Jacobin Magazine has the article We Can Do Way Better Than These Guys.

Here is another great article that will change no minds. I’ll pick out a zinger for each target.

First Beto O’Rourke

Drawing on a familiar arsenal of political clichés and performing a painfully contrived rendering of what professional-class Gen-Xers think young people find cool, O’Rourke’s campaign thus far has been like an extended meditation on the true meaning of emptiness — with few policy positions to speak of and little of substance to say about what its leading man actually believes or where he intends to take the country.

Next the article tackles Pete Buttigieg.

Boasting an impeccable resume, boyishly unctuous grin, and no discernible agenda or program to speak of, the mayor of South Bend Indiana was suddenly everywhere.

And lastly, Joe Biden.

His Washington is one of elite camaraderie and locker room fraternity far exceeding anything ever dreamt up by Aaron Sorkin: an ancien régime to be nurtured and preserved by way of endless handshakes and magnanimous compromises between fundamentally decent people, be they milquetoast liberals, militant conservatives, or literal former segregationists. As far as the official narrative is concerned, Biden boasts strong appeal with the real America of hard-working, blue-collar Joes — the sort who toil in the mines and factories by day and toast bipartisanship with Comcast executives at gold-plated fundraisers by night.

Bloomberg has the article How Much Money Do You Need to Be Wealthy in America?.

The exact amount can depend on how old you are.

Rich is relative.

You might be amused by comparing your own situation with these numbers.

I found this self-contradictory statement particularly amusing and typical of the oligarch’s’ news media such as Bloomberg.

While a strong economy and low unemployment are helping consumers stay current on their debt payments, the largest U.S. banks are seeing losses on credit cards outpace those of auto and home loans at a rate not seen in at least 10 years.

Consumers are staying current with their debt, except for credit cards? So what could possibly go wrong with people falling behind in their debts that are charging 20% to 25% or more in interest, and that’s before we even get into the late payment penalty fees?

The Real News Network has the interview Can Biden ‘Make America Moral Again?’.

Biden is countering Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan with “Make America Moral Again.” But bipartisan deals with Strom Thurmond, the crime bill, Anita Hill, and more, shows he lacks the moral high ground. Jacqueline Luqman and Adolph Reed discuss Biden’s record.

Sad to say, these facts probably do not matter to people whose minds have been made up. How do we communicate our own experiences and motivations about this subject without resorting to trying to convince people with facts?

I say this with reference to one of the Sanders campaign volunteer principles.

We don’t argue or debate.

Research has shown that when two people enter an argument or debate, both parties usually come out more committed to their prior beliefs than before. In other words, rational debate is not an effective tool for persuasion. That’s why instead of arguing, we always come back to sharing our own stories and motivations.

We connect by sharing our stories.

We share what motivates us as individuals to vote and volunteer for Bernie Sanders’ campaign. This opens the door for others to resonate with our motivations. Sharing familiar and relatable parts of your own story is key. Talking about your own struggle with student debt or with the healthcare system is much more powerful than an abstract policy argument.

Elephant Journal has the article Gaslighting: The Mind Game Everyone should Know About.

Overall, the main reason for gaslighting is to create a dynamic where the abuser has complete control over their victim so that they are so weak that they are very easy to manipulate.

I took a quick survey around my home office. I found that half of us did not know what gaslighting was.

For those who have not seen the 1944 movie Gaslight, here is a synopsis from Google.

After the death of her famous opera-singing aunt, Paula (Ingrid Bergman) is sent to study in Italy to become a great opera singer as well. While there, she falls in love with the charming Gregory Anton (Charles Boyer). The two return to London, and Paula begins to notice strange goings-on: missing pictures, strange footsteps in the night and gaslights that dim without being touched. As she fights to retain her sanity, her new husband’s intentions come into question.

The 2020 campaign for Bernie Sanders has an app for volunteers to use when contacting potential voters. It is aptly named BERN.

As a volunteer with access to this app, I’d like to use it to interview you about your opinions of the campaign so far. I’ll show you the forms the app gives me to demonstrate how easy it is to be interviewed.

As a user of the app, there are two modes.

One is for friend to friend contacts. It is really so minimal, that there is nothing at all to fear. One could even do the “interview” over the phone, through email, or private messaging. If you are willing to let me fill out a from for you as my friend (someone I know how to reach), you can let me know in an email – steve@ssgreenberg.name.

