Category: Political Power of Women

Why Is The NY Times So Intent On Replacing Biden?

The Daily Escape:

Cliffs near Kayenta, AZ – June 2024 photo by Karen Lund Larsen

What is it with the NYT? The Wrong family has subscribed to both the online and print versions for many decades. Wrongo remembers how badly the NYT treated Hillary Clinton about her emails in 2016. And their recent editorial board missive saying that Biden should retire for the good of the country made him again question precisely what they’re trying to accomplish in this election cycle.

To refresh your memories, Vox ran an analysis of the NYT’s reporting on Clinton about a year after the 2016 election that gave us Trump. Here’s the headline from that article:

“Study: Hillary Clinton’s emails got as much front-page coverage in 6 days as policy did in 69”

Vox helpfully provided a look at those six days:

The article authors Watts and Rothschild compiled data for all front-page and online articles published by The Times between September 1, 2016, and Election Day on November 8. Watts said of Clinton’s emails:

“It’s just a tremendous amount of…front-page real estate devoted to this scandal….The monolithic story that’s constantly renewing itself seems to be disproportionately damaging compared to this kaleidoscope.”

We all know what happened to the Clinton presidential campaign on November 8.

Fast forward to the NYT’s coverage of the Biden debate and its aftermath:

In some ways this is worse than with Hillary, because much of the NYT coverage was editorial hammering on Biden’s disastrous debate performance. You can probably expect the same thing going forward. Former Assistant AG for New York State and MSNBC commentator Tristan Snell nailed it:

Well, they didn’t say absolutely nothing, just close to it. Here’s the NYT’s front page on the day Trump was convicted:

Three stories. That’s it. NYT’s Editorial Board did publish an op-ed: Donald Trump, Felon in which the NYT made no call for Trump to step down as the GOP candidate. Here’s the final paragraph of that op-ed:

“In the end, the jury heard the evidence, deliberated for more than nine hours and came to a decision, which is how the system is designed to work. In the same way, elections allow voters to consider the choices before them with full information, then freely cast their ballots. Mr. Trump tried to sabotage elections and the criminal justice system — both of which are fundamental to American democracy — when he thought they might not produce the outcome he wanted. So far, they have proved resilient enough to withstand his attacks. The jurors have delivered their verdict, as the voters will in November. If the Republic is to survive, all of us — including Mr. Trump — should abide by both, regardless of the outcome.”

Contrast this with the Philadelphia Inquirer:

“To serve his country, Donald Trump should leave the race”
“Biden had a horrible night Thursday. But the debate about the debate is misplaced. The only person who should withdraw from the race is Trump.”

David Pecker, former owner of “The Enquirer” told us the plan. Plant the seed, a front page staring you in the face at every grocery store in America. The only thing that’s important is the cover.

Turns out that’s not much different than the NYT these days.

Wrongo isn’t some kind of mad skills media critic, and he continues to read the NYT. But when are we going to see the wall-to-wall editorials and Op-eds calling for the coup-leading, convicted felon, still-in-legal-trouble man with vivid dreams of political revenge and a fleeting grasp on reality being called to step aside? Are Republicans some sort of unaccountable, unstoppable force that few in the media can never criticize?

Wouldn’t it be fantastic if the next time a reporter brings up getting out of the race with Biden himself, Biden responded with:

“Either go write an Op-Ed making the case for my Cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment, or shut the f—k up about it.”

Biden’s performance hurts his chances, no question. But dropping out now would assure defeat for the Democrats. There’s no Johnny Unbeatable in sight. Quitting the race now would fracture the Democratic Party. It would also reinforce the GOP lie that Biden and the administration accomplished nothing and was never legitimate.

Ironically, the late, unlamented Donald Rumsfeld can be misquoted to say:

“You fight an election with the candidate you’ve got, not a candidate you wish you had”.

It’s time to wake up America, we have to do more, and worry less. Stop reading the papers (specifically the NYT), and help elect Democratic Senators and Congresspersons. Let’s help them run strongly in all districts in November. Maybe they can help push Biden across the finish line.

To help you wake up, listen to The Yardbirds tune “Please Don’t Tell Me ‘Bout The News” from their 2003 album “Birdland”.  The Yardbirds were an English rock band, formed in 1963. The band started the careers of three of rock’s most famous guitarists: Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page:

Sample Lyrics:

You can read it in the morning
You can read it late at night
Well there’s been another warning
Or there’s been another fight

There’s a scandal going on
Some reporter stumbled on
About a leak in the press
And the world is in a mess

Won’t you spare me from this story
‘Cause I only get confused
Please don’t tell me about the news
Please don’t tell me about the news

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About That Debate

The Daily Escape:

Rainstorm, Blue Ridge Mountains, Blue Ridge Parkway, NC – June 2024 photo by David R. Robinson

It’s a new day and we’re trying to pick up the pieces after what happened in last night’s debate between Trump and Biden. Here’s a recap by Rick Wilson, Lincoln Project co-founder:

“It’s late June, and Joe Biden went on stage with a felon who tore down America, told 500 sundry lies, bragged about ending Roe v. Wade, defended January 6th, denied having sex with a porn star, and promised to betray Ukraine. And Joe Biden had a bad, bad night.”

Biden stumbled over his words, and Trump’s barrage of lies went unchecked. On Twitter and on cable news, the political pundit class had a collective freakout. From political journalist John Nichols:

“CNN is illustrating how a ‘debate’ when the moderators reject the basic responsibility of fact-checking in real time, and refuse to challenge blatantly false statements, is not a debate. It’s…chaos where lies are given equal footing with the truth.”

When Wrongo heard that CNN wouldn’t be doing any real time fact-checking on Thursday afternoon, it was clear how the debate would go. Only now, the Democrats and Biden can’t tell people they didn’t see what they saw.

