Tag Archives: COVID-19

Political Rants

Who won.

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Well, wasn’t THAT a cluster fuck.

As I write this, the presidential race has not been called, but it is clear that the Biden campaign substantially under-performed expectations and that they dragged a lot of down-ballot races down with them. Even if Biden pulls it out, which he may have done by the time I post this, the Senate is basically lost – a tremendous lost opportunity in a year when Democrats had a lot of advantages going in to the election. Add to this the loss of a number of House seats – maybe ten – including, quite probably, Anthony Brindisi’s NY-22 seat to former Congresswoman and Trump acolyte Claudia Tenney. That is a terrible outcome by any measure, and I have little doubt that Republicans are high-fiving all over the place at having separated their fate from that of President Trump, with the help of a feckless Democratic party.

There’s no question but that incumbent presidents are traditionally hard to beat. More often than not, they fend off challengers, largely because of the enormous advantages conferred by that office. So as re-elects go, if Trump is successful in clinching an electoral college win (which at this point seems highly unlikely), this would be a remarkably poor performance for an incumbent who was ultimately allowed to retain his office. Then again, he is Donald Trump, and as such, the worst president not only in modern times but in the entire history of the United States. He has presided over a ham-fisted response to the coronavirus pandemic that has resulted in more than 230,000 dead Americans and a major economic contraction the dimensions of which have not been seen since the 1930s. By rights, the man should have been easy to beat, and even Biden should have been able to take this race in a walk. What went wrong?

I’m not the only one to point this out, obviously – far from it – but the Biden campaign was essentially a content-free enterprise. He is the UnCola, the antithesis of Donald Trump (except with respect to his old white man-itude), and his running mate the antimatter counterpart to Mike Pence. But that’s essentially selling a negative, right? What is the affirmative case for electing Joe Biden and, more broadly, the Democratic party? The activist base of the party, both affiliated and non-affiliated, has a clear idea of what they want to get out of a Biden administration – namely, something far more progressive than Biden would opt for without being pressured. But if elections are about convincing large numbers of people to vote in certain ways, that necessarily must include potential voters who are not activists and who do not think about politics and policy on a daily basis. What did Biden and the Democratic congress explicitly offer these people? What was their case for election, aside from “we’re better than Trump”?

There will be plenty of time to ponder the meaning of this race. The sad thing is, that will be time when we will not have the governmental power to slow down the climate crisis, protect people from COVID, improve access to health care, keep people in their homes, and more. And as Dylan once put it, lost time is not found again.

luv u,

jp

Check out our political opinion podcast, Strange Sound.
Political Rants

Lock X Up.

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It’s full fledged campaign season again, folks – my very favorite time of every four year cycle … not. Elections are necessary but painful, essential but insufficient, and so on. I acknowledge all of that and will participate, as well as encourage others to do so, but god don’t they make it a pain in the ass? I don’t watch that much television, but I’m nevertheless being bombarded by ads for one candidate or the other. This week there was a Biden ad with a voiceover by Sam Elliott. (I was waiting for him to recommend a visit to Kinney Drugs. ) Then there’s the Trump ad that has Biden saying he’s going to raise taxes, cutting him off before he gets to the “on people making more than $400,000 a year” part. I guess when all else fails, Trump – like every other Republican – goes for pappy tax cut. Low hanging fruit.

Most of the GOP ads in my local Congressional district race (NY 22) are being pushed out either by the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee or third party, dark-money groups hoping for a return of my old high school classmate, Claudia Tenney, to the House of Representatives. Some of these ads are hilarious, calling out Rep. Anthony Brindisi, the incumbent, for not being a “centrist” as he claimed he would be. What’s particularly funny about that is the fact that Claudia is the farthest thing from a centrist that has ever represented this district, at least in living memory. She so closely clings to the fading shadow of Donald Trump that she (or, perhaps more likely, someone on her behalf) has distributed lawn signs that read “TRUMP / TENNEY”, as if she were running for Vice President. (Pro tip: she’s not.) A few of her own ads have shown up now that we’re in the closing weeks of the campaign, but they’re not all that memorable.

