The LuLac Edition #4,276, April 30th, 2020

VACCINES CANNOT BE RUSHED

Line in a Chicago neighborhood in 1956

The sugar cube Sunday in the fall of '61. (Photos: Vaccinehistory.org)

Like the Supremes sang in 1966, “You Can’t Hurry love”, well it appears you can’t hurry vaccines. There is talk coming out of Washington that the Trump administration wants to speed up a vaccine for the Coronavirus. That’s good and bad. Good in the sense that one is certainly needed. Bad, if it is done in a slip shod or haphazard way.
To put this in perspective, the first case of Polio was recorded in 1894 in the United States. It took until 1955 for the vaccine to get refined by Dr, Jonas Salk. It wasn’t until 1961 that it was distributed on sugar cubes on a Sunday afternoon in the fall throughout the nation. I remember going to the Jefferson School on North Main street and getting it.
People are clamoring for a speedy anecdote and even though we’ve advanced more in the last century than ever in science and medicine, if it’s going to be right it will take time.

TRUMP SAYS HE'LL SUE CAMPAIGN MANAGER

Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale (Photo: San Antonio Express News)

Frustrated with a dip in battleground state polling amid the COVID-19 pandemic and consistent criticism surrounding White House briefings reportedly boiled over last week as President Donald Trump lashed out at Brad Parscale, the digital marketer who helped Trump secure victory in 2016 before becoming Trump’s re-election campaign manager.
During a White House meeting with aides on Friday, and Parscale on speakerphone from his Florida home, Trump berated his campaign manager over polls hinting Biden could top him in must-win states in November, CNN reported. Several sources told CNN, The Washington Post and The New York Times that the president quipped that he might sue Parscale.
“I love you, too,” Parscale responded, according to The Times.
Trump insisted that he was “not losing to Joe Biden" and used profanities throughout the call, which Parscale described to others as a Trump venting session, The Post reported.
A recent Quinnipiac University poll showed Trump trailing Biden in Florida, 46% to 42%.
But our next article asks Democrats and anti Trumpers not to get over their skis on the polling this early.

WHAT ONE SHOULD REMEMBER ABOUT THE TRUMP CAMPAIGN

President Trump (Photo: AP)

One word should be used to describe the Trump re-election bid. Unorthodox. Like he did in 2016, Trump isn’t going to care how he wins, just ghat he wins. After that, he can spin it any way he wants much to the delight and belief of his followers and to the chagrin of people who see the truth.
The Trump campaign is prepared for a repeat and they are prepared. They have built a data base of die hard Trump supporters that right now numbers in the millions. These people are not persuadable and will go to the polls to vote Trump. Period.
Right now the national polls have Biden ahead but as Pennsylvania and Luzerne County proved the last time, it only takes a small margin to win the entire Electoral vote package of a state. To think that the President’s handling of the Coronavirus will be his undoing is wishful at best. Trump has the not only the minds and hearts of rabid supporters, he also has their feet going to the polls on Election Day.
Need proof locally? The Luzerne County Council now has a Republican majority. That happened because GOP leaders here identified people who were going to vote for that team no matter what. People tend to forget that local elections usually portend what will occur in the next one.
Unorhadox in the sense that no one would believe it could work. But in reality it did once in '16 and might happen gain in 2020.

JOE BIDEN’S 4-POINT PLAN FOR OUR ESSENTIAL WORKERS

Essential workers are providing life-saving medical care, cleaning our hospital rooms, delivering our food and other essential goods, stocking our grocery store shelves, getting us from place to place, keeping our cities’ lights on, and so much more. They have been on the frontlines of this pandemic.
Joe Biden has said since the beginning of this campaign that American workers are the heart and soul of this country— too often, though, we’ve taken these workers and the work they do for granted.
But the coronavirus pandemic has highlighted this critical truth: all across this nation, it’s often our lowest-paid workers who have stepped up during this crisis.
Donald Trump’s foot-dragging and delays have only made it more challenging for workers.
These workers are putting themselves on the line every day. They are essential to our society – in times of crisis and beyond, and deserve not just our thanks and respect, but our support.
Joe Biden has a bold agenda to give these workers the long-term support they deserve — raising wages, guaranteeing quality, affordable health care, providing free tuition for public higher education, and encouraging unionization and collective bargaining.
But these workers can’t wait. They need emergency help now.
Today, Joe Biden is calling on President Trump’s Administration to take four immediate actions to protect and support our essential workers:
(1) Ensure all frontline workers, like grocery store employees, qualify for priority access to personnel protective equipment (PPE) and COVID-19 testing based upon their risk of exposure to the virus, as well as child care assistance, and other forms of emergency COVID-19 support.
(2) Expand access to effective personal protective equipment, including through use of the Defense Production Act.
The Trump Administration should ramp up capacity to produce masks for all frontline workers – from health care workers to grocery store workers – by fully using the Defense Production Act. And, the Trump Administration should fully empower a Supply Commander to coordinate the production and delivery of essential supplies and equipment, including masks, gloves, and other personal protective equipment. The Supply Commander would be tasked with ensuring equitable distribution so that at-risk communities and particularly vulnerable populations are fully taken care of.
(3) Establish and enforce health and safety standards for workplaces.
During the H1N1 epidemic, the Obama-Biden Administration tasked the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the Center for Disease Control (CDC) with issuing detailed guidance for how employers should protect their workers. Then, OSHA enforced the law based on those guidelines. The Trump Administration has only started enforcement efforts this week and is still refusing to do everything it can and should to protect workers’ health and safety.
The Trump Administration should:
•Immediately release and enforce an Emergency Temporary Standard (“ETS”) to give employers and frontline employees specific, enforceable guidance on what to do to reduce the spread of COVID.
•Finalize a permanent infectious disease standard. After H1N1, the Obama-Biden Administration spent years preparing a new, permanent infectious disease standard, which would have required health facilities and certain other high exposure workplaces to permanently implement infection control programs to protect their workers. It handed it to the Trump Administration, but instead of moving it to rulemaking, it readily shelved it. They should immediately get to work bringing it to conclusion and expanding it to include all relevant workplaces.
•Double the number of OSHA investigators to enforce the law and existing standards and guidelines. Under President Trump, OSHA currently has record low inspectors. Given the exigencies of this crisis, and the need for rigorous enforcement of workplace standards across the country, at least twice the number of inspectors are needed.
•Work closely with state occupational safety and health agencies and state and local governments, and the unions that represent their employees, to ensure comprehensive protections for frontline workers.
(4) Enact premium pay for frontline workers putting themselves at risk.
There is no substitute for ensuring worker safety, but all frontline workers putting their lives on the line should receive premium pay for their work. The Trump Administration should immediately work with Congress to pass a bold premium pay initiative. Under the Senate Democrats’ “Heroes Fund” proposal, the federal government would step in and give essential workers a raise, with additional funding to attract workers to serve as health and home care workers and first responders. This premium pay should be in addition to paid sick leave and care-giving leave for every worker, which Joe Biden called for in his March 12 plan, and $15 minimum wage for all workers.

