The Biden-Harris Plan for Covid Recovery Is Not the Biden-Harris Plan You Voted For

The Biden-Harris Covid Advisory Council

by Thomas Neuburger

The new, improved transition version of the [Biden-Harris Covid plan] is so threadbare compared to the extensive, full bore assault campaign version that the shared elements are few and far between.
     —Yves Smith, Naked Capitalism
 

I have remarked privately and worried publicly that Joe Biden's Covid proposals would not pass two critical marks — free treatment for all, and free vaccines for all (see "When Should the War Against Biden's Neoliberalism Begin?").

About the vaccine in particular, I wrote, "It's impossible, on moral or practical grounds, to make the case that during a global pandemic (a) the price should be a multiple of the cost of manufacture; and (b) any user should spend a single dollar to receive it." The same applies to the cost of treatment.

Yet that case looks like it's about to be made, especially about the cost of treatment. Thanks to this excellent examination by Yves Smith at Naked Capitalism, "Quick Comments on the Biden-Harris Covid Plan: Not Much Sizzle and No Steak," we have some insight into the many differences between the Covid plan that was advertised on the campaign website and what's being touted today:

First, this new plan isn’t the same as the one on the Biden campaign site. The campaign version had no mention of contact tracing, while this iteration does. But if you simply skim the campaign version versus the president-presumptive one, you’ll see tons of program proposals from the campaign have vanished, like emergency paid leave (with reimbursements to employers), income support for gig workers whose pay has declined, rental assistance, and support for small businesses.

The campaign plan also had sweeping promises about paying for all Covid treatments, not just testing. For instance, this section, by using the term “balance billing” clearly meant it included hospitalizations and emergency room visits ... There’s not a peep about any of this in the new version. ...

The lack of financial support for workers to stay at home because they are sick, quarantined, or just waiting for test results makes it difficult to treat this scheme as serious. And the failure to even ask for the government to cover all Covid treatment costs, not just the kind that can be administered with a needle means a lot of people who have or think they have Covid won’t seek treatment until they are really really ill, increasing the load on hospitals and producing worse outcomes.

About the cost of drugs, Matt Taibbi caught this clever price positioning by the CEO of Gilead, makers of remdesivir. First, he implied that remdesivir was worth $48,000 per treatment because "earlier hospital discharge would result in hospital savings of approximately $12,000 per patient," which Taibbi takes to mean $12,000 per day multiplied by four, the number of days earlier than normal that remdesivir-treated patients were released on average.

But Gilead, says Taibbi, was inclined to be generous and reduce the price to "a measly $3,120 per patient." Keep that $3,000 per patient number in mind.

About vaccine pricing, I see three ways a Biden-Harris plan might go:

1. The government will provide the vaccine for free to all and buy it at near cost from the manufacturer, saving lots of government money.

2. The government will provide the vaccine for free to all, but reimburse the manufacturer at near-retail prices, spending lots of government money.

3. Vaccine recipients will be charged a co-pay to offset the cost to the government of reimbursing the manufacturer at near-retail prices, spending lots of government money, but less of it. 

Since option one is actually a Sanders plan, I don't hold much hope that it will be chosen. So keep your eye on the amount of money that passes from the government to whichever drug manufacturer hits the jackpot. Billions will be a low estimate. 

More than 300 million people live in the U.S. At "just" $100 per dose, that's $30 billion dollars, not counting redosage income. And why, with a compliant government paying the bill, would the manufacturer stop at $100 per dose? Gilead's CEO counts himself generous for charging a mere $3,000 per patient for remdesivir.

Multiply $3,000, or even $1,000, times 300 million. Jackpot indeed.

_____ 

(For those who like my work, I've launched a Substack site. You can get more information here. If you decide to sign up — it's free — my thanks to you!)

Notes on a World Without Trump

by Thomas Neuburger

I’m working on a book-length project that includes a look at our soon-to-be post-Trump world. These are preliminary notes for that part of the project.

1. The World Without Trump won’t be a world without Trump. (For the exception, see below.) 

Trump will not go away. He'll persist as a pest that’s driven from the desk but not from the room he’s in. His most likely course of action is to go loudly into that good night, keep frothing and fomenting his base, selling his products and shtick, cashing his cachet as former U.S. president, and roiling the Democrat-controlled government to the greatest extent he can.

Trump will be a thorn in the nation’s side — and a profit center for mainstream media — until he dies, at which point his state funeral will be something indeed to behold. 

Trump will always be with us. I would not underestimate his effect. It will pull any Democratic government to the right for as long as his presence persists and the elite media promotes it.

Exception: The only way this won’t be true is if the Democratic Party cuts a no-prosecution deal with Trump that Democratic state attorneys general decide honor — in which case Trump will go tweetless for the rest of his life. 

If the Democratic Party doesn’t cut a no-prosecution deal with Trump, yet no prosecutions emerge anyway because Democrats continue to be members of the “elites don’t prosecute elites” club, Trump is home free. As I wrote when George H.W. Bush died:

Those who run the world we merely inhabit have nothing but respect for each other. And why not? They may pick each other off from time to time (both Saddam Hussein and Moamar Khaddafi were once in high favor), but over the long haul, keeping each member of the ruling circle in a reverential spotlight keeps them all — keeps the circle itself — in reverence as well. Since the circle operates as a system, the system is honored each time its members, no matter how deadly, are honored. And the system sees that the system is always honored.

If this is true, Trump may continue to be hated (Trump hate is still the Democratic Party brand and the media’s cash cow), but he won’t be prosecuted, for the same reasons that arguable-mass-murderer George W. Bush, who turned Iraq into a slaughterhouse, was never impeached in office, never indicted for war crimes after leaving it, and was eventually reborn and embraced by Democratic elites as one of their own as soon as his sins were safely “misremembered.”

2. The regime of soft censorship that kept Biden’s reputation afloat during the 2020 general election will continue. 

Matt Taibbi has been writing about this subject for a while. For example:

The flow of information in the United States has become so politicized -- bottlenecked by an increasingly brazen union of corporate press and tech platforms -- that it’s become impossible for American audiences to see news about certain topics absent thickets of propagandistic contextualizing. Try to look up anything about Burisma, Joe Biden, or Hunter Biden in English, and you’re likely to be shown a pile of “fact-checks” and explainers ahead of the raw information:

Other true information has been scrubbed or de-ranked, either by platforms or by a confederation of press outlets whose loyalty to the Democratic Party far now overshadows its obligations to inform.

Obviously, Fox is not much better, in terms of its willingness to report negative information about Trump and Republicans, but Fox doesn’t have the reach that this emerging partnership between mass media, law enforcement, and tech platforms does. That group’s reaction to the New York Post story is formalizing a decision to abandon the media’s old true/untrue standard for a different test that involves other, more politicized questions, like provenance and editorial intent.

The post-Trump media world will not, as I see it now, fundamentally alter the pattern it set in the soon-to-pass Never Trump era. Big tech platforms and media will continue to see that their loyalty to leaders of the Democratic Party trumps (to borrow a phrase) their obligation to inform the public. Having gone down the censorship road, what would cause them to turn back, especially if Trump, the expressed source of their concern, continues to bleat, media-enhanced, in the never-ending background?

The truth about Biden’s history is as “nuanced” and troubling as the truth about Trump’s. Having acquired the habit of burying it, why would they dig it back up? 

