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EDWARD JACOBS

Category: Living

  • 13 February, 2025

    There are too many matters of non-integrity to point out, and too many people to point at. Today’s confirmation of Robert Kennedy, Jr. would make his father and uncle turn in their graves–and has made his entire clan speak out vociferously against him. Linda McMahon, formerly of the WWE, will be confirmed as head of DoEducation, and is there to do an ax job. Kash Patel leading FBI, and on, and on, and on with compete incompetency, inexperience, and lack of independent (from Herr Trump und Herr Musk) thinking being the mark of this administration.

    Just today the US Atty for the Southern District of Manhattan has resigned in protest to the Justice Dept’s bowing to his will via the order to withdraw corruption charges against the NYC mayor. As corrupt as politician as there’s ever been, he’s been sucking up to our current king since the inauguration in search of protection, pardon, etc.

    It just goes on and on, and is so very disgusting in every way. Read a bit more about the many lawsuits against this administration’s actions here.

  • 11 February, 2025

    Will an honorable party in congress stand up with a spine to stop all of this? Are we going to have to wait a full two years, for the country to vote out members of congress, to see how much damage he can do to our system by taking a criminal’s approach to vendetta, to transactional-real estate diplomacy? This is a truly shameful display of an absence of congressional independence, of the execution of our system of checks and balances.

    Just look at one day’s headlines.

    Screenshot

  • 8 February, 2025

    The false claims; the constant lies; the slight of hand that brings the country to pay attention to shiny things (DEI as the fault of everything) while he and his people follow paths of complete disrespect for the processes of our representative democracy; openly and brazenly shaping every action towards vindictiveness, spite, and revenge; pursuing the disregard for the human effect of their actions. He has successfully compiled a cast of characters out of the most dystopian fiction. I have yet to see or hear of any action that even tries to claim its motivation is about improving something about the lives of our country’s citizens.

    This layout of facts today re an unelected South African immigrant with Nazi sympathies taking over governmental systems is truly Orwellian. This Wired report is used as the basis of the February 7, 2025 On The Media, and is frighteningly worth reading/listening.

    When will our elected Republican representatives stand up and defend their own role in our system? Do we have to wait two full years until they lose their majority? So, so much damage will be done before then–so much has already been done in the first few weeks!

  • 3 February, 2025

    There are so very many probing and articulate voices available to us today. There are so many concerned and dedicated citizens of the world who are screaming to us to be aware of the many steps being taken–illegal steps being taken by POTUS–and are begging us to speak out. Here is another one:

    https://www.avindman.com/p/hostile-takeover

    Why It Matters

    Hostile Takeover

    “Department of Government Efficiency” Hijacks The Federal Government

    Alexander Vindman

    Feb 02, 2025
    Members of the newly created “Department of Government Efficiency” under Elon Musk have engaged in an ongoing campaign designed to cripple the basic functions of government and decimate the federal civil service. Members of the Department of Government Efficiency are reportedly pushing for full access to payment systems and intend to scrape data from within the Department of Treasury. Cloud Software Group CEO Tom Krause has been designated liaison between the Treasury and the Department of Government Efficiency, with Musk reportedly wanting to add the Treasury to the blockchain. Agents from the Department of Government Efficiency have demanded access to classified info with USAID, with Elon later calling the agency a criminal organization and declaring “Time for [USAID] to die”. Civil servants across the federal government have been offered buy-outs to leave their positions early. Not only have no funds been appropriated for these offers (nor has the full legality been determined), but these buy-outs are being made by an administration lead by someone who has notoriously scammed contractors and avoided paying invoices whenever possible. These actions are taking place in the midst of an ongoing purge of high-ranking officials within the FBI by the Trump administration.

    Make no mistake, what’s happening right now is a hostile takeover of the federal government by a private agency operating with a broad mandate and no concerns for the stability of the United States or the interests of the average American. It’s easier to break than it is to build, and Elon Musk’s agenda is focused on unraveling America’s governing institutions. When – not if – a preventable disaster is enabled by the Department of Government Efficiency’s decision to destroy a function of government in the name of “fighting wokeness”, there will be a reckoning for the damage Elon Musk has done.

    Alexander Vindman

  • 3 February, 2025

  • 2 February, 2025

    “I’m going to get a little wonky and write about Donald Trump and negotiations. For those who don’t know, I’m an adjunct professor at Indiana University – Robert H. McKinney School of Law and I teach negotiations. Okay, here goes.

    Trump, as most of us know, is the credited author of “The Art of the Deal,” a book that was actually ghost written by a man named Tony Schwartz, who was given access to Trump and wrote based upon his observations. If you’ve read The Art of the Deal, or if you’ve followed Trump lately, you’ll know, even if you didn’t know the label, that he sees all dealmaking as what we call “distributive bargaining.”

    Distributive bargaining always has a winner and a loser. It happens when there is a fixed quantity of something and two sides are fighting over how it gets distributed. Think of it as a pie and you’re fighting over who gets how many pieces. In Trump’s world, the bargaining was for a building, or for construction work, or subcontractors. He perceives a successful bargain as one in which there is a winner and a loser, so if he pays less than the seller wants, he wins. The more he saves the more he wins.

    The other type of bargaining is called integrative bargaining. In integrative bargaining the two sides don’t have a complete conflict of interest, and it is possible to reach mutually beneficial agreements. Think of it, not a single pie to be divided by two hungry people, but as a baker and a caterer negotiating over how many pies will be baked at what prices, and the nature of their ongoing relationship after this one gig is over.

    The problem with Trump is that he sees only distributive bargaining in an international world that requires integrative bargaining. He can raise tariffs, but so can other countries. He can’t demand they not respond. There is no defined end to the negotiation and there is no simple winner and loser. There are always more pies to be baked. Further, negotiations aren’t binary. China’s choices aren’t (a) buy soybeans from US farmers, or (b) don’t buy soybeans. They can also (c) buy soybeans from Russia, or Argentina, or Brazil, or Canada, etc. That completely strips the distributive bargainer of his power to win or lose, to control the negotiation.

    One of the risks of distributive bargaining is bad will. In a one-time distributive bargain, e.g. negotiating with the cabinet maker in your casino about whether you’re going to pay his whole bill or demand a discount, you don’t have to worry about your ongoing credibility or the next deal. If you do that to the cabinet maker, you can bet he won’t agree to do the cabinets in your next casino, and you’re going to have to find another cabinet maker.

    There isn’t another Canada.

    So when you approach international negotiation, in a world as complex as ours, with integrated economies and multiple buyers and sellers, you simply must approach them through integrative bargaining. If you attempt distributive bargaining, success is impossible. And we see that already.

    Trump has raised tariffs on China. China responded, in addition to raising tariffs on US goods, by dropping all its soybean orders from the US and buying them from Russia. The effect is not only to cause tremendous harm to US farmers, but also to increase Russian revenue, making Russia less susceptible to sanctions and boycotts, increasing its economic and political power in the world, and reducing ours. Trump saw steel and aluminum and thought it would be an easy win, BECAUSE HE SAW ONLY STEEL AND ALUMINUM – HE SEES EVERY NEGOTIATION AS DISTRIBUTIVE. China saw it as integrative, and integrated Russia and its soybean purchase orders into a far more complex negotiation ecosystem.

    Trump has the same weakness politically. For every winner there must be a loser. And that’s just not how politics works, not over the long run.

    For people who study negotiations, this is incredibly basic stuff, negotiations 101, definitions you learn before you even start talking about styles and tactics. And here’s another huge problem for us.

    Trump is utterly convinced that his experience in a closely held real estate company has prepared him to run a nation, and therefore he rejects the advice of people who spent entire careers studying the nuances of international negotiations and diplomacy. But the leaders on the other side of the table have not eschewed expertise, they have embraced it. And that means they look at Trump and, given his very limited tool chest and his blindly distributive understanding of negotiation, they know exactly what he is going to do and exactly how to respond to it.

    From a professional negotiation point of view, Trump isn’t even bringing checkers to a chess match. He’s bringing a quarter that he insists of flipping for heads or tails, while everybody else is studying the chess board to decide whether its better to open with Najdorf or Grünfeld.”

    — David Honig

  • 1 February, 2025

    “In my life, I have watched John Kennedy talk on television about missiles in Cuba. I saw Lyndon Johnson look Richard Russell squarely in the eye and and say, “And we shall overcome.” I saw Richard Nixon resign and Gerald Ford tell the Congress that our long national nightmare was over. I saw Jimmy Carter talk about malaise and Ronald Reagan talk about a shining city on a hill. I saw George H.W. Bush deliver the eulogy for the Soviet bloc, and Bill Clinton comfort the survivors of Timothy McVeigh’s madness in Oklahoma City. I saw George W. Bush struggle to make sense of it all on September 11, 2001, and I saw Barack Obama sing ‘Amazing Grace’ in the wounded sanctuary of Mother Emanuel Church in Charleston, South Carolina.

    “These were the presidents of my lifetime. These were not perfect men. They were not perfect presidents, god knows. Not one of them was that. But they approached the job, and they took to the podium, with all the gravitas they could muster as appropriate to the job. They tried, at least, to reach for something in the presidency that was beyond their grasp as ordinary human beings. They were not all ennobled by the attempt, but they tried nonetheless.

    “And comes now this hopeless, vicious buffoon, and the audience of equally hopeless and vicious buffoons who laughed and cheered when he made sport of a woman whose lasting memory of the trauma she suffered is the laughter of the perpetrators. Now he comes, a man swathed in scandal, with no interest beyond what he can put in his pocket and what he can put over on a universe of suckers, and he does something like this while occupying an office that we gave him, and while endowed with a public trust that he dishonors every day he wakes up in the White House.

    “The scion of a multigenerational criminal enterprise, the parameters of which we are only now beginning to comprehend. A vessel for all the worst elements of the American condition. And a cheap, soulless bully besides. We never have had such a cheap counterfeit of a president* as currently occupies the office. We never have had a president* so completely deserving of scorn and yet so small in the office that it almost seems a waste of time and energy to summon up the requisite contempt.

    “Watch how a republic dies in the empty eyes of an empty man who feels nothing but his own imaginary greatness, and who cannot find in himself the decency simply to shut up even when it is in his best interest to do so. Presidents don’t have to be heroes to be good presidents. They just have to realize that their humanity is our common humanity, and that their political commonwealth is our political commonwealth, too.

    Watch him behind the seal of the President of the United States. Isn’t he a funny man? Isn’t what happened to that lady hilarious? Watch the assembled morons cheer. This is the only story now.”

    – Charles Pierce from Esquire

  • 31 January, 2025

    “I’m sorry, but I look at the Trump administration’s behavior over the last week and the only word that accurately describes it is: stupid.” David Brooks, NYTimes, 1/30/25

  • 29 January, 2025

    “Refuse to be distracted from your important work.” Sharon McMahon

    I listened to this podcast today. It’s a show I regularly listen to, but it was my first exposure to Sharon McMahon. I highly recommend this episode. And I’ve now subscribed to Sharon McMahon’s Here’s Where It Gets Interesting.

  • 28 January, 2025

    Aquilino Gonell is an immigrant and former sergeant in the Washington DC Capitol Police force. Below is an excerpt from his recently published op-ed piece in The NY Times. Worth the full read:

    “For my efforts doing my duty as a Capitol Police sergeant, I was beaten and struck by raging rioters all over my body with multiple weapons until I was covered in my own blood. My hand, foot and shoulder were wounded. I thought I was going to die and never make it home to see my wife and young son.

    Over the last four years, it’s been devastating to me to hear Donald Trump repeat his promise to pardon insurrectionists on the first day he’s back in office. “It will be my great honor to pardon the peaceful protesters, or as I often call them, the hostages,” he said in a speech last year. But all of us who were there and anyone who watched on TV know that those who stormed the Capitol were not peaceful protesters. Pardoning them would be an outrageous mistake, one that could mean about 800 convicted criminals will be back on the street.

    It could also put me in danger, as I’ve continued to testify in court and I’ve given victim statements in cases against dozens of the rioters who assaulted me and my fellow officers.

    I was one of the fortunate ones that day; nine people wound up dead as a result of the rampage. Two protesters had fatal medical episodes, one rioter overdosed during the uproar and another was fatally shot by a policeman while forcing her way into the House Chamber. One of my colleagues, 42-year-old Officer Brian Sicknick, suffered two strokes after the trauma of fighting off multiple protesters who sprayed him with a chemical irritant. He didn’t survive. Four D.C. policemen harmed in the riots later died by suicide.

    My friend Harry Dunn, the first law enforcement member to prominently condemn the brazen uprising, testified about our primitive hand-to-hand fighting against improvised weaponry like flagpoles, metal bike racks and projectiles, with officers bleeding, blinded and coughing from bear spray. Harry, who was called racial slurs, has since retired his blue uniform. My co-worker Michael Fanone was beaten, burned and electrically shocked. He suffered a heart attack, concussion and traumatic brain injury that caused him to also leave his position at the Metropolitan Police. While physically recovering, he’s been the target of constant harassment from Trump supporters and has struggled to find steady work. Steven Sund, who was the Capitol Police chief, has been scapegoated and resigned under pressure.

    I required multiple surgeries, years of rehab and treatment for recurrences of the post-traumatic stress disorder I was diagnosed with in the Army. I was vilified and called “a traitor,” as Mr. Trump and some of his fellow Republicans called the riot a “day of love” and a “peaceful protest” by “warriors,” “patriots,” “political prisoners” and “mistreated hostages.”

    Although I left the Capitol Police force, I remain haunted by that day. Now Mr. Trump’s promised actions could erase the justice we’ve risked everything for.

    I never wanted to be a whistle-blower or a troublemaker. I grew up poor in the Dominican Republic, came to this country legally at age 12 and became the first in my family to finish high school and college. I lived in Brooklyn, just a few miles from where Mr. Trump grew up in Queens, yet the metaphoric distance between us was vast. My dad was a taxi driver who could give me only $100 to help pay for college. Mr. Trump’s father was a real estate developer who bequeathed him at least $413 million over the years. While Mr. Trump escaped the Vietnam draft with a medical exemption for bone spurs and never served in the military, I finished my degree with the help of the G.I. Bill after I enlisted and served in the Middle East. What I experienced defending the Capitol against rioters was worse than the combat I saw in Iraq.

    What helped me was bearing witness. In the four years since the riot, about 1,561 defendants have been federally charged with Jan. 6 crimes, many of them serious felonies ranging from unlawfully entering restricted grounds with weapons to seditious conspiracy. Approximately 590 defendants have been charged with assault on a federal officer and 169 have been charged with crimes involving serious bodily harm to a police officer, including assault using a deadly or dangerous weapon; the weapons included swords, axes, knives, Taser-like devices, baseball bats, hockey sticks and reinforced knuckle gloves. More than 300 pleaded guilty to felonies and more than 200 were found guilty at trial.

    Releasing those who assaulted us from blame would be a desecration of justice. If Mr. Trump wants to heal our divided nation, he’ll let their convictions stand.

    Although I don’t blame all Trump supporters — some of my own relatives support him — I do detest what MAGA extremism did to me and my team on Jan. 6. I resent the ongoing whitewashing of the barbarity and the collective amnesia of right-wing politicians who aren’t willing to hold Mr. Trump accountable. I can’t bear to hear Republicans describe themselves as the “law and order” party.

    Mr. Trump is returning to the presidency at 78, while I had to leave the career I’d worked for my whole life at 42 as a result of injuries suffered while doing my job. I sometimes wonder why I risked my life to defend our elected officials from a mob inspired by Mr. Trump, only to see him return to power stronger than ever. It’s hard to witness a rich white man get rewarded for treachery while I’m punished for fulfilling my duty. Maybe that’s why so many people don’t do the right thing — because it’s hard and it hurts.

    When Mr. Trump recently proclaimed that members of the House Jan. 6 committee should go to jail, Representative Jamie Raskin responded, “In America, we jail people only for having committed criminal offenses that they are found guilty of by a unanimous jury of their peers. We don’t jail people for doing their jobs and living up to their constitutional oaths of office.”

    It gave me hope when Mr. Raskin further reminded everyone that Mr. Trump was impeached for his role in inspiring a violent insurrection against the Constitution. I admire Republicans like Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger who put fairness before party, despite being censured and threatened for their work on the committee.

    At least I get to hear my son call me his hero, as we remember the people who put everything on the line to protect our democracy and continue to tell the truth about Jan. 6.”