PMC Commentary

Political tweets like this should be outlawed

First, this (with thanks to The Bulwark): 

Congratulations @RideCARTA on securing a $25,906,730 grant for the Lowcountry to ensure improvements and a more efficient transit system.

(1/2) pic.twitter.com/QgWTy8Oqx5

— Rep. Nancy Mace (@RepNancyMace) June 28, 2023

Now, some background on the "added context," which, yeah, people might want to know. On 14 April 2021, as the infrastructure bill was making its way through Congress, Rep, Mace wrote a hostile op-ed for Fox News about President Biden's "fiasco," which later allowed RideCARTA to secure the nearly $26m.  

War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength, and 2+2 equals 5. George Orwell warned us of doublespeak 72 years ago. Yet today, some of my colleagues on the left and President Biden are using this tactic in a desperate attempt to sell their disastrous "infrastructure" package....

As a new member of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee in Congress, and as the new representative of a district in need of funding for roads, bridges and ports, I’m disturbed by the left’s hijacking of the bipartisan issue of infrastructure and their work to morph it into a socialist wish list....

They’re not going to stop unless we make them. They’re not going to stop unless enough people with sense and courage stand up and say, "No."

I gather Rep. Mace is an Augustinian. As the bishop of Hippo Regius wrote in his youth, and as an aspiring saint, "O Lord, help me to be pure, but not yet." He first wanted to deflower every available maiden in North Africa. And then he would blessedly take the "disastrous" $25,906,730 of Biden's grant money for the Lowcountry's improved, more efficient transit system.

Jack Smith's Trump backup plan, and more felons to come

I do believe I'd rather be hunted by a mafia hit man than be prosecuted by Jack Smith. Contract killers generally have the IQ of a mothball and, assuming one could even find me on a map, he could always miss his mark, whereas Special Counsel Smith rarely does. 

The Independent reports that he's prepared to bring a superseding indictment against Trump in either Miami or Washington, D.C. The supersedure would add 30 to 45 charges to the 37-count indictment already brought. The evidence used in the additional charges "has not yet been publicly acknowledged by the department, " writes The Independent, "including other recordings prosecutors have obtained which reveal Mr Trump making incriminating statements."

Smith's decision on whether to compound Trump legal troubles "will depend in part on whether they feel the Trump-appointed district judge overseeing the case against him in the Southern District of Florida, Aileen Cannon, is giving undue deference" to the profuse scofflaw. 

Meanwhile, CNN reports that one Mike Rowan, a 2020 Trump campaign official — director of Election Day operations — has entered into a flip agreement proffer agreement with Smith's office. The agreement, also known as a queen-for-a-day deal, grants the target of a federal investigation either immunity from prosecution or a favorable plea deal in exchange for information. 

Even better, another proffered beneficiary is the usually incoherent Rudy Giuliani, whose brain is bound to become exceptionally coherent, however, when it comes to saving his own butt. He "was interviewed last week by federal prosecutors investigating Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election," reports The NY Times, which characterized the agreement as "a significant development in the election interference investigation led by Jack Smith." 

A gratuitous reminder: The proffer agreements relate to Trump's yet-indicted imperilment, which is destined to occur in Washington, D.C., far away from Floridian Cannon. Then, probably in August, Trump will also be facing District Attorney Fani Willis and a bundle of Georgia state charges — with encore performances by Messrs. Rowan and Giuliani. 

Yes, absolutely, I'd prefer the mafia hit man.   

Trump, opponents, and jail

As the world knows, Donald Trump loathes even the notion of politicians using the justice system to retaliate against their opponents and critics. Such adventures are a nasty affair that should never enter the national arena as a kind of politico-legal bloodsport, he insists, and thus other politicians should follow his virtuous example of prudence, humility and restraint.

I agree, for we in this equally virtuous republic should never be witness to prominent pols calling for the indictment and imprisonment of his or her detractors. It's just not ... American.

Helpfully, and appropriately enough, ABC News' Mark Levine looked into Trump's history of scrupulous refrain. Regrettably, it seems to be a wee bit incompatible with the one-term president and three-time presidential candidate's exhortations on political chastity.

Below is a list of those whom Trump has said he'd like to see in jail. 

Hillary Clinton

Clinton's lawyer

John Bolton

Huma Abedin

Marco Rubio

Tim Kaine  

Adam Schiff

Andrew Cuomo  

Robert Mueller

James Comey

James Clapper

John Brennan

Andy McCabe

Peter Strzok

Lisa Page

James Baker

Andrew Weissman

Bruce Ohr

Ohr's wife

Christopher Steele.

Eric Holder

Loretta Lynch

Rod Rosenstein

John Podesta

President Clinton

President Obama 

President Biden

Twenty-seven in all. "At least" 27, writes Levine. 

What's jarring is not Trump's hypocrisy, Far from it, for without it, Trump wouldn't be Trump — the very essence and human tutorial of what should be studiously avoided in the game of representative democracy. No, what stuns to this day is that millions of Americans refuse to see this disingenuous, vindictive gasbag for what he is. 

A literal blast from the past

Early this afternoon we in the Midwest's smokey plains got hit with a few minutes of thunderstorming, so naturally the power went out. I'm running on my Verizon hotspot, chewing up the last bits of functional data while my laptop is about to lose what little battery power it had stored.

I mention this because I tried reading by candlelight — it's nigh pitch black outside and in — which proved to be a blinding experience. More to the point, I'm on the 10th volume of the Master and Commander series by the brilliant Patrick O'Brian, in which he notes that our Enlightenment hero, Dr. Stephen Maturin — physician, naturalist, spy — would settle down in his ship's cabin at night, reading by the flicker of a lone flame. How did he do it? It took me 10 minutes to get through three pages, and my eyes were shot. 

In Wisconsin, DeSantis is faring well

The one he's been waiting for — that is, the poll Ron DeSantis has been waiting for: Marquette University Law School's survey (A/B) showing that in Wisconsin:

"Among Republicans and independents who lean Republican, the GOP presidential primary is a near-even divide, with 31% supporting former President Donald Trump and 30% supporting Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis." 

Everyone else bottomed out — still — in single digits. But once they were removed from respondents' consideration, DeSantis beats Trump, 57% to 41%. That is ... big.

More good news/bad news DeSantis/Trump. In the swing state of Wisconsin, President Biden leads the Florida governor by only 2 points (49% to 47%), but Trump trails Biden by 9 points (52% to 43%). 

What the Marquette poll suggests is what DeSantis has failed to make as his top argument: that he has a much better chance of beating Joe Biden in indispensable swing states. Bewilderingly, the governor has so far been rehashing his tired, tedious anti-wokeism on the campaign trail, as though he has not yet left the red state of Florida. 

The poll was taken post-Trump-indictments, hence it could be but the camel's nose. I expect more Marquette-like polls in the next two to three months. But the way DeSantis has been campaigning, he may very well waste his creeping advantage due to Trump's legal woes. 

Today, the Supreme Court returned to true form

Ruled the Supreme Court today:

"The student must be treated based on his or her experiences as an individual—not on the basis of race. Many universities have for too long done just the opposite. And in doing so, they have concluded, wrongly, that the touchstone of an individual’s identity is not challenges bested, skills built, or lessons learned but the color of their skin. Our constitutional history does not tolerate that choice."

Evidently, family money — generally whiter than green — bests challenges bested and lessons learned. Otherwise legacy admissions, which permitted the exceedingly average George W. Bush to attend Harvard Business School, would also be banned.

In addition, Chief Justice Roberts & Friends might want to rethink their "constitutional history" theory as some sort of ideal. For 167 years, race constitutionally determined the quality of one's primary education in America, while even the very brightest of minority students were virtually barred from higher education. Perhaps by our "constitutional history" the Court's majority means the history to which they're returning minorities.          

***

I should have added the one bright spot in today's decision. Writing for the majority, Roberts stated that "nothing in this opinion should be construed as prohibiting universities from considering an applicant’s discussion of how race affected his or her life, be it through discrimination, inspiration, or otherwise." This is vintage Roberts, taking with one hand, giving back with the other. For it now seems that minority students and cooperative institutions of higher learning can evade today's decision by the student writing a soul-stirring essay describing "how race [negatively] affected his or her life," with the college or university taking that into account as much as any internal affirmative-action guideline.    

Medical appointments this morning. 

("In Chicago, Air Force One descended through a thick layer of smoke and haze at the O’Hare International Airport late Wednesday morning, as President Biden arrived for a speech on the economy." (NYT)

I'm 150 miles south of Chicago, but here the smoke and haze seem every bit as bad.

Early this morning I wondered why I was exceptionally "out of sorts," as the old-timers would say: unusual shortness of breath and extreme fatigue. Well, duh. The air quality index is 165 — better than Chicago's but pretty bad for anyone with lung disease. Now I am necessarily off to huff, puff and plunge my way through the Canadian incense once again. See you tomorrow.)    

Today at the Supreme Court, it was the 1930s all over again

I'm surprised but not shocked. For history is repeating itself, and those who know something of American history will see the repetition — from the 1930s.

The Washington Post: "The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected the theory that state legislatures have almost unlimited power to decide the rules for federal elections and draw partisan congressional maps without interference from state courts."

Including myself, most observers, I think it's fair to say, expected this right-wing Court to rule in favor of the independent state legislature theory, since undoubtledy it would assist Trump or any Trump alternative.

But in Moore v. Harper, the Court swung from its ultraconservative stance — almost certainly because it understood and appreciated that the American public had had enough if its far-right rulings. 

In the 1930s, President Roosevelt watched as his ultraconservative Court struck down New Deal program after program. He became so desperate for rational decisions, he suggested a bit of S.C.-packing. The Court, however, in time understood and appreciated that the American public had had enough if its far-right rulings. And just like that, it began ruling in Roosevelt's favor, issuing rational decisions.  

And so it goes.

The "How to" manual of ousting Judge Aileen Cannon

Two weeks ago, three legal minds you probably know — Norman Eisen, Richard Painter and Fred Wertheimer — wrote a piece for Slate on how federal judge Aileen Cannon could be removed from overseeing the Trump documents case. The reason for their speculations is, on the other hand, quite definitely known: Judge Cannon is poison to the rule of law. Short of recusal, they wrote,   

* One possibility that should be explored is for the chief judge of the district court, Chief Judge Cecilia Altonaga, to reassign the case pursuant to the court’s power under federal law to “assign … cases so far as [local] rules and orders do not otherwise prescribe.”

* The more likely possibility here if the Southern District of Florida chooses not to deal with this issue is that the 11^th Circuit should be called upon to reassign the case to a different judge at the earliest opportunity.... This is the path that appears most likely to be pursued if Judge Cannon is to be removed, because her approach thus far suggests that it unlikely that the judge will recuse herself. 

* But the [DOJ] may, as they often do, take the more conservative approach to recusal. If so, they may instead wait for the judge to overstep once more and at that point ask her, and if she refuses, ask the 11^th Circuit to act.

Hoping that Aileen is a reader, Eileen, Painter and Wertheimer also tried a three-on-one soft sell: "Ultimately, Judge Cannon should do the ethical thing and recuse herself." That option is already D.O.A., since "the ethical thing" and any Trump-friendly person are, as they say, mutually exclusive. So it looks as though only Option #3 will be forthcoming.    

He chickened out of the debate, of course

Vanity Fair reports that Trump is skipping Fox News' August GOP presidential debate because the network don't love him no more, Rupert Murdoch is mean to him, and DeSantis is their new pet.

“I don’t think he’s going to do it. He knows Fox hates him. And he despises the Murdochs,” said a former Foxer in regular contact with Trump. And the candidate is happy to maintain the fiction:

I don't buy it. Yet Vanity Fair's Gabriel Sherman seems not to know why a whole lot of people don't buy it. Nowhere in his report is there mention of Chris Christie, the most rabidly articulate anti-Trumper in the race. He's like a contract killer whose gunning for his victim he wants known. 

Trump was fortunate in 2016; Christie had not yet put a bullseye on him. But seven years later — seven years too late — Christie is fired up in full verbal hit-mode. And bully that he is, Trump is frightened to death of the former governor and his superior ability to dismember a debate opponent — which is the only reason Christie is in the race. To "get" Trump. 

Who's running scared.

Once Trump begins hemorrhaging support in the polls — his debate absences will likely contribute to the decline — he'll be forced to stand on a stage with Christie. Until then, he can hide.  

Trump - going for jury nullification

Buried in all the reporting about DOJ's audio leak — in which Trump unwittingly admits to violating the Espionage Act — is his spokesman's "defensive" comment. Team Trump's Steven Cheung says nothing, defends nothing, about the recording's irrefutable proof of the former president's felonious culpability. Instead he    refers the media to Trump's "pervert" remark about Anthony Weiner. (In this CNN report, the two-minute audio begins at 45 seconds in.)

Cheung says Trump was "speaking rhetorically and also quite humorously about" the former U.S. representative. "The media and the Trump-haters" took "the [Weinerian] bait," he adds. It was all just another Trumpian extravangaza of fooling dunderheaded anti-Trumpers, according to Cheung, because "the audio tape provides context proving, once again, that President Trump did nothing wrong at all." 

Fact is, it's Cheung who's speaking "quite humorously," for everything about the audio tape's "context" speaks to Trump facing a 20-year prison sentence. Here is the sort of evidence that most federal prosecutors can only dream of. "Let’s see here," says Trump. "This totally wins my case" — which is true, if by "my" he is speaking of Jack Smith. He acknowledges that the papers he's flashing around are "highly confidential, secret. This is secret information" which "as president I could have declassified ... but now I can’t."

A week before, he sat with Fox News' Bret Baier and insisted that in the meeting he was speaking only of "newspaper stories, magazine stories and articles," not classified material. The tape disproves that lie, along with the lie that he h ad declassified the material in his possession. While prosecutors dream cheerfully about such statements, defense attorneys have nightmares. 

In a way, this is old news. We already knew of the recording in which Trump convicts himself. What's new are the recording itself and a peek into Trump's quasi-affirmative defense — jury nullification — if Cheung's comments are to be taken as reflective of it.

No jury with 500 miles of Miami would or could believe that "Trump did nothing wrong at all." His crime is right there, perfectly audible and unmistakable. But by digging in and insisting in the overt face of the evidence that he did nothing wrong, Trump is shooting for a nullification of law. That, or for at least one juror who will fold his arms in acquittal and never budge.

It's classic Trump. Simply deny the bloody obvious, and trust that the rubes will save him.   

***

If you don't believe Cheung, then how about reading it straight from the jackass's mouth: "The Deranged Special Prosecutor ... 'spun' a tape and transcript of me which is actually an exoneration, rather than what they would have you believe." — Truth Social, 26 June

MAGA finally gets the violence it wanted

One delightful problem, though. It's MAGA against MAGA, white supremicists versus white supremacists — not quite what Trump had in mind. But it's lovely. This philosophical little tête-à-tête also provided each side with the opportunity to preen their expansive vocabulary. Show-offs!

Proud Boys fighting Patriot Front today in Portland. Racists with no masks vs. racists wearing masks, still equals racists. pic.twitter.com/Aly1EJMX2f

— Frank Figliuzzi (@FrankFigliuzzi1) June 25, 2023

Trump, predicting he'll lose. I say he'll even lose Iowa next June.

Last Thursday, Trump let loose another of his scrambled tirades, though this one was even more familiar than most. In 2016 he predicted that his enemies would steal the election, because he thought he'd lose. In 2020 he predicted the same, because he believed he'd lose. Now, leading up to the 2024 election, he's back at it — because he knows he'll lose.   

"CONGRESS, PLEASE INVESTIGATE THE POLITICAL WITCH HUNTS AGAINST ME CURRENTLY BEING BROUGHT BY THE CORRUPT DOJ AND FBI, WHO ARE TOTALLY OUT OF CONTROL. THIS CONTINUING SAGA IS RETRIBUTION AGAINST ME FOR WINNING AND, EVEN MORE IMPORTANTLY TO THEM, ELECTION INTERFERENCE REGARDING THE 2024 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION. IT WILL BE THERE [sic] UPDATED FORM OF RIGGING OUR MOST IMPORTANT ELECTION. LOOK AT THE POLLS - THEY CAN’T BEAT ME (MAGA!) Ata atHE BALLOT BOX, THE ONLY WAY THEY CAN WIN IS TO CHEAT. STOP THEM NOW!"

Here Trump is asking "Congress" to investigate the Justice Department and FBI, but he concludes by demanding that some unspecified party — "THEY" — be stopped from rigging the 2024 election. The man can't get through one paragraph without losing whatever train of thought he may have momentarily possessed.

In any event, he at least calculates his electoral future accurately. That will then give him another four years to fundraise off the Big Lie³, and set up another losing, money-making campaign for 2028. He'll lose because of what former federal appeals court judge J. Michael Luttig observed yesterday: "He would need every single Republican and independent vote," yet "there are untold numbers of Republicans and independents who will never vote for him," and "No sane Democrat will vote for Mr. Trump."

Luttig notes that "This is all plain to see, which makes it all the more mystifying why more Republicans don’t see it." Why the near-monolithic opposition? "No assemblage of politicians except the Republicans would ever conceive of running for the American presidency by running against the Constitution and the rule of law. But that’s exactly what they’re planning."

This sets up Luttig's second observation. "As only the Republicans can do, they are already ... rushing to crown Mr. Trump their nominee before the primary season even begins," writes Luttig. Then comes the whammy: "But that’s exactly what they’re planning."

Yet that, already, is exactly what's corroding Trump's base — even as they're already rushing to crown him the party's nominee. A CNN finding: "Though Trump continues to lead the GOP field by a wide margin ... [our] poll suggests that his support has declined.... Nearly a quarter now say they would not consider backing his candidacy under any circumstances" (emphasis mine).

Trump once has the confidence and support of 90-95% of Republicans. That's been weed-whacked by roughly 20%, or one out of five Republicans. And it's only 26 June 2023 — nearly a year until Iowa's caucus.

With Trump bleeding support this early, Judge Luttig's formulation requires some reworking: Whatever it is they're planning now, no majority assemblage of Republicans will conceive of supporting a presidential candidate who is running against the Constitution and the rule of law. 

I made a wager with a Moscow newspaper editor in this morning's first post. In this post I'll make another bet. Trump will lose Iowa, and the hill he's dying on will run downward from there. 

"A putsch will happen again. And it could be successful."

Aristocratic government is a monarchy whose throne is vacant.

— Joseph de Maistre, 1753-1821 

Once Russia's invasion began, Ukraine's best ally has been Vladimir Putin. He launched his war at the wrong time of year, in the wrong places, with the wrong number of troops, and his Trumplike mismanagement of the fatherland has been a ceaseless blessing for the defenders.

Said two Kremlin associates to The NY Times: "The [Prigozhin crisis was] first and foremost the product of a dysfunctional system of governance verging on chaos. Decisions on how to handle Mr. Prigozhin’s uprising were made on the fly Saturday, they said, after months in which the president and his inner circle kept on kicking the can down the road."

Following a mere five-minute national address during the Russia's greatest crisis since 1917, Putin "the strongman" has since vanished, either willingly or involuntarily. And only this morning did the government release an (undated) video of Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu. Not that their presence would have been embraced by the populace.

As The Wall Street Journal reports: "Many Russian analysts noted ... the very fact that there was so little spontaneous rallying for the Russian president on Saturday, in Rostov or Moscow, showed the pent-up hunger for change after 23 years of Putin’s rule."

Even non-professional Kremlinologists such as myself were, for months,  bewildered by Putin's kid-glove treatment of Yevgeny Prigozhin. He allowed a swelling crisis to go on and on, with Wagner's leader denouncing Putin's ministry of defense and top military brass. This was not the behavior of a strong man.

Russian elites both inside and close to the Kremlin took notice. There was — and is — something rotten in Moscow, as Shakespeare would have framed it. As a former Putin adviser, Sergei Markov, framed it yesterday: "Putsches have fundamental reasons. And if the reasons remain, a putsch will happen again. And it could be successful." 

Added Markov: "What Putin] always took pride in is the solidity of Russian statehood and political stability. That’s what they loved him for. And it turns out that it doesn’t exist." Consequently, the violent, revolutionary alternative to Putin seemed to frighten no one.

Andrei Kolesnikov of the Carnegie Endowment was in Moscow on Saturday, later telling The WSJ: "There was a moment of total loss of control. Moscow was already awaiting [Prigozhin], the city froze in expectation that some groups of people would enter. And people were not afraid. Putin was afraid of him, but not the country’s population." 

One wonders what Xi Jinping must be thinking.

Extraordinarily bizarre is that Putin permitted Prigozhin to repeatedly commit the crime of all crimes in Russia — not merely criticizing the war, but even denying its necessity — with impunity. Then, on Saturday, Putin declared that the Wagner Group's leader was a "traitor." And then he cuts a deal with the Belarusian president, Aleksandr Lukashenko, permitting the traitor to go free. What's more, Putin freed Prigozhin after the latter's forces had shot down six Russian helicopters and a command-center plane, killing 13 airmen.

Xi was looking to hook up with an authoritarian gorilla like himself. But in Putin he has only a pygmy marmoset.  

The least severe ramification from Putin's Trumpian mismanagement and bedazzling weakness was expressed by Konstantin Remchukov, "a Moscow newspaper editor with Kremlin connections," writes the Times. "[He] said in a telephone interview that what once had seemed unthinkable was now possible: that people close to Mr. Putin could seek to persuade him not to stand for re-election in Russia’s presidential vote next spring. With Saturday’s events, he said, Mr. Putin had conclusively lost his status as the guarantor of the elite’s wealth and security. 'If I was sure a month ago that Putin would run unconditionally because it was his right, now I see that the elites can no longer feel unconditionally secure.'"

I have no Kremlin connections, but with Mr. Remchukov I would gladly wager on Putin's future. My bet would not include Putin's polite declination of a reelection campaign next spring. Indeed, it would not include Putin's continued mismanagement throughout next month. Russia's high panjandrums are in need of a real gorilla, and that beast is not Vladimir Putin. He'll either be shipped off to Vladivostok with a crateful of bananas, or the panjandrums will graciously spring for a coffin. That's my bet.     

A really peculiar take on how the West can benefit from Russia's troubles

So deep does the WSJ editorial board's antipathy run toward helping those in need of help, the scribblers at the yacht club draw this twofold conclusion about "the best result" possible from the Russia-Ukraine war:

"A stronger Western alliance free of the post-Cold War illusions that Russia and China pose no threat and the welfare state can replace the will and money required for national defense."

The board lives in such perpetual aggrievement over the altogether unacceptable state of America's safety-net affairs that it's compelled to see the Russia-Ukraine conflict not as the potential liberation of 44 million Ukrainians from hideous Russian tyranny, but as the glorious slayer of, say, preschool assistance to impoverished parents.

That healthy, educated youngsters will grow up to be literate, productive citizens necessary for national stability is but an "illusion" to the WSJ editorial board. It claims the money spent on such quixotic ventures would be better placed in the hands of the Pentagon, which, as we know, has always been tragically unfunded.

What eludes the board is that redistributionism in the pursuit of literate, productive citizens is an indispensable element of battling class inequality and thus buttressing our national defense. Pissed-off, undervalued denizens of the U.S. are most unlikely to want to fight for it — yet they too are indispensable in times of war, since privileged, monied denizens of the U.S. are no longer interested in risking their lives for the system that enriches them.

I agree that — temporarily — U.S. military spending must be increased. Xi Jinping leaves us no choice. He's cranking up China's military budget and his intentions are not peaceful. Bad moons are rising in the East. But the most foolhardy measure we could take would be to finance the Pentagon at the expense of domestic contentment.            

How to do both? Enhance our military while doubling down on Bidenesque social programs? — both of which serve to strengthen defense? The most patriotic route would be for the monied American elite whose children are unidealistically pacific to cough up more in taxes.

But, as long as the yacht-club scribblers are enthralled by the subliterate philosophizing of such economic morons as Stephen Moore, their partiotism will take a backseat to badmouthing selflessness, while promoting plutocratic pampering. Which weakens national defense.