Women's history -- We see it in the making -- Column of March 3, 2022

 By MARSHA MERCER

It’s hard to imagine a better start to Women’s History Month.

As President Joe Biden delivered his State of the Union address March 1, Kamala Harris, the first woman and first woman of color elected Vice President, and Nancy Pelosi, the first woman Speaker of the House, sat in the power seats behind him.

Next to first lady Jill Biden in the gallery was Ukraine ambassador Oksana Markarova. Prompted by Biden to show their support of the brave Ukrainians at war with Russia, the assembled leaders of the federal government gave the ambassador thunderous applause and a standing ovation.

Days before, Biden nominated Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to the Supreme Court.

“For too long, our government, our courts, haven’t looked like America,” Biden said Feb. 25, announcing his first Supreme Court pick. “I believe it’s time that we have a court that reflects the full talents and greatness of our nation, with a nominee of extraordinary qualifications.”

If confirmed by the Senate, Jackson will become the fourth woman associate justice on the nine-member court. Her addition will not change the ideological makeup of six conservative and three liberal justices.

Biden has praised Jackson as “one of our nation’s top legal minds,” a “consensus builder” and her experience as a former federal public defender.

Jackson, 51, a Harvard University and Law School graduate, would replace Justice Stephen Breyer, who is retiring and for whom she was a law clerk early in her career.

Beyond being a historic first, Jackson, a former special counsel to the U.S. Sentencing Commission, would also bring to the court a unique personal and professional perspective on criminal justice.

Her uncle received a life sentence in 1989 for a nonviolent drug crime under a “three-strikes” law. Year later, President Barack Obama years commuted the harsh  sentence, The Washington Post reported.

Confirmation hearings are scheduled for the week of March 21, and a full Senate vote could take place in mid-April. That still would be more time than Republicans took to confirm Amy Coney Barrett to the court in October 2020.

Confirmation requires a simple majority, but nothing is simple in a Senate that is split 50-50 between the parties. Jackson, a federal judge since 2013, was confirmed just last year to the appellate court 53-44, with support from three Republican senators -- Susan Collins of Maine, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.

But Graham has indicated he now may oppose Jackson as the choice of the “radical Left.” Republicans are expected to concentrate their questioning on her judicial philosophy.  

If all Democrats and independents are present and vote in favor of Jackson, Harris could cast the tie-breaking vote, although Democrats hope a few Republicans will back Jackson. 

Confirmation would be a historic first for Biden, too. In his official proclamation of Women’s History Month, the president touted his Cabinet as “the most diverse and gender-balanced” in history, including the first women to serve as Treasury Secretary and Director of National Intelligence, the first Native American woman as Cabinet secretary, and women leading the Departments of Commerce, Energy, Housing and Urban Development.

Women have also made gains in state government. The most women ever serve in state legislatures, according to the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University.

In Virginia, the 2021 election brought a record number of women – 35 – to the House of Delegates and elected the first woman of color statewide, Republican Winsome Sears, as lieutenant governor.

Women’s History Month gives us the opportunity to reflect and celebrate the contributions of women in American history and to inspire – much as a young Black girl was inspired years ago by Constance Baker Motley, the first Black woman federal court judge.

“We were born exactly 49 years to the day apart,” Jackson said at the White House. “If I am fortunate enough to be confirmed . . . I can only hope that my life and career, my love of this country and the Constitution, and my commitment to upholding the rule of law and the sacred principles upon which this great nation was founded will inspire future generations.”

Let’s hope the Senate gives her that chance.

 ©2022 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

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`A day on, not a day off’ for MLK -- column of Jan. 13, 2022

 By MARSHA MERCER

The federal holiday honoring the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. blends celebration, reflection and action.

On the third Monday in January, typically there are parades, prayer breakfasts, church services, concerts, readings from the writings of the slain civil rights leader and, yes, sales. Shopping, though, is far less a focus than on other federal holidays.

The King holiday is our national day of service, when Americans are encouraged to volunteer to make their communities better.

King would have turned 93 on Jan. 15. He received the Nobel Peace Prize at 35 and was only 39 when he was tragically killed by a sniper in 1968.

Time dims memories, so it’s worth remembering the holiday honoring him was hard won. Black members of Congress had to fight for 15 years to get the holiday through Congress.

Sen. Jesse Helms, Republican of North Carolina, once filibustered the bill with 300 pages of documents accusing King of being a Marxist with communist leanings. Democratic Sens. Edward Kennedy or Massachusetts and Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York declared the papers “filth.”

Congress finally passed and President Ronald Reagan signed the law creating the King holiday in 1983, with the first observance in 1986. But some states resisted. Arizona did not recognize the holiday until 1992 and New Hampshire in 1999.

Until last year, Virginia still honored Confederate Gens. Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson with a state holiday on the Friday before the King holiday.

Shortly after the first MLK federal holiday, The New York Times published a letter from a Princeton University sociology professor.

“I propose we declare the holiday a `day on,’ rather than a `day off,’” Marion J. Levy Jr. wrote. His idea was that everyone would work on the holiday and those above the poverty line would send their wages to a special MLK fund benefiting education, housing and other projects.

Persuading millions of Americans to work on a holiday and donate their pay was a bridge too far, but the idea of service caught on.

In 1994, President Bill Clinton signed the King Holiday and Service Act, officially designating the holiday as a day of national service.

Overshadowing the commemorations this year is the political battle over voting rights legislation.

President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris paid tribute to King and met with his family Tuesday in Atlanta before the president delivered a fiery speech evoking King’s memory to press for passage of voting rights legislation.   

Voting rights used to be a bipartisan issue but, like most things, it has become fiercely politicized. Partisans can’t even agree on facts.

Biden and many Democrats contend passing the two voting rights bills before Congress is so crucial to restoring equity in the election system that the Senate should set aside the filibuster rule, which requires 60 votes, if necessary.

But Republicans vociferously claim the voting rights bills are a massive power grab by Democrats, an attempt to rewrite the nation’s election laws to benefit Democratic candidates.

Biden hopes to make where legislators stand a key marker in this year’s midterm elections.

As senators wrestle with their role in history, the rest of us can find meaningful ways to observe the holiday.

You can Google local MLK service events. If wintry weather or the pandemic makes in-person volunteering problematic, the federal government has two service opportunities people can do at home.

Both the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian Institution are seeking volunteers to transcribe historical documents virtually. Digital volunteers are helping to make letters, field notes, diaries, manuscripts and other handwritten documents more widely available.

For example, the Smithsonian needs help transcribingrecords from the Freedmen’s Bureau, which was formed to improve the lives of formerly enslaved men and women during Reconstruction.

The Library of Congress needs help transcribing pages from George Washington’s farm reports that chronicle the lives and labor of enslaved people at Mount Vernon as well as other aspects of 18^th century farm life.

The library also has projects transcribing Walt Whitman’s letters and Frederick Law Olmsted’s landscape architecture files. 

This MLK holiday is a chance to learn while we serve.

“Everybody can be great,” King said, “because anybody can serve.”

©2022 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

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Print book sales rise, but there's a downside -- May 6, 2021 column

By MARSHA MERCER

Vice President Kamala Harris visited an independent bookstore in Providence, Rhode Island, Wednesday and bought four books.

She’d been wanting to read them, “and I’m going to find time to do it,” she said, according to a pool report.

Many of us share the aspiration. Just that morning, I had vowed, again, to find time to buy and read books.

One of the few upsides of the pandemic has been an uptick in print book sales. Sales of print books rose 8.2% in 2020 over 2019, according to NPD BookScan.

Much of the increase came as parents adjusted to remote learning and bought juvenile nonfiction books. The category was up 23% in unit sales year to year, Publishers Weekly reported.

Adult fiction sales rose 6% over 2019, led by a 29% increase in graphic novels.

But the news about bookstores isn’t as rosy. Many had to close temporarily during shutdowns, and dozens of bookstores shuttered permanently. Bookstore sales were down 28% in 2020 from 2019, according to the Census Bureau.

We all know it’s cheap and fast to buy books online from a certain retail behemoth, and during the pandemic we often didn’t have much choice but to shop online.

Now, though, with businesses reopening, we have a choice. It’s inspiring to see prominent politicians take the time to support reading and local bookshops.

“There is nothing that I enjoy more, or I think is more nourishing, than being able to just walk into a bookstore run by people who love books and love reading,” former President Barack Obama has said.

Obama has long championed indie bookstores. When his first book was published, Politics & Prose in Washington offered him a reading, and a couple dozen customers showed up.

His latest, “A Promised Land,” was the Number One political title last year with more than 2.5 million copies sold. Several Republican candidates and elected officials also had bestsellers last year.

 As president, Obama often shopped locally with his daughters, leaving with a stack of books.

Last December, he shared his 17 favorite titles of the year. Last month, around Independent Bookstore Day, he virtually visited six bookstores around the country.

“Each night, I’d have a stack of briefing papers and speeches to review and notes about economic issues or foreign policy issues. It would take me two or three hours every night to plow through that stuff,” he said in a video conversation with the owner of Square Books in Oxford, Miss.

“But the time I was done, it was pretty late. . . But I’m a night owl, and what I found was that having 45 minutes to an hour to be able to read something for me. . . helped to reset me and also helped to extend my perspective beyond the narrow set of headaches that were staring me in the face.”

Obama found fiction helped him connect with people. He advises President Joe Biden to “read whatever nourishes his soul,” adding “That’s going to be different things for different people.”

On her visit to the bookstore, Harris bought three novels and a cookbook. The novels were “Nickel Boys,” by Colson Whitehead, “The Topeka School” by Ben Lerner, and “The Dutch House” by Ann Patchett. “Simply Julia,” by Julia Turshen has recipes for “healthy comfort food.”

I spend a lot of time reading newspapers (always a good thing), magazines and the Internet – but lately I’ve missed the longer commitment of books.

I started “Middlemarch” by George Eliot, which I’d read, sort of, in high school. Everyone says it’s much better read later in life. Perhaps too much was going on in mine to focus on a sprawling 19^th century novel – even if written by one of the greatest English authors of all time – but it remains on my bedside table.

A good thing about books is they stay around until you’re ready for them.

So, I walked to my local indie bookstore, which has reopened in a new, larger location. It was lovely to let the books call out to me again, and I brought home a first novel I knew nothing about.

I intend to find the time to read it. What about you? Have you visited an independent bookstore? What are you reading?

©2021 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

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Can Democrats stop Trump cakewalk in 2020? -- Oct. 17, 2019 column

By MARSHA MERCER

A national research firm this week had great news for President Donald Trump and awful news for Democrats.

“The 2020 election looks like Trump’s to lose,” said Moody’s Analytics, which has correctly predicted the outcome of every presidential election since 1980 – except Trump’s victory in 2016.

“If voters were to vote primarily on the basis of their pocketbooks, the president would steamroll the competition,” the report said. 

The report was discouraging to Democrats since most national polls show several candidates would thump Trump. Former Vice President Joe Biden remains the putative frontrunner, although Sen. Elizabeth Warren has been gaining ground. 

After missing the unexpected Trump turnout surge, the analysts retooled their economic models. For 2020, they created three models based on state economic data and factors such as stock market performance, unemployment and how people feel about their finances.

Each model projected Trump in 2020 will win at least 289 electoral votes. A candidate who wins 270 captures the White House.

Moody’s concedes the economy can change, though its analysts do not see a recession next year. Even so, there was a shred of hope for Democrats in the gloomy forecast. 

“Democrats can still win if they are able to turn out the vote at record levels,” the report said, adding, “but, under normal turnout conditions, the president is projected to win.” 

Absent a charismatic figure like Barack Obama to juice turnout, the quadrennial problem facing Democratic candidates is how to appeal to the party’s base to win the nomination without alienating independents and disaffected Republican voters in the general election.

Several candidates have staked out ambitious, if aspirational, positions left of center, promising to save the environment, remake health care and redistribute wealth.

“The way you win an election in this time in history is not the same old same old. You have to inspire people. You have to excite people. You’ve got to bring working people and young people and poor people into the political process,” Bernie Sanders said Tuesday at the Democratic debate. 

But Biden, among others, favors a more realistic, incremental approach to change,  promising to work with Republicans. Compromise isn’t exciting, but it’s often necessary to get anything done.

Democrats should be honest and direct with voters – not confuse people and hand Trump fodder for his attacks. 

Warren is inexplicably evasive by refusing to say whether her Medicare-for-all plan will cost taxpayers more. And her intentionally misleading Facebook ad was clever – but baffling to Americans who don’t follow the social media wars. 

She bought an ad that said, “Breaking news: Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook just endorsed Donald Trump for re-election.” Except it wasn’t true, as the ad quickly said. 

Warren’s point was to shame Facebook for allowing political ads that contain false claims. The social media giant had accepted a Trump ad blasting Biden and his son Hunter with a barrage of unsubstantiated and false “facts” about Ukraine. 

The Trump ad, which other news outlets refused to run, was “so misleading as to be inaccurate,” PolitiFact found. But when Biden tried to get it removed, Facebook refused, saying it would not subject political ads to fact-checkers.

Warren charged Zuckerberg has given Trump “free rein to lie on his platform – and then to pay Facebook gobs of money to push out their lies to American voters.”

At the debate, Sen. Kamala Harris tried to enlist Warren in an effort to shut down Trump’s Twitter feed. Warren wisely declined.

The idea of cutting off Trump’s access to social media plays right into his hands. He relishes the role of victim.

Similarly, Democrats should tread carefully on impeachment. It’s not a game. It’s  a constitutional issue and a way to demonstrate Trump is unfit for office. 

Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, should have let the reconstructed transcript of Trump’s call with the president of Ukraine speak for itself. Instead, Schiff read his own fictionalized summary of the call to show, he said, “it reads like a classic organized crime shakedown.” 

That episode last month gave Trump the opportunity to launch many a poor-me Tweet and led House Republicans to call for a censure vote of Schiff.

Now more than ever, Democrats need to show they are smart, serious and sincere.  

They need to find ways to preach to the choir but also reach those who aren’t in church.

©2019 All rights reserved.

Measure presidential age in ideas, not years -- July 25, 2019 column

By MARSHA MERCER

How old is too old to be president? Ronald Reagan settled the question 35 years ago with a zinger.

President Reagan, a Republican seeking his second term, and former Vice President Walter Mondale, the Democratic presidential nominee, met Oct. 21, 1984, for their second debate.

Reagan, 73, had not had a good first debate, and veteran Baltimore Sun diplomatic correspondent Henry Trewhitt raised the age issue:

“You already are the oldest president in history. And some of your staff say you were tired after your most recent encounter with Mr. Mondale. I recall yet that President Kennedy had to go for days on end with very little sleep during the Cuban missile crisis. Is there any doubt in your mind that you would be able to function in such circumstances?”

“Not at all, Mr. Trewhitt,” Reagan smoothly replied, “and I want you to know that also I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent’s youth and inexperience.”

Everybody broke out laughing, including Mondale, a mere lad of 56.

Mondale told his wife he lost the election that night. There were many reasons Reagan swept to victory, winning every state except Mondale’s Minnesota, but the much replayed “youth and inexperience” soundbite didn’t hurt.

It’s hard to imagine an elder candidate’s snappy comeback line having the same effect ever again, considering what we know now. Five years after leaving office, Reagan wrote a letter telling the world he was suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.

Critics questioned whether he had been slipping during his second term in the White House, though loyal staff said he showed no signs of dementia.  

Now, President Donald Trump, 73, is the oldest president ever. Age is again a campaign issue as several top Democratic presidential contenders are also septuagenarians. Former Vice President Joe Biden is 76, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders is 77 and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren is 70.

Critics question Trump’s mental health, although he insists he’s “a very stable genius.”

Attacking Biden, Trump says he himself looks younger and is more mentally sharp than Biden.

For his part, Biden said if Trump doesn’t stop making cracks about his age, he’ll challenge the president to a push-up contest. I’d watch that.

Age inevitably factors into the Democrats’ nomination process. Pete Buttigieg, 37, mayor of South Bend, Indiana, likes to say he won’t reach the age Trump is now until 2054. Former Texas congressman Beto O’Rourke, 50, plays up skateboarding. 

If Democrats choose the safe and experienced Biden to go against Trump, Biden will need to project youth and vitality through his appearance and, more importantly, through his ideas.

It’s possible, as Sanders showed in 2016, for a party elder to attract a youthful following with bold, new ideas.

But first Biden must deal with his past, and when the Democrats meet for a second round of debates Tuesday and Wednesday, his record will also be on display.  

In the first debate, Biden seemed flummoxed by the attack by California Sen. Kamala Harris on his opposition to federal busing decades ago. Biden also has been criticized for pushing, as a senator in 1994, a crime bill now seen as draconian.

Setting a new course, Biden Tuesday proposed a sweeping plan to eliminate the death penalty, decriminalize marijuana and stop putting people in prison for drug use alone.

But New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, 50, tweeted: “It’s not enough to tell us what you’re going to do for our communities, show us what you’ve done for the last 40 years. You created this system.”

Sanders and Warren each have plans to erase student debt, which plagues millions of Americans, and provide free higher education.

Such policies are good politics. More younger voters turned out to vote in 2018 than in previous midterms, the Census Bureau reports. In 2020, one in 10 eligible voters will be members of Generation Z – born after 1995, the Pew Research Center projects.  

Young voters tend to vote Democratic. If they turn out strongly, as they have in recent presidential elections, they could make a difference for Democrats.

©2019 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

Then there were six -- women hit presidential trail -- June 20, 2019 column

By MARSHA MERCER

It’s fitting, if long overdue, that in the centennial celebration of women’s suffrage, six women are running for a major party’s presidential nomination.

One hundred years after women got the right to vote, voters in 2020 conceivably could do what they did not in 2016 — deliver the United States its first woman president. 

So far, polls suggest two septuagenarian men — Democrat Joe Biden and Republican Donald Trump — may duke it out in November 2020. But it’s still very early, and polls are just polls. 

President Trump, who never stopped campaigning, officially launched his re-election campaign Tuesday with a rally in Florida, and Democratic presidential hopefuls will take the stage next week in Florida for the first candidates’ debates. 

Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar and Tulsi Gabbard will be among the 10 candidates onstage Wednesday night, and Kirsten Gillibrand, Kamala Harris and Marianne Williamson will be among 10 onstage Thursday night. Both events will last two hours.

Voters will begin making their choices known in a little more than seven months — at the Iowa caucuses Feb. 3 and the New Hampshire primary Feb. 11. Super Tuesday, when 13 states, including Virginia, will hold contests, will be March 3.

Even at this nascent moment, though, the 2020 campaign has accomplished something we’ve not seen before: It has made the idea of women running for president mainstream and almost unexceptional.

In 2008 and 2016, Democrat Hillary Clinton was a trailblazer. She naturally played up her historic role last time as the first woman to become a major party’s presidential nominee.

On the Republican side, Carly Fiorina made a brief run for her party’s nomination in 2016. After she left the race in March, Ted Cruz named her his running mate in April but then quit the race a week later. 

And perennial candidate Jill Stein was the Green Party’s presidential nominee in 2012 and 2016. 

An all-time high of 84 percent of Americans say women are just as suited emotionally for politics as men — up 6 percent since 2016 and 14 points since Clinton lost to Barrack Obama in the 2008 primaries, the Associated Press and NORC Center for Public Affairs Research at the University of Chicago reported in March after their analysis of 2018 General Social Survey data.

Today’s pundits seem obsessed by how many Democrats are running for president — 23! 

Yes, it’s the most ever, but is it mind-blowing in a country of 327 million people, and after what happened in 2016, that a couple dozen people might have the guts to run for president? Or, if we’re being uncharitable, that some just want the publicity? Many people still believe publicity — not the White House — was Trump’s goal last time.

Come to think of it — only six women in a field of about two dozen candidates is a paltry showing. 

And if one of the qualified women does become the front-runner, she likely will have to endure thinly veiled — if veiled at all — sexist jibes about her looks, her clothes, her hormones and her background.

Until Trump’s pollsters told him Biden was beating him in key states, Trump liked to insult Elizabeth Warren. Then he switched to insulting Biden. 

The centennial of women’s suffrage gives the next election an historical reference point. 

Congress passed the 19th Amendment giving women the right to vote on June 4, 1919, and sent it to the states for ratification. Tennessee put the measure over the top Aug. 24, 1920. 

All women then had the right to vote, but Virginia was among nine Southern states that dragged their feet on the amendment. The Virginia General Assembly finally ratified the 19th Amendment in 1952. That’s not a typo. 1952.

In 2016, Hillary Clinton made history by winning nearly 3 million more votes than Trump, before losing in the Electoral College. In Virginia, Clinton beat Trump 49.8 percent to 44.4 percent or by 212,030 votes.

Democrats may not nominate a woman for president this year, but it’s no longer just wishful thinking that they could. And it’s no longer just wishful thinking that a woman could win. 

(C)2019 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

Divide on gun laws sets stage for 2020 -- column of May 2, 2019

By MARSHA MERCER

Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris threw down the gauntlet on gun control.

“Upon being elected, I will give the United States Congress 100 days to get their act together and have the courage to pass reasonable gun safety laws, and if they fail to do it, then I will take executive action,” the senator from California declared April 22 at a CNN town hall in New Hampshire.

Taking a strong stand on gun control used to be politically risky. Today, not so much.

Not after the Virginia Tech massacre of 32 students and professors in 2007, the slaughter of 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012, the mass murder of 17 students and teachers at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School last year – and countless other shootings, including at a synagogue in California Saturday and a university in North Carolina Tuesday.

Democratic leaders agree on the need for universal background checks for gun purchases, reinstatement of the ban on sales of military-style assault weapons and red flag laws meant to keep guns out of the hands of those likely to hurt themselves or others.

In February, House Democrats passed two gun safety bills with a smattering of Republican support. If lightning should strike and the bills make it through the Republican-controlled Senate, though, President Donald Trump will veto them.

And that divide sets the stage for the 2020 campaign.

Trump told the National Rifle Association convention April 26 the constitutional right to bear arms is “under assault – but not when we’re here. Not even close.”

He urged NRA members to “get out there and vote” next year. “It seems like it’s a long ways away. It’s not,” he said. 

The NRA poured tens of millions of dollars into electing Trump, but its clout appears to be fading amidst internal strife and investigations into its tax exempt status.

Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, hardly a “gun grabber,” reportedly is drafting a red flag bill to help police confiscate guns temporarily from people who are likely to hurt themselves or others.

“I think most Americans believe that multiple murderers shouldn’t have gun rights. Most Americans support background checks,” he told The State newspaper in South Carolina. “The Second Amendment’s important to me, but it’s not a suicide pact.”

Polls show the major issues for 2020 are likely to be health care, the economy and immigration. Gun laws don’t make the cut, although few polls even ask the question.

But Quinnipiac University does ask, and its polls since 2014 consistently have found over 90 percent support for background checks for all gun buyers. Most recently, in January, 95 percent of Democrats, 94 percent of independents and 89 percent of Republicans said they favored background checks.

Gun rights groups say background checks are ineffective and infringe on constitutional rights. When several states passed more stringent firearm laws after the shootings in Parkland, Florida, dozens of rural counties declared themselves Second Amendment “sanctuaries,” refusing to enforce the new laws.

How did we get here? For a clear-eyed account, I suggest reading “After Virginia Tech” by award-winning journalist Thomas P. Kapsidelis, a friend and former Richmond Times-Dispatch colleague.

Kapsidelis tells victims’ stories and what happened next to survivors, families, first responders and others -- and where the political system failed them.

“One Tech parent told me that all sides could have come together to make progress. That hasn’t happened,” he writes.

It’s a sobering, unsentimental assessment, but Kapsidelis cautions against losing hope.

He quotes an editorial by Gerald Fischman, who was murdered, along with four colleagues, last summer when a gunman with a grudge burst into the newsroom at the Capital Gazette in Annapolis. After the Pulse nightclub massacre in Orlando where 58 were killed in July 2016, Fischman wrote: 

“Of all the words this week, hopelessness may be the most dangerous. We must believe there is a solution, a way to prevent another mass shooting.”

No one wants more mass shootings. The 2020 campaigns and election offer us the chance to show we care enough to try to stop them.

©2019 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

The populist is a millionaire -- now what? -- April 18, 2019 column

By MARSHA MERCER

At the ripe age of 77, Bernie Sanders finds himself in an enviable predicament.

He lost the Democratic nomination for president in 2016 but became a bestselling author.

His book, “Our Revolution,” was published just after the 2016 election, and “Where We Go from Here” came out last November.

Mostly because of book advances and royalties, Sanders and his wife reported income above $1 million in 2016 and 2017 when they released 10 years of tax returns April 15.

In 2018, the couple had substantially less, but still hefty, adjusted gross income of $561,293, about $393,000 from book income. The Sanderses reported $19,000 in charitable giving last year.

And yet, all is not clover for the independent senator and leading Democratic presidential contender – at least until Joe Biden enters the race.

A headline in The New York Times said of Sanders: “He’s part of the 1%.”

Trevor Noah joked on “The Daily Show” that Sanders’s being a millionaire is like finding out Trump is secretly a Mexican.

Good one. But wait.

Yes, Sanders has railed for years against income inequality, a corrupt political system and “millionaires and billionaires” not paying their fair share. But he did pay his taxes. 

The Sanderses paid $372,368 in taxes in 2016, $343,882 in 2017, and $145,840 last year.

“These tax returns show that our family has been fortunate,” he said in a statement. “I am very grateful for that, as I grew up in a family that lived paycheck to paycheck and I know the stress of economic insecurity.”

He said he won’t apologize for his best seller -- nor should he. In a Fox News town hall interview Monday night, Sanders also called on President Donald Trump to release his taxes, which Trump will never do willingly.

Congressional Democrats hope to force Trump to release his taxes, but the longer Trump delays, the more people wonder what he’s hiding.

Unlike Sanders who seems embarrassed by his own wealth, Trump’s returns might embarrass him by showing he’s not as rich or as charitable as he says, or that he’s found legal loopholes to avoid paying taxes.   

Everyone knows a turn in the White House can unlock a treasure chest. Forbes magazine estimated Hillary Clinton’s worth at $45 million in 2016, almost all amassed after she and President Bill Clinton left the White House. 

Michelle Obama wrote the bestselling nonfiction book of 2018. “Becoming” sold 2 million copies in its first 15 days and still occupies the Times bestseller list 21 weeks later.

Sanders, though, is proof that running – and losing the nomination -- can also boost one’s bottom line. In 2015, the Sanderses had adjusted gross income of about $205,000 – mostly from his $174,000 Senate salary and Social Security benefits for both.

His 2016 campaign captured imaginations with populist, “us versus them” rhetoric. 

Some 13 million Americans voted for Sanders in the primaries and caucuses, and he won 22 states. People wanted to read what he had to say -- and not just in the United States. “Our Revolution” has been translated into five languages, the Sanders campaign says.

Sanders needs to accept his good luck and stop sounding peevish. The self-styled democratic socialist denied on Fox his success is proof capitalism works. So much for winning disaffected Donald Trump voters.

And to The New York Times, Sanders said, “If you write a bestselling book, you can be a millionaire, too.”

It’s doubtful, of course, he’d have had best sellers or that Jane Sanders would have received an advance of more than $106,000 in 2017 to write a book about the couple’s public service, had he not run for president.

Even if he’s uncomfortable, Sanders did the right thing in releasing his returns, as have six other Democratic presidential hopefuls. Kamala Harris is a millionaire, and Elizabeth Warren is close. The other contenders need to release their tax returns, too, 

so voters know who they are voting for.

Populism isn’t defined by how much – or how little – money someone has in the bank. It’s defined by the commitment to creating jobs, improving education and other policies that ensure opportunity for all.    

©2019 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

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McConnell sets Green New Deal trap -- Feb. 14, 2019 column

By MARSHA MERCER

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has been in the Senate longer than Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York has been alive.

That imbalance became clear Tuesday as McConnell set up a vote to make Democrats pay for their reckless embrace of the Green New Deal.

McConnell, who turns 77 Wednesday, arrived in the Senate in 1985. Ocasio-Cortez was born in 1989.

At 29, she is the youngest woman ever elected to Congress, a wizard at social media with 3.1 million Twitter followers. A video of her House Oversight and Reform Committee “Lightning Round” take-down at the of lax ethics and campaign finance rules is an internet sensation.

But her rollout of the much-anticipated Green New Deal was a disaster.

To recap, her office released and then retracted a frequently-asked-questions sheet that included the goals of economic security for people “unwilling to work,” and eventually ridding the country of flatulent cows, airplanes and various industries.

None of those ideas is in the actual resolution, H. Res. 109, but they were the first many people heard about the Green New Deal. Ocasio-Cortez didn’t help matters when she falsely said there were “doctored” FAQ versions on the internet.

The resolution is non-binding but would indicate support to set the federal government on the path of a “10 year national mobilization” to fight climate change and remake the economy.

Among the goals: “Meeting 100 percent of the power demand in the United States through clean, renewable, and zero-emission energy sources.” It also guarantees jobs, education, food and health care for everyone.

Such sweeping changes need serious consideration with months, if not years, of hearings, and compromises. By rushing out a resolution in her first month in office, Ocasio-Cortez delighted her fans but walked into a trap.

The conservative media and President Donald Trump quickly blasted the Green New Deal as ridiculous.

“It sounds like a high school term paper that got a low mark,” Trump said at a campaign rally in El Paso. “I really don’t like their policy of taking away your car, of taking away your airplane rights, of ‘Let’s hop a train to California,’ or you’re not allowed to own cows anymore!”

Ocasio-Cortez rightly could have said her manifesto wouldn’t do any of those things. It doesn’t include any specific proposals. But she lobbed her response by tweet: “Ah yes, a man who can’t even read briefings written in full sentences is providing literary criticism of a House Resolution.”

Meanwhile, McConnell, a veteran of many political wars, was setting the trap.

He looked like the cat that swallowed the canary when he announced the Senate would vote on the Green New Deal resolution. A resolution identical to Ocasio-Cortez’s was introduced by Sen. Edward Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts.

“We’ll give everybody an opportunity to go on record and see how they feel about the Green New Deal,” McConnell told reporters. 

Mischievous Mitch used to say he would only bring measures to the floor that would get Trump’s signature. This time he means to get Democrats on the record so Republican candidates can hammer them during 2020 campaigns.

Half a dozen Democratic senators are running for president, and nearly a dozen Democrats face tough Senate re-election bids.

The botched rollout has made more than Ocasio-Cortez look amateurish. So too do the presidential hopefuls who jumped on the bandwagon. 

Six cosponsors are announced or likely presidential contenders -- Sens. Cory Booker, Kirsten Gillibrand, Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar and Elizabeth Warren. Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent who may run again, is also a cosponsor.

In contrast, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, 78, a wily congressional veteran who came to the House in 1987, has kept the Green New Deal at arm’s length.

“It will be one of several or maybe many suggestions that we receive,” Pelosi told Politico. “The green dream or whatever they call it, nobody knows what it is, but they’re for it, right?”

Pelosi saw early what’s now dawning on less savvy Democrats: The Green New Deal wasn’t ready for prime time. It created a political opening for Republicans and a liability for Democrats.   

©2019 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

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