Rich man Romney wants to tax the rich

RETIII of the Daily Kos community discussed a recent op-ed written by Mitt Romney for the New York Times. Its title is Mitt Romney: Tax the Rich, Like Me. Romney looks to be retired now or at least retired from politics, though he had been a Republican senator, governor, and presidential candidate and is described as having lots of money, though not at the billionaire level. So, on to what he’s calling for. I’ll summarize both quotes of Romney’s statements and RETIII’s comments and add a bit of my own. The need for the government to raise more revenue or to cut spending is obvious if the nasty guy can add a trillion dollars to the national in just a couple months. Tariffs won’t raise enough. The biggest part of federal spending (beyond the military?) is Social Security and Medicare. There are endless articles about both programs being in fiscal trouble (though many of those are excuses to limit the programs). Mucking with them too much can bring great wrath from senior voters. One proposal is to raise the income limit on FICA. This supports Social Security and incomes higher than $176K aren’t subject to FICA. Romney supports getting rid of the limit. Along with that Romney wants to add a means test to Social Security and Medicare. In a sense there is a means test for Medicare. The higher your income the higher your premiums. But Social Security was designed as a benefit to all. RETIII understands why. If there is a Social Security cutoff or reduction then the rich will see it doesn’t benefit them. Increased FICA and they will pay more for a benefit they don’t get. If they don’t get it they will more easily brand Social Security as “welfare” and work even harder to undermine it. Romney calls for raising the retirement age because we live longer than when Social Security was enacted 90 years ago. But RETIII says working longer at a job that is physical labor is quite different than working longer at a desk job. Romney wants to eliminate tax “caverns,” what are usually called loopholes. One proposal is to eliminate the current practice of not taxing capital gains at death. Romney explains:

Let’s look at a hypothetical scenario using Elon Musk as a proxy. If he had originally purchased his Tesla stock with, say, $1 billion and held it until his death, and if it were then worth $500 billion, he would never pay the 24 percent federal capital gains tax on the $499 billion profit. Why? Because under the tax code, capital gains are not taxed at death. The tax code provision known as step-up in basis means that when Mr. Musk’s heirs get his stock, they are treated as if they purchased it for $500 billion. So no one pays taxes on the $499 billion capital gain. Ever.

Romney mentions a couple more. I can think of more that RETIII doesn’t mention: Tax capital gains at the same rate as wage income. Raise the tax rate for the higher income brackets. RETIII’s conclusion and a few comments say why Romney’s comments are important. They get the debate started. Having a rich guy talk about taxing the rich is much more important than when a poor or middle-class person says the same thing. Much of politics is about persuasion and Romney has started his persuading. We’ll see how hard he keeps at it. Mark Sumner, Kos staff emeritus, commented that the nasty guy has long complained that Biden used an autopen a lot and claims anything signed by an autopen wasn’t officially signed. But the nasty guy is an autopen – between naps he signs anything put before him without reading it. Sumner calls him Grandpa Snoozy. Think about the large number of times he’s asked about something he’s signed and he says he knows nothing about it. That means his staff – including Russel Vought and Stephen Miller – are actually running the place. Well, no surprise there. And that means they will never invoke the 25th Amendment that allows the VP and Cabinet to declare the president incompetent, which would end his term. And perhaps theirs. Lisa Needham of Kos discussed the problem of the nasty guy’s executive order declaring fentanyl as a Weapon of Mass Destruction. First, it isn’t – it isn’t so destructive as to kill millions in a single moment. Second, the chemicals that are used to make fentanyl also have other good and important uses, so banning them doesn’t make sense. Third, Venezuela does not produce fentanyl. Fourth, this isn’t about fentanyl. It’s about providing an after-the-fact justification for bombing Venezuelan boats. It also allows the Department of Justice to get the Department of Defense involved.

This looks like a pretty blatant attempt at getting a widespread permission slip for military personnel to be used in domestic criminal investigations, which is not great! ... There’s also the problem that the administration has reassigned everyone to the “brutally torturing immigrants” project, which means drug arrests have already dropped, and fewer new investigations are being opened. But rather than do those actual investigations and prosecutions, which is what should be happening if we face such a deadly scourge, this instead is an attempt to get full war on terror authority, a blank check for Trump and Pete Hegseth and Pam Bondi and Stephen Miller and Kristi Noem to do anything they want, any time, anywhere.

In today’s pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin quoted Paul Krugman discussing the nasty guy’s viciousness:

Yet, on reflection, I realized that there’s a story here that’s bigger than Trump, a story in which Trump is one especially egregious example of a larger pattern. What is that pattern? That being vicious and bigoted is cool, is based in current slang. Trump is one data point in the midst of an epidemic of performative hatemongering in America. And while most of this is emanating from right-wing extremists, not all of it is.

I wanted to see what current slang reflects bigotry. So I went to Krugman’s article. It doesn’t discuss slang, though it does chart the rise of antisemitism and does talk about the increase in people of the far right around the world who say vicious and bigoted things. In the comments bjkeefe posted a cartoon by John Darkow of ICE agents picking crops. One of them says, “I guess we should’ve seen this coming!” Almost two years ago, about the time of Epiphany, marking the time the Wise Men visit the infant Jesus, I saw the phrase, “grifts of gold, frank nonsense, and merch.” Now Graeme Keyes did another take. His cartoon shows three guys in red “MAGI” hats. They guys could be Musk, the vice nasty, and the nasty guy. Their gifts are “Gold, Frankly dense, and Mire.” The Naked Pastor posted a cartoon of a brown Joseph and brown Mary – they lived in the Middle East – yet the just delivered baby boy is white. Which is how Westerners see him.

A whole pile of invaluable trust just went up in smoke

A bit of tariff war news, then on to something else. After a rebound yesterday the stock markets dropped today. The nasty guy had hit China with tariffs of 125%, China responded to that so the nasty guy boosted tariffs on them again. I think they’re up to 145%. In today’s pundit roundup for Daily Kos Chitown Kev quoted Annie Lowrey of The Atlantic:

Step one: Start a pointless, globe-encompassing trade war, rationalized solely by your own boneheaded innumeracy. Step two: Tank the markets. Step three: Pare the war back to a hot conflict with one of the United States’ most important trading partners and a warm conflict with every other country on Earth. Step four: Watch the market rebound and declare victory. That’s the art of the deal, when it comes to President Donald Trump’s tariffs and trade policies. This afternoon, Trump announced that the U.S. will pause the imposition of its “Liberation Day” tariff rates for 90 days. The markets surged in response; the president’s supporters cheered. But there’s no victory here, whatever the Dow Jones does and the Trump administration claims. The White House has risked everything, ruined plenty, and gotten nothing. The country’s economy is weakening, and the possibility of a recession remains.

Thomas L. Friedman of The New York Times:

Trump won’t back off on these tariffs because — take your choice — he needs them to keep fentanyl from killing our kids, he needs them to raise revenue to pay for future tax cuts, and he needs them to pressure the world to buy more stuff from us. And he couldn’t care less what his rich pals on Wall Street say about their stock market losses. After creating havoc in the markets standing on these steadfast “principles” — undoubtedly prompting many Americans to sell low out of fear — Trump reversed much of it on Wednesday, announcing a 90-day pause on certain tariffs to most countries, excluding China. Message to the world — and to the Chinese: “I couldn’t take the heat.” If it were a book it would be called “The Art of the Squeal.” But don’t think for a second that all that’s been lost is money. A whole pile of invaluable trust just went up in smoke as well. In the last few weeks, we have told our closest friends in the world — countries that stood shoulder to shoulder with us after Sept. 11, in Iraq and in Afghanistan — that none of them were any different from China or Russia. They were all going to get tariffed under the same formula — no friends-and-family discounts allowed.

In the comments exlrrp posted a meme by Tristan Snell, former New York Assistant Attorney General:

Why did Trump just cave? Because when the U.S. borrows money it does so by selling Treasury bonds. Mostly to China, Japan, Europe. Overnight there was a sudden spike in holders dumping their bonds. Trump picked a fight with our creditors, and or creditors won!

In Wednesday’s roundup, this one by Greg Dworkin, quotes Matthew Yglesias of Slow Boring:

A distinguishing characteristic of the policy course Trump has set us on is that people in his orbit keep offering justifications for it that are not only distinct but mutually contradictory, and then getting peeved if critics don’t accept their account of the real strategy.

In the comments is a cartoon by Joe Heller. A couple are in a bar. Behind them the nasty guy is on TV and the caption says “Pain and uncertainty ahead.” The couple react as the bartender looks elsewhere.

Man: Sure, it’s going to be inconvenient and hard... But in the long run this sacrifice will benefit everyone! Woman: Oh, please! That argument couldn’t even get you to wear a mask five years ago!

