Cherry Blossom Time

 

Springtime in Washington is always a beautiful time of year.  The flowering cherry blossom trees – originally gifts of friendship from the Japanese in 1912 – are planted around the Tidal Basin and elsewhere in the area and make the city a lovely place to visit in the Spring.  Thanks to Lady Bird Johnson’s beautification program many years ago, flowers are popping up across the city. She worked hard to add perennial blooms throughout neighborhoods and parks locally. Eventually, these actions led to highway beautification efforts and a reduction of garish billboards once seen nationally.

The news this week has not been beautiful, so I am happy that we do have the privilege of watching the trees and flowers bloom and thinking a bit of happy warm days. Early in the week, President Biden announced his Infrastructure proposals. If you remember, the previous administration was frequently announcing that such plans were in the works; however, they never made it out the door. This time the President is going big; the project, named the American Jobs Plan, is called a big bold plan for the future. The cost of this plan which includes many different structural initiatives is estimated at 2.5 Trillion dollars over ten years. Included will be funds to improve roads and bridges, aid Amtrak, fix public housing with energy-efficient upgrades, improve energy efficiency in public buildings, upgrade public utilities and the national power grid and fix other areas such as aging water and sewer lines, increase solar, and wind options, and improve public school buildings. (Recently some Republican Senators, not one of whom voted to support the stimulus bill are taking credit in their states for some of its properties. Hypocrisy anyone?) A t least this President did not delay the process for the stimulus checks by demanding that his name is on the checks.  Since the majority of them are direct deposits into existing accounts, that was mostly a moot point.

Of course, those projects are just a broad generic review of suggested works and improvements, as states are asked to indicate and prioritize their needs; many years would be needed to define and complete these tasks. While the President noted that these projects are needed in all 50 states, the Senate Minority leader, Mitch McConnell indicated that since payment for these projects would require an elevated tax rate for businesses, no one in his Republican Senate caucus would vote in favor of the program. This stance meant that it could only pass by the reconciliation process which would require approval by the Parliamentarian and yes votes by all Democratic Senators. Other Republicans are indicating that as soon as COVID vaccinations are completed that the economy will bounce back, so job programs are unnecessary.  The economy added almost one million jobs in the most recent report, but millions remain out of work because their former jobs no longer exist. The unemployment rate is now 6%.  Many have noted that the Business rate tax cut of the previous administration was not paid for, as spending was greatly increased during that time, but now that tax increases are being considered, there must be a justification for higher spending.  Seems illogical, somehow.

In other news, the election suppression moves in Georgia continue to have fallout beyond the borders of the state, perhaps causing others who were rushing to do the same to take a pause. Several major corporations who have large hubs or bases of operations in Texas are urging the legislature there to not continue with its voter suppression bills. Other national corporations have been shamed into speaking up in the face of their meek statements before the bill passage as major Black executives spoke out against the corporate silence on this measure.  Now, there is a more national response and talk of boycotts of events in Georgia. The Bill has passed and the legislature has gone home, so it is not currently clear what can be done to change the situation there unless there is enough push to enact better legislation in a special session.  I doubt that Georgia Governor Brian Kemp, who is up for re-election next year and would have benefitted from these changes, would be likely to do this.

The biggest move, the one that is causing the greatest turmoil is the decision of Major League Baseball  (MLB) to pull the planned All-Star Game and draft event from Atlanta. Athletes in other sports are also speaking up in favor of the For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights bill. The Atlanta Dream, the Women’s basketball team based in Atlanta, formerly owned by former Senator Kelly Loeffler, has also spoken out against this legislation. Many NBA and WNBA stars were among the most outspoken players during the Black Lives Matter protests last summer.  I cannot forget the plaintive cry of one Black coach (Doc Rivers) at that time: paraphrased “Why is it that we love America and America does not love us back?  All we are asking is that we live up to our constitution for everybody.” These voter suppression Bills do not do that.  We should be making it easier, not more difficult, for everyone to exercise this American freedom.

Of course, the former President, who supported these Republican efforts at voter suppression is now calling on his supporters to boycott baseball. Certainly, he is, as usual, on the wrong side of history, the voting bill in Georgia and democracy in his position. He is facing further turmoil as the non-disclosure forms, he had campaigners sign were deemed invalid and overly broad, the suit of a former Apprentice contestant is allowed to proceed and the NY AG is looking into his business actions again. Today the New York Times reported that the MAGA Win-Red campaign was bilking donors out of unexpected repeating donations by requiring them to uncheck multiple boxes indicating automatic weekly or monthly donations.  Several elderly or ill donors had their bank accounts unknowingly drained of all funds. The article indicated that millions of dollars in refunds had to be issued to those who complained or were found to be out of compliance with campaign finance limitations. Eventually, the combined Republican campaigns would give back more than 120 million. The Biden campaign also issued refunds, but for only 2.2% of the Act Blue and other campaigns. In the final months of the campaigns, the RNC and others issued over 530,000 refunds for 64 million dollars while the Democrats made 37,000 refunds for 5.6 million.

The other dominant feature this week has been the trial in Minneapolis over the death of George Floyd at the hands of the police there. The criminal trials have been divided into two parts, police officer Derek Chauvin in one and the other three police officers together in a subsequent trial. Chauvin was the man directly responsible for the death by placing his knee on the neck of the prone handcuffed man. The trial has shown other videos of the events before and after the police came to arrest Floyd for supposedly passing a counterfeit twenty-dollar bill. In one of the videos, a live cheerful Floyd can be seen in the convenience store walking around. In a few moments, he would be dead in an episode of controlled violence that we now know took over 9 minutes and 29 seconds and was uncalled for under any circumstance. The testimony of the onlookers was painful to see; I admit I only watched snippets on the news as it was shown. They each indicated the helplessness they felt when they could not stop this killing. An EMT asked if she could check for a pulse or try to do compressions and was turned back. Two of the viewers and a dispatcher called the police to come to stop this crime. Lookers-on called for the police to stop but were afraid to step closer as they were threatened with Mace. The teenager who first filmed the killing was traumatized as she could not stop this and felt that she had failed Floyd, a man she did not know. In a way, this killing has traumatized and changed us all. We can see that Floyd, characterized by the police as a man out of control was most likely a frightened man, but not a violent one. However, if the crowd had not been there that description would have held and could have been used to justify the death. Video has shown us that the crowd, while emotional was not at all threatening, except by their witness and videos. I have not seen the defense, but I can see that it is trying to condemn the victim to excuse the crime.  I hope it will not fool the jury. An article in the Washington Post today indicates that police are rarely convicted in victim deaths.

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COVID stats NYTimes 4/3/21

Total US Cases: 30,370,827.  New cases: 63,827 There are concerns as the daily numbers are again ticking up, possibly due to new variants and fewer restraints.

Total US Deaths: 554,558. Total new deaths: 748.

Total Maryland Cases: 415,660. Total new cases: 1,275. Total deaths: 8,342. New Deaths: 23.

Maryland case percentages are again increasing.  Many are worried that the state opened up too soon.  The Washington Post editorialized about this today urging more restraint and reconsideration of this move. More vaccination sites are opening, but the state still has far to go.

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That is all for today.

“Til next week – Peace.