At the request of a few readers, (including Fran M), here are this weekâs cartoons.
Sign of the times:
Israelâs dilemma:
Both sides:
Republican talking point:
Halloween was the same as any other night for the grifter:
The Daily Escape:
First snow, Great Balsam Mountains, Canton, NC – October 2023 photo by Brandon Montgomery
“To hope is to risk frustration. Therefore, make up your mind to risk frustration.” â Thomas Merton
Everyoneâs talking about Hamas, the Gaza hospital and Jim Jordan. Wrongo is certain to write more about those issues, but today, letâs talk about two polls that seem to be telling us a lot about what Americans are feeling right now.
First, the survey by Pew Research âAmericansâ Dismal Views of the Nationâs Politicsâ confirms that millions of Americans are feeling so exhausted and depressed by American politics that they are disengaging from it just when its important to fully engage. Some highlights:
Hereâs the tag cloud from Pew:
Notice that there arenât any positive words that made the cut from the responses. From Robert Hubbell:
âIt is no wonder that people want to disengage and look away. Exhaustion is the point of MAGA extremism.â
Hubbell goes on to point out that Republicans turn every issue into an attack:
âImpeach Trump? Weâll impeach Joe Biden, Merrick Garland, Jack Smith, Alejandro Mayorkas, and Christopher Wray.
Indict Trump? Weâll indict Hunter Biden, Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, and Joe Biden.
Protect Americans from a deadly virus? Weâll undermine trust in science.
Fight human-caused climate change? We will make it illegal to discuss climate change in the classroom.â
These responses are part of a mind game designed to make Democrats and Independents give up and go away. But his great idea is this:
âWe have one job: To endure, to abide, to keep the faith until this moment of reactionary extremism subsides. If we can do that, we will leave to our heirs a healthier, stronger democracy.â
John Dean Also wrote about this:
â…I was thinking about how Barack Obama won the presidency in 2008. The first thing that came to mind was his iconic poster with his image and the word “HOPE.” That differentiated Obama from his Democratic party competitors…and his Republican rival, John McCain. Obama embraced hope and the future, and he won.â
Some people attribute the negative messages offered by current candidates to the fact that today’s world is troubled. But as Dean points out, the world was also deeply troubled in 2008 and only Obama was offering hope. He won two terms.
More from Dean:
âThe challenges facing America today are enormous. At the top of the list is solving climate change. When asked if we can address climate change and reduce the existential risk that climate change represents, I want a candidate who answers, “Yes, we can.”
Then there are the wars in Ukraine and Israel that many Republicans wish would disappear. The solution for some Republicans is for America to sit these wars out. But US engagement in Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan is about keeping the flame of freedom alive. Putin and Hamas need to be stopped if liberty and democracy are to have a chance.
Dean closes thusly:
âI remain hopeful that hope is not dead. Can the American people give up the current orgy of hate and blame and start working for a brighter future? Yes, we can.â
Turning to the second poll, from the University of Virginiaâs Center for Politics shows an intensely divided country in which partisan rancor has grown so deep that many Americans support authoritarian or unconstitutional proposals. Hereâs the percentage of respondents that back radical ideas:
The poll also finds Biden leading Trump 52% to 48% in the 2024 horse race. You can view the details here.
So how do we (or can we?) turn the ship around? Dan Peiffer offers some thoughts:
Weâre all exhausted. The system IS corrupt. Politicians lie to get elected. They get in Congress and forget the constituents that voted for them. The system needs reform, but the reform we are moving toward (autocracy) isnât the right answer.
It seems that the hill weâre climbing keeps getting steeper. We are all tired, but we must continue the fight.
We have one job: To resist until we subdue this moment of reactionary extremism.
The Daily Escape:
Nauset Beach, Orleans, MA – October 2023 iPhone photo by Wrongo
Itâs already been a long yearâŠand there are still 3 months left! Two issues dominated this week: the Hamas war on Israel and the Republican intramurals in the House.
Letâs start with the Republicans. Semafor reports that Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA) gave up on his quest to become Speaker even though he had been nominated by his caucus as their candidate:
âScalise withdrew himself from the speakerâs race just one day after colleagues narrowly nominated him for the job, as it became clear he lacked the 217 votes necessary to secure the chair. But there are serious doubts that Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), Â Scaliseâs top rival, can pull together the support necessary for a win â in part due to the bad blood over his contest against Scalise.â
This isnât a time for Republican arm wrestling. The country and the world need attention. As AB Stoddard says at the Bulwark:
âTHE REPUBLICANS WHO CONTROL the House of Representatives cannot respond to a new war waged against Israel. They have rejected new aid to support Ukraine in its defense against the Russian invasion. They have no plan to keep the government from shutting down on November 17 when funding next runs dry.â
Right now, thereâs no path forward. While many things in this world are broken, this isnât a case of American politics being âbrokenâ. If as many pundits say, American politics are broken, we’d have seen things just like this when Democrats controlled the House. But they didn’t. What’s broken is the Republican Party.
