Many lawmakers have already gotten their first vaccine shots. Good for them! Most of us would take it on the first day they could get it too. But itâs wrong that they’re getting shots while (at least at the time of writing this) they havenât passed a COVID relief bill. And is there a better metaphor for Trumpâs presidency than this story from NPR?
âFor….six years, the ghost of the Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino has haunted the boardwalk in Atlantic City, N.J…..But not for long: The…eyesore is scheduled for demolition late next month, and the city is offering…the opportunity to bring it down….â
“We are selling the experience to push the button to implode Trump Plaza…”
There will be a bidding war for the right to implode Trumpâs failed casino, just nine days after Trump leaves office. Atlantic City mayor Marty Small:
“…on his way out, Donald Trump openly mocked Atlantic City, saying he made a lot of money and then got out….I wanted to use the demolition of this place to raise money for charity.”
Trump persuaded the Republican Party and enough Americans that he was a genius businessman based on hype and his stupid TV show. While Trump was pretending to be a real estate big shot with a game show, his Atlantic City three-casino empire died. Information about his business failures was out there. But people didnât want to believe it. Now after four years, Americaâs imploding. Pathetic. On to cartoons.
Will help arrive in time?
Will the new gifts for the season arrive on time?
Trump fails transitions:
Republican wish list for Santa:
The new hackers will control everything:
Mitch goes back to what he does best:
It didnât take long for a chorus of Republicans to find a stupid non-issue to sing about:
The Democrats are soul-searching about why they canât win the US rural vote. Many believe the Democrats underperformed in fly-over America, and theyâre asking (again) if rural America is lost to them forever.
According to the Economic Innovation Group, the rural Midwest counties Biden won had population growth that averaged 1.8% over the past 10 years, while counties Trump won saw an average population decline of 2.5%:
â…16 rural counties flipped from Trump in 2016 to Biden in 2020…12 flipped from Clinton in 2016 to Trump in 2020.â
So, not much change. Over the past 50 years, the Midwest has seen out-migration, economic stagnation, young people leaving and small towns withering. They turned rightward and have largely stayed there. Is rural America worth fighting for?
Estimates of rural populations across the US suggest roughly 20% of Americans live in them. Rural areas are not exclusive to states that gave all their electors to Trump. New York and California have plenty of rural spaces and voters. Wrongoâs county in Democratic Connecticut is largely rural, and voted for Trump in 2016 and by a lower margin in 2020.
Yet, given the Electoral College, it is difficult to fashion a durable political majority if Democrats write off most of exurban and rural America. Letâs briefly look at Iowa and Wisconsin.
In Iowa, Trump won the state by 8.3 percentage points this year. GW Bush won in 2004 by 0.7 percentage points. He was the first GOP presidential candidate to carry Iowa in 20 years. Obama won with 54% in 2008 and 52% in 2012. Trump won with 51.7% in 2016, and with 53% in 2020.
Trump carried 93 rural counties, while Biden carried all six of Iowaâs urban counties. Republicans now represent all or parts of 97 of Iowaâs 99 counties.
Wisconsin flipped to blue by six-tenths of a percentage point. Biden won in 14 counties. From Martin Longman at Progress Pond:
âWisconsinâs Dunn County is in the central part of the state, over 96% white, and represented by Democrat Ron Kind in Congress. Not far from Eau Claire, the rural area voted for Barack Obama twice, but in 2016 Donald Trump won it with 52% to 41%, a 2,000-vote advantage over Hillary Clinton. In 2020, running against Joe Biden, Trump carried Dunn County 56-42, giving him a 3,300-vote edge.â
Bill Hogseth, the chair of the countyâs Democratic Party, wrote a piece for Politico Magazine, explaining that the national Democratic Party doesnât take rural issues seriously enough to get support from rural Wisconsinites. From Hogseth:
âFor Democrats to start telling a story that resonates, they need to show a willingness to fight for rural people, and not just by proposing a ârural planâ or showing up on a farm for a photo opâŠA big step forward for Democrats would be to champion antitrust enforcement and challenge the anticompetitive practices of the gigantic agribusiness firms that squeeze our communities. In his rural plan, Biden pledged to âstrengthen antitrust enforcement,â but the term doesnât appear until the 35th bullet point. For rural voters, antitrust enforcement is a top priority…â
Hogseth is talking about Democratic neglect. Elizabeth Warren made anti-trust and the breakup of big companiesâ part of her primary campaign. Thatâs good policy, and if it helps win some rural votes, even better.
