Sanctuary cities

In 1954 the Supreme Court ruled in Brown v Board of Education that separate but equal was no longer good enough for public schools but they must in fact integrate. This was a momentous decision in that it just didn’t involve schools but all aspects of life. Many southern states were opposed to this and delayed the implementation of the new law to the point where the government had to step in to speed up the process. Justice delayed is justice denied meant the federal troops had to be sent in to force the states to comply with the federal law. In recent times that has not always been the case. When states defied the federal law against the sale of pot the federal government chose not to enforce the law. In the past few years sanctuary cities have sprung up across the country and now California has become a sanctuary state. A sanctuary city is a city that limits its cooperation with the national government effort to enforce immigration law. This is very similar to the way that southern states slow walked the new laws regarding integration but this time the federal government under President Obama did not try to enforce the law. Attorney General Sessions is now threatening to take steps to delegitimize these cities but the courts seem unwilling to back up his demands. It appears that the morality of the cause is more determinant than the words of the law but who determines which cause is more moral?

News the old way

There was panic in some conservative areas when it was announced that Disney will buy Fox news. For many others this was welcome news. There is a nostalgia for the good old days when people got their news from the three main networks and the networks got their news from the NY Times. It didn’t matter whether you watched Huntley-Brinkley, Walter Cronkite or John Charles Daly the news was the same. Of course they were only on for 15 minutes and for most people that was all the news they needed or wanted. At least in those days the NY Times tried to give balance coverage and that carried over to the networks. They followed Mr. Dooley who in 1902 said the job of the newspaper is to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable which mainly meant go after the rich and powerful which translated into go after big business. The constitution meant for them to go after big government which they slid into when business and government got in bed together.

Iran Poland

There is an argument going on as to what if anything Trump should do about the situation in Iran. In 2009 Obama remained quiet but Trump is speaking out. Recent history gives us an example of what happens when a US president takes a stand. Former Polish president and anti-communist leader Lech Walesa unveiled a statue of Ronald Reagan on an elegant Warsaw street on Monday, honoring the late U.S. president for inspiring Poland's toppling of communism. It can be inspirational.

New infrastructure

A new infrastructure bill is coming up soon and the democrats will have to decide if they will go along with something they have wanted for years and risk the credit going to Trump or oppose it in the hopes of proving that Trump cannot get things done. The democrats got such a bill in 2105 with bi-partisan support but it didn’t pan out as planned. Recall there were no shovel ready jobs. Here is a recap of the 2015 bill. Congress scored the first of what could be a series of bipartisan year-end victories late Thursday night with the final passage of a $305 billion measure to fund roads, bridges, and rail lines. The Senate approved the highway bill on an 83-16 vote. All but two Democrats—Senators Elizabeth Warren and Tom Carper—voted for it Obama will sign the bill into law, as it fulfills his long-running push for lawmakers to pass an infrastructure bill even though it is significantly less than the $478 billion he sought in his own plan earlier this year.The House cleared it, 359-65, earlier on Thursday. It won unanimous support from Democrats The result of this bill as graded by the American Society of Civil Engineers was a very poor D minus.

Hacking

The Obama administration was warned of Russian interference in 2014 and they were aware of Russian hacking in the summer of 2016 but in both cases chose not to take action. The first episode was before Trump had gotten involved and the second was when everyone thought that Hilary would win. Once the election was over this took on a new importance and many voiced grave concern that it would, “destroy our democracy”. It is one of those issues, like climate change, that gains or loses importance as the political climate changes. Most people are smart enough not to get too involved in the day to day tumult of politics but for people like me it just makes my head spin.

Unwinding

In the recession of 2008, largely precipitated by the home mortgage fiasco, the government printed money by a process called quantitative easing. The fed clicked a computer key and created 4 trillion dollars which they used to purchase government bonds in order to keep interest rates low. Now that the recession is over the fed must do something to reverse this and that something is called, “unwinding”. They can sell the bonds or wait until they mature and cash them in but in either case the fed ends up with 4 trillion in cash and then what? The fed by law is supposed to turn over cash to the treasury but is this really cash or just a click on the computer? To do either one of those things is called, “monetizing the debt”. This increases the money supply and keeps interest rates low but the treasury is required at some point to pay back the fed. The best move at this point is to unwind at such a slow rate as not to disrupt markets. Some question why the treasury can’t apply the 4 trillion to the current 20 trillion debt but that would lower the value of the US bonds currently held by foreign investors like China and if the US monetizes like that other countries see US debt as a bad investment. The way out as long as the economy continues to grow will be a slow unwinding.

Fence

The Secure Fence Act of 2006 was passed by a senate vote of 80 to 19 and among those voting for the wall were Senators Hilary Clinton, Barak Obama, Chuck Schumer along with 23 other democrats. 700 miles of fence were built most during the Obama administration. The fence cost just under $3 billion. Now Trump wants to build another 1,000 miles of fence and will attempt to work out a compromise of giving citizenship to DACA children to get democrats on board.