LJ Slater posted a meme:

Help the penguins pay their tariff. Send your fish to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

In Tuesday’s roundup Kev quoted Paul Krugman writing for his own Substack:

But less-engaged voters weren’t the only people who missed the warning signs and supported Donald Trump. Trump also had a number of ultra-wealthy backers, both on Wall Street and in Silicon Valley, who are now shocked, shocked to discover that he is who he always was. [...] To be honest, I’m actually glad that Trump II is proving to be such a disaster for the economy. If he had exercised some restraint, if he had simply claimed credit for the very good economy Joe Biden left him, many wealthy people would have cheered him on while he destroyed democracy. Now they may turn on him.

Way down in the comments Flood Zone posted a comic showing Robert Kennedy Jr. at an exercise gym sitting backwards on an exercise bike. Geier (I don’t know who this is) stops to talk to him.

Geier: RFK JR, you know you’re riding the bike backwards, right? RFK: Yeah, Geier, (puff, puff) about to recommend people get the MMR vaccine. The bike: Your back pedaling is looking great, sir! Keep up the endurance for when the raw milk retraction comes up!

Paulpro posted a cartoon by Chelo showing the nasty guy and Melania ready to eat while the pot burns in the kitchen. Outside the window ICE is arresting the chef, server, and maid. Last Sunday the NPR show Freakonomics, hosted by Stephen Dubner, talked to Jessica Riedl. She is transgender but that has nothing to do with the topic of the episode. The topic is the political dishonesty about the national debt and taxes. The episode is dated April 4, 2025. However, there is a link to a Freakonomics podcast dated March 14, 2025, which has the transcript. I’ll get back to the broadcast episode later for some of the comments. Riedl is a senior fellow in budget, tax, and economic policy at the Manhattan Institute. She says she is center-right, though politicians of both parties don’t want to hear what she has to say. She recently stirred a hornets nest in a pair of op-eds in the Boston Globe, one titled “What Conservatives Get Wrong About Taxes” and the other “What Liberals…” She didn’t like Biden because he “added $4 trillion in new spending, enacted some tariffs, pushed up budget deficits, and overheated the economy to inflation.” She thinks less of the nasty guy because of his $8 trillion in new spending and tax cuts in the first term with likely much more in the second. She listens to the chatter around Washington and in social media and mutters that what she hears is just not true. So before the Globe articles she wrote Correcting the Top Ten Tax Myths. The myths (the transcript has the discussion to disprove them): 1. Tax cuts pay for themselves. 2. Tax cuts starve the beast and cut spending. 3. The middle class pays a higher tax rate than the rich. 4. The 91% tax rates of the 1950s produced all the revenue. 5. Europe taxes the rich more. 6. Tax cuts for the rich are why we have huge budget deficits. 7. Taxing the rich more can eliminate the deficit. 8. Most of the 2017 tax cuts went to the wealthy. Myths 9 and 10 to me look like duplicates. The national debt is now so high the interest paid on the debt has tripled since 2021, from $350 billion to nearly $1 trillion and will be up to $2 trillion in a decade. That cost has passed Medicaid, defense, and Medicare. Before 2000 a politician could talk about fiscal responsibility and get elected. Now politicians believe they can’t get elected without promising tax cuts and spending increases. They hope the consequences fall to their successor. DOGE is focused on symbolic things like DEI and culture war things. They say they’re doing it to save money, but that will be “not even a rounding error.” The national debt is “projected to rise from about $30 trillion today to $200 trillion in 30 years” (a link provided). Yet, politicians are locked into making promises that are bad for the country but get them elected. Changing that is not easy. I want to hear how that fiscal responsibility was sabotaged, but that’s beyond the scope of this article. Medicare and Social Security do not pay for themselves in taxes, and the belief they can’t run deficits is false. Riedl says the two will run a cash deficit of $124 trillion (another link provided). The rest of the budget is balanced during that time. Social Security is a pay-as-you-go system and there aren’t enough taxpayers to cover all the retirees. Seniors said they paid into the system and want their money, but overall they’re getting triple what they paid in. I get the impression that those who get more than they put in are the wealthy whose payroll taxes are capped much lower than the maximum benefit they get. And, as millionaires, why do they need Social Security at all? Yes, that is means-testing, which is now a toxic topic in Washington. But if benefits are to be cut isn’t it better to cut the benefits to the rich rather than to the poor? Social Security is supposed to be a poverty-prevention program, not a universal, get-rich benefit. But changing that would be electoral suicide, because the public doesn’t understand how the system works. This can be solved – as long as both parties are equally involved so it doesn’t look like a partisan effort to hurt opponents and the negotiations are done privately. But it has to be everything, not the budget, Social Security, and Medicare in isolation. Riedl says such meeting are happening, but she can’t give names. The participants are scared of going public. Riedl computed that if we seized the entire wealth of every American billionaire it would pay for eight months of government spending and do it only once. In contrast she says the middle class is undertaxed. I read through the comments of both the podcast and radio episode. Some of them say Riedl’s center-right viewpoint is showing and fact-checking should have been stronger. A couple commenters say that the money taken from the rich should not be compared to total government spending, but to the budget deficit – and that their wealth could cover that for a couple decades. Another calls her a “good capitalist propagandist.” In the comments for the radio episode Robert Bristow-Johnson has suggestions to make the tax system and federal budget more fair. Tax capital gains the same as earned income. Apply Social Security and Medicare taxes to all income, not just earned income. Prevent the rich from living off loans against their wealth (to be repaid when they die) by taxing the loan as income. Tax inherited estates over $1 million. Remove the limit of how much income is taxed for Social Security. Lower the maximum Social Security benefit to a comfortable middle class income and don’t bother means-testing. In exchange for these reforms, lower the taxes on Type C corporations (I don’t know the definition of this type). And give us single-payer health care. While listening to Riedl and her comments that billionaires are taxed enough and the middle class should be taxed more, I got to thinking about another aspect of taxes. Since the Reagan tax cuts in 1981: The number of billionaires has increased by quite a bit to the point they have enough money to significantly meddle in politics. The pay of the lower levels of workers has stagnated because the rich could keep the money for themselves rather than pay their workers more. Income inequality has increased tremendously. I think we would do better taxing the rich more, not because it would do much about the federal deficit, but because we would do better as a society with fewer billionaires and wealth more evenly distributed.

My birth certificate also says I weighed seven pounds, but things change

My peformance group played a concert late Sunday afternoon. After that Sister, Niece, and I went out for supper. So there was no Sunday movie. I finished the book The Passing Playbook by Isaac Fitzsimons. It is a young adult novel. Spencer is a trans boy starting his sophomore year in high school. He’s at a new school, a private progressive school, because of The Incident at his previous school which showed how unsafe he was there. Spencer very much wants to pass as as a boy and not deal with others knowing he’s trans and disapproving. Spencer also wants to play soccer – on the boy’s team. He’s quite good and also good at watching the other team to uncover their weaknesses. His parents are wonderful and he’s already on the hormone treatment, so he looks like a boy. He doesn’t want to change in the same room as the other boys but quickly figures out he only need face his locker – the other boys aren’t looking (showering isn’t discussed). There’s a big problem – his birth certificate says female and he lives in Ohio, a state that refuses to let him change it. Towards the end of the book he says a great line, “My birth certificate also says I weighed seven pounds, but things change.” The other big problem of the book is that Spencer is friends with and also falling for the team’s vice captain, a boy named Justice. His family is so devoutly religious the other children are named Noble, Piety, and Steadfast. He’s at the progressive school only because he has a soccer scholarship. Spencer is afraid of what Justice will say or do when he finds out Spencer is trans. The cover of the book shows a black boy and a white boy discussing soccer plays. Which one is Spencer? In the first third of the book race is mentioned only twice – this character is white and that one is black. I wondered why race was important in describing those two and not any of the others. Only after a third of the story goes by do we learn Spencer is biracial. Other than that minor annoyance I enjoyed the story. It was a fairly quick read, taking about a week for 300 pages. Laura Clawson of Daily Kos welcomed us to Pride Month. She noted that marriage equality and anti-discrimination laws have strong majority support. Alas, the highest profile stories are about hatred. Clawson lists a few, but certainly not all, recent stories. There is the storm over Bud Light using a trans influencer. Target moving or removing its Pride displays because of threats of violence to its employees. A pride event in Bozeman, Montana was disrupted by supremacists. St. Cloud, Florida canceled its pride event because they felt they coudn’t keep participants safe. Republican controlled states are passing laws banning LGBTQ issues and drag shows. Proud Boys have disrupted more than 160 drag events in the last 18 months – even as there are hundreds more stories, including in red states, that demonstrate our progress.