Of course, home-stretch Trump is worth ten Claudia Tenneys in terms of bombast and crazy-ass proclamations. As has been reported practically everywhere (on the basis of simple observation), the president is desperately trying to recreate the conditions of his 2016 electoral upset. The FBI probe into Hillary Clinton was a help, so he’s trying to get them to investigate Joe Biden. Actually, he’s calling on Bill Barr to arrest Joe Biden for crimes against the internet, I imagine, and has been leading his unprotected, non-socially distanced rally crowds in chants of “Lock Him Up” or “Lock Her Up”, which I assume is referencing VP candidate Kamala Harris, but which could also be Hillary, given the president’s and his followers’ obsession with the former Secretary of State. I’m not sure if what I hear rattling in Trump’s voice is COVID or extreme frustration at his attorney general for not following his autocratic directions. Either way, he’s riding the crazy train to election day, and we’re all in the passenger cars, chugging along right behind him all the way.

This can’t be over soon enough. Just don’t try to reach me on November 4 – I think one way or the other i’m going to be out for the count.

luv u,

jp

Check out our political opinion podcast, Strange Sound.
Political Rants

Sick Mother.

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This week felt so much like insult upon injury. I sometimes think back four years and wonder if I would have believed then that times like these were even possible. This country is being ruled by a narcissistic proto-autocrat that doesn’t care how many people suffer as the result of his enormous selfishness. Because of his massive incompetence and carelessness, more than 210,000 people have died of COVID-19, including people within his own circle of acquaintance; he himself has caught the virus and spent several days in the hospital. And I’m sure the Fareed Zacharias of the world were expecting that he would emerge from that experience a newly sober and serious man, a president at last, ready to take this disaster seriously. They were, of course, grievously disappointed – Trump never changes, and like honey badger before him, he doesn’t give a fuck.

Not sure how Trump thinks people will react to him saying that COVID is nothing to be afraid of and that we shouldn’t let it “dominate us.” There are very few Americans who don’t know someone who’s been affected by this virus. It’s hard to imagine how I would feel if I had lost a family member to COVID and then had to listen to him bloviating in this way. Now he’s claiming that he is not only cured, but no longer infectious – that his therapies were, in fact, “cures” for COVID – this as he staggers around the White House, likely infecting everyone he comes into contact with … a super spreader POTUS. We’ve finally discovered his true super power (and you thought it was making cheeseburgers disappear).

A lot has been said about White House staffers and what a difficult spot this puts them in. Now, I have a great deal of sympathy for the domestic workers, the food service people, the support staff that keep that place running from day to day – they don’t deserve this. But the president’s senior staff; people who have chosen to work with this mad man, to develop and support his policies, to glom onto his celebrity in hopes of furthering their own careers – those people can cheerfully suck my ass. This is the dilemma that their president has bestowed upon all of us. Many of them, in their supreme arrogance, may have thought themselves immune or exempt from the dangers they exposed the rest of us to. Well, it turns out not to be the case. Trump’s irresponsibility and lack of concern for the health and safety of the American people apparently extends to his senior advisors as well. He’s like the gangster who keeps shooting his lieutenants in the middle of a heist. Hey folks … you fucked up. You trusted him.

The White House is literally a major node in the propagation of this disease locally as well as nationally. That’s all you need to know about this administration.

luv u,

jp

Check out our political opinion podcast, Strange Sound.
Political Rants

Joe’s Lunch.

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China ate Joe Biden’s lunch – that’s one of the many incoherent things Trump said during Tuesday night’s debate. The fact is, though, that Biden kind of ate his own lunch in Cleveland this past week, and it probably didn’t taste all that good. I don’t claim to be an expert on debates … and I don’t think anyone is an expert on whatever that Tuesday night clusterfuck was supposed to be … but Joe left a whole lot on the table in that exchange. Like most mainstream Democrats with their heads stuck in the “I’m not a liberal” nineties, he gave away the store to Trump on a number of points, particularly having to do with police conduct, health care, and so-called law and order.

