The Conversation -- January 12, 2025

“Five Presidents and a Funeral.” Maureen Dowd of the New York Times reflects on the éminences grises who attended President Carter's funeral, including, well, the star of the show. It's worth a read even though, MoDo being MoDo, she cannot help speaking ill of the dead. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Family Photos. Neil Vigdor of the New York Times: “Former President Jimmy Carter’s funeral on Thursday brought together five current and former presidents. But photos of the group later shared to social media by Vice President Kamala Harris and the Carter Center left one of them out of frame: ... Donald J. Trump.... The Carter Center, a nonprofit started by Mr. Carter after leaving the White House, shared a different photo on Thursday of the funeral scene.... It shows the attendees seated, with the president and vice president and their spouses clearly visible in the front row. In the second row, Mr. Clinton, Laura Bush and Mr. Obama are visible. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Mr. Bush are partly obscured, and the Trumps cannot be seen at all.”

White House: "Today [Saturday], President Biden spoke with His Holiness Pope Francis and named him as a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom with Distinction. The Presidential Medal of Freedom is the Nation’s highest civilian honor, presented to individuals who have made exemplary contributions to the prosperity, values, or security of the United States, world peace, or other significant societal, public or private endeavors. This is the first time that President Biden has awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom with Distinction." (Also linked yesterday.) A New York Times story is here. An AP story is here.

Mike Ives of the New York Times: “... Donald J. Trump offered fresh criticism early Sunday of the officials in charge of fighting the Los Angeles wildfires, calling them 'incompetent' and asking why the blazes were not yet extinguished.... His post did not mention any officials by name.... He has renewed a longstanding feud with California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, who in turn has accused Mr. Trump of politicizing the fires.” MB: This should go under the heading of “Trump Doesn't Know How to Behave, Ctd.” While there may be reason to investigate officials' actions, the time to do it is not during a massive crisis in which people are dying. Moreover, calling the officials “incompetent” is in no way constructive. It's just schoolyard name-calling.  

Jamelle Bouie of the New York Times: “The wave of self-congratulation that followed the certification of the 2024 presidential election on Monday was premature in the extreme.... We have no evidence that Trump would have honored [the election results] had he lost.... Until [a Democrat wins a presidential election], all we can say about the integrity of the peaceful transfer of power in the United States is that it’s an open question.” See also Jeanne's commentary in yesterday's thread, as well as what's going on in a North Carolina state supreme court election (story linked yesterday). (Also linked yesterday.) 

⭐Glenn Thrush & Alan Feuer of the New York Times: “Jack Smith, the special counsel who brought two failed federal prosecutions against ... Donald J. Trump, resigned this week, according to a footnote buried in court papers — a remarkably muted conclusion to a fight that redefined the nation’s legal and political landscape. Mr. Smith ... left his offices in Washington on Friday, according to a senior law enforcement official. His departure was expected. Mr. Smith had signaled his intention to leave before Mr. Trump, who had threatened to fire and punish him, took office on Jan. 20. In the end, Mr. Smith made no formal announcement. His spokesman had no comment.” Politico's report is here.

DOJ to Judge Aileen: MYOB. Eric Tucker of the AP: “The Justice Department has asked a federal appeals court to move swiftly in reversing [Judge Aileen Cannon's] order that had blocked the agency from releasing any part of special counsel Jack Smith’s investigative report on ... Donald Trump. The emergency motion late Friday is the latest back and forth in a court dispute over whether any portion of Smith’s report can be made public before Trump takes office Jan. 20. The push to release it before Trump’s inauguration reflects concerns that the Justice Department under the Trump administration, which will include members of his personal legal team in key leadership roles, would be in position to prevent the report from coming to light.... The filing noted that in addition to temporarily blocking the release of the election interference report, Cannon’s action also prevents officials from sharing the classified documents report privately with the leaders of the House and Senate Judiciary committees. Cannon’s order is 'plainly erroneous,' according to the department’s motion. 'The Attorney General ... is vested with the authority to supervise all officers and employees of the Department,' the Justice Department said. 'The Attorney General thus has authority to decide whether to release an investigative report prepared by his subordinates.'” (Also linked yesterday.) 

