Category Archives: Politics

Would You Expect Anything Different?

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Trump Takes Credit For Space Launch That Got Its Start A Decade Ago.

“The groundwork for sending NASA astronauts up on a commercial space vehicle. . . goes back more than a decade. It proceeded steadily under both Republican and Democratic administrations.

‘This is a program that demonstrates the success when you have continuity of purpose going from one administration to the next,’ said NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine in a recent preflight briefing.

In 2006, under President George W. Bush, the space agency started a program to get commercial companies to begin delivering cargo to the International Space Station.

. . . Having companies take astronauts to the outpost was a natural extension of this cargo program. NASA announced its commercial crew program in 2010, under President Barack Obama.”

And so it goes.

Help Isn’t Coming

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David Brooks, arch-conservative, “If We Had a Real Leader—Imagining Covid under a normal president.”

Astute conclusion:

“One of the lessons of this crisis is that help isn’t coming from some centralized place at the top of society. If you want real leadership, look around you.”

Related. “Fact check: Breaking down Trump’s 654 false claims over 14 weeks during the coronavirus pandemic.”

Help me out here. Is he incapable of telling the truth or is there a method to his mendacity?

I lean to towards the latter. Tell enough lies in the hope that people tire of distinguishing between what’s true and what’s not. That’s why Daniel Dale’s work, as nonstop fact-checker, is vitally important. And November, 3, 2020.

Friday Assorted Links

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1. The Best Way to Lampoon Trump: His Own Words.

2. Where Nellie Bowles moved after coronavirus.

“I invite readers to join me on this insane quarantine hobby.”

Too funny.

3. Where does Obama live?

4. Katie Lou Samuelson on mental health journey: ‘I realized I needed to ask for help.’ Lots of athletes, including Michael Phelps and Kevin Love, are saying ,”It’s okay to not be okay.”

Paragraphs to Ponder

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From Dexter Filkins’, “The Twilight of the Iranian Revolution”:

“Sara was nervous about meeting me in public. ‘It is really dangerous,’ she said. ‘Me sitting here talking to you might get me in deep trouble.’ Still, she was poised and determined, insisting that she be granted her rights. ‘If you want to know how we live, you have to watch ‘The Handmaid’s Tale,’” she said. ‘This is the real Gilead. Margaret Atwood, she wrote our story before we were born.’

Last year, a twenty-nine-year-old woman named Sahar Khodayari was arrested while trying to sneak into a soccer match and charged with ‘appearing in public without a hijab.’ She set herself on fire and died. Afterward, the authorities finally conceded—a little. Under pressure from fifa, the international soccer authority, the Iranian government agreed to allow women to attend matches of the national team, as long as it was playing foreign opponents. Sara described the thrill of entering Tehran’s stadium for a match between the Iranian and Cambodian teams. ‘The soccer field is really green when you see it,’ she told me. Even though the women were relegated to a roped-off area behind a goal, ‘everyone was screaming and crying,’ she said. ‘It was the dream.’

I asked Sara why the authorities were concerned about something as trivial as a soccer match. ‘They know that if they open the doors to the stadium they should open other doors, too,” she said. “But the women of this country are not going to stop. I am absolutely prepared to go to prison.’ All her friends felt the same way about the authorities, she said. ‘The problem they have with us is that, if women get power, they’re going to take them down. That is the fact. They are going to overthrow the government.'”

What Filkins accomplished in six days is a marvel. A journalism tour de force.

Podcasts to Ponder Plus

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1. NPR’s Hotel Corona.

“When the Dan Hotel in Jerusalem was leased by the government to house recovering COVID-19 patients, the new guests gave it the nickname, “Hotel Corona.” The nearly 200 patients inside already had the coronavirus; and so, unlike the outside world on strict lockdown, they could give each other high fives and hugs and hang out together.

What was even more surprising than what they could do was what they were doing. Patients from all walks of life – Israelis, Palestinians, religious, secular, groups that don’t normally mix – were getting along and having fun. They were eating together, sharing jokes, even doing Zumba. And because they were documenting themselves on social media, the whole country was tuning in to watch, like a real life reality TV show.”

34 minutes of joy and hope.