So, okay, I’m not affiliated with the Biden/Harris campaign, but here are a few suggestions for the team on what Big Joe might say in response to some crazy shit coming from our president:

Health Care – At one point, Trump bragged about killing the individual mandate in the Affordable Care Act. That was a great opportunity for Biden to point out exactly how the administration is trying to kill the whole bill in a case that will come before the Supreme Court right after the election. That’s when Joe should look at the camera and say, “Folks, Trump’s using that to get the Supreme Court to strike down all of Obamacare. He’s trying to cancel your health insurance and take away your protections for pre-existing conditions!”

COVID-19 – Trump was happily calling COVID the “China Virus”. Biden’s rejoinder (again, to the television audience) should be, “Look, folks. More than 200,000 people died while he was saying the virus would just go away, or that it was just a hoax. For that reason alone, it should always be referred to as the Trump Virus. He likes to put his name on things, so he should be fine with that!”

Extremism – Trump was accusing Biden of not being in favor of law and order, talking about how dangerous movements like ANTIFA are in his imagination. At that point, Biden should have talked about the posse of heavily armed right-wing thugs that took over the streets of Louisville, KY, in recent days, or the right-wing teen who killed two protesters in Kenosha, WI a few weeks ago. Joe should say something like, “How is it law and order when your followers start intimidating and killing people with semi-automatic weapons? Why do you defend killers and thugs?”

The Environment – As he often does, Trump claims to want “clean air and clean water.” There’s plenty of evidence to the contrary, and Biden shouuld be loaded for bear on this. But he should also say to the audience, “Folks, this is how much he cares about clean air and clean water. He appointed a coal industry lobbyist to run the EPA. And as a result, [INSERT FACT HERE]”

Hey, Biden … dig in, man. No charge. (Who says there’s no such thing as a free lunch?) No, you don’t have to thank me. And there’s plenty more where that came from.

luv u,

jp

Check out our political opinion podcast, Strange Sound.

Political Rants

Fearmongering.

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There’s a passage in the Bob Woodward recordings of Donald Trump that I’ve no doubt you’ve heard about a million times by now; the one in which our president claims that his decision to downplay the danger of the COVID-19 pandemic was all about avoiding a panic. That’s right – Donald Trump would have you believe that he is trying to prevent mass hysteria, or at least that’s what it sounds like on this tape. Either that or he was worried about a panicked stock market. (Given his conviction that the stock market is the only economic indicator worth consulting, perhaps that’s more like it.) I think it was Chris Hayes who commented that Trump’s campaign slogan is panic. This is the guy that brought us MS13 living next door, rapists and murderers coming over the border, killer caravans heading north towards Laredo, antifa threatening the peace, Cory Booker threatening the suburbs, and so on. Really?

Probably the only thing really surprising about these Woodward recordings is how halfway normal the president sounds. Interesting how when there’s no television or live audience he starts to act almost human, even chummy. Listening to this, you start to see why Joe Scarborough and Mika were so enamored of him for a while prior to his presidential run. He was a T.V. star, after all, and totally in on the joke, right? Not right. In all honesty, it’s no surprise that Trump was aware of how deadly and contagious the novel Coronavirus is. We’ve long known that he was briefed on it, and it only made sense that he would be. I mean, the man has a glass head – it’s not hard to see what his motivations might lead him to. The virus was not his fault, right? So why should he have to pay a political price for it. Just pretend it’s not there …. that trick works with everything else.

Unfortunately for the Donald, viruses – much like facts – are stubborn things. They don’t yield to our hopes and desires. They aren’t scared away by a little off-hand blow-hardiness. You can see Trump getting as frustrated as a five-year-old over how this thing is unfolding, grasping for anything that will help him put the scourge behind him. As usual, he’s working overtime to change the subject and focus the public’s mind on anything other than COVID. Typically, for Trump, that means playing the fear card, warning of an attack on the suburbs by some dark army of his imagination. So he’s saying the quiet parts out loud again, which is how he started in politics and likely how he will end.

