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18.March.2024 Permanent URL to this day's entry

The rich have a different idea Permalink to this item

March 12, 2024 photo

Since the long-horizon entitlement tax discussion (next item) ran long (naturally), rather than bury this in that, a couple of connected dots from Heather Cox Richardson's latest daily. The Heritage Foundation was originally founded to promote "the idea that regulation of business and taxes hampered economic liberty," in the 1980s, when voodoo economics (as George H.W. Bush so memorably identified it) was all the rage. How did that work out, after all?

"In the U.S. that ideology has since 1981 moved as much as $50 trillion from the bottom 90% to the top 1%."

The Heritage Foundation has transformed itself into another organ of trumpist fascism. Its HQ was right after Mar-a-Lago on Viktor Orbán's itinerary in his US tour last week. To cement and expand the gains for the top 1%, Heritage has its Project 2025 plan.

The plan asserts “the existential need for aggressive use of the vast powers of the executive branch”—that is, it calls for a very powerful leader—to dismantle the current government that regulates business, provides a social safety net, and protects civil rights. Instead of the government Americans have built since 1933, the plan says the national government must “decentralize and privatize as much as possible” and leave “the great majority of domestic activities to state, local, and private governance.”

Tax the rich Permalink to this item

If it were me, I would've tried to come up with a shorter headline (like, say, the one I just did) than Robert Reich, but I take his point: The biggest contrast in the upcoming election (other than democracy vs. "blood in the streets" fascism). Spoiler alert: it's about Social Security (mostly) and Medicare. Reich's prescription is to lift the cap on income subject to the Social Security payroll tax (currently at $168,600), and have the super-rich pay more in Social Security taxes. Nice little illustration of "super-rich" – with the current cap,

Jeff Bezos finished paying all his Social Security payroll taxes due this year at around 7 minutes into January 1.

Social Security and Medicare taxes have always been the most regressive of the ones "regular" people pay. The first dollar of earned income (wages, generally) is trimmed by 14.2%. And that keeps happening all the way up to $181,498 earned income. (The "employer's contribution" sleight of hand hides some of the tax. $1 nominal income is taxed at 7.65% (6.2% for Social Security, 1.45% for Medicare), but employers pay another 7.65%, which is actual earned income FICA payers never see. 2x(7.65%) / 1.0765 = 14.2%.)

Biden's plan, which Reich is describing, would "eliminate the cap altogether on earnings in excess of, say, $400,000" which would be a bit confusing, but only for people who can afford complexity.

The Motley Fool's analysis of "the problem" and Biden's proposal notes that "roughly 94% of working Americans earn less than $168,600 annually." Keeping the high-income cap (indexed to the National Average Wage Index), but not for super-high income over $400,000, would create a "doughnut hole," which is funky. And it would amplify the accounting gymnastics that super-high income earners use to avoid paying taxes they don't like (generally, any they can avoid). More stock options and the like that somehow "don't count" for being taxed.

They go on to describe changes in indexing and increases to low-end benefits, and conclude that the proposal (as analyzed by researchers back in 2020) was not a true long-term fix, where "long-term" is defined with a 75 year horizon. (As compared to current Congressional thinking, measured in weeks until the next government shutdown threat.) The Foolish conclusion that "taxing the rich as a foundational strategy... won't get the job done" is not supported by the argument they spell out, actually.

Still, it's a better attempt than provided by two of the opponents Reich names, Ben Shapiro (just turned 40), and Charlie Kirk (not yet 30), who bloviate that "no one in the United States should be retiring at 65 years old," and "I don't think retirement is biblical," respectively. With the benefit of having lived more than 68 years now, I can safely point out that those twits don't know what they're talking about. (I can also confidently predict that they will both "retire" from the sort of "work" they do long before they turn 65, if they're smart enough to cash in on their social media influencing.)

In addition to the demographic pig in a python of the baby boom, the Fool piece lists rising income inequality, more-than-halving the net-legal immigration rate, and a historic low for the US birth rate as driving factors in the entitlement forecast. They don't mention gig work and how it is also driving income inequality. (For contract work, don't-call-them-employees get to pay both "halves" of the FICA taxes directly. 12.4% for Social Security, 2.9% for Medicare.)

Survey says Social Security Taxes Far From Enough To Secure Gig Workers in Retirement, especially in the absence of "traditional workplace retirement plans" (which largely went "non-traditional" altogether with the advent of IRAs and 401k plans).

17.March.2024 Permanent URL to this day's entry

People imagine an exciting experiment Permalink to this item

Timothy Snyder is at the top of today's reading. It's dark. The Strongman Fantasy:

"Quite a few Americans like the idea of strongman rule. Why not a dictator who will get things done? ...

"Strongman rule is a fantasy. Essential to it is the idea that a strongman will be your strongman. He won't. In a democracy, elected representatives listen to constituents. We take this for granted, and imagine that a dictator would owe us something. But the vote you cast for him affirms your irrelevance. The whole point is that the strongman owes us nothing. We get abused and we get used to it."

He has some experience in the matter, having "lived in eastern Europe when memories of communism were fresh," and having "spent decades reading testimonies of people who lived under Nazi or Stalinist rule."

"I have seen death pits, some old, some freshly dug. And I have friends who have lived under authoritarian regimes, including political prisoners and survivors of torture. Some of the people I trusted most have been assassinated."

And this, which we can view in light of the rank incompetence of the former administration (or the current House of Representatives), with my emphasis added:

"At least, the fantasy goes, the strongman will get things done. But dictatorial power today is not about achieving anything positive. It is about preventing anyone else from achieving anything. The strongman is really the weak man: his secret is that he makes everyone else weaker."

Pi day, 2024 Permanent URL to this day's entry

First draft of history Permalink to this item

Regular (and not so regular) readers have seen plenty of links from me to Heather Cox Richardson's outstanding "Letters from an American" blog. Maybe you're subscribing, already, and have seen her remarkable summary of where we are, in the March 13 edition. Can't recommend it highly enough. If I had a bell, I'd ring it in the morning, I'd ring it in the evening, all over this land. Just a few of her resounding observations:

"In 2020 there were plenty of red flags around Trump’s plans for a second term, but it was not until after it was clear he had lost the election that he gave up all pretense of normal presidential behavior.... undermining faith in our electoral system...

"[He] compromised the country’s national security by retaining highly classified documents and storing them in unsecured boxes at Mar-a-Lago. When the federal government tried to recover them, he hid them from officials."

One of his many indictments, this one from a Miami grand jury, is for 37 felony counts related to that theft. Tooted by Laffy, third in this short thread, in the Florida theft of national secrets and obstruction of justice case (being overseen by a judge who owes her position to the former guy, and is apparently keen to feed his interest in delay, at least):

"Trump's lawyers are really arguing that he decided that several hundred highly classified intel reports were his "personal" records & that he had unfettered authority to do whatever he wanted with them.

"Let that sink in."

But wait, there's more! (From HCR)

"[I]n the past three years he has transformed the Republican Party into a vehicle for Christian nationalism.... In the years since 2020, the Republican Party has become openly opposed to democracy."

His takeover of the Republican National Committee is now fait accompli, complete with signature crime family nepotism: daughter-in-law Lara Trump installed at the top, and the rest of the leadership purged.

"In Congress, far-right Trump supporters are paralyzing the House of Representatives. ... The conference has become so toxic that fewer than 100 members agreed to attend their annual retreat that began today."

And the campaign promises! Day one dictator. Purge the civil service and appoint more loyalists. Internment camps. A nationwide abortion ban. Abandoning NATO, and planning to be Vladimir Putin's lapdog, hoping to get some of those sweet oligarch billions in his dish.

The second episode of the podcast "How are you feeling about democracy?" featured Dr. Jennifer Mercieca, author of Founding Fictions and DEMAGOGUE FOR PRESIDENT: The Rhetorical Genius of Donald Trump, which "point[s] out that Trump is actually extremely good at two things—PR and getting away with crimes.

"[S]he's warning us that Donald Trump is no longer running just to be a demagogue. He wants to be a dictator."

When people tell you who they are, believe them. Donald J. Trump told us he planned to be a dictator—just for a day, he said, testing the MAGA swamp's running credulity.

"[I]n 2024, he's cornered. He is threatened and vicious. And he's attacking the United States more overtly than he did before.... [Fascism] works because fascist leaders pretend to be an Übermensch. They pretend to be a strong man. And the reason why they do that is because. Right wing authoritarian voters have a high need to follow a strong leader. They are very interested in hierarchy, defending group norms. They have a low tolerance for cognitive complexity."

A startling statistic in that conversation: "all of the studies of journalism and news consumption say that 80 to 85% of the American electorate is avoiding the news at all costs," "getting their news in ambient ways, through friends and TikTok videos and things like that."

Which brings us to Will Bunch: Voters don’t have a clue about how much worse Trump’s second term would be. "Many voters seem fooled that Trump 47 would be a bland replay of Trump 45, not the authoritarian nightmare he actually plans."

"[W]e know Trump’s third run for the White House centers on plans to rule as an autocratic “Red Caesar” because he has told this to voters in rallies and interviews, again and again. What’s more, the specific blueprint is hardly secret but spelled out explicitly by the candidate’s advisers in reams upon reams of publicly available documents — especially the nearly 1,000-page Project 2025 plan drafted by the Heritage Foundation and other far-right think tanks....

"Experts on authoritarianism say anyone seeking insight into a second Trump presidency should study Orbán’s Hungary after he was elected to that nation’s highest office for a second time in 2010.... The second coming of Orbán crushed academic freedom at Hungary’s universities, stripped the LGBTQ community of its rights, weakened the judiciary and the legal system, cracked down on press freedom, and won popular support through demagoguery around immigration"

11.Mar.2024 Permanent URL to this day's entry

Slow learner Permalink to this item

Judd Legum highlights the $91.6 million question in Popular Information. In late January, a jury found that a perpetrator had "acted maliciously, out of hatred, ill will, or spite, vindictively, or in wanton, reckless, or willful disregard" of another person's rights, and awarded the plaintiff a whopping $83.3 million in compensatory and punitive damages. ($91.6 million, with a 10% bump for interest while the perp appeals the judgement. And on top of another $5 million awarded by a separate jury in the same regard.)

The question I had (for both this and the other, $half-billion-ish judgment against the same malicious, vindictive fellow) about who would be willing to put up big money on his behalf is answered in part, as the Federal Insurance Company, a subsidiary of Chubb. Chubb's CEO, Evan Greenberg has history with the perp. There are questions about the whopper of the bond agreement. And the bigger question, in Legum's last section: A third defamation case?

Our infamous perp "seems determined to add to the total" of judgments against him. "At a rally in Georgia on Saturday night, [he] repeated the same claims [] that just resulted in a $83 million jury verdict earlier this year." The sentence from said rally that catches my ear:

"Think of it. 91 million. I could say things about what it would cost normally."

You're all old enought to remember when another impeached president waffled about the meaning of "is"; that was over consensual sex and its coverup. Now we're supposed to parse the definition of "it." He's thinking about when he's paid for sex, it hasn't "normally" cost him $91 million. May he live in interesting times, then.

9.Mar.2024 Permanent URL to this day's entry

Split screen Permalink to this item

On the verge of Daylight Savings Time, expecting the usual wailing and gnashing of teeth. It's not my favorite moment, that hour nabbed out of the middle of the night, but in the larger scheme of things, it doesn't trouble me that much. Helps to not have "first thing in the morning" commitments any more. Speaking of which, I had one of those "post-work" themed dreams this morning. The cube farm was being remodeled, down to studs in places, the floor dug up to gravelly soil in spots. One of the co-workers I'd interviewed on his way in, later my boss, was there at a table with others I didn't know, we nodded to each other in recognition, and he got up to ask for a word, aside. "Is the job offer rescinded?" I wondered to myself, but no, he just wanted to introduce me to a fellow I'd be working with. My takeaway was to appreciate that 20 years on, the plot has moved into a deconstruction phase, which made me smile on waking.

I'm not so sanghine about the potential deconstruction of our democratic republic. Yesterday's news reported the tin-pot dictator Viktor Orbán making another visit to the U.S., to meet with his preferred presidential candidate, and not with anyone in the current administration. (They certainly wouldn't have reached out to him, in any case.) Orbán, Putin, and Trump make the new Axis of Evil, parody edition. The image that stuck in my mind was the shambolic, grinning, felonious Steve Bannon having a photo-op handshake with Hungary's dictator. Birds of a feather.

The Biden Harris campaign highlighted the contrast, under the headline In Georgia, Donald Trump & Marjorie Taylor Greene Sell Biden Campaign Message. Could the choice be more stark? The Misogynist, and his randy, red-hatted sidekick on the other side.

“Donald Trump is kicking off his general election campaign with MAGA extremist Marjorie Taylor Greene – dividing America, threatening revenge and retribution, and pushing his dangerous Project 2025 agenda of abortion bans, threats to IVF, and Social Security cuts.

“About an hour down the road, President Biden is building off the momentum of his State of the Union speech to hear from voters and let them know he’s fighting to make their lives better.

“That is the split screen voters will see today and throughout this campaign – two visions for America: Donald Trump’s will pull us back to the past with resentment, revenge, and retribution, and President Biden’s will move us into a future where everyone gets a fair shot and our freedoms and democracy are protected.”

Concidentally, my beloved local library sent a notice that my check-out of Plaintiff in chief : a portrait of Donald Trump in 3,500 lawsuits was auto-renewed for another month. Current events and better subjects have had more of my attention lately, and the dated (© 2019) compendium of the litigiously corrupt former guy needs its cover spinner updated. Background reading, though, fleshing out the picture of the fellow who

"sees law not as a system of rules to be obeyed and ethical ideals to be respected, but as a weapon to be used against his adversaries or a hurdle to be sidestepped when it gets in his way. He has weaponized the justice system throughout his career."

Yes, it's a window into "his character and morality, and [the] findings are chilling." Back before "weaponized" had been weaponized out of nuclear bombs (and UFOs, srsly?), into the political arena, now available as the Jim Jordan subcommittee clown show. (Its collected reports go back more than two years before it existed. For example, the September, 2020 entry for Greatest Hits of Gaslighting, pre-poisoning the well: HOW DEMOCRATS ARE ATTEMPTING TO SOW UNCERTAINTY, INACCURACY, AND DELAY IN THE 2020 ELECTION.

You remember September, 2020, I'm sure? Back when "In fact [sic], the biggest risk to in-person voting may not be from the coronavirus, but instead from the unchecked violence, looting, and arson in Democrat-run cities." Which was it that killed more than a million Americans, again?

In its most recent hearing, just this Thursday, former DC Metropolitan Police Officer Michael Fanone testified about what happened in our most Democrat-majority city (that's sort of run by Congress) not long after September, 2020. The chairman's agenda was to complain about the Department of Justice going after "ordinary Americans" who participated in the 2021 insurrection. The Ranking Member, Stacey Plaskett, Delegate from the Virgin Islands, wasn't having it.

"At the end of the day, the purpose of this hearing is to minimize, what happened on January 6th, and the lawful prosecution of individuals who were [involved].... We've just come so low in the House.... Tell half a story, you're not telling the truth."

Hello Mr. Chairman!

"The FBI asked the Bank of America for information on individuals who fit three categories: People who came—there's evidence that they were here on January 6th; that they purchased a firearm in the last six months; AND—that's key—AND, not OR, AND they planned to come back for the Inauguration."

Her split screen was body cam video from "the battle scene" on January 6. One of the insurrectionists says "I've got one" when Fanone is pulled out of the police line and then beaten unconscious.

"Unfortunately, many of my colleagues on the other side know the truth, but they're still seeking shelter from Donald Trump's hordes. They're still seeking shelter from the truth. They want to protect [] their political careers. Their jobs. They're hiding behind lies for that."

From the State of the Union speech, 2024

8.Mar.2024 Permanent URL to this day's entry

Sore losers and power grabbers Permalink to this item

This morning

Our state party chair's latest message: When the Idaho GOP Loses, They Rewrite the Rules. In particular:

Bipartisan theater Permalink to this item

Quite the State of the Union last night, Joe Biden exceeding expectations in presenting his agenda, and swatting away the embarrassing hecklers. "Decorum" is one of those old-timey values that has fallen by the wayside. Sam Alito stayed home this time, that was nice. Someone called out "Lie!" from the cheap seats; When I heard it, I thought it was one of the rump, calling out their candidate's name: "Liar!"

Watching the Speaker of the House run his repertoire of pursed lips was weirdly amusing; the paucity of basic values he applauded (let alone stood for) was chilling. Most of all for standing with Ukraine, and against Russia's murderous dictator.

Biden listed the core values he's supporting, for those who have lost track:

"My lifetime has taught me to embrace freedom and democracy. A future based on the core values that have defined America.

"Honesty. Decency. Dignity. Equality. To respect everyone. To give everyone a fair shot. To give hate no safe harbor."

Compared to... ?

"Now some other people my age see a different story. An American story of resentment, revenge, and retribution. That’s not me. ...

"My fellow Americans the issue facing our nation isn’t how old we are it’s how old our ideas are? Hate, anger, revenge, retribution are among the oldest of ideas.

"But you can’t lead America with ancient ideas that only take us back. To lead America, the land of possibilities, you need a vision for the future of what America can and should be. ...

"I see a future where we defend democracy not diminish it.

"I see a future where we restore the right to choose and protect other freedoms not take them away.

"I see a future where the middle class finally has a fair shot and the wealthy finally have to pay their fair share in taxes.

"I see a future where we save the planet from the climate crisis and our country from gun violence.

"Above all, I see a future for all Americans! ...

"So let’s build that future together! Let’s remember who we are! We are the United States of America. There is nothing beyond our capacity when we act together!"

You wouldn't think a choice between experienced, optimistic leadership, and another bout of sociopathic self-dealing and retribution would be that hard, but here we are.

I didn't stick around for the "rebuttal," but I understand the junior senator from Alabama delivered from her kitchen, sporting her crucifix jewelry. The Rolling Stone rundown almost makes me curious enough to watch. (I did tap one of the X-clips, Andrew Perez captioned "That's just good acting," in which Senator Britt worked the "CCCP conquer[ing] the minds of our next generation" trope and derided Biden's use of TikTok. (Seeing it via Elon Musk's perverted social medium, what she said: "Y'all. You can't make this stuff up.")

And Conservative HQ tried to flip the script, saying Biden "is telling Democrats to use their hate and turn to the dark side," seriously? Casting the mango menace as the hero in a 40 year old space opera is gaslighting so tired your grampa can see right through it.

7.Mar.2024 Permanent URL to this day's entry

Voting rights Permalink to this item

Heather Cox Richardson recaps the bloody events in Alabama of 59 years ago in her latest Letter from an American. The events made an impression on my then 9-year-old self, even if I probably didn't absorb all the details from newspapers and TV news. There was more to come, closer to home. The summer I turned 12, Milwaukee had one of 159 "race riots" in cities across the nation. Our family's vacation was planned to Florida, but I did not want to go "down south," and wheedled my way to an extra week at Boy Scout summer camp, instead.

But in 1965... in Selma, Alabama, where "the city's voting rolls were 99% white" in a majority black city, the state's "justice" system, "law enforcement" and the racist citizenry were prepared to got to extreme lengths to maintain the American apartheid. They met nonviolent protests and voter registration drives with police rioting and murderous mayhem. 26-year-old Jimmie Lee Jackson chased down and shot. The March 7 "Bloody Sunday" on the Edmund Pettis Bridge (still!) named for a Confederate general and Grand Dragon of the Alabama Ku Klux Klan. Two days later, Unitarian Universalist minister James Reeb was beat to death by a white mob. After the third attempt to march to Montgomery succeed in a gathering of 25,000 people in the capital to hear Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. speak, 39-year-old Viola Liuzzo, mother of five, was murdered by KKK members.

On August 6, Dr. King and Mrs. Boynton were guests of honor as President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Recalling “the outrage of Selma,” Johnson said: "This right to vote is the basic right without which all others are meaningless. It gives people, people as individuals, control over their own destinies."

The Voting Rights Act was reauthorized over the next 40 years with bipartisan votes, most recently in 2006. "By 2008 there was very little difference in voter participation between white Americans and Americans of color," HCR writes. And then...

"The [2013] Shelby County v. Holder decision opened the door, once again, for voter suppression. Since then, states have made it harder to vote; in 2023, at least 14 states enacted 17 restrictive voting laws. A recent study by the Brennan Center of nearly a billion vote records over 14 years shows that the racial voting gap is growing almost twice as fast in places that used to be covered by the preclearance requirement."

Shelby County was decided the year after Barack Obama was reelected to a second term, not coincidentally. And in 2016, despite Hillary Clinton winning the popular vote by a wide majority, and despite the the FBI's James Comey's interference, the Electoral College installed the most racist president candidate in more than four decades. In 2020, that error was corrected, narrowly, while said racist worked unfounded claims of "voter fraud" and "stollen election" for all he was worth, and not enough to persuade anyone but members of his cult.

The party he's highjacked and is in the process of merging into his crime family continues to use rumor and innuendo to make voting more difficult. It's deadly serious business.

Idaho Republicans are going along with the gag (so to speak), with supermajority control of the legislature, statewide offices, and its four seats in Congress not enough to allay the manufactured fears. Our "why can't we ever get home early?" legislature is spending time on trying to eliminate "no excuse needed" absentee balloting, again, because... it threatens election security, really? No, not really.

HB 667 sponsor Rep. Mike Kingsley of Lewiston wants to "reel in mail-in balloting." As usual, overwhelming public testimony against the bill did not dissuade the true believers.

"...44 people signed in to the hearing, with two of those people indicating they were in favor of the bill. The rest signed up in opposition. Representatives from the Idaho Association of County Recorders and Clerks, League of Women Voters of Idaho, Ada County Clerk’s Office, and [Idaho Secretary of State Phil] McGrane spoke against the bill.

“I don’t believe this bill touches election security,” McGrane said. He said that, while he didn’t believe it enhanced security, he did believe the bill would add obstacles for voting."

Regardless of party affiliation, of course. The Ada County Clerk "noted that in the last election, more Republicans than Democrats in the county voted via absentee ballots."

Rep. Vito Barbieri, R-Dalton Gardens, spoke in favor of the bill, saying that it wasn’t necessarily the government’s job to make voting easier.

When Lawerence Denney was running to be Idaho's Secretary of State in 2014, he said vote by mail compromises election security, and wanted to eliminate it, including for overseas military.

In 2021, when he was House Majority Leader, and in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic, barely a month after the failed insurrection, (now House Speaker) Mike Moyle expressed his opinion that "voting shouldn't be easy."

Idaho's 2021 legislative session had four bills about absentee ballots, with just one, SB 1064, making technical corrections, and removing obsolete language was signed into law. Four more bills in 2022, with only one (concerning post office "undeliverable" returns) enacted. Last year, two of three bills from the House died in committee, and HB 205, attempting to limit reasons why electors can request absentee ballots, died in the House.

This year, in addition to HB 667 now in the House's "general orders," HB 573, with another attempt to require (and limit) reasons why we can request an absentee ballot is sitting in House State Affairs.

And then there's the "ballot harvesting" bogeyman. HB 599 wants to limit who can collect absentee ballots and take them to a mailbox or a drop box. That was on yesterday's House State Affairs agenda too, and sent out with a "do pass" recommendation. That bill lists exceptions, for elections officials, postal workers, employees and contractors of common carriers, relatives ("within the fifth degree of consangunity"), household members, and caregivers. For those last three categories, such a helper could only take six ballots. 7, 8, or 9 and it'd be a misdemeanor, and 10 or more a felony.

And if your relative, household member, or caregiver is a candidate for elective office on the ballot, or employed by or volunteers for a political party, candidate for elective office on the ballot, or an organization that supports or opposes any ballot measure or candidate for elective office on the ballot, they can't carry your ballot, at all. In otherwords, as a candidate for Precinct Committeeman, I can't take my wife's ballot to the drop box. Sorry, honey! But then there's this:

2 (d) "A person who receives compensation from the voter in exchange for 5 collecting or conveying the voter's voted or unvoted ballot."

In presenting the bill to the committee, Rep. Brandon Mitchell, R-Moscow, a small business owner, said when he "thought about it," "this is if I am an employer, and I forgot to take my ballot in, and I'm paying my employees, and I ask one of my employees to run it down, they're protected, because I'm the actual voter, and I'm actually paying them to take it down."

Aside from the patronizing classism, the text doesn't say anything about an employer-employee relationship, just "compensation" for the task. Sounds like a nice free-lance enterprise to me. Contact Ballot Harvesting, Inc. and we'll be happy to take your personal ballot to a drop box, for the low, low price of... 1¢ maybe? You know, one of those coins with Abraham Lincoln's visage on the obverse. E PLURIBUS UNUM, LIBERTY, and yes, even IN GOD WE TRUST.

Under questioning from Rep. Todd Achilles, D-Boise, Mitchell calls for reinforcements. Jason Hancock, chief of staff for the Speaker of the House steps in. He's "worked on versions of this legislation in past years," and just wants to say that volunteers on a campaign, "frankly, these are the last people who should be involved in handling people's voted, or unvoted absentee ballots, because these people have a stated and vested interest in the outcome of elections."

Good god. Never mind volunteers, but candidates and elected officials cannot be trusted, is that what he's saying? Someone who, IDK, works for the Speaker of the House as his chief of staff? What if a postal worker volunteers on a campaign? What if you work for a corporation that makes campaign contributions to candidates?

It went downhill from there, as Rep. Mitchell sought to explain degrees of "consanguinity," and utterly botched the job. Rep. Gannon said "don't you think a lot of people don't know what that means?" and Mitchell demonstrated that he doesn't know.

"The explanation on something like that is easy to explain, and, uh, let me just give you an example... Each step away from you is a degree. So your 2nd cousin would be at the 5th degree. Basically, your parents, parents, er, your parents' parents, siblings, child[ren] would be five degrees away from you."

Basically, that isn't close to correct. You could look it up on Wikipedia to see that in Texas Administrative Code, your 2nd cousin is actually 6th degree. First cousin once removed is ok. Great-grand uncles and aunts (and great-grand nephews and nieces), yes. Great-great grandparents (and great-great grandchildren) ok. But not second cousins. Or first cousins twice removed. And NO IN-LAWS, because, you know they don't share your blood. 2(e) does let in relations by "adoption, marriage, or blood," so if they ever do get around to defining "consanguinity" in Idaho Code, it's going to be complicated by that, as well.

Mitchell can't satisfy Rep. Gannon, but waves away his concern about "confusion" by saying "we have technology today that can explain all that."

Challenged by the other Rep. Crane on the committee, the chairman's (2nd degree) sibling about why it's only a misdemeanor for family members (etc.) who go over the 6 ballot limit and carry 7, 8 or 9, Mitchell calls for a "lifeline," gets Hancock back up. He says it's targeting people who are "doing this at scale." Which "we've seen" [sic] happen in other states, and "abuses" in other states. He cites the case in North Carolina that caused a congressional election to be voided, which was a big deal in the 2016 and 2018 elections. A nefarious operation for a Republican that eventually resulted in some accountability, even if the kingpin died before his day in court. It wasn't the harvesting that was the problem, you know, it was the "collect[ing] blank or incomplete ballots, forg[ing] signatures on them and even fill[ing] in votes for local candidates."

Our Secretary of State stood up to support the legislation, now on "round 3" of "trying to refine the language." First off, he notes "we don't see this in Idaho." (That puts the lie to its "emergency" clause, ok.) He's had inquiries, and people who are concerned. It's a prophylactic measure, in McGrane's view. The notorious examples, he says, have been people working on campaigns.

There are very few of these notorious examples, and we don't have them here. It's been negotiated on the Senate side as well, he said, so it's going to go through this time?

Kendal Shaber was there to speak for The League of Women Voters, which is opposed to this bill, as it has been for its previous iterations. Shaber speaks for the "autonomy of voters":

"Someone who is paid by the voter is ok, but a trusted friend, neighbor, or non-cohabiting partner are not? What right is it of the state to determine who the voter can trust with their ballots? Criminalizing friendship and neighborliness is just wrong."

The committee gave it a "do pass" recommendation on a party-line vote.

Stupor Tuesday, 2024 Permanent URL to this day's entry

Into darkness Permalink to this item

The question about the current Republican Party that nags at me: Is this the best they can do? A mad man political neophyte who knows only smash and grab, cheat and steal, lie and con, willing to destroy any and every institution that attempts to hold him accountable for malfeasance and crimes. Today's the day, Republican voters rise in acclamation to say Yes! Yes! We want another four years of destruction, chaos, looting, and capitulation to Russia! Super Tuesday. My god.

Barely a week ago, the former guy delivered his "unbound and unhinged" valedictory to CPAC—setting a "presidential" record 14th appearance—with promises of personal retribution that are more reliable (to say nothing of intelligible) than most of his utterances. Trump declared

“Your victory will be our ultimate vindication, your liberty will be our ultimate reward and the unprecedented success of the United States of America will be my ultimate and absolute revenge.”

The overwhelmingly white crowd, many wearing “Make America Great Again” regalia, rose to their feet and roared their approval.

This week, as expected, the Supreme Court capitulated, with none of the five men responsible for the majority opinion willing to put his name on it (and none of the four women willing to go so far as empowering the State of Colorado's decision to remove Trump from the ballot). In a don't-call-it-unanimous decison slapdashed out just ahead of today's primary voting, they all said that no, no, a state can't intervene to hold an oath-breaking insurrectionist accountable, as provided for by the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. Congress must act if we're to do that. (Spoiler alert: that isn't what the 14th Amendment says. Also, Congress, act? Shirley, you jest. They had two chances to hold Trump accountable for high crimes and misdemeanors, and the Senate punted, twice.)

As Lisa Needham writes, for Public Notice, the latest SCOTUS ruling is "absurd." And "they don't care." After letting states do what they will to suppress voters they don't care for, now the conservatives are standing on their hind legs for federal supremacy? "The conservatives on the Court are operating from a position of delivering results, not of applying the law."

"As Adam Serwer wrote in The Atlantic, their behavior highlights the “fraud of originalism.” These are jurists who are ostensibly committed to discerning the original meaning of what the Framers intended when they wrote, debated, and passed the Reconstruction Amendments. To hew to that original meaning here would have required them to acknowledge that the Framers intended that people who engage in insurrection don’t get to be president. That result, though, was undesirable to the right, so conservative justices happily tossed their commitment to originalism out the window."

With one small ray of sunshine, Joyce Vance spells out the supreme weight of bad faith:

"The Court did not absolve Trump of insurrection. That feels important. But despite that, this decision feels like it’s more about practicality than partisanship; it is the Court doing exactly what the conservatives so frequently say they must not do, supplanting the intent of the Founders, or in this case, the post-Civil War drafters of the 14th Amendment, with their own judgment about what the law should be....

"Ultimately, it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that the Court chose not to let Colorado remove Trump from the ballot because they feared what might happen if they did. This concern about acting out of fear of the insurrectionist, fear that Trump’s base would rally to his support in predictably violent ways, highlights the predicament the country is in. What do the Justices expect will happen when Trump loses the election and pulls out all of the stops to regain power? The “national temperature” is already turned up to high, and the oathbreaking insurrectionist who put it there remains eligible to stand for election."

From Sherrilyn Ifill (via Laffy): Don’t lose the plot. The #SCOTUS decision is not just about Trump, it also insulates congressional insurrectionists.

That encouraged me to read the concurrence, to see that that is exactly what alarmed Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson. The majority considered, and decided things they didn't have to, because, of course, they wanted to, in a textbook case of judicial activism.

They wanted to declare, contra the plain text and long-term understanding of the 14th Amendment as self-executing, that no, Congress must legislate for section 3 to have any effect, and thus they succeeded (for the time being, at least, not just "attempt[ed]" as the concurring justices wrote) in "insulat[ing] all alleged insurrectionists from future challenges to their holding federal office." Not just the former guy, but all those oath-breakers who aided and abetted his effort to nullify the 2020 election so that he could stay in office as well.

With the spouse of insurrectionist Ginni Thomas unrecused and hiding in the "ethics guideline" draperies, Pontius Roberts and his pals wash their hands and leave it up to the voters, such as we're going to see today. As Heather Cox Richardson put it, the court "sidestepped the question of whether the events of January 6, 2021, were an insurrection, declining to reverse Colorado’s finding that Trump was an insurrectionist."

Conservative judge J. Michael Luttig wrote that “in the course of unnecessarily deciding all of these questions when they were not even presented by the case, the five-Justice majority effectively decided not only that the former president will never be subject to disqualification, but that no person who ever engages in an insurrection against the Constitution of the United States in the future will be disqualified under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Disqualification Clause.”

HCR's conclusion doesn't use the words "judicial activism," but describes what Mitch McConnell's legacy has wrought (with the link brought in-line):

Two days ago, in Slate, legal analyst Mark Joseph Stern noted that when Mitch McConnell (R-KY) was Senate majority leader, he “realized you don’t need to win elections to enact Republican policy. You don’t need to change hearts and minds. You don’t need to push ballot initiatives or win over the views of the people. All you have to do is stack the courts. You only need 51 votes in the Senate to stack the courts with far-right partisan activists... [a]nd they will enact Republican policies under the guise of judicial review, policies that could never pass through the democratic process. And those policies will be bulletproof, because they will be called ‘law.’”

"There is nothing automatic about democracy."

Meanwhile, as a substantial part of the country is endorsing lawless autocracy today, there is the matter of to what end? Timothy Snyder considers Mike Johnson's record as Speaker of the House: The apocalypse we choose.

"In four months as Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson has given Russia a chance to win its war in Ukraine, and thereby turn the world towards tyranny.

"Johnson's term of office consists of stratagems to avoid funding Ukraine. He and a minority of Trumpist Republicans have left Ukrainians without the means to defend themselves, and enabled Russian aggressors to retake Ukrainian territory. As a result, troops are killed and disabled every day.

"Around the world, Johnson's behavior is seen as betrayal and weakness."

He goes on to describe how there is more than just Ukraine's existence at risk; it is a contest between the international order that has prevailed (however inadequately) since WWII, and "a new age of chaos" "in which only lies and force would count," and no more in play than which dynasty will collect booty. Human population and technology have created an existential crisis unlike anything that has come before (save perhaps the threat of full-scale nuclear war, for which the jury is still out).

"For the past half century, people have been rightly concerned about global warming. Whether we get through the next half century will depend upon a balance of power between those who make money from fossil fuels and lie about their consequences and those who tell the truth about science and seek alternative sources of energy. Vladimir Putin is the most important fossil fuel oligarch. Both his wealth and his power arise from natural gas and oil reserves. His war in Ukraine is a foretaste of the struggle for resources we will all face should Putin and other fossil fuel oligarchs get the upper hand."

The Hartmann Report adds one more piece to the sordid puzzle: The Saudi & Putin Scheme for Screwing Biden's Election Hopes: "Gas at $6 a gallon could easily throw the election to Trump."

3.3.2024 Permanent URL to this day's entry

Stand by for unprecedented judicial activism Permalink to this item

It's no secret: the Supremes have teed up blockbuster cases, amid a glut of high-profile, high-impact decisions and emergency requests. (Gift link to Ann E. Marimow, in the Washington Post.) It turns out—quelle surprise!—all that derision about legislating from the bench evaporated with a 6-3 right-wing majority on the court. This "partial explanation" is a bit precious:

"Some of the [backlog] buildup is self-inflicted, analysts said, with major issues from past terms such as abortion and gun rights resurfacing. In the early weeks of the term, the justices were probably diverted by their efforts to put out the high court’s first code of conduct, announced in November in response to controversies over lavish trips and gifts that some justices have received from billionaire friends and questions about recusal decisions."

In response to the "controversies" of blatant self-dealing and corruption, that "first code of conduct" does pretty much nothing to address the problem. However much time they spent on it, they earned a Incomplete on the result, and an F for effort.

It's just about never good news with Idaho goes national, and our state is in the story twice. The Supreme Court already stepped in with an order to let bad Idaho law "take full effect for now," before they'll rule in April and probably instantiate the rights of a fetus superseding those of women. And, "Separately, the court could answer at any time another emergency request from Idaho to clear the way for the state’s ban on gender-affirming care for transgender minors," using undisguised religious beliefs to have the state reach into the most personal decisions imaginable within a family, Father Knows Best redux.

But wait, there's more! Much, much more. Gerrymandering, gun rights to be advanced over protection against domestic violence, deconstructing corporate regulation, fixing (ha ha) social media, supporting the plain text of the 14th amendment, and last but not least, the home of the Whopper, whether the President of the United States really does have an Article 2 where he has the right to do whatever he wants, because that is so like something our Founders would have provided for, in an homage to the beloved King George III.

Will they coronate King Donald I? Stay tuned for April, or June maybe! With all due deliberation.

1.March.2024 Permanent URL to this day's entry

Meanwhile, Texas is on fire Permalink to this item

Starting in February, which last I checked, is still "winter" in the northern hemisphere. But you might be reconsidering, after talk of the historic heat wave smashing records across the midwest. "Six states posted their highest February temperature on record, as did more than 130 cities and towns, including Minneapolis, Milwaukee, St. Louis and Detroit." 90°F in Missouri, the 80s in Illinois, near 80 in Iowa, and the mid-70s in Wisconsin. A powerful cold front behind the record heat whipsawed temperatures by 40 to 50°F within 24 hours, and spawned tornadoes. In February. Fargo, North Dakota went from 61°F Monday afternoon, down to 6°F on Tuesday, with 50mph winds and heavy snow. Wednesday morning's low there was -5°F. Madison, Wisconsin, went from 70 down to 11°F overnight Tuesday.

On Feb. 28, the NOAA NWS Weather Prediction Center wrote (and animated) "an amazingly different start to the day across the Central U.S., with a record-setting warm airmass being undercut by the passage of a very strong cold front. You can see just how dramatic the temperature drops have been over the last 24 hours over the Plains and Midwest."

NOAA Weather Prediction Center datagraphic via WaPo

raveling

Tom von Alten
ISSN 1534-0007