A Slam Dunk for Biden?

One wonders what George Washington would think if you could bring him back to life and tell him that, one day in December of 2022, the biggest story in the land would be about a Black lesbian basketball player who was traded to the Russians for an arms merchant. Once you explained to him what basketball is, and possibly what a lesbian is, our guess is he'd be pretty surprised.

In any event, that was indeed the big news of the day yesterday. After many months of negotiations, the Biden administration has secured the return of Brittney Griner, the professional basketball player who was arrested, tried and convicted on possession charges after being found to have a small amount of hash oil in her luggage. The price for this was giving arms dealer Viktor Bout, known as the "Merchant of Death," back to the Russians.

The political benefits for the Biden administration are pretty clear here. He was getting hammered for letting Griner rot in a Russian prison, especially by groups representing Black women voters, and especially since the charges against her were pretty clearly trumped up (no pun intended) in order to give Vladimir Putin a bargaining chip. Now, the hammering can end, and the President got himself a nice photo-op:

Moments ago I spoke to Brittney Griner.

She is safe.
She is on a plane.
She is on her way home. pic.twitter.com/FmHgfzrcDT

— President Biden (@POTUS) December 8, 2022

Who is the woman in the pictures? That's former U.S. senator Kamala Harris, who is now the vice president. Oh, wait. You're probably wondering about the other woman. If so, that's Cherelle Griner, Brittney's wife.

So, Biden gets a "win." That said, it's not an unqualified win by any means. There are also many potential angles for criticism here. Among them:

• The "Job Is Not Done" Angle: At the start of this week, there were three high-profile cases of Americans being held in Russian prisons on apparently dubious charges: Griner, teacher Marc Fogel (possession) and former Marine Paul Whelan (espionage). The White House rescued one, and was unable to extricate the other two. This seems terribly unfair to some, especially since Whelan is nearing 4 years of imprisonment whereas Griner had served less than 1. However, the Russians said that they were only open to discussing Griner, and that Whelan and Fogel were off the table. This is not surprising, as Griner is a popular celebrity in Russia and her imprisonment was causing some blowback from Russian citizens. In any event, the President was left with a choice of rescuing one of the three or rescuing zero, and he chose the former option. Even Whelan's family said they understood why Biden made the choice he did, while nonetheless lamenting that their relative remains incarcerated.
  
  
• The "Unequal Stakes" Angle: On its surface, "arms dealer for basketball player" seems like something of a bum deal. After all, nobody is likely to be seriously harmed if and when Griner goes back to playing basketball. Not so if Bout goes back to selling arms (or to spying, as is rumored to be part of his portfolio). However, it is worth noting that Bout had already served 11 years of a 25-year sentence, and that the judge in the case (Shira Scheindlin, now retired), felt and the time and continues to feel, that the sentence was too harsh. Her hands were tied by federal sentencing guidelines, and 25 years was the minimum that she could impose. So, Bout has paid a pretty serious price for his crimes, perhaps even the appropriate price. And while he could go back to dealing arms and/or spying, it's not going to be easy, given that everyone is now watching him closely, and that any networks and/or connections he had have been neglected for 11 years.
  
  
• The "Enabling Bad Behavior" Angle: This, in our view, is the most substantive criticism to be made here. Again, it's pretty clear that Griner was arrested so that Vladimir Putin could leverage her for concessions from the Biden administration. And it's worked, which means that Putin and other rogue leaders will be encouraged to try the trick again. Even some of Biden's fellow Democrats were critical on this account. For example, Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) issued a statement that read, in part: "We must stop inviting dictatorial and rogue regimes to use Americans overseas as bargaining chips, and we must try to do better at encouraging American citizens against traveling to places like Russia where they are primary targets for this type of unlawful detention."
  
