Banana Republicanism – Page 22

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – September 11, 2022

It’s 21 years since the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. As Michael de Adder says:

Twenty one years on, America is more at war with itself than with any foreign terrorists, despite having troops deployed in 80 countries. Our society and our democracy are threatened from within in a way that Osama bin Laden could never have managed. And where are we today? Cartoonist Mike Luckovich has a thought:

If ever so briefly after that fateful day. Today we face threats that might end our democracy:

We’ve nearly lost our social cohesion
We aren’t dealing with income inequality
We’re seeing racism grow
We see clear threats to the right to vote, or whether our votes will even count if we cast them

In these 21 years, Republicans have moved from being the Party of national security to the Party of grievance and anger. As Elliot Ackerman wrote last year in Foreign Affairs:

“From Caesar’s Rome to Napoleon’s France, history shows that when a republic couples a large standing military with dysfunctional domestic politics, democracy doesn’t last long. The US today meets both conditions.”

MAGA asks the wrong question:

When you have no policies, this is what you get:

Let’s close today with a song by Mary Chapin Carpenter that she wrote back on the first anniversary of 9/11. Carpenter was inspired by an interview with Jim Horch, an ironworker who was among the early responders at the WTC site. Here’s part of what Horch said:

“My responsibility at the site was to try to remove big pieces of steel. The building fell so hard there wasn’t even concrete. It was dust….I started to feel the presence of spirits…not very long after I was there. The energy that was there was absolutely incredible and…it was more than just the people that I was working with…it was energy left behind….One day when I was working, I felt this energy and it felt lost and it wanted to go home but it didn’t know how to go home and it came to me to go to Grand Central Station. When I got off the subway, I walked into the Great Room. Into where the constellation is in the ceiling. And I walked around the perimeter and…out of the building. I didn’t feel the energy anymore. I could feel it leave.”

And here’s Carpenter’s “Grand Central Station”:

While Wrongo Was Away

The Daily Escape:

Morning storm, Grays Beach, Cape Cod, MA – August 2022 photo by David J. Long

It’s good to be back. Did Wrongo miss anything besides the fraught decision by a Trump-appointed judge about the FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago (MAL)? Or, the contrasting apocalyptic speeches by Biden and Trump?

First, with the end of summer in sight, a few words about what Wrongo did on his vacation. We attended a Judy Collins concert at Tanglewood, MA. At 83, her voice remains remarkable. She opened with “Both Sides Now” and although Joni Mitchell owns the song’s copyright, Judy Collins owns the song. Collins performed songs by many other artists and led the crowd in several folk-style sing alongs. It was a very worthwhile evening.

Let’s turn to the two big news items that occurred over the Labor Day break.

First, the competing views of America by President Biden and the former president. Last Thursday, Biden gave a speech identifying Trump and MAGA Republicans as a threat to democracy. Then on Saturday, Trump gave a speech in Pennsylvania that proved Biden’s point.

Trump reprised his “Pocahontas” attack on Elizabeth Warren. He claimed that the FBI planted evidence at MAL. He called for the death penalty for drug dealers, and a ban on electric vehicles. Trump took on the FBI and DOJ:

“The FBI and the Justice Department have become vicious monsters, controlled by radical left scoundrels, lawyers and the media, who tell them what to do.”

David Frum in The Atlantic:

“For the 2022 election cycle, smart Republicans had a clear and simple plan: Don’t let the election be about Trump. Make it about gas prices, or crime, or the border, or race, or sex education, or anything—anything but Trump….Republicans had good reason to dread the havoc he’d create if he joined the fight in 2022.”

Now, Biden’s attacks have pushed Trump over the edge — exactly where Democrats want him in the run-up to the midterms. More from Frum:

“Biden dangled the bait. Trump took it—and put his whole party on the hook with him. Republican leaders are left with little choice but to pretend to like it.”

Sounds hopeful to Wrongo.

Second, Monday brought the order by federal judge Aileen Cannon approving Trump’s request to appoint a special master to review the documents seized by the FBI from MAL. This stops at least temporarily, federal prosecutors from using those documents in their investigation into obstruction and mishandling of government secrets by Trump.

From a political viewpoint, while her incorrect reading of the facts and the law may slow the investigation, the DOJ was never going to indict Trump before the midterms. They’re saying they are still at the early stages of the investigation.

