The Progressive Populist Today Blog

Sunday, February 27, 2022

Letters to the Editor

Jail Insurrection Leaders

Re: “Coming to grips with the Insurrection” by Bob Burnett (2/15/22 TPP). Many of the big Rambos and little Rambos, all with big egos and little brains, who believed their “heroic” actions of Jan. 6, 2021 secured them an elevated place in history, have instead secured sentences commensurate with their crimes against the Capitol.

However, that doesn’t console me — nor does it console millions of other Americans, I’m sure. Only when the biggest Rambo of them all, the overweight orange Rambo (who led his followers from the rear) is punished for his disgraceful crime, will our country bring closure to that shameful episode in our history.

If Donald Trump is not punished for treason against the USA, which he perpetrated on Jan. 6, 2021, then all Americans (as well as all the world) will have ample proof that it’s only a myth that no one in this country is above the law, and that our system of justice is nothing but a lackey of the rich and powerful.

DAVID QUINTERO, Monrovia, Calif.

Senate Needs More Deliberation, Less Filibustration

We have heard that our US Senate is the World’s Greatest Deliberative Body. But we need to deliberate that idea.

The filibuster used to be part of that, as it required a senator to actually stand and say words to debate and go on and on until he collapsed — or something to that idea. Now, all a senator has to do is to say he filibusters something and all discussion the body stops debating and the issue dies.

How is that making the Senate this great deliberating forum? And why can’t that just end? Who made this the “go to” solution for any senator who wants his way on anything that comes before the Senate?

There are things one person can decide that won’t even be discussed!? A “minority” of one controls the whole Senate. If the Senate can’t even vote to change that, why don’t they all just quit? Let the real Deliberative Body — the House — legislate. It’ll save us a lot of time and money. The President can still be heard from — but even he is not a majority — and can get in on the “debate.”

Proverbs 14-16 has a lot to offer these days. It wouldn’t hurt anyone to read it right now. All citizens. See if you don’t agree.

CHERYL LOVELY, Presque Isle, Maine

Masked Singer Jumped the Shark

After six successful seasons of television entertainment on the Fox Network, the producers of the hit show “The Masked Singer” have taken the concept of “jumping the shark” to a whole ’nother level by including (of all people) the soon-to-be indicted enemy of the people and star of the movie “Borat 2,” Rudy Giuliani, in the show’s season seven cast.

“The Masked Singer” season seven premiere episode will not air until March 9, in which [spoiler alert!] right-wing Republican reprobate Rudy Giuliani is the first costumed singing contestant voted off the show by the studio audience and the panelists, including Ken Jeong, Jenny McCarthy, Nicole Scherzinger and Robin Thicke. Two of the panelists — Jeong and Thicke — reportedly walked off the set in protest of Giuliani’s performance.

The only TV show characters that should be unmasking an old, greedy, dishonest, crazy crook like Rudy Giuliani are Fred, Velma, Daphne, Shaggy and Scooby-Doo! (Rudy Giuliani is every bit as ridiculous and transparently guilty as your classic Scooby-Doo cartoon criminal, after all.)

And I thought half-term Alaska Governor and failed Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s previous appearance in a pink and blue bear suit in season three singing Sir Mix-A-Lot’s “Baby Got Back,” accompanied by the show’s host Nick Cannon as her hype man, was awful enough already, but “The Masked Singer” truly has “jumped the shark” with janky Giuliani’s inexplicable inclusion on the show. Perhaps Henry Winkler as Fonzie from “Happy Days” would be proud? Probably not. Just saying.

JAKE PICKERING, Arcata, Calif.

Change the Structure to Obtain Egalitarian Society

The very foundation and formalization of our secular democratic republic had the elements of male/man “power and control” that preceded that mindset for centuries prior our inception as a nation.

We’ve witnessed this power of the few over “the will of the many” (entire citizenry) from the imputed influences of the Puritans, Federalists, DAR, Gilded Era Capitalists, Lobbyists, to Alt-Right Birchers and Birthers via the poisoning of our fragile democracy continue after the seditious insurrection of the aligned monied autocrats, religious zealots and corrupted reprobates among us.

While there are a multitude of ways our democracy has been corrupted within every realm of our governance, the most recent and outrageous example in my mind was “Moscow Mitch’s” denial of former President Obama’s appointment to the Supreme Court, when he had the authority to declare war up to his last day in office. That illustrated injustice has possibly allowed our new Supreme Court, with three Trump-appointed shills, to overturn the rights of women to obtain an abortion in Roe vs. Wade that has been in existence for almost half a century to satisfy the bogus interests of the “poisoners of our Democratic freedoms.”

The state of our union for our very salvation requires that “we the people” unify, organize and fulfill Alexander Hamilton’s and Frederick Douglass’s fears regarding the undermining of our democracy, which we are assuredly at today (2022) after our 1/6/21 physical attack on our Capitol and democracy. Gender parity shall be our nation’s first step toward providence and that egalitarian society.

FRANK C. ROHRIG, Milford, Conn.

Parents Can Control Learning

You know if all of these concerned parents don’t want their kids educated at home via virtual learning and also don’t want them to learn the “wrong things” at public school, such as actual American history, and also want to determine what curriculum won’t harm their kids’ intellectual growth, why don’t they just home-school their kids and indoctrinate them the way they want? That will surely “Make America Great Again” for their kids, until they have to face the reality and truth of actual life.

MIKE EKLUND, Mercer, Wis.

Men Unsympathetic?

Andrew Yang has started a new political party called “The Forward Party.” He sent me an email titled “American Men,” in which he cites many statistics and studies which convince me that boys and men have indeed fallen behind girls and women in many ways. He wrote, “I’ve long felt that these struggles are being overlooked and underreported in America today, partly because men and boys are not generally framed as sympathetic figures.” But he does not take the next logical step and tell us WHY they are not seen as “sympathetic figures.”

Let me take a shot at it.

Andrew, could this have something to do with the fact that men commit about 90% of all Sexual Harassment?

Could it have something to do with the fact that men commit about 90% of sexual assaults, including rape?

Could it be because men commit well over 50% of all domestic violence and abuse?

And, could it be because men commit well over 50% of incest?

Yes, I agree that the overall relationship between women and men is far from being good.

Yes, I do not enjoy listening to man-hating talk and male-bashing talk.

But, too many of us men “don’t get it.”

Women are sick and tired of this evil behavior, and they won’t take it anymore.

Women were not put on this Earth to be abused and traumatized.

STEWART B. EPSTEIN, Rochester, N.Y.

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Judge Restores Wolf Protections

By FRANK LINGO

A federal judge has reversed a Trump administration de-listing of gray wolves and restored endangered species protections.

The New York Times reported Feb. 11 that Judge Jeffrey White of the Northern District of California found that the US Fish and Wildlife Service did not adequately consider threats to wolves outside the Great lakes region and Northern Rocky Mountains. Judge White ruled that the wolves should be protected in 44 of the lower 48 states.

Appallingly, the Biden Administration defended the Trump de-listing in court. The Washington Post also covered the ruling but omitted the pertinent point of Biden’s people supporting Trump’s policy.

Good rule of thumb: Individuals or agencies considering if their policy is decent and proper would do well to oppose any Trump rule.

Here’s how extreme the hunters and ranchers can be. In Wisconsin, after a court order had allowed hunting, 218 wolves were killed in four days last year.