A few House Republicans have suggested that their only choice might be to strike a bargain with Democrats. But behind closed doors, there hasnât been a real effort to hatch a bipartisan deal, writes Semaforâs Kadia Goba: (brackets by Wrongo)
âI donât think there has been legitimate outreach….Sure, those members talk to the press, but not to Hakeem Jeffries [the Democratsâ Majority Leader] or leadership.â
The potentially disastrous consequences of a broken House of Representatives are real, and some Republicans understand that. GOP Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX) said the following after Scalise withdrew his name from consideration:
âWe are living in a dangerous world, the worldâs on fire. Our adversaries are watching what we do â and quite frankly, they like it. I see a lot of threats out there. One of the biggest threats I see is in the [GOP caucus] room, because we canât unify as a conference and put the speaker in the chair…â
Brian Tyler Cohen, who hosts the podcast No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen, summed up where the GOP is at with his post on Xitter:
âThe fact that ALL Republicans would rather fight over Scalise (who attended a neo-Nazi event) or Jordan (who allegedly covered up rampant sexual abuse) rather than simply work with Democrats to elect a Speaker says it all.â
There are two possible paths forward: Either the Republicans unite behind one candidate for Speaker, or they accept that it will take some Democratic votes to elect a bipartisan candidate. âBipartisanâ is a dirty word among many House Republicans. They have broken the House and have zero intent to fix it.
They must be stopped before they break us all.
The murderous rampage by Hamas last weekend against Israeli civilians and Israelâs sharp response will reverberate for years to come. Eric Levitz wrote in New York Magazine:
âThis weekend in Israel, a far-right Islamist group perpetrated the largest mass killing of Jews since the Holocaust, murdering entire families, including babies…and slaughtering 260 concertgoers. More than 1,000 Israelis were killed in all, and over 100 others taken hostage.
Israelâs far-right government predictably responded by choking off all food, electricity, and fuel to Gazaâs 2 million residents and then preparing a military assault more untempered by concern for civilian casualties than ever before.â
The Israeli Ministry of Defense just notified the UN that Palestinians living in Gaza City should evacuate to the southern part of the Gaza Strip. But more than 1 million Palestinians live in this area. How is it possible for so many people to move, even if they had months to do it?
If you are a member of the center-left, It is difficult to see any positive influence on this situation. It shouldnât be a question of whether youâre for Israel or against it. Terrorism directed at civilians is abhorrent regardless of whoâs doing it.
And here at home, conservative pundits exploited Hamasâ attack to fearmonger about immigrants in America. Several right-wing media figures have baselessly warned that Hamas or other âsleeper cellsâ are lying in wait to attack major American cities, calling October 13 âDay of Jihadâ. They also used this lie against American Muslims after 9/11.
Whatâs happening now between Israel and Hamas makes you want to throw up your hands in despair. Itâs impossible to think of or see a solution that can satisfy all sides. Despite that, we need to take a break from so much frustration. We need our Saturday Soother. We need to stiffen our spines for what will be yet another week of horror and nonsense.
Here on Cape Cod, the weather is seasonably crisp, so we will be wearing jackets to todayâs Wellfleet Oysterfest. Later, weâll go to the beach to watch the sunset that is coming earlier every day.
To meditate for a few moments on the Hamas/Israel war, grab a comfy chair and listen to John Lennonâs âImagineâ from his 1971 album of the same name. Released during the heart of the Vietnam War, Lennon asks us to envision a world of peace and unity. âNothing to kill or die for And no religion tooâ:
Sample Lyric:
Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace
You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will be as one
The Daily Escape:
Lone Cypress, 17 Mile Drive, Monterey, CA – September 2023 photo by Leila Shehab Photography
âUntil we know we are wrong, being wrong feels exactly like being right.â â David McRaneyÂ
Wrongoâs Wake Up Call came on Saturday evening when Kevin McCarthy asked House Democrats to bail him out again:
âCongress passed a bill today to fund the federal agencies at FY2023 levels until Nov. 17. The legislation reauthorizes the FAA and the national flood insurance program through the end of this year. Thereâs $16 billion for disaster relief accounts, too.â
From Politico:
âMcCarthyâs move marked an abrupt shift after spending most of the year trying to placate all corners of his party â including a dozen-plus hardliners who have made it next to impossible for him to maneuver anything onto the floor. After the vote, McCarthy all but taunted his critics to come after his gavel if they wanted to.â
Wrongo said here that:
âYouâre unlikely to win if you decide to place a bet on McCarthy getting a dose of moral courage and standing up to his Party.â
Well, Wrongo was um, wrong. The 45-day bridge funding passed with more Democratic than GOP votes. Thatâs a repeat of the debt vote last spring that also angered McCarthyâs opponents.
More from the Punchbowl:
âDepending on where you sit, McCarthy is either the âadult in the room,â…or heâs a treasonous turncoat who continues to abandon his party in the pursuit of easy political victories, as his hardline GOP conservatives claim.â
House Republicans will now spend the next 45 days trying to pass FY2024 appropriations bills that have zero chance of becoming law. The best McCarthy can hope for is that the Senate will attempt to negotiate with the House.
