Category: Uncategorized

Philmont

I was thirteen soon to be fourteen in August of 1970.  As a Boy Scout I was given a special age waiver to participate in a “high adventure” activity at Philmont, New Mexico.  The Boy Scouts owned (still do) several hundred square miles of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains near the town of Cimarron, and small groups of Scouts would backpack from camp to camp through the range.  It was a ten-day adventure, taking us high above the tree line on Mt. Baldy at 12,000 feet, and exploring near one hundred miles of the world of New Mexico wilderness.  We met deer, and bear, and tested our limits on the high mountain trails.  

We were on the western side of the territory, miles from the headquarters and highway, when a boy died on a base camp day hike.  He didn’t die of injury; he became gravely ill from an unknown cause, and then passed away.  Authorities weren’t sure what caused his death, but the symptoms he exhibited before his passing resembled pneumonic plague.

Plague

Everyone knew what the bubonic plague was, the rat-borne bacterial disease that killed massive numbers of the population in the middle ages.  And even if they don’t know about the plague, they probably know the signs:

“Ring around the rosy, pocket full of posey, ashes, ashes, all fall down”.

That ancient rhyme describes the ringed red pustules of bubonic plague that smelled so bad that flowers were used to try to cover the odor.  Burning bodies, “ashes, ashes” and everyone dies.  It seemed like such an innocent childhood song.

Bubonic plague was passed through fleas.  The rats had the disease and the fleas bit the rats.  The rats died, and the fleas moved onto the nearest warm bodies, humans, carrying the disease with them. 

The plague still exists in some rodent populations, including squirrels in the mountains.  But pneumonic plague is different, instead of passing through an insect bite; it is carried in the air by droplets from an infected source.  That makes it much more dangerous, because it is so easily transmitted.

Quarantine

They sealed Philmont off.  Parents drove to the camp, lining the highway at the front gate trying to reach their children.  The National Guard came in to guarantee the quarantine.  My group, 8-04-C2, blithely continued hiking our itinerary, actually passing off the property for half a day before reaching our next camp.  Headquarters didn’t want to call everyone back in, massing the Scouts in base camp would increase risks of infection.

So, while my parents worried, and my sister had her first child, I was marching the hallowed trails of Philmont.  It took a couple of days and an autopsy to find that the unfortunate boy had a congenital heart defect, not pneumonic plague.  The crisis that didn’t ever exist was averted.

Coronavirus

We are not so lucky today.  The crisis of the COVID-19 virus is very real.  Like the pneumonic plague, it is passed through airborne droplets, or through contact with the virus on surfaces.  Unlike plague, it has a much lower fatality rate, though scientists are still unsure how dangerous it may be.  Somewhere between 2% and 4% of those who contract the disease die. The victims are older, sicker, or have compromised immune systems.

The disease moves from person to person, with the potential for exponential growth.   I’m not a “math guy”, so I’ve stolen a graph from the Internet to explain the difference between linear growth and exponential growth.

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Known Unknowns

Now the Centers for Disease Control tell us that the United States has 164 cases of coronavirus (as of today, March 7 CDC).  But the one factor they don’t mention:  the tests to diagnose sick people with coronavirus are still extremely limited.  If you can’t test people, you can’t know how many people have it.  If you don’t know how many people have it, you can’t determine what the progression of the disease might be.

Somehow, the United States, the leader in scientific research in the world, hasn’t developed a mass test for this disease.  In fact, we are told that we pay the highest drug costs in the world because we are financing that scientific research, the infamous “cost of the first pill” that drives American pharmaceutical prices.  But if you go to your local doctor today, it’s unlikely he can test you for coronavirus.

Instead, you must go to a hospital emergency room, a fertile area for disease transmission pretty much anytime, and even then you may not be able to get tested.  The United States is not ready.  We don’t know, we what don’t know.  And we don’t know how many people have coronavirus today.

What to Do

So the great American scientific community is telling us to wash our hands, stay away from sick people, and not to touch our faces.  And we are cancelling mass gatherings:  college basketball games played in empty field houses, the Ultra Music Festival in Miami and the famous South by Southwest Festival in Austin called off.  The elderly and sick are told not to fly, and for sure, not go on a cruise.

But Disney World remains open.  Orlando still beckons spring breakers.  Everyone is determining how much of their life will be disrupted for this unknown disease.  They are trying to determine if hiding in their home is enough to protect them, and if it’s worth it.

We need better guidance, and the government needs to get better information.  It looks like we’ve missed the opportunity to “stop” anything, now we are going to have to deal with the human, medical, and economic consequences.  

Maybe it’s time to head for the mountains.

Liberal

I used to be a Liberal.  I believe in liberal ideals, like the Affordable Care Act with an option for government insurance like Medicare for anyone who wanted it.  Like we ought to have at least two more years of public education available for everyone for free.  That we ought to make a huge government-run effort to fix the environment, with an emphasis on reducing hydrocarbons and making energy from renewable non-polluting sources.

I used to be a Liberal.  I looked to the “liberal lions” of the Senate, Hubert Humphrey and Ted Kennedy, Russ Feingold and Sherrod Brown, as role models and defenders.  Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson were liberals (at least Johnson as far as civil rights were concerned).  And I “thought” that the term “liberal” was changed to “progressive” for political reasons.  Somehow in the 90’s people thought that “liberal” was bad, so they came up with a new term for it.

Progressives

I was listening to former Ohio State Senator Nina Turner last night.  Turner is a co-chair of the Bernie Sanders campaign, and made it clear that unless you were “all-in” on the Sanders’ agenda, you weren’t a “progressive”.  Medicare for All, the Green New Deal, paying off all college debt, and taxes on the wealthy:  all are gospel.  If you aren’t for all of it, then you aren’t a “progressive”.  I like a whole lot of those ideas, but I also have trouble seeing a path for their absolute acceptance by even a small majority of Congress.

In the “old” days, the Bernie Sanders movement would have been considered beyond the “liberal” wing of the Party.  Social Democrats in the German or United Kingdom mold were beyond the scale of modern American politics.  So the Sanders movement has taken the title “progressive” and left the rest of the Democratic as “moderates”.  But moderate means something very different to me.

Moderates

Mike Bloomberg is a moderate.  While he has some more “progressive” notions, like gun control, he is essentially a Wall Street Democrat. Bloomberg is closer to the “Rockefeller Republicans” of old, a moderate wing of the Republican Party that has ceased to exist.  The remnants, with nowhere left to go, became Democrats, just like the former Republican mayor of New York.

Jimmy Carter was a moderate, the Governor of Georgia running to the middle to win the Presidency.  In fact, one of Carter’s biggest difficulties in governing was in gaining cooperation with a Democratic House and Senate, both more liberal than him.  Their inability to reach agreements to govern helped get eight years of Ronald Reagan’s administration.

Bill Clinton and the “Blue Dog” Democrats were moderates.  They were more concerned about balancing the budget than many of the social issues that would cost money.  At the time, they were able to reach agreements with many of the Republicans, who still were in the Bloomberg moderate lane.  

But there seem to be no more moderate Republicans left.  Folks like John Kasich, who appears to be a more moderate Republican today, is really a traditional conservative of old.  It’s just that the Party has moved so far to the right – Kasich looks like he’s in the middle.

There are however moderate Democrats, including many of the new House of Representative members who turned Republican seats in the 2018 election.  It was those moderates who won control of the House, basically filling the vacuum that the “new” Republican Party left in the middle of the ideological spectrum.  These are also the Democrats who most fear a Sanders’ Presidential candidacy.  They know that they can’t move so far to the left to reach Sanders without losing their Congressional Districts.

Semantics

It’s all a question of semantics, but semantics has political consequences.  Just as current Republicans today claim the “conservative” title of old, when in fact they are far right of traditional conservatives, so the Sanders’ camp is claiming the progressive label.  They are far past what a traditional liberal, a Paul Wellstone or Gary Hart would be.  By taking the “progressive” label, they are trying to mainstream what is a more extreme ideology.

That doesn’t mean their ideology is wrong. 

What it does mean is that there is little common ground between the extreme of Social Democrats and even the moderates in their own party.  Where is the compromise allowing a more diverse Congress to move legislation, that the “my way of the highway” purity test doesn’t allow?   In our Democracy, there has to be a way to reason, and compromise, to achieve almost anything.

So I’ll stick with my own label.  I am a Liberal, out of the grand tradition of liberalism in the Democratic Party.  I won’t be pushed into the “progressive” wing, but don’t you dare call me a “moderate”.

The Threat

How big a threat does Donald Trump consider Joe Biden to be to his Presidency?  So large, that he was willing to risk the office, face impeachment and join the short list of three, to muddy Biden’s reputation.  When Biden seemed like he was failing, he fell off of the GOP radar.  Now that he’s back as one of two candidates for the Democratic nomination, guess what’s back?

Monday, Senator and Trump lackey Ron Johnson threatened to issue a subpoena to a private company to investigate Burisma. Johnson claims the company, named Blue Star,  “sought to leverage Hunter Biden’s role as a board member of Burisma to gain access to, and potentially influence matters at, the State Department” (Politico).

Johnson is using his position as Chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee to leverage the investigation.  Democrats on the Committee are warning the Republicans that they are, “concerned that the United States Senate and this committee could be used to further disinformation efforts by Russian or other actors” (Politico).

This move is despite warnings from fellow Republican Chairman Lindsey Graham (Judiciary) and Richard Burr (Intelligence) about treating such intelligence as Russian disinformation.

