The Vague and the Vacuous

Have you heard any of the news this week? I wouldn't blame you if you weren't listening. The news ranged from members of the House of Representatives threatening a local New York City Prosecutor's investigation of the former president and demanding copies of all of his investigational findings. (Just in case you might wonder; the separation of powers between local and federal authorities prohibits this encroachment into states' independent authority,) The same former president threatened this DA with physical harm in a social media post with a doctored photo of him (DJT) shown menacingly standing behind the DA while holding a baseball bat. What has caused all of this turmoil? DA Bragg convened a Grand Jury to look into hush money paid to porn stars who claimed to have had intimate relations with the then-candidate before his presidential run. The hush money paid was from campaign and business funds and improperly allocated in federal filings. Former attorney Michael Cohen several years ago testified that he facilitated these payments at the request of his client, DJT. He served time in jail after a conviction of lying to Congress as requested by his former boss.

Over the last few weeks, DJT has been sending out messages over social media with wilder and wilder remarks. He claimed he was to be arrested last Tuesday by the NY City District Attorney and called for his followers to come to the city and protest in front of the government courts and other buildings. Some 'never-Trumpers' were said to be thrilled about the idea of him in one of those infamous New York City perp walks. However, none of these events happened. Regardless, the DA and his staff received death threats. He also received an envelope with white powder in it sent from Florida. (It turned out to be harmless.) The echo chamber of Fox commentators and Republican congressional representatives all chimed up with cries of dismay at the nerve of a local prosecutor coming after a former president. They claimed the charges were manufactured (trumped up?), trivial, ancient, and misdemeanors, to boot! Why bother if not for political reasons, they asked? They promised retribution as they ready examinations of Hunter Biden, who at last look, had never been an elected or appointed official. Getting out over your skis again, folks?

Next, the former president tried name-calling. He called out Bragg as an "animal", and as a "degenerate psychopath" and claimed he hates America. DA Bragg is an African American man, so we could consider these comments racist. Even Joe Tacopina, the latest in his string of defense attorneys, claimed these comments were ill-advised. Other Black DAs, such as the one in DC who is investigating the use of funds collected for the 2016 inauguration, and Fani Willis, the DA for Fulton County in Georgia have also been called out with racist code words, as has the NY Attorney General Letitia James, who has bested the business organization and his charity foundation with civil litigation. There can be no positive comments to support these actions. They show no respect for the Rule of Law, for the independence of our judicial system, or for the fact that he will someday get his day in court or in many courts where he can make his case. Instead, he wants to try everything in the court of public opinion. He no longer has a Bill Barr who can override the Department of Justice, as was done after the Mueller investigation and subsequent trials. Special Counsel, Jack Smith, has shown that his decisions and requests for Grand Jury testimony are not to be disregarded. The several court cases he recently won that required testimony from several former DJT staff and attorneys show his exercise of power. So, in New York, the Grand Jury returns to the courthouse on Monday; will they deliver an indictment? Will they delay until after others finish investigations elsewhere, as some have suggested? I do not know, but assume that we shall learn something soon. What I expect is that none of these DAs, AGs, or Special Counsels will be even a bit intimidated by all the MAGA antics recently. They will ignore them and complete their duties as proscribed by their oath of office. They are people to whom an oath means something special.

Where do we go from here? There are other potential trials, such as the suit by Congressman Eric Swalwell and others who are suing because of his incitement to the January 6^th insurrection; involved police officers are also suing. There is a civil suit for defamation by writer Jean Carroll, who earlier also charged him with rape. The judge, in that case, is seating an anonymous jury, citing the possibility of threats from the former president or his MAGA crowd. It was soon after the search warrant on Mar-a-Lago, which he called a raid, that a MAGA follower attacked an FBI office in Ohio; agents killed him after a chase, so expectations of violence cannot be overblown, especially as the former chief executive keeps fanning the flames. He learned from January 6^th, but this time he has not had quite so much time to prepare.

However, he is still trying. This weekend he went to Waco, Texas, that symbol of tragedy for many, but a symbol of government overreach to the militia movement. The ATF (Alcohol Tobacco & Firearms agency) raid on David Koresh and his followers came after a long stand-off while agents were trying to serve a warrant for illegal firearms and subsequently killed agents, Koresh, women, and children who were members of an armed cult-like movement. Koresh stockpiled thousands of rounds of ammunition and firearms, so when agents fired teargas into the building, it imploded. To the Oklahoma City bombers, this was the reason for their Federal Building attack. So where else should a presidential candidate want to go? Why not go to a town where a tragedy occurred and the government was blamed? More recently, he claimed that anyone who disagrees with him hates America. Will he next proclaim himself the only true patriot? I wonder just which if any, patriotic forbearer he idolizes? Perhaps, as previously said, it was Andrew Jackson, the killer of Native Americans, or maybe Robert E. Lee, who wanted to preserve slavery? Who knows, he changes idols as the winds change.

There is another Republican candidate on the campaign stump these days. As most know, that is Ron DeSantis, the only Republican also polling in double digits these days, although the more exposure he gets, the lower his numbers seem. In a recent interview, DeSantis claimed to not remember where he was on 9/11. Excuse me, I truly doubt there are any Americans who can honestly say they do not remember where they were and what they were doing when they heard of those horrific events. Possibly he does not want to admit what he was doing; that is his prerogative, but to say he does not remember sounds untruthful. I remember I was working in my office and had no TV or radio there. I had a computer with an internet connection and first found out about the planes over the internet. On my trip into the office that morning, there was a report of a plane hitting one of the twin towers, but I assumed it was a small plane accident as had happened before in New York City. I remember the phone lines were crazy and cell phones were hard to reach. Later that day, I took my sick dog to the Vet and saw that people mostly deserted the streets as companies sent workers home early well before rush hour. I talked to my children and others I cared about, letting us all share our feelings of being safe right then, but not knowing what was to come. That evening, I watched the news with tears streaming down my face while I saw the scenes from New York City and elsewhere. We then thought the death toll to be 5000 or more (it was later revised down to about 3000.). That day is seared into my brain.

Those are just a few of my memories from that week; how about you? I do not believe DeSantis when he says he doesn't remember. The Washington Post reported this week that after college and law school, DeSantis was a JAG officer and reviewed punishments and care for the terrorists and other prisoners at Guantánamo Bay. He permitted forced feeding when prisoners held hunger strikes. After the Post printed these reports, he stated he was a junior officer and had no authority to order such punishments which are now considered torture or cruel and unusual treatments just like waterboarding. He continues to not do interviews with mainline networks or news agencies and many statements he makes are vague or promising Christian nationalism. Politico just removed a reporter who referred to communication in Florida as propaganda, perhaps to get in DeSantis' good graces. Does he have any? Is the communication propaganda? That question was not answered. His legislature is now trying to change the 15-week abortion law to a six-week gestation ban, even though there has been no outcry in his state for such legislation. He has a supportive legislature and a majority, so there is no real opposition. As they say on the news, stay tuned. We have much more to learn about this governor with hopes of autocracy.

“Til next week-Peace!

COVID-19: Three Years & Still Counting

This week marks three years from the first week of America’s COVID-19 lockdown. We have taken to marking that week as the “before times”; the time before it forever changed our worlds. Whether you caught the virus, or did not, still it affected you. Perhaps your job changed, and you started working from home. Possibly you were a teacher and had to learn to teach over some type of communication network. Or, sadly, you were a nurse or physician caught up in the horrors of those early days when patients were dying and you could not figure out how to keep them alive. Maybe you were a parent trying to juggle work and kids at home and trying to keep everyone well. Or, you were just an ordinary person with a grandmother in a nursing home whom you could no longer visit and could get no one to tell you how she was doing. Masks and medical supplies, such as ventilators, were in short supply. Neighborhood groups created teams to make masks in their homes; industrial factories changed their production lines to build ventilators. Nurses and physicians traveled to heavily affected cities to buffer beleaguered staff. Morgues piled bodies in refrigerated trucks when they ran out of space. We were in this fight together for a while. Pretty early on, a viral testing kit became available.

We may never quantify the costs of this virus in terms of the loneliness and isolation it caused. We can measure the number of deaths and the vaccines given, but that still does not accurately quantify the costs of the real human suffering it brought about. The illness kept families separated; many could not be with their loved ones as they lay dying. Children no longer had extended families around to celebrate their births or birthdays; we postponed weddings since the authorities forbade or discouraged large gatherings. I applaud the service workers who kept the buses running and the grocery stores open, so some activities could continue.

Then politics stepped in and confused the messages even more. To mask or not to mask? To isolate or go out and about? The President's team gave out conflicting messages, and in the absence of a vaccine, the public was quite unsure. Reluctant to evoke ancient remedies such as wearing a bag of garlic around one’s neck(!) no authority had a clue, initially, how the virus was even transmitted. The virologists soon determined that the respiratory system could transmit these viral droplets through the air and emphasized that well-fitting masks were the only everyday barrier.

This incoherent message allowed all the usual and unusual quacks to step in and promote all kinds of strange “cures”. Some included ultraviolet lights, deworming medicines, Hydroxychloroquine, bleach, and various cleansing rituals. None worked, unsurprisingly. Certain groups pushed conspiracy theories. Anti-Asian violence increased as the virus was first identified in China. There was little leadership from the White House or the Center for Disease Control (CDC), which was politicized and censored. The President did not want to wear a mask; he wanted to get out and campaign. He did not want the country to shut down; he wanted commerce to continue. So, sadly, the country then divided into Red and Blue factions with governors in many red states refusing to enact mask mandates and those in blue states enforcing such mandates to a degree. Florida did not wish to chase away tourists by requiring masks. Texas state officials overturned mandates issued by local authorities. Canada and Mexico closed their borders to Americans for a while. International travel became rare. In the absence of a vaccine, countries required proof of negative tests to enter.

As I reread my narrative here, it sounds as if I am composing a scenario for a sci-fi novel, but as we all know, these things happened. Doesn’t some of this information, in retrospect, seem absurd? In these three years, what have we learned?

Scientists still are uncertain where the virus originated. There are two schools of thought operating today. One is that it originated from a viral lab experiment gone wrong in a research lab in Wuhan, China, where the authorities identified the first cases. Although, as described by Hopkins, most of the early cases were associated with the wild animal market and neighboring area; the lab was on the other side of the city and across a river from the market. The second theory is that the virus jumped from wild animals to humans in this market in Wuhan, that was known for exploiting these unregulated sources of food. COVID developed in this manner from animals to humans; authorities attributed this virus to bats that infected an intermediary animal and then eaten by humans. Originally investigators thought an animal known as the pangolin was the intermediary, more recently authorities suggested the raccoon dog, (an animal related to foxes) might be the culprit. In the 2003 outbreak of SARS, they also identified bats as carriers of the coronavirus.

But scientists came to the rescue; many research labs raced to develop effective vaccines. Some chose tried-and-true methods of using weakened or inactive viruses, while other labs used a new technology, that of a MrNA method. But about nine months after the virus first hit our shores, we had vaccines! Of course, they came after a tumultuous election and changes of administration. They presented residents with a vaccine without an effective delivery system in place or formal FDA approval. But, gradually Americans got their vaccines. However, this, too, was subject to politics. Anti-vaxxers protested about its hasty development or against vaccines in general. Others did not like the mandates about public sector workers being required to take the vaccine. Police, firefighters, and nurses in some cities protested against vaccine requirements for their jobs; the courts agreed with their bosses.

Since the Chinese government has not been forthcoming with the world scientific community and allowed an even exchange of research information, the origin will probably remain murky. It would have been nice if they all put aside nationalities to save humanity, but once again, politics intervened and finger-pointing ensued. The actual death toll worldwide is subject to under-reporting by many nations, whether because of a lack of testing capability or hidden for political reasons. But the numbers below represent the best numbers the World Health Organization (WHO) and others have been able to determine. In the US, we are still experiencing over 300 deaths per day.The totals are indeed shocking in their scope.

The COVID figures to date: (NY Times)

Total worldwide case total: 678,417,501. 

The total worldwide number of deaths: 6,878,832.

United States case total: 103,535,689

United States death total: 1,131,763.

Maryland total cases: 1,368,228.

Maryland total deaths: 16,646.

We estimate the world population in 2023 is slightly over eight Billion. (8,108,605,388)

We estimate the population of the United States on this date is: 336,247,970.

We estimate the population of Maryland is: 6,298,325.

There is still much unknown information. What is the toll on families that have lost a parent or a grandparent who was the caregiver? Estimates are currently that the pandemic orphaned 140,000 children. How is our country caring for these children? Schools are learning how much knowledge was lost during distance learning as proficiency levels dropped across the country. Scientists documented that the syndrome of Long Covid or ongoing systemic issues after having the disease continues to plague many survivors. However, neither physicians nor scientists cannot predict how long these symptoms will persist as the manifestations are different in many cases. Americans appear to have vaccine fatigue; while we vaccinated most, (68% of the general population, but 93% of the elderly), many fewer have received the recommended boosters. The average life expectancy in America dropped during the pandemic because of the high number of fatalities. Epidemiologists expect that this virus will, like many before it, become ongoing. And just as Americans annually (well, most Americans) line up for the flu shot in the fall, soon the COVID booster type shot will accompany it.

Have we learned anything from the pandemic? I certainly hope so. We have found out that regional differences can hamper public health efforts, that willing politicians can distort public health data, and that conspiracy theories interfere with healthcare. I have spent my adult life in health care. I believe in caring for others. Consequently, I have difficulty understanding why someone would put their own individualism ahead of the need for society to be safe. Why would someone think they don’t have to wear a mask and thus compromise the health of a cancer patient on immunosuppressive meds who might be in the same room for needed services? Why would one think their desire to attend a wedding overrides the need to isolate if they are infected or have been exposed? (One wedding with an infected guest led to 50 documented cases of Covid.) Similar events happened with sports teams; you know those guys who think they are invincible and won’t be brought down by a virus!

As our world becomes even more interconnected, there is even less hope of containing the next pandemic-and there will be one, probably sooner than 100 years. Scientists need to develop a type of base vaccine, perhaps with MrNA technology that with a bit of tweaking can meet the challenge of the next worldwide virus. One aspect of COVID that differed from previous related viruses was its ability to change and create new variants and sub-variants. We have seen this before, but not with the rapidity shown by this one. To lessen that occurrence, we need to ensure that there is widespread vaccination as soon as possible, once scientists identify a new epidemic, to prevent a pandemic. Scientists need to communicate and cooperate better with each other and with the WHO to help prevent future pandemics. Think about what we have learned. Ebola went from animals to people, as did AIDS, SARS, and MERS. The 1918 epidemic was originally thought to have been a swine flu, but eventually, isolation of the virus from tissue (bodies buried in the Alaskan tundra were well preserved and examined) discerned an avian or bird origin. As the habitat of unknown animals continues to shrink, we may face more untoward experiences and researchers must know these possibilities.

Just thought I’d mention a fact unrelated to the pandemic. Twenty years ago this week, America attacked Iraq with the pretense that it had weapons of mass destruction. We did not find such weapons. Iraq did not take part in the destructive events of 911 (another pretense used). Saudi Arabians did. We created regime change; the country remains fractured. Over 4500 Americas and countless numbers of Iraqi civilians died. Future administrations should not repeat these actions.

“Til next week-Peace!

Fox Gets Real; DeSantis goes?

 

During the 2020 election campaign, many in the MAGA camp, such as Attorney Sidney Powell and others, made wild claims about the electronic voting machines supplied to several states by Dominion Voting Systems. If my memory serves, they claimed these machines were controlled by some systems in Italy or by operators trained by Cesar Chavez in Venezuela (he has been dead for several years, now). I think the CIA or FBI even went to Italy at the insistence of the White House to check this out. Some hearings held by the January 6^th committee discussed these claims and others about dead voters voting and ballots being hidden or switched by remote controls, members of the Department of Justice reported to the sitting president in 2020, that they checked out rumor after rumor, ad no ballots were hidden, converted, stolen or otherwise changed.

In the end, many of these claims were investigated multiple times and found as erroneous, misrepresentations, or just plain lies. Do you recall the tale told by Rudy Giuliani about the mother-daughter ballot counters in Fulton Count GA? He said they were hiding votes and passing a thumb drive around that contained election data. No such evidence was found on reviewing the tapes, but that did not stop him and the former president from using the names of these two women in speeches and causing both to be harassed so much that they were told by the FBI to move for their safety. Nor did it stop Fox and other conservative outlets from repeating these lies.

Long after the election and even after the events of January 6^th, many election facts were not presented to the viewers on either FOX news or their broadcast evening shows. The network continued to use the “Stop the Steal” movement language and suggest that the election was stolen, despite all evidence to the contrary. The Murdoch plan was also to not carry gavel-to-gavel coverage of the January 6^th committee, although it carried some, as I understand it.

Recently, Dominion released transcripts of emails gathered for their lawsuit against the Fox network for its election coverage among Fox management and on-air talents and others. Here they can be heard saying that they did not believe that the news they reported about the election being stolen was true. The reports quoted them as saying the claims made by Sidney Powell and her associates were crazy as was she, yet they booked her on the air and took live broadcast phone calls from DJT where he bellowed out his grievances. Dominion Systems machines were called out in these broadcasts while the hosts did not question or contradict their guests. Off the air, these same hosts spoke to each other about how they could not wait for DJT to be gone, so they did not have to deal with him. Tucker Carlson, an evening host, spoke of his passionate hatred for the former president.

Yet day after day, evening after evening, they touted their support for the Republicans and the claims of a stolen election. When their network called the state of Arizona for President Biden, their audiences hit it with a flurry of calls to rescind that call. Soon after, other networks called more states for Biden and the writing was on the wall; the president would not win re-election. When Fox reported that, they lost viewers and the MAGA crowd migrated to networks such as AON and Newsmax. So, according to their own emails, they had to keep up the false claims if they were to retain their audience. According to testimony by the 91-year-old conglomerate owner, Murdoch, the issue to him wasn’t skewing red or blue, it was a matter of losing green–their income stream, although he admitted doing things such as giving Jared Kushner, whom he called a friend, an advance look at political ads planned by the Biden campaign.

Pundits are divided about the possibility of Dominion winning the lawsuit for defamation. The bar for news organizations is high and must show willful or malicious intent to defame. When the management admonished reporters for giving accurate information that was contrary to the channel line and continued to showcase claims by guests whom they considered unstable and untruthful, I think they exceeded that bar, but I am not on the potential jury and have never been a MAGA fan, so I might see the issue differently. But, since they also said that keeping the stolen election issue alive kept viewers tuned in, that showed that they had a monetary measure to meet and, if defaming Dominion got them the right numbers, they didn’t seem to care. For that matter, I have never watched the Fox channel unless the football games were on, so I am not at all impartial.

Another matter that has always bothered me is just what news conservative media reports. They did not adequately cover the insurrection as a news event, nor was it shown fully in real-time. So, while I was watching and becoming horrified at the invasion of the Capitol, their management kept Fox viewers unaware. The same happened with the January 6^th hearings, which had minimal coverage. But never mind, Tucker Carlson has thousands of hours of official police insurrection tapes, courtesy of Speaker McCarthy, to manipulate so that he can now show pictures of a tourist romp in the park with Donald and spew his propaganda over America. Hopefully, most will not believe him. No thanks to Kevin McCarthy for his perfidy.

That brings the question, if much of America no longer routinely watches the evening network news, and only listens to partisan cable channels, is the media reinforcing the red/blue divisions? Will each faction stay in its corner and not interact? We don’t have Walter Cronkite or David Brinkley, two of the most trusted TV newsmen of the 1960s and 70s any more. So who does the public trust? Some say it is the network’s nightly news; others rely on PBS as an unbiased source. The media should feel responsible for news one can believe in, and challenge lies or, as the Washington Post says on its masthead, Democracy Dies in Darkness. Shine a light on it! And if some members of the media are not content with slanting the news to their perceived audience, but will lie outright, withhold news, or distort the truth, then when do they stop being media and become comic actors or propagandists?

Now, we have waiting in the wings a “White Christian Nationalist Fascist” “wanna-be” in Ron DeSantis. Not content to only go after limiting free speech on college campuses and lower schools, restricting voting to his class of preferred people, banning books, and beating up on gays and trans kids; no, now he is going after the press. He is proposing new laws to weaken the very bar I just mentioned above, that of proving malicious intent. He wants to restrict press freedom and stifle any negative press against him or his policies. As Vox reported last week:  “DeSantis’s proposals should alarm anyone in media, and, indeed, anyone who believes that the government or other powerful public actors should not be allowed to target individuals who criticize them.”

(The author, Ian Millhiser, described DeSantis as an Orbanesque Governor, convening a panel to find a case to challenge and weaken Sullivan-or the right of press freedom at the Supreme Court.) He quotes the 1964 decision: “Sullivan, in other words, rested on the proposition that free speech cannot exist unless society tolerates some factually erroneous statements, even if these statements sometimes paint an innocent person in an unfavorable light. The alternative is to hang a sword of Damocles over the head of every journalist, every political activist, and really anyone who speaks out on controversial matters, which can fall the moment they make an innocent mistake. As the Court concluded, “whatever is added to the field of libel is taken from the field of free debate.”

Millhiser notes further that DJT attempted also to weaken press freedom; in many ways, the two of them, DeSantis and DJT, are despots in waiting. The MAGA crowd couldn’t get it together and operated mostly on emotional appeals about witch hunts. DeSantis will not go that route, he wants to create a new precedent and be able to close out any criticism by denying access. Both leaders vilified a free press and banned press coverage at various times. In the DJT White House, often the press briefing was a joke or the press secretary did not respond to questions. But, he warns, issues once thought untouchable or absurd are no longer. “The first is simply that opposition to free speech rights for the press is fast becoming the official position of the Republican Party. Both of the presumed frontrunners for the GOP presidential nomination in 2024 — Trump and DeSantis — support getting rid of New York Times v. Sullivan. As do other leading figures within the GOP.”  As any veteran of the Obamacare wars will tell you, legal arguments that are widely viewed as ridiculous today can easily gain purchase if they are embraced by legal and political elites.”

Millhiser concludes by warning that DeSantis and his ideas are positioned for a presidential campaign in which DeSantis promises to make America like Florida and he says:

“A DeSantis-led GOP is potentially an existential threat to the right to free speech.”

As has been said before, forewarned is forearmed; will America listen?

Along with this news, this week is another threat of storms to California, which is reeling with storm after storm and inches of rain and many feet of snow. Well, maybe the drought is over, but floods and mudslides remain concerns. I send caring thoughts to all affected. Climate change is here, folks.

‘Til next week-Peace!

Hogan Says No

Finally, ending years of speculation on whether he will run for President, today, former Maryland Governor Larry Hogan announced he will not run. He made this statement on National TV in a taped interview with Bob Costas on Face the Nation. Acknowledging that he is a Republican in the Ronald Reagan conservative model, Hogan claims that although many in his party share these views, not enough do.Additionally, he said that stepping back from running was a tough decision, but he did not want to enable a victory by the former president in the Republican primaries. The former governor noted that DJT and DeSantis appear to be the front runners, with all the other candidates far behind, and believed that if the primaries had many candidates as in 2016, DJT would emerge victorious, which was a result he did not want to see. He would like to see the Republican Party return to the party that he rose up in when he first ran for governor in Maryland. But last year, the MD primary rejected his supported candidate for Governor, Kelly Schultz, and instead chose a far-right “wing-nut”, as some described him, to run for that post. The voters in MD rejected this candidate almost two to one as the Democratic nominee emerged victorious in the general election.

Hogan further discussed the facts that the Republicans have lost the popular vote in several recent elections and need to change if they expect to win over voters. If this change does not occur, he sees years of continued defeats for his party. He repeated the significance of the last Presidential election where his party lost the House, the Senate, and the White House, and warned that this could continue if the Party does not seek other candidates with different views. About 30% of his party still supports the former president, and they don’t want to change. Hogan stated he is a truth-teller, and the party needs more of those. Obviously, he thinks little of those who claim the previous election was stolen and continue to repeat those lies.

When asked in the interview if he would support former VP Mike Pence, Hogan stated yes. Pence has boxed himself in, it seems, by claiming Congressional immunity from answering a subpoena or testifying to the Grand Jury in the investigation being run by special counsel Jack Smith. Since he has already written and published a book addressing the events surrounding January sixth, few pundits understand his reluctance. Many believe his argument is reaching for straws and do not understand his reluctance to speak before the Grand Jury. Possibly, writing something down differs significantly from testifying under oath, who knows? If this proceeds to the Supreme Court, few expect his argument will hold, since Senator Graham, with a better argument of being an actual Senator, did not prevail in his quest to not have to testify in the Georgia vote tampering case.

The Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) is in town this week, or rather down at National Harbor for its annual CPAC Convention. This used to be referred to as the conservative prom where all the presidential hopefuls came to play and show off. However, this year there were many no-shows as DeSantis, Senator Tim Scott, Senator Ted Cruz, Governor Sununu, and several others were at the other conservative powerhouse event being held by the Club for Growth on the West Coast. The former president was not invited, so reports say. Governor Youngkin and former Secretary Pompeo could not attend but were also invited. At least, this time, the CPAC group did not hear from the totalitarian leader, Viktor Orban of Hungary.

CPAC has had some problems this year as its’ leader, Matt Schlapp, is facing charges of sexual harassment by a Walker campaign volunteer who was assigned to drive him around during the Georgia Senate campaign. Vanity Fair reports on this and other concerns for the group in the link above. But, CPAC had Don Jr, Matt Gaetz, Mike Lindell, (the pillow guy), Marjorie Taylor Greene, Jim Jordan, Mike Pompeo, and the former president, so what more could anyone want? Former UN Ambassador, Nikki Haley, also spoke in a pandering speech but was not well received by the audience. According to CNN, DJT gave a rambling 90-minute speech where they documented at least 33 inaccuracies or lies. The New York Times mentioned the same, noting he wildly inflated the murder and crime rates in New York City. He also claimed that even if he were to be indicted, he would still stay in the race for president. Still, he won a candidate straw poll vote from meeting attendees with 66% of the vote. This was his crowd, and even though the attendance was significantly lower than in previous years, the fervent and faithful showed up.

What should we make of all of this? Well, it is early days yet, primaries will not happen for another year and a lot can happen in a year. With any luck, DJT will be behind bars by then. (Hey, I can dream, can’t I?) Many say that DeSantis has yet to be tested on a national stage and, given his notoriously thin skin, may flame out when challenged. Others note he is acting imperiously as he ventures out of state and is trying to outdo the former president with his inflammatory statements. Can this last; I doubt it, but time will tell. He claims it is time to have the nation follow Florida’s’ example, but few voters really know how extreme he has become in his actions there. Although this nation was founded on principles of religious tolerance, some believe he is trying to make Florida a Christian state. Not only is he attacking trans youth and LBGTQ residents, but he also went after Disney for opposing him and supporting their Disney World employees. I think he is also trying to create a totalitarian state. One of his legislators was even trying to outlaw the Democratic Party as a viable entity in Florida, supposedly because “once upon a time” Florida Democrats supported slavery. And that differs from DeSantis outlawing the teaching of slavery and the civil rights movement, how? Continue to monitor DeSantis; he cannot be allowed to get away with these antics.

Today, to commemorate the anniversary of the March across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama by Civil Rights activists, President Biden spoke at the site. He advocated for voting rights and the passage of the John Lewis Voting Rights legislation, which was defeated by a Senate filibuster last year. If you remember, the police beat John Lewis severely at that bridge and he suffered a fractured skull. Biden noted how many states had restricted voting rights in recent years but lamented the fact that with this House there was little chance to pass legislation now.

Heather Cox Richardson wrote an excellent piece about this in her column tonight. She spoke of the history surrounding that day, where after several marches and attempts to vote, citizens were arrested, beaten, or given literacy tests that none passed. Several civil rights groups organized a march that would start at the bridge. The violence of that day led eventually to the passage of the 1965 Voting rights act after a passionate speech and support by President Johnson.

Richardson notes: “But less than 50 years later, in 2013, the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act. The Shelby County v. Holder decision opened the door, once again, for voter suppression. Since then, states have made it harder to vote. In the wake of the 2020 election, in which voters handed control of the government to Democrats, Republican-dominated legislatures in at least 19 states passed 34 laws restricting access to voting. In July 2021, in the Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee decision, the Supreme Court ruled that election laws that disproportionately affected minority voters were not unconstitutional, so long as they were not intended to be racially discriminatory. 

When the Democrats took power in 2021, they vowed to strengthen voting rights. They immediately introduced the For the People Act, which expanded voting rights, limited the influence of money in politics, banned partisan gerrymandering, and created new ethics rules for federal officeholders. Republicans in the Senate blocked the measure with a filibuster. Democrats then introduced the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, which would have restored portions of the Voting Rights Act, and the Freedom to Vote Act, a lighter version of the For the People Act. Republicans blocked both of those acts, too. 

And so, in 2023, the right to vote is increasingly precarious.

As Biden told marchers today, “The right to vote—the right to vote and to have your vote counted is the threshold of democracy and liberty. With it, anything is possible. Without it—without that right, nothing is possible. And this fundamental right remains under assault.”

So, as I conclude, please remember that many Republicans believe it is correct to decide who should vote and how and will continue to make laws to decrease the right to vote. Brnovitch, as noted above, specifically targets Native Americans who used to send in their votes through third parties since they live far from traditional polls. This Supreme Court has been actively agreeing with restrictive laws against the people and for the states.

So, on that note, I will conclude my remarks tonight.

“Til next week-Peace!