Jeremiah of the 21st Century

In the United States of America, there is no reward for being right- and apparently, no penalty for being wrong.
I know. Because I've been right on some of the biggest issues of the day- the War In Iraq (before it started and after the hot war wrapped up in April of 2003); on Barack Obama's unique opportunity in January of 2009 and what would happen if he squandered it; and, most recently (and this story hasn't been fully realized yet, but the end result is inevitable), on the impeachment of Donald John Trump.

Don't believe me? Read on:

IRAQ: 2002-2009

When my son was part of the original Marine division which invaded Iraq on March 20, 2003 (he was a staff sergeant), this is what I wrote a month later in an e-mail to the family members of my son's unit:

April 19, 2003, e-mail to one of the family members of a Marine in my son’s unit:

“Why the UN should take over is simple- whether or not they do a better job, the perception among the people in the region will be hugely different regarding a UN sponsored trusteeship of the country. It simply is in our national interest to have a respected international organization take over the rebuilding of Iraq. The sooner American and British soldiers are out of there, the less likely that terrorists or suicide bombers will attack our loved ones there or here. And a quick exit will defeat the absurd arguments that we are a colonialist country seeking to exploit Iraq's oil.”

Of course, I was right. I predicted suicide bombers long before the insurgency ever got started, before the first IED or suicide bomb exploded in Iraq. In the Fall of 2002, before the elections here, when Bush sought an authorization to use force in Iraq, when Democrats- and Tom Daschle- controlled the Senate- I knew that there were no weapons of mass destruction before the invasion, and I knew the lies that were a pretext for the invasion. I knew without a shadow of a doubt that every Democrat- Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, John Edwards- in the Senate who voted for war was doing so becuase she or he foresaw a presidential run in 2004 and did not want to look weak, not because any of them thought that Iraq and Hussein was any possible danger to the U.S.

I had no expertise, no special knowledge. Just a general knowledge of history, and I kept up on current events. Was that because I was some precocious, precognizant, genius? Nope. I just paid attention to what was publicly reported. And I knew history. Before the war started I knew that we had no fly zones over southern and northern Iraq and thousands of troops poised in southern Turkey and in Kuwait on Iraq's borders. With a hostile nation to the east in Iran with which it had fought an eight year long war in the 1980's when Saddam Hussein tried- and failed- to invade southern Iran and seize its oil fields on the Persian Gulf. I knew that if there was any country in the world that was not a military threat to the U.S., it was Iraq. I also knew that Iraq was secular- not religious. That men were clean shaven, women could appear in public without modest dress, that alcohol was openly sold, that women held positions in the Iraqi government. In short, that it had nothing to do with the religious extremists of Al Qaida and nothing to do with the 9-11-01 attacks, something that the Bush Administration tried to conflate with a possible Iraq threat to the U.S. in the buildup to the invasion. (Some members of my son's Marine Corps unit apparently mistakenly thought that Iraq had something to do with the 9-11 attacks and that this invasion was "payback.")

Also, after the brief two months it took for us to invade, depose Hussein, and take over the country, I had just paid attention to and studied history over the centuries and knew what a local populace would start to think of the "liberators" once they outwore their welcome. So instead of getting out quickly and having U.N. troops come in to keep the peace, over the ensuing years, as the local population grew to resent us, after we had dismantled the Iraqi army and left a vacuum that was filled by Al Qaida and other insurgents, we had thousands of Americans dying (almost 5,000), and tens of thousands wounded, many with traumatic brain injuries from improvised explosive devices (IED's) and suicide bombers. I was right- and the result of the powers that be being dead wrong- tragically wrong, caused thousands of unnecessary deaths and tens of thousands injured. (Donald Rumsfeld famously called the insurgents "a few dead enders" and Dick Cheney said- in 2005- that the insurgency was "in its last throes." How wrong they were.)

BARACK OBAMA: 2009-2017

Six years later: In 2009, shortly after Barack Obama had been inaugurated after he managed to hugely outraise his opponent, John McCain, in the 2008 election, to the point that he refused Federal matching funds, I wrote that this was the time to introduce legislation in Congress- in which Democrats controlled the House and had a 59 vote presence in the Senate- to require public financing of all federal elections and to prohibit all private contributions or solicitations of contributions:

Here is what I wrote on January 17, 2009 (it's on my blog, BuildaBetterMousetrap.Blogspot.com) https://buildabettermousetrap.blogspot.com/2009/01/obama-wont-be-change-president-unless.html

"President-elect Barack Obama is coming into office facing the greatest crises since the days of Franklin Roosevelt, who dealt with both the Great Depression and World War II during his tenure. By the same token, Mr. Obama has the same rare opportunity that President Roosevelt did to effect real, positive, lasting changes in the American government, economy, and foreign policy- but his window of opportunity will be a short one, only a matter of months after he is sworn in. If Mr. Obama acts quickly and decisively, he can take steps which will end the costly and counterproductive "war on drugs," insure every American against the expenses of a catastrophic illness while providing preventive care that will greatly reduce the trillion dollar outlay for medical expenses, cut our defense budget by hundreds of billions of dollars without sacrificing one iota of national security, restore the freedoms provided by the Bill of Rights to the Constitution, provide the nation with an uncluttered, more efficient, and vastly less costly tax system, and put the nation on the road to energy independence.

None of that will happen-- unless Mr. Obama does one essential thing first: take advantage of his unique opportunity provided by the rout of the Republicans in the last election coupled with his incredible fund raising ability that allowed him to forego public funds and outspend John McCain by hundreds of millions of dollars. If Mr. Obama proposes a total ban on private campaign contributions, replacing them with full public financing of all federal elections, then all other things become possible. Meaningful, comprehensive campaign finance reform will free candidates for federal office from the continuous campaign cycle of raising money for the next election before the winners of the last election have even taken their oaths of office. Changing the ground rules for television and radio advertising will mean that legislators will be able to vote on controversial proposals to decriminalize drugs or cut defense spending without having to worry about the 30 second attack ad in the next election that will distort reality and hammer them with accusations of supporting drug dealers or leaving the nation open to a new terrorist attack."

Obama didn't take my advice. Had he done so, Citizens United could never have happened, and if it had, would have had no effect on elections. As for "dark money" and "super PAC's" they would have been defanged and rendered meaningless had my suggestions been adopted into law:

"Effective campaign reform can be accomplished without doing any damage to the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of speech while being politically palatable to both major political parties. Simply put: declare every private contribution to any candidate for federal office as a bribe and every request for funds, goods, or services from a candidate as a solicitation of a bribe. After all, a massive bribe is exactly what occurs when a trade group hosts a thousand dollar a plate fund raising event for a Senator or a Congressman. When a president can rent out the Lincoln bedroom for hundreds of thousand in campaign contributions, that's not democracy at work- it's bribe-ocracy. Public financing can and must replace every private contribution, freeing up those elected to do the public's business to actually do the public's business without fear of losing millions with a vote that might offend special interests like big oil, hospital corporations, banks, or insurance companies.

As for toxic television attack ads- the First Amendment won't let us curtail them, but we can make them virtually useless to those who have paid for them by delaying their airing until public interest groups and the opposing candidate have had a chance to preview them, and allowing the attackee to tape a response that will be twice as long, free of charge, which will run immediately following the first ad. Doing this does no damage to the First Amendment; it simply means that a vicious lie like the attack ad on Mr. Cleland could be immediately followed by an outraged response by a Vietnam Veterans group and Mr. Cleland which would reveal that Mr. Chambliss ducked military service in Vietnam, claiming a knee injury, while showing Mr. Chambliss during his morning jog along the Potomac. Devastating responses like that would quickly end the baseless attacks and allow elections to be decided on real issues like how best to insure 40 million uninsured Americans or what programs to cut to reduce trillion dollar deficits."

Imagine for one moment that Barack Obama had taken this advice. Lawmakers and candidates for any federal office would not be spending one moment soliciting bribes, er, campaign contributions. Lobbyists would have little impact, as none of their principals could spend money that would affect a campaign if these laws were in place. And if we ever achieve public financing and a law requiring all attack ads to be previewed with a free response from the attackee, we'll never go back to the way things are now.

When I ran into my Congressman, Sanford Bishop, after the grotesque Rube Goldbergesque Affordable Care Act was passed, after Obama had nixed the idea of a public option or using the power of the federal government to keep drug prices down or purchase generics from Canada- which he did before the first committee hearing was held- I had three words for him. Sad words. "Medicare for All." Not Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren type of grandiose, all at once, the Feds pay for everything national health insurance. Just a public option to let anyone under 65 buy into Medicare at cost. And then build up to national health insurance slowly, step by step. It could have been done then, back in 2009.

2020 IMPEACHMENT

Last December the New York Times published a letter I wrote on how the House should have handled impeachment. I suggested a wide ranging investigation, patient, slow, and thorough, lasting months, all the way up to the Republican convention, when the articles would be delivered to the Senate. Since there's not a hope in Hell of a conviction, the best we can hope for is a thorough exposition of all of the President's crimes. Here was the full letter, before editing:

"Dear Editor:

The House Democrats are, as usual, about to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory by wrapping up a narrow impeachment inquiry, impeaching the President on only a scintilla of the crimes he has committed- omitting emoluments violations, campaign finance felonies, ties to the Russian Mafia and money laundering, fraud felonies by Trump University and the Trump Foundation charity, and sex crimes including felonies up to and including rape. Sadly, they will send the Senate impeachment articles based solely on the Ukraine scandal, but possibly including obstruction of justice from the Mueller investigation, where the trial will end quickly and be long forgotten by next November, just as the month long government shut down, the children in cages at the border, and the mass murders committed in the name of anti-immigration hate inspired by Trump, are all distant memories.

Instead, Democrats in the House should take advantage of the spotlight, hold evidentiary hearings lasting months, understanding full well- as Trump did when he sought an announcement of a corruption investigation of Biden, not an actual investigation (which would have revealed no criminal activity or corruption)- that it will be the allegations, not the conviction, that will do in Trump. If there was a month long hearing of just the emoluments violations, followed by another month of woman after woman who was sexually assaulted by Trump- also including those who were illegally paid off with hush money in violation of federal campaign finance laws, Trump will continue to lose his grip, and his re-election campaign will be stymied by his inability to focus on anything other than the impeachment hearings.

Instead of wrapping hearings up quickly before the New Year, Democrats should patiently build a case for impeachment that will include every crime committed by Trump, both before he took office and after, and continue building that case all the way to the Republican convention next August.

Then, send it to a trial in the Senate after the Republicans have made him their nominee. And instead of campaigning for President, as the Democratic nominee will be doing, he'll be defending himself in a trial that will last months, as every single item of evidence is presented to the Senate. Because there is not a chance in hell of getting a conviction in the Senate. But that doesn't mean that Democrats can't get every one of his crimes in the public spotlight during the election campaign."

This story is still being written in the Senate trial. But here is my prediction on the outcome. No witnesses. No evidence. No more than 46 votes to remove Trump on Article 1 (Abuse of Power). Joe Manchin of West Virginia will vote no on both. No more than 45 on Article 2 (Obstruction of Congress). Doug Jones of Alabama (and possibly a couple of others) will vote no on this one. And in six months, only the Republicans and Trump will be talking about impeachment- about how it was all a sham starting before Trump was inaugurated in 2017 (!) because of Democrats' mindless hate, there was nothing to it, it was a "perfect phone call," and how he was "totally exonerated." Just as he was (cough) "totally exonerated" in the Mueller investigation of collusion/conspiracy with the Russians to affect the 2016 election.

I can hope I'm wrong. But I know I'm right. So let's beat him to a pulp on November 3, 2020. And win the elecoral college to boot. (This is written January 26, 2020. So we'll quickly know how wrong- or right- I am on the impeachment trial predictions.)