The judge’s decision is wrong, because stolen defense secrets aren’t privileged; they are the evidence that Trump committed a crime.

It seems clear that the DOJ hasn’t decided whether to appeal her decision to the 11^th Circuit, or to play out the special master fight. Of course, it could start by complying with the order and then appeal once the judge has: a) selected a special master, and b) provided instructions on the scope and duration of effort by the special master.

The DOJ’s delay may be caused by the fact that after an appeal to the 11^th Circuit, any further appeal is first heard by a single Supreme Court Justice before it goes on to an expanded Supreme Court hearing. In this case, that initial hearing would be before Justice Clarence Thomas, who would likely side with Trump.

Like in Biden’s attack on democracy strategy, Trump’s theft of government secrets will remain a front page story throughout the mid-terms, and regardless of what happens afterwards, all the way to the 2024 presidential election.

The end game politically is to persuade the few persuadables on the Right, along with the majority of Independents to agree with Biden: That we’re in a “war” about the future of our democracy. The threat from one side of our political spectrum is grave. And it’s Biden’s obligation to do whatever he can to pull people away from the brink. On Friday, Biden said to Peter Doocy on FOX:

“I don’t consider Trump supporters a threat to the country. I do think anyone who calls for the use of violence, refuses to acknowledge an election….changing the way you count votes, that is a threat to democracy.”

That clarifies a message that could reach a few Republicans. They and most Independents should then vote with the Dems in November. The Dems now need to carry that message to its logical conclusion.

These can be good developments for Democrats. Before the Dobbs decision and the raid on MAL, Republicans had convinced Americans that the greatest threat to democracy was high gasoline prices.

Now Dems should be going for a win.

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – August 28, 2022

A thought experiment about Trump’s collection of classified documents. Forget for a minute that we’re talking about Trump.

What does the US government (USG) do if it finds out a former employee took home dozens of boxes of sensitive/classified government information without authority? And then the USG finds out that the documents the former employee had taken included information on some of its foreign operations. And that the employee kept them in an unlocked closet for eighteen months?

The USG would assume that every one of those operations had been compromised, because it’s totally wrong to assume otherwise. So, the USG would move to close the affected operations down. It would pull its people and invent a cover story that the other side might buy as plausible. It would attempt to insulate its foreign operatives.

The agencies involved (CIA, DIA, AID, State Department, FBI) would lose some credibility for a blown operation, along with the budget for those operations. It would need to find the money to wind up and cover them up. They would have to lay the groundwork for replacement operations along with new budgets. That would take time. They would have to repair the damage to their networks: The foreign governments and recruited private actors, all because some shit for brains former USG employee stole classified records.

How do we estimate the costs Trump has imposed on this country, just from the activities implicated in his set of stolen secret documents? And what was his purpose? On to cartoons.

He can’t just take his sharpie and write DECLASSIFIED on it:

What the forgiveness means in real life:

Opinions differ about the value of the bailout:

How is it possible to get everything wrong?

Midterm voters now cite “threats to democracy” as their top issue:

Louisiana Denies Flood Control Funding to New Orleans

The Daily Escape:

Sunset, North Plains, OR – August 2022 photo by David Leahy Photography

Wrongo and Ms. Right are streaming “5 Days at Memorial” a dramatization of the tragedy at a downtown New Orleans hospital after Hurricane Katrina. It’s adapted from the 2013 book “Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital” by Sheri Fink. Ms. Right highly recommends the book.

It is difficult to watch something when you already know the outcome is a terrible loss of life. Hurricane Katrina happened in 2005, some 17 years ago. When we visited New Orleans three years ago, damage was still visible in parts of the city.

So imagine Wrongo’s surprise to read that the state of Louisiana is withholding nearly $40 million in funding for flood control in New Orleans: (brackets by Wrongo)

“[Louisiana] Attorney General Jeff Landry successfully pushed [the State Bond Commission] commissioners to withhold the funds as punishment, after the New Orleans City Council passed a resolution asking law enforcement officers not to enforce Louisiana’s near-total abortion ban…”

Yesterday, Wrongo quoted Dan Pfeiffer who said: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“Democratic efforts to turn this midterm from a progress report on Democratic governance into a referendum on GOP extremism failed to connect until the Dobbs decision. That was when Republican extremism went from an abstract argument to lived reality.”

