Monthly Archives: September 2019

Remember Rep Chris Collins (R-NY), who was indicted on insider trading charges prior to the 2018 elections? NBC News is reporting that his innocent plea may not survive the week:

Rep. Chris Collins, R-N.Y., has sent a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office stating that he is resigning from his House seat, a source familiar with the matter tells NBC News.

Collins’ resignation comes ahead of his expected guilty plea Tuesday to charges relating to insider trading, according to documents filed in federal court Monday. His resignation will become effective once his letter is read on the House floor during Tuesday’s pro-forma session.

Collins, the first member of Congress to announce his support for Donald Trump’s presidential bid, is scheduled to appear for a “change of plea” hearing in a Manhattan courtroom at 3 p.m. Tuesday. He pleaded not guilty to insider trading and several other charges when he was first indicted in 2018. Experts say the hearing means he is likely changing his plea to guilty.

The reputation of the current crop of Republicans is blackened just a little bit, especially since Collins is a Trump supporter (TrumpScore: 99.3%, which is astounding to my mind). In fact, his >cough< superior TrumpScore even stains Trump himself, since one can assume Collins has been modeling himself on Trump.

I don’t actually know how Collins’ seat will be filled, but my guess is that it’ll be an appointment by the Governor, followed by a special election. The Governor, Andrew Cuomo, is a Democrat, so unless there are special rules concerning how to fill an empty seat, we can expect a Democrat to be appointed.

And then? New York’s 27th District has been Republican for a while, but Collins won the 2018 election, when under indictment, by .3 point, or roughly the skin of his teeth. How will a ‘clean’ successor do against a specially appointed incumbent? It’s hard to say.

But there’s definitely some opportunity here for the Democrats.

I hope he has a hidey hole.

The Connecticut Post is the first I’m aware of:

This is an impeachable offense. Republicans spent Wednesday arguing there was no explicit quid pro quo, but there is seemingly no line the president can cross that would inspire them to put the public good ahead of politics. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, joined by the entirety of Connecticut’s congressional delegation, has called for impeachment proceedings, and that process must now begin in earnest.

The proper next step for the president is clear. He should resign. He has repeatedly proven himself unfit for office and appears to view the presidency as a position meant to benefit himself personally, not as one that must represent the interests of an entire nation.

It’s good to see they recognize that it’s not just Trump who’s fatally flawed, but the entire GOP. It simply sharpens the point. Their shame, even if they vote for conviction at Trump’s impeachment trial, will be great for letting this go on for so long.

But – to be fair – way over on the other end of the spectrum, and perhaps exhibiting his lust for prestige, position, and power to an untoward degree, Presidential advisor Pastor Robert Jeffress has his own opinion, delivered in a Fox News interview, for which I’ll use Crooks And Liars for a partial transcript:

“I think it’s hard to take Nancy Pelosi’s call to prayer seriously. I mean it reminds me of a pyromaniac with a match in hand about to set fire to a building saying, ‘Please pray with me that the damage I’m about to cause isn’t too severe.’ I mean if you’re really sincere about that prayer, then put down the dang match.”

“[I]mpeachment is the only tool they have to get rid of Donald Trump and the Democrats don’t care if they burn down and destroy this nation in the process,” …

“If the Democrats are successful in removing the president from office, I’m afraid it will cause a Civil War-like fracture in this nation from which this country will never heal.”

A load of hooey. A sober analysis would ask what the results might be depending on the evidence and arguments presented at the impeachment and the trial. Sure, if Trump is getting shafted, there’d be a sizable segment of upset people. But if the evidence is overwhelming does he still think a Civil War fracturing will follow?

Or will the American people, exercising their wit and wisdom, kick Trump and, tragically for Jeffress, Pastor Jeffress to the curb? All we’d lack is Mark Twain to deliver the final, poetic kick to the nuts.

No, the problem with Pastor Jeffress – and why his prating should be ignored – is that he has way too much skin in the game. He has, as I said, power, prestige, position, all things that this agnostic knows Jesus Christ would have despised. And now he’s defending it in the face of not only alleged, but apparent multiple abuses of executive power. His willingness to continue to back Trump in the face of severe moral failings, not to mention Trump’s intellectual limitations, disqualifies him from any consideration of his ramblings.

