Category: Voter Turnout

We Can’t Give Up Hope

The Daily Escape:

First snow, Great Balsam Mountains, Canton, NC – October 2023 photo by Brandon Montgomery

“To hope is to risk frustration. Therefore, make up your mind to risk frustration.” – Thomas Merton

Everyone’s talking about Hamas, the Gaza hospital and Jim Jordan. Wrongo is certain to write more about those issues, but today, let’s talk about two polls that seem to be telling us a lot about what Americans are feeling right now.

First, the survey by Pew Research “Americans’ Dismal Views of the Nation’s Politics” confirms that millions of Americans are feeling so exhausted and depressed by American politics that they are disengaging from it just when its important to fully engage. Some highlights:

  • 65% of respondents describe themselves as “exhausted” when thinking about politics.
  • 55% say they are “angry” about American politics.
  • Only 4% say politics makes them feel hopeful.
  • Pew also asked people to describe American politics in one word. The second most common description was “corrupt”—behind the first-place finisher, “divisive.”

Here’s the tag cloud from Pew:

Notice that  there aren’t any positive words that made the cut from the responses. From Robert Hubbell:

“It is no wonder that people want to disengage and look away. Exhaustion is the point of MAGA extremism.”

Hubbell goes on to point out that Republicans turn every issue into an attack:

“Impeach Trump? We’ll impeach Joe Biden, Merrick Garland, Jack Smith, Alejandro Mayorkas, and Christopher Wray.

Indict Trump? We’ll indict Hunter Biden, Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, and Joe Biden.

Protect Americans from a deadly virus? We’ll undermine trust in science.

Fight human-caused climate change? We will make it illegal to discuss climate change in the classroom.”

These responses are part of a mind game designed to make Democrats and Independents give up and go away. But his great idea is this:

“We have one job: To endure, to abide, to keep the faith until this moment of reactionary extremism subsides. If we can do that, we will leave to our heirs a healthier, stronger democracy.”

John Dean Also wrote about this:

“…I was thinking about how Barack Obama won the presidency in 2008. The first thing that came to mind was his iconic poster with his image and the word “HOPE.” That differentiated Obama from his Democratic party competitors…and his Republican rival, John McCain. Obama embraced hope and the future, and he won.”

Some people attribute the negative messages offered by current candidates to the fact that today’s world is troubled. But as Dean points out, the world was also deeply troubled in 2008 and only Obama was offering hope. He won two terms.

More from Dean:

“The challenges facing America today are enormous. At the top of the list is solving climate change. When asked if we can address climate change and reduce the existential risk that climate change represents, I want a candidate who answers, “Yes, we can.”

Then there are the wars in Ukraine and Israel that many Republicans wish would disappear. The solution for some Republicans is for America to sit these wars out. But US engagement in Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan is about keeping the flame of freedom alive. Putin and Hamas need to be stopped if liberty and democracy are to have a chance.

Dean closes thusly:

“I remain hopeful that hope is not dead. Can the American people give up the current orgy of hate and blame and start working for a brighter future? Yes, we can.”

Turning to the second poll, from the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics shows an intensely divided country in which partisan rancor has grown so deep that many Americans support authoritarian or unconstitutional proposals. Here’s the percentage of respondents that back radical ideas:

  • A majority of both Biden (70%) and Trump (68%) voters believed electing officials from the opposite party would result in lasting harm to the US.
  • Roughly half (52% Biden voters, 47% Trump voters) viewed those who supported the other party as threats to the American way of life.
  • About 40% of both groups (41% Biden voters, 38% Trump voters) believe that the other side had become so extreme that it is acceptable to use violence to prevent them from achieving their goals.
  • 30% of Trump supporters and 25% of Biden supporters are for suspending elections in times of crisis.

The poll also finds Biden leading Trump 52% to 48% in the 2024 horse race. You can view the details here.

So how do we (or can we?) turn the ship around? Dan Peiffer offers some thoughts:

  1. Can Democrats run on saving democracy when people are so down on our political system? The explanation for our success in 2022 is that Democrats upended expectations by centering the election on the threat Republicans posed to democracy….Democrats are again planning to make saving democracy a central part of the 2024 campaign….we must factor these polls’ distrust and disillusionment into our messaging — otherwise, we will become the defenders of a broken, corrupt political system.
  2. How should we talk about Democratic accomplishments? The primary explanation for Biden’s high levels of disapproval on economic issues is that voters are unaware of his major accomplishments. And therefore, educating them about those accomplishments is a strategic priority. Talking about these accomplishments must start from a place that acknowledges the high level of distrust in the federal government.
  3. What’s the best message against Trump? Given the close election, it’s fair to say that the Democrats’ anti-Trump message was not as effective as we thought it would be in 2020. And in this moment when the public is livid at politicians, we have to be careful not to inadvertently help Trump with a message that makes him seem even more like an anti-politician.

We’re all exhausted. The system IS corrupt. Politicians lie to get elected. They get in Congress and forget the constituents that voted for them. The system needs reform, but the reform we are moving toward (autocracy) isn’t the right answer.

It seems that the hill we’re climbing keeps getting steeper. We are all tired, but we must continue the fight.

We have one job: To resist until we subdue this moment of reactionary extremism.

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They Have No Plan Except To Fight Each Other

The Daily Escape:

Nauset Beach, Orleans, MA – October 2023 iPhone photo by Wrongo

It’s already been a long year…and there are still 3 months left! Two issues dominated this week: the Hamas war on Israel and the Republican intramurals in the House.

