Institutionalized Disinformation

Two words: Institutionalized disinformation.

I've used these two words before, pointing out that this is why Kamala Harris lost the 2024 election. The disinformation was institutionalized. And when that happens, it's an extremely difficult thing to debunk, because people reason (incorrectly) that the huge infrastructure around the lie simply wouldn't exist if it weren't true.

Except, of course it would.

Need proof? A Guardian-Harris poll conducted last May, and again last September, showed just how bad the general public was being misled when it came to the economy. 

49% of respondents said they believe the U.S. economy is in a recession. (It's not.)

Nearly two-thirds (61%) said they believe inflation is increasing, when in fact it has fallen. (It was down to 2.1% right before the election!)

Nearly three-quarters (73%) said they didn’t feel any positive effects of the good economic news being reported.

Most strikingly, 51% of respondents said they believed that unemployment was at an all-time high. In fact, unemployment is at the lowest point it's been in over 54 years! (3.4%)

In other words, people really did believe up is down, black is white, and day is night when it came to the economy.

Were grocery prices still a bit high? Yeah, that part was true. It's what made all the other lies more believable. But prices take awhile to come down. And usually don't overall. Wage increases are required to offset the higher prices. Biden was already starting to make that happen.

Until the fake bill of goods, sold to the American people through a vast, lying, Right-Wing Media Machine, convinced a large number that the sunny skies outside their window was an illusion; that the silver lining in the cloud was actually a dark lining; that everything had actually gone to shit; that Biden was to blame for it all.

That's the power of institutionalized disinformation.

We see examples of institutionalized bullshit everywhere, from vaccine denial to the claim that the Sandy Hook massacre was staged. In religion, we especially see institutionalized disinformation, particularly among Mormons. (And if you happen to be Mormon, I don't care, and I don't apologize. Your beliefs are crap, wake up.)

Institutionalized disinformation is our #1 enemy. And if we ever get a chance to defeat it by rule of law, requiring anything labeling itself "news" to be absolutely objective, that is our #1 priority.

But we might not even get that shot. And if we do, you can bet that any attempt to defeat institutionalized disinformation will be strongly countered by the Right-Wing Media Machine.

Can we slay this dragon if we actually get one chance to strike a blow? I don't know.

All I know is, we'd better all have our minds made up to accomplish this one, all-important thing.

Eric

**

Dentistry Is Our Right, Too

Here's a weird news story that probably escaped your notice, what with all the Luigi Mangione news coverage drowning everything out. A couple of weeks ago, a 70-year-old New York woman got caught practicing dentistry in her apartment kitchen in Long Island. The woman, Gladys Serrano, did apparently have some sort of a degree in dentistry from El Salvador, but her conditions were cramped and unsanitary. She was not certified to practice dentistry in the U.S.

This shouldn't really be surprising. Yes, some people turn to backwater dentists because they're undocumented and fear exposure, but more commonly, people simply can't afford dentistry anymore. People are so desperate for dental services they'll turn to anything. Sure, certain dental colleges take in patients for free in order to gain training and experience, but there's always a long waiting list. Tooth pain, more than anything else, will drive someone to absolute madness. They will seek help literally anywhere, even some little old Latina living in a shoebox flat in Hempstead.

Perhaps that's why a similar case cropped up in Rolling Meadows, Illinois, where a young woman was caught practicing dentistry without a license after someone noticed the posts she made on social media, advertising her business. She turned herself in.

Or then there's the case of a woman in my home city of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, who was caught doing the same thing. According to the state's dental association, this sort of thing is rare, but how rare could it really be when three cases of it crop up within months of each other?

Bootleg dentistry is apparently a booming underground business, and that's made possible because official dentistry has been priced out of the market, and has been for a long time. A simple tooth extraction could cost thousands, and for people caught between being able to afford rent or groceries this month, relieving the pain caused by a cavity is out of the question. So they suffer abscesses which lead to heart disease and other complications which will likely cost them much more money down the road than it would have if they could only have gotten preventive care in the first place. If they manage to live that long, that is.

Either that, or they turn to some old church-lady who pulls teeth when she's not attending the bead-and-button show. I hear she cuts hair, too.

It's expensive to be poor.

Had Mangione shot a dentist, we might all be paying closer attention to this. But oddly, dentistry is considered adjunct to healthcare. This dates back to the dark days when dentistry was practiced by, of all people, barbers. (No kidding! Look it up. This is why a barber's pole has a red stripe spiraling down it. To symbolize the red blood of a tooth extraction!) As such our backwards medical system regards dentists and opticians as separate categories from health care, accessories even, as though they had nothing to do with one another.

People have a right not to suffer tooth pain in agony while working a dead-end job. They have a right to be able to see clearly too, for that matter. (Though it seems myopia is more an ailment of the affluent, these days, doesn't it?) If we ought to be in full revolt over access to healthcare, how much more should we rebel against a system that wants to inflict us with severe mouth pain, day after day, month after month, year after year?

The wealthiest man on earth recently threw a large stone into the gears of the U.S. Government, just to keep a few billion more in his pocket.

It seems a shame we can't do the same thing when it comes to matters of our own extreme suffering, even of life & death.

Eric

**

The Real Reason For Elon-Gate

In the early morning hours of last Saturday, after a mad scramble to piece together a last-minute deal, the Senate approved a whittled-down, temporary government spending bill, averting a looming shutdown of the federal government. President Biden signed that bill into law later that morning.

But all that was necessary because Elon Musk went on a Twitter/X posting frenzy, complaining about all sorts of things contained in the spending bill. In my previous blog post about "Elon-Gate" (man, I really should get something for thinking up that one!), I didn't go into detail about exactly why Musk was opposed to the bill. But essentially, he called for reduced spending on various things Democrats wanted, and increasing or eliminating the debt ceiling. And Donald Trump, who is incapable of thinking outside of what Twitter/X and Fox News tell him to think, went along with it, calling on Republicans to derail the spending bill.

But the real reason is far more ominous. And the media isn't covering it strongly enough.

At least CNN gave a breakdown of what was left in and what was left out of the new spending bill. But it didn't prioritize things very well. Because buried among the last items in the "left out" list was the real reason Elon Musk had his social media meltdown:

It was a provision that would have limited US investments in China, particularly in the technology sector.

It's no secret that Elon Musk does a lot of business in China. So much, in fact, that Tesla really should be regarded as a Chinese auto manufacturer, not an American one. The limitations that would have been imposed upon Tesla would have severely hurt his ability to manufacture and sell cars, which would significantly hurt his bottom line.

So, to keep all that from happening, he threw the entire United States Government under the wheels of his cybertruck. He invented a fake crisis, bitching and moaning about "spending," but his real focus was getting those restrictions off from his Chinese business interests.

We know this, because the new spending bill had most of the same issues Musk was bitching about the first time. Only this time, Musk (and Trump with him) didn't complain.

Why should they, when the ruse worked?

It's hard to overstate just how truly evil this is. This isn't just oligarchy. This isn't just lying. This isn't just an unelected rich guy, constitutionally barred from ever actually being president, calling the shots from the sidelines. This is someone, already the richest man in the world, seeing something that would make him only slightly less rich, and thinking, "Eh, why not shut everything down right before Christmas?" If it gets him what he wants, who cares?

Elon Musk doesn't give a living shit about you!

He has now shown a willingness to sacrifice everything of yours, just to keep from being the second-richest man in the world.

And Trump is his bitch.

So far, I've seen scant media coverage about this. Only certain stalwarts of liberal media, such as Rachel Maddow, Keith Olbermann, and Thom Hartmann, have really bothered to mention it. The rest of the legacy media is silent about it. And the Right-Wing Media Machine sure as shit isn't saying anything!

This new spending bill only takes the government through March 14, at which point, Trumpy and his gaggle of wild-geese-chasing-each-other will have to take on this problem again.

When they do, who knows what bullshit Elon Musk will vomit up upon us?

Eric

**

Why Mangione Plead 'Not Guilty'

Luigi Mangione pled 'not guilty' in a New York court of law this morning. It's a bold move, seeing as how it's pretty clear he did it. And while the axiom holds true of "innocent until proven guilty," the prosecution has this case pretty well sewn up. Luigi is almost certainly toast.

Now, anything I have to say about Mangione's reasoning behind his plea is pure speculation. But I think it's pretty clear that the last thing he wants to do is plead insanity. He wants to show the world that his reasoning was stone-cold sober. I think he will plead innocent by reason of self-defense, not only for himself, but for all American people. The tactic probably won't work. But I think Mangione would rather go down as a martyr. And if he's eventually executed, he would rather his death be a watershed for positive change.

If that was his intention, his timing could not possibly be worse. The biggest corporate shill of all time is about to be sworn in as president, and that renders any possibility of medical care reform pretty much absolute zero for at least the next four years. We already know that Mangione planned his attack months, if not years, in advance. He may well have been counting on a Biden or Harris victory, at which point the shooting of a health insurance CEO might well have become a flashpoint for change. Unfortunately, we had the exact opposite outcome. But Mangione did the shooting anyway, which means, I suppose, that he either thought it wouldn't matter who was president, or that it would greatly influence who is president next. Or maybe his back pain simply screamed for vengeance.

Who knows? The only thing that's clear to me at this point is that, if he's going down, he wants to take as many healthcare CEO's down with him as he can. Given current sentiment, he might actually succeed at this; not in terms of those CEO's actually getting demoted or fired, but in terms of the entire insurance-based healthcare industry eventually going down.

Thing is, in order for that to happen, Americans need to have a memory that lasts longer than a few years.

They've consistently been proven to lack that trait.

Eric

**

Elon-Gate

Our government is on the verge of shutting down. And all because one oligarch "xeeted" the funding crisis into existence. Elon Musk. If there was any lingering doubt before whether Musk bought out Twitter in order to flex extra political muscle, it's gone now. Musk has now completely derailed a bipartisan agreement which would have kept our nation running.

There's only one word for this: "Elon-gate." (Copyright 2024. Yes, I'm brilliant. You're welcome.)

The numerous reasons Musk gave for derailing Congress' funding bill are too numerous to list here. But as various pundits have pointed out, this move pretty much pushes Trump aside and declares Musk president, in practice if not in title.

For some time now, I've been pointing out that Trump has no real political ability. He is simply a devotee of the Right-Wing Media Machine, to which he is utterly addicted. As such, he simply echoes what Twitter/X and Fox News say about everything, and everyone else who shares Trump's addiction simply nods and goes along with it. You can actually trace the memes out. Elon starts pushing the lie (for example) about Haitians eating pets on X.com, and within hours, Trump is repeating it, even while embarrassing himself with such a claim during a national debate. It was on X, so it must be true, right?

Trump is not using any sort of "lizard brain" ability, nor is he playing "four-dimensional chess." He's a leaf swept up in a cyclone. He's driftwood spiraling in a whirlpool. His power only comes from so many other leaves being swept up with him.

He is the symptom, not the disease.

Elon's power-move to shut down the government is not the first time a media-owning oligarch has dictated terms regarding government policy. But he is the most recent, and most obvious, example.

We didn't need proof that we are living in an oligarchy/kleptocracy/kakistocracy (and not necessarily in that order). But now we certainly have it.

One Wrongway Peachfuzz at the helm is bad enough. TWO Wrongway Peachfuzzes fighting over who controls the steering wheel is even worse.

At this point, the necessity of abandoning ship may no longer be a matter of if, but when.

Eric

**

Racism Is Why America Has No National Healthcare

In the wake of the shooting of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson by Luigi Mangione, a lot of people have been asking, "Why are we in the U.S. still getting ripped off by mega-insurance-corporations? Why are we the only first-world democracy without a national healthcare system for everyone? Why are we paying double the cost of our healthcare just to have a lower life expectancy?"

"Why are we the only democracy that doesn't see healthcare as a right, not a privilege?"

The answer, surprisingly, stems from American racism.

Modern healthcare really didn't come about until the early 20th century, and racist segregation was still quite powerful back then. When we look elsewhere in the world, we find that national healthcare systems didn't come about until after World War II. The U.K. enacted its healthcare system in 1948, though it experimented with it earlier. Norway, Sweden and Iceland enacted theirs in the 1950's. France's national healthcare system began in 1930, but wasn't formalized for most citizens until 1945. Germany was the only country with a pre-war national healthcare system, dating all the way back to Otto Von Bismarck's social legislation program of 1883. 

But one would think that in the years between World War I and World War II, under FDR, with so many other government-funded programs being enacted, that healthcare would be a natural extension of such legislation. Why, oh why, in an alphabet-soup world of the WPA, the CCC, and the TVA, was the NHS left out?

Put simply, the political willpower wasn't there. Any national healthcare system would need to take care of black people as well, and whites simply didn't want their hard-earned tax dollars going to support black families. Back then, that was political suicide, even for FDR.

In fact, America could have had a national, single-payer healthcare system as early as 1916! But it was thwarted.

Here's why:

Enter Friedrich Ludwig Hoffmann. He arrived in America from Germany in 1884, a 19-year-old German immigrant with only a few dollars in his pocket and not speaking a word of English. But he eventually arose to become one of the most influential statisticians and public health analysts in American history.

And you probably never heard of him.

He learned English so well that his accent became nearly indistinguishable. He dropped the second, German "n" from his last name, started going by the first name of "Frederick," and married into an upscale Georgia family. The American Dream.

In 1908, he published a statistical-analysis article, called "The Mortality From Consumption in the Dusty Trades," published by the U.S. Department of Labor. This linked lung damage to industrial smoke and/or coal dust. He then turned his excellent statistical analysis skills towards the tobacco industry, and by 1915 published the first-ever article linking tobacco use to lung cancer. His reputation from these achievements earned him the title of vice president of the American Tuberculosis Foundation (known today as the American Lung Association). He was truly ahead of his time in this regard.

But in other areas, he was truly retrograde. He bought into the racism prevalent in Georgia at the time, and came to think of black people as "genetically inferior." He came to believe that blacks, if left to nature, would naturally die out due to a greater propensity towards disease. This became known as the "racial extinction thesis."

To bolster this opinion, he brought his skillful statistical analysis to bear, and codified numerous studies to show how areas with black populations had higher mortality rates than white areas. 

In August 1896, the American Economic Association published Hoffman's very first book, called, "Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro," summarizing decades of black-vs.-white mortality statistics. From this he deduced that any nationalized health care system would be an absolute waste, essentially throwing tax dollars away on the lost cause of black peoples' health. Why enact a nation-wide healthcare system when black people will simply die out anyway? Any such system would simply delay the inevitable, resulting in nothing more than lost revenue and prolonged suffering.

His solution? A private insurance-based system. One which whites could afford, but would price poor, black families out of the market.

Now, any modern reader of Hoffman's works would spot his fallacy immediately. The higher mortality rates and propensity towards sickness were caused by poverty, not by race. And the poverty was caused by racism, which lead to more poverty, which lead to more sickness, which lead to more racism, which lead to more poverty, which led to more sickness, and round and round the goddamned cycle went! This has since been proved by similar statistics being shown among poor white people! But Hoffman, for all his brilliance, didn't see things that way. His racist thesis, borne up by the statistical-analysis that made it seem legitimate (institutionalized disinformation again!), was devoured and championed by the segregationist South.

Naturally, the insurance industry loved Hoffman's "scientific racism" (a misnomer if ever there was one). After all, they stood to make millions off of it, and not just by charging higher premiums to black people (a practice Prudential continued as late as 1986!). By 1891, he became the official statistician for the Prudential Insurance Company of America. (Prudential didn't offer health insurance at that time, and wouldn't until 1925, but they could see the handwriting on the wall, and Hoffman's analysis was at the forefront of their business plans.)

By 1916, something known as the American Association for Labor Legislation (A.A.L.L.) had sponsored a bill to offer medical coverage and paid sick leave to all Americans. It was a plan which had the support of heavy-hitting politicians such as Teddy Roosevelt. Insurance companies couldn't oppose this effort directly, as this would be seen as brazen self-interest. So the champion they turned to was Frederick Hoffman.

Hoffman journeyed to his home country of Germany and toured the hospitals there, documenting every little thing he saw as wrong with the Kaiser's healthcare program. He made a similar tour of Britain's burgeoning healthcare system, too. He then took these criticisms back to the U.S. and widely publicized them in a book called, "Facts and Fallacies of Compulsory Health Insurance" (1917). He even published a sequel. Much of what he wrote was anecdotal, but that mattered little. As the man who was so well known for being a public health advocate, thanks to his publications on smoke, coal dust, and tobacco, he was the ideal spokesperson.

His efforts worked. By 1920, attempts to enact nationwide healthcare had ended. Prudential rewarded Hoffman richly. His propaganda was so successful that it had a residual effect, lasting even after Franklin Delano Roosevelt's election to president in 1932. His writings continued to be championed by segregationists and the Ku Klux Klan as late as the 1940's.

In the post-World-War-II years, government-run healthcare was seen as "socialism." So, naturally, in the "red scare" anti-Soviet years, any further attempts at single-payer healthcare were also shot down.

It was these two conservative elements, the racist tendencies of the Deep South, and the post-war anti-communist rhetoric, which would later form the neocon movement that degenerated into the Trumpism we see today.

The pro-healthcare sentiment didn't entirely fail. America saw such programs as Social Security (1935) and Medicare (1965) get established. But that's where it both began, and ended. Since then, we have all been doomed to suffer at the whims of insurance companies who are oh-so-eager to screw over you in favor of their shareholders.

And that's why sickness bankrupts you, and makes CEO's ultra-rich.

Our citizens carry a current total of about 220 billion in medical debt. If that seems insane, it's because it is! We all live under the proverbial Sword of Damocles, where any potential illness could ruin us and render one's entire family homeless. It's the very definition of insanity to not rebel against such a system. But this is the structure white people imposed upon themselves in order to make it more difficult for black people to see a doctor.

Was it really worth it?

As a parallel, look at South Africa. Their deep racial divide resulted in a similar insurance-based healthcare system which primarily benefitted white people. This lasted all the way until Apartheid ended in 1994. By 1996, combatting this inequality was so paramount that the right to healthcare had become enshrined in the South African Constitution. No one could be denied emergency medical care afterward, by rule of law. Yet even today, a two-tiered healthcare structure exists, with a national healthcare system benefitting primarily the poor, and an insurance-based system which benefits primarily the rich. Even today, South Africa struggles with this racist-based inequality.

A national healthcare system isn't just some liberal ideal. It benefits us all by making a healthier workforce, reducing crime, relieving homelessness, and increasing the lifespans of our elders who can provide their families free child care and other forms of support. We all live in a better world where, instead of the patient getting screwed over in favor of the shareholder, the taxpayer pays a little more to benefit the patient. In fact, we would all pay much less, just like other nations have been shown to do.

When your body is on the gurney, which system would you prefer?

Eric

**

Another School Shooting...

Another day, another school shooting.

Boy, do I wish that were an exaggeration! But it's not. According to security.org, 144 school shootings took place in 2024 as of May 29th. That's 150 days, and 144 school shootings! And the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports that there have been 323 school shootings in total this year, including this most recent one at Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, Wisconsin. That's 323 shootings in 345 days! Nearly 1 school shooting every single day this year!

What's markedly different with the Madison shooting this time is two things: 1) it was at a private, Christian school, 2) the shooter was a girl!

I'm not sure if all the previous shootings were done by boys, but I'm pretty sure they all were. (That's a lot of dross to research through. If I'm wrong, I'll own up to it.) Now, finally, a shooter was female.

This is not an area where I'm in favor of gender equality! Or rather, I am, provided that the number of shooters of any gender is zero.

And I'm sure the Christians are all saying, "What's going on, here? I thought only public school kids were susceptible to this kind of thing?"

Guess what, NRA-supporting Christians, some of your chickens have come home to roost.

To say that this gun-violence situation is getting out of hand is putting it mildly. The Right Wing Media Machine has so handicapped our ability to think, and so handcuffed our legislative process, that we can't even enact the most rudimentary of gun restrictions. Even bump-stocks are legal again.

It's not that the will power isn't there. 56% of Americans want stricter gun laws. But Congress doesn't fear that 56%. It fears the huge amounts of campaign donations it will lose if it pisses off the NRA.

And the NRA has been a primary cog in the Right Wing Media Machine for decades. It has been waning in its power as of late, but at its height, it had NRATV, which was blasting out misinformation about guns 24-7. It failed in 2019, but it still has a YouTube channel, and continues to mislead the public.

And more importantly, mislead the ultra-rich donors who are prone to such propaganda.

Beginning with the awful Columbine school shooting of 1999, there have been a total of 1,934 school shootings. And yes, that includes the most recent tragedy at Abundant Life Christian School. That averages to 77.36 school shootings per year. But that doesn't give the entire picture. School shootings waned during the Obama years (naturally), but then skyrocketed beginning in 2018 under Trump. That year saw a whopping 118 school shootings! There were 119 in 2019, 114 in 2020, and then that average more than doubled in 2021 with a massive 250 shootings! There were 155 in 2022, 198 in 2023...

And the 323 shootings so far this year.

We are literally seeing our kids mowed down every day! And we just stupidly elected the most pro-gun president ever.

In spite of the Right Wing Media Complex, and our inability to think our way out of a wet paper bag as a result, I'm of the opinion that we're finally beginning to see a turning point. The Left has been shocked out of its doldrums by the recent election results and (we hope) goaded into action. A whole bevy of leftists are finding themselves doing what they never thought they would ever have to do - buying a gun. And not just out of fear that Trump's brown-shirts may show up at any moment. They are arming themselves precisely for the reasons that the founding fathers advocated - to prevent an overbearing government from oppressing the people.

Of course, that won't do much. As I've argued for years, hand-held firearms, even automatic ones, are simply no match for drone technology, armored vehicles, super-surveillance, robotic warfare, cyber-warfare, napalm, etc., etc. Guns are antiquated. And, by extension, so is the 2nd Amendment.

But guns are still useful in small matters of self-defense, as we all know. And the Left is getting more of them.

Why does this matter? Because, interestingly, the most restrictive gun laws our nation ever saw came after the Black Panthers began arming themselves in the late 1960's. The Right loves being armed, but they get nervous when the Left starts doing so. The Trump administration may actually enact gun licensure and registration just to know where the armed leftists are - resulting in the unintentional result the political Left always wanted! Trump won't go so far as to actually confiscate guns outright, as he needs to walk a fine line between the NRA and not wanting leftists armed, but he will likely find an excuse to try. And he will fail. Because for once, the NRA will be on our side.

The net result should be a stalemate, preventing Trump's brown-shirts from trying anything stupid. Nobody wants mutually assured destruction.

Poetic, no?

And riding in the wake of this development will be the next generation of political leaders, the ones who grew up in schools doing regular "shooter drills," or outright being the survivors of school shootings. These young people, some of them having grown up with bullets literally whizzing past their heads, have a much different attitude towards guns than Boomers and X'ers do! Already, David Hogg, one of the survivors of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, is bidding to become the Vice Chair of the Democratic National Committee. He will likely win. The survivors of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting have already become voting-age adults, as have the survivors of the shootings in Uvalde, Texas, and Parkland, Florida. Gabby Giffords is still alive, and her NASA-astronaut husband, Mark Kelly, is an early favorite as a possible presidential candidate in 2028.

There is reason to hope.

If we ever achieve our #1 goal of breaking the Right Wing Media Machine, we might just manage to resuscitate some remnant of our democracy after it being declared clinically dead.

But to do this, we'd better keep our eyes open.

Eric

 **

Look at the image above. Someone posted it on BlueSky the other day. I imagine it's been shared quite a bit since then.

Seriously, this is one of the stupidest ideas I've ever seen! I don't know if it's the stupidest, but it certainly makes the top five.

Let's unpack this, shall we?

First, the time to bitch and scream and make a huge push about the 14th Amendment was way back during the primaries. But we didn't push hard enough. Yes, some of us did say something, and a couple of states even succeeded in temporarily ruling Trump off of the ballot, but the hyper-biased, not-so-Supreme Court struck that down. Democrats then went absolutely docile as they so often inappropriately do.

And then we basically did nothing. It seems to be what we do best.

A bunch of us (including me) complained loudly about this, but nobody actually did anything about it. (You should have listened to me - again.) Yet now, long after the election has been called, and Kamala has conceded, NOW we're going to dig in our heels!? Two whole YEARS after we should have done this!? Come on!

Now, let me quickly qualify that from a legal standpoint, the 14th Amendment DOES rule out Trump from taking office. It always did! It not only bars those who engaged in insurrection against the United States from holding office, it also bars those who give "aid or comfort to the enemies thereof." In other words, even if you can somehow argue that Trump technically didn't actually engage in insurrection outright, it simply cannot be denied that Trump gave aid and comfort to the January 6th rioters! That's undeniable! So he IS ruled out! Democrats who want this interpretation enforced are 110% correct.

But we missed our opportunity, damn it. Democrats should have sued to bar Trump in 2023, and even our current right-wing-biased SCOTUS wouldn't be able to argue around it. The language of the Amendment is clear. This should have been the Big Push. It really should also have been the #1 news feature over the last two years, and it should have been hammered upon viewers over and over again. (With a sane news media, it would have been.) People should have been questioning Trump, in every debate and every news interview, even and especially on Fox News, "Sir, even if you win, you can't take office. So why are you even bothering?" But no, the mass delusion went on, unchecked. The rule was ignored, for years, in clear violation of the Constitution. Trump won 49.9% of the vote, which was more than Kamala Harris got by a mere fraction, and swept all the swing states for the Electoral College.

We blew it. Not because Kamala ran a bad campaign, but because we didn't press our legal advantage. (And also let the right-wing misinformation media run unchecked, of course.)

And we're going to bitch NOW!? Long after Kamala's thrown in the towel? We're going to say that if the referee didn't call the foul in the first 10 minutes, that we would have somehow won the game?

Holy shit. I mean, if... dog... rabbit.

Seriously, enforcing the 14th Amendment now, long after the point at which we should have done so, will absolutely trigger nationwide pandemonium! MAGA-nutballs will be rioting everywhere, complaining loudly that the goalposts had been moved, and their guy was wrongfully being deposed.

And, for once, they would be correct. We let it slide for way, WAY too long! Our inaction created the new precedent (and president!). Enforcing the law now, no matter how just it may be, will look and sound less like a proper application of the Constitution, and more like sour grapes.

More importantly (and I cannot stress this enough), an impossibly unlikely success in applying the 14th Amendment now would oust Trump and almost certainly make J.D. Vance the goddamned president! And Vance is 1000 times worse than Trump! He has all of Trump's extremism, none of the dementia, none of the magnanimity, and he's young and competent! If you liken Trump to L. Ron Hubbard, Vance is David Miscavige!

We do NOT want to go down that road!

And then there's the fiscal stupidity of it all. At exactly the moment when Democrats need the most support, the most financial backing, and the most aggressive off-season campaigning, we're going to cut the money off?!

Yeah, yeah, I know, there's too much money in politics already, but you can bet your ass the Republican oligarchs aren't going to stop their contributions one damned bit! And while Democrats see their war-chests empty, Republicans will be laughing all the way to the bank! This is exactly like telling an army: "You're not going to receive any food rations until you defeat the enemy!" As if starving your own fighting force could ever win anything!

This is so stupid, it's Trump-level stupid. It's MAGA-Bubble-World stupid. It could only work if we had a media machine with the size and reach of the conservative propaganda-disguised-as-news. But we don't. That's territory currently held entirely by MAGA nutballs. And besides, we don't want news biased in our favor! We want unbiased news!

And we can't even reach that low bar.

As liberals, we tend to swim desperately after the ship long after its set sail. We're doing so now, and in an embarrassingly stupid way.

In the meantime, I hear Syria is drafting a new constitution. Maybe they can have ours?

We're not using it.

Eric

**

Now Is NOT The Time To Tune Out!

It's astonishing. Ratings for CNN and MSNBC have tanked, while ratings for Fox News has stayed roughly the same, or ticked up slightly.

According to Forbes Magazine, MSNBC and CNN both had their ratings drop by half in the weeks post-election, a steep decline given that MSNBC was the #2 rated news service behind Fox News leading up to the election.

So what's going on?

I think for the most part, people who really know what's going on, namely those who follow balanced and legacy media, see the upcoming disaster, and can't watch. It's much the same as when someone sees a kid dash into the street before an oncoming car. One has to turn one's head and cover one's eyes so as to avoid seeing the bloody, tragic aftermath.

I'm certain there's also a fatigue factor. Those who hate Trump are just plain sick and damned tired of hearing about him. So it's easier to turn the television off and just peek at the headlines a little bit later.

I get it.

Or, there's this factor: people would just rather tune out. They know the situation is shit, they can't do anything about it, and so watching Wrongway-Peachfuzz-Trump select his clown-college Cabinet is simply too depressing.

Oh yeah, depression. That's certainly also a factor. I mean, Michael Moore (for example) hasn't done a single podcast since November 12th, when he did nothing for almost an hour except weep and play old-time records from his collection.

But now is NOT the time to tune out! Now is the time to be alert and at our best!

Hear me, Michael? Get up off your ass! Break time is over! Back to work! We need you!

We need to be alert and vigilant for the same reason one needs to be alert when one is trapped in a speeding bus that's out of control. Maybe the steering is broken, or some malevolent jackass has taken the wheel, but in that situation, the last thing you need to do is curl up into a fetal position and moan. You need to have eyes forward! Maybe you can't wrangle the steering wheel back in time, but you can sure as hell see when it's time to jump off, tuck & roll, and hopefully land safely!

Tuning out is not an option. Checking out might need to be, but we're nowhere near that point, yet!

In a previous blog post, I gave five reasons one could be hopeful. I've since thought of a sixth: As we can still see, Trump is in cognitive decline. There's a better-than-fair chance that he will be too bad-addled to do much damage to our nation's systems as he slowly loses his marbles. So long as he gets his little foibles, he won't bother with the big ones.

Let his Chief of Staff run things. That doesn't sound so bad. IF we pay attention, IF we are vigilant, we might just get through this only slightly singed.

So on your feet, people! Eyes front! The election was lost precisely because too few people knew what was going on.

No need to add yourself to that number!

Eric

**

On The Shooting Of Brian Thompson

There's no shortage of people commenting upon the shooting of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson. Liberal media outlets are correctly pointing out how much this emphasizes the many injustices caused by having an insurance-based healthcare system. Conservative media outlets are emphasizing how senseless this heinous act is, and that murder is not justifiable, no matter the motivation.

Oddly enough, both sides are correct for once. Also, not so oddly, both sides miss the main point.

Which means, of course, I have to say it. And I'll get to that main point in a minute. (Or you could just scroll down to the bold-print section. But I think you'll like what I have to say as a preamble.)

I won't attempt to justify the vigilante who shot Thompson. Murder is murder. I won't cheer the fact that (finally!) a corporate insurance bigwig paid the true cost of healthcare theft. But I can certainly understand the temptation. We've all been screwed over by the insurance industry one way or another. We all have friends or family who have suffered greatly trying to pay premiums and out-of-pocket expenses - and that's just the medical aspect of insurance. I, myself, recently saw a coworker get denied short-term disability after a major operation because his condition had been diagnosed more than three months earlier, thus making the condition "pre-existing." After his vacation and sick time expired, the poor man had to do without pay while he recovered, all because he missed the fine print.

In Thompson's mild defense, I highly doubt he even fully comprehended what his policies have been doing at ground-level. Corporate executives seldom do. They see charts and graphs, not people. They hire thousands of others to handle the individual injustices, and even those people never have to deal with those they screw over face-to-face. On an intellectual level, Thompson probably knew what he was doing, but the lives he affected weren't real for him.  The denied claims aren't allowed to be personal. They are merely claim #005797432, or #050776484. Not human beings, just numbers on a computer screen, and ones he didn't even see. One mouse click by an underling - done.

But it was certainly personal for the shooter.

Like most CEO's, Thompson was probably a conservative; probably in favor of gun rights; and almost certainly opposed to government assistance of any kind - all while playing golf with a handicap (because it's not welfare when it's golf, right?). We don't really know for sure at this point. But nobody is talking about the lax gun laws which made it possible. I kind of wish more people were. But if we can't even get outraged over classrooms full of kids getting gunned down, seemingly year after year, why should we be surprised if no one gets outraged when a major Republican party campaign donor gets shot and killed?

And here, finally, is the main point: For generations, we have been living with a healthcare system, even post-Obamacare, in which one major illness could potentially wipe out 1) one's life-savings, 2) inheritance, and 3) kids' college tuition fund, all in one blow! If we lived in a sane world, we would be rioting to change that every day; to stop being the one developed nation on the goddamned planet to not have a nationalized healthcare system for everyone! And not just those over the age of 65!

But the Right Wing Media Machine is so widespread, the institutionalized disinformation so prevalent, that we cannot even think our way out of this wet paper bag.

Yeah, yeah, I know, government screws up everything. I won't deny it. In fact, government screws up so badly that the only thing which screws up worse is a goddamned insurance company!

And yet here we are, trusting that one, even worse, totally evil thing. Because we're so scared of the word, "socialism," we would rather watch one's entire family go broke while lying on the gurney.

Nothing, nothing will snap us out of our mass delusion on this! If we haven't woken up by now, no mere shooting of a CEO will make any difference. We will all get shafted for hundreds of thousands of dollars, even with good health coverage, and still scream afterward, "socialized medicine is evil!"

It's enough to give me an ulcer. Or a heart attack. But I don't dare get either of those - it will cost too much!

Forgive me as I echo Steve Martin in the movie Roxanne, but I have a dream. It's a simple dream, really. It's not an impossible dream. It's not even much of a challenge, really. All I want in this country is that, if (heaven forbid) a citizen gets a major illness, that person doesn't end up screaming at the top of his lungs, "For god's sake, whatever you do, don't take me to the hospital! It'll ruin me!"

The manhunt for Thompson's killer goes on. I'm reluctantly impressed at the shooter's meticulous planning and (if you'll forgive the pun) execution. 

But real healthcare for all is proving to be even more elusive.

Eric

**

We Need A Better Defense Of Trans People

In the Right's perpetual campaign to bash liberals, anti-trans sentiment has been an extremely effective weapon. Voters who might otherwise agree with Democrats on just about every issue imaginable are nevertheless driven away from their own best interests when Republicans brand everyone to the left of themselves as being in favor of Drag Queen Story Hour, or trans female athletes competing in sports, or 13-year-olds receiving double mastectomies, or whatever other outrage-porn the Right Wing Media Machine decides to push next.

Nearly all political analysts have cited one particular commercial aired by the Trump campaign. That commercial played a clip of Kamala Harris saying that she supported gender-affirming care for inmates in California, and from there associated this with her wanting to give such care to illegal immigrant criminals. "Kamala is for they/them," the ad said. "Donald Trump is for us."

We laughed at this. But it worked.

Now, the response to the accusation was actually pretty solid. Federal prisoners were offered gender-affirming care during Trump's administration too. On Fox News, Kamala called this "throwing stones while living in a glass house." Also, under Kamala's term as California AG, only two inmates ever received such treatment. TWO. The total number of inmates to receive any such medical treatment as of December 2022 was only 20, and since ICE has a policy of incarcerating illegal immigrants as briefly as possible, it's almost certain that none of those was an illegal immigrant.

Yet none of this gained any traction. Nothing resonated. Part of this, of course, is because the Right Wing Media Machine has utterly taken over. But the other part is simply this:

We need a better defense of trans people!

I feel I'm uniquely qualified to bridge the gap on this particular issue. I'm a gen-X'er, part of that older generation which truly struggles with understanding the whole trans thing. What's more, I was once a fundamentalist Christian, ticketed for the ministry throughout my youth (though I've done a 180 since). Admittedly, the whole subject still seems a bit odd to me. Thus, as a self-described "Christian in recovery," I can clearly relate to how the anti-trans arguments resonate with believers. To their mindset, gender fluidity is utterly and monstrously alien. I understand how certain people, belonging to a community so traditional that short hair/skirts on women are still frowned upon, will almost certainly look upon "transality" (for want of a better word) as insane in the extreme, and those who accept it with tolerance, doubly so. For them, their pronouns are, "What the fuck are you even talking about?!" and "Get the hell away from me!"

So I fully comprehend how well the cards are stacked against us. We can't even try to mount an argument without automatically being seen with suspicion and revulsion.

But here's an attempt anyway:

Back in 2004, the issue that swept George W. Bush into a second term was opposition to gay marriage. It, like gender fluidity, filled conservatives with utter revulsion. But only several years later, by 2011, the issue was largely settled. The vast majority of Americans slowly came to accept gay marriage. Why? It wasn't just because of a 5 to 4 Supreme Court ruling which legalized it. It was because young people, many of whom had gay friends or were gay or bisexual themselves, rebelled against their elders. Usually, such social rebellion loses and the next generation settles into middle-aged capitulation. But this time, the youth movement won. The parents who rejected gay marriage came to accept it, based largely on wanting to accept their own children and their far-out opinions. Until, that is, those opinions stopped seeming quite so "far-out."

The trend lines are similar today, 20 years later. The youth of America, Millennials and Gen-Alpha mostly, are so strongly pro-trans that they will brook no argument on the matter. (Which is part of why Kamala didn't take a stronger mitigating stance regarding gender-affirming medical care. She knew if she offended the youth vote, she didn't stand a chance.) That insistence, like the one of 20 years before, will turn the tide of public opinion.

But that's tomorrow. For today, the argument is simply this:

Fundamentally, being trans is just like being gay.

Well, not just like being gay, naturally. But what I mean is, someone with gender dysphoria is born, not made. Yes, as humans, there is a spectrum. Yes, the nature-vs-nurture arguments abound. Yes, there are borderline cases. But for the most part, when a person's rebellion against their birth-gender is 1) consistent, 2) persistent, and 3) insistent, it's nature.

When society sees a trans person as having a condition on-par with being a gay person, the hard-won tolerance gay people have largely achieved comes along for the ride.

But my argument has a second part to it: We also need to finally loosen the fuck up! We'll never get anywhere if we regard those with an innate revulsion towards trans people as nothing but fools and morons. That kind of attitude never convinced anyone of anything. Indeed, it will just entrench the opposition further.

I'll use myself as an example, here. You see, I really don't know what to do yet about the problem of female trans athletes competing in sports. I freely admit I'm still trying to find a good solution to that one. (If I find one, I'll let you know.) But I've encountered so much blowback for this temporary middle-ground that I truly wonder about my friends on the Political Left. Can't I even take some time to process?

We'll never get anywhere if we can't even have a discussion.

Or then there's this one, already almost 10 years old: Back in 2015, on the podcast version of this blog (which I might resurrect someday, who knows?), I made a seemingly low-key joke about Caitlyn Jenner. My wisecrack at the time was, now that Bruce is Caitlyn, she's a woman over the age of 60. And as we all know, the media just doesn't talk about celebrity women over the age of 60. Therefore, to be truly fair to Caitlyn as a woman, the media must completely shut up about her.

That was reasonably funny. I got a few laughs. But I also got so much blowback about it that I'm still stunned. Apparently, Caitlyn has been the brunt of so many trans jokes that the pro-trans side drew a line in the sand: No joke about her, no matter how low-key, was even allowed to be funny. On the one hand, I see their point.

On the other hand, we will NEVER win any election again with an attitude like that!

So that's my take: Use the trans-like-gay angle as a jiu-jitsu move, using its weight to pull the opposition over to our side.

That, and don't treat people like absolute dirt for having a contrary opinion.

But that should go without saying.

Don't agree? Change my mind.

Eric

**

Why Biden's Pardon Of Hunter Makes Sense

So Joe Biden has given a presidential pardon to his son Hunter, in spite of saying numerous times that he would not do so.

Yeah, it's a flip-flop. A broken promise. And a bit of naked nepotism, too. But I think it makes perfect sense. Here's why:

To hear Biden's own reasons, he said, “I believe in the justice system, but as I have wrestled with this, I also believe raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice.”

Interestingly, that is precisely the same reason Trump will give when pardoning January 6th rioters, various other toadies, and himself.

Except that whereas Biden's complaints are legitimate, Trump's are bogus.

But that's beside the point. Biden, like many of us, knows that a world of abuse is coming. Trump will abuse his powers for revenge and personal gain as much as he is able, and given his cabinet nominations, it's clear that he wants to maximize that abuse. There will be hurt, there will be pain, and there will be chaos.

And in that coming chaos, the only thing that will be left that will truly matter to Joe Biden is an old man's undying love towards his son.

So yeah, I don't blame him. Trump is about to break all sorts of promises. That's what he does, and what he's always done. So one more broken promise by Biden really doesn't matter much in the grand scheme of the corruption which is about to dominate the White House.

I only hope he also gives a blanket pardon do anyone else Trump deems an "enemy of the state" as a means of blunting the upcoming abuse of the justice system.

Eric

**

What Was The "Little Secret" Trump Had With Mike Johnson?

With so many families getting together over Thanksgiving weekend, there will undoubtedly be a lot of discussion about politics.

And a lot of arguing, I expect.

Not like anyone really needs more fodder for discussion, but here's a really juicy tidbit of a question that families with that in-your-face-about-Trump uncle (and let's face it, there aren't many families who don't have at least one of those) will appreciate:

Back on October 27, during the now infamous rally at Madison Square Garden, Trump said that he and Mike Johnson had a "little secret." He promised to tell what it was after the election.

Well, the election is over. So what the hell was it?

Only two days afterward (which is, you know, before the election was over), Mike Johnson tried saying that it was a tactic being used to "get out the vote." Trump campaign press secretary Karoline Leavitt suggested something very similar, saying that it referred to the "countless telerallies reaching millions of Americans across the country in key regions that also helps bolster Republicans in congressional races."

Well, maybe.

Certainly it's no secret that the Trump campaign had a program to target disaffected male voters, ask them what specifically they didn't like about the Biden administration, and then target that. It apparently was a very effective tactic. But was this the real secret?

We may never know what it was, because after Mike Johnson broke Trump's promise on his behalf and gave an explanation well before the election, Trump has refused to comment on it after the election, breaking his promise directly.

What was that "little secret?"

I don't have a good answer for you. It could range anywhere from Musk's takeover of Twitter, to cyber-fraud, to undermining the certification of the vote at the State level.

But the speculation about it should make the potatoes and gravy go down a little easier as that crazy uncle struggles to come up with an explanation.

Eric

**

Biden Can End Ukraine's War Now (And Should!)

Ukraine seems headed to defeat. At the very least, it faces a Trump-sponsored settlement that gives Russia complete control over much of the eastern territories, if not all of them. At the worst, Trump backs Putin as Russia drives their forces straight into Kyiv and takes over the whole country.

I'm sure that's part of why Biden finally allowed Ukraine to use long-range missiles built in the U.S. To be sure, Russia sending North Korean troops into Ukraine certainly didn't help matters, either.

But here's the thing: I think Biden should use these last two months to really get tough with Russia and force a complete withdrawal from Ukraine altogether - before Trump even gets sworn in. If Biden acts now, it's very possible. Once done, we fast-track Ukraine into NATO, and then there's nothing Trump can do about it.

Well, except maybe back out of NATO altogether, but that's a travesty for another day.

"But wait!" you might ask, "If Biden gives Putin an ultimatum, won't that risk sparking a nuclear war?"

I don't think so. Here's why:

When we were about to send financial aid to Ukraine, Putin threatened the possibility of nuclear retaliation. We sent aid anyway, and nothing happened.

When we were about to send ordinance to Ukraine, Putin threatened the possibility of nuclear retaliation. We sent ordinance anyway, and nothing happened.

When we were about to send tanks to Ukraine, Putin threatened the possibility of nuclear retaliation. We sent tanks anyway, and nothing happened.

When we were about to send jet planes to Ukraine, Putin threatened the possibility of nuclear retaliation. We sent planes anyway, and nothing happened.

Putin again threatened the possibility of nuclear retaliation if Ukraine ever fired U.S.-made long-range missiles into Russia. Well, Ukraine just did.

And again, nothing happened.

At this point, calling Putin's bluff is almost a given. He knows damned well that when the first nuke hits Kyiv, the second nuke will hit Moscow.

He won't escalate. Because he can't.

It's time for Biden to move the 5th Fleet into the Black Sea, and say to Putin, "All right, jackass, you've had your fun, now get your goddamned troops back over onto your side of the border - NOW! INCLUDING Crimea!"

After all, Putin can't even defeat Ukraine. What on earth would make him think he could defeat Ukraine AND us?

The poetic tragedy of it all is that Biden has the will to do this, but probably not the guts.

Trump has the guts to do this, but definitely not the will.

Who knows? Maybe Biden will decide to leave it all on the field on the way out.

Then again, my optimism has taken a hit since November 5th.

Eric

**

Twitter Derangement Syndrome

Here's a thought shared by many:

Social media is driving us all insane.

And by "insane," I don't mean a little neurotic. I mean foaming at the mouth, bat-shit, nucking futz!

According to Tristan Harris, the man behind the landmark documentary, "The Social Dilemma," there are entire programs of study, at Stanford, at Harvard, at many other prestigious universities, wholly devoted to the study of what grabs human attention, and keeps it.

Not classes. Programs.

These schools of thought have been training the corporate leaders which drive our social media algorithms to gear them solely toward increasing engagement. The algorithms behind Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, and many others, don't give a damn about what drives the engagement. They only care that the user is engaged, and that such engagement increases. If it increases due to right-wing extremism, or conspiracy mongering, or religious zealotry, or anger, or fear, or outright lies, all of that in ancillary to the machine that drives the increased engagement. The user is interacting more - fuck everything else.

Your commitment to the social media is all that matters.

Nowhere is the impact of this more evident than the cesspool that Twitter/X has become. Elon Musk bought it up, lost a crap-ton of money on it, but gained an outsized influence upon one of the biggest social media platforms. It paid off, in as much as Musk was (arguably) able to influence the 2024 election more than anyone realized. It goes without saying that his opinions, forced upon all users whether they liked it or not, were not of the pre-Trump quality that we came to expect from Elon Musk before.

(I mean, let's be honest: Electric cars, space exploration... these are not the sorts of things pursued by retrograde Christian-nationalist dipshits marching people back towards the Middle Ages. Elon Musk once had clout among those who enjoyed watching TED and the Big Bang Theory. How the mighty have fallen...)

But this happened because first Elon Musk himself was sucked in by Twitter algorithms. They radicalized him. And when the Babylon Bee had its account suspended on Twitter, he hauled off and bought the entire platform.

In other words, Elon himself so loved the thing which poisoned his mind, he took over the whole thing. Just so that his favorite radicalization memes wouldn't get blocked from his eyes.

Or yours.

Social media has been very effective at spreading a particularly pernicious idea, that "Trump Derangement Syndrome," (a.k.a. "TDS") is actually the derangement caused by the rejection of Trump, rather than the purely sane reaction to someone so dastardly. Such a purely upside-down mindset could only have been promulgated by the unholy alliance between the Right-Wing Media Machine, and the increasingly powerful forces of social media.

But I have a radical proposal regarding "TDS." Given that right-wing radicalization is so often brought about by social media, "TDS" should be re-branded as "Twitter Derangement Syndrome."

(Yeah, yeah, I know, it's actually "X." But no. Just.... no.)

We may not be able to fully undo all the damage that social media has done to the conscience of the general public. But we can do one small thing to reclaim what we've lost down that hellhole. We can at least re-designate "TDS" as "Twitter Derangement Syndrome."

It seems the least we can do.

And it's a lot closer to the truth.

Eric

**

Stop Saying "Mandate!"

I said this back in 2004 when George W. Bush won reelection (and I wish I'd had a blog back then so I could cite it):

51% is not a mandate!

Like in 2004, Republicans won consistently, but by the skin of their teeth. Ohio, not Pennsylvania, was the all-important swing state back then, and Bush took it by a narrow margin - narrow enough that John Kerry didn't concede until a few days after the election, when it finally became clear that Bush's narrow margin wasn't going to shrink appreciably.

Back then, just like now, Republican advocates on all the talking-heads shows were saying "mandate!" "mandate!" as if they'd somehow won by a huge margin.

Except they didn't. They squeaked by. They just did so homogenously.

The most recent example of someone who actually had a mandate is Barack Obama in 2008. He won many states no Democrat had in decades, and was handed commanding majorities in both the House and Senate. But on balance, despite the huge Electoral College margin and Congressional margin, Obama only had 53% of the vote in 2008. He couldn't truthfully claim a mandate, though some did.

Ronald Reagan certainly had a mandate in 1984. When he defeated Walter Mondale, he won most U.S. states and had nearly 59% of the popular vote, with 97.6% of the Electoral College.

Now THAT, my friends, is what a mandate truly looks like. Nowhere near, and nothing like, what Trump eeked by on.

Richard Nixon had a mandate in 1972, with 60% of the popular vote and 96.7% of the Electoral College.

Are you paying attention, class?

But not long before, the Democrats were handed a mandate in 1964 as Lyndon Johnson won 61.1% of the popular vote, and 96.7% of the Electoral College. Dwight Eisenhower had a mandate in 1956 with 57.4% of the popular vote. Franklin Delano Roosevelt had a mandate in 1936 when he won 60.8% of the vote.

As of this writing, Donald Trump only won 49.98% of the vote. Not even cracking 50%! Kamala Harris got 48.4% of the vote. The rest voted for someone else.

So don't give me this "mandate" bullshit! More than half of all voters chose someone else! If the American people wanted to give Trump a mandate, he would have gotten at least 55% or higher.

Eric

**

It Was Never Biden's Inflation

What causes inflation?

It's been abundantly clear, even before the debacle which was this past election, that voters really don't know the answer to this question. Instead, they blame whoever happens to be in the Oval Office at the time the inflation happens, which is neither fair nor informed. So, as a recap, let me just remind everybody out there what exactly happened to drive prices up in 2021.

It had nothing to do with Biden.

It had everything to do with Trump, and his mismanagement of the Covid crisis, compounded by Vladimir Putin's war with Ukraine, and a whole host of other mishaps Biden had no control over.

People generally don't know this, but a president has very little control over an economy. The Federal Reserve has more direct control through use of interest rates, and that's rather like trying to steer a barge with a single oar.

To give you a good sense of how the Trump/Putin inflation happened we need to review economics 101 to see how exactly inflation works. Then we will go over a timeline of how the events transpired to drive up prices.

Causes of inflation:

Supply shock - When something disrupts supply, such as a natural disaster, or foreign government intervention (war, embargo, etc.).

Demand shock - Something triggers high demand, such as when a central bank lowers interest rates too much, or a government raises spending too high.

Cost-push - When the cost of producing goods and services rises, forcing businesses to raise their prices.

Demand-pull - When the demand for goods and services in the economy exceeds the economy's ability to produce them.

There are others, of course, but those are the main ones.

Now let's see these in action. You can follow along with the following graph showing how inflation transpired during this time period. (Source, Statista. Click here to see.)

Stimulus Round 1 (Trump), March, 2020 - The CARES Act is passed in Washington. Millions of Americans received stimulus checks, $1,200 per taxpayer and $500 per child. That, and/or PPP loans. But due to the Covid shutdown, this money was either used for the sustaining of businesses or personal finances, or saved for later. Since those who saved it couldn't really go out and spend it anyway, that happened for many Americans. Inflation wasn't affected - yet.

Stimulus Round 2 (Trump), December 2020 - The Consolidated Appropriations Act is passed. $600 per taxpayer plus $600 per child. Again, this money is used either for basic upkeep or saved.

Also, December 2020, Pfizer and Moderna receive FDA approval for their Covid-19 vaccines. Emergency vaccinations begin in earnest for first-responders.

January/February 2021, vaccine approval is granted for anyone in a food-related industry. (Here's where I got mine, as I was employed at a manufacturer of spices and supplements at the time.)

February 19, 2021 - Sudden cold snap reaches as far south as Texas. Food and fuel shortages result. Gas prices begin to rise.

March 2021 - More and more people get vaccinated. The pandemic feels like it's ending.

**Note: Here's where people stop hunkering down and start spending some of their saved money. Demand pressure goes way up.

Stimulus Round 3 (Biden), March 2021 - The American Rescue Act is passed. $1,400 per taxpayer, $1,400 per child.

Demand increases, but supply is short due to the lockdown causing businesses to pare back. They begin to respond, but it's too little, too late. Inflation rises to 4%.

**Note: This is both Demand-Shock and Demand-Pull. Admittedly, on this part, Biden has a portion of blame, since Trump did the first two stimulus bills, and Biden did this third one. The extra stimulus was probably too steep and too late in light of the Covid crisis beginning to ebb. But the dollar amounts weren't really significant for long-term inflation. That came later.

April, 2021 - With many Americans now vaccinated, people are hopeful for a return to normal. They begin going out more, and spending more. But supply chains are still limited. China's zero-Covid policy is still in place, and businesses are still trying to ramp back up to normal.

More buyers, less goods to buy. So naturally, right around here, inflation rises to 5.4%. It hovers there for several months. And there it would have stayed or come down, except for what happened next.

May, 2021 - A Coronavirus surge tears through India, causing manufacturing delays across a wide spectrum of industries.

June, 2021 - West Coast wildfires rage so widely that smoke changes the color of the sky in Chicago and Cleveland. This further complicates supply chains and prices.

July 29, 2021 - The Ever Given container ship becomes wedged in the Suez Canal, causing huge supply chain disruptions globally.

August 2021 - Hurricane Ida hits the southern coast, closing ports and further disrupting fuel and supply chains.

August, 2021 - the Meishan terminal in Ninbo, China, a major shipping center, shuts down for two weeks. The Shanghai Airport terminal also shuts down, further causing shipping delays and price increases.

** And all of these things add up to Supply-Shock and Cost-Push. With supply chains being disrupted right before stores began prepping for the peak seasons of Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas, prices really start to climb.

September, 2021 - As China's shipping re-opens, and American ports struggle to find workers, a huge backlog of container ships crowds up the Pacific along the west coast.

October 1, 2021 - Vietnam ends it's weeks-long shutdown. Goods long delayed begin to flood out of port, further complicating the backlog in the U.S.

February, 2022 **The BIG One** - Vladimir Putin sends troops into Ukraine, kicking off a war which hasn't concluded yet. Because Ukraine is one of the largest suppliers of grain, this significantly impacts grocery prices.

March, 2022 - In response to Putin's war in Ukraine, huge sanctions are levied against Russia. Gas pipelines from Russia to Europe are shut down, leading to a massive energy crisis, especially for Germany, which was heavily dependent upon Russian gas. The economic impact on global prices is huge.

** More Supply-Shock and Cost-Push. By July of 2022, inflation has soared to 9%. I call this the "Putin Peak," because that inflation ties directly to Putin's stupid war. But honestly, given how severe the other supply chain shocks were, I'm surprised inflation wasn't much, much worse. It's a credit to Biden to have contained it so well.

From February to June of 2023 - inflation comes way down, eventually settling at around 3.5%. After that, it gradually ticked downward until it reached today's low of 2.1%.

WITH Putin's war in Ukraine still raging on! WITH Israel retaliating against the attacks on October 6, 2023, with an all-out war on Gaza!

Biden gets zero credit.

So, there's your instant replay. The two biggest factors in this are 1) Trump's mismanagement of the Coronavirus pandemic, and 2) Putin's war in Ukraine. Together with a bevvy of mishaps that were out of Biden's control, they are what was responsible for the inflation of 2021 & 2022. The fact that inflation remained low throughout 2023 and even lower in 2024 doesn't seem to have gotten anyone's attention at all.

Nearly two whole years of inflationary control. WITH two wars on!

In spite of this, Biden got all the blame. Trump, for all his clusterfucking, got the credit.

Because people didn't remember the clusterfucking. They remembered the stimulus checks.

That, and the Right-Wing Media Machine kept blasting falsehoods about everything from trans athletes to fake crime numbers for immigrants.

So don't ever let anyone tell you it was Biden's inflation. Biden did an incredible job in the face of some pretty damned steep obstacles.

History will record this, even if what passes for our current "news" media does not.

Eric

**

Right-Wing Media IS "Mainstream" Now

The Right-Wing Media Machine regularly rails against mainstream media, often calling it "lame-stream media," or even "the real fake news," as Sean Hannity often calls it.

Trouble is, that form of news is no longer "mainstream." Not even close.

Fox News currently occupies nearly 50% of all cable news viewership, according to Nielsen ratings. Which means everything else, CNN, MSNBC, Newsmax, OAN, all fits into that remaining half, and only one of those is ostensibly progressive-leaning. Newsmax and OAN carry roughly 9% of cable news viewership, meaning the right-wing side of biased news is only just shy of 60%. With CNN twisting in the wind like a weather vane, it's fair to say that two-thirds of cable news is now right-wing.

Newspapers are dead, with most of them having been bought up by oligarchs and hedge funds, stripped down to their barest essentials, and most of their reporters shown the door. We famously saw the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post refuse to endorse Kamala Harris, not because the staff felt this was right, but because of owners' edict. Both publications suffered backlash, but the owners are rich enough not to care.

Radio? According to the Center for American Progress, a startling 91% of political talk radio is conservative-leaning.

Television? Forget it. Roughly 40% of all local television networks are owned by Sinclair, a right-leaning broadcast company. True, they've been looking to sell off about 30% of what they currently own, but they're still dominant. Right behind them is Nextstar Media Group, which owns nearly all the rest, and dominates all television media in general with roughly 70% of all television stations, local or otherwise.

And then came recently this report from CNN, showing how 40% of young voters, particularly young men, get their news from social media sources, most of which lean to the right. In particular, X.com and Joe Rogan were frequently cited as news sources.

In fact, I think we can safely say that when Elon Musk blew millions on buying Twitter, which seemed to be a horribly stupid waste of money, he was wasting all that cash to have an outsized effect on the 2024 election.

And it worked!

And yes, everybody of sound mind is currently leaving X.com. An "X-odus," if you will (I wish I'd been the one to come up with that). But, as frequently is the case among us liberals, it's too little, too late. And what's left of X.com will continue as an even more depraved right-wing conspiracy-theory-ridden hellhole than ever before.

And that's before factoring in all the other social and digital media outlets which are right-wing. Or, for that matter, factoring all the foreign propaganda (looking at you, Russia & China) which poisons the social media of even balanced platforms.

Let's face it, Kamala lost for precisely the reasons I outlined in my earlier blog post.

Two words: Institutionalized disinformation.

So we need to re-define our terms. "Mainstream media" must now be regarded as the media of the political right. "The liberal media" simply no longer exists. Frankly, it hasn't existed for a very long time. Everything else which has heretofore been regarded as "mainstream," must now assume a different name. Legacy media seems to be the term which is winning out. And most of it isn't even left-leaning. The bulk of it is just the balanced media; the responsible media.

There is no counterweight.

So we're basically fucked as far as media is concerned. The oligarchs came in, and took away freedom of speech by buying up all the free speech outlets they could, then filling our ears with outrage porn aimed at defaming the Left. There's no way we can fix this easily. And we can't re-balance the airwaves by simply re-launching Air America Radio (remember that one?), or somehow bolstering NPR, or turning to the quixotic podcasts done by Keith Olbermann and Thom Hartmann.

We need to pass some laws requiring balance!

I'm not advocating censorship, any more than it is censorship to require a food product to faithfully report a package's contents on its label. The law recognizes that if a food company mislabels its contents, the consumer who buys it could get seriously sick. We need a similar set of laws governing our news outlets, and for precisely the same reason.

No one should be able to mislabel propaganda as "news" anymore! That's simply fraud!

I look forward to the possibility that Fox News might get forced to change its name to "Fox Infotainment" or some such. Certainly, the likes of Hannity, Gutfeld, and others will continue to spew their liberal-hatred as much as they are able.

But at least they might do so with a little less legitimacy. With reduced artificial authority.

No more institutionalized disinformation! It is our #1 enemy and, assuming we ever get another shot, stopping it must be our #1 priority.

Eric

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Don't Call RFK Jr A "Vaccine Skeptic"

I am a Skeptic.

I say this using a capital "S," because it is not just a self-description, it is a creed. I've been part of the Skeptic movement for over almost 30 years now, having joined it in 1997 shortly after the untimely death of my hero (and hopefully yours, too) Dr. Carl Sagan. I was a member of the Center for Scientific Inquiry (CSI) way back when it was still called "CSICOP" (the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims Of the Paranormal).

So it absolutely frosts me when everyone in the media keeps describing RFK Jr. as a "vaccine skeptic."

He is no such thing.

A Skeptic (capital "S") doesn't dismiss claims outright. A Skeptic investigates. A Skeptic confirms. Even if the claim is absurd, the Skeptic investigates anyway. If someone claims to have seen a UFO, the Skeptic will not simply dismiss it outright. He will look into it. He will likely find a much more rational explanation than our humble planet being visited by extraterrestrials, but he will at least take a look. Or at least count on the appointment of someone else (usually from Skeptical Inquirer magazine) to go take a look.

The classic example of this is Joe Nickell, who regularly made cable TV paranormal shows as the guy who looked into claims of haunted houses (back when cable TV was still a thing) and debunked them. Like the gang from Scooby Doo, he always found a human explanation rather than an actual ghost, but he never guffawed or ridiculed people for their beliefs. Instead he looked at the evidence, and found a natural rather than a supernatural reason for a seemingly ghostly encounter. In nearly all cases, the ghost-claimant acknowledged that Nickell was probably right.

Rejecting a claim outright with no investigation is not skepticism. It is cynicism.

In RFKJ's case, it is even worse than cynicism. RFKJ has taken a position of faith regarding vaccines. He ignores the mountains of evidence showing how vaccines are effective at preventing disease and instead embraces wild conspiracy theories which were debunked long ago. Such as claiming thimerosal, used in tiny amounts as a vaccine preservative, causes autism in children. He ignores that no vaccines administered to children under the age of 6 ever contains thimerosal, and hasn't done so for generations. He also ignores that thimerosal uses ethyl mercury, which the human body can expel in waste. Methyl mercury, an entirely different molecule, cannot be expelled from the body. RFKJ regularly confuses or conflates the two. What's more, any vaccine which contains thimerosal has it in only about 50 micrograms. For scale, that's roughly the equivalent of eating 2 cans of tuna.

I don't eat a lot of tuna, but I've certainly eaten a lot more than 2 cans' worth in my lifetime. I suspect you have, too.

RFKJ is no more a skeptic than a creationist is a "skeptic" regarding evolution, or a flat earther is a "skeptic" regarding our spherical planet. He is no more a "skeptic" than someone who denies we landed on the Moon in 1969, or that the Holocaust ever happened in Nazi Germany. These are conspiracy theories -- cults of the fantastical which prey upon those who are prone to jumping to conclusions.

In taking a position of faith regarding vaccine denialism, and founding an organization to promote and bolster his mad claims, he has literally made himself a cult leader.

So call him a denier. Call him a crackpot. Call him a fool for misusing his worm-eaten brain.

But please, stop calling him a "skeptic."

You soil the word each time you make that mistake.

Eric

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Why Biden Met With Trump

A lot of people were incensed by the above photograph. Those who know Trump effectively wants dictatorial control see this as a betrayal. Why would Biden agree to shake this monster's hand?

I found this picture offensive, too. I mean, who has a roaring fireplace in 50-degree weather?

But here's where Biden's integrity and intelligence outshines many of us. He recognizes that a peaceful transfer of power will ensure less animosity between Trump and the Democratic Party. He knows that if Democrats are to get another shot at all, it will depend upon Trump not seeing all Democrats as enemies. It will depend upon him merely circumventing the process rather than destroying it.

I know, I know, it sounds very much like the "roll into a fetal-position ball and the bear will get bored with you and go away" sort of defense. It's admittedly weak sauce. I get it. But honestly, it's one of the few options we've got with a realistic shot at working.

In my earlier blog post, I pointed out that Trump may well leave the democratic process alone so long as he gets his own way - for now. This gives us a narrow lane of opportunity to prevent a complete slip into fascism. I know perfectly well that J.D. Vance will not be so magnanimous, which makes our situation even more precarious. Vance outright admitted he is a fan of dictatorial systems.

Which leads me to part 2 of this blog post. I normally ignore the various emails I get wanting me to send money to them. A lot of these so-called funding drives and/or petitions are scams. But this one especially drew my ire:

That is exactly the ONE thing we can't do!

This junk email came from the Progressive Turnout Project. DON'T sign their petition! DON'T give them any money! This petition is so stupid I can't even begin to say. 

1) We're getting this email NOW?! AFTER the goddamned election?! I know we liberals are great at swimming after the ship long after it's set sail, but damn!

2) Why the hell should we expel Trump (assuming that's even possible) just to supplant him with J.D. Vance?

Why exchange an incompetent, hopefully temporary, dictator with a more competent, permanent one?!

Hang in there, folks. These are precarious times where we have to navigate some very treacherous waters. We cannot afford any more stupid mistakes. The only way we survive is by outsmarting the opposition.

And possibly outlasting them, too.

We need to use all our defenses, whether they be kindness or camouflage.

Eric

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