My Response to Would-Be Senator Garvey

On February 27 I received an email from the Republican California US Senate candidate, Steve Garvey. Titled "We Can Win in California Again," it asked for a contribution to help Garvey defeat "radical Adam Schiff." The text of the email spent most of its verbiage castigating supposedly terrible conditions in America today. Here was my response to his email.

The dystopian picture you paint is so wrong it's comical. You were my favorite baseball player back in the 1970s, but not so good a candidate for the US Senate. The stock market is at an all-time high. Unemployment is at a 60-year low. Growth is at a 60-year high. More jobs have been created in the three years of Biden's presidency than in the eight years ofd any two-term president. Almost every economist predicted a recession in order to get inflation under control, and it hasn't happened. And now inflation is back under 3%. 

The Democrats take climate change seriously while the Republicans deny it. Biden got infrastructure done (bipartisanly), which the previous Republican administration utterly failed to do. The Democrats want to take common sense measures like keeping military assault rifles off the streets while Republicans want to make sure every would-be mass murderer has one. Republicans are denying women and gay people equal rights. The Democrats want to give essential aid to the heroic Ukrainian military resisting tyrannical Russian aggression, while the Republicans are holding it up. Republicans say they are for securing the border, but when a bipartisan committee of senators forged a compromise to do that, the Republicans in the House cravenly refused to put it up for a vote because the utterly corrupt former Republican president didn't want the issue to be solved while Biden was president. 

Republicans are so morally bankrupt they are about to nominate for president a man who has been convicted of bank fraud, insurance fraud, consumer fraud, tax fraud, embezzlement from a charity, and even rape, along with defamation of the woman he raped. His companies have been convicted of massive tax fraud, for which the CFO went to prison, and his former chief attorney was convicted of making illegal hush money payments to a porn star and went to prison. The attorney did this on Trump's orders and was reimbursed for the illegal payment by a check written byTrump himself. And I understand that you, Steve, voted for this career criminal twice. Anyone who has no more political courage or integrity than to do that is unworthy to represent me in the US Senate. I will remember fondly your exploits for my beloved Dodgers, but can only hope that you are trounced by an immense margin in your campaign for Senator.

Sincerely,

Steve Natoli

Stakes of Most Recent Trump Indictment

It's been a long time since I posted. This week's developments deserve a bit of commentary. On Tuesday August 1, 2023 ex-President Trump was indicted by the Justice Department for conspiring and acting to overthrow the election of 2020. Today he is being arraigned at a court in Washington, D.C. on four felony counts in connection with that case. 

You're going to see a lot of hocus pocus about whether Trump actually believed he had lost or the election had been stolen from him. That's the defense's main contention. But as Judd Legum says here, https://mail.yahoo.com/d/folders/1/messages/148187?guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly9hdHQteWFob28uYXR0Lm5ldC8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAC8E84D3ZosLuMXbRb7bPZ8Px-Qjn0UsnGob12q-FAjOeT2XV7X7OobyDu9i3qH-M4iPRlQ5o8YMykD9R3FpjiH6L7DjP1bGiRuK2OoqViZO8uQpUCI1Nb8bOj7CvtjXADh8ubjhGDM_-m4bq-mpGXWqRLnuDztJSflGi-7PYh5_, I feel that's irrelevant. Even if you think you were unfairly treated about something, that does not allow you to commit a crime to try to rectify it. There are legal channels, such as filing a lawsuit, to try to achieve that result. (Trump, by the way, filed 60, and lost them all.) Even if it's a fact he thought he was wronged, the legal remedy is not to establish fraudulent slates of Electors, threaten state election officials and the life of the Vice President, and send a mob to threaten to kill Congress if it doesn't do what you want. 

Trump is guilty. He is a monstrous canker on American society and its body politic. He will try to delay and obfuscate the trial to run out the clock, get re-elected, and order his Attorney General to dismiss the case. If he wins, he may even try to pardon himself. This must not be allowed to happen. The case must go forward, and Trump must be defeated again at the polls. The future of our republic and the rule of law itself depend on it.

