Category: Voting Rights

The Biden Dilemma Continues

The Daily Escape:

Grand Tetons with balsamroot, Grand Teton NP, WY – July 2024 photo by Paul Lally Fine Arts Nature Photography

We’re still in the doom loop regarding whether Biden should step down as the Democrats candidate for president in November. A large proportion of pundits and Hollywood types are demanding that the Democrats take the easy way out, and thus, go on to lose this fall.

The dilemma that Wrongo wrote about last week is still with us, and very little has changed.

Except that Biden held a press conference on Thursday that, like the first presidential debate, was designed to quell the chorus calling for him to step aside. Or it was designed to offer red meat to the supposed journalists who asked the questions? The media has been treating Biden like a treasonous convicted felon that should be dropped like a hot rock, and treating the actual treasonous convicted felon like he’s an acceptable candidate.

The press conference turned out to be respectful, and largely concentrated on foreign policy. Biden showed great command of the subject matter, and with the exception of his usual verbal tics, gave long and well-reasoned answers. Some of the most hostile press members didn’t get to ask questions, but most of the areas of concern regarding his health, mental acuity and his commitment to staying in the race were covered in at least some depth.

What’s next? Wrongo has no idea if Biden is going to stay in the race, or what he will do if the chorus of calls for him to step aside continue to grow over the next week.

Wrongo has a huge concern should Biden decide to keep running. Usually presidential debates don’t matter, but in this election cycle, the two debates are more like health and wellness check-in events for both candidates, and that’s Wrongo’s biggest worry should Biden stay in the race: The election will ride entirely on how he performs in the second debate that is scheduled for September 10. By then, the convention will be over and all of the other possible options to head the ticket that are available today will be in the rear view mirror.

The decision about Biden is whether he’s electable. The way we talk about that is: Does he give the Democratic Party the best chance to win in November? We know that there are no guarantees: Biden could stay in and win. Biden could stand down and the new nominee could lose. Nothing is “safe.” The problem for the Democrats is that as of today, given the electoral map, the options of Biden either on or off the ticket both have less than a 50% chance of success. The Party probably feels it has to choose the least-dangerous pathway, and humans are rarely good at doing that. We’ve evolved to believe that if one option is risky, then the other option is likely to be less risky.

Has Wrongo seen enough? Maybe Biden can’t win this one for us. Maybe we have to win it for ourselves.

In a better world, Biden wouldn’t be the candidate in 2024. In that world, Hillary Clinton would just be finishing her second term. There would be a liberal majority on the Supreme Court, and Trump would just be a footnote to the history of presidential politics. But that’s not the reality we’re in. So Dems must decide whether Biden is the best option we’ve got. Regardless of who emerges when the smoke clears:

  • If we all agree to back the candidate, they will win.
  • If we all can’t agree to back the candidate, they will lose.

This was the big lesson that came out of the French election. They sluffed off candidates and parties in order to present a united front to the electorate that would prevent their right wing from taking over.

It’s important to remember that in America, the number of voters on the side of democracy easily outnumbers those on the authoritarian side. America’s challenge with beating Trump is how to unite the voters, not divide them. And division comes from the sort of narrative being sown by the media and the pundits. That guy’s “unelectable,” so don’t vote for him.

Despite the press conference, Biden still has yet to prove that he can be a vigorous, effective presence. He has done a number of events, and while all of them have been better than the debate, none of them until this one, has risen to the level “very good.”

This time around may be different. It is true that no incumbent president has lost re-election during a time of economic expansion and low unemployment. It is also true that no 80-year-old has ever been elected president. And that no felon has ever been elected president.

We are presently on course to make history with at least one of these improbabilities.

There are other firsts in this election: Never before has an aspiring president said out loud that he wanted to be “a dictator.” Never before has a sitting president attempted a coup. Never before has the general election featured two men who have served as president. Never before has the general election matchup been settled so early. Never before has a presidential general election debate taken place in June.

A lot of never-before things are happening all around us, right now.

Another historical precedent is that Trump has never won the popular vote. We should not assume that just because it hasn’t happened before, it can’t happen.

Dems need to choose to support Biden or overthrow him, and the sooner the better.

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Time To Learn About Project 2025

The Daily Escape:

Mollidgewock campground, Erol, NH – July 2024 photo by Amber Lavaliee. Wrongo and Ms. Right lived in NH for 12 years. This is a quintessential scene.

With all the hot air about Biden’s “will he or won’t he” moment, the subject of the Conservative right’s Project 2025 has not truly been covered by the media. From Judd Legum:

“Project 2025 is a radical blueprint for a potential second Trump administration, spearheaded by the right-wing Heritage Foundation. The plan calls for withdrawing approval for the abortion pill, banning pornography, slashing corporate taxes, abolishing the Department of Education, replacing thousands of experienced federal workers with political appointees, imposing a “biblically based… definition of marriage and families,” and placing the Justice Department and other independent agencies under the direct control of the president.”

From Rick Wilson:

“Project 2025 is Trump’s roadmap, written by Trump loyalists and embraced by Trump’s constellation of sycophants, fellow travelers, hangers-on, and job seekers. It will be the driving force of what Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts boasted was “…a second American revolution.” (Also, in keeping with all things MAGA, Roberts dropped an unsubtle threat into the statement, adding the revolution would be “bloodless if the left allows it to be.”)”

This lefty doesn’t plan to let its adoption be “bloodless”.

While Trump has recently disavowed knowledge of the Project or its authors, of the 38 people responsible for writing and editing Project 2025, 31 were appointed or nominated to positions in the Trump administration and transition. So Trump’s claim that he has “nothing to do” with the people who created Project 2025 is another lie: Over 81% had formal roles in his first administration. When Trump denies something, you should always take it as a full confession of his absolute guilt.

Trump’s name appears in Project 2025 312 times. That’s a yuuge coincidence, since he says he doesn’t know anything about it. More from Rick Wilson:

“I was able to confirm late last week that this decision by Trump to condemn Project 2025 was a deliberate effort prepared by campaign strategist Chris LaCivita and Trump’s pollster Tony Fabrizio after research came back showing that Project 2025 is poisonous with groups outside the hardest core of the MAGA base. The same research led the Trump campaign to demand that the RNC remove the national abortion ban plank (and other policy statements) from the 2024 GOP Platform.”

And just like that, the GOP 2024 platform won’t include abortion. From the WaPo:

“Republican delegates adopted presumptive nominee Donald Trump’s proposed convention platform at a meeting in Milwaukee on Monday, abandoning long-held positions on abortion and same-sex marriage while embracing new plans for mass deportation and a new opposition to changing the retirement age for Social Security.”

The strategy is to bury what Republicans plan to do by having the plausible deniability of the GOP platform.

Back to Project 2025. From Navigator Research, who says that when people know more about it their opposition to it grows:

“Opposition to Project 2025 grows as people learn more about the plan. After reading 19 proposed policies for Project 2025, opposition grows from 49% to 63% (net +14) while support for the plan declines from 31% to 24% (net -7%).”

Now the report is over 900 pages long, so it’s gonna take some time to digest. Here’s a chart:

Still, given the media’s focus on trying to drive Biden out of the presidential race, very few Americans know much about Project 2025. Here’s what Navigator found:

From Navigator:

“Seven in ten Americans have not heard enough to have an opinion about Project 2025, but after hearing about it, two in three Americans become opposed. 71% initially don’t know enough to have an opinion of Project 2025….Additionally, nearly four in five Americans report not having heard anything about Project 2025 either when described as “a series of conservative policy proposals aimed at reshaping the executive branch of the federal government if a Republican is elected president in 2024”

Black Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Democrats are most likely to have heard “a lot” or “some” about Project 2025, though fewer than two in five have actually heard about it (30%, 39%, and 33%, respectively).

Navigator grouped the Project 2025 policies by what percent, in the view of survey participants, would “hurt the country” and which were “strongly opposed” by survey participants. They found that eight of the nineteen polices were the most unpopular and harmful:

The list of the most unpopular policies includes:

  • Stopping overtime pay
  • Eliminating pre-existing conditions from health insurance
  • Adding new taxes on health insurance
  • Ending drug price negotiations
  • Eliminating head start
  • Cutting Social Security
  • Monitoring pregnancies by the states
  • Eliminating NOAA (the federal agency that tracks hurricanes) called the NWS above

But check out the policies that are just below those in the above chart. There are some beauties there as well.

This makes it clear that the threat to our nation is Trump and his minions, not Biden’s health. Maybe more people will pay attention to what Project 2025is, now that Trump is denying he knows anything about it. He’s drawn attention to it, by his denial, and it’s getting more widely known. Let’s hope the more people learn about it, the more they will see it’s horror.

The very public navel-gazing by the media and Democrats over Biden’s capacity for the last couple of weeks has overshadowed the social media attacks on Project 2025. Project 2025 means to lobotomize government agencies by replacing career civil servants with far-right ideologues loyal to Dear Leader. Michael Lewis in his book “The Fifth Risk” wrote that government manages a portfolio of risks that requires “mission-driven” careerists, experts with a dedication to the work, not to making big money from it. Donald Trump’s 2016 administration came to Washington DC to upend that system, to exploit it for profit. They abandoned data collection on anything Trumpers opposed, the NYT review explained:

“…like climate change or food safety regulations, or that they didn’t care about, like poverty, or stuff that they assumed were government boondoggles, which was most everything not involving the Pentagon.”

Look at it this way: If you decide to vote FOR the people pushing Program 2025, Trump will assume you’re all for it. And it will become the law of the land. You will NEVER regain the Rights you will lose in that process! If you vote against P-2025, you can still have your Rights as Americans which have been fought for over the past 250 years.

Now, can somebody please help the Biden campaign re-write their weak tea warning about Project 2025 on the Biden campaign website? (https://joebiden.com/project2025/) The headline is almost a paragraph long. The introduction is boring and wordy. All the truly frightening points about Project 2025 are listed so far below, few visitors will scroll down that far.

The Navigator does a great service by highlighting not only what’s in the text of Project 2025, they’ve shown it to Americans and have learned just how badly people think about it once they learn what’s in there.

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The Democrat’s Dilemma

The Daily Escape:

Ledgewater, Cashiers, NC – July 2024 photo by Mark Krancer

Wrongo and Ms. Right have spent a great few days enjoying the company of kids and spouses. While the subject of the 2024 election was on everyone’s mind, it only occasionally broke through into whatever we were discussing at the time.

All the while, the chorus of media and pundits calling for Biden to step aside has continued. Back on June 30, Wrongo said this:

“The NYT has an editorial saying that Biden should stand down for the good of the country. Even though the idea has been rejected by Biden, that thought is alive and will play out over the next few weeks. And for better or for worse, it will largely gain or lose traction based on poll results…”

Over the July Fourth weekend, more Congress members and the Massachusetts governor called on Biden to cede the nomination. There also were reports that Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) was organizing a group of Democratic senators to urge Biden to step aside.

What comes next? Biden will stay, or decide to yield to the pressure and go. And Biden or not, the media is going to harp on the shortcomings of whoever it is, no matter what. Here’s the Democrat’s dilemma:

In some sense, we are like online voters on a TV reality show. So far, the response by the leaders of the Democratic Party has been pathetic. They’re cowering in their offices and texting us for more money. This is the state of play in July 2024: We’re presented with a yes/no option for the presidential candidate, and are told to: a) send money and b) vote hard in November. In truth we have only limited agency when it comes to deciding on Biden or another candidate as the Democratic nominee.

Starting today, pressure will continue to mount, since Congress returns and the pols will get confronted by reporters asking what their positions are on Biden.

Paradoxically, Biden has narrowed Trump’s lead in key swing states, according to a new survey by Bloomberg/Morning Consult, published on Saturday: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“…Trump led…Biden by only 2 percentage points, 47% to 45%, in the critical states needed to win the November election. That’s the smallest gap since the poll began last October. Biden now leads Trump in Michigan and Wisconsin. He’s within the poll’s statistical margin of error in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina, and is farthest behind in…Pennsylvania.”

The poll also showed Biden narrowed the gap with independent voters, with Trump and Biden being tied at 40%. In a previous poll, Trump had led Biden by 44% to 36%. Here’s a visual from the survey:

This poll is the first comprehensive survey of the states most likely to decide the outcome in the Electoral College since Biden’s debate disaster on June 27. They surveyed 4,902 registered voters in seven swing states: 781 registered voters in Arizona, 790 in Georgia, 694 in Michigan, 452 in Nevada, 696 in North Carolina, 794 in Pennsylvania and 695 in Wisconsin. The surveys were conducted online from July 1 to July 5. The statistical margin of error is plus/minus 3 percentage points in Georgia and Pennsylvania; 4 percentage points in Arizona, Michigan, North Carolina, and Wisconsin, and 5 percentage points in Nevada.

The poll showed that Trump also has hurdles to overcome: Some 62% of voters said he’s dangerous, an increase from 59% in February. That comes after the NY jury found him guilty on 34 counts of falsifying business records.

And what happens if Biden steps aside?

The only viable replacement for Biden at this point is VP Kamala Harris. Wrongo’s informal surveys over the past year showed very little support for her, although there is zero reason to think that Democrats would vote against her in a two-way race vs. Trump.

And replacing Biden with Harris would remove the concerns about Biden’s age and mental sharpness. Maybe there would be new concerns, but we’d know for a fact that the age/capacity concerns held by many moderate/swing voters and many in the Democratic party would disappear.

Thinking about Harris:

Recent polls suggest Harris might do better than Biden against Trump, although it could still be a tight contest. A CNN poll released on July 2 found voters favor Trump over Biden by 49% to 43%. Harris also trailed Trump, 47% to 45%, but within the margin of error. It also found independents back Harris 43%-40% over Trump, and moderate voters of both parties prefer her 51%-39%.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll also taken after the debate found Harris and Trump were nearly tied, with 42% supporting her and 43% backing him. The Reuters/Ipsos polls typically have a margin of error of about 3.5 percentage points.

For Democrats, the answer to the dilemma is deciding about risk management. It’s clear that all polling suggests that Biden will face a very tough uphill battle to beat Trump in November. It’s unclear whether Harris would do better. So Dems are dealing with the devil you know vs the devil you don’t.

And many Dems are genuinely concerned that they can’t win with the devil they know, and so want to take a risk with the devil they don’t really know.

There are plenty of ways to think about this. Sports fans know that no one looks down on the great athlete who loses to Father Time. They only look down on an athlete who hangs on too long. Dems are no longer fighting just a story about Biden being “old”. It’s become about Biden losing control, and Americans don’t like that kind of story at all.

A Harris-lead ticket could change the conversation, adding stories about women, young people, people of color, and critically, how Americans have had to adjust in the face of change and disruption. Many voters could rally to that story. The Party faithful could build coalitions around it.

With the exception of Biden himself, Harris has served in elected office – as a district attorney, state attorney general, senator and vice-president – longer than any Democrat elected to the White House in Wrongo’s lifetime, except for LBJ. And as a former prosecutor, she can make the case against Trump, a convicted felon.

Finally, think about a Harris/Shapiro ticket: PA’s governor Josh Shapiro has consistently logged high approval ratings. This is the crucial swing state that the Democrats have to win to keep Trump out of the White House.  A January Quinnipiac University poll showed Shapiro had a 59% job approval rating, including 36% of Republicans who said they approved of his job performance, compared to Biden’s 40% overall approval rating in the state.

Time to wake up, America! We’re in that crucial period between Trump’s first coup attempt and his second. The Democrats’ dilemma must be solved ASAP. To help you wake up, watch and listen to Coldplay perform their big hit “Fix You” live on June 29, 2024 at Glastonbury 2024.

You will note Michael J. Fox joining the band onstage, playing guitar from a wheelchair. If you watch at 3:01, he does a kick that launches the crescendo in the song. European audiences are the best.

This video captures different people, different nationalities, different beliefs, collectively enjoying and engaging joyfully. No hate, no violence, just pure emotion.

Sample Lyrics:

When you try your best but you don’t succeed
When you get what you want but not what you need
When you feel so tired but you can’t sleep
Stuck in reverse

When the tears come streaming down your face
When you lose something you can’t replace
When you love someone but it goes to waste
Could it be worse?

Lights will guide you home
And ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you

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We Must Resist This Extreme Court

The Daily Escape:

Broad-tailed hummingbirds mating, northern CO – June 2024 photo by Hilary Bralove. This is what John Roberts and his radical Conservative associates are doing to American democracy.

“What is the essence of America? Finding and maintaining that perfect, delicate balance between freedom ‘to’ and freedom ‘from’” –Marilyn Vos Savant

The American colonies fought to get free from a king who ruled with absolute power. And on Monday, once again in America, the Supreme Court (SCOTUS) in substance overthrew the American Revolution by saying that any US president could have the rights of a modern-day king, broadly immune from prosecution under the law for his/her acts.

This betrayal of the American revolutionaries, Founders and Framers was delivered in an opinion by Chief Justice John Roberts on behalf of the Conservative radicals who make up the majority of the SCOTUS. It hurts even more because it is designed to protect the most corrupt and dangerous person to ever hold the office of President of the US. Looking at the opinion, it becomes clear that the Conservative majority is more concerned with concentrating power in the hands of the president than in how a president might abuse that power.

This usurping of power is not implied anywhere in the Constitution, nor implied by the centuries of precedent in opinions by the SCOTUS. For you fans of Originalism, remember this, written by historian Joseph Ellis in 2018: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“Most members of America’s founding generation would have regarded this situation as strange. If you read the debates among the delegates at the Constitutional Convention of 1787, and then read their prescriptions for judicial power in Article III of the Constitution, it becomes clear that the last thing the 39 signers of the document wanted was for the Supreme Court to become supreme.”

Bu real power in this country no longer lies in the People. It now resides at the Supreme Court.

For generations, doomsayers have warned us about the imminent collapse of the American republic, not by outside forces, but by inside elements gnawing at the nation’s gut like a cancer. Watch out for the Communists. Watch out for the foreigners swarming our borders. Watch out for leftists. Watch out for the Jews. Watch out for the Muslims. Watch out for rock and roll. Watch out for Disney.

Now the US as we knew it is tottering. But the collapse wasn’t caused by any of those things. It was caused by radical ideologues who knew how to pervert the very mechanism that was supposed to ensure the stability of American democracy: Its system of checks and balances. You know, the three branches of the federal government empowered to crack the whip on each other, and all of them answerable to The People. But for all their wisdom, the Founders were unable to foresee that two centuries on, there would be plotters and schemers who found a means to exploit the chinks in the wall. And possibly to bring the whole thing tumbling down.

We’re talking about the fallout from the SCOTUS 6-3 decision in Trump vs. US. As Heather Cox Richardson (HCR) noted:

“This is a profound change to our fundamental law—an amendment to the Constitution…”

Here’s a brief summary by Robert Hubbell: (Emphasis by Hubbell)

“Today, the Supreme Court invented a rule (found nowhere in the Constitution) granting presidents immunity from criminal prosecution as follows:

Core presidential functions are absolutely immune (“conclusive and preclusive”), for example, when granting pardons.

Official acts are preemptively immune from criminal prosecution for a president’s acts within the outer perimeter of his official responsibility—which is almost anything tangentially related to the president’s enumerated powers

Evidentiary rules. The Court also imposed two evidentiary rules on prosecutors seeking to navigate the above two rules:

A prosecutor may not use official acts as evidence in a prosecution of unofficial acts.

A prosecutor may not examine a president’s motives in attempting to distinguish between official and unofficial acts.”

HCR reminds us that at his confirmation hearing in 2005, now–Chief Justice John Roberts said:

“I believe that no one is above the law under our system and that includes the president. The president is fully bound by the law, the Constitution, and statutes.”

But he’s now changed his mind. Roberts’ opinion went even further than Trump had requested. And instead of reciting what the SCOTUS has now allowed the president to do without fear, let’s take a look at how we got here:

  • A jury found that Trump committed 34 felonies to help win in 2016.
  • After committing those crimes, once he took office, Trump then appointed three Supreme Court justices.
  • Those justices then delayed efforts to hold Trump accountable for allegedly committing more crimes to hold onto power after losing the 2020 election.
  • Now, those same justices support the idea that Trump enjoys absolute immunity for “official acts”—thereby drastically weakening efforts to hold Trump accountable.

One Constitutional flaw the founders left us is the Electoral College (EC). Its original purpose was to advance the interests of slaveholders. And while we no longer have slaveholders, their spiritual descendants now control the Supreme Court.

While the EC was supposed to safeguard against the “tyranny of the majority”, it has instead promoted the tyranny of the minority. The EC allowed the Supreme Court to be hijacked by authoritarians. Five of its current members were appointed by presidents who lost the popular vote, and another who helped one of those popular vote losers, GW Bush, ascend to the Oval Office. That is Clarence Thomas, also married to a conspirator in the Jan. 6 insurrectionist plot.

This has cost us control of our politics and our courts. Control is now held by a minority, supported by some technocrats in the middle, and enabled by the apathy of most of the rest of us.

Worse, those in the current minority are extremists. The Supreme Court is now no different from the Senate: An explicitly partisan, supra-legislative body that, because of the EC, has a built-in bias for the rural party.

It took just eight years for a game show host who was unable to win a plurality of the vote to expose our entire political order as rotten and decayed. He demonstrated that the impeachment mechanism was a dead letter and then got the Supreme Court to declare that the president was, by definition, above the law.

How do we now save our Constitutional republic?

During this Fourth of July week, let’s remember that our common enemy is the partisan power of a partisan minority. This weekend is our opportunity to set a battle plan against that common enemy. That would be a plan to maintain control of Congress for the next two years. The Democrats are just five seats away from having majority control of the House of Representatives. It is a heavier lift to retain control of the Senate, but it isn’t beyond possibility. As Wrongo said the other day, focus on these seats may also help push Biden over the goal line. And even if it doesn’t, the incoming president Trump would be effectively blocked from implementing much of his agenda.

Ultimately, we need political power to dilute the power of this Extreme Court that has taken control of the duties of the other branches of government. If there’s a better argument for voting for Biden (or anyone else who’s not Trump) Wrongo doesn’t know what it is.

There is no option, we have to resist, no matter what. We have to fight.

At this difficult, traumatic time, we must convert the shock of this latest extreme judicial overreach into action, to achieve an overwhelming victory in November. Just as Dobbs fueled a massive turnout, so too should Trump v. US.

(This is Wrongo’s last column before the Independence Day holiday. The next column will be published on Monday, 7/8)

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Why Is The NY Times So Intent On Replacing Biden?

The Daily Escape:

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

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

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

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

Vox helpfully provided a look at those six days:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Contrast this with the Philadelphia Inquirer:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sample Lyrics:

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

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

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

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Cartoons Of The Week – June 30, 2024

It’s no surprise that all of the cartoonists arose from their slumbers to draw various scenes of
the Biden and Trump debate and its aftermath. In most cases they magnified Joe’s decrepitude or show streams flowing from Trump’s mouth. Few are genuinely funny.

But before cartoons, a few more words about the debate and where we are going. The NYT has an editorial saying that Biden should stand down for the good of the country. Even though the idea has been rejected by Biden, that thought is alive and will play out over the next few weeks. And for better or for worse, it will largely gain or lose traction based on poll results, by those same people who we’ve been saying for months that we shouldn’t trust their numbers.

That’s the dilemma facing Democrats. Interestingly, Biden’s poll numbers went into positive territory in a post-debate poll yesterday and he had his best fundraising day ever. The viewing numbers show that only about 30% of those likely to vote this fall watched or streamed the debate on Thursday night.

That historically small audience was likely comprised mostly of partisans on both sides, particularly given that CNN allowed Fox to run a simulcast of the debate on its network, giving Trump supporters a safe space to watch.

That so few undecided or persuadable voters checked into the debate could explain why a new 538/Ipsos poll taken entirely after the debate, found little movement from a previous poll of the very same people. Note: Biden leads today by 2.7 points, 46.2%-43.9%:

Why is it that Democrats collapse in terror when their guy gets a cold? Republicans rally around their guy when he’s found civilly liable for sexual assault; when he tries to overthrow the government and loses more than 60 lawsuits before doing so; and when he’s convicted of a felony based on his desire to conceal paying off a porn star that he had at least somewhat coerced sex with, while his wife was recovering from childbirth.

The pundits would have you believe that Democrats have to “acknowledge reality.” Instead, that says Democrats are cowards looking for a place to hide from the big, bad NYT. It doesn’t matter if the Dems replace Biden or not, the media is going to harp on the shortcomings of whoever it is, no matter what.

So circle the wagons and not the firing squad. The administrations of both of these two men have track records that are easily predictive of future performance. Make this a choice between one or the other of them rather than the media’s default position of it being a referendum on Biden. Discipline yourselves and focus on what is really at stake. This election isn’t a casting call for a reality TV show. It’s an election where the candidates represent fundamentally different visions of the American future. And those visions are the only thing that matters. On to cartoons.

Contrasting platforms 2024:

The only choice?

What happened to the Biden’s taking drugs narrative?

Monday will bring new horrors:

How it really works:

Few things are as difficult to swallow as Louisiana’s new policy:

Scrawling by a pavement Plato telling us what to do this fall:

 

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About That Debate

The Daily Escape:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

All of those debaters won the presidency.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sample Lyrics:

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

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

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

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Trump’s Running Mate

The Daily Escape:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Cartoons Of The Week – June 23, 2024

Wrongo was asked if he thought the presidential debate would be watched by many Americans. Here’s a report by CivicScience about the expected viewer demographics that show many will be tuning in:

“Exclusive data from CivicScience reveal that just over 4-in-10 US adults plan to watch or listen to some or all of the debate as it broadcasts live on CNN next week, with an additional 12% intending to catch the debate after it airs. That brings total intended viewership to just over half of the population. The other half is split between those who will be following coverage of the event in the news and those who don’t plan to follow the debate at all.”

Here’s CivicScience’s chart:

Note that there is zero data above for Independents or moderates. More from CivicScience:

  • Consumers who prefer to watch CNN for national news are the most likely to follow the debate live (59%), although Fox News viewers are not far behind (56%).
  • Wealthier earners ($100K or more yearly) are significantly more likely than lower-income earners ($50K or less yearly) to watch the live debate or follow the debate at all.
  • Americans who are concerned about inflation are twice as likely to tune into the live debate compared to those who are not concerned, ranking as the top election issue voters are following.

Less than a third of undecided voters (particularly younger ones) plan to watch the debate live, while a larger share will rely on social media clips and news coverage afterward. All that means is their perspective on the debate will be shaped by the people and outlets who curate their news for them. That’s the nature of politics today.

Younger audiences (under 35) are more likely than older adults to have cut the cord on cable for streaming, so they are the least likely (by a narrow margin) to watch the debate live. In fact, the percentage of the under-35 crowd who will watch or listen to the debate after it airs, or just plan to follow news about it instead, outnumbers those who plan to watch it live (see red dotted line box:

On to cartoons. Debate preview:

Should the GOP maybe reconsider their Biden attacks?

Two sides of the same political coin:

Supremes go off the deep end:

A mind is a terrible thing to waste:

The Olympics are coming. This might happen:

Remember what the words really mean:

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Those Remaining Supreme Court Decisions

The Daily Escape:

Dinghies and roses, Kennebunkport, ME – June 2024 photo by Eric Storm Photo

Glad to be back! Wrongo and Ms. Right spent a long weekend with family in Napa, CA.

This week should see many more decisions announced by the Supreme Court. The National Review has the remaining lineup:

“There should be 21 opinions remaining because there are 23 cases left, including two pairs (the Chevron challenges and the Florida and Texas social-media laws) that are consolidated and likely to be decided together. We will likely get at least five or six opinions this week, maybe as many as nine. The Court will need to schedule more opinion days next week, probably at least three of them if it intends to wrap up the term by the end of the week; otherwise, it could spill over to July 1 or 2.”

And NR’s Dan McLaughlin gives us a scorecard of which justices have written this term’s opinions:

“…Justice Sonia Sotomayor has thus far published seven opinions representing the decision of the Court, and Justice Clarence Thomas six; it will be surprising if we get more from Thomas and more surprising if we get more from Sotomayor. By contrast, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Neil Gorsuch have each published just two opinions with the decision of the Court, and Justice Amy Coney Barrett three; they will likely have more….There’s only one case left from…November — Rahimi, the Second Amendment case — and the likeliest author of that opinion is either Roberts or Elena Kagan, neither of whom have published an opinion for the Court from the cases argued in that sitting.”

So much for analyzing the lineup. The real issue remaining is what the Supremes are going to do with the presidential immunity case, Trump v. United States. It’s taken so long to hear from the Court on this that many are suspicious. From Leah Litman at the NYT: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“For those looking for the hidden hand of politics in what the Supreme Court does, there’s plenty of reason for suspicion on Donald Trump’s as-yet-decided immunity case given its urgency. There are, of course, explanations that have nothing to do with politics for why a ruling still hasn’t been issued. But the reasons to think something is rotten at the court are impossible to ignore.”

Litman reminds us of the history of the case:

“On Feb. 28, the justices agreed to hear…Trump’s claim that he is immune from prosecution on charges that he plotted to subvert the 2020 election. The court scheduled oral arguments in the case for the end of April. That eight-week interval is much quicker than the ordinary Supreme Court briefing process, which usually extends for at least 10 weeks. But it’s considerably more drawn out than the schedule the court established earlier this year on a challenge from Colorado after that state took Mr. Trump off its presidential primary ballot. The court agreed to hear arguments on the case a mere month after accepting it and issued its decision less than a month after the argument. Mr. Trump prevailed, 9-0.”

Now nearly two months have passed since the immunity case was argued , long enough to remove the possibility of either the stolen documents case or the Jan. 6 case even being started before the November election. More from Litman:

“…indeed, at this point, even if the court rules that Mr. Trump has limited or no immunity, it is unlikely a verdict will be delivered before the election.”

FYI, the Nixon tapes case was decided 16 days after oral argument. Michael Podhorzer calls the decision delay election interference:

“By shielding Donald Trump from standing trial before a jury in two of his felony cases, Trump’s three appointments to the Supreme Court, along with the even more MAGA Justices Alito and Thomas and Judge Aileen Cannon, have already irreparably interfered in the 2024 election.”

But, according to Podhorzer, the Supreme Court’s actions have actually been worse than that:

“At no point since World War II has there been a 5-4 partisan ruling to make elections more democratic – not to expand voting rights, limit campaign finance, or constrain gerrymandering.”

He also reminds us that the problem started with Bush v. Gore:

“Beginning with Bush v. Gore, on at least a dozen occasions, SCOTUS has radically altered election law on a partisan 5-4 or 6-3 basis – often overriding bipartisan legislation enacted by Congress, and often relying on spurious facts or questions not even presented in the cases.”

Podhorzer includes the following graph showing the number of important election-related rulings each Court made, broken down by the ideology of the justices. The dark blue represents liberal consensus rulings; the dark red represents conservative rulings where the majority consisted only of Republican nominees:

Podhorzer closes with a very interesting analysis of how the Court has been hijacked by the Federalist Society and the Conservative Right, such that recent appointments to the Supreme Court have not reflected the demographics of the nation: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“Justices Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett are the only five of the 116 justices to serve on the Supreme Court to have been confirmed by senators representing less than one half of the US population. Only John Roberts among current GOP justices was confirmed by senators representing a clear majority of Americans.”

More: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“Furthermore, of all the justices to serve in the last century and a half, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett are the only ones to have been named by a president who did not win the popular vote.”

This is the tyranny of the minority, and yet another reason why the November election is so important: It’s likely that the next president will appoint at least two new justices.

And our way out of the currently tipped scales of justice by the growing corrupt autocratic cabal at the Supreme Court begins with Democratic voters understanding the stakes when they go to the polls.

Otherwise, we’re sleepwalking toward authoritarianism.

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