Category: Truth in Politics

Florida State House Changes School Curriculum

The Daily Escape:

Cape Cod evening – 2022 photo by Alan Hoelzle

(This is the last column for this week as Wrongo and Ms. Right are heading to France for ten days. It’s our first international trip since 2019. Posting will be light and dependent upon internet connectivity.  Try to behave yourselves and keep your tray tables in the upright and locked position until told otherwise).

Bullies always complain that they’re the victim, not the ones who got the beating. We see this with Putin and Trump.

Another example of that is what Republicans in Florida are doing with public school curricula. Gov. Ron DeSantis says that he’s saving kids from imaginary indoctrination in their schools, but this week he issued a government edict that requires school indoctrination. From the Miami Herald:

“Public school teachers in Florida will soon be required to dedicate at least 45 minutes of instruction on “Victims of Communism Day” to teach students about communist leaders around the world and how people suffered under those regimes.”

DeSantis’ bill makes Florida one of a handful of states adopting the designation. More from the Herald:

“It is, however, the first state to mandate school instruction on that day, as Florida Republicans continue to seize on education policy while placing school curriculum at the forefront of their political priorities ahead of the 2022 midterms….It would require teaching of Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong and Fidel Castro, as well as “poverty, starvation, migration, systemic lethal violence, and suppression of speech” endured under those regimes.”

So kids, we learned today that teaching Florida students about authoritarian fascist slavery in other countries is necessary and mandated. But teaching Florida kids about authoritarian fascist slavery in this country is nothing but divisive critical race theory (CRT) that makes white kids feel bad. It must never, ever be mentioned.

This is a part of the Republican Party’s effort to make public education their top campaign messaging issue in the 2022 Midterms. Despite the reality that all of the education-related “issues” they are focused on are non-existent — like claiming that the teaching of CRT is everywhere, or that teachers who educate students about LGBTQ+ issues are “groomers”.

Normally, local school boards would be left to decide what is taught in the schools under their control, including curriculum, and health and safety standards. But under Republican radicals like DeSantis, the local community isn’t able to do that, because it might interfere with his goal of becoming America’s next Trump.

The irony of dictating school policy from the capital isn’t lost on anyone. It proves that DeSantis understands the basic concept that got the very regimes he hates going in an authoritarian direction in first place. They play up the victimhood — I’m the one being oppressed! — and then get their voting base, those who carry grudges against the Other, to go along with it.

The only “critical race theory” that DeSantis cares about is the race he’s running in to be president one day.

Since Wrongo is leaving you without any musical interludes for a week or more, let’s have a travel-appropriate tune to help propel you forward into the news jungle.

Listen, and watch for sure, Dierks Bentley do his 2014 song ”Drunk On A Plane”. If only airplane rides were really like this! The video won Music Video of the Year at the 2014 CMA Awards:

Facebooklinkedinrss

Saturday Soother – April 30, 2022

The Daily Escape:

Cactus bloom, Tanque Verde, AZ – April 2022 photo by Bel Meader

Since last fall we’ve seen headlines about the need for parental control of public school curricula. It’s been a huge political weapon for Republican governors like DeSantis in Florida and Youngkin in Virginia. The argument is that the way race, gender and history are taught in public school classrooms is outside of the cultural mainstream in America.

A new national poll by NPR and Ipsos shows that those concerns are held only by a minority of America’s parents, while the majority express satisfaction with their children’s schools and what is being taught in them. The poll’s findings show that fewer than 20% of parents seem to be concerned about the culture wars, but they seem to be driving 100% of the conversation about K-12 education in America.

The poll surveyed 1,007 parents of school-aged children. Parents answered questions about the impact of the pandemic on their children, academically and socially, and about their schools’ performance:

“This year’s responses showed positive trends as the nation continues to recover from the worst of the pandemic. Compared to 2021, a growing margin of parents say their child is “ahead” when it comes to math, reading, social skills, and mental health and well-being. Fewer parents say their child is “behind” in those areas. In fact, in 2022, almost half of parents, 47%, agree with the statement: “the pandemic has not disrupted my child’s education.” That’s up from 38% in 2021…”

However, that view is at odds with that of most education researchers, who see big disruptions in indicators like test scores, college attendance, and preschool enrollment. The Ipsos poll shows that parental satisfaction also included culture war topics. In the poll:

  • 76% of respondents agree that “my child’s school does a good job keeping me informed about the curriculum, including potentially controversial topics.”
  • 88% of respondents agree with the statement “my child’s teacher(s) have done the best they could, given the circumstances around the pandemic.”
  • 82% agree “my child’s school has handled the pandemic well.”

