Jul 28, 2022·edited Jul 28, 2022Liked by Robert B. Hubbell
Robert,
Re: the younger generation, just before the Post and Times ran stories about how the younger generation is frustrated with and disappointed by Democrats—they control everything but can do nothing—my son’s friend explained to me those same points. I tried to explain that the Dems actually have done a lot, that politics is the art of the possible rather than the art of the perfect, and that structural problems prevented the Dems from doing more.
He responded that the issue was not the facts but rather perceptions and feelings. So I said, ok, your generation feels that way. What do you do with that? Sit at home and let the GOP take over? Or work your ass off to get more Dems elected? He had no answer to that. He could not predict what others would do.
My daughter, on the other hand, wants to burn it all down (read filibuster in particular).
I’m a fact-based guy, and if I can’t use facts in a discussion, I am at a loss. I of course agree with my daughter’s critique of the filibuster and the unrepresentativeness of one cow, one vote over one man, one vote. But she doesn’t have a suggestion for changing the system and was a defender of defund the police as a campaign slogan, showing a lack of understanding of politics (and she is much smarter than I am).
This is a generation that is both right (hearts in the right place based on their partial understanding of the way the world does and doesn’t work) and clueless about how to fix the ills they see. They need to understand the system to know what to overhaul and how to do it. But they are too impatient to listen to that. They just want it done. Yesterday. What do we do with that?
Good morning and thank you AGAIN for your insightful, researched, encouraging and motivating write ups; I hope you do realize how important you are to so many (all, and mean all my contacts are converts!!)
I have a family living (renting) in an apartment below us for a year. The husband and wife (and two kids, 3 and 6 months… yes, 1 is an American citizen!) are both neurosurgeon from Paris, here for a year’s special transfer/study program with Mass General Hospital. Janet, my wife and I have become quite close, spending lots of time. During a discussion last night, Pierre, the husband, mentioned that he doesn’t believe we Americans realize how much France and virtually all European countries watch every move, action, decision made here by our government and how each so impacts their lives. He said, “you know Bob, we really should have a vote in your presidential elections because we are so impacted by that results.”
They are thrilled with what our current President has accomplished….. and would vote for him if they could!
The video of Jake Tapper interviewing Secretary Pete Buttigieg caused my eyes to water up. What a wonderful and eloquent man! I believe that his steady, super intelligent and compassionate leadership could make him one of the most loved and successful Presidents the United States has ever experienced. The power of carefully chosen and well spoken words cannot be over-stated.
While I will support and applaud President Biden from start to finish - with enthusiasm! - I look forward to a time when we will be led by someone with "Pete's" skills and values.
It appears a significant house cleaning of the Secret Service is in order. What a shame it has come to this. And isn't it disheartening to see how the Trump sickness spread so successfully through our government. Loyalty to person over country was never supposed to be in the Secret Service's guidebook. Someone specifically in the Secret Service is the instigator. It is essential to identify that very bad apple and his/her conspirators and send them packing (off to jail).
"Shockingly, the bill will be financed, in part, by imposing a minimum 15% tax on corporations with annual revenues greater than $1 billion." This corporate tax fulfills a 2021 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) agreement for a world-wide 15% minimum tax intended to discourage using low or non-existent taxes to lure corporations from one country to another.
Not only is it uplifting to know this 23 year old gentleman reads the opinion in WaPo, he also engages with Robert Hubbell! I didn't find Robert until I was almost 64 years old, and when I was 23 I was not engaging one iota in what was happening in anything other than my own little world. I uphold that there will be leaders from this young man's generation that will step up and lead others, and as we grow old, we will look to them with gratitude. I know too many fine people who have raised good citizens who seek a just and peaceful world and understand the importance of bending the moral arch of the universe ourselves, especially after all we have had to endure since 2016. Yes, let's have them see us helping lead the way to achieving a better world for all.
In my view, our highest priority is to avert the existential threat of minority rule over the will of the majority. Indeed, the J6th Committee’s mighty impressive probe has served as an invaluable contributing factor as will DOJ, presuming it holds the J6th command structure up to and including Trump criminally accountable.
That said, I write today to assert that the newly-coined Inflation Reduction Act, if implemented, could have the most profound impact on the midterms and beyond, especially if its passage is presented to voters as a sizable downpayment of more to come if Dems hold the House and pick up at least 2 Senate seats. This “more-to-come” would involve much of the legislation passed in the House that has remained stalled in the Senate, including all the provisions contained in budget reconciliation (BBB), the Freedom to Vote:John R. Lewis Act, the PRO Act, the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, and more.
The foregoing notwithstanding, I would be remiss were I not to mention Democracy Docket Founder Marc Elias’s warning of a Republican election subversion plan he expects will be enacted as early as this fall. Admittedly. Elias is not suggesting that local and state Republican election officials are laying the groundwork blatantly to declare their candidates the winner whether or not the candidate wins enough votes. He views the Republican election subversion plan as more sophisticated than that. Instead, Elias anticipates that Republicans will use “false allegations of fraud as a pretext to remove ballots from the vote totals and then certify those incomplete results.”
Though I don’t doubt that when litigation ensues Elias and his team will mount arguments whose conclusions can be nailed to the post with confirming evidence, I am not as confident that our courts will stand for the beacons of democracy that we need them to be.
As a grandmother, I am drawn to action and take opportunities to engage with younger people.
Last night I joined members of the League of Women Voters in moderating a candidate forum with 5 candidates for the county School Board. There were a handful of students attending as well as a diverse group of adults. The “young” (young compared to me) leaders of the PTA were noteworthy.
They demonstrated the power of people using their time and energy for the greater good of the entire community. It’s clear that our support and service was much appreciated and demonstrated that they are not alone.
Thank you for posting the link to Pete Buttigieg’s response to Marco Rubio. I have long been a Pete fan, including volunteering for his 2020 presidential campaign. He is smart as a whip and quick on his feet, often demolishing the “bait” questions posed to him. Who, besides me, would pay good money to hear a presidential debate between him and the clumsy, belligerent Ron DeSantis?
Yes we need to model hard work and hope for the younger generation. Thanks for motivating us. Thanks for caring so much for our country that you write this newsletter.
If your primary news source is your Facebook news feed, you are not an informed consumer of news -
For my friends who rely on Facebook as one of their primary news sources, please be aware of a significant change in Facebook’s “news feed.”
Meta (Facebook) has announced they are “deemphasizing its investment in news content.” What does that turn of phrase actually mean? It means that Facebook will no longer be paying for news content from reliable journalism sources. In fact, they are even abandoning the term “news feed.”
Instead of a user's "news feed" being composed primarily of content from friends and other accounts a user has chosen to follow, the main feed on a user's Facebook page will be an algorithmically-filtered collection of content from anywhere, and posts from a user's friends will be moved to a separate page.
What the heck does that mean? It means that Facebook will now decide what content to put in front of you based on their “best guess” about what they think you want to or should see, instead of allowing you to make your own choices.
Facebook will use its profit-driven “algorithms” to decide what “news” they think is most important for you to see. Here is a more thorough explanation of this change from the Columbia Journalism Review. If you are a Facebook user, please read this carefully and consider what it means for you.
People have long told me that Facebook is completely safe because you can control who your friends are and what you see on Facebook. Is that really true, when Facebook will use its private, profit-driven motives, and undisclosed “algorithms” to decide what content you should see in your “main feed”?
Facebook’s new “investment priority” is to decide what you should see in your Facebook feed, not to leave that decision to you as a Facebook member.
Remember, if you are not paying for a service, YOU are the product.
Last week, Meta, the parent company of Facebook, announced a major change to its flagship social media platform. Instead of a user's "news feed" being composed primarily of content from friends and other accounts a user has chosen to follow, the "main feed" on a user's Facebook page will be an algorithmically-filtered collection of content from anywhere, and posts from a user's friends will be moved to a separate page. Mark Zuckerberg, Meta's CEO, wrote about the proposed changes in late April, referring to the news-feed change as one of the company’s “investment priorities”; now the redesigned feeds are in the process of being rolled out to Facebook's three billion daily users.
As part of these changes, Sara Fischer of Axios also reported that the term "news feed" is being retired as a descriptor for the main feed on a user's page. Facebook first introduced the news feed in 2006, as a way of making it easy for users to see what all their friends were doing in one place, and while the new feature was not well received by some, it soon became the main interface for the social network, and the driving force behind Facebook's growth as an advertising vehicle.
Your comments about Hannity repeating misinformation are so important to highlight. Many in the US depend on Fox and conservative radio for their information and until that changes somewhat, we will always remain deeply divided and need to struggle for truth and accurate information. Thanks for what you do.
"Lester Holt on Prospect of Prosecuting Trump: ‘Would Arguably Tear the Country Apart’." Since the process would very much resemble the process of the January 6th committee - laying out facts and evidence, and since the effect of that process so far has not been to "tear the country apart" but to, if anything, decrease Trump's support and reduce the size of the loud, angry, vocal minority that believes the Big Lie, I cannot imagine why increasing the volume and specificity of that presentation would be anything but helpful and serve to reduce the infection. I just don't see it, and strongly believe this country badly Needs such charges to be clearly, firmly and fairly brought.
I am happy to see the info on the " Inflation Reduction Act”[finally a named bill to steal the usual Repubs stealing of titles and slogans. Hopefully it will pass quickly along with a couple of the other pieces of pending legislation , but if for some reason they don't pass, the dems should be shouting their efforts everywhere so that citizens will know what is happening. This effort should also include ways to get this legislation by voting for reps and sens who will vote accordingly.
the comments by sen. Rubio and others should come as no surprise to anyone who follows their hypocrisy, racist and homophobic past rants. It would be so good to see them voted out if only people will vote. I guess we don't do enough to convince people that voting is important and their votes do make a difference. They also need to understand that they need to be realistic and just because they can't get their whole loaf now, that they can keep coming to get more.
Altho these are perilous times, it is too soon to give up and need to keep on working as best we can for change. Electing Biden was a great first step and people need to understand how much he has accomplished even against a stacked deck and that if we give him a little more support in November how much more he can do,
My best wishes to the young adult going to Canada for grad school, though it makes me sigh with a tinge of envy (my husband and I can to move to any country in the EU, but not to Canada) and more than a tinge of sadness. Please let him know (if he's not heading there) that if he likes C.S. Lewis, he should be sure to visit Fredericton, the capital of New Brunswick, which is the true location of Narnia.
Great letter! In the category of how young people are feeling about our country: When I asked my five-year-old granddaughter if she wanted to sing with me on FaceTime, she said she wanted us to sing "Oh, Canada!" I think she just likes the melody, but it made me wonder...
Robert,
Re: the younger generation, just before the Post and Times ran stories about how the younger generation is frustrated with and disappointed by Democrats—they control everything but can do nothing—my son’s friend explained to me those same points. I tried to explain that the Dems actually have done a lot, that politics is the art of the possible rather than the art of the perfect, and that structural problems prevented the Dems from doing more.
He responded that the issue was not the facts but rather perceptions and feelings. So I said, ok, your generation feels that way. What do you do with that? Sit at home and let the GOP take over? Or work your ass off to get more Dems elected? He had no answer to that. He could not predict what others would do.
My daughter, on the other hand, wants to burn it all down (read filibuster in particular).
I’m a fact-based guy, and if I can’t use facts in a discussion, I am at a loss. I of course agree with my daughter’s critique of the filibuster and the unrepresentativeness of one cow, one vote over one man, one vote. But she doesn’t have a suggestion for changing the system and was a defender of defund the police as a campaign slogan, showing a lack of understanding of politics (and she is much smarter than I am).
This is a generation that is both right (hearts in the right place based on their partial understanding of the way the world does and doesn’t work) and clueless about how to fix the ills they see. They need to understand the system to know what to overhaul and how to do it. But they are too impatient to listen to that. They just want it done. Yesterday. What do we do with that?
Good morning and thank you AGAIN for your insightful, researched, encouraging and motivating write ups; I hope you do realize how important you are to so many (all, and mean all my contacts are converts!!)
I have a family living (renting) in an apartment below us for a year. The husband and wife (and two kids, 3 and 6 months… yes, 1 is an American citizen!) are both neurosurgeon from Paris, here for a year’s special transfer/study program with Mass General Hospital. Janet, my wife and I have become quite close, spending lots of time. During a discussion last night, Pierre, the husband, mentioned that he doesn’t believe we Americans realize how much France and virtually all European countries watch every move, action, decision made here by our government and how each so impacts their lives. He said, “you know Bob, we really should have a vote in your presidential elections because we are so impacted by that results.”
They are thrilled with what our current President has accomplished….. and would vote for him if they could!
The video of Jake Tapper interviewing Secretary Pete Buttigieg caused my eyes to water up. What a wonderful and eloquent man! I believe that his steady, super intelligent and compassionate leadership could make him one of the most loved and successful Presidents the United States has ever experienced. The power of carefully chosen and well spoken words cannot be over-stated.
While I will support and applaud President Biden from start to finish - with enthusiasm! - I look forward to a time when we will be led by someone with "Pete's" skills and values.
It appears a significant house cleaning of the Secret Service is in order. What a shame it has come to this. And isn't it disheartening to see how the Trump sickness spread so successfully through our government. Loyalty to person over country was never supposed to be in the Secret Service's guidebook. Someone specifically in the Secret Service is the instigator. It is essential to identify that very bad apple and his/her conspirators and send them packing (off to jail).
"Shockingly, the bill will be financed, in part, by imposing a minimum 15% tax on corporations with annual revenues greater than $1 billion." This corporate tax fulfills a 2021 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) agreement for a world-wide 15% minimum tax intended to discourage using low or non-existent taxes to lure corporations from one country to another.
Not only is it uplifting to know this 23 year old gentleman reads the opinion in WaPo, he also engages with Robert Hubbell! I didn't find Robert until I was almost 64 years old, and when I was 23 I was not engaging one iota in what was happening in anything other than my own little world. I uphold that there will be leaders from this young man's generation that will step up and lead others, and as we grow old, we will look to them with gratitude. I know too many fine people who have raised good citizens who seek a just and peaceful world and understand the importance of bending the moral arch of the universe ourselves, especially after all we have had to endure since 2016. Yes, let's have them see us helping lead the way to achieving a better world for all.
In my view, our highest priority is to avert the existential threat of minority rule over the will of the majority. Indeed, the J6th Committee’s mighty impressive probe has served as an invaluable contributing factor as will DOJ, presuming it holds the J6th command structure up to and including Trump criminally accountable.
That said, I write today to assert that the newly-coined Inflation Reduction Act, if implemented, could have the most profound impact on the midterms and beyond, especially if its passage is presented to voters as a sizable downpayment of more to come if Dems hold the House and pick up at least 2 Senate seats. This “more-to-come” would involve much of the legislation passed in the House that has remained stalled in the Senate, including all the provisions contained in budget reconciliation (BBB), the Freedom to Vote:John R. Lewis Act, the PRO Act, the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, and more.
The foregoing notwithstanding, I would be remiss were I not to mention Democracy Docket Founder Marc Elias’s warning of a Republican election subversion plan he expects will be enacted as early as this fall. Admittedly. Elias is not suggesting that local and state Republican election officials are laying the groundwork blatantly to declare their candidates the winner whether or not the candidate wins enough votes. He views the Republican election subversion plan as more sophisticated than that. Instead, Elias anticipates that Republicans will use “false allegations of fraud as a pretext to remove ballots from the vote totals and then certify those incomplete results.”
Though I don’t doubt that when litigation ensues Elias and his team will mount arguments whose conclusions can be nailed to the post with confirming evidence, I am not as confident that our courts will stand for the beacons of democracy that we need them to be.
As a grandmother, I am drawn to action and take opportunities to engage with younger people.
Last night I joined members of the League of Women Voters in moderating a candidate forum with 5 candidates for the county School Board. There were a handful of students attending as well as a diverse group of adults. The “young” (young compared to me) leaders of the PTA were noteworthy.
They demonstrated the power of people using their time and energy for the greater good of the entire community. It’s clear that our support and service was much appreciated and demonstrated that they are not alone.
Thank you for posting the link to Pete Buttigieg’s response to Marco Rubio. I have long been a Pete fan, including volunteering for his 2020 presidential campaign. He is smart as a whip and quick on his feet, often demolishing the “bait” questions posed to him. Who, besides me, would pay good money to hear a presidential debate between him and the clumsy, belligerent Ron DeSantis?
Yes we need to model hard work and hope for the younger generation. Thanks for motivating us. Thanks for caring so much for our country that you write this newsletter.
If your primary news source is your Facebook news feed, you are not an informed consumer of news -
For my friends who rely on Facebook as one of their primary news sources, please be aware of a significant change in Facebook’s “news feed.”
Meta (Facebook) has announced they are “deemphasizing its investment in news content.” What does that turn of phrase actually mean? It means that Facebook will no longer be paying for news content from reliable journalism sources. In fact, they are even abandoning the term “news feed.”
Instead of a user's "news feed" being composed primarily of content from friends and other accounts a user has chosen to follow, the main feed on a user's Facebook page will be an algorithmically-filtered collection of content from anywhere, and posts from a user's friends will be moved to a separate page.
What the heck does that mean? It means that Facebook will now decide what content to put in front of you based on their “best guess” about what they think you want to or should see, instead of allowing you to make your own choices.
Facebook will use its profit-driven “algorithms” to decide what “news” they think is most important for you to see. Here is a more thorough explanation of this change from the Columbia Journalism Review. If you are a Facebook user, please read this carefully and consider what it means for you.
https://www.cjr.org/the_media_today/will-facebook-changes-leave-news-media-out-in-the-cold.php?
People have long told me that Facebook is completely safe because you can control who your friends are and what you see on Facebook. Is that really true, when Facebook will use its private, profit-driven motives, and undisclosed “algorithms” to decide what content you should see in your “main feed”?
Facebook’s new “investment priority” is to decide what you should see in your Facebook feed, not to leave that decision to you as a Facebook member.
Remember, if you are not paying for a service, YOU are the product.
Last week, Meta, the parent company of Facebook, announced a major change to its flagship social media platform. Instead of a user's "news feed" being composed primarily of content from friends and other accounts a user has chosen to follow, the "main feed" on a user's Facebook page will be an algorithmically-filtered collection of content from anywhere, and posts from a user's friends will be moved to a separate page. Mark Zuckerberg, Meta's CEO, wrote about the proposed changes in late April, referring to the news-feed change as one of the company’s “investment priorities”; now the redesigned feeds are in the process of being rolled out to Facebook's three billion daily users.
As part of these changes, Sara Fischer of Axios also reported that the term "news feed" is being retired as a descriptor for the main feed on a user's page. Facebook first introduced the news feed in 2006, as a way of making it easy for users to see what all their friends were doing in one place, and while the new feature was not well received by some, it soon became the main interface for the social network, and the driving force behind Facebook's growth as an advertising vehicle.
Your comments about Hannity repeating misinformation are so important to highlight. Many in the US depend on Fox and conservative radio for their information and until that changes somewhat, we will always remain deeply divided and need to struggle for truth and accurate information. Thanks for what you do.
"Lester Holt on Prospect of Prosecuting Trump: ‘Would Arguably Tear the Country Apart’." Since the process would very much resemble the process of the January 6th committee - laying out facts and evidence, and since the effect of that process so far has not been to "tear the country apart" but to, if anything, decrease Trump's support and reduce the size of the loud, angry, vocal minority that believes the Big Lie, I cannot imagine why increasing the volume and specificity of that presentation would be anything but helpful and serve to reduce the infection. I just don't see it, and strongly believe this country badly Needs such charges to be clearly, firmly and fairly brought.
I am happy to see the info on the " Inflation Reduction Act”[finally a named bill to steal the usual Repubs stealing of titles and slogans. Hopefully it will pass quickly along with a couple of the other pieces of pending legislation , but if for some reason they don't pass, the dems should be shouting their efforts everywhere so that citizens will know what is happening. This effort should also include ways to get this legislation by voting for reps and sens who will vote accordingly.
the comments by sen. Rubio and others should come as no surprise to anyone who follows their hypocrisy, racist and homophobic past rants. It would be so good to see them voted out if only people will vote. I guess we don't do enough to convince people that voting is important and their votes do make a difference. They also need to understand that they need to be realistic and just because they can't get their whole loaf now, that they can keep coming to get more.
Altho these are perilous times, it is too soon to give up and need to keep on working as best we can for change. Electing Biden was a great first step and people need to understand how much he has accomplished even against a stacked deck and that if we give him a little more support in November how much more he can do,
My best wishes to the young adult going to Canada for grad school, though it makes me sigh with a tinge of envy (my husband and I can to move to any country in the EU, but not to Canada) and more than a tinge of sadness. Please let him know (if he's not heading there) that if he likes C.S. Lewis, he should be sure to visit Fredericton, the capital of New Brunswick, which is the true location of Narnia.
Great letter! In the category of how young people are feeling about our country: When I asked my five-year-old granddaughter if she wanted to sing with me on FaceTime, she said she wanted us to sing "Oh, Canada!" I think she just likes the melody, but it made me wonder...