8.3 million jobs and produced historically low unemployment (3.6%).
Additionally, the Administration owes the public a repeated, streamlined explanation of the remedies currently underway to rectify high inflation and gas prices, the two factors currently undercutting the recent wage increases. The public, also, especially, needs to hear how Democratic leadership is trying to save democracy from a Republican Party that no longer believes in democracy. So not to appear political, the Dems justifiably expect DOJ to start issuing indictments to the perpetrators, to the members of Congress, for example, whom we know through text messages are complicit in planning January 6th.
As the fairly large swath of people, who pay attention, likely knows, Republicans virtually have no ideas aside from those arising from greed and self serving impulses. Perhaps that’s why the one thing they loathe more than “liberals” is the truth and also why the surest way to dispel their deceptive rhetoric is to tell the truth.
Joan, If, as you state, “Dems are pumping out important messages,” I would ask whether their messaging is framed in a way that is relatable and memorable. I find, for example, that people typically resonate more to story than to abstract legislation and non-relatable numbers and data. As for media, I believe both we and our representatives bear a shared responsibility for doing all we can to ensure the messaging is covered in a way that maximizes its benefits. Regarding amplification, in my view, that, too, must be a joint endeavor.
@MLMinET, Instead of addiction, I view the problem, principally, as a desire for bigger profits driving media owners to provide what they deem popular rather than useful content. Please note I offer Lynell, who’s part of this thread, some thoughts regarding remedies.
I think the media needs to amplify democratic (big D and small d) messages as well. They do a great job amplifying the Republican wing, both extreme and not so extreme. I can't tell you how annoying it is every time I open my computer to find an image of the previous occupier of the White House staring back at me. I can tell you how overjoyed I am to occasionally see the current occupier's image (Biden!) staring back at me.
Lynell, I, too am bothered by the imbalance. Perhaps if enough of us hit these spokespersons up on their social media handles (via Twitter, TikTok, Instagram, or Facebook), voicing our dismay over a preponderance of coverage that we deem damaging to the public interest, perhaps we could effect the nature of the coverage.
In my view, if the desire for bigger profits is driving content, we must show that we’re taking note and why.
Jeri, Presuming you are referring to Walter Cronkite, I believe he viewed the job as getting as close as possible to the verifiable truth. I, further, would submit that the strong, honest and accurate reporting of his day, if deployed effectively, remains the far right’s worst nightmare because it is capable of calling out their nonsense.
" Over the past 12 months, the Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) price index, which is a method of measuring how much it costs for an ordinary consumer to buy goods and services, has risen 6.6%. If you take fuel and food out of that index, it’s still 5.2%, and the Fed likes inflation to be no more than 2%."
Would someone mind explaining why we should take out THE TWO MOST IMPORTANT ITEMS ON THE LIST - fuel (for transportation and for keeping houses warm since summer has yet to kick in) and food? What cost me $35 at the local Trader Joe's in January costs me $48 last Tuesday (I have a receipt from January and the most recent one to prove that). I don't worry about all the other "goods and services" out there BECAUSE I CAN'T AFFORD THEM. Forget buying a new car, has anyone here looked at the price of USED CAR recently?
And that stupid price index, another invention of government liars, is about as useful as the Consumer Price Index that is used to give raises to Social Security payments - which went up a whole 2.5% because the "chained CPI" said that was how much inflation there was for seniors. HEY, YOU DUMBASSED FUCKWITS - BULL-FUCKING SHIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The Biden Administration can come up with all the bullshit they want to come up with to convince us that black is white, day is night, up is down and left is right, but in the end, people are going to look at the receipts and see that their food bills went up 35% (an I'm not buying steak and lobster, believe me!).
The more they lie and prevaricate and play with statistics (like Twain said, statistics don't lie, but liars use statistics), the more pissed-off people are going to be. Being politically-aware and experienced, and the holder of advanced degrees in the social sciences, I know it isn't the administration that did this. But if someone who is educated and knowledgeable can be pissed off at them for prevaricating, what the hell do they think the people who don't understand all this are thinking????
Their use of statistical bullshit is going to result in them being wiped the fuck out come November. And then we're all going to be screwed, because the alternative really is unthinkable - which won't prevent it happening.
"Would someone mind explaining why we should take out THE TWO MOST IMPORTANT ITEMS ON THE LIST - fuel (for transportation and for keeping houses warm since summer has yet to kick in) and food?"
TC, I am sure you already know the answer to your question:
Because if the government left those measures in place inflation would be WAY higher for EACH of the last 40 years than what was/is reported AND THEN said government would have to pay higher Social Security checks to people who paid in for the money they are getting.
In other words: Those items that actually cause the MOST inflation have been removed in a purposeful intent to minimize Social Security payments which are tied to inflation.
WAY less money for war and military contractors. Cannot have that now TC.
Actually, Mike, the reason given was that there was so much volatility in those items in the early 2000’s that economists asked for an index without them to see if they were having an outsized effect. At least that’s what economists in 2005 were saying.
TC - are you having another Bad Hair day? - For some reason I can't get what remains of my brain around is the attitude is that if anything goes wrong in 'Murica, it's the President's fault. get over it! OK "The Buck Stops Here", sure,- but you (USA) seem to have lost any analytical capability as a nation. - so what would happen under Crump?? The shrieks and screams would be deafening, and there wouldn't be a damn thing anyone could do about it . cue in the Proud Boys etc.
You may wish to reconsider that decision not to take the remedial class in reading comprehension. I did not say all this was Biden's fault. I did fault the administration for doing what every adminstration does: use these bullshit "economic indicators" to convince people that shit doesn't stink. And I did say that people who are not politically aware and sophisticated about how things work, will blame Biden; they would blame anyone in the White House now, though the Republicans would likely come up with a better bucketful of bullshit, since Democrats are terrible on messaging and explanations.
What I was "having" as you put it, was enough with the baloney. My undergraduate degree in interdisciplinary social sciences included enough economics by two professors who weren't fans of bullshit, for me to learn most of the government formulas are meant to confuse and obfuscate, not inform and educate. Add to that 10 years' personal experience with the Compleat Bullshit of "chained CPI" and I have no trouble seeing through the smokescreen.
And yes, any administration will do it because how else do they "baffle with bullshit" when they can't "dazzle with brilliance."
TC, the challenge with Biden trying to make lemonaide from lemons is that Fox News is taking what is fairly good iced tea, with a bit of sugar in it, and, delivering sour lemonaide with no sugar.....ALL DAY LONG EVERY DAY.
AND, since Fox News delivers the messages either with white men in suits or white, fake blondes in Playboy Bunny outfits, Americans BELIEVE all of Fox lies.
So, EVEN if Biden told you night was day and day was night, AND IT WAS TRUE, FOX would say the opposite and Americans would BELIEVE it.
The real problem in America is not Biden, not Trump, not Republicans, BUT AMERICANS.
Americans ability to critically analyze and think has been severed completely, if it ever really existed anyway.
I’d argue, not as a jingoistic American Idiot but as a reader of history/literature, that there has been a movement afoot to render Americans dependent on (attendance state-mandated btw) public education incapable of critical thinking, innumerate, geographically illiterate, and monolingual. This is easily traced when reading the history of curricula and paedogogy.
I think that the ability to think critically and analyze accurate information was there, but it has fallen far just in my lifetime (my public education commenced in 1964 and ended formally in 1981). I dimly remember in about 5th or 6th grade (that would be from 1968-1970) the guy who taught math to all the 5th and 6th graders taught some very simple theories for math thinking, and suggested that there were ways we could look at things like Current Events in a similar manner regarding accuracy and assessment. I believe that the assassinations in 1968 (RFJ and MLK Jr) were integral in what he was trying to teach; I know that anyone who had him for homeroom (I did not) had a lot of extra "current events" projects where, I surmise, he was able to carry his math theories into that realm for his students. None of that oozed into my junior high and high school classes (except for one teacher who really did work on getting us to think, and look at opinions different than what we believed to see how opinions were formed.)
Oh yeah, so right. What really got me this week (with this post the result) was realizing I could get as pissed-off as the guy ahead of me in line who said "Everything goes up except my income" - and I know who/what to blame. Everybody's getting pissed off with this, and most of them aren't going to be thinking about the supply chain in China and the effect of the Chinese government shutting down Shanghai as a reason for their pissed-offness.
Yes, yes, and YES! Again, I've whinged on and on about this, and Ally and Laura below (or above...wherever Substack slots this in) can undoubtedly vouch for the real lack of critical thinking skills among college kids today. I and my academic colleagues were all too frequently aware of this. It seems in their education they've only had facts and stuff thrown at them to memorize and then throw back up on an exam, but somehow they're not taught to go further and "connect the dots" on their own. Educators "assess" (dear God, how I grew to hate that word!) what facts they're learning rather than how they're thinking. Depending on the course, put an essay question on a test and see what you get back. It can be alarming. Don't get me wrong. They're GREAT kids and I loved working with them and being around them, but sometimes the things they DIDN'T know gobsmacked me. There seemed to be a dearth of initiative to research stuff on their own, rather than "what teacher was telling them". I was a sponge! I could NOT learn stuff fast enough, and sucked up every bit of knowledge (in my case, related to music) I could. I'm still like that, thank God. I would always tell kids, "you've got the most amazing learning tool ever invented--pointing at the computer--so USE it to absorb all you can!" I miss my kids, but I don't miss some of the other crap.
Sorry, Rupert. And the Ministry of Propaganda that seems to have immunity from any consequence whatsoever…. And it’s not just the stupid who buy his crap…. When will Bezos strap him into a rocket to the moon.
