Category: Civics

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What Next?

Dear Group,

As I write this on Thursday morning many Americans are poised to tune in to the re-started Kavanaugh hearings. Brett Kavanaugh, a nearly sainted figure in the eyes of both the corporate and the religious right, appears to have a sodden, hormone-fueled prep school and college past, a story a growing line of women are anxious to tell. Saint Kavanaugh, for his part, categorically denies that he ever once had an impure thought, modeling his denial on those of his apparent mentor, Donald Trump.

The Donald, proclaiming the wondrous success of his presidency to the General Assembly of the United Nations on Wednesday, was greeted with laughter. He followed up by thumbing his nose at our allies, praising dictators, and setting “patriotism” and nationalism as the primary ideals of the new Amerika, all this from a president who dodged military service himself. 

More on the home front in eastern Washington, Sue Lani Madsen, in a widely unread opinion piece in the Spokesman entitled “Longtime local accountant finds tax cuts will benefit middle class,” tries to convince us the middle class really is better off thanks to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Neither she nor the accountant whose convoluted calculations she quotes seem to understand the concept of inflation, nor do they wonder why it takes a tax accountant to convince us the 99% really are better off. 

Meanwhile, those benefiting from the other eighty percent of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act are doing very well. Becky Kramer in Thursday’s Spokesman writes, “Thirteen of Avista’s top executives will receive a combined $18 million in immediate payouts if the Spokane-based utility is sold to Hydro One Ltd., of Toronto.” No need for convoluted calculations there…

McMorris Rodgers, having already brought Devin Nunes and Kellyanne Conway to Spokane to rile up her base and raise funds, is apparently doubling down and planning to host none other than Vice President Pence next week at a private fundraiser. The location and time of day, and even the day of the week, seem to be a moving target. The September 21 Spokesman and many other media outlets reported Pence would appear in Spokane Tuesday, October 2. On September 26th another outlet, the “Spokane Patch” reported Pence’s appearance instead might be Wednesday, October 3. I wonder if Pence is delayed in Washington D.C. so he can add a deciding vote to the Kavanaugh confirmation. Clearly, most Republican Senators have cast off any pretense of an open mind regarding Kavanaugh’s accusers. After stiff arming Merrick Garland and changing the rules to confirm Neil Grouch, they’re certainly not going to let a little thing like some whiney women keep them from establishing corporate dominance on the Supreme Court.

On Wednesday this week at breakfast a friend, a Republican of the thoughtful sort, said, “It feels like the country is unraveling.” 

In the midst of all this news, all this swirl, all this angst, I knocked on doors this week and conversed with a number of registered voters and a few unregistered young people in the precincts around Shadle Library. When I asked the question, “Do you plan to vote in the November election?” I was a little stunned to hear from many, “No, I don’t think so.” Asked why, and listened to, the common thread was “Why bother, it won’t change anything…” I talked health care with twenty year old and helped him register to vote. I talked health care and income inequality and insecurity with a sixty something woman who was essentially in despair, saying she could no longer bear to watch the television. I told them of the desperation I feel that lead me to their door to plead with them to vote. In the end they assured me they would vote…and likely for Lisa Brown. 

Get out this weekend for your favorite candidate and knock on doors. I keep meeting volunteer like myself who have never before in their wildest moments imagined they would be doing this, but we need more people out there. You don’t need to know a bunch of policy positions. You come pre-armed with your sincerity and your personal endorsement. The people we need to convince to cast a ballot are often most impressed just by the fact that someone is at their doorstep, listening, and offering some hope.

Sign up to canvass with Lisa Brown and her campaign this afternoon, Saturday or Sunday at https://secure.ngpvan.com/p/oWPMsHe9j0-qY8t2EeeJnQ2 or call the DCCC office at (509) 954-9132 or stop by at 1507 E. Sprague if you’re in Spokane. If not, there are field offices scattered throughout eastern Washington. 

