Second Shot

 Just got my second shot of Pfizer vaccine. 

End of Trump?

 I may have said I would have preferred no impeachment trial.  Instead I would have preferred a censure plus passage of a bill(s) to tighten the laws which Trump violated or found very elastic.  Hopefully we'll still going to get some tightening, if nothing else.

Maybe we can now allow Trump to fade into the dustbin of history?

Provisions of the House Bill

As described by Sen. Warnock's website the  Emergency Relief for Farmers of Color Act:

 "The Emergency Relief for Farmers of Color Act would provide $5 billion to America’s Black, indigenous, Hispanic, and farmers of color who, in addition to being hard-hit by the current public health and economic emergencies, have long struggled to keep their farms and ownership of their land in rural communities due to discrimination by USDA and other government agencies. 

• The legislation provides $4 billion in direct relief payments to help farmers of color pay-off outstanding USDA farm loan debts and related taxes, and help them respond to the economic impacts of the pandemic.
•  The legislation provides another $1 billion fund to support activities at USDA that will root out systemic racism, provide technical and legal assistance to agricultural communities of color, and fund underresourced programs that will shape the future for farmers and communities of color. Specifically, this $1 billion fund will include:
• Pror education that historically serve communities of color; 
• o Scholarships at 1890’s land grant universities and for indigenous students attending land grant institutions; 
• o Outreach, mediation, financial training, capacity building training, cooperative development training and support, and other technical assistance; and
•  o Assistance to farmers, ranchers, or forest landowners of color that are former farm loan borrowers and suffered related adverse actions, or past discrimination or bias.

 The Emergency Relief for Farmers of Color Act is supported by Rural Coalition, National Black Farmers Association (NBFA), Black Belt Justice Center, Black Farmers’ Appeal: Cancel Pigford Debt Campaign"

CCC Powers

 "While CCC operates according to a large number of statutory authorities, its broad powers allow it to carry out almost any operation required to meet the objectives of supporting U.S. agriculture"

That's from this CRS report on CCC.

I note from the report that in previous posts on CCC I missed an important element.  In response to 2009 actions by the Obama administration Congress put limits on CCC authority in FY2012-2017,  but failed to renew the restrictions in 2018 on. 

Artificial Insemination

 That should be a click bait blog title, shouldn't it?

I think we switched from having a bull to artificial insemination around 1945 or so. I do remember when the basement of the barn, where the bull had been kept, was floored with concrete in preparation for having hens there.  

I remember when I was banned from the barn when the inseminator came, because the process of insemination was not fit for my young eyes. I remember dad discussing the virtues of different sires in choosing the semen to be used.  

It's been a long long time since then.  I was struck by this piece on the dam of the bull of the century, RORA Elevation. 9 million descendants of one bull--amazing.

Outlook for 2020 Elections

 I'm pessimistic about Democratic chances in 2022 to maintain the House majority.  The Senate may be easier. 

Here's a map for the Senate, showing Pennsylvania as a tossup and Georgia as leaning Democratic.  I'm not sure about Georgia; the Republicans are working on changing the rules for voting.  On the other hand, Sen. Warnock did do better than Ossoff. 

In the House give the Republicans a pickup of 8-10 seats from redistricting and add in the historical loss by the majority party in mid-year elections and things look grim.

It's possible that Biden and the Democrats do a great job on covid and the economy, foreign affairs don't erupt into anything major, and the Republicans experience a lot of intra-party conflict resulting in weak candidates.  It's possible, but I'm not hopeful.

Setting a Precedent

 Perhaps the strongest argument in Trump's impeachment trial is the fear of setting a bad precedent.  It should be taken seriously. When I studied American government, the idea that a president could ever be impeached was not a serious issue.  When Watergate occurred there was a quick surge of research, trying to figure out the pros and cons, the procedure for impeachment.

We went ahead with the process to impeach the president. I haven't researched, but I'd guess that some serious people then said it was unlikely there would be another impeachment in the 20th century.  But there was.

We went through the Clinton impeachment--that experience plus some changes in social mores may have set another precedent--we don't want another impeachment over private behavior, and hopefully future presidents have learned to handle scandals better.

So now we've impeached Trump twice. I hope the precedent we've set is never to elect a person like him again.  

On Prohibition, a Reconsideration

 Politico has a long piece on Black Prohibitionism by a political science prof, Mark Lawrence Schrad.

My mother was death on alcohol.  I never quite understood it.  As I've gotten older I wonder whether someone in the family was a drunk.  I don't know of any likely candidate, but her vehemence makes me wonder.  

Anyhow, the piece puts prohibition back into the context of Progressive Era ideas to improve human life.  Some of those ideas are still considered good (secret ballot), some are now considered bad (eugenics), some have seen their reputation vary over the years (referendums, city managers, experts). 

I'm not sure on prohibition.  We're in the process of legalizing marijuana, partially on the grounds it's less dangerous than alcohol. I've still enough puritan in me to believe that life is hard and one should not try to round off the corners.  Some of the critics of prohibition see it as reflecting WASP prejudice against recent immigrants who frequented saloons.  But then I read Samantha Powers memoir which deals with the alcoholism of her father (very interesting).

My current bottom line is it's good to have people on both sides of the issue--not good for one side to have it all their own way.

On Improving Statistical Infrastructure

The Covid Tracking project announces its end. 

But the work itself—compiling, cleaning, standardizing, and making sense of COVID-19 data from 56 individual states and territories—is properly the work of federal public health agencies. Not only because these efforts are a governmental responsibility—which they are—but because federal teams have access to far more comprehensive data than we do, and can mandate compliance with at least some standards and requirements.

I wholeheartedly agree with this, and hope the Biden/Harris administration devotes money and attention to improving our statistical infrastructure, given the deficiencies revealed by pandemic.  

Inflation Worries and the 1970s

 The debate over the proper size of the Covid bill often gets into inflation--will a bigger federal debt cause greater inflation.  I've commented somewhere that while any inflation will take a while to show up, based on our experience in the 1970s it takes a long time for policymakers to react and fight it.  

Expanding on that--we do have the experience of the 70's to guide us, and we know that very high interest rates a la Paul Volcker will stifle inflation albeit at the cost of a recession.  Another factor I'd consider--in the 70's unions had more power than now.  The industrial sector was much more important in the economy, and unions had considerable power in that sector.  I think it's also true that union contracts had been written in a way to cope with inflation, at the cost of adding to inflationary pressures. Globalization has come a long way since the 70s, so presumably it's harder for an economy to go its own way and inflate.  Finally, a big part of the inflation then was the effect of OPEC finding its power, resulting in much higher prices for oil.  Today we don't have any cartel with similar power over a critical factor in the economy, and oil specifically and energy generally are less important economically.