As Ally says, the problem is our educational system, again gratis, in part, to Reagan (republican). Most Americans lack the ability to think critically. This just is not taught in school. They don't even have a clue that they're not thinking critically - that's how bad it is.
Our educational system has to be modified to require courses in critical thinking.
It's been going on a lot longer than Reagan. I was a Professional Assistant Principal's Bench Polisher by graduation for my "failure to recognize properly-constituted authority" for arguing over the obvious crap they were feeding us back then.
“If it ever really existed anyway” is obvs subjective, but I’d argue that while you may say Jefferson or Hamilton or Franklin were products of a British educational system, they existed as Americans. Same Paine and Zenger and Douglass and Washington and Adams and to a lesser extent those like John Jay &c.
Fair enough - and sadly we are seeing it here - elections (erections?) on the 21st of May. Trouble is - whereas some of us (think) we can see behind the BS, most don't seem to be able to or want to. It gets very frustrating.
I'm in the slow process of reading ":Shock Doctrine" by Naomi Klein - a bloody amazing and horrifying expose of the shennanigans that have underlain so much US (and UK) actions over the past 30+ years in just about any country - Chile, S America in general, Russia etc. It's the old story - if only we knew then what we are able to know now. (but could we have done anything about it? ).
Actually I wish HCR would read this book - (it's a biggie) - or someone make a detailed synopsis of it for her - (sorry not in my pay-grade). I'm just reading about the Iraq war - and the real reasons why (thanks Chicago School of Economics and their followers). What a wonderful person Bremer was (not), and now, is there any wonder that Shiites and Sunnis are at each other's throats. Weapons of Mass Destruction??? NFL (not fucking likely).
Perhaps, TC, a replacement of your 'DUMBASSED FUCKWITS - BULL-FUCKING SHIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ' might be releasing, Janet Yellen, United States Secretary of the Treasury, Marty Walsh, United States Secretary of Labor and Marcia Fudge, United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development from desk duty to get out to talk with the American People. Why the costs of necessary items are going up; how their budgets are being affected and what the administration can do and cannot do about it. How about plain talk about the economy and their daily lives?
Language - language - that the people can understand. How might the news be in English regarding labor statistics all those terms, etc., etc., -- the function of our economy and the costs paid by the American people no longer be a BIG, DARK, CONFUSING SECRET?
It certainly is true that the price of gasoline is a primary determinant of election results, whether the people retain the incumbent or throw him out. I don't know the answer to this, except that, to an extent, the focus on gas prices can be mitigated by publicizing the rise in employment and other positive statistics. Also, in the long run, a stable, and dare I say, a sane government, is essential to our continued prosperity. Were Trump still in charge, we would still have rising gas prices, but without him we benefit from more stability, something which business needs to succeed and continue.
I think you are suffering from rationality where reason is not necessarily pertinent. If you have to drive to get to work and the increased gas price ....and the rest of the inflated food and essentials prices...means that you can't feed your family or you need to look for a job that will pay sufficiently near to home then you are mad as hell and want to hit out at anyone who you might blame and Biden is sitting there "in charge"; emotion wins out every time in a massive part of the population. They don't necessarily think about the "real" consequences of their gestures but only want someone to suffer more than they.
I don't "like" the negativity to which Stuart is pointing -- all it does is raise the level of the flood tide of mental sewage already overwhelming so much of the world.
Having said that, the comment is very accurate.
It follows that the positivity of every single one of us is crucially important and will continue to be so, come what may.
Really? “Positivity” will be important? It would help some of is if you defined that as you see it-do you mean privileging action over words, doing over saying? Or is it more of a “compliment each other and say nice things” inflection? Because the latter alone seems inadequate, and insistence on the latter alone calls to mind the conditions that created Tadeusz Borowski’s Pożegnanie z Maria. The English edition’s title isn’t very positive, but for some better encapsulates Borowski’s writing.
"Gilets Jaunes" started exactly because of this now over 3 years ago and has been in the streets ever causing untold pain for the government.....outside of Paris!
Before you wrote this, I was thinking of how people -- "Consumer Man" -- blame God, the Madonna, or whatever "higher power" failed to answer their prayers or come up to expectations... for everything that's going wrong.
The old French refrain "C'est pas ma faute" (English variant " Not me, Guv").
After the reign of King Log Hollande and the rejection of a potential Queen Stork, the Frogs elected someone who made the understandable -- and very French -- mistake of playing Jupiter and hovering over the land, supposedly with eagle eye, surveying reality from 10 000 meters...
What better way of raising a shitstorm of Yellowjacket Exocets to bring him down to earth in flames?
Now we have to see how well he can shift shapes as a smarter deity more like himself: Proteus...
I'd say, rather, that when he lost to Jupiter, Mélenchon took aim, and organised his disgruntled supporters very effectively. At the very end he was sunk by the Marine, who in turn had misplaced her trust in certain non-French advisers ...
It is definitley the people in this country, from the Bernie Bros who couldn't get off their butts to vote in 2016 to the MAGAts of 2020 and beyond, and to every last person who says "well, I don't believe that" in response to actual analysis brought about by research that (for instance) shows that bleach injection won't cure Covid.
To quote you Stuart, 'They don't necessarily think about the 'real' consequences of their gestures...' Why do you this that is so? Might education have to do with it? How much do you think it connected to the ruling class wanting to keep it that way? Keep the people divided against each other? I haven't led you to any place you won't go or don't belong, so what do you think?
Fern, like Daniel Kahneman, i think it requires not just education but a significant effort to go beyond the automatic, "intuitive" response. It's so much easier not to question pre-formed, instant responses that their "society" has formed unconsciously for them. education reduces the effort required to go beyond to the mental space where you actually weigh the issues and form an "informed" opinion...but not every educated person makes the effort all the time.
On the questions of why it's like that...neither Dems or Repugs have seriously tried to improve the educational system...it must suite the elite to maintain their dominant position. Divide? Most of the educated think that they should be part of the elite...but there are not enough elite jobs to go round and the result is competition for control of what there is.
I have not read 'Thinking Fast and Slow' and will attend to that if and when trying to keep up with the emergency here in the USA slows down. My response to your comment, nevertheless, is to come to an understanding about what you call the "intuitive" response. Programming of people begins soon after birth. You and I might have some ploughing to do in order to come to an understanding of terms.
Kahnemann considers the "intuitive" response...to be the first thought that comes to mind on a particular issue and which is stored in the frontal lobe. She/He found that this first thought was often a mixture of past similar experience and societal "norms" that the individual has unconscious. lt is stocked awaiting possible usage. She/He knows that this response is socially acceptable in the context in which she/he exists because she/he has used it before. The term has nothing to do with what we would normally associate with "intuition" which is a response suggested by the lower levels of your conscious mind or indeed that which is normally unconscious. Behind our conscious mind is an unconscious one which works a whole lot better most of the time....but it isn't necessarily instantaneous and doesn't always complicate your life with an explanation.
Also in the long run, re-establishing a good rail system after our national infrastructure was dismantled by Ford’s greed and tactical success in buying congresspeople will be critical.
"But if someone who is educated and knowledgeable can be pissed off at them for prevaricating, what the hell do they think the people who don't understand all this are thinking????"
That right there, TC. So what should an understandable message say that doesn't shy from the truth but still instills hope?
Just thinking about this, Lynell. What I do know is that someone has to address one of the bloated elephants in the room…greed…in a different way. I’m going to keep thinking about this. I’m right on the edge of some “things”.
It’s raining here. A good “soakin’ doakin’” as my kids say.
I always like the questions you ask, Lynell. So disarming.
One factor has been left out of this: chump's tariffs raised prices BEFORE the onset of covid, and resulted in empty shelves. The lack of supply caused an increase in prices, inflation. Covid further eliminated supply, which continued to spur price increases. The inflation is not due to supply/demand. It's due to a lack of supply, dating back to chump.
Raising interest rates doesn't help anybody, especially the average American. It just tightens the pocketbook, and the unintentional outcome may be more votes for republicans.
Like the oil and gas companies, they’ve seen a way to gouge consumers and blame it on others.
As for the Personal Consumption Expenditure index, it’s been measured since 1959. It’s been published since 1975. Due to the run up in gas and food prices between then and 2005, a core index that excludes them started being published then to show if those items were having an outsized effect on prices. I beg to disagree about the index being a lie—as part of my studies in economics, we studied how the CPI and the PEC are calculated. They are a good attempt to measure something that depends on consumer preferences.
Hey, Mary and Diana (again. I watched this video several months ago put out by Vox which I thought you might be interested in. It's about 14 minutes long. It discusses how four companies control the beef industry. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_hCLjUrK1E
I'm reading your links right now; so far, they mirror what I posted. So the word is "out" re the monopolistic beef industry. Wish the government can bust them up.
Mary, thank you for raising the issue of commodities and providing links. I have suspected that republicans set oil prices to sway elections, since prices tend to go up during Democrat terms, and down when Republicans hold office. The question is, how can we stop this price-gouging. I will check out the links. Thanks.
Hey, Diane. I find your time-line explanation very straightforward, and one that I think I can remember. Thank you. So as I understand, raising the interest rate is a tool supposedly to guard against a recession, right?
Jeri, How many of us thought that he was the most easily defeated candidate until he got “help”. I doubt that the others would have taken advantage of that, realizing how beholden they would be in the future. I’d like to think that they would have reported the offers to the FBI.
If any one needs a reason to fear a return to power, Esper's story emphasizes the incredible danger of re-installing an unhinged Trump to office, lobbing missiles at neighbors or "why not use some tactical nukes" certainly cements the conclusion that he would be a disaster. On another note, Pres. Biden's comment that the media is not interested in the spectacular success of the Biden administration in reducing the deficit shows the "anti-Biden" side of the "neutral" media.
That just sent me on a word search! "Unhinged" is an adjective that describes the behavior. The only uses I could find for "hinged" as an adjective involved the physical attachment of one part to another using a mechanical hinge (the noun). Well, that and a dating website that appears to be very popular.
So sorry to put you through that deep dive, Ally! If you think of a door without a properly attached hinge as not very workable, that fits Chump, the former guy, perfectly. I submit that "hinged" used as an adjective is apropos as well. But even if it isn't, would you back me up if I get attacked by a MAGA crowd for using improper grammar? LOL!
Read about Mexico. Read about deficit reduction. Read about bills created to help middle class Americans. Read about the GOP justices lying under oath to gain admittance to the highest court. Then ponder why McConnell, McCarthy, the Kochs, and Peter Thiel all hate Biden, the programs he's pushing, and the great results of our economy. Then ponder why so many people still vote against their own best interests.
"Then ponder why so many people still vote against their own best interests"
Answer: For many fairly clear resasons, Americans have almost zero ability at cognitive critical thinking. Those reasons? Lifelong brainwashing with religion, poor reading skill, biases built in from culture, Survivor, The Apprentice, Fox News AND.......a general desire by everyone to want to find someone to feel superior to.
Hey now. “Survivor” is an interesting and occasionally instructive look at the varieties of human psychodynamics under artificially controlled scarcity, something us American Idiots (pace Green Day) apparently need. If I taught Decision Science, I’d give it a little time on a syllabus.
We need votes for democracy. Don't sit wringing your hands & mind. Get out the vote in your own community and state. Help others with your example. Give young people your support. Work with your local League of Women Voters. Ukraine is our best example. They are losing everything but their will to fight, and their do or die attitude
Speaking of Ukraine ... these are important words to hear: https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton/status/1522638523697967106?t=6VKD609UlopcCCQx-H_bBA&s=19
Also from HRC:
“We must make sure within our own country, we are calling out those people who are giving aid and comfort to Putin, who are talking about what a genius he is, what a smart move it is — who are unfortunately being broadcast by Russian media.”@HillaryClinton
https://t.co/zf1i2o2MNZ
This just makes me sadder she did not win🥲.
She DID win. Putin and Trump and Stone rigged it so she lost, which is why Trump claimed Biden rigged it 4 years later - gas lighters do that.
Imagine how different our world would be if Hillary had held office. We would have none of the mess we're in now.
I also sometimes like to imagine how different our world might have been had Bush not been selected.
James Baker and Roger Stone did that. May they both rot in hell.
He surely wasn't elected.
Unfortunately, though, since there wee Republican majorities in both the House and Senate in 2016, I think that if Hillary had won the Electoral College votes, we would have been subjected to nonstop "Benghazi!" and "E-mails!" and evil Mitch smirking as he said "No!" to proposal that would actually be helpful...
That's true, but at least she would not have been busy dismantling the government and just making money.
Nevertheless, we would have been in a better place than we are now.
There would have been a s**t show like no other.
This was exactly how Manafort brought down a female Ukrainian president Yulia Tymosheko in the 2010’s.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yulia_Tymoshenko
I have often thought about this as all of try to alter our lives to get through the mess.
Every republican president messes things up irrevocably. We never would have had the Iraq war if Gore had been elected; we might not be dealing with this climate crisis if Gore had been elected; we would not have invaded Cambodia if Nixon hadn't been elected; social security would not have been taxed if Reagan hadn't been elected, and our education system might be better and social services might be more equitable if Regan hadn't been elected; on and on.
Imagine RFK instead of Nixon.
Yes, and I hope someday the FBI releases the files they have on the cyber breach, vote and registration tampering.
I hope they do it before we all die. Sometimes they're a little slow...
My hope too, but I’m old
Don’t forget Manafort.
And don’t forget Comey who held a press conference to announce he found more Hillary emails 9 days before the election, which all turned out to be duplicates.
I blame him for the final stab. I have often wonder how he felt about that when mafia don came for him.
Comey looked like he was trying to get away with something at that press conference. I saw it in his facial expressions.
She won the popular vote but only lost the electoral college with the help of Paul Manafort sharing “sensitive polling data” to a Russian intelligence officer. That data I believe was particular counties in the swing states needed that extra dose of Russian interference: amplified bot likes, flooded with trolls, and focused propaganda.
😡
Here in the United States! Who would've thought....
Indeed she did, the fiasco was in plain sight for all non-Foxers to see.
MaryPat, that is true unfortunately not in the right States! Damn electoral college
It has always seemed to me strange the way in which the recount in Michigan (Flint) was ended. Very suspicious, at least to me. That recount could well have changed the outcome.
Right and we have HCR to illuminate the path…baton pass from HRC?!
💙
I know, right?
If Hilary were to run in 2024 I'd vote for her again.
Me too! When I was watching Madeleine Albright’s funeral, I noticed a lot of people flocking to Hillary and Bill. However, we need younger people in this fight, let’s just let Hillary and Bill be wise counsel.
Hillary ran a lousy campaign in 2016. If she had stopped looking at the polls and run a better campaign, she would have won, and we would not have had to endure Trump. Sorry to have to say that (and I pounded the pavement for her), but we need to be as clear-eyed as we can.
Jon that is one factor. There was also Russian interference, the trump effect and slavish media attention he received, the misogyny that still runs in our Country, the low voter turnout, the Bernie faction and the Comey bomb that was dropped in late October. Also please remember that Secretary of State Clinton won the popular vote by 2.9 million. Then there was the "Reconstruction effect". Henry Louis Gates has written a wonderful look at how the Reconstruction was a boomerang against the Civil War and the freeing of the slaves and the after effect of having a black President.
Could a more charismatic, more hardworking and just plain more liked candidate have overcome all of this? Question of our time isn't it.
She had the right, the left, the media and a Russia (who was supporting both the right and left) against her. She did not run a bad campaign. She still won the popular vote as you pointed out. Thank you for your succinct and cogent summary of what happened.
Nobody could have been more hard-working and/or more vilified by the Goebbels of our time…
The right (or wrong, depending on your outlook) were hot on her case since Bill was in office. They always have the long game in their sights, and knew that she'd probably be a threat in the future. They called her a criminal, and worse, from that time. Then, they were aided by the Kremlin and all of the oligarchs. Turns out, they're the real criminals.
And with all of those things, she would have won had the run a better campaign.
You've nailed it, Barbara. Thank you!!!
Bill Clinton had advised Hillary to campaign in those three states (PA, Wisc, and Mich, if I remember correctly) that gave the election to Trump, but she didn't do it. I voted for her in the general (Sanders in the primaries), and I urged others to do so.
But she was not a good campaigner. Also don't forget that statement she made about the "deplorables."
I'd vote for her again if she were the nominee, because the GOP has gone batshit crazy.
Don't be sorry for telling the truth Jon. It is time that both parties stopped trying to recast the last couple of elections and focus on the future. The GOP needs (whether they recognize it or not) to DUMP TRUMP and get back in touch with America and the Democrats need to start tapping some of the talent in the post-Boomer generations to get some energy back in their presentations. Tim Ryan in Ohio is a good start and, in the state that elected Sherrod Brown, has a chance against a trumpista looneytune. In Missouri, Lucas Kunce has a serious shot at the Senate if he can get past a moneyed (Busch family) party elder and get to the former governor the Republicans appear ready to try to rehabilitate.
Dave, If Trump isn't in a jumpsuit (which is unlikely) I hope he runs for president because he will LOSE! Image The TRUMP losing twice. Don't you get a thrill from watching a sick nincompoop worshiped by millions go BAT **** (I'm no TC)? Truly, I think this would solve a few of our problems.
Jail would be my first choice for him but I like your scenario Fern.
The cheating will be on steroids compared to 2020. They left no stone unturned, and are churning the ground as we post; when Kevin bowed down so did all the lunatics in the land, as well as every republican politico, save two.
Totally agree to revitalizing with promising candidates, Dave.
If she hadn't had any interference from Russia she'd have won.
Nobody’s perfect and nobody can outrun evil wrapped in the flag and carrying an upside down Bible
Hillary (like her husband) abandoned Unions. Those former union workers voted for Trump in the rust belt. THAT, folks, is truth and why she really lost!!!!!
Bradford, you make an important point here that more need to realize. What counties have the least funded public education? Which counties have lost the most manufacturing jobs with union benefits? Which counties have been hit the hardest by the opioid crisis? And then by Covid? These are counties that voted for Obama, but then voted tfg in 2016.
Indeed. One could make the argument (and it has been made many times) that the creation of Unions under FDR and their dissolution after Reagan and Clinton is the VERY core of our economic challenge. The question has and is always begging: Does government support the working class or the Capital/Money class??? Our country did fairly well for almost 50 years until Reagan got elected. The economy has gone south for the masses while the 1% have gotten (and still during a pandemic) obscenely wealthy. It is literally unsustainable.
I wonder why she did that?
If I may, I'll piggyback on you, Rowshan, with this tweet. I always love a good smackdown! https://twitter.com/RepSwalwell/status/1522704492247982080?s=20&t=OJAdA7GsnIH_67PtOV7jTA
Ain’t no fool like a Black Republican fool….
Touché, Lynell!
I refuse to sign up for Twitter. Until recently, I at least could read these posted links and replies by clicking on an X in the pop-up asking me to register but now that's not possible.
This is a twitter thread from Wesley Hunt to Eric Swalwell, a Texas (?) Rep.
"Hi Eric, my name is Wesley Hunt, I’m a Republican nominee in a Congressional District that is 70% white. I’m black, I’m in an interracial marriage, and my wife and I have two biracial daughters. Republicans are celebrating diversity while white liberals like yourself race-bait."
And Swalwell's reply:
"Hey Wesley, your problem isn’t with me. It’s with @SenatorBraun
who said states should be able to ban interracial marriages like yours. He’s a senator in YOUR party. Looks like you’re just another Republican who is in denial of what your colleagues say. Party over country, right?"
BTW, just saw this article in WaPo, of interest to you because you're in VA/DC. https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2022/05/01/tick-bite-lone-star-meat-allergic/
Yikes! Never heard of it before; hope we don't get bit! Thanks, Judith.
Thanks, Lynell.
My bad, Swalwell is from California. You probably knew that.
Rupert will support Russia, hope Ronnie is spinning in his grave -and in hell
Thanks for the great links, Rowshan...morning!
Morning, Lynell, and you're most welcome!
Don't forget "Run For Something" at https://runforsomething.net
If we get young people involved in local affairs today, that investment will pay off 20 years from now after all the Frightened Old White Men have aged out. This is too important to leave up to the GOPers.
Run For Something is hugely important!
We used to say the same thing, then we became them! I'm 76!
This strategy was used by republicans to fill elected and judicial positions. We are seeing the fruits of that republican policy now.
Watching and listening to the Ukrainians makes me envious. I fear Americans, myself included, would never measure up to them in a similar horror.
Morning Michael Bales who I’m quite sure, from what I read from you, will rise up like the dough covered in the warm bowl becoming the day’s loaf.
Keep your eye on every woman in the current existential crisis of losing choice. Better yet, keep your ear to the ground. Hear us?
Salud!
Christine: After reading your comment, I asked my wife if I'm kneaded. Seriously, after marveling at the Women's March in 2017, to which she traveled across the country, and admiring the work of women like Stacey Abrams, Sally Yates, Jacinda Ardern of New Zealand, and many others, I concluded that men need to sit down, shut up, and start taking orders. It's women who will deliver us from this madness.
The "orders" for men do include supportively speaking up, donating, and acting on behalf of these issues of social justice and rights to self-determination!
It’s why so many old, white men are going all out to hang on
Thinking the fundamental right at risk is love. Whom to love, how to love, when to love, managing the outcomes of love in the most loving way... working on my signboard slogan for the women's march.
And something about confusing love with lust on the behalf of the abused.
Nancy, I believe the ultimate transformative power is love. Ur on the right track for March!
A house devided…
More ways to support young people's civic engagement!
Students For Justice Vote (501c3 tax deductible)
https://www.studentsforjusticevote.org/
Voters of Tomorrow
https://votersoftomorrow.org/
Students Learn Students Vote Coalition
https://slsvcoalition.org/
Thank you for these links, Ellie. My nephew (age 33) is very active in his world registering younger people to vote and encouraging them to run for office. I have encouraged him to run for office. I'd love to see him on the Ashland (OR) City Council.
Good nephew! If he doesn't already know, relay commenter Gary Mengel's reminder about Run For Something, who supports novice candidates through the process:
https://runforsomething.net
Ellie, you are something. The word “indefatigable” comes to mind. Salud, fabulous one.
Thanks for Students For Justice, Ellie!
You’ve made my day…!
Morning David. Not sure why, but found myself thinking ‘bout something after your comment.
I will never forget…ever….Trump leaning into the microphone and sharing the buzz about injecting bleach into a vein to rid oneself of Covid infection and then looking over to the doctors, who are literally cringing under the press conference lights and wanting to be anywhere but there, and saying “so, eh, we can look into that, right?” And then continued as if he hadn’t just said the stupidest thing in the world. It’s still so vivid to me. I remember being incredulous for a minute, realizing it wasn’t a joke he was making, and then wondering if he would callously suggest at some point in time bombing another country to get rid of some “foreign”humans he considered scum. You know, eh, to cleanse the veins of America.
Yikes. Oy vey. Really?
Wonder what motivates Esper to reveal such things? His book or true compassion for this country and not wanting the likes of anyone like trump being “in charge” again.
For me, moments like the “bleach cleansing” press conference are recognizing true colors and refusing to acquiesce to total and utter nonsense.
Preserve CHOICE. That is everything. Including the VOTE.
Have a good weekend, all! United.
The common thread behind these republican assertions is that they know better than scientists which path to take. A Supreme Court justice should not be deciding whether or not masks should be worn to quell a pandemic, when life begins (a religious ideology) and whether abortion should therefore be illegal, or which treatments to use to treat covid (bleach). With Republicans leading the way, our laws are starting to be based on superstition, not science. Does that make us a third world country?
Yes. If I may quote a former president, we are rapidly becoming a "s**thole country".
Yup. We are quickly becoming a country with a peasant mentality.
What is a peasant mentality. Not a good analogy!
I lived in Honduras as a kid. My brother and I hung out what you would call peasant kids. Families were very close, religious (not crazy fundamentalists like we are stuck with). I was young and nieve. Now I am old and cynical but I think I prefer the peasants to many of my Ivy League contemporaries.
inherent conservatism and apathy towards change" (Wikipedia)
Someone else mentioned functioning with the limbic mind. That also fits.
Think of Shrek, and the farmers with pitchforks agreeing to anything that was said to them. My reference was made with peasants from other parts of the world in mind.
Well stated Diana. Thanks for putting this so succinctly.
I'm experiencing your disbelief....
David Souers, exactly! Rather than accepting the mid terms are lost, we need to fight. Yes, the brave people in Ukraine are an example to follow
Thank you for this reminder, David Souers. Sometimes it is easy to fall into despair and be paralyzed by it.
How can you not trust "Fight Truth Decay" David!
LOVE that phrase!
Me too, Barbara. I think it would make a great bumper sticker: "Fight Truth Decay - Vote Democratic!"
This is too long for a bumper sticker, but : If your candidate makes you fearful or angry, choose another one; if your candidate makes you hopeful and proud of your country, vote for them.
Hey, Nancy. I like the idea you have there. We should be able to figure out a way to pare it down into bumper sticker format. I'll think on it.
Hey, Nancy. I'm back, and I thought hard on it and can't come up with anything. A T-shirt maybe would work.
and help people get to the polls!
You are so right. GOTV (and visible protesting a la the size of the Women's March in 17) are what Democrats (and any concerned American) needs to be doing right now.
Do vote outreach with DFA or DCCC or anyway you can text or call to get out the vote. Take note of what Heather has said to persuade voters.
Get the young voters who say voting doesn't matter to see why it does. I have friends whose kids didn't vote in 2016 even though we kept saying 'Supreme Court!'.
Absolutely on target. Thanks
“[The Bipartisan Innovation Act] would bring home production that the U.S. has ceded to China…”
The US “ceded” nothing. Those manufacturing jobs were brought to China on a platter by the people who own the politicians who preach that tax cuts and de-regulation pay for themselves and create domestic jobs. These are the same people who are now price-gouging us all, creating record profits, and blaming Biden and the Democrats for the resulting inflation.
Beating quarterly profit objectives and share price rises bring bonuses to the senior managers. Replacing expensive, if productive, American workers, killing communities and driving national depression with cheap workers and automated factories in China is a step up the "richness" ladder for them. Now the shipping companies have taken the place of the old railroad trusts and are sucking blood and profits out of the system by their "ransome" rates. Sounds familiar! America has globalized her 1899 economy. A new Teddy Roosevelte is required.....and not just a safe pair of hands.
Call out corporate price gouging.
What Stuart said; morning!
Morning Lynell.
Okay, okay, Stuart. It's a fact that you and I have never met face-to-face. But it doesn't keep me from bragging about my "ties" to a friend overseas...morning!
A new TR sure won’t be a Republican today!
YES, where is our Teddy Rossevelt?! We are so ready. The time must be nigh.
Perfect, Stuart.
True, the last time I checked, there were no Chinese nationals, illegal aliens, or working class Americans sitting on the boards of major corporations making the decisions to outsource jobs.
Steve Abbott, great point
Inflation is being contributed to mightily by corporations exercising their “pricing power.” Simply put, companies are raising prices because they can, not necessarily because of real world costs Raising interest rates won’t help drive down that situation.
In some cases those people became the politicians that plagued us, we had one of those parasites here in GA, his name is David Perdue, he lived in China for 3 years facilitating companies moving production from the US to China and made a fortune, nothing wrong with making a fortune unless you do it by selling out American workers. We threw Perdue out in the last election, you know the one where the election was stolen, at any rate he’s now trying to replace our Govenor and failing miserably. I begged him every day during the impeachment trials to just look at the evidence and vote accordingly, but the spineless parasite who had his head up the insipid one’s ass voted to acquit both times, so we voted him out, he to this day has not removed his head from the insipid one’s ass, 🤷♂️ He must like it in there. Go figure…
Amen and AMEN! We may be rid of Perdue after the midterms, but he might be replaced with a Herschel Walker and that is even scarier. I hope once the spotlight shines on Walker and exposes just how completely unsuited he is for public office, he'll be history too. He will in all likelihood be the Republican candidate for Senate, which I simply cannot get my head around. All the while, Warnock and Ossoff are both doing really good jobs representing our state.
Well said. Sending manufacturing overseas to make double-obscene profits instead of good to great profits is one element of where we are today.
When corporations think their ONLY responsibility is a great return on investment for shareholders, they will chase that profit across the globe. They wanted to go to China because China was seen as such a huge market. Companies did not want to be left out.
The shareholders can fire them—so, once again, it comes down to self interest.
One aspect that is often overlooked is the role Unions played in driving Companies overseas to cheaper labor. The Unions had done an excellent job of getting more and more benefits for their members. I applaud this but at the same time this collided with Corporate greed. Boom. Factories closed, generations were cast out of a good living, Cities turned into ghettos and the spawning of a resentful disenfranchised middle class who then ended up voting for TFG and who still wants to burn it all down in order to "own the libs."
And oops I just read Stuart's response so I duplicated his. Sorry Stuart.
More of the jobs went to automation than to dollar-a-day Chinese workers. In any event, all those low-skill, high wage jobs were gone. It was presidential candidate Hillary Clinton who talked about cheap/free retraining of dispossessed workers but those workers were made to be more concerned with her gender and “those emails” and they stepped into the voting booth and cut off their nose to spite their face.
If you can get a new copy of Mother Jones(May-June)read about what private equity is doing to what’s left of the country.
I’d wager that the Carlyle Group was at or near the top of the list of greedy private equity offenders in the Mother Jones story.
KKR, Carlyle and Blackstone are mentioned early. I’ll finish the article in a while. It’ll take a bit of time to digest.
Sorry, unions didn't do any damage compared to the greedy corporate owners who moved operations overseas. Quit blaming the victim. Trolling?
Are you serious? Please reread my comment where I said "one aspect" and then I said "collided with Corporate greed". I pretty much echoed Stuart and also said so. You agreed with what I said and then you posted the second comment.
Are you confused with another commenter?
Hmmmm . . . Unions may have contributed unwittingly, the blame however, largely lies with the corporations and their greed. Corporations have long taken to heart the dictum their duty is to their shareholders only.
Dare we say that everyone got greedy?
It can't be said enough.
And Mrs Mitch is banking record profits on the increased cost of trans ocean shipping.
Morning, all!! Morning, Dr. R!! To add to today's Letter, let us welcome incoming press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, to the podium. She will be replacing Jen Psaki in a few days. I have been reading about her impressive "credentials." She capped it for me with this story about how she intervened on behalf of then candidate for president Kamala Harris in 2019. Her quick action demonstrated her ability to both think on her feet, and then talk about it afterward. I am confident she will do well in the coming days as the new presidential press secretary.
https://www.msnbc.com/morning-joe/watch/-i-cannot-let-this-happen-karine-jean-pierre-on-blocking-sen-harris-61230661805
Good morning Lynell. As much as I hate to see Jen Psaki leave, I am happy for her.
Karine Jean-Pierre is a worthy addition to the Biden team in this capacity.
Agree, Linda. Jen is so articulate. I will look for her on MSNBC, though I don't have cable. Morning!
You can get MSNBC on Roku if you have it.
Also on YouTube the day after the air date
I have gone to YouTube several times successfully for videos, so, yes, thank you, Joanne!
I don't have Roku, but I have found Rachel Maddow, etc., on YouTube before. Thanks, Pam!
Lynell, most definitely.
Good afternoon!
The whole thing makes me laugh and clap my hands with joy for both women. And for us. Excellent women in journalism hastens recovery.
Morning fabulous Lynell!
Women...the world's best kept secret; morning, venerable Christine!
Yes, Lynell. And suddenly, everywhere, women are playing the game “telephone” again. What will be discovered is that technology has perfected our communication and we will stand very firm and clear on the leapfrogging message.
CHOICE
IT IS WHAT MAKES US HUMAN. SO GET YO’ GRUBBY HANDS OFF.
Hmmmmph. Salud!
Good morning, Lynell. Thank you for this video. I remember that happening, and certainly Karine articulated well and strongly what happened after. I will miss Psaki as well, but can already imagine how this woman will stand up to the white men in the press corps.
Let's be her fans before the crowd rushes in to do the same!
I recall thinking she was pretty bada$$ at the time. I know she will be great
I just learned of that. Watching Jean-Pierre take decisive physical action while wearing a pink dress just impressed the dickens out of me.
Morning, Lynell. I hadn't heard that Psaki was going to MSNBC. Sounds like Jean-Pierre will be up to filling those shoes.
Yes. Here's an article about it if you're interested. Morning!
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/01/white-house-press-secretary-jen-psaki-will-take-on-air-role-at-msnbc.html
Thank you!
Thank you Heather.
I appreciate that you bring forward not just the "popular" story of the day, but all the plates that are spinning.
I watched the story regarding President Biden touring the Lockhead plant that produces/assembles missiles that the US has supplied to Ukraine.
What struck me was how genuinely appreciative Biden was to the employees.
It was refreshing to see and I'm reminded daily I never want to go back to the "me, me, me" mentality again.
Be safe. Be well.
“us,us,us” “we, we, we”.
Morning, Linda.
Yes, indeed. Morning Christine !
I saw Biden’s speech today, in Ohio. He hit hard about explaining what and why inflation exists. It was necessary to do that because he had to combat the Pro-Rape party’s attacks. He explained exactly what the Professor said about how great the economy is in spite of all the negativity from the opponents and the war in Ukraine. What other president can boast these accomplishments in the short amount of time?
Did the MSM hear it, where is our bull horn??
Not just hear it—bother to report it?
I wonder if some of these alternative platforms like substack might coalesce into a new news outlet that would be our bullhorn.
The talking heads want to quickly erect all manner of conspiracy theories regarding the leaked draft of a ruling overturning Roe vs. Wade. The ingenuity of these theories leads one to wonder why their creators aren't running for office themselves; after all, truth is no longer a political currency; probably never was, in fact. What's new today is just how unhinged and outrageous the degree of deceit has become. Perhaps the leak has some impact on May primary races? Beyond that, I'm not sure how disclosure in May versus July makes all that much difference in the long run. Aside from the various aides and clerks to 9 justices, I can easily imagine some night-shift custodial staff coming across a discarded copy of the draft document in the outgoing trash and imagining the potential for a paid vacation to Hawaii courtesy of someone in the press for the price of sending one less item through the shredder. I seriously doubt that Hizzoner Alito does all of his own typing, editing and printing (isn't the document over 60 pages?) for distribution to his peers. I wonder if he failed to use the "top secret" stamp and bright red ink for marking these drafts? With the rapidly rising heat on an increasing number of individuals over the Feb 6 committee findings and upcoming public hearings, I can image the potential value of shifting focus onto such a potent perennial hot button issue as pro-life vs. pro-choice. Sadly for the Republicans, the distraction at their immediate disposal is one for which they are equally in the minority as public opinion about an attempted coup. I can appreciate the difficulty they are having getting the appropriate spin on the issue, having to soft pedal the substance and attempt to divert attention to the occurrence and source of the leak. The public, outside of the Fox echo chamber, isn't buying that distraction however.
This political season has been endowed with so many noteworthy themes; 2/6/21 and the committee disclosures, imperial behavior of southern Governors, the undiminished egomaniacal presence of TFG, obvious parallels between our recent executive and the behavior of Putin, the very obvious freedom fight in Ukraine, COVID mass disinformation campaign, and now the re-emergence of RoeVWade. How could these opportunities to make political hay while the sun shines possibly be squandered between now and November? Voting blocks that can distinguish the right and wrong sides of any or all of these ought to be sufficient to annihilate traditional mid-term election trends. Give this administration a REAL majority in Congress and see what happens in the final half of the term...
Wouldn't it be the cat's meow if we found out that Ginny leaked?
There’s fun to be had!
Bravo!
Cuco para . . . . .
Would Elaine Chao (McConnell’s wife) have possible influence on shipping costs and manipulation of inflationary costs/industry profits? That and Arab refusal to increase production sound ominously political in nature and deliberately unseat current administration.
Oh the web in which we are all ensnared, republicans have been busy and Elaine is waiting in the wings, with hubby, of course…
Good point about Chao.
The Arab refusal is political. They support Putin, not the West.
Which has clear domestic political implication.
Yup
Everyday one of the first things I do is to read the HCR letter from an American. It usually gives me some hope. But, we are under attack of losing so many things right now. The debacle of the SCOTUS situation is absolutely terrifying or should be for all women and marginalized people. The Biden administration is doing everything it can to build up America while scoundrels and crooks seem to rule! Why people still vote for these people is beyond me. I totally agree with another comment today. We dare not sit back wringing our hands while these criminals and their cronies take our democracy away from us. We have to be involved to stop the madness, no matter how depressed and discouraged we feel today.
The Letters tell the truth, and they don't pull any punches. They give inspiration, hope, and urgent warning when it's due, as it now is.
Who said “Fight Truth Decay”. She does every day, as does Steady and Robert Hubbell and so many more. Yet, Rupert’s megaphone drowns out any voice of reason, at least where I live
It's time to break up Rupert's monopoly on news.
I know, it's sad isn't it!
(Sigh) His mother lived to 102.
Yes, they do!
They vote for them because Rupert has never told the truth on any day since 1996 and likely since 1980. His support for Ronnie gave him permission to take over our “Walter Cronkite” media and give us Goebbels propaganda. I have watched it play out with friends who couldn’t get enough of the absolute insanity.
Yes, like the guy in Indiana who is in jail for murdering his wife and still won. This tells me that the so called patriots and Christians in Indiana are the hypocrites I have long known them to be.
chump is the antithesis of everything Jesus stood for. Yet the "christians" pray and somehow conclude that he is the one god told them to vote for. The lack of logic alone should make them think twice about their position.
Well, a lot of them will soon have their biggest dream come true with the Supremes doing in Roe. Logic and thinking are not in their toolbox. These are the people who think that God tells them when to fart. I have sat in restaurants with these people at the next table (before COVID) and heard them taking about how they have consulted God for every mundane thing in their lives. Are they able to get out of bed on their own. The capper was a relative of our neighbors who said God wanted her to clean houses and I guess we do need people who are willing to do that.
They probably hired an immigrant!
No, she was not an immigrant....just a fundamentalist....nothing happens to them that is not in God's plan. I wish I could remember the literary allusion I made at the dinner table....went right past her.
Astonishing.
I'm about to go and pour my second cup, and continue perusing the comments. To answer your question about "why people still vote for these people" I am beginning to think that Mike S has the answer in that it is what they are told to do (having been conditioned to do so) by the white man at the front of the church.
This is true of a lot of them. These pastors are on the ultimate power trip. It's really all about the pastor's ego.
Ray Bradbury's religious leader in Stranger In a Strange Land
If we could improve employment prospects in the so-called Rust Belt, chances are the anti-government militias would decline in power, and the popularity of Christian fundamentalism, which cedes personal automony to an authoritarian church organization, might decline as people are more self actuated. Both of which would be good for democracy.
But, I think that part of the appeal IS relying on the church to tell them what to do, so that they don't have to think. They just simply don't want to think, and don't have the faculty to ask questions or to see the chasms in their (or their leaders') logic.
I've remarked on this before, that there are particular brands/sects/cults of Christianity that are purely authoritative. They rely on others to make all their decisions for them and trust them to tell them what to do. They're too lazy, or ignorant, to think on their own. Mindless automatons. Scary.
The ones I know are from dysfunctional families...probably looking for stability.
I guess life is easier if you don't have to think for yourself. Perhaps they think they're doing the right thing by relying upon others for their "wisdom."
Confused victims of Murdochs lies.
In my vision for the future, short term, not so much. But I hope
Yes and maybe. We have plenty of Proud Boys here and Idaho is right next door, home to many wing nuts.
...or the trivial fact that "some Patriot Missiles" are air defense missiles (I mean, they've only been prominently shown on the news since 1991 shooting down other missiles), and not surface-to-surface missiles, or that several nations could easily obtain and release intelligence proving it was us who did it. What a stable genius...
What chilled me about the Esper excerpt was the confidence Trump had in his ability to just lie and change the reality. He did this in so many dangerous ways. And his followers just accepted his lies. I agree we have to mobilize to elect Democrats in order to save our democracy from such threats.
This is the mark of an autocrat: create "reality" to suit your purpose. Anyone who objects to an autocrat's version of "reality" is disloyal and can be imprisoned. chump learned this from his dictator friends.
That it even occurred to him indicates just how clueless he is, we are so lucky that we survived his incompetence.
But have we?
Time will tell.
You beat me to it as I was going to point this out about Patriot missiles being surface-to-air missiles, not missiles for ground targets. Just shows how totally "ignurnt" TFG is. Esper's still an idiot and even after being fired, STILL worships at the altar of The Orange One. One minute he's saying publicly T***p lost touch with reality, and then turns around and was against invoking the 25th Amendment that T***p is a nut-burger.
Signs of coercion, blackmail?
T***p would extort the Pope if he could...
Week after week, I am struck by a growing disparity between LFAA’s justifiably favorable assessment of the Biden Administration’s performance on several fronts and the somewhat dismal public perception. Because I mostly attribute the discrepancy to the Dem’s ineffective messaging, I write to propose that a few highly accessible, straightforward points be repeatedly amplified.
To start, it must be stressed, that contrary to Trump, who declared the White House was not a shipping clerk, the Biden Administration, in its first days, set out to make the COVID vaccine free of charge and available to everyone, thus essentially saving our lives and, in short measure, saving our jobs. As stated in today’s LFAA, the Administration, to date, has created 8.3 million jobs and produced historically low unemployment (3.6%).
Additionally, the Administration owes the public a repeated, streamlined explanation of the remedies currently underway to rectify high inflation and gas prices, the two factors currently undercutting the recent wage increases. The public, also, especially, needs to hear how Democratic leadership is trying to save democracy from a Republican Party that no longer believes in democracy. So not to appear political, the Dems justifiably expect DOJ to start issuing indictments to the perpetrators, to the members of Congress, for example, whom we know through text messages are complicit in planning January 6th.
As the fairly large swath of people, who pay attention, likely knows, Republicans virtually have no ideas aside from those arising from greed and self serving impulses. Perhaps that’s why the one thing they loathe more than “liberals” is the truth and also why the surest way to dispel their deceptive rhetoric is to tell the truth.
The Dems are pumping out important messages. It would help if the media would cover them. It’s up to us to do the amplifying.
Joan, If, as you state, “Dems are pumping out important messages,” I would ask whether their messaging is framed in a way that is relatable and memorable. I find, for example, that people typically resonate more to story than to abstract legislation and non-relatable numbers and data. As for media, I believe both we and our representatives bear a shared responsibility for doing all we can to ensure the messaging is covered in a way that maximizes its benefits. Regarding amplification, in my view, that, too, must be a joint endeavor.
Another problem is the media is addicted to tfg and his antics, just like in 2015. He will do whatever he can to distract and gain the spotlight.
I just said that, MLM; but you said it better.
@MLMinET, Instead of addiction, I view the problem, principally, as a desire for bigger profits driving media owners to provide what they deem popular rather than useful content. Please note I offer Lynell, who’s part of this thread, some thoughts regarding remedies.
I think the media needs to amplify democratic (big D and small d) messages as well. They do a great job amplifying the Republican wing, both extreme and not so extreme. I can't tell you how annoying it is every time I open my computer to find an image of the previous occupier of the White House staring back at me. I can tell you how overjoyed I am to occasionally see the current occupier's image (Biden!) staring back at me.
Lynell, I, too am bothered by the imbalance. Perhaps if enough of us hit these spokespersons up on their social media handles (via Twitter, TikTok, Instagram, or Facebook), voicing our dismay over a preponderance of coverage that we deem damaging to the public interest, perhaps we could effect the nature of the coverage.
In my view, if the desire for bigger profits is driving content, we must show that we’re taking note and why.
I will endeavor to do as you suggest, Barbara Jo (pushing back via social media)
We need our Rupert, well, one with a voice but Not a MAGAt agenda. Another Walter maybe, but that was a different world.
Jeri, Presuming you are referring to Walter Cronkite, I believe he viewed the job as getting as close as possible to the verifiable truth. I, further, would submit that the strong, honest and accurate reporting of his day, if deployed effectively, remains the far right’s worst nightmare because it is capable of calling out their nonsense.
" Over the past 12 months, the Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) price index, which is a method of measuring how much it costs for an ordinary consumer to buy goods and services, has risen 6.6%. If you take fuel and food out of that index, it’s still 5.2%, and the Fed likes inflation to be no more than 2%."
Would someone mind explaining why we should take out THE TWO MOST IMPORTANT ITEMS ON THE LIST - fuel (for transportation and for keeping houses warm since summer has yet to kick in) and food? What cost me $35 at the local Trader Joe's in January costs me $48 last Tuesday (I have a receipt from January and the most recent one to prove that). I don't worry about all the other "goods and services" out there BECAUSE I CAN'T AFFORD THEM. Forget buying a new car, has anyone here looked at the price of USED CAR recently?
And that stupid price index, another invention of government liars, is about as useful as the Consumer Price Index that is used to give raises to Social Security payments - which went up a whole 2.5% because the "chained CPI" said that was how much inflation there was for seniors. HEY, YOU DUMBASSED FUCKWITS - BULL-FUCKING SHIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The Biden Administration can come up with all the bullshit they want to come up with to convince us that black is white, day is night, up is down and left is right, but in the end, people are going to look at the receipts and see that their food bills went up 35% (an I'm not buying steak and lobster, believe me!).
The more they lie and prevaricate and play with statistics (like Twain said, statistics don't lie, but liars use statistics), the more pissed-off people are going to be. Being politically-aware and experienced, and the holder of advanced degrees in the social sciences, I know it isn't the administration that did this. But if someone who is educated and knowledgeable can be pissed off at them for prevaricating, what the hell do they think the people who don't understand all this are thinking????
Their use of statistical bullshit is going to result in them being wiped the fuck out come November. And then we're all going to be screwed, because the alternative really is unthinkable - which won't prevent it happening.
"Would someone mind explaining why we should take out THE TWO MOST IMPORTANT ITEMS ON THE LIST - fuel (for transportation and for keeping houses warm since summer has yet to kick in) and food?"
TC, I am sure you already know the answer to your question:
Because if the government left those measures in place inflation would be WAY higher for EACH of the last 40 years than what was/is reported AND THEN said government would have to pay higher Social Security checks to people who paid in for the money they are getting.
In other words: Those items that actually cause the MOST inflation have been removed in a purposeful intent to minimize Social Security payments which are tied to inflation.
WAY less money for war and military contractors. Cannot have that now TC.
There you have it.
Actually, Mike, the reason given was that there was so much volatility in those items in the early 2000’s that economists asked for an index without them to see if they were having an outsized effect. At least that’s what economists in 2005 were saying.
And THERE you have it, sir!
TC - are you having another Bad Hair day? - For some reason I can't get what remains of my brain around is the attitude is that if anything goes wrong in 'Murica, it's the President's fault. get over it! OK "The Buck Stops Here", sure,- but you (USA) seem to have lost any analytical capability as a nation. - so what would happen under Crump?? The shrieks and screams would be deafening, and there wouldn't be a damn thing anyone could do about it . cue in the Proud Boys etc.
You may wish to reconsider that decision not to take the remedial class in reading comprehension. I did not say all this was Biden's fault. I did fault the administration for doing what every adminstration does: use these bullshit "economic indicators" to convince people that shit doesn't stink. And I did say that people who are not politically aware and sophisticated about how things work, will blame Biden; they would blame anyone in the White House now, though the Republicans would likely come up with a better bucketful of bullshit, since Democrats are terrible on messaging and explanations.
What I was "having" as you put it, was enough with the baloney. My undergraduate degree in interdisciplinary social sciences included enough economics by two professors who weren't fans of bullshit, for me to learn most of the government formulas are meant to confuse and obfuscate, not inform and educate. Add to that 10 years' personal experience with the Compleat Bullshit of "chained CPI" and I have no trouble seeing through the smokescreen.
And yes, any administration will do it because how else do they "baffle with bullshit" when they can't "dazzle with brilliance."
TC, the challenge with Biden trying to make lemonaide from lemons is that Fox News is taking what is fairly good iced tea, with a bit of sugar in it, and, delivering sour lemonaide with no sugar.....ALL DAY LONG EVERY DAY.
AND, since Fox News delivers the messages either with white men in suits or white, fake blondes in Playboy Bunny outfits, Americans BELIEVE all of Fox lies.
So, EVEN if Biden told you night was day and day was night, AND IT WAS TRUE, FOX would say the opposite and Americans would BELIEVE it.
The real problem in America is not Biden, not Trump, not Republicans, BUT AMERICANS.
Americans ability to critically analyze and think has been severed completely, if it ever really existed anyway.
I’d argue, not as a jingoistic American Idiot but as a reader of history/literature, that there has been a movement afoot to render Americans dependent on (attendance state-mandated btw) public education incapable of critical thinking, innumerate, geographically illiterate, and monolingual. This is easily traced when reading the history of curricula and paedogogy.
Yes. You'll never find me defending American public education as a road to that independent citizenry Jefferson wrote about so glowingly.
Beats the charter schools and the sham educational programs from the junk bond king, Michael Milken.
Now, what about ever - why?
I think that the ability to think critically and analyze accurate information was there, but it has fallen far just in my lifetime (my public education commenced in 1964 and ended formally in 1981). I dimly remember in about 5th or 6th grade (that would be from 1968-1970) the guy who taught math to all the 5th and 6th graders taught some very simple theories for math thinking, and suggested that there were ways we could look at things like Current Events in a similar manner regarding accuracy and assessment. I believe that the assassinations in 1968 (RFJ and MLK Jr) were integral in what he was trying to teach; I know that anyone who had him for homeroom (I did not) had a lot of extra "current events" projects where, I surmise, he was able to carry his math theories into that realm for his students. None of that oozed into my junior high and high school classes (except for one teacher who really did work on getting us to think, and look at opinions different than what we believed to see how opinions were formed.)
Oh yeah, so right. What really got me this week (with this post the result) was realizing I could get as pissed-off as the guy ahead of me in line who said "Everything goes up except my income" - and I know who/what to blame. Everybody's getting pissed off with this, and most of them aren't going to be thinking about the supply chain in China and the effect of the Chinese government shutting down Shanghai as a reason for their pissed-offness.
Yes, yes, and YES! Again, I've whinged on and on about this, and Ally and Laura below (or above...wherever Substack slots this in) can undoubtedly vouch for the real lack of critical thinking skills among college kids today. I and my academic colleagues were all too frequently aware of this. It seems in their education they've only had facts and stuff thrown at them to memorize and then throw back up on an exam, but somehow they're not taught to go further and "connect the dots" on their own. Educators "assess" (dear God, how I grew to hate that word!) what facts they're learning rather than how they're thinking. Depending on the course, put an essay question on a test and see what you get back. It can be alarming. Don't get me wrong. They're GREAT kids and I loved working with them and being around them, but sometimes the things they DIDN'T know gobsmacked me. There seemed to be a dearth of initiative to research stuff on their own, rather than "what teacher was telling them". I was a sponge! I could NOT learn stuff fast enough, and sucked up every bit of knowledge (in my case, related to music) I could. I'm still like that, thank God. I would always tell kids, "you've got the most amazing learning tool ever invented--pointing at the computer--so USE it to absorb all you can!" I miss my kids, but I don't miss some of the other crap.
Sorry, Rupert. And the Ministry of Propaganda that seems to have immunity from any consequence whatsoever…. And it’s not just the stupid who buy his crap…. When will Bezos strap him into a rocket to the moon.
As Ally says, the problem is our educational system, again gratis, in part, to Reagan (republican). Most Americans lack the ability to think critically. This just is not taught in school. They don't even have a clue that they're not thinking critically - that's how bad it is.
Our educational system has to be modified to require courses in critical thinking.
It's been going on a lot longer than Reagan. I was a Professional Assistant Principal's Bench Polisher by graduation for my "failure to recognize properly-constituted authority" for arguing over the obvious crap they were feeding us back then.
Your "failure" is a boon to us!
“If it ever really existed anyway” is obvs subjective, but I’d argue that while you may say Jefferson or Hamilton or Franklin were products of a British educational system, they existed as Americans. Same Paine and Zenger and Douglass and Washington and Adams and to a lesser extent those like John Jay &c.
❤️
Fair enough - and sadly we are seeing it here - elections (erections?) on the 21st of May. Trouble is - whereas some of us (think) we can see behind the BS, most don't seem to be able to or want to. It gets very frustrating.
I'm in the slow process of reading ":Shock Doctrine" by Naomi Klein - a bloody amazing and horrifying expose of the shennanigans that have underlain so much US (and UK) actions over the past 30+ years in just about any country - Chile, S America in general, Russia etc. It's the old story - if only we knew then what we are able to know now. (but could we have done anything about it? ).
Actually I wish HCR would read this book - (it's a biggie) - or someone make a detailed synopsis of it for her - (sorry not in my pay-grade). I'm just reading about the Iraq war - and the real reasons why (thanks Chicago School of Economics and their followers). What a wonderful person Bremer was (not), and now, is there any wonder that Shiites and Sunnis are at each other's throats. Weapons of Mass Destruction??? NFL (not fucking likely).
Excellent book. Reading it.
Perhaps, TC, a replacement of your 'DUMBASSED FUCKWITS - BULL-FUCKING SHIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ' might be releasing, Janet Yellen, United States Secretary of the Treasury, Marty Walsh, United States Secretary of Labor and Marcia Fudge, United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development from desk duty to get out to talk with the American People. Why the costs of necessary items are going up; how their budgets are being affected and what the administration can do and cannot do about it. How about plain talk about the economy and their daily lives?
Language - language - that the people can understand. How might the news be in English regarding labor statistics all those terms, etc., etc., -- the function of our economy and the costs paid by the American people no longer be a BIG, DARK, CONFUSING SECRET?
IF - if they were to go out and talk about the real things, which would involve them attacking the leading parts of the "social network."
Your elaboration on the 'social network' would be a useful lesson if you are willing.
It certainly is true that the price of gasoline is a primary determinant of election results, whether the people retain the incumbent or throw him out. I don't know the answer to this, except that, to an extent, the focus on gas prices can be mitigated by publicizing the rise in employment and other positive statistics. Also, in the long run, a stable, and dare I say, a sane government, is essential to our continued prosperity. Were Trump still in charge, we would still have rising gas prices, but without him we benefit from more stability, something which business needs to succeed and continue.
I think you are suffering from rationality where reason is not necessarily pertinent. If you have to drive to get to work and the increased gas price ....and the rest of the inflated food and essentials prices...means that you can't feed your family or you need to look for a job that will pay sufficiently near to home then you are mad as hell and want to hit out at anyone who you might blame and Biden is sitting there "in charge"; emotion wins out every time in a massive part of the population. They don't necessarily think about the "real" consequences of their gestures but only want someone to suffer more than they.
I don't "like" the negativity to which Stuart is pointing -- all it does is raise the level of the flood tide of mental sewage already overwhelming so much of the world.
Having said that, the comment is very accurate.
It follows that the positivity of every single one of us is crucially important and will continue to be so, come what may.
Your last paragraph sums up what many many many people are struggling to say. That is the walk off homer in the ninth.
Good morning and thank you Peter! It’s skill to notice the little cracks of darkness filling with light.
Salud!
I am very grateful to you, Christine, for drawing attention to the one point that really matters and cannot be said enough.
Really? “Positivity” will be important? It would help some of is if you defined that as you see it-do you mean privileging action over words, doing over saying? Or is it more of a “compliment each other and say nice things” inflection? Because the latter alone seems inadequate, and insistence on the latter alone calls to mind the conditions that created Tadeusz Borowski’s Pożegnanie z Maria. The English edition’s title isn’t very positive, but for some better encapsulates Borowski’s writing.
"Gilets Jaunes" started exactly because of this now over 3 years ago and has been in the streets ever causing untold pain for the government.....outside of Paris!
Before you wrote this, I was thinking of how people -- "Consumer Man" -- blame God, the Madonna, or whatever "higher power" failed to answer their prayers or come up to expectations... for everything that's going wrong.
The old French refrain "C'est pas ma faute" (English variant " Not me, Guv").
After the reign of King Log Hollande and the rejection of a potential Queen Stork, the Frogs elected someone who made the understandable -- and very French -- mistake of playing Jupiter and hovering over the land, supposedly with eagle eye, surveying reality from 10 000 meters...
What better way of raising a shitstorm of Yellowjacket Exocets to bring him down to earth in flames?
Now we have to see how well he can shift shapes as a smarter deity more like himself: Proteus...
We're all waiting with baited breath...and noone wants to be Jupiter's interim PM
I'd say, rather, that when he lost to Jupiter, Mélenchon took aim, and organised his disgruntled supporters very effectively. At the very end he was sunk by the Marine, who in turn had misplaced her trust in certain non-French advisers ...
Exactly!
The problem is not Trump. It is not Biden. It is not Republicans.
It is Americans themselves and their fundamental inability to discern reality.
Propaganda doesn’t just affect the ignorant
It is definitley the people in this country, from the Bernie Bros who couldn't get off their butts to vote in 2016 to the MAGAts of 2020 and beyond, and to every last person who says "well, I don't believe that" in response to actual analysis brought about by research that (for instance) shows that bleach injection won't cure Covid.
To quote you Stuart, 'They don't necessarily think about the 'real' consequences of their gestures...' Why do you this that is so? Might education have to do with it? How much do you think it connected to the ruling class wanting to keep it that way? Keep the people divided against each other? I haven't led you to any place you won't go or don't belong, so what do you think?
Fern, like Daniel Kahneman, i think it requires not just education but a significant effort to go beyond the automatic, "intuitive" response. It's so much easier not to question pre-formed, instant responses that their "society" has formed unconsciously for them. education reduces the effort required to go beyond to the mental space where you actually weigh the issues and form an "informed" opinion...but not every educated person makes the effort all the time.
On the questions of why it's like that...neither Dems or Repugs have seriously tried to improve the educational system...it must suite the elite to maintain their dominant position. Divide? Most of the educated think that they should be part of the elite...but there are not enough elite jobs to go round and the result is competition for control of what there is.
I have not read 'Thinking Fast and Slow' and will attend to that if and when trying to keep up with the emergency here in the USA slows down. My response to your comment, nevertheless, is to come to an understanding about what you call the "intuitive" response. Programming of people begins soon after birth. You and I might have some ploughing to do in order to come to an understanding of terms.
Kahnemann considers the "intuitive" response...to be the first thought that comes to mind on a particular issue and which is stored in the frontal lobe. She/He found that this first thought was often a mixture of past similar experience and societal "norms" that the individual has unconscious. lt is stocked awaiting possible usage. She/He knows that this response is socially acceptable in the context in which she/he exists because she/he has used it before. The term has nothing to do with what we would normally associate with "intuition" which is a response suggested by the lower levels of your conscious mind or indeed that which is normally unconscious. Behind our conscious mind is an unconscious one which works a whole lot better most of the time....but it isn't necessarily instantaneous and doesn't always complicate your life with an explanation.
Also in the long run, re-establishing a good rail system after our national infrastructure was dismantled by Ford’s greed and tactical success in buying congresspeople will be critical.
Lord, when will business figure out that insanity is not good for business…
It is comments like this that contribute mightily to pulling our asses back from the brink of nonsense to what is right.
The griddle is sizzlin’. Feel the heat and quit clutching the pearls. We can handle the truth. It’s lies that are the swamp.
Salud, TC!
"But if someone who is educated and knowledgeable can be pissed off at them for prevaricating, what the hell do they think the people who don't understand all this are thinking????"
That right there, TC. So what should an understandable message say that doesn't shy from the truth but still instills hope?
Just thinking about this, Lynell. What I do know is that someone has to address one of the bloated elephants in the room…greed…in a different way. I’m going to keep thinking about this. I’m right on the edge of some “things”.
It’s raining here. A good “soakin’ doakin’” as my kids say.
I always like the questions you ask, Lynell. So disarming.
I would say that a hard look at corporate capitalism would be very, very beneficial.
Thank you for working on an answer to the understandable message question. If I think of something, I'll be in touch!
Maybe that some Congress Critters are sponsoring investigations into price gouging during Covid.
TJ's doesn't sell lobster? :-)
One factor has been left out of this: chump's tariffs raised prices BEFORE the onset of covid, and resulted in empty shelves. The lack of supply caused an increase in prices, inflation. Covid further eliminated supply, which continued to spur price increases. The inflation is not due to supply/demand. It's due to a lack of supply, dating back to chump.
Raising interest rates doesn't help anybody, especially the average American. It just tightens the pocketbook, and the unintentional outcome may be more votes for republicans.
Diana, thanks for the timeline. We tend to forget how the new tariffs raised prices and bankrupted soybean farmers. I also have grocery store credit card charges to compare. The big food increases are for meats from the packing monopolies. https://amp.wbur.org/onpoint/2022/02/14/more-than-money-monopoly-and-meat-processing
Like the oil and gas companies, they’ve seen a way to gouge consumers and blame it on others.
As for the Personal Consumption Expenditure index, it’s been measured since 1959. It’s been published since 1975. Due to the run up in gas and food prices between then and 2005, a core index that excludes them started being published then to show if those items were having an outsized effect on prices. I beg to disagree about the index being a lie—as part of my studies in economics, we studied how the CPI and the PEC are calculated. They are a good attempt to measure something that depends on consumer preferences.
I’ve been writing to my Congress Critters to urge them to investigate possible price gouging by the meat packing and oil and gas companies. I’m also informing friends and family about the inflation worldwide largely due to Covid. https://advisor.visualcapitalist.com/mapped-inflation-forecasts-by-country-in-2022/
Hey, Mary and Diana (again. I watched this video several months ago put out by Vox which I thought you might be interested in. It's about 14 minutes long. It discusses how four companies control the beef industry. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_hCLjUrK1E
Thanks, Lynell. Not only are they hurting the final consumer, they’re hurting the farmer/rancher selling to them by rigging prices that they’ll pay.
I'm reading your links right now; so far, they mirror what I posted. So the word is "out" re the monopolistic beef industry. Wish the government can bust them up.
I wish that the government can do that as well.
Thank you for posting!
Mary, thank you for raising the issue of commodities and providing links. I have suspected that republicans set oil prices to sway elections, since prices tend to go up during Democrat terms, and down when Republicans hold office. The question is, how can we stop this price-gouging. I will check out the links. Thanks.
Hey, Diane. I find your time-line explanation very straightforward, and one that I think I can remember. Thank you. So as I understand, raising the interest rate is a tool supposedly to guard against a recession, right?
Oops, I mean Diana!
Yes!
I thought chump was unthinkable, until it happened
I still think so, and I still haven't got over it.
Nor I, it took world class propaganda, which is still going strong…
Jeri, How many of us thought that he was the most easily defeated candidate until he got “help”. I doubt that the others would have taken advantage of that, realizing how beholden they would be in the future. I’d like to think that they would have reported the offers to the FBI.
If any one needs a reason to fear a return to power, Esper's story emphasizes the incredible danger of re-installing an unhinged Trump to office, lobbing missiles at neighbors or "why not use some tactical nukes" certainly cements the conclusion that he would be a disaster. On another note, Pres. Biden's comment that the media is not interested in the spectacular success of the Biden administration in reducing the deficit shows the "anti-Biden" side of the "neutral" media.
Agree with almost all here, Charles, except to me the word "unhinged" suggests he used to be hinged, a condition I don't think he's ever been!
That just sent me on a word search! "Unhinged" is an adjective that describes the behavior. The only uses I could find for "hinged" as an adjective involved the physical attachment of one part to another using a mechanical hinge (the noun). Well, that and a dating website that appears to be very popular.
So sorry to put you through that deep dive, Ally! If you think of a door without a properly attached hinge as not very workable, that fits Chump, the former guy, perfectly. I submit that "hinged" used as an adjective is apropos as well. But even if it isn't, would you back me up if I get attacked by a MAGA crowd for using improper grammar? LOL!
TFG basically has the intelligence of a door (i.e. a slab of wood), but at least a door has a function and can serve a purpose.
I actually thought of him as the malfunctioning hinge, Bruce!
True that, but an unhinged door doesn't have much use either.
Clown with a flamethrower still fits.
You got it. I love deep dives like this!
Please, Fox News, read HCR’s letter and set your people free!
Hahahaha, Rupert is way past any redemption
Maybe those at Fox can't read, so they rely on tRump for their stories.
I think they're too lazy to read.
Read about Mexico. Read about deficit reduction. Read about bills created to help middle class Americans. Read about the GOP justices lying under oath to gain admittance to the highest court. Then ponder why McConnell, McCarthy, the Kochs, and Peter Thiel all hate Biden, the programs he's pushing, and the great results of our economy. Then ponder why so many people still vote against their own best interests.
"Then ponder why so many people still vote against their own best interests"
Answer: For many fairly clear resasons, Americans have almost zero ability at cognitive critical thinking. Those reasons? Lifelong brainwashing with religion, poor reading skill, biases built in from culture, Survivor, The Apprentice, Fox News AND.......a general desire by everyone to want to find someone to feel superior to.
Add all that up and you have today's AMURCANS.
“If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket.
Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you.”
― Lyndon B. Johnson
He knew, better than most politicians in our history.
Hey now. “Survivor” is an interesting and occasionally instructive look at the varieties of human psychodynamics under artificially controlled scarcity, something us American Idiots (pace Green Day) apparently need. If I taught Decision Science, I’d give it a little time on a syllabus.
“survivor” started the slide to idiot tv
😂😂😂😂Good one! that barn door was open decades before “Survivor,” and all the horses long since gone.
Cajoling Saudi Arabia into producing more oil isn't exactly reducing our fossil fuel dependency. Just sayin'...
It’s a temporary fix for high gas prices.