Go to MyVote.wa.gov check out your ballot for your local area, familiarize yourself with a local candidate and join their campaign. It is all good. Voting is essential, but just waiting until November 5th to figure out for whom you might vote (this year especially) is an abdication of civic responsibility.

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

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Lisa Brown on Democracy

Dear Group,

No doubt many of my subscribers read Lisa Brown’s column in the Sunday, September 2, Spokesman opinion page. Below, I present it again for two reasons:

1) For all that I try very hard to keep up with eastern Washington news I missed reading this column when it first appeared. After talking with dozens of voters at the doorsteps it is clear to me no piece of news, no one writing, no TV ad, no speech reaches everyone who should hear or see it. Young registered voters in particular likely do NOT read the paper. I reproduce Lisa’s writing here in the hope of increasing awareness.

2) Lisa’s topic, protecting democratic institutions, seems frighteningly more pertinent today, just three weeks later, than it did on September 2. Trump seems poised to stomp on Rod Rosenstein, bringing him one step closer to a direct assault on the Mueller investigation. In McMorris Rodgers we have an enthusiastic supporter of Trump’s policies, a supporter so excited to ram through the Republican/Libertarian agenda she is perfectly willing serve as an apologist for whatever Trump does.

Finally, I know Lisa well enough, I have conversed with her enough times, that I am confident these are Lisa’s actual words. (Having listened to, conversed with, and read much material attributed to her opponent, I greatly doubt McMorris Rodgers writes any original material at all.)

Here is Lisa’s column:

I’ll Protect Our Democratic Institutions

Sunday, September 2

My values and views on politics were influenced by growing up the oldest of five siblings in a small town in Illinois where the South meets the Midwest. I was raised Roman Catholic, which was a minority religion in our region.

There were no Catholic schools in Robinson, but nuns came in on Saturdays to teach catechism classes. When told I had to choose a saint’s name for confirmation, I read as many biographies of saints as I could before choosing Rose for “Santa Rosa,” who ministered to the poor in Peru. My Catholic upbringing remains a strong influence on my personal and political outlook to this day.

Like many families, mine had diverse political views. My father is a conservative Republican. My maternal grandfather was a labor union Democrat. Fortunately, they were both Navy veterans and their mutual interests in fishing, baseball, and making a better life for me and my brothers and sisters transcended their political differences.

My mother was a populist. I inherited from her and from my Catholic upbringing a focus on those left out and a skepticism regarding claims made by the powerful.

I experienced the civil rights movement and the Vietnam war in a white working-class small town surrounded by corn and soybean fields, and dominated by the two largest employers in town: an oil refinery and a candy bar factory.

A high school history teacher had a major influence on me. I wanted to understand why there were no black people in my hometown and why there were monuments to battles with Indians, but no indigenous people there anymore. He gave me books to read that put the civil rights movement in context and I came to be inspired by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and by Bobby Kennedy. Their deaths had a tremendous impact on me.

During high school, I watched the congressional Watergate hearings leading up to the resignation of President Richard Nixon on television, throughout the summer of 1974. I watched them with fascination whenever I wasn’t serving fried chicken, burgers, and milkshakes at “Mr. Drumstick.”

I couldn’t vote yet, but it impressed me that Congress had the power to hold the president accountable and that there were members of Nixon’s own political party who put the Constitution and laws of our country above their personal career interests and party loyalty. Others were quiet and complicit. Yet, the system worked because our leaders stood up for our values and principles, and chose our country over their party.

I believe we face a situation today that could be even more serious than Watergate. But are there enough members of the majority party who will stand up to the president, as many of Nixon’s party did then?

As a member of Congress, my commitment would be to the Constitution and laws of the United States over either political party. At times, that means demanding accountability from our leaders when they violate or undermine our country’s laws. I believe the Trump administration’s separation of families at the southern border was a travesty of justice for some families seeking asylum here and likely involved serious violations of our laws. I fault Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers and Republican leaders for not allowing congressional hearings to get to the bottom of what occurred and for not taking decisive action to secure justice for families still suffering.

Congress’ constitutional power and duty to check the administration’s actions cannot be undertaken lightly, which is why I cannot yet answer the often-asked question of whether I would vote to impeach the president. We have all seen plenty of smoke, but we won’t know if there’s fire until we evaluate carefully and fully the evidence from the conclusion of the Mueller investigation.

The investigation should be allowed to proceed without interference. I strongly disagree with Rep. McMorris Rodgers, who refuses to rule out impeaching Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and who says her confidence needs to be restored in our country’s Department of Justice and FBI.

She also declines to offer an opinion on the possible pardon of Paul Manafort, the president’s former campaign manager, convicted of various crimes and soon to stand trial on yet more. I do not believe he should be pardoned.

Regardless of who knew what and when, or what its ultimate effects, we know that Russia interfered significantly in our 2016 national elections. Given this consensus, congressional inaction to prevent future interference in our elections is simply unconscionable.

As a member of Congress, among my highest priorities would be reforms that strengthen the transparency of our campaign finance system and secure the integrity of our elections and democratic institutions. Our democratic system transcends partisanship and demands nothing less than our best efforts to protect and sustain it.

I dread to consider what the rest of this week will bring, between the Kavanaugh hearings and Trump’s threat to fire Rosenstein. McMorris Rodgers will not speak out. She will adopt Trump’s excuse for firing the Deputy Attorney General: the allegation Rosenstein once uttered words to suggest disloyalty to Der Fuhrer. Never mind the New York Times article cites anonymous sources from within the administration, Rosenstein has denied the allegations, and, considering the context of the time (Comey’s firing and Trump’s using Rosenstein as an excuse), any reasonable person should have considered the 25th Amendment. 

If Rosenstein is fired all of McMorris Rodgers’ lip service about “letting Mueller do his job” and “due process” will sound very hollow. Will she have the spine to defend democratic checks and balances by engaging in Congressional action or will she continue as a loyal lieutenant of the Republican/Libertarian revolution? We have a hint from her private Spokane Club fundraiser with Devin Nunes on July 30, where Nunes argues that impeaching Rosenstein has to wait until after Kavanaugh is seated. (Read my analysis of that meeting here.)

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry
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CMR and Kavanaugh

After I wrote this missive, Dr. Blasey Ford tentatively agreed to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee this week. We would do well to remember the details of what Anita Hill was put through in 1991 as we listen to the grilling by men who, by their own words, have already made up their minds, who view this hearing as barely necessary window-dressing to approving the nominee. 

Dear Group,

Republican disappointment, even anger, at Dr. Christin Blasey Ford for coming forward now against the appointment of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court is understandable. Kavanaugh’s appointment would be the culmination of decades of ground work by corporate interests ignited, according to some, by reaction to Ralph Nader’s 1960s consumer advocacy. [See Powell Memorandum]  To have those decades of effort thwarted now, with victory in sight, must be frustrating, even more so since the problem arises from a woman. After all, Mitch McConnell and the Senate Republicans have cast aside both precedent and decency by stiff-arming Merrick Garland and then tossing out the traditional sixty vote majority requirement to confirm a Supreme Court nominee. Both were desperate acts, but they were just the prelude to the main goal: obtaining a Supreme Court majority that favors the oligarchy oner the individual.

Now they face a conundrum: Rush the nomination to the floor, vote, grab the goal…and reap a backlash against a Supreme Court majority deemed illegitimate or slow down the process perhaps for weeks to properly gather evidence and avoid a repeat of nasty male Senators attacking a female accuser, a woman up to now without the time, resources, and preparation the Republicans have amassed behind Kavanaugh? 

Then last Saturday morning the daughter of Ronald Reagan, Patti Davis, weighed in on the side of Dr. Ford and for deliberate process by recounting her rape by a prominent music executive. It came out in an article entitled “Why I don’t recall all the details of my sexual assault.” The article recounts the rape and her subsequent silence and confusion. Davis’ story was widely covered, including the New York Times and published in the Spokesman and the Washington Post, probably among others.

So where do Lisa Brown and McMorris Rodgers stand on all of this? We have some clues from last Wednesday’s debate:

Moderator: What should be the next steps on Capitol Hill in this [Kavanaugh’s] nomination process?

Dr. Brown: Well, certainly there needs to be a full investigation of the allegation. And the woman who has come forward needs, deserves to have an investigation done in an independent way and be heard. And the rush to judgement…confirm as quickly as possible…is not the right thing for a lifetime appointment and it runs over the rights of women just like what happened in 1991 when Anita Hill came forward with her allegations. That inspired a whole generation of women to run for office. I ran for office in 1992 and I predict that woman in the United States want this to be thoroughly investigated without a quick confirmation.

CMR: Well we’re working through the process. I think it’s important that we give every woman an opportunity to be heard. I think that that’s very important. In my understanding the Senate has scheduled a hearing for Monday where both Kavanaugh and the accuser will be in front of the Senate and given a chance to be heard and to answer questions and I just think we need to continue to allow this process to play out.

“In my understanding.” Could McMorris Rodgers be more disingenuous? She holds the fourth most powerful post in the Republican hierarchy. She knows exactly what the stakes are. She knows all the players and all the corporate donors. She has pushed for a Republican/Libertarian majority on the Supreme Court for years. Does she really imagine Dr. Ford could get a fair hearing today in front of a bunch of frustrated old white male Republican Senators bent on getting Kavanaugh seated?

The next day McMorris Rodgers’ “positive disruptor,” Mr. Trump, came out on Twitter:

I have no doubt that, if the attack on Dr. Ford was as bad as she says, charges would have been immediately filed with local Law Enforcement Authorities by either her or her loving parents,” the president tweeted.

How can McMorris Rodgers support a man capable of such a statement? Does she really not understand the gross unfairness of the process McConnell and Grassley are offering? Does she not remember the Anita Hill grilling? (Perhaps she missed it. She was fresh out of the Pensacola Christian College and working in the office of a staunch Republican state legislator at the time. Has McMorris Rodgers ever been exposed to the degrading details of those hearings?)

I copy below an article (with good links to the information quoted) that I found useful in putting this controversy in context. You can see it and a lot more at Popular Info written by Judd Legum. It provides a detailed comparison of the power dynamics in 1991 and the Republican efforts to use the same power against Dr. Ford. 

At the debate on Wednesday Lisa Brown got the right answer. McMorris Rodgers tried to distance herself from a process she supports and with which she is intimately involved. Don’t let her get away with it. There is no reason not to use more time to have a full and fair hearing. Demanding Dr. Ford’s appearance today (or anytime in the next couple weeks before a thorough investigation can be conducted) is a male Republican power play with the tacit approval of “our” Representative.

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

 

The Anita Hill playbook

The Senate Judiciary Committee scheduled a hearing next Monday with Dr. Christine Ford, the woman who says that she was sexually assaulted by Brett Kavanaugh, and did before speaking with her. Ford, through a lawyer, responded that she wanted to cooperate with the committee but requested that the FBI conduct an investigation of her allegation first, which is the process the committee used for Anita Hill in 1991.

In a letter to Ford’s lawyer sent Wednesday afternoon, Grassley refused and said he planned on proceeding with the hearing on Monday. 

What’s the rush? First, Republicans are desperate to confirm Kavanaugh before the midterm election. To save time, they dispensed with the normal process for gathering records, which is run by the nonpartisan National Archives, and delegated the task to an old friend of Kavanaugh, Bill Burck. 

But there is another reason that Republicans are insisting Ford testify in just four days: They are seeking to maximize Kavanaugh’s advantage over Ford in a public hearing. 

Kavanaugh has the full resources of the White House, the Republican Party and a phalanx of outside groups to prepare him for the hearing and reinforce his message. The White House counsel, communications director, and press secretary have reportedly been grilling Kavanaugh for hours to prepare him.

White House officials engaged in a two-hour practice session, known as a murder board, in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building with Kavanaugh, where he answered questions on his past, his partying, his dating and the accuser’s account. Participants included McGahn, deputy chief of staff Bill Shine, press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Raj Shah, who is leading communications. 

Ford, up until a few days ago, was not a public figure. She has no entourage of political professionals to prepare her for a public cross-examination by 11 Republican men. In recent days, she has been subjected to death threats, forced out of her home and into hiding. 

Republicans want to pressure her to testify as soon as possible — before she can reasonably be expected to prepare and before more facts emerge that could bolster her account. 

They know this works because that’s exactly what they did with Anita Hill. And that’s not the only tactic Republicans are dusting off from 1991. 

The time pressure

In 1991, Republicans and Democrats agreed that hearings were necessary to consider Anita Hill’s allegations. Some Democrats advocated for a few weeks to investigate and prepare for the hearing. 

But the Republicans pushed for an immediate hearing — and their position prevailed. There was a break of just two days between the decision to hold a hearing and the hearing itself. Jane Mayer and Jill Abramson explain how it went down in their 1994 book, Strange Justice: The Selling of Clarence Thomas:

…Republicans wanted to get the new hearings over with immediately. “The idea,” [Republican Senator John] Danforth later conceded, “was to have them begin as quickly as possible and to last as briefly as possible.”

Appealing to [Democratic Senator Joe] Biden’s constant desire to seem evenhanded, Danforth and [Republican Senator Bob] Dole argued that fairness dictated speed. Biden initially wanted an interval of two weeks, but now he agreed to constraints that all but sealed Hill’s fate. The new hearings would begin that Friday, October 11…

There would thus be only two days to investigate Hill’s charge, find and interview other witnesses, and prepare for the new hearings, which would run through the weekend if necessary. If time ran out before important allegations were explored or witnesses heard, nothing could be done. “The schedule,” commented another Democratic senator, “was insanity.”

The decision, Mayer and Abramson write, sealed the power dynamics:

Three days before the hearings were to open, Thomas had the full weight of the White House and Senate Republicans behind him. But Hill was about to travel to Washington as an outsider with no connections, an ordinary citizen with strengths and weaknesses, pressured against her own instincts into challenging the most powerful institutions in American society largely by herself. 

Today, Republicans are seeking to put Ford in the same position. They demanded Ford commit to a hearing just two days after she first made her story public.

Unlike Ford, Anita Hill at least had the benefit of an FBI investigation into her allegations.

In his letter to Ford, Grassley not only rejected her call for a delay but moved the timeline up further. He said that, if Ford wished to appear, she would need to submit a prepared statement and biography by Friday at 10 AM.

The insane woman

Before the hearings began in 1991, allies of Thomas sought to portray Hill as mentally unstable. Mayer and Abramson tell the tale:

Armstrong Williams, an equally loyal member of Thomas’s circle, pitched in too, pronouncing Hill virtually mentally unstable with respect to Thomas. As he put it in an interview with the Wall Street Journal for a story that ran the day the hearings opened, “There is a thin line between her sanity and insanity.” Later, in another interview, he said, referring to Hill, “Sister has emotional problems.”

On Tuesday, Joe DiGenova, a lawyer with close ties to the White House who reguarly consults with the president, declared Ford a “loon.”

She really doesn’t want to testify. Because when she does, she’s going to look like the loon that she is. She may very well believe everything she’s saying, and that is one of the signs of lunacy, believing something that isn’t real.

Grassley offered a slightly toned down version of DiGenova’s attack, saying he didn’t “doubt that [Ford] believes what she says.” Left unsaid is that Grassley believes she might be delusional.

The polygraph

Grassley’s suggestion that Ford is imagining has another benefit: It explains how she passed a polygraph test. 

This was the same tack taken against Hill, who also passed a polygraph exam. 

Hill might not be a standard liar, as they had earlier implied, but, the Republicans now suggested in the open hearing room, she might be so delusional she believed her own lies. If so, she could pass a polygraph test and still be wrong about Thomas.

The political pawn

Republicans have sought to portray Ford as doing the political bidding of Democrats. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), for example, claimed Ford was requesting an FBI investigation only to delay a vote on Kavanaugh until after the midterm elections.

 

Lindsey Graham@LindseyGrahamSC

Requiring an FBI investigation of a 36 year old allegation (without specific references to time or location) before Professor Ford will appear before the Judiciary Committee is not about finding the truth, but delaying the process till after the midterm elections.

September 19, 2018

A similar effort was made against Hill. During the hearing, Senator Hank Brown (R-CO), sought to portray Hill as a “radical, pro-choice feminist” who was attacking Thomas because “he was now in a position to threaten the Roeruling.”

 

The objective then, as it is now, is to establish a motive for the woman to lie.

What Anita Hill says now

In an interview on Wednesday evening with PBS Newshour, Hill urged that the hearing be delayed to make time for a professional investigation of Ford’s allegations.

When you get a professional involved, they will know the questions to ask, they will know the places to go, they will know the people to call on as witnesses to complete what is a thorough investigation.

So there — there’s a lot more than we can learn. I think, so often, we get — fall into this trap saying, oh, this is a he said/she said situation. And that rarely is the case. There is very often — and most often, I would say — ways that testimony can be corroborated, either through other individuals or other circumstances that are similar.

“[W]e have senators who are deciding about who is going to sit on the highest court, but they can’t really put partisanship aside long enough to put together a fair hearing to get to the truth about this situation,” Hill concluded. 

Maybe, 27 years later, it’s time to start listening to Anita Hill?

The latest from Ford

In a statement released Wednesday evening, Ford’s attorney, Lisa Banks, renewed her request for a delay and a full investigation but suggested that Ford might appear if all relevant witnesses were included: 

[T]he Committee’s stated plan to move forward with a hearing that has only two witnesses is not a fair or good faith investigation; there are multiple witnesses whose names have appeared publicly and should be included in any proceeding.

(For more on other potential witnesses see yesterday’s Popular Information.)

Thanks for reading! Please send your feedback and hate mail to judd@popular.info.

Popular Information comes out Monday through Thursday and will return on Monday, September 24.
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The Debate. Were Minds Changed?

Dear Group,

Last evening the first of four scheduled debates was held. The first hour was broadcast live from the Bing theater on KHQ. For another half hour after the broadcast the candidates took questions from among those video recorded a little earlier. The theater was packed. I venture there were very few in attendance whose mind wasn’t already made up, and fewer still whose minds were changed. Some who watched on television were perhaps less partisan.

Both candidates acquitted themselves well with no memorable stumbles. 

This debate and the three that will follow are important, but do not make the mistake of thinking the applause heard tonight is indicative. This election will be won by convincing Democratic voters who don’t usually vote in the midterms to cast ballots this November. That will take knocking on doors and phone banking.

Come on out with Indivisible this Sunday or Monday (see details above) or connect with the canvassing links in the Calendar section below. There are door knocking events every day until November 6. Don’t wake up on the 7th wondering if you could have done more…

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

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The Blizzard and How to Fight It

Dear Group,

I have made a concerted effort to pay attention to the news in eastern Washington and, to a lesser degree, national and international news, especially over the last two years. 

The stream of information is like a blizzard. Without a conscious and concerted effort one’s opinions may be formed by snippets from the haphazard media encounters. As the blizzard blows by, certain snippets catch and stick, some by chance, some because of each potential recipient’s momentary mindset, some because the snippet is particularly dramatic, horrifying, or poignant. 

There are two examples from this week. My canvassing partner and I on Monday encountered a woman and her daughter who had grasped a snippet of intentional misinformation, that Lisa Brown “didn’t want sex offenders to be registered.” As is often the case, she couldn’t quite remember where she had heard this factoid, although it pretty clearly floated out of the television from the “predator” commercial McMorris Rodgers authorized and paid for. It stuck with this recipient in particular because someone in her family had been abused. Propagandists understand this.

This week’s Republican media burst around Lisa Brown’s thirty year old dissertation is based on a different principle, buzzwords. “Communism, socialism, anarchy” blare from the titles. Never mind those words have nothing to do with the dissertation. The intent is to shock, to associate the reader’s ingrained negative images around these words with the persona of the candidate. The propagandist counts on the receptivity of the reader and the conviction the reader will not have the interest, time, or energy to actually examine the evidence. After all, “it’s in the newspaper, it must be true.” Do you remember “swiftboating,” the well-funded Republican lies that helped sink John Kerry’s campaign for President in 2004? Same method.

In this media blizzard, whether a person votes at all and for whom they vote if they do is often determined by the last snippet heard…or by a general disgust with the whole perplexing blizzard of contradictory evidence that induces paralysis. 

The people who will determine the result of the election on November 6, just fifty-four days from now, are likely not the people who will watch the debate next Wednesday. Overwhelmingly, those folks have already made up their minds. The people who will make the difference are the folks I meet every time I go door knocking, people who admit they “don’t follow politics,” people who, like the woman and her daughter, who would vote but are stuck on one nasty, inaccurate snippet of information, people who are disgusted with the current state of affairs who just need a friendly person to make the effort, knock on their door, smile, listen, and encourage. Humans are built to respond to face-to-face encounters. The election can be won if enough of us get out and make those encounters. Make a difference. It is too depressing to just stay home, read, and watch the pundits on TV try to convince us they know what will happen. They don’t know.

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

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The Dissertation v. CMR

Dear Group,

Lisa Brown earned a Bachelor of Arts in sociology and economics from the University of Illinois in 1978 at the age of twenty-two, and a Masters in economics from the University of Colorado in 1981. In 1986, at the age of thirty, Lisa Brown submitted her doctoral dissertation “in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy” in the Department of Economics at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Submitting a doctoral dissertation is a remarkable achievement. Writing one requires months of preparative reading, critical thought, organization, and consideration of the chosen topic from all angles. Once written and submitted the doctoral candidate must demonstrate a command of the topic in an oral “defense,” a exercise in thinking on one’s feet. A dissertation grows out of years of academic preparation. 

Lisa Brown’s dissertation is entitled “Science and Ideology: Neoclassical Economics and Women’s Labor Supply.” It is one hundred and seventy-three typewritten pages long followed by twelve pages of bibliography. It is not easy reading for someone not immersed in the study of economics, but the gist is clear after a little study. Brown lays out the underlying gender assumptions (ideology) of “neoclassical economics” and presents a reasoned critique of those assumptions in light of gender work roles. The dissertation shines some light on where then current economic models might fall short on account of the unconsciously embedded point of view of economists who constructed the models.

I know too little about the state of economic modeling today, thirty years later, to know if Lisa Brown’s dissertation is often cited in the economics literature. An internet search for the title yields only one hit, a pair of apparent Spokanites discussing it briefly on Reddit in the context of the current election. Like many theses and dissertations, Lisa Brown’s work serves largely as a demonstration of the intelligence and diligence necessary to deeply understand a topic, analyze it, and draw reasoned conclusions, certainly the sort of ability I want my Representative to possess.  

Kip Hill wrote an article for the Spokesman on September 6 entitled (in the on line version), “Lisa Brown thesis from 1986 prompts new GOP attacks.” In it, Mr. Hill links to an article in the Washington Examiner (a right-leaning mostly internet newspaper in D.C.) entitled, “Democrat running against Cathy McMorris Rodgers inspired by socialists, communists, anarchists.” The article posts the dissertation in its entirety (apparently disregarding fact it has a copyright, but never mind…)  I doubt the Washington Examiner writer, Katelyn Caralle, (previously associated with the Heritage Foundations and the Washington Free Beacon) bothered to read the dissertation and she certainly did not expect anyone else would either. The best condemnation she could come up with was based on one sentence in the acknowledgements that mentions inspiration from (among others) two women activists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn and Emma Goldman, both feminist thinkers with lengthy bibliographies, both of whom were dead before Lisa Brown was ten years old. Caralle’s breathless piece cherrypicks the juiciest bits of the lives of these two woman to come up with the smear buzzwords, “socialists, communists, anarchists.” For any thinking person this should be a stretch too far.

I want a Representative who is intelligent, reads voraciously, listens, and is able to command detailed material. Lisa Brown’s thesis, written more than thirty years ago, (as well as all her subsequent legislative work) well demonstrates those abilities. 

Where are the writings actually authored by McMorris Rodgers? What is her command of economics beyond her thin talking points? What is her intellectual depth? There are clues in statements on climate change and healthcare economics,

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

P.S. A very similar story to the one that appeared in the Washington Examiner appeared Thursday, September 12 in the Washington Free Beacon another right biased conservative website with the title “Dem Congressional Candidate Repeated Her Admiration for Radical Labor Leader in 2017.” No surprise there, considering the link with the other author and the conservative media ecosystem. Expect to hear more of this from their echo chamber.

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Why We Canvass

Dear Group,

The General Election that closes this November 6 will not be a cakewalk. There will be no landslide. Every vote will count. The stakes are high. 

Monday evening my canvassing partner and I were out knocking on doors for Lisa Brown on the north side as part of the wholly volunteer effort put together by one of the Indivisible groups (the one whose canvasses are often advertised in the text box above this message). I had just left a flyer at a door. We were standing on the sidewalk in front of the same home checking our papers when a woman in her forties and her twenty-something daughter turned their car into the driveway, parked, and got out. We smiled and waved, sporting our stickers, name-tags, and clipboards. Seizing the opportunity, my partner asked, “May we have a few minutes of your time?” The woman smiled back but waved us off, indicating she was in a hurry to get inside. We smiled back and slowly walked on. 

We were one house away when the same woman, with her daughter in tow, came across her lawn, hailing us, “If you have a minute, I do have a question…”

We stopped and smiled, “Sure, what is it?

“Is Lisa against registering sex offenders?” she asked. “We heard she is and if that’s true we can’t vote for her. You know, fifty percent of woman are abused some time in their lives…”

We quietly assured her that was misinformation, actually a lie, probably fostered by the nasty attack ad McMorris Rodgers had sponsored about a month ago. I recounted the letter signed by hundreds of health professional professionals published in the Spokesman denouncing that ad and calling on McMorris Rodgers to retract it. 

“I’m really glad to hear that,” she said. “We don’t like what McMorris Rodgers is doing, but we just couldn’t vote for someone who was against registering sex offenders.” 

We didn’t think to ask, but I’m willing to bet these two women did not vote in the Primary. I’m pretty sure they will vote for Lisa in November, all because we had a pleasant face-to-face conversation with them on the sidewalk. The same evening we had meaningful conversations with people who had just moved to town and didn’t know exactly how to change their voting address, people whom we helped register to vote, and people who started out saying they mostly “don’t follow politics” who sounded moderately inspired to vote after our conversation. 

I have written letters and talked with friends, but I have never knocked on doors for any candidate or any initiative before November 2016. Although by now I have gone out many times I still have to push myself to get started…and every time it is a rewarding experience, in part because of the contacts themselves and in part because of social interaction with and the enthusiasm of the other canvassers. 

The General Election this fall could be the most consequential election of my lifetime. The future of our democracy hangs in a balance to be swayed by all the little actions of all the people of good will knocking on doors and talking with other people all over the country in the next fifty-six days. 

It is time to come out and make good on that check mark you made months ago that indicated your willingness to volunteer. All it requires is your time, a little gumption, your smile, and your sincerity…and it’s fun, interesting, and educational. 

This Saturday, September 15th come on down to Riverside Place, 1110 W Riverside Ave,, (the old Masonic Temple) at 11:30 to 12 for pizza, 12-1:15 Campaign Update, Motivation and Persuasion Training, meet Lisa, and then go out door knocking with a partner! The time is now. You can do this!

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry