Author: A.T.

. . . you’ll have the choice of watching the first Republican debate or else Trump being interviewed by Tucker Carlson.

(Details of all that here.)

Carlson, you may recall, texted colleagues such things as:

• “I hate him passionately.”
• “He’s a demonic force, a destroyer.”
• “All [his businesses] fail. What he’s good at is destroying things. He’s the undisputed world champion of that.”
• “We are very, very close to being able to ignore Trump most nights. I truly can’t wait.”

For your pre-game entertainment, I commend to you 21 Minutes of Tucker Carlson on Comedy Central.

I cede the balance of my time.

So asks William Weir, who describes himself as “a life-long southerner, devout Christian, and a true conservative.”

His answer, posted August 5, may surprise you:

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No. You’re thinking of Republicans. But let’s test. I’m going to throw out some basic facts, and we’ll see who gets offended. Let’s begin.

• Over the last fifty years, every Republican President has seen a recession, while we have had only one recession begin under a Democrat, a short six month recession under Carter.

• Over the last forty years every Republican President has created a deficit at least double the previous record. Over that same time, every Democratic President (including already Biden) has cut the deficit by half or more.

• The last three Democratic Presidents (including Biden) have all seen unemployment effectively cut in half. The last two Republicans both saw it effectively double.

• Over the last fifty years, despite holding the Presidency for only 22 years compared to Republicans holding it 28, stock market return has been just over 100% under Republicans and just shy of 1,000% under Democrats. Over 42 million jobs have been created under Democrats compared to only 24 million under Republicans. Income growth averaged 2.2% under Democrats compared to 0.6% under Republicans. GDP growth averaged 4.1% under Democrats compared to 2.7% under Republicans.

• Going back to Truman, four of the five Presidents who have seen the largest increase in domestic oil production were Democrats (with Trump scoring the number five spot and Obama placing first). Only six Presidents over that time have seen domestic oil production fall, and five of them were Republicans.

• Since 1980, The abortion rate held steady under Reagan, Bush 41 and Bush 43. It fell under both Clinton and Obama, and under Trump rose for the first time since the 1970’s.

• Since the Nixon Administration, 338 members of Presidential administrations have been indicted on criminal charges. Three of these were in Democratic administrations, 335 were in Republican administrations.

• In the last century, only two Presidents have lost jobs during their administrations, both Republicans (Hoover and Trump)

• Over the last 80 years, five of the six Presidents with the highest job creation were Democrats, with only Reagan making the list. (Current rankings are Clinton, Reagan, Biden, Obama, Johnson, and Carter, with Biden likely to move into second place before the end of his first term.)

• Ten of the eleven safest states in the Union are blue or lean blue with Utah the only red state. Fifteen of the sixteen least safe states are red, with Georgia being the only non-red state in that mix (and until recently we would have considered Georgia a red state). (Scores based on a combination of personal safety, road safety, financial safety, and emergency preparedness.)

• Four of the five states with the highest poverty rate are deep red (New Mexico being the only blue state). Four of the five states with the lowest poverty rates are blue or lean blue, with Utah the only red state.

• The five states with the best education are all blue. Four of the five states with the worst education are deep red, with New Mexico the only blue state.

• Four of the five states with the highest incarceration rates are deep red, with Delaware the only blue state. Four of the five with the lowest incarceration rates are blue or lean blue with North Dakota the only red state.

• The ten states with a the best healthcare are all blue. The five states with the worst healthcare are all red. In fact ten of the bottom eleven are all red with Georgia being the only exception.

• Eight of the ten states that pay the highest Federal income tax per capita are blue. (That’s per capita, so population isn’t a factor.) Eight of the ten states who rely most on Federal funding are red.

• The five states with the highest covid death rates were all red. Three of the five with the lowest death rates are blue with Alaska and Utah the only exceptions.

Okay. Those are just unbiased, easily verifiable facts. Now let’s see who gets their feelings hurt!

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Clearly, we need more conservatives like pastor Weir.

Have a great week.

The first 12 seconds, from Trump’s former press secretary, are particularly good:

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Donald Trump lives in his own reality, and he lies casually, but he’s very very good at it.  He used to teach me: “Stephanie, as long as you keep repeating something, it doesn’t matter what you say.”

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Not only is he one of just three U.S. presidents ever to have been impeached, let alone twice (with a 57-43 bipartisan majority of senators voting to convict the second time) . . . the only U.S. president ever to have been indicted, let alone four times . . . he is also the only president ever to have kept a book of Hitler’s speeches by his bedside.

(And to have exchanged “love letters” with a dictator; sided with Russia over the FBI; and said, “Hitler did a lot of good things.”)

I emphasize this last point, because his instruction to  Stephanie Grisham — “Stephanie, as long as you keep repeating something, it doesn’t matter what you say” — is essentially an instruction on effectuating The Big Lie.

>> From Scientific American: Repeated exposure to implausible statements makes them feel less so.

>> From an American correspondent’s introduction to that 1941 book of speeches:

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[Hitler’s oratory] stirs hatred and feeds self-vindication, and whether on paper it bears inspection for consistency, logic or soundness is immaterial.

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>> From a French journalist’s foreword:

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To use constantly and untiringly the same arguments, and to pound into the heads of his listeners the same formulas, is part of Hitler’s oratorical technique.  . . .  [He] is past master at throwing up verbal smoke screens . . . He knows equally well the effectiveness of massive oratorical assaults that shake the nerves of his victims or opponents . . . he knows how to give pledges that will be broken later . . . he uses insults and lies in the same manner as his generals use planes and tanks to break through the respectable but often weak front of his adversaries. . . . His crudity frequently borders on downright vulgarity.

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Sound like anyone we know?

How else to explain all the good people who believe Trump is the victim of a witch hunt?

One of those good people — Jewish and a strong supporter of Israel, as it happens — reads this column daily; and, daily, sends refutation or taunt.

Yesterday, he sent this clip about remarks made by a former white Christian nationalist Trump appointee (whom Trump subsequently pardoned), blaming Jews for their deportations to the concentration camps. 

My reader called it a reason to question Trump’s judgment (ya think?), “however, nothing Trump did compares to the Biden crime family bribe-taking, Afghanistan debacle and cutting down the oil production that created the 9% inflation.”

I pointed out all the obvious things anyone on “our side” would.

>> That leaving Afghanistan by May, 2021, was a deal TRUMP had committed the U.S. to and that — though it certainly could have gone better — it might not have been an easy thing for the military to execute even if Trump had still been in charge. 

>> That attributing the spike in global inflation to Biden’s restrictions on future oil exploration — rather than to pent-up COVID demand, supply chain problems, and Russia’s  invasion of Iraq — made no sense.

>> And that the “Biden crime family” consisted of one community college professor not known for her lavish lifestyle; one former drug and alcohol abuser who shamelessly traded on his father’s name; and the Amtrak-riding kingpin himself, on whom Trump — with all the powers of the presidency and, presumably, Russia’s intelligence service — had been unable to pin any crime.

Much like the much-anticipated Durham report that flopped — but unlike the much-anticipated Mueller report that turned up what more than 1,000 former Republican and Democratic federal prosecutors deem to have been multiple felonies — all Trump’s efforts, and those of now-Special Counsel David Weiss, have failed to reveal anything of note the President has done.

(Ah, retorted my reader, “Garland appointed the fox, David Weiss, to guard the hen house and YOU don’t see any corruption?”  I pointed out that TRUMP appointed David Weiss in 2018 and Garland let him stay and continue his investigation.  And that when Weiss recently asked for the extra powers of a special counsel, Garland granted them.  Would my reader have felt Garland was less corrupt, I asked, if he had replaced Trump’s guy with a Biden appointee?  Less suspect if he had refused the Trump appointee’s request for extra powers?  To which my reader replied — and I quote — “George Washington appointed Benedict Arnold.  History is replete with despicable traitors.”)

I know what you’re thinking: “Why do you even bother?”

And I generally don’t — it’s quicksand. 

Millions of misinformed people like my reader are certain that Marxists like me and Joe Biden are out to ruin America with all this bipartisan infrastructure, record-low unemployment, renewed manufacturing base, affordable health care, and, of course, our plan to give women and parents the right to make difficult health care choices with their doctors.

They have drunk the Kool-Aid.

All this against the background of . . . what does any of it have to do with Trump, anyway?

If evidence emerges that Joe Biden is a crime family boss (or Tom Hanks, a serial killer), the same Justice Department memo that shielded Trump from prosecution while in office would shield Joe (though not Tom).  But once out, that evidence should be presented to a grand jury — or four, if warranted — and the process be allowed to take its course.

As is now finally happening with Trump.

The difference being that, where Biden in such circumstances would conduct himself with decorum, Trump is making veiled threats to witnesses, jurors, and poll workers and leading his followers to make explicit threats — very much as a crime family boss would.*

Let us hope that those witnesses, jurors, and poll workers find the courage not to cave (because our democracy hangs by a thread); and that you, dear reader, have a great weekend.

* Bolded links, like this one, are by way of recommendation — items I think you might want to read or watch.  Light-face links are just by way of substantiation — in case you want to know what something is based on, or who someone is, etc..

. . . and desperately need to be reformed (if you ask me).

An enforceable code of ethics for the  Supreme Court for obvious starters, but it’s way more than that.

Six years ago, a woman walking in Central Park was almost killed a falling tree.  A settlement — $5.5 million — was reached last month, and it cost her $1 million in legal fees to reach it. (The defendants doubtless had big legal fees, as well.)  Is this really the best system for settling such cases?  Six years?

In 1996, I put Prop 202 on the California ballot to encourage “early settlements.”  It was endorsed by the business community and conservatives like Robert Bork; but also by two former deans of Harvard Law School, Derek Bok and Erwin Griswold, former ACLU President Norman Dorsen, and even a former president of the American College of Trial Lawyers, Leon Silverman.

It came really close — 48.79% of the vote!

I called California’s then-Secretary of State, Bill Jones.

“All I need,” I told him over and over for an hour, “is for you to find . . .”

No, wait; wrong fantasy.  I didn’t call him; I admitted defeat.

But I still believe something like Prop 202 makes sense — a way to give both sides an incentive to settle more quickly.

I just finished listening to Big Sugar, a riveting nine-part podcast about a 15-year legal battle that the plaintiffs quickly won — $51 million — but that Big Sugar ultimately won.  If you listen, I doubt you’ll think justice was done.  (Interesting sidenote: the same scientists paid to say there’s no link between sugar and diabetes morphed into the scientists who found no linkage between smoking and cancer or fossil fuels and climate change.  But I digress.)

It reminded me of ParkerVision’s 13-year battle with Qualcomm, where a jury awarded PRKR $173 million in 2011, but where, so far, the company has received nothing.  And may well never.

It reminded me also of its recent suit against Intel, where a jury could well have awarded more than $250 million — which the judge could then have trebled — but where, for reasons hard to fathom, the jury was not given a chance to hear the case.  Instead, the judge more or less forced ParkerVision to settle for $25 million.

Maybe 20 years from now there will be a podcast about that one.

(I still have a huge number of shares, and there’s some possibility of upside from today’s dime a share — hey, 20 cents would be a double!  A buck someday would be a home run!  But I’m no longer holding my breath.  The justice system crushed us.)

The big frustration, though, 10 billion times as important as ParkerVision, is how hard it has been, first, to impeach Trump — don’t read the Mueller report or credit the view of more than 1,000 former Republican and Democratic prosecutors, just take his word for it — and, now, how hard it’s been to pursue the indictments.

We all watched him urge his followers to come to DC — “it will be wild” — and exhort them to march to the Capitol and “fight like hell,” knowing many were armed . . . we all watched them storm the Capitol . . . he watched them storm the Capitol . . . for 187 minutes before he reluctantly called them off . . . we have all heard his call to Georgia’s secretary of state.

Why does it take years and years to investigate and adjudicate?

Why not quick justice for the really obvious pieces and then a succession of “superseding indictments” as the full scope of the conspiracy becomes better and better known?

I’m not an expert, but I can’t believe this is the best we can do.

Grrrrrr.

Five facts about the indictments.

1. Biden didn’t indict Trump, four different grand juries did.  “The reason we HAVE grand juries is to make sure no one gets indicted out of a personal vendetta.”
2. This isn’t about “free speech,” it’s about what he did.
3. It doesn’t matter whether Trump believed the election was stolen.
4. Trump has been given deference most other criminal defendants never would.
5. It’s not political: Trump was in legal trouble long before politics.

See if you agree.

Separate from his potential criminal liability, to be decided by juries, there’s Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment.  Is he Constitutionally disqualified serving a second term, regardless?

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Two conservative law professors active in the Federalist Society argue that the original meaning of the 14th Amendment makes Donald Trump ineligible to hold government office.

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The Federalist Society is no friend of the Democrats, as you know.  Yet these guys deeply researched the question and reached  four firm conclusions:

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First, Section Three remains an enforceable part of the Constitution, not limited to the Civil War, and not effectively repealed by nineteenth century amnesty legislation.

Second, Section Three is self-executing, operating as an immediate disqualification from office, without the need for additional action by Congress. It can and should be enforced by every official, state or federal, who judges qualifications.

Third, to the extent of any conflict with prior constitutional rules, Section Three repeals, supersedes, or simply satisfies them. This includes the rules against bills of attainder or ex post facto laws, the Due Process Clause, and even the free speech principles of the First Amendment.

Fourth, Section Three covers a broad range of conduct against the authority of the constitutional order, including many instances of indirect participation or support as “aid or comfort.”

It covers a broad range of former offices, including the Presidency. And in particular, it disqualifies former President Donald Trump, and potentially many others, because of their participation in the attempted overthrow of the 2020 presidential election.

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Here are the twists and turns of what needs to happen to get this decided by the Supreme Court — pronto. 

There’s no time to lose.

BONUS

The 10 Best Investing Books of All Time — allegedly.

GOOD NEWS

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In the one year since President Biden signed the historic CHIPS and Science Act into law, companies have announced over $166 billion in manufacturing of semiconductors and electronics, and at least 50 community colleges in 19 states have announced new or expanded programming to help American workers access good-paying jobs in the semiconductor industry.

In total, since the beginning of the Biden-Harris Administration, companies have announced over $231 billion in commitments in semiconductor and electronics investments in the United States.

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We’re coming back, baby.  The Biden team have done a great job on this — worth reading in full.

And this:

The Clean Energy Future Is Arriving Faster Than You Think.

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. . . Wind and solar power are breaking records, and renewables are now expected to overtake coal by 2025 as the world’s largest source of electricity. . . .

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Way too late — I blame Ralph Nader — but better late than never.

(Even China’s going into overdrive, expected to double its capacity by 2025, five years ahead of schedule.)

APE/AMC

APE converts into AMC a week from Thursday, at which point the reverse 1-for-10 split will also occur.  I decided discretion is the better part of valor and sold most of my APE yesterday.  Not as big a gain as I’d hoped, but my experience is that stocks rarely do well after reverse splits . . . and AMC plans to issue a whole lot of new shares soon, perhaps adding more to supply than to demand.

But what a saga.

For a while, at least, I’ll be watching mostly from the sidelines.

But first . . .

TWO MINUTES

Watch!  We need to run this guy for office!

APE / AMC

Settlement approved.  The convergence has begun.  In after hours trading, AMC fell $1.34 to $3.92 Friday; APE rose 42 cents to $2.20.  At some point soon, when every 100 APE shares become 88 AMC shares, there will only be one price to look at.  (Multiplied by 10, because there will simultaneously be 1-for-10 reverse split.)

I love the movies and AMC is my chain of choice, but it’s a tough business.  If I can get $2.50 or $2.75 for APE shares bought at $1.05, I’ll be happy.

POPE FRANCIS

World Bank suspends lending to Uganda because of the Anti-Homosexuality Act

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Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Act fundamentally contradicts the World Bank Group’s values. We believe our vision to eradicate poverty on a livable planet can only succeed if it includes everyone irrespective of race, gender, or sexuality. This law undermines those efforts. Inclusion and non-discrimination sit at the heart of our work around the world.

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“Interesting that the bankers are ahead of Jesus’s representative on earth when it comes to compassion,” I wrote a friend.

“His representative here is just a little slow, that’s all,” he replied.  “It took the Church 500 years to apologize to Galileo for persecuting him because he explained that the Earth revolves around the Sun.  But they DID apologize to him.  Which gives me faith that another apology (to LGBT people) is forthcoming no later than 2523.”

To his great credit, as noted in April, the Pope has been basically great on this issue:

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Being homosexual is not a crime.

It’s a sin.

But it is also a sin to lack charity with one another.

Let’s distinguish sin from crime.

Every man and woman must have a window in their life

where they can turn their hope and where they can see the dignity of God.

And being homosexual isn’t a crime.

It’s a human condition.

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Later going on to clarify:

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When I said it is a sin, I was simply referring to Catholic moral teaching, which says that EVERY sexual act outside of marriage is a sin.

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And yet despite his directives, the Archbishop of Uganda openly supports what the World Bank has condemned . . . and the Pope — his boss — does nothing.

World Bank — 1, Pope Francis — 0.

And now . . .

THE NEXT MARKET PANIC

How AI could cause a crash.

One more reason to keep cash reserves — and definitely not to buy stocks on margin.

Have a great week!

Yesterday, a conservative judge and a double-Trump voter who stormed the Capitol.

Today, two conservative law professors active in the Federalist Society (whence all Trump’s judges were sourced).

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Two prominent conservative law professors have concluded that Donald J. Trump is ineligible to be president under a provision of the Constitution that bars people who have engaged in an insurrection from holding government office. The professors are active members of the Federalist Society, the conservative legal group, and proponents of originalism, the method of interpretation that seeks to determine the Constitution’s original meaning.

The professors — William Baude of the University of Chicago and Michael Stokes Paulsen of the University of St. Thomas — studied the question for more than a year and detailed their findings in a long article to be published next year in The University of Pennsylvania Law Review.

“When we started out, neither of us was sure what the answer was,” Professor Baude said. “People were talking about this provision of the Constitution. We thought: ‘We’re constitutional scholars, and this is an important constitutional question. We ought to figure out what’s really going on here.’ And the more we dug into it, the more we realized that we had something to add.”

He summarized the article’s conclusion: “Donald Trump cannot be president — cannot run for president, cannot become president, cannot hold office — unless two-thirds of Congress decides to grant him amnesty for his conduct on Jan. 6.” . . .

First the judge:

“American democracy is in grave peril,” he says — and that peril comes from Trump.

Well, duh!   But hearing it from a distinguished conservative from Virginia — for whom John Eastman (aka “co-conspirator #2) once clerked before moving up to clerk for Clarence Thomas — gives it more weight.   Worth reading and sharing.

Now the voter.

A double-Trump voter and Capitol stormer has some words for for her fellow Trumpers.

Listen (2 minutes) or just read the transcript I’ve condensed:

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NPR REPORTER AREZOU REZVANI: More than 1,100 people who participated in the insurrection have been charged. 70-year-old Pam Hemphill of Boise, Idaho was one of them.

HEMPHILL: I pleaded guilty because I was guilty.

REZVANI: This retired alcohol and drug abuse counselor who voted for Barack Obama followed her friends’ and family’s support for Trump over time.

HEMPHILL: He wanted to stand up against China and the border.  And he had convinced me and everybody else that the Democrats wanted this to be a communist country.

REZVANI: So she voted for Trump in 2016 and again in 2020. After he lost, a friend gifted her a flight to D.C. for the stop the steal rally, and off she went. . . .

HEMPHILL: I want the world to know that I followed a cult leader, and I’m really sorry that I did because I’m really ashamed of it. But I can’t blame me 100% because I was lied to by Trump.

REZVANI: And for that, Hemphill believes Trump deserves to face consequences.

HEMPHILL: The indictment shows me that even if you are one of the most powerful people in the world, that you are still subject to the laws that allow this country to be safe and free.

REZVANI: Hemphill’s choice to speak up hasn’t been easy. She says she’s received numerous death threats in recent months and is in the process of moving. But she doesn’t want to say where because the movement she once supported has now turned against her.

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And what is a fascist, anyway?  Robert Reich explains.

Hillary Clinton examines The Weaponization of Loneliness, bringing a topic that can seem soft and social-science-y into urgent focus.