Category Archives: Politics

In the Aftermath of January 6th, a Terrible Story

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From The Washington Post:

District of Columbia police officer Jeffrey Smith sent his wife a text that spoke to the futility and fears of his mission.

“London has fallen,” the 35-year-old tapped on his phone at 2:38 p.m. on Jan. 6, knowing his wife would understand he was referencing a movie by that name about a plan to assassinate world leaders attending a funeral in Britain.

The text confirmed the frightening images Erin Smith was watching on live stream from the couple’s home in Virginia: The Capitol had been overrun.

Six minutes after Smith sent that text, a Capitol Police officer inside the building shot and killed a woman as she climbed through a smashed window next to the House chamber.

Smith, also inside the Capitol, didn’t hear the gunshot, but he did hear the frantic “shots fired” call over his police radio. He later told Erin he panicked, afraid rioters had opened fire on police, and wondered whether he would die.

Around 5:35 p.m., Smith was still fighting to defend the building when a metal pole thrown by rioters struck his helmet and face shield. After working into the night, he visited the police medical clinic, was put on sick leave and, according to his wife, was sent home with pain medication.

In the days that followed, Erin said, her husband seemed in constant pain, unable to turn his head. He did not leave the house, even to walk their dog. He refused to talk to other people or watch television. She sometimes woke during the night to find him sitting up in bed or pacing.

“He wasn’t the same Jeff that left on the sixth. . . . I just tried to comfort him and let him know that I loved him,” she said. “I told him I’d be there if he needed anything, that no matter what we’ll get through it. I tried to do the best I could.”

Smith returned to the police clinic for a follow-up appointment Jan. 14 and was ordered back to work, a decision his wife now questions. After a sleepless night, he set off the next afternoon for an overnight shift, taking the ham-and-turkey sandwiches, trail mix and cookies Erin had packed.

On his way to the District, Smith shot himself in the head.

Police found him in his Ford Mustang, which had rolled over and down an embankment along the George Washington Memorial Parkway, near a scenic overlook on the Potomac River.

He was the second police officer who had been at the riot to take his own life. . . . 

Newly released audio from D.C. police at the riot shows how police were overwhelmed. “Multiple Capitol injuries, multiple Capitol injuries,” one officer screamed over his radio. Later an officer shouted, “We’re still taking rocks, bottles and pieces of flag and metal pole.” And an officer pleaded for help: “We lost the line. We’ve lost the line. All MPD [Metropolitan Police Department], pull back to the upper deck, ASAP” . . . 

Hours after the siege at the Capitol had ended, Smith later told his wife, he found himself with other officers outside a hotel where insurgents were believed to be staying. Their orders were to arrest any who came outside, at that point breaking a citywide curfew imposed by the mayor to restore order.

At 9 p.m., he told two supervisors he was in pain from being hit by the pole, and he was sent to the Police & Fire Clinic in Northeast Washington, run by a contractor and the first step for nearly every officer injured on the job.

He checked in at the clinic at 10:15 p.m., according to records shared by his family.

On his police injury form, he wrote: “Hit with flying object in face shield and helmet.” He added that he “began feeling pain in my neck and face.”

He checked out 1:31 a.m. on Jan. 7, his status listed as “sick,” though no diagnosis is noted. Erin does not know if he told the staff about any emotional issues.

“He told me it was chaos,” she said of the clinic. “There were so many people there.”

Erin has questions about her husband’s care at the Police & Fire Clinic. She said he told her he was seen for only about 10 minutes when he returned Jan. 14 and was approved to return to work the following day.

She wonders whether there were indications of a serious head injury or signs of emotional distress, and she is seeking his complete medical file. Police officials would not comment on specifics of Smith’s visit, citing privacy laws. Representatives for PFC Associates, which runs the clinic, did not respond to an interview request.

Smith didn’t talk much about the details of what he experienced during his hours at the Capitol, Erin said. She didn’t press, but even from the little she learned, she thinks the images she saw on live stream did not fully capture what police experienced. Before the riot, the family’s lawyer said, Smith had not been diagnosed with or exhibited signs of depression.

Erin is convinced the trauma of Jan. 6 made the thought of returning to policing unbearable for him. . . . 

Experts caution suicide is not typically due to a singular event, even a traumatic one, and precise reasons are generally rooted in a wide variety of factors that are often never fully understood. . . . 

Smith’s family attorney said the officer did not attend any counseling sessions while he was on sick leave. He also said no one from the department reached out to Smith about attending. . . . 

They Should Try Voting with the Democrats

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The first two things I read this morning were fun to read and made sense — with one big caveat. Both were columns by Jennifer Rubin of The Washington Post:

PART 1: “None of These [Repugnant] Excuses Work”

After a day of horrifying, searing evidence from the House managers, [Repugnant] senators are increasingly desperate to figure out how to avoid rubber-stamping the ex-president’s incitement to riot, which injured scores, resulted in five deaths, defiled the Capitol and traumatized staff and lawmakers. (Hint: Vote guilty.) Their excuses are flimsy, even laughable.

“Not constitutional.” Sorry, the Senate voted otherwise on Tuesday after a devastating presentation of law, precedent and common sense showed that they most certainly can impeach an official while in office and convict afterward. Reportedly even Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) admits the Senate could exercise jurisdiction. (He’d rather not, however.) [Note: He doesn’t want to run against you know who in 2024 and hopes other Repugnants will vote to convict and disqualify] . . . 

“First Amendment.” Nope. A president has every right to, say, march in a neo-Nazi parade and invite a foreign country to invade. But such conduct is still impeachable. It is not a question of his right to say what he wants, but whether he committed “high crimes and misdemeanors” (in this case, incitement to sedition). Moreover, as dozens of constitutional scholars have explained, incitement to riot is not protected speech.

“No evidence he incited the mob.” That one went out the window on Wednesday, when House managers masterfully took the Senate through weeks of the ex-president’s Big Lie, his “stop the steal” campaign and his call to “fight.” He sent supporters a “save the date” for protests in the capital, whipped them into a frenzy for weeks and timed his harangue just as the Congress was beginning to count the electoral college votes. They even played a video of a rioter reading aloud the disgraced president’s tweet vilifying Vice President Mike Pence as the crowd amassed outside the Capitol. The managers presented a mound of evidence showing the insurrectionists believed they were following the then-president’s orders.

“He made that video.” The one where he said “We love you” to the mob that terrorized the Capitol, came within feet of lawmakers, bludgeoned and killed police, and sought out the speaker and vice president to kill them? Well, that only came after hours of lawmakers, some in the Senate, pleading with him to call off the mob. And he never called in the National Guard to restore order.

“What a precedent!” Yes. If another president spends months trying to undermine an election, incites a riot and, as Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Tex.) put it, “left everyone in the Capitol for dead,” he too should be impeached.

“Let him be criminally prosecuted.” This was actually suggested by one of his own attorneys. (You get what you pay for.) The senators took an oath of office. They have an obligation to decide if he should be barred from serving future office. He is being investigated by a Georgia prosecutor for his attempt to strong-arm Secretary of State Brian Raffensperger, but that does not absolve them of the obligation to do their job. (How pathetic is it, by the way, to argue, “Other people can uphold their oaths, so we don’t have to”?) . . .

The unpleasant reality is that many [Repugnant] senators stoked the MAGA mob for weeks with the Big Lie. Some made spurious attempts to upend the election. It is therefore uncomfortable for them to convict the ex-president because his followers actually listened to him and lay siege to the Capitol. This discomfort compounds their constant aversion to standing up to the disgraced ex-president.

Senate [Repugnants] are desperate to avoid the impression they are spineless careerists lacking a modicum of the courage the police showed in saving their necks on Jan. 6. Instead of resorting to obviously silly arguments, they might actually uphold their oaths and vote to convict. Nah, anything but that.

PART 2: “Stop Trying to Save the [Grotesque Old Party]. It’s Hopeless”

The first three days of the impeachment trial have reminded us just how low the [Repugnant] Party has fallen. What should be open and shut — an airtight case of inciting an insurrection — has become yet another exercise in disingenuous denial. Most [Repugnant] senators have plainly decided to acquit the ex-president no matter what. No matter how dangerous and frivolous it would be to create a “January exception” for impeachable conduct, and despite overwhelming the evidence that he stoked the MAGA mob, they will let him walk.

This is a party that is immune to facts and bereft of decency. It has proved that it cannot function within the ground rules of our system — that candidates concede when they lose, that they respect a free press, that they stick to facts and embrace majority rule. Such a party cannot exist in our democracy.

The [Repugnants] who rally around a pathological demagogue are not a “fringe” in the party. The 10 House and six Senate [Repugnants] who have expressed the view that impeachment is not only constitutional but essential are the fringe. That is a mere 12 percent of Senate [Repugnants] and less than 5 percent of House [Repugnants]. Those people are the outliers.

We are not talking about a trivial difference over policy — or even a major one. It is a fundamental division over whether the party should become a right-wing populist cult willing to subvert democracy to keep power. That is too much for some to swallow, thank goodness. The two sides cannot coexist.

Bloomberg’s Jonathan Bernstein writes:

The truth is that a lot of [Repugnants] seem willing to let the party become more and more Trumpy. That means being comfortable playing footsie with white supremacist and other violent groups; eager to make voting more difficult and even to overturn election results when necessary; and generally less and less supportive of the rule of law and democracy. A party like that, with little aspiration to appeal to anyone beyond its strongest supporters, might still be competitive electorally thanks to the way two-party politics tends to work. And if it wins, it could put most of its efforts into tilting the rules more in its favor.

Pro-democratic (little-d) people cannot live with a party so enamored with authoritarianism and devoted to one Big Lie after another. That [Repugnant] Party is antithetical to our Constitution, to fidelity to truth and to a multiracial democracy.

Could the 5 to 12 percent “take back their party”? It would be lovely. But I see no indication that is possible. Nor does the base seem ready to accept the 2020 election was legitimate. It has no apparent interest in moving on from the former president or living outside the right-wing media bubble. The minority of [Repugnants] who think otherwise might survive the next round of primaries, but they show no ability to move the 88 to 95 percent of the party out.

Bernstein asks what would happen if “a handful of [Repugnant] members of Congress — say, those who voted to impeach Trump and those who appear ready to vote to convict him — [broke] away from the party.” Well, even if they could, they would likely face a massive hurdle in getting on the ballot and winning as third-party or independent candidates. (There have been a handful of exceptions, including Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who won elections as an independent and a write-in candidate.)

Now, that would be a fine outcome for many Americans if it meant patriotic, honorable Democrats won more races. But if you think the country needs two parties that are both patriotic and committed to truth and democracy, you have not gotten where you need to go. The current, anti-democratic and intellectually dishonest [Repugnant] Party is an insurmountable barrier to the development of a viable alternative to the existing Democratic Party.

So by all means, decent politicians and patriotic voters should leave the [Grotesque Old Party]. Then they can work with the one remaining party [note: the one that prefers democracy] to demolish the cultish, right-wing populist party that is closer to fascistic European parties than to American political parties that traditionally have competed for votes. When the existing [Repugnant] Party has been reduced to political rubble, those who do not have a home in the Democratic Party can clear away the rubble, find a governing philosophy and develop a constituency. None of that happens so long as the party willing to harbor and defend a demagogue who threatens the republic stands in the way.

Unquote.

The big problem for any current Repugnants who want to work with the Democrats is that actually putting “Democrat” next to their names would cause most of them — maybe all of them — to lose their next elections. The folks back home consider Democrats to be their enemies, no matter what Democrats do. By all means, these relatively sensible Repugnants should vote much more often with the Democrats. Just ten of them in the Senate would give the Democratic Party a filibuster-proof majority. But doing so will labor them as traitors and almost certainly mean they’ll have to retire or find honest work in the private sector two, four or six years from now.

The Only Thing He Didn’t Say

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It’s not a criminal trial and he isn’t charged with a crime. The legal requirement to prove somebody incited a riot isn’t relevant (although this case, beyond a reasonable doubt, meets that requirement). This is the formal evaluation of a leader who took an oath to faithfully execute his office. The senators are supposed to determine whether he lived up to that oath and should ever hold a similar office again.

Nor is he “some guy” who showed up at a demonstration and made a speech. Rep. Jamie Raskin explained today why the First Amendment protection of freedom of speech doesn’t apply to a government official, even a public school teacher, who says inflammatory things and as a result loses their job. It certainly doesn’t apply to a president of the United States who continuously lies about the result of an election and tells an angry crowd to go to the Capitol in a last ditch effort to stop the legitimate transfer of power.

The only thing going for the defense — aside from the fact that the jurors aren’t impartial and don’t get to cast secret ballots — is that the creep didn’t explicitly say something like “Now I want you to go to the Capitol and do whatever you can to get inside the building and stop the certification”, followed by “It’s crucial to the future of our country that you show no mercy”.

Mob bosses rarely give such explicit orders. Prosecutors don’t need a boss to have issued explicit instructions to rub somebody out if the boss said enough to get the job done. Bosses say things like “take care of it” or “you know what to do” or “he brought this on himself”. In this case, a leader told his followers to “stop the steal”, “fight like hell” and “be strong or you won’t have a country anymore”. This was at the very moment, a few blocks away, that Congress was doing something he’d fought against every way possible for months. 

So we can all take a break tomorrow when the creep’s lawyers spin their web of distraction and deceit. If you watch much of it, good luck and congratulations on your fortitude.

Two Questions for Those 44 Republican Senators

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I’d love to ask 44 distinguished minority members of the U.S. Senate these questions:

After hearing the evidence that shows how much effort the former president put into changing the result of the election by repeatedly lying about winning; urging his followers to “fight like hell” to protect their country by keeping him in office; putting pressure on election officials, members of his administration and Congress; calling for his supporters to come to Washington at the same time Congress was meeting to certify the election; telling the crowd — some of whom had histories of violence and had discussed plans to storm the Capitol — to march to that very building, saying he would accompany them, it being his last chance to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s election, do you think the president hoped or expected that he would keep his job because the angry crowd would arrive at the Capitol and “stop the steal” by peacefully protesting the transfer of power, or that they would do something more dramatic?

After hearing the evidence above, and knowing that the president watched the riot on television for hours while failing to intervene and failing to summon help, ignoring numerous pleas to do so, while wondering why other people at the White House weren’t as excited as he was; and that he eventually told the violent mob that they were “patriots” and “special people” whom he loved, after finally telling them to go home peacefully, but never once condemning the violence, do you think he should ever be allowed to become president again?

I don’t know how the 44 Republican senators who voted this week to stop the trial, based on an absurd reading of the Constitution, would answer these questions. I assume they’ll use that reading of the Constitution to say their hands are tied. They’ll claim the Constitution just won’t allow them to convict him and disqualify him from ever holding office again. That’s even though, after being exposed to all the evidence, they could accept the verdict of the Senate that the trial is perfectly appropriate or announce that they have reconsidered their earlier vote. They could do either of those things, because, yes, it’s so often easier to think the best of people rather than the worst.

In a Crisis, Bigger Is Better

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Paul Krugman explains why Biden’s Covid relief package has to be big (I’ve left out some of the economics discussion, but left in the history):

. . . No, the Biden plan isn’t too big. While [some] pundits’ concern that the size of the package might produce some economic stresses isn’t silly, it’s probably overwrought. And they have the implications of an expansive plan for the future completely backward: Going big now will enhance, not reduce, our ability to do more later.

. . . What policymakers are trying to do here is like fighting a war — a war both against the pandemic itself and against the human fallout from the pandemic slump.

And when you’re fighting a war, you don’t decide how much to spend by asking “How much stimulus do we need to achieve full employment?” You spend what you need to spend to win the war.

Winning, in this case, means providing the resources for a huge vaccination program and for reopening schools safely, while limiting the economic misery of families whose breadwinners can’t work and avoiding gratuitous cuts in public services provided by fiscally constrained state and local governments.

And that’s what the American Rescue Plan mostly involves; it is, as Biden’s economists say, a bottom-up plan that starts with estimated needs. Using numbers from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, here’s the composition of the proposed package:070221krugman1-jumboAlthough discussion is weirdly dominated by those proposed $1400 checks, they’re only a fraction of the total; medical spending, school aid, aid to the unemployed, and help for state and local governments dominate the plan. And there’s a good case for those checks, too; more about that later.

. . . But what about the argument that there are big elements of the Biden plan that aren’t essential relief?

Skepticism about the substance of the Biden plan, as opposed to its size per se, mainly centers on the idea of sending cash to the great majority of American adults — the so-called stimulus checks, although they aren’t stimulus and they aren’t checks. There are other elements; . . . some believe that aid to state and local governments will be bigger than necessary. But the stimulus checks are the big question mark. So let’s focus on them, and with them the broader question of how to set the stage for future policy.

There’s no question that many people receiving stimulus checks will be people who haven’t taken a serious hit to their income and don’t need special help. In that sense the checks will be poorly targeted, certainly as compared to enhanced unemployment benefits.

However, we know that a substantial number of people experiencing significant income losses won’t be helped by unemployment benefits — for example, those who are still working but at reduced hours or wages. Universal basic payments will give such people much-needed help. True, they’re a leaky bucket, and you wouldn’t want them to be the main element of a rescue plan — but they aren’t! They’re a supplement that will do some good.

And they’re also hugely popular, which isn’t an irrelevant consideration.

Actually, every major element in the Biden plan has strong public approval. But support for stimulus checks is through the roof.

[Note: According to a poll taken this month, 68% of voters want Biden and the Democratic Congress to pass a relief package that will do the most to stop the spread of coronavirus and help people economically. Only 32% favor a smaller package that will do less but have bipartisan Republican support.]

Now, policy shouldn’t be driven entirely by opinion polls. But if you care about setting the stage for policy beyond the pandemic, delivering the goods to voters in the first round will be crucial.

Of all the arguments made by critics of a big rescue plan, the one that really has me rubbing my eyes is the suggestion that we should scale the plan back to make room for later policies, like investment in infrastructure. Wasn’t the overwhelming lesson from the Obama years that that’s not how it works? The effective constraint on good policy isn’t financial, it’s political — and as a result underpowered policy in the short run ends up killing the chance of good policy in the years ahead.

A trip down memory lane: Back in 2009 I was more or less frantically warning that the Obama stimulus was too small, and a key part of that warning was my fear that going small would undermine future policy prospects. Here’s what I wrote in January 2009:

“I see the following scenario: a weak stimulus plan, perhaps even weaker than what we’re talking about now, is crafted to win those extra GOP votes. The plan limits the rise in unemployment, but things are still pretty bad, with the rate peaking at something like 9 percent and coming down only slowly. And then Mitch McConnell says “See, government spending doesn’t work.”

“Let’s hope I’ve got this wrong.”

Alas, I didn’t have it wrong.

Circumstances are different now, but the basic logic is the same. If you want effective policy on infrastructure, on the environment, on children and more, Biden has to deliver big, tangible benefits with his rescue plan. Otherwise he’ll squander political capital, and probably lose any chance to do significantly more.

So this plan really needs to go big. The risks, economic and political, of falling short are huge, and should [end the discussion].