GELFAND’S WORLD - With the ballots already arriving and election day less than a month off, it’s amusing to watch two staunch Republicans suddenly recognize corruption in their party. Young Kim and Ken Calvert are fighting to represent the newly redrawn CA 40 congressional seat, and party loyalty has gone overboard as they attack each other in expensive television ads.
You can read an early account (going back to May) here. More recently, they have been running competing tv ads, each using the word Corrupt with respect to the other.
And each has some sort of skeleton in the closet. Calvert is accused of inserting earmarks into congressional funding bills that enriched him personally – the evidence is pretty strong, as you can read here (admittedly from an interested source, but including links to all manner of evidence). Young Kim, his fellow Republican, supports these accusations in her television ads.
Calvert has responded by accusing Kim of something or other (it’s not really clear in his television ads but may have something to do with this micro-scandal. If this is all it is, it’s pretty thin gruel, considering that it involves a campaign contribution of a few thousand dollars. Still, Young has opened herself up to corruption accusations simply because she has been an enabler and supporter of the Trump administration and has failed to demonstrate one bit of leadership in fighting administration corruption.
Both have supported Trump’s actions against Iran, as summarized in this L.A. Times piece. None of the attack ads have mentioned the Iran war or tariffs or the campaigns against science or Canada. I wonder how conservative voters in the new CA 40 district will react to any of this. Astute readers will notice that the Kim vs. Calvert campaign is the result of Prop 50’s reapportionment – clearly a gerrymander – which is itself a response to the Texas gerrymander.
Donald Trump’s foot-in-mouth disease
Donald Trump just committed treason in the direct literal sense as defined in the U.S. Constitution. To see why, let’s consider what he did. In a campaign speech delivered in Grand Island, Nebraska, he spoke of the enemy’s military abilities and invited them to “take out” Los Angeles and San Diego.” Some of Trump’s defenders would like to argue that this is just another example of Trump’s sense of humor.
I can accept that this is one possibility.
The other possibility is that for one moment, Trump was intentionally inviting Iran to destroy American lives and property simply because he does not like us. “Hates us” is probably the more accurate way of putting it.
But either interpretation amounts to treason. The reason lies in the specific wording of the Constitution, which is intended to define and limit treason as a criminal offense.
Here is how the Constitution defines it:
“Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.”
(There is a second clause, but it serves merely to limit the ultimate punishment and allow the congress to set that punishment.)
So here is why it doesn’t matter whether Trump was speaking out in hatred or merely engaging in his usual tasteless approach to humor: The definition is that someone has engaged in “adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.” You can give aid and comfort either by making a blood-curdling threat or in telling a joke, as long as it provides that aid and comfort. Trump told Iran that as far as he was concerned, it is OK to damage Los Angeles and to kill its inhabitants. The reason that this was actually giving aid and comfort is that it came from the mouth of the President of the United States.
And by the way, the Trump administration has made a logically similar argument. Remember their complaints when former government official James Comey forwarded a photo of sea shells shaped to say “86 47” on a plain sandy background? There were accusations of threatening the president’s life based on the joke. Those who might want to dispute my overall argument might point out that Trump’s joke about nuking Los Angeles and San Diego should be given the same latitude as the joke forwarded by the former FBI Director. But they are not the same thing at all because of Trump’s role as commander in chief.
A thought about the City Attorney race
A recent CityWatch article about the City Attorney race (John McKinney vs. Marissa Roy) made the argument that Roy has not been a courtroom prosecutor, whereas McKinney has a long record as such. I’m reminded of a 1972 debate between incumbent District Attorney Joe Busch and challenger (and Charles Manson’s prosecutor) Vince Bugliosi. Bugliosi made something of the same argument in that debate, pointing out his prosecutorial capability as shown by the Manson trial. Busch replied that the District Attorney doesn’t go into court and try cases. “It’s an administrative position.” I certainly don’t remember Mike Feuer or Heidi Feldstein Soto or Carmen Trutanich trying a case as City Attorney. People agreed or disagreed with policy choices made by these people – neighborhood councils generally supported having neighborhood prosecutors – but prowess in trying criminal cases was not at issue. The argument that McKinney’s side might wish to make is that he may have a better eye for prosecutorial talent among the ranks of Deputy City Attorneys. This is not a very strong argument, whereas Roy is supported by both of our U.S. senators, Planned Parenthood, and labor organizations. It should be an interesting race.
Karen continues to damage her own cause
This time at the convention center: Mayor Bass starred in a press conference at the L.A. Convention Center. The place is undergoing a multi-billion dollar refurb. As mentioned here previously, fiscally careful people such as Rick Cole have criticized the expenditure. The press conference resulted in tv news carrying Nithya Raman’s response, which was to point out that this expenditure will prevent other useful spending by the city. Bass doesn’t seem to be helping herself by any of her recent public appearances.
How failure to “tell the whole truth” is the norm in ballot proposition arguments
I’ve watched lots of tv ads that warn me about how each ballot measure is going to rob me of my savings or let criminals run free or imprison my fellow CW writers, but the ads never actually tell me what the initiative does.
Do any of you have any idea of what props 38, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, or 45 actually do? I’ve seen a lot of television ads that refer to some of these, and not one has actually described what the proposition does. Each ad is essentially blind support or blind opposition. A lot of money has gone into ads opposing the billionaire “wealth tax” described in Prop 40. There is something that describes itself as supporting immunology research through the sale of bonds (Prop 38), although it looks like a way of funneling money to a limited set of administrators to dole out. It’s going to take a serious description of the facts to convince me to vote for any of these. We’ll see.
(Bob Gelfand writes on science, culture, and politics for CityWatch. He can be reached at [email protected])