Parents of toddlers are often told about “extinction bursts,” in which, as they try to move their child past a problem behavior, it gets worse. The child frantically clings to the pacifier or cries extra hard when their parents don’t come to their crib the moment they start crying. That’s the Proud Boys and their fellow bigots right now. Marriage equality is widely accepted. Employment and housing discrimination are widely opposed. Drag brunches and story hours are popular events. And the bigots can’t stand it. Instead of a screaming toddler, though, Pride events and drag events face angry, potentially armed adults—a much bigger problem.

An Associated Press article posted on Kos reported a federal judge – appointed by the nasty guy – ruled Tennessee’s law placing strict limits on drag shows is unconstitutional. First, the law is a violation of free speech. The Supremes have said the even explicit speech is protected. Second, it is too vague. The law doesn’t use the word “drag.” It uses the phrase “adult-oriented performances that are harmful to minors.” That word “harmful” can mean whatever the complainer or arresting officer wants it to mean. In a pundit roundup posted ten days ago, Chitown Kev of Kos, quoted Beth Hawkins of the education blog The 74 talking about laws targeting LGBTQ people.

It’s no surprise that queer students in Republican-dominated states where these laws have passed are profoundly impacted. But less visible is the dramatic effect the steady drumbeat of headlines has had on youth in places with even strong anti-discrimination laws. Newly released data from the advocacy groups GLSEN and The Trevor Project show increases in hostility, victimization and discrimination experienced by students in blue states as well as red. ... In California — where the first gay couples married in 2008 and schools began teaching LGBTQ history a decade ago — a statewide survey of students found that the number who reported hearing homophobic remarks from adults in school rose from 12% in 2019 to 49% in 2021. That’s an increase of 408%.

Bruce Plante tweeted a cartoon of Biden playing the trunk of an elephant like a violin. Yeah, this didn’t take long. Biden got Republicans to pledge they would not include Social Security and Medicare in their hostage taking over the debt limit. Joan McCarter of Kos reported the ink was barely dry on that deal when McCarthy announced “a commission to explore mandatory spending cuts. In other words: Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.” I’m not the only one to notice the rhetoric carefully discusses the “need” to reduce spending without talking about the national deficit or debt or why spending needs to be reduced. Republicans are very aware the other way to reduce the deficit and debt is to raise taxes on the rich. McCarter included a tweet by Steven Rattner that has a chart showing the contribution of the various tax cuts and their extensions since 2002. The data is from American Progress, as is the quote:

If not for the Bush tax cuts and their extensions—as well as the Trump tax cuts—revenues would be on track to keep pace with spending indefinitely, and the debt ratio... would be declining,

McCarter noted we’ve been here before – the last time there was a Democratic president. So perhaps this time Democrats don’t play the game and not participate in a commission whose purpose is to recommend policies that hurt all but the rich. McCarter added: “When are we going to get a commission to study tax hikes?” Another Associated Press article posted on Kos ten days ago reported Republican lawmakers in various states they control are pushing a solution to the labor shortage – roll back labor laws that protect teens. After describing the states trying to loosen protective laws the article said:

Teen workers are more likely to accept low pay and less likely to unionize or push for better working conditions, said Maki, of the Child Labor Coalition, a Washington-based advocacy network. “There are employers that benefit from having kind of docile teen workers,” Maki said, adding that teens are easy targets for industries that rely on vulnerable populations such as immigrants and the formerly incarcerated to fill dangerous jobs.

Meteor Blades of Kos discussed the subject again this past weekend. Gov. Kim Reynolds of Iowa had signed a bill that reduced several protections in the state’s child labor laws. Blades discussed how his grandfather and grandpa’s brother worked in coal mines as slate boys when they were preteens. Then Blades wrote about the history of federal child labor laws. Children and teens didn’t get protections until the Great Depression, and only then because adults needed the few jobs there were. Yes, the new state laws violate federal laws.

But one big problem in the federal government are departments and agencies under-budgeted and under-staffed when it comes to enforcement of existing laws. Like the Environmental Protection Agency, which is now under the gun to complete faster environmental reviews of energy projects, the Department of Labor needs more staff to investigate and penalize violators.

Blades concluded:

Many people argue that having a part-time job is a fine, life-enhancing experience for youths. That can be true. But they are not going to get that from working six hours a night during the school year on the line at a meat-packing plant any more than those slate boys could from risking their fingers and lives on coal conveyors. A serious federal approach to life-enhancing child labor would be to amply fund apprenticeship programs that would provide on-the-job training and education with reasonable pay and modest working hours to allow children to still be children.

Another reason why teens should be protected from abusive labor is poor families may be desperate for the money a teen might be able to bring home. But that likely means the teen isn’t getting educated, trapping him in poverty through his life. Phil Hands of the Wisconsin State Journal tweeted a cartoon showing a cafe with the owners saying

If we don’t get more help, I’m not sure our business will survive. Where on earth are we going to find more workers?

Right next to the cafe is the US border wall with thousands of people on the other side of it. Last Saturday Eric Deggans of NPR talked to Maureen Ryan, who wrote about the toxic culture behind the hit TV show Lost for Vanity Fair and also wrote the book Burn It Down: Power, Complicity And A Call For Change in Hollywood about the ongoing toxic culture there. On the show, the “showrunners Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof created an atmosphere where racism and bullying were tolerated and encouraged on the set.” Here are a few of Ryan’s comments:

It's similar to things you still see going on in the comedy world, which is the attitude with comments and maybe even actions that are racist or sexist, homophobic, transphobic. Oh, this is me being edgy. But those edgy comments are really meant to make the people of color in the room, the women of color in the room, the LGBTQIA people in the room - make them aware that they don't have power, and the people making the offensive comment have the power. ... I think that there's an unspoken rule in some people's head - that person is too nice to be truly creative. That person is to considerate to be a genius - which is a horrifying unexamined assumption that I think that a lot of people maybe don't even know that they have in the audience or in the executive suite. This is a thing that I come across time and again, that some people are not seen as incredible geniuses or absolutely undeniable creators that people must give a big contract to unless they are consistently doing things to other people and to productions as a whole that are damaging or unprofessional or just garden-variety crappy. ... If I had to describe my book in one word, the word would be exploitation. People are being exploited routinely, and the exploitation can come in the form of coercive acts from their boss, bullying, racism, toxicity, homophobia, transphobia. They are not paid enough.

I heard that bit about creativity being judged by how crappy a person acts and I thought the money people aren’t funding projects based on whether the person is creative, they’re funding based on whether the person supports the power hierarchy. Isabella Delseny-Ernest tweeted a cartoon that’s been hiding in my browser tabs since November and was shared as part of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. The cartoon is without words. It shows (I think) a male politician, a male businessman, and a male police officer in the standard see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil poses. Above them is a woman with her hands also at her face, one against a bruised eye, the other wiping a tear.

Stop focusing on incompetent despots and go after the people funding them

Catching up on news... From a post from last Sunday Hunter of Daily Kos reported thousands of supporters of former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro attacked the national buildings that house the Congress, Supreme Court, and Presidential Palace. Since it was a Sunday the Congress and Court were not there. Current president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was elsewhere in the country. Bolsonaro is in Florida. Rioters broke in and vandalized and extensively damaged the buildings. Police on the grounds were ineffective. The scene was very similar to the attack on the American Capitol done two years and two days earlier. The reason was similar too – claims without evidence of voter fraud, that Bolsonaro was the true winner of their recent election. Lula was quick to condemn the attack. On Monday Hunter reported that Brazil was quick to restore order. If I remember right, the military herded the rioters onto buses and sent them to detention. Hunter wrote:

The parallels to the Jan. 6 coup are uncanny, but both have followed a standard fascist pattern of promoting disinformation to delegitimize democracy, using those hoaxes as supposed evidence that an authoritarian overthrow of that democracy is "necessary" in order to return the country to (far-right) greatness.

Hunter also reported that American conservatives have been boosting Bolsonaro’s claims in the same way they’ve been boosting claims of Putin and Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban. Dr. William Horne tweeted:

So in the last three years, we've seen (by my count) FOUR rightwing coups planned & executed at least partly from FLORIDA: the 1/6 Insurrection, the "Operation Gideon" attempt against Venezuela's Maduro, the assassination of Haiti's President Moïse, & the Bolsonaro coup today. I do think there's a case to be made that Florida has become a fascist mecca, not just in U.S. politics, but in exporting fascist ideas, resources, & tactics worldwide.

