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Election reaction

Wednesday, November 8, 2023

I spent all of yesterday registering new voters here in Groton. A slow day on that front, but to be expected, given the fact that there were only local elections taking place. I’ll be doing the same thing next year, and I very much doubt I’ll be able to play multiple Sudoko games, read a book, and engage in extended uninterrupted conversations with my co-workers, as I did yesterday. Last year we had a steady stream of new voters, and I expect next year will be a repeat of that, particularly if a certain very stable genius is not yet in jail, though the new provisions for early voting may offset that a bit.

A few weeks ago I wrote about the fact that it seemed likely that the Democrats here in Groton would do well, while the Republicans might get shut out, and I wondered if it was indicative of things going on, if not nationwide, then in the portions of the country where the Zeitgeist is still somewhat sane.

Bear in mind that before the advent of the aforementioned genius, local politics here in Groton was usually dominated by the Republicans.

Yesterday the Democrats swept in an unprecedented fashion. The only seats the Republicans won were those set aside for minority representation. Even the Independent Party, which I mentioned in my previous post, which was composed primarily of Republican wolves in the sheep’s clothing of a third party, failed to elect a single candidate. That really surprised me, as their signs were ubiquitous, and some of their names well known. Though I have no hard data to back this up, I really think that the extent of that victory reflects the fact that quite a few people are so turned off by Republicans generally that they are not going to consider voting for a Republican, at least as long as the Republicans are the party of the crazies.

Nationally, it appears that Democrats did pretty well, though I note from some of the blogs I follow that the major media must emphasize that they did so despite Joe Biden’s unpopularity, an unpopularity that I would guess is evanescent and will disappear once people come to terms with the fact that it’s him, Trump, or whatever idiot the Republicans nominate if Trump is in jail.

If Republicans were rational they’d try to drift a bit toward sanity and giving people what they want, but that’s not likely to happen. If next year’s election isn’t stolen, and it very well may be (they always do what they accuse others of doing) I think we’ll do well.

UPDATE: My wife just got a tweet from Chris Murphy. He says that the Dems flipped Danbury, Fairfield, Wethersfield, Newington, Old Lyme, Cromwell, Clinton, Brookfield and Colchester on Tuesday, and that’s only a partial list of the flips. Again, I have no evidence to back this up, but I suspect this has little to do with the quality of the local candidates, but a lot to do with the fact that national Republicans are turning people off and the locals are paying the price. As they should. The Republican Party is now the party of fascism, and there’s no excuse for affiliating with it. People generally, at least in the sane states, are starting to get it.

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Another legal mystery

Sunday, November 5, 2023

Okay, this is sort of a continuation of yesterday’s post, inasmuch as once again I can’t quite wrap my head around whatever legal theory the plaintiff will be relying on in this case:

Mark Meadows got a hefty payday for his book about the 2020 election, but it looks like the publisher is having buyers remorse and now wants all their money back – and then some.

The Hill is reporting that the publisher, All Seasons Press, filed a lawsuit arguing that Meadows “violated an agreement with All Seasons Press by including false statements about former President Trump’s claims surrounding the 2020 election.” They went on to say the following:

“Meadows, the former White House Chief of Staff under President Donald J. Trump, promised and represented that ‘all statements contained in the Work are true and based on reasonable research for accuracy’ and that he ‘has not made any misrepresentations to the Publisher about the Work.

Meadows breached those warranties causing ASP to suffer significant monetary and reputational damage when the media widely reported … that he warned President Trump against claiming that election fraud corrupted the electoral votes cast in the 2020 Presidential Election and that neither he nor former President Trump actually believed such claims.”

Now, it’s entirely possible that Meadows did make such a “warranty”, but won’t it be just a bit hard for All Seasons Press to prove that they relied on that warranty, inasmuch as they were surely aware that the book was full of lies, unless you chose to ignore the opinions of multiple judges that the election had not been stolen, not to mention the fact that it was widely known that the multiple lawyers that were making these claims had failed to come up with a shred of evidence to support them. In fact, wasn’t that the point of the book: to feed lies to the Trumpers they hoped would buy the book.

Methinks that All Seasons is looking to get its money back because they paid Meadows a heap of money for a book that nobody wanted to buy.

Okay, they may have a better argument than Ivanka had for getting out of her subpoena, but that’s an easy hurdle to jump.

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Today’s rant

Saturday, November 4, 2023

I know this is fairly trivial, but I’m having trouble containing my astonishment, so here goes.

I’m no longer practicing law, but I do remember how things worked, and I still can’t get over the fact that Ivanka Trump actually found a lawyer willing to argue that she shouldn’t have to obey a subpoena because it would make it hard for her to pick up her kids after school. I know these people feel entitled, but isn’t it a lawyer’s job to explain to the entitled that things don’t work that way, at least not in New York, where the fascists are far from taking over?

I think back to my distinguished career and have to wonder whether maybe I made a mistake in the early years, when I mainly represented folks who were being evicted. We did what we could to delay the inevitable so they could find other housing, but it never occurred to me to argue that they shouldn’t have to go to court on weekdays when their kids were in school, and of course they couldn’t come on weekends either (not that the courts were in session on weekends) nor could they come during the vacation periods because it was even more necessary to keep an eye on the kids during those periods.

Maybe it never occurred to me because had I tried it on any judge I’ve ever appeared before, even those most sympathetic to poor tenants, I would, at best, have been laughed out of court, with the real possiblity that I would have been referred to the state bar association for some kinds of discipline. For that matter they may have felt it necessary to take a good look at my law school to see if it really deserved accreditation.

What’s truly amazing about this is that it seems to be par for the course for the lawyers representing the Trumps. Over at the Palmer Report they always speculate that the lawyers are simply performing for the Trumps, knowing full well that their arguments have no merit. Again, one must wonder where these lawyers come from, particularly since Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro might have some lawyerly advice to give them.

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Roots in the past

Tuesday, October 31, 2023

I think I mentioned in a previous post that I’m proofreading my son’s new book, which is about, in part, the national conversation among politicians and intellectuals just before, during, and shortly after the Civil War.

He relates that one strand of thought was to the effect that, after the Civil War, it was necessary to elevate the ex-slaves to full equality not just because it was morally right, but because a failure to do so would allow the South to create an unequal society that would undermine democracy throughout the nation, and possibly lead to another Civil War. The latter hasn’t yet happened, but the former has, and it’s no exaggeration to say that the post-Reconstruction failure of the Nation to impose democratic norms and institutions on the Southern states has had long term negative effects on the nation as a whole, which may very well be bearing its ultimate fruits in the present, for the Southern ethos has now captured (more exactly, recaptured) the Supreme Court and the House of Representatives, if not quite the Senate. It has also captured much of the media (e.g., Fox, Newsmax, et. al.) and internet, which has enabled the infection from the South to spread through large sections of the rest of the country.

The new Speaker of the House is yet another manifestation of this trend. A fascist of the first order. It remains to be seen if the media that is not in the pocket of the right will do its job and expose him, or continue in the both sides tradition. I have to admit that, despite my Good Friday repetitious postings, I sometimes find it difficult to look on the bright side.

Then again, somewhat on the bright side: Happy Halloween!

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A New Speaker!

Wednesday, October 25, 2023

It appears we have a new speaker, who is every bit as loathsome as Jim Jordan. Apparently the GOP “moderates” are fine with voting for a racist insurrectionist as long as everyone isn’t already aware that he’s a racist insurrectionist. We will soon find out if he’s a fan of blowing up the economy, and whether the “moderates” will go along with that, not that they’ll have any choice if he prevents a fix for the ridiculous debt ceiling to come to the floor.

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Where do we go from here

Thursday, October 19, 2023

Like a lot of other Democrats I’ve gotten a kick out of watching the Republicans flail around trying to pick a successor to the hapless McCarthy. There has probably never been anyone seriously considered for Speaker of the House as unqualified as Gym Jordan in the entire history of this country. He, along with so many of the extreme right contingent that now dominates the Republican Party, is emblematic of what I believe is a Congress bought and paid for by the same type of billionaires that have bought the Supreme Court. A stupid and/or half insane congressman is a feature, not a bug, if the point is to build a Congress full of people who will do the bidding of the rich.

But while it’s been fun, I can’t help wondering where this will lead us in the end. The House hasn’t functioned much since the Republicans regained control in 2022, but, given the way the rules are written, it can’t function at all without a Speaker. Again, that’s a feature, not a bug, to some on the right. But we have the ridiculous debt ceiling issue to face again in a few weeks, and we should have a functioning Congress to deal with the fallout from the war in Israel, to mention only two issues that need some attention.

It’s hard to see how this gets resolved. The total nutcases (Gaetz, Boebert, Greene, et. al., will demand a nutjob, and the “moderates” won’t go along. The “moderates” are between a rock and a hard place. If they okay a Jordan type, they lose the sane vote in their districts, and most of them come from tossup districts or districts Biden won in 2020. If they don’t okay a Jordan type, their MAGA voters may stay home, and those are votes they can’t afford to lose. That assumes, of course, that Trump is in jail by then, but even if he’s the candidate, many of those MAGAs will simply not vote in those races. Oh, for the days, they must be moaning, when we got the nutjob vote by telling them what they want to hear but not giving them what they think they want. The nutcases in Congress, of course, will never vote for a “moderate”.

The only practical solution is for the “moderates” to put up one of their own, and make a deal with the Democrats to modify the rules of Congress to make it easier to get a bill on the floor for a vote. There’s no rational reason why the Speaker should be able to keep critical legislation from being considered. I don’t see this happening because the “moderates” don’t want to further inflame the MAGA base, and the Democrats have learned that you can’t trust Republicans, so any promises made are worthless.

We’ll see.

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There’s something happening here (maybe)

Monday, October 16, 2023

What it is, ain’t exactly clear, but let me go on.

I’m the treasurer for our local town committee, and recently our town chair asked me to prepare spreadsheets to tally the results on election night. She sent me a ballot containing the names of each candidate running for each office. These are local elections, and the offices at issue are Town Council, Board of Education, and Representative Town Meeting (RTM) members.

The ballot confirmed something I had provisionally concluded based on my observations during my daily bike rides around town. The Republican Party was unable to get enough people to run under its banner to come close to filling all the available slots. It’s not unusual for one or two RTM slots to be vacant, but the Republicans didn’t even come close to nominating a full roster of Town Council or Board of Education candidates, not to mention the fact that the number of candidates they’ve fielded for RTM guarantee they will be in the minority even if each one of their candidates is elected. A number of their candidates are clearly placeholders. Their town chair is running for Town Council, Board of Education, and RTM. Even if he’s elected, which I doubt, he can only serve in one of those capacities.

This was no surprise to me because during my bike rides around town I have seen signs (and not that many) for only one Republican candidate, plus a single sign for another Town Council candidate. That particular candidate was a town councilor years ago, and judging by the sign I saw, I suspect that it was a remnant from a campaign years ago. There are signs for Democrats all over town, and I know there are plenty out there because I paid for them.

Prior to the advent of a certain very stable genius, our Town was governed by Republican majorities for most of the thirty or so preceding years, and probably even further back, though I can’t say for sure. It wasn’t unusual to have a Town Council consisting of all Republicans, and it goes without saying they had no trouble finding candidates. Democrats were often represented largely because of minority party requirements on the Board of Education and the RTM.

That changed after the genius took office. Shortly after he arrived the balance of power shifted decisively, and my impression is that many of the old line Republicans either dropped out or were pushed out by the whackos that made their way in.

I’m wondering if this is a phenomenon that is taking place broadly throughout the blue or blueish states, and perhaps in some of the purple ones. The current chaos in Washington can’t be helping things, nor can the Republican insistence that an obvious criminal should be its next candidate for president.

The downside here in Groton is that we have an “Independent” party on the ballot this year, our version of the “No Labels” group, whose candidates consist mostly of the old line Republicans I referenced above, plus at least one Democrat whose motivations I won’t characterize. The signs for them proliferate throughout town, so it would appear that, at least here in Groton, those who once voted Republican are looking for an alternative. The Independents are only running candidates for Town Council, so they aren’t a threat to the Democratic majorities in the other two bodies.

So, it would be interesting to know if this is a common phenomenon on the local level these days. I suspect that it is, but it’s entirely possible this is a more or less isolated event. Still, it’s nice to know that it’s almost guaranteed that the Republicans will be a minority here for a while.

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The Bard sums up the situation in Israel

Saturday, October 14, 2023

A plague on both your houses!

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An oft ranted rant in the liberal blogosphere

Wednesday, October 11, 2023

You can’t spend much time on the left wing blogosphere without running into a rant like that which follows, but I’m going to do it anyway.

It has become increasingly obvious that Donald Trump’s mental illness has become more extreme, exacerbated, no doubt, by oncoming senility. I have not kept up a database of the many inane acts in which he has engaged, so just for a smattering I went to the Palmer Report and the articles to which it linked, where they have all been documented. Just in the last few days he has bragged about how much Hannibal Lecter liked him, opined that windmills cause whales to beach themselves, proclaimed that he has beaten out Al Capone when it comes to the number of indictments, and danced his way off a stage after lying about his sympathy for the people being killed in Israel. This is just a small sampling of the clear proof that the man is stunningly stupid, mentally ill, senile, or all three.

If you try hard enough, you might see some of this stuff in the pages of the New York Times, but you’ll never see the type of coverage they saw fit to give Hillary’s emails. The Times isn’t alone, of course. The old rule that IOKYAR (it’s okay if you’re a Republican) holds in spades when it comes to Trump. Trump acting in a bizarre fashion is, after all, just Trump being Trump. Now, if Joe Biden, for instance, were to tell you how much of a fan he is of Hannibal Lecter, we would never hear the end of it, either from the media or the Republicans, whose every pronouncement on the subject would be lovingly repeated by that same media.

This would all be a fairly unimportant observation, except that by doing what it does, the media is enabling the rise of fascism in this country, because it is increasingly the case that they ignore craziness from anyone whose name is followed by an (R).

There is one major arena in the media where Trump’s mental illness and senility is being covered. That would be by the comedians. That too, is not a new development. It has been the case for years that only the comedians have adequately covered the craziness coming from America’s right wing.

UPDATE:I started this post by noting that my complaint is common in the left wing blogosphere, so I thought it might be a good idea to update this post with links to such articles as they appear.

So first, this, from Lawyers, Guns and Money.

Not quite a rant, but it qualifies.

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Just a thought

Wednesday, October 4, 2023

Now that Matt Gaetz has brought down Kevin McCarthy, there’s a bunch of Republicans in Congress that want to bring down Matt Gaetz, by expelling him. I’m sure Bill Palmer over at the Palmer Report is likely right when he says that “[i]t’s a given that all House Democrats would vote yes” for such an expulsion resolution.

But I think the Democrats should think about it.

The plan is to have “the House Ethics Committee issue a damning report about his underage sex trafficking scandal and using that as the basis for the expulsion.” Let’s stipulate that he is likely guilty of those things. Let’s also stipulate that if it were any other Republican the Republicans would not care a whit that one of their number was guilt of that or any other crime, as they’ve more than amply proven by their embrace of a certain very stable genius who engaged in the most treasonous crime spree since the Civil War.

Matt Gaetz is doing the Democrats favor by exposing how dysfunctional and extreme the Republican Party has become. If he stays in Congress he will continue to do so and he will cause even more Republican infighting (See here, for example). In fact, if he survives an expulsion vote, he will likely become even more extreme, and he will more and more become the public face of the Republican Party, which can only help to elect more Democrats.

If the Democrats were to oppose the expulsion, they could do so on the principled ground that it is totally unfair to expel a man for criminal behavior that has not been proven in a court of law, especially since, as noted above, Republicans have taken the position overall that it is perfectly okay for Republicans to engage in criminal behavior. It would be a denial of equal protection for Gaetz to be singled out for punishment, when the general rule is that it’s okay if you’re a Republican. They’d have even more ammunition if the Republicans actually elect Jim Jordan to the speakership, given his history of tolerating sexual abuse.

Just a thought. I’m not sure I agree with myself on this one, but I do think the Democrats should think it through and try to take whatever course gives them the maximum political advantage.

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