Surrounded with the best? No, Trump seems to attract the worst.

While perusing a post concerning President Trump’s ill-advised demand that the DOJ investigate Representative Adam Schiff (D-CA), Chair of the House Intelligence Committee, suddenly the phrase Little Adam Schiff popped into my mind. A little research confirmed that, indeed, President Trump had denigrated Rep Schiff at one time, and, according to The Blaze^[1], used Little pencil-neck Adam Schiff as well.

Funny thing about nicknames that are denigrative. They’re used to indicate the assumed superiority of the speaker, his or her dominance over the target. President Trump is notorious for using nicknames to denigrate his opponents, from Lyin’ Ted Cruz to various Democratic politicians.

This works out fine if you win. But what will Trump do if he is, in fact, impeached? In Trump’s narrow mind, Schiff isn’t performing oversight activities, as that activity has no meaning in the private sector from which Trump hails and is, metaphorically speaking, cloistered in. For Trump, Schiff is attacking him, and if Trump is, in fact, successfully impeached in the House, then Little Adam Schiff will have won.

President Andrew Johnson

Evading conviction in the Republican-controlled Senate will be a treacly counterstroke by Trump as well, since Schiff loses nothing if the conviction doesn’t occur. Trump’s legacy, weak as it is, will be marred with an impeachment on it for all history to review; he’ll join Nixon, Clinton, and Andrew Johnson with that black mark, and Trump only admires the latter. It’s not good company he’s keeping, although he may try to spin it his way.

But all those Democratic nicknames will come back to haunt him, as they triumph over him in a way he’ll never be able to overcome. So if the House does pass Articles of Impeachment, Trump will indeed begin to boil.

After all, he’ll have lost to Little Adam Schiff.

¹ The Blaze features this little come-on:

Ditch the fake news ==> Click here to get news you can trust sent right to your inbox. It’s free! [link removed]

And thus, in general, is an untrustworthy news site. However, in this particular case I believe we can accept its quote of Trump as true.

The Tampa Bay Times happens to know the price list if you need access to Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL) and you’re corporate – or have deep pockets.

Golf in a foursome? $25,000.

Golf one-on-one with DeSantis? $100,000.

A 10- to 15-minute meeting? $25,000.

A dinner event? $150,000.

One hour of an “intimate and high dollar” gathering? $250,000.

Paying for access to powerful politicians is hardly new. President Bill Clinton famously allowed top donors to stay in the Lincoln Bedroom at the White House during the 1990s. President Donald Trump’s acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney once bragged, “If you’re a lobbyist who never gave us money, I didn’t talk to you. If you’re a lobbyist who gave us money, I might talk to you.”

But internal documents from DeSantis’ campaign committee provide a rare peek into the inner workings of the main political operation behind Florida’s top elected official — someone who is often talked about as a potential 2024 presidential candidate.

The money would be paid in the form of donations ‘… to the Republican Party of Florida, which [chair of DeSantis’ political committee Susan] Wiles described in a memo as “interchangeable” with DeSantis’ political committee.’

The privatization of government, one might say, where only those with deep pockets and the favor of the King Governor can hope to benefit. To be fair:

“It would be false and grossly unfair to Gov. DeSantis to assume that any of the ideas proposed in this memo were ever implemented,” [chair of DeSantis’ political committee Susan] Wiles told the Times. “In fact, Gov. DeSantis should be commended for upholding the highest standards of ethics during his campaign and during his service as governor of our state.”

Doesn’t that sound familiar? But …

In the Jan. 20 memo to Strum, Wiles said that DeSantis and the first lady approved the “aggressive” fundraising plan. Casey DeSantis, a key member of DeSantis’ inner circle, intended to play “an integral role in many of these activities,” Wiles added, including events for supporters at the governor’s mansion and dedicated time for thank you calls.

Maybe not exactly illegal, but so likely to result in poor governance that it should be simply called corrupt, with Governor DeSantis landing directly in prison.