Mallory Newall of Ipsos points out that:

“It really is a pretty vocal minority that is hyper-focused on parental rights and decisions around curriculum…. Just 18% of parents say their child’s school taught about gender and sexuality in a way that clashed with their family’s values; just 19% say the same about race and racism; and just 14% feel that way about US history.”

Newall also said that there was a lack of partisanship in the responses:

“The most partisan issue in our poll was gender and sexuality, but still only a minority expressed any concerns. Republicans are closely divided: 26% say schools are not teaching about gender and sexuality in a way that matches their family’s values, while 22% say schools are (the remainder don’t know or say schools aren’t addressing those topics).

The problem of course is that the vocal, 20+% of American parents are seeking total victory in the culture war. Republican-aligned groups like No Left Turn In Education and Parents Defending Education have continuously pushed these issues into the spotlight. And it’s working.

Ralph Wilson, a researcher who studies how partisan donors back the culture war, says these groups imply that they represent a silent majority of conservative-leaning parents. But that’s not necessarily the case:

“It’s definitely an incredibly small minority that’s being amplified with this large, well-funded infrastructure to appear larger and to appear to have more well-founded concerns than they do.”

The Ipsos poll found that about a third of parents say they “don’t know” how their child’s school addresses sexuality, gender identity, racism, or patriotism. Only 24% of parents believe they have too little say over what is taught or what books are in the library at their kid’s school.

That’s enough! Let’s leave the culture wars behind for the weekend. It’s time for our Saturday Soother, where we gather ourselves for the week ahead. In northwest Connecticut, we can’t escape cold weather, so our remaining yard work must wait for warmer nights before planting can start.

Instead, pour a mug of your favorite spice tea, grab a seat by a big window, and listen to “The Banks of Green Willow” by the little-known George Butterworth, who was part of the English pastoral idiom. Butterworth and Ralph Vaughan Williams were close friends, and you may hear similarities in their music. Butterworth was killed in 1916 in WWI during the Battle of the Somme; he was just 31.

Here it is played by the  Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra under Grant Llewellyn:

And the pastoral images are nice!

Facebooklinkedinrss

Eric Boehlert, RIP

The Daily Escape:

Woodenshoe Tulip Festival, near Salem, OR, with Mt. Hood in background – April 2022 photo by Mitch Schreiber Photography

Eric Boehlert, a senior fellow at Media Matters for America, who wrote commentary and media criticism in his “PRESS RUN” newsletter, was killed on Monday while riding his bike in Morristown, NJ.

Boehlert skewered today’s journalism and its practitioners. He hated journalistic laziness and took great pains to call out the mainstream media’s daily obsession with Both Siderism. We have often quoted him at the Wrongologist. He did a great job of researching his material and his arguments were ferocious.

Whenever Wrongo saw something with Boehlert’s byline, it was sure to be interesting, important, and reliable. He usually posted on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Wrongo was surprised when he didn’t post this past Wednesday. But as someone who doesn’t always post on a reliable schedule, I thought that something just came up.

This is a particularly terrible time to lose such an important voice, but it’s always a terrible time to lose a good person. James Fallows paid tribute to Boehlert in his “Breaking the News” newsletter, Framing: In Honor of Eric Boehlert:

“We have lost a crucially incisive voice, and a kind and generous person….Here is an attempt to continue in his spirit.”

Fallows continued about the unspoken assumptions that the media bring to its political coverage:

“This means, for example: the press’s assumption that the most interesting aspect of any development is the politics of it—“What does this mean for the midterms?” “Are the Democrats in disarray?” “Who can out-Trump Trump?”

Or that you should get to the truth of an issue by quoting both a Republican and then a Democrat, or better yet having them argue on screen.

Wrongo didn’t know Boehlert but read his newsletters each week. That somehow, makes the news of his death more painful. It’s interesting how when someone that you have never met dies, it can still feel like a huge loss. In some ways, the loss is very much like losing someone you knew in real life.

And yet, Dick Cheney and Mitch McConnell still walk the earth. Why not Cruz? Hawley? Clarence Thomas? Or any of the other assholes who pollute and poison our politics?

America has far too few voices speaking truth about the corrosive behavior of the US political media. Now, it’s lost one of our most important critics of that industry. Hopefully, others who do this important work will redouble their efforts in homage to Eric’s efforts. Wrongo will try harder.

As Boehlert would say in his sign-offs, “Stay healthy. Be kind.” He was a good man that fought the good fight.

Boehlert concluded each of his columns with music. Let’s try to honor him by watching and listening to the Celtic Woman perform “The Parting Glass” live in 2018 in Ireland’s Johnstown Castle. The parting glass was the final hospitality offered to a departing guest in Scotland and Ireland. It has become a tune used to celebrate the lives of the dearly departed:

Lyrics:

Oh all the money that e’er I spent
I spent it in good company
And all the harm that e’er I’ve done
Alas, it was to none but me

And all I’ve done for want of wit
To memory now I can’t recall
So fill to me the parting glass
Good night and joy be with you all

Oh all the comrades that e’er I’ve had
Are sorry for my going away
And all the sweethearts that e’er I’ve had
Would wish me one more day to stay

But since it falls unto my lot
That I should rise, and you should not,
I’ll gently rise and I’ll softly call
Good night and joy be with you all
Good night and joy be with you all

Facebooklinkedinrss

Which States Have the Highest Homicide Rates?

The Daily Escape:

Moonrise over Salt Run, St. Augustine FL – March 2022 photo by Bob Willis

Republicans can’t stop talking about how the murder rate in America has grown. It’s true that the homicide rates are up, although they remain well below their historic highs of the 1990s. There were more than 21,500 murders in 2020, the latest year for which we have data. The national murder rate in 2020 was about 6.5 per 100,000 people, about 40% below what it was in the 1990s.

With the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, the trope about a liberal soft-on-crime plot against America returned. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said:

“We are in the middle of a violent crime wave including soaring rates of homicides and carjackings….Amid all this, the soft-on-crime brigade is squarely in Judge Jackson’s corner.”

Would you be surprised to learn that McConnell’s home state of Kentucky has the third-highest homicide rate per capita in the US? In fact, eight of the 10 states with the highest homicide rates in 2020 voted that year for Trump. The truth is that Red states (those run by Republicans) have a bigger problem with murder than do the Blue states; their murder rate is higher.

Jonathan Capehart says in the WaPo: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“This startling data is revealed in a new report from centrist think tank Third Way. Mississippi leads the way with a 2020 homicide rate of 20.5 per 100,000 residents…the five states with the highest murder rates, all Trump-voting states, had rates at least 240% higher than New York’s murder rate and at least 150% higher than California’s.”

Here’s a chart from the WaPo:

The per capita homicide rates above are per 100,000 people. Remember that the national average is 6.5 per hundred thousand people. Beyond the top 10 states, the report looked at the 2020 murder rates in the 25 states that voted for Donald Trump and compared it with the murder rates in the 25 states that voted for Joe Biden.

The news was the same. The murder rate in Trump states (8.20/100k) was 40% higher than the 5.78/100k murder rate in Biden states. These facts really hurt the Republican narrative of “crime-is-out-of-control” in cities like Los Angeles, New York City, Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia, Portland, Baltimore, and Minneapolis, all of which have a bad rap among our Red state friends.

When you dig into the report by city, Jacksonville FL, a city with a Republican mayor, had 128 more murders in 2020 than San Francisco, a city led by a Democrat. Despite having comparable populations, few would say that San Francisco is a safer city than Jacksonville.

The narrative by the Right (and supported by the media) about crime and murder is both convenient and wrong. Many on the Right attribute the homicide increase to Democratic policies, specifically about police reform. The fact is that murder rates are actually higher in Republican states that haven’t even flirted with ideas like defund the police.

The eight of the ten Red states in the top ten are not only Trump-voting states, but they have been bastions of GOP policy for the last 25 years. The true conclusion from the data is that Republicans do a far better job of blaming others for high murder rates than they actually do to reduce murder rates.

Sorry Mitch, the increase in murders is not a liberal cities problem. It’s a national problem.

Facebooklinkedinrss

Are Freedom and Democracy Still Compatible in America?

The Daily Escape:

Henniker Covered Bridge, Henniker, NH – February 2022 photo by Jurgen Roth Photography. It is a footbridge across the Contoocook River.