The other method is the community canvass. If I don’t know you well enough, I can use the community canvas form which is just a tad more involved. There you can give contact information to the campaign, if you want to. You can also select the issues that concern you.

Friend to Friend Form

Community Canvas From

Support Choices drop down menu

PC World has the article How Windows and Chrome quietly made 2019 the year of Linux on the desktop.

Both Windows 10 and Chrome OS are embracing the Linux kernel and the software that runs on it.

This might be enough to get me to finally switch from Windows 7 to Windows 10. Ironically, it was my failure to realize I had to delete my virtual Linux machine from Windows 7 before I went to Windows 10 and reinstalling Linux that made me switch back to Windows 7. However, knowing Microsoft, I might just keep my virtual machine around long enough to see how badly Microsoft mucks up its version of Linux.

When I worked at Digital Equipment Corporation we had our own version of MIT’s X-windows. I jokingly called it our value subtracted version.

Venezuela Analysis has the article Venezuela: Coup d’Etat or Constitutional Transition?

Was Maduro legitimately elected?

Constitutional exegesis aside, the crux of the opposition’s argument is that Nicolas Maduro’s May 20, 2018 reelection was mired in “fraud” and hence his swearing-in “illegitimate,” creating a power vacuum.

This contention has been taken up by the mainstream media as an article of faith and repeated ad nauseam.

For corporate journalists, it doesn’t appear to matter that Maduro was re-elected with 6.2 million votes, amounting to around 31 percent of eligible voters, which, as Joe Emersberger notes, is average among US presidents. For instance, Barack Obama received 31 percent in 2008 and 28 percent in 2012, while Trump was elected with just 26 percent in 2016, failing to win the popular vote.

Nor does the Western pundit class seem to care that Maduro won with exactly the same electoral system with which the opposition scored its landslide parliamentary victory in 2015, from which Juan Guaido purports to derive his legitimacy.

LAWFARE has the article Guaidó, Not Maduro, Is the De Jure President of Venezuela to make the opposite case.

The present Venezuelan crisis began on Jan. 10, when Maduro was sworn in for a second term scheduled to end in 2025. Nobody seems to dispute that his first term ended that day, in accordance with Articles 230 and 231 of the Venezuelan Constitution. The relevant question is whether Maduro was in fact reelected and legally president after Jan. 10.

Any plausible reading of the constitution shows that Maduro was not reelected and, indeed, that there has been no election at all for the term beginning Jan. 10. Article 293 governs the process for calling and organizing new presidential elections, delegating to the National Electoral Council control over the process. Members of that body are nominated through a complicated scheme that gives significant power to the National Assembly, the country’s unicameral legislature, under Article 296. To Maduro’s chagrin, however, the National Assembly has been under opposition control since 2015.

Are there any indisputable Venezuelan Constitutional scholars who can settle this? Is Mike Pompeo qualified?

The Grayzone has the post America in denial: Gabor Maté on the psychology of Russiagate (Interview transcript).

Physician, mental health expert, and best-selling author Dr. Gabor Maté sits down with The Grayzone’s Aaron Maté to analyze how Russiagate was able to take hold of U.S. society following Donald Trump’s election.

Brave New Europe has the article Dirk Ehnts – The Swabian Housewife and the Kingdom of Sweden – a Comparison.

Anyone who therefore thinks that the Kingdom of Sweden should behave like a Swabian housewife should not be surprised if the implementation of what are undoubtedly well-intentioned proposals for a private household in reality lead to catastrophic results in a national economy. While saving can be a virtue for one person, it is usually a vice for the state. The state’s fear of spending money is therefore not a virtue, but results in social problems, unemployment, and the neglect of the common good.

Is there anything in this explanation that is hard to understand? Why do people resist the obvious?

Venezuela Analysis has an article in two parts – Heterodox and Orthodox Economics in Venezuela: A Conversation with Luis Salas (Part I).

In part one of this two‐part interview with Venezuelanalysis, Salas analyzes the economic measures that the government has implemented since August 2018, describing how they morphed into an orthodox adjustment package.

Part II is Fueling the Venezuelan Economy: A Conversation with Luis Salas (Part II).

Part two of the interview, addresses the current tendency towards dollarization of the Venezuelan economy and the way out of the economic crisis.

See if you can use your knowledge of Modern Money Theory to try to untangle these two articles. I am not sure if this agrees with or disagrees with what MMT would prescribe.