Category: 2020 Election

Monday Wake Up Call – April 24, 2023

The Daily Escape:

Mountain Park in Globe, AZ  – April 2023 photo by Karen Coffelt

(Earth Day was yesterday. Wrongo was at the first Earth Day on April 22, 1970 in NYC. Then-mayor John Lindsay closed Fifth Avenue from 59th Street to 14th Street. Nearly one million people marched downtown. It was an upbeat and friendly crowd. In July of 1970, Nixon established the Environmental Protection Agency by executive order.)

Today let’s return to talking politics. Axios had an interesting chart from Gallup on the distribution of voters by party preference:

We spend our days listening to politicians who’s Parties, individually, now represent a minority of Americans. This trend means there are serious challenges ahead for our two traditional Parties. It also adds some context to our evenly split politics.

Here’s an analysis of the vote share of independents by Party in recent elections: (the numbers do not total to 100% because voters who chose “another” or didn’t vote aren’t shown)

Interestingly, the Democrats have lost 10 points of independent support from 2020 to 2022, but the GOP only gained 1%. At the time, the Associated Press reported:

“Republican House candidates nationwide won the support of 38% of independent voters in last month’s [2022] midterm elections, VoteCast showed. That’s far short of the 51% that Democrats scored with the same group in 2018…picking up 41 seats. The GOP’s lackluster showing among independents helps explain why Republicans flipped just nine seats…”

Going back to the trends in the first chart, Axios reports that Gallup analyst Jeff Jones says a big reason for this change is driven by the younger generation:

“It was never unusual for younger adults to have higher percentages of independents than older adults….What is unusual is that as Gen X and millennials get older, they are staying independent rather than picking a party, as older generations tended to do.”

So who are these independents? Krystal Ball explains in a YouTube video that most of these “independents” are younger voters, millennials and Gen-Z. They’ve also stayed more disillusioned than their elders.

This means that the nation is evenly split between those who think that one of our two political parties is telling the absolute truth, while the 49% majority basically don’t trust either to have their back.

The question with independents is whether they are truly a part of some mythical center or if they are a segment (half) of the population that isn’t politicized, meaning they don’t believe they have a personal stake in elections.

Or are independents simply that half of the US electorate that just doesn’t bother to vote?

The American political system is dysfunctional. That’s making people opt for being independent rather than Democrat or Republican. They see the choice between the Parties as choosing between the red shit sandwich and the blue shit sandwich.

Time to wake up America! Democracy is our country’s feedback mechanism, but just 46.8% of us voted in the 2022 mid-terms. So it’s clear our current brand of democracy isn’t working. More of us need to vote, and that means we have to help our Parties change. We don’t need a third Party; we need our two Parties to reflect what grassroots America needs. More about this tomorrow.

To help you wake up, and in honor of Earth Day, watch and listen to Neil Young perform “After the Gold Rush”, live at the Shoreline Amphitheater in 1993. He’s playing a pump organ, which generates sound as air flows past the vibrating reeds.  Also, he’s wearing Uggs:

Sample lyric:

Look at Mother Nature on the run In the twentieth century
Look at Mother Nature on the run In the twentieth century.

She’s still trying to outrun us 50 years later.

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My Way Or The Highway

The Daily Escape:

Azalea gardens at the Biltmore, Asheville NC – April 2023 photo by Sherry Maddock

We all know that the US is staring down a series of domestic threats to American democracy. Here’s a short list: Corruption on the Supreme Court, fundamental rights being lost via Supreme Court decisions, and voting rights being on the ballot in many states. Then there’s the question of whether any high level politician will ever be held to account for the Jan. 6, 2021 coup attempt.

These threats require that we convince every voter to turn out in 2024. Even so, surprisingly the presidential race in 2024 could be very close.

All of this could be undermined by the plans of the emerging political party called No Labels. They are gathering signatures to get on the presidential ballot in all 50 states in 2024, while recruiting both Democrats and Republicans to run as a bipartisan ticket. The WaPo reports that the group has already gained ballot access in Arizona, Colorado, Alaska and Oregon. Apparently, they are backed by shadowy donors who have provided them with $70 million in seed money.

Former Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman is associated with No Labels. Other names often mentioned as possible No Labels candidates are Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WVA), Kirsten Sinema (I-AZ), Susan Collins (R-ME), and former Republican Governor of Maryland, Larry Hogan.

Here we go again. Another centrist third party effort to create a “unity” ticket that supposedly appeals to those Americans who say they want to end the partisan bickering in Washington. This year, it’s No Labels who are trying to throw a big monkey wrench onto our Electoral College map. If they are successful, it could possibly send Trump back to another term in Washington.

All in the name of unity, of course.

Lieberman is acutely aware of the impact third-party bids can have on presidential elections. He ran as Gore’s VP candidate in 2000, when the Democratic campaign fell 537 Florida votes short of an Electoral College victory. That year, Ralph Nader, the Green Party nominee, won more than 97,000 Florida votes.

It might be useful for Lieberman et al to remember that in the 2016 presidential election, Jill Stein got 50,000 votes in Michigan, allowing Trump to win Michigan by 14,000 votes. Ross Perot in 1992 arguably shifted the race to Bill Clinton.

The No Labels website specifically describes itself as an “insurance policy against a Trump-Biden rematch.” From Larry Hogan:

“The vast majority of people in America are not happy with the direction of the country and they don’t want to see either Joe Biden or Donald Trump as president.”

Hasn’t Biden worked productively with Republicans to pass a broad array of bipartisan legislation? His main partisan domestic initiative was essentially written by Manchin, who now wants a larger voice with No Labels.

First, it seems bizarre for No Labels to equate Biden with Trump. Comparing the two when Trump is under indictment in NY and likely to be indicted in several more cases, after having incited an insurrection is crazy. What’s Biden’s crime? Not paying off porn stars?

Second, why is a group dedicated to promoting moderate, bipartisan legislation working against a president who has actually accomplished just that? Jonathan Chait in NY Magazine reports that No Labels’:

“…own polling suggests its candidacy would serve as a spoiler on behalf of Republicans. In December, it found an unnamed moderate third-party candidate would win just 20% of the vote, against 33% for Trump and 28% for Biden.”

This result seems completely logical given Biden’s greater reliance on moderate voters than Trump. But still they persist. For Wrongo, you only needed to say “Joe Lieberman” to convey that this organization is wrong-headed on its face. When politically marginal people like Lieberman and Manchin are interested in a new political organization, you know they’re looking for a way to insert themselves more deeply into our politics, despite how little actual support they have.

They’re willing to cause great harm for an outside shot at real power.

We need to understand that political centrism isn’t the halfway point between today’s median Democrat and today’s median Republican. Biden has governed basically as a 21st Century centrist; otherwise, the left of his Party wouldn’t be so frustrated with him. The No Label people need to realize that there’s already a perfectly good moderate Party in America, and it’s called the Democratic Party.

The No Label centrists seem to be living in some kind of dream world where the Electoral College isn’t closely divided and today’s political stakes aren’t monumental.

This is a vanity political project that could easily lead to a political disaster. Let’s hope it fizzles like most centrist third party bids have done in the past.

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Monday Wake Up Call – April 3, 2023

The Daily Escape:

Just when you thought it was only a meme: The beer is tasty – April 2023 iPhone photo by Wrongo. You may not know that there is a “Florida Man Birthday Challenge” web site. (Hat tip to Amy DeP-O). Wrongo is born in December. Of the many December Florida man entries, Wrongo’s favorite is: “Florida Man says aliens have landed, burns down house stocked with flamethrowers and ammo.”

It was a rental property…

We’ve been here in the land of the anti-woke for a few days. No one in our family openly talks politics, so  we just enjoy the fabulous food. But you’re aware that Trump was indicted by the NYC DA. You have probably heard that Trump said:

“Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg, who was handpicked and funded by George Soros, is a disgrace.”

That led to some research. But it’s no secret. The NYT reported that Soros has put money behind electing reform-minded prosecutors like Philadelphia’s Larry Krasner and Manhattan’s Alvin Bragg. But he doesn’t fund them directly. His foundation donates to organizations that do field work like Color for Change. This isn’t any different from the right-wing billionaires who support right-wing organizations, issues and candidates.

So, when critics of Alvin Bragg say that he is backed by Soros, it should be similar to when critics say Republican politicians are backed by the Koch Brothers or the late Sheldon Adelson.

But bringing up George Soros feels different. The reason for vilifying Soros is rarely spelled out. You get general descriptors, like he’s a “globalist.” Of course, Soros IS Jewish, and the charge that rich Jews try to control the world for their own mysterious and nefarious reasons is an old and dangerous trope on the right. But Sheldon Adelson, who backed many Right-wing Republicans, including Trump was also Jewish.

Some say that people who mention Soros are anti-Semitic, and some probably are. Yes, he’s indirectly funded Bragg, but is Bragg doing something that wouldn’t have happened anyway? How exactly is Soros pulling Bragg’s strings? And why is Soros in more control of politicians he donates to than are donors on the right?

There’s zero indication that Bragg is bucking popular opinion to do the bidding of a Jewish billionaire, which is something you can’t say about many, many NRA-backed politicians.

The thing that impresses Wrongo the most is that while George Soros isn’t small potatoes on the billionaire list, the right-wing thinks he’s able to pay off millions of people, start revolutions, and influence deep states in dozens of countries without going broke.

Virtually every Republican politician has stood up for Trump, saying he’s the victim of a political witch hunt. Ron Brownstein lays out the Republican’s dilemma:

“The dilemma for the Republican Party is that Donald Trump’s mounting legal troubles may be simultaneously strengthening him as a candidate for the…presidential nomination and weakening him as a potential general-election nominee.”

It’s going to get worse for the GOP, since it’s highly likely that this is only the beginning of Trump’s legal troubles. There are possible charges from Fulton County, Georgia’s District Attorney Fani Willis. She has been examining Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 election results in her state. There are also the twin federal probes led by Special Counsel Jack Smith into Trump’s mishandling of classified documents and his role in the Jan. 6 effort to block Congress’s certification of the 2020 presidential election.

So, while Trump may lock up the primaries without difficulty, the recent NPR/PBS Newshour/Marist survey shows that 61% of Americans—including 64% of independents and 70% of college-educated white adults—said they did not want him to be president again.

That result was similar to the latest Quinnipiac University national poll, which found that 60% of Americans do not support Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement.

The challenge for the GOP is that about 80% of Republicans said they consider themselves part of the MAGA movement, and about 75% say they want him back in the White House. That means he will be the nominee, but not the next president.

Brownstein quotes Bryan Bennett, director of polling and analytics for the Democratic polling consortium that conducts the Navigator surveys:

“For the GOP to bet that Trump could overcome swing-voter revulsion over his legal troubles and win a general election by mobilizing even more of his base voters….seems to me the highest risk proposition that I can imagine.”

Time to wake up America! There’s nothing to be gained by letting the media, the GOP or Trump spin you up with irrelevant issues. Soros is just another wealthy white guy who wants to see change he can believe in.

To help you wake up, watch and listen to Larkin Poe cover a Son House tune, “Preaching Blues”. Eddie House was a troubled man. He grappled for years with the seeming incompatibility between his growing love of the blues and his teenage desire to be a Baptist preacher:

Sample Lyric:

I’m gonna get me some religion
I’m gonna join the Baptist church
I’m gonna get me some religion
I’m gonna join the Baptist church
Gonna be a preacher
So I don’t have to work

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Monday Wake Up Call – March 27, 2023

The Daily Escape:

Snow Geese flying over Daffodil fields with Mt. Baker in background, WA – March 2023 photo by Erwin Buske Photography

Three House Republican committee chairs are indicating that the House may soon take up legislation to strip state and local prosecutors of the authority to prosecute former presidents. They’re saying that America needs federal legislation to prevent Trump from being indicted by a state.

Is the bill going to be called the “Ex-Presidents Are Above the Law” Act? Surely they mean to draft legislation to protect only Republican presidents and not the Democratic ones.

There are a least two states that have Trump in their sights. Georgia for attempted election fraud, and New York for falsifying business records to hide the hush money paid to Stormy Daniels. In addition, there are civil suits in NY over his business practices and a defamation suit arising from an allegation of rape by the writer E Jean Carroll.

You may have heard that these same Congress critters sent a letter to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg requiring Bragg’s appearance in front of their committees to give evidence about the NY DA’s ongoing investigation into Trump. When Bragg said of their demand:

“It is not appropriate for Congress to interfere with pending local investigations,….This unprecedented inquiry by federal elected officials into an ongoing matter serves only to hinder, disrupt and undermine the legitimate work of our dedicated prosecutors.”

The trio followed up with another letter to Bragg rejecting his arguments. They wrote:

“Your conclusory claim that our constitutional oversight responsibilities will interfere with law enforcement is misplaced and unconvincing.”

Because: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“the potential criminal indictment of a former President of the United States by an elected local prosecutor of the opposing political party (and who will face the prospect of re-election) implicates substantial federal interests”.

They meant the former president is facing re-election, not Bragg. They added:

“Therefore, the Committee on the Judiciary, as a part of its broad authority to develop criminal justice legislation, must now consider whether to draft legislation that would, if enacted, insulate current and former presidents from such improper state and local prosecutions…”

We all know that this is more performative grandstanding by House Republicans. Since the Senate has a Democratic majority and the White House is held by Biden, a bill shielding ex-presidents from prosecution will not be enacted into law. But the Republicans persist. On Sunday, Rep. James Comer (R- KY), chairman of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, insisted to CNN’s Jake Tapper that Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg is improperly conducting a federal investigation. From Aaron Rupar:

Comer has a BS in Agriculture, BTW. He soldiered on:

“We just want the government out of our elections….We believe the local DAs need to be focused on business crimes, on burglary, on theft …”

You have to be a moron to say you want the government out of our elections. States are in charge of their elections even in Comer’s Kentucky. And Trump wasn’t president when he allegedly orchestrated the payment of hush money to Stormy Daniels and then fraudulently altered his books to hide it.

Time to wake up America! There is no longer any reason to look for traditional Republicans inside of the GOP. And anyone who is attempting to strip state and local prosecutors of the authority needed to do their jobs just to protect their Party’s cult leader, well, that sounds like Fascism.

To help you wake up, watch and listen to Pink Martini play “¿Dónde estás, Yolanda?” live from the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall in Portland, Oregon on New Year’s Eve 2,005.

It is a fan favorite from their debut album, “Sympathique”, featuring vocalist China Forbes, and including Thomas Lauderdale on the piano, Gavin Bondy on trumpet, and featuring a trombone solo by Robert Taylor:

Where is Yolanda, and indeed, where are the traditional Republicans?

(This song is for friend of the blog Ashley G. who has some health issues and loves Pink Martini)

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Republican Purity: Who’s Good Enough For Them?

The Daily Escape:

Walker River, NV – February 2023 photo by TheOsideBish

According to the GOP, your organization has to toe the line or else you could be banished or investigated. CNBC is reporting that House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) are set to banish the US Chamber of Commerce from Capitol Hill for endorsing Democrats in some 2020 and 2022 House races.

CNBC quotes Mark Bednar, a spokesman for McCarthy:

“The priorities of the US Chamber of Commerce have not aligned with the priorities of House Republicans or the interests of their own members, and they should not expect a meeting with Speaker McCarthy as long as that’s the case…”

CNBC says Scalise also won’t meet with them either, quoting his spokeswoman Lauren Fine: (brackets by Wrongo)

“[the Chamber headquarters in] Washington has radically shifted away from the pro-business philosophy of most local Chambers across America….unless the Chamber gets back to their traditional pro-business roots, they should not expect to have any engagement with Majority Leader Scalise’s office.”

This all started in 2020, when the Chamber endorsed 23 House Democrats in swing districts, a sharp break from the past practice of endorsing a nearly exclusive slate of Republicans, with one or two Democrats thrown on the list for a patina of bipartisan perception. And Republicans failed to regain the majority. The Chamber then reportedly endorsed 23 House Republican candidates and just four Democrats during the 2022 election. But that hasn’t made them “pure” enough for Kevin McCarthy, despite the Chamber providing $3 million to Mehmet Oz in his losing effort for a Senate seat in Pennsylvania.

Wrongo met often with the US Chamber of Commerce during his days at the big bank. They are far from being anti-GOP. On Monday, Tim Doyle, a spokesman for the Chamber, told CNBC:

“The Chamber’s priorities include lower taxes, reduced spending, fighting over regulation and numerous other issues, and we are aligned with House Republicans on many of the issues that are important to American businesses of all sizes,”

That sounds to Wrongo like it’s aligned with the Republicans. Doyle did go on to say:

“We do disagree with those who believe the Chamber should become a single-party partisan organization….”

The Intercept is reporting that the new House Republican majority wants to investigate the Chamber over its commitment to ESG regulations. ESG stands for environmental, social, and governance, key criteria that can impact company market valuations and its behavior. But ESG has become a red line for Conservatives, who argue that companies that follow it are failing to live up to their fiduciary duty to maximize profits for investors.

Apparently, Republicans in the House are also questioning the Chamber’s own conduct, including reportedly allowing former Chamber CEO Thomas Donohue to use the organization’s corporate jet for personal trips.

Look, the Chamber can be pretty terrible. They’re planning to sue the Securities and Exchange Commission if it goes forward with a climate change-related disclosure rule. But forcing them to only give money to Republicans is a new low, even for these nihilists.

Separately, Florida’s Governor DeSantis is set to take over Disney’s special Reedy Creek tax district in order to force the company to cough up $1 billion. Wrongo reported on DeSantis’ fight with Disney in April 2022 here and here. Targeting Disney became a thing after the company spoke out about Florida’s “don’t say gay” law.

Back in April, DeSantis pushed lawmakers to dissolve the Reedy Creek Improvement District, which for 55 years effectively gave Disney control of the land around its Florida properties. Republicans complied, and the district was scheduled to sunset on June 1, 2023.

But on Monday, Republican lawmakers unveiled a bill to turn over control of Disney’s special taxing district to a five-member board to be chosen by DeSantis. The proposal also comes with a rebrand; Reedy Creek would become the “Central Florida Tourism Oversight District.”

This gives DeSantis a new form of control over Disney, the state’s largest employer. And the opportunity for extorting collecting an additional $1 billion from a company that is on the DeSantis enemies list (which will ultimately be paid by the park’s patrons) is totally on brand for DeSantis.

Anyone else getting really tired of Republicans telling us we can’t say certain words, we can’t read certain books, we can’t teach certain things, we can’t talk about certain history, or we can’t donate to a few Democrats?

What’s Conservative about any of that?

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There Are No Partisan Facts

The Daily Escape:

Roaring Mountain, Yellowstone NP – January 2023 photo via Yellowstone NP. The steam vents are called fumaroles. With a limited water supply, the water in steam vents turns to steam and makes noise before reaching the surface.

Today let’s delve into the right-wing mind. Sadly we can’t go in too deep, because you know. Wrongo will try to connect the dots on a few ideas that three interesting people wrote about last week, First, the headline in Phillip Bump’s piece in the WaPo:

“There’s actually only one conspiracy theory: Democrats are evil.”

He’s writing about all of the online conspiracy theories surrounding the hammer attack on Paul Pelosi, and then generalizes from the specific:

“Last year, Pew Research Center found that 1 in 8 Republicans (12.5%) liked it a lot when their leaders called Democratic leaders “evil.” Another 16% said they liked it a little.”

So, 28.5% of Republicans think Dems are mostly evil. Bump offers the long laundry list of Democrat conspiracies propounded by Republicans.

  • For example, the 2020 stolen election shows that Democrats are dishonest and will do anything to retain power.
  • The “deep state” is out to get Trump and the Republicans. This leads to demonizing the FBI and CIA as liberals out to get Trump. This year, we can add the National Archives who just wanted their secret documents back.
  • These conspiracies have led the new Republican House majority to create a committee to look at weaponization of the FBI, DOJ and other agencies against Republicans.

Next, let’s look at recent polling on the economy. Matt Yglesias provides two charts that show the US partisan divide on the economy. First is how Democrats view their family’s economic situation over the past 8 years:

On Election Day (ED) 2016, 50% of Democrats said their family’s situation was about the same. On ED 2020, 50% said it was the same. After two years under Biden, it was 52%, so no change. On ED in 2016, about 32% of Dems said their financial situation had gotten better. That fell to about 10% by ED 2020 and is now about 23%.

Contrast that with what Republicans think now and what they thought on Election Day 2016:

From ED in 2016 when Trump won the White House until ED 2020 when he lost it, the percentage of Republicans who thought their financial situation was about the same went from 45% in 2016 to 55% on ED 2020, meaning that they were pretty satisfied with the state of the overall economy. But with Biden, that dropped precipitously to 21% in just two years.

Republicans who thought their personal financial situation had gotten worse stood at 47% in 2016, and just 10% in 2020. But in January of 2023, after two years of Biden, 74% say their financial situation has gotten worse!

But what really happened with the economy? Paul Krugman has thoughts about what we learn from watching only cable news: (brackets by Wrongo)

“Would you know that real gross domestic product has risen 6.7% under President Biden, that America gained 4.5 million jobs in 2022 and that inflation over the past six months, which was indeed very high last winter, was [growing at] less than 2% at an annual rate?”

How does Krugman explain the disconnect between actual economic data and perceptions? More:

“Partisanship is clearly part of the story….. 90% of Republicans said the national economy was poor. A longer view, from the Michigan Survey of Consumers, finds Republicans rating the current economy worse than they did in June 1980, when unemployment was above 7% percent and inflation was 14%.”

Welcome to the United States of Cognitive Dissonance.

There always has been cognitive dissonance in the world. It’s part of being human. But today, people sincerely love to complain and persist in wanting to see the bad side of everything. Egg prices are up? This economy sucks. All that Americans seem to be capable of seeing is the downside.

The country Wrongo grew up in is still here, but its culture has changed. As a member of the Silent Generation, Wrongo and most others wouldn’t have bet against the USA, or its people. But today, we can’t be certain. This dumbing down of American citizens has happened in rapid and spectacular fashion, and the fact-free perception divide is weakening our institutions. This will be extraordinarily difficult to bridge.

Wrongo has no silver bullet for fixing this, but a very basic way to start is to read up on the big problems. Speak up whenever you hear bullshit spewing. That takes courage, but it can’t go uncontested.

Attend your town meetings. Join groups that sponsor educational exchanges on issues. And vote. Vote in every election no matter how trivial.

Wrongo lives in a semi-rural town. When he overhears political talk, it can be staggering to learn what some otherwise smart people believe.

We don’t have to convert all of them, maybe getting 10% to land on the side of the actual data would create a permanent change in our politics.

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The Criminal Referrals

The Daily Escape:

Gateway Crossing Bridge, Houlton, ME – December 2022 photo by Christopher Mills Photography

The Jan. 6 Select Committee has completed its job. On Monday it approved a criminal referral for Trump, a former President, and a current Presidential candidate, on a series of charges that include insurrection and conspiring to defraud the US. Marcy Wheeler summarizes the findings of the Committee perfectly:

“Trump corruptly tried to prevent Congress to certify the electoral victory of Trump’s opponent. He did so by committing other crimes. He did so by mobilizing a violent mob. He did so using fraudulent documents. And most importantly, he did so for personal benefit.”

The Committee will publish their final report next week. They will turn over the unredacted interview material to the Department of Justice (DOJ) and its Special Counsel, Jack Smith. According to Punchbowl, the Committee has already begun cooperating with Smith, who apparently sent the Committee a letter on Dec. 5 requesting all of the panel’s materials from the 18-month probe.

Sadly, it seems that their report ignores the policing failures that occurred both before and on Jan. 6.  One of the objectives of the Select Committee was to make recommendations about how the US Capitol could avoid a similar attack in the future. But it doesn’t seem that subject has been properly addressed.

While Wrongo believes that the investigation into Jan. 6 was critical and that it may eventually result in the DOJ indicting Trump at some point, conspiracy is a very high bar to prove against a common thief, much less against a former president who is used to communicating like a mob boss.

As Dan Pfeiffer says:

“…we will all wake up and go about our business. Donald Trump will continue to be the frontrunner for the GOP nomination and a legitimate contender to be the next President of the United States. The vast majority of Republicans will continue to stand with Trump — and most will do so enthusiastically.”

Before issuing any indictment, DOJ  prosecutors must decide if there is a case to be made that includes sufficient evidence to convict the former President beyond a reasonable doubt.

And it could take the DOJ a year or more to get a grand jury to indict Trump. While the DOJ has had grand juries up and running and considering evidence about Jan. 6 for a very long time, building such a complex case may take long enough that by the time they’re ready to bring a case, it will be near the time of the GOP primaries.

The Mar-a-Lago secret documents case is an easier one to make. We know that an FBI search of the former President’s Mar-a-Lago home in Florida found more than 300 classified documents.

Trump’s removal of official government records from an office of the US is one possible charge. A second separately chargeable offense is theft of government records. Those two crimes carry maximum three-year and 10-year sentences respectively.

Then there’s the Espionage Act, which also carries a sentence of 10 years in prison. We know that before January 20, 2021, the Acting Archivist of the US asked for those records to be returned, and Trump’s White House Counsel Pat Cipollone agreed that Trump needed to return them before his term ended.

After Trump left DC with the documents, a grand jury subpoena demanded that all of them be returned to a courthouse located in Washington, DC.

These three crimes are relatively straightforward to prove. Garland and his team might decide that charging them alone suffices, without adding a fourth offense of obstructing a pending federal criminal investigation, into improperly taking and retaining the stolen documents.

Obstruction carries a 20-year maximum sentence — double the penalty for violating the Espionage Act. That shows how seriously that charge is considered under the law.

We know that Trump and his attorneys stonewalled the government for more than a year, refusing to return the 13 boxes of classified documents that the FBI’s August 8, 2022 search recovered. Most of this year has been an effort by Trump to delay the FBI and the DOJ from inventorying all of the classified documents that Trump took to Florida.

The DOJ has a strong case against Trump on the charges described above. They are easier to prove, and existing laws are very clear what the penalties are when it comes to the theft of classified documents. And there’s plenty of legal precedent for putting people who steal US government secrets in jail for a long time. If we want Trump taken off the battlefield before 2024, the theft of classified documents case is the best shot.

Let’s close with “Christmas Must Be Tonight“, a 1975 tune written by Robbie Robertson. It was released on the Band’s 1977 album “Islands”. This version is from that album. The tune appeared in the movie “Scrooged” in 1988. There is Rick Danko’s singing along with Robbie Robertson’s lyrics. It doesn’t get any better than this:

Chorus:

How a little baby boy bring the people so much joy
Son of a carpenter, Mary carried the light
This must be Christmas, must be tonight

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Trump’s “Terminate The Constitution” Rant

The Daily Escape:

Juniper and snow, near Colorado Springs, CO – December 2022 photo by John Susan Hoffman

(Good luck to Sen. Ralph Warnock in today’s Georgia run-off election for a full term in the US Senate)

In the past two weeks, Trump has pledged solidarity with the January 6 rioters, dined with Holocaust-denying fans of Adolf Hitler, and called for the termination of the Constitution. On his failing Truth Social clone of Twitter, he yelled:

 “…the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution” in order to “declare the RIGHTFUL WINNER” from 2020 or “have a NEW ELECTION”

As Mike Pence’s former chief of staff, Marc Short said on Meet the Press, Trump’s attack on the Constitution was consistent with:

“…what he asked the vice president to do two years ago, when rioters were attacking the Capitol and he asked the vice president to overturn the election results.”

Let’s underline this: The likely Republican nominee for president in 2024 called for the “termination of the Constitution”,  not to “suspend” the Constitution as several pundits have mistakenly said. And very few in the GOP bothered to call him out on it. As Dennis Aftergut said in the Bulwark:

“Trump writing that we should cancel the Constitution ranks right up alongside John Tyler’s support of the Confederacy as among the most shameful acts by a former president in our nation’s history.”

There’s a method to Trump’s madness. Let’s go back to what he said to Lesley Stahl prior to their “60 Minutes” interview in 2018. From CNBC: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“Stahl said she and her boss met with Trump at his office in Trump Tower in Manhattan…in advance of a recorded sit-down interview for ‘60 Minutes’. At one point, he started to attack the press, Stahl said. There were no cameras in there. I said, ‘You know, this is getting tired. Why are you doing it over and over?….And he said: ‘You know why I do it? I do it to discredit you all and demean you all so that when you write negative stories about me no one will believe you.’”

And to a degree that worked. Trump has now moved on to discrediting the Constitution and the judiciary. While some Trump-appointed judges have done a few helpful things for him, they can’t deliver what Trump needs most: Immunity from prosecution.

He needs to be reelected in order to do that for himself.

Since 2021, the DOJ, the Georgia courts, and the New York courts have been grinding away at the January 6 insurrection, the theft and retention of national security documents at Mar-a-Lago, and the NY tax case. All have become more worrying for Trump.

He’s lost more than once in the US Supreme Court, in the 11th Circuit, and in courts in Georgia and NY. Regardless of whether it’s rulings on motions related to executive privilege, challenges to warrants and subpoenas, or actual verdicts against the Oathkeepers for seditious conspiracy, the legal wagons appear to be circling in more closely around him.

Trump knows that. So he’s returning to what has worked for him before: Demonizing his enemies.

Instead of the media, this time he’s attempting to demonize our Constitutional order. If he’s successful at doing that before we see any indictments, verdicts, and sentences against his corporation, or himself, he thinks he can survive politically with his base. By going for the Constitution, he’s trying to discredit the judicial system so that the GOP won’t turn against him if/when he’s held accountable.

Targeting the Constitution has downsides – the authority of any judge Trump appears before flows from that Constitution, and unlike the media, judges are backed by the DOJ and the FBI.

Imagine if you’re the DOJ’s Special Counsel Jack Smith, and the biggest target of your career just openly called for the termination of the Constitution. You’re probably thinking that you have a decent shot at convicting Trump of trying  to overthrow the Constitution back on Jan. 6.

Some GOP lawmakers who were asked on the Sunday political shows about Trump’s rant said they disagreed. However, most wouldn’t say they’d oppose Trump if he becomes the GOP’s 2024 presidential nominee. They’re saying as little as possible because they believe a large percentage of the Republican base agrees with him.

Trump’s best (his only?) defense is retaking the presidency. That is why we shouldn’t minimize his call to “terminate the Constitution”.

We need to keep pressure on Republican politicians to either disown Trump or embrace him. We should be asking Republican Senators and House Representatives:

“Trump took an oath to support and defend the Constitution, then he said we should abolish it. You also took that same oath. Does your oath require you to defend it against him?”

Mention the oath. In every question.

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Preventing Stolen Elections

The Daily Escape:

Sunset, Heceta Beach, OR – September 2020 photo by Jack Arnold Photography

From the NYT:

“Activists driven by false theories about election fraud are working to toss out tens of thousands of voter registrations and ballots in battleground states, part of a loosely coordinated campaign that is sowing distrust and threatening further turmoil as election officials prepare for the November midterms.”

Government databases being what they are, voter rolls do contain errors, usually because voters have died or moved without updating their registrations. States typically rely on systematic processes as required by their laws to update or purge voter rolls.

Now, outside partisan Republican groups are attempting to use privately generated lists to “help” clean up the information. The Conservative Partnership Institute, (CPI) which has Mark Meadows as a senior partner, has distributed a playbook that instructs local groups on how to vet voter rolls.

CPI and other groups have challenged at least 65,000 voter registrations across eight counties in Georgia. In Michigan, another group challenged 22,000 ballots from people who had requested absentee ballots for the state’s August primary. And in Texas, residents sent affidavits challenging the eligibility of more than 6,000 voters in Harris County, the state’s largest county, which is home to Houston.

These are challenges by Republicans who are targeting Democratic cities and counties in battleground states. It takes time for local election officials to review each challenge, and in some cases, the challengers are angry and impatient.

What would bring most of this to a halt, is for cities and counties to impose a hefty filing fee that would be refundable in proportion to the number of valid challenges. Checking to see if a challenge is valid or not takes time and effort. States shouldn’t allow partisans to gum up the work of local election officials for free. If there’s no penalty for throwing spaghetti at a wall to see what sticks, everybody will toss some.

In a more positive note about protecting our democratic process, it appears a reform of the Electoral Count Act of 1887 will pass Congress later this year. Abuse of the vague language in that Act led Trump and his co-conspirators to try to overturn the 2020 presidential election on Jan. 6, 2021.

Since Jan. 6, we’ve seen an organized effort by Republicans in many states to fill key, lower profile election jobs with people who will only certify elections that Republicans win. To prevent that from happening again, both Houses have come up with legislation to reform the Act.

In a move that most likely guarantees passage of an electoral reform bill this year, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) announced support for the Electoral Count Reform and Presidential Transition Improvement Act of 2022.

Eleven Senate Republicans have already announced they are co-sponsoring it, more than enough for it to avoid filibuster and pass. The Senate Rules Committee on Tuesday voted 14-1 to advance the bill, with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Asshole) being the only committee member to object.

Last week, the House passed its version of Election Reform, with the support of nine Republicans. It’s similar, and both bills make it clear that the vice president’s role in counting Electoral votes at the joint session of Congress is purely ministerial.

That by itself would have saved a lot of bloodshed at the US Capitol on Jan. 6.

The Senate bill ensures that Electoral votes counted by Congress accurately reflect the results of each state’s popular vote for president, something the House bill also does. It also provides clearer guidelines for when eligible candidates for president and vice president can receive federal resources to support their transition to power, something that Trump vindictively stalled after the 2020 election.

It would also substantially increase the threshold for Congress to consider an objection to the Electoral votes of individual states, requiring that at least one-fifth (20%) of each Chamber sign on to such challenges. Currently, that requires just one Senator and one House member. From Sen. Amy Klobuchar, (D-MN):

“Right now, just two people out of 535 members can object and slow down and gum up the counting.”

So it sets a much higher bar.

This is good news for America. One, it helps ensure we continue to have peaceful transfers of power between presidential administrations. And two, we’re seeing bipartisanship around a key Constitutional issue.

It’s clear that these bills must be negotiated into a single bill that is approved before January when there’s a decent chance that Republicans will get control of the House.

Most pundits think it will come to a vote after the November mid-terms. Now we have to hope McConnell doesn’t change his mind.

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Can We Become A Representative Democracy Again?

The Daily Escape:

Toroweap Point, North Rim, Grand Canyon NP, AZ – August 2022 photo by Andrei Stoica

Our democracy is teetering. Minority states representing a fraction of the whole population of the country, have an outsized representation in the Electoral College and in the Senate. This has helped ignite an acute threat to American democracy that’s based in Red State America. The NYT’s David Leonhardt quotes Harvard’s Steven Levitsky:

“We are far and away the most countermajoritarian democracy in the world,”

One reason is that the more populous states over the past century have grown much larger than the small states. That means the bigger state residents now hold (relatively) less political power in the Senate and the Electoral College than they did in the 1900s.

This was something that the founders understood and agreed on. At the time, there was an alternative discussion about maintaining proportional representation in the House. In the first US Congress, (1789-1791), James Madison had proposed 12 potential Constitutional amendments. We all know that ten amendments were quickly ratified as the Bill of Rights. Another amendment was ratified in 1992 as the 27th Amendment which prohibits salary increases for House and Senate members to take effect before the next election.

The only one of the 12 amendments passed by Congress that wasn’t ratified is the Congressional Apportionment Amendment (CAA). The CAA was designed to let the number of seats in the House grow to meet future population growth.

A majority of the (then) states ratified the CAA. But by the end of 1791, it was one state short of adoption. No other state has ratified this potential amendment since 1792. Here’s the text of the proposed CAA:

“After the first enumeration required by the first article of the Constitution, there shall be one Representative for every thirty thousand, until the number shall amount to one hundred, after which the proportion shall be so regulated by Congress, that there shall be not less than one hundred Representatives, nor less than one Representative for every forty thousand persons, until the number of Representatives shall amount to two hundred, after which the proportion shall be so regulated by Congress, that there shall not be less than two hundred Representatives, nor more than one Representative for every fifty thousand persons.”

The CAA lays out a mathematical formula for determining the number of seats in the House of Representatives. Initially, it would have required one representative for every 30,000 constituents, with that number eventually climbing to one representative for every 50,000 constituents.

But the amendment wasn’t added to the Constitution. Today, Congress controls the size of the House of Representatives. They had regularly increased the size of the House to account for population growth until 1911, when it fixed the number of voting House members at 435. Today, that’s about 761,000 Americans per House seat. Miles away from 50,000.

Delaware leads in the malapportionment with 990,000 people per representative, about 250,000 more than the average state. Rhode Island has the most democratic apportionment with 548,000 people per representative. Both are small, Blue states.

The small Red state Wyoming has 578k/representative. All of the big states are higher than the average: NY has 777k, and CA has 761k, while Florida has 770k and Texas has 768k.

This also impacts the distribution of Electoral College votes, which equal the apportionment of House seats. As a result, the Electoral College is also becoming less representative. David Leonhardt points out:

“Before 2000, only three candidates won the presidency while losing the popular vote (John Quincy Adams, Rutherford Hayes, and Benjamin Harrison), and each served only a single term.”

But two of the past four presidents (Trump and GW Bush in his first term) have become president despite losing the popular vote. Small states represent a fraction of the whole population of the country yet, absent something like the CAA, have an outsized representation in both the Senate and the Electoral College.

This was on purpose. But when the filibuster was added in the Senate’s rules, it changed everything. The filibuster has been part of the Senate in many forms, but in 1975, the Senate revised its cloture rule so that three-fifths of Senators (60 votes out of 100) could limit debate.

With the Senate roughly equally divided, each Party has about 50 votes it can count on, but it needs 60 to pass most legislation. This means that the small states have more power in the Senate than they had before.

Using the 2010 US Census as an example, the US population was 308.7 million. If the CAA was in effect, the number of representatives in the House would be more than 6,000. That’s surely unwieldy, but is there a number of House seats between 435 and 6000 that would be more representative?

Our form of proportional representation needs an overhaul. Some changes to consider:

  • Better proportional representation in the House (via the CAA?) to help make the Electoral College more representative than currently
  • A version of ranked choice voting for all state-wide races
  • Overturning Citizens United
  • Ending gerrymandering by using independent commissions to establish district lines

Since only a few hundred people currently control the democratic direction of our country, can these ever be addressed?

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