January 6 Committee Establishes Trump's Culpability

A former student asked me what I thought of the first night's presentation of the January 6 Committee. The Committee, of course, has been conducting a meticulous investigation of  January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol.

Here's what I wrote him. 

The presentation is brilliant, the case damning. 40-50% of Republicans are skeptical of Trump's lies and this will help cement their certainty. Whether Trump is charged or not, and of course I fervently believe he deserves to be and hope Attorney General Merrick Garland takes that step, this establishes the historical record for all time. I paste below what Robert Reich wrote today:

What’s the use of the hearings by the House committee to investigate the January 6 insurrection —hearings that began last night and will run for the next several weeks — unless they lead to criminal prosecution of Donald Trump for his patently criminal actions? 

In a word: History. We tend to underestimate the importance of an historic record. But it is vastly important. It charts the course of the future by illuminating the course of the past. It is literally the final word. 

I don’t know whether Trump will be prosecuted. He deserves to be. He has violated his oath to the Constitution; he has violated America. But even if he is not prosecuted, the hearings will provide a full, detailed account of what Trump did in the weeks and months after the 2020 election — and therefore of what he did to our nation. 

In other words, even if he avoids prosecution, even if he is never formally deemed a criminal under the law, Trump will be accountable to history. That

is not as satisfying a form of accountability as a criminal judgment, to be sure. But it is a form of accountability that is inescapable. If the committee does its work properly — and I have every confidence it will — it will create a clear record. Which means that for our children and our children’s children — for as far as future generations will know of our recorded history — Donald Trump will live in infamy.

Ukraine War, One Month In

My responses to those who feel a successful Ukrainian resistance is impossible. The objections of the doom sayers are in quotes. Long live freedom, and long live Ukraine.

"We cannot help the Ukrainians." Here are some places to help the Ukrainians.

Four things you can do for Ukraine

Four things you can do for Ukraine Robert Reich Small but practical steps

"This boycott of Russian everything is...useless..." Rather than assuming the worst, just imagine for a moment that there is hope. If there is hope, then anything, large or small, that can be done to improve the situation will contribute to the potential for a better outcome. In that case, it is not useless to stop sending money that aggrandizes the resources of the tyrannical aggressor, but an obvious thing to do. Is the aggressor stronger with more money and weaker with less? There is an obvious answer to that question. Then we try not to contribute to his resources. 

Does this aggressor or any aggressor calculate the costs and benefits of prospective aggressions? If so, then the prospect of weakening economic retaliations for aggression will factor into the calculus and act as a deterrent. 

Economic pain, especially during and as a result of war in which there are battlefield reversals, can energize a society and contribute to the organization of plots and coups, or even successful popular insurrections. Just ask the Romanovs, the Bourbons, or the Mussolinis. 

"they will soon (probably in the same time it took Hitler to take Poland) take Ukraine. Period."

Tomorrow, March 24, will mark the end of four weeks of war. That was the same time period after which Warsaw surrendered and organized Polish resistance ended. The Ukrainians are nowhere near surrender or collapse, so that prediction is already wrong. 

"The Russians are bombing the utter shit out of them..they will resist with our weapons that we gingerly push into the arena on long sticks to keep our hands from the fires they are burning alive in."

Yes, because they want to. It seems they would rather be free than alive, if that's the choice. That's how our own country was born. And sometimes the unexpected happens. Few thought the Americans could win their independence against the foremost world empire of the time. Few thought Britain could resist Hitler and Mussolini once France had fallen and Stalin was still on Hitler's side. Few expected the nascent Israelis could withstand the invasion of seven Arab nations, outnumbered 10-1. Few would have bet on North Vietnam and the Viet Cong to outlast South Vietnam and the United States in that war. Truman won the 1948 election. The Mets won the 1969 World Series. Usually the expected happens. But often enough, the underdog prevails, often enough to fire the dedication of freedom-loving people everywhere. 

Russia under Putin is not a happy, prosperous, and well-adjusted society or polity. Maybe, with enough losses, enough time, enough increasing economic privation, enough military and national humiliation, the oligarchs, the army, and/or the people will rise up there as they have four times in the past 117 years and rid themselves of an overweening despotism.

 

Of course maybe not, in this instance. But we don't know, and nobody knows. The only things that will absolutely insure Ukrainian defeat are if they themselves lose their will to fight or if no one gives them the weapons they need to give them a chance. They show no signs of losing their will to fight as of today. And the democratic world still stands united in giving them the tools they need to fight because it is the right thing to do. Do we stand up for our beliefs or do we abandon them when the going gets hard? Do we tell tyrants and thugs fine, go ahead, you can act with impunity or do we show them their depredations will cost them more than they can afford to pay? Do we help people fighting for their freedom or do we tell them we think they are better off slaves?

I deeply admire the Ukrainians and am proud that the US and so many other countries are supporting them however they can, be the support military, humanitarian, monetary, political, demonstrating in the streets to show support for their government's efforts on Ukraine's behalf, or sanctioning and boycotting Russian sources of income. Long live freedom, and long live Ukraine.

 

Ukraine: How We Got Here and What We do Next

1. Yes, Putin was emboldened by previous moves at little international cost. The sanctions after Crimea at least became consequential, but they are not disabling.

2. No, World War III has not started already. One country is battling another. No other combatants are directly involved. That is not a World War. Whether it becomes a world war depends on what we, Putin, and others do next.

3. Yes, we and our allies must continue to arm Ukraine. It ends the policy of appeasement and makes clear from now on that the price of aggression will be high. It signals to countries facing Russian or other intimidation that we will help them, and makes it more likely they will stand up to coercion. It multiplies the cost to Putin and makes him the aggressor if he goes beyond the boundaries of Ukraine to try to staunch the replenishment by widening the war into Poland or Romania. By not immediately intervening to take out these deliveries it is Putin who has emboldened us to continue supplying Ukraine, just as we emboldened him by weak responses to his earlier aggressions. Now if he retaliates directly against us or our NATO allies on NATO territory he would be the one escalating, and would initiate World War III. He's already having trouble bludgeoning Ukraine into line, so imagine his problems if he added Germany, Poland, Romania, the USA and the rest of the NATO Treaty signatories to his active enemies. That's why he hasn't done it. He believes the NATO Charter would be followed by its member nations. He knows that's a fight he can't win. The only way he could stop us all would be nuclear. But he knows if he uses that, he dies too. Again, he indicates he is a rational actor because he has not activated the NATO Alliance, which would insure his conventional defeat, or used nuclear weapons, which would be suicidal. 

4. No, we do not need to send ground troops into Ukraine or send our air forces over their skies to "enforce a no-fly zone." If we do that we become active belligerents, and we start World War III. A no-fly zone means our planes are there to shoot down the planes of any other power that enters that airspace. That means direct aerial combat with the Russian Air Force, because they are already there. It's an unmistakable act of war. No country currently engaged in combat could ever permit the withdrawal of air support for their ground forces currently engaged in life and death combat. The logic of operations would necessitate their striking NATO air bases in NATO territory and we then striking Russian air bases inside Russia. The air defenses of their ground forces would strike at our planes overhead to defend their planes, and our planes in turn would have to target Russian ground forces shooting at them. Before you know it, every American is shooting at every Russian, and vice versa, and it's World War III.

5. Yes, we ought to embargo Russian oil. We should let them know through confidential channels before hand that it's coming (which they can already see by watching the Western news) and let them know it ends when they withdraw. We should also let them know we will play that card any time they invade anybody, including neutrals such as Finland and Sweden. This is yet another case, in addition to the intensifying climate crisis, which clearly demonstrates the urgent need to direct our energy consumption away from oil and other fossil fuels as rapidly as possible.

6. It may well be that China stands as the likely diplomatic key to ending the Russia-Ukraine War. That's probably not what the USA wants to happen though, as doing so would greatly raise China's profile and prestige in the world. But as long as Putin feels he has Chinese support he may be willing to keep paying the costs to pursue his dream of reconstituting the glories of the Russian Empire, pouring more men and material into what looks to be Russia's equivalent of Vietnam. But if the Chinese were to let him know they could not continue to back his folly, he might have to realize the game was up and accept their mediation and some at least implicitly face-saving diplomatic solution. In this case, one wonders what price China would extract from both Russia and the West for their good offices.

Prospect for Ukraine

I write this on Day 5 of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The Ukrainians are inspiring the world with their much stronger than expected resistance to the Russian onslaught. It is absolutely certain that Putin will not countenance defeat or withdrawal. He's put his chips in and can never be seen to back down. I foresee continuing stiffening Ukrainian resistance as more of our wondrous precision weaponry reaches them, leading to heavier and heavier Russian losses such as the burning columns of T-72s and APCs we have already seen on video. This will multiply Putin's rage and the Russian Army's humiliation such that their campaign will become ever more brutal. 

We've already seen this model before with Putin in Chechnya and Syria. Cities that successfully resist will be heavily struck, then as frustration grows, leveled. Expect Kharkiv and Kiev to be turned fairly soon into piles of rubble. As the Germans discovered at Stalingrad, however, bombed out urban landscapes are extremely perilous places for offensive operations, with roads blocked and innumerable places for defenders to hide and ambush. Russian losses will swell. Still, their preponderance is great, and they will grind forward, and at length, conquer the whole of a devastated Ukraine. 

From what I've seen thus far, that will not be the end of the war. Ukrainian spirit is strong. The Russian occupiers will become bogged down in a widespread and effective insurgency. The resistance will be very well-supplied. Even neutral Sweden has pledged to send lethal weaponry. Think of that. Russian losses will be quite heavy on an ongoing basis. A steady stream of hundreds and thousands of body bags will be brought home for funerals attended by grieving relatives and friends. All the while, sanctions will be sapping the Russian economy. Videos will show dead children. Its pariah status will grow. Boycotts will dry up its exports. The ruble is already crashing. The cost of occupying the ruined Ukraine and fighting the insurgency will not be offset by the seizure of the Ukrainian economy, since much of it will be in ruins. 

The Russian economy, about 8% the size of America's, will crack under the strain. As privation and war weariness grow, anti-Putin demonstrations in Russia will become larger and increasingly more defiant. I wouldn't be surprised to see the denouement to this classic Shakespearean tragedy end with footage of Putin's blood-spattered carcass sprawled across the marbled floor of one of the Kremlin's ornately appointed halls, the victim of a coup engineered by an alliance of disaffected oligarchs and the top army brass, the former's fortunes and the latter's pride having been drastically depleted by Putin's grand overreach. 

On the Anniversary of the Attempted Overthrow of American Democracy

Today I print a letter by my friend Jeff Deiss to his Senators and Congressman. It is a letter which I wholeheartedly support. I will be sending similar letters to my congressional delegation as well. I invite you to do the same.

A year ago was the darkest day in American democracy in my lifetime.  The real possibility that a strongman would be able to override two centuries of gradually improving American democracy was shocking, something I never believed possible.  It seems clear that 2021’s ultimately successful transition of power to a democratically-elected Administration has not been enough to assure that the processes in place can be comfortably depended upon going forward.  Many States have enacted laws that diminish the rights of voters and the power of the majority of voters to see their choices honored.  A year later, the situation remains precarious, and the stakes remain high.  

Therefore I am writing to urge you to support a Senate rule change that will end the filibuster for a single bill on voting rights. 

I know that the filibuster rule has held a long and often honorable role in Senate deliberations, assuring that compromise and bipartisanship are used in enacting laws.  So I do not urge this lightly.  But the dangers to our democracy now transcend the importance of a traditional moderating rule of the Senate, however wise or respected.  

If the will of the people as expressed in free and fair elections is allowed to be compromised, our democracy is lost.  Given the choice between preserving our democracy or the filibuster, the decision must be to end the filibuster rule this once in favor of protecting voting rights.