Horne then wrote the US has been sponsoring far right invasions & coups for roughly 200 years. These actions promoted slavery and colonialism, especially in South and Central America. Mary Louise Kelly of NPR spoke to reporters Sergio Olmos and Shannon Bond. They talked about American and transnational aspects of the Brazilian attack. On the American side Steve Bannon lent his support and called the attackers “Freedom fighters.” Across the world there are many far right movements with the common goal of undermining democracy. As in the US attack, the one in Brazil appears to have been planned openly on social media, including invitations urging people to come join the violence. In a Gaslit Nation bonus episode (available to donors) Sarah Kendzior and Andrea Chalupa discussed the link between Bannon and Bolsonaro. I listened to this yesterday at a time I couldn’t take notes, so I don’t remember much other than it is worth your 37 minutes. Kendzior tweeted some aspects of her regular Gaslit Nation episode (available for free) that also discussed the Brazil attack. Some of what she tweeted and some of that quoting the episode:

Three recent approaches to a coup plot: 1) Germany -- stop the coup before it starts 2) Brazil -- round up insurrectionists after they attack 3) US -- Seat the seditionists in Congress, pass the buck on investigation, and allow the head insurrectionist to run for president again The refusal of the Biden admin to hold 1/6 organizers like Steve Bannon accountable has enabled fascism and seditionist violence worldwide. Brazil should be furious with the US's lax treatment of Bannon and of the coup-plotting global mafia based in Florida. "If I were a Brazilian citizen, I would be absolutely furious at the US right now, just as we in the US are furious when other countries -- Russia, Israel, Saudi Arabia, etc -- interfere with our politics and elections or lend monetary and tactical support to violent groups."

Jared Yates Sexton tweeted, speaking of Bannon and many others.

If you want to stop insurrections, if you actually want to save liberal democracy, you have to stop focusing on incompetent despots like Trump and Bolsonaro and go after the people funding them, who pay for the campaigns, who work behind the scenes radicalizing populations. It’s a complete indictment of our system that the January 6 Committee, led by Liz Cheney, told us it was all because of Donald Trump and did almost nothing to illuminate the Right Wing benefactors and groups that orchestrated the whole thing and continue to attack democracy. These ongoing attacks - January 6, the Trucker Convoy, Brazil’s insurrection, etc - are part of a larger, wide scale, and relentless attack on liberal democracy. This is, and always has been, bigger than Trump or Bolsonaro. And until we realize that, it’ll only get worse.

Matt Wueker tweeted a cartoon showing Uncle Sam getting his morning coffee while the TV and newspaper are full of the Brazil attack. He says, “I miss the old days when democracy was what we exported.” Leah McElrath tweeted some images of the attack and then excerpts of Lula’s response. She also wrote:

What we’re watching is the effort to destroy democracy on a global scale by making peaceful transitions of power a thing of the past. The combination of denial of election results followed by incitement to and orchestration of violence is becoming an iterative process.

Back to the US and the insurrectionists in Congress. Joan McCarter of Kos reported that as McCarthy was making deals with his far right members someone was writing those deals down. The rest of the House, certainly the rest of the Republican caucus, wants to know the details. McCarthy and others deny such an official document exists. But McCarter says, official or not, there is plenty of evidence it does exist. Laura Clawson of Kos reported House Republicans have their first bill – to repeal the budget increase for the IRS that was in the big Inflation Reduction Act. And – as expected – everything about it is based on a lie. McCarthy says it will repeal the funding of 87K agents. That’s a lie. They say it is fiscally responsible to not spend that $70B, but it would mean the treasury overall gets $114B less because the rich don’t pay taxes. They call it the Family and Small Business Taxpayer Protection Act by claiming those 87K agents would be coming after the middle class taxpayers, but the original IRS funding says the new agents won’t be going after families earning less than $400K a year. Not surprisingly Fox News and other conservative news outlets have been pushing these lies for months. McCarter reported that with that first bill the White House has issued its first veto threat (though the bill won’t get past the Senate). The WH says Biden won’t support a bill that encourages the rich to cheat on their taxes. This first action appears not to be an actual bill, but a vote on House “policy.” McCarter discussed some of the other early actions: They passed the rules package and that is described as guaranteeing more chaos and a government shutdown. One thing in the rules is that McCarthy’s hold on the Speaker job can be questioned at any moment. They authorized Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan to create a Joe McCarthy style witch hunt committee to go after perceived enemies (this doesn’t need Senate approval). They voted to defund the Office of Congressional Ethics, which is an independent organization (the House Ethics Committee is run by House members). The only reason to do away with an ethics office is because they want to be unethical. And somewhere is something about being kind to insurrectionists. McCarter reported that Majority Whip Steve Scalise has linked cutting Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare to negotiations over the debt ceiling – and lying about his justification. McCarter also included a photo of a screen at a Republican conference meeting that lists their budget goals. One of them admits that they won’t have next year’s budget ready by September 30 and will have to pass bills to continue this year’s budget. And they’re saying that 8½ months ahead. Nah, they’re not interested in actually governing. I can see, as I saw at the beginning of the nasty guy years, I won’t be able to keep up with every dastardly thing the House does. So I won’t try. I have a few more things to include in my next post, then I’ll try to stick to the important stuff. Bill in Portland, Maine, in a Cheers and Jeers column for Kos, dipped into his mailbag and created a letter:

Dear Americans Who Are Not Rich, Can't afford health care? Screw you. Want the food you eat to be safe? How quaint. Want Social Security to be preserved? You're an idiot. In foreclosure or student debt hell? La La La we can't hear you. Concerned about the environment? Crybaby. You want stronger unions? Good luck with that, commie. Unemployment benefits running out? Quit whining. Muslim? Latino? Gay? Un-American. Looking for fresh new ideas? Move to Scandinavia. Reproductive freedom? We own your private parts, little lady. Don’t want the government to default on its debts? Too bad. Want the rich to be taxed more? In a pig's eye. Wish we'd put America's interests above our own? Keep dreaming. Love and MAGA (and that little “OK” sign we make with our fingers), The New Republican House Majority P.S. Like cake? Eat all you want.

What happened to ‘freedom’ and getting government off our backs?

Today is Election Day. I put my ballot in the box outside City Hall on Sunday evening. Joan McCarter of Daily Kos reported Republicans are taking steps to steal the election. Much of what happened in 2020 happened after the election. This time there is a lot of preparation being done before. The first step is to file lawsuits, about 120 of them as of last week, trying to somehow suppress the vote. One such case was in Michigan. It was thrown out because what they asked was in violation of state election law. Another is in Philadelphia, reported by Laura Clawson of Kos, which will slow the counting of this Democratic stronghold, giving Republicans a chance to say (as the nasty guy did in 2020) if it isn’t counted on Election Day it shouldn’t be counted at all. The second step is similar to what the nasty guy did in 2020. Several Republican party leaders and candidates are saying if a Republican doesn’t win it is because of fraud. The code words are “free and fair” and “transparent,” which appear to mean whatever Republicans want them to mean. The third step is to produce a flood of polls trumpeting a red wave. These will be used as “proof” of fraud of Democrats win – how could the polls be so wrong? Because they’re fake news. The fourth step is threats of violence against election workers. Kerry Eleveld of Kos reported the polls over the last weekend don’t show a red wave. Jeff Guo and Nick Fountain of NPR visited the polling center at Marist College to try their hand at it with pollsters Daniela Charter and Barbara Carvalho. They found that it is common to dial 50-100 numbers to talk to one person. So there are lots of kinds of people don’t show up in polls. I’m one of those people quick to hang up on pollsters. One recorded voice called at least a half-dozen times. I hang up on pollsters like I hang up on sales calls. Some voting cartoons. I’ll let you look at one from RJ Matson. Pia Guerra tweeted one that says, “Vote as if you’re slapping Elon Musk in the face.” Tom Toles of the Washington Post tweeted one of his cartoons from 2012 that is, alas, quite accurate today. There is a poll worker at a desk and a person in a voting booth. There is also a person holding a sign, “I’m worried about voter fraud. So we need to make it harder to vote.” At the bottom of the image is, “Find the fraud in this picture.” Matt Wuerker of Politico tweeted a cartoon of a couple surrounded by cars, vans, and helicopters with signs that say “Election Police,” “Morality Police,” “Pregnancy Police,” “Book Police,” “Pronoun Police,” and a few more, all with lights flashing. The man of the couple says, “What happened to ‘freedom’ and getting government off our backs?” Donkey Hotey tweeted an image of an elephant in a gilded chair saying “Hey, hey, hey! Nice democracy you got there. It’d be a shame if somthin’ happened to it.” There is also the caption “GOP Morphs From Political Party to the Greatest Threat to Humanity in 50 Years.” David Sipress tweeted a ‘toon of a couple watching TV and the woman says, “Isn’t this political ad wonderfully false and misleading?” Christopher Weyant of the Boston Globe tweeted a ‘toon of an elephant working hard to pump a bellows to fan the flames of civil war while the nasty guy stands over him with a whip, saying, “Faster! It needs to be huge by the time I lose in 2024!” Dartagnan of the Kos community discussed the Republican declaration of intention to gut Social Security and Medicare. Yes, they’ve been after these programs for decades and because the cuts haven’t happened their intentions can be dismissed.