Too bad it won’t happen.

A recent day yielded this baby squirrel, munching away.

BTW, our apple crop this year was abominable.

Is it still a parade if it’s in Venice?

Venetian Bird (1952) plays as a slice of life for private detective Edward Mercer. He’s in Venice a few years after World War II, hired to find one Renzo Uccello by a Paris legal firm, but we’re never sure why, even if the ever more implausible story of a reward for a saved life is offered – and it doesn’t seem to matter, as the mystery of Uccello quickly consumes our attention. Mercer advertises for information in Venice, which leads to a quick contact and then, in a ridiculous mistake, the loss of his man as he fetches a drink for him.

But now he has a name, and that leads him to the galleria where Uccello’s unknown wife, Adriana, works on tapestries, and the sad news that Uccello died in a German bombing of a local village. Mercer decides to visit in order to be thorough, and discovers the local sculptor was the mayor at the time of the bombing, and helped remove Uccello’s battered body, among many, from the collapsed hotel. Mercer’s eye is caught by some of the better sculptures, and the former mayor confesses that they are the work of his assistant, a better sculptor than himself, who was taken away by the Germans near the end of the war.

But Mercer nearly gulps down his cigarette: one of the sculptures looks like it is the model for the tapestry he had seen at the galleria where the widow works.

The twists continue as the Chief of Police becomes involved, as do his men, and soon we come to an unexpected denouement: the attempted assassination of an up and coming political leader, which will be pinned on Mercer.

And this is credible because Mercer may have been involved in a similar situation years ago.

This moral ambiguity pervades this story’s major characters, and lends it a realistic edge. Mercer is tired of the whole business of seeing blackness and evil all around him; his friend, Rosa, is a world-weary ex-pat who can never seem to find the right man, but she’ll rouse herself one more time to help Mercer escape the police, despite her own suspicions of his role as assassin; Adriana the widow, offered the opportunity of redemption from her dubious life of crime, turns away in doubt. Hell, even Casana the tourist photographer leads a second life as an undercover policeman.

This realism, in turn, complicates the story, but not overly; that is, the complications are organic and feel right. This makes it an interesting morality tale. It’s not perfect, of course, and not as compelling as other stories of its genre, such as The Maltese Falcon (1941), but it kept our attention and kept us wondering, not only what was coming, but what had come before. If this is to your taste, you could do much worse.

Corey Lewandowski, former campaign manager for the Trump campaign and, reportedly, a Senate hopeful in Virginia for the seat of Senator Warner (D), had better hope that Senator Warner, or whoever succeeds him as the Democratic nominee for Warner’s seat, doesn’t see this video of Lewandowski testifying to the House Judiciary Committee. He’s under fire from the Committee’s consultant counsel, Barry Berke, who is slowly pinning Lewandowski down and ripping off his metaphorical wings concerning Lewandowski’s mendacity.

You know Lewadowski realizes he’s in trouble when he resorts to the logical error of claiming something totally different from what Berke is trying to get him to admit, which is that he lies whenever it suits him:

What I’m saying is that, when under oath, I’ve told the truth. Whether it’s before special counsel, or the House Judiciary Committee, or the House Intelligence Committee on two separate occasions, or the Senate Intelligence Committee, every time I’ve raised my right hand to God, I’ve sworn and told the truth. [My transcript from below cited video, roughly at 5:15.]

It’s quite the video, watching Lewandowski squirm like a bucket of Slime as he tries to avoid admitting that he’s lied to the public on multiple occasions. He tries to hide behind God, as if he’s only obligated to tell the truth when God has been invoked, he tries to hide behind the Mueller Report, he tries to blame the media for his dishonest ways (as if the media doesn’t represent the public during such interviews!), self-promotion, and, well, his own faulty memory of his own activities.

It really begs the Virginia GOP to answer the question of how important honesty is in their candidates. I mean, I wouldn’t trust this guy so far as I could throw him.

But that Trump, who claimed he would and did hire the best, thinks this guy is, or was, the best, is an appalling thought.