I would not underestimate the effect of this one either. Obama was protected by being Obama. Biden has been protected by everyone unconnected to Fox News and right-wing media. I expect this to continue — the Biden untouchability effect, if you will — for quite some time.

3. The madness that inflicts both political parties — their use of popular anger around identity and cultural issues to deflect from economic issues — will continue.

Let’s not be confused: The nation desperately needs to have a discussion about identity and cultural issues. Our history of violence, physical and economic, against the (usually impoverished) “other” needs urgent addressing, or the country will simply come apart. But that conversation cannot come as a substitute for addressing the underlying structural economic conditions that maintain our impoverishment. The next Trump rides to power on that wave of silence, just as the last one did.

My cynical self believes that mainstream Democratic power brokers are far less committed to actual identity issues (”Hillary-only feminism” is a prime example; more here and here) than they are committed to keeping their donors happy and thus keeping structural changes off the table. An insincere or semi-sincere commitment to addressing the nation’s real identity and cultural problems serves that purpose perfectly.

The same problem exists on the Republican side. The nation does need a serious discussion about immigration policy. For example, should global corporations be allowed to use the H1B visa program to replace well-paid American workers with lower-wage, imported intellectual workers whose visa status often makes them indentured servants of the corporations that employ them?

Mainstream Republican power brokers, however, are using immigration, as well as other identity issues, to keep race-hate and social anger high among their voting base, thus distracting supporters from the party’s fealty to its donor base. This fealty leads to policies similar to the Democratic Party’s policies — both produce more wealth for the global elites who fund them and less wealth for supporters that keep each party in power.

“Free trade” is a perfect example of a policy with bipartisan elite support, yet is never voluntarily discussed by each party’s movers and shakers. It’s not by accident that only Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump made “free trade” a cornerstone of their 2016 campaigns.

4. As we’ve been promised, “nothing will fundamentally change.”

It’s possible that Biden will prove fundamentally different than his 40-plus-year history of corporate allegiance would imply, that Biden will transform himself and “meet the moment.” Some writers certainly think so, and many of my progressive friends have grown quite hopeful.

Yet as I wrote the last time we took a look ahead, “In none of these cases will much of anything change after the election, at least not once Covid has run most of its course. The need for a radical restructured economy will be waved away — by the corporate Republicans as too much 'government interference'; by corporate Democrats, who control the post-Sanders Party, as 'irresponsible' and 'unaffordable' given the glut of spending on the virus crisis itself. ... Trump, if president, will do what Trump will do, or something worse. The Democrat, if president, will do what the Party always does, serve its donors while trying to placate workers they've abandoned. In neither case will workers see relief.”

Will Biden part the wealthy from their wealth? I just don’t see how, even if he’s magically transformed, Biden becomes Sanders or the next FDR — or if he does, how the Party won't simply block his every move. The Party spent the last 30 years frustrating and defeating progressives at every turn. If Biden becomes one — and though I’d love to see it, I think I’d be a fool to expect it — the Party will simply add him to the list of those whose policies they’ll die trying to defeat.

5. The rebellion against both parties’ corruption will continue as before — or as it would have done had the virus not taken its interrupting course. And as before, the soft censorship mentioned above will consign any real resistance to the crazy bin. 

If past is prologue, resistance not grounded in Party-favored identity issues will be painted as eccentric, or worse, a danger to the republic — with all that implies about populist promises broken, billionaire bailouts purchased and passed, and the clash of the newly-desperate against the muscular force of state and judicial machines, all charged with keeping the “peace” at the expense of progress.

6. Finally, the non-electoral portion of the evening (to steal a line from My Favorite Year) — of our decade-long, confused revolt against those who know better than the people what the people really need — I think that will begin in earnest.

With Sanders gone, or self-exiled, as an “existential threat” to Party elites, there’s no one of his stature to take that place, which leaves the ravaged with no good choice at all. If they choose to act anyway, the corporate state will do what it will do, what entrenched power always does when faced with a rebellion — bring in the thugs, many of whom wear badges. At some point that may not be enough and the nation will break. At another point, it could be way too much and the nation will break again, but in a different way. 

Thus the world without Trump begins to take shape. These are just first thoughts, and they only treat the opening part of the path we're starting on. The rest of that path may be just as predictable, but it’s going to take some time and thought to discern it.

  

2020 Could Be the Worst Year for Arctic Ice Ever (and Joe Biden Won't Ban Fracking)

The Laptev Sea, part of the Arctic Ocean

by Thomas Neuburger

        "Joe Biden will not ban fracking."
        —Kamala Harris, October 7, 2020

This is your friendly, periodic reminder that while Joe Biden dithers about fracking and support for fossil fuel, the planet is changing rapidly as we speak.

How rapidly? The planet is changing so fast that Biden may still be alive when the error of his ways becomes obvious to us all.

2020 Is Looking Like the Worst Year for Arctic Sea Ice Ever

Above is a map of the Laptev Sea, a part of the Arctic Ocean. The Laptev Sea is suffering the same fate as the rest of the Arctic — it's losing its ice at an alarming rate. As you can see from the graph below, 2020 is shaping up to be an unprecedented year — even surpassing in icelessness the previous worst year, 2018, marked in yellow. (Chart courtesy of climatologist Zach Labe.)

The same things is happening in the Siberian Sea (again the previous worst year, 2012, is marked in yellow):

Nothing even comes close to 2020 in our records for sea ice along the Siberian #Arctic...

[*Note that the basin is geographically constrained (same maximum sea ice cover = flat line)] pic.twitter.com/gFelUw3xSq

— Zack Labe (@ZLabe) October 21, 2020

 

This is, of course, a natural result of record high air temperatures over the Arctic:

 

Record high temperatures in the Siberian #Arctic over the last 3 months!

(and record low sea ice https://t.co/bwHNUDYmEL) pic.twitter.com/U4PfBmO15p

— Zack Labe (@ZLabe) October 20, 2020

 

Not only is the extent of sea ice rapidly diminishing; the volume of ice — which takes into account its thickness — is also shrinking to a shadow of its former self:

 

Climate Deniers Push Biden to Stay With Fracking for "Strong Environmental" Reasons

While this is going on, Team Biden is being lobbied (or quietly encouraging others to lobby them) to stay the course on fracking because fracking "could actually help the climate." You read that right. As a recent Politico piece argues, "abruptly ending fracking today would make [the] decarbonization process harder, not easier."

The Politico piece is propaganda (of course) written by two men associated with the Breakthrough Institute, an energy company-friendly think tank founded by known climate denier — and Republican-invited witness at the most recent House science hearing — Michael Shellenberger.

A sample from Shellenberger's House testimony: "If the Greenland ice sheet were to completely disintegrate, sea levels would rise by seven meters, but over a 1,000-year period. And for that to happen, temperatures would have to rise far more than anyone imagines." 

No, Mr. Shellenberger; if the Greenland ice sheet were to completely disintegrate — and it's disappearing 600% faster than models have predicted — global sea level would rise by seven meters within a few years or less, not ten centuries. If you fill a bathtub, it doesn't take a week for new water to reach the back. Water doesn't get stuck like that — it flows.

The end of winter Arctic ice is coming. Ten bad years could do it. Joe Biden may even live to see that day, especially if he helps cause it.