The Dem’s performance in Tuesday’s primaries showed that Pfeiffer may be right, as many Democrats outperformed in swing districts. And what’s happening in New Orleans is another example of Republican extremism around the Dobbs decision. From Salon:

“The New Orleans City Council on July 7 passed a resolution in which local policymakers proclaimed their support for reproductive healthcare access and asked police, sheriff’s deputies, and prosecutors not to… enforce Louisiana’s draconian prohibition on abortion…”

That led to the state’s Bond Commission voting 7-6 to defer a motion to approve flood prevention funding until next month. CNN reported that this was the second time in two months that the panel rejected financing for a $39 million project that is meant to pay for drainage pumps critical to protecting New Orleans from flooding.

The Louisiana AG Landry sent a letter urging the bond commission to:

“…defer any applications for the City of New Orleans, Orleans Parish, and any local governmental entity or political subdivision under its purview….Any other funding that will directly benefit the City of New Orleans…should also be paused until such time as the council, mayor, chief of police, sheriff, and district attorney have met with and affirmed that they will comply with and enforce the laws of this state and cooperate with any state officials who may be called upon to enforce them.”

New Orleans mayor, LaToya Cantrell told CNN that she is unwilling to budge on abortion and criticized Landry and other Republican members of the bond commission for endangering public health by holding flood mitigation funding hostage:

“We cannot afford to put politics over the rights of people, and particularly safeguarding people from hurricanes and other disasters, because we are on the front lines of climate change…”

Republicans used to favor local control. They always say federal policies shouldn’t apply unless the states agree. Now they’ll only say that if it’s politically convenient. This is political blackmail, not simply politics.

The sad part is how short sighted it is. This Landry guy and his Republican supporters who live outside of New Orleans think this can’t harm them. But, how long has it taken Louisiana to recoup all of its losses from Katrina?

And this bad behavior is becoming normalized. It happened in Texas’ Harris County when Houston was denied funds related to 2017’s Hurricane Harvey until recently. In Houston, the funds were not denied due to the abortion issue, but for other political reasons (including voting rights). Texas’s decision matrix favored more sparsely populated areas and areas with higher property values, which worked against Houston and Harris County, Harris County is a Democratic stronghold in a very Red State.

This kind of blackmail won’t go away unless fair-minded people win these important state offices, like attorney general and secretary of state.

Democrats need to hold the US House and Senate in November and retake the Presidency in 2024. If not, we will have failed to meet the moment. The defense of our previous political wins must be a constant goal in the game.

The 2022 and 2024 elections are America’s political endgame. And right now, it’s unclear how it’s going to play out.

Monday Wake Up Call – August 22, 2022

The Daily Escape:

A new day at Jockey’s Ridge SP, Nags Head, NC – August 2022, photo by Crystal Calla Photography.

There’s trouble in the Republican Party. They’ve believed the pundits who said that the GOP had a lock on the November mid-terms, but with terrible Senate candidates, along with the Dobbs decision and Biden’s legislative comeback, things are getting very tight. From the WaPo: (brackets by Wrongo)

“Republican Senate hopefuls are getting crushed on airwaves across the country while their national campaign fund is pulling ads and running low on cash….In a highly unusual move, the National Republican Senatorial Committee [NRSC] this week canceled bookings worth about $10 million, including in the critical states of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Arizona.”

Sounds serious. The NRSC has had a record fundraising year, bringing in $173 million so far this election cycle. But they’ve burned through much of it. The NRSC’s cash on hand was just $28.4 million at the end of June.

Republican spending has been augmented by Mitch McConnell’s super PAC, which announced a $28 million rescue effort in Ohio, where Republican candidate JD Vance has raised only $1 million in the second quarter and has spent less than $400,000 on ads.

McConnell’s super PAC also moved up by three weeks its spending in Pennsylvania, adding another $9.5 million, for a total of $34 million. The Democratic Senate candidate John Fetterman, is building a lead over the Republican candidate, Mehmet Oz.

Many of this year’s Republican Senate candidates haven’t run for office before and have had to deal with nasty and expensive primaries that crushed their favorability ratings. A string of recent polls show Republican candidates in many battleground states trailing, or in toss-up races with well-funded Democratic opponents. From Charlie Pierce: (parenthesis by Wrongo)

“There’s a pretty good chunk of evidence that the Republican Party is currently very nervous about its chances in this year’s elections for the US Senate. When a party’s C47 flies over your state and dumps a massive payload of cash-like ordnance…(you know you’re in trouble).”

