The Progressive Populist Today Blog

Monday, May 17, 2021

How Will You Cope, Sans Your Serif?

Satire by Rosie Sorenson

Microsoft recently announced it was retiring this particular typeface (Calibri) for something new, more now-ish—something familiar, yet exotic; nice, yet a little bit slutty. (CNN Business, April 28, 2021)

Microsoft put out a call for new designs and the following have been chosen as the top five, the American Idol of fonts, if you will. I’ve included some of the designers’ own quotes for each of the five. (Comments in parentheses are those of the writer.)

1. Tenorite. “We were craving something very round, wide, and crisp.” (How about a toasted bagel?)

2. Bierstadt. “In today’s world, I believe a grotesque, (i.e. sans serif) typeface’s voice needs a bit of a human touch to feel more approachable and less institutional.” (Can I get a puppy instead?)

3. Skeena. “This sans serif … may be the quirkiest of the bunch, while still being compact and readable as body text or presentation titles.”(Oh, that rascal Skeena!)

4. Seaford. “This gently organic and asymmetric sans serif … is like a warm hug, or a cozy reading nook, or a cup of tea. Something makes you want curl up in it.” (Again, a puppy?)

5. Grandview. “This sans serif typeface is derived from old German road and railway signage, which was designed to be legible at a distance. Its roots in signage give this one a mechanical but sophisticated vibe.” (Nothing says Nazi” like an old German railway sign.)

Microsoft is asking people to vote on these, which many believe are very much like Calibri. So why did Microsoft bother? And who has time to vote? And also, they are not killing Calibri, just making it a little more difficult to find in the fonts menu. Ah, marketing—ain’t it grand?

If they wanted to spruce up their image, they could restore support for Windows 7, upon which millions of us rely. But, no. That would make too much sense. They must have been thinking something along these lines: “We’ve got to mess with the fonts instead. That proves … what? Oh, right. That we’re bigger than you, we’re more powerful than you and we have too much money and too much free time. Enjoy!”

One inventive young person named M. Polo came up with the best idea yet. Why not create a typeface named after your favorite or most hated politician?

The “Marjorie Taylor Greene,” for example. As soon as you type a coherent sentence, the letters melt into something resembling Q.

“Because,” as Marjorie says, “That’s all you need to know.”

Or the “Matt Gaetz.” Instead of a serif, it sports the male symbol. ♂

“This just proves,” Matt says, “that I’m a healthy red-blooded American male and no, I did not pay that teenager for sex.”

Last, but not least, the Biden: $$$. He’s your drunken uncle throwing fifties at you for Christmas. God Ble$$ that man!

Rosie Sorenson is a humor writer in the San Francisco Bay Area. You can contact her at: RosieSorenson29@yahoo.com

From The Progressive Populist, June 1, 2021

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Friday, May 14, 2021

Editorial: Big Lie Republicans

Republicans just can’t quit Donald Trump. He might be a compulsive liar, a cheater in business as well as in his personal life and he’s an accused rapist, among other things, but Republicans still believe he is their guy and they won’t tolerate anyone telling the inconvenient truth about the 45th President.

Liz Cheney told the truth about the Lying Don and now his GQP loyalists say she has to go.

Trump has insisted there is no way Joe Biden could have beaten him fairly last November, despite the fact that Biden clearly beat him by seven million votes in a record turnout and “Sleepy Joe” flipped five states Trump had won in 2016. That gave Biden a 74-vote victory out of 538 in the Electoral College, but only after Trump and his Republican allies exhausted their efforts to curtail the use of voting by mail and drive-by voting by Democrats who were wary of voting in person during the pandemic.

The Trump campaign filed 62 lawsuits in state and federal courts contesting election processes, vote counting and the vote certification process in many states, including Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Texas and Wisconsin, but most were dropped or dismissed by state and federal judges and Biden still won all those states except Texas. Recounts in Georgia and Wisconsin didn’t change Biden’s win in either state. A majority of House Republicans signed onto a Trump lawsuit seeking the Supreme Court to throw out the election results in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Georgia, which Trump had won in 2016. The Supreme Court declined to hear the suit.

Neither Attorney General William Barr nor Republican state officials were able to find evidence of widespread voting fraud or irregularities in the election, but Trump campaign officials and attorneys continued to make baseless accusations about voting systems and election officials. Trump urged his supporters to “Stop the Steal” at a rally in Washington on Jan. 6 that turned into a riot at the US Capitol, where Congress was preparing to accept the election results that had been certified by each state.

At a rally on the Ellipse, a park near the White House, Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, endorsed the idea of a “trial by combat.” As the crowd yelled, “Fight for Trump,” Trump then told the supporters to head to the Capitol to demonstrate against Congress certifying Biden’s victory.

The storming of the Capitol followed, which forced the evacuation of the House and Senate as Capitol and Metro DC police were overwhelmed by the rioters and the Trump administration refused to send the DC National Guard to reinforce the police against the rioters who had erected a gallows on the Capitol grounds.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) called the White House Jan. 6 in an attempt to get Trump to tell the mob to end the violence, but Trump seemed unconcerned.

On Jan. 25, when asked on “Fox News Sunday” by host Chris Wallace about Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler’s (R-Wash.) claim that Trump had told McCarthy,“Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are,” McCarthy declined to confirm or deny it, but he did suggest Trump had responded sufficiently to his pleas for action. In fact, Trump released a video at 4:17 p.m. on Jan. 6, more than four hours into the riot, urging people to go home, but he added, “I love you, you’re very special.”

On the House floor Jan. 13, McCarthy said: “The president bears responsibility for Wednesday’s attack on Congress by mob rioters. He should have immediately denounced the mob when he saw what was unfolding.” He said he would support a censure resolution against Trump. Instead, McCarthy made a pilgrimage to Mar-A-Lago on Jan. 28 to seek forgiveness and pledge his loyalty to Trump.

Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) was one of 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump, and her refusal to accept the Big Lie that Joe Biden stole the election put her in the sights of the Trump Cult. That got her ousted as Republican Conference chair, the third-ranking Republican in the House, on May 12. She was replaced by Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.)

Cheney has mainly supported Trump’s policies, with the exception of his lies about the election. She tweeted on May 3, “The 2020 presidential election was not stolen. Anyone who claims it was is spreading THE BIG LIE, turning their back on the rule of law, and poisoning our democratic system.”

In a Washington Post column May 5, Cheney wrote that Trump’s claim that he is still the rightful president, and President Biden is illegitimate, provoked violence on Jan. 6 and “there is good reason to believe that Trump’s language can provoke violence again. Trump is seeking to unravel critical elements of our constitutional structure that make democracy work — confidence in the result of elections and the rule of law. No other American president has ever done this.

“The Republican Party is at a turning point, and Republicans must decide whether we are going to choose truth and fidelity to the Constitution. In the immediate wake of the violence of Jan. 6, almost all of us knew the gravity and the cause of what had just happened — we had witnessed it firsthand.”

We note the irony that Rep. Cheney is one of the few elected Republicans speaking truth to power in the GQP. Her father is Dick Cheney, whose Big Lie about Iraq’s alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction led to the invasion that found no WMDs. Liz Cheney is a right winger who supported Trump’s election in 2016 and she enthusiastically supported his reelection in 2020.

But when Liz is right, we’ll give her credit. She has demanded accountability for the Jan. 6 insurrection and wrote that Republicans should “support the ongoing Justice Department criminal investigations of the Jan. 6 attack. Those investigations must be comprehensive and objective; neither the White House nor any member of Congress should interfere.”

Of course, when the House Republicans oust Cheney from the leadership, and the MAGA cult selects a challenger to take her out of her Wyoming seat next year, it will be a warning to other ambitious Republicans to put their principles aside, along with any sentimental attachments to democracy, and let the party complete its transition to fascism.

Greg Sargent noted in the Washington Post that Republicans are increasingly asserting a willingness to overturn election results they don’t like. In Arizona, a recount of Maricopa County ballots ordered by the Republican-dominated state Senate is plainly designed to manufacture fake evidence bolstering the fiction that the election was stolen. Rep. Jody Hice (R-Ga.), who tried to overturn Biden’s election, plans to challenge the Georgia secretary of state in the 2022 primary with the promise to “aggressively” pursue “voter fraud.”

If Republicans control the House after the 2024 presidential election, they will be in a position to reject state election outcomes they don’t like, and accept alternate Republican electors, which would complete the coup that was started this past Jan. 6. Even after the rioters were cleared out of the Capitol, 139 representatives and eight senators voted to overturn state election results. Their first attempt failed to make the US government part of the Trump family business. That was the practice run. Don’t let the Big Lie Republicans try another coup. — JMC

From The Progressive Populist, June 1, 2021

Populist.com

Blog | Current Issue | Back Issues | Essays | Links

About the Progressive Populist | How to Subscribe | How to Contact Us

PO Box 819, Manchaca TX 78652

Selections from the June 1, 2021 issue

COVER/Hal Crowther

Abuse of Asian-Americans sets new cognitive low

EDITORIAL
Big Lie Republicans

FRANK LINGO
NRA enables gun terror

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

DON ROLLINS
The comedy and tragedy of George W. Bush

RURAL ROUTES/Margot McMillen
We need teamwork to beat COVID

DISPATCHES
Cybercriminals threaten East Coast fuel supply.
Republicans block inquiry into alleged Trump campaign violations.
Most don’t get to be ‘disingenuous’ under oath the way Bill Barr was.
GQP leaders bury internal data showing Trump’s drag on House districts.
Biden’s success on Covid drives his approval as president.
GQP tries to bully another Republican Trump critic out of Congress.
Lawyer for Capitol riot suspect blames Fox News, Trump.
Arizona Republican admits GQP 'audit' of Trump election loss 'makes us look like idiots."
No longer seeking access, press admits Trump lies.
Dems will retain slim House majority in special elections.
Report exposes high cost of internet access during Trump era ...

ART CULLEN
Where’s the beef?

REBEKAH ENTRALGO
An invisible essential labor force

JOHN YOUNG
Where’s America’s apology for lie after lie?

TIMOTHY KARR
World press freedom during the US tech boom

THOM HARTMANN
America on the verge of re-fighting the American revolution?

BOB BURNETT
What’s happening in California?

DICK POLMAN
Big lie Republicans are doubling down

KAREN DOLAN
The man for the moment who must do more

SAM PIZZIGATI
FDR must be smiling

JON R. PIKE p. 11
Beer and politics in Wisconsin’s northwoods

TOM CONWAY
Upskilling America

ROBERTO Dr. CINTLI RODRIGUEZ
The new/old Civil War ablaze

PETER ARNO and PHILIP CAPER
COVID-19 vaccinations: A shot in the arm for universal healthcare?

HEALTH CARE/Joan Retsinas
On George Floyd, police, health, and pogo: Thoughts

SAM URETSKY
Republicans dream of red meat blockade

JOEL D. JOSEPH
Police kill white men too

WAYNE O’LEARY
The public power imperative

JOHN BUELL
Pfizer, the bully on (Wall) Street

DAVID SCHMIDT
They myth of ‘the careless Mexican government’: US media continue to pandemic-shame Mexico’s center-left president

SATIRE/Rosie Sorenson
How will you cope, sans your serif?

BOOK REVIEW/Heather Seggel
Check your bias, save the world

ROB PATTERSON
Streaming across the pond with British cop shows

MOVIE REVIEW/Seth Sandronsky
Lady day

MOVIE REVIEW/Ed Rampell
Stealing Chaplin: The great gravediggers

GENE NICHOL
Labor laws need new teeth

and more ...

Saturday, May 1, 2021

Editorial: GQP Crowd Control

Right wingers were counting on riots to break out after the trial of former Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin in the killing of George Floyd. They figured Chauvin would get away with kneeling on Floyd’s neck for nine and a half minutes until Floyd was asphyxiated, and outraged Blacks would take to the streets in violent protests, which would make great video for the white supremacist channels, including Fox “News.”

Scott Greer, a speaker at the recent white-nationalist America First PAC convention and a former writer for the Daily Caller, tweeted early on April 20 that “White boy summer starts with Derek Chauvin’s acquittal,” David Neiwert noted at DailyKos.com.

Instead, that afternoon, the Hennepin County jury convicted Chauvin of three counts of murder. Greer updated his tweet that, “Uhhh ... it appears white boy summer has been postponed.” So the wingers switched to Plan B, as Greer wrote, “Why even remain a cop? This system hates you and only needs you to enforce mask regulations. Get a job that won’t send you to jail for doing your job.”

Chuck Tanner of the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights, who collected reactions of far-right extremists after the Chauvin trial, noted that “the response across the far right and white nationalist movement demonstrated its base lack of compassion and lack of mooring in reality.”

Jaden McNeil of America First Students bemoaned that Chauvin “never stood a chance” in a multiracial America.

Self-proclaimed “groyper mommy” Michelle Malkin wrote that “Chauvin was sacrificed.” Tulsa, Oklahoma-area Proud Boys recirculated a post declaring that “Derek Chauvin Did Nothing Wrong.”

Peter Brimelow, founder/publisher of the white-nationalist site VDare, asked on Twitter, “Does anyone really see a way out except Civil War/secession?” Brimelow tweeted an article he wrote in 2017 predicting that “it will come to blood.”

Tucker Carlson’s rant on Fox “News” on April 20 — in which he claimed that Chauvin couldn’t receive a fair trial — was echoed widely on far-right channels, Neiwert noted.

“Everyone understood perfectly well the consequences of an acquittal in this case,” Carlson said. “After nearly a year of burning and looting and murder by BLM, that was never in doubt.”

Blaming Democrats for the verdict, Carlson echoed white nationalist themes as well: “No mob has the right to destroy our cities,” he said. “No politician or media figure has the right to intimidate a jury. It’s an attack on civilization.”

Carlson helped to build the myth that the Black Lives Matter movement was responsible for violent protests in the summer of 2020. Republicans used that myth to scare White suburban voters.

In fact, studies of racial justice protests have found the Black Lives Matter protests were remarkably nonviolent. When there was violence, very often police or right-wing provocateurs were directing it at the protesters.

A study by the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED) and the Bridging Divides Initiative (BDI) at Princeton University in September 2020 found about 93% of protests since the death of George Floyd were peaceful and non-destructive.

ACLED recorded more than 10,600 demonstrations across the US between May 24 and August 22, 2020. About 7,750 of those protests were linked to the Black Lives Matter movement. Peaceful protests took place in more than 2,440 locations across all 50 states and Washington, D.C, while violent demonstrations occurred in fewer than 220 locations.

Violence sometimes was initiated by law enforcement authorities, who intervened in 9% of BLM protests with force, using tear gas, rubber bullets or pepper spray. Of all other protests, including unrest over the COVID-19 pandemic, 3% were met with force.

As the use of force became more heavy-handed, the risks of violence increased, particularly in Seattle and Portland, the report noted. Violent demonstrations in Portland increased after federal agents arrived on the scene and “re-escalated tensions,” the authors wrote, in reference to demonstrations in Oregon.

“Prior to the deployment, over 83% of demonstrations in Oregon were non-violent. Post-deployment, the percentage of violent demonstrations has risen from under 17% to over 42%, suggesting that the federal response has only aggravated unrest.”

Right-wing gangs, such as Proud Boys, the Boogaloo Bois and the Ku Klux Klan also intervened in demonstrations and engaged in often-violent counter-protests.

Protesters or bystanders were reported injured in 1.6% of the protests. In total, at least three Black Lives Matter protesters and one other person were killed while protesting in Omaha, Austin and Kenosha, Wis. One anti-fascist protester killed a far-right group member during a confrontation in Portland, Ore. He claimed he acted in self-defense, but law enforcement officers killed the anti-fascist several days later, a killing Donald Trump applauded.

Now Republicans are seeking to use the myth of violent BLM protests to push new laws to criminalize protests. Legislators in at least 34 states have introduced bills to increase penalties against people who are convicted of protest-related crimes.

A Republican proposal in Indiana would bar anyone convicted of unlawful assembly from holding state employment, including elected office. A Minnesota bill would prohibit those convicted of unlawful protesting from receiving student loans, unemployment benefits or housing assistance. In Kentucky, where protests after the police killing of Breonna Taylor lasted for months, the state Senate passed a bill that would make it a crime to insult or taunt a police officer with “offensive or derisive” words or gestures that would have “a direct tendency to provoke a violent response.” Those arrested on such charges would be held in jail for at least 48 hours, which the Democratic Senate floor leader noted is more than those who are arrested for murder, arson or rape.

Republican legislators in Oklahoma and Iowa have passed bills granting immunity to drivers whose vehicles strike and injure protesters in public streets.

And in Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed sweeping legislation that toughened laws governing public disorder — a bill he’s called “the strongest anti-looting, anti-rioting, pro-law-enforcement piece of legislation in the country.” The law transforms many misdemeanor offenses into felonies. It denies bail to protesters until they see a judge. A “riot” is defined as at least three people who, together, pose a “clear and present danger” to someone. The law also increases penalties associated with taking down Confederate monuments, making it a second-degree felony punishable by up to 15 years in prison.

These are authoritarian solutions to relatively minor problems. There are tough criminal penalties available to prosecute real cases of assault, arson and looting. Instead, Republicans are trying to suppress the right of the people to peaceably assemble. Under the new rules, a few unruly participants can give police the excuse to call that assembly a riot. Then police can “kettle” the participants in a confined area and wait for the crowd to boil over.

First they take away your right to vote, and then they take away your right to complain about it.

Apparently, the QAnon party believes suppressing protests is easier than getting police to stop killing unarmed people of color. — JMC

From The Progressive Populist, May 15, 2021

Populist.com

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About the Progressive Populist | How to Subscribe | How to Contact Us

PO Box 819, Manchaca TX 78652

Selections from the May 15, 2021 issue

COVER/Frederick Clayton

The Southwest offers blueprints for the future of wastewater reuse

EDITORIAL
GQP crowd control

FRANK LINGO
Justice brings peace

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

DON ROLLINS
Why J.D. Vance could be a very formidable foe

RURAL ROUTES/Margot McMillen
What good did COVID do?

DISPATCHES
Coal miners join climate activists to back Biden’s $2 trillion infrastructure plan.
Trump’s South Texas border wall foiled by $5 ladders.
Six states gain congressional seats and seven states lose seats for the coming decade.
US economic confidence hits positive territory for the first time since pandemic.
R’s wait to see if Trump’s choice leaves Texas for a Georgia Senate run.
Inspector general reports show how Trump officials failed Puerto Rico and undercut the EPA.
Tax on Wall Street transactions proposed to fund tuition-free college.
Don't bleach it away: Remember the day Trump turned the GQP into a death cult. ...

ART CULLEN
That was Sunday, okay? This is Thursday.

JILL RICHARDSON
A textbook case of environmental injustice

JOHN YOUNG
Baby talk from the infantile right

THOM HARTMANN
A new GOP ‘big lie’ plot is in the works

TOM CONWAY
Going big on infrastructure

JOSEPH B. ATKINS
Organizing in the South is still a long haul

JOEL D. JOSEPH
An alternative corporate tax increase

ROBERTO Dr. CINTLI RODRIGUEZ
Police killings before, during and after George Floyd

DICK POLMAN
Trump’s Kremlin collusion scandal is inextricably linked to GOP’s authoritarian mission

HEALTH CARE/Joan Retsinas
Why not national health insurance?

SAM URETSKY
Guns out of control

GRASSROOTS/Hank Kalet
One guilty verdict won’t fix a rotten system

WAYNE O’LEARY
Broken clocks are right twice a day

JOHN BUELL
Battling Amazon is a matter of life and death

SETH SANDRONSKY
Washington state’s new temporary worker law

N. GUNASEKARAN
US Asian policy distracts the core issues

BOOK REVIEW/Heather Seggel
Keep it under wraps

ROB PATTERSON
‘Nomadland’ profiles life on the road

SATIRE/Rosie Sorenson
Tik Tok Biden

MOVIE REVIEW/Ed Rampell
Greta Thunberg’s quest to ‘listen to the science’

REBEKAH ENTRALGO
Labor laws need new teeth

and more ...

Saturday, April 17, 2021

Editorial: Preachers Join the Goats

If one were casting the role of Anti-Christ it would be hard to beat the Comb-Over Caligula. Donald Trump is a sociopath who has displayed the least moral standards of any president. He has cheated on all three of his wives. He boasted about grabbing women by the genitals. Former Miss Teen USA contestants accused Trump of walking into the dressing room when girls were changing during the 1997 pageant he owned. He instructed his personal attorney to pay two women before the election to keep them quiet about sexual affairs while his current wife, Melania, was at home with then-infant son, Barron. (Trump later let his lawyer, Michael Cohen, go to federal prison for that violation of federal election law.)

Trump has cheated banks and business associates. Trump cheated small businesses and contractors. He refused to rent apartments to Latino or Black applicants. He cheated donors to his charitable foundation, misusing charity funds to settle legal problems involving his for-profit businesses. He had numerous contacts with organized crime figures. Trump cheated students at Trump University. And he refused to release his tax returns, even when they were subpoenaed by prosecutors investigating possible tax fraud.

His faults were notorious before he was elected president in November 2016, but he continued his grift as president. Among other things, he reported making more than $1.6 billion while in the White House as lobbyists, political supporters and foreign officials pumped money into his properties, in apparent violation of the foreign and domestic emoluments clauses of the Constitution. It’s no wonder he tried to foment an insurrection Jan. 6 to keep him in power.

Still, evangelical leaders said Trump was chosen to lead and compared him to Cyrus, a Persian king who, in the sixth century before Christ, conquered Babylon and ended the captivity of Israelites in exile. Jews were allowed to return to Israel and build a temple in Jerusalem. Cyrus appears in the Old Testament book of Isaiah as a figure of deliverance. In August 2019, Trump agreed, “I am the chosen one.”

Trump’s supporters included Catholic prelates, notably Cardinals Timothy Dolan of New York and Sean O’Malley of Boston, as well as Los Angeles Archbishop José Gomez, president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops. The Catholic leaders were manipulated by Trump, who in an April 25, 2020, conference call with them said he would continue to support Catholic efforts to outlaw abortion and provide government funds for parochial schools. The liberal National Catholic Reporter noted that support was “purchased at the expense of a whole range of other life and justice issues.”

Luckily, 52% of American Catholics sided with fellow Catholic Joe Biden instead of the right-wing bishops’ choice, and that margin was enough to deny Trump majorities in the Rust Belt states that had tipped the Electoral College to Trump in 2016. Nationally, Trump carried White Catholics by 12 points, according to exit polls, down from his 24-point margin over Hillary Clinton four years ago. Latino Catholics voted for Biden by a 2 to 1 margin.

After last November’s election, Pope Francis congratulated new President Biden with “cordial good wishes,” urging him to help foster reconciliation as the Vatican welcomed a new administration more in line with the pontiff’s priorities on the environment and social justice issues.

Francis’ congenial message contrasted with Archbishop Gomez’s warning that Biden’s support for abortion rights would “advance moral evils and threaten human life.” But Chicago’s Cardinal Blaise Cupich, a key US ally of the Pope, called Gomez’s statement “ill-considered,” and other Catholic leaders adopted more diplomatic tones.

White evangelical Protestants voted 76% for Trump, down from the 81% who voted for him in 2016, but they anchored key battleground states, such as Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and Texas against the tides of demographic and cultural change.

Christian leaders who embrace the Republican Party apparently have forgotten the Gospels, where Jesus never mentioned abortion or the sanctity of tax cuts, but he had plenty to say about helping the poor, the sick, the imprisoned and foreigners. In fact, Jesus went “on the record” about who will be rewarded and who will be discarded in the final judgment. In Matthew 25: 31-46, the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats, Jesus said people will be separated into sheep on “The King’s” right and goats on his left.

“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’

“They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’

“He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’

“Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”

If Christian faithful are to vote for Republicans, is it too much to expect them to demand Republican candidates who support things Jesus actually called for, starting with assistance for the poor and working families? Pro-lifers must take responsibility for the children who are born as well as the parents who must raise them.

Instead, when Republicans were the majority in Congress during the first two years of Trump’s regime, their main priorities were to pass a $2 trillion tax cut for the wealthy and corporations, and they tried to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which failed by one vote in the Senate. Trump also tried to cut food assistance for the poor.

Under Biden, the Republican minority in Congress has voted unanimously against COVID relief in the American Rescue Plan, which included tax credits to reduce child poverty and help for people who are struggling to pay their rent.

The GQP not only is unanimously opposed to Biden’s infrastructure jobs proposal; it is determined to pass restrictive election laws at the state level to prevent the poor and working class from voting in future elections. Not much Christianity is evident in those Republican priorities. By their fruits you shall know them.

Truly, when the judgment finally comes, the Republican Mammonites will end up as cabrito (roast goat). At their side shall be rice and beans. Don’t let friends end up on the spit. — JMC

From The Progressive Populist, May 1, 2021

Populist.com

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PO Box 819, Manchaca TX 78652

Selections from the May 1, 2021 issue

COVER/Reynard Loki

‘Sacrifice Zones’: How people of color are targets of environmental racism

EDITORIAL
Preachers join the goats

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

GENE NICHOL
North Carolina’s advice to Georgia

RURAL ROUTES/Margot McMillen
Protecting meatpackers and public health

DISPATCHES
McConnell’s “Stay out of politics’ warning to corporations doesn’t seem to be working.
Republican megadonors had high hopes for a weekend retreat. Then Trump took the stage.
Biden wants to send COVID vaccines overseas, but a Trump deal prohibits sharing surplus.
In report full of holes, sheriff’s office clears federal marshal’s contractors in killing of antifa fugitive.
In report full of holes, sheriff's office clears federal marshals contractors in killing of antifa fugitive.
Four right-wing 'Boogaloo Bois' indicted for obstructing investigation of federal officer's murder last summer.
Amidst wave of voter suppression bills, some states expand access to ballots.
Three students from same Knoxville high school were shot already this year.
Congress allocated $19B in stimulus money to Texas public ed, but schools have yet to see an extra dime.
Iowa nears 60% of power from wind turbines ...

ART CULLEN
Responding to change

ALAN GUEBERT
Global meatpackers filet US taxpayers again and again

JILL RICHARDSON
State lawmakers are cracking down on speech

JOHN YOUNG
Vote suppression: the GOP national pastime

JOHN L. MICEK
So much for a transitional presidency

ROBERT P. ALVAREZ
Voter suppression is an attack on democracy — and my faith

DICK POLMAN
John Boehner reminds us Republicans lived in ‘crazytown’ long before Trump

REBEKAH ENTRALGO
Biden’s jobs plan will help seniors get care at home

PHIL ATETO
Medicare for All could save my life

TOM CONWAY
America’s supply chain crisis

SARAH ANDERSON
If the minimum wage kept pace with Wall Street bonuses since 1985, it would be worth $44 today

THOM HARTMANN
GOP ‘cancel culture’ has its guns blazing against democracy

ROBERTO Dr. CINTLI RODRIGUEZ
Dehumanization, genocide and vaccine hesitancy

GRASSROOTS/Hank Kalet
Anti-trans bills are about division

HEALTH CARE/Joan Retsinas
Health policies: The danger of ineptness

SAM URETSKY
Understanding Dr. Birx

FRANK LINGO
Non-interview with Jaime Harrison

WAYNE O’LEARY
American Rescue Plan rescues Obamacare

JOHN BUELL
NPR’s market obsession

RACHEL PAK
Stop calling it a ‘border crisis’

BOB BURNETT
Whatever happened to personal responsibility?

BOOK REVIEW/Heather Seggel
The puzzle of poverty

ROB PATTERSON
Allen v. Farrow v. comfort

SETH SANDRONSKY
The third reconstruction: An interview with Rev. Dr. William J. Barber

MOVIE REVIEW/Ed Rampell
How we can put a halt to biodiversity loss

SATIRE/Rosie Sorenson
It’s a beautiful thing

ROBIN SAVANNAH CARVER
I want civil rights. They want to talk about sports.

Friday, March 26, 2021

Editorial: Controlling Trump’s Virus

Former president Donald Trump wants credit for developing a coronavirus vaccine, but, as usual, his claims fall short of the truth.

When Pfizer announced Nov. 9, 2020, that its COVID-19 vaccine was more than 90% effective, Trump claimed full credit for the development under Operation Warp Speed to encourage development of the vaccine and treatments for the virus. In fact, Pfizer did not participate in Operation Warp Speed and did not accept government money to develop the vaccine.

Instead, Pfizer partnered with the vaccine’s original developer, Germany’s BioNTech, in March 2020. Pfizer risked $2 billion of its own money and conducted the first human study in Germany. The White House announced Operation Warp Speed in May 2020. Pfizer in July 2020 did sign an agreement with the US government worth $1.95 billion to provide 100 million doses, which guaranteed a market once the vaccine was approved for use in December 2020. A second vaccine was also produced by the biotech firm Moderna in December.

But Trump also did more than any other person to allow the coronavirus to spread throughout the USA. As early as February 2020, Trump told journalist Bob Woodward in a taped interview that COVID-19 is “deadly stuff,” and that, “You just breathe the air and that’s how it’s passed.” Trump added that he decided to “play down” the pandemic so as not to scare people. He refused to wear a face mask, which was the only way to stop the spread of the airborne virus; for months he ridiculed people who wore masks and he held “super spreader” events around the country that attracted thousands of supporters, most of whom didn’t wear masks. He also supported protests that challenged state and local efforts to require face masks and restrict public gatherings to stop the pandemic’s spread. By the time the vaccines were approved for shipment, COVID-19 had killed more than 300,000 Americans — the highest death rate in the developed world. By the time Trump left office, 400,000 Americans had died of the coronavirus.

The vaccines have been praised as a triumph of the free market, but both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines relied on a new genetic technology and a specially designed spike protein developed by scientists at the federal Vaccine Research Center, which was created in 1997 at the National Institutes of Health, at the urging of Dr. Anthony Fauci, to bring together researchers from different disciplines to defeat diseases, with a heavy focus on HIV and coronaviruses. Research on a coronavirus vaccine had been going on since 1961, when scientists learned of messenger RNA, the genetic material that makes life possible, taking the instructions inscribed in DNA and delivering those to the protein-making parts of the cell.

