Democrats Brace For the Fall

It's a small comfort to Democrats who are watching their GOP foes measure drapes, plan policy strategies and plot ways to get back at Democrats who kicked Republicans off of legislative committees. But despite the very grim outlook for Democrats in the fall midterms, it could have been much, much worse for the party.

Virtually no one in either party talks with a straight face about the possibility that the Democrats will retain their narrow majority in the House. Historical trends, combined with the dampening effect of an unpopular Democratic president, mean the question is not so much whether Republicans will reclaim the majority in the House, but how big their gains will be.

But recent developments mean Democrats aren't as likely to face the political apocalypse threatening them last year.

Redistricting – which could have delivered a death blow to Democrats for a decade, given the fact that there are more GOP-controlled state legislatures than Democratic-run ones – has turned out to be largely a wash. Legal challenges of maps in Ohio and North Carolina could limit GOP gains in those states, while a recent court ruling ordering Alabama to create another majority-minority seat could give Democrats a chance at a pickup.

Far more House Democrats (28) than Republicans (13) have announced their retirements or plans to run for other office, a sign that Democrats believe they will be in the minority next year. But the vast majority of those seats are not in highly competitive districts, providing Republicans with fewer chances to flip the seats.


"I think Democrats are happy – well, maybe not happy, but relieved," says Stu Rothenberg, a veteran political analyst and author of the nonpartisan Rothenberg Report. "It doesn't change the fundamentals of a midterm cycle, particularly with a president whose approval rating sits at 40-44%. But the Democrats are relieved that the worst-case scenario didn't occur," Rothenberg says. "Some of them are really surprised they did as well as they did."


The party of the president in power tends to lose seats in the midterm, with exceptions occurring just three times since 1910. President Joe Biden's low approval ratings also hurt down-ticket candidates, Rothenberg notes, especially since Biden is facing criticism from both the progressive and centrist wings of his party.  READ MORE...

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Memorable Quotes

In my many years I have come to a conclusion that one useless man is a shame; two is a law firm and three or more is a government.

John Adams

If you don't read the newspaper you are uninformed, if you do read the newspaper you are misinformed.
Mark Twain

Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of government. But then I repeat myself.
Mark Twain

I contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.
Winston Churchill

A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.
George Bernard Shaw

Foreign aid might be defined as a transfer of money from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries.
Douglas Casey, Classmate of Bill Clinton at Georgetown University

Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.
P.J. O'Rourke, Civil Libertarian

Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavours to live at the expense of everybody else.
Frederic Bastiat, French economist(1801-1850)

I don't make erjokes . I just watch the government and report the facts.
Will Rogers

In general, the art of government consists of taking as much money as possible from one party of the citizens to give to the other.
Voltaire (1764)

Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you!
Pericles (430 B.C.)

No man's life, liberty, or property is safe while the legislature is in session.
Mark Twain (1866)

Talk is cheap...except when government does it.
Anonymous

The government is like a baby's alimentary canal, with a happy appetite at one end and no control at the other.
Ronald Reagan

The only difference between a tax man and a taxidermist is that the taxidermist leaves the skin.
Mark Twain

There is no distinctly Native American criminal class. . . Save government.
Mark Twain

What this country needs are more unemployed politicians.
Edward Langley, Artist (1928-1995)

A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have.
Thomas Jefferson

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African American History

Carter G. Woodson (1875-1950) was an American historian, a scholar and the founder of the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History. Woodson was instrumental in launching Negro History Week in 1926.Bettmann Archive/Getty Images

Every February, the U.S. honors the contributions and sacrifices of African Americans who have helped shape the nation. Black History Month celebrates the rich cultural heritage, triumphs and adversities that are an indelible part of our country's history.

This year's theme, Black Health and Wellness, pays homage to medical scholars and health care providers. The theme is especially timely as we enter the third year of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has disproportionately affected minority communities and placed unique burdens on Black health care professionals.

"There is no American history without African American history," said Sara Clarke Kaplan, executive director of the Antiracist Research & Policy Center at American University in Washington, D.C. The Black experience, she said, is embedded in "everything we think of as 'American history.' "

First, there was Negro History Week.  Critics have long argued that Black history should be taught and celebrated year-round, not just during one month each year.

It was Carter G. Woodson, the "father of Black history," who first set out in 1926 to designate a time to promote and educate people about Black history and culture, according to W. Marvin Dulaney. He is a historian and the president of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH).

Woodson envisioned a weeklong celebration to encourage the coordinated teaching of Black history in public schools. He designated the second week of February as Negro History Week and galvanized fellow historians through the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, which he founded in 1915. (ASNLH later became ASALH.)

The idea wasn't to place limitations but really to focus and broaden the nation's consciousness.  "Woodson's goal from the very beginning was to make the celebration of Black history in the field of history a 'serious area of study,' " said Albert Broussard, a professor of Afro-American history at Texas A&M University.

The idea eventually grew in acceptance, and by the late 1960s, Negro History Week had evolved into what is now known as Black History Month. Protests around racial injustice, inequality and anti-imperialism that were occurring in many parts of the U.S. were pivotal to the change.  READ MORE...

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Black History Months Facts

1) The current population of Black and African Americans makes up 46.9 million, the U.S. Census Bureau reports. Also, 89.4% of African Americans age 25 and older had a high school diploma or higher in 2020, as Fox10 Phoenix reported.

2) A founder of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History organization, Carter G. Woodson, first had the idea of this month-long celebration. Woodson was born in 1875 to newly freed Virginia slaves. He later earned a Ph.D. in history from Harvard University. He worried that Black children were not being taught about their ancestors’ achievements in American schools in the early 1900s, as Fox 10 noted.

3) By the late 1960s, Negro History Week — the precursor for this month's celebrations and events — changed into what is now known as Black History Month.

4) The month of February was picked for Black History Month because it contained the birthdays of President Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. Lincoln was born on Feb. 12, and Douglass, a former slave who did not know his precise birthday, celebrated his date of birth on Feb. 14.

5) ASALH has celebrated Negro History Week and Black History Month for 95 years.

6) Fifty years after the first celebrations, then-President Gerald R. Ford officially recognized Black History Month at the country's 1976 bicentennial. Ford called on Americans to "seize the opportunity to honor the too-often neglected accomplishments of Black Americans in every area of endeavor throughout our history," as History.com noted.

7) Forty years after Ford's recognition of Black History Month, then-President Barack Obama delivered this message, in part, from the White House: "Black History Month shouldn't be treated as though it is somehow separate from our collective American history or somehow just boiled down to a compilation of greatest hits from the March on Washington or from some of our sports heroes … It's about the lived, shared experience of all African Americans."

8) Canada also commemorates Black History Month in February.

9) At the time of Negro History Week's launch in 1926, Woodson believed the teaching of Black history was key to the physical and intellectual survival of the race within society: "If a race has no history, it has no worthwhile tradition, it becomes a negligible factor in the thought of the world, and it stands in danger of being exterminated," he said in part, as the Journal of Negro History reported.

10) While this year's theme for Black History Month is Black health and wellness, past themes have included the family, Black migrations, and Black women in American culture and history, among others.

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A Proclomation on Black History Month, 2022

THE WHITE HOUSE

Each February, National Black History Month serves as both a celebration and a powerful reminder that Black history is American history, Black culture is American culture, and Black stories are essential to the ongoing story of America — our faults, our struggles, our progress, and our aspirations. Shining a light on Black history today is as important to understanding ourselves and growing stronger as a Nation as it has ever been. That is why it is essential that we take time to celebrate the immeasurable contributions of Black Americans, honor the legacies and achievements of generations past, reckon with centuries of injustice, and confront those injustices that still fester today.

Our Nation was founded on an idea: that all of us are created equal and deserve to be treated with equal dignity throughout our lives. It is a promise we have never fully lived up to but one that we have never, ever walked away from. The long shadows of slavery, Jim Crow, and redlining — and the blight of systemic racism that still diminishes our Nation today — hold America back from reaching our full promise and potential. But by facing those tragedies openly and honestly and working together as one people to deliver on America’s promise of equity and dignity for all, we become a stronger Nation — a more perfect version of ourselves.

Across the generations, countless Black Americans have demonstrated profound moral courage and resilience to help shape our Nation for the better. Today, Black Americans lead industries and movements for change, serve our communities and our Nation at every level, and advance every field across the board, including arts and sciences, business and law, health and education, and many more. In the face of wounds and obstacles older than our Nation itself, Black Americans can be seen in every part of our society today, strengthening and uplifting all of America.

Vice President Harris and I are deeply committed to advancing equity, racial justice, and opportunity for Black Americans as we continue striving to realize America’s founding promise. That began by building a Federal Government that looks like America: including the first Black Secretary of Defense, the first Black woman to head the Office of Management and Budget, the first Black man to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, the first Black woman to lead the Department of Housing and Urban Development in more than 40 years, the first Black chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisors, a Black Ambassador representing America at the United Nations, and the first Black and South Asian Vice President in our history. We have been proud to appoint accomplished Black Americans to serve in a vast array of roles across our Administration. I am prouder still to have already nominated eight Black women to serve as Federal appellate judges — matching in just 1 year the total number of Black women who have ever served on Federal appeals courts.

My Administration has worked hard to reverse decades of underinvestment in Black communities, schools, and businesses. Both the American Rescue Plan and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law are making historic investments in Black America — from vaccine shots in arms to checks in families’ pockets and tax cuts for working families with children to a landmark $5.8 billion investment in and support for Historically Black Colleges and Universities. And in my first year in office, the American Rescue Plan provided the full Child Tax Credit to the lower income families of more than 26 million children — who are disproportionately Black — and put us on a path to cut Black child poverty in half.

As the Infrastructure Law continues to be implemented, we will expand on that progress. Lead service lines that have contaminated the water of too many homes and schools in Black communities will be removed and replaced. We will deliver high-speed internet to every community so that no Black family is left behind in the 21st century economy. Historic investments in public transportation will help more people in more neighborhoods get to where good jobs actually are quickly and safely. We will reconnect Black neighborhoods cut off from opportunity by highways that were built to brush them aside. Long-standing environmental injustices that have hit Black communities the hardest will be remediated. We will deliver major investments in Black entrepreneurs and small businesses — including making the Minority Business Development Agency permanent and seeding it with a record $110 million in new resources to help level the playing field for Black businesses.

But this is only the start. To fulfill America’s promise for all, we will work tirelessly in the year ahead to deliver on my Build Back Better agenda, bringing down the costs that families face on child care, housing, education, health care, prescription drugs, and so much more. We will continue to battle the COVID-19 pandemic with equity at the center of our response. We will not rest until we have protected the foundation of our democracy: the sacred right to vote. And we will fight to keep dismantling all of those structural inequities that have served as barriers for Black families for generations.

As we celebrate National Black History Month, let us all recommit ourselves to reach for that founding promise. Let us continue to fight for the equity, opportunity, and dignity to which every Black American is due in equal measure. Let us carry forward the work to build an America that is, in the beautiful words of the poet Amanda Gorman, “Bruised, but whole — benevolent, but bold, fierce, and free.“

NOW, THEREFORE, I, JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR., President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim February 2022 as National Black History Month. I call upon public officials, educators, librarians, and all the people of the United States to observe this month with appropriate programs, ceremonies, and activities.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this thirty-first day of January, in the year of our Lord two thousand twenty-two, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and forty-sixth.


JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR.

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Saving US Dollars in Lebanon

Lebanon's government estimates that losses in the country's insolvent banks since the onset of the currency crisis fall somewhere in the neighbourhood of $69bn [File: Mohamed Azakir/Reuters]

Beirut, Lebanon – Members of professional syndicates and anti-establishment political parties gathered outside the Beirut headquarters of Lebanon’s commercial banks’ lobby last month to take a stand against a policy that has haunted savers in the country since it plunged into a financial and economic crisis over two years ago – lirafication.

“Lirafication” describes a policy that would allow commercial banks to return depositors’ funds currently locked in United States dollar savings accounts in Lebanese pounds, also known here as lira. Depositors now fear that Lebanon will incorporate lirafication into its economic recovery plan with the International Monetary Fund to bail out the country’s insolvent banks.

“This will take us to hyperinflation,” said Hassan Moughnieh, who leads the Association of Depositors in Lebanon. “This is very bad for the Lebanese economy.”

Such concerns may be well-founded. Lebanon plans on returning less than a quarter of some $109bn in trapped US dollar deposits in its recovery plan, according to a Reuters News Agency report. Several officials involved in drafting the plan have declined to comment about the matter to Al Jazeera.

Ad hoc lirafication has been happening since the country first started sliding into crisis in August 2019, when Lebanon’s banks began to withhold deposits in US dollar accounts.

Currently, depositors can withdraw from their dollar accounts in Lebanese pounds – but at an unfavourable exchange rate that wipes out 70 percent of the market value of those dollar savings, while helping banks trim their losses and expenses.

In the absence of official capital controls, banks have implemented their own withdrawal limits, making life extremely difficult for millions of Lebanese buckling under soaring inflation and rampant unemployment.  READ MORE...

Lisa Cross

 

Will Putin Shut Off Europe's Gas?

Berlin, Germany – Determining the front lines of Europe’s potential energy conflict with Russia is no mean feat. Because should Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government decide to use what analysts often call Moscow’s “gas weapon”, the fallout would impact some European Union nations far more than others.

The variations in potential impacts stem from how different national energy markets are organised and legislated.

Around 35 percent of the EU’s natural gas comes from Russia. And as political tensions have mounted around the build-up of Russian troops on the Ukrainian border, there has been much discussion of whether Russia, the world’s biggest exporter of natural gas, might weaponise that dependency to get its way.

Of the 167.7 billion cubic metres of natural gas Europe imported from Russia in 2020, Germany bought the most – 56.3 billion cubic meters – followed by Italy, with 19.7 billion, and the Netherlands, with 11.2 billion.

But what really determines a country’s vulnerability to Moscow’s energy export policies is not how much it buys but what part Russian gas plays in its national energy mix.  READ MORE...

Ventriloquist

 

China & Russia Block USA at UN

China and Russia have delayed a US effort at the United Nations to impose sanctions on five North Koreans in response to recent missile launches by Pyongyang, diplomats said.

The move by Beijing and Moscow came before a closed-door UN Security Council meeting on North Korea on Thursday – the second in two weeks – after Pyongyang fired tactical guided missiles this week.

China and Russia, however, placed a “hold” on the United States’s proposal on Thursday, which puts it in limbo.

China told council colleagues it needed more time to study the sanctions, while Russia said more evidence was needed to back the US request, the diplomats said.

Under current UN rules, the block period can last for six months. After that, another council member can extend the block for three more months, before the proposal is permanently removed from the negotiating table.

Monday’s test was North Korea’s fourth so far this year, with two previous launches involving “hypersonic missiles” capable of high speed and manoeuvring after liftoff, and another test last Friday using a pair of short-range missiles fired from train cars.

In a joint statement, seven UN Security Council members – the US, Albania, Brazil, France, Ireland, the United Arab Emirates and Britain – and Japan said on Thursday that the launches “demonstrate the regime’s determination to pursue weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programs at all costs, including at the expense of its own people”.

“It is extremely important that Member States take the necessary steps to implement the sanctions in their jurisdictions, or risk providing a blank check for the DPRK regime to advance its weapons program,” the statement said, using an acronym for North Korea.  READ MORE...