 

Chamber of Commerce Quietly Supports a United Government Led by Democrats

Saagar Enjeti explains the importance of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's quiet decision to back Democratic candidates 

by Thomas Neuburger

One of the more underappreciated pieces of news in a week that exploded with news — leak of Trump's taxes, the presidential debate, the presidential disease — was this, that a long-time strategist for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has resigned over the Chamber's decision to back 23 vulnerable House Democrats and to reduce financial support for Republican senatorial candidates.
From Politico:

Chamber of Commerce and top political strategist part ways amid turmoil

Scott Reed, who had been with the business organization for most of the past decade, said it was shifting toward Democrats. 

Scott Reed, the longtime top political strategist for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said Tuesday that he left the organization after a political shift at the business lobbying powerhouse.

The move comes amid mounting fears among Republicans — including many within the organization — that the traditionally conservative Chamber is moving to the left after endorsing roughly two dozen freshman House Democrats for reelection this year.

Reed explained his departure (the Chamber said he was "fired for cause") this way: "I can no longer be part of this institution as it moves left."

Putting aside the dispute over whether Reed left or was fired, there are two explanations for what the Chamber is doing, and they're not the same. Reed says he departed because the Chamber "moved left." The Politico slugline writer says more simply that the Chamber was "shifting toward Democrats." 

Needless to say, "moving left" is not the same as "supporting Democrats."
Ryan Grim, writing at The Intercept, calls the Chamber's transformation a "slow migration of the elite wing of the Republican Party into the Democratic fold." This seems a much better explanation. 

Hedging Their Bets or Trying to Influence the Outcome? 

As Rising's Saagar Enjeti noted in the video above, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which spends $100 million per year, is the largest lobbyist by far in the United States, doling out 30% more money than its nearest competitor. 

In the past, all or almost all of that money went to Republicans — 93%, for example, in 2010. This year the Chamber is not only supporting many more Democrats; it's supporting Democrats in a way that will make a difference in the partisan makeup of Congress. While the Chamber also supports House Republicans, the 29 House freshmen it is backing "are running in some of the most competitive races in the country, including 14 in districts won by President Donald Trump in 2016" according to CNN.

On the Senate side, the Chamber has greatly reduced its spending on vulnerable Republicans, including Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine). Politico notes that Reed's decision to resign "was linked to the Chamber’s unwillingness to spend significant money on Senate races in the closing days of the election" and adds that Ms. Collins is receiving "far less money in 2020 than ... in 2014, when [the Chamber] put tens of millions of dollars behind GOP Senate candidates."

Politico has Reed saying the Chamber is "hedging its bets." Voices on the libertarian right are much more virulent, calling this a "betrayal" and abandonment of "free market principles."  At the same time Republican leaders see the Chamber as, in House minority leader Kevin McCarthy's words, "part of this socialist agenda that is driving this country out, and ... fighting the president."

Those are angry, empty words. Biden to Trump at the first debate: "I am not a socialist." Progressives to world: "It's true. He's not. He's a moderate Republican."

Three Conclusions

From all this I think we can draw three conclusions, each leading to a different electoral thought.

First, that Ryan Grim is right when he says the elite wing of the Republican Party is being folded into the Democratic Party — not just in theory, but in practice, in dollars, as well. It's clear that the Chamber and those who give it their money have made the calculation, at least for this presidential cycle, that their interests will be genuinely served by a Biden White House and a unified Democratic Congress. 

In other words, they want a united government controlled by the Democratic Party. They know Trump is going to lose (Trump was scheduled to lose even before the recent Covid incident), and they're working to both maintain a Democratic House majority and to sabotage the current Republican Senate majority.

There's really no other way to read this news. 

Second, as stated above, the Chamber of Commerce and the big-league donors who support it know that a Biden White House and Democratic Congress will further their interest far more than a Trump-led divided or Republican government.

If the Chamber is right, progressives looking to "move Biden left" after the election, have their work cut out for them. The only "moving left" the administration will do is on identity issues. On issues involving money, it will "move left" only at the margins and for show. 

For example, will Biden ban fracking? Of course not; there are too many big-donor dollars (and banking dollars) involved in that industry. For all his recent words, Biden seeks a "middle ground" on climate issues. It's easy to promise carbon-free power by 2035," fifteen years into a future in which he'll be dead.

Finally, Biden will almost certainly be the next president. 

I mentioned a "Trump-led government" above for a reason. Earlier I wrote ("Civil War? What Civil War?") that almost everyone in the establishment regardless of party, from the military to the national security apparatus to the media to, now, the Chamber of Commerce, opposes a return of Donald Trump to the White House. While the Chamber's not working directly against him — that would be a bridge too far — they're not help out; in fact, they're working to give him a Congress he can't work with. 

The truth is this: Donald Trump is such a terrible, unpredictable and embarrassing steward of the American hegemony project that no one with Establishment power wants to see him back. #NeverTrumpers are just a tip of the Republican side of that iceberg. This "betrayal" by the Chamber of Commerce, one of the Republican Party's most stalwart and reliable supporters, strongly supports that contention. 

If this is true, it means I will be proved right in predicting the outcome of the coming election as follows:

• If Trump wins big, Trump's in.
• If Biden wins big, Biden's in.

But:

• If Trump is ahead in a squeaker and it goes to the courts, the Roberts Court will give the win to Biden unless there's no defensible way not to give it to Trump.
• If Biden is ahead in a squeaker and it goes to the courts, Biden will be handed the White House.

You can bet that if the election is closer than the number of disputed ballots in key electoral-college states, there will be a way to hand the election to whichever candidate the Roberts Court prefers. Will John Roberts, a Republican, give the election to MAGA Republicans or to Chamber Republicans, if he could pick one or the other? John Roberts is a Chamber Republican.

If you're worried about the 2000 election and you fear a Republican Court will back a Republican candidate, consider that George Bush was also the Establishment candidate. This time, the Establishment candidate is the Democrat.

Even if Amy Coney Barrett is confirmed this year, will she really want to oppose John Roberts in her first Supreme Court opinion ever, Roberts who will lead the institution she'll serve for the next 30 years of her life? If course not; there will be plenty of time for Amy Coney Barrett to screw the country later. Roberts will win the discussion, if he wants to, this time around.

Again, Trump is not the candidate of the oligarchy, of the small clutch of people who actually run the country. Biden is. In any close outcome, he has the edge. Biden will be the next president unless Trump wins by a significant margin — or dies and the rest of the country, including the Chamber of Commerce, falls suddenly in love with Mike Pence.
   

Civil War? What Civil War?

Boogaloo Boys. Are these people any match for the hegemonic state?

by Thomas Neuburger

"When the government watches you 24 hours a day, you can't use the word 'liberty.' That's the relationship between a master and a slave."
—Chris Hedges, speaking with Juliana Forlano

There's more in Julianna Forlano's Act.tv interview with Chris Hedges than I can do justice to in a short piece, but I will say he has all the answers; he's figured it out.

Forlano's questions are brilliant and she asks the right ones, from the meaning of the Assange extradition hearing to whether there will be a revolution in the U.S., what it will look like, and what the elite response will look like. His thoughts on the Sanders campaigns (both of them) are more nuanced than you might think based on Hedges' oft-played soundbites, and they make perfect sense.

Context is everything, and Chris Hedges comes to his analyses from the right set of contexts. If you stand on the earth and look at the planets, their motion makes no sense at all. If you stand on the sun, what the planets are doing is obvious.

The same with Hedges. When you start from his starting point, what you see around you soon becomes perfectly clear.

A New Totalitarian State or the One We Have Already?

But let's focus briefly on just one of the questions he was asked, about the possible emergence of a new, Trump-led totalitarian state, a possibility liberals and other Biden supporters are making much noise about these days. And like Hedges, let's start from the right starting point, which is this:

Biden is the candidate of the elites, of almost everyone who counts in America. For them, Trump is an aberration, a mole that must be removed.

If that isn't obvious, it should be — the evidence is everywhere, from all the non-Fox news sources, to the behavior most of our public figures, even to the behavior of a great many Republican leaders.

Given this as context, let's look at the possibility of a "descent into Trump-led totalitarianism" during and immediately following the next election. In short, will Trump seize power, dictator-like, to win and rule like Mussolini?

This is the Big Fear in Democratic eyes, the one we've been hearing about, week after week after week. It's possible, of course. But consider:

1. Trump doesn't have the backing of the military; they've made that perfectly clear. Without the military, the only possible coup will have to come from the courts.

2. Trump may have the instincts of a dictator, but he doesn't have the skills or the desire to put in the work. Frankly, if he really wanted to be a dictator, he'd be one already.

He's an egocentric, relatively mindless, easily distracted, lazy, unbright narcissist whose monomania is simply himself — the incoming adoration he basks in minute-to-minute; the minute-to-minute state of his pleasure; the joy he takes in disrupting any room he's in before he leaves it.

Sure he's a person like the rest of us in many ways — he's functional, or his kids would put him away — and he has a feral understanding of interpersonal dominance.

But he does wake up each day asking, "How can I be more like Mussolini?" It doesn't seem so. From all appearances, instead he wakes up asking, "How can I enjoy myself today? Where's my fun going to come from? Let's start with a couple hours of Fox, and see where things go from there."

3. Finally, as noted above, Trump is not the candidate of the oligarchy, of the American hegemonic state and most of its "private" organs like CNN and the mainstream press. Biden is their candidate, and it's been obvious since forever.

The oligarchy wants Trump gone, and wants it badly. The military wants him gone, the CIA wants him gone, the press wants him gone, the diplomatic service wants him gone, and most of the billionaires want him gone. Yes, some are neutral and a few, like Sheldon Adelson, are rabid supporters, but most of the rest — CEOs of Google, Apple, military and security companies like Raytheon and Boeing, and any business doing business in China — are truly set against him.

Bankers are perhaps agnostic about his election, but if they have pro-Trump preferences they can easily surrender them. After all, the bankers will make bundles either way. Same with the energy giants. Biden is talking a decent climate-change game, but his actions send messages everyone understands: "Fossil fuel profits are safe in my administration."

The risk that the Democratic Party will disrupt the Establishment game has been dispatched. They kicked Sanders and his people off the Interstate months ago. Let them complain; it's back roads for all of them now. As an alternative to Trump, the Party now offers a new Ronald Reagan, their sleepy iteration anyway, and they're begging Reagan voters to vote for him.

Who among those who matter could complain about that?

Battles in the Courts, Not in the Streets

With this new context in mind, let's look at the terror-porn fantasy, war in the streets with a Nazi Germany outcome, by considering these four cases.

• First, if Trump wins in a landslide, or at least by a comfortable margin, he's in. Democratic voters will take to the streets (they should), but it won't change the outcome. There will be hell to pay afterward — the country may well come apart — but that's a different story. (There will be hell to pay after this election no matter who wins it.)

• If Biden wins in a landslide, he's in and nothing can unseat him. The Boogaloo Boys may take to the streets, and if so, the cops will coddle them. But if protest turns into a battle between Boogaloos and Biden supporters, the state will eventually shut the whole thing down and let it die off, as it did with the left-inspired George Floyd protests.

• If Trump wins narrowly — by less than the number of disqualified ballots, for example — there will be disruption for a while, but then it will go to the courts, probably a whole series of them, state and federal. Public life will be messy and uncomfortable for a while and people will take to the streets.

But when the courts decide the outcome, it will be over. Someone, most likely not Trump, will be president, though a Trump win is possible.

Keep in mind, Trump is not the candidate of the oligarchy, of the small clutch of people who actually run the country. Biden is.

So Biden has the edge. If the presidency can be handed to Biden it will be. If it has to be handed to Trump, it will be, but not because the Boogaloos and their fascist cop friends let the streets run red with anger. It will be handed to Trump because Trump's case is too strong to overturn, even for the oligarchs.

And if you fear a Supreme Court coup like the one in 2000, ask yourself: Who was the candidate of the oligarchy in that election? Clearly it was Bush; even the mainstream press hated Gore, assigning his worst critics to cover his campaign. So of course when the Supreme Court decided in Bush's favor, there wasn't much fuss and enough affirmation that even the public stood down.

Yes, the Roberts Court is a right-wing court, but would even John Roberts, who sees as his primary mission "to protect the Court's legitimacy," let the Court rule for Trump if Biden's case was strong enough to go with and all the elites were solidly on his side?

It's possible, but I don't think so. Remember, most of the Republican powerful hate Trump as well, and the oligarchy's candidate is Biden. Republicans can take another shot in 2024, not that far away, and Biden in the meantime could prove useful.

In addition, a narrow Trump win will be questionable at best — it's already looking a bit rigged — and easy to overturn if one is inclined to. If the Court does decide against Biden, the reasons will have to be solid, since oligarchic thumbs, many on Republican hands, will be tilting scales toward Biden throughout the process.

Bottom line: Roberts is a Republican. Which Republican powers will he listen to?

• Finally, if Biden wins narrowly, he's in for sure. Again, it will take a bunch of court cases to sort it out, and the nation will look a bit of a mess for a while. But in the end, the candidate of the elites — the people with real power — just won't be denied, especially if the alternative is four more years of that "moron" Trump's sobriquet among most of them, including many who serve ostensibly work for him.

Yes, a close Biden win will spark a kind of war in the streets, at least for a while. But do you think the guardians of the state will let street punks, even their own street punks, put "that moron" back in power, when they have Joe Biden teed up and ready to go?

For the reasons noted above, I think even Justice Roberts will go along.

After Biden Wins

Biden was almost created for just this moment, to be the able caretaker of our predatory state at a time when most of the country would elect a stuffed doll just to be rid of Trump. In the short run at least, voters and elites alike just want someone to get the machine rolling again, regardless of what it does. With Biden in charge, the machine can shift back into high and return to course.

After our Trumpian nightmare, Biden looks like a dream. But not for long. Biden could bring his own nightmare. It's after Biden wins and rules for a while — shows his own destructive inclinations — that a real war could begin.

I'll make a prediction. After Biden takes power on behalf of the people he really represents — predatory elites who care only about themselves and will gladly let people sicken and die in droves so long as their profits are safe — the battle won't be oligarchs versus Trump. That day is done; our lazy, incompetent captain of the hegemonic ship will be gone for good.

Instead, the combatants will be Biden and the ruling elite ... against almost everyone else whose lives they control, citizens of a nation whose hurt they will never heal.

If you truly fear a modern civil war, fear it after the oligarchs retake control.

