`
Last week something happened that will live like a shinning beacon in the history of American honesty. Last week Jeff Bezos the richest man in America, owner of Amazon and the Washington Post said fuck you to David Pecker, the CEO of AMI, the parent company of the disgusting National Enquirer. It seems that Pecker and his minions tried to blackmail Bezos into backing off an investigation into AMI’s ties with Saudi Arabia by threatening to publish compromising personal texts and pictures Bezos sent to TV journalist Lauren Sanchez in compromising situations.
Pecker, a Trump associate, additionally threatened Bezos because of Bezos owned Washington Post’s attacks on Trump and his policies. But what is truly unbelievable about the whole thing is that AMI actually put the threats, which amount to extortion, into writing. In doing this they displayed arrogance and stupidity far beyond that of any of the great crime families of American history. This is magnified by the fact that AMI was already involved in an agreement with the Attorney General’s office in which they were given immunity in exchange for information into the Trump vs various women, confrontations in which the Enquirer withheld stories about Trump by the women.
The immunity from prosecution agreement was dependent on the Enquirer keeping its hands out of the honey pot for three years. It appears that the magazine and AMI operated in such a culture of deceit and degeneracy that they just couldn’t stay straight, and following a number of Post attacks on Trump, cobbled with an investigation into AMI’s attempts to get significant financing from the Saudi’s in exchange for puff pieces in the magazine, propping up MBS after the Khashoggi murder, they returned to their true nature and stupidly tried to bribe a billionaire who took exception and blew the whistle on them.
Pecker is a sleaze, his publishing empire has always been based on the most disgusting aspects of the publishing world and considering how many people he has hurt over the years, it’s a miracle he’s still alive. That said; his latest mal-adventure could easily put him in a position to spend whatever time he does have left behind bars.
As word of this incompetent attempt at blackmail spreads, it will be inevitable that more and more victims of AMI’s extortion policies will emerge from the woodwork and BINGO, another Trump ally will be on his way to the can.
It’s amusing that one of Trump’s most repeated campaign promises was to drain the swamp. He did, right into his own bathtub. This story has all the aspects of a real old time fun scandal. I can’t wait for Bezos to rip off Pecker’s head and spit down his neck.
*****
The degenerate leader of the Senate, Mitch McConnell tweeted the most unbelievable message today.
“As I’ve said time and again; mindless obstruction is unacceptable. The only way this divided congress will be able to choose greatness and deliver significant legislation is by focusing on—as President Trump put it—cooperation, compromise and the common good.”
Think about that and consider this:
“One of my proudest moments was when I told Obama, you will not fill this Supreme Court vacancy.”
Has there ever been a better example of “mindless obstruction?” But then we keep expecting McConnell to act like something other than the sleazy creep he actually is. That seems to be very naive of us, but then many of us were raised on the innocent concept that our leaders were supposed to be there to help the American people. Instead, we have elected a breed of politician that helps only himself.
******
With the negotiations over the money for border security having come to an end, at least until the lawsuits start over Trump’s “National Emergency,” both sides have said that it would have, long ago, been a done deal if Mick Mulvaney had been the President. But neither Mick nor anyone else is president. Donald Trump is, and he has no position that lasts more than twenty seconds on any subject. The only thing he seems to be stable on is wanting the wall, which everyone of any significance agrees will have zero impact on security.
More to the point, people were negotiating over something they knew nothing about. Kristian Nielson, head of Homeland Security, has yet to put out a budget naming a number necessary to do the job that her operation is supposed to be doing. How the hell can anyone decide on how much to allocate when the person who is supposed to be doing the work, hasn’t done the work?
Democrats throw out a number, Republicans throw out a number, but none of them have a clue as to what the hell that number should actually be because the agency that is going to spend the money doesn’t have a budget on which to base that number. After all these months and years Homeland Security doesn’t know what they need. If that isn’t enough to fire Neilson then it’s certainly enough to fire Donald Trump, the man who appointed her. He blabbers about National Security but what he really wants is a wall just so he can say he delivered one. He knows nothing about national security or what it might cost and he doesn’t care, and that is why the guys who are negotiating this mess never came to a reasonable conclusion on what the number should be. Instead they just hondled over a number that both could agree on without knowing if it would, in fact, do the job.
The Republicans claimed the Democrats kept changing the number. The Democrats claimed the same about the Republicans. They’re both right because there never was a real number. Even now, no one has a clue what it will cost to run Homeland Security for the next year. That’s because Trump’s appointee has no idea how to do her job. When Donald Trump is involved; reason just flies out the window.
******
Trump is going to try to make the election about Socialism. He made that very clear in the SOTU as well as in his latest diatribe down in Texas, when amid a stumbling, blundering, rant about everything that crept into his tiny brain, he made damn sure we knew that Socialism was the biggest threat to the national security since Russia got the A Bomb.
You may think this is ridiculous, but this is a country that despite existing and functioning by means of many socialist programs has always resisted the concept and the label of Socialism. This has come about mainly because many of our citizens are too dumb to understand the difference between Socialism and Communism.
I’m not going to try to explain the difference here. If those who don’t understand haven’t gotten it yet, they’re not going to get it now. Suffice it to say that one is good and one is bad. You figure out which.
But the ability to shout “Socialist” in a crowded threatre still works and Trump knows that. This is, in fact, his modus operandi! It is the one thing he actually does well. Create the false monster and fill it with the big lie. Remember Hillary’s emails? He’s great at it and it’s what won him an election. It’s our job to make sure it doesn’t win him another one.
So Democrats must learn the word Progressive. They must forget, even the ones who label themselves as such, the word Socialist. That goes especially for Bernie and AOC. Words mean something – to everyone except Donald Trump. Progressive is a good word. It means someone who is learning new things and moving ahead on new roads. It objectively describes the kind of person we want in government. We can’t let the GOP turn that into a word that scares conservatives and moderates because it’s the non-Trump conservatives and moderates who will dictate the result of the next election.
******
The Democratic Progressive movement took the first step in handing Donald Trump the Presidency again in 2020, when they led an uprising that ended Amazon’s plans to open a new center in Long Island City. Led by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez the charismatic, thrillingly elected Rep from the Bronx & Queens the dimmest minds of the Democratic party stood up on their hind legs and drove Amazon from the gates. Of course they drove away jobs too, and taxes and civic improvements and God knows what else that the city needed.
AOC is pretty and full of energy and probably has the right instincts but she’s only been in congress for 30 seconds and it behooves her to learn her job before she tries to do it. It also, very much behooves her to get the facts before she starts running off at the mouth.
The $3 billion in tax savings that Amazon was promised as an incentive won’t now go to finance schools and other needy projects, mainly because it doesn’t actually exist. She should know this! The fact that she doesn’t points to her being just another noisy, uninformed politician who is fighting mostly for herself. The $3 billion is a tax break. It isn’t cash on hand that the city would have paid Amazon but can now move around where it wants. The reason for that tax break was, it would have generated tax revenue that would have dwarfed it, not just from Amazon but also from all the ancillary businesses that would have sprung up around it .
Amazon talked about 25,000 jobs. But that’s only part of what happens when a major industry comes to town. There would have been 5 times that many jobs created in all the businesses that would have popped up to service Amazon and those who work for it, not to mention the thousands of construction jobs it would take to build it. All those people who now won’t get those jobs can thank AOC and her partners in crime, State Senator Mike Gianaris, City Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer and labor boss Stuart Appelbaum for the loss of this opportunity. Gianaris was so popular he was elected without opposition last time around. That won’t happen again, not when all those voters who didn’t get the high paying jobs Amazon was offering rush to the polls. And what the hell is Van Bramer doing? Since when does a labor leader think that losing jobs is good for his membership. He should be on his way out too! What’s ironic is that a large percentage of those jobs would have come from AOC’s own Hispanic community.
Amazon didn’t need New York. They have half the cities in the country fighting to get them. They had better tax deals in Newark, NJ and Montgomery, MD but they wanted something else. Tax deals aren’t what do it for huge corporations like Amazon. They are going to pay so much in taxes that the break they would have gotten would have been dwarfed by what they would have paid. These guys are so rich that it isn’t about money. Bezos wanted to be in New York. But the New York bullshit was so deep that he got disgusted and is now going elsewhere.
Right now the state of the state’s government is so bad that we are facing a replay of the 1970’s. Our Governor and especially our Mayor are useless. The state of our subways, our public housing and our schools to a great extent are dismal and our self-created traffic problems are driving us into the ground. More jobs and additional tax income would have helped, but they alone would not have solved the problems. We need leadership and we had hoped to get that leadership from the likes of Gianaris and AOC but they just seem to be more of the problem rather than any of the solution. There’s nothing wrong with being against the moral climate of big business but that doesn’t mean we can just eliminate it.
Big business is what creates huge numbers of jobs and the loss of big business and their corresponding jobs is what crushes communities. Ask any of the cities in the mid-west that have been destroyed by the loss of their manufacturing bases. Companies like Amazon are what will replace our industrial base as far as jobs are concerned and we damn well better get on board with how to deal with them, rather than how to chase them off.
Yes, there would have been some gentrification. That’s just part of the remaking of a whole crumbling neighborhood. It’s inevitable. This is NYC and the thrust is always upward. If you are making a couple of hundred grand a year and living in a rent-controlled apartment you are dead set against gentrification. If you’re making fifty grand a year and living in a slum you just want a better job so you can move up the ladder.
It doesn’t take much, just a couple of stupid moves like this one to turn those moderate, middle of the road voters to the evil they know. If the Progressives screw up the New Green Deal the way they did this one along with the abortion bill in the state legislature they will drag the whole Democratic Party down in flames. It’s time for AOC and her compatriots to stop and think about what they’re doing; before, not after, they do it.