Cromwell

Everyone will be wondering who wrote the Op-Ed.  My guess is that it was someone who has been part of the Trump administration from its inception with ties to the GOP establishment and interests in both foreign and domestic policy.  The better question, however, is why?

My guess is that the real message of the Op-Ed was that the adults are still in charge, so you can vote for the GOP in November with a good conscience even if you think Trump is a man on golf cart. In my opinion, however, anyone who is counting on the “steady state” to keep him under control for four years is a fool.

If I were in a position to question Kavanaugh, I would focus on the mechanics of originalism.  I would ask him to identify which of the Founding Fathers would be of special interest, and why.  I would ask what documents he would use in this process.  I would ask if published letters were useful in determining intent. He would have to say yes.

Then I would ask a question about Trump’s tweets, and let the fun begin.

It’s the day we reward those who work.

A day off for the drivers and clerks.

Capital’s friends

Surely wish for its end.

For them, it’s a pretext to shirk.

The labor theory of value makes sense for hunter/gatherers, but not for a modern economy, which also runs on capital and intellectual property.  That said, in the final analysis, the economy still can’t run without labor, and we are still living on infrastructure built largely with or ancestors’ muscle power.  We should be more grateful for it.

Labor in the US has never operated under such severe political and economic disadvantages during my lifetime as it does today. Demographics are about to start changing that, at least as to jobs that cannot be easily automated or sent overseas.  As for everyone else . . . there are still lots of underemployed people in India and Africa.

Trump’s greatest weakness with white working people is his contempt for unions.  His announcement of a pay freeze for federal workers just before Labor Day is an obvious stick in the eye for American workers everywhere.  Will the Democrats make him pay the price for it in November?  We’ll see.

Enjoy your holiday!

Who is this Grace chick the black people sing about all the time?  The only Grace I know was a two.  It should be “Amazing Donald!”

It isn’t just that he’s a mercantilist.  They give him arbitrary power over the entire world.  Everyone has to come to his door and suck up to him to avoid being a victim.  He can make or break fortunes at a whim just by citing to “national security”.  He can create a new cliffhanger every day.

Does anyone out there think he would give up that power voluntarily?

If “Stop the Madness!” would make a great Democratic catchphrase during the current elections, the GOP slogan should be “Cover up for Trump,” given recent disclosures about the list of legitimate investigations that they are determined to prevent.  In light of that, what would it take for the Republicans to seriously consider impeachment?

1.  The payment of hush money to a porn star without appropriate disclosures in order to influence the outcome of an election?  Forget it.
2.  The active solicitation of assistance from a hostile foreign power in order to win an election?  No way.
3.  The active solicitation of assistance from the hostile foreign power in exchange for the promise of significant policy concessions?  I used to think so, but now I doubt it.  Trump supporters are going to rallies wearing t-shirts saying they would rather be Russians than Democrats.
4. #1 and #3, plus some sort of self-inflicted national catastrophe that threatens hundreds of GOP seats in Congress and the interests of the donor class?  That might be it.

Pathetic, isn’t it?

A programming note:  I will be on vacation until 9/10.  Posting until then will be short and irregular at best.

People my age will remember that the leadership of the Soviet Union used to engage in a good cop, bad cop routine revolving around the “hardliners in the Kremlin.”  The idea was that the American government should make concessions on this issue or that to strengthen the hand of the existing “moderate” Soviet leaders, because the alternative was far, far worse.  In reality, there was little or no daylight between the leadership and the purported hardliners, and the gambit rarely worked.

It occurred to me a few days ago that Kim is faced with the same sort of issue with the current US government.  The North Koreans clearly believe that there is a distinction between Trump, who is accommodating and wants to make a deal, and his cabinet members, who are much more skeptical.  Are they right?

In some ways, yes.  It is true that Trump wants “wins” and the spotlight, and doesn’t care about the specifics of the negotiations.  That makes him an easier target for the North Koreans.  It is also true that it has been possible on occasion to persuade Trump to overrule his advisers and make concessions to Kim.  The problem, however, is that denuclearization is a complex process that inevitably requires lots of hard work and expertise, which in turn means that Trump can’t and won’t do it himself.   Mattis, Pompeo, Bolton, and the rest of the hardliner cast have to be involved if anything meaningful is to get done.

Trump himself seems to have declared victory and moved on.  The North Koreans are getting frustrated with the lack of progress, even though they have “won” by looking reasonable to the rest of the world.  How can they cut through this situation and regain Trump’s attention?  By saying or doing something outrageous, of course.  It always worked in the past.

It’s going to happen.  It’s just a matter of time.

The deal with the Mexicans apparently includes a provision which requires auto manufacturers to show that workers making at least $16 per hour built at least 40 percent of their vehicles in order to take advantage of the tariff waiver.  Since the vast majority of Mexican auto workers make a small fraction of that, the presumed purpose of this section is to drive production facilities out of Mexico and back into the US.  On its face, it is a victory for Trump and for American workers.

But is it, really?  There is a serious question about how this provision is going to be enforced.  That aside, put yourself in the position of a CEO of an “American” auto manufacturer (does this concept even make sense anymore?) who will have to deal with this new situation.  Your company has a supply chain with both Mexican and American components.  The new agreement is going to drive up your costs and make your products less competitive relative to those of “European” or “Japanese” car companies.

If you don’t simply elect to try to commit a fraud on the new system, your choices essentially are to: (a) maintain the status quo and pay the tariff, which makes your product more expensive; (b) pay the Mexican workers far more, which probably increases your costs even more; (c) move your Mexican facilities to the US, which has  roughly the same result as (c); or (d) move the entire process overseas, and pay the tariff, but also take advantage of lower labor costs.

If you really want to compete on cost, you’re probably going to pick (d).  Does that really make America great again, or does it mean that larger tariffs on vehicles made outside North America are next?

 

When you think about it, John McCain and Aretha Franklin could hardly have been more different.  The one thing they had in common was that they were both outstanding Americans.  We will celebrate both of their lives this week.

That’s what makes America great, my friends.  It’s not the power of our armed forces, or the size of our economy.  It’s most definitely not hatred and white nationalism.

Life in the time of Trump.

His friends are going to jail.

He’s mad as hell

Despite the smell.

“The system’s rigged!” he wails.

The one’s chasing a pardon.

The other wants a deal.

Who will come off best? you ask.

Manafort, I feel.

Any way you look at this, you lose.

         Paul Simon, “Mrs. Robinson”

That’s a pretty good description of the UK’s Brexit options.  As I see it, there are three alternatives, all of which leave the country worse off than it is today:

1.  The government succeeds in making a deal and pushing it through Parliament.  The deal continues to permit the free movement of goods between the UK and the continent, but it requires the UK to make annual payments and to live with EU rules without having a say on them.  Services are not included in the deal.  The government is then free to make its own trade deals with third parties, but lacks the bargaining leverage of the EU.  This is the best case scenario.
2.  No deal is struck by the deadline.  Chaos ensues.   The government probably (but not certainly) falls in spite of its effort to spin its failure as an act of patriotism and good faith with the more rabid Brexiteers.
3.  The deal described in #1 is reached, but the government can’t sell it in Parliament, and it falls.  Chaos is the result, and Labour wins power in the ensuing election.

Given these unappetizing alternatives, could a second referendum possibly be so bad?

On the ex-campaign manager Paul.

It appears that he’s taken the fall.

He said “pardon me.”

Hopes that Trump sets him free.

But for now, there’s no door in that wall.

On the late maverick senator John.

One can hardly believe that he’s gone.

He served to the end.

He had plenty of friends.

Not including our president Don.

It didn’t exactly work out the way Thomas Jefferson expected.  Even by the end of the nineteenth century, his vision of America dominated economically and politically by small, scrappy yeoman farmers had been crushed by the capitalist colossus.  That is why it is so difficult to say how Jefferson would have responded to today’s unanticipated conditions.  Would he have supported increasing the size of government to deal with a world with Facebook and Amazon, or would he have been an honorary Koch brother?  We’ll never truly know.

Except that there is one place in America that really resembles Jefferson’s dream:  Vermont.  Everything is smaller than life by design in Vermont.  And so it may well be that Jefferson’s intellectual heir isn’t really Sarah Palin, the city-hating Sage of Wasilla;  it is Bernie Sanders.