Richest man acts like Congress works for him

My latest consumer annoyance: Perhaps a couple decades ago, when computer printers became inexpensive their makers realized they could turn the ink into a profit center by shifting some of the electronics into the ink cartridge, which is why we’re supposed to recycle them rather than throw them out. Though my computer is new I kept the old printer, at least for now, which means its about a decade old. And now a particular problem is magnified. Another way printer companies can boost profits is to require all three color inks be bought together. That might make sense if one routinely used all three colors in equal amounts. But I doubt that is true and certainly isn’t in my case. I use ink slowly, so slowly that I frequently have to run the process to clean the ink nozzles before printing. Today I had to do that twice. I’m quite sure I’m losing more ink in the cleaning than actually gets on a page. Today’s cleaning emptied the magenta cartridge (already known to be low) and I went out to buy more. Recently I replaced the yellow cartridge and now with today’s purchase I have two yellow cartridges I haven’t used yet. I wish I was allowed to buy the colors separately. Another annoyance: This printer, when low or out of black ink, will allow me to simulate black using the color inks. But when a color ink runs out it won’t let me print at all, even if the document is entirely black. The federal government runs out of money at midnight tonight, so there has been lots of drama getting a funding bill passed. And much of that drama comes from Republicans. Oliver Willis of Daily Kos reported that a bipartisan spending bill was in negotiations for several weeks. It wasn’t just a Republican bill because Johnson knew his Freedom Caucus would reject it and he needed Democratic support. Then Elon Musk inserted himself into the process (it’s about time I have a nickname for him, similar to Moscow Mitch, the nasty guy, or the Pandemic Prince – suggestions?). Over several hours Musk tweeted to Johnson (of course, in a way that is public) about how bad Musk thinks that bill is. No surprise that Musk didn’t describe it accurately (some say he lied about it). Musk even declared any member of Congress who voted for it deserves to be voted out in two years. Does he not know that senators have six year terms? After a while the nasty guy joined the conversation, taking Musk’s side. But Musk drove the conversation and Johnson gave the appearance of subservience.

Previous reports have indicated that sources close to Trump are already upset at the level of influence Musk wields, with some describing him as a “co-president.” If Musk is now dictating the House agenda on his own, is he now the shadow speaker as well?

Willis wrote again to say this is a spending revolt led by billionaires. Musk’s partner in the Department of Government Efficiency, Vivek Ramaswamy, also condemned the bill. Some Republicans are willing to give them what they want – though their working class base may suffer the consequences. In a third post Willis reported Johnson dropped that bill and crafted a replacement. The nasty guy reportedly thought the bipartisan bill was fine, until Musk objected to it. A moment here. Isn’t Biden still president? Don’t these spending bills need Biden’s signature? Democrats started talking about President Musk, both to mock him and to make the nasty guy feel a bit more insecure, with hopes he’ll boot Musk. Willis posted more of Democrats’ condemnation of the situation. Walter Einenkel of Kos reported that the bill was replaced with one more to the nasty guy wishes. He wanted raising the debt limit to be added. Is he assuming his desired policies will make the national debt go up? But Rep. Chip Roy wants to force spending cuts now. He refused to go along with raising the debt limit. Of course, that put him the nasty guy’s crosshairs. That debt limit will need to be raised early next year. An Associated Press article posted on Kos reported this bill went up for a vote and was soundly defeated. Democrats voted against it, refusing to accommodate the sudden demands (and because the spending priorities they had negotiated, like support for farmers, had been stripped out). Several Republicans also voted against it. Alex Samuels of Kos reported that a few House members are floating the idea that Musk be named Speaker when the position is up for a vote in January. The Constitution does not specify the Speaker be a member of the House. Republicans have a slim margin and several have already said they won’t vote for Johnson. With this idea floating around several have said they won’t vote for Musk. The news today is that the debt limit was taken out of the bill and the remainder voted on this evening. It passed. Shutdown averted. I’m puzzled why, with Musk’s and the nasty guy’s preferences defeated, Johnson didn’t go back to the bipartisan bill. Perhaps he took Musk’s meddling as a chance to stiff the Democrats? In a pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin included a tweet by Charlie Sykes:

Elon Musk has committed 2 cardinal sins in Trump world. He upstaged him; and is now responsible for an embarrassing defeat. (and Trump must absolutely hate the whole President Musk thing.)

