Month: July 2022

The CBS News Battleground Tracker poll says men (56 percent) are very enthusiastic about voting in the midterm elections. Women (44 percent), not so much. This contributes to the polls forecast that the Republicans will take control of the U.S. House of Representatives with a 230-205 majority.

The Associated Press reports, however, that many of the most vulnerable Democratic members of Congress, including many women, are hoping that the unpopularity of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, and Republican legislatures moves to severely restrict abortion, will hurt their challengers.

In addition to [Rep. Sharice] Davids [of Kansas], these incumbents include Reps. Angie Craig of Minnesota, Cindy Axne of Iowa, Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, Abigail Spanberger and Elaine Luria of Virginia, and Susan Wilds of Pennsylvania. They all face Republican opponents who support the high court’s abortion ruling. Some are contending with rivals who back efforts to ban abortion in all circumstances, including when the mother’s life is at risk.

It’s unclear whether the focus on abortion alone may be enough to mean reelection for many of these Democrats, who are running at a time of high inflation and frustration with President Joe Biden’s performance.

“In a close, toss-up election, which I think all of these are, it can make a difference,” said national pollster Christine Matthews, a self-described moderate who has worked for Republicans. “It’s not going to be what drives everyone to make a vote choice, but it will drive some people to make a vote choice.”

This isn’t exactly encouraging news. After a half century of constitutionally protected reproductive freedom, I’d expect women to be in shock about the majority decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization which took that protection away. I’d expect them to be considerably more energized than men to go to the polls in November. I’d expect waves on unlikely women voters to become likely voters, and hundreds of thousands of Republican women to leave the party in anger.

But maybe it’s just a big yawn that will lead only “some people to make a vote choice.” Maybe inflation is more important.

Or maybe women are demoralized and that misleadingly shows up in the tracker poll as lack of enthusiasm. I don’t want to believe that Dobbs will have a barely perceptible impact on how people vote and identify by party. But if traditionally Republican or apathetic women are going to turn out in the midterms to support Democrats, there needs to be more than a messaging campaign. There needs to be an army of organizers that focuses on registering people to vote and going into Republican areas to help angry women network and find their political voice and power.

Hello again painting fans.

This week I will be continuing with the painting of Sedona, Arizona buttes. The photo that I’m using (My own from a recent visit.) is seen directly below.

I’ll be using my usual acrylic paints on a 9×9 inch canvas panel.

When last seen the painting appeared as it does in the photo seen directly below.

Since that time I have continued to work on the painting.

For this week’s cycle I have concentrated on the details. Note those added to the buttes, green area and foreground. I have also revised the sky. The painting is now finished.

The current and final state of the painting is seen in the photo directly below.

I’ll have a new painting to show you next week. See you then.

Christine Todd Whitman and Andrew Yang announced that they’re forming a new party called “Forward” on Thursday. Here on my thoughts on that.

Evan McMullin is running as an independent in the 2022 midterms against Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah. He says that, if elected, he won’t caucus with either party. If this were true, it would be truly stupid, leading to the same kind of ineffectualness Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene suffers after having been stripped of her committee assignments. After all, caucusing with a party is about choosing a Speaker of the House or Senate Majority Leader, but that’s done after the first day. Thereafter, it’s about serving on committees where most legislation is marked up and where the administration’s nominees are vetted. There are no seats on congressional committees reserved for independents or uncommitteds. If McMullin doesn’t commit to a party, he’ll have little to do and very little direct influence on the work of the Senate.

It’s possible that McMullin will actually win because the Democrats have endorsed him. That’s not actually helpful in conservative Utah, except that the Dems aren’t running their own candidate. Republicans are mindful that a vote for McMullin is more than a vote against Sen. Lee. It’s also a vote against Mitch McConnell becoming Majority Leader again, and that’s true even if McMullin abstains and refuses to endorse Schumer or another Democrat.

But what if the midterms produce another divided Senate where McMullin is the deciding vote that determines whether the Republicans or Democrats will be in control? In that case, he could give the Democrats the choice of making him the Leader or having him hand control to McConnell.

This is not a low odds scenario. The midterms could well produce another 50-50 split. The Republicans need 51 for a majority while Democrats only need 50 thanks to the tie-breaking role of Vice-President Kamala Harris. But if McMullin is the Democrat’s fiftieth vote, his abstention would give McConnell a 50-49 majority. With that amount leverage, McMullin could force himself to the top position, but he could also choose any other Democrat for the position. Maybe he prefers Kyrsten Sinema to Chuck Schumer?

The point is, this is how a true independent party would have to operate in Congress. For the foreseeable future, it would never have an outright majority, but its members could be majority-makers and insist that they serve in positions of authority as leaders and committee chairs. This is how coalitions are built in parliamentary systems and its awkward in our American system, but it can still be effective.

The best place to begin is in California where candidates can identify with any party they want and the top two finishers in the primaries face off against each other in the general election. A third party whose candidates pledge to vote only for one of their own on the first ballot for Speaker of the House or Senate Majority Leader could build up a small but sufficient bloc of elected officials to effectively control the leadership of Congress. They could demand leadership for themselves or insist on moderate Dem or GOP leaders. This would be much easier in the House, but the presently close split in the Senate makes it possible there, too.

For third party advocates who want centrist representation, this is the ideal way to strip the partisan venom out of Congress. If the goal is to have a center-left alternative to the Democrats, they’d find it much easier to compel the Democrats to govern from the middle than to supplant them as one of the two major parties. In other words, they would caucus with the Dems, but with conditions.

I believe progressives could pull the same trick by running candidates in California pledged to vote for one of their own on the first ballot for Speaker. If their bloc ever becomes decisive, they could determine who holds the gavel in the House.

Politics is organized around ideology but it’s really about power. And if you don’t like how power is split up in our system and want a third party alternative, you have to find a way that might give you power. Running as an independent or small-party candidate against entrenched Democrats and Republicans almost never works, and it leaves the rare winners with no way to have influence except to caucus with one of the major parties. It’s unrealistic to think that a third party will soon win a majority on its own, but if it figures out how to become a majority-maker, it can reach its objectives.

 

Hi photo lovers.

It’s been a while. I’ve been doing quite a bit of gardening this summer, which is definitely a departure from my normal behavior. This time around, I thought I’d treat you to a photo I took recently of a Hibiscus flower. Both plants are producing quite a few flowers, even with all the drought conditions and near-record high temperatures in my neck of the woods. The plant that produced this flower is one I had to nurture from near death earlier this summer.

I am still using my same equipment, and am no professional. If you are an avid photographer, regardless of your skills and professional experience, you are in good company here. Booman Tribune was blessed with very talented photographers in the past. At Progress Pond, we seem to have a few talented photographers now, a few of whom seem to be lurking I suppose.

I have been using an LG v40 ThinQ for close to four years. My original phone is gone. The back of the phone came off. Apparently the battery began to burst. I am using a replacement (thanks to insurance) that is identical. I need more time to research smart phones, especially at the high end. I prefer to get a device and keep it for four or five years. Most of my family seems to be gravitating toward iPhones, so I suspect I may eventually have to succumb and go to the Dark Side of The Force. Given the times we live in, my default is to delay any major purchases as long as possible. So, unless something really goes wrong with my current phone, I’ll stick to the status quo for as long as possible. Keep in mind that my last Samsung kept going for over four years (the last year was a bit touch and go). Once I do have to make a new smart phone purchase, the camera feature is the one I consider most important. So any advice on such matters is always appreciated. Occasionally I get to use my old 35 mm, but one of my daughters seems to have commandeered it for now. So it goes.

This series of posts is in honor of a number of our ancestors. At one point, there were some seriously great photographers who graced Booman Tribune with their work. They are all now long gone. I am the one who carries the torch. I keep this going because I know that one day I too will be gone, and I really want the work that was started long ago to continue, rather than fade away with me. If I see that I am able to incite a few others to fill posts like these with photos, then I will be truly grateful. In the meantime, enjoy the photos, and I am sure between Booman and myself we can pass along quite a bit of knowledge about the photo flog series from its inception back during the Booman Tribune days.

Since this post usually runs only a day, I will likely keep it up for a while. Please share your work. I am convinced that us amateurs are extremely talented. You will get nothing but love and support here. I mean that. Also, when I say that you don’t have to be a photography pro, I mean that as well. I am an amateur. This is my hobby. This is my passion. I keep these posts going only because they are a passion. If they were not, I would have given up a long time ago. My preference is to never give up.