Despite what their own domestic intelligence agencies tell them, Trump and Barr continue to insist that “antifa” and Black Lives Matter are somehow potent threats against the republic, NOT heavily armed, white militias. That’s the narrative they hope will carry them to victory this fall. Let’s prove them wrong.

luv u,

jp

Check out our political opinion podcast, Strange Sound.

Political Rants

Slow progress.

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The election is less than sixty days away, and already I’m sick of thinking about it. More than likely, that’s the predictable result of a news media that is hyper-focused on elections to the point where they literally begin reporting on the next big race before the votes in the current one are even counted. As I’m sure I’ve mentioned before, I think the press likes the horse race aspect of elections – it’s an easy story to report, there are opposing sides, melodrama, jockeying for position, etc. I haven’t done the analysis, but I’m confident that horse-race stories far outnumber more substantive reporting. Whatever the proportion may be, it’s a silly thing to report on, particularly when there are such titanic issues facing the nation and the world, issues that are on the ballot this fall, in some respects.

To be clear, I don’t think electing Joe Biden will be enough to, say, turn the tide back on climate change, or expand affordable health care to everyone, or stop COVID in its tracks. The project of making Joe Number One is more about avoiding bad things than promoting good ones. He still seems married to the concept of employer-provided health care, just as Nancy Pelosi is, and his campaign was positively ecstatic over its endorsement by former Michigan governor Rick Snyder, who condemned a generation of young people in Flint to the depredations of lead poisoning. So yes, we have a lot of hard fights ahead of us, even with a Biden victory. But I think it’s fairly easy to see the writing on the wall this time. Look at the skies over San Francisco. Look at the legions out of work and on the edge of eviction. Look at the kleptocratic travesty that is Wall Street, gorging itself on public dollars like almost never before. This obviously needs to stop, as Trump said, right here and right now.

Still, I feel like the two opposing sides are playing different board games. It kind of amazes me to hear the reporting around Trump’s comments to Bob Woodward, the shock of his admission that he downplayed the virus, etc. Is it shocking? Really? The man’s public statements since the beginning of the year tell you everything you need to know. Did we really need to hear his conversations with Woodward to surmise that he wasn’t taking COVID seriously, or that he wasn’t leveling with the American people? Did we really need that Atlantic article to imagine that Trump would hold uniform military, veterans, or any group of people in utter contempt? While our representatives in the mainstream media project shock and surprise, the Trumpists just continue along their merry way, deconstructing the administrative state stick by stick.

I know the institutional Democratic party wants to make this an election about manners and integrity. But this election, like all elections, is about policy, and we have to drive the distinctions home if we have any hope of getting this loser out of the White House.

luv u,

jp

Check out our political opinion podcast, Strange Sound.
Usual Rubbish

Safe and sorry.

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2000 Years to Christmas

You look like a freaking bank robber. Don’t you have anything else you can use? Try turning it inside out. Yeah, that’s it. Huh. Looks worse. Never mind, man …. it’s pointless.

Oh, hi. Just running though our safety protocols here at the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill in upstate New York, our long-time squat house. You never know when disaster may strike. Well …. that is, you never know in advance. I mean, you know when it strikes because it hits you right in the face. Anyway, the point is, we’re finally living up to the Boy Scouts of America creed: Be prepared! Your scout leader may be an abusive POS, so by all means … be prepared! (True fact: When I was a kid, I used to mix up the Boy Scouts with the Boys Clubs of America. But that was mostly because of television advertising – I never came within ten feet of either organization.)

Right, so we are taking precautions in the Hammer Mill. The executive committee of the Big Green collective (i.e. myself, Matt, and anti-Lincoln) decided on a mandatory mask policy. This didn’t go over well with the posse, particularly (and this seems a little surprising to outsiders) anti-Lincoln himself, who vowed to fight the decree to his last breath. After we supplied him with some Kentucky bourbon, he tied a bandana around his head and tried to get it over his ample nose, but no luck. He looked like a cartoon bandito from a corn chip commercial, and of course, we laughed, even though it’s a very serious situation …. very serious indeed, young man!

What the hell is that, Lincoln?

So, yeah, we’re protecting ourselves from COVID-19, like everybody else. We’ve got group members with pre-existing conditions … like Marvin (my personal robot assistant), who tarnishes easily. But there are other dangers as well. No, I’m not talking about the landlords, though I do have my eye on them. There’s also fire. That’s right, fire. Here we were, considering a move up the Mohawk River to the abandoned Charlestown Mall, and just this past week, it burned to a cinder, sending toxic smoke into neighboring communities from Utica to Westmoreland to five other places you’ve probably never heard of. “Don the masks,” Mitch said, forgetting that there’s no one here named Don. “Marvin, the masks!” I corrected him, and Marvin started handing them out to all and sundry.

We’ll let you know when it’s safe to breathe easy. That’s right, Central New York …. you’ve got a friend.

Political Rants

Unconventional.

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I suppose you heard the big news this week. Excited? Well, you should be. It’s a tremendous accomplishment for a woman of color in this deeply racist nation. Tuesday’s big news practically guarantees another two years of Ihan Omar in the United States House of Representatives. Woo-hoo!

Oh, right … and Biden picked Kamala Harris. Thought as much. Frankly, that could have gone a lot worse. We were hovering very close to Klobuchar territory before the murder of George Floyd, and then it was all over. I’m terrible at predicting things like VP picks, but this one seemed pretty obvious – Biden needed somebody youngish with some star power, experience, and grit. He obviously feels no need to give a nod to the left, and that’s no surprise either. My biggest complaint about her is that she let Mnuchin off the hook over his foreclosure mill in California and that her criminal justice record is not the kind of progressive counterbalance you would hope for in a Biden-topped ticket.

Their announcement event was kind of dismal, largely owing to the fact that COVID is still running wild. I just wish the Biden Campaign would hire someone who can compose a shot. The two-shot as Harris spoke was just weird – Biden in profile, giving that SOTU squint of his, which from the side doesn’t look all that great. I’m not sure I heard anything encouraging in the torrent of platitudes, but be that as it may, I hope to hell they get over the finish line this fall. The Democratic Party is positively expert at shooting itself in the foot, and they may not know it, but they’re taking a big chance on Biden this year. The notion that Harris is going to help light a fire under the activist base is a bit of a stretch, but hopefully there’s something to it.

As we approach the non-Convention, scheduled for next week, there are some worrying signs. First, some progressive grassroots media outlets, like The Young Turks, have been denied press passes …. to a virtual event, for crying out loud. Even worse, anti-choice Bush administration alumnus and former Ohio governor John Kasich, last seen attempting to school yeshiva scholars on the Old Testament, has a major speaking role at the convention …. whereas Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), leading voice of the progressive left in the party, is being allowed … wait for it … sixty seconds to speak. This tells you all you need to know about their electoral strategy. They appear to be listening more to the partisan flacks on DNC-friendly media than to the masses of people their party depends on for any chance of victory this fall.

What the fuck. We’ve been to this dance before, and it didn’t turn out well. The so-called centrists in the Democratic party need to get their heads out of their 1990s asses and get a clear look at who their constituencies are. And they need to do it fast.

luv u,

jp

Check out our political opinion podcast, Strange Sound.
Political Rants

Muddle in the middle.

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A snapshot from the day’s news – MSNBC is obsessing over Secretary of Defense Mark Esper’s announcement that we’re withdrawing 12,000 troops from Germany. The various former Republicans that populate its talk show panels are lamenting Trump’s undermining of the NATO alliance. In real time, we are seeing the Biden foreign policy take shape. I won’t say it’s a more aggressive posture, as Trump is aggressively pursuing conflict with Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, China, and others. There is, however, a somewhat nostalgic turn to the emerging centrist doctrine Biden will no doubt pursue. It appears we may be in for a slight return of the cold war model, the east-west divide, the Russian menace. If that’s the case, it would be a bitter trade in exchange for the crap show we’re living through now.

I am tentative about this observation because it’s hard to be certain what a Biden foreign policy will be when the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee has consistently avoided posting any details about it on his campaign site. Since it’s likely to be formulated by committee, I’m guessing it will be bellicose, but measured; assertive, but mindful of precedent; proactive, but not necessarily the first to any party. Where will we bomb, drone, invade next under a President Biden? One can only guess. Likely he will re-deploy those 12,000 troops to Germany, whether or not they pony up the Euros for costs associated with the posting. Indeed, the only net positives might be a return to some type of arms control regime with Russia, Iran, and others, and perhaps a re-commitment to the tepid, voluntary goals of the Paris Accord on Climate. Not nearly enough for my taste, but there you have it.

I think the most compelling case for this muddle in the middle, from a foreign policy standpoint, derives from the very nature of the presidency and who holds that office. The U.S. president is too powerful. It is an office that wields force, both military and economic, in unlimited magnitude. No one should be THAT powerful, particularly not someone who is accountable to an electorate that makes up less than five percent of the world’s population. Placing Donald Trump in the cockpit of that titanic killing machine is not only irresponsible, it’s sheer madness. Regardless of any minor departures from the hard-line Republican orthodoxy on foreign relations and national security, Trump has proven his propensity to flub his way through any situation, with disastrous consequences. We’ve seen this in his response to the Coronavirus. Even as he seems inclined to curry favor with Putin, we’ve seen him tear up crucial arms agreements with the Russians, hurtling us back into a deadly arms race.

Plainly, Biden’s foreign policy will likely be as imperial and neoliberal as he can get away with. But every moment Trump sits behind that so-called Resolute Desk, we are in mortal danger. He simply has to go.

luv u,

jp

Check out our political opinion podcast, Strange Sound.
Political Rants

Gaslight village.

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There’s something the president has been saying repeatedly lately that probably shouldn’t be allowed to pass without challenge, like most of his insane utterances. (It amazes me sometimes how much this reminds me of the Reagan years, when old right-wing Ronny used to say truly bizarre things and journalists would just wanly shrug and move on.) He keeps claiming that, in responding to COVID-19, he saved millions of lives. The claim goes something like this: If I (Trump) had not acted as decisively as I did, more than 2 million people would be dead of COVID. Instead, it’s a measly 140,000. Aren’t I a hero, then?

I wish I were making this up, but you’ve heard it, I’m sure. I’m beginning to understand why Trump is so determined to save all of those Confederate monuments. He must have gotten a bunch of loser trophies when he was a kid. Actually, his entire life has been a series of loser trophies and mulligans, starting with the fortune that was dropped into his lap, his various bankruptcies and failed scams, then being shoe-horned into the presidency via America’s ultimate grandfather clause, the electoral college. And yet through all of this (and much more), he has insisted that he is a big winner, that no one could have done what he did, and so on … and so on. At the same time, he whines incessantly (like so many on the right do) about how unfair life is to him. Poor little Donnie!

This is some grade-school level gaslighting, to be sure. I mean, the man is saying that by doing the bare minimum required of him as president of the United States, he prevented a precipitous, uncontrolled spread of COVID that would have cost millions of lives, and for this he should be thanked. I hate to break it to fat boy, but not engaging in massive criminal negligence does not exactly place you in Medal of Honor territory. Next we’ll be expected to thank him for NOT randomly noodling with the nuclear football and accidentally launching World War III. That saved billions! No, as president, you don’t get rewarded for NOT blowing up the world this week. (That’s pretty much expected of you, Don.)

R.I.P. Michael Brooks. When political commentator and leftist thinker Michael Brooks died unexpectedly this week, I thought of the people I’ve known who left this world far too soon – people who seemingly had a brilliant future ahead of them. Brooks was one of those people, and he will leave an enormous hole. Condolences to his family and his colleagues on the Majority Report, TMBS, and elsewhere. This year is for shit.

luv u,

jp

Check out our political opinion podcast, Strange Sound.