WILL JIM CROW RIDE AGAIN?

Posted: May 11, 2026 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

A receipt for $2.50 paid by a black man in Alabama for the poll tax during the Jim Crow era. When the average worker was making only about three hundred dollars a year, this was a significant amount. Additionally, black voters were often required to take a literacy test with questions such as reciting specific phrases in the Constitution or answering “how many windows are in the White House?” Other “tests” involved guessing specifically how many jelly beans were in a jar.

Last month the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) handed down a 6-3 decision in the case of Louisiana v Callais. The decision eviscerates Section 2 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act created by Congress to protect minority voters from poll taxes, literacy tests or any other effort to undermine their ability to vote. The law was aimed at the parts of the country where racism was rampant and where there were concerted efforts to suppress or eliminate the vote of non-white citizens. The Voting Rights Act was renewed numerous times over the years with solid bi-partisan support. The last vote in Congress in 2006 renewed it for twenty five years with both the Senate (98-0) and the House (390-33) overwhelming voting for it. What happened since then to cause its effective demise? President Obama was twice elected president. The court severely weakened the Act in 2013 by eliminating a key provision of the law in the case of Shelby County v Holder which required states in certain areas to get permission from the Department of Justice before making changes to voting requirements. The most recent case finished off the effectiveness of the law by deciding that race could not be taken into account when drawing districts and that in fact, gerrymandering — altering the districts so that the political parties are choosing elected officials rather than the people choosing their representatives — was perfectly permissible. The provision protecting against gerrymandering designed to divide minority (non-white) voters in order to limit their ability to elect minority officials was deemed unconstitutional.

[Note: The word gerrymander comes from 1812 Massachusetts where Governor Elbridge Gerry approved a voting map with a salamander shaped district. The name stuck. It means purposely drawing voting district lines in anyway possible, even if the result on paper looks ridiculous, to give an incumbent or a particular group of people a significantly unfair advantage in determining the results of an election.]

An 1812 political cartoon demonstrating the appearance of the gerrymandered election district of South Essex in Massachusetts. Editors satirized the shape of the new district as that of a monster.

Republicans were jubilant over the new interpretation of the law. Take a look at the video of state legislators in Tennessee as they eliminated the only remaining minority-majority district in the state by dividing it into parts and reassigning them to strong Republican districts. They were giddy. To me, their reaction and subsequent actions demonstrates exactly why the Voting Rights Act is still needed. SCOTUS cherry-picked the Obama election results — and only those results — to declare that it proved that there were no longer impediments to minority voting. According to Justice Alito writing for the majority, racism in U.S. elections is gone.

Despite the claim that the provisions are no longer needed, the actions of several southern state legislatures show exactly why it is needed. Louisiana’s governor immediately canceled an election (the mid-term primaries) that was already underway. He declared a state of emergency and then canceled the election so that the map could be redrawn in an attempt to eliminate two districts that were represented by minorities. Absentee ballots and mail-in ballots had already been distributed and roughly 40,000 votes were already returned. Now the process is going to start again with new districts and new candidates in some areas. Surely no one will be confused by that. After the SCOTUS ruling, Tennessee acted immediately to redraw their map. Florida, North Carolina and Georgia are also gerrymandering the map to eliminate minority districts. Alabama, South Carolina and Missouri have plans to do the same. Texas gerrymandered their districts last summer at the direction of Trump.

Two other states decided to do the same after the Texas effort. California redrew their map last fall and this spring, Virginia did the same. Both states did so after the voters approved the measures. After the votes were counted and the issue settled, the Virginia Supreme Court rendered the vote void on a technicality. It is unclear as I write whether the voice of the citizens of the Commonwealth of Virginia will have their voices heard or have to live by the result of the 4-3 decision.

States with “blue” governors held elections to see if their citizens wanted to fight back against the attempts to rig the elections. “Red” states changed theirs by fiat from their MAGA dominated legislatures — no ordinary voters allowed. Normally voting maps — even gerrymandered ones — are drawn up after the census every ten years. To change them now is highly unusual if not downright outrageous.

Chief Justice John Roberts has been working to overturn the Voting Rights Act since he was a young lawyer in the Department of Justice during the Reagan Administration in the early 1980s. The intent of the 1965 law was to put in the mechanisms necessary to actually enforce the 15th Amendment to the Constitution which opened up voting beyond the white land owning men that controlled elections until the Civil War. Ratified in 1870, it prohibited the federal government or any state from denying or abridging a citizen’s right to vote “on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”  The now Chief Justice has been arguing for decades that some states are treated to far greater scrutiny than others under the law which he considered unfair under the concept of equal sovereignty. He also holds a strict interpretation of the Constitution and believes that the Voting Rights Act is not impartial. He has argued that “the way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.” Unfortunately, that is not the reality of life for minorities in this country.

Now states can defend against virtually any claim of racially discriminatory map-drawing by claiming they instead discriminated based on political parties — even though race and partisanship are often intermingled.  

I am against gerrymandering and voted against gerrymandered districts in my home state. There should be bi-partisan or non-partisan commissions to draw equitable voting districts. But unfortunately there are also no unicorns. Therefore “blue” states have an obligation to counter “red” states with gerrymandered districts to try and recoup the increased number of Republican districts.

This effort is only a part of a larger effort to restrict voter protections and the push to limit turnout in the 2026 and 2028 elections. The effort is already underway to protect MAGA Republicans in Congress and in state legislatures following the deeply unpopular policies and actions of the Trump regime. The SCOTUS decision provides a roadmap for states to return to pre-1965 race discrimination in redistricting, despite Congress’s repeated and overwhelming reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act for decades.

This is the same plan that gave us the Safeguard American Voters Eligibility (SAVE) Act which I have written about in this space before. Among other provisions, it comes dangerously close to mandating that U.S. citizens must show their papers in order to prove that they are citizens. To register to vote, one must produce a valid passport or birth certificate. If passed, as it already has in the House but is facing a fierce uphill battle in the Senate, millions of people will be disenfranchised. Allegedly, it is supposed to prevent voter fraud — a phantom menace that does not exist in any meaningful way. In practice, it is voter suppression. Yesterday Trump promised to deploy an “Election Integrity Army in every single State.” There have already been discussions about placing ICE and Border Patrol forces near polling places. These are the first steps in a larger plan to interfere with the upcoming elections.

Some of these efforts are reminiscent of post-Reconstruction days from the late 1890s to 1965 where Jim Crow efforts terrorized mainly black citizens. In particular the effort was aimed at preventing Black citizens from voting through systemic, state-level legal efforts in spite of the 15th Amendment. Literacy tests, poll taxes, grandfather clauses, and violence drastically reduced Black voter registration. For example, in Louisiana Black voter registration plummeted from 44% in 1896 to 4% by 1904. By 1940, only 3% of eligible African Americans in the South were registered to vote. There are legitimate fears in our minority communities that our country is headed back to the bad old days. Since the last campaign many voices have been raising the alarm about the blueprint for significant changes outlined and explained in detail in the Trump Administration’s Project 2025 designed to limit or intimidate voters. Additionally, earlier this spring, Trump signed an Executive Order that if allowed, (it is currently being litigated in court) would significantly alter elections. It is an attempt to federalize key elements of the process with an eye towards the federal government determining who is qualified to vote. The Constitution puts the mechanics of voting in the hands of the states.

