Other than that I have 19 from news sources (The Guardian NYT, the Wapo, the Economist, The Atlantic). Then there are bass related emails (Scott's Bass lessons, For Bass Players, zZounds, Sweetwater, and Fender, 1 each), computer or photography (Newegg, Adorama, Mpix B&H, again one each). And one from a friend.
So 29 not asking for money (at least directly). So 81% political "spam". I am dreading tomorrow and Tuesday.
What then might we expect? In close races in swing states, expect the GOP to sue to stop vote counting and challenge the process. Even as that is going on expect right-wing militias to intimidate election officials to interfere with vote counting; any delay helps the right get cases in front of sympathetic course and ultimately to the Supreme Court. These vigilante groups will be given relatively free rein by law enforcement who will be largely sympathetic, favoring a red outcome, and fearful they they are out numbered and out-gunned.
The courts will likely end up curtailing the tally prematurely. If that does not deliver the victory Trump wants, expect him to declare massive voter fraud and call (implicitly if not explicitly) for an armed insurrection ('will no one rid me of this turbulent ex-vice president?') to prevent him being evicted from the the White House. Expect more well armed thugs to take to the streets. And if the left pushes back either with protests or riots, expect him to demand that the National Guard are called out to put them down. With extreme force.
This is one scenario; there are doubtless many others. But I am fairly certain, and with a heavy heart, predict that before Christmas, political violence will have resulted in scores of murders mostly at the hands of the alt-right and the police. And that may be the best case scenario.
The Economist this week has two articles that are openly apologist for Trump's four years of chaos. That's disappointing. With respect to foreign affairs the newspaper argued that things aren't as bad as they might have been. That's a ludicrous standard. To suggest that we are better of because, for example, Trump didn't start a nuclear war is absurd. It also ignores the fact that we only avoided many of the sinkholes into which Trump was happily careering because of the guardrails erected by the few adults in the room and the stalwart efforts of the civil servants (thank heavens for the "deep state").
He has made no progress with North Korea other than to give Kim Jong Un more time to develop ballistic missiles. His China policy has failed; China has made no concessions on intellectual property, and the Sino-US relationship is worse than at any time since before Nixon and Kissinger. His tariffs have had no effect on China's policy other than to make it more obdurate, but have cost Mid-western farmers dearly, and as a consequence American ta payers everywhere. Iran is only exercising restraint in the hope that once he's gone the JCPOA will be effectively reinstated (though Biden will have his work cut out here given the damage done to that relationship by Trumps "maximum pressure" policy). He has alienated European allies and befriended autocrats like Putin, Erdogan and Bolsonaro. He has sided with Israel over the Palestinians and its policy of annexation in the West Bank. While that may be morally hard to defend, politically the consequence in the Middle East are less sever than they would have been 15 years ago; the advent of fracking has removed the US dependency on Arab oil which in turn has weakened the Arab states bargaining power. Fracking was not Trumps invention, nor have his policies here done much (excluding environmental damage) except at the margin. And that reduced dependency on foreign oil and that anticipation of reduced world demand was the driver behind the deals between several of the smaller Arab states and Israel. None were the monumental foreign policy achievements he trumpeted, but the result of pushing against a now open door. Mid-East petro-states understand that they meed to move their economies away from oil and Israel is a local tech giant that has much to offer. NASFA 2.0 was in the works before he took office - so by the "he didn't do too much damage" logic the Economist is using that he didn't screw it up ranks as an achievement. He has cut immigration which while "keeping the country white" may have adverse long term consequences for tech and demographically.
Domestically the Economist touts the gains in the stock market. But the market is only where it is because of the transfer of wealth to companies' bottom lines from future generations who will have to pay down the debt incurred in the process. That's not a policy achievement but a fiscal a slight of hand and the vaunted reinvestment the tax cut was supposed to bring about never happened. Some may have seen a reduction in their personal income tax except in the states Trump wanted to punish for being Democratic (California and New York) where he eliminated the federal tax deduction for state and local income tax, and that may have buoyed some economic growth. But employment grew no faster under Trump than under Obama. Manufacturing jobs have not come back to the US in anything like the numbers Trump boasted they would. He has undermined trust in institutions from science writ large, the press, and government. He has made relying on instinct and emotion a legitimate alternative to facts, knowledge, research and hard work. He has stoked white supremacy and division, a Pandora's box it will take generations to shut, and tacitly encouraged armed insurrection in the defense of whiteness. He has politicized historically apolitical government agencies like the CDC, the EPA, NOAA, the USPS and Department of Justice by appointing loyal sycophants with right wing agendas at their heads. He has sidelined, or worse yet threatened retaliation, against career diplomats and civil servants when they present him with facts and analyses that puncture his Fox-induced alternate-reality bubble.
