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Dick Cheney Has Died

This was announced very early this morning (3:30 a.m. PT), leaving us with relatively little time to write about it, but former Vice President Dick Cheney has died at 84.

Even if we'd had all day, though, we're not sure we would have written all that much more than appears here, because we can really only think of three things to say. The first is that it's something of a miracle, and a tribute to modern medicine, that Cheney held on this long. He had his first heart attack nearly 50 years ago (in 1978), and at least half a dozen major ones (and, according to doctors, many additional, more mild attacks) since then. He's undergone countless very serious heart procedures, including stents and valve repairs and the like. Eventually, back in 2012, he got a heart transplant. At that time, the doctors said he could reasonably hope to live another 10 years. Obviously, he made it 13.

Second, many obituaries, including the one we've linked, refer to Cheney as "America's most powerful modern vice president." We don't exactly know what this "modern" stuff is all about. Are CNN, and others, trying to suggest that, say, William Wheeler was the real power behind the Rutherford B. Hayes throne? In any case, Cheney certainly has a claim as the most powerful VP. It sort of depends on what kind of career trajectory is more "powerful." For the early years of the George W. Bush presidency, Cheney was something like a co-president—some even said that he basically WAS president. No other VP has enjoyed that kind of power, before or since. On the other hand, Cheney eventually fell from grace and was almost entirely marginalized for most of Bush's second term. A few Democratic VPs, namely Walter Mondale, Al Gore and Joe Biden, had a great deal of influence in their respective administrations. They never reached the heights Cheney did, but they didn't fall out of favor like he did, either.

Third, and finally, is the thing that WE will remember Cheney for. Like Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Cheney was a Reagan-style Republican who—in the name of "winning"—unleashed political forces he ultimately could not control. McConnell laid the groundwork for modern MAGA by personally stacking the Supreme Court; Cheney did it by turning elections into culture-wars referenda. The amount of space between running a presidential campaign based on opposition to gay marriage (2004), and running a campaign based on opposition to trans girls playing high school sports (2024) is very small, indeed. And not only did the former VP instigate his own fall from grace, but the chaos he helped create also chewed up and spit out the political career of his daughter, former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY).

For those who are trivia-minded, Cheney's passing brings to an end the third period in U.S. history where there were 7 living VPs. It happened from 1993-94 (Richard Nixon, Spiro Agnew, Gerald Ford, Walter Mondale, George H.W. Bush, Dan Quayle and Al Gore); it happened again from 2017-18 (Mondale, Bush, Quayle, Gore, Cheney, Joe Biden and Mike Pence), and it happened a third time this year (Quayle, Gore, Cheney, Biden, Pence, Kamala Harris, J.D. Vance). (Z)

Let Us Proposition You

Yesterday, we had a rundown of the most important elections for political office that will be on the ballot in today's elections. Now, let's round that out by running down some of the propositions on ballots across the country. There are a total of 30 of them (which is a little below the midterm average of 33.5); here are some of the most notable:

And as long as we are on the subject of New York City, everyone is going to be watching the mayoral election there today, possibly more closely than even the gubernatorial elections in Virginia and New Jersey. We have written a bunch about that subject, and we covered the final furlongs of that race yesterday, but we thought we would share this assessment from reader J.E. in Manhattan, NY:

I am about to go out and cast a vote for Zohran Mamdani, and I am going to explain why and what this New Yorker thinks the implications are nationally.

In the second mayoral debate, Democrat-turned-"Independent" Andrew Cuomo attempted to connect Mamdani to the idea that "globalize the intifada" and "global jihad" are the same thing. They aren't, and this Jewish New Yorker would actually commend Mamdani for not taking the bait. I am not sure that will work as Cuomo probably hopes, but the fact is it is a bigoted line of attack and I suspect the days when it would work are starting to fade, which is a good thing. I should also say that I don't feel unsafe around pro-Palestinian protesters because they weren't the people who shot up the Tree of Life synagogue; not one leftist of any stripe at all has engaged in that kind of attack on Jewish people in recent years. These are not the folks espousing Great Replacement theory.

Speaking of which, the idea that criticism of Israel is inherently antisemitic ignores that the movement against the genocide in Gaza has been led by Jewish Voice for Peace; there is a major schism within the Jewish community how to respond to this, and a lot of it is generational. Cuomo is, in part, trying to appeal to Upper West Side Jewish folks who are by and large older (it's also one of the neighborhoods he did well in). I think of the time I tried to buttonhole Jerrold Nadler on this issue (we met at a local store; I live in his district) and he said to me that history demonstrates the need for Israel; I would differ on that strongly (that's a whole other discussion) but it's not like I don't understand the origins of that stance. With respect to Jewish voters, I would posit that you will see a very stark divide between people who are over-40 and those younger. And the fact is, a solid majority of Jewish people in New York City have said they want a ceasefire. So Cuomo's bid to make Mamdani appear unsafe for Jewish people or one who won't take antisemitism seriously might not fly. I should add that the moderators asked Cuomo about the people protesting the Netanyahu government in New York City, and they didn't challenge him on what constitutes antisemitic behavior. And as you at Electoral-Vote.com have pointed out, Cuomo has adopted some pretty ugly bigotries to scare people into voting for him over Mamdani. I can't support a candidate who does that.

Lastly I'd note that in an era where crime is at 50-year lows (even according to the NYPD), the candidates still harped on public safety and perceptions thereof during their debates. Speaking as one who lived in the city in the 90s, this always seems a bit surreal. I think we need to have a long conversation about whether "feeling unsafe on the subway" just means "I saw a Black homeless man." I, for one, don't feel particularly unsafe on the subway, and I use it daily to get to work in the Bronx. There are any number of problems with homeless people that more police won't solve. Curtis Sliwa (R) and Cuomo seem fixated on criminalizing the very existence of homeless people whereas Mamdani is not.

Mamdani is doing as well as he is, in part, because he is out there and campaigning in a way that I think upper-level Democrats have gotten away from. Mamdani has made it a focus to talk about what people need and to get out there into the neighborhoods. He isn't running on "not Trump"—which is fine as far as it goes, but has limitations. It's worth noting that the neighborhoods where Cuomo did well in the primaries were either heavily white or heavily black; essentially the most segregated regions of the city. Mamdani won in the more diverse districts (and that Queens is his base is no accident in that regard). Democrats like Cuomo have had a message for people of color that amounts to "you have nowhere else to go." Mamdani has decided to go beyond that, and while one might disagree with the way he approaches policy, it's notable that he has tried to offer people something to actually vote for.

It's also notable that the national and state level Democrats have done everything in their power to derail this guy; and not just Mamdani, a similar dynamic is playing out in Minneapolis. It's as if the Democratic leaders are actually fearful of what their own voters might ask for. Democrats at the higher levels seem to have decided that the rural white or white "working class" voters are the ones they want. There's a sense that rural white voters and their white counterparts in suburbs and a few cities are the volk that are real Americans; other people simply don't matter so much to electoral successes. This is despite the evidence (some from Electoral-Vote.com) that the appeal of white supremacy hasn't much to do with "economic anxiety." Trump's (and the GOP's) greatest success is among people who are hardly all that poor; the sweet spot seems to be among people with high-five-figure and low-six-figure incomes who haven't got college degrees, a category that includes a lot of small businesspeople and tradesmen. A better analogy might be to the support that the Junkers in Germany, as opposed to "working class" people, gave to the fascists. But Democratic leaders seem to have bought into the GOP narrative of who the government's real constituents are, and treating people of color as sources of votes that they needn't earn because the GOP is so much worse. I don't think "we will oppress slightly fewer people" is a winning strategy.

In any case, rank-and-file Democrats in at least two big cities—New York and Minneapolis—have shown that they want something else than what Chuck Schumer, Hillary Clinton, or Cuomo might offer. I hope the Democratic leadership listens.

The bottom line is that we're in for a much more interesting off-year Election Day than would normally be the case. We'll have an early assessment of the results in tomorrow's posting, of course. (Z & V)

The Republicans Don't Know Jack...

There have been a couple of developments on the Jack Smith front in the last week or so. First, in the be-careful-what-you-wish-for department, the House Judiciary Committee, led by noted intellectual heavyweight and former assistant college wrestling coach Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), has demanded that Smith appear before them in a closed-door session. Smith has responded by saying that he will happily appear so long as the hearings are public and that he is given access to all his files, including Volume 2 of his report, which has yet to be released. The committee has yet to counter.

Meanwhile, some Senate Republicans, not to be outdone, are saying they would welcome a public hearing. Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO) has even called for "Watergate-style hearings on this for months." For the last couple of months, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) has been selectively releasing information from Smith's investigation in a way to try to cast things in as sinister a light as possible. For example, Smith's routine subpoena for phone records to see call logs on January 6, 2021, which was granted by a judge, and which has been known for 2 years since the logs were released, is being rehashed and falsely referred to as "wire-tapping." The subpoena was issued after Republican members of Congress themselves revealed that Donald Trump and/or Mark Meadows had called them to pressure them to stop the certification process both during and after the Capitol attack. The call logs only show incoming and outgoing numbers, not any content, and it was obviously after-the-fact, so there was no surveillance of any kind.

The advantage of Grassley's approach, from the vantage point of the MAGA Republicans, is that they control the flow of information. The downside is the slow drip-drip of information provided by FBI director Kash Patel to only the Republicans, and then slanted to favor Trump, is so ham-fisted and obviously partisan as to only serve to rile up the base. And maybe that's the only goal. But if the goal is to somehow take down Jack Smith, that won't do it. And if they subpoena him and insist on a private hearing, they won't get anything except a bunch of responses like "I can't recall—I need to see my files to refresh my recollection, especially Volume 2 of the report that you are hiding for some reason."

So, Republicans may have to give Smith a public hearing. At that point, Katy bar the door. Smith was never able to get Trump in a courtroom, of course. A public hearing may be the closest he'll get, and you can bet he will take full advantage of that opportunity. He has the chance to make an opening and a closing statement, during which he can lay out all the evidence he has compiled over the course of his years-long investigation. He will turn every grandstanding question by Republican senators into a way to get another piece of evidence in front of the public. He will discuss the troves of classified documents they discovered when executing a lawful search warrant at Mar-a-Lago, a search that the FBI scheduled with Trump's team, a courtesy that Trump used to try to hide or destroy evidence, including "accidentally" flooding the room where the security footage was stored—footage that showed Trump's underlings moving boxes around and off the property. (Readers may recall that John Bolton was not provided this preferential treatment. The raid on his home was a true raid—occurring without notice, and in the wee hours.)

Smith is savvy enough to know that he has to be strategic about his public appearances and what he chooses to discuss about his investigation. But in a formal hearing that he is required to attend and that is already set up as a Republican political stunt, the brakes can come off and he can defend himself and his staff, correct all the various misstatements and falsehoods, and go on the offense to try Trump in absentia in the court of public opinion. It would be quite a hearing. Our prediction is the Republicans with half a brain who are left in Congress (granted, that number continues to dwindle) will wise up before he gets that chance.

In other Smith news, former prosecutors on his team who were summarily fired are setting up their own shop. This brings to mind that old adage: Would you rather have your critics inside the tent pissing out or outside the tent pissing in? Trump and his merry band have clearly chosen the latter. We are already seeing that backfire, as Comey and New York AG Letitia James (more below) run circles around the DOJ "attorneys" in court, since they now have a crack team of defense attorneys who Trump fired either in the first go-round or the second.

Molly Gaston and J.P. Cooney are two senior prosecutors who worked in the Public Integrity Section of the DOJ. "Attorney General" Pam Bondi and Trump's former personal attorney, Todd Blanche, currently playing the part of the Deputy Attorney General, have gutted this division because they don't want any more of their friends getting popped for corruption. Trump needs those bribes gifts from donors to keep flowing, and he knows it doesn't matter that a law is on the books if there's no one around to enforce it. The purge has left a public integrity section that used to have dozens of staff with only two full-time attorneys who are now mostly assigned immigration work. This sends yet another clear and unmistakable message that this administration conveys on favors and cronyism and corruption: It's all good, as long as it benefits Trump.

Well, enter Gaston and Cooney, who are going to pursue those cases that are ignored by Bondi and company. They served on Smith's team and are "among the most accomplished corruption prosecutors in the Justice Department." Because of the abdication of these duties by the federal government, their goal is to assist state and local governments to investigate corruption to fill that void. While most public officials take their duties seriously and abide by their oaths of office, when a culture is created that rewards favoritism and encourages corrupt behavior, the incentive for anyone to play by the rules is eroded. These two are willing to put themselves out there to keep fighting for the rule of law however they can and be a major pain in the backside to Trump and friends. Yet another encouraging source of resistance to this regime. And they are also fighting their dismissals as unlawful—without cause or due process—and have filed complaints with the Merit Systems Protection Board. (L)

...And the Case against Letitia James Might Collapse

You have to give it to the team of witch hunters who work for Donald Trump. Yes, they are more than willing to ride roughshod over ethics, the law and human decency, as circumstances might dictate. But, on the other hand, they are also incredibly stupid. What can we say? People contain multitudes.

As readers will recall, the desperate effort to smear Letitia James is based on a house she bought in Virginia. It's weedy (and getting weedier by the day), but the basic allegation made by the government, and its "star" real estate attorney prosecutor Lindsey Halligan, is that James bought a house in Virginia to be a second residence, and got mortgage terms consistent with that usage. However, she actually used it as an investment property, which should have meant a higher mortgage rate. Ipso facto, fraud. Here is the relevant verbiage from the actual indictment:

The loan was originated by OVM Financial under a signed Second Home Rider, which required JAMES, as the sole borrower to occupy and use the property as her secondary residence, and prohibited its use as a timesharing or other shared ownership arrangement or agreement that requires her either to rent the property or give any other person any control over the occupancy or use of the property.

Despite these representations, the Peronne Property was not occupied or used by JAMES as a secondary residence and was instead used as a rental investment property, renting the property to a family of (3).

This misrepresentation allowed JAMES to obtain favorable loan terms not available for investment properties, including a note rate of 3.000% (avoiding a 0.815% higher comparable investment property rate of 3.815%, resulting in approximately $17,837 in rate savings over the life of the loan),

The house is located on Peronne Avenue in Norfolk; hence "Peronne Property."

Politico has been all over this saga, and somehow managed to lay hands on copies of the various documents that James signed. Yesterday, the outlet published one of those documents, which bears James' signature, and includes this:

Borrower will maintain exclusive control over the occupancy of the Property, including short-term rentals, and will not subject the Property to any timesharing or other shared ownership arrangement or to any rental pool or agreement that requires Borrower either to rent the Property or give a management firm or any other person or entity any control over the occupancy or use of the Property. Borrower will keep the Property available primarily as a residence for Borrower's personal use and enjoyment for at least one year after the date of this second Home Rider, unless Lender otherwise agrees in writing, which consent shall not be unreasonably withheld, or unless extenuating circumstances exist which are beyond Borrower's control.

There is a veritable smorgasbord of opportunities there for James' defense team, but the one that particularly matters is the one we emphasized, which makes clear that renting out the property was actually completely within the rules. The only thing that was forbidden was engaging some sort of professional service (a timeshare company, a management company, etc.) to handle the rental, because that would push the arrangement from "personal use" into "investment."

To actually punish James in the way that Donald Trump desires, then, the prosecution would have to accomplish three things:

  1. Convincing a jury that James not only rented out the property (legal), but that she did so aided by the services of some third-party in the real estate rental business (not legal).

  2. Convincing a jury that James not only did the latter, but that she did so knowingly. (Z) has been involved in a number of transactions like this, and there are always hundreds of pages of paperwork requiring dozens of signatures and initials. He most certainly did not read every word, or even 5% of the words. And he obviously did not remember things he never read in the first place. It is very plausible that even if James broke the rules and engaged a management company, she didn't realize she was doing wrong. And it's not enough to prove that she "probably" knew; for it to be fraud it has to be proven that she DID know.

  3. Convincing a jury that James not only broke the rules and knew about it, but that her alleged misdeeds, which netted her less than $20,000, are worthy of a "throw the book at her" punishment.

This is a pretty steep hill to climb; no wonder none of the other people in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Eastern Virginia wanted to touch it with a 10-foot pole.

One wonders if Halligan and her crack research staff even knew about this document that Politico found. Even more importantly, one wonders what Halligan's end game is. Does she really expect to get a conviction and a harsh punishment? If so, she's probably delusional. Is she just performing for an audience of one? (Truth be told: probably.) And does that audience of one really think he's going to inflict vengeance on his enemies? Or is it just enough to make them squirm a little before a judge says "Dismissed with prejudice"? It's so very hard to understand the thought processes here, much of the time. (Z)

Chuy Garcia to Retire (or, This Is How They Do It in Chicago)

Rep. Jesús "Chuy" Garcia (D-IL) has been a fixture of Illinois politics for a very long time. He was a Chicago alderman from 1986 to 1993, then a member of the Illinois state Senate from 1993-99. Following a stinging defeat in his 1998 reelection campaign, he spent a decade in the wilderness, then was a member of the Cook County Board of Commissioners from 2011-18. From there he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, where he is now in the middle of his fourth term.

Naturally, if your political career started nearly 40 years ago, you're probably not a spring chicken anymore. To be more precise, Garcia is 69. And while that's not especially old by the standards of Congress (especially the Senate), there is much pressure right now on older Democrats to stand down. It looks like Garcia is one of those members who will ride off into the sunset for the good of his party, and not necessarily due to his own needs. He had said he was running again, and he even filed the paperwork to run again. Yesterday, however, he announced he was changing his mind, and that he would withdraw his declaration of candidacy. So, he's out.

Garcia's district, IL-04, is D+17, so it is certain to remain in Democratic hands, regardless of what's going on nationally. It's also close to 70% Latino, so he is likely to be succeeded by another Latino. However, there is one somewhat unusual twist here. IL-04 was the product of some very aggressive gerrymandering meant to create a majority-Latino district. And to do that, the mapmakers performed some Olympic-level gymnastics and connected a solidly Puerto Rican neighborhood with a solidly Mexican-American neighborhood.

Garcia, who is very lefty, has learned his lesson about what can happen when a lefty Latino is pitted against a more centrist Latino, as that is what caused him to lose his seat in 1998. And while his Mexican-American community is pretty progressive, the Puerto Ricans are much more centrist, and maybe even a little right-leaning. Why does the Representative care, given that he's standing down, and that his replacement is sure to be a Democrat (even if there is a messy primary)? Well, he would strongly prefer to be succeeded by his chief of staff, Patty Garcia, who is Mexican-American.

So, in a move that demonstrates seasoned-veteran political smarts, but not necessarily a love for democracy, Chuy announced his plans to stand down about an hour before the deadline for candidates to declare. Conveniently, Patty was right there, with paperwork in hand, to file to run. It's actually possible that the Representative never had any intention of running again, and he only filed so as to keep wannabes from declaring. In any event, through these machinations, it appears that Patty will be spared a primary, since—barring a very, very late filing—she will be the only Democrat in the race. She is going to face off against, and defeat, Republican Lupe Castillo and Working Class Party candidate Ed Hershey. Both of those folks ran in 2024, as well, and Chuy crushed them, outdistancing Castillo by 40 points, and Hershey by 62. Expect Patty, your next representative from IL-04, to do the same. (Z)

There's Something Happening Here: The No Kings Protests, Part X

We still have some No Kings reports we want to run. For today, it's a single narrative, but an interesting one, from something of a No Kings sequel, courtesy of reader D.E. in Ann Arbor, MI:

A local group organized an extra No Kings Day yesterday, because there was a home football game (Michigan vs. Purdue), which brings many tens of thousands of out-of-towners into my hometown of Ann Arbor. I had a ticket for the game, but I decided to join the demonstration beforehand.

The plan was to hold up signs at two locations where busy roads into town cross. I headed that way on my bicycle, with my homemade sign in my panniers. On my way to the designated spot, I encountered a small but mighty group of picketers at a different intersection and decided to join them instead.

Though I didn't know any of them, we were soon fast friends, all bonded by facing our fellow citizens at a busy crossroads, holding signs expressing our dismay with our country's slide into fascism.

There were eight of us braving bracing Michigan autumn air. We were all older folks, white, three men and five women. I have read (including on Electoral-Vote.com) that nonwhite folks are reluctant to join these types of protests for (justified) fear of becoming victims of police action. Fair enough. We white folks elected this sh**show, and it's on us to end it. Some of our biggest waves and smiles did come from cars full of nonwhite people, though.

We were near Ann Arbor's beloved Stadium Hardware, along Stadium Boulevard, which (surprise!) leads to the stadium, and West Liberty street. It doesn't get too much more symbolic than that, I just now realized.

Unlike protesting downtown in dark-blue Ann Arbor, we were exposing our handmade signs to motorists (and a few cyclists, pedestrians, and motorcyclists) from all over our quadrant of this purple state.

Busy traffic came by us from all directions. Many hundreds of cars passed us. About a quarter of the occupants honked, gave a thumbs up, opened their window to cheer, or gave some other kind of encouragement. We waved and grinned at them, encouraged.

Maybe one or two percent yelled, swore, gave us the finger or otherwise gave negative feedback. We jovially waved to them, too. A few of our critics rolled down their windows and engaged us; for example, the gentleman who noticed our No Kings motif and said, "Did you forget about Queen Whitmer (our governor)? Did you all get your shots?"

I often ask myself "What good does standing on the street carrying a sign do?" The President has his ICE goons and, more and more, the armed forces at his disposal. But each time I muster up the grit to go and actually hold the sign, I once again realize why it's important. It's not the sign carriers ourselves who are impacted, it's the passing drivers.

Lots of people aren't obsessed with politics and current events, they have busy lives. Or maybe they feel, as I often do, completely overwhelmed by the latest unimaginable news out of Washington, and feel there isn't anything they can do, so they just tune out (again, as I often do).

But when they see us, they see irrefutable evidence that there are folks who aren't OK with what's happening to our country and are willing to put themselves out there to say so. When they hear the many encouraging honks, they may realize that we have a lot of support.

Action, no matter how small, is the antidote to despair. The most encouraging thing that happened yesterday was that two folks, one a pedestrian and one a motorist (who pulled over in heavy traffic in a very dangerous way!) asked for contact info so that they could participate next time. This is how movements grow, one person at a time.

As I left the corner to ride over to the stadium, the sun broke through and bathed the streetside trees, with their spectacular autumn attire, in golden light.

Thanks for reading! No one will ever mistake me for an artist, but this was my sign:

A crown, drawn with markers, and a red circle with a line through it drawn on top of the crown.

Thanks, D.E.! More tomorrow. (Z)


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