Let’s start with the Republicans. Semafor reports that Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA) gave up on his quest to become Speaker even though he had been nominated by his caucus as their candidate:

“Scalise withdrew himself from the speaker’s race just one day after colleagues narrowly nominated him for the job, as it became clear he lacked the 217 votes necessary to secure the chair. But there are serious doubts that Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH),  Scalise’s top rival, can pull together the support necessary for a win — in part due to the bad blood over his contest against Scalise.”

This isn’t a time for Republican arm wrestling. The country and the world need attention. As AB Stoddard says at the Bulwark:

“THE REPUBLICANS WHO CONTROL the House of Representatives cannot respond to a new war waged against Israel. They have rejected new aid to support Ukraine in its defense against the Russian invasion. They have no plan to keep the government from shutting down on November 17 when funding next runs dry.”

Right now, there’s no path forward. While many things in this world are broken, this isn’t a case of American politics being “broken”. If as many pundits say, American politics are broken, we’d have seen things just like this when Democrats controlled the House. But they didn’t. What’s broken is the Republican Party.

A few House Republicans have suggested that their only choice might be to strike a bargain with Democrats. But behind closed doors, there hasn’t been a real effort to hatch a bipartisan deal, writes Semafor’s Kadia Goba: (brackets by Wrongo)

“I don’t think there has been legitimate outreach….Sure, those members talk to the press, but not to Hakeem Jeffries [the Democrats’ Majority Leader] or leadership.”

The potentially disastrous consequences of a broken House of Representatives are real, and some Republicans understand that. GOP Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX) said the following after Scalise withdrew his name from consideration:

“We are living in a dangerous world, the world’s on fire. Our adversaries are watching what we do — and quite frankly, they like it. I see a lot of threats out there. One of the biggest threats I see is in the [GOP caucus] room, because we can’t unify as a conference and put the speaker in the chair…”

Brian Tyler Cohen, who hosts the podcast No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen, summed up where the GOP is at with his post on Xitter:

“The fact that ALL Republicans would rather fight over Scalise (who attended a neo-Nazi event) or Jordan (who allegedly covered up rampant sexual abuse) rather than simply work with Democrats to elect a Speaker says it all.”

There are two possible paths forward: Either the Republicans unite behind one candidate for Speaker, or they accept that it will take some Democratic votes to elect a bipartisan candidate. “Bipartisan” is a dirty word among many House Republicans. They have broken the House and have zero intent to fix it.

They must be stopped before they break us all.

The murderous rampage by Hamas last weekend against Israeli civilians and Israel’s sharp response will reverberate for years to come. Eric Levitz wrote in New York Magazine:

“This weekend in Israel, a far-right Islamist group perpetrated the largest mass killing of Jews since the Holocaust, murdering entire families, including babies…and slaughtering 260 concertgoers. More than 1,000 Israelis were killed in all, and over 100 others taken hostage.

Israel’s far-right government predictably responded by choking off all food, electricity, and fuel to Gaza’s 2 million residents and then preparing a military assault more untempered by concern for civilian casualties than ever before.”

The Israeli Ministry of Defense just notified the UN that Palestinians living in Gaza City should evacuate to the southern part of the Gaza Strip. But more than 1 million Palestinians live in this area. How is it possible for so many people to move, even if they had months to do it?

If you are a member of the center-left, It is difficult to see any positive influence on this situation. It shouldn’t be a question of whether you’re for Israel or against it. Terrorism directed at civilians is abhorrent regardless of who’s doing it.

And here at home, conservative pundits exploited Hamas’ attack to fearmonger about immigrants in America. Several right-wing media figures have baselessly warned that Hamas or other “sleeper cells” are lying in wait to attack major American cities, calling October 13 “Day of Jihad”. They also used this lie against American Muslims after 9/11.

What’s happening now between Israel and Hamas makes you want to throw up your hands in despair. It’s impossible to think of or see a solution that can satisfy all sides. Despite that, we need to take a break from so much frustration. We need our Saturday Soother. We need to stiffen our spines for what will be yet another week of horror and nonsense.

Here on Cape Cod, the weather is seasonably crisp, so we will be wearing jackets to today’s Wellfleet Oysterfest. Later, we’ll go to the beach to watch the sunset that is coming earlier every day.

To meditate for a few moments on the Hamas/Israel war, grab a comfy chair and listen to John Lennon’s “Imagine” from his 1971 album of the same name. Released during the heart of the Vietnam War, Lennon asks us to envision a world of peace and unity. “Nothing to kill or die for And no religion too”:

Sample Lyric:

Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace

You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will be as one

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Dark Money Keeps Flowing Into Our Politics

The Daily Escape:

Cranberry Bog, Old Sandwich Road, Cape Cod MA – October 2023 photo by Ken Grille Photography

As usual, we’re enjoying our time on Cape Cod. We visited a cranberry bog operator yesterday and learned that the number one use of cranberries in America is making crasins. Those packages of whole cranberries you purchase at Thanksgiving make up just 1% of US cranberry sales.

Two topics today: First, as much as Wrongo would like, he can’t ignore the escalating war between Israel and Hamas. Many have written about the conflict. Wrongo wants to spend a few minutes on this week’s hypocrisy by House Republicans. Ja’han Jones wrote for MSNBC:

“In February, several Republicans signed on to a bill, introduced by Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., that was aimed at ending US military and financial aid to Ukraine.”

At the time, Gaetz said:

“America is in a state of managed decline, and it will exacerbate if we continue to hemorrhage taxpayer dollars toward a foreign war…”

But on Sunday, Gaetz said on Meet the Press that we should up our support to Israel:

“The reason we have this multibillion-dollar commitment…to Israel is because we want Israel to have a qualitative military edge over everyone in the region…”

Just last week Gaetz and other Republicans were willing to shut down the federal government over aid to Ukraine. Aiding Ukraine means spending to assist in a fight against Russia, which the MAGAverse is apparently supports only very weakly. But aiding Israel, which this time means spending to assist in a fight against Hamas, is ok. Republicans like spending money fighting Muslims.

Anne Applebaum in The Atlantic warns that the “rules-based world order” is on the verge of breaking down:

“Open brutality has again become celebrated in international conflicts, and a long time may pass before anything else replaces it.”

This applies to both Ukraine and to Israel. We can’t afford to ignore one in favor of the other.

Our second issue today is that the billionaire Charles Koch is using a tax dodge to fund his ongoing political activities. From Judd Legum:

“…Charles Koch…is funneling his wealth into two organizations that can continue his right-wing political advocacy for years. Koch structured more than $5 billion in donations to…allow him to avoid paying capital gains or gift taxes. It’s not surprising that Koch is familiar with the loophole — he spent hundreds of thousands of dollars lobbying to create it.”

Legum cites a Forbes article which states that in 2022, Koch donated $4.3 billion in Koch Industries stock to Believe in People, a newly formed 501(c)4 nonprofit organization. The organization is run by Koch’s inner circle, including his son, Chase Koch along with Dave Robertson, co-CEO of Koch Industries, and Brian Hooks, the co-author of Charles Koch’s last book.

From Forbes: (brackets by Wrongo)

“ [Koch] has already quietly transferred $5.3 billion of nonvoting stock to a pair of nonprofits….Forbes estimates those shares account for nearly a tenth of the 42% stake previously held by Charles (though he still has 42% voting power).”

The other Koch nonprofit is called CCKc4. In 2020, Koch also donated $975 million in Koch Industries stock to CCKc4, controlled exclusively by Charles’ son, Chase Koch. Legum reports that in its 2020 IRS filing, CCKc4 listed its mission as “N/A.” The gift to Believe in People is now the largest publicly disclosed donation to a 501(c)4–a type of nonprofit with fewer restrictions on lobbying and politics than traditional charities.

Unlike a traditional 501(c)3 nonprofit, a C4 can own an entire for-profit company indefinitely and (so long as these activities support its principal purpose) benefit private individuals; engage in an unlimited amount of issue lobbying; and get directly involved in politics.

Since Congress exempted donations to C4s from the usual 40% federal gift tax in 2015, a number of billionaires have donated 100% of their companies to C4s. Before Koch’s gift the largest of these C4 donations was by Patagonia’s founder Yvon Chouinard, who transferred all of his outdoor clothing and gear retailer’s nonvoting stock to an environmentally-focused C4 in 2022. At the time of the gift, Patagonia was reportedly valued around $3 billion.

Legum reports that Koch’s main political spending vehicle, Americans for Prosperity Action (AFP Action), in the 2022 election cycle spent 95% of its money on Republican candidates who were formally endorsed by Trump or who actively campaigned as Trump supporters. AFP Action spent just $3.5 million on candidates not aligned with Trump and zero dollars supporting Democratic candidates.

This is America in the 2020s: $ billions “donated” by billionaires to protect other billionaires. The tax dodge was enacted in 2015 during the Obama administration. This expansion of tax-free funding of political action is something that is unknown to average people, yet it impacts our politics through its substantial invisible influence. It strips money from the government’s coffers while simultaneously further poisoning US democracy. The only way to take back control of our politics is to take back control of the flow of money into our politics.

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What A New House Speaker Means For America

The Daily Escape:

Autumn, Rocky Mountain Front, MT – October 2023 photo by Jack Bell Photography

We’re all trying NOT to follow what’s going on in the House. Since Matt Gaetz and friends fired Kevin McCarthy, pretty much every newscast and paper are covering it. Wrongo will add his few words to the hot steaming pile of wordsmith.

McCarthy’s downfall is proof that no good deed goes unpunished. His decision to shake hands with Democrats on a short-term budget deal, kept the government open, but drew a challenge to his Speakership from a small group of chaos caucus Republicans. These eight mutinying members of his Party felt that McCarthy committed the unforgivable sin of compromise with Democrats.

It’s useful to remember that 91 Republicans voted against McCarthy’s bill to keep the government open.

That, along with McCarthy’s unwillingness to make any concessions to the Dems for future funding requirements like Ukraine, made it clear that there was no good reason for them to do anything to help McCarthy and the GOP caucus to resolve their internal differences.

At the highest level, America is now looking at an uncertain period of being (un) governed, in fact, held hostage by a tiny group of eight “chaos Republicans”. If the Republican House members select a new Speaker from the current two front runners, Steve Scalise (LA) and Jim Jordan (OH), their Party will tip further to the Right than it was under McCarthy, and there doesn’t seem to be a middle ground.

Just eight Republicans were in love enough with chaos to vote against Mr. McCarthy; more than 200 other Republicans understood that chaos isn’t conducive to sound policymaking. And 32 of those who supported McCarthy are members of the Problem Solvers Caucus, which is in theory dedicated to bipartisan solutions.

The WaPo has a great chart that lays out just how small the chaos caucus is vs. Republicans who voted for McCarthy:

Those Republican Problem Solvers are very angry at the caucus’ Democratic members for not supporting McCarthy when he was dethroned. All the House Dems who voted, voted against McCarthy (208), while four Dems weren’t present.

So now, a government shut-down seems assured. But the reality is that despite the best wishes of the chaos caucus, the government cannot remain unfunded forever. And their demands for capitulation by Biden to the GOP’s fever dreams for cutting spending will never happen.

The House can’t do anything without a Speaker, so the pressure is massive to choose one. And the Republicans will probably find a way to choose one without requiring any Democratic votes to support their choice. But when government funding runs out in mid-November, we’ll get to the real logical driver of partisan politics, the absolute necessity to fund the government.

When the new Speaker can’t pass a funding bill that is supported by the Senate, the new Speaker will eventually see the value in again seeking Democratic support.

The math drives this. The functional majority in the House will be that group who are willing to pay our bills on time by funding the government. Of the 221 Republican House members, 130 of them voted to avoid the shutdown, and 91 voted for it. The new Speaker needs to wrangle 218 votes to pass a bill on to the Senate. So if only 130 Republicans are willing to govern, Democrats will have to supply the difference.

Roll Call reports that the Republican vote for the next Speaker will take place next Wednesday morning, so we’ll soon see if the impasse can be resolved.

Another interesting turnabout this week was the Biden administration deciding to waive two dozen environmental laws in order to resume building the wall on the southern border. Trump demanded an apology because Biden had promised in 2020 there would “not be another foot” of wall if he won.

The White House now claims the administration’s hands were tied by appropriations bills that required them to spend the money. Said Biden:

“The money was appropriated for the border wall…I tried to get them to reappropriate it, to redirect that money. They didn’t, they wouldn’t.”

Biden added he still doesn’t believe walls are an effective solution, but Republicans are crowing “I TOLD YOU SO” with this announcement. But since it was FY2019 money that couldn’t be reprogrammed, we should be asking why it wasn’t spent while Trump was still in office.

Wrongo is applying for a patent on his new invention. It’s called “the magic button”. You press it and any intractable problem simply disappears without a trace. It will be ready for use sometime after the 12th. The 12th of never.

On to the Saturday Soother, where we spend this Saturday of a three-day weekend attempting to escape from the news cycle. Wrongo and Ms. Right are on Cape Cod for our annual fall getaway that dovetails with the various Oysterfests on the Cape.

This means that columns may be light and variable for the next 10 days.

It’s raining in the Northeast, so, it’s mostly indoor sports today. To help you let go of the week’s news, grab a comfy chair by a window and brew up a cup of Kick Ass coffee from Canada’s Kicking Horse Coffee.

Now watch and listen to “My One And Only Love”, the old standard performed here by legendary saxophonist John Coltrane and singer Johnny Hartman. This was recorded in 1963 and features McCoy Tyner on piano. If you want to take your mind off a few things today, this will surely help:

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Kevin Shows His Little Spine

The Daily Escape:

Lone Cypress, 17 Mile Drive, Monterey, CA – September 2023 photo by Leila Shehab Photography

“Until we know we are wrong, being wrong feels exactly like being right.” — David McRaney 

Wrongo’s Wake Up Call came on Saturday evening when Kevin McCarthy asked House Democrats to bail him out again:

“Congress passed a bill today to fund the federal agencies at FY2023 levels until Nov. 17. The legislation reauthorizes the FAA and the national flood insurance program through the end of this year. There’s $16 billion for disaster relief accounts, too.”

From Politico:

“McCarthy’s move marked an abrupt shift after spending most of the year trying to placate all corners of his party — including a dozen-plus hardliners who have made it next to impossible for him to maneuver anything onto the floor. After the vote, McCarthy all but taunted his critics to come after his gavel if they wanted to.”

Wrongo said here that:

“You’re unlikely to win if you decide to place a bet on McCarthy getting a dose of moral courage and standing up to his Party.“

Well, Wrongo was um, wrong. The 45-day bridge funding passed with more Democratic than GOP votes. That’s a repeat of the debt vote last spring that also angered McCarthy’s opponents.

More from the Punchbowl:

“Depending on where you sit, McCarthy is either the “adult in the room,”…or he’s a treasonous turncoat who continues to abandon his party in the pursuit of easy political victories, as his hardline GOP conservatives claim.”

House Republicans will now spend the next 45 days trying to pass FY2024 appropriations bills that have zero chance of becoming law. The best McCarthy can hope for is that the Senate will attempt to negotiate with the House.

On Sunday, Roll Call reported that Rep. Matt Gaetz, (R-LaLa land) said that he intends to push a motion to oust McCarthy from the Speakership:

“I do intend to file a motion to vacate against Speaker McCarthy this week. I think we need to rip off the Band-Aid. I think we need to move on with new leadership that can be trustworthy….By week’s end he will either not be speaker or he will be Speaker serving at the pleasure of House Democrats.”

A simple majority of the House is all that’s required to vacate the Speakership. Being the House Speaker with a GOP majority makes you a punching bag. While the members of the Freedom Caucus may love the spotlight, none of them are stupid enough to want to assume the role of getting beaten around the ears every day. It’s much easier to sit back and bitch and moan than actually, you know, do the F’ing work you were elected to do. And McCarthy is the perfect tool: Weak, but too vain to step aside.

Pass the popcorn. We’ll soon see whether Gaetz or McCarthy have a majority behind them. An opposing view: People keep saying that: “Kevin doesn’t have the juice to do that, if he does, they’ll knife him“. But then he doesn’t get knifed. If we keep saying “he’s too weak to do X” and then he does X, doesn’t that suggest something? Like maybe McCarthy’s better at his job than we thought?

In some ways, it’s become misleading to talk about the “Republican Party“.  The Republican Party is no longer the Party of Eisenhower, and it’s not the Party of Reagan. Over the past 30 years, they’ve become a cult of grifters. Think about it: Alito on the Supreme Court predates Trump by over 10 years, Thomas by 25 years. The GOP Grifter Cult includes many political operatives who’ve had critical mass in our politics for a very long time.

The Grifter Cult was aching for a leader that would turn the volume on bigotry and coarseness up to 11. Trump easily passed the audition, although he brought zero in new policies, and he hasn’t broadened the Party. His major contribution has been the complete normalizing of coarse Republican messaging.

The GOP Grifter Cult was disappointed with McCain and later, with Romney, because both felt the need to show some minimal respect to others at a time when the base had already moved on to birtherism, misogyny, and pseudo-religiosity. Now, they’re rapidly moving to full anti-democratic authoritarianism.

Time to wake up America! The GOP Grifters must be neutralized. The surest way to do that is to vote them out of office. To help you wake up on this Monday, watch and listen to Larkin Poe and The Sheepdogs cover Fleetwood Mac’s 1977 hit “The Chain” from their landmark album “Rumors”, in this September 2023 video:

We’ve gotta break the chain.

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What’s “My Kevin” Gonna Do?

The Daily Escape:

In her series Marjory’s World, photographer Rebecca Reeve creates portals from the domestic into the wilderness. She uses household drapery that she purchases from local Goodwill and Salvation Army stores to evoke the feeling of looking out of a room.

This photo was taken in the Everglades in Florida in 2012.

Reeve’s series, Marjory’s World is named after Marjory Stoneman Douglas who was an American journalist, author and conservationist. She was an advocate of the Everglades and defended against the efforts to drain and reclaim it for development. Her most influential book was “The Everglades: River of Grass” written in 1947, the year that the Everglades was made a National Park.

In 1990, when she was 100 years old, her name was given to the high school in Parkland, FL where in 2018, a mass shooting took place leaving 17 dead and 17 more wounded in less than six minutes. Stoneman Douglas died at 108 on May 14, 1998.

(hat tip to Adam Tooze for introducing Reeve to Wrongo)

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) died on Friday at 90, leaving a complicated legacy. Having lived in California for more than 10 years, Wrongo and Ms. Right had the opportunity to vote for her. In her early years in the Senate, Feinstein was known for trying to find common ground with Republicans. Feinstein in her later years overstayed her welcome in the Senate.

But her real legacy was Chairing the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence’s (SSCI) Torture Report in 2014. Feinstein’s tenure as SSCI Chair ensured there was a documented account of the torture done during the GW Bush administration which was serious enough that the CIA actually “lost” its sole copy of the 6,000+ page report. And she defied Obama by releasing the unclassified summary of the torture perpetrated during the War on Terror. For that alone, her legacy deserves respect.

She also championed the assault weapons ban that became law under Clinton, which was later allowed to expire by Bush. For history buffs, she became mayor of San Francisco after the murder of mayor George Moscone and supervisor Harvey Milk. She found Moscone shot in his office and tried to revive him. After Moscone’s death, Feinstein succeeded him as Acting Mayor of San Francisco. She was also a strong leader for SFO during the AIDS crisis when Reagan couldn’t care less.

But let’s also talk today about a politician whose legacy will be forever tarnished, House Speaker Kevin (My Kevin) McCarthy. On Friday, the Republican-controlled House voted down a last-ditch measure to temporarily avert a government shutdown, 198-232 with all Democrats against it, along with 21 Republicans.

The Continuing Resolution (CR) would have kept the government funded for 30 days while cutting funding by 30% for all agencies except the Departments of Defense, Homeland Security and Veterans Affairs, something no Democrat would ever accept.

Most GOP “no” votes were by right-wingers who objected to the very idea of a CR. While it failed, 198 House Republicans voted for this bill sourced from God Knows Where (GKW). The Thesaurus says one synonym for GKW is “alien”. And a few synonyms for alien are: Contrary, Estranged, Opposed and Inappropriate. These all seem right to Wrongo.

These Republicans do not belong in our government.

You may remember that back in June, House Republicans and McCarthy agreed at the eleventh hour to raise the federal debt limit to avoid the government defaulting on its loans for the first time in history. As part of that agreement, McCarthy and Biden agreed to spending caps on funding bills for the next two years that aimed to avoid this kind of impasse until after the next presidential election.

But McCarthy welshed on that deal, under pressure from a number of MAGA Republicans in his caucus who are refusing to fund the government and are calling for deeper spending cuts.

Meanwhile, McCarthy is “leading” one of the slimmest Congressional majorities in decades. He faces a choice of either showing moral courage by introducing a funding bill with the backing of House Dems, or letting the Shutdown run for several weeks or months.

Another day, another new McCarthy plan. Indeed, this whole dance makes for very bad politics for the GOP considering that 77% of US voters say that they don’t want the government to close.

You’re unlikely to win if you decide to place a bet on McCarthy getting a dose of moral courage and standing up to his Party.

Here in the Northeast, we’ve been dumped on by even more rain leading into the weekend, which isn’t expected to taper off until late this afternoon. Despite that, we’ve taken the Bluebird nesting boxes down, cleaned them out and stored them until next spring.

But we have to find time for our Saturday Soother, where we forget about the mess Republicans are making of their “impeachment inquiry”, you know the one with zero evidence. Instead we must focus on building up our mental resolve to wander through the government shutdown without injury.

To help you build resolve, let’s start by grabbing a comfy chair by a south facing window. Now watch and listen to U2’s take on Kevin McCarthy’s problem. Here is U2’s remastered video of “Stuck In A Moment You Can’t Get Out Of” from their 2000 album “All That You Can’t Leave Behind”. The song was written by Bono for his friend, lead singer of INXS, Michael Hutchence, who committed suicide in 1997:

Let’s hope that McCarthy doesn’t engage in any self-harm, except for losing the Speakership.

Sample Lyric:

I never thought you were a fool
But darling, look at you (Ooh)
You gotta stand up straight,
Carry your own weight
These tears are going nowhere (baby)

You’ve got to get yourself together
You’ve got stuck in a moment
And now you can’t get out of it
Don’t say that later will be better
Now you’re stuck in a moment
And you can’t get out of it

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Trump Could Be President Even While Serving Time

The Daily Escape:

First fall foliage, Cox Brook, Northfield Falls, VT – September 2023 photo by John H. Knox

First, although we may know if Trump has been convicted prior to the 2024 election, it’s highly unlikely that he would be serving time by then, because his convictions (if any) will be appealed. The appeal process will take us well beyond when the Electoral College votes are counted in DC.

Second, The Constitution (before it was amended) contains just three requirements to become president: the person must be a natural-born citizen of the US, 35 years or older and a resident of the US for at least 14 years. That’s it.

In 1868, the 14th Amendment added Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the original text that:

“no person shall … hold any office, civil or military, under the United States … who, having previously taken an oath … to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”

UCLA law professor Richard L. Hasen, a leading expert on election law, told CNN that Trump has a path to serving as president if he wins the election in 2024: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“The Constitution has very few requirements to serve as President….It does not bar anyone indicted, or convicted, or even serving jail time, from running as president and winning the presidency,”

And while some states prohibit felons from running for state and local office, those laws do not apply to federal elections. More from Hasen, on whether a president may serve from prison.

“How someone would serve as president from prison is a happily untested question…”

If Trump were in jail and prevented by law from leaving jail while his sentence was carried out, that would make running the government impossible. It wouldn’t necessarily prohibit him from serving as president from a cell, at least until he could pardon himself, another untested loophole.

If he tried to pardon himself, or to commute his own sentence, we’d wind up at the Supreme Court. From the NYT:

“Either action would be an extraordinary assertion of presidential power, and the Supreme Court would be the final arbiter of whether a “self-pardon” was constitutional.”

Trump would certainly sue to be released from jail, saying (correctly) that imprisonment prevented him from fulfilling his Constitutional obligations as president. Trump’s lawyers would argue that keeping a duly elected president in prison would be an infringement by the judicial branch on the operations of the executive branch. Again off to the Supremes we’d go.

So time for a few brief reminders: Trump faces no significant opposition to winning the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. Plan A among those who really don’t want Trump to win is to say:

“…he will lose in the general election.”

And there’s no Plan B. So, what will your options be if he wins? In general, your options are: Knuckling under, taking part in political violence, or leaving the country. And understand that, regardless of how submissive you are, the number of people who will die in police custody or while “resisting” will go way up. Let’s take your options one at a time:

  1. Leaving the country is something only rich people can do and it wouldn’t dislodge Trump. It will make him more secure.
  2. Political violence is personally risky. It requires moral compromise that makes our regular politics look almost pristine. And unless it’s large and well organized, it will fail.
  3. Knuckling under to tyranny will probably be the response of most Americans, even though most would say that’s incompatible with their conscience.

But all that said, Ukraine’s limited success against a superpower shows that using today’s technology makes it relatively easy to hold large swaths of a country despite the other side’s having a much stronger military.

Wrongo thinks that after a Trump win in 2024, US citizens will have to think seriously about how to handle life under an authoritarian regime. Trump will start out with a soft form of authoritarianism. But later? Who knows what it becomes. A lot of people around the world live under authoritarian regimes, so while it’s awful, it’s also survivable for most people.

And think twice about resistance. As a thought experiment, list out the historical examples of a citizenry that  successfully resisted a fascist takeover once the fascists had a firm grip on the judiciary and half of the legislatures.

America has one great shining example of what not to do when Bush v. Gore was decided in 2000. No Democrat (looking at you Bill Clinton!) told the Supremes to fuck off. Even Gore didn’t say “just keep on counting” in Florida. Instead, he crumbled. In a democracy, no court should ever tell the political branch to stop counting votes.

That election was stolen, but Democrats collectively just let it happen. Worse, two years later almost all of the Democrats in Congress voted for Bush’s nasty authoritarian terror bills and a war to avenge 9/11.

Wouldn’t it be much better this time around to make sure Trump doesn’t get the votes of any of your friends, family or neighbors? And better yet, that you get most of them out to vote?

Please don’t plan on sitting back and waiting for a conviction to deliver us from Trump. Why is it in the DNA of Democrats to keep looking for some external solution to our political problem?

Wrongo is an elderly white, married, upper-middle class male living in a Blue state. He’s going to be fine no matter what. He’ll worry about his kids and grandkids, but personally, Wrongo has nothing to worry about. His taxes may even go down again.

But he plans to resist, no matter what.

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The Auto Strike

The Daily Escape:

Trail Ridge Road, Rocky Mountain NP, CO – September 2023 photo by Rick Priebe

On Friday, The UAW union expanded its strike against GM and Stellantis, two of the Big Three automakers, ramping up pressure on the companies to reach deals on new contracts. The union walked off the job at parts distribution centers of both manufacturers but spared Ford, saying the company had done more to meet its demands. From the NYT:

“Our pressure on Ford is starting to pay off,”

But there was no indication a deal with Ford was imminent. More:

“Stellantis workers walked out at 20 of the company’s parts distribution centers Friday, while G.M. workers went on strike at 18 centers.”

Ford Canada reached a deal last week with the union that represents its Canadian workers. It may offer a clue to the US outcome: The deal provides for pay increases worth up to 25% over three years, as well as bonuses, improved retirement benefits and measures to protect employees as Ford retools factories for electric vehicles. The union, Unifor, is negotiating separately with GM and Stellantis in Canada.

The UAW is asking for a 37% wage increase over four years, improved retiree benefits and shorter work hours. They also want an end to a tiered wage system that starts new hires at much lower wages than the top UAW pay of $32 an hour. Importantly, more than 18,000 UAW members are now on strike.

Some context: UAW workers made significant sacrifices to help keep the big three afloat, amidst the financial crisis in 2009. They made those sacrifices based in part on the promise that the Big Three would eventually renew their compensation and benefits, which the Big Three never did. There were no cost of living adjustments, despite the Big Three going from losing money to record profitability (and tens of $ billions in stock buybacks).

And this week, Biden will join the strike in an extraordinary move of support. From CNN:

“Biden will travel to Michigan on Tuesday and walk the picket line with members of the United Auto Workers union, he announced Friday…”

Biden said in a post on Xitter:

“Tuesday, I’ll go to Michigan to join the picket line and stand in solidarity with the men and women of UAW as they fight for a fair share of the value they helped create. It’s time for a win-win agreement that keeps American auto manufacturing thriving with well-paid UAW jobs,”,

This presidential appearance on a picket line is a historic first. It is also an opportunity to score political points, since it comes one day before Trump is scheduled to deliver a speech to an audience of current and former union members in Detroit. In July, Trump asked the UAW to endorse him, so both politicians are working hard to gain traction with the union.

The UAW was angered by Biden’s pumping tax money into nonunion electric vehicle suppliers, and has withheld its endorsement, even as most other labor unions have rushed to back Mr. Biden’s re-election.

Back to some context for the UAW strike: The WSJ reports that:

“The Detroit companies’ labor costs, including wages and benefits, are estimated at an average of $66 an hour…”

That compares with $45 at Tesla, which isn’t unionized.

Hopefully, the UAW strike will yield fair results for the workers, given the enormous profits the companies are making, the generous salaries the industry’s execs are reaping, and the sacrifices labor made to keep the lights on when the industry was on life support in 2008.

This may well be the union’s last big strike when you consider that nearly half of all the cars built in the US are manufactured in 31 foreign-owned plants. None of these facilities are unionized, and their workers are generally paid less than those at union plants.

The move to EVs will be also be a sea-change reality for auto labor. There is likely to be a 40% reduction in the labor required to build the new engineless cars. Electric motors are much simpler than internal combustion engines. It is estimated that in less than 10 years, two-thirds of all new cars will be electric.

While the impact on labor throughout the supply chain will be dramatic, plenty of internal combustion engines will remain in use, even if not in production. That will provide stability for auto maintenance and repair workers for decades to come.

Nonetheless, the writing is on the wall. Workers with computer skills and AI capability will replace many traditional lunch-pail workers at plants assembling automobiles.

Time to wake up America! Not so long ago, the thought of a UAW strike was traumatizing because of the enormous workforce the union represented. A half-century ago, the UAW represented 1.5 million auto workers (1.5%) out of a total American workforce of just under 100 million workers. Today, UAW membership at GM, Ford, and Stellantis is about 150,000 employees (less than one percent) out of a total American workforce of 160 million workers.

Imagine if today’s number is reduced by 40%, or 60,000 workers! This means that the UAW loses its ability to represent its workers effectively by 2033!

To help you wake up, watch and listen to Green Day perform their hit “Wake Me Up When September Ends” from their 2004 album “American Idiot” at England’s Reading Festival in 2013. Frontman Billie Joe Armstrong wrote the song about the death of his father when he was 10 years old. But it has come to express loss of all kinds. Gotta love those English crowds:

You realize that the country is growing older, that Biden is growing older, the song is growing older, Green Day is growing older, and the union movement in the US is growing older too.

Regardless of how much time has passed, this song hits just as hard as it did when it was introduced 19 years ago.

Sample lyric:

Summer has come and passed
The innocent can never last
Wake me up when September ends

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More Fresh Hell In Washington DC

The Daily Escape:

Sunrise, Linville Gorge Wilderness, NC – September 2023 photo by Thomas Mabry

Today is the Autumn Equinox, bringing its shortened days and cooler nights. It reminds us that we’re running out of time to avoid a government shutdown, because the GOP can’t stop fighting among themselves. Republicans no longer represent a serious national political Party.

From the Hill:

“House Republicans abandoned plans to take up a stopgap funding measure this week after members of the fractious GOP conference warned there would not be enough votes to pass a continuing resolution to avert a partial government shutdown next month.

Party leaders informed members that…the House would recess subject to the call of the chair. Lawmakers were advised to keep their plans flexible, and that “ample notice” would be provided for any votes they planned to schedule on Friday or over the weekend.

Members weren’t being officially sent home for the weekend because House leaders lacked the votes to adopt a motion to adjourn…”

Here’s a quote from House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY): (brackets by Wrongo)

“…[in] 2018-2019, they shut the government down for 35 days. When the shutdown began, Trump was president, Republicans controlled the House and the Senate… They shut themselves down. That’s how much it’s in their DNA”

It’s actually worse than that. Since 1995, there have been 5 major government shutdowns. The GOP controlled the House for all 5 of them. Anyone other than Wrongo see a trend here?

Politico says that members of the Problem Solvers Caucus is working with Speaker McCarthy on a deal:

“Small groups of centrist Democrats are holding secret talks with several of McCarthy’s close GOP allies about a last-ditch deal to fund the government, according to more than a half-dozen people familiar with the discussions.”

More:

“Lawmakers involved in the talks — who mostly belong to the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus, the Republican Governance Group or the centrist New Democrat Coalition — have labored to keep their work quiet. Many Republicans involved are incredibly worried about revealing their backup plan, wanting to wait until every other tool in McCarthy’s arsenal has failed.

That moment may not be until next week, just ahead of the Sept. 30 shutdown deadline.”

Any solution to the impasse has to be bipartisan, given the intransigence of a handful of wacko Conservatives. As Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) said about the conservative holdouts: (brackets by Wrongo)

“So why negotiate with these five or 10 people who [constantly] move the goalposts?”

Or as Andy Borowitz put it:

“Zelensky Offers to Broker Peace Deal Between Kevin McCarthy and House Republicans”

Moving on, Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) was indicted on federal bribery charges by the DOJ on Friday morning:

“…federal prosecutors alleging the New Jersey Democrat accepted cash, gold and other benefits in exchange for using his office to enrich three businessmen and aid the Egyptian government. The charges, brought by the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office, mark the second time New Jersey’s senior senator has faced public corruption allegations. An earlier criminal case eight years ago fell apart.”

Menendez wasn’t alone in the indictment; his wife Nadine Arslanian was also included on the bribery charges.

More from the WSJ:

“During a search of Menendez’s home in June 2022, investigators discovered over $480,000 in cash—much of it stuffed into envelopes and hidden in a safe, closets and clothing, including a jacket emblazoned with the Senate logo….Over $70,000 was found in his wife’s safe-deposit box….Federal agents also found gold bars, home furnishings and a Mercedes-Benz convertible worth more than $60,000 that the senator and his wife received as part of the scheme, prosecutors said.”

The WSJ also notes that some of the gold bars in Menendez’s possession had serial numbers that indicated his co-defendant New Jersey developer Fred Daibes had previously owned them.

Menendez’s trial in 2008 ended in a hung jury. We’re certain to hear from Republicans that the Menendez prosecution is a clever plan to give the illusion by the DOJ that Democrats are as likely to be prosecuted as are Republicans. But with this kind of blockbuster evidence, his political career is probably over. Or, it would be over, unless his name is actually Trump.

Finally, many of you probably saw David Brooks’ tweet:

“This meal just cost me $78 at Newark Airport. This is why Americans think the economy is terrible:”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Welp, ol’ Dave exaggerates. It appears Brooks’ burger cost $17, and the rest of the bill was bourbon and taxes. Several bourbons apparently. The Newark Airport restaurant is the 1911 Smoke House Barbecue, and it notes in a Facebook post that Brooks’ bar tab was almost 80% of the total, and yet, he’s complaining about the cost of the meal.

As The New Republic said:

“Maybe Brooks could use this opportunity to pivot into speculative fiction, but in the meantime, if he ever wants to comment on economic news, he may want to lay off the whiskey first.”

And he probably expensed the bill to his employer, the NYT.

That’s enough for this week, it’s time for our Saturday Soother, where we try to let go of thoughts of Kevin McCarthy, Bob Menendez, David Brooks and the whole Washington menagerie for a few minutes. Let’s try to get as calm as possible to help us prepare for whatever fresh hell awaits next week. And you can be certain it will be hell.

Here in Connecticut, we’re getting a glancing blow from an early fall Nor’easter with more rain than wind. We’ll be hunkered down today. It arrives on the heels of our hummingbirds departing on Friday for more southerly places that still offer flowers with nectar.

So, start by grabbing a comfy chair inside by a south facing window. Now watch and listen to another of the “seasons” by Argentinian composer Astor Piazzolla, who died in 1992, his “Otoño Porteño” (“Autumn”). Last Saturday, we featured his “Winter” and today, his “Autumn” is also played by Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam, NL in 2014. The soloist is again the conductor Liviu Prunaru:

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Cartoon Of The Week

The Daily Escape:

Cascade River Valley, North Cascades, WA – September 2023 photo via WanderWashington

Given how often the Republicans in the House shoot themselves in the foot, Santa better bring them Kevlar shoes. This cartoon expresses the problem perfectly:

The room where it never happens:

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