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Russ Vought

'Dictator' Cancels Congressional Authority -- And Republicans Roll Over

Russell Vought is the ultimate Trumper. The head of the Office of Management and Budget just anointed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio to wind down the U.S. Agency for International Development ("wind down" being one of his favorite words) had a new stunt to try out this week to subvert constitutional separation of powers. You remember — Congress has the power of the purse. It must be on the citizenship exam. The answer should have an asterisk for President Donald Trump.

Trump's new trick this week is called the pocket rescission. The beauty of this one, unlike your usual rescission (of PBS funding, for instance) is that Congress doesn't have to do anything. The president just asks for the money to be rescinded — which freezes it automatically for the next 45 days, and if that should coincide with the end of the fiscal year, the money goes poof! And Congress' power of the purse is rendered a nullity.

So sayeth Mr. Vought:

"Last night, President Trump CANCELLED $4.9 billion in America Last foreign aid using a pocket rescission," the White House Office of Management and Budget posted on X.

Even some Republicans spoke up. "Congress has the responsibility for the power of the purse," Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), the Senate Appropriations chair, said in a statement. "Any effort to rescind appropriated funds without congressional approval is a clear violation of the law."

The funds Trump canceled were largely intended for USAID, a global peacekeeping and anti-poverty agency that Trump has done everything he can to destroy; so it continues.

This was the script for the second term, and it is being carried out in every quarter. Accumulate power in the executive. Use it aggressively. Make of it a veritable show. Belittle and cast doubt on the courts and their authority. Undercut their esteem. Play chicken. And, of course, Congress. Play chicken and win.

Watching it, day-by-day, trick-by-trick, it is easy to miss the whole picture.

Is this what it looks like when a dictator moves in to take over?

Trump has been musing, aloud of course, about himself as dictator. "The line is that I'm a dictator, but I stop crime," Trump said during a Cabinet meeting, "So a lot of people say, 'You know, if that's the case, I'd rather have a dictator.'"

He later added: "Most people say ... if he stops crime, he can be whatever he wants."

Not that Trump wants to be a dictator. He made that clear, sort of, the night before, albeit still fascinated with the idea that people might prefer dictators.

"'He's a dictator. He's a dictator,'" Trump said of his critics. "A lot of people are saying, 'Maybe we'd like a dictator.' I don't like a dictator. I'm not a dictator."

Really? Asking permission to rescind is all that it takes?

Russell Vought, a self-described Christian nationalist, had this same job at the end of the first Trump administration. He was a key contributor to Project 2025, which as you recall was all about this, and some of us didn't want to believe it then, so here it is again. He said then that his final goal of Project 2025 was to "bend or break the bureaucracy to the presidential will" and use it to send power from Washington, D.C., back to America's families, churches, local governments and states. He has said that he wants to "traumatize" federal employees. He comes from the Heritage Foundation.

Just this week's stunt. Just $5 billion in aid. I wouldn't bet against him. And I can only imagine what's next.

Susan Estrich is a celebrated feminist legal scholar, the first female president of the Harvard Law Review, and the first woman to run a U.S. presidential campaign. She has written eight books.

Reprinted with permission from Creators.



Flag-Burning Crackdown Is Just Trump's Latest 'Patriotic' Stunt

Flag-Burning Crackdown Is Just Trump's Latest 'Patriotic' Stunt

At the White House Monday, Trump signed another one of his infamous executive orders, this time announcing, "If you burn a flag, you get one year in jail."

Not so fast.

If the executive order said that, as Yale Law Professor Jed Rubenfeld persuasively argues in The Free Press this week, it would be unconstitutional on its face. Under current law, that is.And isn't that really the point?

In 1989, the Supreme Court held in Texas v. Johnson that the First Amendment protected burning a flag in a political protest. The court the next year reaffirmed that holding in striking down a federal flag desecration statute in United States v. Eichman.

So, no, Trump didn't sign an executive order imposing a one-year jail term for burning the flag. Instead, it tells the Justice Department that if they're considering whether to prosecute an actual crime or civil violation you were engaged in and you were burning a flag, then they should prioritize prosecuting whatever else you were doing. If you burn a flag while committing "violent crimes, hate crimes, illegal discrimination against American citizens," or "crimes against property and the peace," (that is, presumably, something that could get you a year in jail), then you'll get prosecuted for that, even if others who do the same thing without burning a flag don't.

So technically no one gets prosecuted for flag burning. Except, of course, they are, and we know it because the president directed that they should be.

Prosecutorial discretion is a black box in the criminal justice system, largely shrouded, usually respected, but not without limits. Put aside the already shredded tradition of prosecutorial independence from political dictates, there are constitutional limits to what prosecutors can consider in making otherwise discretionary decisions. One of those is obviously race. Another, under basic constitutional doctrine, should be protected expression. If it cannot be prohibited, how can it be a legitimate basis for prosecutorial discretion?

If Trump's prosecutors had simply exercised their discretion the way they know he would like them to, and made an example of flag burners by charging them with other crimes or civil violations, you'd be hard-pressed to challenge the prosecutors' motives for doing so.

But here, by issuing an executive order, Trump has opened up prosecutions that do just that to constitutional challenge — and the order itself to constitutional invalidation. A rather costly stunt, if you look at it that way.

That is surely not how the Trump team is looking at it. The cases that establish "current law" — that is, the Constitution as we know it today — are 35 years old. They were 5-4 decisions. They are binding on the lower courts. They are not, plainly to his mind, binding on Donald Trump.

On the face of it, his executive order avoids a direct confrontation with existing law by the use of the priorities approach, but they are smart enough to know it will be challenged. And they will welcome that. It will be an opportunity to ask the court to overrule the precedents that protect political speech from the suppression of a dictator. This episode may be mostly stunt, but it is only one in a longer-running assault on free speech.

Newsom Recall

In This Redistricting Showdown, I'm With Newsom

I don't always say that. Sometimes the California governor and would-be 2028 contender drives me slightly crazy with his transparent stunts to get attention.

But this is not a stunt. The redistricting bill that the California legislature passed and Newsom signed aims to counter what Texas is doing with its mid-census redistricting plans. They're drawing districts to unfairly pad the Texas delegation with more Republicans. Democrats (with voter approval) are ready to do the same and add more Democrats.

This is an act of war. For once, the Democrats aren't bringing a butter knife to a knife fight. Ours is sharpened, too.

Is this how districting should be done? Of course not.

The most famous man from my hometown of Marblehead, Massachusetts, is the late Massachusetts Gov. and U.S. Vice President Elbridge Gerry, who signed into law a redistricting plan in 1812 supported by his Republican Party that had one Massachusetts district that looked, according to the local Federalist newspaper, like nothing so much as a salamander. Thus, for all of our history, the practice of drawing odd-shaped districts to suit political purposes has been known as "gerrymandering." It's ironic because, according to his son-in-law, Gerry himself was unhappy about the extent to which the district lines were drawn solely for partisan purposes.

In an ideal world of good government types, redistricting would be done by some kind of bipartisan or non-partisan commission that would take into account natural factors like where neighborhood and political lines are in creating equally sized districts that are based around defined communities — not by political whiz kids running mathematical models about how to maximize the value of each individual voter on their side and waste as many votes (a district that is 90-plus percent of one party is wasting almost half of its votes), even if it means drawing district lines that cut a neighborhood in half.

The problem isn't an easy one. How do you take the politics out of what is inherently a political job? And how much politics is too much?

In my youth, I was an advocate of reform, of commissions, of efforts to "professionalize" the fine art of deciding who would get a safe district and who would face competition, and how to balance the reality of representation with the abstract theory. Yes, it's one person-one vote, but votes in overly safe districts — districts created to be "too" safe — aren't worth anything, and the people drawing those districts know that and are doing it on purpose. That's why majority-minority districts have always prompted some unease on the Democratic side among those who worried that they had taken the place of more conservative districts that white Democrats might win, although no study I know of has ever borne this out.

So I fought for reform and argued that courts should police the excess of partisanship, even though no one has really come up with satisfactory lines. But I'm not fighting for reform now. Now is no time for Democrats to be focused on how redistricting should work in a democracy we don't have.

On a recent night in Martha's Vineyard, former President Barack Obama said as much at a fundraiser. Although traditionally an opponent of partisan redistricting, he isn't anymore. If Democrats "don't respond effectively, then this White House and Republican-controlled state governments all across the country, they will not stop, because they do not appear to believe in this idea of an inclusive, expansive democracy. ... I wanted just a fair fight between Republicans and Democrats based on who's got better ideas, and take it to the voters and see what happens ... but we cannot unilaterally allow one of the two major parties to rig the game. And California is one of the states that has the capacity to offset a large state like Texas."

The Republicans are trying to rig the game. The Democrats need to stop them. It is as simple as that.

Susan Estrich is a celebrated feminist legal scholar, the first female president of the Harvard Law Review, and the first woman to run a U.S. presidential campaign. She has written eight books.

Reprinted with permission from Creators.

'The Epitome Of Dumbness': Trump Attack On Smithsonian Is An Embarrassment

'The Epitome Of Dumbness': Trump Attack On Smithsonian Is An Embarrassment

Some headlines are just too stupid to pass by. Yes, this is the Trump era, and Trump being Trump and all that. But even so, there should be some things a president doesn't say — or do. This is one.

"Trump Says Smithsonian Focuses Too Much on 'How Bad Slavery Was,'" The New York Times screamed. Yes, he really said that.

In a post on social media on Tuesday, Trump wrote:

"The Smithsonian is OUT OF CONTROL, where everything discussed is how horrible our Country is, how bad Slavery was, and how unaccomplished the downtrodden have been — Nothing about Success, nothing about Brightness, nothing about the Future. This Country cannot be WOKE, because WOKE IS BROKE. We have the 'HOTTEST' Country in the World, and we want people to talk about it, including in our Museums."

Too much on how bad slavery was? Was it better than we think? Did it not cause a civil war? Are museums supposed to show us what we need to know about our history or what Donald Trump and his white nationalist friends would like to hear?

The social media post comes a week after the Trump administration warned the Smithsonian that its museums must, within 120 days, adjust any content that the administration finds problematic in "tone, historical framing and alignment with American ideals." In his social media post, Trump said that he had instructed his lawyers "to go through the Museums, and start the exact same process that has been done with Colleges and Universities."

Could it be any worse? Do to the Smithsonian what he has done, and is doing, to America's leading educational institutions? Strip them of their independence, of their academic freedom and integrity, in the name of fighting antisemitism. As the Jewish faculty of UCLA has rightly stood up and said, "No, thanks." And double, "No, thanks" to whitewashing our history. What message does that send to a Black schoolchild who visits the museum?

"It's the epitome of dumbness to criticize the Smithsonian for dealing with the reality of slavery in America," Douglas Brinkley, one of America's most respected presidential historians, told The New York Times. "It's what led to our Civil War and is a defining aspect of our national history. And the Smithsonian deals in a robust way with what slavery was, but it also deals with human rights and civil rights in equal abundance."

The "epitome of dumbness." Trump has been there before. The effort to whitewash our history extends to other stupid things this administration and this president have done, from minimizing the contributions of Black heroes, including the Tuskegee Airmen who fought in World War II and Harriet Tubman, who led Blacks to freedom on the Underground Railroad, to advocating the return of Confederate insignia and statues honoring those who fought to preserve slavery. On Juneteenth, the celebration of the end of slavery in the United States that became a federal holiday in 2021, Trump "celebrated" by complaining that there were too many non-working holidays in America.

From the halls of the Smithsonian to the streets of Los Angeles, Donald Trump's war on diversity, equity and inclusion has morphed into a war on Black and Brown people. He makes no bones about it. He is playing to the white nationalist fringe of his MAGA movement, and it is not just dumb but ugly. And racist. The Smithsonian needs to resist, and to fight back, and it needs Congress' support, and the public's, to do so.

Susan Estrich is a celebrated feminist legal scholar, the first female president of the Harvard Law Review, and the first woman to run a U.S. presidential campaign. She has written eight books.

Reprinted with permission from Creators.

In Los Angeles, We Don't Need The Marines To Bust A Few Hooligans

In Los Angeles, We Don't Need The Marines To Bust A Few Hooligans

I'm fine. Thanks for asking. Other than the endless and awful worries that come with caring for my daughter with long Covid, and the very real fear that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his boss will cut all the research programs that are the best and only hope for the millions (and there will be millions more) suffering from this now incurable disease, I'm OK. To tell the truth, I haven't seen a single protester, or any Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents for that matter. The protests have not taken over the city. I've lived through riots. These aren't riots.

I know. You've seen the pictures of the burning Waymo taxicabs. All three of them. I've seen them too — on TV, literally hundreds of times. What does that prove? That there are hooligans who will take advantage of any situation that will possibly give them cover for wrongdoing? The hooligans should be arrested and punished. The LAPD is fully qualified to do that. We don't need the Marines or the National Guard to round up a handful of hooligans.

The Chief of the LAPD told the City Council on Tuesday that LAPD officers arrested 114 people at protests Monday night — 53 for allegedly failing to disperse and 15 on suspicion of looting. The potential looters were stopped. One person was arrested for alleged assault with a deadly weapon on an officer, and another was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder. They will be punished. The LAPD arrested 27 people at protests on Saturday and 40 on Sunday.

The problem is not the protesters. They have every right to be protesting the wholesale roundup of people with brown skin who have committed no crimes. ICE doesn't like to release the numbers, for obvious reasons, but what's come out so far suggest that half the people ICE has detained were not subject to warrants for their arrests and have committed no crimes.

On Tuesday, the mayor of Los Angeles imposed a curfew on exactly one square mile of downtown LA in an effort to stop the hooligans who were looting. Downtown LA was quiet on Tuesday night. Los Angeles is a city of nearly 500 square miles. One-five hundredth of the city was under a curfew, hardly reason to send in an invading military force, which Trump has done.

And there is certainly no reason to attack the organizers of the peaceful protests, which is what Republican grandstanders are doing. On Wednesday, Missouri Republican Sen. Josh Hawley threatened an investigation of one of our city's most respected immigrant organizations, the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, which he accused of "bankrolling the unrest." Hawley, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee of Crime and Counterterrorism, wrote to the leader of the group that they should "cease and desist any further involvement in the organization, funding, or promotion of these unlawful activities."

What he called, but didn't identify, as "credible reporting now suggests that your organization has provided logistical support and financial resources to individuals engaged in these disruptive actions. Let me be clear: bankrolling civil unrest is not protected speech. It is aiding and abetting criminal conduct."

No, it's not. Organizing and supporting peaceful protests against mass, untargeted roundups and the misuse of the military is fully protected by the First Amendment.

Trump wants race riots. He wants people to be terrorized. He wants to exercise absolute authority. The protests will continue, and they will spread. Trump railed against the rapists and murderers he claimed were invading our country. He promised to remove them. Fine. Now that he's president, he can't find enough of them to fulfill his quotas. So instead, he is going after law-abiding neighbors with force and without due process. He has triggered this unrest, and it is his fault. The organizers of the protests in Los Angeles are doing everything they can to ensure that the protests are peaceful and lawful. The same cannot be said of Trump and his minions.

Reprinted with permission from Creators.

Maggie Hassan

Habeas Corpus And The Cabinet Of Clowns

She did not even know what habeas corpus is. It should come as no surprise, judging from her actions.

At a hearing, she was asked by Sen. Maggie Hassan, a New Hampshire Democrat:

Senator Hassan: "Secretary Noem, what is habeas corpus?"

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem: "Well, habeas corpus is a constitutional right that the president has to be able to remove people from this country and suspend their right to — "

Hassan: "No. Let me stop you, ma'am. Excuse me, that's incorrect."

It's not just incorrect. It's completely backward. Habeas corpus is not the president's right to be able to remove people from this country at will. He doesn't have that right. Habeas corpus ensures that. Without it, people could be detained at will because the king or the fuhrer or the president doesn't like them.

Habeas corpus developed in the English courts in the 1600s in opposition to the divine right of the king to incarcerate. A petition for habeas corpus was the way you enforced the rule of law. It reflects a principle enshrined in the Magna Carta that "No man shall be arrested or imprisoned ... except by the lawful judgment of his peers and by the law of the land."

"Habeas corpus" technically means that "you have the body," you being the warden or the executive, unlawfully, in violation of my constitutional rights. Because you have the wrong man. Because there is a court order protecting me. Because you have no legal authority to deport me. All of the detainees who are challenging their unlawful detention and deportations are relying on habeas corpus petitions to federal courts.

In the first Judiciary Act of 1789, Congress made clear that the federal courts have jurisdiction to consider habeas petitions from federal prisoners. After the Civil War, Congress expanded that jurisdiction to include state prisoners held in violation of federal law or the Constitution. As Chief Justice John Marshall wrote in 1830, the "great object" of the writ of habeas corpus "is the liberation of those who may be imprisoned without sufficient cause." The "writ of habeas corpus," the Supreme Court has recognized, "is the fundamental instrument for safeguarding individual freedom against arbitrary and lawless state action."

This is what Trump adviser Stephen Miller, whose influence in the Muskless White House cannot be overestimated, wants to get rid of. He is, according to news reports, actively floating the idea.

Unfortunately for Miller, and fortunately for the rule of law, the Constitution has something to say about this. Article 1, which deals with the power of Congress, provides that "The Privileges of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it."

Most recently, it was suspended by the Act of Congress in 1941 after the attack on Pearl Harbor; before that, it was suspended three other times including during the Civil War. At that point, President Abraham Lincoln, whose actions Noem cited as a precedent for suspension of the right, tried to suspend the right when Congress was out of session; his actions were challenged and rejected by the Court. Two years later, Congress authorized the suspension.

But Kristi Noem didn't seem to know any of this when she testified that the president had the right to deport anyone he wanted to, without their having a right to go to court to protest. Asked by Sen. Andy Kim of New Jersey how many times habeas corpus had been suspended or where the authority to do so came from, she said she didn't know. She didn't even know which Article the Suspension Clause is found in, that is Article 1, which is about the power of Congress, not the president.

The woman in charge of detaining college students and deporting gay hairdressers and separating families and sending people to third countries in the Third World should know better. Noem claims she isn't a constitutional lawyer. You don't need to be a constitutional lawyer to know what habeas corpus is, any more than you need to be a medical doctor to know you shouldn't take your grandchildren swimming in bacteria-infected fecal water. What is with this ignorant Cabinet of clowns?

Reprinted with permission from Creators.

Surgeon General Fiasco Is A Perfect Trump Story

Surgeon General Fiasco Is A Perfect Trump Story

It's the perfect Trump story, one that tells you everything. It begins, as so many of them do, with a candidate whose qualification for high office is appearing on Fox News, proving once again that talking about something on television — and looking good — is not the same thing as actual experience.

In this case, Dr. Janette Nesheiwat, a New York family medicine doctor who reportedly practices at an urgent care facility, talked about medical issues as a Fox News contributor, which obviously qualified her to be the nation's leading doctor and health care expert as surgeon general. Put aside the fact that it took her six years to get through a four-year foreign medical school in the Caribbean (what you do if you don't get into an American medical school); in her autobiography, she writes,

"I studied at the University of South Florida where I enrolled in an Army ROTC program. I did basic training in Fort Lewis, Washington, and completed my medical training at the University of Arkansas where I served as chief resident."

She leaves out the part about the University of the Caribbean, as well as the fact that while she participated in ROTC, she was "medically disenrolled" in the program before being commissioned as an officer. And while she holds herself out as the director of the urgent care facility, CityMed, where she works, CBS News could not confirm that; CityMed would say only that she was a doctor there.

All of this was known about Nesheiwat, the sister-in-law of short-lived National Security Adviser and now U.N. Ambassador-to-be Mike Waltz, and none of it was getting in the way of her confirmation hearings, scheduled for Thursday. And then Sunday night, right-wing activist, conspiracy theorist and self-proclaimed Trump-loving "white nationalist" Laura Loomer took up the cause, demanding a new nominee. She unleashed on social media. While noting that Dr. Nesheiwat was a "nepo" (the sister-in-law point), is currently involved in a medical malpractice case, and didn't go to medical school in the U.S., it was her statements about vaccines that earned Loomer's wrath. Loomer posted:

"@DoctorJanette said 'Vaccine hesitancy is a Global health threat.'

"She used her access to Fox News to promote the dangerous Covid vaccine, which is now killing millions of people. She tried to shame people who didn't take the vaccine by calling them global health threats.

"Vaccines are a matter of PERSONAL HEALTH FREEDOM. "Vaccine hesitancy" is a matter of PERSONAL FREEDOM AND LIBERTY!

"It is not a Global Health Threat.

"MY BODY MY CHOICE!

"By her own logic, President Donald Trump and @RobertKennedyJr are GLOBAL HEALTH THREATS because they are challenging the safety of childhood vaccines.

"@DoctorJanette is not ideologically aligned with Donald Trump or his admin's health initiatives. The DOD is now giving back pay to armed service members who were let go because they didn't take the COVID JAB. They are now rightfully receiving back pay reparations for wrongful termination over their refusal to take an experimental DNA modifier. According to @DoctorJanette, these service members are GLOBAL HEALTH THREATS.

"How can she be confirmed in front of the US Senate on Thursday?"

She can't. On Wednesday afternoon, less than 24 hours before her scheduled confirmation hearing, President Donald Trump pulled the nomination. The last time Loomer came to town looking for scalps, supposedly with dossiers of who was and was not loyal on the National Security team, half the staff got purged.

This is who Trump is listening to.

Her position on vaccines was the one good thing about this nominee for surgeon general. It cost her the job.

Terrible things are going to happen. Measles is coming back. Children will die. When the history of this era is written, it will be a public health disaster, a shining example of the rejection of science in favor of know-nothingness, of pigheaded denials. This is how it happens.

Reprinted with permission from Creators.

John Roberts

Is Chief Justice Ready To Confront Trump Regime's Lawlessness?

"For more than two centuries," Chief Justice John Roberts wrote Tuesday in an extraordinary statement, "it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision. The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose."

"Not appropriate," huh? That's really going to scare them.

The chief justice's statement, which might have been enough to give a former president pause, is not likely to make much of a difference with this crowd. It comes in the face of what appears to be open defiance of an order by the chief judge of the District of Columbia District Court, James Boasberg, to return planes carrying migrants alleged to be members of a Venezuelan gang to the United States while he considered whether their removal was lawful. The planes did not turn around.

Rep. Brandon Gill, R-Texas, said on social media on Tuesday that he had filed articles of impeachment against Boasberg, asserting that the judge's rulings amounted to "high crimes and misdemeanors."

This followed President Donald Trump taking to social media himself to condemn the Judge as a "Radical Left Lunatic of a Judge ... This judge, like many of the Crooked Judges' I am forced to appear before, should be IMPEACHED!!!

Boasberg is a highly respected federal judge. He is the definition of a bipartisan appointee. He has been on the bench for 23 years, having first been appointed by President George W. Bush in 2002 to the D.C. Superior Court, and to the U.S. District Court by President Barack Obama.

He is not about to be impeached: Only eight judges in American history have been impeached, none of them for making a decision the administration doesn't agree with. While it takes only a majority of the House of Representatives to pass articles of impeachment, it takes two-thirds of the Senate — which Republicans don't have — to convict.

The real question is whether his — and other federal judges' orders — will be followed by an administration that seems determined to bend the law in its direction and defy the rule of law, and what John Roberts is going to do about it.

"We're not stopping," border czar Tom Homan told Fox News on Monday. "I don't care what the judges think — I don't care what the left thinks. We're coming."

The administration is still playing games in court, arguing that the planes took off before the judge's written (as opposed to verbal) order was handed down and that the judge lacked jurisdiction to order them to turn around once they were in international airspace. That might avert a constitutional crisis this time around, but it will not avert the coming constitutional crisis.

The chief justice is going to have to do more than comment about what is "not appropriate." The rhetoric that might have moved former presidents is not going to move Donald Trump and Tom Homan. Roberts may think his warning, and that of other federal judges in recent weeks, will make a difference, but there is simply no evidence that Trump is listening. Like Homan, he keeps on coming.

Roberts has no one to blame but himself for affording broad immunity to the president to disobey the law. The chickens are coming home to roost. Federal district judges need to know the Supreme Court will stand behind them and their rulings. It is one thing to defy and demonize a single federal judge, as they are trying to do with Boasberg. It is another to defy the Supreme Court. That is where this is headed. John Roberts had best be ready. Our democracy is depending on him.

Reprinted with permission from Creators.

Is Los Angeles As Toxic As Manhattan After 9/11?

Is Los Angeles As Toxic As Manhattan After 9/11?

While I've been mainlining local news to see if my house, on the edge of an evacuation zone, was going to survive, my daughter (who I've been staying with) has been doing research on the air. As depressing as it has been to see these fires destroying my adopted hometown, it's been worse to hear my daughter's reports on the air around us, and to be reminded of what we should have learned from 9/11.

"L.A. is Toxic, and We Need to Talk About It" is the title of my daughter's post on Substack. Read it, and then think about those pictures you've seen of people returning to their burnt out neighborhoods, combing through the rubble in their flip-flops, with no masks. It's terrifying. Would you go wading in a toxic dump unprotected? Is "protection" good enough?

This is what we know from 9/11, when only two buildings — granted, two very big buildings — were destroyed. More people have died from exposure to toxic pollutants in the air after 9/11 than died in the collapse of the Twin Towers and the crashes of the planes.

According to the New York Times in 2021, more than 400,000 people who lived, worked or studied in Lower Manhattan were exposed to toxic materials from "the pulverized towers" leading to health issues, many of which took years to emerge and diagnose. Two buildings — in Los Angeles, thousands and thousands of structures and cars have been equally pulverized. The CDC, in 2018, released a list of hazardous 9/11 chemical agents put together by the World Trade Center Health Program. The list is 19 pages long and includes some 352 chemical compounds. In Los Angeles, there is no list, and also no reason it would be significantly shorter. Why is no one talking about it? Why is the only question people seem to be asking is when the fires and hot spots will be controlled enough for civilians to return to their homes?

In New York, anyone who spent time within a one-and-a-half mile radius of the World Trade Center within an eight-month period after 9/11 is eligible to apply for federal health benefits. Is Los Angeles also going to be toxic for eight months?

As of 2024, there were 127,567 people enrolled in the WTC Health Program, 82,000 of them first-responders and volunteers who took part in the rescue and clean up. As of 2023, some 7,000 of them were dead from illnesses linked to the disaster. In September 2024, the New York Fire Department announced that it had lost more members to WTC-related illnesses than it lost on 9/11 itself.

At the time, though, no one warned them. At the time, it apparently seemed best for city officials to tell people that the air, the water and the food supply were safe — that the best course was to keep on keeping on, just as Los Angeles officials are saying that the first priority is to get people back to their homes and begin the process of rebuilding. Really? It took the New York City Council until this past fall — the 23rd anniversary of the attacks — to take up a bill aimed at finding out when and what city officials knew at the time about the toxins in the air after 9/11. How long will it be before we find out what officials know — or should know — about the air in our toxic site here?

It's not clear what we do with the information. The fires stretched across the city, and the winds blew ash and debris everywhere. Three million people can't up and move away for 8 months. But we can wear masks and protective gear. We desperately need professionals to do the cleanup. Children should not be rifling through the rubble. Reporters covering the fires should be dressed the way firefighters are.

First responders deserve protection and health care in the future. Thirty percent of the firefighters are convicted criminals. Kim Kardashian is right: They should be fairly paid for risking their lives and their health. We owe them nothing less. And city, state and federal officials owe us the truth, as we have learned it from 9/11, about the risks we face and the steps we can take to mitigate those risks.

Reprinted with permission from Creators.

Under Court Dictum, Harvard Law School Steps Back In Time

Under Court Dictum, Harvard Law School Steps Back In Time

According to figures released last month, there are a grand total of 19 Black students in the first-year class at Harvard Law School, down from 43 in last year's entering class. You have to go back to the 1960s to find so few Black students in the entering class.

In the years since 1970, the number of first years, or 1Ls, who were Black has ranged from 50 to 70. Professor David Wilkins, a brilliant Black professor at Harvard and the faculty director of the school's Center on the Legal Profession, noted that "this is the lowest number of Black entering first-year students since 1965" and that "this obviously has a lot to do with the chilling effect created by that decision" — that is, the decision last year by the United States Supreme Court, in a case where Harvard College was a defendant, barring affirmative action in university admissions.

It is a major step backward for a school that has produced some of the leading Black lawyers in America, a step backward that dramatically affects not only Black students, but the quality of education for all students at HLS. Diversity makes a huge difference in what happens in a law school classroom. And a Harvard degree opens doors to a career in law that, fairly or not, are just not the same for graduates of lower-tier law schools.

I spent three years as a student at Harvard Law, and another 10 as a member of the faculty. The Black students in my time at Harvard included everyone from future civil rights leaders like Charles Ogletree and John Payton and Christopher Edley Jr. to political leaders like Barack and Michelle Obama and Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick. They made a difference — in the classroom, on the Law Review, and in American life and law.

The number of Hispanic students also dropped sharply, from 63 students, or 11 percent of the total last year, to 39 students, or 6.9 percent of the total this year. The number of white and Asian students obviously increased.

I always used to ask my criminal law students who had ever been stopped by the police. A pretty big smattering of hands, young women included, which usually reduced to a handful when I asked students who talked their way out of it or got away with a warning to put their hands down. How big a handful depending on how many Black men I had in the class. Many of my white students expressed surprise that it was so obvious. I was a better teacher when I had a diverse class. There are a total of six Black men in the entering class at Harvard Law, according to Wilkins.

Richard Sander, a professor at UCLA Law and a critic of affirmative action, dismissed the latest reports from Harvard, telling The New York Times that it might actually be beneficial: "because those students are going to go to another school where they're better matched and they're poised to succeed. ... Students prefer going to a school where they are not going to get a preference, because they think they'll be more competitive there, which I think is true."

My experience, and that of my classmates and students over the years, is that a degree from Harvard Law School opens doors for all of its students, as it did for me, to a Supreme Court clerkship, to a job on the Senate Judiciary Committee, to a professorship at Harvard, to places where it was my calling card. Those were not places where someone who was bartending her way through law school had any connections. The "network" you join in those three years turns out to include some of the most prominent leaders in politics, business and law. I have never in all my years in academia run into a student who told me they turned down Harvard for a second-tier law school to be a better match, and I would certainly never advise a college student to do that.

In a statement, Harvard spokesman Jeff Neal said that the law school continued "to believe that a student body composed of persons with a wide variety of backgrounds and experiences is a vital component of legal education. ... Harvard Law School remains committed both to following the law and to fostering an on-campus community and a legal profession that reflect numerous dimensions of human experience."

It has its work cut out for it. Six black men in a class of 560 students is just not enough.

Reprinted with permission from Creators.

Matt Gaetz

The 'Catastrophic' Legacy Of Matt Gaetz

What a Christmas present! In its report released last Monday, the bipartisan House Ethics Committee cited "substantial evidence" that from 2017 to 2020, former Rep. and would-be Attorney General Matt Gaetz "regularly paid women for engaging in sexual activity with him," including an underage 17-year-old, and from 2017 to 2019, had in his possession illegal drugs including cocaine and ecstasy, on "multiple different occasions." Investigating a 2018 trip Gaetz made to the Bahamas, the committee found that he violated House rules by accepting transportation and lodging, which is not allowed. Summing up its conclusions, the committee found that Gaetz "violated House Rules, state and federal laws, and other standards of conduct prohibiting prostitution, statutory rape, illicit drug use, acceptance of impermissible gifts, the provision of special favors and privileges, and obstruction of Congress."

The House panel reported that Gaetz was "uncooperative" throughout its investigation and "knowingly and willfully sought to impede and obstruct the Committee's investigation of his conduct." They also found that he used his former chief of staff to "assist a woman with whom he engaged in sexual activity in obtaining a passport, falsely indicating to the U.S. Department of State that she was a constituent."

And he almost got away with all of it.

How? Why?

Those questions deserve answers.

This is the man who brought down Speaker Kevin McCarthy, twisting the House into knots and bringing about a dangerous stalemate in Congress.

This is the man who was Donald Trump's first choice to be attorney general of the United States.

The report was the product of a multiyear investigation of Gaetz that took place while he was taking a leading — and sometimes decisive — role in House deliberations and actively campaigning for the president-elect. Had Gaetz had his way, and some of his Republican colleagues had theirs, we would still not know the truth about him. Gaetz brought suit to attempt to block the committee's release of the report, in a complaint that reportedly requested a restraining order and injunction, claiming that the committee's action violated the Constitution in its effort to "exercise jurisdiction over a private citizen through the threatened release of an investigative report containing potentially defamatory allegations."

Gaetz resigned from Congress two days before the report was due to be issued, in an obvious attempt to block the report's release. It was the same day he was nominated for attorney general. Rep. Michael Guest, who chairs the Ethics Committee, opposed its actual release. While writing that he and other Republican members "do not challenge the Committee's findings," he argued that releasing a report about someone who is no longer a member of Congress, "an action the Committee has not taken since 2006," is "a dangerous departure with potentially catastrophic consequences."

The "catastrophic consequences" are that this criminal served in a leading capacity in the House of Representatives and almost became the attorney general of the United States. The "catastrophic consequences" are that he was nominated for that position by a president-elect who was — we have to presume — utterly ignorant of the fact that this man's peers had concluded that he was a serial felon who got away with it.

Why is a member of Congress free to not cooperate with a committee charged with ensuring that members of Congress act ethically? Why did they wait years while he actively obstructed their investigation before making that clear? Just a few weeks ago, he was talking about running for Marco Rubio's Senate seat in Florida. Didn't the citizens of Florida have a right to know what the House committee had concluded? How could the chair of the House Ethics Committee say no to that? Talk about dangerous precedents.

The Matt Gaetz debacle is proof positive that Americans have every reason to distrust Congress, which is a sad state of affairs in a democracy. Gaetz's legacy, if you can call it that, is that a president should not nominate anyone to high office without careful vetting, and that the public has a right to know about the integrity of the men and women we elect to serve us. The Ethics Committees of Congress should do more, do it publicly and be transparent about their work. Non-cooperation, active efforts to obstruct justice, should not be tolerated, and should be disclosed. Matt Gaetz had no business even being considered for attorney general when his only qualification was his loyalty to Donald Trump. The members of the committee knew that. Why didn't anyone tell Donald Trump? Or us? This is a story that should not go away.

Reprinted with permission from Creators.

Is This Really The Best We Can Do?

Is This Really The Best We Can Do?

It was painful to watch. Two men vying for the most important job in the world. And neither of them making the cut.

Trump was Trump — just as expected, bragging and blustering, lying and threatening, refusing to say he would accept the results of the election, defending the January 6 rioters. It is no exaggeration to say he is a threat to our democracy as we know it. Even in the face of a dramatically diminished opponent, he could not find his way to grace, to the high road, to optimism, to a message larger than spitefully attacking immigrants and the "me me me" we have come to expect. A younger and more vigorous Joe Biden could have eaten him for lunch. This time, he was lunch.

His voice was weak and hoarse. A cold. If that were all, it would not have been so bad. That was the least of it. It wasn't just a stutter. He visibly lost his train of thought in the first minutes of the debate. He choked on questions he should have hit out of the park. How could he get bogged down trying to explain Roe v. Wade? Why didn't he just say that killing live born babies is homicide in all 50 states? Why let Trump get away with that? Who cares that he was once — a very long time ago — the youngest one in the room when he is now, so very painfully, the oldest? How could he not be prepared for that most obvious question? How could he not have a clear and direct answer ready for black voters?

Biden, by all reports, spent days and days preparing for this debate. He was working with a very experienced staff. This was not a staffing problem. I am sure his debate book was stuffed with clear and concise answers. There was not a single question, I am certain, that they did not anticipate; there were no trick questions or hidden agendas. He should have been surprised by nothing. Instead, he struggled with everything. Even on the questions where he won on points — where he did have better answers than his ducking and deflecting opponent — his performance was halting and tentative.

Being president is a hard and demanding job. Biden came across as much diminished from the candidate he was four years ago. This Biden showed his age and the scars of four years in the hottest seat on the planet. It was hard to imagine that this Biden could have defeated strong opponents, as he did four years ago to win the nomination. If this were a primary debate, he would have lost the primary. The reason no credible Democrat ran against him this time is because of the conventional wisdom that he or she would have lost but would have mortally wounded the incumbent in the process. Sometimes conventional wisdom is wrong.

Will someone tell him? Of course they will. Plenty of someones. The post-debate headlines say it all. "President Biden Struggles as Trump Blusters." Democratic leaders were reportedly talking about replacing Biden at the top of the ticket before the debate had even ended. The question is whether Biden, who is known for his stubborn belief in his own resilience, will listen.

Every delegate to the convention is pledged to support Joe Biden. They were all approved by Joe Biden. Will he officially release them? What or who can convince him to do that? It would be the ultimate act of presidential leadership.

Donald Trump does pose an existential threat to democracy. Biden is right about that. The Democratic Party and its leader, who is Joe Biden, owe it to the country to put forward the candidate with the best chance of beating him.

As of June 27, that candidate is indisputably not Joe Biden. He has been a fine president. And the fine president that he is must now step aside to avoid leaving us in the hands of a dangerous man.

Reprinted with permission from Creators.

When Trump Rants About Abortion, Women Voters Must Listen

When Trump Rants About Abortion, Women Voters Must Listen

It was one of those rants that would disqualify a normal candidate. Speaking to Sean Hannity on Wednesday night, Donald Trump took off on abortion, saying things that are flat-out untrue and mouthing opinions entirely out of the mainstream. Most of the media ignored it, Trump being Trump.

"It's a beautiful thing to watch," Trump said of states passing extreme and near total bans on access to abortion. The consequences of those bans — horrific consequences — have been documented. A 13-year-old rape victim in Mississippi forced to carry a pregnancy to term because she was denied access to a safe and legal abortion — what is beautiful about that? A young woman in Texas who almost died because doctors were afraid to treat her — does Donald Trump find that beautiful? A Florida woman who was turned away from the emergency room and lost roughly half her blood in a single day after experiencing a miscarriage — beautiful to watch?

Twenty states now have near or total bans on abortion, forcing women to travel out of state to secure needed and necessary medical care. The most vulnerable are the most seriously affected — teenagers who don't even know that they are pregnant, poor women who lack the resources and connections to find or afford help in distant states. It is dangerous and downright cruel. Trump claims he supports exceptions for rape and incest and the life of the mother, but he finds it a "beautiful thing to watch" states pass laws that include no such exceptions.

And he spouts lies and spreads misinformation about abortion. Trump claimed, as he has repeatedly, that "everyone" has been in favor of overturning Roe v. Wade since the case was first decided in 1973. It is simply not so that legal scholars on all sides were united in criticizing the decision. Indeed, what is noteworthy is that as the years have passed, Roe became more firmly entrenched in the nation's jurisprudence, leading some early critics, such as the late conservative Solicitor General Charles Fried, to reverse his critical position on Roe and support it as firmly established precedent.

Trump is right that he is responsible for overturning Roe, because he appointed the three justices who cast the deciding votes to do so. But they turned themselves into pretzels to avoid telling the Senate Judiciary Committee that they planned to do so, mouthing words that they did not believe and did not abide by about respecting precedent. They didn't do that because "everyone" wanted to see Roe overturned — just the opposite.

Trump lied about Democrats approving abortion in the eighth and ninth months and "even after birth."

"Everybody knows that in the eighth month and the ninth month and beyond that — hard to believe, they have some states passing legislation where you can execute the baby after birth," Trump said. "It's crazy." Another lie. Executing newborn babies is homicide, and no state and no Democrats support legislation to allow it. More than 90 percent of abortions take place in the first trimester, and the one percent that take place after 21 weeks legally involve women whose lives are in danger or who are carrying much-wanted pregnancies where they receive a fatal fetal diagnosis late in their terms. To suggest otherwise is simply irresponsible.

Trump has been trying to "defang" the abortion issue by his stance that it should be left to the states, and then applauding what the states do, even at the expense of women's lives. It is a purely political move, reflecting no principles at all. The anti-abortion movement, which has lost at the ballot box in Ohio and Kansas, has almost as much reason to turn on Trump, who was pro-choice before he bargained away his soul to the right to win their support in 2016, as the pro-choice movement does. When it comes to abortion, he has no principles at all. And that is so typical that he gets away with it, sloppy rants and all.

Reprinted with permission from Creators.

Supreme Court

How To Achieve Diversity Without Affirmative Action

I've never been a huge fan of affirmative action. There's something about objective standards — however arbitrary they may be — that gives kids from working-class backgrounds a fair chance to succeed against those who were to the manor born. The American dream story has been told many times over by good test takers like me without a dime to spare. By comparison, there's something about giving extra points to someone because of what group they happen to belong to that strikes many fair-minded people as unfair. Give points for overcoming obstacles or personal accomplishments, that I understand, but not simply for race alone.

The problem is that diversity is a compelling objective not only for a university classroom but also for our society as a whole. It is critical when I teach a criminal law class that I have students participating in the discussion who understand issues from different perspectives; it does change the educational experience. And it is critical that we educate and train lawyers who will serve all communities in our society.

I'm not trying to reargue the Supreme Court case. That conclusion has been coming for a long time. It has been state law in California since 1996. We have learned to live with it in our state university system, and so will you. What I'm arguing is that diversity is still just as important as it has always been, and the challenge is how to achieve it without resorting to race-conscious admissions and/or endless lawsuits. Especially not endless lawsuits.

What has happened in California is instructive. In the immediate aftermath of Proposition 209, banning affirmative action in public education, the number of Blacks and Hispanics at the most selective schools in the state system literally tanked. That's true.

But as my friend Erwin Chemerinsky, the Dean of the University of California Berkeley Law School, one of the jewels of the system, told me on my podcast, many of the schools in the system, including his, then developed new programs and approaches to achieve diversity without race-conscious admissions. They did it with broad outreach and aggressive recruitment, involving both faculty and alumni, without in any way lowering their standards. They did it by relying on a whole host of factors to define excellence rather than simply applying a straight numerical formula. They did it without lowering the ultimate quality of the class.

Is it easy? Absolutely not. But even apart from this decision, and not necessarily because of it, many universities have been moving away from reliance on standardized test scores and ranking systems that are based on them because, among other things, of the cultural biases that are inherent in them. Again, I'm the first to admit to being of two minds about the move toward more subjective admissions. I hope it will help to build more diverse classes, including some kids who may not be as skilled at test taking, without sacrificing those who may not have the connections to check enough other boxes (like alumni connections or donor potential or, as one former admissions dean used to call it, the "glitter factor") that otherwise command attention.

What happens next, unfortunately, is likely to be another round of lawsuits as the post-affirmative action world "shakes out." Is it OK to take account of the obstacles applicants have overcome? Almost certainly yes, so long as those obstacles are not solely defined in racial terms. Is it OK to take account of economic hardships? It should be, as long as the hardships are not measured solely by ZIP codes that are race-based. And so the challenges will go. Admissions officials should be given broad deference in fashioning admissions systems, but sadly much litigation should be expected, and in the short run, at least, the danger is that admissions officials will be afraid to be bold when they most need to be.

To find out more about Susan Estrich and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

Reprinted with permission from Creators.

John Fetterman Victory Speech

What John Fetterman's Diagnosis Means For Him -- And America

He set out to be the senator from Pennsylvania — not a spokesman for people with disabilities, which he unintentionally became after suffering a life-threatening stroke, which became an issue in the Senate race and has posed challenges as he adapted to his role in the Senate.

And then last week, he announced that he was checking into the hospital to be treated for clinical depression, which unintentionally makes him something of a symbol, if nothing else, of the mental health issue in politics, which is hardly a role anyone would seek.

But one which needs a spokesperson.

It was in 1972 that a fine senator, Tom Eagleton, was bounced from the Democratic ticket (he had been nominated as the vice presidential candidate, to run with George McGovern) when it was revealed that he had been hospitalized for treatment of depression. It was political poison. He was quickly replaced as a candidate.

In 1988, a rumor was intentionally spread that Michael Dukakis, the Democratic nominee for president, had suffered from depression and been treated for it after losing a reelection campaign. I was his campaign manager; it wasn't true. He had never been seen by a psychiatrist. Jokingly, one might say, anyone who runs for president should be. But he hadn't.

Nonetheless, the rumor, intentionally spread by the Republicans, wouldn't stop. Then President Ronald Reagan referenced it in a press conference, and we had no choice but to deny it. "Dukakis not crazy; more at 11 ... " The news was almost that bad. We dropped half a dozen points overnight. On a rumor that wasn't true. Political poison of the worst sort.

Mental health is a crisis that never gets the attention it deserves in part because no one wants to volunteer to be the spokesperson. But volunteers are desperately needed. Even unintentional ones, maybe especially so.

According to his wife, there is no one less interested in talking about his own health at this point that John Fetterman, who would much prefer to be talking about the problems facing his constituents.

In an email to constituents, she made clear what the family was going through: "After what he's been through in the past year, there's probably no one who wanted to talk about his own health less than John."

But asking for help, and doing so publicly, is as brave and important an act as any a senator could do.

His wife said she was proud of him. The rest of us should be grateful.

It's a sort of sad coincidence that the senator should be checking in to the hospital on the same day that the family of super macho hero Bruce Willis reveals his devastating diagnosis of dementia. There are so many illnesses that are verboten, that need to be discussed, that need to be the subject of some sunshine and light. We have teenagers suffering from anxiety and isolation while their parents struggle with depression and their grandparents with fears of dementia. And yet it still takes a celebrity diagnosis to capture our attention, to give us a spokesperson, to trigger discussions that are long overdue.

John Fetterman is lucky in one respect. He will receive excellent care. And when he returns to the Senate, as he will, he will be in a better position to help ensure that others who face similar challenges are able to receive the compassionate care that they deserve as well. That is what is meant to be.

To find out more about Susan Estrich and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

Reprinted with permission from Creators.

How To Lose 50 States

How To Lose 50 States

Easy. Nominate Bernie Sanders. I’ve been through my share of blowouts. I was a kid when George McGovern won Massachusetts — and nowhere else. I was in Florida working for Jimmy Carter (on loan from Ted Kennedy’s office) when we lost not only the White House but also the Senate majority in Ronald Reagan’s first landslide. I was in Minnesota waiting to see if Fritz Mondale would carry any states. Two weeks before the 1988 election we were going to lose, with the help of then-Gov. Jim Hunt from North Carolina, I spread money all over the country for down-ticket races so Michael Dukakis didn’t carry down the Democratic Party when he lost 40 states. I was on television looking at the exit polls from Ohio when I realized they were all wrong, and that John Kerry would lose. I canceled my law and politics class in 2016, the day before the election, because I didn’t want to lie to my students and tell them that I thought Hillary Clinton was going to win.

I understand why Democratic ideologues are voting for Bernie Sanders. I used to be one myself. But losing one election after another, two to Reagan, one to George H.W. Bush, two to George W. Bush and, of course, one to Donald Trump, is painfully instructive. This is not horseshoes. This is not a battle for the heart and soul of the Democratic Party. It is a battle to beat a dangerous president.

And the truth is that the only Democrat with a chance of doing that is Mike Bloomberg.

I never thought I’d say this, but I will: I will do anything to help Bloomberg win. Which is to say, I will do anything to beat Trump.

Bernie Sanders would lose in a landslide. So would Elizabeth Warren — if a senator from Massachusetts runs fourth in neighboring New Hampshire, he or she will do even worse in a general election. Her candidacy is all but over.

Pete Buttigieg is the brightest star on the Democratic side. If he were 10 years older and didn’t look like Beaver Cleaver, I’d be ringing doorbells. Of course there are folks who would not vote for a gay man with a wonderful husband and a brilliant military record. That’s not my problem. I’ll vote for him in the future. I believe he will be president someday. But not in 2020.

And then there’s Joe Biden, who lost to Amy Klobuchar, a senator who is known on Capitol Hill as the most impossible person to work for. She might get away with it if she were a man (see, e.g., Donald Trump), but a woman who talks about which bills she has passed on the stage with Donald Trump, with billions against her? I don’t think so. Actually, I’ve yet to hear a pundit or a columnist or an independent pollster even make the case.

Former Vice President Biden is a fine man. I have always liked him. He has survived hardships that I could not endure. He would be a fine president. But he has always been a terrible candidate, and this year is no exception.

Which leaves the one candidate Trump is rightly afraid of. Trump claims to be a billionaire, even if it’s not actually money he made. Mike Bloomberg is THE real deal. He makes Trump look like a piker. Which, of course, drives Trump crazy.

There was a Bloomberg event in Los Angeles a few weeks ago. Hundreds of Clinton and Obama Democrats were there. People weren’t asked for money. For most of my friends, it was the first time attending such an event. They were not there because they are lifelong Bloomberg supporters. They were there because, as Vince Lombardi, the famous Green Bay Packers coach said, winning is the only thing.

And the only Democrat who can beat Trump is Mike Bloomberg. Bloomberg-Buttigieg — that’s my ticket. Trump has done enough damage. Given how strong the economy is, Trump should be a shoo-in. He isn’t because he’s Trump, a hopeless narcissist; a leader so unreliable and unpredictable that leaders across the world find him terrifying; a man who managed to escape impeachment when he shouldn’t have and is now busy punishing a war hero who dared to speak the truth.

We have exactly one choice. Or we lose. And if Sanders is at the top of the ticket, it won’t just be the presidency we lose.

Hillary Clinton is wrong: Plenty of people like Sanders. He has accomplished a great deal politically, energizing young people, strengthening the progressive movement, giving voice to concerns that millions share. But he can’t win a general election. I’m not even sure he could carry Massachusetts.

To find out more about Susan Estrich and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

And The Iowa Loser Is…

And The Iowa Loser Is…

he winner of the Iowa caucus is very rarely the next president. Looking at the Democratic side, Barack Obama was the only Iowa caucus winner to go on to win the presidency since 1980, when it was actually uncommitted, not Jimmy Carter, that won.

On the other hand, since 1984, five Iowa winners have gone on to lose the presidency.

This year, who loses Iowa matters more than who wins.

Iowa can be relied upon to support the most liberal candidate in the race because the true believers will be in a school assembly hall (or a similar locale) on a Monday evening listening to speeches by their neighbors and moving around the room, which is how you vote.

The problem with Iowa is that the most liberal candidate — with the exception of the miraculously gifted Barack Obama — is almost never the one most likely to beat the Republican. If he were, he probably wouldn’t win Iowa.

That is certainly true of Bernie Sanders. If he wins Iowa, it means he is the choice of the ideologues. It does not mean he will win the nomination, much less the presidency.

On the other hand, if Elizabeth Warren loses Iowa (meaning she doesn’t finish second, maybe not even third), she’s in trouble. Candidates from Massachusetts are supposed to win the New Hampshire primary. But it’s tough to win New Hampshire if you lose badly in Iowa. We once calculated that even though then-Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis was leading in the New Hampshire polls pre-Iowa, he had to at least finish third or he would lose that lead. He finished first. And Warren isn’t running first in New Hampshire.

If Sanders wins in Iowa, it should help Joe Biden, unless Biden loses badly, which should help Michael Bloomberg.

Bloomberg?

Yes, Bloomberg. Where else will the majority of Democrats who don’t think Bernie can win go if Biden gets beaten by Bernie in Iowa and then New Hampshire?

Joe Biden is one of the best-liked politicians in the Democratic Party. But if he can’t beat a 78-year-old Jewish socialist from New York, how can he beat President Donald Trump? You don’t hear too many Democrats say they could never vote for Biden. The polls reflect that. What you do hear, a lot, is Democrats worrying about whether he can win.

And Bloomberg?

Can it be that 2020 is the year of 70-something billionaire white men?

Most years, primary voters don’t vote strategically. They vote for the candidate they like best. That’s why “losers” sometimes win late primaries. It’s about the heart and soul of the Democratic Party, we used to say.

2020 is not a battle for the heart and soul of the Democratic Party. It is a battle to beat Donald Trump. ABT — Anybody But Trump, which is to say, Anybody Who Can Beat Trump. I’ve been working and watching Democratic primaries for a very long time, and I have never seen anything like it. We have always had ideologues; I used to be one. But I’ve never seen so many pragmatists.

As I write this, it is days before Iowa. I can’t remember a year when so many people who know so much about politics and care about it passionately don’t have a candidate. It’s not that we don’t care but that we care too much. How do we win this election? In 2020, we are the Green Bay Packers, and winning is the only thing.

If only we knew how, which is to say, who.

To find out more about Susan Estrich and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.