Trumpocalypse: Hurricane Kirstjen has hopefully learned how to read her email.

On the website Above The Law a columnist recently said there should be a website where you could go look up the (lack of) credentials of any Trump Administration appointee. We all know that I will never muster up the efficiency to do that, especially given that most of them leave before their crimes are discovered, as Carl Icahn did after using his post to make a cool half-billion bucks.

But it's Labor Day morning and I'm in the office to do some work after being out all of last week for a trial, and I'm not really ready to look at a hundred zillion emails yet, so I'll at least get a start on it. So I went to the second-to-top post at the Executive Office of the President, as a start. The highest-up post is White House Chief Of Staff; we all know that's that Kelly guy for now until he gets fired. DEPUTY WH Chief of Staff is Kirstjen Nielsen. Do you know her? You don't.

Together with the White House counsel, the press secretary, and a few others, the Chief of Staff and Deputy Chief of Staff set the president's appointments and schedule. They serve an average of 18 months (not by law, by choice; only one has lasted a full term) and frequently use the post as a springboard to other appointments or positions in government. Obama's Jack Lew, for example, went on to become Secretary of the Treasury, back when Treasury was headed by someone other than a criminal billionaire whose wife mocks the poor on Instagram.

Kirstjen Nielsen would like to be known as an expert in "homeland security," and although I've been beating this drum for 16 years I'm going to say again how much the word "homeland" creeps me out. When Worst President Ever created the Department of Homeland Security I thought it sounded Nazi-ish. Turns out I was right. But Nielsen's expertise in securing the homeland does not, apparently, extend to natural disasters. Two Congressional reports said she was one of the Bush Administration's officials who dropped the ball on Katrina. (Ironic that she was named to her post as Harvey hit land.) Nielsen was said to have received a series of warnings via email about Katrina's impending severity, yet the White House never acted on them. Nielsen was fired in April, 2007 by Bush. Imagine being fired by the Worst President Ever (like the NFL Hall of Fame, people currently on the job are not eligible for this award).

What Nielsen really is is a lobbyist for tech and aerospace industries. Her bio also says she is "general counsel" for "Civitas Group LLC," a position that helped her be one of "The Most Influential People in Security 2016".  (Her bio for that award mentions her role in the Bush Administration as being "crisis manager for major events and emergencies." Hey, it didn't say she was a good crisis manager!)

Nielsen also lists herself on Twitter as the "President" of "Sunesis Consulting." Sunesis' specialty is helping companies comply with "Sarbanes-Oxley." That's the law the Bush administration passed in the wake of Enron and other scandals.  I bet with all the attention being given to the economic collapse of 2008, you entirely forgot about its little brother, the collapse of eleven major companies in 2002 due to the fact that they were (to use a technical term) "criminally fraudulent enterprises that cooked the books to ensure profits for the head CEOs."  Bush called the law (which [passed the Senate 99-1)

"the most far-reaching reforms of American business practices since the time of Franklin D. Roosevelt. The era of low standards and false profits is over; no boardroom in America is above or beyond the law."

What do you want to bet that just as Carl Icahn broke the law in trying to get cap-and-trade changed so he could make more than just $500,000,000, we will see the Trump administration start to roll back boardroom regulations that were put in place by the previous Republican administration?

Don't place that bet yet: In March Trump ordered that the Treasury Secretary review regulations including Sarbanes-Oxley specifically. Now would be a good time to pull your money out of the stock market.

Hey why were all these CEOs willing to back Trump and be in his White House?

"In the months after the election, the stock price of CVR, Icahn’s refiner, nearly doubled—a surge that is difficult to explain without acknowledging the appointment of the company’s lead shareholder to a White House position. The rally meant a personal benefit for Icahn, at least on paper, of half a billion dollars."

-- from The New Yorker, in an article about how billionaire Carl Icahn failed -- their word, not mine -- in his 'raid on Washington.



Although perhaps a better question than the headline would be "Why are publishers and reporters so committed to not actually reporting what is going on?"

Trumpocalypse 13: Just what is The Trump Presidency (TM) Doing, Anyway?

You may feel like you're totally up on the news and how bad things are getting in America because you know stuff, like you know how Trump ordered government employees to find proof he had big crowds at his inauguration or how Betsy "I Bought This Cabinet Seat Myself" DeVos was barely confirmed as his Secretary of (Killing Off Public) Education, and of course you are completely up on the fact that he nominated someone for the Supreme Court and he banned Muslims from coming into the country, so congrats, you, on being informed.

Except you aren't.

The other day I found myself thinking Who actually has been confirmed on Trump's cabinet? I was surprised to learn we've got a Secretary of State -- Rex Tillerson! -- since I'd heard nothing much about that (seemingly important) Cabinet position.  That, in turn, made me wonder what else I'd been missing as the various real- and fake-media sources went nuts over real news (the Muslim ban) and fake news (the crowds at the inauguration).

There's been a lot going on, it turns out, so much so that I don't know if anyone, including the White House, knows how much has been going on -- like the thing with Steve Bannon slipping in an executive order making himself a member of the National Security Council, something that didn't make the headlines it should because when the ship is sinking it seems like it's less important to also announce the captain has been embezzling money.

The Trump Presidency (TM) has been busy, though, so busy that almost nobody can track it. According to the White House site, Trump has issued seven executive orders (or that's how many are posted there), 12 "Presidential Memoranda," and even two "Proclamations," which you have to imagine are Trump's favorite.

That's 21 Executive Actions according to The Trump Presidency (TM)'s own website. But according to Business Insider, as of February 3, he'd taken 22 such actions, so which one is missing from the official government website?

Or are the White House and Business Insider inflating things? Fox News' list as of February 3 contains what it says are 19 items, but actually the count comes to 14, depending on how you count them.

Wikipedia, meanwhile, lists 23 such actions already, while USA Today has an incomplete list but does note that one form of Trump order is an entirely new creature: the "national security presidential memorandum." And to top things off, there is at least one order signed by his chief of staff that has the force of an executive order from the president.

While some claim it's the most prolific executive action yet, Wikipedia has 23 such actions by Obama as of the first week of February 2009, so it's not clear even whether the media has as much information as, say, a website voluntarily maintained by anonymous people who get their information primarily from other websites.  (If there is an official listing of all executive actions anywhere, I haven't been able to find it.)

Most of the articles that discuss this at all simply list the orders, with no analysis or explanation or context, which means that the media is again not doing very much to help people understand how their government works (or doesn't) and is focusing on the high-profile stories like Betsy DeVos, but that raises the question: are these stories high profile because they are important? Or are they high profile because they are interesting to talk about and easy to understand?

I'm going to look at the specific executive actions going forward, on and off, but in the meantime, ask yourself: whatever the number of executive orders is so far (7, 14, 21, 23?) how many Trump Presidency (TM) actions can you list off the top of your head?

The vast majority of people in this country have little information and less understanding of how government actually works and what government actually does. That's why it's so easy for Republicans to hijack the political process (with at best the complacency of the Democratic Party and at worst the Democrats' own efforts to use 'social issues' to distract from the real issues.)  If even the best-informed and politically motivated people have only a vague clue as to what is going on, how can we hope to have people who aren't as energized about the political process to grasp the realities of the situation.

I have a rule for charitable giving that I think makes a lot of sense: if I spend money frivolously -- by buying something that is a pure luxury, like plants in my Plants Vs. Zombies 2 videogame -- I try to match that with a charitable contribution in the same amount, so that if I use $1.99 selfishly I use another $1.99 unselfishly.

I think that applies to politics and information, as well. So try this: every time you click on a story about Donald Trump's Twitter beefs, ask yourself what you know about what he's done that day that matters, and then go read up on that, too.

Trumpocalypse 12: I can't BEAR it.

Democrats are more afraid of Bernie Sanders than they are of Donald Trump.

Over the past 20 years, the Democrats have routinely ignored local and state and other down-ballot elections to focus on the presidency as their party becomes the GOP only with better Hollywood celebs to back it.  This has resulted in Republican control of most state and local governments, which has made a Republican majority in the House of Representatives an easy thing to maintain through voter suppression laws and gerrymandering.

That alone does not explain why Democrats also lose in elections where the districts cannot be rigged, though, including gubernatorial, Senate, and presidential elections, where popular votes cannot be redistricted every ten years into 'safe seats.' Democrats do not understand that they lose these votes because they are leaving behind (or have left behind) their base voters, a fact that is happening because the Democrats are, economically speaking, identical to the Republicans in all the ways that hurt the lower classes the most.

THAT is why Hillary! lost the election: Hillary! gave her voters no real reason to go vote for her by abandoning the principles most Democrats (say they) believe in.  Trump's voters were told he would build a wall to keep out Muslim Illegal Immigrants who force factory workers in Indiana to have abortions, and so they got to the polls for him.  Hillary!'s voters were told she... wouldn't be Trump.

But despite those cold, hard, easy-to-understand, fairly obvious facts, Democrats persist in shouting as loudly as they can that someone else is responsible for their losing. Now, the reason is Bernie Sanders, or, rather, the reason is the the reasons that Bernie Sanders stood for.

Writing for "The Root" or possibly for his 5th grade essay on the presidential election, writer Michael Arceneaux posted "Shut Up, Bernie Sanders" yesterday afternoon.  According to this bio, Arceneaux is

 a Houston-bred, Howard University-educated writer currently living in Harlem. He often covers issues related to culture, sexuality, religion, race, and Beyoncé.

Covering politics might be slightly more difficult than covering Beyonce, as demonstrated by Arceneuax's keep grasp of nothing in his post.

Arceneaux's thesis is hard to understand, but it appears to be 90% defense of Democrats' intense focus on being Republicans while not appearing to be, and 9% claiming the election was stolen, and 1% race-baiting.  Let's take a look.

If hubris and the successful pursuit of headlines were genuine indicators of political aptitude, perhaps Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) would actually be the Svengali he’s presently being sold as.

According to Wikipedia,

"Svengali" has come to refer to a person who, with evil intent, dominates, manipulates, and controls a creative person such as a singer or an actor.

So: Not a Sanders fan. Got it. Arceneaux says:

Of course, Sanders, like our president-elect, the Marigold Manchurian Candidate, can rightly lay claim to scoring huge, albeit majorly melanin-deficient, crowds that found kinship in campaigns rallying against a corrupt political system. 

"Guilt by Association" is one of the arguments listed in "An Illustrated Book of Bad Arguments."  Note the race-baiting has begun in the second paragraph: "Sanders does not appeal to minorities."

In February 2016, Gallup noted that part of Sanders' image problem among black voters was that about 1/3 of them didn't know who he was. In a recent poll discussing who would win the 2020 nomination, 21% of minority respondents picked Sanders; 45% picked Joe Biden. Sanders was 15% ahead of the next closest among minorities (Elizabeth Warren, 6%).

Arceneaux again:

Unfortunately, only one of those men could seize a major political party’s nomination with a mostly white vote. So, while Sanders was successful in pushing political foe Hillary Rodham Clinton to more progressive stances, he was never a real threat to her campaign. Not only that, but he failed to make real inroads with the folks whose backs the Democratic Party stands on. This is the part where you conjure an image of a black auntie.

So much so wrong so quickly. While Hillary! won by a large margin the minority vote, she lost ground to Barack Obama in percentage of that vote. It would be asinine to assume that some minorities only voted for Obama because he was black, so one must assume that the minority voters who went to the polls for Obama in 2008 and 2012 but Stayed Home For Hillary! were doing so for some reason other than the color of her skin. Perhaps Hillary!'s inroads with "black auntie" were temporarily closed.

Did Hillary! take on more progressive stances? Does the Democratic Party stand on the shoulders of the black aunties of America?

Progressive stances really only matter if they are economic progressive stances or concern what is loosely referred to as "social justice."  Hillary! as Secretary of State pushed TPP, which may or may not be a good thing but it's not considered a progressive thing. In her presidential run, Hillary! wouldn't comment one way or the other on whether she'd support the deal. Trump opposed TPP, but so did Sanders.

2008 Hillary! didn't want to lift the current cap on income which is subject to the social security tax. In 2016, Hillary! said she would agree with raising the cap to just under $120,000, which would hurt middle-class voters a bit more, while not affecting the poor or rich at all. Progressive!

Clinton did get more progressive in terms of cops versus incarceration and student debt, but arguably those were responses to the mass shootings of black men by white cops, and the student debt crisis looming large over millenials, not a response to Sanders' campaign.

Arceneaux then starts blaming the system, more or less, for Hillary!'s loss, while faulting Sanders for continuing to believe that Democrats should stand for something more than Republicans With Better PR:

Sadly, Sanders can’t stop, won’t stop, doling out bad advice. 

The advice in question is what Sanders believes Democrats should do if they want to govern, and/or if they want to govern as liberals.  Arceneaux doesn't want Sanders to say this stuff, because he (presumably) doesn't want Democrats to do this stuff.  Arceneaux takes a few more false-equivalency potshots at Sanders:

Moreover, much like the Colby-Jack Führer-in-waiting at his first press conference as president-elect, Sanders can’t stop taking shots at Clinton. Perhaps losing the popular vote is that damaging to one’s ego.

Sanders! What a loser! He's just like Trump!

In any event, speaking to NPR’s Morning Edition, Sanders argued, “Look, you can’t simply go around to wealthy people’s homes raising money and expect to win elections.” The Vermont senator went on to declare, “I happen to believe that the Democratic Party has been not doing a good job in terms of communicating with people in cities, in towns and in rural America, all over this country.”

This is the same man who lamented that having so many Southern primaries in the early months of the Democratic primary “distorts reality.”

Arceneaux provides no argument or evidence for asserting that Sanders is wrong about how the Democrat's inability to communicate with Americans is hurting them. He simply lists it as a thing that Sanders said which Arceneaux thinks is wrong, and then brings up what seems to be a non sequitur: What, one wonders, does Sanders' disapproval of the timing of the primaries have to do with the Democrats' losing elections because they can't get their message ("I'm Not Trump" -- Hillary Clinton, 2016) to Americans?

Well, everything: By front-loading Southern primaries, Democrats make the nominee have to appeal to Southern voters early on, when fundraising is based primarily on name recognition and thus favors 'rock star' candidates like Hillary!.  This in turn helps those 'rock star' candidates seem very successful early on, which then pushes the idea that a Sanders-like candidate simply 'can't win' the nomination, because he's doing poorly in the early primaries.  Put more simply, the more a candidate wins early on, the more likely the public will see that candidate as the one that should be backed. And the more a candidate wins early on in primaries depends heavily on how well-known that candidate is before the primary.

The Democrats, then, ensure that their candidates must be well-known, heavily-backed candidates who have a strong appeal to Southern voters in order to have a shot at being nominated.  Then, when a candidate locks in the nomination (or appears certain to do so) the campaign in other states winds down, so later-primary states get less primary focus. When Wisconsin held its primary, I voted for Sanders, knowing it was all but certain he could not get the nomination by then. (Sanders won Wisconsin, but nearly every story about it noted that Sanders almost certainly could not win the nomination, based on how the Democrats' nomination system works.)

Arceneaux:

Hillary Clinton ran an unsuccessful campaign, but to say she ran a bad campaign is disingenuous. 

Why? "We didn't win the game, but to say we lost is disingenous." Hillary!'s campaign was hacked because her workers had bad cyber security. She didn't campaign nearly enough in many states. She picked as a VP nominee a near-unknown whose only appeal was that he was from the South, it seems. Grassroots supports expressed dismay with nearly everything Hillary! did. And you: name a Hillary! campaign position (other than one I told you about in this post.) You likely can't.

After saying Hillary! didn't run a bad campaign, Arceneaux goes full hypothetical question:

Should she have campaigned more in black neighborhoods? According to the results of Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan, sure. Could she have made greater attempts at reaching out to rural voters, even though they’re not exactly Democratic strongholds? It’s fair to say yes.

"Should Hillary! have campaigned hard in states that were battlegrounds and which could turn the election? Yes. Could she have tried to expand the Democrats' message to new constituencies? Yes."

Did she do those things? No. She ran a bad campaign.

That said, Clinton had nearly 3 million more votes than our president-elect

"That said, if the election had been run in some way other than the way we've run them for 238 years, Hillary! would have won." Was Hillary! unaware of how the electoral college would work in 2016, and therefore unable to try to win the election that would be held, rather than the election she wished we would hold?

and lost by about 80,000 votes in three states heavily affected by voter suppression, an issue that the likes of Sanders and others failed to truly speak on, at their own peril.

Republicans can pass voter-suppression laws because Democrats let Republicans win state elections and control state legislatures. The Republicans openly say they are doing this, and it helps them win elections. Democrats continue to ignore that. Many people disagree on the effects of voter suppression laws vis a vis the 2016 elections. But more to Arceneaux's point: Sanders did attack voter suppression laws. Sanders' attack on Wisconsin's law was called "relentless[]" by The Hill.

Referring to Clinton's loss in the election, Arceneaux says:

Clinton achieved this feat despite a media consumed by a nonissue about her email server as it gleefully reported on stolen material secured through hackers so ordered by the Russian government.

Arceneaux is a part of the media, as is Jezebel (the blog hosting his column, loosely speaking.) Jezebel frequently reported on the Clinton emails.

Political losses should yield a real examination of what went wrong, 

yes they should...

but Sanders is someone who, on par with a robot, just repeats what’s already been programmed. The man is not saying anything new or remotely insightful. Clinton performed far better than he arguably ever could have with a diverse coalition that he never enjoyed or made a real effort to build.

... but not by Arceneaux.  Is his argument really "It's better that Democrats narrowly lose with Clinton than lose by a lot with Sanders?" Seems like it. Arceneaux is the reason why the coach of your favorite NFL team, down 20-0 in the 4th quarter, kicks a field goal.

Sanders’ lil’ media tour, in which he sings another sad love song like he’s Toni Braxton, is good for Bernie Sanders, but what about the party, and what about the rest of us?

First off, Toni Braxton is a hateful person who views her son's autism as a punishment for Toni Braxton. She's said so.  Secondly,

To wit, during a recent town hall with CNN, Sanders was asked if the Democrats, like the Republicans immediately following the swearing-in of President Barack Obama, should obstruct the new commander in chief. “I don’t think that’s what we do,” Sanders answered. “I think where Trump has ideas that make sense that we can work with him on, I think we should.”

Where exactly is that? Trade policy, a grievance shared by both men, came up, and Sanders said that he would be “prepared to sit down and work on a new trade policy which is based on fairness, not just on corporate greed.” One of the great loves of the reality-TV version of Ebenezer Scrooge’s life is greed, so what is the point of saying this?

Secondly, both Trump and Sanders oppose TPP, as I noted. More importantly, Arceneaux's point here is literally this:  If Trump proposes something the Democrats like the Democrats should still oppose it because it comes from Trump. This is the politics of nihilism the Republicans excel at.  What if Trump proposed single-payer universal health care, because he personally would benefit from it? Should the Democrats say no way man? 

Republicans were wrong to obstruct Obama, 

You have just undermined your own last point.

especially when you consider how willing he was to compromise for the sake of the greater good. ...

The Democrats expressly did not compromise on Obamacare, forcing it through using the same Congressional procedure that they now fault the Republicans for using to try to repeal that law.

Now, as we look at a man building an administration very much in line with the demagoguery and exploitation his campaign was known for, Sanders is scolding Democrats based on mythology while pretending that he can get something down with the bigot ruler-in-waiting.

What is even  going on in that sentence? I don't understand this at all, but if you are following the box score, it is:

1. Sanders is wrong to say Dems can compromise with Trump.
2. Republicans were wrong not to compromise with Obama.
3. Sanders is wrong to say Dems can compromise with Trump.

Arceneaux:

Not surprisingly, when asked if he would run for president again in 2020, Sanders wouldn’t offer any definitive response. He likes the attention too much for that. 

Sanders will be 76 this year. So far, I don't know of any candidate that has definitely committed to running in 2020, so it's obvious that not just Sanders, but every single politician enjoys the attention of the media too much to say they will definitely run for the next presidency when the newest one hasn't even been sworn in.

Although Sanders may be sincere in his stances on the evils of classism, 

Yeah, just because he's publicly espoused these beliefs for 3/4 of a century is no reason to think the guy is sincere.  By the way, Bernie Sanders' net worth of $528,000 is roughly 1/100th of Hillary!'s $53,000,000 net worth. Those figures might seem important to you, if you were the type of person who thought possibly someone was not sincere in their public statements about the evils of classism.

for all the admonishment he’s offered Democrats, he’s shown no sign of learning about his own shortcomings. At this point, he very much just enjoys the sound of his own voice and the attention. 

I'm sure that is precisely why Sanders continues to doggedly insist that Democrats pay attention to the problem of income distribution, health care, and political voice. He likes the attention! I'm surprised he hasn't dated one of the Kardashians, the attention hog!

Arceneaux of course does not say what shortcomings Sanders should be aware of, or any support for the notion that Sanders is pushing back solely to get attention.

In recent days, Bernie Sanders has been speaking out about the repeal of Obamacare, helped work to get new blood into the Democratic party to push populist programs, given a town hall speech to promote his agenda, announced he was seeking areas to work with Trump on, and was lined up to speak at a tribute to Martin Luther King, Jr. 

Many nascent political movements die at the first sign of a setback. In recent decades, "Perotistas" never made much of an impact, and the Tea Party's political influence has been pruned down considerably, with establishment Republicans again running the show, albeit from a spot a bit more to the right than they were 8 years ago.  It is heartening, then, to see Sanders continue his own drive, and to not just do so by attempting to seize the brass ring, as Hillary! does, but by actually energizing the grass roots and looking to foment change at all levels of the political hill.

There is reason to think Sanders could be successful in pushing back against 50 years of redistribution of wealth to a smaller and smaller group of people in society while children literally die in our streets for lack of a social safety net. The vast majority of Americans, when polled recently, back Sanders' stances on nearly every single issue. The article that sentence links to points out that the reason Americans don't have the programs they support is because the political elite have consistently diverted voters' attention from those issues that matter to so called 'culture war' issues.  In this, the Democrats are as bad as the Republicans: both desperately want to distract you from the fact that the 1% who make up the power structure in both parties benefit from economic policies that balance megawealth on the backs of the poor and middle class.  Michael Arceneaux is simply another tool in the hands of people like Hillary! and Trump, and it is Michael Arceneaux and the people like him who should shut up.

Trumpocalypse 11: Holidays are over, back to school.

Democratic navel-gazing continues, and that comic -- put out this week by Tom Tomorrow -- shows the actual lessons learned by Democrats so far: if you come even close to understanding that you lost an election because you gave people no reason to vote for you, retreat into Russian Hacking.

Meanwhile, Republicans are not sitting on their laurels. The ever-tightening grip the GOP has on public office is largely the result of Karl Rove's Operation REDMAP, a open 'secret' the Republicans began working on years ago, to take over local and state governments and thereby seize control of the federal government. It's worked.

And it continues to be their base of operations, like the sweep used to be for Army football.  Next up: Wisconsin's Superintendent of Public Instruction, a statewide 'nonpartisan' office that controls most of public education. Tony Evers is the current DPI head, having been in there since 2017, serving 2 four-year terms. Tony Evers is generally thought to be a liberal Democrat who strongly supports public schools and teachers' unions.

Two candidates have filed to run against Evers. They are Lowell Holtz and John Humphries.

Holtz's website has the address "kidservative.org." He has primarily been a teacher and principal throughout his career. His endorsers include number one-listed state senator Mary Lazich, who is retiring but not before she helped promote a bill to allow people to carry guns into schools. Lazich said the bill was to ensure that people dropping kids off at schools weren't 'accidentally' committing a crime by packin' heat on the way to 4K.  Her co-sponsor was more graphic, envisioning a world where vigilante soccer moms save an entire school:

Brooks said he was offering the bill because he would feel terrible if there were a school shooting and parents and teachers told him afterward they didn't have a chance to defend themselves because of state law. 

Apparently neither Brooks nor Lazich would 'feel terrible' if a bunch of school kids were shot because the prevalence of guns in our society makes it almost certain every nutcase out there has more than one.

Humphries has a career devoted more to the psych end of school services, as shown on his LinkedIn. Humphries' first act as a candidate was to resign his current position (intended to demonstrate that he was making a clear separation between his job and his campaign). His second act was to accept a $39,000 consulting contract to continue working at his job, only now with no direct supervision or set hours.  And you thought the GOP's effort to gut ethics watchdogs was a failure!

Both candidates are pro-voucher. School vouchers and the end of public instruction is a Republican goal, remember.  Under failed presidential candidate Scott Walker, Wisconsin has tried to lead the nation in reducing funding for schools, now spending $1,014 less per student than when Walker was elected.  Walker's last budget proposal in 2015 was planned to increase the voucher program.

The election, held in spring, is expected to be low turnout. In 2013, the last DPI election, less than 800,000 votes were cast for the DPI race, with Evers winning by 179,000 votes. Similarly, campaign contributions are typically lower than in partisan, high-profile races. Evers in his races gets contributions primarily from unions and public education associations. Evers' site claims to have 326 endorsements but you can't view who is endorsing him.

Low-turnout elections tend to favor conservatives and Republicans. Democrats, focused on the presidency and ignoring their traditional constituency, have lost ground consistently over the past 2 decades in state and local elections. My prediction is that this will be the most expensive DPI race in Wisconsin history, and that Hughes will win. Hopefully my kids' school vouchers won't get lost in the mail.

Trumpocalypse 10: So long, 14th Amendment.

Scott Walker Says He Would Support Article V Convention To Amend Constitution, said the innocuous-seeming headline on Madison.com, written by editors and reporters who bemoan fake news and the fate of newspapers while contributing to their own demise by completely failing to report on real news, by which I mean "did they ask follow-up questions and possibly see what it was Failed Presidential Candidate Scott Walker doesn't like about our US Constitution which is only The GREATEST CONSTITUTION IN THE WORLD?"

They did not.

Instead, the article simply and blandly quotes what appear to be press-release type quotes about how popular the move to amend the US Constitution is among Republican governors, who want to reign in the federal government despite the federal government being entirely controlled by their party.

I'm not a political reporter, of course, which means I have a memory, Google, and the desire to use them instead of just hacking away until I get my paycheck, so I googled "ALEC Article V Amendments."

You may remember "ALEC," which was kind of a big deal before the Democrats decided that they would simply blame 'fake news' for their continuing to lose elections.  "ALEC" is the "American Legislative Exchange Council" and it is essentially a lobbying group for extremely conservative reform.

ALEC has up on their website right  now an application for a Constitutional Convention which it summarizes this way:

The federal government has steadily consolidated its power while eroding state control in ways that are clearly inconsistent with the Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Foreseeing this possibility, our constitutional framers created a method for states to introduce amendments to the U.S. Constitution through an Article V Convention. This draft model policy serves as an application to Congress to call an Article V Convention limited to proposing amendments to that will impose fiscal restraints on the federal government; limit the power and jurisdiction of the federal government and limit the terms of office for federal officials and members of Congress.

Now, keep in mind, none of those things are in and of themselves particularly conservative, or bad. Laws which affect both parties equally (like Virginia's stripping of gubernatorial power) can come back to bite you. Remember when the Democrats were mad that GOP senators were stalling things with filibusters? Bernie filibusters all the time, and that Texan legislator won national acclaim for filibustering a Texas abortion law. The "filibuster," by the way, is the ultimate domination of a minority (1 person, or at the most the number of people that 1 person represents) over the majority (us.)

ALEC has also set out, in a 56-page brochure, (available on PDF!) some helpful guidelines for states to call for an run an Article V convention. They include tips like "Don't make applications [for a convention] too general" and "Don't make applications to specific."

It's harder to find out what, exactly, ALEC wants the states to want the US Constitution to say. Back in August 2016 the NY Times published an article about the push for a convention, proving that reporters can report. It noted that the push arose from the fact that the GOP controls most state legislatures. The level of Democratic control of state legislatures is as low as it was at the time of the Civil War, which means the last time the Democrats were this unpopular, it was because they supported slavery.

One big thing ALEC is pushing is a 'balanced budget amendment.' This, too, is not an automatically bad thing. Thomas Jefferson wanted one, but Jefferson also wanted to prohibit the US from printing paper money. (Nor is consistency a hobgoblin in Jefferson's mind: he later busted the budget buying the Louisiana territory.)  Balanced budget amendment talk became big when pushed by a Taxpayers group beginning in the 1980s when Reagan was elected. It should be noted that whenever there is a Republican president, as there has been 20 of the last 36 years, there is nothing that keeps that Republican president from refusing to sign any budget that is not 'balanced.' Same goes for when the GOP controls Congress. The Republican push for a balanced budget amendment is the equivalent of a dieter asking you to lock his refrigerator so he can't raid it.

Then again, under most proposals, you could still raid the 'fridge under a Balanced Budget Amendment, since most proposals would require a budget to be balanced unless 3/5 of Congress -- less than that needed to override a presidential veto -- voted to UNbalance it.

While most articles focus on the Balanced Budget aspect of ALEC's Article V push (which was said to be almost near its goal in 2014, so perhaps even now people, including me, are being alarmist about, but since we were asleep at the switch on the Trumpocalypse, maybe it's time to be a bit alarmist about things again)  ALEC also wants an amendment to limit terms in the federal government. Did the Founders believe in term limits? Maybe, maybe not: Washington stepped down after two terms and every president honored that right up until FDR decided to honor the will of the people, after which the Republicans decided that the will of the people was bunk and proposed the 22nd Amendment. (The GOP controlled Congress at the time.)

But the amendment nobody seems to mention is the "Government Of The People" amendment. In this amendment. ALEC proposes to amend the Constitution to let states nullify federal laws they do not like. Nullification, too, is not a new concept: Jefferson and James Madison argued states had the right to nullify the Alien & Sedition Acts, but in 1809 the US Supreme Court said states can't nullify federal laws, what with the US Constitution saying federal laws are the 'supreme' law of the land.

Nullification was perhaps most famously argued on behalf of the states that would form the Confederacy, arguing that the states could nullify federal attempts to make African-Americans people, not property. Nullifcation has also been used, though, to try to help that cause: Wisconsin argued it could nullify the Fugitive Slave Act: Wisconsin state courts had freed a slave, finding the Act unconstitutional. The US Supreme Court reversed.

The GOP spent most of the last 6 years trying to undo Obamacare, but let's not forget the GOP's state- and federal attacks on equal rights for people, voting rights for minorities, and other fundamental areas of our society. The Amendment would let individual states -- controlled by Republicans and an increasingly-conservative judiciary (Scott Walker in Wisconsin has promoted judges who were or are members of the "Federalist Society," an extremely conservative legal group) -- nullify any laws they found inconvenient or unlikeable. Including, say, Medicare or Social Security? Possibly.  Such a move would make the United States also more balkanized, more like the European Union than like the United States; it would certainly weaken the federal government, which may sound good to some people at some times but should sound terrible to all people at all times, as it is the federal government, not the states, which have secured equal rights to people, extended the vote to women, provided for a base level of care for our elderly and disabled (shamefully low though it is, it's there), modernized commerce with the US highway system, got us to the Moon, and otherwise turned the United States from a backward, agrarian dependency to the only remaining superpower.

For now.

Trumpocalypse 9: Everything you always wanted to know about the Department of Energy (But Were Afraid to Ask "Real" News Sources)

As you keep hearing news about 'fake news' and Russia 'stealing the election' and the like, keep in mind that (a) 'fake news' is only available because so often 'real news' is about superficial stupid stuff and makes no effort to understand the issues, and (b) unless Russia actually somehow forced or bribed people to vote for Trump/stay home for Hillary!, or faked up the votes [there is NO EVIDENCE OF EITHER] it cannot "steal" the election from anyone.

I was thinking about those things as I read this lead into a story on The Concourse headlined "Rick Perry's Glasses Qualify Him For Important Science Post, Building Nukes."

Rick Perry, a swaggering idiot who found a pair of glasses on the street one day, is about to become the head of the Department of Energy, according to CBS News. The Department of Energy’s job right now is to develop the next generation of nuclear weapons.

Is it, though? The blogger who wrote the article, Ashley Feinberg, goes on to compare the current Energy Secretary's qualifications with Rick Perry's, finishing up with:

Now, none of this would be as big of a problem if Obama hadn’t just agreed to a a massive modernization program of our existing stock of nuclear weapons. This program is going to cost somewhere in the range of $350-450 billion and take about ten years. And our big, dumb boy Rick Perry gets to kick the whole thing off, as he’s now responsible for the design, testing, and production of all nuclear weapons.

I'm no fan of Rick Perry's, and I think the country would in fact be worse off with him as President. But this sort of reductive news writing is every bit as pernicious as "fake news," because it essentially falsifies Rick Perry's record, Rick Perry's role as Energy Secretary, and the program Obama agreed to.

Let's start with Rick Perry's record and qualifications. Feinberg sums them up as:

In other words, Rick Perry is a figurehead on a few boards that very tangentially have to do with “energy.”

In reality, Rick Perry has a degree in Animal Science from Texas A&M.  Texas A&M is currently the 74th ranked college in the US News rankings of best colleges.  Perry also served 5 years in the Air Force as a C-130 pilot.

Politically, Perry began his career as a Democrat, first elected to the Texas House of Representatives in 1984, and worked for the Gore campaign in 1988.  He switched parties in 1989. When Perry ran for re-election as governor in 2006, he was endorsed by a prominent Texas Democrat.

Perry ran for Agriculture Commissioner in 1990; he 'narrowly' defeated the Democratic incumbent -- who at the time had his office embroiled in an FBI investigation into corruption that would eventually lead to three aides being convicted. The incumbent wasn't charged, but keep in mind: Democrats supported a man who at best was so out of touch that three of his aides could be taking bribes. He was re-elected to that position, then served as either Lieutenant Governor or Governor.  He has since also worked at the chief strategist MCNA Dental, the nation's largest privately-held dental insurance company.

Again: I am not a fan of Perry's, but falsely presenting his background is fake news of the sort that people like Ashley Feinberg credit with 'stealing the election.' "Fake news" is any news that creates a false premise, and lying can be done by omission as well as by commission. Feinberg lied about Perry's background, to create the impression that Perry was a himbo.

Then there's the Department of Energy.  Again, a few minutes of Googling shows how reductive Feinberg's article was, in a misleading way.  Here is the organizational chart for DoE:

The Department does, in fact, police nuclear weapons, but also nuclear reactor production for the Navy, waste disposal, and a variety of energy-related research projects. It has just over 106,000 employees, only 12,000 of which are actual federal employees; 93,000 people on DoE's payroll are contract employees.

Among the things DoE does that are far more concerning than nuclear weapons stockpiles are the Loan Guarantee Program; enacted in 2005 (under the last Republican president) this law was in part funding for 'green' energy projects, and in part clearing the way for natural gas fracking and in part a change in how public utilities were held. Obama voted for this law; Hillary! criticized him for it. Under Trump's DoE, we should be more concerned about a curtailment of green energy and climate change research than we should that Rick Perry will somehow bumble our nuclear weapons program, but it's not as cool, right Ashley, to write a headline about how Rick Perry's nomination may signal that the Trump administration might take a law Obama voted for and water it down so that funds don't go for greenhouse gas research? I'm pretty confident that we face far greater risks from loosening energy controls and use of coal and fracking than we do from rogue nukes.

By the way, did you remember that Hazel O'Leary was Bill Clinton's first Secretary of Energy? Her qualifications? She'd been a prosecutor, and had been both a consultant and the head of an energy commission. Those credentials are remarkably similar to Perry's.  While Feinberg faults Perry for sitting on the board of a company trying to build the Dakota Access Pipeline, O'Leary prior to her nomination had been an executive VP at Northern States Power Company.  Northern States was in the early 1990s trying to merge with a company that was building the controversial Point Beach Nuclear Plant in Wisconsin.

Hmmm.

As for that "nuclear program" Perry will be in charge of? In July, the Washington Post reported that Obama "wants to cut back" on plans to spend $350,000,000,000 over 10 years modernizing our nuke program. 

By October, though, Obama had authorized a modernization program set to cost $1,000,000,000,000 -- nearly three times as much as the earlier proposal.  The New York Times, hardly a bastion of Tea Party politics, called the plan "unnecessary."

According to Arms Control.org, which Feinberg links to, some of the money will address "ethical lapses and poor morale" under the Obama administration. The overall modernization effort is too complicated to sum up in a brief note, which didn't stop Feinberg from doing just that.

So again: I'm not saying Perry is a good choice. I'm not saying he's a bad choice. What I'm saying at this moment is that the 'news' a lot of people will read about Perry and the Department of Energy will be fake and will omit those facts which are uncomfortable for people like Ashley Feinberg, and will inappropriately summarize facts people like Ashley Feinberg can't bother to get across to their readers as they race for pageviews.  Feinberg's article is no less propaganda than anything you'll read on Breitbart, and liberal media sources are also to blame for Hillary! losing the election.

Trumpocalypse 8: “Young, healthy and wealthy people may do quite well under this vision of health care reform,” said Larry Levitt, a senior vice president at the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation. “But the people who are older and poorer and sicker could do a lot worse.”

Donald Trump promised, as a candidate to leave entitlements alone.

Then he nominated for Health and Human Services secretary "Dr" Tom Price.

"Dr." Tom, currently a congressman, wants to: privatize Medicare, to give seniors a fixed amount of money to purchase insurance with, and reduce federal controls on how states spend money the government gives them for Medicare and Medicaid.

Vouchers were a pet project for Romney/Ryan in 2012. A nonpartisan study of their proposal found that more than half of all seniors would suffer increased health care costs under that plan. The highest costs would have been about $6,000 more per year.

Sorry, Bob 4 Trump!!

Trumpocalypse 7: I guess exporting stuff is okay ONLY IF IT'S MILITARY TECHNOLOGY THAT COULD BE USED AGAINST OUR TROOPS.

It's true.

Trumpocalpyse 5: I want a new drug.

Donald Trump's plan to help fight drug addiction and drug-related problems in the US is primarily to stop drugs from coming into the country. This will be tough to do given his plan to reduce the federal budget by at least 1% each year, leaving entitlements untouched in those cuts.

The current 2017 drug plan calls for $31,100,000,000 to be spent 'fighting drugs,' a generalized statement that encompasses a lot of different approaches. This amount is an increase of 1.7% from the 2016 allocation. Just over 10% -- $4,100,000,000 -- is allocated to interdiction, which is the fancy word for "stopping people from bringing drugs into the country."  Another $1,600,000,000 is planned to use specifically in foreign interventions such as targeting cartels or supporting crops other than drugs.

The General Accounting Office, a nonpartisan government agency, estimated in 1983 that less than 10% of dangerous drugs were seized through interdiction, and recommended changes, many of which were implemented. 10 years later, the GAO found that most drug seizures, rather than being the result of a coordinated effort, were simply made based on random or routine searches.

One growing effort to stop drug abuse-related problems are "drug courts," courts designed to help curb recidivism and provide a framework for drug addicts to get back into society. These have been around since 1993, and while not perfect, have generally reduced recidivism and are less costly than enforcement-and-imprisonment.

Recently, in Wisconsin, two rural counties were given by the federal government a $325,000 grant to jointly administer a drug-court program. Providing federal incentives to drug courts is something Trump promised to do as a candidate, although he didn't say how he would get the money.  The counties in question were Iowa (which went for Hillary by a large margin) and Grant (which narrowly went to Trump.)

Just to keep track: Trump has promised to reduce the federal budget by 1% each year from its current state. He has also promised not to touch entitlements. And he has promised to provide federal money to state and local governments to help establish drug courts.    This creates a series of problems.

The first problem has already been said: Trump cannot continue to increase spending on his projects while also cutting the federal budget by 1% each year. (That promise alone is disingenuous, because federal spending is so ingrained into American life that cutting back in any serious way represents a major shift in governmental policy that likely cannot be accomplished in 1, or even 2, terms.  Much of the increase in federal spending has come under Republican presidents. George W Bush, our worst president [so far] spent more than any of his predecessors in office, increasing the federal budget by fifty-three percent in just 8 years.)

The second problem is that these are not permanent funding sources. When the federal funding is cut off, then either the drug courts stop -- losing the benefit of these programs, which are long-term programs -- or the counties and state must make up the difference.  County spending comes largely from property taxes in Wisconsin. Property taxes are a somewhat-regressive tax that hit poor and middle-class people harder.  State money comes from a variety of taxes such as gasoline tax and income tax, and again these are regressive.

75.6% of housing in Iowa County is owner-occupied; the median property tax bill is $525 for such houses in that county. There are 10,000 or so housing units. If you cut off federal funding of the drug court, Iowa County must come up with $162,500 to run the court, spreading that cost among the 10000 homeowners in the county.  Either that means that Iowa County cuts $162,500 worth of services from something else, or taxes go up, funding drug courts regressively by taking money from the poorest people disproportionately.

When federal spending gets cut, states generally cut programs that relied on federal spending. 31 states cut health care services between 2009 and 2011, among other drastic slashing of social services. This is because it is not popular to raise taxes to keep services going, and the recipients of the services are often the least-represented, politically. Nobody wants to tax the middle-class more; but nobody cares if we cut funding for drug-addicted criminals.

Drug courts, the evidence says, work. Interdiction, the evidence says, does not. Under Trump, we can expect the specifics of his plans to increase interdiction to be met, because that says "tough on crime," and "tough on foreigners," too. We can expect the mealy-mouthed promise to fund drug courts in a nonspecific way to be dropped by the wayside, which means that three years from now, the 40% of people who voted for Trump in Iowa County and the 51% of people who voted for him in Grant County will see a small headline in the local paper that says the drug court programs are ending for lack of funding.  I doubt they will mourn the passing of those programs, but they should: if you are fiscally conservative, drug courts make sense. Every $1 spent on drug court saves $2.17 on other aspects of crime prevention and incarceration.

But "fiscally conservative" takes a back seat to "tough on crime," every time.

Trumpocalypse Day 4: He's hot for (diverting money away from your public school) teacher.

Trump announced the other day that Billionaire Betsy DeVos will be his education secretary, seeming to follow through on his stated policy goal of making school choice and a voucher system the default, if not the only, system of public education.

Leaving aside the cognitive dissonnance of providing federal funds to ensure that kids can go to any school, no matter how terrible it is, while at the same time arguing that the federal government should in no way take even the most marginal steps to provide health care for those children, school choice is a terrible idea.

A few quick facts (sorry to ruin the party!) Public education is largely a state-- and actually mostly a local-- function of government, but states and local governments (which mostly fund public schools via property taxes, a tax that [like all taxes but particularly this one] hurts middle-class and poor people most) get lots of funding from the federal government.

Or they did. Over the last five years, federal spending on public education dropped nearly twice as fast as federal spending overall did. This year, the federal government will spent about $42,000,000,000 on public education.

The modern voucher programs began with Milwaukee, in 1990, which created the first voucher system. At the time, 60% of Milwaukee students were dropping out before graduation and the average grade for students was a D+.

26 years later, one result has been that the Milwaukee Public School system has a higher-than-average load of students with special needs, and voucher students and non-choice students scored roughly equally. (That link, which touts that voucher students do better, ignores the actual statistics:

On the Badger/DLM exams, 27% of students in the Milwaukee voucher program were proficient or above in English language arts, compared with 25.6% of all MPS students and 20.5% of those considered economically disadvantaged. Sixteen percent of Milwaukee voucher students scored as proficient or higher in math, compared with 15.8% of all MPS students and 13% of those economically disadvantaged.

Yes, the voucher programs had a slight lead on the standardized test.)  Results were better for voucher program students on the ACT college entrance exam.

Other results are mixed. A compilation of studies in 2011 found little difference in math abilities between voucher- and non-voucher similar students. Voucher students were slightly (4-7%) more likely to go on to and finish college.

One thing to remember is that education doesn't happen in a vacuum. While voucher advocates like to credit voucher programs for those advancements, one can't rule out the fact that students who switch from a public school to a private, voucher-paid school may have parents who are more engaged and more educated themselves, and thus be more inclined to do well academically. One of the key factors that determines if a student goes to college and does well there is whether that student had at least one parent who went to college. Another, as you'd guess, is income.

Among the factors that play into that lack of success, that last report noted:

If these obstacles were not enough, first-generation students typically have less well developed time management and other personal skills, less family and social support for attending college, less knowledge about higher education, and less experience navigating bureaucratic institutions.

Meanwhile, 81% of public school (non-voucher) students nationally graduate from high school on time, and 86% of those students have a college degree by age 26.  Overall, educational achievements have been rising even though only 0.5% of all students are currently voucher students. 

Competition among institutions can, indeed, make them better. (Ironically, many devout social conservatives believe in, if not Darwin, social Darwinism.) But there is no social issue that can be boiled down to black-and-white, single option methods.

I have long been in favor of 'public option' provision of social necessities: public schools, public health care, and the like. This works best when the government provides a robust public option at affordable rates, and then makes it possible for people to opt for that, or a private option, depending on their whim.

Here's an analogy: like education, and health care, delivery of information and goods is a public necessity. The United States created a "Post Office" in 1775. The USPS was funded directly by the government until 1971; now its funding comes from receipts for its goods and services, but it relies too on tax exemptions and low-interest loans from the government. (Some of the problem, if it is a problem, comes from Congress' requirement that the USPS pre-fund its retirement, a law Congress passed in 2006.)  It is, though, for the most part, privately funded now.

The existence of the post office, with its government support, has not stopped the development of fax machines, emails, private courier services, and the like. In 2015, the parcel delivery industry had revenues of $150,000,000,000.

People can use the post office, trusting that it will get the job done: packages will get there, safely. People can opt for the slightly-more expensive private services, which have to be good enough to compete. The USPS uniformly has a lower cost for most immediate shipping, but UPS and Fed Ex and others make up by having (for example) higher weight limits.

School choice vouchers are the equivalent of the government taking away all benefits for post offices, and using that money to give you a coupon to select a shipper from anyone you want; but if they did that, the USPS would still have (for example) the congressional mandates that it pre-fund all retirement (private companies don't have to) and that it deliver everywhere (private companies don't have to).  So a Mail Voucher system would handicap the USPS while, technically, saving no money (since the government would be handing it out in vouchers.)

One possible outcome of such a move would be to essentially end, or at least set on a path to destruction, the public school system. But why would Trump and Billionaire Betsy want to move the state and federal funding from public schools to private schools?

The last time a simple solution to a complex problem worked was when Alexander cut an ox-cart free from a post. That turned out well for him, right?

Trumpocalpyse Day 3: A Penny Saved Is A Drastic Reduction In Government Services

Donald Trump's proposals, presumably a reason why people voted for him, included the 'penny plan.' This is a plan to reduce federal spending by 1% per year. The Washington Post, which celebrated the election of Trump by having a woman wear a dress made of napkins, which guests were told to take off of her one at a time, reviewed Trump's Penny Plan back in September, when nobody was taking him seriously yet.

Like the old thing about how if I give you a penny today and then double it tomorrow and keep on doing that you'll be a millionaire in a month, those cuts add up, namely because federal spending grows each year.

Here is how federal spending (other than defense spending) grew under each president, from the Cato Institute:

Under even theoretically conservative presidents spending increased each year, and Bush I and Bush II were both bigger spenders than Clinton.

If the federal budget grows by 1.9% per year, and you cut it back 1% per year, each year you cut a bigger portion. If the first year the budget is 6,000,000,000,000, you must cut 60,000,000,000.

The next year, the budget would grow by let's say 2%, or 120,000,000,000 -- so your expected spending would be 540,000,000,000+ 120,000,000,000, or 660,000,000,000,000. Cutting 1% requires cutting 66,000,000,000 this year -- 1% more than last year.

That's a best case scenario.

Within 10 years, as the Post noted,

The budget would need to be cut by 23% to meet the plan.

The Penny Plan would not affect the governments biggest obligations: defense, Medicare, and Social Security. The Penny Plan could not, without destabilizing the world's economy, affect the debt service the government must pay on its outstanding obligations (the National Debt). The Penny Plan would reduce all other government spending, by 23% from where it is now, at least.

That may sound good to you, but keep in mind that even Trump's own policy site notes that our infrastructure is crumbling and we need to modernize the FAA, air traffic control, and our bridges, to avoid a disaster.

I hope the states can pay for all that stuff. Without the federal highway matching money they get now, of course, because that too will be cut by 23%, or more. And without any of the other money states get from the US government, which will be tough, given that 31.5% of all the money each state spends comes from the federal government.

Trumpocalypse Day 2: Run Washington like a business!

Jezebel reported the other day that sources were claiming Trump used his President-elect status to pressure Argentina into approving a building project of his. The article noted that Trump registered 8 companies in Saudi Arabia during his campaign, and that immediately after doing so, Trump began moderating his stance on Saudi Arabia.

Jezebel then quotes a September -- hey, that's before the election! -- report from Newsweek:

Here’s some context, from a Newsweek report in September:

Many foreign governments retain close ties to and even control of companies in their country, including several that already are partnered with the Trump Organization. Any government wanting to seek future influence with President Trump could do so by arranging for a partnership with the Trump Organization, feeding money directly to the family or simply stashing it away inside the company for their use once Trump is out of the White House. This is why, without a permanent departure of the entire Trump family from their company, the prospect of legal bribery by overseas powers seeking to influence American foreign policy, either through existing or future partnerships, will remain a reality throughout a Trump presidency.

As Jezebel noted, not a single facet of that is actually illegal. If you were wondering why Trump wanted to be president, put a tick next to "in order to make legal, obscene profits for his companies," and close your notebook.

Trumpocalypse, Day 1: Trump's simple take on a complex issue.

I'm starting this late, but it's time to start noting the numerous, numerous ways in which the Trumpocalypse will destroy us.  Thus, a (hopefully to be daily) list of how Trump & Comp (nice right) are going to drag us, kicking and screaming, into the appropriate rings of Hell.

Today, Trump is threatening to withdraw from the "Trans-Pacific Partnership" free trade agreement. This agreement, which mirrors one we have with the European Union, is a free-trade agreement with 11 other countries. Drafts of the agreement (which hasn't been made fully public) mostly appear to be based on earlier US treaties.

Among the benefits for Americans: TPP would eliminate tariffs American manufacturers face now, entirely, and would eliminate almost all of them for American agricultural products -- so US goods would be able to be sold for less money overseas without losing profits. It expedites customs procedures in ways that experts say will be particularly beneficial to small businesses.

TPP also requires countries to have laws in place against child and forced labor, political corruption, and employment discrimination.

TPP has been criticized (by Paul Krugman, for example) for having too-strong patent protections, which might cause increases in drug prices.

What I expect most Trumpites hate about it is that it requires countries to allow collective bargaining, and puts in place environmental protections.

Trump is not the only person concerned about TPP; Elizabeth Warren, who I wish would run for president, is against it, as was Bernie Sanders. The controversial provision Warren seems most against is the provision that allows investors to sue countries for violations of the treaty. The International Bar Association says that countries win most of those cases and that very few are brought by multinational corporations.

A couple of key points: we are a member of the World Trade Organization, which in many ways is more powerful than TPP would be. The World Trade Organization can, for example, invalidate our laws if they conflict with trade agreements. And our trade agreements are byzantine, so much so that boiling them down to talking points is ludicrous. Consider, as one point, that for 10 years we had a trade dispute with Brazil over cotton, a dispute that developed after Brazil sued us in the WTO and won $830,000,000 in penalties. The dispute was over cotton subsidies we paid our farmers, and we settled it by paying $300,000,000 to Brazil -- a payment we made to win the right to continue paying our farmers to grow cotton.

I am in favor of free trade. Free commerce brings a better quality of life to everyone.