Wolf advocacy groups have tried in the past to mollify the ranchers by offering compensation for livestock killed by the canines. But hatred of wolves runs deep in these people and they’re determined to wipe wolves out.

Wolves were once plentiful across the continent, but relentless hunting nearly made them extinct. They are an essential element of the ecosystem, keeping populations of deer, elk and rabbits in check. When wolves are present, deer and elk don’t chew up too much of the vegetation that holds the soil in place and allows many other flora and fauna to flourish. The red wolf is also an endangered species and needs continued protection to restore its role in nature.

“Today’s ruling is a significant victory for gray wolves and for all those who value nature and the public’s role in protecting these amazing creatures,” said Jamie Rappaport Clark, president of the Defenders of Wildlife non-profit conservation group, in a Yahoo article. Clark also called for emergency listing of wolves as endangered in Montana, Wyoming and Idaho where state laws allow hunters to kill wolves.

Judge White, appointed by President George W. Bush, bucks the trend of appointees by conservatives who usually side with business and hunting groups, rather than nature groups. Let’s remember that conservation logically means preserving nature, while conservative ironically means preserving power of the status quo.

Thank goodness, there are advocacy groups to bring these lawsuits. A leader of the action was Earthjustice, whose attorney Kristen Boyles said, “The Fish and Wildlife Service should be ashamed of defending the gray wolf de-listing.”

An NPR piece from last April noted that hundreds of wolves are killed annually by hunters and trappers in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming. Those states are not affected by Judge White’s ruling. The Northern Rockies’ wolf population has remained strong — more than 3,000 animals, according to wildlife officials — because wolves breed so successfully and can roam huge areas of wild land in the sparsely populated region.

Some state officials are intent on reducing wolves’ numbers to curb livestock attacks and protect the big game herds that wolves prey upon. Supporters of restoring protections warn that will tip the scales and reduce wolf numbers to unsustainable levels, while also threatening packs in nearby states that have interconnected populations.

It’s worth noting here that many of the ranchers in those states enjoy cheap grazing for their livestock on federal lands, which belong to the American people. So the ranchers favor government protections for themselves and their livelihoods but oppose government protections for the wolves’ livelihoods.

The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) states that ranchers use 270 million acres of Western federal land for grazing at a cost of about $1.69 per animal per month, adding that you can’t feed a house cat for that much. The CBD also says this massive grazing is harmful to the ecosystem, reducing once-rich topsoil to dust while depleting and despoiling ponds and streams in the drought-stricken West. This is all to satisfy America’s insatiable craving for meat.

When do humans as a species finally see that our way of dominating the land serves only ourselves and deprives many other species of their habitat and even their very lives? Let’s repair the web of life, not tear it any more.

Frank Lingo, based in Lawrence, Kansas, is a former columnist for the Kansas City Star and author of the novel “Earth Vote.” Email: lingofrank@gmail.com. See his website: greenbeat.world.

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Laura Pritchett: Our Border with Mexico Teems with Contradictions

The US supports refugees around the world, but on the southern border it’s illegal to give them shelter or a ride.

By LAURA PRITCHETT

This time last year, I was doing a legal “water drop” on public land close to our border with Mexico, visiting as an unofficial and self-funded reporter to learn more about this local effort.

What I found is that volunteers here are the unsung, unseen heroes doing the real work of humanitarian aid — and who, by the very nature of what they do, often prefer to remain silent.

We hiked in a remote region of southern Arizona on Bureau of Land Management land, all of us weighted down with backpacks filled with water, and equally weighted with the sorrow of the reality here. More people die in this region than in any other place along the border. The UN agency International Organization for Migration reported that 650 deaths occurred border-wide in 2021, making it the deadliest year they’ve ever recorded. Nothing indicates that 2022 is going to be any better.

We placed gallon jugs of water under a plastic tub held down with rocks, and when I stood up, feeling lighter, I still felt weighted by the contradictions of this place. Sure, I know: Living in contradiction and the ability to hold opposing thoughts and emotions simultaneously is a hallmark of maturity, but still, sometimes the contradictions are so extreme that the brain shorts out. Cases in point:

Nearby, there’s the hyper-ugly Barry M Goldwater Range, used for bombing practice, and the hyper-beauty of the nearby Organ Pipe National Monument. There’s the beauty and silence of the desert, despite the roar of military fighter jets above.

There’s the nearby artsy, colorful town of Ajo, flanked by an enormous open pit copper mine, tailings pile looming alongside. There are the beautiful skeletons of saguaros in the desert, and the very-not-beautiful skeletons of humans.

An area of such diverse life. An area of such death. And perhaps the most surreal contradiction of all: The assault on basic human kindness. How did we get to a place where offering shelter or a ride is a crime? A federal crime, with a prison sentence no less?

A friend told a story in which she came across a young man on foot on a borderlands back road, and could not drive him to a medical facility, despite his request for her to do so, because she knew she could be arrested for transporting an illegal immigrant. She was already on the Border Patrol’s radar. She could give him water and food and a blanket—legal—but could not give him the ride he asked for—illegal.

“You can’t imagine what that’s like,” she said. “To look into another human’s eyes and say, ‘No, I can’t help you.’”

There were tears in her eyes—she had, perhaps, left this man to die, but if she had allowed him in her car, she could have ended up in prison and jeopardized her other work helping migrants, which might result in other lost lives.

My head hurt. My heart hurt. This place felt overwhelming.

So are the related questions: Was I providing humanitarian aid? Or littering? Should I spend my time doing this small physical act? Or working to elect better politicians? Should I focus on this place so far from my home, or stay local?

Why is this crisis on the border so ignored? Why do North Americans seem willing to support refugees from other countries—which I applaud—yet seem so resistant to helping those closest to us, who are also fleeing serious violence, political persecution, drought and hurricanes?

Then there are the related issues: aquifers drained near the border wall, wildlife migrations interrupted, the Tohono O’odham peoples split apart, with relatives on the US side not easily able to visit relatives in Mexico as they have since time immemorial. Such a clearly bad situation on so many levels.

As I walked back to an old Subaru, my pack much lighter now, my shoulders still felt the weight. I wondered if anyone was watching me—waiting for me to be gone. Waiting for a simple, clear, uncomplicated moment to continue a journey.

Laura Pritchett is a contributor to Writers on the Range, writersontherange.org, a nonprofit dedicated to airing Western issues. Her novel “Red Lightning” is based on human rights issues at the border. She directs a master’s program in nature writing at Western Colorado University. See www.laurapritchett.com

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Saturday, February 26, 2022

Editorial: Send in the Treasury

Vladimir Putin apparently fancies himself a chess master who likes to say playing chess with the United States is like playing against a pigeon: It struts around the board, knocks over the pieces. poops everywhere and then declares victory. So wrote Tom McTague at TheAtlantic.com on Jan. 27 after Putin had sent 100,000 Russian troops to the Ukrainian border in an apparent attempt to forcibly bring the prodigal nation back into the Russian sphere. But the Russian dictator may have underestimated Joe Biden.

Putin hoped to exploit divisions among NATO member nations and the United States, which Donald Trump had tried to break during his turn in the White House. Putin’s grand aspiration reportedly was to push America out of Europe and negotiate a deal that recognizes Russia’s role in the continent’s security order.

Putin thought Trump had alienated NATO allies enough to give him the opportunity to annex Ukraine. But in the past year President Biden and his team have repaired the breaches in the trans-Atlantic alliance and, as Putin continued to amass troops and weaponry on Ukraine’s border in February, Biden convinced the European Union to join the US in threatening crippling economic sanctions on Russia if it invades Ukraine.

As the number of Russian troops grew to 190,000 on three sides of Ukraine in late February, Putin insisted he had no plans to invade Ukraine but the Biden administration repeated intelligence assessments that invasion is imminent and predicted Russia would use their separatist allies in the Donbas Region of eastern Ukraine to stage “false flag” attacks on their own people to set up a pretext for a Russian “intervention” to protect the Russian nationals.

Following the script as Biden predicted, Russian officials claimed Ukraine mounted major attacks in the separatist enclaves, accusing Ukraine of genocide and shelling civilians. One of the structures hit by shells Feb. 17 in the Donbas region was a kindergarten, resulting in concussions to three adults but no injuries to children. Ukrainian officials denied reports of aggressive actions and accused Russian-backed separatists of being responsible for the shelling.

Biden has ruled out sending US troops to defend Ukraine, but he’s sent Javelin anti-tank missiles, Stinger anti-aircraft missiles and other mobile anti-armor systems, grenade launchers, large quantities of artillery, mortars and small-arms ammunition to help Ukraine forces defend themselves.

On Feb. 21, in what appeared to be a highly choreographed turn of events, The “Donetsk People’s Republic” and the “Luhansk People’s Republic” in eastern Ukraine declared their independence and formally asked Russia for assistance. Putin authorized the Russian Defense Ministry to send forces into the self-declared separatist republics for “peacekeeping” purposes and set up bases there.

If the invasion goes forward, Russia will lose access to the world’s banking system, sales of sovereign bonds, technologies for critical industries and assets of oligarchs who are close to Putin. Russian oil and gas producers likely will lose Western Europe as a major market. Over the medium and long-term, Ivo Daalder, the former US ambassador to NATO, now president of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, told the Washington Post, “it reinforces a European transition to [energy] supply that doesn’t rely on Russia.”

Nord Stream 2, the recently completed Russian gas pipeline to Germany, may never come online, as the European Union might not grant the required agreement for its use, Dalder told the Post.

To help make up for lost Russian oil supplies, Biden could lift sanctions on Iran, correcting the injustice done when Trump in 2018 canceled the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action agreement, which the US, Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia reached with Iran in 2015, in which the US had agreed to lift sanctions in return for Iran halting its development of nuclear weapons. .

Meanwhile, the Ukraine military, with 260,000 active soldiers, might not be able to turn back the Russian army, but they could make the invasion bloody and Ukrainian troops who have been trained by US Army Green Berets and other NATO special forces may mount a guerrilla insurgency that could bog down the Russian military for years. If the Ukraine occupation starts to look like Afghanistan in the 1980s, the Russian populace as well as the oligarchs who support Putin might get restless with damage the international sanctions do to the Russian economy.

Republicans, searching or a way to undermine the president, complained that Biden hadn’t already imposed sanctions on Putin and Russia. However, putting severe sanctions on Russia prematurely would remove the leverage that kept Russia from moving across the border. Now that Russia has moved into the separatist regions, the western democracies might start with measured sanctions, saving the more severe measures until Russia moves further into Ukraine. Sanctions also are likely to cause Russia to retaliate by mounting cyberattacks against American and European infrastructure, as Russia already has started against Ukrainian banks.

Meanwhile, China is watching events in Russia with self interest. China’s President, Xi Jinping, wants control of Taiwan, and Russia’s attempt to annex Ukraine may provide a model for what China can get away with.

China’s foreign ministry has repeatedly blamed the United States for “spreading false information” and creating tensions, urging it to respect and address Russia’s demands for security guarantees, Yew Lun Tian of Reuters noted Feb. 19.

In a show of solidarity, Putin visited Beijing for the Feb. 4 opening ceremony of the Olympics, declaring with Xi a deepening “no limits” strategic partnership. Chinese state media said the two countries stood “shoulder to shoulder in upholding justice in the world.” And Putin held off his move on Ukraine until the Olympics concluded.

“Just as China does not expect Russia to help it militarily in the case of war over Taiwan, Russia does not expect China to help militarily over Ukraine, nor does it need such help,” Li Mingjiang, associate professor at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore, told Reuters.

China could expand economic cooperation with Russia that would blunt the impact of sanctions promised by the West if there is an invasion, experts told Reuters.

After Russia’s invasion of Crimea in 2014, several Chinese state banks provided loans for Russian state-owned banks that were sanctioned by the West. This time, Chinese companies would face consequences if they sought to evade any export controls imposed on Moscow in the event of a Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Some may complain sanctions are economic imperialism on the part of the US, but it’s preferable to gunboat diplomacy. Why send in the Marines if the Treasury Department can do the job enforcing sanctions? Treasury should get a chance to show what it can do.

We think Biden is right to rule out sending US military to defend Ukraine, nor should US troops defend Taiwan. But Putin and Xi should know they are making a choice with their territorial ambitions: If they want Kyiv or Taipei, it will cost them trade with the United States and most of the rest of the world. Is it worth it? — JMC

From The Progressive Populist, March 15, 2022

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Friday, February 11, 2022

Editorial: RNC Embraces Insurrection

When Donald Trump lost the election in November 2020 by more than seven million votes, the Republican Party had a choice: accept the defeat and start working to return to honest conservative values, or follow Trump’s Big Lie that Democrats had stolen the election.

Later, after 60 courts rejected Trump’s claims of voting irregularities that might overturn Biden’s victory in the Electoral College, Republicans had another choice after Jan. 6, when Trump sent a mob to the Capitol to “Stop the Steal.” The mob erected a gallows on the Capitol lawn, then stormed past police lines to enter the Capitol, threatened Vice President Pence and members of Congress and forced suspension of the electoral vote certification.

Trump reportedly enjoyed watching the riots on TV for more than three hours, as he refused pleas to call off his supporters or send the D.C. National Guard to relieve besieged Capitol and Metro police.

The rioters who were sent to the Capitol by Trump injured more than 140 police officers defending the Capitol, and led to the deaths of five people, while members of Congress, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Pence were forced to seek shelter. Rioters literally smeared feces in the halls of Congress, broke into congressional offices and vandalized the Speaker’s office.

Republican leaders, including Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, criticized Trump in the week after the Capitol riots, but they closed ranks to support Trump when the Democratic House moved to impeach the president for his role in inciting the riots. Republican leaders not only refused to support Trump’s impeachment; they also rejected attempts by Democrats to conduct a bipartisan congressional investigation of the riots. So the House in June 2021 voted to conduct its own investigation and, after McCarthy refused to cooperate, Speaker Pelosi named Republican Reps. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois to join seven Democrats on the select committee.

Finally, the Republican National Committee on Feb. 4 embraced its role as the party that will seize power by whatever means necessary as the RNC formally endorsed the coverup of the riots.

Party leaders officially declared the events that led to the attack on the Capitol “legitimate political discourse,” and rebuked Cheney and Kinzinger for participating in “persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse.”

The party leadership said the behavior of Cheney and Kinzinger “has been destructive to the institution of the US House of Representatives, the Republican Party and our republic.”

The censure resolution was watered down from an initial version that called directly for the House Republican Conference to “expel” Cheney and Kinzinger “without delay.” That demand was dropped, but the language condemning the attack on “legitimate political discourse” was then added.

The censure likely will increase pressure on McCarthy to kick Cheney and Kinzinger out of the House Republican Conference.

“Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger crossed a line,” Ronna McDaniel, the RNC chairwoman, said in a statement. “They chose to join Nancy Pelosi in a Democrat-led persecution of ordinary citizens who engaged in legitimate political discourse that had nothing to do with violence at the Capitol.”

But the official censure made no such distinction, nor is the House committee examining normal political debate.

The censure brought some dissent within the party. Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, tweeted, “Shame falls on a party that would censure persons of conscience, who seek truth in the face of vitriol. Honor attaches to Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger for seeking truth even when doing so comes at great personal cost.”

Romney did not mention that the party chairwoman who orchestrated the censure resolution, Ms. McDaniel, is his niece.

The censure was also condemned by Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., who, like Romney, voted to remove Trump from office for inciting the insurrection, and Gov. Larry Hogan, R-Md., who called Feb. 4 “a sad day for my party — and the country.”

Only a few of 168 RNC members at the meeting opposed the resolution, which passed in a voice vote, NBC News reported.

The Jan. 6 committee has interviewed more than 475 witnesses, the vast majority of whom either volunteered to testify or agreed to without a subpoena, the Washington Post reported. It has no prosecutorial powers, and is charged with drawing up a report and producing recommendations to prevent anything similar from happening again.

It’s up to the Department of Justice to prosecute those responsible for the violent insurrection. Attorney General Merrick Garland said he will go where the evidence leads. Evidence seems to be pointing toward Trump, but as much as some would like to see his “perp walk,” we understand prosecutors are carefully building their case.

Some Republicans have expressed concern that the RNC defense of the insurrectionists will blow back on the party in the midterm elections. Rep. Mark Green, R-Tenn, lamented that the censure was a distraction from what he told the New York Times was “this abysmal administration’s record.” (That’s what Republicans call COVID vaccines for all who want them, and a booming economy.)

In addition to the formal censure at the party’s winter meeting in Salt Lake City, the RNC also made plans to fund a primary challenge against Cheney in Wyoming — after state Republican leaders passed a special rule to recognize Harriet Hageman, her challenger, as the party’s presumptive nominee. The party may help Hageman, who trails far behind Cheney in fundraising, as Cheney has raised nearly $5 million to Hageman’s $380,000.

David Bossie, a top Trump ally who led the censure effort, called the RNC move a “one-two punch” against Cheney that signaled a message from the GOP at the state and national levels.

Before the censure vote, Cheney said Republicans were “hostage” to the former president. “I’m a constitutional conservative and I do not recognize those in my party who have abandoned the Constitution to embrace Donald Trump. History will be their judge. I will never stop fighting for our constitutional republic. No matter what,” Cheney said.

Kinzinger is not seeking reelection, but he is proud of his work on the Jan. 6 committee. “This is a defining moment in American politics and the RNC’s future. Are you for authoritarianism, are you against democracy, or are you going to wake up to that slide and come back to actual democracy again?”

As evidence piles up that Trump and his allies were involved in coordinating the Capitol attack in an attempt to overturn the election, many Republicans may believe the time has come to separate the party from the disgraced former president, and that could make for a messy breakup. But Republican leaders also must separate the party from its attraction to neofascist authoritarianism. That will require reversal of state voter suppression laws and a recommitment to democracy. Republicans might not be comfortable leaving elections up to the voters anytime soon. That’s why it’s still important for Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema to join fellow Democrats in setting aside the filibuster to pass national voting rights standards. — JMC

From The Progressive Populist, March 1, 2022

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Selections from the March 1, 2022 issue

COVER/Roger Bybee

Fake Republican ‘populism’ delivers for plutocrats

EDITORIAL
RNC embraces insurrection

FRANK LINGO
Bunny life in the yard

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

LAURA FINLEY
The dangerous trend of the ‘parents rights’ movement

DON ROLLINS
The Ali Summit revisited

RURAL ROUTES/Margot McMillen
Climate change requires adjustments

DISPATCHES
Supreme Court allows Alabama gerrymandering, further undermines Voting Rights Act.
Trumpers going after butterflies at the border.
Virginia Senate blocks Youngkin power plays.
Post-Dispatch: Sen. Hawley ‘unfit for office.’
Memphis activist gets 6 years in prison for checking voting status.
Data shows profiteering in food, energy ...

ART CULLEN
Addressing lost opportunity, frustration in forgotten America

ALAN GUEBERT
Getting MAD, mutually assured digesters, is always a bad idea

OLIVIA ALPERSTEIN
Banned books should be required reading

JOHN YOUNG
GOP’s irrevocable split with truth

STEVEN HARPER
Every day in Arizona is Jan. 6

TRACEY L. ROGERS
This Black History Month, don’t ban our history — teach it

DR. CINTLI
Maya-Nahua philosophy banned in the USA again

GENE NICHOL
What is the Republican end game?

HEALTH CARE/Joan Retsinas
Rest in peace: Goat gonads, et al

SAM URETSKY
Banning books is never a good look

DICK POLMAN
‘Ratings whore’ Jeff Zucker has quit. Good riddance. Trump was his original sin.

WAYNE O’LEARY
The winding road to fascim

ERIC BOEHLERT
Biden boom hits new heights — press buries the good news

JOEL D. JOSEPH
Bury power lines

DAVID SCHMIDT
Progressives have more in common with censors of “Maus” than we think

CLARA MOORE
Why are we torching our best tool to end child poverty?

BARRY FRIEDMAN
The ghosts on the walls

JOSEPH B. ATKINS
Very hip companies face unions and don’t like it

ROB PATTERSON
Talking about Cosby

SETH SANDRONSKY
California’s single-payer health care down but not out?

ED RAMPELL
Lunana of the North Snows: Learning life’s meaning of the world’s remotest school

SATIRE/Rosie Sorenson
Mmmm-mmmm good!

Saturday, January 29, 2022

Editorial: Joe Biden’s Good Start

The corporate media appears loathe to give Joe Biden credit for substantial accomplishments during his first year as president.

Working with a Senate deadlocked 50-50, and relying on Vice President Kamala Harris to break ties, Biden has managed to pass two major spending bills and came within two votes of passing a third major spending bill to provide more assistance to working families and the climate and two major voting rights bills. And Biden only has 50 senators on a good day, as long as he can keep Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona in line.

Biden got off to a quick start with the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, also known as the COVID relief plan, which passed the Senate March 6, 2021, and the House March 10, 2021 (without Republican support in either chamber). Among its features:

• A family of four with one working parent and one unemployed parent would have $12,460 more in government benefits to help them make ends meet.

• The poorest single mothers in America received $250 to $300 per child monthly in government support, along with $1,400 for themselves and additional funds for nutritional assistance and rental aid.

• The family assistance was projected to reduce child poverty in the US by half.

• More than 1 million unionized workers who were expected to lose their pensions will now receive 100% of their promised retirement benefits for at least the next 30 years.

• America’s Indigenous communities were to receive $31.2 billion in the largest investment the federal government has ever made in the country’s Native people.

• Black farmers were to receive $5 billion in recompense for a century of discrimination and dispossession, a miniature reparation that will have huge consequences for individual African-American agriculturalists, many of whom escaped from debt and retained their land as a direct result of the legislation.

• The large majority of Americans who earn less than $75,000 as individuals or less than $150,000 as couples received a $1,400 stimulus check for themselves and another for each child or adult dependent in their care.

• America’s child-care centers did not go into bankruptcy en masse, thanks to a $39 billion investment in the nation’s care infrastructure.

