Republican Traitors Are Making Sure The Doors Are Open For Russian Election Hacking In November

Polling the other day was very clear: most normal Americans are very concerned about Russian interference in the 2018 midterm elections-- and most Republicans are not concerned at all. Before we get into the current Russian tampering with the elections on behalf of the GOP, I just want to mention that during the American war of independence, Patriots weren't only facing the British, they were also fighting American conservatives who sided with the British.

During the American Revolution, colonists like Benjamin Franklin who supported republicanism and eventually, independence, came to be known as Patriots. Historians estimate that about 40-45% of white men were patriots. Those men who chose to continue supporting the king, like William Franklin, were called Loyalists, or Tories. They made up about 15-20% of the white male population. The last 35-45% never publicly chose sides.

Just like political affiliations today, loyalists, patriots, and neutrals came from all social and economic classes, and many people took sides based not on principle but on who they thought was going to win or which side would profit them the most personally. But then, as now, there were demographic trends.

Poor farmers, craftsmen, and small merchants, influenced by the ideas of social equality expressed in works like Thomas Paine's Common Sense, were more likely to be Patriots. So were intellectuals with a strong belief in the Enlightenment. Religious converts of the Great Awakening made strong connections between their faith and a developing sense of nationalism. Loyalists tended to be older colonists, or those with strong ties to England, such as recent immigrants. Wealthy merchants and planters often had business interests with the empire, as did large farmers who profited by supplying the British Army. Some opposed the violence they saw in groups like the Sons of Liberty and feared a government run by extremists.

The U.S. intelligence community has been warning for over a year that the Kremlin, successful at placing their candidate into the White House, intended to steal the 2018 congressional elections as well. There's no reason to think that Trump isn't encouraging them-- collusion on steroids. The Kremlin is not going to steal deep blue seats in New York City and Chicago and Los Angeles. That would be silly. But they may well put an electronic thumb on the scale in swing districts like ME-02, which we talked about earlier today. If I had to pick a dozen districts-- and I think there are at least 2 dozen Trump wants them involved with besides ME-02-- I'd expect the Kremlin to tamper with these:

• CA-48- Rohrabacher v Rouda
• NE-02- Bacon v Eastman
• CA-25- Knight v Hill
• PA-17- Rothfus v Lamb
• TX-07- Culberson v Fletcher
• Wi-01- Steil v Bryce
• IL-06- Roskam v Casten
• CA-45- Walters v Porter
• TX-17- Sessions v Allred
• NC-09- Harris v McCready
• WA-05- McMorris-Rodgers v Brown
• KY-06- Barr v McGrath

On Friday, Lily Hay Newman, writing for Wired, reported that "early signs of attack have already arrived-- just as the US intelligence community warned. And yet Congress has still not done everything in its power to defend against them." In fact, congressional Republicans refusing to spend more money on increasing election cyber security! The Democratic motion to protect our elections failed 182-232, every single Republican voting to leave the doors open for the Russians to do it again!

At the Aspen Security Forum on Thursday, Microsoft executive Tom Burt said that phishing attacks-- reminiscent of those carried out in 2016 against Hillary Clinton's campaign-- have targeted three midterm campaigns this year. Burt stopped short of attributing those efforts to Russia, but the disclosure is the first concrete evidence this year that candidates are being actively targeted online. They seem unlikely to be the last.

“The 2018 midterms remain a potential target for Russian actors," said Matt Masterson, a senior cybersecurity adviser to DHS, at a Senate hearing last week. "The risks to elections are real."

Meanwhile, a trend of destabilizing denial-of-service attacks against election-related systems has also emerged, including one that caused a results-reporting website to crash during a municipal primary in Knox County, Tennessee, in May, along with two reported DDoS assaults on unnamed Democratic campaigns. DDoS attacks have become common enough that both Alphabet's Project Shield and Cloudflare's Athenian Project have been offering free DDoS protection to election-related groups, like political campaigns, state and local governments, and boards of elections.

Homeland Security assistant secretary Jeanette Manfra noted this week that DHS has so far not seen the volume of phishing activity and election infrastructure probing it recorded at this time in 2016. But that could simply mean that attackers have already done their reconnaissance, or have moved on to more refined techniques. And in addition to evolving threats, reports continue to surface new, critical vulnerabilities in areas like voting machines-- several of which have inadvisable remote-access software installed-- and voter data handling.

Top officials have made it clear that they are bracing for attacks. "The warning lights are blinking red again," said director of national intelligence Dan Coats last week during a talk at the Hudson Institute think tank. "Today, the digital infrastructure that serves this country is literally under attack." On Thursday, deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein echoed this conclusion. "These actions are persistent, they are pervasive, and they are meant to undermine America’s democracy," Rosenstein said.

Despite these active, ongoing concerns, the Trump administration's mixed messages about the extent of the Russian threat have hampered momentum on defense. President Trump indicated on Monday that he still doubts that Russia attempted to disrupt US democracy in 2016, and on Wednesday he appeared to dismiss the current threat from Russia as well. He later walked back some of those statements, and the White House released a compendium of its work on election defense, stating, "President Donald J. Trump and his Administration are defending the integrity of our election system."

The National Association of Secretaries of State said in a pointed response on Tuesday, "Secretaries of State ... across the nation are working hard each day to safeguard the elections process ... We ask, however, the White House and others help us rebuild voter confidence in our election systems by promoting these efforts and providing clear, accurate assessments moving forward."

...Five states, Delaware, Georgia, Louisiana, New Jersey, and South Carolina, use only paperless voting machines. A bill to replace the machines in Georgia failed in March. Pennsylvania, which has paperless machines in some counties, has committed to eliminating them before the 2020 election. In a recent survey, only 13 states told Politico this week that they plan to use federal money to replace voting machines.

More money could be on the way soon; a promising bill specifically tailored to promoting election and voting defense, known as the Secure Elections Act, gained two cosponsors this week in the Senate, South Dakota Republican Mike Rounds and Florida Democrat Bill Nelson. But experts agree that realistically, no more funding will be available to states in time for the midterms. And in a Thursday House of Representatives vote related to a 2019 spending bill, Republicans shot down an effort by Democrats to appropriate another $380 million in election security funding. Republicans said that the March HAVA distribution was adequate and that states have the funding they need.

Analysts are clear, though, that federal funding is still urgently needed to prepare for 2020, even if it's too late for 2018 now. "There seems to be more of an understanding among lawmakers than there was before the 2016 election that Congress has a responsibility in this area," Norden says. "But some members have a mindset that paying for elections is the responsibility of the states. And while that’s defensible up to a point, I think it hasn’t quite sunk in for them that this is now a national security issue and Congress actually does have a responsibility in that arena."

In the final weeks before the midterms, experts have advised states to work on their contingency plans and emergency procedures so they can handle whatever problems or attacks arise. While widespread attacks on the midterms are not a foregone conclusion, there are plenty of signs that at least some have already started.

"We’re going to have to see what happens with the 2018 election-- will there be any meddling? Will there be any things that go awry in 2018?" says Marian Schneider, president of Verified Voting, a group that promotes election system best practices. "Because to the extent that things don’t go swimmingly, unfortunately, that may be an impetus for Congress on funding."

Schneider notes, as do many security analysts, that though election process issues are often mired in bureaucratic and political controversies, the stakes transcend party lines. "I want to underscore that this is not a political issue-- it’s not partisan," she says. "It really is a national security issue. This is about standing together shoulder to shoulder to protect our democracy against external threats. That’s what we have to do."

Tell it to the American Royalists (or Tories) in 1777 who shot Patriots in the back on behalf of the British. According to Wikipedia "When their cause was defeated, about 15 percent of the Loyalists (65,000–70,000 people) fled to other parts of the British Empire, to Britain itself, or to British North America (now Canada). The southern Loyalists moved mostly to Florida, which had remained loyal to the Crown, and to British Caribbean possessions, often bringing along their slaves."

Gee, The GOP Sure Has Changed-- Or Has It?

New polling shows that while normal people are aghast at Trump's treasonous behavior in Helsinki and his supine posture towards Putin, Republicans overwhelmingly approve. A CBS News poll shows that 83% of Democrats and 53% of Independents disapprove of how Trump handles Putin, while 68% of Republicans approve. Similarly 89% of Democrats and 67% of Independents believe the U.S. intelligence community on Russian interference , while only 51% of Republicans do. 87% of Democrats and 57% of Independents are concerned that the Russians will interfere in the midterms. 61% of Republicans-- traitors in the same way conservatives were during the American Revolution, siding with the British against the Patriots-- are not concerned about Russian interference with November's coming elections.

A new poll from Axios is even more brutal when it comes to the nature of Republican-- dare say it-- TREASON. What do you see here in another American battle pitting Patriots against conservative shits?

"This poll," wrote Mike Allen, "foreshadows the coming national drama. Every piece of data, and virtually every public action of elected Republican officials, shows Trump will have overwhelming and probably unbreakable party support, regardless of what Robert Mueller finds with his Russia probe. Americans are split on whether the allegations of Russian interference are a serious issue (50%) or a distraction (47%). This breaks cleanly along party lines, with 85 percent of Republicans seeing it as a distraction and 85 percent of Democrats seeing it as a serious issue. Among Independents, 56 percent see it as a serious issue."

And it isn't just Trump and the Russians that highlights exactly what Republican-- voters, not just their elected officials-- have become. Yesterday, writing for HuffPo, Christopher Mathias, reported that Republicans aren't concerned at all that Iowa Congressman Steve King is a white supremicist (a polite-ish way of saying a neo-Nazi). Mathias wrote that "it's not surprising that the eight-term congressman from Iowa retweeted a neo-Nazi. King has a long history of making terrible, bigoted comments."

What is surprising, and concerning, is that a sitting U.S. congressman can unapologetically promote a neo-Nazi’s propaganda on Twitter without real political consequence. Over the past month, none of King’s fellow Republicans have pushed to censure him or expel him from Congress. None have called for him to resign. Mostly, they have stayed quiet.

Republicans have rebuked King in the past, sometimes forcefully. But they’ve also never really punished him, and have been inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt. (“I’d like to think he misspoke,” House Speaker Paul Ryan once said after King tweeted: “we can’t restore our civilization with other people’s babies.” King later clarified that he had not misspoken, and had “meant exactly” what he said.)

King is still chair of the House subcommittee on the constitution and civil justice. He still sits in the subcommittee on immigration and border security. He’s still co-chair of Republican Kim Reynold’s gubernatorial campaign in Iowa. Over the past month, he’s received thousands of dollars in campaign donations, including from Koch Industries PAC. And come time for the 2020 presidential election, Republican candidates will likely come begging for his endorsement, just as they did in the last election.

  Although the National Republican Congressional Committee, the Republican National Committee and Republican politicians have taken time to denounce or un-endorse the frightening number of neo-Nazis, Holocaust deniers and other assorted white supremacists running for office as Republicans this year, they’ve remained silent about King, helping to normalize his ideas and deem them acceptable.

When a HuffPost reporter on Capitol Hill Tuesday asked King about his retweet of a neo-Nazi, the congressman said all of his tweets are “true and objective.” On Wednesday, when the same reporter asked King if he is a white supremacist or a white nationalist, the congressman didn’t deny the allegation.

  “I don’t answer those questions,” he said. “I say to people that use those kind of allegations: Use those words a million times, because you’re reducing the value of them every time, and many of the people that use those words and make those allegations and ask those questions can’t even define the words they’re using.”

So we have defined the words, and all the evidence is there: King is a white supremacist.

White nationalism is aimed at preserving or maintaining a white majority in the U.S., said Jessie Daniels, a sociology professor at the City University of New York, HuffPost columnist and author of the books White Lies and Cyber Racism.

Daniels said King “definitely” qualifies as a white nationalist. “He’s been upfront about the fact that those are his views,” she said.

King is obsessed, for example, with demographics — and the perceived threat Muslim and Latino immigrants pose to the white, Christian majority. For this reason, King has taken particular interest in Geert Wilders, a noxiously Islamophobic Dutch politician who has advocated for fascist anti-Muslim policies, including a ban on Muslim immigration, and a ban on all mosques and Qurans in the Netherlands.

  ...King himself has a history of making his own wildly anti-Muslim proclamations. Just last month, speaking on Breitbart radio, King said that he didn’t want Somali Muslims working in Iowa’s meatpacking plants. Muslims often don’t eat pork, and in King’s twisted interpretation of Islam, the only reason Muslims would want to handle pork at meatpacking plants is to send non-Muslims “to Hell” and “make Allah happy.”

King has said the U.S. government should spy on mosques and that Muslims should have to renounce Sharia law before entering the country.

And he once promoted a debunked and paranoid conspiracy theory-- from the extremist conspiracy theory website InfoWars-- that a Jerusalem imam told Muslims to “go into Western Europe, build your enclaves there, breed their women, and do not associate or assimilate into the broader society.”

King has similarly devoted much of his career to vilifying Latino immigrants as inherently criminal and threatening.

Last month, responding to a tweet showing a photo of young Latino boys detained at the border and forcibly separated from their families, King tweeted, ”‘Young boys’ all old enough to be tried as adults or serve in the military and are prime MS-13 gang material & certainly grew up in the culture of one of the top 10 most violent countries in the world.”

King has made the wildly false claim that over a quarter of violent crimes in the U.S. are committed by undocumented immigrants, and has referred to illegal immigration as a “slow-motion terrorist attack in the United States” and a “slow-motion holocaust.” (Undocumented immigrants commit less crime than native-born Americans.)

  He once, while proposing an electrified fence along the Mexican border, compared immigrants to “livestock.”

...King has also paid homage to more traditional forms of American white supremacy. He has said the U.S. should not apologize for centuries of enslaving, murdering and raping millions of black Americans. He came out against putting a picture of emancipator Harriet Tubman-- a conductor of the Underground Railroad-- on the $20 bill.

And he once kept a Confederate flag on his desk even though his home state of Iowa was not part of the Confederacy. In fact, Iowa sent thousands of soldiers to fight for the Union against the Confederacy-- a treasonous army fighting explicitly to protect the institution of slavery in the South.

Last month, King won the Republican primary in Iowa’s Fourth Congressional District, ensuring he’ll be on the ballot this November in the general election against Democrat J.D. Scholten.

J.D.'s perspective is nothing like King's... to say the least. "White supremacy," he said, "has no place in our society."

I’ve tried to make this campaign more about the things I want to do to help the people of this district-- about my vision for fixing our broken health care system, helping family farmers survive these tough times in rural Iowa, and bringing new jobs to the district to stop all our young folks from leaving. But it’s impossible to ignore the fact that Steve King continues to be a complete embarrassment to the people of this district and this state.

As a 5th-generation Iowan, I am deeply disturbed and appalled that Steve King refuses to denounce the abhorrent concepts of white supremacy and white nationalism. My Iowa values and my baseball career taught me that people of all backgrounds can achieve greater things by working together for a common cause. I was fortunate to have had teammates from six different continents and my Catholic faith taught me we are all equally loved and valued, regardless of race. I’m not sure what bible Steve King uses.

Northwest Iowa is tired of Steve King’s divisive politics, which is only good for embarrassing us on the national stage. A Des Moines Register poll from last winter showed I am not alone in my feelings as a Democrat trailed King by only three points. We are on the verge of a farm crisis, health care remains unaffordable for many rural folks, and more of our youngest and brightest keep leaving western Iowa. We urgently need a voice that genuinely cares more about building our district’s future than it does about tearing us apart. It’s time to replace Steve King’s extremist political views with someone who will fight for the people of Northwest Iowa.

I’m embarrassed to be represented in Congress by Steve King. Sixteen years is long enough and it’s time for change. Stand with me in saying, “ENOUGH” by contributing to our movement to defeat him!

Let’s end this national embarrassment once and for all.

Stressful Christmas? At Least You’re Not George Washington-- A Guest Post By James Thompson

Christmas is approaching and it’s time to get into the holiday spirit. For some, this is stressful. But cheer up! At least you’re not George Washington. That man had real problems.

I’m writing this in my cluttered but comfortable office, but 239 years ago, George Washington and 3000 of his battered Continentals were huddled in makeshift encampments on the west bank of the Delaware River. Washington had ordered them to cross the river the day before to escape an approaching British army commanded by King George’s most effective general, Lord Charles Cornwallis. The wrathful Britain and his 9,500 redcoats had chased Washington for 90 harrowing miles after forcing him to abandon Fort Lee on the Hudson River 18 days before.

A variety of demoralizing thoughts probably passed through Washington’s weary mind as he sat alone in his frigid tent. In the weeks before his retreat, he had led his army through a series of devastating defeats. In the process of losing New York, his forces had been decimated and his country’s struggle for political independence had been driven to the edge of collapse. The lives of his men and his own life were still in peril. The situation was dire to say the least.

A Most Hellish Scene

On 7 December 1776, Washington had ordered the remnant of his army to use all available means to get from the Jersey side of the Delaware to comparative safety on its Pennsylvania shore. Amazingly, artist Charles Willson Peale witnessed the spectacle. He had gone to Trenton with his Philadelphia militia to join Washington on the assumption that Washington still commanded a fighting force. Instead, he watched an exhausted, disorganized mob (which included his brother) spend its last ounces of energy to get out of harm’s way. Peale later described the event as “the most hellish scene I have ever beheld.”

Washington’s prospects were as bleak as Pennsylvania’s winter landscape. Only 15 percent of the men he commanded during the siege of Boston were still with him. Enlistments for many of these men would be up at the end of the year. Senior British commander William Howe supposed that if he left the Americans alone, they would all go home. As Washington’s army dissolved, the war would end. I suppose this idea put the King’s military commander in merry Christmas spirits.

What Howe did not factor into his calculation was the character of the American general, who I consider the greatest man in history-- a position I defend in my latest book George Washington’s Mulatto Man: Who Was Billy Lee? (Commonwealth Books of Virginia). Washington’s decisions in the last three weeks of December 1776 and the first week of 1777 illustrate the leadership qualities that earned him this exalted title. Instead of giving up in the face of overwhelming odds, said William Dwyer, Washington determined to make “a bold stroke that might save the collapsing revolution.”

Men like Peale answered Washington’s call and rallied to his side. By Christmas day, 6000 men were in his ranks. That night, on crammed barges, these intrepid men crossed back over the ice-choked Delaware. Many of us know Immanuel Leutz’s painting of Washington standing mid-ship on one of these laden vessels [above]. He is the embodiment of American spirit, defying the elements as his men force their way through the crushing ice. Pulling an oar at his knee is his faithful servant, Billy Lee. Holding the flag at his shoulder is his fellow Virginian and future President, Lieutenant James Monroe. What a scene!

The Fox Escapes

At daybreak, Washington’s patchwork army surprised and captured the Hessian garrison at Trenton. After this unlikely victory, Washington brought his men, his Hessian prisoners, and the supplies he captured back to Pennsylvania. On the 28th, he learned that Cornwallis and his army of veterans were racing to Trenton to redeem the situation. In a moment of seeming madness, Washington ordered his men back across the Delaware to meet the Englishman and his bloodthirsty legion. Dug in on the south side of Assunpink Creek, his citizen soldiers withstood three furious assaults. As darkness settled over the battlefield the afternoon of 2 January, the confident British commander suspended his attack. “We’ll bag the fox in the morning,” Cornwallis told his officers before retiring. “My lord,” his quartermaster protested, “if you trust these people tonight, you will see nothing of them in the morning.”

Visions of sugarplums-- being the honor of suppressing the American rebellion against his king-- may have danced through Cornwallis’s dreams.  But while he slept, the fox escaped. Just as William Erskine predicted, Washington stole away during the night. Marching on an unmarked “byroad,” he led his exhausted men to Princeton. There he defeated Cornwallis’s rearguard and completed his bold stroke. By doing what seemed impossible, Washington saved the imperiled American cause. He went on from there to win the American Revolution. When it was over, this unconquerable man led his countrymen in creating history’s first “government by the people.”

I find these Christmastime events a reassuring point of reference for today’s uncertain world. Perhaps you will too. Merry Christmas.

----

James Thompson studied art at the Delaware Art Museum and earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in philosophy from the University of Virginia. For several years, he lived across the Rivanna River from Monticello on the Shadwell farm of Jefferson's eldest daughter, Martha Jefferson Randolph. Thompson cultivated his interest in the history of ideas teaching courses in philosophy, religion, and ethics and in western civilization at Strayer University in Alexandria, Va. He is the author of seven books, including The Birth of Virginia’s Aristocracy (2010), The Dubious Achievement of the First Continental Congress (2011), and Thomas Jefferson’s Enlightenment-- Paris 1785 (2014), all published by Commonwealth Books of Virginia.

If You're Wondering Who's Worse, The Democrats Or The Republicans, You're Missing The Entire Point-- Which Is Exactly What They Want

Greg Sargent asked yesterday about the latest manifestation of a left-right alliance, this time against unconstitutional war. If the "left" and the "right" are forming an alliance, who is it aimed at? Who are they fighting?

[T]here are internal disagreements among Republicans over how to vote on the narrower question of arming the rebels, with some conservatives demanding a vote on this separate from one on the “continuing resolution” temporarily funding the government. The White House wants GOP leaders to package the two together.

This is more than just an arcane Congressional procedural dispute. A separate vote on arming the rebels may be the closest thing we get to a Congressional vote on war, since Congress has no plans to vote on the escalation itself.

Indeed, Congressional progressives are now calling for a separate vote, too, allying themselves with conservatives who want the same.

…What we’re seeing here are the outlines of that left-right alliance between antiwar liberals and conservative libertarians that occasionally rises up to act as a check on presidential power in the realm of national security and to act as a counter-weight to the many “hawks” in Congress. Both sides’ leaderships appear to believe it is in their parties’ political interest to usher this through as quickly as possible. GOP leaders don’t want government shutdown theatrics heading into the midterms and appear to think it’s bad politics to oppose Obama’s ask on ISIS. Dem leaders want to help the White House get what it wants with a minimum of fuss.

But ISIS, Iraq, Syria and American foreign policy per se are not the subject of this post; politics is the subject. I grew up hating Republicans and, tempered by my Socialist grandfather who warned me to never trust the Democrats, always willing to accept the Democrats as the lesser of two evils. Today I look at Steve Israel and Steny Hoyer and Debbie Wasserman Schultz and at the increasingly dominant Republican wing of the Democratic Party or at crooks in blue t-shirts like Andrew Cuomo and just come to the conclusion that they aren't lesser enough of evils and that the evil that they are is too great to matter regarding the differences they have with Republicans.

I won't support any politician any longer based on a party label. Politicians have to earn my support on their own now. Being a Democrat isn't a plus… it's something a candidate has to overcome-- like being a Republican. It may not be as bad as being a Republican but it isn't enough to earn support-- not from me.

The political elites have been happy to see the populace divide up into increasingly less and less meaningful partisan teams, each team owned by the Big Money interests. When it comes to the corruption of Big Business, the Military Industrial Complex, the 1%, Organized Crime, neither party is less evil than the other. There are no Republicans worse than Joe Crowley (New Dem-NY) or Steve Israel (Blue Dog-NY) or Debbie Wasserman Schultz (New Dem-FL) or Jim Himes (New Dem-CT), not by any measurement of corruption of public life. The special interests have underwritten their careers and they own them, utterly and in the exact same way they own the Republicans.

This year Republican rebel Justin Amash beat back John Boehner's attempt to defeat him and replace him with a zombie. Two years earlier Amash was clearly a better choice than the homophobic, anti-Choice asshole the DCCC ran against him, Steve Pestka, who casually, hatefully called a gay primary opponent "a fudge packer." The GOP Establishment schmuck who ran against Amash this time, Brian Ellis (who wrote his campaign a check for $1,007,214, raised another $555,145 in big donations and outspent Amash $1,230,307 to $840,370) and Pestka have one thing in common-- they are members of the ruling elite, one with a red t-shirt and one with a blue t-shirt but both sworn enemies of the American Revolution.

The American Revolution meant something-- meant a lot as a matter of fact. It was pretty astounding, even if conservatives kept it from going as far as it wanted to. Now I look at candidates differently. I try to determine which side they would have been on in the American Revolution. That's why I backed Tim Wu and Zephyr Teachout last week against royalists Andrew Cuomo and Kathy Hochul and the Benedict Arnolds known as the WFP.

Are All Conservatives Traitors By Nature?

During our Revolutionary War as many as half a million people were dyed in the wool conservatives and, as opposed to the Patriots, considered themselves Loyalists (aka, Tories, Royalists or the King's Men). Many-- especially in Georgia and the Carolinas-- fought on the side of the British and mercenary occupation forces and after the war about 20% of them left the new United States of America for Britain, Canada, Florida and the Caribbean Islands (where so many conservatives still tuck away vast fortunes). We've talked about this before, and in his book, Conservatism in Early American History, Leonard Woods Larabee identified eight characteristics of the Loyalists that made them essentially conservative. Among them were that psychologically they were older, better established, and resisted innovation; that they felt the Crown was the legitimate government and it was morally wrong to resist; they wanted to take a middle-of-the-road position and got angry when the Patriots insisted they declare their opposition to the British; many had longstanding sentimental, family and business attachments to Britain; many were procrastinators who realized independence was bound to come some day but they just wanted to postpone the inevitable; many feared "mob rule" and anarchy, particularly property owners; many were pessimists who lacked confidence in the future.

Among the traitors who deserted the new nation were Isaac Low, who had been a delegate to the first Continental Congress and the first President of the New York Chamber of Commerce and Benjamin Franklin's son William (Governor of New Jersey). Just sayin'.

Remember when Elizabeth Warren, early in her campaign explained how nobody in this country got rich on his own? It's worth watching again:



So why bring and all that stuff from the 1780s now? Well, over the weekend the NY Post reported that wealthy conservatives are back in traitor mode. And I'm not talking about Romney tucking away his millions in Swiss and Caymen Islands bank accounts. I'm alking about right-wing greed heads renouncing their American citizenship-- lots of them. At least Romney will be losing some of his base before the November election.

America’s rich are renouncing their citizenship at record levels-- just to get richer.

Startling new data from Uncle Sam show that defections by Americans are expected to double this year, largely to avoid any stiff tax bills resulting from the proposed 55 percent hike on the rich-- as well as the likely expiration on Dec. 31 of the Bush era tax cuts.

As many as 8,000 US citizens are projected by immigration officials to renounce in 2012, or about 154 a week, versus 3,805 in 2011, or about 73 per week.

“High-net-worth individuals are making decisions that having a US passport just isn’t worth the cost anymore,” said Jim Duggan, a lawyer at Duggan Bertsch, which specializes in protecting assets of the wealthy.

“They’re able to do what they do from any place in the world, and they’re choosing to do it from places with much lower tax rates,” he said.

“Some are philosophically disgusted at the course our country is taking in all kinds of ways. They’re making a strong protest of, ‘Enough is enough,’ ” said Duggan. “But largely it’s an economic decision.”

There’s a catch to reaching tax nirvana. To renounce citizenship-- and thus escape any future US taxes forever-- a citizen must buy that unique freedom with a a one-time exit tax of 15 percent on the fair-market value of all assets-- including real estate, securities, businesses and personal belongings-- less their basis price.

“Many see it as a cheaper way to get out from under any tax liabilities on future wealth, while their assets have lower values during the weak economy,” he said.

The step before dumping citizenship is, of course, finding a new homeland and getting citizenship there.

Duggan said scores of tax-haven nations and island regimes around the world eagerly welcome disenchanted rich Yanks with quick citizenship, business deals and protections from the US Justice Department and the IRS.

Among the popular spots: Australia, Norway, Singapore, Cayman Islands, Costa Rica, Guernsey and Antigua.

There is one way to have your cake and eat it, too, Duggan said.

The US possessions in the Caribbean-- St. Thomas, St. John and St. Croix-- give a 90 percent tax credit to US citizens living there at least 183 days a year, resulting in an effective tax rate of just 3.5 percent, he said.

The Day After Independence Day

Wrong hat, asshole

Over the last several months, DWT has been featuring a series of posts about financial and conservative political elites making common cause with European fascists in the 1930s and '40s. The 4th of July festivities yesterday-- coupled with pious pronouncements by conservative hacks (see tweet below)-- reminded me that conservatives were undermining America long before they financed the rise of Hitler in the '30s.


The Wikipedia entry on the Revolutionary War Loyalists begins with a simple paragraph that might give contemporary American conservatives, particularly teabaggers, cause for pause.

Loyalists were American colonists who remained loyal to the Kingdom of Great Britain (and the British monarchy) during the American Revolutionary War. At the time they were often called Tories, Royalists, or King's Men. They were opposed by the Patriots, those who supported the revolution. When their cause was defeated, about 20% of the Loyalists fled to other parts of the British Empire...

In his book Conservatism in Early American History, Leonard Woods Larabee identified eight characteristics of the Loyalists that made them essentially conservative:

▪ Psychologically they were older, better established, and resisted innovation.

▪ They felt that resistance to the Crown-- the legitimate government-- was morally wrong.

▪ They were alienated when the Patriots resorted to violence, such as burning houses and tarring and feathering.

▪ They wanted to take a middle-of-the road position and were angry when forced by the Patriots to declare their opposition.

▪ They had a long-standing sentimental attachment to Britain (often with business and family links).

▪ They were procrastinators who realized that independence was bound to come some day, but wanted to postpone the moment.

▪ They were rightly cautious and afraid of anarchy or tyranny that might come from mob rule, which did cost many their property and security after the revolution.

▪ Some say they were pessimists who lacked the confidence in the future displayed by the Patriots, while others point to the memory and dreadful experience of many Scottish immigrants who had already seen or paid the price of rebellion in dispossession and clearance from their prior homeland.

Thousands of conservatives fought on the side of British troops and mercenaries against patriots during the war and after the British defeat over 60,000 fled the new country and resettled in Canada, the West Indies and back in Great Britain. Back in 2009, we spent a lot of time going over the then just-published The Progressive Revolution by Mike Lux.

If you look at our country’s long history, from the days of the first stirrings of our revolutionary impulses against Britain to today, progressive leaders and progressive movements have moved this country forward in the face of bitter-- and frequently violent-- opposition from reactionaries and defenders of the status quo. Consider the major advances in American history:

• The American Revolution
• The Bill of Rights and the forging of a democracy
• Universal white male suffrage
• Public education
• The emancipation of the slaves
• The national park system
• Food safety
• The breakup of monopolies
• The Homestead Act
• Land grant universities
• Rural electrification
• Women’s suffrage
• The abolition of child labor
• The eight hour workday
• The minimum wage
• Social Security
• Civil rights for minorities and women
• Voting rights for minorities and the poor
• Cleaning up our air, our water, and toxic dump sites
• Consumer product safety
• Medicare and Medicaid

Every single one of those reforms, which are literally the reforms that made this country what it is today, was accomplished by the progressive movement standing up to the fierce opposition of conservative reactionaries who were trying to preserve their own power. American history is one long argument between progressivism and conservatism.

The striking thing about this long debate is how much the arguments that have occurred are repetitive over time, in terms of their rhetoric, constituencies, philosophy, and the values they represent. From generation to generation, the conservatives who oppose reform and progress have used the same kinds of arguments over and over again. Arthur Schlesinger Jr. described the division as one between "public purpose and private interest." If you sketch out the broad lines of the conservative case against the progressive case, it flows something like this:

The Conservative Argument

Successful businessmen and their allies make America great, and we should not undermine their authority or cost them money because that will mean bad things for the economy and all of us. Their freedom to run things as they like benefits everyone in the long run. And they should be the ones who control the government as well, because they know how the world works, and we can trust them to protect out national interests because of their knowledge and wisdom. An excess of democracy is a dangerous thing.

We must adhere to tradition because once we tamper with tradition, society goes to hell. It's a scary world out there, and the people who have always run things can protect us, but only if we stay with our traditions and keep things the way they have always been. People who are different from us create problems, and we don't want our traditions or the carefully built structure of our society undermined.

If people are poor, it's probably their own fault because they are too lazy to work, didn't study in school, and are generally bad people. Society shouldn't spend any money on helping people who can't help themselves, and we can't afford it anyway. Ultimately, each of us is responsible for ourselves in the world, and we shouldn't be relying on government or anybody else to make it.

We should fear change and be wary of hope because when things change, we just don't know what the unintended consequences will be.

The Progressive Argument

We are all created equal and deserve both equal rights under the law and equal opportunities to make good lives for ourselves and families. That means that the laws should not be formulated to favor one race of people or to help the wealthy over the poor. And it means that we all should have a good education, enough food to eat, adequate health care if we get sick, and a decent place to live.

Our society works well only when it has a sense of community, an understanding that we are all interdependent on one another, that we are all diminished if any one of us is suffering, and that we look out for those who can't take care of themselves.

America is a democracy that should be a government of, by, and for the people. We don't trust elites to look out for the rest of us, and we want everyone to have a say in how the government and the economy are run.

Fear and Hope

The arguments by conservatives all too frequently invoke fear-- of change, of one another, of foreigners and foreign enemies, or of certain people. They proclaim a loud and fervent patriotism and a love of traditional values, quite often quoting the Bible to justify their point of view, while ignoring those patriots and Bible quotes that don't fit their agenda.

Progressives, on the other hand, have called for hope, rather than fear, and for changing things for the better, rather than just leaving things the way they have always been. We have been for more power for regular folks and less power for elites. And we have been for a stronger sense of community, rather than the sense that each of us is on his or her own.

The central theme of this book is to show how these political arguments have been repeated over time and time again since the American Revolution, how the same alternative visions of America keep being argued over and over, and how when progressives have won the day politically, the country has moved forward.

The good news is that a more progressive vision of what America can aspire to has prevailed enough times over the years to make us a far better country. While it is certainly true that the United States is more conservative by many measures than the industrialized countries in Europe, and that progress has been uneven and painfully slow, we are also the country that invented the modern notions of democracy and equality, and that legacy has echoed down through the generations and inspired new movements to make their claims on the American dream.

American history has always been a mixed bag, with vision and courage and progress mixed together with slavery, the brutal killing of many millions of American Indians, wars that shouldn't have been fought, and altogether too much greed. There have been plenty of times when the progressive movement was too weak and small to stop bad things from happening, or when it settled for compromises on fundamental issues, such as slavery and women's suffrage.

Which side would have attracted you in each of these instances? All of these guys would have been on the progressive side then... as they are now. And they're fighting against powerful elites who can buy-- as they always have-- the loyalty of the uneducated, fearful masses of reflexive conservatives.

More On Ryan's Plans

The plea (demands, really) Ryan and his cronies are making to reshuffle the American deck goes all the way back beyond the New Deal-- ostensibly what the Republicans and the wealthy interests they represent are whining about. The New Deal, which saved America from a real peoples' revolution, was meant to reign in the excesses of the wealthiest and most anti-social elements, the entitled parasites of society who persuade themselves that John Jay's dictim-- "Those who own the country ought to govern it"-- was handed down by God himself. But the beef they're embroiled in does go back to Jay's day, and although Ryan certainly would endorse that particular dictim of the first Supreme Court Justice, there are few other points he and Jay would agree on. Jay as a Patriot, a revolutionary, albeit the most reluctant and moderate of the lot. Ryan would have certainly been a Loyalist-- those who remained loyal to the King of Britain, fought against the revolution and, in thousands of cases, abandoned America after victory and fled to English or to another British colony.

In his classic 1948 history, Conservatism in Early American History, Leonard Woods Larabee came up with a number of characteristics of the Loyalists that made them essentially conservative. Ironically, the first one he wrote could have been a description of today's teabagger or Glenn Beck enthusiast: "Psychologically they were older, better established, and resisted innovation." As Mike Lux pointed out in his own more recent book, The Progressive Revolution conservatives have inevitably been on the wrong side of history, starting with their opposition to the Declaration of Independence, to the American Revolution itself and, of course, to the Constitution which granted suffrage to non-landowners and to "common" people. There can be no question where Ryan-- not to mention today's self-styled teabaggers-- who have nothing in common with the Patriots other than former's affectation of a penchant for tri-cornered hats.

Don't forget, at the time of the American Revolution, almost half a million conservatives remained loyal to the British crown and many fought on the side of the Brits against the founding of a new independent republic. That was about 20% of the population at the time. After the war, over 60,000 white conservatives-- including many of the wealthiest landowners like the DeLancy, DePester Walton and Cruger families of the Hudson Valley and the Penn, Allen, Chew, and Shippen families of Pennsylvania-- left America for Britain or other British territories, like Canada and the Bahamas. Many of the richest southern conservatives took their slaves and fled to the West Indies. And in his own book Threshold, Thom Hartmann emphasizes that "[d]uring the Revolutionary War, virtually every person of great wealth left the United States... As the Constitution was being framed, one of the biggest issues was the debate over the best ways to keep in check the power of wealth." Unfortunately, corporate shills like Alexander Hamilton (think of him as the representative of Wall Street, a kind of combination of Paul Ryan, JimDeMint and Third Way), Tench Coxe, Samuel Seabury and reactionary southerners-- yep; back then too-- worked hard, and effectively, to thwart that strain of revolutionary thought. Which is why, for example, we wound up with a Senate (modeled on the House of Lords), with slavery, with no voting rights for women and no guarantees of the individual liberties that were later addressed-- also to the hysterical opposition of conservatives-- by the Bill of Rights. Keep in mind this is an Inside-the-Beltway Establishment Democratic Party position, even though it's completely at odds with Democratic voters and activists:

• 2012 will be about 2 issues-- the economy and debt. While likely to be stronger, the economy may still be in a gray zone-- a bipartisan agreement on the structural deficit would take the Republicans’ biggest issue off the table.

• Voters are extremely deficit sensitive and are likely to remain so. The party seen as most serious on the issue will win the day.

• We don’t believe Republicans “going too far” will be their Waterloo. They tried to privatize Social Security in 2005 and still fared better with seniors than every other age group in every election cycle since.

• Voters’ views on Medicare, Social Security, etc., are more nuanced than Washington often gives them credit for.

• With entitlements and interest on the debt set to consume 70% of the federal budget in 2030, it’s crucial that progressives fight to leave room in the budget for critical public investments on infrastructure, innovation, education and many other issues.

The transpartisan, anti-working family strain of conservatism embraced by this mindset completely dominates one political party, the Republicans, and has immense power inside the Democratic party (though the corporately-financed DLC, Blue Dog Caucus and Third Way). That's why all the discussion is about how Ryan and the radical right set the table for Democratic "compromise" instead of, for example, the polling this week that shows 78% of voters believe the solution to the budgetary problems cosnervatives are braying about would be best solved by taxing the rich. Did I miss a report on that on yesterday's Talking Heads discussions? And other than Bernie Sanders, do any Democrats make that argument and throw it back in Paul Ryan's face?

We should nip this right in the bud-- because if you think the Democratic Establishment has the slightest intention of doing it for us, I've failed at communicating the point entirely.