Researchers sought to make messenger RNA into a powerful medical tool that could encode fragments of virus to teach the immune system to defend against pathogens. It could also create whole proteins that are missing or damaged in people with devastating genetic diseases, such as cystic fibrosis. But University of Pennsylvania researchers Katalin Kariko and Drew Weissman found little interest at biotech and pharmaceutical companies to fund the research in the late 1990s, Weissman told the Washington Post. Eventually, Kariko went to BioNTech, a German firm working on developing RNA therapies, to continue her work.

The Vaccine Research Center targeted coronaviruses in the early 2000s when severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) emerged in 2003 and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) broke out in 2012. When VRC officials heard of a new coronavirus in China, they got genome from Chinese scientists and shared it with researchers in Texas and Maryland, who designed a vaccine, using the knowledge they had gained from years of work. But they still needed a technology that could deliver it into the body — and they had already been working with Moderna, using its messenger RNA technology to create a vaccine against a different bat virus.

Carolyn Y. Johnson wrote in the Washington Post Dec. 6, 2020, “The world faced an unparalleled threat, and companies leaped into the fight. Pfizer plowed $2 billion into the effort. Massive infusions of government cash helped remove the financial risks for Moderna.

“But the world will also owe their existence to many scientists outside those companies, in government and academia, who pursued ideas they thought were important even when the world doubted them. Some of those scientists will receive remuneration, since their inventions are licensed and integrated into the products that could save the world.

“As executives become billionaires, many scientists think it is fair to earn money from their inventions that can help them do more important work. But [Jason] McLellan’s laboratory at the University of Texas is proud to have licensed an even more potent version of their spike protein, royalty-free, to be incorporated into a vaccine for low- and middle-income countries.”

Joe Biden’s administration organized the distribution of the vaccines and delivered 100 million doses to states and territories in his first two months in office. As of March 21, 81.4 million Americans have received at least one dose and 44.1 million have been fully vaccinated, and new COVID cases have dropped from a high of 300,669 on Jan. 8 to an average of 54,599 per day the week of March 20. But polls show one-half of Republican men say they won’t take the vaccines, which could make it hard to achieve “herd immunity” to stomp out the virus, and Trump has done little to urge his followers to use either mask or vaccine to stop the virus.

Instead, Trump continued to blame the coronavirus on China, where the virus originated, despite 3,800 hate-related incidents reported against Asian Americans during the pandemic.

Trump and his followers derisively call COVID-19 “the Chinese virus,” “Wuhan virus” or “kung flu,” despite the World Health Organization urging people to avoid the use of those terms, fearing a backlash against Asians. Trump ignored the advice and first tweeted the phrase “China virus” March 16, 2020, the Washington Post noted. That single tweet, researchers later found, fueled exactly the kind of backlash the WHO had feared: It was followed by an avalanche of tweets using #chinesevirus, along with other anti-Asian phrases.

Trump refused to moderate his reckless rhetoric, even after eight people were shot dead, including six women of Asian descent, at three Asian massage parlors in and around Atlanta, March 16, 2021.

In a telephone interview with Fox News’s Maria Bartiromo the night of the Atlanta shootings, Trump again used the term “China virus” to describe the coronavirus.

The gunman has denied that race was a factor in the rampage. However, even if it’s only a coincidence that the Atlanta spa killer targeted six women of Asian descent, it would help if the former president would stop stirring the pot of racism.

Until then, we suggest that the proper credit for Trump’s contribution to the coronavirus pandemic is to rename it the “Trump Virus” in recognition of the former president’s service. — JMC

From The Progressive Populist, April 15, 2021

Populist.com

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PO Box 819, Manchaca TX 78652

Selections from the April 15, 2021 issue

COVER/Reynard Loki

You may become a casualty in the war against weeds

EDITORIAL
Controlling Trump’s virus

SATIRE/Frank Lingo
New theory of creation

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

DON ROLLINS
Madison Cawthorne’s star keeps on a-risin’

ALAN GUEBERT
Who do we blame for not farming the way we know we should?

DISPATCHES
Prosecutor who led Capitol riot inquiry sees sedition charges.
Social Security still in hands of Trumpers, and Biden needs to fix that.
Progressive Dems demand repeal of PAYGO law as automatic Medicare cuts loom.
Former Trump lawyer Sidney Powell admits her claims about Dominion Voting Systems conspiracies were unbelievable.
Dems call out GQP hypocrisy and media enabling on border.
Texas congressman speaks up for lynching.
Kevin McCarthy twisted by loyalty to vulgar talking yam.
Mar-A-Lago 'partially closed' after Covid outbreak.
Trump said to be planning return to social media with his own alt-twitter app ...

ART CULLEN
Betting a third wave could restart middle America

ROBIN BROAD and JOHN CAVANAUGH
Water is life. Can we protect it?

JILL RICHARDSON
The fraught politics of wolf hunting

JOHN YOUNG
‘Doddering Joe’ takes off like a geyser

THOM HARTMANN
It’s time to roll back Reagan’s middle-class tax increases!

DICK POLMAN
White racist republicans plot to sacrifice minority voters on the altar of the big lie

ROBERT C. KOEHLER
Growing up ecologically

TOM CONWAY
A historic save for retirees

OLIVIA ALPERSTEIN
COVID relief: The biggest health care expansion in a decade

BOB BURNETT
Biden’s first 50 days

ROBERTO Dr. CINTLI RODRIGUEZ
Stereotypes generally rooted in white supremacy and misogyny

LAWRENCE S. WITTNER
US government should promote general welfare

HEALTH CARE/Joan Retsinas
Vaccinate! Vaccinate!

SAM URETSKY
Stand up for filibuster

JAKE JOHNSON
Advocates sound alarm over quiet Trump era move that could further privatize Medicare

WAYNE O’LEARY
Minimum effort on wages

JOHN BUELL
Vaccine politics: Rich nations get vaccines, poor nations don’t, which is a big danger to rich nations

JASON SIBERT
What can nuclear powers agree upon?

JOEL D. JOSEPH
The United States and Europe should pressure Saudi America to become a democratic state

MARK ANDERSON
Saving the free press

BOOK REVIEW/Heather Seggel
I’m lovin’ it

PAUL ARMENATANO
Is pot really more potent these days? Does it matter?

MOVIE REVIEW/Seth Sandronsky
Rebel with a cause

SATIRE/Rosie Sorenson
And the Emmy goes to ...

MOVIE REVIEW/Ed Rampell
Nate Parker takes the gloves off with ‘American Skin’

GENE NICHOL
Joe Biden takes on childhood poverty

and more ...

Friday, March 12, 2021

Editorial: Democrats Take Big Win

The American Rescue Plan for COVID relief got through the Senate March 6, but it took an overnight session after an 11-hour reading of the 688-page bill, followed by debate over more than 30 amendments, most of them put up by Republicans in an effort to peel off Democrats, and nine hours of negotiations to keep centrist Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.V.) in line. Eventually, Dems passed the $1.9 trillion bill over unified Republican opposition.

Many progressives were upset that the bill did not include an increase in the minimum wage to $15, but the fight over the minimum wage might have delayed passage of the bill past the March 14 deadline, when the federal supplement to unemployment benefits lapses, and the minimum wage increase might have caused some Democrats to reconsider support for the rescue bill.

Progressives should celebrate the big win and not get hung up about what they didn’t get this time around.

Manchin stalled the momentum when he balked at supporting the rescue bill, insisting that the weekly federal unemployment benefit remain at $300, and be cut off in mid-summer. The House had approved $400 per week. Since the Senate is tied 50-50, Democrats need every vote to stay in line so Vice President Kamala Harris can break that tie. With the assistance of President Joe Biden, who appealed to Manchin in a phone call, Manchin agreed to support $300 weekly benefits through Sept. 6, with forgiveness of federal income taxes on unemployment income for jobless Americans.

As it stands, after passing on a 50-49 vote March 6, with one Republican opponent absent for a funeral, the Senate bill will send $1,400 stimulus checks to individuals making under $75,000, or $2,800 for married couples making under $150,000, as well as $1,400 per dependent. The payments would phase out above those income levels and disappear above income caps of $80,000 for individuals and $160,000 for married couples.

The income caps were lowered from the House version, which set cutoffs at $100,000 for individuals and $200,000 for married couples, but 85% of American households will get checks and Democrats should get all the credit.

The Senate bill also temporarily expands the child tax credit, which is currently $2,000 per child under 17, to $3,600 for children up to age 5 and $3,000 for children 6 to 17. For the second half of this year, the federal government would send advance payments of the credit to Americans in periodic installments, establishing a guaranteed income for families with children.

The bill also expands the earned-income tax credit for workers without children for this year. Through 2025, it exempts student loan forgiveness from income taxes.

The bill provides funding for vaccine distribution and coronavirus testing, contact tracing and genomic sequencing. It gives money to the Federal Emergency Management Agency for COVID.

It provides $350 billion for states, local governments, territories and tribal governments to prevent layoffs, and it contains $130 billion for schools to help them reopen safely. In voting against it, Republicans were literally defunding police, firefighters, other first responders and workers in public services. The bill also includes funding for colleges and universities, transit agencies, housing aid, child care providers and food assistance, over GQP opposition.

In addition, the bill contains funding to help businesses, including restaurants and live venues, and it includes a long-sought bailout for multiemployer pension plans that have become financially troubled, as industries have changed and union jobs have disappeared, particularly in construction, trucking and mining. The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, the government-run entity that insures the plans, gets $86 billion to secure pensions for more than a million retirees.

The Affordable Care Act gets a boost, with increased subsidies for people purchasing health insurance through the healthcare marketplaces. It includes billions of dollars for public health programs and veterans’ health care. Republicans couldn’t care less, as they spent the week complaining that Dr. Seuss’s publisher took six of the late author’s outdated books out of print.

The bill also helps Americans who have lost jobs keep health insurance coverage they had through their employer, covering the full cost of premiums through September.

That’s a great day’s work, and Senate Budget Chair Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) called it “the most significant piece of legislation to benefit working families in the modern history of this country.” He was disappointed that his $15 minimum wage plan failed. Democrats who voted against putting the minimum wage in the budget bill included Manchin, Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.), Jon Tester (Mont.), Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan (N.H.), Angus King (I-Maine who caucuses with the Democrats), and Chris Coons and Tom Carper (Del.). Some of them opposed the $15 minimum wage as too much; others may have thought it would imperil the COVID relief.

With the American Rescue Plan headed for final passage in the House, Democrats should bring up the minimum wage in a separate bill and force Republicans to vote up or down on it. It is popular, and Manchin suggested an increase in the minimum wage to $11 an hour, which small businesses could better afford. After that, he said, “it should be indexed so it never becomes a political football again.” Manchin’s plan at least would bring a full-time worker’s income above the federal poverty level for a family of three — and Sanders’ plan, which is phased in over four years, wouldn’t reach $11 until 2022 anyway. If Manchin could get Republican support for $11 with indexed rate increases, that would be a major accomplishment. If he can’t get Republicans to sign on, it will show the GQP is simply obstructionist and maybe that will give Manchin more motive to support filibuster reform.

The House and Senate also should proceed with the For the People Act (HR 1), which would limit states’ authority to restrict voting in federal elections. Republicans will fight that bill to the end because, as they’ve admitted, they can’t win in a fair fight.

Democrats are likely to face an insurmountable task in getting major bills passed if they keep the current filibuster rules, which require 60 votes to advance a controversial bill. Manchin and Sinema oppose eliminating the filibuster, but Manchin said he might support a return to the old rules that required a senator to stand and talk on the Senate floor to keep the filibuster going. “This filibuster should be painful,” Manchin said on “Fox News Sunday,” noting that senators now can conduct a filibuster just be sending an email.

Ultimately, if Democrats want to pass major bills outside the budget reconciliation process against an obstructive minority, they need to improve their numbers in 2022. That includes holding onto the House majority and Democratic Senate incumbents, including Sen. Raphael Warnock in Georgia, and flipping at least two Republican Senate seats on a map that includes open seats in Pennsylvania, where Pat Toomey is retiring; North Carolina, where Richard Burr is retiring; Ohio, where Rob Portman is retiring; and vulnerable incumbents Ron Johnson in Wisconsin and Marco Rubio in Florida. Roy Blunt also is retiring in Missouri, but that state may be too far gone for the next cycle. In the meantime, progressives should take the win on the American Rescue bill and get back to organizing. — JMC

From The Progressive Populist, April 1, 2021

Populist.com

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About the Progressive Populist | How to Subscribe | How to Contact Us

PO Box 819, Manchaca TX 78652

Selections from the April 1, 2021 issue

COVER/Hal Crowther

Staring down the barrel in the land of the smoking gun

EDITORIAL
Democrats take big win

FRANK LINGO
Creating a fair standard of living on all Indian reservations in the US

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

DON ROLLINS
Lebron, Ibra and Fox News: A yawner gone wrong

RURAL ROUTES/Margot McMillen
Hold off the land grabbers

DISPATCHES
Republican incompetence makes federal government popular again.
Dems hail big spending, with an eye on infrastructure package.
Supreme Court dumps last Trump election appeal.
If democracy loses to money, it may not rise again.
Lindsey Graham admits Trump could ‘destroy’ the GOP, after he sends RNC a cease-and-desist letter.
Trump vandalism at USDA is just conservative government.
Republican governors roll back COVID-19 restrictions — and health experts are horrified.
Held back out of fear of Trump, female generals finally get promoted by Biden.
Post-insurrection crackdown on far-right extremists leads to arrests, charges around the country.
The call (to the Proud Boys) is coming from inside the (White) House ...

ART CULLEN
Midwest in the catbird’s seat to make history

ALAN GUEBERT
Rural America shouldn’t be a dump site for corporate America

JILL RICHARDSON
The long history of ‘America Uncanceled’

JOHN YOUNG
Deregulation always benefits — somebody

ROBERT P. ALVAREZ and UMA NAGARAJAN-SWENSON
Biden needs to keep promises on immigration

STEVEN ROSENFELD
Republicans trying to restrict voting may see their schemes backfire

TOM CONWAY
Keeping America self-reliant

SARAH ANDERSON
Danny Glover: ‘The best anti-poverty program is a union’

ESHAWNEY GASTON
Essential workers deserve $15 an hour

KAYLA SOREN
Small towns and rural communities need transit, too

ROBERTO Dr. CINTLI RODRIGUEZ
Where all lands and all peoples are sacred

D.H. KERBY
Poor people’s army accupies vacant homes

HEALTH CARE/Joan Retsinas
Welcome, COVID-submicrobes, class of 2027

SAM URETSKY
Rescuing the climate is complicated

BOOK REVIEW/Seth Sandronsky p. 15
Mapping COVID-19

WAYNE O’LEARY
The disloyal opposition

JOHN BUELL
Fallacies of minimum wage opponents

DICK POLMAN
FBI guy says Antifa didn’t storm the Capitol, but MAGA loons still love their big lie

BOB BURNETT
The disinformation party

BOOK REVIEW/Heather Seggel
The burnout is real

ROB PATTERSON
Rock’n’Roll is wreckless abandon on a good night

SATIRE/Rosie Sorenson
Take that, you monster

REBEKAH ENTRALGO
Paid sick and family leave can’t wait

MOVIE REVIEW/Ed Rampell
Black movies matter: Pan African Film Festival goes virtual

GENE NICHOL
Lincoln and the GOP

and more ...

Friday, February 26, 2021

Editorial: Free-Market Freezer Burn

It took a catastrophic week of sub-freezing weather in Texas to distract public attention from the disgrace of 43 Senate Republicans who held out to let Donald Trump off on the charge he incited the failed insurrection on Jan. 6.

The Senate voted 57-43 on Feb. 13 to convict Trump for his role in promoting the rally of his supporters in D.C. that turned into a storming of the Capitol, and his refusal to send forces to rescue Congress from violent insurrectionists. But the 57 who voted to convict Trump were 10 short of the number of senators needed to bar him from holding public office again. Trump supporters called the vote an exoneration, but we call it a hung jury, and we expect Trump to be prosecuted in federal court in D.C. in due time, along with the many high crimes and felonies that various prosecutors are building cases against him in New York, Georgia and other jurisdictions.

However, the day after the Senate vote, an icy storm driven by a polar vortex caused temperatures to plunge far below freezing on Valentine’s Day from Canada to the Texas Gulf Coast. Demand for electricity to heat Texas homes shot up while gas wells and generators that were not designed to operate in freezing weather failed. The wholesale price of electricity skyrocketed from the usual $20 per megawatt-hour to $9,000 in the largely unregulated wholesale power market. That means a Texan who signed up for an electricity plan tied to the spot price of power on the Texas grid, such as Griddy offers, which usually costs from 2 to 7 cents per kilowatt-hour, would see the cost soar to $9 per kWh. A Griddy customer told the Dallas Morning News her electricity bill for her 2,700-square-foot house in Rockwall, a Dallas suburb, would be more than $5,000 for the five days of the freeze. Her monthly bill normally runs $125 to $150.

Karen Cosby told the News she flipped the breakers connected to her heating units and moved into a small bedroom with an air mattress and her two dogs, and shut off the rest of the house. Her energy use was limited to a space heater, making a cup of coffee in the morning and using the microwave for four or five minutes to heat her meals.

“It’s been 43 degrees in the house since Monday, and I still have a $5,000 bill,” she said. Bills as high as $17,000 were reported.

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) operates the grid within Texas to avoid federal oversight, and it allows electricity suppliers to charge up to $9,000 per MWh as an incentive to add generating capacity, but the price has never stayed that high that long. The price per MWh reached the limit Sunday night, Feb. 14, and stayed at or near there through Thursday before it dropped to 85 cents the afternoon of Friday, Feb. 19, the News reported.

The extended freeze was a boon for natural gas producers, as the spot market price increased from less than $4 per million British thermal units a week before the deep freeze to more than $1,000 per million BTUs in East Texas and northern Louisiana and $1,250 per million BTUs in Oklahoma. Spot gas in Houston shot up as much as $400 during the week and averaged $201.

Texas has a generating capacity of 67,000 megawatts in the winter, compared with peak capacity of 86,000 megawatts in the summer, as many plants are taken offline for maintenance and declining demand during the colder months. But by Feb. 17, another 46,000 megawatts were offline, leaving only 21,000 megawatts in the grid while millions of Texas families shivered in frigid homes. What were supposed to be “rolling blackouts” lasted for hours or days. (Our office in Manchaca, Texas, was out of power for 22 hours and was out of water for six days.)

Texans on fixed-rate plans, such as those offered by most electric utilities, shouldn’t see the spectacular increases in bills, but they may have spent more time without power because their utilities were reluctant to pay that $9,000 per megawatt-hour from speculators at the peak spot market (at 450 times their normal operating cost) to reduce the numbers of their customers that were blacked out.

Gov. Greg Abbott at first blamed wind turbines, which were disabled by the sub-freezing temperatures. “This shows how the Green New Deal would be a deadly deal for the United States of America,” Abbott told Fox News host Sean Hannity on Feb. 15. “Our wind and our solar got shut down, and they were collectively more than 10% of our power grid, and that thrust Texas into a situation where it was lacking power on a statewide basis. ... It just shows that fossil fuel is necessary.” But wind turbines are used throughout the winter in northern states, where they are equipped to handle freezing weather. And Texas lost 28,000 megawatts from natural gas, coal and nuclear plants going offline because they were not winterized.

Until 1995, Texas regulated electric utilities, which were guaranteed a profit based upon the price of fuels (mostly coal or natural gas). At the urging of the Houston-based energy trading firm Enron, after the election of George W. Bush, the state Legislature deregulated the electric industry, starting with the wholesale power industry in 1995 and it expanded the deregulation in 1999.

ERCOT created a market where companies that own power plants, bid to provide electricity for the “day ahead” and in real time during the day. As demand increased, generators could charge more for their electricity. Ed Hirs, an energy fellow at the University of Houston, noted in a Washington Post column Feb. 18 the Texas system was not much different than what Enron did in the California electricity market in 2000-2001. Except that market manipulation was illegal in California — but not in Texas, thanks to ERCOT. It was destined to come crashing down, and the polar vortex of 2021 was the force that finally broke the Texas grid.

The Texas energy industry was urged to implement winterization guidelines after a similar freeze in 2011 led to power-plant shutdowns that knocked out power to 3.2 million Texans, but the Legislature rejected new regulations. Instead electricity generators were asked to adopt voluntary guidelines developed by an industry group. Few made the recommended investments in equipment and other measures, such as insulating generators, gas wells and pipelines.

Former Gov. Rick Perry, Trump’s former energy secretary, said, “Texans would be without electricity for longer than three days to keep the federal government out of their business.” But Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson said Texas should consider putting its grid under federal oversight. “We just have to be honest about the situation: The grid failed us,” Johnson said. As a Democratic state representative in 2015, Johnson authored a bill that would have required power plants to prepare for weather and climate change. The bill was rejected in a House vote.

Minnesota Sen. Tina Smith (D) called for federal regulators to investigate natural gas prices that spiked as high as 100 times typical levels, forcing utilities and other natural gas users to incur exorbitant costs, many of which were passed on to customers.

In a letter to federal regulators, the Associated Press reported, Smith said the price spikes will not just harm consumers, but could “threaten the financial stability of some utilities that do not have sufficient cash reserves to cover their short-term costs in this extraordinary event.”

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), a strong proponent of the Green New Deal proposal, slammed Texas Republicans for blaming renewable energy sources for the blackouts. “The infrastructure failures in Texas are quite literally what happens when you don’t pursue a Green New Deal,” she said in a tweet Feb. 16. — JMC

From The Progressive Populist, March 15, 2021

Populist.com

Blog | Current Issue | Back Issues | Essays | Links

About the Progressive Populist | How to Subscribe | How to Contact Us

PO Box 819, Manchaca TX 78652

Selections from the March 15, 2021 issue

COVER/April M. Short

COVID-19 has exposed the fragility of our food system — here’s how we can localize it

EDITORIAL
Free-market freezer burn

FRANK LINGO
Climate consciousness courtesy of the Wall Street Journal

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

DON ROLLINS
Two pastors, two prophets

RURAL ROUTES/Margot McMillen
Keep the peace and get things done

DISPATCHES
Dems march ahead with COVID relief bill while Republicans whine.
US Supreme Court denies Trump effort to block release of his tax returns.
With Trump gone, CNN pulls plug on White House press briefings.
Defeated and impeached, Trump still commands loyalty of GQP loyalists.
Republicans who voted to convict Trump in impeachment trial face backlash.
Voting machine company sues pillow CEO to quash stolden election lies.
Republicans are shocked! by partisan animosity.
Lawmakers pull in opposite directions on voting rights.
Federal judges continue to step back, allowing Biden to choose their replacements.
Anti-Black hate crimes have plummeted in US.
Pandemic recession pain continues ...

ART CULLEN
Frozen in: A new civic battery will help us restart

SARAH ANDERSON
Expose the insurrection financiers

JILL RICHARDSON
Education won’t stop conspiracy theories

JOHN YOUNG
Wanted: Jurors who aren’t accomplices

DICK POLMAN
Can Uncle Sam hold the line against mob rule?

ALAN GUEBERT
The best way to start fighting big meat is to start

TOM CONWAY
US labor laws need a major update — and the PRO Act is a great start

NORMAN SOLOMON
Cuomo and Newsom symbolize the rot of corporate democrats — and the dire need for progressive populism

GRASSROOTS/Hank Kalet
Raise the floor: Time to boost the minimum wage

JOEL D. JOSEPH
Raising the minimum wage will expand the economy

ROBERTO Dr. CINTLI RODRIGUEZ
Impeachment does not get in way of providence & manifest destiny

HEALTH CARE/Joan Retsinas
Rural hospitals: Congress acts

SAM URETSKY
Conspiracies: What do you believe?

SETH SANDRONSKY
Vaccine rules: Intellectual property rights and COVID-19

WAYNE O’LEARY
State of the Democrats

JOHN BUELL
True financial literacy

BOOK REVIEW/Heather Seggel
Keeping history honest

BOB BURNETT
What happens next

SATIRE/Rosie Sorenson
Those who can, do — those who can’t ...

MOVIE REVIEW/Ed Rampell
New documentary poses the question: Reform or revolution?

MITCHELL ZIMMERMAN
GOP senators said Trump was culpable, but he’s a ‘private citizen’ now. Fine — indict him like one.

and more ...

Sunday, February 14, 2021

Editorial: Biden Learned His Lesson

In the first few weeks of his administration, Joe Biden put the lie to Donald Trump’s taunt that he was “Sleepy Joe,” as he signed 36 executive orders in the first two weeks in the White House, fixing as much as he could from the damage Donald Trump left behind. Then Biden turned his attention to working with Congress to accomplish what he couldn’t get done by edict.

His first priority was the $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill, and a few days before Senate Democrats were to start the budget reconciliation process to pass the bill with Democratic votes, if necessary, a group of 10 Republicans offered a low-ball $600 billion proposal — less then one-third of the Democratic plan — as a pretense at bipartisan compromise.

Biden apparently learned his lesson about how much good faith Republicans have in their dealings from the 2009-10 negotiations over the Affordable Care Act. Back then, President Barack Obama kept Democrats, including then-Vice President Biden, working for months to reach a bipartisan compromise, making concessions in a vain attempt to get Republican ssenators to support a market-based health care reform bill based on what Republicans had proposed a few years earlier. In the end, not a single Republican voted for the bill.

This time, Biden got the “open letter” Jan. 31from the “moderate” Republicans urging him to work in a bipartisan manner to provide support to families struggling during the pandemic. He met with the Republicans at the White House Feb. 1, gave them a respectful hearing, thanked them for their time, and signaled Dems to start the reconciliation process to pass a bill that already is overwhelmingly popular with little Republican input.

The Senate started considering amendments to the the stimulus budget resolution the afternoon of Feb. 4 and considered 55 amendments in a 15-hour overnight session that finished at 5:30 a.m. on Feb. 5, with Vice President Kamala Harris breaking the 50-50 tie. Among the amendments, senators agreed to measures that block tax increases on small businesses and to create a fund for restaurants impacted by the pandemic. There was also bipartisan support to exclude the $1,400 direct payments from Americans with high incomes, though it didn’t specify the level where the checks would be cut off, and the Senate approved a new child allowance for low- and middle-income families. Senators agreed to a Republican amendment to bar an increase in the federal minimum wage, but that issue may be revisited. The House approved the budget resolution later in the day, 219-209. The actual bill will come later.

Republicans proposed to cut off stimulus checks for individuals earning between $50,000 and $75,000, or families earning between $100,000 and $150,000 for families, which was under the cutoff for stimulus checks under Trump. We agree with Sen Bernie Sanders, the Senate Budget chair, who noted, “Unbelievable … working class people who got checks from Trump would not get them from Biden.” However, the argument that “high-earning” families should not get the payments appeals to Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.V.), so Bernie and Biden need to change Manchin’s mind to pass the bill. (Manchin also opposes an increase in the minimum wage during the pandemic.)

Democrats have a good move with the proposed credit to families of $3,600 per child under age 6 and $3,000 per child up to age 17. That payment would phase out starting at $75,000 for a single filer and $150,000 for joint earners. Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) has a similar plan, which increases the chances of bipartisan agreement. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities said the child tax credit would lift 9.9 million children above or closer to the poverty line. It also would give young parents — including millions who were enamored of Trump — a solid reason to vote Democratic.

The progressive think tank Data for Progress reported that 73% of Americans — including 63% of Republicans — surveyed Jan. 29 to Feb. 1 support extending unemployment benefits that are set to expire in March, and expanding them from $300 to $400 weekly.

The poll also found 79% support for $350 billion in emergency aid for states and cities trying to prevent layoffs of essential workers and maintain services while the vaccine is distributed. Republicans proposed no funds for state and local governments.

While 77% of the American electorate support the stimulus checks, Republicans asked Biden to cut his proposed $1,400 checks to $1,000.

Republicans also oppose the $15 minimum wage, which 54% of Americans support, and which would be the first federal minimum-wage increase in more than a decade. They want to cut the child tax credit, which 70% of voters support. And they oppose funds to help schools reopen safely, over the objections of 74% of Americans who support the funding.

Even among Republicans, Biden’s stimulus relief bill has 37% approval, which is better than the 31% approval of Mitch McConnell, in a Quinnipiac Poll released Feb. 3, which also showed overall that 61% of Americans were optimistic about the the next four years under Biden and 68% supported the stimulus bill, which Republican leaders criticize as unnecessarily increasing the federal deficit.

The budget reconciliation process will pause for the Senate trial of the impeachment of Trump for his role in inciting the Jan. 6 insurrection at the US Capitol.

Trump’s lawyers indicated that their defense of Trump will rely heavily on a challenge to the constitutionality of impeaching a former president, as well as a First Amendment defense of Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric leading up to the riot, which sought to disrupt the certification of presidential election results by Congress.

House managers prosecuting the case against Trump promised to prove their case. “We live in a Nation governed by the rule of law, not mob violence incited by Presidents who cannot accept their own electoral defeat,” they wrote.

Conviction would bar Trump from holding public office in the future, and might result in taking away Trump’s $221,400 annual pension and more than $1 million annually in perks as a former president, but the trial is likely to end with nowhere near 17 Republican senators willing to join Democrats in convicting Trump. His QAnon cult is consolidating its hold over the Republican Party, with threats to purge Congress members who dared to question Trump’s role in inciting the insurrection. That sets up new conflicts to split the GOP between old-line Republicans and the QAnon wing of Trumpers.

Republicans hope to gain several seats through redistricting later this year. They hold total control of reapportionment in 18 states, including Florida, North Carolina and Texas, which are expected to gain seats after the 2020 census results are tabulated. Some election experts believe Republicans could pick up the six seats they’d need to regain the House in 2022, based solely on gains from gerrymandering, but that depends on how badly the party is fractured by the split between “classic” pre-Trump Republicans and the QAnon Trumper wing. Republican gerrymanders pushed the envelope in 2011 redistricting. If the new QAnon Republican Party alienates suburban voters, particularly women, Democrats who deliver the goods to the working middle class might turn “red” districts competitive. — JMC