Is the Trump/Pence Regime Trying to Kill Americans?

The title of this post might seem extreme, but when one factors in the consequence of the Trump/Pence regime's agenda - and that of the GOP in general - the inescapable conclusion is that some Americans will die as a result of this regime's policies.  Through its quest to eliminate regulations that protect everything from clean air and water to the safety of the food we eat, the agenda is to bring back some of the worse aspects of the Gilded Age.  The purpose?  To allow large corporations and certain preferred industries to rake in more money while the health of average Americans is harmed.  Throw in the goal of eliminating the Affordable Health Care Act while proposing no meaningful replacement, and the death toll soars. Meanwhile, the wealthiest Americans only care about increasing their obscene wealth and evangelical Christians fixated on imposing a Christian version of Sharia Law think that they will somehow be exempt from the deadly effects of the Trump/Pence agenda.  A column in the New York Times looks at the real harm being done.  Here are excerpts:

Even if he’s a one-term president, Trump will have caused, directly or indirectly, the premature deaths of a large number of Americans.

Some of those deaths will come at the hands of right-wing, white nationalist extremists, who are a rapidly growing threat, partly because they feel empowered by a president who calls them “very fine people.”

Some will come from failures of governance, like the inadequate response to Hurricane Maria, which surely contributed to the high death toll in Puerto Rico. (Reminder: Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens.)

Some will come from the administration’s continuing efforts to sabotage Obamacare, which have failed to kill health reform but have stalled the decline in the number of uninsured, meaning that many people still aren’t getting the health care they need. Of course, if Trump gets his way and eliminates Obamacare altogether, things on this front will get much, much worse.

But the biggest death toll is likely to come from Trump’s agenda of deregulation — or maybe we should call it “deregulation,” because his administration is curiously selective about which industries it wants to leave alone.

Consider two recent events that help capture the deadly strangeness of what’s going on.

One is the administration’s plan for hog plants to take over much of the federal responsibility for food safety inspections. And why not? It’s not as if we’ve seen safety problems arise from self-regulation in, say, the aircraft industry, have we? . . . Or as if there was a reason the U.S. government stepped in to regulate meatpacking in the first place?

Now, you could see the Trump administration’s willingness to trust the meat industry to keep our meat safe as part of an overall attack on government regulation, a willingness to trust profit-making businesses to do the right thing and let the market rule.

[W]e normally think of Republicans in general, and Trump in particular, as people who minimize or deny the “negative externalities” imposed by some business activities — the uncompensated costs they impose on other people or businesses.

[T]he Trump administration wants to roll back rules that limit emissions of mercury from power plants. And in pursuit of that goal, it wants to prevent the Environmental Protection Agency from taking account of many of the benefits from reduced mercury emissions, such as an associated reduction in nitrogen oxide.

But when it comes to renewable energy, Trump and company are suddenly very worried about supposed negative side effects, which generally exist only in their imagination.

So it’s deregulation for some, but dire warnings about imaginary threats for others. What’s going on?

Part of the answer is, follow the money. Political contributions from the meat-processing industry overwhelmingly favor Republicans. Coal mining supports the G.O.P. almost exclusively. Alternative energy, on the other hand, generally favors Democrats.

Whatever the drivers of Trump policy, the fact, as I said, is that it will kill people. Wind turbines don’t cause cancer, but coal-burning power plants do — along with many other ailments. The Trump administration’s own estimates indicate that its relaxation of coal pollution rules will kill more than 1,000 Americans every year. If the administration gets to implement its full agenda — not just deregulation of many industries, but discrimination against industries it doesn’t like, such as renewable energy — the toll will be much higher.

So if you eat meat — or, for that matter, drink water or breathe air — there’s a real sense in which Donald Trump is trying to kill you. And even if he’s turned out of office next year, for many Americans it will be too late.

The GOP Seeks to Repeat the Worst of Bush/Cheney

Much of the Republican Party base is adverse to accepting objective reality (especially the Christofascist element of the base), but the problem extends all the way to the top of the party leadership and the 2016 clown car occupants.  On economic policy, all of the presidential contenders seek to reinstate all of the policies of Bush/Cheney that failed miserably and fueled both growing wealth disparities and helped to the Great Recession.  A column in the New York Times looks at this frightening pattern.  Here are highlights:

2015 was, of course, the year of Donald Trump, whose rise has inspired horror among establishment Republicans and, let’s face it, glee — call it Trumpenfreude — among many Democrats. But Trumpism has in one way worked to the G.O.P. establishment’s advantage: it has distracted pundits and the press from the hard right turn even conventional Republican candidates have taken, a turn whose radicalism would have seemed implausible not long ago.

After all, you might have expected the debacle of George W. Bush’s presidency — a debacle not just for the nation, but for the Republican Party, which saw Democrats both take the White House and achieve some major parts of their agenda — to inspire some reconsideration of W-type policies. What we’ve seen instead is a doubling down, a determination to take whatever didn’t work from 2001 to 2008 and do it again, in a more extreme form.

Start with the example that’s easiest to quantify, tax cuts.   Big tax cuts tilted toward the wealthy were the Bush administration’s signature domestic policy. They were sold at the time as fiscally responsible, a matter of giving back part of the budget surplus America was running when W took office. . . . . it’s harder than ever to claim that tax cuts are the key to prosperity.

You might think, then, that Bush-style tax cuts would be out of favor. In fact, however, establishment candidates like Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush are proposing much bigger tax cuts than W ever did. And independent analysis of Jeb’s proposal shows that it’s even more tilted toward the wealthy than anything his brother did.

What about other economic policies? The Bush administration’s determination to dismantle any restraints on banks — at one staged event, a top official used a chain saw on stacks of regulations — looks remarkably bad in retrospect. But conservatives have bought into the thoroughly debunked narrative that government somehow caused the Great Recession, and all of the Republican candidates have declared their determination to repeal Dodd-Frank, the fairly modest set of regulations imposed after the financial crisis.

The only real move away from W-era economic ideology has been on monetary policy, and it has been a move toward right-wing fantasyland.  . . . . these days hostility toward the Fed’s efforts to help the economy is G.O.P. orthodoxy, even though the right’s warnings about imminent inflation have been wrong again and again.

Last but not least, there’s foreign policy. You might have imagined that the story of the Iraq war, where we were not, in fact, welcomed as liberators, where a vast expenditure of blood and treasure left the Middle East less stable than before, would inspire some caution about military force as the policy of first resort. Yet swagger-and-bomb posturing is more or less universal among the leading candidates. 

The point is that while the mainstream contenders may have better manners than Mr. Trump or the widely loathed Mr. Cruz, when you get to substance it becomes clear that all of them are frighteningly radical, and that none of them seem to have learned anything from past disasters.

The truth is that there are no moderates in the Republican primary, and being reasonable appears to be a disqualifying characteristic for anyone seeking the party’s nod.

The Killing of Middle America

I frequently note that the Republican Party has turned duping working class whites into voting against their own best financial and social interest into an art form.   The GOP wants to kill unions - the cornerstone of Middle America's financial security in the 1950's through at least part of the 1970's - completely, to slash the social safety net, kill efforts to raise the minimum wage, slash regulations so that large corporations and businesses can loot the economy even more thoroughly, and, of course, give massive tax cuts to the wealthy.  The result of the GOP agenda is literally killing less educated middle class whites who are seeing longevity fall.   A piece in Salon looks at the phenomenon and the slow suicide these people are committing by allowing themselves to be duped through plays on religion, race and other prejudices to vote for their real enemies.  Like the author, I have lost friends who refuse to see that their own so-called conservatism is destroying their future.  Here are column highlights: 

I have a friend I grew up with in white, working class rural Nevada. He was one of the coolest guys I knew, and I admired him. We reconnected a few years ago, and he has become a rightwing warrior, filled with rage and spouting a startling amount of hate for Mexicans, Muslims, the government and most especially Barack Obama. He has advanced little in his career, and because of my public embrace of liberalism, we aren’t friends anymore. I still check his Facebook page on occasion, because I want to understand what happened to him, and what happened to people like him, with whom I share a common past, but a very different present.

A recent, shocking study has laid bare the cost of his (and many others) nonstop, futile outrage. Middle-aged, white people between ages 45 and 54, and specifically those with a high school education or less, have seen increased sickness and early death. This is the only demographic to see this kind of increase in mortality anywhere in the first world. They are dying sooner than they should in a merciless war they’ve declared on themselves.

The much-covered study has generated plenty of chattering among fancy people about underlying causes, from economics to failing masculinity, demographics and divorce, to a growing powerlessness among the white working class, but I think most of the answers have failed to nail it. Middle-aged white America is reaping the fruit of two decades of outrage and hate aimed at minority groups, government programs, unions and anyone who dares to point out the dysfunction of “wholesome, Christian” America. They vote against any program that aims to tackle our social or financial problems as a society, instead opting for the same bootstrap, libertarian, anti-government rhetoric that has failed us since the days of Ronald Reagan. In short, they are committing suicide en masse via the voting booth.

[T]he elevated death rates are being driven by a small subset of the white working class.  . . . . There is no better example of extremism and hopelessness of the white working class than the current standard bearer in the GOP primary. Donald Trump leads with less-educated, working-class white people—the same group that is driving the increased mortality overall. Like a half empty bottle of Scotch, they are reaching for Trump out of desperation, outrage and xenophobia, because they have no idea what else to do. Their jobs are gone, wages are flat and the very idea of building a middle class life with a high school education is folly these days. Thus they have turned to ever more extreme rightwing politics, and with every win things only get worse.

The saddest part is working class America benefits the most from an activist, effective and liberal government, something they fight hardest against.  . . . . It’s not all their fault. They’ve been fed a steady stream of total nonsense that both enrages and distracts them from reality. . . . . From coffee cups at Starbucks to the removal of Confederate Flags to Syrian refugees, it doesn’t even matter so long as we fit in our two minutes worth of hate. It’s all an elaborate stage production, manufactured by Fox News, talk radio and rightwing politicians, that fills the lives of the working class with terrorists, feminist, atheists and gay people, convenient groups used to distract from who is really screwing them over this week. The votes of the working class have been neutralized or co-opted with tidy scapegoats, the Second Amendment, Jesus and white victimhood.

As a voting bloc white America turned the reins of society over to angry assholes, out-of-control corporations and pandering politicians thinking their community would be spared, but once the beast was unleashed, it was never going to be satisfied.

Alabama Paying Price for Republican Policies

Having lived on the Gulf Coast for six years - part of it in the Mobile area - and with family roots that trace back to New Orleans, I continue to be saddened by the damage being done to both the environment and people's livelihoods as a result of British Petroleum's apparent gross negligence and wilful misconduct at the Deep Horizon well which continues to spew oil into the Gulf of Mexico. At the same time, I cannot help but note the irony that through their blind support of the deregulation/smaller government worshipping Republican Party, Alabamians helped set the stage for their own misfortune. Yes, the Obama administration has dropped the ball on dealing with the disaster. But the framework that allowed the disaster in the first place was put in place by the Bush/Cheney regime. Time and time again we were told that big oil could police itself. Obviously, the mantra was a lie and now thousands of people are seeing their businesses and livelihoods wither. Whenever the GOP faults Obama's missteps, it is critical that the blame be cast back on the anti-regulation mindset that controlled Washington, D.C., for the eight years of the Bush/Cheney age of darkness. The Mobile Press Register has some details on the latest devastation along the Alabama coast. Here are some highlights: *
As unprecedented amounts of oil slathered Alabama's coastline Friday, officials closed stretches of water in Alabama, Mississippi and Florida to most boat traffic to aid containment efforts.
*
The closure of Alabama waters inside Perdido Pass to all recreational boating traffic, requested by Orange Beach Mayor Tony Kennon, effectively shut down fishing from the self-titled "Red Snapper Capital of the World."
Only vessels working with BP will be allowed to use the pass until further notice.
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The main body of the Gulf oil slick will hover just miles south of coasts on both sides of the Florida-Alabama line by Sunday, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration projected.
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[Alabama Governor] Riley told members of the Press-Register's editorial board on Friday that he was dissatisfied with delays in processing claims related to the spill, and would send National Guard troops and staff from the Alabama Emergency Management Agency to help speed the process.
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"These are small businesses and family businesses that don't have a lot to fall back on," Riley said. "They're losing business, and if they don't get help, they're gone."
*
Some of these business owners should have thought harder before casing votes for Bush/Cheney and "drill baby drill" Sarah Palin.

Bush/Cheney's Parting Gift: Home Sales and Prices Drop at Record Pace

The economic gift of the Chimperator and the rubber stamp, more deregulation GOP Congress that he had for six and one half years just keeps on giving - bad news that is. Home sales and home prices dropped at a record rate last month and sadly things do not appear to be bottoming out as yet. As I have been saying since the summer of 2007 or longer, unless and until the residential real estate market is stabilized and turned around, the larger economy will continue to nose dive. Supposed foreclosure assistance is not yielding results and the banking institutions that have received billions of dollars in taxpayer funds are not passing the relief on to consumers either in terms of loan modifications or easing the difficulty many credit worthy borrowers are experiencing in securing loans. What may turn out to be a refinance boom may save some working in the real estate industry, but it will otherwise probably yield little boost to the economy. Here are some highlights from Reuters:

*

The pace of existing home sales plunged a record 8.6 percent in November and prices fell a record amount as layoffs and a stock market crash worsened an already grim housing market, a real estate trade group said Tuesday. The median home price fell 13.2 percent on an annual basis, down for a fifth straight month to $181,300. It was the largest drop since the current data series began in 1968 and probably the largest since the Great Depression.

*

The quickly deteriorating conditions in the job market, stock market and consumer confidence in October and November have knocked down home sales to another level," Yun [Lawrence Yun, the chief economist for the National Association of Realtors] said. "It is, therefore, imperative to provide incentives for homebuyers to get back into the market, Yun said.

*

The housing malaise, which triggered a global financial crisis, has infected other sectors of the broader economy and sent unemployment rates higher. Analysts says stability in the housing sector is key to any recovery in the U.S. economy, which has been in a recession since late last year.

Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac Paid McCain Adviser Nearly $2 Million

John McSenile is trying to jump on the change band wagon but the reality is that little has changed with him since the savings and loan debacle days. He and his advisers are still tightly in bed with those that should be regulated to avoid the worse outgrowths of greed and desire to make a quick buck. Now it turns out that one of McCain's advisers received nearly $2 million from the recently nationalized Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to defend them against stricter regulations, current and former officials say. Had some of those regulations been enacted, perhaps some of the ongoing financial melt down - which will ultimately be paid for by taxpayers - might have been avoided. Oh, and while I an on the subject, do NOT be deceived by those in the GOP who may try to shift blame to the Democrat controlled Congress. As one who has worked in the trenches of the real estate industry, the vast majority of the bad loans now exploding everywhere were made BEFORE the Democrats regained control of Congress in January 2007. This is a REPUBLICAN sponsored fiasco and the GOP needs to have it hung around the party's neck. Here are some highlights from the New York Times:

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Senator John McCain’s campaign manager was paid more than $30,000 a month for five years as president of an advocacy group set up by the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to defend them against stricter regulations, current and former officials say. . . . . [L]ast week the McCain campaign stepped up a running battle of guilt by association when it began broadcasting commercials trying to link Mr. Obama directly to the government bailout of the mortgage giants this month. . . .

*

Incensed by the advertisements, several current and former executives of the companies came forward to discuss the role that Rick Davis, Mr. McCain’s campaign manager and longtime adviser, played in helping Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac beat back regulatory challenges when he served as president of their advocacy group, the Homeownership Alliance, formed in the summer of 2000.

*

“The value that he brought to the relationship was the closeness to Senator McCain and the possibility that Senator McCain was going to run for president again,” said Robert McCarson, a former spokesman for Fannie Mae, who said that while he worked there from 2000 to 2002, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac together paid Mr. Davis’s firm $35,000 a month. Mr. Davis “didn’t really do anything,” Mr. McCarson, a Democrat, said.

*

“They were financed largely, possibly exclusively, by Fannie and Freddie,” said William R. Maloni, a Democrat who is a former head of industry relations for Fannie Mae. “We thought it would be helpful to have someone who was a broadly recognized Republican to be the face of the organization, and that person became Rick Davis.” Mr. Maloni added, “Rick, for that purpose, turned out to be quite good.”

*

The federal bailout of the two mortgage giants has become an emblem of what critics say is the outdated or inadequate regulatory system that allowed the financial system to slide into crisis this summer.