Category: US Constitution Under Threat

Can America Come Back From Our Divide?

The Daily Escape:

Easter Sunday, Great Smokey Mountains NP – April 2023 photo by Melissa Russell

We’re back from our roughly 2,200 mile journey to Gettysburg PA, St. Augustine FL, and Charleston SC. The focus of our trip was visiting with family, and it didn’t disappoint. We saw about 40 family members in the three locations. Most are healthy and thriving, and there was lots of laughter.

But we also saw slices of different cultures than what we’re used to here in Connecticut. Wrongo wonders if the US has ever been as divided as it is now?

Yes we’ve been divided in the past, most notably before and during the Civil War. American schools still teach the Civil War to our kids, although like everything else, views on what it was fought about differ largely by geography and political leaning.

Between 1861-1865, we killed our fellow Americans at a prodigious rate, with about 620,000 dying. In fact, Americans killed more other Americans in that war than all of our adversaries did in eight of our wars combined: the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Mexican War, the Spanish-American War, World War I, World War II, the Korean War, and the Gulf Wars. The Civil War stands alone when it comes to America being divided deeply enough that we killed each other in astonishing numbers.

The Civil War was about one issue: Slavery.

In today’s America, we’re fighting about everything: Gun control, abortion, climate change, fossil fuels, drilling, the environment, immigration, refugees, diversity, voting rights, elections, women’s rights, policing, who gets tax cuts, health care, LGBTQ+ rights, health care for transgender kids, bathrooms, books, what’s taught in classrooms, COVID-19, vaccines, poverty, welfare, unions, Ukraine, Russia, Israel, student debt, Trump, the Jan. 6 insurrection, and education.

These modern divisions exist without exception in every state. They are fought over with words, and occasionally, with weapons. They are fought about in our courts. Some on the political Right call for secession. In 2021, the University of Virginia Center for Politics released the results of a poll that found the majority of the individuals who voted to reelect Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential elections hoped that their state could secede from the Union.

“Hoping” isn’t doing something to make secession happen, although it’s a first step.

What’s worrisome is that like before the Civil War, there doesn’t seem to be a pathway forward to a common cause. Wrongo has written about “The Cause, The American Revolution and its Discontents, 1773-1783” by Joseph Ellis. It says that the founders had to create a blurry vision of the revolution because colonists were suspicious of the motives of other colonies. So the founders described their fight for independence as “The Cause”, an ambiguous term that covered diverse ideas and multiple viewpoints.

It succeeded in unifying us against the British.

Maybe America’s now reached a point where it’s possible that nothing will ever unite us again. Instead, we yell at each other across a chasm of ideological and political partisanship.

Our global reputation has sunk: We’re seen as an undereducated, and unhealthy nation. Many of us want our political opponents dead, while admiring the world’s autocrats. We’re tolerant of the gun slaughter of our children, and callous about the plight of our neighbors, especially if they are poor, sick, or different.

The annual World Happiness Report, based on data from Gallup’s World Poll of 24 developed nations, shows that Americans, when asked to evaluate their current life as a whole, are less content than the citizens of 14 other wealthy countries.

It’s worth noting that most of the countries whose citizens are happier than ours have governments that provide their residents with a sense of safety and security, a foundation on which their people can build a fulfilling life and an optimistic future. They can get treated for medical problems. They can afford life-saving medicine. They don’t fall into medical bankruptcy.

Their life expectancies are longer than ours and rising; America’s is falling.

They value higher education enough to provide it for free. They value families enough that their maternal care, both before and after birth, is outstanding. The US should be ashamed of our maternal mortality rate, which is higher than almost any other country, developed or not, in the world.

We desperately need to find a new “Cause” to bind us together.

Benjamin Franklin famously remarked at the close of the Constitutional Convention in 1787 that we had formed a republic if we could keep it.

We must get prepared both mentally and in our guts, to fight to keep this country together – AND to keep it a representative democracy.

The alternative looks horrendous.

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Monday Wake Up Call, North Carolina Edition – March 6, 2023

The Daily Escape:

Early blooming Bradford Pear trees, near Cana, VA – March 2023 photo by Lee Ogle

North Carolina is in today’s news for two reasons: First, North Carolina Republicans, who control the state legislature, announced a deal to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. North Carolina would be the 40th state to expand Medicaid after a decade of Republican resistance.

From the WaPo:

“The deal marks a stark turnaround for Republican leaders that played out over years in North Carolina and in states across the country, as more and more governors and legislatures expanded Medicaid to low-income residents.”

NC’s governor, Democrat Roy Moore will sign the bill if it gets to his desk. Passage would extend Medicaid coverage to 600,000 of the state’s poor citizens. Dozens of rural hospitals in NC closed during Covid, so maybe it dawned on NC’s Republican Party that dead constituents have a difficult time voting for them.

As with other states, this will allow North Carolina, at no cost to the state government, to give health insurance to the state’s working poor. The federal government will pay for 90% of the cost, and the rest will be covered by a new tax on hospitals and insurance companies.

Wrongo wrote about how the Medicaid expansion was a great source of revenue to state governments here. The NC House Speaker, Republican Tim Moore said that since the federal government will pay North Carolina a $1.8 billion bonus if expansion passes, the GOP was motivated to sign on.

The extra money is part of the 2021 stimulus package signed into law by Biden, that offered signing bonuses to states that expanded Medicaid. In NC’s case, $1.8 billion. Biden reacted:

“This is what I’m talking about….That’ll be 40 states who’ve expanded. 10 more to go.”

It’s doubtful that any other states will sign on this year.

Shouldn’t Red states be taking care of their residents? Instead of wasting time with anti-trans bills and anti-woke bullshit? But that’s too much to expect.

A second North Carolina story involves a case in front of the US Supreme Court, Moore vs. Harper. Last fall the Supremes heard this case about the “Independent State Legislature Theory“. The case started out as a challenge to a Republican-gerrymandered voting map that the NC Supreme Court ruled was unconstitutionally partisan.

NC’s GOP then appealed to the US Supreme Court, arguing that the Constitution’s election clause gives state legislatures freedom to do whatever they decide about their own elections, and that no court can intervene in that. A decision was expected in June, 2023.

But the Supremes may not get a chance to weigh in, since the case is back before the NC high court. Why you ask? Well the NC Supreme Court is elected. And in November, the Republicans won a majority of the seats on the court.

Unsurprisingly, the court decided to review two cases that were decided against Republicans. What’s remarkable is the extent to which NC Republicans are willing to go in order to take control over the outcome of elections away from voters. And they’re not even trying to be covert about it.

On February 3, the NC Supreme Court granted a petition to rehear the case. That means the state supreme court may reconsider a case that is already in front of the US Supreme Court.

On March 2, the US Supreme Court asked for a supplemental briefing. They’re asking the NC Republicans, (the plaintiffs that originally challenged the maps), and the Biden administration to submit supplemental briefings about what effects the state court’s reconsideration might have on the Supreme Court’s ultimate decision.

So the legal jousting about voting rights in North Carolina continues. Maybe the state’s decision to embrace Medicare expansion after a decade means that we simply have to wait for the GOP to come around to an idea that most Americans favor. In the case of voting rights, Wrongo suggests continuing the fight, not waiting.

Time to wake up America! The Biden administration won’t be sending free money to the states to get them to embrace universal voting rights. That may have worked with Medicare, but not with voting rights.

To help you wake up, watch, and listen to Roy Rogers play “Walkin Blues” from his video “Slide Guitar For Rock & Blues” on a 12 string resonator guitar. Rogers makes it his own, and the playing and vocals are terrific:

This is dedicated to our friend Rene S, who also plays a mean guitar. “Walkin Blues” is a blues standard that’s been recorded countless times, often with different lyrics. Son House, Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, Eric Clapton and the Grateful Dead all have their own versions.

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Saturday Soother – March 4, 2023

The Daily Escape:

Superstition Mountain area, AZ – March 2, 2023 photo by Teresa Arbisi

What does freedom mean to you? Lexington, a columnist who writes about America in the Economist, says that American politicians on the right and left are groping for a new definition of what it means:

“Democrats and Republicans are competing over which party is the true defender of freedom in American life, but the claims of both have become muddy. What the debate really illuminates is how far the parties have drifted from decades of consensus about liberty in American economic and social life, without yet articulating where they are headed, if they know.”

Lexington says that as evidence of the Republicans’ commitment to freedom, they are for gun rights. The Democrats usually point to abortion rights or voting rights. But the crux of today’s battles are about how history should be taught, what pronouns people should use, and whether governments should coax investment managers to include corporate behaviors in their analysis of investments.

We see that there’s a new willingness on the part of Republicans to inject the state into what freedom means.

Lexington says that Harvard’s Michael Sandel, in his 1996 book “Democracy’s Discontent”, traced in the wake of the New Deal how Americans made peace with centralized governmental power by embracing a concept of liberty that maximized the individual citizens’ freedom to pursue their own ends, with an economy that encouraged consumption. The implicit agreement was that:

“The government would deliver economic growth and Americans would debate how to distribute it, but politicians would stay out of questions about individuals’ values or notions of the good life. In one sign of this shift the Supreme Court in 1943 blocked local governments from compelling schoolchildren to salute the flag.”

This idea of government staying out of the way of individual freedom used to be a core assumption of American politics, but not so much today. Two examples: Florida’s governor DeSantis has trouble squaring his agenda that includes enhancing the state’s control over local schools and substituting its judgment for that of corporations over how to serve their customers.

DeSantis signed a law tightening restrictions on what materials teachers can use, prevented cruise-ship companies from requiring passengers to be vaccinated and sought new government control over Disney because he disapproved of its exercise of speech.

This week, a Florida state senator introduced a bill that would make bloggers who write about DeSantis, and other members of the Florida executive cabinet or legislature register with the state or face fines.

Whatever you make of these policies, what’s happening in Florida is miles away from any definition of freedom.

Second, Lexington points to Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the governor of Arkansas. In her rebuttal to Biden’s State of the Union speech, she said she was a defender of free speech, while boasting she had banned the “derogatory term LatinX in our government”. Wrongo never uses the term either, but did Huckabee Sanders understand the contradiction between her actions and what freedom of speech means?

The Republicans are saying words about freedom that no longer square with the concept, while groping for definitions that they can’t articulate without losing much of America. Take for example, this quote from DeSantis’s new book, “The Courage to Be Free”:

“At the end of the day, the re-mooring of the constitutional ship of state will provide the needed foundation for the reinvigoration of a society rooted in freedom, justice, and the rule of law.”

What exactly does THAT mean?

This is a great time to introduce you to Anat Shenker-Osorio. She’s the founder of ASO Communications, and an expert on political messaging. Shenker-Osorio says we need to be thinking about freedom as freedoms, plural. And to see it as a concept that the Left needs to reclaim from the Right, who use it as a tribal signifier.

She says the Left focuses too much on what they are against. Thus, what the Left stands for gets lost in the noise. She thinks that freedom must be a contested value between the Parties.

If you think about it, the Right have fought against every major effort to extend freedom to more people. Isn’t it funny how deeply anti-communist Florida along with the deeply anti-communist Republican Party keep doing things to constrain freedom? Aren’t these the hallmarks of state socialist regimes?

On to the weekend and our Saturday Soother. It’s our time to forget about ideas that make our heads hurt; like what freedom means. Let’s try to center ourselves after another week of terrible news. Here on the Fields of Wrong, the first robins have arrived. They’re searching among the patches of snow for those early bugs that will soon be everywhere. We’re also getting our latest late winter snowfall, so good luck finding bugs for the next day or so.

Let’s start off by grabbing a chair by a south-facing window. Now watch and listen to Yo Yo Ma perform “Song of the Birds“. It’s a traditional Catalan tune and was a favorite of Pablo Casals, but the composer is unknown. Ma plays this piece often.

Casals often played it to protest war and oppression, particularly after he fled Franco’s Spain. He played it in 1961 at the White House for John F. Kennedy. Here Ma performs it live at KCRW in Los Angeles:

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Reform The Supreme Court

The Daily Escape:

Gold Creek Valley, WA – December 2022 photo by Erwin Buske Photography

“A body of men holding themselves accountable to nobody ought not be trusted by anybody.” – Thomas Paine

Welcome to 2023! It seems like a good time to think again about what’s worth fighting for. Paine valued freedom and despised oppression. In 2023, we could substitute the US Supreme Court (SCOTUS) for Paine’s original targets, which were Britain and King George III.

From Ed Walker: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“In case after case, SCOTUS has ignored the trial record, made up its own facts, reached out to take cases before a record can be made, ignored precedent, including precedent about rejecting precedent, invented new Constitutional “doctrines”, taking faked-up cases for the sole purpose of striking down actions…and delaying justice through the shadow docket.”

The Shadow Docket is designed to allow the Court to engage in administrative management of its calendar so that the Justices have sufficient time to rule on emergency applications.

On Dec. 27, we saw an example of the Court’s reactionary majority using the Shadow Docket to extend indefinitely a Trump immigration policy known as Title 42. Trump implemented Title 42 to exclude asylum seekers from the US because they might be carriers of coronavirus.

From Vox’s Ian Millhiser:

“That decision…is typical behavior from the Supreme Court — or, at least, is reflective of this Court’s behavior since a Democrat moved into the White House….It’s the latest example of the Court dragging its feet after a GOP-appointed lower court judge overrides the Biden administration’s policy judgments, often letting that one judge decide the nation’s policy for…an entire year.

And that delay may be the best-case scenario for the Biden administration — and for the general principle that unelected judges aren’t supposed to decide the nation’s border policy. “

Millhiser points out that SCOTUS’ response is very different from when Trump was in office. Back then, the Court frequently raced to reinstate Trump’s policies within days.

The Court’s Conservative Six no longer seem to care about the law or precedent. It’s become a policy-making body in service of Conservative’s religious and social agendas. We should expect It to continue down this path until we reform the Court.

Reform is necessary to protect the legislative prerogatives of Congress, and the prerogatives of the Executive. Oh, and to protect the individual liberties guaranteed by the Constitution.

