Trump, GOP Leaving 2018 Election Open To Another Attack

The 2018 election is shaping up to be one of the most important elections in recent history. That probably get said by one side or the other for nearly every election, but this time it certainly rings true not only for Democrats but also for those who still value our democracy. Unfortunately, and seemingly purposefully, the Trump administration and the Republicans in Congress appear to have no interest in protecting the 2018 election from the same type of attack by foreign powers as occurred in 2016.

Based on the successful Russian attack in 2016 and the lack of any real response from the Trump administration, I think we can safely surmise that other foreign powers, both friend and foe, might also be willing to attack the 2018 election in order to produce a result that might favor them. Admittedly, it is probably more difficult to effect off-year elections for the House and Senate than a nationwide Presidential campaign, but the Russians showed that they could target specific swing voters very accurately. Whether they relied on data provided by the Trump campaign and/or Cambridge Analytica remains to be seen. If they did not, then it certainly stands to reason that other countries have that capability as well.

With so many chairs of Congressional committees actually retiring this year, it wouldn't be hard for any foreign country to identify just one particular candidate to support who would probably become the new chair of some committee of interest to that foreign power. In addition, both China and Russia might actually be interested in seeing Democrats take over the House, knowing that the subsequent Democratic hearings with subpoena power on the various crimes committed by Trump, both currently and in the past, ranging from his money laundering to collusion with Russia to obstruction of justice to violations of the Emoluments Clause, would further weaken Trump and leave the world stage even more open to Chinese and Russian advances.

In the face of these ongoing and potential attacks, Trump, of course, does nothing. In fact, National Security Director Mike Rogers testified yesterday that "I believe that President Putin has clearly come to the conclusion that there’s little price to pay here…and that therefore I [Putin] can continue this activity." He added that he has received no specific authority from the President to "punish" the Russians and could not do so without that Presidential directive.  Senator Jack Reed summarized the situation thusly, "[E]ssentially, we have not taken on the Russians yet. We’re watching them intrude in our elections, spread misinformation, become more sophisticated, try to achieve strategic objectives that you have recognized, and we’re just, essentially, sitting back and waiting."

Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan, as they did in the fall of 2016, also continue to refuse to defend our democracy from foreign attack. In fact, Paul Ryan just removed the head of the Election Assistance Commission, the agency tasked with helping states protect their electoral systems from hacking. Not only did Ryan not allow Matthew Masterson to remain as chairman of the commission, by not re-nominating him Masterson cannot continue with the commission in any capacity. Masterson, a Republican from Ohio, has won praise from both Democrats and Republicans not only for his even-handed approach as chairman but also for his expertise in election systems security. As the election security expert at the Center for Democracy & Technology said, "This is insanity. Matt is extremely capable and has been a champion of more secure and better elections the entire time he's been on the EAC." That view was echoed by state Secretaries of State around the country.

Masterson's departure leaves the four-member commission with just two members, one Republican and one Democrat. The remaining Republican member has already indicated skepticism of the need for election security, saying, "Using intelligence agencies and reports that are full of allegations … to justify the extraordinary and invasive action of declaring the states’ election infrastructure as critical infrastructure subject to federal oversight is outrageous and wrong." If Ryan appoints a new chairman with similar views, the commission will effectively become useless, which is an outcome that Republicans have been seeking for years, and our election systems will remain vulnerable to attack.

Despite the views of that one particular Republican member, NBC has reported that there is "substantial evidence that state websites or voter registration systems in seven states were compromised by Russian-backed covert operatives prior to the 2016 election." Of the seven states, three were swing states, Arizona, Florida, and Wisconsin. According to the report, "seven states were compromised in a variety of ways, with some breaches more serious than others, from entry into state websites to penetration of actual voter registration databases." While officials in both the Obama and Trump administration declare that no votes were changed and no voters were taken off the rolls, that denial does not specifically preclude voters on the rolls having their data changed, effectively making it harder or even impossible to vote.

We already know that the Russians tried to penetrate the election systems of at least 21 states. Only last month, the head of cybersecurity at DHS declared that, of those states, "an exceptionally small number were actually successfully penetrated." Assuming the NBC report is correct, I would say that 33% of the targeted states is not an "exceptionally small number" and raising the question of why the DHS would understate the actual problem.

Republicans say they will run against Nancy Pelosi in 2018, despite the fact that she currently has absolutely no power in the House today or since 2012. Meanwhile, Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell not only refuse to defend our democracy from attack but also seemingly actively undertake steps to prevent us from defending ourselves. That should be the Democrats' retort to every attack on Pelosi and a featured attack ad on the Republicans in general.

Meanwhile, it appears that the electoral process will still be open to manipulation by foreign governments (and we haven't even talked about the pathetic response from the tech companies). We have already seen that Mexico, Israel, China, and the UAE, not to mention the Russians, have attempted to exploit Jared Kushner's business problems and inexperience to influence US policy. Two of these are out putative allies. When our enemies see our electoral process open to exploitation and a government in power unwilling to defend it, you can be sure we will be attacked.

Natural Weekends - More Migratory Birds In South Texas

Let's stay in  South Texas for more birds at the Turnbull Birding Center in Port Aransas...

Natural Weekends - Migrating Birds In Texas

Despite the wild swings in temperature over the last week or so, it is still pretty quiet on the creek. But you can feel that sun, when its out, getting stronger every day so the birds will soon be on their way. While we're waiting, let's go back to the Turnbull Birding Center in Port Aransas, Texas.

The Alt-Right, The NRA, And The Culture Of Fear

Osama bin Laden believed the 9/11 attack on the US would result in the withdrawal of support for the authoritarian regimes in the Mideast and, without that aid, those governments would collapse to be replaced by fundamentalists like the Taliban. It didn't turn out that way as the US invaded Afghanistan, decimated al-Qaeda, weakened the Taliban, and actually increased its military presence in the Mideast in order to support the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

But those terrorist attacks changed the United States in ways bin Laden could never imagine. George W. Bush, rather than trying to rally the Arab and Muslim populace that was largely opposed to bin Laden's fundamentalism and radicalism, protected the murderous regime largely responsible for bin Laden and al-Qaeda in the first place, namely Saudi Arabia and its almost fanatical Wahabi ideology. Bush then started a war in Iraq under false pretenses in order to take out a leader who had nothing to do with 9/11 and without a plan for the aftermath, creating instability that continues to plague the region and our country to this day. The Bush wars cost thousands of American lives, hundreds of thousands of non-Americans, and an estimated $6 trillion of direct and future costs, and a decade and half later we are still have significant forces in Afgahanistan, Iraq, and now Syria.

More importantly, it created a culture of fear in our country, fear that has been exploited to destroy much of the very fabric of our democracy. That fear led to the torture of prisoners and the concept of indefinite detention as we continue to hold people in seemingly perpetual legal limbo at Guantanamo. That fear led to warrantless wiretaps and spying on American citizens. These were not new violations for America in times of war, but, unlike the past, these wars never end and so the fear and the violations continue.

The fear led to billions being spent to protect soft targets like airports, government and office buildings, as well as untold hours and dollars wasted simply waiting to get through additional security measures. It led to the explosion of the security state where Wall Street and Eisenhower's military-industrial state fed at the trough, creating enormous opportunities for corruption.

That same culture of fear created the anti-Muslim backlash which then morphed with that ever-present American racism to create the general xenophobic, anti-immigrant fervor that Donald Trump was able to tap into with his birtherism. In addition, at the same time, that same anti-Muslim backlash combined with the concept of the clash of civilizations and the power of the Christian right to morph into white Christian nationalism. Together, they form the basis of the alt-right movement that Trump leveraged to win the Presidency and that has taken over the Republican party, as witnessed by the latest CPAC confab.

And the same fear created an enormous demand for guns in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 and an environment which allowed the NRA to continually push to relax gun restrictions. According to the FBI, nearly half a million more background checks were requested in just the six months after the terrorist attack. And almost immediately the NRA began to push for relaxing any or all gun restrictions. Ever since then, every new atrocity, whether international or domestic terrorism, or mass murders of children or adults, simply increases the NRA's demand for more gun ownership. In addition, the security state that protects our airports and other gathering places has increased our familiarity and tolerance for weapons of war, helping feed the NRA's narrative. And now Trump wants to turn our schools into armed camps.

Richard Nixon, in his moment of contrition, said, "Always remember, others may hate you, but those who hate you don't win unless you hate them, and then you destroy yourself". I would say say that it is the combination of hatred and fear that leads one to destroy oneself. As Senator Brian Schatz wrote yesterday about the NRA, "We don’t need to cut a deal with them, we need to beat them". It is more than the NRA that needs to be defeated; it is the climate of fear that our country has lived in for the nearly the last two decades that truly needs to be defeated if we wish to avoid destroying ourselves.

The Defining Feature Of The Republican Party Is Cruelty

I continue to marvel at the abject cruelty espoused by the current Republican party. And, if anything, their actions since the election of Donald Trump has exposed the fact that there is really no ideological basis or consistency for what they do, only seemingly cruelty for cruelty's sake.

Let's just start with the opposition to Medicaid expansion by red states. For a small increase in spending, most of it initially covered by the federal government, states had the option to expand Medicaid coverage to thousands of its citizens. But many red states opted to leave their citiznes without Medicaid coverage, using the supposed logic espoused by on Georgia state legislator, "We can't go in the hole. We can't borrow this year thinking the economy will balance next year. … That money looks enticing but you have to dig deeper."

The reality, however, is that states that expanded Medicaid have shown "no significant increases in spending from state funds as a result of Medicaid expansion and no significant reductions in state spending on education, transportation, or other state programs". In addition, states that expanded Medicaid actually saw per-person spending decrease by over 5%, while states that refused Medicaid expansion continued to see per-person costs rise by that very same percentage. And all this occurred while most expansion states saw a far greater increase in enrollment than was expected. All the evidence shows that Medicaid expansion is not a budget buster, as Republicans claimed, but actually can increase coverage and save money at the same time.

But ignoring evidence is a strong suit of Republicans these days. As of the beginning of this year, there are still 18 states, all Republican strongholds, that had not adopted expansion. Even worse, one red state, Kentucky, that had expanded successfully is now rolling it back under conservative Governor Matt Bevin. Kentucky will spend nearly $375 million more in order force 100,000 of its citizens from the Medicaid rolls. Part of this expenditure is to track the new work requirements that the state is imposing on Medicaid recipients. In addition, the costs for the remaining Medicaid recipients is also expected to rise as the 100,000 drop out. In essence, Republicans in Kentucky are willing to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to ensure that tens of thousands of Kentuckians lose their health insurance, while increasing costs for those that remain. The only explanation for such behavior is cruelty.

Of course, Kentucky is not the only state that has started to impose work requirements for Medicaid. Indiana has also received approval to make this change and 11 other states, again mostly Republican strongholds, are also seeking a similar waiver from the Trump administration. Most Medicaid recipients will be exempt from these requirements and even Indiana admits that under the most optimistic scenario (from the GOP point of view, the worst scenario for most compassionate human beings) less than 30% of current Medicaid recipients in the state will be effected. But, as in Kentucky, whatever savings the state might make will be somewhat offset by the cost of setting up and maintaining a system to actually track the individuals covered by the work requirement. What it does accomplish is to create another set of complex rules that the state can use to deny coverage to its own citizens if they do not follow them to the letter.

All this, of course, follows on the heels of the Republican efforts for virtually the entire year of 2017 to throw millions of Americans off of health insurance and guarantee tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of needless deaths of American citizens by the wholesale repeal of the ACA. And the whole point of that exercise was to simply take those savings from healthcare and bundle it into the giant tax cut the GOP always had in mind.

While that effort failed, the subversion of Obamacare continues. Despite Mitch McConnell's (empty) promise to Susan Collins, Congress has still not voted to restore the CSRs. The Trump administration is relaxing the time limits on short-term policies that do not comply with the ACA's requirements for ignoring pre-existing conditions or providing the essential health benefits. The time limit on those policies is currently 3 months and Trump will extend that to one year, allowing even more, probably healthy, people to drop out of the ACA risk pool and raise premiums for everyone else.

That's just on the health care front. Take a look at the continuing disaster in Puerto Rico. Over 400,000 people on the island, nearly one-third of the population, are still without power as they endure the longest blackout in modern American history. In addition, the deteriorating financial condition of the island's power company threatens continued power even for those who have had it restored. Many homes are also still without water. The suicide rate on the island has skyrocketed nearly 30%. The island's economy had already been decimated via financial exploitation, one third of the island is in need of reconstruction, and 200,000 Puerto Ricans have already left the island, most of them for good, as they see no prospects for a decent future. But you'd never know there was a crisis if you listen to Republicans. They are happy to let the Puerto Ricans suffer, as long as they suffer in silence.

On immigration, ICE is destroying families that have lived perfectly peaceful and productive lives in this country for decades and some of those being deported are being sent to their deaths.  The Huffington Post recently had a piece documenting how at least one child suffered from PTSD directly related to the stress of living as an undocumented family and seeing her father deported. Children who were brought to this country when they were just that, children, are now under threat for deportation from Trump's revocation of DACA.

A different kind of cruelty comes from the desire to make sure certain citizens are denied the right to vote. This has a long and sordid history in which Democrats clearly hold a large share of the blame. But, today, Democrats believe in not only the sanctity of the franchise but also expanding it. Republicans don't and, while the overriding reason is simply to maintain power, it is also something more cruel and more personal than that. They simply don't believe in equal rights for a distinct group of people that are not "like" them.

Now, the obvious commonality between all of these examples of Republican cruelty is that they involve the nineteenth century vision of the "undeserving poor". For many, the undeserving poor is merely just code for racists and misogynists, for minorities and (mainly single but also powerful) women and, under Trump, they are now openly willing to admit it. But, for decades, Republicans, like that Georgia legislator, hid behind the fraudulent claim that it wasn't simply cruelty that drove them but a concern for fiscal responsibility and the elimination of government waste. The passage of this latest tax bill seems to have finally blown that myth out of the water, although the same tactics were used by Reagan and Bush II with great success.

As Eduardo Porter writes in the NY Times yesterday, "It is hardly premature to ask, in this light, how the Trump administration might manage the fallout from the economic downturn that everybody knows will happen. Unfortunately, the United States could hardly be less prepared. Not only does the government have precious few tools at its disposal to combat a downturn. By slashing taxes while increasing spending, President Trump and his allies in Congress have further boxed the economy into a corner, reducing the space for emergency government action were it to be needed...To top it off, a Republican president and a Republican Congress seem set on completing the longstanding Republican project to gut the safety net built by Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Lyndon B. Johnson, which they blame for encouraging sloth, and replace it with a leaner welfare regime that closely ties government benefits to hard work." (Now, I think we all know that "encouraging sloth" is another nice Republican euphemism for the euphemism of the undeserving poor.)

Of course, that safety net pulled millions of elderly out of poverty and prevented tens of millions of citizens too old for the work force from falling into destitution and poverty. It provided families of children with disabilities the opportunity to provide the best life possible for their child. It provided for families like Paul Ryan's when the breadwinner died young and unexpectedly. It prevented families from losing their savings and their homes while they were unemployed during economic downturns. And it was recently updated to also prevent families from losing everything in order to provide for a sick member who needed costly and ongoing medical treatment. This is the safety net that the Republicans want to destroy and, with their most recent actions, have made harder for the government to provide.

We see Republican cruelty in the absolute refusal to do anything to stop the proliferation of guns and the resulting mass killings that destroy thousands of American families every year. Again, they hide behind Second Amendment rights that have already been clearly and definitively restricted by the Supreme Court, most recently in 2008 in the US v. Heller decision. And their answer to each new massacre is to claim that more people need more guns, despite evidence from all over the world that fewer guns mean fewer deaths. Again, the unwillingness to confront reality and evidence leads to only one conclusion, namely that of cruelty.

A different kind of indifference to innocent deaths is Republican support for the death penalty. The Innocence Project alone has cleared numerous individuals who were on death row but were completely innocent. The current criminal justice system is decidedly flawed, yet Republicans still believe it can be relied on to provide a determination to put someone to death. And, as Chris Mathews points out in a rare moment of insight, Republicans will tell us in one breath that we need to deal with mental health issues, as opposed to the easy availability of weapons designed to kill people, to stop mass murderers like the Parkland shooter, but they will also demand the death penalty for him when it comes to his trial. And they will refuse to let us see the deadly and gruesome process of that action taken in our name.

Please explain to me what the ideological underpinnings of any these GOP policies are. We know tax cuts do not increase revenue. We know cutting Medicaid will lead to needless deaths and arguably costs states more money than not. We know that Social Security is the greatest anti-poverty program in history. We know that immigrants add value to our society and economy and are more law-abiding and productive than the general population. We know that fewer guns lead to fewer gun deaths. The only ideological constant for Republicans is the desire to pass as much money as possible on to the plutocrats now controlling the party. And any reduction on government spending is just additional money that can be funneled to the 0.1%.

But most Republicans aren't in the 0.1%. Thomas Frank and others have focused on the importance of social issues to these voters, specifically abortion and multiculturalism, for lack of a better term. And there is probably some truth in that. But it takes a particular type of mindset to continually vote simply on a single issue to the detriment of the health and the pocketbook of yourself and your family.

There have been studies, some of them admittedly challenged, that show Republicans brains are just wired differently. According to one recent study described in the Huffington Post, "Liberals tend to value equality, fairness and protecting the vulnerable, while conservatives emphasize patriotism, group loyalty, respect for authority and moral purity". Well, it is hard to see how election of Donald Trump was a vote for patriotism, respect for authority, and moral purity. Trump and his campaign never once notified the FBI that the Russians were continually approaching them about influencing the US election. Mitch McConnell refused to be part of a bipartisan statement condemning Russian interference when presented with the evidence that it was ongoing. And Trump and the Republicans have done absolutely nothing to defend our country and our democracy from the continuing Russian attacks. Some show of patriotism. Trump continually attacks judges, the intelligence community, the FBI, politicians in both parties, and pretty much anyone or anything that he senses threatens him. Some show of respect. And he is an admitted sexual predator. Some moral purity.

That, of course, leaves us with the Republican attachment to group loyalty, in essence tribalism, along with the dominance of the fight-or-flight mechanism that pervades their thinking. It's what makes every election a Flight 93 election. It's what makes any attempt at gun control an attempt o take all guns away from every American. Its what makes the existence of an immigrant, a minority, or an LBGTQ person an attack on their culture. It's what drives making sure those "others" do not receive assistance or health care, even at their own expense. And that deadly combination of tribalism and fear is what creates the inordinate amount of cruelty in the Republican party. There is no overriding ideological rationale or consistency. It's racism, it's misogyny, it's fear of the unknown; but at its base level, it's simply cruelty. Like the bully in the schoolyard, it is cruelty as a way of empowering their own identity and cruelty simply for cruelty's sake.

Rant over.

GOP Is Adopting Putin's Media Strategies

When Trump was elected, I wrote a post predicting there would be an effort to create that same kind of "managed media" environment that Putin has created in Russia. That environment is built around a notion created by Russian businessman, politician, master propagandist, and Putin confidant Vladislav Surkov that "everything is PR" and that any ideology and movement can be exploited to confuse the opposition and enhance the power of the ruling elite. It pretty much defines how the Russians attacked our own democracy in the 2016 election, using any group on the left or right to sow divisions within the country and eventually elect Donald Trump, while at the same time rendering any source of "true" information as potentially suspect.

Steve Bannon was familiar with Surkov's work and it can be argued that the Trump playbook of continual outrage and deceit is actually a strategy derived from Surkov via Bannon. The nature of today's media means that the press and the public can always be distracted from the last lie or outrage by creating a new one, until fatigue sets in and it becomes the new normality. And that new normality is defined by the leader.

What I find interesting is how quickly the Republican party and not just the Trump administration has adopted some of the propaganda strategies of Surkov and Putin, creating supposedly independent news outlets that are really fronts for the GOP or individuals within the party. In Maine, the Executive Director of the Maine Republican Party has admitted that he created and runs an anonymous website called the Maine Examiner that is unsurprisingly pro-Republican and has slandered Democratic candidates. This potentially violates that state's campaign finance laws, despite the director's claim that it is a proper news outlet and no party funds were used to back the site.

In California, the ethically challenged Trump protector Devin Nunes has also set up his own partisan website called the "The California Republican" which claims it provides "the best of US, California, and Central Valley news, sports, and analysis".  While it looks like an independent news outlet, fine print at the bottom of the site shows that it is paid for by Nunes' campaign committee, which keeps it from violating election law if Nunes properly reports this activity, although, like the Maine site, it does raise the question about any money the site receives from advertisers.

These instances may not sound like much but they do seem to cross a line in journalism that we haven't seen since the concept of media ethics and the separation between news and editorial became the norm over a century ago. Now, many newspapers since then have had a clear political bias but what's new is the fact that these politicians are actively trying to hide their ownership stake in what they advertise as independent journalism.

Part of the "managed media" plan is to ensure that the media remains superficially independent while actually being either virtual propaganda arms for the government or engaging in self-censorship, recognizing that there are certain topics and areas of discussion or reporting that are simply off-limits. This is the environment that Putin has created in Russia over the last two decades.

Now the actions by Republicans in California and Maine hardly rise to the level of Putin's control of the media in Russia. But, combined with the constant attacks on and threats against the media by Trump and his administration, it is certainly a trend we can not ignore nor should we tolerate. It is especially disconcerting when we consider the fact that Fox News has now become a propaganda outlet for Trump, even beyond its long pro-Republican partisanship. The incestuous relationship between the network and Trump, which reportedly has certain network hosts in constant communication with the President discussing strategy and messaging, has often made it difficult to tell whether the network is driving Trump policies and rhetoric or the other way around. And Fox's morphing into a state propaganda outlet was highlighted by the fact that the administration pre-released the Nunes memo to the network before it was released to the public and the rest of the media.

(One quick side note about Fox News and Rupert Murdoch: one interesting note in the New Yorker article on China's connections with Jared Kushner was a little tidbit about Wendi Deng Murdoch. According to the article, "U.S. diplomats and intelligence officials have long speculated about Wendi Murdoch’s ties to the Chinese government. Internally, some Chinese officials spoke about her in ways that suggested they had influence over her, the former senior official, who was briefed on the intelligence, said." Wendi Murdoch was Rupert Murdoch's wife from 1999 to 2013 as well as  being a supposedly close friend of Jared and Ivanka. The possibility that the influential wife of probably the world's most powerful media magnate was potentially an agent of China seems like it might be worth a bit more coverage than it seems to have engendered.)

As I say, we still have a newly vibrant independent media in the US. But the marriage of Fox News and Trumpism, along with Republican efforts to create supposedly independent news organizations that hide the fact that they are simply a front for the Republican party and its politicians, are certainly disturbing signs that we are taking some initial steps toward the "managed media" concept designed and perfected by Surkov and Putin. As the Chief economist at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development says, "Today, autocrats don’t need to kill people, they just need to control media and money. If you’re good at that, you can stay in power for a long time".

Astronomy Adventure - Messier 93

Messier 93 is another open cluster in the constellation Puppis, although smaller and less impressive than Messier 47. It is estimated to be over 100 million years old and is 3,600 light years from Earth, meaning the light from the stars in this photograph was produced by these stars at the height of the Bronze Age and the civilization of ancient Egypt. This was one of the last objects catalogued by Messier in 1781.

Technical Details:

Scope: Starblast 4.5; tracking on

Magnification: ~30x

Camera: iPhone6 using NightCap Pro; ISO 8000; 

Photo: 1x~25secs.

Astronomy Adventure - Messier 47 and 48

M47 and M48 are two nice winter open clusters. M47 is a naked-eye cluster located in the constellation of Puppis. It was actually "discovered" by Giovanni Batista Hodierna before 1654 before being added to Messier's catalogue1771.

M48 is located in the constellation of Hydra, near the border with Monoceros, and is more spread out than M47. It's located close to the border with Monoceros. Under good conditions, this cluster is also a naked eye object.

 

Technical Details:

Scope: Starblast 4.5; tracking on

Magnification: ~30x

Camera: iPhone6 using NightCap Pro; ISO 8000; 

Photo: 1x~30secs.

Natural Weekends - Snowy Night And Clear Morning

GOP Seems Unconcerned About Russian Attack On 2018 Election. Why?

One of the things that we already knew but was confirmed by Mueller's indictments yesterday is that the original intention of the Russians in attacking our democratic process was to sow as much division as possible before settling on supporting Donald Trump, primarily due to Putin's fear and hatred of Hillary Clinton, as the most effective way to accomplish that. And, while Trump is accomplishing Russia's goals for now, it is important to remember that the primary objective for Russia is to make sure American remains divided and as ineffective as possible in responding to Russian foreign policy objectives.

With that realization in mind, it is certainly quite plausible that Putin could decide that the prospects of a Democratic House of Representatives and potential impeachment proceedings may be even more beneficial for Russian interests that just letting Trump be Trump. Now Putin may decide that incremental gain is not worth the risk or the investment. But it is certainly a real possibility.

Yet Republicans seem entirely unconcerned that the Russian attacks on our democracy apparently continue to this day and, more interestingly, entirely dismissive of the possibility that the GOP itself may be the target in the 2018 election. Remember, James Comey confirmed that the Russians also hacked a disused RNC server containing older emails and some state-level GOP systems as well. Unlike with the Democrats, that stolen data was never released by the Russians so we have no idea of the extent, if any, of the "dirt" that Putin has on certain Republicans.

So, with the very real possibility that they themselves may be the next target for the Russians, you really have to wonder why the Republican party seems unwilling to take any steps to protect our democracy. We all understand why Trump is disinterested, but the Republicans' inaction seems especially puzzling.

I have previously theorized that perhaps the GOP in general, not just Trump, were aided by Russian efforts far more than we realize. After all, no one expected Trump to actually win the election so Russian interests would have also benefited from a Republican Congress in opposition to a President Hillary Clinton. There is evidence that the hacked DNC emails were used to target down-ballot Democrats in swing districts. Paul Manafort's best Russian buddy, Oleg Deripaska, funneled over $7 million to various PACs controlled by top GOP Congressional leaders. The FBI is looking into Russian donations to an NRA dark-money PAC that reportedly spent millions supporting Trump and potentially other down-ballot Republicans. And Mueller is reportedly looking into whether the RNC's data operations overlapped with Russian social media operations. That might also include aiding down-ballot Republicans. Lastly, the administration finally admitted that some state elections systems were compromised by Russian attacks and any interference in those systems to benefit Trump, if it actually occurred, would have also benefited down-ballot Republicans.

Now, some might find it a little more than a coincidence that Republican Committee chairs, the usual funnels for loads of PAC money, are retiring at a furious pace, along with a record number of House Republicans. Perhaps that reflects something more than just a fear of a Democratic wave.

But now that Mueller has finally put the last nail in the coffin of the Trump defense that we can't really be sure it was the Russians who hacked the election, it might finally be time for the media to actually pin down Republican Congressional leaders, specifically McConnell and Ryan, on why they have made no effort to protect our democracy from Russian attack and if they intend to take any steps to protect the upcoming election. We've been waiting for them to answer that question as well as a reason for their continued inaction for well over a year now.

Natural Weekends - Revisiting Owens Valley

Still midwinter here and snow expected tonight. So let's go back to the Owens Valley and pictures from Yosemite as we entered from the east.

Mueller's Indictments Also Indict Republicans For Their Refusal To Defend The Country From Attack

In light of today's indictments from Mueller, it would be a good time to repeat this reminder that Republicans, especially Mitch McConnell, were not only complicit in letting this attack continue and have done nothing to prevent it from happening now or again.

Guns Are The Problem. Period.

I guess it's yet another time to repost these two items about how the greed of gun manufacturers and the cowardice of politicians are responsible for these all too common atrocities.

Note To Readers

It may look like I've dropped off the radar, but I've actually been tied up in another project this week. Hopefully, I can get back to regular blogging shortly. In the meantime, please follow me on twitter whose format suits the short attention I can currently give to particular.

DACA, Democrats, And The 2018 Election

You've really got to hand it to Republicans. They are masters at playing the culture war, identifying issues that not only rile up their base but also manage to divide the Democratic party. Of course, abortion has been the overriding culture war issue for Republicans ever since Roe v. Wade became the law of the land in 1973. The theme of "law and order" has been a similar Republican staple since that time as well. In 2006, Republicans used the issue of same sex marriage to drive their voters to the polls and put pressure on red-state Democrats.

Republicans also excel at taking what is at most a trivial or insignificant incident in the larger scheme things and turning it into something that threatens to shake the foundations of our country or even civilization. In the 1980s, they took Andres Serrano's installation of "Piss Christ" and turned it into an assault on government funding for the arts. In the 1990s, they took a failed Arkansas land deal and turned it into an impeachment process and a multi-decade attack on the Clintons. In 2014, Republicans took Benghazi!! and the Ebola crisis and turned them into an illustration of Democrats weakness on defense.

As it was to some degree in 2014 and more so in 2016, immigration, and especially the treatment of DACA recipients, will be the wedge issue for Republicans in 2018. And because of that, I have absolutely no faith that Congress will pass a bill to protect Dreamers before the March 5th deadline. Not only Trump, but a significant number of Republicans, especially in the House, are determined to use these children as a proxy for illegal immigration in general in the 2018 election. Along with a decent economy, they believe that it is their path to minimizing the losses in the upcoming election.

And, once again, you can see the Democratic party being riven by a Republican-driven issue. Today's NY Times front page story is about the Democrats in the House fracturing over the DACA issue. Even on TPM, the headline reads "DACA May Die In Three Weeks And Democrats Have No Leverage Left", giving an impression that the only party with any agency in this fight is Democrats. But let's be clear, it is Donald Trump and Republicans who have put the DACA recipients at risk. It is Trump who has stripped away their protections. It is Trump who lied to Pelosi and Schumer about protecting them in exchange for a budget and debt ceiling extension. It is Trump who lied to Graham and Durbin about their deal to protect Dreamers. And it is the Republicans who created the false choice between a government shutdown and protecting DACA.

Now, I happen to believe that it was a tactical political error for Pelosi not to demand her caucus vote against this budget deal. As opposed to the previous shutdown in the Senate, it would be hard for Republicans or the media to portray this as the fault of the Democrats when nearly 30% of House Republicans also voted against the deal. And even if the shutdown had lasted for just a few days, it would have not only been a strong signal to Democratic base voters but it also would have put enormous pressure on Paul Ryan. And I think you can be sure that Republicans would have done the same if the shoe was on the other foot. Additionally, while voters hate shutdowns in general, they are almost always forgotten by the time the election actually rolls around, while the Democrats' cave on the issue won't.

Democrats also seem to believe that the Trump and Republicans would not dare to start deporting DACA recipients after the deadline. The optics of having children who came here through no fault of their own, have never had a brush with the law, and have willingly given the government information on themselves and their family actually being deported will be so bad that Trump and the GOP won't go there.

I happen to think that calculation is probably correct, although you never know with Trump, but not for the reasons of optics. Rather, Trump and the Republicans are keeping this issue alive as a driver for the 2018 election. By not passing anything that the Senate might come up with in the House, DACA recipients will become unprotected. Either Trump will say that they are not "a priority" for deportation or, more likely, offer another extension into this summer, when the issue can again be played to drive the Republican base and divide the Democratic one, either by letting the extension expire or beginning to deport the Dreamers and their families or both.

But even if Congress does pass some protection for Dreamers and Trump actually signs it, immigration will still be the primary driver for the Republican campaign in 2018. That will mean that Trump will pick on another group of relatively defenseless minorities or immigrants as a play to his base. Trump is deporting criminal undocumented immigrants at about the same rate as Obama. But he is vastly increasing the number of non-violent, non-criminal ones.

Make no mistake, the Republicans are going to be running the most explicitly racist campaign that we have seen since probably the 1960s. Yes, Trump ran an openly racist campaign in 2016 but this time the bulk of the Republican party will be also running openly xenophobic campaigns, rather than passively supporting Trump with phony silence or "concern" as in 2016.

This is illustrated clearly by some of the candidates that are running in Republican primaries or have even sown up a place on the GOP ballot this fall. In Illinois, an avowed neo-Nazi will be running as the Republican for Congress. Paul Nehlen, whose twitter account was just shut down for his continual anti-Semitic rants, is challenging Paul Ryan. Sean Donahue, another white supremacist, is trying to replace another white nationalist Republican member of Congress in Pennsylvania. Corey Stewart is following up his near defeat of Ed Gillespie in the Virginia GOP primary with a run for the Senate in that state. Lastly, we can't forget Joe Arpaio, who is running for Senate in Arizona. And that doesn't even count the other white nationalists already in Congress like Steve King, Trump's new water-carrier Matt Gaetz, and long-time fascist lover Dana Rohrabacher.

Let's be clear. Obama protected the Dreamers. Trump took those protections away. There is probably a majority in both houses of Congress to do something to protect DACA. They are being stymied by the Republican leadership and a majority of Republicans in the House. And I don't think anyone doubts that DACA would be protected if Democrats controlled Congress. If there is anything that the 2016 election has shown is that Democrats lose when they lose focus on the real danger posed by Republicans. We can argue and complain about Democratic tactics, but the best way to protect Dreamers is for Democrats to win the House in 2018.

The Democratic Case For Restoring Earmarks

Back in 2011, Republicans eliminated the practice of earmarks, the process where legislators could attach special requests for their district to existing legislation, usually in return for a vote. The elimination of earmarks was part of the Tea Party revolution that was supposedly going to finally attack runaway government spending that created massive deficits and a growing debt.

Of course, the real reason for those deficits and debt was the automatic stabilizers, such as unemployment compensation and food stamps, that kicked in the wake of the Great Recession, as well as the unfunded Bush tax cuts of 2001. Earmarks were just another Republican red herring. Eliminating every earmark in the 2010 budget would have reduced the 2010 deficit by just over 1.25% and accounted for less than 0.5% of all federal spending. In fact, earmarks were simply a way of dividing up the appropriations that had already been agreed upon, rather than a driver of additional spending.

Undoubtedly, the earmark process was being abused by some in a cesspool of corruption and waste. Jack Abramoff and Representative Randy "Duke" Cunningham actually went to jail for earmark-related bribes. And there was the infamous Alaskan "bridge to nowhere". These became the poster-boys for the anti-earmark movement. Now, even 0.5% of federal spending admittedly comes to some real money, around $15 billion in 2010, but it is hardly the budget buster that the GOP made it out to be. But that didn't stop Republicans from instituting a moratorium on earmarks in 2011 that has remained in place ever since.

In fact, Democrats had attempted to clean up the earmark process back in 2007 by imposing more transparency on the process. They instituted new rules that included "eliminating private-sector earmarks, requirements showing members had no financial ties to proposed projects, posting earmarks on government websites and reviews by relevant agencies." But enforcement of those rules was perhaps never as vigorous as it should have been.

Beyond corruption, there are other complaints about the earmark process. One was that it provided a way for legislators to funnel money back to their big campaign donors by funding projects that favored those donors. Of course, as the tax bill has shown, the elimination of earmarks didn't eliminate the problem of the government handing boatloads of cash to campaign donors. Now it is done by offering massive tax breaks or specific regulations designed to favor specific companies.

Another complaint is that it gave too much power to the party leaders and the committee chairmen who controlled the allocation of funds. But considering the fact that the Freedom Caucus, a minority of around 60 votes in the House, has essentially been allowed to bring government to almost a complete stop for nearly a decade, it makes one yearn for the day when the leadership had something to offer to negotiate for their vote.

An additional downside was that legislators from certain either non-competitive or less important districts politically never received their fair share of earmarks because the chairmen had no need to entice them for votes. This particularly hurt minority districts.

While some may question the efficacy of earmarks to actually induce certain votes on legislation, probably even more so in today's highly polarized climate, there is no denying that it did diminish the control that legislative party leaders have over their caucus. As even John Boehner admits, "It's not like the old days. Without earmarks to offer, it's hard to herd the cats".  As one Representative says, "It’s something that can get people from ‘no’ to ‘yes’ or ‘maybe yes’ to ‘yes,’". And providing some benefits to the district of a member of the opposition party should at least encourage them to listen on the next controversial vote.

But, contrary to what one might think, this didn't actually increase individualism and independence in legislators but merely intensified tribalism. Because legislators had less special projects to crow about for their district, bucking the party line became even more dangerous. In addition, as the power of legislative leaders decreased, that of outside lobbyists increased, especially as legislators came to rely on them even more for campaign donations to fend of primary challenges from within their own tribe.

But the elimination of earmarks particularly hurt Democratic priorities. Because earmarks were basically part of the budgetary and spending process, that meant that the usual favors were doled out either through the tax code in the form of tax breaks, primarily for corporations, or by the allocation of federal agency funds controlled by the executive branch. In essence, not only did control of the distribution of federal money move from the legislative to the executive branch but they also moved from the budgetary process to the tax and tariff process. For Democrats, that means lower taxes and therefore lower revenues and less control of federal money to actually spend on Democratic priorities.

Moreover, earmarks actually helped address specific problems in legislative districts. As Jonathan Allen notes, "The vast majority of earmarks went to worthy projects that weren't necessarily being funded by executive-branch grants. Earmarks routinely went to fund things like a $100,000 bump for a job-training program for people with disabilities in Fort Wayne, Indiana. One man's waste is another man's ladder back into the workforce". It can be fairly argued that the lack of earmarks has hurt our response to the opioid crisis, our crumbling infrastructure, and the devastating effects of the financial crisis.

Proving the case that a blind squirrel occasionally finds a nut. Donald Trump has suggested bringing back earmarks, but, of course, only as a way to bribe legislators who are voting against him. And even some Republicans have discussed bringing back earmarks for infrastructure projects only. The aforementioned Jonathan Allen has a multi-point program for bringing back earmarks with full transparency, equitably balanced, with some vetting for feasibility and need, and treating taxes and tariffs in the same manner.

Democrats should support bringing back earmarks as long as they fulfill and enforce the changes they attempted to make in 2007. Yes, there will always be some abuse of the process and seemingly wasteful projects. But restoring earmarks will finally rebalance legislative policy toward government spending rather than targeted cuts in taxes and tariffs. In addition, targeted spending has a far more direct and greater economic impact than taxes or tariffs. More importantly, earmarks provide a way for Democrats to focus a government resources on their priorities, even when in the minority.

Natural Weekends - Summer Out West

It's the middle of winter and, on these cold, dreary days, it's hard not to reflect on those long and warm summer days. So let's go revisit the trip I made out West this summer.

Astronomy Adventure - Messier 35

Messier 35 is an  lovely open cluster and the only Messier object in the constellation Gemini. It was "discovered" in 1745 by Philippe Loys de Chéseaux, the Swiss mathematician and astronomer in 1745.

Technical Details:

Scope: Starblast 4.5; tracking on

Magnification: ~30x

Camera: iPhone6 using NightCap Pro; ISO 8000; 

Photo: 1x30secs.

Natural Weekends - Revisiting Yellowstone

It's the middle of winter and, on these cold, dreary days, it's hard not to reflect on those long and warm summer days. So let's go revisit the trip I made to Yellowstone this summer.