Back to Bash

(Read while playing Amy Winehouse's "Back to Black", maybe) 

 To begin my discussion of where we are in the past few weeks since my last political rant, let's go back to the post where I suggested that acceleration had turned in the direction of reversing the harm Trump 2.0 is causing. That the brakes on destruction were being engaged, and I looked for and found signs that the reversal of that careening toward and over the precipice had begun. 

 

That was right before Trump and Netanyahu ordered their forces to renew the bombing of Iran, beginning with the decapitation strike on their political leaders. 

 

 To be clear, I said then that things were continuing to worsen, but I argued that deterioration would slow, ultimately reversing this enshittification. My perception was that our actual velocity was near zero, that the resistance internally and from the rest of the world was ending the bringdown

. Then they struck. 

 The outlines of the whole thing are clear enough now: there was an opportunity, deemed "unique", to take out the leadership in one fell swoop--"Seven in One Blow", if you remember from the child's fable--and it was seized. There were contingency plans for attacking Iran, destroying their military assets, going further with the infrastructure, but the exit strategy seems missing. 

 The results are indecisive, with a short-term reduction in Iran's capabilities to cause harm, and a new long-term threat in the form of Iran's ability to disrupt the economy (though at great cost to themselves). That's as of now, and basically it can be over if Trump shuts his digital yapper and hostilities end, driven by a lack of advantage for either side to continue. 

The only basis for believing that will be next is Trump's history with Taco Tuesdays. 

He's Drawing to an Outside Strait 

 I would insist that this diversion--assuming it does not escalate into a continuing conflict with global impact, hard to be sure what that would do to the Dickhead-in-Chief's popularity as he assumes an ever-more Big Brother-ish appearance--is Trump's attempt to regain control of his faltering momentum. Yet the winds of change remain against his success.

 So, I'm not admitting that I was wrong, just yet. Let's see if he really escalates, or if he does, just does it as a performance without substance. At any rate, I will admit that the my previous argument was one-dimensional (literally so), whereas the multifaceted status of deterioration in various fields of governmental failure differ in their speed, comprehensiveness of destruction, and reversibility, and the response is and must be a vector with directional change from the initial path. 

It's no more just left-right (long ago passed into irrelevance, all modern economies are mixed) or even freedom vs. authoritarianism (because we are stuck with a Leviathan, there's just too much power and money at stake), but it's Survival vs. Utter Destruction, for human civilization. And, as much as I'm trying to broaden my perspective beyond merely what is best for humanity to what will maintain life on Earth, the transformation returning to a state of nature between nations is too much for this society to endure.

Edit:  I forgot to say the obvious:   STOP THE WAR! 

 --

Curb Your Enthusiasm, For Now

Apologies to Larry David--while this episode's ultimate final scene  will be the epic humiliation of the main character, it will be a prolonged one. 

While we can draw hope, and maybe inspiration, from recent successes in the efforts to prevent complete global disintegration and subjugation, we should not get ahead of ourselves.  If we were keeping score, we would still be trailing, but at least we are on the board. 

TarifFail 

The tariff plan announced by the US' King D------d I the other day exhibits the three I's typical of Drumpfenreich 2.0:  Ignorance, Incompetence, and Incoherence.  The main problem is that, at a deep level, Trump believes that a trade deficit--the value of goods and services imported being greater than those exported--weakens the country, weakens our currency, and is clear evidence the other side is cheating on trade.  The first two notions are false, and the third only true in certain cases. There are some countries, India being one, that use protectionist trade barriers to prevent imports and maintain its currency artificially high, but those measures weaken the countries' foreign investment and economic development instead of enhancing it.  Beyond that, some countries subsidize certain domestic industries excessively, and those industries might be justifiable targets for tariffs of our own.   

None of that seems to have been in the thinking of what is actually being imposed--just a shot across the bow of any country that trades with us, which will generate retaliation, either across the board, as we have done, or targeted specifically to hurt Trump-favored industries and regions.  If these tariffs linger for long, they will be a recipe for stagflation, as jobs related to exports will be lost, consumers will pay more for everything, and accompanying that will be depreciation in the relative value of our currency--perhaps even the end of the US dollar being the preferred reserve currency, which would be a tragic loss of influence for us globally. 

I suspect they will not linger.  Our government's trade people say these blanket tariffs are not a starting point for country-by-country negotiation.  I don't believe that for a moment, as Trump will want to play bully-boy and offer tariff concessions to those who give him goodies.  Moreover, as the pain begins to deepen, he will be convinced that he needs to back off or lose political leverage as the midterms approach.  Personally, I hope this is true, although the US public should get a taste of what his ignorance is producing before it ends, and then punishes his party appropriately anyway.  Perception will drive reality.

Booker Rides, High and Dry

Trump believes, or seems to believe, that these tariffs are going to provide so much revenue that he can get the tax cuts he promised in his campaign, for things like tips and Social Security income.  This is a delusion, but I suspect he will get the extension of the regressive tax cuts he was able to pass during his first term, enabled by compliant Congressional action on a budget resolution, followed by a budget reconciliation bill with phony projections, a very real and very large debt limit increase, and a host of damaging spending adjustments. 

In this regard, Cory Booker's marathon speech of over 24 hours, facilitated by days of fasting and abstaining from liquids, is laudable but irrelevant to the bigger picture.  It does show that Democratic representatives can, in extreme cases, use their words to capture the attention of the public for a short while. Going forward, I am looking for targeted attacks on specific individuals and policies, not so much overcoming strategic obstacles, though the Senate filibuster rules should prevent most harmful legislation from going forward.  I suppose it will be beneficial for Booker's political status in the party, though I don't see it propelling him into a new national campaign.  A moral victory is what he can provide for us. 

Off-year Elections as a Side Gambit

D------d I proclaimed the other day through an executive order that voters must provide proof of citizenship, and that votes must be counted the same day, and some other nonsense, I guess.  None of that will pass muster, as the constitution provides that the states run the elections, the Federal government just providing the dates of them and some of the other implementation of their results.  He did come up with the threat of withholding all funding from those states that don't follow it, something I suggested might be possible to enforce some reforms, even that of the national Voter ID, which I support in the interest of ending, once and for all, disputes about who can vote--as long as the ID is issued, free of charge, to all citizens and has smart technology to support voters' maintaining their registration when they change residence.  As for the rest of it, forget it. 

The special elections in Wisconsin and Florida were a good indication of two things:  some slippage in Trumpian support, but also the different electorate in off-year elections.  Hard to be sure exactly how to parse the two effects separately at this point.  There will be more of them this year, in Arizona for the replacement to the death of Democratic Rep. Raul Grijalva, and likely for the upstate New York district of Elaine Stefanik.  Her nomination for the UN Ambassadorship was withdrawn when there was concern in White House circles that the Democrats would take one of the Florida seats and reduce further the narrow Republican majority, but that didn't happen.  They will still probably put her up for a job, one they will consider important.  Not the UN one, which they don't rate so highly--though it would be a tragic miscalculation to pull out of the UN as some idiots have suggested.  See in the organization's history how the US got the UN to authorize forces in the Korean War when the Soviet Union unwisely was boycotting the Security Council. 

What Trump didn't seem to get in his proclamation is that making voting more difficult will end up hurting his party, which has a higher proportion of low-information, low-motivation voters. 

Signal of Incompetence

The scandal around the security lapse involved in the Signal text chat isn't about the attack on the Houthis that was discussed, as that is ordnance out the bomb bay, and they are basically a bunch of resilient pirates.  Biden had them bombed also, somewhat unsuccessfully, and they will continue regardless of whether Iran makes a deal with Trump or not.   The inclusion of  The Atlantic's editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg in the chat was a hilarious error, one that will ultimately end Michael Waltz's job as national security advisor (though Trump will do it later, to cover the tracks), and Goldberg covered himself with respectability in the way he handled it. 

The real point was the look behind the scenes at decision-making in Drumpfenreich:  VP Vance is even more treacherous and evil than we knew, Hegseth just as blunt a tool, while the real power is vested in Stephen Miller as the Voice of Trump.  His say-so makes all the difference; no one need question it.  Miller is also the policy director for all the Project 2025-inspired discriminatory cuts Musk has sought to make. When Musk goes, and it will be soon, the vampiric Miller should be the focus for public calumny.

Hands Off! Demonstrations

The mass demonstrations planned for this weekend should be a good opportunity for those who are intended victims of Trumpian arbitrary violations of civil liberties to show themselves, protected by being surrounded by well-meaning people in safer status (i.e., natural-born citizens).  It will be worth watching if there is focus on the demonstrations--around the assault on free speech, on job security, or just general hatred of Drumpfenreich--or not.  

I would just advise attendees who may feel vulnerable to disguise themselves somewhat, and stay in crowds.  There will be spies, and likely provocateurs from the other side who will try to create violence as a premise for authoritarian crackdowns afterward.  Protect one another!  

(No demonstration planned here in Italy, as far as I know.)

 

Artificial Intelligence, All the Time?

A Conspiracy Theory

So what are Elon & Co. doing with all that data?   One thing I'm pretty sure of, and one I suspect. The first is using the data to train AI machines to do as much of the work as possible. That work done by humans, and that which occurs more automatically, but is supervised by humans.   He can't get rid of it all, despite trying real hard (!), but he could potentially get something like the classic 80/20 result, with 80% of many departments reassigned (to a bot). If he wires the data up properly, he could even run his machine learning programs on the data without even having to swipe it all, in which case it's legal. Then someone else can figure out the rest, and he can go back to playing rocket ships.

The basic thinking is that if the civil servant gets this particular function right 95% of the time, the AI machine can get it 98%.  That will apply to some functions, without a doubt.  The 2% of what remains of that function, you can get the remains of the civil service corps to work on.  It all sounds awful, and it is, but that's the logic. 

That second thing, though, my conjecture, is that he wants the data, for commercial purposes (100% illegal), but that he will disguise that when (not if) he downloads the data.  He will have to separate name from social, at a minimum, with the data attached to one or the other but not both.  The data mining itself and the machine learning do not need the name, and the social is of limited predictive value (though there is some intelligence in it). 

This is the tricky part:  the data can be made available more broadly, within the government or beyond, in this separated way--the user would have to use inference to make full use of it.  There could be an encrypted key to put the two together, or a series of them, and the US Government would have the exclusive access to this key stuff. 

 Except for the backdoors his coders put in to control the flow of money. And the copies he's made on the sly.

The New Era

It is incontrovertible that we have moved on from what history will eventually know as the Postwar Era.  We have reached the point by which many people might have no idea which "War" that phrase describes; a vanishing few have live memories of World War II; a few more recall the devastation out of which this period emerged.  The period we finished had two principal parts:  the Cold War, and the one which followed.  That one is over, but it doesn't really have a name yet, as it's too soon.  I would say--sincerely-- it was the Golden Age of the US, which would not please our current Presidential officeholder to hear, the next one being the Age of Golden Showers?

Now, though, the US wants to be just one among many--globally, and arguably, even in our half of the populated world, America (the Western Hemisphere).  Brazil, Mexico, Canada, the more successful parts of Central America and the Caribbean--they won't allow themselves to be dominated by the Monroe Doctrine, no more. In the Pacific, we strain to maintain; in Africa, the fastest-growing continent in population, we are losing the game fast.  

Culturally, too, we are entering a different direction than that which has been predominant.  The five nations which "won the war" and together formed the United Nations, giving themselves veto powers--the US, UK, France, Soviet Union (given to Russia), and China--have been among a handful of nations which have hosted international development--above all, in military might, but also in music, visual arts, and above all, rapid changes in technology.  Social development has been mostly continuous and slow --there have been real improvements in women's rights, in combating racial inequity in some nations, in feeding the world--but international political progress from the original UN Charter has been halting and is now being abandoned.  The clearest examples are global efforts to slow climate change or limit nuclear weapons.  Liberal democratic and social democratic values rise and fall in the esteem of the people, who are guided by the simple, sound principle that they would rather have their nations--always nations!--do what most want, rather than not (the way of kings and dictators who do what they want). Now, so many are feeling that they are not getting it. 

Nevertheless, so far, resistance in the 21st century has been reactive, generally nonviolent.  We don't see much new coming forward, politically.  Now come the destructive technology masters, culturally everywhere and now politically coming to dominate the US Federal government:  they are promising something new, in effect. 

We just need to cede.  

If only humans would give up this silly notion that they need to control things, we could operate much more efficiently!!  A good example is the driverless car situation, currently stalled.  There is a tipping point, I would guess it's about 75%, when the driverless cars will be able to stop worrying so much about the crazy things people-driven cars do and can just send signals back and forth from the vehicles on the net and things will work much better.  The cars will go much more efficiently and faster, without errors (except the occasional hallucination, I guess, but we're working on that!)--The tech bros.  

It is already a fact that first point of contact for consumers is going to be a chatbot, in most cases.  Voice response, sure, but the real question is whether you can get to a human and what you have to do to get to it.  I don't see that changing anytime soon, though the battlelines will shift back and forth at any particular entity, along with the location housing the humans or machines, and based on the needs of the shareholder, whoever that might be.  

So, that's when you're reaching out to them.  There's also the other side, though:  we call it marketing. What ad you're going to see when, what video or sound is in it when you get it, what email, what response to your polite inquiry.  

My request for legislation is a simple one:  in those cases, when what you are being presented is pure AI, there needs to be a bug that you can click that will tell you so--also what program or series of programs is being used, and that's that.  Or, if it is AI but there is a human behind it who has specifically approved or edited it, then that person is not wholly anonymous but can be accountable in some sense.  That's all I ask; then the consumer can judge the content knowing its provenance. 

 

The US A-I Disease

By this I mean that we have an Auto-Immune problem as we devour ourselves alive.  The first briefing is on the Federal Government arising from the remains of the Trumpist gluttonous assault.  The next post will have some comments based on what I know about the other AI--artificial intelligence--and what we should be looking to do about it.  

A Functional View of the Federal Government

The Constitution says that all of it is divided in three parts.* Structurally, that is somewhat true; Congress and our court system remain, and I will expect that they will survive the coming disaster intact; however, those two branches are not very important in the gigantic money/power game of Washington, now that Congress has yielded control of the purse strings to Emperor Elon. Those two branches have become, at best, referees; realistically, bystanders and check-writers; and in the worst case, servile order-takers. All the action, though, is in the Executive Branch, the result of several decades of gradually increasing powers to the President, increasing difficulty for effective oversight for it, and the ascension of an individual without restraint in using its powers. 

I identify four main functions of our central government; I will describe each briefly, and then consider what damage is most likely to it from The D------d's maladministration in the next four years. 

The first is the set of functions which maintain the constitutional structure itself.  So far, I don't see Trump successfully destroying it, as he finds its cracks and limitations very useful, and more often than not he gets what he wants from it in the end.  For example, many feel that defying court orders will mean the end of "rule of law".  Apart from the fact that the only people who really believe we can rely on that to be applied fairly are lawyers, and rapidly less of them, I don't see an authentic legal battle royal arising from this type of unlawful action, which--in the few cases the administration actually definitively loses--will be deflected, appealed, delayed, and if necessary, ignored.   Apart from that, these operations (such as in the Executive Office, Congressional operations, court officers, the Archives) will be the part most stubbornly defended, even sometimes by Republicans. Generally, the institutions behind them survive even in the absence of democratic governance, though their functions are gutted or corrupted. In our 21st-century politics, they are extremely difficult to modify, partly due to the partisan stalemate, and also because they are designed to be resistant to much change. Governmental institutions provide some legitimacy even to the worst regimes; if they disappear, it's worse than just a failed state, it's near-anarchy.

The second area is taking the revenues or other funds and paying them out.  This is the big growth area of government in the 20th century, but we seem to find that growth to be too much for us today. The DOGE boys are focusing on this one, because "that's where the money is", as the historic bankrobber said. There are vast areas for potential abuse and theft in this function, which is something like 15% of our entire GDP,  a few trillion dollars a year.  Some, like Social Security, are paid directly to US persons,, and those will be extremely difficult to cut because of the political pain involved.  The better targets are the pass-through payments through middle-men; USAID may be very beneficial, but it's a middleman that passes money to other middlemen, and that's why it's a viable target.  That, and the fact that there is little or no political cost to cutting any or all foreign aid in this self-centered political environment. Medicare and Medicaid are indirect payments for the most part, and they will be targeted indirectly--cutting those outlays will end up being the principal function of unworthy HHS Secretary Kennedy.  Look for less of those medical tests that doctors order to cover all possibilities being approved in advance.  

SNAP (food stamps) is a bit of a functional hybrid, as the benefit is direct to the consumer, but the payments are to the food providers; I don't know about its efficiency as a program, but it can't be eliminated and could become very important in the next domestic economic crisis. Similarly, FEMA generally provides benefits one step removed from the direct recipients; that is an agency that is easy to criticize but will become even more indispensable in the future.

In general, there are going to be permanent reductions in the transfers from our taxpayer dollars to most categories of recipients..  Whether this is a positive or negative would depend on your relation to the indirect US payments which are going to reduce.  There are exceptions, though:  I see the Department of Energy getting more money to subsidize a return to nuclear power in private industry, in order to enhance crypto, in the short run, and to reduce our fossil fuel dependence in the future; also, I see Trump passing more money to Elon, Inc. because Space--Trump digs it. 

I want to say something here about the deadline for Congress to do something to head off a government shutdown and subsequent default.  Although Trump pats Speaker Johnson on the back and says "go to it", Johnson's task--to fund all of Trump's spending and tax cuts--is next to impossible with just his Republican House conference and no Democratic votes.  The Mumps know this and are enjoying it; I believe that one scenario they like is a a brief cessation of most "non-essential" Federal functions, and then being able to selectively re-start the ones they want.  Of course, if they get everything they want from a suppliant Congress, that's great, too, but it's got to be everything.  So, it's hard to believe that will happen unless the House Republicans get more unified by desperation than they appear to be.  The Democrats don't want a shutdown as such, but they do want the situation where Johnson needs votes, and they are preparing their demands.  An end to the illegal usurpation of control of spending is part of them, I know, a part that I don't think they will get.  I'd say probability of a shutdown of any length in March is about 80%, though the length of it is harder to estimate.

I see a populist opportunity to make this principal government function more one of moving money or wealth from those who have a whole lot of it to the less-wealthy, something that should be popular. That may even become essential to keep the peace internally, but the only route I can see that happening during Trump 2.0 is a necessary, bipartisan recognition that the cutoff income on earners' Social Security tax must go.  And that will only happen if the Democratic lawmakers can insist on it in the few cases--there may be only one--where they will have some leverage on Congress during Drumpfenreich.  They must do it (demographic tick-tick)! Look for tax rates to be the cleavage point Democrats can push in 2028.

The third area is composed of those areas of actual services that the Federal government provides.  These are fewer than you might think.  Start with the Veterans Administration, the National Park Service, and then the big one, our military, the service in that case being our national security  ("Thank you for your service!").  These are going to be hard to cut significantly; there will be savings found in Defense, but a lot more spending than those cuts will be forthcoming, especially in a needed effort to try to ramp up lagging enlistments.  There are some smaller service areas (in terms of expenditure) that might be more vulnerable to Mump attack: the Federal Reserve (banks get lots of service), the hated Internal Revenue Service (in my view, pretty efficient and user-friendly compared to state tax agencies), and the Foreign Service. The State Department is, again, an easy target temporarily, though I believe it will get new attention, post-Trump, as being much less costly to get favorable outcomes than the military route. Most Federal government services (apart from the military) have a pretty bad popular reputation, deserved or not, but they are not going away.

The fourth area, and the one that is most vulnerable of all of them, is the set of agencies whose principal functions are making, and enforcing, rules and regulations.  Here we've got a lot of alphabet soup:  EPA, OSHA, FDA, NRC, SEC, FEC, NLRB, and ACA (a/k/a Obamacare).  Any long-term legal basis for these organizations to maintain themselves was gutted last year by the Supreme Court; their very survival depends on continued goodwill from the Executive.  ACA has a statutory basis but that means nothing without the subsidy transfer payments which go alongside, the money going to insurers. Within this category, there are a couple other agencies the functions of which also combine the two most vulnerable areas, both giving money to entities and making rules.  That's the Department of Education and the National Institute of Health, both prime Muskrat targets.

 

  

The Best, the OK, and Worst of the So Far

In terms of assessing the value and liabilities (to the US) arising from the whirlwind of activity and blather in these early days, there is the challenge of looking at the downstream effects, including the unintended ones.  As with Biden's successful legislative initiatives, it will take years to realize them--that is, for the real effects to show, economically, politically, and otherwise. 

I will give credit to the Trump administration for two of their many initiatives.  First, it's time finally to get rid of the penny.  I would combine that with increased production of the half-dollar and dollar coins--I wouldn't even mind if the God Emperor and his Presidential assistant were stamped onto one of them together, but only one (they could put a picture of the Gulf of D------d I on the back).  The second is Trump's strategy in applying his favorite tool, tariffs.  The deceptive part of the tariff strategy is that he probably thinks it's a source of revenue to cover some of the new tax cuts (and renewal of the ones from his last term). In that he will be disappointed; however, the move toward reciprocal application of tariffs, instead of unilateral ones (which wouldn't remain unilateral for long) is sensible.  If successful, it could actually help reduce prices on some imports, which is not what we were expecting.      

I will give a guarded "OK" rating on Trump's rapid successes in getting his Cabinet and top "leadership" positions in his administration approved.  (I'm not referring to Musk, here, as a different description of his role applies.)  We need to accept the general rule that Presidents can choose their principal direct reports in most cases. There were a couple, or a few, qualified folks, such as Rubio at State, or Bessent at Treasury.  There were many, many whose main qualification was loyalty to Trump, but who will be in roles where the damage they will be required to cause is less, because the political leverage for his abuse through them is also less--not that they will produce anything of value (e.g. Interior, Commerce, all the ambassadors he gifted cushy jobs).  There are a couple in hugely important roles for our nation who are terrible appointments, but because they are so incapable of adding value they will just be ignored, or overruled (Hesgeth, Gabbard).  So far, Pam Bondi looks to be one of those who relied on lies and her good looks to get approved and will turn out to be much worse than we thought. The one I despise most, Kennedy in HHS, is awful, but just how much actual damage he will do to our health is yet to be clear, because he dissembled his way through all the contradictions between his own policies and the administration's. The worst will be Patel in the FBI, but I am 100% certain he will not make it through his ten-year appointment; if he makes it through ten months, that will be a lot.  I expect about the same for the likes of Hesgeth and Gabbard, whose roles continue at the sufferance of the President.

As for his foreign policy so far, I'm pleased he hasn't taken any real-world moves yet, but I'm not optimistic.  He looks ready to do Ukraine dirty. I understand that Trump is under a lot of pressure to make a deal with Putin quickly, given his campaign promise.  Bringing Ukraine's Zelensky into the negotiations would slow things down, so he will look to have him or his representatives in the next room, not the one "where it happens".  As things proceed I will make more comments on this and try to draw some lines in the ground (or "in the air") on items he must, or must not, agree with Putin to impose on Ukraine.

 I've said enough about how his attitude will play in the other countries making up the rest of America--not well, in general, but the dictators there will successfully play him. As for the Middle East, I think his stupid Gaza ethnic-cleansing-idea burn scars will teach him very quickly that he should try to stay out of it and believe less in Netanyahu's false assurances, except to cultivate Saudi money for himself and his family.  Finally, the relationship that's long-term most important, with China, will be fascinating to watch.  I am hopeful that he will give Xi the respect that will make all the difference, despite all the potential areas of conflict (economic and worse). 

So, not great, but, like challenging the constitution, he hasn't done the Really Bad Thing yet--we can hope he won't.  The Ukraine war has shown us just how bad 21st-century war is--random, inhuman, destruction with no inherent limitation. 

With regard to the much-touted "mass deportations", let's be real.  This administration is headed down a path bound to fail to satisfy anyone.  There will be deportations, as there always are and will be; they might be marginally higher than previous administrations, but the goal should be to avoid political disaster, which can only be accomplished by being more circumspect about them and considering the characteristics of the individuals captured more closely.  So far, reports are quite bad; they could get much worse. 

When we look at the very worst of Trump's first month in the job, it's the preparations for extreme corruption and double-dealing.  The firing of the head of the Office of Government Ethics and of several departmental Inspectors General cannot be justified and can only be understood as taking away friction from his future plans for slimy abuses and theft.  The other thing that looks extremely suspicious to me was the capture of the Treasury Department's database. They lied about whether the access was "Read-Only"; c'mon, these kids are coders.  I'm not sure whether they were able to download data, which would be illegal (and Elon's wet dream), but what I suspect is that they have put in some backdoor shit which would allow Trump to have a kill-switch on any given payment.  That may be why some frozen payments which the courts have ordered to be restored have not yet resumed.  

The major damage he's making across our Federal civil service will take 5-10 years to reverse, in order to restore qualified pros to departments' middle levels. The "spoil system" is back, and it will take an enlightened administration to end it again for this century's government.  Whether through firings, voluntary retirement, intimidated resignation, or the so-called "buyouts", the best civil servants will be leaving, understandably given the directions they would otherwise be given to administer.. The damage caused by this devolution of human resources will be largely inseparable from all that is caused by the administration's policies, so the need to go back to the future may not be as obvious as it should be.

The big question is when Trump's finagling and assaults on our government will make their disastrous effects visible even to the low-information voters here. The basic scenario I am seeing is a run on the dollar, accompanied by increasing inflation along with increased unemployment.  (Yes, he can!) Whether that will result in a recession sooner or later may depend on the direction of the Fed, but like the 2008 recession, it may be beyond the capability of monetary policy to control when it occurs, and in any case Trump's policies are consistently inflationary, so his promises to reduce prices have little or no validity..

Bottom line is that, like that Liberty Bell, our bell of liberty isn't ringing too clearly with that big crack.  I'm hoping that, unlike a windshield crack, we can keep it from spreading throughout until we make the proper repair/replacement.

That's about all I ever plan to say about this damned administration, though I will return to foreign policy, along with the all-important state elections and the House ones in 2025-26 as opportunities to go into those prioritized subjects arise.  I won't wish this crew good luck; they've already had more than they deserve.  I have called this a constitutional crisis and a slow-motion train wreck for at least a decade now.  The fact that some wheels ran off the rails once again is clear, but maybe a 21st-century train can find its way back to the station somehow. 

* Like that previous Caesar said about Gaul.

...Anni Aurei

("Of the Golden Ages") 

Everyone's doing their Best Of...lists.  Here's some of my picks, throwing in a few Latin words (as we follow blindly down ancient Rome's path toward dissolution): 

Word (nomen) - brainworm. 