And of course there is the covid-19 debacle. The botched response was a much to do with messaging and public perception as it was to do with a policy failure. Two things might have prevented the US from suffering the horrendous death toll it has endured, not to mention the economic consequences of not getting the pandemic under control. The first was testing a tracing which the administration failed to ramp up with sufficient urgency to make a difference. The second was mask-wearing which would have slowed the spread, allowing hospitals to cope better, reducing the death toll and allowing testing and tracing efforts to isolate cases, again arresting the progress of the disease. Relatedly, Trump's (and the GOPs) failed attempts to eliminate Obamacare and the healthcare coverage it provided, without any coherent solution with which to replace it is another case of a the Economist's "success" in spite of, not because of, Trump.
To note, as even some of his supporters do, that he is a terrible human being but excuse his personal failing and foibles because he has "gotten so much accomplished" is to ignore and misconstrue his record. History will document his four years as nothing but a string dismal failures, mitigated only by the groundwork laid by his predecessors and the efforts of civil service policy professionals.
In the end, the damage he has caused to the fabric of society is severe and possibly irreversible. If America makes it through the next two months without politically motivated bloodshed that will be a miracle. But it remains to be seen if in fact he has so damaged the institutions of democracy to mortally wound the American democratic experiment. Indeed Trump was an experiment from which the US could learn never to repeat. But if things go badly, indeed if Trump were somehow to remain in office, the possibility of the US, the worlds preeminent military and economic power, becoming an autocratic or even a failed state is a terrifying prospect truly worthy of Halloween.
On Sunday Mark Meadows admitted to Jake Tapper on CNN's State of the Union that the Trump administration was no longer trying to control the spread of the corona virus pandemic. While I noted in August, and before that in July, that the density of infection could reach a point that testing and tracing would be overwhelmed, and it is clear that we have passed that point, there are still mitigation measures, specifically mask-wearing, that could help slow the spread, keep hospitals from running out of beds and save lives.
But Meadows' comment shows that the one simple strategy that could help is not one Trump's administration wants to support. One can only imagine that it is hubris that is preventing them from doing the right thing; or perhaps they realize that at this point changing their message would not materially change behavior; Democrats have been wearing masks anyway and Trump supporters could not face the thought that they'd been duped and would continue to ignore sounds scientific advice. Even it it were to come from the administration, they would find a way of explaining the about face as a fiendish plot by the Dems who had somehow deep-faked Trump and so this was another example of media bias.
Amy Barrett is by all accounts a gifted legal scholar. But when it comes to judgement writ large, hers is clearly lacking. For a Supreme Court justice that's a problem.
He decision to accept Trump's invitation to appear on the White House balcony after her rushed confirmation and inauguration illustrates her inability to distance herself from politics. It shows her failure to understand the implications of that decision in the current climate in which SCOTUS is increasingly seen as entirely partisan. Had she a modicum of respect fort the independence of the judiciary and the appearance of propriety, she would have politely but firmly declined Trump's invitation. But she did not; and that says more about her than anything she said (or more accurately avoided saying) during her confirmation hearings.
Expect her not to recuse herself from Republican attempts to rig the election in their favor when those GOP voter suppression cases reach SCOTUS.
One of Trump's 2016 selling points was that he was so rich he didn't need to take money from corporate or wealthy individual donors; that meant he wouldn't feel obligated once in office to act on their behalf. There are two problems with that argument, one which was could have been deduced at the time, one of which is now clear.
First he has no shame and no qualms stiffing people who have helped him. He's shafted his creditors left right and center. When Deutsche Bank got 'uppity' and insisted on getting back the money he owed, he sued the bank. The notion that he couldn't take money from donors because that would make him a beholden "swamp creature" is nonsense.