David Von Drehle notes a potential multiplication of President Trump’s woes:

… it is intriguing that Fox News added a veteran politician to its rather compact board of directors earlier this year and placed him in charge of nominating future board members. Paul D. Ryan, former House speaker, has as much reason as any conservative Republican in America to nurse a gigantic grudge against the president. To have him advising the new Fox News leadership on strategy and future directions cannot bode well for the aging star of the Donald Trump Show. …

Arguably, Ryan was the face of the GOP’s future, but after just two years of carrying water for Trump, the budget-busting boor shredded Ryan’s credibility as a fiscal hawk and dented his reputation for decency. In 2018, he declined to run for reelection.

So Ryan has clear eyes regarding the fates of any who linger too long in the Trump embrace. Vanity Fair magazine’s resident Fox News-watcher, Gabriel Sherman, quoted an unnamed executive at the channel as saying: “Paul is embarrassed about Trump, and now he has the power to do something about it.” [WaPo]

If Ryan was the face of the GOP’s future, it would have been a bust based on his performance as Speaker, but I take Von Drehle’s point. If Trump’s primary propaganda horn is suddenly turned against him, he’ll be badly hobbled. Would his base cling to him if their favorite news media was suddenly documenting his mendacity, his incompetence, and even his damned laziness (an important point in the Midwest, and if he thinks he can win Minnesota, I’m predicting he’ll lose it by at least 10 points, and more likely 20 – Minnesota farmers are not a happy lot, and the Minnesota Republicans are well known for big talk, but no matching walk)? I’m guessing an even split.

This should be quite interesting. If Fox News turns against him and suggests he’s incompetent and unworthy, it’ll be an echo of one of Trump’s biggest motivations – to be accepted as one of the elite of New York City. He may cling to the Presidency just out of spite, rather than resign and flee the country.

Oh, wait. This IS a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.

Source: Harley-Davidson

If there was any doubt that Harley-Davidson (NYSE:HOG) was going all-in on an electrified future, the U.S. motorcycle leader just dispelled it by unveiling three prototype pedal-assist electric bicycles designed primarily for urban riders.

As it prepares to officially launch its high-performance LiveWire electric motorcycle next month, Harley is making clear this is no longer your father’s motorcycle company. It has a new vision about how people will get around tomorrow, and it intends to adapt to fit within it.

Yet, as is seemingly always the case with Harley-Davidson, the question of how well its new offerings might be received in the marketplace depends heavily on how much they’ll cost. [Rich Duprey, The Motley Fool]

But the very idea of adapting to the new climate realities is anathema to President Trump and many of his allies, and thus this is the return volley, the sharp stick in the eye, for Trump’s attack on the company in 2018.

Harley-Davidson is one of the great iconic, cross-cultural brands of the United States. As much as conservatives would love to embrace it as its own, the truth is that riders of all political stripes have adored the brand for decades. It’s decision to embrace, rather than ignore, the findings of science when it comes to climate change, marks a cleaving between themselves and the climate-denying conservatives who’ve supported Trump – and leaves those right-wing extremists (for, in truth, they do not satisfy the definition of conservative) just a little bit weaker when it comes to their American credentials.

For Harley-Davidson, this is a two-fer: a new product line they hope will be embraced by younger generations, while slyly kicking Trump and his allies in the nuts.

And for Trump, not only has this venerable brand refused to swear allegiance to him, personally, by moving some manufacturing to Europe, but his intellectual assertions are repudiated by this product line offering. His Administration’s shameful refusal to work and lead on the climate change problem – potential disaster, let’s not mince words – has another spotlight shone on it, showing the irresponsibility of putting a limited business leader and man into a political leader’s position.

Donald J. Trump has been, in some respects, like famed Detroit Lions running back Barry Sanders, well known for putting on a virtual dance when cornered in the backfield, knowing the perfect moment to burst forward, elude his would-be captors, and make a big gain. His secret was doing the unexpected, moving the feet, feinting, dodging, and having the patience to let his tacklers go the wrong way while he went the right way – for him.

