Dems Since Reagan Deliver Higher GDP Growth

Seems crazy, no?  I looked up the GDP Growth by year since 1980.

I looked up who was President.

I then averaged the GDP growth for each President.  I used the year AFTER the President assumed office until the year AFTER he left.  Ex: Reagan's average is from 1981-1989.  Reagan was elected in November 1980.  He left office in January 1989.  His economic policies wouldn't have any effect on 1980 and they would likely continue to impact 1989, right?

Here's what I found.

President/Avg. GDP Growth

Reagan/3.64%
GHW Bush/2.03%
Clinton/3.66%
GW Bush/-1.64%
Obama/2.15%

I used estimated growth of 2.2% for 2017 based on a report from Kiplingers.  The WSJ put it at 2.5%.

Obama's GDP growth (after the worst economic collapse since the great depression) was better than GWH Bush or GW Bush.  Fun fact:  Clinton raised taxes, and yet grew the economy more than Reagan...who, come to think of it, also raised taxes some 11 times.

Huh.

Data is here.

PS:  I dropped out of macro in college (the only course I ever dropped!) so I'm open to being corrected on any of the above.

The GOP Abandons Morality & the Constitution

Forget the allegations of sexual harassment of minors.  The GOP has abandoned the rule of law in backing Roy Moore.  See this piece from the Atlantic, The Lawlessness of Roy Moore.  He doesn't care about the Constitution.  He's here to enforce his Christian God's law on earth.  Period.  The Constitution is subservient to that end, a contract drawn up by mortals.  Roy speaks for GOD!

But first the GOP abandoned morality in nominating a lying, wife-cheating, godless, draft-dodging, 1980s-steakhouse cheeseball in Donald Trump.  The GOP has, since DJT's inauguration, also abandoned the Constitution in allowing him to remain in office after committing numerous offenses that qualify him for impeachment.  I make this claim based on Alexander Hamilton's Federalist Paper #65 in which he describes the court for the trial of impeachment like this: "A well constituted court for the trial of impeachments, is an object not more to be desired than difficult to be obtained in a government wholly elective. The subjects of its jurisdiction are those offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or in other words from the abuse or violation of some public trust."  The misconduct of public men.  Abuse or violation of some public trust.  It bears repeating.  He goes on to describe the subject of an impeachment trial: "They are of a nature which may with peculiar propriety be denominated POLITICAL, as they relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to the society itself."  The violations are POLITICAL not CRIMINAL.  Trump accused Obama of wire-tapping him with no evidence.  He fired Comey for pressuring him in the Russia investigation.  You know how the rest of this song goes.  The GOP has abandoned the rule of law in allowing Trump to remain in office (the emoluments clause!!) in a bloodthirsty lust for tax cuts that satisfy their keepers -- the donor class who keeps them in office.

So first they pulled their support for Roy Moore when the allegations of sexual assault surfaced.  They said he wouldn't be seated in the Senate if elected.  Now that it looks like he could win, now that they realize how fragile their grip on the Senate is, Roy's their boy.  Morality is for losers.

The GOP (I'm indicting the party itself and its leaders, not necessarily everyone who's ever voted Republican, as I have in the past) has abandoned morality and the Constitution.  But they got their corporate tax cuts so it's all good.

Smells like autocracy

Here's Trump's latest email to me.  See if you can spot the creeping autocracy.
************************************************************************

From: Donald J. Trump <contact@action.gop.com>
Date: Thu, Sep 28, 2017 at 2:14 PM
Subject: No doubt in my mind
To: "paul.gillespie@gmail.com" <paul.gillespie@gmail.com>

Friend,

No matter what the Fake News Media reports, we’re working to advance our agenda every day.

In the first 9 months alone, we’ve delivered on our promises and have proven we’re ready to fight for what we believe is right for the future of this great country.

We did it together in 2016, and there’s no doubt in my mind we have the momentum to keep it going. But I need to know you’re committed to our movement, Friend.

This is your last chance to update your record before our end-of-quarter deadline, and I’m hoping you’ll do so by renewing your Sustaining Membership:

2017 SUSTAINING MEMBERSHIP

Email: paul.gillespie@gmail.com

Account Number: 28941494
2017 Sustaining Membership: PENDING
Deadline: September 30, 11:59 PM

CONTRIBUTE $250
CONTRIBUTE $100
CONTRIBUTE $75
CONTRIBUTE $50
CONTRIBUTE $35
CONTRIBUTE OTHER AMOUNT

Please contribute $250, $100, $75, $50, $35, or $10 to renew your Sustaining Membership for the 2017 year.

We cannot allow the Fake News Media and obstructionist Democrats to flood the airwaves and mislead the American people, Friend, and they are our strongest opponent yet.

So please, be sure to renew your 2017 Sustaining Membership before the September 30 deadline.

Thank you,


Donald J. Trump
President of The United States

P.S. - I’ve requested a list of every person who steps up and renews their 2017 Sustaining Membership before the September 30 deadline. I hope to see your name on the list.


CONTRIBUTE $100

************************************************************************************

I learned a direct mail copying writing trick 30 years ago.  Put the most important piece of information in a PS.  People often read the PS before the body copy.  In this message, just below Trump's stern glare -- his standard look -- he tells me that he's asked for a list of every person who "steps up and renews their 2017 Sustaining Membership..."  He's asked for a list and he hopes to see my name on it.  See the veiled threat there?  I will be noticeable by my absence if POTUS doesn't see me on the list.  I don't know.  Maybe my undergrad days studying the USSR and East Germany left me with a heightened fear of the State snooping into our lives, but a glaring POTUS telling me he's going to check the list for my name feels like classic Stalinist/Maoist/Kim technique.  

Tyranny's Foothold

This WSJ editorial came out last week. This concluding sentence nails it:

"Mr. Trump somehow seems to believe that his outsize personality and social-media following make him larger than the Presidency. He’s wrong."

My January 29 post made the case for invoking the 25th Amendment on the grounds that Trump's mental disorder -- malignant narcissism -- prevents him from discharging his duties as President.  The WSJ puts it another way here by pointing out that Trump thinks he's "larger than the Presidency."  He thinks he is above the Office, above the law.  Why else would he and his lead attorney Jay Sekulow be exploring the idea that he can pardon himself?  What is that if not the very definition of "above the law"?

Trump is EXACTLY who Adams, Madison, Jefferson, and the framers feared might one day ascend to the Office of the President.  It is time for the GOP to stop fiddling around the edges in order to squeak through ACA reform, tax reform, or their flavor-of-the-month legislation.  Whenever they (Ryan, McConnell, Graham, and other GOP leaders) are pressed on a daily/weekly Trump travesty they say things like, 'That doesn't help' or 'That doesn't reflect the principles of our party'....or some other mealy-mouthed talking point.

This man, his family and his henchmen are slowly, inexorably destroying our democracy.   

"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent."
-Thomas Jefferson

When will the people of good conscience in Congress break their silence?

#POTUSLIES Update

This NYT tally of Trump's lies is all well and good, but where was the WSJ, National Review, FoxNews and other conservative media while candidate Trump was lying his way through the primaries? Megyn Kelly took a shot at him at one debate only to be bullied into silence and complicity. If the responsible conservative media had called Trump a liar starting the day he announced his candidacy, maybe we wouldn't be reading about him as POTUS today. Instead, the broader media -- liberal and conservative alike -- fed on the ratings and revenue Trump drove. 

Back on January 5 I wrote this of the WSJ Editor's defense of why they had not labeled Trump a liar during the campaign.  The first paragraph quote is WSJ Editor Baker:

Baker: "To refrain from labeling leaders’ statements as lies is to support an unrelenting but not omniscient press, one that trusts readers’ judgments rather than presenting judgments to them. If we routinely make these kinds of judgments, readers would start to see our inevitably selective use of a moral censure as partisanship. We must not only be objective. We must be seen to be objective to continue to earn our readers’ trust."

Paul: "Here's the problem with Baker's argument: because he and the leading conservative press think they're only writing for their primary reader -- people who actually can make sound judgements about the character of guys like Trump-- the WSJ and their ilk allowed Trump's ascension by not branding him a lying BS artist in month 1 of his campaign.  Their assumption about their audience is dead wrong: they're not just writing for their primary reader.  Rather they are setting the standard, the tone, and the agenda for the conservative press.  If a scion like the WSJ had called Trump what he really is -- a liar -- Fox and other outlets likely would've followed suit.

Unlike the WSJ's primary readers, Trumpeters -- the 40 million or so yahoos who generated the momentum that got him the nomination and scared the GOP into full support that gave him the platform for victory -- can't make that same sound judgement."

So here we are, 166 days into the Trump Presidency and the NYT catalogs his lies by the day.   According to this tabulation he told an outright lie or falsehood every day of his Presidency for the first 40 days. 

The only question remains is whether the conservative press will do the right thing now.  However, they are still feeding off his media stardom as he slowly erodes The American Presidency from within. Huh. Maybe they know what they're doing after all. 

When you invite Dracula into your house

The most upsetting aspect of the Trump Presidency is that all of this was completely predictable, nay expected, from the moment he entered the race.  I don't actually blame him or the 30-40MM rabid voters who will never abandon him.  Trump is exactly who he has always been and his fans are disaffected and politically under-educated.  I blame the GOP leadership and the media.

The GOP let Dracula into the house.  They knew who/what he was.  They gave him a free pass during the primary season.  Rather than mounting a concerted attack on him from all sides, calling him out for what he truly is (we all know the adjectives...liar, sexual predator, intellectual midget, bereft of information), the 16 other candidates either tried to make alliances with him (Christie, Carson) or threw spitballs instead of firing howitzers.  He bullied Jeb, Marco, and Ted because they were the odds-on favorites.  Each in turn responded with muted criticism around the edges rather than attacking head-on all together on the substance of his lunacy, his vacuousness, his narcissism, his inability to tell the truth, his wife-cheating, his whacked out policy ideas like building a wall, and on and on and on.  

Why?  I don't think it's because they didn't know how to fight.  They and the rest of the GOP leadership saw the value in Trump's draw, his ability to activate the 30-40MM yahoos into voting Republican.  They bet wrong, obviously.  But by convention time rather than kneecapping Trump then and there, they continued to "manage" him.  They could have split the party and taken the GOP $$ with them (or most of it) a la TR and the Bull Moose Party.  They would've lost to HRC, I know, but the country would've been spared the Trump crisis.  Then after he won the nomination the party leadership either grinned through gritted teeth at Trump or outright supported him.  If every GOP Senator and Governor had done what Mitt did, we'd have been spared Trump and the crisis of his Presidency.

I blame the media because they feasted on his ratings while giving him a free pass.  The editor of the WSJ wrote a tender editorial a few months back about why they couldn't call him a liar sooner...like during the campaign.  I was unmoved.  If the entire media had attacked candidate Trump with actual tough questions at his rallies, in person, on air, he would've withered.  I recall Trump on Fox & Friends--calling in, of course, not showing up like a real candidate--saying that we ought to murder the families of ISIS members.  Everyone on F&F chuckled as if to say, "Well, that's crazy! But who knows, right guys?  Maybe we should revert to barbarianism!"  I could run the battery down on my laptop with examples like that.  He was good for ratings/eyeballs/readers so the fourth estate let him call into shows and blather on, all the while enraging his base more and more while driving up ratings.  Les Moonves said it best when he said Trump may be bad for America but he's great for ratings.  And when someone like Megyn Kelly finally went after him in the debates, and Trump attacked her implying she was probably menstruating at the time, she later slithered back into Trump's good graces with a softball one-on-one.  Why?  Wait for it...RATINGS.

Trump is a creature of reality TV.  And his rise is the result of deeply disafected Americans yearning for leadership from Washington that will ease their pain.  Papa Don Trump said he has all the answers, only he can solve our nation's problems.  And because the 30-40MM yahoos are under-educated and ravenous for some change, some answer, some kind of relief, they voted for him.  (The other 20-30MM held their nose and said, "Well, at least he's a Republican."  I had dinner with the head of the GOP in DC in late October.  He said he knew Trump was horrible but that the party would mitigate any damage he might cause by surrounding him with good people.  Surround him with people like Bannon and Ivanka?  How's that insulation strategy working for you now?)

So, Trump is who he has always been.  The real blame belongs to the GOP and the media for letting Dracula into the house.

NB:  Dracula can't enter a home uninvited.  But once invited, he does whatever he wants.  And he always wants to suck the life out of you.  Just like Trump is sucking the life out of our blessed Republic.

Ashamed of POTUS

I think my biggest problem with Trump is that he's a horrible person and I'm ashamed that our democracy picked him to be President. 

He's ignorant. He's arrogant. He's a p***y-grabbing, money-grubbing, paper-tiger-who-roars, demagogue who's malignant narcissism guides every thought. He just plain embarrasses me. 

In my work I deal with people in England, Poland, Germany, France, India, and China and this bad-comb-over, 70-year-old 1980's-steak-house cheeseball represents the worst of America. And I know all those American warts grow on the body politic. I just hate to see them on display every day in the citadel of democracy at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. 

So, let's stop debating policies from the WH because they're not Trump's anyway. They're creatures of the GOP horse whisperers who happen to have his ear at the moment. And if those policies benefit the Trump brand, they have a better chance of succeeding.  In the meantime, I'm ashamed of POTUS for the first time in my life.

Bannon's Strategy: Shock Event

For the first time here, I'm posting someone else's ideas.  

From Heather Richardson, professor of History at Boston College.  She posted it on her FB page on Jan 29, 2017.

"I don't like to talk about politics on Facebook-- political history is my job, after all, and you are my friends-- but there is an important non-partisan point to make today. What Bannon is doing, most dramatically with last night's ban on immigration from seven predominantly Muslim countries-- is creating what is known as a "shock event." Such an event is unexpected and confusing and throws a society into chaos. People scramble to react to the event, usually along some fault line that those responsible for the event can widen by claiming that they alone know how to restore order. When opponents speak out, the authors of the shock event call them enemies. As society reels and tempers run high, those responsible for the shock event perform a sleight of hand to achieve their real goal, a goal they know to be hugely unpopular, but from which everyone has been distracted as they fight over the initial event. There is no longer concerted opposition to the real goal; opposition divides along the partisan lines established by the shock event.


Last night's Executive Order has all the hallmarks of a shock event. It was not reviewed by any governmental agencies or lawyers before it was released, and counterterrorism experts insist they did not ask for it. People charged with enforcing it got no instructions about how to do so. Courts immediately have declared parts of it unconstitutional, but border police in some airports are refusing to stop enforcing it. Predictably, chaos has followed and tempers are hot.

My point today is this: unless you are the person setting it up, it is in no one's interest to play the shock event game. It is designed explicitly to divide people who might otherwise come together so they cannot stand against something its authors think they won't like.


I don't know what Bannon is up to-- although I have some guesses-- but because I know Bannon's ideas well, I am positive that there is not a single person whom I consider a friend on either side of the aisle-- and my friends range pretty widely-- who will benefit from whatever it is.


If the shock event strategy works, though, many of you will blame each other, rather than Bannon, for the fallout. And the country will have been tricked into accepting their real goal.  But because shock events destabilize a society, they can also be used positively. We do not have to respond along old fault lines. We could just as easily reorganize into a different pattern that threatens the people who sparked the event.  A successful shock event depends on speed and chaos because it requires knee-jerk reactions so that people divide along established lines. This, for example, is how Confederate leaders railroaded the initial southern states out of the Union.


If people realize they are being played, though, they can reach across old lines and reorganize to challenge the leaders who are pulling the strings. This was Lincoln's strategy when he joined together Whigs, Democrats, Free-Soilers, anti-Nebraska voters, and nativists into the new Republican Party to stand against the Slave Power.  Five years before, such a coalition would have been unimaginable. Members of those groups agreed on very little other than that they wanted all Americans to have equal economic opportunity. Once they began to work together to promote a fair economic system, though, they found much common ground. They ended up rededicating the nation to a "government of the people, by the people, and for the people."  Confederate leaders and Lincoln both knew about the political potential of a shock event. As we are in the midst of one, it seems worth noting that Lincoln seemed to have the better idea about how to use it."

Time for the 25th

Section 4 of the 25th Amendment to the Constitution allows for removal of a US President who is unable to discharge his duties.

On January 10, 2017 I sent this email to my father when he pointed out that DJT isn't the Oval's first narcissist:
**************************************************
Dear Dad,

"Narcissism and "narcissitic personality disorder" are different.  

I've met plenty of narcissists but from my observation of DJT (and in spite of my total lack of psychological training) I say he's a wonderful match for narcissistic personality disorder.  Here is the Diagnostic & Statistical Manual 5 (DSM) definition of "narcissistic personality disorder".  As you may know, DSM is the definitive guidebook for classifying mental and emotional disorders used by all providers and payers: We've all seen all of these in DJT.

"The essential features of a personality disorder are impairments in personality (self and interpersonal) functioning and the presence of pathological personality traits. To diagnose narcissistic personality disorder, the following criteria must be met: 

A. Significant impairments in personality functioning manifest by: 

1. Impairments in self functioning (a or b): a. Identity: Excessive reference to others for self-definition and self-esteem regulation; exaggerated self-appraisal may be inflated or deflated, or vacillate between extremes; emotional regulation mirrors fluctuations in self-esteem. b. Self-direction: Goal-setting is based on gaining approval from others; personal standards are unreasonably high in order to see oneself as exceptional, or too low based on a sense of entitlement; often unaware of own motivations. 

AND 2. Impairments in interpersonal functioning (a or b): a. Empathy: Impaired ability to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others; excessively attuned to reactions of others, but only if perceived as relevant to self; over- or underestimate of own effect on others. b. Intimacy: Relationships largely superficial and exist to serve self-esteem regulation; mutuality constrained by little genuine interest in others‟ experiences and predominance of a need for personal gain 

B. Pathological personality traits in the following domain: 1. Antagonism, characterized by: a. Grandiosity: Feelings of entitlement, either overt or covert;self-centeredness; firmly holding to the belief that one is better than others; condescending toward others. b. Attention seeking: Excessive attempts to attract and be the focus of the attention of others; admiration seeking. 

C. The impairments in personality functioning and the individual‟s personality trait expression are relatively stable across time and consistent across situations. 

D. The impairments in personality functioning and the individual‟s personality trait expression are not better understood as normative for the individual‟s developmental stage or socio-cultural environment. 

E. The impairments in personality functioning and the individual‟s personality trait expression are not solely due to the direct physiological effects of a substance (e.g., a drug of abuse, medication) or a general medical condition (e.g., severe head trauma)."

**************************************************************

I see nearly every criteria met by DJT's behavior every day.  The analysis of DJT in this piece raises his disease to an ever more dire level, classifying it as "malignant narcissism"

So it's not too soon to begin putting the 25th Amendment into action.

#POTUSLIES

Since Donald J. Trump announced his candidacy he's been lying.  Some friends in the GOP have asked me to wait until he's President to pass judgment.  Watch his actions, they say, if he wins. OK.  He's POTUS.  Herewith, the lies that have started to flow from him and his administration.*

January 24, 2017: WashPo reports that #POTUSLIES when he says he'd have won the popular vote were it not for non-existent voter fraud.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/01/23/at-white-house-trump-tells-congressional-leaders-3-5-million-illegal-ballots-cost-him-the-popular-vote/?utm_term=.a3d91a2bc9ee&wpisrc=nl_az_most

January 23, 2017:  CBSNews reports that #POTUSLIES by packing CIA audience with friends and allies who cheered, thereby lying to the cameras about support for him from the assemblage and the agency in general.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/sources-say-theres-a-sense-of-unease-in-intel-community-after-trump-cia-visit/

January 23, 2017 WSJ: WHITE HOUSE BACKS 'ALTERNATIVE FACTS'

http://www.wsj.com/articles/white-house-backs-alternative-facts-1485144074

I love this headline. It quotes Kelleyanne Conway in an interview on MEET THE PRESS saying that Sean Spicer wasn't lying when he said DJT's inauguration crowd was the biggest in history, he was merely referencing alternative facts.  That's a perfect insight into DJTWorld.  There are no truths.  There is not objective reality.  There are only a selection of "facts" from which we pick while drafting the narrative (today's word for fiction).

How #POTUSLIES in this story is simple:  all objective data prove that fewer people attended his inauguration than BO's first inauguration.  The WSJ story documents it nicely.  Sean Spicer on camera in front of the WH press corps lied that DJT's crowd was bigger than BOs because DC Metro ridership was higher.  That's not an alternative fact.  It's a lie the WSJ documents.

Here's the disturbing part.  We think reality TV is actually real.  We now have a POTUS who was born of reality TV.  Reality TV is not real.  It's fake.  It's fiction.  It's entertainment.

Next up:  Non-fiction and Fiction sections of libraries to merge.

* (I use the term POTUS here as shorthand for the entire Administration, because while the fish stinks from the head you will start smelling the lies further down the body.)

Second source for these lies is here: http://www.politico.com/blogs/donald-trump-administration/2017/01/trumps-press-secretary-just-told-4-whoppers-in-5-minutes-233984

Trump 'Lies' and Honest Journalism

I trust you saw this.  If you haven't, and you can get into the piece at WSJ.com, it's worth your time.  Gerald Baker, Editor in Chief goes to great lengths to make this point:  Journalism isn't supposed to tell you if a candidate is a liar, it's only supposed to give you the facts and let you decide if the candidate is a liar.  Baker says:

"To refrain from labeling leaders’ statements as lies is to support an unrelenting but not omniscient press, one that trusts readers’ judgments rather than presenting judgments to them. If we routinely make these kinds of judgments, readers would start to see our inevitably selective use of a moral censure as partisanship. We must not only be objective. We must be seen to be objective to continue to earn our readers’ trust."

Here's the problem with Baker's argument: because he and the leading conservative press think they're only writing for their primary reader -- people who actually can make sound judgements about the character of guys like Trump-- the WSJ and their ilk allowed Trump's ascension by not branding him a lying BS artist in month 1 of his campaign.  Their assumption about their audience is dead wrong: they're not just writing for their primary reader.  Rather they are setting the standard, the tone, and the agenda for the conservative press.  If a scion like the WSJ had called Trump what he really is -- a liar -- Fox and other outlets likely would've followed suit.

WSJ's primary readers generally don't buy DJT's BS.  We knew he didn't believe it when he said Mexico is sending us rapists and drug dealers; he was merely playing to the crowd to get their ire up and grab headlines.  He was deceiving his base to achieve an objective.  This BS became the core of his campaign.  

He said we should kill the families of terrorists....and on and on.  When he said during his debate with HRC that he'd hire a special prosecutor to put her in jail, he was lying -- speaking a falsehood in order to deceive and achieve his result.  Last month at a rally when "Lock her up" broke out he said, "That played well before the election but now we don't really care, right?"  

Unlike the WSJ's primary readers, Trumpeters -- the 40 million or so yahoos who generated the momentum that got him the nomination and scared the GOP into full support that gave him the platform for victory -- can't make that same sound judgement.  

• They think The Apprentice is really how businesses run.  
• They think Trump's a bona fide billionaire who made it on his own.  They don't know (or care) that the $2MM stake from his Dad would've been worth more than he is now had he put it in an index fund instead of losing untold millions on horrible business decisions. 
• They think he really was just engaging in locker-room banter when he said he can grab a women's p---y anytime he wants.  Calling it "locker-room banter" was a falsehood intended to deceive. 
• They REALLY THINK a guy who builds casinos and hotels has the acumen, the judgement, the temperment, the experience, and the education to be POTUS

Had the WSJ, The National Review, The Washington Examiner, FoxNews, and the rest of the true conservative media called Trump what he is -- a serial liar -- from month 1 instead of sucking on the teet of the ratings bonanza he drove, we'd be inaugurating Ted, or Jeb, or Marco in 15 days instead of the most dangerous person to move into the White House in the history of the American Experiment. 

Sadly, Baker has doubled down on the WSJ policy to let readers judge who the liars are.  And sadly, 40-50 million angry yahoos will continue to cheer for the reality show premiering Jan 20 at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.  Let's hope the ratings tank and the show gets cancelled.  Soon.