tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23901186920589907332024-03-28T11:01:44.755-04:00Weil's Notes from a Corner of the CountryCommentary on government, politics and the economy Notes from a Corner of the Counrtyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14779139227897435610noreply@blogger.comBlogger613125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2390118692058990733.post-7713176071389095692024-03-22T06:30:00.001-04:002024-03-22T06:30:00.143-04:00Israel aligns with GOP <p><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Gaza
crisis creates wedge issue</span></span><span style="font-family: times; font-size: xx-large;"> </span></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Gordon L. Weil<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Israel is part of America’s political culture.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Since its creation in 1948, support for Israel has been
constant and bipartisan.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But that is now
changing.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">For some, this support might have grown as a reaction to the
horrors of the Holocaust. For evangelical Christians, Israel as the Jewish
homeland would be an essential element of their religious beliefs.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Israel’s founding also served the practical need for dealing
with the end of the British Empire. The decision to grant Israel independence
from British rule came in 1947, the same year that Britain quit India. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In drawing a new world map, the winners could
call the shots. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>President Harry Truman gave
the State of Israel the American seal of approval.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Based on Jewish values and the rejection of totalitarian
government in World War II, Israel promised to be a true liberal democracy,
making it a rarity in the Middle East and a natural ally. And its existence
could go far to reduce the Jewish Diaspora, the worldwide dispersion of the
Jews, which had often exposed them to outright hostility.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Surrounded by Arab states intent on its destruction, Israel
could count on the steadfast support of the U.S. and many European
countries.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In terms of American domestic
politics, the unified official position brought the active backing of both
parties and the Jewish community.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">There were at least two concrete results.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The U.S. provides massive military aid to
Israel and has close intelligence ties.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Given its place in American political culture, Israel might rank
alongside Britain, Canada or Australia.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This
relationship came with assured American acceptance of the policies adopted by
the Israeli government.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">The relationship began to fray over the issue of dealing
with Iran, seeking to develop nuclear weapons, which Israel already possessed.
Feeling threatened, Israel wanted tough action to block Iran.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The U.S. and other major powers, including
Russia and China, reached an agreement with Iran to slow its nuclear
development, while moving toward further limitations.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Republicans continued to adhere to Israeli policy, while
Democrats increasingly favored the negotiated approach. In 2015, the partisan
break became clear when congressional Republican majority leaders invited
Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address Congress without either
Israel or the GOP informing Democratic President Barack Obama.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Endorsing Israel’s position, President Trump withdrew the
U.S. from the Iran agreement, and it collapsed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He aligned with Netanyahu’s policy without serious partisan conflict, thanks
to Israel’s many Democratic backers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Iran increased as a threat and stepped up its nuclear development,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Last October 7, Hamas terrorists attacked Israel and seized
hostages. Israel and most of the world community reacted in horror and strong
opposition.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Israel understandably retaliated,
attempting to eliminate Hamas from its home base in Gaza. It chose to
obliterate large parts of Gaza rather than deploying a more surgical approach.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Its response received renewed Republican support, but
revealed a growing split among Democrats.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Some believed Israel’s bombing raids were justified, while others thought
they were disproportionate and unlikely to eliminate Hamas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Over time, the opposition has grown among
Democrats and also among the broader American public.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Along with the devastating attacks on Gaza, Netanyahu
refused to say what he sought as the ultimate objective.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Apparently, it would not be a two-state
solution, despite Israel’s previous nominal support for the idea. A single
state runs directly counter to American and European positions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As a prime financial backer of Israel, the
U.S. could be worried about this policy shift,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is America’s highest
ranking Jewish elected official.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In a broad
review of the Israel-Palestine situation, he said that Netanyahu should go. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>GOP leaders immediately attacked Schumer for
meddling in another country. The Israeli Prime Minister responded that his
country was not a “banana republic,” to be pushed around by the U.S.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">When President Biden agreed with Schumer, the partisan lines
were firmly drawn. In effect, the American Middle East policy could no longer always
follow Israel’s line.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Israel, obviously
not a banana republic, has made its own decision to conduct what many see as an
anti-humanitarian war.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That policy has
moved Israel outside of the select circle of special American friends.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Despite Republican claims, the U.S. has intervened in other
countries, including even helping overthrow an elected Iranian government. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Schumer’s statement that the present Israeli
government has mistakenly dropped the two-state solution, a critically
important element of U.S. policy, falls far short of treating Israel as a mere
dependency.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">The GOP likes single hot-button policies known as wedge
issues, and is now trying to make Israel into one.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Trump, the current owner of the Republican Party,
issues this godlike proclamation: “Any Jewish person that votes for the
Democrats hates their religion.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Whether that influences or changes American politics is unclear.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That Israel’s actions are influencing and
changing American policy is clear.</span><o:p></o:p></p><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"></span><p></p>Notes from a Corner of the Counrtyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14779139227897435610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2390118692058990733.post-86326459898582246132024-03-15T06:30:00.001-04:002024-03-15T06:30:00.143-04:00Poll, pundits doing poor job on presidential race<p> </p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Gordon L. Weil<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">In an old movie, two tribes are fighting brutally on a battlefield
in what may be Afghanistan.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Suddenly, a
single line of religious monks crosses the field.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The fighting abruptly halts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All watch in silence and respect as the holy
men pass, and then the battle resumes.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">The same thing may be happening now in the U.S.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The monks are pollsters, revered for their objectivity
and neutrality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Media pundits are the
high priests who explain the “truths” revealed by the pollsters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Pollsters’ truths these days are that Donald Trump leads Joe
Biden in the presidential race and that, though both are old men, Biden is worryingly
older than Trump.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And, while there are
about eight months until the election, it’s almost over now.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">This is called conventional wisdom.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s not wisdom, because it could easily turn
out to be wrong, but it surely is conventional.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The media promotes what’s conventional, because the pundits listen
mainly to one another – a kind of herd (or “heard”) instinct.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">In reality, polls may be worse than ever.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Technological change has made it more difficult
for pollsters to find a truly random sample of likely voters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s essential if survey responses from the
1,000 people interviewed can predict how tens of millions of people will vote. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Many people randomly selected cannot be reached or refuse to
reply, so pollsters artificially weight some participants more than others. Besides,
some people don’t give honest answers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">In the Republican Super Tuesday primaries, Trump performed
less well in most states than his polling numbers had forecast. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For example, in Michigan, a swing state, 57
percent of Republicans told polls they would vote for Trump, but only 42
percent did. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Where will the lost Trump supporters go in November?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And what about those Republicans who say they
would not vote for Trump if he were convicted of a felony?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Plus, what will be the effect of third
parties if the race is close?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
pundits are silent.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Polls are conducted every day, and the results are instantly
interpreted by the journalistic herd to suggest to lowly voters what we will do
eight months from now. Campaigns and voters may make decisions based on the
doubtful data stated as conventional wisdom.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">In short, statistical guesses are treated as sure things.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Excessive reliance on polling misleads and
distorts the election process.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">By the way, there is one area where we should consider scientific
statistics – the age of the candidates.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
media constantly focuses on doubts about Biden’s age but much less on Trump’s.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It ignores so-called “actuarial tables.” <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">The U.S. government must calculate how long people at each
age will live in order to know the future cost of Social Security benefits.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Highly trained and experienced experts, the
actuaries, determine how many more years a man or woman at each age is expected
to live.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They set life expectancy at the
age to be reached by at least half the people born in the same year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">They calculate with great accuracy how long men the ages of
Trump and Biden will live. Trump would be 78 at the start of the next
presidential term; Biden would be 82.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At
that time, Trump’s life expectancy would be 88, while Biden’s would be 90.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That means either would have a good chance of
serving a full presidential term.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">So, the age difference does not particularly favor
Trump.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But they are both old men and
both are gaffe-prone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Either could make
such a disastrous error in campaigning that it would seriously threaten their electoral
chances. No pollster can take that into account, though both parties and the voters
may.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Finally, given their ages, will the election focus less on the
two men and more on their two running mates?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>If voters believe both are dangerously old, they could focus on the vice-presidential
candidates.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Their debate could be the
most important ever for the number two slot, especially if one or both of the
presidential candidates won’t debate.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">The biggest and most public decision a presidential candidate
makes during a campaign is the selection of their running mate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Biden’s is known and Trump’s will be a person
who hews loyally to his positions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Either must be viewed as a possible president, maybe even a likely
one.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That could make this election more
about the running mates than about the top of the ticket.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Finally, much will depend on the media.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The mainline media seems committed to promoting
the conventional wisdom, breathlessly reported every day. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It owes the voters more than daily spot
reporting and hot-off-the press analyses.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It should avoid snap conclusions drawn from flawed or possibly biased
polling. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Questionable polling and hasty analyses dominate the election
campaign these days. We need more light and less heat.<o:p></o:p></span></p><br /><p></p>Notes from a Corner of the Counrtyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14779139227897435610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2390118692058990733.post-51119328139157953032024-03-08T06:30:00.001-05:002024-03-08T06:30:00.142-05:00America’s court jester has Middle East peace plan<p> </p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Gordon L. Weil<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">In medieval times, kings had court jesters who could give
them serious warnings or advice, candy-coated with humor. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">America may now have its own court jester: <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jon Stewart on Comedy Central’s “The Daily
Show.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Perhaps he’s worth our attention,
even when it concerns a subject as difficult as the Gaza War.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Israel exists in a hostile corner of the Middle East.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was created in 1948 to provide a homeland
for the Jewish people, in an area that was also the home of the Palestinians.
Nazi Germany had shown that, without their own territory, Jews might always face
the risk of mass killing.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Israel’s survival has depended on a combination of factors. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Almost its entire Jewish population is trained
and armed for defense.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The government
has one of the best intelligence operations in the world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It projects its power into neighboring
countries to quash remote efforts to organize attacks against it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And it has the unwavering support of the U.S.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">When Israel was created, much of the Arab population of
Palestine either fled or was driven out in what Arabs would call the
“Nakba.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But Israel continued to have
Palestinians within its borders, but did not rule parts of the territory that
remained under Palestinian control.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Threatened by internal Palestinian dissidents, surrounding
Arab countries and terrorist groups, Israel assigned its highest priority to its
national security. The U.S. was its guarantor, even if not formally.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">As Israel became more secure, repelling failed military
attacks, it occupied parts of Palestine that were adjacent to its
territory.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Gradually, Israel has moved
toward ultimately absorbing the occupied territories and maintaining dominance
over the Palestinians.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">That policy has been expected to provide security for
Israel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It implied that the Jewish state
would keep Palestinians under its control, even if they had limited
self-government.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">For the Palestinians, this outcome is unacceptable, and some
are willing to engage in armed resistance. Desperation has led to the formation
of terrorist organizations whose agendas seem focused on continual efforts to
disrupt the Israeli plan.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The murderous October
7 Hamas attack on Israel reflected enormous Arab frustration and anger with
what their future might be.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">The bottom line is that Israel wants to be a secure state
able to protect itself, and the Palestinians want the ability to govern
themselves independently.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These seem to
have become mutually exclusive goals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Sensing the Hamas attack offered it an opportunity, Israel’s response
both in Gaza and the occupied West Bank has been to move toward complete
control.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">The U.S. and other countries have always favored two equal side-by-side
states.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is not what Israel wants.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But it is doubtful that its military control
of the entire territory of Palestine would bring regional peace or enable it to
completely control the Palestinians.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>From American post-Civil War Reconstruction to Russian oppression of Ukraine,
history shows this policy does not work.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Israel rejects a two-state solution, because it lacks confidence
that the Palestinians would refrain from using their homeland to launch
continual attacks on the Jewish state.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In short, Israel seems to believe that a two-state solution fails to
provide what is most essential – security.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Along comes Jon Stewart.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>With humor and feigned modesty, he advances a way to make the two-state
solution work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He proposes stationing a
buffer force all along the border between the two states. At crossing points,
each state could control the passage of people and goods.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Stewart suggests a force staffed and financed by neighboring
Arab countries. Israel would get security and the Palestinians would get their
own country. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yet it’s impossible to
believe that Israel would find Stewart’s arrangement durable or better than
complete control of Palestine.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">The neighboring countries should provide financial
support.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So should the U.S. and European
nations who now pay to arm one or both sides, trying to patch over an
impossible regional security situation.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">The border force patrols could be staffed by three elements:
Israelis, Palestinians and well-trained third-party soldiers from countries
outside the region.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Israel seeks to impose its own unilateral solution to its
security needs, so rejects international involvement with the Palestinian
problem.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But the world community has
great concern about Middle East peace, and Israel is somewhat dependent for its
security on the U.S. and Europe, and cannot go it alone.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Stewart’s proposal may be labeled naïve and
impractical.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yet, after 76 years,
nothing else has worked.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe the
buffer force is not the best solution, but it’s something new and that alone
makes it worthy of serious consideration. Perhaps there are other ideas still
to be explored.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">The U.S., as Israel’s prime military backer, should take the
lead.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The bloody Hamas-Israel
confrontation requires America to do more than just plead for peace and pass
the hat.<o:p></o:p></span></p><br /><p></p>Notes from a Corner of the Counrtyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14779139227897435610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2390118692058990733.post-81554901117427178972024-03-06T11:05:00.000-05:002024-03-06T11:05:18.335-05:00Supreme Court’s new split emerges in Colorado case<p> </p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Gordon L. Weil</span></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">The Supreme Court’s decision preventing Colorado from
keeping Donald Trump off the Republican primary ballot revealed two splits among
the nine justices.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">While all nine agreed that were adequate grounds to
determine that a decision relating to a federal office could not be made by
individual states, but only by the federal government, five justices went even
further.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">The five ruled that Congress is required to pass a law
giving effect to a ban on insurrectionists holding public office before they
can be blocked.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In other words, the Constitution’s
14<sup>th</sup> Amendment ban cannot function without additional congressional
action.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This ruling was not necessary to
overrule Colorado, but, for the first time, it established rules for the
future.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Three justices disagreed vehemently and protested that it
was not necessary for the majority to go that far, and it should not have.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Frequent judicial practice is to avoid making
decisions that are not needed to produce a result.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Another justice wrote that sending a unified message rather
than displaying a heated and unnecessary split would have been in the public
interest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This justice agreed with the three
that the Court should not have gone beyond what was required and did not
endorse the majority’s additional ruling. The justice said the Court should not
have entered into unneeded controversy during a campaign year.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">This justice stated: “In my judgment, this is not the time
to amplify disagreement with stridency. The Court has settled a politically
charged issue in the volatile season of a Presidential election. Particularly
in this circumstance, writings on the Court should turn the national
temperature down, not up.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">This justice put the public interest ahead of the frequent
partisanship shown even on the Supreme Court.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>She is Justice Amy Coney Barrett, a Trump appointee.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thus, this was not a purely partisan split,
though the three other justices who opposed the extra ruling had all been appointed
by Democratic presidents.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">So, aside from the split on the wisdom of the extra opinion,
what other split existed?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Male-female.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Five justices, all men and all GOP appointees, couldn’t resist
going too far in their enthusiasm to overrule Colorado and ease Trump’s
way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Without their unnecessary and
potentially controversial expansive ruling, the women might have simply agreed
with the decision to block Colorado’s decision.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The result would have offered the public a unanimous and appropriate decision.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Instead, the majority got a scolding by Barrett, and the
Court did nothing to repair its declining image.<o:p></o:p></span></p><br /><p></p>Notes from a Corner of the Counrtyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14779139227897435610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2390118692058990733.post-21645943567441163262024-03-01T06:30:00.001-05:002024-03-01T06:30:00.137-05:00Putin has lost his Ukraine gamble, but has U.S. won?<p> </p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /><br />Gordon L. Weil <br /><br />Vladimir Putin has lost in Ukraine. <br /><br />Has the U.S., Ukraine’s major backer, won? <br /><br />Putin stated Russia’s goals, has not met them and has no chance of success. <br /><br />The U.S. has not stated America’s goals in intervening in the Ukraine War. Simply saying that the U.S. backs Ukraine has proved to be inadequate. <br /><br />Putin has had two objectives. First, he wanted to prove that Ukrainians were really Russians and a second-rate version at that. In line with Soviet mythology, “the Ukraine” is merely a part of Greater Russia, he thought, and its people were inferior and subject to exploitation. Soviet leader Joseph Stalin had literally starved millions of them to death in the 1930s. <br /><br />Second, Putin worried that the truly independent Ukraine, having expelled his puppet president in 2014, would bring the West, notably NATO and the EU, right to Russia’s borders. He wanted Ukraine to serve as a buffer state subject to Russian domination, just as is neighboring Belarus. <br /><br />The Russian invasion of Ukraine two years ago is an utter failure. Ukraine’s heroic stand to repel the Russians has made the entire world aware of the strength of its people and their rejection of Russia. Despite Putin’s hopes, there would be no Russian puppet president ruling in Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital. <br /><br />Both the EU and NATO have begun moving toward positive consideration of Ukraine’s membership. The Russian threat has led Europe to step up its own defense efforts. If Ukraine joins NATO, the U.S. and Europe will be committed to defend it against any further Russian invasion. That could be a powerful deterrent. <br /><br />Meanwhile, reacting to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Finland and Sweden are becoming NATO members, more than doubling Russia’s border with NATO members. It would just about double again with Ukraine as a member. Putin’s policy backfired. <br /><br />If defeating Putin is the U.S. objective, then it has won. But American policy still seems to support Ukraine’s hope of expelling Russia from all territory it has taken since 2014, notably eastern Ukraine and Crimea. The question is whether that’s possible. <br /><br />While Russia can seize territory and bomb Ukraine, Russia itself is almost immune from attacks by Ukraine using NATO-supplied weapons. Russia’s nuclear weapons give it a military advantage that cannot readily be overcome. It’s like fighting with one arm tied behind your back. <br /><br />Aside from arming Ukraine, other wartime developments have been less favorable for the U.S. and Europe. The U.S. ended the great powers’ agreement with Iran that restrained its nuclear ambitions. That propelled Iran into a closer relationship with Russia under which it supplies military drones. <br /><br />Russia replaced its trade links with Europe by an enhanced relationship with China, making the Chinese Yuan into Russia’s main international exchange currency, displacing the U.S. dollar. It managed relatively easily to evade American economic sanctions, using intermediary countries like Armenia to launder transactions. <br /><br />The military stalemate in Ukraine and the failure of the efforts to cripple the Russian economy, which would force it to end its invasion, have contributed to increased American political fatigue with the Ukraine War. A broad understanding that the U.S. opposes invasions to seize the territory of free countries has been turned into a partisan issue by some Republicans. <br /><br />The U.S. might yield some of its leadership responsibilities to Europe if countries there continue their recent moves to strengthen their own defenses, simultaneously reducing reliance on the U.S. Would the U.S. willingly cede some of its international influence? <br /><br />If not, the U.S. needs to better define its objectives in Ukraine and pursue them while leading the Western alliance. Could Russia be further weakened by continued American pressure? Or is the GOP correct that endless conflicts have become sufficiently unpopular that a path to the end of the current level of Ukraine support must be found? <br /><br />A stronger policy based on American interests could require less deference to Ukraine’s understandable desire to recover all of its lost territory. <br /><br />Of course, Russia must accept formally what it has already lost in Europe and recognize Ukraine as a future member of the EU and NATO. Russian troops must withdraw from territories taken in the past two years, allowing referendums on their future. As for Crimea, Ukraine could gain free access through it to the open sea, just as it gave Russia when it controlled Crimea. <br /><br />The Republicans are desperate for issues to fight out with the Democrats and Ukraine increasingly looks like one. But allowing U.S. policy on Ukraine to become part of this year’s political campaign would serve Russia’s purposes and weaken America’s place in the world. <br /><br />An end to conflict in Ukraine may depend on avoiding political conflict on this issue in the U.S. The first step toward ending the conflict might begin with an attempt by the parties to find a bipartisan endgame policy.</span>Notes from a Corner of the Counrtyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14779139227897435610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2390118692058990733.post-34144248389013496012024-02-23T06:30:00.001-05:002024-02-23T06:30:00.136-05:00Younger generations will pick next president<p> </p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /><br />Gordon L. Weil <br /><br />America is divided. While that may hardly be news, it’s more than a matter of liberal versus conservative or Democrat versus Republican. <br /><br />Part of the population seems to live in another country. It has a different history, a different culture and, as the annual additions to the dictionary reveal, a different language. It is composed of generations known as Gen X and Millennials. <br /><br />It may be joining the political process at a pace unusual for younger people often more concerned with getting their feet on the ground than their hands on the ballot. It may now be the critical element in decisions about the future. <br /><br />On the older side of the dividing line are the members of the Silent Generation, children of the Depression and World War II, and the Boomers, children of the post-war world. These people have been shaped by their experiences and may participate in the political process to protect what they have and to preserve what is familiar. <br /><br />Donald Trump and Joe Biden are both well tied to the older side of this division. While their physical and mental abilities may raise doubts about their serving four more years, they are also out of touch with many people generations younger than them who could decide the election. <br /><br />The New York Times has recently reported on an effort to encourage older people to sit down one-on-one with younger people to exchange ideas and experiences. This is not a matter of the senior educating the youth; the teaching flows both ways. Has Trump or Biden had such a conversation – a chat between equals across generation lines – in recent years? <br /><br />The younger half of the population is not a “constituency” simply to be fed promises about issues like student loan forgiveness or excessive government regulation. It is a large, growing share of the population, people that the government is supposed to serve, not a segment to be patronized. But the two people who may be this year’s presidential candidates have little real contact with it. <br /><br />Some analysts criticize the Democrats for yielding their traditional blue-collar constituency to the GOP. Trump’s success can easily be attributed to this failure of the pro-labor party to prevent the slide of their key backers to the pro-business Trump Republicans. But the facts about younger Americans suggest this thinking is flawed. <br /><br />A few years ago, Pew Research, a respected independent organization, conducted a broad survey of the American population by age. What it discovered could give political comfort to the Democrats. <br /><br />Pew found that the younger generations are better educated, wealthier, and less likely to be married than the older generations were at the same age. Among the younger people, women are better educated than men, and many more women are employed than had been the case with their parents’ generations. <br /><br />A majority of Gen Xers and Millennials consider themselves liberals and Democrats or leaning that way. The breakdown for the Silent Generation and Boomers is just the reverse. But liberals outnumber conservatives, according to Pew. <br /><br />The GOP may not worry about these numbers, because older people are more likely to vote than the younger generations. That could be one reason for Republicans opposing easier voting access, asserting that such access increases cheating. With limited access to the polls, newcomers may be discouraged from voting. <br /><br />While it remains true that the older groups are generally more conservative than the younger groups, their ranks are not growing. Meanwhile the number of liberals is increasing, thanks to the two younger generations. This growth comes mostly from independents, who have often seen themselves as moderates. <br /><br />Look at Maine. In the 1950s, when Democrat Edmund Muskie pulled off an upset to become governor, Republicans heavily outnumbered either Independents or Democrats. Now they have fallen to third position, with the Democrats leading in party registration. Muskie caused some Republicans to become Independents, and later they transitioned to the Democrats. <br /><br />The challenge for the Republicans is to prevent the continued drift of voters to liberalism, difficult in light of economic and social change. That leaves the GOP with efforts to keep down voter participation in the belief that older people are less affected than new participants when they face artificial obstacles to voting. Above all, Trump must focus on conserving his support. <br /><br />The Democrats must get out their vote. That, too, may be a challenge, illustrated by reactions to the Gaza conflict. Many young voters are critical of Biden’s reluctance to support a ceasefire. He seems caught between traditional but aging political allies and the younger generations, which still need to be motivated to vote and to support him. <br /><br />Biden may count on winning, relying on popular dislike of Trump. The demographic divide shows he must do more to bring the younger generations, especially women, on board. </span>Notes from a Corner of the Counrtyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14779139227897435610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2390118692058990733.post-55438571304431032852024-02-16T06:30:00.001-05:002024-02-16T06:30:00.439-05:00George Washington’s message to Biden, Trump: It’s time to go<p><br /></p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Gordon L. Weil <br /><br />Once again, it’s time for Presidents Day. If you ask people what it celebrates, you may get a shrug or the easy conclusion that it recognizes all the presidents since the beginning of the country. <br /><br />In both federal and Maine law, the holiday is Washington’s Birthday, intended to recognize the person called “The Father of His Country.” As is my tradition, this my annual column on George Washington, who I believe is our greatest president. <br /><br />We usually pick our presidents based on who they are more than because of the promises they make to us. In terms of quality of character, a standard that seems mostly forgotten these days, Washington is virtually unbeatable. <br /><br />The principal measure of character is integrity. Define yourself and then live your life in line with who you are. <br /><br />When Washington was selected as commanding general of the Continental Army, composed of state-contributed forces, he was possibly the only official American. Throughout his career, he defined himself that way and tried always to act in the national interest and not his personal interest. He saw his job as MAG – Make America Great. <br /><br />The Constitution was only a document when he became president in1789. With Congress, he had the task of creating a new government for a new country. He could have become its king, but believed so strongly in its promise, that he chose to stick to the job of making the Constitution work. That may look easy from today’s vantage point, but it wasn’t. <br /><br />Aside from creating the departments of government with their powers and responsibilities, he had to develop national policies to represent the interests and needs of about four million people from Maine, then part of Massachusetts, to Georgia. He understood that a country already so vast and destined to be much greater, could only be governed through compromise. <br /><br />From the outset, he faced a conflict over the role of the federal government. On one side were the Federalists, who favored a strong central government. The Anti-Federalists, which would develop into the Democratic-Republicans, favored an agrarian country with powerful states. Alexander Hamilton led the Federalists and Thomas Jefferson headed the opposition. <br /><br />Washington’s approach was to attempt to find a compromise. Of course, the majority party should have the greater influence over the final decision. Washington, though not a partisan politician, agreed with the Federalists, based largely on his unhappy experience in trying to assemble and finance a wartime army dependent on voluntary state contributions. <br /><br />He succeeded in creating compromises and in developing policies that a majority could support in the national interest. The work produced controversy and Jefferson quit the government, when he did not prevail. He later came to realize that he had gone too far in opposing Washington. <br /><br />Washington, the war general, became the successful post-war president because of his character. He understood that there were limits that applied to the role of government and that those limits applied to him. He would not abuse the power given to him. <br /><br />He tried to show his commitment to the people, reassuring them that independence was worth the sacrifices that had been made to win it and that the government merited their support. <br /><br />He had not sought the presidency. After the Revolutionary War, he returned to his farms and lands in Virginia. He had removed himself from farming and real estate investing while serving his country. One of the wealthiest people in the country, he had left virtually all management to others, however much he wanted to return to Mount Vernon. <br /><br />Whatever satisfaction he took from his service as general was personal and he did not seek attention. Yet, after the Constitution was ratified, attention came to him based on his previous service. The country wanted him as their first president. His proven integrity reassured national leaders that he could head the government without seeking personal advantage. <br /><br />The proof of his integrity came when he voluntarily decided that two terms as president was enough, setting a precedent that much later became part of the Constitution. He retired back home to great acclaim. That’s called “leaving on a high note.” <br /><br />Washington understood a simple fact that seems to have escaped many of his successors. After a president leaves office, there’s still one more election – the judgment of history. That depends heavily on how a person conducted themselves and led the government and often relatively little on specific policies. And it may take a long while for that judgment to be made. <br /><br />History’s judgment about George Washington is clear. Two of his successors are now vying to live in the White House, the house he built. They should learn at least one lesson from him before the last election they will ever face. That’s knowing when it’s time to go. <br /></span><br /> Notes from a Corner of the Counrtyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14779139227897435610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2390118692058990733.post-82080763525224794412024-02-09T06:30:00.001-05:002024-02-09T06:30:00.137-05:00Presidential politics blocks immigration reform<p><span style="font-size: large;"> <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><b>Trump
rejects GOP immigration plan</b></span></span></p><p><br /></p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Gordon L. Weil <br /><br />“It’s like déjà vu all over again.” <br /><br />These memorable words, attributed to the great Yogi Berra, fit the attempts to come up with an immigration policy. <br /><br />In 2013, a bipartisan group of senators developed a comprehensive package on immigration policy reforms. It could pass the Senate, but the House Republicans refused to consider it and it died. Congress did nothing, and the waves of uncontrolled immigration grew larger. <br /><br />Another bipartisan group of senators has agreed on a package of proposals that could be a major first step toward dealing with immigration, but the House Republican leadership blocked it and most Republican senators then finished it off. Maine’s GOP Sen. Susan Collins voted for it. <br /><br />Why oppose a useful first step on immigration policy? Because it might work. Republican leaders are loyal to Donald Trump, who is likely to be their presidential candidate. He does not want President Biden to get any credit for positive progress. Trump wants no action taken until he might assume office in January 2025. <br /><br />It does not matter to Trump that uncontrolled immigration at the Mexican border would continue for many months. The situation should be allowed to grow worse so that he can garner the historical credit for making it better. He has taken a similar stance on economic policy. Let it get bad, so I can fix it, he implies. <br /><br />Immigration is now a major issue. Some opposition to it may be based on racism, a flat rejection of people who look different. But probably more importantly, people who are comfortable with their way of life dislike the inevitable changes that result from the increased population of people with other cultures. <br /><br />Beyond such direct concerns may be a sense that, if the federal government cannot control the borders, it is failing at its core job of governing. Attempts by Texas GOP Gov. Greg Abbott to control his state’s borders may be the tangible expression of the broader doubts created by a lack of effective federal action. <br /><br />Historically, most early immigrants to the U.S. came from northern Europe. Then, successive waves of Irish, Italians, and Eastern Europeans, notably Poles and Jews, arrived as the result of an open-door policy. Each faced opposition and had to overcome discrimination. Asians were long excluded. <br /><br />In 1924, Congress adopted an immigration policy that favored only European immigration. Quotas were established. This system encountered relatively few problems with uncontrolled immigration. <br /><br />Though some immigrants would have merited asylum from persecution in their homelands, many came in search of the economic benefits of a free society and open frontier. That probably remains true today. <br /><br />Prosperity in the U.S., Europe, Canada and a few other countries has made immigration attractive to people from Latin America, Africa and the Middle East. Though new and tougher policies may aim at limiting entry, they are ineffective in halting the flow of uncontrolled immigrants. Old laws are difficult to enforce, and they fail. <br /><br />In the U.S. the number of unlawful and undocumented immigrants continues to grow. Because the current system cannot stop or process the flow, many are released into the national population while awaiting decisions on their asylum claims. This is what has turned immigration into a national policy concern. <br /><br />Absurd proposals for a physical barrier between the U.S. and Canada result from an effort to nationalize concerns about immigration. <br /><br />Neither Trump’s wall nor Biden’s token attempt to provide a more effective screening process has worked to halt uncontrolled entry. And the U.S. simply cannot create enough effective programs in their home countries to discourage immigrants’ desire for better lives in the northern countries. <br /><br />The basis of any new policy needs to begin with a determination about the feasible flow of immigrants over a decade. Immigrants provide labor and pay taxes and are new customers in a consumer-oriented economy. Desirable growth can be planned and agreed by Congress. <br /><br />Border patrol agents and immigration courts need to be increased. The entry permit system requiring application outside the U.S. before border processing should be strengthened. The wall can be expanded. A trigger mechanism should allow the border to be closed. These are all GOP demands, and the Democrats accepted them. But Trump and his loyal backers killed them. <br /><br />The U.S. also must deal with Mexico, which serves as a freeway to America. It gains much from being America’s favored trade partner. It is now deriving export gains as the U.S. moves away from Chinese imports. But it should not openly undermine American society and interests just as China has sought to do. <br /><br />Trump offered a simple solution – build a wall paid for by Mexico. Biden failed to respond to growing public distress over the current policies. For years, Congress has allowed immigration to become excessively entangled in politics. <br /><br />And uncontrolled immigration continues.</span>Notes from a Corner of the Counrtyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14779139227897435610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2390118692058990733.post-33717949051565149442024-02-02T06:30:00.001-05:002024-02-02T06:30:00.127-05:00America faces historic choice<p><span style="font-size: medium;">Has liberal democracy run its course?</span> </p><p><br /></p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Gordon L. Weil<br /><br />The U.S. faces a particularly historic choice. It has always faced the need to balance the priority given to personal freedom with the responsibility for the community. This year, it is challenged to renew that balance. <br /><br />Of the two priorities, personal freedom had greater weight in the years between the country’s founding and the Great Depression, beginning in 1929. Government’s role was limited and both the states and the private sector enjoyed great freedom of action. Individuals were expected to benefit from their actions or, if discontented, to move to the vast frontier. <br /><br />But the end of the frontier coupled with the inability of traditional institutions to protect people from the heavy burden of unemployment and poverty imposed by the Depression, required broad change. In response, President Franklin D. Roosevelt led the federal government to take responsibility for the common good. <br /><br />The government began to provide a social safety net, like Social Security, to ensure that all might be sustained, but it also acted directly to create temporary jobs. Its growth was greatly increased by the measures, from the military draft to industrial production, responding to the national danger caused by the Second World War. <br /><br />In the decades since that war ended, the U.S. has operated under a liberal democratic system, which enhanced the rights of all Americans and continued a major role for government. American ideals, seeming to be fulfilled, and American economic and military power made the country the world’s leader. <br /><br />Now, the great national debate, causing a divide almost as emotional as the differences that yielded the Civil War, is about whether to restore, so far as possible, the country as it was before Roosevelt or to develop further the system he launched. <br /><br />The assumptions underlying the transformation under Roosevelt are now no longer universally accepted. Opponents claim that liberals reward dependency and do not encourage independence. They claim that people when challenged can succeed on their own, if given enough freedom. They ignore the degree to which common action through government has been woven into life. <br /><br />At the same time, the post-war “peace dividend” seems no longer to exist. The ideals of liberal democracy, dependent on popular control, were widely accepted. Now, voters will support more warlike and less democratic leaders. The U.S. could back away from post-war alliances with other countries in favor of going it alone. <br /><br />American relations with dictators like Putin and Xi and with autocrats in Hungary and Saudi Arabia might be conducted as purely business deals, more opportunistic than idealistic. Profit over principle. <br /><br />Should the U.S. revert to traditional individualism and cede territory and influence to dictators? Are there truly American “values” that need to be protected and do people agree on them? <br /><br />Our history can help in dealing with this choice. It can serve to both instruct and warn us. It should be the foundation for our actions, while not limiting our ability to respond to change with innovation. <br /><br />Americans are particularly fortunate among all nations and at all times to be able to defend our values and influence the world in which we live. We have a rich land and a diverse and creative nation. We live in a country characterized by optimism and hope. <br /><br />As I frequently note, in the warm 17-week Philadelphia summer of 1787, some 39 men devised the Constitution, producing the government that the 1776 Declaration of Independence had promised when it rejected the British King. <br /><br />The real American Revolution was the Constitution. It ingeniously created a truly federal system with two forms of sovereignty and with a national government designed to prevent the growth of excessive power under a new kind of king. <br /><br />This was something new in the world, a model for other countries. To the processes of the basic document was added a Bill of Rights, designed to protect individuals from excessive government power. Today, Americans might not fully appreciate that there may be no other country having a set of rights equal to those in the First Amendment. <br /><br />When the drafters of the Constitution had just about finished their work, they realized they had not decided who was to adopt it as the supreme law of the land. Finally, one member proposed it should be the decision of “We, the People.” Constitutional conventions in each state would decide. <br /><br />In the end, the government belongs to the people. The media inform and argue, but the people must make the ultimate decisions. A failure to pay attention, a willingness to make easy and ill-informed decisions, and, worst of all, not voting at all means that the government is forfeit and the Constitution turns to dust. <br /><br />This year, more than selecting among candidates, the choice may well be made between the two great streams of American history. </span>Notes from a Corner of the Counrtyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14779139227897435610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2390118692058990733.post-46191841759116277142024-01-29T06:30:00.001-05:002024-01-29T06:30:00.136-05:00Should courts have the last word?<p><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Gordon L. Weil<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">“The ball’s in your court.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">This time-worn sentence meaning that you have the responsibility
now has taken on a new and strong meaning these days. Now, at widely separated places, the ball is
in the court – of a court.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Most familiar are the cases based on charges made against
former President Trump in criminal and civil case in federal and state
courts. Ultimately, many of them are
likely to end up before one tribunal – the U.S. Supreme Court.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Aside from the merits of these cases against Trump is the
effect of their proceedings and possible outcomes on his chances for nomination
by the Republican Party and election as president. The balls in these courts could not be more
important, perhaps even less for Trump’s actions than for his political
future. By inference, the decisions
could affect the country’s future.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Because these cases are so numerous, it is likely safe to say
that any one of them could produce court action any day. They provide the ongoing background for the
race to the White House.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The Trump cases help place the court system itself on trial.
The Supreme Court and some federal and state courts have become embroiled in
current politics, which puts them in focus.
Once having begun to make rulings on political issues, the courts seem
to be drawn ever more deeply into politics.
As this has happened, public confidence in the Supreme Court has fallen.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The American judicial system has made the Supreme Court the
ultimate authority on the meaning of the Constitution, a document whose application
to a situation unforeseen when it was written remains to be determined. Neither Congress nor the president have the
final say; the Court alone has the last word.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The result is that, under the U.S. system, final decisions
are made by unelected justices. And their views of just what is the last word
may change as rulings on race and abortion have shown.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">While this situation is unlikely to change, it raises the
question of whether the politics of one generation can reach across decades to
later generations. Taking American
political evolution into account might reduce concerns about the politicization
of the Supreme Court. This becomes
increasingly an issue.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">In other countries, the question of courts making the final
decision is now at the center of political controversy. In these countries – the United Kingdom and
Israel – there is no written constitution.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">In the U.K., the government seeks to be able to transfer
asylum seekers after arrival in its jurisdiction to the country of Rwanda in
Africa. But its Supreme Court has ruled
that the U.K. agreement with Rwanda would force Britain to violate
international agreements that have been adopted by its Parliament.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The British system gives the final word to Parliament and
not to the Supreme Court. In the absence of a constitution, the Supreme Court
must accept acts of Parliament and cannot overturn them.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Now, the government has passed a new law to overrule the
U.K.’s previous acceptance of some international human rights treaties. That would prevent the Supreme Court from
applying those treaties, and the Rwanda deal could proceed. By overruling treaties, the U.K. could damage its international
credibility. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">A similar situation has arisen in Israel. For many years, the Supreme Court has determined
if laws meet a standard of “reasonableness” and, if not, they may be
overturned. Certain laws are deemed to
be basic and, generally, they may not be overturned.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The Knesset or Israeli Parliament has passed a law stripping
the Supreme Court of the ability to use “reasonableness” and emphasizing the
authority of the Parliament to have the last word on the law. The Supreme Court has overruled this basic
law as not meeting the rule of reasonableness.
The issue is sure to continue to be contested.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The America, British and Israeli situations revealed that
determining who has the last word on the law is a major, unresolved political
issue. In the U.S., some solutions aim
at finding ways to promote changes in the Supreme Court’s composition, while
respecting life tenure of judges and trying to reduce its direct political
involvement.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">A panel at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences has
proposed that justices serve on the Supreme Court for 18 years and then,
without losing their standing, serve only on federal courts of appeals. Justice David Souter of New Hampshire has
done almost exactly that.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">I have proposed the appointment of temporary additional
justices as have been used on other federal courts. They temporarily increase the size of the
court and then fill vacancies as hey occur, restoring the original number. Meanwhile, they can help with the workload
and the court’s balance.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Either of these changes can increase the chances that the
Supreme Court can be more frequently renewed. </span></p>Notes from a Corner of the Counrtyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14779139227897435610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2390118692058990733.post-13664169512950562812024-01-26T06:30:00.001-05:002024-01-26T06:30:00.129-05:00Trump and friends like unchecked power<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Gordon L. Weil</span><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">“Power
tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are
almost always bad men.”</span><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">These
are the classic words of Lord John Acton, a Nineteenth Century British
historian.</span><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">We
seem to have no shortage of eligible “great men” these days.</span><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Having
gained a taste of presidential power, Donald Trump proclaims his interest in
more and greater power. He could free his criminally convicted allies,
use the government to punish his foes and replace the nonpartisan civil service
with his loyalists. Single-handedly, he would remove the U.S. from
international leadership roles.</span><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Civics
students could ask how he could accomplish that with the checks and balances of
the Constitution. A complacent Congress and a compliant Supreme Court
could help him. By using dubious state tactics to suppress the Democratic
vote for Congress and in the electoral vote count for president, he might gain
for himself wide freedom of action.</span><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">For
his core backers, the fact this “great man” is a “bad” man makes no
difference. Ultimately, his chances for another term could depend on
whether traditional Republicans drop him if he is convicted of a major
violation of law. Otherwise, with unlimited power, his unlimited ego
could prove Lord Acton correct.</span><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Equally
subject to Acton’s principle is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a
Trump ally. He has just admitted to one of the most historic lies. As soon as
Israel was created in 1948, the international community adopted the concept
that Israel, the homeland of dispersed Jews, and Palestine, an Arab state,
should exist side-by-side. Israel agreed. Now, he flatly rejects it.</span><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">It
has become clear that Israel, under Netanyahu’s long leadership, has had no
real commitment to the two-state model with a separate Arab state, even one
that is disarmed. He has simply hoodwinked the U.S., Israel’s willing
ally and financial backer, and others.</span><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Israel
is now strongly influenced by conservative, ultra-religious parties. They
favor a purely Jewish state with Arabs denied independence and subjected to
Israeli authority allowing it to control Arab land. The destruction of Gaza
conforms to this policy.</span><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Gaza
is being demolished to punish the population for the heinous acts of Hamas on
October 7. Netanyahu resists American and European calls for humane treatment
of the population.</span><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">This
policy reveals the extent of his own power. Though he relies on his
religious party backers, his policy denies what they profess to promote.
The bible says that God asks only that the people of Israel “do justice, love
mercy and walk humbly with their God.” Mercy is now missing.</span><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Maine
Sen. George Mitchell, who tried to negotiate Middle East peace, once warned
that their failure to agree could lead to both sides losing. The
Palestinians would lose territory and Israel would lose friends. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Netanyahu
is making that forecast come true. The
last words of the biblical passage stating God’s expectations reveals that, for
Israel’s failures, “you will bear the scorn of the nations.” </span><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">In
Russia, President Vladimir Putin, Trump’s trusted friend, shows the excesses of
absolute power. Russia was offered a close relationship with its former
opponents, but he chose to continue to assert that his country remained a
superpower under his leadership. Ultimately, he believed his own myth and
invaded Ukraine, a nation he deemed inferior.</span><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">He
believed Russia would win in a few days. When it failed, it showed the
world that Putin’s superpower was gone. He had sacrificed the historic
standing of Russia to serve his own sense of power.</span><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Yet
Putin continues to hold onto his absolute power. He can kill his
opponents even if they are abroad. After he failed to kill Alexei
Navalny, his most effective political opponent, he imprisoned him almost
indefinitely. Even foreigners, like Evan Gershkovich, an American
journalist, can be jailed endlessly without charges.</span><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Acton’s
observation seems to become more credible the longer a “great man” holds onto
office. Netanyahu is in his third term as Israel’s Prime Minister. Putin
will soon gain his third term as Russia’s President plus one term as Prime
Minister. If he wins in November, Trump has hinted that he should get an
unconstitutional third term because of the controversy surrounding the 2020
election.</span><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">There
can be no doubt that Acton was right. Power may come from elections, but
absolute power results from leaders abusing their office to promote their
complete authority, allowing them to alter the system to reflect their
interest, not the national interest.</span><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">More
important than any issue in an election is the threat that it can lead to the
exercise of unchecked power. Such an election can have more long-lasting
effects than any policy. And it rarely can produce a popular and
successful result.</span><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Power
grows in a vacuum, one created by passive people. Lord Acton is only correct if
we let it happen. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Correction:
House Speaker Mike Johnson is from Louisiana, not Texas, as I incorrectly wrote
last week.</span> </span></p><p></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt;"></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt;"><br /></p><p></p><p></p>Notes from a Corner of the Counrtyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14779139227897435610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2390118692058990733.post-72763786723450752152024-01-19T06:30:00.001-05:002024-01-19T06:30:00.135-05:00Latest political violence – ‘swatting’ <p><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Political violence is last refuge of losers</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Gordon L. Weil</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, who had ruled
Donald Trump off the ballot, was threatened and swatted.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The Maine State House, along with other state capitals,
received a bomb scare.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The judge handling Trump’s New York fraud trial faced a bomb
scare and was swatted.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">A member of Congress and his children were threatened with
being killed.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The former Arizona Speaker of the House, who had testified on
Trump’s attempt to change the electoral vote, was threatened and swatted.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Swatting is calling the police to report a crime supposedly taking
place at the target’s home.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It creates
chaos and perhaps even danger for the target.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In two cases, it has led to the death of an innocent party.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Swatting is part of an effort to scare or physically harm a
political opponent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Many threats are
dealt with locally, but federal enforcement agencies have registered a 47
percent increase in their political threat investigations in the two most
recent comparable five-year periods.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Most cases share the facts that the actions are illegal and
the targets have acted unfavorably to Trump.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>That translates easily to a message that you will be in danger if you
harm his interests.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Judges, officials and legislators take threats seriously.
While they are not deterred by being endangered, they are forced to balance the
safety of themselves and their families with their duty to the public.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The purpose of the judicial system is to
eliminate the need for this balance, allowing officials to make decisions as objectively
as possible in the public interest.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Problems arise when people who may face charges or experience
negative political outcomes try to stir up opposition using physical threats,
not open debate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Debate can lead to compromise,
but some may prefer to use intimidation in hopes of traveling a straight line
to their desired result.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Whatever your opinion about whether Trump aided an
insurrection on January 6, 2021, there can be no doubt that the people who
broke into the Capital wanted to menace Congress so that it would at least halt
counting electoral votes for president. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There also can be little doubt that the
invaders were doing what Trump wanted them to do to change the official outcome.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">There’s an old political saying that “[False] patriotism is
the last refuge of scoundrels.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It seems
increasingly to be the case that physical attacks in politics have become the
last refuge of losers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If they don’t
have the votes, they don’t give up on doing virtually anything to gain
power.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They often accept false information
about their opponents to the point they see themselves in danger.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">For some, politics has become less about governing, a process
that limits the ability of participants to completely achieve their goals, than
about gaining attention for them and their cause.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They may get noticed, but they probably don’t
get results.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s possible they simply
seek to destroy the current system, so it can be replaced by more authoritarian
rule.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">A group of extreme conservative Republican House members
were able to dump then Speaker Kevin McCarthy after he had compromised with
Democrats, who control the Senate and presidency, to avoid shutting down the
government by passing a temporary budget deal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They replaced him with Mike Johnson, a Texas member they considered more
reliable.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">When faced with the same issues as McCarthy, Johnson did the
same thing, avoiding his party being held responsible for a government shutdown.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The right wing promptly went after Johnson,
forcing him to struggle for a solution.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">In a recent interview, McCarthy commented on the power of that
small right-wing House group to disrupt congressional action.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He said the extremists focus on their own
reputation and raising money to enhance their power.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“[W]hen you come here, if you don’t want to
govern, why be a part of it?” he asked.<br />
<br />
McCarthy missed the point.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He assumed
that any member would want to be effective within the limits of the system.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But the extremists seem ready to topple the
system, because it requires compromises that yield results not fully meeting
their goals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">They share Trump’s belief that, notwithstanding the real situation,
the country is in deep trouble.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
current political system is dominated by a permanent class of bureaucrats –
they call it the “Deep State” – and they must be dislodged by an executive with
greater powers.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Their goals intersect with those using physical threats, who
want to create a sense of chaos that only a stronger executive can cure.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Trump’s statements indicate that he wants to expand
presidential authority to bypass Congress and government professionals.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">It is unusual, especially at the federal level, for the
great debate over the country’s future to be carried out through attempted
legislative blockades while its traditional leaders are subject to physical threats.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But that’s where the country is.</span></p>Notes from a Corner of the Counrtyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14779139227897435610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2390118692058990733.post-43323042937221785432024-01-16T14:52:00.000-05:002024-01-16T14:52:12.727-05:00Iowa GOP Caucus Overrated, turnout is unrepresentative<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="email-body-container" role="presentation" style="width: 100%;"><tbody><tr><td align="left" class="content" width="550"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br />Gordon L. Weil<br /><br />With 99 percent of the Iowa Republican caucus vote having been counted, the initial results show 109,404 voters participated.<br /><br /><br />Donald Trump’s strong victory has boosted speculation both about the likelihood of his winning the GOP nomination and then the general election. To many observers, the Iowa results confirm his lead on the road to the White House. He surely got his vote out.<br /><br /><br />While the results may show that his legal issues are not undermining his strength among loyal Republicans, reasons remain for taking care about drawing too many early conclusions.<br /><br /><br />Leaving the punditry aside, there is one clear fact that raises doubts about reading much into the result.<br /><br /><br />In the 2022 Iowa race for governor, the GOP winner received 709,198 votes. That number includes any Democratic or independent voters she may have picked up.<br /><br /><br />The caucus participants for all candidates was only 15 percent of that statewide GOP vote in 2022.<br /><br /><br />Overall, there were 1,211,146 Iowa voters in 2022. That means that the GOP presidential caucuses drew only nine percent of the number of active election participants. Trump won less than five percent of the number of general election voters.<br /><br /><br />The importance of the first-in-the-nation step in the presidential selection process is mainly a media creation. It is useful in sending message to hopeless candidates and to potential donors.<br /><br /><br />But as an indicator of who will be on the ballot in November and how they might perform, it is greatly overrated.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></span><br /> </td></tr></tbody></table>Notes from a Corner of the Counrtyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14779139227897435610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2390118692058990733.post-47581939936740579432024-01-12T06:30:00.001-05:002024-01-12T06:30:00.145-05:00‘America First’ could mean America Alone<p><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Gordon L. Weil</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The nations that won the Second World War had a big idea.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Having joined together as allies to defeat Nazi Germany,
they would try to create international organizations to keep the peace. New aggression would be blocked by these new
institutions.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Even before World War II ended, the victors created the United
Nations, an organization designed to put their high intentions into
operation. While the wartime alliance
between the Soviet Union on one side and the United States and Britain on the
other had been strained, the Americans hoped that wartime momentum could propel
the U.N. forward.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Almost from the outset, cooperation in the U.N. didn’t
work. The Soviet Union seized domination
of Eastern Europe and, using stolen nuclear technology, asserted itself as a
superpower. It confronted the U.S. and
threatened to continue its expansion westward.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">China, another of the key victors of World War II, ended its
close relationship with the U.S. when the Communists took control there. Almost immediately, it backed North Korea’s
invasion of the southern part of the Korean peninsula. American forces, fighting under the U.N.
banner, directly engaged Chinese troops.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The hoped-for ability of the major powers to police the
world was dead. The U.N. would not
ensure peace.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Responding to the Soviet gains, the U.S. and Europe created
NATO, an organization designed to forestall further advances westward by the
U.S.S.R. The Cold War emerged as
alliances were formed similar to those that had existed during the two World Wars.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The Soviet Union’s <span style="line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Warsaw Pact </span>faced NATO, which drew the armed forces of
its member countries into tight operating units, led by the U.S. It succeeded in discouraging further Soviet
expansion.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">One constructive idea for cooperation was to entwine the
economies of France and Germany so that they could not independently gear up to
again launch a European conflict that would turn into World War III. This idea led to the European Community, now known
as the European Union. A unified Europe
could be an effective ally to the U.S.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The economic advantages of the original EU members became so
evident that other countries sought to join.
But some were far more interested in the benefits that would flow to
them than in creating a more unified political and economic entity. In practice, the EU became a two-tier
organization.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">At its core are the founders, a relative handful of
countries. But states like Poland,
Hungary and the U.K. proved reluctant to open themselves to common standards of
conduct or open movement of their citizens.
The split became obvious when Britain decided to quit the EU.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Still, the European idea has continued to have appeal. After the breakup of the Soviet Union, many
countries it had controlled applied for EU membership. Russia, the survivor of the U.S.S.R., felt
challenged. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">As the EU grew, NATO became complacent, not believing that
Russia would resort to military action.
Even after Russia seized parts of Ukraine in 2014, NATO chose to appease
its adversary, just as had Britain and France in a showdown with Hitler. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Then, under then President Trump, the U.S. began to back
away from NATO. By 2022, Russia felt free to try to seize all of Ukraine. NATO, under American leadership, at last awoke.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The Asia-Pacific area countries, including the U.S., had not
understood that China would follow the Russian example and seek to increase its
regional power. As it became evident
that it would try to dominate the region, the Trans-Pacific Partnership was formed
to confront it. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">But the U.S. saw the TPP merely as a trade agreement,
failing to understand it as an alliance to block China’s expansion. Under Trump, it backed out. Only when China’s moves in Hong Kong and the
South China Sea became blatant did the U.S. take leadership of a Pacific effort
against its moves.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Though the U.N. would not be a world organization to promote
peace, regional alliances arose to face aggression by Russia and China. Still, the U.S. and Britain insisted that
national sovereignty is more important than this effort and moved away from
these alliances.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Some define sovereignty as retaining completely independent
action and ceding no powers under an international arrangement. For example, it has become almost impossible
to get the U.S. Senate to ratify any treaty, because a deal with another
country may be seen as a loss of sovereignty.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">But a nation can exercise its sovereign powers to increase
its prosperity and security by deciding to join with like-minded partners. Given American power, such alliances can continue
to increase U.S. influence, not limit it. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">In the upcoming presidential elections, the U.S. will again
be asked to decide if it wants to continue leading common international efforts
against aggression or to isolate itself from them. Insisting on “America First” could result in
America Alone. </span></p>Notes from a Corner of the Counrtyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14779139227897435610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2390118692058990733.post-51841553795972113312024-01-05T06:30:00.001-05:002024-01-05T06:30:00.142-05:00Democrats need to toughen up<p> </p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Gordon L. Weil</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">President Biden is unhappy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">He has berated his staff for not getting him the credit he
believes is his due for what he calls “Bidenomics.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">While it’s true that unemployment and inflation are down
nationally and business seems to be doing well, many people are unhappy with
the economy and give Biden little credit for the positive developments.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Their pay may be up, but so are their costs.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Biden looks at the national economy, but individuals look at
their own personal economy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The two
different views yield two different results.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The reason is possibly that increases in national wealth may
not be distributed in a way that gives many people the sense of an improving economy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If a large share of the growth is going to
the wealthiest ten percent, the rest of the people may miss most of the virtues
of Bidenomics.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Whatever the gains under Biden, the country still operates
under a tax system created by Donald Trump and a Republican Congress.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That system is designed to reward the wealthy
and large corporations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Billionaire Warren
Buffett, who favors higher taxes on the rich, can still point out that he pays
a lower tax rate than his secretary.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Despite the tax deal favoring the rich, the GOP does well
with average voters by effectively targeting its message at them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Using wedge issues like abortion and gun
control to gain support, it may even succeed in inducing them to believe that
taxes are too high, which benefits the wealthy far more than them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Many of these people have become the Trump Republican
“core.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are fed a steady diet of
Trump’s version of political and economic reality by the skilled use of social
media and cable television.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Surprisingly, the GOP learned about personally targeted
politics from a hard-hitting Democrat, then a member of Congress from
Illinois.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rahm Emanuel used this
approach to flip the House of Representatives from Republican to Democratic in 2006.
The GOP watched and learned and by 2010, they flipped it right back.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>GOP social media and Fox News were flying
high.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The success of social media is its focus on responding to
the sentiments of its followers rather than recruiting new supporters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s likely that few liberal Democrats follow
right-wing social media outlets or watch Fox and other conservative channels. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But loyal Trump backers are continually fed
stories that confirm their views, and they remain enthusiastic and become a
cult.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Trump’s own social media site, called “Truth Social,” is
estimated to have more than two million followers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They could be many of the same people who follow
conservative cable programs, and they belong to him.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The result is that they can come to believe, inaccurately,
that Biden is a socialist and dangerous to the country.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They can be left untouched about claims of a
booming Gross Domestic Product, if that’s even understood. With Trump at the
head of the ticket, they are drawn to the ballot box.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If they show up, they may give him wins in
primaries and swing states.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Social media may succeed in gaining the attention of
conservative voters who are not loyal Trump backers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They make their case in readily
understandable terms that appeal to the conservative leanings of their recipients.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The Democrats have no answer, as Biden is learning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bidenomics in 2024, like Obamacare in 2010,
is an abstract idea that fires up few voters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Fact-checkers may prove that the GOP errs, but that, too, is an
abstraction to many voters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like the
GOP, the Democrats want to appeal to their backers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But they act like they’re in a student debate,
not a political war.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">One key feature of Trump-inspired social media is always
being on the attack.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It labels its opponents
as dangerous. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Its policy proposals are
almost all negatives, like quitting NATO or reducing environmental
protection.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s a sharp contrast with
the almost academic arguments of the Democrats. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The professional media tends to give each side equal weight
and coverage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While Biden’s actions are
duly reported, mistruths may get the same often unquestioned attention.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Its coverage may lack critical news judgment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Objectivity should remain the goal, but its
mindless pursuit can promote misinformation.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The Democrats should become more aggressive in the social
media.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They often sound more like professors
than politicians.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Their message should
be simple and bold. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They can direct
their message to individual voters, and not only focus on broad national
policies, however successful. And Biden should be more visible in the nightly news.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Aside from being too old to run and consequently out of
touch with younger generations, Biden plays by dated political rules, no longer
suited to the politics of the times.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
Democrats will continue to lag in the polls if they don’t toughen up.</span></p><br /><p></p>Notes from a Corner of the Counrtyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14779139227897435610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2390118692058990733.post-1699528504833991642024-01-03T12:14:00.000-05:002024-01-03T12:14:30.409-05:00Civil War was all about slavery<p><br /></p><p><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /><br />Gordon L. Weil<br /><br />Former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley tried to dodge admitting that the Civil War was about slavery.<br /><br />Yet her state was the first state of the Confederacy to secede, acting months before Abraham Lincoln took office. <br /><br />The state argued that the Union was based on agreement among states that slavery could continue and that non-slave states would send escapees back South when captured. But the North was reneging on that agreement and wanted to end slavery.<br /><br />Lincoln had promised that he would not act to end slavery where it existed, whatever his own views. In fact, Congress proposed a constitutional amendment containing that promise, which was ratified only by his home state of Illinois. The southern states chose to secede.<br /><br />Many in the South, having lost the Civil War, came to believe in the Lost Cause. They claimed to have wanted only to have preserved states’ rights and been simply overpowered by the Union. Slavery was pushed into the background. This was the position advanced by Haley, which might have helped her in some Republican primaries but not in a general election.<br /><br />This is an <a href="https://link.sbstck.com/redirect/c920b51b-a44f-4828-9852-34ff17c0c554?j=eyJ1IjoiZXhicjkifQ.UBpaBQnS60P9CfZIFMCy4KW3Ovq8XRimCi40Z5EVFy4">excerpt</a> from the South Carolina Declaration of December 1860, which in turn has a link to the complete document.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></span><a href="https://substack.com/redirect/2/eyJlIjoiaHR0cHM6Ly9nb3Jkb25sd2VpbC5zdWJzdGFjay5jb20vP3V0bV9zb3VyY2U9c3Vic3RhY2smdXRtX21lZGl1bT1lbWFpbCZ1dG1fY29udGVudD1zaGFyZSZhY3Rpb249c2hhcmUiLCJwIjoxNDAzMjQ3MDgsInMiOjI1NjAyMCwiZiI6dHJ1ZSwidSI6MjUwNjk1MDksImlhdCI6MTcwNDMwMTc4MywiZXhwIjoxNzA2ODkzNzgzLCJpc3MiOiJwdWItMCIsInN1YiI6ImxpbmstcmVkaXJlY3QifQ.keEjvua052mxMJz_mNL0d3SSUKqOtJ2XsTojIwSVT_o?"></a><br /></p><p> </p>Notes from a Corner of the Counrtyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14779139227897435610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2390118692058990733.post-31407506867603875612023-12-29T06:30:00.001-05:002023-12-29T06:30:00.245-05:00Trump’s fate depends on Court he picked<p> </p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Gordon L. Weil</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Donald Trump got the Supreme Court he wanted.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">He will now discover how it will make its way between solid
conservatism, political partisanship and the historical opportunity to determine
the presidential election, possibly costing him a return to the White House.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Court’s reputation is at stake.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">This moment recalls the Court having picked the president in
2000, when it handed George W. Bush a narrow victory over Al Gore. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Trump faces in 2024 more major legal challenges than all
previous ex-presidents together.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
biggest questions could either end his chances or give him a critical boost. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The latest case involves the Colorado Supreme Court decision
that he cannot run in the Republican primary there because he participated in
an insurrection against the U.S., culminating in the attack on the Capital on
January 6, 2021.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Fourteenth
Amendment to the Constitution bans from federal or state office any office
holder involved in an insurrection.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The Colorado court examined three questions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>First, does the president hold an “office” covered
by the Amendment?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Second, was January 6
an insurrection or merely a riot?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Third,
did Trump’s actions and statements constitute participation in an
insurrection?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Colorado said “yes” to all
three and ruled Trump off the ballot. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">If the Supreme Court majority disagrees with the Colorado
court on even one of these questions, keeping Trump off the ballot anywhere
almost certainly would fail.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">A second key case involves the Trump claim that he is immune
from prosecution for virtually anything he did while president.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In a 1974 case involving Richard Nixon, still
president at the time, the Court ruled that his immunity did not extend to acts
beyond his official duties.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Were Trump’s
efforts to undermine the state-certified electoral votes a part of his
presidential duties?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">If the Supreme Court gives Trump absolute immunity, the federal
case against his alleged constitutional violations, being heard in Washington,
would be severely damaged.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If it denies
him full immunity, it might in effect be deciding the case against him by eliminating
his best defense.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">These two cases could deal with most important legal
challenges to his campaign.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But they
would not necessarily affect the federal case in Florida about his taking top
secret documents with him when he left Washington, the Georgia case about his
election interference there or the New York civil case about his providing
false financial information.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The media is fond of noting that Trump’s re-election effort
seems to be unharmed by the many cases brought against him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Of course, he has not yet been finally
convicted of anything relevant.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And the
torrent of cases, whatever the justification for their timing, can readily
appear to his supporters as an opposition vendetta.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Will final court decisions change that?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">If the Supreme Court acts as courts often do, it will seek
to decide the bare minimum necessary and leave alone other questions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If it is a more political than judicial body,
it could be expansive and do Trump a lot of good (or harm, though that’s not
likely).</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">In the Colorado case, it might decide that insurrection
meant the Civil War when the Amendment was adopted, but that it has not
otherwise been defined.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Colorado alone
cannot create that definition; that’s for Congress to do and it hasn’t.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Trump remains on the ballot.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">In the immunity case, the Court could decide against Trump,
based on the Nixon precedent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The former
president accepted that adverse ruling, even though it meant he was likely to
be convicted in the Senate by the votes of his own party, leading him to
resign. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The Court probably understands that a conservative body
denying Trump his best protection would send a strong message to his supporters
that he may have violated the law. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By allowing
the Court of Appeals to rule first, the Supreme Court may rely on the lower-court
ruling, protecting itself from seeming to be simply a partisan player.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Taking action affecting Trump’s political future puts
pressure on the Court.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Senate
Republicans turned against Nixon, showing that punishing a president must be
bipartisan.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But, with few exceptions, GOP
senators did not reject Trump after his second, overwhelmingly partisan impeachment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Court, like the Senate, must now make similar
decisions.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Advocates asking the Court to harshly judge Trump by interpreting
the Constitution and laws to punish him may be short-sighted. Whatever happens
to him could happen to any successor.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The Constitution, though much revered, is much distorted by partisan
practice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Court has sometimes shared
in the responsibility for that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now it
faces tough judgments.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The answer about
whether there was an insurrection cannot be found in the law. It will be the
judgment of just nine, unelected people.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">At their core, the Trump cases this year should turn not only
on his actions but also on protecting the Constitution.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></p><br /><p></p>Notes from a Corner of the Counrtyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14779139227897435610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2390118692058990733.post-88455109425388474762023-12-22T06:30:00.001-05:002023-12-22T06:30:00.135-05:00Defense bill, COP 28 mislead people<p><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Gordon L. Weil</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">A funny thing happened to the promise made by the COP28 environment
conference to “transition” away from fossil fuels. You know, that’s the stuff that makes most of
our cars go.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">It went out the exhaust pipe when it encountered the recent
U.S. defense spending bill that will lay out tens of millions for a new parking
garage at BIW.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The international community has set a target of limiting the
increase in the world’s temperature to 1.5 degrees Celsius above the pre-global
warming level. According to science, if this limit is not achieved, the quality
of life on Earth is harmed.
Accomplishing this goal requires a reduction in the use of fossil fuels and
their eventual elimination.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The most effective way to cut gasoline usage is to drive
less. Replacing private vehicles by mass
transportation, including car pooling, would cut down on total auto use and
emissions that cause global warming. Yet
federal money encourages private vehicles instead of developing more and better
mass transit facilities.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">At the same time as the U.S. advocates the fossil fuel
phase-out, the defense bill supports motor vehicle usage. Politicians may talk a good game, but they
prefer to cater to our immediate wants instead of our long-term needs. That’s not how leadership is supposed to
work.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Unfortunately, in reality, building a new BIW parking garage
to encourage commuting does not conflict with the COP28 outcome. Its so-called transition from fossil fuel includes
a raft of ready-made excuses for not making the goal. Besides, the transition would only deal with
energy production. It doesn’t touch
motor vehicles.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">COP28 took days of negotiation to come up with just the
right language that could both make it appear that the world cared about global
climate change and satisfy the oil producers who hovered over the
proceedings. The supposedly successful
result showed how clever diplomacy works to produce words without action.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Not only was the defense appropriations bill backing the
garage right in line with this do-nothing policy, but the bill itself
represented much of what’s wrong with politics in Washington.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The federal budget consists of three parts: mandatory,
discretionary and interest. The mandatory portion accounts for a majority of
the budget and covers Social Security, Medicare and other statutory programs. Interest includes the payments on government
debt incurred to cover outlays that exceed tax revenues. Discretionary spending has two elements:
military and non-military.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The defense spending bill covered the military piece. It was supported by a majority of each
party. The basic political promise of
almost all candidates is “jobs, jobs, jobs,” and the bill helps them keep that
promise.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The bill is like a Christmas tree, with something under its
branches for every state. Congress often
tries to gift wrap items that really have little to do directly with national
defense and include them, because the passage of this bill is a virtual
certainty. This is done by limiting them
to the defense establishment.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The costs of BIW
garage might ordinarily be covered by the company, the state or the city or all
of them together rather than by taxpayers across the country. Of course, Mainers pay for such benefits to other
states.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Under the Democrats, Congress had tried to keep military and
non-military spending roughly equal. After
9/11, Republicans successfully trimmed
non-military outlays while enhancing military funding. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The multi-faceted military budget is contained in a single
bill, making it possible to enact questionable items, safe in the knowledge
that few in Congress will want to risk seeming to oppose defense.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The garage is a good example of moving some non-military
spending into the better protected part of the budget. Spending that might be challenged in
non-military bills and even labeled as socialism is not disputed when it is
targeted at defense personnel. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The GOP insists that non-military spending should be covered
by many separate bills, making it easier to target cuts in programs similar to
those that slip into the defense bill.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The defense spending bill united both parties, though
extreme liberals and extreme conservatives joined in voting against it. Surprisingly, many of them shared the same
reason for their opposition. They wanted
to halt the authority of the federal government to spy on communications by
Americans. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">While the vote on the defense bill looked like a rare case
of bipartisanship, broad support for military spending has never been in
doubt. The political risks of opposing
it are too great and the benefits for all states are too tempting. The government’s surveillance authority would
have to be reviewed later.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">In the end, both COP28 and the defense spending bill were
hailed as victories in the self-congratulatory statements of the people who made
the deals. Perhaps they hope we won’t
look at them too closely. </span></p>Notes from a Corner of the Counrtyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14779139227897435610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2390118692058990733.post-51754292318894619732023-12-15T06:30:00.001-05:002023-12-15T06:30:00.154-05:00Biden versus Trump? Not so fast.<p><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Gordon L. Weil</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Here is the conventional wisdom for 2024.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Joe Biden and Donald Trump will face off as their party’s
nominees for the presidency. The main
issue in the campaign will be Trump himself.
The nominees will be selected soon, making most of the year a two-person
political war. Unless a realistic third-party
spoiler pops up.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Trump will try to vindicate his claim that he really won in
2020, fend off negative outcomes in his court cases, and gear up a more authoritarian
form of government. Biden will try to save
democracy from Trump and to shift the focus to his opponent and away from his
aging self. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The election will be about the people running far more than
their policies, good or bad, or their proposals. The outcome will be close because the
electoral vote favors Trump over Biden.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">We can count on this.
The polls say so.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">As the old song goes, “It ain’t necessarily so.” As plausible alternatives, here are some unconventional
thoughts, if not wisdom.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">For the Republicans, the campaign is likely to be a last
ditch battle for the remains of the party.
The party machinery has been taken over by Trump, and his backers use it
to maintain tight control and defeat traditional Republicans. We see a divided House GOP delegation that is
reluctant to oppose Trump.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">For the GOP traditionalists, the fight may be now or
never. They will not form a third party,
but will try to return their party to its usual, conservative and constitutional
character. To do this, they need to get
behind an alternative to Trump and that looks increasingly like former South
Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The problem for any Trump challenger is money. Usually, if candidates don’t fare well in
early primaries, their backing dries up and they must drop out. But Haley has
backing from the Koch political organization, among the wealthiest in the
country. She could hold on past early weak primary finishes. Then the momentum could shift.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Meanwhile, former GOP Rep. Liz Cheney will be trying to
elect a Democratic House. Yes, true. If the presidential race is close, it could be
tossed to Congress, as Trump tried to do last time. Under Democratic control, he could be
blocked. When a conservative like Cheney
will go this far, it’s clear the war for the GOP is on.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Add to that the impact of any court decisions adverse to
Trump. So far, there’s no sign that his
standing has been hurt by charges against him.
But verdicts and their cumulative effect are still ahead, to say nothing
of Trump’s intemperate reactions.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Biden has suggested he might not be running if it were not
for Trump. Were Haley to succeed in having
a real chance at the nomination, she could undercut both Trump and Biden. Not
only would Biden no longer need to stay in the race, but he might poll even
less well against Haley than against Trump.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Democrats back Biden because they ardently oppose Trump and
believe that their incumbent president has the best chance of a repeat
win. But, if the GOP leans toward a
younger candidate and a woman, the need for Biden might melt. Haley’s progress could suggest that a younger
Democrat who is a woman would be a better option.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Democrats like most others see Biden as being too old. Minnesota Rep. Dean Phillips is challenging
him in early primaries because he thinks Biden is too old to win. He could garner votes from Democrats who
agree. He could not win the nomination, but
he could open the way to contested primaries.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">In that case, Vice President Kamala Harris would likely face
competition, though nobody wants to undermine the Biden-Harris ticket now. One serious possibility could be Michigan
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer who rebuilt the Democrat coalition there even in the face
of death threats.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The expected response to this thinking is that it’s already too
late. The primaries will begin soon and
Trump and Biden will quickly nail down their nominations. But that fails to understand what happens in
primaries. Presidential candidates are
not selected; convention delegates are elected.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">If conventional wisdom turns out to be wrong, national
political conventions could revert to selecting nominees not merely serving as
political rallies. The nominees could
be selected by elected state delegates in open votes. These political “Super Bowl” playoffs alone
could help revive the American voter’s connection with the election process.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Of course, these alternate scenarios might well not happen. But it’s important to understand that the
messages from polls and pundits we are now getting may also not happen. This campaign is for high stakes and is only
based on the character of two old men.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Wisdom suggests there are some major political surprises ahead
and they won’t be conventional. </span></p>Notes from a Corner of the Counrtyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14779139227897435610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2390118692058990733.post-87274820756152725622023-12-08T06:30:00.001-05:002023-12-08T06:30:00.142-05:00Gaza, COP28, Trump campaign: the subtexts<p> </p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /><br />Gordon L. Weil <br /><br />Daily news reports hide what may be the real news. <br /><br />By focusing only on the day’s events, we may be misled and miss the underlying reality. This possibility arises on the most central issues these days. <br /><br />Most important is the war between Israel and Hamas, a terrorist group. Nothing good can be said about Hamas, which is dedicated to the elimination of Israel by the use of terrorism. Israel is right in trying to eliminate it as nearly completely as possible. <br /><br />A vast majority of Palestinian Arabs in Gaza and the West Bank are not affiliated with Hamas. Yet, in Gaza, Israel justifies killing noncombatants, including children, and destroying cities as the most effective way to destroy the terrorist leadership. <br /><br />U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin tried to explain to Israel the basic error in this policy. “In this kind of a fight, the center of gravity is the civilian population. And if you drive them into the arms of the enemy, you replace a tactical victory with a strategic defeat,” he said. Israel maintains that it tries to avoid civilian casualties, a claim denied by observable facts. <br /><br />Amid speculation on the future of Gaza after the war, one possible answer is overlooked. Israel might want the Arabs out of Gaza so the area could become incorporated into Israel – part of the one-state solution of the Israel-Palestine conflict favored by powerful right wing forces in Israel. To them, leaving residents of Gaza no safe place to live could make sense. <br /><br />Unless all Arabs are forced out of Israel-Palestine in pursuit of this policy, Austin’s warning must be taken seriously. The area could stand now at the beginning of a prolonged armed conflict. It’s possible that the only way to stop it would be for the U.S. to get much tougher with both Israel and Hamas. <br /><br />Suppose the leaders of major crime organizations called a summit meeting, inviting the police and FBI, to come up with a plan to eliminate organized crime. At the end of the meeting, the participants could issue a statement describing a phase-down. Innocent people who had suffered because of previously lax crime enforcement would receive compensation. <br /><br />That’s more or less what has happened in the international climate summits each year. World opinion is supposed to be impressed by high-level commitments made by top officials to slow global warming and aid the innocent. Yet, the use of coal and oil increases. On the surface, lofty goals are shared; in practice, targets are missed. In fact, they are not even seriously pursued. <br /><br />This year’s COP 28 summit may be the worst. Dubai’s Sultan al Jaber, his country’s oil chief, is the COP chair, but has said, “there is no science out there, or no scenario out there, that says the phase-out of fossil fuel is what’s going to achieve 1.5.” That’s the target limit for global warming this century in Celsius degrees. It has no chance of happening. <br /><br />At this meeting the clash between al Jaber’s environmental role and his efforts to sell oil reveal the true nature of environmental summits as oil industry trade shows. It’s so blatant that U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres rejected al Jaber’s proposed climate deal, because it “says nothing about eliminating emissions from fossil fuels.” <br /><br />Donald Trump runs for president and displays great confidence in polls suggesting that he would easily win the Republican nomination and defeat Joe Biden in the presidential election. While most presidential campaigns offer agendas and embody the views of their party, Trump’s GOP has no platform. <br /><br />His campaign is not about issues, which may explain why he has avoided debates. Trump’s campaign is about Trump. Beating Biden could serve as proof that he won the 2020 election. Biden now signals that he runs mainly to defeat Trump, as if to finally nullify claims about the last election. He would also protect against Trump’s planned vendetta against his opponents. <br /><br />Facing major criminal trials that could complicate his return to the White House, Trump focuses on delaying final decisions until after his next term as president would end in 2029. For him, the campaign and election are not about becoming president but about what a judge has called his “stay-out-of-jail free” card. <br /><br />Trump’s lawyers argue that the campaign insulates him, giving him a special legal status. But a federal appeals court just ruled that he could not use his new run for the presidency to claim immunity, noting “his campaigning to gain that office is not an official act of the office.” Still, the lawyers lodge appeals from adverse decisions, trying to run the clock. <br /><br />Each case – Israel’s action against Hamas, the COP 28 climate summit, and Trump’s campaign – shows that what the principal actors say and what they mean can greatly differ. Their true intent could be dangerous.</span>Notes from a Corner of the Counrtyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14779139227897435610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2390118692058990733.post-8133440370359254772023-12-01T06:30:00.001-05:002023-12-01T06:30:00.139-05:00Executive branch takes over lawmaking; Court responds <p> </p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Gordon L. Weil</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">This country still struggles to achieve popular control of
government.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">In Revolutionary terms, the king would give way to the
Congress. Nice idea, but it’s not
working. What’s even worse, people are growing
used to an extremely powerful executive.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The idea behind the Constitution was to prevent the chief
executive from controlling everything and instead to give the ultimate power to
the people’s representatives.
Legislative bodies would make the laws and presidents or governors would
carry them out.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">This idea largely failed because of Congress. From the Civil War onward, it began passing
some of its powers to the president and his executive branch agencies. Congress might normally set national policy,
but it would leave the details to the executive. As issues seemed to become more complex, Congress
increasingly left the hard legislative work to “experts.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Complaints would arise about decisions made by expert
regulators, but the Supreme Court deferred to their special knowledge. It would not overrule their judgments on the
facts unless they were completely unreasonable. The focus of much day-to-day lawmaking shifted
to executive agencies and away from elected officials, responsible to the
people.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">This week, the Supreme Court has heard a case that makes the
point. The SEC, the federal securities regulator, charged that a major fund
investor had fraudulently overvalued his assets. He faced a trial before an
administrative law judge, not a court, who ruled against him. He was found guilty, heavily fined and denied
the right to work in investments. The
SEC approved.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Whatever his guilt or innocence, the investor was “tried” by
an official who reported to the agency making the charges. Congress had given the SEC the right to do
that, stripping itself and the courts of their powers. The Court is now considering if Congress
could create this system. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">In another major case that will soon be heard, the Court
will decide who pays for observers that must be carried on some boats to
discourage overfishing. Congress failed
to set a rule, but a federal agency came up with an interpretation that makes
the boat owner pay. A lower court deferred to the regulatory body. The Court will decide if the agency can set
such broad policy.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The Supreme Court has begun to see if it can restore the
concept that Congress makes the laws and cannot give the executive branch free
rein. Last year, the conservative Court
majority departed from its traditional deference to regulators and ruled that
Congress had not given the Environmental Protection Agency certain Clean Air
Act authority.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Even more significantly, the Court’s conservative majority
found that Congress had not given President Biden’s administration the
authority to eliminate about $430 billion in student debt. Political views aside, it was difficult to
imagine how any president could spend that kind of money without legislative
approval.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Right now, Maine faces the same kind of situation. The tragic mass shooting in Lewiston merits a
review allowing state government to learn if it could have been prevented and
to ensure it would not happen again.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Governor Mills appointed a blue ribbon panel of qualified
and respected members of the Maine community.
As a creation of the governor, this body has no powers of action. It can review, report, and recommend, though
technically its report goes only to the governor.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">No sooner had the group assembled than it asked the
Legislature for subpoena powers. If the
Legislature agreed, it would be turning the governor’s commission into an agency
with governmental powers. Yet lawmakers
had no role in deciding on the commission, its scope, its budget and its
members. The request was a classic blank
check from the Legislature to the governor.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The purposes of the commission are appropriate and
necessary. The membership is impressive.
Yet their first act requested a change in status without formal legislative
approval of their creation. They want subpoena
power without having encountered any opposition from anyone in providing
information. It looks like they have
already decided to assess fault for the shooting.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">People’s confidence in government is undermined by the kind
of paternalism implied by allowing executive branch officials too much power. Legislators may say they favor broad policies,
but they leave the laws people must accept and follow to people outside of the
legislative branch, who are not held accountable by voters.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The answer might be to restore both the power of the
Congress and the Legislature and public confidence by passing simple laws that
allow few exceptions and are specific in their terms. Affected parties will complain about losing
the treatment they need, almost always to create jobs. They need time to adjust.
The latest tax law changes showed its possible.</span></p><p>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The problem isn’t about the “administrative state.” It’s about the failure of legislators to do
their constitutional job.</span></p><p><br /></p>Notes from a Corner of the Counrtyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14779139227897435610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2390118692058990733.post-25100563743694259622023-11-24T06:30:00.001-05:002023-11-24T06:30:00.139-05:00Israel-Palestine, U.S. Congress are zero-sum games<p> </p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Gordon L. Weil</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The Israel-Palestine-Gaza conflict and House Republican
politics might seem to have nothing in common.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But they do.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Both yield no hope of compromise.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s impossible when parties believe they are
fighting over a limited resource.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s
called a “zero-sum game.” When one side wins, the other side must lose.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s winner-take-all.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">In Israel-Palestine, two groups insist that the conflict
there is a zero-sum game.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Extreme right-wing parties in Israel’s current governing
coalition want to absorb Palestine into a single country under Israeli
rule.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Arabs would be killed, expelled or
required to live as second-class citizens.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Israeli Jews, they believe, have an ancient right to a land that was
once theirs and that provides them shelter in a hostile world, at its worst
during the Holocaust.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On the other side is Hamas, a terrorist group that sees
Israel as occupying lands that had been under Arab control for centuries.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Its solution is to kill Jews or terrorize
them so they leave. Because it is not bound by international norms, it feels
free to rampage at will.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The limited resource in this case is territory. Each side
maintains that it has a legitimate claim to all of it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some Palestinians and Israelis favor a two-state
solution reached through compromise, allowing each side to prosper.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The world community presses for this
solution, imposing the concept on Israel and the Palestinians, but without a
real effort to make it happen. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Presumably, Hamas saw no chance of its anti-Israel goal
being reached and worried that the U.S., some Arab countries and Israel would
make a peace deal over the heads of the Palestinians.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So it
attacked and refocused the world’s attention.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>So far, the only result is a war with innocent victims on both sides.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">In Washington, the limited resource is political power.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The slim GOP House majority tries to deny to
a Democratic president and Senate the power to appropriate funds or make laws
as might be expected to be done by the majority party.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If the Republican goal is to shrink
government and keep taxes low, they wield power.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">While compromise might advance the national interest, it
would deny the House GOP the full force of its power.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While the controversial issues run the full
range of the non-military activities of the federal government, they matter
less to the GOP than its legislative veto.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">This quest for minority control reaches its extreme when GOP
Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama blocks all senior military appointments unless
he gets his way on a single issue.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even
some of his fellow Republicans believe he has gone too far.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His power, not foreseen by the Constitution,
is more important than the nation’s Armed Forces.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">In short, the national interest, which could emerge from a
compromise, cannot be pursued because of a quest for power.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">As bad as both of these conflicts over limited resources –
territory or power – may be, they cause something even worse. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Success seems to depend on reducing the
opposition to being seen as inherently inferior or evil.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">If you agree with Israeli policy, then you may choose to see
Palestinians as followers of a different creed that is inferior to yours.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you see the Palestinians as Israeli victims,
then you may hold all Jews responsible for Israel’s policy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>From these attitudes comes Islamophobia and
new waves of Anti-Semitism. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">If you agree with extreme GOP views, then you may see
Democrats as socialists or, even worse, as traitors.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you are a left-wing Democrat, you may see
the Republican right as racist.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Both
views are misguided, but make compromise impossible.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">In a broader sense, these views, repeated with great
passion, threaten society itself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They can
end up holding every member of a group responsible for the views and actions of
some members of that group – collective guilt.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Consistent and creative advocates of compromise are missing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nobody takes short-term political risks to
promote long-term solutions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That
requires advancing proposed solutions, even if they may not ultimately
succeed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They can influence, if not
change, the focus of controversy.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The U.S. and Europe could lay out a possible two-state
formula for Israel-Palestine, offering more benefit for each side than endless
conflict.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Neither side would endorse it,
but it could bring about real negotiations. Otherwise, bloodshed will continue,
and neither side will prevail.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">President Biden could propose to Congress a comprehensive
package of proposals on government funding and key policies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It would not be adopted as proposed, but Biden
could be the leader who set the table for negotiations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Otherwise, government may become paralyzed.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">In either case, a compromise could produce results or
failure would allow public opinion to assign responsibility.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Now, two sides ensure that the best for one side is the
enemy of the good for both. That’s wrong, because these need not be zero-sum
games.</span></p><br /><p></p>Notes from a Corner of the Counrtyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14779139227897435610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2390118692058990733.post-1200456168246978832023-11-17T06:30:00.001-05:002023-11-17T06:30:00.221-05:00Trump, China’s Xi share policy goals<p> </p><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Gordon L. Weil <br /><br />Donald Trump and Xi Jinping have the same political goal. <br /><br />For Trump, it’s embodied in his slogan, “Make America Great Again.” Xi’s motto might be, “Make Communism Great Again.” Both want to return to their version of the good old days. <br /><br />Before the Great Depression that began in 1929, the federal government played a limited role in the country’s economic life and had little to do with social policy. The economy favored corporations, the wealthy and the rising middle class. Social programs were left mainly to private, not governmental, action. <br /><br />The economic bubble burst with the Depression. Economic growth, much of its based on speculation, could no longer support big business and wild investing. In turn, much of the middle class lost jobs and was driven toward poverty. <br /><br />President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, beginning in 1933, gave government a greater role in the economy and social policy. It pumped funds into the economy, creating jobs, and established Social Security and other support programs to provide stability and prevent a similar collapse. His plan included stronger regulation of banking and the private sector. <br /><br />A tradition of limited government action was replaced by policies giving public agencies key roles in managing the economy, which remained powered by private enterprise. During the massive economic build-up for World War II, the government chose to hire corporate America to produce armaments. <br /><br />Both major parties had supported the pre-Depression system. With Roosevelt, the Democrats offered the New Deal, a major departure. The GOP remained reluctant to accept a changed role for government, which gained some power to control private sector action. <br /><br />The benefits of Roosevelt’s approach became embedded in the American economy. For example, few would now advocate ending a national retirement program. But Republicans, led by Trump, would privatize programs and reduce regulation as much as possible. <br /><br />Such moves would presumably make America great “again.” Trump demonizes those supporting current policies. He sees them as being more dangerous than the dictators he favors. His allies in the House seek to use their slim majority to begin reverting to the past. They try to sell their approach by promising tax cuts mostly for the wealthy. <br /><br />Former president Bill Clinton once said that Trump proposed to “give you an economy you had 50 years ago, and ... move you back up on the social totem pole and other people down." <br /><br />In short, making America great “again” is based on the belief that the country was greater before the New Deal and much of modern government should be unraveled. <br /><br />Xi also looks back to the days when the Chinese Communist Party had the people engage in agriculture and manufacturing that were both managed by the government. Private economic activity would only be marginal. The Party would rule as a dictator on behalf of the people. <br /><br />Mao Zedong had led the Communist Party to power in China. Deeply devoted to the Communist ideal, he opposed educated people who began to develop ways of thinking that departed from the simplicity of traditional Communism. But his 1958 “Great Leap Forward” was a failure leading to massive famine. <br /><br />By 1966, he launched the Cultural Revolution, a disastrous back-to-the earth policy. After his death in 1976, the country began to abandon it and to allow the growth of private enterprise. <br /><br />Deng Xiaoping, Mao’s successor, sought foreign investment and economic development. Millions left the agricultural life that Mao had favored for cities where a middle class began to emerge. Prosperity and greater individual freedom grew under a reformed Community Party. <br /><br />Xi rejects Deng and pursues a return to many of the values associated with the traditional Party of Mao. He argues that his policy shows the inherent advantages of theoretical Communism over democracy. <br /><br />He believes that political turbulence in the U.S. and Europe reveals the weakness of Western democracies as they emerged after World War II. He repeats the slogan, “the East rises, the West falls.” <br /><br />Here is where Xi and Trump are on common ground. They both see the development of liberal democracy as opposing the natural economic system – Trumps’ unfettered individual freedom and Xi’s dictatorship of the workers through the Chinese Communist Party. Both favor authoritarian government, while claiming their approaches are in the best interest of the people. <br /><br />Both ignore reality. The Great Depression, an economic catastrophe, and the Cultural Revolution, a disastrous failure, were replaced by reforms yielding stability, growth and a rising middle class. Yet the success of these reforms may have dulled popular sensitivity to their ongoing value. <br /><br />Efforts by leaders to turn the clock back will ultimately fail. People are likely to recognize that the benefits of a combination of private economic initiative and government protection of the common interest are hardwired into their lives. Trump and Xi can make much trouble, but they cannot succeed.</span>Notes from a Corner of the Counrtyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14779139227897435610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2390118692058990733.post-21368986826435995492023-11-10T06:30:00.001-05:002023-11-10T06:30:00.150-05:00Biden versus Trump might not happen<p> </p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Gordon L. Weil</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Get ready for snow.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Before long, the 2024 election campaign will be covered in a
thick blanket of speculation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It will be
about as difficult to see through as the blizzard of punditry that blows it
in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Of course, political speculation is
likely no better than most 10-day forecasts of the actual weather. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Before I take cover, here are my thoughts about
the presidential race. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The big news is that polls show that Trump, the former
president, today defeats Biden, the president who beat him, in swing states.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A
former president who loses and then wins a second term is unusual.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Only Grover Cleveland did it, back in the
1880s.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The polls have settled nothing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At least four scenarios are possible for the
presidential election, excluding any others in which a third party would be a
factor.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The first is the currently anticipated Biden-Trump
contest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This one could produce as a
winner the person disliked less than the other.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On the issues, Biden has some strong points like abortion
and democracy, but some weaknesses like immigration and inflation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Both matter less than his age.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is too old to be president for another
five years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The signs of his aging are
evident, though they are ignored by his circle and advocates, impressed with
his policies.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Biden suffers from his lack of an essential element of
leadership.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Though he reaches out to
many constituencies, he does not inspire voters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Voters need charismatic leaders, and Biden is
too laid back or tired.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Trump is in serious legal trouble, and likely to be convicted
of more than one criminal violation. His loyal cult sticks with him, but would voters
elect a convicted criminal? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Will
traditional Republicans surrender their party to Trumpers who place their quest
for power above the national interest?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Besides, what are Trump’s current policies beyond an
inflated opinion of himself?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In recent
statements, he seems to have a declining understanding of both domestic and
international issues. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The Biden-Trump contest would boil down to a choice between
the lesser of two evils, as it may have been in 2020.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">One alternative would be Biden versus another Republican
like Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor, or Ron Desantis, the
Florida governor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They benefit from surviving
in the GOP field.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Early primaries may
make one of them a viable alternative to Trump.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>If the court cases undermine him, a possible replacement would be ready.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">That likely creates a major problem for Biden.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Running against, say, Haley could change the
lesser-of-two-evils calculation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If
Biden faces the potential problem of running against a younger, cogent
candidate, he might now have to either reconsider running or make a bold move
to shake up the contest.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Though highly risky politically, that move would be throwing
open to the Democratic Convention the choice of the vice presidential
candidate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In effect, the winner would
be the face of the Democrats against the non-Trump GOP candidate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The party, not Biden alone, would pick his
potential successor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Biden would remain
on the ticket, but there would be a lively Democratic nomination process.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Yet another possible scenario would be Trump versus another
Democrat.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That plot could develop if
Trump overcomes his legal handicaps and Biden does not overcome the advancing
effects of age and leaves the race.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">In this case, the Democrats would probably not simply pass
the first spot to Vice President Harris unless the need arose only after the
Convention.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Democrats could select
Harris or another candidate who was younger and more in tune with the majority
of voters than Trump.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The fourth alternative case might be the most
appealing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It would pit a Democrat, not
Biden, against a Republican, not Trump.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Each party would go through an open and competitive process to select
its nominee.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The campaign could be mostly about the future and less about
past presidencies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In a completely divided
country, with many voters who claim to be moderates but really aren’t, the
electorate could be given a choice between two fresh approaches to governing in
an age of environmental crisis and economic change.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Maybe the candidates would be forced to debate their policies
on immigration, law and the courts, women’s equality and the future of Social
Security and Medicare.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While ideology is
a driving force for some voters, so-called moderates, the key swing voters,
could decide who is more likely to offer practical solutions free from the
controversial policies of a previous president.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Admittedly, the alternative cases may be unrealistic simply
because of the momentum generated by two presidents and media expectations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yet merely accepting a race between two
candidates who should have retired could be costly for the country.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">These four cases show that today’s self-confident speculating
by political analysts might amount to little more than a snow job.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mine, too.</span></p><br /><p></p>Notes from a Corner of the Counrtyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14779139227897435610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2390118692058990733.post-21023598731804105382023-11-03T06:30:00.001-04:002023-11-03T06:30:00.148-04:00Classic test of political power of money<p> </p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Gordon L. Weil </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">In olden times, alchemists tried to turn lead into
gold.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They failed.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">In 1976, the U.S. decided to convert gold into political
power.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It worked.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">That year, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that free spending
and free speech are the same. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because
the Constitution allows no limits on political speech, the Court said it allows
no limits on political spending.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The decision by the unelected justices overruled the massive
majority votes in the elected Congress.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Campaign spending took off.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
justices had transformed American politics.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Money now fuels politics. Big money promises to produce big
results, and the proof is in the ever-increasing size of campaign spending. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Chances of election victory are tied directly
to the amount in campaign coffers.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The Republican National Committee uses only two standards in
deciding which presidential contenders are viable: their poll rating and their fundraising
ability. Last month, former Vice President Mike Pence dropped out of the GOP
race, unable to meet the campaign contribution standard.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Campaigns have become battles for the buck.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Presidential candidates compete for
contributions and reject the paltry federal funding meant to level the
field.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Congressional incumbents amass
dollars early, trying to discourage challengers before they even begin
campaigns.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In referendums – campaigns
without candidates, the participants focus on outspending one another in
getting their message before voters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Maine voters are now experiencing a classic case of the
power of money in politics.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is Question
3 on replacing two existing for-profit electric utilities – Central Maine Power
and Versant Power – with a nonprofit company – Pine Tree Power.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">In public power elections, owners of existing companies have
the means to finance campaigns aimed at protecting their investment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Public power proponents have no profit motive
and thus may have much less ability to raise campaign funds.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">This is the third public power referendum with which I have
some close familiarity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The others
occurred in Maine and in Miami, Florida.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In all three cases, spending by investor-owners swamped advocates of nonprofit,
public ownership of a utility monopoly.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">In the earlier situations, the incumbent utilities inundated
television and print media, while the supporters of change struggled to be
seen. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Miami nonprofit was proposed
by the municipal government, prevented by law from spending any public funds to
campaign.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It suffered a lopsided loss.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">A similar pattern now exists in Maine, where the campaign
funds of the existing utilities are more than ten times greater than the resources
of the nonprofit’s proponents.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The operating
utilities can make their case on television, while the challengers cannot begin
to compete in paid campaigning. The question will be settled this coming
Election Day.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The Supreme Court has also overturned a congressional
majority and declared that corporations have the same free speech rights as
individuals and may spend freely in political campaigns.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That decision has increased the flood of
political money.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Independent corporate committees can spend without limit in
political campaigns, supposedly because they are outside the control of the
political parties or formal participants. To believe that such independence
exists requires an act of willful ignorance.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">States’ campaign spending rules may differ somewhat from the
federal system. But traditional practices and the threat of Supreme Court
action to extend its rulings to the states has caused increased conformity with
the federal system.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The Court also ruled that each American vote should have equal
weight.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But the principle of one
person-one vote is a myth when unlimited corporate campaign money has allowed some
participants in the political process more power than others.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The ability of a few to influence masses of voters
can count more than the assurance that all votes count the same.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The process by which the people make the ultimate political
decisions has been both strengthened and weakened over time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It took constitutional amendments to allow Blacks
and women to vote.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But deciding that
money is a form of speech, which led to political inequality and the
overwhelming power of well-funded corporations, took only a Court order.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The major political money cases came when the Supreme Court
overruled Congress.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Court, using the
judicial review authority it gave itself, rejected congressional decisions intended
to maintain a level political playing field.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Congress should modify judicial review by the Supreme Court
and recover its authority over voting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Basic American law should not be made by the Court.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">In the Question 3 contest, like it or not, Maine voters
experience the effect of unchecked campaign spending.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Their only possible action, limited to one
aspect of this issue, arises on Question 2, aimed at preventing referendum campaign
outlays by foreign governments or their agents.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Citizens are reaching the point where they should decide not
only on candidates and campaigns, but if they will continue to accept the
domination of American elections by the political power of money.</span></p><br /><p></p>Notes from a Corner of the Counrtyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14779139227897435610noreply@blogger.com0