Opening The Jail Cells

Joe Biden is hopping mad, and should be expected to direct his ire toward federal judge Indira Talwani.

On Friday, Judge Talwani sentenced Felicity Huffman to 14 days in jail/prison (plus supervised release, community service, and to pay a fine). This no doubt does not sit well with the ex-vice president and ex-senator, who at the Democratic debate Thursday night stated

Nobody should be in jail for a nonviolent crime. As — when we were in the White House, we released 36,000 people from the federal prison system. Nobody should be in jail for a drug problem. They should be going directly to a rehabilitation. We build more rehabilitation centers, not prisons.

Biden emphasizes that individuals with a drug problem may be in prison, whether he/she merely uses the illegal substances or additionally distributes them as part of an organized crime operation. However, he maintained also "nobody should be in jail for a nonviolent crime (and) we released 36,000 people from the federal prison system."

It would have been an ideal time for one of the nine other candidates to interject something similar to "I, too, believe too many Americans are in prison. However, there is one person I'd like to see there- Donald J. Trump." Alas, no one thought of it, or this set of candidates is loathe to see anyone behind bars.

It would have been neither a cheap shot at a corrupt president nor merely a way to get what would have been the most raucous ovation of the night.

Biden's statement was uncommonly stupid. Donald Trump appears to be guilty of numerous white collar crimes, as income tax returns and loan documents he is still hoarding would very likely indicate. However, he is not unique among Americans in committing white collar crimes, although the scope of his offenses may be.  One tweeter rhetorically asks

What about white collar crimes like money laundering and tax evasion, and high crimes like collusion with Russia and obstruction of justice?

— ConnectTheDots (@ConnectDots333) September 13, 2019

Some non-violent crimes not of the white collar variety often warrant incarceration. Among them are being part of a drug distribution ring; motor vehicle theft; and burglary, particular of a home and especially if one or more individuals is present (below, an instance from 4/18 in which no one was home).

Given that Biden is not vying to be elected as a  judge or prosecuting attorney, this was among the least harmful of the foolish statements he made at Texas Southern University. Nor was he the only candidate (looking at you, Cory Booker) making an absurd remark about criminal justice. However, he's making a habit of this sort of thing while being sold as the experienced hand and most likely to defeat Donald Trump. That candidate has yet to make an appearance.

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Viva Castro

If you believe the 22 "experts, insiders, activists and political professionals" polled by Politico about the Democratic presidential debate of Thursday night, one thing is clear

"Castro was mean, and too biting."

"The loser of the night, hands down, was former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Castro for taking a cheap shot at Biden on his memory. Dinging Biden for his age was a calculated risk that failed. You can have policy differences without getting personal."

"Biden did little to dispel the notion that he has lost his fastball, though he may have received an inadvertent boost from Castro’s ill-advised, mean-spirited personal attack."

"Castro, on the other hand, secured the title of the biggest loser. His mean-spirited remarks directed at Biden drew boos from the audience and uncomfortable looks from the debate stage."

".... while irrelevant players like Castro took overly aggressive swipes toward the front-runner former vice president..."

"The underperfomers were Castro, Yang and Buttigeig. Castro came off as too hot."

"I doubt that—or Castro proving less effective than normal at knifing people—moves the numbers up or down."

"Castro’s attacks on Biden didn’t come off as calculated or strategic; they came off as mean. He came off as unlikeable and insensitive."

"In an evening marked by civility and calls for unity, Castro misplayed his interaction with Biden over what he could and could not recall."

The only positive comment about the confrontation in the first half hour between former HUD Secretary Julian Castro and former Vice President Joe "a noun, a verb, and Barack Obama" Biden came from political science professor Seth Maskett.

If you read everyone's statement, one obvious omission is consideration of whether Casro's charge was accurate.  Although that's difficult to determine definitively- understanding Biden's health care plan is even more difficult than understanding the ACA- the verdict still should be yes.

Castro charged

 I know that the problem with your plan is that it leaves 10 million people uncovered.

Now, on the last debate stage in Detroit, you said that wasn’t true, when Senator Harris brought that up. There was a fact check of that, and they said that was true...

If they choose to hold on to strong, solid private health insurance, I believe they should be able to do. But the difference between what I support and what you support, Vice President Biden, is that you require them to opt in and I would not require them to opt in. They would automatically be enrolled. They wouldn't have a buy in.

And then the figurative fireworks:

BIDEN: They do not have to buy in. They do not have to buy in.

CASTRO: You just said that. You just said that two minutes ago. You just two minutes ago that they would have to buy in.

BIDEN: Do not have to buy in if you can't afford it.

CASTRO: You said they would have to buy in.

BIDEN: Your grandmother would not have to buy in. If she qualifies for Medicaid, she would automatically be enrolled.

CASTRO: Are you forgetting what you said two minutes ago? Are you forgetting already what you said just two minutes ago? I mean, I can't believe that you said two minutes ago that they had to buy in and now you're saying they don't have to buy in. You're forgetting that.

BIDEN: I said anyone like your grandmother who has no money.

CASTRO: I mean, look, look, we need a health care system...

BIDEN: She — you're automatically enrolled.

Automatically enrolled? Not quite, Wilmington/Scranton Joe, for you had stated

The option I'm proposing is Medicare-for-all — Medicare for choice. If you want Medicare, if you lose the job from your insurance — from your employer, you automatically can buy into this. You don't have — no pre-existing condition can stop you from buying in. You get covered, period.

Very likely Biden sneaked in the word "automatically" to assure voters that it would be easy to opt in- or simply to mislead them. He stated that individuals who want Medicare "can buy into this. You don't have- no pre-existing condition can stop you from buying in." ("You get covered, period" emphasizes that the person will be covered as long as she buys in, with no further requirements.)

Castro was widely slammed for implying his rival was suffering from dementia because of the criticism

Are you forgetting what you said two minutes ago? Are you forgetting already what you said just two minutes ago? I mean, I can't believe that you said two minutes ago that they had to buy in and now you're saying they don't have to buy in. You're forgetting that.

It was, we are to believe, "insensitive," "a cheap shot," and "mean-spirited," or at least "ill-advised."  Perhaps Castro should have said "there you go again, intentionally misleading voters. We've already had too much of that the past four years," which would have implied that the former Senator and veep is a liar. But there was no reason that front-runner Joseph R. Biden should have been allowed to reverse course and contradict himself without someone calling him out on it.

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Nevertheless, She Persists

There were two things which stood out to me in the Politico Magazine article detailing the rocky relations between the Obama-Biden White House- including Tim Geithner,  Lawrence Summers and other insiders- and Elizabeth Warren. Alex Thompson notes that Senate Minority Leader Harry

Reid, who appointed Warren to the (TARP) oversight panel and has been an admirer of her presidential run, says he thought Warren clashed so fiercely with Geithner and Summers in part because she understood financial markets well enough that they couldn’t condescend to her.

“One thing about her conversations with Summers and with Geithner, they couldn’t talk over her head,” says Reid, adding that Summers, a former Treasury secretary and president of Harvard University, wasn’t used to that. “I met with Summers many, many times and, frankly, he talked about a lot of things I didn’t quite comprehend. But with her, that wasn’t the case.”

Negotiating with a President who understands the business of business is not Wall Street's idea of a wet dream, nor something the titans of the universe are used to. However, that's only one reason CNBC's Jim Cramer says (beginning at 1:39 below) "I don't know what's going to happen. Look, when you get off the desk and talk to executives, they're more fearful of her winning- look, I've never heard anybody say (i.e., of anyone else) 'look, she's got to be stopped, she's got to be stopped.'"

Two days later, Cramer remarked (at :21) "There are people who say 'how can you put her on- how can you' as if she's some sort of pariah. She's a Senator of the United States of America."

Politico's Thompson quotes one individual working with Warren during the Obama period (but not on her campaign) charging "Obama called the bankers fat cats once and spent seven years feeling bad about it." By contrast, Cramer's colleague maintains Warren is "a very serious, rigorous person... somewhat relentless- strong characteristic for people who achieve things."

While there have been presidents- Obama and Bill Clinton included- who were "smart as a whip," hardly anyone would describe these guys as "relentless."

Thompson quotes also David Axelrod,. President Obama's campaign strategist and adviser, warning "the one thing you need to know about Elizabeth Warren is that you don't get from Norman, Oklahoma, to where she is right now and take the journey she took without a steel spine and indefatigability."

Wall Street executives now know what they've suspected for a long time, and Mitch McConnell learned early in the Trump presidency. Confronted by opposition, the junior senator from Massachusetts is determinedand relentless, and will not back down. No doubt they have reason to consider her a "pariah."

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"Not My Job"

To his credit, General James Mattis does not emphasize his former status as a member of the military, yet in an interview with PBS' Judy Woodruff on September 2 he remarked

I believe that when someone departs an Administration over policy disagreements, you have what the French call "a duty of reserve, a "devoir de reserve." I don't want to, on the outside, be making it more difficult for our Secretary of Defense, Secretary of State, and President, who have to deal with this very complex world. There will be a time when it's right for me to come out on strategy and policy disagreements (but not at this time).

Nine days later, the former Defense Secretary, this time at an appearance at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, said much the same thing. He commented

But there is a 700-year tradition in America about military officers not passing political judgments on our political masters. And that's the way we want it. We don't want the military mastering decisions in this country.

That would be valid if Mr. Mattis were still General Mattis, active military. However, he is now retired from the military and thus, like almost all of the rest of us, has no Commander-in-Chief. President Trump is merely President Trump, not Commander-in-Chief, to everyone not currently in the armed services. The (ex-) General continued

But there's also the sense when you look at that tradition that we, I believe when you leave a government, leave an Administration and you leave it over a matter of policy- the President was straightforward with me, I was straightforward with him. I put it out on a letter, that's all I have to say about it.

I had certain policy disagreements and now that I walked  out, the President, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, they are dealing with some very, very difficult issues. They don't need someone who was in there before, coming outside, no longer responsible and critiquing what's going on.

The American people do need that person now. It is precisely now that he has the freedom, the moral duty, and the ability to critique what is "going on." Mattis explains

You have right now over a million troops and tens of thousands of them are deployed overseas. Now what would they be thinking if the former Secretary of Defense was coming out making political assessments right now and particularly at a time when the political discussions are so corrosive?

They might be thinking "that's what we believe but while on active duty we cannot say what we want to about the President," who actually is their Commander-in-Chief and thus owed strict loyalty. Mattis, by contrast, owes his loyalty to law and to country, not to any political figure. He notes 

So I believe I've led a responsible life. I've done the best I can and I was in the Marine Corps for 40-odd years, I was in the US Marine Corps. I belonged to you, answerable to you, and I think right now, the French call it devoir de reserve. Doesn't that sound impressive that I would say in French? But it's a duty of quiet when you leave to allow those who carry this very heavy responsibility of protecting what I call America, this experiment that we try to keep alive.

I can not speak or understand French and therefore have a hard time confirming this. Nevertheless, this online conversation, for what it's worth, suggests that the "devoir de reserve" pertains to the responsibility of maintaining confidentiality while employed by the federal government. That no longer applies to Mattis.

Moreover, this "experiment that we try to keep alive" is probably the notion that the USA is not a people- French, British, Chinese, Sengalese, or whatever- but an idea. That idea- most often symbolized by the Statue of Liberty- is perhaps best encapsulated in e pluribus unum- "from many, one."  President Trump's hostile and bigoted remarks aside, consider policy. A quick glance at the cages on the border, an essential part of dividing members of one family from another in order to deter people from pursuing that idea, reveals that Donald Trump is hostile toward "this experiment that we try to keep alive."

Additionally, the suspicion that determination of human worthiness is based on skin color or ethnicity is hardly consoling. Then Mattis concluded this segment with

I don't want to do anything right now that our adversaries can interpret as a weakening the fabric of those who are out there right now, the diplomats, the intelligence agents, the military guys and gals who are out there right now defending the country. So I'm just going to stay quiet.

That's touching, especially the part about "intelligence agents" because the President

has privately said that foreign spies can damage relations with their host countries and undermine his personal relationships with their leaders, the sources said. The President "believes we shouldn't be doing that to each other," one former Trump administration official told CNN.

In addition to his fear such foreign intelligence sources will damage his relationship with foreign leaders, Trump has expressed doubts about the credibility of the information they provide. Another former senior intelligence official told CNN that Trump "believes they're people who are selling out their country."

Even in public, Trump has looked down on these foreign assets, as they are known in the intelligence community.

Of course, if James Mattis really wanted to stay quiet, he could have avoided writing a book, or at least going on an interview tour to hawk it. Still,  that's selling Mattis short. He did answer what he believed to be a call to duty, spending over 40 years in the military, so he deserves to be criticized for something more substantive than simply wanting to make money, a common human instinct.

Mere hours before Mattis took the stage in Chicago, Donald Trump revealed that one of the two most brutal dictators in the world held veto power over the President's appointment of a national security advisor: "And I don’t blame Kim Jong Un for what he said after that. And he wanted nothing to do with John Bolton." James Mattis should recognize dereliction of duty as a former general choosing to give strategic air cover to a President whose loyalty lies elsewhere than with the security of the nation.

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Snapping To Attention

In a bit Monday night/Tuesday morning about Donald Trump's latest antics- which he understands are far more serious than mere antics- Seth Myers played a clip from Sunday's Meet the Press. In a portion beginning at approximately the nine-minute mark, Missouri senator Roy Blunt states well, I actually spent most of this month at home in Missouri and I think this whole Sharpie thing is way being overplayed."

Generously, Myers concludes the segment by conceding, generously but unnecessarily, "it might seem trivial when it's just about Sharpies or flamingo dancers, but Trump's war on reality also has real consequences for real people...."

The lie itself, as part of what the comedian labels "Trump's war on reality," is trivial. But the incident is not, not when

The Secretary of Commerce threatened to fire top employees at the federal scientific agency responsible for weather forecasts last Friday after the agency’s Birmingham office contradicted President Trump’s claim that Hurricane Dorian might hit Alabama, according to three people familiar with the discussion.

After Trump displayed the altered National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration map, Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross

intervened two days later, early last Friday, according to the three people familiar with his actions. Mr. Ross phoned Neil Jacobs, the acting administrator of NOAA, from Greece where the secretary was traveling for meetings and instructed Dr. Jacobs to fix the agency’s perceived contradiction of the president.

Dr. Jacobs objected to the demand and was told that the political staff at NOAA would be fired if the situation was not fixed, according to the three individuals, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the episode.

NOAA's acting chief scientist has pushed back, issuing a statement indicating that he will “potential violations" committed when the agency backed the president in opposition to the agency's scientists. Even in Trump's government, there are a few people in the federal government who can't be bought, but fighting the political shop with science and facts is an uphill battle.

Sometimes it's not the lies radical distortion or lies themselves, about Dorian or Doonbeg or Turnberry, but the role the lies play in emboldening the federal bureaucracy to assist President Trump in erasing western norms and liberal democracy.  This only his first term, and in a second term it will be easy to convince anyone and anything- the courts, Congress, the military, etc.- that all resistance is futile.

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Can't Stop Laughing

This summer, we have had several reminders of the seriousness of climate change.There have been devastating fires in the Amazon rain forest, which is "critical to the Earth’s climate, influencing weather systems, generating oxygen, and absorbing huge amounts of carbon dioxide — the heat-trapping greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming."  Hurricane Dorian, briefly a Category 5 storm, was an example of the increasing severity of storms as ocean water and air warm. July was globally the warmest month ever recorded.

And Donald Trump's warning to the American people has been echoed by at least one other individual in a position to know, now that

Speaking to a convention of Republican Party delegates in Indian Wells, California, Brad Parscale also said the campaign’s goal is to build a national army of 2 million trained volunteers, far beyond the president’s 2016 organization, that in California could help the GOP retake a string of U.S. House seats captured by Democrats last year.

“The Trumps will be a dynasty that will last for decades, propelling the Republican Party into a new party,” he said. “One that will adapt to changing cultures. One must continue to adapt while keeping the conservative values that we believe in.”

Maggie Haberman of The New York Times reports

a campaign official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity and without official authorization to discuss the speech, said that Mr. Parscale was referring less to possible candidacies in the future and more to activities such as political speeches and fund-raising.

That was a clean-up job so good it was literally unbelievable. The "he didn't really mean 'dynasty' when he said 'dynasty'" is akin to the oft-heard excuse from Trump surrogates that, when the President is criticized for an outrageous remark, he was really "joking."

Four months ago, Trump had written online

Despite the tremendous success that I have had as President, including perhaps the greatest ECONOMY and most successful first two years of any President in history, they have stollen two years of my (our) Presidency (Collusion Delusion) that we will never be able to get back.

This followed the sex-crazed, deceitful, unscrupulous, and fraudulent Christian conservative Jerry Falwell Jr. tweeting "I now support reparations- Trump should have 2 years added to his 1st term as pay back for time stolen by this corrupt failed coup."

He did it again Monday when, at another outdoor, planned spontaneous news conference before boarding Air Force One, Trump stated "We're going to have extend my second term...I'm going to have to extend it for a couple years."

A German understands:

This is not a joke, it's a temprature check. It's so blantantly obvious and still perfectly performed.
If he gets a lot of backlash he'll use it to mobilize his fanatic base.
If he doesn't get enough backlash he'll just try to walz through with this idea. https://t.co/lC2rgdWXil

— Stefan (@stefanhoth) September 9, 2019

(The spelling errors may remind us of Donald Trump, but this guy is from Berlin and not New York City.)

President Trump's remark is similar to the one from his campaign manager, throwing something against a wall to see what sticks. And as with Category 5 hurricanes and record-breaking heat, it's a warning.

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Superficial Advice

This is in part why we don't hand the keys to the bus to Never Trump Republicans.

Republican strategist Rick Wilson, who out of revulsion for Donald Trump ran Evan McMullin's 2016 campaign, offers the Democratic presidential candidates free, unsolicited advice in an opinion piece published in USA Today. The old adage is valid: you get what you pay for.

Wilson early on notes, accurately, "The election, like all presidential reelection campaigns, is a referendum on Trump," though he means "on the incumbent" rather than "on Trump."  He goes downhill from there.  "In the heat of a Democratic primary," Wilson argues

.... it’s tempting to think that America is so very, very woke and that all the people in this country crave is a massive government plan to hand out free stuff. For Democrats, the primary incentivizes a race to the left edge of the ideological spectrum and — again, I’m not judging their policies — but just telling them what the polling and politics look like outside the Democratic primary bubble.

He does not specify what this "free stuff" is, though thankfully he says he is "not judging their policies." Except that he is, maintaining "on questions from keeping their private health insurance to abortion to guns to fossil fuels, the Democratic nominee will have to move back into the center to win. "

This comes from- seriously- someone who cautions "it’s tempting to think that America is so very, very woke" while "most of the 15 swing states are decidedly unwoke on at least one major litmus test issue in the Democratic primary field." This is a clever sleight of hand, suggesting that ol' regular Americans are practical, down-to-earth guys and gals while he himself is "woke."  However, there is no Democratic candidate who is obsessed with winning the popular vote, or even of winning it, which is consistent with the push to abolish the Electoral College.

But if Wilson were as aware- uh, er, "woke"- as he implies he is, he would not assume that the populist strain in the American voter responds to centrist policies or candidates. Instead, he contends

... .the Democratic nominee will have to move back into the center to win. In most of the swing states, the Democratic vote model must capture people outside the base to pull off a victory. Don’t underestimate Trump in these states; the populist strain is strong in most of them, and it’s a present danger to the Democratic nominee.

Not surprisingly, Wilson does not identify the "base" of the Democratic Party, nonetheless implying that it is pro- universal health care, abortion rights,and  renewable energy, and anti-gun. For better or worse, however, that is inaccurate because the base of the party is not formed around ideology. The base, the foundation upon which success of the Party rests, is quite simply African-American.  (in 2008, Senator Obama trailed Hillary Clinton, supported by most black Democrats. He won in Iowa, thus convincing African-Americans that he could win and was a safe choice for the party establishment, and turned that deficit around. We know what happened next.)

Wilson notes that the Democratic nominee should ignore all but the approximately fifteen swing states and "As a corollary rule, take the phrase “popular vote” out of your lexicon. You know what a majority of the popular vote and $5.25 get you? A pumpkin spice latte at Starbucks." (Note to everyone under 50 years of age- this is part of the old Republican playbook to tar Democrats as elitist, which began with calling Democrats "limousine liberals." Now it's Starbucks and "woke.")

As Wilson sees it, I would be an outlier. A primary voter who supports elimination of private health insurance, firearms safety legislation supported by the vast majority of Americans, reproductive freedom, and who doesn't believe coal is the wave of the future, I don't buy coffee at Starbucks. And if I did, it never would be pumpkin spice latte. There probably are a few like me.

We have a strategist seemingly concerned with the sentiments of populist Americans in states not reflexively liberal or Democratic who advises a nominee not to appear leftist on health care, guns, abortion, and energy.  That is curious, given that Trump's victory - even accounting for the impact of economic discontent- was fueled primarily by hostility toward immigration and to racial minorities. )Voter suppression, Russian meddling, and Comey missteps are of a different kind.) And yet, beyond Wilson's radar are reparations and immigration, the two issues upon which Democrats have most dramatically moved left during this campaign.

It is entertaining to hear from Never Trump Republicans, interesting to learn of their perspectives. But they helped drive the Republican Party, emphasizing the grievances that gave rise to Donald Trump, ultimately enabling his election to the presidency. They're welcome to come aboard, and may even talk on their cell phones or play their music aloud while in their seats. But they will not be allowed to drive the bus.


This blog is going on brief hiatus. Please come back on Monday, September 9 for analysis you won’t find anywhere else, for which you may be thankful.

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