Will Former GOP Officials Be Able To Persuade Republican Voters That Biden Is The Lesser Evil?

Tuesday, The Circus ran a piece on Kellyanne Conway in which she predicted that "hidden Trump voters" would be out in force on November 3rd to save the day for the Orange Menace. "As the person who coined the term, 'hidden undercover Trump voter in 2016,' there are even more of them and they’re even more committed now, and they’re going to surprise you as to who they are this time."

But are there hidden undercover Biden voters too? Republicans who have never voted for Democrats in their lives but who cannot, eyes wide open, vote for Trump again? Yesterday a couple hundred Republicans and Independents announced that they're voting for Biden. Christine Todd Whitman, a former Republican governor of New Jersey, noted that while Bixden is a "decent man, a steady man, Trump is trying to paint the world of Joe Biden as horrific-- but that’s Trump’s America now." According to Reuters reporter Tim Reid "She accused Trump of betraying conservative values by undermining the rule of law and national security, lying, dividing Americans along racial lines, and failing the country in his response to the coronavirus pandemic."

Michigan Democrats don't remember Governor Rick Snyder with anything but contempt, but Michigan Republicans still respect and admire the man who they elected governor in 2011 and 2015. Yesterday he kicked off this new effort with an appeal directly to Republicans in an OpEd, I am a Republican vote for Biden, for USA Today, painting Trump as a bully without a moral compass.

Forty-four years ago, I celebrated my 18th birthday at the 1976 Republican National Convention as part of Gerald Ford’s national youth group. At that convention, I had the honor to watch two great leaders in action-- Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan. I have remained a lifelong Republican and proudly announced Michigan’s support for Mitt Romney in 2012 from the front row of the Republican convention in Tampa.

I will continue to support and stand up for Republican policies and values, and support Republican candidates, but I will not support Donald Trump for reelection.

Trump has not unified the nation

When elected to office, you do not represent only your supporters, you represent all of your constituents. That is your job. I was at the nation’s Capitol when Trump gave his inaugural address. I had hoped this first speech as president would be a message to unify a divided nation. Instead, I heard a speech directed at how he would help the people who supported him. And sadly, that is how President Trump continues to govern.

Furthermore, President Trump’s answer to people who oppose or disagree with them is to be verbally abusive. In other words, he is a bully.

A great leader treats people with respect even when they present different opinions. Without a variety of views and opinions, we would have no innovation or creativity in our nation. Being a bully and being strong are not the same thing. Being strong is standing up for your convictions. Being a bully is trying to intimidate those who are perceived to be weaker or a threat. As a proud nerd, I had to deal with bullies over many years; it is tragedy watching our world suffer from one.

In addition, President Trump lacks a moral compass. He ignores the truth.

Facts and science matter. Good decisions should be based on facts and supported by sound scientific theory whenever possible.

President Trump also has demonstrated that he does not fully appreciate public policy matters, including public health, the economy and foreign relations, nor does he seem to want to learn.

While we have had a strong economy during his term, it reminds me of the old expression that it is better to be lucky than smart. Some regulatory reforms have been helpful. But his tax reform was a failure. It didn’t have real long-term value, enriched large corporations and violated the basic principles of good tax reform to be simple, fair, and efficient. In the foreign policy area, there have been some good agreements, but overall, our nation is no longer respected as a leader on world affairs.

Not supporting Donald Trump for reelection is not the same thing as voting for Joe Biden.

Bringing back civility to the nation

I had the opportunity to interact with Mr. Biden when he served as vice president. My interactions were always constructive and respectful. He has shown the desire to heal a deeply divided nation; has demonstrated strong moral character and empathy; and he seems willing to listen to people who have different perspectives from his own.

For years, I mentioned in most of my speeches the need to bring back civility to our nation. We will not continue to be the greatest nation in the world if we can’t get along among ourselves. We have only become more divided over the past four years. We need a leader who believes in civility and bringing Americans closer together.

While I am endorsing Joe Biden for president, I am still a Republican who also will be publicly supporting Republican candidates at the local, state and federal level.

My weekly column signoff is-- “Remember, Relentless Positive Action (RPA) in your life will help you and others. So, I wish you RPA every day!” RPA is a philosophy of no credit, no blame, and solving problems in a relentless fashion. Never in our nation’s history have we needed RPA more. I hope you will join me and help others by using Relentless Positive Action to elect Joe Biden as America’s next president.

Retired Michigan Republicans congressmen Joe Schwarz and Dave Trott jumped right on board, each endorsing Biden.

Some Political Leaders Are Taking The Pandemic Seriously And Some Are Definitely NOT

Albania was one of the most overtly corrupt cesspools of a country I have ever visited. And I've been to every corrupt cesspool on earth. There is no reason, or almost no reason, to believe their pandemic numbers. They report 868 confirmed cases and 31 COVID-19 deaths. They report that there are just 302 cases per million people. That's one of the mildest pandemics in Europe. Albania has about 2.9 million people, similar to Lithuania and Armenia. Lithuania is reporting 1,479 confirmed cases and 50 deaths (543 cases per million) and Armenia is reporting 3,313 confirmed cases, 45 deaths (1,118 cases per million).

Albanians seemed to me like unruly people with minimal respect for social mores and laws. So maybe the numbers are bullshit. Or... maybe the strong punishment for violating social distancing is working. Reuters reported that Albania amended its penal code... to punish anyone breaking coronavirus quarantine and self-isolation rules and infecting others with up to eight years in jail as it slowly prepares to restart sections of its economy. Critics of the tougher measure said fines were proving effective but Prime Minister Edi Rama defended the new penalty as necessary for successfully relaxing the lockdown. Rama said the government believed about 2,800 people would have died if lockdown rules had not been imposed... Police have fined more than 7,000 people and suspended 1,800 driving licenses. According to the new law, anyone infected with the coronavirus who broke self-isolation or quarantine rules and infected others, wilfully or not, would face from two to eight years in jail if his or her action caused grave harm, including death.

“These measures are being taken because we are going to relax (lockdown rules). We are winning the battle on the health front. And we shall win it on the economy front,” Rama said.

In asking parliamentarians to vote for the tougher law, Rama described quarantine rule-breakers as similar to carrying a bomb, in this case the new coronavirus.

“A bomb does nothing else but kill people,” Rama said.

Poorer than most in Europe, Albania enforced a tough isolation soon after its first case was detected on March 9 in a man coming from Italy, one of the worst-hit countries, because it feared its spread might overwhelm its weak health system.

Since Monday, Albania has enforced a weekday lockdown from 5:30 p.m. until 5 a.m. the next day and allows one person per family to shop for 90 minutes. Some industries keep working.

Until recently, Singapore had kept its rates of infection very low and looked like it had vanquished the pandemic. People in Singapore who do not observe physical distancing rules can be fined up to $6,985 or jailed up to six months, or face both penalties.

For the most part, California had also been having a relatively easy pandemic-- 67,986 confirmed cases, 2,719 deaths and 1,721 cases per million, number that have been steadily creeping up as more and more people have started ignoring the social distancing rules. Yolo County in northern California has only 173 confirmed cases and 20 deaths. Although endorsement has been very lax, on paper "egregious violators face arrest or citation, which carries a punishment of up to 90 days in jail and/or a fine between $50 and $1,000. No one has gone to jail and how many people care about a $50 fine?

“We’re receiving more complaints about people using playground equipment, tennis courts, basketball courts, and not adequately spacing when riding or walking on greenbelts,” creating potential coronavirus breeding grounds, Police Chief Darren Pytel said.

In some cases, people have ripped down yellow caution tape in order to use the blocked-off facilities, while more middle- and high-school aged kids are grouping up in parks.

Between emails and calls to dispatchers, the complaints have numbered a dozen or more per day, with some demanding stronger enforcement action for the rule breakers, Pytel said.

This week’s springlike weather was the likely culprit, and “we know that it will be much more difficult to stay inside,” Pytel said. But with COVID-19 still causing deaths in Yolo County and beyond, “we are asking people to dig deep now, and hopefully we can turn this around much sooner.”

...“Although we have seen substantial compliance with the orders, law enforcement has seen an increase in the number of complaints regarding large gatherings and businesses failing to follow the rules established by the Public Health Officer,” said the Davis police message, blasted out on social media late Friday afternoon.

Complaints also have come in regarding nonessential businesses still trying to operate, with a local massage parlor and a private school that attempted to work with students on campus among the most recent examples, Pytel said.

Pytel said his agency also is seeing an increase in house-party reports, some gatherings having as many as 40 people in relatively close quarters. Even if the festivities are outside, “people are too close, and that’s how this spreads.”

So far, Davis police haven’t had to arrest or cite anyone for flouting the county order, though “we’ve come close a couple of times” at party scenes, Pytel said. Instead, officers issued noise-violation tickets, which carry a $280 fine.

A local paper in Upstate New York reported that Steuben County officials announced enhanced enforcement of social distancing practices prescribed by New York State on PAUSE, under the authority of Public Health Law Section 12-B. First violations will receive a warning, but any further willful violations are an unclassified misdemeanor. Penalties include up to 1 year in jail, a $2,000 fine, or both. There is no exemption in the law for religious gatherings. Most people obey the rules and some flout them. District Attorney Baker: "Our goals here are simple-- to enforce the law and most importantly to keep people safe. My hope is that through written warnings we can educate, eliminate ignorance, and help people keep themselves safe-- and should they refuse, with this law, we have the tools to deal with those who have the arrogance to willfully put others at risk."

Last month Business Insider reported that "Canada has so far avoided the United States' coronavirus fate, and is taking drastic measures to ensure it stays that way. The country... announced that all travelers entering the country would be required to quarantine themselves for 14 days, even if they aren't showing symptoms of COVID-19... The rules are punishable by a fine of up to $750,000 or a month in jail, and the government will be conducting spot checks to ensure compliance."

Yesterday Boris Johnson announced an increase in fines to £3,200 (almost $4,000) for "lockdown flouters. Fines would gradually increase each time someone was caught. Police would issue penalties of £100, £200, £400, £800, £1600 and then finally £3,200 for the sixth offence... People could also be sent to jail if they did not pay."

This isn't the direction much of the U.S. is taking. Osceola County in central Florida has ended the whole idea of serious enforcement. No more fines for people refusing to wear masks, even though masks are still mandatory. Texas politicians, of course, persist in making everything worse-- which helps explain why the caseload has been rising.

Several prominent Texas conservatives on Wednesday rallied to the defense of Shelley Luther, the Dallas salon owner who was fined and sentenced to seven days in jail for intentionally violating an order to shutter her business during the COVID-19 outbreak.

Gov. Greg Abbott, who’s reopening hair salons on Friday after deeming them nonessential for weeks, said Shelley’s sentence was “excessive,” adding that “jailing Texans for non-compliance with executive orders should always be the last available option.”

“Compliance with executive orders during this pandemic is important to ensure public safety,” said Abbott, a Republican who issued one of the orders defied by Luther. "However, surely there are less restrictive means to achieving that goal than jailing a Texas mother.”

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, also a Republican, called Luther’s sentence “outrageous” and demanded that she be released from jail, while Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, another Republican, offered to pay Luther’s $7,000 fine or even serve out Luther’s sentence under house arrest.

Those views were echoed by the likes of U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, a Republican, U.S. Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Houston, and U.S. Rep. Chip Roy, R-Austin, along with a group of conservative activists who on Wednesday gathered in Dallas to protest Luther’s punishment.

That feedback appeared to do little to deter state District Judge Eric Moyé, the Democrat who sentenced Luther.

He released a letter late Wednesday to Paxton from him and 11 other state district judges serving in Dallas County, accusing the attorney general of “most inappropriate and equally unwelcome” conduct for urging Luther’s release.

“It is contrary to the concept of an independent Judiciary and offends the tradition of separation of powers for any member of the Executive Branch of Texas government to interject itself into the proceedings of the judicial branch,” the judges wrote.

They continued: “For the sake of ALL of the citizens of Texas, please let the Judicial process play out without any further interference."

...Moyé said he would consider levying only a fine if Luther apologized and promised to not reopen her salon until she was permitted to do so. But she declined that offer, explaining that it was a matter of survival to keep open the business.

“Feeding my kids is not selfish,” she said at her hearing, which was broadcast on YouTube. “If you think the law is more important than kids getting fed, then please go ahead with your decision, but I am not going to shut the salon.”

Moyé told Luther he didn’t doubt her sincerity but said the “rule of law cannot and does not operate when individuals take it upon themselves to decide” what they can and cannot do.

Her case had already prompted outrage in some conservative quarters, particularly those pushing for Texas to reopen more quickly. That criticism intensified after she was taken into custody.

“We shouldn’t be coming down with a seven-day jail, no bail sentence for her wanting to keep her hair salon open because she’s wanting to take care of her family,” Roy said Wednesday in a live-streamed interview with the Texas Tribune.

He has been among the most vocal critics, calling Luther’s punishment “terrible” and “straight up wrong."

“This is so insane," Roy wrote on Twitter, encouraging Luther to tell Moyé to “pound sand” and sharing a link to a GoFundMe account that has already raised more than $325,000 by Wednesday afternoon for the salon owner. “I have no words for what is happening to my state and nation.”

Roy, a former federal prosecutor, acknowledged in his interview with The Tribune that Luther has been violating orders issued by Abbott and Jenkins. He added that he has a “strong concern about the rule of law.”

But the first-term congressman defended the owner of Salon à la Mode by saying “she is acting civilly disobedient in the face of the something she thinks is wrong.”

Asked later on Wednesday by the Dallas Morning News what kind of punishment should be issued to those who violate such an edict in order to deter others from also ignoring them, Roy asked, “What’s the appropriate punishment for speeding 68 in a 65 in the middle of nowhere?”

“Good judges and local leaders find ways to not escalate situations when common sense should prevail,” he said in an emailed statement. “7 days in jail with no bail is clearly out of line. She should be allowed to work.”

Cruz offered a similar sentiment.

“7 days in jail for cutting hair??” he wrote on Twitter. “This is NUTS. And government officials don’t get to order citizens to apologize to them for daring to earn a living.”

So did Crenshaw, a freshman Republican in Congress.

“These punishments are NOT just,” he wrote on Twitter. “They are not reasonable. Small-minded “leaders” across the country have become drunk with power. This must end.”

Paxton on Wednesday wrote to Moyé to urge him to reconsider the sentence and to release Luther. He called the decision " outrageous," “out of touch,” a “shameful abuse of judicial discretion” and a “political stunt.”

Patrick, meanwhile, said Moyé “overreached."

“We want people to follow executive orders, but she said, ‘hey, I am going to feed my kids’ and we understand that,” he said, adding that if Moyé “wants to substitute me for her, and sentence me to 7 days of house arrest, so she can go back to work, that’s fine.”

Conservative activists rallied on Wednesday in downtown Dallas in Luther’s defense. Among them was Michael Quinn Sullivan, the CEO of Empower Texans, a group that’s criticized Abbott and others for restrictions they’ve put into place.

Even Sarah Palin, the former Alaska governor and vice presidential candidate, on Wednesday visited Salon à la Mode to offer support for Luther.

Even! 

Mike Siegel, the progressive taking on Trump ass-kisser Michael McCaul in the gerrymandered congressional district that snakes from north Austin into the suburbs west of Houston, told me this morning that "This is how Jim Crow works in modern-day Texas. These folks can’t be bothered to get an innocent Black man like Rodney Reed off Death Row, but they will make a big show about how their people can operate with impunity." Julie Oliver, like Mike, is a progressive Democrat running in a gerrymandered district that starts in Austin and wiggles through red counties, but up towards Ft. Worth. This morning she noted that "Texas put a Black woman in prison for 5 years when she accidentally voted while on parole, so I don't think these guys are upset about 'prosecutorial discretion.' We should recognize this for what it is-- a political opportunity for career politicians to distract from their failure to adequately prepare for and respond to a pandemic that has killed 80,000 of our fellow Americans and that has crippled our economy." Time to get serious about driving these Republican crackpots out of office? That's what the thermometer on the right is all about. Please click on it and contribute to Mike and Julie what you can.

Cases in Texas are steadily climbing-- 1,248 more conformed cases on Sunday and 1,376 cases per million. My guess is that that will double before the election.

Mirror, Mirror On The Wall, Who's The Trumpiest Of Them All?

Do we need more like this in Congress?

Georgia is lousy with white Trumpists-- especially outside the Atlanta Metro, where Hillary did even better than Obama had. Trump won the state's 16 electoral votes 2,089,104 (51.05%) to 1,877,963 (45.89%). Even during the Republican primary, Trump won every single one of Georgia's 159 counties except 4 in the Atlanta Metro plus Clarke County (Athens), all of which were won by Rubio. In the general, 6 rural counties Obama won in 2012-- Baker, Dooly, Early, Peach, Quitman and Twiggs, swung over to Trump. White rural Georgia is still Trump Country, even if his favorability has sunk significantly in the suburbs and among minorities.

Jenna Johnson,writing for the Washington Post, used the Georgia GOP gubernatorial runoff primary to demonstrate how 2018 candidates are mimicking Trump's worst characteristics on the campaign trail. She started her report by pointed out that "In last week’s debate between Georgia’s Republican candidates for governor, policy was quickly abandoned as Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle and Secretary of State Brian Kemp lit into one another with a familiar slate of accusations. Kemp called Cagle a liar at least a dozen times. Cagle accused Kemp of conspiring with another Republican to release a recording of an 'out of context' private conversation. Kemp accused Cagle of spreading 'fake news' to Georgians, and Cagle repeatedly refused to apologize for saying what he says."

The two very right-wing candidates argue of who's Trumpier, bicker "over which of them has supported the president for the longest or who would most warmly embrace the Trump agenda" and have both started acting like the repulsive jackass themselves, "using some of his nastiest campaign tactics." But, unfortunately, Georgia isn't the only place this is happening.

In races across the country, other Republican candidates-- and some Democrats-- also are branding their opponents with unflattering nicknames, tweeting in all caps, refusing to apologize for things that politicians once apologized for, being proudly politically incorrect, circulating false information, calling their hometown newspapers “fake news,” releasing damaging information about their opponents and generating controversy to get headlines, even unflattering ones. A Republican candidate for California’s state legislature, copying Trump’s foray against President Barack Obama, has even launched a birther movement, demanding proof that his Democratic opponent is a legal citizen of the United States.

“Trump’s style was such a departure from anything we were used to seeing in a presidential campaign-- his willingness to just go all-out and criticize heavily someone, call them names and engage in schoolyard talk,” said Kerwin Swint, a political science professor at Kennesaw State University in Georgia. “Candidates this year are more willing to go there out of a sense that a precedent has been set or that it works or why not do it in my race.”

But it’s unclear if the tactics will work for many candidates other than Trump, who had a cache with his voters unmatched by most seeking office.

“I don’t like when candidates overly emulate the president. There’s only one Donald Trump,” said Harlan Z. Hill, a conservative consultant working on several midterm races who is also involved with Trump’s 2020 campaign. Hill said he gets frustrated with candidates who use gimmicky nicknames like the president does.

“My biggest problem with this is that it sort of reflects a wider problem in the Republican Party right now, where people are paying lip service to the Trump movement, the America First movement,” he said. “They really don’t understand it, so they’re just emulating the superficial aspects of it. I think voters see right through that.”

But it can be difficult for voters to know whether candidates are emulating Trump out of belief or ambition.

Former soap-opera actor [and gay porn star] Antonio Sabato Jr.-- who spoke at the 2016 Republican National Convention and is now running for Congress in Southern California-- has called for Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), a Trump nemesis, to be locked up because he believes she is a “hustler of hate” who “wants to tar and feather anyone different from her.” In Indiana, Trump-endorsed Senate candidate Mike Braun cast his primary opponents as “Todd the Fraud” and “Luke the Liberal.” Iowa Republican Party Chairman Jeff Kaufmann has nicknamed a Democratic congressional candidate “Absent Abby,” in hopes of drawing attention to her statehouse attendance record. Meanwhile, the Maryland Democratic Party has nicknamed Republican Gov. Larry Hogan “Hidin’ Hogan” while accusing him of hiding his conservative positions.

Some of the Trumpiest candidates-- the sort who were early supporters of the president’s campaign and decided to run for office themselves-- aren’t making it past the Republican primaries.

In northern Ohio’s 16th Congressional District, state lawmaker Christina Hagan was inspired by Trump’s 2016 victory to run for Congress, but she lost the primary to the Republican establishment’s favorite, former football star Anthony Gonzalez. One of Hagan’s commercials featured the same out-of-context footage of people rushing a Moroccan border that Trump used in one of his anti-illegal immigration campaign commercials. She also tweeted a news article about a suspect with a name similar to her opponent’s who had been charged in connection with what she called an “illegal immigrant drug ring”-- ignoring calls from fellow Republicans who asked her to delete the tweet.

In New York’s 11th Congressional District, which includes Staten Island, former congressman Michael Grimm challenged Republican Rep. Dan Donovan but lost the primary. Grimm labeled his opponent “Desperate Dan” and “Dishonest Dan,” and compared his own felony conviction for federal tax fraud to the ongoing investigation into whether the Trump campaign worked with Russia in 2016, a probe Grimm considers unfair and politically motivated.

The Trumpiest candidate in the Georgia governor’s race was Michael Williams, a state senator who was one of the few elected officials in the country to endorse Trump in 2015. In the final days of the primary campaign, a struggling Williams received a burst of local and national attention for driving a “deportation bus” around the state, sparking a string of protests. It was a stunt that surprised some of Williams’ supporters, who compared it to Trump purposely generating controversy so that he could dominate the news.

Williams finished last in the primary, even losing the county where he lives. Cagle earned the most votes but not enough to become the party’s nominee, so he and Kemp face a runoff on July 24. A poll released by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Channel 2 Action News on Friday shows Kemp with a slight lead.

Voter turnout for primaries is often low-- and it’s often even lower for runoff elections, especially those held in the dead of summer. Local strategists and political scientists say that voters who do show up will likely be the party’s most loyal and most conservative members. That explains why Kemp has done so many ads featuring his guns and pickup truck, which he claims in a southern drawl could be used to “round up criminal illegals.” And it explains why Cagle is now catering to the far-right edge of the party.

They're probably the only Republicans in the country who are pissed off that Sacha Baron-Cohen didn't interview them for the upcoming show he did about insane bloodthirsty Republicans advocating arming toddlers in kindergarten. It's worth watching-- released just a couple of days ago, three-and-a-half million people have already watched the YouTube version.

“It’s literally been hilarious to watch” said Seth Weathers, a former state director for Trump who worked on Williams’ campaign, describing what he said was Cagle’s transformation from moderate to Trump mimic.

“Just be who you are,” he said, adding: “No one is Trump.”

Soon after the May primary, Cagle met with one of the Republicans he beat, Clay Tippins, for a frank conversation that he hoped would lead to an endorsement. Tippins recorded the conversation and has been releasing parts of it. First came audio of Cagle saying that a bill providing public funding for private schools was “bad public policy” but he supported it to prevent a rival from gaining financial support from charter school supporters.

Last week, Kemp’s campaign released a snippet it had received from Tippins in which Cagle says that the GOP primary came down to “who had the biggest gun, who had the biggest truck and who could be the craziest.”

Kemp says that Cagle was trashing conservative voters with the comment, comparing it to Hillary Clinton describing Trump’s supporters as “deplorable.” Cagle’s aides said he was pointing out how crazy Kemp has made this race.

By way of timing, the audio controversy echoed the release in the presidential contest of a 2005 Trump interview with Access Hollywood in which he bragged about grabbing and kissing women without their consent.

Although Trump weathered that crisis, the polls here have tightened. Cagle recorded a new commercial last week that was staged to look like a Trump rally. He stood in front of an American flag, surrounded by supporters, and yelled out his beliefs to a cheering crowd.

“I’ll never apologize for outlawing sanctuary cities or stopping liberals from taking the values that make our country great,” he said, lines familiar to any Trump rally veteran. “The time for conservatives getting kicked around is over.”

Cagle tweeted out the ad with a claim that his opponent was “in cahoots” with the media to push “fake news.”

In the Thursday night debate, many of the buzzwords reflected 2016: “Colluding.” “Lies.” “Never going to apologize.” “Hypocrite.” “Despicable.” “Fake news.” After the debate, it continued as the candidates answered questions from reporters.

“Casey Cagle’s getting to be like Hillary Clinton now,” Kemp said. “He’s gone after my ‘crazy’ supporters that have guns, trucks and chain saws. He’s saying I’m colluding, and he’s saying I’m sexist. That’s the same thing that Hillary Clinton said about Donald Trump. I think Georgians know better.”

Minutes later, Cagle complained with a line that could have come straight from Trump. No one could hear about his record as Georgia’s lieutenant governor, he said, because “the only thing that my opponent can talk about is a tape-- a tape!”

Of course, after Trump's horrifying display of treasonous behavior in Helsinki yesterday-- and with even allies like Fox, seeming to turn on him (albeit not ass-licks like Hannity or Carlson)-- how soon will it be before GOP careerist candidatess start to realize that being the Trumpiest candidate is a hinderance not an attraction? This is how Jonathan Swan and Mike Allen put it at Axios early this morning:

Trump sucking up to Vladamir Putin after the summit in Helsinki yesterday was such an unbelievable, indelible moment that many deflated White House officials didn’t even bother to defend or explain it.

...A former senior White House official, who worked closely with Trump, immediately texted us: “Need a shower.”

One of Trump's own former National Security Council officials texted: “Dude. This is a total [effing] disgrace. The President has lost his mind."

CBS Face the Nation anchor Margaret Brennan, who was in the audience, told AP she was messaging some U.S. officials during the speech who said they were turning off the television.

...Jeremy Bash, former chief of staff at the Pentagon and CIA, told Brian Williams on MSNBC: "Ronald Reagan won the Cold War. Today's Donald Trump lost the post-Cold War for the United States of America."

...Newt Gingrich, one of the most vocal Trump backers among establishment Republicans, tweeted: "President Trump must clarify his statements in Helsinki on our intelligence system and Putin. It is the most serious mistake of his presidency and must be corrected-- immediately."

Republican congressional leaders said they believe the intelligence community.

Drudge, usually a Trump champion, bannered: "PUTIN DOMINATES IN HEL."

Smart Democratic congressional campaigners jumped on this immediately, contrasting themselves with Republicans foolish enough to stand with Trump's treasonous lunacy. Harley Rouda is running for an Orange County seat against Putin's favorite congressman. Rouda's statement to the media last night: "Dana Rohrabacher has once again proven that he's unfit to lead. In interviews today, he has apologized for Vladimir Putin's attack on our democracy during the 2016 Presidential election. He has insulted the patriotic, diligent men and women of the U.S. intelligence community by impugning their work. And finally, he has gone to the radical extreme to suggest that the U.S. has committed crimes far worse than Russia's despicable attack on our election. Dana's actions today may play well in Moscow, but they aren't befitting a member of Congress who swears to serve the Constitution and to defend our nation against all adversaries."

Progressive Democrat JD Scholten makes the point that his opponent, Steve King (R-IA) was Trumpy when Trump was just some "reality" show TV host. "King," he said, "is one person who actually make Trump look tame. He's tweeted at Trump for not going far enough or fast enough on things like immigration and abortion. Steve King was the Donald Trump of the political world even before Trump was elected."

Thomas Guild is the progressive organizer and Berniecrat in Oklahoma City who I thought about immediately when I saw Jenna's Johnson's piece in The Post, since his opponent is such a pure Trumpist. He agrees. "Steve Russell," he told me this morning, "carries water for Trump on virtually every issue. Russell voted for the Trump tax cuts that benefit the wealthy and big corporations while blowing a huge $2.2 trillion hole in the national debt. He ran as a deficit/debt hawk and now has voted to add many trillions to the national debt and exponentially expand deficit spending for as far as the eye can see. I guess we will have to demote Russell to the rank of fiscal tweety bird (apologies to you-- tweety-- I’ve always liked your cartoons). Trump is a nemesis to the LGBTQ community and Russell has offered legislation to explicitly discriminate against individuals and companies doing business identified as LGBTQ. Trump has pursued questionable and racist policies and Russell has dragged his feet on important issues of equity like strengthening voting rights under federal law. Both Russell and Trump would likely break out the champagne and spontaneously jump for joy if Trump’s next SCOTUS appointment casts the deciding vote to overturn the longstanding precedent Roe v Wade, that protects women’s health and privacy and their right to make their own intimate personal decisions free from governmental interference. As they say in the Sooner State if it acts like a duck, and walks like a duck, and talks like a duck, it must be a duck! What do you have to say about that Mr. Russell-- Quack! Quack!!"

Last word on the efficacy of trying to be the Trumpiest candidate in town-- Former New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman addressed Trumpanzee directly: "Mr President, you should be ashamed. To deny your own country and government in favor of a foreign leader whose country has, for decades, tried to undermine the United States is irrational and dangerous. Please step down, you are not fit to lead this great nation." Still no comments from Casey Cagle or Brian Kemp yet.

The Worst Thing Trump Did To America?

Let's say Trump doesn't blunder into a Depression and that the generals around Trump prevent him from starting a nuclear war. So if he is either impeached in 2019 or defeated in 2020, when people look back at the most incompetent and wasted presidency since the country was founded, what will they single out as the single-- specific-- worst thing Trump did? There are any number of appointments that could turn out to have consequences as catastrophic as many of us warned they would. But as of right now, I would be hard-pressed to argue with the idea that Scott Pruitt has been Trump's most destructive move since Putin-- purposefully-- and Clinton and her coterie-- inadvertantly-- helped him seize control of the White House.

Yesterday Pruitt was on CNN to discuss Hurricane Irma. When the obvious question came up-- about the impact of Climate Change-- Pruitt bristled and said now is not the time to talk about Climate Change. "Here's the issue-- to have any kind of focus on the cause and effect of the storm; versus helping people, or actually facing the effect of the storm, is misplaced. What we need to focus on is access to clean water, addressing these areas of superfund activities that may cause an attack on water, these issues of access to fuel... Those are things so important to citizens of Florida right now, and to discuss the cause and effect of these storms, there's the... place (and time) to do that, it's not now."

Pure coincidence that former EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman penned an OpEd for the NY Times that ran while Pruitt was refusing to discuss Climate Change on CNN. Like most normal Americans, Whitman wrote that she had "been worried about how the Environmental Protection Agency would be run ever since President Trump appointed Scott Pruitt, the former attorney general of Oklahoma, to oversee it. The past few months have confirmed my fears. The agency created by a Republican president 47 years ago to protect the environment and public health may end up doing neither under Mr. Pruitt’s direction."

As a Republican appointed by President George W. Bush to run the agency, I can hardly be written off as part of the liberal resistance to the new administration. But the evidence is abundant of the dangerous political turn of an agency that is supposed to be guided by science.

The E.P.A.’s recent attack on a reporter for The Associated Press and the installation of a political appointee to ferret out grants containing “the double C-word” are only the latest manifestations of my fears, which mounted with Mr. Pruitt’s swift and legally questionable repeals of E.P.A. regulations-- actions that pose real and lasting threats to the nation’s land, air, water and public health.

All of that is bad enough. But Mr. Pruitt recently unveiled a plan that amounts to a slow-rolling catastrophe in the making: the creation of an antagonistic “red team” of dissenting scientists to challenge the conclusions reached by thousands of scientists over decades of research on climate change. It will serve only to confuse the public and sets a deeply troubling precedent for policy-making at the E.P.A.

The red-team approach makes sense in the military and in consumer and technology companies, where assumptions about enemy strategy or a competitor’s plans are rooted in unknowable human choices. But the basic physics of the climate are well understood. Burning fossil fuels emits carbon dioxide. And carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas that traps heat in the atmosphere. There is no debate about that. The link is as certain as the link between smoking and cancer.

A broad consensus of scientists also warn of the influence of the warming climate on extreme weather events. Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, the enormous wildfires in the Western United States and widespread flooding from monsoons in Southeast Asia are potent reminders of the cost of ignoring climate science.

As a Republican like Mr. Pruitt, I too embrace the promise of the free market and worry about the perils of overregulation. But decisions must be based on reliable science. The red team begins with his politically preferred conclusion that climate change isn’t a problem, and it will seek evidence to justify that position. That’s the opposite of how science works. True science follows the evidence. The critical tests of peer review and replication ensure that the consensus is sound. Government bases policy on those results. This applies to liberals and conservatives alike.

There are two sides, at least, to most political questions, and a politician’s impulse may be to believe that the same holds true for science. Certainly, there are disputes in science. But on the question of climate change, the divide is stark. On one side is the overwhelming consensus of thousands of scientists at universities, research centers and the government who publish in peer-reviewed literature, are cited regularly by fellow scientists and are certain that humans are contributing to climate change.

On the other side is a tiny minority of contrarians who publish very little by comparison, are rarely cited in the scientific literature and are often funded by fossil fuel interests, and whose books are published, most often, by special interest groups. That Mr. Pruitt seeks to use the power of the E.P.A. to elevate those who have already lost the argument is shameful, and the only outcome will be that the public will know less about the science of climate change than before.

The red-team idea is a waste of the government’s time, energy and resources, and a slap in the face to fiscal responsibility and responsible governance. Sending scientists on a wild-goose chase so that Mr. Pruitt, Rick Perry, the energy secretary, who has endorsed this approach, and President Trump can avoid acknowledging and acting on the reality of climate change is simply unjustifiable. And truly, it ignores and distracts from the real imperative: developing solutions that create good jobs, grow our economy, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and prepare for the impacts of climate change.

Policy should always be rooted in unbiased science. The E.P.A. is too important to treat like a reality TV show. People’s lives and our country’s resources are at stake. Mr. Pruitt should respect his duty to the agency’s mission, end the red team and call on his agency’s scientists to educate him. No doubt they’re willing and eager to impart the knowledge they’ve dedicated their lives to understanding.

If this project goes forward, it should be treated for what it is: a shameful attempt to confuse the public into accepting the false premise that there is no need to regulate fossil fuels.

Friday, the House passed the Senate bill to aid the victims of Hurricane Harvey and fund the government for another 3 months. Every Democrat present (183 of them) + 133 Republicans voted for it... so it passed 316-90. Aside from the regular "shut down the government" types like Mark Meadows, Mo Brooks and Paul Gosar, there were dozens of Republican extremists who voted NO, including Virginia Foxx (NC). Foxx's electoral challenger, progressive Democrat Jenny Marshall, told us that "Voting 'no' on hurricane relief is nothing new to Rep. Foxx. She voted 'no' to help after Katrina in 2005, Sandy in 2013 and now Harvey. Even after our own state's coastal plains were devestated by hurricane Matthew, Foxx didn't lift a finger to advocate for additional funds from the Trump administration. A bipartisan effort of North Carolina Congressional leaders requesting $929 million in additional funds was rejected by the Trump administration who gave just 6.1 million instead. Representative Foxx has shown she does not want to invest in rebuilding North Carolina or our country. Her callous votes to refuse help to our neighbors in their time of need proves her unfit to serve."

Similarly, progressive Democrat Tom Guild told us that his opponent in OK-05 was another one of the radicals who voted NO. "Representative Steve Russell (R-Choctaw) voted against the bill to keep the government open and to provide funding to help Texans who had their lives ripped to shreds by Hurricane Harvey. The bill also raised the debit limit for three months so that America can pay her debts. Russell rants about the national debt & deficits. He's a poor role model after running a YUUUGE deficit in his first congressional campaign that took him two years to retire. He is against EVER raising the debt ceiling, that allows America to pay bills ALREADY RACKED UP by Congress. He is clearly severely challenged in the area of finance. His position would destroy the full faith and credit of our country, and very likely be catastrophic to the American and world economies. His position on the debt limit shows he doesn't have the financial sense God gave a peanut. His stance would make it impossible to help Oklahomans and other Americans who have their lives upended by natural disasters. He has voted for many of the laws now on the books that grew the deficit and the national debt. Now he doesn’t want to pay up when the bills come due. So much for logical & critical thinking."

Are Religionist Bigots Poisoning American Politics?

Short answer: positively. And it goes way beyond the satanic Mormon cult and their role inciting and spreading homophobia in the recent California election with the use of tens of millions of tax-free dollars. No one I know would advocate shipping them all off to India but they might feel more comfortable there, given the medieval attitudes towards homosexuality. I'll be more than delighted to see a local Mormon-owned restaurant, El Coyote, which is being boycotted by non-bigots, fold. We don't advocate random acts of unfocused violence but I'm not weeping at the discomfiture to Mormon bigots in their filthy lairs who have been frightened by envelopes with white powder being mailed to them. As the boycott of Mormon businesses gets underway, at least one-- Marriott Hotels-- has run to the press and explained that yes, they are Mormons but no, they did not contribute to the anti-gay jihad the Mormon Cult has declared.

For the past 20 years, Marriott International has had domestic-partner benefits and has earned a perfect score on the Human Rights Campaign's Corporate Equality Index for two years in a row, Marriott said in a release. Many of the hotels have hosted gay-community functions and events for years.

"The Bible that I love teaches me about honesty, integrity and unconditional love for all people," Marriott said. "But beyond that, I am very careful about separating my personal faith and beliefs from how we run our business."

Apparently that isn't the Bible the Republican Party base has been reading. Or maybe their leaders just interpret it a little differently, substituting Satan's message for Jesus' in the hope that the faithful are too stupid to notice. And so far, that hope has paid off marvelously. In fact, according to an opinion piece by former Governor Christine Todd Whitman (R-NJ) in today's Washington Post the GOP won't win back the center that dominates American politics as long as it allows itself to be held hostage to the fundamentalist kooks. When he book to this effect came out in 2005 she was savaged by elements of the lunatic fringe of the GOP, authors of the current disaster like Republican Party polemicist Ann Coulter, GOP leader Gary Bauer, and Matthew Scully, who called her ideas "insufferable snobbery" and "airy blather" and then went on to write Sarah Palin's bloodthirsty and divisive RNC acceptance speech.

Whitman explains that the premise of the book that caused the far right such anguish was simple: "The Republican Party had been taken hostage by 'social fundamentalists,' the people who base their votes on such social issues as abortion, gay rights and stem cell research. Unless the GOP freed itself from their grip, we argued, it would so alienate itself from the broad center of the American electorate that it would become increasingly marginalized and find itself out of power." Today she explains why the American people rejected McCain and the GOP so overwhelmingly last week. And, as you can probably guess, it isn't because the party wasn't far right enough.

While a host of issues were at play in this election, the primary reason John McCain lost was the substantial erosion of support from self-identified moderates compared with four years ago. In 2004, Democratic nominee John Kerry held just a nine-percentage-point margin among moderate voters over President Bush. This year, the spread between Barack Obama and McCain was 21 points among this group. The net difference between the two elections is a deficit of nearly 6.4 million moderate votes for the Republicans in 2008.

In seven of the nine states that switched this year from Republican to Democratic, Obama's vote total exceeded the total won by President Bush four years ago. So even if McCain had equaled the president's numbers from 2004 (and he did not), he still would have lost in Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina and Virginia (81 total electoral votes)-- and lost the election. McCain didn't lose those states because he failed to hold the base. He lost them because Obama broadened his base.

Nor did the Republican ticket lose because "values voters" stayed home. On the contrary, according to exit polls, such voters made up a larger proportion of the electorate this year than in 2004-- 26 percent, up from 23 percent. Extrapolating from those data, McCain actually won more votes from self-identified white evangelical/born-again voters than Bush did four years ago-- 1.8 million more. But that was not enough to offset the loss of so many moderates.

Following the conventional wisdom of the past two presidential elections, McCain tried mightily to assuage the Republican Party's social-fundamentalist wing. His selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, whose social views are entirely aligned with that wing, as his running mate was clearly meant to demonstrate his commitment to that bloc. Yet while his choice did comfort those voters, it made many others uncomfortable.

Palin has many attractive qualities as a candidate. Being prepared to become president at a moment's notice was not obviously among them this year. Her selection cost the ticket support among those moderate voters who saw it as a cynical sop to social fundamentalists, reinforcing the impression that they control the party, with the party's consent.

Extremists in the party, which includes virtually the entire Republican caucus in Congress, has decided to double down on the right-wing extremism thing and continue to cater to backward and ignorant religionist fanatics and bigots. It works well for them in rural Georgia and Texas and the party is shrinking into an irrelevant rump that will win elections in much of the former Confederacy and in the Mormon West. And that's it.