Similarly, the speedy decay of President Trump’s position in the White House may mean his end is near, but it may also mean we’ll see Trump try something new. For instance, try this on for size:

1. He resigns in favor of Pence.
2. Pence proactively pardons him for any federal crimes he might have committed, much like Ford did for Nixon.
3. Trump, now free of the leadership responsibilities, continues to campaign for 2020.

Of course, he’d face some question marks. For example, several state GOP primaries have been canceled on the theory that the incumbent shouldn’t have to face challenger, even though there’s three. Does a President who resigned under pressure deserve the courtesy of a free victory in those states, or will they have to hurriedly reinstate those primaries?

And, of course, would the Republican base stick with him? Resignation, no matter how much he cries that he was forced to do so due to Democratic tricks and unfairness, is a big red flag that even the base would have to consider. Would the power of the cult continue to overwhelm their sensitivities, or would some of them wake up? Naturally, most independents would write him off, but he might still make a go of a run.

And that’d make for quite a Presidential contest. Hell, he might even go Independent and shatter the Republican Party, as it’d have to run one of Walsh, Weld, Sanford, or Pence. Pence, the weakest candidate, would have the greatest advantage as a sitting President, so there’d be a lot of internal writhing.

Is any of this likely? No. I think. But Trump has traditionally thought outside of the box, and he may think, like Hitler thought with the invasion of Russia, that he can make this work. The pundits have speculated the impeachment and trial may take months, with outcome uncertain. Trump could easily yank the rug out and change the entire future contest.

Just like last time.

One Body Too Many (1944) starts out strong, but peters out with the appearance of some ill-considered farce. Cyrus J. Rutherford, mogul, has died, and his heirs have gathered for the reading of the preamble of his Will. Through this useful mechanism, we learn his opinions of, and probable motivations for, various relations and servants. My favorite was of his niece: “I despised your father as a fool, but you appear to have rather better intelligence and regard for your uncle …”

It’s a nice setup, as he stipulates that he be buried “under the stars,” as he is astrologically inclined, and if this fails to occur, then the bequests that are contained in his Will, unrevealed as yet, “will be reversed.” We have hints of motivation between family members and a pair of servants who may have put rat poison in the coffee, and even a lawyer who suppresses Rutherford’s opinion of himself, a good situation for conflict, all in a big old house with secret passages. Perhaps not a classic for the ages, but a good old romp. Just to sharpen the setup, the lawyer calls a detective agency to provide a guard over Cyrus’ body, but the guard is ambushed at the front door and put out of the way.

Into this stumbles Albert Tuttle, insurance salesman, who’s initially mistaken as the guard. Set on selling life insurance to Rutherford, terrified of dead bodies, bad weather, beautiful women, and being sunk into ponds full of koi, he’s the farcical, romantic element which spoils the beginnings of what could have been a good whodunit.

Not that there were no other problems. Characters are a little too cut and dried, and alternatives to good old greed are not really considered, and this particular print had a number of technical problems. Still, the addition of farce was a poor idea, and makes it hard to do much more than acknowledge that we sat through this jarring little shadow thrower.

How much longer do they have?

When my Last Will and Testament is read by the lawyer, s/he may find himself reading a list of all the things I ran over.

Just because.

But I’m not talking about it today.

Sigh.

Overweening:

1. presumptuously conceited, overconfident, or proud:
   a brash, insolent, overweening fellow.
2. exaggerated, excessive, or arrogant:
   overweening prejudice; overweening pride. [Dictionary.com]

I used it here yesterday. Interestingly enough, there’s actually ‘weening‘:

verb (used with or without object) Archaic.

1. to think; suppose.
2. to expect, hope, or intend.

I wish they’d shown how to use it in a sentence. Dictionary.com admits to no underweening.

I hope former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich (R-GA) is sweating, because this statement is a trifle ridiculous:

Nonetheless, many in Trump’s world say an impeachment fight will benefit the president politically. Former House speaker Newt Gingrich, a Trump ally, predicted impeachment proceedings would backfire on House Democrats just as they did on House Republicans when he led the impeachment of President Bill Clinton and was accused of overreach.

