In her series Marjoryâs 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.
Reeveâs series, Marjoryâs 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 âThe Everglades: River of Grassâ 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 Intelligenceâs (SSCI) Torture Report in 2014. Feinsteinâs 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 âlostâ 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 couldnât care less.
But letâs 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 âalienâ. 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 âleadingâ 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 donât want the government to close.
Youâre 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, weâve been dumped on by even more rain leading into the weekend, which isnât expected to taper off until late this afternoon. Despite that, weâve 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 âimpeachment inquiryâ, 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, letâs start by grabbing a comfy chair by a south facing window. Now watch and listen to U2âs take on Kevin McCarthyâs problem. Here is U2âs remastered video of âStuck In A Moment You Can’t Get Out Ofâ from their 2000 album âAll That You Can’t Leave Behindâ. The song was written by Bono for his friend, lead singer of INXS, Michael Hutchence, who committed suicide in 1997:
Letâs hope that McCarthy doesnât 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
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 weâre running out of time to avoid a government shutdown, because the GOP canât stop fighting among themselves. Republicans no longer represent a serious national political Party.
âHouse 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 âample noticeâ would be provided for any votes they planned to schedule on Friday or over the weekend.
Members werenât being officially sent home for the weekend because House leaders lacked the votes to adopt a motion to adjourn…â
Hereâs a quote from House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY): (brackets by Wrongo)
â…[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. Thatâs how much itâs in their DNAâ
Itâs 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:
âSmall groups of centrist Democrats are holding secret talks with several of McCarthyâs close GOP allies about a last-ditch deal to fund the government, according to more than a half-dozen people familiar with the discussions.â
More:
âLawmakers involved in the talks â who mostly belong to the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus, the Republican Governance Group or the centrist New Democrat Coalition â 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 McCarthyâs arsenal has failed.
That moment may not be until next week, just ahead of the Sept. 30 shutdown deadline.â
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)
âSo why negotiate with these five or 10 people who [constantly] move the goalposts?â
â…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. attorneyâs office, mark the second time New Jerseyâs senior senator has faced public corruption allegations. An earlier criminal case eight years ago fell apart.â
Menendez wasnât alone in the indictment; his wife Nadine Arslanian was also included on the bribery charges.
More from the WSJ:
âDuring a search of Menendezâs home in June 2022, investigators discovered over $480,000 in cashâmuch 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 wifeâs 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.â
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.
Menendezâs 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.
âThis meal just cost me $78 at Newark Airport. This is why Americans think the economy is terrible:â
Welp, olâ Dave exaggerates. It appears Brooksâ 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 Brooksâ bar tab was almost 80% of the total, and yet, heâs complaining about the cost of the meal.
âMaybe 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.â
And he probably expensed the bill to his employer, the NYT.
Thatâs enough for this week, itâs 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. Letâs 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, weâre getting a glancing blow from an early fall Norâeaster with more rain than wind. Weâll 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 âseasonsâ by Argentinian composer Astor Piazzolla, who died in 1992, his âOtoño Porteñoâ (âAutumnâ). Last Saturday, we featured his âWinterâ and today, his âAutumnâ is also played by Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam, NL in 2014. The soloist is again the conductor Liviu Prunaru:
Cascade River Valley, North Cascades, WA â 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:
At lunch this week with three people all who are around 80 years old, one whispered that âBiden is too oldâ. The rest of us agreed. In a perfect world, Biden would be considering winding up his political life and shipping his boxes to Rehoboth Beach in Delaware.
But we donât live in a perfect world. Biden will run for president again, and the polls show itâs likely to be a tight race against Trump. Many in the press see Biden as too frail to carry out even basic duties, leaving his aides to secretly run the country in his stead.
But as Semafor points out, in the first book that now documents the early years of his presidency, the picture is the reverse:
âThe Last Politician,â the Biden-in-power book that Franklin Foer published last week….presents an aging president whoâs nonetheless fully engaged in the job, stumbling more when he loses his temper…than when he loses his train of thought.â
Foerâs book portrays Biden as a leader who sounds shaky in public but is the dominant force in his White House. Foer tells Semafor that Biden: (Brackets by Wrongo)
â…buries himself in details…[and] takes technocratic charge of issuesâ.
