818. The Winter Solstice, 2019

When the sun sets tonight, it will end the shortest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere.

Here in Louisville, sunset will occur at 5:25 p.m. I have four friends vacationing in Key West (Ken, Josh, Bobby, Javier (and I wish I was with them)) and for them the day won't end until 5:43 p.m. My friends in Washington, D.C. can witness the sunset at 4:49 p.m. For a friend I am truly missing who lives in LA, sunset over the Pacific, a wondrous sight, occurs at 4:48 p.m.

Later this evening, at 11:19 p.m. EST, 8:19 PST, our Earth will cross a cardinal point on its annual journey drawing to a close these shortened days marking the Winter Solstice and with it ending autumn and beginning winter. With winter, new light and life slowly reveal themselves back into our world as the days lengthen leading to trees budding and gardens flowering.

Happy Solstice.

817. The Hunter's Moon, 2019

The Hunter's Full Moon arrives tomorrow afternoon at 5:08 p.m. EDT so tonight's view will be great. The moon is currently about 250,000 miles away from the Earth, about as far as it gets. Its furthest measured distance away is 252,622 miles (so far).

The full moon tonight is accompanied by the chance for a frost across nearly all of Kentucky and much of southern Indiana, reminding me of James Whitcomb Riley's poem, "When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock." Go outside and enjoy the lunacy.

Moonrise at the intersection of Dickinson Road and Davis Mill Road, near Trenton, Todd County, Kentucky, this evening, October 12, 2019. Photo by Wayne Addison II. Trenton is in the southwestern part of Todd County, which is in the southwestern part of the Commonwealth.

816. In response to the president refusing to cooperate with the House Impeachment Committees . . . .

Who cares?

The appropriate response to the White House is "Who Cares?" The House doesn't need the White House's permission to proceed, to consider, to investigate, or to vote. Apparently the president has never read the part of the Constitution related to impeachment and its highly likely that Rudy Giuliani hasn't either. Article I, Section II, Clause 5 is very clear on that point. Very clear.

But all this push back makes you wonder. If the call to Ukraine was so "perfect," then what's the problem? If the (12 minute) transcript of the (30 minute) call is all there is then what's the problem? How many of you, being innocent of an accused crime, wouldn't work like hell to get your story out in the news while under oath to clear your name?

Eventually it will all come out, all of his dealings with Putin and the Russian and Ukrainian mob long before he got into politics, long before he decided he needed money to bail out his failed New Jersey casinos, and long before he built not one but two Trump Towers - beautiful towers, no doubt - in Turkey, the leaders of which are no doubt wonderful people with whom to do business, even in times of war.

815. Mayday, mayday! It's a National Emergency!

Jeff Noble

 

I'm enjoying the glee with which my "conservative" friends are celebrating the president's declaration of a National Emergency to spend billions of dollars that he first promised Mexico would pay for and then couldn't get the Congress, including members of his own party, to buy into. So he's declaring a National Emergency to build his wall, something I told my friend Paul Schmidt I fully expected him to do when he didn't get his way with Mexico or the Congress. This will be the fourth National Emergency he's declared. We're presently living under 28 others besides his three, 12 of Obama's, 13 of W's, and some dating back as far as the Carter presidency. 

Under such an "Emergency," there are some 123 statutory powers the president can use to address the "Emergency." The one distinguishing difference between all 31 of the current "Emergencies" and this new one the president is proposing is none of them spend any money which hasn't already been appropriated by the Congress, something required by the United States Constitution - see Article 1, Section 8, Clause 1 of America's Bible on that matter. The president's plan is to expand Executive powers and usurp the fiduciary authority of the Congress by spending money which hasn't been duly appropriated. Hell, we don't even have it.

Under the current "conservative" president, tax revenues are flat, spending is up 9.6%, the deficit has risen 41%, and the National Debt has grown by $2,000,000,000,000.00. That has to be a "conservative" record. So while my "conservative" friends are celebrating this "conservative" victory, the smart thing for the Democrats to do is back off and let him do it.

