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Fact-Checking the VP Debate

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We turn again to Daniel Dale and his staff of fact-checkers at CNN to straighten out the information that gushed at us during Tuesday’s debate among the candidates for Vice-President.  We use the CNN analysis because it does not just offer true-false responses but because it places remarks in contest.

As has been the case with previous presidential debates (Trump vs. Biden and Trump Vs. Harris), the predominant questions about truth and shades of truth are from the Republican side. While President Trump, after the debate with VP Harris complained he had been fact-checked far more frequently than Harris had been, the observation is merited that his arguments merited checking more than hers.

In political debates, candidates limited by time sometimes speak in headlines that do not allow more complete explanations.  That is when the checkers step in with context that helps consumers make their own evaluations of the accuracy or the (sometimes intentional) inaccuracy of remarks.

As we have reviewed these findings, we find Dale and his staff found fifteen statements from Vance that were questionable but only two from Walz.

One Walz statement was branded as “false;” the other statement “needs context.”

In Vance’s case, five needed context, four were misleading, five were false and one overstated a statistic.

Here’s how the CNN staff appraised the debate points:

Vance mischaracterizes Harris’ role on border policy

Sen. JD Vance claimed that Vice President Kamala Harris was appointed the “border czar” during the Biden administration. “The only thing that she did when she became the vice president, when she became the appointed border czar, was to undo 94 Donald Trump executive actions that opened the border,” Vance said.

Facts First: Vance’s claim about Harris’ border role is false. Harris was never made Biden’s “border czar,” a label the White House has always emphasized is inaccurate. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is the official in charge of border security. In reality, Biden gave Harris a more limited immigration-related assignment in 2021, asking her to lead diplomacy with El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras in an attempt to address the conditions that prompted their citizens to try to migrate to the United States.

Some Republicans have scoffed at assertions that Harris was never the “border czar,” noting on social media that news articles sometimes described Harris as such. But those articles were wrong. Various news outlets, including CNN, reported as early as the first half of 2021 that the White House emphasized that Harris had not been put in charge of border security as a whole, as “border czar” strongly suggests, and had instead been handed a diplomatic task related to Central American countries.

A White House “fact sheet” in July 2021 said: “On February 2, 2021, President Biden signed an Executive Order that called for the development of a Root Causes Strategy. Since March, Vice President Kamala Harris has been leading the Administration’s diplomatic efforts to address the root causes of migration from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras.”

Biden’s own comments at a March 2021 event announcing the assignment were slightly more muddled, but he said he had asked Harris to lead “our diplomatic effort” to address factors causing migration in the three “Northern Triangle” countries. (Biden also mentioned Mexico that day.) Biden listed factors in these countries he thought had led to migration and said that “if you deal with the problems in-country, it benefits everyone.” And Harris’ comments that day were focused squarely on “root causes.”

Republicans can fairly say that even “root causes” work is a border-related task. But calling her “border czar” goes too far.

From CNN’s Daniel Dale

Walz on jobs from Biden’s climate law

Touting the Biden-Harris administration’s Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, a major climate law for which Vice President Kamala Harris cast the tie-breaking vote in the Senate, her running mate, Tim Walz, spoke of how the law created “200,000 jobs in the country,” including building electric vehicles and solar panels.

Facts First: This claim needs context. While it’s clear that a significant number of new clean energy jobs were created as a result of the Inflation Reduction Act, the “200,000” figure includes jobs that companies have promised to create but aren’t finalized. And other counts of new clean energy jobs have come up with smaller figures. 

There are several data sets that track climate law investments, all of which differ slightly. Walz’s number of jobs created by President Joe Biden’s climate law is slightly smaller than a June tally by communications group Climate Power that found a total of 312,900 jobs publicly announced by companies following the IRA passage through May 2024.

E2, another clean energy group that tracks Inflation Reduction Act-related investments and jobs, has counted over 109,000 new clean energy jobs created or announced from August 2022 to May 2024 – significantly lower than the Climate Power number. A recent report from the US Department of Energy found 142,000 new clean energy jobs were created in 2023.

Not all of these jobs have already been created. Climate Power’s topline number also didn’t distinguish between construction jobs building new factories and the long-term jobs at those factories – jobs building batteries, solar panels and electric vehicles, among other things. Enter your email to sign up for CNN’s “What Matters” Newsletter.

 

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Different entities use different methodologies when analyzing data, so it is difficult to determine an exact figure. Regardless, there’s no question there’s a huge amount of clean energy investment, and a significant number of new jobs building EVs and renewables like wind and solar are being created by the Inflation Reduction Act tax credits. The 2024 Energy Department report showed clean energy jobs made up more than half of the total for new energy sector jobs and grew at a rate twice as large as the overall US economy.

The report also acknowledged how the sudden growth in the clean energy sector from the Inflation Reduction Act has made it difficult to track all the jobs that are being created.

From CNN’s Ella Nilsen 

Vance on migrants in Springfield, Ohio

Sen. JD Vance said that schools and hospitals in Springfield, Ohio, are “overwhelmed” because of “illegal immigrants.”

“Look, in Springfield, Ohio, and in communities all across this country, you’ve got schools that are overwhelmed, you’ve got hospitals that are overwhelmed … because we brought in millions of illegal immigrants to compete with Americans for scarce homes,” Vance said.

Facts First: Vance’s statement, referencing the Ohio town subject to a firestorm of misinformation about Haitian migrants this summer, is misleading.

We don’t know the immigration status of each and every immigrant in Springfield, but hundreds of thousands of Haitians have official permission to live and work legally in the US. The Springfield city website says, “YES, Haitian immigrants are here legally, under the Immigration Parole Program. Once here, immigrants are then eligible to apply for Temporary Protected Status (TPS).” Republican Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine wrote in a New York Times op-ed about Springfield in September that the Haitian immigrants “are there legally” and that, as a Trump-Vance supporter, he is “saddened” by the candidates’ disparagement of “the legal migrants living in Springfield.”

Many Haitians came into the country under a Biden-Harris administration parole program that gives permission to enter the US to vetted participants with US sponsors. And many have “temporary protected status,” which shields Haitians in the US from deportation and allows them to live and work here for a limited period of time. Some received that protection after the Biden-Harris administration expanded the number of Haitians eligible in June. Others have been living in the US with temporary protected status since before the Biden-Harris administration.

From CNN’s Daniel Dale and Danya Gainor

Vance’s claims about Biden-Harris immigration executive orders

Sen. JD Vance said that the United States has a “historic immigration crisis” because Vice President Kamala Harris “wanted to undo all of Donald Trump’s border policies” with “94 executive orders” that did things like “suspending deportations” and “decriminalizing illegal aliens.”

Facts First: While the Biden-Harris administration has signed dozens of executive orders about immigration, Vance’s comments about the administration decriminalizing illegal immigration through executive order aren’t true. Harris did, however, say she supported decriminalizing illegal immigration – a position she’s since reversed.

When she was a candidate for president and a sitting US senator, Harris filled out an American Civil Liberties Union questionnaire in which she expressed support for sweeping reductions to Immigration and Custom Enforcement operations, including drastic cuts in ICE funding and an open-ended pledge to “end” immigration detention.

Harris has since acknowledged that some of her stances have evolved over time but that she holds core beliefs that remain unshakable: “My values have not changed,” she said in an August interview with CNN’s Dana Bash.

From CNN’s Hannah Rabinowitz

Walz falsely claims Project 2025 calls for a pregnancy registry

Gov. Tim Walz claimed that Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation think tank’s detailed right-wing blueprint for the next Republican administration, says people will have to register their pregnancies.

“Their Project 2025 is going to have a registry of pregnancies,” Walz said.

Facts First: Walz’s claim is false. Project 2025 does not propose to make people register with any federal agency when they get pregnant. And there is no indication that a Trump-Vance administration is trying to create a new government entity to monitor pregnancies.

Project 2025 is firmly anti-abortion; it proposes, among other things, to criminalize the mailing of abortion medication and devices. But it does not propose to require people to register their pregnancies.

The Project 2025 policy document, released in 2023, proposes that the federal government take steps to make sure it is receiving detailed after-the-fact, anonymous data from every state on abortions and miscarriages. The vast majority of states already submit anonymous abortion data to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on a voluntary basis – the CDC has collected “abortion surveillance” data for decades – and all states already submit some anonymous miscarriage data under federal law.

Minnesota, the state run by Walz, is one of the states that voluntarily submits abortion data to the CDC. And Minnesota posts anonymous abortion and miscarriage data on the state health department’s website every year.

The Project 2025 policy document says the existing federal Department of Health and Human Services should “use every available tool, including the cutting of funds, to ensure that every state reports exactly how many abortions take place within its borders, at what gestational age of the child, for what reason, the mother’s state of residence, and by what method.”

The document also says the department “should also ensure that statistics are separated by category: spontaneous miscarriage; treatments that incidentally result in the death of a child (such as chemotherapy); stillbirths; and induced abortion.” And it says, “In addition, CDC should require monitoring and reporting for complications due to abortion and every instance of children being born alive after an abortion.”

In the context of the CDC, the word “monitoring” is used to mean statistical tracking. For example, the existing CDC webpage that displays anonymous state-by-state abortion data says, “Since 1987, CDC has monitored abortion-related deaths” through its Pregnancy Mortality Surveillance System. Neither “monitored” nor “surveillance” means the CDC is spying on individuals during their pregnancies.

Trump dodged the question when asked in a Time magazine interview earlier this year whether states should monitor women’s pregnancies to ensure compliance with an abortion ban, saying, “I think they might do that” but that “you’ll have to speak to the individual states.” Walz is free to criticize Trump for this answer, but nowhere in the interview did Trump make an actual proposal to create a new pregnancy-monitoring government body.

Heritage Foundation Vice President Roger Severino wrote on social media last month that Project 2025 “merely recommends CDC restore the decades-long practice of compiling *anonymous* abortion statistics for all states” – and noted that Minnesota already compiles such data.

Vance denied that a Trump-Vance administration would create a federal pregnancy monitoring agency when asked by CBS moderator Norah O’Donnell.

“Certainly, we won’t,” Vance said.

From CNN’s Daniel Dale and Katie Lobosco

Vance falsely says he never supported a national abortion ban

Sen. JD Vance said at Tuesday’s debate that he never supported a national abortion ban. “I never supported a national ban. I did, during when I was running for Senate in 2022, talk about setting some minimum national standard. For example, we have a partial-birth abortion ban … in place in this country at the federal level. I don’t think anybody is trying to get rid of that, or at least, I hope not, though I know the Democrats have taken a very radical pro-abortion stance,” Vance said.

Facts First: This is false. Vance previously said he “certainly would like abortion to be illegal nationally” in 2022 while running for his Senate seat in Ohio. He did say that he supported a “minimum national standard” to ban abortion in 2023. During the current campaign, however, Vance has deferred to former President Donald Trump’s stated view that each state should set its own abortion policy.

