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Dear Group, From McMorris Rodgers’ website [the bold is mine]: For bills to reach the president’s desk in a divided government, both parties must work together to responsibly govern. It’s time to make deals, and the deal to make here is to secure the border, keep Americans safe, and give certainty to DACA recipients. Unfortunately, Democrats signaled today they would rather waste time on bills the Senate won’t consider and the president won’t sign. When this partial shutdown started, I called on Democrats to negotiate in earnest to fund the government and secure our border. These are priorities of the American people and the responsibilities of Congress. Speaker Pelosi pledged today this Congress will be ‘bipartisan and unifying.’ Let’s do it. We have a petulant child in the White House who is holding hostage more than a trillion (1000 billion) dollars of discretionary government spending (the part of federal government spending covered by the appropriations bills) necessary for the government to function. He is holding the government and the people of the U.S. hostage over his non-negotiable demand for 5.7 billion dollars (only a downpayment) to begin construction of his ill-conceived and ill-advised border wall, a wall that has become for him a symbol of his presidency. McMorris Rodgers calls Democrats to “negotiate.” She offers no call for her President, her “positive disruptor,” to negotiate. How do you negotiate over a non-negotiable demand, a demand so entrenched that she considers passing appropriations bills that do not include the 5.7 billion dollars a waste of time? There is a frustrating lack of logic here. Has she never heard of over-riding a presidential veto? If Trump holds to his word and vetoes any bill that concludes the shutdown without giving him his $5.7 billion eventually the pain of his hostage taking will grow, and Congress will take the heat from constituents. Congress’ only alternative will be a veto override. (That assumes McConnell can be forced to bring the individual House appropriations bills to the Senate floor and enough Senators defect from Trumpism to get the bills passed.) You can feel their pain. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-WA, CD3) is one of two other Republicans in the Washington State delegation to the U.S. Congress (after CMR).. She is a protege of McMorris Rodgers. She held onto her seat last November with only a 52.7% majority. She voted Wednesday, January 8, along with seven other defecting House Republicans and all the Democrats for H.R. 264, an appropriations bill that would end part of the shutdown without border wall funding. Her press release expresses her discomfort with the effects of the shutdown. She writes, “Entering the third week of a federal government shutdown, it’s easy to see why Americans are disgusted with politicians.” Almost plaintively she adds, “While I will never call $5 billion a small amount of money, in the context of a $4.4 trillion federal budget it doesn’t seem like a deal-breaker.” (Notice she inflates the number she uses for the federal budget by including mandatory spending.) I feel Herrera Beutler’s pain. Please, please make this stop! It’s killing us! And she’s right as far as she goes, including that $5 billion is not chump change. She does not mention she voted for the partial funding bill. Perhaps she would rather her Trumpian base did not know. H.R. 264 passed 240-188. If McConnell is finally pressured to bring this bill up in the Senate and it passes the Senate (there are already Republican Senatorial defectors) and Trump vetoes it, the House only needs 45 more votes to override. It might look like a high bar right now, but after a few more weeks of shutdown more like Herrera Beutler will feel the squeeze. They will worry over their vulnerability at the ballot box in 2020 if they remain tied to Trump in his shutdown. You can bet the Trump devotees are calling their Senators and Representatives to encourage them to hold strong with their spoilt child in the White House. It is time for us to start telling our Representatives and Senators it is time to end this. This President thinks he has autocratic powers, and will, along with his Party, ruin the country if allowed to make good on his promise to extend the shutdown “for months.” The Republicans in Congress at some level have to know this shutdown must end before they lose all the voters outside of Trump’s fevered base. Call, email or write your Representative and Senators today and tell them how you feel. They need to hear from us that time is running out to act and we know they can override a veto (even if they pretend they’ve forgotten). CMR: Spokane Office (509) 353-2374 Colville Office (509) 684-3481 Walla Walla Office (509) 529-9358 D.C. Office (202) 225-2006 Patty Murray (D-WA) D.C. Office (202) 224-2621 Spokane Office (509) 624-9515 Yakima Office (509) 453-7462 Maria Cantwell (D-WA) D.C. Office (202) 224-3441 Spokane Office (509) 353-2507 Richland Office (509) 946-8106 Mike Crapo D.C. 202-224-6142 North ID, 208–664-5490 James Risch D.C. 202-224-2752 Coeur d’Alene 208-667-6130 Russ Fulcher (new R, ID) (202) 225-6611 Then call Call/Email Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and ask him to bring the House-passed bills to the Senate floor for a vote in order to end the shutdown! There is no veto to override if this ultimate partisan and Trump enabler cannot be convinced to bring bills to the Senate floor. Phone: (202) 224-2541. Kept to the high ground, Jerry P.S If you have five minutes Senator Jon Tester (D-MT), articulates this position on the Senate floor on January 10 better than I just did. P.P.S. On Thursday, January 10, H.R. 265 and 267, two more partial funding bills passed the House with similar margins to H.R. 264. McMorris Rodgers and Dan Newhouse (R-WA, CD-4) each voted first to send each bill back to committee “with instructions” and the voted against each bill. Herrera Beutler each time voted to send the bill back, but then turned around voted to pass the bill. How odd…
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The Dues We Pay
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Dear Group, The dues we pay for our membership in society, the money that city, county, state, and national governments gather, those dues fund goods and services from which we all benefit. We can (and do) argue about exactly what that funding should be used for and whether it is being spent wisely. We wince when we pay our property taxes and sales taxes, we grumble as we file our income tax, but without these dues most of the physical and societal structures on which we all depend to one degree or another would not exist (or might exist only for use by the monied few, e.g. toll roads). Roads, railroad rights-of-way, airports, air traffic control, shipping ports, fire protection, education, the public health system, sewers, sewerage treatment, drinkable water, the judicial system, the police all function to one degree or another on the dues we pay to cities, counties, states and the federal government. No wealthy person anywhere in the world (and certainly no wealthy person in this country) made their money without benefitting from these dues. The idea of a pure “self-made man” (or woman) is a libertarian myth. Underpinning every “self-made” wealthy person is a myriad of publicly funded structures, plus the judicial system and law enforcement on which their success depends. The richest among us have benefitted the most. It is only fitting they pay back a much higher portion of their monetary winnings as the dues that hold together the fabric of society upon which we are all dependent. (Elizabeth Warren makes this point better than I in a 2 minute 2011 youtube video you should watch.) The Republican/Libertarians, including our very own McMorris Rodgers, tried to sell us on the idea an even greater reduction in the dues the wealthy pay to live in the society would benefit everyone. The bill was called the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Among its many provisions was a reduction of the top income tax bracket from 39.6% to 37% for tax year 2018. The Republicans crowed about the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, how it was going to be “money in your pocket,” Did you notice as the November elections approached “money in your pocket” dropped out of McMorris Rodgers’ rhetoric? Did her messaging prowess help her keep her supposed position of power as Chair of the House Republican Caucus? No. Her message fell flat. She and her cohort abandoned talking up their signature achievement. Instead it was properly framed as a tax giveaway to the wealthy. McMorris Rodgers does not clearly say she advocates for “trickle down economics” but her rhetoric is clear: give the titans of industry, the movers and shakers (like her “positive disruptor,” Mr. Trump) more money and they will expand the economy and we’ll all be better off. OK. There are more jobs now in our wobbly, overstimulated economy, but the wealthy have become wealthier and the gap between them and the average worker continues to grow, fueled by a massive increase in national debt. Have the Republican/Libertarians overreached in their effort to make toxic the very word “tax”? Perhaps. We all need to pay our dues, but “To whom much is given much is expected.” We the People have given much to the wealthy and too little of it trickles down. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), the progressive dancing firebrand newly elected to Congress from the Bronx is openly advocating a 70-80% tax on very high incomes. Is this nuts? Well, consider: “…it’s a policy nobody has ever implemented, aside from … the United States, for 35 years after World War II — including the most successful period of economic growth in our history.” [the bold is mine.] I urge you to read the opinion piece in the New York Times by Paul Krugman, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Economics (2008), from January 5, 2019 from which I took that quote. Ocasio-Cortez is no dummy. The top income tax bracket topped 90% for several years between 1940 and 1965. Of course, the wealthy did not like 90% then any more than they like 37% now. With a widening income gap, growing national debt, and crumbling infrastructure it is time to change the narrative around taxation. Taxes are the dues we pay to be citizens. Keep to the high ground, Jerry P.S. “Trickle down” economics descended from what’s been dubbed the “Horse and Sparrow Theory” of the late 1800s: “If you feed the horse enough oats, some will pass through to the road for the sparrows.” Providing the rich and corporations with more money in order to better the average person is an economic theory worthy of the vehicle in which the half-digested oats reach the sparrows. P.P.S. A much less emphasized part of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act doubled the inheritance tax exemption to 11.18 million dollars, enabling the wealthy to pass on untaxed more than twice the previous amount without even bothering to engage in the fiscal shenanigans the Trump family engaged in. The bogus Republican messaging about the “death tax” and bankrupting “family farms” was nowhere to be heard. That messaging, pushed by “think tanks” had served its purpose…in the glee of the Republican Congress the doubling passed with no fanfare. No doubt there was quiet celebration among some of the uber-wealthy. |
Trust and Knowledge
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Dear Group, How do we know what we know? Most of us would say we “know” the world is round as scientific truth. Almost none of us have done scientific experiments to prove the earth is a sphere. We “know” the earth is spherical because we trust those who suspected the earth was round, assembled observations and did investigations like Eratosthene’s experiment and calculation of the earth’s circumference in the 3rd century BC. Eratosthenes was certainly part of the Greek elite of the time. In light of current events one wonders if his motivation for doing his famous experiment was questioned in an effort to undermine his work. (According to the wikipedia article Eratosthenes did have critics.) The concept of a spherical earth was accepted gradually by humankind over millennia. Today the vast majority of us trust the honesty, the motivation, and the reporting accuracy of those who developed the concept of a spherical earth. Our modern way of thinking about time zones, NASA photos from space, and the movement of the sun are all based on trust in the people who developed the theory. Most of what we “know” is based on trusting other people. That is who we are as a species. If we are taught or come to doubt the motivation of a group of people or institutions, that is, if we lose trust, nowadays there are slickly presented alternatives only a few keystrokes away. For example, check out this page from the Flat Earth Society website, an interview (and transcript) with one Mr. Sargent. His “favorite proof” of a flat earth includes a dismissal of NASA photos, implying NASA is part of conspiracy to make us believe the earth is round. A high school classmate of mine became a fundamentalist Christian preacher. His wife (possibly even more fundamentalist than he) insisted to me in the course of a discussion, “Wikipedia isn’t a reliable source.” She was unwilling to consider with me the references present at the end of any good Wikipedia article, so she was effectively saying, “It is all suspect, all unreliable.” Her only trust is in the Holy Bible or, better said, the interpretations thereof made by people she trusts. Spend a few minutes with a search “How old is the earth?” on Google or DuckDuckGo.com. You’ll quickly discover online groups not only offering slick presentations attempting to refute the overwhelming scientific consensus of around 4.5 billion years, but even groups actively debating whether the earth was created 6,238 or 6,106 years ago (or some other similar number). All this is presented in glossy format and at minor expense. Add a whiff of conspiracy theory to taint the trustworthiness of centuries of scientific endeavor and you are on the way to unmooring a susceptible person’s thinking, to separate off a group smugly dedicated to a completely different worldview. Of course Trump is the conspiracy theorist in chief, so much so that his bid for the presidency was founded on his promotion of birtherism, the idea that Barack Obama was ineligible to be president based the location of his birth. Almost daily he promotes “deep state” conspiracy to instill distrust in any institution that opposes him. Promoting distrust by pushing conspiracy theories is not just a Washington, D.C. phenomenon, it is endemic to eastern Washington politics as well. Matt Shea (R-WA Legislative District 4, City of Spokane Valley plus) is a flagrant promoter of conspiracy theories, even serving as a speaker at The Red Pill Expo (See Matt Shea and the Red Pill). He uses conspiracy theory to break trust, to separate, to insulate from reality his followers fearful of “gun grabbers” and dedicated to hyper-“Christian” State of Liberty cult. McMorris Rodgers and Sue Lani Madsen (conservative guest columnist for the Spokesman), both insert references to George Soros in speech and writing, a way to discredit and promote distrust in Democrats and liberal causes by posing Soros as the evil puppet master of whose manipulation his subjects are unaware. Notably and ironically, McMorris Rodgers, sometimes in the same discourse, will claim she wants to “restore trust in government,” I guess she means government by her Republican Party… The promotion of dismissal and distrust, distrust in government, higher education, the media, and the legal system is a political tool honed by Gingrich, Limbaugh, Prager, and a host of other right wing personalities over several decades. Trump by his very nature, has taken this tactic completely over the top in his pursuit of power. By so doing he has highlighted the danger and depravity of the tactic itself. When allegiance requires acceptance of “alternative facts,” the belief in which is dependent on distrusting reality, we’re in trouble, we’re drifting into cult territory. Keep to the high ground, Jerry P.S. The study of how we know what we know is epistemology, a branch of philosophy. The word is not new to me but I understand it’s application far better after listening to a podcast interview from Chris Hayes’ “Why is This Happening, entitled “The Information Crisis with David Roberts,” It is well worth the time spent to listen to the podcast. There is also a transcript. This podcast helped congeal many of the ideas expressed above. |
Women’s March, Saturday, January 19th!
Dear Group,
Save the date: Saturday, January 19, is the Spokane Women’s March. (That’s just 11 days from now, Saturday after the coming one!) The blurb below is copied from the Women’s March Spokane Facebook page. Come downtown and meet friendly people. It’s a celebration of what makes us human. Get involved in the local scene. See you there!
All inclusive, non-partisan, issue driven event, to rally our community together for the good of all women+ and allies.
Equal pay, raise your voice, racial equity, freedom from violence, quality child care, environmental justice, refugee and immigration practices, access to health care, education, women’s rights are human rights… all voices welcome.
Located in the convention center near the Opera House
10:00 Doors open Volunteer Action Fair
12:00 Rally with speakers and music
1:00 March line-up and route through downtown
post march convention center activities until 3:00
STA Schedule: [See P.S. Below]
Parking: meters and lots downtown
ADA accessible
ASL Interpreter
Food and beverage for purchase via Spokane Convention Center concessions
Women+s March Spokane endeavors to harness the power of diverse women in our community to create transformative social change; promote civil rights for every human regardless of age, gender, race, sexual orientation, ethnicity, ability, religion, housing or economic status; amplify the work of community leaders and organizations to educate, mobilize, dialogue and engage our community in collective action to advance justice, equity, freedom, and inclusion.
Keep to the high ground,
Jerry
P.S. Here’s another novel idea: Ride the Spokane Transit Authority’s (STA) bus system! Here’s a link to a map of the system. Here’s a page with a transpiration planner. It’s fun…and, in my limited experience, it is on time. It’s cheaper than parking and you get to see our city from a different angle. Try it!
Smelters, Silicon, and Solar Panels
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SCHEMATIC: HHiTest Sand of Alberta, Canada would send high quality quartz ore from their mine to: the proposed PACWest Silicon smelter in Newport, WA. PAC West would use low cost electrical energy to smelt the quartz ore into silicon metal and would sell it to: Manufacturers like REC Silicon (a Norwegian company) of Moses Lake and Hemlock Semiconductor (? of Ohio) who produce polysilicon crystals they are currently selling to: Manufacturers of solar panels and semiconductors. (worldwide?) _________________________________________ Dear Group, On December 27 a tiny article appeared in the Spokesman entitled “‘Suspicious device’ found near Moses Lake manufacturing facility.” The manufacturing facility is REC Silicon, an enormous, brightly lit plant you see from I-90 just east of Moses Lake about a mile north of the highway. The bomb in the car apparently wasn’t intended for REC Silicon, but that was not the part of the article I found interesting. From Chad Sokol’s Spokesman article: REC Silicon, one of the largest employers in Grant County, was spun off from a larger Norwegian corporation, REC Group, which makes solar panels. REC Silicon, which also has a manufacturing facility in Butte, said earlier this year its business was damaged by the United States’ trade war with China and retaliatory Chinese tariffs on polysilicon materials. In July, the company laid off about 40 percent of its Moses Lake workforce, impacting about 100 employees, according to news outlet iFiber One. At the time, the company warned that it could be forced to close the Moses Lake plant if the trade dispute was not alleviated. Apparently, McMorris Rodgers’ “positive disruptor”’s tariff war with China isn’t just disrupting agricultural markets for our region, but is also costing the region jobs in the silicon industry related to manufacturing solar panels. Loss of 100 jobs and possible closure of a major plant with the potential loss of 150 more is a big deal in Grant County. In Grant County Moses Lake (pop. 20,366) is the biggest town and agriculture is already under siege. One thing leads to another: REC Silicon in Moses Lake supposedly would be a major buyer of the silicon produced by the proposed PACWest silicon smelter in Newport WA. From the PACWest website: The majority of the silicon metal produced by PacWest Silicon will be converted to a high-purity form of silicon by polysilicon producers, such as REC Silicon in Moses Lake. How much will decreased demand from the Moses Lake REC Silicon plant due to the Trump tariff war dampen the enthusiasm for PACWest Silicon (part of HiTestSand of Edmonton, Alberta) to build a silicon smelter in Newport, Washington? Trucking raw material (quartz rock) from Canada to Newport was supposed to make sense due to proximity to inexpensive hydropower, but proximity to and demand for much of its output of silicon metal must also factor in. Well, here’s where things get a bit murky. Companies producing polysilicon (mostly for solar panels and semiconductors) in the United States have been struggling since 2011. That year the U.S. government imposed tariffs on Chinese solar panels, arguing the Chinese were engaging in dumping product on the U.S. market. (“Dumping” suggests selling goods below the cost of producing them [temporarily] in order to undercut competitors.) The Chinese retaliated with tariffs on polysilicon from the U.S. That counter-tariff produced collateral damage to companies producing polysilicon in the U.S. like the REC Silicon plant in Moses Lake and Hemlock back east. Those two are generally recognized (in a web search) as the major producers of polysilicon crystal in the U.S. Since then the Chinese have worked hard to ramp up their own polysilicon production. It is the recent Trump tariff war, though, that is precipitating the job loss and potential closure of the Moses Lake REC Silicon plant on account of even greater retaliatory tariffs against U.S. polysilicon, a tariff war that seems bound up in Trump’s wish to “bring back coal.” So where does PACWest plan to sell its pure silicon metal for use in the solar panels and semiconductors if the U.S. polysilicon industry is in the toilet thanks to tariffs? Will the Newport plant produce silicon from trucked in Canadian quartz and then export the product back to Canada and, through Canada, to the rest of the world, e.g. China (and avoid the tariffs)? I asked this of a contact in PACWest. He reassured me I had overlooked “other larger polysilicon producers in the U.S.” whose names he could not reveal due to non-disclosure agreements. Furthermore, “You will see in Q1 or Q2 [first and second quarters of 2019] several very large expansion announcements in the South East US that will increase US Poly demand.” I presume by this he means expansion of companies manufacturing solar panels, since solar panel production is now the main destination of polysilicon. Interesting how all this interlocks and how much of it happens outside the consciousness of the 99% of the population, while jobs in Moses Lake are lost, jobs are dangled as bait in Newport, and multinational companies shuffle money in their endless pursuit of profit. I wonder if McMorris Rodgers has all this in mind as she praises her “positive disruptor,” the instigator of the trade war? Keep to the high ground, Jerry P.S. Silicon is an element (Si). In its highly purified crystalline form (polycrystalline silicon, also called polysilicon or poly-Si) silicon is used in solar cells and electronics. Silicone is polymer, a synthetic compound with a repeating sequence of silicon, oxygen, carbon, and sometimes other elements. Silicone compounds are used in sealants (like caulking compound), adhesives, lubricants, medicine, breast implants, cooking utensils, and thermal and electrical insulation. The output from the Moses Lake REC Silicon plant looks to be mostly destined for solar cells and other electronics. In contrast the processed silicon metal from the proposed Newport plant could go to electronics (e.g. via REC Silicon) but might also find its way into more prosaic things like silicone polymer products. (PACWest indicates its metal will be so pure it will mostly go to solar panels and semi-conductors “and a small amount to the Aluminum market.”) |
A Few Votes Make a Difference Again
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Dear Group, Most of us probably were aware of elections in Florida, Georgia, and North Carolina that were squeakers. They made national news. In contrast, I needed to do a google search to see who won the race for Spokane County Assessor, Tom Konis or Leonard Christian. Why did I care? Tom Konis worked in the assessors office for decades. He clearly possesses the expertise, and, as I understood it, he was well liked and respected by those who work there. Mr. Christian’s prior experience was as a conservative real estate broker, and appointed Republican Representative to the WA State Legislature (LD 4, Spokane Valley and north). He was appointed in 2014 to fill the seat from which Larry Crouse resigned for health reasons. Mr. Christian apparently was insufficiently conservative, since he was defeated by both Republican challengers, McCaslin Jr. and Diana Wilhite in the fall of 2014. His other qualification for assessor was “Republican Party District Leader.” It seemed to me this was a clear example of expertise for the job (Konis) in a race with a politician (Christian). My view of Konis, also a Republican, was further enhanced by rumors I’d heard of his occasionally appearing as a friendly face at events mostly attended by Democrats. Why should Republican credentials have anything to do with the job of County Assessor? On November 8th, two days after the polls closed, Christian was ahead by almost a thousand votes. Twelve days after the election the lead shrank to around five hundred (with about 3,500 write-ins and more than 46,000 undervotes). It wasn’t until a November 27, twenty-one days after the election, that Konis pulled slightly ahead “after elections officials counted more than 7,800 ballots that had to be duplicated because problems made them unreadable by the scanners.” The two votes over 150 topped the requirement for a hand recount, and Tom Konis was certified as the winner on December 12. I am impressed by the diligence of the elections officials and the volunteers who watched over the process. I am impressed the electorate came through in favor of expertise over politics in this race [and distressed the electorate chose Michael (“door-to-door knife fight“) Baumgartner, a career politician, over CPA David Green in the race for Spokane County Treasurer.] Equally distressing is the 3,500 voters who wrote in a candidate and the 46,000 who turned in ballots (20% of the 232,000 turned in) but didn’t do the research and vote in this race. I suppose one also might wonder how many of the votes that were actually cast in this race were cast by informed voters… Take home message: 1) Elections can turn on very few votes. 2) Elections for local officials are often undervoted. All politics is local. Let us all resolve to be better informed voters for the local elections in August and November THIS year. Keep to the high ground, Jerry |
The 116th Congress Opens Today, January 3, 2019
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Dear Group, Today, June 3, as the 116th Congress opens, we may take some solace in sending McMorris Rodgers back to the House of Representatives in a powerless position, part of a Republican minority, having lost her flagship position as head of the House Republican Conference to Liz Cheney (R-WY). The Republicans have even fewer House women (13, down from 25) to chose from to smile behind their new minority leader, Kevin McCarthy (R-CA). Ms. Cheney comes from the over-represented state of Wyoming where two Senators and one Representative represent a population of only 579,315. In contrast, the average Congressional District contains 711,000 people (as of the 2010 census). She holds the same seat her father, Dick Cheney, held from 1979 to 1989. Recently Ms. Cheney made a little news in Wyoming. She announced she will forgo her salary until the government shutdown is resolved. I’d be more impressed if I thought delaying her salary could be a financial hardship for her and her family, but I’m sure there is plenty of money to go around. Her father was not only Vice President under George W. Bush and Secretary of Defense under George H. W. Bush, but also the CEO of Halliburton when he was between government jobs in the late 1990s. McMorris Rodgers was quoted in the NYTimes on December 29 in an article entitled “‘You Control Nothing’: House Republicans Brace for Life in the Minority”: Trying to find the bright side, Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington, a member of the departing Republican leadership, said it was an opportunity for Republicans to better hone their message. “Being in the minority is a chance to think big picture and be visionary and make sure we are drawing the contrast between us and the Democrats,” Ms. McMorris Rodgers said. “As Republicans, we really need to focus on what it is going to take to win back the voters we lost in 2018.” “We lost too many women, Republican women, in the suburbs and we lost men and women,” she said. “We must win hearts and minds, and we can do it.” She definitely has her work cut out for her. Her actions will be harder to track now that reporters won’t be seeking out her opinion as a supposedly prominent Republican. It will take diligence to keep watch over her, call her office with our concerns, and press her to hold real town halls. She must be called to account for the actions of her party and her “positive disruptor” as we head toward 2020. Keep to the high ground, Jerry |