Author: todd.lassa

We’re Watching the Returns

By Todd Lassa

What will you watch, and what will you watch for Election Day Tuesday night?

Flipping between CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC is pretty easy, with the three news networks typically grouped together on most cable TV systems. However, if you try to switch at the commercials, you'll learn that the Big Three run them about the same time. Make such an effort to get a balance of viewpoints, and you'll quickly exceed your doctor's daily suggested intake of Progressive insurance, MyPillow, and Biktarvy commercials. You might be better off going for the free broadcast option and enjoy a cocktail of CBS, NBC, and ABC News with a dose of PBS and NPR thrown in. 

No matter what you choose, the likelihood of going to bed at a reasonable hour Wednesday morning will very probably leave you unsatisfied and almost certainly without any idea of whether President Trump or former Vice President Joe Biden will take the oath of office on the west front of the U.S. Capitol next Jan. 20.

Nevertheless, Trump reportedly told confidants he “plans to declare premature victory” Tuesday night, Axios reported over the weekend, citing three anonymous sources. Trump denied the report Sunday night, adding, "I think it's a terrible thing when ballots can be counted after an election. I think it's a terrible thing when states are allowed to tabulate ballots for a long time after the election is over." 

On Monday, Biden asked the country and the media to ignore any victory declaration before all ballots are counted. "Under no scenario" can Trump legitimately declare victory on election night, he said.

The last polls to close are 1 a.m. Eastern time Wednesday in parts of Alaska, considered solid Trump country. But several swing states are expected to take until the end of the week before all their mail-in and early voting ballots are counted. 

Of the potential swing states, Pennsylvania's polls close at 8 p.m. EST, but the state can count postmarked ballots as late as Friday. Florida's polls also close at 8 p.m., with many in the state closing at 7 Eastern; still, postmarked ballots cannot be counted beyond Tuesday. Georgia polls close at 7 p.m. and allow no late ballots, while North Carolina's close at 7:30 p.m., with late ballots counted by Nov. 12. Michigan's polls close at 9 p.m., with no postmarked ballots counted after election day. Ohio, the other remaining key state in the Eastern time zone, closes polls at 7:30 p.m. but allows postmarked ballots to come in as late as Friday, Nov. 13, with all such late ballots reported by Nov. 28.

Thanks to a Supreme Court ruling, no Wisconsin ballots may be counted after Election Day, where polls close at 9 p.m. Eastern. Iowa, which closes its polls by 10 EST, counts postmarked ballots as late as Nov. 9. Texas polls close at 9 p.m. Eastern, with most closing an hour earlier, and postmarked ballots are to be counted by Wednesday. Arizona closes its polls at 9 p.m. Eastern and does not count postmarked ballots after Election Day.

Please address comments to editors@thehustings.news

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Watching for Republican Upsets in House Races

By Andrew Boyd

Today’s the day, and all eyes including my own will be on top of the ticket, but I will also be watching numerous congressional contests. Democrats have a 233 to 196 majority in the 116th Congress, with five empty seats to be filled and one held by a Libertarian, Justin Amash of Michigan.

So Republicans must flip 22 seats to regain the House majority they lost in the 2018 mid-terms in order to grab the majority for the 117th Congress. 

I have my eye on four House races, specifically. In Minnesota’s 7th District, Michelle Fischbach is challenging career politician Collin Peterson, who has held the seat covering most of the state’s west, bordering North Dakota and South Dakota. Peterson is one of 30 House Democrats whose districts voted overwhelmingly for Donald Trump in 2016, and in the 2018 mid-terms, he defeated Republican candidate Dave Hughes by a relatively slim 52 percent to 48 percent margin. 

Fischbach, his challenger this year, was lieutenant governor of Minnesota from 2018-19. There’s also a potential spoiler in a third candidate, Slater Johnson of the Legal Marijuana Now Party. Politico lists this race as a tossup between Fischbach and Peterson.

Next is Utah’s 4th District, where Burgess Owens is challenging freshman Democratic Rep. Ben McAdams. Owens is a former NFL player who won a Super Bowl ring with the Oakland Raiders in 1980, and he joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints toward the end of his pro-ball career. Democrats have held Utah’s 4th, which covers the area around Salt Lake City since it was added to the overwhelmingly red state’s House delegation in 2010.

Republican Ashley Hinson is challenging Democrat freshman Abby Finkenauer in Iowa’s 4th, a district covering Dubuque, Cedar Rapids and Waterloo and identified by the GOP as “vulnerable.” Hinson was elected to the Iowa House of Representatives in 2017. Politico also lists this race as a “toss up.”

Last, but not least, is Jim Bognet, challenging freshman Democrat Matt Cartwright for Pennsylvania’s 8th District in the state’s Northeastern corner, including Hazelton. Though the race is leaning Democratic, the 8th was one of the districts to put Trump over the top in Pennsylvania four years ago, for the incumbent president’s upset win. 

I’m not optimistic for the GOP taking back the House, but I’m hoping Trump’s momentum can carry the GOP to something more than 200 seats.

Boyd is a public relations and communications professional with 30-years experience. He lives with his wife and three daughters in Charlotte, N.C.

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Shifting Allegiances in The Villages

By Jim McCraw

The Villages, in Central Florida, is the country’s largest retirement community, with some 130,000 residents in one contiguous settlement spread across three counties. It has been a Republican stronghold for a long, long time.

The population here is vastly white, upper middle-class Christian, with a few Jewish, Black and Hispanic residents.

The Villages boasts the world’s largest American Legion post. It helped elect U.S. Navy veteran Rick Scott governor twice, then helped send the Republican to the U.S. Senate.  He was replaced by former Congressman Ron DeSantis, a fellow Republican and now the youngest governor in the country, just 42 when he took office.

The Villages are represented in the House by Republican Daniel Webster. Almost all of the county supervisors in Sumter, Lake and Marion counties, on which The Villages are built, are Republican. 

Sumter county routinely has the highest voter turnout in the entire state. Trump was swept into office in 2016, but his margin over Hillary Clinton was 1.2 percent in Florida. That’s about 112,900 votes.

Things have changed over the last four years, and now there is much more support here for Democrat Joe Biden. Disenchanted Republicans have been coming in to The Villages Democratic Club headquarters in Wildwood, the largest in Florida, since May to complain about Trump and ask how they can volunteer to help Biden’s campaign, says its president, Chris Stanley. 

She estimates 5.8 percent of Republicans in The Villages who voted for Trump in 2016 will vote for Biden on Tuesday. The disaffected cite three big reasons for switching candidates. 

“Reason number one is his handling of the coronavirus and his lack of leadership.  Reason number two is his view of military veterans as ‘suckers’ and ‘losers.’ They don’t like that. Reason number three is policy, the elimination [deferral] of the payroll tax [to mitigate economic effects of pandemic shutdowns], because it will affect their children and grandchildren.”

Republican Voters Against Trump recently completed a $3 million disgruntled-voter billboard campaign across Central Florida with messages like “I’m a Republican.  I’m a patriot.  I’m voting Biden.” … “I’m a Republican. I’m a Marine veteran.  I’m voting Biden.” …  “I’m a Republican. I’m a Christian. I’m voting Biden.”

“A lot of Republican voters are going to be casting their votes for Joe Biden because the last four years, what they expected they were going to get from the Trump administration has not been what they want, and Joe Biden is offering them an alternative to bring this country back,” says Daniel Henry, a young, Black Republican voter.

This year more than 40 percent of the state’s 14.4 million registered voted early, and Florida election experts predict the turnout in 2020 will exceed the 1992 record of 83 percent -- which could mean more than 100,000 from The Villages alone. There are signs that Florida could swing to the Democratic side, much as Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin flipped to the GOP four years ago, and The Villages, so solid-red for so long, will contribute to this swing.

Jim McCraw is a semi-retired writer and columnist. He has been a resident of The Villages for nearly five years.

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Red, White & Blue Golf Carts at The Villages

By Todd Lassa

By the time former Vice President Joe Biden became the Democratic nominee for president this year, political pundits were still looking at the electoral college map like it was 2016 all over again. Could President Trump maintain his popularity and turn Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin blue once again? 

Florida has 29 electoral college votes, however, to Pennsylvania’s 20, Michigan’s 16 and Wisconsin’s 10. It is one of the more reliably red states in play according to the latest polls, along with North Carolina, Arizona and even Texas. 

Biden holds a 1.2-point lead over Trump in RealClearPolitics’ Oct. 30 average of 11 polls for Florida, which happens to be the same percentage victory that Trump had over Hillary Clinton in 2016. Four years ago, Trump’s  RealClearPoilitics  poll average was 0.2 points above Clinton just before the election. 

Key to Florida’s choice next Tuesday will be the vote from The Villages, with its 130,000-plus residents, most of them seniors over 55, and many of whom vote assiduously. Residents motor around The Villages largely in electric golf carts. (In 2005 The Villages entered The Guinness World Records with a parade of 3,321 golf carts.)  These carts make a great political news story photo op, as many of their owners festoon them with campaign signs. 

Before and after the ’16 presidential election, the vast majority of those carts in The Villages were plastered with pro-Trump signs, piloted by seniors wearing red MAGA hats. This time, national media have covered a large influx of Biden-blue golf carts. Is it real, or is it an anomaly, with a handful of outspoken Democrats infiltrating the deep-red retirement neighborhood? Our resident of The Villages and our former GOP official from California discuss, in the left and right columns, respectively.

Please address your comments to editors@thehustings.news

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Greasing the Skids for Red MAGA-Hatted Golf Carts

By Bryan Williams

Imagine, if you will, a remake of the musical “Grease” for 2020, this time with senior citizens in their decked out hot rod golf carts. The concrete Los Angeles River is now a concrete pathway around a pristine Florida 55-plus housing development known as The Villages. Instead of racing for teenage glory and pink slips, these Villagers are in the horse race of presidential politics. Much hay has been made recently of a breakaway group of seniors parading in their golf carts for Joe Biden, when in 2016 The Villages went 70-percent for Trump, according to Courthouse News Service.

All indications point to this election being very close, just as it was in 2016. Trump won Florida by barely more than 1 percent. If it is indeed true that 5.8-percent of senior residents are changing their votes for Biden, this spells trouble for Trump. However, the same Courthouse News article reported that Trump held a rally at the Villages on Oct. 23 with all the pomp, cheering, and excited Trump voters that we have come to expect.

This seems like a hard one to call. Which way will Florida go? We all know that Trump was carried by seniors in 2016 and their support is critical in this round. Will losing nearly 6 percent of The Villages make a difference? Yes. Elections are very close these days. I worked for a California Republican candidate who won an election by 213 votes out of over 25,000 cast. That’s less than 1 percent.

And yet, polls show Florida is a toss-up with 1 percent to 2 percent separating each candidate. There is so much dueling data out there this election year that it can be hard to make sense of any of it. What should we choose? I’ll double down and stick with my prediction that Trump will eke out a win this year. It will be close --  a photo finish between blue Biden- and red MAGA-bedecked golf carts.

Williams is a mental health professional and former Republican party official in California.

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ACB on the Court Means the End of Gay Rights, Roe vs. Wade

By Chase Wheaton

Before Monday evening’s confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, Mitch McConnell spoke to the Senate and painted a vivid picture of the GOP’s mindset regarding its role in the current political landscape, saying “A lot of what we've done over the last four years will be undone sooner or later by the next election. They won't be able to do much about this for a long time to come.”

It seems to me that Senator McConnell has seen the proverbial writing on the wall, and that he knows that the American electorate is turning out in record numbers to demand change, which is why he capitalized on the Supreme Court vacancy before his power as Senate majority leader comes to a close. Whether McConnell believes that Biden will win, that Democrats will regain control of the Senate, or that both will occur, he knows that he will never again be able to influence the country in the name of conservative politics like he can now, and so, similar to a child flipping over a board game just before he or she loses, Donald Trump and the entire GOP knowingly went against the will of the majority of Americans to shape the legal and political landscape of this country in their image for decades to come.

This means that McConnell and Trump have successfully created a Supreme Court that’s more conservative than it has been in almost 70 years, and that represents their own interests, ideals, and beliefs rather than those of the American people. 

Given President Trump’s legislative record, and compared with the number of Supreme Court appointments by previous presidents, this is by far Trump’s greatest accomplishment. For perspective, President Trump, in his one term, has appointed more Supreme Court justices than any other one-term Republican president since Herbert Hoover in 1929. In fact, in recent history, while the Republican party has lost six of the last seven popular votes, they have appointed five of the last nine Supreme Court justices. 

If the Democratic Party has any hope of passing meaningful legislation or creating significant change in the next 10 to 20 years, they must seriously consider expanding the court and adding justices that reflect the values of the American people, and not those of a one-term, impeached president and a power-hungry white man from Kentucky. Otherwise, in a few years, as a gay man, I will be waving goodbye to my right to get married, and millions of women will be waving goodbye to their right to an abortion.

Wheaton is a higher education professional working in university housing, based in Greenville, N.C.

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Will Barrett Matter to the Election?

By Todd Lassa

Precisely one week before Election Day, Chief Justice John Roberts administered the judicial oath to Amy Coney Barrett allowing her to take her seat on the U.S. Supreme Court. Late Monday, Justice Clarence Thomas administered the Constitutional oath to his new colleague shortly after the Senate confirmed Barrett by a vote of 52-48, Republicans in favor and Democrats opposed, One Republican, Susan Collins of Maine, who is fighting for her political life in her re-election bid, voted against Barrett. 

Justice Barrett starts work at the Supreme Court immediately, not a moment too soon for Republicans. The court, with Barrett now the sixth justice nominated by a Republican president and part of a potential five-justice majority with Chief Justice Roberts the swing vote, may soon decide challenges to the Obama administration’s Affordable Care Act, Trump administration executive orders on immigration policy, same-sex couples’ rights and the U.S. Census. The court is also expected to soon decide an effort by Trump’s lawyers to block the release of the president’s financial records to a Manhattan grand jury. 

There is also the likelihood the Trump re-election campaign will challenge Nov. 3’s results if Democratic candidate Joe Biden wins the electoral college. 

There is already election-related roiling in the courts, Pennsylvania Republicans wanted to block an extension to counting mail-in votes. The court rejected it without comment, so it may be refiled within the next few days. 

The court also rejected a case brought by Wisconsin Democrats who wanted to extend the deadline to count mail-in ballots.

The counterpoint to such apparent setbacks to the Democratic Party’s efforts to increase voter turnout and potentially win a majority of the Senate, as well as take back the White House, is that anti-abortion voters who are moderate or liberal on other issues may consider their goal achieved, and therefore may choose to not vote for President Trump next Tuesday. 

As if to counter that irony, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Tuesday called on Biden to expand the court beyond nine justices if he wins the presidency. Biden so far has refused to commit to “packing the court” as an obvious effort to keep the issue off the Nov. 3 ballot. The former vice president said in the Oct. 22 presidential debate that he would establish a commission to consider the option.

Please address comments to editors@thehustings.news

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ACB on SCOTUS is Not the End of the World

By Bryan Williams

It is done. Amy Coney Barrett has been confirmed to the Supreme Court by the Republican Party (minus Susan Collins of Maine) in the United States Senate. The sun is still hanging in the sky, birds are still chirping, and bills are still being sent to me. Life goes on. This is how millions in America feel right now I imagine.

How about our political leaders? Those with a “D” after their name are furious and are promising all kinds of retribution should they win next Tuesday. The most notable option for the Democrats to get back at the Republicans for confirming ACB is to pack the court with upwards of six new justices.

Joe Biden has been coy for weeks as to whether he supports this court packing idea. He finally said at last week’s debate that if he becomes president, he will name a commission to study the matter and bring it back to him in six months or so. Ho hum, and I’m not surprised. This is what politicians do when they don’t want to tell you how they really feel and shield themselves from having to make a decision that may jeopardize some votes. Ask yourself this: would Donald Trump name a commission to study packing the court? Would Kamala? I think we all know the answer is “no.”

Do I think Joe Biden will eventually try to pack the court? Yes, but not because he wants to. While he proclaims that he is the Democratic Party, I don’t think he fooled anyone by saying that. Joe is the guy the left-wing needed to look electable while the liberal wing of the party waits in the, er, wing to swoop in and pull his strings come next Jan. 20th. Will packing the court matter if the Democrats own the other two branches of government? Will the new conservative majority on the court alter “Life as we Roe It?”  As President Trump says quite often, “We’ll see.”

One thing I do know: the sun will rise tomorrow. Birds will chirp. My bills will still be coming in. Life will go on whether there are nine justices on the Supreme Court or fifteen. Let’s let ACB do her (new) job.

Williams is a mental health professional and former Republican party official in California.

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A Tale of Two Uncles

By Michelle Naranjo

The 2020 presidential candidates have become known as virtual “uncles” to many. 

Biden is known as Uncle Joe, while since 2015, Trump is the humorous, albeit a Chrome browser plugin, your drunk uncle at Thanksgiving.

The welcome final chapter of this election debate saga was lower-key, revealing a more subdued pair of uncles, and some absolute clarity about where each candidate stands on some of the issues facing Americans, increasingly exhausted by both the election and the pandammit. 

Both candidates appeared to have a more reined-in edition of their personalities this round. But the new debate “mute button” wasn’t entirely successful. 

Trump appeared to have been schooled by his handlers on how to behave better. He appeared as the uncle who was asked not to be drunk at Thanksgiving. Still, like a willful child (or a dry drunk), he came across as trying to stifle a temper tantrum, declaring that he is not a racist and yet referred to border refugees as having “the lowest IQ.”

Most of what Trump tried to impart was arcane stories that are the fodder of social media but have little context or meaning to most voters. There were unsubstantial sound bites: accusing Biden of harming the Black community with a crime bill from 1994, accepting foreign money, and of course, trying to drag Biden’s son Hunter into the mix.

Biden exercised adult-like stoicism and ironic approach, more akin to a caring uncle who has been around his share of unruly kids. He explained to Trump that it was a Republican Congress that delayed and even killed much of the eight years of the Obama/Biden team efforts. He apologized for the widely accepted yet long-gone crime bill, refusing to engage in unfounded claims proved to be untrue.

There was only a momentary blip of an angry Uncle Joe. And, not falling too far into the bickering, Biden elevated the conversation from pithy rumors to stating directly to viewers, “It’s not about his family and my family. It’s about your family.” 

When he wasn’t swatting away the foul balls, Biden presented sincere plans on what he called “Bidencare” and social and economic equity for all Americans while still giving short retorts to the salacious accusations.

Trump only offered that he has plans, but it sounded more like musing on a grand cruise based on seeing an ad on TV.

Some people enjoy having that one crass, rabble-rousing uncle at the table once for a few hours and then sending him away, so they can go on with their lives. 

Most people want an uncle who will take an interest, care, and be proactive with family when they are sick and hurting.

Please email your comments to editors@thehustings.news

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Debate Audience Wins as Trump and Biden Mind the Mute Button

By Charles Dervarics

Voters claimed at least a small victory Thursday night when the major party presidential candidates had to accept a tool familiar to anyone working in remote video meetings during the pandemic – the all-important mute button.

Both President Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden had to follow this new rule, which significantly reduced interruptions during their final debate in Nashville. The president showed occasional frustration at having to wait for an open microphone, but the new guideline kept shouting to a minimum and gave viewers a chance to hear the candidates’ views on key issues.

During the 90-minute debate moderated by NBC’s Kristen Welker, the two candidates sparred over every issue from COVID-19 and race relations to China, North Korea, immigration and climate change.

On COVID-19, Trump laid blame primarily on China and said that “we’re rounding the corner” on the virus with a vaccine announcement likely within weeks. “We can’t close up our nation or we won’t have a nation,” he said. Biden countered that the president’s performance has fallen far short with 220,000 Americans dead from the disease. “Anyone responsible for that many deaths should not remain as president of the United States,” he said.

The former vice president also said he planned to implement “Bidencare,” with Affordable Care Act improvements such as lower premiums and drug prices and the ability of low-income individuals to opt into Medicaid. Trump criticized this plan, saying it would lead to socialized medicine and a loss of private insurance for 180 million Americans. 

An extended segment on race relations saw the candidates approach the issue from different directions. Trump touted his administration’s passage of criminal justice reform and more funding for historically Black colleges, saying the Obama-Biden administration failed on these and other issues. “I ran because of you,” he said. “If I thought you did a good job, I would’ve never run.”

For his part, Biden said he regretted past support for minimum sentencing laws and promised to give states $20 billion to eliminate these standards and create drug courts so offenders go to treatment rather than prison. “We should fundamentally change the system, and that’s what I’m going to do.”

Some of the most heated moments came when Trump challenged Biden over alleged misdeeds by his son in gaining international business and whether the former vice president benefitted from deals in China and Ukraine. Biden denied any wrongdoing and the debate turned to Trump’s own international business dealings, bank accounts and unseen tax returns. At one point, Biden turned to the camera and noted that the election is “not about his family or my family. It’s about your family, and your family’s hurting badly.”

With the debates now complete, both candidates head into the final 11 days of campaigning. Nearly 50 million Americans already have cast early votes, with Election Day set for Nov. 3.

Please email your comments to editors@thehustings.news

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All the Metaphors

By Andrew Boyd

I struggle to talk about these debates in the fashion of the day, as if we were watching something as superficial as a UFC bout; but as political heavyweight contests go, there were no big surprises. Adopting as non-partisan perspective as I can manage, I thought both men got in their shots, but the roundhouses were few and far between, and neither combatant went face-to-canvas. 

Trump’s best line of attack was the right hook to Joe’s legacy as a careerist pol, and the watery, flavorless stone soup of ‘accomplishments’ over 47 long years that should do little to satiate anyone’s desire for a candidate possessed of the capacity, desire or will to affect meaningful change in any direction. 

If fate elects Joe, I’ll take what solace I can in the fact that he’s no ideologue and mostly just a guy looking to fill out his political butterfly collection with the rare Potus-excremus.  Nothing new, certainly nothing better, but probably no worse than business as usual.

I’m in the species of conservative who thinks Washington is rotten down to its core, whose vote for Trump was a message to the D.C. establishment, left, right and center, that the game is up.  And it’s that same disgust for Washington’s three-card monte that will pull the lever for DJT once again.  

I think Donald, for all his many foibles, has a genuine love of country and a desire to do the right thing by his countrymen and women. That, for me, is the trump card in a deck full of one-eye jacks.  Establishment Washington wouldn’t know a straight deal if they saw one; and worse yet, if they did, they’d form a posse to hang that dealer, which is more or less what played out as the Mueller probe over the past three years.  

Get in there Donald and break some shit!

Please email your comments to editors@thehustings.news

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While Rome Burns

By Stephen Macaulay

On February 7, 2020, Donald Trump told Bob Woodward of COVID-19, “It goes through the air. That’s always tougher than the touch. You don’t have to touch things. Right? But the air, you just breathe the air and that’s how it’s passed. And so that’s a very tricky one. That’s a very delicate one. It’s also more deadly than even your strenuous flus.”

On March 19 Trump told Woodward, “I wanted to always play it down. I still like playing it down, because I don’t want to create a panic.”

According to reporting by The New York Times, on Feb. 24, hours before Trump tweeted, that COVID-19 was “very much under control,” and that “Stock market starting to look very good to me!”, “senior members of the president’s economic team, privately addressing board members of the conservative Hoover Institution, were less confident.” It seems that Tomas J. Philipson, a senior White House economic advisor, told the group that he couldn’t estimate the economic effects of the COVID.

The Times reporters write, “To some in the group, the implication was that an outbreak could prove worse than Mr. Philipson and other Trump administration advisers were signaling in public at the time.” [Philipson in late June quit his new post as acting chief of the White House Council of Economic Advisors to return to the University of Chicago, two days after Kevin Hassett announced his departure as the council’s chief.]

Apparently this was a three-day affair of getting inside insights into COVID from White House officials.

A hedge fund consultant attended the event of the Hoover board and created a document about it. The Times reporters write, “’What struck me,’ the consultant wrote, was that nearly every official he heard from raised the virus ‘as a point of concern, totally unprovoked.’”

Here’s the thing: the information that the rest of us got from Trump and his minions was “Nothing to see here, move along.”

The information that was given to the Hoover people, which then went to a hedge fund, Appaloosa Management, was far less sanguine.

According to the Times, “legal experts say. . .it is not apparent that any of the communications about the Hoover briefings violated securities laws.”

So let’s see: Trump and his people tell you and me that there is no problem; people in the business of using information to buy and sell—and they sold in this case—were given insights that the rest of us would—what?—panic if we knew?

It would be the old case of the rich getting richer if it were also not the case that the sick were getting sicker and the dead, well, dead.

It is somewhat incomprehensible how people who are in the middle class and below think that Trump has any concern for their well-being.

Wall Street is doing great. Main Street has a whole lot of “For Rent” signs—and many more to come.

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Department of Failed Land Reclamation

By the Editors

Four years ago, Donald Trump appealed to many disaffected voters by promising to “drain the swamp.” He built a loyal support base who believe a successful businessman in the White House is far more trustworthy than a career Capitol Hill politician. 

The phrase was used in a speech in Colorado Springs on October 18, 2016 and is prominent on Trump-2020 banners and lawn signs in red-leaning neighborhoods today. According to reporting in USA Today, the swamp metaphor was to get rid of the “rigged system that rewards the wealthy and well-connected at the expense of the common man.”

In recent weeks The New York Times has published several in-depth articles that question the president’s business acumen, including news that he faces $421-million in debt that may come due in the next four years.

Trump initially called the Times story “fake news.” When Savannah Guthrie of NBC News asked the president about the debt in a Q&A on her network that replaced what was to be the second presidential debate (competing for ratings with Democratic candidate Joe Biden’s ABC News town hall), Trump called the money owed a “peanut.” Not a big deal.

“It’s a very small amount of money,” he said on the home network of his TV show, “The Apprentice,” although it should be pointed out that he rounded down the number to $400 million.

Trump called The New York Times’ collection and scrutiny of his tax returns “illegal,” then added…

“And just so you understand, when you have a lot of real estate, I have real estate, you know a lot of it. Okay? Right down the road, Doral, big stuff, great stuff. When I decided to run, I’m very underlevered (sic), fortunately, but I’m very underlevered (sic).” I have a very, very small percentage of debt compared … $400 million compared to the assets that I have, all of these great properties all over the world, and frankly, The Bank of America building in San Francisco. I don’t love what’s happening to San Francisco. 1290 Avenue of the Americas, one of the biggest office buildings.”

The Trump organization doesn’t own outright either the Bank of America building in San Francisco or the Avenue of the Americas building in New York City. According to Forbes, it owns 30-percent of each. In a story about the Trump organization’s building holdings published March 31, 2020, before the near-total evacuation of Manhattan, it was estimated that Trump’s 30-percent of 1290 Avenue of the Americas was $446 million, or enough to pay off that loan with some left over. . .though one wonders whether there hasn’t been a significant drop in value.

Trump resisted selling any such assets ahead of his January 2017 inauguration, and in fact the Trump Organization has turned his hotel in the Old Post Office building in Washington into a meeting place for foreign potentates and Republican power brokers. In mid-October, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to take up congressional Democrats’ Emoluments Clause claims against Trump for profiting off of foreign governments through such properties, thus handing the president a victory in the lawsuit.

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Overexaggerated Fright

By Henry Payne

When 2020 began, America’s elites claimed the biggest threat to the planet was global warming. They were caught flat-footed by a real threat, coronavirus, despite the obvious warnings of H1N1 and SARS before it.

But, like climate change, government elites have seen in COVID an opportunity to grab power while exempting themselves from their own rules.

Stoking fear and burying science, Democrats and their media allies pushed America into destructive shutdowns while ignoring the real threats coronavirus presented. 

Despite his usual bluster, President Trump and his party enabled American federalism – allowing states to manage the virus while providing critical federal support. Partisans have tried to spin a narrative that the Trump administration covered up the seriousness of the virus. 

The New York Times – fresh off its false narratives about Russian collusion and Kavanaugh sexual deviancy – claims knowledge of the White House downplaying the virus.

But while experts scrambled to understand the outbreak in the early months of 2020, the record shows the Trump administration aggressively pursued mitigation strategies from early shutdowns of U.S. borders, to mobilizing an “arsenal of democracy” to make medical devices, to the White House Task Force coordinating with states.

Like environmental scaremonger Al Gore flying in private jets, this COVID high-handedness played out nationwide. Speaker Nancy Pelosi flogged San Francisco rules mandating masks and closing beauty parlors. After insisting on a national mandate for masks, Joe Biden dropped his own.

This tyranny of the ruling class might have been national policy had Democrats been in the White House. For all his unwelcome bluster, however, President Trump and his party enabled American federalism.

Outside the New York/D.C. media bubble, states learned to live with the virus on their terms. They managed risk just as they have other public safety threats. I’ve visited multiple states. In Georgia, for example, businesses were open in October– free to determine how best to protect their clientele. Working on data showing young people are at low COVID risk, schools were open. 

As a result Georgia’s unemployment rate is 30 percent lower than Michigan while the Peach State suffers slightly fewer deaths per capita. 

Government elites can afford to impose edicts by Zoom. But the working middle class has to travel, has to educate its children, has to deliver food. They have listened to the medical experts at the New England Journal of Medicine, at Stanford and Harvard and Oxford – and to non-partisan journalists. 

They take heart from a great leader who once said: the “only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”

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Coal, Jobs & Cronies

By Stephen Macaulay

In 2016, then-candidate Donald Trump was barnstorming with a message about coal. 

“Clean coal,” he called it. Which, as is sometimes said, “isn’t a thing,” but we will let that go.

Trump would proclaim: “We’re going to get those miners back to work . . . the miners of West Virginia and Pennsylvania . . . Ohio and all over are going to start to work again, believe me.”

“We’re going to have an amazing mining business.”

They believed him. Trump won West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. And how did those miners do? According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, in November 2016 there were 50,400 people employed in the U.S. coal industry.

How did he do? How many of those people did he get back to “an amazing mining business?”

In September 2020, the number of people involved in the coal-mining industry is 44,500. 

Note that this is not a COVID-19 phenomenon. Coal jobs have been on a decline throughout the Trump presidency. What’s more, in October 2019, Murray Energy, the “country’s largest privately held coal miner” filed for Chapter 11 in October 2019, according to NS Energy, which covers the coal industry among other energy-related subjects. It became “the eighth U.S. coal producer to file for bankruptcy in the past year.”

NS Energy noted that company owner Bob Murray “has long advocated for government support for his industry and was a strong critic of the country’s former president Barack Obama, whose time in office he described as ‘eight years of pure hell.’”

“The coal tycoon has long been a supporter of President Donald Trump, and is believed to have played a major role in the reshaping of environmental policies over the past three years… .”

One might change the verb in that statement to “dismantling.” 

Still, that did not seem to work out so well. According to the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, renewables, which it defines as “utility-scale solar, wind and hydropower,” is increasingly important. “Renewables have now generated more electricity than coal on 131 days in 2020 — more than three times the 2019 results and with some 80 days left in the year.”

IEEFA concludes, “the data show coal power’s economic viability continuing to shrink … .”

Working people need to take his claims about coal into account when he talks about the jobs he has created and will create. Trump undoubtedly created more wealth for his cronies than for the stalwart men and women who once worked the mines can ever imagine. 

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