Author: A.T.

VIOLENT CRIME

Take a look.

Down sharply under Clinton . . .

. . .  level under Bush 43 . . .

. . . down some more under Obama . . .

. . . level under Trump and Biden’s first year.

I totally agree with those who think (as who wouldn’t?) that every crime spike needs to be addressed.  In places like New York City (still one of the safest in the country), that process has begun.

Needless to say, ANY violent crime is too much.

(So, too, plain old subway harassment.)

Yet I’m not sure the solution is allowing teenagers to buy weapons of war — something the current Republican leadership currently insists on — nor loosening gun laws generally, as they have in Texas.  Witness this Texas man who killed a nine year old girl, all perfectly legal.

As previously posted, murder rates are higher in Trump-voting red states than in Biden-voting blue. And sometimes, highest in cities with Republican mayors.

You just don’t hear much about that from the red team.

OIL

From FORTUNE: Biden Is Making Real Progress On Energy.

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. . . to the great chagrin of many environmental advocates, Biden has been laying the groundwork for a gradual transition to clean energy, not the overnight transformation that boogeyman industry critics have been urging him to make. His speech this week explicitly called for an increase in domestic oil and gas production as well as much-needed permitting reform to expedite the construction of energy infrastructure, particularly gas pipelines which can be converted to green hydrogen pipelines over time. . . .

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From FORBES: U.S. Energy Independence Has Grown.

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. . . President Trump didn’t make us energy independent. . . . But it would be fair to argue that President Trump’s energy policies slightly sped up the timeline in getting to the finish line of energy independence.  However, what isn’t true is that we lost that energy independence under President Biden. . . .

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You don’t hear much about that from the red team, either.

DEMOCRACY

Former red-team operative Steve Schmidt:

Speaking of which, because you love this country and love democracy, you simply have to listen to this podcast. 

The parallels between Hitler’s attempts to sow discord and weaken our democracy and Putin’s to do the same — stunning.  To weaken our support for the countries he invaded — leading to that famous America First Nazi rally in Madison Square Garden — stunning. 

(Have I mentioned that the only thing Trump changed in the 2016 Republican Party Platform was its support for Ukraine?  Or that for years Trump — no big reader — kept a book of Hitler’s speeches by his bedside?) 

And what a story! 

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Sitting members of Congress aiding and abetting a plot to overthrow the government. Insurrectionists criminally charged with plotting to end American democracy for good. Justice Department prosecutors under crushing political pressure. Rachel Maddow Presents: Ultra is the all-but-forgotten true story of good, old-fashioned American extremism getting supercharged by proximity to power. When extremist elected officials get caught plotting against America with the violent ultra right, this is the story of the lengths they will go to… to cover their tracks.

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I’m up to episode 4, which is perhaps the most powerful of all. 

Listen!

And have a great weekend.

It’s tough to win a debate if you’re recovering from a stroke, but it’s not tough to know right from wrong, fair from unfair, honest from dishonest.

John Fetterman isn’t auditioning for a debate team, he’s running to represent the interests of Pennsylvanians.

He will be 100% fit to vote FOR Social Security and Medicare, which the Republican leadership threatens to cut . . . 100% fit to vote FOR the minimum wage, reproductive rights, universal background checks, marriage equality, price caps on insulin, an estate tax on billionheirs, measures to fight climate change, investments in infrastructure, a minimum tax on corporate profits, voting rights protection, confirmation of judges and Justices (why should only Republican presidents get to appoint them? how is it that having lost the popular vote in 7 of the last 8 presidential elections, the red team controls two-thirds of the Court?) . . . all things that his opponent, though physically fit, would, like the rest of his party, mostly or entirely oppose.

His party is even beginning to waffle on Ukraine.

Those who support Trump should nix Fetterman.

Not because he’s recovering from a stroke — his current speech and auditory impediments are irrelevant — but because they want a senator who will vote AGAINST all those things.  A senator who admires Trump.  (Or pretends to.)

One of you wrote to say fascism is not on the ballot (as I suggested yesterday) . . . just as in prior cycles others have written to say Roe would not be overturned if Republicans gained control, and few believe House Republicans will elect Trump their Speaker in January if they regain the majority.

But would you have thought the defeated president would incite an armed mob to storm the Capitol?  And then just watch for 187 minutes as the people he “loved” did their best to overthrow the duly-elected President-elect?

Did you imagine an American president siding with Putin over the FBI?

Or once having kept a book of Hitler’s speeches by his bedside?

Whatever your view of fascism, the democracy-destroying efforts of the Republican Party continue to build.

If you can find time, watch this clip of 2020 dirty tricks — and the even worse behavior now.

Then watch Marc Elias.  When asked whether Republicans bear responsibility:

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Absolutely! Republicans from top to bottom bear responsibility.  Where is Mitch MacConnell calling this out?  Where is Kevin McCarthy calling this out?  Where are the so-called responsible leaders of the Republican party saying having armed vigilantes at the polls preventing people from casting their ballots in a legal way is wrong, and they’re going to denounce it?  Where are they?  It is from top to bottom a party that has a abandoned democracy and lost all semblance of decency.

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“There are conditions of blindness so voluntary that they become complicity.”
— Paul Bourget

Where I see waste and excess (yesterday’s post), Carl sees all the jobs that will go into tearing down William Lauder’s just-built $110 million 35,000-foot mansion to build another.

He characterizes this as “a $110 million public assist!”

Whereas, by contrast, Carl writes, “Democrats want to raise income and estate taxes on the uber-wealthy that will destroy jobs for the lower and middle class and direct the money instead to the greedy Washington politicians!”

Hmmm.

What if  taxes were raised such that billionheirs inherited somewhat less, having to make do with 20,000-foot mansions, if it came to that . . . and the difference — far from going into politicians’ pockets — were used to crime-reducing measures like after-school programs, hiring more cops, and training high school grads to help rebuild the nation’s infrastructure?  Things like that, since Carl is rightly concerned about crime.

Congressional Republicans believe the scales are weighted too heavily against the uber rich and corporations.  (Or even if they don’t believe that, it’s how they vote.)  Democrats believe the shift in wealth and power toward the already-rich-and-powerful these past 40 years has been unconscionable.

(And the Court, as described in The Scheme: How the Right Wing Used Dark Money to Capture the Supreme Court, has cemented their lock on wealth and power.)

It may not be too much to say we are a plutocracy verging on fascism.

That — not global inflation (which Republican control of Congress would do nothing to abate) — is what’s on the ballot.

This is the story of two things:

> A recently built 35,000-foot Palm Beach mansion purchased for $110 million to be torn down “to the dirt.”

> A country that’s allowed inequality to get so wildly out of hand.

Democrats want to raise income and estate taxes on the uber-wealthy.*  Republicans — who have made spectacular progress cutting them at the expense of everyone else — want to cut them still more.

Democracy is on the ballot.  And Roe.  But so is this.

*Not because we hate the rich; most rich people — of whichever party — are lovely people.  Just under-taxed.

Here’s a man with a strong point of view.  (What’s that he keeps doing with his ear?)

So if the answer in England is not to cut taxes on the wealthy and let everybody else sink, maybe that isn’t the answer here, either.

Yet Kevin McCarthy promises that if his team wins the House, everything is on the table to reduce the deficit, including Social Security and Medicare. (Everything, that is, except taxing corporations or the uber-wealthy.  Kevin is a Republican.)

Do you know Evan McMullin?  He gives Independents a good name!  Utah would be so fortunate to have him as their junior senator.

SwipeBlue!  You’ll likely have a lot of questions before you load the app to your phone and get to work saving the country . . . but they’re answered in the FAQ.

This may be a good follow-up to yesterday’s post about crime “and everything else.”  (In case you missed it: the murder rate is worse in red states than blue.)

It’s an email from John Fetterman:

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Last month, Tucker Carlson went on a nearly 20-minute-long rant about me. The whole thing was as unhinged as you’d expect, but one line that stood out was about my tattoos.

“All your stupid little fake tattoos,” he said, calling them a “costume.” 

In a moment, I’m going to ask you to chip in $5 or more to my grassroots campaign. But first, let’s talk about those tattoos Tucker seems to be so interested in.

I have nine dates tattooed on my right forearm. Each one is a day on which someone died violently in Braddock, Pennsylvania, while I was mayor. Gun violence and violent crime might be jokes to someone like Tucker, but they are very real to people in towns like Braddock.

The first one that I tattooed on my arm is “01.16.06.” That’s the date on which Christopher Williams was shot dead while delivering pizzas. This was a man about my age at the time. He had a 12-year-old daughter. I just couldn’t get over the fact that he was never going home to her.

Another tattoo reads “02.03.07,” the date that 23-month-old Nyia Page was found dead after her father sexually assaulted her and left her in the bitter cold. Her tiny footprints in the snow led an officer to her body. And I have “09.16.13,” the date Derrail Roilton, a father of two, was found dead in the yard next to his mother’s home after being shot three times.

These murders and tragic deaths in Braddock, and others in similar towns and cities across Pennsylvania, became so normal that they were a talking point in our elected leaders’ speeches and footnotes in media stories.

That’s why I have these tattoos. They are not some “costume.” They are reminders of the people we have lost and what I am fighting for. Both the dates on my right arm and the “15104” on my left — Braddock’s ZIP code — are personal to me.

My decision to mark these deaths with tattoos was inspired in part by their permanence — the fact that these people, their stories and my town will be with me forever. I get that etching art permanently onto your body isn’t how most politicians would express their connection to their communities. But I don’t care about what anyone else thinks. It felt right to me.

I care deeply about my community and the people I represent. As mayor, I always felt a sense of obligation and responsibility for tragedies that happened under my watch. I put these dates on my arm because I realized that we had lost the shock of these deaths. We became numb. I did it because I never saw the media or the public at large caring about these victims, most of them young Black men.

During my tenure as mayor, Braddock, which saw three homicides in the year before I became mayor, went 5 ½ years without the loss of life through gun violence. We made a difference and we saved lives. It’s my proudest accomplishment in public service.

I was a hands-on mayor and showed up at almost every crime scene because I felt a sense of duty to our community. I wanted to do everything I could to keep my town safe. 

That’s one of the core differences between my opponent for the U.S. Senate, Mehmet Oz, and me.

While he was making millions of dollars peddling “miracle cures” from a TV studio in Manhattan and living in a mansion on a hill in New Jersey, I was rolling up my sleeves and putting in the work to make my community safer. I’m the only candidate in this race who has fought violent crime and won.

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I would argue that, in the main — not exclusively — Democrats care about helping ordinary people, and feel their pain, while Republicans push tax cuts for the wealthy, reject affordable health care and caps on the (insane) price of insulin.  Stuff like that.

You may see it differently — or you may see it the same way but think that’s the way it ought to be.  That ordinary people, including diabetics, have it too easy, with the balance tilted too much in their favor.  If so, we’ll just have to agree to disagree.

A thoughtful piece we should send viral:

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. . . [M]urder rates are far higher in Trump-voting red states than Biden-voting blue states. And sometimes, murder rates are highest in cities with Republican mayors.

For example, Jacksonville, a city with a Republican mayor, had 128 more murders in 2020 than San Francisco, a city with a Democrat mayor, despite their comparable populations. In fact, the homicide rate in Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco was half that of House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy’s Bakersfield, a city with a Republican mayor that overwhelmingly voted for Trump. Yet there is barely a whisper, let alone an outcry . . .

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That’s one of my friend Carl’s key issues — crime.

Carl sends me one or two often nasty emails each day in what I have to assume is his sincere effort to heal the world.  Why am I always picking on Trump and perpetuating the Russia “hoax”?  (He knows it’s a hoax because he did not read the Mueller report.)  Why am I not demanding an investigation of Hunter Biden?  (See below.) Why am I not blasting Democrats on crime?

The first thing to say about that last one — crime — is that whoever came up with the slogan “defund the police” had the right motivation but, taken literally, a horrible solution.  Effective criminal justice reform may in some cases require more funding, not less.  “Defund” is a position not held by a single Democrat I know of among the thousands running for office.

The second thing to say is that Carl is right:  Crime sucks (well, duh) and we should all be looking for ways to reduce it.

Both kinds:

> White collar crime that involves money.  (Here’s a start: funding the IRS to go after wealthy tax cheats at the expense of honest wealthy taxpayers and all the rest of us.  Dems support; R’s oppose.)

> And, even more concerningly, violent crime.  (A start on that: Keeping kids too young to buy beer from buying assault weapons; imposing universal background checks for gun-buyers of any age.  Dems support; R’s oppose.)

Another needed improvement — already underway — is to tweak some of the bail reforms Democrats (and some Republicans) have supported.  Do we want not to ruin poor kids’ lives because they can’t make bail on minor non-violent infractions?  Yes!  That’s simple justice — and a good investment because a ruined life costs taxpayers a lot of dough and often leads to more crime.  But should we help alleged violent offenders make bail?  Clearly (in my view), rarely if ever.

The main takeaway on crime?  We might well have less of it going forward — both kinds — if Carl chose to vote Democrat this year.  Spread the word.

And while we’re at it, a few other responses to Carl and any other readers who may share his views:

Woke-ism.  I and many Democrats agree it’s gone too far.  (See all my links to Bill Maher, who is great on this.)  Jefferson lived in a different time.  And he actually tried to put stuff in the Declaration about slavery.  There’s a difference between removing statues of Robert E. Lee (who led the fight to preserve slavery) and statues of Thomas Jefferson (who, in the context of his times, was a champion of all that democracies hold dear).  We need to be able to discuss such things without fear of being canceled.

Inflation.  A terrible, global, transitory problem.  The price of oil underlies much of it; pandemic-caused supply chain problems, most of the rest; and corporate price-gouging plays a role as well (says this Harvard MBA who likes capital gains as much as the next guy but doesn’t see why the price of insulin should go up each year, or why Republicans vote against capping it).

Putin is largely to blame — Democrats don’t set the global price of oil — and, astonishingly, all too many Republicans, including their leader, are almost on Putin’s side when it comes to Ukraine.  (The only change Trump made to the Republican platform in 2016 was to weaken the language expressing support for Ukraine.)

Not to mention Tucker Carlson.

Yes, the trade-off between investing in fossil fuel versus greener energy leaves room for good faith differences of opinion.  But it should be noted that the Biden administration approved 33% more drilling leases in its first year than Trump did in his.  And that because there are long lead times in producing oil, the spike in global oil prices that underlie so much of our inflation can’t possibly be “the Democrats’ fault.”  Quite the contrary, our investments in R&D and incentives for green energy should ultimately lower costs and reduce the inflation-causing impact of climate change (have you checked Florida homeowner insurance rates lately?).

Immigration.  People should be reminded it was the Republicans who blocked the Comprehensive Immigration Reform that the Senate adopted 68-32 in 2013.  There were more than enough votes in the House, too, but — knowing that — the Republican House speaker wouldn’t allow it come up for a vote.

More to the point today: it’s not an open border (click if you disagree) . . . nor do any Democratic candidates favor one.

(That said, allowing desperate asylum seekers refuge to fill jobs American citizens won’t take is a win-win for them and us.  But no question: we need more resources — and Republican cooperation — to get immigration under control.)

“The economy.”  Ask yourself: would Mitch McConnell and whoever is the House Speaker (even Trump!) be working to see Biden’s economy succeed these next two years?  If history is any guide, if given the gavels, it would be quite the reverse.

Hunter Biden.  Carl is convinced he’s guilty of a crime — and if Carl is right, the First Son should be indicted, tried, convicted, and punished.  (The FBI, long dominated by Republicans, is investigating.)  No one should be above the law.  But Hunter Biden should only be of significance to voters if (a) he holds some role in running the government, which he does not; or (b) his dealings in China have corrupted his father in his dealings with China (maybe he secretly hopes to make a fortune building a Biden Hotel in Beijing?)  But that’s clearly not been the case.  E.g.: With New Crackdown, Biden Wages Global Campaign on Chinese Technology. And there are lots more examples of Biden’s standing firm.  So even if Hunter needs to be punished for something, of what possible relevance is that to your vote?  To whether we should codify Roe (as Dems want to) or entertain cuts to Social Security and Medicare (as Republican leaders want to).  Please!  Focus, Carl!

Democracy.  Last week I plugged the most recent January 6 hearing.

Carl’s response:

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Like all the others, a one sided circle jerk off with no contrary testimony.  Still think anyone cares? Watch November 8 to find out.

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He’s right that it was one-sided — virtually every witness in all 9 hearings was a staunch Republican, most of them Trump employees and supporters.  And Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger are Republicans.

Where I hope he’s wrong is that people won’t care enough to show up November 8.

If they don’t, the election deniers and coup excusers take control of the legislature and we lose our democracy.

Once lost, democracy can take a very long time — millennia in the case of Greece and Rome — to restore.

Seriously: you will.  Click here.

CBS Sunday Morning is reliably thoughtful, elegant, absorbing TV — at least for those of us old enough to still watch TV.  (The problem with kids these days, I’ve long joked, is that they don’t watch enough TV.)

A good Sunday morning alternative to church, for us non-believers: uplifting, respectful, civil.

This past Sunday was particularly good, guest-hosted by Ted Koppel with the theme “divided America.”

Click the link above to watch the full 10/16 episode; or watch specific segments.

I found this one, on the divide between college and trade-school grads particularly interesting.  (After watching, the wise parent or grandparent just might encourage his son or daughter to become a plumber.)

And this one, on Western Oregon’s drive to secede and join Idaho, thought-provoking.

And this one, on my 100-year-old hero Norman Lear’s plans for the future, inspirational.

And this one, showing what happens when Braver Angels brings red and blue together to find common humanity, hopeful.

The rest are good, too.