Technical Details:
Scope: Starblast 4.5; tracking on
Magnification: ~150x
Camera: iPhone6 using NightCap Pro; ISO 32
Wednesday, January 31, 2018
Astronomy Adventure - No Blood Moon But Three Craters
I can't offer you images of the Super Blue Blood Moon since I was located too far east to see totality. Instead I can just give you a photo of three lunar craters: Tycho, Maginus, and Clavius. As you can see by the lack of other craters inside Tycho, it is a relatively young feature. The central peak is close to 1 mile high. And in 1968 Surveyor 7 landed just north of the crater's rim (to the top of the photo). The eroded rims and crater-pocked interior indicate that Maginus is ancient. Clavius is enormous, the third largest visible crater, and is also one of the older formations on the Moon, an estimated 4 billion year old.
A False And Empty Speech That Ignored Our Country's Challenges
Donald Trump spent much of last night's State of the Union speech spouting outright lies, making more empty promises, demagoguing on immigration, and touting the US economy. By the end of this week, it will probably all be forgotten as we get swamped by more chaos created by Trump and his administration. But, if you listen to Trump and read the press lately, you would really believe that somehow the US economy is taking off. In the wake of the bogus PR announcements from US firms after the passage of the tax plan, even some liberal pundits are positing that rising wages might help the Republicans in the 2018 election.
The reality, however, is far different than that perception and what the President described last night. Yes, economic conditions are undoubtedly still improving but the rate of that improvement has actually been slowing for the last couple of years and that slowing trend continued in 2017.
Wage growth has actually been slowing for the last two years and slowed further in 2017. Job growth has been slowing since the 2014, and continued to slow in 2017. Prime-age employment to population ratio, although largely driven by demographics, has been rising but is still below levels reached in both 2000 and 2007. GDP was up 2.3% in 2017, a slight improvement on 2016 but below the levels of 2014 and 2015.
Last night, Trump touted the improvement in unemployment for blacks and Hispanics, with both reaching historic lows. But the reality is that black unemployment dropped from 12.7% to 7.8% under Obama. It has dropped from 7.8% to 6.8% under Trump. Hispanic unemployment dropped from 10.1% to 5.9%. under Obama. It has gone from 5.9% to 4.9% under Trump. Trump also touted these big corporate investments, but, so far, the Trump investment boom is a myth. Investment growth in 2017 was mediocre at best and was largely driven by the oil sector in response to rising oil prices, rather than any Trump policy.
As Vox notes, "In fact, by the standards Trump used to trash the Obama era in his speech to Congress, the Trump era has been another economic nightmare. 'Ninety-four million Americans are out of the labor force!' he complained last year. That was true at the time, if you included students, retirees and the disabled, but today, 95.5 million Americans are out of the labor force. 'Over 43 million Americans are on food stamps,' Trump said last year. This year, it’s still over 42 million. 'Our trade deficit in goods last year was nearly $800 billion!' Trump marveled. Under Trump, the trade deficit is increasing." Of course, those Trumpian standards are hardly a good way to measure the health of the economy anyway but even by those standards Trump's policies have not created a rousing success, rather merely staying the course.
Now, none of this counts as bad news. But the trend of slowing growth is not a good sign. And there are other warning signs out there. Paul Krugman points out that it looks like much of the more recent GDP growth may have been fueled by Americans depleting their savings. Personal savings have declined in both 2016 and 2017 and are now below the levels we saw right before the financial crisis. As Krugman says, "saving can’t keep falling, and you wonder whether households are getting overstretched again."
There is even a warning sign in Trump's favorite measure of his success, the stock market. Despite its record highs and the fact that other markets around the world are also booming, the American market is far pricier compared to the underlying corporate earnings than other world markets. The current price/earnings ratio is 34 which, as Kevin Drum advises us, "is lower than it was at the height of the dotcom bubble, but higher than Black Tuesday of 1929, the height of the 1960s bull market, Black Monday of 1989, and the height of the housing bubble."
So what is accounting for the great perception that the economy under Trump has vastly improved. As usual, it is partisan politics and an extreme reaction from the Republicans. As soon as Trump was elected, not even inaugurated, Republicans' opinion of the economy began to shift dramatically. By the time Trump was inaugurated, Republicans' opinion of current conditions had improved by a whopping 40 percentage points or more. By the middle of 2017, it was nearly a 60 point improvement and the change in economic confidence among Republicans was 70 points. Democrats' opinion of the economy also began to change for the worse but not nearly by the same margins as Republicans' improved. So, once again, the media perception was totally driven by the attitudes of the most partisan Republicans.
No one expects a President to lay out detailed proposals in the State of the Union. But it is a chance to provide the leadership and guidelines for policies that the President would like to pursue. Besides the four pillars of immigration reform, which both parties deeply dislike, Trump offered absolutely nothing, relying instead on Congress to provide some solution. On infrastructure, Trump's plan is to call on "the Congress to produce a bill that generates at least $1.5 trillion for the new infrastructure investment we need. Every Federal dollar should be leveraged by partnering with State and local governments and, where appropriate, tapping into private sector investment — to permanently fix the infrastructure deficit". That really translates into less than $1.5 trillion in federal spending but still provides no roadmap on how to get there. On opioids and prescription drug prices, the President offered nothing more than empty, future promises, having had a whole year to address those issues and done nothing. On opioids in particular, his only concrete proposal was to claim without evidence that reducing immigration would also reduce opioid addiction.
Even Trump's desire to reduce immigration is bad policy. Facing a growing aging population and a smaller base of young workers, the US needs more immigration to increase or even sustain economic growth. Otherwise, we end up going down the route that Japan has endured for the last two decades. There, the working age population peaked in 1997 and has been falling ever since. While its per-worker GDP shows its work force is still highly productive, its demographics determine the country's overall GDP. Partly because of that low growth environment, the country is now facing a fertility crisis, with its population predicted to drop by one-third by 2065, and creating unprecedented economic and social disruption. And, here in the US, as my friend Doug Weeden points out, "Fifty-one percent of U.S. companies valued at over $1B+ were founded by immigrant entrepreneurs".
But what was even more disturbing about Trump's speech is how it assiduously ignored the two greatest looming crises of the coming years, climate change and artificial intelligence. These two issues alone will cause more disruption to the country's and the world's economy than anything Trump talked about.
One of the reasons for the surge in illegal immigration from Latin America under Bush and Obama as well as the surge in violence in that region was that coffee rust, a result of climate change, devastated the coffee industry in that region. While Trump hailed the response and fortitude of the American people in responding to the natural disasters over the last year, most of which is predicted by climate change, Puerto Rico still has more than a million people without power and 20% of the island still has no water.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is predicted to eliminate nearly 40% of the jobs in the United States alone in the next 15 years. A new MIT study estimates over half a million jobs will be lost to AI over the next five or six years in just the trucking, assembler, and customer service industries alone. We have already seen the devastating effects of globalization on certain workers and communities in this country over the last two decades, as well as the ineffective response of the government to adequately respond to that crisis. AI will be globalization on steroids and, despite Trump's lofty rhetoric about fighting for the working man, that threat is not even on his radar.
Perhaps Puerto Rico sadly provides some insight into the future based on Trump's policies. For years, the island's economy struggled. But those problems were papered over by the tricks of financialization and the government's willingness to ignore the problems. The island was already bleeding its young and talented before climate change created a catastrophe. And now, FEMA is leaving an island still devastated and suffering while Trump praises the response and tells us "There has never been a better time to start living the American Dream". That might be the dystopian future nightmare for our country under Trump's policies.
The reality, however, is far different than that perception and what the President described last night. Yes, economic conditions are undoubtedly still improving but the rate of that improvement has actually been slowing for the last couple of years and that slowing trend continued in 2017.
Wage growth has actually been slowing for the last two years and slowed further in 2017. Job growth has been slowing since the 2014, and continued to slow in 2017. Prime-age employment to population ratio, although largely driven by demographics, has been rising but is still below levels reached in both 2000 and 2007. GDP was up 2.3% in 2017, a slight improvement on 2016 but below the levels of 2014 and 2015.
Last night, Trump touted the improvement in unemployment for blacks and Hispanics, with both reaching historic lows. But the reality is that black unemployment dropped from 12.7% to 7.8% under Obama. It has dropped from 7.8% to 6.8% under Trump. Hispanic unemployment dropped from 10.1% to 5.9%. under Obama. It has gone from 5.9% to 4.9% under Trump. Trump also touted these big corporate investments, but, so far, the Trump investment boom is a myth. Investment growth in 2017 was mediocre at best and was largely driven by the oil sector in response to rising oil prices, rather than any Trump policy.
As Vox notes, "In fact, by the standards Trump used to trash the Obama era in his speech to Congress, the Trump era has been another economic nightmare. 'Ninety-four million Americans are out of the labor force!' he complained last year. That was true at the time, if you included students, retirees and the disabled, but today, 95.5 million Americans are out of the labor force. 'Over 43 million Americans are on food stamps,' Trump said last year. This year, it’s still over 42 million. 'Our trade deficit in goods last year was nearly $800 billion!' Trump marveled. Under Trump, the trade deficit is increasing." Of course, those Trumpian standards are hardly a good way to measure the health of the economy anyway but even by those standards Trump's policies have not created a rousing success, rather merely staying the course.
Now, none of this counts as bad news. But the trend of slowing growth is not a good sign. And there are other warning signs out there. Paul Krugman points out that it looks like much of the more recent GDP growth may have been fueled by Americans depleting their savings. Personal savings have declined in both 2016 and 2017 and are now below the levels we saw right before the financial crisis. As Krugman says, "saving can’t keep falling, and you wonder whether households are getting overstretched again."
There is even a warning sign in Trump's favorite measure of his success, the stock market. Despite its record highs and the fact that other markets around the world are also booming, the American market is far pricier compared to the underlying corporate earnings than other world markets. The current price/earnings ratio is 34 which, as Kevin Drum advises us, "is lower than it was at the height of the dotcom bubble, but higher than Black Tuesday of 1929, the height of the 1960s bull market, Black Monday of 1989, and the height of the housing bubble."
So what is accounting for the great perception that the economy under Trump has vastly improved. As usual, it is partisan politics and an extreme reaction from the Republicans. As soon as Trump was elected, not even inaugurated, Republicans' opinion of the economy began to shift dramatically. By the time Trump was inaugurated, Republicans' opinion of current conditions had improved by a whopping 40 percentage points or more. By the middle of 2017, it was nearly a 60 point improvement and the change in economic confidence among Republicans was 70 points. Democrats' opinion of the economy also began to change for the worse but not nearly by the same margins as Republicans' improved. So, once again, the media perception was totally driven by the attitudes of the most partisan Republicans.
No one expects a President to lay out detailed proposals in the State of the Union. But it is a chance to provide the leadership and guidelines for policies that the President would like to pursue. Besides the four pillars of immigration reform, which both parties deeply dislike, Trump offered absolutely nothing, relying instead on Congress to provide some solution. On infrastructure, Trump's plan is to call on "the Congress to produce a bill that generates at least $1.5 trillion for the new infrastructure investment we need. Every Federal dollar should be leveraged by partnering with State and local governments and, where appropriate, tapping into private sector investment — to permanently fix the infrastructure deficit". That really translates into less than $1.5 trillion in federal spending but still provides no roadmap on how to get there. On opioids and prescription drug prices, the President offered nothing more than empty, future promises, having had a whole year to address those issues and done nothing. On opioids in particular, his only concrete proposal was to claim without evidence that reducing immigration would also reduce opioid addiction.
Even Trump's desire to reduce immigration is bad policy. Facing a growing aging population and a smaller base of young workers, the US needs more immigration to increase or even sustain economic growth. Otherwise, we end up going down the route that Japan has endured for the last two decades. There, the working age population peaked in 1997 and has been falling ever since. While its per-worker GDP shows its work force is still highly productive, its demographics determine the country's overall GDP. Partly because of that low growth environment, the country is now facing a fertility crisis, with its population predicted to drop by one-third by 2065, and creating unprecedented economic and social disruption. And, here in the US, as my friend Doug Weeden points out, "Fifty-one percent of U.S. companies valued at over $1B+ were founded by immigrant entrepreneurs".
But what was even more disturbing about Trump's speech is how it assiduously ignored the two greatest looming crises of the coming years, climate change and artificial intelligence. These two issues alone will cause more disruption to the country's and the world's economy than anything Trump talked about.
One of the reasons for the surge in illegal immigration from Latin America under Bush and Obama as well as the surge in violence in that region was that coffee rust, a result of climate change, devastated the coffee industry in that region. While Trump hailed the response and fortitude of the American people in responding to the natural disasters over the last year, most of which is predicted by climate change, Puerto Rico still has more than a million people without power and 20% of the island still has no water.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is predicted to eliminate nearly 40% of the jobs in the United States alone in the next 15 years. A new MIT study estimates over half a million jobs will be lost to AI over the next five or six years in just the trucking, assembler, and customer service industries alone. We have already seen the devastating effects of globalization on certain workers and communities in this country over the last two decades, as well as the ineffective response of the government to adequately respond to that crisis. AI will be globalization on steroids and, despite Trump's lofty rhetoric about fighting for the working man, that threat is not even on his radar.
Perhaps Puerto Rico sadly provides some insight into the future based on Trump's policies. For years, the island's economy struggled. But those problems were papered over by the tricks of financialization and the government's willingness to ignore the problems. The island was already bleeding its young and talented before climate change created a catastrophe. And now, FEMA is leaving an island still devastated and suffering while Trump praises the response and tells us "There has never been a better time to start living the American Dream". That might be the dystopian future nightmare for our country under Trump's policies.
Tories Finally Being Forced To Admit The Extent Of Brexit Disaster
It has not been a good few days for the supporters of Brexit as the disaster of the withdrawal from the EU becomes ever more clear. Two events this week highlighted both the economic and foreign policy damage that fateful decision has and will create.
Over at Davos, at the World Economic Forum, French President Emmanuel Macron received the star billing, with the hall already filled to capacity a full hour before he was supposed to speak. Theresa May's speech, on the other hand, was sparely attended, with seats near the front still available as she began her address. As the NY Times noted, "an uncomfortable reality has been sinking in. Britain’s stature on the world stage has diminished...The former colonial empire has been reduced to a lesser actor." As one European analyst bluntly put it, "Who sees the U.K. as an important discussion partner?"
It is a pretty sad state of affairs for the former colonial power but it's descent into irrelevance on the world stage is entirely of its own making. Bizarrely, May's speech partly focused on Britain's commitment to free trade and engagement with the world by focusing on the UK's role in crafting EU trade agreements with Canada and Japan. The irony, of course, is that Britain is voluntarily dropping out of those very trade agreements that May highlighted by exiting the EU.
In addition, with the election of Donald Trump, the US has also been withdrawing from the world and the President's deserved unpopularity in the UK has actually created strains in the "special relationship". The two members of perhaps the world's strongest alliance have seemingly both decided to withdraw from the world stage in many areas, leaving other countries to fill that void they leave behind and both countries weaker than they have been in many, many decades.
Irrelevance in foreign affairs is bad enough but that hardly compares with the economic decline the UK has and will experience under Brexit. Already the drop in the value of the pound has driven prices higher, creating an inflation rate of 3%. As the world's economies are all finally growing at the same time, the UK is one of the weakest with a growth rate of only 1.7% in 2017 which is expected to drop to 1.5% in 2018.
Remarkably, the government has still not released a detailed study of the potential effects of Brexit. Even as the UK was about to invoke Article 50, Brexit Secretary David Davis admitted that no new economic studies had been done to measure the economic effects of that decision other than the handful of quick analyses done before the vote a full nine months earlier. Last summer, Davis then declared on numerous occasions that studies had been done in "excruciating detail" but was unable to produce anything other than a few sector analyses when forced by Parliament. So, we are a full 19 months after the Brexit vote and the government still has not released a detailed analysis.
The reason that may be so is because the numbers just can not be spun in any way to look good for the UK economy. Details of the government's internal analysis have been leaked to Buzzfeed and they paint a grim future. According to Buzzfeed, "Under a comprehensive free trade agreement with the EU, UK growth would be 5% lower over the next 15 years compared to current forecasts, according to the analysis. The 'no deal' scenario, which would see the UK revert to World Trade Organization (WTO) rules, would reduce growth by 8% over that period. The softest Brexit option of continued single-market access through membership of the European Economic Area would, in the longer term, still lower growth by 2%. These calculations do not take into account any short-term hits to the economy from Brexit, such as the cost of adjusting the economy to new customs arrangements."
Basically, under every scenario, the UK economy would be worse off than if the country had never decided to leave the EU. Brexit will negatively effect virtually every sector of the economy and even every region of the country. London may lose its pre-eminence as Europe's financial capital. And the much-touted new trade deals with the US, China, India, and countries of Southeast Asia would together potentially add a rounding error of between 0.1% and 0.6% to the UK's GDP. Of course, none of these deals have even begun to be negotiated and will likely take years to complete.
Mrs. May's leadership since the shameful departure of David Cameron has been an unmitigated disaster for the Tories, culminating in the predicted easy consolidation of her majority turning into a coalition government in the last snap election. Of course, the Conservatives themselves have not been able to resolve the stark differences between the pro-Brexit crowd that is still demanding a clean break and those who admit the reality of what Brexit will mean for Britain and are struggling to find a way to keep much of the status quo with the EU in place and still be able to call it "Brexit".
May's seeming resilience in the face of these calamities is merely the result of the truth that no one else really wants her thankless job right now. So the country just drifts along, rudderless, with the economy and the country's services deteriorating, waiting for the Brexit negotiations to come into final form, whereupon another new election, either within the Conservative party or in the country as a whole, will try to determine what exactly the country wants to do next.
Over at Davos, at the World Economic Forum, French President Emmanuel Macron received the star billing, with the hall already filled to capacity a full hour before he was supposed to speak. Theresa May's speech, on the other hand, was sparely attended, with seats near the front still available as she began her address. As the NY Times noted, "an uncomfortable reality has been sinking in. Britain’s stature on the world stage has diminished...The former colonial empire has been reduced to a lesser actor." As one European analyst bluntly put it, "Who sees the U.K. as an important discussion partner?"
It is a pretty sad state of affairs for the former colonial power but it's descent into irrelevance on the world stage is entirely of its own making. Bizarrely, May's speech partly focused on Britain's commitment to free trade and engagement with the world by focusing on the UK's role in crafting EU trade agreements with Canada and Japan. The irony, of course, is that Britain is voluntarily dropping out of those very trade agreements that May highlighted by exiting the EU.
In addition, with the election of Donald Trump, the US has also been withdrawing from the world and the President's deserved unpopularity in the UK has actually created strains in the "special relationship". The two members of perhaps the world's strongest alliance have seemingly both decided to withdraw from the world stage in many areas, leaving other countries to fill that void they leave behind and both countries weaker than they have been in many, many decades.
Irrelevance in foreign affairs is bad enough but that hardly compares with the economic decline the UK has and will experience under Brexit. Already the drop in the value of the pound has driven prices higher, creating an inflation rate of 3%. As the world's economies are all finally growing at the same time, the UK is one of the weakest with a growth rate of only 1.7% in 2017 which is expected to drop to 1.5% in 2018.
Remarkably, the government has still not released a detailed study of the potential effects of Brexit. Even as the UK was about to invoke Article 50, Brexit Secretary David Davis admitted that no new economic studies had been done to measure the economic effects of that decision other than the handful of quick analyses done before the vote a full nine months earlier. Last summer, Davis then declared on numerous occasions that studies had been done in "excruciating detail" but was unable to produce anything other than a few sector analyses when forced by Parliament. So, we are a full 19 months after the Brexit vote and the government still has not released a detailed analysis.
The reason that may be so is because the numbers just can not be spun in any way to look good for the UK economy. Details of the government's internal analysis have been leaked to Buzzfeed and they paint a grim future. According to Buzzfeed, "Under a comprehensive free trade agreement with the EU, UK growth would be 5% lower over the next 15 years compared to current forecasts, according to the analysis. The 'no deal' scenario, which would see the UK revert to World Trade Organization (WTO) rules, would reduce growth by 8% over that period. The softest Brexit option of continued single-market access through membership of the European Economic Area would, in the longer term, still lower growth by 2%. These calculations do not take into account any short-term hits to the economy from Brexit, such as the cost of adjusting the economy to new customs arrangements."
Basically, under every scenario, the UK economy would be worse off than if the country had never decided to leave the EU. Brexit will negatively effect virtually every sector of the economy and even every region of the country. London may lose its pre-eminence as Europe's financial capital. And the much-touted new trade deals with the US, China, India, and countries of Southeast Asia would together potentially add a rounding error of between 0.1% and 0.6% to the UK's GDP. Of course, none of these deals have even begun to be negotiated and will likely take years to complete.
Mrs. May's leadership since the shameful departure of David Cameron has been an unmitigated disaster for the Tories, culminating in the predicted easy consolidation of her majority turning into a coalition government in the last snap election. Of course, the Conservatives themselves have not been able to resolve the stark differences between the pro-Brexit crowd that is still demanding a clean break and those who admit the reality of what Brexit will mean for Britain and are struggling to find a way to keep much of the status quo with the EU in place and still be able to call it "Brexit".
May's seeming resilience in the face of these calamities is merely the result of the truth that no one else really wants her thankless job right now. So the country just drifts along, rudderless, with the economy and the country's services deteriorating, waiting for the Brexit negotiations to come into final form, whereupon another new election, either within the Conservative party or in the country as a whole, will try to determine what exactly the country wants to do next.
Tuesday, January 30, 2018
Republicans May Be Just As Guilty As Trump
I'm completely baffled why there is no serious questioning of why a certain number of Republicans, especially a significant segment in the House of Representatives, are so determined to do everything in their power, potentially even obstructing justice themselves, in order to protect Trump. Most of the pundit class seems to blithely dismiss these Republicans' motivation as simply believing that their electoral prospects are inescapably tied to Trump and nothing more than that.
Unfortunately, as these Republicans take each new step in destroying the pillars of our liberal democracy, it becomes harder and harder to believe that simply supporting Trump is their main motivation. Yesterday's highly partisan actions by the House Intelligence Committee bring that into stark relief. The Committee, on a party line vote, decided to "release the memo", one crafted by the Republicans on the Committee without looking at the underlying intelligence, containing national security information, and whose release is opposed by Trump's own Justice Department on national security grounds. The Committee also voted on a party line basis to not receive a briefing from the FBI on the national security implications of releasing the memo, to block the release of the Democrats' rebuttal of the memo, and informed the Democrats that the Committee had already launched its own investigation into the FBI and the DOJ, a violation of the Committee's own rules by acting unilaterally.
These actions go far beyond simply providing no oversight of Trump and his violations of both the law and our constitutional and democratic norms. They go beyond simply claiming that there has been no evidence of collusion and jawboning that the investigation is a partisan witch hunt. Rather, it is part of a broad pattern among certain Republicans to actually abet the effort to discredit or derail the Mueller investigation.
This proactive effort is not just a handful of rogue Republicans. It apparently has the imprimatur of the House Republican leadership. Paul Ryan could shut down these actions by the Intelligence Committee any time he wanted. He is clearly choosing not to do so. In fact, he is all in on the cover-up. Today, he declared, "There are legitimate questions about whether an American's civil liberties were violated under the FISA process... there may have been malfeasance at the FBI by certain individuals", while trying to maintain the fiction that these "questions" are entirely separate from the Russia investigation.
So the question hangs out there - why, exactly, is the GOP so determined to take active measures to help Trump. On policy alone, Mike Pence would certainly do everything that Trump is doing and with more competence and even credibility. Nothing in the Republican agenda would change with a President Pence. In fact, it might actually be easier for Republicans to get things done with Pence as President. So, protecting Trump is not about protecting their agenda.
Perhaps you could argue that they are determined not to have to face the potentiality of having to have impeachment hearings before the 2018 election. But they are never going to impeach Trump anyway and have no interest or obligation to even begin that process, no matter what evidence Mueller produces. Moreover, they knew that Trump will fight Mueller to the bitter end. There is no real need for them to actively abet Trump in his obstruction. Just standing by and doing nothing except offering verbal support for the President would be sufficient to stay on the good side of the Trump base.
All this leads me to believe that there is a far deeper reason that Republicans, especially those in the House are acting so aggressively against the FBI and Mueller. And that is they are just as guilty as Trump in receiving help, both in money and propaganda, from the Russians. Remember, the overarching goal for Putin is to get rid of the sanctions. But, in 2015, the chances of that were nil until the compromised and corrupted Trump began to look like a possible contender for the Republican nomination. And, even at the height of Russia's efforts starting in late spring of 2016, everyone - the polls, the pundits, and the Russians - had no belief that Trump would win. At that point the goal of the Russian effort was to make sure that Hillary Clinton would be as weak a President as possible and the easiest path to accomplish that was not only to get Trump to attack her but also ensure that Republicans still maintained power in Congress to oppose her.
We know that Guccifer 2.0 shared DNC data on Democratic candidates in swing districts with a Republican operative in Florida who distributed that data within the Republican party. That data was used in races in Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Ohio, Illinois, New Mexico and North Carolina. We know that Paul Ryan refused Nancy Pelosi's request that the GOP not use that stolen data to its own advantage. Both Ryan and McConnell refused to be part of a bipartisan statement naming and condemning the Russian hacking before the election. Interestingly, Ryan also delayed bringing the Russians sanctions bill to the House floor for vote. And it is unlikely that the House or even the Senate will do anything about Trump's refusal to impose new sanctions on buyers of Russian arms, using a loophole in Congressional legislation to do so.
We also know that a Ukrainian-born oligarch, currently with dual US-UK citizenship and whose business partner is a co-partner with Paul Manafort's (and one of Putin's) favorite Russian oligarch, Oleg Deripaska, gave over $7.25 million dollars to the campaigns of Donald Trump and the political action committees for Mitch McConnell, Marco Rubio, Scott Walker, Lindsey Graham, John Kasich and John McCain.
In addition, the FBI is reportedly investigating whether another Russian oligarch illegally funneled millions of dollars to the NRA's dark money PAC. The NRA reportedly spent over $70 million on the 2016 election, much of it reportedly to help Trump. But it is probable that a significant portion also went to supporting down-ballot GOP candidates, especially in swing districts. (Remember when Obama criticized Citizens United in a SOTU as potentially allowing foreign money to infect our elections and Justice Alito mouthed "not true" - hmm, who got that right?)
