Democrats searching for the path

I read an interesting article today on the split forming in the Democrats. Because the Democrats only win national elections recently with coalition votes, they have to keep the coalitions together to capture enough votes to win in states that are widely varied in composition. Politically, that is not an easy thing to do. What plays well in very liberal states like California and Vermont may not play well in rust belt states and especially not well in the south. By the same token, more moderate or conservative policy trade-offs for moderate states, may not play well in the most liberal states. To keep the coalition together means walking a fine line between various splintered groups with their own agendas. As an aside, Angela Merkel is currently having exactly the same problem in Germany.

Before the 1930s, the black vote in the US was almost exclusively Republican because the Republicans had been against slavery, for civil rights, etc. and the Democrats opposed all of those ideas. The Democrats were the party of segregation and Jim Crow Laws. With the presidency of Franklin Roosevelt, that changed. Black voters embraced the New Deal and have been fairly monolithic in support of Democrats since then. The record turnout for candidate Barrack Obama in 2008 and particularly in 2012 was expected, given his mixed-race lineage. The black turnout for the 2012 election was 66.6%, which is great. However, in 2016, the turnout was 59.6%, a seven point drop. It is not surprising that those voters were not as excited about Hillary Clinton. In fact, that type of drop should have been expected, given President Obama's unique position in history.

One of the biggest problems that the Democrats have now is the immigration debate. A poll by the Harvard-Harris survey, done recently, found that African-Americans are the racial group most opposed to unlimited immigration. Whereas 79 percent of whites want to prioritize legal immigrants based on what they can contribute to society, 85 percent of African-Americans hold that view. This is a potentially huge problem for Democrats as many Democrats, both in, and running for, office are openly advocating for open borders and less enforcement of immigration law. With the economy improving so much and unemployment being so low, the Democrats have to find something to run on, other than "We don't like the President". Democrats have to be able to count on that large percentage of the black vote to be able to win a national election, and many state-wide elections. If the Democrats put forth policies that 85% of that group do not like, and they have no other issue that will overwhelm that concern, they are likely to have those voters vote for a Republican, or just not vote at all, which amounts to the same thing in the end.

It is a hard path to walk in between the WAY left and the middle of the country. Rep. Joe Crowley would have been on the short list to become the next Speaker of the House of Representatives if he had held his seat in the primary in New York. Instead, he was beaten in the primary by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a declared socialist. It is going to be very hard to win in the middle of the country with an agenda like hers. Therefore, the Democrats are forced to spin that her winning was a good thing (in fact, they are all astounded and scared by that election), while trying, at the same time, not to have the middle of the country think that the party, as a whole, is not endorsing her views. That is a tough path to walk.

Things are getting a little sticky for the FBI in the Michael Flynn case.

Most people who do not follow this stuff closely will not be aware of this, but...... Judge Rudolph Contreras was overseeing the case of former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn. He recused himself about a week after a plea deal was made. That is HIGHLY unusual. As it turns out, Michael Flynn's appropriate conversions with his Russian counterparts (all incoming NSA Directors do it) were recorded by the NSA, using a FISA warrant, the legality of which has been severely questioned. So........guess who is a judge on the FISA court and a friend of good old disgraced FBI agent Peter Strzok? Absolutely correct..... Judge Rudolph Contreras. It isn't public yet but it may be that the very judge who granted the warrant was presiding over the case that resulted. Why else would Judge Contreras recuse himself? He got busted.

When Judge Emmet Sullivan took over the case, things changed markedly. First, the FBI agents who interviewed Flynn have now been shown in official documents to state that they did not believe (not one of them) that Flynn had lied to them. Former FBI Director James Comey also said the same thing in open testimony in front of a Congressional committee. Flynn has said that he was forced to enter a guilty plea because the government was bankrupting him and his family. So... if the FBI, including the former Director, says that they did not think that Flynn had lied, why was he charged? This appears to be the Special Counsel's group telling Flynn, "Help us out or we will destroy you and your family, even though the FBI doesn't think you did anything wrong." Even though a plea had been entered, and, in theory, the case is over, Judge Sullivan made the FBI present all exculpatory material in the case.

Here is the part that most people won't remember...... Judge Emmet Sullivan is the same judge who was presiding over the late Senator Ted Stevens case when the FBI framed Stevens just before an election to get the last vote for Obamacare into the Senate. Stevens barely lost the Alaska US Senate election and then the guilty verdict was thrown out after the election for prosecutorial misconduct. Prosecutors had held out evidence that showed that Stevens was not guilty. But, of course, by then, the election was over. It is a really shameful episode in the history of the FBI/US attorney offices. FBI agents and a US Attorney literally rigged an election for a US Senate seat for political reasons. That is why Judge Sullivan always makes exculpatory evidence be presented EVERY time he presides over any case. He was burned by government prosecutors once, in a high profile case, and is not going to let it happen again.

My guess is that even if the guilty plea is not vacated, Flynn will receive little to no sentence because of how suspicious the circumstances are in this case and that the prosecution may be on the verge of misconduct, again. The worst possible scenario for the Mueller team is for this case to actually go to trial because all of the misconduct by the prosecutors, including the justification for the original FISA warrant, would have to come out in the trial. It could also be very embarrassing for Judge Rudolph Contreras.

Mexico's new President and the effect on the US-Mexico border

As President Obama used to regularly say, "Elections have consequences". However, that does not just apply to elections in our country.

The newly-elected socialist President of Mexico, López Obrador, made a campaign proposal of not interfering with the drug cartels in northern Mexico, in order to save money for the Mexican government. If he follows through with his campaign promise, and he does that, he will be gifting the northern provinces of Mexico over to vicious gangsters. That area will become similar to the Northwest Frontier Province of Pakistan, which is essentially outside of the Pakistani government's control. In response, President Trump's administration will then be forced to take some sort of action. Since the Mexican government will not be helping, in any way, to stop it, the United States government cannot, nor should it, allow the free flow of unimpeded narcotics, and gang/cartel members, across the US-Mexico border. The response might be as simple as massively increasing the size and scope of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement service but, more likely, will require deploying the US military along the border or even using the US military to strike at the cartel facilities in Mexico. Those actions would be justified for national defense purposes to protect the United States. Mexico would protest but really couldn't do much about it. The Mexican military probably isn't as strong, or well armed, as the cartel's thug army. The United Nations' "anti-everything American" faction will howl but they are as effective as a screen door on a submarine.

Additionally, if the United States suspended remittances to Mexico from the US, Mexico's economy would crumble and Mexico would become a complete narco-state. At that point, any actions against the cartels would not only be taken, but would also produce virtually no protest. After all, it is hard to stand up for narcotics traffickers and look good.

Politically, if you are a Democrat, do you really want to go into the next elections supporting open borders when the new Mexican President is going to allow the drug cartels in northern Mexico free reign to make and export their products across the US-Mexico border? To do so would be to commit political suicide.

Trying The Old Roosevelt "Court-Stacking" Trick

The Los Angeles Times is floating an idea that was tried years ago and failed. Their idea is that, if Democrats win control of the government in 2020, they could expand the number of seats on the US Supreme Court and pack the new seats with liberals. Apparently, the Los Angeles Times does not own a history book or have anyone in the organization that went to history or civic class.

"President for Life" Franklin Delano Roosevelt proposed doing this in 1937 with the Judicial Procedures Reform Bill of 1937. That proposal was even rejected by Roosevelt's own Vice President, John Nance Garner. The bill was also held up by Senate Judiciary Committee by Democratic committee chair Henry F. Ashurst (from Roosevelt's own party) who was quoted as saying, ""No haste, no hurry, no waste, no worry—that is the motto of this committee." Even the people in his own party realized what a power grab it was and refused to go along with it.

Here is a better idea: Come up with some policies that actually result in winning elections. Since the Democrat Party lost about 1000 elected positions across the country during the Obama administration, you would think that they would, at the very least, be taking a look at why they lost all of those elections. One must remember that almost all of those losses occurred before President Trump ran for office. They were losing elections across the country even during the election the President Obama was re-elected. So, one must conclude that while President Obama was doing well personally in the vote, his party was getting their butts handed to them. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, Donna Brazile, and Hillary Clinton seemed oblivious to everything that was happening to down-ballot Democrats across the nation. Tom Perez also seems to be, most of the time. If they continue to embrace the "California-New England" socialist portions of the party, they have little chance to win in the middle of the country or in the south. The current trend is that they are also losing the "rust belt" states.

This country has always been like a political pendulum. It usually cycles back and forth between leaning liberal and leaning conservative. That has been true throughout the country's history. However, just like a pendulum, the further you push in one direction, the further it swings the other way in response. Eisenhower followed Roosevelt. Kennedy followed Eisenhower. Nixon followed Johnson. Reagan followed Carter. President Obama pushed way far left. It is not surprising at all that a very conservative President followed him. If President Trump pushes hard right, the next President will likely be liberal. That is the way the country maintains its balance.

Moderates in both the Republican and Democrat parties are becoming a rarity. That is because it is hard to win in a primary as a moderate. Only the most active political voters tend to vote in primary elections. Those people tend to be the furthest edges, and most energized, of the party regulars. That is unfortunate because it seems that some moderation would do the country a lot of good now.