In the short term there will be real battles over election results and who was or was not allowed to vote. Longer term Congress can pass laws that provide national protections against discrimination of any kind in determining voting districts. It is possible to craft those laws in ways that the current objections from certain SCOTUS justices — who will control the court for years to come — can be overcome. Additionally, states can pass laws that provide their own voting protections as a back up to ensure free and fair elections.

To date Trump has made no secret of his intent to interfere in multiple ways with the upcoming election. We should believe him. Do not ever forget that he already tried to overturn a free and fair election, including inciting violence. There is every reason to believe that he will do it again.

A Clear And Present Danger

Posted: October 1, 2020 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

“When people show you who they are, believe them the first time.”

— Maya Angelou

Following Tuesday’s national embarrassment, a disgusting display of attempted bullying, there is a lot to think about.  Probably, Donald J. Trump acted the role of the out of control drunk at the end of the bar because he knew he could not win a debate.  He does not have control of the facts, has barely put together a complete sentence in his entire term, and knows that former Vice President Joe Biden has plenty of experience in such a format.  Mr. Trump was probably not concerned about criticism for telling more lies — he has already accumulated over 20,000 documented lies since his inauguration — but he was concerned about losing.  The answer was to blow it all up, burn the place down, and attempt to look “strong” in an attempt to make Mr. Biden look weak.  He failed in every respect and in the process broke the rules of democracy and decorum and deprived the American public of the chance to assess both candidates, their policies, and their fitness for the job.

With all of the outrageous statements and shenanigans, two stand out above all and should alert every one of us to the clear and present danger to our country that exists in the persona of Mr. Trump.  We need to look no further than his two statements near the end of the debate.  When given the opportunity to clearly and forcefully condemn the antics, tactics and goals of white supremacists, he demurred.  (“The Proud Boys: stand back and stand by.”)  Indeed by all accounts by those that follow such things, the white supremacist groups took his answer as a call to arms.  (Several incorporated the words into their new logos and one leader tweeted out “Standing by sir!”)  Even on Wednesday as Mr. Trump claimed he did not know, then or now (really? c’mon man!), who the Proud Boys were, he still passed up the opportunity to publicly condemn white supremacists.

The second issue was his continued declarations that if he lost the election it was only because it was rigged against him.  In other words, he will accept no other result than his own victory and explicitly said that he didn’t know if he would allow for a peaceful transition of power should he lose.  Tuesday night he said that he is “urging his supporters to go into the polls and watch very carefully.”  If Mr. Trump sees “thousands of ballots being manipulated, I can’t go along with that.”  When asked about what he meant by that he said “it means you have a fraudulent election.” When asked specifically if he would warn his supporters against “civil unrest” and tell them to keep calm if the vote counting goes on longer than Election Day, he refused.

So let’s put this all together and then see what he, and unfortunately Attorney General William Barr have been saying over the last few weeks.

First, on Tuesday night Mr. Trump gave a green light to white supremacists and other supporters to use violence if the election goes for Mr. Biden.  Additionally, he told his supporters to engage in voter intimidation by going to polling places to keep people from voting or to claim voter fraud if they are not allowed into the polls (in most states poll watchers have to be certified and there are rules about their behavior).

Please do not say that Mr. Trump did not really mean what he said or that his words are being overly exaggerated.  He knew exactly what he was doing.  More importantly, the folks on the receiving end of his message know what he meant and will act on it, regardless of what “he meant to say.” He encourages vigilantes and is a major league fearmonger. There are people that believe him.  So get real.  The threat to a fair and open election is staring us in the face.

As I have written in this space before, autocrats tell you exactly what they are going to try and do before they do it.  Mr. Trump is no exception.

Here is the playbook as I see it.

Mr. Trump’s goal is to make things look so bad that he can claim, as he already has, that he alone can fix it.  As the pandemic continues to spread, the economy is ready to take another hit (today alone 35,000 airline employees are set to be laid off), schools are mostly still remote, demonstrations continue across the land, and golly, no one can even rely on the Postal Service anymore.  All of this and more creates a sense of crisis.

In a crisis, people want action.  By demonstrating that he is not afraid to break the rules — be it holding a political convention on the White House lawn or not abiding by debate rules — he is attempting to demonstrate that he is willing to do anything.  Anything.  Rules, norms, laws do not apply in a crisis and he is not afraid to throw all of them out the window to achieve “results.”  Without a bit of shame as to the illogical nature of his argument, he now tends to claim that things are so bad now (remember, he has been the president for the last four years and precipitated many of these crises himself), he needs a second term to restore order.  He argues that Democrats are the real problem and that they want anarchy.  “Law and Order” is required to bring back the America you love (read: white male Christian dominated society).  Contempt for the law is part of the message. It is necessary to get things done.  Straight textbook Autocracy 101.

He knows he is losing, so now he needs to bring it all home by suppressing the vote for Mr. Biden, and claiming that the election was a fraud.

In recent weeks he has railed against any and all mail-in ballots as being rigged.  He continually claims that all vote counting must stop on Election Night.  The Attorney General went on CNN and claimed that foreign entities were going to counterfeit absentee ballots and other cheaters were going to pay people for their votes, buy up blocks of blank ballots and fill in Mr. Biden’s name.  Indeed he even implied that postal workers might do that.

And on and on.  The point?  They are trying to lay the ground work for a legal challenge to the election results when Mr. Trump loses.  I suspect that they will have people try to forge ballots and pay for ballots and send in lots of crudely duplicated ballots in order to prove their point.  They are telling us what they are going to do.  Add to that some nut cases or groups of nut cases (I’m looking at you white supremacists) that hear that a county election office threw out some ballots (does not have to actually happen, just put it out over social media and they will come) and they storm the building to confiscate the “illegal” ballots.

The number of scenarios are vast.  We already know that Mr. Trump and Mr. Barr have no bottom for shameful and immoral behavior.  The only goal is to retain power.  Mr. Trump cannot stand the thought of losing — especially since he may end up going to jail in the not too distant future.  Mr. Barr is on some bizarre crusade to shape American society in the way that he thinks it should function and Mr. Trump is his blunt instrument to achieve his ends.

All of it sets up the conditions for a legal (yes legal) attempt to steal the election.  I am not a Constitutional law expert and I am not an attorney.  My understanding is it can work as follows:

  • Claim that the results in certain swing states (enough to give Mr. Trump a win) are suspect because of all the “illegal” ballots that were submitted by mail and because of improprieties at voting places.  Remember that Mr. Trump and Mr. Barr have already encouraged voters in North Carolina and Pennsylvania to vote twice.  Those two men know that is illegal, but if enough people try it, it really gums up the works and they can also claim that legitimate voters were turned away at the polls.
  • Go to the courts to invalidate the election results in enough precincts to change the state’s electoral outcome.  If that doesn’t work, go to state legislatures and claim that the Electors voted into the Electoral College from that state were illegitimately determined.  Under the law, state legislatures determine the Electors and certify their validity to the Congress.  Many states have laws that the legislature must certify Electors as voted on by the people, but not all.  Additionally, the laws are often vague and some experts believe that the courts could decide in favor of legislatures over those voted on by the people.  Reports from Pennsylvania already reveal that members of the Trump Campaign have talked to the leaders of the the Republican controlled legislature to do just that.
  • If the courts do not rule as to which slates of Electors are the legitimate ones, or the states decide to send the competing slates to the Congress, the Electors seated in the College are determined by a vote in the Congress.  The House and the Senate both vote.  Although new Representatives and Senators will be seated by then, Vice President Pence will still be the tie breaker in the Senate.
  • Should the House and the Senate vote to seat different slates of Electors, then the vote goes back to the House, but with different rules.  In this vote, each state votes as a block.  One state, one vote.  Thus South Dakota has as much power to decide the president as does New York.  Even though the Democrats have a large majority in the House, when decided on a state by state basis, currently 26 have Republican majorities (or only one Representative from that state) and 22 have Democrats.  The other two are split.
  • Meanwhile a parallel effort will go in in the courts.  If it makes it to the Supreme Court the result could go either way.  However, Mr. Trump specifically mentions Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett as the ninth justice he “needs” in order to “win” in the Court.  In her pre-hearing submission to the Senate answering a host of questions, she indicated that she would not recuse herself from any 2020 election cases that may come to the court.

Many people compare all of this to the 2000 election and the “hanging chads” in Florida.  Historically, it is closer to the election of 1876 where Democrat Samuel Tilden won the popular vote and came up one Electoral College vote shy of winning that over Republican Rutherford Hayes.  The electoral slates of three Southern states were in dispute and the decision came to the Congress.  After deliberation and the formation of a bipartisan commission comprised of Representatives and Senators, and the departure of the lone tie-breaking independent on the commission, replaced by a Republican, the disputed Electoral College votes were awarded to Mr. Hayes to give him a one vote Electoral College win.  In exchange for giving up their candidate, the Democrats secured the end of Reconstruction in the South.  It was a shameful and dirty chapter in the history of our country.

I am concerned that we may face another Constitutional crisis in this election.  Barring an overwhelming landslide in favor of Mr. Biden, I think that we may be in for a long final three months of the year full of unrest and probable violence.

Mr. Trump makes it abundantly clear that he has no qualms about ignoring the Constitution and bringing the full weight of the Federal Government to preserve his power.  One pundit likened it to the old saying that “if I’m going down I’m taking all of you with me.”  In his Attorney General he has an accomplice that will help him bend the law if not outright ignore it in the name of allegedly preserving the safety and security of our city streets.

Meanwhile we have a Republican Senate that has lost its backbone, its allegiance to the Constitution and its voice.  The president might Tweet about me!

We must all vote.  We must all be vigilant.  We must all be vociferous in our opposition to such a blatant attack on our Constitution.

I take solace in the fact that there are still good upstanding Americans in our midst.  For the scenario to unfold as I’ve sketched it here, an awful lot of people would have to go along with what is clearly a power grab by a budding autocrat and his cronies.  I have faith that enough people along the way will stand up to the bully and refuse to compromise or cooperate.

God Bless America.

 

The Mystery of Masks

Posted: July 20, 2020 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

As the number of deaths in the U.S. from the Coronavirus passes 140,000 (a number that just a few months ago would have been unthinkable), experts — actual doctors and scientists knowledgeable in the subject, not politicians — nearly unanimously agree that wearing a mask in public would significantly decrease the transmission of the disease and give us a chance to get it under control.  A seemingly innocuous precaution that is not a particular burden.  And yet.  Somehow it has become a major political issue often resulting in rude and belligerent behavior and sometimes, violence.

“No shirt, no shoes, no service” is an iconic sign posted in restaurants and shops around the country, especially in tourist or beach areas.  No one seems to have a problem with that requirement.  A sign that says “Please wear a mask in the store” somehow elicits the vulgar expression “F*** You!” and worse.  Somehow a mask has become an alleged Constitutional issue although I am hard pressed to find a single Constitutional scholar that can delineate how a mask worn to protect us all from a virulent disease is impinging on anyone’s rights.

Canada, the European Union, the United Kingdom, the Bahamas and many other countries around the world will not allow tourists from the U.S. into their countries or requires them to quarantine because of our extremely poor record in combating the pandemic.  We are now the “dirty, disease spreading” refugees shunned by the rest of the world.

I look at it this way.  Not wearing a mask is like drunk driving.  Perhaps if you do it you will make it home safely, but you have endangered yourself, your family, friends, and everyone that you encounter on the way.  Chances are you will kill some innocent person just doing their best, going home from picking up the kids or a quick run to the grocery for some milk.  It is in the public good that we crack down hard on drunk drivers.  It is in the public good that we all wear masks.

Unfortunately, we have a growing number of selfish folks that can give any number of reasons why they do not mask up, none of which hold any credible explanation other than the fact that they are so self-centered that they are entitled to do whatever they want, the rest of us be damned.

With such a blatant disregard of the community and social welfare in mind, we will never get this pandemic under control.  Ironically, we know exactly how to get the situation under control and begin to safely open up schools and businesses, but no one seems to want to do it, least of all our political leaders.

In a Fox News interview with Chris Wallace, the president expounded about all sorts of issues for an hour.  No description I can give here would do justice to the amount of lies, misstatements and delusional thinking that went on during the interview.  To his credit, Mr. Wallace held Mr. Trump accountable during his ramblings and fact-checked him on several issues in real time.

Specifically with respect to the ongoing pandemic Mr. Trump said, among other things, that we only have so many cases because we do more testing than anybody (tests are up 37 percent and the number of cases are up 194 percent according to Fox News); but that is okay because, according to Mr. Trump, “many of those cases are young people that would heal in a day. They have the sniffles and we put it down as a test.  Many of them — don’t forget, I guess it’s like 99.7 percent, people are going to get better and in many cases they’re going to get better very quickly”; responding to a question about his multiple statements that the coronavirus will just disappear Mr. Trump said “I’ll be right eventually”; and so on.  Really, I recommend that you read the transcript for yourself and think about the fact that this man controls the nuclear codes.  But I digress.

When asked specifically about wearing masks and whether there should be a national mandate to wear them, as has been done in the countries around the world that have a far better handle on this pandemic than we do, he said,

“No, I want people to have a certain freedom and I don’t believe in that [wearing masks].  No, and I don’t agree with the statement that if everybody wears a mask everything disappears.”

And there we have it.  There is no national strategy to combat the pandemic and the person that should be setting the example and showing leadership in a crisis refuses to step up.  Some state governors take their cue from Mr. Trump and so there are cases like in Georgia where the governor is suing the mayor of Atlanta because she put out a mandatory mask order to help alleviate the crisis in her city.  And on and on and on and yet we wonder why we are having a problem.

We are apparently a nation of idiots (Covidiots) that think some how taking measures to stop the spread of a killer disease is violating their right to do whatever they want.  They should take a high school civics class and study what the word “freedom” really means in the United States of America.  It most definitely is not the right to do whatever one likes.

Here is my bottom line that should stop everyone in their tracks.  We are 4.3% of the world’s population and we have 24% of the deaths from the pandemic.  To quote the great philosopher Forrest Gump, “stupid is as stupid does.”

The Road Ahead

Posted: April 10, 2020 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

It is obvious that we are not yet through the terrible ramifications of our pandemic and resulting economic crisis.  Public health concerns need to be balanced with economic concerns in order to reach some kind of “new normal.”  I am sure that none of us know what our country will look like in the next six to twelve months but what is clear is the need for some kind of road map for our national recovery that is consistent with the necessary steps to keep all of us safe and to prevent a second major wave of disease that could result from lifting current restrictions too soon.

The president is, according to his remarks on his daily Trump Show, looking forward to reopening the country to business as usual with a “big bang.”  Aides suggest that the date will be roughly 1 May or perhaps earlier in parts of the country.  This makes it sound like some kind of ribbon cutting at the grand opening of a new mall rather than a sober analysis of the pros and cons of particular actions.

As the death toll passes 16,000 Americans, we are still deep into this crisis.  The good news, if it can be called anything like that, is that models seem to indicate that the total death toll by August will “only” be about 60,000.  Imagine.  Only 60,000 Americans dead. That is down from 100,000 to 240,000 but nothing to rejoice about or to suggest that we have this crisis under control.  We are not even a third of the way towards that horrible number and the president seems to want to do away with the measures that have helped to get a small grip on the horrors of this pandemic.

Americans of all political stripes, age groups, ethnic groups and socioeconomic means seem to have come together to embrace, for the most part, social distancing and accepting that things will be tough economically for awhile but that the only way to get this outbreak under control is by working together.  Patience is a virtue.  The results of what we do today will not be seen for two or three weeks down the line.

I have no trouble with the president and his administration looking ahead to what we should be doing in the next month, six months or a year.  I hope that someone or some group of professionals is in fact doing that.  But I see no evidence of a coherent, realistic plan.

During his daily reality show, the president seems intent on focusing only on the next 15 minutes rather than the next 15 months.  He continues to spread lies and misinformation.  For example, health care professionals uniformly declare that the only way to get the country back on its feet is to have a robust testing regime in place to determine who is sick, who is not sick and who may have already recovered from coronavirus without ever going to a doctor or indeed, without ever knowing they had it.

The Trump Administration has made continual promises on testing that have come nowhere near being factual.  As just a few examples, remember that on 10 March Vice President Mike Pence said that over a million tests had been distributed and that by 14 March four million more would be available.  A few days later the president said that 5 million tests were available.  And of course a week before that on 6 March the president said that, “Anybody that wants a test can get a test.  That’s the bottom line.”

A month later roughly two million tests have been administered so far in the entire country.

The president continually points out that the United States has tested more people than any other country in the world, and he is correct.  But he misses several key contextual aspects to that. The state of New York has more confirmed cases than any country on earth.  All by itself.  Obviously the United States as a whole is the sickest on earth so far.  This includes China (which nearly certainly under reported the number of cases), India, Indonesia and several others with much greater populations.

Most importantly, per capita we are failing badly.  Well less than one percent of our country has been tested.  In my state only medical personnel on the front lines and those with a referral from their doctor based on symptoms can get tested.

Just by the force of numbers alone, it is clear that the United States, the greatest country on earth, badly bungled this crisis.  Dithering and wishful thinking frittered away a chance to get ahead of the pandemic and here we are.

So, my question.  What is the long-term strategy?  I have heard nothing from this administration that looks ahead to how we know we are “winning.”  What are the measures of effectiveness (MOEs) that will determine how we are doing and whether it is safe to open up parts of the economy?  So far we only hear about flattening the curve — an indicator that social distancing is working — but not what “safe” numbers of infected may be.  If the curve flattens out at 1500 dead a day is that a good thing?  I think not.  The numbers are not dropping everywhere and across the country the totals continue to increase.

Numbers are great.  To say we have tested more people than any other country is nice, but meaningless. Since this all began, we have tested roughly 2 million people.  Total.  If we test one million Americans a day — a day mind you — it will still take roughly nine months to test everyone.  And a test only shows whether you have the illness at the time of testing.

Am I advocating for every American to be tested and until then we keep our daily lives on hold?  No.  Not realistic.  But what is realistic?  What are the MOEs?  When is the risk/reward equation in our favor?  How do we know when it is safe to eat in a crowded restaurant or go to a sold out college football game? What percentage of testing is adequate to give a good sense of the pervasiveness of the disease in a particular area?  What number of sick people in an area is an indicator that it is safe to go out in a crowd? Are certain precautions sufficient to reopen a particular business that may not work in another?  Until we have some measurable indicators beyond the number of people currently in the hospital we don’t really know where we stand.  This is especially true as we know that some people are asymptomatic carriers that unknowingly pass the virus to others who then become very sick.

Psychologically I think it will take a long time for many of us to feel totally safe in a crowd.  Having actual data from the experts rather than “cheerleading” “aspirational” statements that turn out to be false from the president would go a long way in helping each of us to understand where we stand.

Life has risks in everyday endeavors.  Nothing is perfect.  However it is possible to understand our world around us when presented with facts, not lies, or wishes or wannabe situations.

Many pundits in the right wing media are starting to attack the medical professionals claiming that they are part of the Deep State or to opine that some kind of Social Darwinism is at work with COVID-19 and it should be allowed to run its course. Weed out the weaklings. The president has at times opined that it is not as bad as the media says it is and that they are only trying to hurt his re-election.  Might I suggest that those people go to work in a hospital or a grocery store or a pharmacy without proper protection?  Or perhaps the president could visit a COVID-19 ward without PPE?  Cheer up the troops.  Oh right.  No one can now come into contact with the president and vice president without being tested for COVID-19.  Yesterday they even required testing of the White House press pool before they could attend his daily reality show.

Nothing is impossible for the people that don’t have to do it.

It is time to listen to the experts.  Health care professionals should take the lead and economic professionals base their analysis on what is healthy — literally impacting one’s health — for the country as a whole.  Perhaps a regionally focused approach would work, although I would be concerned that folks with “cabin fever” in stay-at-home states would gravitate to those open for business.

A national approach, based on facts and realistic MOEs is the only way we will find our way out of this crisis.  The worst thing that could happen is to prematurely lift the measures we know are working only because the president is impatient and has a gut feeling that everything is good to go.  A second wave of pandemic would do even greater damage to our country.  If there is a time for a very conservative approach, this is it.

Patience coupled with verifiable facts is the only way to go.

 

 

White Supremacist Terrorism

Posted: August 5, 2019 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Here we go again.  More mass shootings and more “thoughts and prayers.”  As of this writing twenty-two people died in El Paso, Texas and nine in Dayton, Ohio with dozens more wounded and injured.  This comes on the heels of a mass shooting at a Garlic Festival in Gilroy, California that left three dead and sixteen wounded.  There is an epidemic of violence in our country that is aided and abetted by the cowardice of politicians to deal with the issue in any practical way.

No piece of federal legislation concerning guns has reached a president’s desk since the Federal Assault Weapons Ban in 1994 — and that law expired in 2004.  More specifically, no law regulating the use of fire arms has passed since then.  Two others, however, have been passed. In 2004 an Act was passed that allows current and former law enforcement officers to carry concealed fire arms in any jurisdiction.  In 2005 an Act passed that prevents fire arm manufacturers and licensed dealers from being held liable when crimes are committed using their products.  That’s it.

There is a more pressing issue to deal with right now, however.

The acts of these despicable individuals, of which more and more are occurring in all segments of our society, including churches and synagogues, are not really the work of lone wolfs as some would like to depict them.  They are the acts of white supremacists that increasingly act in concert.  Instead of being lone wolfs, they are more like wolf packs.

There is little difference between these white supremacists conversing with each other, supporting each other, giving ideas to each other, helping each other in on-line chat rooms and on the internet, especially 8chan, than 80 years ago when a bunch of white guys in sheets would congregate in the back room of a warehouse in a small town.  It is the same, they just don’t have to travel any further than the lap top in their bedrooms to get their hateful ideas.  The FBI and other reputable agencies tracking these trends know the threat and they know that it is increasingly likely that the members of these hate groups will take action.  They are “heroes” to each other.  One may debate as to whether their psychological profile leads certain types of individuals into joining these groups, but they are not “crazy” or clinically mentally ill.  They are purposeful in their actions.  They have plans. They have goals.  They have the means to work towards achieving their ends.

FBI Director Christopher Wray said in Congressional testimony on July 23 this year that “homegrown violent extremists” are the biggest threat to the United States.  He went on to say, “I will say the majority of domestic terrorism cases we’ve investigated are motivated by some version of what you might call white supremacist violence.”

I am concerned that we are on the way to another terrorist attack that will be the “new” attack of September 11, 2001, only this time it will be carried out by one or more young white guys.  Think Timothy McVeigh and the bombing of the Federal Building in Oklahoma City in April 1995.  168 men, women and children died that day.  Hundreds more were wounded.  It is possible, and some believe probable, that something similar will happen again.

We need to call it what it is.  These attacks are not the result of video games, or drugs, or not going to church or mental illness or anything else.  Every country in the world deals with these same issues and they do not have the pervasive and never ending attacks on their fellow citizens that we do here in the United States.

These acts are increasingly the work of white nationalists who want to eliminate anyone in our country that they deem “impure” — in other words anyone that is not white and not Christian.  (It would be laughable that they call themselves Christians if it wasn’t such a deadly issue.)

It is staring us right in the face.  Call it what it is.  Call out the president when he says that Hispanics are conducting an “invasion” of our country.  Call out the president when he calls Mexicans “rapists” and “murderers.”  And on, and on, and on he goes with spiteful, hateful rhetoric towards people of color.  In a rally in Florida just this May he talked of the “invasion” from Mexico and then laughed along with the crowd when someone yelled “shoot them.”

Mr. Trump is not the one that pulled the trigger in El Paso or elsewhere.  He didn’t order it.  He does inspire these white nationalists when he uses hateful language that leads them to violence.  His barely disguised racist language is a deliberate campaign strategy to rally his “base.”  Shame on him.  Shame on us all.  We are better than this as a country.

More importantly, we need to take action as a country and tell the government to use the same tactics against domestic threats that we do to protect ourselves against foreign terrorists.  The oath I took as a Navy officer says in part “I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic.”  We have a clear and present danger from domestic terrorists.

The biggest threat to our security and safety walks among us.

 

Fatigue Makes Cowards Of Us All

Posted: July 29, 2019 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The title quote above is indelibly etched into my mind as it was emblazoned over the stairway from the crew locker room down to the boat storage area in the USNA boat house at Hubbard Hall. For four years every time I passed by that sign I took it onboard.  As college rowers we knew its meaning.  It takes mental toughness as well as physical fitness to compete at a high level. You can quit or you can fight through it.  The quote is attributed to General George S. Patton or Vince Lombardi — take your pick — but its origin is unclear.  Its meaning is not and it stayed with me through all of the years since then.

Its relevance takes on a new dimension to me in the current political atmosphere.  The President of the United States is so outrageous in his daily Tweets, rallies and pronouncements to the press that it wears me down.  It is truly fatiguing.  It becomes part of the background of daily life.  It becomes too easy to say that it is just Trump being Trump.

But we cannot.  We cannot give in to that fatigue.  He must be called out each and every time that he spouts hateful, racist and misogynistic things.

When E. Jeanne Carroll alleges that Mr. Trump raped her and he responds that it couldn’t have happened because “she’s not my type” we should ask what type of woman would Mr. Trump rape?

When Mr. Trump racially attacks members of Congress that oppose his ideas we must call him out.  The latest episode comes this weekend with an attack on Congressman Elijah Cummings (D-MD) and the city of Baltimore.  What does Mr. Trump mean when he says about Baltimore that “no human being would want to live there”?  We should recognize that he knows full well that the city is majority African-American.  Does that mean that they are not human?

The outrageous lies are endless.  Mr. Trump is the most deliberately divisive president in my lifetime.  Probably, he is the most divisive since the U.S. Civil War.  Why do we tolerate it?

The Trump will be Trump argument is weak and cowardly.  It is not okay. He is not what America is about.  He has bullied the Republican Party to the point that good Americans that three years ago decried his abhorrent behavior now go meekly along.  They pretend that they did not hear or are too busy to notice the latest insult.  Or worse, they defend his comments.

Mr. Trump is a master of the playground mantra of “I’m rubber you’re glue, whatever you say bounces off me and sticks to you.”  He projects what he knows about his own character and his tactics onto his critics.  And make no mistake, his critics are to him anyone that does not blindly follow along with total loyalty in every manner of endeavor.

The Republican Party is dead.  The Democrats cannot get their act together.  Mr. Trump is taking advantage of every crack in society and ignoring the law to further his own personal gain.  As long as the citizens of this great country look the other way, either out of fatigue or out of a sense that laying low is the best way not to get into trouble, we will see him amplify his outrageous behavior into dangerous areas.

We are better than this.  Do not let fatigue make you a coward.

 

 

Shameful

Posted: July 18, 2019 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , | 2 Comments

The president is at it again and incited a crowd in Greenville, North Carolina to engage in racist chants during one of his campaign rallies last night.

Again attacking specific Congresswomen of color he got the crowd to chant “Send her back.”

Shameful. Horrifying. Dangerous. Un-American.

Most frightening, I invite you to look at rallies in Germany or Italy in the 1930’s and compare them to Mr. Trump’s rallies.  The similarities are ominous.

The president clearly relishes his racist attacks on other Americans.  I hope — perhaps in vain — that the good people of North Carolina woke up this morning embarrassed by their actions.  They should be.

Should the president work in any other job in the United States, he would be fired for his racist rants as explained by a department he oversees, The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

I fear the president of the United States will have blood on his hands when one or more of his white nationalist supporters takes the situation into their own hands based on his overt encouragement of outrageous and indecent behavior.

It is clear to me and to his white nationalist supporters, that when he says “Make America Great Again” it is with a wink and a nod.  He really means “Make America White Again.”

All of us are complicit if we condone such actions from anyone, much less from the president.

The Bigot In Chief

Posted: July 17, 2019 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

As I am sure you know, on Sunday Mr. Donald J. Trump sent out a series of racist tweets about four Congresswomen of color.  Besides putting forth lies about who does or does not love their country, and other blatantly bizarre statements concerning a Congresswoman’s “love” for al-Qaeda, for three days (and counting) he used the most basic of racial and ethnic slurs by telling them to go back to where they came from.

This should not be surprising.  Mr. Trump has a record of racist statements and actions dating to the 1970’s when he and his father were sued by the federal government for discrimination in the renting of apartments in a building in Queens, New York.  The list of other racist statements and actions over the decades is way too long to recount here.  However, since declaring his candidacy for president the number of such incidents have increased.  As president, Mr. Trump seems to have settled on attacking women of color. Such attacks include the mother of a Marine killed in action, the wife of a soldier killed in action, various Congresswomen of color prior to this incident, and numerous others.  For some reason, he thinks that’s a good thing to do.

The president is a racist.

Some may argue that I cannot possibly know what is in his heart.  That is true, I do not.  I do know that his recurring actions and words show that he is a racist.  White nationalists say that he is one of them.  They recognize what they see. To paraphrase an old saw, if he walks like a racist, quacks like a racist and looks like a racist, he’s a racist.

Sadly, however, many of us already knew this and are profoundly disappointed in his actions, but not surprised.  What is surprising is that the entire Republican House and Senate members — save a few countable on one hand — support his racism.  Don’t take my word for it.  Yesterday the House voted to condemn the president’s remarks. Only four Republicans voted for the condemnation and one former Republican did so.  One of the four is the only African-American Republican in the House.   The vast majority of Republicans, in the House and Senate, are white men.  There is one African-American Republican Senator.

The Republicans lack of a back bone makes me sad for our country.

Mr. Trump is fully in control of the Republican Party and good men and women that used to stand up for what was right now meekly submit to his will — and in some instances loudly support his every deed — including the most basic of hurtful phrases.  “Go back.”  Those two words convey hate for the “other.”  Hate for people with “funny” names or who don’t look like northern Europeans.  It means that you do not belong here with “real” Americans, no matter how long you and your family have lived in the United States.  It separates you.  It is meant to demean.  It is hateful.  Words matter.  And only four Republicans put what was right over the fear of a Tweet from Mr. Trump.  In my book, if you stand up for a racist by actively supporting his words and actions, then that makes you a racist.

Shameful.

Mr. Trump took this course on purpose.  There was no attempt to “explain what he really meant” or to clarify, or to otherwise soften his words.  In fact he doubled and tripled down on his remarks by going out of his way to repeat them over and over.  It is entirely possible to disagree on a policy statement or a political agenda as I do with much of what the four Congresswomen under attack are pursuing.  What is not okay is using racial and ethnic smears to personally attack other American citizens duly elected to their office.

Why is he doing this?

Three reasons come to my mind.  First, this is his re-election campaign strategy.  He and his fellow Trumpist politicians want these four freshman Congresswomen to be seen as the face of the Democrats.  He will campaign that they represent the “true” Democrats and that if any Democrat is elected you will have people with funny names and darker skins running the country into the ground.  Remember that he started his run for the presidential nomination with the birther movement that claimed President Barack Obama was not a U.S. citizen and followed it up with his first speech from Trump Tower announcing his candidacy by calling Mexicans rapists and murderers.  It is a cynical and divisive deliberate strategy.  It is a naked manipulation of people’s fears and emotions.  It will get worse, especially since he sees no consequences to his actions.  Republican politicians rolled over and now have no stomach for standing up to him.  Probably, many will emulate him in their own campaigns, further dividing our country and demeaning our values.

Second, he is appealing to his base — and “base” may be the most correct term as he is using the basest of strategies to look for re-election in 2020.  I knew there were racists in our country, I just did not know there were so many.  And no, I don’t think every Trump supporter is a racist, but I fail to see how any policy he espouses or judge he appoints cancels out his obscene behavior that demeans the office he holds and besmirches the values of our entire country.  Our country is an idea, a set of values, the search for “a more perfect union,” and not one based on ethnicity or who our ancestors might have been or the color of our skin.

Third, he is covering something up.  Mr. Trump has a penchant for capturing the news cycle when he does not want us to look too closely at some other action or circumstance.  My guess is that the circle around him and Mr. Jeffrey Epstein — the industrial level child sex trafficker — is getting tighter and smaller.  They were known to hang together in the 1990s and early 2000s.  Indeed, in 2002 Mr. Trump is quoted in New York magazine saying that Mr. Epstein is a “terrific guy” and that “he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”  How young?  Mr. Trump hosted a party at Mar-a-Lago where he and Mr. Epstein were the only two male guests.  All the others were young women flown in for the party.  On Monday a bail hearing for Mr. Epstein was held in New York that included testimony from two of the young girls he abused. Is it possible that Mr. Trump was too personally involved with Mr. Epstein and his evil life style, even has the president says he “is not a fan”?  “When you’re a star, they let you do it.  You can do anything.”

The President.  Of the United States.  Is using the most vile and divisive words and actions to open old wounds and make new ones for his own personal gain.  And 98% of elected Republicans and millions of people think that is okay.

Historians will look back on this period and mark it as the end of the Republican Party.  The Republicans will be right up there in the pantheon of failed political parties with the Whigs and the Know Nothings from the 19th century.  The only question is how much damage to our country will they allow before they collapse.

In the meantime, we are in big trouble as a country.  We lost our soul when this man became president.  Every day we endure a new attack on our values and our Constitution.  I fear that Mr. Trump has lowered every bar of common decency and that his words and actions put people’s lives in danger.

When does it end?

Shameful

Posted: April 29, 2019 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

“You don’t even have to be convicted of a crime to lose your job in this constitutional republic.  If this body determines that your conduct as a public official is clearly out of bounds… Impeachment is not about punishment, impeachment is about cleansing the office.  Impeachment is about restoring honor and integrity to the office.”  — Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.)

“The president of the United States looked 270 million Americans in the eye, and lied, deliberately and methodically. He took an oath to faithfully execute the laws of this nation, and he violated that oath. He pledged to be the nation’s chief law enforcement officer, and he violated that pledge. He took an oath to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and he willfully and repeatedly violated that oath.”  — Mitch McConnell (R-Ky)

“There is one standard of justice that applies equally to all, and to say or do otherwise will undermine the most sacred of all American ideals. [The] President has committed federal crimes, and there must be a reckoning, or no American shall ever again be prosecuted for those same crimes.”  — John Thune (R-S.D.)

“As of April 27, including the president’s rally in Green Bay, Wis., the tally in our database stands at 10,111 (false or misleading) claims in 828 days.” — Washington Post

Have Republicans finally seen the light and figured out that Donald J. Trump is unfit for office given the clear-cut references to obstruction of justice in the Mueller Report?  Hardly.

The quotes above refer to the impeachment proceedings against President Bill Clinton in 1999 and the fact that our current president has lied over 10,000 times since taking office.  The hypocrisy speaks for itself.

And yet, the talk of impeachment — should Mr. Trump be impeached or not — focuses only on the disagreements within the Democrat Party.  Not a word on the Constitutional duty for oversight and the rule of law from any Republican.  The closest that any Republican now in office came was a statement from Senator Mitt Romney (R-Ut).  Mr. Romney did not speak of impeachment or make a case that Mr. Trump should resign.  He merely said that he was “sickened” and “appalled” by the actions of those in the Trump administration and campaign “including the president.”  No reference as to what the consequences should be, but at least it was something.  He was, of course, immediately attacked for his statement.  After that, crickets.

And it gets worse.

“And you look at what Russia did — you know, buying some Facebook ads and try to sow dissent and do it, and it’s a terrible thing but I think the investigations and all the speculation that has happened for the last two years has had a much harsher impact on democracy than a couple Facebook ads….I think they said they spent about $160,000. I spent $160,000 on Facebook every three hours during the campaign. So if you look at the magnitude of what they did and what they accomplished, I think the ensuing investigations have been way more harmful to our country.”  — Jared Kushner commenting on the Mueller Report

We have come to a place where a (the?) Senior Adviser to the President, downplays the fact that a foreign adversary interferes in our election and that he believes that the investigation of that fact was a bigger threat to our democracy.  Oh, by the way.  He got his facts wrong, and he failed to mention criminal activity hacking into the DNC data base and stealing damaging emails. But I suppose that is to be expected from this administration.

And it gets worse yet.

When the president’s personal lawyer was asked about the Mueller Report’s findings of Russian interference in the election during an interview on CNN he said, “There’s nothing wrong with taking information from Russians.”  When given a chance to clarify his statement he said, “There’s no crime.  We’re going to get into morality?  That isn’t what prosecutors look at, morality.”  So in the course of the Trump campaign we’ve gone from there was no contact with the Russians, to maybe there was contact but it was to talk about orphans, to if there was contact with the Russians there is nothing wrong with it, to we did contact the Russians but everybody would have done the same, to yes, of course we were in cahoots with the Russians, what’s wrong with that?

And it gets even worse.

According to the New York Times then Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Kirstjen Nielsen tried to bring up cyber security and Russian (and other foreign adversaries) interference in the 2020 election.  She was thwarted by Acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney who told her not to bring it up in front of the president.  She was told that Mr. Trump equates any discussion of Russian interference in the 2016 election as questioning the legitimacy of his election.  As a result, there have been no Cabinet level meetings on the subject and no presidential level directives to prepare to defend the country against future attacks.  So much for the president upholding his oath of office.  Additionally, I will take a quick note to remind everyone that the DHS is not primarily focused on immigration.  At least it wasn’t until this administration.  It is involved in counter-intelligence work, cyber security and many other areas vital to our country to protect it from real threats to our security, not manufactured border crises.

Mr. Trump is the biggest threat to our democracy of any president in my lifetime, and possibly ever.  My lifetime includes the presidency of Richard M. Nixon.  He at least had certain standards that even he would not dismiss.  A scoundrel yes, but a scoundrel with at least some understanding of what our country stands for.  There were lines even he would not cross.  Mr. Trump knows no boundaries and now he is aided and abetted by Republicans in the House and Senate that apparently have no boundaries either.  Somehow they have made a pact with the devil that they will support and defend anything Mr. Trump does or says in order to get a tax cut and conservative judges on the federal courts.  It seems nothing else matters.

By their actions and words it is clear that the Republican Party no longer has any intellectual or moral underpinnings.  Their sole reason for being is to defend the president, no matter what.  The Republican Party in Washington ceased to exist.  Trumpism prevails.

To me this is not a matter of policy or a matter of Democrats just not liking the president.  Like has nothing to do with it.  Mr. Trump is destroying the moral fabric of society and deliberately stoking fear and loathing in order to achieve his own ends.

All presidents deserve thoughtful criticism and reasonable people can reasonably disagree on a given policy.  This is more than that.

Please tell me that you would hold Mr. Trump’s actions, words, and demeanor up to your children as an aspirational goal you would be proud to see them achieve.  If you cannot do that, then why do we tolerate it in our president?  What happened to our desire to see a person of great character as the leader of our country?

And please, spare me the “what abouts.”  Not all of our presidents or party leaders have been icons of virtue, but can you truly say that anyone of them in our lifetime was worse than Mr. Trump?  This is not a “it happens on both sides” issue.  It is not.

While the Democrats move to and fro tearing themselves apart contemplating their collective navel as they try to decide whether and how to hold Mr. Trump accountable under their duty as sworn to in an oath to protect and defend the Constitution, Republicans sit smugly on the sidelines appearing systematically to kiss Mr. Trump’s — well, you know.  Not a leader among them.

We get so caught up in the day-to-day travesty known as the Trump Administration that we lose sight of the forest for the trees.  Everyday brings a new outrage.  It is hard to keep up.  Step back sometime and think about the totality of his destructive work.  Taken as a whole, he is a one man wrecking crew with his advisers and apologists in Congress gleefully sifting through the wreckage.

We now know who Mr. Trump is and little about him surprises me any more.  He outrages me, yes, worries me, yes, but not much new in his spiel.  What worries me more is that so many people go merrily along with him hoping that some day it will make their lives better.  Where is the evidence for that?  Apparently, the motivation for Republicans in Congress and those working for him in the White House is power.  Pure unadulterated power.

I wonder how they manage to look at themselves in the mirror each morning.  Shameful.

 

 

 

The Good News and The Bad News

Posted: November 9, 2018 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

It has been a busy week.  First the good news.

For the third time I was an Election Judge (poll worker, but sworn in as a judge in this state because of the decision-making that may be needed).  Once again it was a very long day with no respite, but worth it.  At our location, everyone, Republican, Democrat or Unaffiliated, was uniformly cheerful, friendly, and appreciative of their role to play in our democracy.  It was refreshing in the current era to see the best parts of our republic.

In my state, Maryland, one of the “bluest” in the country, we re-elected a Republican Governor for the first time in decades.  At the same time, the Democrat controlled state legislature gained more seats for the Democrats and voters re-elected our Democrat Senator and Representatives.  I consider that a positive sign as well.  In the first year of the Governor’s term, he tried to push legislation through that did not have the support of the representatives.  At the same time, some of the legislation the Democrats wanted was turned back by the Governor.  The same old story?  In this case, no.  Both the Governor and the legislative leaders realized that nothing would be accomplished if they didn’t — wait for it — compromise on the issues.  That does not mean it was all unicorns and rainbows, there were some knock down, drag out battles over certain issues.  On the whole, however, both parties recognized that compromise was necessary in order to accomplish meaningful results.  Consequently, most of those involved, including an unheard of for this state second term for a Republican Governor, returned to office.  (To put it in perspective, he is only the second Republican Governor in Maryland since Spiro Agnew — Richard Nixon’s first Vice president.  The last two term Republican Governor was Theodore McKeldin first elected in 1951.)

I was looking forward to writing an entirely positive piece in this space and was feeling better about the state of affairs in our country after the election.  After all, the House would now have oversight over the excesses of the Executive Branch for the first time in two years.

It lasted less than twenty-four hours.  Then came the bad news.  In duplicate.

Wednesday night another mass shooting of innocent victims occurred.  This time in Thousand Oaks California, considered the third most safe city in the country, according to FBI statistics.  Mostly students out for a break in the routine and a little dancing were gunned down.  Another needless tragedy that is becoming increasingly too common.  According to the Gun Violence Archive, this was the 307th mass shooting in the U.S. in 2018.  (They define a mass shooting as four or more people shot in one incident — not necessarily all deaths.)  Another in a long line of sad days for too many families and for all of us as citizens.  Perhaps the new Congress will finally address common sense gun laws that are supported by a majority in the country across all party lines.

Earlier that day the president gave what can only be described as a bizarre press conference that was either an attempt at showing that he would not change his habits and methods despite a significant defeat at the polls or a deliberate attempt to be bizarre in an effort to change the news cycle away from the success the Democrats had at the polls.

More significantly, he fired (yes, fired, when the president asks for a resignation it is not a voluntary action to resign) Attorney General Jeff Sessions Wednesday afternoon.  It was not so surprising that he did so, as he had been saying he would for well over a year, but it was unsettling that he did so less than twenty-four hours after the polls closed.  To some extent, it is what it is.  I was no fan of Mr. Sessions, but I did respect that he stood up to the president over the ongoing Mueller investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election and possible obstruction of justice by the president.  Mr. Sessions did the right thing to recuse himself in accordance with the ethics of the situation and the rules of the Department of Justice (DOJ).  Mr. Trump never got over the fact that someone in his administration did the right thing.  He constantly asked where was “his Roy Cohn” — an Attorney General that should defend him personally and shield him from investigations, rather than work for the American people in upholding the principles of the Constitution.  (You may remember that Roy Cohn was Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer and mentor.  Mr. Cohn started his public career as Senator Joseph McCarthy’s Chief Counsel during the Army-McCarthy hearings in 1954.  Mr. Cohn is  the person responsible for teaching Mr. Trump to always “hit back twice as hard” against any accusations and “deny, deny, deny” — never apologize or admit to a mistake.)

The real bad news was not necessarily in the departure of Mr. Sessions.  The shocker was the person Mr. Trump named as his successor.  Mr. Trump’s intent to stop the Mueller investigation is reflected in his choice.

In a move that many Republican and Democrat Constitutional scholars consider against the law, Mr. Trump got his Roy Cohn by appointing Matthew Whitaker as the Acting Attorney General.  Mr. Whitaker is not a Senate confirmed official, which is the basis for many scholars and experts to consider his appointment to be illegal.  The normal sequence of events would be for Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to become the Acting Attorney General.  Conceivably, Mr. Trump could have appointed another Senate confirmed official as the Acting AG but he did not do that.  Why, you ask?  I do not know what goes on in Mr. Trump’s mind, but I can guess.

This is a bit down in the weeds, which I think Mr. Trump believes most people don’t care about, but this turn of events is serious and with long-lasting impact.  I will attempt to explain why, as succinctly as possible.

Mr. Rosenstein has been the supervisory official for the Mueller investigation.  Mr. Trump has been at odds with him for nearly two years about that investigation.  He wants to put someone into the DOJ as Acting AG in order to have someone in place to over rule Mr. Rosenstein and to inhibit, if not derail or eliminate, the Mueller probe before it indicts one of his family (the odds are high that Mr. Donald Trump Jr. is in Mr. Mueller’s sights) or comes back with a report saying that the Trump Campaign did conspire with the Russians to influence the election and then Mr. Trump obstructed justice in an attempt to cover it up and/or protect his family and business interests.

Legal scholars not only think Mr. Whitaker is an invalid appointee, but they also mostly agree that should he stay in the position, he must recuse himself from overseeing the Mueller investigation because of his extensive public remarks stating that he does not believe anything happened between the Trump Campaign and the Russians.  Oh, and that there was not obstruction of justice. Unfortunately, before being briefed on the investigation or before talking to the ethics attorneys in the DOJ, Mr. Whitaker has expressed that he will not recuse himself.  Of course not. Mr. Trump would not have appointed him if he did.  Preposterously, today Mr. Trump claimed to reporters that he did not know Mr. Whitaker, even though Mr. Whitaker often accompanied or replaced Mr. Sessions in many meetings with the president.  Reportedly, since the president did not like Mr. Sessions, Mr. Whitaker often spoke to the president in his stead.  My view is that some kind of quid pro quo was reached between Mr. Trump and Mr. Whitaker.  The former would appoint him Acting AG with some kind of follow on appointment in the future and the latter would make sure Mr. Mueller and his investigation was severely inhibited or ended.  Such an arrangement of course would be illegal and further the case for obstruction of justice.

They are birds of a feather, however.  Mr. Trump is well-known for his scams, such as Trump University that took in millions of our fellow Americans money based on promises never delivered.  It was forced to close down and Mr. Trump paid a hefty fine.  Mr. Whitaker was on the Board of Directors of a firm that the Federal Trade Commission labeled a “scam,” shut down and fined millions of dollars.  Additionally Mr. Whitaker sent threatening emails to some who complained that they were scammed.  So, they have that in common.

Mr. Whitaker has been especially clear in his remarks regarding the Mueller investigation and the circumstances surrounding the president.  He is right in line with the president that there is nothing there and that it is politically motivated.  In fact, he has opined that the “real” investigation should be of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee (DNC).  Here is what will happen, in my view.

  • Mr. Whitaker will severely limit funding for the Mueller investigation which will curtail further work without having to actually dismiss him and effectively end the investigation.
  • Mr. Whitaker further will limit Mr. Mueller’s work by prohibiting a subpoena of the president to force him to answer questions and will limit any other new avenues of investigation.  (The Acting AG overseeing the investigation must approve all significant elements of the Mueller probe.)
  • Mr. Whitaker will appoint a new Special Counsel to investigate Mrs. Clinton and the DNC in an effort to distract from the Mueller investigation and to give the president a new “caravan” to attack in an effort to distract the American public.

All of this will happen quickly, so that the new Democrat majority in the House has no chance to stop it before taking over in January 2019.  Mr. Trump must be feeling trapped between the rock (Mr. Mueller) and a hard place (the incoming Democrats in the House).  He will act out in any way possible to protect himself, his family and his business interests.  He probably feels that with Mr. Whitaker as the Acting AG, he can dictate which actions the DOJ should take and how Mr. Whitaker can act to protect him.  This is dangerous new territory for our country.  Firing Mr. Mueller directly will cause a political firestorm that may backfire on Mr. Trump.  Instead there will be delays, obfuscation and a slow strangling of the Mueller probe.  The real question is how senior officials in the DOJ, starting with Mr. Rosenstein will react to this affront to our Constitution.  Do they resign in mass?  Do they soldier on doing the best that they can under stifling circumstances?

What about the Republicans in the Senate?  Will they find a spine and stand up to the president at last? Are there any Republicans left in the Senate or have they all become Trumpists?  I see little hope as Senators such as Lindsay Graham (Trumpist — SC) have gone from saying that firing Mr. Sessions would not be tolerated to supporting Mr. Trump’s action to remove him.

“If Jeff Sessions is fired, there will be holy hell to pay.  Any effort to go after Mueller could be the beginning of the end of the Trump presidency, unless Mueller did something wrong.”  — Lindsay Graham in July 2017

“What I’ve been saying for months is every president deserves an attorney general they have confidence in and they can work with.” — Lindsay Graham in November 2018

I am not picking on Senator Graham as his remarks reflect the change in almost every Republican in Washington today.  They changed from executing their oversight role to a becoming a rubber stamp of all things Trumpian, even as it defies what they say they’ve stood for their entire lives.

So for a few hours Tuesday night, I felt good about the future of our country.  I still feel good about it in the long run.  A few short hours later I realized that in the short run, we have a crazy ride ahead of us that will threaten the very fiber of our country.  I think we will survive based on the goodwill I experienced Tuesday, but it is not going to be easy or pretty.

Hang on for a crazy trip over the next two years.  It’s gonna be wild, baby!

 

 

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