Posted on by Nathan Riley

Trump Shows Signs of Running a Professional Campaign, Making Democrats Worry

Clearly Trump will be harder to beat this year than he was in 2020. The election was held in the middle of the Covid epidemic, and glaring errors hurt Trump’s chances for reelection.

When Trump, at a news conference with public health officials, started thinking out loud, he suggested “it would be interesting to check” whether bleach could kill the virus and restore health. This mistake added to confusing messages he had been sending about the virus and wearing face masks.

This mistake was good news for Joseph Biden, who was trying to oust Trump from the White House. Biden’s aides quickly realized that Trump had hurt his chances of being reelected: “this was stratospherically insane and dangerous.” In 2024, the evidence is growing that the Trump campaign is avoiding errors that work to Biden’s advantage.

The Republican campaign is showing signs of professionalism that have to make Biden’s team nervous. The thorny question of who will be Trump’s running mate was presented for public comment when Donald Trump invited Doug Burgum to ride on his campaign airplane. It wasn’t an announcement, but it clearly signaled that anyone objecting had better make their case now, before the announcement. This is standard operating procedure, and it is a sign that this year Trump will be avoiding the mistakes that helped Joe Biden’s campaign win in 2020.

Doug Burgum is a native son of North Dakota who has amassed a considerable fortune and is in his second term as governor. He is the epitome of the self-made man and has a career that probably appeals to Trump. While still in college, he became a chimney sweep, a lowly beginning that is played up in his biographies. He started a software company that did business in Midwest states like North Dakota. It was a success, and Microsoft purchased the company. Governor Burgum has a knack for impressing people. Microsoft placed him in charge of Microsoft Business Solutions, selling Microsoft products to other businesses.

After leaving the software giant, Burgum went off on his own and started a technology venture capital company and a real-estate development firm. The Republican establishment backed the State Attorney General in North Dakota for Governor, but Burgum had the money and the personality to easily win the Republican primary.

In other words, Burgum has a career that may appeal to Donald Trump. In another sign that Trump is running a professional campaign this year, Burgum addressed a massive Trump rally on the Jersey Shore. 100,000 people showed up at the Wildwood rally. Beyond this show of enthusiasm, the rally took place in the Philadelphia media market. Trump found a way to mobilize his supporters and make a big impression in Pennsylvania, one of the battleground states for this year’s election.

This adds up to a campaign triumph, and it makes Biden’s job more difficult. Four years ago, Trump’s mistakes helped Biden win the election. That seems less likely this year.

Posted on by Nathan Riley

World Government Could Prevent Palestinian Crisis

No matter what happens. Freedom Democrats will grapple with the U.S./Israel invasion of Palestine.

As I write this, police across the nation are arresting protestors angered by the displacement of the Palestinians in Gaza. As you read this, it is clear I am no friend of the Israeli counterattack following the mysterious October 7th massacre by Hamas. I am no expert on the Middle East, and the U.N., which possesses such skills, is being ignored. My gut feeling is that when Israel has moved the Palestinian population Israel will move and rebuild the destroyed neighborhoods in Gaza. With this big difference, Israelis will replace the Palestinians.

My conclusion sees this conflict as a real estate deal. The Palestinians are being replaced, just as settlers replaced the American Indians.

This affects Freedom Democrats because although it is still early in this conflict, it appears that the Democratic coalition could split. The Vietnam War tore apart the Democratic Party and ended the Roosevelt coalition that started during the Great Depression in 1932. The split over Vietnam followed a split between Segregation Democrats and the progressive forces demanding that racial distinctions end and that the U.S. integrate everybody regardless of skin color. In the long aftermath following the Warren Court striking down school segregation and the passage of Civil Rights legislation, the Democrats lost the South. It became Republican, and the Democratic party gained support in the Black and Hispanic communities. Democratic hawks and peaceniks learned how to work together.

Right now, it appears that the Democrats will split over Palestine just before the election in November. Freedom Democrats, like all voters, will have to decide whether to stay loyal to President Joseph Biden, with Donald Trump as the alternative. Their other choices are staying home or hoping that Cornel West will get on the ballot. None of this is good news for Democrats.

The point is that Freedom Democrats would have serious decisions to make and be able to enter into conversations with thoughtful people. It would be a way to expand contacts and win converts.

My perspective is radical. The 250th anniversary of the American Revolution is two years away, and founders like Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and the dozens of other people who created the first European style government without a hereditary ruler are still celebrated. The American colonists who created first the Confederacy and then drafted the Constitution of 1787 devised a system of term limits. Members of the House of Representatives would need majority approval every two years, Senators every six years, and the President every four years. In Europe, many of these positions were inherited, but the U.S. rejected this approach. The leaders of the new nation would be selected by majority rule.

Over the decades, the system has changed dramatically, but the founders of the United States are still prominent figures.

I believe it is time we find new heroes that will make the United Nations a global government. This is a daunting task. If the U.N. is the world sovereign, then the United States government becomes subordinate to this world government. A prospect guaranteed to generate hostility in the United States.

The advantage of making the U.N. sovereign is that member nations would have to hire lawyers to settle their disputes. If Vladimir Putin feels threatened by the changes in Ukraine, he can start a legal action. The United States and Ukraine would, under international law, be compelled to respond.

This is only possible if the U.N. has the troops to enforce its orders. Russia, the United States, and Ukraine lose their ability to ignore U.N. decisions. Member nations, including the U.S., must agree that their troops will be commanded by the U.N.

This is a huge step. But it holds out the promise that missiles and bullets will stop being a way to settle international disputes.

A major and immediate task of the U.N. is to protect people from being removed from their homes. Whether it’s drought, tribal hostilities, or the hope of living better in a rich country, people should not be forced to leave their homes.

The U.N. must have the funds and expertise to create stability in nations all over the world.

The people who do this will become as famous as George Washington and Benjamin Franklin. The reward for the creators of this new world will be that their fame lasts generation after generation.

If the U.N. were running the show, the Israelis would not be able to invade Palestine, and Hamas would be hunted by U.N. police. Their object wouldn’t be to kill Hamas or eliminate it as the Israelis wish. They would have a more reasonable goal: arrest and trial.

In short, giving the U.N. sovereign power would allow lawyers and diplomats, rather than soldiers and drones, to solve problems.  

Posted on by Nathan Riley

Fentanyl Doesn’t Kill, Bad Laws Do

Fentanyl keeps cropping up on the edge of the presidential election campaigns. Some Republicans claim Biden’s permissiveness has flooded the nation by allowing immigrants to bring this deadly drug across our borders.

This is nonsense peppered with half-truths. Each year over a hundred thousand drug users die an accidental death from a drug overdose. A major cause of these fatal events is tied to fentanyl. One reason people keep using it is that they don’t drop dead after getting high. This is always true. The deadly drugs that newscasters and politicians use to justify authoritarian laws kill some people while others survive.

The law and law enforcement give users a small choice of drugs. Then, in an extraordinarily vicious act of social ostracism, the drug users get damned for using the drugs. They are dangerous because they are potent, in other words, a little bit goes a long way. When trying to avoid the cops, a drug that gets many people high but is easily hidden becomes advantageous. This is the exact opposite of what doctors and public health officials would want from a drug.  The notion that illegal immigrants supply U.S. drug users would be silly if people weren’t dying. There are thousands and thousands of people who don’t want to get high from alcohol, nicotine, and caffeine and therefore are pushed into the illegal market. Americans were using opium during our revolution. And guess what? They are still using it.

Fentanyl is an extremely potent form of opium that is manufactured, whereas opium and heroin are plant based. As the newspapers have reported, the fentanyl epidemic started when the United States cut off legal supplies of oxycontin.

Drug companies and pharmacies, responding to new laws, vastly reduced the supply of this relatively safe pharmaceutical painkiller. These companies are law abiding, and when the law restricts supply they comply. Their business is legal, and they want to keep it that way.

It will come as no surprise to students of U.S. drug enforcement that no provision was made for the thousands who made oxy part of their lives. Some bit the bullet, obeyed the law, and stopped using. Others, as always happens, went to the illegal market. Evading the law makes potent drugs like fentanyl a good idea.

The notion that illegal immigrants victimized innocent Americans by supplying them with fentanyl is absurd. Drug users were looking for an alternative to oxy. Fentanyl could be purchased by mail from China. Drug syndicates in Latin America avoiding U.S. law enforcement by smuggling fentanyl into the United States. Immigrants crossing the border are no significant suppliers.

Congress and state legislators could have simply accepted the fact that some users didn’t feel able to give up oxy. It would take longer but would put fewer people in jail and drastically reduce the number of overdose deaths if the law showed some patience and worked with users, even those who kept using oxy.

It requires no special act of genius. This is what we do with people who want to give up drinking or become dangerous when they drink. The problems are similar. Drunk driving laws give law enforcement an entry point without authorizing the harsh and intrusive drug laws.

Drinking is controlled. Younger people have developed the habit of drinking water. At parties, they and their friends who do drink can hang out together without a problem. The same thing can happen with drugs that we label dangerous. What makes them dangerous is the bad laws governing their use. The control is exercised voluntarily, which is the way it should be in a democracy that is governed by the consent of the governed.

Posted on by Nathan Riley

Trump DEFIES THE CONSTITUTION BY SAYING THE ELECTION WAS STOLEN.

I have previously taken the Republicans to task for their constant opposition to taxes. A government with funds is clearly stronger than a poor government. There is a second serious problem with Republicans. The Republicans are not listening.

Every ten years, as required by the Constitution, a census is taken that determines how many members of Congress each state has. In January 2010, as the new census was started, the Supreme Court issued a decision called Citizens United, which permitted unlimited secret donations by corporations and wealthy individuals. The census determines how many members of the House of Representatives each state should have and how many Electoral College votes each state will have to elect the President of the United States. The total number of Electoral votes for a state is the two Senators plus the number of members of the House of Representatives, so if a state has 10 members [n the House of Representatives then it has 12 electoral votes. The census has always been a big deal in determining the relative strength of the political parties and who has the advantage when running for President. The process is considered fair because the census counts the number of individuals in the United States.

So when the conservative judges on the Supreme Court handed down the Citizens United decision in 2010, they knew full well that the money they were permitting would go to help conservatives get positive results from the census from 2010.

Boston College professor Heather Cox Richardson, in a crisp book for the interested reader states that by 2012 there were over 300 million dollars in dark money political donations. The 2012 election was a presidential election for Barack Obama’s second term and the election of a new Congress. Democrats received 1.4 million more votes for members of the House of Representatives, but the Republicans won a 33-seat majority. The Republican’s big victory enabled them to “hamstring” Obama’s agenda in his second term. This is political hardball and offends millions of fair-minded Americans, but it is far-removed from the sins committed by Donald Trump.

Professor Richardson’s “Democracy Awakening” is one of the books that damns Republicans and is written by a historian with Democratic leanings. It is thoughtful and persuasive. But a second book is written by a member of Republican royalty, whose family have been leaders in the Republican party since the Civil War.

Liz Cheney, whose father was vice-president to George W. Bush, is one in a long line of Republicans. She lives in Wyoming. While Professor Richardson takes the historian’s long view, Liz Cheney’s book puts the microscope on President Trump and his activities after the November 3, 2020 election. In “Oath and Honor,” she relies heavily on fellow Republicans to prove that Donald Trump was told by members of his campaign staff and presidential advisors that Joe Biden had won. This deep dive into Republican leadership gives her bestselling book an intimate view of efforts by Republicans who wanted the truth of Biden’s victory to guide decisions but were stymied by President Trump’s reliance on the big lie that his election was stolen.

Cheney, the third-ranking member of the House Republican leadership, presents a devastating portrait of Kevin McCarthy begging for Trump’s approval when his funding prowess dissipated and his willingness to say one thing one week and the exact opposite the next week. McCarthy resigned from the Congress in December 2023.

Cheney is not settling scores. She describes incidents, many of which were seen by the viewers of Fox television or the readers of the daily press. The power of her book comes from its reliance on Republican sources.

When it became clear that McCarthy and Cheney had irreconcilable differences, Cheney left her position in Republican leadership and became a member of the House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack.

At times her book reads like an adventure story, when members of Congress hunker down in a House Committee room while the mob tries to break down doors. At other times, she sounds like a super capable lawyer explaining the evidence collected by the Select Committee on the January 6 Attack—facts pile on facts, almost always from Republicans or members of the Trump administration, demonstrating that a bullheaded President refused to listen to the legal opinions stating that the election results were conclusive.

The dry language in the opening paragraphs of the U.S. Constitution turn into clear directive that the President is elected by the count of the members of the Electoral College, who are selected in the Presidential election. What seems obscure, to this reader, in the Constitution gains clarity as the lawyers explained the process to the President. An argument that gains heft as we learn that this is the way it has always been done since Washington was elected President.

Liz Cheney describes the steady accretion of evidence unearthed by the Select Committee. A desperate Trump of course insisted that the State legislatures could ignore the Electoral College, or he even told elected officials “to find” the votes he needed to win. Trump’s absurdity and corruption of legal procedures comes into full view. It’s a scary portrait she draws of an egotistical man who will listen to nobody but those who will support his wish for a victory despite the evidence of defeat. The conclusion isn’t novel, but the clarity of the evidence and the reasons why Trump is wrong make this a powerful book. Both Professor Richardson and Liz Cheney describe a dangerous situation where Trump would like to be President and rule the USA without opposition.

Liz Cheney argues that despite the knowledge by Republicans that this is dangerous and illegal they are unable to stop Trump. Thus, this year’s election has one party, the Democrats, supporting free elections, and the other major party bowing to Trump and asserting that his election was stolen. Democracy in the United States faces the greatest danger since the Civil War.