Category: Uncategorized

Saturday Night Massacre

Since the Watergate era, America knows how to investigate our leaders.  The Independent Counsels in Watergate, Archibald Cox and Leon Jaworski, established the high level of competence and honor we expected in the office.  They faced the ultimate pressure from the President of the United States, and stood up to it.  Cox was fired in the process, but, to paraphrase Obi Wan Konobi in Star Wars, “when he struck him down, he became more powerful than he could possibly imagine”.  The Saturday Night Massacre became a key item in Nixon’s impeachment.

Independent counsels investigated alleged drug use of the White House Chief of Staff of Carter, and other possible infractions by the Labor Secretary, Attorney General, Chief of Staff and Solicitor General under Reagan.  Not all investigations resulted in charges, and the Independent Counsel’s office created an “air” of impartiality when investigating those close to power.  

Iran-Contra

After Watergate, the next major investigation by the Independent Counsel was about the Iran-Contra affair.  Members of the Reagan Administration were selling US military equipment to Iran despite a law embargoing those sales, and then using the profits to illegally finance a Contra insurgency against the elected government in Nicaragua.  Independent Counsel Stephen Walsh ultimately indicted fourteen officials, including the Secretary of Defense and the National Security Advisor.  Eleven were convicted.  

In an odd twist, those who were actually sentenced to prison were pardoned by then President George HW Bush, at the strong recommendation of his Attorney General, William Barr.  That is the same Barr who now serves as President Trump’s Attorney General, twenty-eight years later.

Blue Dress

Perhaps the best-known Independent Counsel was Judge Kenneth Starr, whose four and a half year investigation of Bill Clinton resulted in the President’s impeachment.  Clinton also ultimately gave up his law license in a plea agreement to avoid perjury charges.

And after Starr’s interminable investigations, from Whitewater real estate deals to “bimbo eruptions” and finally Monica Lewinsky, Congress changed the Independent Counsel Law.  The key change was in the word “independent”, the new “Special” Counsel Law put the office directly under control of the Attorney General, making it much easier to control the Counsel’s action. 

The Mueller Report

And that was former FBI Director Robert Mueller’s position when he investigated the Trump Campaign-Russian connections.  Unlike Cox, Jaworski, Walsh and Starr, Mueller was restricted in the areas he could investigate and controlled by either Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, or, after his appointment, Attorney General William Barr.

This Attorney General has made it a point to “protect” his President.  Trump’s impeachment, over the use of Federal funds to get political help from the Ukraine, was completely ignored by the Justice Department.  They “passed” on the “Whistleblower’s Report”, essentially saying, “there’s nothing to see here, move along”.

Hiding in the Hinterlands

But now Attorney General Barr has found a way to avoid Washington DC all together.  Instead of appointing a Special Counsel, Barr is shipping out investigations to handpicked US Attorneys throughout the nation.  John Durham, US Attorney for Connecticut is tasked with re-investigating the Russia investigation.  Durham was a “safe” choice in previous sensitive investigations, including absolving the CIA of any wrong doing in the torturing and deaths of prisoners at “black sites” after 9-11. 

The Attorney General also arranged the removal of the US Attorney for Washington, DC.  Jessica Liu was asked to resign in order to become Deputy Treasury Secretary.  After her resignation, her Treasury appointment was cancelled.  Barr then appointed one of his closest advisors, Timothy Shea, to the job.  

This shuffle seems to be about the sentencing of two Trump associates, Roger Stone and Michael Flynn.  The four Justice Department lawyers in the Stone case resigned from the case rather than accept Barr’s demand that the Department sentencing guidelines be ignored.  And the Flynn case has gone from a six months sentencing recommendation to no jail time at all.

Barr has also tasked the US Attorney from St Louis, Missouri, Jeffrey Jensen, to investigate the investigation into Flynn, essentially targeting Trump’s favorite people to hate:  James Comey, Andrew McCabe and Peter Strzok.  And finally he has appointed the US Attorney in Pittsburgh, Scott Brady, to take the “information” developed by Rudy Giuliani from Ukraine and investigate it.

Out of Sight

There are a couple ways to look at Barr’s actions.  The first is that Barr has greater control over US Attorneys, including whether they can keep their jobs.  New Haven, Pittsburgh and St. Louis are also far from the hotbed of Department of Justice turmoil in Washington.  Those Attorneys are “standing alone”, with obvious agendas from the Attorney General.

But they are also far away from the power of the Presidential tweet.  Perhaps Barr, already on record complaining about the President’s comments, is trying to keep these investigations far away from the White House.

Either way, don’t expect Barr to appoint a Special Counsel for anything soon.  It’s more likely that the US Attorney in Helena, Montana or Anchorage, Alaska will be dragged into the fray.

“Remember,” he told a crowd in 2018, “what you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what’s happening.” – President Trump

And You Shall Know the Truth, and the Truth Shall Make You Free – John 8:32 – KJV

Disinformation

It was already happening, but we didn’t know it.  In 2016 the Presidential elections in the United States were influenced and undermined in a way unique to our modern times.  Before, we considered social media, Facebook and Twitter in particular, as innocuous ways to keep up with friends, hear about local concerns, and voice opinions.  But the private owners of those platforms knew that the “magic” (read profits) was in their ability to gather specific information about each user, and then sell that information to advertisers.

Campaign ads could be “micro-targeted” to the exact views and concerns of individual users.  Instead of the “broad-brush” advertising of television, where hundred of thousands of viewers saw the ad, but only a few thousand were the “targeted” market, on Facebook and Twitter there was the ability to hit near one hundred percent.  The same ad could be “tweaked” with dozens of variables, to specifically match the thousands of pieces of individual information on file.

But it was more than just ads.  It was “news” stories, maybe real, but just as likely created from nothing, to motivate the user towards a particular view or action.  Those worried about immigrants were told about grisly crimes, Roman Catholics shown late term abortions, Jews and Christians saw the dangers of Muslims to Israel. They were posted specifically to their news feeds looking like “regular” news stories:  true or not, they looked REAL.  

Psycho-Engineering

We blamed “troll farms” in Macedonia.  We blamed Russian intelligence.  We blamed unknown fat men in their parents’ basement.  And all of them did play a role.  

But we didn’t blame the political campaigns themselves.  While professionals scoffed at the amateurs at the Trump Campaign of 2016, in one area they were far beyond everyone else.  They learned how to manipulate social media and they were taught by the best.  Cambridge Analytica, a pioneer in social media “psycho-engineering,” a company largely owned by American billionaire Robert Mercer and lead by conservative political operative Steve Bannon, became part of the Trump Campaign.  And Facebook put their employees side-by-side with the Trump workers.  

Facebook, “the referee,” was playing for a team on the field.  We know the results of the 2016 election.  In a contest decided by such a small margin, everything made a difference. 

The Death Star

The Trump Campaign is no longer a bunch of amateurs.  Brad Parscale, the leader of the 2016 social media campaign, is now the overall campaign manager.  They plan to spend a billion dollars on their social media campaign alone, a billion dollars.  It has already begun:  thousands of ads, “news stories”, and manipulations went out during the Impeachment trial.  If you just watched your social media, and you were a “targeted user”, Trump was clearly exonerated, clearly innocent of any wrongdoing.  It really was a “perfect call”.

President Trump understands the strategy:  destroy the legitimacy of any news source that doesn’t tell his story.  As he said in 2018, …what you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what’s happening”.   Believe what I say, believe what your targeted “feed” shows; ignore the “mainstream media”.  Don’t engage in a “national conversation” with “fake news” facts.

A billion dollars:  not from Russia, or Macedonia, or from the basement.  A billion dollars of social media manipulation from the fourteenth floor of an office tower in Rosslyn, Virginia.  Money directed not just to get your vote, but also to keep those who would vote for the opponent to stay home.  A fortune directed to persuade, but also to confuse and deny, muddying the discourse. 

By the way, Brad Parscale won’t be the only social media manipulator in 2020.  The Bloomberg campaign’s “Hawkfish” operation is spending millions of dollars to try to match Trump’s efforts.  Even if Bloomberg himself fails to win the Democratic nomination, he promises that infrastructure will be available to the winner. 

The Truth 

It won’t just be memes and ads.  It will be comments, stories, and this year, texts.  You have to sign up to get “mass” texts, but if each text is sent out by a single “send” button, then there are no controls.  Texts will arrive; looking like it’s from a friend, just a conversation about “the news” of the day.  But, of course, it won’t be “the news,” it will be whatever the campaign wants you to know, to think, and to do.  

We will all know that it’s happening.  But when we see it, in texts, on Facebook, on Twitter, and through all our other media, we will begin to question what “the truth” really is.  Repetition will make fake seem real, false seem true, wrong seem right. 

Maybe someday we will regulate social media. But if our twenty-four hour news networks are an example of regulation, that won’t help the problem.  And meanwhile our data will continue to be collected, a little piece at a time, so that the message is honed to exactly influence – you.

The definitive Atlantic Magazine Article on Parscale and the Trump Social Media Campaign – The Atlantic – by McKay Coppins

More Information about Bloomberg and Hawkfish   – CNBC

Get Away

I love going on vacation.  I woke up early this morning and slipped out onto the balcony of our hotel.  The Gulf of Mexico waves are crashing on the shore as the sun tries works it way up through the clouds.  Thunder rumbles far off in the distance.  We are in Gulf Shores, Alabama, just west of Pensacola, Florida.  It’s been a good three-day getaway.  Today we will head back home to the snows of Ohio.

We’ve spent some time before in this region around Pensacola.  This time, we made it to our favorite Irish restaurant, McGuire’s, and to other beach bars and eateries. Last time we stayed over the state line in Florida, but now we are at the Gulf State Park Lodge, run by Hilton.  It stands on a stretch of beach, with a mile between it and the next buildings.  Even though it’s a “fancy” hotel, you still have a little feeling of isolation out on the beach.

One warning though:  when the restaurant here serves “flash fried red snapper”, don’t do it.  They take a whole fish, gut it, bread it, and put it on the plate.  That must be a delicacy “here in Alabama” but sixteen inches of fins, scales, and eyes is a little too much for us.

Still Connected

Even out here on the beach, we are completely connected.  We watched the results of the New Hampshire Primary, and heard all the trepidation about Sanders being the Democratic nominee, Biden failing in his campaign, and “Yang Gangers” angry at Buttigieg for, well, liking and using some of Yang’s ideas.  New Hampshire did little but to tell us Pete’s for real, Amy is too, and we have a long way to go before we reach a final nominee.

And we got every bit of the President subverting the Justice Department for his buddy, Roger Stone.

Sweet Home

I will confess a Northern bias about Alabama. This is the home state of Judge Roy Moore, and Jeff Sessions, and Montgomery, the birthplace of the Confederacy.  But it is also the home to the civil rights movement, courage on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, and current Senator Doug Jones.  And, this was the home to my first Principal, Pete Nix.  I love and admired him, and learned a lot about how to be a teacher, coach, and administrator.  I also learned about Alabama loyalty.  

Pete would often lead our staff to a nearby bar, “Olde Summit Towne,” on Thursday nights.  Back then there was an Elvis impersonator who did a two hour show.  It would be late, maybe one in the morning, when “Elvis” would end by singing the Confederate anthem “Dixie”.  Pete would stand, and make it clear that to stay in good graces on staff, you’d better too. As a twenty-two year old staffer, I jumped up and raised my beer.

 Battleship

Tuesday we made our way over to Mobile, and toured the World War II Battleship Alabama.  I’ve been on Battleships before, but the Alabama more than most is bristling with weapons; guns in every conceivable direction and size.  And though it’s a huge ship, maybe sixteen stories from keel to top, it must have been crowded.  2500 sailors packed in, serving every possible capacity from barber to gunner to nurse.  They fought through the Pacific campaigns, and, as one of the sailors said, they weren’t just lucky to finish undamaged, they were good.

They were dedicated to a cause, and willing to sacrifice themselves for it.  Listening to all the divisions today, it makes you wonder if that still exists here in Alabama, or the rest of the United States.

America

So here I am in Alabama, a state of contradictions.  The Confederacy and Civil Rights, the heart of Trump Country that elected a Democratic Senator, cotton still growing in the fields, and luxury condos on the beach.  To quote John Mellencamp, “Ain’t that America”.

It’s 2020, the year of crisis and change.  Nine months from now America will decide what kind of country we’re going to be.  Are we moving towards an inclusive future, “dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal,” or a future of internalization and polarization?  Or are we headed towards both.  We are a nation divided, not just about what we support, but also about what we want America to be.  This is one of those critical points in time, like 1786, or 1860, or 1932.  

It was supposed to be a break, and it was from the snow and the cold. Today we go north; almost 900 miles back to Ohio, a whole lot colder, but just as politically divided as Alabama. 

 And the realities of today’s America will follow.  We can’t “turn that off”. 

Nixon

It was Monday, August 3^rd 1970.  Richard Nixon was the President of the United States, deeply mired in the Vietnam War.  But that wasn’t the “big news” of the day.  Charles Manson, cult leader and accused multiple murderer, was on trial in Los Angeles.  The nation was grossly fascinated with the crimes: the ritual-butchery of actress Sharon Tate and five of her friends on one night, then supermarket executive Leno LaBianca and his wife the next.

Nixon was fascinated as well.  In a response to a press question, Nixon, said:

“…the media’s coverage of Manson makes him out to be a rather glamorous figure even though he is guilty, directly or indirectly, of eight murders without reason.” (WAPO)

It was a widely held view by many Americans.  But many Americans weren’t the President of the United States.  The next day, the headlines in the LA Times read:  “MANSON GUILTY, NIXON DECLARES”.   Manson’s lawyers demanded a mistrial.  The President of the United States had attempted to sway the jury.

Nixon, a lawyer himself, immediately realized that the enormous persuasive powers of his office could impact the trial.  His Press Secretary, Ron Zeigler, wrote a lengthy statement “walking back” the comment, and noting the President had no “inside information” about the crimes.  The Jury was interrogated, and ultimately the trial continued.  Manson was sentenced to life in prison, where he died in 2017.

Obama

On July 16^th, 2009, noted ancestry researcher and Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates returned home to Cambridge, Massachusetts.  He had been on a trip to China to research the ancestry of famous American cellist YoYo Ma.  The front door to his home was jammed, and Gates and his driver were forced to pry it open to get in.  A neighbor called the police.

What occurred next remains in dispute, but ultimately, even after producing identification as the homeowner, Gates was arrested for disorderly conduct.  

Barack Obama, President of the United States, was asked about the incident in a press conference a week later.  The President answered by saying:

“I don’t know, not having been there and not seeing all the facts, what role race played in that [Gates case]. But I think it’s fair to say, number one, any of us would be pretty angry; number two, that the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home; and, number three, what I think we know separate and apart from this incident is that there’s a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately. That’s just a fact.” (ABC)

Beer Summit

Many Americans agreed with the President, but police chiefs throughout the country demanded that he was unfair to the police officer on the scene.  It seemed to be another case of the President commenting on the judicial process, despite the fact that Mr. Obama led his statement with a disclaimer.  

The “crisis” of the Gates statement ultimately was resolved by the “Beer Summit” in the Rose Garden, where the President, Vice President Biden, police Sargent James Crowley and Gates met for a discussion.  The four men talked over the situation.  After the meeting, Crowley stated they met “…like two gentlemen, instead of fighting it out either in the physical sense or in the mental sense, in the court of public opinion.”

Gates said that he hoped “… that this experience will prove an occasion for education, not recrimination. I know that Sergeant Crowley shares this goal.”  In a later New York Times interview, he joked, “…when he’s not arresting you, Sergeant Crowley is a really likable guy.”

Trump

This week the President of the United States intervened in the American judicial process.  He specifically criticized the actions of Department of Justice attorneys, who recommend that Trump’s friend, Roger Stone, be sentenced to prison for seven to nine years.  

In a series of tweets, Trump stated:

This is a horrible and very unfair situation. The real crimes were on the other side, as nothing happens to them. Cannot allow this miscarriage of justice!

Two months in jail for a Swamp Creature (Democratic operative Tony Podesta), yet 9 years recommended for Roger Stone (who was not even working for the Trump Campaign). Gee, that sounds very fair! Rogue prosecutors maybe? The Swamp! 

While many Americans were dismayed that a President would intervene in the judicial process, few were shocked.  What was shocking was that the top levels of the Department of Justice immediately moved to reduce the sentencing recommendation, triggering the resignation of all four of the Department lawyers that prosecuted the case.  What used to be a Department dedicated to Justice now seems to be an extension of the President’s every wish and desire.  “Justice” is an anachronism; perhaps the Department of “Trump’s Lawyers” would be more appropriate.

Pardons

The President already has the power of the pardon.  If he feels that his buddy Stone is getting a raw deal, he can step in anytime and free him from any criminal responsibility.  He can do the same for his friends Paul Manfort, Michael Flynn and Rudy Giuliani.  But rather than take the political heat for “freeing” his campaign operatives, the President is willing to batter his own Justice Department in order to get them to do his bidding.

It makes the “mistakes” of Nixon and Obama look quaint; petty upsets of a different era.  Trump’s interference in justice is the real thing now.

San Bernardino

It seems like a whole other lifetime, but it was only a little over four years ago.  An employee of the San Bernardino health department and his wife attacked his work Christmas party.  He was an American of Pakistani descent, she came over from Pakistan to be his wife.  As we now know, their relationship was based on radical extremism.   They spoke of jihad and martyrdom, before they were even married.  Fourteen were murdered at the San Bernardino Inland Regional Center.  The two terrorists died in a shootout with police hours later.

It was in the post-tragedy investigation that the FBI ran into a snag.  They had the IPhone of the shooter, actually issued to him by the Health Department.  They were unable to get into it; he coded the phone locked.  Apple phones allow for ten attempts to “unlock” a phone, and then they automatically erase all data. The FBI asked Apple Inc. to aid in the investigation.  They wanted them to create a new version of the IPhone operating system that they could download onto the phone and then open it.  

Protecting Terrorists

Apple refused.  Their policy was to never undermine their own phone security protocols.  The Department of Justice filed suit against Apple, and the anticipated outcome would have significant legal repercussions.  Could the US Government force a company to “hack” its own phone?  But just months later, the Department dropped the suit.  They found some hackers who were able to break into the phone by allowing unlimited coding attempts.  They then entered combinations until they found the code, and no longer needed Apple’s help.

I remember thinking at the time that Apple was being beyond stubborn.  This was a terrorist attack on Americans, in America, and like it or not, their phone was involved.  How could they deny what seemed like a very reasonable request by the FBI?  How could they align themselves with murderers, terrorists?

Lame Excuse

At the time, Apple’s excuses seemed pretty lame.  We are a worldwide company, they said, and if we did this for the government of the United States, what would other governments in the world ask of us?  While the US might be “right” this time, what about the government of Russia, or Turkey, or one of Apple’s biggest commercial markets, China?  It Apple exploits its own vulnerabilities, what security can they offer their buyers from future, less reasonable intrusions?

But the phone was owned by the San Bernardino Health Department, not Syed Farook.  Doesn’t the phone owner have the “right” to ask for help?  And Apple is an American company, headquartered in the same state of California, in Cupertino near San Jose.  Shouldn’t American companies help protect America against terrorism?

Of course, Apple could always reset the phone.  But the process would erase the information contained in it, defeating the FBI’s purpose.  And Apple actually went a step further.  Their next version of the IPhone operating system fixed the flaw the hackers found.

Today’s World

It’s four years later.  Today IPhones can still be coded.  They can also be set to open with fingerprints, or even facial recognition.  What that might mean to terrorists or other criminals:  stick to the codes to hide your data.  Your “cold, dead thumbprint” would still be available, as would your face.

But there is another consideration to think about today.  The Justice Department of Attorney General William Barr and his predecessors under the Trump Administration, seems willing to be cavalier with personal data.  For example, the personal messages of Peter Strzok and Lisa Page were on government phones, but still were personal messages.  They were released by the Justice Department, because they were already leaked to Congressional investigators.  In short, the Department couldn’t control the information.  

And for my friends who think the Strzok-Page messages revealed a vast conspiracy to bring down the Trump Administration, we now know that Justice also had as many messages by employees that were anti-Clinton.  Those weren’t released until the Inspector General’s report a couple of months ago.  If you want conspiracies, you can have them both ways.

Tipping the Scales

The Department of Justice today, is investigating those who found Russian connections to the Trump Campaign, led by Connecticut US Attorney John Durham.  This week, they announced investigations into the Russian-based Ukrainian nonsense, led by the US Attorney from Pittsburgh, Scott Brady. The Department is choosing a side.  An agency that traditionally has modeled the scales held by “blind justice” has taken the blindfold off, and placed its thumb on the scales.

They are doing President Trump’s bidding, investigating his enemies, and using the full force of American government to support his candidacy.

So, if Justice isn’t going to protect us, maybe it is up to Apple.  

Field Coordinator

When I was just turned twenty in 1976, I worked for the Jimmy Carter for President campaign.  I was a lowly “field coordinator”, one of those bottom level organizers who had direct contact with student groups, union locals, county party organizations.  We organized door-to-door walks, literature drops, and the ever-present “sign” campaign.  

I travelled from near Dayton to the Ohio River, delivering materials, planning activities, and sleeping in the back of my Volkswagen station wagon on some nights.  I learned a lot, including to never, ever, take the VW to a United Auto Workers union hall. The old UAW local President put his big arm lovingly around my shoulders, and quietly told me to get another car or not to come back. From then on, I borrowed Dad’s Olds’ Cutlass for the trip.

Dick Tuck

My boss was a guy from Nebraska named Mike Jackson.  He looked like a lineman from the Cornhuskers, not the “other Jackson”, and he was a forty-some year old veteran sent in to win Southwestern Ohio for Carter/Mondale.  He had learned from the best, starting his political life working for Hubert Humphrey.  And he told us stories, late at night over cheap Hudepohl beer while we printed signs on his homemade screen printer, stories of a campaign legend named Dick Tuck.

Dick Tuck was the Democratic “master” of the dirty trick.  He originally was a “Kennedy” man, and became famous for doing things to Humphrey in the hotly contested 1960 primaries.  They were dirty tricks with flair.  Humphrey did a “whistle-stop” train tour of West Virginia.  While he was standing at the caboose, speaking to an assembled crowd, Tuck signaled the engineer to “pull out”.  All Humphrey could do was wave goodbye.  Tuck called and cancelled Humphrey rallies, gave Humphrey drivers bad directions, and was all-around annoying to the Humphrey team.

Eight years later Tuck was working for Humphrey and needed a large crowd in a downtown area.  His trick then:  buy junk cars and stall them in the major intersections.  After gridlock occurred, send in the candidate.  With people motionless in their cars, they got out to see what was going on – and a crowd was born.

Nixon

Tuck was so good, that the 1972 Nixon campaign hired him to do:  nothing.  They just wanted Tuck to leave them alone.  But the Nixon campaign had plenty of “dirty tricksters” of their own. It wasn’t just the Watergate break-in, it was a fake letters published in newspapers, fake workers pretending to be Communists for a Democrats, and perhaps even drugging opposing candidates.

Nixon didn’t want to run against Ed Muskie, and sent the full force of his “dirty tricksters” against him in the primaries.  Muskie lost.  Nixon wanted to run against a more liberal Senator George McGovern from South Dakota.  McGovern won.

Our Moment 

We wanted to “be like Dick”.  In October of 1976, President Gerald Ford was coming to town.  The other Field Coordinators and I had a great “dirty trick” idea.  As Ford was speaking on Fountain Square in downtown Cincinnati, we would unfurl a large Carter/Mondale sign from atop a nearby abandoned building.  The action would be sure to attract both the crowds and the medias attention.

So we went to the top of the decrepit building, carefully avoiding holes in the roof, and prepared our sign.  We were young, so young.  Of course we told the Secret Service what we were doing on a rooftop overlooking the President, we didn’t want to get shot.  And the Service said we were fine, but intentionally didn’t bother to tell the Cincinnati Police.

About thirty minutes before Ford arrived we looked out over the scene, to see white-shirted policemen pointing to our roof, like a picture of Dealey Plaza in Dallas after the Kennedy assassination.  We ran for the stairs, but were met halfway down by a phalanx of officers, who made it very clear we were in the wrong.  The Secret Service detail laughed as we were hauled out, but didn’t let the Police know until after the President was done.

Crowd Sourcing

Like everything else in today’s society, campaign “dirty tricks” are “crowd-sourced”.  Now you don’t have to risk the Police, or Secret Service, you can just put an idea out online and let it catch fire.   

One example is conservative commentator Hugh Hewitt.  Hewitt was a “Never-Trumper”, right up until the moment Trump won, and Hewitt’s son got hired at the EPA.  Then Hewitt did a full reversal, and ever since has been a Trump apologist.  A few weeks ago Hewitt publicly announced that he was voting in the Virginia Primary for Bernie Sanders.  His argument was that he wanted “…a clear choice” for President, but ultimately this Trump sycophant was sending a message to the Trump base:  rig the Virginia primary for Bernie.

Republican voters don’t have much to do this primary season.  Hewitt’s “dirty trick” is catching fire.  Here in Ohio, where you are required to “declare” your Party, there is a movement to get “Trumpers” to cross-over, even if requires them to lie on an affidavit stating they voted at least 50% Democratic in the last election.  The Trump camp is operating on the assumption that they can choose their opponent, just like the Nixon team did in 1972. 

MAGA Hats

The Trump team also crowd-sourced disruption of the already confused Iowa Democratic Caucus tally.  The back-up phone number for entering results was published on Trumpian web sites, and they helped jam all lines.  It’s easy with crowd sourcing; there is no one “trickster” to blame. 

Trump broke American laws and suffered impeachment to tarnish Joe Biden.  While Biden has his own electoral problems, it’s difficult to determine how much impact the Ukraine scandal has had on his candidacy.  I hear from many younger voters, “…Biden is just a dirty politician like the rest”.  He wasn’t, until Trump made his son Hunter a household word. 

Now Trump and his minions have made it clear they want to run against Sanders.   Fellow Democrats, this doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t support Bernie, if he’s your guy.  

But don’t be surprised if you look around and see fellow voters in MAGA hats.  

*thanks Guns and Roses

The Longest Week

Last week seemed like it lasted at least twenty days.  We felt the excitement of the Iowa caucuses, democracy at the neighborhood level, and then the frustration of the tabulation.  There was the sheer anger of the State of the Union Address: anger coming from the President and the Republicans, anger at the cheapening of our institutions, and anger at the inevitability of Wednesday’s impeachment vote. 

And there were moments of pure courage.   Alabama Senator Doug Jones recognized that duty to his nation and the truth was greater than his desire to get re-elected.  And Mitt Romney, clearly acting in faith, laid the Republican dilemma out in the open for all to see.  Vote your conscience, and find that your President, Party, and friends will turn on you as if you were a monster.  It takes courage to face the ostracism, the loss of collegiality. Courage, by the way, that Senators Susan Collins, Lamar Alexander, and the other Republican Senators failed to find.

We heard the last words of the House Managers, knowing that the decision was already done, speaking for history.  And we watched the flushed face of Mitch McConnell, the taste of victory soured in his mouth from the Romney defection.  Yes, Donald Trump remains the President of the United States.  Not even a majority of the Senate chose to convict him. But he is stained with impeachment, the last in a very short list of three.

Trump Vengeance Tour

Thursday saw the beginning of the Trump Vengeance Tour.  It began, appropriately, at the National Prayer Breakfast, where Trump defiled the podium.  “Revenge is mine,” sayeth the President, and he began his campaign of retribution. From condemning the faith of Democrats in the House of Representatives, to praising his toady allies in a White House victory rally, Trump made it clear no one would “move on” from impeachment until he had “cancelled” all his debts.

Friday the “bodies” were falling:  Colonel Vindman and his brother, fired for being related, I suppose.  Sondland recalled from the European Union.  Romney condemned: Don Junior called for his ouster from the Republican Party.  The message from the President was clear:  speak the truth against me, and I will “strike you down”.  If it sounds Biblical, it’s probably closer to Mafioso, with “Don” Trump starring as the “Godfather”.

Another World

And Friday night, as if in an alternate universe, most of the Democratic candidates for President debated in New Hampshire.  It was a raucous and enlightening exchange, with Amy Klobuchar finally having her moment on stage.  Biden sounded stronger, Buttigieg hit a snag, Sanders and Warren repeated their stories, and surprisingly, Tom Steyer stood on the side and called his compatriots to the common goal:  defeat Trump.  It was two and a half hours of discussion and dissection, and for perhaps the first time, it sounded like a real debate, rather than an eleven-person audition.

The commentators, and Mike Bloomberg, want Democrats to PANIC.  “We can’t count votes in Iowa, we are going to nominate a Socialist, Joe Biden is too old, black people don’t like Pete”.  Clinton political “brain” James Carville came back from, well he looks like he’s dead, to warn of a Bernie candidacy.  PANIC – and take Bloomberg and his billions, like the stranger in a car who says he’ll buy you ice cream.  PANIC – we will never get it together, we will never unite.  Bernie’s “bros” will refuse to join, or a Socialist will inevitably fail.  PANIC – MSNBC’s Chris Matthews warns of Cuba and Venezuela, of firing squads in the park, while studiously avoiding Danish and Swedish comparisons. 

Speaking of returning from the dead, Trump mentor Steve Bannon is back, trying to plant seeds of disaffection, claiming that the Iowa debacle was intentional to deny Bernie a victory.  Perhaps Bannon was more than just a commentator, part of the Iowa confusion was phone lines jammed by Trump supporters calling into the Democratic counting center.  

Time to Choose

It’s February of 2020.  Democrats:  we are in for two months of determining, of highs and lows, victories and failures.  By the end of March, twenty-six states will have voted or caucused, and we will have a much better idea who the nominee will be.  We don’t need to decide today, or the Wednesday after New Hampshire.  We will have lots of information, and lots of votes by the end of next month.  Then we should know, or at least have a couple of clear choices.  

For two months it is time to choose.  As embattled Democratic Chairman Tom Perez said what seems like ages ago, let a candidate win your heart, and support them.  Then we will find a candidate to nominate, and use our heads to elect them. Vote with your heart in the primary, and your head in the general.

Don’t Panic

There’s no need to PANIC.  Anyone on the debate stage in New Hampshire Friday, any of the candidates who failed to make the stage, Bloomberg, Bennet and Patrick; ANY OF THEM will make a better President than “Don” Trump.  Sure Bernie’s socialism will push away the “hold your nose Trump voter,” but it might bring a whole raft of young voters to the polls.  Sure, Biden is old, but he might be the middle that can appeal to that odd Obama/Trump voter.  And sure, Pete is the smartest kid in class, but he might be the new face of “big ‘D’” Democracy. Or maybe our fellow Democrats will decide it’s the year of the woman, and chose Warren instead of Bernie, or Klobuchar instead of Biden.

And Mike Bloomberg, Republican-lite, backed by sixty billion?  He certainly would make a stark choice against Trump:  your billionaire or ours.  But even his hand on the “tiller” of our government would be reassuring compared to what we have now. 

Take a breath, support your choice, and let events and elections play out.  As the civil rights movement often said, “keep your eyes on the prize”.  Democrats will be ready for the existential fight against Trump soon enough.  It’s just going to take a little patience.

When There’s a Will

I am an old high school teacher, so I have had the opportunity to study many, many kinds of cheaters.  In the old days we had the basic cheaters:  looking at someone else’s test, stealing the test key and writing down the answers, scribing in ink on hands, arms, legs, top of feet, and that one strange kid who had the entire test key on his belly.

There were the “crib” noters, with tiny, tiny pieces of paper, carefully filled with needed equations or factoids.  In the event of emergency, the scraps could be quickly wadded up and discarded, or in the extreme, swallowed.  And then there were “committee” cheaters, groups who would design sectional crib notes, then stealthily pass them among the class during the test.

Electronic Age

But even in those ancient times before computers and cell phones, we had the “advanced” cheaters, the kids that spent so much time prepping to cheat, they should have just studied – it would’ve been easier.  There was the guy who carefully arranged the “smart” kid to sit diagonally from the very shiny silver fire extinguisher.  He made his grades on the reflection, making sure he only got a ‘C+’.  An ‘A’ would be far too suspicious.  He would also try to array multiple smart kids around him.  It gave him the option of taking the majority answer in case there was a controversy.

Then there was the “hat” kid.  Every answer was written in near microdots on the inside of the brim.  If the teacher let him keep it on, there was a lot of squinting up.  If he had to take it off, there was a lot of glancing down at the floor.  Either way, he had whatever answer he needed.

Of course modern technology brought technical cheating advances.  There are the earplug kids.  A student from the period before recites the answers from a copied, photographed or purloined test, while the hardwired cheater writes them carefully down.  This also has variations in texts, photos, and such.  And there is the “Googler”, ready to reach for “a friend” to determine the appropriate response, even for essay questions.

Retribution 

As a teacher, you had to assume there were cheaters in your class.  You were on guard: vigilant as students took their exams, suspicious of those with exactly the same wrong answers, and cautious of electronic theft.  You took precautions:  multiple versions of the same test, long walks through the aisles, a seat carefully chosen in the back of the room so students wouldn’t see where you were looking.

The short answer was – someone was always trying, and if you assumed your class wasn’t cheating, you most certainly were wrong.  The entire school knew which class was “easy” to cheat in. If you didn’t try to catch cheaters, they would try it again and again and again.

And when you caught someone cheating, it was important to “make an example”.  I wouldn’t hold them up to public ridicule; that’s just wrong no matter the offense.  No, I used a zero on the test, a call to parents, and a word to guidance counselors.  All served to “motivate” the cheater to change their ways.

Big Cheaters

Getting elected to President of the United States is the biggest test of all.  There are a myriad of ways to cheat, to find a way to shortcut the system in your favor, or make it worse for your opponent.

Maybe it’s cooperating with a foreign nation, or enflaming the electorate on social media.  Perhaps it’s stealing information or strategies, so that you can better counter with your own tactics.  Or, it’s simple slander, telling lies about the person. Once those hit the Media, they can never be disproved or ignored.

 Like cheating in class, the excuse of proclaiming that “everybody does it” just doesn’t fly.  First of all it’s not true, not everybody does cheat in class, or in political campaigns.  Secondly, it’s reasonable concept that someone running for leadership in our society shouldn’t “cheat”.  It might sound quaint, but that should be the “norm”.

No Consequences

But when you catch someone cheating, the surest way to encourage him or her to do it again is to have NO consequences.  Let’s look at the Trump Campaign.

• Took information from Russian Intelligence – no consequences.  
• Asked for foreign countries to assist, Russia, China, and Ukraine – no consequences. 
•  Interfered with the counting the votes by flooding phone lines with bogus calls so election results can’t be transmitted (Iowa this week) – no consequences.
• Encouraging voters to fraudulently claim to be a member of the opposition party so they can vote for candidates that are easier to defeat – no consequences.

Robert Mueller marshaled facts showing the Trump Campaign worked with Russia.  Despite the persistent drone of Republican claims, Mueller DID NOT say there was “no collusion”. In fact, he cited hundreds of instances of cooperation.  What Mueller said was that he was unable to find enough evidence to reach a criminal certainty.  Trump got away with it.

Ukraine

Attorney General Bill Barr refused to let the Justice Department look at the Ukraine scandal.  So it was Congress, specifically the House of Representatives, who brought the information to light.  The President countered by releasing a summary/transcript of his phone call – calling it “perfect” – even though a plain reading of it proved the House’s case.  Seventeen witnesses and tons of documents ultimately backed up the House, and they did the one thing they could do.

They impeached the President.  They challenged the Senate of the United States to judge his actions and determine both the facts and the penalty.  The Senate failed to act.  Republican Senators quite literally stuck their fingers in their ears and sang “♫ La-La-La ♫” so they didn’t have to hear what the President did.  

Still Cheating

Yesterday the Attorney General announced that “all candidate investigations” had to be approved by his office.  He even tried to illegally expand his authority to the House and Senate, an action I’m sure Speaker Pelosi and Chairman Schiff will gladly ignore.  Bill Barr is proving to be the President’s best weapon – the virtual teacher who let’s his personal “student pet,” cheat.

Democrats couldn’t be blamed for taking the view: “if Trump cheats, we have to cheat as well”.  That would be wrong.  They can’t run on the issue of Trump’s lack of morality, and then show they are lacking too.  So what can Democrats do?

They have to run honest campaigns.  They should show the American people that they don’t have to cheat to have better ideas about what’s good for our country.  In fact, not cheating is the first really good idea. Americans don’t want cheaters as their leaders.  America wants leaders they can trust.

 “Between 2014 and 2060, the US Population is projected to increase from 319 million to 417 million…by 2030 one in five Americans is projected to be 65 or older, by 2044, more than half of all Americans are projected to belong to a minority group (any group other than non-Hispanic White alone), and by 2060, nearly one in five of the nation’s total population is projected to be foreign born.” US Census  – Projections – 2014-2060

Post Mortem

No wonder Republicans are worried. 

After the Mitt Romney lost in 2012, the Republican Party did a “post-mortem” study of their last two Presidential elections losses.  In the 100-page report released in 2013 (Atlantic), the future of a GOP that didn’t make drastic changes was foretold.  The Party was described as shrinking; closed to minorities, women, youth and Hispanics.  The Republican Party of 2012 was a Party of white men, and the “post-mortem” emphasized that to survive, it had to reach out to the groups that were ignored.

The Party was looking for a different identity, one that could expand to Hispanic voters in Florida, Texas, Arizona and California, reach out to a growing African-American middle class, and be more inclusive of youth and women.  It could be the Party that recognized the changing demographics of America, one that could survive into the 2030’s and beyond.  It could be the Party of Jeb Bush, or Marco Rubio, or even John Kasich.

Rise of the Alt-Right

But the Republicans didn’t take into account the growing alt-right movement, lead by publications like Breitbart and leaders like Steve Bannon. At the beginning those “insurgents” operated outside the Party structure, and outside of the main Republican media organ, Fox News.  But when there were sixteen original candidates for the 2016 Presidential nomination, the alt-right forces were able to consolidate behind a single candidate, Donald Trump.  

Trump threw out the “post-mortem” and created a new “populist” Republican doctrine.  He reached out to disaffected whites, particularly white men, who felt that the changes in America symbolized by the Obama Presidency were leaving them behind.  And he offered the Christian right everything they wanted:  Supreme Court Justices to ban abortion, abolition of “offensive” Affordable Care Act provisions, renouncing expanded LGBTQ rights, and undying loyalty to Israeli expansion. 

Instead of expanding the Republican Party base, the Trump campaign unified this new white populism.  And while Trump was unable to win a majority in the early primaries, his consolidation led to pluralities against the divided opposition.  This led to his nomination, and ultimately his election as President, despite Trump’s personal character flaws.

Minority Rule

Throughout his first term, Trump has never had a majority of Americans view him as “favorable”.  It is still his “minority”, his base that maintains loyalty.  And, in the mean time, the Trump Campaign has consolidated its power.  Now, there is no Republican Party outside of Trump:  he controls the National Committee, the financing, and the media organ, Fox News.  Few Republicans will stand against him, their fate is sealed by a “tweet”:  ask John Kasich, or Mark Sanford, or now Mitt Romney.

But ultimately, the “arc of our universe” is against the Republican Party.  Within two decades, white people in America will no longer be a majority.  A political party that isolates itself from non-white voters cannot look to survive.  And in the next twenty years the realities of climate change will become both apparent and irreparable. The Party that denies that cannot expect to be trusted.  

Grabbing Power

So the Republican Party of today is doing everything it can to consolidate power.  Mitch McConnell is single handedly packing the Federal Courts, with 25% of Appellate Court judges now Trump appointees.  McConnell held a Supreme Court seat open through the final year of the Obama Administration, securing an “extra” seat for Trump.  And, if another seat were to come open before January, whether Trump wins reelection or not, you can expect McConnell to swiftly move to fill it.

On a state level, the Court packing has already increased Republican power.  The Courts allowed the Republican gerrymandering plan, RedMap, to continue. RedMap creates extreme alterations to Congressional District maps maximizing the number of Republican representatives and minimizing Democrats.  In states like Ohio, North Carolina, and Georgia, it allows Republicans to have a disproportionate majority of Congressmen. 

Last Bastion

And the Republican Party is a fierce defender of the Electoral College system.  It reduces the overwhelming influence of popular votes in Democratic states like California and New York, and allows results where the winner of the popular vote still does not become President.  Hillary Clinton won by three million in 2016 but lost the Presidency. The Trump strategy for 2020 is geared to produce a similar result.

The Republican Party has become the Party of “rural America”.  The “Red States” of the middle of America don’t have population, but they do have two Senators a-piece, just like the populous states on the coast.  As the population increases in the next twenty years, the relative power of those Senate seats will become more important.  Holding onto the Senate must be a Republican priority; it will be the last bastion of their control.

None of these actions prevents Democrats from winning.  What they do mean is that it will require more than just a slim majority.  In order to overcome the Republican structural advantages, Democrats will need an overwhelming popular victories, not only winning the Presidency, but the Senate and State legislatures as well.

But if it doesn’t happen in 2020, change in political power is still inevitable.  The Republican Party has chosen the past.  The future is Democratic. The arc of the American universe is long, and it bends towards diversity.  

The “Send” Button

There’s a wise saying, never write a letter when you’re angry.  In the modern age it’s been translated to “don’t push the send button”.  So I’m writing today’s essay under duress, it’s been burning in my head since somewhere in the middle of the State of the Union address last night.  The speech made me more than angry: listening to it was like having surgery under local anesthesia; you know you have to do it, but you so much want to get up and leave.

To help me stay seated through the Presidential fiction I tried looking at Facebook.  That didn’t help, my Trumpian friends were so excited they couldn’t contain themselves.  “I guess Democrats don’t want a good economy,” one said, while others were overjoyed at the shocked expressions of Speaker Nancy Pelosi.  I’m a thumb typist on my phone, and my thumbs hovered over four-letters.  Don’t push “send”.

A Fictional Economy

It started with Trump’s economic claims.  The lies came fast and furious; so quickly you couldn’t fact check one before three more were spouted.  But the overall impact was to somehow paint a picture of an America where everyone had wonderful jobs, were paid living wages, and doing better than they ever had.  That vision is just not true, and the multiple fact-checking news services list one false claim after another (NYT). 

One real Trump truth was that unemployment is very low.  Sure there are lots of jobs, and it’s a damn good thing.  Many of those jobs aren’t paying a living wage; it takes a couple to even keep up.  Here’s a fact that the President didn’t tell you:  40% of Americans can’t handle a $400 emergency bill; the car breaking down, an uncovered medical expense, or a hot water heater going bad (CNBC).

My only guess is that either my Trumpian friends are “among the blessed” doing well, or they so hope to be, that they are willing to throw everyone else under the bus.

What Health Care Program?

There were lies about a non-existent Republican health care program, lies about protecting pre-existing conditions from a President in Court right now trying to rip it away, lies about cutting pharmaceutical costs.  Lies easily refuted, but lies that many Americans will say:  “if the President says it, it must be true”.  It’s not.

You can’t blame Democrats for their incredulity.  The President claimed credit for prison reform, family leave, and reduced drug prices; all bills generated from the Democratic House majority, with some still sitting on Mitch McConnell’s desk waiting for Senate action.  At first I thought the “women in white” were giving the President the universal hand signal of disrespect, instead they were giving him a three-fingered salute for House Resolution Number 3, “The Elijah Cumming Reduce Drug Costs Now Act” to reduce drug costs.  It’s there on Mitch’s desk too.

Feeding the Sharks

Then there were the “red meat” parts of the speech.  I expected them: “I will protect your right to have a gun” and “school choice to free children from government-run schools”.  The best one, “a Constitutional Amendment so children can pray in school,” which isn’t even a thing.  Children can pray in school, but adults can’t force their religion on kids in school, the real goal of the Christian right.  

And “I have brought peace to Israel and Palestine,” a proposal brought to you by nepotism, as little Jared read books  “for three years” and saved the world.  Even his buddy in Saudi Arabia isn’t buying into it, much less the Palestinians and the other Arab states.  It was more red meat for the masses.

But Rush Limbaugh, one of the miserable founders of American divisiveness, gets the Presidential Medal of Freedom?  And Melania hangs it on his neck, right there in the House of Representatives?  Who gets the award, I guess, is the President’s prerogative, but to do it in the House chamber is Trump “pissing in the corner”. 

The Uncle Don Show

And then there was State of the Union “Game Show”.  It was perhaps the lighter aspect of the hour:  what will be the next unexpected gift?  Check under your seat, maybe there’s a car key.  First, a thirteen year old gets to look forward to the Space Force, and we find his one hundred year old grandfather, a Tuskegee Airman and career Air Force veteran, gets a retirement promotion to Brigadier General.  Then, a thirteen-year-old girl gets a scholarship to a private school.  A border guard gets promoted to a supervisory position, and a mother of a premature baby gets funding for her pre-natal care program. Finally, the climax, the President brings a soldier back from war to reunite with his family.

It would have a lot more impact if he were bringing all the troops back from war to reunite all the families.  He’s not.

Tearing it Up

Some Congressmen got up and left.  I can’t blame them.  Speaker Pelosi was caught, she couldn’t leave, and she couldn’t stand the constant barrage of falsehoods.  “That’s not true” and “that’s our program” came out of her mouth: she was skewered by lie after lie with no way to respond.  

The speech wasn’t worth the parchment it was printed on.  The Speaker demonstrated what the President did to truth:  she tore it into pieces.

The McGowan

For almost thirty years I managed a high school and middle school Cross Country meet in Central Ohio, the McGowan Invitational.  Cross Country is the sport where kids run for miles, 3.1 miles for high school and 2 miles for middle school.  But unlike track, where they loop lap after lap, in Cross Country the race is over fields, hills, and in the case of our meet, through forest paths.  It is running at its essence; without the controls of lanes and all left turns.

Our meet grew through the years.  It started with a couple of dozen teams, a few races, and a picnic when it was all over. But by the 2000’s it turned into one of the biggest meets in the state, with hundreds of school competing in what ultimately became nineteen different races.  We started at nine in the morning and ran races until six at night.

It’s pretty simple to “administrate”.  The kids in each race line up at a starting line, the gun goes off, and 3.1 miles later they come across the finish line.  To “score” the meet, the finish order, first to last, is recorded along with their times.  No big deal.

5000 Runners

But as the size of the races grew, the sheer volume of kids crossing the finish line at the same time increased.  When it reached hundreds of kids per minute,  crossing a narrow finish line to get “lined up”:  some falling down, some throwing up, all struggling for breath; maintaining that order was a challenge.

Our finish line crew was amazing.  Of the hundreds of races, and tens of thousands of athletes crossing the line, they kept order almost every time.  They were so good I can talk about the two times it didn’t happen, when all of the backups and safeguards simply failed.

The first time was absolutely my fault.  We had far too many kids, over five hundred, in one race.  When two hundred hit the finish line within a minute of each other, there was no way to move them through the “chutes” and get their information.  The line stacked up, out of the chute, into the field, and back down the course.  We did end up getting “the order” correctly, but their times were lost.

We never ran a race that large again.  Adding races made the day longer, but we realized that our “forest” paths couldn’t handle the crowds, and neither could our finish.

Wrong Path

The second time wasn’t our fault.  Some high schools kids from a “guest” school thought it would be fun to change the “gates” that directed kids along the paths.  I got a radio call: the race was in the wrong place, running the wrong way.  We had hundreds of kids running a different path in the forest.

We re-directed them, kept the race moving, and ultimately got them to the finish line.  Those poor middle schoolers ran 2.4 miles instead of 2.0, and while we got all of the order and the times, those times were meaningless.  

The next year, instead of ropes and flags, the gates in the woods were metal posts and steel fencing.  No one would alter our race again.

We never had the colossal disaster, we never completely “lost” a race.  We switched to electronic timing, RFI chips tied into shoes and video camera finish line, and kept on going.  While I no longer manage, the McGowan still continues as one of the best meets in the state.  In the end, kids love to run in the woods.

Last Night in Iowa

Iowa had their “meet” last night.  Iowans love the caucus system of choosing their candidates, they love the community coming together to talk through their choices, rather than the cold solitude of the ballot booth.  The Caucus is like Cross Country, it’s freeform and open and infinitely transparent.  Supporters all sit together, cheering and talking, and seeing the choices that all of their neighbors make.   A primary is like track:  ordered, disciplined; easily controlled.  No one changes the gates in a track meet.

Last night Iowa “lost the race”. 

They were striving to satisfy the media demand for information, the public demand for speed, and the party’s demand for transparency.  Instead of reporting a single result, how many “delegates” each candidate earned in each precinct, now they were reporting raw results, from the first count, and from the second count, and from the final count; and then the delegate apportionment.

Iowa had a system that was essentially pencil and paper.  The precincts wrote down the numbers, then at the end of the night called them into a central “scoring” office.  At the office, there were lots of people ready to tabulate the results.  When it was that single result, it took about two hours to tabulate the 1700 individual precincts.

Too Much Information

But this year, with all of the extra information coming out, the Iowa Democratic Party decided to use  modern technology.  They had an “app” developed for phones, and asked the precinct captains to download the “app” and report using it.  The problem, in our era of Russiagate and hacking, using the “app” opened the opportunity for the system to be infiltrated.

The Iowa Dems decided to hold onto the reporting “app” until the last moment to protect it from attack.  But when it was finally released to the precincts, it didn’t work as they expected.  So precinct captains went back to old-school paper system that they knew so well.

But the people weren’t there to take the phone calls in central headquarters, the Party was counting on the “app”.  So now they’ve got a mess.  Hours waiting to give results, and no one there to tabulate them.

The paper trail is there, and we will know exactly who did what in Iowa.  The media, sitting on their hands for an entire Monday night, is making a huge deal of the failure in process.  But the process didn’t fail, Iowans selected their candidates.  We just don’t know the details, yet.

Dems Own It

I know, I heard it all last night.  How can we convince voters to let Democrats run the country when we can’t even run a caucus in Iowa?  Trump is laughing, Don Jr. is goading, the Party looks foolish.  We should “own” the problem.

We do.  We “lost” the race, and maybe Iowa won’t lead off the electoral season anymore.  But in the end, the results will be clear, and defined, and dependable.  It’s not a question of accuracy, it’s a demand for instant gratification.  And that’s the lesson we should learn from Iowa.  Every election, caucus or ballot box, should have a paper system that can backup all of our “fancy” electronics.  Why?  Because disasters happen, and the one thing every election has is time.  Time to count paper ballots, time to make sure it’s right, time to be accurate, not just fast.  

Folks can argue whether a caucus system is a good way to determine candidates, just like they argue about whether Cross Country or Track is better.  I would argue there is room for both:  like in running, each brings out a different set of  skills from the candidates, and from the communities.  Sure the Iowa Democratic Party screwed up, but they’ll get it right.  

Maybe it’s just more paper and pencils.

It’s Monday, February 3^rd, 2020.  It’s the day that many Americans have been waiting for since the early morning hours of Wednesday November 9^th, 2016; when the Trump Presidency became a nightmarish reality.  It’s the beginning of the Presidential election cycle, and for Democrats, it begins in Iowa.

Different Ways to Choose 

If you know anything about the American electoral process, you know it’s eccentric. We have the Electoral College that gets selected to choose the President.  And we have differing ways to choose who are the Presidential candidates for the political parties. 

Here in Ohio it’s pretty simple, you ask for a ballot for the Party of your choice, and then you pick one candidate from the list on the ballot.  It’s an election, and though the winner doesn’t “take all” this year, there definitely is a “first place”.  That primary chooses delegates to the nominating convention, divided by the candidates’ ranking in the vote.

Four states, Alaska, Kansas, Hawaii, Nebraska, will make their Presidential candidate selection using “ranked choice” voting.  Voters rank the candidates by preference.  The “first place” votes are counted, and the candidates with less than 15% are dropped.  Then the ballots are recounted without those candidates, with those that had the dropped candidates at first now counting their second choice as first.  The delegates to the nominating convention are then apportioned by those final results.

The Caucus

And then there are the caucus states, leading off tonight in Iowa.  In caucus states you don’t go to your precinct to vote – you go to meet (caucus).  At the meeting, held in a big room (think high school gym) you walk in, and go to the section of the gym designated for the candidate you support.  So go to the “Biden Corner”, or the “Bernie” section of the bleachers, or the “Yang” center court.  When everyone is organized, they count the people in the sections.

No, it’s not over.  When the first count is done, any candidate that doesn’t have at least 15% of the total no longer counts.  Those who were in their “corner” are now free to go to their “second choice,” any other candidate still in the count.  So in that brief reorganizing time, there’s a tremendous amount of persuasion as neighbors try to convince neighbors to come over to “their” corner.  After the second count, the results are reported, precincts are added up, and the delegates apportioned.

Stand UP

In the caucus, neighbors have to literally show up and stand up for a particular candidate.  Unlike the secret ballot in the voting primaries, in the caucus states neighbors get to see where everyone in the neighborhood stands, literally.  By the way, there are no eligibility rules, if you show up to participate in the Democratic caucus, you are a Democrat for that night.  This leads to some concern that Republicans might try to “candidate shop” to choose a weaker candidate to oppose President Trump.

But that can happen in any primary.  Even here in Ohio, where you have to declare a party to get a ballot, you are allowed to switch parties.  Generally though, Republicans take a Republican ballot, and Democrats get their Democratic ballot.  Most people don’t get hung up in trying to “rig” the general election.

The Start

So, after a year or more of debates, discussions, plans and pledges; we finally begin the process of choosing.  It is “just” the beginning, the primary cycle will continue into June.  And even then, there’s no guarantee that the Democratic Party will have a “winner”.  There may still have to be another “caucus”,  the big one at the Democratic Convention in Milwaukee in July.  If you understand the Iowa caucus method, then you have a pretty good idea how a “contested” Convention might turn out.  A first ballot with no “winner” would then start a “re-sort” like the gyms of Ottumwa, or Davenport, or Limoni.

The Democratic Party is raucous. “Bernie Bros”, “Yang Gangers”, nervous Biden backers, Warren planners, fresh-faced Mayor Pete followers and all the rest are fighting it out.  Except of course for Mike Bloomberg, who’s buying up all of the television time. They will test each other, raising questions about policies and attacking past records.  Don’t worry:  they won’t reveal any secrets that the Trump Campaign didn’t know.  

And by Thursday, July 16^th we will have one candidate, and one mission: to end the Trump Presidency.  It’s not that big a deal, just the fate of the American Republic and maybe the whole world.  After all the fighting – Democrats will be one.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press… First Amendment, US Constitution

Wedge Issues

We are living in an era of political divisions.  While there have always been disagreements and differences among voters; today we have refined the art of “wedge politics”.  Candidates, parties and interest groups profit and grow by finding ways to divide people.  Those divisions motivate their supporters to vote, and more importantly, donate.

So we find that the rural impoverished in our nation somehow choose to support the political party that officially represents the wealthy.  It’s not about the money, or the growth in the stock market; those folks never see any of that.  No, it’s about the “moral” issues:  the artificial divisions created to encourage citizens to see each other as “them and us”.

Divide and Conquer

Those groups use the explosive issues of our time:  guns, faith, gender, race.  It isn’t random chance that Fox News, both local and national, with mind numbing frequency, show story after story of “regular people” being attacked.  Who ever heard of the term “home invasion” twenty years ago.  But today, we are told “be armed” to protect ourselves, be prepared for the “stranger” (probably of a different race) coming through the broken window or smashed front door.  Be scared, of strangers who look or act differently and be armed for defense, we are told.

We are told that progress for “others” must be at the expense of “us”.  Our population has almost doubled in sixty years, but we are told that our world is a “zero sum” game.  What we’ve got someone else wants to take, and we should use every legal and social trick to keep it.

It makes it so easy to give into the fear within us, the dread of something different.  So many forces in our society are saying “it’s OK”.

Identity

I spent forty years of my life as a high school track coach.  For forty seasons, I had the privilege of working with young athletes, helping them improve, teaching them the techniques to maximize their efforts, and supporting them through success and failure.  Today in my former profession, there is great unrest over the concept of “gender”.  

When I was a young man, homosexuality was barely discussed.  It was literally placed in the closet.  It took immense courage for a gay person to live in the open, in some places in the United States it was still illegal.  “Straight” folks couldn’t imagine why a person would be gay.  For me it took the willingness of gay friends to talk and explain that just because I was “straight” didn’t mean that I was “right”.  Normal for them was gay; that was their life, even if it wasn’t mine.

Now we know that identity isn’t just gay or straight.  We know that there are folks who are born physically one gender, but are mentally the other.  “Normal” for them is the gender in their brain, to live any other way is to masquerade a lie.  How we can demand of those “trans” folks to live that lie, so that “we other people” can feel “comfortable”?

The Trans Athlete

In track and field today there is controversy of what to do with “trans” athletes.  To some it’s all about competition and “advantages”.  How can an athlete born physically a male dare identify and compete as a female?  “It’s not fair” they say, and in three states, Tennessee, Georgia and Washington, laws have been proposed that would require athletes to compete as their birth gender, or not participate at all. 

They never bring up the other side, the athlete who identifies as a male.  They don’t have the inherent “advantage”, I guess, so they can compete without the same threat.  But the laws don’t make that exception.  There are ways to “balance” the differences, the advantages, so that competition can be “fair”.  If athletics is education, not just competition, shouldn’t it be about encouraging all instead of banning some?

Essentially those proposals tell transgendered kids that they are not welcome in athletics.  All of the benefits of being on a “team”, the very real lessons in learning and life, are denied, even by public schools that are governed by the First Amendment prohibition against establishing “religion” or abridging free expression. Denied because adults are “threatened” by the concept of the transgendered.   Since their mind can’t conceive it, they don’t believe it.

And this is a larger lesson in our current society.  Americans are being told that “our” culture is threatened by these changes.  They are encouraged to take steps to protect “our right” to maintain our own beliefs and prejudices.

WE, THEY and US

WE are allowed to believe what WE want, and to see others as WE wish.  But what WE don’t have the right to do, is tell them how THEY should believe, and how THEY should act.  WE have the right to our own religion, but not the right to enforce that religion on THEM.  In fact “WE and THEY” is the problem. 

It should be US.  WE should have our own beliefs, but recognize that differing beliefs aren’t wrong, just different.  WE need to accept US, a diverse population, differing in religion and gender and race, as all part of a WHOLE.   

Why?  Because we are seeing what division does to our country.  Because we know what we can do as a diverse people who are whole.  And because we face crisis upon crisis, that will take ALL of US to solve them. 

Hoops Talk

It’s still too soon to tell what the US Senate will do regarding the Trial of Donald Trump.  The critical vote will probably come today, when they will determine whether to seek evidence and witnesses.  That vote is, as reporters put it, “a jump ball”.  From here, it feels a lot like the Kavanaugh nomination, a “jump ball” where the refs will tip it to a pre-determined team.  And just like Kavanaugh, don’t depend on Susan Collins to be a tower of moral strength.

But even if the outcome is predestined, the Senate Republicans should “jump through the hoop” of listening to John Bolton’s testimony.  Regardless of their final decision of exoneration, the voters of the United States deserve the right to hear what the former National Security Advisor has to say.  

The Fix 

It’s not likely to happen.  Senate Republicans don’t want to hear that the President, their President, did exactly what the House of Representatives said he did.  They absolutely refuse to know that Donald Trump used the taxpayer supplied and Congressionally mandated funds of the United States to try to extort Ukraine for political dirt on Joe Biden.  And they certainly don’t want to hear about it first hand from John Bolton.  They’d rather read it in his book next month, when they can wring their hands and use the ultimate insult to their old friend:  disgruntled employee.

For them, it’s all well and good that “the fix” is in.  They know it’s fixed; they don’t want their Senatorial noses rubbed in it by Bolton.

I keep waiting for the “profile in courage”, that Republican Senator who casts political considerations aside and makes a morally right decision.  But alas, it’s not an era of courage.  It seems that Senate Republican courage was buried at Annapolis alongside John McCain.  Mitt Romney, by the way, isn’t that profile either.  He has as safe a seat as exists there in Utah, in fact, he has a Republican constituency that is as morally appalled by Donald Trump as most Democrats.  Still, it’s good to have him there.

Profile of Fear

The biggest disappointment is that I truly believe most Republican Senators (and many “normal” Republicans) are disgusted by the President’s actions.  They are choosing to ignore their “better angels”.  Senators fear the President, the impact his single tweet could have on their career. They fear the Republican Party mechanisms that the Trump Campaign wholly controls, taking the financial support of their own Party.  And they dread being “primaried” by other Republicans more loyal to Trump.

They rationalize:  “…if I stand up for this, I will be left alone, out of office, and the next Senator might well be worse for the country”.   That next Senator might be a Trumper, but it might just as well be a Democrat.  Ask the people of South Carolina House District 1, who “primaried” conservative Republican Mark Sanford out of office after a Trump tweet, and then lost the general election to a Democrat.   Professor Dershowitz, for all the nonsense he spouted in the past couple of days, managed to make one clear, correct point in his dissertation.  Most politicians truly believe what’s in their best is also in the nations’ best interest.  

Take the Shot

Speaker Pelosi didn’t want to move on impeachment.  In her thinking, if the President’s actions outlined in the Mueller Report didn’t create national outrage, then Democrats were better sticking to their positive agenda of health care, reducing income stratification, and improving voting rights.  That was how they won the House in 2018. 

But what drove her to allow the process to begin was Trump’s obvious determination to “fix” the 2020 election.   The Muller Investigation didn’t stop him; in fact, it emboldened him to extort Ukrainian President Zelenskiy.  That was the plan:  Trump couldn’t allow the election of 2020 to be on a level playing field.  He had to find a way to make Joe Biden as negative and ugly as he was.  He had to cheat to win.  

Speaker Pelosi and Chairman Schiff entered impeachment with their eyes wide open.  Even though the evidence of the President’s actions and obstructions was overwhelming, so was his control of the Republican Party and the mind numbing power of Fox News.  But impeachment and the Senate trial was the only way to place the evidence in front of the American voters.  They had to “take the shot”. 

To the People 

The President’s attorney Pat Cipillone calls for Senators to “…leave it to the people of the United States”.   Whether he believes it or not, Democrats recognized that was the probable outcome of the trial as well.  What the Trial does, is lay out the case to the voters.  It has also laid bare the stranglehold the President has taken over his own political party.  No witnesses, no evidence, no subpoenas:  the American people know what a real trial is, and “this ain’t it”.

Democrats have taken their best shot.  The Republicans in the Senate have “rigged” the game so that the President cannot be touched.  Now it is up to the American voters in 2020. Unlike the Republican Senators so afraid of the truth, they are willing to vote for the kind of America they want, even if the election process is still slanted in Trump’s favor.

When the trial ends, the people have the ball.

Con Law 101

I spent yesterday listening to Alan Dershowitz lecture in the Trial of Donald Trump.  As the youngest tenured law professor in Harvard University history, Dershowitz is a fifty-year veteran of law school classrooms.   One consistent pattern of all law school pedagogy is to follow a legal principle to its logical extreme.  It starts as a reasonable legal precept, like Presidents should legally act in the nation’s best interest.  And that’s where Professor Dershowitz began.  

But then he chased the idea to its extreme, reaching a point when he said that whatever a President does to get re-elected, that President believes it’s in the best interest of the country, so it’s legal.  Anything he does.  Dershowitz might have missed the blank check for any Presidential action he was promoting; but no one else in the room, not even his own legal compatriots, were willing to climb out on that limb.

In part of that slide to the extreme, Dershowitz mentioned Abraham Lincoln.  He claims that the actions Lincoln took in the crisis of the Civil War were Constitutional, and if those were, certainly the “quid pro quo” action of Donald Trump was.  

To Hell

I am now going to history “Hell”.  

Abraham Lincoln is arguably our most revered leader.  While George Washington established the process and structure of the Federal Government, it was Lincoln who established “the heart” of the American experiment.  He didn’t allow legal structure or even long held traditions to prevent him from saving the Union.  He did whatever he had to do.

It wasn’t legal.  Abraham Lincoln violated the text and spirit of the US Constitution time and time again.  When Dershowitz used Lincoln as an excuse for Trump, he made one mistake.  Lincoln could have been impeached.

I know, your eighth grade history teacher never, ever, ever said that; even if it was me.

Violating the Constitution

But let’s look at what Lincoln did.  In the first few weeks of his Presidency, he suspended the writ of habeas corpus in Maryland and summarily imprisoned a state government official. The US Army held John Merryman, a state legislator, imprisoned in Fort McHenry. Merryman’s attorney went to the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Roger Taney, for a writ of habeas corpus releasing him from custody.  Taney granted the writ, but Lincoln defied the ruling and kept Merryman in jail.

This wasn’t the only action Lincoln took that could have resulted in impeachment.  On a purely legal basis, the Civil War itself could be viewed as a huge expansion of Presidential power.  But more specifically, Lincoln took property away from private citizens; property protected by the Supreme Court in Dred Scott v Sanford.  We see it as a heroic measure in US History, the Emancipation Proclamation, but it clearly went against legal precedent.

It was never tested in Court, but Lincoln and the Congress recognized that it would not hold by itself.  While Lincoln was no longer around after the Civil War, the Congress “post-dated” the action by passing the Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery throughout the nation.  

Rigged Election

And finally to Professor Dershowitz’s story.  Lincoln’s Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton, made no secret that he wanted the Army to support Lincoln for President against his popular Democratic opponent George McClellan in the election of 1864.  Army units that were Republican were sent home to vote, those that were Democrat were faced with duty on the front lines.  Army officers who spoke out for McClellan were actually dismissed from service.  Cadets at the Military Academy at West Point, who attended a Democratic meeting, were forced to dig a live sewer line from the Superintendent’s home.  

General Sherman complained that he needed the troops for battle, but Lincoln made it clear that their Republican votes were more important.   As Professor Dershowitz pointed out, Lincoln saw his re-election as furthering the nation’s goals, and used the votes of his troops to get it done.

For the Union

Ok, stop writing that nasty comment on this post.  I don’t think Lincoln should have been impeached.  Lincoln defended the Union, and saw that as his highest calling, even above defending the Constitution.  While he didn’t write the phrase, Lincoln did understand that the Constitution wasn’t a “suicide pact” that the nation should blindly follow into oblivion.  He did what he needed to do to assure that “…government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth”.

That doesn’t mean that Donald Trump should get a pass.  Lincoln’s actions were in a moment of national extremis, when the very existence of the United States was at risk.  Trump extorting Ukraine for “dirt” on Joe Biden can hardly be seen in the same light.  And that’s the ultimate flaw in Professor Dershowitz’s analysis.  We can’t compare today’s crisis to the Civil War.  

But we certainly all can agree:  Donald Trump is no Abraham Lincoln.

The United States Department of Justice stands for enforcing the law and protecting the Constitution.  It’s multiple parts; from the FBI and DEA, to the Civil Rights and Anti-Trust Divisions, have often stood for the “good” done by the United States government.  

But Justice is also a part of the executive branch, and subject to the whims and the desires of the leader of that branch, the President of the United States.  The career employees of Justice are often placed in an awkward balance.  They are a law enforcement agency, dedicated to balancing justice with “Qui Pro Domina Justitia Sequitur”emblazoned on their seal (who prosecutes on behalf of justice).  But they are led by a political appointee, and are an arm of the Presidency.

Blind Justice

And it is this balance between “blind justice” and politics that has been the story of Justice for the past fifty years.    The modern story begins with the infamous Director of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover.  He ran the Bureau with an iron hand, using its information gathering skills to get “dirt” on national figures and extort control of them.  It worked, and Hoover was left as a dictatorial authority in his agency for forty-eight years, from the roaring twenties into the 1970’s.  

To balance Hoover’s power, in 1961 newly elected President John Kennedy placed his brother, Robert Kennedy, as Attorney General.  Bobby was his brother’s closest confidant, his campaign manager, and the legendary Kennedy family “hatchet man”.  The President might be glib and smiling; Bobby was the one who said who was fired.

Bobby took the Justice Department in the direction of promoting civil rights, much to Hoover’s dismay.  While Bobby was sending US Attorneys in to prosecute Ku Klux Klan members, Hoover was wiretapping Martin Luther King Jr, spreading rumors of Communism and marital infidelity.  Hoover was too powerful to remove, but Kennedy served as a check against him. 

After the President was assassinated, and Lyndon Johnson took over, Bobby Kennedy soon left leadership of the Department.  But, his successors continued Johnson’s dedication to civil rights. Hoover also remained, using his extraordinary powers to attack the anti-Vietnam War movement.  

Watergate

It was in the middle of the Vietnam Crisis that Richard Nixon won the Presidency.  Nixon followed Kennedy’s lead, putting his campaign manager John Mitchell in as Attorney General.  Mitchell was focused on one thing, keeping Richard Nixon in power as President.  And as Nixon’s political philosophy and Hoover’s were much more compatible, the FBI became a part of the Nixon machine.

Nixon’s fall in the Watergate Crisis was much more than just a minor break-in at the Democratic National Committee offices.  Millions of dollars of campaign funds were spent on illegal actions, a White House “team” pursued Nixon’s agenda with illegal acts, and most of these actions fully involved the White House, the President, and the Attorney General.  By Nixon’s resignation, the country saw a Justice Department fully co-opted into illegal politics.  Mitchell went to jail, along with much of Nixon’s senior staff.

Independent Justice

After Watergate, the Justice Department, including the FBI (Hoover retired under a scandal of his own making) distanced itself from politics.  No longer was the Attorney General an extension of the Presidential campaign, and the Directors of the FBI were chosen for ten-year terms.   The Department took an apolitical stand, with the connection to the Executive solely at the senior level.  Perhaps this was most famously seen with President Clinton’s Attorney General Janet Reno, who remained clear of an Independent Counsel investigation of her boss.  That investigation, led by Ken Starr, resulted in the Clinton’s impeachment.

George W. Bush brought in a more political leader, John Ashcroft, and later Alberto Gonzales.  Barack Obama also tried to split the difference, with Eric Holder still asserting independence while serving the President’s agenda.  

My Roy Cohn

But Donald Trump made it clear from the beginning that he wanted an Attorney General to “have his back”.  Jeff Sessions got the job, but made a fatal mistake by following Department guidelines and recusing himself from the Russia investigation.  He left Trump undefended, and  Trump made Sessions’ life miserable, constantly deriding him even as Sessions tried to fulfill the rest of the Trump agenda.  

And when Sessions finally resigned, Trump found exactly what he was looking for, his own Bobby Kennedy or John Mitchell:  he found Bill Barr.  Barr auditioned for the job by writing an unsolicited twenty-page memo in support of the President, and immediately began to make the Justice Department into his own image.

Justice and the White House

One of the most powerful forces Barr has used is the internal Department legal evaluator, the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC).  The OLC writes the legal opinions for the Justice Department, and with Barr’s ascension, began to author a series of memos that backed Barr’s extreme view of executive power.  Those opinions become the “opinion” of the Executive Branch, and, short of a Federal Court opinion, has much of the force of law.

So when the OLC opined that the “Whistleblower Report” did not require Congress to be notified, or even Federal investigation, it became the basis for the White House defense of their actions.  And when the President’s lawyers in the Senate trial for impeachment quote the OLC as defining opinions, it’s should be no surprise that they back the President.

It took forty years for the Department of Justice to revert back to an arm of the White House after Watergate.  When the Trump era is finally over, it will take action by both the Congress and the new President to return to some semblance of impartiality again.  

Until then, it is impartial justice denied.

Script Rejected

If you wrote it in a Hollywood script – no one would buy it.  No one would buy the impeachment of the President, rocked by the secret book laying bare the criminal actions of the President himself.  They wouldn’t buy Lev and Igor (that’s not Boris and Natasha), spending dollars like water in the Ukraine, working for “America’s Mayor” Rudy Giuliani, but financed by a Russian oligarch.

No one would believe an entire television network, not just dedicated to protecting the President, but supplying his spokespeople, his staff, and even his legal defense team.  And who could imagine that the lawyers who got the most infamous child sex purveyor of the century a sweetheart prison deal, would appear in the “well” of the Senate to intone solemn legal defenses for the President.

No, no one would buy it.  It’s not believable the producers would say, it couldn’t happen.  Yet here we are.  By the way, while all of this is going on, the President himself is announcing his son-in-law’s new Middle East Peace Plan, with the criminally indicted Prime Minister of Israel at his side.  Yeah, it wouldn’t even make it as a comedy.

Can’t Shoot Straight

They defense team can’t shoot straight.  Monday, their “big day” in front of the American people, they buried the lead. They started off with a long lecture by Ken Starr, the man who drove the impeachment of President Clinton for lying about a blowjob.  Starr lamented the “frequency” and “pettiness” of recent impeachments, as if he had nothing to do with it.  His performance was like a blanket and a warm fireplace:  it made it hard to stay awake.

And if they were smart, they would have spent the rest of the afternoon on Constitutional issues.  But they dropped their “bomb” a four in the afternoon, instead of saving it for “prime time”.  They launched their attack on Joe Biden, the leading Democratic candidate for President, while America was finishing up work and heading home to dinner.

After all, this is what the entire crisis is about.  Trump wanted to attack Biden, and he wanted the President of Ukraine, Zelenskiy, to do it.  Trump was willing to leverage American national security to get a Ukrainian investigation into imagined Biden corruption there.  

And even though Trump got caught and couldn’t get that exposure, he had a second chance.  It was yesterday, when the former Florida Attorney General Pam Biondi, dressed provocatively in what looked like a prototype “Space Force” uniform, launched her attack on Joe Biden and his son, Hunter.

Not Ready for Prime Time

It should have been in prime time.  If you’re taking the shot; then take it, don’t hide it.  But they blew that chance.  Instead of trashing Joe Biden in front of the a watching nation, they gave the prime time slot to wizened Alan Dershowitz, former legal prodigy and Harvard Law Professor.  Dershowitz dropped us all into a lecture from his old classroom, Constitutional Law 506.  You know you’ve got your audience when you are describing the legal acumen of the Justice who dissented to the Dred Scott Case in 1857.  That, for sure, cements the deal with the American people.

Oh yeah, did I forget the guy who wanted to go back and impeach President Obama?  He was after “Space Force” woman and before dinner.  I don’t think he earned much respect from the Senators, or the American people.

So here we are today, the last chance for the “gang that can’t shoot straight”.  What looked like a sure “win” for them, with a Senate majority firmly behind the President, is now getting shaky.  Senators know that President Trump can damage them politically, they know their “…heads could end up on a pike” if they cross him.  But they also know that the truth is out there, in the pages of John Bolton’s new book, in the SDNY evidence for Lev and Igor, and in the unspoken testimonies of Pompeo, Mulvaney, and the rest. 

Naked and Afraid

The President’s defenders have spent their time handing out “fig leaves” for Republican Senators to hide behind, giving them cover to vote to end the Trial.  But those same Senators can see the future, and that future will make them look naked and foolish.  The defenders will have to give them a “bigger leaf” today, if they want the trial to end this week.

Of course if you are a “swing” Republican Senator, there are no good choices to make.  If you vote with the President, you keep a core base, but lose the middle.  If you vote against the President, even just to allow witness testimony in the trial, you risk a Trumpian attack that takes you base.  And the Democrats in your state aren’t going to thank you with their votes; no matter what you do they are voting for someone else.

The most improbable ending:  Bolton testifies, twenty Republican Senators are moved, and the removal of Donald John Trump from the Presidency becomes a real possibility.  But don’t hold your breath for that.

It couldn’t even happen in a Hollywood script.

Today the President’s defense begins in earnest.  Starting at 1 pm in the Senate Chamber, the lawyers representing Donald John Trump will explain why he shouldn’t be removed from office.  

Defending Trump

I expect this afternoon we will hear from the academics. Alan Dershowitz will proclaim his wildly aberrant views on the US Constitution. Ken Starr will promulgate his belief that the House Managers have usurped the powers of the Justice Department.  Their arguments will add up to:  Article II of the Constitution gives the President near unlimited power including total control of the Justice Department.  And the Justice Department is the only agency in the government that can investigate the President.

The President would have to investigate himself, and recommend his own impeachment to fit into the Constitutional model the two will create. It leaves no real way to counter Presidential misconduct.

A Favor, Though

But tonight is when the real show begins, in prime time presented to Fox News viewers for the first time unfettered by commentary.  Tonight Donald Trump will achieve what he failed to get from the Ukrainian government:  Joe Biden’s name dragged through the mud.  

In the end, this is all about the 2020 election.  Trump beat Clinton because they both had record high negative ratings among voters.  For Trump to win in 2020, he has to replicate that scenario, including the improbably narrow popular vote victories in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.  His opponent has to be smeared, right or wrong. Trump has to find a way to make them equally “dirty”. 

Joe Biden doesn’t carry those negatives, even with a political “tail” that stretches back into the 1970’s.  If Biden wins the Democratic nomination, Trump must reduce him to this lowest common denominator to be successful.  That’s what made the Zelenskiy phone call so important, and what will make tonight so ugly.  It’s the Trump Campaign’s best shot to build the “stench of corruption,” around Biden, undeserved after fifty years of public service.  

So expect that Attorneys Cipillone and Sekulow will be serving in a campaign capacity rather than a legal one tonight.

The Fates

In the ancient Greek tragedies, there was always a chorus of “Fates” chanting in the background.  They foretold the future, and that future was always bleak.  The best acts of man were doomed to fail; it was the Gods that determined the course of events, not men.

Republicans in the Senate might well feel the same as those mere mortals in Greek tragedy.  They hope to control their fate, shutting off witnesses, evidence, and discussion by ending the Trump trial.  They are desperately trying to control their future, the President’s future, and the fate of the Republican Party.  

But just as the chorus chanted in the background in the Greek Amphitheatre, the media is foretelling events today.  Republicans are rushing the process to keep information out, but the steady drip of evidence not heard in the trial continues.

Last night the New York Times published a glimpse into former National Security Advisor John Bolton’s new book.  In it, Bolton testifies that President Trump specifically ordered military aid withheld from Ukraine to leverage their government investigation into Biden.  For the Republicans in the Senate, claiming only circumstantial evidence of Presidential misconduct, it’s a “nail in the coffin”.

The Drip of Truth

They cannot hear Bolton testify in the Senate, without being forced to acknowledge the President’s offenses.  And Bolton wants his say, and his profit.  The American people will hear him whether he testifies in the Senate or not.  And that will leave the Republicans caught outright in their cover-up of the President’s actions.

And if Bolton weren’t enough, we get to hear directly from the President, telling Parnas and Fruman that he will “take out” Ambassador Yovanovitch.  Why Fruman recorded an hour and more of a dinner party it’s difficult to say, but we can listen to it all today, even if the Senate Republicans will not.

The real story will keep coming out, drip by drip.  Before the conventions, perhaps even before the end of the primaries, all America will know exactly what President Trump did.  We will likely find that the House Managers were right, and that McConnell and his comrades willfully allowed a rogue Presidency.

Like the Greek Gods, the electorate will determine the fate, not only of President Trump, but also of the Republican Party as a whole.  While the Republicans may control the moment in the Senate, the power of facts will ultimately be revealed.  Let’s hope the voters will show the wisdom of Olympians.

In the classic movie about the Watergate era, All the President’s Men, reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein discuss the dilemma of “proof”.  Their argument:  if you go to bed and there’s no snow on the ground, and you wake up and there’s snow on the ground, can you factually say it snowed in the night?  Or is it just circumstantial evidence?  Can it be reported in the paper, or does there need to be a first-hand witness to the snowfall?

The Trial

We are entering the second week of the Trial of Donald John Trump, President of the United States.  The first day, and night, and part of the next morning of the trial were consumed with political wrangling.  Democratic Senators wanted to hear witnesses and subpoena evidence, Republican Senators voted item after item down, putting off that decision until after the cases were presented.  

The House Managers, what would be the “prosecutors” of the case in a criminal court, took three days to present an exhaustive case against the President.  Their overarching theme:  the President used the power of his office, the structures of the government, and the money appropriated by Congress to further his own political goals.  He not only did it before, but he was still doing it now, and there was no reason to believe he won’t do it again if he’s not stopped.

Even more, the President was willing to risk the national security of the United States to pursue his own personal political goals.  He was willing to abandon our allies, and give aid and support to our enemies.  Without using the word, the House Managers raised the specter of treasonous behavior.

Stonewall Defense

But there is an unavoidable flaw in the House Managers’ presentation.  No matter how many facts they marshal, no matter how eloquent their appeals to justice and fairness, no matter the mountains of “snow” they find on the ground.  They don’t have the “direct” connection.

President Trump has mounted the ultimate “stonewall” defense.  He has, in an unprecedented act, ordered the entire Executive Branch to refuse cooperation with the House investigation.  The President ordered all witnesses to refuse to testify, to even appear in front of the investigators.  He has withheld every shred of paper evidence.  And he is getting away with it.

My Roy Cohn

The President’s apologists in the Senate default to the past impeachment of President Clinton, when the House sent over literal truckloads of evidence gathered by the four year Justice Department investigation led by Ken Starr.  They argue that the House didn’t do the “due diligence” required in an impeachment investigation, that the Democrats “don’t have it”.

Of course, that’s a specious argument.  This President, unlike Clinton, or Nixon, or even Reagan in the Iran-Contra investigation, has an iron-lock on the Justice Department.  His “Roy Cohn,” Attorney General Bill Barr, has not allowed the Justice Department to enter into the investigation.  In fact, it may well be that the Department is withholding pertinent information.  Recently revealed texts and phone calls from the case against Lev Parnas in the Southern District of New York further damn the President’s case, but were only released from Parnas’ attorney, held back for months by the Justice Department team.

So the key witnesses to this critical national crime, National Security Advisor Bolton, Chief of Staff Mulvaney, the executives at the Office of Management and Budget who held the money, all remain silent.  The House Managers are forced to build powerful bridges of evidence, but they fall one section short of completing the crossing.

The Jury

Speaker Pelosi argues that the criticality of the timing required the House to impeach.  She maintains the risk to the 2020 election posed by Trump’s actions required them to take the evidence they have and move on.  The Speaker could not allow the “stonewall” strategy and the co-opting of the Justice Department to cover-up the crimes.

The President’s attorneys are not presenting a case.  It is all about obfuscation, of clouding the facts with wild theories of Ukrainian attacks on the 2016 election, and Trump’s “deep concern” about corruption.  Their job is as “fig leaf weavers”.  They need to give just the smallest cover to the naked subservience of the Republican Senators.  And they will.

But the House effort is not in vain.  Early on, the House Managers recognized that the real jury in this trial is not the Senate, but the American people.  And while the “Fifth Avenue” Trump supporters remain at his back, the majority of Americans already get it.  

It snowed last night.

For only the third time in American history, the President of the United States is on trial in front of the Senate.  At stake: the Presidency itself.  Should a two-thirds majority find Donald John Trump guilty, he will be removed from office, and likely banned from running again.  

As the trial progresses we are hearing commentators and experts drawing analogies between the “impeachment trial” and more familiar criminal law.  While those analogies might be helpful in explaining some procedures, in the end the two are not the same at all.

We’ve Impeached

Impeachment is already over.  Donald Trump is an “impeached” President, joining the list of Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton.  Impeachment was the House of Representatives bringing charges for trial in front of the Senate.  It is analogous to what an indictment does in the criminal process.  And, much like a criminal indictment, there are few “due process” protections for the “defendant”.

That reality belies the complaints of the President, demanding representation and bemoaning the unfairness of things.  The President is now getting his rights: they’re coming up next week when his “dream team” gets three uninterrupted days on the floor of the Senate.  And besides, you can only hope that if you are investigated for a criminal indictment, that almost half of the investigators are your friends and supporters, like Jim Jordan, Doug Collins, and the rest (though I’d rather have friends who actually tried to influence the outcome rather than just disrupt it).

It’s Not a Crime

And the “trial” itself, though it has the trappings of a court drama, is really very different.  First of all, there is a judge, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court; but he has little influence over the proceedings.  The Senators are both judges and jurors: a simple majority determines the rules of the proceeding.  The usual fairness we would expect in a trial, hearing witnesses and seeing evidence, are not a given.  They are a “grant” of the majority.

The trial from impeachment is rather a mix of legislature, criminal law and civil law.  There is no “standard” of guilt, such as the “beyond a reasonable doubt” criminal bar, or even the “preponderance of the evidence” of a civil case.  The Senator/Jurors get to not only decide the facts of what happened, but whether those facts violate the Constitution, and whether those violations are so egregious that the President should be removed.  As jurors they determine the facts, as judges they evaluate the law. 

But removal from office (and baring from future office) is not a criminal penalty, and the Trial from Impeachment is not a criminal case.  The rights we assume in the criminal system are not enforced.  If the President is removed for criminal reasons, then the he would get criminal rights in a criminal court, after he is out of office.  

There are none of the Constitutionally mandated legal criminal protections that we are so used to.  Certainly the President could refuse to present evidence and testimony, “taking the Fifth” so to speak.  But unlike criminal action, the Senator/Jurors are allowed to infer guilt from his failure.   And the Constitution does not require a particular level of “guilt”.  If two-thirds believe the President should be removed, he is.

High Crimes

The term “high crime” is a “term of art” as used in the United States Constitution.  A high crime to the Founding Fathers, was a crime against the state, the Constitution itself, not a “big” crime or felony as we think of in criminal law today.  High crimes are acts against the State, but not necessarily against statutory criminal law.  

The current 1^st Article of Impeachment is for Abuse of Power, a term that is a “high crime” but not analogous to any individual Federal statute.  Under “abuse of power” there are contained various Federal crimes: misuse of public funds, violation of the impoundment act, offering bribes to foreign officials, encouraging foreign intervention in US elections.  But those are all “common” crimes, it is only when committed together by the President that they become a  “high” crime, a crime against the Constitution.

And the 2^nd Article of Impeachment, obstruction of Congress, is wholly outside the Federal Criminal Statutes.  The “high” crime is in preventing Congress from exercising its Constitutional Article I powers of oversight. The President claims a flawed theory of total blanket Executive immunity. He has completely refused all Congressional requests for information.  It is a Constitutional question, to be decided above the level of mere Federal law.

Clock and a Calendar

The Republican Congressman from Georgia, Doug Collins, made a huge fuss about the House Democrats rush to impeachment.  He didn’t understand the hurry, and kept saying that “…a clock and a calendar” drove them, as if that was some insult.

He wasn’t wrong, but not for the reason he thought.  Democrats did feel the pressure of time in the impeachment action.  The President, through his actions in Ukraine, made it clear that he would ask for and accept foreign aid to help him win election in 2020.  Those elections are now mere months away. To prevent the President from cheating, something had to be done. 

The “clock and the calendar” are still running.  This President began the Ukraine crisis literally the day after he was “cleared” by the Mueller Report.  Who knows what will happen the day after this trial is over. 

Perhaps Impeachment and Trial will serve as a check on his future actions, even if he’s not removed from office.  Perhaps it will not. If the Senate fails to be remove him, we will find out soon enough.