In 1773 the Tea Tax was easily recognized as a trick to force colonists to buy the product of a single company whose inferior goods were overpriced. This led to rebellion and set off the 200 year decline of the British Empire, which was then at its peak.

Now, if you liked George III, you'll love Donald XLVII, whose tariff plan could have the same effect.

Consider this...

The adjacent "Fat Elvis" meme has been making the rounds. This version appeared recently on Farcebook.

Luckily, he's so vain that there are probably a million pictures of him, affording future meme-makers with a photo editor an infinite set of possibilities.

(Which leads me to the prospect of a debate moderator asking the "very large brain" to define an infinite set. But I digress...)

The distant shrieking about forgiveness of US government student loans is coming mostly from the moneyed class that managed the windfall surrounding the actual loans. In essence, banks and other financial institutions had an opportunity to take on the role of administrator for the government, which the "big-gub'mint" haters in Congress demanded for two reasons: (1) it required no or few new government employees, and (2) it created an income opportunity for their donors, some of which redounded no doubt to campaign contributions.

The principal of most of the loans that have been eligible for forgiveness (do your own research on the ratios) have already been paid back, in effect leaving only accrued interest to be paid. So the whining is mostly about loss of unearned income. So sad.

Speaking from personal experience of long ago and far away, an NDSL student loan of about $6,000 (about $51,000 today) supplemented my savings and enabled me to go to grad school, after which my annual income nearly doubled. I then paid higher taxes at a higher rate on the higher amount for 30 years totalling much more than the amount of the loan. The nation earned a substantial return on investment, and I got a jump-start, and I believe a more interesting life.

The importance of the near-global immunity decision is not whether it impacts the re-election of the Fifth Avenue Fratboy.

Our recent former President has a well established pattern of impelling others to do his bidding (read "dirty work") to keep his own hands clean. He makes no notes, sends no email and, recently at least, has apparently learned not to record conversations.

The new SCOTUS position is part of the "unitary executive" theory (read "wet dream") of the far right. It holds that there is no daylight between an action of a President and an action of a subordinate doing that President's bidding. The result is that keeping his hands clean is no longer required.

Continues...

The USA has about 336,000,000 inhabitants (persons, residents...). The House of Representatives currently has 435 members from states and a few more from other territories; the Senate has 100 members, two for each state.

The smallest state by population is Wyoming with about 580,000 inhabitants, represented by 3 persons; the largest is California with about 39 million, represented by 55 persons. This means in effect that the voting power of one person in Wyoming 3/580K is equal to 55/38000K, or about 280 times as great. It's easy to make a case that this is disproportional, to say the least. There are some who say that people in Wyoming are inherently wiser than those who live elsewhere; all of the former live in Cody. ????

Continues...

12 August 2024 — Gerard Baker wrote in that bastion of fuzzy liberal thinking, the Wall Street Journal, last week that...

"We need to talk about Donald.

"We can complain all we like, as I have, that the coronation of Kamala Harris by deceitful Democrats and a complaisant media is depriving voters of any understanding of what they are being asked to vote for in November. But we can’t ignore the giant Republican problem either: None of us are in any doubt what we are being asked to vote for on the Republican ticket.

"I watched [his recent so-called press conference"] in its entirety and then, perhaps hoping that the written version (transcript) might yield hidden intelligence not evident to the ear, read the transcript of the press conference Donald Trump held at Mar-a-Lago last week. Houston, we have a problem.

"By my calculation, about one-third of Mr. Trump’s remarks fell into three categories: false, obtuse or lunatic."

WSJ article

It occurs to me that just as the Republicans love saying "Democrat Party" intending a slur, it might be appropriate to start calling the GOP "Die Republikanishe Partei." If you're struggling for the meaning, think 1933 and the swell group of fellows who took over then and there.

A delightful by-product is that "The Republican Party is large" translates to "Die Republikanische Partei ist groß (pron. gross)," which says so much. See Project 2025 and The Wit and Wisdom of Joseph Göbbels for further comparison.

My college German has finally paid off.

And while I'm on the subject, I was reminded by my son of a certain phrase adopted enthusiastically by a political party that dominated Germany from 1933 to 1945. The phrase "Kinder, Küche, Kirche" (kids, kitchen, church) expressed the official view of women's role in society.

Fast forward to JD Vance 2025 (excuse me, 2024, I get so confused, after all I'm only six weeks younger than Joe B, and JD and "2025" are so very much in tune). In JD's view women should stay home and abide by their husbands' wishes. One wonders whether Usha V, lady lawyer and all-around professional, might someday be the next Lorena Bobbit.

More about KKK

The following headline caught my attention: "In SC, local school officials won’t have final say on books bans. Who has the power?" I was intrigued because in 1954-56, I did.

At least to a certain extent. My mother was then the "supervisor of instructional materials" and the school district librarian in my home town in California. The largest elementary school contained in its basement the book storage and processing functions for the whole district. It was a 1920s building with six-foot-thick concrete walls that was 70ºF inside when the outdoor summer temperature was more like 100º.

