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Trump Legal News: It's Now or Never

If the name for a day ends in "y," there is a pretty good chance that the day had some Trump legal news. Thursday is one such day, and guess what? Trump legal news.

The main theme of the day, and of the week, is "get while the gettin's good." In fact, the first Trump insider has officially flipped. It was already known that Mar-a-Lago IT manager Yuscil Taveras was planning to turn against his boss, and now the details have been worked out and the paperwork is signed, sealed and delivered. Taveras had not been charged in the document-stealing case, and now he won't be... as long as he sings like a canary.

So, who is next? One possibility is former Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro. He refused to abide by the subpoenas issued by the 1/6 Committee. The Committee no longer exists, but we cannot have a precedent that recalcitrant would-be witnesses can just run out the clock on Congressional committees. And so, Navarro went on trial for contempt of Congress, and he was just convicted. Donald Trump did not lift a finger to help out, and now Navarro has to think long and hard about whether he wants to relocate to the crowbar hotel for a year or two (at the age of 74), or if he might not like to try a trade of Trump dirt for his continued freedom.

Another candidate for "next rat to desert the sinking ship" is Kenneth Chesebro. He's badly exposed and, if the current situation holds, he'll be the first (alleged) Trump co-conspirator to go on trial. Slate, which seems to have an army of ex-prosecutors on staff, has an interesting strategic analysis of Chesebro's situation. At the moment, Chesebro is trying to hold on to his political desires (keep Trump safe) and his personal desires (stay out of prison). The authors— Marcus Childress, Caroline Darmody, and Katya Jestin—assert, we think rightly, that too many things have to break just right for Chesebro to have his cake and eat it, too. He would probably need jury nullification in Georgia or a Trump reelection in 2024 plus a pardon in Washington, to be safe. That's too many "ifs" and "maybes" to pin one's freedom upon.

That means Cheese really needs to choose between his goals. If he wants to protect Trump, at risk of 5-20 years in the clink, then that's easy enough. On the other hand, if he doesn't want to spend (much of) the rest of his life in the hoosegow, then he's gotta turn traitor, and throw himself on the mercy of Fulton County DA Fani Willis and Special Counsel Jack Smith. He has little time left to do it, but the former prosecutors think there's still the possibility for him to negotiate no prison time in exchange for telling everything he knows. In any event, as anyone who has studied the prisoner's dilemma knows, it's better to sing early than late.

The other big story yesterday was the sharply-worded letter that Willis sent to Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH). Recall that Jordan, in service of his MAGA-related political goals, has been harassing Willis, and threatening to conduct all manner of investigations, and demanding information. A very precise executive summary of the letter Willis sent to Jordan: "No." An equally precise executive summary: "Fu** You."

You might want to read the letter for yourself (follow the link above), particularly if you are interested in the art of the takedown. The most important passage, in our view, is this from page 5: "While settled constitutional law clearly permits me to ignore your unjustified and illegal intrusion into an open state criminal prosecution..." Emphasis is ours. Even if he didn't pass the bar exam, Jordan is enough of a lawyer to understand that the message here is: "Keep pushing, Jimbo, and I might just have a chat with the grand jury about you and your behavior." In terms of pure shade, we're not sure if the juiciest part is when Willis says Jordan "lack[s] a basic understanding of the law, its practice, and the ethical obligations of attorneys generally and prosecutors specifically," (also page 5), or when she proposed a list of ways that Jordan could use his time more productively (page 8).

And that's the latest. By this time next week, we may well have the first official co-defendants-turned-traitor in Georgia. (Z)

This Week's Biden Poll: All By Myself

As you may have seen, since just about everyone is talking about it, CNN has a new poll with some grim numbers for Joe Biden. Among the grimmest: Only 45% of Americans think Biden cares about them, 58% of Americans don't approve of the job he's doing, and 66% of Democrats would prefer a different candidate. In hypothetical head-to-head matchups, Biden is running neck-and-neck with Donald Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) and a bit behind Nikki Haley.

This is a major presidential poll that is getting major attention (especially from just about everyone on CNN with a microphone). We are a politics-focused site, and we write specifically about polling. So, we figured we better give our opinion about the poll. Are you ready for it? OK, here it is: It doesn't mean anything.

Why do we say so? Here are 10 reasons:

1. Thanks, Captain Obvious: America is pretty evenly divided right now between right and left, and there are relatively few swing voters. This being the case, of course any Republican (including Trump) could very well win a presidential election, and of course any Democrat (including Biden) could do the same. We don't need a poll to vaguely tell us that.
   
   
2. Other than that, how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln?: Over and over, polls reveal that Biden's two biggest liabilities are his age and his proximity to corruption. The CNN poll, for example, reports that 61% of respondents believe Biden is too old to be president, while 61% also believe there's a connection between Joe and the dubious activities of his son Hunter. Fine and dandy, but are we really to believe that voters who have these concerns are going to turn to Trump, who is just 3 years younger, and who is under indictment in four different jurisdictions? If the leading Republican was, say, Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R-VA), then we would be more open to the notion that Biden's age and son are serious liabilities. But as the race is currently shaping up, we find that proposition very hard to swallow.
   
   
3. Wishcasting: At this point in the cycle, a big percentage of respondents clearly don't want Trump or Biden. Trump is sleazy and divisive, and Biden is old, boring, possibly also sleazy, responsible for the economy/Afghanistan, etc. In addition, "shiny and new" is always more sexy than "known commodity," so there's undoubtedly a "grass is greener" effect going on.
   
   Put another way, there are always some people who are going to gravitate to [Generic Presidential Candidate] over someone who has already served. And the people who want to throw the bums out, for whatever reason, are going to find ways to express those feelings in a poll. It's even easier if the poll basically begs people to say they want the bums out, as the CNN poll definitely does. At such point that Biden and Trump are the nominees (assuming they are), and Door #3 is no longer an option, then let's see how people plan to vote.
   
   
4. Rage from the Machine: On that point, do not assume that if Biden steps aside, the Democrats will somehow come up with a presidential candidate who is free of liabilities. As the minority party, a necessary maneuver in the Republican playbook is "tear our opponent down." Think John Kerry and swiftboats, Barack Obama and the birth certificate, Hillary Clinton and the e-mails, and now Biden and his son. If the Democrats switch candidates, the Republicans and their media allies WILL find something (even if they have to make it up, as with Obama's birth records), they WILL harp on it six ways to Sunday, and CNN, et al., WILL produce polls showing that [Liability X] is a serious problem for [Democrat Y].
   
   
5. Trump Known Unknowns: By the time the presidential contest heats up, Donald Trump will be on trial, or will have been on trial, in multiple jurisdictions. He may well be a convicted felon. Doesn't it seem a wee bit premature to be making any predictions about the presidential race until we know how this story turns out? Maybe it won't damage him; certainly his superpower is that scandals don't really hurt him. That said, there is polling that says that some sizable percentage of Americans (55%-60%) simply won't support a felon.
   
   In addition, Trump might be thrown off the ballot, and disqualified from running. Or, such efforts might fail, while enraging and rallying his base. Again, doesn't it seem like we need to know how this story turns out before projecting next year's result?
   
   
6. Unknown Unknowns: Since Biden is the sitting president, he is more likely to be at the center of... something that changes the trajectory of the race. It could be something bad, like a McConnell moment or a terrorist attack or a conviction/prison sentence/pardon for Hunter or an adverse report from the special counsel who is looking into the documents found at the President's residence. It could be something good like a sizzling stock market or a victory for Ukraine over Russia. There's so much time that there will almost certainly be a "surprise" of some sort, whether it comes in October or it comes in March.
   
   
7. On the hustings: Does campaigning even matter anymore? It's a fair question. But if it does, note that Trump has been campaigning full-time for at least 4 months at this point, while Biden hasn't been campaigning at all. The President is just getting started this month, and he's not going to get serious until spring of next year.
   
   
8. Out of sight, out of mind: Just about every president, on leaving office, sees their approval ratings go up. It happened with each of the 10 presidents who preceded Donald Trump, even George W. Bush (who was REALLY unpopular when he left office). It turns out, people tend to remember the good more than they remember the bad. It's not clear to us that this is happening with Trump, but it could be. If it is, we would guess the dynamic is not so much that some people are thinking more fondly of Trump than they once did, but instead that they are thinking less negatively than they once did. If so, then Trump's return to front-and-center on the national stage, coupled with his criminal trials, could serve to remind people what they didn't like.
   
   
9. Lies, damned lies, and statistics: On a related point, the CNN poll reveals that 46% of respondents say they will not vote for Joe Biden under any circumstances. That's presented as very damning—nearly half the country is already "out." However, in 2016, Donald Trump took 46.1% of the vote. In 2020, he took 46.8%. When we see that 46% simply will not vote for Biden, our thought is not "Biden has already lost nearly half the country" it's "Trump is holding on to his base... and nobody else."
   
   
10. Do we really need to say it?: The presidency is decided by the Electoral College, not by a national preference plebiscite. When a poll generates a surprise response that is out of line with all other polls (e.g., "Haley's way up on Biden"), it's probably an outlier. It's hard to separate people who will certainly vote in 14 months from people who won't vote. In short, polls of this sort have some inherent weaknesses. Why does everyone seem to forget this when a new, shocking poll comes out?

That's our opinion. As a counterpoint, Democratic strategist James Carville said the poll result is alarming and is bad news for Biden. Maybe he's right; after all, he is a legend in the field. On the other hand, the last time he ran a successful campaign was 31 years ago, so it's at least possible the game has passed him by. (Z)

The War of Words: Baubles, Bangles and Beads

John Blake, writing for CNN, has an interesting piece about what he calls "verbal jiu-jitsu." He observes that in most aspects of modern politics, the Democrats and Republicans are fairly evenly matched. However, the one area where the red team absolutely crushes the blue team is in the use of charged language. Over several generations, Republican politicians, activists, and staffers have mastered the art of seizing on words, changing (or pumping up) their meaning, and using those words as tool to enrage and/or distract voters.

Why does Blake call it jiu-jitsu? In his own words:

Republicans are masters of verbal jiu-jitsu. It's a form of linguistic combat in which the practitioner takes a political phrase or concept popularized by their opponent and gradually turns into an unusable slur. Like the Japanese martial art known as jiu-jitsu, its devotees avoid taking opposing arguments head on and instead redirect their opponents' momentum to beat them.

In other words, take something that the other side regards as innocuous or positive, and turn it into a weapon.

Blake lists a number of examples, dating back to the Civil Rights era. He covers a fairly large number of obvious ones, including more general words like "woke" or "liberal" and more specific phrases like "Critical Race Theory" and "global warming." For whatever reason, he didn't include what we would say is the foremost example of this from the last decade, namely "Defund the police."

So, which Democrat has been best at parrying these kinds of verbal assaults? Blake thinks it's John F. Kennedy, who famously said: "If, by 'a liberal,' they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people—their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights and their civil liberties... if that is what they mean by a 'liberal,' then I'm proud to say I'm a liberal."

Clearly, we think Blake has the right of it. And it would seem the readers do, too. Tomorrow, we'll reveal some of the "moo words" readers suggested; most of them are examples of conservatives twisting the meaning of a word beyond all recognition. Not all, mind you, but most. (Z)

Why Give Money to PACs?: Because

Earlier this week, we had an item where we pointed out that having lots of small donors giving money to politicians is not as positive a thing as it may seem. The folks who donate money tend to be on the extreme ends of the political spectrum, which means that you end up with more extreme politicians, like Jim Jordan (see above).

And now, the other side of the coin. Just as small donors are not an unalloyed good, super PACs funded by fat-cat donors may not be as bad as you've been led to believe. This is not to say that the PACs are a good thing, exactly. But the fat cats are going to find a way to get their wealth into politics somehow, and they give to the PACs because the PACs can accept big checks and because the PACs are the way so many fat cats exert their influence and because the PACs usually have cool names like Save America PAC and Never Back Down. And the thing is, the PACs are, on the whole, a giant waste of money. If a rich person is going to spend $1 million or $5 million or $50 million on politics, what's better? Them being able to buy a politician directly, or them shoveling that money into an open furnace? Well, the PACs are not that far removed from "open furnace." So they are providing a useful service, of sorts. Unless you are sad when the remaining Koch wastes his money, that is.

The logic here is pretty simple. If a politician is actually able to attract broad support, the existence of online donation platforms like WinRed and ActBlue means they can raise their funds without needing much help from PACs. If, by contrast, their only talent is attracting the fat cats, they are not likely to have much electoral success, and the money they collect for their PAC is wasted. Put another way, good candidates don't need PAC money, and bad candidates can't flourish on PAC money alone (ahem, Ron DeSantis).

The current cycle is a good illustration of the general point. Money given to the PACs of presidential candidates not named "Trump" or "Biden" is already a lost cause, unless you somehow believe that keeping the Chris Christie campaign alive for an extra week will somehow fatally weaken Donald Trump. Meanwhile, money sent to a Biden PAC is a pretty poor investment since everyone already knows who he is and what he stands for. Money sent to a Trump PAC is also a pretty poor investment, for the same reasons as the Biden PAC, but also because Trump is likely to take most of that money and spend it on legal fees.

There was a time, 20 years ago or so, when PACs were big players in presidential politics. That is when the mindset of those who love PACs, and those who hate them, was set. But the PACs' #1 budget item was always TV commercials, and we live in an era where TV commercials are much, much less efficacious than they once were. That is in addition to the fact that, once again, it is now much easier for politicians to connect directly with supporters.

This is not to say PACs are completely irrelevant, particularly if we consider the ones that advocate for specific issues (say, Emily's List) or for groups of candidates (say, the NRCC). But, like Mark Twain's death, their power has been greatly exaggerated. (Z)

My Gift Is My Song, September 1: Annie's Song(s)

We should probably give a clue, each week, as to how hard we think the "song commonality" puzzle is. The latest was up there; on a scale of 1-10, where 1 is "Even a USC faculty member could figure it out" and 10 is "Probably only solvable by a UCLA faculty member," last week was about an 8, we would say.

The commonality was that each of the songs was recorded by the original artist, and then re-recorded by the original artist at a later date. In most cases, this was due to business disputes between the artist and their labels. A rundown:

1. Not Guilty: This was recorded by George Harrison in 1968 as part of the sessions for The White Album, but was not included on that record. Like many songs recorded during those sessions, it was a solo effort, even if it would have been released under the band's name. 11 years later, Harrison decided he wanted the song to see the light of day, but he couldn't pry the masters out of the hands of Apple Corps, so he just recorded it again. The original recording eventually became available on the Beatles' outtake/rarities album Anthology 3.
   
   
2. Bye Bye Love: The Everly Brothers' first two albums were done with Cadence Records, an independent label. When they moved to Warner Bros., the new label wanted to re-release the Brothers' biggest hits, but couldn't get the masters. So, those songs were all re-recorded, and then released as The Very Best Of The Everly Brothers in 1960. There are actually also two Beatle/George Harrison versions of the song, and most readers had better luck verifying that than verifying that the original was recorded twice.
   
   
3. You're Not Sorry: Due to an ongoing dispute over the masters of her original recordings, Taylor Swift has been re-doing all of her early records and re-releasing them with the added tagline "Taylor's Version." "You're Not Sorry" was therefore originally on Fearless in 2008, and then re-done for Fearless: Taylor's Version.
   
   
4. Breaking Up Is Hard to Do: This one wasn't really about business disputes; Neil Sedaka just had some thoughts on how he could re-imagine the 1962 original. So, he did exactly that in 1975. Cab Calloway did this half a dozen times with "Minnie the Moocher," with the last release being a disco version. If we could have made Minnie the Moocher work as a headline, we would have, but it just wasn't happening.
   
   
5. Rock of Ages: In the middle of a disagreement with their record label over royalties for streaming songs, Def Leppard re-recorded what they called "forgeries" of their greatest hits. So, "Rock of Ages" was first recorded in 1983, then "forged" in 2012. The band's notion was to provide the forgeries to the streaming services, and claim all the royalties for themselves. But they eventually worked out their differences with their label, and so there ended up being only a handful of forgery remakes.
   
   
6. Everything Happens to Me: It's not too often that you see Sinatra and Taylor Swift in the same sentence, but when Ol' Blue Eyes founded his own record label (Reprise), he too re-did most of his songs so he would have full ownership. "Everything Happens to Me" was first recorded in 1940, then again 17 years later.
   
   
7. Child is the Father of the Man: The Beach Boys (really just Brian Wilson and some session musicians) recorded this for their aborted album project Smile in late 1966 or early 1967. Wilson then had decades of psychological issues, but when he resumed his musical career, he decided to re-do the song as a solo effort. That was released in 2004, and then Smile (and, thus, the original version of the song) ended up being released after all, as The Smile Sessions in 2011.

The first 10 readers to correctly identify the commonality:

1. F.W. in Franklin, WV
2. M.B. in Menlo Park, CA
3. S.A. in Downey, CA
4. J.S. in Pittsburgh, PA
5. D.F. in Vancouver, BC, Canada
6. C.S. in Lancaster CA
7. L.A.J. in Bourbonnais, IL
8. A.R. in Los Angeles, CA
9. D.E. in Lancaster, PA
10. S.G. in Durham, NC

We would guess this week's commonality is a little easier; perhaps a 5. If you have a guess, send it here! (Z)

This Week in Schadenfreude: Don't You Know?

Historically, there's only one "keep out the invaders" wall that proved effective. Well, actually, let's say "reasonably effective." The Chinese knew that you can't really build walls in some places; it's just not feasible from an engineering perspective. So, the Great Wall is really a collection of walls. There are several gaps, by design (and some not by design, courtesy of lazy/stupid people). On top of that, the protection provided by these fortifications had its limitations. Sometimes, a determined enemy would figure out a workaround, like "build some ladders." Sometimes, a traitorous general would open the gates and let the bad guys through.

The point is that it was clear to many, many people that Donald Trump's proposed border wall was a fiasco in the making. Historians knew that these things rarely work (unless you've got a couple thousand years to work on it). Engineers knew that the border land amenable to wall-building already had fencing on it, and that for the rest, construction was somewhere from "really, really tough" to "impossible." Environmentalists knew that the fence/wall raised all sort of potential problems in terms of impacts on both plant and animal species. Lawyers knew that gaining the legal right to build would be a huge problem because Texans most certainly do not like the idea of the Big Bad Gubmint taking their land using eminent domain, even if they get the fair market value (which is close to zero in most cases).

In the end, the Trump administration only built a fraction of the "wall" that was promised as part of the Trump campaign. It was about 400 miles' worth, was flimsy fencing rather than a wall, and was paid for by the U.S. and not by Mexico. And guess what? Even in its limited form, it's been a fiasco. Given all the carping that Republican politicians have done about "immigration out of control," it is clear that the wall did not solve the problem it was supposed to solve. Beyond that, however, a new and damning report from the Government Accountability Office reveals that the wall/fence was actively harmful to the natural environment.

As president, Trump never had any patience for dotting i's and crossing t's. He also knew that getting something built was essential to his reelection bid. So, he rushed the job, setting aside things like legally required impact studies. And, per GAO, this has had exactly the consequences you would expect. Plants and animals, including some very endangered specimens, have died. Migration patterns have been disrupted. Flooding incidents have been made worse. Much or all of the Trump fencing will have to be removed, and then there will be mitigation costs on top of that. All of this is a shame, but there is at least some schadenfreude in "I told you so." (Z)

This Week in Freudenfreude: Oh What a World

The Catholic Church, as you may have heard, is quite patriarchal. And the nation of Mexico is quite Catholic—it, and Brazil, are the only two countries in the world to be home to more than 100,000,000 Catholics. Taking these things together, you might expect Mexico's government to be quite patriarchal. And if you did expect that, well, you would be wrong.

In fact, the Mexican government has worked rather aggressively to make certain that women have just as much representation as men in Mexican politics. Indeed, they literally made it a constitutional amendment in 2019, that there had to be parity in all aspects of government. As a result of this, 50% of the members of the Mexican Congress are women. The presidential cabinet is also 50% women. The governor of the central bank is a woman. So is the president of the Supreme Court.

And now, it is likely that the final glass ceiling is going to be shattered. If you think that U.S. presidential election cycles are long, well, the major parties in Mexico just nominated candidates for presidential elections to be held next June. The current ruling party, MORENA, has tapped former Head of Government of Mexico City (essentially, governor) Claudia Sheinbaum. The opposition coalition, Broad Front for Mexico, has chosen Xóchitl Gálvez. Since every Mexican presidential election has been won by one of these two partisan organizations, Mexico looks set to elect its first female president on June 2 of next year.

The only potential fly in the ointment is... the country's "macho culture." We sometimes get taken to task for making this observation, but there is a substantial chunk of voters who tend to prefer a "macho" candidate. This group is mostly male, but it includes some women as well. Gloria Alcocer Olmos, who edits the Mexican political magazine Voice and Vote, explains that it's at least possible that an independent candidate could consolidate the "macho" vote and win a plurality of the ballots.

Knowing this, we can't be the only ones thinking "Trump for President of Mexico 2024" solves a lot of problems for a lot of people. Yes, it's true that the majority of Mexicans hate Trump's guts. But the majority of Americans hate his guts, too, and that didn't stop him from being elected on the northern side of the border. If he does make this happen, we predict Democrats will suddenly become more enthusiastic about building a border wall.

In any event, the Inter-Parliamentary Union, which tracks women politicians around the world, says that Mexico is the fourth-best country in the world when it comes to opportunities for women politicians (the U.S. is 71st). Presumably, if and when Mexico elects a woman president, they'll move a spot or two or three up the list. And in case you are wondering, the current top three are... surely not the countries you would guess. In third place is Nicaragua, in second is Cuba, and on top of the world is... Rwanda.

So, a tip of the sombrero to the people of Mexico. Have a good weekend, all! (Z)

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