Despite Joe Biden’s victory, the results of the Nov. 3rd election were decidedly mixed for Democrats. With a thin House majority and control of the Senate in doubt, dreams of sweeping legislation like the Green New Deal have little chance of becoming a reality.
Biden is a moderate, and many moderate Democrats are still in Congress. So a centrist legislative agenda was always more likely anyway. Given these political realities, Democrats should try for a more achievable “Green Deal” with Republicans.
A Green Deal could be a lighter, simpler version of the Green New Deal. It wouldn’t tackle issues around housing or health care. But it would support further development of technologies for:
Carbon-free power generation, such as solar, wind, and geothermal
Efficient power transmission and storage
Replacement of vehicles and equipment that use fossil fuels with electric-powered alternatives
Capturing and sequestering greenhouse gases
Many cynically believe progress and compromise aren’t possible in D.C., especially around climate change. But Biden’s decades of relationship building in Congress could make him effective at cutting a deal.
Yes, there are plenty of things for Democrats and Republicans to argue about here. Is climate change real and non-cyclical? Is human activity the primary driver of climate change? Should greenhouse gas emissions be taxed or capped-and-traded? Most Democrats would answer all in the affirmative, while many Republicans would disagree.
Yet, there is still room for compromise. Consider some things about the two parties:
Democrats want to combat climate change.
Republicans want tax cuts and deregulation whenever possible.
Both parties want lower unemployment, higher wage growth, and less income inequality.
Given all of that, the outlines of a potential Green Deal compromise are clear:
Federal tax cuts and reasonable deregulation should go to businesses that design, manufacture, install, and maintain technologies to combat climate change. The job creation and wage growth opportunities here are profound.
Federal tax cuts should go to people and businesses who buy technologies that combat climate change. We should incentivize everyone to go green.
We will need a green workforce to make all these technologies. Thus, more federal money should be spent on targeted education and research. We need more STEM grads and research grants focused on combating climate change.
To further help green the workforce, we need more immigration visas that allow people with useful skills to come to the United States.
This Green Deal would not be “socialism.” It would create incentives for people, businesses, and educational institutions to be innovative and solve problems. It would put capitalism to work against climate change. Think of it as Climate Capitalism.
Such a compromise would allow Democrats to address climate change, allow Republicans to get tax cuts and deregulation, and allow both parties to create new jobs that pay well.
Paying for Green Deal tax cuts with spending cuts or tax increases in other areas would be politically challenging. Generally, I’m a deficit hawk. But our climate is in crisis, and our political process is broken. So if we need to engage in deficit spending to get this done, I would hold my nose and support that.
Let’s hope Biden and Congress are willing to compromise and cut something like a Green Deal.
Like many, I’m ecstatic about Joe Biden’s historic victory in the presidential race this week. It’s made me want to share a brief interaction with Biden many years ago. It’s a short story, but it speaks to who Biden is in a very human way.
Picture it. Washington, D.C. July 1994. Hot and humid as hell outside. Forrest Gump is all the rage. Bill Clinton is in his first term. I’m a 20-year-old Senate intern who favors ill-fitting blazers paired with ugly ties.
Clinton had nominated Stephen Breyer to a vacancy on the Supreme Court. One afternoon, I was able to go and watch some of Breyer’s confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
I will admit the hearings were a bit dull. Breyer was a qualified, uncontroversial nominee, and the Democrats in the Senate majority were inclined to be nice to him. In fact, Breyer ended up being confirmed by the full Senate 87-9. The outcome was never in doubt.
Still, for a political geek like me, just being in that hearing room was heady stuff. Many of the senators had a degree of fame from the Clarence Thomas confirmation or other events. Ted Kennedy, Paul Simon, Strom Thurmond, Orrin Hatch, Arlen Specter, Howell Heflin, Carol Moseley-Braun, Diane Feinstein, Alan Simpson, and more. Big names were everywhere. At the center of it all, chairing the committee, was Joe Biden of Delaware.
The hearing was so packed that I didn’t get a seat. I had to lean against a wall next to a rope line. That rope line separated spectators like me from Breyer, his team, the senators, and their aides. Eventually, Biden called a break, and everyone stood up and started milling around.
“Excuse me, can you help me?” asked a woman who had walked up to me. “I’m from Delaware, I’ve always wanted to meet Senator Biden, and his office said if I came here during a break I might be able to catch him. Could you ask if he will see me?”
I had an intern badge on, but I wasn’t a Biden intern or a Judiciary Committee intern. So, the appropriate response would have been to decline to help. But she seemed nice. And, to be honest, I wanted to meet Biden too. So, I said I would see what I could do.
The woman suggested that she write down her name and hometown for me to take to Biden. She began rummaging through her purse. She had a pen, but neither of us had anything to write on. Eventually, she found a matchbox. She dumped the matches into her purse, wrote inside the matchbox, closed it, and handed it to me.
You would think the idea of handing a note written inside a matchbox to a Senate committee chair would have seemed insane. But, my 20-year-old brain just went with it.
I confidently let myself through the rope line, walked past numerous lions of the Senate, and managed to reach Biden right as one of his aides stepped away. He was seated in his committee chair and glanced up at me.
