What We’re Talking About

We’re on KNON radio every Saturday at 9AM central time. They keep the recordings on KNON.org for 2 weeks, so you can still listen to “Gene Lantz” or “Workers Beat.” They put my weekly podcasts on Soundcloud under “Workers Beat Extra.”

On May 23, the first caller spoke about the odd proposal to tear down our Dallas City Hall. Apparently, Mrs Adelson, the big Trump sponsor, wants to build an arena there for her Dallas Mavericks basketball team. The caller said the only problem was a leak in the basement, and that they need to get a better plumber. Bonnie, my Co-Host, said they need a union plumber.

I had a newspaper article on the topic: “A group of businessmen and architects propose 47 acres of city-owned land for the Mavericks. Their opposition wants to tear down City Hall and says the building is ‘unpopular.’ ” Dallas Morning News

During the next lull, I got to talk about something I’ve been wanting to say for weeks: the reason that Trump wants lower interest rates even as inflation rises. Normally, the Federal Reserve raises interest rates as monetary policy to fight inflation, but Trump wants the reverse — lower interest rates despite inflation.

Fiscal policy — government expenditures — are also fanning the fires of inflation. During the past week, I had accumulated several examples:

“Trump wants $1.2T to put weapons in space.  $1.5T for miliary budget. $350B for present war.” New York Times

White House Approves $9 Billion for Spy Agencies to Catch Up on A.I.

  NYT

$1.7 billion contract awarded “for border wall in Big Bend” amid public confusion over construction plans. TX Tribune

“Trump is setting up a $1.8B “weaponization fund.” “The massive fund would give Jan. 6 rioters pardoned by Trump a mechanism to seek taxpayer payouts for their claims of government overreach.”  NBC News

Justice Department gifts Trump with slush fund  Salon

“Trump Officials Decline to Rule Out DOJ Payouts to Jan. 6 Rioters Who Assaulted Police.” Time

“There has never been an example of presidential corruption like this.” NYT editors

“Never in 250 years has America witnessed a sitting president shield himself and his family from tax scrutiny, after leveraging policies that benefit his own businesses and personal portfolios, as Donald J. Trump has done… In doing so, he has set a precedent — once so unfathomable as to be laughable — that it’s OK for presidents and family members to make billions off deals affected by government decisions, then use the Justice Department to secure lifetime protection from scrutiny of their past tax returns.”  AXIOS

After a couple more callers, I was finally able to give my take on why Trump keeps driving up inflation and demands lower interest rates: he wants to continue “borrowing” taxpayer money and driving up national debt in order to fund his plans for military and internal coercive forces, especially ICE. In other words, he doesn’t care about his sagging popularity. He intends to take what he wants, internationally and domestically, BY FORCE!

Dallas political analyist Carolyn King Arnold called, as she often does, to urge everybody to vote. She said that voting is “the only way” that people can change anything. After she finished, I disagreed.

Voting is important, but hardly the “only way.” People need to organize. Bonnie and I agreed that the best organizations are those closest to the union movement. Unions are the largest and best organized part of the progressive movement. I also recommended NAACP as a good organization to join.

Another caller reviewed his own article in PeoplesWorld.org. It was about an important voters’ event held last week in Friendship West megachurch. They set a goal of 75% turnout for Black voters. And they will do the work! He recommended working with Dr Frederick Haynes. I do, too.

With the subject of voting on hand, Bonnie and I could hardly resist talking about Trump’s seemingly insane endorsement of Ken Paxton to head the Republican ticket in Texas as the nominee for U.S. Senate. The caller who brought it up said that Republican voters “must be crazy.” I disagreed again.

I had two reasons. Firstly, even though Trump’s endorsement is winning Republican primaries all over the country, I don’t think that all rank-and-file Republican voters are nuts enough to elect Paxton on our May 26 runoff election day. There was a letter-to-editor in the Dallas newspaper demonstrating my point:

This article was also in today’s paper: “After Trump endorsed Paxton, Republican turnout in early voting dropped.” DMN //it proves that Republicans are not necessarily crazy//

And from last week, “Paxton and Cornyn race gets uglier and uglier.” DMN

My second argument goes beyond whether or not Trump is crazy or otherwise incompetent. I think that the billionaires behind Trump have a plan that largely disregards the question of winning elections. I think they intend to try to overthrow any election they don’t win, and Ken Paxton, famous for oceans of frivolous lawsuits, is just the kind of lawyer they need to help overthrow elections. His opponent, John Cornyn, may still believe in the Constitution.

My friend Arash called to talk about a mural unveiling for ICE victims and other civil rights issues. I wished we had more time to talk about civil rights and the current and next Trump wars, but it’s just a talk show and it’s just an hour. I was loaded up with recent articles on those subjects.

Civil Rights Being Decimated

“Thousands rallied in Montgomery for voting rights. ” Ap in dmn

“NAACP calls for boycott of Southern college sports programs over voting rights”  Courier Texas

“Texas is the death penalty capital and Tarrant is the capital of that. 92% of death penalty cases are against people of color. ” Jane.harper@dallasnews.com

“Texas executed a man with a tested IQ of 70. ” Jamie.landers@dallasnews.com

“Justice Dept. Accuses U.C.L.A. Medical School of Bias Against White and Asian Applicants.”  nyt

“Trump’s border wall is desecrating Native American site.” Ap in dmn

Trump’s Wars Worsen

New York Times ran a poll asking how many people support Trump’s war in Iran. 30% do, but it’s 70% for Republicans and 5% for Democrats.

“Israelis bomb Lebanon during truce.”  NYT

Trump says “It looks like I’ll be the one that does it,” about invading Cuba.  AP in dmn

And Everything Else

I had dozens of articles and opinions about this perilous economy and, especially, about artificial intelligence. But we get only an hour.

–Gene Lantz

We’re on KNON.org every Saturday at 9AM and they keep the recordings on for 2 weeks afterward. My podcasts are under “Workers Beat Extra” on Soundcloud and my personal web site is http://lilleskole.us.