Gun Haters are Becoming Gun Owners

Legitimately armed protestors at the Michigan State Capitol, April 15, 2020

Gun Haters are Becoming Gun Owners

“It’s no long the economy, stupid!” It’s America’s post-industrial culture war!

A recent NY Times polls tells us that American democracy is under severe threat… but approximately half the nation also believes that our democracy no longer works as a viable political system. Further, Republicans own more than double the number of firearms owned by Democrats. Guns are the number one killer of American children and teens, but the American guns-are-more-important-than-our-kids culture of violence, supported by a litany of distorted Supreme Court, suggests that guns (including assault weapons) are locked into permanence in our society. Token gun control legislation rarely slides by Supreme Court rejection standards. So, knowing that the “opposition” is well armed, many of that cohort are prepared to use their weapons in support of white Christian nationalism, guess who’s buying guns?! Liberals too?

That culture war thang is the driving force. The great divide? Non-college educated males in search of a new definition of masculinity, Christianity, geography and gender vs Breadwinning/ politically strong women, a knowledge-based economy and our educated minority. The are more women in college and many professional fields than men! Physical strength as a job metric is a vestige of an earlier era; even wars are fought with machines as easily run by women as by men. Notice that race was not the main factor! Young male suicides are up with the notion of “worthlessness” at the core. We know that guns are a male thang… not a priority among women or the educated. See a pattern yet? Bottom line, knowing that we cherish guns more than ever, America is arming itself on steroids.

Part of this fractionalization comes from the normalization of hate-speech and carrying guns in spaces unheard of just a few years ago, unpermitted concealed carry, stand your ground laws proliferating… or as Jennifer Carlson, founding director of the Center for the Study of Guns in Society at Arizona State University and a 2022 MacArthur fellow, puts in the October 27th Los Angeles Times: “There’s a new reason your neighbors bought a weapon — gun culture 3.0… Americans on the left and the right are starting to arm themselves against perceived threats of political violence…

“The rumors and conspiracy theories in Hurricane Helene’s wake came armed and dangerous: Government relief was a green light for property confiscation; funds had immediately run dry; the storm itself had been engineered by the government for the benefit of Kamala Harris’ campaign. Meterologists suffered death threats. In North Carolina, FEMA workers stopped knocking on doors out of fear that militia members were after them. In Tennessee, a church-group volunteer stood between federal helpers and angry open-carry gun-toting locals. And at least one arrest, of a man armed with a rifle and a handgun, took place in North Carolina.

“The paranoia in hurricane country, with its undercurrent of violence, is just the latest sign of a new wrinkle in American gun ownership, something scholars have started describing as gun culture 3.0. The 1.0 version is firearm ownership based on hunting, often animated by a mythologized Western frontier. Gun culture 2.0 is self-defense-oriented, motivated by overwhelming concerns about violent crime that emerged in the 1960s. For years, gun-owning Americans have told pollsters that the No. 1 reason they own guns is to protect themselves in dangerous situations.

“But that broad motivation conceals a shift in what many — though not all — gun owners feel they now need protection against. Borrowing from the militia movement, which identifies government tyranny as a key reason for firearms ownership, Gun culture 3.0 is all about perceived political threats unleashed by those no longer invested in normal guardrails — whether rogue government agents or rogue private individuals…

“[A] study published this summer in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine found that new gun owners are much more likely to be motivated by political concerns with regard to protective force than other issues: They want protection during rallies and demonstrations, and they are especially worried about violence from people who don’t share their political beliefs. Black gun owners — long-standing or new — in particular worried about police violence… These data points suggest that Americans across the spectrum are turning to firearms as a tool of last resort to regain — as ‘bad feminist’ and new gun owner Roxane Gay recently put it — ‘ways to not feel out of control.’ And our divisive and distrustful politics are driving them there.

“Some think political violence resolves itself, that it is its ‘own worst enemy,’ because the backlash it causes renews people’s commitment to civility, and a fundamental, despite-our-differences unity. But waiting for political violence to shock Americans back from the brink can’t be the only way to stem the division and fear behind gun culture 3.0.

“In Tennessee when armed antagonists approached aid workers in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, the woman who stepped between them listened. ‘People just need to be heard,’ she told a reporter, ‘I said, ‘I hear you.’ ’ But she also pointed out what they could see for themselves: storm victims being helped, not exploited… We can depolarize everyday life, calling out divisive behavior and labeling disinformation for what it is, even among our political allies, and working — no matter how hard it might be — to approach those on the ‘other side’ with curiosity. Maybe even compassion… Neither gun ownership nor gun limits will address the underlying fear and polarization that feeds gun culture 3.0. We have to address our withered capacity to live with one another.” We live in a country where so many can picture shooting someone with opposing views without a twitch of guilt… by dehumanizing them first. For further background see my October 6th The Legitimized MAGA Politics of Violence blog.

I’m Peter Dekom, and that hating people for their beliefs, justifying killing or silencing them, has become a new normal should trouble us all.

How Protecting Profits for the Richest Pharmas and Healthcare Institutions is Sinking US Healthcare

How Protecting Profits for the Richest Pharmas and Healthcare Institutions is Sinking US Healthcare

From Medicare to Medi-Icouldcareless

A bad as my October 3rd We Have the Best Healthcare in the World, if You are Rich blog may have depicted the sad performance of the American healthcare system may have been, the numbers emphasize how much of an under-performer it is, and how much worse it is trending. Yet, medical care issues drifted into the back pages of campaign rhetoric, even with the threat of disruption to our failing healthcare system approaching catastrophic proportions. But there is no question that our current healthcare system makes little sense, especially when compared to that of any other developed country. Writing for the October 20th Yahoo!Finance, Adriana Belmonte provides the supporting numbers:

“The overall cost of healthcare remains a major problem. Healthcare expenditures grew 4.1% in 2022, reaching $4.5 trillion and accounting for 17.3% of US GDP…. The ballooning costs highlight the crux of the US healthcare conundrum: The US spends more on healthcare than any other developed country in the world — an estimated $13,493 per person. Yet it falls behind in overall healthcare performance, access and affordability, administrative efficiency, equity, and health outcomes, according to the Commonwealth Fund… ‘The cost of healthcare is always a pocketbook concern for Americans,” Paul Shafer, assistant professor at Boston University's Department of Health Law, Policy, and Management…

“An estimated 20 million Americans collectively owe $220 billion in medical debt, according to the Peterson-KFF Health System Tracker… In June, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announced that it would erase medical debt from credit reports using funding from the American Rescue Plan… KFF found that among insured adults with medical debt, 35% indicated they did not fill a prescription for medicine due to cost within the last 12 months (compared to 7% of insured adults without medical debt), while 41% didn’t go to a doctor or clinic for a medical problem due to cost (compared with 9% without medical debt)… Medicare accounts for 10% of the federal budget, a share projected to grow to 18% by 2032, according to KFF. Medicare Advantage, the privatized option under Medicare, makes up 22% of the total spending and has become a lightning rod for criticism from medical providers who say insurers running these plans too often delay and deny care while getting paid too much by the federal government.” And yet, medical bankruptcies are so “American,” even for those with health insurance.

No other country on Earth has per capita or GDP expenditures and percentages anywhere near those in the United States. We could do so much better, but for the most part, progress has been slow: three steps forward, a GOP pushback of one or two steps back. Smug healthcare giants, if they cannot stop this movement totally, have the lobbying/ campaign contribution machine to drag fairness out of play and slorp at their profit margins. But fixing an inane system is critical. And no, this is no more “creeping socialism” than public schools.

Margot Sanger-Katz, writing for the October 28th The Morning newsfeed from the NY Times notes that even without additional legislation, and control of our Congress is beyond determinative, our President will “influence how many people have health insurance, how much many pay for it, the prices of prescription drugs and more through regulatory power alone… [But Congress could well be the decider] During the pandemic, Democrats raised the subsidies that help 20 million Americans buy their own insurance. Poor Americans can get covered without paying a cent, and even people making north of $100,000 got help with premiums. But if Congress does nothing, the new subsidies will expire at the end of next year. That would likely leave more than three million uninsured — and would make nearly everyone insured through Obamacare pay more.”

With the least effective healthcare system in the developed world, and beyond doubt the most expensive, access to all those wonderous American medical inventions and treatments is clearly based on maintaining profits to the biggest players in the American healthcare network… a priority that overrides healthcare itself. Some glaring disparities – like the fact that even with recent efforts by the Biden administration to bring down the cost of prescription drugs; for the most part, Americans pay more than two to three+ times more for the same medications than any developed nation – have made reducing those costs, opening the door to more leverage in healthcare systems when negotiating with pharmas, an issue with supporters from both sides of the aisle. But there is staunch MAGA cadre in Congress that sill prioritize profits over healthcare.

It is equally clear the MAGA is also more focused on the budget deficit and continuing their press for massive additional tax cuts for the rich, continuing and enhancing their 2017 corporate tax reduction legislation, by contracting Medicaid and Medicare (as well as Social Security), and leaving much of those healthcare policies to already cash-strapped states instead. Efforts to repeal or further severely contract the very popular Affordable Care Act, with or without a replacement, just will not die. The rising national slam to reproductive healthcare has created the highest maternal and infant mortality rate in recent memory. The rich get the best, the rest, not so much.

I’m Peter Dekom, we are a nation that has made no meaningful effort to stem gun fatalities (the greatest killer of our children and teens), to care for women in desperate need of what was once normal reproductive medical care and one where healthcare remains deeply subordinate to industry profits.

Cache Kash for Cash

Cache Kash for Cash

Is the GOP Congress Bloc a Legislative Body or a Trump Hand Puppet, Parrots or People?

“Patel had virtually no experience that would qualify him to serve at the highest level of the world’s preeminent law enforcement agency.”

Former Trump Attorney General, Willam Barr in his memoir.

“We’re going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections… We’re going to come after you, whether it’s criminally or civilly. We’ll figure that out. But yeah, we’re putting you all on notice.” 

FBI Director Nominee, Kash Patel

I was watching Face the Nation on December 1st. Texas GOP Senator Ted Cruz was on, and as he described “the corruption” that defined today’s FBI, he was simply mouthing the exact words repeatedly uttered by Donald Trump on point. I opened my eyes and saw it was Ted. I remembered his post on Twitter on April 22, 2016. “Donald Trump can’t be trusted with common sense. Why would we trust him in the White House.” Called him “Lyin’ Ted.” And yet, Cruz’ words were parrot-like imitations of Trump. Carl Hulse, writing for the New York Times on December 1st, asked burning question, the answer suggesting whether the Republican Senate would join the US Supreme Court in its presidential immunity ruling and enable the ascension of a true autocrat to rule the United States:

“President-elect Donald J. Trump’s determination to crash over traditional governmental guardrails will present a fundamental test of whether the Republican-controlled Senate can maintain its constitutional role as an independent institution and a check on presidential power… With Mr. Trump putting forward a raft of contentious prospective nominees and threatening to challenge congressional authority in other ways, Republicans who will hold the majority come January could find themselves in the precarious position of having to choose between standing up for their institution or bowing to a president dismissive of government norms.” Trump even promised engaging a special commission to establish that the 2020 was “stolen.”

If you had the slightest hope that Trump’s term would not be driven by retribution and revenge, destruction of a federal government that, while flawed and in need of some prudent culling and restructure, fulfilled our policy needs, and that he would not really pursue anything to make Trump’s designated rich even richer, let me disabuse you of that misguided belief. I’ve blogged about several of his nominees, wildly unqualified, even dangerous, yet while Trump theoretically claims to be the “law and order President,” his greatest foes are mostly Republican federal law enforcement officers with tons of experience and seniority, none hated more than the prestigious Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Assuming he can in fact remove the existing head, FBI director Christopher Wray, whom Trump appointed during his first term in 2017 for a theoretical 10-year term, Trump has nominated ultra-loyal, 2020 election denying, extreme MAGA conspiracy theory mongering and FBI hating, Kash Patel, former chief of staff to Acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller, to replace Wray. Patel as FBI director is akin to placing a wolf to guard the henhouse. His antipathy to the most prestigious federal law enforcement agency, his bias very likely to unravel the FBI (provoking the desired mass resignations) indeed seems as another loyalty test for the MAGA majority Senate… perhaps even an unsubtle slap in the face to Congress. Can they really approve a man they know is Trump’s instrument of destruction for the FBI?

“In his final months in [his first term in] office, Trump unsuccessfully pushed the idea of installing Patel as the deputy director at either the FBI or CIA in an effort to strengthen the president’s control of the intelligence community. William Barr, Trump’s attorney general, wrote in his memoir that he told then-chief of staff Mark Meadows that an appointment to Patel as deputy FBI director would happen ‘over my dead body.’…

“The selection is in keeping with Trump's view that the government's law enforcement and intelligence agencies require a radical transformation and his stated desire for retribution against supposed adversaries. It shows how Trump, still fuming over years of federal investigations that shadowed his first administration and later led to his indictment, is moving to place atop the FBI and Justice Department close allies he believes will protect rather than scrutinize him… Patel ‘played a pivotal role in uncovering the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax, standing as an advocate for truth, accountability, and the Constitution,’ Trump wrote Saturday night [11/29] in a social media post.” Eric Tucker and Alan Suderman, writing for the November 30th, Associated Press.

If we’re looking for signs of likely future Trump administration corruption, combine Trump’s power to exempt certain economic sectors from immigration sweeps or tariffs for their imports with the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity ruling for “official acts,” and you can see precisely how loyalists can be rewarded and neutral or critical cadres punished. Add the extra-legislative DOGE (Musk and Ramaswamy) as they “recommend” budget cuts, particularly to healthcare and Social Security supported by Trump, and see how well those parrots are trained.

As we can plainly see, Trump is baiting the Republican members of the Senate to prove their loyalty to him by confirming the worst, least competent, angry, conspiracy driven major federal nominees in recent memory. Internationally, leaders of even friendly nations are beginning to circle the wagons against Trump’s threats and bully tactics… his global opponents are wondering how to marginalize the power of the United States given this global revulsion to Trump’s tactics. And given the pattern of American leadership inconsistency, you have to wonder how many nations will ever trust the United States to honor its treaty commitments and mutual defense obligations… ever again.

I’m Peter Dekom, and I think the world would really like to know whether the GOP members of Congress were elected to represent the people who vote for them… or Donald Trump.

 

 

Tooth and Consequences

Tooth and Consequences

Robert Kennedy, Jr’s medical track record – he has no medical credentials – should give us all pause. He is Donald Trump’s pick to head a huge federal agency, one that touches every aspect of our healthcare: the Department Health and Human Services (HHS). If confirmed RFK, Jr., would run most of the federal sub-cabinet agencies that vet food and drug safety, covers many federal social programs, and the operation of all federal health programs outside of the military. He would be one of the most powerful people in government. HHS is one of the largest federal cabinet-level agencies with well over 80 thousand federal employees. A failed presidential candidate, disavowed by the entire Kennedy family (yes, that Kennedy family), RFK, Jr has become America’s conspiracy adopter in chief, bringing quacks and antivaxxers adoringly to his door. Unfortunately, his family name gave him credibility where it clearly was not merited. Like in this reality in Samoa in2019.

“In 2013, 90% of babies in Samoa received the measles-mumps-rubella vaccination at one year of age… The 2019 Samoa measles outbreak began in September 2019. As of 6 January 2020, there were over 5,700 cases of measles and 83 deaths, out of a Samoan population of 200,874. Over three per cent of the population were infected. The cause of the outbreak was attributed to decreased vaccination rates among newly born babies, from 74% in 2017 to 31–34% in 2018, even though nearby islands had rates near 99%...

“In June 2019, American anti-vaccination activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. [had] visited Samoa to meet with local anti-vaccination activists including Taylor Winterstein and Edwin Tamanese, whom he called a ‘medical freedom hero. Kennedy also discussed vaccines with then-Prime Minister Tuilaʻepa Saʻilele Malielegaoi, and campaigned against the vaccine on social media.

“After the measles outbreak started, anti-vaxxers (including Kennedy) credited the dozens of measles deaths to poverty and malnutrition or even to the vaccine itself, but there was no evidence for these claims, and clinicians reported that Vitamin A deficiency or immunodeficiency did not appear to be a substantial contributing factor to the outbreak…

“In 2019 there [had been arising number of outbreaks] throughout the Pacific region, including in Tonga, Fiji, the Philippines and New Zealand, but only Samoa suffered casualties, due to its low vaccination rate… UNICEF and the World Health Organization estimate that the measles vaccination rate among newly born babies in Samoa fell from 74% in 2017 to 34% in 2018, similar to some of the poorest countries in Africa. Ideally, countries should have immunization levels above 90%. Vaccination rates dropped to 31% in Samoa, compared to 99% in nearby Nauru, Niue, Cook Islands, and American Samoa.” Wikipedia. Samoan babies died in unprecedented numbers as many families had eschewed vaccinating their babies and relied on RFK Jr’s holistic advice and belief that herd immunity would solve the issue.

After Joe Biden distributed the COVID vaccines in the US (notably developed during the Trump administration, but with no distribution plan… leaving that to the states), RFK, Jr lauded Trump’s later COVID approach, in which the ex-President suggested that social distancing and closing businesses, mandating vaccines and masking in many sectors, were unnecessary and deleterious to the American economy. RFK, Jr continued to insist, dramatically and incorrectly as the numbers clearly proved, that the vaccine caused more harm than good. He was cheered by antivaxxer conspiracy theorists, whose efforts have pulled mandatory school vaccinations (required for over half a century) into a “voluntary only” process in lots of American public schools. A new MAGA campaign platform was born. Anti-science skeptics were beginning to triumph is the worst possible way,

RFK, Jr’s next crusade, in his challenge to “make American healthy again,” particularly if he is confirmed as HHS Secretary, is to eliminate the use of fluorides from tap water across the land. Fluoridation has long been viewed as toxic by a small cadre of American conspiracy theorists. As noted by Saima Iqbal in the November 27th Scientific American, RFK, Jr “fueled a fluoride furor on social media when he called the mineral ‘industrial waste’. Kennedy… inaccurately claimed fluoride exposure could lead to arthritis, bone cancer, thyroid disease, IQ loss and neurodevelopmental conditions. He has said he would advise against adding it to tap water—a practice that currently reaches more than 209 million Americans.

“It remains unclear whether the incoming Trump administration could effectively ban water fluoridation: current laws let state and local governments make the decision. But at the federal level, fluoridation opponents could deploy the Safe Drinking Water Act, which regulates water contaminants nationally. They could also take advantage of a recent federal court decision: In September a California district court judge ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to set stricter regulations on tap water fluoride levels, arguing that the HHS’s national concentration recommendations might lower children’s IQ scores. But the judge leaned heavily on a recent controversial scientific report that had been rejected twice in peer review for a lack of rigor.

“‘His conclusion was misguided—and an overreach,’ says Charlotte W. Lewis, a pediatrician and dental care researcher at the University of Washington School of Medicine. She notes that widely accepted research shows water fluoridation to be an effective disease-prevention measure, especially for people in communities with less access to dental care.” But medical professionals have noted that those who get unfluoridated tap water, particularly in poorer areas where routine dental care is not accessed, are particularly vulnerable and that “a widespread crackdown on this naturally occurring mineral could be a disaster. To see how, we turn to the sobering case of Juneau, a city in Alaska that voted to stop fluoridating its water in 2007, citing many of the same fears that RFK touts today.

“In a 2018 study published in the journal BMC Oral Health, researchers examined the dental records of adolescents in the Alaska community who sought Medicaid dental care in the years surrounding either side of the ban… They divided them into two treatment groups: a 2003 group, when public drinking water had optimal levels of fluoride, and a 2012 group, well after the fluoride ban… The results were damning. On average, the 2012 group had a significantly higher number of cavity-related procedures for adolescents than the 2003 group. Similarly, the odds of someone 18 years-old or younger undergoing the same type of procedure was 25 percent higher in 2012.

“Children born after the fluoride ban were the hardest hit age group, receiving not only the most tooth decay treatments, but also having the most expensive treatments on average… Additionally on the economic side of things, the researchers found that dental care costs for adolescents soared by 73 percent as a result of the fluoride policy, even after adjusting for inflation. In sum, it seems clear cut that removing fluoride caused tooth rot to surge — and with it, medical costs.” Frank Landymore in the November 29th Neoscopeon on Futurism.com.

Trump must be aware of these medical realities, so why would he even pick RFK, Jr for this cabinet post? Given that so many of the government social programs are in HHS… programs MAGA adherent and tax-cut yearning billionaires mislabel as “entitlements”… could it be that Trump knows that HHS would unravel under RFK, Jr, giving Trump and his DOGE budget-cutters an open road to slash and burn HHS into oblivion?

I’m Peter Dekom, and Trump’s apparent dramatically inappropriate cabinet nominees appear to be part of his intentional kakistocracy (government by the worst), a hidden effort to tear the federal bureaucracy apart in order to funnel the savings into deregulation and tax cuts that benefit him and his mega-rich cronies.

Kicking the Can Down the Road, Cutting Taxes for the Rich, Borrowing Along the Way

Kicking the Can Down the Road, Cutting Taxes for the Rich, Borrowing Along the Way

Using Educational Quality as a Metric: We Have Totally Unraveled What Used to Be the Best

The future for growth and success in America did not used to be determined by your status at birth. While Europe was filled with hereditary titles of nobility, truly “old money,” military and educational institutions of higher learning populated by the scions from the highest reaches of society, the United States didn’t start out that way. The Continent was rife with barriers, religious discrimination, clearly defined class structures where opportunity was often limited by your generic pedigree. The “New World,” populated by indigenous peoples unable to resist Western diseases and military supremacy, offered what to Western migrants appeared to be a blank slate, filled with natural resources and that currently evaporating intangible: hope. Upward mobility if you worked hard enough.

Maybe the political pundits missed it of late, but hope was in short supply, upward mobility had been relegated to the history books and the schism between the monied classes and everyone else had become a canyon wider than the Grand Canyon itself. Knowing that blame fomented class warfare and populist revolutions, those with unlimited finances using the uncapping of using vast wealth to spread a tsunami of publicly spewed propaganda (via the infamous 2010 Supreme Court Citizens United vs FEC), recreating the perception of America. Although they were the obvious culprits in tilting the playing field severely in their favor, those with money were quick to redirect the blame towards religious, racial ethnic and academic constituencies. Not themselves.

Eschewing traditional but inconvenient economic principles, those at the top of the success ladder rejected the notion that a nation at war must make sacrifices (“guns or butter”). The military industrial complex (Eisenhower had warned us of this greedy powerhouse) touted the possibility of “guns and butter” to support the Vietnam War and the later wars we mounted in Central Asia and the Middle East. Government could cut their taxes while accelerating the necessary military expenditures. The mythology of supply side economics (also “trickle down” theory) told us that the rich were the “job creators” who would “float all boats.” It was never true, but instead of austerity which needed to be imposed most on the richest in the land, tax cuts passed… and those jobs never arrived.

Federal deficits soared, state coffers were sucked dry, and the necessary belt-tightening was relegated to the vast bulk of the nation… sparing those at the top with special tax benefits and rules, statutes that made playing in the world of mergers and acquisitions the greatest redistributor of wealth in US history. At a state level, that belt-tightening led to cutbacks in support for medical health and, most of all, public education. Averages for public primary and secondary educational performance began to plunge in this country when compared to other developed nations. States couldn’t handle deficits – they did not control money supply; the feds did – and simply cut school funding and, for higher education, shifted the cost burden for tuition from the state and the individual educational institutions and to students and their families. Over the last 50 years, tuition has risen at triple the inflation rate… and student loans now exceed our entire credit card debt.

But metrics can also be somewhat misleading, as Taija PerryCook, writing for the November 16th Snopes tells us: “For example, U.S. News ranked the U.S. as first in its widely-cited 2024 Best Countries report, which reportedly surveyed the views of ‘close to 17,000 global citizens.’… On the other hand, a report by WorldTop20 — a project associated with New Jersey Minority Educational Development, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit group cited by the World Population Review (visible upon clicking the U.S. on the world map at this link ) — found that, in 2024, the U.S. ranked 31st worldwide in education.

“Other studies offer a more-detailed assessment broken down by subject and parameter and compared to other countries of similar wealth, such as the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), an intergovernmental organization with 38 member countries. For example, according to the average scores of 15-year-olds from 37 member countries in 2022, the U.S. ranked above average in science and below average in mathematics.”

But the OECD used standardized testing to generate more reliable numbers: The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is an international assessment that measures 15-year-old students' reading, mathematics, and science literacy, that was initiated in 2000 to measure comparative educational performance across many comparable (and mostly developed) nations. “In the 2024 OECD findings , the U.S. ranked 20th out of 41 countries in education overall. In 2015, results from the Programme for International Student Assessment — which tests 15-year-olds across dozens of countries every three years — placed the U.S. 38th out of 71 countries in mathematics and 24th in science.” Snopes.

You can look at those numbers, tracking “averages” to measure our relative educational performance, but when you are supposed to be on the cutting edge of scientific and engineering invention and entrepreneurial success, adhering slightly above or below “average” doesn’t cut it. So instead of rekindling upward mobility and making American great again, current political vectors embrace a conservative push to eliminate the US Department of Education and press for a new austerity to justify another round of tax cuts for the rich. In my mind’s eye, our educational standards for the most accessible level of education continue to fall. But did we really start out as first about 50 years ago?

“There was also no indication that the U.S. ranked first globally in education in 1979, which could be in part because international ranking was rudimentary at the time. However, one 1992 report published by The National Center for Education Statistics ( part of the U.S. Department of Education's Institute of Education Sciences) found that, after administering science and math tests to 10-, 13- and 14-year-olds from the 1960s through 1988 across six to 18 countries (depending on the subject and grade level), the evidence suggested, in general, that: Students from the United States have fared quite poorly on these assessments, with [their] scores lagging behind those of students from other developed countries. This finding is based largely on analyses of mean achievement scores and related rankings of countries participating in each survey.” Funny how those years were also filled with efforts to fund wars while cutting taxes.

The politics of blame, kicking the can down the road while letting essential governmental obligations to infrastructure, healthcare and education deteriorate with outdated necessities and lower per student expenditures (corrected for inflation) … but we choose to cut taxes for the rich… where the only results are a dilution in the quality of life, higher deficits and barriers to upward mobility reinforced with bias and blame.

I’m Peter Dekom, and if you really want to make America great again, stopping cutting taxes for the rich, and invest in infrastructure, healthcare and that once expected path to upward mobility, EDUCATION.

Immigration – Now What

  

Immigration – Now What

Trump’s Migration Headache with Help from Stephen Miller and “Apartheid-Experienced” Elon Musk…

The panic in regions of the United States with high Latino populations is palpable. Even those who are citizens, by birth or marriage, or are skilled workers with green cards, are hearing the vituperatives and plans from top Trump advisors like Stephen Miller, who wants purify the blood of America by removing such individuals… revoking anything that legitimizes their presence. He wants to ship off anyone even with legally acceptable temporary status. Farmers are panicking that they will not be able to harvest their crops. Builders are quivering in fear that their construction projects will stall and even fail. Restaurants and hotels are wondering where they will find replacements at comparable pay when their tried-and-true Latino staff are rounded up for deportation. American-born Latino children are worried that their parents will be deported, leaving them helpless and alone. For even those businesses able to find citizen replacements, the resulting cost increases will body slam the economy and send costs soaring.

Trump wants to detain and deport a body of undocumented aliens that is four times the population of Chicago. He wants to invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807 – which provides a statutory exception to the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, a law which limits the use of military personnel under federal command for law enforcement purposes within the United States – to use our military domestically to take measures necessary to protect national security from external threats (undocumented immigrants) which are not subject to the same limitations. This vague national security exception is generally viewed as an imminent and immediate threat to American security.

Read normally, we’re not really facing that kind of emergency; border crossings have plunged of late. But with a MAGA-supporting Supreme Court, I suspect these legal interpretations will go the way of Roe v Wade. Even as most of undocumented aliens have lived here for many years. Simply put, while there will be an ocean of litigation with lots of conflicting judicial decisions, Trump seems to own and control the conservative majority of that Court. Trump also wants to use the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to eliminate any due process requirements based on asylum claims.

Watching “Border Tsar” nominee, Tom Homan (pictured above), expound on his goals, he almost seems to be salivating. Criminals will go first, but then, a massive detain and deport effort is expected to add $88 billion a year to the federal budget. Think how much housing could be built for that number. Those top military officers who don’t believe that they should be using our armed forces as untrained border agents are labeled woke, facing discharge under the new administration. Assuming we can build the detention centers, round “them up,” arresting any “sanctuary city majors and governors who resist,” this effort will take years, and estimates are that the US could lose 400,000 or more citizen jobs in the process.

Trump has threats for governments that will not accept plane or shiploads of people being force- returned to their countries of origin. “Some countries, such as Venezuela, don’t take deportation flights from the United States. Others might resist taking in a sudden surge of migrants, especially those with criminal records. The administration could persuade nations to cooperate with a mix of favors and threats — trade deals and tariffs — but that would require careful diplomacy.” German Lopez in the NY Times newsfeed, The Morning (November 27th).

Recently elected Mexican President, Claudia Sheinbaum, is trying hard not to antagonize Trump, but she made it clear that if those tariffs hit her country, she would be forced to retaliate. She even hinted that she might be forced to consider deporting the roughly one million US citizens living in Mexico. Canada is restrained but angry as well. Hard to see how these tariffs can be charged in violation of the three-way trade agreement Trump accepted in his first administration.

Trump has always been hostile to foreign workers, even highly educated and skilled, even where there aren’t sufficient US citizens to do the relevant work. “Donald Trump’s bids for the presidency have long been defined by incendiary anti-immigration rhetoric. On the campaign trail over the last year, the president-elect doubled down on his positions, declaring that immigrants are ‘poisoning the blood of our country’ and repeatedly touting his plan to oust millions of undocumented immigrants, in what he has described as the ‘largest domestic deportation operation in American history.’… Trump has also said he would end birthright citizenship for children of undocumented immigrants born in the U.S., and reinstate the worksite raids that were conducted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) during his first term to detain workers…

“Just months into his [first term] presidency, he introduced an executive order that increased scrutiny of H-1B applications with the intent of limiting them to only the most skilled or highest paid of workers. According to an analysis by the National Foundation for American Policy, a pro-immigration think tank, Trump rolled out 52 policies to limit access to visas and green cards for highly skilled workers during his time in office.” Pavithra Mohan, for the November 7th FastCompany.com. Other nations were happy to take these experts.

It will indeed be interesting if Trump is able to mount anything near the level deportations he has targeted. While may seem like he has a compelling case for moving undocumented residents, I wonder how Americans will react when it happens. Are we really that callous and cruel?

I’m Peter Dekom, and those Irish immigrants fleeing the 1845 potato famine have produced generation after generation of extraordinary Americans… following a pattern that seems very much the case with our current spate of immigrants who are ready to work hard for the right to be here… and are not really taking any jobs away from our citizens.

Blogging and Major Surgery

 

Blogging and Major Surgery

So, I picked this post-Thanksgiving time to deal with a personal but major spinal issue that has been plaguing me for a while. As this blog is being posted by my trusty blog master, Amanda Casarella, I should be in post-op after what I hope is a single successful lower spine reconstruction (so much for spineless lawyers!), but it may have been broken into two operations.

After a significant hospital stay (I will write even more knowledgably about American healthcare!) and some serious time in a rehab facility, I hope to be semi-human enough to resume writing by January. In the meantime, and every few days, Amanda will post from a backlog of blogs I wrote in anticipation of my absence. If some of the posts seem a little dated, forgive me, but I hope the thrust of those blogs are still relevant.

Happy holidays to you all!

I’m Peter Dekom, and unless there is BIG PROBLEM, “I shall return” (plagiarized line)!

Unprepared: Children and Teens and Conspiracy Theories

“If you take your phone and then go to TikTok, you will see a lot of activities, dancing, you know, happy things… But in the background, I personally was moderating, in the hundreds, horrific and traumatizing videos… I took it upon myself. Let my mental health take the punch so that general users can continue going about their activities on the platform.” 

 Mojez, a former Nairobi-based moderator who worked on TikTok content

“News literacy is fundamental to preparing students to become active, critically thinking members of our civic life—which should be one of the primary goals of a public education… If we don’t teach young people the skills they need to evaluate information, they will be left at a civic and personal disadvantage their entire lives. News literacy instruction is as important as core subjects like reading and math.” 

Kim Bowman, News Literacy Project senior research manager.

Remember when the internet was going to be the great information equalizer? I know I couldn’t begin to write this blog without the research access afforded online, but I approach that world with growing skepticism. The information resources I trust usually have substantial credibility, vetted over years. But when you realize that today’s youth are slammed with a need to fit in with their peers combined with media patterns that rely heavily on sites and texts that are superspreaders of misinformation, you might wonder what happened... and what can be done about it.

In a world where “influencers” are the new peer leaders, often equally unprepared to deal with the very subject matter they tout, and professional ISP “monitors” are charged with ferreting truth from falsehoods, often for filtered and biased sites, parents are at the mercy of outside sources they do not control… or worse… conspiracy driven sites that they themselves believe. Anonymity and indirect communications add severe harshness to so many messages.

There is also the extreme and ultra-dark content – images of beheadings, mass killings, child abuse, hate speech, and propaganda intended to recruit new adherents – that seep through the cracks, a tsunami of bleak horror that even the most diligent professional monitors cannot stop. We’ve faced the addictive nature of online content, the drive to aggregate more eyeballs to expand ad revenues at almost any cost, the profound negativity to self-image of evolving teens, the absence of revulsion (literally “legitimization”) at some of the most anti-social statements and behavior. Those professional monitors are themselves frequently traumatized by what they are forced to filter. AI has not solved the problem, and there is a severe shortage of such professional monitors.

That’s the darkest online content, but what is more pervasive are mind-shifting conspiracy theories in a world where the President-elect is the king of “alternative facts” and dehumanizing content. As illustrated by Nadia Tamez-Robledo, published in the November 10th FastCompany.com, American children and teens with smartphones are exposed to conspiracy theories with increasing frequency. They are largely untrained in their ability to spot false posts and how to process those misstatements. Separating fact from fiction takes real effort, particularly when their peer group embraces the false information: “If you’re a teen, you could be exposed to conspiracy theories and a host of other pieces of misinformation as frequently as every day while scrolling through your social media feeds.

“That’s according to a new study by the News Literacy Project, which also found that teens struggle with identifying false information online. This comes at a time when media literacy education isn’t available to most students, the report finds, and their ability to distinguish between objective- and biased-information sources is weak. The findings are based on responses from more than 1,000 teens, ages 13 to 18.

“About 80% of teens who use social media say they see content about conspiracy theories in their online feeds, with 20% seeing conspiracy content every day… While teens don’t believe every conspiracy theory they see, 81% who see such content online said they believe one or more... Bowman noted, ‘As dangerous or harmful as they can be, these narratives are designed to be engaging and satisfy deep psychological needs, such as the need for community and understanding. Being a conspiracy theorist or believing in a conspiracy theory can become a part of someone’s identity. It’s not necessarily a label an individual is going to shy away from sharing with others.’

“At the same time, the report found that the bar for offering media literacy is low. Just six states have guidelines for how to teach media literacy, and only three make it a requirement in public schools… While conspiracy theories surface commonly for teens, they’re not necessarily arming themselves with information to stave them off... Teens are split on whether they trust the news. Just over half of teens said that journalists do more to protect society than to harm it. Nearly 70% said news organizations are biased, and 80% believe news organizations are either more biased or about the same as other online content creators… A minority of teens—just 15%—actively seek out news to stay informed...Local TV news was the most trusted news medium, followed by TikTok…

“Teens agree on at least one thing: A whopping 94% said schools should be required to offer some degree of media literacy… ‘Young people know better than anyone how much they are expected to learn before graduation so, for so many teens to say they would welcome yet another requirement to their already overfull plate, is a huge deal and a big endorsement for the importance of a media literacy education,’ Bowman said…

“Throughout the study, students who had any amount of media literacy education did better on the study’s test questions than their peers. They were more likely to be active news seekers, trust news outlets, and feel more confident in their ability to fact-check what they see online… And, in a strange twist, students who get media literacy in school report seeing more conspiracy theories on social media—perhaps precisely because they have sharper media literacy skills… ‘Teens with at least some media literacy instruction, who keep up with news, and who have high trust in news media are all more likely to report seeing conspiracy theory posts on social media at least once a week,’ according to the report. ‘These differences could indicate that teens in these subgroups are more adept at spotting these kinds of posts or that their social media algorithms are more likely to serve them these kinds of posts, or both.’”

It’s not surprising that the online sites that benefit the most from ad-friendly traffic based on conspiracy theories, or are in fact supercharged biased platforms, are the ones testifying before legislative bodies to stave off increased regulation, often supported by elected officials desiring to spread their own conspiracy theories. But there are real life consequences to those who believe such theories… plus the unraveling fibers that hold our democracy together.

I’m Peter Dekom, and the fragility of life, the bastions of society and the mental health of our citizens are and will continue to be defined in substantial part by how we learn to deal with conspiracy theories.

Hubris, Inane Assumptions, Bully Tactics and Backlash

 

Hubris, Inane Assumptions, Bully Tactics and Backlash

It Ain’t No Mandate; “for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction,” Isaac Newton’s 3rd Law of Motion

Let’s start we the reality that while we can definitely hurt rivals like China with massive tariffs, there are some harsh realities we need to face: China has now reached virtual parity with the United States on AI technology, and both Russia and China are ahead of us in hard-to-shoot-down hypersonic missiles, already showcased in a recent Russian attack on Ukraine. What’s more, as we raise immigration barriers for scientists and engineers (even where allowed, limiting their bringing their wives and children with them), living with a new administration that profoundly devalues science and immigrants, China is all over recruiting those experts into her orbit.

As the Wall Street Journal, in a featured November, 27th in-depth article by Bertrand Benoit, Liza Lin, Heather Somerville and Kim Mackrael, China is pulling a no-holds-barred effort to bring those STEM experts to China, knowing that the United States is no longer a country that wants or appreciates them. It is a tad startling to some nations, fearing national security threats and a huge leap forward for China’s military and manufacturing sectors:

“Executives at Zeiss SMT, which makes indispensable components to build the world’s most powerful semiconductors, got some troubling news last fall. Headhunters from Huawei Technologies, the Chinese tech firm, were trying to poach its employees... Staff with access to sensitive Zeiss know-how received LinkedIn messages, emails and calls from Huawei representatives, offering them up to three times their salaries to join the Chinese company, according to people with knowledge of the situation.

“The push triggered an investigation by German intelligence officials, who feared it could provide a back door for Huawei to access some of the world’s most sophisticated intellectual property. The investigation remains open, people familiar with the matter say... It was the latest sign that talent-poaching has become a crucial front in the battle between China and the West for tech supremacy.

“As Western governments make it harder for China to access sensitive technologies—a trend expected to continue under the administration of President-elect Donald Trump—many Chinese companies are trying to get ahead by luring away top engineers in areas such as advanced semiconductors and artificial intelligence… Chinese firms are focusing on several tech hubs, including Taiwan, parts of Europe and Silicon Valley. Some obscure their Chinese origins by forming local ventures that hire the employees to avoid drawing attention from local officials, authorities say.” Remember, China is a harsh autocracy where her people are used to suffering.

The world is preparing workarounds, reverse tariffs and economic retaliation, and are assuming that with all the science skeptics and billionaires-with-an-agenda brought in as advisors and agency heads, the United States’ self-isolation will effectively and dramatically reduce our influence and power around the globe. If nothing else, the US is now no longer a trustworthy ally, and forces around the world are massing a post-Trump America. Many who supported his reelection are still living in denial that he would actually implement everything he pledges, even as Trump is very much aligning his administration to do just that. They believe that he is just gathering bargaining chips to bring the rest of the world to heel.

Just looking at the trade wars that may result from Trump’s “day one” tariffs, even on our friendly neighbors, they will make these countries and American consumers anxious… with good reason. As the avocado crop in California was devastated by fires and storms, guacamole may become a treasured delicacy. I wonder what Trump’s economics grades were at Wharton, since few among credible economists see the worlds as does Trump; they hardly look at tariffs as a “piggy bank.”

Mexicans are far from being the main source of undocumented migration – they are struggling with their own border crisis vis-à-vis Central America – and we are seriously dependent on Mexico for lots of American owned manufacturing and tons of agricultural goods. Writing for the November 27th Los Angeles Times, Kate Linthicum and Patrick J. McDonnell tell us that while recently elected Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum avoided direct criticism of Trump, she also warned of retaliatory levies:

“Bluff? Negotiating tactic? Or existential menace?... World leaders, economists and investors are struggling over how to view President-elect Donald Trump’s repeated threats to impose broad tariffs on imports to the United States… That question took on new urgency this week when Trump announced that he would hit the top three U.S. trading partners hard on his first day in office.

“In a post Monday on his Truth Social platform, Trump said he would levy a 25% tariff on goods from Canada and Mexico ‘until such time as Drugs, in particular Fentanyl, and all Illegal Aliens stop this invasion of our Country!’… Mexico, China and Canada purchased more than $1 trillion in U.S. exports in 2023 and sent almost $1.5 trillion of goods and services in the other direction.

“Experts said Trump can unilaterally impose tariffs by claiming a national emergency, though he would almost certainly face legal and political challenges… It’s unclear how Trump could impose tariffs without violating the United-States-Mexico-Canada trade agreement that he helped negotiate during his first term. Mexico and Canada could challenge tariffs under a dispute resolution mechanism that is part of their agreement. They could also lodge complaints with the World Trade Organization.” Think bullies generate cooperation without pushback? Right!

Further, as Trump entrusts national security threats to individuals of questionable expertise and even loyalty to the US and its Constitution, and with national healthcare helmed by quacks and conspiracy theorists with agendas that could kill thousands (or more) Americans in the likely reality of another epidemic or, worse, a pandemic. Trying to kill the Department of Education, as our global competitors are ramping up their educational institutions and academic standards, is just plain idiotic.

Will Trump’s hold over a MAGA-controlled Congress continue if Americans are watching extremes in “detain and deport,” rising prices from tariffs and the retaliatory tariffs, soaring construction costs as undocumented workers are pulled out of the country (think of the impact on housing) and healthcare emergencies from inept leadership? Remember the backlash from George W Bush’s second term: his off-the-wall pledge to privatize Social Security was wildly unpopular, his incursions into Iraq and Afghanistan (remember the WMDs?) with his infamous “mission accomplished” speech and his leaving office with the lowest end-of-term presidential approval level since such approvals have been measured?

I’m Peter Dekom, and as we may suffer in the interim, Donald Trump seems to be setting himself up for one the most massive citizen backlash realities in American history, if we survive the damage.

Musk—It Politics, Classic Oligarchy

If you ask average Americans from either side of the aisle whether they believe Elon Musk, the richest man on Earth with hundreds of global businesses, would subordinate his economic well-being, a mega sacrifice, to do what’s best for the United States, what do think they would say? If there is lingering skepticism, the belief lingers that he has economic expertise at such a level that he “understands” how to implement efficiency is soon dwarfed by the fact that his massive wealth, benefitted by many billions when Trump was elected, a vast multiple of his campaign contribution to elect Trump. Given how many of his companies are major vendors to the federal government, he is the oligarch most likely to get vastly richer under the new administration.

Officially, Musk is not becoming a formal part of the federal government. He is just a private advisor and confident to Trump. Really? Under the title once applied to each of the autocrats who ran medieval Venice, the Doges, the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is the vehicle through which Musk will “advise.” He doesn’t want direct federal office or control, since that instantly imposes all sorts of conflict-of-interest legal restrictions on him and his assets, so DOGE will not be an official federal agency and will have no legal authority.

So, who exactly is Elon Musk? The November 21st issue of The Economist describes Trump’s “disruptor in chief” as follows: “Weeks after helping Mr Trump win the election Mr Musk has climbed to the apex of power. The president-elect has appointed him to a new advisory body… tasked with slashing spending. Mr Musk is already in touch with foreign leaders and [those] lobbying for cabinet appointments. It is hardly the first time a tycoon has had extraordinary influence in America. In the 19th century robber barons such as John D. Rockefeller dominated the economy. In the early 20th century, when there was no Federal Reserve, John Pierpont Morgan acted as a one-man central bank.

“Mr Musk’s firms are more global than the big 19th- and 20th-century monopolies, and smaller if measured by profits to GDP. Musk Inc is worth the equivalent of just 2% of America’s stockmarket. Its main units are Tesla, an electric-car firm; SpaceX, his satellite-communications and rocket business; X, formerly Twitter; and xAI, an artificial-intelligence startup that was valued at $50bn in a deal this week. These mostly have market shares below 30% and face real competition. The Economist reckons that 10% of Mr Musk’s $360bn personal fortune is derived from contracts and freebies from Uncle Sam, and 15% from the Chinese market, with the rest split between domestic and international customers…

“His desire for freer action helps explain his contempt for orthodoxies, including what he regards as woke conformism. From the bureaucrats who allowed the American government’s space-launch market to be rigged by defence firms to the Californian box-tickers who regulate Tesla’s factories, he views the state as an impediment to growth.”

And what is that secret sauce that would enable a virtual dismantling of the federal bureaucracy? Hint: Counting on a Trump reconfigured Supreme Court. With help from his fellow (and vastly less powerful) DOGE partner, Vivek Ramaswamy, their cost-cutting drool is remarkable. After mentioning an impossible goal of slashing $2 trillion/year from the federal budget, the pair have announced their methodology to engage to cut federal agencies, focused reducing agency staffing to the bone, vitiating civil service protections and drilling down on eliminating most of the regulatory personnel.

Writing for the November 20th issue of the Independent, Alex Woodward explains this approach: “[They] will be looking to the Supreme Court to unilaterally gut federal agencies and cut funding… Their newly created ‘Department of Government Efficiency’… will be guided by a pair of Supreme Court rulings that legal scholars have warned will turn the courts into weapons against federal regulations that right-wing groups have spent years trying to undermine… Musk and Ramaswamy have said they want to reduce annual federal spending by $500 billion — specifically, by cutting $1.5 billion earmarked for “international organizations,” another $535 million to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which funds hundreds of locally owned public radio and television stations, and gutting $300 million for ‘progressive groups like Planned Parenthood.’”

You know they will have to ruffle a lot of MAGA congresspeople, tearing at pet projects essential to the states from which they were elected. As for those civil services protections, Trump’s strategists are expected to revive a plan to convert some employees to "Schedule F," status which strips them of job protections, among other efforts to cut the workforce. “The duo pointed to recent Supreme Court decisions to argue the incoming president has the executive power to nullify many regulations unilaterally without Congress, pursue ‘large-scale firings’ of federal workers and relocate some agencies outside of Washington. They said ‘a drastic reduction in federal regulations’ would require vastly fewer federal employees.

"DOGE intends to work with embedded appointees in agencies to identify the minimum number of employees required at an agency for it to perform its constitutionally permissible and statutorily mandated functions, ‘their op-ed reads.’… In the WSJ op-ed, Musk and Ramaswamy cited the Supreme Court's 2022 West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency and 2024 Loper Bright v. Raimondo decisions [effectively limiting federal agencies’ deference to agency expertise in interpreting complex issues] to argue ‘a plethora of current federal regulations exceed the authority Congress has granted under the law.’… Their group plans to install legal experts within federal agencies to review regulations before presenting a list of rules for Trump to consider halting through executive action and initiating a process for review and rescission.” Joey Garrison, writing for the November 20th USA Today

What can we learn from Musk’s past efforts within his own companies? Chris Stokel-Walker, writing for the November 18th FastCompany.com spoke with a few individuals who worked with Musk: “‘He’s very ruthless and very involved in understanding what you’re trying to do and how you’re doing it,’ says Jim Cantrell, who worked at SpaceX in the early 2000s. ‘He has no fear of failure. It’s almost naïve in its lack of fear, but his performance has shown it’s anything but naïve.’

“Musk’s unorthodox attitude can be costly, too. While he successfully defeated a legal challenge that would have cost him $500 million or more for unlawfully denying Twitter staff severance payments they thought they were owed, he did have to pay an Irish Twitter employee $580,000 for being fired for not replying to an email asking to remain with the company. More financial pain could be coming for Musk from his other companies, too. Former SpaceX employees are seeking financial redress for being fired after blowing the whistle on what they claim was bad behavior by employees within the company. The National Labor Relations Board is also investigating.

“‘Musk treated his employees and the work we’d done with open contempt, says Melissa Ingle, who worked as a senior data scientist at Twitter when Musk took ownership of the social network. Ingle was among the 80% of staff laid off shortly after Musk’s $44 billion acquisition. ‘There was absolutely no wind down,’ Ingle says. ‘One Thursday Musk came in and announced layoffs would be happening, and the next day half the permanent employees were gone. The next week almost all contract employees were fired.’ (Neither Musk nor X responded to a request for comment.)

“Ingle says Musk’s drive for cost-cutting came at the expense of operations. ‘These firings seem to have been undertaken with no regard to the actual work that needed to be done, since after the firing, there was mass chaos as the remaining managers still had to get their work done but had been forced to fire anyone with actual experience performing the work,’ she says. The chaos that ensued after the mass firings because of short-staffing and the loss of institutional knowledge has been documented in a number of places, including by Walter Isaacson, who reported in his biography of Musk that the billionaire railed against the idea that Twitter staff should cherish ‘psychological safety.’ Musk also had to be dissuaded from firing random engineers, according to Isaacson. ‘Any remaining employees will likely face tremendous pressure to perform to Musk’s extreme standards,’ says Ingle, who now works as a chief data scientist at the firm Technology Partners.” Stand back, and standby.

I’m Peter Dekom, and Musk’s ruthless disdain for human values and powerful affinity to effect and relish chaos (a Trump trait too) suggest that post-Trump federal agencies may have a lot in common with the aftermath of the WWII bombing of Dresden.

Medical Facts and the Big American LOL

 

Medical Facts and the Big American LOL

Are Trump Cabinet appointees truly a clown car: a kakistocracy - “government by the worst people”?

Government laws, judicial decisions, regulations, policies and practices touch our lives every day, from the obvious – like the overturning of Roe v Wade – to the more subtle realities that you only discover when you engage in an action where “change” impacts your rights and, often, your survival. Today, I am looking at the mass of voters who simply have lost faith in or simply no longer believe in the established medical community (trained doctors and researchers) versus that body of experts’ profoundly successful track records, which such voters choose to ignore, do not believe or even deride. These voters knew the metrics Trump would apply to his high-level governmental leadership posts.

This examination is particularly salient because of Donald Trump’s commitment to empower those where “loyalty” prevails over competence. This self-centered proclivity just may turn deadly, for example, if conspiracy theorist and antivaxxer (despite his claims to the contrary) Robert Kennedy, Jr is confirmed as head of the Department of Health and Human Services (with 80,000 federal employees) and TV celebrity and “wellness products” huckster, Dr Mehmet Oz, is confirmed as head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, a powerful agency in charge of programs that cover more than 150 million Americans.

So, let’s look at statistical success track record of scientifically applied medicine. The above charts are a good starting place. Writing for the November 19th Vox, Dylan Scott tells us how far we have come: “Measles, mumps, and polio are supposed to be diseases of the past. In the early to mid-20th century, scientists developed vaccines that effectively eliminated the risk of anyone getting sick or dying from illnesses that had killed millions over millennia of human history.

“Vaccines, alongside sanitized water and antibiotics, have marked the epoch of modern medicine. The US was at the cutting edge of eliminating these diseases, which helped propel life expectancy and economic growth in the postwar era. Montana native Maurice Hilleman, the so-called father of modern vaccines, developed flu shots, hepatitis shots, and the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine in the 1950s and ’60s, which became virtually universally adopted among Americans.

“Smallpox, the most common form of which has a 30 percent fatality rate, has been eradicated. Mitch McConnell, Republican titan of the Senate, may be the last major public figure still afflicted by a childhood case of polio, less than a century after it paralyzed a sitting American president. Measles likely infected millions of people annually in the US in the 1800s, although precise estimates from the era are hard to come by. In the early 1900s, thousands of people died from the disease every year. It was still infecting more than half a million and killing hundreds per year on average in the 1950s and ’60s, before the vaccine debuted. Diphtheria, a deadly respiratory infection, killed more than 1,800 people annually between 1936 and 1945 as the vaccine against it was still being rolled out. It has not killed anybody in the United States in decades.

“The vaccines that made this possible are among the most important achievements in human history. And yet many Americans appear to be losing faith in them, a worrying trend that could accelerate if President-elect Donald Trump succeeds in handing control of the top US health agency into the hands of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the country’s foremost vaccine denier.” We should ask how many of the children who make up that measles statistic above died (thousands) as their parents followed RFK, Jr’s skepticism of measles vaccines and how many school children will become seriously infected, perhaps facing permanent issues and even death, as RFK, Jr’s antivaxx mission causes states and school districts to eliminate vaccination as an enrollment prerequisite.

Scott continues: “The day after Trump’s election, Kennedy insisted he would not ‘take away anybody’s vaccines.’ Instead, he said, he planned to compile vaccine safety information so that people could make their own decisions. But vaccine safety has been extensively studied — and the negative effects Kennedy claims remain undetected. (Others in Trump’s orbit have stated that Kennedy will nevertheless use whatever information he finds to try to pull vaccines from the market.)… Experts fear that his appointment will validate his anti-vaccine attitudes — and exacerbate the public’s growing ambivalence toward these vital public health measures.

“As long-accepted, lifesaving public health measures increasingly become politically polarized, routine vaccination rates are rapidly declining in much of the US. In the 2019–2020 school year, three states had less than 90 percent of K–12 students vaccinated against measles, mumps, and rubella. By the 2023–2024 school year, 14 states had fallen below that threshold. The number of states with more than 95 percent of schoolchildren vaccinated — the preferred level of coverage to prevent outbreaks — dropped from 20 to 11 during that same period.”

Trump’s appointment of RFK, Jr and Dr Oz is part of that populist groundswell against science. “People once dismissed for their disbelief in conventional medicine are now celebrating a new champion in Washington. Scientists, meanwhile, are trying to figure how they could have managed the pandemic without setting off a populist movement they say threatens longstanding public-health measures… Lingering resentment over pandemic restrictions helped Kennedy and his ‘Make America Healthy Again’ campaign draw people from the left and the right, voters who worried about the contamination of food, water and medicine. Many of them shared doubts about vaccines and felt their concerns were ignored by experts or regarded as ignorant.” Liz Essley Whyte, writing for the November 19th Wall Street Journal.

But RFK, Jr isn’t just about vaccines: “Kennedy tweeted a few days before the election, ‘the Trump White House will advise all U.S. water systems to remove fluoride from public water.’… ‘Fluoridation is the most monstrously conceived and dangerous Communist plot we have ever had to face.’… The reason, he asserted, is that ‘fluoride is an industrial waste associated with arthritis, bone fractures, bone cancer, IQ loss, neurodevelopmental disorders, and thyroid disease… That’s all flatly untrue or grossly misleading. Kennedy’s screed against fluoridation is part and parcel of a policy package that has legitimate scientists warning of a public health catastrophe in the making.” Michael Hiltzik, writing for the November 22nd Los Angeles Times.

Having touted false treatments for COVID, Dr Mehmet Oz (a failed MAGA Pennsylvania US Senate candidate) joined the Trump/Musk bandwagon focused on curtailing Medicare and, particularly, Medicaid benefits as well as reducing or replacing the Affordable Care Act. It’s all part of Trump’s unambiguous effort to curtail “entitlements” to balance the lost revenue when his and his controlled Congress pass massive extensions and enhancement to cuts in corporate and high-earner federal income tax… a reverse Robin Hood, where we rob the poor to pay the wealthy.

So here we are. Low-income Americans, dependent on Medicaid, and elderly Americans who rely on Medicare may be in for some horrible healthcare realities. What happens, for example, if it becomes highly advisable for Americans to get vaccinations for diseases with dangerous consequences, and RFK, Jr doesn’t believe in them, and Dr Oz doesn’t want government healthcare to pay for them?

I’m Peter Dekom, and Americans seem to have placed their economic and healthcare wellbeing in the hands of an autocrat presiding over a kakistocracy (e.g., a clown car of government leaders).