Faux News

I suppose it makes sense that in a county where rap is accepted as music and in which comic-book movies are accepted as cinematic masterpieces,  the Fox News Channel would be accepted as a news channel.  In fact, the Republican-propaganda channel, despite having some excellent reporters like Jacqui Heinrich (more about whom soon), has so stained the word "news" that it's no wonder that MSNBC goes by now-meaningless initials and CNN, which used to stand for Cable News Network, doesn't stand for anything anymore.   

The extent to which Fox News is a propaganda machine centered on profit came to the fore in recent days when text messages between Fox executives and on-air hosts revealed that, despite telling viewers that the 2020 election was in fact stolen from Donald Trump and that Joe Biden's election to the Presidency was illegitimate, they never believed a word of it.  This revelations were made thanks to court filings from Dominion Voting Systems, which is suing Fox News for defamation of the voting-machine company's reputation for falsely implicating that it allowed the software in its voting machines to flip pro-Trump votes to Biden.  Text messages between Fox News bigwigs revealed that they thought that Rudolph Giuliani and Sidney Powell, Trump's two top point people on the election fraud charges, were blooming idiots and incredibly insane.

Rupert Murdoch and the unholy trinity of Fox News's prime-time op-ed lineup - Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham and Tucker Carlson - at first resisted the urge to go along with Trump, but when it became apparent that Trump was encouraging his supporters to change the channel to Newsmax, which is more conservative than Fox in the same matter that the Omicron COVID strain is more dangerous than the original Wuhan strain, Murdoch & Co. went along with the lies in public.

Except for Fox News' actual reporters, who subscribed to the idea that, in journalism, facts matter.  Fox News White House correspondent Jacqui Heinrich (below) fact-checked a Trump tweet asserting electoral fraud and tweeted herself that the Trump tweet itself was a fraud.  According to the briefs filed in the Dominion lawsuit, Tucker Carlson, already committed to the scam, blew a gasket.    

"Please get her fired. Seriously . . ..  What the fuck?" Carlson wrote in a text to Hannity and others, according to the filing. "I'm actually shocked. . ..  It needs to stop immediately, like tonight. It's measurably hurting the company. The stock price is down. Not a joke."

The fact that Carlson - at Fox News only because he'd already bombed out at CNN and MSNBC - was concerned about the company's stock price makes it clear once and for all that the channel is more interested in making money than in practicing honorable journalism.  Texts released due to the lawsuit show Fox News employees referring to their viewers as "good people," but they went ahead and spread the lies about the 2020 election to draw more eyeballs and, thus, more advertisers.And more money.   And the good people who trusted Fox News to tell them the truth believed the lies so much it led to an insurrection.  (For the record, Heinrich deleted her tweet before security could show her the door.)

The story of Fox News knowing that Trump's election-fraud claims were lies is getting reported throughout the media.  But one news outlet isn't reporting anything about it - no prizes for guessing which one.

Of course, even if Fox News viewers did learn about how much their favorite and most trusted news personalities lied to them, they would insist that the texts were taken out of context (meaning that viewers would have a pretext) and say that the private comments of Hannity, Ingraham and Carlson were exaggerated and slanted in a way to make them look bad.  I don't see how you could take such evidence of journalistic malfeasance and not make Fox News commentators look bad, but that's just the point.  Fox News viewers are so sure that their version of events is the truth that no amount of evidence to the contrary can persuade them otherwise.

Thus, while it may be so that Donald Trump and Rupert Murdoch are the emperors who have no clothes, nudity has become quite acceptable among a large number of Americans.      

Fraudit

The results of the fraudulent election audit - or "fraudit" - in Arizona that began this spring with Republican pressure and conducted by a Trump-friendly company (called "Cyber Ninjas") is finally over, and it offers some shocking news about the results of the 2020 presidential election in Arizona.

Joe Biden won the state by an ever bigger margin that previously thought. 

All Arizona Republicans did was waste people's time and tax money.

So that's it, right?  We finally understand that these so-called election audits are bogus?  Curb your enthusiasm, Sparky.  Donald Trump, in giving his blessing to this audit, got what he wanted by undermining people's confidence in elections and getting more Republicans to question the legitimacy of the elections, setting the stage for challenging more elections in the near future - mainly elections that produce preliminary results that are less than clear cut.  

Don't believe me? A vote audit in Pennsylvania, where Republicans are demanding the personal information of voters,  is still going on.  And now a vote audit is scheduled to begin in Texas, a state Trump won.  Apparently he wasn't satisfied with his victory margin there.  He wanted to win Texas by more.

The results of the Arizona election audit treated a symptom of the problem with baseless accusations of voter fraud.  The disease goes merrily on.  To Trump's great satisfaction.

Georgia On His Mind

I can't wait until Trump is out of office, in part because he'll give me less to write about when he's an ex-President.  (I'm dreaming, aren't I?)

It seems that Trump - who's known for never admitting defeat - called Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (above) yesterday to pressure him to find a number of votes - 11,780 votes, to be exact - that would overturn the Georgia presidential elections results and tip the state to him instead of President-elect Joe Biden.  Trump even told Raffensperger, a Republican, that his handling of elections in Georgia would be to blame for the outcome of the U.S. Senate runoffs on Tuesday should incumbent David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler lose.  Raffensperger listened calmly, even made a couple of interjections (like to say that the data Trump relied on to prove his rightful win of Georgia are erroneous), and put up with Trump's guff for sixty-two minutes (one minute for every 190 votes in Georgia that Trump feels he was wrongly deprived of) before telling Trump goodbye and hanging up.  Just as calmly.

Unfortunately, this is not likely to change the minds of congressional Republicans who are siding with Trump and demanding recounts in enough states to overturn Biden's victory and concede that Biden will be President.  But it may be enough to have Trump retroactively impeached and convicted in Congress - I have heard that there's some sort of mechanism to allow that - so he can't pull a Grover Cleveland and run for a second nonconsecutive term in 2024.  By the way, Cleveland's first failed bid for a second term in 1888 ended with a popular-vote victory but he lost the electoral vote, giving him the right to run again (and win back the White House) in 1892.

Trump has more in common with the Republican President who served in between Cleveland's two terms, Benjamin Harrison.  They're the only two Presidents who lost the popular vote . . . twice!

Oh yeah, they also were instrumental in the appointments of two inept Postmasters General.

Meanwhile, Trump continues to call the high rate of COVID deaths "fake news." 

Trump Can Still Win. NOT!

 Some people just won't take no for an answer.

Donald Trump, who still can't believe that he lost to Joe Biden - the same Joe Biden who accidentally appropriated a British politician's' life story in his first bid for the Presidency and once referred to Franklin Roosevelt addressing the nation on television from the White House after the 1929 stock market crash - is still contesting the election after nearly a month since Biden was declared the winner.  When he got a recount of votes in two countries in Wisconsin, Biden ended up getting more votes to add to his statewide popular victory.  Trump then sued to get 20,000 ballots in Wisconsin thrown out after the results were certified.  He did that even as Arizona certified its results for Biden.  After failing to get thousands of votes thrown out by a federal appeals court in Pennsylvania, his lawyers vowed to appeal to the Supreme Court.  No such appeal has since been filed.

And now that Georgia's presidential vote has been counted thrice and certified, Trump is suing that state and complaining about how Republicans there have run the election, raising the possibility that Republicans in Georgia won't come out to vote in the U.S. Senate double runoff in January because they don't trust the system - because Trump told them not to trust it.

This all prompted Gabriel Sterling, prompting a Republican electoral official in Georgia, to tell Trump to cut it out or someone could get hurt by some reactionary nut out to take action against GOP "traitors" who won't help Trump overturn the election - an election that even Attorney General William Barr says was free of mass voter fraud.  This puts him in concurrence with Chris Krebs, the former Trump Administration cybersecurity official who got fired for saying that the election was safe and secure.  Even Lindsey Graham is telling Trump to put up or shut up in regard to offering proof that the election was stolen.  And yet Trump went online for over 45 minutes to talk about how there was fraud, and no one cared a twit about a word he said.   

You think it was bad that Trump lawyer Joe DiGenova saying that Krebs should be executed (and Krebs is looking at suing him)?  Consider the freshly pardoned Michael Flynn calling for martial law to allow the election to be done over.

Give it up, Donald - haven't you done enough already?  

Lost In Transition

Joe Biden has his work cut out for him.  Not just in serving as President, but to become President.

Trump refuses to concede the election and he refuses to allow the Washington bureaucracy to accommodate any transition.  He's also undergoing a massive PR campaign to fuel rumors that the election was stolen form him.  Meanwhile, he's suing every state he thinks he should have won to have the results in states Biden won overturned before the electors can be certified to vote in their state capitals in December.  Also, only a handful of  Republican members of  Congress acknowledge Biden's victory.  

And in the fantastic event that Biden actually makes it to being sworn in, he may still have to deal with Mitch McConnell stopping everything.  The Senate race in North Carolina has been called for Thom Tillis, bringing the Republican Senate caucus in the 119th Congress so far to 49 members and proving that North Carolina Democrats are an ever sorrier bunch that their Florida or Kentucky brethren.  (Another adulterer in an adultery-intolerant state, guys?)  Alaska's Senate race has also since been called for Republican incumbent Dan Sullivan.   Now the Democrats' only recourse  is in Georgia.  There, Democrat Jon Ossoff faces incumbent Republican Senator David Perdue and the Reverend Raphael Warnock, the other Democratic Senate candidate, faces appointed Republican Senator Kelly Loeffler in runoffs scheduled for January 5.  Despite the Democrats' new-found strength in the Peach State, the chances of the party pulling off a double win - even against certifiable crooks like Perdue and Loeffler - look exceedingly slim.

Meanwhile, Biden is readying a White House staff and assembling a COVID-19 task force, spelling out his health care agenda (more of that later), receiving calls, communiques, and congratulations from foreign leaders, and putting together a government - without help from a Trump administration that refuses to share vital information with the incoming President and continues to insist that the Donald will be taking the oath of office on January 20, ready to challenge the results right up to the counting of the electoral votes on January 6 under the watch of Mike Pence and in the presence of a Republican Senate as well as a Democratic House.  Expect challenges to the results from each state Biden will have won - especially Pennsylvania.

I wonder if Americans have any idea how appropriate it is that this election took place in the middle of a pandemic.  Biden's win may have treated a symptom, but the disease of Trumpism goes merrily on.    

President Biden

 He did it.

Joseph Robinette Biden has been elected the 46th President of the United States.  The election was officially called on Saturday when it became obvious that Pennsylvania would give its 20 electoral votes to the Democratic presidential nominee.

He spoke on Saturday night vowing to restore unity and praising the democratic process that made his victory possible.  He is ready to heal the century psychologically . . . and physically, as he is ready to take on COVID-19.  He is ready to work not just for his base, but for all Americans.  He has his work cut out for him, given the potential composition of Congress (more about that later), but he's more than ready to do it.

And Donald Trump?  Well, I hope he doesn't leave any dirty towels in the White House bathroom when the Special Forces kick him out. 😜 

Congratulations, Mr, Biden. 

The Decisive Victory That Wasn't

Joe Biden is likely to become the 46th President of the United States.  But the great decisive win the Democrats were hoping for - a win that would put the final nail in the coffin of Reagan-Bush-Trump conservative Republicanism that was ushered in back in 1980 and has dictated policy in Washington ever since - didn't quite happen.

Biden wants to reclaim the soul of America and put the country back on a more humane footing as President after four years of Donald Trump, but he will have to do so after an election victory with a popular margin of only three points.  The results in down-ballot elections showed how skeptical many voters still are about Democrats. Several Democratic House members who got swept in in the 2018 midterms got swept out this past week, and the party came up short in its attempt to take back the Senate.  And Martin O'Malley must be kicking himself for not continuing his Win Back Your State PAC into the 2020 elections, given that Democrats failed to expand their state legislative majorities - they seem to have contracted, in fact - which means that the GOP will have the upper hand in redistricting.

The polls predicted none of this, primarily because pollsters couldn't reach enough respondents to come up with any truly representative samples.  It seems that polling firms used old-school techniques to reach voters that suggested what you'd get if General Motors were still making engines that mixed gasoline and air with carburetors instead of fuel injection - imprecise results and a failure to deliver maximum performance.

But what went wrong with the Democrats?  How did Republicans Susan Collins and the insufferable Joni Ernst get re-elected to the Senate while Democrat Max Rose lost his bid for a second term as Staten Island's representative in the House?  The answer is that, while Trump was unable to paint Joe Biden as a wild-eyed leftist, he was successful in characterizing the Democrats as being more interested in socialistic experiments with esoteric issues and elitist ideas than helping working people who feel that the elites don't care about them.  While Joe Biden was talking about rebuilding our economy and our infrastructure and was appeal to lunch-pail voters, progressives were talking about free college and a centrally planned economy.  While Biden was trying to appeal to working-class white voters, progressives dismissed their concerns.  And for all of the Democrats' policies designed to help working people, Democrats act like they would prefer not to communicate with working people.  They're too busy attending parties and discussing over wine and cheese that latest indie movie they saw the other night - or at least they were before COVID hit.  The Democratic elite can physically distance themselves while they work forrom home, but they've long been physically distanced from working people, and many working people are still physically distanced from jobs.  With friends like these in the Democratic Party, Biden doesn't need enemies. 

My advice for the Democrats, if they want to fight back against the top-down economy that Ronald Reagan initiated, which turned Donald Trump from a coarse New York real estate developer into an avatar of undeserved material wealth, is this: Improve health care without proposing something as radical or as complicated as Medicare expansion.  Rebuild our passenger rail system.  Make it more clear that banning assault weapons in Detroit does not mean you want to ban hunting rifles in Michigan's Upper Peninsula.  Stop talking about issues targeted at specific demographic groups and start talking about issues that everyone can relate to.  Don't denigrate Jefferson or Washington, and don't "reconsider Columbus Day" until you've reconsidered our tax code.  Try considering Veterans' Day for a change (you can't reconsider something you haven't considered before).  Don't pick on white male voters who prefer classic rock to hip-hop (that Karen Hunter influence again).  Stop looking down on people who think Tom Selleck is a better actor than Ralph Fiennes.  Stop dismissing anyone who hasn't gone vegan.  Bitch-slap any Democrat who advocates defunding the police.  And tell that show horse Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to shut the hell up!  If she doesn't, just don't listen to her when she threatens to primary "moderate" House Democrats like Mikie Sherrill or Abigail Spanberger for being "meh."  

And the most important thing of all, aside from never putting a whole box of laundry detergent in a washing machine, is this: Get this damn COVID virus under control.  Biden wants to. 

In fact, Biden wants to do a lot of things, many of which will actually help Democrats in the 2022 midterms.  Let him do them.  And for Pete's sake, have his back and stop bitching about how he's not as liberal as Bernie Sanders!        

I hope this has been helpful.

Where We Stand

 Were on shaky ground, that's for sure.

As of 5:00 Eastern time today, Joe Biden has a lead in the popular vote - he has a popular majority, in fact - and he leads in the Electoral College - just 17 electoral votes shy of the bare majority needed to win, according to NBC News. The map above is based on NBC's projections as of the aforementioned time of day.  

Meanwhile, Donald Trump vows to contest the results in Wisconsin, which NBC News called for Biden, and in Pennsylvania, which remains too early to call, and in Michigan, which NBC called for Biden, Trump is just plain trying to stop the vote count.

Also, if Arizona (11 electoral votes) and Nevada (6 electoral votes), are called for Biden, who leads in both states (the Associated Press did call Arizona for Biden), that would get him to 270.  Biden hasn't won the White House yet, but it looks for good for him.  It's just going to take awhile to count all the votes.

The Presidency wouldn't look so good for him once he gets it, should he get it.  Democrats saw their House majority shrunk, and while it's not in the bag yet, it appears that the Republicans will hold the Senate.  Build on the Affordable Care Act, Mr. Biden?  Good luck with that if you're #46.    

I stayed up until almost midnight last night following the returns.  When I went to bed, I switched the TV on to continue watching the returns, hoping I'd feel sleepy after awhile and maybe hear some good news in the meantime.  What a stupid idea that was!  I was even more agitated and unable to fall asleep. 

I won't be blogging tomorrow night.  I need a break.  Besides, it's my birthday tomorrow.  Double nickel.

Martin O'Malley: "Joe Biden and a New Way of Governing"

Martin digs Joe.

In his latest e-mail to his faithful supporters - all twelve of us - Martin O'Malley makes the case for why Joe Biden embodies the old generation of leadership we need at this moment. He's preaching to the converted as far as I'm concerned, but his comments are still worth a read, as always.

Joe Biden and a New Way of Governing 

by Martin O'Malley

If you’ve been watching television lately, you’ve now seen the Biden ad. It concludes, "Joe Biden -he brings everyone to the table to get things done."

Inclusion. Collaboration. Delivering results.

Change the name of the office and the candidate, and the ad could well be the ad of a young candidate for mayor. But it is an ad for President of the United States. And it is the opposite of what we've seen in four years of the oxymoron we sometimes call the Trump Administration. It’s also the early morning song of a whole new way of governing. A new way that Joe Biden - for all of his years of experience - is already a leader in bringing forward.

I know, because I’ve seen Joe Biden in action.

This "new" of governing isn’t about dominance. It’s about collaboration. It’s about sharing the latest emerging truth of what’s happening where. It’s about using modern technology to model, measure, map, and drive performance in ways all can see.

Openness. Transparency. Trust. The ability for everyone to see what’s happening where - and when - so we can all do something about it.

In the face of this pandemic we have already heard a new language of cooperation rising up around the world. "We are all in this together . . ..  Individual actions affect the whole . . ..  Together we can bend the curve." This COVID vocabulary is also the vernacular of a new way of governing - a new way which Biden knows well. But the effectiveness of this new way of governing - its ability to deliver better results - depends not so much on command and control, as it does on shared understanding.

I grant you, the practice of this new way of governing is still very new. And it’s examples are still more the exception than the norm. In fact, the scarcity of effective democratic responses to the COVID pandemic makes many of us wonder if democracy even works anymore. As the insightful Fareed Zakaria observes, "COVID has become a stress test for governments all around the world - and there aren’t many governments that are passing the test . . .."

But there is a better way forward. And it is the way Joe Biden "operated" as Vice President when he was put in charge of the Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

As one of those governors who worked with Joe Biden week in and week out to implement the Recovery and Reinvestment Act, I was witness and beneficiary of his talent, his vision, and his effectiveness as a collaborative leader. As I hear Biden commit to convening a War Cabinet to combat COVID, and when I hear Biden talk about bringing people together to get things done on climate, I know exactly what he means. I know because I was there at his side when he took charge of making the Recovery and Reinvestment Act work.

At the time, it seemed the whole world was predicting failure, waste, fraud and abuse. Instead, Joe Biden delivered for people. And he delivered with a degree of openness and transparency never before achieved on the face of this planet. Using geographic information systems and the power of the Internet, he made it possible for Americans to see - for the very first time, real-time, on an interactive map - exactly where those precious federal dollars were being invested in their own state, own county, own zip codes. Whether it was shovel-ready transportation projects, clean water projects, extended unemployment benefits for people who were unemployed, or keeping teachers on the job in our classrooms, every governor and every American citizen could actually see where every dollar was going in real time.

The technology which made it possible - geographic information systems and the Internet - had been around for years. But never before had a person with Executive power brought them together as a common platform: a common platform for everyone to see, for everyone to know, for everyone to be held accountable - accountable for delivering actions that delivered better results. And by “everyone to see”, I do not mean only the Governors of the fifty United States and Territories; by “everyone” I mean, by every Citizen of the United States.

This is the new way of governing that Joe Biden will use to combat Covid and get our all of our people back to work. It is the new way of governing he will use to reverse global warming by moving America to a 100% Renewable Energy by 2050.

Model, measure, and map. Set benchmarks, milestones, and deadlines. Bring people together to get things done. Lift up the leaders. Find better ways to make it work. Better ways to build back better.

We are Americans. We need not be the victims of history or bad leadership.

We make our own events.

Our concern is today and tomorrow.

And the life-giving business of the United States of America is a better tomorrow for all of our kids.

Vote for Joe Biden.

*

You read what the man wrote, you read it!  Now get out there and vote for Joe Biden as Mr. O'Malley said, if you haven't already.

Justice Barrett

Amy Coney Barrett was confirmed as a Supreme Court justice on Monday and sworn in almost immediately. Once the Republicans decided that the rules against Barack Obama's nomination of Merrick Garland to fill Antonin Scalia's seat in a presidential election year didn't apply here because they had the Presidency as well as the Senate, it was a foregone conclusion.  All the Democrats could do was play up threats to the the Affordable Care Act and raise money off them.

Even if the Democrats win big on Tuesday, we'll have to deal with a Court at least as rigidly conservative as the one Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes presided over when Franklin Roosevelt became President in 1933. That Court, of course, struck down several New Deal initiatives, the main result of which was to prevent us from becoming a European-style social democracy like France. Expect similar blows against the Affordable Care Act, numerous other public amenities, and civil rights initiatives if the Democrats are in control of the elected braches of the federal government in January.

This is where the rubber meets the road. A Democratic Congress will have to be very careful in how it drafts bills it passes with a President Biden's signature. As I understand the late Antonin Scalia's explanation of the doctrine of originalism, the point of the judiciary is merely to interpret the laws based on the text of the Constitution and nothing more, and if you see something that should be remedied and corrected through legal means, Congress should not rely on justices to legislate from the bench; rather, it should . . . pass a law. Now a Democratic Congress will have to come up with language that advances a Biden administration's interests without creating language running afoul of strict constructionism.

If there is a Biden administration. The 6-3 conservative majority may rule in favor of Trump's efforts to overturn the results of the presidential election in several swing states should Biden win.

Of course, things wouldn't have all that much been better if Hillary Clinton had been President these past four years. Those who thought she would have secured a liberal majority on the court by appointing the replacements for both Scalia and for Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who would have retired in 2017 had Hillary won the election (which of course, was never, ever going to happen), forget that Senate Republicans - including the late and now-sainted John McCain - threatened to block all of her appointments to the federal judiciary and would likely have prevented her from appointing a more liberal-leaning justice to the Supreme Court as well.

It's just this sort of partisan bickering that has divided Americans to the point where we can look forward to more division at home and derision from abroad as we limp our way into the 2020s. No matter who wins on Tuesday. 😢

Trump's Chances

There were a lot of protests against NBC News for having a presidential campaign town hall event with Donald Trump in direct opposition to ABC News' town hall with Joe Biden and giving him a chance to play the media for his benefit, but town hall host Savannah Guthrie grilled Trump with tough questions on health care, the pandemic, and QAnon, and he fumbled all of the,  Furthermore, Biden was similarly grilled by George Stephanopoulos over the courts, the economy, and similar topics, and he was relaxed and upbeat in his responses.  He was . . . presidential. 

Also, the Biden town hall got higher ratings than the Trump one.  

That said, Trump, despite all of his bad poll numbers and numerous stumbles, still has a chance to win the 2020 presidential election.  An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll found that, while Biden leads Trump by eleven percentage points, more voters trust Republicans on the economy and that remains a greater issue of concern than the pandemic.  And as far as the pandemic is concerned, I would note that about 3 percent of Americans have been infected by COID-19 and 2.8 percent of those infected have died.  So, an overwhelming majority of Americans haven't caught the COVID bug and many of them may not see the same urgency in combatting the disease as the experts due.  So I would not count Trump out yet.  Especially when you have artificial-intelligence experts and even Biden's own campaign manager, Jen O'Malley Dillon (no relation to Martin O'Malley) saying that the race is closer than the polls say it is.

But when Chris Christie - in the hospital with COVID for seven days - declared that he was stupid for not taking the proper precautions when visiting Trump to help him with his debate prepping and that he no longer trusts the White House to keep people safe - I sure am tempted to count Trump out.

(P.S.  Now, links on my blog posts open in separate windows.) 

Biden On the Move

I don't mean Joe Biden's poll numbers. I mean his transportation policy.

Joe Biden is a big car buff.  He owns a 1967 Corvette (as seen above) that he loves to take out on the road.  It's one of his most prized possessions.  He's also a big Amtrak supporter, having taken the national passenger railroad to work when he was a United States Senator.  So he knows how much we need public transit to get around and how much it would benefit the economy if we had more regional rail transit as well as a modernized Amtrak on par with the bullet-train networks of France and Japan.  But because he loves cars - and because he brags about having been instrumental in saving General Motors (his mantra from the 2012 presidential campaign when he ran for a second term as Obama's Vice President - "Bin Laden is dead, and General Motors is alive!") - no one can say he's out to take away people's cars.

But I won't be surprised if he takes away your Ford F-150 unless you need it for your job.  Nor would I be surprised if you might have to buy an inexpensive small hatchback or pay more than you already have to to buy a sport utility vehicle.  Biden also believes in fighting climate change, and among automobiles, gasoline-powered vehicles made on light-truck platforms are the worst offenders.  And it you do get a monster wagon, it's going to have to be electric.  Biden is advocating development of electric vehicles as a more sustainable alternative to gasoline-powered cars and trucks, and auto companies in both the U.S. and in other countries are already responding with such product - and electric vehicles are becoming less expensive as time goes on. That big, fossil-fuel-powered SUV you have is set to become as obsolete as that old sedan with the CD player you gave to your kid when he or she got a driver's license.  And if you want a pickup truck, I think you'd better have a carpenter's or plumber's license to avoid paying a gas-guzzler tax, because it's not a big leap of imagination to expect Biden to bring back Barack Obama's tough fuel-economy standards - the jettisoning of which by Trump is probably a reason Ford got rid of its fuel-efficient compacts.     

Biden is the most engaged presidential candidate on transportation issues since Michael Dukakis, because cars and trains are a personal passion of his - just like they are with me - and he knows what he has to do to make cars and public transit sustainable and affordable to give Americans freedom of mobility in an environmentally conscious world.  That's why he's against giving out more permits for fracking.  And while he has said he will not ban fracking where the practice is already operating . . .  trust me, with fracking going bust on its own, he won't have to.  We're moving on from oil and gas shale and going green.

Anxiety (Get Nervous)

I'm not talking about a hit song from Pat Benatar.  I'm talking about the election.

Joe Biden is comfortably ahead in the polls, but there's enough of a margin of error in swing states to help Trump come from behind like he did last time.  An unscientific survey taken by Michael Smerconish on his CNN program showed that three out of five people don't trust the polls.  But it should give one some comfort that erroneous polling practices have been fixed since the polls of 2016 showed Hillary Clinton ahead by margins similar to the margins Biden enjoys today.  Throw in the pandemic and the lack of interest in third-party and independent candidates (Kanye West has all but disappeared, which would suggest that he would make a good candidate for Vice President) and Democrats can breathe more easily.  But not completely easily.  As long as Trump has a small chance he can win, he can still win.

That said, it's hard to imagine that scenario this time, especially when he refused to take part in a virtual debate out of fear of getting cut off if he tries to go over his time or talk over Biden.  Trump can reach more people in debates than he can at a rally, and he's having rallies again despite the fact that he's preaching to the converted.   

As a result, the town hall debate has been canceled, Biden refuses to renegotiate dates for debating that both campaigns agreed to back in the summer - and given his standing in the polls that three out of five people don't trust, Biden doesn't really have to debate again.  But he does have to campaign.  Even if the polls are right this time, the election is not in the bag for the Democrats yet.  Don't worry about that; Biden will still campaign and campaign hard because he knows what's at stake. 

But then, the fact that a lot is at stake is just yet another reason to get nervous. 

The Notorious ACB

 Be very afraid of Amy Coney Barrett.

She has impeccable credentials as a judge and an stellar record for intellectually sound opinions.  And she's a reactionary.  But she is not a Trojan horse for conservatives who wish to politicize the Supreme Court the way Ginsburg was (Douglas Ginsburg, not the former Joan Ruth Bader).  She is a political appointee with her ideas already in place from her own reasoning.

Maybe as a Supreme Court justice, she wouldn't necessarily rule in favor of Trump if he tries to sue his way to a second term.  But she would almost certainly rule against Roe v. Wade, and her originalist views would definitely mean the end of the Affordable Care Act.  And she's all but certain to get on the Court despite majority public opposition just as Trump could be "re-elected" despite majority public opposition.

Be very afraid indeed.  And vote.

Coup d'Etat

I wish I could say this post is about another country, but it's about the United States.

Donald Trump has a new scheme to get himself elected to a second term, after which he hopes to have his term extended to twelve years.  He is so convinced that mail-in voting in any state not controlled by Ron DeSantis is so corrupt and such a scam that he plans to contest the results in swing states where the vote is close if these states go for Joe Biden.  Trump could have stopped there, but he also says that in states where Republicans control the legislatures - and there are still plenty of them, despite Martin O'Malley's Win Back Your State PAC's efforts in 2018 - those legislatures could easily appoint electors to vote for him in December despite Biden victories in the popular vote in those states.

So that explains it . . . that's why he wants Justice Ginsburg's Supreme Court seat filled with a far-right replacement - the name of which he announces today, and I'll get to that later - because he wants a reliable reactionary majority in the High Court to rule in his favor if he challenges a Joe Biden victory.

Trump never really wanted to be President until he actually and unexpectedly won the 2016 election.  The whole Trump campaign that year was about building his brand and nothing more.  But, like a tiger who tastes flesh for the first time, Trump never went back once he got and acquired a taste for power.  He is now refusing to concede the 2020 election under any circumstances, which would deny us a tradition we've had in These States since 1797 - the peaceful transition of power from one President to another.  

And it's about the only thing we've ever done peacefully in this country.  Another thing we can't do peacefully is investigate reports of a narcotics violation in an apartment and guarantee the safety and security of its occupant.

I just referred to Breonna Taylor by her name.  Like I should.

Ruthless

I'm not going to comment on the life and legacy of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died on Friday, as many legal scholars, feminists, and feminist legal scholars are more qualified than I am who can do that.

I'm going to comment on how how this may completely f**k up the presidential election.

Ginsburg's death gives Trump the opportunity to fill a Supreme Court seat and cement a lasting conservative majority, one that could last until long after I'm dead.  And I'm almost 55.  And you know full well that Trump will try to fill it (in fact, he's already announced that he wants to appoint a woman, and soon) because Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell has said that the conditions that led him to block President Obama's attempt to nominate a justice to fill the seat vacated by the death of Antonin Scalia in 2016 - a President of one party and a Senate controlled by the other -  so close to the elections don't exist now, with the White House and the Senate both under Republican control . . . though we're even closer to the elections.  Besides, Trump wants to fill the seat quickly because he wants to fire up his base to come out and overwhelm Joe Biden.

Of course, this could have the unintended consequence of firing up Biden's base, a base fearful of Trump getting another four years and possibly replacing Stephen Breyer, who's no spring chicken himself, or Sonia Sotomayor, who has diabetes.   Which means that for once, the Democratic base will actually keep the judiciary in mind for a change when they go to the polls.  But even if Biden wins, a new justice will likely be confirmed by the lame-duck Republican Senate before January.  And for all we know, there may be no vacancies during a Biden administration. 

Justice Ginsburg was hoping that Trump wouldn't get a chance to chose her replacement, but there is something resembling a bright side regarding the two men Trump has appointed to the Court.  Both Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh have ruled against Trump's repeated efforts to prevent his tax retunes from being released, letting Trump know that they're not his bitches.  And Justice Gorsuch also wrote a thoughtful opinion regarding the sovereign rights of Native Americans to prosecute justice on their lands in Oklahoma.  And because the Democrats in the Senate have some leverage, a Trump appointment is not a foregone conclusion.  Also, Trump is no lawyer.  On the down side - Mitch McConnell is.

Time to think about adding six more justices.  I think Franklin Roosevelt was on to something.

I hope Trump at least makes an effort to promote diversity with his next Supreme Court nominee by nominating a justice from an unrepresented group.

I hope he nominates a Protestant.

Black humor there . . .

Harris Nails It

Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris has a problem, guys, with Donald Trump insisting that Democratic policies will unleash a nightmarish future for America if she and Joe Biden are elected in November.  That's why, she took to a podium Thursday afternoon to offer a "prebuttal" against Trump's anti-Biden nomination acceptance speech for the Republican convention (which I refused to watch).

She laid out the case like the lawyer she is, explaining how Trump always makes incendiary comments in the wake of police shootings of blacks to incite more violence that he can blame on the Democrats. She also went after Trump on the pandemic, making the case of how he bungled the initial response to COVID-19 back in January and tried to devolve responsibility for handling it to the states.

"Donald Trump froze. He was scared. And he was petty and vindictive," Harris said, adding that he was  "fixated on the stock market" and "caved" to the Chinese government in order to preserve his chances for re-election. 

Did I once say that she has a shrill voice?  Funny, it's suddenly sounding a lot more pleasant! :-D 

Harris's speech was a prelude to a two-minute ad that the Biden campaign aired on all three broadcast networks and on Fox News before the convention. The ad slams Trump for the way he's handing the issues while mainly putting a positive spin on Biden's accomplishments.

So if you'd been wondering if Biden and Harris were going to counterprogram Trump during the Republican convention, well, there you are.  Okay, maybe they should have done it sooner - Biden, by the way, went on MSNBC and CNN to condemn Trump just before Harris's speech, though with less energy - but better late than never.

Expect more of this from the Democrats.  And now we know why Biden chose Harris to be his running mate.  

Here Comes Trump

Because the media want to be seen as fair and balanced, the rosy reviews they originally gave the Democratic convention have since been dramatically tempered by a lot of second-guessing.  I've counted as many as five or six commentators insisting that the Democrats did nothing to speak to the working-class Obama voters that defected to Trump in 2016, and not one pundit has seen fit to challenge that assessment.  Democrats now find themselves challenged about the apparent failure to present a clear agenda, and this third-degree treatment has been given to high-profile Democrats such as Pete Buttigieg and James Clyburn.  It's as if reporters and commentators at the TV news outlets, working for a Republican owner, are worrying about offending the boss and therefore are giving Donald Trump a springboard from which to leap forward and over Joe Biden.

Not really.  Trump (above) continues to lie and spread rumors and innuendo about the Democrats while providing misleading rhetoric about the issues of the day - especially COVID-19. And a lot of TV pundits, from Jake Tapper on CNN to Mark Shields and David Brooks on PBS and just about everyone on MSNBC, are calling him on them.  It is in that milieu in which the Republican convention starts tonight and in which Trump, after having seen Joe Biden speak softly and carry a big stick, threatens to speak loudly - every night of the convention, in fact! - and carry an even bigger stick, by which to beat Biden on the head with. After the Democrats' positive message of hope and light, Trump and the Republicans hope to bury their lofty rhetoric with angry defenses of God, the flag, guns, whitebread Middle American values, and all that other exclusionary claptrap commonly associated with the John Birch Society and the Tea Party.

Trump spent the week of the Democratic convention counterprogramming a message against Biden's, with some noticeable effect; like other obnoxious, minimally talented celebrities, he stays relevant buy getting people to pay attention to his outrageous schtick.  I wish I could say that Biden will be as effective in counterprogramming a message against Trump as Trump was in going against Biden, but I can't.  Democrats just don't have the ability to divert and distract from the Republicans' message in the same way that the Republicans - not just Trump, but Nixon, Reagan, and both Bushes - have the ability to divert and distract from the Democrats' message.  But Mother Nature, God's bratty kid sister, could, in a brutal and nasty way, give the Democrats some help in creating a diversion.  Having set California on fire again, she is now sending two tropical cyclones to the Gulf Coast.  She recently blew a ferocious windstorm across Iowa and is threatening to send thunderstorms of similar severity and viciousness across the Northeast tomorrow.  (Alert: I might lose power again, and any posts will see may have been programmed to self-publish in advance.  In which case, expect more typos than usual! :-p)   If people talk about all that instead of Trump's empty-headed rhetoric, it will not only help Biden, it will highlight the necessity of addressing climate change.

And the day after convention ends, my area could get more severe thunderstorms.   

An Unconventional Convention

The Democrats aren't so much having a convention as a long infomercial of live speeches and prerecorded presentations all hosted by noted political power broker Eva Longoria - hardly reminiscent of past conventions in which the chair was usually a cigar-chomping Irish party bigwig with a Noo Yawk accent (although I'd rather look at Eva Longoria, of course), and the GOP convention will likely by hosted by Kevin Sorbo or someone like that.  (Last night the Democrats' host was Tracee Ellis Ross.)  But that's okay, given the pandemic and the fact that no one wants to go to Milwaukee even in normal times.  Sure, it has an art museum.  It has a major-league sports team.  It has nice parks.  Well, so does Newark.  

Now, I kid, of course, but with COVID-19 eighty-sixing rational connections, the Democrats have so far done a good job in making their case to the American voters with full-throated denunciations of Donald Trump and some pretty good character-witness testimonials of Joe Biden.  The video of Biden's travels on Amtrak - which he rode frequently as a U.S. Senator between Wilmington and Washington - not only made the case for Biden with the working-class folks who keep that train system going, it reminded voters of one of his key economic initiatives - modernizing Amtrak and putting it on par with the TGV in France or the ICE in Germany.  But ultimately, as I've already said, Biden himself has to make his own case.  Let's see how he does when he accepts the nomination. 

One Hundred Days

Do you remember what you were doing on April 17 of this year?  Probably watching Andrew Cuomo on the news while staying home due to the pandemic, right?  You may at least remember that it was a Friday.  I ask because we are a hundred days after that date, and we are also a hundred days away from the presidential election, so Election Day, November 3, is no farther in the future than April 17 is in the past.

Joe Biden seems to be in control in the presidential campaign going into these last one hundred days.  But I'm worried.  Trump just hired a crackerjack numbers guy, former Chris Christie aide Bill Stepien, to run his campaign, and his efforts to get Trump to discipline himself and stay on message appear to be working. Trump is doubling down on law and order, and his new TV ads drive the point home like a hammer into a nail, and with just as much subtlety.  And while people are laughing at Trump's boasting of his ability to pass a cognitive test, Trump's recitation of five simple words in a predetermined order is a way of reminding voters that Biden has some trouble doing that. Not enough people seem to believe Biden's explanation that it's a stutter, least of all his most rabid detractors.  Trump supporters?  No - Bernie bros! And they're not completely sold on Uncle Joe either, despite Bernie Sanders' efforts to get them to vote for Biden.

I may be getting a little too anxious.  So far, there's no evidence that Trump's change of style and tone seem to be swaying enough voters to make a difference in the campaign.  While Bill Stepien seems to boast about Trump campaign' swagger and strength to the media, Biden's campaign staffers, led by campaign manager Jen O'Malley Dillon, have been working under the radar as if they're carefully plotting and strategizing out of sight and mind to avoid giving away too much. And they see Trump's campaign moves as clearly as anyone else while moving forward themselves. 

But a lot can still happen.  Even at this point, Biden still hasn't named a vice presidential running mate, which could work for or against him.  A major riot - no doubt one sparked by the Department of Homeland Security - could turn moderate votes against the Black Lives Matter movement and against Biden.  The COVID-19 crisis could ease well enough to improve Trump's standing.   Or, COVID-19 could affect the ballot process.  A natural disaster might alter the course of the campaign.  And a man-made disaster - say,  a classic Biden gaffe - might do the same.  And  Biden's low-key campaign strategy might no longer work as circumstances change.

Keep your fingers crossed day and night, boys and girls.  It's not over yet.  And don't put too much stock in the polls.