Karoun Demirjian of the New York Times: “F.B.I. officials briefed the top members of the Senate Armed Services Committee late Friday afternoon on the findings from their background check of Pete Hegseth..., Donald J. Trump’s pick to serve as defense secretary, according to two people aware of the briefings. Senator Roger Wicker, Republican of Mississippi and the chairman of the armed services panel, and Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, its top Democrat, each huddled separately with F.B.I. officials on Friday for over an hour.... Since the results of the F.B.I.’s probe have not been shown to other members of the committee, several Democrats on the panel expressed concerns that they might not have relevant information for Mr. Hegseth’s confirmation hearing on Tuesday.... Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut..., [said] that the fact that senators had not been promised access to Mr. Hegseth’s background check gave the 'appearance of a cover-up.'”

~~~~~~~~~~

Oklahoma. Audra Burch of the New York Times: “The Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921, in which a prosperous Black neighborhood in Oklahoma was destroyed and up to 300 people were killed, was not committed by an uncontrolled mob but was the result of 'a coordinated, military-style attack' by white citizens, the Justice Department said in a report released Friday. The report, stemming from an investigation announced in September, is the first time that the federal government has given an official, comprehensive account of the events of May 31 and June 1, 1921, in the Tulsa neighborhood of Greenwood. Although it formally concluded that, more than a century later, no person alive could be prosecuted, it underscored the brutality of the atrocities committed.” The Guardian's report is here. The report, which includes an executive summary, is here, via the DOJ. (Also linked yesterday.) 

Comments

[Ken Winkes]

For your reading (dis?) pleasure:

https://www.nybooks.com/online/2025/01/11/their-kind-of-indoctrination/

[laura hunter]

Aren't we lucky that "An unpaid group of billionaires, tech executives and some disciples of Peter Thiel ...are preparing to take up unofficial positions in the U.S. government in the name of cost-cutting....seek[ing] to cut costs like Mr. Musk did at X, his social media platform."
Theodore Schleifer and Madeleine Ngo, in Tne New York Times, report Inside the Plans for DOGE
After Inauguration Day, the group of Silicon Valley-inflected, wide-eyed recruits will be deployed to Washington’s alphabet soup of agencies. The goal is for most major agencies to eventually have two DOGE representatives as they seek to cut costs like Mr. Musk did at X, his social media platform....People involved in the operation say that secrecy and avoiding leaks is paramount...“The cynics among us will say, ‘Oh, it’s naïve billionaires stepping into the fray.’ But the other side will say this is a service to the nation that we saw more typically around the founding of the nation,” said Trevor Traina, an entrepreneur who worked in the first Trump administration with associates who have considered joining DOGE....“The friends I know have huge lives,” Mr. Traina said, “and they’re agreeing to work for free for six months, and leave their families and roll up their sleeves in an attempt to really turn things around."

[Ken Winkes]

A weekend sermon dealing with mammon.

Financial Literacy....

The Columbian editorial (in the January 4th Skagit Valley Herald) calling for schools to teach financial literacy reminded me of what I asked my high school seniors to do a quarter century ago.

I had them create what I called a McDonald’s budget. Considering the typical $6.25 minimum wage paid McDonald’s employees in 2000, could someone working at a McDonalds afford a car and live on his or her own? How could one even afford to eat three meals a day when one Big Mac then cost about $2.60? We calculated that five Big Macs a day would run to nearly 400 dollars a month, hardly a healthy diet for a budget—or a body.

We also looked at the cost of renting a small apartment and other common expenses. Overall, I think it was an eye-opening exercise for most students, some of whom were already working somewhere for minimum wage, but working or not, most were still living with their parents. Were they to become suddenly responsible for all their living expenses while working for a minimum wage, the prospect was grim at best. At a gross income of about $1500 a month, living on one’s own was near impossible. I think most got the point.

So yes, I’m all for teaching financial literacy. From The Columbian’s piece, I learned that while Washington State requires school districts to “offer access” to financial education, it doesn’t define what that training should mean or require students to access it. As support for its concern, The Colombian cited the immense and growing credit card debt carried by Americans (it’s now $1.17 trillion) and the number of younger people who are not saving for retirement. The Columbian could have gone further. Nearly one half of American households have no retirement savings at all (usafacts.org).

Where I think The Columbian’s good advice falls short is in its exclusive focus on personal finance. Just as critical to financial literacy is knowledge of the larger financial world in which we live. To comprehend our place in the economy, we must also understand how the policies and practices of government and large corporations affect our pocketbooks. They set the rules we live by, most beyond our personal control.

The current talk of tariffs is a case in point. Why is Trump so excited about them, since applying tariffs on imports would further raise the high prices that propelled him back into the White House (apnews.com)? Now that the election is over, he obviously never did care that much about high prices. Bringing them down would be “hard,” he says, abandoning his campaign promise to lower them (nbcnews.com).

The real reason for imposing tariffs is how they work. Tariffs act as an indirect flat tax on consumers. The government collects tariff revenue while consumers subsidize the government by paying higher prices for goods. Viewed that way, tariffs provide a revenue stream to replace money lost to tax cuts, and consumers pay the freight. For a president and a political party that promise more tax cuts for the rich and don’t wish to be seen as raising income taxes on anyone, the hidden cost of tariffs would seem the perfect solution.

Tariffs are just one more way Republicans can move money to the already rich. The Reagan, George Bush, and Trump tax cuts, which primarily benefitted the wealthy, contributed to the inflation we’ve experienced, but inflation does not treat all people equally. The value of assets, like real estate and stock holdings, keeps pace with inflation. That’s one of the reasons home prices are so high. But those without significant assets get hurt as their paychecks’ purchasing power declines. Even worse, inflation serves as cover for businesses to increase their prices and profits far beyond their expenses, a practice estimated to have comprised over half of our recent bout of inflation (groundworkcollaborative.org).

Looking back on it, I see the financial literacy lessons I offered my students omitted many important things. Among others, we didn’t talk about how our state’s sales tax further widens the gap between the rich and the poor, how lowering the top marginal income tax rate or the federal estate tax has contributed to a nation where the top 50% now possesses 97 cents of every dollar (usafacts.org). We certainly didn’t talk about whether it makes more sense to increase the national debt to (just for instance) help families during a pandemic or to cut more taxes for the rich.

Still, I hope my students learned something from the McDonalds’ budget exercise. I did. When I go to McDonalds, I’m still a Dollar Menu guy.