Quote of the Day
I always felt that the great high privilege, relief and comfort of friendship was
Elvis Presley, "Suspicious Minds"
Quote of the Day
The will to win means nothing
The Temptation, "I Can't Get Next To You"
Yes, I still am a Never Trumper. But that really doesn't bear on my opinions on whether Trump engaged in unconstitutional behavior. In fact, Trump almost routinely engaged in abuses of power, some of which he was never charged. But on the other hand, I never believed in the Russiagate nonsense. I do think Trump blundered himself into the issue by suggesting Russia get involved in recovering Hillary Clinton emails and/or family/aides meeting with Russians.. It's not so much on the substance of a quid pro quo between Trump and a foreign government as the appearance. The indisputable fact is that Trump lacks self control and common sense and to a large extent brought this on himself. This is not rocket science. For most of the past century we had had an adversarial relationship with Russia.
Now does Trump have a right to express his own opinion? Yes. Did Trump have a right to signal that he was taking on the foreign policy establishment and might shake things up. Yes. But you can do that without the appearance of a quid pro quo, basically asking Russia to do him a political favor by going after Hillary Clinton's emails, which possibly included disclosure of classified data. He would later disingenuously argue that he "didn't mean it": he was only "joking". But why would Russia do Trump a political favor?
I have worked in the past for a couple of IT consulting staffs affiliated with public accounting firms. I had to review the accounting firms' customer lists and report/dispose of any shares of client site (and yes, it turns out I did have minor positions in a couple of companies, not material to my own assets or the market. Never mind the fact I wasn't working at the clients in question and didn't have contact with any auditors working the engagements. I had purchased the stock long before I was even aware of what company was auditing them. It pissed me off I had to sell a potentially profitable stock for circumstances beyond my control over the potential issue that I might somehow get access to "inside information". But I knew the rules of my job, and I fulfilled my contractual obligations.
Trump actually tried to host a summit at one of his properties. .This was an off-the-charts instance of a real conflict of interest. Now I do realize that progressives were highly motivated to find any evidence Trump was personally profiting from any of his executive decisions in contradiction of the emoluments clause. But Trump was no victim. This is a guy who bought off politicians as part of the cost of doing real estate business in New York; he bragged about the Clinton's attending his third wedding. This is a guy who tried to use eminent domain to get an elderly lady's property at a cheap price so he could use it for casino limousine parking. He used bankruptcy court to renege on too much debt which he couldn't afford to service. And yet voters bought his shtick Trump argued, unlike his GOP competitors, he couldn't be bought off; he even argued he had bought off Rand Paul by donating to Rand Paul's eye surgery charity in Central America.
But let's get to the Trump's legal teams strategy for the trial over his second impeachment in the alleged incitement of the January 6 insurrection that interrupted Biden's election ratification on Capitol Hill. They appear to be focusing on two points in a defense: (1) it's unconstitutional, apparently because Trump is no longer in office and expulsion is the main remedy for impeachment; (2) nothing that Trump did or said specifically encouraged the violence and property damage at the Capitol.
Let me respond briefly to both arguments. First, there is no "lame duck" period for a President's behavior. He is accountable for his entire term of service. The removal from office sanction is not the only sanction; Ilya Somin and others have pointed out that disqualification from future office is also a sanction, and I could argue other things as well, including possible forfeiture of post-Presidency compensation and other benefits, not to mention a scarlet letter for his legacy and a warning to future Presidents against similar misconduct. In fact, Trump has openly fantasized about returning to the White House in 2024. Now at least some polls post-Jan. 6 showed his approval numbers dipping below 30 for the first time ever. I know better than to bet against a comeback--e.g., consider Nixon's political resurrection in 1968. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, and Trump still remains popular with his political base. But Trump lost the popular vote in 2 straight elections before the insurrection, the economy shrank 3.5% in his final year, and his sore loser behavior and role in the insurrection makes it all but impossible to win the independents he would need for a political comeback. It's not just the fact Trump lost the White House; he also lost the House or Senate. Can someone fill the vacuum? I'm not sure who would as I write. But the GOP needs someone who can win the White House, and I think that outweighs Trump's popularity with the base. The reason the Dems nominated Biden was not because of his appeal with the activist base but the conviction that Biden could beat Trump.