On Sunday, Roll Call reported that Rep. Matt Gaetz, (R-LaLa land) said that he intends to push a motion to oust McCarthy from the Speakership:
âI do intend to file a motion to vacate against Speaker McCarthy this week. I think we need to rip off the Band-Aid. I think we need to move on with new leadership that can be trustworthy….By weekâs end he will either not be speaker or he will be Speaker serving at the pleasure of House Democrats.â
A simple majority of the House is all thatâs required to vacate the Speakership. Being the House Speaker with a GOP majority makes you a punching bag. While the members of the Freedom Caucus may love the spotlight, none of them are stupid enough to want to assume the role of getting beaten around the ears every day. Itâs much easier to sit back and bitch and moan than actually, you know, do the Fâing work you were elected to do. And McCarthy is the perfect tool: Weak, but too vain to step aside.
Pass the popcorn. Weâll soon see whether Gaetz or McCarthy have a majority behind them. An opposing view: People keep saying that: “Kevin doesn’t have the juice to do that, if he does, they’ll knife him“. But then he doesn’t get knifed. If we keep saying “he’s too weak to do X” and then he does X, doesnât that suggest something? Like maybe McCarthyâs better at his job than we thought?
In some ways, it’s become misleading to talk about the âRepublican Party“. The Republican Party is no longer the Party of Eisenhower, and itâs not the Party of Reagan. Over the past 30 years, theyâve become a cult of grifters. Think about it: Alito on the Supreme Court predates Trump by over 10 years, Thomas by 25 years. The GOP Grifter Cult includes many political operatives whoâve had critical mass in our politics for a very long time.
The Grifter Cult was aching for a leader that would turn the volume on bigotry and coarseness up to 11. Trump easily passed the audition, although he brought zero in new policies, and he hasnât broadened the Party. His major contribution has been the complete normalizing of coarse Republican messaging.
The GOP Grifter Cult was disappointed with McCain and later, with Romney, because both felt the need to show some minimal respect to others at a time when the base had already moved on to birtherism, misogyny, and pseudo-religiosity. Now, theyâre rapidly moving to full anti-democratic authoritarianism.
Time to wake up America! The GOP Grifters must be neutralized. The surest way to do that is to vote them out of office. To help you wake up on this Monday, watch and listen to Larkin Poe and The Sheepdogs cover Fleetwood Macâs 1977 hit âThe Chainâ from their landmark album âRumorsâ, in this September 2023 video:
Weâve gotta break the chain.
The Daily Escape:
In her series Marjoryâs World, photographer Rebecca Reeve creates portals from the domestic into the wilderness. She uses household drapery that she purchases from local Goodwill and Salvation Army stores to evoke the feeling of looking out of a room.
This photo was taken in the Everglades in Florida in 2012.
Reeveâs series, Marjoryâs World is named after Marjory Stoneman Douglas who was an American journalist, author and conservationist. She was an advocate of the Everglades and defended against the efforts to drain and reclaim it for development. Her most influential book was âThe Everglades: River of Grassâ written in 1947, the year that the Everglades was made a National Park.
In 1990, when she was 100 years old, her name was given to the high school in Parkland, FL where in 2018, a mass shooting took place leaving 17 dead and 17 more wounded in less than six minutes. Stoneman Douglas died at 108 on May 14, 1998.
(hat tip to Adam Tooze for introducing Reeve to Wrongo)
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) died on Friday at 90, leaving a complicated legacy. Having lived in California for more than 10 years, Wrongo and Ms. Right had the opportunity to vote for her. In her early years in the Senate, Feinstein was known for trying to find common ground with Republicans. Feinstein in her later years overstayed her welcome in the Senate.
But her real legacy was Chairing the Senate Select Committee on Intelligenceâs (SSCI) Torture Report in 2014. Feinsteinâs tenure as SSCI Chair ensured there was a documented account of the torture done during the GW Bush administration which was serious enough that the CIA actually âlostâ its sole copy of the 6,000+ page report. And she defied Obama by releasing the unclassified summary of the torture perpetrated during the War on Terror. For that alone, her legacy deserves respect.
She also championed the assault weapons ban that became law under Clinton, which was later allowed to expire by Bush. For history buffs, she became mayor of San Francisco after the murder of mayor George Moscone and supervisor Harvey Milk. She found Moscone shot in his office and tried to revive him. After Moscone’s death, Feinstein succeeded him as Acting Mayor of San Francisco. She was also a strong leader for SFO during the AIDS crisis when Reagan couldnât care less.
But letâs also talk today about a politician whose legacy will be forever tarnished, House Speaker Kevin (My Kevin) McCarthy. On Friday, the Republican-controlled House voted down a last-ditch measure to temporarily avert a government shutdown, 198-232 with all Democrats against it, along with 21 Republicans.
The Continuing Resolution (CR) would have kept the government funded for 30 days while cutting funding by 30% for all agencies except the Departments of Defense, Homeland Security and Veterans Affairs, something no Democrat would ever accept.
Most GOP “no” votes were by right-wingers who objected to the very idea of a CR. While it failed, 198 House Republicans voted for this bill sourced from God Knows Where (GKW). The Thesaurus says one synonym for GKW is âalienâ. And a few synonyms for alien are: Contrary, Estranged, Opposed and Inappropriate. These all seem right to Wrongo.
These Republicans do not belong in our government.
You may remember that back in June, House Republicans and McCarthy agreed at the eleventh hour to raise the federal debt limit to avoid the government defaulting on its loans for the first time in history. As part of that agreement, McCarthy and Biden agreed to spending caps on funding bills for the next two years that aimed to avoid this kind of impasse until after the next presidential election.
But McCarthy welshed on that deal, under pressure from a number of MAGA Republicans in his caucus who are refusing to fund the government and are calling for deeper spending cuts.
Meanwhile, McCarthy is âleadingâ one of the slimmest Congressional majorities in decades. He faces a choice of either showing moral courage by introducing a funding bill with the backing of House Dems, or letting the Shutdown run for several weeks or months.
Another day, another new McCarthy plan. Indeed, this whole dance makes for very bad politics for the GOP considering that 77% of US voters say that they donât want the government to close.
Youâre unlikely to win if you decide to place a bet on McCarthy getting a dose of moral courage and standing up to his Party.
Here in the Northeast, weâve been dumped on by even more rain leading into the weekend, which isnât expected to taper off until late this afternoon. Despite that, weâve taken the Bluebird nesting boxes down, cleaned them out and stored them until next spring.
But we have to find time for our Saturday Soother, where we forget about the mess Republicans are making of their âimpeachment inquiryâ, you know the one with zero evidence. Instead we must focus on building up our mental resolve to wander through the government shutdown without injury.
To help you build resolve, letâs start by grabbing a comfy chair by a south facing window. Now watch and listen to U2âs take on Kevin McCarthyâs problem. Here is U2âs remastered video of âStuck In A Moment You Can’t Get Out Ofâ from their 2000 album âAll That You Can’t Leave Behindâ. The song was written by Bono for his friend, lead singer of INXS, Michael Hutchence, who committed suicide in 1997:
Letâs hope that McCarthy doesnât engage in any self-harm, except for losing the Speakership.
Sample Lyric:
I never thought you were a fool
But darling, look at you (Ooh)
You gotta stand up straight,
Carry your own weight
These tears are going nowhere (baby)
You’ve got to get yourself together
You’ve got stuck in a moment
And now you can’t get out of it
Don’t say that later will be better
Now you’re stuck in a moment
And you can’t get out of it
The Daily Escape:
First fall foliage, Cox Brook, Northfield Falls, VT – September 2023 photo by John H. Knox
First, although we may know if Trump has been convicted prior to the 2024 election, itâs highly unlikely that he would be serving time by then, because his convictions (if any) will be appealed. The appeal process will take us well beyond when the Electoral College votes are counted in DC.
Second, The Constitution (before it was amended) contains just three requirements to become president: the person must be a natural-born citizen of the US, 35 years or older and a resident of the US for at least 14 years. Thatâs it.
In 1868, the 14th Amendment added Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the original text that:
âno person shall ⊠hold any office, civil or military, under the United States ⊠who, having previously taken an oath ⊠to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.â
UCLA law professor Richard L. Hasen, a leading expert on election law, told CNN that Trump has a path to serving as president if he wins the election in 2024: (emphasis by Wrongo)
âThe Constitution has very few requirements to serve as President….It does not bar anyone indicted, or convicted, or even serving jail time, from running as president and winning the presidency,â
And while some states prohibit felons from running for state and local office, those laws do not apply to federal elections. More from Hasen, on whether a president may serve from prison.
âHow someone would serve as president from prison is a happily untested question…â
If Trump were in jail and prevented by law from leaving jail while his sentence was carried out, that would make running the government impossible. It wouldn’t necessarily prohibit him from serving as president from a cell, at least until he could pardon himself, another untested loophole.
If he tried to pardon himself, or to commute his own sentence, weâd wind up at the Supreme Court. From the NYT:
âEither action would be an extraordinary assertion of presidential power, and the Supreme Court would be the final arbiter of whether a âself-pardonâ was constitutional.â
Trump would certainly sue to be released from jail, saying (correctly) that imprisonment prevented him from fulfilling his Constitutional obligations as president. Trumpâs lawyers would argue that keeping a duly elected president in prison would be an infringement by the judicial branch on the operations of the executive branch. Again off to the Supremes weâd go.
So time for a few brief reminders: Trump faces no significant opposition to winning the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. Plan A among those who really donât want Trump to win is to say:
â…he will lose in the general election.â
And thereâs no Plan B. So, what will your options be if he wins? In general, your options are: Knuckling under, taking part in political violence, or leaving the country. And understand that, regardless of how submissive you are, the number of people who will die in police custody or while “resisting” will go way up. Letâs take your options one at a time:
But all that said, Ukraineâs limited success against a superpower shows that using todayâs technology makes it relatively easy to hold large swaths of a country despite the other side’s having a much stronger military.
Wrongo thinks that after a Trump win in 2024, US citizens will have to think seriously about how to handle life under an authoritarian regime. Trump will start out with a soft form of authoritarianism. But later? Who knows what it becomes. A lot of people around the world live under authoritarian regimes, so while itâs awful, itâs also survivable for most people.
And think twice about resistance. As a thought experiment, list out the historical examples of a citizenry that  successfully resisted a fascist takeover once the fascists had a firm grip on the judiciary and half of the legislatures.
America has one great shining example of what not to do when Bush v. Gore was decided in 2000. No Democrat (looking at you Bill Clinton!) told the Supremes to fuck off. Even Gore didnât say âjust keep on countingâ in Florida. Instead, he crumbled. In a democracy, no court should ever tell the political branch to stop counting votes.
That election was stolen, but Democrats collectively just let it happen. Worse, two years later almost all of the Democrats in Congress voted for Bushâs nasty authoritarian terror bills and a war to avenge 9/11.
Wouldnât it be much better this time around to make sure Trump doesnât get the votes of any of your friends, family or neighbors? And better yet, that you get most of them out to vote?
Please donât plan on sitting back and waiting for a conviction to deliver us from Trump. Why is it in the DNA of Democrats to keep looking for some external solution to our political problem?
Wrongo is an elderly white, married, upper-middle class male living in a Blue state. Heâs going to be fine no matter what. He’ll worry about his kids and grandkids, but personally, Wrongo has nothing to worry about. His taxes may even go down again.
But he plans to resist, no matter what.
The Daily Escape:
Sunrise, Linville Gorge Wilderness, NC – September 2023 photo by Thomas Mabry
Today is the Autumn Equinox, bringing its shortened days and cooler nights. It reminds us that weâre running out of time to avoid a government shutdown, because the GOP canât stop fighting among themselves. Republicans no longer represent a serious national political Party.
From the Hill:
âHouse Republicans abandoned plans to take up a stopgap funding measure this week after members of the fractious GOP conference warned there would not be enough votes to pass a continuing resolution to avert a partial government shutdown next month.
Party leaders informed members that…the House would recess subject to the call of the chair. Lawmakers were advised to keep their plans flexible, and that âample noticeâ would be provided for any votes they planned to schedule on Friday or over the weekend.
Members werenât being officially sent home for the weekend because House leaders lacked the votes to adopt a motion to adjourn…â
Hereâs a quote from House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY): (brackets by Wrongo)
â…[in] 2018-2019, they shut the government down for 35 days. When the shutdown began, Trump was president, Republicans controlled the House and the Senate⊠They shut themselves down. Thatâs how much itâs in their DNAâ
Itâs actually worse than that. Since 1995, there have been 5 major government shutdowns. The GOP controlled the House for all 5 of them. Anyone other than Wrongo see a trend here?
Politico says that members of the Problem Solvers Caucus is working with Speaker McCarthy on a deal:
âSmall groups of centrist Democrats are holding secret talks with several of McCarthyâs close GOP allies about a last-ditch deal to fund the government, according to more than a half-dozen people familiar with the discussions.â
More:
âLawmakers involved in the talks â who mostly belong to the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus, the Republican Governance Group or the centrist New Democrat Coalition â have labored to keep their work quiet. Many Republicans involved are incredibly worried about revealing their backup plan, wanting to wait until every other tool in McCarthyâs arsenal has failed.
That moment may not be until next week, just ahead of the Sept. 30 shutdown deadline.â
Any solution to the impasse has to be bipartisan, given the intransigence of a handful of wacko Conservatives. As Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) said about the conservative holdouts: (brackets by Wrongo)
âSo why negotiate with these five or 10 people who [constantly] move the goalposts?â
Or as Andy Borowitz put it:
âZelensky Offers to Broker Peace Deal Between Kevin McCarthy and House Republicansâ
Moving on, Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) was indicted on federal bribery charges by the DOJ on Friday morning:
â…federal prosecutors alleging the New Jersey Democrat accepted cash, gold and other benefits in exchange for using his office to enrich three businessmen and aid the Egyptian government. The charges, brought by the Manhattan U.S. attorneyâs office, mark the second time New Jerseyâs senior senator has faced public corruption allegations. An earlier criminal case eight years ago fell apart.â
Menendez wasnât alone in the indictment; his wife Nadine Arslanian was also included on the bribery charges.
More from the WSJ:
âDuring a search of Menendezâs home in June 2022, investigators discovered over $480,000 in cashâmuch of it stuffed into envelopes and hidden in a safe, closets and clothing, including a jacket emblazoned with the Senate logo….Over $70,000 was found in his wifeâs safe-deposit box….Federal agents also found gold bars, home furnishings and a Mercedes-Benz convertible worth more than $60,000 that the senator and his wife received as part of the scheme, prosecutors said.â
The WSJ also notes that some of the gold bars in Menendez’s possession had serial numbers that indicated his co-defendant New Jersey developer Fred Daibes had previously owned them.
Menendezâs trial in 2008 ended in a hung jury. We’re certain to hear from Republicans that the Menendez prosecution is a clever plan to give the illusion by the DOJ that Democrats are as likely to be prosecuted as are Republicans. But with this kind of blockbuster evidence, his political career is probably over. Or, it would be over, unless his name is actually Trump.
