I am too dangerous to arrest

I finished the book The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers. It is the first of a trilogy and it looks like I’ll be buying the other two. The series is science fiction. The starship Wayfarer creates wormholes to help the various species of the Galactic Commons to get around. A clan from a species near the galactic core has settled its war with other clans and has asked to join the GC. The Wayfarer has been hired, with generous terms, to fly to the home of the new clan, the angry planet, and punch a new wormhole on the way back. About three quarters of the book, about 300 pages, is their adventures during the long trip to get to that planet and the last quarter is about what happens once they get there. Many of those adventures are about the various species in the crew and the species they meet along the way. The ship’s pilot is a reptile species that thrives on a great deal more touch than humans are used to. The one who is both doctor and chef explains why his species faces extinction. I found it all quite interesting and an enjoyable read. I can see why the trilogy won a Hugo for best science fiction series. I downloaded Michigan’s COVID data updated two days ago. The peaks in new cases per day for the last few weeks have been 915, 846, 875, and 788 – essentially holding steady. This continues a plateau that started in the middle of January. In the last three weeks the deaths per day has been 15 or fewer. The program I now use to display the state’s data now shows three years. It’s all looking a bit squished. I may have to revise the program to display only the last year. About ten days ago my church lifted its mask mandate. The leadership assured us we could wear masks if we wanted and urged us to wear one if we felt just the slightest bit ill. At the end of last week the nasty guy felt the walls closing in, so he did what he had done back in early 2021 – he called on his supporters for violent protest to save his skin. Laura Clawson of Daily Kos reported this time it was to prevent his arrest after indictment from one of the many investigations against him. As of Monday morning his base was using full-on Civil War language, including creating a human moat of Patriots around Mar-a-Lago (but what about a helicopter?!). In response police were putting up barricades around the first place likely to issue an indictment, the Manhattan Criminal Court – the kinds of barricades that did little to slow attackers on January 6. Mike Luckovich tweeted a cartoon that included the lines, “The shackles were hung near the warden with care in the hope that the Donald soon would be there.” In a pundit roundup Greg Dworkin of Kos quoted Tom Nichols of The Atlantic:

Trump’s message today to the American people has already come through loud and clear: I am too dangerous to arrest... ... Trump himself today upped the ante by saying, in effect, that it doesn’t matter what’s in the indictment. Instead, he is warning all of us, point-blank, that he will violate the law if he wants to, and if you don’t like it, you can take it up with the mob that he can summon at will. This is pure authoritarianism, the flex of a would-be American caudillo who is betting that our fear of his goons is greater than our commitment to the rule of law. Once someone like Trump issues that kind of challenge, it doesn’t matter if the indictment is for murder, campaign-finance violations, or mopery with intent to gawk: The issue is whether our legal institutions can be bullied into paralysis.

By Monday afternoon Kerry Eleveld of Kos reported the base was singing a different tune, afraid the call to protest was a false-flag operation. Conspiracy theories got them thinking it was a trap – show up for the protest and the Feds would arrest them. In another pundit roundup Dworkin quoted Kimberly Wehle of The Bulwark who listed all the investigations against the nasty guy: 1. The classified documents found at Mar-a-Lago. 2. The attempt to to lead a coup to prevent Biden’s win. 3. Election fraud in Georgia by asking to find another 11 thousand votes. 4. The criminal and civil violations by his various corporations. 5. The hush money payment to Stormy Daniels by his campaign. And one that isn’t well known... 6. The shadiness around his Truth Social media platform. Clay Jones tweeted a cartoon showing a crowd with many signs saying, “Lock her up!” and one guy saying, “Arresting a leading presidential candidate is nothing but sleazy politics!” Clay Bennett of the Chattanooga Times Free Press tweeted a cartoon captioned “America prepares for the possible arrest of Donald Trump.” It shows people flocking to a party store. Ian Reifowitz of Kos wrote a two-part series titled “If corporations always did the right thing, we wouldn’t need regulation.” Part 1 was about banks – see what the loosening of regulation did recently to Silicon Valley Bank – and airlines – that fiasco at Southwest at Christmas. To explain modern air travel, Reifowitz went into the history of airline deregulation. That included a quote from a New York Times op-ed piece from January discussing the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978 and the Civil Aeronautics Board that regulated the industry before then:

Under the C.A.B., airline bankruptcies and mergers were rare, flight cancellations and disruptions were rare, airlines never needed nor requested federal bailouts, and the United States maintained a near-universal air transportation network that covered rural and lower-population regions with lower, cost-based airfares. (Nowadays, airfares in rural and smaller markets are the highest in the country.) With none of these things any longer true, and as we endure a never-ending chain of crises, it is clear that the deregulation experiment since 1978 needs to be rethought. … Since the late 1970s, this country has not seen its industries as in need of governance, and so has allowed them to flounder and flail. We have neglected to adequately fund or respect our administrative agencies. The airline industry and air transportation system are ground zero for this disastrous governing philosophy.

In passing Reifowitz mentions that deregulation has also caused harm to heath care and the energy industry. Part 2 was about what deregulation has done to the rail companies, with the East Palestine, Ohio derailment as his prime example. Reifowitz concluded:

When it comes to regulation, the contrast between the values of Biden and those of the Party of Trump on business and the role of government couldn’t be clearer. The Trumpists believe the free market is always right, and will always produce the best overall outcome. Oh, and if that outcome hurts you, well, you’re on your own. Democrats, on the other hand, understand that corporations can’t always be trusted to do the right thing, and that consumers or those people who live near sites of production (disproportionately Americans of color) as well as transport—not to mention honest businesses trying to compete while playing by the rules—deserve protection. Finally, when it comes to trust, please note that Republicans, on the one hand, think lower-income Americans who receive public assistance are so untrustworthy that they should have to jump through all kinds of bureaucratic hoops to receive it, and even afterward that they require all kinds of monitoring or even outright restrictions to make sure they aren’t somehow misusing it (and of course that Republican attitude has nothing to do with the racial demographics of those Americans on public assistance). Yet, on the other hand, Republicans seem to believe that corporations require only the most minimal monitoring, I guess, because rich people never succumb to the temptation to cut corners or outright cheat to make an extra few (millions of) bucks.

Nick Anderson of Kos Comics shows the corporate view of deregulation. In an article from 2018 (that I just recently found) Alvin Craig and Tara Golshan of Vox discuss the Republican push to require work to be able to get public assistance. The discussion includes some of the harmful work rules implemented in various Republican states. The article looks at who Medicaid beneficiaries are. 43% are kids, 8% are elderly, and 13% are blind and disabled. The remaining 36% are adults, and two thirds of them are working and nearly all of those who aren’t are ill, disabled, in school, taking care of family, or are retired. That leaves a tiny number who could not and are not finding work. Republicans say that the work requirement incentivizes people to pull themselves out of poverty. Studies were done and show that in the short term the rules do push people to work more, but the effect fades after a few years. Then on to the bigger question: Do work requirements reduce poverty rates? No, poverty rates didn’t budge because the work didn’t pay enough. And the requirements meant fewer people qualified, which deepened their poverty – helping fewer people does not mean fewer people need help. In addition, the reporting their work rules may mean having to take time from work, risking their employment. Those pushing work requirements say those who aren’t working are lazy. However, the problem is more likely to be not having the right skills (such as speaking English), not having the right social connections to find jobs, or having other personal challenges. It comes down to lawmakers deciding who deserves assistance and who doesn’t. Which is a horrible way to treat people.