Sunday Morning Coffee

Thoughts on a couple of things I read this morning over coffee:

American Rescue Plan Passes – Cosplay Socialist Complains

Yesterday the US Senate passed the Democrats’ $1.9T stimulus legislation on a 50-49 vote. It’s too bad this bill did not include a minimum wage increase of some kind, and I would not have means-tested the direct payment checks. But this legislation will put money in the pockets of people who will spend it, and includes changes to the way we support low-income families that should help reduce child poverty. It also provides funding to accelerate the pace of Covid-19 vaccinations.

It’s also excellent politics because passage keeps a campaign promise that will boost the economy while bringing the pandemic to an end that much more quickly. It will embed new support for poor families that will be difficult to withdraw later. I think Biden learned something from the 2010 midterm election catastrophe: Republicans cannot be trusted to negotiate in good faith, and in the end the won’t, so push through the most you can without their help.

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Wittman Watch

Banner at the @WittmanWatch Twtter Account

On January 6, an insurrectionist mob stormed the US Capitol building in an effort to stop the Electoral Vote count that would make Joe Biden President. Several groups, including the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys, planned a coordinated attack in response to an intentionally promoted Big Lie: that Democrats and others used systemic fraud to steal the election from Donald Trump. Planners did not intend to protest peacefully – they wanted to overthrow the results of an election because they did not like the result.

They wanted to overthrow a democratic election, and they said so on social media:

“Get violent. Stop calling this a march, or rally, or a protest. Go there ready for war. We get our President or we die. NOTHING else will achieve this goal.”

Reuters Staff, Reuters

Donald Trump was not the only elected official telling this lie – other American political leaders, including First District Congressman Rob Wittman, helped set the conditions for the storming of the Capitol. Wittman had the power – and the obligation associated with that power – to stop this. He refused to publicly accepting the results of the 2020 election (which he was happy to do with respect to his own race, by the way).

Instead, he supported this false narrative of a fraudulent election by objecting to the counting of Pennsylvania’s Electoral Votes on the grounds that the State “failed to follow the laws and constitutional tenets that govern its elections. Worse, he still refuses to calm divisions by publicly accepting the results of the free and fair election that made Joe Biden President and kept Wittman in Congress.

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Natural Experiment

It looks like Texas and Mississippi have decided to conduct a natural experiment by lifting all Covid-related restrictions by next week:

The governors of Texas and Mississippi both announced Tuesday that they are lifting statewide mask mandates and allowing businesses to reopen at full capacity even as the decline of daily Covid-19 cases slows and federal officials urge states to exercise caution.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said at a press briefing at Montelongo’s Mexican Restaurant in Lubbock that he will issue a new executive order that rescinds most of his previous Covid-19 restrictions, including a statewide mask mandate. He added that all businesses would be allowed to open “100 percent,” effective March 10.

Will Feuer, CNBC

As far as I can tell, these are the first states to completely lift all pandemic-related restrictions since it began last year. I call this a “natural experiment” because it will test at least two ideas.

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Circular Firing Squad?

Screen shot from Facebook video of the February 23 Virginia Republican Party State Central Committee meeting.

The inner workings and various factions that make up Virginia’s Republican Party fascinate me, and I’ve been attending Tea Party meetings and following the debate between these factions pretty much since I moved to Hanover County in 2008. The short non-academic version is that a very active and motivated base has worked to take over the Virginia GOP for more than a decade. This base very much wants to enforce a kind of ideological purity that focuses far more on cultural issues than policy.

This intra-Party insurgency initially manifested itself in the capture of local Virginia GOP units by Tea Party activists after Barack Obama won the Presidency. Ideologically, this group is to the right of what I call “Chamber of Commerce” Republicans (defined as conservatives who want small government but want it to actually work). Think of this as the “conservatives lose elections because they’re not conservative enough” crowd.

They successfully won the 7th District Congressional nomination for Dave Brat over House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in 2014 because the very conservative Cantor was not conservative enough to suit them – these activists ousted a very powerful Congressman for ideological reasons. Brat went on to win the seat and served two terms before Abigail Spanberger won the seat in 2018. She held it in 2020, but narrowly.

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Blue Collar Billionaire

We’re at a place in American politics where conservative leaders make the claim the Republican Party represents regular Americans rather than Country Club elites.

This comes from a Senator who got his degrees from Princeton and Harvard. A Senator who ran to warm-weather Cancun from a winter disaster in his home State instead of volunteering to help out the…blue collar…workers in Texas who were freezing to death because the free-market policies he supports drive profits, not reliable utility services.

In support of someone who literally owns – and lives at – a country club.

Unlike Beto O’Rourke and Julian Castro.

Not to mention Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

COVID Common Sense? Or Covidiocy?

Mick Staton thinks it’s time to apply some “common sense” to Virginia’s coronavirus response. From the Bull Elephant:

In just over four months the number of confirmed covid-19 cases in Virginia has reached nearly 89,000.  Of those confirmed cases,  a little over 2,100 people have died [over 2200 now].  We can argue about inflated death numbers or under-counted people who have the virus but have never been tested all we want, but all of that is pure speculation, and cannot be quantified or counted.  People who feel sick are getting tested.  If you don’t feel sick and you test positive for the antibodies, do you really qualify as a victim of a disease you never knew you had?  For now, let’s just deal with confirmed numbers.

Virginia has a population of about 8.536 million people.  Based on the confirmed numbers listed above, only about 1% of the population of Virginia has contracted this virus, and 0.024% of the population of Virginia has died from it.

Virginia hit its highest number of daily reported cases on May 25th of this year at 1,439.  When we once again compare that to our population of 8.536 million people, that means the greatest chance anyone had of contracting this disease on any given day is about 0.01%.

Mr. Staton thinks that a lockdown needed to happen based on what we knew four months ago, but now thinks it was not necessary then – and certainly not now – on the grounds that COVID isn’t really that much worse than the flu at the end of the day.  After all, only 90K Virginians have gotten this deadly disease, and only 2100 2215 have died from COVID since the pandemic started.

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No, the Angry White Guy is Not the Victim

I’m sure a lot of you have seen this video of Daniel Maples, a Florida insurance salesman, yelling at an elderly woman that he “feels threatened” because she asked him to wear a mask while shopping at Costco.

Turns out the agency he worked for let him go after this went viral on social media. Jonathan V. Last, Executive Editor at The Bulwark, thinks this is a bad thing because “maybe he’s a good guy having a really crappy day.” The Bulwark, by the way, is the internet home for the “Defending Democracy Together Institute,” a PAC put together by a group of anti-Trump conservatives like Bill Kristol and Mona Charen, among others.

I signed up for a Bulwark newsletter, and in a recent email Last made Costco Guy the victim when Maples actually victimized others. Readers of course pushed back, so Last responded with a second email elaborating on his argument. It boils down to “we don’t know anything about this guy and he should not be punished for a 17-second lapse. He didn’t pull a gun on anyone and didn’t assault anyone, so what’s the big deal? And we shouldn’t go after people who refuse to wear a mask because it’s not worth the trouble.” (Last asks if others speak up when they see someone texting while driving, and the answer is yes, I do.)

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Wouldn’t the States Have the Receipts?

We’re right to worry about whether the Republican Party as an organization would sanction executing the plan outlined in this Newsweek opinion column. I have no doubt in my military mind that Donald Trump would do anything he could to stay in power, and that the Conservative movement (defined as the GOP and associated think tanks and interest groups) would do anything to keep a conservative in power. If those interests align and leaders see a unique opportunity, an attempt to establish a Presidency that lacked popular support is not out of the question.

I’ve written before about the Republican Project as I see it: a long-term conservative effort to capture the legal institutions necessary to keep power without having to bother assembling a coalition that can win elections, and block progressive legislation when they can’t. They would use these institutions to protect friends and hurt enemies, and to uphold orders restricting the right to vote while blocking local rules that would protect it. Once in control of these institutions, conservatives would use that control to protect their power if possible.

As I read the Newsweek scenario, it boils down to this: Biden wins the popular vote as well as the Electoral College on the strength of wins in four swing states which all have GOP legislative majorities. Trump and the GOP establishment challenge the result arguing that counterfeit ballots printed by China (presumably an anti-Trump Chinese intelligence operation) made the difference in those four states. Trump declares a national emergency and a national security investigation, which delays appointment of their Electors. Neither candidate assembles a majority in the Electoral College and the House, with its majority of GOP state delegations, would decide the election in favor of Trump.

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A Good Sign for Criminal Justice Reform and Progressive Policy

One of the things we sometimes lose sight of during the “we need change now” and “but it’s politically difficult” discussion at the Presidential level is that a lot of real change happens at the local level. I’m convinced, for example, that the rising number of Commonwealth’s Attorney candidates in Virginia who ran on decriminalizing cannabis and criminal justice reform in general allowed the General Assembly to take action. They could see voters from both sides of the political spectrum support these campaigns, and this gave them “permission” in a way.

These local elections also matter in the sense that they help the Progressive coalition build a bench of candidates and elected officials with the experience and chops to run for higher office. Today’s Henrico County Commonwealth’s Attorney is tomorrow’s Virginia Attorney General.

This played out in Oregon last night, when Mike Schmidt won a District Attorney race in Multomah County (Portland area) by a landslide on a very progressive platform.

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Trained and Trusted: Militias and the Second Amendment

This is the second in the Lincoln-Douglas Debates II series – the Sanders-Scott Debates. The first entries, on abortion policy, are here and here. You can read Sandy’s entry on this issue at Virginia Right. Crossposted at Virginia Right.

Military service taught me a lot about weapons.  No Army officer would issue a sidearm, rifle, or tank to anyone who had not demonstrated training proficiency and trustworthiness.  We didn’t let just anyone walk around armed.  

I learned to use weapons when necessary but to secure them at all times.  No shame fell more heavily on a soldier than when he or she lost, misused, or simply could not control an assigned weapon. I simply don’t understand how people can so cavalierly support the idea that more firearms, in the hands of just anyone who wants to have one, could possibly make society safer – or that people who misuse or fail to secure those weapons should not face punishment.

Arming random citizens does not make us safer. To be sure, a firearm owner will, from time to time, use a firearm in self-defense. When this happens, it can stop crime and even save lives. More often someone uses the weapon to inflict harm on others or themselves. Someone steals a rifle and uses it to kill several people and then commit suicide. Every year, 23K Americans use their own weapon and skip the first step. Or the owner leaves it on a coffee table where a toddler finds it and plays a bit of tragic shoot-out with another child. Or drops it and accidently shoots someone in a grocery store. These are all failures we can minimize with more training, just as we did in the Army, but simply putting more guns into circulation will not stop this. Guns don’t save lives any more than they kill people. People save lives, with or without a gun, by knowing what they’re doing.

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