The Republicans suddenly have to start using money they’d earmarked for propping up people like Vance, as life support for the campaign of North Carolina’s Senate candidate Ted Budd, who’s in a dead-heat election with Cheri Beasley. Budd’s public statements on a violent insurrection are likely to cause any thinking Republican voter to stay home.

Republicans have climbed back into a familiar box. In 2010, the Republicans blew a chance to take the Senate because they couldn’t resist nominating terrible candidates. For example, Sharron Angle in Nevada suggested that a teenage victim of rape shouldn’t get an abortion but make a “lemon situation into lemonade.” Christine O’Donnell in Delaware finally had to say she wasn’t a witch.

Besides Vance, Republicans this year couldn’t stop themselves from nominating Herschel Walker in Georgia. They also are defending the indefensible incumbent Ron Johnson in Wisconsin, who in a Marquette University Law School poll, is seven points behind the Democrat Mandela Barnes.

While the odds of Democrats holding the Senate are improving, it is still more than possible that some or all of these Republican candidates could be sitting in the Senate next January. It’s certainly possible that big money Republicans will ride to the rescue of their terrible candidates.

And that’s the point. For the GOP, the worse the candidate, the more the Party’s true believers embrace them. That’s how they prove they’re true believers. Eventually, (hopefully already?) this will reach the point of diminishing returns.

Are we there yet? Can we get there before our democracy crashes and burns is the real question.

Time to wake up America! It’s our job to deliver more than 50 seats in the Senate to the Democrats! There are 35 US Senate seats up for election in 2022, of which 14 are held by Democrats and 21 by Republicans. Democrats need to hold serve, and win two-four more!

We have an opening with the GOP choosing shitty candidates and spending their ad money frivolously. But it means Democrats must turn out in large numbers in all of these elections, from Warnock in Georgia to Fetterman in PA, to Barnes in Wisconsin. And don’t forget Mark Kelly in AZ, and Catherine Cortez Masto in NV.

To help you wake up, watch, and listen to “Lily Was Here” performed by saxophonist Candy Dulfer and the Eurythmics’ Dave Stewart. Written by Stewart, it was the title track to a 1989 Dutch film called “De Kassière, (The Cashier).” Here it is performed live by Stewart and Dulfer in 1989:

Dulfer was born in the Netherlands. She’s the daughter of saxophonist Hans Dulfer and started to play the soprano saxophone at age six. She’s very very good.

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – August 21, 2022

The GOP’s reflexive instinct to defend Trump was expected. But it’s vilification of the FBI is sickening. And this is coming from Wrongo, a 1960s radical who has always distrusted them. Garrett Graff, writing in the NYT said this about the FBI:

“Historically…the FBI has been arguably the most culturally conservative and traditionally white Christian institution in the entire US government. It’s an institution so culturally conservative, even by the standards of law enforcement, that Democratic presidents have never felt comfortable — or politically emboldened — enough to nominate a Democrat to head the bureau.”

Maybe that should change. Wrongo is old enough to remember that the FBI twice torpedoed Hillary Clinton’s campaign in 2016. He’s read excerpts of the FBI dossiers on James Baldwin (it’s 1,884 pages), and about its targeting of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

So, maybe Wrongo is the um, well, wrong person to defend the FBI. But that doesn’t mean their execution of a search warrant approved by a federal judge is prima facie evidence that the FBI has suddenly become a tool of the Democrats. On to cartoons.

You don’t have to be a detective to see the difference:

More hypocrisy from the GOP:

Polls are beginning to show that the GOP has some political weakness:

Teflon Don wins again:

Lindsay Graham and Rudy have to testify about the GOP’s Georgia voting mess:

Teachers leave the job in droves:

Unintended consequences of certain policies:

If Liz Cheney has political ambitions, she needs to become a citizen of a more compatible state:

The FBI Search

The Daily Escape:

Wildflowers above 11,000’ at Paradise Divide, Carbondale, CO – July 2022 photo by Mountain West Photography

What to make of the FBI executing a search warrant at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago (MAL)? Despite what most of the immediately outraged Republican Party is saying, the bar for getting a search warrant on a former President is understandably and correctly, set high.