But this time Republicans are providing specifics—not because their own constituents would approve (they don’t, by huge margins)—but because they believe that they can sufficiently distract and misinform their own voters from their intentions by incessantly demonizing Democrats and focusing entirely on “hot button” grievances through their now almost wholly insular (and perpetually funded) media organs and social media. Those media organs—most visibly Fox News but now virtually all right-wing outlets—have effectively created a hermetically sealed bubble of reflexive, automatic distrust and dismissal of anything Democrats do or say, while simultaneously portraying Republican elected officials as blameless for any of the country’s problems. In short, Republicans are out to prove that there are no more “third rails” in politics, when your electoral base is, for all intents and purposes, conditioned into believing whatever you tell them to believe.

Mark Sumner of Kos published part 1 of his Field Guide to the Drones of Ukraine. It is part 1 because in 20 entries he got through only Paired Wing Drones with delta wing, rotor, and hybrid yet to come. I didn’t read much of it. I mention it for those into such things. Kos of Kos included a video (which I didn’t watch) that was tweeted by Anton Gerashchenko. The brief description says:

Russian children's show teaches that children deserve to die for misbehaving This atmosphere of total violence shapes people who are ready to murder, people who think it's the norm and people who are ready to be murdered.

A bit below that Kos included a cultural comparison:

English literature: I will die for honour. French literature: I will die for love. American literature: I will die for freedom. Russian literature: I will die.

They’re not even protecting their children. There is a video of a speaker telling youth to be ready to march to the front as soon as they’re old enough. A priest told women to have as many children as possible so that it is easier to send a son to the front. That priest has been killed in Ukraine. This is a society trained to be helpless.

A legal Medicare scam

Joan McCarter of Daily Kos reported that Biden is starting to campaign on behalf of Democrats for the midterm election in less than three months. Biden is talking about the Inflation Reduction Act, the mini Build Back Better bill he campaigned on. And he’s making one point clear: As he discusses the various parts of the bill he says “Every single Republican—every single one—voted against” it. Biden’s approval rating has been going up since he tested positive for COVID about a month ago. Signing this bill is helping that rise. Alas, it’s still in the low 40s. In another post McCarter reported that Democrats need to emphasize one more aspect of their opponents. Republicans are siding with the super wealthy and special interests – the extreme MAGA agenda. Josh Shapiro, the AG of Pennsylvania and nominee for governor is naming that other aspect. McCarter wrote:

They are dangerous. They pose a real threat to the physical safety of teachers, librarians, health care workers, LGBTQ people, Jews, and Black and brown people, not to mention their newest targets: federal law enforcement personnel.

That new law Biden is campaigning on has a big chunk of money to upgrade the IRS and hire more workers. Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos, quoted NBCNews which said Sen. Rick Scott is warning people not to take those IRS jobs because when Republicans take control of Congress the jobs will be eliminated. McCarter explained why the IRS needs that money for upgrades. They’re still 10.2 million paper returns behind. Their computers are 2001 models. They can’t scan paper returns, so have to enter numbers by hand. As for personnel, they’ve lost 20% of their staff since 2010 and one-third is eligible for retirement. Then McCarter reported on what else Scott said. He’s demonizing the IRS the same way Republicans have begun to demonize the FBI. That will prompt their base to start attacking IRS agents and offices. They’ve already started attacking the FBI. Which brings another meaning to eliminating the job. In a Ukraine update from a couple days ago Mark Sumner of Kos wrote about another huge explosion deep in Crimea. This one blew up a stockpile of ammunition and equipment near a railway. A nearby electrical substation also went boom. That’s important because the rail line is electric. As before, this is a long way from Ukrainian held territory. It isn’t out of range from long range missiles, but there is no evidence missiles were used. The earlier explosion at a Crimean air base left a lot of speculation as to how it happened. I had written about that few days ago. This time, as the New York Times reported, a Ukrainian official said the explosions were because of “an elite Ukrainian military unit operating behind enemy lines” – it was sabotage. That can’t look good for Russia. It means Russia’s control of Crimea isn’t all that good. Julia Davis of The Daily Beast tweeted a video and a link to a recent article with the words:

Meanwhile on Kremlin-controlled Russian state TV: top propagandist Vladimir Solovyov bemoans the search of Mar-a-Lago and says, “I’m very worried for our agent Trump.” Russian talking heads conclude that their favorite Presidential contender is royally screwed and ponder whether he might even be included in a future prisoner swap.

In an article posted two weeks ago (just after my vacation) Thom Hartmann of the Kos community and author of the Hartmann Report wrote about the Medicare Advantage plans being a scam. It’s a scam making insurance companies rich, a scam that is legal. You can blame Bush II for this situation. Advantage plans (and I’m on one) are not Medicare. They are funded by Medicare but are really private insurance plans with all the scary problems of regular insurance plans. That is hidden because they can brand their product as “Medicare Advantage.” Since they are private insurance plans they can deny care, including life-saving care. Yes, they can deny care that Medicare covers. There are also a lot of copays and deductibles. Another aspect is these insurance companies are paid not by the doctor visit, test, or hospital stay. They’re paid by the “risk score,” by how sick the patient is – and they routinely lie about it. When I was first on my Advantage plan I was called with an offer where a doctor would come to my house and do a complete physical and check for things in the house that might be injurious to me. I said no – they likely would find something. I later found out that’s the point – they would find something. And for every tiny something, either in my physical self or in my home, they could “upcode” me, declare I’m sicker, more of a risk, than I actually am. The insurance company gets more money from Medicare without much more in expenses. A 2014 report from the Center for Public Integrity showed that Advantage plans cost taxpayers billions more than they should. They overcharge without consequences. An example of denial of care is the experience of “Sam.” He had a really high prostate PSA number, a sure sign of cancer that was likely aggressive. But the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center – the best in the country – was not one his Advantage plan included. That plan included none of the cancer centers in NYC where Sam lives and a third of all Advantage plans nationwide don’t include any national cancer centers. And here’s the kicker. If one first signs up with an Advantage plan then tries to go to regular Medicare with a supplemental plan any condition first uncovered while on the Advantage plan can be declared a pre-existing condition and not covered. That may lock a person into an Advantage plan. My experience with my Advantage plan is mixed. So far they haven’t denied any specialist or test, though some of the tests included a copay and some low cost medications aren’t covered. However, they say if a doctor or a facility is not in network I have to pay 30% of whatever the doctor or facility bills (Medicare requires I pay only 20%). They have no idea what might be billed so can’t offer a price comparison. A big part of that is finding out whether a doctor is in network or not. The insurance provides a website to see if a doctor is in network. But I’ve had a case where the website says the doctor is not (because the name doesn’t come up) yet the doctor’s office says she is. Then there is the hassle of of that website giving me the name of every doctor with a particular specialty (which can be a long list) yet have a hard time telling me which of those doctors are members of my health system (where all my records are). I want out of this particular plan. Then I’ll have to choose between a different Advantage plan or a Supplement plan. I searched for “switching Medicare advantage to supplement” and one of the sites that came up is medicare.gov. Best to go straight to the source. This is some of what it has to say about switching. First, one must dump the Advantage plan and go back to straight Medicare. That is always possible.

Once you’ve returned to Original Medicare, you can apply for a Medicare Supplement plan anytime you want – but your acceptance into a plan isn’t always guaranteed. For example, if you have health problems, the insurance company can base its decision on your health history in a process known as medical underwriting. The company can decide not to sell you a plan, or to charge you more because of your health condition.

That underwriting is not necessary if one first enrolls in a supplement plan. When dropping an Advantage plan one will likely need to enroll in Medicare D prescription drug plan. The corporation I retired from (gosh, 15 years ago!) contracted with a company that helps their retirees navigate through the Medicare morass. I had long talks with them before signing up to my current plan and I anticipate I’ll have long hours with them this fall. I long for the day when American health care for everyone is as simple as: “You see a doctor. You’re covered.”

The longer you believe in the con, the harder it is to admit you’ve been scammed

I said yesterday I was relieved the forecast for my area predicted a high of 95F and my thermometer barely cracked 80F. That didn’t happen today. The prediction for today was 92F and my thermometer registered 90F. Last week I reported on a story by Mark Sumner of Daily Kos that said the COVID death rate for white Americans had risen higher than the death rate for black Americans, reversing a trend from early in the pandemic. Wrote Sumner about what he wrote:

However, that article was wrong. So was the source article. Both fell prey to a statistical phenomenon known as Simpson’s Paradox, in which “an association between two variables in a population emerges, disappears, or reverses when the population is divided into subpopulations.” I was wrong, both in my interpretation of the data, and in the commentary I drew from this conclusion. And in both cases, I forgot one of the most serious dictums of any form of journalism: Beware the story that is too friendly to your own beliefs. ... This article was incorrect on its core assumptions. You have a right to expect better. Apologies.