There have been multiple mots thrown out there on the wall, Time Magazine-style.  The most ridiculous I heard was the first one, "demure", from Dictionary.org, but really from some influencer who misuses it all the time to the point that it has become standard English, like the varied usages from "literally", "precipice", "leafy", and "vibrant".  In this case, I wouldn't know, maybe it trended strongly; but, do we have to celebrate it? 

Oxford went with "brain rot'.  I don't know, was this their translation of RFKJr's former malady, or are they still being haunted by the prions of mad cow disease?  

The Economist dragged it out in their essay, but finally went with "kakistocracy", the rule by the incompetent.  They remain indignant at the lack of good government.  I think "idiocracy" will surely be nominated by someone; that movie made a big comeback this year as it seemed to signal a logical endpoint for all our society's worst trends toward, yes, incompetency, performative politics, big piles of shit, etc.  I think what we're getting so far is just the first part, "Id-cracy", rule through the id of an idiot.  But that's just temporary; we could still avoid full idiocracy with  more education of the populace and a little less nihilistic "don't give a shit" attitude. .

Returning to my main point, I am still going with the Kennedy reject as my personal focal point of dissatisfaction with this year's version of the multiverse.  (see "Lathe of Heaven", below)  There must be some other place where the Kennedy heritage is destined to end up,  other than kneeling at the foot of  Drumpf, then playing the Fool in spreading some widespread, avoidable avalanche of a health catastrophe.  In my outlier thesis, it's his fault that Harris lost.  This is altogether too weird.

Film - (cacumen) 

For me, it will be "Dune, Part Two", though it was released too early to be a significant Oscars contender.  I thought it lived up to my expectations, which were high.  I think one additional episode should be enough from Mr. Villeneuve, who has now topped The Mexicans (take your pick of the big 3) as top international film director.  A year or so for him to get perspective on how to handle all the the many successive novels and the gist of them, but some of it can be speed-walked.  Particularly the part about the Dominant Worm ("God Emperor"). A little more "Chapterhouse of Dune", the backstory that is behind the streaming serial "Dune: Prophecy"(not impressed) might help the understanding.  Anyway...

I'm eager to see the early Dylan biopic with Timothee Chalamet ("A Complete Unknown").  I'd have to guess he may be Best Actor in the Oscars, and this is surely Angelina Jolie's chance to win Best Actress for her portrayal of Maria Callas (in "Maria"), unless she messed it up entirely.  I'm not considering any of these post-Thanksgiving entries, though;  they can be on my Film of the Year list for 2025, if they are good enough.

I'd say "Lee", Kate Winslet's WWII vehicle, and "Conclave", the story of a fictional election of a Catholic Pope, are movies that were released in good time and had some good points ("Lee" was an unheralded true story, "Conclave" had good use of foreign languages in the Vatican's polyglot environment, fine roles for Ralph Fiennes, Isabella Rossellini, and Italian Sergio Castellitto), but did not reach paradigm-shifting excellence.  One that went for it was "Anora", the tragicomic sex flick of a stripper and a Russian oligarch's wayward son.  It has the same crazy energy as two recent international triumphs, "Parasite" and "Everything, Everywhere, All at Once" but I think it falls short in terms of social significance.   

As for the season's two big blockbusters, I haven't seen "Wicked", but I will do so though it's not my cup of witches' brew, and "Gladiator II" does not interest me--I love historical fiction but this is an unhistorical one. 

Song (canticum) -

 I've read a few of these top 2024 songs lists--rarely one of albums anymore, though they are still made.  These lists have a lot of stuff representing our fractured "popular" musical environment, while I only hear a couple of the genres (rock, indie). I will try to take some listening suggestions from them--YouTube is so easy, if you don't mind a few commercials.  These Best Of.. unanimously name Kendrick Lamar's "Not Like Us" as #1. Yes, it's odious, but so are we all--I guess. 

The one I'd go with is Karen O, with Danger Mouse, on "Super Breath".  I think it's 2024, anyway.  Karen O's re-emergence as a powerful, controlled vocalist of renown in recent years was late but welcome, and D.M. gives her a suitable, classic backing instrumental line.  Yes, the breakthrough album for the Yeah Yeah Yeahs was in 2022.

Book (librum) -

 Again, I've read a few of these lists, and there is one name always on the list (some respectfully refuse to rank within the top 5 or 10).  That is "James", by Percival Everett, taking the Huckleberry Finn story from the other side, that is, Jim's.  I have to try that one. Mostly I have read Yuval Noah Harari this year and some sci-fi, and I regret little of it.  The late Ursula LeGuin still entices my reading--she wrote so much, so well.  A re-reading of her "Lathe of Heaven" (1971) was revealing in what she anticipated of our future world, and it got me thinking more about dreams, an underappreciated aspect of our lives.  Anticipating a lot of free time to read in the near future, I do have a powerful list going forward.

Person  (persona)

 TIME came out with theirs before I, to my temporary embarrassment. I was going to critique their list, which had some interesting names, along with the unnecessary repeat candidates (Trump, Musk, Putin).  Of their list, I would strongly support Yulia Navalnya . It said she was previously a candidate, but did Alexei ever win? If not him, not Nemtsov before him, TIME has let history down.  My pick: Alvin Bragg - he is the Buster Douglas (of Mike Tyson fame) of Donald Trump challengers, the one who won.  It may not have been the "World's Biggest" prize of all time, but he did it and 2024 was the year. (Biden already got his in 2020, with Harris alongside).

Athlete (athleta) - 

 I saw that one of the sports mags named women's basketballer Caitlin Clark as Sportsperson of the Year, and I respect that choice for the huge impression she has made this year for the sport.  I would go with Stephen Curry, for a career of great NBA success, somehow exceeded by his amazing series of three-pointers in the desperate fourth-quarter comeback against Nikola Jokic and Serbia in the semifinal game of the 2024 Olympics.  Meaningful, and memorable.  Second choice would be for Freddie Freeman, for a similar career of success topped off by a remarkable game-winning homer for the Dodgers in Game 1 of the Series.

Food  (cibus) - 

 This is the Golden Age of Global Food.  I think a lot of the international shipment of food items will tail off due to increased price, climate change considerations, and more blights of food products.   Coffee and avocados are two products we can expect to become more scarce, much more expensive.  Forget about those lousy unripe Chilean fruits we see in the market.  My pick is a domestic product--Talenti gelato and sorbetto, which captures the essence of Italian high-end iced product and packs it tightly in nearly unopenable jars and sells it for $5-6 a pint--high-end price also, but well worth it.  The man credited with putting it on the market, Dean Phillips, ran a quixotic campaign in '24 to replace "too old" Joe Biden. He didn't get far, but he planted the idea that blossomed out of control after Biden's debate with Trump.

Lots of links I could have added--go find the lists yourselves if you want.  I gave you my choices.  Latin translations by Google translate, which isn't too swift on the Latin.  Not enough current data for the AI learning machine, I'd say.

Developments

About the UHC CEO Assassination

As US assassins go, Luigi Mangione seems more intelligent than the others; in particular, he can articulate his thoughts.*  Some ladies seem to find him attractive.  If I were the authorities in PA and NY, I wouldn't rush the extradition, but rather bring forward the gun charges for which he was arrested--those are a slam dunk. I don't doubt that Alvin Bragg (my choice for Person of the Year, over Dickhead 2.0) will eventually get some kind of conviction in Manhattan, too, but going for the maximum might be a reach too far.  Mangione should have access to good lawyers and will have some kind of painful story to tell that might work to some extent. 

What I really want to talk about, though, is United Healthcare.  Yes, I'm a customer, I think--it's just Medicare's Part D, it costs little and currently provides comparably little benefit but whatever. Mangione is way off-base if he was pissed that he couldn't get all the treatment he wanted; that's such a First-World problem.  There is rationing of healthcare in all systems.  On the other hand, if it was the insurers who made his pain worse because they induced him to get sub-standard care--the result of which didn't look so hot on that X-ray associated with his back--then he had some beef with them.  But a gangsta approach does no one any good.  And, frankly, he was more Bernie Goetz+ than Unabomber material, but he might do well on the witness stand.

There's a real, enduring problem with our healthcare system, and it's called the profit motive of the middlemen involved.  UHC is probably the worst offender, though statistics can be biased easily depending on what is measured.  They are sucking the value out of the whole process with their relentless pursuit of more money.  They need to be more like--gasp!--utilities, with profit levels basically guaranteed but limited, strict measurement of reliability of customer treatment, and some mandatory regulatory oversight.  In fact, they should be utilities, full stop. We don't have to go all the way to eliminate them as profit-making enterprises, which was the real mistake of the Medicare for All movement.  The pharma/insurance lobby got its back up.  Not to mention all the jobs.

Trump's Cabinet and Other Nonentities

I don't get too worked up about the fate of the crappy nominees Trump has chosen, even for his Cabinet Secretary positions.  For the most part, anyway:  I do think RFKJr is the one who must be stopped, and I think his non-conforming policy positions on some subjects (not vaccines, but more like on corn oil, abortion pills, etc.) could end up sinking his chances with enough Republicans to deny him.

The ones like Gabbard or Hegseth, if they get the votes, it won't change things all that much.  There are overly well-developed organizations beneath them that will go around them, if they are too flaky. And can you imagine a Cabinet meeting of the clowns?  On the one hand, it would be a joke--a bad one--and wouldn't be a good use of time.  On the other, though, it would flatter POTUS--it better--so he might want to have more of them this time around. The betting notion would be the over/under on the number of Trump Cabinet meetings Rubio attends.  Preliminary line: 3.    

I don't mean to minimize the damage Trump will do, but he's got four years--two, really. This joke will get old, while still young.  And by "joke" I mean "scam". 

Playoffs:  College and NBA

I give some credit to the NCAA planners who have come up with a viable expansion of their college playoffs, which they roll out this year.  They are going from 4 teams (the critical cut happening at the #4/5 ranked team) to 12 teams (as it happens, that will be a cut from #10/11).  There is still not a great deal of satisfaction, particularly from the SEC, though their teams muddied up the waters by beating each other up somewhat randomly in the big games. Alabama is the team that gets gored this year, #11.  Seems strange, but Alabama did lose three games in its regular season.   

The correct answer is 14, as in 14 teams in the playoffs.  Two conference champions deserve byes, the SEC and the "Big Ten"+.  (The other two teams getting the byes were bad jokes I won't recite.) Those are the only two conferences that matter, and all the best football programs are migrating to them if they can. (Except Notre Dame, of course--they are special.)   Anyway, with 14 teams in the mix, the two losers from the conference championships get home field vs. #13 and #14, then the other eight teams play in neutral bowl locations and are seeded #5-#12.   That is where they will likely go before too long.  They are learning the lessons from the NCAA's other marquee event, the basketball championships (now both men's and women's), which have maximized participation to great effect. 

The NBA has hedged completely that critical cut by making two of them, one more absolute and the other more real.  Every competitive team's goal has to be to get into at least the top 6 of their conference, though 10 teams make the postseason in some form.  Teams 7-10 still have a shot in brief playoffs, though they will be disadvantaged.  It's a good design.  

They also seem to have done well, so far anyway, with their new early-season event the NBA Cup, now progressing through its second season.  It's created enthusiasm and the players have mostly bought in.  The result has been a lot of close, meaningful games with near-playoff atmosphere.  It's only the second season, though; the relationship between NBA Cup success and success in the real thing, the playoffs, has yet to be demonstrated convincingly.  The Lakers did win the Cup and reach the conference finals, though, last year; the latter was a surprise.  The Oklahoma City Thunder are the top team left in the final four, judging by regular season record; they will also likely be favorites in the playoffs, along with the Celtics, who did not make the final four, in the East. . 

 

*So to speak. I thank Ken Klippenstein for printing the manifesto in its entirety in his Substack, which the big boys chose not to do, though they selected quotes to support their hot takes. 

+ I will seek to refer to all college conference names other than the SEC in shock quotes, to draw attention to their transparent greed-seeking behavior. And because their names are such lies. Repeatedly. 

Some Gratitude

To start off, I am grateful that our family has been able to stick together.   No one in the immediate family is estranged.  Our sister's successful gall bladder operation this week, our children have been able to find work that suits them, our niece continues to build her sustainable fashion design work, even our cousin who's been forced abroad because her husband is wanted for questioning will probably be able to return with a new government and Department of Justice (bad as that will be in general).  I'm particularly grateful that our son returned safely from his overseas military deployment. That's about as much as I will ever say about those closest to me in this blog. 

Saturday I finally got over my mood and need for intensive "self-care" after the election debacle.  I woke up that day to find that my blessed Cincinnati Reds made a good trade:  acquiring a promising young starting pitcher (Brady Singer)--one can never have enough starting pitching--trading a good infielder, Jonathan India, who didn't have a position in the coming season and wanted out.  I think the Reds are ready to compete in 2025.  Next, that morning I watched an interview on MLB-TV between Greg Amsinger (encyclopedic memory of baseball, on demand) and Johnny Bench, the greatest catcher of all-time (core Red in the heroes' Pantheon), who rarely does that kind of thing.  Chelsea defeated Leicester, a signal result for the Blues' new coach, Enzo Maresca, who led Leicester to qualify for promotion to the Premier League last year.    

Currently visiting Newport, Rhode Island for the first time.  It's offseason here, a little cold and windy, but still has a lot of charm, as do the folks who live here.  The International Tennis Hall of Fame is a beauty (though the museum there is closed for renovation).  I'd suggest visiting here in April; still offseason prices but should be nice. 

I am grateful for my town, Taos, which maintains its defiant independence (better than 3-1 for Harris--a quick search indicates it has the second-best margin of any rural county in the lower 48); it should be one of the last places to feel the pain of the new hateful regime coming in.  At the same time, though, I am grateful that my wife and I have the liberty and the means to look abroad for some respite from the political circus.  2024 has shown us that our Constitution can't protect us, that the rule of law has been overrruled, so our freedoms depend on the people, and they aren't so dependable, electorally.   We plan to spend a lot of time away, at least for the next two years until Trump Clown Car 2.0 crashes to earth.  The best thing that can happen to Earth. 

We are past the precipice, pushed out the window, but as they say while falling, "So far, no problem!"

 

Have a good Thanksgiving!

Part III: Domestic

 

 Fraud

 In my opinion, it is the greatest current threat to (American) quality of life, and I write it in when I am polled for my opinion of the most salient issue.  

The icon of fraud is Donald Trump, who is fraudulent in most any way that can be described.  Liar, con man,pretender, and falsifier of documents, tax returns, charitable contributions--can't think of more offhand, but I would add his relations with his wives, ex-wives, and sexual targets.

I can't blame it all on him, but there are frauds arising in all sorts of activity, new ones all the time.  The most outrageous one I heard about recently regards the new credit card initiative for "Tap and Pay" on their cards.  I was opposed to that already--it's too easy to buy things, why make it more easy and less controlled?  So, the way this works is some fraudster approaches, too close, to your wallet with your Tap and Pay card; they have a POS device (Point of Sale, not the other meaning) concealed in their coat pocket, and they activate it against your nearby card.  Not for big purchases, there's a max, without PIN or signature of $50 or less, but they could do it against multiple cards, and you wouldn't even know it happened. 

A few years ago, the hottest fraud play, producing billions of ill-gotten gains a year, involved the creation of fake identities, carefully built with real credit bureau records.   The attack involved taking several loans or balance transfers, then suddenly disappearing without a trace.   Nowadays, what I see, apart from the obvious and frequent spam attacks, are clever imitations of the real relationships people have which are used to elicit voluntary payment or authorizations.  The Nigerian scam 2.0. 

These threats are the reason why you have to get a second verification after you put in your PIN or password, every time you use a new device, or the same device from a new location.  They are driving restraint of legitimate activity. Financial institutions cooperate in tracking down and fighting fraudsters, but it isn't enough.  It is one area where national interests coincide globally and government agencies need to expend real effort. 

Trial and Election Update

Speaking of defrauding the public, how about that Truth Social IPO?  Totally legal theft from the easily gulled. Big meme, not funny.  All to finance the continuation of the con in Trump's courtroom struggles. People focus on the delays, which are many, but Trump continues to lose. He still has a chance to win big, if he can somehow convince enough voters in the swing states to bring it home, though time does not appear to be on his side for that outcome.  

Of the different scenarios discussed previously, I'd rate the probabilities as follows:  Status Quo 50%, Trump Collapse 30%, Chaos 10%, Biden Weakened 5%, and all the Trump/Biden Out combinations 5%. 

Briefly,  if I didn't know that Trump realizes he is doomed if he loses the election, I would say that he is defying his very astute advisers and trying to lose it, with some of the things he's said.  I'd like to get the odds on exile for the would-be Once and Future King, as that's where I think it will go in the end, if he should live so long. 

I don't blame him for falling asleep during the voir dire of jury selection.  Having been on a couple of panels (and juries) myself, it is the most boring thing, though very important for the lawyers for both sides to pay close attention. 

Speaking of trials not happening (the other three), how about the "solemn consideration" Sen. McConnell wished for the Mayorkas impeachment.  After due consideration, it was rejected, accurately, as a "piece of crap" by some unnamed Democratic Congressperson.  Not just any piece, though:  a particular stinky piece of textual diarrhea.  There was a point, though:  the intention is to devalue the impeachments of Trump during his administration.  It didn't work, though. 

Covid

 Remember that?  It shouldn't be too hard, as it's still around.  Some folks seem to have nostalgic amnesia about the 2020 debacle presided over by our 45th, and disgraced, former President. 

Finally

 A bit over the top, some lyrics to a song by a beautiful, mournful group called Low (also covered by Robert Plant).  I dedicate them (with a change in the pronoun following The Great Destroyer), to Joseph Biden.  RIP, Mimi Parker!

At times I see you
You silver rider
Sometimes your voice is not enough

Your face in windows
Outside forever
Nobody dreamed you'd save the world
Nobody dreamed you'd save the world

La la la la etc

The march is over
The great destroyer
he passes through you like a knife

Oh take me with you
You silver rider
Sometimes you voice is not enough
Sometimes your voice is not enough

I should explain briefly this oblique reference.  Joe Biden is an unlikely choice as a superhero, though his opponent fits the role of a master villain, like in Batman, Dick Tracy, or Bond.  I'd say his moniker would be Ass-Face DickHead.    Anyway, it is barely an exaggeration to say that Biden must save the world from this great destroyer.  Not just our fragile democracy, those acclaimed checks and balances, but also globally:  the danger of global conflict, the end to serious efforts to control climate change, and more. 

 

 

Part II: The International One

 Chuck, Well-done! 

I salute Sen. Majority Leader Schumer in his call for new elections in Israel. 

 I respond to those who object to interference in another nation's affairs by pointing to interference in past political affairs here by the same unprincipled man now heading Israel's government. The extremist nature of Netanyahu's coalition is temporarily overshadowed only by the necessities of active warfare, but the conduct of neither does honor to Israel.   They take their cues from us, or vice versa; we need to seek what's right from one of our closest allies to be true to ourselves.

There is also the fact that Schumer--to be plain-spoken about it, a classic New York Jewish politician--is the one to make the call. If friends can't call friends, who can they call? Schumer's loyalty to Israel over the years, through thick and thin, is unquestionable by anyone of any stripe. 

Is anyone in Israel listening?  I think the answer is 'Yes'.  For one thing, they know that President Biden, who is playing this very cagily, could have stopped Schumer from making the statement at this time. His response upon receiving prior notification appears to have been, "Go ahead.  Knock yourself out."  (Schumer taking that as permission...)

I have only one question:  To whom is this call addressed?  Did he miss the Benny Gantz visit?  Was he the only one who did (besides Biden, who dodged it)?  In my view, the intended recipients are Schumer's contacts among Likud, who are "ghosting" that call for now.  One more humanitarian disaster is still required. 

I heard the contours of the newly-proposed deal reported tonight.  These seem more reasonable for a partial hostage release and six-week ceasefire, with the threat of an (approved) Rafah offensive by Israel, accompanied by some (panic) evacuations of civilians hanging over the head if Hamas doesn't take it.  I think Hamas will do so, once the appropriate ratio of prison release is determined (somewhere around 20:1 has been empirically observed, so far, in deaths; that provides a rough estimate). 

If the Hamas counter-offer after temporary ceasefire is release of all hostages for permanent ceasefire, Israel should take it, even if the terms require relaxation of the current siege. (This Netanyahu government wouldn't take it, of course, either way.  Thus the Schumer ask.)  When and if Hamas violated the ceasefire again, Israel could continue the liquidation campaign, and they would have the hostage situation finally ended.  That is why Hamas will never release all the hostages they control.  

The outcome obtained by Israel so far is the middle result:  not the complete removal of the Hamas leadership, which was the stated war aim, but more than the minimal one of making Northern Gaza into a buffer zone, buying critical moments of time for their defense against future launched attacks from Gaza. Effectively, they have a siege around the remaining parts of Hamas-dominated Gaza, as long as the Rafah border with Egypt holds.   

My conclusion, and Schumer's, is that there is no way forward, no partners for enduring peace. Time to shake things up, politically.  What he really is looking forward to is a parliamentary coup, a change in authority, with Netanyahu out as PM, but it is slightly more diplomatic to ask for new elections, which if they occurred, would produce the desired result, but much too slowly.  (Schumer also called for changes in the West Bank and in Gaza.)  Gantz' message is that he would still need to liquidate Hamas if he were to lead the government.  

Ukraine Slava!

Winter in the plains of Ukraine is no time for heavy ground maneuvers.  There has been a season of hunkering down, while the Russian artillery and missiles faced less defensive interception or retaliatory strikes. That period has to end soon; the clock is ticking.  Speaker Mike Johnson is trying to find the formula to allow the foreign aid bill to get approval without doing anything.  Very laissez-faire! Doesn't quite get 'er done, though...

Europe is filling in, for the moment.  Even the rightists are seeing the light, as Hungary approves Sweden's joining NATO and Georgia Meloni's far-right Italian government is fully backing Ukraine's cause.

Immigration

If you think this belongs in the forthcoming domestic affairs post, I choose to differ.  Migration is a worldwide problem, and the global nature of the challenge is beginning to be felt more acutely on our southern border now--before, it seemed just a hemispheric problem (which it is, also).  I do think there is a hemispheric solution to the problem, one that requires active participation with Mexico for mutual benefit.  It would look like massive expansion of a US consulate in one of the northern Mexican cities, Monterrey, maybe. There is precedent for that kind of cooperation, but it's the kind of idea that doesn't get traction.  The only kind of workable solution moves the problem off our shore/border, but we pay for (cheaper) services in the chosen focus location.  

 

 

Viewing The Trumpian Menace from the Outside

Any sensible foreign government should have considered both of the two main outcomes of this election and what their national interest should require for each. If one outcome is particularly bad for their country, it only makes sense to do what they can to affect the outcome, only being careful that they not have it backfire and produce a contrary effect. 

For the most part, though, it neither makes sense to commit too much for the Biden win strategy, nor for a Trump one.  Best not to commit.  Thus the Taiwan's election led to a clear status quo outcome, Xi has pulled back a little from his aggressive posture, and the great democracy of Indonesia takes a more studied distance from the pro-Obama Widjojo days. Even Putin knew enough to say he preferred Biden because he is more predictable: unarguable, yet showing respect for the internationally-infamous Drumpfen unpredictability.  Japan, India and Korea seem more concerned with domestic affairs--well, why not?  So are we. 

That seems to be the strategy with regard to mitigating climate change, every nation doing its own thing, the combined effect being neither synergistic nor sufficient. I won't deny progress is being made, both in developing alternative energy sources and in raising awareness.  But the global temperature is progressing on the graph toward the upper-right corner, too, as is the graph of major serious weather events. . 

More elections coming all over, I hear.  In the U.K., the ruling Conservative party is in a position similar to Netanyahu's, with a serious parliamentary drubbing forthcoming when the election is finally called. In England's case, though, there's a statutory requirement that will make it happen this year. It will be interesting to see how the Labour party will change the path, seemingly irreversible, that is steadily moving London away from relevancy.  Argentina threw in its lot with a major shake-up in a Trumpian direction, but that is an extreme reaction with plenty of popular frustration behind it.  

The Summer Olympics

The Paris Olympics will be held this summer, after the Republican convention and before the Democratic one. I am hopeful they will provide a welcome distraction from the political wars. So far, I've heard too little about the preparations for them, either here or there.  I did hear a few sports (softball, baseball among them) are not being retained; I've heard each sport federation is making its own rules on transgendered, I've heard those Russians who haven't failed their drug tests will be competing under the Olympics flag, not their own. That's about it.  I haven't heard much about the USA teams in specific sports.

 I'm very idiosyncratic about this, both a strong supporter of the Olympic ideal and a fervent opponent of the way it is done with all the nationalism, which is contrary to that ideal.  It is possible to make the centralized sport federations able to conduct competition qualification, but the block to that is that the resources would have to be provided by nations, perhaps through the medium of the United Nations.    This will no doubt feature in my upcoming listing of my brilliant ideas so far not picked up by anyone....

The Oscars

A bit of a stretch, I admit, to consider the awards of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, basically a LA.-centered bunch, in the international affairs category.  There were several awards given outside of the US film center, once again--let us not forget the recent-year successes of "Parasite" and "Everything, Everywhere, All at Once"--but the liberal US coastal elite judgments were clearly present. As an electoral body, quite predictable. 

"American Fiction" winning the adapted screenplay suited the self-referential critical Zeitgeist, for sure. So did the award to local comeback hero Robert Downey, Jr. for his role as the McCarthy-ist foil to Oppenheimer, post-bomb.   Above all, note the John & Yoko-inspired animated short winner calling for "Peace Now" (Sean Lennon on the scene)--I preferred the French "Pachyderme", if one wants to go deeper. 

The award for documentary feature to "20 Days in Mariupol" showing the brutality of the war in Ukraine also showed that liberal sensibility, which now increasingly shows some awareness of the world beyond. (My point being that the show tells.)  There was also the Godzilla movie getting the award for effects, the Mayazaki film winning the animated feature, and the four awards to the itinerant sci-fi costume drama "Poor Things", the movie that finally showed what Yorgos Lanthimos could achieve. "Zone of Interest" dominated the foreign film lane, a bit of a ruse for the British production, but it was performed and filmed on location at Auschwitz in the original languages (German, Polish, Yiddish), which is a real credential to be foreign to us.  Finally, I mention "Anatomy of a Fall", the one that got away (likewise, I couldn't catch it at the cine.).

To close, we transition through the shocker highlight of the Oscars' Obit show, the face of Alexei Navalny.  With the eponymous documentary feature of the previous year an Oscars winner, they earned the right. 

Shocking but not surprising, Navalny's death was a challenge to the world, a pure expression of ruthlessness. Navalny will be taking the cherished position in that square of political martyrs that many cities in Russia now have. There are others that are due to have places in this pantheon. But not just yet, it seems:  Putin may have been faking mortal health symptoms.  He has no doubt told his doctors to keep him alive until he can clinch a victory in 2025, though he's not sure which President he has to defeat to do it.  When that doesn't happen, he will wither up and give out.

 

Nearly at the Precipice

(Not "At the Precipice of ...Anything.")

 

 

Entering 2024, it is clear that we are there, a massive rock formation of dizzying heights and great danger.  But is it below us, this precipitous drop, or is it above, the possibilities before us almost without limit if we can only....?

Here in the Roadrunner State, we can observe the birds scurrying around, trying to stay out of the heat and find safe pickings, while Wile E. Coyote lurks, threatening the worst. We are not at the cliff's edge yet; we know it's there, though.  

The bill being designed supposedly to feed the militaries of Ukraine, of Israel, of East Asia-not-China, has been stalled by the rising border crisis and policy dispute, inflamed by the wave of migrants currently coming in. This still-unnamed compromise bill is a contradiction within itself, Fortress America with regard to the rest of the world's pressure of migration, but paying out to involve ourselves further in foreign struggles and conflicts.  I hold little hope for its passage; meanwhile, what about the bills to fund the government, some of them expiring January 12? 

To take these cases one by one, briefly:  Ukraine must be reinforced and it will be, one way or another--remember Lend-Lease?  or buying on credit?  Aid to Israel has been delayed long enough and, when it comes, and it will, it should not contain lethal offensive weapons.  Call that an attached string if you want; they need to break off the Netanyahu endless offensive, him included.  "Don't change leader in the middle of a war?"  Ask #Neville Chamberlain~:  If the war is not working, change is indicated, and sooner is then better than later. 

Finally, East Asia-not-China:  The aid to Taiwan that must be given should not be a public matter.  Aid to the Philippines, absolutely.  Singapore, you know it.  Even Thailand, if it's not all poured down the maw of corruption. It goes without saying, direct support to Australia, Korea and Japan.  That is plenty.

So, President Biden declares an emergency and uses it to give Ukraine what it needs.  Trump did it to start exuding his Wall.  Sounds like it will be less-than-SOTA*, as our electronics seem behind Russia's hackers.

Election Cliff, Viewed from Afar

Again, because of our peculiar angles of the distant vista, it's hard to say whether it is a drop-off, or a mountain so tall its top is in the clouds.  Clearly there is a Valley that must be crossed--the dangers there are both known and unknown.  On the other side, it is clear the terrain is rugged, jagged rocks poking through the mist, but after that? 

One simple example for our current dilemma:  Is Nikki Haley a step up or a step down? In quality, we're talking about, for a potential Republican nominee.  No doubt she is less evil than Donald Trump; she doesn't present the threat of immediate authoritarian rule. We can probably survive a campaign of Nikki Haley vs. Anyone (probably not Biden, in that case) without going at each others' throats en masse. 

Now, though, that little bit of a chance, which required a) a surprise second place finish in Iowa; b) a narrow victory or loss vs. Trump in New Hampshire; and (most unlikely of them) c) defeating Trump in her home state of South Carolina, well, that chance seems gone forever.  

There is irony in her befuddled mind before answering that challenging question; she didn't just improvise a bunch of nonsense.  What went through her mind were the evasive answers she had given on the question in the past (of which the anonymous questioner was well aware) and how it had to be played for South Carolina.  Yes, still today, in the state of Tim Scott, South Carolina, where she will no doubt be smeared--after she fails to take second in Iowa or win New Hampshire.  Sorry, Nikki! I really wanted you to punch The Dickhead in his blowhole. .  

I'm pretty sure Donald will name his VP fairly early if things go well.  I'm expecting it to be Kristi Noem; he wants a pretty spokesperson while he deals with some of the consequences of his mischievous putsch. Nikki Haley should not be fooling anyone with her pretense of being a possible VP to Trump; she is not under consideration, and she especially would not be if she were successful in her primary challenges.  She would disavow the notion if it didn't potentially decrease her appeal for less-than-fully-committed Trump supporters. 

It's the Economy, And I Guess I'm Stupid

I certainly draw comfort from the confidence Wall Street is showing these days. Is it possible that they don't think that it will matter whether the Democrats or Republicans sweep the table of power in 2024?  I can't believe that, nor do I believe that they know, better than all others, who will win.  And please don't tell me they are comfortable with the chaos Trump's win would produce, or either that they know all will be fine, and he will be defeated through some means. 

Instead, we are seeing the shortest of short-term bets.  Next year will be good.   There will be time to withdraw risk assets before the SHTF.+

I am a stubbornly optimistic person by nature, and with regard to most specific issues.  I always believe there is a way--just ask me.   However, I don't feel so good, even about 2024's domestic economic success forecast.  It is true that we consumers spent like crazy this Christmas, so that would be a boost.  Also, the Fed is done raising, that is clear.  In driving terms, that means they released the pressure of their foot off the brake, which they had been applying steadily. The foot is still there, resting softly on top of the brake pedal, as the regenerative braking (we have the best, modern economists!) kicks in, providing natural slowing, storing energy for a revival, if needed.

My pessimism--or maybe I should just describe it as caution--derives from a weak global economy.  So far, our economy has done well despite the unusual outbreak of war involving European nations**, but there is vulnerability in supply chains which will be exploited at some point.  I see a spotty pattern of growth, with industries like cars, oil, and financials suffering, but some of the big infrastructure and military companies thriving.  The tech stock monsters which powered 2023's market recovery are just about overpriced, as eager competitors will seek to knock away market share, sacrificing profitability.

But What About That Upside? 

There is so much potential for us if we fail to screw it up.  World peace, an end to extreme poverty and inequality, enormous improvements in our quality and duration of life, exploration of the micro- and macro-universes in ways we can barely imagine.  Our pace of progress in human capability has been enormous over the last 300 years and seems in many ways only to be accelerating.

The conversion to renewable energy is moving apace.  I don't expect things like wind, hydrothermal, or the current generation of solar energy to be long-term solutions, but we won't have to go back to oil, even if its cost is reduced further through technological advancement.  Practical fusion is now less than 50 years away for the first time, and other opportunities will present themselves.  Energy is all around us to be harvested.

Somehow, we still seem to be able to produce enough food to feed 8 billion people, even if many live in food insecurity. This may turn out to be the Golden Age of Global Food, but developing more diverse and healthy sources of food locally will be more valuable to society, especially in dealing with the damage to ecosystems that will result from climate change continuing.  

In the long run, I believe there will be a significant change in our procreation and birthing.  It may become necessary, if bad chemicals in our environment endanger successful random mating of sperm and egg.  Then there is the trauma of birthing--there, I said it.  The rise of Caesarans , even if not needed for medical reasons, and the choice of so many young people to delay or forego having children, are clues that change is coming.  I'm not expert enough to predict its form, but it will be somewhere between today's forceps and Huxley's baby factories.  As for mating rituals, they are in constant evolution, but always tend toward the dysfunctional.  That actually might be something that will improve with AI's development.  

The big improvement that will be needed is more within our minds, though.  The animal brain portion we have is not designed to handle well modern stresses and frustrations.  I don't see those distractions decreasing, though; the difference must come from how we deal with them.  In this regard, the progressing legalization of cannabis (it's not just "weed", or "dope" anymore) is a positive sign of our developing capability to adapt our minds.  That underground smoldering burst into our society in the now-mythical Sixties, but it was too much, too soon.  That's not true anymore; many more of us now realize the needs most or all have to take actions specifically to curate their mental health, because we are feeling it ourselves--one perversely positive result of the Covid epidemic 

It starts this year, in 2024, with a definitive defeat of defeatism. Trumpism is a loser, that is clear. The challenge is to prove one's system and way of life better than the authoritarians'; going his way gives up the game. 

Footnotes

#UK PM, May, 1937-May, 1940.  I feel for his suffering descendants.  (Not Wilt? I hear he has many of them.)

*State of the Art.  Should be reduced to a FLA, if it isn't already.  (TLA's are so 2010's!)

+ Shit Hits The Fan.  Useful for any general global apocalypse, without hitting the censors, for now.

**Or extended Europe, if you will (in the FIFA view).

Initial 2024 Election Post

 

I guess I have to admit the 2024 electoral campaign has started.  If candidates have already entered and failed, then something must be happening.  Indeed, something similar seems to have happened to the campaign of the Marquis (de Sadeness); Governor Ron DeSantis' campaign has already peaked and is imploding. 

Another indicator:  PredictIt has posted its first market on the popular vote margin (Dem%-Rep%).  As far as PI is concerned, this clarifies the limitations they have agreed to with regard to new markets, after a hiatus for over a year.  They still focused the brackets on the null scenario of an Electoral College nailbiter, in the interests of generating revenue (and academic research, too!) To note the initial market take for the record, Dem winning % (tie being the exception) is about 60-40, taking into account the bid/ask. 

I don't count that initial debate as part of the campaign, as such; more like spring training in baseball. I can't resist a couple of comments, anyway. Smarmy Vivek has postulated himself as the most Trumpy of all, and it will be hard to top him for smarminess. Ah, DeSadness!  I think it was a little too evident Ron saw that gig as nowhere.  He was back in his element at home with hurricane warnings and gratuitous insult to Biden. 

I will proceed with a scenario-based analysis, considering the effects upon the massively-important House and Senate races for each.  The 2022-23 status of Congress is anomalous, with the House improbably with a Republican majority, considering the Senate has a narrow Democratic majority.  Most likely outcomes are reversal of both, but the Presidential race should be so consequential that it will carry more coattails than many recent partisan re-alignments in Congress. 

 I will also need to consider possible effects of significant third-party candidacies in each scenario, something that has not happened since Ross Perot in '92 and '96 (the marginal effects of Nader/Stein-type results, as we can expect for Cornel West's candidacy, for example, not changing the scenario, though they could be tiebreakers). 

The planned sequence of posts by scenario is as follows, starting, arbitrarily, by my choice of the most desirable one: 

1 - Trump Collapse.  The weight of his criminal trials cripples him--it only takes a few percent of his following turning against him, but he won't quit. 

2- Biden Weakened - Either economic weakness or undeniable physical/mental weakness makes him less-than-viable for all but his committed supporters. 

3 - War/Chaos - A crisis of massive proportion.  Think Pearl Harbor/9-11/COVID/UFO's, or widespread insurrection.

4 - Trump Out - He does quit, or die, or he is barred from campaign as a result of any of his convictions or court rulings. 

5 - Biden Out - He becomes deathly ill and must be replaced.  Or won't leave and is the victim of a successful party revolt. 

6 - Both Out - The most likely way is Trump gives in or is out for whatever reason, and Biden then finds a reason he doesn't need to run.

7 Stasis - the Null Scenario.  Biden and Trump run until the bitter end.  Debates will be few, and Trump's plea in the Georgia case proves the climax, one way or the other.

I don't want to get too precise about the likelihood of the scenarios, but I would say 1 and 2 are about equally likely at 10% or so, Scenario 6 is probably more likely than either 4 or 5, and all three add up to 20-30%, and Scenario 3 we can pull a number out of the air and say is no more than 5%.  Those events have happened several times in the past century, but have not often come in election years, as it turns out (2020 the exception!)   

That leaves no more than 40-50% likelihood for the Null Scenario that everyone focuses on.  It is, though, the one with the highest likelihood, so I will go into it with the most depth. 

I do not want at all to trivialize or counter the argument that this election is extremely important, on the order of ones like 1860, 1932, or 1968.  In most of these scenarios I describe briefly above, the key question underlying the competition is whether our Constitution can hold up under the threat of Executive malfeasance and manipulation.  It managed to hold up during Watergate, but this combines that with elements of classic American rebellious behavior threatening our way of governing ourselves. 

 

  

Showdowns

 We'll start light but add weight below. 

Reds v. Braves - The collision of two hot teams Friday night--the Reds on an 11-game win streak and the Braves on a 7-game one of their own--produced what must surely be one of the great regular-season games of this increasingly vital season.  In the first of a three-game series, the Reds spotted Atlanta a 5-0 lead in the first inning, but had made it up by the third and took the lead.  Joey Votto's triumphant return featured here with two clutch homers, but it was newly-minted superstar Elly De La Cruz who hit for the cycle (homer, double, single, and a thrilling triple) who stole the show.  The Braves came up with back-to-back-to-back homers in the 8th, but Cincinnati held on for a 11-10 win. 

The second game was reversed, as the Reds' ninth-inning rally fell a run short, ending their best streak since the 19th century.  De La Cruz' cycle recalled the Reds' legendary great Eric Davis and that team filled with young stars that came from nowhere to win the 1990 World Series.  This team does have that capability to hit anyone, and their relief pitching is rising toward the quality level of those Nasty Boys of '90--they will need that, as despite some young talent, their starting pitching will never be enough in that ballpark.  I suspect Atlanta may make this rivalry look a bit more one-sided when the Reds visit Atlanta.

Alcaraz v. Djokovic - This is the indicated tennis final for the upcoming Wimbledon men's singles championship.  They are the clear #1 and #2; it's not easy to envision either losing prior to this showdown.  If the envisaged final happens, it will be decisive in establishing King of the Hill for the year.  Djokovic is trying to run victory laps in his Grand Slam competition with Federer and Nadal, and Carlos is ready to try to dislodge him, which a Wimbledon win should do. 

They are both all-around talents with all the shots, excellent tactical ability, and extraordinary court coverage (legs).  Initially, it seemed that Carlitos was just following in Rafael Nadal's Spanish steps, but I now see more similarity with Djokovic and his approach.  We may see in Wimbledon whether he can match his mental discipline. 

Prigozhin v. Gerasimov - The Russian head of the infamous Wagner mercenary force brought his feud with the incompetent, corrupt Russian Defense establishment out into the open, so much so that even brainwashed Russian citizens would notice it. Though dramatic, I would minimize it as having singular importance, being another example of the chaotic Russian war effort.  While Prigozhin's force moved through the interior of Russia in a way that was shocking, he shied away from confronting Putin himself.  And Putin, for his part, was willing to grant Prigozhin the favored exile status he has given other oligarchs in the past,  ones who do not challenge Vladimir's reign. 

But, in fact Prigozhin violated that trust, the understanding between superior and subordinate, and Putin, while sympathetic to his complaint, will not forgive. I would bet on the parlay that neither Prigozhin, nor the general in charge of the Ukraine campaign (Gerasimov)will survive beyond spring of 2024 in a form we would recognize as living.  

I would have to say that this moment--when Wagner is standing down and the Chechen forces were pulled back to counter the Wagner threat--must be the time for Ukraine to push forward with whatever offensive they can muster, against the weak spots that they identified or that suddenly emerge.  There is still the possibility of a rout, such as occurred on the other side of the Dneiper and in the Kharkiv area earlier on.  Barring that, I look for an armistice (not a peace deal) before winter. 

Trump v. DeSantis - Many of these matchups are in the genre I call "Alien vs. Predator", after the sequel movie pitting monsters.  One roots only for all involved to fall.  In this case, the Crueler than Thou policy competition favors "Marquis" DeSadeness over whiny, vengeful D'Head*  due to DeSantis' more targeted attack (vague though it is). This Republican campaign is beyond that, though-- Alien v. Predator v. King Kong v. Mothra v. Godzilla.  Shells flying in all directions. 

My betting on RNom on PredictIt, one of the few, but very salient, markets still traded there, is No on both headliners, looking for the combined second shoe from Jack Smith and Georgia's indictments to take the wind from Trump's back near year's end.  The opening will be too late for DeSantis, though; I see a path for a third person to snatch it, whoever that might be could hardly be worse than the winner of the current featured bout. 

Roe v. Wade - (Just to remind, "Roe" was the complainant seeking legal access to abortion; Wade represented those who would limit it) -  Wade picked up a significant win with the Dobbs decision; Roe countered with the '22 midterms.  Like Ali v. Frazier, the third showdown will have some finality, as the Democrats seemed determined to make it front-and-center, while the Republicans are playing up their pro-life credentials during this pre-primary season in a way that will make it hard for them to hide next November.  If the Democrats win in '24, Roe will gain some legislative backing, whereas if the GOP wins, the question will be simply whether there will be Federal prohibitions (the 15-week standard seems to be a consensus position for Republicans) or will a chaotic state-by-state mess remain. 

In the meantime, the numbers are starting to roll in for the first year of Wade's revival:  How many abortions averted, how many diverted, and how many lives ruined.   I would say it is more the awareness of the fragility of our personal rights that is the issue than those numbers, while on the right the danger of overreach is everpresent. 

Humans v. Gaia - This is one of those battles in which, the more you win, the more you lose.  We are definitely winning the climate change this season (as opposed to the embattled less-climate change faction).  Excessive rain, excessive temperature, and aggravated cyclonic storms are the themes for the "temperate" and "subtropical" zones (not sure about the arctic ones yet).  El Nino will ensure record global mean temperatures this year.  

Politically, the "we still have lots of fossil fuels, what's the hurry?" faction is ascendant. (Also here, right, Gov. Lujan Grisham?) The problems with relying too much on electricity to replace fossil fuels are many (batteries, grid leakage, the fossil fuel sourcing for much electricity).  Nuclear is raising its head in various forms to fill the gaps in timing from renewables, which will be a mixed response at best. 

I am encouraged by the recognition in some of the areas impacted by the current heat wave (in Arizona, Texas, and much of the Deep South) that these are problems that will recur.  One part of the answer is the establishment of public "cooling centers".  If we must air condition the masses, this is the efficient way to do it. 

I am not one who believes Gaia will aim for total annihilation of humanity in order to cleanse itself--She is wise enough to know that we will do it for ourselves, sooner or later.  We will survive our climate snafu, but the issue is, as always, quality of life.  In this our track record is poor and our current level (better than ever, but) vulnerable. 

* I have decided to cease referring to the Criminal Traitor Former President as "Dickhead", as the reference shows insufficient respect for the male organ.