Back To Its Old Tricks

They're doing it again. Politico reported Monday

A top senator is accusing the FBI of keeping Democrats in the dark about the agency’s disclosures to Republican-led Senate committees, revealing that the FBI later made a mea culpa and pledged not to repeat the apparent violations of congressional oversight norms.

Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, said in a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray on Monday that the bureau was improperly providing documents and other information to Republicans, sometimes without even informing Democrats of their existence.

“I am deeply concerned that by violating its own policies the FBI is again succumbing to political pressure from Republicans to damage the Democratic presidential candidate,” Wyden wrote in his letter, obtained by POLITICO.

“Providing documents to committee majorities without disclosure to the minority is unacceptable,” Wyden later added. “Providing access to documents for review by Republican staffers without notice to, or inclusion of, Democratic staff is also unacceptable.”

Wyden’s letter is the latest salvo in the ongoing partisan battle over Senate Republicans’ investigations targeting top Obama administration officials, including the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, former Vice President Joe Biden.

The senator cited an Aug. 7 letter from the FBI’s congressional affairs director stating that the agency has “surged resources in order to expedite the processing” of the GOP requests for information related to the Trump transition team. According to Wyden, the letter also states that the FBI’s compliance is due to “extraordinary and unique circumstances, and should not be construed as precedent setting in any regard.”

(That’s a tip-off. The majority opinion in Bush v. Gore insisted the ruling was “'limited to the present circumstances' and could not be cited as precedent.” The claim failed to diminish the recognition that partisanship dictated the decision.)

Four years ago, under a different director, the FBI also chose sides, albeit not from the top. The Washington Post on November 4, 2016 noted

Rudy Giuliani told Fox News’s Martha MacCallum on Oct. 26 that Donald Trump had “a surprise or two that you’re going to hear about in the next two days.”

“I’m talking about some pretty big surprise,” he said.

Two days later, FBI Director James Comey revealed to Congress that his agents had resumed their investigation of Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while she was secretary of state, after agents in an unrelated case discovered emails that could potentially be relevant to the server case.

Giuliani is a former U.S. attorney and New York mayor whose former law firm represents the FBI Agents Association, as the Daily Beast points out. But does he have inside sources at the bureau who might have given him a heads-up about what was to come?

Giuliani is a former U.S. attorney for the famous Southern District of New York. He had major contacts in that office. Yet

In an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, Giuliani said no, and that he in particular had no heads-up on Comey’s big reveal. He said his cryptic prediction of a surprise was about a Donald Trump advertising blitz in the final days of the campaign, and he had not talked to current FBI agents in the last eight to ten months.

Giuliani had been given no inside information. And I am Barack Obama writing this blog under a nom de plume. A Donald Trump advertising blitz in the final days of the campaign was the "pretty big surprise?" If it were, Giuliani wouldn't have kept it under wraps. But re-opening an e-mail case against Hillary Clinton warranted secrecy.

Once Director Comey announced the new investigation, Hillary Clinton's numbers dropped. The effect subsided until Comey revealed these were emails which already had been examined, at which time new attention was drawn to the (trumped up) issue and Clinton tumbled further. It is unlikely that Russian interference in the election had as much influence on the outcome as did FBI malfeasance or mischief.

When we hear that the FBI is "violating its own policies" by "again succumbing to political pressure from Republicans to damage the Democratic presidential candidate," there should be little surprise.   The agency is not a hotbed of liberal Democrats- or any Democrats- and Republican Christopher Wray is vulnerable to pressure from agents. 

President Trump made it obvious that he fired Director Comey because of the Mueller investigation, an admission which we all were told was a dangerous legal and political mistake. James Comey is a private citizen and Donald Trump is still President. Christopher Wray has noticed.

 

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Perception Is Not Reality. But It's Close.

Professor and Director at the Indian Institute of Advanced Study Shimla Makarand R. Paranjape argues "Kamala Harris is a phenomenon. Her announcement as Biden’s running mate is thus a cause for justified celebration in both our continents."  Therefore, he asks

Why then is Harris so reticent about being Indian and so vocal about being Black? And why is the American press projecting her not so much as a person of mixed Indo-Jamaican descent but much more as a Black woman? For instance, why has she been lauded for being the second Black woman ever to be elected to the senate rather than the first Indian? Is it merely identity fudging or political expediency?

As Paranjape explains, Kamala's parents divorced when she was seven years old and Kamala and her sister were raised by their mother, an Indian-born cancer scientist who had emigrated at age 19 to the USA. Moreover, the Senator's perspective about Jamaicans and marijuana use is not aligned with that of her father, a Jamaican-born economist who taught at Stanford University.

Nonetheless, it should be less surprising that the media emphasizes that Harris is black than that, since her nomination, ti has discovered and lauded her as a nominee of both Jamaican and Indian descent. In the comments with which the Californian is most closely associated with among voters, Harris confronted Biden in a June, 2019 debate with

Okay. So on the issue of race, I couldn’t agree more that this is an issue that is still not being talked about truthfully and honestly. I — there is not a black man I know, be he a relative, a friend or a co-worker, who has not been the subject of some form of profiling or discrimination.

Growing up, my sister and I had to deal with the neighbor who told us her parents couldn't play with us because she — because we were black. And I will say also that — that, in this campaign, we have also heard — and I'm going to now direct this at Vice President Biden, I do not believe you are a racist, and I agree with you when you commit yourself to the importance of finding common ground.

But I also believe, and it’s personal — and I was actually very — it was hurtful to hear you talk about the reputations of two United States senators who built their reputations and career on the segregation of race in this country. And it was not only that, but you also worked with them to oppose busing.

And, you know, there was a little girl in California who was part of the second class to integrate her public schools, and she was bused to school every day. And that little girl was me.

Because we were black. Harris did not say "because I was Asian" or "because I was of mixed race." It was because "we were black" because, owing to various factors including appearance, young Kamala was thought of as being black.

It was hurtful to hear you talk about the reputations of two United States senators who built their reputations and career on the segregation of race. It was not "senators who built their reputations and career on hostility toward Asians" or "on hostility toward immigrants and their children." It was "race" and everyone in the country who watched, read about, or heard of, the debate knew she was referring to blacks. There was no one, including Harris, who thought "Asian" or "Indian" or "immigrant."

This should not be difficult to understand- nor should it be difficult for the media to understand. Kamala Harris through her life probably has been identified as, and usually characterized, as black. For that and other reasons, Harris has mostly identified as black, though she is free to associate herself with any part of her cultural background she wishes.

The great division in American society, however, is white and black. When Ms. Harris was running for the Democratic nomination for President, she was understandably seen as a black candidate, in the same manner as was New Jersey's Cory Booker or as Barack Obama is seen as the first black President. When millions of Americans took to the streets this past spring to protest bias in policing, it was not under the banner of "immigrant lives matter" or "mixed-race lives matter" but "black lives matter." When Joe Biden was considering his running mate, it was widely believed that he would select a black woman and Kamala Harris was thought to be one of the two leading black candidates.

Kamala Harris is entitled while running for Vice-President to embrace her south Asian background, her background as a black American or Caribbean-American, or a little of each (though she is not is an African-American). But individuals such as Paranjape should not be disappointed were Harris seemingly to de-emphasize her south Asian background.  For this is America, usually for the better and sometimes for the worse, and we need to recognize that most of her life in most ways, Kamala Harris has been, well, black.

 

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Battle Lines Drawn

This doesn't end well. There's bad lines being drawn; nobody's right if everyone's wrong.

It might end without bloodshed, today, in Georgia, though.  At Stone Mountain Park, "the symbolic birthplace of the Ku Klux Klan," lies the largest Confederate monument in the USA, honoring General Robert E. Lee, General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson and Confederacy president Jefferson Davis. The AP notes

After several hours of mostly peaceful demonstrations Saturday in an Atlanta suburb that’s home to a giant Confederate memorial, large numbers of police moved in to disperse the crowds when fights broke out.

Several dozen right-wing demonstrators, some waving the Confederate battle flag and many wearing military gear, gathered in downtown Stone Mountain where they faced off against a few hundred counterprotesters, many of whom wore shirts or carried signs expressing support for the Black Lives Matter movement. People in both groups carried rifles. For several hours, there was little visible police presence and things were largely peaceful, aside from some shoving and pushing and spirited arguments.

But just before 1 p.m., fights broke out, with people punching and kicking each other and throwing rocks. That’s when police officers in riot gear moved in to disperse the crowds.

By 2 p.m., almost all of the protesters had left the area.

Although the (edited) videos I've seen reveal few weapons in the hands of the leftists, a reporter from WSB TV in Atlanta observed "many of the protesters on both sides carried guns" and according to another source, "people in both groups carried rifles."

Nonetheless, few if any people were injured, presumably thanks to the presence of local, state, and National Guard law enforcement authorities. That's an extraordinary achievement given that each side aims to intimidate the other. 

Responding to the confrontation three years ago this month in Charlottesville, Virginia, President Trump was justly derided after he stated "you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides." Here, it would be accurate to say "there are malicious people on both sides."

We're not likely to hear that, however. President Trump does not want to alienate his hard-core supporters, as most of the militia individuals at Stone Mountain doubtless are. If he loses the election, he'll need them in the street to maintain his rule; if he wins, to extend his power. And the left is reluctant to concede that any protests related to the Black Lives Matter organization may actually be more interested in sowing chaos than in black lives themselves.

 Instances of police brutality directed against blacks appear in graphic detail on cable news or social media. August is hot and humid in the deep South while some activities are restricted because of SARS-CoV-2. Violent and near-violent confrontations may ensue only because of this volatile mix.

But it's not likely. There are truly bad people on both sides. Several have firearms. And then there is President Trump, eager himself to incite violence. It's going to take some really good fortune to prevent some really bad things from happening.

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Formidable Anti-Progressive Forces

This is true, with the clarification, of the left and also of the Democratic Party:

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corporations want a politics based on 'racial exclusion'? what i see from that sector are gooey paeans to black lives matter, which doesn't necessarily indicate what they want (more like what they're willing to tolerate).

— Peter Hart (@peterfhart) August 14, 2020

Justifiably, Lee Fang doesn't like a politics based on racial exclusion, all too evident in the exuberant response to Joe Biden's choice of Senator Kamala Harris as a running mate.  It was an "historic choice," raved corporations, cultural elites, media, and the highly educated.

It may also have pleased Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, who was CEO of OneWest Bank when the Attorney General's office found "widespread misconduct." During his tenure from 2009 to 2015, The Intercept has reported, there were "over a thousand violations of foreclosure laws" but the investigation was closed "after Attorney General "Harris' office declined to file a civil enforcement action against the bank." (She hasn't been able and willing to give a reasonable explanation.)

With the possible exception of Susan Bass, none- including Stacey Abrams- of the several black women considered by Biden for vice-president has a particularly progressive record.  That is probably not a coincidence as it reflects the rank-and-file of the black voter, who will be focused more on social injustice, especially racial discrimination, than on the stranglehold imposed by powerful corporations upon the economic structure of the nation.

It's not only corporations, cultural elites, media, and the highly education- it is also, in general, the black community.  Senator Sanders had the upper hand in the fight for the presidential nomination until the primary in which a majority of Democratic voters was African-American. Biden won big- and convincingly to primary voters on Super Tuesday, who saw Biden as the choice of the party's base.

That is not opinion or a value judgement; it is observation. One of the objectives of the progressive left is to forge an alliance of blacks and whites, especially among the poor and the working class.  That is a daunting project, especially because politics based on racial exclusion is preferred not only by the groups cited by Fang, but also by blacks.  ("Minority/of color/diverse" is not synonymous with devotion to economic fairness, as Fang understands.) It's a hard truth for those of us who believe in "fundamental human economic rights," yet a truth nonetheless.

 

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Vice President- Because, Not Despite

Though self-evident, it's still a bold statement:

It's in the Democratic Party charter that they have to be pathetic wimps at all times -- pays well if you get a top position. https://t.co/D4LBcugXg4

— Dean Baker (@DeanBaker13) August 13, 2020

Following the the announcement by the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee on Tuesday, The New York Times reminded  us

In an attack that left Mr. Biden reeling, Ms. Harris outlined his history of working with right-wing Southerners in the 1970s to oppose busing as a means of integrating public schools. At the same time, Ms. Harris said, there was a little girl in California who was part of an early integrated class in her own school. “That little girl was me,” she said.

Mr. Biden offered only a sputtering response and, for a few weeks, his polling numbers dived. His political advisers were incensed at what they viewed as a cynical ploy, especially as she later struggled to articulate her own position on mandated busing; Jill Biden called Ms. Harris’s attack on her husband a “punch to the gut.”

Joe Biden, whom many people believe may not be able to function as a president for a full years, now has tapped Senator Harris for his running mate. It was more than a "punch to the gut," though, as Mrs. Biden told Chris Cuomo at the time

I think that they were looking at the past. I mean, the one thing you cannot say about Joe is that he's a racist. I mean, he got into politics because of his commitment to civil rights. And then to be elected with Barack Obama, and then someone is saying, you know, you're a racist?

Now Jill Biden fulsomely supports the woman whom she accused of calling her husband a "racist," a wise position given that the man who was accused of supporting segregationists against young black girls has bestowed a major honor upon Ms. Harris.

This selection is being heralded by Democratic politicians, Twitter warriors, and pundits on CNN and MSNBC as demonstrating the inner strength of Joe Biden, a willingness to govern with a woman who will stand up to him whenever she believes he is wrong.

That's nonsense, balderdash, or as Biden himself would put it in a different context, malarkey.

Strong is giving a fair chance to someone who criticizes your positions or even yourself respectfully. In the absence of a constitutional right to be a vice-presidential nominee, "strong" is not rewarding someone who has publicly humiliated yourself.

Harris linked her opponent to segregationists and to a desire to dash the hopes of young black girls- or as the opponent's wife put it, to being a racist himself.

Neither the charge of racism nor the accusation that a fellow Democrat has leveled the accusation should be made lightly.  Yet, Harris went ahead with it, and with the Instagram post which popped up immediately after the debate, and the "That Little Girl Was Me" t-shirts she sold the next day. Further humiliation. No expression of regret or of error was made, even when the Californian expressed a week later an opinion on school busing identical to that of the candidate she had mercilessly excoriated. 

Strength is not wanting to be embarrassed and subjected to shame, which- for reason(s) better left to psychologists- appears to be a Biden trait. Presumptive presidential nominee Biden did not fight back against Harris any more than as Senate Judiciary Committee chairperson he fought back against Republicans when they pilloried Anita Hill and sanctified the appallingly dishonest and ruthless Clarence Thomas.

Judge Thomas told Joe Biden he and his party were guilty of a “high-tech lynching.”  Senator Harris told Biden publicly and spectacularly that he wanted to dash the hopes of black children everywhere.  As a result (yes, as a result), one is on the US Supreme Court; the other Joe Biden tells us will be the next vice president of the USA. 

Dean Baker is correct- Democrats are required to be wimps. And why not? We've made one our party's nominee for President.

 

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Self-Examination Averted

In "The Case for Reparations," Ta-Nehisi Coates has written

A country curious about how reparations might actually work has an easy solution in Conyers’s bill, now called HR 40, the Commission to Study Reparation Proposals for African Americans Act. We would support this bill, submit the question to study, and then assess the possible solutions. But we are not interested.

“It’s because it’s black folks making the claim,” Nkechi Taifa, who helped found n’cobra, says. “People who talk about reparations are considered left lunatics. But all we are talking about is studying [reparations]. As John Conyers has said, we study everything. We study the water, the air. We can’t even study the issue? This bill does not authorize one red cent to anyone.”

That HR 40 has never—under either Democrats or Republicans—made it to the House floor suggests our concerns are rooted not in the impracticality of reparations but in something more existential. If we conclude that the conditions in North Lawndale and black America are not inexplicable but are instead precisely what you’d expect of a community that for centuries has lived in America’s crosshairs, then what are we to make of the world’s oldest democracy?

What we are to make of the world's oldest democracy- as was made clear yesterday afternoon by presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden- is that this nation  will not reckon with slavery.

"Kamala Harris is the Safe, Smart, and Historic Pick" raves the Boston Gobe;"Who is Kamala Harris? How Joe Biden's VP Pick Makes History," The Wall Street Journal swoons;"In Historic Pick, Joe Biden Taps Kamala Harris To Be His Running Mate," a breathless NPR informs us.

And the most telling, from The Philadelphia Inquirer: "Black Democrats in Pa. are 'beaming with pride' after Biden picks Kamala Harris for vice president."

Good lord, they're easy. Historian Seymour Martin Lipset, explaining how President Franklin Roosevelt saved capitalism,noted

Time and again between 1935 and 1940, meetings to lay the basis for a national third party went awry because those involved recognized that the bulk of their constituencies favored reelecting the president. And, in the last analysis, most radical, labor, and minority-group leaders supported the president as well. Certainly these leaders objected to particular Roosevelt policies, to his compromises with conservatives, and, in some cases, to his refusals to back their group or organization in some major conflict. Nevertheless, they concluded that a government in which they could play a part, which had shown some responsiveness to their concerns, and which acknowledged their importance was far preferable to a Republican administration with strong links to business.

The economic crisis of the 1930s was more severe in the United States than in any other large society except Germany. It presented American radicals with their greatest opportunity to build a third party since World War I, but the constitutional system and the brilliant way in which Franklin Delano Roosevelt co-opted the left prevented this.

Barack Obama made history as the first black President, albeit having had a white mother. Kamala Harris has become the first black tapped for a vice presidential nomination by a major political party. She also is the first Asian-American to receive that honor.

However, before yesterday, most Americans did not even know that Senator Harris' mother was born in India, and it's likely that even most Democratic primary voters didn't know. Whatever her qualifications, she was in the mix because it's widely understood that in 2020- even without the spring protests- the Democratic ticket could not feature two white persons. As her choreographed attack against Biden on school busing indicated, she has (at least in her personal life) identified as black. That is her choice, born in part of life experience.

Nonetheless, as the daughter of a man from Jamaica, she is not an African-American. She is thus differentiated from Barack Obama, whose father was an African and mother an American of whatever European ancestry. But like Barack Obama, none of Kamala Harris' ancestors was-  as far as any of us knows- brought to this nation unwillingly. None arrived in bondage.

The dirty little secret: Kamala Harris is the 107th consecutive major party vice-presidential candidate who is not a descendant of someone brought to this country as a slave.

It's possible that you, like I, am far less interested in who Ms. Harris' ancestors were or where they came from than her record as US Senator and Attorney General of the State of Florida, the latter more than a little disturbing. But it matters to the Boston Globe, The Wall Street Journal, National Public Radio, The Philadelphia Inquirer and the 7,238 politicians and pundits saturating CNN, MSNBC, and probably elsewhere crowing about this historic selection.

Moreover, this is a major reason that there is little interest- notwithstanding Ta-Nehisi Coates' blandishments- in directly confronting what we are told, accurately, is America's original sin. Joe Biden has, as did the nomination/election of Barack Obama. In 2020, one party was going to nominate as vice-president a black and, odds were, someone African-American. It is not going to do so. Joe Biden has done for sidestepping a legacy of racial violence and discrimination what Franklin Roosevelt did for capitalism. The relief valve has been activated and we have been given a reprieve.

Hopefully, we will elect Kamala Harris as the next vice-president of the United States of America and "beam with pride." We can applaud ourselves on making history- and while there, kill two birds with one stone by congratulating ourselves for once again sidestepping an uncomfortable truth about our national past.

 

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The Teflon Remains

Joseph Robinette Biden very likely will pick a black woman to be his running mate. If he doesn't, he's not likely to tap Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer, anyway. Nonetheless, the fear that he will do so should be placed in the proper context.  Politico reports

Anticipation has been growing for weeks that Joe Biden will make history by choosing the first Black woman as a running mate on a major party’s presidential ticket.

But after news broke over the weekend that Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a white woman, had flown to meet with Biden to discuss the vice presidency, frustration and disappointment boiled over among Black female Democrats — including some in her own state....

As Biden prepares to announce his choice this week, Black women activists and operatives have launched an eleventh-hour campaign to pressure him. In a pair of open letters Monday and last week, they made the case that he needs strong African American turnout in swing states like Florida, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania to win.

Aside from anger that Whitmer allegedly has been getting better press than the black women being considered

In the wake of the nationwide Black Lives Matter protests and Biden’s repeated stumbles over race, many activists thought a Black woman was a lock to be his running mate until the Whitmer news broke, said Latosha Brown, a co-founder of the group Black Voters Matter.

Brown said she was flummoxed by the late consideration of Whitmer because a Black woman would do a better job turning out African American voters, even in Michigan.

Though much of the criticism of the Michigan governor comes from women of her home state

Angela Rye, the former general counsel for the Congressional Black Caucus and a prominent advocate for Black women, said the agitation is building.

“I’m at a fever pitch, a boiling point over this,” Rye said.

Rye cited a Sunday editorial by Pugh in the online publication Black Star News that laid out two major criticisms of Whitmer, concerning water policy in Flint and education policy affecting Detroit.

First, Pugh and others say, Whitmer under-delivered on promises to clean up the lead-poisoned water of the majority-Black city of Flint. And Whitmer initially fought a lawsuit that was especially important to Black people in Detroit “seeking a basic right to literacy, classrooms with books and teachers and school buildings with no heat in winter or air conditioning in summer,” Pugh wrote.

The defense of the governor by her spokesman, that water quality is "well within federal testing requirements," that  “bottled water is available and is currently being provided to city residents by Nestle.” and that Flint itself is responsible for pipe replacement, raises as many questions as it answers.

Nonetheless, the full-court press applied by women eager for a black vice-presidential nominee is simply precious.  The education secretary, Arne Duncan, in President Barack Obam'sa administration saw inadequate education in urban areas primarily as an opportunity to fire unionized teachers, many of them black, while maximizing profit for private companies.

President Obama did not take a particularly active role himself in education policy which, given his inclination, probably served urban school districts well. However, it's hard to forget that the nation's first black president visitedFlint in May of 2016 and urged his audience

to have faith in their resilience and not to use the poisoned water as an excuse not to expect great things from them."That attitude is just as corrosive to democracy as that stuff that put lead in your water," he said. "It's not enough to fix the water. We need to fix the culture of neglect."

Obama's visit to the eastern Michigan city of 100,000 people came three months after he declared a state of emergency to help the city deal with the fallout from a drinking water crisis. In addition to the poisoning from corroding lead pipes, the switch to under-treated water from the Flint River in 2014 is suspected in the deaths of 10 people from Legionnaires' disease.

But Obama reassured Flint residents that the water is safe now — as long as it's properly filtered.

"I really did need a glass of water. This is not a stunt," he said as he asked for water during a bout of coughing. "If you’re using a filter, if you’re installing it, then Flint water at this point is drinkable."

Obama didn't assign any specific blame for the water crisis, which has already led to the indictments of three water officials. Obama said only that "some very poor decisions were made."

Of course "Obama didn't assign any specific blame for the water crisis," just as in 2020 he's unable to utter the name "Trump." Additionally

“I don’t want anybody to start thinking that somehow all the kids in Flint are going to have problems for the rest of their lives, because that’s not true,” he said to applause. “That is not true. And I don’t want that stigma to be established in the minds of kids.”

Obama understandably didn't want anybody to think that. It would have at least slightly complicated his re-election effort and put a crimp in the primary objective of his presidency, establishing and maintaining a positive legacy.

But it was true that some of the children will have problems forever because of the water. That bothered far too people when it was Barack Obama who was doing the reassuring.

Responding to the President's trip, Michael Moore remarked

He is just trying to reassure people that everything's OK. To drink from a glass of Flint water when a number of experts are still saying this water's not safe? It's still going through the same corroded lead pipes? It was such a disappointing thing to see.

Your clip you just showed ... he hopes that Flint can get back to where it was. Where was that? You mean before the water crisis two years ago, after we'd lost 75,000 General Motors jobs? Back to then? Or are we talking about back to 20-30 years ago? I mean, Flint is a city that's really been destroyed.

Gretchen Whitmer would not be Joe Biden's best choice. She can't pull off a stunt like President Obama did. And unlike Barack Obama, she'll never be a failed President with the privilege of  the undying loyalty and admiration of Democrats across the country.

 

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