Russia is pathetic

Russia launched a huge attack on Kyiv and killed ten people. It's a war crime, but not a very effective one. It took resources away from the front and betrayed the malice of the entire enterprise. For all practical purposes, Ukraine is part of NATO and Moscow does not have the means to prevent it. A hint from an old cold warrior - your nukes have not had the gas treatments necessary to function - and everyone but Trump knows it. On the energy front, the current developments in small molten salt reactors have made Russian oil and gas useless in the long term. Russia does not have the industry or population to exploit what China might be able to do - and China is in the same demographic boat Russia is - one that is sinking.

No one is going to attack Muscovy. It has nothing anyone wants. Not the food. Not the culture. Your people don't even smile at each other. It is in the same league as Belarus, eastern Germany and Hungary. The nations, if their people were effective at doing modern democracy, would have had revolutions by now. South Korea, which is dying as far as population growth, at least can stop a dictatorship from forming.

If Zelinsky wanted to do to Moscow what Putin is doing to Kyiv, he would be much more effective. He does not because he is not a war criminal. The U.S. could ruin Moscow in a 30 hour operation. We don't kill civilians the way we used to. I take that back - we did that quite well in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Don't press your luck, Vlad. Just stop the war. Just resign and fire your security state apparatus. Give the land east of the Urals to China - or buy it to settle your war debt to Ukraine. Without the oil fields, it cannot be exploited well by Russia. In a generation without the Putin system, its people might be worth admitting into the European Union. They certainly are not now. Someone needs to teach them how to smile first.

What is missing from Trump's government

Professionalism. He is an individualist/sectarian fascist. They hate professionalism. His staff is, like him, individualistic and loyal, but not professional. When professionals try to prevent the President's staff from breaking the law, they get fired or resign in protest. Professionalism is the unwritten performance standard in the civil service - which is driven by reason and a shared way of looking at the world - an intuitive paradigm.  

A good political appointee needs to listen to career staff when they say something cannot be done. They need to point out (likely they have not) that doing the illegal or unconstitutional act will make the appointee and the elected official look bad.

I have been a professional bureaucrat and a professional political appointee. On the first day of work for any appointee, it is drilled into you that you must never make the boss look bad (or yourself - because how people see you is how they see your boss - as well as the reverse). Also, never let the boss embarrass himself or herself.

Trump's people don't know that. Don't do that and would be fired by any able political operative. This is why Trump will be ineffective and why he was effective last time he was president. He had Pence and Mike was a professional - and made sure that Trump was mostly surrounded by professionals - or that idiots like Miller could not get ideas into the chain command. This time, the brakes are off. 

The Courts have been striking down all the illegal and unconstitutional things Trump  and Steven Miller are trying to do. It would have been less embarrassing for Trump if someone would have told him that there were certain things he could never do. This time, there are no adults in the room, which limits the damage Trump can do. Trump wants to be king. Instead, he is the Jester.

The delusion of individual control, explained through chaos theory | Bri...

Hurricanes come about from sand being blown from the Sahara desert to the Atlantic. Collectively we can influence the world. We do this based on the contract we make with God before we are born - as does everyone else. What we do has spiritual ripples. When we are kind, kindness spreads. When we are cruel, cruelty expands.

The universe and God function in the same way from our POV. God in western thought is being, the knowledge of being and the dynamism of consciousness in the universe of living beings. Physics is that knowledge - with chaos factored in.

New Supreme Court Ruling WILL NOT Help Trump Cancel Constitutional Birth...

Some history on these issues: 

Scalia would say that this 14th Amendment provision applied to Freemen only, not as a general rule. It has largely been considered a view that is deaf to the actual intent of the drafters of the Amendment. The book Democracy Reborn by Garrett Epps goes into detail about this.

An example of this kind of case was when the Service Members Legal Defense Fund obtained a judgement in a district court in California overturning Don't Ask, Don't Tell for the entire nation. The Senate mooted the case by overturning the policy legislatively. That case, more than the Trump order, led right wingers like the Heritage Foundation, pay attention to this practice.

The decision in this case harkens back to Justice Thomas' concurrence in the Dobbs case overturning Roe.

Big Beautiful Bill Gets a B

This bill is largely ministerial and optics. Biden could have gotten a tax increase, plus extension of the good parts of the bill (which preserve tax rule changes that were bipartisan and should not have been time limited for ten years) but he did not. Had he been successful, the upcoming depression due to housing prices would not have already started. I say depression because prices will be lower than the debt backing the assets - not merely a slowdown in consumer spending.

The debt is mostly sucked up by retirement funds, money and mutual funds, as well as by the rich, and it makes capitalism possible. Unless there is a major push for employee-ownership, there is no other alternative (TINA). Not now does not mean never.

The Medicaid and SNAP cuts are back loaded and will be abolished by the next Democratic Congress after the 2026 election. AARP will do its job - either loudly or quietly - depending on how Trump or Vance feels. Vance will let it happen quietly.

The immigration pieces that are unconstitutional will not take effect, those that are show that elections matter.  Oddly, Trump is going after human trafficking in Big Agriculture and Food, Inc., which his capitalist friends do not like. Immigration reform may one day happen if enough pressure is applied. Big Food stopped it by funding the whole birthright citizenship issue - they liked having a pliant trafficked workforce. Trump is ruining this for them, so maybe they will have to back reform.

Progress cannot be stopped forever.

New Atheism: What Went Wrong?

The cynical argument for the existence of God is also empirical, while Dennett is correct that there are those who believe in the belief of God, there are others who find God in the Sacraments - both Communion and Baptism/Confirmation, that go beyond group dynamics, even at times when the Church behaves which such evil that no one should keep the faith.

The second empirical argument is near death experiencers. At least one case of many demonstrate the truth of the experience on the other side. The existence of mediums who have gifts not used in fraud also verify the existence of souls beyond materialism. These experiences also show that a belief in God is not at all necessary to experience grace in the afterlife. Since it has no effect, the argument about God is simply a pleasant diversion with no ultimate effect - regardless of what the Church teaches or what New Atheists deny.

The third empirical argument is that materialism and belief can exist in the same space. The existence of the energy of life in chemical and electrical forms is consistent with a materialistic soul which disproves the ghost in the machine - as proven by neuroscientific explorations on consciousness (including finding a God center - which is likely to be about group dynamics, not God).

The existence of the universalism of Spinoza (pantheism) is also consistent with the very real success of Alcoholics Anonymous - which is blatantly pantheistic, as well as the belief in both the early Church and the teachings of the last two bishops that no one is in Hell - which also coincides with the teachings of Jesus that are not stressed (a God of Love, whose yoke is easy and burden light, that the resurrection is not reanimation and that forgiveness is essential). In this way, the argument is essential not in proving or disproving God, but in criticizing where the Church gets it wrong as a human organization that behaves in a way that can be explained by sociology. That belief can occur despite the Church is the argument for God.

At least this is what works for me. As for the New Atheist denial of a god by the use of scorn against identifying as a believer, this is simply a use of the Ad Hominem fallacy by people who should know better.

'Big, Beautiful' Medicaid Cuts, Explained

The Medicaid cuts are a scam to get the tax cuts passed - including those which extend Estate Tax Rules currently in force. When the GOP loses Congress, the cuts will be stopped. The most onerous cuts passed in 2017 were permanent - and were likely bipartisan behind the scenes - those cuts being the ones that cut corporate income tax rates and introduced matching pass through rates and qualified dividend rates to match - which is pretty much a good idea. Biden wanted to add a 5% increase to the bad cuts but did not get it done - so we really are in the Trump economy and had been through the entire Biden Administration. Biden and Harris could not say this because they wanted to claim credit for the strong Dow - which inflated in price (more money, same goods in Blue Chip sector with the addition of a lot of junk (Bitcoin and Mortgage Backed Securities built into index funds). 

Balancing the budget without raising taxes on business must wait for more basic tax reform. The real cost to the poor is because of tariffs, which are about the same as a value added tax with the kind of exemptions you would expect legislators to throw in rather than have a broad based tax. Tariffs are necessary to at least match VATs that are zero rated at export - with the understanding that other national VATs add back taxation by the importing nation. To an extent, state sales taxes do that - although at lower rates - and businesses who charge sales taxes can deduct them from their Gross Income. Families are partially held harmless by the increase in the Child Credit by $500 per year, although this works out to only $41.66 per month per child. Not renewing the cuts does not decrease tariffs and reduces the Child Credit to $1000 per year per child - which is an increase of 124.98 per month in taxes - although abandoning the Trump cuts would bring back the child tax exemption of a bit more than $3000 per child per year - which effectively still puts a lot of people off the tax roles who are poor. Harris would have increased the child credit to about what the Big Beautiful Bill goes to, with a $500 sweetener for newborns. Child tax credit amounts are one of those bipartisan measures that need to be doubled and indexed for inflation.

The GOP should also give low wage workers a raise - Trump may be embarrassed into doing that if the Pope asks him to. To make it back to Clinton era levels, it would have to be $12 per hour. Biden should have passed this in his first year. So should have Obama. If hours are cut to 7 per day for a four day week more people would get jobs and to keep the same wage level, the rate would need to be $14.50. In some states, it already is. Only GOP states screw over their own people, largely due to White Supremacist ideology which assumes that only people of color have these jobs.

Running a deficit is essential to keep capitalism active because this keeps interest payments flowing to investors who hold bonds directly or through mutual funds (77% of which is owned by the top 10% - who own 54% of pension, retirement account and bank assets and deposits). For capitalism to grow, the deficit must grow. $300 Billion per year over ten years may not even pay the interest, depending on what the Fed does with interest rates. We actually need a much higher deficit - and will get one in all reality since most cuts will not occur as sold. The top tax rate under Trump is 37%, which is a bit less than half of the difference between the Bush rate of 35% and the Clinton and Obama rates of 39.6%. This rate applies to ordinary dividends, wages and short term capital gains (net for the year). Only celebrities pay these rates - from CEOs to sports and entertainment stars. The vast majority of income for the top 0.1% (the real wealthy - the rest of the top 1% work for a living as doctors and lawyers and such) get their income from qualified dividends and capital gains - while dividends and pass throughs take money from workers, capital gains do not - they are essentially gambling winnings.  Again, these rates need to go up as part of permanent law as they do not run out. The actual capital gains rate (before SM taxes funding Obamacare subsidies - which is 3.8% on non-wage income over $400,000 - Biden increased the threshold from the $200,000 in the original law) is 20% and has been since Bush 43. Obama did not change that rate - even though this is one of the main ways that the wealthy make money.

Business and capital gains rates (including dividends) should be 26% or so and be bipartisan and permanent. This will be enough to allow manageable increases to the deficit. The current rates allow the creation of junk in the stock markets. A 19.5% VAT or tariff is necessary to reduce the budget deficit (or less if carbon taxes are enacted and made visible on invoices) - but only if the child tax credit and minimum wage are increased as above, which would automatically increase social security payouts to enough that seniors and the disabled don't need additional income from work or other government benefits. You would know this if you followed by channel and read my fiscalequity.blogspot.com page, which contains my comments to the revenue committees through The Center for Fiscal Equity.

Brian Cox: Our planet is fragile, but space may hold the solution

There is a big galactic community out there that has a version of the prime directive - where we are the primitive species. We don't get to join because of physics - rather, it is when we advance ethically and spiritually enough to be a safe bet to not start a war. We seem to reserve to ourselves the kind of free will that allows us to focus on the evil that other people do. Evil does not actually exist - we created it. Not God (who exists) or the Devil (who does not exist).

There will be another great collapse, where galaxies are swallowed by their super massive black holes that all move toward the great attractor - which will set off another Big Bang when they crash together and create critical mass.

We have existed as beings for more than one collapse and bang - but we forget this when incarnate. In ultimate reality, time does not occur in the same way. That eternal thing you were talking about. We are already there - but on the other side. There is now too much credible NDE experience reported to deny such things without lapsing into feelings and personal authenticity rather than openness to reason.

Did Climate Skeptics Get THIS Right?!

A few years ago, I wrote a paper on how global warming works and how science is not effectively communicating. I will stick to the science in these comments. They constitute a smoking gun. Taken together, this information goes from scientific speculation on what might happen to a trail of evidence as to what is actually happening. 

We are talking about proof, not probabilistic models as to what might happen. 

This research shows what is happening at Barents Sea:

"Sigrid Lind has shown steady warming from the mid-2000s, with much of it attributed to sea surface temperature increases. The decline in sea ice has lessened salinity and mixed the layers of the sea – causing it to warm (Lind 2018). Wang, et al, associate Barents Sea Warming with temperature in the Northern Atlantic (Wang 2019). Sea ice loss has led to stronger El Nińo events (Liu 2022). Arctic surface water temperature measurement is leading to better science (Olthoff 2022). Amplified warming continues to lead to Barents Sea churn (Cai 2022). Huang, et al confirm the role of the winds in this warming (Huang 2022). Right on schedule, this weather pattern has started, yielding the worst year on record (Cheng 2023). Sea ice will melt further due to shifting winds (Gramling 2023). Some even question if Barents is still arctic (Gerland 2023). At COP28, one of the panels was about whether a tipping point had been reached. The explanation is in line with the above research (ICCI 2033)."

Cai, Ziyi er al.  2022.“Amplified wintertime Barents Sea warming linked to intensified Barents oscillation,” Environ. Res. Lett. 17( 044068) DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/ac5bb3

Gerland, Sebastian, et al. 2023. “Still Arctic?-The changing Barents Sea” Elementa Science of the Anthropocene 11(1). DOI: 10.1525/elementa.2022.00088

Gramling, Carolyn. 2023. “Arctic sea ice may melt faster in coming years due to shifting winds. Science News August 16, 2023. Accessed December 6, 2023 https://www.sciencenews.org/article/ice-melting-dipole-arctic-oscillation

Huang, Ji, Robert S. Pickart, Zhuomin Chen & Rui Xin Huang. 2022. “Role of air-sea heat flux on the transformation of Atlantic Water encircling the Nordic Seas” Nature Communications 14(141) DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-35889-3.

Lind, Sigrid , Randi B. Ingvaldsen and Tore Furevik. 2018. “Arctic warming hotspot in the northern Barents Sea linked to declining sea-ice import,” Nature Climate Change 8 634–639.

Liu, Jiping, et al. 2022. “Arctic sea-ice loss is projected to lead to more frequent strong El Niño events” Nature Communications 13:4952.  https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-32705-2 

Olthof, Ian, Robert H. Fraser, Jurjen van der Sluijs 3 & Hana Travers-Smith. 2022. “Detecting long-term Arctic surface water changes,” Nature Climate Change  doi:10.1038/s41558-023-01836-9

Wang, Quiang, et al. 2019. “Ocean Heat Transport into the Barents Sea: Distinct Controls on the Upward Trend and Interannual Variability,”  Geophysical Research Letters 46(22), 13180-13190. DOI 10.1029/2019GL083837.

The key bit of research on how heat gets from the Pacific to Barents Sea (dropping moisture at the Rockies but keeping the heat - then picking up more moisture in the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic and dropping it all at Barents is found here:

"Research on Barents Sea and Arctic warming (cited above), and how this affects the jet stream, and the current climate cycle is well established, as is the role of the westerly winds which move heat toward Northern Europe and Barents. Richard Seager, David Battisti and others have shown that the warming of the north Atlantic and Barents Sea is cause by the westerly winds from the Pacific, which drop their moisture at the Rockies – becoming dry – and then proceeding to the Atlantic, as well as variations in surface sea temperature (Seager et al, 2000, 2002, 2006, 2007)."

Seager, Richard, et al. 2000  “Causes of Atlantic Ocean Climate Variability between 1958 and 1998” Journal of Climate 13, 2845-2862.

Seager, R., et al. 2002.  “Is the Gulf Stream responsible for Europe’s mild winters?” Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society 128, 2563–2586 doi: 10.1256/qj.01.128

Seager, Richard. 2006. “The Source of Europe’s Mild Climate: The notion that the Gulf Stream is responsible for keeping Europe anomalously warm turns out to be a myth,” American Scientist the magazine of Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society. 94 via Research Gate

Seager, Richard, and David S. Battisti. 2007. “12. “Challenges to Our Understanding of the General Circulation: Abrupt Climate Change” via Research Gate.

The Big Beautiful Bill

Donald is trying to look folksy, but he still sounds like a refugee from Queens - because that is what he is.

The reconciliation bill is ignorant and mean around the edges, targeting migrants for Medicaid and SNAP cuts. This means that doctors and hospitals will be carrying bad debt until bankruptcy or default. Pantries will have to step up to help poor families - although Food Stamps are already inadequate now.

The majority of the bad tax cuts - those rewarding capital - were enacted on a permanent basis. They are not expiring and not in this bill. The only real give away to the wealthy is to keep the status quo on the inheritance tax going. The problems with this bill need reform to fix, not grandstanding. House Leadership is mostly not up to the task. I know of only one or two serious Ways and Means subcommittee chairs. The rest are not worth their keep.

Those seeking big debt savings misunderstand why Moody's joined the downgrade parade. It is because the Republicans are unwilling to make sure the debt is actually paid - or can be. I suspect that tariffs are more to blame this time around. Rating agencies cannot stand unserious people in either Congress or in the Administration.

Deficits must be adequate to pay net interest (rolling it over), create new debt for fractional reserve currency operations (there is no button that does that at the Fed - Modern Monetary Theory is a scam), and provide leverage for investment in mutual funds (high yield), pension funds and other retirement accounts. Now that my generation is retiring, people are heading for the exits and minimizing risk - moving from growth funds to income funds. Capital gains are being replaced with secure dividend and interest income. The emerging recession - tariffs again - will hurt retiree returns.

What tax reforms, may you ask? Goods and Services Tax - or tariffs - it matters little if VAT is used for industrial policy; a subtraction VAT (with employers rather than employees being the responsible party) to channel childcare, child income and health benefits to workers federally and to education at the state level - thus replacing corporate income taxes with both  of these - with subtraction VAT surtaxes taking up the slack for individual filing by the middle class ($150K), upper middle ($500K) and the wealthy to cover high salaries, interest and dividends. 

 Death taxes, wealth taxes and capital gains taxes are better replaced with an Asset VAT at point of sale - rather than through end of the year filing. Time to stop rewarding failure as a way to hide income. The AVAT would be marked to market at IPO, option exercise (CEOs especially - but also short sales), and the first sale after inheritance, donation or gift - but with zero rating for sales to a qualified ESOP or COOP.

Trump's new airplane

Let Trump have his airplane, but without warfighting abilities.  Donald Trump will never nuke Russia - so it is no loss not to include the ability to do so in Air Force One. Anything to take Trump (and the current SECDEF) out of the line of command is a plus. As for the Trump Library - the next Attorney General can keep the jet as the press plane. The ability to make it a flying library piece is silly - Trump only gets $2M for travel. He could never fly the thing.

Did I get it COMPLETELY wrong last week??

Agriculture has grown - with its costs and benefits evening out. Coal in China is a problem - and if you look at how actual Chinese people live, on average, the benefits of their industrialization are primitive - accruing mostly to elites. The question we must focus on is how our activities have affected the heating of Barents Sea, which has varied hugely - not marginally - and is correlated with the use of gasoline powered vehicles. We need to permanently park these things and replace them with tethered electric in urban, suburban, exurban and highway settings (with hybrids in rural areas where infrastructure would cost more energy and carbon than the harm created).  

Climate goals are too little too late. The spring in the US has brought about yet another year of record heat in the same areas in both El Nino and La Lina years. The tipping point was breached at least ten years ago. Drastic action is needed to reset Barents Sea to a point where we keep breeching records. Global temperatures are not the issue. Heating of that specific place, caused by a specific chain of events that have been traced, is what must be focused on - not probabilistic climate models and international goals. 

Middle Class In Top 10 Cities Will Collapse - As Significant Shortages F...

The middle class earns one third of adjusted gross income and have college degrees. The bottom third of AGI holders are 77% of the population. They are suffering, but not collapsing, because they have no where else to go. How we adjust salaries for inflation is what makes their situation continually worse, since prices chase the median dollar of income (not the median household). Percentage adjustments magnify inequality. Fixed dollar adjustments at all levels diminish inequality. We will do one or the other. If we could preserve current inequality, we would be committing an evil act because the intention is evil.

Qatar just gave Donald Trump a $400 million plane. Uh, what? 💸 | Chris C...

The Air Force One in the Reagan Library was replaced by Boeing for $1. Nothing about this is news. Dive deeper. Also, the Foreign Gifts and Decorations Act is a system by which all officials can accept foreign gifts and surrender them to the United States. The press pool would also love to ride in this plane - as well as staff.

About the tax cuts...

I read the Tax Policy Center summary on the tax cuts. The ones we really hated on the left are actually permanent (the business cuts that made firing people a good business decision). None of what is expiring is particularly weighted toward the wealthy. Tax reform is needed to get a unified rate for business income tax (unless it is abolished and replaced with a subtraction VAT), pass through tax, dividend, interest and capital gains taxes (which should be an Asset VAT).

The tariffs, when fully analyzed, could be done sanely. Simply match the VAT rate of countries that zero rated their VAT at export. Then we are on an even keel. While a higher rate for China and Vietnam sound like social justice for Chinese workers - none of the proceeds would do them any good - it would just bring pain to American consumers.

Ideally, Chinese workers would have the same standard of living as American workers - whether supply chain or American subsidiary. A tariff may help American workers - but that should not be the only goal. I suspect that any number we have on Chinese GDP - even with PPP adjustments - is wrong because the data in China is bad - both on output and population. Most serious analysts say that, pre-COVID, the number of people was more like 800M, and that COVID may have killed half their population. Remember, people were given 24 hours to leave Wuhan (taking COVID with them) before the city was sealed off. In northern China, the number of dead were ten times what is normal during the pandemic. Xi may have wanted a trade embargo to clean up the mess while saving face. In the end, their rate should be 13% - unless we impose a higher rate until their workers have standards of living equal to our own - a provision which automatically gives workers an even shake.

The DOGE and immigration provisions that are so obnoxious and crypto-fascist are all being overturned by the judicial system. The Heritage Foundation can no longer be considered a serious think tank, given how badly their work on Project 25 failed.

That leaves Ukraine. Trump backed the wrong horse. Hegshead's pro-Russia actions are traitorous, but Russia is no longer much of a threat. The fact that Putin is now making noises that he wants to settle means he is losing. Let him. Pete should be fired, but his, Gabbard's and Trump's affection for Putin is no more damaging that Jill Stein's. 

It looks like we will survive as a nation - given the help of the Court system to overturn the worst instincts of Steven Miller and Elon Musk. 

It is almost time to start bipartisan talks on dealing with the tax cuts, as long as both sides deal in good faith. Again, even though it is outside what is required, a 26% tax on business returns is as reasonable a compromise now as it was when I suggested it in 2017.

We can even compromise on abortion. Allow abortion until a child can be delivered and then, from that point until 26 weeks, allow and encourage fetal hospice - including in Catholic hospitals. No one has a right to not be born or to expect extraordinary measures when they are.

Doing these things will destroy fundraising. I suspect that many who voted for the President would not think that this would be a bad thing.

So, if anyone wants to share this video with Fox News....

The United Kingdom, After America || Peter Zeihan

Given the new trade (framework) with the U.S., for me this is 20-20 hindsight.

There is only one way the US and Canada can mix their fortunes. First, the US needs to regionalize, with a VP and House and Senate caucus for each region (with each region getting 3 votes - one from each of these - as a new electoral college). Regions would have same number of EVs and could bloc vote by either compact or amendment - although the latter is needed to let caucuses cast votes rather than it being winner take all. This would end the ability for someone like Trump to be elected.

Crossing the northern border could be done in two ways. Provinces could request statehood OR we could rejoin a newly drafted commonwealth - one that has Canada, Australia, the US, UK and Ireland as members - with a Windsor monarch but the kind of regions outlined above. The Ireland, Wales and Scotland would form a region, England would be another, Australia (maybe with NZ) another and 7 from North America. They would select a head of government as above with an Electoral College of 30, with 16 required to elect. If worse comes to worse, the Crown could break ties.

Many Thoughts About The New Pope

Leo won't back track from Francis on blessing gay unions or those who married without an annulment. On the prior, he was "in the room." He was also a registered Republican from 2012 to 2016. Who he voted on in the 2016 primary can be guessed. 

He cannot be "woke" because his mother was a person of color - as they say in Louisiana where she is from. This is likely why he lived on the south side of Chicago. The city was segregated then and has not changed much since. I would assume he has no room for White Supremacy, since he isn't what they would consider White. Indeed, if someone is a Republican who likes Leo, they are, by definition, woke.