A couple of days each week I would go with my mother to work and we would open boxes of state textbooks and also new library books from many sources, all selected mostly by my mother with OK from the superintendent and director of education (it was then a small district with 100s not 1000s of students and around 50 teachers).

I think she paid me 25¢ per hour out of her own pocket. Each quarter was enough for a Saturday matinee along with a soft drink, popcorn or candy at the local movie house.

In addition, publishers would send her a stream of samples, and she would bring them home and ask me to read and criticize. I have no idea how many literary careers I made or broke. (No, I don't imagine it was much above zero.)

This went on for two or three years, so by the time I was in sixth grade I had read most of the fiction and non-fiction that could be found in the district's K-8 classrooms and libraries, pretty much anything except math, which for me always required a helping hand from a teacher. In some ways this was also a negative experience, as I read much less in high school than many of my classmates.

The point of this story is that in context I was just as qualified to play that role as any of the bluenoses and ideologues who demand to be allowed to overrule educators in today's overheated political society. I knew nearly all of those 50 teachers and would have trusted them implicitly. My exploration of the bookshelves was fun, and nothing bad happened.

South Carolina story

Many US voters have touted their Christian beliefs and conflated them with their role as citizens and voters. It may be instructive for non-Christians and a remider for the faithful to consider some ways Christians are expected to act in society. The lessons are obvious, whether one is a believer or not.

1. Lying

The Bible includes several teachings that prohibit lying or bearing false witness. Here are a few key references:

Old Testament

Exodus 20:16 - "You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor." This is part of the Ten Commandments, emphasizing the prohibition against bearing false witness.

Leviticus 19:11 - "Do not lie. Do not deceive one another." This verse emphasizes the general prohibition against lying and deceit among the Israelites.

Proverbs 12:22 - "The Lord detests lying lips, but he delights in people who are trustworthy." This highlights God's attitude towards falsehood and the value of honesty.

New Testament

Colossians 3:9-10 - "Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator." This New Testament passage underscores the importance of truthfulness among Christians.

Now consider Candidate One, who has been documented to have told as many as 30,000 lies or at least repeated as many untruths during a former tenure of office of four years. That's more than one lie or prevarication every minute.

2. Divorce & Fidelity

The Bible does not categorically prohibit divorce but sets strict conditions around it. In the Old Testament, divorce is regulated, while in the New Testament, Jesus significantly restricts the grounds for divorce, reserving it to cases of sexual immorality. The overarching biblical principle is that marriage is intended to be a permanent, lifelong covenant, and divorce is generally discouraged except under specific circumstances. Despite this ambiguity of scripture, Christians have long foresworn or prohibited divorce, and it has been impossible or difficult to obtain a divorce in most US states until recent decades.

Now consider that the only presidents who were or have been divorced are St. Ronnie of the Movies and Candidate One.

3. Communion and Outreach

St. Paul called on believers to commune often with the faithful and to reach out to people of all nations with the Good News of Jesus' life, sacrifice, and message of faith.

Candidate One, who has routinely portrayed himself as a man of God, has had to deal with a competing tweet from an actual man of God. According to HuffPost, Pastor David Lewicki took to Twitter ... to state that not only was he pastor of New York City’s Marble Collegiate Church for about five years where Candidate One was on the member rolls, he’d never seen Candidate One at the church. Not at Bible study, not a service. Never.

4. Altruism and Selflessness

Jesus identified Peter as his second, with a charge to lead the faithful should Jesus falter or die. When Peter was challenged to keep the faith, he denied Christ, yet Jesus forgave him and willingly accepted death as the price of transcendence.

The US Constitution identifies the Vice-president for the same role. When Candidate One was challenged by electoral defeat, he encouraged the mob to destroy his vice-president to preserve himself.

Conclusions

• Candidate one is a serial liar.
• Candidate One is an unfaithful spouse.
• Candidate One falsely claims devotion.
• Candidate One is a feckless friend.
• Candidate One is no Jesus.

BTW, this is from a non-believer. Being a true Christian takes a better man than I.

Please give "MAGA Christians" the credit they deserve. After all, they have not read the Old Testament and not read the New in nearly equal proportions — no small accomplishment.

From not reading the Old they concluded that forming and sustaining a cohesive nation was unnecessary.

From not reading the New they concluded that putting the needs of others before one's own was a threat.

The benefits and joy of not reading are endless.

A friend recently posted on Farcebook a scene from "the wonder years*" showing boys learning to repair cars. My favorite cousin, who taught industrial arts for 30 years would have agreed. Interesting nostalgia, of course, but it's not a useful prescription for today's students.

Virtually all parts of modern automobiles and other manufactured goods are tooled by robots, and over half cannot be repaired and must be replaced by another component tooled by robots. "No user-serviceable parts inside" is emblazoned on nearly all products, automotive or otherwise. Furthermore, manufacturers have often been shown to design and build unserviceability and obsolescence into their products.

Manufacturing now consists of operating the robots, which requires not manual but logical and mathematical education. Everything from toasters to spaceships is "repaired" by throwing away the dysfunctional parts and plugging in replacements. Chimpanzees could probably be trained for those tasks.