This willingness to admit errors and to explain why they are errors is a big reason why I trust Daily Kos as a primary news source. Yes, I quoted and linked to Sumner’s previous article. So I’m posting this correction. Here’s another example of why I trust Kos. It is again by Sumner and he discussed a new cancer drug and why he is skepical. He didn’t simply praise it and go on to another story. A week ago the New England Journal of Medicine published the results of how well that drug treated a specific form of cancer. There was “100% response” – in all of the patients their tumors were completely eradicated. That’s great! News outlets touted this is a cure for cancer. Sumner explained why that designation is premature: The study had only 12 patients. All that can be determined from a study that small is that a larger study is worthwhile. It was tried on patients with one particular form of cancer. The study is too small to understand side effects and how serious they may be. One side effect might be autoimmune diseases. If it works – if indeed it can be shown effective on a lot more patients, on other types of cancers, and without side effects worse than radiation and chemo – then it can be proclaimed as the new cancer wonder drug. We’d even praise it if it worked only for this one type of cancer. But we don’t know that yet. Joan McCarter of Kos reported Sen. Bernie Sanders held a debate with Sen. Lindsay Graham a couple days ago. Sanders said America spends twice as much on health care than other major countries. The reason is insurance companies are ripping off the system. McCarter wrote:

That’s socialism, said Graham. “And it’s not going to fix America. We are not a socialist nation. There is a better way, I promise you this.”

So if government provides a service that’s socialism and therefore bad. If there is a corporate layer that rips off the government and the citizens then it’s cool. As for Graham’s better way: Gut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. And, if Republicans retake the Senate, Graham, as head of the Senate Budget Committee, would be in a very good position to make that happen. This is part of a fight among Senate Republicans. The issue at the center of the fight isn’t the cuts, as devastating as they would be to millions of Americans. It’s that several senators insist on talking about the cuts before the midterm elections. I had written that five Republican candidates for governor on Michigan were removed from the primary ballot because they hired a company to gather signatures and too many of those signatures were fraudulent. Rebekah Sager of Kos reported there is a campaign in Nebraska to gather signatures to put a proposal on the November ballot to require voters to have an ID. Yeah, that’s a law adopted in many other states that suppresses black voters. So, yeah, a Republican effort. This campaign in Nebraska hired the same company that turned in fraudulent signatures in Michigan. Well, we don’t know if they’re fraudulent yet. But there have been so many complaints about the people gathering signatures (and being paid to do it) that law enforcement has started to investigate and the state Attorney General has heard about it. The primary complaint is they can’t explain what the proposal is about or they are lying about it. Sager wrote about Sen. Carol Blood, a Democratic nominee for governor.

“We have real fraud taking place in the streets in order to prevent fraud that is not happening in Nebraska. … It is a weird dichotomy,” Blood said.

If you were the victim of a con would you tell anyone about it? If you were well snookered and ripped off, would your pride let you admit it? What if it wasn’t a monetary con but a political one? What if the con was so complete you invested your identity into what the con artist told you? What if admitting you were conned meant expulsion from your tribe? Dartagnan of the Kos community explores those ideas. That’s why many followers of the nasty guy can’t admit their faith in him was misplaced or wrong:

That is a personal indictment of their own intelligence and self-worth, as well as an indictment of the people in whom they most commonly put their faith (usually friends and family); for that reason, their errors can never be acknowledged. The fact that those who presume to challenge their self-worth are their political opponents makes such an acknowledgment doubly impossible under any circumstances. ... Trump uses every opportunity to tell his supporters that such assertions [that the election was stolen] are the product of a “left-wing mob,” which stokes the same visceral fight-or-flight response in which Fox News regularly traffics. But the real kicker is the cloying implication that his supporters have special knowledge, that they’re smart, danger! And every assertion to the contrary by Democrats is simply perceived as an attack on their intelligence. “Of course the election was stolen, my tribe and a hundred social media sites confirm this,” they insist. And it makes no difference how much evidence is produced to the contrary.

This brings to mind something I had heard several years ago. A con man will frequently convince the mark that they as a team are conning someone else. Such as what Putin did to the nasty guy. Because the con man warns his marks what the official legal or Democratic response will be and defines what those responses are supposed to mean, when they happen the mark feels vindicated – my side was right. Dartagnan discussed why many “religious” people embrace the Big Lie:

An attack on Trump is viewed as an implicit attack on their faith, for which they’ve invested (some of them literally) practically everything they own. Their entire self-worth is predicated on the implicit assumption that they, and they alone, are “right.” In fact, that’s the comforting attraction of many religions: the need to be proven right. And as a corollary, anything espoused by “godless” Democrats—no matter how objectively rational—must be wrong.

Maria Konnikova has written books about how scams work. In a 2019 interview with NPR she said:

One of the things you realize when, you know, you study con artists is that we're conning ourselves all the time about who we are, about our stories. And con artists just pick up on that. They figure out how we're conning ourselves. That's one of the reasons why we're so susceptible.

Elizabeth Winkler, writing for Quartz in 2016 noted:

The longer you believe in the con, the harder it is to admit you’ve been scammed.

In a post of two weeks ago Marissa Higgins of Kos reported that Adam Tritt, an Advanced Placement English teacher at a high school in Brevard, Florida, is running a “banned book drive” to buy copies of books banned or challenged in Florida so students can read them over the summer. At the time of the post Tritt had raised $5,000. Moms for Liberty, a local chapter of a conservative group working to get books banned, is furious. They took to Facebook to claim Tritt was a sex offender, a “groomer,” and a provider of pornographic books. Those moms, in their fury, included a link to the fundraiser. Perhaps that put the link in front of more eyes and made donating a bit easier?

Health care is basically socialist

It is time for me to figure out what I’m going to do about Medicare. I’ve been at it for a while each day for ten days now. The easy part is yes, I’m going to enroll in parts A and B. If I don’t I won’t have health insurance in a few months because the company I retired from will automatically yank it. Instead, that company will put a chunk of money in an account and I have to send in receipts to claim it. More paperwork. But simply choosing A and B is the easy part. Medigap? Advantage? A plan with part D separate or within? One website said I had 61 options for one version of Medigap. Another said I had 50 options for Advantage. Yes, I feel overwhelmed. So last night I wrote a note saying that Medicare shouldn’t be this hard. The health insurance industry likes to say that I have a choice! I remember the comment from an American who lived in Britain. How’s this for choice: You get treated. It’s covered. I sent that note to my Congressional Rep. Rashida Tlaib, to Senators Stabenow and Peters, and even to the White House. Today I checked my former employer’s retiree handbook again. There’s a short section about a website (with real people to talk to!) that is a resource for navigating the Medicare complexities. This time I was able to say who my primary care doctor is and the 50 options are now three. That I might be able to manage. It shouldn’t be this hard. Stuart Stevens, who had worked on five GOP presidential campaigns and wrote a book “It Was All a Lie” tweeted:

While standing in line to get vaccinated, I was thinking about the 8 million ads I’d made about how government involvement in medicine was socialized hell. Maybe, just maybe, it was all a lie.

Dave Winer responded:

BTW imho health care is basically socialist. So maybe the mistake was thinking that somehow that’s a bad thing.

Winer linked to an article in Scripting that he wrote that described how health care is socialist. In America we try to fit everything into the Market. Some things don’t fit. And, I add, some things like heath care are incompatible with profit. Dartagnan of the Daily Kos community discussed a report by the Lancet Commission on Public Policy and Health titled Public Policy and Health in the Trump Era. The short answer, according to Dartagnan:

The consequences were horrific, but they were also entirely predictable.

The report discussed the nasty guy’s COVID response, of course, and also discussed such things as: Income inequality and related regressive tax policies. Large racial disparities in incarceration, education, and housing. The privatization of employee health care. The decline in union membership. Cuts to food and housing subsidies. Gutting environmental regulations. Then there was the nasty guy’s actual response to the pandemic. Dartagnan said one way to show how harmful the nasty guy’s pandemic response was is to look at the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus website. In the national map the US is bright red, even more solidly red than India or Brazil. Yes, there are 29.5 million cases in the US while there are 11.4 million in India and India has four times as many people. But the redness of the map is misleading because in the US there is a dot per county and in Canada there is a dot per province. In some European countries there is a dot per country. So, of course, the US is going to look more fully red. But that’s my only complaint of Dartagnan’s article. The latest Johns Hopkins stats: 120.6 million cases around the world. Close to 2.7 million deaths worldwide. 29.5 million cases in the US. 536.8 thousand deaths in the US. 56.6 thousand new cases today in the US. Back to Dartagnan and the Lancet. Another factor was the winnowing of federal agencies to make them incapable of adequately responding to the virus. Dartagnan wrote:

Trump can fairly be deemed responsible for the COVID-19 related deaths of approximately 200,000 Americans—people who would not have died had this administration followed the practice of other similarly situated developed countries ... our economic “peers,” so to speak.