  
• The "Woke" Angle: There are also some who are arguing that Biden saved Griner and not the others because she's Black and lesbian and Whelan and Fogel are white and straight. You will not be surprised to learn, for example, that this was the first thing that Tucker Carlson said on his show last night. Of the four criticisms we've listed here, this is the silliest one. As we note above, Griner was the only one of the three made available by the Russians. Further, the very best evidence that an idea is stupid is that Tucker Carlson embraced it.

In the short term, this is going to be a big story, at least through the weekend. In the long term, we're not so sure. For the Democrats, it's not really something they can run on in 2024. And for the Republicans, and in particular their media allies, the story doesn't fit their particular needs when it comes to ongoing outrage. They prefer things that are clear and simple, even if those things have to be made up out of whole cloth. The Griner situation is complicated, and there are many shades of gray. Further, most of the things that really have legs when it comes to the Carlsons and Sean Hannitys of the world have a conspiratorial angle. There generally has to be at least a hint of shadowy forces operating behind the scenes. We don't see that here. So, our guess is that Fox, et al. will have dropped it by this time next week. (Z)

Sinema Jumps Ship

Presumably, this was the plan all along. In a development that isn't much of a surprise to politics-followers, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) announced that she has left the Democratic Party and that she is now registered as an independent. She timed things so that the story broke very early Friday morning, literally moments before this posting was set to go live. Here is the video she posted early Friday to explain her decision:

It starts with her arguing that Arizonans don't care about "Republican" or "Democrat," which is certainly news to us. And it pretty much goes downhill from there. We assume she'll be showing up to work with an arm sling today, given how much time she spent in the video patting herself on the back.

Since the news just broke, there are still some important unanswered questions, most obviously what Sinema's plans are when it comes to the party caucuses. However, she did say she expects to retain her committee memberships. That, in turn, pretty strongly suggests that she's going to be a third musketeer to Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Angus King (I-ME)—a Democrat in practice, just not in name.

Assuming that is how things shake out, then that means that Sinema's re-registration is really just some early 2024 maneuvering. As a Democrat, she was at serious risk of being primaried by Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) or some other member of the Party. As an independent, she's effectively guaranteed to make it to the general election ballot. In turn, that means that we and everyone else are going to end up writing thousands of words about how she might cost the blue team a Senate seat. If the Democrats decline to run a candidate, which is basically what they do in Vermont and Maine, then many Arizona Democrats will be furious to be left with two bad options, as they see it. If the Democrats nominate Gallego, then Sinema is not likely to be reelected, but she would be in an excellent position to play spoiler. And given that she's still more a Democrat than a Republican, she's likely to attract more Democratic votes than Republican votes. In a state where statewide elections tend to be very close, that could well be enough to send a Republican to the Senate.

Sinema has always given the impression that her primary concern is Kyrsten Sinema. Certainly, this news does nothing to argue against that impression. (Z)

Contempt for Trump

We will probably never know exactly how many documents Donald Trump took with him that he should not have. That means we'll probably never know if he allowed one or more documents to fall into the wrong hands. And this is just originals; when we start thinking about Xerox copies or scans or photos of originals, the possibility that something bad has happened increases considerably.

On Wednesday, it was revealed that Trump's lawyers had "discovered" two more classified documents in one of the storage facilities he uses. This discovery actually took place a couple of days before Thanksgiving, even if it was only reported this week. And yesterday, it was reported that the Department of Justice has asked D.C. District Chief Judge Beryl Howell to find Trump in contempt or court, due to his repeated failures to turn over all documents when ordered to do so.

The DoJ's filings are actually under seal, so there is much that is not known. The feds may suspect that Trump's failure to turn over all the documents was willful as opposed to accidental, although it doesn't actually matter much, legally. It is definitely the case that the Department does not feel that Trump's properties have been adequately searched, and that they want permission to take another run at Mar-a-Lago and other locations.

Meanwhile, on a very related point, Team Trump has decided not to appeal the Eleventh Circuit's decision to overturn Aileen Cannon and to cancel the special master. So, the decision will take effect today, which is the end of the 7-day stay that was set up to allow time to appeal. And that means special counsel Jack Smith will have access to everything taken from Mar-a-Lago by the weekend.

It is not characteristic for Trump to give up when there are still appeals to be made, and he and his team are not explaining why they dropped this particular matter. The ruling from the Eleventh Circuit was so sharply worded, and so thorough, it may be that the former president and his team decided it was a waste of time and money to keep going, since they would surely have been rejected in short order by the Supreme Court, and since Trump is paying for the special master. It could also be the case that they figured that they've wasted about as much time as is plausible, and that even in the unlikely event of an appeal and a win, the special master would be done within a week or two, anyhow.

All of this said, we wonder if someone has persuaded Trump that taking every question to the Supreme Court is ultimately unproductive. As an analogy, consider the fact that after any exam, there are going to be some students who stop by office hours to argue about their grade. And among those students, some are there to argue about one or two questions. Others are there to argue about every question. The former group invariably get taken more seriously than the latter group, as the former students likely have a legitimate concern, whereas the latter are just hoping that one of their lottery tickets pays off. Our guess is that if the Supreme Court ends up ruling on a Trump-related matter every week, it's harder for them to take him seriously, and much easier for them to just assume he's on a fishing expedition. Whereas if he picks his battles, he might actually get a more serious audience for his complaints. We don't know if this is what's going on; we just put it forward as a possibility.

In any case, Trump certainly can't feel good about the direction in which these federal investigations seem to be headed. And don't forget, the defeat of Herschel Walker (R) was also the end of the 2022 election cycle. So, all bets are off when it comes to the DoJ policy of "no enforcement actions within 90 days of an election." He is now at risk of being indicted literally every day from now until mid-to-late 2023. (Z)

German Coup Foiled

As long as we are on the topic of people who have fomented insurrection, Germany has more experience with that problem than the United States does. Well, more experience in recent decades, at least. So, the Germans' eyes and ears are always open as they keep track of what far-right-wingers might be up to. And the German government is not shy about taking action when it is warranted, given how very badly the last successful far-right-wing coup worked out for everyone.

That brings us to a 71-year-old fellow named Heinrich Reuss. Reuss is a member of the House of Reuss, an 850-year-old noble family that ruled over a portion of the modern-day Germany state of Thuringia until the early 20th century. Heinrich views himself as the rightful king of Germany and, to that end, has styled himself Heinrich XIII, Prince of Reuss. This despite the fact that: (1) the real Heinrich XIII, Prince of Reuss, died over 200 years ago; (2) Germany abolished its monarchy after World War I and (3) even if the House of Reuss was entitled to the no-longer-extant German throne, the current head of the House is Heinrich XIV, a distant relative of Mr. Reuss.

Despite these rather sizable obstacles, "Heinrich XIII," who apparently never learned that 13 is an unlucky number, built a somewhat sizable terrorist organization with an eye toward overthrowing the German government, executing the members of the Bundestag, and putting himself in charge. He and his followers were convinced that this was both possible and justified thanks to vast amounts of right-wing conspiratorial thinking.

So much for that, however, as the coup was ended before it could ever start. Yesterday, the German government arrested Heinrich XIII, who it appears will soon be known as Heinrich 20 to life. He wasn't the only one to be pinched, either—a couple dozen of his closest co-conspirators were arrested, as well.

Heinrich and his followers were apparently persuaded that Germany has fallen under the control of a "deep state" (tiefer Zustand) that covers up its nefarious activities with lots of fake news (gefälschte Nachrichten). The group started as an anti-Islamic movement and developed from there, ultimately attracting a number of current and former cops and members of the military. It's more evidence that what's going on right now is bigger than any one country, and that people like Donald Trump, Jair Bolsonaro and [fill in the name of this week's British Prime Minister] are just avatars for a much deeper reaction to globalization and other 21st century developments. (Z)

Ocasio-Cortez Faces Ethics Probe

The House Ethics Committee, as it name suggests, is responsible for investigating rules violations by members, and recommending sanctions as apropos. Yesterday, news broke that the Committee is looking into potential ethics violations by one of the best-known members of the House, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY).

Beyond the existence of an investigation, little is known. Neither the Committee nor the Congresswoman are saying anything about what the issue might be, although Ocasio-Cortez did insist she will be cleared. Everyone in her shoes says that, of course, but in her case we're inclined to guess that she's right. By all indications, the Representative is quite ethical, particularly by politician standards. Further, she knows full well that she's under a very big microscope at all times, and that organizations like the right-wing American Accountability Foundation are always looking for something to use against her.

So, if our sense is that there's nothing to see here, why are we passing the news along? Well, first of all, we don't know that there's nothing to see here, we just suspect. On top of that, Ocasio-Cortez is one of those Democrats that many Republicans love to hate. So, even if this is much ado about nothing, we suspect this story will linger for quite a while. In particular, note that the Republicans are about to take control of the House, and that wannabe speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) & Co. are just itching for things to "investigate" with an eye toward embarrassing prominent Democrats. (Z)

The Word Cup, Part VI: Presidential Campaigns, from World War II to the End of the 20th Century

And now we get to some slogans that will be pretty familiar to readers, with some (or maybe all) of them in living memory. Here are the previous installments:

• The Word Cup, Part I: The Martial Spirit
• The Word Cup, Part II: Presidential Campaigns, Pre-Civil War
• The Word Cup, Part III: Reform
• The Word Cup, Part IV: Presidential Campaigns, from the Civil War to World War II
• The Word Cup, Part V: Reactionary Slogans

And now, the four most impactful presidential slogans of the latter half of the 20th century:

Give 'em Hell, Harry! (1948): Polling barely existed in 1948, and to the extent that it did exist, it wasn't very good and tended to have a strong Republican bias. Imagine if every pollster was Trafalgar, and you pretty much have the idea.

Consequently, the election wasn't actually as close as it appeared to be. Certainly not close enough to justify "Dewey Defeats Truman." In fact, the president won reelection with a margin of more than 2 million popular votes and more than 100 electoral votes. Still, Harry S. Truman thought he was in trouble, and so he waged the mother of all campaigns, constantly excoriating the Republican-controlled "do nothing Congress," as he called it. "Give 'em Hell, Harry!" thus fit the moment and the strategy very well. Indeed, it's hard to think of a slogan that fit the moment better.

Assuming that Joe Biden runs for reelection (likely) and that the Republican-controlled House serves up 2 years of nonsense (also likely), we imagine the 46th president will be studying the reelection campaign of the 33rd president for some inspiration. "Give 'em Hell, Joe"?

I Like Ike (1952): This may well be the most memorable presidential slogan in U.S. history. It's short. It's simple. It rhymes. It was so good it inspired Dwight D. Eisenhower's opponent to adopt a ripoff version. Unfortunately for Adlai Stevenson, "I'm Madly for Adlai" didn't work quite as well.

That said, we can't declare "I Like Ike" the winner of this competition quite yet. First, Eisenhower was going to win the election of 1952 with or without the slogan. Second, "I Like Ike" is utterly devoid of actual substance. Yes, the General was a genial fellow, and that was certainly part of his campaign. But it says nothing about governance or policy, and there have been plenty of nice-guy presidents who were terrible, along with bad-guy presidents who were pretty good.

In Your Guts You Know He's Nuts (1964): There have been many snarky slogans in presidential electoral history, and we would have liked to include many of them because snark is how we roll. But we cannot make the case that "Who is James K. Polk?," "We Polked you in '44, We shall Pierce you in '52," "Vote for Taft now, you can vote for Bryan anytime," "Make your wet dreams come true" (Al Smith, in favor of ending Prohibition), "I'm just mild about Harry," or "Dick Nixon Before He Dicks You" had a meaningful impact on those campaigns, beyond making people laugh.

"In Your Guts You Know He's Nuts," on the other hand? In 1964, Barry Goldwater adopted the less-than-melodious slogan "In Your Heart, You Know He's Right." And he had the habit of saying politically unwise things, particularly as regards his casual attitude toward nuclear weapons. And so, the satirical Lyndon B. Johnson slogan really crystallized the argument that the president was making, namely that Goldwater simply wasn't fit to occupy the big chair. The snarky slogan didn't do the job alone, but it certainly helped LBJ win in a rout.

Let's Make America Great Again (1980): This was a tough one. Reagan may have been the most consequential president between 1945 and 2000. And he was certainly the most skilled when it came to pithy slogans and sound bites. So, he has to be represented here. But by which slogan?

We came very close to using "It's Morning Again in America," but eventually decided against it for two reasons. The first is that it wasn't really a slogan, it was the tagline from a commercial. The second is that it comes from the 1984 campaign, which Reagan was in no danger of losing.

On the other hand, "Let's Make America Great Again" comes from Reagan's first campaign, which was much, much closer than 1984 was (for most of the campaign, at least, even if The Gipper pulled away at the end). Further, the slogan encapsulates Reaganism extremely well in just five words. His pitch was that he alone knew what was ailing the country and he alone knew how to fix it. That proved to be basically untrue, but people bought it nonetheless.

And then there is the question of long-term impact. Every Republican presidential candidate since Ronnie has adopted some version of his pitch, some version of "America is badly broken, and only I can repair it." And we understand that the slogan itself might have been borrowed by a subsequent Republican presidential candidate, though we are waiting for the staff researcher to get back to us on that.

The latest ballot is here. We welcome comments on this group of slogans (and on the last group; we forgot to include this note last time). The next set of slogans will come from various groups that fought for equality. (Z)

A December to Rhymember, Part VI: An Epic Win

The last two days have featured potshots at Herschel Walker. It seems to us that the fellow who actually won that race, Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA), should get his due as well. And so, on that point, here's a slight adaptation to a passage from the epic poem Beowulf (Seamus Heaney translation), courtesy of K.H. in Albuquerque, NM:

Then as dawn brightened and the day broke
Warnock's powers of destruction were plain:
Their wassail was over, they wept to heaven
And mourned under morning. Their mighty prince,
The storied leader, sat stricken and helpless,
Humiliated by the loss of his running back.

A limerick from S.T. in Glen Rock, NJ:

There once was a priest named Warnock
The key to a Georgia win, he did unlock
It helped that Walker
Was not a great talker.
As to his presidential ambitions, up rose his stock

And another limerick, from D.S. in Fairport, NY:

I ran to respond to a door knock.
Who was it, but Raphael Warnock,
No werewolf is he
Instead, sanity
While Herschel's head's taking on more rock.

The poems will return next week. Here is the e-mail address for submissions if you are struck by inspiration. (Z)

This Week in Schadenfreude: Was It Over When the Germans Bombed Pearl Harbor?

The last time we made reference to what is, perhaps, the most memorable scene from Animal House, quite a few folks wrote in to remind us that it was actually the Japanese who bombed Pearl Harbor. Just to be clear: We are, and were, aware of that.

Sean Spicer, on the other hand? Maybe not. He is not exactly the most admirable fellow in the world; after opposing Donald Trump's candidacy in 2016, he fell right into line. When it comes to the courage of his convictions, all Spicer is missing is the courage and the convictions. After Trump was elected, Spicer spent time as White House Press Secretary, doing his best impression of Baghdad Bob. After he was canned, he undertook a not-very-successful image rehab tour, appearing on Dancing with the Stars and other programs, with an eye towards showing the world that he's a "regular guy" who can "laugh at himself." After that, Spicer landed on Newsmax, where he parrots far-right talking points, and generally helps poison American political discourse. Well, as much as one can do so with a viewership in the hundreds (the dozens?).

Spicer has often given off the impression of someone who thinks he's the smartest guy in the room, but actually isn't. And he provided an object lesson in the latter portion of that this week, when he hopped onto Twitter to commemorate this week's notable historical anniversary:

D-Day took place on June 6, 1944. This week, as approximately 100% of readers will know, was the 81st anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.

As we are educators, we are pretty used to figuring out exactly how someone managed to garble a fact or an idea. But honestly, we don't know how someone could screw this up so badly. On one hand, the date and the "infamy" reference are correct for Pearl Harbor. On the other hand, the D-Day references and the "story of sacrifice" are correct for D-Day. The folks at Pearl Harbor certainly displayed heroism, but it's not broadly a "story of sacrifice" when one is defending one's self against a surprise attack. And let's not forget that Spicer isn't a college student who's learning U.S. history for, perhaps, the first time. He's a college graduate and a raval officer.

Spicer was roundly derided, on both TV and social media, for his blunder. Though for us, the worse thing here is that the tweet makes clear that when Spicer speaks of patriotism, sacrifice, etc., it's just empty lip service with no real feeling behind it. In case there was any doubt on that point, the Newsmax host, apparently completely missing the point that Pearl Harbor served to bring Americans together, has used Twitter since then to take potshots at various "enemies." That includes some antisemitic-adjacent conspiracy theorizing about George Soros, and attacks on Joe Biden for regularly visiting his home in Delaware but not going to the Mexican border. The anti-Biden tweets are objectionable for two reasons. First, a presidential photo-op at the border is an empty gesture that doesn't actually solve any problems. Second, Spicer is conveniently overlooking the fact that the president that he worked for spent so much time on the golf course that his Secret Service code name should have been Double Bogey.

So, some schadenfreude at Spicer's expense was, is, and will continue to be well deserved. (Z)

This Week in Freudenfreude: Tooling around Chicago

It is quite common for Republicans to take cheap shots at California. And when it's not California, it's New York. And when it's not New York, it's Illinois. And by "Illinois," we really mean "Chicago." In particular, much hay is made of the notion that Chicago is crime-ridden and dangerous, and has a murder rate that is out of control.

In truth, that's dog-whistle code for "Chicago has a lot of Black people." Like many large cities, Chicago does have a troubling murder rate, with 28.6 per 100,000 people per year. However, that places it just 28th among American cities. In first place is actually St. Louis, with 88.1 murders per 100,000 people per year. But Missouri is a red state, so it just doesn't work well for the right-wing narrative.

Because Chicago gets crapped on so much, we thought we'd pass along a story that very much cuts the other way. You see, several public-minded citizens have organized a library in the city. It's got the standard library stuff, like library cards and librarians. You can call and get answers to relevant question. The library also offers classes taught by volunteer teachers, as many libraries do.

So, what is newsworthy about this? Well, the library in question here is the Chicago Tool Library. It accepts donations of tools from citizens, from hammers to carpet cleaners to wood chippers, and then loans them out, just like regular libraries loan out books. Not only does this promote community spirit in general, but it's also allowed people to fix or improve their residence who might not otherwise be able to do so, and it's allowed some patrons to acquire some marketable skills and to get back on their feet after the pandemic.

The reason that the library is in the news right now is that it's closed down. But that's not bad news; the reason it's closed down is that it is so popular and successful, it has outgrown its current location in Bridgeport. So, it is moving to a space in East Garfield Park that is five times larger. When it reopens, it will have more than 15,000 tools available for borrowing. There are a few other tool libraries in the country, but this one has become the most successful, and its two directors are now advising interested parties in how to form their own version. Sweet Home, Chicago, indeed.

Have a great weekend! (Z)

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