A lot of media people are SHOCKED at Biden’s performance. Dem consultants see that there is blood in the water and the sharks are circling. So many senior Dems are saying that Biden should step aside. The options are pretty simple:

  1. Convince Biden to drop out of the race.
  2. Stick with Biden and hope his debate performance doesn’t turn many voters away.

There are LOTS of Dems who want option #1. But it will be impossible to get Biden to drop out if he doesn’t want to do it. And there are NO signs that he wants to it.

Any plan to ease Biden out would likely require the involvement of Jill Biden and Barack Obama, along with assembling a pre-fab, pre-convention ticket acceptable to the Party’s delegates.

Otherwise, it would be a free-for-all. Even with Biden and Obama’s backing, that’s a huge undertaking with a 10 out of 10 degree of difficulty. It also entails massive risk with the convention delegates, the public, along with the challenges of spinning up a presidential campaign from a standing start. No Democrat on the sidelines today has the national organization in place to make a credible presidential run. They would have to take over the Biden campaign’s assets and move on from there.

Get a grip: One candidate on the stage lied from start to finish. And no one is suggesting that he drop out.

The media has been on the verge of burying Biden because of his age for months. That was never more true than on CNN on Thursday night, where their coifed pundit-moderators ignored the elephants in the room – that one of the two men standing at the podiums was a convicted felon, the leader of a coup attempt, an alleged thief of national security documents, who was earlier this year found liable in a civil court for rape, and has promised to usher in a vengeful authoritarian regime if he returns to office.

Instead, they launched the debate with their usual dead horse: the deficit and taxes. More from Wilson:

“History is replete with bad debate performances: Clinton’s first outing in 1992, George W. Bush’s Boston groaner (I was there, and it was awful), and Obama’s first showing against John McCain. Debates matter until they don’t, but they matter most to the chattering and online classes.”

All of those debaters won the presidency.

Biden is still overwhelmingly likely to run for reelection; he’s still is in a position to be re-elected. Biden, even diminished, is more right than wrong, that at this point he represents the Party’s best chance to keep Trump out of the Oval Office.

Biden did the best he could with an opponent who is unconstrained by the truth and moderators perfectly willing to allow Trump to lie. Unfortunately while Biden started weak, he finished stronger, while Trump started strong, he finished weak.

But Wrongo assumes that many people stopped watching after the first break.

So while some Democrats are in a panic about Joe Biden’s debate performance, we need to get a clue and check in with reality. It was probable that Biden was unwell and fatigued. Imagine how well you’d perform under the same conditions, regardless of your age.

Swallow your panic and get to work, doing whatever you can. Because for many Americans, this is personal. Your guy had a bad night. But the sun is out today. Move forward. Stop being afraid of your own shadow. We’re running against an insurrectionist and a felon. Biden is old. Stop being afraid of it.

We’re having our Saturday Soother on Friday this week, for the obvious reason that it’s necessary. On the Fields of Wrong, a very large tree fell across the long driveway of two of our neighbors. It says a lot that five or so of the men in the neighborhood worked together over two days to reopen the road. It did require borrowed and rented capital equipment: a scoop loader, a tractor and a wood chipper.

It’s going to be a cooler and drier Friday and Saturday in Connecticut. So let’s grab a seat in the shade and do our best not to think about the Supreme Court’s continuing efforts to end democracy as we used to know it. Try instead to take a few moments to gather ourselves for the slings and arrows of the week to come.

Start by listening to “Uncle John’s Band” by the Grateful Dead. It started appearing in their concerts in1969. The band recorded it for their 1970 album “Workingman’s Dead”. It was written by guitarist Jerry Garcia and lyricist Robert Hunter. The tune was played more than 330 times by the Dead and the lyrics seem to Wrongo to be valuable today:

Sample Lyrics:

Well, the first days are the hardest days
Don’t you worry anymore
‘Cause when life looks like Easy Street
There is danger at your door
Think this through with me
Let me know your mind
Woah, oh, what I want to know
Is are you kind?

Goddamn, well, I declare
Have you seen the like?
Their walls are built of cannonballs
Their motto is “don’t tread on me”

Come hear Uncle John’s band
Playing to the tide
Come with me, or go alone
He’s come to take his children home

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Trump’s Running Mate

The Daily Escape:

Columbia River Gorge with Crown Point center right, WA – June 2024 photo by David Leahy Photography

Should we care who Trump selects as his running mate? NBC News now indicates the short list has been reduced to North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, Ohio Senator JD Vance, and Florida Senator Marco Rubio. And Trump says he’s made the decision on who will be his next VP.

That seems to mean that New York Congresswoman Elise Stefanik and South Carolina Senator Tim Scott haven’t made the cut.

Sen. Rubio has made the cut, but faces a Constitutional issue, as it’s Constitutionally impermissible for Trump and Rubio to form a ticket if they are both residents of the same state (in their case, Florida). NBC News says that the campaign recognizes the hurdle this presents, but is of two minds about it. On the one hand, it quotes a Florida Republican operative saying:

“…if the residency thing was not an issue, I’m fairly certain Marco would be the guy.”

On the other hand, a source who has spoken with Trump about the running mate search is quoted as saying:

“…the residency factor is an issue that is easy to fix as long as Rubio relocates.”

This raises an interesting question about the residency requirements for a US Senator. It turns out that they must be a resident of the state they seek to represent at the time of the election, but not necessarily thereafter. So Rubio could move away from Florida without having to surrender his Senate seat. But he would have to re-establish Florida residency to seek a new term as Senator.

If he were the selected VP, whatever effort he made to establish residency in a new state between now and November would certainly be challenged in court. But who knows if the Supreme Court would: a) hear the case; or b) decide in Rubio’s favor?

One reason Wrongo hasn’t given much thought to who Trump will choose is that it’s unlikely to make that much of a difference. The contest isn’t between VP Kamala Harris and one of these three Trump boys. It’s going to be a yes or no vote on Trump.