Trucker anger is coming to America. From Politico:

“Canada’s truckers have paralyzed Ottawa and unsettled the country’s politics over vaccine and mask mandates. Now Americans want in on the action. A nationwide convoy — starting in California before heading toward Washington, D.C. — is expected to get underway on March 4 amid a growing clamor from those who believe their freedoms are under threat from government Covid-19 restrictions.”

The trucker protests in Canada seem to have become a rallying point for those who are irate about what they view as Covid-inspired overreach by their governments. Momentum seems to be building for a similar convoy in the US. The NYT reports that:

“…several right-wing figures, including Dan Bongino, Michael Flynn and Ben Shapiro, have promoted the protest and shared links to fund-raising sites that have collected millions of dollars. American anti-vaccine groups have also begun forming local wings of the movement and have urged truckers in the United States to adopt the tactics in Canada.”

The US organizers are now calling it “the People’s Convoy“. They have formed Telegram encrypted channels to use for building support in multiple states. The group says it’s working with two other groups: Freedom Fighter Nation and Restore Liberty, whose founders are closely tied to right wing politics. They include Leigh Dundas, founder of the Freedom Fighter Nation. She gave a speech in DC on the eve of the Jan. 6 Capitol Hill insurrection, claiming it would be “within our rights” to murder “alleged American turncoats” who interfered with the 2020 election.

She seems nice.

Trucker protest convoys have become a rallying cry for far-right and anti-vaccine groups around the world. They seem to be gathering strength from growing Covid fatigue, something that is nearly universal in the developed world.

Their message is that “government has been overreaching for too long, and we’re not going to take it anymore”. They’re expressing an old, bad idea: That individual freedom cannot be limited by government.

Let’s spend a minute on whether freedom and democracy are compatible. “Freedom” normally means freedom of the individual while democracy is a communitarian concept. Democracy is a system of government while freedom is about either not being governed or being governed as lightly as possible.

But a society without democracy would be autocracy or worse. With no government, it would be anarchy. And a society without freedom couldn’t possibly be a democracy. So maybe the question isn’t whether they are compatible, but whether each is a co-requisite for the other to exist.

Elizabeth Anker in the NYT opined on the changing nature of the language of freedom, saying that many political actors are using the concept of freedom to justify anti-democratic politics. She calls them the “ugly freedoms”. In American politics they increasingly justify minority rule, prejudice, and anti-democratic governance. And their popularity is growing.

This is highly relevant to the impending trucker convoys and how we think about “free speech” and the rights of non-experts to try and force their opinions on the majority. Perhaps the alternative to the ugly freedoms should be our beautiful freedoms, like the Bill of Rights, or the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

A third of Americans make up their own facts, so we’re bound to hear a few lies expresed as truth. These same people believe they don’t have to consider what’s happening in their communities. They think opinions are equal to facts. They get angry enough to threaten violence or to commit violence.

Many of them, despite outward tough guy appearances, are simply too soft mentally and emotionally. Life can often be harder than we want it to be. Sometimes, you’ve got to do what’s good for society, not just what’s good for you.

OTOH, these trucker rallies could conceivably draw support from others who are angry at governments at all levels. Think about restaurant workers, first responders and all of the “essential’ employees who have been unevenly impacted by Covid.

Think of it as the laptop workers vs. those who have to leave the house to earn a living. They each have experienced Covid and the jobs crash in far different ways. If the trucker protest casts a wide net, it will rope in small business owners and parents who are angry that their children have lost so much when schools were closed.

There’s plenty of anger fermenting out there.

Going back to Wrongo’s US Army days, you weren’t required to like everyone in your platoon, but duty demanded you bear the responsibility of fighting beside and for them. That was considered patriotic. Once we had the ability to pull together and sacrifice in the midst of national crisis. Now it’s everyone for themselves.

On Jan. 6, the right of free speech produced lies that led people to commit federal crimes. That’s the downside of the Bill of Rights: An individual has a protected right to lie to the public. We see many career politicians and social media entrepreneurs lie every day.

Assuming that there are protests in the US in coming weeks, Biden will face the same dilemma as Canada’s Prime Minster Trudeau faces now. Will Biden demonize the truckers? Will he listen to their grievances?

The shift of emphasis in America from an expanding democracy with protected individual rights/freedoms to an ad hoc (and sometimes illogical) version of freedom is what may create a failed American state.

It’s a movement that’s long on energy, and short on facts and judgment.

Facebooklinkedinrss

Why Isn’t Good Economic News Covered?

The Daily Escape:

Crater Lake, OR – winter 2020 photo by Austin James Jackson photography.  

We need to talk about the economy. The underlying economic news is very good, but both the press and the Republicans say it’s bad, while Democrats say very little.

There are three things being discussed. First, inflation is terrible. This is a key Republican talking point about how Biden is failing the country. Second, jobs are going begging in what journalists have dubbed “The Great Resignation”. This is supposedly the fault of giving too much in unemployment benefits, allowing people to stay home rather than work. Third, if the economy is so great, why isn’t employment growing faster?

Starting with the last point, take a look at this graph showing jobs growth since 2008. The blue bars are when a Democrat was president, and the red bars are when a Republican was president:

That last blue bar is the strongest jobs growth in history. During 2021, the US created more than 6 million jobs, the most since records began in 1939.

That means Biden has just managed a year of stunning jobs growth, but consumers were constantly fed headlines about “disappointing” jobs reports, because the initial reports rarely align with skewed “expectations” by economists and pundits. Explaining this should be fairly easy, but the press can’t seem to get it across to the American people.

In addition, wages have been moving up across the board:

In December, average hourly earnings for Production and Non-supervisory Personnel rose $0.12 to $26.61, which is a 5.8% year over year gain. This shows that American workers are finally building some economic power. People have choices right now. After years of worker insecurity in the wake of the financial crisis followed by the pandemic, they have options. Jobs are going unfilled, while virtually no one is getting laid off.

The unemployment rate has now fallen close to a 50 year low, at a level exceeded only by one month in 2000, and during 2018-19. The economic result of this is visible on the graph above.

While employment is continuing to be strong, we’re still lagging in terms of filling job openings created by pandemic losses. America must gain an additional 3.6 million jobs in order to equal the number of employees in February 2020, just before the pandemic hit. At the current average jobs growth rate for the past 6 months, that should take about 7 more months to reach the pre-pandemic employment level.

Economists are tying themselves in knots trying to figure out why more Americans aren’t going back to work. Some of those reasons are understandable: Fears about health, caring for someone who’s sick, and lack of childcare. But there’s a big reason that isn’t talked about. Employment has declined in the last year among workers who were 55 or older at the start of the pandemic. A WaPo analysis found that over 1.5 million more people were retired in November 2021 than would have been expected based on pre-pandemic trends. That would help explain the employment story if the mainstream media would look at the big picture instead of dutifully following Right-wing propaganda.

Turning to inflation, the WaPo says:

“The US economic recovery from the Covid pandemic was the strongest of any of the big Western economies…The Biden stimulus pushed the bank accounts of even the lowest-income Americans to unexpected heights. On average, they had more than twice as much in their savings accounts as they did when the pandemic began.

The Federal Reserve…helped, too. It held rates near zero and pumped hundreds of billions of dollars into the economy. The twin fire hoses of cash — one from Congress, one from the Fed — sent Americans’ spending roaring back.”

Bloomberg reports that manufacturing companies are saying their supply chains are performing a little better. Their message seems to be that things aren’t worsening.

While oil prices get the most attention, the ISM surveys show manufacturers say the cost of more commodities are falling. In December, there were eight commodities that were identified as falling in price. In November, it was four. In October, just one (wood).

Finally, the NY Fed is out with its 2022 inflation expectations survey. It shows that In December, US consumers expected inflation to average 6.0% over the next 12 months and 4.0% over the next three years. Those expectations were unchanged from November 2021.

It also showed that Respondents were more optimistic about their future wage and income growth, as well as their ability to hold a job or find a new one.

One big question for Republicans is what will they pivot to if inflation actually slows down?

A larger question is why the Democrats and the press can’t explain good news when it happens?

Facebooklinkedinrss

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – December 19, 2021

The political class in DC is very concerned about inflation, including many Democrats. So much so that they are unwilling to pass Biden’s “Build Back Better” social infrastructure bill because it will add to our current inflation. Specifically, Sen. Manchin objects to the extension of the child tax credit that is expiring this month.

It’s time to remind these people of what real inflation looks like. Back in 1980, when then-Chair of the Federal Reserve Paul Volcker raised interest rates high enough to throw the US into a recession and end inflation, inflation had averaged 6.9% for the previous 11 years. Let’s also remind Sen. Manchin that this year’s annualized rate of inflation went above the long-term average of around 3% in April. We’ve averaged 6.81% for the year, not for 11 years.

The Senate wrapped up its work for the year, with Democrats punting the Build Back Better and the voting rights bills into 2022. The Senate adjourned early Saturday morning after a voting marathon including confirming 50 of Biden’s nominees. On to cartoons.

The answer is to elect more Democratic Senators:

Let’s see the Senate break at least one tooth on voting rights:

Only the social programs have to pay for themselves:

Omicron surges, is anybody surprised?

Why can Fox News get away with this?

Republican misfits can’t wait for the midterms:

This would be gerrymandering in the real world:

Facebooklinkedinrss

Can Our Democracy Survive Trumpism?

The Daily Escape:

Bishop Creek, Eastern Sierras, CA – October 2021 photo by Scott McReynolds

CNN’s Brian Stelter asked on Sunday:

“We know what Trump will do….So what will the rest of us do?”

He’s talking about the continuing slow rolling coup inspired by the Big Lie, that’s rolling across America. Stelter presented a scenario about how Trumpism might dim our democracy between now and 2024. His perspective as a media reporter informs his view about how FOX news is reacting to the competition from OAN (One America News). He says that FOX is now simply feeding red meat to its viewers rather than reporting the news.

The result? Paranoia deepens, and Trump’s Big Lie becomes gospel to Republicans. External reality retreats into the background for the Red Hats. More from Stelter:

“There’s a clear difference between the people who pay for news…and want to know what is true, versus people who pay for views….of what they want to be true…”

Wrongo has been banging on about the state of journalism for the last few days, and not sorry, we’re doing it again.

After the attempted coup on Jan. 6, the prospect of political violence threatening a peaceful transfer of power has become a reality that America must face before it’s too late. Trumpists are dreaming publicly of violence, while a new poll by PRRI (margin of error of 2.1%), shows some scary data:

  • 67% of all Americans disagree that the election was stolen.
  • But 68% of Republicans overall, and 82% of respondents who trust Fox News more than any other news outlet, say they believe the 2020 election was stolen from Trump.
  • That figure climbs to 97% for those who trust OAN and Newsmax more than any other news outlet.
  • 18% of all Americans think resorting to violence may be necessary to save the nation. PRRI’s question was: “Because things have gotten so far off track, true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country.”
  • The scary part is that 30% of Republicans agreed, while just 11% of Democrats agreed.

Stelter’s apocalypse scenario is that by 2024:

“Neighbors turn on neighbors….Normally easygoing local elections turn into existential battles….Threats of violence become real violence….while MAGA-media apps, broadcasters, and commentators justify stomping all over the Constitution as an attempt to save it.”

Let’s emphasize that this is a worst-case scenario. Stelter says “We know it could happen because it has all happened before. Almost everything I have described has already happened in one form or another.”

More from the PRRI survey:

  • 80% of Republicans said America is in danger of losing its culture and identity. Of the far-right television viewers, 98% agreed with this sentiment.
  • 56% of Republicans said things have changed so much in America that they often feel like a stranger in their own country.  61% of Fox News viewers and 78% of Newsmax types agreed with this statement.

When you’ve been around as long as Wrongo you remember the 1980s, when Reagan Republicans aspired to be the Party of hope and opportunity.  They’re now the Party of blood and soil.

Much of this is made clear in the reporting by the WaPo and by others about the planning that led up to Jan. 6, and the efforts to spread the Big Lie after the attempted coup. The WaPo calls what happened in the aftermath a period of “Contagion” as Republican efforts to undermine the 2020 election began immediately after the Capitol attack. Since then:

  • Nearly a third of the 390 GOP candidates around the country who have expressed interest in running for statewide office this cycle have publicly supported a partisan audit of the 2020 vote, downplayed the Jan. 6 attack, or directly questioned Biden’s victory.
  • Election officials in at least 17 states have collectively received hundreds of threats to their personal safety or their lives since Jan. 6, with a concentration in the six states where Trump has focused his attacks on the election results.

The full PRRI survey shows that for many Republicans the culture war is front and center, and for a significant minority, it’s close to being a literal war, not just a metaphorical one. They share a vision that Democrats won’t rest until there’s a taco truck on every corner, and a drag queen story hour in every library, and so they’re ready to fight.

The Trumpist Republicans have no interest in staving off political apocalypse. They’re interested in making it happen. We’ll see over the next few years whether the will of those who cherish democracy will prevail over those who reject facts and the rule of law.

We’re going to find out soon which group’s will to survive is stronger.

Facebooklinkedinrss

January 6th Must Be Investigated

The Daily Escape:

Muldrow Glacier, Denali NP, AK – 2021 photo by Tim Raines with NPS. The glacier has started moving rapidly, something called a glacial surge. From September 2020 to March 2021, the ice has moved down mountain by as much as 1.9 miles.

On Wednesday, 35 Republicans broke ranks to join the Democrats in the House, voting to create a 9/11-style Commission to investigate the January 6 attack on the US Capitol. The final vote on the bill to create the commission was 252-175, with all “noes” coming from GOP Congress critters.

That means 83% of House Republicans voted against investigating the attack. For those keeping score, that’s an increase over the 66% of Republicans who voted against counting the Electoral College votes on January 6. The anti-democratic caucus is growing before our eyes.

The Senate will take up the Jan. 6 Commission bill next week. Most pundits say it will be DOA in the Senate, but Wrongo disagrees. Republicans can filibuster it, which will look bad politically, particularly after it received a bipartisan vote in the House.

The GOP could negotiate with Schumer. Will Democrats search for a way to get 10 Republican votes by tweaking the bill? We’ll soon learn just how far Schumer and Pelosi will go to establish the Commission.

If Democrats can find 10 Republican Senators to support bringing the bill to the floor, the Republican concern is that bipartisan commissions produce written reports. As we saw with the “9/11 Report,” these reports establish baseline facts that create a national viewpoint about an event that linger for decades to come.

If they can’t get 10 Republican votes in the Senate for this, what are the odds that any Democratic compromise on any legislation can get to 10? If the filibuster allows the Party that incited the insurrection to prevent Congress from forming a nonpartisan Commission to investigate and document the insurrection, then why keep the filibuster?

Even if it passes both Houses, Republicans can hobble it. McCarthy and McConnell get to choose the five Republican members of the committee. They could choose not to appoint any Committee members. Since subpoenas by the Committee require at least one Republican vote, it could never call a witness. Alternatively, they could appoint very radical Party members to sit on it, which would mean no subpoenas are ever issued to Republicans.

That McConnell and McCarthy are opposing even a balanced Commission suggests they are intent on simply covering up what was arguably the worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War.

It doesn’t require a great deal of imagination to understand why many Republicans would prefer to keep as much as possible about January 6 out of the realm of delivered knowledge. If Mitch McConnell can kill the Commission, he ensures that Trump, Cruz, Hawley, and all the House Republican deniers will never have to deal with their willingness to usurp power.

If Dems can’t find 10 GOP Senators, the House should hold hearings anyway. They should do for a critical issue what Republicans did with Whitewater and Benghazi, two rabbit hole issues of zero importance.

The 2020 mid-term campaign needs to be nationalized. The Democrats’ message should be that any Republican who denies that nothing wrong happened at the Capitol on January 6 is ineligible to serve. Campaigning on issues also matters. But any Democrat that doesn’t understand this doesn’t deserve to be in office.

What’s curious to Wrongo is that most polls show that Republicans are in a good position to take back the House, and possibly the Senate in 2022. This hardly seems possible when Trump’s popularity continues to hover in the high 30’s to low 40’s while Biden popularity is in the mid-50’s.

Let’s close with the words of Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH) on the House floor. He thanked the Republicans supporting the creation of the independent Commission and then turned on the nay sayers:

“Benghazi. You guys chased the former secretary of state all over the country, spent millions of dollars. We have people scaling the Capitol, hitting the Capitol police with lead pipes across the head, and we can’t get bipartisanship. What else has to happen in this country….If we’re going to take on China, if we’re going to rebuild the country, if we’re going to reverse climate change, we need two political parties in this country that are both living in reality—and you ain’t one of them.”

Why oppose a bipartisan commission on the January 6th insurrection? Because it focuses a spotlight on an event that most Republicans want to forget.

Facebooklinkedinrss