Toddler-In-Chief

One of the things that I cannot understand is the concept of boredom. Sure, I can look up the definition:

A state characterized by a lack of interest, difficulty concentrating, and a restless desire for a more engaging activity. It is a psychological signal that one's current situation or environment is not providing meaning or mental stimulation.  

I always have something to do, things to occupy my time. Even if I am in a situation where I'm just sitting waiting, I run through my mind ideas for blog articles, think through household finances or make plans for future adventures. My mind is always busy. I have a hard time imagining what it would be like to be bored. I just don't get it.

Yet we have a president, who has one of the most stimulating and arguably the most engaging and interesting jobs that you could have, who frequently complains about being bored with aspects of his job: intelligence briefings, details of the economy, and now the negotiations to end the war that he started. 

Last year Trump was given the nickname "TACO", which stood for Trump Always Chickens Out, referring to his constant backing off from his insane tariff "policy". He gets an idea, makes a threat, and then backs off when confronted either with serious pushback, or if the process drags on too long he loses interest. He's like a toddler who always needs to be entertained. 

I've written often about how Trump has functioned as an authoritarian and governed more like a dictator than a chief executive. And that has certainly been his preference. He has said that as president he can do whatever he wants. He has suggested that any action he takes is, by definition, legal. He barreled back into Washington with a pile of executive orders and an illegal, unaccountable, off-the-books deputy who purged the government agencies of anything he didn't like, as well as a Department of Justice that functions as his personal attack lawyers. He started a war without input from Congress that the majority of the country is against. The Department of Homeland Security has been transformed into a secret police. Yet he appears to lack the attention span to cement his rule.

Despite his administration's early moves to conduct end runs around court rulings, lately he has seemed indifferent to setbacks, and a lack of interest in fighting back is more common that the fight, fight, fight, attitude exemplified in the photo op from the staged assassination attempt in Pennsylvania. He grumbles and posts on Truth Social about corrupt judges, or endorses primary challengers for recalcitrant Republicans, but then he gets bored and moves on to the next shiny object. His incompetent and unqualified appointees are what's keeping the autocracy train on the rails — they're either true believers or are enthusiastic ass-kissers. They'll keep implementing what they think their master wants, until they make him look bad. 

What all of this tells me is that even though Trump believed that he had unrestrained power, and could act without Congress, he could have been restrained if Congress as a body had resisted him. There was no way he could have primaried every Republican. But none of them wanted to be the few that he succeeded in getting rid off — they were afraid of his influence with a significant percentage of Republican voters. Part of it was that many, if not most, Republicans agreed with the ends, if not the means. They were willing to forgo constitutional principles to get what they wanted. 

So, while I haven't changed my assessment that Trump is an authoritarian who is governing as a dictator, he lacks the attention span to stay focused on any meaningful plan. He is easily distracted and is more concerned with decorating than leading the nation. 

Why Does The Myth Persist That Congress Raided Social Security?

Periodically somewhere in the media there's an article or a story about how the Social Security Trust Fund will be depleted by 2033 and if nothing is done Social Security beneficiaries will see their benefits reduced to 75-80% of currently calculated amounts. 

This is true.

These articles typically attract a number of commenters who suggest that the Trust Fund wouldn't be facing a shortfall if Congress would pay back what the borrowed, or raided, or stole. 

That's not true.

But why do people think it is?

The first myth to dispel is that the money that we all "paid in" (more accurately, taxed) is in accounts with our names on them from which benefits are paid out of. The benefits that are paid to retirees come directly from what current workers are being taxed. If those two numbers happened to be equal, then no money would be deposited into the Trust Fund. If they were always equal there would never be a Trust Fund balance. Until 2020, however, the amount coming in every year exceeded what was being paid out, so there was an annual surplus of funds. Were those funds deposited in a vault or bank account? No, by law they were required to be invested in Special Issue, interest-bearing, Treasury Bonds. This is where it gets confusing for many people. 

Let's say the Social Security surplus for a given year is $20 billion. The Social Security Trust Fund buys $20 billion in Special Issue Treasury Bonds. The other side of that transaction is $20 billion goes into the federal government general fund. But — this is the important part — the ledger for the Trust Fund still shows that it has received $20 billion. 

Most people have heard about the federal deficit. The deficit is the amount each year by which expenditures exceed revenue. The government makes up that difference by selling various types of interest-paying Treasury bonds — it's borrowing to close the gap. Let's say the deficit for the year is $100 billion. The government will need to borrow $100 billion — but they effectively borrowed $20 billion from Social Security, so they only need to go outside the government for $80 billion. Once again, this transaction does not reduce the Social Security Trust Fund balance. 

Now it may look like the government is taking Social Security funds and using it for other purposes, and in one respect they are. But think about it like your deposits at your local bank. You may have a checking account balance of $2,000, but the bank is using that money to lend to its other customers. But you will never see a ledger entry indicating that $1,500 of your money went to Joe Smith in the form of a car loan. The federal government likewise is using the accumulated surpluses to finance the annual budget deficits, but there will never be a ledger entry indicating that money is coming out of the Social Security Trust Fund. 

Since 2020 the amount being paid in benefits each year has exceeded what is being collected via payroll taxes. The difference, the deficit, is made up by cashing in some of those Treasury bonds, including the accrued interest. Let's say the difference is $15 billion. The trustees go to the Treasury and cash in $15 billion in bonds. That $15 billion comes out of the federal government general fund and flows to the Trust Fund briefly before it is disbursed to beneficiaries. The Trust Fund balance is then reduced by $15 billion (I have not accounted for interest in this example in order to keep it simple). 

Without any changes to the system the Trust Fund balance will decrease each year as bonds are cashed in to cover the annual deficits. That is what is causing the projected shortfall, not "raiding", just the simple fact of demographics fewer — workers per retiree and retirees living longer. 

A related subject that you hear about is how the general fund budget and the Social Security Trust Fund were combined during the Johnson administration. All this did was allow Congress to list the deficit as the combination of the two figures. If the general fund deficit was $100 billion and the Social Security surplus was $20 billion, the deficit would be $80 billion. The practice of using the surpluses to reduce borrowing is not new, and did not start with Johnson, but was a feature of the system since 1937, when the first payroll taxes were collected. 

Some action will have to be taken in order to avoid the catastrophe of having to reduce benefit payments by 25% or more. Removing the income cap is one suggestion that is thrown around. Increasing the withholding percentage is another. Raising the retirement age is also discussed. There is borrowed money that has to be paid back, but that it will be paid back, with interest, is fully reflected in the Trust Fund balance.

So yes, money that was "paid in" to Social Security was used by Congress and various presidents. But not to "fund wars" or any other pet projects. It was used to reduce outside borrowing to fund deficits, but only in years when Social Security revenue exceeded benefits, and did not reduce the Trust Fund balance by doing so. 

We Have A Dumb (with a "B") Governor

I spend a lot of time writing about Trump and the federal government, but what about Nebraska state government?

Once upon a time Nebraskans were just as likely to elect Democrats as Republicans to statewide office. At one time we had two Democrats from Nebraska in the U.S. Senate. Liberal Democrat Bob Kerrey was elected to the governorship and the Senate. No more. In statewide elections the Republican typically receives around 60% of the votes. The closest it's been in recent years was in 2024, when Senator Deb Fischer received 53% of the votes in her campaign where her opponent was Dan Osborn, an unknown Independent. It makes a certain kind of sense for elections to the Senate and House of Representatives to mirror the presidential elections — after all, they're positions that set national policy. But in state specific elections: for governor and other state officers, as well as the theoretically nonpartisan unicameral legislature, the majority keeps electing Republicans even though they are demonstrably failures at governing. 

Once upon a time you could count on Nebraska governors to concern themselves with "meat and potatoes" issues, roads, infrastructure, property taxes. Sure, there were differences between Democrats and Republicans, but governors from both parties were not primarily focussed on taking sides in national political battles. During Governor Heinemann's time he and the Republican legislators became more concerned with culture war issues and aligning themselves with national Republicans. It accelerated under Governor Ricketts. Even though the legislature is nominally nonpartisan, Ricketts expected party loyalty from Republican senators and financed primary opponents against Republicans who did not toe the party line. Ricketts made no secret that he was toeing the party line himself, since he was quite obviously planning on moving to the Senate after his two terms as governor were up. 

Then came Pillen. Jim Pillen was a former Nebraska Cornhuskers football player, a veterinarian and owner of several large pig farms. He had the backing of outgoing Governor Ricketts, who financially supported him. Pillen's main primary opponent was billionaire Charles Herbster, who didn't even live in Nebraska! Herbster was kneecapped by a woman legislator and Ricketts ally who revealed that Herbster sexually harassed her. Pillen won the Republican primary with around 35% of the vote and since Nebraskans don't elect Democrats any more, he was elected as governor. 

One of the biggest ongoing issues in Nebraska is high property taxes. Since we don't have any industry such as natural resources or tourism or entertainment to serve as a tax base, property tax is all that's available for local government. It's high. It was high last decade and the decade before that. Every governor ran on a platform of lowering property taxes. None of them have. All of them have been Republicans, yet we keep electing Republicans. Why? It all goes back to the nineties when local government got caught up in national politics and national politics became primarily about demonizing the other guys. The Republicans painted the Democrats as communists who were out to take their guns, kill their babies, and turn them all gay. A Democrat, no matter how moderate or even conservative, was portrayed this way. And a reliable 60% of Nebraska voters believed enough of it to keep voting for Republicans no matter how incompetent an individual Republican might be. 

Pillen, just like every other Republican, campaigned on lowering property taxes. The problem was that in addition to repeating all the culture war bullshit he was as dumb as a box of rocks. Ricketts was dangerous because he was smart. He knew how to use his money and influence to get what he wanted. (Except for property tax relief of course). Pillen is in way over his head. During his first year in office he floated ideas (I use the term loosely) to reduce property taxes by 40%. His math was suspect and wildly optimistic. He was full of unwarranted confidence in his "plan". The only thing he and his allies managed to do was turn a previously enacted property tax credit that had to be claimed on a taxpayer's income tax return into an automatic credit that would come off the property tax bill. Three and a half years later and there's no property tax relief. And there won't be. Even smart, rich, and powerful Ricketts barely made a dent. Pillen is too dumb (with a "B") to realize how incompetent that he is. Instead he rails against "libtards", "woke garbage", musing that Palestinian babies are born with hatred for Jews, and pushes to redistrict the second congressional district. 

Despite the problems that Republican gubernatorial candidates identify every election cycle persisting until the next over and over again, around 60% of voters will re-elect this moron. His opponent is former State Senator Lynn Walz, a relatively moderate, if not conservative, Democrat. Instead of considering that it might be time for a change, the most common comment I hear about Ms. Walz is that her surname is all that's needed to disallow her from consideration (she is a distant relative to Minnesota Governor and Vice Presidential candidate Tim Walz). And property taxes will still be sky high. 

The Iran War And The Shifting Cult Mindset

Does anyone really believe that the Trump Cult will turn on him because of rising gas prices?

I have heard from a few Trump voters who say they're against the war, or think it's a bad idea, but still believe that he's overall a good president. None of the other things that Trump has done, not the corruption, not the end runs around the Constitution, not the unraveling of our international alliances, not the tariffs that have caused inflation to remain high, not his obvious connection to Epstein, not the adjudication that he was a rapist (technically guilty of sexual assault because the New York criminal code did not cover the exact method of his rape), not the fact that he is a convicted felon — none of those things turned the core Trump cult against him. Even the so-called bi-partisan House vote to force him to end the war only garnered four Republican votes. 

I'm not going to delve too deeply into whether this war is a national security necessity, but how people react to the changing political landscape. 

One of the hallmarks of cult behavior is that cult members' beliefs will shift as the cult leader's beliefs change. At first they might be surprised or shocked at the change. Some might even speak up and express disagreement with the leader's new stance. But sooner or later their views will align with the leader's, even if tucked away in a corner of their minds is a sliver of doubt. In the end they will still support him. 

One of Trump's campaign promises was that he would not involve us in foreign wars. He falsely claimed that he was the only president in 40 years who didn't start a war. (That was half true — he did send our military on several engagements, even assassinating an Iranian general, but not a full fledged war; the inaccurate part was that several previous presidents also had not started any new wars). He even lobbied extensively for a Nobel Peace Prize and is still falsely claiming that he ended eight wars. Part of his campaign strategy was painting the Democrats as "warmongers". His supporters enthusiastically supported this position. Until Trump stopped supporting his own position. 

Iran has been a problem in that part of the world for the last almost 50 years. It is a theocratic dictatorship that abuses its own people, and its proxies are a constant threat throughout the region. Our allies are nervous that a nuclear armed Iran would be an existential threat. During President Obama's second term the United States, along with Russia, China, Germany, the United Kingdom and the European Union, negotiated an agreement with Iran that they would submit to monitoring of the nuclear energy program and would continue to forswear any ambition to possess nuclear weapons. In exchange various sanctions would be lifted and frozen assets would be unfrozen. Iran appeared to be abiding by the terms. Trump cancelled the agreement during his first term with nothing to replace it. Naturally Iran no longer felt bound by the agreement. 

Last year Israel was involved in a short-lived shooting war with Iran and wanted to neutralize their nuclear capacity, but did not have powerful enough bombs to destroy the underground facility. Trump sent our military to do the job, "obliterating" it, in his words. Eight months later, claiming that Iran was "weeks away" from constructing a nuclear bomb, he started a war with them. 

Forget about the fact that the rationale for the war changed on an almost daily basis, or that the justifications sometimes were contradictory, or simply made no sense. Now, the Trump cultists who saw peace as the thing most desired on the international stage, who were convinced that Trump really was a "president of peace", now saw a nuclear Iran, no matter how unlikely it was, as the most important consideration, and were willing to put up with higher costs, including ballooning gas prices, in order to "be safe from the Iranian threat". 

The thing that they were vehemently against because their guy was against it are now enthusiastically for it because their guy capriciously changed his mind. 

My friends, that's the definition of a cult.

Trump Corruption

One of the more ridiculous political truisms that is not in fact true, is that uber-rich politicians somehow can't be bribed or otherwise corrupted. The rationale seems to be that since they already have more money than they could ever spend in 100 lifetimes, they don't need any more and would laugh at attempts to buy them. Of course this isn't how the 1% think. Money is a way of keeping score, of amassing even more power, and there is never enough. Trump has taken political graft and corruption to new depths. Here are a few examples.

• The so-called Board of Peace is a private organization masquerading as a government agency. It sprung from the negotiations to end Israel's bombing of Gaza and is supposed to not only be tasked with rebuilding Gaza, but promoting peace throughout the world. Participating nations are required to pay a membership fee of $1 billion. The board is chaired by Donald Trump in perpetuity. Not the president of the United States, but the individual, the person, Donald Trump. He has ultimate control of the funds and veto power of any board actions. 
• The presidential pardon power has never been free from controversy, and presidents of both parties have rewarded their friends and allies, but under Trump it has sunk to a system where any criminal with access to enough money can "contribute" and be pardoned, released from prison and absolved of any consequences of their crime. 
• Trump family, friends and allies are benefitting by being awarded lucrative no-bid contracts
• Qatar gifted the United States a plane that will be refit as an Airforce One, which will be transferred to the Trump library after his term ends
• He's continued to charge the Secret Service full price to lodge his protection detail when he stays at his own properties. 
• The creation of Trump branded crypto currencies has facilitated bribery — just but a few million in TrumpCoin!
• Cabinet members "coincidently" have made large donations to his PAC's
• Criminal and civil investigations against his donors have been dropped
• Allegations that insider trading of energy stocks have been tied to changes in the conduct of the Iran War have been suggested

That's only part of it, but I think you get the idea.

Trump has turned the United States Treasury into his private piggy bank and made bribery the default policy position. 

They Don't Want You To Vote

There's a saying known as Blackstone's ration that it is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer. We can apply this to voting thusly: It's better that ten non-citizens vote than one citizen be disenfranchised. Make no mistake about it the Republican Party wants to make it more difficult for you to vote. This isn't just about gerrymandering, although gerrymandering is a big part of it. 

The elites who run the modern Republican Party are not concerned about what the voters want. In fact they believe that they know better than the voters. The blue collar Americans who support Republican social warfare and its attendant bigotry and misogyny are merely means to an end. When in power they do little or nothing to benefit that demographic. What they are concerned with is holding on to the power that they have. The biggest obstacle that they have to that objective is changing demographics.  Slowly but surely the white Baby Boomers who constituted the largest bloc of voters are dying off. Younger whites tend to have lower birthrates than minority and immigrant groups. Even though no one demographic group is monolithic, the tendency is for Black Americans, Hispanics and first generation children of immigrants to vote for Democrats. Most of the voter suppression strategies executed by Republicans over the last decade have had an outsize effect on Blacks and Hispanics, and therefore Democrats. 

One of the favorite methods that Republicans use to suppress voting is voter I.D. requirements and its cousin, proof of citizenship requirements. Asked without any background or context, most people would say that they think voter I.D. is a good thing — who could object to requiring people to prove who they are before voting? The problem is that it's a "solution" to a problem that doesn't exist. The amount of fraud that involves someone pretending to be someone else to vote is infinitesimal. And any attempted fraud is caught somewhere in the system that is designed to do so. The rest of the problem is that many of the recent voter I.D. laws have been paired with closings of DMV offices (where most people get their identification) and restrictions on the types of I.D.'s that are accepted. Laws requiring proof of citizenship to vote are relatively new. They're also a "solution" in search of a problem. It's already a requirement that a voter be a citizen. Kansas passed one of these laws in 2012. This article outlines what a nightmare it turned into, including the disenfranchisement of around 35,000 Kansans. I suspect that was the point. 

Here in Nebraska we are seeing how even referenda that we voted for has been watered down, slow-walked, or effectively overturned by the legislature. Several states that had outgoing Republican governors being replaced by Democrats saw the Republican legislature reduce the governor's powers. Trump and his Republican allies are pushing for federal laws to restrict mail-in and early voting. Every action that they take, while not technically taking away anyone's right to vote, incrementally makes it harder to vote, effectively potentially disenfranchising millions. 

Of course the current gerrymander mania is getting the most attention. The unprecedented mid-decade redistricting fueled by Supreme Court decisions unmoored from fifty years of precedent and hard-to-deny racial gerrymandering disguised as partisan jockeying is designed to do one thing: engineer the system so that some votes simply don't count. Think about who shouts the loudest that we're not a democracy. Some people want you to vote, some don't. 

"I know who I'm voting for—but what about all you zombies?" *



* Apologies to the late great Robert Heinlein

The Right Wing Is Redefining Our Words

Despite their whining about how the "radical left" has control of the media and entertainment worlds, the Trumpublicans seem to do an effective job of usurping our terms and changing their meaning. They then demonize the corrupted meanings and go from there. Two current examples are "DEI" and "woke". 

DEI are the initials for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. These are organizational frameworks that seek to promote the fair treatment and full participation of all people, particularly groups who have historically been underrepresented, marginalized, or subject to discrimination. The diversity part of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion is not simply diversity in order to check off a box indicating that the right number of races, genders or religions are represented. (Although, to be honest, some organizations treat it exactly like this) It is a recognition that in the past certain demographics have been overlooked and passed over for job prospects and promotions. In it's pure form it pushes organizations to consider people that they may have not considered in the past. For example, refusing to consider a woman for a position because of the perception that a woman will get pregnant and quit, or that childcare is more important than the job; or a Black candidate being passed over because his background doesn't make him "a good fit". The diversity piece is simply about compelling organizations to look seriously at qualified people that they may have in the past ignored. 

Equity, in short, is recognizing that not everyone comes from the same background, or has the same needs. An organization that values equity ensures that everyone has the tools that will allow them to achieve the same outcomes. Fair compensation falls into this category. Accommodating disabled individuals — screen readers for blind office workers for example, or desks that can be utilized by wheelchair users — fall under equity. Inclusion refers to creating an organizational culture that creates an experience where all employees feel their voices will be heard and a sense of belonging and integration. How can you argue with that?

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion is not reverse discrimination. It is not hiring unqualified women or minorities and passing over qualified white men. 

When I worked for The Omaha World-Herald in the 80's and 90's, one of the top managers in my department was a former athlete. Most of his hires and promotions were people just like him: men with sports backgrounds who had the mindset of a football coach. Undoubtedly he did not consider himself racist or sexist, but left to themselves most people will look for people like themselves, or who have the same values and skills, to fill positions. When a hiring manager has this mindset, naturally all their hires will look and act virtually identically. People, even those who mean well, usually need to be encouraged, if not actually forced, to think outside the box. That's what a focus on diversity does. 

Equity and inclusion mostly apply once someone is already inside an organization. Are their voices being heard? Or are the bosses only listening to their favorites, or people from their ethic group or church? Are reasonable accommodations being made for disabilities or neurodivergent personalities? Of course the work still needs to be done, but is the organization too focussed on inconsequentials and not on the outcome? Like with diversity, sometimes organizations need to be pushed to make their workplaces equitable and inclusive. 

The right wing, including the Trump regime, has redefined Diversity, Equity and Inclusion effectively as reverse discrimination and as a program to shoehorn in unqualified people ahead of qualified white males. They have coined the term "DEI Hire" to refer to people that they assume have received their position due to their gender, race, ethnicity or religion. It's become an insult thrown at Black professionals, women executives, and anyone who is a non-white, non-cis-male. Sadly, many progressives have taken to throwing this slur at unqualified Trump appointees. 

A related redefining of a progressive term is "woke". Originating among American Blacks, it was an encouragement to "stay woke", i.e. stay awake, stay aware, of the racial prejudice, racism and discrimination that surrounds us. It gained popularity during the Black Lives Matter protests and was picked up by white progressives to include awareness of LGBTQ issues and widely to signal support of progressive causes. Rightists began using it as a catch-all insult for all things liberal without having to be specific. Our own governor refers to anything he doesn't agree with as "woke garbage". 

Once they got into power with Trump, the Project 2025 wizards set to purging any trace of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion from government. But it got worse. 

In their quest to eliminate all traces of "DEI" from government, they used blunt force search programs to hunt down any mention of anything that even looked like Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. Health and Human Services studies that focussed on pregnant women were eliminated, any race-based tracking went away, medical studies that looked at varying outcomes among different demographics were scrubbed. But it got worse.

 Diversity, Equity and Inclusion was now viewed as illegal discrimination and the Justice Department began threatening private companies and universities that they would be prosecuted under the Civil Rights Act of 1964 if they retained these programs!  

This redefining of terms has allowed the regime, and right wingers in general, to oppose the straw man versions of things that progressives stand for, appealing to the lowest common denominator without having to actually make their case. And the poorly educated and willfully ignorant fall for it.