Finally, Mueller is also apparently looking into how the Republican National Committee's data operation overlapped with Russian social media propaganda. Again, this effort would not only help Trump but down-ballot and swing district Republicans as well.
Ever since Citizens United, Republicans have increasingly come to rely on dark money funding from a handful of plutocrats - the Kochs, the Mercers, Sheldon Adelson, to name a few. For any foreign government trying to interfere in the US democratic process, that dark money funding is an appealing and remarkably easy way to accomplish their goals, as the theory about Russians funneling money to the NRA shows. Whether wittingly or unwittingly, it is certainly conceivable that Republicans in many swing races were being financed by foreign money based on the evidence already presented. Paul Ryan himself showed he had those suspicions when he was caught on tape saying "There's two people, I think, Putin pays: Rohrabacher and Trump".
I have no doubt that foreign money also supports Democratic candidates, as the scandal involving Johnny Chung and Bill Clinton clearly illustrates. The difference, of course, is that Democrats, especially those in Congress, did not systematically abet in the obstruction of justice and attempt to destroy the integrity of the FBI when that investigation was ongoing.
I believe what has been presented above at least indicates the possibility that Republicans up and down the ballot were aided by the Russians, both with money and propaganda, in the 2016 election. There is certainly enough there to warrant further investigation, probably far more evidence than Nunes will put forth in "the memo". And that evidence should at least warrant the possibility that Republicans in Congress have a reason for obstructing, discrediting, and derailing the Mueller investigation that goes far beyond feeling their electoral prospects are tied to Trump, namely that they themselves were also the beneficiaries of the Russian attempt to influence the election and subvert our democracy. It would be nice if the media at least entertained that possibility and focused some energy on how the Republican party, not just Trump, was helped by the Russian hacking.
Unfortunately, as these Republicans take each new step in destroying the pillars of our liberal democracy, it becomes harder and harder to believe that simply supporting Trump is their main motivation. Yesterday's highly partisan actions by the House Intelligence Committee bring that into stark relief. The Committee, on a party line vote, decided to "release the memo", one crafted by the Republicans on the Committee without looking at the underlying intelligence, containing national security information, and whose release is opposed by Trump's own Justice Department on national security grounds. The Committee also voted on a party line basis to not receive a briefing from the FBI on the national security implications of releasing the memo, to block the release of the Democrats' rebuttal of the memo, and informed the Democrats that the Committee had already launched its own investigation into the FBI and the DOJ, a violation of the Committee's own rules by acting unilaterally.
These actions go far beyond simply providing no oversight of Trump and his violations of both the law and our constitutional and democratic norms. They go beyond simply claiming that there has been no evidence of collusion and jawboning that the investigation is a partisan witch hunt. Rather, it is part of a broad pattern among certain Republicans to actually abet the effort to discredit or derail the Mueller investigation.
This proactive effort is not just a handful of rogue Republicans. It apparently has the imprimatur of the House Republican leadership. Paul Ryan could shut down these actions by the Intelligence Committee any time he wanted. He is clearly choosing not to do so. In fact, he is all in on the cover-up. Today, he declared, "There are legitimate questions about whether an American's civil liberties were violated under the FISA process... there may have been malfeasance at the FBI by certain individuals", while trying to maintain the fiction that these "questions" are entirely separate from the Russia investigation.
So the question hangs out there - why, exactly, is the GOP so determined to take active measures to help Trump. On policy alone, Mike Pence would certainly do everything that Trump is doing and with more competence and even credibility. Nothing in the Republican agenda would change with a President Pence. In fact, it might actually be easier for Republicans to get things done with Pence as President. So, protecting Trump is not about protecting their agenda.
Perhaps you could argue that they are determined not to have to face the potentiality of having to have impeachment hearings before the 2018 election. But they are never going to impeach Trump anyway and have no interest or obligation to even begin that process, no matter what evidence Mueller produces. Moreover, they knew that Trump will fight Mueller to the bitter end. There is no real need for them to actively abet Trump in his obstruction. Just standing by and doing nothing except offering verbal support for the President would be sufficient to stay on the good side of the Trump base.
All this leads me to believe that there is a far deeper reason that Republicans, especially those in the House are acting so aggressively against the FBI and Mueller. And that is they are just as guilty as Trump in receiving help, both in money and propaganda, from the Russians. Remember, the overarching goal for Putin is to get rid of the sanctions. But, in 2015, the chances of that were nil until the compromised and corrupted Trump began to look like a possible contender for the Republican nomination. And, even at the height of Russia's efforts starting in late spring of 2016, everyone - the polls, the pundits, and the Russians - had no belief that Trump would win. At that point the goal of the Russian effort was to make sure that Hillary Clinton would be as weak a President as possible and the easiest path to accomplish that was not only to get Trump to attack her but also ensure that Republicans still maintained power in Congress to oppose her.
We know that Guccifer 2.0 shared DNC data on Democratic candidates in swing districts with a Republican operative in Florida who distributed that data within the Republican party. That data was used in races in Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Ohio, Illinois, New Mexico and North Carolina. We know that Paul Ryan refused Nancy Pelosi's request that the GOP not use that stolen data to its own advantage. Both Ryan and McConnell refused to be part of a bipartisan statement naming and condemning the Russian hacking before the election. Interestingly, Ryan also delayed bringing the Russians sanctions bill to the House floor for vote. And it is unlikely that the House or even the Senate will do anything about Trump's refusal to impose new sanctions on buyers of Russian arms, using a loophole in Congressional legislation to do so.
We also know that a Ukrainian-born oligarch, currently with dual US-UK citizenship and whose business partner is a co-partner with Paul Manafort's (and one of Putin's) favorite Russian oligarch, Oleg Deripaska, gave over $7.25 million dollars to the campaigns of Donald Trump and the political action committees for Mitch McConnell, Marco Rubio, Scott Walker, Lindsey Graham, John Kasich and John McCain.
In addition, the FBI is reportedly investigating whether another Russian oligarch illegally funneled millions of dollars to the NRA's dark money PAC. The NRA reportedly spent over $70 million on the 2016 election, much of it reportedly to help Trump. But it is probable that a significant portion also went to supporting down-ballot GOP candidates, especially in swing districts. (Remember when Obama criticized Citizens United in a SOTU as potentially allowing foreign money to infect our elections and Justice Alito mouthed "not true" - hmm, who got that right?)
Finally, Mueller is also apparently looking into how the Republican National Committee's data operation overlapped with Russian social media propaganda. Again, this effort would not only help Trump but down-ballot and swing district Republicans as well.
Ever since Citizens United, Republicans have increasingly come to rely on dark money funding from a handful of plutocrats - the Kochs, the Mercers, Sheldon Adelson, to name a few. For any foreign government trying to interfere in the US democratic process, that dark money funding is an appealing and remarkably easy way to accomplish their goals, as the theory about Russians funneling money to the NRA shows. Whether wittingly or unwittingly, it is certainly conceivable that Republicans in many swing races were being financed by foreign money based on the evidence already presented. Paul Ryan himself showed he had those suspicions when he was caught on tape saying "There's two people, I think, Putin pays: Rohrabacher and Trump".
I have no doubt that foreign money also supports Democratic candidates, as the scandal involving Johnny Chung and Bill Clinton clearly illustrates. The difference, of course, is that Democrats, especially those in Congress, did not systematically abet in the obstruction of justice and attempt to destroy the integrity of the FBI when that investigation was ongoing.
I believe what has been presented above at least indicates the possibility that Republicans up and down the ballot were aided by the Russians, both with money and propaganda, in the 2016 election. There is certainly enough there to warrant further investigation, probably far more evidence than Nunes will put forth in "the memo". And that evidence should at least warrant the possibility that Republicans in Congress have a reason for obstructing, discrediting, and derailing the Mueller investigation that goes far beyond feeling their electoral prospects are tied to Trump, namely that they themselves were also the beneficiaries of the Russian attempt to influence the election and subvert our democracy. It would be nice if the media at least entertained that possibility and focused some energy on how the Republican party, not just Trump, was helped by the Russian hacking.
Monday, January 29, 2018
The Wizard And The Woz Rule Down Under In The Land Of Oz
The Australian Open is often the most difficult major to handicap. First, it is really the beginning of the tennis year and it is hard to read just what kind of form the players have coming into the tournament. In addition, the conditions in Melbourne can be brutal and one long match in the oppressive heat can really mean the end of the tournament, even for the winner. And this year it was no different.
The men's draw was kind of a lopsided affair. Roger Federer was in the bottom half of the draw with a handful of giant killers including Novak Djokovic, who was returning from injury, up and comers Alex Zverev and Dominick Thiem, and the always power-packed Juan Martin del Potro and Tomas Berdych. The top half was kind of thin with #1 Rafa Nadal also back from injury but not having played a warmup tournament coming into the event. I had predicted that his only competition in his half of the draw would be Gregor Dmitrov, Marin Cilic, or injury. That turned out to be prophetic.
Bizarrely, Federer's half of the draw just opened up for him. Zverev faded in that final two sets to lose South Korea's Hyeon Chung in five. Chung followed that up with another surprising victory over Djokovic, whose elbow injury clearly was still bothering him, in three tight sets. Thiem also faded in the conditions in losing to the surprising American journeyman and appropriately named Tennys Sandgren in five grueling sets. Berdych easily dispatched del Potro and Federer easily dispatched Berdych and advanced to the final without losing a set.
Nadal seemed back in form and well on his way to advancing to the final as well, creating the match-up tennis fans have been dreaming of since last year's thrilling final. Nadal won a third set tiebreak against Cilic in the quarterfinal to go up two sets to one but fell apart in the fourth and eventually retired down 0-2 in the fifth. Thankfully, it was not the knee injury that had kept him out of action for the last six months. Instead it was a hip injury incurred early in that disastrous fourth set.
That set up a Federer-Cilic final. Federer got off to a quick start as Cilic seemed to have difficulty finding his range and Fed took an easy first set. Cilic righted himself in the second and won a tiebreak to tie it up at one set apiece. Federer then broke early and took the third and was up a break, 3-1, in the fourth, seemingly in full control, when he fell apart, his serve completely deserting him, and Cilic came alive. Cilic won five games on the trot and we went to a fifth set. The set was really decided in the first three games, where both players had break chances. Federer converted the ones he had and Cilic didn't, letting Roger race out to a 3-0 lead that he never relinquished. My pre-tourney prediction wasn't too bad. I had Fed beating Nadal in 5. Instead it was Cilic.
This was Federer's 20th Grand Slam title, in addition to his 10 runner-up finishes. And, based on the rare show of emotion afterward, it was one that meant a lot to him. Sometime back in 2014 when Federer was recovering from his disastrous 2013 season, he said he still thought he could win 20 majors. With the way he was playing at that time and the ascendancy of Djokovic and Nadal, even I doubted him. But Federer rebuilt his game and proved his doubters wrong. And proved once again that he is surely the greatest of all time.
While Federer's historic win was the story of the men's draw, the entire women's tournament was simply a feast for tennis fans. Without Serena Williams here, the draw was wide open and two women who have been top players for years but had yet to win a major, Caroline Wozniacki and Simona Halep, were perfectly positioned to finally break through. But neither were locks either as the results during to the two weeks showed.
The first shocker came when my pick to win it all, Garbine Muguruza, was simply destroyed by 32 year-old Taiwanese doubles specialist Su-Wei Hsieh. Hsieh hits two-handed from both sides and was simply an assassin with her drop shots and the precision, rather than power, of her ground strokes. Hsieh had played one of the most bizarre matches in her previous round, winning 0-6, 6-0, 8-6. She followed up her win over Muguruza by dispatching Aggie Radwanska in two sets as well. And it looked like she would do the same to a resurgent Angie Kerber when she went up a break in the second but couldn't hold on and ran out of gas in the third, bringing an end to one of the surprising and unique runs of the tournament. Kerber herself had dispatched Maria Sharapova with ease in the prior round. And she also dispatched a truly listless and uninspired Madison Keys in the quarters after her match with Hsieh. Kerber, who was dominant in 2016, was truly awful in 2017, losing faith in her serve and her ground strokes, but seems to have finally regained her form.
Meanwhile, it appeared that Halep and Wozniacki were still cruising along to meet in the final. That changed when Halep faced American Lauren Davis in the round of 32. Davis' powerful ground strokes kept Halep on defense and in permanent retrieval mode. It looked like a major upset when Davis was able to serve for the match in the second but Halep kept fighting, broke back, and won the set 6-4. There followed an epic 2 hour and 22 minute third set, filled with multiple breaks, with multiple match points for both players, and brutally long and physical rallies. Davis had to be treated for toe issues and Halep was clearly hampered by her ankle which she rolled in the first round. In the end, Halep won this intense battle of wills 15-13 in the final set. An incredible stat that just shows the high caliber of play and the defensive capabilities of Halep, Davis' backhand was clocked with the highest average speed of any player, man or woman, in a single match in the tournament.
But Halep wasn't done with that kind of magic and determination. In the semifinal she faced the resurgent Kerber and it was Halep who looked destined for a quick two-set victory when she went up a break in the second set. But this time it was Kerber who kept fighting, broke back, and went on to win the set 6-4. That led to another wild third set, again with multiple breaks, multiple chances to serve for the match, and more long, punishing points with both players have two chances at match point. In the end, Halep again won the battle of wills 9-7.
That set up the final against Wozniacki, with both players seeking their first major and the winner taking the #1 ranking. Wozniacki raced out to a 4-1 lead in the opening set as Halep just looked totally depleted after two weeks of battle and an astonishing 11.5 hours on court. But, again, Halep fought back and forced a tiebreak which she eventually lost rather easily. And it looked like it might be clear sailing for Wozniacki in the second when Halep called the trainers and had her blood pressure taken. But that actually seemed to revive Halep who ran off three straight games to take the set 6-3 and set up another wild and dramatic final set. Again, both players broke each other early in the set but could never consolidate those breaks. Halep often looked to be simply just hanging on as these two defensive players played more long, punishing points but seemingly took control when she broke Wozniacki to take a 4-3 lead. This time it was Wozniacki who called for the trainers to attend to a knee problem and, like Halep in the second, seemed to be rejuvenated by that visit. Wozniacki ran off the next three games to win the title 6-4 in the third as Halep was just physically spent. A disappointed Halep had to later be taken to the hospital for a short time to be treated for heat exhaustion.
The wins for both Federer and Wozniacki were redemptions for both players. This is Federer's third title in the last year, proving that his decision to revamp his game a few years ago was the right one. He now keeps the points shorter and perhaps is less balletic than in the past, but the results are the same. And this year, the draw broke his way in a most favorable way. The only sets he lost were in the finals.
Similarly, Wozniacki had relied on her brilliant defense to become #1 in the world. But that was six years ago and she hadn't been to a Grand Slam final in four years. In 2016, she fell out of the top 50 and her career seemed to be ending. Instead, she rebuilt her game from the ground up and became a far more attacking and powerful player. And that paid off this year, as she finally won a Grand Slam and regained #1 status. It is a real testament to her drive and determination to make such a dramatic change in her game at that stage of her career and it was deservedly rewarded.
Wozniacki's success should be a lesson for Halep. I had predicted that Muguruza would face Wozniacki in the final, primarily because I didn't think Halep could play her defensive style and still survive to the final in the tough Australian conditions. But she proved me wrong. In the end, however, she had just spent too much time on court. By the time the third set had started in the final, Halep had spent over 13 hours on court in some of the most grueling matches of the tournament. She simply had nothing left. Halep has gotten better at being playing aggressive tennis - she had an impressive number of winners in the final. As Wozniacki's win shows, if Halep can just continue down that path and rely less on her defensive skills, that elusive grand Slam victory will come.
It will be interesting to see what happens when Serena Williams returns to action in a month or so. She has been so dominant over the years. But it is clear that, even without Williams, the women's tour is enormously competitive and can provide some wildly entertaining matches, even more so than the men.
In any case, the Australian Open got the tennis year off to a fabulous start, providing an historic win on the men's side, a first-time winner on the women's, and a boatload of entertaining tennis. What more could we ask for.
The men's draw was kind of a lopsided affair. Roger Federer was in the bottom half of the draw with a handful of giant killers including Novak Djokovic, who was returning from injury, up and comers Alex Zverev and Dominick Thiem, and the always power-packed Juan Martin del Potro and Tomas Berdych. The top half was kind of thin with #1 Rafa Nadal also back from injury but not having played a warmup tournament coming into the event. I had predicted that his only competition in his half of the draw would be Gregor Dmitrov, Marin Cilic, or injury. That turned out to be prophetic.
Bizarrely, Federer's half of the draw just opened up for him. Zverev faded in that final two sets to lose South Korea's Hyeon Chung in five. Chung followed that up with another surprising victory over Djokovic, whose elbow injury clearly was still bothering him, in three tight sets. Thiem also faded in the conditions in losing to the surprising American journeyman and appropriately named Tennys Sandgren in five grueling sets. Berdych easily dispatched del Potro and Federer easily dispatched Berdych and advanced to the final without losing a set.
Nadal seemed back in form and well on his way to advancing to the final as well, creating the match-up tennis fans have been dreaming of since last year's thrilling final. Nadal won a third set tiebreak against Cilic in the quarterfinal to go up two sets to one but fell apart in the fourth and eventually retired down 0-2 in the fifth. Thankfully, it was not the knee injury that had kept him out of action for the last six months. Instead it was a hip injury incurred early in that disastrous fourth set.
That set up a Federer-Cilic final. Federer got off to a quick start as Cilic seemed to have difficulty finding his range and Fed took an easy first set. Cilic righted himself in the second and won a tiebreak to tie it up at one set apiece. Federer then broke early and took the third and was up a break, 3-1, in the fourth, seemingly in full control, when he fell apart, his serve completely deserting him, and Cilic came alive. Cilic won five games on the trot and we went to a fifth set. The set was really decided in the first three games, where both players had break chances. Federer converted the ones he had and Cilic didn't, letting Roger race out to a 3-0 lead that he never relinquished. My pre-tourney prediction wasn't too bad. I had Fed beating Nadal in 5. Instead it was Cilic.
This was Federer's 20th Grand Slam title, in addition to his 10 runner-up finishes. And, based on the rare show of emotion afterward, it was one that meant a lot to him. Sometime back in 2014 when Federer was recovering from his disastrous 2013 season, he said he still thought he could win 20 majors. With the way he was playing at that time and the ascendancy of Djokovic and Nadal, even I doubted him. But Federer rebuilt his game and proved his doubters wrong. And proved once again that he is surely the greatest of all time.
While Federer's historic win was the story of the men's draw, the entire women's tournament was simply a feast for tennis fans. Without Serena Williams here, the draw was wide open and two women who have been top players for years but had yet to win a major, Caroline Wozniacki and Simona Halep, were perfectly positioned to finally break through. But neither were locks either as the results during to the two weeks showed.
The first shocker came when my pick to win it all, Garbine Muguruza, was simply destroyed by 32 year-old Taiwanese doubles specialist Su-Wei Hsieh. Hsieh hits two-handed from both sides and was simply an assassin with her drop shots and the precision, rather than power, of her ground strokes. Hsieh had played one of the most bizarre matches in her previous round, winning 0-6, 6-0, 8-6. She followed up her win over Muguruza by dispatching Aggie Radwanska in two sets as well. And it looked like she would do the same to a resurgent Angie Kerber when she went up a break in the second but couldn't hold on and ran out of gas in the third, bringing an end to one of the surprising and unique runs of the tournament. Kerber herself had dispatched Maria Sharapova with ease in the prior round. And she also dispatched a truly listless and uninspired Madison Keys in the quarters after her match with Hsieh. Kerber, who was dominant in 2016, was truly awful in 2017, losing faith in her serve and her ground strokes, but seems to have finally regained her form.
Meanwhile, it appeared that Halep and Wozniacki were still cruising along to meet in the final. That changed when Halep faced American Lauren Davis in the round of 32. Davis' powerful ground strokes kept Halep on defense and in permanent retrieval mode. It looked like a major upset when Davis was able to serve for the match in the second but Halep kept fighting, broke back, and won the set 6-4. There followed an epic 2 hour and 22 minute third set, filled with multiple breaks, with multiple match points for both players, and brutally long and physical rallies. Davis had to be treated for toe issues and Halep was clearly hampered by her ankle which she rolled in the first round. In the end, Halep won this intense battle of wills 15-13 in the final set. An incredible stat that just shows the high caliber of play and the defensive capabilities of Halep, Davis' backhand was clocked with the highest average speed of any player, man or woman, in a single match in the tournament.
But Halep wasn't done with that kind of magic and determination. In the semifinal she faced the resurgent Kerber and it was Halep who looked destined for a quick two-set victory when she went up a break in the second set. But this time it was Kerber who kept fighting, broke back, and went on to win the set 6-4. That led to another wild third set, again with multiple breaks, multiple chances to serve for the match, and more long, punishing points with both players have two chances at match point. In the end, Halep again won the battle of wills 9-7.
That set up the final against Wozniacki, with both players seeking their first major and the winner taking the #1 ranking. Wozniacki raced out to a 4-1 lead in the opening set as Halep just looked totally depleted after two weeks of battle and an astonishing 11.5 hours on court. But, again, Halep fought back and forced a tiebreak which she eventually lost rather easily. And it looked like it might be clear sailing for Wozniacki in the second when Halep called the trainers and had her blood pressure taken. But that actually seemed to revive Halep who ran off three straight games to take the set 6-3 and set up another wild and dramatic final set. Again, both players broke each other early in the set but could never consolidate those breaks. Halep often looked to be simply just hanging on as these two defensive players played more long, punishing points but seemingly took control when she broke Wozniacki to take a 4-3 lead. This time it was Wozniacki who called for the trainers to attend to a knee problem and, like Halep in the second, seemed to be rejuvenated by that visit. Wozniacki ran off the next three games to win the title 6-4 in the third as Halep was just physically spent. A disappointed Halep had to later be taken to the hospital for a short time to be treated for heat exhaustion.
The wins for both Federer and Wozniacki were redemptions for both players. This is Federer's third title in the last year, proving that his decision to revamp his game a few years ago was the right one. He now keeps the points shorter and perhaps is less balletic than in the past, but the results are the same. And this year, the draw broke his way in a most favorable way. The only sets he lost were in the finals.
Similarly, Wozniacki had relied on her brilliant defense to become #1 in the world. But that was six years ago and she hadn't been to a Grand Slam final in four years. In 2016, she fell out of the top 50 and her career seemed to be ending. Instead, she rebuilt her game from the ground up and became a far more attacking and powerful player. And that paid off this year, as she finally won a Grand Slam and regained #1 status. It is a real testament to her drive and determination to make such a dramatic change in her game at that stage of her career and it was deservedly rewarded.
Wozniacki's success should be a lesson for Halep. I had predicted that Muguruza would face Wozniacki in the final, primarily because I didn't think Halep could play her defensive style and still survive to the final in the tough Australian conditions. But she proved me wrong. In the end, however, she had just spent too much time on court. By the time the third set had started in the final, Halep had spent over 13 hours on court in some of the most grueling matches of the tournament. She simply had nothing left. Halep has gotten better at being playing aggressive tennis - she had an impressive number of winners in the final. As Wozniacki's win shows, if Halep can just continue down that path and rely less on her defensive skills, that elusive grand Slam victory will come.
It will be interesting to see what happens when Serena Williams returns to action in a month or so. She has been so dominant over the years. But it is clear that, even without Williams, the women's tour is enormously competitive and can provide some wildly entertaining matches, even more so than the men.
In any case, the Australian Open got the tennis year off to a fabulous start, providing an historic win on the men's side, a first-time winner on the women's, and a boatload of entertaining tennis. What more could we ask for.
Sunday, January 28, 2018
Trump, Obstruction, Intent, And White Collar Crime
I know that most responsible journalists and lawyers are loathe to prejudge any legal case before they actually see it. But with the revelation that Trump ordered that Robert Mueller be fired and was only prevented from doing so by the threat of resignation by White House Counsel Don McGahn, the evidence of obstruction of justice is now simply overwhelming.
Last December, New York Magazine put together a list of 19 incidents where Trump could be construed to be obstructing justice. That was before we knew of the abortive Mueller firing and the depth of Trump's attacks on McCabe, Wray, and other officials in the FBI. But, as we have heard for most of the weekend, in order to prove that Trump actually obstructed justice, it will be necessary to show the he had "corrupt intent". Usually intent is incredibly hard to prove but, with Trump, we not only see a pattern of behavior that fits into obstruction but Trump's own words have shown that many of his actions were driven by the desire to shut down the Russia investigation, words that belied the earlier stated reasons given.
But you can already see the President's defense against the obstruction charge building. Mueller may have lots of testimony from multiple sources about Trump's statements and frame of mind during many of the potential obstruction of justice episodes. But, as Chis Hayes noted on All In on Friday night, Trump has a remarkable penchant for not remembering conversations and details both when under oath and when pressed by reporters about discussions regarding the Russia investigation. When being deposed in the Trump University case, Trump replied with the "unable to remember" defense 35 times.
The other part of the defense against "corrupt intent" is that all this sturm und drang is simply Trump being Trump. Trump himself describes it as simply "fighting back" but not obstruction. Under this theory, threatening to fire people and railing that the investigation needs to be shut down is simply normal Trump behavior, not any indication of real intent. As one former senior adviser during the Trump campaign says, "Some people still either don’t understand the difference between the president’s bark and his bite, or they’re more than willing to take advantage of the bark to assume that it was a bite. Trust me, everybody on the campaign was ‘fired’ more than once, but it never really happened."
Michael Wolff actually supported this theory in his interview with Lawrence O'Donnell on Last Word. He described Trump's continual ranting and demands to fire everyone involved in the Russia investigation as basically "wallpaper", a kind of white noise that was permanently droning on. A similar take came from Joe Manchin today when he described Trump's attempt to fire Mueller as simply "New York talk".
Others defend Trump, claiming that all he is looking for is loyalty among his subordinates and that does not constitute obstruction of justice. One of those defenders, Newt Gingrich, a man who embodies the Republican destruction of our constitutional and democratic rules and norms, says, "Of course the president ought to be able to expect loyalty. He is the chosen president of the United States by the American people, and he is the chief executive. If they’re not loyal to him, who the hell are they supposed to be loyal to?" The answer, of course, is not a who but a what, and that is the Constitution of the United States. Certainly, Trump has every right to fire someone who disobeys a lawful order but he has no right to force someone to obey an unlawful order or to pervert the course of justice.
"Mens rea" is one of the most important concepts in criminal law. Essentially, a crime is only committed when the accused committed it with "criminal intent, purpose, knowledge, belief, recklessness, or the like." Without that "guilty mindset", there is no crime, unless the criminal statute specifically states otherwise. For many crimes, such as drug trafficking, burglary or shoplifting, the act itself is enough to show that criminal intent. That intent is often harder to discern in actions that may be what we call white-collar crimes.
White-collar crime has no real definition. According to one scholar, "a white collar crime should be defined by reference to what it is not: a crime that “(a) necessarily involve[s] force against a person or property; (b) directly relate[s] to the possession, sale, or distribution of narcotics; (c) directly relate[s] to organized crime activities; (d) directly relate[s] to such national policies as immigration, civil rights, and national security; or (e) directly involve[s] ‘vice' crimes or the common theft of property". It usually, but not always, involves financial crimes of one sort or another. As opposed to the crimes mentioned above, however, the act itself is often not enough to show intent. In fact, the vast majority of white-collar cases revolve around the question of intent because the underlying actions themselves are not necessarily crimes.
This almost exclusive focus on intent is exactly why it is so hard to prosecute white-collar crime. And, as we see with Trump, it is very easy for a defendant to try and obfuscate his actual mindset. Richard Scrushy was the CEO of a company called HealthSouth, a global healthcare company. After an FBI investigation of the company in which five consecutive chief financial officers of the company admitted to cooking the books and all claimed Scrushy not only knew about the ongoing fraud but also pressured them to do so, Scrushy was indicted on multiple counts of conspiracy, money laundering, and mail and securities fraud. He was the first CEO to be prosecuted under Sarbanes-Oxley, a bill passed in the wake of Enron's collapse to make CEOs actually accountable for the fraud in their companies. Yet Scrushy managed to be acquitted on all counts, primarily by focusing on the fact that he was too busy trying to build his dream company to focus on those financial issues and the prosecutors could produce no physical evidence linking Scrushy to the accounting fraud. Scrushy was also aided by his appeal to the local jury pool in Birmingham where the company and the trial were located. In the end, he was acquitted on all counts. He was subsequently convicted of other crimes relating to a bribery scandal involving the Alabama governor.
In many ways, obstruction of justice is just another form of white collar crime where intent actually determines the crime. Considering that Trump will probably not be indicted but rather recommended for impeachment by Congress, the fact that Republicans will be the majority of the so-called jury pool and that most of them are already inclined to give Trump the benefit of the doubt, it is highly likely that Trump's fate will be the same as Richard Scrushy's in his original trial, acquittal.
There are really two lessons here. First, Robert Mueller really needs something more than obstruction of justice to bring down Trump. Money laundering would seem the more likely candidate at this point, even more than collusion with Russia. Second, Americans need to think long and hard about how we can put more teeth into prosecuting white-collar crime instead of having to almost exclusively rely on divining intent. That focus actually encourages a degree of willful ignorance, especially by corporate executives who "know" what's going on but don't want to know the details. It is clear that, at least in the securities industry, Sarbanes-Oxley has been a total failure considering all the Wall Street executives that have walked away scot-free over the last decade. That would mean strengthening the law to make certain acts themselves evidence of guilty intent as exists in much of the current blue-collar criminal statutes.
Last December, New York Magazine put together a list of 19 incidents where Trump could be construed to be obstructing justice. That was before we knew of the abortive Mueller firing and the depth of Trump's attacks on McCabe, Wray, and other officials in the FBI. But, as we have heard for most of the weekend, in order to prove that Trump actually obstructed justice, it will be necessary to show the he had "corrupt intent". Usually intent is incredibly hard to prove but, with Trump, we not only see a pattern of behavior that fits into obstruction but Trump's own words have shown that many of his actions were driven by the desire to shut down the Russia investigation, words that belied the earlier stated reasons given.
But you can already see the President's defense against the obstruction charge building. Mueller may have lots of testimony from multiple sources about Trump's statements and frame of mind during many of the potential obstruction of justice episodes. But, as Chis Hayes noted on All In on Friday night, Trump has a remarkable penchant for not remembering conversations and details both when under oath and when pressed by reporters about discussions regarding the Russia investigation. When being deposed in the Trump University case, Trump replied with the "unable to remember" defense 35 times.
The other part of the defense against "corrupt intent" is that all this sturm und drang is simply Trump being Trump. Trump himself describes it as simply "fighting back" but not obstruction. Under this theory, threatening to fire people and railing that the investigation needs to be shut down is simply normal Trump behavior, not any indication of real intent. As one former senior adviser during the Trump campaign says, "Some people still either don’t understand the difference between the president’s bark and his bite, or they’re more than willing to take advantage of the bark to assume that it was a bite. Trust me, everybody on the campaign was ‘fired’ more than once, but it never really happened."
Michael Wolff actually supported this theory in his interview with Lawrence O'Donnell on Last Word. He described Trump's continual ranting and demands to fire everyone involved in the Russia investigation as basically "wallpaper", a kind of white noise that was permanently droning on. A similar take came from Joe Manchin today when he described Trump's attempt to fire Mueller as simply "New York talk".
Others defend Trump, claiming that all he is looking for is loyalty among his subordinates and that does not constitute obstruction of justice. One of those defenders, Newt Gingrich, a man who embodies the Republican destruction of our constitutional and democratic rules and norms, says, "Of course the president ought to be able to expect loyalty. He is the chosen president of the United States by the American people, and he is the chief executive. If they’re not loyal to him, who the hell are they supposed to be loyal to?" The answer, of course, is not a who but a what, and that is the Constitution of the United States. Certainly, Trump has every right to fire someone who disobeys a lawful order but he has no right to force someone to obey an unlawful order or to pervert the course of justice.
"Mens rea" is one of the most important concepts in criminal law. Essentially, a crime is only committed when the accused committed it with "criminal intent, purpose, knowledge, belief, recklessness, or the like." Without that "guilty mindset", there is no crime, unless the criminal statute specifically states otherwise. For many crimes, such as drug trafficking, burglary or shoplifting, the act itself is enough to show that criminal intent. That intent is often harder to discern in actions that may be what we call white-collar crimes.
White-collar crime has no real definition. According to one scholar, "a white collar crime should be defined by reference to what it is not: a crime that “(a) necessarily involve[s] force against a person or property; (b) directly relate[s] to the possession, sale, or distribution of narcotics; (c) directly relate[s] to organized crime activities; (d) directly relate[s] to such national policies as immigration, civil rights, and national security; or (e) directly involve[s] ‘vice' crimes or the common theft of property". It usually, but not always, involves financial crimes of one sort or another. As opposed to the crimes mentioned above, however, the act itself is often not enough to show intent. In fact, the vast majority of white-collar cases revolve around the question of intent because the underlying actions themselves are not necessarily crimes.
This almost exclusive focus on intent is exactly why it is so hard to prosecute white-collar crime. And, as we see with Trump, it is very easy for a defendant to try and obfuscate his actual mindset. Richard Scrushy was the CEO of a company called HealthSouth, a global healthcare company. After an FBI investigation of the company in which five consecutive chief financial officers of the company admitted to cooking the books and all claimed Scrushy not only knew about the ongoing fraud but also pressured them to do so, Scrushy was indicted on multiple counts of conspiracy, money laundering, and mail and securities fraud. He was the first CEO to be prosecuted under Sarbanes-Oxley, a bill passed in the wake of Enron's collapse to make CEOs actually accountable for the fraud in their companies. Yet Scrushy managed to be acquitted on all counts, primarily by focusing on the fact that he was too busy trying to build his dream company to focus on those financial issues and the prosecutors could produce no physical evidence linking Scrushy to the accounting fraud. Scrushy was also aided by his appeal to the local jury pool in Birmingham where the company and the trial were located. In the end, he was acquitted on all counts. He was subsequently convicted of other crimes relating to a bribery scandal involving the Alabama governor.
In many ways, obstruction of justice is just another form of white collar crime where intent actually determines the crime. Considering that Trump will probably not be indicted but rather recommended for impeachment by Congress, the fact that Republicans will be the majority of the so-called jury pool and that most of them are already inclined to give Trump the benefit of the doubt, it is highly likely that Trump's fate will be the same as Richard Scrushy's in his original trial, acquittal.
There are really two lessons here. First, Robert Mueller really needs something more than obstruction of justice to bring down Trump. Money laundering would seem the more likely candidate at this point, even more than collusion with Russia. Second, Americans need to think long and hard about how we can put more teeth into prosecuting white-collar crime instead of having to almost exclusively rely on divining intent. That focus actually encourages a degree of willful ignorance, especially by corporate executives who "know" what's going on but don't want to know the details. It is clear that, at least in the securities industry, Sarbanes-Oxley has been a total failure considering all the Wall Street executives that have walked away scot-free over the last decade. That would mean strengthening the law to make certain acts themselves evidence of guilty intent as exists in much of the current blue-collar criminal statutes.
Natural Weekends - More Foggy Days
Above is an optical illusion where Long Island actually appears above the fog covering most of Long Island Sound.
A crow sits in the rain...
Saturday, January 27, 2018
Sam Brownback And The Republican Legacy
You really have to admire the chutzpah of now former Kansas Governor Sam Brownback. Brownback, with the advice of the tax-cutting economist Arthur Laffer and the help of his Republican-dominated legislature, passed the largest tax cut in Kansas history back in 2013. Embracing the same principles that we see in the latest tax cut passed in Congress last month, Brownback and the Republicans promised on explosion in business and job creation and an associated increase in wages and tax receipts.
The reality, however, turned out to be far different. In the first year alone, the state's revenues dropped by 20%, over $700 million, overwhelming the $300 million in additional revenue that Brownback had promised would be created over the next five years until 2018. Over the next few years, the Kansas economy was not the job-creating machine that Brownback had also promised. Instead, the state lagged far behind it neighbors in both job and income growth.
In the wake of this evidence, Brownback did not rethink his policies one iota, instead doubling down on his promises of a booming future just around the corner. Even so, the reality of a balanced state budget had to be dealt with. Brownback's answer was to privatize Medicaid, throw thousands off the welfare rolls, raid the state's transportation fund, and gut the funding for education in the state. The result was that schools in a number of school districts around the state were forced to close weeks before the end of the school year simply because they had run out of money. Eventually, the State Supreme Court weighed in and forced Brownback and the Republicans to properly and equitably fund education in the state.
Finally, even the Republicans in the legislature bailed out on Brownback and his policies, passing a massive tax increase over Brownback's veto in 2017 in order to deal with the nearly $1 trillion deficit the state faced over the years 2017 and 2018. In addition, the legislature passed a bill to increase educational funding by around $200 million over that same two year period. That bill was signed by Brownback but rejected as insufficient by the state Supreme Court who demanded a new plan be in place by the end of June, 2018.
Brownback is term-limited and will not be able to run again this year. Instead, he was nominated to be Trump's roving ambassador for religious freedom and was finally confirmed with Mike Pence's tiebreaking vote this week.
But before his confirmation, Brownback was able to give his last state-of-the-state speech. With the knowledge that in a matter of days he would no longer be responsible for the disaster he had created and the looming requirements of the State Supreme Court, Brownback actually had the nerve to ask for an additional $600 million in education funding over the next five years. Unsurprisingly, he proposed no way to pay for this additional spending other than to say he would not propose any new tax increases. Of course, he won't be proposing anything at all for Kansas any more. But it certainly takes more than a little chutzpah for Brownback to suddenly become interested in funding education considering how much his policies have decimated it in the prior five years.
This is, however, our recurring national nightmare. Ronald Reagan and the Republicans passed massive unfunded tax cuts in 1981 and it took tax increases under both Republicans and Democrats in 1986, 1990, and 1993 for the government to recover. Whereupon George W. Bush and the Republicans passed another enormous unfunded tax cut in 2001 which, along with the Great Recession, caused the debt to explode and from which we have still not fully recovered. Now Trump and the Republicans have passed another massive unfunded tax cut. Of course, that is part of the GOP strategy, to starve the government of funds to actually do its job And like Brownback and those before him, they will walk away from the disaster they have created and leave it to Democrats and the rest of us to clean up the mess. And then be ready to do it all over again.
The reality, however, turned out to be far different. In the first year alone, the state's revenues dropped by 20%, over $700 million, overwhelming the $300 million in additional revenue that Brownback had promised would be created over the next five years until 2018. Over the next few years, the Kansas economy was not the job-creating machine that Brownback had also promised. Instead, the state lagged far behind it neighbors in both job and income growth.
In the wake of this evidence, Brownback did not rethink his policies one iota, instead doubling down on his promises of a booming future just around the corner. Even so, the reality of a balanced state budget had to be dealt with. Brownback's answer was to privatize Medicaid, throw thousands off the welfare rolls, raid the state's transportation fund, and gut the funding for education in the state. The result was that schools in a number of school districts around the state were forced to close weeks before the end of the school year simply because they had run out of money. Eventually, the State Supreme Court weighed in and forced Brownback and the Republicans to properly and equitably fund education in the state.
Finally, even the Republicans in the legislature bailed out on Brownback and his policies, passing a massive tax increase over Brownback's veto in 2017 in order to deal with the nearly $1 trillion deficit the state faced over the years 2017 and 2018. In addition, the legislature passed a bill to increase educational funding by around $200 million over that same two year period. That bill was signed by Brownback but rejected as insufficient by the state Supreme Court who demanded a new plan be in place by the end of June, 2018.
Brownback is term-limited and will not be able to run again this year. Instead, he was nominated to be Trump's roving ambassador for religious freedom and was finally confirmed with Mike Pence's tiebreaking vote this week.
But before his confirmation, Brownback was able to give his last state-of-the-state speech. With the knowledge that in a matter of days he would no longer be responsible for the disaster he had created and the looming requirements of the State Supreme Court, Brownback actually had the nerve to ask for an additional $600 million in education funding over the next five years. Unsurprisingly, he proposed no way to pay for this additional spending other than to say he would not propose any new tax increases. Of course, he won't be proposing anything at all for Kansas any more. But it certainly takes more than a little chutzpah for Brownback to suddenly become interested in funding education considering how much his policies have decimated it in the prior five years.
This is, however, our recurring national nightmare. Ronald Reagan and the Republicans passed massive unfunded tax cuts in 1981 and it took tax increases under both Republicans and Democrats in 1986, 1990, and 1993 for the government to recover. Whereupon George W. Bush and the Republicans passed another enormous unfunded tax cut in 2001 which, along with the Great Recession, caused the debt to explode and from which we have still not fully recovered. Now Trump and the Republicans have passed another massive unfunded tax cut. Of course, that is part of the GOP strategy, to starve the government of funds to actually do its job And like Brownback and those before him, they will walk away from the disaster they have created and leave it to Democrats and the rest of us to clean up the mess. And then be ready to do it all over again.
Friday, January 26, 2018
New Study Shows How Rural Areas Have Been Hardest Hit By Industry Consolidation
I think everyone can agree that monopoly power usually results in not only higher prices but also worse service. Increasingly, there is also evidence that monopoly power also restricts wage growth. That is the conclusion of a new working paper out of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER).
The New York Times summarizes the paper as showing "that wages fell when fewer employers in a geographic area listed most of the jobs in an occupation". The study looked at job postings from 2010 to 2013 and not only discovered that millions of Americans live in areas where just a few employers posted job opportunities but that when the number of employers actually posting listings decreased, even if the number of postings remained static, wages also decreased.
But the critical part of this analysis is that it details how undue concentration in certain industries has actually hit rural communities far harder than urban ones. As one of the authors of the study describes the correlation between concentration and wages, "There is definitely a strong rural urban pattern that I can see. Rural areas are likely to have a higher level of concentration — and, for any given unit of concentration, a larger effect".
The Times article focuses on how the consolidation in the farm equipment sector and its dealerships has shrunk the number of employers in rural Wisconsin. Worse, even mechanics who would prefer to strike out on their own to repair this farm equipment feel constrained by the fact that their potential customers do not want to jeopardize the relationship they already have with the handful of corporate-owned dealers who sell and repair that equipment. So the industry consolidation is not only keeping wages down but also putting up a significant barrier to entry.
This is exactly the situation that strong antitrust enforcement is designed to protect against. I continue to believe that Democrats should focus intently on stronger antitrust enforcement as a potent political and election message. Breaking up the undue concentration in so many industries will lead to more jobs, higher wages, more competition, and reduced inequality while also reducing the awesome political power of some of these large monopolies. Name one other policy that accomplishes all those goals at once.
The New York Times summarizes the paper as showing "that wages fell when fewer employers in a geographic area listed most of the jobs in an occupation". The study looked at job postings from 2010 to 2013 and not only discovered that millions of Americans live in areas where just a few employers posted job opportunities but that when the number of employers actually posting listings decreased, even if the number of postings remained static, wages also decreased.
But the critical part of this analysis is that it details how undue concentration in certain industries has actually hit rural communities far harder than urban ones. As one of the authors of the study describes the correlation between concentration and wages, "There is definitely a strong rural urban pattern that I can see. Rural areas are likely to have a higher level of concentration — and, for any given unit of concentration, a larger effect".
The Times article focuses on how the consolidation in the farm equipment sector and its dealerships has shrunk the number of employers in rural Wisconsin. Worse, even mechanics who would prefer to strike out on their own to repair this farm equipment feel constrained by the fact that their potential customers do not want to jeopardize the relationship they already have with the handful of corporate-owned dealers who sell and repair that equipment. So the industry consolidation is not only keeping wages down but also putting up a significant barrier to entry.
This is exactly the situation that strong antitrust enforcement is designed to protect against. I continue to believe that Democrats should focus intently on stronger antitrust enforcement as a potent political and election message. Breaking up the undue concentration in so many industries will lead to more jobs, higher wages, more competition, and reduced inequality while also reducing the awesome political power of some of these large monopolies. Name one other policy that accomplishes all those goals at once.
We Are Already In A Constitutional Crisis And Have Been For A While
All last night and today, I have heard plenty of pundits and politicians (although not Republicans) declare that firing Robert Mueller would create a constitutional crisis. And that is undeniably true. But the reality is that we have been enduring multiple constitutional crises for a few years already.
I remember Chuck Todd, on MTP Daily, declaring that we had a constitutional crisis on our hands the very moment he found out that Trump had fired Comey. That crisis was defused by moving the Russia investigation to the Special Counsel Robert Mueller. And now we find out that Trump had ordered the firing of Mueller back in June, most likely in response to the news that the Special Counsel had begun looking into potential obstruction of justice charges as well as Trump's business dealings. That potential crisis was averted by White House Counsel Don McGahn's refusal to obey the order and threatening to resign.
But our crisis runs deeper than just those two incidents that we managed to survive. It is certainly heartening that our civil servants keep on refusing to obey what are clearly illegal orders from the President. Sally Yates refused to enforce a Muslim ban that she knew was unconstitutional. James Comey refused Trump's request to drop the investigation of Michael Flynn. FBI Director Christopher Wray threatened to resign and refused Trump's directive to fire Deputy Director Andrew McCabe. Don McGahn refused to obey the order to fire Mueller. The fact that these people stood up for the rule of law should not overshadow the fact that two of the four above were eventually fired and, more importantly, that the President continues to ask his subordinates to carry out illegal orders.
But perhaps even more troubling than the President's actions is the fact that administration officials are simply ignoring other, less clearly illegal, orders from Trump or simply lying to the President to restrict his course of action. Defense Secretary James Mattis pointedly ignored the President's order to ban transgender service members. White House lawyer Uttam Dhillon purposefully lied to the President about what would be necessary to fire Comey in an express attempt to prevent him from doing so. This was not just a political adviser lying to the President in order to further their own agenda, such as Stephen Miller's talking points on immigration. This was a civil servant whose job was to protect the office of the Presidency lying to the President about the facts of the law in order to prevent what he believed would be a bad political outcome.
With Trump, we have ended up with two types of constitutional crises, occurring simultaneously. First, the President continues to give orders that are illegal and/or unconstitutional. Second, it appears that the President's decision is not final, not because he constantly changes those decisions, which he does, but because others in the administration simply ignore or delay those decisions. Moreover, based on what we have seen already, it is clear that there are probably numerous other episodes of both kinds mentioned above that we have not yet heard about. The President is ultimately responsible for whatever his administration does. But it is not the sign of a healthy, functioning government when those actions are made either without or expressly against the President's intentions.
Of course, the even bigger constitutional crisis is the total abdication of its constitutional duties by the Republican-controlled Congress. I have seen some argue (can't find it now) that Trump's actions with regard to Comey and Mueller reflect the problems with the "imperial" Presidency whose power has greatly expanded in the post-World War II period. Nothing could be further from the truth. Congress could reassert its broad constitutional authority, such as reclaiming its power to declare war, at any time. It chooses not to do so. This trend has only accelerated as the Republican party became attached to the idea that there really is no role for government. Under that approach, the requirement for Congressional oversight was abandoned, except when there was a Democratic president. For Republicans, their constitutional duties became just another political tool.
Yes, that was always true to some degree but it has become more extreme as the GOP became a far-right party. We see it most recently in Mitch McConnell's refusal to give Merrick Garland even a hearing and allow the Senate to fulfill its constitutional duty to advise and consent on probably the most important judicial appointment in decades. We see it in his decision to refuse to join a bipartisan statement on the Russian hacking during the 2016 election, refusing to defend and protect the United States from a foreign attack. We see it today with Paul Ryan doing nothing to restrain Devin Nunes and his cohorts from conspiring to obstruct the Mueller investigation and making an enormous effort to denigrate and discredit federal law enforcement as a whole, not just Mueller. And we see it most clearly in the Republican's refusal to rein in a rogue President who is violating the Constitution in so many ways including profiting from the office of the Presidency and obstructing and violating the rule of law.
The reality is not that we have managed to avert a constitutional crisis under Trump. It is that we are living through a prolonged constitutional crisis on multiple fronts whose outcome is not yet clear.
I remember Chuck Todd, on MTP Daily, declaring that we had a constitutional crisis on our hands the very moment he found out that Trump had fired Comey. That crisis was defused by moving the Russia investigation to the Special Counsel Robert Mueller. And now we find out that Trump had ordered the firing of Mueller back in June, most likely in response to the news that the Special Counsel had begun looking into potential obstruction of justice charges as well as Trump's business dealings. That potential crisis was averted by White House Counsel Don McGahn's refusal to obey the order and threatening to resign.
But our crisis runs deeper than just those two incidents that we managed to survive. It is certainly heartening that our civil servants keep on refusing to obey what are clearly illegal orders from the President. Sally Yates refused to enforce a Muslim ban that she knew was unconstitutional. James Comey refused Trump's request to drop the investigation of Michael Flynn. FBI Director Christopher Wray threatened to resign and refused Trump's directive to fire Deputy Director Andrew McCabe. Don McGahn refused to obey the order to fire Mueller. The fact that these people stood up for the rule of law should not overshadow the fact that two of the four above were eventually fired and, more importantly, that the President continues to ask his subordinates to carry out illegal orders.
But perhaps even more troubling than the President's actions is the fact that administration officials are simply ignoring other, less clearly illegal, orders from Trump or simply lying to the President to restrict his course of action. Defense Secretary James Mattis pointedly ignored the President's order to ban transgender service members. White House lawyer Uttam Dhillon purposefully lied to the President about what would be necessary to fire Comey in an express attempt to prevent him from doing so. This was not just a political adviser lying to the President in order to further their own agenda, such as Stephen Miller's talking points on immigration. This was a civil servant whose job was to protect the office of the Presidency lying to the President about the facts of the law in order to prevent what he believed would be a bad political outcome.
With Trump, we have ended up with two types of constitutional crises, occurring simultaneously. First, the President continues to give orders that are illegal and/or unconstitutional. Second, it appears that the President's decision is not final, not because he constantly changes those decisions, which he does, but because others in the administration simply ignore or delay those decisions. Moreover, based on what we have seen already, it is clear that there are probably numerous other episodes of both kinds mentioned above that we have not yet heard about. The President is ultimately responsible for whatever his administration does. But it is not the sign of a healthy, functioning government when those actions are made either without or expressly against the President's intentions.
Of course, the even bigger constitutional crisis is the total abdication of its constitutional duties by the Republican-controlled Congress. I have seen some argue (can't find it now) that Trump's actions with regard to Comey and Mueller reflect the problems with the "imperial" Presidency whose power has greatly expanded in the post-World War II period. Nothing could be further from the truth. Congress could reassert its broad constitutional authority, such as reclaiming its power to declare war, at any time. It chooses not to do so. This trend has only accelerated as the Republican party became attached to the idea that there really is no role for government. Under that approach, the requirement for Congressional oversight was abandoned, except when there was a Democratic president. For Republicans, their constitutional duties became just another political tool.
Yes, that was always true to some degree but it has become more extreme as the GOP became a far-right party. We see it most recently in Mitch McConnell's refusal to give Merrick Garland even a hearing and allow the Senate to fulfill its constitutional duty to advise and consent on probably the most important judicial appointment in decades. We see it in his decision to refuse to join a bipartisan statement on the Russian hacking during the 2016 election, refusing to defend and protect the United States from a foreign attack. We see it today with Paul Ryan doing nothing to restrain Devin Nunes and his cohorts from conspiring to obstruct the Mueller investigation and making an enormous effort to denigrate and discredit federal law enforcement as a whole, not just Mueller. And we see it most clearly in the Republican's refusal to rein in a rogue President who is violating the Constitution in so many ways including profiting from the office of the Presidency and obstructing and violating the rule of law.
The reality is not that we have managed to avert a constitutional crisis under Trump. It is that we are living through a prolonged constitutional crisis on multiple fronts whose outcome is not yet clear.
Thursday, January 25, 2018
The Contradictions Between GOP Trade And Antitrust Policies
Life is full of contradictions. Politics even more so. But with Donald Trump leading the Republican party into protectionism, some of these contradictions are getting harder to reconcile. Trump's decision to impose tariff's on solar panels and washing machines is the first time the US has imposed such protectionist measures since George W. Bush levied steel imports in 2002. That effort was eventually taken to the WTO where the US lost the case in 2003 and Bush withdrew the tariffs.
This effort is likely to eventually suffer the same fate. If Trump defies a future WTO ruling or China and/or South Korea decide to impose their own retaliatory tariffs, we could see the beginnings of a total breakdown in the global trading system, something you would think the US business community would be loathe to provoke.
There are concerns that these tariffs will raise prices on both products. In particular, higher prices for solar panels could end up costing jobs in the solar energy industry, especially among solar installers. Solar energy employment is one of the fastest growing areas of our economy and one industry group believes these tariffs will cost 23,000 jobs.
On the other hand, the current Republican view on antitrust relies on a policy created during the 1970s that maintains a merger would not violate antitrust rules if it can be shown the consumer would ultimately benefit. For the last four decades, mergers that ended up costing American jobs but produced lower prices for consumers went ahead with the Republican party's full blessing.
So, now the GOP is in a position where Trump's protectionism directly conflicts with Republican antitrust policy. According to today's rules we must force consumers to pay higher prices for imported goods in order to protect American jobs. But American companies can eliminate jobs freely as long as it lowers the price for consumers.
As I say, life is full of contradictions. But the one thing that reconciles this contradiction are the plutocrats that benefit from both these policies.
This effort is likely to eventually suffer the same fate. If Trump defies a future WTO ruling or China and/or South Korea decide to impose their own retaliatory tariffs, we could see the beginnings of a total breakdown in the global trading system, something you would think the US business community would be loathe to provoke.
There are concerns that these tariffs will raise prices on both products. In particular, higher prices for solar panels could end up costing jobs in the solar energy industry, especially among solar installers. Solar energy employment is one of the fastest growing areas of our economy and one industry group believes these tariffs will cost 23,000 jobs.
On the other hand, the current Republican view on antitrust relies on a policy created during the 1970s that maintains a merger would not violate antitrust rules if it can be shown the consumer would ultimately benefit. For the last four decades, mergers that ended up costing American jobs but produced lower prices for consumers went ahead with the Republican party's full blessing.
So, now the GOP is in a position where Trump's protectionism directly conflicts with Republican antitrust policy. According to today's rules we must force consumers to pay higher prices for imported goods in order to protect American jobs. But American companies can eliminate jobs freely as long as it lowers the price for consumers.
As I say, life is full of contradictions. But the one thing that reconciles this contradiction are the plutocrats that benefit from both these policies.
Trump, GOP's Denial Of Climate Change and Science in General Makes Us Less Prepared For Future
Over the weekend, it was reported that the new National Defense Strategy (NDS) no longer includes the words climate, warming, planet, sea levels, and temperature, in a reflection of the continued Republican refutation of basic, decided science. Climate change and its attendant destabilizing effects have been part of the National Defense Strategy since the 2008 NDS version created by the administration of George W. Bush.
Now, I'm pretty sure that the Defense Department has not dropped its focus on the potential effects of climate change and continues to game out scenarios in those areas where rising sea levels or severe drought creates the potential for serious unrest. And the concern about climate change strikes close to home for the US Navy in particular. As you can imagine, rising sea levels will threaten US naval bases all over the world. Already, the Navy's most important base, Naval Station Norfolk located right here in Virginia, suffers from regular flooding which requires continual raising of the docks at the base.
But the refusal to acknowledge climate change will certainly make it more difficult for military leaders to plan effectively for the future. A small example of that is that the raising of the docks in Norfolk is covered under the maintenance budget and not under some long term appropriation that might address a more permanent solutions to the problem.
And, make no mistake about it, the climate change wars are already here and will only get worse. While the civil unrest in Somalia began just before the severe drought hit in 1992, there is no doubt that the collapse of that country was exacerbated by the drought. In addition, there is substantial evidence the conflicts within that country have increased in intensity during the subsequent periods of severe drought since then.
Another report linked the increasing aridity of the Fertile Crescent associated with climate change combined with a period of drought with the outbreak of civil war in Syria. The agricultural collapse in the Syrian countryside "led to the migration of as many as 1.5 million people from rural to urban areas. This in turn added to social stresses that eventually resulted in the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad in March 2011." It is worth noting that American soldiers have lost their lives in the conflict in both Somalia and Syria.
Just recently, another report described a similar situation in Iran, leading to the recent protests against the government. According to the LA Times, "Many environmental activists believe Iran is quickly approaching its breaking point as diminishing rainfall and warmer temperatures have caused lakes to disappear, kicked up blinding dust storms and emptied out once fertile regions as farmers seek economic refuge in cities...In some of the hardest hit areas, including border provinces where ethnic and religious minorities complain of official neglect, concerns over natural resources were a key driver of the demonstrations that began in late December."
The prior examples have shown the destabilizing effects on a national economy when climate change and drought force the collapse of agriculture and livestock and a resulting mass migration to the cities. In South Africa, we may be seeing the collapse of an entire city due to a lack of water in the coming weeks. According to authorities in Cape Town, the city will run out of water in early April due to a severe drought in the region. Authorities have warned residents that if the average daily use does not fall below 7 gallons a day, the city will run out of water on April 12th. Even with those cutbacks, the city will soon run out of water sometime later unless the drought breaks.
According to the Guardian, "The central business district will likely be spared a total shut-off to protect the economy and spare supplies will be directed to vital services, such as hospitals." That seems like a recipe for serious unrest as the government essentially chooses who among the 4 million residents of the city does and does not get water. Wealthy Cape Town residents are already starting to leave the city and, as we have seen in the wake of hurricanes in New Orleans and now Houston, a good number of them may never return.
Denying climate change will not make it go away. And refusing to acknowledge its effects makes us far less prepared to deal with its consequences. Of course, this is part and parcel of the Republican party's and the Trump administration's denigration of the value of science in general, leading our government to make ill-informed and harmful decisions primarily to benefit a handful of plutocratic interests.
Jared Diamond, in his groundbreaking book "Collapse", posits that the thriving society and culture on Easter Island suddenly collapsed when the forests on the island were finally depleted. I have often wondered about what could have driven someone to cut down the last tree. When you see the Trump administration, you realize how easily it could happen.
Now, I'm pretty sure that the Defense Department has not dropped its focus on the potential effects of climate change and continues to game out scenarios in those areas where rising sea levels or severe drought creates the potential for serious unrest. And the concern about climate change strikes close to home for the US Navy in particular. As you can imagine, rising sea levels will threaten US naval bases all over the world. Already, the Navy's most important base, Naval Station Norfolk located right here in Virginia, suffers from regular flooding which requires continual raising of the docks at the base.
But the refusal to acknowledge climate change will certainly make it more difficult for military leaders to plan effectively for the future. A small example of that is that the raising of the docks in Norfolk is covered under the maintenance budget and not under some long term appropriation that might address a more permanent solutions to the problem.
And, make no mistake about it, the climate change wars are already here and will only get worse. While the civil unrest in Somalia began just before the severe drought hit in 1992, there is no doubt that the collapse of that country was exacerbated by the drought. In addition, there is substantial evidence the conflicts within that country have increased in intensity during the subsequent periods of severe drought since then.
Another report linked the increasing aridity of the Fertile Crescent associated with climate change combined with a period of drought with the outbreak of civil war in Syria. The agricultural collapse in the Syrian countryside "led to the migration of as many as 1.5 million people from rural to urban areas. This in turn added to social stresses that eventually resulted in the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad in March 2011." It is worth noting that American soldiers have lost their lives in the conflict in both Somalia and Syria.
Just recently, another report described a similar situation in Iran, leading to the recent protests against the government. According to the LA Times, "Many environmental activists believe Iran is quickly approaching its breaking point as diminishing rainfall and warmer temperatures have caused lakes to disappear, kicked up blinding dust storms and emptied out once fertile regions as farmers seek economic refuge in cities...In some of the hardest hit areas, including border provinces where ethnic and religious minorities complain of official neglect, concerns over natural resources were a key driver of the demonstrations that began in late December."
The prior examples have shown the destabilizing effects on a national economy when climate change and drought force the collapse of agriculture and livestock and a resulting mass migration to the cities. In South Africa, we may be seeing the collapse of an entire city due to a lack of water in the coming weeks. According to authorities in Cape Town, the city will run out of water in early April due to a severe drought in the region. Authorities have warned residents that if the average daily use does not fall below 7 gallons a day, the city will run out of water on April 12th. Even with those cutbacks, the city will soon run out of water sometime later unless the drought breaks.
According to the Guardian, "The central business district will likely be spared a total shut-off to protect the economy and spare supplies will be directed to vital services, such as hospitals." That seems like a recipe for serious unrest as the government essentially chooses who among the 4 million residents of the city does and does not get water. Wealthy Cape Town residents are already starting to leave the city and, as we have seen in the wake of hurricanes in New Orleans and now Houston, a good number of them may never return.
Denying climate change will not make it go away. And refusing to acknowledge its effects makes us far less prepared to deal with its consequences. Of course, this is part and parcel of the Republican party's and the Trump administration's denigration of the value of science in general, leading our government to make ill-informed and harmful decisions primarily to benefit a handful of plutocratic interests.
Jared Diamond, in his groundbreaking book "Collapse", posits that the thriving society and culture on Easter Island suddenly collapsed when the forests on the island were finally depleted. I have often wondered about what could have driven someone to cut down the last tree. When you see the Trump administration, you realize how easily it could happen.
Wednesday, January 24, 2018
Media Demands Democrats Always Be The Adults In The Room
I have to say the media response to the government shutdown was particularly disheartening, but it is reflective of a dynamic that must change if we are to restore some sense of sanity to our political processes. As an example, the (since-amended) Saturday morning headline on Bloomberg read "U.S. Shutdown Starts as Senate Democrats Block GOP Funding Plan". But, as the subsequent days showed, the reality was that Senate Democrats joined with (so-called) Republican moderates in blocking the GOP funding plan. Republicans themselves, who control the Senate, could not even produce 50 votes to keep the government open. And as soon as those Republican moderates caved to the February 8th deal with McConnell, so did the Democrats. But the default assumption among most of the media is that Democrats must always be the responsible party and therefore must be blamed.
Moreover, by downplaying the actually decisive role that the remaining, but shrinking, numbers of Republican moderates played, the media adds to the impression of the monolithic nature of the Republican party. In both the House and the Senate, there was probably majority support for both funding CHIP and protecting the Dreamers. But the filibuster may prevent DACA passage in the Senate and the Hastert rule may prevent it from even coming up for a vote in the House. The Democrats' position actually represents the true majority, a combination of Republicans and Democrats, in both houses of Congress. To place blame for the shutdown primarily on the Democrats relegated their position to one in the minority when it actually represented the majority.
We can see a similar dynamic already playing out in certain quarters of the media in anticipation of Democrats regaining some degree of power after the 2018 election. In a conversation between basically two conservative never-Trumpers, David Frum and Andrew Sullivan, Frum says, "The most tactically sensible Democratic strategy for 2018 and 2020 is to become as radical as possible to build mobilization in key Democratic constituencies, and that's the worst possible answer to governing in a stable way thereafter. The conflict between the tactical and strategic for that party will become a moral and constitutional problem for the rest of the country."
Similarly, in an op-ed in the NY Times, Michael Tomasky writes, "At the same time, there are longer-term concerns that citizens should keep in the back of their minds — not about the Democratic Party, but about the republic. I believe the Democrats are still several years away from becoming a movement party in the way the Republicans are...But if it were to happen — if we were to have two movement-subsumed parties — we would be in for some pretty big changes. We would move inexorably toward a more parliamentary system. New parties would pop up in the center — at least one, and I think probably two. Eventually the Constitution would get a revisit. It’s a potentially ominous road."
On the same day as Tomasky's editorial, David Leonhardt wrote, "The smart move now for Democrats is to accept a short-term funding bill that ends the shutdown and defuses the tension. Republican leaders are open to that solution, because they have their own vulnerabilities. Their party is the majority party, which is often blamed for dysfunction."
Don't get me wrong - all three of these people recognize the clear dysfunction of the Republican party. Frum has written about that topic for a number of years now. Tomasky clearly states in his piece that "the Republicans have been playing this way for years. If Democrats won’t, they’ll just lose. You can’t bring a squirt gun to the O.K. Corral." And he ends his piece by saying that potentially ominous road mentioned above is one that "for now, the Democrats have no choice but to walk it." Leonhardt is also scathing in his placing blame squarely on the GOP for the shutdown while opposing the shutdown on tactical grounds, writing, "The government shutdown is overwhelmingly the fault of Republican leaders. They, not Democrats, are the ones trying to make sharp changes in federal policy, like reduced legal immigration and a border wall. Democrats are largely trying to preserve programs — children’s health insurance and Dreamer protections — that many Republicans say they, too, support."
But, even as all three of these pundits acknowledge the destructive dysfunction of the Republican party, the underlying message is that it is up to Democrats to continue to be the adults in the room and that our system of government will be threatened if they don't. The obvious response is that saving our system of government requires a far greater focus on reforming the Republican party today than on worrying about what Democrats might do in the future. That Republican party is represented by a President who has arguably done more in one year to challenge the fundamentals of our constitution and our democracy than anyone since the Civil War. That party enables that President's lawlessness every single day.
Last night on Fox News, Senator Ron Johnson declared that he had an informant who told him there is a "secret society" inside the FBI that is working to overthrow Donald Trump. I guarantee this will hardly be blip in the news cycle. Similarly, as Daniel Dale has repeatedly pointed out, "One of the questions most central to Trump's Mueller fate is what he knew about Flynn's legal vulnerability when he pressured and then fired Comey - and he keeps not being asked about that, ever, even in long interviews." This question has been hanging for months now, yet the press still has not really confronted the President on the issue.
Allowing Johnson's comment to slide and not pressing the President on the most critical point in a potential obstruction of justice, are just two more examples of how the media refuses to make Republicans accountable for their actions. In doing so, the media shifts the burden for any agency for action or change onto the Democratic party (or, in the Russian investigation, onto Mueller). That is not fair to the Democrats or to the country. Nor is it fair to ask Democrats to continually cover for or make up for the failures of the Republican party. But that is what much of the media continues to do.
Moreover, by downplaying the actually decisive role that the remaining, but shrinking, numbers of Republican moderates played, the media adds to the impression of the monolithic nature of the Republican party. In both the House and the Senate, there was probably majority support for both funding CHIP and protecting the Dreamers. But the filibuster may prevent DACA passage in the Senate and the Hastert rule may prevent it from even coming up for a vote in the House. The Democrats' position actually represents the true majority, a combination of Republicans and Democrats, in both houses of Congress. To place blame for the shutdown primarily on the Democrats relegated their position to one in the minority when it actually represented the majority.
We can see a similar dynamic already playing out in certain quarters of the media in anticipation of Democrats regaining some degree of power after the 2018 election. In a conversation between basically two conservative never-Trumpers, David Frum and Andrew Sullivan, Frum says, "The most tactically sensible Democratic strategy for 2018 and 2020 is to become as radical as possible to build mobilization in key Democratic constituencies, and that's the worst possible answer to governing in a stable way thereafter. The conflict between the tactical and strategic for that party will become a moral and constitutional problem for the rest of the country."
Similarly, in an op-ed in the NY Times, Michael Tomasky writes, "At the same time, there are longer-term concerns that citizens should keep in the back of their minds — not about the Democratic Party, but about the republic. I believe the Democrats are still several years away from becoming a movement party in the way the Republicans are...But if it were to happen — if we were to have two movement-subsumed parties — we would be in for some pretty big changes. We would move inexorably toward a more parliamentary system. New parties would pop up in the center — at least one, and I think probably two. Eventually the Constitution would get a revisit. It’s a potentially ominous road."
On the same day as Tomasky's editorial, David Leonhardt wrote, "The smart move now for Democrats is to accept a short-term funding bill that ends the shutdown and defuses the tension. Republican leaders are open to that solution, because they have their own vulnerabilities. Their party is the majority party, which is often blamed for dysfunction."
Don't get me wrong - all three of these people recognize the clear dysfunction of the Republican party. Frum has written about that topic for a number of years now. Tomasky clearly states in his piece that "the Republicans have been playing this way for years. If Democrats won’t, they’ll just lose. You can’t bring a squirt gun to the O.K. Corral." And he ends his piece by saying that potentially ominous road mentioned above is one that "for now, the Democrats have no choice but to walk it." Leonhardt is also scathing in his placing blame squarely on the GOP for the shutdown while opposing the shutdown on tactical grounds, writing, "The government shutdown is overwhelmingly the fault of Republican leaders. They, not Democrats, are the ones trying to make sharp changes in federal policy, like reduced legal immigration and a border wall. Democrats are largely trying to preserve programs — children’s health insurance and Dreamer protections — that many Republicans say they, too, support."
But, even as all three of these pundits acknowledge the destructive dysfunction of the Republican party, the underlying message is that it is up to Democrats to continue to be the adults in the room and that our system of government will be threatened if they don't. The obvious response is that saving our system of government requires a far greater focus on reforming the Republican party today than on worrying about what Democrats might do in the future. That Republican party is represented by a President who has arguably done more in one year to challenge the fundamentals of our constitution and our democracy than anyone since the Civil War. That party enables that President's lawlessness every single day.
Last night on Fox News, Senator Ron Johnson declared that he had an informant who told him there is a "secret society" inside the FBI that is working to overthrow Donald Trump. I guarantee this will hardly be blip in the news cycle. Similarly, as Daniel Dale has repeatedly pointed out, "One of the questions most central to Trump's Mueller fate is what he knew about Flynn's legal vulnerability when he pressured and then fired Comey - and he keeps not being asked about that, ever, even in long interviews." This question has been hanging for months now, yet the press still has not really confronted the President on the issue.
Allowing Johnson's comment to slide and not pressing the President on the most critical point in a potential obstruction of justice, are just two more examples of how the media refuses to make Republicans accountable for their actions. In doing so, the media shifts the burden for any agency for action or change onto the Democratic party (or, in the Russian investigation, onto Mueller). That is not fair to the Democrats or to the country. Nor is it fair to ask Democrats to continually cover for or make up for the failures of the Republican party. But that is what much of the media continues to do.
Tuesday, January 23, 2018
Our Democratic Institutions Are Not Holding
It's quite amazing to see how many pundits continually hold to this notion that our democratic institutions are holding and that Trump has been largely curtailed in his autocratic tendencies. I'll just take Ross Douthat because he is always such an easy target. In his latest discussion with David Frum, Douthat points to what he describes as a standard Republican foreign policy under Trump, especially in regard to a more aggressive stance on North Korea and Syria and the continuation of the status quo elsewhere, as in indication that the only danger Trump really presents is incompetence. This leads Douthat to say "Which is why despite our agreement about Trump’s character and competence, my general level of alarm has lowered somewhat since his inauguration."
You hear this thinking all the time, particularly on the right, namely that Trump is just pursuing orthodox Republican policies in a chaotic, unorthodox, and often incompetent manner. And the fact that Trump has not declared martial law and the Mueller investigation is continuing apace indicate that our democracy is holding. Frum, to his credit, provides an effective response to all of Douthat's points. Incredibly, Douthat goes even further off the deep end, postulating that the country perhaps needs an authoritarian leader to be effective in our present legislative dysfunction. He says, "some authoritarianism-skirting leader, might in fact be a necessary figure for our polarized and increasingly dysfunctional politics."
But the idea that our democratic institutions are holding when the President has fired the FBI Director in order to protect himself from investigation; when the President and the Attorney General are directing political purges of individual FBI and DOJ employees; when the President is continually and openly profiting by using the perks of his office; when the President and his administration do absolutely nothing to prevent a foreign power from interfering in our domestic elections and politics; when Russian bots continue to flood social media with propaganda for the President; when the President's top advisers lie to the FBI and Congress; when the President's chief foreign policy adviser still can not get a security clearance and, like the President, is accused of attempting to profit from his position; when the primary institution that could restrain virtually all of this activity, the US Congress, is instead complicit in it; when even those who acknowledge the inappropriateness of the President's conduct refuse to also acknowledge the dangerous precedents being set; when all that is happening I find it hard to see how our democratic institutions are holding.
You hear this thinking all the time, particularly on the right, namely that Trump is just pursuing orthodox Republican policies in a chaotic, unorthodox, and often incompetent manner. And the fact that Trump has not declared martial law and the Mueller investigation is continuing apace indicate that our democracy is holding. Frum, to his credit, provides an effective response to all of Douthat's points. Incredibly, Douthat goes even further off the deep end, postulating that the country perhaps needs an authoritarian leader to be effective in our present legislative dysfunction. He says, "some authoritarianism-skirting leader, might in fact be a necessary figure for our polarized and increasingly dysfunctional politics."
But the idea that our democratic institutions are holding when the President has fired the FBI Director in order to protect himself from investigation; when the President and the Attorney General are directing political purges of individual FBI and DOJ employees; when the President is continually and openly profiting by using the perks of his office; when the President and his administration do absolutely nothing to prevent a foreign power from interfering in our domestic elections and politics; when Russian bots continue to flood social media with propaganda for the President; when the President's top advisers lie to the FBI and Congress; when the President's chief foreign policy adviser still can not get a security clearance and, like the President, is accused of attempting to profit from his position; when the primary institution that could restrain virtually all of this activity, the US Congress, is instead complicit in it; when even those who acknowledge the inappropriateness of the President's conduct refuse to also acknowledge the dangerous precedents being set; when all that is happening I find it hard to see how our democratic institutions are holding.
A Good Day For Democracy, Finally
The last 24 hours may have been a bad day for Democrats, (although that remains to be seen when February comes), but it was (finally!) a good day for our democracy. In Pennsylvania, the State Supreme Court stuck down the current congressional districts, which were partisanly gerrymandered by the Republicans for the 2012 election, as violating the state's constitution. The vote was 5-2, with the two Republican judges dissenting, and it ordered that the legislature redraw the districts in time for the 2018 primaries, setting a February deadline. If the deadline is not met, the court itself will redraw the districts themselves, creating a logical, neutral map.
Although the court has not yet released its opinion, it seems that even the Republicans dissenting were doing so more so on procedural grounds. One wanted to wait until the Supreme Court ruled on partisan gerrymandering later on this term. The other worried that the potential that the court would redraw Congressional districts might incur federal scrutiny.
The fact that the court based its ruling on a violation of the state's constitution most likely means there is no path forward to appeal this ruling in federal courts. According to the NY Times, "The most likely argument for federal review, election scholars said, is that the court order violated the federal Constitution’s elections clause, which delegates authority over elections to state legislatures." But a recent Supreme Court decision has already chipped away at the legislatures' sole authority over elections.
In 2012, despite winning the popular vote across the state, Pennsylvania Democrats ended up with just 5 of the 18 House seats in the state because of the extreme partisan gerrymander. Republicans have held those 13 seats ever since then.
Earlier today in Florida, a proposed amendment to the state's constitution to allow convicted felons to vote gained enough signatures to be on the ballot in 2018. According to the proposal, felons who have served their sentence and are not on parole or probation will be allowed to vote. Convicted murderers and those convicted of felony sexual crimes will still not be allowed to vote. In Florida, there are around 1.6 million felons who were not allowed to vote and nearly 25% of African American voters in the state were barred from voting because of their convictions. In addition, Florida on its own currently accounts for over 25% of the disenfranchised felons in the entire country.
It consistently amazes me how the pundits who constantly rail about the need for bipartisanship simply ignore the fact that the extreme partisan gerrymandering since 2000 is probably the most important driver of the increasing tribalism and polarization they decry. When one party can actually lose the majority of the vote but still maintain the majority, and sometimes a super-majority, of the power, it does not create an environment for compromise. If you want the center to hold, you actually need to have competitive elections that will drive bipartisan solutions. Having electoral districts that are totally uncompetitive creates the environment where compromise equates to betrayal. We see that clearly with both CHIP and DACA which are both massively popular with the general electorate and are supported by a majority in both houses of Congress can still not get passed because of an extreme minority that only fears attacks from the right.
If we want to restore the civility and effectiveness of our politics, then we need to restore the health of our democratic processes. The last few hours have been a good first step.
Although the court has not yet released its opinion, it seems that even the Republicans dissenting were doing so more so on procedural grounds. One wanted to wait until the Supreme Court ruled on partisan gerrymandering later on this term. The other worried that the potential that the court would redraw Congressional districts might incur federal scrutiny.
The fact that the court based its ruling on a violation of the state's constitution most likely means there is no path forward to appeal this ruling in federal courts. According to the NY Times, "The most likely argument for federal review, election scholars said, is that the court order violated the federal Constitution’s elections clause, which delegates authority over elections to state legislatures." But a recent Supreme Court decision has already chipped away at the legislatures' sole authority over elections.
In 2012, despite winning the popular vote across the state, Pennsylvania Democrats ended up with just 5 of the 18 House seats in the state because of the extreme partisan gerrymander. Republicans have held those 13 seats ever since then.
Earlier today in Florida, a proposed amendment to the state's constitution to allow convicted felons to vote gained enough signatures to be on the ballot in 2018. According to the proposal, felons who have served their sentence and are not on parole or probation will be allowed to vote. Convicted murderers and those convicted of felony sexual crimes will still not be allowed to vote. In Florida, there are around 1.6 million felons who were not allowed to vote and nearly 25% of African American voters in the state were barred from voting because of their convictions. In addition, Florida on its own currently accounts for over 25% of the disenfranchised felons in the entire country.
It consistently amazes me how the pundits who constantly rail about the need for bipartisanship simply ignore the fact that the extreme partisan gerrymandering since 2000 is probably the most important driver of the increasing tribalism and polarization they decry. When one party can actually lose the majority of the vote but still maintain the majority, and sometimes a super-majority, of the power, it does not create an environment for compromise. If you want the center to hold, you actually need to have competitive elections that will drive bipartisan solutions. Having electoral districts that are totally uncompetitive creates the environment where compromise equates to betrayal. We see that clearly with both CHIP and DACA which are both massively popular with the general electorate and are supported by a majority in both houses of Congress can still not get passed because of an extreme minority that only fears attacks from the right.
If we want to restore the civility and effectiveness of our politics, then we need to restore the health of our democratic processes. The last few hours have been a good first step.
