Today’s Edition, May 25, 2021

Crossing the line.

          There is apparently no line that GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene can cross that would be too far for Republican leadership. Last week, she compared a mandate to wear masks on the House floor to Jews being forced to wear gold stars in Nazi Germany. Greene said,

          You know, we can look back in a time in history where people were told to wear a gold star and they were definitely treated like second-class citizens — so much so that they were put in trains and taken to gas chambers in Nazi Germany, and this is exactly the type of abuse that Nancy Pelosi is talking about.

          Greene’s comparison of a public health measure to a symbol used to mark Jews for persecution was ignorant, offensive, and dangerous. The Holocaust was a genocide motivated by vile conspiracy theories and grotesque lies. The mask mandate is intended to protect the elderly and vulnerable from a virus that has killed nearly 600,000 Americans. Her comments trivialize the deaths of six million Jews and the suffering of millions more, including survivors and their families. But Republican leadership remains silent. See MSNBC, “With Holocaust rhetoric, Greene creates new test for McCarthy.”

          McCarthy will do nothing to censure Greene because she is a Trump acolyte. Punishing Greene would be an affront to Trump—which is a line that McCarthy will not cross (again). Her offensive comments coincide with a sudden increase in hate crimes directed at members of the Jewish faith in America. See Dean Obeidallah op-ed at CNN, “Marjorie Taylor Greene's Holocaust comments aren't just vile. They're dangerous.” As Obeidallah notes, Greene has promoted bizarre, anti-Semitic theories in the past (speculating whether George Soros used space lasers to start California wildfires). She claims to be curious about QAnon, a mashup of conspiracy theories that retreads anti-Semitic lies that have been used to justify the persecution of Jews for centuries. McCarthy’s silence is a tacit acknowledgment that anti-Semitism and white nationalism have a home in the Republican Party.

          Greene’s comments are also dangerous because they undermine a public health measure designed to protect members of the House. Yes, the pandemic is easing in America—due in part to the use of masks while the nation awaited a vaccine. Comparing masks to a symbol used to mark potential victims of genocide will only serve to undermine public confidence in masks when the next pandemic strikes. Marjorie Taylor Greene is a danger to American democracy and public health. Kevin McCarthy’s refusal to punish her abhorrent comments is simply the latest step in the moral bankruptcy of the Republican Party.

Joe Biden, Joe Manchin, and the infrastructure bill.

          Several readers commented after yesterday’s newsletter that I failed to give Biden sufficient credit for his negotiating strategy with Republicans. As one reader put it, “Joe Biden’s counter-offer has an audience of one—Joe Manchin.” The Palmer Report agrees with the reader’s assessment. See The Palmer Report, “We told you this was the game Joe Manchin was playing.” Bill Palmer sees Manchin as a pragmatist who wants to “have an excuse” to “act shocked and outraged” at Republicans who have “left him no choice” but to help Biden pass the infrastructure bill. In the end, Palmer sees Manchin’s “bipartisanship” mantra as a strategy to get reelected, nothing more. Bill Palmer and the reader have more faith in Joe Manchin than I do. I hope they are right. If Biden is negotiating to give Joe Manchin political cover, that may be a reasonable strategy—up to a point. The “point” should be this Friday. See CNN, “Infrastructure deal: Bipartisan talks on the brink of crumbling days before deadline.”

          Another reader prompted me to go back and read the White House Fact Sheet that summarizes the infrastructure bill—known as the “American Jobs Plan.” It is a worthwhile exercise to review the breadth and ambition of the infrastructure plan. See WhiteHouse.gov, “The American Jobs Plan.” Joe Biden swung for the fences on the Covid relief bill; he is doing the same with the infrastructure bill. Let’s hope that Senator Manchin does not end up carrying water for the Republicans.

Belarus resorts to air piracy.

          Aleksandr G. Lukashenko, the authoritarian President of Belarus, ordered a MIG jet to force a civilian airliner operated by Ryanair to land a Minsk, Belarus, rather than its intended destination in Lithuania. After the airliner was forcefully diverted to Minsk, members of the Belarus K.G.B. arrested Roman Protasevich, “a prominent Belarusian opposition journalist who had been living in exile since 2019.” See NYTimes, “Belarus Is Isolated as Other Countries Move to Ban Flights.” Belarus then posted a 30-second hostage-style video of Protasevich in which he said that he was providing a “confession” of “organizing mass unrest in the city of Minsk.”

          The incident amounted to the state-sponsored hijacking of a commercial airliner and terrorist kidnapping of Protasevich, who said that he faces the death penalty in Belarus. It is difficult to overstate the violation of international law in the incident. The EU reacted harshly by “effectively severing the country’s direct air connections to Western Europe” by prohibiting Belarus from flying over EU airspace. Joe Biden said the actions of Belarus were “shameful assaults on both political dissent and the freedom of the press” and “a direct affront to international norms.”

          There are two reasons Lukashenko felt emboldened to engage in the state-sponsored hijacking. First, Lukashenko is supported by Putin, who is an even bigger thug than Lukashenko. Second, Lukashenko has learned that the international community reacts quickly but then forgets easily when despots terrorize and murder their opponents. Remember that time when intelligence communities concluded that Mohammed bin Salman directed the assassination and dismemberment of US-resident journalist Jamal Khashoggi? Major Wall Street firms don’t remember; they showed up in force at MBS’s annual investment conference in Riyadh only two years after Khashoggi’s murder.

          From Lukashenko’s viewpoint, a similarly short-lived suspension from the global elite hardly seems like a strong deterrent. Dictators violate international norms because the global community looks the other way or forgets too soon. Let’s hope that this case proves to be the exception, and that Lukashenko is held to account.

DOJ will appeal order requiring disclosure of memo to Bill Barr regarding prosecution of Trump.

Judge Amy Berman Jackson ordered the release of the memo that Bill Barr allegedly relied on in making his decision not to prosecute Trump for obstruction of justice. Judge Jackson gave the DOJ ten days to appeal the decision. On Monday, the DOJ released procedural portions of the memo, but appealed Judge Jackson’s order that the entire memo be released. See The Hill, “Biden DOJ to appeal court order to release Trump obstruction memo.”

          The decision by Merrick Garland is both disappointing and heartening. It is disappointing because Garland’s decision means that the American public will again be denied the full truth about the actions of Bill Barr and Donald Trump. It is heartening because Garland acted on principle rather than politics—which honors the best traditions of the DOJ. I would have made a different judgment. The case at hand is not one in which litigants are attempting to second-guess decisions made during internal discussions. It involves the question of whether a president attempted to obstruct justice. That is a sufficiently narrow exception to the general rule such that Merrick Garland could have released the full memo without damaging the confidentiality of future policy discussions.

Concluding Thoughts.

   Several media outlets have focused on the fact that election conspiracy theorists are running for the office of Secretary of State in at least four states. See Politico, “They tried to overturn the 2020 election. Now they want to run the next one.” Several readers sent copies of the Politico article, as well as various other articles that trace back to the original Politico report. The Politico article reports the facts in a neutral way without alarmism. As noted by one source interviewed in the article, Secretaries of State tend to have ministerial roles. As such, they pose a “symbolic risk,” not a “functional risk” to the integrity of elections. Georgia is a good example. Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger will be challenged by a Trump supporter of the Big Lie. But the Georgia legislature just stripped the Secretary of State of the little authority that he/she had in deciding contested election issues. See HuffPo, “Georgia Voting Law Punished Secretary Of State For Defying Trump: Election Official.”

          So, before we start assuming disaster, we should (a) do our best to defeat the Trump-supporting candidates for Secretary of State, (b) show up at the polls in such overwhelming numbers that no individual has the ability to distort the results, and (c) fight like hell in court if they try to do so. The trend of “election truthers” running for office is worrisome, I grant you that. But it is a long way from a few conspiracy theorists running for office to a stolen election. Let’s keep our fears in check and focus on the task at hand: Turnout. The rest is detail.

          Talk to you tomorrow!