EX-BUSH AIDE HAS CHILLING THEORY ABOUT DONALD TRUMP'S CORONAVIRUS STRATEGY

David Frum (Photo: CNN)

An ex-speechwriter for former President George W. Bush on Tuesday argued that President Donald Trump is sacrificing the lives of other Americans to the coronavirus crisis in a “desperate” bid to save himself politically.
In a thread on Twitter, David Frum claimed reports the White House is now pivoting its pandemic messaging to the economy showed Trump is “consciously choosing to risk higher virus casualties” in the second quarter of 2020 “in hope of jolting the economy into revival in Q3 to save his re-election” in November.
“It’s a desperate gamble to save himself by sacrificing others,” wrote Frum, who is now a senior editor at The Atlantic, warning: “It’s also not very likely to work.”
This came from the Huffington Post but consider also the words and theory comes from a Republican stalwart. (Huffington Post, LuLac)

CASEY ENCOURAGES PARTICIPATION IN USDA ‘FARMERS TO FAMILIES FOOD BOX’ INITIATIVE IN ORDER TO BENEFIT PENNSYLVANIA’S FARMERS AND FAMILIES

USDA ALLOCATES $3 BILLION FOR FOOD DISTRIBUTION INITIATIVE AS COVID-19 PANDEMIC INCREASES NEED FOR NUTRITION ASSISTANCE, APPLICATIONS DUE BY MAY 1

Senator Bob Casey (Photo: LuLac archives)

Senator Bob Casey is encouraging Pennsylvania food distributors, including food hubs, farmers markets and other entities, to apply for the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Farmers to Families Food Box initiative. This initiative, funded by assistance included in the CARES Act, is designed to connect regional and local food distributors capable of sourcing, assembling and delivering food boxes with non-profit organizations, food banks and food pantries serving families in need of assistance. As the COVID-19 pandemic impacts farmers with the widespread market and supply chain disruption and increases the need for financial and nutritional assistance for many Americans, this program serves to stimulate the industry and provide much-needed emergency food relief.
“Agriculture is the Commonwealth’s top industry and farmers and agricultural businesses are essential to our economy. This initiative needs to support our farmers and local food distributors while delivering immediate critical food assistance to families whose burdens have become exponentially heavier during this pandemic. I strongly encourage any Pennsylvania food distributor who is able to source, assemble and deliver food boxes to apply,” said Senator Casey.
Senator Casey’s previous efforts to support both farmers and non-profits include his introduction of the Farm to Food Bank Act, provisions from which were included in the 2018 Farm Bill. The Farm Bill established Farm to Food Bank Projects to support farmers in donating their product directly to food banks to be distributed to those in need. Farm to Foodbank can now be included in States’ emergency feeding distribution plans to support farmers by reimbursing them for the costs to produce, harvest, pack, process, store or transport to foodbanks food that is safe for consumption but does not have access to a retail market or supply chain. This structure serves as a model upon which to continue to strengthen the connection between farmers and families in need.
Senator Casey recently sent letters to USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue requesting that USDA deliver direct assistance to dairy farmers and specialty crop producers to account for losses suffered during the COVID-19 pandemic, and tailor USDA relief efforts to farmers in various local markets. Senator Casey also led a Pennsylvania delegation letter to the Small Business Administration to ensure that loans and programs are available and work for farmers and agricultural businesses.

Letter to Secretary Perdue:

Dear Secretary Perdue:
The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted local food systems and caused losses for farmers who sell their products to local markets. We urge you to account for the scale of these losses as the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) provides relief and direct payments to farmers.
The recently-passed Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act made $9.5 billion available for USDA to provide support for agricultural producers who are struggling because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The CARES Act specifically includes “producers that supply local food systems, including farmers markets, restaurants, and schools” among those eligible for the assistance. We write today to emphasize the high level of damages being experienced by local food producers and to provide comments on fair allocation of the CARES payments.
Communities across the country have responded to the spread of COVID-19 by shutting down schools, universities, and other institutions. Many farmers markets have closed or postponed the start of the season to prevent crowds from gathering during the outbreak, and restaurants have closed or are operating on a limited basis. These closures and delays have cut off the usual outlets for producers who sell directly to into local and regional food systems. One study estimates that these market disruptions could lead to a $1.1 billion loss of sales for these producers through the end of 2020.
The growth of the local food economy over the last decade has nurtured a diverse group of small and medium size producers who depend on direct markets to reach consumers. Consumers benefit from having more choices and a deeper connection to where their food comes from and how it is grown. Unfortunately, these losses, compounded by increased sanitization and transportation expenses, threaten the survival of many of the farms that supply local food systems.
We urge you to protect the rich diversity of American agriculture by working with producers who supply local markets to tailor USDA relief efforts to their needs. To do this, we respectfully request that you provide payments to local food producers for lost revenue and additional cost incurred by the COVID-19 disaster.
We urge you to administer these payments through the Farm Service Agency in response to the industry’s projected $1.1 billion loss in revenue. To be eligible to receive a direct payment, local food producers should derive at least 25 percent of total farm income from sales that are locally purchased, including food sold directly to consumers, schools, institutions, food hubs or regional distribution centers, retail markets, farmers markets or restaurants. Further, to be eligible, these producers should meet standard AGI limitations as directed by the Farm Bill and maintain conservation compliance if currently required to have a plan.
For those local food producers making between $1000 and $300,000 in annual revenue in recent years, the USDA direct payment for COVID relief should at a minimum equal 25 percent of annual revenue or at maximum equal $25,000.
For those local food producers who can provide information regarding actual COVID revenue loss and added costs, additional disaster assistance should be made available. Information regarding revenue loss could include a 2020 crop year business plan, a record of approved loans, a record of 2019 crop year revenue, contracts, receipts, or other agreements that can demonstrate a loss of revenue or additional costs incurred by a farmer as a result of the COVID-19 disaster. Payments for these actual losses and costs should be capped at $100,000 per producer or at a minimum should be equal to 50 percent of the total lost revenue and additional costs incurred by producers as a result of the COVID-19 disaster and 60 percent of total lost revenue and additional costs for producers who donate a significant amount to food banks or other charitable causes.
As the ramifications of the COVID-19 emergency continue to unfold, we encourage you to consider whether additional payments will be needed in the future to support local food economies affected by the disaster.
We respectfully request that for crop year 2020, the Farm Service Agency waive farm number requirements for local food producers and new farmers who currently do not have them. We ask that USDA carefully consider an outreach strategy that specifically reaches small, beginning, and socially disadvantaged local food producers, including those with limited internet access or exposure to FSA services. We urge USDA to establish a national hotline to manage incoming producer inquiries, simplify the application process, and make information about the program available in multiple languages.
Thank you for consideration, and please know that we stand ready to work with USDA on relief efforts.

PROPERTY TAX REFORM UPDATE

Charles Urban sent this video regarding Property Tax Reform in the state. This took place in February.

Meanwhile it should be noted that a bill was proposed by Rep. Eddie Day Pashinski, that would give every homeowner in Pennsylvania an $800 school property tax rebate regardless of how much their property is worth. Renters would receive a $50 rebate under the plan.
Then there is a missive from Erica Freeman regarding House Bill 1776 and its implications from the Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center. Re: Statements on HB 1776.
Pennsylvania, like every other state in the country, faces an unprecedented budget crisis at both the state and local levels. It is so unusual that we do not really know how severe it will be. There is still great uncertainty about how deep we will fall. will be. And there is also uncertainty about how quickly we will be able to climb out of the hole in state and local revenues caused by the necessary health regulations put in place to limit the impact of COVID-19 on our lives and our health care system. Estimates of the two-year decline in state revenues range from $3 to $7 billion. A recent analysis suggests that the decline in school districts’ revenues could range between $850 million and $1 billion for FY 21.
This is a time for all of us, in government office and outside it, to think carefully about how best to respond to an extraordinary situation. We need to gather information. We have to think deeply about how much state and local revenues (for both municipal governments and school districts) will be reduced. We need to investigate how much support the federal government, which has an almost unlimited capacity to fund state and local governments, will help and what we can all do together to ensure that federal aid will be sufficient. We have to think carefully about how to balance state and local responsibilities for managing the remaining shortfalls—which are likely to require some reductions in planned expenditures and some increases in revenues by the state, county and municipal governments, and school districts. And we have to adjust public policy to the varying circumstances of our local governments and school districts, ensuring that the impact of the recession does not fall disproportionately on those with low incomes and people of color as it has too often in the past.
Sadly, the House of Representatives is moving ahead with a bill to freeze property school taxes, HB 1776, that is the antithesis of this careful, measured approach. To begin with, this proposal is premature in two respects. We still don’t know enough to be making a major policy change of this kind. And it attempts to set policy for one element of our school funding system entirely apart from other crucial elements including other sources of local school revenue and state funding for schools.
The proposal also does not take into account local variation in school districts and state support for them. Our previous research has shown that while property taxes are very high as a share of income in some parts of the state, they are low in many other parts. And, property taxes are not especially high in the state as a whole compared to neighboring states. Given this variation in the impact of property taxes on Pennsylvanians, the variation in how the COVID-19 recession will affect different school districts and parts of the state, the different ways that school districts raise local revenues, and the variation in how well or badly schools are funded by the state, an across the board freeze on property taxes is not sensible public policy. At the very least, until we know what state support for schools looks like—and most likely beyond—local school districts must be able to adjust their own budgets and property tax revenues without having to follow rigid rules set by the state.
Finally, the proposal does not address the profound inequities in how we fund schools in the Commonwealth or how we tax our citizens. No discussion of property taxes should take place in that vacuum. We remain convinced that the best way to diminish the harmful consequences of property taxes for some Pennsylvanians in some parts of the state is to adopt measures targeted at helping those with low and moderate incomes. The unequal impact of COVID-19 on local and regional economies, and on the citizens of the state, makes such a targeted approach even more appropriate at this moment.

