Last day of the decade

I understand that technically the decade doesn’t really end until next December 31, but it’s close enough for me.

Since it’s New Year’s Eve, I have decided to put aside the kvetching for one evening.  I think I might just get drunk and be somebody.

Chlorpyrifos

Chlorpyrifos has been linked to impaired development, Parkinson’s disease, and some types of cancer.  It was originally developed in Germany during World War II as a nerve gas.

It has been banned in the European Union, Hawaii, and California.  

The E.P.A. proposed a federal ban.  After Trump was elected, the E.P.A. backed off.  This past summer the E.P.A. said the data on chlorpyrifos was insufficient.  Millions of acres in the U.S. are still being sprayed.

I am so tired of this administration and the people who enable it to do its evil work.  

Thank you notes

I’ve noticed that tv news stations are thanking their staffs, including not only the reporters, but the men and women behind the scenes.  A number of businesses also feature their entire workforce saying things like Happy New Year from our family to your family.

I decided to do the same thing, sort of.  I need to thank a number of people.

Rene, who set up this whole blog thing.  I wouldn't have been doing this for the past 10 years without his help.  He tried to teach me how to incorporate pictures, but that was just beyond my limited capabilities.

Linda, who proof reads nine out of ten posts (though not this one, because I was afraid she would veto the idea).  She has saved me from countless spelling errors and syntax issues, and she has kept me from posting mean or embarrassing items.

Bill, who sends me memes every day, many of which I have used as springboards for posts or have even quoted.  

My readers, some of whom comment on the posts.  Others email me, phone me, or comment in person.  I especially want to single out Carol, George and Richard, Tom, Marian, and Debbie.  I am not going to thank my readers in the Ukraine.  When I go to the “stats” that measure where the readers are from, Ukraine leads all countries by far.  I don’t get that at all.

Best Garden Ever

Every summer I plant a garden, or as we used to say when I was growing up, a truck patch.  I do pretty well with hot peppers for salsa, lots of onions and potatoes, more tomatoes than we can eat, okra, lettuce, squash, cabbage, pumpkins, and more.  While I can various vegetables and make sauerkraut and eat potatoes and onions and winter squash into the spring, this is the first year I actually picked something fresh in winter.

Today I picked the last of the Brussels sprouts.  It’s December 27, and I picked Brussels sprouts!  Some collard greens are up there, but they look pretty ragged, so the sprouts are the end.  I’ll fry some of them up with an egg tomorrow for my breakfast.

Pennsylvania leads the way

Twelve eastern states and the District of Columbia are working on a plan to reduce auto emissions.  I’ll list them in the order from most to least in spewing out planet-warming emissions:  Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Virginia, Massachusetts, Maryland, Connecticut, Maine, New Hampshire, Delaware, Rhode Island, Vermont, and the District of Columbia.  In 12 of those the leading cause of emissions is transportation.  In Pennsylvania it is electricity production, mostly due to the state’s coal-fired plants, but transportation is second.

The proposed cap-and-trade program could start in 2022.  The states would increase investment in trains, buses, and electric vehicle charging infrastructure.

The Mid-Atlantic Petroleum Distributors Association and a number of fuel companies oppose the plan.  No surprise, but still discouraging.

By the way, what happened to West Virginia?  

Info for this post is from Hiroko Tabuchi, “Eastern States Offer Plan to Limit Auto Emissions,” New York Times, (Dec. 18, 2019), p. A 27.

Giving books for Christmas

One of my favorite gifts, both to give and to receive, is a book.  Unfortunately, that may be going out of style.  In the 1970s teens read three times as many books as teens do today.  60% of high school seniors in 1980 reported that they read a newspaper, magazine, or book on a daily basis for pleasure.  By 2016 that number had dropped to 16%.

Info for this post is from Jeremy Adams, “My students don’t take the time to read books anymore,” Allentown Morning Call, (Aug. 30, 2019), p. 14.

Room at the Inn

Now there is room at the inn.  A federal website last week posted awards worth $6.8 billion for detention facilities in San Diego, Calexico, Adelanto, and Bakersfield.  According to an article in the Allentown Morning Call today, the sites will house about 4,000 detainees, with capacity to expand later.  

These innkeepers, all private contractors, are making a killing.  Unfortunately, no wise men have been sighted, although I understand that government authorities are looking for undocumented kids.

Trump's biggest lie

The Washington Post is keeping track of Trump’s lies.  As of the 10th of this month he had told 6420 lies.  That is truly amazing.  How do I decide the biggest one?  Technically he wasn’t president until the end of it, but here it is, right out of Article II, Section 1, of the United States Constitution:

“I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

Trump ads on Facebook

The Trump campaign has been using the impeachment process as a fundraiser, telling Trump’s base how important it is to fight those nasty Democrats.  Interestingly, according to an article in Time, 

his campaign has really increased spending for ads for women 45 and older.  Men in that category have also seen a rise in Trump ads, but not to the same extent.

On the other hand, ads targeting women 18-44 have dropped precipitously.  The Trump campaign staff must have realized that was a lost cause.  To me it suggests that the demographic Democrats need to target is young women.  2020 will be the 100th anniversary of the Suffrage Amendment.  We need to push that and get those women to the polls.

Words from Calvin Coolidge

We are the possessors of tremendous power, both as individuals and as states.  The great question of the preservation of our institutions is a moral question.  Shall we use our power for self-aggrandizement or for service?  It has been the lack of moral fiber which has been the downfall of the peoples of the past.

He wrote that in 1921.  I copied it down years ago when we visited his birthplace at Plymouth Notch, New Hampshire.  By the way, Coolidge was a Republican.

The Spirit of Thoreau lives on

Massachusetts, the setting for the Boston Massacre and the Boston Tea Party, has a long tradition of bucking authority.  Last April Massachusetts Judge Shelley Joseph and a court officer were accused of allowing an immigrant to evade detention by arranging for him to sneak out the back door of a courthouse.

Boston is a “sanctuary city,” and Boston courts have passed legal rulings that ICE officials can’t come into the courts to arrest immigrants.  The Federal prosecutor in Boston charged Judge Joseph with obstruction of justice.  She has refused a plea deal that would allow her to avoid prosecution if she admitted to breaking federal law.  She’s going to trial.  

Information for this post is from Ellen Barry, “ManFlees ICE, and His Judge May Go to Jail,”  New York Times, (Nov. 17, 2019), p. 1, 20.

Impeachment

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Feral Pigs

The irresponsible ways in which people act is mind-boggling.  Feral pigs do an incredible amount of damage to crops, to cultural and historical sites, and to mammal and bird communities.  They eat frogs, salamanders, baby turtles.  The economic damage they cause each year is well over a billion dollars.  They are reservoirs for disease.  They are almost impossible to eradicate once they are established.

One reason they have spread is because hunters move them into new areas on the backs of pickup trucks so they can hunt them.  Think about the selfishness and stupidity of that action.  

See Jim Robbins, “Feral Pigs are Coming!” New York Times, (Dec. 17, 2019), p. D3.

FedEx

Frederick Smith, the founder and chief executive of FedEx, said in 2017, “If you make the United States a better place to invest, there is no question in my mind that we would see a renaissance of capital investment.”  He lobbied for a big tax cut.

President Trump shortly thereafter signed the $1.5 trillion tax cut.  Trump brags about it.  In fiscal 2018 FedEx’s tax bill dropped from 34% to less than zero.  That’s right.  Technically we taxpayers owed FedEx money.  FedEx saved $1.6 billion in taxes.

Interestingly, FedEx did not increase investment in new equipment or other assets.

Ship your presents by the U.S. Postal Service.

Trump starts, loses, trade war

President Trump, in an attempt to appear reasonable in the midst of the impeachment proceedings, backed down from his threat to impose $160 billion a year tariffs on Chinese-made goods.  He also agreed to reduce tariffs he had already imposed on Chinese goods.  

Trump, in his usual lying mode, called the agreement a win.  It wasn’t.  It also emboldened Chinese hardliners who held firm.  They have Trump’s number.  They ate Trump’s lunch.  Trump is a loser.

Bougainville

It sounds like a town, but it is a collection of islands that now are part of Papua New Guinea.  Last week the people of the islands (about 250,000) voted 98% for independence.  The islands are not yet independent, but with a vote like that, it will be hard for Papua New Guinea to say no.  On the other hand, the small islands have gold and copper, so a struggle may ensue.

I am a great believer in self-determination for small islands in the Pacific.  They hardly ever go to war against their neighbors.  Their biggest threat is the rising sea level that results from global warming.  Why not let them govern themselves.

Things fall apart

Johnson wins in Britain, Hindu nationalists take over India, Israel is ruled by a crook, Turkey and Poland and Hungary move away from democracy, and one of the two major parties in the U.S. has been hijacked by people with no respect for the Constitution or morality.

The best poem in the English language has never been more relevant.  “The Second Coming” was written by W. B. Yeats in 1919, 100 years ago. 

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer; 

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;

Surely the Second Coming is at hand.

The Second Coming!  Hardly are those words out

When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi

Troubles my sight; somewhere in sands of the desert

A shape with lion body and the head of a man,

A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,

Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it

Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.

The darkness drops again, but now I know 

That twenty centuries of stony sleep

Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Why college grads leave Pennsylvania

According to Steve Bloom, vice president of the Commonwealth Foundation, a right-wing “think tank” (really, think tank?), it’s because of the growth of state government which drives up taxes.

By the way, the five cities with the greatest increase in tech jobs are L.A., San Jose, San Francisco, Seattle, and Boston.  Those are not exactly low-tax locales.

Mr. Bloom’s answer, in an op ed piece in the Morning Call today, is a constitutional amendment limiting government spending increases to the rate of inflation plus population growth.  Yeah, that will keep them in Scranton and Erie.

I don’t understand why Republicans need an amendment to rein in spending.  After all, they control both houses of the state legislature.  Are they so prone to temptation that they can’t keep themselves in check?  This is another one of those myths to which Republicans are so prone.

Maybe we could get Mexico to pay the taxes.

Articles of Impeachment

Only two proposed:  Abuse of Power and Obstruction of Congress.  

Left out were:

Acceptance of emoluments.

Corruption of elections.

Abuse of pardons.

Conduct unbecoming of a president.  

In my opinion as a former Constitutional Law prof and citizen of the U.S., these meet the threshold of impeachable offenses.  

Unfortunately for the future of American democracy, the Republican Senators will not find him guilty.  They will spin bizarre conspiracy theories, deny criminal behavior, shut their eyes to evidence, and do anything to keep this criminal in power.  

Not the U.S. I grew up in.

Defender of North Korea

Members of the UN Security Council wanted to hold a discussion today on North Korea’s human rights abuses.  Yesterday Kim Jong-un called Trump a “heedless and erratic old man.”  Evidently Trump can’t take a hint.

The meeting on North Korea was to coincide with Human Rights Day, held every Dec. 10 to celebrate the day in 1948 when the General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.  Eight Security Council members signed the letter to schedule the meeting, but they needed a ninth to make it official.

The U.S., which would have been the ninth member, wouldn’t sign the letter.  It is pretty obvious from the pardoning of war criminals to putting kids in cages to supporting dictators that the U.S. is no longer concerned with human rights.

Old Farmers

One in three farmers in the United States is 65 or older.  In 2017, the year of the last federal agriculture census, the average age of a farm owner or manager was 58.6.  In that year there were 2,042,220 farms in the country.  That represents a loss of 173,656 farms over the previous two decades.

You can certainly see it in Towamensing Township, where I live.  The Johnson farm is now Beltzville Lake Estates.  The Norm Strohl farm is zoned for 30 some houses.  The Christman farm shrank from 460 acres to 23 acres, with the remainder now part of a state park.  I'm one of those old guys who can drive around and point to subdivisions and say, "I can remember when that was the Babe Haydt farm"or "that was Lee Dreisbach's farm."

I know very few farmers who retire.  They keep farming until they die, but they are dying out at a fairly rapid rate.

The statistics are taken from Corey Kilgannon, "As Farmers Grow Old, Who Will Replace Them?" New York Times, (Nov. 28, 2019), pp. A1, A26.

The Evil That Men Do...

This week the U.S. Senate confirmed 9 federal judges.  These are lifetime appointments.  More are coming up next week.  Since Trump was elected 170 have been appointed.  These are largely radical right appointees, many only marginally qualified.
     Long after Trump is gone, they will still be deciding cases.  McConnell sees his job as not passing legislation or even discussing legislation the House has passed.  He will continue to sit on that and push more judicial approvals.

Pearl Harbor Anniversary

When I was in high school in the 1950s, I was an avid reader of tales, both fiction and non-fiction, about World War II.  Keep in mind that in 1955, when I was in 8th grade, that war was only 10 years in the past.  I was appalled at what the Nazis and the Japanese did to their captives.  We were the good guys.  We didn’t torture people.  We were Americans.

The New York Times has published some of the drawings of Abu Zubaydah, a prisoner captured in 2002 and still held at Guantanamo Bay detention camp.  Mr. Zubadah’s crude drawings show waterboarding (he’s been waterboarded 82 times) and other tortures he has been subjected to. 

When I type in “waterboarding,” my spell check shows that as an error.  Yeah, it is an error.  The United States government is a democracy, acting in my name and your name, and our government did what Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan did during World War II.

I have done some reassessment of George W. Bush, but I will not forgive him for authorizing “enhanced interrogation.”  Nor will I forget that Trump wanted to bring back torture, stopped only by Gen. Mattis.  I feel ashamed and disgusted by my own inaction.    I should have done more.  I should have gone to jail protesting this.

Harriet

Take a break from Trump and his pending impeachment and go see "Harriet."  It is an account of Harriet Tubman, the escaped slave who went back into the South and led over 70 other slaves to freedom in the North or Canada.

I knew a little about Tubman from a term paper our daughter Rachael wrote in high school.  (I typed all of Rachael's high school papers and Linda's college papers.)  What I didn't realize was that Tubman also led an actual military raid during the Civil War, nor did I realize that she died in 1913, just one year before my father was born.

It is an exciting film.  What the movie doesn't tell you was that fewer than 2% of the slaves escaped to the north or to Canada, and almost none of those were from the deep South.  Nonetheless, the fact that some escaped led to the Fugitive Slave Law, which led to Northern anger, which was one of the contributing factors to the Civil War.  Nonetheless, the fact that some escaped led to the Fugitive Slave Law, which led to Northern anger, which was one of the contributing factors to the Civil War.

Juxtaposition

Definition:  Two things being placed close together with contrasting effect.

“Review:  Trump’s bailout overpaying farmers”  Morning Call, (December 5, 2019), p. 17

“668K will lose food stamps with new rule,”  Morning Call, (December 5, 2019), p. 12.

Aren’t you proud to live during the Trump presidency?

Four more weeks

Remember when the Republicans would not hold hearings on Merrick B. Garland, President Obama’s pick for the Supreme Court.  They said it was not proper to pick a Supreme Court justice in a year with a presidential election coming up.  They wanted the people to decide.

I hope nothing happens to the Notorious RBG, but if she were to die, Trump could pick her replacement.  Do you think the Republican majority in the Senate would balk at holding hearings after January 1?  After all, it would be months to go before the election.  Let the people decide.

Yeah, right.  McConnell has already said he would move ahead with hearings.  Republicans will also approve anyone Trump appoints.  After all, they’ve already approved a sex offender.  The hypocrisy of Republican Senators is beyond belief.

Steve Bullock drops out

Steve Bullock would have made a great Democratic nominee to run against Trump.  He was elected governor in Montana, a state Trump won with 56% of the vote.  Bullock, a moderate, made campaign financing one of his issues.  What chance does a candidate have who is from a small state, does not have a national following, and has a hard time getting heard.  

The debate requirements instituted by the Democratic Party also hurt Bullock.  In the one debate for which he qualified, he did well, but he never received enough publicity, and he was stuck in the one percent area.  The $25 I sent him wasn’t enough.

I have a history of backing losers, except for Obama.  I’m still happy with that one.  Now I’m looking at another candidate, and it is not Biden, Warren, or Sanders.  

Under the radar

The Federal Reserve Bank is not my area of expertise.  I also never see any mention of it on MSNBC or CNN.  I know enough about it, however, to understand it can make or break our economy.

The Vice Chairman for supervision and regulation is Randal K. Quarles.  He has held the job for 21 months.  In that time he has met at least 22 times with partners at his former law firm, which represents many of the nation’s largest banks.  He’s met with Republican Senators 29 times.  He’s met with Goldman Sachs representatives 23 times.

And he is weakening the rules that govern banks.  As Elizabeth Warren, who does understand this stuff, said, “His motto seems to be: Whatever the big banks want, give it to ‘em.”  

So, no big headlines.  Hardly any reporting.  Just a steady drip drip drip erosion of the rules that were put in place to protect us.

See Jeanna Smialek, “He Is Easing Bank Rules, One Detail at a Time,”  New York Times, (Nov. 29, 2019), p. B1, B3.

News items you may have missed in the holiday excitement

•  In an attempt to make the holiday parade more inclusive, Mayor Amy Goodwin of Charlestown, West Virginia, changed the name of the annual parade from the Christmas Parade to the Winter Parade.  Jews, Muslims, and atheists were happy with the change, but as you might expect, the Christians and Trumpists, acting in the spirit of the teachings of their savior, went nuts.  These are people who bristle at the “war on Christmas” but are not insulted by a president talks about “grabbing ‘em by the pussy.”

•  Joe Sestak announced he is dropping out of the presidential race.  

•  Various Republican organizations are buying the book “Triggered” by Donald Trump Jr.  They are attempting to put the book on the best seller list.  The books are being stored.  Even Republicans won’t actually read them.

•  Rebels in the Congo are killing aid workers who are vaccinating people against Ebola.  The rebels evidently take their inspiration from anti-vaxxers in the U.S.