“The Democrats have been sucked into a cul-de-sac where they will, from Trump’s perspective, run around chanting, ‘Impeach!’ ” Gingrich said. “I think that the president is very comfortable. It irritates [him], but he’s very comfortable strategically with what’s evolving.” [WaPo]

With all due respect to the Republicans of Gingrich’s era, they basically prosecuted a man for blow job. It may have been accompanied by some abuse of power, but the abuse itself was trivial.

And the American public saw that.

There is nothing trivial in the allegations of abuse of power by President Trump. It is the task of the Democrats, and whichever Republicans join them, to communicate the gravity of these abuses, and the clarity with which they can be seen.

Gingrich, the quitter (he resigned from the House as Speaker after his Party did relatively poorly in the midterms of 1998, and shortly thereafter gave up his seat), continues to think this is a game with little consequence for the nation. But he’s wrong, and I hope the rest of the nation, and Congress, figures that out.

I believe that’s a humpback whale, a species of baleen whale which eat plankton by sieving them through the baleen. But that’s not a plankton, is it? Go see for yourself.

For Benjamin Wittes of Lawfare, the time since the 2016 elections has constituted a long and very painful path, and now, behind his deadpan lawyer face, along with Susan Hennessey and Quinta Jurecic, I think he’s getting his licks in as he advises the Democrats – informally – on how to approach impeachment. I particularly liked this point:

A final area Congress should examine is Trump’s lying to the American public. The 1974 article of impeachment concerning Nixon’s obstruction of justice also noted his lies to the public about the Watergate investigation: Nixon, the Judiciary Committee charged, made “false or misleading public statements for the purpose of deceiving the people of the United States into believing that a thorough and complete investigation had been conducted” on the Watergate matter and that White House and Nixon campaign officials had no involvement in the burglary. Kenneth Starr also suggested an article of impeachment against Clinton for “mis[leading] the American people,” though Congress declined to adopt this article. Trump has rather outdone prior presidents in the lies department. The Washington Post “Fact Checker” database of presidential dissembling as of Aug. 5 had documented 12,019 “false or misleading statements” by Trump since he took office. The Mueller report documents multiple instances in which the president and administration officials speaking on his behalf knowingly lied to the public. His tenure has genuinely posed the question of whether the president has any obligation at all to tell the truth about anything—ever. His presidency is, among other things, advancing the proposition that the idea of “faithful” execution of the law implies no duty of candor at all.

This is not a question about which Congress should remain neutral. And here impeachment is the only remedy. Congress cannot pass a law demanding that Trump stop lying or tell the truth a higher percentage of the time. It can only vote that lies of such magnitude and nature and frequency as the ones he tells are inconsistent with the conduct of the office he holds.

It comes down to the idea that the United States should be lead by people of honor. Honor requires that, in nearly all circumstances, an honest answer to a question is required. This is not an arbitrary requirement, as honesty is a strong correlate with right behavior, behavior which benefits the community for which the person is providing leadership, even if it is not to the immediate benefit of the leader.

It’s not necessary that they be honest to all questions asked, but in those cases in which answering a question could lead to long-term deleterious consequences for the community, I’d prefer a simple decline to answer the question. This is not a behavior President Trump typically uses; instead, he’ll lie if the truth is inconvenient, or he’ll even lie without answering a question, again for personal gain.

And down that passage lies damage and even doom for the Nation. Good for Wittes for covering this point, and maybe even Starr, 30 years ago.

I managed to miss the latest SpaceX test of their Starhopper spacecraft from last month. Here’s NewScientist’s description of Starhopper:

Starhopper is a scaled down prototype for SpaceX’s planned Starship spacecraft. Starship is planned to be the top half of the ship that SpaceX CEO Elon Musk says he will use to send humans to Mars, where it will land upright with the capacity to take off again.

The final Starship will be powered by six Raptor engines, which are also being developed by SpaceX, but Starhopper only has one, so it doesn’t make true launches, just smaller “hops” to check the design. This test was also the first time a Raptor engine has flown. When the engine itself was tested at full power on 16 July an enormous fireball engulfed the entire spacecraft, and a second fire occurred during testing on 24 July. But neither fire seems to have done any damage and the problems appear to have been fixed – 25 July’s test did not have any unexpected conflagration.

