Monthly Archives: March 2020

The Trump Chronicles, Volume 142: Mr. President, the Buck Stops With You

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On the day that the United States recorded its 1,000th death from COVID-19 we find ourselves in the middle of a crisis.

The President’s response? Today he announced guidelines that will relax “social distancing” (ie, keeping a space of six feet between you and another person) in areas that are not (currently) suffering high numbers of COVID-19.

Harry Truman, who was President from 1945 to 1953, famously had a sign on his desk that said: The Buck Stops Here. In other words, when people pass the buck (deny blame) and it ends up on his desk, he cannot pass the buck to anyone.

Contrast that with our current President who famously takes no responsibility for his actions on the COVID-19 pandemic.

In addition to relaxing social distancing he also announced that America should return to normal by Easter Sunday.

Two things are clear: he’s delusional about the the spread of the Pandemic. He can’t stop COVID-19. Nobody can. We can go back to normal only when the infection rate dramatically slows.

Second, he puts his re-election ahead of public safety. If we stop self isolating while the infection rate continues to rise, it will lead to a dramatic spike in new illnesses. But he recognizes that he won’t be re-elected if the economy is bad, if the stock market continues to tank, and unemployment continues to rise.

In other words he is willing to put American lives at risk so he can manipulate his numbers and give him another four years.

Let us pray the American people are smarter than that.

The Election Chronicles 2020; Volume 11: It’s Getting Clearer

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Clearly the Election Chronicles 2020 will skew toward the Democrats because only William Weld has the courage to run against President Trump and the Republican nomination is a given.

Less than a year ago I listed 20 candidates for the Democratic nominee and many of us feared that their campaigns would beat up each other and Democrats wouldn’t coalesce, giving President Trump a path to his reelection.

I’m feeling better now.

Early in the race the candidates divided into two camps: moderates and “socialists.” I put socialists in quotations because none of them were true socialists. In a socialist society the government owns the means of production and everyone who works is a government employee. If you’re a doctor you work for the government. If you build cars you work for the government (and there is no Ford or Honda or GM. There is only government built cars). In short there are no private employees.

In any case, in the last month or so several candidates have dropped out leaving the race between Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders. And frankly, Bernie really doesn’t have a realistic path toward the nomination and will probably suspend his campaign in the next few days.

The Biden campaign needs to figure out its next step. Four years ago the supporters of Bernie Sanders felt that their candidate was pushed out unfairly by Hillary Clinton and the Democratic establishment (and in fairness they were right) and many of them stayed home on election day. I hope that Joe Biden can reach out to them and say this:

“OK, I get that your support for Bernie Sanders didn’t end up with his nomination. I get that I’m not your first choice. But I also hope that you aren’t looking for another four years of President Trump. If you vote for me I promise that I will work hard to ensure that you have health care. If we are still suffering from this pandemic I will work hard to ensure that our health care workers are safe and able to care for the sick. And assuming we are still suffering from a recession I’ll work to regain confidence in our economy. I’ve been this way before. The last time a Republican President left office we were in the middle of the Great Recession. The only reason it didn’t become the Second Great Depression was because President Obama and I pushed legislation through Congress that turned things around and started the bull market that the current President claims credit for.”

Overwhelmingly the Democratic candidates who suspended their campaigns have endorsed Joe. Democrats like myself need to joint Team Biden. At the beginning of the campaign I supported New Jersey Senator Corey Booker. I’m not sure why but his campaign never took off. When he dropped out I moved my chips to South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg. The weekend before the California primary Mayor Pete suspended his campaign and I voted for Joe Biden.

If you’re reading this I ask that you vote for the person who can defeat Donald Trump.

The Trump Chronicles, Volume 141: Let’s Keep Track of This Promise

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Yesterday, March 17, at a White House Press Conference Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin spoke about ways to improve the economy. Today’s Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) closed at 19,898.92; when President Trump took office on January 20, 2017 the DJIA was 19,847.25 and it’s understandable that the White House is nervous.

But if there is one thing we’ve learned with this administration it’s this: they are long on making promises and short on keeping them. And Secretary Mnuchin said that he is “looking at sending checks to Americans immediately” and said that he is looking at doing this in two weeks. He didn’t say how much they would be, though many are looking at $1,000 or who would be eligible except that he doesn’t support paying millionaires.

So here’s the deal: two weeks from yesterday is March 31st. I’ll be checking my mailbox that day and I encourage all of you to do the same. And if we don’t see a check, we’ll know that this is yet one more time the White House promised something they didn’t deliver.

The Trump Chronicles, Volume 140: The President is Getting More Irrational

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President Trump’s troubles appear to be continuing. In a previous post I spoke about how he’s bragged for three years about the healthy economy but has no plan for a downturn. This past week we’ve seen the economy go from a market correction to a bear market.

But on this post I want to concentrate on his mishandling of the Coronavirus. There’s an excellent article timeline on the spread of the disease.

As we learned more about this virus President Trump continued to attempt to wish it away. You can read the background here. On March 9th he tweeted this: “The Fake News Media and their partner, the Democrat Party, is doing everything within its semi-considerable power (it used to be greater!) to inflame the CoronaVirus situation, far beyond what the facts would warrant. Surgeon General, “The risk is low to the average American.”

This past Wednesday he appeared in the oval office hoping to assure us that he knew what he was doing and had a path forward. He failed on all fronts. Without notifying any of our European allies he instituted a travel ban for much of Europe. Well those countries where he doesn’t have a golf course or hotel.

He also made serious errors that the White House had to walk back. He proclaimed a travel ban to everyone except Americans. The actually edict blocked foreigners who had been to European Union countries. He also claimed that health insurers would waive all copayments for people suffering from the Coronavirus. The White House later clarified that they would only waive copayments for testing for the virus. Finally he claimed the embargo would cover cargo coming from Europe. That wasn’t true.

Finally, he continues to blame everyone else. He recently blamed President Obama for his handling of the H1N1 virus in 2009.

The speech he was supposed to give? For a contrast (and yes, I know it was a movie) was a speech given by President Beck in the movie Deep Impact.

Mr. President, you need to step up or start packing.

The Election Chronicles 2020; Volume 10: After South Carolina and Super Tuesday

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I had hoped to post after the South Carolina primary on Saturday, February 29th and before Super Tuesday yesterday. Alas, it didn’t happen.

The days since Super Tuesday are all about former Vice President Joe Biden. Before South Carolina many of us assumed his campaign was in trouble because he did poorly in Iowa and New Hampshire.

Nearly from the beginning of the 2020 campaign Democrats have had to choose between two lanes: mainstream and far left. Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren advocated dramatic changes in health care and higher education. They weren’t satisfied with the Affordable Care act and student loans: they wanted Medicare for all and student loan forgiveness. Joe Biden, Amy Klobuchar, and Pete Buttigieg argued to continue the President Obama’s agenda. All candidates wished to defeat President Trump and reverse his xenophobia and his disrespect for his office. All candidates pledged to free immigrant children from cages and reverse the policy that demanded that political refugees return to dangerous and filthy conditions in Mexico.

I’m a Democrat in the mainstream lane. I’ve never felt comfortable with Bernie or Elizabeth but I wold have happily voted for anyone who ran against President Trump. That said, I’m thrilled with how well Joe has done since Saturday.

After Iowa and New Hampshire Joe needed not only a win in South Carolina, he needed a big win. He got it. He beat Bernie 48% to 20%. After his win opponents, Pete Buttigieg, and Amy Klobuchar exited the race. This was good news for Joe Biden as both of them endorsed him.

This gave him the momentum going into Super Tuesday and his victory moved him into the frontrunner. In the last few days Pete, Amy, Michael Bloomburg, and Elizabeth Warren have left the campaign. I appreciate their patriotism and their willingness to suspend their campaigns in favor of coalescing around one candidate who can beat President Trump.

The race for the Democratic nominee comes down to Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders.

Next week: Idaho, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota, and Washington.

Stay tuned.

The Trump Chronicles, Volume 139: The Money Chronicles, Volume 19: This is Exactly What I Feared

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I’ve been warning since the 2016 election that the presidency of Donald Trump would be bad for our nation, and even our world. My primary concern centered on the probability that President Trump would be faced with a disaster he just couldn’t solve, due to a combination of ignorance and a complete inability to lead.

Frankly I thought it would be a geopolitical problem and so far he appears to have dodged that.

But this week, I believe, was his reckoning.

Almost from his first day in office he bragged about success in the Dow Jones average. Necessary spoilers: the Dow Jones average isn’t the economy and there is reason to believe that the Standard and Poor’s 500 Index is a better gauge. But everyone looks at the DJIA so here we are.

And for the past 3 years I’ve heard from Trump supporters that they are willing to overlook his lack of a moral compass, his history of sexual assaults, and, well you get the message. The one thing they tell me is that he has been good for the economy. They tell me that Trump will make them rich and nothing else matters.

Until last week. You can read about this here: in five days the index lost 3,583 points or 12.4%

It’s the consensus that this downturn is a direct result of the recent Corona virus also know as COVID-19. These things happen when you’re president. The virus began in China but has now spread globally. The need to limit travel of people and goods badly impacts the world’s economies and global stock markets’ downturn results directly from this.

So what do you do if you’re President Trump? Well, that’s the problem. In 2018 he fired the Pandemic Team from the Center for Disease and Prevention. They were the scientists who would have been the front line of battling the Corona virus. But they’re gone.

Instead he went to his playbook: claim credit for everything that goes well and blame others for everything that goes wrong.

And that’s what he’s done. He’s blamed the Democrats and the media for the downturn. He’s also tried to downplay the seriousness of the pandemic.

Speaking as both a Democrat and blogger let me say this: despite what you’ve heard, we don’t want this to happen. An economic downturn not only hurts our retirement savings it also hurts the most vulnerable among us. Our taxes depend on three things: income (income tax), purchases (sales tax), and property values (property tax). A recession hurts all of these: rising unemployment lowers income tax. People who are out of work (or fear becoming out of work) don’t buy things. People who fear an economic downturn put off moving and this lowers property values and therefore taxes.

Simply put, our history tells us that when government has to cut or eliminate programs it doesn’t hurt the wealthy, it hurts the poor and vulnerable.

It looks like it’s going to be a tough ride.