Republicans arenât talking about anti-monopoly anywhere in America. A generous Farm Bill channeled money into rural areas and the Trump administrationâs trade relief payments to farmers have helped maintain rural Republican support. Hogseth says Democratic neglect leaves:
â…an opening for other stories to be told to fill the vacuumâstories that villainize and divide us along racial, geographic and partisan lines.â
People donât make decisions based solely on a rational analysis, or on self-interest. They donât believe in the Democratsâ promises to improve things, because Dems havenât delivered on them in the past 40 years. They need a villain to blame. Trump, and the GOP (and every other nationalist movement in history) gives them just that.
The center-left should be rejoicing, but their down-ballot results are a cause for concern. Today, Democrats are fighting about whether they should be more progressive, or remain moderate going forward.
One reason that Trump got 74+ million votes was because Democrats never mobilized the working class against him. Instead, they mobilized to win suburbia. That gave Biden the presidency, but it also keeps our enduring governmental gridlock in place.
Time to relax a bit on this December Saturday. Today, Connecticut is waiting on a snow storm that in typical norâeaster fashion, could dump 10+ inches, or miss us entirely.
Still, we have time to take a few minutes, turn away from our email, and listen to Harpist Silke Aichhorn play Tchaikovskyâs âWaltz of the Flowersâ from his Nutcracker Suite. It was written as a ballet in 1892, and has been enjoyed around the holidays ever since:
Breckinridge, CO â July 2020 photo by doughboyme
(The Wrongologist is taking a summer vacation starting today. We will return on August 9th. Wrongo urges all readers to also take a break. Got to get ready for the silly season that starts soon.)
Time to talk 2020 census. The Census Bureauâs follow-up visits to non-responding households were originally scheduled to begin in early May, but they were delayed by a freeze on census field operations due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
In April, the Trump administration asked Congress to extend the deadlines for the Census Bureau to turn in their head count data. The Census Bureau independently postponed finishing field operations for the census from the end of July to the end of October.
The House agreed to the extensions, but the Senate hasnât. Senate Republicans on Monday instead proposed additional funding as part of their HEAL bill to help conclude the census on time, without extending the deadline.
The Census Bureau is required to turn over numbers for apportioning Congressional seats by Dec. 31, and the numbers to be used for redrawing state and local legislative districts by March 30. The requested deadline extensions would push back the apportionment deadline to April 30 for Congress, and to July 31 for state and local districts.
The politics of these decisions are clear. Trump no longer wants a deadline extension, and he doesnât want undocumented residents counted at all.
The timing of Trumpâs memorandum excluding the undocumented and his abandonment of the request to push back the reporting deadlines suggests that the White House wants to ensure that the numbers are undercounted. Also, that Trump receives the apportionment numbers while heâs still in office so they can be fixed if necessary.
House Democrats are wary of what they see as Trumpâs attempts to politicize the 2020 census, and want the Senate Republicans to approve the request for deadline extensions. That would mean thereâs a chance the final months of the data-crunching would take place under a Biden administration, assuming Biden defeats Trump in November.
Staying on the usual deadline probably means that many people, documented or not, wonât be counted. Only about 63% of Americans have been counted so far. That means about 55 million households havenât responded, and will require visits by census takers.
âAmong those who say they have not participated in the census, 40% say they would not be willing to talk to a census worker who came to the door…â
The 40% breaks down into 16% who say theyâre unwilling to talk to the Census people at all, and 24% say they are not very willing to speak with them.
So, what does it all mean for apportioning Congressional seats?
The job is to use the census data to equitably assign the Houseâs 435 seats to the 50 states. The first 50 seats are automatically assigned, one per state. A series of formulas called the method of Equal Proportions is used to divide up the remaining 385 seats among the states on the basis of their populations. The method of Equal Proportions was first used to apportion House seats in 1940 and has been used ever since.
The apportionment population of a state is defined as all persons residing in the state as of April 1, plus all American military and civilian personnel of the federal government and their dependents from that state who were residing abroad.
At the last census in 2010, the states receiving the largest number of seats were California with 53; Texas with 36 seats, and then Florida and New York with 27 apiece. Alaska, Delaware, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming each received only one seat, the one they are granted automatically.
Sabatoâs Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia did a preliminary estimate of how the House seats will be distributed once the 2020 census is in. It obviously is a projection, but the results are shown on this map:
Of the 10 states projected to lose one House seat each in 2020, only two are red states. Of the seven states projected to gain House seats in 2020, six are red states.
If the 2020 apportionment followed Trumpâs plan to exclude undocumented immigrants, this would be the outcome:
Eight states will lose nine seats with California leading the way. Seven of the eight seats lost would be in blue states.
Seven states would gain nine seats: Texas and Florida would gain two each. Six of the gains would be in red states.
Remember that a state’s votes in the Electoral College are equal to its seats in Congress. It’s not hard to see why Trump wants an undercount that favors Texas and Florida.
Joshua Tree NP CA, in snow â December 2019 photo by chase_embrace
Have you been watching the impeachment extravaganza? Itâs a mind-numbing exercise thatâs difficult to take in large doses. That was probably Mitch McConnellâs plan. There are a few revelations though. One is the work of Adam Schiff, (D-CA) who is the lead House manager for the impeachment trial.
Josh Marshall at TPM says that Schiffâs job is to put the Senate on trial, and put Republican senators in a box that they can’t climb out of in November:
âAdam Schiff… [is] making a really convincing, damning set of arguments about all the accusations the Presidentâs lawyers are denying while they simultaneously refuse to release records which would quickly confirm and refute those accusations.
These are cases in which we know there are contemporaneous notes or other records. The answers are there. But they refuse to release them. It is a damning indictment not only of the President but even more his Senate accomplices.â
The Senate Republicans swore an oath to be jurors, but they want to keep all of the proof secret. So, Schiff and the other House managers are making it clear that it is the Senate Republicans that are really on trial. The weakness for Republicans is that this is the first Senate trial held in defiance of the principle of shared facts and evidence.
Republican Senators are not paying close attention to Schiff and the others. All Senators are supposed to be in attendance and listening, but a few, mainly on the Republican side, are openly flaunting the rule. Dana Milbankâs column in the WaPo:
âJust minutes into the session, as lead House impeachment manager Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) presented his opening argument for removing the president, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) displayed on his desk a hand-lettered message with big block letters pleading: âS.O.S.â In case that was too subtle, he followed this later with another handwritten message pretending he was an abducted child:Â âTHESE R NOT MY PARENTS!â
See, itâs all just a joke, presided over by the Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court. Hell, Trump said out loud at Davos that heâs withholding evidence: (brackets by Wrongo)
âI got to watch enough [of the Senate trial] â I thought our team did a very good job. But honestly, we have all the material. They donât have the material.”
The second article of impeachment is obstruction of Congress by withholding witnesses and documents. Trump confessed to it on live TV to reporters, and Senate Republicans donât care.
Wrongoâs been waiting for Republicans to pay a significant price for their lying, hypocrisy, constant defiance of the rule of law, and disrespect for our institutions, norms, and Constitution, ever since the days of St. Ronnie.
âIn a way, itâs something the Democrats are getting used to. From the hanging chads in Florida in 2000 to the Electoral College loss in 2016, the Republicans make a living winning despite losing. Theyâve become dependent on cheating and rigging the rules of the game, and theyâre experts at it at this point.â
The impeachment trial Kabuki play is no different. The GOP is gleefully waiting out the ceremonial âtrialâ in order to deliver their pre-ordained verdict.
Is it just Wrongo, or does it seem like America is screwed beyond redemption? If, by some cosmic quirk, Democrats one day hold the Presidency and both Houses of Congress, anything they attempt to do that does not align with Republican orthodoxy will end up being decided by one of McConnellâs right-wing courts.
You can expect that they will find a way to tie up, or simply negate anything the savior Congress tries to do. Will some great leader show up? Does the current crop of Democratic candidates have anyone able to make the case for wholesale change?
Do any of them have coattails sufficient to win the Senate?
Wrongo proposes that we think about Adam Schiff as the Democratic Presidential nominee. Sure, you think it’s too late, but is it really?
Hereâs what the WaPoâs conservative writer Jennifer Rubin said about Schiff’s opening statement: (emphasis by Wrongo)
âAnd that is what the trial is about. Itâs about making clear to the entire country that Trump did exactly what he is accused of, but that his own party, suffering from political cowardice and intellectual corruption, do not have the nerve to stop him. If that is the goal â prove Trumpâs guilt and Republicansâ complicity â Schiff hit a grand slam. And we have days more of evidence to hear.â
Heâs someone who can make a tightly reasoned argument. Heâs well-spoken, and knows Constitutional history. Heâs a liberal from a liberal state, and at 60, heâs not a geezer.
We need to remember the history of how Democrats created the Mitch we have. To do that, we must go back to November 21, 2013. Hereâs the WaPo from that day: (emphasis by Wrongo)
âSenate Democrats took the dramatic step Thursday of eliminating filibusters for most nominations by presidents, a power play they said was necessary to fix a broken system but one that Republicans said will only rupture it further.
Democrats used a rare parliamentary move to change the rules so that federal judicial nominees and executive-office appointments can advance to confirmation votes by a simple majority of senators, rather than the 60-vote supermajority that has been the standard for nearly four decades.
The immediate rationale for the move was to allow the confirmation of three picks by President Obama to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit â the most recent examples of what Democrats have long considered unreasonably partisan obstruction by Republicans.â
Back then, the main combatants were Harry Reid (D-NV) the Majority Leader, and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY). The vote for the ânuclear optionâ was 52 to 48, with all but three Democrats backing the move, and every Republican opposing it. After the vote, Obama said that Republicans had turned nomination fights into a âreckless and relentless toolâ to grind the gears of government to a halt and noted that âneither party has been blameless for these tactics.â But, he said, âtodayâs pattern of obstruction…just isnât normal; itâs not what our founders envisioned.â
Fast forward to 2019. The Senate is split 53-47 now, with the Republicans in charge. Mitch has used Harry Reidâs rule change to appoint two Supreme Court justices, 50 appeals court judges, and 120 district court judges in less than three years.
Today, 20% of judges on all of the federal courts, and 25% on the appeals courts are Trump appointees. On the same day that Trump was impeached, the Senate confirmed 13 new district court judges.
Suddenly, Democrats are waking up to the reality that Trumpâs judges will shape American law with a conservative bias for 30-40 years to come.
We can blame Harry Reid and Barack Obama for not thinking ahead.
You ought to be thinking ahead to the weekend, and all of the little things that you need to do so that Santa can do his job next week. Itâs at least as challenging a task as locating the missing Trump Impeachment.
Before you shift into drive and start on that big to-do list, itâs time for a Saturday Soother, a brief few moments when you relax, and try to center yourself in the calm before the storm.
âPresident Trump has paid $2 million to eight charities as part of a settlement in which the president admitted he misused funds raised by the Donald J. Trump Foundation to promote his presidential bid and pay off business debts, the New York State attorney general said on Tuesday.â
âWe should stop the current impeachment deliberations in Washington, because we know all that we need to know right now. An American president who defrauds veterans has met the bar of âhigh crimes and misdemeanorsâ. We shouldnât need any more testimony about bribery and extortion of a foreign power.â
While the fraud was committed before Trump became president, it is by itself, the greatest presidential crime in American history. And the case has already been decided in front of a judge. In the end, the president admitted in court documents that he had used the foundationâs money to settle legal obligations of his businesses, and to purchase a portrait of himself.
Trump also used the charity to boost political campaigns â first, Pamela Bondiâs Florida attorney general campaign, and then his own 2016 campaign. Trump gave away Trump Foundation checks onstage at rallies, despite strict rules barring nonprofit charities from participating in political campaigns.