This latest test was a 150 meter hop.

I wonder if the software used to land the boosters used with their commercial aircraft is also substantially used for Starhopper and the future Starship vehicles, or if it’s redeveloped.

In a show of fear-mongering and overweening ego, President Trump has proclaimed that if he loses the 2020 Presidential Election, our economy will self-destruct, as embodied in this Mediaite headline:

Trump Threatens ‘Economy Will Go Down the Tubes’ if He Doesn’t Win Re-Election

So it seems to me that with the advent of the Impeachment Inquiry, we should be seeing a restive and unhappy market. Are we? Here are the monthly charts for the 3 most popular stock indexes, data supplied by MarketWatch/BigCharts:

Each is down slightly since the announcement of the inquiry, and in my experience is indistinguishable from many other periods of economic instability or even boredom. Their behavior can easily be attributed to many causes, including building concerns about the Trump tariff war with China and other countries, declining manufacturing activity, the bond yield curve inversion, and less immediate concerns, such as the failure of the last four Executives (Clinton, Bush II, Obama, and Trump – we could even include Bush I, but my informal memories of government activity begins to fade that far back) to curb monopolistic business practices by down-thumbing many mergers and, yes, even breaking up monopolies such as the too-big banks, or concerns about poor big bank business practices from the constant drive to improve profits….

>breath<

My point being, if the markets and the economy were so dependent on the presence of Trump in the Oval Office and the Republicans in control of Congress, then I’d expect the markets to be in a tail-spin and President Trump shouting hellfire and damnation down upon Pelosi and the Democrats.

Instead, the investment community, to the extent that one can speak of a heterogeneous collection of individuals and entities as if they are one individual with one mind, is quite sensibly keeping its focus on the economic situation, while keeping an eye on the House exercising its due diligence and obligations in overseeing President Trump’s activities. Given the gross incompetence exhibited by the Republicans in the previous Congress in which they passed the 2017 tax “reform” bill which resulted in little more than a sugar-rush spike of business activity, followed by a return to the mean, while government deficits jumped in a horrific manner, I think investors realize that Republicans are not God’s gift to the United States. Instead, the Republican vision of the economy appears to be based on ignorance, such as the role of regulation in business and the nation, and “miracles” such as the discredited Laffer Curve.

I think, as an investor, I do not expect the Impeachment Inquiry to cause an economic uproar, and while if an Impeachment does occur and a trial is permitted by the perfidious Senator McConnell (R-KY), even a conviction in that hypothetical trial will cause only a momentary uproar in the markets. Indeed, if a President Pence were to announce the retraction of tariffs, you might see a jump in the markets, albeit momentary and possibly of the aforementioned sugar-rush variety.

So much for President Trump being the economic savior of the nation. We’ve been pumping along on the same path that President Obama, to the extent that the President matters, left us on, and while that path hasn’t been optimal (see earlier remarks concerning monopolies), it’s been fairly darn good. Unless Trump wrecks us with ridiculous tariffs or finds some other way to crack the economy, I don’t expect the political uproar in Washington, appropriate or not, to do any long-term major damage to the economy.

But I do expect Trump to deploy that argument during this entire political process. Just shake your heads and discount it.

If you’ve ever wondered about the visceral reasons for Brexit (oh, hey, am I distracting you from the Washington drama? Good!), a couple of weeks ago Andrew Sullivan wrote on precisely that question in the third part of his weekly tri-partite diary for New York’s Intelligencer:

But allow me to suggest a parallel version of Britain’s situation — but with the U.S. The U.S. negotiated with Canada and Mexico to create a free trade zone called NAFTA, just as the U.K. negotiated entry to what was then a free trade zone called the “European Economic Community” in 1973. Now imagine further that NAFTA required complete freedom of movement for people across all three countries. Any Mexican or Canadian citizen would have the automatic right to live and work in the U.S., including access to public assistance, and every American could live and work in Mexico and Canada on the same grounds. This three-country grouping then establishes its own Supreme Court, which has a veto over the U.S. Supreme Court. And then there’s a new currency to replace the dollar, governed by a new central bank, located in Ottawa.