I introduced myself, explained that one of his constituents was asking to meet him, and offered him the matchbox.
Biden didn’t take the matchbox right away. He stared at it for a moment, gave me a hard look, and finally took it. He opened it, read it, and snapped it closed.
“I have a question for you…” a pause as Biden read my badge. “…Marc. And I need a serious answer. Does this woman seem mentally stable to you?”
It took me a moment to realize the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee was cracking a joke with me. I smiled and said that she seemed stable to me.
“Well,” he said, laughing. “Why don’t you bring her back then?”
I went among the senators again and returned with the woman. Biden flashed a dazzling smile and gave her a hug. She was clearly bowled over, almost giddy to meet him.
They began to chat about her life in Delaware. I was struck by how Biden was genuinely interested in the conversation. It wasn’t just a surface contact with a potential voter. He was truly engaged with her.
At that point, I decided I’d pressed my luck far enough and left them to talk. And that’s my Biden story. He’s a lovely, sincere guy who was far nicer to an intern than he had to be. That’s Joe Biden. And, thankfully, that’s also the kind of person we need to be president right now.
Apple released its Apple One service bundles on Friday. Let’s take a look at the value of the bundles, considerations when choosing one, and how One may help Apple’s offerings grab market share.
$25 cheaper per month than purchasing everything separately
Overall Thoughts on the Bundles
If you already buy all the services in a bundle separately now, buying the bundle will save you money. It’s a no-brainer, but most people probably don’t already buy everything in a bundle.
If you already buy most of the services in a bundle, buying the bundle will give you additional services for less than buying them all separately. You also won’t spend much more than you pay now. Obviously, this is the sweet spot Apple and any bundler is targeting. I’m guessing many people are in this boat.
For people who’ve already been paying for Apple Music Family and 200GB of iCloud storage, the Apple One Family bundle is a pretty sweet deal.
Family Sharing makes the Family and Premiere bundles much more compelling if you have 1-5 people to share with.
As others have commented, Apple should give more than 5GB of storage free with iCloud. Box gives 10GB for free. Google Drive gives 15GB. But at least Apple One is helping to make the bundled cost of additional iCloud storage a bit more bearable.
Launching Premiere without shipping Apple Fitness+ is weird and makes the value of Premiere harder to evaluate. That said, you get the first month of Apple One for free and can change bundles or cancel at any time. So, it’s not really a risk to try it. I’m guessing Fitness+ will ship soon, perhaps even at Apple’s Nov. 10th event.
My Apple One Considerations
I already was paying for:
Apple Music (personal) at $9.99 per month
Apple TV Plus (already has Family Sharing by default) at $4.99 per month
iCloud storage 200GB (already has Family Sharing by default) at $2.99 per month
So, I was already spending $17.97 a month.
My considerations:
I can’t do Apple One Individual since I need more than 50GB of iCloud storage.
$19.95 for Apple One Family is just $1.98 more a month than I spend now. I would keep what I have and get Apple Music for my wife and Apple Arcade for my wife and me. Seems like an easy call to do that.
$29.95 for Premiere is $10 more a month than Family. I don’t need more than the 200GB of iCloud storage in Family. But, I’m interested In trying Apple News+ and Apple Fitness+ for my wife and me. We already use Apple News and regularly exercise.
So, we are starting with Premiere and seeing how we like News+ and Fitness+ (when it ships). If we like them well enough, we’ll stay Premiere. If not, we’ll drop down to Family.
I remain annoyed that a premium “news” service lacks The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Economist, and doesn’t have all of The Wall Street Journal. But, I already like News+ more than I thought I would.
News+ does have The New Yorker, National Geographic, TIME, New York Magazine, The Atlantic, Vanity Fair, and many other publications. Not too bad at bundle pricing.
Competition Concerns
Spotify has expressed concerns about Apple One. It says such bundling is an anti-competitive practice. It believes Apple is using the combined Apple One services to unfairly take market share from smaller or less diversified services players.
That may be correct. I was already on Apple Music, so Spotify didn’t have me to lose. But, Apple One has prompted me to reconsider my under-utilization of iCloud storage. I’m now moving to the free plans for Evernote and Dropbox. iCloud storage and apps that work with it can meet my needs just as well for less money.
Several news outlets have noted that Apple One is likely to greatly increase the number of iCloud storage customers. If that happens, others may do what I’m doing with Evernote and Dropbox. Music services like Spotify could also be impacted as bundled Apple Music looks more attractive.
Overall, I’m torn. Apple products are designed and integrated well. And it’s certainly nice to get them for more attractive prices. Yet, I do worry that smaller and less diversified players will be hurt by Apple One. And I further worry that we may soon live in a world where everything comes from a few gigantic players like Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and Facebook. We’re pretty close to that world now.
Of course, Apple notes that it lacks majority dominance in any of its product categories and that all the Apple One services can be purchased separately. That’s technically true. But, for someone like me, who is deeply immersed in the Apple ecosystem, it’s also true that the pull of Apple is difficult to resist. I’m guessing people deeply immersed in the Google and Microsoft ecosystems often feel the same way.
