Wednesday, October 31, 2018

Trump is Playing Xenophobic Political Games With America's Troops

For perspective, here's a table showing the number of people Customs and Border Patrol arrested illegally crossing the border each year since the turn of the century:

Fiscal YearIllegal Crossings
20001,676,438
20011,266,214
2002955,310
2003931,557
20041,160,395
20051,189,075
20061,089,092
2007876,704
2008723,825
2009556,041
2010463,382
2011340,252
2012364,768
2013420,789
2014486,651
2015337,117
2016415,816
2017310,531

Trump recently announced that he is sending 5,200 military troops to respond to a caravan of refugees heading our way from Central America --- a caravan with a current estimated size of about 4,000.

Note that by law, the American military is prohibited from engaging in immigration enforcement, or indeed, ANY kind of law enforcement, without the explicit authorization of Congress.  So it's not clear what Trump expects the troops to do.

Also note that 4,000 refugees --- assuming they all make it here --- is just about 1% of the total number of people CBP routinely deal with on a yearly basis.

Also note that Trump is sending more troops than the estimated number of refugees.  Does he think that every single refugee needs their own personal military escort (and that some of them need two)?

Finally, and most damningly, note that in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, the number of illegal border crossings was more than three times what it is today --- yet George W. Bush never saw a need to send our military to the Mexican border.

So is Trump just a coward, afraid of a moderate-sized group of unarmed, tired and hungry refugees?  Is he completely unqualified for his job, and doesn't know the difference between typical immigration and an actual threat to the country?  Or is he just using our troops like toy soldiers to stir up fear and xenophobia in an attempt to scare people into electing Republicans?

There's no reason it can't be all three.  And all of them are reasons to vote out Trump's Republican enablers and replace them with Democrats who aren't scared, clueless and craven.

So vote for all the Democrats on the ballot.  And contribute what you can in the campaign's closing days.

Monday, October 29, 2018

Final Donation Roundup for 2018

With 8 days to go until the election, it's time to sit down, figure out how much you can afford to give campaigns for their final stretch, and decide where you think your dollars can do the most good.

And I'm here to help.  I believe that the most important thing we can do in these final days is to work to reclaim the Senate.  I'm under no delusion that it will be easy --- consensus opinion is that it won't happen.  But it's also not impossible, and we don't want to spend the next 2 years wondering what if.  So I'm going to strongly encourage folks to give to any and all Senate races where there's even an outside chance of a Democrat victory.

For House and Gubernatorial races, however, I'm only going to include races where FiveThirtyEight estimates that the two parties are separated by less than 3 percentage points (using the 'Deluxe' model).  With just 8 days left, we're really not likely to see much more movement than that.

Choose wisely.  Give what you can.  Then sign up to help Get Out the Vote!!!

Senate
  • Beto O'Rourke (TX).  Trailing incumbent Ted Cruz by 5.2%.
  • Phil Bredesen (TN).  Trailing Marsha Blackburn by 4.4% in the race to fill the seat vacated by Bob Corker.  MoveOn has pulled its funding from Bredesen for saying he supports Brett Kavanaugh, but that was a mistake.
  • Heidi Heitkamp (ND).  Trailing challenger Kevin Cramer by 4.4%.  Cramer who recently said that even if Brett Kavanaugh DID attempt to rape Christine Blasey Ford, it's 'nothing' because it 'never went anywhere'.
  • Jacky Rosen (NV).  Trailing incumbent Dean Heller by 0.8%.
  • Claire McCaskill (MO).  Leading her challenger by 0.7%.
  • Kyrsten Sinema (AZ).  Leading her opponent by 1.7%.
  • Joe Donnelly (IN).  Leading his opponent by 2.3%.
  • Bill Nelson (FL).  Leading Florida governor Rick Scott by 2.6%.
Two points to call out here.  First, if these numbers match the final results at the polls, then Republicans will retain their 51-49 Senate majority.  So somehow, the Democrats need to beat the odds in two of the four races in Texas, Tennessee, North Dakota and Nevada.

So if you live in or near any of those states, please help GOTV!

Second --- sadly, the Republicans have been steadily gaining ground in all of these races.  It appears that their xenophobic fearmongering about the refugee caravan is having the desired effect.


House
UPDATE: SwingLeft has a site set up where you can make a single donation that will be split evenly among Porter, Mucarsel-Powell, Finkenauer, Golden, Brindisi, Scott, Allred, McAdams and Spanberger, if you want to save yourself some clicks.

Governor

Saturday, October 20, 2018

17 Reasons to Vote for Every Democrat on the Ballot

The election is 17 days away, so I thought I would write up 17 reasons why you need to vote for every Democrat on the ballot, wherever you are (kind of like my closing argument back in 2016).  Since no one has an attention span these days, I've tried to make them all short enough to fit in a tweet.  I thought about posting one per day to help boost site traffic, but I think it's more important to get all the information out there well before the election.  If you only want to see one reason per day, bookmark this page and keep coming back!

  1. Democrats want to help students with college loan debt, which would stimulate the economy.  Republicans want to help for-profit colleges and debt collectors.
  2. The $1.5 trillion tax cut blew a hole in the budget, which Republicans now want to close by cutting Medicare and other programs.  The tax cut mainly gave even more money to corporations, which passed it along to their wealthy investors.
  3. Citing the deficit their tax cut created, the GOP House has already voted to cut nearly $1 trillion from income security programs, with an additional $500 billion from Medicare.
  4. The GOP Congress refuses to check Trump's abuses of power, for example, his consistent attacks on U.S. law enforcement.
  5. Republicans have tried 3 times to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which has given affordable health care to an estimated 20 million Americans.  If they retain control of Congress, they will succeed in taking health care away from those Americans.
  6. The Trump administration initiated a horrific and unnecessary family separation policy, which took more than 2,500 immigrant children from their parents with no plan for reuniting them.  Months after a court deadline, nearly 200 children are still separated.
  7. The family separation policy was a true travesty of justice, demanding that parents agree to deportation before reuniting them with their children, and making children as young as 2 defend themselves in court.
  8. The GOP Congress refuses to investigate Trump's flagrant corruption, like the $500 million loan he accepted from China in exchange for dropping sanctions on Chinese telecom ZTE.
  9. If Republicans hold the House of Representatives, they will probably name Jim Jordan as Speaker, a man who turned a blind eye to widespread sexual abuse of athletes when he was a coach at Ohio State.
  10. From Trump to Kavanaugh to Bill Shine to Rob Porter to Jim Jordan, Republicans have demonstrated that they just don't care about sexual assault.
  11. The GOP Congress refuses to investigate Trump's past criminal behavior, like his years-long tax fraud.
  12. Trump's election emboldened white supremacists, many of whom are now running for office as Republicans.  A Republican victory in 2018 will embolden them further.
  13. If Republicans hold the Senate, they will confirm even more of Trump's conservative judges, even if they're liars and accused sexual predators.
  14. America is averaging ONE MASS SHOOTING PER DAY, and Republicans refuse to pass ANY gun safety legislation to change that.
  15. Widespread Republican campaigns of voter suppression must not be allowed to succeed.  If you don't use your vote to eject Republicans from office, you may one day lose the chance to vote at all.
  16. The GOP Congress refuses to check Trump's assault on a free press.  Days after a Washington Post reporter was brutally murdered in Saudi Arabia, Trump told the crowd at his rally how great it is to physically assault reporters.
  17. Republicans know that the Trump White House is corrupt as hell --- they've even made a list of more than 100 investigations of Trump they are currently BLOCKING.  Only a Democratic Congress will provide adequate oversight of Trump.
So that's it.  If you want fiscal policy that helps students and ordinary Americans instead of more tax cuts for Trump's Wall Street buddies, vote for the Democrats.  If you want every American to have affordable health care, vote for the Democrats.  If you want humane immigration policy and common-sense gun safety, vote for the Democrats.  And if you want meaningful oversight of a historically corrupt president, it will only happen if we make sure Democrats control the levers of power in Washington.

Now go vote.

Sunday, October 7, 2018

We Need Manchin and Bredesen

This was a mistake:
MoveOn, a progressive outside group, said on Friday that it is cutting support for Democrats in two key Senate races because they are supporting Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. 
"We're cancelling a planned six-figure digital video ad expenditure for Phil Bredesen in Tennessee due to his Kavanaugh position," the group said in a tweet. 
They added that "similarly [we] will be pulling all planned campaigning on behalf of Joe Manchin in West Virginia if he votes yes. Kavanaugh is unfit for the Court."
This makes sense politically --- why reward two guys who would a support serial liar and likely sexual predator for the Supreme Court?  But it exactly wrong strategically.

There are two reasons why we need Joe Manchin and Phil Bredesen in the U.S. Senate.  The first is: No matter how far they may be from our 'ideal' Democrat, they're still going to be one hell of a lot better than their Republican alternatives.  Manchin, for example, has voted with Trump 61.5% percent of the time, which makes him a terrible Democrat.

But if his Republican challenger wins his seat, that person will be voting for Trump nearly 100% of the time.  It's important to remember that we're talking about West Virginia, a state trump carried by 42 points.  The story is similar with Bredesen.

The second, and most important reason to continue supporting these guys is that the Senate is at stake.  The Republicans seated Kavanaugh with a 51-49 margin.  Just think who they'll seat next if Justice Ginsburg or Justice Breyer die in the next two years.

The ONLY way to prevent the situation from deteriorating is to hope that the Democrats manage to win at least 51 seats next month.  If that happens, Chuck Schumer likely replaces Mitch McConnell as Majority Leader, and it's almost certain that freezes out any more Trump SCOTUS appointments for the next 2 years.

The Kavanugh fight is over, and we lost.  Don't allow that to set ourselves up to lose the next fight.

Thursday, October 4, 2018

Report from Planet Xorgax

For those who have had enough with the battle over Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to the Supreme Court, I thought I would update you about what's happening on Planet Gorgax where, by coincidence, a similar debate is going on.

The politics on Planet Gorgax is similar to our own, with power more or less evenly divided between two political parties, the Thoogs and the Gurphs.  Thoog Emporer Biggott has nominated a new judge to serve on the Imperial High Court.  Judge Klorphan requires confirmation by the Imperial Senate before he can be seated.

The process was problematic from the beginning.  Even when Judge Klorphan was nominated three months ago, Emporer Biggott was under investigation for crimes against the Empire.  It didn't help matters any when, a month later, the Emporer's former lawyer implicated him him in a criminal act.  The following month, the Emporer's former campaign manager, who himself had been convicted on 8 felony charges earlier, agreed to cooperate with the team investigating the Emporer.

Given that the Emporer had been implicated in a crime, and was under active investigation for crimes against the Empire, it would be fair to assume that the Senate wouldn't consider any nomination made by the Emporer.  Instead, the Thoog-controlled Imperial Senate proceeded with the confirmation process in what can only be described as an act of sheer partisanship.

The next major development occurred about a month ago, when it was discovered that Judge Klorphan had lied under oath during his previous confirmation hearings, lies that he repeated again to the Imperial Senate.  The Imperial High Court has a long tradition of its members upholding the highest ethical standards, and it's hard to imagine that these lies themselves didn't end Judge Klorphan's ambitions then and there.  But again, this discovery went largely ignored by the highly-partisan Thoogs in the Imperial Senate.

Then, just about a week later, a bombshell news release detailed a female Xorgaxian's claims that when Judge Klorphan was an adolescent, he consumed too much kluuk and attacked her, climbed on top of her, and tried to take her clothes off --- presumably in an attempt to rape her.  A week later, a different female alleged that Judge Klorphan had sexually assaulted her as well, this time when he was a young man.  Three days later, a third woman came forward with a sworn oath that, while not accusing Judge Klorphan of sexually assaulting her personally, stated that as a young Xorgaxian he had regularly engaged in sexually aggressive behavior, likely but not definitely including gang rape.

These allegations understandably threw the confirmation process into chaos.

Judge Klorphan naturally denied the allegations, but they weren't easy to sweep aside.  Independent analysts have declared all three women's stories credible for a number of reasons.  What's puzzling is the way Judge Klorphan and his Thoog supporters are reacting.

One might choose to avoid a discussion of Klorphan's guilt or innocence by ending the nomination process entirely, and requesting that Emporer Biggott simply choose another judge with less baggage.  But failing that, one would expect that all parties would welcome a full investigation into the allegations by law enforcement --- either to verify the allegations of the women (and thus avoid seating a sexual predator and possible rapist on the Imperial High Court), or to clear the judge's name.  This is what all Xorgaxians should want.

But strangely, although the Gurph Senators requested exactly such an investigation, the Thoog Senators refused to ask for one, and Emporer Biggott refused to order one.  Even more strangely, Judge Klorphan repeatedly refused to demand an investigation --- preferring, it seems, to live the rest of his life under a cloud rather than demand the one thing that could prove him innocent.

This stonewalling seemed for all the world like a partisan power-play on the part of Emporer Biggott and the Thoogs, and it made Judge Klorphan look like a Xorgaxian with something to hide.

The stench of partisanship became more pungent when the Thoogs who control the Imperial Senate chose to hear additional testimony from only one of Klorphan's three accusers, as well as from Klorphan himself.  They refused to hear testimony from the only other person in the room when the alleged attack occurred, who also happened to be Klorphan's best friend at the time.  Nor did they make any attempt to seek out any of the other Xorgaxians alleged to be at the party where the attack occurred.

And the testimony of Klorphan was simply bizarre.  In the only public forum he had to prove his innocence, he continued to lie repeatedly under oath.  Again, this is completely inappropriate for a sitting judge, much less someone who aspires to the highest court in the land.  But beyond that, it completely destroys his credibility when he denies the allegations against him.

But rather than end the nomination process then and there --- or even slow it down for further investigation, the Thoog leaders in the Senate actually planned to ram through Klorphan's nomination immediately!  Such a thing is 100% incompatible with Xorgaxian principles of justice or ethics, and can only be attributed to Thoog hyper-partisanship.  It looked like Xorgax was on the brink of a true travesty of justice, until two Xorgaxian survivors of sexual assault confronted a Thoog Senator, and got him to hold up the vote until law enforcement actually conducted an investigation into the allegations against Klorphan.

The investigation just concluded, although it was clearly not a thorough investigation, and it seems quite likely that Emporer Biggott and/or Klorphan's Thoog supporters deliberately impeded the investigation.  In short, the investigation was a sham, designed to give cover to wavering Thoog Senators so they can justify their vote for the lying (and likely sexual predator) Klorphan.

If Emporer Biggott and the Thoogs were interested in the integrity of the Imperial High Court, wouldn't they want a thorough investigation, to find the truth, whatever it may be?  And if Judge Klorphan is truly innocent, wouldn't he want such an investigation?  There is no good explanation for the Thoog party interference, and it is clearly a politically-motivated abuse of power.

Yet in spite of all this, the Thoogs have convinced a substantial portion of the Xorgaxian population that these allegations, and the desire to investigate them fully, is a partisan smear on the part of the Gurphs!

Think about the mental gymnastics required to believe such a thing.  One would need to:
  1. Believe that all three women had decided independently to make fabricated claims against Klorphan --- two of them making sworn statements under penalty of perjury and criminal prosecution.
  2. Believe that all of the corroborating witnesses (people who had heard these stories either directly from the women or second-hand months or years before Klorphan was ever nominated) are also lying.
  3. That the independent experts who have examined the women's claims and found them credible are somehow wrong --- or are also part of the 'smear'.
  4. That Thoog politicians believe that all of this is a hyper-partisan and criminal smear on the part of the Gurphs --- but for some reason they don't want the 'smear' to be investigated.
  5. Ignore Klorphan's repeated, obvious lies on a range of topics.
  6. Ignore the repeated, obvious partisanship of Emporer Biggott and the Thoogs --- and accept their obviously nonsensical claims that the Gurphs are the ones acting with partisan bias.
  7. Believe that the Gurphs would orchestrate --- and successfully conceal --- this vast conspiracy to defeat Klorphan's nomination, only so that Emporer Biggott could nominate (and likely get seated) a different judge who will rule in a way that pleases the Thoogs.
They're not the sharpest bunch, the Xorgaxians who support the Thoogs.

Anyway, Judge Klorphan's ultimate fate is still anyone's guess.  It seems likely the Thoogs are still going to put him on the court, in spite of everything.

But maybe not!  If you've read this far and agree that putting Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court would be a hideous mistake, you need to call your Senator immediately (especially if that Senator is a Thoog Republican), and tell them to vote NO on Kavanaugh!  Call:

(202) 224-3121