Usually the VP selection helps the presidential candidate in his/her home state. In the case of Rubio and Vance, they’d potentially help, but Trump is already heavily favored to win in both Florida and Ohio. And if he needs a boost from Bergum to win in North Dakota, he’s done before the race begins.

Rubio might provide Trump a boost with certain Latinos. The base will love Vance and they’ll tolerate Burgum. So the choice probably comes down to who is more likely to break laws if Trump asks them to.

None of these candidates should strike fear in the heart of the Biden campaign. Vance would be the worst simply because choosing him doubles down on white nationalism. Rubio has dealt in a serious way with the agencies of the executive branch for long enough that he could serve as a fill-in president without falling on his face. Maybe the same is true of Burgum, who has relevant executive experience from running North Dakota.

Time to wake up America! The presidential election is ramping up, just when you would prefer to go on vacation! Sadly, Biden needs whatever you can do to help turn out voters, and to help in swing states in particular.

To help you wake up, watch and listen to Willow Smith and her group perform “Symptom of Life” for NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert. She’s the daughter of Will Smith, but she’s got enough talent that you’re going to forget about her family tree.

And yes, you’re counting meters in seven here. The tune alternates between a 7/4 verse and a 4/4 chorus, while sounding fresh and natural:

The concert is nearly 20 minutes long. Wrongo picked the first tune, but you can listen to all of them or a few if they tickle you fancy. Pop music could sound a bit like jazz in a few years.

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We Can’t Sit Back. We Must Become Activists

The Daily Escape:

Doll House, Bears Ears National Monument, UT – June 2024 photo by Robert Villegas

Over the weekend, Wrongo and Ms. Right along with friends of the blog Gloria R., Pat M. and David P. saw the play “Suffs” on Broadway, NYC.

The plot is that it’s 1913 and the women’s movement is trying to get women the right to vote. They are organized by the suffragists, not suffragettes (they call themselves “Suffs”). “Suffs” traces their heroic and occasionally dangerous campaign from 1913 through ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920. There’s a schism in the movement between the conservative old-line establishment Suffs, and a youthful breakaway group who want to emulate a similar movement in England, led in the US by Alice Paul who briefly spent time in the UK.

Paul and her group confront then-president Woodrow Wilson, who, after jailing the Paul group and allowing them to nearly die in a hunger strike, eventually tumbles to supporting the Suffs’ cause.

So much has changed since the passing of the 19th Amendment over a century ago, and yet this musical reminds us that we sometimes need to look back, in order to march into the future.

It was a sold out crowd. The audience was enthusiastic, and predominantly women. “Suffs” is a fantastic show that should be seen by anyone who loves Broadway, loves musicals, and needs a breath of hope in this bleak world. Like “Hamilton“, it invites us to learn something about the history of America. It’s a good show and it’s good for the world. Wrongo was emotional, remembering his time as an activist in the Civil Rights movement.

The show sets the stage early with the song, “Find A Way”:

How will we do it when it’s never been done?
How will we find the way where there isn’t one?

“Suffs” also makes us think about where we are today in America, along with what we can do to make it better. My lunch with the Broadway friends underlined that Democrats think it’s a scary time. Dan Pfeiffer wrote about how “Democrats are in a full-blown freakout over Biden”. Wrongo was the only one at lunch who thought that Biden has an excellent chance of winning in November. To paraphrase a line in the New Yorker by Lore Segal:

“The current situation is like two Democrats who are fighting a duel. On the count of ten, they turn and each shoots themselves in the foot”.

More from Pfeiffer:

“People are right to worry. This race is closer than it should be and the stakes could not be higher. It’s shocking that, after everything, Donald Trump is welcome in public let alone on the doorstep of returning to the White House. However, the level of defeatism among so many Democrats is unwarranted.”

Pfeiffer includes an interesting chart that shows detail from the NYT/Siena poll after the Trump verdict. In summary, people who voted previously, back Biden while Trump leads with the folks who vote less often, pay less attention to the news, and engage less frequently with politics:

Pfeiffer concludes by saying: (brackets by Wrongo)

“It is a challenge [for Biden] to tell his story and focus voters on the dangers of Trump. The presence of third party candidates and the divisions within the Democratic Party over Gaza make matters worse.”

Can you imagine how freaked out Democrats would be if our nominee had just been convicted of 34 crimes, found liable for sexual assault, had his business found guilty of financial fraud, favored banning abortion, and was on the unpopular side of almost every issue? Dems might say to voters:

Voter: “How is the game going?”

Dem Party: “We forfeited.”

Voter: “What! Why?”

Dem Party: “We were down two points at the start of the 4th quarter.”

So the question is, like it was for the Suffs, can we find a way where there isn’t one?

The answer is we can, if we really try. Wrongo thinks we have to become activists, not Party members. We need to be “warriors for democracy” or “freedom fighters” in service of defeating Trump and all MAGA candidates in November. From Simon Rosenberg:

“The Choice, The Contrast, Joe Biden Is A Good President – I’ve been thinking a lot this weekend about something I wrote to you about the other day – the idea of establishing a clear contrast in the election. It’s something I’ve been referring to as “the choice.” Central to my theory of 2024 is that regardless of where polling is today once the Biden campaign was able to bring “the choice” to voters in the battlegrounds Biden would gain and we would win…”

The new CBS/YouGov poll from last week confirms that making the election a referendum on Trump would be supported by Biden voters. Opposing Trump as a main motivation for voting for Biden has moved up by 7 points in the past 3 months:

In the same poll, Biden leads Trump among independent voters by two percentage points — 50% to 48%. It’s well within the margin of error, but importantly, it amounts to a 17 point swing for Biden in June compared to March’s polling.

Another thing Rosenberg points out is that polls around the world have been overestimating support for conservative candidates. The underperformance by Republicans in polls we’ve seen in the US also showed up in the European elections this weekend. Here’s The Economist: (Brackets by Wrongo)

“Consider the numbers. Ms. Le Pen’s [France] result is down on 2014, the previous European election. So is the Austrian Freedom Party and, more drastically, the Danish People’s Party and the Party for Freedom in the Netherlands…. Alternative for Germany [AFD] also disappointed…on 10.8% it only modestly increased its support from 2014 and did less well than in the 2017 Bundestag election. The Lega [Italy] has made big gains, but it too seems to have done worse than was generally expected…”

The polls were off in India too, by a lot. Narendra Modi’s polls said his Right-wing party would sweep back into power, but they barely held on, and needed to share power in order to form a new government.

One of Wrongo’s lunch companions brought up David Sedaris’s quote in the New Yorker about the “Choice”:

“To put them in perspective, I think of being on an airplane. The flight attendant comes down the aisle with her food cart and, eventually, parks it beside my seat. ‘Can I interest you in the chicken?’ she asks. ‘Or would you prefer the platter of shit with bits of broken glass in it?’

To be undecided in this election is to pause for a moment and then ask how the chicken is cooked.”

Wrongo often talks about Biden needing better messaging. He should for example, say what Mitt Romney keeps saying:

“I don’t want my President to be someone who committed sexual assault…”

Or fraud. How can Trump be seen as a “winner” or a strong leader when he’s a rapist, a fraudster, a traitor, and a felon? We’re just beginning to see the negative impact of the guilty verdict. And “rapist, fraudster, traitor, felon” will take away from Trump’s preferred framing that he’s strong and Biden is weak. Biden is 81 and Trump turns 78 this week. This isn’t about age — it’s about their records.

But, we can’t sit on our hands. We have to become activists. Few of the Suffs women believed what they did as individuals would make a difference.

Few of the Vietnam activists believed they would bring about change.

And the activists of the Civil Rights movement knew how it was nearly impossible to win the vote, right up until the time they did win it.

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Can You Sell Just Five Percent Of Your Soul To Satan?

The Daily Escape:

Sunrise, Duck, NC – June 2024 photo by Nate Waddell

This should be a trivial story, except it isn’t. The WaPo reported this week that two former law enforcement officers who defended the US Capitol from rioters on Jan. 6 were jeered on Wednesday by state GOP lawmakers during a visit to the Pennsylvania’s House of Representatives:

“Former US Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn and former sergeant Aquilino Gonell were introduced on the floor Wednesday as “heroes” by House Speaker Joanna McClinton (D) for having “bravely defended democracy in the United States Capitol against rioters and insurrection on January 6. As the two men — both of whom were injured by rioters on Jan. 6 — were introduced, the House floor descended into chaos. According to Democratic lawmakers, several GOP lawmakers hissed and booed, with a number of Republicans walking out of the chamber in protest.”

In this specific instance of MAGA misbehavior, two things are significant. First, the Pennsylvania House has 203 members split between 102 Democrats and 101 Republicans. This is very similar to the polarizing political split in the US House. Second, MAGAs acting out underscores just how polarizing the Jan. 6 insurrection has become with Republicans.

Once again, we’re seeing that MAGA Republican politicians support very few of the historical guardrails of our politics. Wrongo used to think that most Republicans were sincere in their beliefs in a certain moral standard; in fiscal responsibility, in honoring those who served in the military, and respecting police officers and other authority. But over time, every one of those supposed standards has been trampled, and while Trump has been the single biggest perpetrator, all of today’s the loudmouth grifters on the Right also share in this ignominy. It’s doubtful that any argument they make is in good faith.

The irony is that the MAGA Republicans readily abandoned their long-standing heritage of freedom, of democratic rule, of the fundamentals of law dating from the Magna Carta, and of British common law. They’ve replaced it all with the Ethos of Trump. Their patriotism, like Trump’s business prowess, is a sham. Its disposable if political advantage is on the line. See Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s (R-AL) opinions on Ukraine if you doubt this.

And commitment to the principle of equal justice under law? That has been replaced with the saying: “For my friends, everything, for my enemies, the law.”

It’s nothing short of amazing how otherwise principled Republican politicians have flocked to Trump’s side. Their moves started slowly, but picked up steam during his presidency. Now they’re fully espousing whatever Trump says. And since his conviction in NY for fraud, it seems revenge is what’s driving them. Their willingness to shrug off a jury’s ruling and characterize it as illegitimate isn’t a new demonstration of their disregard for the rule of law. We’ve already seen this disregard in two impeachment trials, and in their disavowing any importance to the Jan. 6 attempted insurrection.

The MAGA movement has become a full-blown fascist enterprise before our eyes. The response we’re seeing to Trump’s conviction is bringing it more out in the open. Despite all of Trump’s bankruptcies, his greatest achievement in bankruptcy is in his completing  the moral bankruptcy of the Republican Party. But Republicans still hope to re-elect their convicted leader to the White House. Now a felon, Trump cannot possess a gun, but they want to hand him the US military and nuclear arsenal.

Republicans ought to know that there’s no such thing as selling five percent of your soul to Satan. More likely, the Devil is in a Rent-to-Own relationship with the GOP.

Some decent news for your Saturday. Post the Trump verdict, the NYT resurveyed the participants in its last poll of 2,000 people. They found a perceptible shift toward Biden. It was only a couple of points but what’s meaningful about it is who shifted. Nate Cohn wrote:

“Perhaps not surprisingly, the swings were relatively pronounced among young, nonwhite, less engaged and low-turnout voters. In fact, 20% of Mr. Trump’s previous supporters who are Black now say they back Mr. Biden.”

Overall, Mr. Trump retained 93% of voters who told the NYT that they backed him in a previous survey. But in a close election, losing 7% of your supporters could be decisive. More:

“A potentially crucial sliver of Mr. Trump’s former supporters — 3% — now told us they’ll back Mr. Biden, while another 4% say they’re now undecided.”

Also, Trump only leads Biden by 4 points in Florida in the latest poll of the state by Fox News:

Biden is just outside the margin of error, but both of them have slipped slightly since the 2020 election. It should give some faint hope to Democrats, since Florida also has a November ballot initiative that would restore abortion rights. If the Florida initiative passes, abortion will be legalized up to 24 weeks. If it gets anywhere near the 60% required to become law, Biden has a chance in Florida. Trump doesn’t have a path to 270 electoral votes without Florida!

All we have to do is vote.

As usual, we’re heading into the weekend with mostly bad and a smattering of good news. It’s now time for our Saturday Soother, where we unplug from the social media that’s trying to murder our brains, and instead, spend a few moments of relaxation. Here on the Fields of Wrong, we’re attempting to turn a ½ acre patch of our lawn into a meadow that will attract pollinators. So far, the grass is very tall, and there are occasional flowers in bloom. Wrongo planted a few more this week, disturbing the bluebirds in one of our nest boxes in the process.

It’s going to be sunny and warm in the Northeast, so grab a seat under a tree. Now, watch and listen to the late, great Jeff Beck perform “Nessun Dorma”, on the Fender guitar. It’s the wildly popular aria from Puccini’s opera “Turandot” played here at the Crossroads Blues festival in February 2010. Beck also performed “Nessun Dorma” on many other stages. Beck died in January 2023. At the time, a fellow musician said…”If you haven’t heard this version of Nessun Dorma you need to because it can move you to tears.” Strongly recommended:

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The Pro-Abortion Political Movement

The Daily Escape:

Artichoke blossom, Imperial County, CA – June 2024 photo by Paulette Donnellon

The repealing of Roe v. Wade via the Dobbs decision has helped create a dynamic new political movement: A revolt of millions of Americans (predominantly women) who think government has no business inserting itself into a woman’s personal decisions. This is going to be an important factor in the 2024 elections as it was in 2022.

The Economist says that only:

“….ten thousand women eligible to vote in this November’s elections were born before women won the right to vote. In the century since then, American women have steadily accumulated rights. In the 1960s the contraceptive pill let women choose how many children they had. In the 1970s no-fault divorce laws and Roe v Wade gave women more choices that had been denied to their mothers. This progress seemed irreversible, and was often taken for granted.”

Then it was time for the Trump-appointed Conservative Supreme Court majority to do what it had been hired to do: Overturn a woman’s right to an abortion. More from The Economist:

“A third of American women aged 15-49 now live in states where abortion is either illegal or impossibly restricted.”

These people are leading the biggest voter rebellion since the Tea Party movement in 2009.

Surprisingly, the number of abortions in the US has risen slightly since the Court’s decision, mostly due to the availability of the drug Mifepristone, which can be prescribed by mail. Medication abortions now account for about 63 percent of pregnancy terminations nationwide. The legality of Mifepristone is also currently under review by the same six Conservative justices. That decision could come down as early as today, and certainly by early July.

What a country! Americans have grown used to the idea that every spring, we wait for 9 unelected government officials with lifetime jobs to tell us what kind of country we’re going to live in. Elections should serve this purpose, and we the people should be doing the telling.

But that revolution remains in our future. What is part of our present is an attempt by House Democrats to force a vote on codifying the right to birth control access nationwide. From the NYT: (brackets by Wrongo):

“The [Democrat’s] maneuver, through a procedural move known as a discharge petition, is all but certain to fail for lack of Republican support, but that is by design. It is part of a broad election-year push by Democrats to highlight Republicans’ record of opposing abortion rights and other reproductive health choices that voters fear will be stripped away following the fall of Roe v. Wade.”

The Senate Democrats also plan to force a vote on an identical contraceptive access bill, which once again, Republicans are expected to block. This coordinated push shows that Democrats regard access to abortion and contraception options as a key issue that will show a contrast with Republicans this fall.

We’ve seen that the Dobbs decision caused an immediate political reaction. Six states have held referendums on abortion, and in all six, the abortion rights side prevailed. A potential problem for anti-abortion Republicans is that referendums to legalize abortion could be on the ballot in up to 16 more states.

Abortion rights campaigners already have enough signatures to get on the ballot in a few states, including Florida. That state is crucial because it was the abortion destination for many women in the South until May 1st, when it outlawed most abortions after six weeks. If the Florida initiative passes, abortion will be legalized up to the point of viability, roughly 24 weeks. Democrats vainly hope the issue has put Florida in play in the presidential election, although it must pass by 60% to become law. It can easily impact the elections in Arizona and other states. More:

“In only two of the six states that have held referendums, California and Vermont, did the abortion-rights side get such a large share. When Michigan held its referendum in 2022, 57% voted in favor of protecting abortion even though 63% broadly supported the procedure, a rate similar to Floridians.”

That means we’re in the middle of a vast political battle that parallels the presidential battle. Outside groups are pouring tens of millions of dollars into competitive House districts to amplify the message. The main super PAC supporting House Democrats last month announced a new $100 million fund focusing on abortion rights in swing districts.

And the group Americans for Contraception plans to spend more than $7 million on television and digital ads, targeting Republicans in the Senate who vote against the bill and House members who do not sign the petition.

A few voters could be pulled away from the Republicans. More from The Economist: (emphasis by Wrongo):

“The midterm elections in 2022 hinted at that….Although only 14% of registered Republican voters were upset about the Dobbs ruling, a quarter of that group voted for a Democrat in their House district…. Republicans and independents who saw abortion as an important issue were more likely to vote for Democrats in 2022 than two years earlier.”

That equals 3.5% of Republicans, and may be among the reasons a predicted “red wave” lifting Republican candidates failed to appear in 2022.

