Never Again

Never Again

We must defend Democracy

 

The U.S. House Select Committee investigating the insurrection on January 6^th presented compelling evidence on Thursday night showing clearly that Donald Trump violated his oath of office to protect and defend the Constitution when he refused to do anything to stop the violent insurrection at the Capitol for over three hours. 

 

Trump summoned the mob to Washington D.C on January 6^th and sent them to the Capitol to “fight like hell” to stop Congress from certifying the election he lost. During the uprising, Trump watched the violence perpetrated by his supporters on Fox News from the comfort of the private dining room next to the Oval Office. 

 

As soon as the mob breached the Capitol security perimeter, close advisors, members of his own family, and senior White House officials all told him he needed to go on television to condemn the violence and tell his supporters at the Capitol to stand down and go home. He refused and fueled the fire further by tweeting how his own Vice President was a coward for not stopping Congress from certifying the election results. He only made calls to his allies in the Senate and Rudi Giuliani, his election conspiracy lawyer. His final statement on January 6^th told the insurrectionists they were good people and he loved them. That statement only came when law enforcement reinforcements were being dispatched to quell the violence after orders from Vice President Pence. Even after the violence was over and the rioters had gone away, he could not bring himself to condemn what they had done or admit the election was lost. 

 

The nation heard evidence that Trump had every opportunity to stop the carnage and chose to do nothing, hoping his supporters would be successful in stopping Congress from certifying the results of the election. Not only did he choose to say nothing to his supporters, he also chose not to call in any help for the besieged Capitol police officers who were trying to protect the Capitol and members of Congress who were there fulfilling their constitutional duties. 

 

The first duty of every President is to defend the Constitution and the branches of our government that document created.  His oath required him to defend the processes for the peaceful and orderly transfer of power after the elections created in the Constitution. Trump’s choice to do nothing to stop the violence violated his oath and those duties. 

 

The hearings into the events of January 6^th have revealed many loyal Republicans who worked for Trump for years who believe what he did and did not do on January 6 and 7 crossed the line and threatened the very foundations of our democracy. Those who have testified before the committee have demonstrated that the tribalism of the cult of Trump does have its limits. There are places where even those Trump loyalists refuse to go. 

 

Thursday’s witnesses, a deputy press secretary and a senior deputy national security advisor, put country over party when it comes to a violent attempt to prevent the orderly transfer of power from the losing administration to the winning one. They agreed that the “Big Lie” had no validity and that it was wrong to keep insisting the election had been stolen.  These brave citizens risked the opprobrium of their peers by standing up for the principles of the founding fathers and speaking truth to power. 

 

They join other Republican White House staffers who have come forward to testify about the events and actions of the former president that imperiled our democracy. Not only are they to be commended for their courage but they will be remembered for doing the right thing when their country called for the truth. They demonstrated that you can be a conservative Republican, tell the truth and stand up for our democracy without buying into the conspiracy theories and cult of personality all too prevalent in today’s GOP. 

 

GOP Rep. Liz Cheney chaired Thursday’s hearing. Her closing remarks are a clarion call for other conservatives to abandon the cult of Trump and to put county over party. She laid bare the errors in the “Big Lie” and how we must make changes to our laws so that the events of January 6^th are never repeated. For those in her party who have ignored the hearings and think they are just political theatre, her words, and those of fellow Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger, are a reminder that facts and truth matter, especially in the conduct of government officials. Those who ignore those warnings do so at their peril. 

 

 

Thanks SCOTUS

 Thanks SCOTUS for the Path to Victory

Thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court for helping to create a path to a Democratic victory in this fall’s mid-term elections. Unwittingly, the ultra-conservative majority of the Court’s Justices joined forces with the House Select Sub-Committee investigating the insurrection on January 6th and the several state Attorney Generals investigating the “Big Lie” efforts to overturn the last presidential election. These combined forces will do more to mobilize the electorate than any of them could have imagined. 

The Supreme Court’s trifecta of cases that over-ruled Roe v. Wade, struck down New York’s reasonable restrictions on public carrying of firearms and gutted the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to limit harmful emissions from power plants struck every major element of a Democratic platform. 

Progressive Democrats have long stood up for a woman’s right to choose whether to have a child or not. Several generations of women have gotten used to the protection of their bodily autonomy provided by Roe v. Wade and it’s offspring. They will not go peacefully into the good night now that protection has been stripped from them and their children. Justice Thomas did his cause no good by urging the Court to go after other rights that the Court has recognized as part of “substantive due process” such has the right of married couples to use contraceptives, the ability of same-sex couples to marry, and the general right to privacy that protects against government intervention into what goes on in people’s bedrooms. Those who fear Justice Thomas might be gunning for them will certainly join women who have been relegated to second class citizenship in electing those who will stand up for them and codify their previous protections. 

In striking down the New York laws prohibiting most public carrying of firearms, the Court further energized those clamoring for reasonable federal gun control measures to staunch the bleeding caused by horrific gun violence that has overtaken cities and towns across the land. Congress saw the handwriting on the wall, passing the first gun control measures in decades as citizens rise-up to demand more control over the carnage caused by unfettered access to weapons of mass destruction. 

Finally, the Court put a nail in the GOP’s coffin by limiting the ability of government regulators to protect our air and water. Most Americans have come to understand that only by uniform regulation will our ability to breathe clean air and drink clean water be preserved for future generations. I grew up with brown air in Southern California in the 1950s. I know what it is like to struggle to breathe due to intense smog caused by automobile emissions. I was kept inside on many summer days due to ozone alerts until California started to regulate auto emissions and clean up California’s air. We won’t go back to rivers that catch fire due to flammable pollutants being dumped into them. We won’t go back to catastrophes like the poisoning of the drinking water in Flint, Michigan. 

If the Court’s leap to the far right was not enough to get voters off their couches and to the polls, the revelations of the House Select Committee investigation into the riots and assault on the Capitol on January 6th last year might just get it done. The Committee has done a masterful job of exposing the fraudulent “Big Lie” and placing the former president and members of his inner circle in the middle of a conspiracy to prevent the peaceful transfer of power from the president who lost the election to the one who won. If criminal indictments of the former president and his cohorts are not forthcoming, many will be rightfully concerned that our justice system is not up to protecting our democracy. 

Not waiting for the U.S. Department of Justice to act more forcibly against the former president and his gang of law breakers, several state Attorneys General have started their own investigations into the illegal behaviors so neatly laid out by the Select Committee. Georgia is looking into the effort to persuade the Secretary of State there to find votes for the former president that did not exist. New York is looking into the various business ventures of the former president and his family and their dubious tax filings. Other states are looking into the fraudulent electors sent to Washington to replace those rightfully elected to the Electoral College as a result of the free and fair elections in their states. Those depending upon the endorsement of the former president to carry the day in their local elections this fall will be sadly disappointed that they hitched their wagon to a long dead horse. 

All the issues raised by these efforts will mobilize voters like we have not seen in decades. The blue wave that is rising will sweep those who would strip us of protected freedoms, remove protection of clean air and water, make guns omnipresent on our streets from office for a long time to come. 

Fractured GOP

GOP Divisions Doom Election Chances

Trump’s endorsement won’t help

Tim Michels is running for governor in the GOP primary election set for August. He certainly is a gambler. He is running as an outsider, successful businessman and Army veteran, all of which are winning positions in electoral politics. He took the extra step, which may well doom his chances to replace Governor Evers in November, by securing and flooding the airways with his endorsement by the former president. 

Trump’s endorsement certainly helps Michels with that segment of the GOP base who continue their delusional worship of the former occupant of the White House. They tend to vote in primaries, especially those that mark the battleground for control of the GOP party apparatus and funds. Michels’ endorsement also all but killed the candidacies of Kevin Nicholson and Tim Ramthun, who were counting on getting it to boost them into the top of the ticket. Neither will go anywhere without it.

Michels’ losing gamble of embracing the former president will become evident if Michels wins the August primary and faces Evers, one on one, in the Fall. I suspect that the anti-Trump wing of the GOP will abandon Michels’ radical shift to the far right and either not vote at all or switch their vote to Evers. Michels could have won the primary without endorsement but threw the dice anyway. We don’t need a gambler in the Governor’s chair. 

Trump’s numbers continue to fall and, while he is helping win some GOP primaries, his continued influence is waning here and across the country. The continued prosecutions of far-right insurrectionists and the public hearings by the bi-partisan Congressional committee investigating the January 6th invasion of the Capitol will certainly speed up the decline of Trump’s brand of politics.  

Former Lt. Governor Rebecca Kleefisch is the GOP establishment front runner. She brings all her Scott Walker baggage while branding herself too as an outsider who will take on the anonymous Madison liberal mob. That is a curious position since majorities in the Wisconsin legislature and of the state Supreme Court Justices are conservative Republicans.  Given our gerrymandered legislature, both majorities are likely to continue for the foreseeable future. 

Wisconsin Republicans remain divided and lack a coherent, unifying platform that could deliver an electoral victory in the Fall. The party division continues with GOP primary challengers going after current GOP legislative leaders, including Speaker Robin Vos, and Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMehieu, over “Big Lie” issues with the 2020 presidential election. 

Fortunately for the rest of us, that division will result in continuing the Wisconsin tradition of divided government with one party in control of the legislature and the other party controlling the executive branch. The part that is missing from this traditional division is the willingness of both parties to work together to solve common problems. 

The mystery in all of these shenanigans is why the GOP continues to shoot itself in both feet. There have been times in our history where principled people with different political philosophies have come together to serve the common good. The most recent version of that kind of governance was dealt a serious blow when then Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich launched his brand of “take no prisoners” politics. His early victories solidified political action geared towards gaining power for power’s sake that took over Wisconsin GOP politics under Walker. Power then became used to accumulate more power, not to fix roads, improve schools, combat poverty, provide healthcare or solve other common problems. 

We need a return to bi-partisan governance that respects our differences while seeking common ground to solve common problems. Hopefully, it won’t be the ongoing COVID pandemic or a mass shooting at a Wisconsin elementary school that drives Republicans and Democrats to the same table. 

Time will tell.

The Great Replacement

The Great Replacement Myth

No excuse for violence

Not content with promoting bans on the teaching of critical race theory to students who are not ever taught about it, the white supremacists among us are now floating the latest conspiracy theory, The Great Replacement. 

Meant to stoke white peoples’ fears of people of color, TGR claims, without any empirical support, that immigration policies which allow people of color to enter the country are designed to replace whites with those immigrants thus bringing about the end of the white race. 

The replacement theory, first advanced in Europe to try and stem the tide of African immigrants, has been brought here and promoted by some fringe GOP politicians and their mouthpieces on Fox News. It has become a guiding light for white supremacists here and used by those who use violence against people with different skin color to justify their actions. 

Guess what folks, white people are not being replaced because of the color of their skin. Some are being replaced by people of all different skin tones who believe that people are just that, people. As we intermingle with people from other places, interracial marriages and births have taken place and will continue to blend us all into what we have always been, just human beings. 

The notion that any one group of humans is superior to all others, especially one based on skin color, is just plain wrong. We are all the same inside. Some are better educated, more empathetic, more open to new ideas, and more willing to work to better the human condition than others, but that does not make them superior, just better people. 

We need to stop thinking in terms of race or skin color. These are artificial constructs designed to divide us from one another. We all inhabit the same planet. We need to come together to keep it habitable and safe for all of us, not just some of us. The outliers who continue to think only about themselves cannot prevail in the quest to make the world a better place. 

Surely, we are a planet divided by geography and political systems. People in different areas of the globe have approached how to govern in vastly different ways. Those differences are transitory. Witness the fall of the Soviet Union as a recent example. Governments with different rules can work together to achieve common goals. Witness the United Nations. These transitory systems do not define us or make one group superior to others. We all are just human beings trying to survive and take care of each other. 

Our political system is divided as well. The current divisions are stoked by these conspiracy theories which demonize others who think and look differently. That needs to stop. Our grand experiment in democracy will not survive if the conspiracies are allowed to fester unchallenged. 

The ongoing gun violence in this country is but a manifestation of those divisions and the permission the conspiracies provide to use violence to fix our problems. How long can our society survive if anyone is allowed to walk into a school and open fire, killing children and their teachers? 

At least our political system provides a path towards a solution to the problem of gun violence. We can elect legislative representatives who will enact laws regulating firearms to effectively keep them out of the hands of those prone to violence against others. We can elect legislative representatives who will pass laws providing mental health treatment programs with adequate funding to help those suffering from the delusion that others are out to replace them. We can elect legislative representatives who will honor educators and the work they do by passing laws making schools safer places with adequate resources to perform the sacred duties entrusted to them. We can elect legislative representatives who will pass laws enabling effective enforcement of these laws. 

With the epidemic of gun violence supported by conspiracy theories abroad in the land, we can choose to do something about the problem or choose to do nothing and watch the cycle repeat as it has far too often. 

It is up to us. 

A Rising Tide

 A Rising Tide

 

The leaked draft of Justice Alioto’s majority opinion overturning Roe v. Wade in a case out of Mississippi created a firestorm that will carry through the mid-term elections, those in the Fall and beyond. While the draft may not look the same in the Court’s final opinion, it is unlikely that any of the votes to overturn Roe will change, the testimony in recent Senate confirmation hearings notwithstanding. 

 

Over 70 percent of Americans consistently poll in favor of maintaining Roe as the law of the land. That support will manifest in the upcoming electoral cycles turning out anti-abortion legislators in state and federal elections as women and their male allies organize to support pro-choice replacements. 

 

If Roe is overturned, abortion will become the defining issue in the political divide that has engulfed America for several decades and should relegate the MAGA and anti-abortion movements to the fringes of American political discourse where they truly belong. 

 

Our daughter lives in Canada. Abortion there is considered a health service provided just like all other health services. The Canadian government believes it has no business telling medical providers which procedures they should provide to their patients and the government funded healthcare service treats abortion accordingly, leaving the decision to use it to women and their doctors. The procedure is less politicized as a result. 

 

Here in the United States, the majority will has been hijacked by a religious minority bent upon forcing their beliefs upon the entire populace whether they share those religious beliefs or not. 

 

I know women who have chosen to end their pregnancies by having an abortion. All are thoughtful, caring, and compassionate and made a difficult decision to end those pregnancies. None did it blithely or just because they could. None regret having made the choice. I respect them all for having made their choices and cannot consider taking away their ability to make those deeply personal decisions. 

 

I also know women opposed to abortion who would never choose to have the procedure. I respect them and their right to have that belief and make that choice. 

 

Where I draw the line is forcing either group to embrace the beliefs of the other. 

 

 Making abortion illegal will never end use of the procedure. Women will always find ways to end unwanted pregnancies. What overturning Roe will accomplish is the end of safe abortions in those states which make the procedure illegal. It will force many to take unwanted pregnancies to term and leave them with children they cannot support, and our laisse-faire support system will leave them to suffer with inadequate health care and food insecurity. 

 

Many have decried the unprecedented leak of Justice Alioto’s draft as the real problem. Such leaks are unprecedented and wrong but should not be used to deflect the discussion from the content of the draft. 

 

Better legal scholars than I have already plumbed the logic and support Alioto used to reach his conclusions justifying reversal of Roe v. Wade. They have pointed out two very troubling concerns raised by Alioto’s draft. 

 

The first is Alioto’s reliance on pronouncements by Sir Matthew Hale, a seventeenth century English barrister. In today’s world Hale would be labeled a classic misogynist. He espoused the biblical views common at the time that women were born from Adam’s rib and therefore his property. Hale would reduce women’s reproductive freedom to those of present-day livestock whose keepers regulate with complete impunity. Hale’s view relegates women back to being barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen, like it or not. 

 

The second concern arises from Alioto’s analysis requiring constitutional rights to be firmly rooted in its original construct to pass muster. That analysis, when carried over to modern decisions, puts things like using contraceptives, same sex, and interracial marriages, LBGQTI rights, laws banning racial and gender discrimination and women’s right to vote in serious jeopardy. While Alioto tried to limit his analysis to just abortions, he understands that his analysis used to justify banning them can easily be used to justify other bans on things a majority of the justices believe are wrong. Legal precedents cannot be easily constrained.

 

Women and their allies across the country are already mobilizing, organizing, marching, and protesting the inevitability of Roe’s demise given the present makeup of the Court. The resulting movement will rekindle the one started by the women who are their mothers and grandmothers to create an America where women have equal rights to their male counterparts. 

 

Modern women who have experienced equal pay for equal work, the right to vote and work just like men, the freedom to have complete reproductive healthcare, the ability to sit in seats of political and economic power, the right to freely express their sexuality, and to enjoy free speech of their own opinions unconstrained by husbands or fathers will not go back to Hale’s views of their roles. We are in for quite a ride. 

A Sinking ship

Stuck on a Sinking Ship

Too many Wisconsin Republicans still feel the need to kiss the ring of the former president in order to see a path to electoral victory.

All of the GOP candidates for governor have made the public pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago, except Kevin Nicholson, so they can say they went. Some have embraced the “Big Lie” that the former occupant of the White House really won the 2020 election and none of the rest have publicly renounced the claim, except Nicholson, who agrees that President Biden won the election.

Further down the food chain, our GOP Assembly Speaker, Robin Vos, continues to bend to pressure from Florida. After Vos appeared to put the Gableman fiasco behind him, the King of Mar-a-Lago threatened to find Vos a primary challenger if he did not continue Gableman’s “investigation” into the 2020 presidential election. Vos did an about-face and announced that Gableman could continue his work to enforce subpoenas for documents and depositions currently tied up in litigation while taking an unspecified pay cut. Gableman’s work has drawn bipartisan criticism as a “witch hunt” that has yet to find and document any fraud in the last presidential election after spending hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars looking.

With national polling showing ever decreasing support for the “Big Lie” and those who perpetuate it, it is surprising that those in the GOP leadership still cling to it and seek the support of its main proponent.

Seeking support from Mar-a-Lago carries other risks. The continuing fallout from the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, both through criminal convictions and congressional investigations, casts a pall over the legitimacy and patriotism of the former president and his supporters. As more information emerges about the roles of former administration officials and GOP members in the House of Representatives in fomenting the insurrection and failing to call off or condemn the violence at the Capitol, more and more Americans are coming to recognize just how close we came to losing our democracy. We just do not use martial law to stay in power after losing an election.

Alt-right support for Russia’s President Putin and his democracy-destroying invasion of Ukraine has been whipped up by the former president. His ties, financial and political, to Putin and his oligarchy put him squarely on the wrong side of history. Authoritarianism is not a path to victory in American elections. Support for war criminals does not gain traction in our electorate. Polling clearly shows that a vast majority of the American public support President Biden’s support for the Ukrainian democracy and people, both militarily and diplomatically, as Biden unites Europe against the Russian invasion.

After being thrown off of social media platforms like Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, and Twitter, the former president backed another platform, Truth Social. It is run by former legislator Devin Nunes and has struggled to gain much traction. Its stock took a 44% hit after Elon Musk agreed to buy Twitter. Trump, having only posted once on the new platform, has not helped its cause.

The former president’s financial woes continue as the New York attorney general convinced a judge to hold him in contempt and fine him $10,000 per day for failing to produce documents for the state’s investigation into his business dealings there. We will see which hurts more, the payment of the fines or the disclosures that will be made if the documents are produced. It is already public knowledge that the businesses run by the family allegedly used two sets of figures, one inflated asset values to obtain loans and the other deflated those same values for tax purposes. You cannot have it both ways.

I cannot see why GOP politicians still think it important to have support or endorsements from such a loser. He has an ever-dwindling base of support which will wither away over time. His endorsement will be seen by more and more as the kiss of political death to be avoided at all costs.

Until the GOP finds a new course with a positive message and a bold leadership, the former president will still be able to command center stage. Fortunately, that stage will get smaller and smaller as we continue to restore our democracy.

Don Kriefall, Well Done

 Well Done Don Kriefall 

Michalak Must Go

Washington County Board Chair Donald Kriefall and I do not agree on a host of issues, policies, and laws, but his recent call for Supervisor Timothy Michalak to resign from the County Board was the correct and responsible thing to do. Michalak brought a concealed firearm to a County Board meeting in a secure area of the Justice Center where it dropped to the floor in violation of state law. He carried the concealed firearm while his concealed carry permit had expired. Those transgressions more than justify Kriefall’s call for Michalak’s resignation and plan to oust Michalak from the Board should he refuse. 

Kriefall posted his official statement on the County’s Facebook page and the comments posted clearly show just how divided our community has become. Many applauded Kriefall’s statement, echoing his recognition that no one is above the law and that Michalak’s actions have cast a shadow on the whole Board. On the other side some Second Amendment purists have taken the opportunity to suggest that Michalak had every right to carry his gun anywhere he wanted and even drop it because restrictions on where one can conceal, or even open, carry are all unconstitutional. The back and forth between the moderate and ultra conservatives that followed shows just how fractured they have become. 

Michalak should resign both from the County Board and as Mayor of the City of Hartford. He had a similar incident dropping his concealed gun in a City Council meeting there. Even though Michalak recently won re-election as Mayor, he did so with less than 50 percent of the vote due to the splitting of the rest of the votes among the several write-in candidates. Should Michalak refuse to resign, the Common Council should take the steps necessary to remove him from office. 

Elected officials must set a high standard as law abiding citizens if they expect the rest of us to follow the laws those officials swear to protect and defend when they take their oath of office. When an elected official violates the law or engages in dangerous behavior and refuses to acknowledge their violations, public trust is eroded and the official’s ability to govern vanishes. Apologies for these violations are just not sufficient. 

We can and will debate the meaning and reach of the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution, but in the end, the nine justices of the United States Supreme Court have the last word. As it stands now, the Court allows some restrictions on where, when, and how citizens can possess and use firearms. There are other restrictions on the type of firearms and ammunitions citizens can possess or own. We cannot have machine guns, fully automatic firing guns or military weapons like canons or rockets. States are allowed some leeway in enacting laws on concealed and open carrying of firearms. Wisconsin passed laws restricting where firearms will be allowed and requiring permits for concealed carry. Some may believe these restrictions violate the Second Amendment, but until the Supreme Court says they do, they must be followed. 

Unfortunately, in our polarized political environment there are too many who have come to believe that their views of what the Constitution requires allows them to do anything that comports with those views, even if specific laws and court rulings differ. The end result of this kind of thinking leads to societal chaos. We are a society based upon laws enacted by legislatures and enforced by law enforcement and courts. We cannot allow individuals to pick and choose to follow just those laws they like or to interpret the laws as they see fit. 

Let us hope that Supervisor and Mayor Michalak sees the error of his ways and does the correct thing by resigning his positions. If he does not, we need to urge the County Board and Hartford City Council to take all necessary steps to remove him from his offices and restore public confidence in our institutions of government.