Trump settled the case, because the alternative would have been litigation that would have exposed parts of his finances. Think about what his finances look like when his lawyers tell him that the better option is to admit that he stole $2 million from American veterans.
As part of the settlement, Trumpâs adult children; Donald Trump, Jr., Ivanka Trump and Eric Trump all of whom were on the board of the foundation although they never met to discuss its operations, will have to take training to make sure they donât make similar missteps in the future. That’s a minor wrist-slap.
This story was reported by major outlets but it doesnât seem to have made a dent in the public consciousness. Youâd think a story about $2 million worth of admitted presidential crimes would break through the noise but thereâs always competition. Today, itâs a possible trade deal, the ongoing impeachment inquiry and Boris Johnson winning in the UK.
Nobody really cares. Outrage fatigue is a real thing. After a while, you just get worn down and become numb to the next headline. His admission of fraud would have ended any other presidency. But for him, it was Tuesday. Maybe the red hats are immune to outrage fatigue.
The Demâs impeachment strategy is a farce, as will be the Senateâs âshow trialâ. Impeaching him will happen by a straight Party line vote, followed by the Senateâs acquittal by a Party line vote by the other Party. This means that both houses of Congress are a farce.
OTOH, not impeaching him would also be a farce. Because not impeaching someone who has done the things Trump has done, someone who makes a mockery of the law every day heâs in office, would make the rule of law a farce as well.
Defrauding veterans is something that the public can understand, and can get angry about. Itâs not complicated, most citizens wonât be able to tune it out. His counter argument is weak, despite incessant talking about the Clinton foundation.
These things are not equal. This isnât a âboth sidesâ situation.
Democrats should be shouting about this every day until November, 2020. This is an arrow right at the heart of Trumpâs base: Those purported law and order, military-loving people who populate his rallies. Itâs indefensible, and itâs unlikely they will take kindly to his being guilty of defrauding veterans.
Remember when the Republicans were the “Party of Principle“?
Have we seen anything from them (or from Trump) that makes you think that they truly believe in providing a safety net? They think that the primary benefit of charitable giving is to telegraph their relatively high position in society compared to that of the needy.
Conservatives have always used their supposed morality as a cudgel to beat others. Alleviating suffering isn’t really important. They like the âvirtue signalingâ. That is, feigned righteousness intended to make the speaker appear superior by condemning others.
Sunrise, Churchill, Manitoba, Canada – October 2019 photo by Colin Hessel. Hat tip to blog reader Marguerite S.
While America is focused on our impeachment gridlock, weâve missed a few things Trump has done that have far-reaching impact.
First, the US solar industry has lost 62,000 new jobs and $19 Billion in investments because of Trump’s two year-old tariffs on imported solar panels. The job loss is more than the 53,000 total number of workers employed in US coal mining, an industry Trump favors. Maybe those 62,000 people can just apply for the roughly 250 new coal mining jobs Trump created. The $19 billion in lost investment equates to 10.5 gigawatts in lost solar energy installations, enough to power about 1.8 million homes.
Despite the tariffs, global solar panel prices have continued to fall due to oversupply in China, but US solar panel prices still are among the highest in the world. That makes it more difficult for solar to compete with other forms of electricity generation such as natural gas.
Trumpâs tariffs have had the greatest impact on newer solar markets such as Alabama, the Dakotas and Kansas, because they make solar uncompetitive.
Second, Trump announced revisions to the small arms export rules. The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) is currently in reconciliation negotiations. One of the differences between the House and Senate versions is an amendment that could loosen export controls on firearms. In November, the administration gave Congress notification of the proposed rule changes, which will go into effect on December 20th if Congress does not block it.
The US exports firearms and related technology on a large scale. From 2013 to 2017, the State Department reviewed approximately 69,000 commercial export license applications for firearms, artillery and ammunition reported at a value of $7.5 billion. Roughly two-thirds of these applications were for firearms.
Trumpâs proposal would transfer control over the export of firearms and related technology from the State Department to the Commerce Department. The new rules could loosen the global trade in small arms, particularly in Latin America and the Middle East.
Export control is a complicated process with substantial paperwork designed to limit weapons or components falling into the wrong hands. The State Department currently manages this process for firearms. Moving control to the Commerce Department means that exports of these weapons will be subject to a less rigorous approval process.
Many observers, including the UN, have noted that the widespread availability of small arms is a âkey enablerâ of conflicts around the world. Despite calls for states to exercise tighter arm controls, the Trump administration is proposing to do just the opposite.
There are downstream effects of the proposal. It may make it easier for Latin American organized crime or terrorists in the Middle East to get guns and ammo more easily. Perhaps Trump wants to improve the Second Amendment rights of ME terrorists and Latin American gangs. Or maybe, heâs just in the tank for US gun manufacturers.
Third, a new Pew survey finds that only half of American adults think colleges and universities are having a positive effect on the country; 38% say they are having a negative impact, up from 26% in 2012. The increase in negative views has come almost entirely from Republicans and independents who lean Republican:
Since Trump was elected, Republicans who say colleges have a negative effect on the country went from 37% to 59%. Over that same period, the views of Democrats and independents who lean Democratic have remained stable, and overwhelmingly positive.
Democrats who see problems with the higher education system cite rising costs most often (92%), while 79% of Republicans say professors bringing their political and social views into the classroom is a major reason why the higher education system is headed in the wrong direction. Age is an important factor: 96% of Republicans aged 65+ say professors bringing their views into the classroom is the major reason why higher education is headed in the wrong direction.
Higher education faces a host of challenges in the future: Controlling costs, ensuring that graduates are prepared for the jobs of the future, and responding to the countryâs changing demographics.
Trump and the GOPâs willingness to see everything from impeachment, to solar panels, to college education as an ideological battle are making addressing Americaâs problems impossible.
Will Hurd is the third Texas Republican in the past two weeks to decide to spend more time with their families, and is the sixth incumbent GOP member of the House to go. He is the only black Republican member of the House of Representatives. Could this be why?
Itâs not that surprising Hurd wants to step down; he barely beat Democrat Gina Ortiz-Jones in the 2018 midterm election, winning by less than 1,000 votes. Ortiz-Jones is running again, and has been out-fundraising Hurd.
Wrongo gave money to Ortiz-Jones last time, and will again. She joined the US Air Force as an intelligence officer and deployed to Iraq in the Bush administration. After three years of active duty, she returned to Texas in 2006, working for a consulting company while caring for her mother, who had colon cancer (from which she later recovered).
Ortiz-Jones then returned to working as an intelligence analyst for the US Africa Command in Germany. In 2008, she joined the Defense Intelligence Agency, where she specialized in Latin America. In November 2016, she moved to the Executive Office of the President (Barack Obama) to serve under the US Trade Representative. Having served under presidents of both parties, Ortiz-Jones continued in her role during the Trump administration until June 2017, when she left.
Until 2016, there were always people like Will Hurd in the GOP. And before Trump came along, it was easy to get way more than four votes from Republicans in the House of Representatives to condemn a politicianâs racist comment.
Pulling out for a view from 50,000 feet, thereâs now an energized segment of America that are virulently hard core right wing. They are driven by a steady flow of lies and disinformation, and they wonât disappear or even move underground assuming Trump loses in 2020. Democrats will have to win real solid majorities in both Houses if there is to be effective government in DC, And they may be able to turn a few more Texas Congressional seats blue. Ortiz-Jones deserves your attention.
The debates are over until September, but this isnât what weâll see when they resume:
One goal among many:
This is exactly how the media and the GOP view the Dems:
Maui, on the back road to Hana â 2013 photo by Wrongo
The hot takes on the Mueller Report are in, and just like before, there remain two camps. One is glad he got away with it, and the other is unhappy he canât be fired. Virtually the entire GOP apparatus has been mobilized to defend Trump, and focus blame on the media, the deep state, and liberals.