How many Americans would support this? How many votes would a candidate for president get if he or she proposed it? The questions answer themselves. It would be unimaginable for the U.S. to allow itself to be governed by an entity more authoritative than its own government. It would signify the end of the American experiment, because it would effectively be the end of the American nation-state. But this is precisely the position the U.K. has been in for most of my lifetime. The U.K. has no control over immigration from 27 other countries in Europe, and its less regulated economy has attracted hundreds of thousands of foreigners to work in the country, transforming its culture and stressing its hospitals, schools and transportation system. Its courts ultimately have to answer to the European Court. Most aspects of its economy are governed by rules set in Brussels. It cannot independently negotiate any aspect of its own trade agreements. I think the cost-benefit analysis still favors being a member of the E.U. But it is not crazy to come to the opposite conclusion.

Not incidentally, as this is the secondary agenda for this post, this is an example of why I continue to find Sullivan an interesting writer – because he states he’d have voted to Remain. Sullivan, unlike most folks I sometimes reluctantly read but are more likely to skip over, makes a real and often effective effort to see both sides of an issue, both intellectual and emotional, regardless of his own views, and uses the insights he develops to support his argument.

Or to even change his own views, occasionally.

This is what makes him an effective writer, and, in his time, an effective and popular blogger. This is what I often strive for in my writing on many issues. I don’t know how often I achieve it, but at least I have a goal.

And, circling back to Brexit, this is why a lot of Brits were frustrated with their union with the Continent. I wonder what reasons were deployed in support of the economic union back when the EU was forming, and whether they were deployed during the Brexit debate, or would have been effective.

I only just got to this particular episode of xkcd:

It made me laugh out loud.

On this dormant thread there’s some good news from Vox:

Lawmakers voted 225-186 Friday to pass the Forced Arbitration Injustice Repeal (FAIR) Act, a far-reaching bill that bans companies from requiring workers and consumers to resolve legal disputes in private arbitration — a quasi-legal forum with no judge, no jury, and practically no government oversight.

These clauses, which are common in employment and consumer contracts, have made it impossible for workers to sue their bosses in court for sexual harassment, racial discrimination, wage theft, and nearly anything else. Workers are less likely to win their cases in private arbitration, and when they do win, they tend to get much less money than they would in court.

It still needs to pass the Senate and win the President’s signature, but perhaps this is a long-awaited step towards the return to public, rather than private, justice. Perhaps this time, rather than tossing out the baby with the bathwater, the approach to public justice for such things as class actions lawsuits can be adjusted, rather than erased.

Normally, I’d write off this piece in Politico as a literary hit job, because equating one person, living, with another person, dead and universally considered despicable, is usually a dubious effort, rank with malicious intent.

But the well-documented mendacity and unrestrained habits of Donald J. Trump makes this one of those pieces which might actually be unsettlingly accurate. It makes my stomach churn to think so, but it’s a plausible assertion. The piece concerns the late lawyer Roy Cohn:

One of Donald Trump’s most important mentors, one of the most reviled men in American political history, is about to have another moment.

Roy Cohn, who has been described by people who knew him as “a snake,” “a scoundrel” and “a new strain of son of a bitch,” is the subject of a new documentary out this week from producer and director Matt Tyrnauer. It’s an occasion to once again look at Cohn and ask how much of him and his “savage,” “abrasive” and “amoral” behavior is visible in the behavior of the current president. Trump, as has been well–established, learned so much from the truculent, unrepentant Cohn about how to get what he wants, and he pines for Cohn and his notorious capabilities still. Trump, after all, reportedly has said so himself, and it’s now the name of this film: “Where’s My Roy Cohn?”

Roy Cohn was a psychopath who believed rules were for suckers is what I glean from the piece, and that certainly seems to apply to Donald J. Trump. But go read it yourself, or see the movie (I have not). Me quoting it piecemeal isn’t half as much fun as the entire piece.

But keep a sink nearby. Or a bucket. That someone mentored by Cohn, if indeed he did, is the President makes the blood run cold.