Monday, March 25, 2019

What the Mueller Reports Says...and Not

For anyone wanting a clear ending and definitive Hollywood ending and answer in the Mueller
investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 US elections and the role Trump and his campaign had in colluding with them, they will be disappointed.   The final report, based on the US Attorney General’s four-page summary, offers something for everyone, assuring that for now that the issues raised in it will live on into the 2020 US presidential election.
When Robert Mueller was brought on as special investigator, he was given a narrow mandate to determine whether Russians sought to interfere with the 2016 US elections.  On that matter Mueller was definitive–yes.  That conclusion alone is significant because it will have a potentially major impact on US-Russian Federation relations, including putting pressure on Trump to take a harder line toward Russia and Putin.  With members of Congress–both Democrats and Republicans–wary of Trump’s soft approach toward Russia, this part of the report may well unite them in legislation that will go against the president.
If one were to end the report about Russian interference that would cover the core of the Mueller investigation and what it was mandated to investigate.  But the report also looked at whether Trump or his campaign colluded or aided and abetted this interference. Again Mueller reaches a definite answer–no.  It is possible that Trump and his associates did several things to help themselves financially, but as a matter of law they not commit acts that broke the law.
The third issue is whether Trump obstructed justice and the Muller investigation.  Here the report finds evidence on both sides, declaring that the investigation neither proves nor exonerates him.  The reason, presumably, hinges on the nuances of American law which requires proof both that someone engaged in certain acts and they did so with the appropriate mental state of mind or intent.  Here, one can speculate that Mueller found that Trump had done certain acts but could not determine whether his act rose to the level to prove intent of obstruction. Mueller threw this to the Justice Department and regular prosecutors to make that call and they said no. 
This is the point where the politics will kick in.  Democrats will demand the full report and want to talk to Mueller and Justice Department officers to determine if they made the right call.  This  review of conclusions, while entirely legitimate, is wrapped into the middle of partisan politics and a 2020 election that has already reached conclusions on Trump’s behavior, regardless of what the report said.  Mueller, in leaving open the obstruction question, and in the Attorney General not releasing the final report yet, guarantee that the investigation and final conclusions will not go away in terms of issues. 
But whether the Democrats should continue to dwell on it versus move on to other matters is also a good question.  The Democratic Party base will not let this matter go and they were counting on a clear answer of Trump guilt or culpability to help them in 2020.  They did not get that.   Democrats now need to move on to substantive issues to unite them and not simply run against Trump.  Conversely, for Republicans and Trump, the report also guarantees the problems will persist.  It only addressed a narrow set of issues, leaving open other questions about Trump’s business dealings and other matters which are still the objects on other congressional and criminal prosecutions.
Overall, the Mueller report itself, while definitive in what it was supposed to investigate, will hardly be politically definitive and it leaves open many issues unresolved.

Wednesday, March 13, 2019

From One Minnesota to Won Minnesota: Why Walz and the DFL are in Danger of Losing their Agenda this Year

Slightly more than two months into the 2019 Minnesota legislative session it is becoming more clear
that “One Minnesota” has morphed into “Won Minnesota” and that the DFL strategy to move its agenda is premised less on consensus than on the belief that they won the 2018 elections and their agenda deserves to be enacted.  If that is the case then the DFL will get little of what it wants.
Tim Walz ran successfully on a “One Minnesota” slogan and platform.  It was an effort to appeal to unity  both during the DFL primary to bring together various parts of the party to support him, and to overcome polarization that grips the US and the Minnesota. It is unclear how much this message elected him and Democrats to take control of the House or whether it was the trickle-down effect from an unpopular President Trump, a weak GOP gubernatorial candidate, and a significant money advantage the DFL had.  Yes, Walz won 54% of the statewide vote but only 22 of 87 counties.  He won the same places where Tina Smith, Amy Klobuchar, the other state-wide DFL candidates and House candidates won.  The state is geographically polarized.
Based on a majority vote, he claimed a mandate, as all victors do.  He then appointed a cabinet exclusively DFL and mostly Metro-centric.  Since taking office he and the DFL-controlled Minnesota House have pursued a largely urban-liberal agenda, although there are strong elements that appeal to the suburbs.  In many and most cases pursuing a “to a victor belongs the spoils” or arguing that  one is in the majority means you get to move the agenda is perfectly acceptable in a political system premised upon majority rule.  Yet in the case of the Walz administration there are several problems.
First, even if the Walz-DFL agenda has elements that appeal to Republicans and rural Minnesota, it has failed to articulate that.  It has failed to make the case to rural Minnesota how and why the gas tax, legalizing recreational marijuana, or regulating guns are to their advantage.  Narratives and messaging matter, and the Walz administration and the governor have done a bad job here.
Second, there seems to be a belief by Walz and the DFL that their issues are widely popular (and they maybe), fair, and correct, and therefore Republicans should simply do the right thing and go along with the DFL and vote for them.  Maybe in a different era this might happen, but in the polarized “winner take all” or zero sum game politics of today that is not the reality.  Simply have the right issues will not cut it.
Third, even in an era which was much less polarized, having the right issues was not enough.  One had to do the heavy legislative work of building consensus, horse-trading, or developing coalitions to get the votes needed.  Walz and the DFL are either not doing that, or not doing it effectively.  Think about the recent defeat of legalized recreational marijuana in Minnesota.  Walz  seemed indignant that the Senate did not support it.  At some point he and the DFL need to ask what is it the GOP needs to support it beyond just saying they should vote for it because polls indicate  public support.  The same crash of reality will soon hit when it comes to the ERA, guns, the gas tax, and a host of other DFL items. 
One needs to ask what incentive the GOP has to support them and then figure out what deals are possible to be able to move closer to that.  Senate Majority Leader Paul Gazelka represents 35 GOP senators who have constituencies back home who do not necessarily support the DFL agenda. To get it though the Senate and secure GOP votes he and the other senators have to be able to tell their constituents what is in it for them.  This is the real art of legislating, and so far this work or effort seems to be missing.
There are about two months to go in the 2019 legislative session.  A lot can happen and agreement on much legislation is still possible.  But already we see how the DFL is losing on many issues, and may well get far less than it thought it would this year.  Its strategy of “One Minnesota” may have changed to we “Won Minnesota,” thinking that straight majoritarianism would be enough to move a legislative agenda. However, with divided government and a political system that balances majority rule and minority rights, this approach is a recipe for failure.

Monday, March 11, 2019

Trump v. Omar: The Psychology of Fear, Prejudice, and Ignorance in American Politics

The country I come from
Is called the Midwest
I was taught and brought up there
The laws to abide
And that land that I live in
Has God on its side

With God on Our Side
Bob Dylan

Fear, prejudice, and ignorance make people do stupid things.  They are the trinity combustant for hate and intolerance, used as a match to fame the flames of discrimination to label some as disloyal Americans who cannot be trusted and deserve to be denied respect and rights.  One lesson of US history is that  appeals to Un-Americanism have been leveraged both by those on the left and right who claim God is on their side or that their cause is correct, thereby invoking an “end that justify the means” logic to dissenters that is dangerous.
America is a beautiful nation, often filled with hope and promise of a better life for us and our children. Yet this country has an ugly side to it that we often forget and ignore.  We often cloak fear, prejudice, and ignorance in the flag and persecute minorities or those with whom we disagree as the cause of our insecurities.  If only others thought like me, dressed like me, shared my values, some promise, then we could root out witches, communists, disloyal Americans, homosexuals,  immigrants, and terrorists and make the country safe for the rest of us real loyal Americans.
It was fear, prejudice, and ignorance in 1692 Salem, Massachusetts, that led to the death of 24 accused of being witches.  Or over 125,000 Japanese-Americans forcefully interned during WW II.  Or to the McCarthyism and the blacklists of the 1950s. Or the beatings of civil rights protestors at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in 1965 or Stonewall Inn in 1969.  Or to all Muslims, Middle Easterners, and even Somalians seen as terrorists post 9/11.  Or to transgender individuals seeking to use the bathrooms of their choice as perverts.
There is something hardwired in American culture that celebrates fear, prejudice, and ignorance into virtues.  Perry Miller’s Errand into the Wilderness, dissecting the Puritan mind, captures the fear of the earliest white settlers to North America.  It was persecution that drove them from Europe, a desire to for a new “city on the hill” as John Winthrop would call for;  founded on Christian values, that led them to the new world.  But they confronted one with strange new people and customs, a world seen lurking with danger, and a fear that the devil and evil was waiting to corrupt their enterprise. 
It was a Manichean bipolar world of good and evil, God or the devil, grace or sin, and either you are part of the saved or part of the damned, with no middle ground.  Difference, the inexplicable, the other as existential philosopher John Paul Sartre once said, were to be feared.  For the Puritans, as told brilliantly by Arthur Miller in The Crucible, the other were witches.  Richard Hofstadter, both in The Paranoid Style in American Politics and Anti-Intellectualism in American Life, uncovered the distrust for facts, learning, and intellectualism and intellectuals.  From these Puritan origins, the us or them, loyal or disloyal, true American or Un-American ethos emerged.
But America’s story is one where each generation saw a different other as a threat, where  the new was scary, where relying on nativism, populism, and the fear of the masses justified intolerance.  The Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 aimed to silence critics of President Adams and the Federalist party, Anti-Irishism and Anti-Germanism fueled discrimination in the nineteenth century along with fear of the Chinese.  The No-Nothing Party of the 1840s, later renamed the American Party, feared Roman Catholics and immigrants.  Anti-syndicalism acts targeted labor unions and dissenters to WW I.  Sauerkraut during WW I and french fries after 9/11 became liberty cabbage and freedom fries in response to anti-German and French attitudes.  John Kennedy was feared disloyal as a Catholic, Barack Obama seen as Un-American because of his name and lies that he was Kenyan and, even worse, a Muslim.
The Scope Trial of 1925 in Dayton, Tennessee put  science on trial as some feared Darwin would defeat God.  The Smith Act of 1940 along with the House Un-American Activities Committee and Joseph McCarthy found communists to be threats, along with the interned Japanese-Americans during WW II.  The list unfortunately marches on–fear, prejudice, and ignorance have  left no group, cause, or idea unscathed.
Common sense wisdom is truth, what me and my friends know at the local bar or in my garage is the logic of truth.  We all live in the smug bubbles of our beliefs, convinced we, as Bob Dylan once mocked, “have God on our side” and therefore we must be correct.  Anything we do, even attacking others, is permitted as revealing the truth and virtue of our cause.
The point is that at critical points in American history fear, prejudice, and ignorance have  justified hate and intolerance.  And the same is happening now.  Donald Trump draws upon fear, prejudice, and ignorance on a daily basis to justify his policy agenda, with Fox News and Twitter serving as his microphone and his supporters cheering him on. White prejudice, privilege, intolerance, should not define orthodoxy. In fact, as Justice Robert Jackson powerfully declared in West Virginia v. Barnette,  319 U.S. 624 (1943) (a case about declaring Jehovah Witnesses as Un-American because they would not cite the Pledge of Allegiance): “If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein”.   The Jehovah Witnesses of 1943, the civil  rights protestor of 1950s, or the gay and lesbian at Stonewall in 1969 are the Colin Kaepernicks of today.
But as wrong as Trump is, so is Ilhan Omar.  Some will contend there is a false equivalency here, but it is hard to find how either Trump, Omar, or their supporters can claim the high moral ground here.  There are lots of good reasons to question US- Israel foreign policy and treatment of Palestinians, but labeling Jews  as Un-American is not the way to start and win a debate as some are now arguing.  “The end justifies the means, the words have gotten us to raise the right questions, so some say.”  But opening the door to fear, prejudice, and ignorance does no one any good.
Can one ever think of a time when appealing to them made us a better world, society, or individuals? Post 9/11, questioning the loyalty of Muslim or Somalian-Americans as Un-American was wrong.  Omar should know better that the weapons of hate directed at her and her family were wrong and do not justify her use of similar tactics.   Words matter, as  many say, and sticks and stones along with names may not just break our bones but hurt in other ways.  If one is going to take offense at words, then trying to understand how they effect others is  a first step in political debates. Turning the oppressed into the oppressor by stealing the weapons from former to be used by the later does not make it right.
The weapons and language of the oppressor are no more justified in the hand of the oppressed or the weak, and the rhetoric of hate from the right does not make it virtuous and correct when coming from the left.  It is just as wrong to label Omar as Un-American and scorn her with hate  as it is for her to do the same to others.  Fear, prejudice, and ignorance should have no place in American politics.  But the sad reality is that it has, and even worse, that it has been effective and defended but those from a variety of political perspectives who see in themselves justified in using the three to suit their goals.

Friday, March 1, 2019

The Minnesota Budget Surplus that Never Existed

Minnesota’s fiscal forecast released on February 28, 2019 indicated that it dropped from
approximately $1.5 billion in November 2018 to barely $1 billion now.  The result is that it has changed the politics of the 2019 legislative session.  The reality is that the news should not have changed anything, the surplus never really existed yet everyone at the Capitol has entertained this fiction for political purposes.

Minnesota’s biannual budget in part is premised on two fiscal forecasts for the state–November and February.  The state economist does her best job in projecting the future of the state economy and based on that, predicting tax revenues that will accrue to the State of Minnesota.  These predictions are really best-educated guesses, replete with many variables.  As the state economist repeatedly emphasizes, the state economy is more heavily dependent on national and international variables than many think, especially given how globalized the Minnesota economy is.  Trade policy, immigration, tariffs, worker shortages, consumer confidence, and a host of other factors impact estimates.  Additionally, ascertaining how these and other unforeseen factors in the future might play out all make the fiscal forecast and revenue (tax) estimates difficult.

One should treat the forecasts as having margins or errors built into them of several percent, or perhaps hundreds of millions or perhaps a couple of billions of dollars.  Yet legislators and the governor’s office treat them as real perfect numbers, which they should not.  They budget to the penny, it seems, based on these forecasts, which is hardly prudent because if the forecast changes even slightly, then so do revenue projections and, therefore, the state budget is off.  The problem is complicated even more if the state makes structural decisions or obligations.  That is, making longer term spending decisions as opposed to one time choices.  Structural decisions are permanent tax cuts or ongoing spending choices.

Last November when then forecast projected at $1.5 billion the State economist warned also that there were signs of a slowing economy.  In fact, her projections beyond this biannual  warned of potential looming problems.  But there was another problem too.  Back in 2002 when Roger Moe and Tim Pawlenty were running for governor and the state had a multi-billion dollar deficit, they and the legislature sold out the state and changed state law to codify a legal cooking of the books that persists to this day.  When making fiscal forecasts, inflation is counted  for the purposes of revenue but not for state obligations.

This rose-colored glasses gimmick inflates the state’s positive fiscal picture while glossing over the negative.  If back in November inflation were considered for both revenue and obligations, the $1.5 billion surplus would have dropped to $400 million, given an estimate of $1.1 billion in inflationary costs the state was facing simply if it did nothing more than enact the same budget as before.  A $400 million surplus in a nearly $50 billion budget is less than a 1% margin of error.  For those in business, a contingency of less than 1% in a budget is unwise–standard practices range closer to perhaps 5%.
The governor’s office and the legislators know or should know all this but act in denial.  Politically it makes sense to assume a more positive forecast so as to justify spending or tax cuts.  It is in the collective short-term interest of everyone to indulge the belief that there was a surplus this session when it fact it never really existed.  Thus, the news on February 28, should not have changed anything really.