Year-end accounts of the U.S. economy are very strong indeed. According to Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal—which are certainly not giddy media outlets—U.S. economic output has jumped more than 7% in the last three months of 2021. Overall growth for 2021 should be about 6%, and economists predict growth of around 4% in 2022—the highest numbers the U.S. has seen in decades. China’s growth in the same period will be 4%, and the eurozone (which is made up of the member countries of the European Union that use the euro) will grow at 2%.
Once again. HCR has provided fact-based, objective analysis of what is going on in our country. As many have stated, she is a national treasure. I worry that she cannot keep up the pace she has set for herself, so that I (we) can be informed.
It is heartening to see that intellectual hard work is being recognized by a growing segment of our society. May it continue to reach, albeit too slowly, the bastions of illogical, uninformed thought in our country.
In my opinion, she and her “Letters From An American” should have been recognized as Time’s Person of the Year!
We have all this focus on Senator Manchin the past week, but as one MSNBC commentator pointed out the problem is the 50 Republicans who are obstructing President Biden's agenda. It now feels like instead of focusing on Manchin maybe we should spend some time changing the math in the Senate and find the Senators like perhaps Alaska's Senator Murkowski and others that are detecting the waning of tfg's hold on the GQP. Statements like Senator McConnell saying bad things happened on Jan. 6th and Americans need to know about it. And tfg not being able to fill large stadiums on his recent tour. Surely there are two moderate, sane, courageous R Senators that could be the Cheney and Kizzinger of the Senate. That's all it would take to override the vetos of Senators Sinema and Manchin. I'm also hopeful that President Biden who knows the Senate so well has a plan for changing Senate rules without the two hold-outs. Between the revelations of the Jan. 6 committee, a strong economy that will not be ignored, and some tricky but doable math in the Senate the new year 2022 is going to start out well ... and end well in November. The R's have gone too far in ignoring the will of the People. Just like the Christmas is three days after the Winter Soltice when ancients realize the days were getting longer, the Winter of Autocracy just may be turning into the Spring of Democracy.
Winston Churchill, after an uplifting British victory in the midst of a massive, prolonged crisis, stated “This is not the end, nor is it the beginning of the end, but it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.’”As President Biden and the Democrats conclude a topsy-turvy 2021, I hope that Churchill’s remarks apply to the Biden administration in 2022. Our democracy may depend on this.
In my experience, any Churchill quote bears repeating. He certainly knew adversity and what it was like to face powerful evil, even having the head of his country in league with the enemy at one point. He also felt the rejection of his countrymen after his success. Yet he persevered…
It was a Churchill quote, said at the Casablanca Conference in January 1943, following the US invasion of North Africa and the British Eighth Army's victory over Rommel at El Alamein.
Richard Ha ha. “It ain’t over ‘til the fat lady sings.’ This reminds me of Kate Smith and God Bless America, which had been dropped from Irving Berlin’s WW I Yip Yip Yap Hank (or something close— I hadn’t been born then). It was resurrected at Kate’s request. As a Philly boy I remembered Kate singing this. (Kate and my great aunt once put on a performance in a Baptist church.)Much later her recording was used at Philly ice hockey games and in some baseball stadiums. Then some naysayers found something in her past that has resulted in her being dropped at sporting events. When will vigilantes discover that Judy Garland performed black face in a movie more than 70 years ago? No more Over the Rainbow? AWWWK
Thanks, Keith. Ah, the things we learn from other readers of HCR's LFAA! I remember seeing and hearing Kate Smith back in the 1950s and 60s. When I heard Yogi make his famous fat lady quote, I instantly remembered her. My folks loved her. That's when I lived in Maine. Now I live about 90 miles west of Philly in York. I don't remember any of the Boston teams playing her version of God Bless America, but they may have. For me anyway, I'm glad we don't hear that song sung much at sporting events.
BTW, Philly guy, I'm listening to the WXPN annual Christmas Eve 24 hours of many different kinds of Christmas music. You might want to check it out. They've even played some from Bob Dylan's Christmas album from a few years ago!
Exactly what I have been thinking. The media is so prejudiced and missing the point of the Republican obstructionism! I have personally committed to calling Murkowski Collins and Romney every day to tell them to support voting rights bills and save our democracy. If we all call them and tell others perhaps our voices can be heard. I call after hours and leave a message so I don’t need to give my out of state address
Hi everyone. Does anyone else have a list of other republicans. Senators to call ? Perhaps those retiring ? Might as well add to my call list. And yours.
Well said Cathy and S. Mikelle! Let's get beyond Manchin and focus on creating cracks in the republican obstruction...wherein lies the problem. Flood the media with the good news about the economy every day in every way! Immediately change the White House/Democratic party PR dept. to shout out the good new! Let's see billboards, fireworks, well-known folks featured in daily interviews....all celebrating the amazing things that are happening- hammer it, shout it coast to coast. Leave no room for the obstructors!
"Let's see billboards, fireworks, well-known folks featured in daily interviews....all celebrating the amazing things that are happening- hammer it, shout it coast to coast." YES KATHY!!
Would love to see it. Maddog pac does great billboards, there are plenty of well-known folks who have spoken out against the lying bastards, amplify them. Just look at what the liars do, but tell the good news. Hey, ATT, would you like to fund a truth enterprise someday??? Maybe OAN wasn’t such a good idea, or are we down the rabbit hole?
But make certain to claim Democratic credit for it ... and point out that almost without exception, Republicans at all levels have opposed the measures which create this progress. Yes, create those cracks in Republican obstruction, and expand them with increased voter registration on the part of women and persons of color! Just a bit more than ten months remain till Election day!
If only, does the WH/Dem party have a PR department? I don’t think so, considering the inane emails that flood my inbox ad nauseam. I have to figure out who to donate to totally ignoring the “Dem messaging.”
Thanks for your post, Cathy. Emperor Constantine was a 1st millennial Trump, but smarter, coopting the scared little Jesus followers into a state religion, giving them land and money and making them bureaucrats. He himself was a follower of the sun god, Sol Invictus, making a huge statue to himself when he captured what became Constantinople. The Sol Invictus always had a halo, which is how the executed Jewish rabble rouser got his halo in every other depiction of him for the past 2000+ years. That's how Jesus got to share his birthday with the Sun God.
As a theologian and a child of (much of the still morally corrupt) "Land o' Cotton," I place the blame for 2000 years of hatred against the jewish people at the feet of the "holy christian and apostolic church." By the way, Constantine had himself baptized just a few hours before he died - just to be on the safe side.
No fan of Constantine and his attitude toward Jews, and certainly no fan of Trump, but it was generally the case at that time that Christians delayed baptism until right before death. And he did not make Christianity the state religion, he simply made it one of the recognized faiths within the Roman Empire (Edict of Milan, if memory serves).
The reason for the delay was that it was dangerous to declare one’s Christian faith through baptism. The edict of Milan changed that. Constantine wasn’t in danger- just hedging his bets…
oooh. Love,¨Just like the Christmas is three days after the Winter Soltice when ancients realize the days were getting longer, the Winter of Autocracy just may be turning into the Spring of Democracy.¨
I’ve been thinking the same! E.g., Maine voted for Biden, and Collins ought to be acting wracked with guilt over Kavanaugh. Why can’t we pressure her to support Build Back Better?
It’s kind of hard to get too enraged by Manchin as “corrupt” when he is actually doing what his voters demand. 🤷🏻♀️
I think Manchin is operating more on what his wealthy donors want vs. the general W. Virginia voters. However, it is entirely possible the W. Virginian constituents are clueless about what is in the bill, how it works to their benefit and therefore vote for Manchin out of ignorance.
[TRIANGLE, VA.] United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) International President Cecil E. Roberts issued the following statement today:
“The United Mine Workers and Senator Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) have a long and friendly relationship. We remain grateful for his hard work to preserve the pensions and health care of our retirees across the nation, including thousands in West Virginia. He has been at our side as we have worked to preserve coal miners’ jobs in a changing energy marketplace, and we appreciate that very much.
“The Build Back Better (BBB) legislation includes several items that we believe are important for our members and their communities – some of which are part of the UMWA’s Principles for Energy Transition we laid out last spring.
“The bill includes language that would extend the current fee paid by coal companies to fund benefits received by victims of coal workers’ pneumoconiosis, or Black Lung. But now that fee will be cut in half, further shifting the burden of paying these benefits away from the coal companies and on to taxpayers.
“The bill includes language that will provide tax incentives to encourage manufacturers to build facilities in the coalfields that would employ thousands of coal miners who have lost their jobs. We support that and are ready to help supply those plants with a trained, professional workforce. But now the potential for those jobs is significantly threatened.
“The bill includes language that would, for the first time, financially penalize outlaw employers that deny workers their rights to form a union on the job. This language is critical to any long-term ability to restore the right to organize in America in the face of ramped-up union-busting by employers. But now there is no path forward for millions of workers to exercise their rights at work.
“For those and other reasons, we are disappointed that the bill will not pass. We urge Senator Manchin to revisit his opposition to this legislation and work with his colleagues to pass something that will help keep coal miners working, and have a meaningful impact on our members, their families, and their communities.
“I also want to reiterate our support for the passage of voting rights legislation as soon as possible, and strongly encourage Senator Manchin and every other Senator to be prepared to do whatever it takes to accomplish that. Anti-democracy legislators and their allies are working every day to roll back the right to vote in America. Failure by the Senate to stand up to that is unacceptable and a dereliction of their duty to the Constitution.”
Especially powerful, to my mind, is Michael Tomasky's article in the New Republic that you cite. Love the "plain speak" that he writes. Thanks (morning!), Ellie.
Excellent sources! Thank you Ellie! West Virginians voters DO support Build Back Better. Let us support their efforts. (BTW, I worked in West Virginia with a wonderful social worker, Susan Cocchiarella. Taught me so much before she died too young).
There are people living in shacks and subsisting on Mtn Dew (sorry) who would die before supporting a Democrat. Saw an article about this a year or so ago.
Damn, I thought it was Oxycontin. Guess Mtn Dew is cheaper. things sure have changed since Dolly Parton grew up in Appalachia. "What's The Matter With... W. Va." Manchin is a start
Manchin’s net worth is supposedly $7.6 million. If that is the case, how does he afford a big yacht and a Maserati? That is a small net worth for such a lavish lifestyle.
I did a little sleuthing just now. According to Politico, he paid $220k for the yacht (which he calls a houseboat). That, plus a monthly docking fee, would be pretty cheap digs in DC. Re the Maserati, it probably cost around $80k. Maybe he’s leasing it. Would we feel so outraged if it were a Mercedes or BMW instead? In any case, that’s how he can afford it.
Kathy, it is indeed a houseboat, as he calls it. Anyone who has been around vessels of any sort would never call Manchin's vessel a yacht. Living on his houseboat while in DC shows a good bit of common sense on his part. (That's the nicest thing I can say about the man.)
Years ago, I had the amazing good fortune to be invited to stay on a friend’s boat in Monaco during the Grand Prix. This boat was a converted tugboat, not a big white gleaming yacht. But the level of luxury was out of this world. Looks can be deceiving. But I agree, it seems sensible to me.
It’s all about the words, it’s not a yacht which implies a great deal of wealth, it’s a houseboat probably built on a pair of aluminum pontoons to keep it afloat, they are very common on the larger lakes here in the South, where no one calls them a yacht.
You are right on both counts, $220k for a 60’ houseboat is probably about average and certainly cheaper than a condo at Watergate, it’s a smart move and he’s on the water, you can spend way more than what his Maserati cost on any number of European cars, more than twice easily.
Words matter and unless the Democrats can figure out how to use them they will loose the next two elections which given the health of the economy they should be able to win. I’m tired of hearing Joe Scarborough talk about the police being beaten with American Flags, flags are made out of cloth, you don’t beat anyone with a piece of cloth, a flagpole is a different story.
Thanks for the info. There is a difference between a houseboat and a yacht. I get that he should be able to drive whatever he can afford. It just seems to me that the optics of his choices are bad.
Janet, Though I can’t speak for what Manchin’s West Virginia constituents largely know or don’t know, having just spoken to some folks who live in his State, I was told 1) Manchin probably is the only Democrat who could win a State-wide election and 2) he is highly unlikely to win re-election in 24. The reasons given were 1) the state has become increasingly red and 2) Manchin largely has lost the support of his constituents.
Please don’t say that. Manchin has voted with Biden 97% of the time. He is one of 50 reasons we got the American rescue plan, record number of federal judges, why Biden had a functional cabinet and other political appointees confirmed, why the Senate isn’t a clown show of fake senate investigations of Biden, wasting millions of dollars and horrible amounts of time...
It’s a wonder then, at 74, why he would not choose to go down in flames and provide approval for a plan that would significantly help his constituents?!?!
S. Mikelle, My understanding is that West Virginians largely are asking for jobs, healthcare, childcare, housing, and tax relief, all of which are part of Biden’s BBB agenda, the bill from which Manchin, this past Sunday, withdrew his support.
Your understanding is correct as far as I can tell. I am currently in WV visiting our daughter who is in grad school at WVU in Morgantown. She, as well as many of her MFA cohort, are older, (30s – 40), have prior professional experience in fields as diverse as journalism, engineering, and teaching, and have dealt with the issues/concerns you've cited as independent adults. Several are WV natives. In conversation with these folks, all agree that the issues you've cited are critical in providing West Virginians the opportunity to improve the overall quality of life in WV.
Well, Mike, several are grad students in their 30s & 40s, some have left lucrative fields to return to school to get an MFA. (Horrors, the ARTS!) They are in a fully funded program teaching 2 sections a semester for a stipend of about 16.5k a year. 16.5k down from whatever they made in their pre- student life. Discussions of things like SNAP and the horrific housing prices in Morgantown are common. The lucky ones can afford to live alone.
But you're right, my venom spouting, right wing in-laws think the fact that our 40 year old daughter traded in a "real" job to commit to a 3 year writing program is ludicrous and useless. sigh.
Daria, we’ve learned here from you, those in-laws are entirely too self-absorbed and $$$-focused to even understand your daughter’s so-meaningful MFA journey!
But neither of you are responding to what I said. The idea that Republicans support what’s in the build back better plan is completely unrelated to whether they actually support the plan.
My red family supports nearly all the ideas in the build back better plan, but constantly rage against it as “communist.”
Frankly, S, it is difficult to follow the OP and thread due to the length. I apologize for not responding directly to you but to comments nested under your OP.
My red family does not support BBB because it is a Dem proposal. They'd rather chew glass than support anything with a blue stamp on it. Republicans can voice support of the BBB plan but if they don't vote for it they really don't support it.
Didn't I read recently that "his voters" desperately needed the perks the Biden plan would give them (dying, miserable coal mine jobs with a Black lung payoff) but don't get it that they are cutting off their own future?
Here's a comment on HCR from Carla of West Virginia on 12-21-22 re: poverty and voting:
"Are you familiar with poverty? Are you familiar with actual vote counts? Not everyone who lives in the state of West Virginia has voted for Senator Manchin. Why do others suspect those who live in poverty? How many do not vote because they are working three jobs? How many do not vote because they do not have transportation to a polling place? How many do not vote because they cannot afford gas in their car, if they have a car? How many are hungry and do not have the education to figure out how to get themselves out of despair? Order a little book by Kathy Manley called, "Don't Tell Them You Are Cold." Read that and then you may begin to understand. Have you known your grandparents? Do you have Christmas memories of them? Well, I do not. One grandfather was murdered in a coal camp and his killer did not go to jail due to being protected by the coal operators and the railroad operators. Another grandfather slept on an outdoor porch to grab gulps of air before he died of Black Lung and he didn't even "go deep" into the mines, he maintained the railroads used in the mines. Perspective is everything."
So basically, W Virginia remains a very red state because only the “privileged” are voting; only those who don’t need the benefits of the BBB plan are able to get to the polls. This makes sense, and on every level is both sad and disturbing.
Excellent perspective. Those of us (myself included) who have never experienced abject poverty can, at times, be a little (unintentionally) harsh with our judgement and words about ignorance. HCR and fellow Substack commentators help expand the thought process.
IMO the state of W. Virginia (where my husband's paternal grandmother was from) has been exploited by Manchin who only panders to the wealthy who have made him financially rich. It truly is a very sad political state of affairs that exists in too many places.
Rosalind - Yes, that is true. The tax that funds the black lung payments expires at the end of the year. The BBB bill loud extend that for 4 years (I believe). But you bet that info isn’t being conveyed to West Virginians.
I think it is now... and that’s why Manchin agreed to negotiate, in hopes the public perspective could shift. But I don’t think we’re there yet. The effect of the hand waving towards the bill with screams that it is packed with socialism are pretty hard to unwind.
S. Mikelle you should check out the post by Carla from Tuesday’s letter. She quotes Amy Jo Hutchison, a WV activist and founder of Rattle the Windows. Ms. Hutchison speaks about moms being able to buy food and care for their families because of the Child Tax Credit and other provisions in the BBB. Manchin is concerned about his wealthy donors and his Big Pharma CEO daughter, who helped raise EpiPen prices exponentially. Manchin represents a poor state whose voters NEED the type of benefits in BBB. Yet he lives on a YACHT in the Potomac and drives a MASERATI around Washington. I can’t even believe the awful optics of that!!!!
Here's a comment on HCR from Carla of West Virginia on 12-21-22 re: poverty and voting:
"Are you familiar with poverty? Are you familiar with actual vote counts? Not everyone who lives in the state of West Virginia has voted for Senator Manchin. Why do others suspect those who live in poverty? How many do not vote because they are working three jobs? How many do not vote because they do not have transportation to a polling place? How many do not vote because they cannot afford gas in their car, if they have a car? How many are hungry and do not have the education to figure out how to get themselves out of despair? Order a little book by Kathy Manley called, "Don't Tell Them You Are Cold." Read that and then you may begin to understand. Have you known your grandparents? Do you have Christmas memories of them? Well, I do not. One grandfather was murdered in a coal camp and his killer did not go to jail due to being protected by the coal operators and the railroad operators. Another grandfather slept on an outdoor porch to grab gulps of air before he died of Black Lung and he didn't even "go deep" into the mines, he maintained the railroads used in the mines. Perspective is everything."
Collins has no spine at all. Getting her to support a democratic initiative is impossible. She goes with the flow, and VERY rarely may vote her conscious, especially if her best friend Murkowski does.
Tough. Manchin is supposed to be leading the state and for the betterment of all. Not a good excuse when the welfare of the whole country is at stake. Times have changed and our leaders should be able to recognize that.
I continue to write to Susan Collins, offering her the opportunity to be a Margaret Chase Smith hero on voting rights and Build Back Better. She's thinking.....
Maybe we should hire Loren Boebert, since she is very likely for hire, to march back and forth on the stage, in tight jeans for the guys short attention spans to stay riveted on, ....
screaming about radical fascists taking over the country and how we, the people of GOD, need to TAKE BACK OUR COUNTRY, and end the video with a long .50 caliber machine gun fire clip?
It seems to be working on the right, so, let's start trying this stuff on the left. We just need a Loren Boebert leftist willing to appear completely nuts on stage, in tight jeans, in front of a camera. (the tight jeans are key, even guys who mostly don't listen will tune in).
There must be ONE young woman leftist somewhere that can scream and rant and prance?
Most leftist young women have more self respect than Boebert which is why you will likely never see one staggering across the stage at a political rally wearing jeggings and come eff me pumps.
I totally agree. If the Republicans/Trumplicans didn't hold this obstructionist behavior in Congress, Munchin wouldn't even be a topic today. Media need to hold the obstructionists' behavior as responsible for not passing legislation to help our nation and save our democracy.
After watching what happened to Liz Cheney for daring to (novel idea) tell the truth, I doubt that any of the so-called moderates, such as Susan Collins, have the stomach to take this on. The only Senator who might have enough spine is Lisa Murkowski. She has already demonstrated that she can win by running as an independent, so the threats of the republican establishment carry less weight for her. But I also don't think she sees the social programs in the BBB agenda as being important to her. If there was something on the table that would benefit Alaska specifically, I could see her making a deal. But right now it is still much more likely that Democrats can find a way to get Manchin to agree to support some version of a scaled back BBB proposal.
Great economic news. It sounds like reality s starting to emerge from under the ice of The Big Lie. Hearing the truth is the best Christmas present anyone could wish for. Thank you, Heather for keeping us focussed on reality in 2021!
In the briefest of a conversation I had recently with a staunch angry old white guy Trumper (I am surrounded by them here in proud boy hood), he was railing about how Biden was "destroying this country". I asked how, by creating the strongest economy we've seen in decades, and hasn't his stock gone up? He had zero response and we left it at that.
Staunch angry old white guy … their sense of loss because of ‘these uppity minorities’ and because ‘women want what they shouldn’t want’ (so I’ve been told) is profound … that they have to compete with said minorities and women is the anger that fuels their allegiance to the big liar.
Their racism, their misogyny and their unwillingness to improve their own lot is the troika that is breaking the back of our of/by/for the people form of government.
Sadly, not all of them are old. How anyone hates someone else based on physical traits such as skin tone, the shape of facial features, hair texture, etc., confounds me.
'Sense of loss?' Isn't that just a euphemism? They're just plain furious at the thought that the privilege they've so reveled in forever might have to be shared. Not lost, just shared. Keeping 'em ( women and any 'others') in their place perpetuates their sole ownership of privilege, which they see as threatened by uppity woke liberals who think sharing is good.
"Destroying the country." I remember hearing that with Obama too (after Bush and co. got us into Iraq and the great recession.) And how horrific ACA was and they couldn't wait to demolish it when they got into power. We all know how that went. So much hot air.
I think one underrated factor in this is the pain some people suffer from saying the words, "I was wrong." It usually takes a crisis to get most people to say that, and a surprising number cannot say it at all.
I recall a conversation with an engineer I was managing (during a brief management stint, which was enough to tell me I won't do that again in this life), who had picked the wrong value for a resistor, and when we tested it -- it was connected to a swim-timer air-horn -- the resistor blew, and the horn went off at FULL volume for about one second before the board blew smoke and ended the agony. Everyone in the building thought it was an air raid, or a tornado warning, or a nuclear alert siren.
He could not admit that he'd made an error. I pushed it just a little, but then gave it up. He knew exactly what had "gone wrong," but he could not say the words, "I was wrong." I realized I'd hit a real psychological block in him. First time I'd ever seen it so clearly in a person.
Thanks for making this point. I've observed this failure in people for decades, including among some of my best friends. I think it may be a key to understanding the refusal of so many to accept the facts of -- you name the issue: vaccines, global warming, losing an election, etc.
So why is this good news not what influences peoples' perception of the economy? My thoughts on that:
1. The vast majority of Americans are as ignorant about economics as they are about world geography. They can lament that gasoline costs 'too much' at the pump with no idea of what affects gasoline production and markets.
2. We are inundated by ALL media with trivial and irrelevant information thought (by a lazy media feeding lazy minds) to reflect the state of the economy. So rising gas prices, BAD, because inflation, BAD. No concept of rising gas prices partly because more demand=more people out and about( good)/doing things(good)/earning money(good)/spending money(maybe good)......just cost more= bad because 'everybody says so.' 3. Bad news is believed and travels; good news is suspect and buried (the 'evil that men do' ..and all that).
3. Information overload, and the cacophony of competing megaphones distorts our sense of reality. We cannot process it all and still conduct our lives. What is plausible to many, given the amount of disinformation being scattered and absorbed indiscriminately, makes 'Alice in Wonderland' seem biographical rather than fictional.
Oh my. I do think you're right. A right wing cousin of mine moved there because ..direct quote... "it's like being in the 1950's where Ozzie and Harriet, a straight couple, raised kids to be polite."
And all POC and others "knew their place". All the problems existed underneath the surface, but we didn't have to see them. And the people in Idaho are polite, are they? Some of the news coming out of there doesn't sound very polite to me....just violent.
I guess I had lots of training as educator remaining civil while wanting to say nasty things. Now that I am retired, I have cut loose in some ways on Facebook. One of my ex-students said he would liked to have had me a teacher as I am now.
I wish that every citizen would read your astute overview of our economic situation at present. I, for one, am going to spread it far and wide! We need to know where we stand and the remarkable levels which President Biden has attained for us!
Exactly ! and on that note I wish the media would more consistently report on what’s working under Biden’s Leadership ! Report the truth and spread a little optimism while at it !
What we know, how we come to know it, and knowledge as the basis of doing the right thing - epistemology and ethics - define he human condition. Religion, philosophy, and science -whether we know things through revelation, reason, or perception - play a part.
We have wracked our brains as far back as we have a written record. We 'know' things in our guts, our heart, by our eyes, through our ears. I purposefully refer to body parts because scientific imaging is giving us a clearer picture of the physiological basis of not only how we know what we know, but also the degree to which we consciously decide what we do. And this is where it gets unsettling.
Because a lot is hidden from our consciousness. And although we are learning why negative statements have a more profound and lasting impact and why lies take hold, how to develop effective strategies and tactics for articulating and propagating factual knowledge has not caught up. In government, the best we can do is coming to consensus on the provisional truths of science and the contextual truths of history, through reasoned debate of the empirical evidence.
The Founders kept God out of the Constitution and religion out of the procedures of civic law, not only to protect us from the imposition of religious practices but the irrationalities of the religious mind set. The absolute truths of religion - the leap of faith - are best left to the pew snd prayer mat.
Republican small government is the lie which engendered the Republican big lie about the 2020 election - which sought not only to shrink government but to drown it. And that both have taken hold of what people think they know and what they should do, can be laid at the door of the door of the Republican politics of faith.
I am optimistic about the potential for politics and policies to answer challenges and crises. I am even optimistic about the possibility mitigating ignorance and irrationality. But I crack my teeth on the hard nut of what Hannah Arendt termed the banality of evil - the thoughtlessness of people who focus only on advancing their own interests with no concern for the horrors they set in motion which may consume their neighbors, communities, nation and even planet. Because God speaks to them through a Trump. That people will go to the mats, even electing a Trump, to save a fetus - with no thought to how the Republican agenda is destructive of all life.
I shuddered at your mention of Arendt's concept; I was possessed by her work when I was a student, trying to understand what I knew happened in Germany during my own lifetime. I often think of her conclusions after the Eichmann trial when I try to get my head around what's happening today. "Is it really happening again?" is a question that sometimes haunts me.
Yes. Having grown up in the shadow of the Holocaust and come of age in the activist 60s, I've spent decades resisting and objecting to too easy use of the appellation Nazi. The assumption hides as much as it reveals; what are the defining characteristics of Nazism and of the abuse at hand? what is the overlap? is using Nazi as a metaphor useful?
But ... the advent of the Republican Trump administration changed all that. I've spent a lifetime asking 'what would I have done?' Now I have to ask 'what will I do?'
Take Heart.
Here is a link to Ken Krimstein's website. He is author of the excellent graphic novel The Three Escapes of Hannah Arendt. (An excellent companion piece to Art Spiegelman's Maus.) A biography and depiction of the social and intellectual universe Arendt was a star in. (And if you ever doubted it , Take *That* Martin Heidegger! You Nazi You!)
Thank you for the references. I ordered Ken Krimstein's 'Three Escapes....' and Tim Snyder's graphic edition of 'On Tyranny'. My daughter grew up with graphic novels ( mainly Japanese) and I'm hoping these may excite her interest in a subject that seems so removed from her. I'll read them at any rate.
Only vaguely familiar with Claudia Koonz' work, but thought the Wikipedia piece was well done.
I appreciate your shift of concern from "What would I have done?" to "What can I do?" I end up thinking it's got to be something like "Keep on keeping on" and "share stories of how things worked when more people had more options because of the good things government actually did. " I'm a firm believer in the power of story telling. At 83 I can write postcards, send letters and the like, but my days of testifying at legislative hearings and marching in the streets are over. Trying to groom some young uns for that.
There are other ways to "know" things. Reading, the experience (riding a bike), etc, and some other things seem to be innate, don't you think? The Founders believed in the Natural Law of man? It seems to me that the cult Republicans and evangelicals are not thoughtless about what they are setting in motion but tied to fanaticism and violence, hatred and injustice and know exactly what they are doing. Religion(abortion issue) and nationalism are weapons being used by cult Republicans.
Thanks for this brief. A question to you if I might, given you spend time on CSpan. I gather from other comments and briefs that you find much of HCR's reporting to be accurate, though at odds with the weigh given in MSN. Are their members or trends you note in watching House and Senate members that you think we might want to pay attention to? I'm thinking of members from either party who might be leadership material or colleagues to further advance, especially among the younger, perhaps less charismatic or in-you-face types. Also, among the noise of the headline quotes, ideas and positions that may be important for us to be aware of; e.g., ideas supported across lines, reasons that seem representative of conservative theory which have some legitimacy in our building back our democratic agenda. I used to enjoy and learn from others providing and being questioned on their testimony in my olden days in the 1990s.
OK. Went through Senate list. These are people I routinely hear speak up and who I appreciate. No purity tests - can't say they've never made a vote I wouldn't like. I include Tammy Baldwin because you are in Wisconsin, but I don't hear her much. Most of these are middle aged or older. A few young people.
Michael Bennet, Ben Cardin, Catherine Cortez Masto, Tammy Duckworth, Dick Durbin, Masie Hirano, Angus King, Ed Markey, Patty Murray, Jon Ossoff, Gabriel Warnock, Elizabeth Warren, Sheldon Whitehouse.
lin, Quick note to confirm in third line from the bottom that you meant Raphael Warnock (GA). I ask because I view him as among our most gifted spokespersons on both voter protection safeguards and human infrastructure.
Oops. OMGosh. ThankYou! Got my good angels mixed up. (And after spending November 202O hand writing hundreds of letters to individual Georgia voters for Warnock!) Eek!
Good list as well. Hope fellow LFAAer pick this up. Worked with Patty Murray years ago and Tammy is quieter, smart, savy, and likes to get things done rather then being the show horse. Barnes from Milwaukee is making a pitch for Johnson's seat; peresonable, but not sure about his chops. Appreciate your picking Tammy. And, Klobachauer is in the Senate (Duh) so shouldn't be on your House list. Must be a holiday taking place in my brain.
As a volunteer for Obama, I was asked to go from Blue Maryland to a swing state. I ended up in Racine staying with the most wonderful people and dedicated community builders. We kept in touch and I went out there for several prepandemic elections. Got to campaign for and meet Tammy Baldwin. As you say.
Thanks will have to check with my Racine friends about Barnes. ABJ HaHa Anyone But Johnson. It's not *his* seat. Hopefully.
FYI I have a soft spot for The Squad, despite tyro missteps.
As an American Jew and clean line two states Israel and Palestine, I particularly welcome Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib as reality checks to Evangelical and AIPAC knee jerk support for unjust Israeli government policies.
AOC is not just a phenom - she seriously does her homework and I have never heard her grandstand on the floor. I have heard her quietly totally crush the evil and odious Wilbur Ross while he was obstructing oversight of the census by playing a disgusting mash up of feeble minded senility and rich old white man privilege. AOC is consistently formidable in her grasp of facts and focus on mission.
I would love to see a Sheldon Whitehouse - Hakeen Jeffries presidential ticket.
Have bold capped favorites.
JIM CLYBURN, Sheila Jackson Lee, Barbara Lee, Eric Swalwell, Ro Khanna, ZOE LOFGREN, Adam Schiff, Katie Porter, Joseph Neguse, ROSA DELAURO, HANK JOHNSON, Raja Krishnamoorthi, PRAMILA JAYAPAL, JAMIE RASKIN, JAMIE RASKIN, Bennie Thompson, Cori Bush, AOC, HAKEEN JEFFRIES, Jerold Nadler, CAROLYN MALONEY, Ritchie Torres, Tim Ryan, David Cicillini
Thank you. What about Klobuchar? Too collaborative? The other names I don't immediately recognize I will check up on. I agree with your impressions of some of the real minority names. Underappreciated, smart, no grandstanding.
Whew. I want to get back to you with a serious and useful reply. I listen on the radio while doing stuff around the house. And I am bad on names. I want to look at the CSpan archives a bit.
One of the really bad things the Clintons and Clinton DNC did was to suppress the development of a deep Democratic bench of presidential contenders - to give Hillary *her* chance. If not for Rep. James Clyburn winnowing the field of too old too new too outlier too outrageous contenders, 2020 would have been a lot like 2016. The only upside is real talent in Congress.
Interesting point about the Clintons. Old-school poles. Don't create competition until you need it. Look where that got us. Maybe because we came up with empty talent pools in state government positions and there was a big push for succession planning in the early 2000s, I have it would have been smart to really develop pools of talent for every seat, regardless of there being a choice incumbent. Two deep for each seat and you end up with worthwhile candidates who know the issues and a pool of appointees to fill executive positions in government or legislative leads or for the usual appointees that come with each new administration.
Oh well, it seems that a major problem is the messaging that people are hearing and it’s not just defining the cult. The big lie covers a lot of territory; Fox and clones never miss a chance to lie and misrepresent; MSM will “both sides” us into oblivion; and even the “Just the facts, Ma’am” PBS blathers against Joe much of the time. Propaganda works. Do we need a Minister of Anti-propaganda? Somebody needs to get the word out or it matters not what Dems are doing. Last week I heard my sensible gdaughter repeat a lie common on Fox re the speed with which the vaccines were produced. She had not heard of the work done on Ebola before Covid even reared it’s head. God knows what the young are being exposed to. We had better care…
Caring keeps us engaged......apathy is the silent weapon against democracy, certainly agree on that. The effectiveness.of propaganda depends on the willingness to receive it and lack of critical thinking. But I guess critical thinking must be attuned to truth somewhere. Thank goodness you are there for your granddaughter..
Book recommendation: Fiona Hill's There is No Place Here for You is like one of Heather's great articles relating history to our current time. Dr. Hill is the daughter of a coal miner in the North of England in decline and coal mines closing. She's describing West Virginia. Her triple comparison and parallels of Great Britian, the Soviet Union and the United States are eye opening. She describes President Reagan meeting in Moscow with Gorbachev in 1987. It brings back memories for me of being in the midst history in Berlin in June 1990 after the Wall had fallen in November but just a month before East and West Germany reunited in July and while the Bush Gorbachev summit was happening.
She was outstanding....confident, direct, non-defensive in the face of abusive, condescending verbal attacks by some members....she who had "forgotten" more than any of them would ever know about Russian and Trump maneuverings.
Her testimony is one thing that encouraged me to seek out facts and truth. When I heard her speak I started looking for other words like hers, and found LFAA.
I just finished reading this last night. She is brilliant, and does a masterful job of describing what it was like in the WH during tRump's reign. And that description is damn scary. I'm surprised this country is doing as well as it is given the 4 years of lunacy.
Many thanks to my sister, Joanne, who sends me a steady supply of important books like Fiona Hill's, with instructions to "Read this and pass it on." I will check with my friends to see if it is still circulating. And thanks, Cathy, for all you do.
Agreed. I am recommending it to everyone interested in an overview of what the parallel 2oth century political histories of GB, USSR and US. Totally fascinating, very balanced. Should be required reading in the Senate!!!
As a former investment professional (analyst/portfolio manager) I found the general public often underestimated the strength and overestimated the weakness of the U.S. economy. When I started out at Fidelity in the late 1970's, a couple of the fund managers told me my undergraduate degree in psychology would serve me better than my MBA in "understanding" group behavior and the vagaries of the stock market (this was before algorithms which can greatly skew the ups and downs of economic fundamentals).
HCR very succinctly summarizes the good macro economic news yet people remain woefully uninformed (intentionally or unintentionally). In my world that lack of understanding provided investment opportunity. Unfortunately, political ignorance has very different and dire consequences.
Media coverage of the economy has been shameless. Successes have been consistently underplayed. In my long life I've never seen a situation where people had so much choice in finding work. Are there still problems? Sure. We're still in a pandemic. But let's celebrate big achievements.
In the face of such economic success, this is one hot mess. The MSM is terribly wrong for its pillorying of Biden. You didn't mention Manchin, but his lies and obfuscations muddy the waters of truth. May the force be with the Jan 6 Commission and their work to open the can o' worms!
I wrote them today saying that many of us will hold off donations until they make changes to their reporting with examples of accomplishments of the Biden administration.
Good morning and blessings to all as we head into a Merry Holidays weekend. I’m still a True Believer and embrace the wonder of Santa Claus every year. Whatever your end of year traditions, enjoy yourself and others. Remember that winter is a cloak that protects and gives rest time for the Spring of the new year to emerge. And I’m with Cathy who referred to it as the coming Spring of Democracy.
There is some messaging out there that is relevant, truthful, and not beholden to corruption. I love riding on the enthusiastic, somewhat provocative and crazy good wave of the Politics Girl podcasts. Here’s the latest.
Love and Peace and Unity to us all. 💜🎅🏻🎅🏼🎅🏽🎅🏾🎅🏿🤶🏻🤶🏼🤶🏽🤶🏾🤶🏿
Your message to us, Christine, comes with love, good cheer, hope, truth, determination and Santas galore. Who could ask for anything more? 🤸🏻♂️🎷💕🎯😉🦅⛷️🎁🎵🍿🌲❄️⛄
Due to a little insomnia I read the Atlantic article by Barton Gellman titled January 6 was Practice. The overall point that jumped out is his researcher was looking for correlations in the people who showed up that day— they had trouble finding any until they noticed that most of them came from counties where there had been growth in black/brown population. Racism does appear to be the chief motivator to curtail voting rights and potentially have a bloodier takeover.
Yes. Quite simply, racism is THE core motivator. It permeates the air in these counties. I know, because I have that family and grew up in one of these counties. It’s been this way forever. Thank you for highlighting this fact. ❤️🤍💙
Just read Vanity Fair's piece on Nikole Hannah-Jones, author of the 1619 Project. Article is more social in content but reveals the viscous rancor she has endured since publication in NYT.
Back in the heady days of 2008, when the Democratic Party offered up two candidates who broke the white guy mold: Hilary Clinton and Barak Obama. I somewhat whimsically (from my relatively unawakened position here in Oregon) opined that whoever won that campaign would show whether being female or being black was the greatest hinderance to ascending to the presidency. I am not sure the outcome of that election reflected the answer or not.
We are a nation whose wealth was established by the enslavement of Black people. We are a nation whose religion (as practiced by most) put men in control of women. The right of black men to vote was secured in 1870 while the right of all women to vote was secured in 1920.
I think I may have found the answer to my "one or the other" question. It is both. I look at the current attempts to restrict "minority" voting (here using the definition produced by white, christian, cisgendered, heterosexual males, meaning anyone not "wcchm") and I look at the barrage of "anti women" laws with regard to control over our own bodies that is rampant today and I see that fear of "other". In my not-so-studied opinion, the only people who should have a say in voting regulations are those whose right to vote was established by amendment to the constitution. In my rather militant opinion, men need to stay the h-e-double toothpicks OUT of the abortion conversation.
Yes, that article ( very long and detailed) peels the layers off and gets down to what appear to be the common motivations. Excellent and enlightening...as was the Webinar that The Atlantic did recently with Anne Applebaum and Gellman. Two smart people looking at the larger picture, as HCR does!
Once again. HCR has provided fact-based, objective analysis of what is going on in our country. As many have stated, she is a national treasure. I worry that she cannot keep up the pace she has set for herself, so that I (we) can be informed.
It is heartening to see that intellectual hard work is being recognized by a growing segment of our society. May it continue to reach, albeit too slowly, the bastions of illogical, uninformed thought in our country.
In my opinion, she and her “Letters From An American” should have been recognized as Time’s Person of the Year!
Thank you, take care of yourself. We need you!
Absolutely agree.
I agree
Absolutely agree. Thank you Heather.
We have all this focus on Senator Manchin the past week, but as one MSNBC commentator pointed out the problem is the 50 Republicans who are obstructing President Biden's agenda. It now feels like instead of focusing on Manchin maybe we should spend some time changing the math in the Senate and find the Senators like perhaps Alaska's Senator Murkowski and others that are detecting the waning of tfg's hold on the GQP. Statements like Senator McConnell saying bad things happened on Jan. 6th and Americans need to know about it. And tfg not being able to fill large stadiums on his recent tour. Surely there are two moderate, sane, courageous R Senators that could be the Cheney and Kizzinger of the Senate. That's all it would take to override the vetos of Senators Sinema and Manchin. I'm also hopeful that President Biden who knows the Senate so well has a plan for changing Senate rules without the two hold-outs. Between the revelations of the Jan. 6 committee, a strong economy that will not be ignored, and some tricky but doable math in the Senate the new year 2022 is going to start out well ... and end well in November. The R's have gone too far in ignoring the will of the People. Just like the Christmas is three days after the Winter Soltice when ancients realize the days were getting longer, the Winter of Autocracy just may be turning into the Spring of Democracy.
Winston Churchill, after an uplifting British victory in the midst of a massive, prolonged crisis, stated “This is not the end, nor is it the beginning of the end, but it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.’”As President Biden and the Democrats conclude a topsy-turvy 2021, I hope that Churchill’s remarks apply to the Biden administration in 2022. Our democracy may depend on this.
In my experience, any Churchill quote bears repeating. He certainly knew adversity and what it was like to face powerful evil, even having the head of his country in league with the enemy at one point. He also felt the rejection of his countrymen after his success. Yet he persevered…
Excellent point, Jeri. Thank you.
Are you sure that was a Churchill quote? It seems that perhaps it was a Yogi Berra quote. You may remember he said, "It ain't over till it's over."
It was a Churchill quote, said at the Casablanca Conference in January 1943, following the US invasion of North Africa and the British Eighth Army's victory over Rommel at El Alamein.
Thanks, I'm sure it was a Churchill quote. But I was trying to get all of you serious people to laugh!!!
Richard Ha ha. “It ain’t over ‘til the fat lady sings.’ This reminds me of Kate Smith and God Bless America, which had been dropped from Irving Berlin’s WW I Yip Yip Yap Hank (or something close— I hadn’t been born then). It was resurrected at Kate’s request. As a Philly boy I remembered Kate singing this. (Kate and my great aunt once put on a performance in a Baptist church.)Much later her recording was used at Philly ice hockey games and in some baseball stadiums. Then some naysayers found something in her past that has resulted in her being dropped at sporting events. When will vigilantes discover that Judy Garland performed black face in a movie more than 70 years ago? No more Over the Rainbow? AWWWK
Thanks, Keith. Ah, the things we learn from other readers of HCR's LFAA! I remember seeing and hearing Kate Smith back in the 1950s and 60s. When I heard Yogi make his famous fat lady quote, I instantly remembered her. My folks loved her. That's when I lived in Maine. Now I live about 90 miles west of Philly in York. I don't remember any of the Boston teams playing her version of God Bless America, but they may have. For me anyway, I'm glad we don't hear that song sung much at sporting events.
BTW, Philly guy, I'm listening to the WXPN annual Christmas Eve 24 hours of many different kinds of Christmas music. You might want to check it out. They've even played some from Bob Dylan's Christmas album from a few years ago!
He was a master of putting words together, one I am very fond of is about ending a sentence with a preposition. Glad he can’t see this sentence…
To reinforce his grammatical dictum, I believe he said, "Up with this I will not put."
Here is some history of that quote:
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/07/04/churchill-preposition/
I think Churchill also said that "Brits have the right to pronounce words anyway they want."
Good one Richard lol
Thank you Keith.
Exactly what I have been thinking. The media is so prejudiced and missing the point of the Republican obstructionism! I have personally committed to calling Murkowski Collins and Romney every day to tell them to support voting rights bills and save our democracy. If we all call them and tell others perhaps our voices can be heard. I call after hours and leave a message so I don’t need to give my out of state address
To call a Member of Congress "after hours and leave a message so I don’t need to give my out of state address" is very clever!
I'm sure they are aware of that technique. I sometimes talk to staff at my state representative's office about effective communication.
Getting direct feedback (or, perhaps, quiet indications of effectiveness from those rep's offices) would be, IMHO, most helpful.
🎵⛄😉🌲🎁 Ellie, you light up the forum in stormy weather and in sunshine. MerryHappyHolidays!
Thank you and same to you! 🎵⛄😉🌲🎁
Excellent. I will add them to my call list.
Hi everyone. Does anyone else have a list of other republicans. Senators to call ? Perhaps those retiring ? Might as well add to my call list. And yours.
Here are 20 Senate seats to flip to blue in '22!
https://twitter.com/moreperfectdem1/status/1472948242929360904?s=20
I guess we can write to the sen repubs who are not running in 2022
And you can check out the group of HCR Substackers formed to turn good talk here into good action. For more info, email:
heathersherd@gmail.com
Well said Cathy and S. Mikelle! Let's get beyond Manchin and focus on creating cracks in the republican obstruction...wherein lies the problem. Flood the media with the good news about the economy every day in every way! Immediately change the White House/Democratic party PR dept. to shout out the good new! Let's see billboards, fireworks, well-known folks featured in daily interviews....all celebrating the amazing things that are happening- hammer it, shout it coast to coast. Leave no room for the obstructors!
"Let's see billboards, fireworks, well-known folks featured in daily interviews....all celebrating the amazing things that are happening- hammer it, shout it coast to coast." YES KATHY!!
Would love to see it. Maddog pac does great billboards, there are plenty of well-known folks who have spoken out against the lying bastards, amplify them. Just look at what the liars do, but tell the good news. Hey, ATT, would you like to fund a truth enterprise someday??? Maybe OAN wasn’t such a good idea, or are we down the rabbit hole?
But make certain to claim Democratic credit for it ... and point out that almost without exception, Republicans at all levels have opposed the measures which create this progress. Yes, create those cracks in Republican obstruction, and expand them with increased voter registration on the part of women and persons of color! Just a bit more than ten months remain till Election day!
If only, does the WH/Dem party have a PR department? I don’t think so, considering the inane emails that flood my inbox ad nauseam. I have to figure out who to donate to totally ignoring the “Dem messaging.”
I must say it was nice to see that the White House had a concert/performance the other night. I've missed that during the previous administration.
So much I missed during the previous administration.
Haha, oh you mean civility, morals, common sense, kindness, maturity, intelligence? What am I missing?
Respect for the law and the principles of government.
The Golden Rule would do for me
Watch whitehouse.gov/live any day for real news in real time.
Thanks for your post, Cathy. Emperor Constantine was a 1st millennial Trump, but smarter, coopting the scared little Jesus followers into a state religion, giving them land and money and making them bureaucrats. He himself was a follower of the sun god, Sol Invictus, making a huge statue to himself when he captured what became Constantinople. The Sol Invictus always had a halo, which is how the executed Jewish rabble rouser got his halo in every other depiction of him for the past 2000+ years. That's how Jesus got to share his birthday with the Sun God.
As a theologian and a child of (much of the still morally corrupt) "Land o' Cotton," I place the blame for 2000 years of hatred against the jewish people at the feet of the "holy christian and apostolic church." By the way, Constantine had himself baptized just a few hours before he died - just to be on the safe side.
Sounds very Trump-like
I'm surprised that Trump didn't erect states of himself everywhere.
There was the Mt. Rushmore controversy.
No fan of Constantine and his attitude toward Jews, and certainly no fan of Trump, but it was generally the case at that time that Christians delayed baptism until right before death. And he did not make Christianity the state religion, he simply made it one of the recognized faiths within the Roman Empire (Edict of Milan, if memory serves).
The reason for the delay was that it was dangerous to declare one’s Christian faith through baptism. The edict of Milan changed that. Constantine wasn’t in danger- just hedging his bets…
Thank you Rosalind! Most "enlightening!"
oooh. Love,¨Just like the Christmas is three days after the Winter Soltice when ancients realize the days were getting longer, the Winter of Autocracy just may be turning into the Spring of Democracy.¨
Love it
I’ve been thinking the same! E.g., Maine voted for Biden, and Collins ought to be acting wracked with guilt over Kavanaugh. Why can’t we pressure her to support Build Back Better?
It’s kind of hard to get too enraged by Manchin as “corrupt” when he is actually doing what his voters demand. 🤷🏻♀️
I think Manchin is operating more on what his wealthy donors want vs. the general W. Virginia voters. However, it is entirely possible the W. Virginian constituents are clueless about what is in the bill, how it works to their benefit and therefore vote for Manchin out of ignorance.
Agreed that Manchin attends to donor dollars over constituents. But West Virginia constituents have a lot to say about the Build Back Better bill:
Amy Jo Hutchison
https://www.rattlethewindows.com/
Gary Walton
https://twitter.com/meidastouch/status/1472677206887256064?s=21
Michael Tomasky in the New Republic
https://newrepublic.com/article/164822/joe-manchin-betrays-west-virginia-build-back-better
Josh Sword and the AFL-CIO
https://www.wvaflcio.org/media-center/recent-press/79-recent-press/369-a-statement-from-west-virginia-afl-cio-president-josh-sword-on-senator-joe-manchin-s-position-on-the-build-back-better-act.html
Charleston WV constituents on the front page of the Sunday Gazette
https://twitter.com/julienbcnews/status/1472927971526819840?s=21
United Mine Workers
https://twitter.com/JDCocchiarella/status/1473376095563137033?s=20
68% of West Virginians who support Build Back Better
https://twitter.com/neojane8/status/1472905359752941568?s=21
Thanks for this list of sources. Here's the press release from the UMWA on BBB.
Very clearly and strongly written!
https://umwa.org/news-media/press/umwa-statement-on-build-back-better-legislation/
[TRIANGLE, VA.] United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) International President Cecil E. Roberts issued the following statement today:
“The United Mine Workers and Senator Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) have a long and friendly relationship. We remain grateful for his hard work to preserve the pensions and health care of our retirees across the nation, including thousands in West Virginia. He has been at our side as we have worked to preserve coal miners’ jobs in a changing energy marketplace, and we appreciate that very much.
“The Build Back Better (BBB) legislation includes several items that we believe are important for our members and their communities – some of which are part of the UMWA’s Principles for Energy Transition we laid out last spring.
“The bill includes language that would extend the current fee paid by coal companies to fund benefits received by victims of coal workers’ pneumoconiosis, or Black Lung. But now that fee will be cut in half, further shifting the burden of paying these benefits away from the coal companies and on to taxpayers.
“The bill includes language that will provide tax incentives to encourage manufacturers to build facilities in the coalfields that would employ thousands of coal miners who have lost their jobs. We support that and are ready to help supply those plants with a trained, professional workforce. But now the potential for those jobs is significantly threatened.
“The bill includes language that would, for the first time, financially penalize outlaw employers that deny workers their rights to form a union on the job. This language is critical to any long-term ability to restore the right to organize in America in the face of ramped-up union-busting by employers. But now there is no path forward for millions of workers to exercise their rights at work.
“For those and other reasons, we are disappointed that the bill will not pass. We urge Senator Manchin to revisit his opposition to this legislation and work with his colleagues to pass something that will help keep coal miners working, and have a meaningful impact on our members, their families, and their communities.
“I also want to reiterate our support for the passage of voting rights legislation as soon as possible, and strongly encourage Senator Manchin and every other Senator to be prepared to do whatever it takes to accomplish that. Anti-democracy legislators and their allies are working every day to roll back the right to vote in America. Failure by the Senate to stand up to that is unacceptable and a dereliction of their duty to the Constitution.”
It really shows how Manchin can ignore his constituents and still get re-elected time after time after time.
amazing.
It is amazing.
Especially powerful, to my mind, is Michael Tomasky's article in the New Republic that you cite. Love the "plain speak" that he writes. Thanks (morning!), Ellie.
Excellent sources! Thank you Ellie! West Virginians voters DO support Build Back Better. Let us support their efforts. (BTW, I worked in West Virginia with a wonderful social worker, Susan Cocchiarella. Taught me so much before she died too young).
Ellie, you are always a wealth of information! Great list and I read everything.
There are people living in shacks and subsisting on Mtn Dew (sorry) who would die before supporting a Democrat. Saw an article about this a year or so ago.
Damn, I thought it was Oxycontin. Guess Mtn Dew is cheaper. things sure have changed since Dolly Parton grew up in Appalachia. "What's The Matter With... W. Va." Manchin is a start
Manchin’s net worth is supposedly $7.6 million. If that is the case, how does he afford a big yacht and a Maserati? That is a small net worth for such a lavish lifestyle.
I did a little sleuthing just now. According to Politico, he paid $220k for the yacht (which he calls a houseboat). That, plus a monthly docking fee, would be pretty cheap digs in DC. Re the Maserati, it probably cost around $80k. Maybe he’s leasing it. Would we feel so outraged if it were a Mercedes or BMW instead? In any case, that’s how he can afford it.
Kathy, it is indeed a houseboat, as he calls it. Anyone who has been around vessels of any sort would never call Manchin's vessel a yacht. Living on his houseboat while in DC shows a good bit of common sense on his part. (That's the nicest thing I can say about the man.)
Years ago, I had the amazing good fortune to be invited to stay on a friend’s boat in Monaco during the Grand Prix. This boat was a converted tugboat, not a big white gleaming yacht. But the level of luxury was out of this world. Looks can be deceiving. But I agree, it seems sensible to me.
So why outside of implied bias is his houseboat constantly referred to as a yacht? I’ve been on both and a houseboat is definitely not a yacht.
It’s all about the words, it’s not a yacht which implies a great deal of wealth, it’s a houseboat probably built on a pair of aluminum pontoons to keep it afloat, they are very common on the larger lakes here in the South, where no one calls them a yacht.
You are right on both counts, $220k for a 60’ houseboat is probably about average and certainly cheaper than a condo at Watergate, it’s a smart move and he’s on the water, you can spend way more than what his Maserati cost on any number of European cars, more than twice easily.
Words matter and unless the Democrats can figure out how to use them they will loose the next two elections which given the health of the economy they should be able to win. I’m tired of hearing Joe Scarborough talk about the police being beaten with American Flags, flags are made out of cloth, you don’t beat anyone with a piece of cloth, a flagpole is a different story.
Thanks for the info. There is a difference between a houseboat and a yacht. I get that he should be able to drive whatever he can afford. It just seems to me that the optics of his choices are bad.
$500,000+/year in stock dividends from coal products company (Son is owner? Daughter exec for pharm co.)
corporate funds via lobbiests.
Janet, Though I can’t speak for what Manchin’s West Virginia constituents largely know or don’t know, having just spoken to some folks who live in his State, I was told 1) Manchin probably is the only Democrat who could win a State-wide election and 2) he is highly unlikely to win re-election in 24. The reasons given were 1) the state has become increasingly red and 2) Manchin largely has lost the support of his constituents.
With Democrats like Manchin, who needs a Republican.
Please don’t say that. Manchin has voted with Biden 97% of the time. He is one of 50 reasons we got the American rescue plan, record number of federal judges, why Biden had a functional cabinet and other political appointees confirmed, why the Senate isn’t a clown show of fake senate investigations of Biden, wasting millions of dollars and horrible amounts of time...
Thanks for the clarity.
That surprised me too.
Manchin is desperately working to keep his job by appearing more “red” to his constituents in a very red state.
It’s a wonder then, at 74, why he would not choose to go down in flames and provide approval for a plan that would significantly help his constituents?!?!
Propaganda works, waiting for coal to save them most likely.
Amen
Thank you for these links.
S. Mikelle, My understanding is that West Virginians largely are asking for jobs, healthcare, childcare, housing, and tax relief, all of which are part of Biden’s BBB agenda, the bill from which Manchin, this past Sunday, withdrew his support.
Your understanding is correct as far as I can tell. I am currently in WV visiting our daughter who is in grad school at WVU in Morgantown. She, as well as many of her MFA cohort, are older, (30s – 40), have prior professional experience in fields as diverse as journalism, engineering, and teaching, and have dealt with the issues/concerns you've cited as independent adults. Several are WV natives. In conversation with these folks, all agree that the issues you've cited are critical in providing West Virginians the opportunity to improve the overall quality of life in WV.
Aye, but those are COLLEGE students. Those are evil in the eyes of Republicans because they are learning to think.
Cannot have that now.
Well, Mike, several are grad students in their 30s & 40s, some have left lucrative fields to return to school to get an MFA. (Horrors, the ARTS!) They are in a fully funded program teaching 2 sections a semester for a stipend of about 16.5k a year. 16.5k down from whatever they made in their pre- student life. Discussions of things like SNAP and the horrific housing prices in Morgantown are common. The lucky ones can afford to live alone.
But you're right, my venom spouting, right wing in-laws think the fact that our 40 year old daughter traded in a "real" job to commit to a 3 year writing program is ludicrous and useless. sigh.
Daria, we’ve learned here from you, those in-laws are entirely too self-absorbed and $$$-focused to even understand your daughter’s so-meaningful MFA journey!
daria, Thank you for confirming.
But neither of you are responding to what I said. The idea that Republicans support what’s in the build back better plan is completely unrelated to whether they actually support the plan.
My red family supports nearly all the ideas in the build back better plan, but constantly rage against it as “communist.”
Frankly, S, it is difficult to follow the OP and thread due to the length. I apologize for not responding directly to you but to comments nested under your OP.
My red family does not support BBB because it is a Dem proposal. They'd rather chew glass than support anything with a blue stamp on it. Republicans can voice support of the BBB plan but if they don't vote for it they really don't support it.
Didn't I read recently that "his voters" desperately needed the perks the Biden plan would give them (dying, miserable coal mine jobs with a Black lung payoff) but don't get it that they are cutting off their own future?
Here's a comment on HCR from Carla of West Virginia on 12-21-22 re: poverty and voting:
"Are you familiar with poverty? Are you familiar with actual vote counts? Not everyone who lives in the state of West Virginia has voted for Senator Manchin. Why do others suspect those who live in poverty? How many do not vote because they are working three jobs? How many do not vote because they do not have transportation to a polling place? How many do not vote because they cannot afford gas in their car, if they have a car? How many are hungry and do not have the education to figure out how to get themselves out of despair? Order a little book by Kathy Manley called, "Don't Tell Them You Are Cold." Read that and then you may begin to understand. Have you known your grandparents? Do you have Christmas memories of them? Well, I do not. One grandfather was murdered in a coal camp and his killer did not go to jail due to being protected by the coal operators and the railroad operators. Another grandfather slept on an outdoor porch to grab gulps of air before he died of Black Lung and he didn't even "go deep" into the mines, he maintained the railroads used in the mines. Perspective is everything."
So basically, W Virginia remains a very red state because only the “privileged” are voting; only those who don’t need the benefits of the BBB plan are able to get to the polls. This makes sense, and on every level is both sad and disturbing.
Excellent perspective. Those of us (myself included) who have never experienced abject poverty can, at times, be a little (unintentionally) harsh with our judgement and words about ignorance. HCR and fellow Substack commentators help expand the thought process.
IMO the state of W. Virginia (where my husband's paternal grandmother was from) has been exploited by Manchin who only panders to the wealthy who have made him financially rich. It truly is a very sad political state of affairs that exists in too many places.
Having been raised poor i agree
Oh, the stories that never get told. We need another Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard.
Check out this statement by the UMWA on BBB.
It has some strikingly positive language. (And don't forget to read the last paragraph, which talks about voting rights legislation.)
https://umwa.org/news-media/press/umwa-statement-on-build-back-better-legislation/
I was glad to see the UMWA include voting rights in their statement to Manchin.
This, dear Daria!
Rosalind - Yes, that is true. The tax that funds the black lung payments expires at the end of the year. The BBB bill loud extend that for 4 years (I believe). But you bet that info isn’t being conveyed to West Virginians.
I think it is now... and that’s why Manchin agreed to negotiate, in hopes the public perspective could shift. But I don’t think we’re there yet. The effect of the hand waving towards the bill with screams that it is packed with socialism are pretty hard to unwind.
S. Mikelle you should check out the post by Carla from Tuesday’s letter. She quotes Amy Jo Hutchison, a WV activist and founder of Rattle the Windows. Ms. Hutchison speaks about moms being able to buy food and care for their families because of the Child Tax Credit and other provisions in the BBB. Manchin is concerned about his wealthy donors and his Big Pharma CEO daughter, who helped raise EpiPen prices exponentially. Manchin represents a poor state whose voters NEED the type of benefits in BBB. Yet he lives on a YACHT in the Potomac and drives a MASERATI around Washington. I can’t even believe the awful optics of that!!!!
Here's a comment on HCR from Carla of West Virginia on 12-21-22 re: poverty and voting:
"Are you familiar with poverty? Are you familiar with actual vote counts? Not everyone who lives in the state of West Virginia has voted for Senator Manchin. Why do others suspect those who live in poverty? How many do not vote because they are working three jobs? How many do not vote because they do not have transportation to a polling place? How many do not vote because they cannot afford gas in their car, if they have a car? How many are hungry and do not have the education to figure out how to get themselves out of despair? Order a little book by Kathy Manley called, "Don't Tell Them You Are Cold." Read that and then you may begin to understand. Have you known your grandparents? Do you have Christmas memories of them? Well, I do not. One grandfather was murdered in a coal camp and his killer did not go to jail due to being protected by the coal operators and the railroad operators. Another grandfather slept on an outdoor porch to grab gulps of air before he died of Black Lung and he didn't even "go deep" into the mines, he maintained the railroads used in the mines. Perspective is everything."
“White Trash” by Nancy Isenberg. Subtitled ‘The 400-Year Old Untold History of Class in America’.
The chapter on eugenics took me back a bit. Hard to get my head wrapped around that.
Thank you for reposting…..
I will take your point.
I can be outraged with Manchin for running out the clock. And if anyone waits for Collins to grow a conscience, there is where hope goes to die.
Collins has no spine at all. Getting her to support a democratic initiative is impossible. She goes with the flow, and VERY rarely may vote her conscious, especially if her best friend Murkowski does.
We have to change the flow.
Tough. Manchin is supposed to be leading the state and for the betterment of all. Not a good excuse when the welfare of the whole country is at stake. Times have changed and our leaders should be able to recognize that.
I continue to write to Susan Collins, offering her the opportunity to be a Margaret Chase Smith hero on voting rights and Build Back Better. She's thinking.....
Yeah, like Susan Collins ‘thought’ that Kavanaugh had told her that he accepted Roe v. Wade as accepted precedent.
Or that tfg “learned his lesson” from the first impeachment.
Yuk, yuk, yuk!
Maybe we should hire Loren Boebert, since she is very likely for hire, to march back and forth on the stage, in tight jeans for the guys short attention spans to stay riveted on, ....
screaming about radical fascists taking over the country and how we, the people of GOD, need to TAKE BACK OUR COUNTRY, and end the video with a long .50 caliber machine gun fire clip?
It seems to be working on the right, so, let's start trying this stuff on the left. We just need a Loren Boebert leftist willing to appear completely nuts on stage, in tight jeans, in front of a camera. (the tight jeans are key, even guys who mostly don't listen will tune in).
There must be ONE young woman leftist somewhere that can scream and rant and prance?
Sort of like Boebert's last video?
I would pay to have Trump strut at a rally in skin-tight leotards. Jabba the Hutt indeed.
😂 I would pay not to have to watch that! There isn’t enough brain bleach in the world to unsee that.
Just don’t EVER want to see his orange arse behind the presidential seal again.
I want to see him in an orange jumpsuit, not a leotard.
I just threw up in my mouth.....
Nope, democratic women are liberated.
I get it, but, can they help liberate with modern media messages?
Most leftist young women have more self respect than Boebert which is why you will likely never see one staggering across the stage at a political rally wearing jeggings and come eff me pumps.
If Boebert weren't an elected official she could get a job as an exotic dancer. She has definitely got it down!
If you read her interesting bio, it is not unlikely that she has experience in that arena. She is definitely a go getter.
Good point, are some male brains located lower…. Can’t wait til Rupert catches on, propaganda porn…
I Believe! 🙏🏼
from your mouth, Cathy...
With appreciation for your thought, light, caring and spirit. Merry Holidays.
I totally agree. If the Republicans/Trumplicans didn't hold this obstructionist behavior in Congress, Munchin wouldn't even be a topic today. Media need to hold the obstructionists' behavior as responsible for not passing legislation to help our nation and save our democracy.
Hope, like a rolling stone, gathers no moss.
I love this. Thank you.
Oh let it be so!!!!!
YES, Cathy!!!
After watching what happened to Liz Cheney for daring to (novel idea) tell the truth, I doubt that any of the so-called moderates, such as Susan Collins, have the stomach to take this on. The only Senator who might have enough spine is Lisa Murkowski. She has already demonstrated that she can win by running as an independent, so the threats of the republican establishment carry less weight for her. But I also don't think she sees the social programs in the BBB agenda as being important to her. If there was something on the table that would benefit Alaska specifically, I could see her making a deal. But right now it is still much more likely that Democrats can find a way to get Manchin to agree to support some version of a scaled back BBB proposal.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/21/opinion/manchin-build-back-better-democrats.html This opinion piece by a progressive paints a different picture of Manchin's 'no'.
Great economic news. It sounds like reality s starting to emerge from under the ice of The Big Lie. Hearing the truth is the best Christmas present anyone could wish for. Thank you, Heather for keeping us focussed on reality in 2021!
Thank you Dr. Richardson, especially for the economic summary. I don’t know how you pull together so much info, so efficiently!
It’s a relief to know you’ll catch what I can’t find elsewhere.
And please take care of yourself. No one else could fill your shoes.
Dr. Heather is a national treasure!! I'm pretty sure she doesn't sleep enough. 💜
BTW, have you seen her Zoom meeting with Ken Burns? She is always so impressive! https://www.pbs.org/kenburns/unum/playlist/featured#role-progressive-government
Thank you, Becky, for making this gem easily accessible to us!
No. But going to NOW!! Thanks Becky😊
In the briefest of a conversation I had recently with a staunch angry old white guy Trumper (I am surrounded by them here in proud boy hood), he was railing about how Biden was "destroying this country". I asked how, by creating the strongest economy we've seen in decades, and hasn't his stock gone up? He had zero response and we left it at that.
Staunch angry old white guy … their sense of loss because of ‘these uppity minorities’ and because ‘women want what they shouldn’t want’ (so I’ve been told) is profound … that they have to compete with said minorities and women is the anger that fuels their allegiance to the big liar.
Their racism, their misogyny and their unwillingness to improve their own lot is the troika that is breaking the back of our of/by/for the people form of government.
Sadly, not all of them are old. How anyone hates someone else based on physical traits such as skin tone, the shape of facial features, hair texture, etc., confounds me.
Passionate hatred can give meaning to a life that has no meaning and is lived in fear of the "other".
'Sense of loss?' Isn't that just a euphemism? They're just plain furious at the thought that the privilege they've so reveled in forever might have to be shared. Not lost, just shared. Keeping 'em ( women and any 'others') in their place perpetuates their sole ownership of privilege, which they see as threatened by uppity woke liberals who think sharing is good.
"Destroying the country." I remember hearing that with Obama too (after Bush and co. got us into Iraq and the great recession.) And how horrific ACA was and they couldn't wait to demolish it when they got into power. We all know how that went. So much hot air.
I feel you Lynn. Surrounded by Rabid GQP members.
Ooooh, Lynn, how satisfying! Thanks for sharing that vignette.
I think one underrated factor in this is the pain some people suffer from saying the words, "I was wrong." It usually takes a crisis to get most people to say that, and a surprising number cannot say it at all.
I recall a conversation with an engineer I was managing (during a brief management stint, which was enough to tell me I won't do that again in this life), who had picked the wrong value for a resistor, and when we tested it -- it was connected to a swim-timer air-horn -- the resistor blew, and the horn went off at FULL volume for about one second before the board blew smoke and ended the agony. Everyone in the building thought it was an air raid, or a tornado warning, or a nuclear alert siren.
He could not admit that he'd made an error. I pushed it just a little, but then gave it up. He knew exactly what had "gone wrong," but he could not say the words, "I was wrong." I realized I'd hit a real psychological block in him. First time I'd ever seen it so clearly in a person.
Thanks for making this point. I've observed this failure in people for decades, including among some of my best friends. I think it may be a key to understanding the refusal of so many to accept the facts of -- you name the issue: vaccines, global warming, losing an election, etc.
Hehehe. Nice work, Lynn. Don’t know what to do when hit with the truth!
‘How’s your bank account?’ is the best reply!
So why is this good news not what influences peoples' perception of the economy? My thoughts on that:
1. The vast majority of Americans are as ignorant about economics as they are about world geography. They can lament that gasoline costs 'too much' at the pump with no idea of what affects gasoline production and markets.
2. We are inundated by ALL media with trivial and irrelevant information thought (by a lazy media feeding lazy minds) to reflect the state of the economy. So rising gas prices, BAD, because inflation, BAD. No concept of rising gas prices partly because more demand=more people out and about( good)/doing things(good)/earning money(good)/spending money(maybe good)......just cost more= bad because 'everybody says so.' 3. Bad news is believed and travels; good news is suspect and buried (the 'evil that men do' ..and all that).
3. Information overload, and the cacophony of competing megaphones distorts our sense of reality. We cannot process it all and still conduct our lives. What is plausible to many, given the amount of disinformation being scattered and absorbed indiscriminately, makes 'Alice in Wonderland' seem biographical rather than fictional.
No wonder people are moving to Idaho. (https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2017/estimates-idaho.html)
They're not just escaping Covid. They're looking for quiet and a place to sort things out. Amen.
In my neck of the woods, people are moving to Idaho because they are "right thinkers" unlike the "liberal demoncrats" here in Oregon. I kid you not.
Moving somewhere to avoid paying taxes is another example of "right thinking."
Oh my. I do think you're right. A right wing cousin of mine moved there because ..direct quote... "it's like being in the 1950's where Ozzie and Harriet, a straight couple, raised kids to be polite."
And all POC and others "knew their place". All the problems existed underneath the surface, but we didn't have to see them. And the people in Idaho are polite, are they? Some of the news coming out of there doesn't sound very polite to me....just violent.
Exactly!
Oh. Dear. God.
All I can say is let them move. They don't know how to think, bu only to make knee-jerk responses.
I kinda like the idea of all the Right wing moving to Idaho. Just think, one state holding all the Right wing! Let them move there.
It is all I can do to remain civil reading their garbage. Therefore, I don't comment much anymore.
I guess I had lots of training as educator remaining civil while wanting to say nasty things. Now that I am retired, I have cut loose in some ways on Facebook. One of my ex-students said he would liked to have had me a teacher as I am now.
As a cop, I had similar “job related” training. Retirement did open up some liberty for communication… 😝🤬😫😵💫
Oh yes, I can roll out my Anglo-Saxon vocabulary.
Regarding 'escaping Covid', no Idaho hasn't escaped Covid. If anything it is probably a very bad place for Covid.
well said!
Most enlightening. Yes.
I wish that every citizen would read your astute overview of our economic situation at present. I, for one, am going to spread it far and wide! We need to know where we stand and the remarkable levels which President Biden has attained for us!
Exactly ! and on that note I wish the media would more consistently report on what’s working under Biden’s Leadership ! Report the truth and spread a little optimism while at it !
Yes!!!
What we know, how we come to know it, and knowledge as the basis of doing the right thing - epistemology and ethics - define he human condition. Religion, philosophy, and science -whether we know things through revelation, reason, or perception - play a part.
We have wracked our brains as far back as we have a written record. We 'know' things in our guts, our heart, by our eyes, through our ears. I purposefully refer to body parts because scientific imaging is giving us a clearer picture of the physiological basis of not only how we know what we know, but also the degree to which we consciously decide what we do. And this is where it gets unsettling.
Because a lot is hidden from our consciousness. And although we are learning why negative statements have a more profound and lasting impact and why lies take hold, how to develop effective strategies and tactics for articulating and propagating factual knowledge has not caught up. In government, the best we can do is coming to consensus on the provisional truths of science and the contextual truths of history, through reasoned debate of the empirical evidence.
The Founders kept God out of the Constitution and religion out of the procedures of civic law, not only to protect us from the imposition of religious practices but the irrationalities of the religious mind set. The absolute truths of religion - the leap of faith - are best left to the pew snd prayer mat.
Republican small government is the lie which engendered the Republican big lie about the 2020 election - which sought not only to shrink government but to drown it. And that both have taken hold of what people think they know and what they should do, can be laid at the door of the door of the Republican politics of faith.
I am optimistic about the potential for politics and policies to answer challenges and crises. I am even optimistic about the possibility mitigating ignorance and irrationality. But I crack my teeth on the hard nut of what Hannah Arendt termed the banality of evil - the thoughtlessness of people who focus only on advancing their own interests with no concern for the horrors they set in motion which may consume their neighbors, communities, nation and even planet. Because God speaks to them through a Trump. That people will go to the mats, even electing a Trump, to save a fetus - with no thought to how the Republican agenda is destructive of all life.
I shuddered at your mention of Arendt's concept; I was possessed by her work when I was a student, trying to understand what I knew happened in Germany during my own lifetime. I often think of her conclusions after the Eichmann trial when I try to get my head around what's happening today. "Is it really happening again?" is a question that sometimes haunts me.
Yes. Having grown up in the shadow of the Holocaust and come of age in the activist 60s, I've spent decades resisting and objecting to too easy use of the appellation Nazi. The assumption hides as much as it reveals; what are the defining characteristics of Nazism and of the abuse at hand? what is the overlap? is using Nazi as a metaphor useful?
But ... the advent of the Republican Trump administration changed all that. I've spent a lifetime asking 'what would I have done?' Now I have to ask 'what will I do?'
Take Heart.
Here is a link to Ken Krimstein's website. He is author of the excellent graphic novel The Three Escapes of Hannah Arendt. (An excellent companion piece to Art Spiegelman's Maus.) A biography and depiction of the social and intellectual universe Arendt was a star in. (And if you ever doubted it , Take *That* Martin Heidegger! You Nazi You!)
http://www.kenkrimstein.com/the-three-escapes-of-hannah-arendt
I also suggest the excellent Mothers in the Fatherland by Claudia Koonz, because people make choices. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claudia_Koonz
Thank you for the references. I ordered Ken Krimstein's 'Three Escapes....' and Tim Snyder's graphic edition of 'On Tyranny'. My daughter grew up with graphic novels ( mainly Japanese) and I'm hoping these may excite her interest in a subject that seems so removed from her. I'll read them at any rate.
Only vaguely familiar with Claudia Koonz' work, but thought the Wikipedia piece was well done.
I appreciate your shift of concern from "What would I have done?" to "What can I do?" I end up thinking it's got to be something like "Keep on keeping on" and "share stories of how things worked when more people had more options because of the good things government actually did. " I'm a firm believer in the power of story telling. At 83 I can write postcards, send letters and the like, but my days of testifying at legislative hearings and marching in the streets are over. Trying to groom some young uns for that.
Yes!!! ThankYou. Letter writing. Yup.
There are other ways to "know" things. Reading, the experience (riding a bike), etc, and some other things seem to be innate, don't you think? The Founders believed in the Natural Law of man? It seems to me that the cult Republicans and evangelicals are not thoughtless about what they are setting in motion but tied to fanaticism and violence, hatred and injustice and know exactly what they are doing. Religion(abortion issue) and nationalism are weapons being used by cult Republicans.
Thanks for this brief. A question to you if I might, given you spend time on CSpan. I gather from other comments and briefs that you find much of HCR's reporting to be accurate, though at odds with the weigh given in MSN. Are their members or trends you note in watching House and Senate members that you think we might want to pay attention to? I'm thinking of members from either party who might be leadership material or colleagues to further advance, especially among the younger, perhaps less charismatic or in-you-face types. Also, among the noise of the headline quotes, ideas and positions that may be important for us to be aware of; e.g., ideas supported across lines, reasons that seem representative of conservative theory which have some legitimacy in our building back our democratic agenda. I used to enjoy and learn from others providing and being questioned on their testimony in my olden days in the 1990s.
OK. Went through Senate list. These are people I routinely hear speak up and who I appreciate. No purity tests - can't say they've never made a vote I wouldn't like. I include Tammy Baldwin because you are in Wisconsin, but I don't hear her much. Most of these are middle aged or older. A few young people.
Michael Bennet, Ben Cardin, Catherine Cortez Masto, Tammy Duckworth, Dick Durbin, Masie Hirano, Angus King, Ed Markey, Patty Murray, Jon Ossoff, Gabriel Warnock, Elizabeth Warren, Sheldon Whitehouse.
The House will take a bit longer;)
lin, Quick note to confirm in third line from the bottom that you meant Raphael Warnock (GA). I ask because I view him as among our most gifted spokespersons on both voter protection safeguards and human infrastructure.
Oops. OMGosh. ThankYou! Got my good angels mixed up. (And after spending November 202O hand writing hundreds of letters to individual Georgia voters for Warnock!) Eek!
Good list as well. Hope fellow LFAAer pick this up. Worked with Patty Murray years ago and Tammy is quieter, smart, savy, and likes to get things done rather then being the show horse. Barnes from Milwaukee is making a pitch for Johnson's seat; peresonable, but not sure about his chops. Appreciate your picking Tammy. And, Klobachauer is in the Senate (Duh) so shouldn't be on your House list. Must be a holiday taking place in my brain.
Oops did I misplace Amy. Sorry.
As a volunteer for Obama, I was asked to go from Blue Maryland to a swing state. I ended up in Racine staying with the most wonderful people and dedicated community builders. We kept in touch and I went out there for several prepandemic elections. Got to campaign for and meet Tammy Baldwin. As you say.
Thanks will have to check with my Racine friends about Barnes. ABJ HaHa Anyone But Johnson. It's not *his* seat. Hopefully.
I'm the one who accidentally added Amy to the House list. Your doing OK. I am tagging you lists for future use.
Whew. Thanks. I needed that. Long day heading up Letter Writing committee for local Democratic group. We have serious contests coming up.
OK. House list.
FYI I have a soft spot for The Squad, despite tyro missteps.
As an American Jew and clean line two states Israel and Palestine, I particularly welcome Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib as reality checks to Evangelical and AIPAC knee jerk support for unjust Israeli government policies.
AOC is not just a phenom - she seriously does her homework and I have never heard her grandstand on the floor. I have heard her quietly totally crush the evil and odious Wilbur Ross while he was obstructing oversight of the census by playing a disgusting mash up of feeble minded senility and rich old white man privilege. AOC is consistently formidable in her grasp of facts and focus on mission.
I would love to see a Sheldon Whitehouse - Hakeen Jeffries presidential ticket.
Have bold capped favorites.
JIM CLYBURN, Sheila Jackson Lee, Barbara Lee, Eric Swalwell, Ro Khanna, ZOE LOFGREN, Adam Schiff, Katie Porter, Joseph Neguse, ROSA DELAURO, HANK JOHNSON, Raja Krishnamoorthi, PRAMILA JAYAPAL, JAMIE RASKIN, JAMIE RASKIN, Bennie Thompson, Cori Bush, AOC, HAKEEN JEFFRIES, Jerold Nadler, CAROLYN MALONEY, Ritchie Torres, Tim Ryan, David Cicillini
Thank you. What about Klobuchar? Too collaborative? The other names I don't immediately recognize I will check up on. I agree with your impressions of some of the real minority names. Underappreciated, smart, no grandstanding.
Whew. I want to get back to you with a serious and useful reply. I listen on the radio while doing stuff around the house. And I am bad on names. I want to look at the CSpan archives a bit.
One of the really bad things the Clintons and Clinton DNC did was to suppress the development of a deep Democratic bench of presidential contenders - to give Hillary *her* chance. If not for Rep. James Clyburn winnowing the field of too old too new too outlier too outrageous contenders, 2020 would have been a lot like 2016. The only upside is real talent in Congress.
Will get back to you.
Interesting point about the Clintons. Old-school poles. Don't create competition until you need it. Look where that got us. Maybe because we came up with empty talent pools in state government positions and there was a big push for succession planning in the early 2000s, I have it would have been smart to really develop pools of talent for every seat, regardless of there being a choice incumbent. Two deep for each seat and you end up with worthwhile candidates who know the issues and a pool of appointees to fill executive positions in government or legislative leads or for the usual appointees that come with each new administration.
Oh well, it seems that a major problem is the messaging that people are hearing and it’s not just defining the cult. The big lie covers a lot of territory; Fox and clones never miss a chance to lie and misrepresent; MSM will “both sides” us into oblivion; and even the “Just the facts, Ma’am” PBS blathers against Joe much of the time. Propaganda works. Do we need a Minister of Anti-propaganda? Somebody needs to get the word out or it matters not what Dems are doing. Last week I heard my sensible gdaughter repeat a lie common on Fox re the speed with which the vaccines were produced. She had not heard of the work done on Ebola before Covid even reared it’s head. God knows what the young are being exposed to. We had better care…
Yes! A Department of Anti-Propaganda. Essential in this age, actually.
Should have had one since Newt
Caring keeps us engaged......apathy is the silent weapon against democracy, certainly agree on that. The effectiveness.of propaganda depends on the willingness to receive it and lack of critical thinking. But I guess critical thinking must be attuned to truth somewhere. Thank goodness you are there for your granddaughter..
Scared me though, she works and goes to school in blood red area of Tx
Spot on!
Book recommendation: Fiona Hill's There is No Place Here for You is like one of Heather's great articles relating history to our current time. Dr. Hill is the daughter of a coal miner in the North of England in decline and coal mines closing. She's describing West Virginia. Her triple comparison and parallels of Great Britian, the Soviet Union and the United States are eye opening. She describes President Reagan meeting in Moscow with Gorbachev in 1987. It brings back memories for me of being in the midst history in Berlin in June 1990 after the Wall had fallen in November but just a month before East and West Germany reunited in July and while the Bush Gorbachev summit was happening.
It's on my "hopeful" Christmas list. She comes from a mining village not far from where I grew up.
Loved her testimony a while back…
She was outstanding....confident, direct, non-defensive in the face of abusive, condescending verbal attacks by some members....she who had "forgotten" more than any of them would ever know about Russian and Trump maneuverings.
Her testimony is one thing that encouraged me to seek out facts and truth. When I heard her speak I started looking for other words like hers, and found LFAA.
She is an incredible speaker, and a true public servant.
👍👍👍👍
I just finished reading this last night. She is brilliant, and does a masterful job of describing what it was like in the WH during tRump's reign. And that description is damn scary. I'm surprised this country is doing as well as it is given the 4 years of lunacy.
It's a comment on how much the country does for a while function despite the politicians and also on the inutility of many of them.
Many thanks to my sister, Joanne, who sends me a steady supply of important books like Fiona Hill's, with instructions to "Read this and pass it on." I will check with my friends to see if it is still circulating. And thanks, Cathy, for all you do.
Thank you so much for that summary…I will get that book today! I was captivated by her testimony in Congress (along with Vindman, of course)
Agreed. I am recommending it to everyone interested in an overview of what the parallel 2oth century political histories of GB, USSR and US. Totally fascinating, very balanced. Should be required reading in the Senate!!!
As a former investment professional (analyst/portfolio manager) I found the general public often underestimated the strength and overestimated the weakness of the U.S. economy. When I started out at Fidelity in the late 1970's, a couple of the fund managers told me my undergraduate degree in psychology would serve me better than my MBA in "understanding" group behavior and the vagaries of the stock market (this was before algorithms which can greatly skew the ups and downs of economic fundamentals).
HCR very succinctly summarizes the good macro economic news yet people remain woefully uninformed (intentionally or unintentionally). In my world that lack of understanding provided investment opportunity. Unfortunately, political ignorance has very different and dire consequences.
Media coverage of the economy has been shameless. Successes have been consistently underplayed. In my long life I've never seen a situation where people had so much choice in finding work. Are there still problems? Sure. We're still in a pandemic. But let's celebrate big achievements.
Under reported and overly eschewed. 😴 Me thinks. Merry Christ to all of you LFAAers.
In the face of such economic success, this is one hot mess. The MSM is terribly wrong for its pillorying of Biden. You didn't mention Manchin, but his lies and obfuscations muddy the waters of truth. May the force be with the Jan 6 Commission and their work to open the can o' worms!
And by the way, PBS, WTF?
YES! Manchin announced he could not support BBB, and the market goes down a lot. NPR blames inflation???
We must call PBS and other press out.
Agreed, my task for today:
https://www.pbs.org/about/about-pbs/contact-information/
Thanks Kathy for the link. I just took a side trip to write them before reading the rest of the comments.
I wrote them today saying that many of us will hold off donations until they make changes to their reporting with examples of accomplishments of the Biden administration.
“America’s economy improved more in Joe Biden’s first 12 months than any president during the past 50 years….”
Let’s shout Winkler’s fact-based message to the rooftops, hitch it to Santa’s sleigh for all the world to know!
I love that trump just can’t keep his mouth shut!! Keep digging that hole donnie.
Good morning and blessings to all as we head into a Merry Holidays weekend. I’m still a True Believer and embrace the wonder of Santa Claus every year. Whatever your end of year traditions, enjoy yourself and others. Remember that winter is a cloak that protects and gives rest time for the Spring of the new year to emerge. And I’m with Cathy who referred to it as the coming Spring of Democracy.
There is some messaging out there that is relevant, truthful, and not beholden to corruption. I love riding on the enthusiastic, somewhat provocative and crazy good wave of the Politics Girl podcasts. Here’s the latest.
Love and Peace and Unity to us all. 💜🎅🏻🎅🏼🎅🏽🎅🏾🎅🏿🤶🏻🤶🏼🤶🏽🤶🏾🤶🏿
https://youtu.be/qucEywo6-OY
Thank you, and to you as well. May we all celebrate the return of the light in whatever way is most beneficial.
🌞❤️🌲💕🎯💕🎵❤️🎁❤️🧑🏿🤝🧑🏻❤️😉❤️⛄💕🍨❤️
On the Solstice a local Wiccan wished everyone Good Yule on Next Door. Much to my surprise, there were only positive responses.
Christine, thank you for this wave of goodness in which your words here cloak us!
(Yes, I couldn’t help but borrow from your sage, soothing phraseology.)
Merry Holiday blessings to all, indeed!
⛄❤️❄️❤️🎁❤️🎯💕🌞💕🌲❤️🎷❤️🤸🏻♀️
Your message to us, Christine, comes with love, good cheer, hope, truth, determination and Santas galore. Who could ask for anything more? 🤸🏻♂️🎷💕🎯😉🦅⛷️🎁🎵🍿🌲❄️⛄
💙🎉🎅🏼🧑🏻🎄❄️🎉💙❣️
Due to a little insomnia I read the Atlantic article by Barton Gellman titled January 6 was Practice. The overall point that jumped out is his researcher was looking for correlations in the people who showed up that day— they had trouble finding any until they noticed that most of them came from counties where there had been growth in black/brown population. Racism does appear to be the chief motivator to curtail voting rights and potentially have a bloodier takeover.
Yes. Quite simply, racism is THE core motivator. It permeates the air in these counties. I know, because I have that family and grew up in one of these counties. It’s been this way forever. Thank you for highlighting this fact. ❤️🤍💙
vicious
Just read Vanity Fair's piece on Nikole Hannah-Jones, author of the 1619 Project. Article is more social in content but reveals the viscous rancor she has endured since publication in NYT.
vicious
Back in the heady days of 2008, when the Democratic Party offered up two candidates who broke the white guy mold: Hilary Clinton and Barak Obama. I somewhat whimsically (from my relatively unawakened position here in Oregon) opined that whoever won that campaign would show whether being female or being black was the greatest hinderance to ascending to the presidency. I am not sure the outcome of that election reflected the answer or not.
We are a nation whose wealth was established by the enslavement of Black people. We are a nation whose religion (as practiced by most) put men in control of women. The right of black men to vote was secured in 1870 while the right of all women to vote was secured in 1920.
I think I may have found the answer to my "one or the other" question. It is both. I look at the current attempts to restrict "minority" voting (here using the definition produced by white, christian, cisgendered, heterosexual males, meaning anyone not "wcchm") and I look at the barrage of "anti women" laws with regard to control over our own bodies that is rampant today and I see that fear of "other". In my not-so-studied opinion, the only people who should have a say in voting regulations are those whose right to vote was established by amendment to the constitution. In my rather militant opinion, men need to stay the h-e-double toothpicks OUT of the abortion conversation.
Yes, that article ( very long and detailed) peels the layers off and gets down to what appear to be the common motivations. Excellent and enlightening...as was the Webinar that The Atlantic did recently with Anne Applebaum and Gellman. Two smart people looking at the larger picture, as HCR does!