I sense public opinion and political will has started to move against the big tech companies. I will be interested to see what happens with the Justice Department’s antitrust case against Google.
If Joe Biden becomes president, I will be even more interested to see how his Justice Department treats all the big tech companies. Some Democrats on the far left, such as Elizabeth Warren, clearly favor breaking them up. I wouldn’t be surprised if Apple and others are forced into some unbundling in the future.
Research clearly shows that having routines in your life has positive impacts on your mental health. But, COVID-19 has shredded many of our routines. It can be easy not to recognize your routines are gone and hard to make new ones. But it’s worth your while to do both.
How Routines Are Formed
Sometimes we consciously think about how we want to structure our time each day and week. We then create routines to achieve those self-directed goals. But, more often, we have goals and timelines imposed upon us and evolve routines in response.
Getting kids to and from school. Getting to and from the gym. Getting to and from work. Grocery shopping. Life is usually filled with things that require us to adopt some level of routine. That’s not a bad thing. Routines can help make us happier and more productive when we construct them well.
For example, if you need to leave your home around a certain time each weekday morning, that leads to waking up at a certain time, cleaning up and getting dressed at certain time, eating breakfast at a certain time, etc.
But what happens when our routines get suddenly ripped away?
COVID-19 Attacks Routines Too
Before the virus, I went to a gym each weekday morning and shared a ride there with my wife at 7:30 a.m. That created clear parameters for my morning routine. I needed to be ready to leave at 7:30, so I woke up, ate, brushed my teeth, and dressed to hit that time. After the gym, I was into the groove of my day and generally clicked into other routines as the day progressed.
When COVID-19 spiked in Jakarta in March, my gym closed. All of my morning routines went away very suddenly. I didn’t really think much about that at the time, though. The potential health and economic consequences of the virus were overwhelming and took most of my attention. It was also unclear how long it might be before things would return to normal.
Six months later, we’re living in an ongoing “new normal,” where my gym remains closed. I wish I could say I recognized early on that new morning routines were needed. But I didn’t. I watched TV, browsed the web, read ebooks, and doom-scrolled Twitter, waiting for normality to return. With no regular start to my day and the virus altering life in numerous ways, I rarely clicked into routines at all.
That wasn’t good. I’ve spent the past few months slowly figuring out solutions.
My New Routines
Over time, I’ve added some new routines to my days and weeks:
I walk outside for 20-30 minutes each weekday morning and evening. (And sometimes on weekends too.) It’s a reason to get out of bed at a specific time and a nice way to end the day. If it’s raining, I do laps of the first floor of our house. Our cats find this very confusing.
I learn with Brilliant.org each day, as I wrote about earlier. I try to do one module per day, though I sometimes just do a few questions on weekends or busy days.
I’m trying to blog more often. Once a week is my current goal. This seems to be a harder routine to keep than the others. It may be because writing requires the most sustained focus on my part.
I’m meditating for 15 minutes once per day while listening to Endel. (I wrote about Endel earlier as well.) Some days it goes well. Many days I feel very unfocused and distracted. This is why they call it a “practice.” I will keep practicing!
I do two 90-minute Indonesian lessons with an instructor each week. This actually predates the pandemic. The lessons are less effective now that they’re online rather than in person. And the virus means that I go out into Jakarta less to reinforce my learning. But maintaining the lessons is keeping me from losing what I’ve learned so far.
I’m recently started doing body-weight exercises three or more times a week, which I’ll cover more below.
Tracking My Progress With Streaks
I’ve found it helps to have a little extra motivation in keeping my routines. There are lots of apps out there for creating and tracking routines. I’ve settled on Streaks and have been extremely pleased with it.
Streaks works in the Apple ecosystem (iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and Mac). Unusually for 2020, it isn’t subscription-based. You pay $4.99 once for iPhone/iPad and $4.99 once for Mac, depending on your needs.
For me, Streaks is just the right amount of simplicity and elegance versus features and configurability. It has a sparse, clean interface. You get two pages that can each contain up to six Tasks. (I’m only using one page of six Tasks to stay focused.) Tasks can be anything you want to make a routine of doing.
You can choose whether a Task is daily, weekly, fortnightly, or monthly and how many times each period you want to do it. You can also set recurring reminders for each Task. Health-related Tasks can be given access to Health data from your iPhone and Apple Watch. That makes it easy to track a Task like walking, for example.
When you tap on a Task to complete it, you see a circle close, hear a sound, and may feel a vibration. As you do a Task again and again, you build a streak and see how long it has lasted. If you complete all of your current Tasks, they turn gold for the rest of the day. There are also some lovely widgets for iOS 14 and iPadOS 14.
Streaks has loads of positive feedback mechanisms. It also makes you not want to break the streaks you’ve labored to build. It’s a great motivator. I’ve liked it so much that I’m using another app from the same creator.
Tracking My Exercise With Streaks Workout
I can’t go to the gym during the pandemic and wouldn’t want to. I also don’t want to spend money and lose free space building a home gym.
This has led me to embrace exercises that can be done without equipment. And Streaks Workout is a great app for creating and tracking no-equipment workout routines.
Streaks Workout also works in the Apple ecosystem, but on slightly different devices (iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and Apple TV). Again, no subscription. You pay $3.99 once, and it works on everything. It also adds your workout data to Apple’s Health app.
You can use Streaks Workout to build custom workout routines using 30 different exercises. Or, you can tell the app which exercises you’re willing to do and have it build random workouts for you.
Random workouts contain six of your exercises split across a time duration of your choice. I like them. They keep things interesting and fun.
You can motivate yourself to complete your workouts in Streaks too. A Task in Streaks can be linked to Streaks Workout. Streaks Workout then automatically tells Streaks when you’ve done a workout.
I’m also extremely pleased with Streaks Workout. It’s definitely helping me build an ongoing routine and stay in better shape.
Apple Fitness+ will launch later this year. I’ll be interested to see how it impacts Streaks Workout and other fitness apps in the Apple ecosystem. I think it could be a rough road for many of them.
Overall
If you want to create or reinforce some positive routines and use Apple products, I would suggest giving Streaks and Streaks Workout a try.
If you don’t use Apple products or have different needs around routines, I’d look around online. There are lots of apps in the routines/habits space, and you can probably find one that works well for you.
In November 2018, I self-published a murder mystery novella. It’s been about two years now. For reasons I’ll cover below, the book has essentially ended its journey. So, I wanted to share some lessons learned from the experience.
People can be incredibly kind
When I had finished with my draft manuscript, I put out a call for people I knew to give feedback on it and help me find errors.
I was amazed at how many family members and friends offered to help me. I reconnected with high school English teachers that I hadn’t talked to in 25 years. One of my best friends took time from his beach vacation to help. Numerous people dedicated themselves to finding my many, many typos. My profound thanks go to all of you.
Intellectual property issues are complex
Most books, even self-published ones, generally go through a legal review. You need to make sure you aren’t violating laws around copyright, trademark, libel, etc. I hired a lovely firm in NYC, Klaris Law, to review my book. After a few tweaks, they gave me the go-ahead to publish. I love that there are lawyers who get paid to read books for a living!
My book was an homage to Agatha Christie. Thus, it made many references to her, her works, and her characters. I reached out to Agatha Christie Limited, which holds the copyrights to most Agatha Christie works and is run by her great-grandson.
I knew a partnership with ACL was a long shot, but I was hoping for some advice or at least some encouragement. Eventually, I received a boilerplate response indicating a lack of interest along with vaguely threatening language about copyrights and trademarks that I knew I wasn’t violating.
That was…a rough day. I thought I’d get a more cordial and human brush off, given the reverence and love I was showing for Agatha Christie. I guess it’s all just business.
The technical aspects of the writing and self-publishing processes are interesting, at least to me
I’m a nerd. Writing and self-publishing offer plenty of opportunities to geek out. In fact, I could easily distract myself with picking and configuring tools rather than actually writing if I wasn’t careful.
While I used a number of writing apps over time, the one that got me over the finish line was Ulysses. If you’re a Mac, iPad, or iPhone user who writes a lot, I recommend it highly. I’m actually writing this post on Ulysses. It’s a powerful, flexible writing tool that empowers you while never getting in your way.
The various digital book stores use different formats for their ebooks. And Amazon has a specific format for its self-published paperback books. I was new to all of this, but I found Vellum. If you’re a Mac user looking to self-publish, I also recommend Vellum highly. It made the publishing process a snap.
Online ratings and reviews matter in more ways than you know
Before writing my book, I never left online ratings or reviews for anything. Even if I loved or hated something, I was too lazy to give feedback. My sense is that most consumers are similar. I’ve seen estimates that only one in 100-200 purchases results in a review, for example. I would believe it. Very few people who purchase my novella have left online feedback.
The financial impact of ratings and reviews cannot be overstated. If I get a new five-star review, I see my sales spike. If I get a new one- or two-star review, I see my sales dip. Consumers who won’t leave reviews themselves often still base their purchasing decisions on the reviews of others.
Reviews also have an emotional impact on me as an author. A five-star review can make me glow all day, and a one-star review can make me feel absolutely worthless. It’s especially rough when someone leaves a one- or two-star rating and no review. I have no idea why they didn’t like the book, just that they disliked it enough to tap an icon.
All of this has made me realize human beings are on the other side of rating icons and review boxes. I’m starting to give positive ratings (and sometimes reviews) to more things I like and to blog about things I love. I also don’t generally give less than a three-star rating to anything. I now know how it feels for raters to tell you your baby is ugly. So, I’m much more hesitant to do that to others.
Self-publishing means hiding your needle in digital haystacks
When self-publishing, you aren’t required to have an agent, a publisher, or a publicist. You also can sell ebooks and print-on-demand paperbacks to avoid a lot of up-front costs. So, that was the good news for me. Anyone can easily self-publish.
What was bad news? Anyone can easily self-publish—and many, many people do. This meant my novella was a needle in digital store haystacks, along with countless other works. I didn’t have fame or a fan base to help me stand out. The book was getting no traction on its own. So, I decided to try my hand at some advertising.
Amazon Advertising works…for a price
I’ve been running Amazon ads on the “Agatha Christie” search term for nearly two years. To get good placement for the ads, I’ve had to pay a high rate in relation to the low price of my book.