CARTWRIGHT ANNOUNCES $75,750 IN CARES ACT FUNDING TO THE WRIGHT CENTER

Congressman Matt Cartwright (Photo: LuLac archives)

U.S. Representative Matt Cartwright welcomed the release of $75,750 to The Wright Center for Community Health as part of the newly created Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program for COVID-19 response. These funds provide the resources needed for centers like this one to continue to provide the health services our communities need throughout northeastern Pennsylvania during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“In this time of crisis, we need to be able to meet on-going as well as new and increasing community needs,” said Rep. Matt Cartwright, a member of the House Appropriations Committee. “I worked to ensure my colleagues came together to support medical staff and case workers serving on the frontlines to help our vulnerable and infirm populations, while also answering the call of the pandemic. We owe them that.”
The Wright Center is a non-profit, community-based graduate medical education consortium and safety net provider of primary care. They have been serving at locations across northeastern Pennsylvania for more than 40 years. Their Ryan White Clinic is located in Scranton, PA.
The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), is the primary federal agency for improving health care for people who are isolated or economically or medically vulnerable. The Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program COVID-19 Response awards will give recipients like the Wright Center the flexibility to meet evolving needs in their respective communities as they continue to provide critical services to people with HIV during this pandemic.

MEDIA MATTERS

WALN TV

BOLD GOLD COMMUNITY FORUM

Tune in Sunday morning at 6 on 94.3 The Talker; 6:30 on 1400-The Game, NEPA's Fox .Sports Radio and 106.7 fm; and at 7:30 on 105 The River.

ECTV PREVIEW

Preview host David DeCosmo continues to produce ECTV's public affairs program from his home while guests join in via computer video link. During the week of May 4th David's guest will be Mark Riccitti Jr. from the Luzerne County Historical Society. Mr. Riccitti explains the Society' status, plans, and resources still available
during the current pandemic.

PREVIEW is seen 3 times daily on Comcast channel 19 and on the electric city television YouTube page.

BUDDY RUMCHEK

Want to hear some great parodies on the news? Tune in to WILK Radio at 6:20 and 8:20 AM on Mondays. As Ralph Cramden used to say, “It’s a laugh riot!”

BOBBY V’S DOO WOP SOCK HOP

SUNDAY NIGHTS!

1980

Our 1980 logo.

"About that Urban Renaissance...", an article by journalist Dan Rottenberg in Chicago, contains the first recorded use of the word "yuppie"……Referendum on system of government held in Nepal…..

Yugoslav President Josip Broz Tito dies. The largest state funeral in history is organized, with state delegations from 128 different countries out of 154 UNO members at the time…..Paul Geidel, convicted of second-degree murder in 1911, is released from prison in Beacon, New York, after 68 years and 245 days (the longest-ever time served by an inmate)…. After winning the NBA Championship by four games to two over the Philadelphia 76ers the Los Angeles Lakers say they just might be on the road to another dynasty……and forty years go the number one song in LuLac land and America was “Funkytown” by Lipps, Inc. This song was blared at every game I attended in 1980 at Yankee Stadium.

The Lulac Edition #4,275, April 29th, 2020

WRITE ON WEDNESDAY PART 2

Our “Write On Wednesday” logo

This week we bring you Part 2 of “Write on Wednesday. This is a provocative look at capitalism and how it fits into government. It’s from our friend and frequent contributor Dr. Joe Leonardi.

CAPITALISM IS NOT A FORM OF GOVERNMENT

One truism about pure capitalism is it suffers from a lack of morality. This is not a judgement, it is simply a fact -- capitalism is an amoral system. It must be because it has one driving, all-encompassing goal -- profit. It cares not for the environment. It cares not the well-being of the labor force. It cares not how it impacts others. It cares only for maximum gain. To accomplish that goal requires maximum exploitation.
The exploitation of resources.
The exploitation of product.
The exploitation of people.
Since Theodore Roosevelt until recently, most political and governmental people realized that unchecked, unfettered capitalism is not good for society as a whole. Even business people of largely profitable enterprises get it. One of the largest business endeavors in the world, The National Football League, understood decades ago that the "free market" would not work for their product. NFL teams only compete with each other on the field of play, in business, they are the very model of socialism -- each individual team working for the betterment of the group. From television broadcasting rights to roster sizes to salary caps to the players union, every rule passed and each dollar spent and earned is to ensure the league succeeds and thrives.
Hell, even La Cosa Nostra understood there needed to be rules in their criminal enterprises, hence the commission of the Five Families, who not only governed law breaking in New York City, but presided over much of top level criminal activities in the country -- hence the term "organized crime."
If billionaire business people and criminals understand that regulation of some sort over an unending free-for-all is better for them as a whole -- Why don't average people, the most exploited, get it?
It was good ole trust busting T.R., President Theodore Roosevelt, who initially embraced and enforced the concept of regulation for the public good. It seems as of late, because the concentration of wealth has taken over the message, we are inundated with the idea of regulation being bad, ignoring that most regulation is for the overall public good.
We are told that regulations to have clean and safe drinking water are bad.
We are told that regulations to have clean and safe land to live on are bad.
We are told that regulations to have clean and safe air to breathe are bad.
Imagine the lunacy of average, everyday people fighting against the very measures that will ensure that they have the healthiest lives possible. They fight and protest not for the betterment of their lives, but for the gain of others. The very same others who will financially profit from the lethal poisoning and unsafe working conditions that will harm, maim and kill the very people fighting the regulations.
We are told regulation is bad because it forces multi-billion dollar industries to not only spend extra money to be good stewards of the earth, but be good human beings to their fellow people. What is the cost -- a company will only have a market valuation of nine hundred and ninety nine billion dollars instead of a trillion?
And yet, so well versed are the masters of spin, good people, living paycheck to paycheck, the very same people that will take their last shirt from their backs to help a freezing member of society, are somehow convinced that the company bordering on a trillion dollars in valuation, think of that ONE TRILLION FUCKING DOLLARS, is in more need of help than them or their fellow human beings. They are convinced to rally in support of people who will step over a starving, freezing person in the street to make their stocks go up one more point.
Nothing has brought this home more than what is now going on.
In this current pandemic, the world is at a standstill. A virus that infects and kills without discretion has found its way into the human population. In an unregulated "food" market, it was transferred from the animal kingdom to humans because people trying to put scraps of food on their tables were willing, in an unsanitary setting, to sell the meat of an "exotic" animal to those with more money than sense.
Now the world suffers, and in an attempt to preserve human life, there are those, many who see no other alternative, protesting the protection of that human life. I get it, because we live in a system that only values monetary gain, even over human life, these people have no choice, because of societal failings they MUST work -- regardless if they become infected, or pass the infection onto others. Nothing matters more than the need for money. Not because of the greed, but because of the need to provide for day-to-day survival.
Ideally, and realistically, we should not have an issue with shutting down and practicing safe measures to not only protect ourselves, but to protect our fellow human beings. But because of exploitation, people have no choice to believe they are being repressed and prevented from earning a living.
What we should have an issue with is that we live in a society that has become enamored and reliant on a market system which only values profit, and inhumanely neglects the person, especially when crisis reveals vulnerability.
Capitalism is an economic system, NOT a governmental system. As many older societies have shown, you can have well regulated free market capitalism and still provide care and comfort for citizens, not treat them as expendable resources to be exploited at all costs, including their very lives, so a mere few can accumulate vast wealth.
It must be admitted, unchecked capitalism is a cold, unfeeling, and yes cruel entity -- if an employee dies, the company simply replaces him or her and goes on -- to the owner, board and stock holders, the family that lost a loved one is forgotten in an instant, even as that family's struggles now become even greater.

The LuLac Edition #4,274, April 29th, 2020

WRITE ON WEDNESDAY PART 1

Our “Write On Wednesday” logo. 

This week we present an eye opening article from The Atlantic from George Packer. This incredible piece outlines the flaws we already faced politically and socially.

WE ARE LIVING IN A FAILED STATE

THE CORONAVIRUS DIDN’T BREAK AMERICA. IT REVEALED WHAT WAS ALREADY BROKEN

When the virus came here, it found a country with serious underlying conditions, and it exploited them ruthlessly. Chronic ills—a corrupt political class, a sclerotic bureaucracy, a heartless economy, a divided and distracted public—had gone untreated for years. We had learned to live, uncomfortably, with the symptoms. It took the scale and intimacy of a pandemic to expose their severity—to shock Americans with the recognition that we are in the high-risk category.
The crisis demanded a response that was swift, rational, and collective. The United States reacted instead like Pakistan or Belarus—like a country with shoddy infrastructure and a dysfunctional government whose leaders were too corrupt or stupid to head off mass suffering. The administration squandered two irretrievable months to prepare. From the president came willful blindness, scapegoating, boasts, and lies. From his mouthpieces, conspiracy theories and miracle cures. A few senators and corporate executives acted quickly—not to prevent the coming disaster, but to profit from it. When a government doctor tried to warn the public of the danger, the White House took the mic and politicized the message.
Every morning in the endless month of March, Americans woke up to find themselves citizens of a failed state. With no national plan—no coherent instructions at all—families, schools, and offices were left to decide on their own whether to shut down and take shelter. When test kits, masks, gowns, and ventilators were found to be in desperately short supply, governors pleaded for them from the White House, which stalled, then called on private enterprise, which couldn’t deliver. States and cities were forced into bidding wars that left them prey to price gouging and corporate profiteering. Civilians took out their sewing machines to try to keep ill-equipped hospital workers healthy and their patients alive. Russia, Taiwan, and the United Nations sent humanitarian aid to the world’s richest power—a beggar nation in utter chaos.
Donald Trump saw the crisis almost entirely in personal and political terms. Fearing for his reelection, he declared the coronavirus pandemic a war, and himself a wartime president. But the leader he brings to mind is Marshal Philippe Pétain, the French general who, in 1940, signed an armistice with Germany after its rout of French defenses, then formed the pro-Nazi Vichy regime. Like Pétain, Trump collaborated with the invader and abandoned his country to a prolonged disaster. And, like France in 1940, America in 2020 has stunned itself with a collapse that’s larger and deeper than one miserable leader. Some future autopsy of the pandemic might be called Strange Defeat, after the historian and Resistance fighter Marc Bloch’s contemporaneous study of the fall of France. Despite countless examples around the U.S. of individual courage and sacrifice, the failure is national. And it should force a question that most Americans have never had to ask: Do we trust our leaders and one another enough to summon a collective response to a mortal threat? Are we still capable of self-government?
This is the third major crisis of the short 21st century. The first, on September 11, 2001, came when Americans were still living mentally in the previous century, and the memory of depression, world war, and cold war remained strong. On that day, people in the rural heartland did not see New York as an alien stew of immigrants and liberals that deserved its fate, but as a great American city that had taken a hit for the whole country. Firefighters from Indiana drove 800 miles to help the rescue effort at Ground Zero. Our civic reflex was to mourn and mobilize together.
Partisan politics and terrible policies, especially the Iraq War, erased the sense of national unity and fed a bitterness toward the political class that never really faded. The second crisis, in 2008, intensified it. At the top, the financial crash could almost be considered a success. Congress passed a bipartisan bailout bill that saved the financial system. Outgoing Bush-administration officials cooperated with incoming Obama administration officials. The experts at the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department used monetary and fiscal policy to prevent a second Great Depression. Leading bankers were shamed but not prosecuted; most of them kept their fortunes and some their jobs. Before long they were back in business. A Wall Street trader told me that the financial crisis ha All of the lasting pain was felt in the middle and at the bottom, by Americans who had taken on debt and lost their jobs, homes, and retirement savings. Many of them never recovered, and young people who came of age in the Great Recession are doomed to be poorer than their parents. Inequality—the fundamental, relentless force in American life since the late 1970s—grew worse. d been a “speed bump.
This second crisis drove a profound wedge between Americans: between the upper and lower classes, Republicans and Democrats, metropolitan and rural people, the native-born and immigrants, ordinary Americans and their leaders. Social bonds had been under growing strain for several decades, and now they began to tear. The reforms of the Obama years, important as they were—in health care, financial regulation, green energy—had only palliative effects. The long recovery over the past decade enriched corporations and investors, lulled professionals, and left the working class further behind. The lasting effect of the slump was to increase polarization and to discredit authority, especially government’s.
Both parties were slow to grasp how much credibility they’d lost. The coming politics was populist. Its harbinger wasn’t Barack Obama but Sarah Palin, the absurdly unready vice-presidential candidate who scorned expertise and reveled in in celebrity. She was Donald Trump’s John the Baptist.
Trump came to power as the repudiation of the Republican establishment. But the conservative political class and the new leader soon reached an understanding. Whatever their differences on issues like trade and immigration, they shared a a basic goal: to strip-mine public assets for the benefit of private interests. Republican politicians and donors who wanted government to do as little as possible for the common good could live happily with a regime that barely knew how to govern at all, and they made themselves Trump’s footmen.
Like a wanton boy throwing matches in a parched field, Trump began to immolate what was left of national civic life. He never even pretended to be president of the whole country, but pitted us against one another along lines of race, sex, religion, citizenship, education, region, and—every day of his presidency—political party. His main tool of governance was to lie. A third of the country locked itself in a hall of mirrors that it believed to be reality; a third drove itself mad with the effort to hold on to the idea of knowable truth; and a third gave up even trying.
Trump acquired a federal government crippled by years of right-wing ideological assault, politicization by both parties, and steady defunding. He set about finishing off the job and destroying the professional civil service. He drove out some of the most talented and experienced career officials, left essential positions unfilled, and installed loyalists as commissars over the cowed survivors, with one purpose: to serve his own interests. His major legislative accomplishment, one of the largest tax cuts in history, sent hundreds of billions of dollars to corporations and the rich. The beneficiaries flocked to patronize his resorts and line his reelection pockets. If lying was his means for using power, corruption was his end.
Trump came to power as the repudiation of the Republican establishment. But the conservative political class and the new leader soon reached an understanding. Whatever their differences on issues like trade and immigration, they shared a basic goal: to strip-mine public assets for the benefit of private interests. Republican politicians and donors who wanted government to do as little as possible for the common good could live happily with a regime that barely knew how to govern at all, and they made themselves Trump’s footmen.
Like a wanton boy throwing matches in a parched field, Trump began to immolate what was left of national civic life. He never even pretended to be president of the whole country, but pitted us against one another along lines of race, sex, religion, citizenship, education, region, and—every day of his presidency—political party. His main tool of governance was to lie. A third of the country locked itself in a hall of mirrors that it believed to be reality; a third drove itself mad with the effort to hold on to the idea of knowable truth; and a third gave up even trying.
Trump acquired a federal government crippled by years of right-wing ideological assault, politicization by both parties, and steady defunding. He set about finishing off the job and destroying the professional civil service. He drove out some of the most talented and experienced career officials, left essential positions unfilled, and installed loyalists as commissars over the cowed survivors, with one purpose: to serve his own interests. His major legislative accomplishment, one of the largest tax cuts in history, sent hundreds of billions of dollars to corporations and the rich. The beneficiaries flocked to patronize his resorts and line his reelection pockets. If lying was his means for using power, corruption was his end.
This was the American landscape that lay open to the virus: in prosperous cities, a class of globally connected desk workers dependent on a class of precarious and invisible service workers; in the countryside, decaying communities in revolt against the modern world; on social media, mutual hatred and endless vituperation among different camps; in the economy, even with full employment, a large and growing gap between triumphant capital and beleaguered labor; in Washington, an empty government led by a con man and his intellectually bankrupt party; around the country, a mood of cynical exhaustion, with no vision of a shared identity or future.
If the pandemic really is a kind of war, it’s the first to be fought on this soil in a century and a half. Invasion and occupation expose a society’s fault lines, exaggerating what goes unnoticed or accepted in peacetime, clarifying essential truths, raising the smell of buried rot.
The virus should have united Americans against a common threat. With different leadership, it might have. Instead, even as it spread from blue to red areas, attitudes broke down along familiar partisan lines. The virus also should have been a great leveler. You don’t have to be in the military or in debt to be a target—you just have to be human. But from the start, its effects have been skewed by the inequality that we’ve tolerated for so long. When tests for the virus were almost impossible to find, the wealthy and connected—the model and reality-TV host Heidi Klum, the entire roster of the Brooklyn Nets, the president’s conservative allies—were somehow able to get tested, despite many showing no symptoms. The smattering of individual results did nothing to protect public health. Meanwhile, ordinary people with fevers and chills had to wait in long and possibly infectious lines, only to be turned away because they weren’t actually suffocating. An internet joke proposed that the only way to find out whether you had the virus was to sneeze in a rich person’s face.
When Trump was asked about this blatant unfairness, he expressed disapproval but added, “Perhaps that’s been the story of life.” Most Americans hardly register this kind of special privilege in normal times. But in the first weeks of the pandemic it sparked outrage, as if, during a general mobilization, the rich had been allowed to buy their way out of military service and hoard gas masks. As the contagion has spread, its victims have been likely to be poor, black, and brown people. The gross inequality of our health-care system is evident in the sight of refrigerated trucks lined up outside public hospitals.
The virus should have united Americans against a common threat. With different leadership, it might have. Instead, even as it spread from blue to red areas, attitudes broke down along familiar partisan lines. The virus also should have been a great leveler. You don’t have to be in the military or in debt to be a target—you just have to be human. But from the start, its effects have been skewed by the inequality that we’ve tolerated for so long. When tests for the virus were almost impossible to find, the wealthy and connected—the model and reality-TV host Heidi Klum, the entire roster of the Brooklyn Nets, the president’s conservative allies—were somehow able to get tested, despite many showing no symptoms. The smattering of individual results did nothing to protect public health. Meanwhile, ordinary people with fevers and chills had to wait in long and possibly infectious lines, only to be turned away because they weren’t actually suffocating. An internet joke proposed that the only way to find out whether you had the virus was to sneeze in a rich person’s face.
When Trump was asked about this blatant unfairness, he expressed disapproval but added, “Perhaps that’s been the story of life.” Most Americans hardly register this kind of special privilege in normal times. But in the first weeks of the pandemic it sparked outrage, as if, during a general mobilization, the rich had been allowed to buy their way out of military service and hoard gas masks. As the contagion has spread, its victims have been likely to be poor, black, and brown people. The gross inequality of our health-care system is evident in the sight of refrigerated trucks lined up outside public hospitals.
We now have two categories of work: essential and nonessential. Who have the essential workers turned out to be? Mostly people in low-paying jobs that require their physical presence and put their health directly at risk: warehouse workers, shelf-stockers, Instacart shoppers, delivery drivers, municipal employees, hospital staffers, home health aides, long-haul truckers. Doctors and nurses are the pandemic’s combat heroes, but the supermarket cashier with her bottle of sanitizer and the UPS driver with his latex gloves are the supply and logistics troops who keep the frontline forces intact. In a smartphone economy that hides whole classes of human beings, we’re learning where our food and goods come from, who keeps us alive. An order of organic baby arugula on AmazonFresh is cheap and arrives overnight in part because the people who grow it, sort it, pack it, and deliver it have to keep working while sick. For most service workers, sick leave turns out to be an impossible luxury. It’s worth asking if we would accept a higher price and slower delivery so that they could stay home.
The pandemic has also clarified the meaning of nonessential workers. One example is Kelly Loeffler, the Republican junior senator from Georgia, whose sole qualification for the empty seat that she was given in January is her immense wealth. Less than three weeks into the job, after a dire private briefing about the virus, she got even richer from the selling-off of stocks, then she accused Democrats of exaggerating the danger and gave her constituents false assurances that may well have gotten them killed. Loeffler’s impulses in public service are those of a dangerous parasite. A body politic that would place someone like this in high office is well advanced in decay.
The purest embodiment of political nihilism is not Trump himself but his son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner. In his short lifetime, Kushner has been fraudulently promoted as both a meritocrat and a populist. He was born into a moneyed real-estate family the month Ronald Reagan entered the Oval Office, in 1981—a princeling of the second Gilded Age. Despite Jared’s mediocre academic record, he was admitted to Harvard after his father, Charles, pledged a $2.5 million donation to the university. Father helped son with $10 million in loans for a start in the family business, then Jared continued his elite education at the law and business schools of NYU, where his father had contributed $3 million. Jared repaid his father’s support with fierce loyalty when Charles was sentenced to two years in federal prison in 2005 for trying to resolve a family legal quarrel by entrapping his sister’s husband with a prostitute and videotaping the encounter.
Jared Kushner failed as a skyscraper owner and a newspaper publisher, but he always found someone to rescue him, and his self-confidence only grew. In American Oligarchs, Andrea Bernstein describes how he adopted the outlook of a risk-taking entrepreneur, a “disruptor” of the new economy. Under the influence of his mentor Rupert Murdoch, he found ways to fuse his financial, political, and journalistic pursuits. He made conflicts of interest his business model.
So when his father-in-law became president, Kushner quickly gained power in an administration that raised amateurism, nepotism, and corruption to governing principles. As long as he busied himself with Middle East peace, his feckless meddling didn’t matter to most Americans. But since he became an influential adviser to Trump on the coronavirus pandemic, the result has been mass death.
In his first week on the job, in mid-March, Kushner co-authored the worst Oval Office speech in memory, interrupted the vital work of other officials, may have compromised security protocols, flirted with conflicts of interest and violations of federal law, and made fatuous promises that quickly turned to dust. “The federal government is not designed to solve all our problems,” he said, explaining how he would tap his corporate connections to create drive-through testing sites. They never materialized. He was convinced by corporate leaders that Trump should not use presidential authority to compel industries to manufacture ventilators—then Kushner’s own attempt to negotiate a deal with General Motors fell through. With no loss of faith in himself, he blamed shortages of necessary equipment and gear on incompetent state governors.
To watch this pale, slim-suited dilettante breeze into the middle of a deadly crisis, dispensing business-school jargon to cloud the massive failure of his father-in-law’s administration, is to see the collapse of a whole approach to governing. It turns out that scientific experts and other civil servants are not traitorous members of a “deep state”—they’re essential workers, and marginalizing them in favor of ideologues and sycophants is a threat to the nation’s health. It turns out that “nimble” companies can’t prepare for a catastrophe or distribute lifesaving goods—only a competent federal government can do that. It turns out that everything has a cost, and years of attacking government, squeezing it dry and draining its morale, inflict a heavy cost that the public has to pay in lives. All the programs defunded, stockpiles depleted, and plans scrapped meant that we had become a second-rate nation. Then came the virus and this strange defeat.
The fight to overcome the pandemic must also be a fight to recover the health of our country, and build it anew, or the hardship and grief we’re now enduring will never be redeemed. Under our current leadership, nothing will change. If 9/11 and 2008 wore out trust in the old political establishment, 2020 should kill off the idea that anti-politics is our salvation. But putting an end to this regime, so necessary and deserved, is only the beginning.
We’re faced with a choice that the crisis makes inescapably clear. We can stay hunkered down in self-isolation, fearing and shunning one another, letting our common bond wear away to nothing. Or we can use this pause in our normal lives to pay attention to the hospital workers holding up cellphones so their patients can say goodbye to loved ones; the planeload of medical workers flying from Atlanta to help in New York; the aerospace workers in Massachusetts demanding that their factory be converted to ventilator production; the Floridians standing in long lines because they couldn’t get through by phone to the skeletal unemployment office; the residents of Milwaukee braving endless waits, hail, and contagion to vote in an election forced on them by partisan justices. We can learn from these dreadful days that stupidity and injustice are lethal; that, in a democracy, being a citizen is essential work; that the alternative to solidarity is death. After we’ve come out of hiding and taken off our masks, we should not forget what it was like to be alone.
George Packer is a staff writer at The Atlantic. He is the author of Our Man: Richard Holbrooke and the End of the American Century and The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America.

The LuLac Edition #4,273, April 28th, 2020

MAYBE I’M AMAZED

Our “Maybe I’m Amazed” logo. 

MAYBE I’M AMAZED…..but not really that CNN TV and Sirius Radio host Chris Cuomo’s dream home was ravaged by Trump supporters in Long Island. The home he broadcasts from is temporary since the host and his family was harassed by fake phone calls regarding hostage situations in his home as well as damage to his property. This goes above and beyond the scale of criminality. One loser who was apprehended was already under charges for biting another human being. When a thug President inspires hate, he inspires and incites violence.
MAYBE I’M AMAZED….that it is impossible to sneeze with your eyes open.
MAYBE I’M AMAZED……that even under the harsh criticism of protestors and pro Trumpites, Governor Tom Wolf has come in with a near 70% approval rating as to how he is handling this virus situation. He is measured and calm.
MAYBE I’M AMAZED….that astronauts actually get taller when they are in space.
MAYBE I’M AMAZED….that during his extensive World War II travels, Winston Churchill’s airplane was pressurized. Since he was susceptible to pneumonia, a special oxygen mask was made for him by the Institute of Aviation Medicine at Farnborough. He slept wearing it, even with Commando’s low altitude.Some time later a transparent pressure chamber was devised, into which Churchill could crawl, cigar and all, if the aircraft had to climb. But it would not fit into any of his aircraft without disassembling the rear fuselage, and was rejected out of hand. (LuLac, Churchill Travels blog)
MAYBE I’M AMAZED…..that bubble wrap was first invented in 1957 as wallpaper.
MAYBE I’M AMAZED…..that one of the nation's top meat companies has issued a warning that there could be a shortage at grocery stores nationwide due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
In a full page ad that appeared in Sunday's edition of The New York Times, the chairman of the board of Tyson Foods, John H. Tyson, wrote that "the food supply chain is breaking."
The company's ominous message came after it temporarily closed a pork processing plant in Waterloo, Iowa, on April 22. More than 180 coronavirus infections had been linked to the plant, and hundreds of employees weren't going to work out of fear of getting sick, NBC News reported. The plant accounted for almost 4% of U.S. pork processing capacity, according to the National Pork Board. (NY Times, LuLac)
MAYBE I’M AMAZED… that a human being will spend an average of two weeks in their lifetime kissing his/her object of their affections.
MAYBE I’M AMAZED …that Los Angeles Lakers got a $4.6M government loan intended for small businesses. They returned it.

The LuLac Edition #4,272, April 27th, 2020

MONDAY MEMES (PART TWO) 

The LuLac Edition #4,271, April 27th, 2020

MONDAY MEMES (PART ONE)

The LuLac Edition #4,270 April 25th, 2020

Our "Interview" logo.

This time around (and it' been a bit of time since we did this) we talk to storied Political and Media Advertising icon Bob Harper. Harper has run numerous successful campaigns in this area most notably the upset victory of Stefanie Salavantis over an incumbent Democratic DA. 
What better guy to interview about the juxtaposition of the 2020 Presidential election and the ramifications the Coronavirus will have on it. 
My only regret about this interview is that you will not hear the melodious voice of Mr. Harper. 

 LuLac: As a political consultant of well renown, what are your thoughts of a pandemic coming in the midst of what might be the most consequential Presidential election of our time?

Harper: It will indeed play a paramount role and I think one determining factor will be which party does the best job "spinning" Trump's leadership role - for or against - in a time of national crisis. Interesting to note, that cable news viewership is up by almost 50% and people have had more-than-enough-time to draw their own conclusions even before the spin-masters get to work.
Cuomo's daily presence does NOT bode well for Trump at all, merely because the Governor continues to project a calm, steady, no-nonsense and well-informed demeanor which is in direct contrast with the President's shoot-from-the-hip conjectures, tantrums, and "gut-feeling" innuendos. Serious times call for serious leadership and Cuomo seems to be demonstrating that aura far better than our President, from my point of view anyway. People will disagree and that's fine but I'm merely talking from a political strategy perspective and if I were in Trump's camp I'd be wincing every time Cuomo came on national television. Again though, spin and money can achieve some wild results. Once the economy starts rolling again and people get back to work, I really think it's anyone's ballgame at this point. The spin on the pandemic can only go so far. People are ALREADY sick of hearing about it. Advantage->Trump.

LuLac: Do you think it will shape elections of the future in terms of the way we conduct them?

Harper: Perhaps a bit, since it really exposed more than a few shortcomings in mail-in, absentee voting. Hopefully, it will instigate leaders to devise a totally revamped, improved and fair system that even addresses issues like people NOT voting for fear of their health and well being. It's hard enough to get people out to vote during normal times.

LuLac: You’ve been advocating new platforms to reach more people like social media. Will we be returning to a front porch e campaign?

Harper: I know that a "front porch" campaign refers to a candidate staying at home and inviting people to come by to hear what he or she has to say, so I assume you're suggesting with a front porch "e" campaign that folks are invited to 'come by' to a specific URL at certain times for live speeches or talks by the candidate. Will that happen? Well, since most candidates would have been going door-to-door or state-to-state months ago, I could see it as another viable alternative, assuming of course you could actually get the "invitees" to actually DO IT. Sounds good on paper sort a' thing, in my opinion anyway.
Nothing beats "in-person" interplay so if ya can't get to enough "doors" to knock on, why not do what our old friend Jim McNulty did...Throw a grand and glorious EVENT and have them come to you! That of course is easier said than done nowadays because of the cost factor alone. So, yes, ANY aspect of social media and/or general advertising is essential this time around and will indeed play pivotal roles for sure!

LuLac: How has this pandemic affected your work personally?

Harper: I have been placed "on-hold" with productions for candidates in ten different states at present. In the interim, we've been working on ideologies and various strategies predicated in large part by the pandemic. In those races where there's an incumbent, we're looking REAL hard at what that incumbent has said or not said, done or not done. So for now, we're still in the wash cycle, prepping for spin mode. '-) As you can see, I wear the pants in MY family... as long as I do the laundry.

LuLac: You’ve been in Pennsylvania many times, live in Florida where your presence raises the IQ average by at least 20 points. This is kind of a lead in to the next question but tell us about some of your work.

Harper: I've been in PA many times because I'm originally from there and actually cut-my-teeth in political advertising when I was 15 years old. I did a killer Howard Cosell imitation at the time and some savvy lads in a commissioner's race had me record their very well-written radio commercial, as Howard. It was SO effective, the opponents called the real Howard's agent in New York and played the ad for him wanting to sue! Turns out, the same 'savvy' lads who wrote it had the foresight to change the name to Howard KOTEL. So, as the agent told them, "Look, he's Howard Kotel who just happens to SOUND like Howard Cosell. The opponents lost the election but I was hooked on this thing called political advertising. It was fun!
As far as the IQ level being raised in this, the "hanging chad," "plywood state," I beg to differ sir! I'm sure the overall I.Q. level in Florida dropped considerably upon my arrival and for one good reason! I had left far too many brain cells in the fine and ever so friendly emporiums of NEPA! Somebody say the years of the Madmen?

LuLac: Contrast Tom Wolf and Rick Desantis’ performance.

Harper: Pursuant to my last comment, Rick DeSantis didn't close our Liquor Stores! '-) In all seriousness, I fear I haven't been monitoring Wolf's 'performance' during this pandemic, to make any meaningful or viable contrast. DeSantis has been pretty visible and at least informed and trying to do what he can. He's quite good at delegating authority to good people as well. Things are quite bad in Broward and Dade Counties and from what I understand, from a friend rather high-up in the Dade County Police Department, DeSantis has been very helpful and following-through to all law enforcement and hospitals etc. Overall, from what I read and see on television, he appears to be doing a good job. Again, not up on Wolf enough, this time around, to comment or contrast.

LuLac: Let’s talk about what happened before Coronavirus. What do you make of the embracement of Joe Biden by the Democratic Party?

Harper: All I can think is Bernie was just too far out from center and Joe, is a "seasoned" politician, plays the middle ground well, was a VP and has the best name recognition outside of Sanders. I'm thinking it was more of a safe bet for them but...how safe is the million dollar question. "What did Joe just say?" "Who's THAT woman?" Hmmm. Say it ain't so Joe?

LuLac: In a head to head, Trump vs Biden, how do you see it shaking out?

Harper: Just off the cuff, I think it'll be very close, despite Trump's handling of the pandemic etc. I think Joe's choice for VP could indeed play a pivotal role but not necessarily the deciding factor. Trump doesn't have the "I hate Hillary enough-to-vote- for-anybody" crowd but he does have a national constituency who are literally IMPASSIONED to vote for him. Not to mention an endless stream of money with which to work.
I'll never forget when he was first running and they were showing his rallies around the country on television. The media had already elected Hillary but...I kept seeing 1,000s and 1000s of warm bodies at Trump's rallies and kept saying, "Are Hillary's people seeing this?" I've been involved with a number of political campaigns, on the media side of things, and I've seen first hand how "emotions" come into play in ANY campaign. Some of my best ads were always those that instigated an emotional response be it, anger, humor, tenderness, feel good etc. etc. When you can impassion voters, via some form of emotion, quite frankly, anything can happen and it did many times for me when all bets were off on winning.
I think you'll also see a HUGE push for younger voters and if Bernie is willing to do more for Joe, that can help. Obama needs to REALLY step up as well. As I think of this a little further, there's a truly a WORLD of variables on the table and when that happens, it all gets down to who can do the best job in getting people off their bums to go vote! Those folks whom are "impassioned" will do so. '-)

LuLac: Biden’s running mate, I have Klobachar, and who do you have?

Harper: I see Klobachar as very possible...but why am I getting this behind the scenes Warren feeling?

LuLac: You’re hired by each political team. The issue is Coronavirus, what is your message for both?

Harper: I think R's have to go out of their way to steer clear of Trump's "leadership" angle during pandemic and focus more on the "American" angles of American's Coming Together to Fight, side by side. (Heck show some vintage World War 2 clips) America strong! America Proud! The Eagle soars again. Yadda, Yadda. All tying in to "Make America Great Again" etc. etc.
I think the D's in turn have to jump on all of Trump's leadership foibles but NOT go overboard or for too long. Like I said, people are sick of hearing about the virus at this point so if either side draws it out too long, it'll get real old, real fast and actually backfire. Maybe something like......we made it through the storm and here's what we learned about people, education, jobs, billionaires, the environment, the senate etc. etc. Kinda like....this virus taught us some valuable lessons. Now, we could go back to the way things were or....go forward to....

EDITOR'S NOTE: To check out Mr. Harper's body of work, here's his link: http://www.hearbob.com/political%20advertising.htm 

 

The LuLac Edition #4,269, April 23rd, 2020

LAPDOG BARR: WE MAY JOIN LAWSUITS AGAINST GOVERNORS OVER THEIR LOCK-DOWN ORDERS

Attorney General for Diaper Don, not the United States, Robert Barr (Photo: AP)

In keeping with Trump’s strategy of playing to his base and only his base, always. Governors are the MAGA villains of the month and the point of Trump-style politics is to attack the villain, so that’s what he’s going to do whether or not it’s good for him long-term.
This time Attorney General Robert Barr has threatened the Governors who are looking to protect their citizens.
B.B.B. (Butt Boy Barr) doesn’t make any bones about the fact that he’s a political appointee, not a quasi-independent law enforcement officer. A few weeks ago he was on Fox grumbling about how hydroxychloroquine, the president’s favorite wonder drug, had gotten a bad rap from the lamestream media. That’s not normal AG behavior. If Trump’s going to wage political war against governors, Barr’s obviously going to look for reasons to join in.
Blunt means to deal with the pandemic, such as stay-at-home orders and directives shutting down businesses, are justified up to a point, Barr said in an interview Tuesday on “The Hugh Hewitt Show.” Eventually, though, states should move to more targeted measures, Barr said. He cited the approach laid out by President Donald Trump.
“We have to give businesses more freedom to operate in a way that’s reasonably safe,” Barr said. “To the extent that governors don’t and impinge on either civil rights or on the national commerce — our common market that we have here — then we’ll have to address that.”…
“We’re looking carefully at a number of these rules that are being put into place,” Barr said. “And if we think one goes too far, we initially try to jawbone the governors into rolling them back or adjusting them. And if they’re not and people bring lawsuits, we file statement of interest and side with the plaintiffs.”
In Tuesday’s radio interview, Barr said “these are very, very burdensome impingements on liberty. And we adopted them, we have to remember, for the limited purpose of slowing down the spread, that is bending the curve. We didn’t adopt them as the comprehensive way of dealing with this disease.”
Once again, I think about the building Barr’s fat ass sits in . It is named after Robert Kennedy who must be rolling over in his grave over the freak that had the same job he did. (LuLac, Hugh Hewitt)

BIDEN BEHIND IN FUNDRAISING

Joseph R. Biden Jr. and the Democratic Party could raise almost $1 million every single day between now and November, and he would still barely catch up to what President Trump and the Republican Party had in the bank at the start of April — let alone what Mr. Trump will have by Election Day.
New fund-raising figures released late Monday show the depth of the financial hole in which Mr. Biden finds himself at the start of the general election campaign: The presumptive Democratic nominee and his party are nearly $187 million behind the Republican National Committee and Mr. Trump, who has spent the last three years stockpiling his huge war chest.
The sheer size of Mr. Trump’s early advantage creates a unique set of financial and political pressures for Mr. Biden. He must find ways to both expand his appeal to small online contributors and attract huge seven- and eight-figure checks to the outside super PACs supporting him — all while sheltered in his Delaware home because of the coronavirus.
To lure the money that he will need to compete effectively in battleground states, Mr. Biden will have to navigate a series of consequential political decisions, refining his message, honing his policy agenda and selecting his running mate. But Democratic strategists say he has at least one point in his favor: He has wrapped up the nomination and started uniting the party relatively early in 2020, giving focus to the party activists and leading financial patrons who are singularly obsessed with defeating Mr. Trump.
“Trump’s clear lane is one of the huge benefits of incumbency, and he has used that advantage to turn the screws on every possible donor and execute a massive digital fund-raising effort,” said Jim Margolis, a Democratic strategist and veteran of past presidential campaigns. “So, yes, there will be a fund-raising imbalance, but I think Biden will have enough money to run a good campaign.”
The current cash gap at the presidential level is especially striking because down-ballot Democrats in key House and Senate races have been out-raising their Republican rivals. From competitive Senate races in Maine and Arizona to longer-shot contests in Kentucky and South Carolina, Democratic candidates out-raised their rivals in numerous Republican-held seats across the country in the first quarter of 2020.
Adding to the sense of fiscal strain at the top of the ticket, Mr. Biden has not yet struck an agreement to collect big checks in tandem with the Democratic National Committee (though one is expected soon); the Milwaukee host committee of the Democratic convention announced layoffs last week; and his campaign has been relatively slow to expand hiring since he seized control of the nominating contest a month ago.
Top party operatives and donors have been further distracted by a fractious turf war between leading Democratic super PACs jockeying for supremacy in the crucial and lucrative business of supporting Mr. Biden and ousting Mr. Trump on the airwaves. Even as the Biden campaign has sought to resolve the matter in recent days, some donors and advisers said they were still unsure where exactly they should be sending their checks.
Money is not always determinative in politics, especially at the presidential level. Mr. Biden won the 2020 primary despite being badly outspent. And Mr. Trump won the White House in 2016 despite spending far less than Hillary Clinton. But cash provides campaigns precious flexibility: allowing them to expand the electoral map, hire more staff members, buy more ads or even run political experiments at a moment when a pandemic has caused unprecedented societal upheaval. (MSN News)

SUCCESSFUL BUSINESSMAN ASKS FOR BAILOUT

When Donald Trump ran for President, his defenders talked about his business acumen. “Oh he was a successful businessman, we need him!” No matter how many times you brought up the four bankruptcies and his never revealing his taxes, his followers defended him. They still do. Even after the successful businessman:
1. Couldn’t mobilize his business talemts to get manufacturing going for supplies in this Covid crisis.
2. Asking for government help for his hotel in D.C. because it was guess what, failing because of the health situation in the United States and the world.
Successful businessmen were the late Lee Ioocca who turned around Chrysler. Mitt Romney who twice saved the Olympics.
Successful businessmen are not DONALD TRUMP!

CARTWRIGHT ANNOUNCES $80,000 FOR DELAWARE & LEHIGH NATIONAL HERITAGE CORRIDOR

Congressman Matt Cartwright (Photo: LuLac archives)

Representative Matt Cartwright today announced the release of $80,000 from the Appalachian Regional Commission to the Delaware & Lehigh National Heritage Corridor, Inc. (D&L) for their Delaware and Lehigh Trail Town Program.
“With these funds, D&L will be able to continue supporting the recreation industry and tourism communities in Luzerne County,” said Rep. Cartwright, a member of the House Appropriations Committee. “I’m grateful for their efforts to promote outdoor life and support the towns near their trails, especially as residents look to our natural areas for peace during this trying time.”
“Now more than ever the value of the outdoor industry and specifically the D&L Trail is clearly evident as a vital part of the regional economy. Trails increase the value of nearby homes, help revitalize towns and build local business,” said Elissa Garofalo, Executive Director of the Delaware & Lehigh National Heritage Corridor, Inc. “This award from ARC would not be possible without the assistance of Congressman Cartwright and his District staff.”
The Delaware & Lehigh National Heritage Corridor (D&L) is a diverse, multi-faceted organization, with a multi-use trail spanning 165 miles from the mountains of northeastern Pennsylvania through the Lehigh Valley and Bucks County. They work to preserve and revitalize historic places and landmark towns, conserve green space for public use, document and interpret our heritage, celebrate our community and region and create partnerships and programs for long-term sustainability.
The Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) is a regional economic development agency that represents a partnership of federal, state, and local government. Established by an act of Congress in 1965, ARC is composed of the governors of the 13 Appalachian states and a federal co-chair, who is appointed by the president. Local participation is provided through multi-county local development districts.

CASEY, PA MEMBERS OF CONGRESS: STATE GETTING SHORTCHANGED ON CORONAVIRUS RELIEF FUNDING

PENNSYLVANIA RECEIVING LESS FUNDING FOR SAFETY-NET HOSPITALS AND OTHER PROVIDE

Senator Bob Casey (Photo: LuLac archives)

U.S. Senator Bob Casey announced that he has led a delegation of Pennsylvania’s Democratic U.S. Representatives in a letter calling out the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) for unfairly allocating funds created under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act to help hospitals and other providers. The delegation expressed concern that this distribution unfairly disadvantages safety-net hospitals, nursing homes, home care providers and health centers that serve Pennsylvania’s most at-risk communities, among others.
U.S. Representatives Mary Gay Scanlon (D-PA-05), Brendan Boyle (D-PA-02), Dwight Evans (D-PA-03), Matt Cartwright (D-PA-08), Mike Doyle (D-PA-18), Madeleine Dean (D-PA-04), Susan Wild (D-PA-07), Conor Lamb (D-PA-17) and Chrissy Houlahan (D-PA-06) signed on to the letter.
“We understand that you plan to address these discrepancies through future allocations of the $100 billion provided under the CARES Act and will seek to achieve rough parity – fairness in this case cannot be simply be a goal, it is imperative that you achieve it. Through this funding, Pennsylvania has received approximately $50,000 per COVID patient, while other states have received over $300,000 per COVID patient. To promote one group of providers over another or groups of states over others is unacceptable and will not be tolerated,” the Members of Congress wrote in the letter.
On April 10, HHS released $30 billion in the first round of funding from the Public Health and Social Services Emergency Fund (PHSSEF) under the CARES Act. The distribution of funds was based on a provider’s reimbursement through the Medicare Part A and B fee-for-service program in 2019. This method of distribution, allocated based on Medicare Part A and B fee-for-service claims, unfairly disadvantages states like Pennsylvania, which has a high penetration of Medicare Advantage providers.

MESSAGE FROM KATHY BOOCKVAR

SECRETARY OF THE COMMONWEALTH

JUNE 2 IS THE NEW DATE FOR PENNSYLVANIA’S PRIMARY

Here’s IMPORTANT news. To protect the health and safety of all Pennsylvanians while ensuring access to voting, the PA primary election has been rescheduled to Tuesday, June 2. Also, a new mail-in ballot option is available to ALL Pennsylvania voters.
Vote from the comfort and safety of your home:
Visit VotesPA.com
ALL Pennsylvania voters now have the option to vote by mail for any reason or no reason at all. You can apply for a mail-in ballot or a traditional absentee ballot online, by mail, or in person, until one week before the election. For help or to receive a paper application by mail, please call 1-877-VOTESPA.
You can also sign up to become a permanent mail-in or absentee ballot voter and automatically receive ballots by mail for the rest of the year.
For the 2020 primary, your application must be received online or by your county election office by 5 pm Tuesday, May 26. Applying online is easy, quick and secure. If you provide your email address, you will receive notifications about your application and ballot status.
Once you receive your ballot in the mail, you have until 8 pm on election day, June 2, to deliver your completed ballot to your county election office. If you are mailing it, do so as early as you can to ensure it arrives on time.
Voters who have already requested a mail-in or absentee ballot will receive a ballot for the rescheduled primary. There is no need to apply again if your address remains the same. If your address has changed since you applied, please contact your county election office to provide your updated address.
Other deadlines
Other important election-related deadlines have also changed. The new deadline to update your voter registration is Monday, May 18. Please visit www.register.votespa.com to update your registration today.
Important Dates:
•June 2 – PA Primary Election
•May 18 – Deadline to update your voter registration information
•May 26 – Deadline to request a mail ballot
To stay up-to-date with the latest and most accurate election information in Pennsylvania, visit votesPA.com. Please share this email with your friends and neighbors to help spread the word! Thank you and stay safe.

MEDIA MATTERS.

WALN TV

BOLD GOLD COMMUNITY FORUM

Tune in Sunday morning at 6 on 94.3 The Talker; 6:30 on 1400-The Game, NEPA's Fox .Sports Radio and 106.7 fm; and at 7:30 on 105 The River.

PREVIEW

ECTV's 'PREVIEW" host David DeCosmo welcomes Lackawanna County United Way CEO Gary Drapek back to the show during the week of April 27th to discuss the social distancing policy's effect on isolated elderly individuals in the area.
PREVIEW is seen 3 times daily on Comcast channel 19 and on the electric city television YouTube page.

BUDDY RUMCHEK

Want to hear some great parodies on the news? Tune in to WILK Radio at 6:20 and 8:20 AM on Mondays. As Ralph Cramden used to say, “It’s a laugh riot!”

BOBBY V’S DOO WOP SOCK HOP

SUNDAY NIGHTS!

1980

Our 1980 logo.

The Dominican embassy siege ends with all hostages released and the guerrillas flying to Cuba…..Iranian Embassy siege: Six Iranian-born terrorists take over the Iranian embassy in London, England. SAS retakes the Embassy on May 5; one terrorist survives….Queen Juliana of the Netherlands abdicates and her daughter Beatrix accedes to the throne…....

Al Kaline 

 and Duke Snider 

are elected to the Hall of Fame by the Baseball Writers' Association of America. Kaline is the 10th player to be elected in his first year of eligibility, while Snider made his 11th appearance on the ballot…Rookie Joe Charboneau of the Cleveland Indians after being attacked outside a Mexico City hotel in March has is cleared to play after recovering. A fan seeking his autograph stabbed him in the chest with a pen. 

Charboneau who missed the start of the year, goes on to bat .289, hitting 23 home runs, while driving in 87 RBI in 131 games. He will be elected American League Rookie of the Year……. Meanwhile the Veteran’s Committee elects Slugger Chuck Klein and former Boston Red Sox owner Tom Yawkey to the Hall of Fame. Yawkey is the first club owner selected who never served as a player, manager or general manager….and forty years ago the number song in LuLac land and America was “Sexy Eyes” by Dr. Hook.