END THE FILIBUSTER

 So Joe Biden enters the White House with the wind at his back; oh sure, he's got a lot of work to do, like dealing with the effects of the coronavirus on both human lives and the economy, but still,  his approval rating is over fifty percent and his party now controls the House and the Senate as well as the White House.  And Biden hit the ground running, using the power of Presidential order to make big changes on things like immigration and climate change right away.  So far so good.  Perhaps undoing the horrid years of the Trump administration won't be so hard.

And then, reality struck.  Right now the Senate is basically in a state of limbo, with Minority Leader Mitch McConnell demanding that Democrats promise not to get rid of the filibuster before the session begins.  The filibuster is, of course, the rule that allows any member of the Senate to change the number needed for a bill or nomination to pass the Senate from a simple majority to  sixty.  And there is a big difference in that chamber between fifty one votes and sixty.  There's a reason why McConnell is fighting so hard for to keep it; he remembers how effectively he and other Republicans in the Senate used it to slow down the changes that the Obama administration was trying to make back in two thousand and eight (and in a burst of successful cynicism, used their use of gridlock to make Obama look ineffectual in the midterms!).  

But the Democrats remember two thousand and eight too, and they are not thrilled at the prospect of constant filibusters again.  While they are not necessarily saying that they will get rid of it, they want to at least retain the possibility of ending it as a bargaining chip.  Just how long this standoff will last is unknown, but McConnell is a man who clearly like getting his way.  Remember that he held up  Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland  for ten months before the twenty sixteen election, and then rammed through Amy Coney Barrett to that same court less than a month before the twenty twenty election.  Another problem is that not all the Democrats are united behind ending the filibuster, with Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia coming out against ending it.

That's a pity.  I've already blogged about how insane I think the filibuster is, and it bears repeating: it's not in the constitution, it has a sorry history of holding up civil rights legislation, and it give far too much power to individual members of the Senate.  Really, it seems like common sense that a piece of legislation passed by majorities of the House and the Senate and supported by the President should be passed, but the filibuster can kill it anyway.

 I think the US Senate is already a chamber that gives far too much power to small states (California, with thirty five million people, has only as many Senators as Rhode Island, which has just over a million people living in it), eliminating the Filibuster is one way that it can become more reflective of the nation at large.  I also think that Puerto Rico and Washington DC should  become states.  But that's another argument.

SOME CHANGES NEED TO BE MADE

 

Now that the disgraceful Trump administration is about to end with Donald Trump being the first president to lose the popular vote twice, while also getting impeached twice, and never having an approval rating over fifty percent, while also  joining the club of one term presidents (he's the eleventh), it's time to look back at some of the shameful, unprecedented behavior that he got away with and make some changes so that no equally corrupt president can ever hold the White House again.

#1. All presidential candidates must release their tax returns- This right from the start corruption was classic Trump.  Every presidential candidate  in modern history before him released their tax returns.  But there was no hard fast rule about it, it was just an assumption.  One that Trump predictably ignored, first lying about releasing them after an audit, and then just never doing it.  It is essential to the American political system that a president should never have possible conflicts of interest regarding their own finances and their policies.  Trump tax returns may eventually be outed by the legal and financial issues he's going to face once he's out of the White House, but that's far too late.  Congress should pass a law mandating this common sense rule as soon as possible.

#2.  All business holdings by an elected president should be placed in a blind trust while he or she is in the White House.  The Emoluments Clause of the Constitution specifically  bars members of the federal government from receiving gifts, emoluments, offices or titles from foreign states and monarchies.  Jimmy Carter put his businesses in a blind trust after he won the white house in nineteen seventy six.  Mitt Romney pledged to do the same if he had won in two thousand and twelve. Trump, on the other hand, just said that he would hand over control of his global business to his two sons, an absurd compromise if there ever was one.  The worst aspect of this was the Trump Hotel in Washington DC continued to operate, meaning that visiting foreign dignitaries could stay and run up huge hotel bills as a way to influence the president.  Again, congress should pass  a law ending violations like this.

#3.  No president should be allowed to pardon family members, or promise pardons to people he has encouraged to break the law.  Because the presidential pardon power is a power that is  irrevocable, Trump has clearly enjoyed wielding it like a king.  This has lead to some obvious grey areas, like pardoning his son in law's father, and some outright corrupt areas, like pardoning Roger Stone, who committed crimes on Trump's behalf.  While Trump has rightfully released a few non violent drug users, for the most part he has used the pardon power as another way to see what he could get away with, pushing the office of the presidency deeper into corruption.  There are even some reports that Rudy Giuliani was recently selling pardons on his behalf!  Limits must be put on this presidential power.

#4.  The president should not allowed to use a nuclear weapon on any country that has not used one on us first.  Shortly after taking office, Trump got into a childish war of words with North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un; when Un sent out a message saying that his "Nuclear Button is on his desk at all times.”  Trump replied by tweet with "Will someone from his depleted and food starved regime please inform him that I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my Button works!"  Although, as we all know, nothing came of that petulant rant, it did raise the possibility of the president using the country's nuclear arsenal on another country.  And there's no law that could have stopped him.  It is perfectly within the power of the president to fire a nuclear weapon at any country at any time.  While it would appear to be common sense that our country only has such weapons as a deterrent, the idea that Trump or any other future president could decide to use weapons that could easily kill millions of people as an offensive strategy instead of a defensive one is terrifying.  This presidential power should be changed.

While this list does not cover all the violations and corruptions of the Trump administration, adopting these kind of common sense measures in the future could at least undo some of the damage done by the worst president in history.  The country deserves better in the future.

IMPEACHED AGAIN

 Yesterday, Donald Trump, the first president elected without any political or military experience, also became the first president to ever be impeached by the House of Representatives twice.  Along with setting that record, he is also the first to be impeached with ten members of his own party joining in the vote against him.  And in one of the most scathing (and in my opinion, best) verbal broadsides against him, Republican House member Lynn Cheney said that Trump “summoned the mob” that assaulted the Capitol Building and added that “There has never been a greater betrayal by a president.”

Anyone who knows the Constitution should have supported her and the two hundred and thirty two other House members that voted in favor of impeachment.  Because this was not just about partisan politics, this was about the executive branch of the government trying to intimidate the legislative branch to alter their vote. And this was a vote on something that was strictly a  ceremony, a final counting of the certified Electoral Votes that would finalize Joe Biden's victory.  But it's a ceremony that Trump and his followers wrongly believe that Vice President Mike Pence, as the leader of the Senate, could use to reject Electoral votes from states that Trump lost, granting him a second term.   Pence, in his first real break with the president, told Trump shortly before the vote that he does not have that power, incensing Trump, who denounced Pence at a morning rally a short distance from where the riot began.   

Now it bears stating that  Trump, like any other president, has the right to persuade or cajole members of congress to vote the way he wants.   But when his rhetoric extended to whipping up an angry mob to commit outright acts of violence ("You have to be strong!" He told them a rally shortly before the siege on the Capitol Building began) he violated the powers given him by the Constitution and became guilty of an impeachment worthy offense.

As more news and videos of the riot are being made public, what happened only seems to get worse, with many of the attendees planning more than a peaceful protest: a man who had posted his desire to shoot House Leader Nancy Pelosi was apprehended with more than one firearm.  Another man had molotov cocktails.  Bombs were left.  Numerous other weapons were brought.   One police officer was beaten to death, and several others were injured.  There are stories of congress people hiding in barricaded offices that had rioters banging on the doors.  And then there's Trump's behavior during the riot, which may have been worse than what he did before it.  According to the Washington Post's report of inside accounts, he seemed excited by what was happening on TV, and he refused to call in the National Guard, leaving that duty to Pence.  Trump didn't even call to check on Pence during  the riot, even as rioters chanted "Hang Mike Pence!".  Although yesterday Trump released a video denouncing violence, it was obviously an example of a little too little too late.  He even still failed to concede the election in it.

One of the crazy things about the riot is that many of the people involved are well educated professionals.  It just goes to show the power of cult driven conspiracies that a doctor or lawyer could believe that a violent uprising was needed to stop the empowerment of Satanic pedophilic cannibals.  Many people have pointed to the fact that if this had been a Black Lives Matter protest, there would have been far more security and far more violent riot control techniques used on the rioters.  This seems undeniably true; part of the reason may be that many police officers and security people are more sympathetic to right wing protests than left wing ones.  And there are even some Democratic congresspeople charging that their Republican counterparts were aware of the upcoming riot and aided the protestors.  Obviously, those are serious charges that will have to be investigated in what will be sure to be a flurry of investigations coming in the next few months.

Finally, it's impossible not to notice just how many of the rioters were white men, many from white supremacist groups like the Proud Boys.  In the end, I think the riot will go down, like the Trump presidency, as the failed last gasp of white male dominance in America.  It's the nature of power that people who have it will often do anything to hold on to it.  Like lie about an election and exhort others into violent acts to overturn that election.  January sixth will go down as one of the worst days in American history, and we have to either throw Trump and his strongest followers into the asheap of history or fracture as a country. The fact that the Republican party may be ready to move on without him is heartening, but he still remains popular with the party's base voters.  Either way,  if the United States does wind up splintering, the riot will be seen  by history as the flashpoint.  We will see.

GUTLESS GOP

 

In the aftermath of the terrible riot at our nation's Capital Building last Tuesday, there has been an exodus of President Trump's cabinet members from his administration.  From the well known (like Betsy DeVos, Education secretary) to the not so well known (farewell Ryan Tully, senior director for European and Russian affairs at the National Security Council, we hardly knew ye) the nine and counting cabinet members  are the rats deserting the sinking ship.  And most of them are openly saying that Trump's rally on Tuesday morning that lead to (and inspired) the riot is the reason they're leaving.  As De Vos wrote in her resignation letter to the president that she also released to the press, “There is no mistaking the impact your rhetoric had on the situation, and it is the inflection point for me."  While I certainly agree with her words (and I hope most people do), she and the others leaving are no profiles in courage.  No matter what they may say, what happened on Tuesday, as terrible as it was, came as no real schock when you look at what Trump has been saying and doing for years now, not only as president but also as a candidate.  The Republican party's belated attempt to improve its image by ditching Trump now that he is soon to leave the White House is only a reminder of all terrible things they have been putting up with from him for almost a decade now.

Remember that for years Trump was just a bragging mid level celebrity who did lots of TV appearances and cultivated an image of himself as the pinnacle of American success (even if that success had more to do with his father's money than anything else).  Then in two thousand and five he became a full fledged reality television star on the show The Apprentice.  Again. at that point he was a mostly apolitical celebrity.  That all changed in two thousand and eleven when he decided to embrace birtherism, the crazy conspiracy hanging over then President Barack Obama that said that he was actually born in Kenya.  Of course it was really just a way to demonize the nation's first African American president, but that obviously didn't matter to him.  He started tentatively mentioning the conspiracy at first, but when he saw the attention and adulation he got from conservatives, he went all in.  Clearly he basked in the glow of being the only prominent celebrity in the country to promote the conspiracy,  returning to it time and time again, even claiming that he had paid investigators in Hawaii who were finding out "incredible things".  After spending a lifetime in which he donated money to both political parties, the love he got from the conservative voters pushed him firmly into the Republican party.   

His popularity with the Republican voters grew so much that there was talk of him running for the presidency in two thousand and twelve.  Obviously that didn't happen, but his connection with the voters had gotten so strong that the party's candidate, Mitt Romney, had to bow and scrape for an endorsement from him, even while trying to dismiss birtherism.  Trump gave it reluctantly, clearly relishing his position as party king maker.  It was truly a pathetic moment that Romney would live to regret, and it was just the first of many times that an elected member of the Republican party was forced to kiss the ring of Trump.

Here's a quick timeline of the things Trump said as a candidate that the party was forced to accept, on top of his constant boasting and childish insults: that Mexican immigrants were all drug dealers and rapists.  That John McCain was not a real war hero because he was captured.  That Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were the co founders of Isis.  That Ted Cruz's father was involved in the Kennedy assassination.  He called out members of the press by name at his rallies and encouraged the attendees to verbally assault them, while often calling the media "the enemy of the people".  He also encouraged violent behavior from his followers at his rallies ("Knock the crap out 'em!"). He said that a judge of Mexican heritage should not be allowed to rule on a case involving him (something that former House Member Paul Ryan called "the textbook definition of racism.").  They ignored it when he refused to condemn former Klu Klux Klan member David Duke.  They even stood behind him after the release of the infamous Access Hollywood recording, which revealed him bragging about getting away with sexual assault.  And when that lead to over twenty women rising up to say that he had assaulted them,  the party still stuck with him.  Just as they ignored the spike in hate crimes that his candidacy and presidency would cause.

And, of course, things just got worse after he won.   With the exception of Mitt Romney, the one lone  voice of reason in the wilderness of the cult of Trump, the Republican party would look away or endorse every crazy tweet or rally for the next four years.   They stood by him as he fired James Comey as head of the FBI and admitted he did so to end the investigation to his campaign's ties to Russia.  They also stuck with him as he separated children from their parents at the border, haphazardly tried to ban Muslims from coming to the country,  tried to get money for his wall with Mexico, and then wound up taking money from the defense budget for it, referred to African countries as "shit holes", said there were "fine people on both sides" when talking about a white supremacist march, and held rally after rally laden with lies, brags and bluster.  Six members of his campaign or administration either plead guilty or were found guilty of crimes, all of them going unmentioned by the Republicans even as Trump pardoned some of them.