Republicans are in a bind on reproductive rights. They can’t reconcile their Party’s hard-line policies on women’s health and they’re out of step with the vast majority of the country. Despite that, they continue to try to tuck anti-abortion policies into pending legislation.

However the 2024 elections pan out, the anti-Dobbs movement represents something different in US politics. Unlike the Republicans, it isn’t a group of keyboard warriors vying for attention or grift online. Instead it’s people giving up their weekends and evenings to try to persuade their neighbors about an idea they hold deeply.

And it isn’t simply a political cause about a single issue. It’s many issues: The right to live, the right to privacy for medical procedures, the right to not be forced by the state to undergo unnecessary physical or mental injury.

Like most successful revolutions, it’s participatory and local. It is how democracy in America was designed to work. Help it succeed in November!

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Will The Guilty Verdict Matter?

The Daily Escape:

Sunrise, Cundy’s Harbor, ME – May 2024 photo by Eric Storm Photo

Everyone’s talking about it. Apparently, as with everything political, there are two sides. In real life, Trump was found guilty. For those of you who feel good about what the jury decided, Wrongo would give you all a big hug if you were nearby. In the Republican parallel universe however, he’s the victim of a Communist show trial. Wrongo hasn’t seen this many White men cry since Larry Bird retired. Don’t be surprised if the verdict caused Martha-Ann Alito to lower her “Stop the Steal” flag to half-mast.

You may not have already heard, but one of the jurors who voted to convict Trump regularly gets their news from Truth Social and Fox, meaning against all odds, they were convinced by the evidence. That was most likely the juror Trump was counting to deliver a hung jury.

At the Mansion of Wrong, we opened a bottle of good champagne.

In a nutshell, the reality facing Americans in the presidential election is that one of the two main contenders is a felon whose campaign is based on claiming the system is rigged. From Ed Luce in the Financial Times (paywalled):

“The Republican party’s nominee now joins his former campaign manager, senior political adviser, chief White House strategist, and national security adviser as a convicted criminal. The jury’s speed and unanimity leave little doubt about the watertightness of the verdict.…No matter what his lawyers advise, Trump’s court of appeal will be the US electorate.”

What happens between the guilty verdict in New York and inauguration day on January 20, 2025 will be a comprehensive stress test of American society. The decision will be made by the individual votes of the 244 million citizens who are eligible to vote, many of whom will stay home rather than vote.

November 5th, 2024 isn’t the end point of this struggle because if the election outcome is disputed, societal forces beyond the courts and the ballot box will again come to draw up sides, as they did in the interregnum between November 2020 and January 2021.

The verdict matters. But is it enough to be decisive? The jury is, well, still out on that, and will be until November. But the verdict is a welcome outcome if you’re anti-Trump. It pierces Trump’s preferred narrative that he’s a winner and it’s plausible that it will depress some margin of potential Trump swing voters while activating the Democratic base.

Biden should seize the moment. He doesn’t need to speak about the details of the NY case, except to profess his faith in the judicial system and his respect for our fellow citizens who served on the jury. He doesn’t have to engage with the hysterical Trump defenders, except to point out their dangerous demagoguery and un-American attacks on our legal and judicial system.

Trump OTOH, can bitch and moan about unfairness all he wants, but only losers do that. And if you’re explaining, you’re losing. So while we should expect Trump’s conviction to have a very small effect on MAGA Republicans, it will be repellant to most centrists. By contrast, the verdict will be a heartening reminder to liberals and anyone invested in responsible government that the system can still work.

But first let’s take a deep breath and let this uplifting moment wash over us. Now, agree to start every conversation about him by saying:  “Convicted Felon Donald Trump…”.

From Dan Pfeiffer:

“A lot of polling shows that a conviction is bad news for Trump. The highly respected Marquette University Law School poll recently did a split-sample. The first group was asked “If it turns out that Donald Trump is found guilty in his New York trial, would you vote for Joe Biden or for Donald Trump?” Biden led Trump 43-39. The other group was asked “If it turns out that Donald Trump is found not guilty in his New York trial, would you vote for Joe Biden or for Donald Trump?” In that group, Trump led 44-38.”

Other polls are similar. CNN released a poll in late April that offered some interesting details on the voters who could abandon Trump if convicted:

“They tend to be younger than other Trump supporters (64% are younger than 50 compared with 37% of those who would not reconsider), are less likely to be White (49% are people of color compared with 17% of those who would not reconsider), are more apt to report being Biden voters in 2020 (20% of them say they backed Biden in 2020 vs. 6% of those who would not reconsider) and are likelier to acknowledge that Biden legitimately won enough votes to win the presidency four years ago (63% vs. 22% among those who would not reconsider). They are also more apt to be politically independent (49% vs. 31%) and ideologically moderate (50% vs. 38%).”

These are some of the same voters who supported Biden in 2020 but who might defect in 2024. We need to remember that Trump is very good at distracting people from his problems by creating new ones, and most voters have very short attention spans.

America no longer has political guardrails. We no longer have standards which are bottom-line required in order for someone to be considered an admirable person. Apparently, a significant percentage of us are willing to elect anyone who yells the loudest or lies the most.

Still, there’s nothing but upside in believing Trump’s conviction will matter. Because if that turns out to be wrong, America will no longer be a place where it’s worth living.

Sadly, Wrongo has no plans for leaving it.

So it’s time for our Saturday Soother, where for the first time in forever, we can stay plugged into the news and talk about what’s going on with our friends and family. But we still need to take a few moments to consider the upcoming week and what it can mean for the nation. Since there’s beautiful weather in the northeast, start by grabbing a seat outdoors in the shade. Now, watch and listen to two musical performances.

First, “Song from a Secret Garden”, from an album by the Norwegian group, Secret Garden. Their music is sort of neo-classical new-age compositions. Here it is performed in 2022 by the Millennium Symphony Orchestra, a Korean group with solo Cello by Yoon Kyung Cho. It’s a lovely arrangement:

Second for levity, watch and listen to “I fought The Law” by the Bobby Fuller Four from 1966. The tune was written by Sonny Curtis of the Crickets and covered by the Bobby Fuller Four. Their version of the song was ranked No. 175 on the Rolling Stone list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time in 2004:

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Democrats’ Grasp On Political Power Is Slipping

The Daily Escape:

Shiprock reflection, Shiprock, NM – May 2024 photo by Alex Spahn

Hope that everyone had a relaxing Memorial Day break. Despite our relaxing, time continued to march forward. And now some pundits are saying that America has entered the stretch run to the November presidential election. To a large extent, they’re correct. There’s only four months until early voting begins.

And its not just Trump we should be worrying about. At the moment, the Senate’s electoral map for November is grim for Democrats. They are certain to lose West Virginia, and the nine most competitive Senate races feature eight Democratic incumbents and Ted Cruz. And despite having a great Democrat (Colin Allred) running against Cruz, Texas may be the least likely to flip of those nine seats. So the odds on that are as long as drawing to an inside straight.

This brings up just how stacked against Democrats our Constitutional Republic has become. Fifteen years from now, states with 30% of the nation’s population will control 70% of the Senate’s seats. And the Senate is a legislative body where you need 60% of the votes (with certain exceptions) to bring a bill to the floor.

The difficult Senate map for 2024 means it is more likely than not that we may be kissing goodbye to adding additional progressive justices to the Supreme Court for some time, since a Republican-controlled Senate is unlikely to ever confirm a Biden nominee. (That’s assuming Biden wins in the fall.)

And it’s become clear that the Supreme Court as currently constituted is completely unfriendly to making voting easy for the masses. And they’re doing that in support of the Republican agenda. As Mark Jacob reminds us:

“The court has made a series of key rulings in recent decades that have handed Republicans major advantages, including:

The Bush v. Gore decision to block a recount in Florida in 2000 and award George W. Bush the presidency

The Citizens United ruling of 2010 that was rocket fuel for the political influence of wealthy donors and corporations

A 2013 ruling written by Chief Justice John Roberts that gutted the Voting Rights Act and cleared the way for voter suppression laws

A 2019 pro-gerrymandering ruling also written by Roberts that let political parties draw election maps to their unfair advantage. (The court takes the position that it can strike down gerrymandering if it’s done for racially discriminatory reasons rather than partisan ones….”

Back in the day, we all wanted to believe that the Supreme Court was MOSTLY unbiased and above the political fray. We’re now painfully aware that this “pillar” of justice is simply a facade. Alito and Thomas are doing whatever they please.

Most recently, as Democracy Docket reported, the Supreme Court ruled that South Carolina’s congressional map is not a racial gerrymander, reversing a lower court decision that had earlier struck down the same map. That decision will result in worse representation for South Carolina’s Black voters. This is in stark contrast with a Louisiana district court’s decision in which the state’s white voters were able to get a racially compliant map struck down as a racial gerrymander, meaning that it too will now favor White representation for a Louisiana district.

This now means that the Supremes have kneecapped the ability of plaintiffs either to prove racial bias or to change gerrymandered districts on the basis of partisanship. Black voters are reaping what was sowed by Chief Justice John Roberts in his 2013 opinion gutting the Voting Rights Act. The president of the South Carolina NAACP, Brenda C. Murphy, said about Alito’s decision against South Carolina’s map:

“The Supreme Court has failed. The American people’s voting rights have taken another gut punch, and the future of democracy in South Carolina is dangling by a thread,”

As if this isn’t bad enough, Matt Cohen, also of Democracy Docket, reports on yet another Right-wing group organizing to disrupt the national election this fall. The group is called United Sovereign Americans (USA). They’re planning a series of lawsuits aimed at upending the voting process in a handful of states by claiming that non-citizens are voting in the federal election. Forget that there is nearly zero evidence for the claim, and that non-citizen voting is already forbidden by federal law.

In early March, United Sovereign Americans filed a lawsuit in Maryland challenging the state’s voter roll maintenance practices and other election procedures. The group says they plan to file similar lawsuits in at least nine states challenging election administration and voting laws. And although a federal judge tossed out the Maryland lawsuit, the group recently filed an appeal to the 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals.

The crux of USA’s argument is that inaccurate voter rolls lead to illegally cast votes, a civil rights violation because the US Constitution guarantees that right. The group’s claim is that when an election is marred by hundreds of thousands of illegal votes, it dilutes the power of lawful votes and violates the civil rights of US citizens.

This is a legal longshot. So the group is also building a grassroots movement that, much like in 2020 and 2022, is radicalizing a large group of people across the country to become election vigilantes. Their job is to swamp local election officials with false claims in an effort to derail current election policies in various states.

Finally, we turn to that bastion of democracy, Texas. The Texas Tribune reports that:

“Republican Party of Texas delegates voted Saturday on a platform that called for new laws to require the Bible to be taught in public schools and a constitutional amendment that would require statewide elected leaders to win the popular vote in a majority of Texas counties.

Other proposed planks of the 50-page platform included proclamations that “abortion is not healthcare it is homicide”; that gender-transition treatment for children is “child abuse”; calls to reverse recent name changes to military bases and “publicly honor the southern heroes”; support for declaring gold and silver as legal tender; and demands that the US government disclose “all pertinent information and knowledge” of UFOs.”

How is it that these Republicans are taken seriously as politicians in a state as diverse as Texas? Apparently, they don’t trust their ability to keep winning statewide elections, even if it’s hard to see when (or if) Texas may become a purple or blue state.

Trump has shown America that there really aren’t any political constraints. Add to that the removal by the Supremes of several of the real constraints we did enjoy. What’s left is that state political parties can do just about anything to keep themselves in power.

Texas shows that. State electoral colleges? Sure. Gerrymandering where you can lose 57-43 and still win? Sure. Make voting a pain in the ass for voters you don’t want to see vote? Sure.

With the rules as they are, there is little recourse. But if Dems say “Court Reform” every time they’re in front of a camera, in a few years, the message might start to gain adherents.

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Cartoons Of The Week – May 26, 2024

The Republican War against women continued as Louisiana became the first state to criminalize abortion pills. The state’s Republican governor Landry signed a bill classifying mifepristone and misoprostol, two drugs used to induce medical abortions as controlled substances.

That puts the abortion pills in same category as anti-anxiety medications Xanax and Valium. The law makes it a crime to possess them without a prescription or outside of a professional medical practice, punishable by one to five years in prison and fines of up to $5,000.

The law will also make it harder for people who need misoprostol for other conditions. The drug is used to induce labor, treat miscarriages, reduce the risk of serious bleeding from ulcers and other indications. This is yet another reason for women everywhere in America to turn Republican legislators out of office.

And we’ve ended another week of decidedly ordinary cartoons, with many about Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito and his flags. On to cartoons.

What the future is for women in Louisiana:

Then and now, where “then” wasn’t long ago:

The Red Flags are there. What should we do?

Alito is sitting pretty:

In a not-so-unlikely future:

Haley backtracks on Trump:

Why do Republicans always minimize the Trump outrage du jour?

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Two Bad Stories

The Daily Escape:

Squirrel in a bird feeder, Northbridge, MA – 2024 photo by Paul G. Dailey

Wrongo had planned today to talk more about Ukraine, but the nation’s news had other ideas. We will cover two stories today. First, Supreme Court Justice Alito’s shocking display of gross partisanship at the exact time he was hearing a case regarding the same issue.

On Thursday, in an exclusive, the NYT reported that Alito’s home displayed an upside-down US flag during the days after the January 6 insurrection. In 2021 and since, flying the US flag upside down is a symbol calling for people to “Stop the Steal” of the 2020 election from Trump. In case you miss the significance, that upside down flag is a call to insurrection. And it was displayed by a Supreme Court justice. More from the NYT:

“At the time the Alito’s flew the flag in front of their house, the Court was deciding whether to hear a vote-counting challenge from Pennsylvania. The majority said no, but Alito, joined by Thomas, dissented. They wanted the Court to take the case, whose theme, was that the Pennsylvania election had been stolen”

The NYT reported that Alito emailed the following when asked for comment:

“I had no involvement whatsoever in the flying of the flag. It was briefly placed by Mrs. Alito in response to a neighbor’s use of objectionable and personally insulting language on yard signs.”

Who thinks that makes flying the flag upside down justifiable? Nobody. From Robert Hubbell:

“Alito’s response to the Times is a lie. He owns the flag. He owns the flagpole. He owns the property on which the flag was displayed. He permitted it to remain on display on his property. He, therefore, did have “involvement” in “flying the flag.” It does not matter that it was his wife who physically raised the “Stop the Steal” banner on the flagpole. Alito’s hair-splitting denial is misleading and incomplete—and therefore false.”

We have two Supreme Court justices (and their wives) openly siding with insurrectionists and deciding on cases that involve the insurrection and its leader, Donald Trump. The Court should be renamed “The Court of Supreme Ethical Violations”. Plainly, the Court has lost the ability to police itself.

And for the record, the upside-down flag was flying over the Alito’s’ home on Jan. 17, 2021. Why has it taken the NYT three and a half years to publish such an important story? Wrongo’s faith in the NYT has taken another hit with their deferred reporting on the flag at Alito’s home.

The second report comes from Kyle Tharp at “For What It’s Worth” a newsletter about politics and social media. He reports that pro-Trump content now dominates on TikTok, a platform that Biden began using this year:

“Since November, according to two TikTok officials, there’s been twice as much pro-Trump content as pro-Biden content on the platform….1.29 million positive Trump videos or images, with 9.1 billion views, compared to 651,000 positive Biden posts, with 6.15 billion views…This may not be the most precise survey of the landscape, but that’s still a nearly 10 to 1 ratio of Trump likes to Biden likes, and 12 to 1 in views.”  ”

Let’s remember that TikTok is primarily used by younger Americans who may make the difference in which candidate wins in November. Two other points:

“…there are 10.5 million TikTok users in Pennsylvania, 3.4 million in Nevada, 2.4 million in Arizona, 5.4 million in Georgia, and 3.7 million users in Michigan.”

The Biden campaign almost certainly knows those numbers. Tharp says that Democrats and liberal groups have six months to flood the zone with positive pro-Biden news clips or creative original content reaching core audiences on TikTok. They should start now.

That’s enough disturbing news for today, it’s time for our Saturday Soother, when we do our best to forget about Trump’s attempt to bribe Big Oil executives, or why Republicans think showing up at a Manhattan courtroom is good for their careers. Instead, let’s try to focus instead on the natural world around us as we prepare for another week of depressing political news.

Last Thursday was an exciting day on the Fields of Wrong. It’s garbage pickup day, and a medium-size black bear wandered around the Mansion of Wrong looking for treats. Garbage cans are his preferred target, followed by birdfeeders. But our cans were still in the garage, so he left our place without a snack, although several of our neighbors had to clean up their garbage, which the bear had strewn far and wide.

The bluebirds are nesting in our birdboxes, and with all the rain, our fields are very green. We’re expecting good weather today, so grab a seat outside in the shade. Now, watch and listen to the Paganini Ensemble Vienna play Paganini’s “Quartets for Strings and Guitar Vol. 4 Nos. 11, 6 & 13”. These were recorded in Vienna in March, 2022. Paganini’s string quartets with guitar are among his finest chamber compositions:

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