Finally, many of you probably saw David Brooksâ tweet:
âThis meal just cost me $78 at Newark Airport. This is why Americans think the economy is terrible:â
Welp, olâ Dave exaggerates. It appears Brooksâ burger cost $17, and the rest of the bill was bourbon and taxes. Several bourbons apparently. The Newark Airport restaurant is the 1911 Smoke House Barbecue, and it notes in a Facebook post that Brooksâ bar tab was almost 80% of the total, and yet, heâs complaining about the cost of the meal.
As The New Republic said:
âMaybe Brooks could use this opportunity to pivot into speculative fiction, but in the meantime, if he ever wants to comment on economic news, he may want to lay off the whiskey first.â
And he probably expensed the bill to his employer, the NYT.
Thatâs enough for this week, itâs time for our Saturday Soother, where we try to let go of thoughts of Kevin McCarthy, Bob Menendez, David Brooks and the whole Washington menagerie for a few minutes. Letâs try to get as calm as possible to help us prepare for whatever fresh hell awaits next week. And you can be certain it will be hell.
Here in Connecticut, weâre getting a glancing blow from an early fall Norâeaster with more rain than wind. Weâll be hunkered down today. It arrives on the heels of our hummingbirds departing on Friday for more southerly places that still offer flowers with nectar.
So, start by grabbing a comfy chair inside by a south facing window. Now watch and listen to another of the âseasonsâ by Argentinian composer Astor Piazzolla, who died in 1992, his âOtoño Porteñoâ (âAutumnâ). Last Saturday, we featured his âWinterâ and today, his âAutumnâ is also played by Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam, NL in 2014. The soloist is again the conductor Liviu Prunaru:
The Daily Escape:
Cosmic Ashtray, Harris Wash, Escalante, UT – September 2023 photo by Michelle Strong. The rock that looks like a bird in the center sits in sand, not water.
Thereâs the whispering campaign among Democrats saying that Biden is too old to run, and thereâs the whispering campaign that says Kamala Harris should be replaced on the ticket to help out olâ Joe. Like the Biden whispers, when Wrongo speaks with Democrats about Harris, the vast majority are wishing that someone else would be the VP candidate on the Democratic 2024 presidential ticket.
Those two thoughts can be viewed as one, or independently of each other. Wrongo addressed the issue of Bidenâs age here:
âBiden has slowed down, thatâs objectively true. But he is worlds better than Trump. And if those are the choices for president in 2024, be thankful that the old guy is on the right side of history.â
Barring a Biden health catastrophe before the summer of 2024, no Democrat will challenge Bidenâs running for a second term. But the same canât be said for Harris. Some think Biden could inject new enthusiasm into his campaign by picking a new running mate for 2024.
These two whispering campaigns are linked because many Americans think that it’s crucial to have a vice president who is seen as a capable successor to a president, in this case, Biden. After all, he will be 86 when his second term ends in 2029. Even for a relatively healthy 80 year-old about to be 81, the odds of something going wrong increases steadily between 81 and 86.
Poll numbers indicate that the public doesnât support Harris to that extent. She’s less popular than a relatively unpopular Biden. That’s not a good situation. OTOH, as the Niskanen Center says, VPs generally have little to no impact on a presidential race and almost no direct effect on voter decision-making.
Where they can make a slight difference is in targeted demographics. A candidate can pick up (or retain) support among certain groups of voters. This is where dropping Harris from the ticket would cause more problems than it would solve:
â…it is hard to imagine a core Democratic constituency that Biden can less afford to deliberately alienate than Black women, who gave the president an 81-point margin in 2020…especially at a time when pollsters keep warning that turnout among voters of color is one of the presidentâs worst potential problems.â
More:
âIt is…impossible to deny that Harris has liabilities or deny that she has disappointed as both a presidential candidate and now as vice president. Sheâs been caught flat-footed too many times by what seemed like simple queries, and she has failed to stake out a clear policy space for herself inside the party. But Biden has done her no favors, either. He put her in charge of the southern border, an effectively impossible task given that Congress has shown zero interest in addressing the many problems there.â
Yet, according to Gallup, Harris had far better approval numbers at the time of her inauguration than Pence did when he became VP.
Booting Harris from the ticket would be a self-inflicted wound. Bidenâs brand (and one of the keys to a 2024 victory) is that heâs a no-drama politician (in contrast to Trump). Thereâd be no better way to shatter that image than for Biden to dump his VP a year before the election.
Some Dems are worried that in a second Biden term, Harris will become the Partyâs de facto 2028 nominee. Itâs true that current or former VPs who seriously seek their Partyâs nomination often get nominated. But Harris is at well under 50% in polls that asked who Democratic primary voters would support if Biden didnât run again. One survey from Ipsos/Reuters had her at just 20%.
But, after eight years of seasoning as VP at the national level, it might be that Harris would be a much better candidate than she was in 2020. And there is no telling how governors like Gretchen Whitmer, Josh Shapiro or Gavin Newsome might handle the national spotlight. Think how Ron DeSantis withered once everyone got to know him.
So Harris isnât going anywhere in 2024.
But there are other troubling issues for Dems who feel less than enthusiastic about the 2024 ticket. NBC says that political ad spending is projected to reach $10 billion by the end of this election cycle, making it the most expensive two years in political history. But Michelle Goldberg wrote that:
â…panic is setting in among some progressive groups because the donors who buoyed them throughout the Trump years are disengaging…..As both big and small donors pull back, there have been layoffs across the progressive ecosystem, from behemoths like the Sierra Club to insurgent outfits like Justice Democrats, the group that first recruited Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez…â
Dem funding is falling just when they need money more than ever:
âIt was probably inevitable that left-leaning fund-raising would fall once the immediate crisis of Donald Trumpâs presidency ended. Activism, like electoral politics, is often thermostatic: Thereâs more energy on the right when Democrats are in power, and more on the left during Republican administrations.â
Goldberg also mentions the Demsâ never-ending funds raising via email, something that frosts Wrongo:
âIf youâre on any progressive mailing lists, you surely know what Iâm talking about: the endless appeals, sometimes in bold all caps, warning of imminent Democratic implosion.â
The relentless drumbeat in Wrongoâs inbox has caused him to cut off the Democratic Party completely in the past two years. If every email is “critical” then none are critical. If this month’s deadline is “crucial” then next month’s canât be.
Small donors are punished every day for their giving to Democrats. Their information is sold and repackaged back to them from all across the political ecosystem. Wrongo wonât begin donating again until January 2024.
Finally, it seems to be in the DNA of Democrats to want a deus ex machina to deliver them from Trump and Republicans. It may be that some of the 91 counts put Trump in jail, but donât count on the 14th Amendment malarkey to get him off the ballot, unless heâs convicted of âtreasonous conspiracyâ like some of the Jan. 6 defendants.
Consistent with that, Many Dems are hoping for a savior to ride up on a white horse and âsaveâ the Party from Biden and Harris.
But Democrats came to the dance with Biden â and thatâs who theyâre leaving with.
The Daily Escape:
This mass includes parts of five floors of the North Tower of NYCâs World Trade Center that compacted on 9/11/2001 during the buildingâs collapse. iPhone photo by Wrongo taken at the 9/11 Memorial Museum, September 2016.
The above is among Wrongoâs favorite pieces at the 9/11 Memorial Museum. It is a charred and pitted lump of fused concrete, melted steel, carbonized furniture and other, less recognizable elements. It weighs between 12 and 15 tons and is four feet high. If you ever thought that humans who were in the Twin Towers when they collapsed might have survived, consider this pancake.
The 9/11 Memorialâs email today asked this question:
âDid you know that over 100 million Americans have been born since September 11, 2001?â
Although Wrongo has a grandson who was born later that week and whoâs now turning 22, Wrongo had no idea that roughly 30% of Americans have no memory of this event that profoundly shaped America in the past 22 years.
What do those of us who do remember 9/11 want to tell those who canât remember it? Maybe that thereâs too much fear in America, and all of that fear is grinding us down. The visible scars of 9/11 are gone, but more than ever, America lives in persistent fear.
We distrust Russia. We worry about inflation. We worry that our budget deficit will bankrupt us. We fear for our kidsâ safety while theyâre in school. We worry that if we lose our job we wonât find another one. Some of us worry that weâll never find the job weâre looking for. Some of us think the rest of us are Communists. The Lefties think the Righties are fascists, and weâre still afraid that ISIS will attack us on our streets. We fear the mob outside our gates trying to get in. We fear the immigrants already inside the gates.We think most of the news we see is fake. Many of us distrust our public school teachers.
Hell, we don’t trust our government!
Succumbing to so much fear has enabled the growth of internal threats that could end our democracy:
So todayâs wakeup call is for America, particularly for those Americans born after 9/11. Donât forget the heroes and the victims of 9/11, but please, learn to stop letting fear drive you as much as it drives those of us who are old enough to remember 9/11.
Hereâs a 9/11 tune: The October 20, 2001 âConcert for New Yorkâ canât be beat. It was a highly visible and early part of NYCâs healing process.
One of the many highlights of that 4+ hour show was Billy Joelâs medley of âMiami 2017 (seen the lights go out on Broadway)â and his âNew York State of Mindâ. Joel wrote âMiami 2017â in 1975, at the height of the NYC fiscal crisis. It describes an apocalyptic fantasy of a ruined NY that got a new, emotional second life after 9/11, when he performed it during the Concert for New York:Â
Check out the audience reaction to Joelâs songs. That doesnât look like fear. Thatâs where we all need to be today in 2023. It isnât hyperbole to say that the city began its psychological recovery that night in Madison Square Garden. Please visit the 9/11 Memorial and Museum if you havenât been there yet.
The Daily Escape:
Wukoki, Wupatli National Monument, AZ – September 2023 photo by David Erickson
September is underway, and weâre about to have a negotiation about government spending. But that doesnât mean that the news this month will be any less stupid than last monthâs. Also, as the Republican presidential candidates demonstrate every day, we don’t actually know whether the GOP is a dying Party or, the rising single Party of an authoritarian state.
Unless and until the traditional press presents these as the stakes, it is very unclear which it’ll end up being. With this as an introduction, Wrongo wants to introduce two writers who are attempting to break through our chain of bad policies and the bad ideology that threatens our democracy.