Down in the comments is a cartoon by Graeme Keyes showing Musk, JD Vance (I think), and the nasty guy wearing red “MAGI” hats and holding containers labeled “Gold,” “Frankly Dense,” and “Mire.” A big part of this story is that Musk, who is a private citizen with no legal role in government, inserted himself into Congressional affairs. And House leadership paid attention. Granted, Musk is the richest man in the world, which appears to give him the belief that Congress works for him. Also, granted, the nasty guy has appointed him to lead a department – outside and unofficial – to advise on deep spending cuts. But the guy who is making that appointment is not yet president. A few days ago I wrote the House had passed a $895 billion defense spending bill. In addition to funding the military (likely with more money than the military needs and can reasonably use) it has several other good and important things. It also has a provision that bans transgender minors using the military’s health insurance for gender-affirming care. Alix Breeden of Kos reported that the bill has passed the Senate and is heading to Biden’s desk. All those other good things, plus the need to get the bill passed before Congress goes home for Christmas, means the Senate passed it while leaving the transgender care ban in place. Biden probably doesn’t have time to veto the bill and demand Congress take out that provision. And soon Republicans will be in control and won’t want to or need to take it out. A spokesperson for Republican sen. Joni Ernst said the ban was about “trimming the fat.” Given that transgender children are likely about 1% of military offspring, the cost of this care is minuscule in a budget of almost $0.9 trillion. I’m sure there is other things, like military supplier largess, that is a greater chunk of fat than this is. This ban in the military budget is part of a large series of bills targeting trans people. Breeden mentions a few of them.

ACLU spokesperson Gillian Branstetter told Daily Kos that the lawmakers banning abortion are the “exact same politicians” who are targeting the trans community.

Gee, what a surprise.

