Trump Endangering National Security

President Trump's behavior grows increasingly. The Directors of the FBI and CIA and the Director of National Intelligence testified to congress and all laid out the threats the United States faces. They have electronic intercepts, spy satellites and human agents inside all the adversaries. They have experts fluent in the languages and people who have lived in these places or academically studied them for years analyzing the raw data. Then the President throws all this out and says he thinks something else. Based on what, any facts? Then he also denigrates their work and them as people. National security is at stake here. To me, this by itself is impeachable dereliction of duty. The commander in chief is refusing to fulfill his oath to "preserve, protect and defend the constitution of the United States."

Equality Not the Law of the Land for All Americans

On the day after we celebrated a national holiday commemorating a man who lived and died for the dream of equality, the current Supreme Court today let stand the Administration policy of discriminating against transgender people in the military. I wonder whether the five conservative justices paused to reflect on the irony of this juxtaposition.

Freedom of the Press: Vital to Democracy, and Under Attack Worldwide

The Time Magazine 2018 Person of the Year was awarded to "The Guardians," journalists doggedly working and fighting to report the truth around the world. They do this in the face of the resistance of the corrupt and the oppression of the powerful.

In 2018, 52 journalists were murdered or executed-that we know of. Another 260 were jailed for reporting what those in power did not wish to become public. According to Freedom House, only 13% of the world's people live in countries with a press that is fully free.

Beyond that, autocrats and demagogues are growing more and more adept at using modern media tools for surveillance, spreading disinformation and surreptitious propaganda, blurring the line between fact and fiction, and eroding public trust in the media by calling it unpatriotic or fake news when its reportage does not conform to what those in power would like people to believe.

Destroying the free press has always been high on any would-be dictator's agenda for consolidating absolute power, and the contemporary world is no different. We have watched in recent years as free speech and press principles and practices have been rolled back in country after country. Among these we can include such prominent examples as Russia, Poland, Venezuela, Hungary, the Philippines, India and now even Italy.

The actions of our own president, his flacks and congressional enablers is chilling in this regard. The danger was expressed most eloquently by Sen. John McCain in one of his last editorials, which you can find linked here. Entitled "Mr. President, Stop Attacking the Press," it is worth a read by thoughtful citizens everywhere who value the dream of human freedom anywhere.

The Bottomless Pinocchio

The Washington Post has invented a new category, the Bottomless Pinocchio. To earn one, a politician must make a statement earning at least 3 or 4 Pinocchios for inaccuracy, and repeat it at least 20 times. This indicates the politician is intentionally engaging in a disinformation campaign, trying to change perception of the truth by repeating a lie so frequently as to hope it replaces the actual facts in people's minds. There is only one politician who qualifies, 45 of course, who immediately upon the creation of the "award" has 14 Bottomless Pinocchio statements to his credit.

In other news, I am pleased to share I heard an interview on NPR this morning with a man who was a federal prosecutor under Bush 43 and a DEA prosecutor under Obama. His take on Mueller's most recent filings is that the case against 45 is "damning" and that what we have seen so far is still just "the tip of the iceberg." He said the threads are becoming stronger over time as Mueller reveals each play, and that they all seem to lead back to Russia. After talking to Flynn 19 times, for instance, and recommending nearly complete lack of additional punishment, he believes that much, much more incriminating corroboration is to be forthcoming. It warmed my day. I'm hopeful. 

Swing States Swing Back to Democrats

First, the Great Lakes big three:

PA: Dems flipped the governorship, gained 4 House seats, and won the Senate contest!

MI: Dems flipped the governorship, gained two House seats, and won the Senate contest!

WI: Dems flipped the governorship, gained no House seats, and won the Senate contest!

The biggest swing state:

FL: Reps appear to have kept the governorship by .41%, Dems gained 3 House seats, Reps appear to have flipped the Senate contest by .15 of a percent.

The second biggest swing state:

OH: Reps kept the governorship, the heavily gerrymandered House seats remained unchanged, Dems won the Senate contest.

Smaller swing states:

NH: Reps kept the governorship, Dems kept both House seats, no Senate race.

NV: Reps kept the governorship, House stayed the same, Dems flipped a Senate seat.

IO: Reps kept the governorship, Dems flipped 2 House seats, no Senate contest.

MN: Dems won governor, gained 2 House seats, lost 2 House seats, and won both Senate contests.

Other notable developments: Senate

Dems flipped a Senate seat in Arizona.

Reps defeated incumbent Senate Dems in the Red states of Missouri, Indiana and North Dakota.

Other notable developments, House pickups by states not mentioned above:

VA +3 , GA 1, ME 1, NJ 4!, IL 2, KS 1, TX 2, NY 3, OK 1!, CO 1, NM 1, UT 1?, CA 4-6!, WA 1.  

Important Races We're Supporting this Year

As the political races enter their final advocacy stage and get ready to transition to get out the vote efforts, Joan and I sat down to figure who we would support with some financial help. The first criterion we were looking for were close races the Democrat could win, and the second was the impact of a Democratic victory in the race. Our budget was $600. Here’s what we decided to do.

LOCAL

Nathan Fletcher for San Diego County Supervisor. Fletcher would break the current unanimous 5-0 Republican stranglehold on the Board of Supervisors.

Matt Brower for Superior Court Judge. Brower is a responsible and ethical jurist in the Marine Corps with a deliberative judicial temperament, while incumbent Gary Kreep has been admonished by the judicial board for inflammatory and racist comments on the bench, in addition to being a prominent advocate of the “birther” smear against former President Obama.   

GOVERNORS

Andrew Gillum for Governor of Florida. The black Mayor of Tallahassee leads narrowly in most polls. A Democratic governor in Florida would help Democratic chances to win the biggest swing state in the 2020 presidential election. A black governor in a southern state would also be a watershed development, especially since his opponent has a history of palling around with Neo-confederates and opened his campaign with racist dog whistle appeals.

Stacey Abrams for Governor of Georgia. A respected legislative leader in the Georgia state house, Abrams would be the first black woman governor in American history. Take the “watershed” comment about Gillum and multiply it times five! Polls show her running only about one point behind.

US SENATE

Bill Nelson for re-election as Senator from Florida. He’s running neck and neck with right wing rich guy Gov. Rick Scott, someone we really don’t want in the Senate. If Democrats don’t hold on to this seat they can dismiss their already long shot hopes of flipping the Senate. Again, as the biggest swing state, it’s important to have as many Dems in positions of power as possible.

Jacky Rosen for Senator from Nevada. This is probably the best chance to take one of the few endangered Republican Senate seats this year (Arizona and Tennessee are the others). The contest is seen as a tossup that could go either way.

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

Harley Rouda in California 48. Rouda seems to have a small lead against “Putin’s favorite congressman,” GOP incumbent Dana Rohrbacher, who is unsurprisingly one of Trump’s biggest fans. Rohrbacher is odious and has to go.

Katie Porter in California 45. This close race with Porter apparently slightly ahead would unseat another Republican, Mimi Walters, and deal a major blow to the GOP in its one-time California stronghold of Orange County.

Elissa Slotkin in Michigan 8. Slotkin has a compelling biography and resume and by winning would unseat another incumbent Rep as the Democrats try to take a majority in the House. 

White House "Resistance" Needs to Step Up

Two new revelations have come out this week about the Trump presidency. Venerable journalist Bob Woodward is publishing a book based on multiple interviews with administration principals called "Fear: Trump in the White House," and yesterday the New York Times ran an anonymous editorial written by a high-ranking administration official. Both reinforce the perception of an amoral and mentally unstable leader in charge of the world's most powerful nation.

The Times op-ed describes a network of administration insiders who like some of Trump's policies, such as deregulation, tax cuts for business and the wealthy, and an expanded military, yet who have formed a "resistance" to protect the country. These insiders are appalled at such things as Trump's lack of principles, affinity for enemy dictators, hostility to civil liberties such as freedom of the press, going off the rails at important meetings to neglect important business and turn proceedings into extended personal tirades, and penchant for issuing dangerous and reckless orders. The author relates that this internal "resistance" has "vowed to do what we can to preserve our democratic institutions while thwarting Mr. Trump's more misguided impulses until he is out of office."

Even more remarkable, the writer discusses how administration officials even considered invoking the 25th Amendment against Trump. The 25th sets out a procedure for removing a president from office in case the person is or becomes unfit for office and incapable of carrying out the responsibilities it entails, whether from physical, or more germane to this presidency, mental reasons. They decided not to because, "no one wanted to precipitate a constitutional crisis."

The author portrays these administration insiders as heroes, saving the country from the excesses of an imbalanced and dangerous president, but that is not an accurate assessment. They are instead enablers, complicit in the danger and insanity. It is good they recognize the 45th president for the unfit menace he is. It is also good when they step in and get in the way of his crazier impulses. But real heroes would take the next step: knowing that a madman is in office who has the power to cause lasting national and even international havoc, up to and including the power to initiate global nuclear war, they would act to use the constitutional tools at their disposal to remove this menace from any position of authority in the government of the United States. Knowing what they know, anything less is only cowardice.