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).

The Big Disconnect – What Voters Wanted vs What they Got

Fear and anger are never a good place from which to vote, particularly when the underlying facts suggest otherwise. But post-Obama – who really did toe a centrist line – the Democratic Party turned hard left, often using particularly harsh labels on anyone who did not agree with them. David Leonhardt, writing for the November 26th The Morning (NY Times news feed), describes the assumptions that Democrats made that tanked much of their election effort: ‘After Obama, the party moved left on one big issue after another — Medicare, gender, border security, policing and more. It’s true that Kamala Harris tried to move back to the center this year, but her moderation never had the self-assurance that Obama’s did. It could seem tactical and reluctant. She refused to explain why she had changed her mind about fracking, border security and ‘Medicare for all.’ When asked whether she supported any abortion restrictions, she avoided the question.

“The Democrats’ post-Obama leftward turn was based on a specific theory of the electorate: that the country’s growing number of voters of color would cover the loss of working-class whites. Under this race-centric theory, Donald Trump looked like a gift to Democrats. He made racist and sexist comments. He resembled a caricature of the backward voters Democrats were happy to leave behind.”

They were wrong. For example, there are even rising voices in the LGBTQ+ community to stop alienating voters: “When the Biden administration convened a call with L.G.B.T.Q. allies last year to discuss new limits on the participation of transgender student athletes, one activist fumed on the call that the administration would be complicit in ‘genocide’ of transgender youth, according to two people with knowledge of the incident… Now, some activists say it is time to rethink and recalibrate their confrontational ways, and are pushing back against the more all-or-nothing voices in their coalition.” Jeremy Peters, NY Times, November 26th. Remember the backlash from the 2016 election when Hillary Clinton described Trump voters as the “deplorables”?

Yet the ballot-splitting and the narrow margines clearly did not give Trump’s much-touted “mandate,” and a large segment of non-MAGA voters who elected him never really believed he would implement the extremes he seems to be dedicated to fulfilling. His denial of any affiliation with Project 2025 is now negated by the nomination of folks, most involved in the creation of that document, to key Trump administration posts. For example, his FCC nominee, Brendan Carr, outlined what he wants to see happen at the agency in a chapter for Project 2025, suggesting media licensing challenges to media critical of Trump. There are statutes and constitutional limitations that may negate Trump’s most extreme measures, even with his reconfigured Supreme Court. But that Court could easily parallel their presidential immunity ruling… and support Trump.

Faced with the immediacy of Trump second nomination for attorney general, former Florida AG Pam Bondi, has been anything but subtle that she intends to be the President-elect’s “retribution officer in chief.” His preparations of a “woke-culled” military to round up and detain undocumented workers, to void “citizens by birth or marriage” (Melania?) and to start “Day One” with his “detain and deport” pledge under his border tsar, the very hard Tom Homan, are scaring entire market segments that have a real impact on the labor market. Red state farmers and major red state builders are asking for exemptions, noting efforts to remove these workers are almost certainly going to drive up food prices and slam the construction of much needed housing.

And it’s no secret why Elon Musk has cozied up to Trump. With his new role as “budget slash and burn” chief officer, even as he has no direct governmental authority, he has recouped his Trump-supporting campaign contributions by a vast multiple. His major shareholdings in public companies, many of which do business with the government, soared 40% after the election. Trump suddenly supported Trump’s Tesla EV efforts; we can expect more of what economist Paul Krugman, writing for the November 26th NY Times, calls “crony capitalism” (generally an attribute shared among autocracies): “Let’s say you have a business that relies on imported parts — maybe from China, maybe from Mexico, maybe from somewhere else. What do you do?

“Well, U.S. trade law gives the executive branch broad discretion in tariff-setting, including the ability to grant exemptions in special cases. So you apply for one of those exemptions. Will your request be granted?... In principle, the answer should depend on whether having to pay those tariffs imposes real hardship and threatens American jobs. In practice, you can safely guess that other criteria will play a role. How much money have you contributed to Republicans? When you hold business retreats, are they at Trump golf courses and resorts?” All this as those targeted nations facing Trump’s highest tariffs are already planning to retaliate. Russian journalists, writing anonymous letters to US media outlets, are warning American citizens that Trump’s vectors parallel Putin’s rise to autocracy almost step-by-step.

Even in Beverly Hills, racism has permeated even its local schools as a horde of flag carrying Trumpers, marched down the halls of Beverly Hills High, chanting racist vituperatives and threatening “woke” teachers, including one Black teacher who locked herself in her classroom. Using the “N” word openly to describe Black classmates spread rapidly among these students. Terrified Black students, minding their own business, faced this reality as they testified before the Beverly Hills school board. The world is looking at this rising anger… with increasing trepidation.