(Today's title, "Civil War? What Civil War?" echoes the title of this Nicole Sandler interview — "Crisis? What Crisis?" — in which Nicole and I discuss many of these same subjects. If you click to listen, the interview starts at the 26-minute mark.)
  
  

Trump's Eviction Moratorium Opens the Door for Medicare for All by Executive Order

Donald Trump declares a coronavirus national emergency on March 13, 2020 (source)

by Thomas Neuburger

On September 1, the Trump administration announced a nationwide moratorium on evictions to last until December 31, a full four months. The reason for the moratorium, according to a White House spokesman, was to make sure that people "struggling to pay rent due to the coronavirus will not have to worry about being evicted and risk the further spreading of, or exposure to, the disease."

The moratorium applies only to people "who would otherwise be eligible for federal stimulus funds in the previous CARES Act, which went only to people with certain tax income levels and citizenship status." The ban also requires that renters "self-certify" to become eligible. As Politico put it:

"The new ban covers tenants who certify that they have lost “substantial” income; that they expect to make no more than $99,000 in 2020 or received a stimulus check; and that they are making their “best efforts” to pay as much of their rent as they can. Tenants must also certify that an eviction would likely make them homeless or push them to double up with others in close quarters."

It should be noted that the ban does not cancel rental obligations; it just delays payment. Also, as the order itself states, "Nothing in this Order precludes the charging or collecting of fees, penalties, or interest as a result of the failure to pay rent or other housing payment on a timely basis, under the terms of any applicable contract."

As a solution, it's better than nothing, but it only defers the pain.

About Half of All Landlords Will Suffer Too

The order provides no funds for relief to landlords. For the many landlords who are, in fact, millionaires, billionaires, and large, well-funded corporations and venture capital firms, this may look to many like just desserts. For the other half of the landlord population, however, especially the minority who own just one or two rental properties, this could spell financial disaster as great as the disaster their tenants are facing.

It's hard to get figures for the breakdown of the wealth among landlords, but the industry-friendly article in Politico quoted above implies that the wealthy landlord group, while "a fraction of the market," is in fact almost half — which technically qualify as "a fraction," but a sizable one. The article states that "a little over half the rental housing in the country" consists of small properties with between one and four units per building — which means that a little under half of the market consists of large buildings.

The Politico article, clearly industry-sourced, then focuses on the suffering of a percentage of the percentage of small owners, ignoring completely the mega-owners, just as it ignores the suffering of the renters themselves, except to emphasize how many of them pose an economic danger to landlords. Still, small owners are left in the cold by the administration's ban, and their distress will be real.

What Makes This Declaration Legal?

The authority for this action comes from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the Surgeon General, who reports to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) — not from the Housing or the Treasury departments — and it's based on the stated need to prevent the spread of disease in a crisis.

The applicable language states (emphasis added):

[Title 42 U.S.C.] §264. Regulations to control communicable diseases
(a) Promulgation and enforcement by Surgeon General

The Surgeon General, with the approval of the Secretary, is authorized to make and enforce such regulations as in his judgment are necessary to prevent the introduction, transmission, or spread of communicable diseases from foreign countries into the States or possessions, or from one State or possession into any other State or possession. For purposes of carrying out and enforcing such regulations, the Surgeon General may provide for such inspection, fumigation, disinfection, sanitation, pest extermination, destruction of animals or articles found to be so infected or contaminated as to be sources of dangerous infection to human beings, and other measures, as in his judgment may be necessary.

This declaration and the unusual legal authority on which it is based has many important ramifications. For one, it opens the door for Medicare for All by executive order.

Ramifications of Trump's Moratorium

We can discuss Trump's action in several ways, each of which could become an essay on its own.

1. Clearly the primary reason for Trump's action is political. He wants people to feel like they are getting relief from him that they're not getting from Congress. In that, he's right. They are getting relief from him that they're not getting from Congress.

But in doing so, he's just kicked the can down the road until after the election, solving none of the underlying problems in doing so. Renters will still owe rent that they can't pay from income they don't have, and those small landlords with mortgages are still on the hook to their own creditors regardless of having been forced to keep non-paying tenants.

2. A much more reasonable action would be the obvious, socialist one — let government write checks to landlords on behalf of renters, then work out repayment (or debt forgiveness) schemes later.

Or better, let government cover the payrolls of businesses that are suffering or going under, then forgive what's owed later. After all, the root cause of the economic downturn is lost payrolls. As for repayment, this is an emergency after all, and FEMA doesn't send bills to those whose hardship it relieves. The money spent is just the cost of the crisis.

But that's a socialist, Sanders-like solution, and neither party wants any part of it. Thus the hesitation to act, the labyrinthine schemes, and the means-tested requirements and restrictions.

3. This action places Trump to the left of national Democrats on Covid relief. If he's smart (he's not), he'll stay to their left and offer all sorts of "socialist" (Sanders-like) solutions to the economic crisis — see below for a major one. After all, Trump ran the 2016 election on a Sanders-like platform — against NAFTA, against free trade, for infrastructure-as-stimulus, against the forever war, and so on.

If he's smart, he'll restart that campaign. But he's not smart.

4. The biggest thing Trump could do — and it would be a game-changer — is to use the authority he's has under "Title 42 U.S. Code § 1395rr–1 - Medicare coverage for individuals exposed to environmental health hazards" to provide Medicare coverage for everyone in the United States "exposed to environmental health hazards." Which in these Covid times ... is everyone.

He could do this tomorrow using executive authority, the same executive authority that underlies his eviction moratorium.

The applicable section of Title 42 allows for a "Pilot program for care of certain individuals residing in emergency declaration areas." That care can be defined as "access to all of Medicare":

(b) Pilot program for care of certain individuals residing in emergency declaration areas
(1) Program; purpose
(A) Primary pilot program

The Secretary shall establish a pilot program in accordance with this subsection to provide innovative approaches to furnishing comprehensive, coordinated, and cost-effective care under this subchapter to individuals described in paragraph (2)(A).

The Secretary of HHS could even use this law to create "optional pilot programs" to supplement regular (and in many ways, inefficient) Medicare:

(B) Optional pilot programs

The Secretary may establish a separate pilot program, in accordance with this subsection, with respect to each geographic area subject to an emergency declaration (other than the declaration of June 17, 2009), in order to furnish such comprehensive, coordinated and cost-effective care to individuals described in subparagraph (2)(B) who reside in each such area.

For this to work, an emergency declaration must have been declared, which it has.

Eligible individuals must meet the following criteria:

(A) In general An individual described in this paragraph is any individual who—
(i) is diagnosed with 1 or more conditions described in subparagraph (B);
(ii) as demonstrated in such manner as the Secretary determines appropriate, has been present for an aggregate total of 6 months in the geographic area subject to an emergency declaration specified in subsection (b)(2)(A)..."

While subsection (3)(B) applies to individuals with named diseases — asbestosis, mesothelioma, and the like — subsection (3)(C) allows this law to apply to an individual who "is diagnosed with a medical condition caused by the exposure of the individual to a public health hazard to which an emergency declaration applies, based on such medical conditions, diagnostic standards, and other criteria as the Secretary specifies."

In short:  

Trump could guarantee himself a second term if he applied this law in this way, to give the nation Medicare For All under executive order.

5. Finally, while I think it unlikely that Trump would take this avenue to gain an electoral victory, I nonetheless hope he does, for these three reasons.

