Mar 14, 2023·edited Mar 14, 2023Liked by Robert B. Hubbell
It's the vote, or, rather, voter turn-out. If 50% of independents and 50% of Democrats would just show up, most of these hard right mis-decisions would be avoided. We all read what we want to read or listen to what we want to listen to and so the great left/right blue/red divides are pretty healthily sustained within their own new ecosystems. But if the independents who don't really like either side (evidently) would just turn out and vote their consciences, we'd really start making progress.
Mar 14, 2023·edited Mar 14, 2023Liked by Robert B. Hubbell
"There is a simple—albeit difficult to achieve—solution. We need only elect a Congress and president willing to enact legislation to reform the federal judiciary. That will require (in my view) a carve-out of the filibuster, an expansion of the Supreme Court, curbs on the ability of a single federal judge to issue nationwide injunctions, restrictions on the ability of the Supreme Court to issue merits-based decisions on its “shadow docket,” and enactment of an enforceable code of ethics on the Supreme Court (among many other reforms)."
This will happen after the Earth reverses the direction of its rotation and there is regular commuter service via starship to the suburbs on Alpha Centauri. (I wish I was wrong)
Along the lines of the piece you mentioned about needing to move the needle to 55% of the vote in order to achieve progressive priorities that a majority of Americans actually support, I’m deeply troubled by recent positions Biden has taken and am wondering who is advising him!
His approval of the Willow Project to extract oil and gas from Alaskan wilderness areas is horrible and is alienating the very young climate change activists who came out to vote in ‘20 and ‘22, based on Biden’s advocacy of solid climate change policies and the important support for same in the Inflation Reduction Act in the last Congress.
His support of defeating the DC Crime bill is puzzling, and his moves towards some of Trump’s heinous immigration policies, including potential family detention are all alienating to the Democratic base. I remember feeling disappointed and resentful when Obama took middle of the road positions on a lot of issues, apparently banking on the reality that the Dem base would have nowhere else to go.
But if we have a prayer of increasing our potential support among the American electorate, I believe we must focus on engaging young people, who represent the future of this country. And with so many young people motivated by gun control issues and climate change issues, this has been starting to happen. The last thing Biden needs to do is move away from this clear area of progress!!!
My worry is the voter suppression, especially targeting the youth vote. Prohibiting polling locations on college campuses, not accepting student ID as a valid form of identification, reducing early voting especially around holidays where college kids may be home…..there are so many ways to suppress the vote. There’s so much more. I sincerely worry about “getting to 55”.
What I find interesting is how good people (present company probably included, given we can't see what's hidden) don't see how future problems are forming under the surface of the current landscape of judges that are corruptly using their power to achieve personal (and blatantly religious) goals.
The same strategies that enable that corruption are making the legal profession very toxic to new arrivals. The leaders of the legal community are profiting from their silent control of our legal system and rank-and-file lawyers who provide legal services to ordinary people are dropping out of the profession in surprisingly large numbers - not to mention the numbers of lawyers who succumb to addiction, mental illness, and suicide.
The stigma ingrained in our legal profession prevents lawyers from seeking help and a crisis is coming where the corruption disregards the industry-wide unwellness and our legal system for ordinary disputes will become completely unreliable.
Much as you and I admire Biden's accomplishments, why have you not commented on his disastrous decision to support oil extraction in Alaska (Willow Project) & the hypocrisy inherent in his simultaneously declaring future extraction off limits.
A correction: SVB is a "regional bank" not a "community bank." Community banks are small enough they won't create bigger problems and so didn't get the regualtions, being less that $50B in total valuation per bank. The 2018 "deregulation" (which 17 Democratic Senators and 33 Congress critters voted with the Republicans) raised that limit to $250B, which as we have now discovered, is big enough to cause a crisis.
"let’s hope that he is able to honor his promise to reinstitute the regulatory oversight provisions eliminated by Trump."
Don't hold your breath, the contemporary House GOP has now divided banks into "red" banks and "blue" banks, with "blue" banks being ineligible for government support since all their problems are because they were too busy being "woke" to take care of their business affairs (SVB being "blue" in this formulation, though DEI had nothing to do with the CEO being a moron).
Ah, yes, the Crapo bill-which brought down a goodly number of conservative Democrats, and Dean Heller, in its wake. Jon Tester and Joe Manchin have lived to fight another day, which is a coming destraction in 2024. Methinks it'd be wise for both gentlemen to be in the forefront of a Dodd-Frank revival,
I am continually troubled by Republicans co-opting our values and claiming them as their own. Recently we re- watched SAVING PRIVATE RYAN and ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT. It is obvious that these movies send the following message..WAR IS A DREADFUL WASTE BUT IN THE END IT IS WORTH IT TO SAVE DEMOCRACY AND FREEDOM.
Today we have GOP members posing as patriots while supporting insurrectionists, election deniers and white supremacists, all the while claiming to be be patriots. None of their objectives can be aligned with freedom or democracy no matter how perverted your logic.
Yet here we are. The countless deaths and sacrifices are not just being minimized by the bad actors in the GOP...they are clearly saying those sacrifices were worthless by setting out to destroy all that our brave men and women were fighting for. The original concept of freedom and democracy has been long lost on them.
We need to own our values and need to call out these miscreants like Greene, Jordan, Hawley, Scalise, and on and on. We need to pound away at what they really are doing. We need more representatives to match their pathetic vitriol with undisputable logic. We need to be the sound bites..on offense. No one can tell me that MTG is too difficult to match wits with. Same with Jordan. Same with all of them.
Can we just show up for once and truly represent? We're all waiting for the real character...the real substance to emerge.
Mar 14, 2023·edited Mar 14, 2023Liked by Robert B. Hubbell
Missed in all the cheers for the bailout of SVB is that behind the claim the plan does not cost the taxpayers a cent is the reality that the bonds are being bought at par (face amount), not the discount their sale in the open market would have required. Thus, the real cost is the 15-20% loss on all of the $40-50 billion involved. This is far from "cost free".
Regarding the Texas judge’s likely ban on the abortion pill, that decision is likely to be stayed . That’s because of a smart strategy from Washington State’s Attorney General Bob Ferguson. His office joined by several other states are suing the federal government for having unnecessarily tight restrictions on the pill. A judge in Washington is likely to uphold that position. So with two contradictory suits in play both will be stayed for a good long time. One smart strategy!
I agree thst the youth vote is the key to the future because they have more at risk than all of us. I remember when JFK created the “ great society” and attacked the youth vote of which I was a part. The Democrats need to think about two critical requirements to attract these young and new voters. They need a compelling message about how and why Democrats are worth investing in for the future of young voters and they need spoke people who connect with this age group and someone they can trust and get behind and represents to them the future of this country. I am not sure the Democrats today can deliver on both fronts.
Congress needs to reinstate Glass-Steagall, but We also need to take it to another level. The government must be measured by a Well-Being Index rather than simply GDP. As they are now doing in the United Kingdom and a number of other countries, all legislation must show how it would benefit We, the People, all of us this time. It is time to replace Citizens United with the People United. Corporations including banks are not People. Money is not free speech. Citizens United is simply legalized bribery of members of Congress. The economy should be measured by economic strength across all the People not just the top 1%. I like the Native American philosophy where one's Wealth is measured by one's generosity to others so that the entire community thrives. With rights come responsibility to protect those rights for others.
It's the vote, or, rather, voter turn-out. If 50% of independents and 50% of Democrats would just show up, most of these hard right mis-decisions would be avoided. We all read what we want to read or listen to what we want to listen to and so the great left/right blue/red divides are pretty healthily sustained within their own new ecosystems. But if the independents who don't really like either side (evidently) would just turn out and vote their consciences, we'd really start making progress.
"There is a simple—albeit difficult to achieve—solution. We need only elect a Congress and president willing to enact legislation to reform the federal judiciary. That will require (in my view) a carve-out of the filibuster, an expansion of the Supreme Court, curbs on the ability of a single federal judge to issue nationwide injunctions, restrictions on the ability of the Supreme Court to issue merits-based decisions on its “shadow docket,” and enactment of an enforceable code of ethics on the Supreme Court (among many other reforms)."
This will happen after the Earth reverses the direction of its rotation and there is regular commuter service via starship to the suburbs on Alpha Centauri. (I wish I was wrong)
Along the lines of the piece you mentioned about needing to move the needle to 55% of the vote in order to achieve progressive priorities that a majority of Americans actually support, I’m deeply troubled by recent positions Biden has taken and am wondering who is advising him!
His approval of the Willow Project to extract oil and gas from Alaskan wilderness areas is horrible and is alienating the very young climate change activists who came out to vote in ‘20 and ‘22, based on Biden’s advocacy of solid climate change policies and the important support for same in the Inflation Reduction Act in the last Congress.
His support of defeating the DC Crime bill is puzzling, and his moves towards some of Trump’s heinous immigration policies, including potential family detention are all alienating to the Democratic base. I remember feeling disappointed and resentful when Obama took middle of the road positions on a lot of issues, apparently banking on the reality that the Dem base would have nowhere else to go.
But if we have a prayer of increasing our potential support among the American electorate, I believe we must focus on engaging young people, who represent the future of this country. And with so many young people motivated by gun control issues and climate change issues, this has been starting to happen. The last thing Biden needs to do is move away from this clear area of progress!!!
My worry is the voter suppression, especially targeting the youth vote. Prohibiting polling locations on college campuses, not accepting student ID as a valid form of identification, reducing early voting especially around holidays where college kids may be home…..there are so many ways to suppress the vote. There’s so much more. I sincerely worry about “getting to 55”.
What I find interesting is how good people (present company probably included, given we can't see what's hidden) don't see how future problems are forming under the surface of the current landscape of judges that are corruptly using their power to achieve personal (and blatantly religious) goals.
The same strategies that enable that corruption are making the legal profession very toxic to new arrivals. The leaders of the legal community are profiting from their silent control of our legal system and rank-and-file lawyers who provide legal services to ordinary people are dropping out of the profession in surprisingly large numbers - not to mention the numbers of lawyers who succumb to addiction, mental illness, and suicide.
The stigma ingrained in our legal profession prevents lawyers from seeking help and a crisis is coming where the corruption disregards the industry-wide unwellness and our legal system for ordinary disputes will become completely unreliable.
Be worried.
Question from my husband:
Much as you and I admire Biden's accomplishments, why have you not commented on his disastrous decision to support oil extraction in Alaska (Willow Project) & the hypocrisy inherent in his simultaneously declaring future extraction off limits.
Robert I have a conflict and can't watch your interview with Kristol and Rosenberg. Is it being recorded so it can be watched later?
A correction: SVB is a "regional bank" not a "community bank." Community banks are small enough they won't create bigger problems and so didn't get the regualtions, being less that $50B in total valuation per bank. The 2018 "deregulation" (which 17 Democratic Senators and 33 Congress critters voted with the Republicans) raised that limit to $250B, which as we have now discovered, is big enough to cause a crisis.
"let’s hope that he is able to honor his promise to reinstitute the regulatory oversight provisions eliminated by Trump."
Don't hold your breath, the contemporary House GOP has now divided banks into "red" banks and "blue" banks, with "blue" banks being ineligible for government support since all their problems are because they were too busy being "woke" to take care of their business affairs (SVB being "blue" in this formulation, though DEI had nothing to do with the CEO being a moron).
"It was the right thing to do in the moment, but the wrong thing to do in the long run. "
I'm not sure that I understand the point about being a mistake "in the long run." Would you clarify?
Ah, yes, the Crapo bill-which brought down a goodly number of conservative Democrats, and Dean Heller, in its wake. Jon Tester and Joe Manchin have lived to fight another day, which is a coming destraction in 2024. Methinks it'd be wise for both gentlemen to be in the forefront of a Dodd-Frank revival,
I am continually troubled by Republicans co-opting our values and claiming them as their own. Recently we re- watched SAVING PRIVATE RYAN and ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT. It is obvious that these movies send the following message..WAR IS A DREADFUL WASTE BUT IN THE END IT IS WORTH IT TO SAVE DEMOCRACY AND FREEDOM.
Today we have GOP members posing as patriots while supporting insurrectionists, election deniers and white supremacists, all the while claiming to be be patriots. None of their objectives can be aligned with freedom or democracy no matter how perverted your logic.
Yet here we are. The countless deaths and sacrifices are not just being minimized by the bad actors in the GOP...they are clearly saying those sacrifices were worthless by setting out to destroy all that our brave men and women were fighting for. The original concept of freedom and democracy has been long lost on them.
We need to own our values and need to call out these miscreants like Greene, Jordan, Hawley, Scalise, and on and on. We need to pound away at what they really are doing. We need more representatives to match their pathetic vitriol with undisputable logic. We need to be the sound bites..on offense. No one can tell me that MTG is too difficult to match wits with. Same with Jordan. Same with all of them.
Can we just show up for once and truly represent? We're all waiting for the real character...the real substance to emerge.
Missed in all the cheers for the bailout of SVB is that behind the claim the plan does not cost the taxpayers a cent is the reality that the bonds are being bought at par (face amount), not the discount their sale in the open market would have required. Thus, the real cost is the 15-20% loss on all of the $40-50 billion involved. This is far from "cost free".
Regarding the Texas judge’s likely ban on the abortion pill, that decision is likely to be stayed . That’s because of a smart strategy from Washington State’s Attorney General Bob Ferguson. His office joined by several other states are suing the federal government for having unnecessarily tight restrictions on the pill. A judge in Washington is likely to uphold that position. So with two contradictory suits in play both will be stayed for a good long time. One smart strategy!
I agree thst the youth vote is the key to the future because they have more at risk than all of us. I remember when JFK created the “ great society” and attacked the youth vote of which I was a part. The Democrats need to think about two critical requirements to attract these young and new voters. They need a compelling message about how and why Democrats are worth investing in for the future of young voters and they need spoke people who connect with this age group and someone they can trust and get behind and represents to them the future of this country. I am not sure the Democrats today can deliver on both fronts.
Congress needs to reinstate Glass-Steagall, but We also need to take it to another level. The government must be measured by a Well-Being Index rather than simply GDP. As they are now doing in the United Kingdom and a number of other countries, all legislation must show how it would benefit We, the People, all of us this time. It is time to replace Citizens United with the People United. Corporations including banks are not People. Money is not free speech. Citizens United is simply legalized bribery of members of Congress. The economy should be measured by economic strength across all the People not just the top 1%. I like the Native American philosophy where one's Wealth is measured by one's generosity to others so that the entire community thrives. With rights come responsibility to protect those rights for others.
If all our people vote, we will win. Our voter turnout is way too low.