Miscellaneous

On Friday the Wyoming legislature convenes for a two day special session, and, I believe, will make some history.   As far as I know, no other state legislature has had a virtual session, where most participating members will not be present in the capitol.  They’ll be in their home towns.  They will meet in effect, but not in reality.  If all goes well, a precedent will have been set which can be repeated all over the country.

I was the House Minority Leader in the summer of 1987 when Gov. Steve Cowper called a special session to again take up a constitutional amendment to give Alaska Natives a preference in the taking of fish and game.  I was in Santa Barbara with my wife and three sons, and had to immediately fly back to Juneau for two days to once again kill this pernicious idea.  Too bad we couldn’t have met virtually, like Wyoming is doing.

If they succeed in Wyoming, it can also serve as a precedent for Conventions of States.  One of the proncipal obstacles to such conventions has been the difficulty of physically assembling the delegates from 50 far flung states.  No more.  Thank you, Wyoming.

 

 

It could be a daily soap, like “As the World Turns”.  The star of the show is intrepid Attorney General Bob Barr, supported by a cast of patriotic lawyers.  Yes, there are such animals.  I’m one. It will unfold before us, day by day, for months and months, if not years.

The villains are familiar to all of us, and Comey, Brennan, Clapper etc. etc.  will all face justice, at least in the sense that they will all be publicly humiliated, and condemned by history, as partisan hacks who attempted to subvert the Constitution itself, engaging in a vast criminal conspiracy.  They were trying to cover up the crimes they had committed during the campaign.  It was an exercise in self preservation.  And more.

The real suspense in As the Swamp Drains is where it leaves Barack Obama.  Did he know of, and was he complicit in, the dirty tricks against the Trump campaign?  It looks as though he did, and this explains why such extraordinary measures were resorted to.  They were doing it to protect Obama.

I was a second year law student at UCLA when Watergate went down.  A liberal friend and I would read transcripts of the hearings in the Los Angeles Times, and try to make sense of it all.  I’ve learned since then that Watergate was a carefully orchestrated political coup, masterminded by “Deep Throat”, aka Mark Felt, the Associate Director of the FBI, who hated Nixon.

Russiagate is far more significant, and the crimes committed in the two cases don’t bear comparison.  This is, by far, the greatest political scandal in American history.

The most significant difference between Watergate and Russiagate is that the FBI got Nixon in Watergate, because there was an actual criminal predicate.  But the FBI didn’t get Trump with Russiagate.  Instead, they have set themselves up for a Congressional investigation, where the question will be asked, “Why do we even need an FBI, a federal police force?”

Good question.  No good answer.

 

 

Joe Biden won the Democratic nomination, but he won’t be able to keep it.  Does anyone remember seeing a serious presidential candidate like him?  He’s losing his mind, and would be a catastrophic candidate.  To allow him to leave gracefully, he should be allowed to formally accept the nomination at the August Convention, and to pick his woman running mate.  When he withdraws, that Vice Presidential candidate will replace him, and pick her own running mate.

So for the second cycle in a row, the Democrats will offer a woman as their choice for President.  Whoever she is, she won’t be disliked and distrusted as Hillary was.  So she’ll have a shot, and Trump will need all his skills to beat her.  She won’t really be the problem.  That’s the media, shamelessly in her corner, cheering her on, covering up any mistakes, and demonizing Trump.

I hope I’m wrong, and all the king’s horses and men are able to cover up Biden’s incapacity enough to at least make him plausible.  Or Biden resists, and has to be forced out.  Or Sanders demands the right to succeed Biden, since he came in number two.  There are a variety of ways the Democrats can screw this up.

I’ve participated, in one way or another, in fourteen Presidential elections, going back to 1960.  2020 is unlike any other election year, and as important as any.  We live in interesting times.

IN                                                                                            OUT

Intimacy                                                                                   Crowds

Friends                                                                                    Strangers

Home Cooking                                                                          Restaurants

Work from Home                                                                 Downtown

Neighbors                                                                                  Outsiders

The Country                                                                                    The City

Home Entertainment                                                              Hollywood

Remote Learning                                                                      The Educators

Libertarianism                                                                          Liberal Fascism

The States                                                                       The Federal Government

Federalism                                                                                   The Center

Article V                                                                                         Congress

The United States of America                                             The World

 

 

 

 

 

 

120 years ago progressive Republicans were a critical support for the reforms of the progressive era.  Among them were initiative, referendum and recall, three ways for the people to exercise power directly.  Many states adopted these “power to the people” ideas, and are better off for it.  Republican Governor Hiram Johnson was able to get all three for California.  He was Teddy Roosevelt’s VP on the Progressive ticket of 1912.

Do today’s progressives want power to the people?  Do they want a national initiative system, where the people could pass laws, bypassing Congress?  Do they want a national referendum, where the people could repeal a law that Congress has passed?  Do they want the people to be able to throw out a Senator or Representative who no longer is listening?

Are there enough progressive Democratic state legislators to have such ideas adopted through Article V?  Which, of course, is the only way any of them could be adopted.

I say we have a Convention of States in 2021 and find out.

My old buddy Robin Taylor was asking these questions yesterday, and it was something I hadn’t thought of.  We’re having a FOSSILS* Zoom meeting tomorrow, and we’ll ask some of our old Democratic colleagues.

*   “Former Old Senior Statesmen In Legislative Service”, a group set up by Democratic Senator Wild Mike Szymanski.