John McCain Dead at 81

When John McCain ran for president in 2000, I was an enthusiastic supporter.  That George W. Bush ultimately won the GOP contest and the 2000 election is a tragedy that, in my view, cost America and other parts of the world needless lost lives. By the time that the 2008 election rolled around, the cancer in the GOP was beginning to metastasize and  when McCain foolishly picked Sarah Palin - the insane idiot of Wasilla, in my view - there was simply no way that I could overlook the wrongheaded policies that McCain was embracing out of expediency to pander to the uglier elements of the GOP base.   All of that said, I never stopped respecting McCain as a man who, despite mistakes, tried to do the right thing, including voting against the effort to kill the Affordable Health Care Act. His sense of morality, opposition to torture and rejection of the racism of much of today's GOP is in stark contrast to the foul creature in the White House. An editorial in the New York Times looks at the man who died yesterday:  

With John McCain, you never quite knew. That was a big part of his appeal, one of the things that made him interesting, and also one of the things that drove people who value ideological consistency a bit batty.

As a professed maverick, Mr. McCain, who died Saturday at the age of 81, was bound to make somebody unhappy. Though for much of his career his votes on the Senate floor were mostly along party lines, his periodic challenges to Republican orthodoxy made him more popular among independents, Democrats and the tattered remnants of his party’s moderate wing than with the absolutists in the party’s base. Five years of torture in a North Vietnamese prison camp appeared to have left him with a pretty good idea of who he was, an ability to think for himself and the capacity to tune out partisan noises.

He had principles, and he had flaws, from time to time betraying those principles — most grievously in the 2008 presidential campaign. But in a Senate mostly devoid of the kind of commanding figures who once roamed its halls, he was a rare bird. And he could surprise you.

Especially his fellow Republicans. At a time of confusion and nastiness over immigration, it is worth recalling that he joined with Senator Edward Kennedy in 2005 and then again in 2007 to push a grand compromise that paired stronger controls at the border with a path to citizenship for the nation’s 11 or so million undocumented immigrants.

At a time when the political system is once again drowning in money from special interests, it is worth recalling that back in the early 2000s he co-wrote, with Russ Feingold, a Wisconsin Democrat, a landmark bill to tighten the post-Watergate campaign finance reform laws.

At a time when the man who now occupies the White House and his cabinet factotums deny the plain reality of climate change, it is worth recalling that back in the early 2000s, Mr. McCain and Joseph Lieberman, then a Connecticut Democrat, drafted the first serious bipartisan bill to limit greenhouse gas emissions by putting a price on carbon.

The campaign finance reform effort eventually succeeded, named for a companion bill in the House sponsored by Chris Shays, a Republican from Connecticut, and Marty Meehan, a Democrat from Massachusetts. The climate and immigration bills did not succeed, partly for want of Republican support. But even in defeat, Mr. McCain, through his willingness to tackle thorny and even politically toxic issues, gave hope for the future. His example still does.

A military man to the core, and the son and grandson of two decorated admirals, Mr. McCain held views on foreign and defense policy that were relentlessly hawkish; He lobbied hard for the ruinously misguided invasion of Iraq, as well as the bombing of Libya. At the same time, and despite his brutal treatment as a prisoner of war, he strongly supported Secretary of State John Kerry’s efforts to normalize relations with North Vietnam.

Mr. McCain’s final years in the Senate were a similar mix of independence and fealty to party norms. Last summer, he dramatically entered the Senate chamber and cast a decisive vote against the administration’s ghastly health care bill, partly on grounds that it had been concocted in haste and without hearings and had thus failed the basic requirements of sound legislative process. But not long afterward, he voted in favor of a similarly ill-conceived, backward-looking tax bill. (Mr. McCain was absent for medical reasons when the bill came up for final passage three weeks later and he did not cast a vote).

That vote provided precisely the kind of opportunity for one last display of the adventurous bipartisanship for which Mr. McCain was so well known. It was not to be. Still, there had been plenty such moments in a long and distinguished career. Mr. McCain was a charming, imperfect man, driven by a code of honor and self-aware enough to know when he had violated it. A Senate where the phrase “happy warrior” is an oxymoron will miss him.

My sincere condolences to the McCain family.

California Democrats - Ready for Political War With Trump

I spoke by telephone last night with an older woman distraught over the recent election results who wanted to get more politically involved to oppose the Trumpist agenda.  Like many I suspect, she has had numerous run ins with friends and others who supported Trump and don't like to have it pointed out to them that they backed a racist and misogynist agenda, something that speaks volumes about them.  I gave her contact information for local Democrat circles and she pledged to get more involved.  The issue, of course, is who will lead the opposition to Trump and his make America white and heterosexual again agenda.  Here in Virginia, the immediate battle will be to make sure Democrats win all of the statewide offices in next year's elections.  On a more national front, perhaps California, where Democrats have vowed to fight the Trump agenda, can be a model for others. Bloomberg looks at the vows being made in California.  Here are excerpts:

The Republicans are about to control Congress and the presidency for the first time in a decade, and they have an ambitious agenda. They’ve promised to undo Obamacare, deport undocumented immigrants, and roll back environmental regulations. The Democrats who run the state government in California aren’t happy. Immediately after the election, state Senate President Kevin de León and his Assembly counterpart, Anthony Rendon, both Latinos from Southern California, sent out a scathing statement in English and Spanish assuring all 39 million Californians that they were ready for political war. “Today, we woke up feeling like strangers in a foreign land, because yesterday Americans expressed their views on a pluralistic and democratic society that are clearly inconsistent with the values of the people of California,” they wrote. “We will lead the resistance to any effort that would shred our social fabric or our Constitution.”

With the largest economy in the U.S. and the sixth-largest in the world, the state enjoys greater independence from Washington than most. It was the first state to adopt its own vehicle emissions standards, in 2002. In 2012, California created the only state-level cap-and-trade system for limiting greenhouse gas emissions after Republicans in Congress rejected a national model. California, which has more undocumented immigrants than any other state, offers them driver’s licenses as well as financial aid for college. It has imposed some of the country’s strictest background checks on firearms purchases. It’s one of three states to provide paid family and medical leave and one of five that require employers to offer paid sick leave. “This is unlike anything we’ve seen in modern political history,” says de León. “We’re going to do everything in our power to protect our people and our values as Californians.”

Hillary Clinton won more than 61 percent of the state’s vote, a higher share than President Obama won in 2012. Voters approved ballot measures decriminalizing recreational marijuana use, restricting ammunition purchases, and increasing taxes on the rich. The national election triggered a resurgence of California secession fantasies, this time under the hashtag #Calexit—a reference to Brexit, Britain’s vote to leave the European Union.

State Democrats say there’s plenty they can do short of leaving the U.S. California has long been a net contributor to Washington’s coffers . . . . That gives state leaders potential leverage when it comes to complying with policies it doesn’t like, starting with the deportation of undocumented immigrants.

On Nov. 14, Los Angeles Police Department Chief Charlie Beck said he won’t reverse long-standing department policy blocking officers from doing immigration enforcement, despite Donald Trump’s threats to cut federal funding to so-called sanctuary cities, which offer residents protection from federal agents. “We are not going to work with Homeland Security on deportation efforts,” Beck said. “That is not our job, nor will I make it our job.” 

One of the biggest points of contention between Sacramento and Trump’s Washington will be climate change. The incoming president has called global warming a hoax “created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing noncompetitive.” . . . . Governor Brown has devoted himself to strengthening California’s carbon pollution rules, already the nation’s toughest. “We will protect the precious rights of our people and continue to confront the existential threat of our time—devastating climate change,” . . . . Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf says cities should be willing to uphold the Paris commitments at the local level. 

California’s Democrats are also exploring ways to ensure continued access to health care. . . . A repeal [of Obamacare], as Trump and Republicans have pledged, would cost the state more than $15 billion in federal subsidies a year, according to the nonprofit Urban Institute. “In theory, California could implement its own universal health-care program,” says California’s insurance commissioner, Dave Jones—though doing so, he warns, would require significant state tax increases.

California leaders have taken steps to expand access to the procedure [abortion], and could make the state a haven for women seeking abortions if Roe were to fall. And some ideas that Trump has endorsed, like stop-and-frisk law enforcement policies, are determined at the local level, not by Congress.

Says Mayor Schaaf: “I think it is wise to not react too much to things that have not yet occurred, but rather to be prepared and strengthened in the event that they do.