The other problem is that now his campaign is lagging behind Biden's in fund raising he has the opportunity to put his own money where his big mouth is and, surprise surprise, he won't part with a cent. He has a history of risking other people's money but never his own and his reelection campaign is no different. And let's not forget that he's deeply in debt to the tune of over $400 million, so his net worth may be so low that he simply can't afford to spend on his own campaign.
He may also realize that his reelection chances are so slim that it would be throwing (his) good money after (other people's) bad; given his incompetence in office, the lack of political access and influence he will have after leaving, and the damage his failures of leadership have had on his brand, it will be hard for him to monetize his term in the Oval Office. So to spend money on getting another term would be a poor investment (not that he hasn't made lots of poor investment choices in the past, but this one clearly looks like a loosing proposition).
Not that one needed to add anything to the long list of monumental whoppers he's told in the last five years, but it's one more for the record.
I have a friend who is, among other things, a young black woman. We met about a year ago in a professional setting on Zoom (before Zoom was covid-fashionable). We remained friends after our four month project came to and end.
When we met, she was in the UK and I was asking her to join the project team (fortunately she agreed). What stuck me then was her composure and professionalism: but not her color. It really wasn't until we met in person about two months later that I registered that she was black.
If there was any categorizing on my part (and I'm sure there was) it was her background in terms of class. As I later found out her parents are both educated professionals, which in the UK makes her firmly middle class. And that, for many Brits, although perhaps mainly the middle class itself, is a more salient categorizing heuristic than race.
Not that it's better, but Brits have a tendency to divide people into the aristocracy (stereotypically rich, landed, lazy, and entitled - think of Downtown Abbey), the working class (stereotypically uneducated, unworldly and ignorant - those "downstairs" people) and the middle class (everyone else). In America by contrast, which is, supposedly, a classless society (although social mobility is in fact higher in Britain than in the US), race is the first framing many people rely on.
Neither is particularly good; but I would argue that prejudice based on class is more easily overcome than prejudice based on race. So if you have to choose, I'd settle for the lesser of the two evils.
Trump's lame last ditch effort to close the gap to Biden was laughable. It comprised promises that he certainly will not be able to keep. Whether it's drug rebate cards for seniors or another promise of a beautiful health care plan (it's not actually plan but a vague wish un-tethered to reality) none of Trump's vacuous promises will (or should, if you've been paying attention) make any difference.
But the another round of stimulus spending might. That's why there is such a struggle over it in Congress. Pelosi tried to get the ball rolling in the summer, passing the HEROS act but McConnell has refused to take it up i the Senate. Why?
Early on it was probably that he was concerned about the deficit hawks in the GOP who disapproved of the size of the package. But now he probably wants to use it as a lever to persuade undecided voters to reelect him and the GOP to the Senate with the promise that he will pass it if reelected. He looses that leverage were he to get it passed before the election.
Ironically Pelosi may be making the same cynical calculation; and on top of that she may be reluctant to do anything that Trump might claim as a win (and testament to his supernatural negotiating skills) before the election. In the end it's those American who need assistance who are the looses in this high stakes game of political brinkmanship.
In a generous and touching tribute, Schumacher's son, Mick, presented Hamilton with one of his father's racing helmets; the passing of the torch.
Mercedes have dominated F1 for three years now and neither Red Bull, so successful with Sebastian Vettel, nor Ferrari, where Vettel has not fared so well in a car that seems to be struggling for power (but neither has Le Clerc, his team mate), can catch Hamilton or Bottas.
But while the Mercedes is clearly superior to its competitor teams, Hamilton's relentless pursuit of perfection puts him in a league of his own. It is all but certain that he will surpass Schumacher's F1 wins this season and he is well on the way to winning his seventh F1 championship title, again matching Schumacher's record. And at 35, he has at least another season or two in which to earn an eighth. That will be one for the record books that will stand for a long, long time.
Suppose, as is likely, Trump is ahead in the vote counting as the polls close, but then Biden gradually closes the gap. Trump's army of lawyers (and his poodle at the DoJ) are unable to stop the counting which makes it increasingly like he'll loose. What does he do?
Most likely he will claim it's voter fraud and that the election is being stolen from him. My fear is he will call on his army of right wing militias to come to defend what he thinks is his rightful victory. And as we saw in Michigan, there were be those prepared to heed the call; and they will descend, armed and angry on Washington D.C. to defend Trump in the White House.
