Biden's closing argument...

It’s officially a presidential election year here in the U.S.  Granted, it’s a long time until November, and with many variables in play.  With all that’s going on in the courts, our political future is very uncertain. 

But sometime in the coming fall, barring Trump’s imprisonment or one Big Mac too many, a final presidential debate between (likely) Trump and Biden will take place. There will not be a better, more perfect time for Joe Biden to “lower the boom” on the fickle electorate; when people are finally paying attention, where even the Trump lovers/worshipers/cult must look, will look, since Trump is sharing the stage. Many (a hefty chunk of them) can’t NOT look, they idolize Trump that much.

I believe democracy, indeed the ongoing American experiment itself, will all be on the line, leading up to the November finale.  It'll be showtime; no time for boilerplate speeches such as “The economy is good, the stock market is up," and other yada yada yada hard facts and data that doesn’t amount to a hill of beans to your average person walking around out there. No, business as usual and boilerplate speeches will not do. The final appeal to the electorate must be of the caliber of The Mother of All Closers. We now know, through experience, that “standard operating procedures” are worthless in today’s politics. So where am I going here?

Bottom line: Biden’s 2-3 minute closer must hit people where they live. Emotionally.  Punch ‘em, and I mean hard, right in the gut. 

Surely, with Biden’s access to the myriad of great minds out there (e.g., Jon Meacham, Richard Haass, even Steve Schmidt) who know what it takes to manipulate people (in a constructive way), he/they can come up with something that hits people where they live: in their emotions. Heck, even I, an everyday housewife, think I could write a pretty effective closer, “tugging" “jerking at heartstrings” to be persuasive. Such a speech has to hit the sweet spot, where it doesn’t get pegged as hyperbolic or overkill, yet manages to scare the hell out of the “on the fence” potential Trump voter. It better bring a tear to their eye. 

Questions:

1. Do you agree with my argument/assessment, that it has to be a speech like no other?  If not, make your case against it. What should Biden’s October closing speech sound like?  Give us some examples of what should be his “punchlines/buzz words.”

2. Is Biden’s command of speech too weak to successfully pull this off?  If yes, who should be that spokesperson?

3. Is it the case that all the speeches in the world will not affect the outcome.  People, at this point, are already “cemented in” to their preferred choice?

Top ten predictions for the US in 2024

 Let's see if anyone agrees with my predictions.

1. Depends on who is running, but Trump will win if vs Biden

2. Democrats take the House, Republicans the Senate

3. The economy will decline slightly but not enough to be the #1 voting issue

4. The border on one side, abortion on the other will be the biggest issues for the election

5. If Biden does step down, provided someone other than Kamala runs for the Dems, Trump is toast

6. There will be no convictions prior to the election

7. More divisiveness and nastiness, not less, however..........

8. As a whole, the nation will become MORE progressive, not more conservative

9. Americans will grow weary of support for Israel and Ukraine

10. The NY Rangers will win the Stanley Cup

New Year’s Day - open topic politics, etc. 🤪👏☠️😘

Not sure there’s much worth posting today, or yesterday. Lots of repetition or incremental change on DJT’s crusade to kill off American democracy, and its civil liberties and rule of law. More papers are being filed in various courts. DJT is making increasingly fascist and outrageous sorts of arguments in his defense. Federal courts continue to actually take DJT’s drivel, lies and hyperbolic nonsense seriously. So, no new good news on that front.

Personal notes (what?? - G does personal notes?? Call out the National Guard -- something is terribly wrong): I need to organize my herbs and spices containers. They're a mess. I'll skip going to the gym today because . . . . because I can. But I'm adding a couple of exercises to the list of five things I do at home because doing them at the gym is tiresome and boring. 

milo has commented that in the old days people didn't write about lies. To me, that is a fascinating thought. That's based on written human history according to milo. If that's true, my seat of the pants (not yet on fire) explanation is that in the old days of subsistence living, wasting time, energy or resource on lies could get a person killed. In my narrative, liars had to be killed or silenced with a sharp slap up side the head with a 2x4 (or a big stick in ancient days before 2x4s were invented). Later, when civilization advanced and there was more distance between life and death, lies in epic stories and potboiler fiction were just harmless entertainment. But nowadays, political and other kinds of lies are back to killing people. My guess is that, directly or indirectly, lies cost the human species a few hundred thousand lives per year, maybe several million.

What else comes to mind . . . . . think, think . . . . . oh yeah, climate science denier lies are causing plant and animal species to go extinct (an indirect cause-effect linkage, but nonetheless real). People who toss cigarette butts on the ground ought to be slapped hard up side the head with a 2x4 and then made to pick up 2,000 butts and put them in the trash. 

A comment or two from Cat's Paw raised this stink:

Well, that’s all the news that’s fit to print.

Starting the new year with a bang!

My New Year's wish for my fellow Americans:

 1. That we all survive (my # 1 wish)

2. That you stop chanting USA USA at every international sporting event

3. Find a sense of humor

4. Learn to love each other again

5. Stop being so obnoxious when visiting other countries

6. Learn to be humble

7. Stop watching Fox News

8. Get out of your partisan bubbles and get to know the "other"

9. Do something for someone else, not just for yourself

10. Become a Snowflake, each one unique and special

And don't get TOO wasted tonight.

Three bits: Buying increased odds of winning in court; DJT’s lawsuit update; A new immunity analysis?

A 2021 research paper, Buying the Verdict, describes how big companies increase the odds of winning lawsuits filed against them by increased advertising and charity donations in local areas where the jury pool resides:

We document evidence that firms systematically increase specialized, locally targeted advertising following the firm being taken to trial in that given location - precisely following initiation of the suit. In particular, we use legal actions brought against publicly traded firms over the 20-year sample period that progress to trial between 1995 and 2014. In terms of magnitude, the increase is sizable: targeted local advertising increases by 23% following the suit. They focus their advertisement spikes specifically toward jury trials, and in fact specifically toward the most likely jury pool. In addition, along with advertising expenditures, firms significantly increase their charitable contributions targeted toward litigated locations following being sued there. Lastly, we document that these advertising spikes are associated with verdicts, increasing the probability of a favorable outcome.

Firms are significantly more likely to initiate advertising in cities (in which it had previously advertised zero), directly following lawsuit – with the probability of advertising initiation increasing by 25%. This results in firms shifting their advertising share significantly to sued locations following suits; both relative to the firm’s total advertising spend, and relative to the total amount spent in that DMA (Designated Market Area) by all other firms.

To concretize this, assume we find that Walmart is sued in Akron, OH in 2001. We see a large spike in Walmart’s advertising in Akron directly following the suit. We see no abnormal movement in Walmart’s advertising policy or spending leading up to the suit. Additionally, Walmart does not increase advertising following the suit in Toledo, OH (a similar sized market with similar growth rates leading up to 2001). Moreover, Target shows no abnormal move in the same sued-location, Akron, OH, at the exact same time that Walmart is ramping up advertising (so it has nothing to do with a general location-time effect).  

We find in this paper general evidence across time, location, and firms, of corporations engaging in this “influencing of the verdict,” behavior. While we focus primarily on advertising, this could certainly take the form of other channels. To explore this further, we collect micro-level data on the charitable contributions of firms’ charitable arms at the zip code level. We find, analogous to advertising expenditures, that firms significantly increase their charitable contributions to a DMA directly following being sued there.

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By now, it’s clear that the federal courts are inherently biased to protect DJT and other white collar criminal elites like him. From what I can tell, it’s mostly a matter of the normal functioning of a corrupted federal legal system. Federal courts strongly favor various forms of elites, almost all being wealthy, famous and/or powerful people and business entities. Our federal courts are simply weak in dealing with white collar crimes. The controlling laws have been mostly written, bought and paid for by elites themselves to protect themselves and their interests.

The Messenger writes about a recent example of courts taking blithering legal nonsense from DJT very, very seriously, dealing with it very, very slowly: 

The federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., on Friday ruled that former President Donald Trump is not immune from lawsuits brought by Capitol police officers regarding the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.

The order, released on the docket Friday, stated that the former president failed to demonstrate that he was entitled to “absolute presidential immunity from certain civil damages claims against him.”

The judges rejected his argument that his alleged actions “constituted speech on matters of public concern” and that his speech was “invariably an official function."

“The salient question in Blassingame, we explained, was instead whether President Trump’s alleged actions reasonably could be understood as official functions of the presidency, in which case official-act immunity would attach, or, alternatively, whether they reasonably could be understood only as re-election activity, in which case it would not."

The judges added that, after closer review, the claim simply “bears no inherent connection to the essential distinction between official and unofficial acts.”

This lawsuit was filed on March 30, 2021. Instead of sanctioning DJT and his attorneys for filing frivolous arguments, the federal courts have maintained a serious facade about whether a president has immunity for DJT’s role in his 1/6 coup attempt. The judges carefully consider DJT’s legal nonsense. Then they take their time to respond. Each delay is another win for DJT. Delays are serious blows to democracy, the rule of law and respect for truth and sound reason. 

It seems that American democracy is incapable of efficiently defending itself. DJT’s case should have been decided long ago. There is nothing complex in it. The facts are clear and have been clear since the case was filed. Relevant facts have become clearer since 1/6. Nonetheless, here a we are almost 3 years later and the courts are just getting around to responding to some of DJT’s delay tactics in his opening arguments. 

This is how corrupt and/or authoritarian elites win while democracy and truth lose. DJT’s next step will be to appeal to the USSC, which will probably operate with its usual opacity, slop, sloth and now-normal pro-Trump bias. 

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The DC federal appeals court has accepted for review an amicus brief that Republican constitutional scholars filed in Jack Smith’s criminal election subversion lawsuit over DJT’s 1/6 coup attempt. The brief was filed Dec. 12, 2023. The brief asserts an argument against DJT that I am not aware has been formally asserted in any lawsuit against him where he is claiming immunity. 

This argument denies that DJT has immunity for his coup attempt under Article II, Sect. 1, Clause 1 of the Constitution. That article contains the Executive Vesting Clause, which is the only place where the Constitution gives power to a duly elected president. The argument is simple. The Constitution does not allow a duly elected president to stay in power after their term has ended if they have not been re-elected. Here’s the heart of the argument:

The legal scholars argue that preserving the presidency designed by Article II inherently requires rejecting immunity from prosecution for any president’s (or candidate’s) use of criminal conduct in efforts to change officially declared presidential election results. That applies both to acts as a candidate and official acts by a sitting president. They point out that DJT says he acted officially when he allegedly conspired to commit criminal conduct by enlisting Department of Justice personnel to make false statements to state officials to support his efforts to overturn declared state election results. They argue: “If that conduct qualified for absolute immunity, this would improperly unleash a future President to disregard current criminal statutes and deploy the military in efforts to alter the results of a presidential election.” Deploying the military is something that DJT has publicly said he would like to do.

One can see that this reasoning could be seen to provide an explicit basis in the Constitution to deny DJT’s claims of immunity from prosecution. Whether this line of argument will carry significant weight remains to be seen. Why the federal courts themselves have not raised this is a separate and deeply troubling question. The fact that the DC appeals court has signaled it will consider this strongly suggests the judges themselves had not seriously considered it before now. That smells like professional malpractice by the judges.

Two bits: An opinion on democracy 2024; Bad faith politics: An “election integrity” update

WaPo opinion columnist Jennifer Rubin mentions some pro-democracy possibilities:

Opinion  |  2024 resolution: Save democracy

Second, forget about “Why doesn’t the media … ?” Understand that for-profit media outlets are not in the business of making informed citizens. They are in the moneymaking business, which they think entails hyping horse-race politics and stoking fear of bad things (such as the recession that did not happen). You can write letters to the editor and send concise, polite emails to the culprit to call out whataboutism and false balance.

Better yet, look for and help amplify the instances in which print, cable and online media shed their habit of normalizing four-times-indicted former president Donald Trump and level with voters about the authoritarian threat.

Broaden the pro-democracy coalition. Unless the entire pro-democracy movement cooperates to defeat the MAGA movement and its likely nominee, Trump and his cronies will shred our democracy and change the fabric of American life. They are planning what can only be described as a White Christian dictatorship in which they use the military, Justice Department and executive fiat to punish enemies and ferret out dissent.

Now is no time to be picky about anti-MAGA allies. This person might have once supported the Iraq War; that person’s fantasizing about a magical Democratic nominee might drive you up the wall. None of that matters now. Once our democracy is secured, Americans can return to arguing about issues whose importance fades in the face of a dire threat to American democracy.

During the fight to vanquish the MAGA threat, you’ll have to tolerate differences in tactics and policy with other democracy defenders. Bringing everyone into the big tent for democracy and the rule of law is the singular challenge for 2024.

That seems reasonable to me.

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The WaPo Editorial Board commented on the GOP’s bad faith efforts to build “election integrity”:

Opinion  |  States were cooperating on election integrity. 

Then GOP officials quit.

Since 2022, nine states where Republican officials administer elections have quit a nonprofit, nonpartisan consortium that helps keep voter rolls up to date through interstate data exchange. They did so amid pressure from former president Donald Trump, who claimed in March that the consortium “pumps the rolls” for Democrats. Consequently, voter rolls in those states — Alabama, Florida, Iowa, Louisiana, Missouri, Ohio, Texas, Virginia and West Virginia — are less accurate, and it’s becoming harder to detect the small number of people who improperly vote in multiple states. Indeed, as 2024 begins, these same election officials find themselves spending taxpayer dollars to re-create the very tools that the system they abandoned had provided.

Formed in 2012, the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC) grew to include 33 states and D.C. It identified 12.5 million people who moved to a different state from the ones in which they were registered to vote as well as almost 600,000 deceased voters still on the rolls. The database worked excellently, before fringe blogs started calling it part of a plot funded by George Soros to boost Democratic registration. ERIC, whose operating costs are paid entirely by member states, received some seed funding from Pew Charitable Trusts, which previously received support from a foundation backed by Mr. Soros, but he has never been directly involved.  

Some GOP secretaries of state who pulled out of ERIC had publicly defended it quite recently. In February, Iowa’s Paul Pate called it “a godsend” and Ohio’s Frank LaRose described it as “one of the best fraud-fighting tools that we have.” Both announced on March 17 that their states would withdraw.

Radicalized, authoritarian, lying, cynically hypocritical GOP elites were never serious about election integrity. They are dead serious about undermining elections and their integrity. They know they cannot win the White House in fair elections, so they cheat.