Sanctuaries from Sanctions

So, here’s the headline: as much as political leaders and angry voters like sanctions against rogue nations, like tariffs, they seldom work. First, sanctions are generally applied against nations with autocratic leaders, whose lifestyle remains unaffected, citizens are brutalized for blaming their leadership and there are no elections. Second, sanctions are usually used by autocratic leaders to point blame at outsiders in order to rally their population into populist rage at the imposing nation. Third, citizens from the nation pushing those sanctions are often exposed to higher prices (a consumer tax). Lastly, most nations figure out to backdoor and work around sanctions anyway, since there are always takers if the benefits are sufficient (they usually are).

You can start with the obvious: Russia may have been pushed around by Western sanctions, but with a lot of help from China, those two nations have found viable workarounds from Western sanctions and even the more powerful deterrent, US control of the flow of international trade via its SWIFT codes as sophisticated currency exchanges and models. There is a double whammy danger here, which would be accelerated if Trump were reelected: one, these workarounds would accelerate, and two, there would be an international push to remove the US dollar as the overwhelming reserve currency (the global measuring and pricing currency). US consumers would pay dearly for that reality.

Russia can still sell its oil, trade internationally through China, if necessary, purchase weapons from other nations facing sanctions (hence Russia’s purchase of drones from North Korea and Iran), and still maintain a fully functioning economy with little consumer sacrifice. While the ruble and the Russian GDP have been hurt, life in Russia has not changed much.

And that brings me to Iran. Back in 1979, when the current Islamist theocracy took over, American policymakers were certain that it would not take much to topple that repressive regime. They assumed the Ayatollah-governed nation would rail at the repression and restore Western-friendly democracy. It was not until the Obama administration that US policymakers realized Iran was not only unlikely to topple but was very likely to have viable nuclear weapons. That opened the door, with a moderation in Western sanctions against Tehran, for détente and a 2015 nuclear containment treaty that was working until, in 2018 and bowing to Israeli pressure, Donald Trump pulled the US out of that treaty. He reimposed sanctions and watched Iran reignite its nuclear program. Despite those sanctions, which helped spike oil prices globally, modern Iran has never been stronger. If there is a full-blown war between Israel and Iran, Iran could trash global commodity prices by sealing off the Strait of Hormuz, the entry-point for the Suez Canal.

And sure, nations that are subject to sanctions always ask for their removal to further diplomatic solutions. Kim Jong-Un always required a removal of sanctions as a condition for détente. He played Trump, and Kim has only accelerated his nuclear program. He has lots of nukes! Soon, I suspect, so will Iran, unless Israel is able to delay that development with a strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities. That would cause a few additional major problems, however.

As Venezuela has been our major leftist autocratic sore spot in the Americas, we did negotiate a reduction in our sanctions against that oil producer pending a restoration of genuine democratic elections. Free elections? Hell no! So, do we restore sanctions? “The Biden administration is leaning away from reimposing sanctions on Venezuela’s oil industry despite President Nicolás Maduro’s moves to bar leading opposition candidates from the country’s July elections, said people familiar with the matter.

“U.S. officials are concerned that reverting to Trump-era sanctions that accelerated the decline of Venezuela’s oil production would raise the price of gas at U.S. pumps and prompt more migration from Venezuela as President Biden campaigns for re-election in November. Restricting Western oil companies would tighten global energy supplies and open the way for Chinese investment in Venezuela, they say… Biden administration officials have said they didn’t think that the oil sanctions—leveled against Venezuela in early 2019 in former President Donald Trump’s effort to force Maduro from power—was constructive.” Wall Street Journal, April 18th.

When economic sanctions are imposed, the first response of the sanctioned country is how to get around them. And while there is a negative impact from sanctions, you might be surprised at how folks try to avoid them, even those from the country imposing sanctions and trade barriers. Here’s a story, from the April 15th Wall Street Journal that just may shock you. Not only are nations around the world ignoring US sanctions and trade restrictions against China but so are many major US institutions. “Chinese companies are feeling a cold shoulder in the U.S.—except at universities, where they are welcomed as customers.

“American universities sign contracts around the world to sell their research and training expertise, and some of their most lucrative agreements have been with companies based in China. The decadeslong trade thrives despite a deepening U.S.-China rivalry and rising sensitivities about Beijing’s influence on American campuses… Nearly 200 U.S. colleges and universities held contracts with Chinese businesses, valued at $2.32 billion, between 2012 and 2024, according to a review by The Wall Street Journal of disclosures made to the Education Department. The Journal tallied roughly 2,900 contracts.

The extensive trade in American expertise presents a quandary for universities and policymakers in Washington: Where’s the line between fostering academic research and empowering a U.S. rival?... ‘It seems clear that when the Chinese contract with U.S. universities they are getting a capability they can’t get anywhere else,’ said Daniel Currell, a Trump administration Education Department official who has tracked foreign influence in higher education. ‘The big question is, what [contracts] should be legal, what should be legal and disclosable, and what should be illegal?’ he added.” If the ability to punish offending without military attack weren’t so popular, we wouldn’t have sanctions at all. But the philosophy of that punishment sounds so good, like so many other popular myths (like that “a rising tide floats all boats” falsehood), we just keep doing it.

I’m Peter Dekom, and I suspect there is a national insanity in repeating the use of sanctions, which simply do not work, and hoping for a different result.

Sorry, Joe, What’s in It for Us?

Sorry, Joe, What’s in It for Us?

We Pay Good Money for Your Votes; Besides Trump Really Might Win

“No matter how genuinely they support or don’t support specific pieces, many are animated by greater antipathy toward Biden than attraction to Trump. And they’re averting their gazes from the parts they don’t like.” 

 NY Times Journalist Maggie Haberman, April 17th on US CEOs now supporting Trump.

“[Trump] looks at the economy from Mar-a-Lago, where he and his rich friends embrace the failed trickle-down policies that have failed working families for more than 40 years.” 

 Joe Biden, April 16th.

“Most C.E.O.s are not wild about a second Trump term. They had a rocky ride the first time around — though they did get the tax cuts and deregulation they wanted — and they are pretty sure he will bring instability, which is generally bad for business… Having said that, many are also down on President Biden, who has been much more aggressive about regulating business. And I don’t have the impression that they have absorbed the messages that Trump and his allies have been sending about what a second term would look like.” 

 NY Times Journalist Jonathan Mahler, April 17th on US CEOs now supporting Trump.

No matter how you look at it, modern state and federal legislation has always catered to special interests. Frequently, laws intended to regulate certain industries are often handed over to trade associations, major corporations or their law firms for drafting, despite the most obvious conflict of interest. This allows elected candidates to tout to voters their having passed regulations and laws reining in the excesses fomented by big business – mostly environmental and financial controls – and still “wink-wink” at their campaign contributors that nothing has changed.

Citizens United vs FEC, a 2010 Supreme Court decision, removed the spending caps on issue-oriented political contributions by treating these entities as individual people with individual people’s 1st Amendment rights. The resulting tsunami of political SuperPACs, mostly seriously right of center, allowed big money to dominate the political discourse arena like never before. If you wonder how MAGA took over the House of Representatives, look no further than this massive change.

And woe to a candidate who suggests raising taxes on the rich – even while maintaining taxes for the upper middle class of earners at present rates – when there is no check or balance on the amount the rich can spend to defeat such efforts. Generally, the corporate argument usually centers on job-killing or an out-of-control (but unsupported notion of a) freedom-crushing “deep state.” For many corporations and their richest controlling shareholders, the notion of a battle between democracy and autocracy doesn’t move them. Most do not believe that Trump and his Heritage Foundation federal appointment election committee would really be able to implement his threat of purging, even arresting, his opponents and undoing entire federal regulatory agencies. They are narrow focused on reducing costly regulations and lowering taxes further.

It does not matter that global warming related disasters are annually costing the world trillions of dollars and the lives and health of millions, the regulations set to limit and control these greenhouse gas emissions cost too many companies too much. Protecting consumers from avaricious corporations seeking to contain consumer rights, for the same cost-driven reason, is their enemy. And even though the United States effectively taxes the rich less than most developed nations (mostly by exemptions and loopholes; less than by simple rate hikes), the rich want cuts! They tout the supply side/trickle down “a rising tide floats all boats” economic theory to sell their program, even though there are no significant instances where this really happens.

Make no mistake; Trump is bad for business in many ways that most CEOs know. His policies are often unclear, whimsical, instill instability which is never good for business, and tout very unpopular and often religiously based views. Yet Republicans from Trump to Florida’s Ron DeSantis and Texas’ Greg Abbott are quite willing to impose restrictions on companies that defy their views on inclusion, who support “woke” sensibilities in their corporate governance (such as banning companies engaged in environmental, social, and governance [ESG] investing from state contracts) or open tolerance of LGBTQ+ employees. Corporate America does not want to fight even an American autocrat; it’s just too risky… and for what?

In the early period of Trump’s ascendancy toward the GOP to a 2024 nomination, big business joined the rising international chorus that clearly found the ex-president’s candidacy to be a dangerous global threat… but as Trump appeared to pass Biden in the polls, corporate America had to let Trump know they really did not oppose him. As NY Times Magazine Journalist Jonathan Mahler observes in his April 7th Magazine article: “There was anxiety in the thin mountain air when the planet’s economic leaders gathered in January at Davos for the 54th meeting of the World Economic Forum. Donald Trump had just trounced Nikki Haley in the Iowa caucuses, all but securing the Republican nomination for president. Haley was reliable, a known quantity. A resurgent Trump, on the other hand, was more worrying.

“The Davos attendees needed reassurance, and Jamie Dimon, the chairman and chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, had some to offer. In an interview with CNBC that made headlines around the world, Dimon praised Trump’s economic policies as president. ‘Be honest,’ Dimon said, sitting against a backdrop of snow-dusted evergreens, dressed casually in a dark blazer and polo shirt. ‘He was kind of right about NATO, kind of right on immigration. He grew the economy quite well. Trade. Tax reform worked. He was right about some of China.’ Asked which of the likely presidential candidates would be better for business, he opted not to pick a side.” But he did.

While early in Trump’s campaign, his biggest corporate donors sat on the sidelines, watching Trump’s march through a litany of civil and criminal litigation, uttering threats to anyone who opposed him… not writing those big checks that typified his 2015/16 campaign. Trump openly embraced the policies of elected Hungarian autocrat and prime minister Viktor Orbán, a leader who used government regulations to push companies (many in media) who opposed his policies out of business to be bought out by his cronies. As Biden’s support in available polls dwindled, notwithstanding the progression of Trump’s criminal trials, more than a few of those big donors, making excuses like those of Jamie Dimon above, and lined as big Trump donors again.

I’m Peter Dekom, and we are paying a very steep price for enabling and encouraging special interests to be the major deciders of most relevant policies and candidates, especially those plutocrats who are focused on stopping candidates’ trying to contain their march to even greater profitability.

If I Win, You Lose… Big

   

If I Win, You Lose… Big

If You Win, There Must Be Limits

“It’s not a living document… It’s dead, dead, dead.” 

 Associate Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, describing the US Constitution at Dallas-based Southern Methodist University in 2013

Increasingly, voters from both sides of aisle are coming to the conclusion that the nation cannot be governed through Congress, an unproductive, gridlocked body too often defined by inane conspiracy theories, extremism and false but strongly felt religiosity. They believe that power to govern, to fix and solve, is by default or design, must now be relegated to the President as the unitary executive. To MAGAns, that naturally leads to an autocracy led by cult-meister, Donald Trump, who can seal the deal with even more judicial appointments who hold the Bible as trumping the Constitution and insist that even when the Constitution might apply, it is severely limited to the historical context that existed when the constitutional provision was passed, that it cannot take into consideration social, political or technological changes since (“textualism” and “originalism”).

To Progressives, personal freedom – from control over your own body or ethnic/gender choices – should be restored, that the Department of Justice needs to purge rightwing extremism, and that everything from student loans to a more humane approach to immigration and incarceration must be implemented by the President alone. Both sides of aisle rail at the First Amendment and are heavily focused on expression on social media. The Dems want to stop destructive dis- and mis-information ranging from medical realities to elections. MAGAns want to allow their “alternative facts” and conspiracy theories to be given free and correction-free status as a matter of right. Nicholas Riccardi and Linley Sanders, writing for the April 8th Associated Press, put it this way: “Americans back limits on authority — unless their party wins the presidency, poll finds.”

The undercurrent in all of this seems to suggest that democracy no longer works. Even as China’s economy unravels and she bullies regional nations over sea lanes, a majority of Asians seems to think that the centralized control model from China is more effective today than the obviously messy American democracy. El Salvador gave up on trying to control rampant gangs and cartels through normal judicial authority… with some success. The rising rightwing is appearing in former bastions of liberalism, even in Sweden and the Netherlands.

But for those who still believe that democracy is the path, perhaps with a constitutional basis that accepts social change, there is a movement “in the middle,” reflected here in the United States, that “the U.S. government ‘go back to its original design’ — a system of checks and balances developed nearly 240 years ago to prevent any branch, especially the presidency, from becoming too powerful.” AP.

Indeed, the swinging contextual pendulum suggests that each party wants a powerful president when they win and a severely limited leader if their candidate loses. “A new poll from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Opinion Research finds that … view is common. Though Americans say they don’t want a president to have too much power, that view shifts if the candidate of their party wins the presidency. It’s a view held by members of both parties, though it’s especially common among Republicans.

“Overall, only about 2 in 10 Americans say it would be ‘a good thing’ for the next president to be able to change policy without waiting on Congress or the courts. But nearly 6 in 10 Republicans say it would be good for a future President Trump to take unilateral action, while about 4 in 10 Democrats say the same if Biden is reelected.

“The sentiment comes amid escalating polarization and is a sign of the public’s willingness to push the boundaries of the political framework that has kept the U.S. a stable democracy for more than two centuries. In the poll, only 9% of Americans say the nation’s system of checks and balances is working extremely or very well. It also follows promises by Trump to ‘act as a dictator’ on Day 1 of a new administration to secure the border and expand oil and gas drilling.

“Bob Connor, a former carpenter now on disability in Versailles, Mo., wants that type of decisive action on the border. He’s given up hope on Congress taking action… ‘From what I’ve seen, the Republicans are trying to get some stuff done, the Democrats are trying to get some other stuff done — they’re not mixing in the middle,’ said Connor, 56. ‘We’re not getting anywhere.’” AP

Indeed, the US Constitution is old; the original version passed in 1787, and the amendatory Bill of Rights in 1789. It is a document that, by its own terms, has become the least amendable constitution in the democratic world. Our last amendment – the 27th, which required an intervening election before Congress could give itself a raise – was passed in 1992 but was introduced in 1789.

The Constitution’s greatest flaw, perhaps, is that it assumed the president, Congress and our judges would act honorably, placing their country before themselves and their individual religious beliefs, acting wisely for the benefit of all Americans. It never envisioned social media, nuclear destruction or even AR-15s. Moral qualifications were never codified. But the Constitution can work, if approached with a mixture of common sense, honor and a realization that it was enacted to endure through changing times. If only we could elect honorable candidates.

I’m Peter Dekom, and as the United States unravels the very democratic principles that made it great, powerful and economically successful, it is indeed bizarre that the unravelers somehow think they will make the nation greater and more successful.

Too Many Inmates? Just kill ‘em! Oh, We Already Do.

  The dining room in a Norwegian prison.

 Prison in El Salvador

Over-crowding in California Prison

Ever ask yourself what the punishment for committing a crime that involves incarceration really is? I suspect that varies depending on where you are. In Mexico and much of central America, the prisons are vast cages where the population pretty much regulates itself, most from gang leaders and an economy loosely linked to the outside world. People die, get beaten badly, are forced into de facto slavery and, if they have no source of money from the outside, have a miserable existence with a fairly short life expectancy. If they are not gang members, they probably will be. Gang leaders do well in this world.

On the other side of the spectrum is Scandinavia, where the punishment is solely incarceration, but in a decent environment where forks and knives are permitted for cooking, often by the inmates themselves who frequently dine with unarmed guards. Norway, for example, provides a clean hotel-like environment. “Prison sentences are mainly meant to take away the freedom from the criminal, and have that as the main punishment. Norway really embraces this concept, and still keep treating the criminals as human beings who don’t have other rights taken away from them… This means that inmates will have access to some type of entertainment, are able to have a healthy diet with enough food, feel safe, have the opportunity to live in a clean environment, and are generally able to life a somewhat normal life inside the prison cells.” The Norway Guide.

Maybe American prisons beat incarceration in Central America, Russia, Thailand and vast swaths of the developing world, but as we all know, they are hotbeds of gang violence, horrible and dramatically unsanitary conditions, crumbling infrastructure, awful food and increasing over-crowding. Oddly, most US prisons are only a slight cut above that third world vision of prison. Picture what life is like in a very confined and even more dangerous, overcrowded environment… in an American prison where basic healthcare is supposed to be provided, when a highly contagious disease breaks out.

This time, I am not even talking just about the COVID debacle but all sorts of diseases that fester in US prisons across the land. Mark Bunin Benor, a family physician who worked in the Los Angeles County jail system from 2018 to 2023, wrote this piece for the April 2nd Los Angeles Times: “During my five years as a doctor in Los Angeles County’s jail system, I personally saw hundreds of patients with hepatitis C who were not being treated for the potentially deadly but curable disease. While hepatitis C treatment improved incrementally during my tenure, the system continues to fall woefully short of the sort of concerted effort that could dramatically reduce the toll of the infection within and beyond the jails.

“Hepatitis C, a viral, blood-borne liver disease, is very common in the jails. More than a third of inmates tested are positive. That suggests the number of people living with the virus in the nation’s largest jail system is likely in the thousands.

“Hepatitis C is new enough to medical science that until the 1980s, it had yet to be formally identified and was known only as “non-A, non-B hepatitis.” Thanks to the marvels of modern molecular biology, it’s now well described, and the available medicines cure almost every patient who takes them.

“Untreated hepatitis C nevertheless continues to claim the lives of about 14,000 Americans every year , a higher toll than that of HIV. Because these deaths are preventable, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends universal screening of adults for the infection.

“In this context, one might expect medical providers in jail to test for the disease broadly and treat it promptly. Monitoring and managing contagion is important in any correctional medical system, and it’s routine in ours for other diseases, such as tuberculosis and COVID-19…. Unfortunately, this wasn’t what I encountered in practice. All those taken into custody at the jail undergo a medical screening. But it’s usually cursory and doesn’t include an offer to screen for hepatitis C.

“When I started treating inmates in 2018, doctors rarely screened for the disease partly because known cases were almost never treated. The protocol was to consider treating patients only if their disease had progressed to a state of advanced liver fibrosis… What’s more, getting medication for a patient meant arranging a special police escort for an appointment at the county hospital and then waiting several more weeks for the antiviral pills to be delivered. The entire process took many months and generally discouraged treatment.” Yet prison life in the United States might even terrify Dante Alighieria, the 14th century Italian author who wrote The Inferno, describing the nine circles of hell. Nevertheless, there are people in government who still believe this can change.

Like the ancient Greek mythological tale of Sisyphus condemned to roll a boulder up a hill, on March 17th, California’s Governor Gavin Newsom began an effort to reduce our prison population and refocus on humane treatment and rehabilitation, announcing: “California is transforming San Quentin – the state’s most notorious prison with a dark past – into the nation’s most innovative rehabilitation facility focused on building a brighter and safer future… Today, we take the next step in our pursuit of true rehabilitation, justice, and safer communities through this evidenced-backed investment, creating a new model for safety and justice — the California Model — that will lead the nation.” I’ll believe it when I see it.

I’m Peter Dekom, and as the toxic vitriol poisons the political discourse in this country, as MAGA bigots continue to dehumanize desperate and basically kind people, you can guess what their feelings about prisons lie… until they become “patriotic hostage” from their violent and fraudulent felonies.

There’s Really Slow, and Then There’s MAGA Ultra-Slow

If there’s one thing we have learned about MAGA politics, it’s just that MAGA elected and appointed officials have a minimal ability to govern pragmatically. The “no compromise” MAGA-controlled House of Representatives has managed to reduce the legislative flow through Congress by 90% when compared to pre-MAGA congressional sessions. They’re willing to stop government, antagonize elderly citizens reliant on Social Security and Medicare, defund popular programs like the recent Biden administration inflation reduction and infrastructure acts (yet take credit for the very bills they voted against when funded projects show up in their districts), actually oppose most Biden in initiatives even if they once sponsored them, and launch dead-end impeachment and investigative efforts based on conspiracy theories that generally go nowhere.

They will vote for legislation that imposes rightwing religious dogma in their culture wars. They favor letting business roll without regulation, love to cut taxes for the rich while cutting programs for everyone else, and even when they pass bills they like – such as defense spending – they have been known to hold up military promotions to attempt force their cultural prerogatives on our soldiers. They can co-sponsor desperately needed immigration reform, and then pull back supporting their own bill when so ordered by their cult-master, Donald Trump. Not to mention that “speaker ousting” is an increasingly popular MAGA sport.

MAGA-controlled state legislatures, particularly with MAGA governors, love to pass laws aimed at severely restricting women and minorities, exposing doctors to incarceration for life without the possibility of parole for performing the same medical procedures they had practiced without that risk for decades. They pass profoundly inane censorship, class lesson bills, and gender restrictions – changing practices that have gone on for centuries without alteration – and spend tens if not hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars in unsuccessful legal battles to support their useless and even dangerous legislation. Climate change does not move their legislative needle, even as flooding, coastal erosion and severe tornados and hurricanes impact their states more than blue ones.

Ah, but then there are their judicial appointments, which despite efforts to limit “we know this judge will rule strictly along MAGA lines” forum shopping, continue to elevate the Bible above the Constitution. Despite the early March federal judiciary rule to discourage so-called “judge shopping” nationwide by making sure high-profile lawsuits seeking to overturn statewide or national policies are randomly assigned among a larger pool of judges, several Trump-appointed district courts have refused to accept this limitation. We have clearly politically biased federal judges, Trump appointments like Aileen Cannon in Florida and Matthew Kacsmaryk in Texas, who are willing to risk censure and reversal to deliver a MAGA-approved decision, no matter how thin any judicial precedent may be in support (if any).

And if you think this effort to slow justice to a crawl, pushing MAGA doctrine whenever possible, does not apply to the US Supreme Court, by now you should know better. Firearms are now profoundly less regulated, minorities more vulnerable and facing reduced voting rights and the “right to life, but we support guns and the death penalty” crowd is pushing to pass state limitations on abortion under the high court’s reversal of a basic right to an abortion in Dodd vs Jackson.

It is equally clear that there is profound dissention within the ranks of the Supreme Court justices. Happy gift recipients like Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and mega-recipient Clarence Thomas… often with the “culture vs Constitution” remaining conservatives – John Roberts (CJ), Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh in tow – are clearly facing a very unhappy trio of liberals – Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson – who are forced to witness the undoing of decades of precedents.

Aside from this “great undoing,” the hamstrung court is also operating at a snail’s pace as it faces decisions that it is likely to make that will, as many the decisions of the Trump court have been, wildly unpopular with the majority of Americans. The April 6th CNN News (John Fritze) addresses this judicial pace: “But as the high court moves toward a busy and fraught final sitting this term, it is also once again slipping behind its past pace, issuing fewer opinions than it did at this same point in its nine-month work period just a few years ago. The court has handed down 11 opinions so far this term – most in relatively obscure matters that were decided unanimously.

“The Supreme Court has issued opinions in just 22% of its argued cases this year, compared with 34% through mid-April two years ago and 46% in 2021, according to data compiled by Adam Feldman, founder of Empirical SCOTUS. The share of resolved cases is up slightly over last year – a historic low… Taken together, the numbers point to a term in which the court’s decisions could be scrunched into a shorter time fame – potentially giving the court’s 6-3 conservative supermajority an opportunity to reshape the political debate around culture war issues just as Americans begin tuning into the Biden-Trump rematch for president.

“Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the University of California Berkeley School of Law, said it had become a ‘clear trend’ in recent years that the court is ‘very slow’ releasing decisions. Though there are many theories about why that may be, the court’s opaque-by-design practice of negotiation and opinion crafting makes it difficult to say with certainty… A large share of the court’s docket touches on ‘enormously significant and difficult issues,’ Chemerinsky told CNN. ‘It also is a court that has deep divisions. I assume that all of this leads to delays in releasing decisions.’…

“The slower pace could prove particularly meaningful this year because of Trump’s assertion of immunity from special counsel Jack Smith’s election subversion charges. Trump asked the justices to block a lower court ruling that flatly rejected those immunity claims. The high court agreed to hear the case in late February but did not set arguments until the end of this month.

“The case has put the Supreme Court on the clock and opened it up to criticism that delay will play into Trump’s broader legal strategy of pushing off his pending criminal trials until after the November election. Unless the court speeds up its work, it’s difficult to see how the Trump immunity decision would arrive before the end of June.” If this MAGA majority is troublesome and slow now – ignoring the maximum that “justice delayed is justice denied” – just think what a flood of additional MAGA populist judicial appointments, culled from the Heritage Foundation’s list of “right thinking” candidates, would be like if Trump were to win in November. Trump doesn’t like limitations of the Constitution much anyway.

I’m Peter Dekom, and except for the most zealous extremists, most Americans truly do not understand that commanding the military and appointing federal judges are the most important powers a president has… particularly one who scoffs at the purported obligation to “preserve and protect” the Constitution.

Did Iran Just Give Netanyahu a Win or….

 

“It is clear that Israel will respond.” 

Unnamed Israeli Official, April 14th.

As Israel’s defensive shield, with some help from US and UK efforts, stopped 99% of the approximately 300 missiles, rockets and drones unleashed by Iran on April 13th, the question is whether that alone counted as a major Israeli victory… without more. Iran has gone from being a saber-rattling, regional terrorist-supporting menace – fomenting its proxies to implement military hostilities against Israel, the West and its local enemies – to becoming a direct combatant against Israel. But Israel did provoke that attack. An Israeli airstrike that demolished Iran’s consulate in Syria on April 1st – which under international law is deemed to be Iranian soil – and killed two Iranian generals and five officers, according to Iranian officials. Iran promised retaliation, which explains the April 13th attack.

Does Israel counter the counter? Does the Israeli war cabinet mount a massive strike on Iran as the rightwing demands, something less or simply accept that its successful defense that appropriately humiliated Iran and sent a message to any prospective attacker than an air offensive against Israel is unlikely to succeed? Israel could implement its “Iran will never have a nuclear weapon” pledge and implement a limited but strategic assault on Iran’s nuclear program or, as some believe, put this Iranian assault in its “justification to hit directly at Iran… someday” file for the future?

Ah, but remembering that Netanyahu is a canny politician who has ignored and defied Joe Biden, is an unabashed supporter of Donald Trump and needed a distraction to rally his nation to his side, did the April 1st attack accomplish a lot more than meets the eye? In a simple response: YES. Just as Iran knew that a Hamas murderous attack on Israel (the events of October 7th) would provoke Israeli overkill that would isolate Israel and the US from global support, Netanyahu knew Iran would have to do something dramatic in response to that IDF (Israeli Defense Force) attack on its consulate in Damascus. That result would redirect international attention away from the bloodbath in Gaza, diffuse anti-Netanyahu protesters in Israel and perhaps even draw the United States into an unwanted war directly with Iran… which would most probably lead to Biden’s defeat in November, Israeli leaders may have hoped.

Remembering that a vast portion of the weapons used to date in Gaza and even the satellite assistance that provided military guidance for the IDF in all of its operations came from the United States, Biden’s post-April 13th statement that the United States would not support any IDF counterattack against Iran came with a grain of salt. While this array of defensive superlatives carries a wider warning – like to China as it eyes taking Taiwan – there is little doubt that this Middle Eastern tension just escalated for everyone. As Tehran has suggested that this April 13th attack was enough to settle the score, as the Biden administration admonished Israel to accept its wildly successful defense as victory without more back-and-forth retaliation, noting that the US would not support a counter-counterattack.

While Iran’s seems powerless, that is not really true. Tehran could mine the Strait of Hormuz, sending global oil prices soaring, bringing European economies down a huge notch. But that would make Iran more of a global pariah as economies everywhere would suffer. Iran has become the focal point for a new “Axis of Resistance” (see my April 8th The Axis of Resistance blog for a more detailed analysis), and while its main target seems to be Israel, its most significant enemy is “The Great Satan,” the United States. With Biden suffering a revolt in part of his constituency (like progressives, particularly among Gen Z because of Gaza) and facing both Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and China’s threats to take Taiwan by force, the newly escalated conflict between Iran and Israel brings on new complications for him.

Indeed, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen just returned from her second to China in nine months to address escalating trade disputes between the world’s largest economies as the two sides try to stabilize relations following a summit between US President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping last November. The Biden administration is trying to create a modus vivendi with the Peoples’ Republic to diffuse tensions with the only other superpower on earth. China has been Russia’s trading lifeline during the Ukraine war and has served as North Korea’s nexus to the world. But both China and Russia have sided with Iran and Syria as regional tensions have moved from simmering to boiling.

And where the United States had once used its then-tenuous relations with China and Russia in the past to achieve global peace – as with the 2015 six-party UN-sponsored Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action to contain Iran’s nuclear weapons plans (Trump pulled the US out of that treaty in 2018, and Iran immediately resumed its nuclear program) – that kind of cooperation seems doubtful today in deescalating the Iran-Israel conflict. If either Russia or China were to intervene, that probably would produce a result that would make those nations the heroes and show the United States as increasingly impotent in the region. If that occurred in the immediate future, Biden’s candidacy would be hit hard. Netanyahu would have triumph in his effort to reinstall his buddy, Donald Trump.

As a trilateral visit by the leaders of Japan and the Philippines to the White House just before this Iranian strike occurred illustrates, the United States takes containing Chinese ambitions very seriously. But that same containment effort also impacts if and how the Middle East can be re-stabilized. The world is watching. Congress may finally address aid to Ukraine and Israel, but the MAGA influence remains strong. Only Biden truly sees the merit in having strong regional allies to contain raw authoritarian efforts at global control and territorial expansion, a clear benefit to the United States in every arena from economic prosperity to global influence. Yet Netanyahu knows exactly what will make Biden look like a failure; he needs Trump in his effort to retain power… and like Trump… to escape a criminal conviction.

I’m Peter Dekom, and this not a simple conundrum for US foreign policymakers; there are malign forces hoping to unravel the US as a democracy and push an autocrat sympathizer into the American presidency… to knock us down so that they can rise.

Post-Pandemic School Daze

 

Office buildings are plummeting in value as remote work continues its allure. In some cities, once pricey buildings are half or more below peak value, many in foreclosure at less than the relevant outstanding mortgage. New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, etc. Indeed, remote work and the fear of infectious diseases have hit office workers, but has there been a parallel impact on primary and secondary school attendance and absenteeism (teachers and students)? The simple answer is “yes,” and the reasons include habits generated by school closures during the peak pandemic infection rate, some students just continuing with home schooling that began then, some leaving the school district (of the children of workers who now work remotely from new homes) and still other stay home as new diseases find their way into our society. But wait, there’s more.

As the above chart and Sarah Mervosh’s and Francesca Paris’ report in The Morning news feed for March 29th New York Times tell us, chronic absenteeism is settling in at alarming levels, impacting the lower portion of the income spectrum the most. Just what our country did not need in a time of dire polarization and record-breaking income inequality. “This was not particularly surprising. Schools had shut down in the spring of 2020, at the start of the pandemic, and some did not fully reopen until fall 2021. Quarantines for Covid symptoms and exposures were still common. It would take time, many thought, to re-establish daily routines.

“Before the pandemic, about 15 percent of U.S. students were chronically absent, which typically means missing 18 days of the school year, for any reason. By the 2021-22 school year, that number had skyrocketed to 28 percent of students. Last school year, the most recent for which national estimates are available, it held stubbornly at 26 percent… In interviews, many educators say the problem is continuing this school year.

“Perhaps most strikingly, absenteeism has increased across demographic groups, according to research by Nat Malkus, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute [see the above chart]. Students are missing more school in districts rich and poor, big and small… Even the length of school closures during the pandemic was not a particularly useful predictor of absenteeism. On average, districts that were closed longest have experienced similar increases as those that opened sooner.”

There is a bevy of horribles in this information. School budgets are generally a function of school attendance. Fewer kids on average, lower legislative allocations to schools. In some cases, schools are simply closed, and children are rerouted to other nearby schools. But the above level of absenteeism is in addition to the time lost during the pandemic closures, and in many cases, students are even further behind as a result. Since those in the lower income families are staying away the most, the rift between the richer segments will only widen based on the above numbers. What fragments in upward mobility remain are tattered out of existence by these realities.

“What is going on here?... I spoke with school leaders, counselors, researchers and parents. They offered many reasons for the absences: illness, mental health, transportation problems. But underlying it all is a fundamental shift in the value that families place on school, and in the culture of education during the pandemic… ‘Our relationship with school became optional,’ said Katie Rosanbalm, a psychologist and associate research professor at Duke University… A cultural shift…

“Though school buildings are open, classes are in person and sports and other extracurricular activities are back in full, the stability of school seems to have shifted… For one thing, teachers are also missing more school, often because of professional burnout or child care challenges — or because, since the pandemic, more people are actually staying home when they’re sick… Some schools have kept their pandemic policies around online class work, giving the illusion that in-person attendance is not necessary.

“And widespread absenteeism means less stability about which friends and classmates will be there. This can beget more absenteeism. For example, research has found that when 10 percent of a student’s classmates are absent on a given day, that student is nearly 20 percent more likely to be absent the following day. ‘We are seeing disengagement spreading,’ said Michael A. Gottfried, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania who has studied this issue…This cultural shift is not simply a hit to perfect attendance records.

“The share of students missing many days of school helps explain why U.S. students, overall, are nowhere close to making up their learning losses from the pandemic. Students who are behind academically may resist going to school, but missing school also sets them further back. These effects are especially pernicious for low-income students, who lost more ground during the pandemic and who are more negatively affected by chronic absence.” NYT.

At a time when an increasing number of people would rather believe conspiracy theories than science, where so much of our innovation is wasted on socially paralyzing mass communications technology, where the attention spans needed for complex leaps forward in technology are going the wrong way, and where income inequality and alienation from each other and society are growing, these shifts in our schools are deeply disturbing.

I’m Peter Dekom, and if you want to tank a nation and make it less competitive, let the educational system unravel, descend and become less relevant.

Can the Federal Reserve Stay Neutral?

 

We live in hyperpolitical, polarized times – an era of finding someone to blame, especially if you can taint a political opponent while creating a cause for yourself. Inflation is a wonderful arena where the party in power, particularly the incumbent president, gets the blame for what neither the Congress nor the President can control. Like the price of oil… anywhere. That’s a global pricing structure more under the control of OPEC+… even though today the US is the leading producer of oil. We also cannot control price increases due to conflicts far from our shores (like Ukraine), Acts of God (like hurricanes taking down refineries), pandemics, severe damage to ports and major canals and other supply chain issues.

But these days, inflation is in the political crosshairs of the MAGA GOP. Even as bank rate interest rate (what big banks have to pay to get money from the Fed) is exclusively controlled by the Federal Reserve, to keep the Fed independent, Congress created a “government corporation” (the Federal Reserve) where its board and chairman are appointed by the President and confirmed by Congress, but once appointed are totally independent of either. A 14-year term for board members hammers that home.

So perhaps it is useful to address exactly what the Federal Reserve is and what it can do. According to Investopedia, “The 1913 Federal Reserve Act, signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson, gave the 12 Federal Reserve banks the ability to print money to ensure economic stability. The Federal Reserve System created the dual mandate to maximize employment and keep inflation low. The Federal Reserve was thus given power over the money supply and, by extension, the economy. Although many forces within the public and government were calling for a central bank that printed money on demand, President Wilson was swayed by Wall Street arguments against a system that would cause rampant inflation. So the government created the Federal Reserve, but it was by no means under government control.”

Wikipedia adds: “The Federal Reserve System is composed of several layers. It is governed by the presidentially-appointed board of governors or Federal Reserve Board (FRB). Twelve regional Federal Reserve Banks, located in cities throughout the nation, regulate and oversee privately-owned commercial banks. Nationally chartered commercial banks are required to hold stock in, and can elect some board members of, the Federal Reserve Bank of their region…

“Congress established three key objectives for monetary policy in the Federal Reserve Act: maximizing employment, stabilizing prices, and moderating long-term interest rates. The first two objectives are sometimes referred to as the Federal Reserve's dual mandate. Its duties have expanded over the years, and currently also include supervising and regulating banks, maintaining the stability of the financial system, and providing financial services to depository institutions, the U.S. government, and foreign official institutions. The Fed also conducts research into the economy and provides numerous publications…”

And right now, we have low unemployment, and after almost two decades of low Fed rates, to counter inflation, the Fed sequentially rates their bank to over 5%. Even as they pledged to begin lowering that rate again, so far, nothing has happened. Fed Chair, Jerome Powell (pictured above), was appointed by both Trump and Biden.

So, raising rates further would truly push the nation towards recession, while lowering the rates would drop consumer costs and reignite a wallowing real estate industry, where housing affordability is a major issue, particularly for younger (and more likely Democratic) voters. As Jeanna Smialek, writing for the April 3rd NYTimes The Morning, notes, this makes the Fed a bit more political than they would like: “The Federal Reserve is in a tough spot. It expects to cut interest rates soon. But doing so before an election will yank the apolitical central bank directly into a partisan fight.

“Fed officials have lifted borrowing costs to 5.3 percent, the highest level in decades, to slow inflation. Now that price increases are fading, Fed officials think that they can dial back that response starting later this year. Investors expect the first move to come in June or July — just as the election kicks into high gear.

“Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, says rate cuts this year would probably be an effort to help Democrats. Lower rates can lift markets and help the economy, so politicians tend to prefer cheap money when they are in office.

“Fed officials insist that rate changes would respond to economic conditions, not politics. Still, they can’t ignore the vitriol. If they ramp up during the campaign, Trump’s attacks could convince his supporters that the Fed is bending to partisan whims. And in the long run, a loss of popular support could expose the central bank, which answers to Congress, to lawmaker censure or even political tinkering…

“But even if elected officials shape [the economy], the Fed is insulated from immediate political backlash as it sets actual policy. That is because its big job — controlling inflation — can be very unpopular in Washington. Its efforts have been blamed for slowing the economy severely enough to harm or even doom both Jimmy Carter’s and George H.W. Bush’s re-election attempts. In fact, incumbent politicians used to frequently harangue Fed chairs for lower interest rates in public and in private. (Lyndon B. Johnson reportedly cornered his Fed chair against a wall at his Texas ranch.).”

With Trump as the master of blame, clearly, he is directing that negative blast solely at Joe Biden, who has little more than a jawbone impact on the Fed.” The Fed is aware of the conundrum, but one would hope they do what best for the nation without political bias. Hope!

I’m Peter Dekom, and fairness, logic and even tsunamis of facts don’t seem to sway people looking for simple answers and expansive blame.

Donald Trump is a Particularly Popular Candidate - Especially to Russia & China

 

Even as Donald Trump is selling custom Bibles and portraying himself as the Christian-designated presidential candidate, he’s got some hellish support from some of the most morally unsavory dictators, leaders of nations with long histories as our principal global adversaries. Countries like Russia, China, North Korea and Iran – each with clear and ostensible efforts to steal our most vital secrets, supply military support to our killer enemies (sometimes involving military forces and global hitmen targeting US citizens and companies), use false flag operations, and undermine our elections with massive dis- and mis-information – are actively at it again… on steroids.

Many have questioned if any how the appellate bonds posted by Trump may be funded by sources within or close to these rogue nations, impacting his loyalty to the nation (vs to himself). Some also wonder how Trump Media may have been directly financially supported, literally thrown a lifeline, prior to the late March public offering which took an entity hemorrhaging red ink into a multibillion-dollar US publicly traded company, making Trump’s Truth Social his biggest (though now facing serious falling value) asset.

The April 3rd Guardian UK, analyzes how Trump Media may have survived prior to the offering: “Donald Trump’s social media company Trump Media managed to go public [in late March] only after it had been kept afloat in 2022 by emergency loans provided in part by a Russian-American businessman under scrutiny in a federal insider-trading and money-laundering investigation…

“[The pre-public offering cashflow burn rate] led Trump Media to take emergency loans, including from an entity called ES Family Trust, which opened an account with Paxum Bank, a small bank registered on the Caribbean island of Dominica that is best known for providing financial services to the porn industry… Through leaked documents, the Guardian has learned that ES Family Trust operated like a shell company for a Russian-American businessman named Anton Postolnikov, who co-owns Paxum Bank and has been a subject of a years-long joint federal criminal investigation by the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) into the Trump Media merger.”

As the April 2nd The Morning NYT newsfeed focuses on China’s election influencing efforts, writers Tiffany Hsu and Steven Lee Myers report: “Covert Chinese accounts are masquerading online as American supporters of former President Donald J. Trump, promoting conspiracy theories, stoking domestic divisions and attacking President Biden ahead of the election in November, according to researchers and government officials… The accounts signal a potential tactical shift in how Beijing aims to influence American politics, with more of a willingness to target specific candidates and parties, including Mr. Biden ….

“Some of the Chinese accounts impersonate fervent Trump fans, including one on X that purported to be ‘a father, husband and son” who was “MAGA all the way!!’ The accounts mocked Mr. Biden’s age and shared fake images of him in a prison jumpsuit, or claimed that Mr. Biden was a Satanist pedophile while promoting Mr. Trump’s ‘Make America Great Again’ slogan…

“Putin’s reasons to prefer Trump seem obvious (even if Putin claims otherwise). Biden leads an international coalition opposing Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, and U.S. support has enabled Ukraine’s much smaller military to stall Russia’s advance. Trump has suggested that he will end this support. A central part of Putin’s war strategy, intelligence experts believe, is to wait for Ukraine’s Western allies to tire of the war…

“But there appear to be at least two major ways in which China’s leaders could benefit from a second Trump term… The first involves America’s engagement with global politics. Biden believes that the world is in the midst of a struggle between autocracy and democracy, and he sees the U.S. as the leading democracy, much as past presidents from both parties did. In Biden’s view, the U.S. is “the indispensable nation” that must defend a democracy when an autocratic neighbor attacks, as Russia did in Ukraine and China may eventually do in Taiwan.

“Putin and Xi take a less idealistic view toward global affairs. They instead believe that strong nations should be able to control their own regions. Under Xi, China has become more aggressive not only toward Taiwan but also toward other neighbors. China has also expanded its influence in Africa and Latin America, effectively challenging the U.S.’s status as the world’s lone superpower.

“Trump has shown little interest in these issues. He is an isolationist who embraces the slogan ‘America First.’ He prefers that the U.S. avoid international conflicts, and he is skeptical of treaties and alliances. He said at a recent campaign rally that Russia’s leaders should be able ‘to do whatever the hell they want’ to some European countries… For Moscow and Beijing, the benefits of an American president who holds these beliefs are large… The second major advantage of a new Trump term for China and Russia is the domestic chaos that could result in the U.S. …

“Trump has shown little interest in these issues. He is an isolationist who embraces the slogan ‘America First.’ He prefers that the U.S. avoid international conflicts, and he is skeptical of treaties and alliances. He said at a recent campaign rally that Russia’s leaders should be able ‘to do whatever the hell they want’ to some European countries... For Moscow and Beijing, the benefits of an American president who holds these beliefs are large…

“A politically chaotic U.S. could allow other countries to assert more global influence… I understand that Trump supporters will object to the idea that he could undermine the national interest. Many support him precisely because they believe he can protect the country in a way no other politician will. His central promise, of course, is to make America great again… What’s striking, however, is that the country’s biggest global rivals believe that a Trump victory will serve their interests instead.” For White Christian nationalists, Trump’s victory in November is an existential necessity. And should Trump lose, you can bet that our opponents, particularly Russia and China, will do everything in their power to foment armed insurrection to destabilize the United States as a major military, political and economic power. For these malign powers, Trump’s potential victory is a glorious dream fulfilled.

I’m Peter Dekom, and for MAGA voters who believe the United States does not need functional relationships with the rest of the world, if they manage to elect Trump in November, they can watch soaring costs, dysfunctional supply chains provoking major shortages and unsustainable chaos that will unravel what little is left of our ability to govern ourselves.