Trump claimed that the search was “prosecutorial misconduct” and reflected “the weaponization of the Justice System.” But prosecutors can’t conduct searches of people’s homes on their own. The Fourth Amendment requires that “no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

For the FBI to conduct this search, it needed a warrant, which means everyone from frontline prosecutors and FBI lawyers to Attorney General Merrick Garland had to sign off on the warrant application, and then a federal judge had to examine the affidavit setting forth their evidence and concur. This is the system working as the Constitution intended.

Garland and the federal judge who authorized the warrant knew that it would set off a shitstorm of reaction by Right-wing politicians and by Trump loyalists, but they went ahead anyway. Oh, to see that affidavit!

It was predictable that the MAGAverse would erupt in fury, but the reaction by the so-called Republican “establishment” is both ridiculous and frightening. Elected Republicans, who always remind us that they are the party of law and order, could have: Either adopted a posture of strategic silence, or given the FBI the benefit of the doubt while they conduct a court-sanctioned investigation.

Instead, except for Mitch McConnell who has stayed silent, they mostly went crazy, including House Minority Leader McCarthy’s threats of retaliation against Garland if Republicans take the House in the fall. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) tweeted:

Although Lil’ Marco said this in 2016:

This is the worst kind of lie by a member of the US Senate. Rubio knows that this was the lawful execution of a search warrant that was presented with probable cause, and issued by a Federal judge. These aren’t done lightly or carelessly.

Trump has spent years sowing distrust of federal law enforcement and the “deep state.” And the response by senior Republicans shows how deeply his campaign of subversion has penetrated their hive mind.

Republicans are claiming that the FBI’s search of MAL is abusive. But law enforcement leaves a copy of the search warrant, which itemizes what they are looking for, and what laws may have been violated. If Trump and the MAGA Republicans really think this search is abusive, Trump would have made the warrant public. Trump needs to show it or shut up about it.

We really need to stand back and appreciate the clarity with which the GOP is expressing that the role of law enforcement is only to police the powerless. Here’s the #3 GOP Representative in the House:

This is sick. Law enforcement does exactly this to average citizens all the time, all over America. So, expect that this fall, the Party of “LOCK HER UP” will become the Party of “How Dare the FBI Investigate Republican Politicians.”

People are getting a lesson in civics: If society has a rule, it must be enforced for everyone in the same situation. Trump is saying that the DOJ has been weaponized. But consider this list from Marshall Cohen:

Despite all the hope by Democrats and the fury of Republicans, no one has a handle on how this will progress, or whether it has an impact on Trump’s attempt to run again for president. Wrongo listened to a Republican political strategist on the BBC say that the fact of the search itself will hand the presidency to Trump in 2024.

That seems like GOP hopium to Wrongo.

The next few weeks will be filled with speculation and most likely, conflicting information as details emerge about the MAL search and what was behind it. One thing that’s sure is that the immediate and escalating talk of violence among Trump’s supporters is troubling. Some have been calling for “war” or “civil war,” referring to FBI “tyranny.”

In the not too distant past, we’d dismiss this kind of talk as braggadocio. But that disappeared on Jan. 6, when we realized these militants are more than willing to act on their warped beliefs.

So take a step back and place this story in a broader context: As a Constitutional matter, DOJ’s action is a message to future presidents that even though recently, other guardrails of presidential accountability have failed us, the criminal justice system still works, so long as someone of integrity—like Garland—is at the helm.

Does America need further convincing that this fall, aside from running on their accomplishments, Democrats up and down the ballot, need to amplify the opposing party’s lack of regard for the rule of law or, for truth itself?

How do we insure that they don’t use the powers of their office(s) to morph this country towards authoritarianism?

By voting them out of power.

Monday Wake Up Call, Inflation Reduction Act Edition – August 8, 2022

The Daily Escape:

Summer storm passes, Grand Teton NP, WY – August 2022 photo by Hilary Bralove

The Senate came into session at 12 pm Saturday, and after a full 24 hours, it paused the vote-a-rama on Sunday for a new prayer. Those are the Senate rules. Then the Senate promptly resumed its vote-a-rama, which ended about 3:15 pm on Sunday. From the WaPo:

“The Senate on Sunday approved a sweeping package to combat climate change, lower health-care costs, raise taxes on some billion-dollar corporations and reduce the federal deficit, as Democrats overcame months of political infighting to deliver the centerpiece to President Biden’s long-stalled economic agenda.”

