Month: March 2019

Briefing Book – Capital Punishment

In every political campaign (at least the good ones) there is a “book,” outlining the issues the candidate will face, and the arguments and positions the candidate takes.  It is so everyone on the campaign is literally on “the same page” when it comes to that issue. I’m not running for office, but over the next several weeks, I will be presenting a series of issues for my “briefing book.”

It was the Presidential election of 1988.  George HW Bush, the Vice President for the past eight years under Reagan, was behind in the polls.  His opponent, Democratic Governor Michael Dukakis, was smoothly moving to win the Presidency.  On October 14^ththey held their last Presidential debate at UCLA.  

CNN’s Bernard Shaw led off with the first question, asking Dukakis if his wife, Kitty, was raped and murdered, would the Governor then be in favor of an “irrevocable” death penalty.  It was a shocking question.

Dukakis answered calmly, citing statistical studies of the ineffectiveness of the death penalty as a deterrent, and stating his continuing opposition to it.  It was the beginning of the end of the Dukakis campaign; the American people saw a cold and calculating politician who showed no emotion at the vision of his own wife raped and murdered.   Bush then followed up with the racially charged “Willie Horton” television commercial, and ultimately won the Presidency.

It was over thirty years ago, but the issue still continues today.   And, just as Governor Dukakis found in the debate, there are two levels to the question of the death penalty.

The first level is evidentiary – does the death penalty work in deterring criminals from committing certain crimes?  There are different studies examining states that have removed or reinstated the death penalty to see if there is some impact on crime rates, but none have shown a change.  In fact, there is almost no scientific evidence that shows the death penalty deters crime (other than crime committed by the person put to death) and volumes that shows that capital punishment has no impact.

This is difficult for many people to accept.  They think in terms of:  if I knew I was going to be killed for doing something, I probably wouldn’t do it. That makes common sense, but it is the thought process of someone who is highly unlikely to commit the kind of crime that would result in a death penalty.  However, were those folks to be “out of control” angry, would they still have the same thought process?  Or would they act, and then regret it later on?

For a drug dealer on the street, carrying loads of drugs or cash, having no protection other than what they can carry, the threat of the death penalty is abstract and far away. The more imminent worry is that some other criminal will kill them for their money or drugs; their risk is right now, not in some court.  So legal penalties have little determinative value to them, their own survival is paramount and immediate. 

So we know the death penalty doesn’t work as a crime deterrent.  We know that the thought process of those willing to commit capital offenses does not include the calculation of legal punishment.  And we know that the use of the death penalty is biased, economically and racially.

50% of prisoners now on death row are black, in a nation where blacks represent 12% of the overall population.  The most likely death sentence recipient:  a black man who killed a white person.  And overwhelmingly, poor people get the death penalty, people with means, who can afford effective legal representation, do not.  

In recent years we have developed evidence, including DNA, that has exonerated 164 men and women who were facing the death penalty.  164 people who were facing death, and ultimately found to not have committed the crime they were sentenced for. 164 who would have been killed by mistake.

And of course, the actual process of execution is difficult.  We try to kill “mercifully,” but our current methods are only merciful to those who must watch, not those who are killed.  Killing is ugly whether it’s hanging, or electrocution, shooting, or lethal injection.  We place some civil servants, including medical personnel, in the position of taking life rather than saving it.  They bear that burden, for all of us.

So from an evidentiary standpoint, the death penalty does not deter crime, if is racially and economically biased, it is irrevocable if a mistake is made, and it forces some of our society to become our “killers.”  So why is it still in use, and why is it still politically popular, with 56% of Americans in favor?  (October, 2018, Gallup Poll)

The death penalty satisfies an “Old Testament” sense of justice, or revenge:  “an eye for an eye.”  As stated earlier, it makes “common sense” to those who are the most unlikely to commit a capital crime.  To average Americans, it “feels” like the right thing to do, especially with particularly abhorrent forms of murder; the “do unto him what he did unto someone else” view.

But revenge is a poor motive for a society to kill someone.  A “New Testament” view, forgiveness of sin, turning the other cheek, or judge not lest you should be judged; all counter the Old Testament Biblical argument.  In fact, revenge is one of the actions we hope to make unacceptable in our society; we want to be “better” than that.  We want to act from reason, not passion or anger.  

And in the same way, our “civilized” society should move away from Government sanctioned murder. In the world today, 104 nations have abolished capital punishment.  Another 36 nations have not carried out an execution in the past ten years.  That leaves 53 countries that still have and use the death penalty.  China with 1000+ executions leads the world, followed by Iran 567+, Saudi Arabia 154+, Iraq 88+, Pakistan 87, and Egypt 44+. The United States with 20 is next in line, putting us in dubious company. (2016, Amnesty International)

Mike Dukakis wasn’t wrong in 1988.  Where he made his mistake was in failing to acknowledge the instinctive horror of capital crimes, and the emotional desire for revenge.  Abolishing capital punishment won’t happen by ignoring those emotions; they must be acknowledged, and discussed before the “factual” conclusions are drawn.  Only then can the United States stop being a  “top ten” executor, and join the more civilized world.

Bill Clinton should have resigned

It was the first big government shutdown.  House Speaker Newt Gingrich, freshly empowered by the Republican House victory in the “Revolution of ‘94” with their “Contract with America,” led a confrontation with the Democratic President, Bill Clinton.  The first shutdown was over Medicare premium increases (Gingrich wanted the increases, Clinton did not) and lasted for five days.  It ended with a temporary resolution, but within the month the government shut down again.  

The second shutdown lasted twenty-one days.   The issue now was a balanced budget agreement, but public perception was altered when the Speaker complained about an apparent snub on Air Force One from the President.   The public began to see the shutdown as a personal temper tantrum by Gingrich against Clinton, rather than about principle.  

It was during these shutdowns, that Bill Clinton began an affair with a twenty-one year old White House intern, Monica Lewinsky.  As many of the White House staff were laid off by the shutdown, unpaid interns were used to run errands, including getting food.  It was during one of these “pizza runs” that Clinton began their affair, which ultimately included nine sexual encounters.  Clinton and Lewinsky never had intercourse, but had oral sex during these trysts in the Oval Office.  

Both Bill and Hillary Clinton were under investigation by a Special Prosecutor, Ken Starr, originally for illegal land deals in Arkansas when Bill Clinton was Governor, called the Whitewater Investigation.  The investigation expanded into the series of sexual relationships Bill Clinton had during that time, with potential charges of sexual imposition and even rape.  The Starr investigation found out about the Lewinsky affair in early 1998, and Clinton answered questions about it before a Grand Jury (via closed circuit TV.)

In his testimony, Clinton denied having “sexual relations” with Lewinsky.  He later tried to parse the difference, stating that oral sex wasn’t intercourse, and therefore not sex.  He also claimed that sex required action by both participants, and that since he had “received” oral sex, he wasn’t “participating.”  These arguments led to a reasonable conclusion that the President had perjured himself in his testimony to the Grand Jury.

As a high school government teacher at the time, my curriculum changed from political science to sex education.  The United States, and most certainly the sixteen, seventeen and eighteen year olds; were engrossed (and grossed out) with the definition of sex, what one could do with cigars in sex, and Clinton’s famous line; “…it depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’, is,” describing whether he “is having an affair,” or “was having an affair.” 

The President of the United States, then fifty years old, had an affair with a twenty-one year old intern, and did it in the Oval Office.  He then lied about it to a Federal Grand Jury.

The Republicans in the House of Representatives determined that Clinton’s actions met their definition of “high crimes and misdemeanors;” the phrase describing grounds for impeachment in the Constitution.  After a series of leadership resignations, including Gingrich (affair with secretary) and his apparent successor as Speaker, Bob Livingston (four affairs;) the Republicans finally settling on Dennis Hastert as their leader (who eventually served time in prison for molesting high school wrestlers when he was the coach)  and voted on impeachment.

The President was impeached by the House in a close to party-line vote, and a trial was held in the Senate.  There were eleven counts divided into two Articles against Clinton, including perjury, witness tampering, and obstruction of justice.  The Senate is required to reach a two-thirds majority to convict (and remove) the President, but in the final vote, neither Article gained a simple majority vote (45-55 on the first, and 50-50 on the second) and Clinton remained in office.

There have been three Presidents in American history who have faced removal from office.  The first, Andrew Johnson of Tennessee (1865-1869) was Lincoln’s Vice President, who became President after the assassination. Johnson was chosen Vice President as a “Union candidate” to balance Lincoln’s “Republicanism,” and when he became President he faced a hostile Republican Congress.  Their political fights over the shape of the post-Civil War nation, led the Congress to exercise the impeachment clause for the first time.  

The Johnson impeachment was purely political, and Johnson remained in office by just one vote (Senator Edmund Ross of Kansas.)  

The second President to face impeachment was Richard Nixon.  After two years of denying criminal involvement in the Watergate break-in, the release of the White House tapes clearly showed that Nixon was involved from the very beginning in covering up the crime.  Republicans in the Congress went to Nixon and told him he was going to be removed, and Nixon chose to resign rather than face the humiliation of impeachment.

Which brings us back to Clinton.  He disgraced himself by having an affair with a twenty-one year old, in the Oval Office of the White House.  He then perjured himself to a Federal Grand Jury.  With the standards of today’s #METOO era, his behavior is completely unacceptable.  Even in the 1990’s, his actions evoked cries for his resignation.  Instead, in what became a partisan vote, Republicans tried to remove him.

This leaves us with the legacy of impeachment as a political action, one used for partisan rather than Constitutional reasons.  When questions arise about the actions and behaviors of President Trump, his allies claim that it is a “partisan witch hunt,” along the lines of the Clinton impeachment.  

What if Bill Clinton, rather than “toughing” it out, had resigned.  Even Democrats acknowledged (at the time) that Clinton had disgraced himself in the Presidency, and while the economy was good, Clinton was hamstrung in other actions by the crisis.

If Clinton had resigned, Al Gore would have become President of the United States.  Gore would not have had to carry the burden of the Clinton legacy in the 2000 election, and would undoubtedly been elected to office on his own (he won the popular vote as it was.)  The “alternative history” that would have created, likely no war in Iraq, early intervention in environmental issues, and a different handling of 9-11; is interesting to contemplate.

But what would be more impactful in today’s crisis, is that impeachment would not be seen as a wholly political/partisan move.  Because Clinton set the example of “toughing out” an impeachment, even though his actions were disgraceful and illegal, he established the path for Trump to do the same. Clinton should have followed the example of Nixon rather than Andrew Johnson, and because he didn’t, Trump will try to follow Clinton, forcing the nation through an even more excruciating period.  

So whether Trump is impeached, or the final decision is turned over to the people in the election of 2020, it is the actions of Bill Clinton that is determining our course today. By “saving” his Presidency, he has left us with his legacy – a disgraced Presidency, then and now.

Dear Hillary

This weekend Hillary Clinton attended the annual commemoration of the Civil Rights March from Selma to Montgomery.  This was the famous march that ended on the Edmund Pettus Bridge with the marchers being attacked and beaten by police.  Current Congressman John L. Lewis was one of the young leaders of that march, and suffered a skull fracture in the melee.  

Clinton was only one of the dignitaries honoring the memory of the marchers.  Civil Rights icon Jessie Jackson was present, despite suffering from Parkinson’s Disease.  Announced Presidential candidates Senators Cory Booker and Bernie Sanders were there as well, though Sanders had to leave before the memorial march itself along with unannounced candidate  Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown.

As Lincoln said, “…it is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.”  The marchers on “Bloody Sunday” altered the course of the Civil Rights movement.  The media coverage, particularly television, brought the reality of Southern discrimination into every American living room, and forced the nation to confront its brutality.

Secretary Clinton was one of the speakers at the Brown Chapel, the historic starting place of the march.  In her speech, she spoke of the continuing fight for voting rights in the United States. The Voting Rights Act of 1965, the basis for applying racial equality to voting, was passed as a direct consequence of the March.  Part of the Act required that nine southern states demonstrate that any changes in their voting laws would not be racially discriminatory.  That remained the law from 1965 until 2013, when the Supreme Court struck down that portion of the regulation.

Since 2010, the Republican Party has made it their policy to try to gain power by redistricting (gerrymandering) to advantage their candidates, called the “Redmap” plan. They have also engaged in a nationwide campaign to enact laws that make voting more difficult, reducing lower income and minority voting.  Voter ID legislation, restricted polling times and locations, and voter roll purges are all part of a clear strategy to keep groups seen as “Democrats” from being able to vote.

The impact of the Republican policies has been seen in several close elections, including the 2018 Georgia Governor campaign, where Republican Secretary of State Brian Kemp used multiple forms of voter suppression to defeat Democrat Stacy Abrams.  Secretary Clinton also mentioned the closeness of her own electoral defeat in 2016, with states like Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania all enacting laws suppressing minority votes.  

She isn’t wrong.  But the problem is that when Mrs. Clinton talks about losing the 2016 election, the narrowness of the loss means EVERY factor cost her the race.  Absolutely, voter suppression in those three critical electoral states made a difference. And so did FBI Director James Comey’s announcement October 26^thstatement saying he was re-opening the e-mail investigation, the social media attacks by Russian Intelligence, and their still unexplored attacks on the actual voting systems.

No, she isn’t wrong. But somehow every time Mrs. Clinton talks about the election, it seems she never states what most Democrats would now acknowledge:  that despite all of these factors, her campaign should have won.  They lost because of a failed campaign strategy, probably based on flawed polling data.  And they lost because she was unable to overcome an undeserved image as a cold candidate, unable to relate to regular voters.

She now comes across as a sore loser.  Even though it’s hard to deny she has that right, it indicates that she is unable to move on.  You can’t blame her, or Al Gore; they both had the Presidency and the fate of the nation in their grasp, only to have it ripped away.  But that attitude won’t work with the American voter of 2020; and if Hillary Clinton isn’t running for President, she needs to step back and let the new candidates take charge.  

America is in an existential struggle.  If you didn’t think so before, just spend a couple of hours listening to our current President’s speech at CPAC this weekend.  Defeating voter suppression is a major part of that struggle, the courage shown by the marchers on Bloody Sunday may well be needed again to change the Republican plans already in the works for 2020.  But unless Hillary Clinton is going to run for President (and I hope she is not) she needs to take a role familiar to her husband; one where she encourages specific voting groups to take action.  She needs to get off of the main stage, and allow the Democratic Party the room to sort out the list, and determine who should lead us in this next battle.

Winning the Big Ten

Congressman Jim Jordan on Meet the Press 3/3/19

I listened to Congressman Jim Jordan of Ohio today, fresh off his interrogation of Michael Cohen in front of the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday.  Jordan is adept at sticking to his talking points, nimbly pivoting from questions about why the President would have allowed a man like Cohen at his side for ten years, to “the good” Mr. Trump has done in his two years in the Presidency.  

Jordan praised the “successes” he sees in the Trump Presidency:  the tax cuts, lower unemployment rates, cutting regulations, appointed “Federalist” judges.  “Why doesn’t the media talk about these,” he decries, “instead of Russia and scandals.” He talked about the “corruption” in the FBI, and the removal of the top leadership there, from Director Comey to agent Storzk.  And he threw in his favorite “pivot,” the assertion that the only Russian “collusion” was Hillary Clinton, followed by his litany:  from lawyers, to Fusion GPS, to Michael Steele to the Russians.

And in listening to all of this, I realized that Jordan wasn’t a fool, or stupid.  He was a man on a mission; to get his “good” out of the Trump Administration, and ignore all of the bad.  It’s something that Jordan has been doing for most of his life.

I was a successful high school track coach for forty years.  We won league and district championships, lots of invitational meets, and hundreds of duals.  In the second to last year of my career, I clearly had the best team I’d ever coached. We had returning all-state runners, including one of the top distance runners in the nation.  We had potentially state placing athletes in many events, enough so that we could begin to dream of taking home the ultimate prize, a state championship.

Like any athletic endeavour, there is always a risk of injury.  Going into May, we lost a key pole vaulter, but otherwise we remained strong.  We won the league meet on by a huge margin, and were ready to make our run at the state.

Two days later I got a call, saying that a team member, a key athlete in four events, had been caught stealing a bottle of booze from a local store.  While I could have waited to be notified “officially” by someone; could have stalled to keep him in play for as long as possible, I didn’t.  I can’t say I didn’t consider the stalling option for a few minutes, but it was only a few.  I was a high school coach, and while winning was important, doing things right, as an example to my athletes and to the rest of our community, was the standard we set for our program.  

I called the athlete in question, and he confessed the entire incident.  I suspended him from the team, and notified my administrators.  They agreed, but expressed surprise at my decision; we all knew that this was the beginning of the end of state championship dreams.  I said it was obvious, that the decision was the right thing to do.  

From Monday through that Friday, we lost that athlete, then a high jumper (quit), and one all-state sprinter in four events (hamstring.)   It was a dramatic disaster.  By the state meet we had three runners left, including a state champion in the 3200, and a third in the 400 (so damn proud of those guys) and we placed 13^thin Ohio.  Looking back, I wouldn’t do a thing different; I recognized my responsibility as greater than my own individual goals.  That might make me righteous, or stupid, or just obstinate.  

Jim Jordan was an all-star wrestler, and became an assistant coach at Ohio State from 1987 to 1995. Unlike most coaching, the job of an assistant wrestling coach is to teach wrestling by wrestling.  Bringing in the “best” (Jordan was a two time NCAA champion) meant that Ohio State wrestlers would compete against the “best” in “the room” (the practice facility) every day.

What makes that kind of individual a champion?  Jordan wrestled 151 times in high school, and lost only once (to a wrestler I helped coach!) His intensity of focus, a complete ability to ignore distractions; allowed for that kind of career.  He brought that into “the room” at Ohio State.

So while the athletes he was coaching were being molested by the team doctor and ogled by perverts in the shower room; Jordan focused on wrestling.  That might have been the right thing for an athlete to do, but not for a coach responsible for the athlete’s welfare.  But Jordan, and his head coach, Russ Hellickson, were focused on winning the Big Ten, and molestation became a distraction to be overcome, not a crisis.  

Jordan made a choice, one that he now pretends didn’t happen.  He chose to let his athletes face sexual abuse rather than disrupt their season.  He wanted to win the Big Ten.

Listening to Jim Jordan today, it’s the same choice he’s making with President Trump.  Jordan, with a Bachelors in Economics, a Masters in Education and a Degree in Law; isn’t stupid.  Jordan is ignoring the “distraction” of a President who violated laws and made deals with our enemies, in order to achieve his goals:  the “Federalism” of the court system, the de-regulation of America so that industries can do whatever they want to make a profit, and the institutionalization of his brand of Conservatism.  

Jordan is a United States Congressman in the Trump era, and is still focused.  And just like his days at Ohio State, he is missing his real responsibilities.  As a coach he needed to protect his athletes, and set a standard for acceptable action. He, more than most, should be standing up for the Constitution, for the rule of law, and for the good of America. Instead, he has put his political goals ahead of what is right.

He didn’t learn.  Ohio State didn’t win the Big Ten.