In 2022, while running for his Senate seat in Ohio, Vance said, “I certainly would like abortion to be illegal nationally” and that he was “sympathetic” to the view that a national ban was necessary to stop women from traveling across states to obtain an abortion. He also said on his website during that Senate campaign that he was “100 percent pro-life” and that he favored “eliminating abortion”; these words remained on his website until Trump selected him as his running mate in July. And Vance said in an interview during the 2022 campaign that he wanted abortion to be “primarily a state issue,” but also said, “I think it’s fine to sort of set some minimum national standard.”

In November 2023, Vance told CNN’s Manu Raju and Ted Barrett in the Capitol: “It seems to suggest there needs to be some more interest in this building among Republicans in setting some sort of minimum national standard, whether that it’s 15 weeks or 20 weeks or the different ranges that are thrown out there.” He said, “We keep giving in to the idea that the federal Congress has no role in this matter. Because if it doesn’t … then the pro-life movement is basically not gonna exist, I think, for the next couple of years.”

Vance, emphasizing his support for certain exceptions to abortion bans, said on CNN in December 2023, “We have to accept that people do not want blanket abortion bans. They just don’t. And I say that as a person who wants to protect as many unborn babies as possible. We have to provide exceptions for life of the mother, for rape, and so forth.”

During his vice presidential campaign this year, Vance has aligned himself with Trump’s professed desire for a state-by-state approach to abortion policy rather than federal legislation. Vance said on Fox News in July, “Alabama’s going to make a different decision from California. That is a reasonable thing. And that’s how I think we build some bridges and have some respect for one another.”

From CNN’s Daniel Dale, Andrew Kaczynski and Em Steck

Vance falsely claims Biden administration unfroze $100 billion in Iranian assets

Sen. JD Vance claimed the Biden-Harris administration had unfrozen more than $100 billion in Iranian assets, which he said were then used to buy weapons.

“Iran, which launched this attack, has received over $100 billion in unfrozen assets thanks to the Kamala Harris administration. What do they use that money for? They use it to buy weapons that they’re now launching against our allies and, God forbid, potentially, launching against the United States as well,” Vance said, referring to Iran’s Tuesday attack on Israel.

Facts first: Vance’s statement is false. There is no evidence that the Biden-Harris administration unfroze more than $100 billion in Iranian assets. As part of a prisoner exchange last year, $6 billion in frozen Iranian assets were moved from restricted accounts in South Korea to restricted accounts in Qatar to be used for humanitarian purchases. The process for Iran to be able to spend those funds was expected to take months, if not years.

In the wake of the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel, Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo told House lawmakers that the US and Qatar had reached a “quiet understanding” not to allow Iran to access any of the $6 billion in Iranian funds for the time being, according to a source familiar.

Under the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, sanctions waivers would allow Iran to access frozen assets abroad. Estimates varied, but some said those assets could be worth more than $100 billion. Vice President Kamala Harris, who was California attorney general at the time, had no involvement with the nuclear deal, from which the US withdrew under former President Donald Trump.

From CNN’s Jennifer Hansler

Vance on Harris’ energy policies and China

Speaking about combatting climate change and bringing down planet-warming emissions, Sen. JD Vance suggested the fix was to “produce as much energy as possible in the United States of America, because we’re the cleanest economy in the entire world.”

Vance accused Vice President Kamala Harris of making climate change worse by supporting clean energy, saying her policies “actually led to more energy production in China, more manufacturing overseas.”

Facts First: A few parts of Vance’s claim are misleading and need context. First, while Vance is correct that China is currently the biggest global supplier of clean energy technologies and components, the Biden administration is trying to stop that by bringing more clean energy manufacturing to the US and moving the global supply chain away from China.

The Inflation Reduction Act, which contained the largest climate investment in US history, was designed to bring more manufacturing of electric vehicles, solar panels, wind turbines, large batteries and other components to the United States. The law’s EV tax credits were crafted with the intention of moving the EV supply chain away from China, which has long dominated the industry. Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who authored much of the IRA, changed its federal EV tax credits to move the supply chain for the critical minerals needed for things like EV batteries, solar panels and smaller rechargeable batteries away from China.

China will likely continue to dominate the global clean energy supply chain in the coming years. But the US is catching up; companies have announced over $346 billion worth of investments building new clean energy projects and factories in the US since the law was passed. According to the nonpartisan Rhodium Group and MIT, in the last two years, companies have invested $89 billion in clean energy manufacturing alone – a 305% increase from the prior two years.

From CNN’s Ella Nilsen

Vance on a Minnesota ‘born alive’ law

Sen. JD Vance claimed during Tuesday’s vice-presidential debate that Gov. Tim Walz signed a law that says doctors aren’t required to provide lifesaving care to babies that survive a botched abortion.

“The statute that you signed into law, it says that a doctor who presides over an abortion where the baby survives, the doctor is under no obligation to provide lifesaving care to a baby who survives a botched late-term abortion,” Vance said, adding that the law is “fundamentally barbaric.”

Facts First: This needs context. The law Walz signed in 2023 says that an infant born alive must be “fully recognized as a human person, and accorded immediate protection under the law,” and must be provided “all reasonable measures consistent with good medical practice.” While previous Minnesota law said that medical personnel needed to take steps to “preserve the life and health” of that infant using all reasonable measures consistent with good medical practice, the new law says that medical personnel must take steps to “care” for the infant using all reasonable measures consistent with good medical practice.

The key difference between the “preserve the life and health” language and the “care” language, experts say, is that the new law gives families the option to choose comfort care if their infant does not have a legitimate chance of survival.

Dave Renner, director of advocacy for the Minnesota Medical Association, which supported Walz’s change to the law, said in a September email: “The difference is the old law only focused on preserving the life and health of the infant, even if there was no chance of the infant living. The result was that infants who have no chance of survival were taken away from the parent at birth for extraordinary efforts to ‘preserve the life’ even though they would not succeed. It did not allow the grieving parent to hold their infant.”

Dr. Erin Stevens, legislative chair of the Minnesota section of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, said in a September email that under the new law, “any infant that is born alive in any circumstances who has a legitimate chance of survival will be provided sound medical care to encourage survival. No one is sitting by depriving healthy infants of nutrition and care.”

Stevens said that people who decide to terminate pregnancies at a very advanced gestational age generally do so because of a “particularly dangerous or life-threatening” new diagnosis and are offered either a surgical abortion procedure known as dilation and evacuation (D&E) or a delivery after a C-section or the induction of labor.

“In the latter scenario of a delivery,” she said, “often that is pursued knowing the baby could be alive for a very short time after the birth but that that life would not be sustainable. Generally, these are the cases on mandated statistical reports of terminations that indicate live births after abortion. It’s not a ‘botched abortion,’ which many people envision as a D&E gone wrong resulting in a mangled, living baby. Many times, the reason a patient chooses the option of delivery is to have the opportunity to hold their baby and experience that precious time with them.”

She continued: “When there are mandates to resuscitate in such circumstances no matter how futile the attempts, the parents lose out on that opportunity and will never get that time back. It’s not only a waste of costly medical resources, but it’s cruel. Comfort care is provided as clinically appropriate.”

Former President Donald Trump has previously claimed that the new law allows the execution of Minnesota babies after birth. That is still murder in the state.

“This change does not allow ‘the execution of babies’ and to suggest so does not understand the change,” Renner said.

From CNN’s Daniel Dale and Jack Forrest

Vance claims DHS ‘effectively lost’ 320,000 children

Sen. JD Vance claimed the Department of Homeland Security has “effectively lost” 320,000 children.

“You ask about family separation. Right now, in this country, we have 320,000 children that the department of Homeland Security has effectively lost,” Vance said, referring to separating migrant families.

“Some of them have been sex trafficked. Some of them hopefully are at home with their families. Some of them have been used as drug trafficking mules. The real family separation policy in this country is, unfortunately, Kamala Harris’ wide-open southern border,” the Republican vice presidential candidate said.

Facts First: This claim needs context. An August 2024 report from the Homeland Security Department’s Office of Inspector General said Immigrations and Customs Enforcement reported more than 32,000 unaccompanied migrant children failed to appear as scheduled for immigration court hearings after being released or transferred out of custody between fiscal years 2019 and 2023 (which includes two years and four months under the Trump administration). The report added that the number could be larger, given that 291,000 unaccompanied migrant children were not given notices to appear in court. The report said that without the ability to monitor those children, ICE has “no assurances” those children “are safe from trafficking, exploitation, or forced labor.” The report does not say for certain that those children are being used in drug trafficking or are victims of sex trafficking.

The report, released August 17, said that of 448,000 unaccompanied migrant children (UCs) transferred or released from Homeland Security or Health and Human Services custody between fiscal years 2019 and 2023, more than 32,000 “failed to appear for their immigration court hearings.”

The report also said that ICE failed to issue a “Notice to Appear” for 291,000 unaccompanied migrant children in that timeline and that those children “therefore do not yet have an immigration court date.”

By not issuing the notices, the report says, “ICE limits its chances of having contact with UCs when they are released from HHS’ custody, which reduces opportunities to verify their safety. Without an ability to monitor the location and status of UCs, ICE has no assurance UCs are safe from trafficking, exploitation, or forced labor.”

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, told CNN last month: “Long story short, no, there are not 320,000 kids missing. 32,000 kids missed court. That doesn’t mean they’re missing, it means they missed court (either because their sponsor didn’t bring them or they are teenagers who didn’t want to show up). The remaining 291,000 cases mentioned by the OIG are cases where ICE hasn’t filed the paperwork to start their immigration court cases.”

Some right-leaning outlets, such as the New York Post and the Washington Times, took the report from the Office of Inspector General and combined those numbers, reaching the 320,000 figure of migrant children who are unaccounted for.

From CNN’s Jack Forrest 

Vance’s claim about Trump’s comments to protesters on January 6

Sen. JD Vance claimed that then-President Donald Trump said protesters should protest peacefully on January 6, 2021, when the Capitol was attacked and overrun by Trump supporters.

“He said that on January the 6th, the protesters ought to protest peacefully,” Vance said.

Facts First: This claim leaves out some key context. During his speech, Trump did tell protestors to “peacefully” make their voices heard and, in the same speech, told protesters they should “fight like hell” and used other combative language. 

During his speech that day, Trump told those attending: “I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”

Trump, however, also made numerous other remarks in the speech in which he struck a far more combative tone.

Trump, for example, urged Republicans to stop fighting like a boxer “with his hands tied behind his back,” saying, “We want to be so respectful of everybody, including bad people. And we’re going to have to fight much harder.” Trump told marchers, “You’ll never take back our country with weakness.” After urging congressional Republicans and Vice President Mike Pence to reject the Electoral College results, Trump said, “And fraud breaks up everything, doesn’t it? When you catch somebody in a fraud, you’re allowed to go by very different rules.”

Trump alleged there would be dire consequences if his supporters did not take immediate action – saying that, if Joe Biden took office, “You will have an illegitimate president. That’s what you’ll have. And we can’t let that happen.” And he said, “We fight like hell. And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”

Trump also spent much of the speech laying out a false case that the election was marred by massive fraud. And he falsely claimed, “We won this election, and we won it by a landslide.”

From CNN’s Holmes Lybrand

Vance on the number of undocumented immigrants in the country under Biden administration

Sen. JD Vance claimed during the debate that there are “20, 25 million illegal aliens who are here in the country.”

Facts First: That number is significantly higher than most estimates. 

While the exact number of undocumented immigrants in the country difficult to track, multiple estimates show it is probably smaller than the number Vance floated during the debate. For instance, a 2024 report from Pew Research Center estimated that the undocumented immigrant population in the US grew to 11 million in 2022. The report used data from the US Census Bureau’s 2022 American Community Survey.

In 2024, the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute estimated there were about 11.3 million undocumented immigrants in the US in 2021.

The Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank that supports curbing immigration and criticized the Biden administration’s border policies, estimated there were approximately 12 million in May 2023.

From CNN’s Piper Hudspeth Blackburn

Vance on CBP One app

Sen. JD Vance claimed Tuesday that migrants who apply for legal status through a Customs and Border Protection app can have it granted “at the wave of a … wand.”

“There’s an application called the CBP One app where you can go on as an illegal migrant, apply for asylum or apply for parole, and be granted legal status at the wave of a Kamala Harris open border wand,” he said.

Facts First: This claim is false. CBP One allows users to schedule appointments to claim asylum with border authorities, but that does not mean that their request will be granted. The app is not a means to make an asylum application. It allows applicants to enter their information through the app rather than going directly to a port of entry.

The app was launched in October 2020, during the Trump administration, so people could access Customs and Border Protection services on their mobile devices. It was expanded during the Biden administration and is now “the only way that migrants arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border seeking asylum at a port of entry can preschedule appointments for processing and maintain guaranteed asylum eligibility,” according to the American Immigration Council.

From CNN’s Piper Hudspeth Blackburn 

Vance on inflation under Trump

Sen. JD Vance claimed at Tuesday’s debate that former President Donald Trump’s economic policies delivered 1.5% inflation for Americans.

“Because Donald Trump’s economic policies delivered the highest take-home pay in a generation in this country, 1.5% inflation, and to boot, peace and security all over the world,” Vance said.

Facts First: Vance’s claim needs context. The annual inflation rate, as measured by the Consumer Price Index, was indeed 1.5% in May 2019; however, the average inflation rate was north of 2.1% from January 2017 through February 2020, prior to the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

As a result of the Covid-19 pandemic and its quick and deep economic recession in the US, inflation slowed drastically as Americans sheltered at home and reduced spending on in-person services.

Including the pandemic-distorted pricing environment, the CPI averaged 1.9% from 2017 through 2020, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

For comparison purposes, during the Biden-Harris administration, the CPI averaged an annual rate of 5.2%

Inflation’s rapid ascent – which began in early 2021 and peaked at 9.1% in June 2022 before moderating to 2.5% in August 2024 – was the result of a confluence of factors, including effects from the Covid-19 pandemic, such as snarled supply chains, and geopolitical fallout (specifically Russia’s invasion of Ukraine) that triggered food and energy price shocks. Heightened consumer demand boosted in part by fiscal stimulus from both the Trump and Biden administrations also led to higher prices, as did the post-pandemic imbalance in the labor market.

From CNN’s Alicia Wallace 

Vance’s misleading claim that Trump ‘saved’ Obamacare

Sen. JD Vance said in Tuesday’s vice-presidential debate that former President Donald Trump could have “destroyed” the Affordable Care Act during his first term, but instead he “saved” it.

“He saved the very program from a Democratic administration that was collapsing and would have collapsed absent his leadership,” Vance said.

Facts First: Vance’s claim is misleading. During Trump’s administration, he and his officials took many steps to weaken the Affordable Care Act after failing to repeal it, though they did continue to operate the Obamacare exchanges. Also, during his term, the Department of Health and Human Services approved several state waiver requests that resulted in lower premiums for Affordable Care Act plans.

As president, Trump initially tried to repeal the Affordable Care Act but failed because congressional Republicans could not amass enough votes to kill the law in 2017.

Then, Trump put in place many measures aimed at undermining the law, which led to a decline in enrollment. He cut the open enrollment period in half, to only six weeks. He also slashed funding for advertising and for navigators, who are critical to helping people sign up. At the same time, he increased the visibility of insurance agents who can also sell non-Obamacare plans.

Trump signed an executive order in October 2017 making it easier for Americans to access alternative policies that have lower premiums than Affordable Care Act plans – but in exchange for fewer protections and benefits. And he ended subsidy payments to health insurers to reduce eligible enrollees’ out-of-pocket costs.

Plus, his administration refused to defend several central provisions of the Affordable Care Act in a lawsuit brought by a coalition of Republican-led states, arguing that key parts of Obamacare should be invalidated. The Supreme Court ultimately dismissed the challenge and left the law in place.

Enrollment declined until the final year of his term, which was in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic.

However, the Trump administration did approve several states’ waiver applications to implement reinsurance programs in their Affordable Care Act exchanges. This generally lowered Obamacare premiums by providing funding for insurers that enrolled many high-cost patients.

From CNN’s Tami Luhby

Vance on the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act

Sen. JD Vance argued that former President Donald Trump’s economic policies have helped American workers, specifically citing the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

“If you look at what was so different about Donald Trump’s tax cuts, even from previous Republican tax cut plans, is that a lot of those resources went to giving more take-home pay to middle class and working-class Americans,” Vance said.

Facts first: Vance’s comments need context. While the 2017 law reduced taxes for most people, the rich benefited far more than others, according to a 2018 analysis by the Tax Policy Center, a nonpartisan research group. 

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act contained an array of individual income tax reductions – including lowering many individual income tax rates, notably the top rate, from 39.6% to 37% for the highest earners.

More than 60% of the benefits were expected to go to those whose incomes are in the top 20%, and they were projected to get the largest bump in after-tax income, according to the Tax Policy Center.

Only a little more than a quarter of those in the lowest-income households would see their taxes reduced, and they were projected to have a very small bump in after-tax income.

Most middle-income taxpayers were expected to see a tax cut, but their boost in after-tax income was projected to be smaller than those at the top of the income ladder.

From CNN’s Tami Luhby 

Vance says illegal guns are flowing into the US from Mexico

Sen. JD Vance on Tuesday claimed that part of the United States’ issue with gun violence stems from Mexican drug cartels smuggling guns into the country from across the border.

“Thanks to Kamala Harris’ open border, we’ve seen a massive influx in the number of illegal guns run by the Mexican drug cartel … then the amount of illegal guns in our country is higher today than it was three and a half years ago,” Vance said.

Facts first: Vance’s claim is misleading. There is a proliferation of illegal guns crossing the US-Mexico border – but they are going from the US into Mexico, not the other way around.

Mexico has been plagued by gun violence for years – and the Mexican government has pinned bloodshed on the free flow of guns over the border from the United States.

An estimated 200,000 guns are trafficked from the US into Mexico each year, the Mexican Foreign Ministry has said – an average of nearly 550 per day. In 2021, Mexico sued several US-based gun manufacturers claiming they “design, market, distribute and sell guns in ways” that arm cartels in Mexico.

Mexico strictly controls the sale of firearms. There is only one gun store in Mexico, and it’s controlled by the army. That makes the large-scale smuggling of guns from Mexico into the US, where laws are laxer and gun stores plentiful, unfeasible.

From CNN’s Michael Williams

Cold Cases 

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We usually talk about big-deal issues and people in these entries but there are times when an issue overlooked in the rush of great thoughts about great issues catches the eye.  Such is the case with Ethan Colbert’s piece in the September 17 Post-Dispatch about the exhumation in Jefferson County of an unidentified man found in the Mississippi River thirty years ago.

On one hand, it’s about how DNA technology not available then will help identify him now. He was naked except for a pair of socks, with no tattoos or other easily-identifiable features or injuries.  On the other hand, it’s a story of how government works, or can work, on behalf of the people, especially the least of us. And you don’t get much more “least’ than this man.

Colbert reported Missouri cemeteries hold the remains of more than 115 unidentified men, women, and children, “such as the female toddler found inside a suitcase in 1968 along the riverbank in West Alton in St. Charles County, date back decades.Others are far more recent, including an infant who was found in July 2019 inside a freezer inside an abandoned St. Louis city residence. The boy, wrapped in a blanket, was wearing a diaper and a ‘Winnie the Pooh’ onesie.”

Authorities and the news media did all they could do thirty years ago to identify the man pulled from the river.  They combed missing person reports, published and broadcast information about a 160-pound man, 5-10, with a three-day beard. His fingerprints didn’t match any records at the state or federal levels. Nobody called the sheriff’s office to say the man’s description resembled someone they knew.

Some of these nameless people might be those whose families long ago filed missing person reports. Some might be victims of a crime whose perpetrator has been eliminated by the passage of time. They deserve to be known, as do all of us.

Colbert relates how State Representative Tricia Byrnes of Wentzville met with some families of missing people and then got $1.5 million put into the state budget requiring the state to pay the costs of exhuming and of identifying those John and Jane Does.

Highway Patrol Sergeant Eric Brown, speaking for the Patrol, told Colbert private labs that specialize in this kind of cold cases will have to be hired because none of the state labors has the equipment needed.

The Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department spent $1,700 of its own money to exhume the body of the unidentified man and it still hasn’t found a laboratory to do the DNA work, which is expected to cost another $2,300.  Once a lab is found, it could take as much as six months to finish its inquiry.

But few would doubt the value of spending $4,000 to resolve a family’s questions or of giving someone a name for a proper stone that marks their existence.

Sometimes the effort succeeds. Colbert recalled a 2022 case in St. Louis County when investigators learned a man had been missing since 1994 from Moline Illinois.  His family released a statement saying the discovery would provide “comfort to us and his friends.”

DNA technology has vastly improved in thirty years and the amount of DNA in various systems has partnered with that technology to solve lot of mysteries.  Private DNA repositories such as those available through Ancestry.com and other commercial ancestry companies have been used to identify victims of crime and their perpetrators as well as missing persons.

It is time consuming work, not much like the stuff we see on television where it seems DNA evidence can be processed within an hour-long program.

Missouri is investing a small amount of money in an effort to answer long-held painful questions asked by many people. Representative Byrnes’ legislation is an infinitesimal part of the $50-Billion state budget. But it might turn out to be the most important part of it to a lot of folks, living and dead.

It is so easy to think of government as a massive, faceless, unemotional entity.  But what it really is, is thousands and thousands of small and very human stories. Perhaps we will someday hear who this man in Jefferson County was. And maybe, someday, we’ll learn who the suitcase baby and the freezer child in the Winnie the Pooh onesie were.  And why somebody gave up on them.

 

 All Dressed Up and No Place to Go 

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Doggone it!  I have lost a lot of weight so my tuxedo fits well again, including my red vest and my red already-tied bowtie.  I look dashing—tuxes have a tendency to do that to some people and I am one of them if I say so myself.

It’s been probably fifteen years since I wore it.  The shoulders have a fine cover of closet dust. But I was all set to send it to the cleaners so I would really look spiffy and sharp. I had searched for and found the studs for my pleated shirt and French cuffs.  The patent leather shoes were still in their soft cotton protective bags and still fit when I found them under a bunch of stuff in the far corner of my closet.

And then they cancelled it.

I hadn’t bought my ticket yet but I was seriously considering using the event to break out the new, thin, distinguished ME and mingle with some of the most important people in the country. That’s how they were promoted. And it was for such a worthy cause.

I really wanted to get that signed #1 music chart plaque. I don’t remember hearing the song played on the radio, the National Anthem sung by twenty peaceful tourists jailed after visiting the National Capitol on January 6, 2021 while their greatest supporter and benefactor intones the Pledge of Allegiance over their voices. It’s not something that plays very often on Top-40 stations or whatever they call that format now, or on NPR or Country-Western stations.

Billboard reported in March last year that, “Donald J. Trump and J6 Prison Choir’s “Justice for All” enters Billboard’s Digital Song Sales chart (dated March 25) at No. 1. The recording sold 33,000 downloads March 10-16, according to Luminate.”  It also drew 442,000 “official U. S. Streams,” whatever those are.

That’s pretty impressive, I guess.  The magazine has several charts of hit songs, one of which is the top 50 Streaming Songs that listed its number one as Morgan Wallen’s “Last Night,” with 38.9 million streams.  The Top 50 Radio Songs survey was listing Miley Cyrus’ “Flowers,” with an airplay audience of 106.7 million. But number one is number one and even it is a relatively small number one it is still number one and all I had to do to qualify as a possible recipient of a plaque commemorating this achievement was to buy a $1500 general admission ticket.

I’ve listened to the recording a time or two. While it’s a long ways from the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, I can understand why some people might find a little charm in it.

But the general admission probably wouldn’t have let me get really close to the distinguished guests, one of whom is a co-founder of the sponsoring organization, Sarah McAbee.   The New York Times says she has a vested interest in it because her husband, a former sheriff in Tennessee, is one of the peaceful tourists of January 6, 2021 who has had the misfortune of being sentenced to five years in prison for being involved in the “prolonged multi-assistant attack on police officers.”

For an extra thousand dollars I could have gotten my picture taken the speakers. That probably was the best I could do.  Certainly it would have been exciting to have one of the speakers at my table but I couldn’t afford $50,000 for that and I don’t know eleven other people who have sacrificed so much to get into their tuxedos as I had sacrificed.

Mr. Trump was listed by the non-profit group planning the event—The Stand in the Gap Foundation—as an invited speaker but his campaign circulated word about ten days before the event that he wouldn’t be able to be there.  But that’s okay.  There were a dozen speakers confirmed and ninety minute or two hours of Mr. Trump after all of the other folks spoke would have taken me well beyond my bedtime anyway.

But some of the other folks would have been interesting although I’ve never heard of about nine of them. But there were three I either knew about or looked up—Rudi Giuliani, Peter Navarro, and Anthony Raimondi, identified by others as a “MAGA influencer.”  A fourth was an actor whose name didn’t ring any bells, so I looked him up.

Actor Nick Searcy has appeared in 40 movies playing such memorable characters as Highway Patrol Officer, Man at Party, FBI man, Construction Worker, Stan, Repairman, Mr. Miller, County Sheriff, The Farmer, Herb, The Captain, and Head of FBI Field office. I’m not impressed but then again, he’s been in forty movies (and a lot of TV shows) and I haven’t, so there’s that.

I’m sure they comped Rudi’s ticket.  That poor man has vigorously ridden the Trump bus—although I’m not sure whether he has a seat inside it or is hanging onto the frame under it—from fame to disgrace with all the dignity he can muster and so far has fended off lawsuit winners’ efforts to take everything but tomorrow’s underwear from him to pay judgements.

I imagine Peter Navarro could buy his own ticket. I’d like to sit as his table and hear him tell about the fun of the four months he spent in prison for contempt of Congress because he refused to turn over documents to the House January 6th Committee and also to learn how much he looks forward to going back on a Contempt of Court charge for refusing to turn over 200-250 documents to the National Archives.

The third face promoted on the invitation was completely unfamiliar. So I looked him up on the internet—and now I wonder what I should think about the other people I might meet there because if the Anthony Raimondi on the flyer is the Anthony Raimondi on the internet—-

Well, get this:

It’s Anthony LUCIANO Raimondi, who claims the notorious mobster Lucky Luciano is his uncle and says he was an enforcer for the Colombo mafia family in New York.  A New York Post article in 2019 says Raimondi claims he went to Rome in 1978 and helped to poison Pope John Paul I with cyanide, that he was among those recruited to do the deed by his cousin, Archbishop Paul Marcinkus, then the head of the Vatican Bank who wanted to keep the Pope from exposing a massive stock fraud “run by Vatican insiders.”  He also claims he was recruited to kill Pope John Paul II until the Pope, fearful for his life, decided not to continue the investigation.

Another website says Raimondi claims to have killed 300 people as a teenaged sniper in Vietnam, winding up there in a plea deal that let hm escape a New York murder charge at age 16 if he joined the Army. .

If that’s the guy invited to be a speaker at this event, I’m not sure I want to cross paths with him.  He does have his critics who accuse him of being a huge liar and a major conspiracy theorist. I don’t think I could have a casual conversation with while nibbling on bacon-wrapped pineapple slices or toothpicked wienies dipped in barbecue sauce because I would worry that cement would damage my patent leather shoes.  Just my luck, he’d be the speaker at my table though, if I could afford to sit at one of the big bucks tables.*

I would have been interested, just from general curiosity, how much of this money actually reaches any of the families of the peaceful tourists.  I’m sure that the costs of the event at Mr. Trump’s New Jersey golf club will be quite high and some might find its way into his own legal fund or campaign fund, something that seems proper given that it is HIS club.

But the whole thing is moot now (I have a friend who refers to things as being a “moo issue—not even the cows care about it.”). It’s been cancelled without explanation on the website. One organizer has told a reporter it’s because of “scheduling conflicts of invited guest speakers.”

One of the conflicts is that U. S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan will be deciding that day how to go forward with the election subversion case against Mr. Trump in the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling on immunity from prosecution for presidential acts.

Well, truth be told, my invitation must have gotten lost in the mail, but I’m sure they would have taken my money if I wanted to buy a ticket anyway.  If they do reschedule this event for some time when Mr. Trump isn’t in court or creating his own conspiracy theories on the stump, I might think about the event again.  I’ll need to know about it far enough in advance to get a haircut.

And I hope it is on a day that is not the one where I give my pet fish his weekly shampoo. That’s something I never miss.

*I have entertained myself, if no one else, by writing about this event and the “distinguished” list of speakers but this Raimondi guy deserves some additional observation and it’s serious, assuming he’s the person mentioned in numerous internet entries and videos.  First of all, I cannot for the life of me understand why any presidential candidate or any group of his supporters would want to associate with a proclaimed mob enforcer and Pope-killer.  Second, Raimondi has critics who claim he is a complete fraud.  Third, an internet search turns up several reports that I find more credible than his claims about his sniper work in Vietnam including a 2023 article on Historynet (originally in Vietnam magazine) about Staff Sgt. Adelbert F. Waldron III being the highest-scoring sniper in Vietnam with 109 confirmed kills, for which he earned two Distinguished Service Crosses, a Silver Star, and three Bronze Star Medals. A directory listing all winners of these three awards during the Vietnam War does not list Raimondi receiving any of them. I will leave it to you to judge what kind of presidential candidate would allow himself to be pictured prominently with someone like this.

Who Will be Next?

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The fish are in the barrel.

The kids are back in school.

—and in Winder, Georgia a few days ago, a 14-year old boy with a gun went fish hunting.  He killed four.

It’s the 45th school shooting this year, the 385th mass shooting in the United States.

Newsweek has counted 2,034 school shootings in this country since 2004. California has had the most, 169. Texas has had 141, to rank second. In today’s culture, these numbers should not be unexpected; they’re our two most populous states.

A few days ago—September 7—the Associated Press reported the Georgia incident was the 30th mass shooting of 2024, producing 131 deaths. Four or more people have to die to be considered a “mass shooting” as compiled by the AP and USA Today, working in conjunction with Northeastern University. Last year was one of the deadliest on record, 42 incidents, 217 deaths..

It might surprise some people to hear someone such as Jennifer Briemann say it’s time to take school security seriously. Briemann is the Deputy Director of the NRA Institute for Legislative Action. But she also tells Newsweek “The reality is that the proposals put forth by those who wish to disarm law-abiding citizens would not have prevented this senseless tragedy in Georgia.”

The rhetoric remains unchanged. So do the school shootings. There is a place for reasonable, pragmatic discussions—but they can’t happen as long as the political parties talk at each other instead of to each other.

A six-year-old video has re-emerged in the wake of the latest killings. It is an example of ongoing political unwillingness to confront this issue, the tendency to divert attention away from it, and the tendency to hide behind an illogical argument.

On March 24, 2018, Colorado Congresswoman Lauren Boebert, whose critics consider her one of the nuttier members of Congress, decided to drive to Carbondale, Colorado where students were taking part in the national March for Our Lives in the wake of the 17-death school shooting in Parkland Florida. She apparently Facebooked as she drove and she said:

“So, I am on my way to Carbondale Colorado. There’s supposedly an organized march. The March for Our Lives is going to take place and I’m really interested to see if people know what they’re marching for.  I guess this is supposed to be the beginning of people speaking out to take away our Second Amendment Rights, and I’m not happy about it.  If this is really a March for Our Lives, let’s march against abortion, because I was looking at statistics and there are nearly one million abortions per year in America. One million!  Do you know how many gun violence deaths there are, gun related deaths there are in America, per year?  15,000. Hmmm.  A drop in a bucket, I’d say.  So, I left Rifle, Colorado; I’m not going into Shooters right now. I’m going to Carbondale and I’m going to see what these people really believe, if they know what they’re marching for. If they know that they are marching against their rights.  They’re marching, saying, “Hey, I have a right that I don’t want. Take it away from me. Get rid of this. (she is smiling as she makes these comments, by the way.) I want the people around me to not be able to protect themselves, to not be able to defend me.” I’m not—you know, I’m driving here, I think it’s kind of similar to talking on speaker phone so I guess I’m safe. But, I was thinking, my government requires me to wear this (shows her seat belt). I have to wear them to protect myself. And I can’t have my 9 millimeter to protect myself?  I don’t think so. I don’t think so, not today, no. (laughs).

She apparently though herself humorous for talking about the town of Rifle (a nice place on I-70 in the Rockies) and Shooters, the sports bar, in her soliloquy in which she ignored any of the humanity behind the demonstrations, showed no awareness of any of the pathos so many felt and were feeling, and offered nothing of comfort to the affected or a cure for the problems that compound the school shootings other than seemingly suggest that everybody should have a 9 mm pistol.

She was driving and glancing at her cell phone during the presentation, unaware that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimated almost 44,000 people died in traffic crashes last year.

They’re just bigger drops in the bucket. The agency thinks more than 13,500 of those fatalities were alcohol-related.  Eh.  If it’s not an aborted baby, these deaths seem to be insignificant to her.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates at least 3,000 of the 44,000 people who die in traffic crashes each year die because of distracted driving. Maybe they’re just mist in the bucket to her.

If those are just drops, how would she rate the World Health Organization’s estimate that eight-million people a year die because of tobacco-related issues.  The CDC says more than 480,000 deaths a year result from cigarette smoking—almost sixty years after the first warnings appeared on cigarette packages by federal mandate. More drops.

The National Center for Health Statistics estimated 49,476 people committed suicide in the United States in 2022.  Of those, 27,032 used firearms.

Drip, drip, drip.

Every one of those deaths, whether by traffic crash, smoking, or suicide is a tragedy to somebody. As is an abortion. But she seems to be saying that abortion is her only concern.

For one thing, her “15,000” gun related deaths are pretty low. But looking for ways to minimize those deaths is too insignificant for her to worry about.

As for the seat belt—It’s a government mandate that reduces the chance of death or injury, not just for her but for others riding with her or in the other vehicle.

Comparing a seatbelt to a gun is over the top. Seat belts protect those who should not be driving as well as those who have no restrictions. There are few mandates that affect people who should not have guns. Instead, her argument seems to be that if everybody had a 9-millimeter gun, they’d be safe.

Yeah. Right.  The students and the teachers in Georgia or in Parkland, Florida in 2018 or at any of the other mass-shooting sites in the last few decades would have had the presence of mind and the time to draw their Glocks from their holsters, backpacks, or desk drawers when someone walked into their rooms and immediately started shooting that the shootings would not have happened?

The students and others who were marching in Colorado, D.C., and other places that day were not saying they wanted to eliminate a right—the Second Amendment.  They were saying THEY have a right, too.  And if Boebert and other pro-life, pro-gun zealots don’t see the hypocrisy of the overlaps of the two issues and quit bloviating about the exclusivity of both, more fish in more barrels will be shot.

The right to life and the right to live are separate issues.  Policy makers who strain to put them together solve nothing and avoid arriving at responsible difficult answers.  There is shame in the repetition of that pattern.

And that is why more children will become fishes in barrels this year.

The school year is still young. Who will be the next fish in the next barrel while nothing is done by those who know a 9 millimeter pistol is not the real answer?

GWOT Failure and its Coattails

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(NOTE—This material originally was posted for August 1, the day before the primary election. It was posted  in unreadable form so we are re-posting it today.  Although the entry refers to candidates in the primary election, the issues remain for the general election so we are re-posting the entry to discuss those issues because they remain valid for the primary survivors who will make them issues in their new campaigns.)

 

One would think, to view some Missouri candidates’ commercials that our state is being overrun by fentanyl-fueled escaped mental patients, prison escapees, murderers, rapists, robbers—-and probably some shoplifters and car thieves just to be inclusive—from south of the border. .

Several of these candidates for statewide office have promised to “fix” the illegal immigrant problem (aka “unregistered immigrant” problem), a national issue that has been made only worse by a couple of governors who have “fixed” their problems by shipping immigrants—legally here or not—to other states. The Missouri candidates have not told us how they are going to solve a national problem.

There have been promises of mobilizing all of the law enforcement agencies in the state and even calling out the National Guard to end this overwhelming threat, which sounds like a good time to achieve your dream of driving 150 mph on I-70 because there sure won’t be any deputies or troopers left to catch you because they are out hauling in people generally of Central American origin.

One candidate has stated he personally will drive the buses stuffed with these folks back to the border—to Texas, which has one of the governors shipping immigrants to other states. He could call it “Operation Return to Sender.”

That’s great public policy—getting into an immigrant-shipping war with another state.

Sheesh! What a bunch of nonsense all of this is.

But a lot of our candidates for statewide office have spent campaign funds to go to Texas so they can produce a commercial showing them bravely standing in front of the Great Wall of Trump and most sincerely telling us they will solve the illegal immigrant problem.  The whole darned thing.

And there’s a point they hope voters won’t think about—that Biden’s “failed immigration policies” are to a significant degree the failure of the GWOT to do the job our former president promised it would do.  Perhaps his “beautiful wall” hasn’t saved us after all.

And by the way, in the eight years since he told us the GWOT would stop the flow of these dangerous men, women, and children—and Mexico would pay for it—we’re still waiting to see the first check signed by the President of our southern neighbor.

If the GWOT was working as well as its advocates said back in 2016 that it would, we wouldn’t have these problems and our candidates could be focused instead on what they will do with the REAL problems Missourians face, including—

—a chronically unfunded mental health system

—domestic homelessness (I haven’t seen any immigrants, legal or illegal, on the streets of Missouri’s Capital City.)

—underfunded payments to nursing homes

—Loss of Medicaid coverage for thousands of Missouri’s children and delays in providing medical care for them.

—Straightening out the state’s troubled foster care program

—Continued weak state compensation to counties for housing state prisoners

—Uncertain future for road and bridge funding

—weak support for veterans hospitals

—-advisability of state funding for stadiums in KC and St. Louis.

—-inadequate health and reproductive care for women (The privately-funded Commonwealth Fund, which focuses on health care issues, recently ranked Missouri 40th out of 51 states and DC in this category.)

We could go on and on but the only thing the candidates seem to want to go on and on about is the immigrant problem.  You’d think we’re being overrun by illegal immigrants from south of the border—all of whom, to hear the candidates tell it, are threats to our society and our safety.

They are quite willing to play fast and loose with the facts when they blame unregistered immigrants for high crime problems.

The Brennan Center, founded at the New York University School of law by former clerks of Supreme Court Justice William Brennan, Jr., reported in late May:

In the past few months, politicians and certain media outlets have latched on to a narrative that recent immigrants, especially undocumented ones, are causing spikes in crime. Instead of gathering data and examining the issue empirically, they are making this broad assertion based on highly publicized individual incidents of crime by undocumented immigrants. All acts of violence must be taken seriously. But policymakers should not attribute blame to entire classes of people when individuals commit crimes.

The research does not support the view that immigrants commit crime or are incarcerated at higher rates than native-born Americans. In fact, immigrants might have less law enforcement contact compared to nonimmigrants. Focusing on the facts is imperative, especially given that immigration has become a top issue for voters ahead of the election.

Substantial research has assessed the relationship between immigration and crime. Numerous studies show that immigration is not linked to higher levels of crime, but rather the opposite. Studies have also examined the impact of the concentration of immigrants in a community on crime patterns, finding that immigration is associated with lower crime rates and an increase in structural factors — such as social connection and economic opportunity — that are linked to neighborhood safety.

When looking specifically at the relationship between undocumented immigrants and crime, researchers come to similar conclusions. Numerous studies show that undocumented immigration does not increase violent crime; research examining crime rates in so-called sanctuary cities also found no discernable difference when compared to similarly situated cities without sanctuary policies. One study that focused on drug crimes and driving under the influence found that unauthorized immigration status was associated with reductions in arrests for those offenses.

The research also shows that overall, immigrants have a similar or even lower likelihood of incarceration compared to native-born Americans, a trend that holds for immigrants from various source countries. For example, one study found that undocumented immigrants are 33 percent less likely to be incarcerated than people born in the United States. Indications of a negative relationship between immigration and crime also emerge when looking at conviction rates.

In a Texas study, undocumented immigrants were found to be 47 percent less likely to be convicted of a crime in 2017 than native-born Americans. More recently, a study looked at census data over a 150-year period; since 1870, incarceration rates of immigrants are actually slightly lower than U.S.-born people and that gap widens in recent years with immigrants 60 percent less likely to be incarcerated than U.S.-born citizens.

Despite claims from conservative media and campaign rhetoric pointing to immigration as the cause of crime increases, there is no evidence that immigration — and in particular the recent influx of immigrants to Democratic-run cities — is causing a “crime wave.”

The Pew Research Center reported in 2017 that, nationally, 45% of our foreign-born population were naturalized citizens. Another 27% were lawful permanent residents. Another six percent were temporary lawful residents.  Only 34% were unauthorized immigrants—some 10.5 million people spread throughout our 50 states.

World Population Review noted in 2020, at the end of the Trump term, that this country “has the highest immigration population in the world at 50.6 million” people, about 15% of our total population. And we welcomed people from more than 200 countries and territories. The Review noted that in 2020, Mexico had the most immigrants to this country (hardly a surprise) at more than 100,000, more than the number of immigrants from India (47,000) and China (41,000) combined. Here’s a compilation of our top ten contributors of immigrants.

Here’s the compilation of our top ten immigrant-contributing countries as of 2020:

Mexico  100,325

India  46,363

China  41,483

Dominican Republic  30,005

Vietnam  29,995

Philippines  25,491

El Salvador, 17,907

Brazil  16,746

Cuba  16,367

South Korea, 16,244

Honestly, do we REALLY have an immigration problem in Missouri? We certainly do not have one that merits the scare language we are hearing from some of our political candidates.

We turn to the American Immigration Council that says only four percent of Missouri’s population are immigrants while another four percent of us are native-born but have at least one immigrant parent. That works out to 122,742 women, 111,553 men, and 24,095 children.

Eighty-six percent of Missouri’s emigrants speak English “well” or “very well.”

Seventeen percent of our immigrants have less than a high school diploma. That’s about double the percent of native-born Missourians. Thirty-one percent of our native-born Missourians have not progressed beyond high school, almost twice the percentage of the immigrant population (18%).

But College education?  Sixty-five percent of immigrant Missourians have some college or a college degree or more.  That’s five percentage points more than the natives. And when it comes to degrees, 44% of our immigrants have one but only 29% of the natives do.

Now we get to the exportables.

The Pew Trust says we have about 60,000 undocumented immigrants in Missouri.  That is only about ONE ONE-HUNDREDTH OF ONE PERCENT (0.01) of our population.

These candidates expect us get all frothy about 1/100th of 1% percent of the population of Missouri—and they want to expend huge amounts of resources to run them out of the state while refusing to indicate any sort of leadership on more broadly-significant needs for the remaining 99.99% of us.

No matter what you might think of undocumented immigrants, consider the family disruptions that will happen with the great immigrant roundup—More than 34,500 United States citizens live with at least one undocumented family member, according to American Progress.org, which also says two percent of Missouri’s children live with at least one undocumented family member.

The numbers also include 3,010 “dreamers,” young people covered under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. Another 37-hundred people have been granted legal status under the program.

Five percent of Missouri’s labor force are immigrant workers—more than 164,000 people.  About 31,400 of those people work in manufacturing, 24,600 are in health care and social assistance. Nineteen thousand more are in accommodation and food services, 19,000 are in educational services  and more than 15,500 are in professional. Scientific, and technical services.

Taxes don’t care if someone is legal or illegal. If they get a paycheck, they pay taxes and newamericaneconomy.org says immigrants paid almost two-Billion dollars in federal taxes and more than 790 million dollars in state and local taxes in 2018.  UNDOCUMENTED immigrants paid an estimated 107-million dollars in federal taxes and more than 62-million in state and local taxes that same year.

Our immigrants spent $6.8-Billion in Missouri in 2018.

And almost 15,000 of them owned businesses that, in 2018 generated about $400-million in business income.

There undoubtedly are newer statistics but they likely are different only by a few degrees.

About those illegals—

The Migration Policy Institute figures Missouri has 54,000 unauthorized immigrants. About two-thirds are from Mexico and Central America. Two-thirds have been in this state for ten or fewer years.

Four-thousand of them are younger than 16. More than half are 25-55. Eight thousand are married to a United States citizen. Three-thousand more are married to a legal permanent resident.

Twenty-nine percent of the immigrants are not in the work force—many being children and/or stay-at-home parents.

One statistic that is missing from all of these studies is a statistic often cited but does not exist.:

—how many jobs terrible people have “taken” from Missourians. Let’s see some statistics on the “replacement” contention that show a genuine effort to replace American workers with unregistered foreigners.

There is no immigrant Mafia walking into businesses, pointing guns at owners’ heads, and telling them to give a job to an immigrant or to fire a native Missourian so an immigrant can have a particular position.  Have you ever seen any help-wanted ads that say, “Native-born Missourians not wanted?” Immigrants are not replacing anybody.

Immigrants are the political whipping boys and girls of too many of our candidates who apparently have nothing significant to offer in terms of initiatives and programs that will help all ends of all boats to rise.

If the GWOT had done its job, these candidates might have nothing to talk about except more important issues that have a direct impact on all of us—-and Heaven forbid that they might ever do that.

Fake Law, Part One of a Series

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(In this week before the primary election, we are reluctantly embarking on a series of daily observations of campaigns and campaign non-issues that do little to enhance public confidence in the process. We are sorry to be as pessimistic as we might seem. Perhaps the survivors of the primaries will be more responsible in their general election campaigns.

The situation seems to us be so dire that we will not have our regular Tuesday visit with the toy department of journalism—sports.)

FAKE LAW

It makes good headlines.

But it’s a fake issue.

It rallies the core.

But it’s a fake issue.

It paints a false portrait.

And it’s a fake issue.

It misleads voters.

Because it’s a fake issue.

It makes people think there’s a big problem.

But there isn’t.

It tries to capitalize on fear.

But it’s a lie.

And it’s one of the reasons Democrats in the Missouri Senate staged a record-setting filibuster in the last week of a legislative session that was characterized by filibusters from a small group of Republicans who have tried to run the chamber.

The legislation involved was a proposal making it harder to amend the state constitution. A bipartisan vote shut down debate and sent the bill to a committee that would work on compromises that might let it move forward in the last two days of the session.

The fact that Republicans and Democrats did something together put the Senate’s problem children into a tizzy.  Freedom Caucus ringleader Bill Eigel, who apparently thinks one has to disagree disagreeably to succeed in today’s politics, warned Senate colleagues that the caucus would object to any compromises that changes what the FC demands.

And what the FC demanded was passage of a bill that would become partly fake law.

If you’re keeping score, this is the proposal that says no change can be made in the state constitution, even if the statewide vote approves the change, unless voters in five of our eight congressional districts approve.  It’s a Republican effort to keep the heavy Democratic vote from the metro areas, and the Columbia area, from offsetting the conservative outstate votes.

It also contains “fake law” provisions prohibiting non-citizens from voting on constitutional amendments—-something already forbidden by Missouri and federal law.

But it sounds good in an election year.  Democrats kept the bill from going to a final Senate vote, complaining the language was included just to deceive voters. Eigel said those characterizations were “completely unfair” and the measure presented “a great opportunity” to keep non-citizens from voting.

—Except the ban already is on the books.

Democrats in the Senate, with Republican leaders refusing to take parliamentary action to shut down debate, chewed up three of the precious last five days of the session in a filibuster that lasted 51-plus hours.                    .

The demagoguery on this issue is going to be with us through November, regardless of any legislative action because MAGA Republicans, in particular, want to use it to beat Democrats—i.e. Joe Biden—over the head on immigration issues.

A few days ago in Washington, House Speaker Mike Johnson unveiled the proposed Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act. Don’t be surprised if a House committee decides to “investigate,” giving majority members of the committee opportunities to condemn the actions or inactions of the administration to keep illegal immigrants from voting.

Another new committee, in the Missouri House, is going to investigate crime by illegal immigrants, another opportunity to make sure the issue’s political value is not wasted before the election. It has been expanded to include crimes AGAINST immigrants, a fair thing to consider.

We’ve all watched this kind of political circus on other topics.

And that’s what this harping on immigrant voting is.  Political circus.

What it is NOT is an issue. We’ll tell you why in our next entry.

For They Have Sown the Wind 

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We have come within an inch—honestly, an inch—of a terrible tragedy for our country. The attempted assassination of Donald Trump has brought solemn calls for reducing the toxic level of political discourse.

On the other hand, there is not-unexpected finger pointing that indicates those calls will be ignored soon.

Junior Trump said right afterward, “He will never stop fighting to save America, no matter what the radical left throws at him.”  House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, whose life was almost ended by an attack on a congressional baseball practice, said on FOX News that fears that a Trump victory in November would be a threat to America were “incendiary rhetoric” that could encourage “one person who is just unhinged to hear that and…think that’s the signal to go take somebody out.” He called on candidates to “focus on the issues that people care about.”

(“Unhinged” is the word we’ve heard most frequently applied to Trump’s speeches.)

The Daily Caller conservative website blamed “Liberal Media” for downplaying the assassination attempt at first. Columnist Harold Hutchinson accused “multiple corporate media outlets” of not reporting shots had been fired at the Trump campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania—as if reporters on the scene should have filed comprehensive stories about the incident when the first shot was fired.

(FYI:  He could have said the same thing about FOX News but conveniently didn’t. The first report on FOX news referred to “some kind of disturbance” and about a minute and a half after the shots were fired the anchor said, “This is happening quickly; we are trying to ascertain what’s happened.”)

Hutchinson and Florida Senator Marco Rubio placed media-bashing at the top of their priority list by urging readers to think reporters on the scene should know the entire story before the last shot was fired—before it was understood that the noises had, in fact, been gunfire, not fireworks.

Hutchinson noted NBC’s post on X, “Secret Service rushes Trump off stage after popping noises heard at his Pennsylvania rally,” and a Los Angeles Times posting, “Trump whisked off stage in Pennsylvania after loud noises rang through the crowd.”

Florida Senator Marco Rubio took CNN to task when it posted on X, “JUST IN: Donald Trump is rushed offstage by Secret Service during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania. Follow live updates.”  He wrote on his own X account, “Really? No mention of the attempt to kill him?”  And when CNN said, “Secret Service rushes Trump off stage after he falls at rally,’ Rubio wrote, “Even in a horrifying moment such as this they just can’t help themselves.”

No, it was Marco Rubio who just couldn’t help HIMself.

Reporters on the scene, in fact, knew no more than any other observer—and there were hundreds of those, many of whom talked about the instant confusion of the moment.

The reporters reported at that instant what they KNEW.  A few chaotic seconds later, updates went out—the Secret Service had covered Trump; Trump had blood on his ear; the “pop-pop-pop” was gunfire and some people in the audience had been hit; Trump was up and being escorted to a vehicle and hustled off-site.

Bill Goodykoontz, the media critic for the Arizona Republic, commented later in the day, “Cable and broadcast outlets covered the news in remarkably similar ways…they both covered it well and, for the most part, they covered in responsibly.”

“What was perhaps even more impressive was what journalists didn’t do — they didn’t jump to conclusions, whether about exactly what happened, about Trump’s condition or about motives. Being first is important in breaking news, but not as important as being right, and most networks hewed to that Saturday.”

He also said, “Neither CNN nor Fox News jumped to irresponsible conclusions. In fact, they didn’t even call it a shooting until that could be confirmed, in a show of near-miraculous restraint.”

Fox wouldn’t put up with former Congressman Jason Chaffetz when he went off on a rant: “They tried to incarcerate him; they’ve now had an assassination attempt on the president. The temperature in this country, we all need to take a deep breath. But at the same time, you know what this country we have got to make sure that we can have free fair elections.”

Goodykoontz commented, “Whether by coincidence or wise decision-making, the network drowned him out with a replay of the incident.  Good.”

Ohio Senator J. D. Vance, reportedly on Trump’s short list as a running mate, went on X and said President Biden’s rhetoric “led directly to President Trump’s attempted assassination,” a totally irresponsible allegation at a time when the shooter’s name was not known and, as we write this, his motivations are unknown.

Samantha Vinograd, a former Assistant Secretary for Counterterrorism, Threat Prevention, and Law Enforcement Policy in the Homeland Security Department told CBS’s Margaret Brennan, “It is frankly unpatriotic at this moment to be stoking the flames when we know that we are sitting on a cauldron of tensions. … The counter-terrorism officials and homeland security officials that I’ve spoken to in the last few hours are deeply concerned that this event will be used as a rallying cry to launch attacks against individuals associated with the Biden campaign and lead to broader domestic distress.”

George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley, who has been an analyst on diverse media outlets, wrote for The Hill, “The assassination attempt of former President Donald Trump left a nation stunned. But the most shocking aspect was that it was not nearly as surprising as it should have been. For months, politicians, the press and pundits have escalated reckless rhetoric in this campaign on both sides.”  He called it “rage rhetoric” in castigating both the right and the left

“Rage is addictive and contagious. It is also liberating. It allows people a sense of license to take actions that would ordinarily be viewed as repulsive. As soon as Trump was elected, unhinged rage became the norm,” he said.

He spends most of his article criticizing the Left for its rhetoric, suggesting it is not reported on with the same emphasis the press gives to Trump rhetoric.  He concludes, “We have come full circle to where we began as a Republic. In the 1800 election, Federalists and Jeffersonians engaged in similar rage rhetoric.

“Federalists told citizens that, if Jefferson were elected, “Murder, robbery, rape, adultery, and incest will be openly taught and practiced, the air will be rent with the cries of the distressed, the soil will be soaked with blood, and the nation black with crimes.”

“Jeffersonians warned that, if Adams were reelected, “chains, dungeons, transportation, and perhaps the gibbet” awaited citizens and they “would instantaneously be put to death…”

“In our current age of rage, politicians have sought to use the same anger and fear to rally support at any cost. This is the cost.”

He makes an excellent set of points that support the immediate post-shooting suggestions that it is time to tone down the rhetoric.  The question now is—who goes first?

Some readers will see the following comments as indicating a bias.  It might be so.  But as we watched the events unfold, and as we were grateful that Mr. Trump escaped with his life, we nonetheless were aware that he is the one who calls people by derogatory names, who has ridiculed in some of his speeches a disabled person, who has shown disrespect to judges and the judicial system, who continues to spout outright lies on numerous fronts, who encouraged followers to show up in Washington on January 6, 2021 with the promise that “it will be wild,” who did nothing to reduce the violence later at the Capitol by so-called “innocent tourists,” who to this day censures his own Vice-President because Mike Pence followed the Constitution, and who maintains that he, himself, is above the law—

And, God help us, we could not avoid thinking of two verses from the Bible:

Paul’s letter to the Galatians, a congregation in present Turkey, in which we find, “Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he reap.”

Or an earlier observation from the Old Testament prophet Hosea: “For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind.”

Mr. Trump is not alone fulfilling these warnings but he is the most vocal representative of them.

Let us watch him as well as the people who oppose him to see if this terrible brush with tragedy really changes anything.   Or whether it’s just more post-near-apocalyptic talk.

 

The 28th Amendment

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The United States Supreme Court’s ruling on presidential immunity has scared the bejesus out of  a lot of people on both sides of the aisle because it grants Presidents immunity from prosecution for official acts but leaves the President liable for his unofficial acts. The ruling puts the first determination of what’s official and what is not into the hands of judges hearing cases accusing former President Trump of making illegal efforts to change the outcome of the 2020 election and of taking classified documents with him when he left office—among other alleged sins. Any decisions by the judges can be appealed to the Supreme Court, further delaying any final disposition of the cases.

There are some things we haven’t heard discussed much that might backfire on Trump.

Some think the ruling means that this entire issue will dog Trump’s campaign for weeks. The public discussion of what he did or didn’t do could continue, if not increase, the uncertainty about whether his party and his voters will elect a President who also is a jailbird or, under a reasonable person’s concept of proper behavior, should be one.

Presidential liability will be awfully hard to describe but right off, the amendment should provide that no President can pardon himself for any crimes, official or unofficial.

It should begin with this concept:

The President of the United States, constitutionally, must be born in this country or an area that is considered part of the United States (overseas military bases, for example).  The President, therefore is, first of all, a citizen of a country often described as “a country of laws, not of kings.”  To suggest that a citizen elevated by fellow citizens to the most important office in the land has been given powers by those citizens that go beyond the law governing all citizens except for himself or herself is absurd.

Period.

We are wondering if the nation’s top legal scholars are starting to coalesce into a working group that will draft an amendment clearly stating that a President can be held criminally liable, even for official acts. The concern that a president could legally order the assassination of a rival, while seeming extreme, is a real concern, given Trump’s boasting.

But what about a President allowing water boarding?  Dropping atomic bombs on cities?  Freeing slaves in rebelling states?  Ordering Japanese-Americans into concentration camps without due process? Closing banks in bad economic times?  Sending federal troops to cities?

Think back to historic presidential actions—-the evacuation of Native Americans from their homelands in the east and forcing them to walk to hostile land in future Oklahoma.

Buying the entire Louisiana Territory and financing it with money borrowed from a hostile country (England) without authorization from Congress.

Congressman Joe Morelle of New Jersey, the ranking Democrat on the House Administration Committee, announced the day before Independence Day that he will introduce a proposed 28th Amendment “to reverse the Supreme Court’s catastrophic decision and ensure no president is above the law. This amendment will do what they failed to do—prioritize our democracy,” He continued in a statement from his office, “The Supreme Court decision will cause a seismic shift in the powers of the presidency unless we take immediate action to ensure accountability, integrity, and justice prevail.”

He sent a letter to his colleagues saying, “This amendment will do what SCOTUS failed to do—prioritize our democracy,” urging his colleagues “to stand with me on the front line to protect our democracy.”

“Immediate action,” unfortunately, is unlikely and perhaps unlikely in the hyper-partisan Congress. The House and the Senate both must approve the resolution with two-thirds votes.  If that occurs, three-fourths of the states, 38, will have to ratify the amendment before it is added to the Constitution.  The process could take years, far more years than Donald Trump will serve if he is re-elected. But the danger Congressman Morelle sees flowing from Trump is real and it is imminent and there is precedent.

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What Trump did and said after the death five years ago of George Floyd prompted the Chicago Council of Lawyers to speak out. It’s a little long but it’s important reading in today’s climate.

The United States is a Nation Ruled by Laws, Not Kings

The Rule of Law, not the rule of kings, is a founding principle of our country. It remains a core principle that defines who we are as Americans. It allows each of us to walk down a public street without fear of being grabbed, without cause, by government police and thrown into an unmarked van. It allows us to have a peaceful potluck with friends without fear that a government official will use violence against us just for getting together. It allows us to speak our mind against government policies, without worrying that those with power will use our speech as a reason to harm us…  

The Rule of Law in the United States does not begin with the President. It does not begin with any political party. It begins with Our Constitution…The President isn’t at the top. The Constitution is…

The original Constitution is mainly about one thing: power. The Constitution’s structure for our government is borne from the core principle that a single individual should not hold all power.  It divides power between three branches of government, and it further divides power between the federal government and the States, whose laws are also subject and subordinate to the Constitution…

The U.S. Supreme Court has always ruled that none of the Bill of Rights, not even the First Amendment, is unlimited. But these Court decisions recognize that the limits on our individual rights must be constructed with care and exercised in a narrow and judicious manner. In 1969, for example, the U.S. Supreme Court (Shuttlesworth v. Birmingham) held, in protecting an American citizen’s right to protest and also allowing for certain limited restrictions, that any licensing requirement for “free expression in publicly owned places” is unconstitutional if it’s not narrowly defined and objectively applied.

The Constitution, again seeking to limit federal authority, provides that each state is empowered to establish and enforce laws protecting the welfare, safety, and health of the public within its state. The power of states is reflected in the fact that most criminal law is state law; most police forces are state police forces, not federal. While there is some federal criminal law, in comparison to state criminal laws, it is narrow and constrained.  There is no federal law giving a President the right to direct federal officers to occupy a city or a state or to dominate any part of a state, on his own accord, without an invitation from a state government that is seeking help.

Federal law gives federal authorities the right to conduct some actions within states, but these authorized acts are targeted and constrained. Federal agents are authorized to protect federal properties. Federal agents are authorized to enforce federal criminal laws, such as kidnapping, bank robbery, criminal conspiracy, human trafficking, mail fraud, and other specific laws. This all fits within our established system of laws.  These laws are all tailored to fit within the bounds of our Constitution.

Federal Officers are Doing Precisely What the Constitution Prohibits

Is the President following these laws? Is he abiding his oath to serve the Constitution? What are federal officers in Portland doing? As summarized on July 17 by Charlie Warzel, an opinion writer at large for The New York Times:

Thursday night [July 16] marked the 50th consecutive night of demonstrations in Portland, Ore. The protests began after the killing of George Floyd—tens of thousands of people took to the streets to protest police violence and racial injustice. Since then, the protests have grown smaller, but clashes between law enforcement officers and protesters have escalated—on July 12, videos circulated of a federal officer shooting a protester in the head with a nonlethal munition, resulting in a skull fracture. Coverage of the unrest has caught the attention of President Trump, who vowed to ‘dominate’ the protesters with federal law enforcement officers.

 The New York Times reported the story of Christopher David, a former Navy Civil Engineering Corps Officer and a 1988 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy:

“I wasn’t even paying attention to the protests at all until the feds came in,” Mr. David said. “When that video came out of those two unmarked guys in camouflage abducting people and putting them in minivans, that’s when I became aware.”

He had taken a bus to the Portland courthouse and was about to leave around 10:45 p.m. when federal officers emerged and began advancing on the protesters. He said he felt the need to ask the officers, Why were they violating their oath to the Constitution?

Instead of getting an answer on Saturday, Mr. David, a 6-foot-2, 280-pound former Navy varsity wrestler, found himself being beaten with a baton by a federal officer dressed in camouflage fatigues as another doused him with pepper spray, according to video of the encounter.

 As Mr. David noted, one widely circulated video from Portland shows a group of men in camouflage military-like uniforms emerging from a van that one might see in anywhere USA, grabbing a protester walking alone on the sidewalk, not on or next to federal property, forcing him into the van without telling him who they were or why they grabbed him, and driving away.  Another video shows federal police using tear gas and flash bangs on a single line of about two dozen mothers linked arm-to-arm, wearing bike helmets, and chanting “moms are here, Feds stay clear.”

Every Oregon official that might have authority to request help from federal officers has pleaded for the federal agents to leave. Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler told NBC News that the presence of federal agents was making things worse: “…They’re not wanted here. We haven’t asked them here. In fact, we want them to leave.” Oregon Governor Kate Brown asked the President directly to withdraw these agents from her state. The Washington Post reported on July 17 that the Governor said: “I told him that the federal government should remove federal officers from our streets. I said it’s like adding gasoline to a fire.” The Post also reported that Governor Brown is convinced that “‘they are not interested in problem solving,’ and this has ‘nothing to do with public safety.’”

Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum has sued to prohibit these federal agents from making further arrests and continuing to violate the Constitutional rights of protesters and those detained. “I think every American needs to be concerned about what’s happening here in Portland. These federal agencies are operating with no transparency and against the will of just about every leader in our state,” said Rosenblum.

Federal officials claim that federal law gives their agents the authority to do what they are doing, regardless of whether proper state authorities request their presence. These claims are specious, at best. It is not even a close call…

The federal agents are not limiting their targets to the specific individuals violating federal law by damaging federal property.  They are not using their authority narrowly, when they use their weapons against mothers standing in a line chanting or when they strike and pepper spray a U.S. Navy veteran who is trying to talk with them. These federal officers are not judiciously using their authority when they grab a man walking alone on the street and take him by force into an unmarked van and drive him away to an undisclosed location – all without any probable cause or identifying themselves as federal officers.

Whatever the reason, the federal officers are making the streets of Portland more lawless, not less. These federal officers are openly and egregiously violating the rights of peaceful, law-abiding mothers, veterans, and other Americans, rather than protecting them. These federal officers are jeopardizing the safety of local law enforcement, not bolstering it…

Trump is now Primed to Attack the Rule of Law in Chicago

The President now appears to be targeting Chicago, just as he has targeted Portland – but this time, the President is not even offering the guise of protecting federal property as the reason.  The Chicago Tribune reported on July 20 that the “U.S. Department of Homeland Security is crafting plans to deploy about 150 federal agents to Chicago this week.” The paper reports that the Department has not disclosed its plan for the additional agents, and that even the Superintendent of the Chicago Police does not know why this administration is sending additional federal law enforcement.

The President has talked as recently as July 20 about sending in troops to fix the local violence problem in Chicago. It is undeniable that parts of Chicago do have a serious gun violence problem that needs to be fixed. Reasonable people have asked whether more government policing would help; other reasonable people have asked whether it might help to do policing in another way. Whatever the solution or solutions might be, the President has no legal authority —without a request from legally authorized Illinois officials—to move federal officers to Chicago for the purpose of confronting local crime issues.  Neither Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot nor Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker have requested additional federal officers for that purpose.

There have been ongoing peaceful protests on issues of anti-Black racial injustice in our town, but there has been little-to-no reported property damage from the recent demonstrations.  Further, and more to the point, we are not aware of a single report of any damage to federal properties from the recent protests…Yet, Trump has recently grouped Portland with Chicago and other American cities, such as Detroit, Philadelphia, and New York, as places of “anarchy.” For Chicago, and we expect for the other named cities too, this is less true than saying that a naked emperor is wearing the most beautiful clothes ever made from satin and silk. Chicago is dealing with modern American problems, to be sure, which now include COVID-19 – but Chicago is not a place where anarchy reigns…

Our system starts with the Rule of Law, not the rule of a king or an emperor or even a President.

President Trump and the leaders of the officers in his administration apparently have no shame. The Trump administration started to use federal agents dressed in military gear to attack peaceful, law-abiding citizens in Portland. Now, it is moving federal officers into Chicago to possibly do the same thing in our city; it is threatening to deploy more federal officers in other cities throughout America…Whatever federal agents are now doing in Portland, we do know one thing about their actions: they are not doing them in the name of the law.

Many people fear the United States Supreme Court has blown a hole in the Constitution and has given Donald Trump Carte Blanche to do anything that he wishes to do in carrying out his stated vengeance campaign.

It is beyond urgent that this hole in the Constitution be closed. It is time to create Donald Trump’s legacy—-which he will not want—-by enacting a 28th Amendment to protect all of us from someone who believes he is greater than the country he seeks to rule.

 

King Lear and the Convicted Felon

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A Shakespearian tragedy, some are calling the Trump conviction, not noting the irony of associating someone such as our former president with the talents of a great author about whom he likely has never read, at least with any understanding or appreciation.

One definition of a literary tragedy is a work in which the main character has “a tragic flaw, moral weakness, or inability to cope with unfavorable circumstances.”

That pretty well matches the main character of the drama we are witnessing.   Unfortunately, it also describes many of his acolytes who by their support of him are becoming characters like him.

Which of Shakespeare’s 17th Century tragic characters most resemble the convicted felon/tar baby that many political hopefuls are eager to get stuck to with increased firmness—an old man who rewards those most loyal to him and in doing so is taught the hard way that rewarding loyalty has its penalties?

King Lear is the story of a old man who wants to pass on his estate to the one of his three daughters who loves him best. Two daughters tolerate him at best but flatter him to win his favor. The third daughter, the one he actually loves the most, thinks he knows the feeling is mutual and therefore doesn’t butter him up as her two sisters do.  He vainly falls for the adulation of the two, cuts out the one he loves the most, and gives his estate to the manipulative sisters. He alternates staying with the two winners who treat him badly. As he grows more addled, he is left a vagrant.  Too late he realizes his mistake in favoring the two manipulative sisters but he cannot correct it because his beloved youngest daughter dies.

One of those who stays loyal to Lear is the Earl of Gloucester, who muses in a late section of the play, “’Tis the times’ plague when mad men lead the blind.”

Writer Lawrence Noel interprets the line this way:

The time’s plague refers to it being a problem of the time or era. Referring to it as a plague suggests that it spreads widely and quickly. We might even think of it as being contagious.

Blind people relied on others for guidance, especially in unfamiliar territory. Madmen are insane and cannot distinguish between reality and fantasy.

Putting those elements together suggests that the audience is being told that one of the problems of the time is that those who must trust others to provide them with safe passage in the world are being led by those who do not see the world clearly or in its own state of reality, even for themselves.

As an excerpt, it reflects an attitude about the nature of politics that resonates with modern readers and playgoers in that faith in the clarity of our political leaders’ vision of the world has suffered some setbacks of late. They may assure the common people that we are blind to the realities which only they can see and so we must accept their leadership if we want to go anywhere new. If the leader’s visions are distorted or unhealthy, we are likely to suffer for them.

“When mad men lead the blind.”  The line is sometimes misquoted but that’s what Shakespeare wrote.

Writer and playwright Charlotte Ahlin, who was raised by two Shakespearean actors, has written, “His plays are surprisingly (and sometimes upsettingly) still relevant to our daily lives.” Some of the reactions to the hush money verdict verify her contention.

Many of our political leaders or political leader-wannabes are (in some cases) disappointing us in accusing the Biden justice system of persecuting our former president strictly for partisan political purposes and encouraging the public to ignore that the supposedly weaponized Justice Department is prosecuting two members of Biden’s party—Senator Bob Menendez and Congressman Henry Cuellar, AND that a holdover Trump appointee in the Justice Department is prosecuting Presidential Son Hunter Biden.

The hypocrisy—-

The depth of the betrayal of their integrity—

Their lack of political courage—-

Their disregard for the title of “public servant” that they have sacrificed in pursuit of power—

are appalling.

The damage they are doing to public confidence in one of the most important institutions that define the United States as an example of a republican democracy—a trial by a jury of one’s peers—seems to mean nothing to them.  They are willing to become hostages to the political whims of a man of a kind they likely would not want their daughters to marry. They kowtow to a king who demands to be flattered.

They are gladly capitalizing on leading the blind—the people who don’t know and don’t want to think—in a concerted effort to let our former president hold on to power regardless of the damage he has openly announced he will do.

Listen again to what many of them said about him after January 6.

Listen again to what many of them said about him in their presidential primary campaigns, brief though they were.

Listen to what he has said about them or about members of their families.

Look at the list of those who he promised in 2016 to hire (only “the best people”) for his administration and count the number who have faced criminal charges/financial ruin or jail sentences for their loyalty—or who have written books exposing his machinations.

No president in all of American history has had so many books by his once-closest associates written about his personal and politica l failings.

And wonder why those who are now attacking our legal system as weaponized and corrupt feel they have to read from the script (look for words such as “witch hunt” or “banana republic”) he peddles on social media or during obsequious interviews.

And then, ask yourself this:

Have you ever served on a jury or do you know anyone who has?

This bunch is suggesting the people such as you and your friends, who assumed the responsibility as jurors in his recent trial, somehow connived with the Justice Department to politically persecute this man who has openly claimed to be above the law. Anyone who has been on a jury, or who has been called for consideration to be on a jury, should be insulted by what these bed partners of the now-convicted felon are saying.

If Donald Trump was treated unfairly in his trial, it was the fault of his attorneys and, perhaps himself; there are a lot of people who say the lawyers crafted their defense of him at least partly because of his demands.

He had his chance to claim in court what he loves to claim outside of the court. As he has in the past, he said at the start of the trial that he would love to testify.  But in the end, he chickened out. Again.  He could have told his side of the story but, as he has done in the past, he did not.

—-Because he would have had to take an oath to tell the truth and he is incapable of doing so.

His lawyers helped pick the jury. To refresh your memory, here’s the kind of people they were, thanks to a compilation by NBC News.

Juror 1: A man who lives in West Harlem and works in sales. He is married, likes to do “anything outdoorsy,” and gets news from The New York Times, Fox News and MSNBC.

Juror 2: A man who works in investment banking, follows Twitter as well as Truth Social posts from Trump and said, “I don’t have any beliefs that might prevent me from being fair or impartial.”

Juror 3: A young man who has lived in Chelsea for five years, works as an attorney in corporate law, and likes to hike and run. He gets news from The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and Google.

Juror 4: A man who’s a security engineer and likes woodworking and metalworking.

Juror 5: A young woman who is a Harlem resident and works as a teacher. She lives with her boyfriend, loves writing, theater and traveling. She gets news from Google and TikTok and listens to podcasts on relationships and pop culture.

Juror 6: A young woman who lives in Chelsea and works as a software engineer. She gets news from The New York Times, Google, Facebook and TikTok.

Juror 7: A man who lives on the Upper East Side and works as attorney as a civil litigator. He enjoys spending time in the outdoors and gets his news from The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post and the Washington Post.

Juror 8: A man who’s retired but worked for a major wealth manager. He said he enjoys skiing, fly fishing and yoga.

Juror 9: A woman who is a speech therapist, gets news from CNN and likes reality TV podcasts.

Juror 10: A man who works in commerce, reads The New York Times and listens to podcasts on behavioral psychology.

Juror 11: A woman who works as a product development manager and watches late-night news and reads Google, business and fashion news.

Juror 12: A woman who is a physical therapist who likes running and tennis and listening to podcasts on sports and faith.

Alternate 1: A woman who works as an asset manager and likes to run, hang out with her friends and eat.

Pretty formidable list of persecutors who are tools of the Justice Department, don’t you think, especially since this trial was in a state court not a federal court where the Justice Department has a role?

The fact that it took this varied group only about eleven hours to unanimously convict our former president on every one of the THIRTY-FOUR charges speaks volumes for the strength of the case against him, the presentation of the evidence that supported all of those charges, and the inability of Trump and his lawyers to induce even one of the twelve to hang the jury.

There was nothing wrong with the justice system that day.

How strange it is that those sycophants, including several of our Missouri statewide candidates who also have swallowed gallons of the Trump Kool-Aid, to now expect a flawed justice system weaponized to get him and him alone to later exonerate a  president who tried during his own term to weaponize the Department of Justice.

Mad men. And some women leading “the blind,” people who don’t want to know but will blindly accept what they are told.  And the mad men are happy to lead them, happy to tell them.  And why?  Because they want power and lack the integrity to win it on their own standards.

They have, instead, attached themselves to arguably the least honest man in the country who spouts lies and lies and lies. And too many of our political leaders or leader wannabes are disgracing themselves in joining him in trying to disgrace those responsible citizens who fulfilled a sacred role in our society during his trial.

They have become dangerous in their service to an old king who thinks one-way loyalty is his privilege. They are the mad men.  We must not be blind to them.

Those who refuse to be blind can make sure they pay a price for their hypocrisy, their lack of integrity, honesty, and of courage when we vote in August and November.

 

All 34

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My God!

The enormity of a jury’s verdicts in a New York courtroom yesterday is difficult to grasp whether one is strongly anti-Trump or whether one is violently pro-Trump.  Years from now, generations unborn today will read in their history books of yesterday’s verdict as cold fact with no way to understand the depth of the national emotions triggered by a jury ruling that a former President of the United States is guilty of 34 felonies.

Thirty-four.

The number will never be the same, just as 9-11 was transformed into something beyond  a numerical value, just as 1-6 is a waymark in American history.

Some hoped the jury would issue 34 NOT guily verdicts; many—perhaps most—thought at least SOME guilty verdicts would come.   But all 34?

It is stunning.  And although there will be appeals, it seems impossible that all 34 convictions will be reversed.

Donald Trump can and will—already has—repeated his attacks on the judge, the prosecutor, the jury.

But twelve people, chosen in the historically-honored system of picking a jury of fellow citizens, have convincted him of 34 crimes.

What must it be like away from his normal public bluster when this  77-year old man realizes  that for the first time in his life, he has not been able to control or to ignore the responsibility for his actions?  In the privacy of his own rooms and with his own thoughts, what must this overwhelming rebuke of the way he has run his life be doing to him?  He may rage in public and in private but surely he knows, deep down, many of those he has bent to his will are now realizing his blood is in the water and they must transform themselves into sharks for their own self-preservation.

The bus is waiting.  How many of those he thought he controlled will decide it’s time he is the one thrown under it?

Much is made that he is the first president to face criminal charges and now the first to be convicted, a statement though often repeated has no practical effect.  Once just a frequently-spoken statement, now it is a statement of national tragedy.

And what shall be done with him, this man who has flouted decency, honor, and the law throughout his life of self-seeking power?

If the convictions are upheld he should go to prison, whatever form prison takes.

Prison for Donald Trump could mean being cut off from public participation in events, to being relegated to a world without spotlight, a world of tightly-scheduled activities from waking up to eating a common menu, to being isolated from public exposure, restricted perhas to a couple of rooms at Mar-a-Lago where visitors are allowed only at certain times and certain days.  His greatest punishment could be imposed insignificance in contemporary times.

Yesterday was a day that instantly became history and we knew it the second we heard of the verdicts.  For both those who hoped for a different result as well as those who hoped for the result that came, yesterday was a “My God!” day.

Today we will try to grasp what has just happened, what we have experienced. Maybe for some of us as well as for him, it might take more than just today.