The NYT’s Adam Liptak says that SCOTUS has been rapidly accumulating power at the expense of every other part of the government. He quotes Mark A. Lemley, a Stanford law professor’s article in The Harvard Law Review:

“The Court has taken significant, simultaneous steps to restrict the power of Congress, the administrative state, the states, and the lower federal courts. And it has done so using a variety of (often contradictory) interpretative methodologies. The common denominator across multiple opinions in the last two years is that they concentrate power in one place: the Supreme Court.”

Non-elected activist judges indeed.

We have historically entrusted courts with the task of determining which rights belong to the people, and the extent to which governments at all levels can exercise their Constitutional powers in controlling the people. We know that courts have always lagged behind the consensus of the American People on issues of rights. But before now, change has come, albeit slowly.

That ended with SCOTUS’ decision in Dobbs, where the Conservative Six ruled that women have no right to control their own bodies.

Earlier, they imposed their religious view that coaches are free to dragoon their players into worshiping the God of the coach’s choice, and that religious leaders are free to spread a pandemic, despite public health officials’ warnings.

Neither Congress nor the President have resisted SCOTUS’s power grab. They haven’t even taken the mild step of imposing ethical requirements on the Court. The other two branches have simply watched the Conservative Six operate in their self-declared role of Philosopher Kings. We now have a Supreme Court tinkering with the Separation of Powers, based solely on political and ideological preference.

As if to justify their power without restraint or oversight, Chief Justice John Roberts recently cited the myth of “three separate and co-equal branches of government.” But that isn’t what the Founders and Framers had in mind, and it isn’t what the Constitution says.

In fact, the judiciary was third in line of power and importance in the minds of the Framers of the Constitution. Article III clearly puts the Supreme Court under the control of Congress. Section 2 is unambiguous:

“[T]he supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.”

The founders felt the judiciary was not co-equal. In Federalist 51, James Madison proclaims:

“[I]n republican government the legislative authority, necessarily, predominates.”

In Federalist 78, Alexander Hamilton writes:

“[T]he judiciary is beyond compare the weakest of the three departments of power.”

It’s important to remember that the power to overturn laws passed by Congress and signed by the President was not granted by the Constitution: it was taken by the Court onto itself in 1803 in the case Marbury v Madison.

Soon SCOTUS will rule in Moore v Harper. Moore hinges on a legal proposition known as the “independent state legislature theory.” The theory says that, when it comes to making state laws that apply to federal elections — from drawing congressional district lines, to determining the who-what-when-where of casting a ballot — only the state legislature itself has the power to set the rules.

Moore is an opportunity for the court to reject radicalism, but SCOTUS may upend our democracy with their decision.

SCOTUS has legalized bribery of politicians (Citizens United) and ignored potentially seditious behavior by its own members and their families. Not to mention exceeding its Constitutional authority by inserting itself into political issues, now with startling regularity.

It’s time to reign in the Supremes before they reign over us.

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The Criminal Referrals

The Daily Escape:

Gateway Crossing Bridge, Houlton, ME – December 2022 photo by Christopher Mills Photography

The Jan. 6 Select Committee has completed its job. On Monday it approved a criminal referral for Trump, a former President, and a current Presidential candidate, on a series of charges that include insurrection and conspiring to defraud the US. Marcy Wheeler summarizes the findings of the Committee perfectly:

“Trump corruptly tried to prevent Congress to certify the electoral victory of Trump’s opponent. He did so by committing other crimes. He did so by mobilizing a violent mob. He did so using fraudulent documents. And most importantly, he did so for personal benefit.”

The Committee will publish their final report next week. They will turn over the unredacted interview material to the Department of Justice (DOJ) and its Special Counsel, Jack Smith. According to Punchbowl, the Committee has already begun cooperating with Smith, who apparently sent the Committee a letter on Dec. 5 requesting all of the panel’s materials from the 18-month probe.

Sadly, it seems that their report ignores the policing failures that occurred both before and on Jan. 6.  One of the objectives of the Select Committee was to make recommendations about how the US Capitol could avoid a similar attack in the future. But it doesn’t seem that subject has been properly addressed.

While Wrongo believes that the investigation into Jan. 6 was critical and that it may eventually result in the DOJ indicting Trump at some point, conspiracy is a very high bar to prove against a common thief, much less against a former president who is used to communicating like a mob boss.

As Dan Pfeiffer says:

“…we will all wake up and go about our business. Donald Trump will continue to be the frontrunner for the GOP nomination and a legitimate contender to be the next President of the United States. The vast majority of Republicans will continue to stand with Trump — and most will do so enthusiastically.”

Before issuing any indictment, DOJ  prosecutors must decide if there is a case to be made that includes sufficient evidence to convict the former President beyond a reasonable doubt.

And it could take the DOJ a year or more to get a grand jury to indict Trump. While the DOJ has had grand juries up and running and considering evidence about Jan. 6 for a very long time, building such a complex case may take long enough that by the time they’re ready to bring a case, it will be near the time of the GOP primaries.

The Mar-a-Lago secret documents case is an easier one to make. We know that an FBI search of the former President’s Mar-a-Lago home in Florida found more than 300 classified documents.

Trump’s removal of official government records from an office of the US is one possible charge. A second separately chargeable offense is theft of government records. Those two crimes carry maximum three-year and 10-year sentences respectively.

Then there’s the Espionage Act, which also carries a sentence of 10 years in prison. We know that before January 20, 2021, the Acting Archivist of the US asked for those records to be returned, and Trump’s White House Counsel Pat Cipollone agreed that Trump needed to return them before his term ended.

After Trump left DC with the documents, a grand jury subpoena demanded that all of them be returned to a courthouse located in Washington, DC.

These three crimes are relatively straightforward to prove. Garland and his team might decide that charging them alone suffices, without adding a fourth offense of obstructing a pending federal criminal investigation, into improperly taking and retaining the stolen documents.

Obstruction carries a 20-year maximum sentence — double the penalty for violating the Espionage Act. That shows how seriously that charge is considered under the law.

We know that Trump and his attorneys stonewalled the government for more than a year, refusing to return the 13 boxes of classified documents that the FBI’s August 8, 2022 search recovered. Most of this year has been an effort by Trump to delay the FBI and the DOJ from inventorying all of the classified documents that Trump took to Florida.

The DOJ has a strong case against Trump on the charges described above. They are easier to prove, and existing laws are very clear what the penalties are when it comes to the theft of classified documents. And there’s plenty of legal precedent for putting people who steal US government secrets in jail for a long time. If we want Trump taken off the battlefield before 2024, the theft of classified documents case is the best shot.

Let’s close with “Christmas Must Be Tonight“, a 1975 tune written by Robbie Robertson. It was released on the Band’s 1977 album “Islands”. This version is from that album. The tune appeared in the movie “Scrooged” in 1988. There is Rick Danko’s singing along with Robbie Robertson’s lyrics. It doesn’t get any better than this:

Chorus:

How a little baby boy bring the people so much joy
Son of a carpenter, Mary carried the light
This must be Christmas, must be tonight

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Trump’s “Terminate The Constitution” Rant

The Daily Escape:

Juniper and snow, near Colorado Springs, CO – December 2022 photo by John Susan Hoffman

(Good luck to Sen. Ralph Warnock in today’s Georgia run-off election for a full term in the US Senate)

In the past two weeks, Trump has pledged solidarity with the January 6 rioters, dined with Holocaust-denying fans of Adolf Hitler, and called for the termination of the Constitution. On his failing Truth Social clone of Twitter, he yelled:

 “…the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution” in order to “declare the RIGHTFUL WINNER” from 2020 or “have a NEW ELECTION”

As Mike Pence’s former chief of staff, Marc Short said on Meet the Press, Trump’s attack on the Constitution was consistent with:

“…what he asked the vice president to do two years ago, when rioters were attacking the Capitol and he asked the vice president to overturn the election results.”

Let’s underline this: The likely Republican nominee for president in 2024 called for the “termination of the Constitution”,  not to “suspend” the Constitution as several pundits have mistakenly said. And very few in the GOP bothered to call him out on it. As Dennis Aftergut said in the Bulwark:

“Trump writing that we should cancel the Constitution ranks right up alongside John Tyler’s support of the Confederacy as among the most shameful acts by a former president in our nation’s history.”

There’s a method to Trump’s madness. Let’s go back to what he said to Lesley Stahl prior to their “60 Minutes” interview in 2018. From CNBC: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“Stahl said she and her boss met with Trump at his office in Trump Tower in Manhattan…in advance of a recorded sit-down interview for ‘60 Minutes’. At one point, he started to attack the press, Stahl said. There were no cameras in there. I said, ‘You know, this is getting tired. Why are you doing it over and over?….And he said: ‘You know why I do it? I do it to discredit you all and demean you all so that when you write negative stories about me no one will believe you.’”

And to a degree that worked. Trump has now moved on to discrediting the Constitution and the judiciary. While some Trump-appointed judges have done a few helpful things for him, they can’t deliver what Trump needs most: Immunity from prosecution.

He needs to be reelected in order to do that for himself.

Since 2021, the DOJ, the Georgia courts, and the New York courts have been grinding away at the January 6 insurrection, the theft and retention of national security documents at Mar-a-Lago, and the NY tax case. All have become more worrying for Trump.

He’s lost more than once in the US Supreme Court, in the 11th Circuit, and in courts in Georgia and NY. Regardless of whether it’s rulings on motions related to executive privilege, challenges to warrants and subpoenas, or actual verdicts against the Oathkeepers for seditious conspiracy, the legal wagons appear to be circling in more closely around him.

Trump knows that. So he’s returning to what has worked for him before: Demonizing his enemies.

Instead of the media, this time he’s attempting to demonize our Constitutional order. If he’s successful at doing that before we see any indictments, verdicts, and sentences against his corporation, or himself, he thinks he can survive politically with his base. By going for the Constitution, he’s trying to discredit the judicial system so that the GOP won’t turn against him if/when he’s held accountable.

Targeting the Constitution has downsides – the authority of any judge Trump appears before flows from that Constitution, and unlike the media, judges are backed by the DOJ and the FBI.

Imagine if you’re the DOJ’s Special Counsel Jack Smith, and the biggest target of your career just openly called for the termination of the Constitution. You’re probably thinking that you have a decent shot at convicting Trump of trying  to overthrow the Constitution back on Jan. 6.

Some GOP lawmakers who were asked on the Sunday political shows about Trump’s rant said they disagreed. However, most wouldn’t say they’d oppose Trump if he becomes the GOP’s 2024 presidential nominee. They’re saying as little as possible because they believe a large percentage of the Republican base agrees with him.

Trump’s best (his only?) defense is retaking the presidency. That is why we shouldn’t minimize his call to “terminate the Constitution”.

We need to keep pressure on Republican politicians to either disown Trump or embrace him. We should be asking Republican Senators and House Representatives:

“Trump took an oath to support and defend the Constitution, then he said we should abolish it. You also took that same oath. Does your oath require you to defend it against him?”

Mention the oath. In every question.

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Saturday Soother – December 3, 2022

The Daily Escape:

Pondicherry Park, Bridgeton, ME – November 2022 photo by Eric Storm Photo

Are the Democrats prioritizing the need to pass the Electoral Count Reform Act? Some are worried that amending the Electoral Count Act of 1887 (ECA) might not get done in what remains of Congress’ lame-duck session. If it isn’t done by January 1, it’s unlikely to be passed at all once Republicans take control of the House.

From the WaPo’s Greg Sargent:

“Versions of ECA reform have advanced in the Senate and the House, but it’s hard to see either passing as a stand-alone bill with only a few weeks left in the lame-duck session. That would chew up valuable floor time with much else left to do, including funding the entire government.

So, the most likely option at this point, a congressional aide tells me, is for ECA reform to get attached to that end-of-year spending bill.”

It’s worth worrying that this might not happen. Roll Call reports that Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin and Amy Klobuchar have said that it should be made a part of the must-pass spending omnibus bill.

The pending ECA Reform bill is the most substantial legislative action trying to deal with the Jan. 6, 2021 attempted coup. Citing ambiguities in the ECA, Trump’s supporters argued that Vice President Mike Pence could set aside some states’ results. You know what followed that.

The pending legislation would clarify that the vice president’s role in counting electoral votes is purely ceremonial, and that s/he does not have the discretion to set aside any state’s properly certified votes. It would also raise the threshold to hear objections to a state’s electors from just one member in each chamber to 20% of both Houses.

ECA reform would also require governors to certify the correct slate of electors.  It creates new ways for legal challenges when governors violate that duty, and requires Congress to count the court-sanctioned slate of electors even if a bad-acting state legislature appointed a sham slate.

This is important since right now, we’re seeing Arizona’s Cochise County’s election board simply refusing to certify the results of their midterm election. This shows that election denialism is alive and well in the states and demonstrates the need for ECA reform. Arizona’s GOP is showing us exactly what they plan to do in 2024. We should believe them.

In a future presidential election, a GOP-controlled state legislature could seize on exactly this kind of thing — a local refusal to certify results — as its excuse to appoint a different slate of electors for the losing presidential candidate. If that state’s GOP-controlled House counted those electors, under current law it could lead to a stolen election or major crisis. That must be fixed.

The Democrats are pushing on a string trying to get the bill passed. Attaching the ECA reform to a spending bill is complicated. Right now, 10 GOP Senators support the Senate version of reform, the exact number required to overcome a filibuster. But will those same Senators support the spending bill Sen. Schumer wants to pass in the Senate?

And if not, will the ECA reform bill get a stand-alone vote? More than a few GOP Senators could seek to derail it with poison-pill amendments. What’s more, a stand-alone vote could subject it to attacks from Trump and other Republicans. That might weaken the support of some of the 10 GOP Senators who are for it.

And the Democrats need Mitch McConnell and other GOP Senate leaders to agree to attach ECA reform to a spending bill, and enlist the 10 GOP Senators to support it. That means the GOP controls whether this bill is enacted.

The threat of election subversion won’t disappear in our lifetimes. As Greg Sargent says, Jan. 6 has caused unusual bipartisan urgency for Electoral Count Act reform. It would be the height of folly to let that slip away.

And now it’s time for our Saturday Soother, where we try to forget about power, politics, and economics for a few minutes, and calm ourselves before we rush headlong into the holiday season.

We’ve gotten through Thanksgiving and are heading towards Christmas. Here at the Mansion of Wrong, the faux Christmas tree is up, the Christmas plates are going into the cabinets, and the caviar and good single malts have been stocked. The first overseas Christmas cards have arrived.

Let’s put on our wireless headphones and watch and listen to Saint-Saëns’s “Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso, Op.28” for violin and piano, played in 2017 by Bomsori Kim on violin, and Jeongwon Kim on piano. The piece was written by Saint-Saëns in 1867 as the finale of his first violin concerto, but its success as a solo composition at its first performance led Saint-Saëns to publish it separately. Her violin is a Guarnieri from 1725:

Bomsori Kim is new to Wrongo and is outstanding.

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Sunday Cartoon Blogging – November 13, 2022

While we were focusing on the midterms, Biden flew to Egypt to appear at the COP27 climate conference where he took a brief victory lap before heading to Cambodia and then to Bali for the G20 summit (which Putin is skipping).

This particular climate conference is largely focused on what, if anything, the industrialized countries owe to poor nations that are suffering climate disasters which they did little to cause. The catch phrase for this is “Climate Reparations”.

It’s hard for America to be a global leader on climate given our internal political issues. We’re always going to be just a few Electoral College votes away from electing a climate denier. So the world can’t count on us. But America will never pay climate reparations. We must at least TRY to get clean water in US cities first.

Even after 157 years, we won’t really consider paying reparations to the descendants of our fellow citizens for the sin of slavery. The political will to pay reparations to brown skinned folks on the other side of the world will never be a majority view in America.

There was both good news and bad news about the 2022 midterms. The good news is that the outcomes were not as catastrophic as predicted. The bad news is that they were bad enough. While all the races aren’t finished and all the votes aren’t counted, we know the Senate will be controlled by the Democrats. It’s likely that the GOP will control the House. Still, it’s very clear there’s a very large segment of American voters who fail to read the writing on the wall about the threat of an authoritarian takeover of American democracy. Even though that writing is in large, blinking neon letters. On to cartoons.

The authoritarians are pensive:

The incredibly shrinking authoritarians:

The Georgia runoff doesn’t mean what you think it means:

The MAGA celebration ended early:

MAGA is still with us:

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Are Americans Fatigued By Politics?

The Daily Escape:

Early fall, Andover, ME – October 2022 photo by Eric Storm Photo

A lethal combination for democracy in America may be that not only do we field very weak candidates who hardly know how government works, but Americans are also woefully ignorant about our government.

The Annenberg Public Policy Center released its annual Civics Knowledge Survey in September. It focuses on the public’s understanding of the US Constitution. Here are some of its 2022 findings:

  • Less than half (47%) of US adults could name all three branches of government (executive, legislative, judicial), down from 56% in 2021. Here’s a chart of their findings on the branches of government:

A quarter couldn’t name any branch!

When asked to name the protections specified in the First Amendment, the number of respondents who could identify them had declined:

  • Freedom of speech was cited by 63%, down from 74% in 2021.
  • Freedom of religion was named by 24%, down from 56% in 2021.
  • Freedom of the press was named by 20%, down from 50% in 2021.
  • Right of assembly was named by 16%, down from 30% in 2021.
  • Right to petition the government was named by 6%, down from 20% in 2021.

Note how dramatically these results have shifted in just one year.

Over half (51%) said (incorrectly) that Facebook is required to let all Americans express themselves freely on its platform under the First Amendment. The First Amendment applies to the government not to private companies.

Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center said:

“When it comes to civics, knowledge is power….It’s troubling that so few know what rights we’re guaranteed by the First Amendment. We are unlikely to cherish, protect, and exercise rights if we don’t know that we have them.”

The precipitous decline in the First Amendment responses has Wrongo questioning whether the survey was performed accurately.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Annenberg found that having taken a high school civics class continues to be associated with correct answers to civics knowledge questions. In 2022, nearly two-thirds (65%) of respondents with at least some high school education said they had taken a civics course in high school that focused on the Constitution or judicial system, about the same as in previous years. More than a third of those with at least some college education (36%) said they had taken a college course that focused on the US system of government and the Constitution, significantly fewer than in 2021.

Yet, according to the Center for American Progress, only nine states and the District of Columbia require one year of US government or civics, while 30 states require a half year and the other 11 states have no civics requirement. This may explain why Americans are so weak on how their government operates.

Can we link Annenberg’s results about poor civic knowledge with this Gallup poll showing that Americans’ views of the two major US political parties remain more negative than positive? It also shows that the Republican Party’s favorability is now better than the Democratic Party’s:

The GOP’s favorable rating has edged up by four percentage points to 44%, while the Democratic Party’s rating slipped by the same amount, to 39%. With our political gridlock, along with high inflation and economic uncertainty, it’s understandable that neither Party gets high marks. But why did the Republicans’ position improve over last year? Is it that Biden’s poor ratings are dragging the Democratic Party down?

