Restoring Confidence In Our Democracy

Donald Trump’s lies about the 2020 election have become a driving force inside the GOP, and a deep distrust in the voting process has spread across the country.

If most people do not trust the electoral system to select our leaders what are the alternatives? The United States really does not have a direct election voting system. We select “electors” who actually do the voting. The country has abandoned the original selection process as established but not required in the constitution. The states now require the “electors” to select the presidential candidate who received the most votes in each state. That could be changed by the legislatures of each state. It would be a choice that would most likely have selected Donald Trump for a second term.

Trump’s complaint is that there was fraud in the election. Miscounts, dead people voting, voting machine tampering, destroyed ballots, etc. None of those claims were proven and that is why Joe Biden was certified the winner.

Where does this leave us? We need a new leader for this nation who will retore our confidence in our government and the electoral system. Neither Joe Biden nor Donald Trump is that person. If no one steps forward we could be seeing the disintegration of the great experiment.

That would be a sad ending.

It’s all about Leadership

Thanks to a divided Democratic Party the original $3.5 trillion social safety net and combat climate change bill has been whittled down to $1.75 trillion over a decade.

The 1.5 trillion dollar infrastructure bill contains basic needs of the country such as roads, lead-free pipes, bridges, and funds for public transportation. These are clear necessities of the nation that fit the very definition of infrastructure.

So what’s the problem?

The progressive wing of the Democratic Party insists that both of these laws be passed together or they will vote for no bills. Essentially they are saying if we can’t get what we want we would rather have nothing. On the moderate side of the Party two senators want the $3.5 trillion bill cut to $1.5 trillion.

President Biden says it’s all about compromise. The GOP is thrilled. The Democratic Party is giving the Republicans a campaign gift in 2022.

The Republicans will be telling everyone that the Democratic Party cannot govern.

The dictatorships of the world are clapping their hands with joy. They are saying to their people “see, democracy doesn’t work.”

My question is not just why should these two bills be linked but instead why not introduce a series of laws to address different issues? For example, why not create legislation to make Medicaid more accessible? Why not pass legislation that will enable Medicare to negotiate lower prices? Why should these things be linked to anything else?

Public perception is everything. As it stands today the Democratic Party is likely to lose both houses of Congress next November. That will put President Joe Biden in the same category as other one term presidents. Those who were unable to unify the nation and successfully address real issues.

It appears likely Americans will be voting for a Republican president in November 2024.

What Was The Wall Street Journal Thinking?

On Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal opinion’s section posted a lengthy letter from Donald Trump in which the former president repeatedly pushed conspiracy theories about the 2020 election in Pennsylvania.

“Well actually, the election was rigged, which you, unfortunately, still haven’t figured out,” Trump wrote at the top of his op-ed, insisting — contra facts — that he actually won the state of Pennsylvania.

Before we go any further, let’s revisit what happened in Pennsylvania in 2020.

Joe Biden won 3,461,221 to Trump’s 3,379,055, according to the Almanac of American Politics. That’s a margin of 82,166 votes.

Which is close!

And the closeness of that result led Trump to make several attempts in the wake of the election to have courts step in. A federal judge dismissed Trump’s lawsuit in November 2020, writing: “One might expect that when seeking such a startling outcome, a plaintiff would come formidably armed with compelling legal arguments and factual proof of rampant corruption. That has not happened.” Around that same time, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court rejected an attempt by Trump’s campaign to stop the counting of some absentee ballots in certain areas that included Philadelphia.

On November 24, Pennsylvania certified the results in the state after all 67 counties had certified their results individually.

There is simply no there there. None. Zero. Zilch.

Which, of course, the Wall Street Journal and its editors know. (Sidebar: Trump’s letter was published in the “Opinions” section, which is separate from the news and reporting end of the publication.) And that knowledge makes what they did all the worse.

The op-ed section at the Journal will likely hide behind 1st Amendment free speech arguments to defend themselves. But that misses the mark, since our speech is bound in all sorts of ways already. You can’t yell “bomb” on a plane without repercussions. Or “fire” in a movie theater. (Remember when we used to go to the movies? Yeah, that was fun.)

Under that same logic, you can’t simply allow lies about the 2020 election to be printed in a major national newspaper under the guise of free speech. There is absolutely no evidence that any of what Trump wrote in the letter is true. (He appears to have cobbled much of it together from a group known as Audit the Vote PA, which touts a number of debunked theories about the Pennsylvania vote count.) And by giving Trump such prominent space, you are conferring some credibility to what we know are wild and fact-free conspiracy theories.

So, why did the Journal do it?

Well, their opinion section has long been quite conservative. And a letter from the former president of the United States is not the easiest thing in the world to say “no” to. Plus, the letter was sure to be a massive traffic driver for the Journal’s website; it is currently the third most popular Opinions piece on the site and spent much of the first hours after publication in the number one slot.

None of these reasons, however, are good enough to justify the publication of a lie-filled letter from Trump, a letter which will continue to foment the misguided belief among his loyal supporters that the 2020 election was stolen from him. Especially since we saw on January 6 what all of those lies can create.

Analysis by Chris Cillizza, CNN Editor-at-large

Los Angeles – Cesspool of Corruption

Jose Huizar former Los Angeles city councilman seeks to gut corruption case, says alleged $1.5 million in gifts were not bribes. They were just little gifts of appreciation says his lawyer.

Former Los Angeles City Councilman Mitchell Englander was sentenced in January 2021 to 14 months in prison for lying to federal authorities about his dealings with a businessman who provided him $15,000 in secret cash payments and a debauched night in Las Vegas.

Marilyn Louise Flynn, 83, was dean of USC’s School of Social Work when she allegedly paid off Mark Ridley-Thomas, now an L.A. city councilman, when he was on the county Board of Supervisors.

Englander, Huizar and now Ridley-Thomas. The council is a cesspool of corruption. The battle over which district includes USC and the surrounding area has something to do with prestige and probably some kind of kick back in an area ripe for development. After all it is the city council that finally approves every new development. Since there is little development in the mid San Fernando Valley no one even wants to represent that area since there is little likelihood of new development.

As Pat Morrison wrote in her October 26, 2021 Los Angeles Times column “In 2015, as civic guru Rick Cole was departing his post as deputy mayor in L.A., he explained to me that “a lot of checks and balances are built into the system to avoid corruption and half-baked ideas, but … ironically, most were designed by reformers [who] were petrified of abuse of power. The charter was designed to prevent corruption, not to enable effectiveness. They took effective government for granted. So when you ask questions like, “Who’s responsible for the miserable state of L.A. streets?” you can blame anyone, because almost anybody has a piece of the problem and almost no one has the power to fix it. To avoid one problem, we so diffused power and hamstrung accountability, it’s no wonder we have the results we all complain about.”

I Refuse Your Lousy Pay

The latest jobs report from the federal government provided some shocking information. The total number of new jobs rose by only 194,000. The economic experts had predicted about 500,000. What happened?

Many people are not willing to return to their old jobs. It’s not just one reason. The obvious reason is fear of contracting COVID-19. The less obvious is many people thinking they never did like their old job because the pay was lousy, the hours were too long, and the chances for advancement were limited. Even the poorly educated are thinking they want a more rewarding occupation so maybe I can find something else to do.

That feeling that “I’ve had enough” according to the BLS report resulted in 4.3 million workers, or 2.9% of the labor force, quitting their jobs in August. That’s the highest rate since the BLS began tracking the data in December 2000.

After all who wants to drive a truck and who wants to deal with difficult patrons? Who in the hell wants these jobs?

To lure those workers back to those mind numbing jobs it is going to take higher pay and that will mean higher prices for everything. After all businesses still want the same profits they have had in the past.

Now it appears certain that many of these strains, both economic and viral, will continue well into 2022, and perhaps beyond. “There’s just no road map to opening a global economy in a pandemic, and people keep forgetting we’re still in a pandemic,” said Diane Swonk, chief economist at Grant Thornton. Now the recovery not only has to fix what was lost, but also the “scars and wounds have to heal” after hard-hit workers and industries reevaluated their futures,” Swonk said.

“Too Many Containers Inside the Terminal”

This is all about the supply chain issues. Trucks, warehouses, port docks are all involved in this.

For more than 30 years, Octavio Guadarama’s trucking career has seen its ups and downs. But this is the worst he’s seen it.

“I think they don’t have enough people to move everything,” he said.

On the dock, complaints are with warehouses that receive the goods. At the warehouses, complaints are with the dock that unloads them. For Guadarama, it’s the lack of trucks to get from point A to B.

“There are too many containers inside the terminal but there are no chassis to take those containers out,” he said.

More than 60 cargo ships are parked at sea and waiting to come into San Pedro and Long Beach. The estimated wait time as of today is 12 days. Wednesday President Joe Biden made the announcement that both LA and Long Beach would move to a 24-7 operation, calling it a potential game changer.

“I say potential because all of these goods won’t move by themselves,” he said.

But there’s no timeline as to when that will begin or how. The White House is making the push to clear the supply chain from slowing the nation’s economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.

Gene Seroka, the executive director of the Port of Los Angeles.

“We have to push this cargo out as quickly as we can,” he said.

Today port leaders say it’ll take a commitment of more than just those on the dock. Private companies such as Walmart, Target, FedEx and UPS have agreed to up their plans to work overnight hours to move goods faster.

“You have the commitment of the Biden administration, the commitment of the hardworking women and men in the supply chain to do their very best,” said John Porcari, who works the White House supply chain disruptions task force. “What we’re doing together is to accelerate the velocity of the supply chain using the available capacity, which is at night.”

But some along that chain worry there’s still an equipment issue that has to be solved first. No trucks – no movement.

“If they don’t have no chassis, it’s going to be the same thing,” Guadarama said.

This article posted on line provided by Los Angeles TV station NBC4.

The Impact of COVID-19

The world has been dislocated by the COVID-19 pandemic in ways most of us cannot comprehend. Shortages, higher prices, and few of us are willing to work in low paying jobs with no future are outcomes of this world wide catastrophe.

When fewer items are available, consumers are willing to pay more to obtain the item—as outlined in the economic principle of supply and demand. The result is higher prices due to demand-pull inflation.

Employers have faced a number of challenges throughout the COVID-19 pandemic — most recently, a labor shortage. In order to protect profitability, companies will have to pass on the additional costs to the consumer, adding to inflationary pressures.

cargo ships awaiting a birth at Los Angeles harbor

There is a cargo ship bottleneck trying to get into ports along the California coast. The supply chain is backed up and affecting businesses all the way down to the consumer. Another in inflationary pressure.

Add social behavior caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the world is confronted with an inflationary period with no ending in sight.

Government solution of aid in the form of unemployment benefits, regulations protecting tenants against evictions, and other programs to protect the unemployed causes many to believe the United States is becoming a socialist society.

Those “experts” writing their opinion pieces and appearing on news media outlets don’t really know where this situation is going. Your opinion an my opinion is just as valid.

‘It takes just “one extra snowflake to start an avalanche — and boom!” Indeed, according to Harry S. Dent Jr., aka The Contrarian’s Contrarian, flurries could come in July: The ever-building market bubble is likely to “blow at the end of this month, if not September,” predicts Dent in an interview with ThinkAdvisor.’

The Conference Board opinion: Looking further ahead, we forecast that the US economy will grow by 3.8 percent (year-over-year) in 2022 and 3.0 percent (year-over-year) in 2023.

My opinion: The sky is not falling. Despite politics we will muddle through despite our lack of a strong leader. Ignore the noise.