DECEMBER 2018 IGNOMINIOUS ABSURDITY OF THE MONTH: THE IGGY

1. Republican Lawmakers in Michigan and Wisconsin. Two years ago, Republicans in North Carolina undertook a brazen power grab after their nominee — the sitting governor — lost re-election by deciding to weaken the governor’s office. The state legislature passed two bills stripping the governor of some powers, and the outgoing governor, Pat McCrory, signed them.

In doing so, McCrory and his allies rejected the peaceful transfer of power that is essential to democracy. They instead chose the peaceful transfer of some power.

In 2018, it became clear that this problem extended beyond North Carolina. Republicans in Michigan and Wisconsin are now following a similar script to protect partisan GOP power. Let’s see:

RE-THINKING THE LEGACY OF GEORGE H.W. BUSH

After reading over the first draft of my essay on remembering George H.W. Bush, I paused to reflect on what I’d written. Was I painting too rosy a picture of Bush’s the man? Was I guilty of romanticizing his life like much of the media has done? After all, what kind of a “highest character” would have done the bad deeds I mentioned—like running a racist campaign against Michael Dukakis, opposing landmark civil rights legislation, and unleashing nearly 100,000 bombs on innocent Iraqi civilians and fleeing Iraqi soldiers. Don’t these actions, which I mentioned but didn’t elaborate on, speak volumes more about Bush’s character than his geniality, corny jokes and folksy ways?

REMEMBERING GEORGE H.W. BUSH IN THE TRUMP ERA

By Ronald T. Fox

I have fond memories of George H.W. Bush. This may sound surprising coming from a die-hard progressive who has had few good things to say about Republicans. I say “fond” not because I approved of the decisions he made and policies he advanced in his long career in public service, many of which were anathema to progressives, but because of features of his character and personality, features that I’ve grown to appreciate more in the era of Donald Trump. Our Cretan in the White House has set the character bar so low that all our former presidents look good in comparison. My fondness for 41 has grown in direct proportion to the rise of Trump.

Nearly everyone is singing praise of Bush 41 as a man of honor, integrity, decency and humanity. Canonization of a deceased major public figure is a familiar theme in America. This can be nauseating, especially when you know better, but in the case of George Bush his virtues that are being voiced ring true, endorsed even by many of his rivals and critics. From a personal encounter I had with Bush two decades ago, I can attest to his personality virtues now being extolled.

NOVEMBER 2018 IGNOMINIOUS ABUSRDITY OF THE MONTH: THE “TRIGGY”

I know I’ve said I would refrain from nominating President Trump for any future IGGY awards. He is a certified ignominious person, worthy of a lifetime, not just a monthly, award. With the midterm election focusing so much attention on the Trumpster, the mass media seems to have lost interest in reporting on the usual array of absurdities from others. Trump lies and absurdities on anything from tariffs, to wildfires, to international events, to alleged election fraud, and, of course, on Russia, have dominated November news cycles.  Such a record, horrific to most of us, is fuel for Trump; it plays right into his hands. He thrives on adversaries, loves the fight, and welcomes news that’s about him. In devouring everything Trump, the media has been complicit in boosting his popularity among his base, if not beyond. I’ve tried to avoid this Trump trap but have not been very successful.

I’ve decided to devote the November IGGY exclusively to Trump absurdities. This will mark the last time I will include any of his false, deceitful, racist, xenophobic, insulting pronouncements for IGGY recognition—at least I will strive to make it the last time. I wish journalists with wide followings would do the same. Why continue to make him the story? (I’d love to see CNN and other media outlets boycott the White House in protest of Jim Acosta’s banning.) Nothing would piss off Trump more than losing his megaphone.

November was a big month for Trumpian lies, misrepresentations, insults, recriminations and hair-brainers. But, really, it was no different from other months. I’m including six below, but I could have listed several more, like his comment on climate change that he trusts his non-believing gut more than the brains of scientists, his declaration of a political victory in using force against asylum seekers on the Mexican border, his assertion that he wouldn’t take a pardon for the lying, deceitful Paul Manafort “off the table,” and his insistence that the Saudi crown prince cannot, with certainty, be blamed for the death of the journalist Jamai Khashoggi, despite the contrary conclusion from his own intelligence community. With this acknowledgment, I offer the following November Trumpian ignominious absurdities. For this month, I'm calling it the TRIGGY.

1. President Donald Trump.  The outright lies continue. I’ll pass over all the false statements he made about the midterm election, and claims that he did not know Mathew Whitaker before appointing him as Attorney general, and focus here on his latest whopper on China. At a news conference, the president answered a question about healing national divides by saying that he had forced China to back down from a plan to strengthen its manufacturing industry.

After declaring that because of his tariffs China had suspended its so called “China-25” plan to bestow greater privileges on its own companies over foreign competitors in the Chinese market, and would now not “supersede the U.S. economy in two years as he falsely claimed Beijing boasted, he went on to say:

“But I have to say this: Billions of dollars will soon be pouring into our Treasury from taxes that China is paying for us.”

Of course, this is a blatant falsehood. When the U.S. places tariffs on Chinese imports, China doesn’t pay them. American importers do, and this usually means passing along the extra costs to American consumers. Things will worsen when/if the spiraling trade war leads to even higher tariffs. The only thing that appears to be "pouring" is the exodus of American jobs.  So long GM.

OCTOBER 2018 IGNOMINIOUS ABSURDITY OF THE MONTH: THE IGGY

1. Big Pharma Nostrum Laboratories’ Nirmal Mulye. Pharmaceutical companies use the weakest and frequently the laziest, excuses for jacking up the prices of their life-saving drugs. In the end, no matter what they say, it is about money. Their job, as they see it, is to make money. If they keep 100 people alive or 1,000 or 1,000,000,000, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that number on the bottom line on their accounting sheet. If their goal is to make $1,000,000, and they need to sell a pill for $1,000,000 apiece for the only 10 babies who need it in order to achieve that goal, then that is what they will do.

Most people, faced with that statement, would say that is immoral; that is, except Nirmal Mulye.  In an interview published in the Financial Times, he had this to say about everyone making Martin Shkreli out to be a bad guy for raising the cost of one of his own company’s drugs through the roof.

“I agree with Martin Shkreli that when he raised the price of his drug he was within his rights because he had to reward his shareholders [...] If he’s the only one selling it then he can make as much money as he can,” said Mr. Mulye. “This is a capitalist economy and if you can’t make money you can’t stay in business.”

What is Mulye defending? Well, his “Missouri-based” company, Nostrum Laboratories, just jacked up the price of their drug nitrofurantoin from $474.75 to $2,392. According to the World Health Organization, nitrofurantoin is what they classify as an “essential drug” for treating bladder and urinary tract infections. Mulye wasn’t done giving a lesson in sociopathy as he continued to defend Shkreli as being within his rights:

“We have to make money when we can. The price of iPhones goes up, the price of cars goes up, hotel rooms are very expensive.”

According to Mulye, Nostrum was working the market against Casper Pharma, which makes another version of the same drug and had recently raised its price to $2,800. So, you see, Mulye is still offering it up for less! Morality! The guy is a saint!

Sadly, this is what it’s come to in America. Corporations prioritize profits and shareholders over consumers, workers, any sense of a public good, or basic human needs. It hasn’t always been this way.  I’m old enough to remember a different time.

THOUGHTS ON HURRICANE MICHAEL

By Ronald T. Fox

Angry Hurricane Michael, one of the most powerful storms ever to hit the continental U.S., unleashed a wrath of destruction across the Florida Panhandle, peeling off roofs, leveling houses, uprooting trees, boats and cars, pushing a terrifying surge of sea water that submerged entire neighborhoods, and taking lives. After being downgraded to a tropical storm, it moved on to the Carolinas and beyond to add more destruction to states already ravaged by Hurricane Florence.

A few months earlier, California and other Western states experienced a series of horrific, record-setting wildfires that destroyed forests, homes, businesses, and human lives. Like hurricanes, such devastating wildfires are occurring with increased intensity and frequency.  They've become the new normal.

What do these natural disasters have in common? As the overwhelming majority of climate scientists tell us, their growing intensity stems from the warming of our planet caused by heat-trapping greenhouse gasses. In a warming world, hurricanes become stronger and more destructive and droughts become more lasting and severe, providing a storehouse of fuel for wildfires.

SEPTEMBER 2018 IGNOMINIOUS ABSURDITY OF THE MONTH: THE IGGY

NOTE: I’m posting this from Salzburg, Austria on the back end of a three-week vacation in Eastern Europe. Though I only had two weeks to search for September IGGY-worthy statements and actions before leaving the U.S., as you can see below I had little trouble finding a solid representative list.

1. Education Secretary Betty DeVos. DeVos floated a couple of plans this month that so stood out in their absurdity, even amongst her many foolish proposals, that she definitely deserves an IGGY nomination.

First, she is considering using a federal grant program to let schools buy guns and pay for firearms training for faculty and staff members. If DeVos had only a modicum of knowledge about education children, she’d know that study after study has equated more guns on campuses with more injuries and death, not to mention numerous research endeavors that stress how harmful a culture of fear is for the learning process.

Sadly, DeVos is not alone in her thinking; lawmakers in 14 states have proposed laws that would use taxpayer dollars to arm educators. I’d like to say unbelievable, but nothing is unbelievable anymore in the Trump age.

Were DeVos not such a tunnel-visioned, right-wing extremist, and was even modestly interested in real solutions to school shootings, she’d realize that violence prevention experts have recommended numerous more promising, and less contentious solutions than her hair-brained plan. These include prioritizing a general level of well-being and comfort students and teachers experience on campus, providing more mental health services, and implementing proven threat-assessment programs.

Her second ignominious idea centers on her plan to replace the Obama administration’s guidelines on campus sexual assault policy with a policy that seeks to protect rapists, abusers, and harassers on college campuses. Among other things, DeVos’s regulations would allow perpetrators to cross-examine survivors during mediation and have access to survivors’ evidence obtained during the investigation. They would also narrow the definition of sexual harassment.

It’s clear that DeVos’s new policy will have a devastating impact on survivors. Just a few months after DeVos rescinded the Obama-era guidance, some colleges simply stopped responding to reports of sexual violence at all.

Now, with new barriers to reporting, survivors could feel even more unsafe to come forward than before—and schools may not provide them with support and care if they do. With these new rules, DeVos is actively endangering and harming survivors while propping up their perpetrators. This ignominious policy must be stopped immediately.