Rating news on its politics instead of its facts

I finished the book The Great Passion by James Runcie. The story is set in Saxony of 1726. The narrator is thirteen year old Stefan Silbermann. His mother has died and his father sends him to Leipzig to the St. Thomas Church and School where he can study music with the Cantor – Johann Sebastian Bach. I saw Stefan’s last name and wondered... My thought that he was a part of the Silbermann pipe organ building family of that time in Saxony was quickly confirmed. Bach knew and tested organs in the area and would have played Silbermann organs and consulted with the builder. Stefan is the nephew of the master builder, though is actually fictional. Bach, of course, is historical as are many events in the story, though details would not have been recorded. One main purpose of the school was to teach the boys singing so they could sing in the church services. The voices of most of the boys hadn’t changed yet so they could sing the soprano and alto parts. This was necessary because women were banned from singing in the church at the time. Several of the boys knew their usefulness to the school would end when their voice changed. When Stefan gets to the school he is bullied, as many boys new to a situation are. Part of the bullying is because Bach recognizes how well Stefan sings and asks him to sing solos, to the annoyance of the boy who had been getting most of the solos. So Bach invites Stefan to leave the dormitory and move into his family quarters provided by the church. There Stefan gets to know Bach’s seven living children and experiences puppy love with the oldest, seventeen year old Catharina. As part of living in the household Stefan serves as a copyist as Bach must prepare a new cantata nearly every week. Stefan takes organ lessons from Bach and singing lessons from Bach’s second wife Anna Magdalena. Most of the book is scenes of domestic, school, and church life. Not a lot happens. There is a lot of talk of theology and much of it is of the sort that life is hard and miserable but heaven will be glorious. Death is common and you will die too. So don’t be idle. Yeah, gloomy theology. Bach is a strong task master, wanting to be busy and wanting his children to always be productive. The commonness of death is shown in Bach’s own family. The book describes some of it and I consulted a Bach genealogy for more. By the time of the story Bach and first wife Maria Barbara had seven children and only four were still alive. Maria Barbara had also died. Anna Magdalena eventually gave birth to thirteen children, giving Bach a total of twenty – the last when she was 41 and he was 57. Eleven of those twenty died before he did in 1750 at age 65. The last 20% of the book is what gives it its name. At the start of Lent of 1727 Bach has the idea of a big Passion cantata to be given on Good Friday, the day that marks the crucifixion of Jesus. He doesn’t want to just tell the story. He wants the text to comment on the story, to draw the listener in and make them feel they could have been a part of it. The result is The Passion of Christ According to the Evangelist Matthew. So there is a rush to get such a huge piece written. Then get it rehearsed. That includes teaching the soloists (including Stefan), convincing them they are capable of meeting the demands of the music, and telling one that a recent death is all the more appropriate for them to sing this piece about death. If one is really into Bach this is an enjoyable story. Mark Sumner, Daily Kos staff emeritus, discussed the decision of Los Angeles Times billionaire owner Patrick Soon-Schiong to give stories a “bias meter,” a way “to alert readers about the ideological tilt of the paper’s content.” The rankings could be from “far left” to “far right.” What could go wrong? Sumner says plenty. The rankings would be done by AI. There isn’t an existing AI that could provide such ratings. So the first problem is that Soon-Schiong is adapting the medical AI he’s already created. Current AIs can be bad at their tasks and offer no explanation on how they arrive at their outputs. Sumner reviews two problems that appeared in medical AIs. First, one AI determined which skin lesions were cancerous by determining that physicians held rulers next to the cancerous ones. Second, an AI determined which x-rays showed tuberculosis from how out of focus they were. Tuberculosis is thankfully rare these days, so the only x-rays that showed it were older, more out of focus ones. So, how would such an AI rate a story on climate change? Far-right sources don’t use the term and pretend it doesn’t exist. A factual, well-researched story on climate change will be labeled “far-left.” Public Enlightenment wrote about how unhelpful a bias meter would be by showing how some outlets are ranked by various services. Associated Press – “far left,” Fox News – “center right,” Reason Magazine, supported by the Koch Brothers – “center.” Public Enlightenment adds, “Ratings do not reflect accuracy or credibility; they reflect perspective only.” And that gets to the core of the problem. Wrote Sumner.

Only pure ignorance will make it through as unaligned. For large sections of the Times' audience, any stamp that indicates a story is left or right will be tantamount to saying "This is inaccurate, so don't bother to read it." What Patrick Soon-Shiong is creating is a system that tells his readers that the content of the paper he owns can't be relied on for accuracy. It's hard to imagine any way to more quickly delegitimize and decimate journalism. Which may, of course, be the intent. ... Any ranking service that examines articles on a political rather than factual basis is inherently harmful to independent, unbiased journalism. And every one of these bias charts seems to start with a huge bias.

Oliver Willis of Kos wrote:

“There is talk about the Postal Service being taken private, you do know that—not the worst idea I’ve ever heard,” Trump said at a press conference on Monday. “It’s an idea that a lot of people have liked for a long time. We’re looking at that.”

My thought in reading that paragraph is who are those “a lot of people”? They certainly aren’t the vast majority of Americans. But we know the nasty guy doesn’t listen to us common folks that make up the vast majority of Americans. He listens to billionaires who either want to get richer off the USPS or don’t want it as competition. Mark Dimondstein, president of the American Postal Workers Union said privatization would “end universal service.” People in hard to reach locations would lose service. Many people, especially us in the ’burbs, don’t know that many of the big package delivery companies use the USPS for those hard to reach locations, the places the USPS must go by law, but for-profit companies would see as too expensive.

“Universal service is especially important to rural America. Privatization also would lead to price-gouging by private companies,” Dimondstein added.

Put another way, the nasty guy and his cronies would not see any change in service. Their political base would. A reminder: Louis DeStroy is still in charge of the USPS. Biden didn’t accomplish his removal. Alex Samuels of Kos wrote that American voters can be quite messy in their opinion on big issues. This assertion is based on a Civiqs poll for Kos done December 7-10. It shows views don’t align with the goals of either party. Some of the messiness: 94% of Republicans believe the nasty guy will act on his promise to deport millions of immigrants. But only 50% of Republicans believe he’ll end the Affordable Care Act. Voter preference? A belief that the federal government has a responsibility in health care coverage? In 2024 Missouri voters approved abortion rights, raise the minimum wage, and paid sick leave while voting in Republicans, who oppose these policies. The messiness could be perpetual dissatisfaction with both parties. Or liking Democratic policies and not their candidates this year. Or trying to compress incoherent views into a binary choice. Two weeks ago Samuels reported that based on the election results many pundits are making the claim America has shifted to the right. But based on actual policies America is still quite liberal. One example is that 71% of Americans want the government to lower drug costs and prevent price gouging. Also two weeks ago Samuels reported:

In fact, according to a survey from YouGov, which was fielded in late November, the majority of Americans surveyed said that they view allegations of sexual assault (62%), domestic violence (61%), and a history of substance abuse (51%) as disqualifying to serve in a presidential Cabinet position. American adults also suggested that they didn’t want Cabinet picks who had links to extremist groups (70%), allegations of links to hostile foreign governments (66%), and past criminal convictions (61%). These numbers might not dissuade Trump, however, who is actively rolling out new names for those who he wants to fill out his administration. Several of Trump’s picks are embroiled in controversy. And it’s possible that Trump is hoping that Americans will turn a blind eye to these lower-level Cabinet members.

Samuels then reviewed all the cabinet nominations a majority of Americans view as disqualifying. Again, two weeks ago (yeah, I didn’t do much writing early this month) Margaret Huang, president and CEO of the Southern Poverty Law Center, wrote that the SPLC is closely monitoring the cabinet nominations and why the choice matters.

A strong federal government is essential to ensuring that the rights guaranteed by the Constitution are both protected and applied equally to all Americans and to providing vital resources and services to the most vulnerable populations. In arenas such as housing, education, criminal justice, health care, and more, civil rights laws protect against discrimination and ensure equal opportunity. However, we are concerned that the incoming administration will seek to shift power to individual states and abandon the federal government’s responsibilities to protect everyone’s rights.

Lisa Needham of Kos reported that last week “Texas sued New York physician Margaret Daley Carpenter for providing abortion pills via telehealth to a Texas resident.” This is an attempt to crack New York’s shield law that protects abortion providers from prosecutions in other states. So, yeah, ditch the idea that anti-choice advocates simply wanted to return abortion to the states.

Red states are going to astonishing lengths to try to stop their own citizens from obtaining abortions elsewhere and to demand that blue states honor red states’ laws. ... Generally, states do not get to dictate what happens in other states, nor do they get to try to reach into another state and impose their own laws.

There was one shameful exception, the Fugitive Slave Act. That empowered anyone to capture the enslaved, even in states that banned slavery, and return them to their owners. The anti-abortion efforts are similar in that Texas set up a bounty hunter system. Texas could get an injunction against Carpenter, but the New York shield law means New York can’t order Carpenter to comply. The next step is for Texas to sue New York to force compliance with Texas law. That will immediately go to the Supreme Court. With a supermajority that hates abortion, New York would likely lose. And that would overturn shield laws in 18 other states and Washington, DC. And states could impose their abortion bans on states where it is legal.

Anti-choice state politicians have no intention of leaving pro-choice states alone when it comes to abortion. They’re not going to stop until they make it impossible to get abortions in blue states. This is not how federalism is supposed to work, but it’s what we’re headed toward now.

Campaigned for blue collars, governing for blue bloods

My Sunday movie was The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar. It’s a short one, only 40 minutes. This won the Oscar for best short live action film in 2024. They story is by Roald Dahl and the movie opens with an actor playing Dahl introducing the tale. It is about a man from India who says he is able to see without using his eyes. Rich man Henry Sugar learns about the trick because he wants to give himself an advantage when he gambles. But it doesn’t go as expected. This film is very much eccentric. First is Dahl’s story. Second is Wes Anderson’s filming. I’ve seen a couple of Anderson’s films and know his style is eccentric. I haven’t watched everything he’s done because to me his manner can distract from the story. One eccentricity is that one character in a scene is always narrating, even going as far as turning to the camera after another person speaks and adding, “He said.” Another is that most of the scenes are presented on a stage and we see the backdrops come and go and stagehands lean in to place or remove objects. I wanted a short movie because I’ve now completed all of my holiday concerts and was a bit too tired for a long film. Though eccentric this one was enjoyable. Alex Samuels of Daily Kos discussed the failure of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to become the ranking member of the House Oversight Committee. She’s 35. The guy who got the job is 74. The main point is that Democrats have a lot of young (and more progressive) members who would be great leaders, but the current leadership, mostly in their 70s and 80s, isn’t passing the torch to the younger generation. And it is the current leadership that was in charge of messaging in the last election. I’ve been thinking a lot that while Republicans very much support the social hierarchy (with themselves and their billionaire donors on top), that does not mean Democrats don’t support the hierarchy. An Associated Press article posted on Kos reported that the home of Frances Perkins has been designated by Biden to be a national monument. Perkins was the first woman to serve in a presidential cabinet, serving under Franklin D. Roosevelt. She was also the longest-serving labor secretary. Her work was instrumental in establishing Social Security, the Fair Labor Standards Act and the National Labor Relations Act, establishing the right to organize and bargain collectively. She helped formulate many parts of the New Deal and helped create economic safeguards to prevent another great depression. Alas, I contrast that with a post by Oliver Willis of Kos reporting that the nasty guy and Musk of the outside-of-government Department of Government Efficiency are talking to potential bank regulators what they think about abolishing the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. The FDIC was created by a law signed by FDR during the Great Depression to protect consumers in the case of a bank collapse. Of which there were many, and many that were serious. The question is whether the Treasury Department could handle the task instead. The article does not discuss what the effect of absorbing the FDIC into Treasury would do. But if the nasty guy and Musk are behind the proposal it can’t be good for regular citizens. Especially since Musk has also said he opposes the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau created under Obama. The CFPB advocates for consumers against banks, credit card companies, and the like. The CPFB has given $21 billion in relief to consumers since its creation. That is while Musk’s charitable foundations haven’t been donating the required 5% of assets and are behind by about $421 million. Musk’s worth is about $429 billion.

Musk is just the most high profile and wealthiest of the billionaires with no qualifications to steer government policy that Trump has put into positions of influence. Despite professing to be an advocate of “blue collar” values, Trump is giving blue bloods an enormous power boost.

Alix Breeden of Kos reported last week that House Republicans passed a massive $895 billion defense bill. It has some good stuff in it, like hefty pay increases for the military. However, it includes a provision banning medical care for transgender youth. Thankfully, those opposed to that provision includes Republicans. But that wasn’t enough to stop the bill. The bill now goes to the Senate. Chabeli Carrazana, in an article for The 19th posted on Kos, reported that many same-sex couples are rushing to finalize the adoption of their children before the nasty guy is sworn in. These are cases where one is a biological parent and the other isn’t. Many couples haven’t done this because the legal fees can be a couple thousand or more and under Biden it didn’t seem necessary. But under the nasty guy and a Supreme Court wanting to get another look at marriage equality, same-sex couples are looking for all the protection they can get. Supreme Court justice Ketanji Brown Jackson fulfilled a longtime dream of acting on Broadway. Last Saturday she had a moment in the musical “& Juliet.” This article has a short video of getting her ready for the role. Other sources, such as her appearance on the NPR show Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me, talk about how she was a student of theater as well as of law.