First, from Wesley Lowery in the Columbia Journalism Review:
âWe find ourselves in a perilous moment. Democracy is under withering assault. Technological advances have empowered propagandists to profit through discontent and disinformation. A coordinated, fifty-year campaign waged by one of our major political parties to denigrate the media and call objective reality into question has reached its logical conclusion: we occupy a nation in which a sizable portion of the public cannot reliably tell fact from fiction. The rise of a powerful nativist movement has provided a test not only of American multiracial democracy, but also of the institutions sworn to protect it.â
Lowery is a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter. He goes on to say:
âIn 2020, I argued that the press had often failed this test by engaging in performative neutrality, paint-by-the-numbers balance, and thoughtless deference to government officials. Too many news organizations were as concerned with projecting impartiality as they were with actually achieving it, prioritizing the perception of their virtue in the minds of a hopelessly polarized audience…â
Lowery also says that news organizations often rely on euphemisms instead of clarity in clear cases of racism (âracially charged,â âracially tingedâ) and acts of government violence (âofficer-involved shootingâ). He says that these editorial decisions are not only journalistic failings, but also moral ones:
â…when the weight of the evidence is clear, it is wrong to conceal the truth. Justified as âobjectivity,â they are in fact its distortion.â
Lowery concludes by saying:
âItâs time to set aside silly word games and to rise to the urgent test presented by this moment.â
Second, Bob Lord is a tax attorney and associate fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies. He also serves a senior advisor on tax policy for Patriotic Millionaires. At Inequality.org, he proposes a graduated wealth tax on the rich:
âThe United States is experiencing a level of wealth inequality not seen since the original Gilded Age. This yawning gap between rich and poor has unfolded right out in the open, in full public view and with the support of both political parties.
A malignant class of modern robber barons has amassed unthinkably large fortunes. These wealthy have catastrophically impacted our politics. They have weaponized their wealth to co-opt, corrupt, and choke off representative democracy. They have purchased members of Congress and justices of the Supreme Court. They have manipulated their newfound political power to amass ever-larger fortunes.â
More from Lord:
âIn well-functioning democracies, tax systems serve as a firewall against undue wealth accumulation. By that yardstick, our contemporary US tax system has failed spectacularly….Our nationâs current tax practices allow and even encourage obscene fortunes to metastasize while saddling working people with all the costs of that metastasizing.â
Lord along with the Patriotic Millionaires propose new legislation, called the Oligarch Act (Oppose Limitless Inequality Growth and Reverse Community Harms). It is being brought forward by Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) and Summer Lee (D-PA). The Lees have developed a graduated wealth tax tied directly to the highest wealth in America. The Oligarch Act propose a set of tax rates that escalate as a taxpayerâs wealth escalates:
Per the US Census Bureau, the median household wealth in 2021 was $166,900. So the first tier 2% wealth tax would kick in at $166,900,000, and so on.
This would affect only very high levels of household wealth. To put that in perspective, according to the Federal Reserve, the wealth level that puts you into the top 0.1% of households in 2019 Q3 was $38,233,372. So if enacted, this Act would touch a really small number of outrageously wealthy households. Also, their taxable amount would be peanuts by their own standards.
The legislation would also require at least a 30% IRS audit rate on households affected by the new wealth tax. One recent estimate indicated that the richest Americans dodge taxes on more than 20% of their earnings, costing the federal government around $175 billion in revenue each year.
The immediate argument is that this tax will never pass as long as the filibuster is intact. And hereâs how the work of both authors comes together. We see the âit will never passâ objection from journalists and pundits who try to appear savvy in the ways of DC. On any cable news show, someone is sure to jump up to say it.
The paradox is that if you look at the Congressional Record and flip to the special orders section and extensions of remarks, youâll notice theyâre filled with speeches and statements on behalf of recently introduced bills which the sponsors know will never pass as written. So why do they do it?
Because the point of introducing a bill is not just to pass it in the current session of Congress. It never has been. There is a tradition going back to the earliest days of Congress of introducing bills to make arguments and advance debate. Many famous members of Congress (think Ted Kennedy, Thaddeus Stevens, John Quincy Adams) sponsored or backed multiple bills they knew were not going to become laws.
They did it because they knew that debates over bills that will become laws donât occur in a vacuum. They happen in the greater context of the debate in Congress over issues which are influenced by every other bill under consideration. And of course, youâve gotta start somewhere.
Jumping to the conclusion âit will never passâ isnât being savvy, itâs a sign youâve missed the point. And itâs a sign of the vapidity of so many journalists and pundits that itâs the first thing out if their mouths. Itâs never a good idea to take cues from the stuffed shirts on Fox, CNN and Meet The Press.
This graduated wealth tax is a good start and sets a precedent: There is an amount of wealth that is ruinous to democracy. Taxing it is a necessary condition for preserving democratic governance.
It is true that Congress, as it is presently constructed, will not pass this, or other badly needed legislation. A genuine revolution in thinking will be required. Both Wesley Lowery and Bob Love point us toward fresh thinking about how we start dealing with what we consider to be intractable problems.
Wrongo still has hope for the younger generations who are suffering the consequences of all this government sanctioned selfishness.
Change is coming.