Perceptions – Are Americans Really Profoundly Different Today

 

We seem to be a nation ripped in half by loud toxic voices enabled by mass social media platforms and mendacious mainstream media. Hate and discord, infectious falsehoods and “us” vs “them” politics have redefined America. Individuals with extreme views use to be isolated, silent seethers in communities across the land. We’ve taken to calling hateful mass killers “lone wolves;” nothing could be farther from the truth. 18-year-old avowed racist, Payton Gendron, was deeply connected in online communities with people who shared his extremist hateful views, discussed targets and weapons openly, before Gendron sprayed his bullets mostly against African Americans at a Buffalo grocery store in a minority neighborhood. Although 13 people were shot, all 10 fatalities were Black. It’s no surprise that reactions in Black communities around America have experienced elevated fear and hopelessness about their place in America.

“[A post-Buffalo shooting Washington] Post-Ipsos poll of Black Americans finds most are saddened and angered by the attacks, but just 8 percent say they are ‘surprised.’ Even before the shooting, in earlier poll questioning, Black people saw racism as one of their greatest threats. After the attack, only 10 percent think the problem of racism will improve in their lifetimes, while a 53 percent majority think it will get worse… Three-quarters of Black people are worried that they or someone they love will be physically attacked because they are Black.

“A 70 percent majority of Black Americans think at least half of White Americans hold white supremacist beliefs, 75 percent of Black Americans say white supremacists are a ‘major threat’ to Black Americans, and 66 percent say white supremacy is a bigger problem today than it was five years ago.” Washington Post, May 21st. As you watch congressional gridlock, rising gunplay against minorities and a newfound freedom to express hateful speech and open legitimized bigotry, as even suggesting that discrimination persists in American society can get a teacher fired in red states with anti-CRT laws, what happens when you dig beneath the angry rhetoric and probe how most Americans really feel… and how they think change has occurred?

The question of how we think most people feel and how they actually feel was probed in a recent survey, “Widespread misperceptions of long-term attitude change” written by Jason Dana, Yale Associate Professor of Management and Marketing and Columbia Business School postdoctoral research scholar, Adam Mastroianni. The results, summarized by Roberta Kwok in the May 16th Yale Insights, are surprising. The headline: “Perceptions of Shifts in Public Opinion Are Wildly Off Base” reveals: “New research finds that people have consistently inaccurate impressions of how public attitudes on various issues have changed over the last several decades. They often greatly overestimate how conservative people were in the past, leading to an exaggerated impression of liberal progress…

“[For example:] what percentage of Americans do you think were worried about climate change in the early 1990s, and how did that figure shift over the next few decades?... One might reasonably assume that many more people are concerned about the issue now than in the past. After all, the world has been besieged by wildfires, droughts, and more powerful storms, with constant coverage of these disasters in the media. But the real answer is that 61% of people surveyed in 1990 expressed concern about climate change—only slightly less than the 65% who did so in 2019…

“Then they asked 943 study participants to guess how public opinion on those issues had shifted from the earliest to the most recent years in the poll data. For instance, people estimated what percentage of people said they would vote for a qualified female presidential candidate in 1972 and in 2010.

“In general, the study participants’ guesses were badly wrong. They overestimated how much social change had occurred for 57% of issues, underestimated it for 20%, and guessed the wrong direction of change for another 20%... For instance, people believed that willingness to vote for a female president had leapt from 32% to 70%, when in fact it had gone from 74% to 96%. They thought that feelings toward Black Americans (measured on a warm/cold ‘feelings thermometer’) were much more unfavorable a half-century ago; in reality, they were similar to people’s feelings today. And they guessed that support for an assault weapons ban had increased from 41% to 56% over the last two decades, when it had actually declined from 58% to 48%.

“Why was this happening? The bias appeared to be partly driven by an assumption that people were much more conservative in the past, and therefore that much more progress in the liberal direction had occurred… People systematically overestimated shifts in the direction they considered liberal, and this bias was even more prominent on issues that they thought were highly partisan. Participants seemed to assume that if a position was very liberal, ‘people must have really been against it in the past,’ Dana says.

“The team doesn’t know exactly how this misperception formed. One possibility is that people’s impressions are informed by TV shows and movies about past eras, which might not accurately reflect true attitudes. Or participants might have mistakenly assumed that major events, such as the 2008 election of Barack Obama, heralded a tectonic shift in attitudes. (People had estimated that stated willingness to vote for a Black presidential candidate skyrocketed from 32% to 74% from 1978 to 2010, when the change was actually much smaller: 85% to 97%.).”

The problem seems to be exacerbated by loud and often unpleasant voices articulating long-held fears, blame and biases. That mass and social media, reinforced by legislatures imposing a conservative will in traditionally conservative red states, have legitimized bigotry may have made the problem worse, but the underlying feelings appear to have been there a very long time. While the reaction of younger voters, those most challenged by intolerance, gun violence and most of all, existential climate change, may force a major attitude shift in the future, today’s opinions, loudly voiced, seem to mirror the same feelings Americans have held for a very long time.

I’m Peter Dekom, and scarce resources, over population, climate change and unrestrained leaders willing to apply police and military force to implement their totalitarian visions seem to bring out the toxic expression of very old beliefs and biases.

Election Hell – Will Reversing Roe vs Wade Make a Difference?

 

“Abortion is a fundamental right for all women. It must be protected. I wish to express my solidarity with the women whose liberties are being undermined by the Supreme Court of the United States.” 

French President Emmanuel Macron.

“I have always believed in a woman’s right to choose and I stick to that view, that’s why the UK has the laws that it does.” Conservative UK PM Boris Johnson, calling the reversal of Roe vs Wade, “a big step backwards.”

“My heart weeps for the girls and women of the USA. A huge set back. The right to a free abortion is one of the most fundamental rights there is. We must never compromise the unrestricted right of women to decide over their own bodies and future.” 

Denmark’s PM, Mette Frederiksen

“We cannot take any rights for granted. Social achievements are always at risk of going backwards and their defence has to be our day to day. Women must be able to decide freely about their lives.” Spain’s PM, Pedro Sanchez

“[I am] very concerned about implications of [the US Supreme Court] decision on Roe v Wade and the signal it sends to the world. Banning abortion never leads to fewer abortions, only to more unsafe abortions.” 

Belgium’s PM, Alexander De Croo 

“The news coming out of the United States is horrific. My heart goes out to the millions of American women who are now set to lose their legal right to an abortion. I can’t imagine the fear and anger you are feeling right now.” 

Canadian PM, Justin Trudeau 

The major Western democracies are aghast. Angry American protestors across the nation march in furious and vociferous demonstrations. The Supreme Court’s Dobbs reversal of Roe v Wade may tilt voter sentiment back from its conservative vector, but a survey described below, taken before that decision, suggests that Americans blame Biden and the Democrats for excessive government failures, COVID restrictions, inflation – even as the rest of the world faces the same issues – and have bought into the GOP culture wars. 

They also perceive border asylum seekers – running from corruption and violence enabled in significant part to American guns massively smuggled south – as taking their jobs and funneling ultimate leftist voters into our country. Without evidence. Too many Americans accept the GOP claims that Dems are rolling us towards “socialism” because that word is increasingly applied and resonates with older voters. 

Yet there is almost no genuine veering towards full government ownership of wealth, the means of production and real estate – the real meaning of “socialism.” Unfortunately, increasingly Americans vote labels over substance, outsourcing their opinions to pundits, left and right. Right-wing voters cite the tiny four-person left wing “Squad” in the House as the clear spokespeople for the entire Democratic Party. They certainly are not. Nevertheless, the pre-Dobbs numbers augur particularly badly for the Dems.

“More than 1 million voters across 43 states have switched to the Republican Party over the last year, according to voter registration data analyzed by The Associated Press. The previously unreported number reflects a phenomenon that is playing out in virtually every region of the country — Democratic and Republican states along with cities and small towns — in the period since President Biden replaced former President Donald Trump.

“But nowhere is the shift more pronounced — and dangerous for Democrats — than in the suburbs, where well-educated swing voters who turned against Trump's Republican Party in recent years appear to be swinging back. Over the last year, far more people are switching to the GOP across suburban counties from Denver to Atlanta and Pittsburgh and Cleveland. Republicans also gained ground in counties around medium-size cities such as Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; Raleigh, North Carolina; Augusta, Georgia; and Des Moines, Iowa…

“Republicans benefited last year as suburban parents grew increasingly frustrated by prolonged pandemic-related schools closures. And as inflation intensified more recently, the Republican National Committee has been hosting voter registration events at gas stations in suburban areas across swing states like Arizona, Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania to link the Biden administration to record-high gas prices. The GOP has also linked the Democratic president to an ongoing baby formula shortage.” Steve Peoples and Aaron Kessler reporting for the Associated Press, June 27th.

Meanwhile, Russia is looking at the American election disarray, believing that the United States is likely to push Congress back to Trump era isolation in the midterms and shove Putin-friendly Trump or his replacement clone back into the presidency in 2024. Russian media now openly admits its 2016 social media mis- and disinformation campaign inside the United States, replete with individualized messaging targeting American voter fears and biases; they actually take credit for tilting the margin of victory in electing Donald Trump. On their primetime news casts, their newscasters openly admit that Russia plans to continue its election interference, hoping to dull the American appetite to support Ukraine and NATO itself. They believe it is just a waiting game. A MAGA president is good news for Vladimir Putin, as he watched the isolationist right and left rise in the recent French parliamentary election. 

Every US intelligence agency has affirmed that massive flood of Russian campaign influence, overt and covert, in 2016 and beyond. Indeed, as Russia expert, journalist and historian David Shimer tell us in an August 20, 2020 interview in the Yale News, this is nothing new: “Russian hackers and internet trolls sought to manipulate American voters throughout the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign, as they [did] again in 2020. Their efforts represent the latest chapter in a 100-year history of secret operations by the Soviet Union’s KGB, Russia under Vladimir Putin, and the CIA to influence electoral outcomes in foreign countries…

“In 1919, Vladimir Lenin, the first Soviet leader, founded an organization known as the Communist International, or Comintern, which was meant to unite the communist parties of the world and to foment revolution abroad. It distributed money and supported propaganda organs in various countries to help communist parties compete more effectively at the ballot box and ideally win elections. Lenin’s vision was that communist parties would assume power, topple their governments, and abolish their national borders… 

“There’s a misperception today that foreign electoral interference is somehow a political issue — that if you say election security matters, then you’re a partisan Democrat. History shows that that is just not so. During the Cold War… the Soviets sought to destroy the candidacies of Richard Nixon, a Republican, and of Ronald Reagan, a Republican. It just so happens that today Russia believes it is in its interest to support a Republican. 

“But Russia’s aim here is to advance Russia’s objectives, which are to choose our leaders, to sabotage and delegitimize our process of succession, and to undermine public confidence in the democratic model, and that should offend and alarm all Americans, regardless of party loyalties…

“America still has no comprehensive national strategy to deal with this threat. And in many ways, things have gotten worse. Whereas President Obama sought to defend against Russian interference, the current president has solicited foreign interference in our elections, which signals to countries like Russia that they can continue executing these types of operations without risking serious consequences. I don’t see any unity in America about countering this threat or even acknowledging that it exists.” Make no mistake; our CIA has also used overt and covert measures to influence foreign elections as well. The era of American obsession with growing communism after WWII represented the heyday of those efforts.

Our Founding Fathers, living in a world that was 94% agricultural/rural with flintlocks and muskets as the personal weapons du jure, did not trust city slickers, fearing that urban voters were untrustworthy, not being people of the earth. So, they made sure that states’ rights were protected and that each state had two Senators, regardless of population. Thus, in today’s primarily urban America, 30% of the voters elect 50% of the Senate, an anomaly made much worse by the filibuster, making us the only purported democracy where a majority of the legislature cannot pass most bills. 

As my recent Is the Populist Right Making American Democracy Impossible? blog points out, red states have pulled out all the stops further to marginalize blue voters. So, for urban voters to stake their claim to appropriate legislation and representation, they quite literally have to produce 1.8 votes for each rural vote cast! Will the Dobbs decision produce that margin in our elections? As most in the EU now recognize, quoted in the prestigious The Economist, at best the United States is a “flawed democracy.” It is a time of shame, sadness and minority rule.

I’m Peter Dekom, and we must all realize that the United States is not a representative democracy; it is an anocracy where roughly 30% of America (strongly guided by evangelical and NRA precepts) has become our governing “shot-caller.”

Is the Populist Right Making American Democracy Impossible?

 

"To a few of us here today this is a solemn and most momentous occasion, and yet in the history of our nation it is a commonplace occurrence. The orderly transfer of authority as called for in the Constitution routinely takes place, as it has for almost two centuries, and few of us stop to think how unique we really are. In the eyes of many in the world, this every-four-year ceremony we accept as normal is nothing less than a miracle." Ronald Reagan, January 20, 1981

Our Founding Fathers started out with rash assumptions: 1. one man rule was intolerable, arbitrary and cruel, 2. leaders of our new democracy might have internal disagreements, but they would all be men (sorry, but that’s who they assumed would be elected) of integrity, putting the good of the nation ahead of their own interests and their political party. They had even higher expectations for the men appointed to the Supreme Court. How optimistic they were. And dead wrong. And how times have changed, threatening our democracy to its core.

The majority of Americans feel Donald Trump is responsible for the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol – a cornerstone of Trump’s quest for continuing in office despite his election loss. Even before the recent House January 6th Committee televised public hearings, an ABC News/Washington Post poll conducted just after the attack in January 2021 and an ABC News/Ipsos poll in December 2021 found over half of Americans thought Trump should be charged with the crime of inciting a riot. Those sentiments have only increased.

“According to ABC News (June 19th): With the first full week of hearings for the House select committee's investigation into the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol now complete, nearly 6 in 10 Americans believe former President Donald Trump should be charged with a crime for his role in the incident, a new ABC News/Ipsos poll finds.

“Six in 10 Americans also believe the committee is conducting a fair and impartial investigation, according to the poll… In the poll, which was conducted by Ipsos in partnership with ABC News using Ipsos' KnowledgePanel, 58% of Americans think Trump should be charged with a crime for his role in the riot.” Trump’s refusal to accept his election loss, mirrored in the official position of most Republicans in Congress, is the first time in American history where a president, using the same electoral process used by 44 previous presidents (45 if you count Trump in 2017), refused to accept an orderly transition of power, a process firm affirmed by George Washington.

“By 1796, George Washington had created a solid government for the new Republic. But he was tired; the political wrangling taken its toll on him. Had he wanted a third term, there is no doubt he would’ve been reelected, but he longed to return to Mount Vernon to live out his years as a farmer…

“At the time, America was the first nation in modern history to try an election-based form of democratic government, known as a constitutional republic. The rules by which the government operated were set up in the Constitution, and the people elected their representatives. By stepping down after two terms, Washington proved that a person of character can avoid being corrupted by power.” Historian Tim George. But then George Washington was man of integrity, as our Founding Fathers had assumed. But we’ve had several instances of elected US presidents who fell well below that bar.

Let’s start with the ranking of the ten worst presidents in American history. Looking at one of several rankings, all with substantially similar results. The first shock is that Donald Trump, the first president in our history who opposed an orderly transition following an election, was not judged to be the worst in a USA survey of presidential rankings. “In compiling its 10 Worst Presidents rankings, U.S. News averaged presidents' scores from three separate metrics: C-SPAN's 2021 Presidential Historians Survey, Siena College's Presidential Expert Poll and the Presidential Greatness Rankings conducted by professors at the University of Houston and Boise State University.”

Pre-Civil War President James Buchanan, who refused to challenge either the spread of slavery or the growing bloc of states that became the Confederacy, ranks lower on the above poll. On other polls, one of these fellows (but never both) also rank lower: post-Civil War President Andrew Johnson, who survived impeachment after opposing Reconstruction initiatives, including the 14th amendment, or Zachary Taylor, who died in office after in 1850 after one year in office, forgettable and inept… and probably personally responsible for the demise of the Whig Party.

The assumption of personal integrity lies behind the only real ethical restriction on the president: the emoluments clause: “Article I, Section 9, Clause 8 of the U.S. Constitution prohibits any person holding a government office from accepting any present, emolument, office, or title from any ‘King, Prince, or foreign State,’ without congressional consent. This clause is meant to prevent external influence and corruption of American officers by foreign States.” The Legal Information Institute of Cornell University.

While most federal judges are subject to an extensive list of congressionally mandated ethics requirements, that does not extend to justices of the US Supreme Court. Except as noted above, the remedy for a corrupt president or Supreme Court justice is impeachment by the House of Representatives and conviction/removal from office by a subsequent trial in the Senate. Remember, it was the Republican Party that was the prime mover that removed Republican President, Richard Nixon (facing removal from office, he resigned on August 8, 1974, and was subsequently pardoned of all criminal activity by President Gerald Ford).

Today, we face an ex-American President, willing to polarize this nation into increasingly violent irreconcilable difference to enhance his personal power at any price, and a Supreme Court Justice, Clarence Thomas, unwilling to recuse himself from cases involving election irregularities, irregularities which his wife Virginia (“Ginny”) helped propagate. He even was the sole dissenting justice in a case that forced Donald Trump to turn over internal documents to the January 6th Committee… documents that eventually produced correspondence from Ginny to the White House supporting reversing a legitimate election.

We face a genuine threat to our country. Over half of voting-age Americans, regardless of party, fear that the United States faces an end to democracy in the near future. See my June 16th Apathy & Awareness - Voters Reading Ballot Initiatives and Candidate Bios? LOL, LOL, LOL blog for the underlying polling. Legislation and judicial rulings

Gun ownership and lax gun laws (even with the token “gun control” legislation pending in Congress), the proliferation of assault weapons and an American right-wing tolerance for violence for political means, augur badly for our future. A pro-rural bias built in to our Constitution (according 2 US Senators to each state regardless of population), a de facto blank check right for special interests (mostly right-wing, it turned out) to fund political campaigns (other than those controlled by a candidate under Citizens United vs FED), a biased Supreme Court tilted populist by Donald Trump, and a flurry of unchecked severe gerrymandering and voting restrictions imposed by red states since the 2020 election suggest that a populist minority, backed by the same militia who were part of the Capitol insurrection, will dominate the midterm and possibly the 2024 presidential elections.

Red state positions on gun control, climate change, abortion and criminal responsibility for the illegal efforts to undo the 2020 election reflect a vociferous minority opinion; the majority is being marginalized. Will this minority control continue? Stand back and stand by.

I’m Peter Dekom, and unless more Americans speak up, vote in overwhelming numbers, and act with the passion necessary to return us to democracy, I believe that most living Americans will witness a severe lurch into an American autocracy with strong fundamentalist Christian leanings.

As the World Pushes Back, How’re Cars Doing in Energy Land

 

Prices at the pump are pushing inflation up to an annual 8.6%, the highest we have faced in almost half a century. There is also little likelihood that anyone, Democrat or Republican, can do a darn thing to bring that cost, and the resulting impact on shipping pricing, down significantly anytime soon. Unless the OPEC+ nations raise output massively, there isn’t any real alternative for more product in that global marketplace. Sure, we may be able to limit or severely tax profiteers – namely oil companies who benefit from the global market price per barrel, retail stations who charge a percentage mark-up and shipping companies whose rates have soared into multiple, huge price increases (based on a cost-plus pricing structure and anti-competitive consortia that fix prices) – although much of this is beyond our territorial reach. So…

There has been a major leap in consumer demand for electric and hybrid cars, until recently not a favorite of big-three US carmakers, because the profits they make on smaller cars pale in comparison to what they can make on bigger SUVs and luxury models. Tesla has pushed upscale into the electric vehicle market, and world automobile manufacturers have heard the call… variety has begun. And while the electricity they consume has to come from somewhere (often fossil fuel-driven power generation), according to Forbes (June 1st), “British expert Nick Molden, chief executive of Emissions Analytics, said with average sources of grid power, battery electric vehicles cut carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by about 50%, while a hybrid cuts them by about 30%.” Good numbers that can stand to improve with more clean electrical power generation.

With that, after the initial recent surge in consumer demand for total or partial electric-powered vehicles, reality reversed that in May. “The backslide in Q1 2022 may be due to ongoing chip and shipping issues. What has caused the dramatic decline in May 2022 has yet to be pinpointed, but many industry insiders point to increasing inflation and a possible upcoming recession.” Associated Press, June 7th. Dealers jacked up sticker prices, and order periods for EV cars, still reeling from chip issues, got longer and longer.

In the past two years, I have taken my hybrid on long road trips, one from Los Angeles to Santa Fe, New Mexico and another from LA to Puget Sound. Combining both trips with reasonably priced hotels, I only found one hotel with an available charging station. Level 2 (240 volts) at that, so it takes “anywhere from 6-12 hours to charge an electric car. The time it will take to fully recharge an electric car will depend on the size of your car’s battery. A level 2 charger will give your car anywhere from 14 to 34 miles of charge per hour depending on the amperage of the charger.” gearandcylinder.com.

I even have an EV-to-Tesla plug adaptor (about $160), but I wound up using gasoline 97%. Level 3 fast-chargers (400 and 900 volts) are so rare, I’ve never seen one. So, if you like to drive for your vacations, “stand back and stand by” to a. pay through the nose for gasoline or diesel, or, if you have an all-electric vehicle, b. pay through the nose (or camp or crash with “others”) for all those extra overnight hotel stops. Limited range is expensive any way you look at it.

The weak link in EV cars is obviously battery capacity. The range killer. But there is reason for optimism on that front. “At some point, the development of solid-state batteries—in which electrons flow through a solid material instead of a liquid or gel—is going to lead to electric vehicles that can go much farther on a charge and battery-storage systems that can hold more energy while taking up less space. We just don’t know when that is going to be.

“But in [early June], two announcements offer reasons to think the answer is ‘sooner rather than later.’… First, Solid Power, a Colorado-based company developing solid-state EV batteries for partners including Ford and BMW, said it has completed installation of a “pilot production line” that is capable of making about 300 battery cells per week… Second, University of Houston researchers published a paper showing how they have developed a glasslike material that is highly effective as an electrolyte—the part of a battery that electrons pass through during cycles of charging and discharging—for use in a sodium-sulfur battery for energy storage.” InsideClimateNews.org, June 9th. We’re moving, slowly, but forward, but we need infrastructure.

The US does not have sufficient capacity to make electric cars viable for much of anything other than very short (hybrid or very long with gasoline) or moderately short (EV) journeys. Mostly errands, commuting and local leisure time activities. With a GOP Senate anxious to limit federal spending, despite the ultimate benefit to consumers, the obvious large rollout of viable charging stations, and the cost of a massive shift away from fossil fuels, is unlikely to happen anytime soon.

As the above chart from the June 2nd InsideClimateNews.org indicates, we have at least increased our power generation to 39% from non-fossil fuel resources (although half of that is still from nuclear plants). But remember, we do not even have a sufficiently efficient power grid to deliver that needed and rising demand for electrical power to large swaths of the country.

OK, while we are getting better, we are a very long way from where we need to be to meet even our modest clean energy goals by 2035, which is still way too little, way too late: “From January to March, renewable energy power plants generated 242,956 gigawatt-hours, which was 23.5 percent of U.S. electricity generation, both records—an increase from 19.5 percent in the first quarter of 2021, and 20.8 percent in the full year. The growth was thanks in part to more than 80 new wind and solar plants that went online during the quarter. The figures are from the Energy Information Administration…

“As renewables gained ground, coal lost a little. Coal was at 21.2 percent for the quarter, down a fraction of a percentage point, both from the same quarter last year and the prior year… Natural gas remains the country’s leading fuel for power plants, with gas-fired plants producing 35.2 percent of U.S. electricity generation in the first quarter. This was a slight increase from 34.7 percent in the first quarter of last year, and a decrease from 38.3 percent in all of 2021… Natural gas prices have spiked this year, but that hasn’t yet translated into a substantial decrease in the use of gas to produce electricity.

“[Writer Dan Gearino] was expecting to see a decrease in hydropower, considering the many reports of declining water levels at major hydroelectric plants. But hydropower was up, with 7.4 percent of the U.S. total for the quarter compared to 7 percent in the first quarter of last year and 6.3 percent in an unusually low 2021. The main reason for the increase was that the two leading states for hydropower, Washington and Oregon, reported large gains from their plants, and most other states reported at least some increase. This is one to watch as we head into a hot summer… More than 120 new power plants began operating in the first quarter, most of which were wind or solar farms.” Dan Gearino writing for InsideClimateNews.org.

Putin’s war, second- and third-world resistance (Colombia, for example, is likely to increase fossil fuel extraction and usage; India is doing very little, and China is still building coal-fired plants) are less than encouraging, but we must lead and set an example. Given the searing heat being experienced globally, air conditioning use will rise, much of it from older, inefficient units. It’s time for alternative energy to be this nation’s business focus. There are profound opportunities and massive, good jobs just waiting for enough of us to care. Still waiting.

I’m Peter Dekom, and please enjoy what is likely to be our hottest recorded summer on record.

The Great American Experiment in Democracy Fail

 

The Great American Experiment in Democracy

“The Constitution does not confer a right to abortion… Roe and Casey are overruled; and the authority to regulate abortion is returned to the people and their elected representatives.”

Samuel Alito writing the Supreme Court majority opinion in Dobbs, State Health Officer of The Mississippi Department of Health, et al. vs Jackson Women’s Health Organization et al., June 24, 2022

That Trump’s three appointees to the Court stated in their confirmation hearings that Roe vs Wade was settled law that they would respect, vaporized. In a series of cases, beginning in 2008 with Heller vs District of Columbia, right wing judges have serially eroded or repealed the First (free speech and separation of church and state), Second (organized militia and the related right to bear arms), Fifth (right against self-incrimination/ due process) and Sixth (right to counsel), Fourteenth (extending the Bill of Rights to the States) and Fifteenth (protecting then emancipated African Americans’ voting rights) Amendments.

Heller was the first case in American history that determined that the Second Amendment imbued a ubiquitous and universal right to bear arms. Ignoring the “well regulated militia” language of the Second Amendment, and misciting what was perceived to be the relevant British gun laws in existence in 1789 (when the Bill was passed), Justice Antonin Scalia somehow discovered that “right.” Our Founding Fathers, living in a time of flintlocks and muskets, recognized no such right! If that weren’t a sufficiently erosive interpretation of the Second Amendment, the day before the reversal of Roe vs Wade, the US Supreme Court also issued a radical right-wing activist decision (written by Clarence Thomas) in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. vs Bruen, Superintendent of New York State Police, effectively challenging New York’s restrictions on individuals’ carrying concealed guns. Bang, you’re dead.

The First Amendment has drawn its share of 6-3 right-wing rulings, starting last July in challenging a California statute that required donor disclosure in support of political issues, in this case a religious non-profit related to its advocacy for contentious issues like religious rights, immigration and abortion. Citing a “chilling effect” on such religious activities, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion that the statute was unconstitutional in Americans for Prosperity Foundation vs. Bonta, Attorney General of California. Roberts led the 6-3 Court again on June 21st in Carson v. Makin, holding that once a state allows any government support for private schools, it cannot disqualify a faith based private school from receiving such aid. Dissenting Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote: “This Court continues to dismantle the wall of separation between church and state that the Framers fought to build.” The separation of church and state appears to be doomed under the current activist court.

The Fifteenth Amendment and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (as amended in 2008) took a hit in 2013 under a conservative 5-4 majority opinion, again by Chief Justice Roberts, in Shelby County vs Holder, which vitiated restrictions on states that had imposed discriminatory voting restrictions. Immediately after that ruling red states exploded with a flurry of new discriminatory voting restrictions, many of which were rejected by lower federal courts… and many were not. On July 23rd, a 6-3 conservative supermajority, in Vega vs Tekoh, ruled that police officers could not face civil liability for failing to issue Miranda warnings during an arrest, undercutting the Fifth/Sixth Amendment rights against self-incrimination and right to counsel.

I have written extensively about Roe vs Wade in past blogs, but the full and formal reversal of that precedent occurred on June 24th in the above-cited ruling, Dobbs vs Jackson. Rejecting a notion of privacy and equal protection of women under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, Justice Alito, writing for that 6-3 supermajority (in which Roberts concurred) activist right-wing radical majority simply ignored a widely accepted 49-year-old as if it had never existing. Instantly, under “trigger laws,” 13 state statutes effectively banned abortions or made them practically impossible. A total of 26 states are falling in line with anti-abortion laws. Some are attempting ban even “morning after” pills and assessing applying criminal liability to out-of-state medical facilities performing the operation on their residents, which most lawyers believe is not permitted under the Constitution.

However, the Constitution and precedents from the Court interpreting that esteemed document seem to be nothing more than an inconvenient barrier to a radical court quite willing to make its own laws, even as they defy the majority of American opinions to the contrary. In flagrant allegiance to superseding mandates from the National Rifle Association and a clear minority evangelical belief system, we need no longer look to the Constitution of the United States for precedents anymore. A rogue Court has decided that where gun “rights” and evangelical beliefs conflict with the Constitution, the Constitution no longer applies.

I’m Peter Dekom, and if an attempted coup d’état from a defeated ex-president isn’t enough for you, perhaps his appointments to the US Supreme Court in our newfound autocratic governance by a distinct minority might not bother you either.

How to Lose a Home in California from a Computer Analyzing Climate Change

 

Amazing how folks won’t take the steps necessary to combat the root cause of virtually all the unprecedented recent “natural disaster” damage and destruction: greenhouse emissions. But they get really upset at the toll that wildfires (or even the statistical probability of wildfire risk) take, the unavailability of traditional 30-year mortgages in flood and coastal surge-prone areas, the horrors of vastly more intense hurricanes (from absorbing more warmer water from the oceans), tornados (from increasingly warm air slamming in to polar vortex cold air, both caused by climate change) or the higher cost of food as farm and ranchland dry up and blow away. FEMA is all over uninsured damage, disruption of amazing proportions. We are now facing trillions and trillions of dollars of continuing and perhaps permanent loss, massive human displacement, loss of habitat and wildlife (plants and animals) and new insect-born disease in the world as we once knew it. 

As I stated in my recent Hell on Earth blog, people do not take seriously the climate change horrors experts are predicting “by the end of the century.” It reads as if we need to do stuff now to stop bad stuff from happening 80 years from now. Used to fiscally conservative habits of kicking cans down the road, too many of us, particularly older Americans, are much more concerned with the here-and-now and the immediate future. When the climate changes ravages cost us serious hard dollars, the reaction of those dealing with that costly crisis tend to narrow-focus on the costs attached to that specific crisis… and not on the bigger picture. The here-and-now reality is already absurdly expensive and wildly damaging.

As a case in point, I present excerpts from an April 12th letter to the editor at the Los Angeles Times from one Steve Poizner, who is turns out is a well-off 65-year-old California resident facing an insurance industry that is truly worried that it cannot afford to cover what most of us take for granted… stuff like home ownership… because the statistical risks are sending strong signals that they face catastrophes beyond their reserves or those of their reinsurance partners. The caption on that letter reads: “Despite no wildfire threats, I suddenly lost my home insurance.”

He states: “Things weren’t always this dire for Californians. A few years ago, my insurance company assured me that if I took steps to protect my home, then my coverage would be renewed. I live in a hilly suburban area with lots of trees just 15 minutes from San Jose airport. At a cost of thousands of dollars, I put in state-of-the-art vents on all openings in my home where fire or wind-blown embers could enter; pruned trees to keep them away from a deck; and thinned foliage in my yard to create ‘defensible’ space. No wildfire has ever threatened my home in the 25 years I have lived in Silicon Valley. Satisfied with my efforts, the company insured me year after year.

“Until this shocker hit my mailbox: My home is suddenly ‘ineligible due to the wildfire risk assessment of the dwelling location.’… I pressed to know more about this decision, but tight-lipped is an understatement to describe my insurance company. Eventually, the company revealed that it now relies on confidential software that predicts wildfire risk by geographic regions in California. But the insurer was unwilling to share details with me. The new approach ignores steps that people take to protect their homes by following guidelines from fire prevention authorities.

“Getting non-renewed was just the beginning. My bank sent a letter warning me that if I don’t get insurance, it will buy it for me — at an exorbitant price — and only enough insurance to cover the amount of my outstanding loan balance, not the replacement cost of the home. I also received notice that I will lose my earthquake insurance… But no other California-licensed company would cover me.

“That left me with only the ‘non-admitted’ market. This market consists of insurers that are only lightly regulated by the California Department of Insurance and that sell insurance on whatever terms and at whatever price they want. Historically, non-admitted insurers covered extreme risks, such as sawmills, blasting contractors and crane and rigging operations.

“One non-admitted company immediately got back to me. To my surprise, it was an out-of-state affiliate of my longtime insurer. California law prohibits excessive rates for consumers. My insurer avoided that by abandoning me and then passing me on to an out-of-state affiliate that offered a policy at twice the price with half the coverage — effectively raising my premium fourfold.” It’s pretty sad to say the least, and for many across the land, the inability to get adequate homeowners’ insurance is more than enough reason for a lender to call the mortgage. Folks who cannot afford what then needs to be done face losing their home, and for many their precious equity.

Poizner’s solution involves mandates on insurance companies, many of which simply leave the state, or creating governmental pooling (under California’s Fair Plan system): “California law prohibits excessive rates for consumers. My insurer avoided that by abandoning me and then passing me on to an out-of-state affiliate that offered a policy at twice the price with half the coverage — effectively raising my premium fourfold… If I were on a fixed income, this could literally drive me out of house and home.

“As a last-ditch option, I can turn to a backup insurer known as the FAIR Plan. To do business in California, homeowner insurers must participate in the FAIR Plan. Californians who can’t access fire coverage from a traditional insurer turn to this state-mandated program. But FAIR Plan policies are more expensive, offer pared-back benefits and exclude coverage for such things as theft, vandalism and liability. (Some add-ons are available for hefty additional premiums.) The companies that make up the FAIR Plan resist expansion, and instead fight in court to limit its offerings. The same insurers that are leaving California residents like me behind are the ones restricting coverage in the FAIR Plan.” He goes on along the same thread. But not a word about the root cause of it all: a failure to contain the emission of greenhouse gases. We want to insure against our own mass stupidity, denial and stubbornness?

I’m Peter Dekom, and one more thing: Steve Poizner just happened to be the insurance commissioner of California from 2007 to 2011.

Exactly What Big Cities Need – Legal Concealed Weapons

 

    June 17th Chart from Mother Jones

Mass Shootings (4+ deaths) from 1982-2022

“The Second and Fourteenth Amendments protect an individual’s right to carry a handgun for self-defense outside the home.” Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, writing the majority opinion in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. vs Bruen, Superintendent of New York State Police, June 23rd

As Republicans decry the rise in violent crime and desperate “replacement” asylum seekers waiting at our southern border, they blame liberals for “soft on crime, anti-police” and “open border” sentiments. Yet, they also continue to press for increased liberalization of gun laws, allowing for token federal efforts to implement sorely lacking background checks and red flag enforcement (inspired by the Uvalde massacre), that have led to a litany of right-to-carry (RTC) laws and a proliferation of semi-automatic assault weapons (15 million according to the NRA) across the land. Live in a blue state with even modest gun control laws and want an AR-15? Drive to your nearby red state and buy one… bring it back and enjoy. There are more guns in the United States than people, a fact which deeply disturbs all other developed nations.

Let’s start with the facts: “Examining decades of crime data, Stanford Law Professor John Donohue’s analysis shows that violent crime in RTC states was estimated to be 13 to 15 percent higher – over a period of 10 years – than it would have been had the state not adopted the law.” NewsStanford.edu, 6/21/17. “Gun violence is a preventable public health tragedy affecting communities all over the United States. Every day, more than 100 Americans die by gun violence, including 64 who die by firearm suicide, 39 Americans who die by firearm homicide, and 3 who are killed by other forms of gun violence. In addition, every day nearly 200 Americans visit the emergency department for nonfatal firearm injuries. Over half of these cases are a result of a firearm assault and an additional 37% are unintentional injuries. Overwhelming evidence shows that firearm ownership and access is associated with increased suicide, homicide, unintentional firearm deaths, and injuries. These injuries and deaths are preventable, and we must advocate for evidence-based solutions to make gun violence in the U.S. rare and abnormal.” Efsgv.org (a non-profit that tracks gun violence).

In Mexico, there is only one legal gun store in the entire country. There are no weapons on display, and it takes years and extensive background checks and training to buy one, even as the right to own guns is enshrined in the Mexican constitution. Compare that to the approximately 50,000 U.S. gun stores (not to mention open gun markets) where weapons are proudly displayed. Yet in Mexico, there are illegal guns everywhere. In the past decade, hundreds of thousands of Mexican citizens have been shot to death, rising annually by sizeable percentages as AR-15s fly south. Gangs and cartels can easily secure illegal weapons, virtually all purchased legally in the United States and smuggled south. According to a recent report on arms trafficking by Mexico's governmental research service, known as the CESOP, an estimated 2,000 weapons illegally enter Mexico from the United States every day. 

Writing for the November 26, 2021 Los Angeles Times, Jean Guerrero (who lost a cousin to cartel gun violence), explains the magnitude of the problem from Mexico’s perspective: “Between 70% and 90% of guns found at crime scenes in Mexico come from the U.S., including guns designed to appeal to the Mexican market such as a Colt .38-caliber pistol featuring an image of the Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata and the phrase: ‘It is better to die standing than to live on your knees.’

“Earlier this year, the Mexican government filed a lawsuit against several U.S. gun companies, accusing them of knowingly flooding the country with illicit firearms, which have brought horrific levels of bloodshed… In a brief filed on [November 22, 2021], the gun companies asked a federal judge in Boston to dismiss the lawsuit… The companies — Smith & Wesson, Glock, Ruger & Co. and others — postured as the good guys, invoking stereotypes of Mexico as a lawless place. ‘At bottom, this case implicates a clash of national values,’ their attorneys wrote. They characterized Mexico’s lawsuit as a threat to ‘America’s constitutional freedoms.’” It seems that those “replacement” asylum seekers are running for their lives from the corruption and physical danger enabled by American guns.

Until an egregiously activist misinterpretation of the Second Amendment written by Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia in the 2008 Heller vs DC – where British guns laws from the 18th century were woefully miscited and the reference to “well regulated militia” substantially ignored – the United States had never recognized a universal right to bear arms for over two centuries. Following that decision, it was a red state feast of open and permitless concealed carry guns, “stand your ground” laws that enabled legitimized murder and unleashed restrictions on oversized magazines and military-grade semiautomatic assault weapons. Violent crime rates have risen ever since. Efforts to stem gun crime have been stymied by Republican legislators.

So, it came as no surprise that a newly configured and profoundly activist right-wing Supreme Court, already eroding the barrier between church and state and on the verge of repealing yet another constitutional precedent (Roe vs Wade), just made the United States vastly more dangerous. The Court on Thursday (6/23) ruled “Americans generally have a right to carry a handgun outside the home for self-defense and that a New York law requiring special need for such a permit is too restrictive… The vote was 6 to 3, with Justice Clarence Thomas writing for the majority and the court’s three liberals in dissent… ‘The Second and Fourteenth Amendments protect an individual’s right to carry a handgun for self-defense outside the home,’ Thomas wrote, saying New York’s requirement of a specific need to carry a weapon violates that right.

In dissent, Justice Stephen G. Breyer wrote: ‘Many States have tried to address some of the dangers of gun violence … by passing laws that limit, in various ways, who may purchase, carry, or use firearms of different kinds. The Court today severely burdens States’ efforts to do so.’” Washington Post, June 23rd. We know statistically that more guns are directly and proportionally responsible for more violent crime, particularly mass shootings which began to rise dramatically after the 2008 Supreme Court ruling. Next time you are in a public space, ask yourself who around you just might be armed. Especially as gun controls in big cities are blown away under that June 23rd ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. vs Bruen, Superintendent of New York State Police. 

Innocent bystanders and school children? “That the price we must pay for living in a free society.” That’s the primary rationale for right-wing gun zealots. They seem to accept that only one in thirty-five civilian gun homicides are justified. So much for self-defense, no matter how Clarence Thomas opines.

I’m Peter Dekom, and the NRA has now joined the evangelical religious movement as one of the two primary arbiters of judicial rulings from the highest count in the land, a flagrant rejection of the opinions and beliefs of the majority of Americans.

What’s Left is Not Right – Is France (Like the United States) Ungovernable?

 

Looking at the above map, prepared by the BBC, the largest party after the June 19th election, President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist Ensemble (gold above), is no longer the majority party in France. Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne suggests that without a clear parliamentary majority, the National Assembly (the most powerful part of the French parliament) borders on “ungovernable.” Even with 245 seats, Ensemble is still 44 seats short of a majority. Right-wing populist Marie Le Pen’s National Rally (darker blue above) got 89 seats in the 577-member parliament, up from a pre-election total of eight. On the other side of the political spectrum, the leftist Nupes coalition (brown above), led by hardliner Jean-Luc Melenchon, secured 131 seats to become the primary opposition force, fairly consistent with past election results.

Both Nupes and National Rally share a “France first” focus, and both seem likely to push against EU/NATO support of the war in Ukraine. Putin has to be smiling. Indeed, both Nupes and National Rally are sizeable enough to require key cabinet appointments. “Le Pen's far-right party now has a sufficient number of legislators to constitute a formal group at the National Assembly and request seats in other committees, including a parliamentary investigation committee and those focusing on defense and foreign policy…

“She told reporters: ‘We are entering the parliament as a very strong group and as such we will claim every post that belongs to us." As the biggest single party in the parliament — Macron and Melenchon both lead coalitions — she said National Rally will seek to chair the parliament’s powerful finance committee, one of the eight commissions that oversee the national budget.” Associated Press, June 20th. In the last election, Le Pen’s party received large loan from Moscow. The incredible increase in Le Pen’s hold in the National Assembly reflect a Trump-like rise of the populist right.

While coalition governments are common in most parliamentary forms of government, they have not worked well in France. The June 20th BBC.com tells us, “Minority governments are a rarity in France, and even when there was one in 1988 under President François Mitterrand, he was only 11 seats short of an outright majority… [Olivier Véran, the minister in charge of parliamentary relations] believes the government will be able to attract support from other political groups to get important reforms passed, particularly when it comes to the cost of living: ‘I can't for a second imagine that a majority cannot emerge in the coming weeks on the spending power law.’”

But as for a true majority coalition, neither Le Pen nor Melenchon appear willing to join with Macron. With 64 seats, even the right-wing UDI Republican Party (light blue above) seems unwilling to form a coalition with Macron’s party. The government, hobbled by polarization, may form ad hoc coalitions on specified pieces of legislation, but a single majority party rule has left the building. For most French citizens, unsurprisingly, the cost of living is the driving issue. Just like a rising number of Americans, French citizens are blaming incumbent Macron and his no-longer-majority party for their financial plight.

“President Macron has laid out a series of plans to tackle the spiraling cost of living, including food vouchers and enhanced benefits. Another big reform is gradually raising the retirement age from 62-65, which has proved unpopular with much of the electorate.

“Public Service Minister Stanislas Guerini said there should be talks with the Republicans on the mainstream right but also with anyone else ‘who sees an interest in moving forward with reforms that are good for the country.’ Louis Aliot, from Marine Le Pen's National Rally, said if the government included measures his party wanted, such as a cut in sales tax (VAT) then his parliamentary colleagues would ‘make the effort to vote for those measures.’

“However, the initial response from the right-wing Republicans to an alliance was not good. Party chairman Christian Jacob said: ‘We've campaigned in opposition, we are in opposition, we'll stay in opposition.’ Another MP, Aurélien Pradié, said he did not have same vision of society as President Macron and did not accept ‘forced marriages.’” BBC.com. If this proclivity to blame the incumbent for inflationary costs is rising in France, even if that means possibly letting Putin win in Ukraine by cutting NATO support, does that suggest that the US midterms will follow suit? At least so far, Le Pen party does not seem to have emboldened any significant rise in local militia, but then France has reasonable gun control laws where possessing an AR-15 would be a serious crime.

I’m Peter Dekom, and there is a growing global left-right schism, with powerful feelings, in a significant part of the Western world… enhanced by a contraction of centrist sentiments.

To Indict and Prosecute?

 

For anyone watching the televised House January 6th Committee hearings, reality – mostly based on video footage and testimony from Trump administration staffers and supporters – clearly shows that Donald Trump incited the Capitol insurrectionists, knew that right-wing militia were gathered at the Capitol before he spoke at the Ellipse rally, condoned the “Hang Mike Pence” effort, refused to intervene to stop the clearly violent insurrection when it mattered and praised the insurrectionists when they departed. Those who broke into the Capitol were often quoted as saying they were just doing what their “true” President wanted to them to do, what they were “invited to do” and thus were “patriots.” The well-built noose to “hang Mike Pence” at the January 6th insurrection is just one many pieces of evidence that the violence was not “spontaneous,” as many have argued.

Trump had clearly invited his supporters to his January 6th rally. “Big protest in D.C. on January 6th,” Donald Trump tweeted on Dec. 19th, just one of several of his tweets promoting the day. “Be there, will be wild!” And his supporters took the President at his word....” At the Ellipse rally, promoting a further march to the Capitol, Trump made it clear both his animosity if Pence did not hand the election back to the states to assure a Trump victory, and that a very riled up Trump crowd had a duty to force the issue, saying, “We fight like hell. And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.” Additional speakers, selected by Trump, echoed the President’s message.

Indeed, uniformed right-wing militia (like the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys) had gathered by the hundreds outside the Capitol building earlier on January 6th. The same militia Trump named in his campaign debate. “Proud Boys, stand back and stand by! But I’ll tell you what, somebody’s got to do something about antifa and the left,” he said. According to members of the Proud Boys, after that speech, recruitment into that extremist group was “exponential.” Trump now had a private army. Some carried guns into the Capitol, but evidence showed that vastly more weapons and munitions were available nearby to be easily accessed “if necessary.”

The falsehood of a fraudulent election was unequivocally clear to almost every lawyer/advisor to the President (people he selected), except an obviously inebriated Rudy Giuliani (facing permanent disbarment for his statements in both New York and Washington, D.C.). Indeed, the illicit pressure that Trump personally imposed on his Vice President to reject the election results and the recording of his phone call to Georgia’s Secretary of State to “find” thousands of votes to reverse the voter tally were almost universally condemned by Trump’s legal advisors.

While a vast pool of loyal voters continues to believe in the “Big Lie,” while a majority of self-declared Republicans believe violent opposition can be justified and as red state after red state has passed voter restrictions and gerrymandered redistricting in reliance on that election fraud, the fact remains that Donald John Trump participated in and incited an insurrection against the government of the United States. A rather classic attempted coup d'état.

After the failed second impeachment trial, Senate Minority Leader McConnell (R, KY) was absolutely clear about Mr. Trump's responsibility for the January 6th insurrection. "There is no question, none, that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day," he said, adding that Mr. Trump watched the events unfold on television. "A mob was assaulting the Capitol in his name," he said. "These criminals were carrying his banners, hanging his flags and screaming their loyalty to him." "They did this," McConnell said, "because they'd been fed wild falsehoods by the most powerful man on earth, because he was angry he lost an election." McConnell based his reasoning to vote against a Senate conviction, noting there were available other remedies within the criminal justice system, because he believed it was unconstitutional to convict a president who was no longer in office.

Immediately preceding the impeachment vote, while maintaining that the effort was “political,” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R, CA) echoed McConnell’s statement above. "The president bears responsibility for Wednesday's [1/6/21] attack on Congress by mob rioters. He should have immediately denounced the mob when he saw what was unfolding.” Quite a far cry from his current denial of the videoed violence and hardly “ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse,” the official GOP description of the January 6th attack on the Capitol.

The evidence of Trump’s criminal culpability is overpowering. “[A] federal judge [dealing with the issue of attorney-client privilege] raised the legal issue in a March ruling. U.S. District Judge David Carter of the Central District of California wrote that it is ‘more likely than not” that Trump and [Trump advisor] former Chapman University law professor John Eastman ‘dishonestly conspired’ to obstruct the vote certification… At the time, a Trump spokesperson said the judge’s claim was ‘absurd and baseless,’ according to NBC News.” Debra Cassens Weiss writing for the

The harsh reality that may come to pass if the DOJ decides to prosecute, illustrating that no person is above the law, is chilling: “Barbara McQuade, a professor at the University of Michigan Law School and a former U.S. attorney who spoke with the New Yorker and NBC News, said she supports prosecution of Trump for trying to overthrow the election, despite the possible consequences. Prosecution ‘will very likely spark civil unrest and maybe even civil war,’ she told NBC News.” Weiss. A civil war? Violence in the streets? Or a slow merge into autocracy, a fear of over half of American voters. See my June 16th Apathy & Awareness - Voters Reading Ballot Initiatives and Candidate Bios? LOL, LOL, LOL blog for the underlying polling.

But will the obvious “indictment and prosecution” of then-President Trump actually take place? Attorney General Merrick Garland told reporters that he and his prosecutors were watching the January 6th Committee’s telecasts, but he refused to go any farther in his statements. There are no known witnesses who have been called by the DOJ and no indication that there is a bona fide prosecution afoot. Such proceedings are generally not presented to the public during the investigating process, although the DOJ has requested the Committee’s witness list and transcripts, but… Will the January 6th Committee even refer the matter to the Department of Justice to pursue? After all, that committee has no prosecutorial powers. What could the charges be? According to Debra Cassens Weiss, looking at various expert opinions, here a possible list:

• Obstruction of an official proceeding—for trying to stop the certification of the vote Jan. 6, 2021. Prosecutors would have to show an orchestrated plot to try to interfere with certification, and that Trump was part of the plot. Some have asserted that Trump could defend against the charge by saying he genuinely thought that he won the 2020 presidential election and wasn’t acting “corruptly.” But the argument would be difficult after committee testimony showing a number of people informed that Trump he had lost the election…

• Conspiracy to defraud the United States—for conspiring to defraud the American people and interfere with the transfer of power. The charge requires proof that two or more people agreed to obstruct or impede the official functioning of government. A genuine but mistaken belief isn’t enough to defeat a conspiracy charge…

• Seditious conspiracy—which requires proof that two or more people agreed to use force to delay the execution of a law or to overthrow the government. Trump could assert that he never formally agreed with someone else to use force during the Capitol riot, even though he wanted to delay certification of the vote. [Experts have] said this charge would be difficult or unlikely… Trump will argue that he didn’t intend for the riot to happen or know that it would happen, a ‘plausible deniability’ defense.

• Wire fraud—for misleading donors who thought that their money would support legal fees to overturn the election, when in reality, it went to the Save America political action committee and then was distributed to pro-Trump organizations. Such a prosecution would be difficult, [Ken Gross, former associate general counsel of the Federal Election Commission] told NPR. Unless there is evidence that the money was converted for personal use, a case would be too tough to bring, he said… “As distasteful as it is to raise money for a purpose other than what you’re going to use it for, in the political arena, there’s a good bit of latitude given to campaigns because oftentimes, money is used for some other purpose,” Gross told NPR. What’s at stake? Two huge issues: is a sitting president above the law and can our democracy withstand the continuing assault against it?

I’m Peter Dekom, and for an answer, “stand back and stand by.”

Reversing Roe vs Wade Was Supposed to Reduce Abortions, Right?

 

At a time where the cost of living is skyrocketing, the cost of just about everything related to raising a child in a decent and healthy environment is going through the roof. From housing and childcare to food, from transportation to clothing to medical care. It’s no big surprise that a young woman, married or not, who finds herself pregnant but without the means to support a child, might consider an abortion. And while there are a very few well-meaning antiabortion groups willing to help place the child into an adoption agency, that is both an unappetizing choice for many… and requires the woman to carry a child for 9 months… without motherhood at the end. But abortions were up back in 2020, before this current economic pall. What’s going on?

Jennifer Haberkorn, writing for the June 15th Los Angeles Times (via the Associated Press) explains: “Ahead of a historic Supreme Court decision on the fate of Roe vs. Wade, the nation recorded its first significant increase in the abortion rate in more than three decades, according to new statistics… The rate rose 7%, from 13.5 abortions per 1,000 women and girls of child-bearing age in 2017 to 14.4 in 2020, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research organization that supports abortion rights.

“Overall, there were 930,160 abortions in the United States in 2020, compared with 862,320 in 2017, an 8% increase… ‘Basically, since 1990, this is the first time we’ve had an increase,’ said Rachel K. Jones, principal research scientist at the Guttmacher Institute and lead author of the study… Guttmacher’s figures, collected from state health departments and individual providers, are considered by both sides of the abortion debate to be the most accurate national statistics.

“The last time there was a significant increase in the national abortion rate was in 1988, when it was 27.3 per 1,000 women of child-bearing age. Since then, the figure has been on the decline, with a small bump in 2007. The overall number of abortions nationwide similarly dropped.” Trends in 2021 already suggest results similar to 2020. Most state bans or limitations on abortions not only failed to provide a penny of state aid for the children they want to see born, these same states have tripped all over themselves to cut medical and other benefits for the lowest economic classes that would be most impacted. While the overwhelming majority of Americans do not want Roe vs. Wade to be reversed, and the vast majority of state legislators who voted to impose abortion bans or near-bans were older and mostly men elected with heavy support from that religious minority of Americans who support abortion bans, abortion has become more common that ever. Why? Haberkorn tells us:

“The study’s authors cited several possible reasons for the increase, including greater private funding to support abortion access and expanded Medicaid coverage for the procedure in some states. The group also speculated that the Trump administration’s cuts to the Title X family planning and contraception programs may have resulted in more unintended pregnancies.

“During the same three-year period, the national birth rate declined by 6%, with a total of 3.6 million births in 2020. Because the decline in the number of births was much larger than the increase in abortions, it means fewer people got pregnant and a larger proportion had abortions, the group said.

“The data are likely to inflame tensions around the Supreme Court’s upcoming abortion decision, expected to be released early next month. A draft copy of the ruling, published last month by Politico, listed five votes to undo the 1973 Roe decision… The draft, which may differ from the final opinion, restored states’ authority to set their own abortion laws. Several states have already moved to make abortion illegal in many or all circumstances.

“‘The need for abortion is growing at the same time that the Supreme Court is getting ready to strike down Roe vs. Wade, which will allow states to ban abortion,’ Jones said.” The court is considering a case in Mississippi. In the most populous red state, where you have citizens who can sue those in the “abortion” chain, it’s called the Texas Heartbeat Act. Many Texans, below the poverty line, still make under $10/hour.

“For many Texans who have needed abortions since September, the law has been a major inconvenience, forcing them to drive hundreds of miles — and pay hundreds of dollars — for a legal procedure they once could have had at home. But not everyone has been able to leave the state. Some people couldn’t take time away from work or afford gas, while others, faced with a long journey, decided to stay pregnant… Nearly 10 months into the Texas law, they have started having the babies they never planned to carry to term.” The Washington Post, June 20th. And they have no way to support these little unintended lives.

You have to wonder if the mass protests, suggestions that the Supreme Court itself needs to be reconfigured and both a litany of related death threats and a recent stalker outside Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s home – resulting in new bipartisan federal legislation extending personal protection for the Supreme Court justices and their families – might actually produce a different result from Justice Samuel Alito’s maladroit draft. It may soon be a matter for states to decide, as more than half of those states impose total or significant bans on abortion, some attempting to reach into other states where abortions are provided to their desperate citizens.

I’m Peter Dekom, and, as if the “Ginny” Thomas/Clarence Thomas non-recusal issue were not bad enough, the legitimacy of a Supreme Court – reversing itself for “Christian values” after half a century reliance in the face of overwhelming popular ire – goes a long way to undermining the credibility of the entire federal judicial system.