February 4, 2020

My first Iowa caucus

I get it. The results are slow. The process is clumsy. The preferences and ballots are far from secret.

But I sat in a middle school gym with 571 of my neighbors and talked for two hours with them about issues, candidates and processes. I haven't done that in years, if not decades.

It was a fantastic experience. And it should have been the prelude to a secret-ballot primary tomorrow.

Still, I will treasure my Iowa caucus experience, even if it may be my ... and others' last.

The delays? I'm a journalism teacher, and we tell our students every day that it's better to be right than first. What's wrong with that?

Further, my wife and I caucused for Warren, and it took two hours for us to get the first ballot done. In our precinct, Warren and Sanders were the only viable candidates at 9:05 p.m. Buttigieg and Klobuchar were close to viability, while Biden and Yang were not. Other candidates, including Steyer had scattered votes. The wrangling that ensued was not going to end soon, and I needed a beer, so we left soon after. I don't doubt that our precinct just ended its process minutes ago.

Stay calm. Be patient. We'll get an accurate count and a great candidate.

January 27, 2020

Mulvaney issues a statement

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Mulvaney's lawyer has issued a statement on Bolton's book. h/t <a href="https://twitter.com/meridithmcgraw?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@meridithmcgraw</a> <a href="https://t.co/bTWlNHb8gX">pic.twitter.com/bTWlNHb8gX</a></p>— Natasha Bertrand (@NatashaBertrand) <a href="https://twitter.com/NatashaBertrand/status/1221854303993913355?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 27, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

January 21, 2020

Washington Post: The U.S. is pushing Latin American allies to send their Cuban doctors packing

It's all about winning Florida in November

From the earliest days of the revolution, Cuba has been sending doctors to treat the poor people of the developing world — a key source of income and influence for the communist island long isolated by a U.S. embargo.

Now the Trump administration is targeting the government’s signature medical brigades, urging U.S. allies to cancel their health cooperation agreements and send their Cuban doctors packing.

At least four Latin American countries have done so — another blow to the island as it struggles under tightening U.S. sanctions.

“The U.S. government’s crusade against Cuba’s international medical cooperation is an insult,” Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez tweeted in December. Officials said the program had provided hundreds of thousands of surgeries and training sessions to the countries that canceled, and called the U.S. effort “a disgraceful and criminal act against peoples in need of medical assistance.”

January 2, 2020

Grassley responds and I respond back

I wrote Grassley's office a month ago asking him to stand for the rule of law when the president's impeachment trial begins. Here is his (staff's) response (below that is mine):

Dear Mr. XXXX:

Thank you for taking the time to contact me. As your senator, it is important for me to hear from you.

I appreciate hearing your support for the impeachment of President Trump. The question of whether or not to impeach a duly elected public official, in this case the President of the United States, is an extremely serious one that was contemplated by the Framers and addressed in the Constitution. Accordingly, I am taking my constitutional role as a senator and juror seriously.

Article II, Section 4 of the United States Constitution provides that "The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors." Those are the sole bases for impeachment.

On December 18, 2019, the House of Representatives voted to adopt two articles of impeachment against President Trump. The first article provides that President Trump should be impeached for abuse of power, and the second article provides that he should be impeached for obstruction of Congress. This marks perhaps the most partisan impeachment in the history of the United States of America. In fact, the only bipartisanship the American people witnessed during the vote stood opposed to impeachment. The Framers of the Constitution warned against using impeachment as a partisan weapon. They were rightly concerned that impeachment would be determined by the strength of political parties instead of by real demonstrations of innocence or guilt. But that’s one reason why the Framers didn’t leave impeachment solely in the hands of the House of Representatives.

As an “impeached” government official, President Trump is now subject to a trial in the United States Senate. At the conclusion of the trial, the Senate—with each member taking on the role of a juror—will vote on whether to convict on one or both articles. Conviction, and thus the removal of an impeached official, requires “the Concurrence of two thirds of the Members present.” Until the House fully prosecutes its case before the Senate, and the President’s team presents its defense, I will withhold final judgment.

As you may know, however, I have many concerns with the way the House Majority conducted its impeachment proceedings. Following a whistleblower report regarding a phone call between President Trump and the Ukrainian president, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi immediately launched an impeachment inquiry. Instead of waiting to first learn the facts by reviewing the call transcript or hearing from the whistleblower, the Majority moved straight to their expedited inquiry—and an opaque one at that. The Majority’s inquiry ignored the procedural rights that were given to the investigating Committee’s minority in previous impeachments, such as equal subpoena power to both the chair and ranking member of the Committee. This is why I joined over 45 of my Senate colleagues in introducing a Senate resolution that called on the House of Representatives to provide members of the Minority with the ability to participate fully in all proceedings and have equal authority to issue subpoenas.

Whether the House successfully pleads its case before the Senate remains to be seen. The Majority’s desire to overturn the 2016 election by impeaching President Trump has been abundantly clear since before he took the oath of office. They’ve seemingly struggled, however, to arrive at a charge that can stand up to scrutiny. First it was collusion with Russia, but the special counsel spent two years and $35 million investigating, only to debunk the theory. The Majority then focused their efforts on an alleged “quid pro quo,” but that didn’t poll well with voters. So, they changed their allegation to bribery, but the facts and history didn’t seem to support that claim either. The articles ultimately passed by the House reflect that, once again, they had to water down their charge.

Unfortunately, the House Majority’s strung-out preoccupation with impeachment has come at a cost. For example, USMCA languished in the House for more than a year, only to finally and conveniently move just minutes after Speaker Pelosi announced articles of impeachment. Meanwhile, the Senate has remained focused on issues that matter most to the American people, like strengthening the economy, promoting job and wage growth and preventing a government shutdown.

To be clear: the Senate, through this impeachment trial, will carry out its constitutional duty with fairness and clear eyes, as opposed to blind partisanship. In the meantime, rest assured that I’ll continue my work on the issues that affect the everyday lives of Iowans.

Again, thank you for taking the time to contact me.

Sincerely,

Chuck Grassley
United States Senate

Dear Sen. Grassley:

Thank you for the thoughtful response, though it strains credulity that you would not believe the sworn testimony of dedicated and patriotic career civil servants, intelligence officers and military officials, and instead would choose to believe known serial conmen, liars and fabulists such as the president, former New York Mayor Giuliani, Rep. Nunes and others in your party who have made this a “partisan process.” If it weren’t for their slavishness to party over country, this wouldn’t be a partisan process. The president abused his powers to try to get a foreign ally to invent an investigation into a political opponent. Your only problem with the investigation should be that it didn’t start sooner, when Robert Mueller’s report identified 10 clear cases of obstruction of justice by this president.

Be very clear — Michael Cohen sits in jail today because he committed a crime ON BEHALF OF and AT THE DIRECTION OF the president. Do not turn a blind eye to this president’s criminality, or it will be a stain on your otherwise strong reputation as a public servant who usually stands for the rule of law.

Do not go down in history as the enabler of a criminal president.

Sincerely,

XXXX

December 10, 2019

My email to Sen. Grassley

Sent a similar note to Ernst, only thanking her for her military service, and that her colleagues voted to remove Clinton, not her personally.

Dear Senator Grassley:

Thank you for your years of service to Iowa in your various roles in government. However, if you want that legacy to include standing up for the rule of law and the Constitution, you have no choice but to remove Donald J. Trump from the Office of the President when his trial is conducted in the Senate.

The con man in the Oval Office has skirted and flouted the law since his inauguration nearly three years ago. The bribery scandal involving Ukraine and his clear obstruction of Congress — added to the obvious obstruction of justice outlined in the Mueller Report and the emoluments violations charges now finally making their way through U.S. district court — make him a clear and present danger to our republic and our fair system of elections.

Should you choose not to remove President Trump from office, you are sending a loud and clear message to all Iowans that you no longer care about those things we thought mattered — namely the rule of law and the Constitution.

Twenty years ago, you voted to remove President Bill Clinton from office because he lied under oath about an extramarital affair. I will consider it the height of hypocrisy if you don't vote to remove President Trump based on far worse crimes than Clinton committed.

Thank you for your time.

Jeff Browne
Iowa City

August 23, 2019

Faithless electors: Trump's best hope

And it all may happen after Tuesday's ruling.

There have been other threads about this, but it never hurts to remind those who may have missed it the first time.

NY Times story

Electoral College Members Can Defy Voters’ Wishes, Court Rules

In a ruling that kicks at the foundation of how America chooses presidents, a federal appeals court on Tuesday said members of the Electoral College, who cast the actual votes for president, may choose whomever they please regardless of a state’s popular vote.

The ruling by the United States Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit in Denver said Colorado was out of bounds in 2016 when it canceled the vote of a so-called faithless elector named Michael Baca. Mr. Baca, a Democrat, wrote in the name of John Kasich, a Republican who was Ohio’s governor at the time, even though Hillary Clinton carried Colorado, earning its nine electoral votes. The secretary of state replaced Mr. Baca with another elector who then voted for Mrs. Clinton.

“The text of the Constitution makes clear that states do not have the constitutional authority to interfere with presidential electors who exercise their constitutional right to vote for the president and vice president candidates of their choice,” the court majority wrote in a split ruling by a three-judge panel.

Lawrence Lessig, a Harvard law professor who founded the group that brought the case, Equal Citizens, said it was the first time a federal appeals court had ruled on whether electors could be bound in how they vote. Many states, including Colorado, have laws requiring electors to pledge that they will support the winner of the popular vote. The Constitution is mute on the subject. The appeals court noted that a handful of faithless electors have broken pledges to vote with their state’s majority since the presidential election of 1796.

July 21, 2019

In other swamp news

This is one of those items that would seem like a big deal in any other administration, but it's just part of the daily shitstorm out of this WH:

SENATE
LYNDA BLANCHARD, AMBASSADOR TO SLOVENIA: Voting 54 for and 40 against, the Senate on July 18 confirmed Lynda Blanchard of Montgomery, Ala., as U.S. ambassador to the Republic of Slovenia. Blanchard is co-founder of a real estate investment firm and a non-profit for helping impoverished children in the United States and developing countries, and she is also known for circulating murderous conspiracy theories about Bill and Hillary Clinton on Facebook. A Republican Party donor, she received her ambassadorial nomination in June 2018 after her husband, John, donated more than $500,000 to the Trump inaugural fund, according to NBC News.

A yes vote was to confirm the nominee.

July 15, 2019

Grammar tip when writing about Twitler

If you're trying to describe a single motherfucker who is both a racist and a piece of shit, there are some basic rules to follow:

1) Motherfucker is, indeed, a compound noun, so it is a single word: "motherfucker," as is the gerund/adjective "motherfucking," as in "The president of the United States is a motherfucking racist," or "The president of the United States is a motherfucker."
2) "Racist" can be used as both a noun and an adjective, so its placement in your sentence depends on how you use it: "The motherfucking president is a racist," and "The president is a motherfucking racist" are both correct, as is "The racist president is a motherfucker."
3) "Piece of shit" is different from both "motherfucking" and "racist" because as a compound adjective used before the noun it modifies, it needs hyphenation. As a noun, "piece of shit" needs no extra hyphenation: "The president is a piece of shit" is fine, but you need to write "The piece-of-shit president is a motherfucking racist" with the hyphens indicating its role as an adjective.
4) If you want to use both "piece of shit" as a predicate adjective and "motherfucking" and "racist" as adjectives before the noun, you need a comma to separate what are called "adjectives of equal rank": "The President is a motherfucking, racist piece of shit." (Thanks, Roland99!)

May 25, 2019

Mueller: Volume II, Section III.B.

If you memorize nothing else from the Mueller Report, try out these 24 words on the "no-obstruction" bleaters:

"We concluded that Congress can validly regulate the President's exercise of official duties to prohibit actions motivated by a corrupt intent to obstruct justice." Vol. II, page 169.

Then, of course, all the details where Twitler obstructed justice 10 times.

Later, we get the famous "it also does not exonerate him" line. Put that with the above sentence, and it's pretty fucking simple, even to a mouth-breathing Trumpist, though the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level Readability scale puts it at 12.69, so that could be a problem.

Clearly stated: "Drumpf is not above the law, he appears to have obstructed justice, and Congress can do something about it."

If Mueller would simply state those words in front of a camera, we could flip the entire conversation.

May 16, 2019

Award-winning media adviser resigns after censorship, conflict with school principal

From the Student Press Law Center

TEXAS — An adviser at a high school in suburban Houston has left her job after the principal pulled stories, yearbook spreads and repeatedly questioned her judgment.

Katie Moreno, the media adviser at Seven Lakes High School in Katy, Texas, decided to turn in her resignation after detailing months of censorship and after what her students called “bullying” tactics from the school principal, Kerri Finnesand.

There are no robust protections against prior restraint or censorship for student journalists in Texas. Seven Lakes High School’s district policy leaves it up to individual principals to decide how to operate school publications, and this past year, Finnesand decided to enact tighter control.

Finnesand did not respond to a request for comment. The request was forwarded to Justin Graham, general counsel for the school district.

(end clipping)

Texas' legislature is mulling a "New Voices" act that would guarantee public school students' their First Amendment rights.

Here's a link for that.