Major allies are even imposing tracking requirements on US tourists; the UK’s plan kicked in almost immediately. There is roiling sea of expected workarounds, not just from those nations threatened most by Trump’s stated policies, but by our traditional allies, a move that could derail the US dollar as the major global reserve currency, a catastrophic blow to the American consumer. Indeed, governors from major blue states are pledging to push back, to maintain their local values and not to cooperate in Trump’s “detain and deport” efforts. In response, Border tsar nominee Homan even threatened to arrest Denver’s mayor for such resistance and pledged to double the necessary federal operatives in cities that have adopted official “sanctuary” status. Trump has also hinted that he will force FEMA to withhold disaster relief to blue states that resist his policies.

I’m Peter Dekom, and Trump is definitely the new boss with massive congressional support for his autocratic measures, but as his key nominees face even a MAGA-controlled Senate pushback, could Trump finally force a break in his seeming lockstep hold on Congress he needs to reign as our all-powerful monolith?

Hey, I’ve Got a Great Idea: Cut Both Taxes for the Rich and Healthcare for the Poor

"Whenever presented with copious evidence and scientific studies that vaccines do not cause autism… or whatever health condition he attributes to them, it is never enough; [RFK, Jr] always moves the goalposts, demanding still more evidence."

 Dr David Gorski, professor of surgery at Wayne State University and managing editor of the site Science Based Medicine. 

 "What do you do with people like Robert Kennedy Junior?... When he raises the question: 'Could this vaccine do harm?', and then excellent studies are done showing that it doesn't. And he just refuses to believe them, because he just claims conspiracy at every turn."

Paul A. Offit, MD, iDirector of the Vaccine Education Center and professor of pediatrics in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

"Measles vaccine has saved more lives than any other vaccine in the past 50 years… To save even more lives and stop this deadly virus from harming the most vulnerable, we must invest in immunization for every person, no matter where they live." 

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO director-general.

“I will not give one penny to any school that has a vaccine mandate or a mask mandate.” 

A Trump campaign pledge.

Anytime a Republican reaches into the worn-phrase storage locker, you know where he (mostly) or she is going. Creeping socialism. Incent the job creators. Entitlements. Work for Healthcare. Radical Left. The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. A rising tide floats all boats. They’re patriots. Murderers, rapists… Woke. Climate change doesn’t exist. Tariffs are paid by the country we assess them against. Vaccines are more dangerous than the disease they are trying to prevent. Massive waste, fraud, and abuse. Deep state. All false statements. And when a presidential appointee to a cabinet post, a sub-cabinet post, the federal judiciary or high military rank who is dramatically unqualified and inexperienced, often with conspiracy theories as to his or her claim to fame, beware of “we need an outsider to clean house” justifications.

And while President-Elect Trump’s pick to run the Department of Health and Human Services, Robert Kennedy, Jr (who has no medical credentials), claims he is not focused on stopping vaccines, he actually is. Kennedy said in a 2023 podcast interview that “There’s no vaccine that is safe and effective” and told Fox News that he still believes in the long-ago debunked idea that vaccines can cause autism. In a 2021 podcast he urged people to “resist” CDC guidelines on when kids should get vaccines.

“He has pushed the long-discredited claim that the MMR (measles/mumps/rubella) vaccine causes autism. A 2005 screed alleging the link, published jointly by Rolling Stone and Salon.com, was so stuffed with falsehoods that it was retracted by both publications. Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times, November 20th. So, in 2023, “The surge in [measles] cases has led to devastating consequences. In 2023, measles claimed an estimated 107,500 lives, mostly children under the age of 5—a death toll described by the CDC as ‘unacceptable’ in a statement.” Newsweek, November 15th. The children who died were virtually all unvaccinated.

“President-elect Donald Trump has also picked Dr. Mehmet Oz to serve as the administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, a key federal agency that oversees health insurance coverage for more than 150 million Americans… ‘I have known Dr. Oz for many years, and I am confident he will fight to ensure everyone in America receives the best possible Healthcare, so our Country can be Great and Healthy Again!’ Trump said in a statement on Tuesday [11/19]. ‘Dr. Oz will be a leader in incentivizing Disease Prevention, so we get the best results in the World for every dollar we spend on Healthcare in our Great Country.’… Trump, who is also seeking to slash spending in the federal government and has long had Medicaid in mind for reductions, also promised Oz would take a scalpel to the massive agency…

“Oz, a cardiothoracic surgeon and television personality, ran unsuccessfully for Senate in 2022 in Pennsylvania with Trump’s backing. He lost to Democratic now-Sen. John Fetterman.” CNN, November 19th. But Dr Oz seems to like money and fame more than making sure America is the healthiest nation on earth. His wellness products (as the image above suggests) have made him quite wealthy. But the Trump mandate to both RFK, Jr and Oz is to deregulate, pull as much of government out of routine medical care (but no work to help trans people, support birth control or a woman’s right to control her own body… oh, no!), and get of as many staffers in their respective departments as they can. Conspiracy theories are the “people’s medicine.” Oz’s investments in “wellness” and “healthcare” companies also create a massive conflicts issue that must be resolved.

Interestingly, Trump’s appointments to medically sensitive posts are also heavily laden with those with lots of conservative media exposure, beyond Dr Oz. FDA Commissioner appointee is Dr. Marty Makary, public policy researcher at Johns Hopkins University, who is also a regular medical contributor to Fox News. Trump named another Fox News personality, Dr. Janette Nesheiwat, as his pick for U.S. Surgeon General. Nesheiwat is a practicing doctor who was on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic treating thousands of Americans. She may, however, be the least controversial pick in this health and medically related field. We see a many such TV-savvy appointees in other arenas of Trump appointments, and some who have served in Congress. For example, former Florida Congressman, Dr. Dave Weldon is Trump’s choice as director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who, as a House member, argued for a separate independent office on vaccine safety, mirroring RFK, Jr’s vaccine concerns.

Looking at the big picture, we should note that “private advisory” DOGE mandate to slash and burn federal expenditures is heavily focused on those traditional GOP “entitlement” designated categories, aimed at cutting or vastly reducing programs like the Affordable Care Act, Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid… culling the herd any way they can and reducing programs that support the elderly and the poor.

The discredited “work for Medicaid” is regaining popularity among both state legislators and the new GOP-dominated Congress. “In a rational world, this idea would have been consigned to the dumpster long ago, and forever. It’s billed as a way to reduce joblessness, but doesn’t. It’s billed as an answer to the purported complexity of Medicaid, but makes the system more complicated for enrollees and administrators. It’s billed as a money-saving reform, but adds to Medicaid’s costs… Democrats view Medicaid as a health insurance program that helps people pay for health care...Republicans view Medicaid as a government welfare program.” Michael Hiltzik, writing for the November 20th Los Angeles Times. Notions of a MAGA replacement for the Affordable Care Act suggest that those who have pre-existing conditions be forced to pay higher premiums than those with fewer issues. It is estimated that 40% of Americans have relevant pre-existing conditions. If you are not awash in extra cash, the future of healthcare coverage in this nation may be particularly challenging.

I’m Peter Dekom, and as much as the big picture fiscal issues were high on the list of voter concerns, I suspect making healthcare less affordable and governed by medical luddites was not what voters really expected.

So Uninsurable You…

“In the wake of increasing property damage from storms and record insurance company bankruptcies, this high rate of claims denials is severely compounding the hardships for Florida homeowners.”

Dr. Martin D. Weiss, founder of Weiss Ratings.

The horror of massive numbers uninsured properties, combined with the explosive litany of insurers denying coverage or severely limiting how much of actual damage rebuilding/repair costs they will actually pay, may soon make even larger segments of American homes simply uninsurable, in fact or in practice. Issues surrounding paying homeowners to rebuild or repair in the most “natural” disaster-prone regions suggest that sometimes rebuilding in these areas is a luxury that we may no longer be able to afford. Use that money to relocate?

Climate change – still subject to masses of people and political leaders who continue to deny, marginalize or simply refuse to accept as a priority – is accelerating faster even than many experts have predicted. Look at what super-drying areas in the west – where much of that forest “tinder” situated in federal lands where the relevant states have no control – or the tipping point rise in water temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico and the nearby Atlantic archipelago region. Alarmingly intense wildfires and hurricanes are the new normal.

Even those paying much higher insurance premiums in vulnerable areas are feeling the sting of overwhelmed insurance carriers. As Aliss Higham, writing for the October 17th Newsweek, points out, addressing the recent insurance carrier aftermath to recent hurricanes: “Property insurers are likely to continue denying property insurance claims in the wake of major natural disasters like Hurricanes Milton and Helene, according to insurance ratings company Weiss Ratings.

“Hurricane Milton barreled through Florida [in early October], killing at least 16 people and leaving millions without power. It came not long after Hurricane Helene, which tore through six states and killed more than 200 people. Now, Martin Weiss, founder of Weiss Ratings, has said a trend of non-payments to claimants is likely to continue—although insurance companies have firmly denied this… ‘Over the long term, we've seen a worsening trend in the denial rates by property insurers. At a minimum, this trend is bound to continue,’ Weiss told Newsweek. ‘With this year's jump in damages, insurers are bound to come under even greater pressure to deny legitimate claims, potentially accelerating the worsening trend.’…

“The comments come after Weiss released a report in June that found nearly half of all damage claims made by Florida homeowners with three of the state's large providers—Castle Key Indemnity, State Farm, and Castle Key Insurance—last year did not result in a payment…. According to Weiss Rating's analysis, Castle Key Indemnity Company rejected 47.1 percent of the claims it finalized in 2023, highest denial rate among insurers in the state. State Farm Florida Insurance Company denied 46.4 percent of closed claims, while Castle Key Insurance Company denied 46 percent of claims in the same period. Insurers have denied that this was the case, saying the data is inaccurate.” What used to be routine coverage and payment frequently requires hiring a lawyer and even filing suit.” As Newsweek continues, the response from the carriers is disheartening:

“A spokesperson for State Farm told Newsweek: ‘The cited data on paid claims in Florida is inaccurate, incomplete, and presented in a way that artificially underrepresented payments to our customers. The information is cherry-picked to drive an inaccurate narrative… ‘As an organization, we take great pride in our customer service and are committed to paying what we owe promptly, courteously and efficiently. Many factors affect claim payouts including the type of loss and the amount of a customer's deductible or hurricane deductible. In some weather events, the cause of damage is flood, which is excluded from the homeowners policy. If an individual does not have a flood policy to cover that damage, the policyholder may file a claim with their insurance company to obtain the necessary paperwork to pursue disaster assistance from the federal government.’”

Some hurricane and wildfire victims, who have filed suit, report that reports filed by on-site claims adjusters have been edited, severe damage re-described in marginal terms, with actual numbers dramatically reduced, resulting in claims being denied or simply edited away. “When asked about [the State Farm response in Florida,] Dr. Weiss told Newsweek: ‘The data that State Farm is refuting was sourced directly from their own annual statutory financial filing with the NAIC (National Association of Insurance Commissioners). If they are disputing the accuracy of their own data, then we would ask why they failed to file accurate data. Additionally, we would be delighted to receive a comprehensive data set covering each claim and the reasons that they were closed without payment if they would like to reach out to us.’…

“Florida homeowners who had filed claims with other insurance companies faced similar difficulties. According to Weiss Ratings, half the 40 insurance companies they analyzed failed to pay on at least 30 percent of claims. Additionally, three smaller insurers—Kin Insurance Network, American Integrity Insurance Company of Florida, and PURE Specialty Exchange—did not make payments on over 40 percent of the claims they closed in 2023, with rates of 44 percent, 43.9 percent, and 40.5 percent, respectively.”

The response is not overwhelmingly different in western areas decimated by wildfires. These pressures have resulted in major carriers literally pulling out of entire state markets or designating special vulnerable areas as “uninsurable.” Where insurance is available in regions where such threats exist, rates have skyrocketed, sometime doubling or trebling, often eclipsing the underlying monthly mortgage costs. More people simply cannot afford to pay those rates, and while residents in these areas argue for national subsidies to achieve affordability, taxpayers in other states seem unwilling to go beyond FEMA, which is seriously underfunded anyway.

Insurance carriers facing huge liability payments are pushing back, hard: “The hurricanes [also] dealt a multibillion-dollar blow to auto insurers, just as they were becoming profitable again and easing up on the pace of premium increases in many states. Now car owners in areas hit by Helene and Milton and other hurricane-prone regions could see prices rise further, analysts said… Josh Esterov, an analyst at CreditSights, said many insurers are focused on rebuilding their profitability. ‘If these recent hurricanes give them ammo to take to regulators to enable higher price increases, they could very much take advantage of that,’ he said.” Wall Street Journal, October 19th. For those climate change deniers and marginalizers, it’s time to pay the piper!

I’m Peter Dekom, and climate change denial and the reluctance to pay for prevention and containment of that horrific force may just be the most expensive mistake in human history.

God, Christian Nationalism and Denial in the Face of Clear Harsh Reality

 

“The idea of death, the fear of it, haunts the human animal like nothing else . . .

to overcome it by denying it in some way is the final destiny for man.”

Pulitzer Prize-winning anthropologist Ernest Becker

“Therefore, render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”

Jesus in Matthew 22:21, ESV

The problem with denial is that it can be addictive, a fallback when reality slams you in the face. It’s not surprising that conspiracy theories and denial are soaring during a period in our nation where there is a large, powerful segment of our society aiming to make Christianity the official national religion (albeit, interpreted with an evangelical flare). This would subordinate all other faiths, and perhaps, politely, allowed to exist… or not. One of my prime examples is how people can simply experience one “natural disaster” after another, with frequency and intensity clearly linked with rising temperatures, and deny the causation or the pattern.

Three senior university academics, professors of psychology, Jamie Goldenberg, Joshua Hart and Emily P. Courtney, focused on American regions decimated by two “once in a hundred years” hurricanes filled with climate change deniers, in the November 3rd FastCompany.com: “As TVs across Florida broadcast the all-too-familiar images of a powerful hurricane headed for the coast in early October 2024, people whose homes had been damaged less than two weeks earlier by Hurricane Helene watched anxiously. Hurricane Milton was rapidly intensifying into a dangerous storm, fueled by the Gulf of Mexico’s record-breaking temperatures.

“Many residents scrambled to evacuate, clogging roads away from the region. Officials urged those near the coast who ignored evacuation warnings to scrawl their names on their arms with indelible ink so their corpses could be identified… The two hurricanes were among the most destructive in recent memory. They are also stark reminders of the increasingly extreme weather events that scientists have long warned would be the consequence of human-driven climate change… Still, many people deny that climate change is a worsening threat, or that it exists at all. As its impacts grow more visible and destructive, how is this possible?

“… In the 1980s, social psychologists developed ‘terror management theory,’ showing the lengths people go to deny death. Hundreds of experiments have tested its implications. In a common method, participants reflect on their own death, while control groups consider less threatening topics, like dental pain. The key question: What does death awareness do to people?

“After writing about death, people tend to quickly move on, pushing thoughts of it from consciousness with distractions, rationalizations, and other tactics. Healthcare professionals see this every day. For example, people often dodge screenings and diagnostic tests to avoid the frightening possibility of discovering cancer… But here’s the rub: Terror management theory suggests that when people are not thinking about death, it nevertheless holds influence. The unconscious mind lingers on the problem even after people have used strategies to quiet the fear by pushing it from awareness…

“Terror management theory predicts that individuals whose ideologies conflict with environmental concerns may ironically double down on those beliefs to psychologically manage the existential threat posed by climate-related disasters. It’s similar to how mortality reminders can lead people to engage in risky behavior, such as smoking or tanning. Hurricanes may reinforce denial and commitment to a worldview that rejects climate change.”

Human beings like to think that if they believe powerfully enough, along with enough others, those who do not share those beliefs threaten the very axioms by which they explain life. To justify their beliefs, they often denigrate those who do not share those “realities.” Writing for the November 6th The Foreward, Asaf Elia-Shale explains: “For an energetic subset of supporters, the promise of Donald Trump’s MAGA movement centers on increasing the influence of Christianity in American life and returning the country to what they see as its founding Christian ideals… Scholars say that through their devotion to Trump, these Christian nationalists have claimed a prominent, mainstream place in Republican politics — a phenomenon that has alarmed Jews and other religious minorities.

“And regardless of the result of the presidential election, they aren’t going away, said Julie Ingersoll, a professor of religious studies at the University of North Florida… ‘One of the reasons they’ve been successful is they focus on the long-term. To give just a couple of examples: It took them 49 years to overturn Roe v. Wade and they’ve been working on dismantling public education for the same length of time. We can see the impact of that effort all over the country,’ she said.

“Christian nationalists left their fingerprints all over Project 2025, the controversial proposed 900-page blueprint for a second Trump administration published by the Heritage Foundation and other conservative groups. They also run for office at every level of government, turn out in large numbers for campaign events, and are proving to be a powerful voting bloc in many places. A little more than half of Republicans are ‘adherents or sympathizers’ of Christian nationalism, according to a survey of 22,000 Americans in all 50 states that was carried out last year by the Public Religion Research Institute.

“Opposition to the separation of church and state, abortion and LGBTQ rights are among the principles that unify the Christian nationalist movement, but it has no central leadership or theology… As the movement grows more confident about the prospect of a Christianized America, leaders representing different streams have made some specific proposals. Some want to shutter the Department of Education, seeing it as an obstacle to religious schooling, while others target the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention because they see vaccines as a danger. To crack down on abortion, some suggest using the death penalty as a deterrent. At least one pastor suggested repealing the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote.

“In contrast to these concrete plans, Christian nationalists have spoken more vaguely about what would happen to Jews and other religious minorities if they were given the chance to enact their vision for the United States, according to interviews with scholars who track the movement.” But only a nation founded on a single religion, or one where an autocracy elevates one supreme belief system, can hold one religion above all others. Thus, there is a fundamental attraction for such Christian nationalists in a leader willing to take that autocratic lead. God, they reason, trumps any contrary policies or teachings.

Notwithstanding the separation of state inherent in our First Amendment and the above Biblical admonition, there is a growing chorus of legal and religious scholars who suggest that neither that amendment nor that citation preclude Congress from declaring Christianity to be the state religion… and, by suggestion, that the Bible trumps the Constitution.

I’m Peter Dekom, and history is rife with stories where one religion rises above the rest… and that non-believers must be persecuted, tortured and/or killed… think the Spanish Inquisition, the Salem Witch Trials, and the Holocaust.

Bully Nations in Search of Natural Resources: The Unwelcomed Chinese Fishing Fleets

In 2008, a Russian nuclear sub planted a titanium flag under the North Pole, claiming all the undersea regions based on ridges that emanated from that spot. China began using similar ridges in the South and East China Seas to claim ownership and control of shipping lanes and resource-extraction rights there, going so far as the add massive new land mass to an island in the Spratley chain to house a military base, replete with a landing field. Chinese naval vessels and armed jet aircraft have repeatedly challenged foreign vessels and aircraft attempting to navigate these waters, particularly US Navy ships and jets in the Taiwanese area. Combined Russian and Chinese naval fleets have begun joint exploratory missions ins Arctic waters, reinforcing Russian claims to the developing (and defrosting) Northwest Passage. These have all been the stuff of headlines.

But on the less reproted back pages, China’s quest for foodstuffs, particularly since she no longer wishes to depend on imports from the United States, have made her invest heavily in emerging nations and agriculturally rich regions (like Brazil and productive regions in the African Great Rift Valley) with clear advantages and priorities for China to the products grown there. Because it happens so far from the US, there is another Chinese bully practice that simply “takes” whatever it wants from the fishing regions that have been longstanding offshore fishing grounds for local fisherman, often with vastly smaller boats. The US joins in protest… but does virtually nothing.

Massive Chinese fishing fleets, sometimes armed or escorted by Chinese military vessels ready to deploy force, range all over the world, preying on small nations heavily reliant on local fishing but unable to defend themselves against this Chinese incursion into their waters… simply by denying those nations’ rights to territorial waters. The locals are hapless against these massive fleets, seriously depleting their available catch; the call these Chinese fishing vessels “bully boats.” Writing for the October 26th Wall Street Journal, Ryan Dubé explains this pervasive Chinese practice: “For three decades, Francisco Chiroque’s livelihood has depended on the jumbo squid that flourish off this country’s Pacific coast in one of the world’s richest fishing grounds. This year, his catch has collapsed.

“Chiroque and the Peruvian fishing industry blame the hundreds of gigantic Chinese fishing ships patrolling the edge of Peru’s national waters. Peru’s squid catch is down 70% so far this year, which the fishing industry says is a result of the industrial-scale fishing that Chinese companies have brought to seas normally plied by individuals in small boats, sometimes called artisan fishermen… ‘They fish and fish, day and night,’ said Chiroque, 49 years old, the head of the squid-fisherman association in Paita, a city on Peru’s far northern Pacific coast that is home to its squid-fishing industry. ‘The plundering is awful.’” This is hardly a story solely about Peru. This PRC effort can be found in waters all around Southest Asia, South America, Africa and off islands where tiny nations can only look on in horrors. China routine ignores rulings from international bodies citing such predatory practices as unlawful. But using Peru as the example, the WSJ article continues:

“The woes of Peru’s squid fishermen mark the latest round of international tensions involving China’s overseas fishing fleet, by far the world’s largest. U.S. officials and conservationists say China’s thousands of industrial-size vessels endanger ecosystems and threaten fishing industries from Africa to Latin America… Overfishing has become a flashpoint of geopolitical friction between Beijing and the U.S., which has sided with countries such as Peru. The Biden administration has sanctioned Chinese-flagged ships for so-called illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing, which the U.S. says has surpassed piracy as the leading global maritime-security threat…

“The first Chinese fleet of 22 ships arrived off the western coast of South America in 2001, traveling across the Pacific for jumbo squid, a voracious animal that can grow to nearly 10 feet over a lifespan of 12 to 18 months… Those ships caught 17,700 tons of squid that year, according to the South Pacific Regional Fisheries Management Organization, a New Zealand-based intergovernmental group that includes the U.S. and China and that oversees fisheries in the Pacific. Now, the Chinese fishing boats haul in some 500,000 tons of squid annually from those waters.

“The fleet has since grown to around 500 ships. They use bright lights to attract squid to the surface at night. From space, the ships look like a floating city. A mother ship transports the catch back to China. Other vessels provide fuel. One serves as a hospital for crew members, says Eloy Aroni, a fishing expert at Artisonal, a Peru-based organization that tracks the fleet.

“Satellite images show the fleet spends much of the year just outside the 200 nautical miles that are part of Peru’s maritime territory, hugging the border as it follows the squid north and south. .. Peru’s ships have little chance of competing. The squid move both inside and outside of Peru’s maritime waters, meaning that even if Chinese ships don’t enter Peruvian waters, their catch has repercussions for locals.” China knows how to use local governments against their people. $$$.

“The fishing industry says it has received little support from the government of President Dina Boluarte, who traveled to Beijing in June to deepen ties with China… Today, Chinese companies own some of Peru’s biggest copper mines, while others will control virtually all of the power distribution in the capital, Lima… In November, Chinese leader Xi Jinping is scheduled to inaugurate a Chinese-owned megaport in Peru during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit… Peru’s Production Ministry, which oversees the fishing industry, didn’t respond to an interview request. Minister Sergio González has played down the impact of China’s fishing fleet, publicly saying that the squid shortage has been caused by changes in the ocean triggered by the El Niño warm weather phenomenon. The population should bounce back next year, he said.

“Juan Carlos Riveros, a biologist who is the science director in Peru for Oceana, a Washington, D.C.-based conservation organization, said that while squid are susceptible to changing temperatures, overfishing is the culprit. Peru’s squid catches declined during a 2016 El Niño, but not as much as today… ‘In reality, what we are witnessing is a case of overfishing,’ he said.” WSJ. Russia and China believe the United States, mired in unending polarization with a strong vector towards isolationism, is unraveling into a weak nation that is losing political influence by the day.

I’m Peter Dekom, and that Russian and Chinese assessment of an unraveling, self-destructive, United States is not far from the truth… noting that in modern times of increasing American isolation have had a profound negative effect on our economy.

Food is Costing Too Much? Why?

There are so many global reasons why food insecurity is rising. Wars, from the Gaza conflict to the decimation of Ukraine, one of the most efficient grain-producing countries in the world, make growing, harvesting and getting to market severely difficult wherever they occur. New agricultural diseases, many spreading across new regions (from migrating species), sometimes cross-infecting other animal and plant life – like the bird flu now infecting American cattle and dairy cows. Or like the recent nationwide recall of meat and poultry products potentially contaminated with listeria that reached nearly 12 million pounds, including ready-to-eat meals sent to U.S. schools, restaurants and major retailers, according to the Department of Agriculture.

Extreme weather conditions around the world – reflected in the United States by some of most devastating hurricane and wildfire damage in a century (pictured above) – are destroying crops and livestock with a concomitant impact on the cost and availability of food. Climate change has imposed crop and livestock-killing heat and water loss in so many countries, including the United States. Populations in places like Haiti, Sudan, Somalia are starving. Southern Africa faces similar issues: “The United Nations' World Food Program (WFP) gave the warning on Tuesday [10/15], adding that over 27 million people are affected, the worst hunger crisis in the region in decades… Five nations—Lesotho, Malawi, Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe—have declared national disasters while the drought has ravaged crops and left millions struggling to survive.” Newsweek, October 15th.

Even major food exporters face issues. Brazil, as the second most agriculturally productive exporting nation in the world, has been burning off rainforest land to make way for farms and mining ventures, even as rising temperatures are killing off crops in record numbers. Experts are suggesting that we may soon be forced to give up Brazilian coffee and cocoa, making those crops prohibitively expensive. Everywhere there are conflicts, land-destroying climate change and migrating disease… the consequences on global food prices can be staggering.

But there is a notion that corporations in the food supply chain are price gouging the public. Higher prices and shrinkflation. If you go by the relative percentage of gross revenues that represent profits, they’re not. But even keeping those percentages the same, as costs go up, hard dollar profits follow. But price gouging may not be the political football we think it is. FastCompany.com (reprinted from The Conversation), October 12th, presented by Peter A. Coclanis, professor of history and the director of the Global Research Institute at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill: “The cost of food has been a big concern for Americans since the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, with U.S. food prices rising 25% between 2019 and 2023. While U.S. food inflation slowed considerably in 2024, grocery prices are still up from prepandemic numbers…

“Although many states have laws on the books against price gouging, such laws have proved difficult to enforce. In the case of the U.S. grocery industry, profit margins (traditionally razor-thin at about 1% or 2%) remain small even today… What’s more, it’s important to note that food prices in the U.S.—relatively speaking—are the cheapest in the world, and have been for a long time. This is the case whether measured in terms of disposable personal income or in terms of percentage of household expenditures.

“For example, U.S. Department of Agriculture data shows that in 2023, the most recent year for which data are available, Americans spent about 11.2% of their disposable personal income (or income after taxes) on food. That was unchanged from 2022… No one likes to pay more for food, but a little comparative data can reduce one’s sense of victimization, if not alleviate the pocketbook pain.

“Cross-national data compiled by the USDA shows that in 2022, Americans spent less on food as a proportion of total consumer expenditures than people in any other country. People in many other nations spent two, three, or four times as much in percentage terms, and sometimes even more… [There] are big differences between the U.S. and other high-income countries such as Japan, Sweden, Norway, France, and Italy, with the U.S. percentage spent on food considerably lower than in any of these other rich countries. This is because economies of scale are more important in American agriculture, among other reasons.”

There are political “solutions” posited by both major parties that probably cannot do much to make US food prices dissipate: from Harris’ focus on price gouging or Trump’s emphasis on purging immigrants and imposing tariffs on imports. Aside from Harris’ ability to use antitrust laws to stop anti-competitive mergers in the food industry, there’s not much her policy would accomplish. As for Trump’s imposition of tariffs, I have yet to hear from a credible economist that simply applying a price-raising de facto sales tax will create jobs or lower retail prices. A quarter of parts for US-made automobiles come from overseas! Even if you forget about the probable retaliatory trade wars against US exports, this is hardly a “solution” to lower the cost of living.

Further, what do you think happens when you remove the lowest cost labor – stoop farmworkers, slaughterhouse labor, etc. – by deporting millions of those “south of the border” immigrants? Aside from the statistical reality that they commit fewer crimes proportionately than American-born citizens, replacing them with expensive traditional American workers or high-tech robots… well, you can expect the cost of American-grown crops and livestock to skyrocket. We can see parallel cost increases in all the business sectors – like construction and childcare – where these immigrants work, and across the board where import tariffs rise.

I’m Peter Dekom, and as long as Americans prefer to find blame or embrace conspiracy theories in lieu of factual solutions, you can pretty well count on massive waste, political wheels spinning that actually make matters worse, while American anger and discontent just dig in and continue to serve as the toxic feeding ground for so many unscrupulous and profoundly selfish politicians.

Are We Creeping Towards Armageddon?

It’s probably coming first from Russian threats and capacity against NATO support for Ukraine… perhaps later if we honor our commitments to protect Taiwan from China’s invasion threats. It could also rise as a severely weakened Iran runs out of options in its rising conflicts with US-supported Israel. That old notion of “mutually assured destruction” might actually fail as a nuclear deterrent in a world of military challenges, resulting economic depletion and embarrassed autocrats.

Let’s start with the underlying economic reality of Russia and Iran. Unlike the industrialized Western powers and China, those two nations are not manufacturing centers – outside of military weaponry – but resource extraction/agricultural nations. More like very modern, militarily advanced, banana republics. While Iran approaches its conflicts under an immutable religious mantle, Russia is governed by a failing madman’s ego.

Sensing an opportunity to rise in global stature, North Korea’s Kim Jong-Il has increased his ties to Russia, hoping to elevate his existing nuclear capacity with upgrades (particularly in submarine technology) from Russian expertise. His contribution of thousands of North Korean soldiers to fight with Russian soldiers over Ukraine is the escalation that pushed the Biden administration (followed rapidly by France) to allow longer range US-supplied ATACMS tactical ballistic missiles (pictured above) to target Russian troops, military installations and weapon systems inside Russia.

Unlike intercontinental ballistic missiles however, the range of these weapons is not much farther than a few hundred miles into Russia. Also, Ukraine needs to feed targeting coordinates, generated through US satellites, to those missiles to lock in those targets, effectively giving the US verified approval that those targets are appropriate to the mission. I might add that Russian and Chinese hypersonic missiles (so fast so as to make interception exceptionally difficult) are technologically ahead of US equivalents.

As a side show that could rapidly ignite as the major power face off, Iran has further increased its stockpile of uranium enriched to near weapons-grade levels, according to a report from the United Nations' nuclear watchdog, as reported by The Associated Press (AP), November 19th.

But looking at the here and now: As Ukraine launched its first wave of ATACMS missiles, the “Russian Defense Ministry said on Tuesday [11/19] that it defeated a Ukrainian ATACMS attack in the western Bryansk region, shortly before the Kremlin updated its nuclear weapons doctrine to allow for nuclear strikes in response to foreign ballistic missile attacks… Ukrainian forces fired six ‘ballistic missiles,’ the ministry wrote on its official Telegram page, five of which were downed and the sixth damaged. ‘According to confirmed data, American-made ATACMS operational-tactical missiles were used,’ it wrote…. ATACMS fragments fell on the technical territory of a military facility in the Bryansk region, a fire broke out, it was extinguished,’ the ministry added…

“The ministry alleged the attack shortly after Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told journalists that the changes to Russia's nuclear doctrine -- signed by President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday [11/19] -- meant ‘the use of Western non-nuclear rockets by the Armed Forces of Ukraine against Russia can prompt a nuclear response.’” GMS, November 19th. Specifically, Putin expanded the Russian nuclear weapons use doctrine to embrace an attack on Russia and her allies by Western powers – suggesting that US or NATO supplied missiles enabling a longer reach into Russia herself created the justification – would indeed justify a Russian nuclear response. This enhancement was intended to mirror the NATO doctrine that an “attack on one would be an attack on all” NATO members.

That Biden acted to allow Ukraine to strike targets within Russia, albeit only targets necessary to support Russia’s continued efforts to invade and conquer Ukraine – a hot topic for months – is probably just as related to the ascension of Donald Trump – an opponent of our support for Ukraine and an open admirer of Putin – and what many are saying is a very short fuse on continue American support. If there is to be a ceasefire and a notion of parties keeping the territory they hold, Ukraine’s conquest of Russia’s Kursk region just might be a bargaining chip for Ukraine’s trading for some of Russia’s conquest of Ukraine areas.

In the end, if there is to be any near-term armistice or other peace accord to settle this ugly war, one really hotly contested issue concerns a necessary Russian pledge to honor the agreed border with Ukraine. Russia has abrogated its treaty with Ukraine to start this war, and her promises are always met with skepticism. As much as Russia justifies this aggression as a response to NATO itself and demands that as any condition of peace requires that Ukraine agree not to join NATO, the only enforceable guarantee of Ukraine’s sovereignty is if she becomes united within NATO’s protective treaty system.

Would Putin really resort to nuclear weapons to further his goals? With Trump’s open bromance with Putin, his disdain for Zelensky and Ukraine, is the President elect willing to sacrifice a threatened democracy in favor the expansion of an avaricious autocrat’s dream territorial expansion? Preserving democracy does not appear to be a Trump priority… anywhere.

I’m Peter Dekom, and there are just too many Americans who do not care if US policies no long support democracy… even as our economic well-being and global influence rely heavily on open relationships with free nations everywhere.