Category Archives: campaigns

Be Careful What You Wish For 

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It’s an old idiom with several variations but it has a currency in today’s politics as some states are hopping to President Trump’s demands to redraw congressional districts so a cooperative Republican majority will not offer any checks or balances to his policies throughout the rest of his term.

Republican friends, you would be well-advised to tread carefully into this Trumpswamp.

We have witnessed numerous lawsuits stemming from the seven redistrictings we have covered or observed. The authors of the realigned districts always deny they have gerrymandered districts either to protect an incumbent or to oust an incumbent the majority party wants to target.

But this is different. The President has specifically asked legislatures to gerrymander districts to make sure more Republicans are elected to the U. S. House in 2026. He has a small and shrinking majority there now and he is seeing some ferment within his MAGAites and his response is not to correct any of his own behaviors but to ask state legislatures to make sure he doesn’t have to.

Some leaders of the Missouri legislature would not be surprised if Governor Kehoe calls a special session to redraw our congressional districts to oust one of our two Democrat members of the House, in this case the Rev. Emanuel Cleaver of Kansas City, one of our senior congressmen.

They tried to do that once before, putting him in what I called a “dead lizard” district (because its outline looked like a dead lizard, lying on its back with its feet up) that stretched as far east as Marshall, thus putting more rural conservative voters in play. But the legislature made a mistake by letting him keep too many of his Kansas City constituents and he won anyway.  It is unlikely the legislature will make that same mistake this time.

In the past, legislators accused in lawsuits of gerrymandering denied doing so intentionally, forcing critics to prove their defenses untrue.  This time, however, there will be no denying intentional gerrymandering; the President has ordered it.

It will be blatantly intentional, therefore harder to defend.

There are other issues in play, too. They must consider whether they are enacting a boomerang.

First, there is the question of the population basis for the new plan. Trump wants a new census that can be used in apportionment. That’s a reason to delay redrawing the lines. His desire to exclude some people in that census will draw lawsuits. More delay.

Why, therefore, the rush?  No census. No determination of the census’s legality. How can the numbers used to calculate new districts be accurate without that census and the determination of its constitutionality?

Whether the districts will exist a year from now, in the 2026 election cycle, depends on the court attacks on the plan—and there will be attacks. The timing of the challenges, the hearings, the appeals, the appeals hearings, the rulings and the appeals to an even higher level will chew up a lot of time.  The legislature can approve the plan. But whether it will withstand vigorous court challenges on numerous fronts from the accuracy of population numbers as well as the overt partisanship behind it is uncertain. Whether opponents can run out the clock on the plan also is uncertain.

It also is possible that Trump’s continued misadventures politically, legislatively, socially, and judicially will have further inflamed his existing and his new critics by election time in ’26 and voters will take it out on Republicans generally and the Republican running to oust an incumbent Democrat in particular.

If this plan goes into effect, Democrats can launch numerous attacks and use it to put forward attractive candidates than will have a significant ready-made issue to make a strong run at Republicans. It could backfire.  Some concerns already are being heard in the GOP ranks.

Sometimes it is better to let incumbent dogs lie (read that how you prefer) than it is to stir up a public that is capable of switching to the other party on election day. Experience shows that the public is a fickle creature.

It’s a risk/reward situation for Republicans no matter how they cut it. They should consider the potential hazards of getting what they wish for because they easily could get what they don’t desire, especially if Trump continues in the next year to alienate his base and Americans generally with his Big Ugly Bill and subsequent actions and legal problems.

Present trends seem to indicate his behavior is doing potentially prospective Republican candidates no service, something incumbents might consider as they ponder their own futures. Is he worth the risk in which they might be placing themselves?  And if they decide he isn’t, will they have the courage to stand up?

Rigging the Election

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A normally sane person might think that a person who has claimed a rigged election is wrong would be reluctant to try to rig one himself.

But we are living in Trumpworld.

President Trump wants red states such as Missouri to adjust their congressional districts so more Republicans might be elected next year. A president’s party historically loses congressional seats in midterm elections and Trump and his party don’t have any seats he can spare.).

Texas Republicans have jumped at the opportunity to make the master happy although the GOP already dominates the state’s delegation in the U. S. House of Representatives 27-12.  That’s not good enough for Trump. The effort has led to a confrontation with their Democratic colleagues that has become, our mind at least, a national embarrassment for Texas politics and politicians.

What’s going on here?  Trump is scared.  Of what?  National Review correspondent Audrey Fahlberg said recently on CNN, “The White House is driving this because clearly they are worried about losing the midterms.  They’re convinced that if House Democrats flip the House, that Trump is going to get impeached again…The ‘big beautiful bill’ is not polling super well right now, so they’re going on offense here. They’re driving this into motion in Texas. They’re looking at other states, as well. We may see this continue in states like Florida, Indiana.”

And Missouri appears likely to get into this, too. Republicans have six of our eight House seats but apparently that’s not enough. Senate leader Cindy O’Laughlin has told the Missouri Independent that it is “likely” the governor will call a special session to redraw lines so Republicans would be likely to take away the seat held by one of our senior members, the Reverend Emanuel Cleaver of Kansas City. He’s one of two Missouri African-Americans in our congressional delegation.

Missouri is not out of whack in the D/R balance of our congressional districts.  Last year, President Trump got 58 percent of the popular vote in Missouri. Kamala Harris and minor candidates got 42 percent.  A 6-2 congressional breakdown fits those results.

The Missouri legislature is more than 2-1 Republican so a walkout by Democrats similar to the Texas walkout wouldn’t stop the GOP from aiding and abetting Trump’s need to have a pliant Congress. The Missouri House Minority Leader, Ashley Aune of Kansas City, has told the Independent, “Everyone I’ve talked to, especially on my side of the aisle, expects to go down and get steamrolled…during a special session.”

In about a month, legislators will reconvene to consider overriding any vetoes dispensed by Governor Kehoe after the regular session and a special  session could meet concurrently with that veto session. It’s been done a few times before.

We can anticipate one of the arguments opponents will make. Our state constitution’s Article III, Section 45 says:

 When the number of representatives to which the state is entitled in the House of the Congress of the United States under the census of 1950 and each census thereafter is certified to the governor, the general assembly shall by law divide the state into districts corresponding with the number of representatives to which it is entitled, which districts shall be composed of contiguous territory as compact and as nearly equal in population as may be.

The average citizen is likely to think this language is clear—the state constitution provides for redistricting after each census but has no authorization for redistricting midway through a census decade. The language about “contiguous territory as compact and as nearly equal in population as may be” has been used from time to time to challenge redistricting plans that critics think wander too far from “contiguous” and “compact.”

Missouri has revised congressional district maps after the decennial census is taken beginning, as noted in the language, after the 1950 census. The only time the legislature redistricted between census counts was in the 1960s with a case that went to the United States Supreme Court that ruled against a redistricting map. A key part of the ruling said:

Missouri contends that variances were necessary to avoid fragmenting areas with distinct economic and social interests and thereby diluting the effective representation of those interests in Congress. But to accept population variances, large or small, in order to create districts with specific interest orientations is antithetical to the basic premise of the constitutional command to provide equal representation for equal numbers of people. “[N]either history alone, nor economic or other sorts of group interests, are permissible factors in attempting to justify disparities from population-based representation. Citizens, not history or economic interests, cast votes.”

If we understand Trump’s demands, he wants the Missouri legislature to create “districts with specific interest orientations.” The U. S. Supreme Court is much different than it was in the sixties so we’ll have to see if this precedent carries any weight with today’s Trump-dominated court.

