All posts by Dr. ESP

Back Asswards

Politics

If the major television networks are looking for mid-season replacements once the plethora of uninspired new fall programs are cancelled, let me suggest “Everyone Hates Roberts,” a sitcom which answers the question, “How did the Supreme Court of the United States’ become more despised than used car salesmen?”  [Note:  In a December 2021 Gallup survey of the most dishonorable jobs in American, only 9 percent of the respondents believed car salesmen were reputable.  The profession considered to be the most honest and ethical was nursing.]

I know, any question about the Court’s standing among Americans is the equivalent of asking, “Who’s buried in Grant’s tomb?”  All you have to do is look at the well publicized combination of corruption, conflicts of interest and 6-3 decisions in which the “originalists” suddenly lost their ability to read English.  In response, President Joe Biden has offered three reasonable proposals to reform the Court’s makeup and operations.

  • Limit justices to one 18-year term.
  • Enact a code of conduct for Supreme Court Justices with a mechanism to enforce violations.
  • A constitution amendment that ensures a sitting president is not immune to prosecution for violations of the law during his/her tenure in office.

The reaction was mixed.  Some SCOTUS watchers think it is a good start.  Others, such a Harvard constitutional law professor Ryan Doerfler described the Biden proposal as “inadequate.”  He elaborated, describing any effort to reform the court as “a political project.”

Because judges and justices are selected by the public only indirectly, one should expect that where elite and popular opinion diverge, judicial attitudes are likely to skew even more strongly toward elite consensus than the views of elected officials.

Until last Friday, I agreed with Doerfler, but was not quite sure why his assessment resonated with me. As is so often the case, enlightenment emerged as the result of a totally unrelated event, a Washington Post headline which read,  “Senate Republicans block a child tax credit expansion.”  More importantly, the actual bill never came to a vote.  Its demise was the result of a procedural vote when, according to the Post, “The measure fell short of the 60-vote threshold required to defeat a filibuster, on a 48-44 vote.”

I then realized any attempt to change the rules under which SCOTUS operates was a dog barking up the wrong tree.  Despite term limits, an unethical justice can do a lot of damage in 18 years.   We know there are always loopholes to evade ethical standards.  And the only reason presidential immunity came before the Court is because, for the first time in American history, a former president used it as way to wash his hands of alleged criminal behavior.

It has nothing to do with any provision of Article III of the Constitution or any law related to the judicial branch.  As always, it is about the individuals who wield the power.  Which brings me to today’s history lesson since much of what ails the court is related to the role of the Senate under Article II, Section 2, Clause 2: Advice and Consent.

He [the president] shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.

While the Founding Fathers specifically required a super-majority of present Senators to approve a treaty, they provided no such restraints on life-time appointments to the highest court in the land.  Until 1860, nominees were not subject to to committee hearings and most were approved by voice votes.  The first nominee summoned to appear before the Judiciary Committee was Calvin Coolidge’s attorney general Harlan Stone in 1925.  Judiciary committee hearings became standard procedure in 1955 though most nominees were still approved with large bi-partisan majorities.

That changed in 1987 with the rejection of Ronald Reagan nominee Robert Bork based on his opposition to the Court’s pro-civil rights opinions and his role in Watergate when, as solicitor general, he fired special prosecutor Archibald after attorney general Elliot Richardson and his deputy William Ruckelshaus refused to do so and resigned.  [Historically Ironic Note:  Samuel Alito and Brett Kavanaugh opposed Bork’s nomination and signed a letter to the Judiciary Committee which criticized Bork for being “an advocate of disproportionate powers for the executive branch of Government, almost executive supremacy.” (Source: New York Times/July 26, 1987)]

The most significant change came during the Obama administration when, under Senate rules, consent of federal judges required a super majority of 60 votes.  Republicans used this loophole to block many of Barack Obama’s nominations to lower federal courts.  To resolve the backlog, Senate Democrats invoked what was called “the nuclear option,” changing the rules to require only a simple majority for lower court appointments.  Then in the aftermath of blocking Merrick Garland’s nomination in 2016, Senate Republicans applied “the nuclear option” to Supreme Court nominees.  Since then, four justices have been confirmed with the following votes:

Neil Gorsuch/54-45
Brett Kavanaugh/50-48
Amy Coney Barrett/52-48
Ketanji Brown Jackson/53-47

Though many Republicans blame this rank partisanship when it comes to confirmation votes on the way Robert Bork was treated by Democrats, the evidence proves otherwise.  After Bork’s rejection, Ronald Reagan nominated Anthony Kennedy, considered a mainstream conservative.  He was approved by a unanimous 97-0 vote.

Which brings me back to the intersection between Supreme Court nominees, this week’s vote on the child tax credit and Doerfler’s observations about Biden’s efforts to reform the court.  My question, “Why does a Senate vote on tax policy which can easily be changed within two years when voters can flip congressional leadership require a super-majority of 60 votes, and a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court can be confirmed with a simple majority?”

It makes no sense.  One decision is temporal and should be reconsidered if voters elect a different congressional leadership, a clear signal they disapprove of policies put forth by the incumbent majority.  The other, according to Neil Gorsuch, makes decisions “for the ages,” is without accountability to the electorate.  Common sense tells us the threshold for Senate consideration of these two distinct responsibilities should be the exact opposite of what it is today.

Therefore, the first thing that needs to be done in the next Congress, regardless of the majority party, is to end the filibuster and reverse the 2017 Senate rule, again requiring a super majority to confirm Supreme Court justices.  Having mainstream left-center or right-center nominees who can garner the necessary majorities for confirmation will return confidence in the Court faster than any Constitutional amendment or new law.

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP

It’s All Greek to Me

Culture

You knew it would happen eventually.  Somebody was bound to throw a bucket of water on the bonfire of enthusiasm generated by Kamala Harris’ emergence as the presumptive Democratic nominee for president.  This time it was a YouGov poll, which according to The Hill, found:

While the respondents said that both Trump and Harris are equally qualified for the job, with 49 percent saying they are, voters are hesitant about the idea of a female president — 54 percent of the country says they are ready for a woman president and 30 percent said they aren’t. 

That number is down from 2015, when an Economist/YouGov poll found 63 percent of voters were ready for a woman president.

So far the heavyweight matchup on November 5th is being promoted as “the Prosecutor versus the Felon,” monikers which do not identify the contestants by gender. After all, both men and women are attorneys and criminals.  For every Johnny Corcoran there is a Marcia Clark.  And for every Clyde Barrow there is a Bonnie Parker. 

In 2016, Hillary Clinton deemphasized the historic possibility of the first FEMALE president, and how did that turn out?  When MAGAworld declared Harris to be a DEI hire, she embraced both her gender and mixed racial background.  In fact, she dared the opposition to keep it up.  “Bring it on,” she demanded.

As you know, I believe the 2024 Democratic ticket should be all-female, and I laugh when people suggest voters would not accept that option.  Why? Since ratification of the 12th Amendment on June 15, 1804, there have been 55 elections where the president and vice-president ran together.  That means there were at least 110 pairings, not counting third parties, in which 106 of the tickets were all-male.  I do not remember any complaints about those first 180 years of all-BRO tickets before Walter Mondale picked Geraldine Ferraro as his running mate.

There may be, however, a better reason to think about what America has missed without a woman sitting behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office.  To fully grasp the difference two female hands on the helm of the ship of state could make, instead of a courtroom analogy, I suggest we draw on classical Greek mythology.  When you think about the contenders in November, it strikes me as a rematch between Athena and Ares, those half-siblings, who faced each other on opposite sides of the Trojan War.  

One need only review the descriptions provided by the website “Greek Mythology Tours” to understand why Ares and Athena are worthy avatars for Trump and Harris, respectively.

Ares is the Greek god of war or rather the representation of the unpleasant aspects of war. These are violence, and one might even say blood-lust. He is almost opposite to his sister Athena, who is represented as logical and strategic.  Born the son of Zeus and Hera  he was said to be hated by both his mother and father. Ares was also unpopular with the other gods and people. Apart from Aphrodite that is, with whom he had an affair and numerous children.

Athena was depicted as a beautiful, yet stern Goddess in Greek mythology. She could be best described as being calculating – weighing up all the options before making a decision. As such, Athena was revered for her wisdom and unmatched intelligence, especially when it came to matters of war or even peace.  This was because unlike many of the other Olympian Gods, who were temperamental at the best of times, she made rational decisions and could also be a good broker of the peace.

Describing American values in ancient mythological terms is not new.  What is more representative of the American ideal than the Statue of Liberty in New York harbor and the Statue of Freedom atop the U.S. Capitol?  Both are women. 

According to the National Park Service, “classical images of Liberty are often depicted in a female form. The Statue of Liberty was modeled after the Roman Goddess of Liberty, Libertas.” “Lady Freedom,” the 19.5 foot sculpture which adorns the the Capitol dome was designer Thomas Crawford’s third iteration after then U.S. Secretary of War (drum roll) Jefferson Davis, opposed the first two versions because the figure wore a “liberty cap,” a symbol of defiance originally associated with ancient Greek and Roman slaves.  Slaveowner and future president of the Confederacy Davis wrote then superintendent of Capitol construction Captain Montgomery Meigs, “History renders [the liberty cap] inappropriate to a people who were born free and would not be enslaved.”  (Source: Senate Historical Office)  What would have been appropriate was for Davis to replace the phrase “a people” with “people of European ancestry like me.”  Crawford compromised, replacing the liberty cap with a helmet similar to one worn by Athena in Rembrandt’s 1657 portrait “Pallas Athena.”  Crawford justified his choice by claiming it symbolized not war, put peace through strength.

Since “Lady Freedom” was unveiled on December 2, 1863, and the Statue of Liberty arrived in New York on June 15, 1888, these two women have been a visual representation of  ideals that are central to the American experience.  November 5, 2024 seems like the perfect time to give “liberty” and “freedom” a female voice. 

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP

Rule of Three

Politics

The rule of three is a writing principle which suggests that a trio of entities such as events or characters is more humorous, satisfying, or effective than other numbers. The audience of this form of text is also thereby more likely to remember the information conveyed because having three entities combines both brevity and rhythm with having the smallest amount of information to create a pattern.

~Wikipedia

I thought about the rule of three as I prepared for a one-on-one breakfast with the LaShonda Holloway (she goes by L.J.), the Democratic candidate for Congress in Florida’s Fourth District.  What were the three things I could share with her which exhibited the “brevity and rhythm” that would resonate with voters?  I am sharing them with you because they also apply to any conversation you might have with voters who are open to NEW information about the candidates.

  1. Do not run against who your opponent is.  Run against what he/she says and does.  In L.J.’s case she is running against Aaron Bean, a member of a multi-generational, well-connected local family.  A representative of each of the last three generations has been elected mayor  of Fernandina Beach.  They also have been major contributors to many civic projects. But as our Congressman, Aaron has no legislative accomplishments and says or does something stupid almost every day.
    On his website, he says REPUBLICANS forced Secret Service director Kimberly Cheatle to resign, ignoring the fact ranking member of the Oversight Committee Jamie Raskin (D-MD) also signed the letter.  He said the assassination attempt against Donald Trump was horrific and unacceptable, but refuses to condemn the violence on January 6, 2021.  He accuses Joe Biden of appeasing Hamas but voted against aid to Ukraine.  It is not who Aaron is; it is what he has become since hitching his star to Trump and the MAGA agenda.
    The reason for taking a similar approach to Trump is just the opposite.  He was never a decent human being.  But everyone already knows that; so why waste time or money trying to convince those who do not care.  Focus on what he says as evidenced by his remarks Friday at the Turning Point Summit.  According to NPR, he told the Christian gathering this was the only election that mattered.  “You won’t have to do it anymore.  Four more years, you know what?  It’s fixed, it’ll be fine.  You won’t have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians.”  A WTF moment if there was one.  Only Trump could promise Americans will become both a dictatorship and theocracy in one sentence.
  2. Attack the fear factor.  Trump and his MAGA lemmings tell you armed IRS agents are going to show up on your front porch.  That the FBI is going to conduct pre-dawn raids at your house.  That immigrants are going to kill you.  Whenever or wherever someone makes those claims, ask them, “How many of you have had an armed-IRS agent show up at your door?”  The answer, of course, is none. You know why?  First, IRS auditors don’t carry guns, and second, they only go after people when there is probable cause that they cheated on their returns.  “How many of you have been subjected to an FBI raid?”  Again, no one raises their hands.  Maybe because you are not concealing classified documents or destroyed evidence in a criminal case. Finally, if Trump and the MAGAverse are so concerned about immigrant crime, why did they block the toughest border security proposal in U.S. history?  Must not be that big an issue.  However, the misguided 20-year-old who took a shot at Trump was not an immigrant.  The shooters at New Town and Uvalde were not immigrants.  The mass murderers in Orlando, Las Vegas, Charleston, Pittsburgh, Buffalo and El Paso were not immigrants.  The insurrectionists that beat up police protecting the nation’s capitol were not immigrants.  What about them?
  3. When talking about the difference between Democrats and MAGA candidates, be specific and make it personal.  It is easy to attack Project 2025 by reciting the laundry list of bad ideas contained in the Heritage Foundation’s blueprint for a second Trump administration.
    Read the audience.  Pick one topic in Project 2025 that is most likely to resonate with them.  If they have children in Head Start programs tell them that it will cost them an average of $8,200/year in daycare if the program is eliminated.  If they are salaried workers, focus on the Project 2025 tax proposal.  Tell them if they make $100,000/year, their taxes will increase by $4,118 compared to the current tax code while a household making $1 million/year will save $23,625.  Ask an elderly audience how many are worried about long-term health care and spend the rest of the time on what it means if Trump, et. al. eliminate or reduce Medicaid benefits.  And again, make it VERY personal. Point to the audience and remind them, “YOU and YOU and YOU would have to pay…”

One can only hope the rule of three applies to the trifecta of female candidates on the ballot in Florida’s 4th Congressional District:  Vice President Kamala Harris, Rick Scott opponent Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, and L.J. Holloway.

POSTSCRIPT: A GOOD WEEK

It’s a good week when Friday’s Wall Street Journal includes the headline, “Harris Erases Trump’s Lead, WSJ Poll Finds.”  However, the better news is that Americans know when politicians don’t believe what they are saying.  And sadly, since the June 27 debate, defense of Joe Biden’s chances in November came off as unauthentic.

That is no longer the case.  There is no better evidence than the appearance by former New Orleans mayor Mitch Landrieu on Sunday’s edition of MSNBC’s “The Weekend.”  Prior to Biden’s announcement last Sunday, Landrieu, who is a co-chair of the now Harris National Campaign, would talk about the party’s ground game as the antidote for the president’s disaster in the first (and maybe the last) debate between the two major party nominees.  This morning he talked in terms of using the field offices and volunteers to make sure the momentum and enthusiasm Harris brings to the ticket will translate into votes on November 5.

And this time, you could tell he actually believed they would.

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP

Head Fart

Economics, Politics

Here they go again.  Just when you thought the Heritage Foundation “geniuses” at Project 2025 who proposed a two-tier regressive system increasing taxes for lower and middle class Americans while giving the wealthy new and deeper tax cuts, wait until you see their plan to reduce opportunities for early childhood education.  Not only do they want to get rid of Head Start, they want the beneficiaries to pay for making it go away.  From page 482 in “Project 2025: Mandate for Leadership”:

Eliminate the Head Start program. Head Start, originally established and funded to support low-income families, is fraught with scandal and abuse. With a budget of more than $11 billion, the program should function to protect and educate minors. Sadly, it has done exactly the opposite. In fact, “approximately 1 in 4 grant recipients had incidents in which children were abused, left unsupervised, or released to an unauthorized person between October 2015 and May 2020.”68 Research has demonstrated that federal Head Start centers, which provide preschool care to children from low-income families, have little or no long-term academic value for children. Given its unaddressed crisis of rampant abuse and lack of positive outcomes, this program should be eliminated along with the entire OHS. At the very least, the program’s COVID-19 vaccine and mask requirements should be rescinded.

The identified endnote #68 is found on page  501.

Madison Marino, “Over 1,000 Safety Violations Mar Head Start.  Children Deserve Better,” Heritage Foundation Commentary, November 10, 2022.

You might wonder, “Who is Madison Marino?”  She is according to the Heritage Foundation website, “a Senior Research Associate for the Heritage Center for Education Policy.”  And the cited article originally appeared in The Daily Signal, which, though legally separate from the Heritage Foundation, has many of the same donors and relies heavily on Heritage staff for content.  To recap, a conservative think-tank justifies a call to end Head Start based on an article by a member of its own staff published in a legally separate, but allied, publication.  To quote Captain Renault (Claude Raines) in Casablanca, “I’m shocked, shocked that gambling is going on in here!”

Of course Head Start has flaws and there are instances of people gaming the system in every federal program.  Ask the major corporations that received a total of $530 million in SBA loans after 9/11.  The question is, “Would the Heritage geniuses have come to a different conclusion if they had read a June 2019 report by the Brookings Institute which looked at the long term impacts of the program?”  Their conclusion draws heavily on a January 2018 study by economics professor Andrew Barr (Texas A&M) and education professor Chloe Gibbs (Notre Dame) titled, “Breaking the cycle?  Intergenerational Effects of an Anti-Poverty Program in Early Childhood.”  Brookings summarized their work as follows.

New research by Gibbs and Barr finds intergenerational effects of Head Start along the same lines of the Heckman work – the children of those who were exposed to Head Start saw reduced teen pregnancy and criminal engagement and increased educational attainment.

By the way, the operational issues identified in Project 2025 come from a September 2022 report by Suzann Murrin, deputy inspector general of Joe Biden’s Department of Health and Human Services in which the department calls for more oversight to address these concerns.  Dare I say, in contrast, the tag line for the Project 2025 proposal should be, “Throwing out the baby’s education with the bathwater.”

But wait.  The impact on low-income families also has a financial dimension.  Eligible low-income beneficiaries do not pay for their children to participate in Head Start programs.  If the program is eliminated, those same families would be saddled with daycare expenses for the six hours/day previous covered via Head Start (the average length of a daily Head Start program).  What does that mean in out-of-pocket expenses?

CARE.COM reports that the average cost of childcare per child in 2024 ranges from $766/week (nanny) to $321 (daycare) to $230 (family care center) to $192 (babysitter).  Since most Head Start programs do not run through the summer, a family with one child would now face nine months (36 weeks) of childcare expenses.  Under the family care center option that equals $8,280/year.  Keep in mind, that is per child.

So let’s run the numbers.  The non-profit National Head Start Association reports there were approximately 809,000 children enrolled in Head Start in FY2024.  The federal Head Start budget for the same year was $11 billion.  Therefore to save $11 billion dollars (.0016 of one percent of the total federal budget), those “UNreal men of genius” who want to raise taxes on lower income Americans want to add $6.7 billion/year of out-of-pocket expenses on those who can least afford it.  Not to mention (but of course I will), as of July 2020, 17 states controlled by MAGA governors and legislatures impose work requirements on individuals who apply for TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families) benefits.  Once again, the party that promotes the “traditional family” as the elixir for all that ails America promotes policies that do just the opposite. 

Someone needs to tell J. D. Vance that legislation to eliminate Head Start should forever be known as the “How to Discourage Motherhood and Create Homes for Cats Act of 2025.”

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP

The GOP’s Recessive Gene

Economics, Politics

Before January 6, 2021, there was another “big lie.”  Republicans repeatedly told us that they are the guardians of the U.S. economy.  Yet, according to the U.S. National Bureau of Economic Research, there have been 11 recession since 1953 of which 10 took place during Republican administrations.  Consider the following.

  • During the Eisenhower administration (1953-61), there were THREE recessions with a combined duration of 28 months.  The peak unemployment rate rose to 7.4 percent.  Chronologically, gross domestic product (GDP) declined by 2.7, 3.7, and 1.6 percent during each of the three downturns.
  • During the Kennedy/Johnson administration (1961-65), there were NO recessions.
  • During the Johnson administration (1965-69), there were NO recessions.
  • During the Nixon/Ford administration (1969-1977), there were TWO recessions with a combined duration of 27 months.  The peak unemployment rate was 8.6 percent.  GDP declined by 0.6 percent and 3.0 percent, respectively.
  • During the Carter administration (1977-1981), there was ONE recession with a duration of 6 months.  Peak unemployment was 7.8 percent and GDP declined by 2.2 percent.
  • During the Reagan administration (1981-1989), there was ONE recession with a duration of 16 months.  Peak unemployment was 10.8 percent and GDP declined by 2.9 percent.
  • During the George H. W. Bush administration (1989-1993), there was ONE recession of eight months duration.  The peak unemployment was 6.8 percent and GDP declined by 1.5 percent.
  • During the Clinton administration (1993-2001) there were NO recessions.
  • During the George H. Bush administration (2001-2009), there were TWO recessions of combined 26 months duration.  The peak unemployment rate was 9.5 percent and GDP declined by 0.3 and 4.3 percent, respectively.
  • During the Obama administration (2009-2017), there were NO recessions.
  • During the Trump administration (2017-2021), there was ONE recession with a duration of two months.  The peak unemployment rate was 14.7 percent.
  • During the Biden administration (2021- present), there have been NO recessions.

To recap, since 1953, there have been five Republican administrations with a total of 10 recessions.  Over the same period, there has been six Democratic administrations with only one recession.   The combined duration of GOP recessions is 117 months compared to six months for Democratic presidents.

There has not been a single recession during the past three Democratic administrations spanning 19.5 years in the White House.  In contract, there has not been a single Republican administration in the past 71 years without at least one recession.  In terms of impact, Republican recessions are longer in duration and have higher average peak unemployment.

One of the great mysteries of life is why the CEOs of so many major U.S. corporations continue to back the party that seems to have recession built into their DNA.  Perhaps, Forrest Gump provides the best explanation.  “Stupid is as stupid does.”  Or as George Constanza advised Jerry Seinfeld how to beat a polygraph test, “If YOU believe it, it’s not a lie.”

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP