Going to Church Required? Necessary? Take It to the New, Twisted Supreme Court

I remember it well. It was a staple of golfing Sundays.

Early on, when my Dad was acquainting my brothers and I to golf, we would play at Lincoln Park Golf Course in Milwaukee--which still exists, largely unfettered from that time in the 1960s. The course wasn't a long one, which suited us fine, since we weren't grown yet and weren't quite capable of unleashing big drives. We were literally growing into the game.

Sunday morning seemed a good time to go, especially for Dad, in those early days. But Mom insisted that we go to church anyhow. We were Catholic, and she was a converted Catholic, so marriage to Dad had fewer speed bumps. There's no Catholic like a converted Catholic; I've been fond of saying she was more Catholic than the Pope.

So how to pull this off, with at least two hours on the golf course? Dad had the solution: We would sign up for a later tee time, go off to church--usually at St. Eugene's in Fox Point, not terribly far away--and that would be take care of. Then we could get back to the course in time for the tee-off. All bases touched, we could enjoy the rest of the day, guilt- and sin-free, at least about that.

The Catholic Church insists that its members attend every Sunday, which is one reason I soured on it and stopped going as soon as I was on my own. It defied logic, which religion sometimes does, but also insists you indulge in it despite that. It's religion. It's supposed to be beyond logic. The very idea of it implies that there are answers to our existence that are beyond us. Don't ask questions, just show up and try not to fall asleep, especially when the offerings basket gets passed around.

Does someone have to go to church once a week to prove they're sufficiently attentive to spiritual needs? Can't you do that some other way, like reading the Bible, which people say they live by but almost no one has completely read? Or are people just lazy? If they were lazy about going to church but not going to work, where their rewards would be noticeable and more easily utilized, was that a comment about why they needed to go to church? Or was required church attendance a way to try to guarantee that the church would get enough money to remain open? Or do you care whether you don't show up and everybody talks about you?

As I grew, I asked myself those questions and couldn't come up with reasonable answers. But the Supreme Court just did. At least, it came up with an answer, the reasonableness of which is clearly up for question.

New York's governor, Andrew Cuomo, has tried to reduce attendance for religious services to keep people apart from each other because, you know, we have this pandemic thing still going around (in fact, worse than ever). Depending upon the size of the congregation and church, he has limited attendance to 10 or 25 people at at time.

But the Catholic Church and strict Jewish congregations sued, saying that it was hypocritical for liquor stores (heaven forfend!) didn't have limits of customers, so why should the thing that people might turn to to defeat demon liquor? Answer me that, Batman!

Timing is sometimes everything in the law, and this time it was, too. Ruth Bader Ginsberg joined with four other justices to rule against the churches a few months ago, but a few months ago, she was alive. Amy Coney Barrett, who replaced her upon her death, she a member of a sidelong cult inside Catholicism (therefore potentially more Catholic than my mother), who's just joined this august group, tipped the scales in favor of the suing churches and said that the attendance limitations were unconstitutional. 

Chief Justice John Roberts, who sided with three other justices who ruled the way they originally did, but who are this time in the minority, told the governor to redo (read: loosen a little) his regulations and the Court would see about it in a hurry, seeing as how the pandemic was busier killing people than ever, a fact lost on the three justices appointed by 45. He seemed to think that at least one member of the majority might change his or her mind if the limit might be increased, an accommodation that sounds reasonable. We will see.

Neil Gorsuch, who also sided with Barrett, pointed out the liquor store irregularity in his separate opinion. Except if you get 25 people inside a liquor store at once, that will happen only the day before Thanksgiving (the day the opinions came out, so maybe more noticeable), Christmas Eve (last-minute gifts), the Saturday before the Super Bowl, or days before fishing trips. You know, a few days like that.

But this way, all churches can now fill up their pews as they wish, pandemic be damned (too) yet ignored. Look, I have no problem with going to church, getting sick and dying, if that's the way you want to play it. But don't get in my way when you do it. Can there be any guarantee that the faithfully, fatally religious won't cross paths with mine on the other six days of the week? Hmmmm? 

When the hell do their 'rights' to attend church--not worship, which is not the same because you can do that anywhere; attend church--get placed in front of mine to avoid getting sick from a disease from which I could easily die? When does their so-called 'right' to worship God in the eyes of others who would otherwise gossip about them become more important than my right to forestall, as long as I can (just like most people who don't believe in End Times), my opportunity to see God in person, if in fact I get one?

You are not reading an atheist here. I go to a church in Milwaukee, and in fact have served as a deacon in it. It's observing a strict quarantine on attendance at services at the present time, though a live Sunday service is being streamed. The session voted to observe science--yes, science--and to delay attendance at live services as long as the pandemic raged on. I'm confident that, since that was voted upon before the Supreme Court made any determination on the above topic, it will be maintained.

But Catholics and Orthodox Jews are better, of course. They have to go to church. They have to do that to be saved. As if they know. As if that will do it. As if that guarantees attendance.

Am I anti-Catholic or Orthodox Jewish? Well, no. Not really. But that is just one hypocrisy, at least in Catholicism, to which it clings. Don't get me started on the rest. Watch the movie "Spotlight" instead. It's on Netflix. And if I play golf on Sunday, I'll be skipping church. I'll take my chances.

In the meantime, we will have to put up with a new, twisted, Supreme Court that clearly will rule, or at least it looks like it now, in favor of maintaining religion regardless of the damage it does to, well, damn near everybody. Looks like I'll have to ask whether people are Catholic or orthodox Jewish, at least for now, in order for me to determine whether or not I'll have anything to do with them. 

It wasn't supposed to matter. But now it does. Should I form a club now that excludes Catholics and Orthodox Jews because they're health threats? Hmmmm?

Be well. Be careful. Wear a mask. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.

Mister Mark

History Will Matter Again. What A Relief!

I have a collection from the Library of America. I know: Nerdish to the max.

There, on my bedroom shelf, are people to whom we owe the founding of this country: Franklin, Jefferson, Madison, John Marshall (Don't forget him: He's came in at the end of the beginning, but he's huge.), Washington, Hamilton, Paine, and the like. I don't seek them out often, but when I need some reassurance that all is as it has been--not necessarily should be, but we have overcome more than we often think--it is there and recorded and dealt with. Not easy to read; Strunk and White weren't around to guide them. But important nonetheless.

Until yesterday, I wasn't sure they would be needed any longer. We've had someone running this country that's so self-centered, so sociopathic, that nothing that has ever happened, nothing that has ever preceded him, has ever mattered. Or, at least, it often has seemed so.

He has made us, like it or not, live in the present like nobody else has ever done. That is dangerous, and destructive. It reduces us and our institutions to irrelevance.

When did he ever, with any kind of depth and/or accuracy, quote the Founding Fathers? When did they ever matter to him?

They didn't. They never will. Just another reason that it's good for all of us, even those who voted for him, that he didn't get another four years in office. He would have kept going down into that rabbit warren and produced utter nihilism: the folly that nothing was important before him and that nothing after him will ever have importance.

You know what he would have done, and what he still might do if he lives long enough and manages to regain power: Try to rule for the rest of his life. Try, somehow, to undo the Twenty-Second Amendment, the wisdom behind which is now magnified, the one which limits the president to two elected terms.

If he has fought this hard against the forces that have clearly determine that he's lost the election, the forces that we have accepted with finality in nearly every election we have ever had, just because he felt he had to, just because making up a bunch of baloney is yet another way to rally his addicted minions--yes, they are addicted--he will try anything to regain that taste of power.

Try to become an emperor, the exact thing that the army offered Washington when it was clear that the British wouldn't be back to rule them anymore. But George, who had all the power anyone could possibly have had at his fingertips, who had the chance to rule America exactly as he would have fulfilled his every whim, said no.

He said it because he forced his loyal soldiers (to a fault, he knew) to think about exactly what they had fought for, exactly what Jefferson had discussed in the document we now call the Declaration of Independence, a otherwise common phrase that has gained sacred status in his country and the world: The idea that a king was unfair, that an elected leader was preferable, that government, though it mattered deeply, was transitive and changeable and ought to remain so.

But in doing so, he exceeded what other mortals would have failed at spectacularly, and what this one failed at utterly: A sense of self-control, of self-restraint. It's only been our established institutions, and the improvement thereof, that have stopped this monster from overcoming our society and dominating it. 

The opportunity presented itself, and 45 lurched at it with no thought of result or precedent. I'm guessing that he had no idea, still has less than an idea, of what he could have accomplished (including his re-election) with a little humility, a little actual caring for the little guy, instead of merely trying to lie his way into getting them to think that he cared, which he clearly doesn't. He could get others to do amazing things for him. His personality is that dominant. It created a cultishness that was truly frightening but then again impressive (which is why this election was as close as it was).

But it's underlied with corruption, vindictiveness, and resentment, none of which he deserves to express or to take advantage of. The latter two, though, permeate significant numbers of our citizens, and will continue to if unaddressed. That is Joe Biden's challenge: Getting across the idea that, although they weren't on the winning side this time, that they're okay anyhow, that as citizens, they're still valuable. Yes, they lost, But their status isn't black or white. It isn't on or off.

Who lost that thread, and how, is something for the sociologists and psychologists to analyze and bandy about. Many of us will continue to reject that the Democrats are now in control. That thinking didn't just start with 45, but more definitively with Mitch McConnell's gathering of Republican Senators in 2009 to tell them that the goal was to make Barack Obama a one-term president and to not even consider or discuss anything he wanted to pass. Then to utterly reject Obama's Supreme Court nominee was a deeper denial of the democratic process (which is why it's so vital to continue to throw our energy into the Georgia Senate run-off races and try to take away McConnell's power).

It's the Republican, take-no-prisoners mantra that Newt Gingrich stressed in the 1990s that succeeds, and that is what is undermining the system presently: The idea of the 'loyal opposition', the concept that compromise is necessary to make the system run. The Constitutional Convention figured that out in 1787; it was supposed to transcend that moment. Recently, it hasn't. All 45 did was appear to be the best proponent of that strategy, solving all problems without thinking or consideration, and using language that, in the name of no 'political correctness,' cancelled tomorrow or effects on others.

There's a website called Word Genius, which floats past a word that almost no one uses in common conversation, but it's still part of our language (more nerdishness, I know). The word for today is "retroject," meaning to project backwards. That's what we've been doing, to our severe damage: retrojecting, as if the past could be lived again.

That, and unjustifiable fear (that is propelling right-wing militias to jack up their followers), loom. It's the appeal to our oneness as Americans that Biden is trying to get out there--that he can, and no doubt will, when he actually takes power. And to do so, he must beckon us once again to consider what our history has taught us. It's the one sure thing we can count on--if we pay attention. 

We think about the past, yes. But it becomes more effective when we utilize it to turn the present into a manageable future. There's a big difference between doing that and dragging us back into an abandoned past that no longer works.

But I know Biden will try. That will be refreshing. And vital. Being a former history teacher, I couldn't help but point this out.

Be well. Be careful. Wear a mask. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.

Mister Mark

We Want to Run Away Now. Don't. Stay Engaged.

I know, I know. Such a relief.

We've staved off, well, all kinds of horrible things (so far) with Joe Biden's election. Four more years of authoritarianism. Four more years of temper tantrum-based decisions. Four more years of abuse at the border.

It took a heavy lift, besides. Biden didn't win by nearly enough to establish an overwhelming mandate of decency and a return to sound government. Lots and lots of people still voted for him. Yes, I'm amazed in a way, at the closeness of the election. But in a way, I'm not. This is our country now. It's not a pretty sight.

But it is pretty to think so. 45 is still trying and probing somehow, somewhere, to find a weak spot in the system. After all, it's 50 separate states. 50 separate systems. Surely, there must be a way to invalidate the voting.

He hasn't found one so far. He's still trying. He's in denial. No state, so far, has allowed him to bask in it. But if he finds one, he'll try for the grand slam and get back into the game of fogginess, of maybe, of possibilities, of confusion. If he establishes a hold there, he usually wins.

That's why we have to stay engaged. I know you want to run and hide now, and the pandemic makes it easier to do so. Please don't. Please stay engaged.

What 45's trying to do is what Timothy Egan of the New York Times calls a coup by con. States' votes are being certified. Pretty soon, all 50 will be in. He has to stop enough votes in enough states to deny Biden 270 electoral votes. He's running out of time. He's running out of states.

He just tried to leverage Michigan's state legislators to deny Biden its 16 electoral votes. Tried, but failed. But he will try again, maybe there, maybe elsewhere. His lawyer simply said that the legislators in the battleground states 45 lost must vote arrange a vote for 45 instead. They must.

They must because he said so? That's it? No regulations matter? No popular votes matter? There is no legal justification. There is no overriding irregularity. None has been found. That's because none are there. Not in Michigan, not in Georgia, not in Arizona, not in Nevada, not in Pennsylvania and not, as he soon will learn during the partial recount, in Wisconsin. Not there. Their claims are baseless.

They're playing for time, but time has reversed itself into their enemy because their probing has found nothing but walls. Time is too short for those who wait, too swift for those who fear. Keep your eye on December 8; that is the 'safe harbor' date for states to complete their counts to secure the electoral vote. Any attempt to foul up the system must be decided by then.

When he starts saying, You have to because I said so, that's a demand of a dictator. Most Republicans are still too afraid to get in his face and say that that's a direct threat to the system, that that would destroy democracy.

But they can't deny the lack of fraud, the lack of mistakes. We can't find anything. It's a default, chickenshit excuse, an excuse of leakers, but it'll do for now. The Georgia Secretary of State has been battered and bruised, but he has the integrity of an election process to defend, and defend it he has. Georgia's hand-counted recount ended yesterday. It made Joe Biden the winner. Again, by thousands of votes. Irreversible. And certified.

45 fell all over himself giving the states control over containing the virus. You know, faith in the states, even though none of them have ever gone through something like this. Now he's attacking something over which the states have had all kinds of control for all kinds of years. But he doesn't like the result, so he's attacking them. So preposterous. So transparent.

As we get closer to December 8, the 'safe harbor' date when all state totals must be certified to secure the electoral votes, 45 will continue to tweet his classic, disingenuous but implicitly clear, notion that he's being robbed of a second term. His minions will continue to hit the streets, in obliviousness to the legal and thorough processes their states have performed, processes that they should otherwise be proud of. There will be trouble galore. He will also challenge police unions that have supported him to stand aside and make sure the objectors get all the time and space they want. Wait and see.

In between that date and December 14, when the members of the Electoral College must go to their state capitols and actually cast ballots for the person who carried the popular vote in his state, as the antiquated but still enforceable 12th Amendment demands (and tradition has well established), 45 will appeal to Republican legislators in battleground states in which he's lost and demand that they send Republican electors instead so that he actually circumvents what just about 80 million people have done and win the election anyway. But Michigan isn't going to do that, at least it doesn't look like it. And Pennsylvania's Republican senate leader has already said that the state's constitution is clear; they have to do the will of. the people, which Biden won by more than 60,000 votes. 

I do not trust Wisconsin. Those Republican leaders have denied logic and good will so far; I would not be surprised if they tried a fast one here, claiming corruption in the popular vote which doesn't exist. But even if that should succeed--and I would think that that would be severely challenged by Josh Kaul, the state's attorney general--that would give 45 just ten more electoral votes, and still leave him far short of what he needs. Nevada and Arizona finalize and certify their county votes Monday. They, too, will show that Biden won those states, and court challenges will fail.

Nonetheless, 45 will get the faithful fired up and get them to the capitols on December 14, protesting the decision. But that decision isn't theirs. It belongs to those who voted for Joe Biden. The Electoral College needs an 'automatic' lever to push so that this issue doesn't take place again. But that would take a constitutional amendment, the mechanics of which are largely prohibitive. In the meantime, this rogue, this terrible person, is going to try to stop the vote that should take place.

If I were Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, I would get either more Secret Service support or, if 45 can bar it, hire extra private protection. I know that's awful to think about. But desperation abounds out there, as irrational as it seems. And everybody, it seems, has a weapon.

The country will not fall apart when Biden becomes president, as he is supposed to on January 20. Our society will not collapse, unless the virus has been allowed--by 45--to accelerate to the point of overriding our basic markets and systems, and we're getting nearly 200,000 new cases per day now. That will not be Biden's doing, but he will be saddled with it.

That, too, is why Biden deserves, and needs very badly, our continued attention and support. The election will end, but the divisions go on, perhaps worse than before. 45's damage won't disappear, because for the time being, neither will he. Fox News may continue to entertain him, and if not, perhaps One America News will. He will have a siren, free of charge. He will continue to pester pointlessly and make accusations and innuendoes every bit as outrageous as he did while in office. Maybe the law will catch up with him, but it'll have to actually put him behind bars to shut him up, and that is tricky business.

So do not look away, though we are sorely tempted to. Stay involved. Stay engaged. Keep up with the news, though it still contains things we're sick of. This is, again, not normal, and it won't be until 12 Noon  Eastern Time on January 20.

I bet you've stopped watching. Can't blame you. But don't lose the thread of information. Things may move very quickly very soon.

If nothing else, send some money to the Democrats trying for the U.S. Senate seats in Georgia runoffs. They need it, what with the media blitz. That election is January 5. Two wins get the Democrats a very shaky, but clear, majority in the Senate. It will allow Biden to enact an agenda far more progressive than otherwise. 

Two months to go. This is part of a process of winning democracy back. One part's being secured. The others are tougher to re-establish. Our country is still at stake. Stay informed. Don't go away.

Be well. Be careful. Wear a mask. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.

Mister Mark

Does Pompeo Know Something?

I mean, you really have to wonder.

On the surface, Mike Pompeo doesn't seem that ignorant. He might be as stubborn and twisted as 45, true. But he can read things like you and I can. He knows what the facts are.

Or, maybe, he has different facts at hand. Because he is who he is, Secretary of State, it's a good bet he knows more than he's telling.

About foreign countries, that is. About the election? That's a little tougher to fathom.

So when he said the other day that preparations are being made for a second 45 term, people both close to and far away from him started scratching their heads. Like, on what basis could he make such a claim?

Or is he posturing, knowing that if he says what's been obvious for the last eleven days now, that Joe Biden will be the next president because he's been elected and will be certified by all the states he carried which amount to 306 electoral votes now, he might be fired even at this late date.

How does he think this? Check out Chris Krebs, the Director of Cybersecurity and Infrastructure at the Department of Homeland Security. If there's anyone who should know about hacking into our election results, he would. If there's anyone who should blow the whistle at election irregularities, he should.

But he hasn't because there hasn't been a problem. Whatever challenges we faced from foreign adversaries, Russia or anybody else, whatever leaking took place, during the 2016 election got sealed up. He said that this election was the "most secure in our history."

That reassurance to the public, I guess, was a bad idea. It meant, of course, that any challenge to the present day election results was not going to get anywhere. Democracy, as far as it went, worked.

That was bad news for 45, who predictably fired Krebs because he didn't hew the line of denial. He wants to do that so bad that now he has hired, or re-hired, Rudy Giuliani (at a requested $20,000 per day) to throw out all of Pennsylvania's votes and invalidate the results there.

If Giuliani succeeds with his wild claims that the votes were "cured (and what the hell does that mean, besides trying to make up a problem that doesn't exist?)," and has the whole bunch thrown out--a demand that is completely absurd, but so is he and the person he works for--then Biden doesn't get twenty electoral votes. Nice try, but Biden would still have 286 electoral votes. I'm sure Giuliani has plans for other states, like maybe Georgia, which is presently undergoing a recount, but he has more than a 13,000-vote deficit to explain there. But if he should get away with nullifying Pennsylvania, he may believe that all bets are then off.

So maybe Pompeo knew about the basis of those suits before he said that, and is somehow confident that they will be won. Or, maybe, he knows where his bread is buttered.

It's been reported here that in the book Border Wars, two New York Times reporters said that Pompeo and then-Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen flew to Houston late in 2018 to negotiate an arrangement on the border with the incoming Mexican administration of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. 45 wanted to actually keep people seeking American asylum in Mexico as they were awaiting their hearings.

Otherwise, 45 would shut down the border, Nielsen and Pompeo said. Sounds crazy, but we know him. We have to close this deal. (p. 345)

Mexico believed it, but the Pompeo and Nielsen also promised money to deal with the problem. The right-wing commentators went off when they heard it (because they must have genuinely believed that 45 was going to make Mexico pay for a border wall, an absurd claim that has never come close to being realized), and 45 was embarrassed. But they got an arrangement made.

I think Pompeo came close to being fired right then and there. Nielsen was, eventually, but her involvement was more direct; she didn't have the Middle East to divert attention, Jared Kushner notwithstanding. And, of course, they got something accomplished. It was that or a real mess would have ensued.

Pompeo could believe that even now, being fired by 45 would put him in a bad way with fellow Republicans, who he may be trying to impress if he's thinking about running for president in 2024. Better to appear loyal than to put himself in the same wheelbarrow with those who, although they might have taken principled stances, were nonetheless removed. He might think that being ejected by 45 would be the same as being discarded by the Republican Party, without the advantage of perspective. It sure looks like it right now. 

Maybe the major operatives in the Republican Party, too, are waiting for their chances to brush 45 off their sleeves (and if so, I want to hear Ted Cruz and Lindsay Graham walk that back). But maybe not. Maybe they're doubling down with support and will listen to him tweet insults and lies for yet another four years. That's scary. It may also be true. Remember, he got 71 million votes, and they're still counting them.

But there will also be plenty of stories about this president's incompetence and meanness that haven't come out yet, despite the plethora of journalism that it has already engendered. I think people are sitting on information that will, with time, become even more explosive. I also think that Pompeo may be one of those who steps forward, but not for a while. He'll let others lead the way first. It would be untoward for him to get out in front of that parade. He'll put his finger into the wind first.

In the meantime, he might as well appear completely loyal so he can get that off his desk and keep doing his job until January 20, when it will end. That way, he won't need to look over his shoulder in case the boss wants some token gesture of loyalty, kind of the way he gathered the Cabinet together early in his term, went around the table, and heard those same token gestures. Deception leads to deception, and at this point, who would be surprised?

There are plenty of ways he can explain himself later and back away from suppositions of blind loyalty, like:

• I had certain information at the time which just didn't pan out;
• Others I respect were claiming the same thing, so they must have thought they knew something; or
• After all, he was still fighting, and I respected that.

See? All plausible talking points if not rock solid. Fused into a campaign, answering the question How in the world could you have supported such a fool? it's easier to move on from it.

The other possibility is that he may be projecting, and anticipating, that 45 will run for president in 2024 and if he does, he'll win again and be 47, not 45. "Getting ready for a second term" might mean that. But that assumes a lot of things, so that isn't likely.

Your guess is as good as mine. The charade continues. 45 keeps looking for a crack in the facade of electoral credibility. The clock ticks. Some kind of spectacular absurdity has to happen.

Be well. Be careful. Wear a mask. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.

Mister Mark

So the Russians. Remember Them?

So I want to know something. What happened to the Russians?

Did we manage to eliminate their influence on this election, thus reversing what seemed to be their pervasive influence on the 2016 election? Or did they try again and fail?

Or did they try again and succeed as far as they could, which wasn't very far? Or was their influence in 2016 conflated because we learned about it and it became public?

And what exactly was their influence? Did they actually change votes? Or did they simply become an annoyance within the noise that constituted the propaganda that both political parties put out there?

Do not cringe in horror. The U.S. has been a culprit at changing governments, and sometimes paid a very big price. Try Iran, for instance, where we (CIA) were complicit in throwing out Mohammad Mossadeq in favor of returning the Shah and his monarchy dictatorship (the devil we knew) to the throne in 1953. 25 years later, we had 52 hostages taken and it led to the rise of Ronald Reagan, who ruined America. 

Forty years after that, we now have an Iran eager to make nuclear weapons and our stupid president who wants to start a war with them--and very nearly, within the last few days, did exactly that to saddle his successor with an impossible task in the Middle East. He was dissuaded by advisors at the last minute. By cancelling the deal Barack Obama had already made with Iran, he has done enough damage.

Try Chile, where Salvador Allende, a moderate, was overthrown in 1973 and assassinated by forces behind Augosto Pinochet, who established an autocracy that only now is being successfully addressed by the electorate.

And if you'd like to get closer to home, try Hawaii, where profits from pineapples harvested by the Dole Company (whose name I will never look at the same way) led to the overthrow of Queen Liliuokalani, the installment of Marines, and the establishment of "gunboat diplomacy" to gain access to Pearl Harbor in the 1890s. That, of course, led to the annexation of the Islands and the attack on Pearl by the Japanese, who saw plenty of battleships parked there one Sunday in December, 1941.

There is still a movement in Hawaii trying to reclaim independence from the U.S. I do not begrudge them that.

If misinformation bothers you, consider how we got involved in the Spanish-American War. The blowing up of the U.S.S. Maine in Havana Harbor in 1898, supposedly by the Spanish who resented our presence there (they certainly did, since we tried to gain access to a harbor there earlier in the decade but were turned back; at that point, our excuse was to tacitly support, with our presence, native Cubans who were being made into political prisoners), caused an overwhelming outcry.

An investigation found that the explosion went outward, not inward, pretty much ruling out sabotage. But that was way, way later. The major U.S. newspapers of the day, cavorting in yellow journalism (a phrase not discussed today but certainly just as evident as gnats in summertime; if Sean Hannity doesn't practice it, I'm not sure who does), took advantage of the more immediate shock factor and used innuendo to imply that the Spanish must have done it. So off to war we went.

That allowed us to invade the Philippines, also owned by the Spanish. After winning what Teddy Roosevelt called a "splendid little war," it left us with 'freedom fighters' who thought they were going to have their own government.

Uh-uh. The U.S. took control over their "little brown brothers" as President McKinley called them (in a casual expression of racism that raised few eyebrows because just two years earlier, the Supreme Court said, in Plessy v. Ferguson, that races could be separated in public transportation). They resisted, fought a jungle-type guerrilla war in forecast of what we went through in Vietnam 65 years later, and created so much of a problem that there were Senate hearings on it (also forecasting) in which we learned that we practiced (whoops!) waterboarding on native insurgents. 

This, as we now know, was also re-created in Iraq in another war we had no right to fight a century later. It was also supported partly by cooperation from a willing and cowed media (in a reaction from 9-11 which proved that Osama bin Laden won) that didn't challenge the fundamental premise nearly enough.

In other words: Same old, same old. So you can see why Vladimir Putin never twitched about doing a little insurgency himself. We've practiced it for decades (of course, so have the Russians). Remember: We're supposed to be the exception to what other countries practice, not how much they practice it. He thought he'd give us some of our own medicine. Because every time you practice power, regardless of high-minded intent, you make enemies.

And what do you know? It worked. 45 has screwed up relationships and political discourse, perhaps forever, or maybe accelerated what was already there. And it really didn't take much, did it?

Being from Wisconsin, I watched quite a bit of the nasty, twisted, manipulated half-truths and worse which made up 45's campaign ads again and again. There was a huge difference between 2016 and 2020. 2020 was much, much worse. It felt like someone was trying to drag me into a ditch.

These more recent ads were too clever by half. They jumped to conclusions. They put out film of Biden saying things completely out of context, so long ago that he had dark hair. And they simply lied, such as saying he supported defunding the police. No, he never said that. That was absurd. It was a reaction from George Floyd's death that 45's people tried to attach to him. It didn't completely work, but it might have worked well enough to avoid giving Biden a Democratic majority in both houses of Congress.

Because we saw the Russians coming this time, because 13 of them were indicted by Mueller and helpers, did enough of us simply dismiss the biggest baloney as coming from them and therefore lacked credibility? And did we see Rudy Giuliani behind the worst of the propaganda, whether he was there or not?

If so, well, we could easily say that 45's lies and innuendoes--more than 22,000 by Election Day--paved the way for the complete lack of believability. It made several things go away or become diminished, not the least of which was Hunter Biden's connection with Burisma, which the Republicans tried to mitigate 45's impeachment accusations and which were old and tired by the time the campaign came on because nothing supportable could be added to it.

Nobody can say that we had a national effort to discredit the Russians, though. The effects of media exposure might have done its job. But the Republicans downplayed the threat.

Maybe they were right. Influence isn't proof of sabotage. Nobody can prove, and nobody has come forward with an accusation, at least to this point, that the Russians got inside the voting machines and changed the numbers.

That would be too easy. That would prove that 45 really had very little support, or at least not nearly as much where he needed to have it. This past election, his second time through, has proven the opposite, but not by nearly enough.

There is a cadre out there that's pretty strong for 45, whether we like it or not. The nation really is that much divided. People do go along with both political parties, regardless of what or who they stand for at any one moment, much because they don't have much alternative. There are lots and lots of people out there who are extremely gullible. Was that all it was the first time? Is that all it is now?

So are we going to have another report on how the Russians tried to interfere in 2020? Or are we going to blow it off if the answer is: Who knows? Who cares, now that a decent person's been elected?

That would be a mistake. I, for one, would like to see a follow-up. I would like to see specific actions we did take and what kind of difference they made. And, if gaps still exist, what we're about to do next time around.

The Department of Homeland Security has just said that this has been the most secure election in our history. This is the one that's still working for the 45 administration. He hasn't railed at it in disgust--yet. But if they say it, in obvious defiance of the trouble 45's making everyone go to, it must have some significant credibility attached.

Still, way too many are still out there demonstrating that the election's being stolen. We have the burden of dragging them back from that conclusion. But remember: a Gallup poll taken a few months ago indicated that 38% of the adult population still thinks that the earth is 10,000 years old or less. If people are still too small, too narrow to come to grips with that falsehood and denial of science, they'll get led by the nose to just about anywhere else.

That's a problem for education. And I don't just mean the educational system. But that's for later. Meanwhile, I want to know where the Russians went. And where they now are.

Be well. Be careful. Wear a mask. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.

Mister Mark

They Asked Me. I Gave Them Answers. Doubt If They Liked Them.

Altruism has its limits for darn near everyone.

All you have to do is send someone some money that they desperately need, and you discover that within weeks. You get put on lists of very nice people who are willing to part with some of their money for children, mostly, but also adults, who usually live a long way off (but sometimes don't, as in the Milwaukee Rescue Mission), and don't have the daily benefits of clean water, decent food, and more clothing than they have on their backs.

You also get put onto the lists of people who have a soft spot for abused or needlessly slaughtered animals. Some of this stuff gets put on TV, too. In case you lose touch or something, you get to see live pictures of people and other beings who will soon be dead if you don't help.

Sounds cynical, I know. But these things exist, so I occasionally give them money. I don't have a lot, but once the pocketbook is opened, all kinds of organizations send me mail in solicitation that I didn't ask for. You can't call it 'junk' mail. But it gets overwhelming, especially this time of year, when it's assumed that you're more in a giving mood than you are, say, in March.

I haven't counted, but I should count the number of mail solicitations I receive each month. Some have a nickel or three pennies or even a dime glued with that goop they send it with, that you can and should peel off before you put the extra paper (on which there is usually an angst-filled message written) into the recycle bin. I have a rule: If you send me change, I will open the envelope. Triage Part I.

If I have given to you before, I will likely give to you again, but not every month or every time you ask me: Triage, Part II. I do not fill out the form, usually on the back, which gives out my debit card number so I can become their monthly bank. Nope. Won't do that. I realize that my name and address gets put on a different list, so I tolerate increased frequency.

The organization often checks and circles the second amount in from the left, hinting that if you gave that much, it would really, really help; $18 instead of $10, for instance. Or they would remind you that if you gave that much, you would receive (another!) tote bag. Some allow a box to check to say that no, after that bribe, you're not interested in getting one.

And calendars! You get calendars! I don't have that many walls in my dwelling! Another bribe--if I'm getting a calendar, surely I have ten or fifteen bucks to give them.

It's people like me, though, who become intolerant faster. We don't have the kind of money to give every month. Rich people do, and much like us, probably give just enough so they don't become unduly uncomfortable. I have a heart and a soul and I do recognize the need. But I'm not going to keep food off my table. Their limits have larger numbers, that's all.

It's a trick that Republicans continue to play on us. They say that charities will make up for the extra taxes people don't like paying to others who need the help. Otherwise, that's socialism, they say, though it really isn't. It's just making sure the safety net's big enough so that we don't have people wandering the streets. 

Just don't ask them for too much money. That's against their rights. Don't cover them with guilt. Let it be spread around evenly.

Underneath all of this are also political agendas. There are many with liberal bents: I should say that. The American Legion is a good example, too. I got a missive from them with an agenda-laden survey about what would otherwise appear to be (to them) automatically responsive topics.

How did I get something from the American Legion, you might ask, since I never served in the military? Probably because I have contributed and still contribute to organizations like the Wounded Warriors Project (which has recently gotten up on TV). And that's because Congress, in some of its deepest hypocrisy and cynicism, doesn't sufficiently take care of badly wounded veterans. 

I don't think many of the most recent wars we've fought have been necessary, but fight them we did and are, and these people need our help. I consider it charitable and a form of payback. 

I didn't necessarily consider it patriotic, but they did, and there's value in respecting that. Besides, they've lost limbs and parts of their skulls and their talking ability and things like that, and especially if you think that the wars were a waste of time, they constitute additional wastes of lives. And that is incredibly sad. Hate the war, love the warrior.

But mail solicitation doesn't require nuance, so it's apparently assumed that if you give to the WWP, you're probably inclined to support the American Legion. And, if you support the American Legion, you are likely to support a number of conservative or reactionary causes.

So when the American Legion sent me a knee-jerk survey, designed to make them feel better about their automatic support of 45, well, I answered it. But they didn't get the answers they were figuring.

The first question they ask is about burning the flag. It's always the first question. Because didn't they fight for the flag? Well, no, they didn't. They fought for what flag represents, which are things that people talk about but don't necessarily respect.

The possible answers are "yes" and "no". There's no "not sure" there. It's as if this is no place to be wishy-washy, okay? Who are you, anyhow?

Of course you're going to be against it, right? But, hush my mouth, I didn't say so. I said that people really should have the right to burn a flag.

It's the purest expression of democracy. If I can do that as an expression of speech, if I can make fun of the flag or express my feelings about the hypocrisy of what it stands for, I might get a reaction or start a conversation. Not only that, but I might also get a conversation I didn't plan for, from people who think that that's a bad idea, that I'm out of my mind, that I'm defeating the purpose by doing so.

Or maybe that's exactly what I want because those are the people I'm planning on reaching. Nevertheless, let me ask you: How often are flags burned? It's usually done in some public place. Isn't that usually reported in the news? I watch the news pretty often. I haven't seen a flag-burning in months and months. Is there much of a threat in that?

People get confused. They think that destroying the flag destroys democracy. Not true. Destroying the chance to destroy the flag destroys democracy. What it destroys is someone's idea of patriotism, but not necessarily mine. I can love my country, or at least the idea of it, enough to be critical enough of it to burn a flag because I'm so pissed that it's the only thing left to do to get somebody's attention that we have problems out there.

I'm not inclined to do so because I don't think it works. But I reserve the right to. If that ever gets shut down, then other protests will, too. Democracy would take a big, big hit.

Besides, is that possibly worse than showing up at a state capitol with AR-15s, ready to do battle with a governor who just wants to protect the population from a pandemic? Burning a flag hurts no one, if you don't wander too close to it, but hurts some sensibilities. So what? Sticks and stones. 

AR-15s kill people. AR-15s don't start discussions, they end them. AR-15s help no one and nothing.

Farther down the survey, of course, there's the what-do-you-think-of-the-president question, with 10 being the best and 1 being the worst. I created my own category, zero. I drew a circle next to it and filled it in. I'm quite sure that that's not what they were looking for.

The American Legion, though, should say something about 45's comment about soldiers as being "losers" and "suckers", not to mention depicting the late John McCain as not being a hero somehow because he was captured. That's about as bad a betrayal as can be. But there's nothing in any of the literature I received that brings that up.

The American Legion should be in front of the parade, campaigning against this horrible person. My Dad, who was on a destroyer escort in World War II, used to be an active member of the Legion. 45 called him a "loser" and a "sucker". Excuse me?

There are veterans who get this, who understand that the right to have discussions is basic in our society, if uncomfortable; that saying things loudly and strongly doesn't make them right, that the substance of the conversation is worth paying attention to. And that fighting for that is far more important. I would think that the American Legion is an embarrassment to them. I would think that they would either protest such stances or simply not join. Or maybe create their own group.

They might have consigned the contents to the recycling bin. Just in case, I spoke for them, in case they did. Part of the madness that threatens to consume us is due to automatic, knee-jerk reactions that, if someone took a moment to think about it, might cause a change of mind and heart.

I didn't use their address sticker that mail solicitations often insert when I sent in the survey. They have my name. They'll send something back, automatically, because I did. Someone may actually read it (postage paid; Triage, Part III). There wasn't a separate space to actually write something, though. Too bad. They would have gotten a big piece of my mind. I mean, it wasn't much of a counter protest, so they probably didn't really get it.

Instead, you get it, here. Thanks for reading.

Be well. Be careful. Wear a mask. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.

Mister Mark

There Are Ways to Lose. Not Easy, But Necessary. Tomorrow's Another Day.

I had a feeling I was going to lose. It was due to what was not happening rather than what was.

The first time I ran for the NEA Executive Committee, in 2003, was a roller-coaster of successes and failures. I knew little of the process and at times showed it. I needed too much knowledge and paid for it in terms of missed opportunities.

By the time I got to the Representative Assembly in New Orleans, where the vote would take place, it was obvious that support for me, which had once been growing, was stagnating. Someone had gotten into the race at the last minute and was coming up from behind with greater momentum.

But I clung to what I thought, what I was told, was taking place on the ground. Four people were running for two spots--one a state affiliate president, far and away the favorite, three coming from the NEA Board of Directors, including me. It looked like a toss-up between at least two of us, maybe all three.

The rumors were that none of the three of us would get a majority on the first ballot and I would win on the second, once people were sure that the state affiliate president would get in. I looked like less a threat to the ones 'bullet-voting' for her, and would join her on the Committee.

It didn't turn out that way. Enough people used both of their votes on the first ballot, and I finished third. It wasn't all that close. Outside of the mistakes I had made in organizing, there were other reasons. Another state affiliate president told me later, in hindsight, of the latecomer who beat me: "He was cute," as if that's what mattered the most. But the NEA is often a cross-section of America itself, and short of the time it takes to glean out substance, the frivolous sometimes serves as a sufficient reason to cast a ballot.

Thought I did my best to hide it, I was crushed. More than that, it was clear that people had promised me their support but, like Lucy with Charlie Brown and the football, had pulled it back at the last second. I knew that others had ripped me behind my back. A tough lesson, that. Difficult to feel good about humanity. But no one required me to go down that road.

I realized something else, too. In the wake of losing, I had seen, at earlier RAs, candidates come to the mike and lash out at the winners in frustration and depression. They, too, felt hoodwinked. They, too, felt victimized by someone's conspiracy. It bothered me when I would see it, but now I understood their mentality.

It wasn't supposed to be like that. We were in the same union. We were supposed to be on the same side. Our word was supposed to be our bond. People looked as if they could be trusted.

But many of them who had given their tacit support had had to run for lesser positions themselves, and had acquired a kind of caginess that raised their political sophistication. They could promise without promising, guarantee without guaranteeing. No one lied. But no one needed to tell the truth, either. Such is politics. 

That's what you bargain for when you get in, and the higher you go, the more it happens. It was one of the more painful lessons.

As soon as the results were announced, I left the convention center in New Orleans and took a walk. I needed to decompress before I did or said something I'd be sorry for. Above all, I had to face the sad fact of my defeat. Above all, I had to say so, first to myself.

But it was how I would say it to others that could have future effects. I was going to continue as member of the NEA Board of Directors, after all. I would be interacting with those who had supported me, and those who didn't. If I took it too personally, it would have a negative effect on something I might want to get done.

In any event, conversations that would have otherwise taken place would never happen because people would assume I held a grudge against them. Tomorrow, said Scarlett O'Hara and my mother when wishing us a good sleep, is another day.

I felt, too, an obligation to the RA itself. No matter what, it had spoken. The experience had been sobering, yes, but it had also been exhilarating at times. And I was a recipient as well as they. I wanted to say something about that.

Actually, there was no need. The RA could have gone on without any commentary. But what would be said about me? Couldn't it be interpreted as a brush-off? Would I be seen as someone who was too good for it anyhow?

That certainly wasn't true. But politics is about what isn't said as much as what is, and appearances either stimulate or mute conversations. Besides, my supporters needed to move on, and would whether I liked it or not. The pieces could be picked up down the road.

The RA would go on with or without me. So would the NEA. It's much bigger than any one person. And those bitter excursions to the mike were on my mind.

I would not do that. I would suck it up. I would say something that would be brief but clear and conciliatory.

So I did. And some supporters from Wisconsin gathered behind me as I came to the mike. I hadn't asked them to. They knew very well what I was doing. It reflected upon them, as well, and that was just as important.

I used a quote from Will Rogers: Not everyone can be in the parade. Someone has to sit on the curbing and applaud as it goes by. I thanked my supporters, and tried some dry humor about being in the Board Dance Caucus--occasionally, we would gather between meetings and dance to some piped in music--which went over well.

It seemed to have a positive effect. A number of people congratulated me, later, on a good campaign. That felt good, of course, but my attitude was more like that of another failed candidate from another year who ran into me the next day and, with empathy, said, "Losing sucks."

I accepted the good wishes as bravely as I could. It is then that one must be brave. It's easy to be in the middle of a vigorous campaign. That takes no courage at all. All that takes is audacity.

45 has audacity in spades. While that's not a bad thing, he must now have courage. So far, he has displayed none. But that's hard. That takes effort. It means to overcome the anger, distress and humiliation at coming up short. He's still claiming victory. He's waltzing through fantasies.

Having lots of attention paid to you is bracing. It makes your ego soar. But then it ends and the ego descends. Humility arrives in boatloads. Man, that's tough.

Notice how quiet 45 is now. There's nothing left to say other than to rail at the rain. And Arizona completed its count. All chances there have ended.

Instead, he's raising money partly to pay for futile (say nearly everyone) legal excursions, and splitting the funding for his own use. Grifting to the end. Time goes no slower, though.

There are ways to lose. People remember. 45 doesn't get that. I think he believes that he may be girding for another try, but he gives himself more importance than there is. People move on. Circumstances change and the combination of them and other people seem to fit better. 

Some of his supporters are already anticipating his return, and he might. But we'll see him coming next time--his insults, his narcissism, his incompetence. It'll be far, far different. He, and his supporters, will have to have something new to say. But their striving is based on the supposition that there should be nothing new to say. That will get old very fast.

The country is bigger than any one person, though 45 may never understand that. Time does one thing: Move forward. You can't hold it back. He's spent four years trying to do so. That's partly why he got beat.

Joe Biden gets that, and that's why he's president. It's not about him. It's about the United States of America.

The NEA leadership had a big meeting in Minneapolis not long after the RA. I asked some friends what I should do: Go there and get back into the flow, or stay home and allow the new reality to set in. I got both reactions.

I decided to go. "You fall off your horse," I said to those who asked, "you get right back up." People liked that. That didn't make it easy to say. But saying it helped me face it.

It was hard to watch the guy who beat me. But, I told myself, I might as well get used to it. That was the new reality.

Within a week of that meeting, everything had changed. The guy who beat me had resigned. Within two weeks, I was asked to take his place.

Before that happened a member of the Executive Committee called me to say that he/she liked my concession speech a lot. He/She was on the cusp of voting for my admittance into the group, I think, and wanted to let me know without exactly telling me (once again) that he/she was supporting me. The phone call was a kind of interview. And that speech was part of what did it.

But it wasn't only the speech. It was the humility of acceptance and the class and style of the delivery. As such, it was a unifying statement, which it was meant to be. It hadn't been lost on him/her.

The rest of the Executive Committee, which was to vote on it, had plenty of choices, one of which was to let the position open for a year and let whoever wanted to run try or try again. I was out of money (and you do not do this with union funds; Landrum-Griffin guarantees that) and way, way in debt. There was no way I could mount another campaign.

The phone call told me something without saying it: I was being considered. The vote, as I later learned, was not unanimous. But I got in. It would be as an interim, so I would have to run again that next year. But being paid for the position by the NEA, on top of my teachers' salary (also taken over by NEA) would help a lot. So would a better campaign.

45 could do himself a world of good by first, conceding the election; second, by saying something nice about his supporters; and third, saying something nice about the USA. It would go a long way in healing some of the wounds that he's caused. Those would be unifying statements. 

But they won't happen. That's now very clear. He can't admit defeat. And, in his paranoid, cloistered style, he will have ruined another opportunity for himself. It's almost as if he has to be angry. He doesn't think anybody will believe him if he isn't.

Plenty of politicians, like me, have bounced back after devastating defeats. Some, like me, had the advantage of luck. But some, also like me, had laid the groundwork before luck took over. I just didn't know it at the time. That happens, too.

Losing well matters. Tomorrow's another day.

Be well. Be careful. Wear a mask. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.

Mister Mark

Why There's No Way In for Him: A Course Correction That's Working

45 keeps banging at the legal door, but there's no way in. There's no path he can create. 

He wants to create confusion and run out the clock until January 20, when under intense pressure, the Supreme Court grants him another term because it can't tell who won the election. But he's failing. He's failing because he's run into an American institution that his party helped solidify: Elections.

Let's go back to 2000. Those are bad memories, especially for Democrats: The Mystery of the Hanging Chads. Al Gore had Florida won but only for the mistakes that thousands of Democrats voting there made, voting for the very undeserving Pat Buchanan instead.

Even Buchanan knew that it was ridiculous that he would get that many votes. But Republicans rushed right in, challenging the validity of the vote, especially after Gore was declared the winner, then George W. Bush, then nobody.

And off we went. Remember the Brooks Brothers Riot? That prevented the vote from being completed in Miami-Dade County. That alone might have clinched Florida, and its electoral votes, for Gore. It worked. Might became right. That was dangerous in a way no one could have foreseen.

Cut to December and we know what happened: The Supreme Court was called in and, in a "non-precedent setting" decision, as they put it, a mostly Republican appointed group said that the vote count could be allowed to go on for three more hours until being shut down and Bush being the winner by default. It had all the veneer of a coup d'etat.

The Republicans did a masterful job of playing for time. As the clock ran, Democrats knew their case was weakening. That the brother of the winning candidate just happened to be the governor of Florida didn't hurt, either.

45 is trying the same playbook. But the circumstances aren't the same this time. There are several states with results he's trying to contest, not just one. He's tried to debunk voting by mail, tried to cause a lack of confidence in the mail system by working the pandemic to his advantage (in a strategy that history will condemn forever), neither of which worked. He's tried seven times in court already, and gotten nowhere.

That's especially true in Pennsylvania. "It's sad and pathetic," said Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman, a fierce-looking fellow if I've ever seen one. "It's like putting sour milk in the refrigerator and checking back to see if it's good."

Why? Because of 2000. Florida was embarrassed by what happened. States saw that and adjusted. What state wants to look that goofed up? What Secretary of State of any state wants to be, or look, that incompetent? After all, that position is elected, too.

So, as what happens in crisis, they woke up. They tightened restrictions and modernized their processes. They saw gaps in proceedings and closed them.

Twenty years later, the states run a much tighter ship. You got a problem with the vote count? Bring it on. Tell us how corrupt we are. Go ahead. We have lawyers, too. And we have a process that we've worked five times since 2000.

45 got people to gather outside of vote counts to try the same thing as the Brooks Brothers Riot. But having been through that once was enough for any state so challenged. They were ready this time.

And I've heard two election directors, from Wisconsin and Georgia, say clearly and definitively: Our system is public. If you want to come in a watch us, no problem. We have nothing to hide.

(Oh, and--where are the Russians this time? Where are the Chinese and Iranians? Did they have any effects, enough effects? Why aren't we talking about that? Hmmmm???)

Nothing can restore public trust better than that. And we need some public trust nowadays because our president is so bent on destroying it for his purposes. I alone can fix, he said, which he wants you to apply to everything so you are dependent upon his every, lying word.

What's been happening is that, from a practice that has been circumvented and cheated upon many times in the past--we still don't know how many votes Kennedy got in Illinois in 1960, but probably not nearly as many as posted, but enough to win--the state-by-state voting system has been improved in the last twenty years, if only to cover the asses of those officials in charge of them. 

That is a laudable goal of any government, to avoid screaming and being remembered negatively when it comes their turn to stand in front of the voters once again. That's how it's supposed to work.

So when a rogue like 45 figures that there must be some way through to create a path to get the consideration of the Supreme Court, one-third of which he has appointed (and which he expects payback now, though he'll never say it), he's finding path after path legally blocked. There aren't enough weaknesses anymore. He could manipulate the reaction to the pandemic because the states weren't prepared for it, but this is another item altogether.

Besides, he also must find a way for a court to rule that he's won enough votes. He can't do it in Pennsylvania. He can't do it in Arizona. He can't do it in Nevada. It's because he hasn't, and it's all out there for the world to see.

He's going to try a recount in Wisconsin, he says, but he has to overcome a 20,000 vote deficit. Even Mr. F. Gow (most recent former governor of Wisconsin), no stranger to recounts, knows that it's extremely unlikely that he'll prevail there. Only a relatively few votes get moved around: 131 in 2016, as Jill Stein found out there. And, if things continue as they are, it will be futile even if he succeeds: ten electoral votes, whoopy ding! The Electoral College won't open up a back door for him this time.

He's tried to stop voting in one place and keep it going in another. There's no consistency. There's no overriding legal principle involved. There's just winning. That won't wash in voting practice, anywhere. 

The states have been there, seen that. They went into this game several innings ahead of him. They had him scouted. He didn't think it was possible.

Willy-nilly, the states have established, through course correction, an institution that is increasingly impregnable. It's like rebuilding a fortress after it's been attacked; nobody's going to do it the same way. It's going to be better, stronger, tougher. It's going to withstand other attacks to the degree to which they can be anticipated. Argue though we might--Lord, yes, we do--about policy, the integrity of our elections is a great thing, still.

With it is finally a place we all can stand. The one thing that makes us secure as the members of a free society is the freedom to choose our leaders. When that freedom is diminished, so are we all (and it is diminished when people don't vote, so dearly I wish they would realize that). 

That was the legacy of 2000, which came back to bite the Republicans. It has clearly been corrected--not perfectly, not all at once, but much better than twenty years ago. It feels solid. 

It feels like something we deserve--all of us: those who think carefully before we vote, and those who don't. But at least they voted, in larger numbers than ever this time. And though the president, grifting as usual, tried to get us to lose confidence in the very thing that expresses our citizenship the best, we now know that he couldn't and can't. The mails worked, mostly (another institution that needs shoring up; you can bet Joe Biden will do so). The voting worked. We are damaged, but at least a little restored.

Democracy is messy and in a nation like this, painstakingly and so frustratingly slow partly because of our size, partly because of the decentralization upon which we insist. And of course, they're still counting the votes, partly because of the disastrously handled pandemic that finally sank the pirate ship of this awful president. I'm not feeling proud as much as relieved, but that's a place to start. A corrected process may have saved the republic--from ourselves.

Be well. Be careful. Wear a mask. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.

Mister Mark

Raffensperger: A RINO with Soul

You have to admit: Brad Raffensperger's got soul. He sticks to his guns and they stay shiny.

Raffensperger is Georgia's Secretary of State. As is true of others of his office in other states, he's in charge of running elections and, in the end, certifying the vote when it's all finished.

Dyed-in-the-wool Republicans are having a problem with him. Which is to say: They're having a problem with the statewide vote for president. Which is to say: It's turned against them.

Now it's more than 12,000 votes against them as of this morning. It will trigger an automatic recount because it's inside the percentage of difference required by state law. So they have to do everything all over again.

That gives the conspiracy theorists, who so far have been flailing at shadows, another chance to trash him and raise speculation that something fundamentally bad has taken place. Well, something has, if you're a Republican: Joe Biden won. And that's not going to change.

Unless something incredibly phony has happened, a recount almost never moves more than a couple of hundred votes. Jill Stein learned that in Wisconsin in 2016, when she asked for and got a recount, which moved a grand total of 131 votes. All that time and all that spending for so very little.

So there's nothing like the good old American habit of smearing when nothing else seems to be working. That's what Georgia's two U.S. Senators, David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, have just done.

They've called on Raffensperger to resign. Making such a demand tries to shed doubt on his integrity, which is what the truly corrupt will do if they have nothing else to hang their hats on. (You know who put them up to it, don't you?)

The reason they're doing that is not only to demonstrate continued fealty to our horribly corrupt president, which is safe for them because that way they dodge negative tweets, but also to re-establish public support for their next campaign, which has started the other day because neither one of them gained 50% support. Now there must be a run-off. That's scheduled for January 5.

They think support will be buttressed if they shed doubt upon the count from the get-go. So they trash the guy in charge of it because the count that primarily matters didn't go their way.

Never mind that the Democrats, at first, attacked Raffensperger because he announced an investigation of potentially faulty practices--which, in fact, is his job--and found no substantial issues. Kind of like every single court (so far) in which 45's lawyers have so far tried to sue to substantially disrupt the vote counts of states in which they need electoral votes to turn the election around.

Never mind also that Stacey Abrams, who lost the governorship through a carefully manipulated screening of potential black voters in the campaign of 2018, decided to double down and sign up a whole bunch of black voters--which was clearly crucial in carrying the state for Joe Biden this time around. That this might inspire still more black voters to show up at the polls in January must not have occurred to Perdue and Loeffler. That, or they might be more confident that not as many black voters would go back and vote again.

Looks to me as if their Democratic opponents, Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, get fresh ammunition with which to attack them. Perdue and Loeffler must think they're relatively immune to that.

Not that that matters anymore to the two of them, who interestingly made the accusation together. The next campaign looms, and smearing gets underway. Same game, same tactics. They didn't use the acronym RINO--Republican In Name Only--but I'm quite sure many of their ilk in Georgia could read between the lines.

Raffensperger came up with the perfect response, though. First of all, he said he wasn't going anywhere, so forget it.

Then he added that he was a Republican himself and supported their elections (which runs the risk of pissing off the Democrats again). Then he told them to be about their campaigns. The implication was obvious: I have my job, so let me do it. You have yours, and it seems to me that you have your hands full. Too.

Thus he declared his loyalty, his support, and his competence all in one message. Sounds like a guy who's organized, like a Secretary of State should be, because he's got a big organizing job.

And actually, he made Perdue and Loeffler look, well, not so smart as to attack a fellow Republican. We'll see if any of this backfires. 

This run-off will be an incredible catfight, and prepare for more shenanigans. The control of the U.S. Senate, and the continuance of the shade-throwing of Mitch McConnell, is at stake. The Democrats must go 2-0 in these runoffs in order to bring the balance of Senators to 50-50, with the Democrats gaining control because the tie-breaking vote (according to the Constitution) will belong to incoming Democratic Vice-President Kamala Harris.

That's a heavy lift, say nearly everyone who's observing the situation. It says here that the incumbents, Perdue and Loeffler, haven't done themselves much good so far in taking on Brad Raffensperger, a RINO with soul. We will see.

Be well. Be careful. Wear a mask. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.

Mister Mark

I Was Wrong. I Admit It. I'm So Glad.

Time magazine ran an article last month that focused on the crazy things people were thinking before but connected to the election. One example came from none other than Cedarburg, WI: A pair of women who believed that some kind of plot was brewing beneath the scenes, threatening the children of America.

I wasn't surprised in the least. Cedarburg, for all its glitz and prestige, is a smarmy, smug Republican stronghold. It was the first place that John McCain and the predecessor of all the populist nonsense that we've spent the last four years absorbing, Sarah Palin, campaigned together after the Republican National Convention in 2008. Lest you think that that was a one-off, I remember the high school being sniffed out by dogs for explosives in preparation for an appearance by then-Vice-President George H.W. Bush in 1988 when he campaigned for president.

Cedarburg was, and wants to still be, a proud, staid, no-questions-asked bastion of Republicanism. It tolerated Democrats with a kind of disdain because it overwhelmed them regularly. Beneath it, though, is a veiled contempt.

Another article, this time in the New York Times, spoke to it more strongly. Seems that someone with a Biden for President sign kept getting it taken from his lawn in Grafton, perhaps an even stronger ode to Republicanism, a town just north of Cedarburg, also in Ozaukee County. The report stressed that, if Biden was to take the all-important state of Wisconsin, in fact flip it from what 45 had done in 2016, it wouldn't be flipping the suburbs, since this was an example of that.

Thing is, stealing Democratic yard signs is old hat in Ozaukee County, otherwise one of the richest in the state. I lived in Thiensville, south of Cedarburg, in 1992, and learned that the hard way. I got one, then a second, yard sign stolen, and then put a third in the picture window of my living room to secure it but make sure it still got seen. But that sabotage has been happening for quite some time now--and you notice the Democrats won in 1992 and 1996, anyhow.

But I posted both indicators on Facebook, noting how typical both were. I got immediate pushback from people living in Cedarburg, who pointed out that the two conspiracy theorists weren't the only ones living there. I never said that, I responded (now summarizing), but I taught there for thirty years, and it's not as if I don't know the clientele. I anticipated a typical result: Ozaukee County crashing hard for 45.

Besides, I thought the turnaround would happen much more easily in the Northwest part of the state, which used to be stronger Democratic. I went door-to-door for the Democrats then, and though I was supposed to have the names of friendlies, I ran into the so-called "shy" 45 supporters, who told me to a person that it was none of my business who they were voting for. 

On paper, of course, this is true except: Why would they hesitate if they were proud of who they were supporting? Why be disingenuous if they weren't crossing over? I wasn't there to argue with them. I was there to find out if they were supporting Hillary Clinton. They knew support for 45 was controversial, especially after the Planet Hollywood tape. They didn't want to talk about it.

I was at a Democratic gathering on Election Night in Eau Claire, and we saw, to our chagrin, Wisconsin go for 45. The place cleared out quickly after that. The arguments had already started: Should have been Bernie, some said. It was almost as if Clinton had it coming.

But four years later, I was convinced that those none-of-your-business voters would cross back over, having learned their lesson. I don't know if I was right about that; I haven't been aware of the counts in those counties. But I was wrong about Cedarburg. Whoa, was I ever. Whoa, am I glad.

Cedarburg carried for Joe Biden. By 19 votes. Okay, not a landslide. But someone woke up there. Someone saw the damage 45 was doing. And if that happened there, Ozaukee County, a place Republicans could once absolutely count on, turned enough on them to provide some of the 20,000+ votes for Biden to carry the state. If Ozaukee County, and Cedarburg within it, comes even close for Joe Biden, that's a shaking of the earth.

It happened elsewhere, too. Waukesha County, bunched together with Ozaukee and Washington Counties as being the Republican castle of WOW, polled some 39 percent Democratic votes for Biden--at least four or five percent more than it usually does. (This I got from Larry Nelson, once mayor of Waukesha and a member of the county Board of Supervisors) People underestimate that county in statewide votes. 39 percent isn't 35. That translates into thousands.

So, no: Not everybody in Cedarburg are stone crazy and believes in ridiculous conspiracies. And, if pushed, enough of them returned to logic and decency and science and some kind of an attempt to restore normalcy upon the land. I knew some of those people once upon a time, too. They clearly showed up.

It's nice to be wrong once in a while. It's refreshing. I see a glimmer of a consensus there. It's a place to start.

Be well. Be careful. Wear a mask. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.

Mister Mark

Humility: It's Joe Biden's Hole Card. It Carried Him to the White House.

Joe Biden is long on sincerity and humility. It was close--disappointingly close--but it carried him to the White House.

Hillary Clinton lacked it. As good a politician and as experienced in government as she was, she strutted on the stage not only because she believed she deserved the presidency, but because--not that a whole bunch of people didn't agree with her--the other party's candidate was so bad, so backwards, so clueless, that she already had it won. (Admit it--so did you)

Americans don't like that, especially those who aren't well-to-do. They don't like 'uppity.' They don't appreciate entitlement. They like grounded people. She didn't appear to be grounded. Her rhetoric didn't try to bring them in. Being a woman was, to her, a reason people should vote for her. She overestimated that by several miles.

The smears stuck too well, most of it undeserved, especially in retrospect. James Comey didn't help, either. She didn't grasp the gravity of all that.

She was a class act, but she didn't campaign with the energy others have had. Her campaign didn't appear well organized. There were far fewer yard signs up than in other campaigns. People were worried that Biden didn't carry much enthusiasm with him. It was a far cry from the nose-holding with which many voted for Clinton.

45 came from behind and nipped her, getting in through the back door of the Electoral College. The perfect campaign storm left us with horrible damage, which will continue in its final days.

She called his supporters "deplorable," thus giving them, in irony, another reason to double down on their self-pity and unite around it and him. She did not apologize. It did not imply strength, but instead her own cluelessness. She became a walking insult, ironically, instead of deflecting insults, even though her opponent was the master of insult, making fun of a physically challenged New York Times reporter as well (the hypocrisy of which is well documented and serves as a barrier upon which to find common ground). He got away with it all, including the Planet Hollywood tape. A cult formed around him, which will not be easily muted.

So we have had to endure four terrible years of a terrible president. But someone of decent character, someone of genuine humility because of what he has gone through, will interrupt 45's reign of error (I stole that from education guru Diane Ravitch, who entitled that as one of her books) and replace him.

Joe Biden has already had to bury a wife and two of his kids. Think about that. Think about the heartbreak. We might already have had him as president if his son Beau hadn't succumbed to cancer back in 2015. He was too shattered to mount a presidential run. But he bounced back even from that.

How he stayed in the Senate is beyond me, but he did, for six terms before becoming vice-president. His political experience in Congress will help a great deal as he bargains. The odds still are good that he will have to deal with the obstreperous Mitch McConnell; the undercard will be the Squad and the other Congressional progressives. All will be nipping at his heels. He'll deal with it.

But it's the attitude with which he does it that's going to matter. We're going to get stuff done, he's saying. That's why we're here. It's why, too, that he became the point man when Barack Obama got into tough spots and needed someone that people saw had better legislative chops. (No doubt racism played a part, too.) Consider the recovery package, the ACA, and gun control in the wake of Newtown. Biden played a big role in all three.

Biden began a strange campaign season strangely, almost completely in his basement. 45 wasted no time pointing it out, being recklessly without a mask and catching the virus he was supposed to be leading us out of, but markedly didn't. But Biden never abandoned common sense, never got into the ditch with 45's smearing, and stood up to him on the debate stage. 45's incompetence on the virus gave Biden a perfect single attack venue, and he took advantage of it.

It isn't as if he lacks ego: He tried to get the presidency for the third time. But he's been through so much in politics that beyond 45's expected flailing, he took the rest in stride. He never got too excited. He knew how to handle it, with the benefit of having watched his opponent for four years. He rose above it without arrogance.

But he learned from his mistakes. There were almost none of the expected Biden gaffes. There was no extreme rhetoric. Certainly the door was open for it, but he didn't take the bait. He approached the campaign as he will genuinely try to govern: With the righting of a ship that needs to be steered to calmer waters.

There will not be, at least from him, a government shutdown. There will not be, at least from him, tweets filled with innuendoes, lies, and insults, concocted at 4 a.m. There will be a reading and consideration of morning security briefings. There will not be meetings in which Cabinet appointees act like cowed, fawning toadies, describing what an honor it is to be personally connected to such a great president. 

There will not be blindly obedient, insulting, media-bashing press secretaries; there may even be regularly scheduled briefings. There will not be blatant violations of the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution, in which 45 has made millions just by being able to increase his brand (notice I still call him 45).

There will not be useless briefings on the virus in which the president commands the podium primarily to hear himself talk and look strong when in fact he was weak. Dr. Fauci and the C.D.C. may indeed take over and the administration may actually make its decisions by following science. Talk about entitlement: His kids will not be go-to but vacant people in dealing with foreign leaders.

He will enter government with a list of people to appoint, because filling positions means the government will be staffed with competent people, trained in something close to them--as opposed to 45, who gave away positions as political rewards. There will even be a dog. 

It's refreshing just to write this: He's going to act the way a president should act. You were starting to wonder if you'd ever see that anymore.

President Joe Biden. Sounds good to me. Sounds a whole lot better. He may not be great. But he'll be a president, not a budding autocrat, not a mafia-type don, not a strongman, not an emotional, temper-tossed trainwreck.

Be well. Be careful. Wear a mask. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.

Mister Mark

The Electoral College: Time for An Adjustment--the District Plan

The Electoral College is a weird way of electing a president for the whole country. Increasingly, it has emerged as an albatross. We have to deal with it because it's in our Constitution.

Stephen Sears, of Duke University, supports the present system, though, largely (he says) because of the considerable burden of proof that change would have to have. It hasn't been met, he says. (I heard him say this on one of those taped presentations, with notes in his lap and nearly everyone else eating lunch--a very regular thing in DC--on C-SPAN at 4 a.m., a great conceptual time for insomniacs.)

This election will prove his thinking to be erroneous, it says here. We are careening toward some serious manipulation in the Electoral College results, if the numbers become close. Corruption possibilities cry out for testing. With 45 around, it may easily happen.

Thing is, says Lawrence Lessig of Harvard--a former presidential candidate himself back in '16, though almost no one paid attention--the idea of getting electors to change the votes they have traditionally been assigned to actually cast in a very token way has already happened. The George W. Bush campaign was going to try to do just that in case the 2000 election came in close, which it would have been had Al Gore won Bush v. Gore in the Supreme Court.

Lessig would like to see a proportional representation of the Electoral College in the states. He would assign a percentage of the electoral vote as a reflection of the popular vote to the top two candidates--most likely Republican and Democrat but not always; one recalls George Wallace in 1968 and Ross Perot in 1992. It's like throwing a gossamer thin cover of the popular vote over the country and pretending that the Electoral College still matters, except this would pretty much render it irrelevant. It would carry to the fourth decimal point, and obviously eliminate the need for actual people to actually vote somewhere.

Long, long ago, I read the famous writer James Michener's take on this called Presidential Lottery, written in the wake of the 1968 election, which was nearly thrown into the House of Representatives, very much like this present one might as well, with a 269-269 tie being not unreasonably possible right now. And he did include Lessig's idea. But he also added one that in a small way is being implemented: The so-called District Plan.

That means that presidential elections are largely done by Congressional districts, with the winner of the state's total popular vote taking the two electoral votes representing the Senate seats. That way, the uniqueness of the state as an entity is preserved, but the particular make-up of a district's population is respected, too. It's a balance, like federalism. Kind of what the Founding Fathers had in mind.

Nebraska and Maine are doing this right now, because there's nothing in the Constitution that says how or on what basis electors vote in the Electoral College. As Lessig pointed out, the practice of winner-take-all began in the Jacksonian Era of the 1820s--its process created by the 12th Amendment in 1804 because the Election of 1800 was a complete and utter mess brought on by the unforeseen development of political parties--and has by practice pretty much circumvented actual constitutional replacement ever since. Strange that such an archaic entity has been allowed to remain, except it's always been a pretty heavy lift to amend the Constitution and, as practical people as we are, we've always figured if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

But it is broke. It does not do what it's really supposed to do. As Lessig said, too, 95 percent of all TV ads in a campaign are shown in 'battleground' states, which are sufficiently fickle so a candidate doesn't know which way it will go (Like, of course, Wisconsin. We forget that all states aren't like that.). So they pay attention--lots and lots of attention--to them. You don't see much of any of that in New York, or Virginia, which is now considered safe Democrat. You don't see it in Wyoming, either, where 45 polled 70 percent. But those people are citizens, too. Do you think they would be encouraged, or discouraged, to vote based on this system?

But what do you know, the votes of Maine and Nebraska are split. Nebraska has four Congressional districts. Three voted for 45, one for Biden, and 45, who carried the state, got five electoral votes, Biden one. Maine has three districts. Two voted for Biden, one for 45, Biden carried the state and got four electoral votes, 45 one. That's at least more representative and far more justifiable.

The difference, and a big one, is that electors should be duty-bound to vote the way their district and/or state voted. They would report to the place they've always reported on the date specified, like they always have, but their votes would directly reflect what the people of that location wanted. They can't change their votes because they've lost their temper or be controlled by a caucus leader, as Virginia was by Senator Harry F. Byrd in 1960, when the delegation voted for him instead of the winner of the popular vote, John F. Kennedy. Is it perfect? Of course not. But it's sure a hell of a lot better than what we have.

(You may wonder where the direct popular vote suggestion went. Okay, so if you're Republican, your guy has lost seven of the last eight popular votes. Is that an attractive option? C'mon, now....)

The Supreme Court took half a step there when, in July, it ruled that states may pass laws that lock in electors to vote the way the popular vote went in their respective states. But it did not say they had to. Shenanigans may yet take place if the electoral vote appears close. Remember, 45 is capable of anything.

Most importantly, it's not winner-take-all, in which last time, and possibly this time, the winner of the electoral vote might easily not be the winner of the popular vote. As a whole nation, this is unrepresentative, no matter what Stephen Sears says. We have a minority president, and we may still have one, never mind his awfulness. There is no justification in that. Nobody else gets office who loses the vote.

In the bigger picture, a president who doesn't represent a majority of the people fights for legitimacy, as this one (deservedly) has. George W. Bush, who lost the popular vote by some five hundred thousand, would have, too, if 9-11 hadn't happened (which was on his watch, remember) and the country hadn't congealed around him in panic and fear, to which he responded by encouraging it to go shopping while he invaded Iraq, which had nothing to do with the attack.

Now, tell me: What's wrong with doing it in district style? If Maine and Nebraska have taken it upon themselves to cast their electoral votes in this fashion, other states would do worse than to consider it, too. Not only that, but no constitutional amendment is necessary. They just decided to do it that way. Nobody's won a reversal in court, largely because there's a general consensus that it's a fairer way to do things. There's an underpinning about that that if given the chance, we really would dispense with the whole thing. If it was that important, it would have been challenged and might have lost. But it wasn't.

Of course, there's territory to be protected, so state legislatures, especially the larger ones, would balk at such a change, thus ending its reliability to one party or another. California would lose its incredible power with its 55 electoral votes coming all in a block. But so would Texas, with its 38, and Florida, with its 29. But outside of primaries, campaigns don't go to California anymore, either, nor have for quite some time. 

Biden toyed with visits to Texas and Florida, but backed away. His polling, which appears to have been far more accurate, must have shown that it would be futile. Especially in this time of pandemic, it was better not to waste visits.

His campaign gained with the saving of resources that he can now pour into 45's court challenges (also necessitated by the Electoral College), but the people of those two states lost a glimpse of him. They were cheated. It isn't right.

Of course, if you open up the necessity of campaigns to more visits to more states, you also make it necessary to spend much, much more money (which I used for quite some time to justify the Electoral College, higgledy-piggledy, but--I'll put it like a politician--I've evolved on the topic). That makes Citizens United almost necessary then, too, with its permission to provide nearly bottomless pockets by interest groups who put on attack ads (Anybody notice that in Wisconsin?). But increased federal funding might also be justifiable: If you want to see them, then pay for it.

We are weighed down by this system, though. It does not serve the nation well. It does not encourage policy for the whole country, says Lessig, but policy and rhetoric for the 'battleground' states only. 

He's right. They are largely industrial states where coal mining, a growing dinosaur, continues to flourish and discourage change. Solar and wind power can help enormously, but we aren't milking those sources nearly enough. You don't have to drill into the earth and disrupt the countryside to take advantage of them. All you have to do is walk outside. The costs are only positive. You wreck nothing. You endanger no one.

We must change this system, which has long ago fixed a glaring new problem. It was invented when the nation was a much, much different place, much less diverse and needing to kow-tow to Southern, slave-holding states who wanted a more or less equivalent say in the proceedings (and was tied to the Three-Fifths Compromise, for which a civil war was fought). 

That time is long gone. Originalists in their bow-ties and rubber-chicken lunches of the Federalist Society (at which the above conversation took place on January 4, pre-pandemic, and doesn't that seem like a light-year away) can huff at attempts to brush off cobwebs, but the rest of us go, Huh? Really? You really think this works?

Those who wish to turn the clock back have, for the moment, control over the federal judiciary, which I predict will be a growing problem as we move through this century, and chortle at those who want government to do what it's supposed to do--take care of its people. All of the people. Everywhere. 

Power, husbanded for its own sake (45 not being the only one; he's merely shameless), will backfire. This may be the moment of truth. Meanwhile, we await the vote count and all the machinations to follow, all because of the Electoral College. Meanwhile, Joe Biden's three and a half million vote lead keeps growing.

Be well. Be careful. Wear a mask. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.

Mister Mark