Laura Clawson of Kos reported:

Rep. Deb Haaland finally made it past Senate Republicans’ special woman-of-color blockade on Biden nominees and was confirmed Monday as secretary of the interior by a vote of 51-40. Haaland, a citizen of the Laguna Pueblo, is the first Native American Cabinet member.

Another reason why this is a big deal is the Department of the Interior is the one that includes the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Having one of their own heading the department is a great step forward. It is also great to not have a friend of the oil companies in that job. The GOP and many news companies are in a snit because Biden hasn’t given any press conferences in his almost two months in office. David Frum of The Atlantic thinks that’s a good idea. By keeping a low profile he is de-polarizing politics. By letting various secretaries and agency heads speak Biden is showing how government should work and letting people see those who also make decisions. Reporters get more useful info out of the agency heads and are less tempted to try for the viral video. Frum thinks Biden is over-talkative and might not have the self-control for the job. By not talking Biden answers that question. From a week ago – Kerry Eleveld of Kos discussed an important part of the rescue plan recently signed into law, the help it gives to black farmers.

Oppression of America's Black farmers runs long and deep, with them losing more than 12 million acres of land over the past century, much of it since the 1950s. The U.S. government has been responsible for fueling most of that land loss through policies that boosted the buying power of white farmers while denying farmers of color access to credit and loans that are essential to helping people grow their business. Today, just 45,000 of the nation's 3.4 million farmers are Black. A century ago, the country was home to nearly a million Black farmers. The latest farm census also found that the average farm run by an African American is roughly a quarter of the size of the national average for farms—about 100 acres versus some 440 acres.

The rescue package will go a long way to reverse many of those policies.

Issues he championed

Finally saw Solo, a Star Wars Story. Overall, it was enjoyable, but the violence and constant danger was wearying rather quickly. It also wasn’t as much fun as the first trilogy. I think this is the first Star Wars movie in which the Force is not mentioned or used. It is also the first not to have any of Luke Skywalker’s extended family.



Anthony Kennedy is retiring from the Supreme Court. Somehow the rule that there should be no vote for a justice in an election year doesn’t seem to apply. We’re angry, but not surprised, by the hypocrisy.

Nina Totenberg of NPR notes that many of the issues Kennedy championed – lesbian and gay rights (I don’t think he got to transgender rights), abortion rights, affirmative action in higher education, a moderate approach to gun rights, limits on presidential powers in the war on terror – are now in doubt.



The nasty guy and his minions are saying that the only way for parents seeking asylum can be quickly reunited with their children is to drop the asylum claim and agree to be deported. But if the parent pursues asylum she will remain in custody and separated from her children. That’s a process that can take months to years.

A judge has ordered all children to be reunited within 30 days, sooner for younger children. But the nasty guy has a habit of ignoring judges and the law – which he did to get us into this mess.

Besides, the nasty guy doesn’t want judges. At least not on the border. He actually said that. He wondered, “What other country has judges?” How about all of them not led by a dictator.



Since I don’t watch much TV I don’t see many political ads. When there’s a good one someone has to point it out to me. And Daily Kos did just that. This ad is for MJ Hegar, a woman running for Congress as a Democrat in Texas. You’ll need to buckle up to watch it.



The House Budget Committee has passed a budget for 2019 that calls for huge cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. We knew this was coming since that huge tax theft bill was passed six months ago (the nasty guy held an event today to celebrate how awesome it is).

Passing out of committee doesn’t mean the House will pass it. However, the bill is constructed with “reconciliation instructions” that allow the Senate to pass it without facing a filibuster – which means even if the GOP loses in November the Senate could pass it in the lame-duck session.

Class warfare

Gosh, who didn’t see this one coming?

Marco Rubio said the GOP plan to tax the poor to give to the rich is the first step before “instituting structural changes to Social Security and Medicare.” Translation: gut.

All fall the various agencies that rate bills have been saying this bill blows a $1.5 trillion hole in the deficit. In sharp contrast to what the GOP said when Obama was in office they have been saying, “Deficit you say? Hmm.”

I (and many others) saw through the ruse. I commented (in another person’s blog) that I was sure the day after the bill was passed this gaping deficit would suddenly become hugely important to the GOP, causing them to demand correspondingly huge cuts to government social programs.

I was wrong about one thing. The GOP started talking about this the day *before* the vote on the bill. That’s more evidence that they believe they’ve already rigged the 2018 election sufficiently so they can’t lose.

One of the big selling points of the bill has been the claim that if corporations had more money they would create more jobs and boost wages. Yes, some of them will. However, Toluse Olorunnipa of Bloomberg reports that major companies will give the money to their shareholders or take other actions to boost stock price (the Dow Jones average hit another milestone high today). And shareholders tend not to be poor or working poor. They tend to already be rich.

Melissa McEwan of Shakesville reminds us this “tax” bill is class warfare. She explains:

One of the most common rhetorical fallacies in U.S. politics is that raising taxes on wealthy people to help fund social programs for people in need is "class warfare." That is not class warfare. That is a basic economic necessity to maintain anything resembling a functional capitalist society.

We hear an awful lot about how taxation of the wealthy constitutes "a war on the rich" and is part of a "wealth redistribution" scheme to give away rich folks' hard-earned money to layabouts who refuse to provide for themselves with an honest day's work.

That is a lie. It is also a perfect projection of the reality of conservative economic policy — which is entirely dedicated to giving working people as little compensation as possible and then taking even more in taxation, to subsidize and reward the lazy lifestyles of a class comprised of investors, heirs, and people who themselves might have worked very hard once upon a time but now spend their days guarding piles of gold coins like insatiable dragons.

"Class warfare" is economic policy that is designed to plunder wealth from the lower classes and redistribute it upwards to create ever higher concentrates among the already-wealthy.

I’ll add another point. The GOP likes to say that government is too big and are taking this step as a way to force government to be smaller. Their analysis seems to stop there, that a big government being a bad thing should be blindingly obvious. But they are making this claim for a particular reason. A smaller government can’t afford to help minorities and those of the poor and working poor classes.

Keep the vision of the society we wish to live in

Other bits of news:

North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory trusted the political analysis of the state’s Christian conservatives and went all out for the state’s “bathroom bill” that targeted transgender citizens. McCrory didn’t listen to what happened to Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana, where a similar license to discriminate bill essentially killed his political career (until he jumped on the nasty guy’s coattails).

At the moment McCrory is on the low side of a very close race to keep his job. He’s down by a few thousand votes and the state won’t certify the results until all provisional votes are counted.



Recreational marijuana was legalized in California, Nevada, and Mass. and lost in Arizona. In Maine the measure is too close to call. Medical marijuana was legalized in Florida, Arkansas, and North Dakota.

Gun control laws passed in California, Washington, and Nevada. Higher minimum wage laws were passed in several states, including Arizona, Colorado, Maine, and Washington.



Michael Moore has a five point plan. My summary:

1. The Democratic Party failed us. Take it over.

2. Fire all pundits who pushed a narrative rather than seeing what was really happening.

3. Any Congressional Democrat not ready to be obstructionist as possible must step aside.

4. Stop saying you were “stunned” and “shocked.” It only means you weren’t paying attention to the despair of your neighbors.

5. Hillary won the popular vote, which means a majority want action on climate change, equal pay for women, debt-free college, raising the minimum wage, universal health care, and they don’t want us invading other countries. The majority of voters agree with the “liberal” position.



George Takei also has things to say, which he did in a series of tweets:

1. We may not have prevailed, but we must not despair.

2. This does not feel like the America we love and honor.

3. We must reaffirm the values we cherish: equality, justice, and the care of our planet.

4. We must stand up to any divisive acts and look for the most vulnerable among us.

5. Keep the vision of the society we wish to live in.

6. This country has lived through slavery and grave injustices. We’ll find our way through this too.

7. In the toughest days we find our true mettle.



I didn’t know this was a thing. After women of Rochester, NY vote, many of them take their “I voted” sticker and place it on the grave of Susan B. Anthony. This year the line for doing so had hundreds in it and was an hour long. The city’s mayor kept the cemetery open until well after voting closed.



There were thousands of people many in many cities across the country protesting the nasty man’s victory. The protests in Manhattan focused on Trump Tower.



This is the second of the last five presidential elections in which the candidate with the most votes didn’t win. Time to get rid of the Electoral College – or at least make it more reflective of the country by getting rid of winner-take-all. The good news is that such a change doesn’t have to come from Congress (since the GOP benefited both times why would they want to?). The downside is what the Michigan GOP considered – assign the Electoral College votes according to which party won each highly gerrymandered congressional district.



It is not completely dark for progressives. Democrats in office are becoming more diverse, such as Catherine Cortez-Masto (Harry Reid’s replacement) who is the first Latina in the Senate, and Tammy Dickworth who is the first Thai-American there. Democrats made gains in western state legislatures, including taking back the New Mexico House. We gained a majority in the North Carolina Supreme Court and kept a couple others (including Kansas!).



Yesterday I wrote about the GOP to-do list. My comments were on the mild side. For example, I suggested the GOP would privatize Medicare. It looks like they would rather kill it. They’re not too fond of libraries either.

Doing just fine

A big triumph of the progressive movement is the adoption of Social Security expansion. Democrats from Obama on down have signed on to the idea. Joan McCarter of Daily Kos posed five questions to Nancy Altman, founding co-director of Social Security Works. This is some of what was said.

In spite of those on the right convincing the Millenials that SS system is so broken it won't be around for them, SS is doing just fine. The right has been pushing that idea since about the time SS was signed by Franklin Roosevelt and it hasn't come true yet.

SS benefits are quite modest – we can afford it. And it is well run with administration costing less than 1%. So it won't take any more admin costs to expand the SS system. The expansion issues are:

* Help with the looming retirement income crisis.

* Add paid sick leave, paid family leave, caregiver credits, children's allowances.

* Lower the age to qualify for Medicare, the medical part of the SS idea, until it becomes Medicare for all.

Expanding Social Security can cultivate allies among the young. The SS system works better when the workforce is better educated and has well-paying jobs. So supporters of SS should also support debt-free college. They should also support workers rights, collective bargaining, and raising the minimum wage.

Closing in on a single payer system

There have been several news stories recently about the EpiPen and the huge increase in price (and huge increase in CEO pay) over the last few years. Egberto Willies of Daily Kos sees this as one of the signs that single payer health care will come.

This EpiPen mess. A company withdrawing from the health care marketplace because its merger was denied. A report that shows high drug prices are not necessary for the development of new meds. Increasing deductibles make standard policies seem like plans that handle only catastrophes. Many people would rather pay the Affordable Care Act penalty than actually get insurance. All these things are signs of serious flaws in the ACA and could bring about its end, even though the ACA was a great start in eliminating the immoral parts of our health care system.

Here are signs that Willies says mean single payer health care will come:

Each health insurance company has its own overhead – advertising, buildings, staff, expensive CEO, and shareholders looking for profit. From the view of the patient and taxpayer that is all duplication. It means 33% of every insurance premium goes to overhead (and profit) and not actual care. Yet, we're told this is cheaper than Medicare for All.

Americans pay substantially more for health care, getting outcomes no better, and in many cases worse, than citizens in other countries.

Health insurance companies, to maximize profit, work to attract the healthy (the young) while they work to fend off the sick (the old, infirm, and unfit). Our bizarre system works to avoid sick people.

These insurance companies are consolidating. We're already closing in on a single payer system, but one that demands a profit.

Health care (which I've said before) should not be subject to the whims of the market. It is incompatible with profit. Willies expands that idea. Normal market rules of supply and demand don't work. Since health care is required to keep living the patient is always at a disadvantage, health care for profit is extortion by definition.

Health care for profit or a government run system. We'll need to choose soon. And we need to be ready because those who get rich off the current system will lie and spread confusion to be able to continue their extortion.

Reminding us who they really are

What better topic for tax day than the federal budget!

Paul Ryan, the guy nominated in 2012 to be Vice President, is touting his federal budget again. I think it got an endorsement from the House. It very clearly shows what the GOP will do if given enough power in Washington. Terrence Heath summarizes the major goals. We've seen these before.

* Repeal Obamacare but don't offer anything to replace it.

* Cut welfare. Cut food stamps and convert the rest to block grants to states with emphasis on "flexibility." That means if a state throws enough people off food stamps the state can do what it wants with the "overrun."

* Cut the Home Energy Assistance Program because several states are "abusing" it. They have linked that program to food stamps and food stamp usage has gone up.

* Cut Medicaid by turning it into a block grant (see above) and by indexing it to inflation even though medical expenses rise faster than inflation.

* Cut Medicare by changing it to "premium support" with the same inflation index.

* Cut aid to students and increase interest paid on student debt.

* Cut the budget of the Securities and Exchange Commission, so the financial industry has less regulation. That will invite another financial mess (and we know who ends up profiting from those).

* Increase spending on the military as a patriotic way of sucking money out of the rest of the federal budget.

* All those cuts will result in a much smaller budget. Which means the deficit will be eliminated and the national debt will go down -- just like the GOP is calling for. No. Wait. I'm being silly. All that savings will give the 1% another tax cut to the tune of more than a quarter million dollars each. Deficit? Never heard of it.

This budget isn't going anywhere beyond the House. The Senate will only touch it long enough to toss it out. Even if the GOP takes the Senate in November the Dems will still be able to filibuster it. Besides, this prez. will veto it. Which means this annual exercise is a way for the GOP to remind us who they really are.

But the GOP and their backers are a patient bunch. And in 2017…

Back in chains

In a speech before a predominantly black audience, Joe Biden said the GOP policies would "unchain Wall Street" and "put you all back in chains." Yup, the GOP squawked about slavery. But there is an important point that Biden may not have intended, and the GOP missed.

Yes, the GOP policies are working to make sure blacks can't vote. Those policies have the greatest economic hit on black communities. Drug laws are causing more havoc on black communities.

And more blacks than whites are in prison. The privatization of prisons has meant those companies are looking for more sources of revenue -- such as selling prison labor. Yup. Blacks back in chains.



Terrence Heath reports on an analysis of Paul Ryan's plans for Medicaid. He notes these things:
* Medicaid is not the problem. Overall health care costs are the problem.
* Medicaid is not just for the poor. It is important to many middle- and working-class Americans.
* The cuts to Medicaid do not lower health care costs. They shift costs to those least able to afford them.
* Cuts to Medicaid are as unpopular as those for Medicare. Democrats compromising with the GOP do so at their peril.
The rest of Heath's post documents the pain the Ryan cuts would generate.



Government has declared the economic crash was nobody's fault and aren't pursuing prosecution. But there is evidence of crimes. The perps may not face jail, but we could make them face continued public humiliation.
* Repeatedly parade their crimes in public.
* Repeatedly count up their billions in ill-gotten gains and compare to the human misery they caused.
* Publicize details of dirty deals and disdain for clients.
* Make them pay millions to defend themselves in the court of public opinion.



Here are five things the rich get out of the government they claim they want to shrink.
* Security: A lot of what the police do is focus on crimes against wealth. Business keep the police focus on homeless, unemployed, and drug users to make sure these groups don't take their anger out on the wealthy.
* Taxes and regulations: The gov't is doing all it can to make tax avoidance, customer fleecing, and reckless polluting legal.
* Research and infrastructure: Long term research takes too much time for corporations focused on quarterly profits, so the gov't does it. Corporations take advantage of roads, ports, power grids, communication networks (including satellites) built and maintained by the gov't. Education, paid for by the gov't, trains the chemists, chip designers, and programmers, engineers, and analysts that corporations need.
* Corporate welfare.
* Disaster recovery: Most of the expense of oil spills are paid by the gov't. There is also financial bailout for those too big to fail.



Tony Danza (yes, the TV star) spent a year teaching 10th graders in Philadelphia, apparently for a reality TV series. He lived to write a book about it, due out next month. He wrote an article in USA Weekend, which comes with the Sunday Free Press. One thought from the article: Every time the school's budget is cut the students get the message that education is not important.



Every August Beloit College releases a Mindset List which looks at culture through the eyes of those entering college. It began as a way to tell faculty about outdated references. It is now used as a way of keeping track of the changing worldview of the young. Now that I teach college students I probably should pay attention. Examples:

They have had to incessantly remind their parents not to refer to their CDs and DVDs as “tapes.”

For most of their lives, maintaining relations between the U.S. and the rest of the world has been a woman’s job in the State Department.

Women have always piloted war planes and space shuttles.

My readership in Russia has apparently collapsed. A couple weeks ago I was getting more than 200 hits a week from Russia. Then suddenly it dropped to 20-35 a week. No idea why. My readership this week includes USA, Britain, Russia, Germany, India, Canada, Ukraine, China, Australia, Venezuela, Netherlands, and Thailand.