Stop a moment. Notice daylight.

"The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;—
Little we see in Nature that is ours. . . ."
          William Wordsworth, 1802

We can put politics aside for one day and reflect, as Wordsworth suggested, on the natural world. 

Today is the shortest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere.

In Medford, Oregon, just north of the 42nd degree of latitude, the day length is 9:04:48; nine hours, four minutes, and 48 seconds. Tomorrow it will be 9:04:49, one second longer. The day after it will be 9:04.54 another four seconds longer. If you aren't noticing much difference in the length of days about now, you aren't imagining it. It is real. For 25 days, from December 9 (9:09:42) through January 2 (also 9:09:42), the length of days fluctuates within a 5 minute band.

Boston, Massachusetts is at almost exactly the same latitude, and its day length is similar: 9:04:35 today, with the same five minute plus or minus spread of day lengths, again from December 9 through January 2.

Sunset times on one's clock differ because of where a place is within a time zone band. The sun sets in Medford at 4:42 p.m. Pacific Time but it happens much earlier in Boston, at 4:14 p.m. Eastern Time.

For comparison, Miami, which is closer to the equator, has less fluctuation in the lengths of days through the seasons. Miami will have 10:31:48 in daylight hours, almost an hour and a half more than Medford or Boston. The day length will be within that five-minute, plus-or-minus spread for 33 days in Miami.

This pattern is reversed at the summer solstice.  Miami has 13 hours and 30 minutes of daylight (13:30) while Medford and Boston have an hour and 46 minutes more: Medford with 15:16:50: Boston with 15:17:04.

Day lengths are not intuitive unless one thinks hard about spheres and what one may remember about tangents from high school math. In Medford and Boston, with a difference in day-length between midwinter and midsummer of six hours and 10 minutes, the days need to allocate those 370 minutes over 183 days. In midwinter or midsummer the day lengths are nearly flat for a full month but the time is made up at the equinoxes.  Day length in March changes almost three minutes per day. The shoulder-months of February and April, and of August and October, change by over two and a half minutes a day.

Sunset times might break into our conscious observations because we are awake and doing time-sensitive things like leaving work, making dinner, and watching scheduled shows on TV. Sunset in Boston is at 5:33 on March 1 and 7:08 on March 31. They change from 6:02 p.m. to 7:36 p.m. in Medford. A big difference in a month.

Wordsworth wrote about the alienating effect of the Industrial Revolution gathering steam around him in England. He thought "we were giving our hearts away, a sordid boon!" Get your sanity and soul back, he said. Observe nature. 

This is the era of screens: The desktop screen where I am typing now, my laptops, I-pads, phone, the TV.  My cars have screens along with warnings not to look at them. Look at the road instead, it warns. Good idea. 

Notice nature. One way to do that is to plant a garden. We don't need the produce as much as we need the time in nature. Prepare now. Buy seeds. The days are getting longer.

Note: All times are standard time. There are multiple daylight/sunset sites. Here is one. Here is another. 

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Age 35, Born in US.. Shall not have engaged in insurrection or rebellion.

Colorado Supreme Court calls it an insurrection.

I saw it myself on TV. The goal was to intimidate Congress and stop the peaceful transfer of power. Both police and rioters were inured and died. I call that an insurrection. 

GOP Senate Leader Mitch McConnell described it on the Senate floor, after the second impeachment vote:

"There's no question, none, that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day, The people who stormed this building believed they were acting on the wishes and instructions of their president, and having that belief was a foreseeable consequence of the growing crescendo of false statements, conspiracy theories and reckless hyperbole.

President Trump is still liable for everything he did while he was in office as an ordinary citizen. He didn't get away with anything. Yet."

Meanwhile, Section 3 of the 14th Amendment has sat quietly for over a century. In 1866 Congress and states did not want to restore Confederate states to the union and have those states fill offices with people who would try to undermine the government from within. The Constitution added a qualification for office:

No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

Every word in the Constitution can be defined and interpreted into meaninglessness, but the text certainly appears straightforward on its face. If Trump (who we saw take an oath to defend and protect the Constitution) engaged in insurrection or gave aid and comfort to an insurrection (such as we saw and heard on January 6), he engaged in insurrection. Therefore, he is ineligible to hold office.

But maybe it wasn't really an insurrection. GOP politicians looking for a reason to defend Trump say it was arguably a peaceful demonstration with a few troublemakers, possibly Democratic false flags or FBI provocateurs.

There is a problem with that position. Trump isn't disavowing January 6. Trump has a different frame. He attacks Democratic prosecutors and biased courts. Look at them! He calls the Colorado court decision a partisan effort to keep the likely winning candidate -- him -- off the ballot. This was in my inbox yesterday evening:

This will go to the Supreme Court. The U.S. Supreme Court could take a giant step to re-establish its credibility as a non-partisan court. They could affirm the Colorado decision, thus demonstrating that they are not puppets of Trump. 

Affirming Colorado would make sense. They have a window of time, before the Iowa and New Hampshire votes. Republicans have replacement candidates ready to go. As supposed textualists, they have the text to support them. They have lifetime appointment so don't need to fear the short term wrath of GOP primary voters. Most GOP senators would be secretly very pleased. Trump openly undermines the credibility of courts -- all courts -- so they would be defending the judicial branch. It would be a clever and cynical act done to help Republicans, because the GOP could now choose among stronger general election candidates, Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis. 

They would be doing what McConnell talked about -- Trump facing future justice -- but failed to do. 

I don't think they will do it. They really are beholden to Trump. 

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Thoughts and Prayers

Question for readers:

     Is this a good, effective ad, vividly making the point that the U.S. needs to do something about gun violence?

     Or does it backfire because it embeds an insult to a broad array of Americans?

I think it backfires. 

First, take sixty seconds and watch: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M876_FfJ3MQ

I picked this ad because it demonstrates a point that I make frequently in this blog. Political speech has a text and a subtext. There is the denoted meaning, and then are other meanings that reflect the premises and worldview embedded in the message. Sometimes those other meanings undermine the denoted meaning. 

In fact, it happens often. People read a respectful tone as weakness. People interpret a candidate who refuses to dignify an insult to be admitting there is truth to the insult. People suspect a person who is endorsed by a powerful person or group is a puppet of the endorser. 

There is no question that this ad is powerful. As a parent and an owner of a swimming pool I found myself mentally counting out seconds as I watched the mother pray at poolside. Get in, pull the child out, NOW!!! The group that produced the ad is proud of it. Mothers for Democracy is a progressive grassroots group that describes itself as an opposition group to Texas Gov. "Greg Abbott's extreme agenda" which "blossomed into a nationwide organization." Their website proudly showcases ads that have gone viral, including this one.

So what's wrong with the ad? 

The denoted message of the ad is stated in these words at the end of the ad. 

But there is a second, non-denoted message: An insult to religion and people of faith. The ad turns the mother and bystanders into monsters ignoring a drowning child. The analogy of ignoring gun violence may seem fair-minded to Mothers for Democracy, but it will seem offensive and unfair to gun owners and gun-rights supporters. It will seem offensive to people who pray. The ad mocks religion: Look at that kook mother, kneeling and praying while her daughter dies. A Pew Research Center poll reported that 55% of Americans pray daily and another 21% pray from time to time. Pew reported that 63% of American Christians say that "praying regularly is an essential part of their Christian identity." That is a big group to offend. People who pray don't think they are kooks or blind in the face of an unfolding tragedy.

The subtext message here is the Hillary Clinton "deplorable" sneer. Democrats wonder why evangelical Christians would attach themselves to a flagrantly immoral sociopathic narcissist like Donald Trump. What are they thinking? They are thinking about ads like these, where they are made to look silly by Democrats. Trump may be a charlatan, but he pretends to care about the Bible. Meanwhile those snobby Democrats mock us.

Democrats forget Martin Luther King, Jr. America made progress on civil rights when religion was linked to social justice. Rev. King urged Americans to do the right thing, the just thing, the thing that reflected Christian values. There is no need for Democrats to be the anti-religion party.

I consider the ad an unforced error. I show it here so Democrats can learn from it and do better. 

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TikTok election in Guatemala

Translation: "What did he say? The unexpected message he sent to Taylor Swift."

Answer: He wished her "Happy Birthday."

The politics and problems within Guatemala seem far away, what with all the news about Israel, Hamas, Ukraine, Trump, Giuliani, Jack Smith, Biden polls, inflation, the stock market, and worries over whether social media is destroying our democracy and the minds of our children. Add to that the burning question of whether that tight end playing for the Kansas City Chiefs will end up proposing to Taylor Swift. 

The USA has been meddling in the politics of Central America for two centuries. Americans make derisive comments about "banana republics," ignorant of or unbothered by the fact that the instability of governments like the one in Guatemala is partly a consequence of U.S. policy, both open and covert. Today's Guest Post describes yet another iteration of foreign involvement in the region, this time by Taylor Swift's influence on social media. Jack Mullen is a friend from my youth. We thinned and picked pears together in Southern Oregon orchards. He entered the Peace Corps after college and served in Guatemala.

Mullen, at his Washington, D.C. home

Guest Post by Jack Mullen

Events like 9/11 and the Israeli-Hamas conflict dominate the news cycle to the detriment of important world happenings. Prime example: the war in Ukraine is now a back page story. At least most Americans are aware of the situation in Ukraine. Not so for the Trumpian election interference happening now in Guatemala.

Ever since the United States fomented a coup in 1954 that overthrew the democratically elected government of Jacob Arbenz, Guatemala has been at the mercy of a small group of oligarchs, shady politicians, and a corrupt military.

Two-thirds of Guatemala’s 17 million citizens are under the age of 30. Their smart phones are tuned into TikTok. Only one of the 22 candidates in the last June’s primary elections intuitively grasped TikTok’s possible relevance in a political campaign. That politician was a 65-year-old anti-corruption congressman, Bernardo Arevalo. He rode TikTok to a surprising second place finish in Guatemala’s June 24 primary, which qualified him to run against the primary’s winner, Sandra Torres, in the August 24 national election. Arevalo won by a gigantic 61-39 landslide.

How did “Uncle Bernie,” as he is known, pull it off?

In April, Bernardo Arevalo made a TikTok video expressing admiration for Taylor Swift. The video went viral. That in itself got brought him 12% of the June 24 vote, which qualified him to run against Ms. Torres. Arevalo’s campaign manager, the 31-year-old Semilla (seed in Spanish) party leader, Samuel Perez, along with 23-year-old singer-dancer Marcela Blanco, formed a David Plouff-David Axelrod Obama-style campaign team that understood Gen Z’s mode of communication.

 The Swifties of Guatemala passed along videos of the striking Marcela Blanco dancing with voters. Word got out that politics is not just for old people.

The old guard of Guatemala, in an attempt to annul Arevalo’s election victory, is claiming “election fraud.” Guatemalan prosecutors have seized boxes of voter tallies. They tried to dissolve the Semilla political party, and have started raiding homes, arresting Semilla party leaders, including, two weeks ago, Marcela Blanco. Two of the five members of the non-partisan Guatemalan Election Commission, fearing arrest, last week flew to Miami.

The young voters of Guatemala are taking to the streets, along with many of Guatemala’s long overlooked indigenous people and their leaders. They are demanding that Arevalo be allowed to take office.

Bernardo Arevalo happens to be the son of Juan Arevalo, the first democratically elected president in Guatemala back in 1945. Bernardo’s father was an admirer of Franklin Roosevelt, as was his successor, Jacob Arbenz. Arbenz’ battle with United Fruit raised a ruckus in the U.S. State Department. The Dulles brothers, John Foster at State, and his brother Allen at the CIA, sanctioned a CIA overthrow of Arbenz and installed a tin-pot dictator to rule the country.

There are no simple solutions to the U.S. border problems. A step in the right direction to stem the tide of Guatemalans trekking to the U.S. would be to allow the democratically-elected Bernardo Arevalo to take office on January 24, 2024.

Taylor Swift is playing a huge role in Guatemala. Perhaps her upbeat and confident personae with its approving glance at Joe Biden, might play a large role in the 2024 U.S. elections. It worked in Guatemala.

 

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Left-Right. Blue-Red.

Maybe our mental model of politics is wrong.  

Nate Silver, the polling expert, wrote an essay this week. He said there aren't two poles in politics, with people somewhere on that left-right, liberal-conservative spectrum. There are three poles, he wrote. There is a triangle with a Social Justice Left on one point, a Trump/MAGA group on a second point, and a group of classic Liberals on the third point. Liberal here mean the classic liberalism of individualism, free markets, equality, diversity, and freedom of expression.

Silver posited this map:

I will get back to this in future posts, but I think Silver's view is both astute and incomplete. I agree that MAGA conservatism dominates the current "red team" of Republicans, but there is a division within it between the Trump-style populists and more traditional conservatives who support authority, institutions, and laws. Old-style Republicans are currently in hiding because Trump is resolute in attacking them, calling them RINOs--Republicans In Name Only. When Trump is gone, they will find courage and will re-emerge and claim they were moderate all along and never really supported Trump. 

The best political lesson I learned during my college years was not from a professor. It was from the father of a local girl I took on a Sunday afternoon date. Mr. Conway greeted me at the door and sat me down in their parlor. He asked about my parents' work. He asked about my future financial prospects.  He asked about my religion. He asked about my classes, and when I told him I was taking a class from a noted presidential scholar, he said I was completely wrong. Left-right means nothing, he said. There aren't two sides. The Irish vote for the Irish. The Italians vote for the Italians. Jews vote for Jews. Blacks vote for Blacks. Politics had a multiplicity of poles and dimensions, he said. He was as identity-politics-centric as anyone in the current Social Justice Left coalition. He opened my mind.

I am a "liberal" with a strong orientation toward individual liberty and individual responsibility. That distinguishes me from the Social Justice Left which emphasizes groups as agents of oppression or victimhood. I value the work ethic and I may be naive here, but I think people willing and able to work hard can find financial success, at least here in America. My career giving financial advice made me more favorable to markets than are most liberals; I see how they clarify competing values. With all the hesitations, reservations, and qualifications, one "really is" what one decides to do. The price of things, if not their ultimate value, is what market participants decide. That makes me more oriented toward democracy than to autocratic authority. I am also a near-absolutist on free speech, especially in universities. 

I see the extraordinary power of branding and presentation, especially in the highly-visible choice of president. I see a multi-factor, multi-pole political world. The various factors overlay one another. The choice of president gets mediated and resolved in a simple branding choice based in large part on the personality and presentation skills of the candidate. That is why I write about messages, denoted and implied.

It is why Trump is so dangerous. He is a selfish, corrupt, shameless man. But he knows how to be interesting. 

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Nuggets of joy after long dark nights.

"Oh, wake up, wake up
You sleepy head, get up, get up
Get out of bed, cheer up, cheer up
The sun is red, live, love, laugh and be happy."

Harry Woods, 1927. Made popular by Al Jolson, 1947

Red morning sun. It can be good news, too.

Seven quick bits of good news about the economy.

One bit of good news about the consequences of lying.

Inflation is back down to about 2%.

Axios Visuals

The Fed notices the inflation rate, is satisfied, and signals rate cuts ahead. 

Fed publication

Treasury bond rates are back down, making borrowing less expensive. 

10-year Treasury

Mortgage rates are down. The 30-year is below 7% and the current talk is that it will fall to about 4% over the course of 2024.

CNBC

Unemployment is back to historic lows, notwithstanding the Fed's having tightened interest rates.

Bureau of Labor Statistics

Gasoline prices are still falling. The U.S. is a net exporter of energy.

Market Watch

A jury punished Giuliani for false claims against two Georgia election workers.

Even Fox News mentioned it.

Don't let the short hours of daylight get you down. Some good things are happening in America. It isn't the winter solstice yet, but sunset is already a few seconds later every day.

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Sausage on the southern border

     "The situation at the border is not sustainable. And that means that you have to either accept it when it’s not sustainable, or you’ve got to address it. And that’s going to cause some consternation within our party."
               U.S. Senator Peter Welch (D-Vermont)

The fact that one's family is starving to death in Venezuela is not a legal reason to immigrate to the U.S. But seeking asylum from "a well founded fear of persecution" is a lawful reason.

So people come to the U.S. and say they want asylum. They want to live a better life. 

About 2.4 million people were apprehended at the southern border this past year.

New York Times

Most immigrants do not sneak in. They enter and present themselves to authorities. They aren't "illegal." Under U.S. law and treaties the U.S. has signed, they have a right to request asylum. But it is widely understood and acknowledged that many of them are gaming the asylum system. 

The crush of people at the border far exceeds the ability of the immigration system to absorb and process them. Their asylum claims are scheduled for adjudication years into the future, and this is fully understood by everyone. In the meantime, they are here in masses too big to absorb. They did not come here to be homeless on America's sidewalks, although some are. They came here eager to fill the jobs that American employers have trouble filling.

The mess at the southern border is unsolved because Democrats are divided and Trump made the issue toxic and divisive. Democrats are motivated by the moral sentiment of avoiding cruelty, including to outsiders; Republicans accept cruelty to outsiders as the means to achieve order. Trump defined the GOP position on immigration: Be tough, be cruel if necessary. Fence immigrants out and "shoot them in the legs." They are rapists, criminals, and terrorists. Trump's actions and message shaped the Democratic response -- do the opposite of Trump, so Democrats tolerated a situation in which immigration laws are unenforced and available to game with immediate claims of amnesty.  A faction within the Democratic left became adamant pro-immigration advocates, condemning as a potential sellout any suggestion that Biden toughen his position. Other Democrats want action on a disorderly border.  Democrats are discovering that many Hispanic citizens join non-Hispanics in wanting stronger border control.  

Meanwhile, Republican senators know an ongoing crisis at the border is a winning political issue. They declined Majority Leader Schumer's offer to allow a clean bill of their own choosing to come to the floor for a vote. Democrats are too divided to solve the problem and Republicans are OK with that. Then House Republicans presented an idea that was sure to anger Democrats and force their hands: Tie Ukraine funding to Biden adopting Republican positions on the southern border. Hold Ukraine hostage. See if Democrats blink.

Sweet are the uses of adversity.

The GOP plan may give Biden the political room necessary to adopt elements of Trump/GOP policies on the border. It will involve threading a needle of opinions on two issues in two parties, simultaneously. Support for Ukraine divides Republicans, some of whom now think Ukraine should adopt Russian terms. Democrats consider protecting Ukraine a high priority. 

Politico

Biden would not willingly disappoint his pro-immigration left. Adopting tougher border policies would be done under compulsion to protect Ukraine. Democratic legislators would have an excuse to disappoint some progressives: They are forced to do it to save Europe from Putin. Meanwhile, many Republican voters won't like aid to Ukraine, but they would see Republicans muscle Biden into increased enforcement of the border. They would see liberal tears. 

No one would be particularly happy. People will complain of compromises on matters of high principle. It isn't "winning," but it might mean some action on an intolerable status quo. I expect some Republicans and Democrats to vote no. There may be a majority in each party voting yes because there would be something in it for them. Republicans care about the border. Democrats care about Ukraine.

It isn't pretty. But it is how the sausage gets made and problems get resolved in a republic.

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