The counting ends and Biden is victorious; but Trump, defended by his private army, hunkers down and refuses to leave. What then? Will the police or the ATF or SWAT be prepared to take them on? What will the Secret Service do in that situation? Will we have another Waco, Texas, but this time in the nation's capital, as the forces of law and order try to evict Trump and engage with the heavily armed militia defending him?
The only way out is to have him extracted, locked up and deprived of his phone to prevent him raising or commanding his army of Proud Boy White supremacists. Does this look a lot like the thwarting of a failed coup attempt we are more accustomed to seeing in third world countries? Are we on the verge of a second civil war?
It seems unthinkable, but the closer we get, and the more desperate Trump becomes, the less improbable it appears.
Four years of norm-shattering, irresponsible, shameless, self-serving dishonest behavior may finally be coming to an end; the Trumpocalypse may appear outwardly to be running its course. But such complacency would be misplaced. The societal forces that brought Trumpism to life are not only still there, they are stronger than before (in part thanks to Trump's fanning the flames). Indications that they were long standing problems include Occupy Wall Street, the Tea Party, the rise of militias, mainly in the rural red states (and today the attempted kidnapping of Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmore) and of course Trump's election four years ago.
Those who thought our problems were solved with Barack Obama's election in 2008 missed that the feelings of division, resentment and betrayal felt by many white voters were both building but also disappearing from sight. And at the same time under-represented minorities were seeing victories as empowering, heightening those divisions. Even if Biden wins next month, the country is in far worse shape socially and politically than it was when George W. Bush left office.
So what does healing look like? How might Biden and Harris begin the Herculean task of bringing the country back together? Although way above my pay-grade, here are some general thoughts.
First, step out of the Washington bubble. Stop listening to the lobbyists, establishment experts and interest groups; they will only generate more of the same that got us here. Change is needed and it may have to quite radical; but not necessarily the way either party has thought about radical solutions. Huge tax cuts and deregulation from the right or massive government spending and intervention as in the Green New Deal aren't on their own an answer. There may be elements in each that could be used but both packages are too toxic to be useful in our current predicament. Labels matter and both sides are tainted with the policy failures that contributed to this juncture.
Candidates generally spend their time leading up to an election touring their districts / states / the country talking to voters and listening to their concerns. But that's generally the last time voters see them until the next election rolls around. That contributes to a disconnect between promises made and real policy changes that matter in voters' lives. So perhaps once elected, politicians might consider continuing to spend some time mixing with voters and explaining what they are doing and continuing to listen.
That's going to be particularly important post-Trump. We need a national dialog about what ails us; and going back to business as usual will only prolong the social fracturing that will, as with empires of old, ultimately bring the country low.
(Which thank the Lord I'm not), I think I could legitimately argue that Susan Page wasn't an unbiased moderator. For example, Page prefaced he question about climate change saying that it was basically settled science (which it is) but it sounded like an MSNBC question. There were others too; in generally her questions seemed like soft-ball questions for the Biden-Harris team set up for Harris to knock out of the park, and by the same token implicit critiques of Trump-Pence.
I hope that's not an indication of my becoming desensitized to Trump and his ilk's BS...
Clearly I'm biased; but I have to say Harris on point (no knockouts).
One striking aspect of the debate was the optic of an old white man interrupting and talking over two women, (one a women of color).
I suspect Harris saw that coming and indeed welcomed Pence's interruptions as it created that optic, one that solidifies the Biden-Harris lead among suburban women voters. It probably took a great deal of self restraint, but I think was worth it.
Harris, when being interrupted by Pence, said "I'm speaking"; but she might also have added, "please don't interrupt; it's extremely rude". But hey, she did enough to make her point.
That's what puts her in a different league from Pence and Trump; so much more strategic. And it's why we need her not only as VP but at the top of the ticket in 2024.
Mike Pence, allegedly a member of the party that stands for law and order, much as his boss did last week, is flagrantly flouting the rules for the debate that were agreed to by both sides. The only difference between Pence and Trump is that is he doing it slightly more decorously, but regrettably, no less flagrantly.
The party of Trump, it seems, believes in law and order when it suits them and not when it doesn't; it is for law an order when people they don't like are being vocal.
But as we saw last week in the Rose Garden (and arguably a feature of Trump's attitude in general), the rules - like taxes - are only for the "little people" and not for them.
Unfortunately, Susan Page, despite the clear signals that Trump and his sycophantic VP were desperate to close the gap Biden has opened up by any means necessary and despite starting at the opening of the debate that her job was to ensure the rules were follow, Page has not been up to the job. She has repeatedly let Pence talk well past his allotted time.
Trump, still suffering from covid-19, returned to the White House yesterday in a publicly staged conqueror's return. The BBC deflated the news by noting how out of breath he was after climbing the stairs to the first floor of White House to make an appearance on the balcony.
Apparently still in the early stages of the infection, Trump is being given Dexamethasone, a cortical steroid. Among Dexamethasone's side effects are mania, a lack of judgement and a reduction in impulse control, none of which could be said to be Trump's strong suits and the best of times. Just when you though things couldn't get any worse...
Big news day today. Spirit (or more accurately Michael Skidmore, the journalist and co-trustee of Spirit guitarist Randy Wolfe's estate who filed the suit) lost its appeal to the Supreme Court allowing the 11 judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court which had ruled in Led Zeppelin's favor to stand. Stairway to Heaven is now legally a Led Zeppelin original composition.
Although I am a Led Zeppelin fan, the similarity between Sprit's Taurus and the introduction to Stairway to Heaven are striking. However, the two songs then evolve quite differently and it is not uncommon for short themes to be used as the starting points for quite different pieces of music. Hayden's London quartet uses a well known Hungarian folk song for the "King's melody" (which then became the German national anthem).
The second big story of the day was the award of this year's Nobel price for physics to British mathematician Sir Roger Penrose for his work on the mathematics of black holes.
All in all a good day for Brits.
Trump and those in his orbit consider themselves untouchable, not as in 'Dalits' though perhaps that's what we ought to consider them as, but rather not being subject to the rules normal by which people must abide.
A poignant example on full display this week has been the White House entourage and hangers-on flouting social distancing and mask-wearing recommendations (in the White House and in the Rose Garden for Amy Barrett's nomination), and rules (with the Trump family members not putting on masks in an enclosed space when asked to do so by a doctor to comply with the regulations established by the Cleveland Clinic where the debate took place).
It's not just that this kind of attitude leads to grossly irresponsible behavior of the kind we witnessed last week, but in light of the consequences - numerous people contracting covid-19 - it shows with stark clarity the consequences of letting optics trump science and common sense.
That's been the guiding principle of Trump's administration and is precisely what makes him unfit to lead the country.
A little over a year ago, I noted an interesting observation by Douglas Adams about the role a leader. Perhaps he was right but it does seem that finally a majority of Americans have grown tired of the clown show. Polling suggests that they prefer a leader who has only one head but uses it to govern responsibly, rather than two that create constant distraction. In a month we shall see if that's the case.
We learned yesterday night that Trump has covid-19.
Is this karma? After eight months of "hoping it will just magically go away", "it's no worse that a mild flu" and a lot of posturing during which over two hundred thousand people died from the disease, are his chickens coming home to roost?
One of the most striking aspects of what was, in Dana Bash's (CNN) rather surprising words, a "shit-show", was how hollow Trump appeared. It's slightly surprising that he can still make grand promises, whether it's on economic recovery, a vaccine, cheaper drug prices, protection for pre-existing conditions, when he's made the same promises so many times before and never delivered, and when his actions tell a completely different story.
Take health care; he has said every time he was questioned about his efforts to dismantle Obamacare, that he would put something better in its place. Yet after almost an entire term in office with full control of both houses for the first two years, he has done nothing.
His apparent belief that he can make the same promise over and over without people realizing that it's all just show is an insult to the intelligence of the public. You can fool some of the people all of the time (that's his hard-core base) and all of the people some of the time (including Barack Obama, Hilary and Susan Collins, for example, who though he deserved a chance). But you can't fool all of the people all of the time, and that's what Trump seems not to understand.
1) Have each candidate and the moderators in separates room with the moderator able to turn on the mics and camera for the time allotted for one or other to answer.
2) Have each candidate under oath; at the beginning of the context, each would swear on the bible (both claim to be God-fearing Christians, though I suspect only one is being truthful) that the statements they will make during the debate are the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
(One can but dream)