First, it would give Medicare for All ... to all. That would be a huge progressive win in and of itself, a win we're not going to get under a Biden presidency without monster effort, and win we've been unable to achieve since the Truman administration.

Second, it would force Biden to match him or admit defeat on ideological grounds. That's a problem I would love for Biden to face.

An added benefit: Trump's support of Medicare for All takes all the burden of moving Biden left off of progressives and places it onto the Republicans, who would be playing an Ace if Biden doesn't play an Ace of his own. Let Republicans do the heavy threatening. This frees progressives to happily and genuinely support a compliant Biden (for a change).

Finally, for Biden to match Trump's offer of Medicare for All with his own would ensure a Biden victory, perhaps by a landslide. After all, Biden today is running, and possibly winning, on a single platform — not being Trump. Imagine his margin of victory if he ran on Medicare for All as well as not being Trump.

Trump wouldn't have a chance if Biden did that, and Biden would be hailed by history as the literal savior of this generation. That's a whole lot better than than the legacy he's now on track for — being the not-Trump slower-paced sinker of it.
  

When Should the War Against Biden's Neoliberalism Begin?

The plague doctor cometh, and he don't cometh cheap.

by Thomas Neuburger

A re-elected Trump will almost certainly be welcomed with a General Strike.
—Yours truly

Cynic that I am, I'm convinced that Biden will betray us the minute he's in office. OK, not the exact minute, but pretty soon thereafter.

His current campaign promises include...

• No ban on fracking.
• No Medicare for All.
• No withdrawal from Afghanistan (or anywhere else we're "at war")
• A "baby steps" Green New Deal that won't hurt his Big Oil donors.
• A return to austerity spending as soon as Covid allows.

...and a host of other travesties, indignities and tortures he plans to force on the plebs from his "practical, centrist" seat at the peak of power.

But the worst of his policies, one that's likely to come the soonest, involves Covid and its soon-to-be-produced vaccine.

In a moral world, the vaccine would be made free to the citizens of any nation with access to it. In a practical world, it would be given to everyone with an arm or hip capable of receiving the needle. How else can the virus be removed from the population, except by universal vaccination? This, for example, was how polio was wiped out — for years, every school child in America of a certain age was vaccinated for free.

The neoliberal world, however — the world of government-protected and government-supplied profit — is not a moral world. It's not even a practical world. Which means that biotech companies will vie with each other to soak the population of as many dollars as they can and withhold the vaccine from any who can't pay.

Gilead Floats a "Deal"

Consider this from Matt Taibbi, in a piece titled, "Big Pharma’s Covid-19 Profiteers: How the race to develop treatments and a vaccine will create a historic windfall for the industry — and everyone else will pay the price."

Daniel O'Day, the CEO of Gilead, makers of remdesivir, an already existing drug with promising Covid treatment possibilities, recently played a one-two game with what it thinks the drug's new pricing ought to be, assuming the approvals come in as expected.

Note the twisted logic he uses to get to his implied price — $48,000 per dose:

In a breezy open letter, Daniel O’Day explained how much his company planned on charging for a course of remdesivir, one of many possible treatments for Covid-19. “In the weeks since we learned of remdesivir’s potential against Covid-19, one topic has attracted more speculation than any other: what price we might set for the medicine,” O’Day wrote, before plunging into a masterpiece of corporate doublespeak.

The CEO noted a study by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, a division of the National Institutes of Health, showing that Covid-19 patients taking remdesivir recovered after 11 days, compared with 15 days for placebo takers. In the U.S., he wrote, “earlier hospital discharge would result in hospital savings of approximately $12,000 per patient.”

The hilarious implication seemed to be that by shortening hospital stays by four days on average, remdesivir was worth $48,000 a dose.

One, Gilead could charge $48,000 for the drug. But two, Gilead was inclined to be generous: "Although 'we can see the value that remdesivir provides' — i.e., we could have charged $48,000 per dose — Day wrote, 'we have decided to price remdesivir well below this value' ... a measly $3,120 per patient."

A great many drugs, new and repurposed, are swirling in the Covid world, some as treatments and some as vaccines. One of the latter, in fact, is Russian (perish the thought!) and according to The Lancet, the premier British medical journal, it may be promising.

If the vaccine proves effective, the Russians, just to piss us off, might even decide to make it available for free. But I don't think any Western-produced vaccine, or treatment, will be offered so generously.

Covid Treatments and Vaccines Should Be Free to the User

Yet it's impossible, on moral or practical grounds, to make the case, that during a global pandemic (a) the price should be a multiple of the cost of manufacture; and (b) any user should spend a single dollar to receive it.

This is a perfect place for government intervention into the "free" market (it's really a captive market) on behalf of the citizens it claims to represent and protect. First, any Covid vaccine or treatment should cost a fraction, not a multiple, above the cost of manufacture — i.e., profits should be kept low. And second, government should be the purchaser of these drugs, not the patient, and should provide them to patients for free.

At least one vaccine of decent effectiveness is likely to come, at latest, sometime next year, perhaps less than six months into Biden's first year in office. Treatments may come sooner than that. (By the way, there's a very promising avenue of treatment — with existing drugs and technology — outlined here.)

What Will a President Biden Do?

With hope in sight, what will a President Biden do? Will he serve his donors and his policy prejudices, as he always has, or serve the people who, however reluctantly, elected him?

Here's one answer. If the former — if he gouges the patient public to enrich drug companies like Gilead — or if he gouges the government and pays "full price" for drugs the government charges patients nothing for — he should be made to feel an amount of pain equivalent to that which he inflicts.

And he should be made to feel this pain even during his so-called "honeymoon," even while he's still celebrating his victory over the monster he replaced, if that's what he deserves.

To be more blunt: If on Day One a President Joe Biden enacts policies that in any way hamper full and complete relief from the suffering this nation has already endured under Trump, he should be welcomed as a second-term Trump will almost certainly be welcomed.

A re-elected Trump will almost certainly be welcomed with a General Strike. A Biden who refuses to heal the public for free should see the same welcome.

When should the war against Biden's neoliberal policies begin? On the first betrayal.
  

Thoughts on the "End of Oil"

by Thomas Neuburger

The phrase "the end is near" has overtones so cartoonish as to render it meaningless. Joke after joke has been built on this announcement, many of them excellent. One of my favorites is above; another is below:

But however much we laugh at these pronouncements, things do end — just not when we expect them to. We ourselves will end, as will our earth, swallowed, in five billion years or so, by an expanding, burning, dying sun, all to be returned to space dust from which something else will be made.

But is that end, or any of those ends, near? In the case of ourselves, we hope not. In the case of the earth, not likely. In the case of our species ... well, we'll have to see.

At some point, oil as a commodity will end. The question is, will it end prior to the end of civilized life, which may or may not be near, or will it cause the end of civilized life, in which case that end will be nearer than anyone wishes?

Use of oil as a commodity will certainly peak; many think that has already occurred. According Sierra Club writer Antonia Juhasz, the consulting firm Kinsey and Co. "warned oil-producing nations in 2019 to begin 'sufficiently diversifying their economies for a post-[oil] peak demand world.'"

Something will kill oil, and all carbon-based fuels, as a product — but what will that be? The end of a market for it is one such cause, based either on a happy conversion to renewable energy sources (the end of demand via choice), or less happily, the end of man's ability to use it in enough quantity to matter (the end of demand via death and decimation). In both of these cases, though, the end of oil comes via demand.

Can its use also be strangled by supply, not just lack of supply, but an over-supply that drives the price below the cost of production and makes the industry itself unviable and subject to collapse?

That's less certain, but it's the thesis of Ms. Juhasz's latest piece for Sierra, "The End of Oil Is Near." Her subtitle says, "The pandemic may send the petroleum industry to the grave," and she may indeed be right. This pandemic, like all economic depressions, is shutting down demand, causing oil tankers to park outside of ports like "an enemy invasion" that turn the seas around them into "aquatic parking lots."

"Today, the global oil industry is in a tailspin," she writes. "Demand has cratered, prices have collapsed, and profits are shrinking. The oil majors (giant global corporations including BP, Chevron, and Shell) are taking billions of dollars in losses while cutting tens of thousands of jobs. Smaller companies are declaring bankruptcy, and investors are looking elsewhere for returns. Significant changes to when, where, and how much oil will be produced, and by whom, are already underway. It is clear that the oil industry will not recover from COVID-19 and return to its former self. What form it ultimately takes, or whether it will even survive, is now very much an open question."

Perhaps her headline would better be written, "The end is near, but only if you cause it."

This Covid economy presents indeed a priceless opportunity with respect to fossil fuel. If indeed investor confidence has weakened to all-time lows and only "government bailout programs and subsidies could provide the lifeline the industry needs to stay afloat," deliberately denying those bailouts and subsidies may be our only hope — other than a chaotic market collapse in which a bailout is political poison — for ending the life our species' chief biological threat, Big Oil.

Make no mistake: The fossil fuel industry will kill us, in full knowledge that it dies with us, simply to extend its own existence and profits into the last decade allotted to anyone. It will not die so we can live; it will live so we and it can die together.

This makes both Joe Biden and Donald Trump into killers of monumental magnitude. Trump will accelerate fossil fuel production out of his own blindness and hubris, and at the behest of the monsters controlling his party. Biden will slow demand enough to "make a good show of it," a good show of caring about the rest of us, while still taking the industry's money and, in return, not restraining its ability to dig every drop and sell every ounce it can dig.

It's not even certain that Trump's race-to-ruin will end us faster than Biden's more measured destruction. If Trump's hands-off policy is allowed to run through an extended Covid-induced crisis, a chaotic market collapse may come sooner under Trump than under Biden's carefully managed "keep the industry afloat while seeming to restrain them" approach.

And should it be the case that Biden staves off an oil market collapse, its barons will honor him as a savior. By then he may not know what that honer even means, but his backers will, as will Harris, Pelosi, Schumer, and all the other fossil fuel enablers we allow to rule us.

But we started with "the end is near." We should finish there as well. Though collapses happen quickly — just ask a certain czar of ill repute, or a Bourbon of headless note — I'll venture to say that like many other predators, these our destroyers, this blood-drinking vampire industry, will prove more resilient by far than any we've faced.

We've beaten malaria, smallpox, the plague; polio and tuberculosis; lions, tigers and bears, and all the beasts of the forest and savannas. But the barons of fossil fuel, I'm deeply afraid, ride us till we die ­— unless we, uncharacteristically­, stop them with organized intention and with force.

That means stopping the next elected president, whoever that poor fool is, with organized intention — and with force.
 

Biden And Trump Reveal Their Messages For The Rest Of The Campaigns

All during the primaries, I warned DWT readers that if Biden became the nominee, the campaign would swing on stuff that aren't of much relevance to the American people: which one has a more disgusting family, which one is more corrupt, which one is more senile. Democrats, bolstered by mainstream media, believe Trump's family is worse; Republicans, bolstered by Fox News and Hate Talk Radio, believe Biden's family is worse. Democrats, bolstered by mainstream media, believe Trump is more corrupt; Republicans, bolstered by Fox News and Hate Talk Radio, believe Biden is more corrupt. Democrats, bolstered by mainstream media, believe Trump is senile and batshit crazy; Republicans, bolstered by Fox News and Hate Talk Radio, believe Biden is senile and drooling on himself. Biden's performance Thursday left Trump nearly at a loss for words. It will be much harder for him to make the senility argument, at least for a few weeks. Even Fox was singing Biden's praises. Dan Perino called his speech "a home run in the bottom of the 9th... He had pace, rhythm, energy, emotion, and delivery. I think if he looks back, he could say that's probably the best speech of his life. He just took the moment."

Politico's reaction must have been rough for Trump to swallow: "In a campaign riddled with verbal gaffes and setbacks, where his cognitive abilities were questioned and his debate performances criticized, Joe Biden stepped up to the lectern and delivered the biggest speech of his life without a hitch... By addressing the somber mood of the nation and reaching out to those who suffered loss from the pandemic, Biden sought to distinguish his style of leadership from Trump, who’s long been criticized for failing to memorialize those who died from the virus... Biden's commanding delivery could make it more difficult for Trump to paint him as staggering and senile ('Slow Joe') at the Republican convention next week."

Before the speech, the NY Times reported that Señor Trumpanzee "unleashed a scorched-earth campaign... predicting 'mayhem' if his rival won the general election in November. At stake in this election is the survival of our nation, it’s true. Because we’re dealing with crazy people on the other side. They’ve gone totally stone-cold crazy."

A racist and sexist, he took pleasure in singling out Kamala Harris for special abuse, something I suspect is going to go over poorly outside of KKK circles, although he never mentioned how she allowed his Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin to escape a prison term. The Times reported that he was revealing "the core of his coming campaign: a highly personal assault on Mr. Biden and his running mate.

“These people have gone insane and they are radical left,” Mr. Trump said, calling Mr. Biden “a puppet of the radical-left movement that seeks to destroy the American way of life.”

In Mr. Trump’s often blatantly misleading telling, Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris will destroy the country by taking guns away from Americans, funding late-term abortions, encouraging “deadly ‘sanctuary cities’” and allowing low-income housing to “abolish suburbs.”

Seeking to undermine Mr. Biden’s appeal in rural, blue-collar parts of Pennsylvania, the president lashed out at him, saying that Mr. Biden had “abandoned” his hometown, Scranton, when his family moved when he was a young boy.

Mr. Trump said that Mr. Biden had been at the forefront of a “globalist attack on Pennsylvania voters,” citing the former vice president’s support of trade deals with Mexico, China, South Korea and “the horrible, ridiculous Paris climate accords.”

[PENNSYLVANIA POLLING AVERAGE:]

As far as I’m concerned,” Mr. Trump asserted, “Joe Biden is no friend of Pennsylvania.”

In his remarks, the president also ascribed to Mr. Biden many positions that he does not actually hold or he mischaracterized Mr. Biden’s proposals.

Mr. Trump misleadingly claimed that Mr. Biden had “pledged to hike your taxes by $4 trillion dollars.” Three-quarters of the proposed increases would be levied on the wealthiest 1 percent of the population.

The president falsely said that Mr. Biden would “take away your guns.” Mr. Biden’s proposed gun control measures include a buyback program that would allow those who own assault weapons and high-capacity magazines to either sell them to the government or register them.

Mr. Trump also falsely said that Mr. Biden would “give free health care to illegal aliens.” Mr. Biden’s health care plan would allow undocumented immigrants to buy government-sponsored insurance or private plans on government-run exchanges, but it would not be “free.”

The president misleadingly claimed that Mr. Biden would “close down charter schools.” Mr. Biden has said that he would end voucher programs for private, for-profit charter schools, but that he supports high-performing public charter schools.

And Mr. Trump misleadingly claimed that under Mr. Biden, “I guess 600,000, 670,000 lose their jobs.” That is an estimate of the effect of a nationwide ban on fracking from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, but Mr. Biden has not said he supports such a ban.

Global Warming Is Accelerating. (In Other News, Democrats Reverse Platform, Won't End Fossil Fuel Subsidies)

The three colors in the chart represent odds that a season will be perceived as cool (blue), normal (white) or hot (red). In 1950 to 1980, if represented on a six-sided dice, there were two blue sides, two red sides and two white sides. "The dice are now loaded, really loaded. ... Four sides of the die are now red (hot) and one side is deep red for extreme heat, more than three standard deviations warmer than in 1951-1980. Dark red (22%) is creeping onto another side" (James Hansen et. al.)

by Thomas Neuburger

As we contemplate the political events of the week — the Republican takeover of the Democratic Party and convention; Democratic media adjunct MSNBC lying about AOC's Party-approved nomination of Bernie Sanders (before changing their headline); Bill Clinton daring to show his face in public, and post-MeToo leadership letting him — it's nevertheless impossible not to be overwhelmed by this.

 • "Good morning. The Greenland ice sheet has past the melting point of no return"

"[I]ce that’s discharging into the ocean is far surpassing the snow that’s accumulating on the surface of the ice sheet" — Michalea King, lead author of the study and a researcher at The Ohio State University’s Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center.

"[S]tarting in 2000, you start superimposing that seasonal melt on a higher baseline—so you’re going to get even more losses,” meaning the melt-rate has permanently accelerated while the snowfall has not. 

But there's a bright side: “It’s always a positive thing to learn more about glacier environments, because we can only improve our predictions for how rapidly things will change in the future ... The more we know, the better we can prepare.”

We're learning how to learn sooner how wrong we are, "so we can better prepare." That's the bright side.

 • "Record Arctic blazes may herald new ‘fire regime’ decades sooner than anticipated"

"Something’s changed in the environment there" — Mark Parrington, senior scientist and wildfire expert at the EU’s Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service.

“This is the type of fire event that would be described by these worst-case modeling scenarios that were supposed to occur mid-century” — Jessica McCarty, a wildfire expert at Miami University of Ohio.

Mid-century (2050) Arctic fires now occur regularly.

 • "Global warming is accelerating. 12-month mean peaked just below prior maximum"

"[G]lobal temperature is clearly running well above the linear trend that existed for decades" — climate scientist James Hansen

"1) That jump off the linear trend ought to scare the crap out of you. 2) Who but the careful public managers of your emotions say that being batcrap-scared is a useless response to the climate?" — Yours truly

Nonetheless, not everyone is scared.

 • "Democrats Drop Demand To End Fossil Fuel Subsidies From Party Platform"

"Roughly half of all U.S. oil reserves required subsidies to generate a profit, according to a study published in the journal Nature Energy in 2017, and that was before the price of crude plunged far below $50 a barrel." — Huffington Post writer Alexander Kaufman.

“This platform is a step backwards” — Charlie Jiang, Greenpeace.

• "DNC’s Flip-Flop on Fossil Fuel Subsidies Follows Deep Ties the Industry"

"In August 2018, the DNC approved a resolution from Chair Tom Perez that reversed a DNC policy prohibiting it from accepting contributions from fossil fuel PACs. ... Shortly thereafter, donations from fossil fuel executives began flowing into DNC coffers." — Donald Shaw, money-in-politics editor and co-founder, Sludge

 • "A-a-and we're done..." — Yours truly

If the question is climate, who with any power is the answer? Certainly not Joe Biden.

The real answer, of course, is the people, but only if they know it.
 

Does a Republican Have To Win Before a Progressive Can Run for the White House?

Is the Democratic Party transitioning its base from working people and progressives to #NeverTrump Republicans and whoever this guy represents?

by Thomas Neuburger

In the wake of Kamala Harris's pick as Joe Biden VP, I want to look again at something I covered in June (see "What's the Earliest a Progressive Democrat Can Be Elected President?"). There I made the following assumptions:

Because no progressive Democrat will run in the primary against an incumbent Democratic president, either the Party must be reformed — or a Republican must first take the White House — before a progressive can win the presidency.

Will the Democratic Party self-reform? Can it be reformed by others? Opinions vary on that. Those looking at the election of AOC, Jamaal Bowman, Cori Bush and the near election of Bernie Sanders in 2016 and 2020 would say "Yes, we just need to keep pushing."

On the other hand, those looking at what looks like the start of AOC's "acquiescence" to Party leaders (see Ryan Grim's discussion of that here); the lock-grip that Obama, through Biden and now Harris, seems to have on Party decision-making; and what looks like the deliberate transitioning of the Party from a base that supports the AOCs and Bernie Sanders of the world to a party that welcomes John Kasich to its Convention, George Bush to its circle of love, and Nicolle Wallace, Bush's White House Communications Director, to a choice two-hour slot on its house news network, MSNBC — those people see a different picture, a picture of solidifying, not loosening, neoliberal control.

Those differing opinions vary by demographic. That is, the closer one is to Democratic Party politics, even as a strong progressive, the more likely that person is to see reform in the headlights, just about to happen. The further one is to Democratic Party politics — the more one dwells in the world of the plebs, the civilians, the mass of voters and non-voters — the more the prospect of reform seems left in the dust, a diminishing dot in the Party's rear-view mirror.

Even mainstream writers like Thomas Frank ask (I'm paraphrasing), Which party represents the lower 90%, the workers of the country? Which represents the people? And they answer, Neither.

Is it possible a viable, non-fringe progressive Democrat will challenge an incumbent Democrat for the presidency? I have yet to see it, the Party wouldn't allow it, and the rules of the game, which place a premium on playing within Party leaders' boundaries, don't permit it.

To confirm this idea, note that even the "rebel" AOC failed to endorse Cori Bush, running against incumbent Democrat Lacy Clay, an endorsement that, had the race been close in Lacy Clay's direction, might have mattered. The record of Bernie Sanders' ultimate acquiescence to Barack Obama and surrender to Joe Biden makes the same point.

Which leaves us with this: A progressive will run a viable primary campaign only if no incumbent Democrat is in the race. That means the public might be offered a progressive option:

• In 2024, if Biden loses to Trump.
• In 2028, if Biden wins and Harris loses in 2024.
• In 2032, if Biden wins, Harris wins in 2024, but loses in 2028.
• In 2036 or later in all other cases.

No one wants Trump to win, which means 2028 at the earliest, and that's only if a Republican is elected in 2024. Not a charming prospect.

Inside-the-box thinking says that challenging Party leaders must not overly disrupt the Party itself, a party that neoliberal leaders almost completely control. This is where inside-the-box thinking has gotten us — a Biden-Harris ticket and no one else with any chance of winning to vote for.

Perhaps out-of-the-box thinking is needed next time around, something along "in your face" and "open rebellion" lines. Careful, respectful, quiet and "polite" rebellion may just not be enough to fix what ails us, what's already gone so wrong in the only country we have to live our lives in.