Category: Uncategorized

You can call me Sebastian. Yeah, like the guy in all of those old paintings.

My family has lived in this small town for nearly a hundred years. My daddy, his daddy, and his daddy before that. We’ve all managed to make a living here. We sure weren’t rich, but we weren’t poor either. We stood on our feet and never, ever asked for any government welfare. I’m proud of that.

Over the last 30 years or so, life has gotten harder. It’s tough to make a living these days, with the Chinese and all. And the thing is, the government doesn’t care about people like me. They only care about illegal immigrants and gays and blacks and other people who want to pick my pocket and get cuts in line. Then they call me a bigot and say I have “white privilege.” Right! All I do is work hard and pay the bills for everyone else! What kind of privilege is that?

Trump? Hell, I know he isn’t perfect. Sometimes I just want to jump through the screen and tell him to shut up. But the thing is–he’s on my side! He knows who the enemy is. He’s trying his best to shake things up and help people like me. Maybe he doesn’t always succeed, but at least he’s trying. That’s more than anyone else in Washington is doing.

Would I risk my life for him and go to restaurants and bars with the virus still going? Damn right! I’m not doing it for him; I’m doing it for myself and my kids and grandchildren. I don’t want them growing up in a world where white Christians aren’t respected. Trump is the only thing between us and that world. We have to do what we can to help him out.

It’s July. The stay-at-home orders have been lifted, but deaths from the virus are continuing, unemployment is over ten percent, and consumer confidence is very low. Millions of small businesses have disappeared. The hospitality industry is fighting for survival. There is no rocket fuel in the recovery. Things are looking bad for November.

This is a moment made for the used car dealer in chief. He runs around the country like a madman, insisting that America is back (due to him, of course) and that renewed prosperity is just around the corner. The implicit–or, in some cases, explicit–message to red Americans is to risk their health and their lives for the sake of the economy and his re-election. After all, if the Democrats win, the country will be run by illegal immigrants, women, and gays, and we can’t have that, can we?

In some red communities, this actually works. Mostly, it doesn’t. In any event, red America, which represents a relatively small part of the overall economy, can’t bring the country back by itself. Unemployment is still in double digits in November. Only a miracle, or vote suppression on a massive scale, can save him now.

Trump is angry with the WHO for sucking up to the Chinese instead of taking a harder line and demanding more transparency. Anyone else would have a reasonable point, but Trump also consistently sucks up to the Chinese leadership, and refuses to accommodate American business and political leaders who don’t suck up to him.

Just another instance of the pot calling the kettle black.

Congressional Democrats and Republicans typically “compromise” on spending issues by satisfying both sides and increasing the deficit. With that in mind, why is the GOP balking at providing needed funds for hospitals and state and local governments, particularly since it is delaying additional payments to their PBP constituents?

Frankly, I’m at a loss to explain the hostility to hospitals under the current circumstances, but the state and local government part is obvious. A large portion of the GOP basically hates government–even state and local governments it controls–and views the imposition of furloughs and salary cuts on public employees as a positive development. It’s their way of getting back at the deep state, I suppose.

It won’t work in the end, because even GOP voters demand a decent level of local services, and aid to state and local governments was one of the most cost-effective ways of saving jobs in 2009. For now, however, everyone suffers unnecessarily.

To James I, it was simply a matter of logic: a divine right ruler was not subject to English law. Sovereignty granted by God could not be limited by tradition, property rights, or Parliament; his actions were subject only to the judgment of the Almighty. If he abided by the law, it was purely a matter of grace that could be reversed at any time. He actually did respect English law and traditions in practice, but his pronouncements on the issue naturally made his subjects nervous.

In a somewhat similar vein, Donald Trump’s absurd statements about his authority to re-open businesses in the states are mostly white noise. Trump craves attention, adulation, and votes more than raw power. His idea of federalism involves him getting the credit and looking like a leader; state governments do the real work and take all of the blame. Appalling as this is, it’s more alarming on paper than it is in the real world.

Where is the DOJ on this? I’m dying to hear from Bill Barr. Does his theory of executive power go this far? Where would he find support in the Constitution for it? Would he dare cross his master and disagree in public? Inquiring minds want to know.

Aye-aye, Captain Bligh!

Biden didn’t win the nomination by running a great campaign; in fact, he won several states without really campaigning at all. He ultimately prevailed because African-Americans trusted him after years of service, because the majority of the electorate thought socialism was a losing bet, and because Warren was uniquely vulnerable to an identity-based campaign. That’s not going to be enough in November.

Biden is going to need plenty of help from surrogates in the general election. How should he do that? Here are my suggestions:

1. Secretary of Uplift: Barack Obama. No one in my lifetime has provided inspiration like Obama. No one is even close. The GOP has nothing like him.

2. Negative Campaigning: Elizabeth Warren. Warren lost primarily because the voters understood that everything about her fed Trump’s narrative about over-educated elites. That aside, Warren has a unique ability to find and go for the jugular. Give her plenty of money and let her run.

3. Minority Outreach: Kamala Harris. Biden needs someone to pay his debt to African-Americans and bring excitement to his campaign. Harris will do the trick quite nicely as the junior member of the ticket.

Barack Obama didn’t play a particularly important role in Clinton’s campaign because she seemed to have things under control, he didn’t want to outshine her, and he had a country to run. He kept mostly quiet during Trump’s first three years, because Bush did it for him, and he didn’t want to be divisive. He didn’t take sides during the 2020 primaries, because he knew he was needed as a unifying figure at the end, regardless of who won. But all that is gone now, and it’s all hands on deck.

Biden needs him; the Democratic Party needs him; the nation needs him. We need his intellect, his integrity, and his ability to uplift. We need him to protect his legacy from a vandal who is determined to destroy it. More than anything else, we need him to help save the country from becoming the illiberal state that could well be our future if Trump, in spite of everything, wins a third term.

He’ll be there. I’m sure of it.

Trump has apparently taken the position that he has the sole power to determine when the various social distancing schemes imposed by the states can be relaxed. This is consistent with his skewed concept of federalism: he gets the fun parts, and state and local governments are stuck with the pain.

I have to assume that he thinks that the commerce clause prevails over traditional state police powers, even during a pandemic, and even when the federal government disclaimed any interest in creating the regulations in question. That line of reasoning sounds questionable, at best. If push comes to shove and the issue is litigated, however, the Democrats’ interests would actually be best served by a Trump victory, because the commerce clause is their legal weapon of choice to expand federal power, and the right has done its best to limit its use in the recent relevant past.

Don’t think Mitch McConnell doesn’t know that. He’ll be begging Trump not to make the argument. Will the man on golf cart listen to him? As he likes to say, we’ll see.

Many years ago, I had to deal with a bureaucrat whose analyses were almost invariably wrong. My rule of thumb with him was that there was a presumption of incorrectness attached to everything he said and did.

Why does that come to mind when I see that Larry Kudlow is going to be on the council that makes recommendations on when to reopen the country?

Many of Trump’s disagreeable qualities–his grandiosity, lack of empathy, and authoritarian temperament, just to name three–are clearly rooted in his narcissism. No one would consciously choose to be a narcissist; his parents are responsible for that. On the other hand, some of his other disgusting traits, including his laziness, lack of intellectual curiosity, and corruption, are self-made, and could be corrected if the will existed. Which of the two categories predominates?

I’ve gone back and forth on this one, but I’m currently leaning towards the pathetic side. It’s arguable. What do you think? Let the debate begin!

There are two ways to deal with the virus: to apply the overwhelming coercive power of the state; or to educate the public and rely primarily on voluntary compliance with social distancing requirements. China, as you would expect, used the first approach, while most of the rest of the world used the second. Who’s winning?

If you believe the statistics, the Chinese are. The problem, of course, is that Chinese statistics are notoriously unreliable, and the government has every incentive to lie. In addition, some liberal democratic jurisdictions reacted more quickly than others, and were rewarded accordingly–think of the difference between New York and San Francisco. Creating a model political system for everyday use based on this kind of extraordinary condition is also inappropriate. Finally, the Chinese state is responsible in large measure for the creation and spread of the virus. On balance, therefore, the authoritarian state has not proved its case.

By nominating Biden, the Democrats have eliminated Trump’s ability to run an identity-based campaign, or one against socialism. The virus has shot down any chance of comparing his economic record against Obama’s. What’s left? To portray the virus as a biological weapon created by the Chinese in response to the trade war, and to argue that Biden is soft on China.

So how should Biden respond? In three ways. First, there’s plenty of footage of Trump sucking up to Xi, even with regard to the virus. Run it over and over again. Second, to point out repeatedly that Trump considers our European allies to be as bad as the Chinese on trade, and refuses to work with them to bring about real international trade reform. Finally, run against Russia. There’s plenty of footage of Trump sucking up to Putin, too, not to mention the connections between his campaign and the Russian government in 2016. The American public is suspicious of Russia for obvious historical reasons. Use that to your advantage.

In his new autobiography, Woody Allen apparently responds to the notion that we should always “believe women” with a reference to the Scottsboro Boys. He didn’t mention the Salem witch trials, but he could have. It’s the same thing.

I’ve always been perfectly consistent on this point–neither sex has a monopoly on the truth, which has to be ascertained on a case-by-case basis. And so, I thought Harvey Weinstein’s accusers were completely credible, but I also thought Al Franken was railroaded, and that the allegations against Allen were probably false, because the police investigated them and did not press charges.

That, of course, brings us to the new allegations of sexual assault against Joe Biden. I don’t find them credible for a variety of reasons, including: there is, of course, no physical evidence of the attack; no other workers in the Biden office at the time have any recollection of receiving a report of the attack; no one has found any evidence that a paper report was filed, even though the accuser says it happened; the accuser made no reference to the attack earlier in the year when other women were complaining about Biden’s habit of being too handsy with them; the accuser has little information about the specifics of the alleged assault; and the accuser has a partisan axe to grind. That’s a lot of reasons not to believe it. No single one is necessarily disqualifying, but the entirety of the picture is pretty clear.

The NYT clearly conducted an exhaustive investigation of the subject; the lack of publicity given to the allegation indicates that the investigators found it incredible, and wanted to avoid making it another bogus Clinton e-mail issue. You can read the article and decide for yourself. For me, it’s a very easy call.

So what, in a cosmic sense, is the meaning of the virus? Here are the possibilities:

1. The virus is the product of bats and poor policy. It has no ultimate purpose; like everything else, it just is, and we have to deal with it. (Materialism)

2. God created the universe, but does not intervene in its operations. As for the virus, see #1. (Deism)

3. God’s purpose in creating the virus are unknowable to humanity. Who are you, mere mortal, to question why? (Book of Job)

4. Like all apparent misfortunes, the virus is actually a blessing from God in disguise. Treat it as an opportunity to be a better person and a better society. (Optimistic Christian)

5. The virus is a plague sent by God to scourge us for our sins. (Pessimistic Christian)

I’ll leave it to you to decide which to believe. I will say, however, that the worst effects of the virus fall too randomly on the population to constitute any kind of justice, the pain that it has caused outweighs any opportunity it creates by a large margin, and anyone who thinks I accept demands for blind intellectual obedience is reading the wrong blog.