Andrew McCarthy is right about one thing. It will be difficult to successfully prosecute the fake elector scheme. To understand why, you need to know what happened in Hawaii during the 1960 presidential election.

The November 8th matchup between Sen. John F. Kennedy and Vice-President Richard M. Nixon was Hawaii’s first shot at choosing a U.S. president but we might have expected it go smoother than it did. It was the sixth time the 50th state’s voters had gone to the polls in 25 months, including their vote to approve statehood. Turnout was extremely high, estimated at over 93 percent of eligible voters.

The first count had Kennedy up by 92 votes, but that didn’t last. After some errors in the tabulation sheets were discovered, Nixon had a lead of 141 votes. Then more discrepancies turned up and the Democrats protested. On November 22, they requested a recount. However, before the recount was concluded Republican Acting Governor James Kealoha certified Nixon’s victory. When the safe harbor date came on December 13, the results were still being litigated and only Nixon’s slate of electors had been certified.

Republicans argued that the litigation should end, since even if the recount should result in a Kennedy victory, under the rules of the Electoral Count Act, Congress was required to presume that the Republican electors were the validly appointed electors for Hawaii.

However, the following day, the presiding circuit court judge Ronald B. Jamieson ordered a partial recount to begin. A limited retabulation showed Nixon’s margin over Kennedy decreasing, and as more ballots were opened and retabulated on subsequent days, Nixon’s lead shrank and eventually disappeared. By December 18, the partial recount showed Kennedy leading Nixon in the state by 55 votes.

In 1960, December 19 was the day all the Electoral College electors met in their respective state capitals and cast their votes, but in Hawaii the recount was ongoing. With Kennedy in the lead and good reason to believe his lead would hold, the state faced a dilemma. Should they cast their votes for Nixon whose victory was already certified and protected by the safe harbor rule, or should they cast them for Kennedy whose victory wasn’t certain and whose electors could be challenged in Congress?

Judge Jamieson sensibly ordered a statewide recount to settle once and for all who had actually won, and in the meantime, both Kennedy and Nixon’s electors met at Iolani Palace in Honolulu and cast competing slates. Both slates were sent to Washington DC.

When the statewide recount was concluded on December 28, it showed that Kennedy had won by a margin of 115 votes.

Based on this recount, Jamieson ordered that the Democratic slate…be named the validly appointed presidential electors for the state of Hawaii on December 30. Attorney General Kashiwa declined to appeal the verdict, and [new] Governor William F. Quinn, a Republican, certified the Democratic slate of electors on January 4, 1961, in a letter to Administrator [of General Services Franklin] Floete. The state government also rushed a letter to Congress by air mail to indicate that a new certification was on its way.

During the Congressional joint session to tabulate electoral votes on January 6, 1961, Nixon (who presided over the session in his capacity as President of the Senate), presented both the Republican and Democratic electoral certificates. To head off the possibility of a floor objection by Democrats such as Representative Daniel K. Inouye, Nixon then requested and received unanimous consent from the joint session for the Democratic certificate to be counted and the Republican certificate to be set aside, though he specified that this was being done “without the intent of establishing a precedent.”

It’s fortunate that Hawaii’s electoral votes were not determinative of the winner of the presidential election or it could have been a much messier situation. As it stood, Nixon saw no profit in trying claim Hawaii’s electoral votes even though he could have easily objected that they had not been submitted in compliance with the Electoral Count Act and that only his slate had been properly certified.

Nixon took pains to note that his magnanimity should not establish a precedent, but it did establish a precedent. Congress had accepted a rival set of electors to the ones that had been certified, and that gave lawyers advising Trump an excuse to advocate creating “fake electors” just in case any of his long -shot voter fraud allegations panned out in court.

At least, that’s what they’ll argue in court if they’re ever indicted. After all, the Hawaii Democrats had their electors vote as if Kennedy had won “just in case” he actually won. Why couldn’t the Republicans do the same in Wisconsin, Arizona, Georgia and any other state where there were allegations of fraud? It had been a prudent course in Hawaii back in 1960, so wouldn’t it be prudent in 2020?

Obviously, there are huge differences between these two cases, but I think you can see there’s a pretty robust defense available at least for the lawyers who were providing options to President Trump.

To gain a conviction on this element of the coup attempt will require a demonstration that the fake elector scheme was a fraudulent ruse. It’s likely that having the fake electors convene and vote will not constitute a crime (because of the “just in case” defense), but having them actually send the votes to Washington DC might have been a criminal act.

That’s because, unlike the situation in Hawaii, there was no buy-in on the alternative set of electors from any governor or other responsible judge or election official. And the reason is that, unlike in 1960, there were no states where a recount had changed the result of a state’s election and therefore no real dispute that Biden and Harris were the true winners. Sending alternate slates was a simple act of fraud in furtherance of a coup attempt.

It’s a complicated thing to prosecute, for sure, and much will depend on what the evidence says about intent. McCarthy thinks Attorney General Merrick Garland is being pressured to prosecute a case he can’t win, but it’s not certain that convictions cannot be obtained. The fake elector scheme is also not the only indictable offense under consideration. Seditious conspiracy is a far more serious allegation and, maybe counterintuitively, it might be the easier case to make.

If you’re looking for any sign of hope, the latest results from Morning Consult might do the trick. While they confirm that President Biden has catastrophically bad approval numbers, they also show the Democratic Party with a shocking plus-eight advantage on the generic congressional preference question. That’s the kind of number the Dems need if they have any hope of maintaining their slim control of the House of Representatives, and it signals a likely hold of their control of the Senate.

Most of the movement has come from independents, and it’s notable that independents have also reacted to the January 6 committee hearings by being more willing (63 percent) to assign responsibility to the disgraced ex-president Donald Trump.

Truthfully, I don’t think the hearings have been nearly as harmful to the Republicans as recent mass shootings and the Supreme Court’s decision to throw out Roe v. Wade, but there is now a clear disconnect between how people feel about Biden and how they intend to vote in the midterms.

On Tuesday, the Washington Post predicted that Biden will soon get some significant legislative wins out of Congress. Specifically,

The first major prescription drug legislation in nearly 20 years. More than $50 billion to subsidize computer chip manufacturing and research. A bill that would enshrine protection for same-sex marriage.

At the end of June, Biden signed the first significant gun violence control bill to come out of Congress in 30 years. If part of Biden’s image problem is related to his ineffectiveness, that perception could see some improvement.

Gas prices have been plummeting, too, but inflation is expected to be a persistent problem through to November which is why the Democrats are running less on their own record than on the threat of Republican extremism. This isn’t mere political posturing. They have a convincing case that our system of representative democracy cannot survive a near-term Republican majority in Congress, let alone a second term in the Oval Office for Trump.

There will be more January 6 committee hearings in September which can serve as a kind of booster shot to remind people what they learned in June and July. And it increasingly looks like the Department of Justice might actually have a grand jury ready to bring the hammer down on Trump and his coup conspirators.

All of this is lined up to present a broad and credible case against Republican extremism, and it will be aided by many of the extremely radical and/or incompetent candidates the GOP base (often acting on Trump’s recommendation and encouraged by the Dems) has chosen to represent them. I’m thinking of people like Herschel Walker in Georgia, Doug Mastriano in Pennsylvania, and Dan Cox in Maryland. These folks are the absolute bottom of the barrel, and they’re most likely going to lose what should be winnable races in this political environment. They’re so bad, in fact, that they’ll hurt Republican candidates all across the country.

Everything looks pretty bleak right now, but there’s a path that might just avoid armageddon.

Hi!

It’s that time again. This week, John Oliver discusses inflation. It turns out to be a complex problem with no single cause and not necessarily an obvious right solution. Who knew?

Alrighty. Knowledge is power.

Cheers!

I think it’s a good day to look at the where the men who served as managers in President Bill Clinton’s impeachment trial are today. One is a governor, one is a U.S. Senator, two more are judges, two are deceased, and one was indicted on Monday. Obviously, some were rewarded handsomely for their willingness to make a blow job into a constitutional crisis. Some were exposed as adulterers and hypocrites.

Henry Hyde was the chairman of the impeachment effort. He was forced to acknowledge carrying out a five-year adulterous affair with a married woman. He retired in 2007 and died the same year.

Jim Sensenbrenner served in the House until January 3, 2021, when he retired. He’s well known for, among other things, introducing the post-9/11 Patriot Act and then becoming concerned about the excesses of the surveillance state.

Bill McCollum went on to serve as the attorney general of Florida where he distinguished himself by paying $120,000 to clinical psychologist and anti-gay activist George Rekers for his testimony supporting a state ban on gay marriage. Rekers soon after was caught taking a 10-day European vacation with a male escort he bought on Rentboy.com.

George Gekas was a victim of redistricting and lost his seat in 2002. He died in December at the age of 91.

Charles Canady is credited with coining the term “partial-birth abortion.” He is now the Chief Justice of the Florida Supreme Court. He was one of the rare Republicans to actually keep their own self-imposed term-limit pledge and did not seek reelection in 2000. Trump reportedly considered him for a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court.

Steve Buyer was arrested on Monday and charged with insider trading. One nice detail in the indictment is that he tried to cover his transactions by using financial accounts of both his wife and his mistress.

Ed Bryant had the honor of personally interviewing Monica Lewinsky. He twice tried and failed to win promotion to the U.S. Senate.

Steve Chabot is still serving in the U.S. House of Representatives even though his campaign treasurer was recently indicted for embezzling over a million dollars from his coffers. He’s known to support teaching intelligent design in schools because, you know, the Theory of Evolution is “just a theory.”

Bob Barr’s was the first member of Congress to call for Bill Clinton’s resignation. The staunchly anti-choice congressman’s second wife signed an affidavit that Barr drove her to have an abortion in 1983 and paid for the procedure. In 2004, he left the GOP for the Libertarian Party. He appeared in Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, where he was offered cheese ostensibly made from Borat’s wife’s breast milk.

Asa Hutchinson is finishing out his second term as the governor of Arkansas.

Chris Cannon was defeated in a Republican Primary in 2008.

James E. Rogan is now an Orange County, California, Superior Court judge. His constituents did not appreciate his role in impeaching Clinton and elected a man named Adam Schiff to replace him.

Lindsey Graham, who gained promotion to the U.S. Senate, is about to appear before a grand jury in Atlanta to explain why he tried to exercise a coup against the incoming Biden-Harris administration.

People often say our country is split between a reality-based population and everyone else, but both sides are living in fantasy worlds. One way to explore this is the focus groups that look at how Republican voters are feeling about Donald Trump. Another way is to talk to reality-based Republican strategists about the effect of the January 6 hearings. There’s plenty of both in this Washington Post article by Isaac Stanley-Becker and Josh Dawsey.

If there’s a consensus, it’s basically that Trump is still immensely popular with the Republican base but there’s growing doubt that he’s electable. Voters are still unlikely to criticize the disgraced ex-president, and they generally argue that his policies were top notch. But, in a variety of ways they are willing to express some skepticism about his viability as a candidate or even to say it’s time to move on to someone else. Insofar as news from the January 6 hearings has penetrated the right-wing media bubble, it has mainly supported the impression that Trump has some pretty strong electoral weaknesses.

“You can see the effect of the hearings in the percentage of Republicans who want him to run again,” said Whit Ayres, a longtime Republican pollster. “A great many Republicans are protective of him and defensive of their support for him but increasingly of the view that he carries way too much baggage to be the nominee in 2024.”

Not everyone agrees, of course.

Trump has rarely faced political costs when backed against a wall, said Brian Ballard, a lobbyist and top Trump fundraiser who also chaired Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s inauguration in 2019.

“I kind of agree with President Trump’s pronouncement when he was running for president the first time, when he said he could stand on Fifth Avenue and shoot someone and not lose support,” Ballard said. “I don’t see anything in the coverage that would significantly alter his support in the party.”

 

Hello again painting fans.

This week I will be continuing with the painting of Sedona, Arizona buttes. The photo that I’m using (My own from a recent visit.) is seen directly below.

I’ll be using my usual acrylic paints on a 9×9 inch canvas panel.

When last seen the painting appeared as it does in the photo seen directly below.

Since that time I have continued to work on the painting.

For this week’s cycle I have made several changes. Paint has been added to the buttes. Below, the midground has been overpainted. Finally, shadowed areas have been added to the foreground trees.

The current state of the painting is seen in the photo directly below.

I’ll have more progress to show you next week. See you then.