There will come a day that a National Emergency will arise over climate change or gun violence or our crumbling infrastructure or the opioid crisis, the latter two something the president has promised to address but hasn't, and as long as there is a Democrat in the White House it won't matter if Mitch is still the Majority Leader. We'll have President Trump's precedent of expanding Executive Powers and usurping the fiduciary authority of Congress as established by this current "National Emergency." We should let him do exactly what he wants to do which, to be honest, is one more brick in the wall of destroying both the United States Constitution and the Republic in general.

And the "conservatives" rejoice at this destruction.

814. Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez proposes first conservative fiscal policy in decades to the Congress

By 1981, America had built an interstate system across most of America, we had created a GI bill that allowed a lot of men and later women to go to college and then buy their first homes, and we had sent several men to the Moon and returned them home safely, and we had done all of it while keeping the national debt under One Trillion Dollars, and a Debt-to-GNP at one of its lowest points since the Great Depression. We were the envy of the world and rightly so. When Ronald Reagan described us as the "city shining on the hill," he had every right to do so.

Unfortunately, by that time, he had already set in motion the downfall of America, the fiscal course we're still following. Reagan began, and every one of his successors in office have followed, a series of lowering taxes, Let me point out here that the largest the federal government has ever been ever was under President Reagan. Please, go look it up. A few presidents, including Reagan, also raised taxes. In fact, Reagan raised taxes more than any other president in my lifetime. Please, go look that up too. But overall, Reagan and all of the presidents who have followed him in office have lowered the federal taxes that Americans paid and the end result is we are no longer the "city shining on the hill." We have crumbling bridges and highways. Veterans can hardly get a room at the VA, much less a decent loan to go to college or buy a home. And the debt, which tripled under Reagan, doubled under W, doubled again under Obama, and had added over $2T since Trump took office seems out of reach of ever being paid off. Does that mean we should just say "It'll never be paid off so why worry about it?"

That seems to have been the attitude of almost everyone for a long time although if you know me, I am not among that group of people and never have been. I believe Americans owe it to America to pay off the debt which was created by the governments they voted into office which created it. We are a republican form of government so to say "the debt isn't mine" is to essentially say, "I'm a shirker and screw my creditors." That's what we've been doing as a Republic since Reagan first allowed the national debt to almost triple. One final note on when this all began, back in 1981. At the time, the highest tax bracket for someone "Married Filing Jointly" and making "$215,400.00" was 70% on everything over that amount. 70%. 70% on everything over $215,400.00. In today's dollars, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, that would be $595,007.01. (I can only think of maybe four or five of my readers that this might possibly apply to).

Today's news and a lot of Facebook posts have been filled with that 70% number. Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who represents New York's 14th Congressional District, today proposed a 70% Tax Rate on the nation's wealthiest people to begin addressing the debt and paying for other programs. Imagine that, a member of Congress responsible enough to suggest we find a way to 1) get out of debt and 2) actually pay for what we spend with our own money. (I'll note here that she is a cum laude graduate of Boston University majoring in International Relations and minoring in Economics). But let me repeat my last line - "Imagine that, a member of Congress responsible enough to suggest we find a way to 1) get out of debt and 2) actually pay for what we spend with our own money." You would think that such a policy would have conservatives jumping for joy. Finally a level-headed fiscal policy coming out of the mouth of a Washington politician. Spending our own money instead of borrowing it from China. What a novel idea.

Instead, conservative, Republicans, old white men, and, frankly, a lot of Democrats are up in arms at "such a crazy idea." They're calling her a socialist. She claims to be a Democratic-Socialist which is something altogether different but most of these people don't care about the difference and are too educationally lazy to find out what it is. We finally have someone in Congress who wants to address the economic woes of the Republic, woes wholly created before she arrived (which was yesterday), and the world goes mad.

Here's a thought. She's 29. She'll be 30 in October of this year. Her generation and the one following will have to live and pay the debt created by the three generations of American politicians who preceded her. And who is yelling foul the most? Those same people. Those same exact people. Either they are for fiscal management or they aren't. Since we are $21,000,000,000,000.00 in debt under their watch, it is clear where they stand.

Good work, Congresswoman. Finally a voice of reason.