But Trump is not portrayed as an angel, in fact, the report rips him apart. There are technical and legal reasons why a recommendation not to prosecute Trump was made by the Office of Special Counsel (OSC). Moreover, the OSC believes that Congress can (presumably should?) exercise its âauthority to prohibit a Presidentâs corrupt use of his authority in order to protect the integrity of the administration of justice.â They say that Congress âmay apply the obstruction laws to the Presidentâs corrupt exercise of the powers of the office,â and that doing so would âaccord with our constitutional system of checks and balances and the principle that no person is above the law.â (From Volume 2, page 8 of the Mueller Report)
The OSC lays out the reasons why the DoJ isnât the ârightâ authority for dealing with a criminal president. The OSC is also very clear that it does not have confidence âafter a thorough investigation of the facts that the president [would be cleared of] obstruction of justice.â
Since the OSC has completed the most thorough investigation of that subject that we have, the clear implication is that while they believe Trump is guilty of committing corrupt and obstructive acts, they donât reach that conclusion, because they are not charging him.
And this is why they make the case that an impeachment by Congress is the proper forum.
So, Mueller basically punts, and leaves it to the Congress. Trump has not been vindicated, or exonerated. He just wasn’t charged. In this country, a person is innocent until proven guilty. For sitting presidents, that can only be accomplished through impeachment.
The Democratâs leadership has already said that impeachment is off the table. But Wrongoâs theory is that Nancy Smash will do investigations this term, and find out if there is any more bad news that can help defeat Trump in 2020.
If not, then impeachment could be pursued during his second term. Plan A and Plan B are both in place, and ready for execution.
Conduct the investigations by the various House Committees. Let’s see what is revealed, not only what else goes into the record, but what we learn by observing the behavior of the many Trump administration actors.
The Mueller investigation may have ruled out conspiracy with the Russians, something that Wrongo was unconvinced about. But it was a shot across the bow that should lead to closer examination of future campaigns. The redacted OSC report is bad enough for the President politically. How much more damage might be done if/when the Congressional committees reveal more?
What with the Mueller Report and the Notre Dame fire, western culture seems to be on the skids here in the spring of 2019. No time like right now for an unredacted Saturday Soother!
Now settle into a comfy chair and listen to music played on the great organ at Notre Dame Cathedral. We now know that the organ was not damaged by fire or water during the conflagration, and was removed intact from the cathedral. Here is Organ Sonata No.1, Op.42 by Alexandre Guilmant, played by Olivier Latry. Latry was awarded the post of one of four titulaires des grands orgues of Notre-Dame when he was 23 years old. That means he has a key to get into the Cathedral and practice on the organ. Watch him play:
âI decided to fly to Paris for a few hours on Sunday. We just have to see the church, even if we are not allowed to go in, which is still forbidden at the moment. It feels like a nightmare we have not yet woken up from. Slowly, hour by hour, I understand the reality more and more. This is very hard.â
Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.
“When Democrats next have power, we should be bold and clear: We’re done with two sets of rules — one for the Republicans and one for the Democrats,”…. “And that means when Democrats have the White House again, if Mitch McConnell tries to do what he did to President Obama and puts small-minded partisanship ahead of solving the massive problems facing this country, then we should get rid of the filibuster.”
Warren referenced a bill passed in the Senate last year that made lynching a federal crime, and pointed out that it was first introduced in 1918.
âIt nearly became the law back then. It passed the House in 1922. But it got killed in the Senate â by a filibuster. And then it got killed again. And again. And again,â Warren will say. âMore than 200 times. An entire century of obstruction because a small group of racists stopped the entire nation from doing what was right.â
Warren is correct on the merits about the filibuster, as she is on many other issues. The filibuster is a blunt tool for the reactionary forces in the Senate.
From a policy viewpoint, she is by far the best candidate. But she lags in the polls, and many are convinced that she canât be elected. She also trails in funds raising, behind Bernie and Beto. Warren hasnât released her first quarter totals, but her campaignâs finance director just left. HuffPo tells us that:
“A tricky gender gap is emerging in the race for donor dollars in the 2020 Democratic presidential race.”
That hasnât affected Kamala Harris who is raising large amounts from corporate donors. Maybe she has corralled the bigger feminists.
Barrâs playing it cute with the Democrats in the House:
