Newsletters

Today I mailed approximately 100 four-page newsletters to a group of people who donate money to maintain a historic one-room school.  The newsletter detailed the summer programs and had newsy items about a number of the donors and former students.

I am currently working on a newsletter for a group of about 90 Carbon County Democratic Party activists.  It discusses some of the upcoming activities of the party and includes a number of volunteer opportunities.

Postage has gone up thanks to Trump-appointed Postmaster-General Louis DeJoy (who would like to privatize the USPS), and many people have asked me why I don’t simply email these newsletters.  After all doesn’t everyone have email?

I just finished “reading” my emails for the day.  Guess what I did with most of them.  In fact, all but a few of them.  (Bill and Midge, not yours.)  I deleted them without opening them.  That’s what we do.  On the other hand, I received a number of pieces of mail today.  Other than the campaign solicitations, I opened all of them.  When you get a hand-addressed envelope in the mail, you open it.  Right?

Members of Congress play the market; you can too

Richard Burr, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, sold off $1.7 million in stocks two weeks before the pandemic and the subsequent market downturn.  Markwayne Mullen, a Republican Senator from Oklahoma, recently bought approximately $50,000 worth of Raytheon stock.  He sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee.  His portfolio soon thereafter went up 30%.

A group of friends have launched Autopilot, a program that tracks stock buys of various members of Congress.  Trades must be reported within 45 days, and you can then make the same buys.

For example, Autopilot tracks Rep. Dan Crenshaw of Texas (up 41%).  The founders of Autopilot say their goal is to stop members of Congress from stock trading.  It is now legal, although trading on inside information is illegal.  Hardly anyone is ever punished for that, however.

See Jack Truesdale, The New Yorker, (June 3, 2024), p. 13.

Literally crucified

I have always been annoyed b y people who use the word “literally” incorrectly.  When you say something literally happened, you mean it actually really truly occurred.  Someone who is hung on a cross, like Spartacus, was literally crucified. 

When Trump says he was literally crucified, which he literally has said, he is using the word incorrectly.  He is literally a jerk.

D-Day: Two reactions

President  Biden was in France honoring the Allied troops who landed in 1944.

Former President Trump was attacking the American judicial system.  

Nuclear War: A Scenario

I’ve been a big fan of “Mutually Assured Destruction” as a way to prevent nuclear war.  It is a strategy developed by game theorists, and while its acronym is MAD, it has worked for the last 70 plus years.  It is based on the idea that if a nation uses nuclear weapons against an opponent that can retaliate with nuclear weapons, it will not attack.  An attack would be suicidal.

Unfortunately, things can go wrong.  What happens if a nation uses nuclear weapons on an enemy that lacks a retaliatory capability.  (Think Russia vs. Ukraine.)  What happens if a country is governed by a madman who doesn’t care about suicide.  Perhaps he is someone who believes in the rapture or someone who thinks it is God’s will.  Or maybe it is a leader who is batshit crazy.  (Think North Korea.)  Suppose we have a President who thinks a nuclear “exchange” is winnable, and doesn’t understand nuclear winter and fallout and literally billions of casualties.  Accidents can happen; we have come close with misread signals in the past.

I just finished Nuclear War:  A Scenario by Annie Jacobsen.  Ms. Jacobsen has done her research, interviewed Defense Department experts, and presents a minute-by-minute account of how a nuclear holocaust could start.  It is not a book to read before bedtime, but I think it should be required reading for every leader in every one of the countries that possess nuclear weapons.  

Congrats to President Claudia Sheinbaum

The voters of Mexico elected their first female president.  They also elected their first Jewish president.

Actually, if our system of electing presidents were democratic, we would have elected our first female president in 2016.  Hillary Clinton had millions more votes than Trump, but because of our archaic electoral college system, the winner of the popular vote can lose.  It happened in 2000 and 2016 and came close to happening in 2020.  

Both the U.S. Senate and the presidential electoral systems give unwarranted power to small conservative states.  Gerrymandering has also helped Republican (and now white) candidates.  Amazingly, Trump continues to bleat about how his election was stolen.  He is worse than evil.  He’s tiresome.

In any case, I am happy for President Sheinbaum.  Nice work.

West Bank Palestinians and American Indians

Since Oct. 7 Israeli settlers seized 37,000 acres of West Bank territory from the Palestinian inhabitants.  The Mayor of one of the settlements said the Palestinians never had a legal claim to the land.  Many settlers claim that God gave them the land.  The Israeli military is protecting the settlements.

Anyone who studies the westward expansion on to Indian lands has heard these same arguments.  The “God gave us the land” claim was called Manifest Destiny.  It was in the natural order of things that the savages should give way to the civilizing influence of the white people.  As for ownership, the Indians didn’t really “own” the land; they just wandered around on it hunting and fishing.  There were no actual deeds or land titles.

It was wrong then, and it is wrong now.  A few Europeans treated Native Americans with respect, but not enough.  Some Israelis try to aid the West Bank Palestinians as well, but not enough.