And there there were the everyday corruptions he engaged in:  how he violated the emoluments clause of the Constitution by having his sons run his business while he was in the White House.  This included the Trump Hotel in Washington DC, which foreign dignitaries could stay in and run up a huge bill as a roundabout bribe.  He also made sure to spend as much time as he could on his own properties, charging the expense of the secret service members staying there to the taxpayers.  And I'm just scratching the surface on the level of criminal, indecent  and brutish behavior the president constantly engaged in.

And, of course, the party drew ranks around him after his was impeached by the House of Representatives in twenty twenty for his clearly illegal phone call with the Ukrainian Prime Minister.   They also accepted his  disastrous response to the Covid 19 virus, from ignoring it to suggesting that people inject bleach,.  No one in the party could admit  that his ineptitude was costing American lives, even as the death toll soared.   Then they turned the Republican National Convention into the Trump show, with a resolution stating that whatever he stood for, the party stood  now stood for. Even after he lost, most of the party supported him as his assertions about the election being "rigged" became more and more delusional and deranged.  To top it off, with the violence of Tuesday's riot still reverberating through the walls of congress, one hundred and forty seven Republicans in congress voted against the Electoral College vote count that affirmed Joe Biden's victory.

Given all the Republican capitulation ever since he became the most famous birther in the country, the fact that some of them are finally turning on him now seems like a pathetic, far too late, face saving maneuver than any real kind of honest reckoning.  I was glad to see that the editors of  the business magazine Forbes have released a statement warning companies from hiring anyone involved in the Trump administration, stating that "Forbes will assume that everything your company or firm talks about is a lie. We're going to scrutinize, double-check, investigate with the same skepticism we'd approach a Trump tweet."  He also got a lifetime ban from Facebook and Twitter. That's a good start, but I hope the fallout from the Trump years goes far beyond that.  Hopefully there will be investigations into the various corruptions that his administration committed, with possibly jail time for even Trump himself.  Furthermore, I hope that the collective Republican adulation of Trump will fade into a crazy memory for both the party and the country, with the stench of his presidency cursing the party into irrelevancy, until its ready to move away from its extremist views and accept the reality of climate change, LGBTQ rights and tax increases on the rich, among other things.  Ever since Trump first announced his candidacy, I thought that he might doom the Republican party.  I still may be right.

TRUMP'S COUP TURNS VIOLENT

 

Like almost everyone else in the country, after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, I found myself unable to pull away from the stunning images that I was seeing on the TV.  What happened seemed unthinkable.   Today, I am having a similar experience.No, the violence in our nation's capital right now is not as destructive or deadly as those attacks, but the effect on me (and I suspect on millions of other Americans) is, once again, stunning.  And this time the attack is coming from American citizens, brainwashed by their deranged leader into trying to stop a peaceful session of Congress because they don't like the inevitable result.

Yes, today marks the first time in our nation's history when an violent, undemocratic coup attempt was made by our fellow citizens on the halls of congress.  An angry mob of President Trump's supporters, fueled by his usual torrent of lies that he made at a rally near the nation's capital earlier today, stormed the Capitol  Building, smashing windows, looting and threatening members of congress. It was all in a an attempt to stop the Electoral College vote count that will certify Joe Biden as the next president.  So far, one woman has been shot and is in poor condition(it's not known yet why) and more than one suspicious package  has been found in the halls of congress.  Watching it in real time was surreal as the protestors moved slowly but steadily up the steps of the Capitol Building, testing the boundaries of where they could go more and more, until all hell broke loose. It's amazing to consider that this possibility was apparently never seriously considered by the people in charge of the  building's security, along with the Police and the National Guard.  When every Black Lives Matter rally is met with police armed with riot gear, how could this protest be so unprepared for?  Inevitably there will be many investigations done to find out how this assault on our nation's capitol could have happened (were there security guards sympathetic to the protestors who left doors unlocked?).

Trump's response has been predictably muted and pathetic.  First, he chose to say nothing as hours went by and his Vice President Mike Pence had to be evacuated, and then finally he released a video statement.  While he made a perfunctory request for the protestors to go home, his words were far from critical.  In fact, he even seemed to praise them, first by inevitably repeating his baseless claim that he won the election, and then by telling them directly that  "I know how you feel.”  and "I love you. You’re very special."  Yes, the president told protestors that had threatened the lives of members of congress that he loved them!  His more honest feelings were revealed at that rally he had earlier, when he told the cheering crowd that “We will never concede.” He also tweeted out a request for his followers to attend the rally by writing “Be there, will be wild." It's not just the president that is whipping up anger and violence: Congressman Louie Gohmert recently said, after his legal attempt to overturn the election was dismissed by the Supreme Court, "The bottom line is the court is saying, 'We're not going to touch this. You have no remedy.  Essentially, the ruling would be 'You have to go to the streets and be as violent as antifa, BLM.'" Also, Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani called for "trial by combat" at a rally in front of The White House.

The bottom line is that it obvious that Trump will now do anything to steal the election, and that even letting him remain in office another two weeks is dangerous.  I believe that congress should call an emergency impeachment vote as soon as possible, and that he be removed from his position in handcuffs if necessary.  

When Trump somehow won in twenty sixteen, I and a lot of other people had always feared this day.  But when Mitch Mc Connell signalled back in December that Biden was the winner, and Mike Pence looked ready to confirm that today, I was at least somewhat relieved.  But now here we are, with tens of millions of Americans thinking that the election of Joe Biden was illegitimate and thousands of those millions ready to act violently about it.  I've often wondered if the country could survive the Trump presidency intact, and now it looks even less likely.  Obviously, I would never want a violent war to rip the country apart, but maybe a peaceful separation of red and blue states may have to take place.  Given what happened in our country today, it might be the best thing.

A FEW WORDS ABOUT VEGANISM

 

I've been a vegan now for about four years.  I started partly to protest the victory of Donald Trump, and just to see if I could do it.  It hasn't been too hard for me because I've never been much of meat eater (my mother told me that I used to spit out meat when I was a baby).  And while sometimes I have backslid into just being a vegetarian (I had to have pizza while visiting New York!), it really hasn't been that hard for me.

There has never been an easier time to be vegan.  Just about every grocery store has numerous non dairy milks to choose from, along with vegan cheese, butter, etc.  And vegan restaurants are common in big cities (Portland Oregon has some really good ones), and many eateries have vegan options.  The ingenuity of vegan chefs is really very impressive, with vegan dishes that taste like mac and cheese or meat loaf using some clever substitutes.  And if you google the words "vegan recipe for-" you will see a long list of possibilities.    

Now understand, I do not expect most people to be vegan or vegetarian, and I do not consider myself superior to meat eaters.  It's just a personal decision I've made.  And I'm not an animal rights radical; I'm okay with some animal research (like on cancer and alzheimer's), and everytime I hear  some nimrod like Morrissey compare eating meat to the Holocaust I want to scream as much as anybody.  I also realize that human beings have evolved to be omnivores, so eating meat is natural.  And it's really hard for men to give up meat, probably because thousands of years ago it was men who did most of the hunting and killing.  (A recent study found that men often feel a sense of calmness just by looking at a pile of meat!).

But all that said, I don't think that it's unreasonable to say that most Americans eat too much meat.  According to the pew research center, the average American now eats roughly 193 pounds of beef, pork and/or chicken a year, which ties us with Australia for having the highest meat consumption in the world.  According to Forbes, this is about double the amount needed to be healthy.   In the days before covid 19, the number one cause of death in America was heart disease, a condition often linked to high meat consumption.  And recently, the World Health Organization found that high processed meat consumption leads to an increased chance of contracting bowel cancer.   So, without being hectoring or lecturing, I think it's reasonable to suggest that people in this country should cut down on meat, or least try to choose fish more, which is a healthier choice.

I also think that it's reasonable to look at the conditions of the animals in the slaughterhouses.  The often brutal treatment of pigs, (who are at least as smart as dogs) cows and chickens has been well documented  in secret videos leaked onto the internet.  If we are going to eat animals, shouldn't we at least make their lives comfortable before killing them, instead of crowding them together and mistreating them?  And then there are the humans who work in the slaughterhouses.  Working in such an industry is one the hardest jobs in America.  The person who debones chicken meat on an assembly line, for example, is forced to slice into the meat with a sharp knife over and over, risking a bad cut (or even a missing finger) everytime.  And the constant repetitive motions needed to cut the meat can over time result in repetitive stress disorder.  Regulating the meat industry to slow down the assembly lines to increase worker safety makes sense.

Now, the downside of making slaughterhouses a better place for both the animals and the workers is that the cost of meat would go up.  But, as I just pointed out, Americans are already eating too much meat.  Would making meat a little more expensive be such a bad thing?  It would make meat a little special, and therefore reduce the amount of its consumption. Which is all I'm talking about.  Only around three percent of Americans describe themselves as vegan or vegetarian, so I know I'm fighting an uphill, battle, but in the past few decades Americans have drastically reduced their consumption of tobacco, partly because we've raised the price of tobacco products.  Why can't we at least try to do the same with meat?