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What are the odds this bill will pass

Monday, September 19, 2022

If I were a betting man I wouldn’t think twice about how I’d bet on the prospects of this bill actually becoming law:

Reps. Liz Cheney (R-WY) and Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) have introduced the Presidential Election Reform Act to prevent Trump from stealing 2024.

According to NBC News, the bill would “The 38-page bill would make clear the vice president’s role in counting votes is simply ministerial and raise the threshold for objecting to electors from one member of the House and Senate to one-third of each chamber. It would require governors and states to send electors to Congress for candidates who won the election based on state law prior to Election Day, according to an official summary, meaning states couldn’t change their election rules retroactively after an election.”

States would also be banned from extending the election or refusing to certify the results. The legislation also requires that if there is an objection during the count to a state’s results, that objection must be based on specific constitutional grounds.

Okay, so the bill makes perfect sense, but it is not, as the fellow at Politicus writes, “bi-partisan”, in that Liz Cheney has been expelled from the Republican Party.

It is plain as day that a substantial portion of the Republican Party intends to steal every election they can, and that includes the presidential election. I’m sure Lindsey and Ted, among others, will be able to come up with some talking points proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that the bill is just a blatant attempt by Democrats to enable voter fraud, which the media will present as a “both sides” issue and the bill will die in the Senate. After all, Joe and Kristen continue to believe that the filibuster is more sacred than democracy.

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Open criminality is the new norm

Saturday, September 17, 2022

Sometimes things move much too fast for someone who isn’t paid to blog. When I first heard about the stunt DeSantis pulled sending migrants to Martha’s Vineyard, it seemed to me that there was something, you know, illegal about it. My first thought was that it was kidnapping. I didn’t practice criminal law, and even had I done so, I probably would have no experience with kidnapping cases, as they are fairly rare, but this seemed to have all the elements. Apparently, DeSantis imported these people from Texas and shipped them to Martha’s Vineyard, inducing them to go along by a series of lies.

I was glad to see that people with more knowledge than I agreed with my conclusions, though it did prevent me from presenting the idea as original with me. Also, apparently, people who lie for a living had a hard time avoiding the conclusion that this was an illegal activity, though of course Ted Cruz would baselessly claim that Joe Biden is a far worse human trafficker than DeSantis.

Gavin Newsome has asked the Justice Department to investigate and bring criminal charges if warranted, and we can only hope that this will happen. Meanwhile, of course, some in the media are doing their best to normalize what is truly outrageous behavior. After all, it’s just a minor stretch on the road to Fascism.

I suppose the Republican Jesus would approve of what DeSantis did. (Check out the video of the Republican Jesus at the link. I don’t know how to embed TikToks, so head on over to Digby’s blog.

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One born every minute, or should that be “every second”

Monday, September 12, 2022

I have to admit that I can’t help but think that the folks who fall for this sort of stuff deserve what they get:

While running Money Magnet Platinum Membership Initiative LLC, [Lakenya] Hopkins promised astronomical — and unrealistic — rates of returns on investments…. Hopkins claimed to investors she would get them \(8,000 in monthly returns for every \)1,000 they invested by pooling the money and putting it into a hedge fund that guaranteed a 3-5% daily returns, the feds alleged.

A 3-5% daily return amounts to, let see, a 1095% to 1825% (not taking compounding into account) return on a yearly basis, which seems sort of, shall we say, unrealistic. I’d like to think these suckers all also fell for the grifter-president, as this will reduce their ability to fall for his latest grift and line his pockets.

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A righteous rant

Thursday, September 8, 2022

I was perusing my RSS Reader this morning, and came upon this post, in which the blogger at Above the Law righteously rants about various parties objecting to a settlement in an antitrust case against Blue Cross Blue Shield (BCBS), which, based on the description in the post, was engaging in some heavy duty violations of the antitrust laws, though, of course, the government itself did nothing about it. The case was brought be private attorneys who negotiated “the largest antitrust award ever secured in a case where the government never participated”.

It’s entirely possible that some of the objectors are doing the dirty work for BCBS, but it at least it appears that this is yet another instance of the perfect being the enemy of the good.

Which brings me to my own righteous rant. Joe Courtney has a Green Party opponent who just happens to live a short distance from me. I won’t bother to provide a name, but I will say that his main issue is, when viewed in the context of the dire straits in which this country finds itself, infinitesimally unimportant. Our candidate for state representative, who is running to replace Joe DelaCruz, likewise has an opponent from somewhere on the alleged left, though I don’t think he’s running as a Green. This is not necessarily an instance of the perfect being the enemy of the good, because neither of these guys comes close to being perfect.

Neither of these candidates has a chance to win, but both could possibly draw enough votes from the Democratic candidate to send a Republican to Congress and/or the state legislature.

This sort of thing is not infecting the Republican Party, though you have to wonder why the Never Trumpers aren’t running candidates of their own in red areas. They’d actually be doing the country a favor. These two are just advancing the cause of fascism, and if they don’t realize that they’ve got no business running for office because they are almost by definition mentally incompetent. If we had ranked choice voting these kinds of antics could be tolerated, but that is not the case, and both of these candidates are doing nothing but helping the Republicans. But maybe that’s the point. See, e.g., here, here, and here. The Green Party may have given us George Bush in 2000, and if they get their way, they just may give us the very stable genius in 2024.

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Stop me if I’ve bloviated on this before

Saturday, September 3, 2022

My wife and I have a little daily ritual. I read her the on-this-date entries from my diary. While Trump was in office I would normally note his crime of the day, but I usually skip the Trump stuff so far as what I read to my wife. But I read them to myself, and I’m constantly amazed at the criminal activity that occurred every day, most of which the media let pass, and all of which was officially forgotten within at most 48 hours, with less than 24 being the norm. I’ve forgotten most of it too. There’s simply to much to remember. So often I think to myself: you would never have heard the end of this if a Democrat had done it. See, e.g., “but her emails!”.

So I confess that I didn’t recall the fact that Trump had called Democrats fascists, likely because the media didn’t bother to report it, though the old clip is making the rounds on Twitter, from what I gather. This is par for the course for the American media. At the very least they should have noted that he had done this when reporting on Biden’s speech. I don’t have to consult a search engine to feel comfortable with the assertion that when Trump made his speech no one in the press asked Trump or his representatives whether he was doing harm to the republic by branding Democrats with that term, just as none of those who have questioned Biden’s use of the term “semi-fascism”, have called out Republicans for routinely calling Democrats socialists, communists, etc.

There has been only a minimal amount of discussion, in the mainstream, about whether Biden was correct in asserting that MAGA Republicans are “semi-fascists”, but for the most part they’ve run with the Republican’s hypocritical argument that it is simply unseemly to use such terms about your political opponents, unless, of course, you’re a Republican and even more so if you’re Donald Trump, in which case it’s only to be expected and simply not worth mentioning. So we travel the Road to Fascism with a compliant media refusing to read the street signs.

Update: Also how long before they forget this, even if they do bother to report it.

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Just wondering

Wednesday, August 31, 2022

Anyone who is reading this is probably already aware of the blockbuster brief that the Justice Department just filed in the case against the genius. I’ve read through it, and as has been reported almost everywhere, it makes a strong case for the former guy’s guilt, as well as implicating some of his lawyers in his crimes, or, alternatively, proving beyond doubt that they are among the most incompetent lawyers on the planet. (I’m going with door number one)

The brief was filed in response to a motion Trump filed in an entirely different court, before an entirely different judge, than the judge that issued the search warrant in the first place. It was a clear case of judge shopping, as they were looking for a Trump appointed judge who would rule in Trump’s favor, regardless of the law, and they may have found one, as she has indicated that she is disposed to grant his motion to appoint a special master. It’s unclear if she’ll stick to that position since, as the Justice Department persuasively proves in its brief: 1) it is clear as day that there is no legal basis for such a ruling, and 2) the Justice Department has already reviewed all the documents because Trump delayed seeking the relief that he should have sought the minute after the warrant was served, so the case is somewhat moot.

I haven’t seen much discussion of the fact that the judge has held on to the case rather than refer it back to the court that issued the warrant. I didn’t practice criminal law, but I know for certain that I could never have gotten away with asking one judge to interfere in a case that was pending before another. The likelihood is that I would piss off both judges, particularly the first judge, to whom the second judge would likely refer my motion. It seems to me that Trump’s motion should have been directed to the judge that issued the warrant.

Why hasn’t this judge referred the case to the appropriate court for a decision? That fact alone makes me think that she’s trying to figure out a way to do something for Trump that will, in one way or another, defy pre-existing precedent, though, of course, precedent means nothing to much of the latter day judiciary. Whether she’ll decide to sully her reputation is at present unknown, but remember that virtually nothing she does can affect her lifetime appointment, and, who knows, if DeSantis gets into the White House, he might reward her intellectual dishonesty with a Supreme Court seat.

She is symptomatic of a huge problem that will fester in the courts of this nation for the next 40 years or so, assuming the republic somehow holds on that long. The courts are now well stocked with”originalists” whose definition of “originalism” is: I get to do whatever I want.

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Joe Biden semi-goes there

Saturday, August 27, 2022

I have in the past, (too lazy to find the post) bloviated about the Democrats failure to call a fascist a fascist. So, it was with somewhat pleasant to read that Joe Biden found his way clear to go half way there:

“It’s not just Trump,” he said at a fundraiser. “It’s the entire philosophy that underpins the — I’m going to say something: It’s like semi-fascism.”

Oddly enough, when Republicans describe Democrats, they don’t use the term semi-socialism.

What’s funny about all this from a rational point of view, is that with some rare or possibly non-existent exceptions, Democratic politicians are sem-socialists at best, while Republicans are full fledged fascists.

Of course I recognize that if you’re going to use the “F” word, you need to supply context. The “socialist” scare technique is losing, or has already lost, its effectiveness with the persuadable voters, given the endless repetition from the Republicans. The way to keep the “F” word relevant is to illustrate the similarities, such as the worship of the Fuehrer figure, the book burnings, the bigotry, etc. It wouldn’t be hard to get some film clips from the 30s to emphasize the point.

Anyway, here’s hoping some of the other Democrats will run with this. People are worried about our democracy, and it’s an issue they can win on.

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A righteous rant

Friday, August 26, 2022

Okay, this is just a little too much. Biden is just giving away thousands of dollars to people who owe student loans, just because they are a crushing burden on millions of people, particularly the people who’ve been scammed by for-profit colleges like a certain Very Stable Genius University.

Well, I’m on the side of our conservative friends who say that forgiving student loans is totally unfair to the people who have repaid their student loans.

What about us?!!!

I went to a fancy pants college and three years of law school and came out owing TWO THOUSAND DOLLARS! It was a crushing burden, particularly because during law school I had to come up with $300.00 every semester(!) to pay tuition! Now some people might point out that these days that’s about what it costs every week for law school tuition, but they don’t understand math and the shocking effects of Biden’s inflation. There’s no doubt that we’ve had 10,000% inflation since I went to school, so my $2,000 debt, resulting in outrageous monthly payments of almost $40.00 a month for two or three years is totally equivalent to the typical college debt of today.

And don’t go trying to argue that it doesn’t make much sense to argue against a program because it’s unfair to people who would have benefitted by it in the past, had it only existed then. It’s a perfectly logical argument. Imagine where this country would be right now if only we had remembered to never institute a program that is unfair to people who didn’t get to benefit from it. Yes, just imagine:

  • We wouldn’t need to pay for public schools because it was totally unfair to give some kids a free education when older kids’ parents had to pay for theirs.
  • We wouldn’t have had to fund social security, because making sure that old people didn’t starve to death was totally unfair to the old people who did starve to death.
  • We wouldn’t have to fund Medicare, because giving people reasonably priced medical care was totally unfair to the people who had to pay outrageous prices for medical insurance or go without medical care.
  • We wouldn’t have worker’s compensation laws, the cost of which is so unfair to employers, because they are so unfair to the people who got killed or injured at work and got nothing because, as the courts ruled, they had assumed the risk of getting injured in workplaces that employers had no incentive to make safe.
  • We would still have slaves, which would be so convenient for us white people, because freeing the slaves was so unfair to the slaves who had already died and couldn’t be freed.
  • If we had gone and freed the slaves anyway, we wouldn’t have had to pass the Civil Rights laws because treating people somewhat fairly would have been unfair to the people who were always treated completely unfairly.

These examples only scratch the surface. Why throughout history, even before there was a United States, there were some people who insisted on being unfair to those who came before by improving the lives of the living. If you really stop and think about it, every time we improve someone’s life, we are being unfair to those who came before and didn’t benefit by that improvement. This type of thing has got to stop!

Of course, now that I’m on Social Security and Medicare we can’t possibly think about doing away with them! That would be so unfair to …ME!

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Apparently it doesn’t take much to make a (Republican) hero

Thursday, August 18, 2022

All three of the newspapers to which we subscribe ran articles today hyping Liz Cheney, and bemoaning what her primary loss means to the Republican Party. This from the New London Day/ AP:

Liz Cheney’s resounding primary defeat marks the end of an era for the Republican Party as well as her own family legacy, the most high-profile political casualty yet as the party of Lincoln transforms into the party of Trump.

It’s probably fair to say that the Republican Party hasn’t been the party of Lincoln since it sold its soul in order to gain the presidency in 1876, but if you don’t want to go back that far, you can start in 1968 with Nixon’s Southern Strategy.

Liz is now going to be cast as a heroine, and should she decide to run as a third party candidate, the press will surely idolize her, even if by running she risks handing the presidency back to a Republican, for we don’t know who she’ll take votes from, because we don’t know what information the low information voters will be fed by the press.

The Republican Party is the party of fascism, and has been for quite some time. We should not forget, though many of us will, that Cheney was fine with Trump’s lawless behavior and voted not to impeach him the first time he tried to steal an election, voted with him on just about everything he wanted to do, and has shown absolutely no interest in preserving the right of non-Republicans to vote. It’s all well and good that she’s against taking control by coup, if voter suppression fails to do the job, but we’re a poor excuse for democracy if we think that makes someone a hero.

Being against a coup is pretty much the least we can expect from our politicians, and it is frightening that the vast majority of Republicans have no problem with taking power that way. That’s the party that Cheney helped build, and we mustn’t forget that, but here’s an easy prediction: the press will do all it can to urge us to forget just that.

A sort of epilogue: The lionization of Cheney calls to mind the actions of our own senator, Lowell Weicker, during the Watergate hearings. He was properly outraged at what Nixon had done. The thing is, he wasn’t considered a hero, nor had the Republican Party degenerated so low that it felt it necessary to expel him from its ranks. He was just one of many Republicans who, in one way or another, recognized Nixon’s criminality and recognized their own obligation to do something about it. It is a measure perhaps of how low one of our major parties has sunk, and how normalized that sinking has become, that the press feels the need to make a hero out of a person who is simply doing what any right minded person would do. The fact that there are so few right minded people in the Republican Party is the real story, and its the one that the press should be emphasizing.

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The democratic process in action

Thursday, August 11, 2022

I spent all of Tuesday (5:00 AM through 9:30 PM) working at my local polling place, checking in voters. Thankfully, I was assigned to the table where Democrats checked in, as it was more pleasant than dealing with Republicans would have been.

A few thoughts.

Primaries are one of those things that the Progressives gave us back in the early twentieth century, and in theory they are a good thing, and probably still are when the office in question is high profile enough. But I’m not so sure they’re a good thing in all cases, particularly the primaries that were held here on Tuesday.

I doubt whether the Democratic turnout exceeded 10% in the district in which I worked, and it is a district in which one would expect a relatively high turnout for regular elections. The Republican turnout was about numerically half of the Democratic turnout. Democrats actually outnumber Republicans in our district now, which is somewhat surprising since it is probably the most affluent district in town, but the numbers are such that the Republican turnout by percentage was less than that of the Democrats.

It was clear to me as we handed people their ballots that at least among the Democratic voters, many had no idea who was on the ballot, much less where any of them stood on the issues. That probably didn’t make much difference on the Democratic side, because in truth, there wasn’t much difference among them, as each would have satisfactorily filled the position for which they were running, and none of them are bat-shit crazy. The endorsed candidates were designated by asterisks next to their name, but I’m not sure whether that made much difference in how people voted, as I’m not sure many people realized that’s what a the asterisk meant. Two voters handed their ballots back after confessing they had no idea how to vote, but I’m sure they were far from the only such folks.

The Republicans in our district are, I believe (without any supporting data) mostly mainline Republicans who have not quite come to terms with the direction their party has taken. Keep in mind that very few of them came out to vote. I’m not sure that those who did appear were all whackjobs, but one woman did see fit to decry the awful fact that a certain criminal genius was subjected to a lawfully obtained search warrant the previous day. I suspect that statewide it was the whackjobs that showed up in the greater numbers on the Republican side, leaving them with Leora Levy (who is bat-shit crazy) as their candidate for US Senate, which in all likelihood will make Blumenthal’s task that much easier. Particularly on the Republican side, it appears that nationwide the party is driven to the ever more extreme right by an energized minority of Fox watching, QAnon believing nutcases.

So, I conclude that low turnout primaries are not terribly democratic, and it might be worthwhile considering requiring a non-endorsed candidate to not only win the primary, but to do so in a primary in which a given percentage of eligible voters turn out. This would probably benefit Republicans more than Democrats long term, at least in the sane states, as their nominees could drift back toward the mythical center and appeal to voters that people like Levy turn off. It wouldn’t be a cure-all, of course, and it’s entirely possible that the Republican Party has been so taken over by the fascists and conspiracists that it cannot be rehabilitated. But, for the sake of democracy, it’s not a bad idea to try.

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