The Beginning of the Next Phase...

I believe we've seen the end of the Beginning. Time that back to the indictment of the 13 Russians, or the Gates plea deal – something from late February. It seemed like it at the time, and the dribbles of information suggest that as well. More subpoenas to more orgs (including Trump's, which duh...)

I don't know what stage this will be that comes next, but it's unfolding. Still circulating that Mueller seeks an interview, and the OSC is negotiating that with the White House Staff. Trump has lost his shit this weekend. And the big shoe to drop next is that Trump moves to fire Mueller.

A lot of the "history will show ... " shit is coming out, so as a historian, let me set out a few of the questions that I will be interested in learning the answers to, and how I will be teaching them, FSM willing, that is still an option.

Both taken c. 3:50p

• RYAN and MCCONNELL: These guys will have to be two of the more odious shits (Odious Taints - h/t Rep. Schiff!) when all this unfolds. They sat and did nothing. How this came about is going to be really interesting. 

To wit: McConnell seemed awfully comfortable standing firm against Obama's nomination of Merrick Garland. He has seemed awfully smug. (And heavens I cannot wait for him to receive his. He's like #4 on the list.) When did he know about The Conspiracy?

Ditto Ryan: I expect for him it was more of a fait accompli. Someone said: "the Russians are going to help us win, the NRA is the conduit for laundering the cash, we'll build up a large enough majority in the victory to seal off investigations, and nobody will ever find out. Unless you open your big mouth, betray your party, your beliefs and ideological fantasies of sharing a warm post-coital moment with Ayn Rand. Now, Paulie, you wouldn't do that, would you, when you are [squeezes fingers down to a Strontium atom size] this close to getting everything you ever politically dreamed of, WOULD YOU?"

And Paul Ryan, that feckless tool, caved. 

• CHEETO Mussolini: Support for him now is confined to only these potential justifications; I refuse to accept anything else: 

1.  Authoritarianism
2. Racism
3. Misogyny
4. Avarice and cupidity
5. Stupidity

But there was something else I intended to speculate on, but now it escapes me. I know it dealt with Mueller, etc. but between the shower and here it slipped my mind.

Finally, not quite a Victory Lap, because I'm about to go on it and do some stupid shit, but ~~~VICTORY LAP~~~ \\ ~~~ `o– ~~~

The reason I quit posting on there with any frequency (aside from the several obvious ones) was because it harvesting user information to sell. That is ALL it ever did. It's kind of offensive that people are now Shocked – SHOCKED I tell you!! that Zuckerberg was in with Cambridge Anal*. Yeah, no shit, and anybody else willing to pay them.

 

He's on the list too, but way way down. Like #10. I need to post that soon. 


Now Go Get 'Em...

I suspect they didn't see that coming...

A couple of things, again just for the record.

Maybe I should upload them here - the various Indictments - so that I can use them in future Presidents' classes.

So that is an idea.

Hicks is resigning - that was announced today. I told my Presidents students today that I think the end of the beginning stage is coming. I've taken Garrett Graff's idea from Wired that there are five major elements of the investigation underway by American Hero Bobby Three Sticks, the Blog's new, official and permanent Object of Veneration.

 

The five things: 

• the Pre-existing business deals and money laundering; 
• the Russian bots and trolls; 
• the Hacking and the Bears; 
• Russian-campaign contacts; 
• obstruction of justice. 

The last I think even *I* could demonstrate. Anyway. I meant to actually write/post an actual thing here, but that was like an hour ago, and I got distracted.

Oh yeah, one thing: HAHAHAHAHA. God That Man is so motherfucking stupid, but it's so enjoyable to watch him pwn his own supporters, who were too stupid to see this coming. Forty-Five COMING FOR YOUR GUNZZZ!!! PEW PEW PEW!! Hahahahahaha.

How do you kill a giant stone Abraham Lincoln?

Extra crappy several months - more of the same (adjuncting all over the area and rubbing pennies together to get by), although the teaching was good. More US history giant survey (which is ridiculous - the entire story of American history in one semester), a world history giant survey (even more ridiculous for 6000 years in one semester), and then US II, which is enjoyable.

Even had a campus interview in a city I would have loved and in a place I would have been cool with, but that fell through to an inside hire. So that sucked. Now I have a summer ahead of me to writewritewritewrite and publish, wrap up some research in local collections, but still foreboding job prospects. There were jobs I applied for last fall with over 300 applicants. The pity is I really enjoy the teaching part, and I think - with some genuine modesty - that I'm really outstanding at it; the tragedy would be ending up totally outside looking in while other folks whom I know are shitty teachers get the jobs because they kiss ass better and give their dumb papers. It sure didn't sound like this in the brochure.

But little rabbit Foo-Foo didn't listen...

I don't quite know enough about economics to understand this thoroughly, but I do know enough about history to point out the obvious - trickle-down economics or supply-side economics, which has genuinely been tried three times in the recent American past, is an abject failure. Here is a link to a HuffPo piece that contains a document by a UC-Berkeley professor that lays out the current, and past, ratios of the distribution of wealth in the US. The above graph I grabbed from HPo's site. Now, historically, to look at the graph, one would note two things: tax policy can be effective at ameliorating the more grotesque maldistribution of wealth. (And note - this is the top .o1%!!) So the passage of the first income tax bill by Woodrow Wilson (using the newly-passed 16th Amendment), along with war-time taxation, significantly reduced the share of wealth held by that top .01% of the population. Similarly, the programs of the Great Society and War on Poverty also had the effect of diminishing income inequality, which was the point of the program (well, one of them), for LBJ. The second thing worth noting is the periods at which income inequality spikes, and the historical events that follow: notice that GIANT spike in 1928 and 2003? Obviously, the historical events that follow those are two dramatic economic collapses - the Great Depression and the Great Recession. Now, I have to admit, I've not yet read J.K. Galbraith's The Great Crash, though it's on "the list." But I have read enough of the Depression to feel pretty confident in classifying three causes of the Great Depression: overproduction/underconsumption, the collapse of the international economy, and a huge maldistribution of wealth. Consult the 1929 Brookings Institution report for a good description of the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few. Notice any connection? I don't want to paint a mono-causal picture, but historically, it seems that a dramatic maldisribution of wealth can have calamitious economic impacts. Does this sway in any way the thoughts of the super-rich? No, of course not. They don't care. But the next time a Republican administration tries to sell you "supply-side" economic dung as rosebuds and lilacs, be skeptical. It don't work.

WOW

As an American History professor, last night I was really stunned, speechless, and THRILLED at the outcome of the election. Just remarkable. W O W .
And: my sister told me mother did get on board with Obama. I'm proud of both of them.

On economics

I really don't understand economics in a functional way. I am terrible with my OWN money - to say nothing of student loans. But there have been a lot of historical parallels generally in the US right now - in terms of the election (some particularly nasty ones in the 1840s and 1860 of course), and now economics too. I'm reading for my classes a really great book in the Oxford History of the United States series (can't recommend all five volumes enough) called Freedom from Fear by David Kennedy. And Kennedy makes the important separation of the Crash from the Depression. But the amount of failures in banking and finance now taking place present some really worrying parallels. A lot of the crisis after the Crash, Kennedy notes, was from runs on banks, and in essence, a total loss of confidence. Now the Market dropping 500 points today doesn't have an immediate impact on me. And I'm not suggesting that the economy is on the verge of utter collapse, as it did in 1929. But to view the Great Depression as a process does offer some troubling potential paths of our economy now.
Anyway, my brain hurts from 3 lectures today, and now I have another one to write on the settlement of the American South in the 17th century. So pardon the incoherence.