2. Malcolm Gladwell, Revisionist History, A Good Walk Spoiled.

“In the middle of Los Angeles — a city with some of the most expensive real estate in the world — there are a half a dozen exclusive golf courses, massive expanses dedicated to the pleasure of a privileged few. How do private country clubs afford the property tax on 300 acres of prime Beverly Hills real estate? Revisionist History brings in tax assessors, economists, and philosophers to probe the question of the weird obsession among the wealthy with the game of golf.”

In my junior and senior year of college I was a teacher’s assistant at the Brentwood Science Magnet School for the best third grade teacher ever, Marilyn Turner. I parked across from the school on the leafy border of the Brentwood Country Club next to the chain-linked fence Gladwell describes with great disgust. This excellent story hit home.

3. What Does Opportunity Look Like Where You Live? An interactive story, made even more interesting by putting in the name of the county you live in (if a U.S. citizen). The New York Times is unrivaled when it comes to interactive, data-rich, compelling story telling.

[Some readers have informed me they can’t access the New York Times articles I link to. You have to register at the New York Times to access them. Registration is free.]

 

Trump’s Second Term

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Sunday night, after the rain clouds parted, Blanca and I headed due West like we were shot out of a cannon. Up and over the 4th St Bridge, she wanted to see Oyster Bay. We added on Ellison Loop NW for a little more climbing. That wall at the very end is a bitch, but I digress.

A beautiful night for a fling with your gfriend. Until we saw FOUR houses in a row with Trump/Pence signs. Trump’s gonna carry Oyster Bay?

No big deal you say, Washington is dark blue, no reason to let a few right wing nutters ruin a glorious ride.

But then, after we ducked into the driveway right before sunset, I finished reading Evan Osnos’s smartly written, “How Greenwich Republicans Learned to Love Trump.”

Which is filled with insights into things I don’t understand. Like this:

“The (college) admissions case reminded me of the rationale I kept hearing for looking past Trump’s behavior toward women, minorities, immigrants, war heroes, the F.B.I., democracy, and the truth, not to mention his request that Ukraine “do us a favor” by investigating his political opponents: a conviction that, ultimately, nothing matters more than cutting taxes and regulations and slowing immigration.”

Osnos disabuses people like me that Trump’s base is just gun-toting, stay-at-home protesting, working class, modestly educated, rural people. Trump has massive support among the ultra wealthy, like Michael Mason, a mover and shaker in Greenwich, Connecticut, probably the wealthiest enclave in the (dis)United States:

“Mason knows that the President’s ‘culture’ still upsets many people in Greenwich. But, he said, ‘his policies over the last three years have gained more attention and probably more support.’ He predicts that the trauma of the pandemic will persuade some voters that Trump was right to want to cut immigration and lure back industries from abroad. ‘He had policies that he wanted to change on our borders, on immigration. I certainly think people in this country now are worried about that.'”

The Resistance is deluded to think this pandemic shitshow is going to ruin his chance at re-election.

Another depressing insight:

“If you are among the Greenwich élite, whether you love Trump or hate him, it is easy to count the ways that he has oriented his Administration to help people like you. When Trump introduced his tax bill, he called it a gift to ‘the folks who work in the mail rooms and the machine shops of America.’ That was absurd. The bill cut the corporate tax rate by fourteen per cent, and most of the windfall went to investors in the form of dividends and stock buybacks. . . . Though he limited the deductions for state and local taxes, wealthy citizens were compensated by new tax breaks, including some specifically for the commercial-real-estate industry and for wealthy heirs. On average, Trump gave households in the top one per cent a forty-eight-thousand-dollar tax cut, while those in the bottom twenty per cent received a hundred and twenty dollars, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a nonpartisan think tank. Jim Campbell, the Republican organizer who embraced Trump early in 2016, told me recently, ‘I don’t know anyone who voted for Donald Trump in 2016 and won’t vote for him again. In Greenwich, he’ll probably pick up some votes.'”

I never thought the country would elect Trump president. Since 2016, his supporters have become less afraid, less self conscious, and more outspoken. Now, for the first time, I’m bracing myself for the fact that my friend, who promises “100% that Trump is going to be reelected”, may very well be right.

