Salem Political Snark

Trump's federal indictment another first for the worst ex-president

Donald Trump likes to brag about himself. Well, today he got another #1 to add to his list of pseudo-accomplishments. Trump is the first former president to face federal charges.

A New York Times story describes the well-deserved indictment. 

The Justice Department on Thursday took the legally and politically momentous step of lodging federal criminal charges against former President Donald J. Trump, accusing him of mishandling classified documents he kept upon leaving office and then obstructing the government’s efforts to reclaim them.

Mr. Trump confirmed on his social media platform that he had been indicted. The charges against him include willfully retaining national defense secrets in violation of the Espionage Act, making false statements and a conspiracy to obstruct justice, according to two people familiar with the matter.

The Justice Department made no comment and did not immediately make the indictment public.

The indictment, handed up by a grand jury in Federal District Court in Miami, is the first time a former president has faced federal charges. It puts the nation in an extraordinary position, given Mr. Trump’s status not only as a one-time commander-in-chief but also as the current front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination to face President Biden, whose administration will now be seeking to convict his potential rival of multiple felonies.

Mr. Trump is expected to surrender to the authorities on Tuesday, according to a person close to him and his own post on his social media platform, Truth Social.

How anyone can still support Trump is baffling.

He's a habitual liar. He was impeached twice. He had an affair with a porn star while his wife was pregnant, then tried to cover it up with hush money before the 2016 election, an illegal act that led to a state indictment against him in New York. He's facing another indictment in Georgia for trying to overturn election results there. And there's a possibility of another federal indictment for his role in the January 6, 2021 insurrection aimed at keeping Trump in power.

What's laughable is the absurd devotion of Republican politicians to their Criminal-in-Chief. Even those who are running against him for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination. 

Ron DeSantis is already defending Trump even before the federal indictment has been unsealed. How can he expect to defeat Trump for the nomination when he's acting like Trump's PR person instead of his opponent? He’s only been a presidential candidate for two weeks, but Ron DeSantis is already finding himself defending his chief rival.

Several hours after news broke that former President Donald Trump was indicted over his handling of classified documents, DeSantis lambasted the Department of Justice.

“The weaponization of federal law enforcement represents a mortal threat to a free society. We have for years witnessed an uneven application of the law depending upon political affiliation. Why so zealous in pursuing Trump yet so passive about Hillary or Hunter?” DeSantis tweeted about two hours after the news.

What an idiot. The Justice Department investigated Hillary Clinton's private email server in the runup to the 2016 election and didn't find any wrongdoing worthy of an indictment. The Justice Department also has been investigating Hunter Biden for several years and hasn't found any serious malfeasance.

Progressives like me are delighting in the fact that Trump made chants of "Lock her up!" a feature of his campaign rallies, and now he's facing the prospect of prison time himself. Ever heard of bad karma, Donald?

There was a time, not that long ago really, when Donald J. Trump said he cared about the sanctity of classified information. That, of course, was when his opponent was accused of jeopardizing it and it was a useful political weapon for Mr. Trump.

Throughout 2016, he castigated Hillary Clinton for using a private email server instead of a secure government one. “I’m going to enforce all laws concerning the protection of classified information,” he declared. “No one will be above the law.” Mrs. Clinton’s cavalier handling of the sensitive information, he said, “disqualifies her from the presidency.”

Seven years later, Mr. Trump faces criminal charges for endangering national security by taking classified documents when he left the White House and refusing to return all of them even after being subpoenaed. Even in the what-goes-around-comes-around department of American politics, it is rather remarkable that the issue that helped propel Mr. Trump to the White House in the first place now threatens to ruin his chances of getting back there.

The indictment handed up by a federal grand jury at the request of the special counsel Jack Smith effectively brings the Trump story full circle. “Lock her up,” the crowds at his campaign rallies chanted with his encouragement. Now he may be the one locked up if convicted on any of the seven reported counts that include conspiracy to obstruct justice and willful retention of documents.

Call this GOP tip line to report 11 Republicans who have walked out from the legislature

Laurel Hines, my wife, had a great idea.

Use a tip line set up by Oregon Republicans hoping to find fraud in state government to report a serious wrongdoing: the walkout by GOP members of the state senate that's gone on now for about five weeks, while those legislators who aren't performing the duty they were elected to do continue to pull in their taxpayer-paid salary.

Here's a message that Laurel sent to some friends today.

Here is something you can do and go on record regarding the walkout by the Republicans. If enough people flood the tip line, it may get on the news, since the “tips” are public record.

If you, like me, are irritated by the Republican legislators making a mockery of democracy and holding up all legislation in our current state government by their illegal walkout, just because they don’t like the fact that voters voted for a Democratic majority, they convened an “oversight committee” with a tip line to supposedly investigate fraud by the Democratic majority. They have a tip line that anyone can call. I just called and gave this tip (below). I urge you to also call if you would like. They are wasting our tax money.

The number is 1-541-213-0201. Here is what I said when I got an actual person this morning:

“I do have a tip. I want to report eleven Republican lawmakers in our state who are wasting our tax dollars and making a mockery of our Democracy by their illegal walkout. I hope this gets investigated.”

The walkout is preventing important bills from being enacted that passed with bipartisan support in the House. As an Oregon Capital Chronicle story points out, many of those bills would benefit the rural areas that Senate Republicans claim to care about so much.

Here's some excerpts from "Democrats warn of lost opportunities as GOP-led Senate walkout persists."

Oregonians have much to lose if the legislative session ends by June 25 without a functioning Senate that can vote on bills, Democrats warned Tuesday.

The GOP-led Senate walkout is preventing votes on bills intended to benefit average Oregonians from urban Portland to rural eastern Oregon. Examples run the gamut: Bills held up by the walkout would reduce the risk of wildfires racing across rural Oregon, address the homelessness crisis as people camp in tents along city streets and keep health care coverage going for some of the 300,000 Oregonians estimated to lose their access to the Oregon Health Plan, as pandemic-era provisions that kept more people enrolled end.

...As the impasse continues, Democratic lawmakers on Tuesday urged Oregonians – and their Republican colleagues in the Senate – to consider what’s at stake. 

For example, a $70 million rural economic development proposal faces an uncertain fate. That proposal, House Bill 3410, would help small farmers, the fishing industry, outdoor recreation, county fairs and other small businesses, said Rep. David Gomberg, D-Otis.

Other bills would aid economic development at the Port of Coos Bay and bring broadband to rural communities, including a proposal that would pull in about $700 million in federal funding to improve broadband services.

But the bills in jeopardy go beyond money and the economy. 

For example, House Bill 3211 would make it easier for Oregon to get $60 million in matching federal funding for new dams in Oregon that are vulnerable to earthquakes. 

“If the dam fails, lives will be lost,” Gomberg said.

For example, in Newport the bill would help fix two dams that provide water for the coastal community of 10,000 people. Those dams would flood the city if they broke.

On the health care front, a stalled bill would help Oregonians who face losing coverage from the state’s Medicaid program. The proposal would create a “bridge plan” to help people who make too much to qualify for the Oregon Health Plan but cannot afford coverage on the marketplace. The state is now determining how many of the 1.5 million Oregonians who stayed covered because of the federal pandemic emergency still qualify for coverage.

Separately, House Bill 2395 would make naloxone kits that stop opioid overdoses available in public schools, buildings and for first responders to give to people for future use. 

“This is going to save lives and give people a chance to recover and we must pass this bill,” said Rep. Travis Nelson, a Portland Democrat and nurse who attended the press conference in his scrubs. 

On the education front, there are proposals to put $10.2 billion toward the K-12 state school budget and put $140 million toward early literacy programs. Separately, Senate Bill 283 would give 20% pay increases to teachers and classified staff who work in special education, support initiatives to diversify the educator workforce and guarantee more pay and benefits to substitute teachers. 

“This is the legislation Senate Republicans are now holding hostage after we’ve worked together on it for months and months,” said Sen. Michael Dembrow, D-Portland. “This is unacceptable. It’s time for them to join us and together, do our jobs.”

There also are wildfire protection bills that would help people navigate the tangle of homeowners insurance for claims and create programs to help communities and property owners reduce the risk of wildfires.

The bill to pull in $700 million of federal funds for expanded broadband services really hit home for me. My wife and I live in rural south Salem, just six miles from the city limits, but aside from horribly slow CenturyLink DSL that travels over ancient copper phone lines (download speed is just 6-7 Mbps) our only option was to sign up for Starlink satellite internet.

That's been great -- download speed is 86 Mbps at the moment -- but last I heard there was a waiting list for Starlink in our area since the satellites have a limited capacity. Plus, it costs $110 a month. I'd love to have a fiber optic option. However, CenturyLink will never bring it to our neighborhood without a federal subsidy.

Our story is common in rural Oregon where people are lucky to have even a single broadband option with decent speeds, and rarely have several viable options. If the Republican walkout kills Oregon's chance to get the $700 million, rural voters should keep this in mind at the next election for state legislators.

Oregon GOP is acting crazier than Republicans in Congress

Because this is Oregon, not Alabama or Mississippi, I've gotten used to saying that while our Republican politicians seem to be more reasonable than Republican officeholders in red states, they're actually just as far-right.

The only difference being, Oregon Republicans don't have the opportunity to manifest their extremism given how Democrats dominate our state's political balance.

Well, now that the walkout of Republicans in the state Senate has entered a fifth week, with the GOP being utterly unwilling to negotiate an end to the walkout (Governor Kotek has said that she's given up on her attempt to broker a deal), it's apparent that our homegrown Republican politicians are even crazier than Republicans in Congress -- and that's saying something.

For Congressional Republicans just went along with a bill to raise the debt limit that, shockingly, was nicely bipartisan. Both sides ended up compromising, with the end result pleasing neither Democrats nor Republicans completely. 

In short, what happened in Congress is what would be expected when Democrats control the presidency and have a majority in the Senate, while Republicans control the House, where spending bills must originate. 

So as a progressive, I was pleased with how the debt limit deal turned out. 

Unfortunately, there's no sign that GOP members of the state Senate have any interest in reaching a deal with their Democratic colleagues to end their walkout. It looks like they'll keep on ignoring their sworn duty to serve as elected legislators until the current legislative session ends on June 25.

An Oregon Capital Chronicle story describes the disturbing state of affairs in the Senate. 

Oregon senators participating in the GOP-led walkout will need to decide Monday whether to return to floor sessions or face daily $325 fines.

The walkout has denied the Senate a quorum since May 3, halting votes on bills addressing housing, drug addiction, public education and other issues.

On Thursday, Senate President Rob Wagner, D-Lake Oswego, and other Democratic senators stepped up the pressure. After the roll call and sergeant-at-arms’ customary search for senators, Senate Majority Leader Kate Lieber, D-Beaverton, made a request: Senators should face a $325 fine for an unexcused absence for each day the Senate fails to reach a quorum. It starts Monday and is not retroactive.

...Republican senators are skipping floor sessions for a variety of stated reasons. First, they said the Senate failed to follow a law that requires bill summaries be written at  an eighth-grade reading level so the public can access that information. As the walkout progressed, Republican senators also said they want to kill or water down bills they strongly oppose, including House Bill 2002, which shores up abortion rights for minors under 15 without parental consent and access to transgender care.

“The people of Oregon do not want backroom deals,” Wagner said. “The people of Oregon don’t want kill lists.” 

Time is running short. The 160-day session must end by June 25, a little more than three weeks away. Republican senators have offered to return on the final day to pass budget bills, but Democratic senators have said this isn’t acceptable and fails to provide enough time to vet bills.

This means that the temper tantrum being engaged in by the crybabies in the Oregon Senate -- boo-hoo, Republicans can't win enough elections to be a majority, so we'll just leave the legislature and pout -- likely will result in their mostly rural constituents losing out on the benefits of many bipartisan bills already passed by the Oregon House.

Eventually (unless the GOP wants to be responsible for shutting down state government) those Republican senators are going to have to return and provide the two-thirds quorum needed to pass a state budget.

A Willamette Week story describes the nasty consequences if this doesn't happen. 

As the Oregon House gamely continues work on bills destined to die if Senate Republicans do not return from their walkout, a new opinion from the office of Oregon Legislative Counsel Dexter Johnson paints a dire picture of what it would mean if the Legislature fails to pass a budget (which it cannot do unless GOP senators return).

The Oregon Constitution requires that the Legislature pass a balanced budget every two years to fund continuing operations.

In short, the legislative counsel’s opinion says, the failure to pass a budget would cause the state to rely on a “continuing resolution” to fund most basic services until Sept. 15, 2023, when the resolution expires. (Agency budgets would not increase from the previous biennium, which means some services would be curtailed.)

After the resolution expires, the opinion says, things would take a serious turn for the worse: K-12 schools would lose two-thirds of their funding; Oregon Department of Transportation work would grind to a halt.

The other source of school funding, property taxes, could not fill the gap and would not become available until long after school starts in the fall. “Local property tax revenue is not available until after November 15,” the opinion says. “Projects primarily funded by the state highway fund could not continue.”

Other major state agencies, such as the Oregon Health Authority, the Oregon Department of Human Services and the Oregon Department of Corrections, that depend on the general fund could shut down, according to the opinion penned by senior deputy legislative counsel David Fang-Yen.

As much as Congressional Republicans hate big government, they passed legislation that keeps the federal government funded at basically current levels for the next two years.

Yet so far, Oregon Republicans haven't been willing to do this unless Democrats give up their legislative priorities, which naturally is unacceptable to the party that voters gave sizable majorities to in both the state House and Senate.

Somehow our state has to find a way to change the two-thirds quorum requirement in the legislature to the simple majority that virtually all other states have. This should have been voted on by citizens rather than the ballot measure approved by voters in 2022 which prohibits legislators from running for office again if they have ten or more unexcused absences.

Republicans are ignoring that ballot measure in hopes it will be declared unconstitutional, or that a quirk in the wording of the measure will allow Senate GOP members who walk out to serve an additional term after their current term expires.

Regardless, the only real fix to GOP walkouts is to change the quorum requirement to a simple majority.

Debt limit deal seems like a good compromise to this progressive

Many of my fellow progressives won't like my opinion, but I'm happy with the debt limit deal reached today between President Biden and House Speaker McCarthy.

The deal is going to irritate those on both the far-left and far-right of the political spectrum, so passage of the legislation isn't assured. But the alternative -- defaulting on the nation's financial obligations -- was much worse. 

A New York Times story provides some basic facts about the deal.

President Biden and Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Saturday reached an agreement in principle to lift the debt limit for two years while cutting and capping some government spending over the same period, a breakthrough after a marathon set of crisis talks that has brought the nation within days of its first default in history.

Congressional passage of the plan before June 5, when the Treasury is projected to exhaust its ability to pay its obligations, is not assured, particularly in the House, which plans to consider it on Wednesday. Republicans hold a narrow majority in the chamber, and right-wing lawmakers who had demanded significantly larger budget cuts in exchange for lifting the borrowing limit were already in revolt.

But the compromise, which would effectively freeze federal spending that had been on track to grow, had the blessing of both the Democratic president and the Republican speaker, raising hopes that it could break the fiscal stalemate that has gripped Washington and the nation for weeks, threatening an economic crisis.

Biden had correctly said that he wouldn't negotiate over raising the debt limit, since this only enables payment of money that already has been authorized by Congress and signed into law by the president. However, Biden also said that he'd negotiate the contours of federal spending for the next fiscal year and beyond.

That was simply political reality.

Spending bills originate in the House. The House is controlled by Republicans. So it made sense to talk about federal spending now with House Republicans. If Biden had refused to negotiate on spending, especially after the House had passed a debt limit bill that contained a GOP spending wish list, he would have looked foolish and irresponsible.

Progressives tend to ignore this fact. Compromises on federal spending were going to occur at some point given the GOP majority in the House. Those compromises were hammered out now, rather than later. 

All in all, I think Democratic priorities ended up doing fine in the deal. Not great, but fine. That's the nature of political deal-making: nobody gets all they want.

The debt limit is increased for two years, putting it off limits until after the 2024 election. A spending freeze also is for only two years. The House GOP wish list had large spending cuts extending over ten years, a big difference. 

The wish list called for doing away with climate action policies in the Inflation Reduction Act bill. Those won't happen, which is great. Only $10 billion of the $80 billion in increased funding for IRS enforcement of our tax laws is being shifted to other parts of the budget. Not good, but acceptable.

Yes, there are work requirements for federal aid in the deal. But they could have been worse. The New York Times story says:

According to a person familiar with the agreement, it also would impose new work requirements for some recipients of government aid, including food stamps and the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program. It would place new limits on how long certain recipients of food stamps — people under the age of 54, who do not have children — could benefit from the program. But it also would expand food stamp access for veterans and the homeless, said the person, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss details of the package.

As I said in a blog post where I predicted a debt ceiling catastrophe, which is still possible but much less likely now, one of my fears was that House Republicans would tank the economy by not raising the debt limit, thereby seriously hurting Biden's reelection chance.

Biden seems to think that congressional Republicans want to ensure that our country doesn't enter a deep recession, or even a depression, due to full faith in the credit worthiness of the federal government taking a nose dive because of an inability to pay its bills.

Actually, Republicans want to take back the presidency in 2024, along with control of both the House and Senate. The best way to do that is for Biden and Democrats to be saddled with a massive economic downturn.

Which is what defaulting on our debt would do. 

The Freedom Caucus effectively controls the House of Representatives. Those far-right members got promises from Kevin McCarthy in return for giving him the backing to become Speaker of the House after 15 votes.

I don't see the Freedom Caucus being satisfied with any debt ceiling agreement that Biden is willing to sign and congressional Democrats are willing to support. Again, maybe I'm wrong.

Perhaps McCarthy has a political cattle prod that will jolt the Freedom Caucus into supporting a much pared down version of the extreme debt ceiling bill passed by the House with exactly zero votes to spare. This just seems very unlikely to me.

It still seems unlikely, given the nature of the deal worked out by McCarthy and Biden. Democratic votes will be needed to get the deal across the finish line in the House. Some ardent House progressives will refuse to provide those votes, but enough Democrats should join with enough Republicans to get the bill passed.

Then it goes to the Senate, where some GOP members will oppose it. However, while they will be able to slow down passage of the House debt limit bill, I don't see them being able to kill it. That would saddle Republicans with the responsibility for orchestrating the first default on our debt in the nation's history -- not something the GOP wants with an election coming in 2024.

So, yeah, congressional Democrats came out of the debt ceiling negotiation with about as good a deal as was possible for them.

Their crucial mistake was not raising the debt ceiling on their own when they had control of both houses of Congress and the presidency. House Republicans can't be blamed for using the debt ceiling as leverage given that this opportunity was available to them. The good news is that this leverage didn't pay off very well for them.

Democrats need to hang tough on Senate GOP walkout

Republicans are doing their best to make my blood boil. (So far, figuratively.)

Nationally, House Republicans seem determined to make their demands so extreme to raise the debt ceiling that the federal government will be unable to pay all of its bills soon, creating a financial catastrophe. 

Here in Oregon, the walkout of Senate Republicans entered its 15th day. And they just announced that they'll keep on not doing the job they were elected to do all the way to the last day of the current legislative session, June 25.

A story in the Oregon Capital Chronicle describes their unreasonable demand, and the totally appropriate response of the Democratic Senate President, Rob Wagner.

Oregon Senate Republicans on Tuesday declared they’re willing to return to the floor to pass bipartisan legislation and budget bills on June 25, the final day of the session.

Senators continued to participate in the GOP-led walkout on Tuesday, boycotting the floor session for the 15th day and preventing the Senate from reaching the two-thirds quorum needed to conduct business. 

...Republicans object to a few bills they want killed. These include House Bill 2002, a bill expanding abortion rights and access to transgender health care, and House Bill 2005, which deals with firearms and raises the minimum age for most gun purchases from 18 to 21 years old and allows local agencies to ban firearms in government-owned property.

Knopp’s statement came out as Wagner was on the Senate floor.

“We’re here to do the people’s work,” Wagner told reporters afterwards. “All the bills should be considered. This is our democracy. People need to show up to the floor, and if they object to legislation, then come tell the voters, tell your citizens, tell your constituents. Really, the place to have that debate is on the floor.”

Wagner said Democrats have no interest in changing House bills 2002 or 2005.

Democrats get to decide what bills are considered by the Senate. They should hang tough on not giving in to Republican hostage-taking, the hostage being a budget for state government and bills that are Democratic priorities.

Senate Republicans are acting like a toddler who refuses to eat their dinner, but demands dessert. (Ah, I remember those days well when my daughter was young.) 

No, Republicans, you don't get to pick and choose what bills you want to vote on. Oregonians have made Democratic legislators a majority in both the House and Senate. If the GOP wants to enjoy that power, win more elections. 

It's that simple. All the crying and wailing about Democrats running roughshod over the poor Republican minority runs counter to how democracy works: majority rule. 

But since Oregon Republicans aren't able to convince voters to put them in charge of this state, they're choosing to give democracy their middle finger by walking out of the Senate in a hissy-fit. Every parent learns that child temper tantrums can't be rewarded.

Same applies to adult temper tantrums in the Oregon legislature.

Oregon law allows state troopers to track down legislators who walk away from their constitutional duty.  So far, Governor Kotek hasn't done this. I think she should, if possible. All that is needed is to bring a few Senate Republicans back to have a quorum.

Another approach is to keep scheduling special sessions of the legislature if the GOP walkout extends past the statutory deadline of June 25 for the regular legislative session. Eventually enough Senate Republicans will return to vote on a must-pass bill, a budget to fund state government.

Here's another excerpt from the Oregon Capital Chronicle story.

If the walkout continues to June 25 and the session ends, Kotek could call lawmakers back in a special session to pass a budget. The current budget ends June 30, but state agencies can continue operating without any disruptions through Sept. 15 because of a continuing resolution that keeps the current levels of funding in place if a budget isn’t set yet.

So when September arrives, Kotek could schedule a special session. When a sufficient number of Republicans in both the House and Senate produce a quorum, state troopers should be ordered to lock the doors of the Capitol.

Bring in cots, blankets, and food. I'll be glad to contribute to a pizza fund. Force Republicans to remain in the Capitol, along with Democratic legislators, until all of the bills that are Democratic priorities have bene voted on.

Hardball? Absolutely. Legal? I'm not sure. But I sure like the idea. When Republicans are in power in red states, they ram through conservative bills with no concern for Democratic feelings. Turnabout is fair play here in Oregon.

Give Republicans exactly zero rewards for their walkout. Make the walkout as painful as possible for the GOP. This is what Republicans would do if they were in power in our state. It's what Democrats should do given that voters have put them in charge of Oregon.

My debt ceiling prediction: catastrophe. (I hope I'm wrong.)

As early as June 1, the federal government will run out of money to pay all of its bills unless the debt ceiling is raised and more money can be borrowed. The United States has never defaulted on its obligations, so many people believe we won't this time.

I disagree. I think there's a better chance of our country entering financial meltdown than of the debt ceiling being raised in enough time to avert a major catastrophe. 

Usually I want my political predictions to come true. In this case I want to be proven wrong. However, my reading of the political tea leaves is that the rise of far-right crazies in the Republican Party changes all of the calculations based on what has transpired in the past, debt ceiling wise.

President Biden still believes in bipartisanship. A majority of House Republicans don't. Thus a story in Politico is almost pathetic as it describes Biden's hope for a collaboration with the GOP that reflects times gone by, not today.

Biden and his team had been buoyed by their belief that a consensus building approach — though perpetually doubted — worked for them before, including with the passage of an infrastructure package and the far-reaching legislation that became the Inflation Reduction Act. But the debt ceiling standoff has so far proved stubbornly different, with Republicans showing a surprisingly united front and the president risking taking the brunt of the blame if the nation defaults for the first time in its history.

Biden seems to think that congressional Republicans want to ensure that our country doesn't enter a deep recession, or even a depression, due to full faith in the credit worthiness of the federal government taking a nose dive because of an inability to pay its bills.

Actually, Republicans want to take back the presidency in 2024, along with control of both the House and Senate. The best way to do that is for Biden and Democrats to be saddled with a massive economic downturn.

Which is what defaulting on our debt would do. 

The Freedom Caucus effectively controls the House of Representatives. Those far-right members got promises from Kevin McCarthy in return for giving him the backing to become Speaker of the House after 15 votes.

I don't see the Freedom Caucus being satisfied with any debt ceiling agreement that Biden is willing to sign and congressional Democrats are willing to support. Again, maybe I'm wrong.

Perhaps McCarthy has a political cattle prod that will jolt the Freedom Caucus into supporting a much pared down version of the extreme debt ceiling bill passed by the House with exactly zero votes to spare. This just seems very unlikely to me.

Most House Republicans back Trump. Trump loves chaos, the more the better.

If the federal government can be put in the position of having to decide whether purchasers of treasury bonds get paid interest on the debt they hold, or whether federal employees have to miss paychecks, this will bring smiles to the malevolent faces of Biden-hating Republicans.

In short, they don't care about the damage failure to raise the debt ceiling will do to the United States and the world. They care about winning in 2024 and restoring Trump to the presidency again.

Now, my dire prediction of what's going to happen soon, probably as early as June, rests on an assumption that Biden isn't going to invoke the 14th Amendment -- which he definitely should. Laurence Tribe, a noted constitutional scholar, has been arguing for this along with many others.

At this moment, at the White House as well as the Departments of Treasury and Justice, officials are debating a legal theory that previous presidents and any number of legal experts — including me — ruled out in 2011, when the Obama administration confronted a default.

The theory builds on Section 4 of the 14th Amendment to argue that Congress, without realizing it, set itself on a path that would violate the Constitution when, in 1917, it capped the size of the federal debt.

...Section 4 of the 14th Amendment says the “validity” of the public debt “shall not be questioned” — ever.

...The question isn’t whether the president can tear up the debt limit statute to ensure that the Treasury Department can continue paying bills submitted by veterans’ hospitals or military contractors or even pension funds that purchased government bonds.

The question isn’t whether the president can in effect become a one-person Supreme Court, striking down laws passed by Congress.

The right question is whether Congress — after passing the spending bills that created these debts in the first place — can invoke an arbitrary dollar limit to force the president and his administration to do its bidding.

There is only one right answer to that question, and it is no.

And there is only one person with the power to give Congress that answer: the president of the United States. As a practical matter, what that means is this: Mr. Biden must tell Congress in no uncertain terms — and as soon as possible, before it’s too late to avert a financial crisis — that the United States will pay all its bills as they come due, even if the Treasury Department must borrow more than Congress has said it can.

Biden hasn't ruled out using the 14th Amendment to avert a financial catastrophe. But he's expressed more concerns about doing this than I think are valid. Like, an obvious one: invoking the 14th Amendment would lead to a legal challenge.

Well, of course it would. So what?

If a reasonable agreement to raise the debt ceiling can't be worked out with Kevin McCarthy, then before the debt ceiling is breached Biden should announce that's he's ordering the Treasury Department to borrow enough money to pay the bills of the federal government in accord with the 14th Amendment.

That action will be appealed to the Supreme Court. Fine.

If a majority on the Supreme Court want to allow our nation to default on its debt, then the ensuing financial catastrophe is on them. Biden and the Democrats tried to work out a deal to raise the debt limit. Republican intransigence made that impossible. 

So the 14th Amendment was invoked. As Tribe says, this isn't ideal, but it's the better option.

The president should remind Congress and the nation, “I’m bound by my oath to preserve and protect the Constitution to prevent the country from defaulting on its debts for the first time in our entire history.” Above all, the president should say with clarity, “My duty faithfully to execute the laws extends to all the spending laws Congress has enacted, laws that bind whoever sits in this office — laws that Congress enacted without worrying about the statute capping the amount we can borrow.”

By taking that position, the president would not be usurping Congress’s lawmaking power or its power of the purse. Nor would he be usurping the Supreme Court’s power to “say what the law is,” as Chief Justice John Marshall once put it. Mr. Biden would simply be doing his duty to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed” even if doing so leaves one law — the borrowing limit first enacted in 1917 — temporarily on the cutting room floor.

Ignoring one law in order to uphold every other has compelling historical precedent. It’s precisely what Abraham Lincoln did when he briefly overrode the habeas corpus law in 1861 to save the Union, later saying to Congress, “Are all the laws, but one, to go unexecuted, and the government itself go to pieces, lest that one be violated?”

For a president to pick the lesser of two evils when no other option exists is the essence of constitutional leadership, not the action of a tyrant. And there is no doubt that ignoring the debt ceiling until Congress either raises or abolishes it is a lesser evil than leaving those with lawful claims against the Treasury out in the cold.

Progressives should feel good about Salem-Keizer school board election

These days even local elections reverberate with echoes of national controversies. That certainly was the case with yesterday's special district election where three seats on the Salem-Keizer school board were up for grabs. 

Two slates of candidates faced off, one progressive and one conservative. The stakes were high, since in 2021 four progressive candidates beat their conservative opponents, putting control of the school board in their hands.

There are seven members of the school board, so 4-3 is a majority.

This year the three seats occupied by conservatives in 2021 were up for election, though only one was occupied by an incumbent, Satya Chandragiri, owing to some resignations. So while progressive control of the school board wasn't in doubt, the size of the progressive majority was.

As things stand the day after the May 16 election, there appears to be two winners and one too-close-to-call race.

Progressive Cynthia Richardson is leading conservative Casity Troutt by 1,051 votes. Conservative Krissy Hudson has a 4,205 vote lead over progressive Larry Scruggs. And conservative Satya Chandragiri is leading progressive Kelly Strawn by 446 votes. 

So unless Troutt has an extremely unlikely comeback, soon the progressive majority on the school board will increase from 4-3 to 5-2. Sure, liberals like me would prefer it be 6-1 or 7-0. But picking up a seat formerly held by a conservative should make progressives smile.

Especially since Casity Troutt hoped to win that seat. Troutt was a far-right candidate who would have brought her extreme agenda to the school board, creating havoc wherever she could. 

I urge you to read an excellent piece by Andrew Hickey on his Salem-Keizer Proletariat substack publication: "Progressives gain in Salem-Keizer School Board race." As I told Hickey in a comment on this post, whatever I was going to say about the election, you've said it better.

Hickey says this about Casity Troutt. 

Bigotry and hate lost big. Casity Troutt is a vocal anti-transgender activist and has tried to get books on diversity banned from public schools. Her candidacy was borne from those efforts. And her supporters worked hard to smear and degrade the only black woman in the entire race. Her campaign (and ideology) was a gross expression of fear and hate that was soundly rejected by our community. That’s a great signal.

Troutt also led an unsuccessful effort to recall three progressive school board members, so her loss is especially sweet for me.

I hated the attack ad against Richardson backers of Troutt spewed forth on social media. So the way I see it from my progressive point of view, keeping Troutt off the school board was better than losing the Hudson-Scruggs race, plus the Chandragiri-Strawn race -- should that remain in conservative hands after all the votes are counted.

Pleasingly, the overall positive showing of the progressive candidates in the Salem-Keizer school district  election reflected a broader trend. Here's some excerpts from an Oregonian story, "Oregon voters reject conservative school board candidates in Newberg, other districts."

Three incumbents on the Newberg school board lost their seats in Tuesday’s election, the end of an era in a district that’s attracted national attention since 2021, when a majority of board members banned staff from putting Black Lives Matter and pro-LGBTQ+ rights signs up in classrooms or hallways.

The five candidates who won seats on the board this week — three of them against incumbents and two of them for open seats — were all supported by a political action committee called Oregon CARES that says its mission is to elect “responsible and equitable” community leaders. That PAC’s largest single donor is the statewide teachers’ union, the Oregon Education Association.

...Overall, candidates who had strongly supported increased parental oversight over curriculum, particularly in social studies and health and sexuality, and who emphasized a “back-to-basics” approach on everything from academics to student discipline – lost their races in the Portland suburbs and exurbs Tuesday night, bucking a national trend that has seen candidates with conservative ideologies make meaningful inroads onto nonpartisan school boards.

Senate Democrats shouldn't negotiate over GOP walkout

Last Thursday Oregon Senate President Rob Wagner, a Democrat from Lake Oswego, agreed to a request from the minority leader to have the Senate not meet on Friday, Saturday, or Sunday after a nine-day GOP walkout.

An Oregon Capital Chronicle story says:

The three-day break gives Wagner and Senate Minority Leader Tim Knopp, R-Bend, a chance to work out differences before any senators rack up 10 unexcused absences. Legislators cannot qualify to run for reelection if they have 10 or more unexcused absences because of a voter-approved constitutional amendment that passed in 2022.

...“It is my hope that this will give us time to work out a legitimate agreement that will benefit all Oregonians,” Knopp said. “I have communicated that I will be available over the weekend to have these critical discussions.”

Knopp told the Capital Chronicle that Republicans want 20  bills set aside, including on abortion, guns and transgender health care.

So far, three senators have nine absences: Republican Sens. Daniel Bonham, The Dalles, Dennis Linthicum of Klamath Falls and Independent Brian Boquist of Dallas.

I think it's a mistake for Democrats to reward Senate Republicans with negotiations. Legislators are supposed to show up for work, not walkout. "Do your job" is the only thing the GOP senators should be hearing from Democrats in the Senate.

What's especially irritating about what Wagner did in cancelling the Friday-Sunday legislative sessions, after holding sessions the previous Friday and weekend, is that Oregonians overwhelmingly voted by a 68-32 margin for Measure 113 last November.

That measure says that if a state legislator has ten unexcused absences from floor sessions, they're disqualified from running for re-election at the end of their term.

Since over two-thirds of voters supported this, it's mystifying why Wagner felt he should negotiate with Republicans the day before three senators were going to hit the ten-day limit. It seems to me that Wagner should have let them be disqualified from running for office again.

That would have demonstrated how seriously Democrats take the walkout and also shown respect for the will of the voters who passed Measure 113. 

If Senate Republicans are able to get some bills killed that are Democrat priorities, this will embolden them to keep on staging walkouts. Since most GOP senators probably are in safe Republican districts, even if some senators are disqualified from running again, their GOP replacement can repeat the walkout in the next legislative session.

One small bit of leverage Senate Republicans had was a threat to take Measure 113 to court in hopes that it would be declared unconstitutional. If that happened, they could walkout in this session without suffering any consequences.

But Willamette Week has reported that a top Portland law firm has issued an opinion saying that Measure 113 appears to be constitutional. Here's an excerpt from the story, "As AWOL GOP Senators Consider Challenging New Attendance Law, Legal Memo Says They Have No Case."

As a walkout by Oregon Senate Republicans nears the end of its second week and butts up against the allowed maximum of 10 unexcused absences for some members, progressive groups have sought a legal opinion on whether a potential court challenge to that absence cap might succeed.

The short answer in the memo WW obtained: It’s unlikely.

“It is our conclusion that Measure 113 on its face does not violate the First Amendment rights of free speech and protest, nor the right to run for elective office,” wrote Misha Isaak and Whitney Brown, lawyers at the Stoel Rives firm, in a May 11 memo. “Accordingly, it is likely to survive constitutional challenge.” (Isaak was counsel to former Gov. Kate Brown before returning to private practice.)

So Senate Democrats better not cave to Republican demands to kill gun control, abortion, and transgender health care bills. If they want to walkout over these bills, let a bunch of GOP senators be disqualified from running again.

Sure, their replacements probably will be Republicans also, but at least the senators with ten unexcused absences will be punished for walking out. Of course, the real solution to walkouts is to change the legislative quorum rule from requiring 2/3 of legislators to be present to a simple majority. Oregon is only one of a handful of states that has a 2/3 quorum requirement. 

But this is in the state constitution, I'm pretty sure, so would require a vote of the people to change.

Trump on CNN was horrifying. Also, disqualifying.

I had no plan to watch the Trump town hall on CNN yesterday. But it was still going when I drove home from a Tai Chi class around 6 pm, so I listened to it on satellite radio for about half an hour.

It was ugly. Really ugly. Trump lied incessantly. He talked over the moderator, Kaitlan Collins. He called E. Jean Carroll, who had just won a civil lawsuit where Trump was found guilty of sexually abusing and defaming Carroll, a "wack job" and said the trial was "a rigged deal."

The New Hampshire audience, mostly Republicans and a few independents, laughed at Trump's insults. Collins did her best to get Trump to answer her questions without lying, but she failed. Mostly the town hall seemed more like a Trump campaign rally than a forum for learning about his views.

I couldn't help but think, "This guy is utterly unqualified to run for president."

Of course, I already knew that, having suffered through four long years of Trump in the White House. But I'd expected that Trump would tone down his bullshit somewhat in the CNN town hall, since he must know that he can't win in 2024 without appealing to voters who aren't his MAGA devotees.

Not surprisingly, CNN has come in for lots of criticism for giving Trump over an hour of air time to blab about his usual grievances. A right-on story in The Bulwark by Charlie Sykes, "The Moment That You Knew," starts off this way. 

Critics had worried that giving the indicted, twice-impeached, coup-plotting, chronically lying sexual predator an unedited, live television forum might turn out badly.

The reality, however, was far ghastlier: a sh*tshow for the ages, and a moment that captured the thorough degradation of both our politics and the media. “It was a f**king nightmare,” remarked one savvy observer, “and it was programmed to BE a f**king nightmare.”

Trump was, of course, thrilled.

For her part, Kaitlan Collins was poised, prepared, and determined, but she never stood a chance. She raised all of the key questions and tried (not always successfully) to ask followups.

But Trump just rolled over her with a torrent of invective, jibes, and bullsh*t. The fact-checkers were reduced to asterisks. “He declared war on the truth,” CNN anchor Jake Tapper said afterward. “And I’m not sure that he didn’t win.”

Where to start?

• • Trump called a black law enforcement officer a “thug.”

  • He repeated baseless conspiracy theories about 2020.

  • He lied about losing the 2020 election. (CNN’s Oliver Darcy tweeted: “I've lost count of how many times Trump has lied about the election. Collins keeps fact-checking him, but he keeps lying.”)

  • He lied about calling for “terminating” the Constitution so he could be returned to power.

  • He lied about his role on January 6th.

  • He suggested that he would pardon many of the January 6th insurrectionists.

  • He insisted again that Mike Pence should have overturned the election.

  • He endorsed letting the country default on its debt, even if it would bring on an economic cataclysm.

  • He claimed that residents of the Chinatown neighborhood in Washington, D.C., “did not speak English as part of an allegation that Biden stored boxes there after his vice presidency because he had nefarious ties to Beijing.”

  • He refused to back Ukraine against Russia.

  • He lashed out at Collins as “nasty woman” — and the audience CHEERED.

But this was hardly the worst of it. Actually, not even close.

The day after a federal jury found that the ex-president had sexually abused and defamed E. Jean Carroll, Trump turned the episode into a joke, mocking and insulting his victim.

And the crowd laughed.

CNN's own employees are disparaging the town hall. However a Politico story, Enough With the Bellyaching Over CNN's Trump Town Hall, makes some good points about the value of what happened last night. I like Jack Shafer's writing style.

The captains who steer the SS CNN sent first mate Kaitlan Collins into the bilge Wednesday night to bail out the sinking ship with a thimble, while Donald Trump used the town hall format to blast a hole in CNN’s hull with a torpedo barrage of lies.

Collins, a resourceful journalist who thinks as fast on her feet as Muhammad Ali did on his, couldn’t keep up. That’s no reflection on her. Nobody practiced in the art of the interview has ever been able to stop this lying chatterbox in a live session. As scholar Michael Socolow points out, Chris Wallace, Lesley Stahl and Jonathan Swan successfully tamed him, but all of those Trump interviewers were taped and edited, which neutered his predictable and exuberant filibustering.

Plus, those interviews were conducted without an audience. Trump’s CNN town hall, on the other hand, was stocked from stem to stern with cheering acolytes who rewarded his every insult and evasion with laughter and applause. It’s hard to conduct an interview when rotten fruit and vegetables are being hurled onto the stage.

So was it a “mistake” on CNN’s part to give Trump such a forum? No. The town hall’s results could have been predicted — in fact, they were predicted by about a million commentators in the days leading up to the event. The chorus observed that Trump can lie faster than any real-time interviewer can fact-check him, so the immediate advantage of the arena will generally accrue to him.

CNN could have armed Collins with a centrifugal pump to siphon the Trump deluge, and she still would have been swamped. If it was all a ratings ploy, it wasn’t a very good one, as it attracted fewer viewers than six previous Trump town halls on Fox.

But in principle, a Trump interview was a good idea because it’s never a mistake for the press to confront newsmakers, even if the newsmaker lies about the integrity of the 2020 election, which Trump did.

Even if he mocks the justice system because it has held against him, which Trump did. Even if he uses the rhetorical devises of ad hominem, ad populum, ad baculum to savage his foes, as Trump did. Even if he insults the interviewer, which Trump did (“You’re a nasty person,” he said to Collins). Even if he refuses to answer simple questions about his stand on abortion, which Trump repeatedly did. And even if he offers his self-serving hallucinations about the events of January 6 as the truth, which Trump did.

...The lessons taught by Collins and CNN Wednesday night are not to fear Trump or to actively suppress his ideas but that the best format for tangling with him is a taped one, where he can’t chomp scenery and eat up the clock with non-answers, and one where the audience is at home in front of their televisions, not in an auditorium cheering him on.

We should all look forward to the next Trump TV interview, for all the good and bad it will surely deliver.

Justice! Trump guilty of sexual abuse and defamation

Our legal system served E. Jean Carroll well today. Today a jury took just a few hours to find him guilty of sexually abusing and defaming her. Carroll was awarded $5 million in damages that Trump has to pay.

A New York Times story starts off this way.

A Manhattan jury on Tuesday found former President Donald J. Trump liable for sexually abusing and defaming E. Jean Carroll and awarded her $5 million in damages. More than a dozen women have accused Mr. Trump of sexual misconduct over the years, but this is the only allegation to be affirmed by a jury.

In the civil case, the federal jury of six men and three women found that Ms. Carroll, 79, a former magazine writer, had sufficiently proved that Mr. Trump sexually abused her nearly 30 years ago in a dressing room of the Bergdorf Goodman department store in Manhattan. The jury did not, however, find he had raped her, as she had long claimed.

The jury, in returning the verdict shortly before 3 p.m., also found that Mr. Trump, who is running to regain the presidency, defamed Ms. Carroll in October when he posted a statement on his Truth Social platform calling her case “a complete con job” and “a Hoax and a lie.” His lawyer said he intended to appeal.

Mr. Trump’s lawyers called no witnesses, and he never appeared at the trial to hear Ms. Carroll, who had sued him last year, deliver visceral testimony about the attack she said had ended her romantic life forever.

Trump's attorney said he was pleased that the jury didn't find Trump raped Carroll. But Carroll admitted that she wasn't sure whether Trump fully penetrated her or just partially did so. This shows that the jury carefully considered the evidence in the trial, which renders Trump's crazy claim of "witch hunt" to be as absurd as his contention that he'd never met Carroll. 

Of course, there will be the usual assertions that Trump's bad character is "baked in" to how voters see him, so today's guilty verdict in Carroll's civil case against Trump won't hurt his candidacy to become president again.

A well-documented Just Security story argues otherwise. Here's an excerpt from Why the E. Jean Carroll Verdict Will Matter to Voters.

The unanimous jury verdict that has turned Donald Trump from an alleged sexual assaulter into a proven one may create political shockwaves if recent history is any guide. As numerous empirical studies have shown, the American public has come to view sexual assault as a form of abusing power that can disqualify a perpetrator from holding public office. Trump may suffer significant political damage from this new majoritarian understanding. 

In November 2017, 61% of voters – including 56% of men and a nontrivial margin of white men (50-43) and white women (55-37) – said then-President Trump should be impeached and removed from office if he were proven to have engaged in “sexual harassment,” according to a Quinnipiac poll. That overall support – the eye popping number of 61% – was higher than any poll tracking public support for impeachment and removal from office for the scandalous conduct in Trump’s first and second impeachments (see Five Thirty-Eight’s complete collection of surveys for the first and second impeachment). What’s more, Quinnipiac asked only about sexual harassment not sexual assault in the case of Trump. The latter, which is also the core crime in the E. Jean Carroll verdict, would have presumably produced even greater levels of support for removal from office. 

The Quinnipiac poll was not alone.

Here's some other tweets from my Twitter feed today. 

Of course, this is just the first trial that Trump is likely to face. A Politico story, Trump's defeat in Carroll case presages more legal peril, lays out those cases. I'm just sharing the title of each one. Read the story for details.

Indictment watch in Fulton County
KEY DATE: JULY 11

Pre-trial motions in the Manhattan hush-money case
KEY DATE: AUG. 8

Upcoming trial in New York civil case against the Trump Organization
KEY DATE: OCT. 2

The federal probe of Trump’s bid to subvert the 2020 election

The federal probe of Trump’s handling of classified documents

Another lawsuit from E. Jean Carroll

Kind of amazing that Trump is the clear frontrunner to be the Republican presidential nominee in 2024 with all of these legal problems looming over him. Just goes to show that any claim the GOP has to be the law-and-order party is a bunch of B.S.