Not all Missouri Republicans are in lock step with Trump. One is Senator Mike Moon of Ash Grove, a member of the so-called Freedom Caucus, a minority group within the Republican Party that took control of the chamber and blocked action on hundreds of bills in the last three years. Another is the Speaker Pro Tem of the House, Chad Perkins of Bowling Green who worries that “a 7-1 map is easily a 5-3 map in a year that doesn’t go the way that conservatives want it to go.”

Perkins also makes the point that Democrats should not moan and wail too loudly about Republican attempts to hold their advantage by changing districts in the middle of a decade because the Democrats in Illinois and California are doing the same thing to gain an advantage to offset any pick-ups Trump might make in other states.

The latest wrinkle in the planned rigging is Trump’s order for his Commerce Department to run a new census that does not include undocumented immigrants, the U. S. Constitution notwithstanding.

Article I, Section 2 does not seem to allow what Trump demands, at least for your observer’s untutored reading.

Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons. The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct. 

The Constitution recognizes the census taken every ten years as the only legitimate census. By including “the whole number of free persons,” it does not exempt immigrants, which at the time the Constitution was written was a considerable number. Indians were not counted (although they were probably the freest people in the nation’s history until the Europeans showed up). Slaves WERE counted but since they were not free they were considered only three-fifths of a person—a provision the southern states demanded so representation would be balanced with states in the north.

And the article says the only census that will be constitutionally recognized is the one done every ten years.

Trump’s order is not helpful to his demand that new congressional districts be drawn. Right now. The first part of Amendment 1, section 2 says the districts will be drawn based on census figures.  The census has to come first, then the districts, a constitutional provision that seems to say Texas is jumping the gun and Missouri would be doing the same. Doing a census the way Trump wants it done could be pretty difficult and time consuming because a lot of Latino people whether here legally or illegally are making themselves as scarce as possible.

To coin a phrase, Trump seems to be engaged in unconstitutional bundling.

Trump’s political cynicism does nothing to reduce the general public’s distrust of our political system. In fact, he has played upon it to get elected.

Politics sometimes has been a mud-and-blood-and beer wrestling match although not as untrustworthy as many see it today. Some observers have suggested this state of decline began with Ronald Reagan’s inaugural remark 44 years ago that, “In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government IS the problem.”

Reagan had it right but he sure didn’t foresee the much different way the statement is true today.

The central issue in this frantic competition to diminish a minority within a state’s congressional delegation is this:

We have a President and a GOP House and Senate that recognize their statements and their actions are counter to the public’s increasingly self-recognized best interests. They are uncertain that the public, if given the chance, will let them keep doing to the country and its people the things they are doing.

Thomas Jefferson and the Second Continental Congress had the answer many of today’s  politicians want to ignore:

Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Read that last sentence again.  When a despotic government becomes destructive of the inalienable rights of citizens like you and me, WE have the RESPONSIBILITY to resist and to form a new government that provides for our “future security.” The Trump bunch is afraid the people might want to do that now that the see that Trump was less than honest (to put it mildly) in his campaign.

Too many in today’s politics care less about life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness than they care about power, especially power that can be abused to benefit the few by harming the many. Re-drawing congressional district lines by those focused on power more than on the government our forefathers imagined helps assure that the people have reduced chances for benefitting from their inalienable rights.

There is an odor of desperation in the air on the part of those who believe in power above service as they see public sentiment for them weaken.

The redistricting game is being played by people who have come to believe they cannot win if they do not rig next year’s elections for Congress—-and they’re flouting their ambitions right before our eyes when they consider a mid-term re-drawing of congressional district lines based on ignoring counting “the whole people” to protect a President who now seems far less confident in his future than he did six months ago.

They might be imperiling themselves if they proceed, these legislators, as we will discuss in our next entry.

The VEEP

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Andy Borowitz is a New York-based humorist and political commentator who a few days ago posted this on The Borowitz Report:

MUSK’S DEPT. OF GOVERNMENT EFFICIENCY CUTS POSITION OF VICE PRESIDENT

(WASHINGTON—The Borowitz Report) —Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has eliminated the position of vice president of the United States, Musk announced on Monday.

“The job of the vice president is to fill in for the president if he falls ill,” Musk said. “This seemed unnecessary since I’m in superb health.”

Musk added that he was inspired to cut the VP position “because JD Vance hasn’t been seen in weeks and no one’s missed him.”

According to sources within DOGE, Vance will immediately be reassigned as a used Tesla salesman.

-0-

Well, is a Vice-President about as useful as a (fill in the blank)?

His or her main importance is that the Veep will become the Prez if the big guy is ruled incapable of continuing in office.

One of country’s best-ever syndicated political commentators, Jules Witcover, wrote a book that came out in 2014, The Americam Vice Presidency: From Irrelevance to Power.  His column that came out on October 18, 2014, was headlined, “Come On, Joe, Being Veep Ain’t So Bad: The Virtues of the vice-president.”

We have a new Veep, one who seemed to disappear at some point in the recent campaign; not an unusual situation when the presidential nominee sucks all of the air out of a room or out of a campaign. But it’s likely he will become more visible because he’s likely to break a lot of votes, as he did a few days ago when he broke a tie to confirm a new cabinet member. We enjoyed Witcover’s column so much that we offer it now that  J.D. Vance has become America’s official second banana. .

The general public regard for the American vice presidency was once summed up by Thomas R. Marshall, Woodrow Wilson’s standby, in the sad story of a man who had two sons. One was lost at sea, the other became vice president of the United States, and neither was ever heard from again. Wilson offered his own judgment of Marshall by once unguardedly referring to him as “a small-caliber man.”

The office of the vice presidency has never ceased to be the brunt of ridicule—even by its very occupants. Vice President Joe Biden at Harvard last week jokingly derided the office as “a bitch” before quickly insisting, perhaps less convincingly, that taking it was the “best decision I ever made.”

Not all vice presidents would say the same, especially most of the early, long-forgotten ones like Daniel Tompkins, George Dallas and William King. But despite Marshall’s and Biden’s gibes, most latter-day occupants of the second office have been significant—in some cases, essential—presidential partners in governing the country, attesting to the power of the role. Often, less-than-illustrious vice presidential performances have had less to do with the office itself than with the selection of running mates by presidents-to-be and how well, once elected, they made use of their seconds-in-command. If being vice president is like being lost at sea, it’s because, as history confirms, for too long presidents picked their VPs frivolously or carelessly and then left them to drift.

The first three presidents—George Washington, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson—had no say whatsoever concerning the identity of their vice presidents, as the Constitution stipulated that the runner-up in the balloting for president would get the job. The faults of this system were soon apparent. Adams, as Washington’s first veep, observed woefully, not unlike Biden, that “in this I am nothing, but I may be everything.” The second VP, Thomas Jefferson, used much of his four years in the office subverting his boss by creating what eventually became the Democratic Party, while publicly deploring “factions” in the young nation’s politics. (He once insisted, “if I could not go to heaven but with a party, I would not go at all.” Two centuries later, historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. was moved to observe: “Even Jefferson soon decided that, with the right party, he would be willing to go, if not to heaven, at least to the White House.”)

By 1804, when the Twelfth Amendment was ratified, it had become clear that the existing VP selection system meant members of rival factions might be forced to work together, imperiling continuity of policy if a vice president succeeded to the presidency. At first, the path to the vice presidency was often through the death of a commander in chief. Eight accidental presidents, from John Tyler to Lyndon Johnson reached the Oval Office through the death of their party leader (though Tyler opportunistically turned Whig once he was president), and Gerald Ford got there by way of Richard Nixon’s resignation in the Watergate scandal.

