The Child Care Industry

 #Belinda Luscombe, "The rise of the 'carebomb' ",  TIME, November 2-9, 2020. - "Home-based centers are regarded as the used car yards of the U.S. childcare ecosystem: the place people go when they can't afford anywhere else, which may be why the number of fully licensed operations has more than halved in the past 15 years, from 200,000 to 86,000. About 7 million children under the age of 5 are cared for in someone's home, according to the 2016 National Survey of Early Care and Education." "The Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) found that childcare centers operating out of someone's home was the most likely type of provider to stay open. More than a quarter of them continued operating without any interruption, while only 12% of childcare chains kept functioning."

#Abby Vesouslis, "Day cares on the brink," TIME, November 2-9, 2020. - "86 of childcare providers   reported serving fewer children than they were before the pandemic, and 70% said they're incurring 'substantial' new operating costs, according to a July survey for the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC)." 

"Newly unemployed caretakers, who tend to make low wages in demanding settings, may never return to their profession, and childcare-center owners may choose to abandon their businesses for more lucrative ones." "Most states require that day-care centers maintain high adult-to-child ratios, and ample square footage. In some places, day-care operators are required to hire staff trained in early childhood development."

"The average day-care operator grosses $48,000 a year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, while standard childcare workers make roughly $24,000." "It's unclear if providers who are hired back now will still have a job a month or a year later." According to data provided to TIME, the costs of providing center-based childcare have increased by an average of 47% since before COVID-19. In California, costs have jumped 64%, and in Georgia they've skyrocketed 115%."

"In July, the Democratic-led House passed a bill appropriating $50 billion toward the Child Care Stabilization Fund to provide grants to childcare providers." "The Center for Law and Social Policy estimated the industry would require nearly $10 billion per month to survive the pandemic, according to an April report."

#Stacy Mitchell and Susan R. Holmberg, "Why the Left Should Ally With Small Business," The Nation, November 30-December 7, 2020. - "The fate of working people and small independent businesses have risen and fallen more or less in tandem. The heyday of unions in the mid-20th century was also a period of flourishing small businesses. The 1970s were likewise a turning point for both, albeit a dire one. Yet the number of unionized workers and of small businesses has plummeted over the past 40 years. Inequality, in turn, has risen sharply." 

"Rebuilding small businesses is thus crucial to achieving the left's vision of broad prosperity and a thriving democracy." "Meanwhile, the US Chamber of Commerce counts only a fraction of America's small business members and it derives much of its massive budget and board of directors from large corporations."

"Between 1982 and 2017, the share of US business revenue going to firms with fewer than 100 employees, went from 40 percent to 23 percent, according to Census Bureau data." "If small businesses continue to disappear from the landscape, it will fuel more extreme inequality and further entrench the corporate giants that rule our lives and menace our democracy. Under federal tax rules, for example, Amazon paid virtually no income taxes in recent years. The average effective tax paid by competing local businesses is around 20 percent." "If you took only the bottom half of wage earners, they make about the same at small firms as at large ones. In other words, the average income is higher at big corporations solely because of the inflated earnings of those in the upper ranks."

"A 2018 Harvard Law Review paper estimated that today's medium annual wage of $30,000 would be about a third higher, or $41,000, if it weren't for excessive compensation." "The growing anti-monopoly offers fertile ground for reestablishing an alliance of labor and small business."

#Mircisha Sinha, "The Oligarch's Revenge," The Nation, October 19-26, 2020. - "In the later 19th century, after the overthrow of Reconstruction, many of its state governments disenfranchised Black men, instituted racial segregation, conditioned racial terrorism and violence, and kept a majority of Black and white Southerners economically bound through sharecropping, debt peonage, convict lease labor, and  tenancy." "The Jim Crow South was upended by the civil rights revolution. Yet, even in defeat, its language of oligarchy and its opposition to progressive political  and economic policies through a appeal to racism has been adopted by the modern Republican Party."

According to Heather Cox Richardson, "the unending struggle between American democracy and oligarchy began with the birth of the nation." Richardson, the author of 'How the South Won the Civil War', identifies the key to her argument as a 'struggle between the free North and the slaveholding South was essentially a [battle] between people and property, as exemplified in the anti-slavery free ideology of the original Republican Party, which valorized workers over capitalists." "As a result of the war, the  federal government implemented a progressive income tax, land-grant colleges, the Homestead Act and money for railroads (which came at the expense of Native populations), and federal protection for Black rights in the postwar South."

"FDR failed when it came to race, his record blemished by, among other things, the internment of Japanese Americans during the war." "As the Democratic Party became identified with civil rights, the Republicans swerved right, opposing all progressive social policies as government handouts, and taxes on the rich as a scheme to redistribute wealth from hardworking white men to unworthy Blacks and women."

"Like the Southern slaveholders of yore, who dreaded  abolitionism, socialism, communism, feminism, and the-isms of modernity, our modern oligarchs and their GOP enablers use the same bugbears and racism wolf whistles to prevent the United States from developing a strong welfare state." "The world today looks on aghast as the American republic, with a criminally incompetent and kleptocratic oligarchy hell-bent on undermining democracy, self-combusts in the mist of a global crisis."

"Even though Richardson's book was completed before the pandemic and the mass protests sweeping the country, her study is a useful history of the deterioration of the party of Lincoln into a revantist right-wing, white supremacist political organization."

#Randall Kennedy, "Politicians in Robes," The Nation, October 19-26, 2020. - "In 'Supreme Inequality', Adam Cohen argues that for half a century, America's highest court has waged a unrelenting war on the poor, while championing the rich." "At least where wealth is involved, Justice Lewis Powell declared: 'the Equal Protection Clause does not require absolute equality or precisely equal advantages,' He made this declaration in 'Buckley v. Valeo (1976), Powell also said: 'The concept that government may restrict the speech of some elements of society in order to enhance the relative voice of others is wholly foreign to the First Amendment.' 'Most significantly, in 'Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010), it ruled that the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law overstepped constitutional bounds by prohibiting corporations and unions expending funds from their treasuries on [election] speech.'

"Elsewhere in election law, the Supreme Court repeatedly facilitated impediments to voting. In 'Crawford v. Marion County' (2008), the Court upheld an Indiana voter identification law in the absence of any showing that it was needed to thwart substantial voter fraud, and even though it predictably and disproportionately burdened Black prospective voters, and other groups that Republican lawmakers viewed as likely Democratic supporters." "In 'Shelby County v. Holder' (2013), the court invalidated a key provision of the Voting Rights Act that had effectively monitored and restrained jurisdictions with long records of racial disenfranchisement."

Donald Trump's Crimes and Other Failings

 #Russ Choma, "Lock Him Up?" Mother Jones, January + February 2021. - His (Trump's) list alleged  offenses both during and before his presidency, includes tax and bank fraud, obstruction of justice, bribery, defamation, and more." "On the federal level, one of the most plausible crimes Trump could be charged with is obstruction of justice."

"Since 2019, New York Attorney General Letitia James has been probing the  Trump Organization for bank, tax, and insurance fraud." "Court filings suggest that [New York prosecutor Cyrus] Vance's probe now goes well beyond the hush-money payments, and may overlap the issues James is investigating."

"In Scotland, where Trump has invested more than $200 million in his golf courses, lawmakers are pushing for their government to request an Unexplained Wealth Order to peer into Trump's finances."

My Comment: I would add to Choma's list of crimes, Trump's repeated violation of campaign finance laws, which he treats as permitted oppo. (opposition) research. He has added to Ukraine, both Russia and China as countries he wants to initiate investigations of Biden family corruption. Witness tampering could also have been added to the list, as a few examples would be: 1.) Trump called for the investigation of Michael Cohen's father-in- law's source of money -- he was a possible witness in a Cohen trial. 2.) Trump encouraged Roger Stone to refuse to cooperate with federal prosecutors. And 3.) Trump denigrated the fired ambassador to Ukraine while she was testifying before a House committee.

President Trump also violated the Impoundment Act when he withheld appropriated funds for a policy reason. Similarly, Trump likely violated the Wire Fraud Act when he requested a quid pro quo on the phone call to the Ukrainian president.

When House committee chair, Jerold Nadler,  said that Trump committed 1,001 acts of obstruction of justice, he was probably referring to the multiple times Trump called the Mueller probe a witch hunt or a hoax, thereby poisoning the minds of U.S. citizens when the report came out.

#Katha Pollitt, "The Damage Done," The Nation, November 30 - December 7, 2020. - "At every step, Trump has shown contempt for nature, from the humble sage grouse, whose habitat is no longer protected from mining and drilling, to our rapidly heating planet." Pollitt then switches the focus to Trump's judicial appointments.

Pollitt says: "But let's not forget that Trump has nominated and the Senate has confirmed 218 federal judges to lifetime appointments; that's a quarter of the federal judge total. A large majority of them are white men; fewer than 5 percent are African American. Of the nine nominees rated 'not qualified' by the American Bar Association, seven were confirmed." "And no matter what Trump said or did, around four in 10 Americans stood right there with him."

"Trump has turned us into a nation of braying bullies and conspiracy theorists and mean people proud of their indifference to the bullying of others." "We may rid ourselves of Trump. But Trumpism? That will be with us for the rest of Uncle Harry's life and mine and maybe yours as well."

#Eric Alterman, "The America Berserk," The Nation, May 4/11, 2020. - "His [Trump's] moral culpability is that of a murderer, even though the law doesn't call him one." "As the constitutional law professor Lawrence Tribe tweeted on March 26, 'Trump is ensuring the avoidable death of countless New Yorkers. Instead we get Trump's meanderings, lies, and conspiracy theories broadcast on television evert day, and respectful headlines on top of stories about "disagreements" between people with  lifetime's experience in epidemiology.' 'The advent of Covid-19 is a crisis, to be sure, even more so is a political culture that has produced a coronavirus-like presidency, implacably infesting and destroying what remains of our ailing democracy.' "

#Madison Pauly, "To Depose a President," Mother Jones, January + February 2021. - "For nearly four years, Trump has wielded the office of the presidency as a shield from lawsuits from women who have accused him of sexually assaulting them before his election." E. Jean Carroll has accused Donald Trump of raping her in a dressing room of a Macy's store. Her legal team has asked a lab to look for genetic material on a black dress she says she was wearing when Trump allegedly penetrated her. "The results turned up unidentified male DNA, which if matched to Trump, could help a jury to conclude that her allegations were true."

ADDENDUM:

*Mike Konzal, "Go Big or Go Home," The Nation, November 30 - December 7, 2020. - "Many of Biden's planned actions, like a public option and expanding Medicare to those ages 60 to 65, would plug into existing regulatory infrastructure. In the past, Democrats boxed themselves in by worrying about deficits and rising interest rates that never materialized."

Covering the Issues Waterfront

 #In a speech at Hillsdale College in Michigan, Attorney General William Barr  castigated prosecutors for behaving as "headhunters" in their pursuit of prominent targets, and for using the weight of the criminal justice system to launch what he said were "ill-conceived political probes." He described federal prosecutors as part of the "permanent bureaucracy," and suggested they need to be supervised by the president and Congress.

#Barr used federal statues to charge defendants in the unrest that roiled cities. In a recent action,  Barr gave U.S. Attorney John Durham the authority of a special counsel under law, meaning that he cannot be easily fired as he refocuses on the actions of the FBI in reviving how the Russian probe started. Although Durham was heavily pressured to issue a report before the November 3 election, he apparently had nothing that might tarnish the reputation of Joe Biden.

#Eleni Schirmer, "Drowning in Debt," The Nation, November 30-December 7. 2020. - "During the past 30 years, per-pupil public funding for higher education had declined more that 30 percent. "Institutional debt at public colleges in the United States has more than doubled, jumping from $73 billion in 2003 to $151 billion in 2012. As schools borrow more, greater proportions of their budgets service the debt through interest and fee payments." "At its flagship campus, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, [where Eleni Schirmer is a graduate student] almost 3 percent of last year's budget went to servicing its debt. By comparison, the entire School of Education -- the ten departments that, among other duties, prepare future educators -- is allocated slightly more than 4 percent of the revenue budget."

#Emily Barone, "Rural U.S. hospitals are on life support," TIME, November 2-9, 2020. - In rural areas in the U.S., 15 hospitals have been shuttered as of about three months before this writing, according to the Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research at the University of North Carolina (UNC), which is on pace to pass last year's record high of 18. "The hospitals in the worst financial shape generally have one thing in common: they serve the most vulnerable people, who rely on Medicare and Medicaid, or who are poor and uninsured."

" 'The secret to financial success is having privately insured people,' says Nancy Kane, adjunct professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health." "More than 20% of rural hospitals in the U.S. are at high risk of closing, according to a 2019 study from the consulting firm, Navigant, now a part of Guidehouse." 

"One analysis from the National Bureau of Economic Research found that rural hospital closures increase impatient mortality by 8.7% for time-sensitive conditions such as strokes, asthma, and heart attacks..."

#Abby Vesoulis, "Why are women being driven out of the U.S. workforce?" TIME, November 2-9, 2020. - Besides the report that 865,000 women have been driven from the workplace in August and September -- versus only 216,000 men -- "1 in 4 women are considering downshifting their careers, or leaving the workforce altogether, per an annual Women in the Workplace study published in September by McKensey & Case, and the advocacy group Lean In." "Domestic industries, including healthcare, food services and hospitality, have been among the hardest hit by the COVID-19-induced recession."

"Unlike most other industrialized nations, the U.S. doesn't guarantee paid parental or sick leave through permanent  and universal federal laws." "The pandemic has unraveled years of advances in creating more equal workplaces."

#Elie Mystal, "The Real Trump Surge," The Nation, December 14-21, 2020. - "He (Trump) called it a hoax (it wasn't); he said it would magically go away (it didn't); he told people to inject bleach (don't); he mocked people for wearing masks (wear masks); he said only older people die from the virus and children are immune (none of that is true). Even after he got Covid and recovered -- thanks to the socialized medicine taxpayers provided him -- he refused to embrace basic science and reason; instead he ripped off his mask, parading about the White House balcony like some orange Ubermansch." "This is the real Trump surge: a surge not of mythical lost ballots but of flagrant, fast-replicating disease. Trump is a walking biological weapon."

"Trump's anti-science sociopathy has been embraced by many other political actors. His messaging, his attitude, his culture war-mongering has filtered down throughout our country, to our national shame." "There will be a vaccine for the coronavirus eventually, but  there is no cure for what Trump has done to our society, inoculation from the disinformation he spreads and no way to bring back the lives he's already cost us."

#Tom Philpott, "Diet for Disaster," Mother Jones, January + February 2021. - "More than half of the calories Americans consume come from 'ultraprocessed' foods that are shot through with added sugar and fats, and are associated with weight gain. Pile those on top of our sedentary lifestyle, and the result is that almost 90 percent of adults have a metabolic dysfunction -- including high blood, cholesterol, or blood sugar -- and more than 40 percent are obese."

"In the first five months of the pandemic, the United States had a 39 percent higher mortality rate than Europe, where the obesity rate is half ours." "A 2017 study by Stanford [University] researchers found that even an incentive of 30 cents on the dollar to buy fresh produce would result in a 10 percent drop in Type 2 diabetes among kids and adults who receive SNAP benefits." "Obesity alone generates as much as $315 billion in health care costs annually, a large portion is picked up by public programs like Medicaid."

My Comment: The 90 and 40 percent percentages seem to be too high to me.

ADDENDUMS:

*Larry Deblings, a letter writer in the December 7, 2020 issue of the New Yorker, who writes: "I agree that Putin looks like a genius in the end. Trump has done more subversive damage to U.S. institutions, and to fundamental principles of democracy than any network of Russian agents could have achieved."

*Jane McAlevey, "Now the Real Work Begins," The Nation, November 30-December 7, 2020. - "That Trump got over 70 million votes means racism and misogamy are far too ingrained in the United States to give most caring people any lasting sense of deep satisfaction. The resentments he revealed and stoked with strategic brilliance and fury will take years to overcome."

A Variety of Looks at Covid-19, and More Issues

 #Gavin Yamey, "How not to fight COVID -19," TIME, November 2-9, 2020. - "Scientists estimate that a larger share of the population, 50% to 80%,would need to be immune to reach herd immunity against COVID-19. A recent study from Stanford University suggests that only about 9% of the U.S. population has anti-bodies to the coronavirus. Around 156 million more Americans would need to be infected to reach the 50% threshold for herd immunity from natural infections." "Assuming that the virus only affects us until the end of 2021, the COVID-19 crisis will cost the U.S. economy an estimated $16 trillion; a herd immunity strategy would likely push this much higher." "The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that over 40% of Americans are at an increased risk of infection because of preexisting conditions, so all of these people would have to be shielded." 

#Carolyn Kormann, The New Yorker, December 14, 2020. - "Our immune system recognizes these new spike proteins as antigens, foreign invaders and creates antibodies to neutralize them. Then, if the actual SARS-COV-2 virus tries to break our cells, our body will be prepared." "Several biotech companies released  a pledge to 'stand with science to make the safety and well-being of  vaccinated individuals their top priority,' and to 'adhere to high scientific and ethical standards' for clinical  trials." 

A recent survey found that forty-three percent of Black Americans said that they would agree to receive a vaccine as soon as one was available, versus fifty-nine percent of white Americans. "In order to achieve herd immunity and halt the pandemic, at least seventy-five percent of the  population will have to be vaccinated, [according to the head of Operation Warp Speed.]" Rick Bright, the director of the Biomedical Advanced Research Development Authority, had said that he 'hasn't seen a lot of transparency from the current Administration about how complex the challenge is, once the vaccine is produced and pushed out from the factory.' (Bright was fired by President Trump).

#Tara Law, "The toll on doctors," TIME, November 30/December 7, 2020. - As of late November, early December in the U.S. alone, "more than 218,400 health care workers have contracted the virus, and at least 800 have died, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; an estimated 12% of U.S. health care workers have been infected, compared with approximately 3.4% of the general population."

#Jamie Ducharme, "Far from over," TIME, November 30/December 7, 2020. - "The U.S. is now locked in a deadly cycle of setting, then  shattering records for new cases and hospitalizations." "Rallying cries about flattening the curve have been replaced with a desire to return to normal life at all costs. Solid leadership is in short supply, with the outgoing Trump Administration refusing to concede the election, and give President-elect Joe Biden the tools he needs to take over the pandemic response." 

#Michael Mine, "The test we need," TIME, November 30/December 7, 2020. - "We need a multipronged public-health strategy that includes a national testing plan that utilizes widespread, frequent, rapid, antigen tests to stop the spread of the virus." "Antigen tests are 'contagious.' "They are extremely effective in detecting COVID-19 when individuals are most contagious." "If just 50% of the population test themselves in this way every four days the outbreak collapses." 

My Comment: Public-health experts disagree on percentages, for example, Dr. Anthony Fucie maintains that if a minimum of 70% of the general population wore masks regularly, it would have a major impact on the spread of Covid-19. (The use of capitals in spelling the virus is vary inconsistent).

#Eric Alterman, "The Fish Rots From the Head," The Nation, October 19-26, 2020. - Michael Caputo, who exercised strong political power over the scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), made the infamous claim that when the looting starts, "the shooting will began." He also advised gun-carrying Trump supporters to immediately buy ammunition. 

Caputo's aide, Paul Alexander, instructed CDC director, Robert Redfield, to tamper with previously-issued reports that Caputo judged to be "hit pieces on the administration." "Presumably, to mask this anti-science, pro-coronavirus agenda, Caputo, who lacks any scientific training, insisted that the CDC's scientists walk 'around like they are monks,' and engage in 'rotten science.' "

Alterman says that this "well-reported story should be an example for other journalists. Unfortunately, it is also an exception to the far more common normalization of the crazytown comments that characterize Trump's Washington: a place where ignorance, arrogance, and deliberate deception come together to destroy our democracy, undermine our freedoms..."

ADDENDUMS:

*Bryce Covert and Mike Konezal "Class Act," The Nation, October 19-26, 2020. - "According to the most recent Census data, median annual household income in the United States is $68,703." "Just 16% of private sector workers get paid family leave from their employers, leaving everyone else to cut back on spending or go into debt to take time off."

*Jesse Rosenfeld, "More Misery for Moria's Refugees, The Nation, October 19-26, 2020. - "While Germany has offered to resettle 1,500 refugees, Greece's hardline approach is being encouraged by other major countries." "Those actions include the Greek coastguard's practice of pushing back migrants at sea -- illegal under EU and international law-- and the turn toward detention centers." 

*"Fire Donald Trump," The Nation, October 19-26, 2020. - "And this is without even reckoning the way the coronavirus pitilessly exposed his terrifying inadequacy as a leader, his literally fatal inability to take advice or rise to an occasion. As the pandemic continues to spread, with our country leading the world in death and suffering, Americans should ask themselves, 'Do I feel safer than I did four years ago?"

*"It doesn't matter whether you like Biden or not," Norm Chomsky argues. "Another four years of Trump may literally lead us to the stage where the survival of organized society is deeply imperiled."

#Eben Shapiro, "Expanding the Pie," The Nation, October 19-26, 2020. - "A survey by 'Harvard Business Review' found that diverse companies have significantly higher revenues from innovation and greater margins. Research shows that if women participate equally in the economy, global GDP would increase 25% by 2025."

Trump's "Oversold" Achievements, and Varied Short Subjects

 Flaws in President's "oversold" but little-noted record of achievements.

#HBCUs - President Thump said that he "saved" Historically Black Colleges and Universities, but it was a 10-year renewal of funding, and Trump continued the funding level in President Obama's 8 years in office. Michael Lomax, president and CEO of the United College Fund, warned that HBCUs are "woefully underfunded," and he wants a $1 billion grant  for HBCU infrastructure, a doubling of Pell grants, and a tripling of Title III funding for the FUTURE Act.

My Comment: There was no controversy about funding the HBCUs, and the funding was at the $80-$90 million level of previous years. Michael Lomax argued that when you divide the money among the HBCUs, it isn't enough to lead to any meaningful change. Of course, Trump could have vetoed the bill, but to say he "saved" the HBCUs is an inflated claim.

#Opportunity Zones - Opportunity zones are tax incentives to encourage those with capital gains to invest in low-income and undercapitalized communities. A June Urban Institute report found that "although there are compelling examples of community benefit, the [opportunity zone] incentive as a whole is not living up to its economic and community development goals." Also, the vast majority of opportunity capital appears to be going into real estate, rather than into operating businesses.

My Comment: Whether they be called opportunity or enterprise zones, these kinds of investments are commonly used by U.S. presidents to spur investments in under-served areas. The Urban Institute findings indicate that although there are some bright spots in Trump's opportunity zones, there is an overall failure to meet stated goals.

#Saving the Suburbs - Regarding saving the suburbs, as claimed by Trump, he scrapped an Obama rule requiring localities to track patterns of segregation or lose federal funding.

My Comment: Wen Trump tweeted that he would save the suburbs, he implied that he would prevent minorities from flooding resident's living space. He obviously was trying to improve his political standing with suburban women, which polls were showing that he had a huge deficit to make up. Therefore, he was reducing his support among African Americans -- which he was claiming that he had done more for them than any prior U.S. president, with the possible exception of Abraham Lincoln -- to increase his standing among women -- a rather questionable political calculation.

It was probably not a very smart move to address his tweet to "suburban housewives," since many of them work. 

#First Step Act - As of late November, the First Step Act had released more than 3,000 federal prison inmates and had 1,700 sentence reductions. A Brennan Center for Justice report over this past summer found that "key parts of the law are working as promised, but other parts, such as expanded rehabilitation and recidivism are not."

My Comment: This was not a Trump initiative, as much of the heavy-lifting was done by others, and Trump was a "johnny-come-lately." The Koch brothers played a major role in getting the law passed, ostensibly because they thought it would lead to reduced sentences for business  people involved in committing white-collar crimes.

#Minority-Owned Businesses - Many minority-owned businesses were shut out of the Paycheck Protection Program because they lacked business banking relationships with the program. This is another instance of Trump not bothering to build up minority infrastructure, if he was really interested in being the greatest friend that African Americans had throughout U.S. history.

#Complaints of housing discrimination increased by 8% in 2018, the highest level tracked by the National Fair Housing Alliance. 

#Federal Death Penalty - President Trump reinstated the federal death penalty. There are now 55 death row prisoners, and 25 are African Americans. Trump has accelerated the schedule for carrying out these executions during this transition period between presidents.

##More short subjects of a varied nature.

#Potential Bribery - A heavily redacted filing in the U.S District Court for the District of Columbia, revealed on December 1, announced that the Department of Justice is seriously investigating a potential "bribery conspiracy scheme" relating to a presidential pardon. Trump's name doesn't appear in the filing, but, of course, he is the only one who can issue a pardon.

#A memorandum opinion from Chief Judge Beryl Howell suggests that the Department of Justice is investigating whether two people whose names are redacted, "acted as lobbyists to senior White House officials, without complying with the registration requirements of the Lobbying Disclosure Act."

#The EPA will keep in place existing thresholds for small article pollution for another five years. Activists and public health experts have pushed for stricter standards.

#Nearly 1 million renters will owe an average of $5,850 on back rent and utilities on January 2021, Moody's Analytics warn.

#A $4.5 billion Trump food program is running out of money early.

#In a June Pew Research Center poll, 25% of U. S. respondents agreed that there was some truth to the conspiracy theory that powerful people planned the coronavirus pandemic.

#Steve Coll, "Failure of Duty," The New Yorker, November 3, 2020. - "Leave it to Trump to manufacture a constitutional crisis that also incorporates a fund-raising con." "Now the President seems determined to put the pursuit of his invented vote-rigging before his responsibility to address the economy and health impacts of what may be the most difficult surge of the pandemic yet."

#46-Minute Video Rant - Trump said that the U.S. election system was "under coordinated assault and siege," and it was "statistically impossible" for him to have lost to Biden.

#Religious Freedom Reigns - Five members of the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that New York's public health guidelines don't apply to religious organizations because freedom of religion practices trump them. The decision puts the right of churches to hold heavily populated services above the right of everyone to live safely.

#245,000 jobs were added to the economy in November, down from 610,000 in October. The unemployment rate fell from 6.9% in October to 6.7% in November, but the U.S. economy is short roughly 10 million jobs from its pre-pandemic level. More than an additional 9 million people will be left without jobs after Christmas if there will be no additional state or federal aid.

#U.S. deaths from the coronavirus topped 3,100 on December 2, a new high, with more than 100,000 Americans hospitalized with the disease, also a record, and with daily cases topping 200,000. 12 states had imposed new restrictions on businesses in the month of November, according to an Associated Press tally.

#Law professor Aaron Rappaport has said that "the framers understood that pardons must be issued for specific crimes. They are not intended to be broad grants of immunity, get-out-of-jail-free cards bestowed by presidential grace."

Voting on My Mind - 2, and Varied Short Subjects

 #Voting Fraud - Attorney General William Barr told the Associated Press that: "To date, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have affected a different outcome in the election." Barr had broken with the tradition of the Department of Justice to hold off on pursuing such cases until after the election results are certified to avoid the perception that it is  trying to put a thumb on the scales. State and local prosecutors are capable of investigating and charging crime.

My Comment: Because of Barr's history as an aggressive defender of President Trump, and his echoing of Trump's baseless attacks on mail-in ballots, many were disturbed by Barr's divergence from typical practice, and the insertion of Barr into farfetched conspiracy theories about the election, positing the mail-in voting was vulnerable to mass manipulation by foreign actors. Trump repeatedly spread and elevated a wide range of absurd and outlandish claims alleging that he actually won in a landslide.

#Kali Holloway, "The Failed Coup," The Nation, December 14-21, 2020. - "Instead, his [Trump's] failed coup will have led, undoubtedly, to a scorched-earth, lame-duck session. Never interested in governing anyway, Trump will run down the clock between golf games, giving pardons to his allies, stoking red-meat conspiracy  theories for his losses, and issuing unconstitutional executive orders from the desk of Stephen Miller." "Trump is still tweeting that mail-in voting is a 'sick joke,' and falsely       claiming,  'I WON THE ELECTION!' "

"From the sidelines, he is cheering on street violence by MAGA thugs, and framing political opponents as unAmerican." 

"After this year's presidential election, 70 percent of Republican voters said it was not free and fair, up from 35 percent before the election, and 82 percent said Biden did not legitimately win." "Now, Republicans are casting Black and Brown citizens illegitimate voters to invalidate the Biden presidency." "Trump will keep denigrating democracy to elevate himself. Yet again, this president's selfish gains will be America's loss."

#Noah Lenard, "Miami Noise Machine," Mother Jones, January + February 2021. - "In August 2016, Cubans who arrived in the United States since 1995 favored Hillary Clinton by more than a 2-to-1 margin, according to Florida International University's long-running and respected Cuba Poll. Two years later, that had flipped. More recent arrivals voted for Republicans by roughly a 2-to-1 margin in  the 2018 midterms." "In October, the Cuba Poll found that among Cubans who came to the United States between 2010 and 2015, 76 percent were Republicans, and only 5 percent were Democrats."

#Calling Out the Repubs - Gabriel Sterling, Georgia's voting system implementation manager, pulled out all stops in calling for his fellow Republicans to condemn the language and actions of those trying to overthrow the 2020 election results: "Mr. President, you have not condemned these actions or this language. Senators, you have not condemned this language or these actions. This has to  stop. We need you to step up, and if you're going to take a position of leadership, show some."

Sterling said elections are "the backbone of democracy, and all of you have not said a damn word are complicit in this!"

#Donald Trump's 2016 campaign chief, Steve Bannon, has urged Americans to be prepared to die to overturn the election. Michael Flynn and his allies are imploring the President to declare "limited martial law." Their scheme is to suspend  civil liberties and normal legal processes; in order to conduct a new election under military control. 

#The Washington 'Post' contacted all 249 Republicans in the House and Senate, and found that only 27 would simply say that Joe Biden won the election. This count was taken in the first week of December. Trump had designated a specific House member to get the names of all those who have acknowledged that Joe Biden won the election.

#Trump called Georgia Governor Brian Kemp on the morning of December 5 to demand that he overturn Biden's victory in that state. And then at a rally in support of Kelly Loeffler and David Purdue in their run-off elections to return to the U.S. Senate, he slammed Kemp for refusing to support his authoritarian scheme to retain power. Specifically, he wanted Kemp to call a special session of the Georgia state legislature to elect a slate of electors who would back Trump, and he also wanted an audit of signatures on mail-in ballots. 

#Eric Alterman, "The End of the Jewish Vote," The Nation, December 14-21, 2020. - "First things first: Jews remain very liberal. J Street, a nonprofit advocacy group that describes itself as 'pro-peace,' commissioned exit polling of Jewish votes, and found a 77-21 percent preference for Biden over Trump. Florida and the odd US urban districts aside, Jewish votes rarely matter much. Jews constitute about 2 percent of the US population -- not much more than Muslims. Also, just 5 percent of Jews chose 'Israel' as their first or second most important issue -- and, being Jews, they disagree on that topic, too."

"Trump has delivered on the move of the US Embassy to Jerusalem, the recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, the unashamed encouragement of Israel's massive settlement         expansion into the occupied West Bank, and a cutoff of US aid  to the Palestinians."

#Polling Evangelicals - The Public Religion Research Institute's American Values Survey found that 59% of white evangelicals agree that immigrants are "invading our country and replacing our cultural and ethnic background," about double all other religious Americans -- 30% -- and 31% of the country. 7 in 10 white evangelicals continue to see the killing of Black people by law enforcement  officers, isolated incidents. Among  all other religious Americans, and the country as a whole, only 43% agree. 25% of white evangelicals agree that Trump has encouraged white supremacist groups, versus 60% of all other Americans.

#Religious Presidential Voting - According to APVoteCast, about 8 in 10  white evangelicals voted for Trump; 50% of Catholics voted for Trump, versus 49% for Biden; white Catholics voted 57% for Trump, versus 42% for Biden. Biden took 72% of the vote from those with no religious affiliation.

ADDENDUMS:

*Trump, on Thanksgiving Day, labeled Georgia's Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger, an "enemy of the people."

*Although Georgia's Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger, has been praised for his refusal to somehow overturn Biden's victory in the state, he has opened an investigation into the progressive voter registration organizations, including the New Georgia Project.

*16 U.S. attorneys, who were tapped specifically to monitor the 2020 election for malfeasance, have written to Attorney General Barr, asking him to rescind his memo authorizing them to conduct probes.

*Joe diGenova, who once was a lawyer for President Trump, has said that Chris Krebs, who was a cybersecurity expert in the Trump administration, but was fired because he said there was no fraud in the 2020 general election, should be taken out, drawn and quartered, and then shot. diGenova has said he was just kidding.

Voting on My Mind

#U.S. District Judge Linda V. Parker ruled that a suit brought by Sidney Powell, an attorney disavowed by the Trump campaign, saying: "In fact, this lawsuit seems to be less about achieving the relief Plaintiff's seek -- as much of that relief is beyond the power of the Court -- and more about the impact of their allegations on People's faith in the Democratic process and their trust in our government." "Plaintiffs ask this Court to ignore the orderly statutory scheme established t challenge elections and to ignore the will of millions of voters. This the court cannot, and will not do. The people have spoken."

#Vera Bergengruen, "False alarm," TIME, November 2-9, 2020. - "From formal announcements by the Justice Department and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to the state-level 'election integrity' task forces, the President's allies are mixing politics and law enforcement to amplify [Trump's] baseless claim that the [November 3] election is plagued by rampant voter fraud." "Using data going back to 1982 on everything from presidential elections to state and local votes -- potentially hundreds of millions of ballots cast -- the conservative Heritage Foundation found a grand total of 1,298 instances  of voter fraud."

My comment: After examining millions of ballots from an array of  voting levels, the Brennan Center for Justice found the incidence of voter fraud was a period, followed by four zeros, before a digit above zero  appeared.

#Elie Mystal, Supreme Injustice," The Nation, October 19-26, 2020. - "But if such a thing as legal objectivity ever existed, it was obliterated 20 years ago with 'Bush v. Gore'. It was then that the Supreme Court proved, by a 5-4 vote, that it was a purely political branch." "We're debating religious freedoms for Christians who want to be bigoted, not Muslims who want to worship unimpeded -- Democracy v. Voter Suppression." "The stakes are too high, and Trump has been too effective at undermining  faith in the American electoral process." 

[Chief Justice John Roberts] "has attacked voting rights over the entire course of his career. In fact, he authored the biggest setback to voting rights of our generation: His 2013 decision in 'Shelby County v. Holder', which eviscerated the Voting Rights Act." 

Roberts also struck a blow against the Affordable Care Act (ACA), when in 'California v. Texas', "the initial conservative challenge claimed that the ACA's individual mandate, which required uninsured people to pay a penalty for failing to get health insurance, was an unconstitutional use of federal power under the Constitutional commerce clause. Instead, Roberts 'famously' converted the individual mandate from a normal government regulation authorized by the commerce clause to a tax authorized under the federal government's broad taxation power."

#Tim Murphy, "Win. Lose, Redraw," Mother Jones, January+February 2021. - "But Democrats        failed to flip a single legislative chamber, and even lost both houses in blue New Hampshire." "The results, gloated one Republican operative, were 'absolutely embarrassing.' " "Those maps, and the legislative majorities they protected, cemented minority rule, and turned competitive states into conservative policy labs where progressive ideas -- Medicaid expansion, climate action, voting rights -- went to die."

"In 2012, Obama won Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, while Democrats  won only 17 out of a possible 50 congressional seats in those states." Michael Li, a senior counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice, points out that this will be the first 10-year cycle in which Republican mapmakers won't be bound by Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act.

#David Corn, "Back From the Brink," Mother Jones, January+February 2021. - "He [Trump] had questioned the legitimacy of elections, attacked the free press, called for the arrest of his political opponents, encouraged   white supremacists, violated anti-corruption safeguards, implemented nepotism,  advocated measures that limit voting, sought more control of the civil service, claimed      unbridled executive power, treated the federal government (even the White House grounds) as his own private  duchy, and embraced despotic leaders around the world."

"He [Trump] gained support among Americans. He bagged 10 million more votes than he did in 2016. Nearly half of the electorate and an entire political party accepted it, if not fully applauded, his war on democratic norms." "And after the election,70 percent of Republicans, following Trump's lead, said they did not believe the election was free and fair."

"The election demonstrated that this violent current existed beyond Trump's narcissism. And this movement raises a pressing question for the nation: Can a slide toward authoritarianism be reversed, or is one 51-47 election enough?" Two academics found in 14 episodes of democratic decline in 14 episodes of decline in 10 Asian democracies since the early 2000s that "democratic forces managed to contain the process before democracy broke, disunited."

David Corn writes that today the "current strain of authoritarianism in the United States relies in part on the tools of white supremacy, particularly voter suppression and racist demagogic rhetoric." " 'This is what is troubling to me,' notes Larry Diamond, a Stanford professor who co-edits the 'Journal of Democracy.' 'It's not just Trump. You look at the widespread efforts at voter suppression, the cynical efforts [of Republicans] to create one set of rules for themselves and another for the opposition... and you see much broader abandonment of democratic norms than we saw during Watergate, when it was mainly confined to Nixon and his clique...'  Diamond adds: 'Our democratic system is much more badly damaged and outmoded than it was after Watergate.' 'The agenda of fixing our democracy is going to be much longer and more arduous. What do you do when half of the United States does not want to repair its democracy?' "