Author: A.T.

I’m on a train someplace.  But . . .

Watch Eric Swalwell school former assistant wrestling coach Jim Jordan.

Have a great weekend.

Four reasons:    

1. Sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds may not be as wise as 80-year-olds . . . but they have a whole lot more at stake.  Elections today will impact their lives for the next 70+ years. 

2. Giving them the right – and responsibility – to vote is the best civics lesson I can think of.  A reason to get involved, debates the issues, then have their say.

3. They can handle it, just as they can handle driving.  Young voters may come to regret some of their early votes as they get older, just as young drivers have more than their share of accidents.  But allowing 16- and 17-year-olds to vote will injure NO ONE — and only add a shot of youthful vitality to our shared democracy. 

4. Lowering the voting age will help Democrats win.  That’s because our views on climate, equality, reproductive freedom, and sensible gun safety, to name just four – and on democracy itself, to name a fifth – have strong appeal to the young.

 The 26^th Amendment required all states to lower the voting age to 18 but in no way prevented them from going further.

Republicans will presumably seek to block any such effort wherever they can.

But maybe not.

Doing so would send a clear message to young people — of every age — that it is Democrats who share their values; Republicans who hope they won’t vote.

But in any case, there are 17 “trifecta” Democratic states — including the swing state of Michigan — where it should be possible.  There are more than 8 million 16- and 17-year-olds in America, roughly 42% of them in those trifecta states.  If a third decided to register and vote for a brighter future, those million extra votes could make all the difference.

There is a wrinkle in this called Oregon v. Mitchell.

Some believe the Court’s 1970 5-4 ruling gave Congress sole authority over the voting age in Federal elections.

So, yes, once a state did lower its voting age, it’s possible our friends across the aisle would challenge it in Court.

But — again — maybe not.

Do they really want to tell 16- and 17-year-olds that the elderly can have a say in their future, but that they themselves can’t?  That they can work in life-and-death situations as EMTs and lifeguards — and shoulder the responsibility of driving cars – or even be poll workers, for heaven’s sake — but not vote?

But let’s assume they do — That they challenge our new law and that the case ultimately winds up, as it surely would, before the Supreme Court.

This is the Court that believes deeply in states’ rights.

That’s how they justified overturning the 5-4 Roe v. Wade decision, which had been settled law since 1973 and which had been upheld 6-3 in 1992.  State’s rights.

So it’s quite possible that they would look at Oregon v. Mitchell – an even older 5-4 ruling – and decide that case was wrongly decided, too. That states should be allowed to set voting ages not JUST for state and local elections (as everyone agrees they already can and do) but for federal elections as well.

Or, consistency be damned, the Court might rule that only Congress can lower a state’s voting age, even though that’s nowhere stated or even really hinted at in the 26th Amendment.

We’re STILL not out of the game because at that point Congress could decide it’s time to lower the age as it did in 1970.

I think every governor in the country — and certainly every Democratic governor — should consider working with her or his legislature to get this done.

If the Republicans manage to block it, we won’t get any 16- and 17-year-old votes.  But it could help us win the support of their older brothers and sisters.

And those 16- and 17-year-olds won’t stay 16 or 17 for long.

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Four days ago, Vice President Kamala Harris kicked off a month-long tour of college campuses to mobilize younger voters to “fight for our freedoms” . . .

Harris told a cheering, overflow audience at the Reading Area Community College that voting “determines whether the person who is holding elected office is going to fight for your freedoms and rights or not. Whether that be the freedom that you should have to just be free from attack, free from hate, free from gun violence, free from bias, free to love who you love and be open about it, free to have access to the ballot box without people obstructing your ability to exercise your civic right to vote, in terms of who will be the people holding elected office and leading your country.” — Heather Cox Richardson

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The youth vote has been surpassing expectations.  I think that will continue.  They see what’s at stake.  We’re gonna win.

To help, click here.

Monday I got to attend BROADWAY FOR BIDEN.  We raised a bunch of money and had a great time.  The President was terrific.  Funny and powerful.  My favorite story was about how he and Jill used to take their little boys, Beau and Hunter, up to New York twice a year and see a show.  One time they took them to see Bette Midler.  As many of you know, Ms. Midler is rated R.  She apparently spotted the boys, pointed at them, and  asked the audience, “What kind of parents would take their kids to a show like this?!”

He also referred to himself at one point as being 800 years old, which I think is good.  He should lean into it, because, yes, he and we all wish he were younger, but with that age come tremendous experience, judgement, and the respect of the world.

I got to have a long lunch with Warren Buffett five years ago.  He wasn’t doing jumping jacks; he was 88.  But I wouldn’t have done badly owning Berkshire Hathaway these past five years.

The President will pass the torch to a new generation in 2028.  But in the meantime, the torch largely has been passed — to his 4,000 appointees, almost all of them one and two generations younger.  That’s where the calisthenics are performed.

In the meantime, he’s been delivering Berkshire-like results.

JOKE #1 – George Santos: it’s so fun to read his resume.

JOKE #2 – Moralizer and, at 36, soon-to-be grandmother Lauren Boebert: at the theater.  (Bush ethics czar wonders: what was in that vape?)

JOKE #3 – Medal-of-Freedom recipient (a joke all by itself), subpoena defier, and former wrestling coach Jim Jordan: never said the election was stolen and never knew about the sexual abuse.

There have been so many competent, honorable, admirable Republicans at every level of government over the course of our history, not least among them Mitt Romney and Liz Cheney.  It was once the “Grand Old Party.” 

Now, led by a megalomaniacal pathological liar out for “vengeance” and “retribution” — an authoritarian who admires Putin and exchanges love letters with Kim — it has entirely lost its way and its soul.  “No joke,” as our President would say.

Trump Is Explaining Exactly How Wild And Extreme His Second Term Would Be

In case you can help, click here.

Red, White, and Royal Blue is yours free if you have Amazon Prime.  Fun.

Not free, especially if you like popcorn — and not exactly fun, but ten stars out of ten — is Oppenheimer, which you’ve probably already seen but that I just saw yesterday.  So worth the time.

As you may have read, CREW is suing in Colorado to keep Trump off the ballot:

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Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, also known as the Disqualification Clause, bars any person from holding federal or state office who took an “oath…to support the Constitution of the United States” and then has “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”

On January 20, 2017, Donald Trump stood before the nation and took an oath to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” After losing the 2020 presidential election, Donald Trump violated that oath by recruiting, inciting and encouraging a violent mob that attacked the Capitol on January 6, 2021 in a futile attempt to remain in office.

“If the very fabric of our democracy is to hold, we must ensure that the Constitution is enforced and the same people who attacked our democratic system not be put in charge of it,” CREW President Noah Bookbinder said. . . .

. . . [L]ast year CREW represented residents of New Mexico who sued to remove county commissioner Couy Griffin from office, the only successful case to be brought under Section 3 since 1869. The judge in that case determined January 6th was an insurrection under the Constitution and that someone who helped to incite it–even if not personally violent–had engaged in insurrection and was disqualified from office.

“Spending 19 years as a state legislator and serving in leadership gave me the opportunity to work across the aisle and to always work to protect the freedoms our Constitution has given us as citizens,” said former [Republican] Colorado Senate Majority leader Norma Anderson. “I am proud to continue that work by bringing this lawsuit . . . ”

“In my decade of service in the House of Representatives, I certified multiple presidential elections and saw firsthand the importance of ethics, the rule of law and the peaceful transfer of power in our democracy,” said former Republican member of Congress Claudine Schneider. “This lawsuit is crucial to protecting and fortifying those fundamental democratic values, and I’m honored to be a part of it.”

While the stakes surrounding Donald Trump’s disqualification in Colorado are greater than in the Griffin case, the law and many underlying facts are the same. Based on its laws, the calendar, and our courageous set of plaintiffs and witnesses, Colorado is a good venue to bring this first case, but it will not be the last.

“As a longtime Republican who voted for him, I believe Donald Trump disqualified himself from running in 2024 by spreading lies, vilifying election workers, and fomenting an attack on the Capitol,” said conservative columnist for the Denver Post and Republican activist Krista Kafer. “Those who by force and by falsehood subvert democracy are unfit to participate in it. That’s why I am part of this lawsuit to prevent an insurrectionist from appearing on Colorado’s ballot.”

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I think CREW will win; and that when it gets to the Supreme Court, at least five Justices will vote to affirm.

Those who say the Court shouldn’t decide whether he can be president, the people should, may be forgetting that the people did, by a margin of 7 million; but that he refused to accept their verdict and, instead, conspired to overthrow it.  Why do they think he would accept it this time?

Those who say knocking Trump off the ballot will make it harder for Democrats next year are probably right — but we’ll just have to win anyway.  And I think we will.

Have a great weekend!

Yesterday’s The Daily about the 100,000+ immigrants who’ve flooded New York brought home what a human tragedy / political nightmare this all is and how skillfully the MAGA Republicans are exploiting it.

Even before MAGA — way back in 2013 — Republicans blocked bipartisan Comprehensive Immigration Reform.

It had passed the Senate 68-32.

A wide majority in the House was on board.

Obama was eager to sign.

(Here is a really good narrative about what it would have achieved; its widespread conservative support; and why the House Republicans blocked it.)

Had the Hastert rule not been invoked (named after later-imprisoned Republican House Speaker Dennis Hastert), the bill would have become law.

None of this is new.

Nearly two million Irish arrived in the 1840s to escape starvation (U.S. population at the time: 20 million.)

It led to formation of the Know Nothing Party (sound familiar?) — and to violence.

Quoting from the previously-recommended The Hard Hat Riot: Nixon, New York City, and the Dawn of the White Working-Class Revolution:

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In 1850s New York City, nine in ten laborers and seven in ten domestic servants were Irish-born. The majority of the city‘s poorhouse, as in Philadelphia and Boston, were Irish as well.…  In 1844 Philadelphia, a Protestant mob killed fourteen. In 1855 Louisville, an anti-Catholic riot murdered at least twenty. Still they came.  By 1860, New York City’s, Irish population exceeded Dublin‘s. At least one in four New Yorkers and Bostonians was Irish born.

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There are those who would say that — bad as we would surely have felt for the starving Irish — we should have let them starve.

We can’t solve all the world’s problems.

If we allowed open borders (which we clearly do not, and which no elected Democrat advocates), we would be overwhelmed.

What made it worse in the 1840s is that the U.S. was mired in a depression that lasted halfway through the decade.

And yet they came, were allowed to stay, and the U.S. is arguably the better for it.

House speaker Kevin McCarthy and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, both with Irish roots, likely think so.  (And don’t forget: there’s no one as Irish as Barack Obama!)

It’s in our interest to do more to address the conditions in countries from which people flee, so fewer do.

And it’s in our interest to agree on a sensible system of legal immigration — and enforce it.

Fareed Zakaria asserts this can be done:

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Immigration can be fixed.  So why aren’t we doing it?

In May, it seemed obvious that the United States was going to face an unmanageable border crisis. . . .

. . . In fact, as it turned out, there was no crisis.

The number of encounters with migrants at the southern border actually dropped by a third [after the COVID rule expired] . . .

It seems that the Biden administration’s plan worked. It put in place a series of measures designed to deal with the impending problem, chiefly a stiff penalty for crossing the border illegally (deportation plus a five-year ban on any reentry), coupled with expanding ways to apply for legal asylum in the migrant’s home country. It was a welcome case of well-designed policy making a difference.

But this success does not change the fact that the U.S. immigration system is broken. . . .

The migration crisis is being exacerbated by politics on both sides.

The MAGA right, of course, demonizes migrants and asylum seekers and prefers no solution because a crisis helps it politically.

But the far left routinely attacks any sensible measures aimed at curbing the influx as cruel, inhumane and illegal. . . .

The laws and rules around asylum must be fixed so that immigration authorities can focus on the small number of genuine asylum seekers while compelling the rest to seek other legal means of entry. At the same time, it’s important to note that the United States is facing a drastic shortfall of labor and must expand legal immigration in many areas for just that reason. We urgently need to attract the world’s best technically skilled people so that they can push forward the information and biotech revolutions that are transforming the economy and life itself. With unemployment rates around 50-year lows, it is obvious that we need more workers in many sectors of the economy, from agriculture to hospitality. If this is done in a legal and orderly manner, Americans will welcome the new workers.

Biden has tried to work with Republicans on several issues, and he has even had a few successes. He should propose an immigration bill that is genuinely bipartisan and forces compromises from both sides. It would be one more strong dose of evidence that policy can triumph over populism.

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Amen.