• Virtually all states and municipalities in America exited the pandemic in better fiscal health than pre-COVID, in an effort to avert layoffs of public employees and cutbacks in public services.

• No one in the US will have to devote more than 8.5% of their income to paying for health insurance for at least the next two years, while Affordle Care Act plans will become premium-free for a large number of low-income workers.

The American Rescue Plan helped to stimulate the economy and pulled it out of Trump's recession. Biden’s approval ratings were well above 50% in the FiveThirtyEight average of polls until early August, when corporate media became hysterical about the evacuation of US diplomats, allies and troops from Afghanistan. Trump had surrendered Afghanistan to the Taliban and left Biden with 2,500 American troops to conduct the withdrawal. When the Taliban started an offensive May 1, the Afghan national army collapsed, surprising US military and intelligence officials. Baden was blamed for the chaos that was inevitable under the terms he inherited from Trump. The Taliban surrounded the Kabul airport while ISIL-K, an enemy of the US and the Taliban, conducted attacks on the airport that included a suicide bomber who killed 170, including 13 US military who were conducting security screenings. When ISIL-K started firing missiles at the airport, US military forces concluded the evacuation a day early, on Aug. 30, but they had airlifted more than 122,000 US citizens, NATO allies and Afghan allies from Kabul, which we mark as a success, given the circumstances.

Biden’s bipartisan (but mainly Democratic) $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Law will help create safe, efficient, and climate-friendly transportation alternatives for people and freight, including the largest investment in passenger rail service since Amtrak was created. In addition to the road, bridge and transportation projects, the bill includes funding for broadband access, clean water, electric grid renewal and replacement of lead pipes on water lines. It passed the Senate 69-30 on Aug. 10 and 228-206 in the House Nov. 5. Some Republicans who voted for the bill got death threats from Republican extremists after Trump blasted the cooperation with Dems.

Under Biden’s watch, a record 6.4 million jobs were created in 2021 and the unemployment rate dropped from 6.2% to 3.9%.

Biden and the Democrats also protected Americans from foreclosure and eviction until the economy could recover, extending moratoriums on putting people out of their homes.

Biden has been blamed for inflation and supply chain problems as the nation began to emerge from the pandemic. There is little the president can do about inflation, other than directing the federal government to enforce anti-trust laws against monopoly businesses that have hiked up their prices. Biden’s Department of Agriculture is working to increase competition among meat producers and in October he got the Port of Los Angeles to begin operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to clear supply chain disruptions that threatened the holiday shopping season and economic recovery from the pandemic.

Biden has cracked down on big tech monopolies, encouraging federal agencies to crack down on major tech companies that grow through mergers and leverage consumer data, as part of a larger executive order in July 2021 aimed at dispersing corporate consolidation throughout the economy.

Biden has worked to strengthen unions, issuing an executive order to protect federal workers and contractors, in part by restoring collective bargaining power and worker protections by revoking measures that Trump had signed to strip many federal civil service employees of job protections. Biden asked agencies to bring wages of all federal employees and federal contractors to at least $15 per hour.

Biden has been frustrated in his hopes to pass the Build Back Better Bill, which he had negotiated for months with Manchin and Sinema and apparently thought he had a deal before Manchin in December abruptly said he could not support the bill. Manchin and Sinema also joined Republicans to block bills to protect voting rights in states that have adopted voter suppression bills. That prompts some Democrats to wonder what good Manchin and Sinema do.

The simple answer is Manchin and Sinema as nominal Democrats keep Mitch McConnell from setting the agenda. As of Jan. 21, the Senate has confirmed 42 federal judges, including 13 for the US courts of appeals and 29 judges for district courts. Another 36 are awaiting Senate action, including six for courts of appeals and 33 for district courts. There are 16 vacancies on courts of appeals and 18 vacancies for district courts. If for no other reason than to fill those 34 vacancies, Democrats should not give Manchin and Sinema an excuse to switch parties. If Dems pick up two or more seats in the midterm election, they can tell Manchin and Sinema to pound sand, end the filibuster and pass Senate Budget Chairman Bernie Sanders’ version of Build Back Better next year. — JMC

From The Progressive Populist, February 15, 2022

Populist.com

Blog | Current Issue | Back Issues | Essays | Links

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

Selections from the February 15, 2022 issue

COVER/Aric Sleeper
Grassroots energy projects are taking back power from utility companies
EDITORIAL
Joe Biden’s good start

FRANK LINGO
Democracy essential to ecology
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
PAUL ARMENTANO
It’s time for Biden to keep his promises on marijuana
DON ROLLINS
Desmond Tutu: Still preaching
RURAL ROUTES/Margot McMillen
Restaurants must adapt or die
DISPATCHES
Youngkin schools country in how to create chaos in his first week as governor.
Fla. school district cancels history prof’s lecture because it might be labeled ‘CRT.’
Republicans plan new ‘Contract on America’ with assistance of Newt Gingrich.
SWAT team of wingnut legal apparatus will try new Supreme Court on affirmative action.
Union membership dropped in 2021.
Study of fair-right extremists with military backgrounds suggests Pentagon faces uphill battle ...

ART CULLEN
Keep your eye on the piano player
ALAN GUEBERT
The new ag alchemy: Gold from gas

OLIVIA ALPERSTEIN
My disabled life is worthy
JOHN YOUNG
Readying airlift for reproductive rights
JOAN McCARTER
‘Democracy’s foes have not had the last word.’ The fight to save democracy won’t stop
ROBERT KUTTNER
Is government competent to spend more public money?

ROGER BYBEE
Dems dig in for long haul on voting rights despite defectors

DEAN BAKER
The continuing phony debate on ‘free trade’
GRASSROOTS/Hank Kalet
A hate that runs deep

THOM HARTMANN
What do Democrats and Republicans actually believe in 2022? That should decide the midterms

DR. CINTLI
Despite a dramatic drop, the “other pandemic” continues unabated
HEALTH CARE/Joan Retsinas
Cupid’s most painful barb: Syphilis
SAM URETSKY
Who runs the country? Those who show up
BOB BURNETT
Coming to grips with the insurrection
WAYNE O’LEARY
The limits of global ‘laissez-faire’
ERIC BOEHLERT
Biden’s getting doomsday press — just like Obama did.

BARRY FRIEDMAN
I’m back in Trump’s good graces

JOEL D. JOSEPH
Can you spare a tire?
ROB PATTERSON
‘Yellowstone,’ where the left may meet the right
SETH SANDRONSKY
Union nurses seek workplace protections
ED RAMPELL
Sidney Poitier, tightrope walker

SATIRE/Rosie Sorenson
Senator Rittenhouse?
and more ...

Friday, January 28, 2022

Neo-GOP

Art by Kevin Kreneck

Saturday, January 15, 2022

Editorial: Punish the Big Lie Party

Donald Trump warned for five years that he would never accept defeat, and that was one of the few true pledges the Big Liar made.

In 2016, when Hillary Clinton was leading him in polls, Trump accused Democrats of fixing the election, but the Electoral College surprised him with the win, 304-227, despite losing the popular vote by 2.8 million votes. The election hinged on 78,000 votes in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, possibly helped by targeted disinformation by Russian internet agents on social media, but Trump insisted he scored a “massive landslide victory.”

In 2020, after Trump had spent four years in the White House without reaching 50% approval in the FiveThirtyEight average of polls, he was trailing again before the election as polls showed Biden leading in key states, including Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Despite Trump’s attempts to limit the use of absentee ballots favored by Democrats during the pandemic and slowdowns in the delivery of mailed ballots, Biden blew out the Great Misleader by seven million votes and won 306-232 in the Electoral College, validating what polls had been saying for weeks. Trump’s baseless claims of “voter fraud” were thrown out of more than 60 courts.

In a last, desperate attempt to stay in office, Trump reportedly hoped to stop the certification of the Electoral College vote by Congress on Jan. 6. Trump’s disorganizers planned for right-wing “militias” to show up for “Stop the Steal” protests, hoping BLM and antifascists would violently confront the right-wing Trumpers, which would allow Trump to declare martial law and throw out the election results.

When BLM and antifa refused to take the bait, and the right-wing mob stormed the Capitol and violently attacked police, Trumpers accused the mob of actually being BLM and “antifa,” despite the rioters’ prominent display of Trump and MAGA paraphernalia, “Stop the Steal” chants and postings on social media.

Addressing the crowd on the Ellipse, Trump declared, “We won this election, and we won it by a landslide … We will stop the steal … We will never give up. We will never concede. It doesn’t happen.”

He also said, “If you don’t fight like hell you’re not going to have a country anymore,” and added, as an afterthought, “Peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard … We’re going to the Capitol.”

Of course, instead of going with the mob to the Capitol, Trump returned to the White House to watch the melee on TV for three hours while the Pentagon refused pleas of the Capitol Police to send the D.C. National Guard to reinforce them. Trump ignored pleas from Republican members of Congress, including Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who asked him to call off his crowd as they stormed the Capitol. Trump replied, “Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are,” according to lawmakers who were briefed on the call afterward by McCarthy.

McCarthy on Jan. 13, 2021, said Trump bore responsibility for the attack on Congress by “mob rioters” and suggested he should be censured. By April, he had absolved Trump of responsibility and refused to cooperate with Democrats on investigating the attack.

Clearly, Republicans have become addicted to gaslighting, and their contempt for the truth has endangered our democracy.

A national survey conducted by YouGov in December found 46% of respondents believe Joe Biden was legitimately elected, 12% said he was “probably” legitimately elected, 12% said he was “probably not legitimate,” 22% said he was “definitely not legitimate” and 9% said they were not sure.

The cynicism was weighted heavily by Republicans, of whom 46% said Biden was “definitely not legitimate” and 25% said he was “probably not legitimate.”

Mind you, there is no credible evidence of systematic voting irregularities — and most of the voting problems discovered since the election involved Trump supporters illegally casting votes for their cult leader. State and federal officials rejected claims that voting irregularities stole votes from Trump. A partisan “audit” of votes in Arizona actually found a net gain for Biden. But the lies still cast doubt among independent voters, with 25% saying Biden was “definitely not legitimate” and 6% saying he was “probably not legitimate.”

The conventional wisdom is that Republicans have the upper hand in regaining control of Congress after the midterm elections in November. Trump’s Gaslighters hope they can make cynicism work for the Big Lie Party by convincing Democrats and left-leaning independents there is no use in voting. But at least three congressional preference polls in early January show Democrats leading, albeit by slim margins, so there is cause for hope.

Voting rights activists are frustrated with the lack of movement of bills to roll back state voter suppression laws, particularly after the high turnout of Black voters in Georgia in 2020 helped Biden win Georgia’s electoral votes, and sent new senators Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff to Congress. That put the Senate in a 50-50 tie, giving Democrats the majority with Vice President Kamala’s tie-breaking vote. But it also prompted the Republican Georgia legislature to enact voter suppression and nullification bills, along with 18 other Republican-dominated legislatures around the country, in a national Republican effort to make it more difficult for minorities and other likely Democats to vote, and easier for Republican lawmakers to nullify votes that go against them.

We share the frustration of voting rights activists, but at least 49 of 50 Republican senators oppose federal voting rights legislation, and are committed to blocking passage of the bills under the Senate filibuster rule (Lisa Murkowski of Alaska was the only Republican who voted to let the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act be debated Nov 3, 2021). At least two Democratic senators are resistant to changing the filibuster rule to let the bills proceed.

The Republican filibuster of voting rights bills completes the sad transformation for the GOP that helped President Lyndon B. Johnson pass the original Voting Rights Act in 1965 over the opposition of 20 Southern Democrats. As recently as 2006, Republicans joined Democrats in reauthorizing the Voting Rights Act 98-0 in the Senate, but Republican attitudes had changed by 2013, when Republicans on the Supreme Court, in its 5-4 Shelby County v. Holder ruling, rendered the act virtually unenforceable, allowing Republican states in the South to enact new voter suppression measures. Democrats have been trying to update the disputed coverage formula ever since.

This year, Senate Republicans are blocking the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, which would update the law, as well as the For the People Act, which would further protect the right to vote and have that vote counted.

We don’t see the wisdom in blaming Biden, who can’t do anything about Senate rules, or the 48 Democratic senators who support voting rights as well as the domestic spending initiatives in the Build Back Better bill, but are stymied by Joe Manchin and/or Kyrsten Sinema.

There’s nothing wrong with the Senate that a net gain of two or more progressive Democrats can’t fix.

This is not the year to sit out the election to punish Democrats for not passing everything you wanted. This is the year voters should punish Republicans who have turned the GOP into the Big Lie Party, led by Trump and his neofascist enablers. — JMC

From The Progressive Populist, February 1, 2022

Populist.com

Blog | Current Issue | Back Issues | Essays | Links

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

Selections from the February 1, 2022 issue

COVER/Hal Crowther

Amber waves of gain: America the cruel and credulous

EDITORIAL
Punish the Big Lie Party

FRANK LINGO
Gas and nukes not climate solutions

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

MARY C. KING
Affordable child care is the boost our economy needs

DON ROLLINS
School funding: One more reason to hold the house

RURAL ROUTES/Margot McMillen
Story of the year: Farmers fight back

DISPATCHES
Economy soars, ‘Bad News’ for Biden?
Trump’s Euro golf resorts lose $100M.
Indiana senator says teachers should be impartial when discussing Nazism, fascism.
Trump has been laughing at Jan. 6 victims.
Kevin McCarthy says he’ll kick Dems off House committees if Rs get majority.
Death rates up 40%, life insurance CEO says.
Retiring Republicans could support voting rights—but they wont.
Virginia's new governor shows how Republicanism works in one awful stroke ...

ART CULLEN
Hope for democracy has to be more than just sentimentality

KAREN DOLAN
Three reasons to be hopeful as a hard year comes to a close

DICK POLMAN
Merrick Garland: “We will follow the facts wherever they lead.” Promise?

THOM HARTMANN
Can’t you see that the overthrow of the entire planet’s ‘liberal order’ is the Republican goal?

ROBERT KUTTNER
American’s steel spine

JOEL D. JOSEPH
Congress should arrest Mark Meadows

DR. CINTLI
Global chain disruptions in a time of unpardonable lies

HEALTH CARE/Joan Retsinas
A life without vaccines

SAM URETSKY
Higher prices inflate hopes for Republicans

JASON SIBERT
Pulling out of arms control doesn’t solve anything

WAYNE O’LEARY
Another woke travesty

ERIC BOEHLERT
How Biden’s Christmas ‘nightmare’ turned into a gift-giving miracle runaway economy

N. GUNASEKARAN
Corporate profiteering at the expense of vaccine equity

BARRY FRIEDMAN
The smallest woman in the largest apartment

BOB BURNETT
Mean old world (2021)

MOVIE REVIEW/Seth Sandronsky
Daughters and mothers

SATIRE/Rosie Sorenson
The ghost of Build Back Better past and future

FILM REVIEW/Ed Rampell
Remembering Bishop Tutu at Hawaii

GENE NICHOL
A life-changing tar heel judicial election

and more ...

Friday, December 24, 2021

Editorial: ‘GOP’ Turns to Stalinism

Republicans are fond of accusing Democrats of trying to promote communism in the United States, but in fact, Joe Biden and Democrats in Congress have passed two major bills that have stimulated the economy, brought nearly six million Americans back to work and spurred the capitalist stock markets to rise more than 30% after Biden’s election, through October, while the supposed Grand Old Party has adopted tactics of Russian dictators in their effort to regain power regardless of the facts.

One of the tools Republicans have used to great effect in the Trump era is disinformation, which Josef Stalin developed as a means to undermine rivals. In 1923, after he became General Secretary of the Russian Communist Party, Stalin created a “special disinformation office.” The KGB continued it through the Soviet regime. The dark arts have been refined under the leadership of Vladimir Putin.

Donald Trump used disinformation and, apparently, Putin’s assistance, in his 2016 campaign, as he appealed to blue-collar, working-class voters with a populist campaign that promised a new health care system with universal coverage for everyone at a mere fraction of the cost of the existing system. As Cody Cain noted at Salon.com Aug. 15, Trump “promised he would stop US corporations from shipping jobs overseas, and would bring jobs back to America. He promised he would never cut Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid. He promised to get tough on Big Pharma and cut the high cost of drug prices. He promised a massive investment in America’s infrastructure, like roads and bridges. He promised to tax the rich, including himself, and to provide a massive tax cut for the middle class.

“But once Trump was elected, of course, he abandoned all these promises of policies that would benefit the working class, instead implementing right-wing policies that benefited large corporations and the rich at the top, including granting a massive tax cut to himself and the rich, slashing regulations for big business, seeking to repeal the Affordable Care Act and seeking to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.”

Trump told more than 30,000 lies in his four years as president, but he parlayed the biggest one after Biden beat him in 2020: He claimed Democrats had stolen the election. Trump’s campaign sued to contest vote counts in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Arizona, Nevada and Georgia, but courts threw out all the lawsuits as unfounded, despite Republicans and Trump supporters harassing and threatening election officials who refused to change the results.

When Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, did what she could to combat lies told about Arizona’s voting system, Republicans in the Legislature refused to allow her to use state money to combat those lies. After she continued to defend the vote count with private funding, the Republican Legislature passed House Bill 2569, which banned election officials from using private or public funds to combat disinformation about elections.

During the discussion in the House Committee on Government and Elections, Chairman John Kavanagh, doing his best Uncle Joe Stalin imitation, actually said, “One person’s disinformation is another person’s truth,” E.J. Montini noted in the Arizona Republic Feb. 21, 2021.

Republicans have gone so far as to pass laws that authorize legislatures they control, to ignore or reject votes they don’t like, in anticipation of the 2022 and 2024 elections.

To protect the right to vote and have that vote count, the Senate needs to pass Freedom To Vote Act, which would protect the integrity of elections, but the bill is blocked by a filibuster supported by all 50 Senate Republicans, who want to preserve the right to rig.

Among other things, the Freedom to Vote Act would criminalize intimidating, threatening or coercing any election official or election worker. It would make it a federal crime to publish or distribute false information about elections. It would increase federal penalties for voter intimidation or otherwise interfering with the right to vote. And it would keep partisan “poll watchers” at least eight feet from voters in all circumstances, including while voting. It also would end partisan gerrymandering and require same-day voter registration, to neutralize the impact of partisan officials purging voters before election day.

It would require at least 14 consecutive days for early voting, require easy access to polling places, and a wait of no more than 30 minutes to vote.

It would guarantee all voters, nationwide, the right to vote by mail with no excuses required, and forbid states from forcing mail-in voters to have their ballots witnessed, notarized or jump through other onerous hoops. It would allow people waiting in line to vote to receive food or water from others.

Republicans apparently have adopted Stalin’s reputed maxim that goes something like, “The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything.”

This quote has been around for years, but PolitiFact decided in March 2019 to debunk it. After failing to find any “credible” original sources, PolitiFact concluded the quote was apocryphal, even though Boris Bazhanov, Stalin’s former personal secretary, wrote in his memoirs that Stalin said, “I regard it as completely unimportant who in the party will vote and how, but it is extremely important who will count the votes and how.” But PolitiFact noted that Bazhanov fled the Soviet Union in 1928 and then published his “rather unreliable muckraking memoir in 1930.”

At this point, it hardly matters if Stalin said it. The important thing is that Republicans think it worked for Stalin, and in at least 15 states, Republicans think it can work for them.

Joe Manchin’s announcement on Dec. 19 that he couldn’t support the Build Back Better Act was a blow to people who were counting on the social and climate control programs. Working families will lose the child tax credit of up to $300 a month per child, which expires at the end of 2021, and the bill also provided child care and pre-kindergarten programs that would allow parents to return to work. But working-class voters and progressives who decide not to vote in the midterm election next November, because they’re disappointed Biden couldn’t keep Manchin in line in a 50-50 Senate, will only cut off their noses to spite their faces.

They should focus on keeping a House majority and picking up enough Democrats in the Senate so they won’t have to depend on Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) to put Vice President Kamala Harris’ vote in play on legislation to help working people.

Terms of 20 Republicans expire in 2020, with the main Democratic pickup opportunities in Florida (Marco Rubio), Missouri (open), North Carolina (open), Ohio (open), Pennsylvania (open), and Wisconsin (Ron Johnson). Meanwhile Democrats are protecting 14 seats, including Mark Kelly in Arizona, Raphael Warnock in Georgia, Catherine Cortez Masto in Nevada and Maggie Hassan in New Hampshire.

If you’re mad about Manchin and/or Sinema, take it out on Republicans, not Biden, Chuck Schumer or Nancy Pelosi. And remember, democracy isn’t over until we say it’s over. — JMC

From The Progressive Populist, January 1-15, 2022

Populist.com

Blog | Current Issue | Back Issues | Essays | Links

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

Selections from the January 1-15, 2022 issue

COVER/Bonny Gardner

Wake up, Democrats! Address Blue-Collar grievances

EDITORIAL
‘GOP’ turns to Stalinism

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

DON ROLLINS
Blazing trails, breaching walls

RURAL ROUTES/Margot McMillen
Don’t let the anti-vaxxers bring you down

DISPATCHES
Scared Trump sues to end New York Attorney General’s investigation.
David Cay Johnston says Trump will be indicted in New York.
Kinzinger: House Jan. 6 Committee is conducting a criminal investigation of Trump.
House Committee: Trump deliberately suppressed COVID data.
Five Republican governors demand COVID vax exemptions for their National Guards.
Socialist handily beats Right-Winger in Chile ...

BEN LONG
Responsible gun owners need to be heard

JILL RICHARDSON
What a debate over grizzly bears shows about politics

JOHN YOUNG
The flag of the whiny anti-masker

ART CULLEN
Anger, despair are appropriate responses to the demise of rural America

ROGER BYBEE
Republicans are arrayed against democracy

GENE NICHOL
North Carolina attempts to re-take the lead

SETH SANDRONSKY
College and university labor militancy grows

DEAN BAKER
Will we see deflation in the next 12 months?