More from Semafor:
âThe Last Politicianacknowledges that Biden âwould occasionally admit that he felt tired,â and that his âadvanced age was a hindranceâ when he blanked on a name…..Itâs weird; people are always saying, âwell, itâd be great if we saw more Biden,â Foer said. âHe gives public speeches almost every single day. He sticks to his message. He doesnât say anything insane. He does have kind of a low-key style in these speeches, but I donât think thatâs abnormal for a president. Itâs just abnormal in the aftermath of Trump.â
And Georgetownâs Don Monyahan wonders why Biden doesnât even get credit in the press for his recent diplomatic success: (emphasis by Wrongo)
âBiden’s age has become such a trope in coverage that even when he undertakes a whirlwind diplomatic tour and a 40 minute press conference, these are the headlines. Actual demonstration of his fitness is used to raise questions about his fitness. All of this is a choice.â
âAs the 2024 presidential election looms ever closer â with its hugely important stakes for democracy â the mainstream press, far too often, doesnât seem to get the significance of the moment. Or what their responsibility is.
Journalistsâ continual fixation on President Bidenâs age plays right into the hands of the Fox News crowd and Donald Trumpâs campaign.â
She quotes a recent headline in the NYT:
âIn three days of diplomacy in Asia, President Biden rallied world leaders to help finance poor nations, fortified the coalition backing Ukraine and struck a deal with Vietnam to counter Chinese aggression.â
The âBidenâs too oldâ situation is now spiraling into a meta-narrative, in which some like the WaPoâs David Ignatius say itâs time for Biden to step aside. Others like Josh Barro are calling for Biden to stay but only if he dumps Harris.
Voxâs Ian Millhiser makes the correct linkage of Bidenâs unfavorable news coverage in 2023 to 2016:
Bidenâs age is something that appears to have some traction among actual swing voters. But the subtext is not so much that heâs going to die in office as âand then we get Harrisâ?. The underlying racism and misogyny gets ignored because the only other option is the doddering criminal with his 91 counts.
More from Millhiser:
âAs a general rule, I think the political press is at its worst when it covers a story that 1) involves a matter that is of genuine concern to reasonable people; and 2) isn’t a big deal when compared to other issues of superseding importance.â
What the press is doing today is actually much worse than the 2016 âBut her emailsâ nonsense. Back then, it was still possible for the press to pretend that Trump might not actually be what he became, that there was a semi-normal person lurking underneath his shtick.
That was an historically bad take by the media. All of this is wildly irrelevant in the here and now, where the choice is between the suboptimally old Biden and fascism.
Why the preoccupation with Biden’s age when Joe is getting things done and showing a degree of wisdom while doing it? Biden’s biggest problem is that despite being an effective president, nobody knows it. His biggest challenge is figuring out how to use his accomplishments to offset the age concern.
âMAGAs will nominate a criminal who incited an insurrection as part of a conspiracy to overthrow the 2020 election, and whose incompetence led to 400K American deaths in his final year. But Biden is disqualified because he’s old. We’re an unserious nation.â
For some context, we’re staring down a manufactured budget crisis, a sham impeachment circus, and Sen. Tuberville’s unprecedented obstruction of military promotions. These are facets of the same unified Republican strategy to destabilize America.
Hammering on Bidenâs age plays into their plan to make 2024 a year of chaos.
Biden has slowed down, thatâs objectively true. But he is worlds better than Trump. And if those are the choices for president in 2024, be thankful that the old guy is on the right side of history.
Yesterday was two years since the January 6 attack on the US Capitol. And now, some of the same people are holding the House of Representatives hostage like they tried to do in 2021. From the WaPo:
âAll but two of the 20 Republican House members who voted against Kevin McCarthy for speaker in Tuesdayâs third ballot round are election deniers who embraced former president Donald Trumpâs false claims that the 2020 election was rigged…..14 are returning members who voted against certification of the electoral college count on Jan. 6, 2021.â
This should be your primary concern in the power play between the far right Republicans (McCarthy) and the farther right bat-shit Republicans, including Rep. Norman. As Paul Krugman says in the NYT:
â…even with a speaker in place, how likely is it that the people weâve been watching the past few days will agree to raise the debt ceiling, even if failing to do so creates a huge financial crisis?â
Friday saw the first major breakthrough in the deadlocked voting when on the 12th ballot, a group of previous Republican holdouts flipped their votes to support McCarthy, but it wasn’t enough for him to clinch the gavel. Then on the 13th ballot, McCarthy picked up another vote bringing his total to 214.
âHouse GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy is on the brink of clinching the speakership after a group of 15 previous Republican holdouts flipped their votes to support the California lawmaker on Friday, marking the first major breakthrough in negotiations this week.â
McCarthy fell only three votes short of the threshold needed since there were lawmaker absences. Thatâs 14 new votes for McCarthy, with a maximum of 218 needed to gain the speakership. This is the current state of play, with more ballots to come late on Friday night.
You should note that McCarthy got Ralph Normanâs vote on Friday, after Norman said on Thursday that he would only switch if McCarthy was willing to shut the government down. So, is that whatâs in store for us? As JVL says:
“The sad truth is that McCarthy may be about to become the weakest speaker in history. This fight over the speakerâs gavel is exactly what every important vote in the House over the next two years is going to look like: The speakerâs fight is the debt ceiling fight is the budget fight is the Ukraine aid fight.”
Think about the Republican Speakers of the House since Newt Gingrich 30 years ago. Gingrichâs Contract for America has morphed into MAGA fratricide in a decade. It’s been a bit like watching the British royals fracture because Megan and Harry wouldnât toe the line inside the family.
Recall that the Republicans do not have a lot of experience with House speakers. Before Newt, Joe Martin of MA served two terms (1947-1949; 1953-1955). And since Newt there have been two:
John Boehner (2013-2015)
Paul Ryan (2015-2019)
Boehner was a mediocrity, but he was a professional legislator. Ryan was speaker during much of Trumpâs first term. Heâs noted for rewriting the tax code, which helped contribute to our ballooning deficits. McCarthy is inferior to either of these previous GOP speakers, who in their own ways were clear failures.
The Republican Party harbors some very dangerous extremists in their ranks, and McCarthyâs pandering to them is a dangerous game, not only for Democrats, but for all Americans. They donât want policy; they only want airtime.
â…The movement these characters are part of…isnât simply ideological. Itâs also a set of defiant, paranoid, anti-system attitudes, and a version of politics that prioritizes showboating over legislating. Thatâs why McCarthy has found himself unable to negotiate with the holdouts.â
It’s looking like McCarthy will manage to eke out the speakership. More from Goldberg:
âIt is not possible, however, that heâll emerge, in any real sense, as a leader. His best-case scenario is that heâd be a fragile figurehead, a hostage…constantly in danger of defenestration.â
We all should know that these self-aggrandizing jokers won’t hesitate for a moment to crash the economy and/or shut down the government just so they can crow about it on Steve Bannon’s podcast.
If they will do this to their own Party, imagine what they will do to the rest of us.
Itâs time to take our first break of the New Year from the âAll Kevin, all the timeâ barrage and get to our Saturday Soother. Itâs cold and rainy in Connecticut, and so itâs indoor activities this weekend, like maybe taking down some ornaments. Or maybe napping.
To help you get calmer about what a GOP majority in the House might do, grab a chair by a big window and watch and listen to âCapricho Arabeâ written in 1888 by Spanish guitarist Francisco TĂĄrrega. He was staying in Valencia, where Muslim, Castilian, and Christian cultures mixed, and you can hear all of those influences in this piece.
Here, British guitarist Alexandra Whittingham plays it in 2017 at the Church of St Pierre in Martignac, France:
Juniper and snow, near Colorado Springs, CO – December 2022 photo by John Susan Hoffman
(Good luck to Sen. Ralph Warnock in today’s Georgia run-off election for a full term in the US Senate)
In the past two weeks, Trump has pledged solidarity with the January 6 rioters, dined with Holocaust-denying fans of Adolf Hitler, and called for the termination of the Constitution. On his failing Truth Social clone of Twitter, he yelled:
 â…the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitutionâ in order to âdeclare the RIGHTFUL WINNERâ from 2020 or âhave a NEW ELECTIONâ
As Mike Penceâs former chief of staff, Marc Short said on Meet the Press, Trumpâs attack on the Constitution was consistent with:
â…what he asked the vice president to do two years ago, when rioters were attacking the Capitol and he asked the vice president to overturn the election results.â
Letâs underline this: The likely Republican nominee for president in 2024 called for the âtermination of the Constitutionâ, not to “suspend” the Constitution as several pundits have mistakenly said. And very few in the GOP bothered to call him out on it. As Dennis Aftergut said in the Bulwark:
âTrump writing that we should cancel the Constitution ranks right up alongside John Tylerâs support of the Confederacy as among the most shameful acts by a former president in our nationâs history.â
Thereâs a method to Trumpâs madness. Letâs go back to what he said to Lesley Stahl prior to their â60 Minutesâ interview in 2018. From CNBC: (emphasis by Wrongo)
âStahl said she and her boss met with Trump at his office in Trump Tower in Manhattan…in advance of a recorded sit-down interview for â60 Minutesâ. At one point, he started to attack the press, Stahl said. There were no cameras in there. I said, âYou know, this is getting tired. Why are you doing it over and over?….And he said: âYou know why I do it? I do it to discredit you all and demean you all so that when you write negative stories about me no one will believe you.ââ
And to a degree that worked. Trump has now moved on to discrediting the Constitution and the judiciary. While some Trump-appointed judges have done a few helpful things for him, they canât deliver what Trump needs most: Immunity from prosecution.
He needs to be reelected in order to do that for himself.
Since 2021, the DOJ, the Georgia courts, and the New York courts have been grinding away at the January 6 insurrection, the theft and retention of national security documents at Mar-a-Lago, and the NY tax case. All have become more worrying for Trump.
Heâs lost more than once in the US Supreme Court, in the 11th Circuit, and in courts in Georgia and NY. Regardless of whether itâs rulings on motions related to executive privilege, challenges to warrants and subpoenas, or actual verdicts against the Oathkeepers for seditious conspiracy, the legal wagons appear to be circling in more closely around him.
Trump knows that. So heâs returning to what has worked for him before: Demonizing his enemies.
Instead of the media, this time heâs attempting to demonize our Constitutional order. If heâs successful at doing that before we see any indictments, verdicts, and sentences against his corporation, or himself, he thinks he can survive politically with his base. By going for the Constitution, heâs trying to discredit the judicial system so that the GOP wonât turn against him if/when heâs held accountable.
Targeting the Constitution has downsides â the authority of any judge Trump appears before flows from that Constitution, and unlike the media, judges are backed by the DOJ and the FBI.
Imagine if youâre the DOJâs Special Counsel Jack Smith, and the biggest target of your career just openly called for the termination of the Constitution. Youâre probably thinking that you have a decent shot at convicting Trump of trying to overthrow the Constitution back on Jan. 6.
Some GOP lawmakers who were asked on the Sunday political shows about Trumpâs rant said they disagreed. However, most wouldnât say theyâd oppose Trump if he becomes the GOPâs 2024 presidential nominee. Theyâre saying as little as possible because they believe a large percentage of the Republican base agrees with him.
Trumpâs best (his only?) defense is retaking the presidency. That is why we shouldnât minimize his call to âterminate the Constitutionâ.
We need to keep pressure on Republican politicians to either disown Trump or embrace him. We should be asking Republican Senators and House Representatives:
âTrump took an oath to support and defend the Constitution, then he said we should abolish it. You also took that same oath. Does your oath require you to defend it against him?”
Sea glass, Provincetown, MA – April 2022 photo by Nancy Kaplan
Today we continue discussing the growing Republican culture wars, this time in Florida against Disney. NBC News reported:
âThe Florida Senate passed a bill Wednesday that would dissolve the special taxing district that allows the Walt Disney Co. to self-govern in its theme park area.â
Walt Disney World has effectively operated as its own municipal government in central Florida since a 1967 state law established whatâs called the Reedy Creek Improvement District, an area encompassing 25,000 acres near Orlando. The law grants Disney a wide range of authority, including the power to issue bonds and provide its own utilities and emergency services, such as fire protection.
That law is in large part what convinced Disney originally to come to Florida. It has since become the state’s largest private employer with 80,000 jobs.
On Wednesday, the Florida senate passed a bill that would dissolve all independent special districts established before 1968, including Reedy Creek. Lawmakers voted 23 to 16 in favor of the bill during a special session of the state Legislature.
This is part of Gov. Ron DeSantisâ (R) and the Republican-controlled  legislatureâs escalating culture war with Disney over the companyâs opposition to recently passed legislation in Florida that Disney considers to be anti-gay. Disneyâs leadership has criticized the legislation that prevents classroom discussion of gender identity and sexual orientation in kindergarten through the third grade.
Disney later said it would pause making campaign donations in Florida and also said it hoped that the law would either be repealed or struck down by the courts.
Wrongo is old enough to remember when the GOP believed that corporations had free speech and should be pretty much immune from regulation. But it now seems that corporations can be harassed or investigated unless they fall in line with the goals of the Republican culture war.
Targeting Disney only became a thing after the company spoke out about the âdonât say gayâ law. Charles Cooke in the National Review notes that:
âUntil about a month ago, Walt Disney Worldâs legal status was not even a blip on the GOPâs radar. No Republicans were calling for it to be revisited….â
Cooke says that Floridaâs legislature has had five opportunities over the past 50 years to remove Disneyâs sweetheart deal and didnât. But context is everything. After the DeSantis effort to punish Disney, the legislature piled on, pretending that itâs doing so out of a concern for âgood governmentâ.
The fun part is that Disneyâs status is not unique. Florida has 1,844 special districts, of which 1,288, like Walt Disney World, are âindependent.â Charlie Sykes at the Bulwark offers up examples of a few more of these districts:
The Villages (where Governor DeSantis announced his review of Disneyâs status)
Orlando International Airport
The Daytona International Speedway
Wrongo isnât defending Disneyâs right to special treatment, despite he and Ms. Right having a granddaughter who works for Disney in CA.
Wrongo would be fine if Florida took away all special breaks from these large corporations.
The Disney special district is really a form of corporate welfare. And no Republican with serious national ambitions wants to be against corporate welfare. So instead, DeSantis tries punishing Disney as part of his red-hot culture war. If this move was really about good public policy, then Republicans would have done it through their regular legislative process. But that clearly wasnât their intent.
Overlooked in the anti-Disney hype, was that this bill was attached to other legislation approved by the Florida senate, a Congressional redistricting map that eliminates two predominantly Black Congressional districts and tilts the balance of the Florida delegation even more to the Republicans. Democrats were especially critical of an amendment added Tuesday that requires all lawsuits challenging the redistricting map to be filed in Leon Circuit Court. This is an attempt to sidestep the federal court in Tallahassee where in the past, most election law cases have been challenged and found to be unconstitutional.
The new map is expected to boost Republicans’ current 16-11 Congressional advantage to 20â8. Republicans would likely own roughly 71% of the state’s Congressional seats in a state where Trump won with 51.2% of the vote in 2020. Florida also gained a seat during the most recent census.
The Party claiming to be against “Big Government” is using the government to punish a private company for permissible business decisions. As Heather Cox Richardson says:
âThe Walt Disney Company delivers to the state more than $409 million in sales taxes for tickets alone, employs more than 80,000 Florida residents, and supports more than 400,000 more jobs. Today, the Miami Herald reported that repealing the companyâs governing authority would raise taxes on families in the area by $2,200 each.â
Anyone else getting really tired of Republicans telling us we can’t say certain words, we can’t read certain books, we can’t teach certain things, or that we can’t talk about certain history? And why are they taking away our freedom to vote?
Henniker Covered Bridge, Henniker, NH – February 2022 photo by Jurgen Roth Photography. It is a footbridge across the Contoocook River.
Trucker anger is coming to America. From Politico:
âCanadaâs truckers have paralyzed Ottawa and unsettled the countryâs politics over vaccine and mask mandates. Now Americans want in on the action. A nationwide convoy â starting in California before heading toward Washington, D.C. â is expected to get underway on March 4 amid a growing clamor from those who believe their freedoms are under threat from government Covid-19 restrictions.â
The trucker protests in Canada seem to have become a rallying point for those who are irate about what they view as Covid-inspired overreach by their governments. Momentum seems to be building for a similar convoy in the US. The NYT reports that:
â…several right-wing figures, including Dan Bongino, Michael Flynn and Ben Shapiro, have promoted the protest and shared links to fund-raising sites that have collected millions of dollars. American anti-vaccine groups have also begun forming local wings of the movement and have urged truckers in the United States to adopt the tactics in Canada.â
The US organizers are now calling it “the People’s Convoy“. They have formed Telegram encrypted channels to use for building support in multiple states. The group says itâs working with two other groups: Freedom Fighter Nation and Restore Liberty, whose founders are closely tied to right wing politics. They include Leigh Dundas, founder of the Freedom Fighter Nation. She gave a speech in DC on the eve of the Jan. 6 Capitol Hill insurrection, claiming it would be âwithin our rightsâ to murder âalleged American turncoats” who interfered with the 2020 election.
She seems nice.
Trucker protest convoys have become a rallying cry for far-right and anti-vaccine groups around the world. They seem to be gathering strength from growing Covid fatigue, something that is nearly universal in the developed world.
Their message is that âgovernment has been overreaching for too long, and weâre not going to take it anymoreâ. Theyâre expressing an old, bad idea: That individual freedom cannot be limited by government.
Letâs spend a minute on whether freedom and democracy are compatible. âFreedomâ normally means freedom of the individual while democracy is a communitarian concept. Democracy is a system of government while freedom is about either not being governed or being governed as lightly as possible.
But a society without democracy would be autocracy or worse. With no government, it would be anarchy. And a society without freedom couldnât possibly be a democracy. So maybe the question isnât whether they are compatible, but whether each is a co-requisite for the other to exist.
Elizabeth Anker in the NYT opined on the changing nature of the language of freedom, saying that many political actors are using the concept of freedom to justify anti-democratic politics. She calls them the âugly freedomsâ. In American politics they increasingly justify minority rule, prejudice, and anti-democratic governance. And their popularity is growing.
This is highly relevant to the impending trucker convoys and how we think about âfree speechâ and the rights of non-experts to try and force their opinions on the majority. Perhaps the alternative to the ugly freedoms should be our beautiful freedoms, like the Bill of Rights, or the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
A third of Americans make up their own facts, so weâre bound to hear a few lies expresed as truth. These same people believe they don’t have to consider what’s happening in their communities. They think opinions are equal to facts. They get angry enough to threaten violence or to commit violence.
Many of them, despite outward tough guy appearances, are simply too soft mentally and emotionally. Life can often be harder than we want it to be. Sometimes, youâve got to do what’s good for society, not just whatâs good for you.
OTOH, these trucker rallies could conceivably draw support from others who are angry at governments at all levels. Think about restaurant workers, first responders and all of the âessentialâ employees who have been unevenly impacted by Covid.
Think of it as the laptop workers vs. those who have to leave the house to earn a living. They each have experienced Covid and the jobs crash in far different ways. If the trucker protest casts a wide net, it will rope in small business owners and parents who are angry that their children have lost so much when schools were closed.
Thereâs plenty of anger fermenting out there.
Going back to Wrongoâs US Army days, you werenât required to like everyone in your platoon, but duty demanded you bear the responsibility of fighting beside and for them. That was considered patriotic. Once we had the ability to pull together and sacrifice in the midst of national crisis. Now itâs everyone for themselves.
On Jan. 6, the right of free speech produced lies that led people to commit federal crimes. Thatâs the downside of the Bill of Rights: An individual has a protected right to lie to the public. We see many career politicians and social media entrepreneurs lie every day.
Assuming that there are protests in the US in coming weeks, Biden will face the same dilemma as Canadaâs Prime Minster Trudeau faces now. Will Biden demonize the truckers? Will he listen to their grievances?
The shift of emphasis in America from an expanding democracy with protected individual rights/freedoms to an ad hoc (and sometimes illogical) version of freedom is what may create a failed American state.
Itâs a movement thatâs long on energy, and short on facts and judgment.
Sunrise, Camden Harbor, ME â February 2022 photo by Daniel F. Dishner
(For email subscribers: Below in this email is a link to Mondayâs Wake Up Call. It wasnât sent on Monday morning)
 âIf everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isnât thinking,â ̶ Gen. George S. Patton
Last Friday, the Republican National Committee (RNC) passed a resolution that claimed that the House Select Committee was seeking to punish ordinary people for engaging in âlegitimate political discourse.â This came days after Trump suggested that, if re-elected in 2024, he would consider pardons for those convicted in the Jan. 6 attack. He also said that his goal on Jan. 6 was to âoverturnâ the election results.
âThe Republican National Committee on Friday approved an astounding resolution that…condoned the attack on the US Capitol last year. In doing so, itâs given up any pretense that the party stands in opposition to the violence that then-President Donald Trump inspired.â
âThe RNC resolution illustrates the death grip Trump has on the GOP….Trumpâs repeated insistence that Mike Pence could have awarded the election to Trump finally provoked Pence to declare that âTrump is wrongâ….Penceâs statement provoked a vigorous defense of Trump from Matt Gaetz, Steve Bannon, and Roger Stoneâa rogues gallery of felons, targets of grand jury investigations, and recipients of presidential pardons.â
âWHEREAS, Representatives Cheney and Kinzinger are participating in a Democrat-led persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse, and they are both utilizing their past professed political affiliation to mask Democrat abuse of prosecutorial power for partisan purposesâŠâ
So, Republicans think that what the insurrectionists did by bashing in cops’ brains with flag poles is legitimate political discourse? Smearing feces on the walls of Congress was legitimate political discourse?
CNN quoted a Republican who said the resolution was “watered down” because it didn’t demand that Kinzinger and Cheney be expelled from the GOP. That says what passed is the GOP version of a more moderate resolution supporting the coup.
That phrase âordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourseâ goes beyond just defending Trump or faulting Cheney and Kinzinger for defying the Party. It sanctions the actions of insurrectionists who wanted to overturn a legitimate election.
The resolution shows that the RNC (and therefore most Republicans) have effectively joined the insurrectionists. The important thing is that it wouldnât matter what their intent was. The Republican Party is whitewashing the riot:
We know that the Right-wing media continues to spread misinformation about Jan 6.
We know that those arrested for participating in the Jan. 6 violence are getting sympathetic responses from many Republicans.
We know that for the overwhelming majority of elected Republicans, the only thing they truly regret about 1/6 is that it failed.
This means that Republican candidates will have to campaign in the 2022 mid-terms by supporting violent insurrection and a failed coup. That will appeal to most Republicans, but on its face, it will repel the strong majority of Democrats and Independent voters.
Speaking of the mid-terms, letâs spend a few words on Liz Cheney. Had you said a few years ago that the straight daughter of Dick Cheney would become a pariah in the Republican Party in 2022, you would have been laughed off your bar stool.
What kind of a world do we live in when Liz Cheney isnât evil enough for the Republican Party?
Cheneyâs Congressional seat is important: If the next presidential election were to be decided by the House of Representatives, each state would get a single vote. If Cheney was Wyomingâs sole Representative, she would have the same clout as California or New York.
Thatâs a relatively unlikely future scenario, but Wyoming is an open primary state, meaning that Democrats could cross the aisle and vote for her, possibly making a difference in whether she wins the primary. She couldnât win the mid-term because Dems would go back to their candidate, and the anti-Cheney Republicans would stay home. In that scenario, the seat might flip to the Democrats.
Cheney is what the GOP used to be, or pretended it was: stalwart, principled, with deeply-held convictions, and unwavering loyalty to the country and the rule of law.
Sheâs also a reminder of how far the GOP has fallen.
Know your enemy. Dems think they’re in a battle of tweets armed with binders of position papers and outrage. That wonât be enough in November.
The Republicans are doubling down on the coup. Democrats need to double down on registration, turnout, voter protection, and sure, some outrage at Republicans.