Other Vice Presidents Who Hated Their Job

“Look at all the Vice Presidents in history. Where are they? They were about as useful as a cow’s fifth teat.” —Harry Truman

“Once there were two brothers. One ran away to sea; the other was elected vice president of the United States. And nothing was heard of either of them again.”  —Thomas R. Marshall

“I go to funerals. I go to earthquakes.” —Nelson Rockefeller

“I would a great deal rather be anything, say professor of history, than vice president.” —Theodore Roosevelt, before becoming William McKinley’s vice president

“I have no interest in it. Might very well turn it down, indeed, and probably would.” —Al Gore, before becoming Bill Clinton’s vice president

“The vice presidency is not worth a bucket of warm piss.” —John Nance Garner

But in the modern era, seekers of the two top offices, for practical purposes, have run on the same ticket—and increasingly the president wisely has decided to make greater use of the second office in governance. For too many years, presidents basically ignored their understudy as they clung warily to their power and closely guarded presidential secrets. In 1945, when Vice President Harry Truman took the Oval Office after the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt, he hadn’t even been told that the atomic bomb that would end World War II was near completion. Succeeding vice presidents were generally kept better informed, but 30 more years passed before they were employed in a manner commensurate to their experience and skills. Even Lyndon Johnson, master of the U.S. Senate prior to becoming John F. Kennedy’s second-in-command, was essentially kept on the sidelines as key Kennedy aides handled major legislative matters, to LBJ’s immense frustration.

Ironically, not until a Washington outsider named Jimmy Carter became president in 1977 was the vice president made a genuine presidential partner. Carter personally interviewed and chose running mate Walter Mondale, a U.S. senator from Minnesota, who, in alliance with the president, was most responsible for the evolution of the second office.

In a sense, the defeated 1972 Democratic presidential nominee George McGovern inadvertently played a role in the development of the Mondale model. After selecting Sen. Thomas Eagleton of Missouri as his original running mate under the pressures of a contested national convention, McGovern dropped him upon disclosure that Eagleton had received electric-shock therapy for mental depression. The furor persuaded Carter four years later to conduct a thorough personal vetting of several running-mate prospects, including Mondale.

In advance of Mondale’s interview by Carter in Plains, Georgia, the senator’s chief of staff Richard Moe drew up a detailed memorandum on what Carter seemed to need and want in a vice president. Mondale and Moe then crafted a paper describing what Mondale could offer and sent it to Carter, who bought into it at once. When he met Mondale, Carter told him: “I want you to be in the chain of command—a vice president with the power to act in the president’s place.”

Once installed in the White House, Carter and Mondale together created the modern model for putting the vice presidency to work fulltime. Carter gave Mondale complete access to him in the Oval Office and to his inner circle, and made him his chief adviser in dealing with Congress, about which Carter had no experience, as was often revealed.

Since then, after a long history of idle and near-invisible occupants, the office has evolved into a vehicle of notable political power. Four of the last six vice presidents—Mondale, Al Gore, Dick Cheney and Joe Biden—have had major roles in governing the nation never envisioned by the Founding Fathers. Their power, to be sure, has been delegated by the presidents under whom they’ve served; the Constitution gives the vice president only two roles, as presidential standby and president of the U.S. Senate, without a vote except to break a tie. These four, however VPs, and to a lesser extent two others—the senior George Bush, who later was elected president in his own right, and his vice president, Dan Quayle—also had access to the president and freedom to weigh in on certain policy decisions.

The senior Bush, who first ran for president against Ronald Reagan in 1980 before becoming his VP, professed to abhor the vice presidency. When asked whether he would accept it, he repeatedly said: “Take Sherman and cube it,” referring to the Civil War general’s declaration that “if nominated, I will not run; if elected, I will not serve.” But in the end, Bush took the job and kept a low profile, particularly as Reagan recovered from the 1981 assassination attempt that could have made his stand-in the president.

When Bush was elected president in 1988, for a sort of third Reagan term that distinctly didn’t turn out that way, he startled the political world by selecting the singularly unimpressive Quayle as his running mate. Presidential nominees always vow they will pick the individual most qualified to succeed to the presidency if destiny dictates, but Bush appeared to pick his own Bush as vice president—a youthful and pleasant enough fellow from a well-off conservative family who would happily serve in the shadow of the president. But the gaffe-prone choice was particularly baffling inasmuch as Bush himself, only weeks into his own vice presidency, had come within inches of the presidency in that shooting of Reagan.

Reagan followed the Mondale model in bringing Bush into the West Wing, but without the same regular access. Clinton in 1992 adopted the model with Gore but gave him specific areas of responsibility in government reorganization and cleaning up the environment.

George W. Bush also assigned his vice president specific areas of responsibility—in this case, in military and foreign policy matters—but went a step further. In 2001, the junior Bush allowed Cheney to set up what in some respects was a parallel staff of his own, with key former aides also placed elsewhere in the administration, assuring Cheney broad influence. In turn, Cheney took on roles in expanding presidential powers and wartime policies. His advocacy of intelligence-gathering and treatment of prisoners and detainees cast him almost as a de facto assistant president. Ironically, Bush had asked Cheney to help him find a running mate, and in effect he wound up finding himself.

Biden, after first telling Barack Obama he could better serve his country by continuing as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, agreed to be his running mate on Obama’s promise that he would always “be in the room” when major decisions were made. Like Mondale, Biden would serve as a general adviser without departmental or other limiting responsibilities, as both VPs had desired. In office, however, Biden has taken on some specific policy assignments such as overseeing the use of economic stimulus funds in the states and cities and being the administration’s voice for middle-class concerns—and, for good or ill, overseeing the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq.

The most successful vice presidential candidates seem to be the ones explicitly chosen for their judgment and competence. Of course, even in recent experience, this yardstick is not always used. Beyond the senior Bush’s selection of the gaffe-prone Quayle, Republican presidential nominee John McCain’s gamble on Alaska Governor Sarah Palin in 2008 confirmed that White House aspirants remain capable of yielding to purely political judgments of what may get them elected. Palin proved to be a charismatic running mate but was also one woefully ill-informed on matters that would come to a president’s desk, which might very well have contributed to McCain’s margin of defeat.

In most other cases, the vice presidency has not been much of a stepping-stone to the presidency. After Adams and Jefferson became vice president as runners-up in the soon-discarded presidential balloting, only two occupants, Martin Van Buren and the senior George Bush, ever have been elected directly from the second office—and both lost reelection. Three vice presidents, Mondale, Hubert Humphrey and Gore, did win their party’s presidential nomination, but were left outside the Oval Office looking in. Biden probably won’t even get that far.

Nevertheless, the vice presidency has come a long way, even since its lowest point in 1973, when Spiro Agnew was forced to resign as he faced conviction for taking payoffs from construction contractors as governor in Maryland and later in the White House. President Richard Nixon, himself imperiled in the Watergate scandal, at first regarded Agnew as his insurance policy. A 1973 White House tape caught Nixon telling aides: “Impeach Nixon? Well, then they get Agnew.” And later: “No assassin in his right mind would kill me. They know that if they did they would end up with Agnew!” On another occasion, Nixon considered removing Agnew from the line of presidential succession by appointing him to … the Supreme Court!

Fortunately, most recent presidential nominees have taken to heart their responsibility to choose VPs reasonably qualified to become president. But voters still look to the top of the ticket at the ballot box, leaving to presidents thereafter to make the most—or least—of who’s waiting in the wings.

Today, J. D. Vance, seemingly “the man who wasn’t there” during the latter weeks of the campaign and pretty much since then, has become the gentleman-in-waiting should the oldest person ever inaugurated in the presidency not make it to his political 18th green.

*Jules Witcover and I share the same birth day.  He is about 13-14 years older than I am but is an inspiration to the younger generation of political observers, of which I am a part.   I didn’t say WHICH younger generation, but younger.

When Conscience Brings Ostracism, a Story for Our Time

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The latest litmus test for those who want to call themselves Republicans seems to be that they must worship at the Temple of Trump or they’ll be on the political street, kicked under the political bus, considered a political leper, seen as a member of the political Untouchable Class, and a dangerous free thinker.

—-at least in Georgia where former Lt. Governor Geoff Duncan has been expelled from the Republican Party.  He’s been charged with disloyalty because he wrote an op-ed article for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution saying, “Unlike Trump, I’ve belonged to the GOP my entire life. This November, I am voting for a decent person I disagree with on policy over a criminal defendant without a moral compass.”

Just after the start of a new year, the state Republican Party went on Elon Musk’s social media site to tell report that it had expelled Duncan and telling reporters they should refer to him as “expelled Republican Geoff Duncan,” or “ousted Republican Geoff Duncan” when they quoted him “trashing President Trump and the Republican Party.”

Atlanta TV station WAGA reports the party resolution charges Duncan undermined Republican candidates, endorsed Democratic opponents, and leveraged his party affiliation for personal gain. The first two can be understood but we’re waiting to hear what the party think is “personal gain,” other than an appreciation people from both sides might have for someone showing political courage.

Duncan had announced he would vote for Joe Biden and when Biden withdrew, Duncan announced he would vote for Kamala Harris. He said he was taking his stand in defense of his party, telling CNN, “This is where I believe is the best place for us to be able to hit the reset button and create a GOP 2.0, a party that focuses and defends on policies and uses empathy to grow the size of the tent and uses a tone that invites and encourages. I think all Republicans, for the most part, including the ones voting for Donald Trump, would agree he’s not the future of the party. I think we’re in this awkward spot where regardless of whether Donald Trump wins or loses, this party’s got this short window of time to get it right, to start taking our own medicine.

“If Donald Trump wins there’s no doubt he’ll wreck the car and continue to soil the brand of being a Republican, and so I think you’re going to watch entire herds of Republicans look for somewhere else that’s more respectable,” Duncan added. “That could mean we could start hemorrhaging to Democrats by droves.”

His concern, it seems, was regarded as a dangerous speaking of truth to power. He appears now to be a man without a party.  Whether that is worse than being a party without this kind of a principled man is worth exploring. But Duncan is unlikely to be alone as Republicans with a modicum of courage wonder how much damage Trump can do to the party before the 2026 mid-term elections.

The actions make the Georgia Republican Party appear to be a party of totalitarianism, incapable of discussing its internal differences and clearly putting party ahead of country.

It appears to still be okay for self-identified Democrats to cross over to vote for some Republicans.  But, in Georgia at least, a Republican cannot exercise a freedom of conscience in choosing the candidate, especially one running for the country’s highest office.

Duncan’s greatest sin seems to be that he went public with his thoughts.

Lord help us if the people we elect are not free to exercise their conscience in determining public policy and in discussing it in the public square. The idea that people making public policy should not discuss issues with someone of another political party is, not to put too fine a point on it, Un-American.

Whether the old saying that politics are left at the doors of legislative chambers has never been entirely true. But totally rejecting the idea, as seems to be the case far too often these days,  limits our nation and our state in dealing with the needs of the people.

Duncan can give himself whatever party label he wants to give himself. Despite his party’s attempt to dictate how the press should describe Duncan, it is Duncan’s right, at least for now in our country, to describe himself as a Republican.

Why should party loyalty dictate that one of its members MUST vote for “a criminal defendant without a moral compass?”

The Republican Party’s reaction raises questions about what moral compass IT follows.  If I were a reporter in Georgia, I would bore in on that issue.

The Majority Rules

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Whatever else we discard during our electoral processes, we maintain the concept of majority rule, whether through the electoral college or, in all other elections, the popular vote.

The system guarantees disappointment for some, gratification for others, and exultation for some, depending on the margin of victory or defeat.

Some have pronounced the Democratic Party dead after the election. That is a mistake. It has not been that long ago that the Republican party was considered to be on life support. We have seen through history many times when one party suffers a disastrous loss only to come back a few years later and regain its prominence. The winning party of 2024 will be the defensive party in 2026 and 2028. The fickleness of American politics gives voters a chance to correct the nation’s course every two and four years.

The majority thinks it has done that this year. But the first chance that those who cast minority votes to turn the tables comes in just two years.

There is no time for self-pity. Likewise, there is no time for superior attitudes.  Now, it is nothing more than a matter of doing. And measuring whether that doing is correct—

—-because voters always have the right to change their minds, to change their parties, and to change their leaders or representatives.

Historian Jon Meacham, one our favorite writers on contemporary events viewed against the background of the past, told Morning Joe the morning after election day, in part:

We’ve had 59 presidential elections in American history and only fifteen of them have unfolded in the electorate that voted yesterday.  So more than two-third of our elections unfolded at a time when women couldn’t vote or black folks couldn’t vote; immigration was even more restrictive.

…The question now is all our Republican friends who said, and I wish I had a quarter for every time someone said this over the last twelve months or so is, “Yeah, I don’t like the way Trump acts, but I liked his policies;” the second point, that I also want a quarter for, is “You guys exaggerate this whole ‘guard rails’ thing.” 

Well, now we’ll find out. And if they were right, and I pray they were—and I don’t say that lightly; I genuinely want to have been wrong, that the constitutional order, that his election result put it too much at risk, that now it’s on those whom the country has entrusted power to prove that we were wrong.

And, look, the success of an incumbent Congress, the incumbent White House, is also the country’s success.  And so I think we take a deep breath. I think citizenship itself is about the hard work, as St. Paul said and President Kennedy used in the coda to his inaugural address, is “being patient in tribulation.” And there are a lot of people this morning who are waking up and feel that the world is ending. There are a lot of people who are waking up who think, “Okay, we’re on the right track.”  The point of America is that we all should be able to have those different views but to move forward together.

I’m not trying to preach here, but that’s what democracy is. It’s disagreeing and dissenting within a common vernacular. And the country’s made a very clear decision and now we’ll find out if, in fact, the folks who have been entrusted with power are worthy of that power.

…The old phrase from Revolutionary times, “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty,” and everybody who found this election to be existential, you don’t set those concerns aside. But what you DO do is, you have to watch carefully; you participate in the arena, and the people, the remarkable number of our neighbors and friends who made a different decision now face a test, themselves.

The New York Times ran a lengthy editorial the day after the election emphasizing the responsibilities that this election places on new Trump appointees who will be asked to place loyalty to him over loyalty to country and the responsibility the Senate will assume to act as an independent check and balance on his actions on appointments. But, it says, the ultimate responsibility rests with those who fought at the ballot box for the future course of our country:

…The final responsibility for ensuring the continuity of America’s enduring values lies with its voters. Those who supported Mr. Trump in this election should closely observe his conduct in office to see if it matches their hopes and expectations, and if it does not, they should make their disappointment known and cast votes in the 2026 midterms and in 2028 to put the country back on course. Those who opposed him should not hesitate to raise alarms when he abuses his power, and if he attempts to use government power to retaliate against critics, the world will be watching.

Benjamin Franklin famously admonished the American people that the nation was “a republic, if you can keep it.” Mr. Trump’s election poses a grave threat to that republic, but he will not determine the long-term fate of American democracy. That outcome remains in the hands of the American people. It is the work of the next four years.

We, you and I, have our marching orders regardless of which side we were on a few days ago.  Benjamin Franklin gave them to us a long time ago.

(If you want to read the entire editorial: Opinion | America Makes a Perilous Choice – The New York Times (nytimes.com)

The Choice

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We will decide the future of our state and nation tomorrow.

Some argue we will decide the FATE of our nation tomorrow.

We harken back to the story of an English stable owner in the 16th and 17th Centuries who had forty horses, leading customers to think they could choose one from among the forty.  But the stable owner allowed only the horse in the first stall to be rented, believing that he was keeping the best horses from always being chosen.

Customers believing they had many choices actually had only one. Take it or leave it, even if neither was desirable.

The stable owner was named Thomas Hobson, whose name is preserved in the phrase “Hobson’s Choice,” meaning only one thing is really offered while it appears there are other choices and it isn’t particularly desirable.

Many believe that is what we are facing tomorrow, a Hobson’s Choice.

We’ve all survived the weeks of rhetoric, weeks of misstatements and lies, or misinformation from insiders and outsiders on our social media, weeks of efforts to denigrate competing candidates and competing issues.

We have listened to the two sides paint the picture of the other side. And after listening to all of that noise we have concluded that we have these choices at the top of the ticket:

—A candidate who claims to be middle-class child of immigrants whose party has been branded as Marxist and Socialist and a threat to our democracy by the other party.

—A felon, a congenital liar and narcissist whose party is backing him despite complaints that he wants to emulate Hitler and other dictators and is a threat to our democracy.

Thomas Hobson would be greatly entertained.  Take it or leave it when neither choice seems to be desirable.

The political process seems to have given us horses in the first of two stalls in a stable full of better mounts that we can’t have.

This might not be any help to you at all, but let’s skim the surface of the two possibilities.

Both Karl Marx and Adolph Hitler wrote books: Marx’s Das Kapital, and Hitler’s Mein Kampf.

Marx is described as “a German-born philosopher, political theorist, economist, historian, sociologist, journalist, and revolutionary socialist.”  The description is from Wikipedia, which serious researchers caution should not be considered original research. It is an amalgam of the evaluations done by others presumably well-acquainted with a subject.  So, We are going to rely on one of Wikipedia’s sources, English historian Gareth Stedman Jones, whose work focuses on working class history and Marxist theory and who wrote in 2017 in the journal Nature:

“What is extraordinary about Das Kapital is that it offers a still-unrivalled picture of the dynamism of capitalism and its transformation of societies on a global scale. It firmly embedded concepts such as commodity and capital in the lexicon. And it highlights some of the vulnerabilities of capitalism, including its unsettling disruption of states and political systems… it [connects] critical analysis of the economy of his time with its historical roots. In doing so, he inaugurated a debate about how best to reform or transform politics and social relations, which has gone on ever since.”

The same resource describes Hitler as “an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator” of Germany under the Nazi Party that “controlled the country, transforming it into a totalitarian dictatorship.”  He wrote his book in prison while serving four years for treason after a failed coup in 1923. The book outlined his plans for Germany’s future, the main thesis being that Germany was in danger from “the Jewish peril,” a conspiracy of Jews to gain world control. It is considered a book on political theory. “For example, Hitler announces his hatred of what he believed to be the world’s two evils: communism and Judaism…Hitler blamed Germany’s chief woes on the parliament…Jews, and Social Democrats, as well as Marxists, though he believed that Marxists, Social Democrats, and the parliament were all working for Jewish interests. He announced that he wanted to destroy the parliamentary system, believing it to be corrupt in principle…”

So there you have it. A choice between an economic theorist whose theories challenge our capitalistic society and a political theorist who used every means necessary to be an all-powerful manipulator of a political system, including mass incarceration and murder of undesirables.

You might have a different evaluation for these two whose partisans have stereotyped each other throughout this campaign.

We had a coworker who once observed, “Stereotypes are so useful because they save a lot of time.”

In American politics, stereotyping saves the voters a lot of thinking.

And that’s too bad.

From our lofty position, we offer this thought;

Economic theories are abstract offerings that do not imprison or murder those who differ from them.  Political theories can create tangible results that, taken to extremes, can produce (in order) division, disrespect, control through, if necessary, mass incarceration and—-at the very worst—murder.

We have two politicians to think about tomorrow.  It’s too bad none of the others in the stable are available.  It’s take it or leave it time.

Which Hobson’s Choice are you going to make?

-0-.

 

Then They Came For Me…..

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Our almost final pre-election meditation today focuses on a former president, a comedian/social commentator/political satirist, a German leader, a Christian movement that might sound familiar, and a Lutheran minister.

We are focusing on Donald Trump’s promotion of “the enemy within” and the failure of people today to recognize the dangers of that philosophy in the past as a warning for us now.

There are several versions of a famous quotation although scholars have found no indication that he was the one who distilled his words into the poetic version in the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. The one we will use here comes from the British Holocaust Memorial Day Trust and is slightly longer.

The Lutheran minister is Martin Niemoëller, an anti-Communist supporter of Adolph Hitler during his rise to power. But he became a leader of German religious leaders opposing Hitler when Hitler announced he supported the German Christians movement that sought to remove the “Jewish element” from Christianity, including portraying Jesus as Aryan, rejecting the Old Testament and trying to rewrite the New Testament. Niemoëller was a leader in the opposition to Hitler and the German Christians.

He was arrested in 1937 and imprisoned at Dachau and Sachsenhausen until American troops liberated the camps in 1945.  The next year, he began a series of speeches apologizing for those who remained silent about Hitler’s crackdowns. Among his comments we find, “The people who were put in camps then were Communists. Who cared about them?…They got rid of the sick, the so-called incurables [who] just cost the state money; they are a burden to themselves and others….”

His apologies came to mind as I watched a recent edition of Jon Stewart’s Daily Show.  Stewart is a liberal comedian and social commentator who has a large following, especially among young people, and is an intellectual critic of American politics and the contradictions within the practice of them.  In this case, we refer to his comments after Donald Trump’s Madison Square Garden event.

We have omitted the audience applause and Stewart’s pauses and facial expressions that are part of his schtick.  He inserted several video excerpts of events as part of his program:

Trump at his Madison Square Garden rally; On day one I will launch the largest deportation program in American history to get the criminals out.

Stewart: Day one? Have a snack. Meet the staff.  Day one is typically—we just read the syllabus. There’s no—there’s generally no homework. OK, day one, mass deportation.  How is that going to happen?

Trump: I will invoke the Alien enemies act of 1798.

Stewart: …From the man himself, that is his priority.  From day one, I’m going to round up all the so-called illegal immigrants. It’s a tough policy but I guess it’s gotta be done. And it’s not like anyone else, i.e. legal immigrants or who are American citizens going to be caught up in that dragnet. I’m sure that Trump has a very detailed and precise plan.  How many people are we talking about?

Niemoëller: First they came for the Communists but I did not speak out because I was not a Communist.  

Trump (montage of previous statements at rallies and in interviews); Millions of illegal immigrants.  They think it’s two million; it’s probably five times that amount. You hear 15, 16 million, sometimes you hear 17. We have 21 million, at least 21 million; I think it’s much more than 21.

Stewart: So we are going to be rounding up and deporting between two and 21, or more, million people. But listen, they’re all bad. And they’ve all committed terrible crimes. And we have cataloged—without due process—the terrible things they have done, yes?

Trump (from debate with Kamala Harris): In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs. The people that came in. They’re eating the cats. They’re eating the pets of the people that live there.

Stewart: So, between 2 and 21 million people—and while they weren’t actually doing that, still, chase them with guns. Because at the very least they are here illegally. Yes, they are illegal.

John Berman, CNN, during broadcast: Donald Trump threatening to deport thousands of migrants in the country legally…

Stewart: So that one’s tricky. But I’m confident that on day one, Trump does his mass deportation of anywhere from two to 100 million people, it won’t be you. It’ll be them because of how precise Trump is, especially when it comes to people of color.

Niemoëller: They came for the socialists, and I did not speak out because I was not a Socialist.

Trump: I know Willie Brown very well. In fact I went down in a helicopter with him.

(Part of News Nation’s The Hill Sunday excerpt, with Chris Stirewalt): The African-American politician in question was not Willie Brown but rather this man, Nate Holden.

Reporter: Holden says, quote, “Willie is the short Black guy living in San Francisco. I’m a tall black guy living in Los Angeles. I guess we all look alike.”

Stewart: I guess there’s some confusion there. But he’s not deporting California politicians day one. And that story makes him racist. It’s not the point. He really can’t tell white people apart either.

Trump (video from grand jury deposition in the E. Jean Carroll case): Roberta Kaplan asks, “You say Marla’s in this photo?”  Trump: “That’s Marla, yeah. That’s my wife.”  Kaplan: “Which woman are you pointing to?” Trump: (points) “Here.” Kaplan: “That’s Tara. The person you just pointed to is E. Jean Carroll.”  Trump: “Oh, I see. Who is that? (points to another woman in the picture). Kaplan: “And the person, the woman on  your right is your then wife, Ivana?” Trump: “I don’t know.  This was the picture.”

Stewart: You know what I just realized? Donald Trump doesn’t have affairs—just thinks everyone is his wife. So clearly an attempt to deport between thirty and 500 million people is gonna be complicated. So it’s gonna be important to know how carefully the former president would execute this plan.

(Portion of interview on Full Measure, the weekly television news show hosted by Sharryl Attkisson):

Niemoëller: Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist.

Attkisson: “A lot of the millions of people have had children here who are American citizens. So, yes to mass deportation of women and children—”  Trump: So we’re going to look at it very closely. They way that you phrase it is exactly right. You put one wrong person on a bus or on an airplane and your radical-left lunatics will try and make it sound like the worst thing that’s ever happened.”

Stewart;  Because it’s the worst thing that ever happened to THEM, the American citizens, the American citizens you mistakenly deport. Yet Trump is like (imitating Trump), “That makes me look like the bad guy.” And why is my wife interviewing me? (a takeoff on his inability to identify people in the photo, shown earlier and a reference to Attkisson) You are my wife, right? Marla? Ivana? Ivanka? I don’t know. This sounds awful. But as everyone knows, you can never listen to what Trump’s saying and hear it.

(Montage of Republicans responding: Unidentified member of Congress: “I think you’re taking everything a little bit too literally.”  New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sunnunu: “Look, Trump speaks in hyperbole. This is nothing new.” KellyeAnn Conway, at the time of the interview the incoming White House counselor: “He’s telling you what was in his heart. You always want to go with what comes out of his mouth rather than what’s in his heart.”

Stewart: You’re right Why hold former presidents to what they say they’re going to do from their mouth holes?… Look. You know what? Sure, maybe Trump’s just talk. But on day one when the deportation of between two and eleventy billion people begins, what will be the guiding principle? Perhaps we should ask the dead-eyed architect of these plans, Stephen Miller.

Miller (at Madison Square Garden rally): America is for Americans and Americans only.

Niemoëller: Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.

Stewart:  Oh, that makes sense. We’re only deporting people who’ve come here illegally, or people who have come here legally but sneaky legally. Or people who have children who actually are citizens, or some people who look like they may have come here illegally, or people who have protested the war in Gaza, or a special prosecutor that Trump doesn’t like, like Jack Smith, which, by the way, name a more American name than Jack (bleeped) Smith. Where are you going to report him to, Faneuil Hall in Boston? Or maybe we just going to be deporting the people that always bring wretchedness and want.

Oh, I’m sorry. That’s how we describe the Irish in 1832 (with image of portrait of New York Mayor Phillip Hone who said, “They will always bring wretchedness and want.”)

Or maybe we’re just going to deport people whose race inherently has a certain kind of criminality.  Oh, I’m sorry, That was the Italians in 1911.

The point is, every one of these groups was at a place and a time on the wrong side of not being American enough. And right now you think you’re safe. Because the group Trump’s people are talking about—It’s not you, as if…Donald Trump can tell the (bleep) difference or even cares that day one implementation of the 1798 law that was last used to intern Japanese and German citizens in World War II, will be a fine-toothed comb.

It just makes me very sad, it—the whole thing—it

(Interrupted by the show’s former senior correspondent, Jessica Williams) Jon, Jon, Jon…Don’t be sad.  Jon, everything’s going to be okay—for you, a white guy, a rich old white guy.

Stewart: You think my rich old white guy privilege will save me?

V: Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak out for me.

Williams; Maybe…It doesn’t matter. Because for non old white people, for people of color, and women, and queer people it’s gonna be a completely different story, all right?

Let me give you some advice.  I know you’re exhausted. Hell, I’m exhausted. Everybody’s exhausted. Anger and disappointment in our political discourse is exhausting. But it’s easy to throw up our hands and be like fine…I’m tired.  Go ahead and take people’s rights…

—–

In one of his 1946 speeches, Niemoëller  wondered what would have happened if thousands of clergy in Germany would have spoken out against Hitler and his German Christians and the disaster and the tragedy they brought to the world.

Niemoëller: … I believe, we Confessing-Church-Christians have every reason to say: mea culpa, mea culpa! We can talk ourselves out of it with the excuse that it would have cost me my head if I had spoken out.

We preferred to keep silent. We are certainly not without guilt/fault, and I ask myself again and again, what would have happened, if in the year 1933 or 1934—there must have been a possibility—14,000 Protestant pastors and all Protestant communities in Germany had defended the truth until their deaths? If we had said back then, it is not right when Hermann Göring simply puts 100,000 Communists in the concentration camps, in order to let them die. I can imagine that perhaps 30,000 to 40,000 Protestant Christians would have had their heads cut off, but I can also imagine that we would have rescued 30–40,000 million [sic] people, because that is what it is costing us now.

Williams: Focus, okay? I just want to be clear, all right? Do not let them exhaust you. Don’t let the constant draining bull— wear you out. Do not turn away. Look it right down that barrel and say, not today, apathy… And no matter what happens, we have to throw our arms around the people who need us the most, and hang…on. All right?

If you want to watch the entire routine, it’s at (15) Jon Stewart on Trump’s Xenophobic MSG Rally & Mass Deportation Plan | The Daily Show – YouTube.

(Photo Credits: Amazon, The Daily Show, Holocaust Museum)

Ephesians 6:11 

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This is the Bible verse that Donald Trump’s evangelical supporters cite to show that God kept him from being assassinated this summer in Pennsylvania.  Since the shooting occurred at 6:11 p.m., some of those who thump Bibles that he uses for fun and profit more than he uses them for any guidance claim God wants him to win next week’s election.

It is an absurd example of using the Bible by taking one verse out of context or of avoiding all of the other 6:11 verses in the Bible.

Ephesians 6:11 is a manmade division of the scriptures and 6:11 might easily have been some other chapter and verse had not Robert Etienne, a printer in Paris, divided the Greek New Testament as he did, into the chapters and verses in 1551.  He used his system when he published the Hebrew Bible two years later.

The sixth chapter of Paul’s letter to the Christians at Ephesus contains 24 verses.

Reading the entire letter in which Paul defines what it takes to be a Christian does not work very well for those who grant the ex-President holy status.  Chapters five and six seem more applicable to Mr. Trump than the out-of-context verse 11.

In these two chapters, Paul tells the Ephesians to be “imitators of God” and to “walk in love.”

“Among you…there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or any kind of impurity or of greed,” he tells them.  That seems more applicable to the candidate than the one that, it is claimed, clipped his ear.

“Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk, or crude joking…No immoral, impure, or greedy person…has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God,” he advises the Ephesians.  Hmmmm. That seems to fit somebody we know more than one verse that some think means God is on his side.

Paul advises them (and us, if we think the scriptures have any contemporary relevance), “Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of such things the wrath of God is coming on the sons of disobedience.”  Sons of disobedience might fit the speeches and subsequent events of January 6, 2021 more than explaining how someone’s life was “spared” in a shooting.

Elsewhere in that chapter he advises people to “have no fellowship with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them, for it is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret.”  Mr. Trump brands those who expose “fruitless deeds” as “Fake News.”

There’s some great advice about how husbands and wives should treat each other that might do him some good or might have done him some good.

The sixth chapter, the one in which the evangelistic supporters pluck out of context to prove it was God who caused the shooter to carefully miss the speaker that day in Ohio, addresses children and parents.

It also tells slaves how to behave. And he offers advice to their masters.  As we recall, slavery was ended, although at terrible cost, by a war that Mr. Trump says could have been avoided if Abraham Lincoln had negotiated.

If Mr. Trump had any sense of history he would know that negotiations had gone on for decades, even before the anti-slavery language was removed from the Declaration of Independence almost 250 years ago.  Missouri came into the union in 1821 because of heavy discussions about slavery that led to a mutual appeasement policy that let the debate rage on.  Lincoln took office telling the South he did not want to end slavery; he just didn’t want it to expand to newer states.

We have an idea of what Mr. Trump’s solution would have been had he been in Lincoln’s place in 1861: let the states decide.

And that brings us to the celebrated eleventh verse and the later verses that it is easy to ignore for those who want religion to focus on power.

Paul was writing from a Roman prison to the Christians in Ephesus who had seen many pilgrims make trips to worship a pagan god.

The twelfth verse reads, “For our struggle is not against the flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this world’s darkness, and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”

Do you suppose that could be read to mean we should be more concerned about Vladimir Putin, President Xi and Supreme Leader Kim than we should be about a non-existent flood of fentanyl-lugging criminals and mental patients released from Central American prisons and mental hospitals so they can come here and take over Colorado apartment buildings and eat our pets?

“Take up the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you will be able to stand your ground…Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, and the breastplate of righteousness arrayed,” says verses thirteen and fourteen.  Unfortunately for the “belt of truth,” Mr. Trump seems to be a suspenders sort of guy.

And righteousness?  Calling people names after they have spoken out about your love of Hitler, your respect for dictators, and your various slanders and assaults, verbal and otherwise, on individuals and institutions—-is that an example of righteousness all of us should follow?

Near the end of Chapter Six, Paul asks the Ephesians to “pray in the spirit at all times, with every kind of prayer and petition.”

I’m waiting for Mr. Trump to open one of his rallies with an off-the-cuff prayer. I worry, however, how I could tolerate a two-hour prayer

He certainly had his chances twice in one day last week—at a “Believers and Ballots Faith Town Hallk in Zebulon, Georgia and a Turning Point event right after that in Duluth, Georgia.

Sarah Posner, in an opinion piece for MSNBC (or as Trump likes to call it “MSDNC,” for Democratic National Committee, wrote that one the participants in the town hall meeting, held at a church, asked Trump about a new survey showing 32 million regular church goers might not vote this fall.  When the questioner asked him for a message to those voters encouraging them to vote, the best he could do was respond, “Christians are not tremendous voters,”  which might be a surprise to a lot of us. Then, she reports, he “rambled for nearly three minutes on themes of religious persecution by ‘not nice’ and ‘stupid’ people, guns and COVID restrictions, without completing coherent sentences or thoughts.”

Turning Point is run by conservative evangelical Charlie Kirk, who also is an election denier. The AP reported that Kirk called this election “a spiritual battle,” and charged Democrats “stand for everything God hates.”  Posner says Kirk and another conservative, Jack Posobiec, have been the big promoters of the Ephesians 6:11 protection plan.

She concludes, “Amid GOP panic over losing women and swing voters who support abortion rights, Trump appears adrift in his evangelical mobilization, meandering through disconnected verbal thickets of insults and boasts, unable to focus on issues or hammer home talking points.”

We don’t want to exhaust our participants in these discussions much more than we already have. But we decided to look up some other 6:11 Bible verses, chosen at random.

Genesis 6:11 says “Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence.” So God authorized the great flood.

The sixth chapter of Ruth has some good advice for somebody on our ballot next week, beginning a verse earlier:

“10 For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. 11But thou, O man of God, flee these things; and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness.”

The sixth chapter of Matthew offers some caution to those who make good social and political hay from religious organizations. It begins with “Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.”  This is the chapter that includes the Lord’s prayer and Verse eleven prays, “Give us, this day, our daily bread.”

First Timothy, 6:11 reads, “…Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness.”  Nice, but it doesn’t seem to describe the person who survived an assassination attempt.

We could go on but we will not, to your great relief we are sure. We close with the Sixth Psalm that does not have an eleventh verse.  But its ten verses seem to fit our situation.

1 Lord, do not rebuke me in your anger
or discipline me in your wrath.
2 Have mercy on me, Lord, for I am faint;
heal me, Lord, for my bones are in agony.
3 My soul is in deep anguish.
How long, Lord, how long?

4 Turn, Lord, and deliver me;
save me because of your unfailing love.
5 Among the dead no one proclaims your name.
Who praises you from the grave?

6 I am worn out from my groaning.

All night long I flood my bed with weeping
and drench my couch with tears.
7 My eyes grow weak with sorrow;
they fail because of all my foes.

8 Away from me, all you who do evil,
for the Lord has heard my weeping.
9 The Lord has heard my cry for mercy;
the Lord accepts my prayer.
10 All my enemies will be overwhelmed with shame and anguish;
they will turn back and suddenly be put to shame.

Beyond Hope

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He’s not deranged.

He’s not unhinged.

Both words have been used frequently to describe him.

He is just plain sick.

Try to imagine that you are one of the children of Arnold Palmer.  Try to imagine being a resident of Springfield, Ohio.

Would you tolerate unmitigated sewage of this kind about your family or your town at your dinner table?

He thinks he’s being funny when he talks about genitalia, whether it’s describing it in admiring (or is it envious?) terms or whether it’s in claiming he can have his way with some people if he grabs theirs.

He thinks it’s a good thing to libel an entire town and the people who live and work there, to make citizens whose culture is not native to the community afraid?

—to tell a lie because it gets you publicity and the bigger the lie the more you can overwhelm those who won’t wade through the treatment plant with you.

How furious would you be—perhaps after you’ve gotten over the embarrassment of hearing your father described as Trump described Arnold Palmer?

Pam Palmer Wears, a daughter of the great golfer, called Trump’s commentary about her father “inappropriate,” one of the biggest understatements of our recent political history. And she said it was a waste of voter’s time. Palmer described himself as a political conservative but Wears told ABC news that her father would “cringe” at the thought of Trump. In fact, she recalls, he did..

She called Trump’s commentary “a waste of the voters’ time.”

“”The people coming to these rallies deserve substance about plans Trump has as a candidate, if he could elucidate on some of the threats he’s made to people. I mean, these are important issues that should be discussed for people when they’re getting ready to vote, and using my dad to cover the important things just seems unacceptable to me.”

She said her father “was very modest,” continuing, “We’ve lost our sense of outrage in this country over just about everything, and I’m not sure that’s okay.  There are other things about my dad that would be better to focus on.”

And she recalled her father, talking shortly before his death, about his strong dislike of Trump:

“My dad didn’t like people who act like they’re better than other people. He didn’t like it when people were nasty and rude. He didn’t like it when someone was disrespectful to someone else. My dad had no patience for people who demean other people in public. He had no patience for people who are dishonest and cheat. My dad was disciplined. He wanted to be a good role model. He was appalled by Trump’s lack of civility and what he began to see as Trump’s lack of character.”

I’m not sure I would be that restrained if someone were to stand in front of a large audience and make that kind of personal comments, regardless of their truth, about someone in my family.

When I take my ballot for the November election in a few days, I’m likely to vote against this sick bully and I will be hard-pressed to vote for anyone who has become aligned with him.

John Dean, who became famous fifty years ago with his damaging testimony against President Nixon in a Watergate hearing, told Nixon one day in the oval office, “I think that there’s no doubt about the seriousness of the problem we’ve got. We have a cancer within—close to the presidency, that’s growing. It’s growing daily. It’s compounding. It grows geometrically now, “

We know who would fit that description today.

—a man with no morals. No regard for anyone else.

Donald Trump is the RINO he accuses others of being.  It would not be disloyal to the party—in fact, it might be a great sign of loyalty—to vote for every other Republican but not for hm.

The nation’s history is dotted with times that people have chosen the better of two evils.

It should not be that hard in 2024—unless you believe that the face of our country should be someone who think that a person’s genitalia is a proper topic of conversation.

It’s not.  It’s sick.

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“Winning for Education” Makes Losers of Teachers, Veterans

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If you are a teacher, know a teacher, and/or are part of a teacher’s organization, you need to read what we are going to tell you about the sports betting proposal on the November ballot, Amendment 2, which is deceptive and hardly moves the financial needle for teacher’s salaries.

If you are a veteran, know a veteran, and/or are part of a veterans group, you need to read what we are going to tell you on Wednesday about the sports betting proposal on the November ballot, Amendment 2. It makes veterans even bigger losers than they have been.

Today we’re going to talk about the casino industry’s manipulation of voters with its campaign that will not deliver, by far, the great benefits to public education system the casino industry wants voters to think it will.

We are going to throw a lot of numbers your way today. The numbers are based on the casino industry’s own statistics as reported annually to the Missouri Gaming Commission and a couple of other sources.

They again suggest the casino industry is not shooting straight with us. But that’s not unusual.

We do not mind if you favor sports wagering.  But if you vote for it on the basis of the advertising by “Winning for Education,” the front organization for the casinos and their sports team bedmates, you need to know what you are doing TO our teachers, not for our teachers.

First: some basic information.  Missouri’s thirteen casinos generate revenue for state programs and services from two sources: a 21% tax on casino adjusted gross revenues (what’s left after all successful bettors are paid off) and admission fees ($2 per admission; we won’t distract you with the process of determining admissions; that’s for our next post about making veterans bigger losers than they have been for more than a decade).

Missouri had 521 school districts in fiscal year 2023. We will use that number in our calculations. It had 88,669 classroom teachers and 18,097 administrators and supervisors (including people such as guidance counselors, school nurses, and librarians), in 2,355 buildings.  The enrollment for the 2022-23 school year was 861,494.

The legislature approved a budget for the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education of $10,394,092,704 for the 2022-23 fiscal year.

Gaming consultant Chris Krafcik estimates total state revenue from the 10% tax on sports wagering will produce $4.7 million in the first year and $38.7 million in the fifth year of sports betting.

If we divide those figures by 521, the number of school districts, we find that sports wagering will produce an average of only $9,021 per district in the first year.  In year five, the number rises to $74,280 per district.

If we divide those numbers by 88,669 (the number of classroom teachers listed above) we find the average teacher could get a raise of $53.00 in the first year and a raise of $436 in the fifth year. Not even close to keep up with the cost of living.

If we spread those amounts among teachers AND administrators, all 106,756 of them, the average wage increase in the first year is $44 and in year five, it is $369.

That’s less than a tank of gas in the first year and not many groceries in the fifth one.

If, after looking at these numbers, that you still believe the industry commercials saying sports wagering will make any significant difference in the Missouri teacher salaries, I will sell you the Gateway Arch. The attractive teachers in the commercials who talk of sports wagering generating more than $100 million dollars in five years are blowing smoke.  While the statement might be true in terms of raising that amount of money, the suggestion that it will produce anything meaningful for teachers is cattle byproduct.

Let’s assume the elementary and secondary education budget does not increase in the next five years.  Simple division indicates $38.7 million for education in the fifth year of sports wagering would add .00037% to that budget.  Four ten-thousandths of one percent, to round things up.

It’s even worse. These numbers only involve elementary and secondary education.  The proposed amendment says funds will go to higher education, too.

Missouri has SIXTY-SEVEN institutions that are accredited as degree-granting post-secondary education institutions. There are thirteen public universities.  There are 39 private universities (which are not excluded. The language of the amendment says only “higher education.”), and thirteen community colleges.  There also are some schools from other states that offer programs or degrees in Missouri.  The amendment contains no language limiting the funding to public post-secondary schools, not does it address in any way those out-of=state institutions with degree programs here.

We haven’t come up with how many faculty, staff, and administrative employees those higher education institutions would add to the pie.

But the school won’t get all of that money to begin with, assuming there is money from casino taxes.

Money for education will not be used for education until amounts are taken out for:

—Regulation.   The Missouri Gaming Commission can have some of that money if the various licensing fees casinos will pay do not fully pay the costs of regulation, and

—“the greater of 10% of such annual tax revenues or $5,000,000 to the Compulsive Gamblers Fund.”

Those paltry raises we’ve calculated for our elementary and secondary school folks might wind up being measured in pennies, or pocket change.

If, after looking at these numbers, that you still believe the industry commercials saying sports wagering will make any significant difference in the Missouri teacher salaries, I will sell you the Gateway Arch. The attractive teachers in the commercials who talk of sports wagering generating more than $100 million dollars in five years are blowing smoke.  While the statement might be true in terms of raising that amount of money, the suggestion that it will produce anything meaningful for teachers is cattle byproduct.

Let’s assume the elementary and secondary education budget does not increase in the next five years.  Simple division indicates $38.7 million for education in the fifth year of sports wagering would add .00037% to that budget.  Four ten-thousandths of one percent, to round things up.

And that doesn’t even calculate how much MORE education would get if sports wagering would be taxed at the same rate as other forms of Missouri gambling, 21%.  But Amendment 2 sets a rate at less than half of that and then has provisions that can significantly lower taxable revenue or even make it a deficit, meaning there will be some months when the casinos put NO money into the education fund.

The amendment also allows casinos to carry over the loss to the next month’s calculations, lowering tax revenue for that month too—or increasing the possibility that a casino can calculate another zero-revenue/zero tax month.

In the 2023 legislative session, a Senate bill proposed boosting the minimum teacher’s salary from $25,000 to $38,000 and increasing the salary for a teacher with a master’s degree and at least ten years of experience from $33,000 to $46,000.  The bill never came to a vote because of internal dissension within the Senate, thanks to the Freedom Caucus.

The National Education Association  April 24, 2023 released a report showing Missouri ranks 50th in starting teacher pay with an average of $34,502 with only 43 districts paying started new teachers $40,000 or more. The report calculated a minimum living wage was $46,944.

A World Population Review study of 2024 salaries lists Missouri as one of seven states starting teachers at less than  $50,000 with only Montana paying less.  The overall Missouri average teacher salary in this study is $53,999, ranking Missouri 46th ahead of Mississippi, South Dakota, Florida, and West Virginia.

Yeah, sports wagering will solve a lot of problems with our teacher salaries and other education system problems.. Suuuure it will.

Don’t bet on sports wagering because it will do wonderful things for our schools. It won’t.  Amendment 2 just makes the drop in the bucket even smaller, thanks to the sweetheart tax rate and the deductions that now will allow a reduction of taxable revenue.

We aren’t sure why any dubious proposition that appears on our ballots thinks it can succeed by telling you it will do great things for education. They don’t. And this one surely won’t.

Governor Joe Teasdale once told me, “I’ll never lie to you but there will be times when I won’t tell you the truth.”   I interpreted the second half of that sentence to contradict the first.  But that’s the kind of disinformation campaign being waged by the casino industry and its bedmates, our major league sports teams.

But what do you expect from an industry that is built on the concept that you will be a loser more often than you will be a winner?

Give your local education leaders these numbers and see how many of your teachers would make commercials endorsing this proposal.

Amendment 2 will be a loser for our schools.  You can bet on it.