JOEL D. JOSEPH
A tale of two industries

SONALI KOLHATKAR
Don’t blame benefits for inflation — blame the global economy

KRISTEN OLSEN
Which side is Manchin on?

THOM HARTMANN
Are we standing on the edge of a grand new progressive era?

DR. CINTLI
Apartheid and the great American experiment

HEALTH CARE/Joan Retsinas
Television hits: Red State/FD, MED, PD

SAM URETSKY
All donors matter (but recurring donors matter more)

WAYNE O’LEARY
Democratic devolution

ERIC BOEHLERT
Slow-walking the coup PowerPoint: Blueprint for sabotage

JASON SIBERT
Time to bring nuclear arms under control

ROBERT KUTTNER
The narrow path to averting war over Ukraine

BARRY FRIEDMAN
Dave Chappelle, James Carville, and the persons in the sauna

BOOK REVIEW/Heather Seggel
Holding change

ROB PATTERSON
Getting back to what happened to the Beatles

SATIRE/Rosie Sorenson
Dancing with the Stars, killer style

FILM REVIEW/Ed Rampell
New ‘West Side Story’ film applies the iconic musical to modern-day issues

FRANK LINGO
Hopeful green inventions

and more ...

Happy Holidays to One and All

Art by Kevin Kreneck

Saturday, December 4, 2021

Editorial: Inflation Blame Game

Americans, it seems, just can’t stand prosperity. Or maybe it’s just the corporate news media that can’t stand to give Joe Biden credit for the recovering economy.

The COVID pandemic caused an economic collapse under Donald Trump that cost nearly 25 million jobs in March and April 2020 and sent the unemployment rate to 14.8%. By the end of 2020, many Americans had returned to work, but there were still approximately 10.7 million people out of work, for a 6.7% unemployment rate when Biden took over in January 2021. He promptly set up a system to distribute COVID vaccines and encouraged the use of public health precautions, such as the use of masks, to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, over the opposition of Republican governors.

Biden promoted the American Rescue Plan, which Democrats in Congress passed in March, without any support from Republicans. The $1.9 trillion bill sent $1,400 checks to nearly all American families, extended a $300 weekly supplement to unemployment assistance through Sept. 6 and expanded child tax credits to $3,600 per child under age 6 and $3,000 per child up to age 17, which is expected to cut the nation’s child poverty rate in half. The bill also increased subsidies for insurance through the Affordable Care Act, provided $25 billion for rental assistance; provided $25 billion to support restaurants; $4.5 billion to help low-income families with energy and water bills; and $7.6 billion to expand internet connectivity for students and teachers during the pandemic.

During the first nine months of Biden’s administration, 5.6 million new jobs were created, and the unemployment rate dropped to 4.6%, the strongest recovery since World War II. Jobless claims in November were at a 20-month low and workers’ wages are up, as the reluctance of some workers to re-enter the workplace has given leverage to the workers who are coming back. Leisure and hospitality workers have gained an average 11.2% average increase in wages.

A recent Washington Post-ABC News poll, conducted Nov. 7-10, found that majorities of Americans support elements of Biden’s $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure package and a pending bill that would spend nearly $2 trillion on social programs and climate initiatives, but it is hung up in the Senate over one senator’s concerns it will drive up inflation. However, Biden’s approval rating has dropped to a new low, driven largely by more negative views among Democrats and independents.

Biden is 16 points underwater on his handling of the economy, as 39% approve while 55% disapprove. Just 29% of Americans described the nation’s economy in positive terms (excellent/good) while 70% viewed it negatively (not so good/poor). And only 35% of Americans think Biden has accomplished a great deal or a good amount since he took office, while 63% said the president had achieved either not very much or little to nothing. Benefits from the American Rescue Plan are largely forgotten.

Biden may be down in the polls because the corporate media is reluctant to give him too much credit for the economic recovery (and he might not be good at taking credit). But when Americans were eager to get back to shopping as vaccines caused the COVID threat to subside, and merchants were eager to recoup the sales lost during the year of lockdown, customers found prices higher, by an average of more than 6%, and they wondered what Biden was going to do about it.

Robert Reich notes on page 13 that if markets were competitive, companies would seek to keep their prices down in order to maintain customer loyalty and demand. When prices of their supplies rose, they’d cut their profits before they raised prices to their customers. But that isn’t happening. Corporations are raking in record profits and more than 80% of major corporations have topped analysts’ forecasts, driving stocks higher.

People also are frustrated by gasoline prices, which have increased from an average of $1.938 per gallon in April 2020, when the COVID lockdown started, to $3.348 in October, the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) reports. Many Americans expect Biden to do something about it. But the current price is not a record high, and it is simply another indicator of how much the economy has recovered. As more people are on the road, getting back to work, the price of gas goes up. The law of supply and demand rules.

Gasoline prices in the US peaked at $4.06 per gallon in July 2008, when the price of crude oil was $3.07 per gallon, due to worldwide oil demand, according to EIA, but gas prices dropped precipitously in the next six months, as the collapse of subprime mortgage-backed securities sparked the Great Recession. When Barack Obama took over as president in January 2009, gas had bottomed out at $1.79 per gallon. As the economy improved, the cost of gas increased to $3.91 per gallon in May 2011 and it fluctuated throughout the Obama administration. Under Trump, gas prices got up to $2.86 in October 2018, dropped to $2.25 in January 2019, climbed back up to $2.86 in May 2019, then slipped to $2.44 in February 2020, before plummeting to $1.84 in April 2020, when the COVID lockdown started.

The average price of gasoline in the US was $3.758 on Nov. 22, according to GlobalPetrolPrices.com. That might hurt, but it’s still a better deal than $6.933 in Germany, $7.018 in France, $7.477 in Britain, $8.372 in Israel, and $9.908 in Hong Kong. And, honestly, we’ve had 48 years, since the OPEC Oil Embargo of 1973-75, to switch to more fuel-efficient vehicles, such as the Toyota Prius hybrid, which gets more than 50 miles per gallon, or the plug-in Ford Focus Electric, which claims 105 mpg equivalent.

Joe Biden can’t admonish people who still drive gas guzzlers, because he would be accused of being insensitive to the needs of working people who still drive vehicles that get less than 20 miles per gallon. Instead, he is planning to release 50 million gallons from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in the hopes of appeasing oil executives, to give us a break on gas prices. These same corporate executives are exporting an average of 5.5 million barrels of petroleum products a day, including 3.5 million barrels of crude oil. So the US is still a net exporter of petroleum. Courts haven’t let Biden stop federal oil leases, and the Keystone XL pipeline, which he has blocked, merely stops Canadian tar sands oil from reaching Gulf ports for export overseas.

If Biden wants to cut gas prices in the US, a more effective way would be to remove barriers to oil exports by Iran and Venezuela. If we can deal with Saudi Arabia, we can deal with Iran and Venezuela, which at least have elements of democracy that we should encourage, even if it ends up putting more carbon in the air.

And if Biden wants to control inflation brought on by profiteers, he should sic the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice on monopolistic corporations. A little trust-busting might go a long way toward bringing profiteers in line.

Democrats might even want to put a bill on the congressional calendar to punish inflation profiteers — and let Senate Republicans filibuster it. Would that be wrong? — JMC