Thanks for that Osnos.

 

 

 

Two Kinds of Bad Bosses

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One-third of the country readily buys whatever President Trump is selling day-to-day. This is about the two-thirds of us who think Snake Oil salesman is far too kind a description.

We act like his Presidency is unprecedented because in many ways it is. We’ve never had a President pay so little regard to the truth. And it’s not even close. But anyone 30 years old or older has had at least one bad boss, and if you’re my advanced age, probably many bad bosses.

So it’s not completely unchartered territory.

There are two kinds of bad bosses. The kind that knows they’re in way over their head and bide their time by disappearing into the background. Hoping against hope that they can mask their incompetence indefinitely.

Trump is the exact other kind. The kind that has no idea they’re in way over their head and has to be front and center all of the time. The technical term is narcissism. Even when Trump’s aides tell him his daily press conferences are hurting him, he continues with them in slightly different form. A certifiable media whore. So we can’t sidestep his lying, incompetence, lack of empathy, and general destructiveness.

And yet, we’ve survived lots of bad bosses, both kinds, because our organizations have been filled with caring, competent people who collectively compensated for the poor leadership at the top.

And we always outlast them because we’re resilient. And we’ll outlast this one too if enough of us turn out to say “You’re fired!” on November 3, 2020.

Friday Assorted Links

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1. At virtual Family Chapel, the ‘spiritual but not religious’ find community during pandemic. Eldest is featured, making me even more famous.

2. Why Trump Was Deaf To All The Warnings He Received. Incuriosity and paranoia.

3. Colleges could lose up to 20 percent of students.

“Ten percent of college-bound seniors who had planned to enroll at a four-year college before the COVID-19 outbreak have already made alternative plans. Fourteen percent of college students said they were unlikely to return to their current college or university in the fall, or it was “too soon to tell.” Exactly three weeks later, in mid-April, that figure had gone up to 26 percent. Gap years may be gaining in popularity. While hard to track, there are estimates that 3 percent of freshmen take a gap year. Since the pandemic, internet searches for gap years have skyrocketed. College students do not like the online education they have been receiving. To finish their degrees, 85 percent want to go back to campus, but 15 percent want to finish online.”

4. The Grumpy Economist on University finances, particularly endowments. Sign of the seriousness of things, belt tightening ahead even for the uber wealthy.

“University endowment practices are quite a puzzle. . . . Why are they invested in obscure, illiquid, hard to value, assets, with at least two layers of high fees (university management + asset managers) rather than, say, have one part-time employee and put the whole business into Vanguard total market for about 10 basis points? Why do they leverage with short-term municipal debt which must be rolled over at the most inconvenient times? Why do university presidents seem to glory in great endowment returns in good times, but these occasional liquidity crunches are seen simply as acts of nature, not preventable with a nice pile of liquid assets? Why do donors put up with this — why do donors give money that will be managed in obscure high fee investments, rather than demand low-fee transparent investment, or even set up separate trusts, transparently managed, to benefit their alma maters?”

A flurry of great questions. The short answer to the first question I suspect is because investment managers’ think they’re smart enough to pick stock winners when history suggests otherwise.

An addendum suggests I’ve nailed it:

“Where are the trustees? Well, I speculated to one correspondent, there is a natural selection bias. How do you get to be a university trustee? 1) Make a ton of money as a (lucky) active asset manager, especially on trades and investments that come from college contacts;  2) Collect a lot of fees;  3) Persuade yourself how smart you are and how easy the alpha game is 4) Desire to socialize with the people who run universities. This is hardly likely to produce contrarians, fans of scientifically validated, quantitative, low-fee investment strategies.”

5. The Real Story Behind That Viral Photo of President Johnson During the Vietnam War. In praise of thoroughness and media literacy.

“. . . President Johnson wasn’t crying over thousands of dead American soldiers in the photo. Johnson is actually listening to an audio tape that was created by Captain Charles “Chuck” Robb, his son-in-law. That detail would allow the casual viewer to assume that LBJ was distressed to hear the recording, but it seems that so many of the documentary filmmakers who use this image haven’t bothered to look at the other photos taken during that same time in the White House.”