My ebook only costs $2.99, Amazon takes 30% of that, I have to pay taxes on the rest, and I have to pay for the ads. The upshot is that I’ve consistently lost money as an author. It’s been a small amount of money. But after pouring my energy into making something, having to prop it up with money-losing ads or not see it sell has been tough to swallow.
I kept hoping that this digital pump-priming would eventually lead to some word-of-month and organic sales. But, that has sadly not happened. Almost all of my sales have been ad-driven.
At the start of September, I saw publishers of Agatha Christie novels placing many more ads that were moving my ad lower and lower in Amazon search results. My sales tanked accordingly. These publishers likely have marketing budgets and book unit prices that allow them to pay more for ads than I can.
So, I’ve decided to turn my ads off. The book will continue to be available. But, without ads, it will not sell many more copies.
I’m glad I did it
I had the core ideas for the novella in my mid-20s and toyed with them for 20 years. I was lazy. There’s no denying it. But, I finally wrote the damn thing. The experience has been ego-bruising at times. But I’ve learned a lot. In the end, I’m proud that I’ve put something out into the world.
We’re all so focused on Nov. 3rd that we aren’t giving much thought to what will come after. Here’s what I think will happen in American politics in the near future:
Amy Coney Barrett will be confirmed to the Supreme Court on a party-line Senate vote in late October.
My guess is that she won’t vote to fully strike down Roe v. Wade but will successfully chip away at it over time.
Donald Trump will lose the election to Joe Biden…bigly.
Yes, polls can be wrong, and most were in 2016. But Biden is not only polling better than Hillary Clinton in 2016; he’s polling at historic highs for any challenger to a presidential incumbent. There is a lot of room for polling error, and Biden still wins.
Trump, never good at impulse control at the best of times, is incapable of the discipline or personal growth that would be needed to change his toxic political brand at this stage. In fact, he will likely become even worse as we move toward the election.
The Supreme Court will not play a decisive role in the presidential election outcome.
Most justices will be wary of further politicizing the court and of goading Democrats into adding court seats. Justice Barrett will be wary of seeming a Trump stooge. Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh will worry a bit about that too. This will make the court unlikely to grant cert on most election-related petitions.
Unlike the Bush v. Gore Florida recount in 2000, the 2020 race is unlikely to come down to a single state. Trump will likely have to claim vote counts in many states are incorrect if he wants to move the overall Electoral College his way. The Supreme Court is unlikely to choose to play referee on voting issues in multiple states at once.
Democrats will retain control of the House and narrowly take control of the Senate in the election.
Look for AOC / The Squad, Ed Markey, Elizabeth Warren, and Bernie Sanders to have lots of policy clashes with Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer. I would expect Pelosi and Schumer to win most of the battles.
Trump will refuse to attend Biden’s inauguration on Jan. 20th.
He will never accept the loss and thus will declare the inauguration a sham.
Trump also only cares about himself and lacks respect for norms.
He may refuse to let Biden spend the prior night at Blair House and refuse a White House meeting before the inauguration. There won’t be much grace in Trump’s final days.
There is a possibility he will stage a speech of his own on Jan. 20th. It could be from the White House the morning of the inauguration or a Trump property in the afternoon. (Doral or Mar-a-Lago are probably lovely in January.) Biden’s inauguration speech will get better ratings, but that will be Fake News.
Trump will issue a blanket pardon to himself and many members of his administration the morning of Jan. 20th to “stop the witch hunt.”
This could lead to litigation between the Biden Justice Department and Trump over the legality of a self-pardon. It depends on whether Justice under Biden decides to pursue any of Trump’s numerous abuses of power.
The case could eventually wind its way to the Supreme Court.
I don’t know how the justices would vote. There are no explicit checks on the presidential pardon power in the Constitution. But the judicial branch does exist as a check on overall executive power. A self-pardon would clearly be an abuse of executive power.
Regardless, any pardon won’t affect the Cyrus Vance investigation, ongoing sexual assault civil suits, or any other investigation of Trump by state or local governments.
If Vladimir Putin has kompromat on Trump, it will be anonymously released or used.
Trump’s praise for Putin and refusal to criticize Putin over Ukraine, Syria, or the poisoning of Alexei Navalny all point to Putin potentially having something over Trump.
Maybe it’s control over some of Trump’s massive debt. Maybe it’s evidence of illegal activity by Trump. Maybe it’s just something highly embarrassing to Trump. (Though, I cringe to think what Trump would consider highly embarrassing.)
I don’t know whether Putin will make his move while Trump is still a lame duck in office or shortly thereafter. It will depend on the nature of the kompromat.
Putin would likely time any action to cause the maximum amount of instability and embarrassment for the United States. He would love to force the Biden Administration to focus on Trump in its early days rather than tackling its own agenda.
No new seats will be added to the Supreme Court.
Joe Biden, a former chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has said in the past he’s against adding more seats to the court. Kamala Harris has seemed more open to it in the past.
Both are now not commenting on the issue until after the election because they know it’s divisive and will take attention away from the ongoing Trump meltdown.
My guess is that Biden’s thoughts haven’t changed much here, despite Mitch McConnell’s continued game playing with the Supreme Court. And I happen to think Biden is correct. The court is too politicized already. We don’t want to make it worse. And someday Republicans will fully control the federal government again. We don’t want a Supreme Court seat increase every time a single party is in power.
Between Cyrus Vance, sexual assault civil lawsuits, potential investigation and prosecution by the Biden Justice Department, and massive debts coming due soon, Trump’s post-presidency is looking quite unpleasant.
It will take years for everything to play out, but bankruptcy, jail, or both could be in his future.
There is one bright spot for Trump. I assume a future Donald J. Trump Presidential Library & Casino will be announced sometime in 2021.
2020 has been stressful in so many ways. The coronavirus has also kept many of us at home, enforcing an unwelcome degree of isolation during a challenging time.
I’ve been experimenting with new apps and services to see if any can help me cut through the gloom. By far, the most effective has beenEndel.
In their manifesto, Endel’s team outline the problem they are trying to solve:
We’re not evolving fast enough. Our bodies and minds are not fit for the new world we live in.
The team argues that our brains aren’t wired to handle the massive amounts of information they now receive. This information overload leads to inadequate sleep, increased anxiety, and depression.
Practicing mindfulness can help address this challenge. But the Endel team further argues that we aren’t properly leveraging our glorious new technologies to help us be mindful:
We’re using ultra-modern devices — wireless, wearables, sensors — to deliver static mindfulness content that is no different from what people used 100 to 1,000 years ago.
So, Endel is trying something new. It looks at real-time inputs, such as your heart rate, weather, motion, and natural light. It then creates an “adaptive soundscape” that’s optimized for your current goal. You can use Endel to relax, focus, sleep, meditate, workout, read—whatever you like.
Each soundscape is also aligned with the ultradian and circadian rhythms of a model daily energy curve. The team plans to personalize a daily energy curve for each Endel user. You can read more about the science behind it all.
Endel has Android, iPhone/iPad, Apple Watch, Mac, and Apple TV apps and is also available as an Amazon Alexa Skill. Access to all these costs $5.99 a month, $24.99 a year, or $89.99 for life. (I think they may have recently decreased from $29.99 to $24.99 for a year.)
There is also some sponsored content available free on Endel’s website and also a free “insomnia channel” on Twitch.
I have found Endel to be effective at helping me relax, focus, and sleep. I recommend you give it a try.
Several times when writing this post, I’ve accidentally typed “democrazy” when meaning to type “democracy.” I think perhaps my subconscious mind has reached a sad, troubling conclusion.
Things are indeed crazy in the American democratic system. If it isn’t already fully broken, it soon could be. The process to replace recently-deceased Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg may strain our society past a breaking point. I’m still hoping that cooler heads will somehow prevail.
Listening to the People
I’m going to share my concerns about how this process is unfolding and what I think should happen. I’m a liberal Democrat. You can take my concerns with however many grains of salt you wish. But I’m going to start by articulating a principle I hope most of us can agree on:
The President and the United States Senate should listen to how the majority of Americans want to see this Supreme Court vacancy filled and act accordingly.
According to a Reuters/Ipsos survey, 62 percent of American adults agreed the vacancy should be filled by the winner of the presidential election on Nov. 3rd. This included five in 10 Republicans.
President Trump and Senate Republicans are moving forward without a majority of public support. This troubles me greatly. They are also not abiding by their own rules.
Ignoring Rules and Norms
In 2016, Senate Republicans refused to grant Judge Merrick Garland even a committee hearing when President Obama nominated him to the Supreme Court. Even though there were 237 days until the election, Republicans said a nominee should not be considered in a presidential election year.
I didn’t agree with Republicans' handling of the Garland nomination then and still don’t agree with it now. But I thought we at least had a new Republican-created rule/norm by which they would abide.
Now, President Trump will announce a Supreme Court nominee only 38 days before a presidential election. Hearings will be brief. Many Republican senators are already saying they will vote to confirm the nominee before that person has even been announced.
Many Republicans are still angry about what they saw as unfair treatment of now-Justice Brett Kavanaugh by Senate Democrats during his Supreme Court confirmation. I believe that Senate Democrats had an obligation to investigate claims of sexual assault made by three women against Kavanaugh. Perhaps you disagree.
Regardless of how anyone feels about Kavanaugh’s confirmation, it is not an excuse to ignore rules, norms, and public opinion when filling a Supreme Court seat. There shouldn’t be a different confirmation process based on which parties control the White House and the Senate. Something this important shouldn’t be this partisan.
The Republican “Majority”
Republicans should have humility in exercising their power, tacking more toward the center. They have not been elected at the federal level by a majority of American voters and probably won’t be again in November.
Donald Trump lost the national popular vote in 2016. He won the presidency because the less-democratic Electoral College is what decides the race. And he is likely to lose both the national popular vote and the Electoral College in November based on current polling.
Republicans lost the House of Representatives to the Democrats in 2018. Democrats are highly likely to retain it in November according to current polling.
Senate Republicans owe their slim majority not to getting the most votes nationwide, but to each state having two Senators regardless of state population. This makes the Senate 6 to 7 percentage points “redder” than the United States as a whole (analysis here). Despite that advantage, Democrats are slightly favored to take the Senate majority in November based on current polling. Even if that doesn’t happen, a Republican majority would almost certainly be even slimmer.
With the Electoral College and the state-based Senate, the Framers of our Constitution wanted to avoid tyranny by more populous states over more rural ones. Republicans are now are edging close to the reverse.
Republicans should be mindful of how brute-forcing a conservative Supreme Court pick will feel to the majority of Americans who did not vote for them. They should also be mindful of the majority who oppose making this decision before the presidential election. This would be a massive blow to our already-struggling democracy.
Country Before Party
Our democracy is in crisis. We need Republican Senators to be statesmen and stateswomen. It’s a time for putting country before party.
Too many Republicans are acting like a majority of voters want them to push a Supreme Court nominee through in October. This is simply not the case.
In reality, the designs of the Electoral College and state-based Senate have given Republicans outsized power. They will likely lose that power in January. So they should behave in a more centrist and responsible manner. Our democracy is depending on them.
I’ve always been a bit “STEMy,” but only in the Technology sense of Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics. I hate math. Or, at least I thought I hated math until I tried Brilliant.
You may know Brilliant from educational advertisements that show STEM problems being solved in visual, animated ways. Those ads are awesome. Looking at them, it feels like you’ll soon be as smart as John Nash in A Beautiful Mind. We may as well put all this COVID-19 time at home to some good use, right?
I finally overcame my math phobia enough to try Brilliant. It’s like learning with my high school Algebra II teacher. With Brilliant and Mrs. Lewis, this stuff somehow makes more sense, feels less intimidating, and is even kinda fun. (Kathy Lewis, if you ever read this, thank you for being so wonderful!)
What I love about Brilliant:
You are in control. You choose what courses you take, in what order, and at what pace.
No tests, no shame. You don’t get grades. You don’t hit gates or roadblocks. No one else knows what courses you’re taking or how well you’re doing. If you get something wrong, an explanation sets you straight. (You can look at your Stats if you want to, but you can also ignore them.)
Course variety. You have hundreds of hours of courses to choose from across Algebra, Geometry, Number Theory, Calculus, Probability, Basic Mathematics, Logic, Classical Mechanics, Electricity and Magnetism, Computer Science, Quantitative Finance, and Chemistry. (The Chemistry offerings are fairly basic, and there aren’t any Biology courses. I’m hoping to see improvement in these areas over time.)
Great design. Brilliant has a clean, crisp visual aesthetic that does an excellent job of using images, animations, and videos to convey complex concepts. It also has adorable artwork for many of the logic problems.
Community. You can post STEM problems online for others to solve or join in the solving fun yourself.
Useable anywhere and anytime. Brilliant works on smartphones, tablets, and web browsers. Whether you have five minutes or five hours, you can learn something. Most individual problems can be worked in a minute or two, and your place in a lesson is always synced across your devices.
Brilliant is a bit pricey. There are certainly many apps and websites that teach similar topics for free or at a lower cost. But, I think Brilliant’s combination of self-guided learning, lack of testing or scores, lovely design, community, and usability across devices and situations makes it worth the cost.
If you are a student, the parent of a student, or someone interested in life-long learning, I highly recommend giving Brilliant a try.
Tommy Tuberville won Alabama’s U.S. Senate primary against Jeff Sessions by nearly 30 percentage points this week. I am a liberal. You may be a conservative who strongly supports Donald Trump. Regardless, you should be deeply disturbed about what Tuberville’s landslide victory means for the Republican Party and our nation.
I strongly disagree with Sessions on almost every political issue and didn’t want to see him back in the Senate. But, the news that Alabama Republicans consider Tuberville a better candidate than Sessions by such a large margin chills me to my core.
Let’s consider some potential qualifications for being a Republican U.S. Senator from Alabama:
Government Experience. Jeff Sessions has been U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Alabama, Attorney General of Alabama, U.S. Senator from Alabama for 20 years, and U.S. Attorney General. Tommy Tuberville has been a successful university football coach. There is no question Sessions is the more experienced candidate.
Connection to Alabama. Sessions was born in Alabama and has lived there all of his 73 years. Tuberville lived in Alabama when he coached at Auburn from 1999–2008. He moved back to Alabama in 2018 for this Senate run. So ~73 years living in Alabama versus ~12 years. There is no question Sessions knows Alabama and the challenges Alabama residents face better than Tuberville.
Transparency with Voters. Sessions has years of decisions and votes in public office that voters could scrutinize. He conducted numerous media interviews and made numerous public appearances during this campaign. He offered to have as many as five public debates with Tuberville. Tuberville gave few media interviews and made few open-to-all public appearances. He refused to debate Sessions even once. There is no question Sessions was a more transparent candidate with voters.
Morals and Ethics / “Draining the Swamp”. Sessions is an Eagle Scout who has taught Sunday School classes. As Attorney General, he recused himself from the Russia investigation because of conflict of interest concerns. Tuberville is not a Scout. He was a co-defendant in a lawsuit alleging his hedge fund defrauded investors of $1.7 million. His partner in the fund was found guilty of securities fraud, ordered to pay $2.1 million in restitution and to serve ten years in jail. Tuberville settled his case out of court on undisclosed terms. Tuberville also only gave a one-game suspension to an Auburn football player charged with the rape of a 15-year-old in 1999. Sessions would seem to be the person with the stronger moral and ethical center here.
Conservative “Trumpian” Policies. Sessions brags that he was “Trump before Trump” and has numerous conservative decisions and votes from his government service to back up that claim. Because Tuberville didn’t do debates, has done few media interviews, and has done few open-to-all public events, his policy positions are much less clear. He repeatedly says he supports Trump and Trump’s policies. That’s about it. This policy qualification goes slightly in Sessions' favor. Sessions is a demonstrated conservative while Tuberville claims to be one.
Endorsed by Donald Trump. Trump hates Sessions for recusing himself from the Russia investigation. So he has publicly savaged Sessions and endorsed Tuberville. On this single qualification, Tuberville clearly wins. And, for most Alabama Republicans, a Trump endorsement is apparently the only qualification that matters.
Jeff Sessions has been a deeply conservative Alabama Republican all of his life. He was one of the first major Republican politicians to endorse Trump for President in 2016. Trump might not have won the Republican presidential nomination without Sessions' early and enthusiastic support.
As Trump’s Attorney General, Sessions conducted himself as a staunch conservative and supported Trump in every way but one. Because Sessions had some dealings with Russian officials around the time of the election, he recused himself from the Russia investigation. He did not attack or criticize Trump. He simply stepped back from one investigation for an ethical reason. This was a transgression that Trump and Alabama Republicans would not forgive.
What has just happened in Alabama is an example of what is happening in Republican politics around the nation. The GOP has become a personality cult. Everyone must show allegiance to Trump at all times. No one can criticize or fail to defend the Dear Leader. The only thing that matters to most Republican voters is following Trump’s lead.
I hope with all my heart that Trump loses in November. Having one of our two major political parties engaging in this cult-like behavior is dangerous for our democracy. When voters become rubber stamps for one man’s agenda, we all lose.
I have a confession to make. I didn’t vote in the 2016 presidential election for the United States. I know, it’s horrible. I’m horrible. In my defense, I didn’t think I was allowed to vote.
Being Stateless (Or At Least U.S. Stateless)
We moved away from Virginia and the United States in late 2012 for Switzerland and then in mid-2019 on to Indonesia. While we have remained U.S. citzens, we have not been residents of a U.S. state since 2012.
Since I wasn’t a resident of a U.S. state, I didn’t think I could vote in U.S. presidential elections. Why would I think that?
Well, in a U.S. presidential election, citizens don’t vote for candidates directly. Citizens vote on how the electors for their state will cast their electoral votes. Those electoral votes from states are what actually determine who becomes president and vice-president. (It’s a terribly flawed and undemocratic system, but I’ll save that for another blog post.)
I assumed that without residency in a U.S. state, I had no way to vote for the electors of any state. I also assumed this meant that I couldn’t vote in Democratic Party presidential primaries. The good news is that I think/hope I was wrong and that I can vote in both for 2020.
Democrats Abroad and the Global Democratic Presidential Primary
I’ve found out about a lovely organization called Democrats Abroad. It is “the official Democratic Party arm for the millions of Americans living outside the United States."
The organization runs a Global Democratic Presidental Primary. The Global Primary for 2020 will award 21 Democratic National Convention delegates, holding 17 votes, of which 13 will be pledged delegates allocated by the voting process. Democrats living abroad can register and vote online in the Global Primary until March 10th. Participation is free. You can only vote in the Global Primary if you aren’t voting in a state primary.
Thirteen delegates may not sound like a lot, but the number of Global Primary voters is fairly small. So this is a case where a small number of votes can really matter.
In 2016, a majority of Democrats Abroad voters Felt The Bern. Bernie Sanders received 69% of the vote to Hillary Clinton’s 31%. Sanders picked up nine delegates to Clinton’s four. Sanders also received four pledged superdelegates. Voter turnout was up 50% from the 2008 election, with 34,570 voters from over 170 countries.
I will be voting in the Global Primary. With Pete Buttigieg out of the race, I will be deciding between Joe Biden and Amy Klobuchar. I will probably go with Biden for electability reasons.
If you’re a Republican living outside of the U.S., you might want to check out Republicans Overseas. It doesn’t appear that they do a global primary, but they do help organize Republicans outside of the U.S. in other ways.
Voting for President From Abroad While Stateless
I’ve also found out about a lovely part of the U.S. government called the Federal Voting Assistance Program. It runs a Federal Post Card Application process for U.S. citizens living abroad to request absentee ballots from local election offices in the U.S.
If you’re only voting for federal offices, you can use the address of your last residence in the U.S. without needing to still control that address, without needing to claim residency at the address, and without incurring state or local tax liability. This sounds perfect for my situation.
(If you still maintain legal residency in a U.S. state while living abroad, you can use this same FPCA process to request absentee ballots for federal, state, and local offices.)
I’m submitting my FPCA this week and crossing my fingers. I hope I will get to vote for president this year!
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