Those who do work with their hands are falling ever further behind economically. The ratio between productivity and wages shows most new income and wealth going to the financial and administrative sectors of all modern economies (see chart). Real wages (salary plus benefits) for manufacturing and service workers alike have flattened since the 1970s. In other words those who manage the system are diverting most new benefits to themselves.

Right now, the few own much and the rest own little. It does not take an advanced degree in economics to understand that extrapolating these trends will inexorably lead to a time in which the few own all and the rest own nothing.

I suggest that courses in mathematics, civics, economics and politics might do more for those boys' descendants than studying how to plug in components.

Finally, one notes that all the students depicted are male. At the same time in the 50s, girls were being taught to cook, clean and sew. My guess is that few young women would sign up for that life today.

* The TV show The Wonder Years was partially filmed in my home town, a visual metaphor for the 1950s.

A recent article in the Washington Post begins. "Donald Trump and his allies have begun mapping out specific plans for using the federal government to punish critics and opponents should he win a second term, with the former president naming individuals he wants to investigate or prosecute and his associates drafting plans to potentially invoke the Insurrection Act on his first day in office to allow him to deploy the military against civil demonstrations."

The author alludes to finding sycophants who would to Trump's bidding instead of appointing qualified persons. This typical totalitarian process inevitably leads to a series of consequences.

1. The first round of accomplices puts in place the leader's immediate goals while subordinating organs of state violence to his will.
2. They then start to insert their own objectives in the name of the leader, some of which may be consistent with the leader's stated goals.
3. They find lesser officials who do their bidding, thinking it will please the Leader, while in fact it also increases the authority of the lesser authorities.
4. This process continues, creating ever more layers of power, until police can call for "your papers" and punish all who fail to obey their personal whims.
5. Arbitrary, temporary objectives supersede the actual goals of the top echelon.
6. Each echelon first attempts to apply their derivative power to its own goals, until they become threats to the cult leader and must be eliminated.

It does not matter which end of the political spectrum is in power; the totalitarian pattern is the same. Need examples: Look up Ernst Roehm (Röhm) and Leon Trotsky.

Eventually the system collapses and society becomes either ripe for democracy or a Kafkaesque nightmare. Either can take (or waste) generations.

Those Americans who believe this is a desirable future will vote Orange in 2024.

––––––––––

RE Stalin associates: https://www.rbth.com/history/332961-stalins-closest-comrades

RE Hitler associates: https://historycollection.com/today-history-hitler-purges-political-rivals-1934/

Washington Post article

Speaker Mike Who wants women to bear children who will be cannon fodder for industry. His motivation is perhaps not consistent with the times, but if indeed there's a need for workers, there's a simple variant in the form of guaranteed annual income for the baby mamas: Support women and the children to a point at which they will be desirable employees, provide for Mom after "retirement" and send the bill to the industries that will benefit.

Example: Pay Mom $2500/month (Seattle min. wage) plus $500/month per child, to a maximum of three (so that they get good care) through age 21, plus a lifetime pension of the same amount, since she will have developed no work skills and will be over 50 when the last child leaves.

(I'll save you the trouble of the fourth grade arithmetic: For three children,
Mom's stipend $750,000
Pension $900,000
Medicare $750,000
Children's stipend (3) $378,000
Total $2,778,000.
Divided by three gets industry adult, trained workers for $926,000 each.)

Amortized over a 40 year career, that's $23,150 per year, which is less than the current average cost of hiring a new worker in the USA, which the employment company SHRM estimates* at $180,000 for every median-income worker.

This is a great deal for industry! Speaker Who is no doubt to be congratulated, though there are those who might doubt the thoroughness with which he thought through his own randomly spewed notion.

What a joy to have a Speaker of the House who is so concerned for the mothers of America!

Cost of recruitment

OK, that headline is a bit much, but Patrick Henry would surely forgive us.

If the Ds spend 2024 arguing about gender pronouns, the nation is doomed, perhaps along with humanity. Trump or some other petty trumpeteer will cave to Putin; who will then invade all the former satellites and bring the EU to a halt within a modern Maginot line. China will invade Taiwan and then Japan on its way to Australia and finally India. Update: And Hamas will score additional propaganda victories.

Feel like voting yet? I could go on.

Only a resolute statement of principles, followed by a D victory this year, backed by Joe Biden in full battle mode for the remainder of his term before his victory in 2024 or his retirement in 2025 can keep the system working, including expanding the Court by both congressional and presidential action. Anything else leads inexorably to abandon ship and every man for himself. It's 1933 and 1942 all over again, but this time Pogo is right; the enemy is us.

The alternative requires only showing up in November and persuading like minds to do the same. You might ask what else you might do, but we won't demand that of you.

UPDATED 23 OCT 2023 to extend applicability to 2024, as nothing much has changed.

The very large mouth has roared again, echoing a famous book from the 1920s. Turns out studying languages even 60 years on allows one to verify suspicions, though "vergiften das Blut" is not hard to grasp.

Confirmation