The Tactic

The Republicans learned at the “feet” of former Congressman, turned Fox News commentator, Trey Gowdy.  Gowdy spent two and a half years, issued a 700-page report and spent $7.8 million to investigate Hillary Clinton and her involvement in the Benghazi disaster and the death of Ambassador Chris Stevens.  While ultimately the Committee was unable to blame Clinton for any wrongdoing, there were able to “drag Clinton through the mud” for more than two years before her run for President.    As now House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said in September of 2015:

“Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right? But we put together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping. Why? Because she’s untrustable. But no one would have known any of that had happened, had we not fought” (WAPO).

Donald Trump had the highest unfavorable ratings historically of recent Presidential candidate at the end of the 2016 election cycle, 61%.  His only chance of beating Hillary Clinton was to make her nearly as “unfavorable” as he was.  Starting with the Benghazi hearings and then the FBI email investigations, Clinton reached a negative rating of 52%, nearly as bad at Trump, and close enough to create the extreme conditions where Trump won the Electoral College despite losing the popular vote by three million votes (Gallup). 

Today Donald Trump has a 52% disapproval rating.   Currently Biden has a 47% rating, though this rating is based on polling done prior to the South Carolina and Super Tuesday primaries.  To replicate the election strategy of 2016, Trump must make Biden as unfavorable as he is.

The Mud

It won’t just be investigations of Hunter Biden and Burisma.  It will be attacks on Biden himself, about his age and his well know propensity to commit verbal “gaffes”.  And I’m sure there will be some weird sexual allegations about Biden “inappropriately touching”.  If Biden gets the nomination, watch for an “October Surprise”.  

Truth isn’t the issue.  Finding “real dirt” won’t be the problem.  We are in the “post-fact age,” so there is no need for veracity.  And it will be aided by the powerful social media presence of the Trump campaign, and added to by Russian Intelligence.  

So get ready.  We are going to hear all sorts of things about Joe Biden, most not true.  But, as Alexander Hamilton noted two hundred and twenty four years ago:

“The public mind fatigued at length with resistance to the calumnies which eternally assail it, is apt in the end to sit down with the opinion that a person so often accused cannot be entirely innocent”(Hamilton – The Reynolds Pamphlet).

Baked In

The public perception of Trump is baked in.  We already know he’s a misogynist, a racist, a narcissist, and a whole lot of other “ist” words.  There is little a President, elected without a majority, impeached by Congress for a crime he admitted doing, could possibly do to make the public see him as any worse.

A segment of our American society has bought the lie:  we need a bad man to make our country better.  It is the “myth” of the Fox show Twenty-Four:  to “protect America” we need Jack Bauer, willing to break any law and violate any moral. Trump himself has made that point explicitly by defending, protecting and pardoning Eddie Gallagher, a disgraced Navy Seal who murdered a teenage prisoner, then took a “trophy” picture with the body to send to his friends.

Joe Biden has been in the service of America since the 1970’s.  Unlike many, he did not enrich himself in service in the Senate.  He came in the poorest Senator, and he left the Senate thirty some years later still as the poorest.  He has been prone to verbal “gaffes” since he first ran for President in 1987, it’s not a sign of “old age,” it’s him.  We all know that from the stage-whispered “this is a big f**king deal” in Obama’s ear when the Affordable Care Act was passed.  

So Biden will “be in the barrel”.  It will be up to America to ignore the lies.  

Shock and Awe

The clear winner of Super Tuesday was former Vice President Joe Biden.  He won the South:  North Carolina, Virginia, Alabama, Tennessee, Arkansas, and Oklahoma. Oh, and by the way, he won Texas as well.  He won in the North:  Massachusetts and Minnesota.  Maine, with 91% of the vote counted, is still to close to call.  And while he didn’t win in the West, with Colorado decided for Sanders, and California likely to do the same:  he did well enough in those states to stay close to the total number of delegates that Senator Sanders earned.  

In short, Joe Biden won Super Tuesday.  He will likely have the delegate lead when all of the counting is done (which will be a while, California mail-in ballots aren’t due into the boards of elections until Friday).  And Biden did all of this, without a campaign staff on the ground in most of those states, and without a television ad anywhere.  

When it’s all said and done, if Joe Biden earns the nomination, Congressman Jim Clyburn of South Carolina is the reason.  His heartfelt endorsement of Biden the Wednesday before the South Carolina primary changed the entire track of Biden’s campaign.  The former Vice President’s overwhelming South Carolina victory, based largely on his strength in the black communities, altered the national perception.  When Clyburn said, “Joe knows us,” he anchored Biden support.  It carried over to the rest of the South, and obviously much of the rest of the nation.

Slogging it Out

Now we are looking at slogging it out, primary by primary, throughout March, April and May.  Biden’s lead will certainly not be insurmountable, and the dedication of Senator Sanders and his followers is legendary.  If there’s a way to make hard work pay off in votes, the Sanders campaign will find it.  

But the calendar will not be kind to Bernie.  Next Tuesday’s contests: in Idaho, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota and Washington leave only two states where Sanders has a solid chance of success.  But in Michigan the latest polling shows Biden up by 6%, and Washington polling is pre-South Carolina. Even then Sanders may have to struggle.  And the St. Patrick’s Day contests in Alaska, Florida, Illinois, and Ohio the next week are even more likely to be “Biden Country”. 

The end of March may find Biden with a seemingly insurmountable lead, but both candidates will certainly fight it out to the bitter end.  The last six primaries: South Dakota, District of Columbia, Montana, New Jersey, and New Mexico; take place on June 2. 

Staying In

Elizabeth Warren and Mike Bloomberg are faced with a serious question:  do they continue in the campaign or not.  Warren has years of work invested in her quest for the nomination, and heartfelt views and concerns about America.  If she stays in, she will be, rightly or wrongly, constantly blamed for cutting into Bernie Sander’s delegate count.  Her only path forward to the nomination is as a compromise candidate in a brokered convention at Milwaukee in July, an outcome that is looking less likely then it did twenty-four hours ago.

And Mike Bloomberg, well, as the Beatles sang, “Money don’t buy me love”.  Divide the $500 million spent into the number of votes he earned on Super Tuesday – about $300 per vote.  Bloomberg is a “data” guy; I expect he will soon decide that his presence as a candidate is no longer viable.  It wouldn’t surprise me though, if we went through another week or so before he does. Cutting your losses at half-a-billion dollars has got to be tough to do.

The conventional wisdom suggests Warren votes go to Bernie, and Bloomberg votes go to Joe.  I’m not sure that’s completely true, I think a lot of Warren supporters are backing a strong woman for President.  I’m not sure what direction they take when that is no longer an option.  But I do think Bloomberg voters either go to Biden, or don’t vote at all.

Looking for the Revolution

Bernie Sanders has promised that a revolution of young and disaffected voters will rise-up to support his candidacy.  But it hasn’t happened yet.  The huge turnouts in many of the Super Tuesday states weren’t Bernie-backers; they were black folks and white suburban women.  They didn’t show up to vote for Bernie, they came for Joe.  And that encourages more moderate Democrats to support Biden. 

That is because, while Sanders preaches Democratic-Socialism, what he promises is a whole new voting block to defeat Donald Trump.  That promised up swelling of Sanders supporters didn’t show when he needed them on Super Tuesday.  If he can’t count on them in the primaries, then it raises huge concerns about defeating Trump in the general election.  

Biden needs to organize.  The momentum of South Carolina and Super Tuesday will only carry him so far:  he requires staff on the ground, and ads on social media and television.  The money will roll in, but “staffing up” is harder to do.  Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg can help, but if Bloomberg does decide to withdraw, there is an entire national campaign on site and ready to go.  

But historically, regardless of the outcome in Milwaukee, Biden’s victories on Super Tuesday will go down in American history, beside Harry Truman’s “Dewey Wins” Presidential victory of 1948 and John McCain’s 2008 South Carolina turn around.  To go from a campaign on life-support after Nevada, to a clear shot at the nomination today, is more than remarkable.

Democrats, as Tom Perez said, need to “…fall in love, then fall in line”.  After Milwaukee, all of our eyes need to be on a single prize, removing Donald Trump from the Presidency, and saving our nation.  Bernie or Joe, we need to be one party with one mission.

So I grew up in the Boys Scouts.  Sure I went to church, and had great parents, but a big part of my “moral” foundation seemed to be linked to the tenets of Scouting.  Maybe all of the other influences: my parents, my school and church; got summed up by the clear rules of the Scout Oath, Law, Slogan and Motto.

Scouting made it simple:  I was supposed to be trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean and reverent. As a Scout, I was “prepared” and I really did try to “do a good turn daily”.  I really worked at  “doing my duty to God and my country”.   I even tried to be “physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight,” whatever that last part meant.  

All Scouts Are Green

The Scout rules I grew up with meant that race didn’t matter, nor social standing.  We were all “green” (it was before the uniform went khaki). Doing my duty to my country meant accepting others freedom to have any religion or no religion at all.  It meant equality of citizens, and helping those who were less fortunate.  It might even mean protesting against an unjust war, but it would also have meant going to that war if required. 

Looking back, I’m sure all of my adult leaders were Republicans.  They were mostly business executives, men who had great experiences as Scouts themselves, and wanted to pass them on.  I lived in Cincinnati, and my Scoutmasters were both Proctor and Gamble men.  I didn’t know it at the time, but one, Clayton Warman, led men through the Battle of the Bulge in World War II.  Another, Tom Morgan, a P&G Engineer, flew Bombers for the Air Force in the 1950’s.  They were solid men, good leaders, teachers and role models.

Those leaders helped me earn Eagle Scout.  But it was after that, when my “advancement” in Scouts was basically over, that they let me have the experiences of leadership and teaching that lead me to my career in education.  I became a teacher and a coach, but Scouting is where I had my apprenticeship that led me to the field.

Applying the Rules

I guess those men didn’t realize they were helping me become a Democrat.  I know Scouting has never been considered a “liberal” organization, but it seemed like a logical outgrowth of the doctrines.  Even as a Scout, I struggled with Scouting’s demand of religious faith.  And later, as an adult, I applauded the acceptance of gay Scouts, and later, gay adult leaders. 

And Of course I think no one should be denied medical care because they can’t afford it.  As a Scout we were taught to aid someone in trouble.  I didn’t think about liability, or race, age, or gender, when I raced to help a child who was traumatically injured.  My training kicked in.  I was prepared.

Of course we should take care of those less fortunate, helping them to improve their lives.  My “Eagle Project” was repainting a group home for the mentally handicapped. It helped them, and it helped us Scouts as well. 

 And of course everyone is equal.  When you were a Scout, you were measured by your effort and your willingness to carry your share of the load, sometimes literally when we were backpacking.  Your race, creed, religion made no difference.

And that’s why I get confused today, when we don’t recognize that every citizen should have an equal say in our government.  We cling to bias and unfair political traditions, from the Electoral College, to Gerrymander districts, to restrictive voting processes.  All of these are designed to make some “more equal” than others, definitely not in line with the “Boy Scout way”.   

Earning Your Way

Sure Boy Scouts was “capitalistic”.  You earned you way up the chain of rank, from Tenderfoot to Eagle.  “Time-served” didn’t get you much in the way of advancement, you had to “show what you know” each step of the way.  But our troop practiced democracy:  we elected our youth leaders from the Patrol to the Troop level.   We also gave boys leadership opportunities even when they weren’t elected.  Everyone at some point got the chance to lead, sometimes literally with a map and a compass.  And we all followed, even if it meant that our five-mile hike was going to take ten.

I know the Scouts are in trouble.  Like Little League, Church groups, and my profession, some adults used it as cover to abuse children.  It’s absolutely right that our era today is looking for justice for the victims, and the organizations do bare responsibility for enabling those actions.  But a lot of good came from them too.  That shouldn’t be forgotten in the turmoil.

Boy Scouts has become Scouting USA.  Boys and Girls are now in Troops together.  Just like America, Scouting had to grow, to be more than what it was in its “heyday” in the 1960’s.  And Scouting is taking responsibility for what it did “wrong” in those days as well.  The National Council is seeking bankruptcy protection so it might survive the lawsuits it’s facing.

But the standards that the Scouts demand are still valid.  The foundations they established are still sound, regardless of the failings of the organization.  Just like the United States, they are struggling to be “more perfect” in a dynamically changing society.  Let’s hope they can follow their own motto and  “Be Prepared”.

Fall in Love

At the end of October, four months that feel like four years ago, I wrote an essay called Fall in Love. I examined the various Democratic candidates for President of the United States, and the “theory” of Tom Perez, Chairman of the Democratic Party.  Perez said, “I hope you fall in love with multiple people, and then fall in line when we get the nominee” (NBC).

In that essay, I “fell in love” with Pete Buttigieg.  He articulated an advanced America, one that was more than just an end of Trump or an extending of Obama.  Mayor Pete explained his vision of “Day One” after the Trump reign is over.  I thought he did it better than any other candidate, and I endorsed him.

Somewhere in the middle, perhaps during the “long ago” impeachment crisis, Pete seemed to get a little stale.  Like many of the candidates, it was tough for him to find something new.  He wasn’t the only one:  Bernie seemed to be stuck on the same lines, and Elizabeth Warren’s plans were wearying.  But recently Pete found new life, not just in winning Iowa and finishing a close second in New Hampshire, but in a clear understanding of what a Sanders/Trump choice might mean to our country.

“Berning” Down

Pete warned us that “burning down the party” as he thinks Sanders would, might not be the answer to beating Trump.  He offered a “middle path” not only between Democrat Socialism and mainstream Progressives, but also from the Biden/Bernie/Bloomberg/Boomer generation to his own Millennials.  Buttigieg represents the future, and he was calling on Democrats to join him there.

South Carolina’s results made it clear to the Buttigieg “brain trust” that there was no path forward to this nomination.  Tom Steyer, by the way, found the same thing.  Almost $200 million didn’t “buy him love” from Democratic voters.   The Palmetto State and Congressman Jim Clyburn gave Joe Biden’s candidacy new life with a resounding victory.  

Clear a Path

So Mayor Pete withdrew from the election last night.  He did it not only because it was reality, but also because it was the right thing to do.  Pete spent a month warning that a Sanders’ candidacy was dangerous, now he found his own candidacy would further Sanders’ efforts.  So Pete stepped out of the way, allowing more moderate voters to consolidate around another candidate, probably Vice President Biden.  And he did it before Tuesday’s massive primary vote in seventeen states.

I suspect Senator Klobuchar will do the same, after Tuesday and her home state of Minnesota’s primary.  I’m not so sure what Senator Warren will do after her home Massachusetts results; she still is waiting for Sanders’ voters to trend to her side.  Perhaps Warren sees herself as “Sanders lite,” a more progressive candidate without Bernie’s socialist baggage.  

And we don’t know what impact $500 million of Mike Bloomberg’s money will have on Tuesday, though Steyer’s experience might be forewarning.  

Polling indicates that Bernie Sanders will be a big winner on Tuesday, particularly in California with its “mother-lode” of convention delegates.  Warren isn’t cutting into his vote so far, and more moderate Democrats will be split between Biden and Bloomberg.  But Wednesday morning will tell us where the Democratic Party stands for the next four months. We are either on the way to a Sanders nomination, or we are in for a grueling knockdown fight between Sanders and the moderates, probably Biden not Bloomberg.

The Future 

But one thing is for sure.  Pete Buttigieg showed not only a tremendous amount of political “grace” in getting off the field, but also a tremendous amount of political acumen.  He knows that the future of the Party is his.  Whatever the outcome of Super Tuesday or even the 2020 election, all of the current leaders of both political parties will be gone by 2024.  Sixty may be the new forty, but being in their mid-eighties will stop the candidacies of Biden, Bloomberg, Sanders, and Trump in four years. 

So Pete did the right and the smart thing.  He took his wins and his political capital, and he saved it for a future run.  I suspect he will ultimately endorse another candidate for the nomination, but he will wait to see Tuesday’s results before he does.  Pete will not be President in 2020.  But he is “the future” of the Democratic Party, and he will be back.

In the meantime, my own Ohio Primary is coming up on St. Patrick’s Day.  There’s good reason not to vote early, the candidates are changing so fast that a vote today might be meaningless in three weeks.  I suspect Joe Biden will still be viable, and I anticipate he will have my vote, even though he didn’t win my heart.  As Tom Perez said, it will be time to “fall in line”. 

Note: Joe Biden won South Carolina last night. That definitely changes the primary equation — but Tuesday night will really “tell the tale” of Sanders, Biden, Bloomberg and a possible brokered convention. More on Wednesday.

COVID-19

We don’t know what’s going to happen with the “COVID-19”, commonly (and inaccurately) called CORONAVIRUS. COVID-19 is a type of Coronavirus, one of many, that is now causing illnesses throughout the world.  We don’t know how “bad” it is, though preliminary information indicates a death rate of about 2%.  COVID-19 seems to kill the old, the very young, and the immune-compromised.  That’s unlike SARS of a few years ago or the Spanish Flu of 1918:  those killed the young and healthy first.

We do know that it’s a virus that can be transmitted through the air in the form of droplets, and through contact.  And we know it’s here in the United States, both in the form of those who unfortunately were in Asia when it broke out, and now, those getting it through what is wonderfully called “community transmission”.  That phrase really means:  we don’t know how the Hell they got it, it simply was “out there” in the community.

Not the Flu

It’s going to be a “thing” for a while.  Likely, folks will get sick, and if the numbers hold true, 98% of them will get better.  That’s compared to the “regular” flu, where the fatality rate is .05%.  In clearer terms, if 10000 people get the flu, five will likely die.  If 10000 people get Covid-19, two hundred will die.  That’s a big difference.

We are being told that wearing a mask won’t stop Covid-19.  So we are supposed to wash our hands, not touch our face, and make sure that if we get sick, we don’t go out, we self-quarantine.  All of which seems to be pretty lame answers for what should be a national emergency.

Deep State Rescue

The present Administration in Washington has done everything it can to denigrate the “deep-state:” those government workers who in various ways make our country run.  We’ve been told that the scientists who predict global climate change are wrong, “bought out by the extreme left,” and that the intelligence agencies are out to get the President.  The Trump Administration instead offers us nonexistent “clean coal” and takes away our flavored Vape pens.  Facts have been a casualty of this White House since the very beginning, political and scientific.

On Fox News, commentator Laura Ingraham offers us this calming advice:

“Instead of giving in to panic and partisanship perhaps we should thank the good Lord that we live in the most well equipped country in the world to weather these challenges and overcome them.”

The problem is, the United States may not be as equipped as we have been. Offices sit vacant in the National Institute of Health, the White House, and the Department of Homeland Security. We’re not sure that this Administration has he personnel to “weather these challenges”.

Political Medicine

There have been medical crises in the past.  Just recently the Obama Administration faced the Ebola virus, a disease with a 90% fatality rate.  Quickly and quietly, they kept Ebola out of the general US population.  They brought US citizens exposed to the virus back home and treated them.  They worked with the rest of the world to find a way to stop it, with a “cure” that drops the fatality rate to 34%.  And they found a vaccine, a way to prevent Ebola.

That was a huge “success” of both the Obama Administration and the world, but most importantly, for science.

There have been failures as well.  When HIV first arrived in the United States, it was a disease soon wrapped in politics. Because it first afflicted the gay community, spending money and resources on research became “a thing” for the Reagan Administration.  AIDS was controversial:  it wasn’t until the virus got into the general population’s blood supply and began to impact all Americans, including the deaths of tennis star Arthur Ashe and hemophiliac Ryan White, that the disease was “normalized”.  

It took six years to develop the first vaccine.  By 1996 23 million people had the disease worldwide.  By then scientists had developed treatments that allowed people to live for longer periods of time.  Today there are over a million Americans living with HIV.  But more than 700,000 died before the disease was controlled.

The Good Guys

So what is COVID-19 going to be, Ebola or HIV?

The answer is neither:   COVID-19 is not nearly as deadly as either of those.  And, as Ms. Ingraham said, we are the nation “best equipped” to deal with this national health issue.  The problem the Trump Administration has is depending on “the good guys” in the white coats to find solutions.  Mr. Trump has made it a policy to alter facts and ignore science when it suits his story. He has already done so with COVID-19.  “It will miraculously disappear in the summer,” he said, and if we “…don’t touch handrails” we may be all right.

And noted anti-science guy, Vice President Mike Pence, is now in charge.

So now we are depending on the Vice President and the President to let science “loose” on COVID-19, and get out of the way.  We are depending on them to give us the facts so we can take appropriate actions to protect our families and ourselves without unnecessarily barricading our houses with towels under the doors.  

The White House needs to get out of the way, and let the “white coats” do their thing.  They need to let “the good guys” of science solve the problem.  We need to hope that politics can be set aside, something that the President has so far been unable to do. Don’t hold your breath, though that is one short term preventative measure – really short term.

Five Days

The next five days are critical for Senator Bernie Sanders.  Tomorrow’s South Carolina primary will determine whether Sanders’ current major competitor, Joe Biden, remains a viable candidate for President.  If Biden has a big win in South Carolina, he can move on.  Less than that, Biden’s funds will dry up, and his candidacy will end.

Then on Tuesday, Sanders faces the power of the “almighty dollar” in Mike Bloomberg.  How Sanders, Biden and Bloomberg fair in the seventeen state election will give everyone a more accurate view into the Democratic race. 

I know, I haven’t mentioned Warren, or Klobuchar, or Buttigieg.  I don’t see a way for them to proceed, unless Tuesday’s results are so fractured that no one is advanced.  If that is the case, then Democrats are in for a wild ride, and a divided convention.  Folks talk about Sander’s candidacy resembling George McGovern in 1972. But that fragmented result might be more like the riot-filled convention in Chicago in 1968.  

Super Stupid

The New York Times published an article this week about Democratic Party Officials using “super delegates” to stop Sanders at the convention, if he can’t win on the first ballot (NYT).   It’s a stupid thing for them to be talking about.  The election is now, and the “narrative” hasn’t been written yet.  If there is one thing that will motivate Sanders’ voters, it’s the shadow of the “DNC” trying to put its thumb on the convention scale.  Many Sanders’ supporters are convinced that happened in 2016.  Even if the Democratic leaders are doing exactly that, they need to shut-up about it now before they create a self-fulfilling prophecy of Sanders’ success.

But here’s what should happen.

The Revolution

Bernie Sanders has based had candidacy on creating a “revolution” that will carry him to the Presidency.  Sanders has been very clear:  for his programs to move forward, he will need the House and the Senate to join in.  As Angelica Schuyler sings in the musical Hamilton: “…you want a revolution?  I want a revelation!”  The revelation that Sanders need to demonstrate to the Democratic Party:  his “revolution” really exists.

A revolution requires an army of followers.  Senator Sanders has promised that he will bring a whole new cadre of voters to the polls, voters that haven’t been part of the electorate in the past.  He promises the young, the Millennials, and the disaffected.  That’s how revolutions work, and it’s what Bernie has preached for decades.

Now is his chance.  Prove the “Revolution.”  Bring this whole new constituency to the polls, and win.  If the Senator can do this, there won’t be a question about wining the nomination on the first ballot.  He will have an overwhelming majority in the convention, and the super delegates won’t have the chance to influence the outcome.

And there won’t be the fear that Sanders is the “next” George McGovern, a man who won only one state in the landslide Presidential defeat of 1972.  If there is a “revolution” then the revolutionaries will show up in November, and the loss of “Never-Trump” votes on the “right” won’t cripple Democratic candidates.  There will be a “blue tsunami” of millennial voters, new to the fight, lifting Democrats to the Presidency, and control of the Congress.

Place Your Bet

Senator Sanders is asking Democrats to go “all-in.”  He wants the Party to support his brand of Democratic-Socialism, going farther “left” then ever before.  And he’s doing it at a time of the greatest risk to American democracy:  Donald Trump.  

Senator Sanders only earns the right to place that bet, if he can bring new voters to the table.  There is no “credit” available in this game, he’s got to prove the “goods”. The proof is simple:  he either has the votes and the delegates to win on the first ballot, or he doesn’t.  If he can’t win on the first ballot, than he has failed to prove the “revolution”.  That failure would show Democrats that his gamble won’t pay off.   

Then the delegates in Milwaukee will need to make a different choice.

A Place to Eat

It’s tax time in Pataskala, Ohio: a town “15000 strong” as the signs at the city limits say.  When I moved here in 1978 Pataskala still had a rural flavor.  There was Tractor Day at the local high school, and the grain elevator had only recently closed.  But all of that is far behind us now.  I mark the end of “rural” in our town as the day McDonalds opened with the high school marching band getting out of school to play.  That was sometime in the early 1980’s.  Now the McDonalds is next to Subway, down the street from Wendy’s, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Tim Horton’s and the inevitable Taco Bell.  

But as far as food is concerned, it’s pizza that drives Pataskala – all the pizza joints in the world.  There are at least a dozen within five miles of “downtown” Pataskala:  Mama Linda’s, Pizza Hut, Donato’s, Dominos, Capuano’s, Massey’s, Little Caesar’s, Flyer’s, Pizzaroni’s, Creno’s, Jnb’s, and LuLu Mack’s.  This town may have issues, be we can sure eat pizza.

Farms to Houses

What used to be farm fields in this community are now taken up with housing developments.  And with the greater expansion of the Central Ohio area, more houses, apartments, and schools are needed to cover the burgeoning population.  We ain’t gonna be farmers anymore.

Pataskala is what social scientists would call an “exurb”.  We are far enough away from the “big city,” Columbus is twenty miles, that we aren’t quite a “suburb”.  But twenty miles is still close enough for most folks to commute to work, and Pataskala is a “bedroom” community without much industry of our own.  There are still a few farms, but the housing developments are getting ever closer.  Facebook is filled with complaining about the smell of fertilizer in the spring, and the slow paced tractors and combines on the roads in the fall.

A lot of folks moved here to enjoy “country life”.  But they want “country life” with a Kroger’s supermarket five minutes away. And, obviously, they need a pizza shop at every corner.

Big Little City

Pataskala is the twelfth largest city in Ohio (out of 260 some) – by area.  We are only slightly smaller than Youngstown, and bigger than Middletown, Springfield, Canton or Newark.  And with our increasing population comes the increased need for police.  What used to be the “village” police department where everybody “knew your name,” now consists of 22 patrolmen, detectives and senior officers.  They are spread out over almost thirty square miles, seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day.  

With more people they need more officers, and to do that, they need more money.  And they’re asking.

There are two different school districts in the city of Pataskala.  One district, Licking Heights, is entirely contained in the “city”.  The other, Southwest Licking where I spent my career, is part in Pataskala, and parts in the village of Kirkersville, and Etna, Harrison, and Liberty Townships.  Both districts are building new high schools to try to keep up with the student increases.  They’ve both asked for tax renewals:  Licking Heights approved theirs last year; Southwest Licking is on the ballot next month.  Both schools are trying to get along with roughly the same money, even as they build and open new buildings.  

Voting on Taxes

But police and school taxes are some of the few that people can actually vote on.  The Federal and State governments don’t ask when they want more taxes.  The legislatures simply raise the rates.  But local agencies often have to go directly to the people to make their case for more money, and just as often, receive the backlash and frustration of voters.  For some, if it’s the only tax they can turn down, and they do.

My mother would say, “…They’re cutting off their nose to spite their face”.  When someone needs policemen, they don’t want them to be 8.4 miles away.  And we should all want kids to go to “good” schools, both because it’s good for them, and because it makes property values go up.  But taxes are frustrating, particularly in February and March when they’re actually due. It’s easy to “take it out” on the nearest “taxer” that can be found.

But in doing so, local voters hurt their own community.  

Our Town

Pataskala has already transitioned to the “exurbs”.  But many people in town still wish it was “country”, and “country” seems to be synonymous with not paying taxes.  But, unlike pizza shops, having good schools and good police protection doesn’t automatically happen here in Pataskala.  They need support, and they cost money.  

We can argue politics in Pataskala too.  Whether it’s allowing more housing developments, or discussing where “open shooting” areas can be in the city, we are struggling over our transition to “suburb”.  What we shouldn’t do is ignore the real needs of the City we have now: needs that can only be addressed with the support of the voters. 

So Pataskala voters, support the Police income tax – it’s just ½ of one percent. It’s five more officers to protect and serve of all us.  And vote for the SWL School levy; it costs nothing more than what voters are paying now. 

It’s good for you, and better for our community.

War in the Trenches

In American History classes, World War I gets glossed over.  We talk about the failure of European alliances, the folly of war, the Russian revolution, and the American Doughboys coming to save the day.  It’s a maximum two days of class hot on the way to the Great Depression and World War II.

As teachers, we often miss the horrific changes technology brought to the battlefield. The development of the machine gun dramatically altered military tactics:  the frontal charge against the enemy, the basic attack mode since the Roman Empire, utterly failed.  The horror was it took the Generals four years and millions upon millions of dead to figure it out.

But the soldiers got it.  They dug in, parallel trench lines that stretched almost four hundred miles across Europe.  And not just the “fox hole” type shelters, these were deep trenches with “apartment” rooms dug into the sides.  Trenches that let soldiers enter the battlefield below “bullet level” as much as a half a mile behind the front line.  Trenches gave them a possibility of surviving in the “killing zone”.

There were still a hundred ways to die in the trench:  walls collapsed, artillery shells hit, clouds of poison gas drifted in.  A gung-ho new Second Lieutenant would cry “over the top” and demand an attack into “No Man’s Land” where interlocking fields of machine gun fire could sweep away an army in seconds.  Or the rains would come and flood, with the choice being enemy fire or drowning.

Camp Death

But one of the great killers of the war wasn’t bullets, or gas, or even artillery.  “Camp Death” had always been a destroyer of armies.  In the Civil War, disease was the largest cause of soldier death, not battlefields.  And while medical theory dramatically advanced in the fifty years between Civil War and World War I, the camps and trenches were still prime breeding ground for disease.

It might have started in a camp in France, or perhaps was brought over by American soldiers from Kansas.  It was called the “Spanish Flu” and ultimately spread from the battle zone to the entire world.  Over a quarter of the population of the world, from the Pacific Islands to the Arctic, became infected.  The impact on the armies was censored – but in the two years of the pandemic between fifty and one hundred million people died worldwide.  Near two percent of those who got the illness, died.

And it seemed the Spanish Flu was “designed” to target the soldiers.  While most variation of the flu killed the old and the young, the Spanish Flu triggered an immune response that was particularly severe in healthy young adults.  Their bodies own reactions to the disease would often kill them.  

The massive troop movements around the world hastened the spread of the disease.  

No Cure

There wasn’t a cure.  Since the forces on the battlefield were packed close in the trenches, the disease spread quickly through the already stressed and tired men. All the medicine of 1918 could do was treat the symptoms.  Sick soldiers were moved to “camps” where they lived or died, but definitely spread the disease even farther.  US combat deaths in World War I were around 53,000.  Another 45,000 died of the flu.

There isn’t a cure for the “flu” today, though there are preventative vaccines that work against common strains.  But the flu-like disease that is emanating from China, the “corona-virus,” has no vaccine, no preventative.  Looking at the current statistics, it seems to have a similar fatality rate, about 2%.  And, like the pandemic of 1918, it seems to be spreading.  From China, to South Korea, Iran, Iraq, and Italy:  it’s moving around the world.

Now is the Time

There is no way to stop it.   We can hide behind our borders, but the inter-connections of today’s world means that the “corona-virus” will arrive in the United States.  Besides, it’s already here, locked in hospitals in Omaha and on Air Force bases.  And it will almost assuredly leak out. 

Wall Street sees the possibilities.  The market’s falling because they know that world trade will be down.  If folks can’t go to work in Chinese factories, then production will fall.  And China is just the start.

There’s no reason to panic, but we need to prepare.  And that’s what we ask our government, our leaders, to do.  Prepare our country for what we will need to do to protect ourselves, to care for the ill, and to produce the drugs to prevent this illness.  So far, the United States hasn’t even found an effective test to see if someone is infected.  

It will take coordination, and folks who know what’s going on regardless of their loyalty to the Trump Administration.  This is not the time to cut the Centers for Disease Control, nor is it time to reduce the staff of the Pandemic Crisis Team.  And it certainly isn’t the time for the President to say; “…it’s all going to be OK by April”.  He doesn’t know that, and neither does anyone else.

I was born in 1956, the third child of World War II veterans (yep, both Dad and Mom served).   That officially makes me a “Baby Boomer,” that explosive generation of children born after the war, created out of the joy of surviving world cataclysm.  There were so many of us that we created whole new schools, and towns, and traditions.  Now we are reaching the other end of our lives, and we are creating whole new problems.  Health care, eldercare and traditional retirement systems are stretched to the breaking point with our geriatric needs.

I was a career public school teacher, serving students from sixth through twelfth grades.  I taught social studies:  history, government, geography, economics, and current events.  So I know well the differences between economic and governmental systems.  I can readily define capitalism, socialism and communism; and know they are not the same as democracies, dictatorships, monarchies and anarchies.

Bernie’s a Socialist

I know when Bernie Sanders says he is a socialist, it absolutely is not the same thing as saying he is a Communist.  Bernie isn’t even a complete socialist. He wants the government to take over health care, just like the government took over the postal service, the highway systems, and public education.  He sees health care as a basic human right that the government needs to guarantee.  Sure that’s a socialistic idea, just like the idea of Thomas Jefferson to provide public education in the Northwest Ordinance back in 1784.

But Bernie doesn’t want to take control of all industries.  He’s not advocating “nationalization” of the steel industry, or the banking industry, or the other pillars of the American capitalist tradition.  He is demanding that we take more control of the impacts of those industries and regulate them, particularly when it comes to what they do to our workers, and our environment.  

Corporate Welfare

He has a point.  Wal-Mart is only able to pay such low wages with government support.  Their “living wage” only exists because their workers can turn to government assistance to supplement their salaries and their needs.  In essence, it is our government that supports Wal-Mart, and Amazon, and many other huge corporations that depend on minimum wage labor.  That’s what Sanders means when he talks about America as a “corporate socialist” state.  The corporations get the government breaks, instead of the workers.

And how can you argue with Bernie about the incredible disparity of wealth in our nation? 1% of Americans own 40% of the wealth (the Hill). Warren Buffet, fourth wealthiest man in the world with a estimated worth of $85 Billion, paid a 17% tax rate, his secretary who makes $60000 paid 30% (Stanford).  Mr. Buffet readily acknowledges that it’s not fair, or right.  Bernie Sanders wants to do something about it.  Maybe that’s “socialistic” but it’s also common sense.

Cold War

So why then are so many Boomers panicked by the possibility of a Bernie candidacy?  Why are there “never Trumpers” reconsidering their stand, perhaps even swallowing their morals and convictions to re-elect the President?  

“Boomers” grew up in the Cold War.  We hid from nuclear attack in the Cuban Missile Crisis.  I remember lining up in the hall in first grade, feet against the wall, head between our knees, waiting for the flash.  We first graders knew we’d be OK, we were “in the position,” but the teachers standing around behind us weren’t going to make it.

“Boomers” watched Khrushchev pound his shoe on the table at the United Nations, and desperate Germans shot as they tried to climb the wall.  We fought war after war against “Communism,” in Korea, in Vietnam, and in countless “insurgencies” throughout the world.  And we were indoctrinated in school that “COMMUNISM” was just an extension of “SOCIALISM”.  So it should be no surprise that a Socialist running for President brings up all sorts of vague memories of Civil Defense Shelters and Bert the Turtle of “Duck and Cover”.

Conflation

It probably doesn’t help that Senator Sanders seems willing to see the “good” in Communist regimes.  He’s talked about the increase in literacy under Castro in Cuba, and the intelligence and sincerity of the Nicaraguan revolutionaries.  But Sanders isn’t looking to make the United States a Cuba, or a Venezuela.  Sanders looks to models like Denmark, or Sweden, or the healthcare plan of that den of socialist inequities, Canada.  He sees solutions to American problems that are “socialistic” without embracing all-encompassing SOCIALISM.

It’s not surprising that Sanders finds his greatest base of support in young people.  The post-Cold War generation hasn’t spent their lives being indoctrinated into the “evils” of “ISM”.   Communism was an historic relic when they went to school.  They didn’t even learn about Communism, educators changed it to a “Command Economy”.  That paranoia is left to us Boomers.

We have a left a legacy of government debt and environmental catastrophe.  Let’s hope our last spasm of “power”, driven by our elementary school indoctrination, won’t be to re-elect Donald Trump in the White House out of outdated fear.  Bernie shouldn’t make us “duck and cover”. 

The Beatles, of course

Buying the Farm

Pete Buttigieg made the comment in the Las Vegas debates.  After “Super Tuesday,” he said, Democrats may be faced with a choice between Mike who wants to “buy the party,” and Bernie that wants to “burn it down”.  Mike Bloomberg has spent close to half a billion dollars to win the Democratic nomination.  That’s more than all the other candidates, Democratic or Republican, have spent in this election cycle.  

No one will “buy” Mike Bloomberg with campaign contributions.  He’s bought himself, and he’s trying to buy the rest of us.

The rest of the Democratic candidates depend on others to raise the funds to finance their campaigns.  Some, like Bernie and Elizabeth Warren, claim that they only take individual small contributions.  They try to hammer other candidates, notably Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg, for taking donations from “billionaires,” particularly billionaires in “wine caves”.   But no “billionaire” is putting their “billions” into anyone’s campaign, other than Mayor Bloomberg and Tom Steyer.

On March 3^rd we will get to see if Bloomberg’s millions can “buy” an election.  That will be the first time his name will be on the ballot, and since it’s “Super Tuesday” with seventeen state primaries up for grabs, we’ll see.  Bloomberg has placed a huge bet, close to $400 million, that he can change the Democratic narrative.  One day will tell the tale.

We will get a “field test” of the money strategy this Saturday in South Carolina.  Tom Steyer has spent $20 million in that state alone to try to make a dent.  Steyer is no Bloomberg, but we should get some idea of the impact of mass spending. We will see if the adage “if a little money is good, a lot of money is better” is valid when it comes to votes.

Amounts are Relative

Money has always been important in politics.  In the early 1980’s I was a twenty-four year old campaign manager trying to get my candidate elected to city council. We had a $15000 campaign budget.  There was an offer from a member of Cincinnati’s “elite”:  the candidate would come have a “talk” and a $10,000 check would conclude the discussion. $10,000 would more than double our budget, letting us go “on the air” with commercials. The problem we (the candidate and I) had was when over half of your campaign funds comes from a single source, how does that person NOT control what you do?  We never got the money.  We didn’t win the council race either.

In one of our famous “family” discussions this weekend, we talked about how influential money was.  We were talking about what happens if there is a “brokered” Democratic Convention, with no one candidate having a majority of the votes.  The younger end of the table was convinced that the “money” would step in and stop Bernie Sanders.  They went on to say that when it happened, it would fragment the party so badly that it would guarantee Trump’s re-election.  

Berne Down the House

If Bernie doesn’t have a majority going into the convention, it would surprise me if other candidates don’t try to take the nomination.  After all, that is the process:  there is a “first” vote, with all delegates locked into their pledge for their candidate, and the so-called “super delegates” not allowed to vote at all.  If a candidate wins a majority on that first vote, then they are the Democratic nominee for President.

But if one candidate doesn’t win, then the rules change.  Delegates are allowed to move from their “pledged” position and choose a different candidate.  The “super delegates,” who represent the structure of the Democratic Party, can now add their votes, approximately another 500 our of the over 4000 delegate voters.  It is called a brokered convention.

Back Before Elvis

The last time that happened was 1952.  The Democrats were replacing Harry Truman, who chose not to run for a third term as President.  Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson was able to grasp the nomination from Tennessee Senator Estes Kefauver.  Kefauver led the first ballot, but Stevenson’s candidacy took hold on the second vote.  It took three votes for him to reach the majority.

The Republicans had a brokered convention as well that year.   While General Eisenhower ended up with the nomination, he wasn’t even the only General in the running.  Douglas MacArthur was there, as well as Senator Bob Taft from Ohio.   Eisenhower was close on the first vote, and after some wheeling and dealing, was declared the unanimous choice before a second vote was officially taken.

But 1952 was a long time ago.  

Whether a political party could survive the results of a brokered convention today is questionable.  But if Bernie doesn’t win the Democratic nomination outright, the machinations against him won’t necessarily be about money.  There are many older and more institutional Democrats who are afraid of the electoral outcome of running an avowed socialist for President.  For Bernie to win the Presidency, he’s going to have to show that his “revolution”, all of the new votes he has for the party, are there.  

The way for him to do that is to win the nomination outright.  If he can’t then he lends credence to the argument that a Sanders candidacy will lead the Democrats to another historic outcome:  the McGovern debacle of 1972.  Bernie needs to prove “the revolution” on Super Tuesday, or Democrats face a fractious spring. 

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Open Secrets – Contribution Information

The DNI

The acting Director of National Intelligence (DNI), Joseph McGuire was just fired by President Trump.  The “proximate cause” of his removal:  testimony from his office to the House Intelligence Committee that Russian Intelligence is interfering in the 2020 US election process.  But the damning statement that got him fired:  the Russians are supporting Donald Trump for President.

Now this isn’t the first time that McGuire’s honesty has gotten him in trouble.  You might remember him from his very first testimony about the “whistleblower”.  He appeared before Adam Schiff’s committee last September, and gave very open and forthright statements about the sincerity of the whistleblower’s report.  Listening to it then, it was surprising to hear someone from the Trump Administration be so honest.  I guess that truthfulness finally caught up with him.

The 400 Pound Man

Nothing about this should be a surprise.  The President hasn’t taken any action to convince the Russian government to stay out of the 2020 elections.  In fact, Mr. Trump has “covered” for Russia’s 2016 actions, consistently suggesting that maybe somebody else was responsible.  And that wasn’t just the “400 pound guy in his parents’ basement” statement from the debate.  In the past couple of weeks, the President has continued to investigate the bogus CrowdStrike/Ukraine theory as if it were for real, and not just Russian Intelligence disinformation.  He sent Giuliani back to Ukraine, and his Attorney General mandated that the US Attorney for the Eastern District of New York take on an investigation.

By the way, McGuire also testified that Russian Intelligence might be supporting Bernie Sanders, following Trump’s cue that a Sanders nomination would be his best chance of re-election.  Bernie’s comment was succinct:  Russia should stay out of our elections.  But Sanders also used this to help cover the totally inappropriate actions of some of his “Bernie Bro” followers in Nevada.  Maybe the Russians did it.

Another Fox Newsie

So McGuire is gone, and Richard Grenell, former Fox News commentator and Trump’s Ambassador to Germany is taking over, at least temporarily.  Grenell knows nothing, zero, nada, bupkis, about the intelligence world.  But he is a loyal follower of the President.  More insidious than Grenell is the appointment of “Kash” Patel as his senior advisor.  Patel is a former aide to Republican Congressman Devin Nunes, and is one of those instrumental in smearing the Russia probe and Mueller Report.  He is the aid that had long phone conversations with Lev Parnas, the indicted Giuliani helper.  His avowed job now is to “root out Deep State and Obama operatives” from the intelligence agencies. 

The “blood letting” in the intelligence community will continue.

The “deconstruction” of the intelligence structure will mean that real information; information needed to make correct decisions about international crises, won’t be available.  It means that when analysts have information that they know the President doesn’t want to hear, they won’t share it. 

And it isn’t just in the intelligence agencies.  Attorney General Barr has made it clear to the Justice Department that he won’t tolerate negative actions towards the administration.  And Secretary Pompeo has hollowed out the senior staff of the State Department. 

The ghost of Steve Bannon still haunts the White House.

True Believers

America knows Donald Trump.  We know that he believes that his “gut” decisions are right. Mr. Trump has his own fantastical view of the government and the world.  It’s not that he is lying to us; he truly believes his lies are true.

What seems even sadder is that the Republican leaders around him know better, but still lie.  National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien spent Sunday morning trying to convince the world that he doesn’t “know” that Russia is backing Trump.  Republican Senators  “rally to the President,” knowing full well that in doing so they are fulfilling Russian intelligence objectives.  They don’t believe the lies, but they are still lying.

They do it to protect themselves from the wrath of the President.  Trump has made it clear:  cross him, and face the consequences.  Ask McGuire, or Vindman, or any one of many Republican politicians burned by the President.  But those Senators know the truth, and continue to tell lies.  They think that their personal political futures are more important than the truth.  They are telling us:

Don’t believe your lying eyes.

The Sausage Factory

The debate in Las Vegas on Wednesday was a night of attacks and retorts.  The whole field went after Mike Bloomberg, but Bernie Sanders got his fair share of shots as well.  And then there was the “in-fighting,” as Buttigieg went after Klobuchar, who responded in kind.

But after “the sausage is made” and all the dust settles; there will be a Democratic candidate. He or she will face a single task:  to end the Presidency of Donald John Trump, impeached President of the United States.  It won’t be easy.

Predicting how any Democratic candidate will fair in November depends on what you believe about the electorate of the United States in 2020.  And it’s not just about winning the most votes; as we discovered in 2016 that doesn’t necessarily result in winning the Presidency.  It’s about winning the most electoral votes.

Trump Wins all Ties  

There’s no such thing as a “winning” tie.  If the Electoral College doesn’t settle the Presidency, the “tie-breaker” is the House of Representatives.  Democrats might initially be satisfied with that, but in an Electoral College tiebreaker, the House votes by state delegation, each state getting one vote.  Even though Democrats control the House, if it’s a state-by-state vote, Republicans control 26 states, Democrats 23, with Pennsylvania tied (UVA).

So whichever candidate Democrats choose, he or she needs to be able to win enough states to win the Electoral College outright.

There are four “models” of the 2020 electorate that Democrats are examining.  Pick your model, and that will direct your choice of the Democratic candidate with the best chance to beat Donald Trump.  Choose the wrong model, and it’s four more years, and perhaps and end to the American Republic, as we know it.  

The Moderate Model

The “moderates” running for the Democratic nomination believe their model is the strongest path to the White House.  Take the voting turnout of 2016, with its Democratic majority of over three million votes.  Add to that the disaffected Republicans, the “Never-Trumpers” and suburban women who are turned off by the President.  And finally, juice the Democratic turnout, well aware that a low turnout model re-elects the President.

Add all of that together, and the numbers should be overwhelming enough that even in critical states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, the Democrat should win.  Add to that the possibility of reversing the razor thin 2016 Trump margins in Florida and North Carolina, and a Democrat should win the Electoral College by a comfortable margin (Politico).

The Moderate model depends on two factors that are in question.  Will there really be a “disaffected crossover” vote, or will those voters who “held their nose” and voted for Trump in 2016 do the same thing again?  And perhaps more importantly, is there a moderate candidate that can excite the Democratic base, generally more liberal, to come out and vote?  More specifically can any of the current moderates get African-American voters to come out and vote at the 2008, Barack Obama level of 65% turnout?  Or will African-American voters remain at the 2016, Hillary Clinton level of 59.6%?

It’s a very traditional Democratic approach to the general election.  Get your base out, and move to the ideological middle to pick up voters in the center.  

The Bernie Model

Clearly Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren cannot depend on the “moderate model” to work for them.  Their ideological stands on the left, with Warren following the Social-Democrat line, and Sanders just declaring himself an avowed “socialist”, will chase the middle to Trump.  Even the avowed “Never-Trumpers”, sworn to vote against the President, may find themselves either sitting out the election, or writing in a symbolic third party.  

The Bernie Model depends on getting workers to back the more extreme ideas of Medicare for All and a high minimum wage.  It also counts on exciting an entirely new base of voters who have failed to come out in the past.  Voters 18 to 29 years old represent a huge untapped voting block.  In 2016 only 46% of them actually voted, as compared to a national turnout of 61% of all people eligible to vote.  And voters in that age group now represent 31% of the total possible vote, meaning that over 15% of young people who could be part of the total vote sat out the 2016 election (Forbes).

That 15% sitting “on the sidelines” is the force that Sanders believes he can mobilize to re-write the Democratic path to the Presidency.  And in elections as narrowly won as was 2016, that 15% is a game-changer.  The question to ask, though:  is Sanders, or Warren, powerful enough motivation to overcome a half-century of low voter turnout in the youngest voting set.  Even after getting the Presidential vote in 1971, the young vote has never gotten above 45% (Census).   The “Bernie Model” is dependent on them voting at the highest levels, where “old people,” those over 65, vote:  near 70%.

The Trump Model

The Trump campaign has its own difficulties in finding a path back to the White House.  The improbable “confluence of events” that triggered the electoral victory of 2016 is difficult to replicate.  Trump has the highest negative ratings of any candidate for President this election cycle.  In 2016 Hillary Clinton’s negatives matched his.  This is one of the reasons that Trump was so focused on damaging Joe Biden in the Ukraine scandal:  Trump can’t really get much higher negatives, but Biden’s candidacy had to be damaged.  Impeachment was a cost that Trump was willing to accept to do so.

Trump has to mobilize his base and get them to the polls, something that is likely anyway.  His campaign is then looking to their “hidden majority,” voters who publicly disavow the President, but in the secrecy of the voting booth, still mark down his name.  They believe that this “hidden” group doesn’t appear in public polling, because those folks won’t admit in the open that the support the President.  But election results in 2016 and 2018 don’t seem to support that conclusion.

The Trump campaign isn’t worried about the popular vote.  California, New York and the other “blue” states are giveaways.  Trump is targeted on the swing states that won him the election in 2016.  And he got mixed news today about that problem, as current polling shows him losing to almost any Democrat in Michigan and Pennsylvania, but beating almost all of them in Wisconsin (Politico).  This strategy also depends on his “firewall” of winning Florida, Arizona, and North Carolina as well.

Polling Theory

Then there is the final theory, that Trump has so disaffected the entire nation that literally any Democrat, from Sanders to Bloomberg, can win.  It is the one that every Democrat hopes in their heart is true, and one that would lead to a Democratic sweep of the Presidency, House and Senate.  And there are plenty of polls to back it up, not just nationally, but state-by-state. Real Clear Politics shows Sanders, Biden and Bloomberg all besting Trump in Florida.

No Democrat can trust in this theory though, there’s too much at stake to just assume any Democrat can best Trump.  We all believed that on November 8^th, 2016.  We all woke up to a new reality on November 9^th, and no one wants to do that again.  So choose your “model” and pick your candidate.  We are all rolling the dice.

The Battle on the Strip

The sign on the Strip read “DEMOCRATS DEBATE.”  It should have said the first “HEAVYWEIGHT THRILLER IN VEGAS” as five of the six candidates walked on stage primed to battle.  The one candidate not ready for the “main ring” was Mike Bloomberg, who seemed annoyed, unprepared, and disdainful of the other candidates, all of who were lined up ready to jump him from the top rope.

Hard to imagine Bloomberg didn’t prepare, but he wasn’t.  It’s not that his staff isn’t “expert” enough to know what was coming, they’re the best money can buy; but the candidate himself just hasn’t been in the spotlight enough to know.  Like any athletic event, there is nothing like the standing actual “ring” to prepare for the competition.  Mike wasn’t ready on Wednesday; even his billions didn’t buy experience.  

Don’t expect that he’ll stay muddled.  While Bloomberg doesn’t ever look to be an “outstanding” debater, he will improve.

Scoring the Bout

As far as the other candidates are concerned, Senator Sanders seemed in a “tough” mood.  He took his fair share of shots from the others as well (though only about half of what Bloomberg got) but Bernie always came back to – we’ve got to change, and we’ve got to change everything:  join the revolution or join the billionaires.

Senator Warren attacked Bloomberg, and defended women both herself and Senator Klobuchar.  She also shied away from any attacks on Bernie. Warren, as usual, had an answer for every question.  It’s hard to judge whether she got all the attention from the moderators, or they simply let control of the discussion slip into her hands.

Joe Biden had has best night yet – perhaps his desperate electoral situation is focusing his skills.  The obvious contrast of Biden and Bloomberg may well put the former Vice President back in the hunt for the nomination.  Bloomberg’s media campaign has influenced a lot of voters, but his tentative and haughty performance in Vegas might just put Biden in play for Nevada, and more importantly, South Carolina.

Amy Klobuchar had another strong debate, making her case as a strong Presidential performer.  While it’s hard to see her path to the nomination, both financially and electorally, she’s demonstrating that she belongs.

Player or Referee

And Mayor Pete Buttigieg fell into a different role in the debate. Tom Steyer seemed to be the candidate/moderator of the last debate, directing the discussion back to the core issue of defeating Trump.  Thursday, Steyer was absence from the stage, and Mayor Pete seemed to take on the “Greek Chorus” role.  His statement, burn it down (Sanders) or buy it (Bloomberg) was supposed to leave “Pete” as the only remaining choice.  I don’t think it achieved that goal, but it did present Democratic voters with some stark choices.

Overall rankings:  Klobuchar, Biden, Warren, Buttigieg, and Sanders, with Mayor Bloomberg coming in last with a rookie performance.  Tune in again in South Carolina.

On the Under Card

But the debate wasn’t the only news Wednesday.

Richard Grenell, avowed Trump loyalist, Fox contributor and Ambassador to Germany has been appointed acting Director of National Intelligence.  Grenell has no intelligence background at all, and retains his Ambassadorship as well.  

While he is only an acting appointee, and is unlikely to receive the permanent appointment due to the Senate on March 11^th, it seems that the President is making another statement about the value of the intelligence services.   In light of the impeachment and the whistleblower report, Mr. Trump is showing his disapproval of the intelligence community, a Presidential attitude that goes back to the Intelligence briefing on the Steele Dossier in January of 2017, before Trump even took office.

And speaking of Russia, Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks, is claiming that former Congressman Dana Rohrabacher offered him a Presidential pardon if he would deny Russian involvement in the stolen Democratic National Committee emails.  While Rohrabacher was in the House, he was nicknamed “the Congressman from Russia” for his undying support for the Russian side on every issue.

If Assange was really offered a Presidential pardon it would be a huge story in American politics.  But the reality is, Assange is willing to say anything, true of false, to avoid extradition from the United Kingdom to American courts.  And while Assange has a willing following in the United States, it isn’t likely that this story will gain much traction.  Both Assange and Rohrabacher could also be tools of Russian disinformation.

President Trump has already distanced himself from the story and former Congressman Rohrabacher, saying, “I hardly knew him”.

Of Pots and Kettles

And finally, Acting Chief of Staff and “man no longer allowed in the White House press room” Mick Mulvaney complained that Democrats are unconcerned about the growing US deficit.  It’s what my mother would have called, “the pot calling the kettle black,” as Mulvaney not only wrote the Trump budgets that increased the debt by trillions of dollars as Director of the Office of Management and Budget, but was a “deficit hawk” as a Freedom Caucus Congressman in his previous career.  

And that was only Wednesday.

“…He (the President) shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment.” – Article 2, Section 2, Constitution of the United States

The Sovereign

When President Trump says he has “the power of Article II,” that lets him do almost anything, it sounds like he is claiming to be a king.  But there is one particular area where he is right.  The United States Constitution grants the President the ultimate sovereign power of reprieve and pardon.  He can, without check or balance from any other branch of the government, pardon anyone from a Federal crime, or forgive a penalty.

The “pardon power” was added into the Constitution by the Founding Fathers because they felt there needed to be a way to address inevitable injustices that might occur in the Court system.  They also knew there might be times when, for the good of the nation, it would be necessary to forgive offenses.  And there was, of course, the ultimate check of Congressional impeachment and removal, should a President take the pardon power too far

Forgive and Move On

George Washington used the pardon first to forgive the farmers of Western Pennsylvania for the Whiskey Rebellion.  The Federal government issued a tax on whiskey production, one of the main sources of income for the frontier settlers.  The farmers rebelled, refused to pay the tax and organized an armed insurrection.   President Washington led an army west to put down the rebellion.

The rebels dissolved.  There was no battle, but twenty farmers were eventually arrested.  With the rebellion put down, and the taxation power of the Federal government asserted, there was no need for further punishment.  Washington pardoned the remaining offenders.

John Adams pardoned Revolutionary War deserters. Andrew Johnson pardoned Confederate veterans of the Civil War.  Jimmy Carter pardoned draft dodgers and deserters from Vietnam.  Gerald Ford pardoned former President Richard Nixon.  The pardon power was used to resolve national issues so the nation could move forward.  To quote President Ford after Watergate, it allowed the nation to move on, its “…long national nightmare” over.

Injustice?

But the pardon power has also been used to “right” individual injustices, some with much controversy.  President HW Bush pardoned former Defense Secretary Casper Weinberger, convicted of offenses in the Iran-Contra Affair.  Bill Clinton pardoned Marc Rich, a convicted tax evader whose wife donated to the Clinton library.  And President Warren Harding pardoned socialist Eugene Debs, convicted of violating the “treasonous speech” laws of World War I, and then invited him to drop by the White House.

So the President has unlimited powers of pardon and reprieve.  

Like Trump

Yesterday President Donald Trump pardoned or commuted the sentences of eleven Americans.  It seems like this President takes these actions almost on a whim.  But Mr. Trump chooses at least some of his pardon recipients by looking in the mirror.  If they have done something that Trump himself might have done; their chances of getting Presidential “grace” seems to be heightened.  Even more if he knows them from TV.

The List

• Former Democratic Governor Rob Blagojevich was convicted of trying to sell a US Senate seat to the highest bidder.  After Barack Obama was elected President, leaving his Illinois seat vacant, the Governor had the power to fill it. Blagojevich openly placed the seat up to the highest bidder, and was ultimately sentenced to fourteen years in Federal prison.  It probably helped Blagojevich’s case that he had been a contestant on The Apprentice, and that the Federal Prosecutor who convicted him is now former FBI Director James Comey’s attorney.

• Former NFL football team owner Eddie DeBartolo was convicted of trying to bribe Louisiana’s governor for a casino license.  Though he never went to prison, he was fined $1 million, and banned from the NFL.  

• Former New York City Police Commissioner and close associate of Rudy Giuliani, Bernie Kerik pled guilty to eight counts of tax evasion and lying to White House officials while being vetted for Secretary of Homeland Security. 

• Michael Milken was convicted of securities fraud and conspiracy as the “junk bond king” of Wall Street in the 1980’s.  

• Paul Pogue, a Texas construction executive, was convicted of income tax evasion.  

• David Safarin, a top government procurement official, was convicted of obstruction of justice and making false statements in the Abramoff Congressional scandal (NYT).

Selling government influence, lying to Federal officials, evading taxes, bribing government officials:  all are possible charges against a President who is going to extremes to protect his past business practices.  Perhaps he is softening the American people up, trying to change their attitude about what is “wrong” or “right” or “just doing business”.  This all from a President who wonders why American businesses are put at a “disadvantage” by being prohibited from bribing foreign officials (The Hill).

Get Ready

Or, the President is just preparing the ground for pardons that protect him.  Roger Stone will be sentenced next week.  Whether Judge Jackson accepts the current Federal recommendation of three to four years, or the original seven to nine years, or makes some other decision, Stone will likely join his old friend Paul Manafort in prison.  And Mike Flynn has yet to appear for sentencing, facing a judge who asked why his actions weren’t treason.

Stone, Manafort, and Flynn all are directly involved in the Trump campaigns interactions with the Russians during the 2016 campaign.  And they are all getting older, and want out or to avoid jail, NOW.  If the President won’t pardon them, Federal prosecutors may entice them to turn “state’s evidence” against him.

Don’t be surprised if Mr. Trump decides that the “injustice” of the “Russia hoax” investigation has gone far enough, and pardons all three.  Who’s going to stop him, Congress? The US Senate has already ruled:  the President can do anything, and it’s OK.

The Countdown

There are 269 days to the November election, and 337 days until the Inauguration in 2021.  It’s hard to imagine what will happen in the next few months, and questions certainly loom large.  

• Can the Democratic Party find a candidate they can unite behind?
• Will the campaigns be so distorted by social media manipulation that Americans will be unable to make a valid choice?  
• Will the actual election counting be somehow altered?
• If President Trump loses, what damage will he do in the last two months in office?
• Will Donald Trump attempt to subvert actual losing results and remain in office anyway?
• And, most importantly, if somehow Donald Trump wins a second term, what can be done to protect the country from losing our democracy?

These questions threaten the very fabric of the American Republic.  But should it all fall “into place” for the Democrats, and they recognize that defeating Donald Trump is more important than the much smaller ideological spaces from Bloomberg to Bernie and unite together, then a Democrat will take office in 337 days.  And what should she do?

Whoever Wins

There are two Democratic candidates who have made a fundamental issue of waking up on that first day in office.  Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg have both campaigned on not just beating Donald Trump, but on what they would do when dawn breaks on that “new” America.  But whoever wins, here’s my list of what needs to be done.

Before the new President even takes office, she will demonstrate her awareness of the damage done by Donald Trump’s nepotism, by not hiring any family members for executive jobs, other than their spouse as the “first whatever”.  The President will pledge to extend existing nepotism laws to include unpaid White House staff positions.  What was a “norm” that could be violated now must be a regulation.

Justice Department

Day One should begin in the place where our democracy is most threatened.  It should begin with defending the rights of citizens, and the rule of law.  The President should travel to the Justice Department with the new Attorney General, and present an agenda unraveling the current subverting of our justice system.

In Federal Courts, the position of the Government of the United States in many cases will be reversed.   Regarding Congressional subpoenas, the Government will now stand for enforcing those orders instead of obstructing them.  On the Affordable Care Act, the Government will support the plan instead of trying to remove it.  

On immigrants at the Southern Border, the United States will now enforce the treaty obligations already agreed to, and refugees will be treated according to the United Nations conventions.  And on lawsuits about LGBTQI rights, the United States needs to be on the side of those that need the most protection.

Attorney General 

The Attorney General will review all previous Presidential Pardons for “Presidential corrupt intent”.   Those found to be made to avoid potential Presidential criminal prosecution would immediately be appealed to the Federal Courts.  Yes, this will create a new standard for Executive pardons, but the Founding Fathers did not intend this power to serve as a shield for Presidential corruption.  The case needs to be made that the 
“presumption of reasonable intent” standard for Presidential pardons no longer applies.

The AG will also recommend to the Congress enabling legislation to enforce the emoluments clause of the Constitution, giving the Supreme Court “teeth” to enforce those laws against a future President.  The “norms” of the past are no longer enough.

And the President and the Attorney General must pledge, much as President Gerald Ford and his General Edward Levi did, that a wall will separate the President from the Justice Department, and that political influence will be stopped.  In addition, both will agree to take legislative action to create laws instead of “norms” to enforce that separation.

Environment

The President then will walk along the National Mall.  Along the way, she will stop at the National Archives to view the original Constitution, and rededicate herself to document she has sworn to serve and protect.  She will then proceed to the headquarters of the Environmental Protection Agency.  Alongside her will be the new EPA Administrator, along with the Secretaries of Energy, Housing and Urban Development and Treasury, the new Democratic Majority Leader of the Senate and the Democratic Speaker of the House.  All of them will walk to demonstrate their dedication to changing US climate change policy.  

Upon reaching the EPA, the President will announce the reinstatement of pollution enforcement regulations removed by the Trump Administration.  The Energy Secretary will announce an energy alternative initiative, focusing on increasing solar and wind power.  The Treasury Secretary will add substantial tax incentives with the intent of creating residences with net zero carbon footprints.  In addition, the President will announce that the United States will rejoin the Paris Accord, and reassert the carbon emission standards established by the Obama Administration.  

Along with the Speaker and the Majority Leader, the President will also announce an initiative designed to rebuild the water and sewer infrastructure in America’s cities.  Top priority will be Flint, Newark, Fort Lauderdale and other cities in environmental crisis from aging and failing pipelines.

And that’s all before lunch.

Homeland Security

Back at the White House, the President will meet with the new Homeland Security Secretary.  They will announce that the Department will begin a highest priority program to reunite all children separated from their parents.  If the parents are outside the United States, either the children can be returned to them, or they will be brought to the children.  

In addition, the Secretary will announce a new enforcement protocol for ICE.  They will concentrate on removing illegal immigrants from the United States who have committed felonies beyond those of illegal border crossing and avoidance.  Highest priority will be placed on the most serious felonies, and ICE will no longer target those whose only offense is illegal border crossings.

And Homeland Security will announce a new initiative towards securing the election process in the United States.  While the electoral process will remain under state control, the Department will develop protocols to protect them from domestic or foreign interference.

Oh, and we will stop building “the Wall”.

Press Secretary

The White House Press Secretary will hold a press conference in the White House pressroom on day one in the White House.  That will begin a press policy of daily formal interaction with the press, ending the practice of “helicopter press gaggles”.  While the Press Secretary is speaking, the President herself will step in, and pledge to meet with the press on a regular basis, at least monthly, as well as granting greater White House personnel access to the press. 

Vice President 

The Vice President will be tasked with reviewing all the actions of the Trump Administration, particularly all of the Executive Orders issued by President Trump.  He or she will then recommend to the President what orders need to be repealed or altered, and what replacements need to be made.  The review and recommendations need to be concluded in the first thirty days of the Administration.

And the day will conclude with a cabinet meeting, where the President will discuss how the United States can regain its place of trust in the world.

And that’s just on Day One.

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”.