While most of the Democrat’s reconciliation process proceeded according to plan, Senate Republicans successfully stripped a provision capping the price of insulin in the private marketplace from the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) by a 57-43 vote, with seven Republicans (Cassidy, Collins, Hawley, Hyde Smith, Kennedy, Murkowski and Sullivan) voting to keep it in. But the seven GOP votes, plus all Democrats, weren’t enough to reach the 60-vote threshold necessary to pass.

The cap on insulin prices for only those on Medicare remained in the bill since it complied with the rules on reconciliation. Apparently, the Republicans think that if we give people handouts for having diabetes America’s just incentivizing people to get diabetes. Who wants that?

Democrats included a new tax on large companies that currently pay nothing to the US government and added about $80 billion for the Internal Revenue Service to pursue tax cheats. They also approved a 1% tax on companies that buy back their own stock, a practice that many see as detrimental to the economy, that benefits only wealthy shareholders and executives.

After the bill passed, Republicans were predictably outraged. The appropriately-named Sen. Mike Crapo (R-ID) said:

“It does nothing to bring the economy out of stagnation and recession. But rather, the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 gives us higher taxes, more spending, higher prices — and an army of IRS agents…”

And it’s important to note that while Democrats don’t think that Sens. Manchin and Sinema are all that great, don’t forget that this watered down bill was opposed by EVERY SINGLE REPUBLICAN.

There is plenty to crow about in the IRA. Does it contain everything on the progressive wish list? No, but Dems should take the win and stop pissing and moaning about what couldn’t get by Manchin, Sinema and/or the Senate Parliamentarian, and sell the bill hard to the American people.

If Democrats want to deliver even more, they’ll need to improve their margin in the Senate, and hold the House in the November mid-terms.

It’s not enough for Democrats to wait for Republicans to shoot themselves in the foot this fall, even though some candidates can be counted upon to try hard to do just that. Democrats need to be shouting about their successes. Just yesterday, Trump said at CPAC: “You have not good job numbers now”, even though the just-published job numbers were awesome! That has to be countered at every opportunity.

This means a wall-to-wall, multi-pronged messaging campaign, reminding Americans every minute that Republicans can’t be trusted on the economy. And despite where inflation is today, we need to be saying that gas prices are down nearly $1.00/gallon in the last seven weeks.

Maybe John Stewart should become the Dem’s Minister of Information?

We need to say that most GOP candidates support the Big Lie and the impeached coup plotter, Trump. That they’re willing to eliminate the right to an abortion in America. On Friday, Indiana’s Republicans passed and Republican Governor Eric Holcomb immediately signed, a bill that prohibits nearly all abortions from the moment of gestation. Several Republican-controlled states will shortly pass similar laws.

People must, as Tom Sullivan says, “campaign like crazy“, while reminding all Americans that the Party of Lincoln no longer will deliver anything that ordinary people want.

Time to wake up America! We’re at war politically and ideologically with Republicans. The only way to win is to keep defeating them at local, state, and federal levels until they stop trying to force their radical ways on the rest of us. To help you wake up, watch, and listen to the interesting but short-lived group, 4 Non Blondes play their big hit from 1992, “What’s Up”:

Sample Lyric:

25 years and my life is still
Tryin’ to get up that great big hill of hope
For a destination

I realized quickly when I knew I should
That the world was made up of this brotherhood of man
For whatever that means

And so I cry sometimes when I’m lying in bed
Just to get it all out what’s in my head
And I, I am feeling a little peculiar

Run On Roe And Reform

The Daily Escape:

Perkins Cove, Ogunquit, ME – July 2022 photo by Adam Silverman Photography

From the Kansas City Star:

“The right to an abortion will remain in the Kansas Constitution. In the first ballot test of abortion rights in a post-Roe America, Kansas voters turned out in historic numbers to overwhelmingly reject a constitutional amendment that would have opened the door for state lawmakers to further restrict or ban abortions across the state.”

Kansas voters showed that the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs doesn’t sit well, even in one of the country’s most conservative states. Democrats should adjust their 2022 Midterms messaging and strategy accordingly, to make it clear that Roe and Reform are what they’re running on.

Across party lines, abortion rights remain popular while the Supreme Court’s ruling is not. The most recent CNN poll found that 63% of Americans disapproved (51% “strongly”) of the court’s decision.

The NYT reported about Kansas:

“From the bluest counties to the reddest ones, abortion rights performed better than Mr. Biden, and opposition to abortion performed worse than Mr. Trump,”

The NYT had several observations:

Abortion opponents under performed even in conservative areas. In Hamilton County, which voted 81% Trump in 2020, less than 56% chose the anti-abortion position. In Greeley County, which voted more than 85% for Trump, only about 60% chose the anti-abortion position.
Kansas’s swing areas swung left. Wyandotte County, (where Kansas City is located), voted 65% for Biden in 2020, but 74% for abortion rights. Neighboring Johnson County, the state’s most populous, voted 53% for Biden but more than 68% for abortion rights.
Turnout was high. Before the election, the Kansas secretary of state’s office predicted turnout of about 36%. But anecdotal evidence indicated turnout might hit 50%, an extraordinary increase over what was expected.

Here’s TPM’s Josh Marshall’s Twitter thread on what Kansas means to the Democrats’ Mid-term road map: (emphasis by Wrongo)

2/ When a result is this lopsided & this unexpected for most political observers it’s not only a political earthquake but a sign many political professionals have seriously mistaken the political terrain. When there’s a political backlash as strong as the one against Dobbs …

3/ and one party is as firmly tied to it as Republicans are here, clearly the opposing party needs to grab on to it with both hands. Abortion rights will be central to numerous races this fall. But Democrats need to make the connection as explicit and tangible as possible.

4/ The way to do that is to make a firm pledge that if Democrats hold the House and add two Senate seats they will make Roe into federal law in January 2023. They are at present kinda sorta suggesting something like that, maybe. But clarity is everything. Give us this …

5/ specific result and this is specifically what we will do. Kansans didn’t turn out in these lopsided numbers to make a statement about Dobbs or Roe. They did so because they knew that the outcome of this one vote would immediately and dramatically affect the right …

6/ to a safe and legal abortion in the state. Democrats need to approximate the same clarity at the federal level, both to undo Dobbs and also to secure their hold on Congress. The way to do that is to get all 48 (non-Sinema/Manchin) senators to make a firm pledge that …

7/ if the House is held and two Democratic senators added they will vote for a Roe law in January 2023 AND suspend the filibuster rules to guarantee that bill gets an old fashioned up or down majority vote. So far 31 Senate Democrats have said they’ll do that (though not …

8/ yet on the specific date). All but two of the 17 are basically there but still refuse to say it clearly. There are two potential hold outs. Angus King of Maine and Mark Warner of Virginia. They will all certainly fall in line quickly if constituents apply pressure now.

The Kansas vote shows that the anti-abortion Republicans have misjudged how deeply this issue resonates for voters. When a Constitutional right simply disappears, apparently, the voters will turn out.

The polls have consistently shown that the majority of this country is pro-choice. The rejection of the Kansas amendment shows that if the election were to be a referendum on pro-choice, Democrats will win.

The Republicans should be afraid that they have gone too far. Let’s hope this is a bellwether for the midterms.

(Hat tip to long-time blog reader and Kansas resident Monty B. for keeping Wrongo apprised of the Kansas fight to turn back this amendment).

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – July 31, 2022

Q: Why do people take an instant dislike to Justice Samuel A. Alito? A: It saves time.

Alito spoke in Rome dismissing criticism from foreign officials who he said “lambasted” his opinion that overturned Roe v. Wade. Alito spoke at a conference promoting religious liberty, saying:

“I had the honor this term of writing I think the only Supreme Court decision in the history of that institution that has been lambasted by a whole string of foreign leaders who felt perfectly fine commenting on American law…”

Alito called out Prince Harry as making a particularly hurtful comment. What Harry said at the UN:

“This has been a painful year in a painful decade….Climate change wreaking havoc on our planet, with the most vulnerable suffering most of all. The few weaponizing lies and disinformation at the expense of the many. And from a horrific war in Ukraine, to the rolling back of constitutional rights here in the United States, we are witnessing a global assault on democracy and freedom, the cause of Mandela’s life.”

Alito said in response:

“But what really wounded me…was when the Duke of Sussex addressed the United Nations and seemed to compare the decision…with the Russian attack on Ukraine…”

To quote Charlie Pierce: