Is Air Travel Back? Not For Me

I've only been to the Bahamas once; I didn't like it. The trip was to visit the legendary, now shuttered, Compass Point Studios in Nassau, where one of our bands, the Ocean Blue, was recording Beneath the Rhythm and Sound late in the summer of 1993. It was a difficult time for the band, who came from a very conservative religious fundamentalist background and had been coming to grips with the fact that one of its key members had decided to eschew the closet and embrace his homosexuality. He had written the band's only real hit and was the member most liked by the media. But the other band members-- who had once all given each other copies of the newly released Rush Limbaugh book as Christmas presents-- couldn't come to terms with one of them being gay. They told him he had to stop talking with the media and representing the band. And then they told him that Beneath the Rhythm and Sound would be the last time they would be working together, after having been friends since childhood.

I was unaware of that when I got to Nassau for the album playback. Afterwards the studio managers had a barbeque at the pool as a kind of celebration. Suddenly their 5 year old son was nowhere to be seen. Then he was seen-- at the bottom of the pool. Steve, the Ocean Blue member being thrown out of the band, had been a lifeguard. He dove in, rescued the kid and resuscitated him... tears of joy everywhere. One of the other band members came over to me. He seemed confused. "How," he asked me, seriously, referring to Steve, "could he be doing Satan's work and God's work at the same time?"

The was both the Ocean Blue's last album for Sire Records and my last visit to the Bahamas, forever tainted in my mind by the whole drama. And I'm not a big fan of beach resort places. There have been 103 COVID cases and 11 deaths, just 262 cases per million people, extremely low. The least impacted U.S. states have far more cases per million:

• Alaska- 904 per million
• Montana- 570 per million
• Hawaii- 514 per million

In fact, the Bahamas are doing so well that they're reopening for business July1. The government will allow commercial airlines, hotels and vacation rentals as well as taxis and buses. But... pre-travel requirements include:

• COVID-19 RT-PCR negative test result no older than 10 days, ready to be handed to Customs & Immigration officials upon arrival.
• Customs & Immigration forms that must be filled out and printed prior to arrival.
• A Travel Health Card that must be filled out prior to travel.

There are lots of safety requirements for tourists-- temperature screenings at places such as airports; beach chairs spaced 6 feet apart; and no more buffets at resorts. Incoming travelers are will be advised to adhere to social distancing guidelines and to routinely bring face masks just as they would bring their swimsuits and sunscreen."

According the USA Today, "Bahamians derive the bulk of their income from tourism. Fishing, diving and soaking up the sun reportedly generates $5.7 billion for the economy. In 2018, over 590,000 boaters visited the Bahamas. About 3.2 million tourists were from the U.S., contributing an estimated $1.3 billion to the economy.

The Prime Minister announced the opening will be reversed if cases spike: "It will be adjusted if we see a deterioration of the COVID-19 infection trends or if we’ve determined that the protocols and procedures are not in place sufficiently to warrant this opening."

Badge of Honor by Nancy Ohanian

The airlines were so desperate for customers that they refused to ban traveller who wouldn't wear masks, endangering the other passengers and the staff. This afternoon, the Washington Post reported this might change. "Airlines for America, a trade organization, said a group of major American airlines will begin 'vigorously' enforcing face-covering policies after reports of travelers not being held to the safety standard. Last month, several airlines acknowledged that they had told crew members to avoid escalating any confrontations in the air over mask violations and described various levels of enforcement. Delta, Southwest, United Airlines, American Airlines, JetBlue and others will 'clearly articulate' their face-covering policy to passengers and may require customers to acknowledge the policy at check-in, the association announced Monday on behalf of the member companies. If passengers don’t comply, carriers can implement their own consequences, which could include suspension of flying privileges. 'U.S. airlines are very serious about requiring face coverings on their flights,' Nicholas E. Calio, the group’s president and chief executive, wrote in the statement. That's completely and demonstrably untrue and anyone who catches COVID on a plane would have to be crazy not to sue the airline. Also noteworthy: "The use of face masks at airports has been sporadic, according to reports from across the country."

Anyone thinking about boarding a plane for Tulsa this week to attend the COVID-spreading Trump rally there? I'd advise against it; just drink the bleach. Alan Grayson watches air travel carefully and has been telling me there are just 20% of flights taking off these days compared to last year. Last week he sent me this e-mail: "Down 81% yesterday from a year ago."

He started on March 22 but I couldn't figure out how to take a photo of his chart that was that long. The low point was on my sister's birthday, April 16: 95,085 flights vs. 2,616,158 flights the year before (approximately 3.6%). It's been slowly ticking up since.

Yesterday, Josh Barro, writing for New York Magazine, noted that Air Travel Is Rebounding Strongly-- But Likely To Remain Well Below Pre-COVID Levels. "Air travel," he wrote, "is coming back." Really? I don't recall a summer I haven't been abroad since... 1968. I'm a frequent flyer and I can't imagine getting on a plane, as much as I might want to be in Bali or the Dordogne region of France, where we were planning to spend June.

Barro wrote that last Thursday the TSA "screened 502,000 passengers, the first time travelers throughout have exceeded half a million since March 21. By ordinary measures, this is dismal volume-- on a typical spring day last year, between 2 million and 2.5 million passengers passed through TSA checkpoints-- but it’s way up from the depths of April, when there were several days with fewer than 100,000 travelers, volumes not typically seen since the 1950s.

Airlines have been responding to this trend by beefing up their schedules, especially for domestic travel. American Airlines announced earlier this month that its domestic schedule for July will offer 45 percent less capacity than last July’s-- for comparison, May’s domestic schedule entailed an 80 percent year-over-year reduction. Rising passenger volumes also mean airlines have been losing less money every day than they expected to lose as of April, one of the factors recently pushing up airline stock prices (though they are down Monday morning).

As with so much of the economy, a key question for the airline industry is how long this better-than-expected trend will continue. A fraction of customers are demonstrating their eagerness to resume travel as soon as it is feasible. Forty-four percent of respondents to an ABC–Ipsos poll conducted this week said they were willing to fly at this time-- up from 29 percent in May, but still seriously depressed. And travel volumes are not just a question of willingness, but also of interest. Certain activities that motivate air travel-- conventions, weddings, festivals, nightlife, sporting events, even business meetings-- are unlikely to return in force until there is a widely distributed vaccine or a highly effective therapeutic treatment. And while consumers have been surprisingly eager to spend in certain areas, consumers whose own jobs and businesses are slow to return to normal may be disinclined to spend on leisure travel. Businesses dealing with lost revenues have found cessation of business travel to be one important area of cost reduction and may themselves be slow to resume it.

For this reason, airlines have been signaling to their workers that some fraction of the current service reductions are likely to be persistent-- and will require a permanent shrinking of aircraft fleets and of staffing. CARES Act financial subsidies generally require airlines to maintain staffing levels through September 30, but airlines have been warning of potential layoffs after that and have been offering voluntary buyouts and early retirement packages to workers. One common feature of these offers has been letting workers retain free-flying benefits for extended periods after leaving their jobs-- a benefit that may be more valuable in upcoming years if planes have more unsold seats available for nonrevenue travel.

Airlines are doing their part to lure customers back. American says this will be the “summer of deals,” and there are a lot of low airfares out there. But I can’t stop thinking about something the economist Jason Furman pointed out to me last month about airfares in the time of the coronavirus and “hedonic adjustments.” Hedonic adjustment is the process of accounting for changes in product and service quality when calculating inflation. If the new iPhone has a better battery life than the old iPhone, then part of the phone-price increase should be attributed to improved quality, not inflation. So how should we think about the changing quality of air travel-- if there are no restaurants open in New York, no Broadway shows, nobody willing to take an in-person business meeting with you, doesn’t that all reduce the product quality of a plane ticket to New York? Add the increased difficulty of getting a decent cocktail at the airport and the risk of contracting a deadly disease, and it’s easy to see why it’s so hard to sell airline tickets right now. Just because something is cheap doesn’t mean it’s a deal. And some of those factors reducing the quality of air travel are likely to persist for a year or longer.

The CARES Act was designed to prevent the airlines from shrinking in an undesirable way-- from running out of money this spring or summer, laying off staff and shedding planes for which demand would return by this fall. And as we see, some of that demand is returning pretty robustly. But part of what we are seeing is a longer-run drop in demand that will require a materially smaller airline sector for a period of several years as the economy recovers. Over the rest of the year we will get a better sense of how large a part that is that won’t return soon.

Ryan Sees His Ultimate Goal As Achievable-- The Obliteration Of Social Security And Medicare

I know, I know... everyone hates Nancy Pelosi these days... and there are lots of reasons to disparage her (especially as relates to the way she's run the DCCC into the ground since taking it over and appointing one disaster after another to run it for her). But, honestly, she has been quite masterful in her main job as House Minority Leader and it boggles the mind at how she's smoothly managed to hold the entire usually fractious caucus together on the spate of recent tough votes-- like the GOP Tax Scam. Not even the worst and most Republican-oriented crap Blue Dogs like Kyrsten Sinema (AZ), Jim Costa (CA), Henry Cuellar (TX), Stephanie Murphy (FL), Charlie Crist (FL), Josh Gottheimer (NJ), Collin Peterson (MN), Dan Lipinski (IL) and Tom O'Halleran (AZ)-- have made their usual moves to cross the aisle to the Republican side during the most recent series of roll calls. Bravo, Nancy!

On Friday night, though, I noticed some defections from the Democrats in the Senate. When Bernie introduced an amendment to the GOP Tax Scam that would prevent the Republicans from cutting Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid benefits without a two-thirds vote, it failed 46-54. Needless to say, every single Republican scumbag-- including the fake "moderates" like Collins, Murkowski and McCain-- voted NO... but so did 3 Democrats. One of the Democrats, Dick Durbin (IL), a Sanders ally, voted NO for procedural reasons. Knowing it was about to fail, Durbin took advantage of a Roberts Rules of Order point that will allow someone on the winning side to move to bring the amendment back for consideration at a later date. So... good for Durbin. The other two Democrats-- arch-conservatives Mark Warner (VA) and Tom Carper (DE)-- are just... conservatives who disagree with Bernie and agree with the Republicans-- kind of that simple.

But is an attack on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid really something to be worrying about now? You bet it is. Look at the video up top for how easy it was for Bernie to get Wall Street whores Pat Toomey (R-PA) and Marco Rubio (R-FL) to admit that they plan to wreck the program for future generations. And look at the crap bill the Republicans just passed through both Houses of Congress, despite it's approval by only a quarter of American voters!

American voters disapprove 52 - 25 percent of the Republican tax plan. Republican voters approve 60 - 15 percent, with 26 percent undecided. All other party, gender, education, age and racial groups disapprove.

The wealthy would mainly benefit from this tax plan, 61 percent of American voters say, while 24 percent say the middle class will mainly benefit and 6 percent say low-income people would mainly benefit.

American voters say 59 - 33 percent that the Republican tax plan favors the rich at the expense of the middle class.

Only 16 percent of American voters say the Republican tax plan will reduce their taxes, while 35 percent of voters say it will increase their taxes and 36 percent say it won't have much impact on their taxes.

Only 36 percent of voters believe the GOP tax plan will lead to an increase in jobs and economic growth, while 52 percent do not believe it.

They have the feeling they can do whatever they want now-- and it's no secret what Speaker Paul Ryan wants. Last month he told his caucus that he wants Republicans to focus in 2018 on reducing spending on government programs. Trumpanzee followed up by declaring that welfare reform will "take place right after taxes, very soon."

As Republicans advocate spending cuts, they have frequently cited a need to reduce the national deficit while growing the economy.

“You also have to bring spending under control. And not discretionary spending. That isn’t the driver of our debt. The driver of our debt is the structure of Social Security and Medicare for future beneficiaries,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) said this week.

While whipping votes for a GOP tax bill on Thursday, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-UT) attacked “liberal programs” for the poor and said Congress needed to stop wasting Americans’ money.

“We’re spending ourselves into bankruptcy,” Hatch said. “Now, let’s just be honest about it: We’re in trouble. This country is in deep debt. You don’t help the poor by not solving the problems of debt, and you don’t help the poor by continually pushing more and more liberal programs through.”

The GOP tax bill currently under consideration in the Senate would increase the federal deficit by nearly $1.5 trillion over a decade, according to Congress’s official tax analysts and multiple other nonpartisan analysts. When economic growth the measure could create is included in the analysis, Congress’s official tax scorekeeper predicted the bill would still add $1 trillion to the deficit over 10 years.

Trump has not clarified which specific programs would be affected by the proposed “welfare reform.”

During the presidential campaign, Trump vowed that there would be “no cuts” to Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid, although the president has reversed many of his economic campaign promises since taking office.

The remarks from leading Republicans have fueled a growing fear among liberals that the GOP will use higher deficits-- in part caused by their tax bill-- as a pretext to accomplish the long-held conservative policy objective of cutting government health-care and social-service spending, which the left believes would hit the poor the hardest.

“What’s coming next is all too predictable: The deficit hawks will come flying back after this bill becomes law,” said Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) the ranking Democrat on the finance committee. “Republicans are already saying ‘entitlement reform’ and ‘welfare reform’ are next up on the docket. But nobody should be fooled-- that’s just code for attacks on Medicaid, on Medicare, on Social Security, on anti-hunger programs.”

On the Senate floor Thursday night, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) asked Rubio and Sen. Patrick Toomey (R-PA) to promise that Republicans would not advance cuts to Medicare and Social Security after their tax bill. Toomey said that there was “no secret plan” to do so, while Rubio said he opposed cuts to either program for current beneficiaries. However, neither closed the door to changing the programs for future beneficiaries.

“I am not going to support any cuts to people who are on the program and need those benefits. But I want this program to survive,” Toomey said. To which Sanders responded: “He just told you he’s going to cut Social Security.”

Many conservatives have long argued for cutting and changing social safety net programs, arguing that anti-poverty programs have failed and that Social Security spending is growing at an unsustainable rate.

Still, members of both parties have long been reticent to cut benefits, especially for seniors, due in part to the potential political cost of doing so. And in discussing changes, Republicans, including Rubio, have largely confined their ideas to plans that would affect new beneficiaries, rather than current ones.

Still, it may be particularly difficult for Republicans to push those measures before the 2018 midterm elections, in which many in swing states and districts face well-funded Democratic challengers hoping to ride an anti-Trump wave into office.

And don't forget, when Trump signs the tax scam $400 billion is automatically cut from Medicare. And with him in the White House the Republicans can pretty much destroy Medicaid entirely through more of his executive actions. They'll call that "saving" or "improving" the programs. It will be up to voters in the 2018 midterms to decide if they understand what that means and how it will impact their children and grandchildren and our country. Conservatives and the Republican Party in particular have always been-- and will always be-- obsessed with destroying the social safety net. It's time to wipe them out at the ballot box-- starting with Paul Ryan in Wisconsin and going right down the list of every conservative-- again, particularly Republicans-- in the House. We can start the process in 2018 and finish it in 2020. See that ActBlue thermometer on the right? You can contribute to the campaigns of progressive Democrats like Randy Bryce (running against Ryan), Jenny Marshall (running against Virginia Foxx in North Carolina), Doug Applegate (running against Darrell Issa in California), Sam Jammal (running against Ed Royce in California), Jared Golden (running against Bruce Poliquin in Maine), Marie Newman (running against Blue Dog/GOP-enabler Dan Lipinski in Chicago), Lillian Salerno (running against Pete Sessions in Texas) and so on. Just click on the thermometer to see the whole list.

Paul Kantner-- On To The Next Gig

Paul Kanter and Grace Slick and their daughter, China

I didn't know we had computers back then and I'm sure Mitchel Cohen has the date wrong as well, but this was waiting in my inbox yesterday when I woke up:

Yet more awful news. The Airplane was my favorite rock band. My first date-- a "computer date" at Stony Brook when I was 17-- was to see the Airplane live in the Stony Brook gym in 1966. (Don't ask about the brilliant computer match-up).

It was actually 1967. How do I know? I was the chairman of the Student Activities Board at Stony Brook and I booked the show. It was February 18, 1967-- 2 days before my 19th birthday. Sandy Pearlman had originally turned me on to the band's pre-Grace Slick first album, Jefferson Airplane Takes Off, which featured Signe Anderson. [UPDATE: Signe died the same day as Paul.] Many of the San Francisco bands were doing "Let's Get Together," which had first been released in 1964 by the Kingston Trio, then by the We Five in 1965 and then by the Airplane in 1966. The following year, The Youngbloods had a big hit with it. Here's the Airplane's version, sung by Paul Kantner, Signe Anderson and Marty Balin.



It was one of the songs I listened to a lot in my freshman year at college and on one of my trips to San Francisco to pick up marijuana I met concert promoter and Airplane manager Bill Graham who started sending me live tapes of the San Francisco bands I could play on my WUSB overnight radio show. I was hanging out in Manhattan a lot, at the Cafe Au Go Go, and I made a deal with Howard Solomon, the owner, that we would book cool bands together. I would get a Friday or Saturday night for Stony Brook and he would have the rest of the week. That's how I wound up with the Airplane on their first trip to the East Coast, a week or so after the release of their groundbreaking second album, Surrealistic Pillow. "Somebody to Love" and then "White Rabbit" where huge counterculture hits but the song I liked most was one of the songs Paul wrote with Marty Balin, "Today."



Paul had really started the band and he was the most outgoing of the members when I met them. I had been kicked off campus and out of the dorms for selling drugs and lived down Nichols Road in a suburban track development, Strathmore, where I was renting a room in a split level house with 5 or 6 girls who took care of me. The Airplane bus parked in front and they all crashed on the floor and I turned them on to my favorite album, the Classical Music of Pakistan by qawwali singers Salamat and Nazakat Ali. This was the song, influences from which showed up a few years later on another album. A lot of pot was smoked and after the concert, I went with Paul and Marty, Bill Graham and Sandy Pearlman to Ratner's Deli on Second Avenue in the East Village for some food. Timothy Leary had given me a tab of acid when he spoke at the school a couple months earlier-- cool speakers series, huh?-- and I had saved it and taken it that night-- my first acid trip. Maybe that's why I wound up bonding with Paul so strongly. I had hired the Daily Flash, a Seattle band that was playing in my friend Brad Pierce's club, Ondine's, under the 59th Street Bridge, to open the show. They were ok. The Airplane, though, was great that night so it didn't matter. The show was in the gym and it was free for students and, I think, $5.00 to non-students. Good crowd but not sold out. Other than a private RCA promotional show at Webster Hall in Manhattan a month earlier, it was the Airplane's first East Coast gig.

Many years later-- after a trek to Pakistan to meet Salamat and Nazakat (who weren't in the village in the mountains near Lahore when I got there) and a few years living in Europe-- I moved to San Francisco and renewed my friendship with Paul. He was one of the few guys from the psychedelic scene, passé by then, who understood and enjoyed the deep connection to the new punk rock scene that was starting up in the late 70's. Paul became a Mabuhay Gardens regular. He taught me how to make myself invisible and blend into a crowd. It was great for not attracting unwanted attention from fans and for getting into places for free.

Years later, another one of the Airplane guys, bassist Jack Cassidy, started a punk band, SVT, and I put his record out on my label. I never had any business dealings with Paul, just a strong bond, a lot of respect and admiration and a warm friendship. Paul had a heart attack early in the week and died Thursday from organ failure caused by septic shock. He was 74. He had three children, China, Gareth and Alexander and a couple of grandchildren.

Don't Count On Seeing Poor Ole Bob Barr Back In Congress

Phil Gingrey represents Georgia's 11th congressional district, mostly Atlanta suburbs in Cobb, Bartow, Fulton and Cherokee counties. It includes all of Marietta, the east side of Smyrna, and part of Atlanta's upscale/uptown Buckhead neighborhood (the Beverly Hills of the South). The PVI is R+19 and the only part of the district even remotely competitive for Democrats-- and only remotely-- is the Cobb County section. The current congressman is far right extremist-- and crackpot-- Phil Gingrey and he won reelection last cycle 196,968 (68.6%) to 90,353 (31.4%), beating his unknown, unfunded Democratic challenger by 70% or better in Bartow, Cherokee and Fulton counties but with "only" 60% in Cobb.

Gingrey gave up his seat to run for Senate. He got trounced in the primary, coming in 4th, nosing out even further right-wing extremist congressman Paul Broun. Now both are out of their jobs.

• David Perdue- 185,466 (30.64%)
• Jack Kingston- 156,157 (25.80%)
• Karen Handel- 132,944 (21.96%)
• Phil Gingrey- 60,735 (10.03%)
• Paul Broun- 58,297 (9.63%)

The new congressmen will be determined by Republican runoffs on July 22. Broun's replacement will be either Mike Collins, son of ex-Congressman Mac Collins, or a crazed teabagger and Hate Talk Radio host and Baptist preacher Jody Hice. They were virtually tied in the primary, Collins 17,378 (33.5%) to Hice 17,108 (33.0%) out of 51,876 votes cast. Both are extremists and the "establishment" candidate, Collins, has been endorsed by Rick Santorum.

The race for Gingrey's seat is more interesting because it includes always controversial ex-CIA agent and former Congressman Bob Barr, the guy in the two videos up top. Last I had heard was that Barr had quit the GOP to become a Libertarian. He ran as their 2008 nominee for president, coming in 4th-- with 523,715 votes (0.40%)-- behind Barack Obama, John McCain and Ralph Nader. His best performance was in Indiana, where he got 29,257 votes (1.06%), followed by his native Georgia, where he took 28,731 votes (0.73%). In 2012 he split with the Libertarians and endowed Newt Gingrich for president instead of Ron Paul and rejoined the GOP.

Barr, another standard issue delusional Republican devotee of Ayn Rand's, was appointed U.S. Attorney for Northern Georgia by Reagan after his stint with the CIA. He successfully prosecuted Republican Congressman Pat Swindall for campaign finance fraud and perjury, sending Swindall to prison and handing the district over to the Democrats. Barr then represented GA-07 from 1995-2003 and is best known as one of the more obnoxious and deranged of the Clinton impeachment managers. The other thing he was famous for was being an anti-marijuana fanatic, although he later became a lobbyist for the Marijuana Policy Project and is now adamantly pro-pot (unless he changed his mind again). He was the author of the notoriously homophobic Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and he has since apologized for having done that and is now pro-marriage equality and says he would vote to repeal DOMA. Loudermilk is painting him as an untrustworthy flip-flopper and it's working and will probably win Loudermilk the seat.

Barr came in second in the May 20th primary and will now face state Senator Barry Loudermilk in the runoff. Loudermilk has been endorsed by Club for Growth, RedState, FreedomWorks, the Madison Project and Georgia Right to Life. Barr has been endorsed by Tom Tancredo, Richard Viguerie and Gun Owners of America. These were the primary totals:

• Barry Loudermilk- 20,708 (36.6%)
• Bob Barr- 14,596 (25.8%)
• Tricia Pridemore- 9,655 (17.1%)
• Edward Lindsey- 8,389 (14.8%)
• Larry Mrozinski- 2,277 (4%)
• Allan Levene- 959 (1.7%)

Barr, who accepts contributions in BitCoin (as well as real money), has raised $683,795 and reported $96,425 cash-on-hand as of April 30. Loudermilk raised $449,054 and had $89,882 cash-on-hand on April 30. So far FreedomWorks, the Senate Conservatives Fund and Club for Growth have put in a total of $34,768 on behalf of Loudermilk. This kind of zombie-stupid, rote, right-wing yawnathon of an ad still excites deluded Georgia voters:



There's been some back and forth about Loudermilk claiming he was a fighter pilot-- he wasn't-- but it probably won't lose him the runoff. To show he can be as amusing as Barr, if he wanted to lie about his background, he could have claimed he was the son of Nashville songwriter John D. Loudermilk. This wasn't even his biggest song but "Tobacco Road" was a hit for the Nashville Teens, Jefferson Airplane, The Animals, Edgar Winter, Lou Rawls, Spooky Tooth, Status Quo, David Lee Roth, and the Blues Magoos. My fave: