Douglas Caddy

Both Trump and Pence attended CPAC. How ironic is this? https://www.axios.com/cpac-attendee-coronavirus-ac732478-bf2d-403e-981f-81c9f8ef2dfd.html https://www.rawstory.com/2020/03/cpac-attendees-mocked-online-and-urged-to-self-quarantine-after-coronavirus-exposure-stay-off-the-internet-too/

The Coronavirus Is Coming for Trump’s Presidency Will a nationalist president be undone by his underreaction to a foreign threat? By Ross Douthat Opinion Columnist The New York Times March 7, 2020, From the article: But right now we are headed for a scenario of rising death rates and overwhelmed hospitals, shuttered schools and empty stadiums and cancellations everywhere. Combine this scenario’s inevitable economic consequences with the optics of the president’s blundering and solipsistic response, and the coronavirus seems very likely to doom Trump’s re-election effort, no matter where he casts the blame.

From The New York Times: Erik Prince Recruits Ex-Spies to Help Infiltrate Liberal Groups https://nyti.ms/39zJeAn

President Nixon told Robert Merritt in 1972 that the year 2020 would be cataclysmic not only for America but for the entire world. A cataclysmic event is one of violent change or upheaval. Earth’s magnetic field is rapidly changing and so is the sun’s current period of inactivity Do not miss listening to this (free) interview of Dr. Robert Schoch, the famed geologist who first established the true age of the Sphinx. https://www.unknowncountry.com/dreamland/earths-magnetic-field-is-changing-and-so-is-the-sun-dr-robert-schoch-tells-us-all-we-need-to-know/

The New York Times Spiraling Virus Fears Are Causing Financial Carnage https://nyti.ms/38u5WIM

James Howard Kunstler wrote today in his column: There’s a possibility that Corona Virus might interfere with the election itself. Viral contagions are known to work in waves. If this is the first wave now, then a second wave would arrive just about in time for election day, November 3. Second wave viral diseases can be more virulent than the first wave, which was the case with the so-called Spanish flu of 1918. And what if a substantial portion of voters don’t dare venture into public places full of their possibly infectious fellow citizens? Would Mr. Trump be forced to postpone the election, fulfilling his enemies’ fantasy that he seeks to become the American Caesar? It’s not a pretty picture from here as things get interesting.

Best analysis I have read to date on the virus: https://whowhatwhy.org/2020/03/05/covid-19-a-few-inconvenient-truths/?fbclid=IwAR3QwNKrFROfL6umxfE_B8zBC435Kd2eyG14KnYs2r8MTqywjECRQ_Dls7Y

A Stark Economic and Financial Forecast from David Stockman https://www.peakprosperity.com/next-comes-the-turbulent-twenties/

Biden’s Rise Gives the Establishment One Last Chance If he fouls this up, we’re doomed. By David Brooks Opinion Columnist -The New York Times March 5, 2020 Joe Biden at a campaign event on Monday.Credit...Tamir Kalifa for The New York Times I don’t know about you, but the election results this week filled me with more hope than I’ve felt in years. It felt like somebody turning down the volume. The angry and putrid shouting that has marked the last four years — and that would mark a Trump vs. Sanders campaign — might actually come to an end. Suddenly we got a glimpse of a world in which we can hear each other talk, in which actual governance can happen, in which gridlock can be avoided and actual change can come. But the results carried a more portentous message as well. For those of us who believe in our political system, it’s put up or shut up time. The establishment gets one last chance. If Joe Biden wins the nomination but loses to Donald Trump in the general election, young progressives will turn on the Democratic establishment with unprecedented fury. “See? We were right again!” they’ll say. And maybe they’ll have a point. If Biden wins the White House but doesn’t deliver real benefits for disaffected working-class Trumpians and disillusioned young Bernie Bros, then the populist uprisings of 2024 will make the populist uprisings of today look genteel by comparison. “The system is rotten to the core,” they’ll say. “It’s time to burn it all down.” Some people are saying a Biden presidency would be a restoration or a return to normalcy. He’ll be a calming Gerald Ford after the scandal of Richard Nixon. But I don’t see how that could be. The politics of the last four years have taught us that tens of millions of Americans feel that their institutions have completely failed them. The legitimacy of the whole system is still hanging by a thread. The core truth of a Biden administration would be bring change or reap the whirlwind. There would be no choice but to somehow pass his agenda: a climate plan, infrastructure spending, investments in the heartland, his $750 billion education plan and health care subsidies. If disaffected voters don’t see tangible changes in their lives over the next few years, it’s not that one party or another will lose the next election. The current political order will be upended by some future Bernie/Trump figure times 10. This week’s results carried a few more lessons: Democrats are not just a party; they’re a community. In my years of covering politics I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like what happened in the 48 hours after South Carolina — millions of Democrats from all around the country, from many different demographics, turning as one and arriving at a common decision. It was like watching a flock of geese or a school of fish, seemingly leaderless, sensing some shift in conditions, sensing each other’s intuitions, and smoothly shifting direction en masse. A community is more than the sum of its parts. It is a shared sensibility and a pattern of response. This is a core Democratic strength. Intersectionality is moderate. Campus radicals have always dreamed of building a rainbow coalition of all oppressed groups. But most black voters are less radical and more institutional than the campus radicals. They rarely prefer the same primary candidates. If there’s any intersectionality it’s in the center. Moderate or mainstream Democrats like Biden, Clinton and Obama are the ones who put together rainbow coalitions: black, brown, white, suburban and working class. The new Democrats are coming from the right. Bernie Sanders thought he could mobilize a new mass of young progressives. That did not happen. Young voters have made up a smaller share of the electorate in the primaries so far this year than in 2016 in almost every state, including Vermont. Meanwhile there were astounding turnout surges in middle-class and affluent suburbs. Turnout was up by 76 percent in the Virginia suburbs around Washington, Richmond and parts of Norfolk. Turnout was up 49 percent over all in Texas. Many of these new voters must be disaffected Republicans who now consider themselves Democrats. It’s still better to work the room than storm the barricades. Biden grew up in a political era in which politics was still about persuasion, not compulsion; building diverse coalitions, not just firing up your base. He’s been able to win over many of his former presidential rivals and cement a series of valuable alliances, especially with Jim Clyburn of South Carolina. As Ezra Klein pointed out in Vox, Sanders tried to win over the Democratic Party by attacking the Democratic Party and treating its leaders with contempt. In fact, some Sanders surrogates are attacking Biden’s skill in building coalitions as a sign of evil elitism, as something only those nasty insiders do. Biden’s wins this week, and his incredible polling surges in states like Florida that are soon to vote, make it likely that he will win and Sanders will lose this primary contest. But that doesn’t mean that legitimate crises that are driving the Sanders voters — or the legitimate crises that are driving Trump voters — will go away. Their problems will still be all our problems. And if our current system can’t address them, then that system will be swept away.

Christ's birthplace in Bethlehem quarantined. -- Headline in today’s Daily Sun (U.K.) And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born? ("The Second Coming," W.B. Yeats)

Biden is really more of a Republican than a Democrat. He is from Delaware, the legal home of banks and credit card companies. His years in Congress show that he is an opportunist. In the Senate confirmation hearing on Clarence Thomas over which he presided, he made the calculated decision that putting a black man on the Supreme Court would ultimately pay off for his political ambitions. He shafted Anita Hill because she offered his political ambitions little. I watched daily the Senate hearings that Biden held on going to war in Iraq and once again his political ambitions told him to support the war, which is now approaching its second decade of useless warfare with the only thing to show for it is the vast numbers of deaths of American soldiers and the people of Iraq. President George W. Bush, now considered a war criminal in Europe for that war, publicly thanked Biden for providing key support in Congress for the war when it was needed. America is a different country that it was two decades ago or even four years ago. If elected president, Biden may find it difficult to effect compromises that reward the Right like he did in the past because Democrats in Congress and rank-and-file won't stand for it.

Short term rates heading toward zero https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/05/bond-king-gundlach-says-fed-panicked-and-short-term-rates-are-headed-toward-zero.html

Biden rigged confirmation hearing in favor of Supreme Court Justice Thomas http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/elections-2020/bernie-backer-tlaib-invokes-anita-hill-to-undercut-biden/ar-BB10MVud?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=UE07DHP

Christ's birthplace in Bethlehem quarantined. -- Headline in the Daily Sun (U.K.)

I like your writing style. Humor that drives home a point worth a second look.

The Case Against Joe Biden: Former VP’s Long Career Shows a Recurring Theme of “Appeasing the Right” https://www.democracynow.org/2020/3/4/branko_marcetic_joe_biden_super_tuesday?fbclid=IwAR0mOCaEvtIG7K4PekYOSw8ie9I_DMfOM7gYgpCV0di3q8Co-33nwIVPj3g

Just 41% of Americans approve of how President Trump is handling his job, while 54% disapprove, the March IBD/TIPP Poll finds. That negative 13-point differential has nearly doubled in the past month. In late January, Trump's job approval registered 44% and disapproval 51%. Now just 37% of independents give Trump positive reviews, while 57% disapprove. That's down from 39%-53% in late January.

Someone who knows him: Trump is a raging drug addict https://crooksandliars.com/2020/01/ex-apprentice-staffer-noel-casler?fbclid=IwAR3s6vxPeoqx9RSub1vqw0Ryx-YsvRxvU11yvMpsbwV1W1u1834AmYV5QDE

Larry: James Rothstein called me today because I had sent him a copy of the Timeline of sorties flown in the Bay of Pigs as posted by Bart Kamp above. He told me that he was familiar with some of the Timeline but that the Essex was part of a different operation. He also told me that his brother was on the Independence during the invasion. He knows too much about the Bay of Pigs to reduce it all to an email. He, like me, has only a limited amount of sand left n his hour glass (I'll be 82 this month and he is close behind me.) He is willing to be interviewed. I suggest that you telephone him if you want his oral history. I am sending his phone number to you using the forum's message service so expect a notification. Doug

READ: FBI documents from special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation By CNN Updated 5:18 PM ET, Mon March 2, 2020 https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/02/politics/read-fbi-mueller-documents/index.html?fbclid=IwAR0Qd3WNJt-0S2m9Yv8ePyo8g9N_jrQNTYJqXOZE2vBMhFuJRGZ2tj5zga0

Former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin: A Wealth Tax Is On The Table https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/economy/a-wealth-tax-is-on-the-table-top-wall-street-democrat-bends-the-knee-to-sanders-and-warren-agenda?fbclid=IwAR3JstjNmINPUvtoeVH8VKBHSNogOK2LfzO9zySn1f-IL2sphQVQ52lhnAI

FEMA prepping for possible coronavirus emergency declaration http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/fema-prepping-for-possible-coronavirus-emergency-declaration/ar-BB10DK4J?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=UE07DHP [Didn't President Trump say last week that soon infections would be down to zero? Did he not say with a wave of his hand that the virus would miraculously disappear ?]

I wish you had interviewed James Rothstein for your book who has a topic devoted to him in our forum. He was on the Essex during the Bay of Pigs invasion and helped supervise the loading of two nuclear bombs aboard the ship in preparation for the invasion. He is in contact today with a few sailors on other ships that were involved in the invasion. He could tell you about his and others being denied certain Veterans benefits because the role of the Essex has been covered up officially due to the nuclear bombs being on board.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/01/coronavirus-is-significant-threat-to-economy-and-trump-mark-zandi.html