How will we explain this chapter of American history to the next generation?

By Mark | November 28, 2020

Everyone suspects that, in the wake of the Thanksgiving weekend, things will get a whole lot worse on the COVID-19 front. And things are already really, really bad. [Ted Cruz was apparently wrong when he told us that we’d never hear another thing about COVID-19 after the election.] As of right now, about 90,000 Americans are hospitalized with the deadly respiratory disease that Donald Trump assured us would magically “disappear.” And, yesterday, another 1,364 lost their lives, bringing the total number of dead in the United States to about 271,026. According to statistical modeling recently shared by the CDC, that number could reach 321,000 by December 19. [If this rate were to continue, we’d likely surpass 407,316 — the number of American service members who died in World War II — by early January.] I haven’t looked at the Michigan-specific numbers yet, but it looks as though roughly 1 out of every 850 North Dakotans are already dead from COVID-19.

I wonder how those of us who survive will explain this unprecedented chapter in American history to our grandchildren. I tried this morning, as a kind of mental exercise. I put myself in the position of someone 25 years or so from now trying to succinctly explain what we’re presently experiencing to a child. And it’s not easy. I’d encourage you to give it a shot. How do you explain, among other things, how it came to be that wearing of masks was politicized? How do you explain, so that a child could understand it, the fact that the Post Office was stopped by the White House from distributing masks early in the pandemic?

It just sounds so crazy when you try to articulate it. I mean, I can explain populism, and how it came to be that, during a period of great change and fear, we elected a man for office who offered easy answers to the various, very complicated challenges we faced. And I can explain the racist strategies of the Republican Party, and the extensive damage done by Fox News, that laid the groundwork for what was to follow. I can explain how it came to be that global infectious disease early warning programs were defunded in order to further slash taxes for the wealthy. I can even explain how it was that we got ourselves into a position where the narcissistic sociopath that we’d elected came to declare a deadly pandemic a “hoax,” as he felt that doing otherwise would be admitting failure. But how do you explain how it came to be that at entire political party, and some 40% of the American people, went along with it, actually mocking those who wore masks, even as the death rates soared? How do you explain the mass insanity and cognitive dissonance that made it possible for people to demand that their states be “reopened,” even as we were seeing mobile morgues and mass graves spread across the country? And how to we do it in such a way as to ensure that nothing like this ever happens again?

[A larger version of the image at the top of this post, from the COVID Tracking Project, can be found here.

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Happy Thanksgiving

By Mark | November 25, 2020

A few years ago, I made the decision not to write anything new for Thanksgiving, but, instead, to recycle something that I’d written the year before. And, ever since then, I’ve been posting the same damn thing. Well, here it is again. I was tempted to remove some of the old references, and replace them with new ones, but it occurred to me that altering this post, which is fast becoming a holiday classic, would be like changing It’s A Wonderful Life so that Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed dabbed or flossed instead of dancing the Charleston in that scene that takes place over their high school pool. So, with that in mind, here it is, untouched… Enjoy….

macy11turkey

This Thanksgiving morning I’m tempted to get political and say that I’m thankful above all else for the fact that a majority of Americans still feel as though Sarah Palin is unfit to serve as President, and that former U.S. House majority leader Tom DeLay was found guilty yesterday of money laundering. But, I’m trying to think less about politics today, and the swirling gyre of weaponized stupidity that is the Tea Party, and focus instead on friends and family. I probably don’t say it here as often as I should, but I’m incredibly thankful for both. Without my family, I wouldn’t be here. And, without my friends, I wouldn’t be the person that am today… Sure, I might be a better, more successful and more productive version of myself without them, but I wouldn’t be the person that I am today. So, before I get started with this post, I’d just like to note that I’m incredibly thankful for everyone that I’m related to, from my grandmother in Kentucky, to my daughter, who is now in the other room, looking at our enormous turkey through the little glass porthole in the oven. There have been some bad times, and we’ve lost some people over the years, but, all in all, I’d say that we’ve been really fortunate as a family. As far as I know, all of us that are alive at the moment are healthy, happy, employed and have roofs over our heads, which is quite an accomplishment in today’s world. As for friends, the same, for the most part, goes for them. A few are temporarily without partners or between jobs, but, as far as I know, the people in my friendship network (“tribe” sounded too new age) are doing pretty well, and I’m thankful for that. But, what I want to write about today are a few of the less obvious things that I’m thankful for – things that I don’t think I’ve ever shared with you before.

I’m thankful that my friends Dan and Matt, when they’d graduated from college, moved to Ann Arbor to live with me. If they hadn’t, I might never have had the misdirected encouragement I needed to start a band. And, if the three of us hadn’t formed a band, I probably wouldn’t have ever ventured into Ypsilanti, where I met my wife, Linette. There are others that played a role as well, like Ward Tomich, who booked us to play at Cross Street Station that fateful night. Without all of these folks, I’d likely be living alone in the forest today, sucking nutrients from moss-covered rocks.

I’m thankful for the car crash that my dad had in the late 60’s, which almost tore his arm from his body. If it hadn’t happened, my dad surely would shipped off to fight in Vietnam, with the other men that he’d been training with. Of the dozen or so men in his group, only two returned alive. I cannot imagine growing up without my father.

I’m thankful that my mother encouraged my father to apply for job at AT&T after he was released from the Navy. (He worked at the Portsmouth Naval Hospital after recovering from his accident.) He’d been working highway construction jobs when she talked him into applying for a position at a remote audio relay station of some kind near Monticello, Kentucky. He got that job, flipping switches and listening in on people’s private phone calls, and the rest is history. He steadily climbed up through the ranks, ending his career at the company headquarters in New Jersey – probably one of the few people without a college degree to do so. If this hadn’t happened, I would likely still be in the same small town in Kentucky today, instead of in the worldly, sophisticated metropolis of Ypsilanti, Michigan.

While my parents never graduated from college, they did both attend classes as they could, which wasn’t easy with full-time jobs and two kids to raise. I remember pretty clearly my mom studying Spanish late at night at the kitchen table. And I remember them proof-reading class assignments for one another. It made an impression on me, and I’m forever thankful for it. It’ll probably make my mom cry to hear it, but I’m also thankful that they stopped taking me to church at a young age.

I’m thankful that my parents valued education enough to settle our family in a decent school district, instead of closer to where my father was going to be working. My dad, most days, left for work at 5:00 AM to catch the bus, and didn’t return until 7:00 PM or so at night. He did that for over a dozen years straight, and, because of that, I got to attend a great public school, where I met people like Dan and Matt – the guys I mentioned above who moved to Ann Arbor to make noise, drink $1 pitchers of beer, and publish zines with me.

Speaking of sacrifice, I’m also thankful that my distant relatives made the decision to come to America when they did. They did so without knowing if they’d ever see their homelands again. They left everything they knew in England, Sweden, Scotland, and Poland in order to make a better life for their families. And, it’s because of their sacrifices that I’m here today, not having to work in the fields from sun up to sun down as they did.

Oh, and I’m thankful that, of all the mental illnesses in the world, I got OCD, which kind of has its up-side.

OK, there’a whole lot more I’d like to say, but that’ll have to be it for now, as the buzzer on the oven is ringing.

Happy holidays.

[note: The image at the top of the post, if I remember correctly, is from the first Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade. If I had to guess, I’d say that the balloon was supposed to depict a kind of turkey-mosquito hybrid that plagued the United States at the time.]

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Will Republicans, in service of Donald Trump, attempt to delay the certification of Michigan’s election?

By Mark | November 22, 2020

Michigan’s election results are supposed to be certified tomorrow, but there’s some doubt as to whether or not it’ll actually happen. It appears as if, even though every individual county has certified their election results, and no actual evidence of election fraud has been offered, the two Republicans on the State Board of Canvassers may vote against certification. The following background comes by way of today’s New York Times.

The country is coming to a crossroads on Monday. That’s the date Michigan is to certify the results of the 2020 election. Yet President Trump has chosen a state he lost by more than 150,000 votes — more than 14 times the size of his 2016 victory in Michigan — to try to subvert the election.

Having failed in the courts, President Trump is now grasping at a new lifeline: pressuring Republican election officials and legislators to ignore the reality that Joe Biden legitimately won the popular vote in their states. This tactic, now being played out in Michigan, is no doubt sending the anxiety levels of Biden supporters back to where they were before the courts had calmed these efforts by exposing how empty most of the legal claims were.

But this tactic, too, is destined to fail — though it is toxic for the country’s politics.

Michigan has an unusual system for certifying vote totals. In many states, a single actor, the governor or secretary of state, has the final authority to certify the winner of an election. But Michigan employs four-member canvassing boards, first at the county level — which is now complete — and then at the statewide level. These boards, including the statewide canvassing board that meets Monday, include two Democrats and two Republicans. The governor appoints them, with the Senate’s consent. This structure was designed to provide checks against partisan manipulation of the certification process. But the president is hoping to get the two Republicans on the board to refuse to certify, thus blocking certification…

The two Republicans on the State Board of Canvassers are Aaron Van Langevelde and Norman Shinkle, and it sounds as though Shinkle has already decided to vote against certification. According to Republican Representative Paul Mitchell, Shinkle intends to vote against certification not because any evidence of wrongdoing has been brought to his attention, but because some Republicans, like Laura Cox, the head of the Michigan GOP, want to delay Biden’t being officially named President-elect for political reasons, even if the delay will cost lives and harm the country. The following is from CNN’s Jake Tapper.

As for what Trump’s end game might be, some think that he believes there may be an opportunity to have Michigan legislators intercede on his behalf, if the election isn’t certified, and appoint electors who would cast their ballots against against Biden, even though he won the state by over 154,000 votes. [It’s worth pointing out again that this is more than 14 times the number of votes that Trump won the state by in 2016.] And that, many suspect, is why Trump called Republican leaders from the Michigan legislature to DC a few days ago. Here’s one of those legislators, Lee Chatfield, being interviewed today, and noting that, if the State Board of Canvassers have a deadlock, the legislature will appoint electors. [It looks as though Chaterfield and Representative Jim Lilly were wined and dined at the Trump Hotel in DC after their meeting with the President.]

If you read the New York Times article linked to above, you might feel a little better about what’s happening. They don’t think this desperate gambit of Trump’s has a shot. As Pod Save America’s Jon Favreau said today on Twitter, if the two Republican members of the State Board of Canvassers refuse to certify the election, the Democrats can either “seek a court order to certify, which the courts have granted in the past,” or “Whitmer can replace the Republican board members who are refusing to do their jobs.” The Republicans, of course, will claim that an audit of the vote needs to be done, and that a delay is necessary to look into the as-yet-unsubstantiated claims raised by the Trump team, but the law is pretty clear that an audit can’t be performed until the election is certified. So now I guess we just wait and see to what extent Aaron Van Langevelde and Norman Shinkle feel comfortable participating in a blatant coup attempt.

update: Today’s Detroit Free Press has an editorial by two law school professors. The title of the piece is, Refusing to Certify Legitimate Votes is a Felony. One hopes that Aaron Van Langevelde and Norman Shinkle read it before casting their votes this afternoon. Here’s how the editorial begins.

The people have spoken. They delivered Joe Biden a decisive electoral victory, including a 150,000-vote margin in Michigan. Yet Republican Party officials have asked the Michigan Board of State Canvassers to delay certification on Monday. These calls follow last week’s tumultuous Wayne County meeting where, after improper interference by a candidate, Republican appointees tried to recant their decision to certify.

This is unduly chaotic, but we shouldn’t bet against democracy. A canvassing board may not legally refuse to certify an election where no legitimate evidence undermines valid ballots. Michigan courts have repeatedly rejected wild claims of election fraud or improprieties as “incorrect and not credible.” The votes, at this point, speak for themselves. Should a member of the state canvassing board seek to misuse their authority, that obstruction won’t actually deliver a different result. First, understand what state canvassers do: certification just involves adding county tallies and declaring a winner. Michigan law provides a separate space to review the election process — a post-election audit, which does not delay or stop certification. The canvassers have one job. State courts can step in to make sure it gets done. Canvassers failing to do their duty may delay the inevitable for a moment — but not much more than that…

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This day in treason

By Mark | November 19, 2020

With the Georgia election having just been certified, there’s really no path forward for Trump at this point. Biden has him beat in too many states, and by too wide of a margin, to make stealing the election feasible. Despite his efforts, Biden’s victories are being certified, and Trump’s laughable legal challenges are being thrown out of court left an right. But yet Trump persists, refusing the concede, and spreading lies about how, had it not been for widespread election fraud, he would have won. As for why Trump has decided to go out of office like this, it seems as though it’s part of a deliberate strategy. A Republican official told CNN yesterday that the administration’s goal is “to set so many fires that it will be hard for the Biden administration to put them all out.” [This sounds like treason, doesn’t it?] But maybe Trump still thinks that he can pull off a coup, if he can just coerce enough electors to violate their oaths and support him over Biden when the electoral college convenes in December. According to the Washington Post, Rudy Giuliani, who is overseeing Trump’s response to the election, has been telling people that’s their plan. Their goal, according to Giuliani, is to “pressure GOP lawmakers & officials across the political map to stall the vote certification in an effort to have Republican lawmakers pick electors and disrupt the electoral college.” Once can’t imagine they think they have a legitimate shot at keeping Biden out of the White House, but maybe, as we’ve discussed before, they just want to sow enough doubt in people’s minds that it undermines the Biden administration the same way the vile lie of “birtherism” undermined that of Barack Obama.

And, yes, it’s dangerous as fuck. As Hawaii Senator Brian Schatz said earlier today, we’re watching a “coup” attempt in real time, as Trump and his people are “trying to overturn a free, fair election.” It’s gotten so bad, in fact, that even Mitt Romney can see what’s happening.

As for the pressuring state and local officials, it seems to be happening close to home, here in Michigan. Today word came out that Trump had invited Michigan Republicans to the White House before the Monday deadline to certify our election results. As Harvard Law Professor Lawrence Tribe said earlier this evening, this isn’t a simple “meet and greet” with the President. This is “a meeting to implement a White House plot to steal Michigan’s 16 electoral votes, a criminal conspiracy.”

Michigan Senate leader Mike Shirkey, a Republican, is on record saying, “That’s not going to happen,” when asked about the possibility that Republicans might try to appoint their own slate of electors rather respect the will of Michiganders, who made it clear that they preferred Biden over Trump. But yet here we are, talking about the possibility that Shirkey might be heading into a meeting with Trump where — according to Politico — “the likely agenda involves the felony of attempting to bribe a public official.” As NBC’s Heidi Przybyla points out here, with a quote from Michigan Secretary of State spokesperson Tracy Wimmer, this isn’t how any of this is supposed to work.

It’s worth noting that the Trump campaign, while still alleging election fraud in Michigan, today dropped their court case in the state. When asked earlier today why they never came forward with evidence of fraud, when they claimed to have a great deal of it, Rudy Giuliani, who’s hair dye was running down his face, said that he didn’t want his witnesses exposed to the press. He also said something about Michigan’s ballots being sent to Germany to be counted by a company sympathetic to Venezuela, which is a new, absolutely bonkers conspiracy theory that I wasn’t even aware of. Here with more background on this new fever dream of a theory is female Rudy Giuliani impersonator Sidney Powell.

None of this is even remotely normal. Trump got his ass kicked in the presidential election, and, instead of conceding, said that he won. Now, without offering any evidence to support the claim, his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani is talking about a “massive attack” on our electoral system, and how the FBI should be rounding people up. And Maggie Haberman at the New York Times is reporting that, while Republican leaders are finding all of this incredibly troublesome, they’re hopeful that Trump will eventually do the right thing, in spite of everything we’ve seen from him over the past several years, which would indicate that he’ll do the exact opposite.

I could go on forever, but I’m fucking exhausted. You’re on your own.

Oh, one last thing. As for why the likes of Giuliani and Bannon might be fighting so hard to illegally intend the term of Donald Trump, here’s something to consider from Marcy Wheeler.

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Donald Trump fires the head of the Department of Homeland Security’s cybersecurity agency for telling the truth and saying that there was no election fraud

By Mark | November 17, 2020

Five days ago, in response to repeated, unverified claims of election fraud, Chris Krebs, the Trump -appointed director of the Department of Homeland Security’s cybersecurity agency, issued a statement declaring definitely, “There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.” The official Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency statement which Krebs authored — which was cosigned by the presidents of the National Association of Secretaries of State and the National Association of State Election Directors, among others — went on to refer to our recent election as, “the most secure in American history.” You can read the full statement here.

And here’s the response from Donald “I Won the Election” Trump, who today fired Krebs, saying that the above statement about the integrity of our electoral system was “highly inaccurate.”

It should be noted that Donald Trump, for all of his talk about election fraud, has yet to come forward with any actual examples. It’s now been two weeks since the election, and Trump’s personal attorney is still saying that, while he has evidence of fraud, he’s not yet able to share it. [You would think that, if they had actual evidence, they would have bought it to the table before all of the states certified their election results, right? Well, the fact that they didn’t, I think, tells you everything you need to know about their so-called evidence. There is none, and never was. And that’s why all of their court filings are being thrown out across the country.]

This, of course, is extremely dangerous. The President of the United States is attempting to steal the election, claiming that he would have won if not for rampant fraud across a series of states — states which, by the way, are predominantly controlled by Republicans. As you’ll recall, he did the same thing in 2016, when he lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton. He declared that millions of people had voted illegally for her, and that, if not for this fact, he would have had more votes that her. He created a commission to look into it, and, surprising no one, the group didn’t discover any evidence of significant, coordinated fraud, and quietly disbanded. And the same thing is happening here. Only, this time, it appears as though more Republicans are willing to go along with the dangerous charade.

Here in Michigan we have Monica Palmer and William Hartmann, Republican members of the Wayne County Board of Canvassers, who have refused to certify the election results in the heavily Democratic Detroit, in what Governor Whitmer has called, “a blatant attempt to undermine the will of the voters.” And, in Georgia, we have Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger saying that Lindsey Graham, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, pressured him to toss out legal ballots in certain counties in hopes that it might help trump’s chances. This, my friends, is what real election fraud looks like.

I’m confident that justice will prevail, and that Biden will take office in January, but it amazes me that so many people are still willing not just to humor Donald Trump, but to actively aid him in his attempt to cheat his way into a second term.

update: It turns out that the people of Wayne County weren’t too happy about not having their votes counted. They pushed back hard, and the results of the election were eventually certified. And, with that, Joe Biden has officially won Michigan.

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