In October, 2021, Biden’s approval numbers stood at 45%. Today, he’s at 42.1%. That means he’s dropped 3 percentage points while the Party has dropped 4%. It definitely looks like he’s a drag on the whole Party. Since Annenberg tells us that only 47% of us can name all three branches of government, maybe we can conclude that Americans are getting their negative opinions about the two Parties from cable news.

Does anything explain the results of these two polls? Blog reader David P. offered a different view of Wrongo’s column on “Democracy Fatigue” in a comment. He says:

“Democracy Fatigue may be a misnomer. “Politics Fatigue” is closer to what I see around me and struggle to fight off in myself. The amount of money, airtime, phone messages, snail mail, etc. seems disproportional to discernible progress. News about scandal, verbal embarrassments and tactical mishaps outweighs discussion of policy alternatives or actual policy achievements.”

Has America just become too numbed by the news media “flooding the zone” with scare headlines about crisis after crisis to care much about something real – like the threat Republicans pose to our democracy?

Maybe our democracy is in peril not just because of poor civics knowledge. It’s always been a joke how badly people do when asked about the workings of government.

Maybe it’s that we’ve just tuned out. If so, goodbye democracy.

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Preventing Stolen Elections

The Daily Escape:

Sunset, Heceta Beach, OR – September 2020 photo by Jack Arnold Photography

From the NYT:

“Activists driven by false theories about election fraud are working to toss out tens of thousands of voter registrations and ballots in battleground states, part of a loosely coordinated campaign that is sowing distrust and threatening further turmoil as election officials prepare for the November midterms.”

Government databases being what they are, voter rolls do contain errors, usually because voters have died or moved without updating their registrations. States typically rely on systematic processes as required by their laws to update or purge voter rolls.

Now, outside partisan Republican groups are attempting to use privately generated lists to “help” clean up the information. The Conservative Partnership Institute, (CPI) which has Mark Meadows as a senior partner, has distributed a playbook that instructs local groups on how to vet voter rolls.

CPI and other groups have challenged at least 65,000 voter registrations across eight counties in Georgia. In Michigan, another group challenged 22,000 ballots from people who had requested absentee ballots for the state’s August primary. And in Texas, residents sent affidavits challenging the eligibility of more than 6,000 voters in Harris County, the state’s largest county, which is home to Houston.

These are challenges by Republicans who are targeting Democratic cities and counties in battleground states. It takes time for local election officials to review each challenge, and in some cases, the challengers are angry and impatient.

What would bring most of this to a halt, is for cities and counties to impose a hefty filing fee that would be refundable in proportion to the number of valid challenges. Checking to see if a challenge is valid or not takes time and effort. States shouldn’t allow partisans to gum up the work of local election officials for free. If there’s no penalty for throwing spaghetti at a wall to see what sticks, everybody will toss some.

In a more positive note about protecting our democratic process, it appears a reform of the Electoral Count Act of 1887 will pass Congress later this year. Abuse of the vague language in that Act led Trump and his co-conspirators to try to overturn the 2020 presidential election on Jan. 6, 2021.

Since Jan. 6, we’ve seen an organized effort by Republicans in many states to fill key, lower profile election jobs with people who will only certify elections that Republicans win. To prevent that from happening again, both Houses have come up with legislation to reform the Act.

In a move that most likely guarantees passage of an electoral reform bill this year, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) announced support for the Electoral Count Reform and Presidential Transition Improvement Act of 2022.

Eleven Senate Republicans have already announced they are co-sponsoring it, more than enough for it to avoid filibuster and pass. The Senate Rules Committee on Tuesday voted 14-1 to advance the bill, with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Asshole) being the only committee member to object.

Last week, the House passed its version of Election Reform, with the support of nine Republicans. It’s similar, and both bills make it clear that the vice president’s role in counting Electoral votes at the joint session of Congress is purely ministerial.

That by itself would have saved a lot of bloodshed at the US Capitol on Jan. 6.

The Senate bill ensures that Electoral votes counted by Congress accurately reflect the results of each state’s popular vote for president, something the House bill also does. It also provides clearer guidelines for when eligible candidates for president and vice president can receive federal resources to support their transition to power, something that Trump vindictively stalled after the 2020 election.

It would also substantially increase the threshold for Congress to consider an objection to the Electoral votes of individual states, requiring that at least one-fifth (20%) of each Chamber sign on to such challenges. Currently, that requires just one Senator and one House member. From Sen. Amy Klobuchar, (D-MN):

“Right now, just two people out of 535 members can object and slow down and gum up the counting.”

So it sets a much higher bar.

This is good news for America. One, it helps ensure we continue to have peaceful transfers of power between presidential administrations. And two, we’re seeing bipartisanship around a key Constitutional issue.

It’s clear that these bills must be negotiated into a single bill that is approved before January when there’s a decent chance that Republicans will get control of the House.

Most pundits think it will come to a vote after the November mid-terms. Now we have to hope McConnell doesn’t change his mind.

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