The second argument is more controversial among us libertarians, because of our traditional defense of free speech, even for an idiot like Trump. I'm not going to repeat Somin's cited arguments here, but I'll point out here, as in past posts, that Trump is very aware of "the passion" of his minions. This is a guy who told police they shouldn't be "too nice" to suspects (e.g., rough rides), who boasted he would still be popular with his supporters if he shot someone dead in NYC, whose supporters have beaten a homeless Latino man in Boston and driven a car into counter-protesters in Charlottesville, who has talked about taking out the families of terrorist suspects. His speech may have lacked specifics--he didn't specifically call for the mob to hang Pence, but he made it clear he considered Pence disloyal for refusing to reject electoral votes from states flipping to Biden. It was clear he wanted more than a picket line outside the Capitol which legislators could ignore. He had earlier told the Proud Boys, a violence-prone right-wing group to "stand back and stand by". which apparently was so popular with the group some reportedly had T-shirts made with the motto. We knew that the FBI was aware of the potential of violence, even before Trump fired up the rally. We know the National Guard offered support to local law enforcement before the rally. Trump was playing with fire and he knew it. There are some anecdotal reports that Trump initially resisted calling in the National Guard once things turned violent.
It was Trump's constitutional duty to protect the Congress in session. He violated his oath of office. He must be held accountable, including conviction and disqualification from holding office again.
Quote of the Day
The greatest remedy for anger is delay.The Archies, "Sugar, Sugar"
Let me clear at the outset: I have opposed the coronavirus relief legislation, including the $900B package Trump signed into law in late December. The current Treasury debt is $27.8 T, almost $22 T of which is held by the public, including foreign-held securities. Trump in his version of right-wing populism basically had opened the door to monetizing more debt by arguing the $600 mean-tested "stimulus" wasn't nearly enough; we needed more like $2K payouts. This is on top of federal extensions to unemployment payments, etc. The Dems were quick to match Trump's bid, opposed by his fiscal conservative base.
Biden pulled up his own $1.9 T COVID-19 relief bill in its Keynesian splendor. The idea that this spending will stimulate the economy, still shackled by Draconian economic state/local regulation, is beyond self-evident absurdity. In the tradition of Rahm Emanuel's dictum of never letting a crisis go to waste, Biden has larded up his bill by payouts demanded by his pet constituencies, including an increase in the federal minimum wage. Businesses are struggling enough to operate without government trying to drive up labor costs in a tough economy. In the long term, substitute labor, e.g., kiosks and other automation, becomes more attractive. Never mind the cost of living drastically differs among states and/or regions. This piece of legislation has nothing to do with COVID-19-specific relief. The Dems have been routinely pushing increasing it since FDR introduced it on the federal level in the late 1930's, something which exacerbated problems recovering from the Depression.
But the 10 GOP /Senator ( Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Todd Young of Indiana, Jerry Moran of Kansas, Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Rob Portman of Ohio, Mike Rounds of South Dakota, Mitt Romney of Utah, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia) counterproposal, which comes in at about $618B, is less than a third of Biden's approval. They fairly match Biden on vaccine/testing costs but they differ in not funding state/local bailouts, they means-test and lower individual/family payouts, and they lower and limit the timeframe for the unemployment supplemental funding (which most conservatives, including myself, see as morally hazardous).
So far, it doesn't look like Biden doesn't seem to want to compromise on the size of his package. From a political perspective, the 10 senators give him a bipartisan win and a filibuster-proof majority. If the Dems try to go it alone, they get the full blame for the unexpected side effects or unintended consequences of the legislation and it becomes a talking point for the midterms, where Democrats will be hard-pressed to maintain their razor-thin majority in the House. They have somewhat better prospects for capturing a pure Senate majority, although 2 seats in AZ and GA are up in 2022,
This would leave Schumer with basically 2 strategies: do away with the filibuster (which reportedly 2 Senate Dems oppose, Sinema (AZ) and Manchin (WV)) or muscle it through budget reconciliation, which bypasses the filibuster.
I've got a bad feeling on this standoff. I don't think Biden is negotiating in good faith. I think he's trying to lend an impression he's being "bipartisan" but keep in mind Biden was never part of the Gang of 12 in 2007 or 8 in 2013 on immigration. In fact, he told GHW Bush in 1992 he wouldn't allow nomination of a SCOTUS justice in an election year. He may be more worried about pressure from his progressive left flank against the perception of caving in to the GOP and setting a precedent.
And just from my pragmatic side, I don't think Biden should be spending political capital on this package. I think he would be better off focusing on more popular funding like vaccines and the like, and then move on to Dreamers and/or infrastructure, where he could count on some bipartisan support. If he blows off bipartisan support here, his honeymoon may be over.
Make no mistake; I oppose even the moderate GOP proposal. I think everything would work better by simply liberating the private sector. But Biden looks like he's trying to out-Trump Trump. He may not have Trump's disagreeable personality, but that won't end well.
Quote of the Day
Faithful are the wounds of a friend,The Rolling Stones, "Honky Tonk Women"
I suspect the familiar reader can almost see my eyes roll as I wrote the segment title. The way that people react to weather reports. I remember that back when I lived in Houston and actually lived through a hurricane (I spent much of the time holed up in the bathroom, afraid the violently rattling apartment windows might shatter), there were reports of San Antonio residents emptying stores of emergency supplies. Now Houston is just 50 miles from the Gulf of Mexico--but San Antonio is about 180 miles further inland down I-10 W.. Now, to be sure, you can get bad weather that far inland, and some heuristics I've seen show hurricanes traveling up to 100-200 miles inland, although rapidly losing strength.
I remember getting a job in the winter of 2013-2014 in West Virginia. The basic motivation for taking the job was getting a toehold in the government contracting space, which is analogous of trying to get your first job without prior experience. The real prize was getting government credentials I hadn't been able to get almost 9 years of living and working in Maryland. The first month or so I was commuting on weekends back to my Baltimore suburban apartment, maybe 220-odd miles away. I was not used to that level of cold. Several days that winter the daily high struggled to reach 0. I recall I ran through 4 windshield wipers. I can still remember one of my wiper arms started malfunctioning about 15 miles from home one Friday commute to Baltimore on I-70E; it was like a dying frog trying to jump. I limped into a car services place just around closing time. One of the mechanics took pity and made an adjustment (I think a nut was loose). It turned out to be a temporary fix but got me through that weekend's commute. Obvious much of WV is at a higher elevation; I lived maybe about 20 miles south of Morgantown and another 20 miles to work in Clarksburg via I-79. I think I saw more snow that winter than the next 7 years put together. I don't know if locals are just hardier in nature, but more than once I commuted to work with snow coming down to the point I couldn't see lane markers and pretty much followed tire tracks from prior drivers. I've had to clear snow from my car and/or chip ice off my windshield far too many times for a Texas native born. Now occasionally it does snow in Texas, especially northern Texas, but it's so rare that one day while I was at OLLU (San Antonio), I went out taking pictures of the snowfall on campus. I pointed out over this weekend to my sister-in-law, who lives between Austin and San Antonio, that she had texted pictures of snow covering their ground outside; she laughed and said it didn't last long and then rubbed it in that the temperature was 75 outside.
This weekend I fielded robocalls from my utility company warning of potential outages and a government agency talking of prospective effects on work schedules. What, were they expecting a foot or more of snow? Not from I can tell. From Accuweather it seemed like locally they were looking at like an inch Sunday and an inch today. WV, Buffalo, NY or Alaska must be laughing at these wusses. I did decide to go to Sam's Club Saturday vs. today---I have an RDO (biweekly flex-day off) today, and usually I prefer to shop without the weekend rush. I don't ever recall parking so full, not a major issue in the sense there's a huge parking lot--you just have to walk a lot longer to reach the entrance.
The work schedule is more nuanced, especially under remote work rules. It's bad enough there are risks of ISP outages during which you can't bill the government. But there are often billing rules contingent on availability of civilians (full-time government employees). For example, in theory I couldn't open up a suite of offices in which I had a cubicle or close up; at least one government worker has to be present. Now a manager contacted us about special reporting requirements if we were working today. I was confused because nearly all of us are working remotely, including our civilian contacts. But the basic context is some people work on site and if they closed the worksite, they generally don't allow remote work. I don't know the specifics, but maybe with reduced staffing they don't need IT support. Generally civilians have better perks; don't quote me but maybe a month of vacation time a year, and locally there is generally "59 minutes" in the last workday prior to a federal holiday--meaning an extra hour off. And generally federal employees get voted backpay after a government shutdown. (I must say one of my little sisters got pissed off at me when I said that once. She used to be an RN in Civil Service and in 2013 she had to work as an "essential worker", as did my brother-in-law, and they both lost a month's pay, never reimbursed. But they have both qualified for retirement pensions, which I don't nor will ever have beyond social security.) That being said, I've never been a federal worker since drawing a Navy ensign's pay before my honorable discharge and I don't think at this point of my life they're going to offer me a job (people younger than me are retiring from government every day). But to be honest, I'm not sure I would ever want it. The government bureaucracy is maddening.
Bur part of the reason of pointing out government contractors are second-class workers is that government contracting firms, perhaps justifiable so, cannot bill for unapproved work hours, and this trickles down to their employees. What this means in practice is if the site is shut down for administrative reasons, e.g., weather, government shutdown, etc., contractors, unlike civilians, have to eat those hours. They're generally not allowed to make up most of those hours later. So they may have to eat those hours (i.e., unpaid or take vacation hours, and most contractors probably get something like 7-10 days/year paid time off). I'm sure others unemployed during the pandemic (and I was, during the first few weeks, no unemployment benefit) are like, "Cry me a river." It's more of a morale issue; I almost never want to take PTO for fear of losing work days.
But after initially suggesting delayed shipping due to weather, Amazon did deliver two items to me late yesterday.
Since Dec. 14, more than 32,717,000 doses of a covid-19 vaccine have been administered in the U.S.
I saw the first time on CNN, although I haven't been a long-term viewer, a doctor advocating a first-dose-first policy. You'll get pushback pointing out a 2-shot cycle for FDA validation protocol, but the biggest boost for protection is that first shot.
Well the Royal Rumble was held last night; I followed the results at a wrestling site. They put formerly injured Hall of Famer Edge over giving him the choice of facing (at least current) babyface McIntyre and heel Roman Reigns. Since Edge is a babyface, it would make sense for Edge to face Reigns. It's also possible WWE will put up a title unification belt bout and Edge makes it a 3-way. No real surprises of note in the Rumble other than Carlito, best known from his gimmick of eating an apple and spitting it into the face of his opponent and Edge's partner, Christian. But WWE has been teasing recent face-turning Nakamura to challenge Reigns, and one has to wonder why they gave a MITB briefcase (guaranteeing a championship match) back to the heel Miz. You also have to wonder if and when they'll bring back Brock Lesnar. You could make a match with US champ Bobby Lashley or Intercontinental champ Big E, but I don't think they'll bring him back for a middle-card title. And Lesnar has notably dropped titles to both McIntyre and Reigns, although the latter might be intriguing from Heyman's involvement with both men. And you also have to wonder if Seth Rollins' return means a challenge to either major belt versus that overly long boring feud with the Mysterio clan.
We don't know what's going on with the men's tag titles, being held by heels on both brands. They rightly had Asuka and Flair job the titles back to Jax and Baszler. I always thought having the latter job to the former was just a gimmick to bring back Flair after an injury. Still, none of the long-rumored female returns, i.e., Ronda Rousey, Becky Lynch and Tessa Blanchard, which might spice up their division, happened, but maybe they're saving up for Raw tonight. Also, what about Bianca's Rumble win? Which babyface champ will she face, or will she turn heel? Not to mention Braun Strowman. Could he be targeting McIntyre's title?