Getting to yes on impeachment -- Dec. 12, 2019 column

By MARSHA MERCER

Last June, I wrote that impeaching President Donald Trump was a bad idea for Democrats because most people opposed it.

I also thought House Democrats would not go for impeachment unless and until public sentiment changed.

I was wrong on both counts.

As the House moves toward a vote on impeachment next week, most people still oppose it. I no longer think it’s a bad idea for Democrats, though it is politically risky.

Not impeaching Trump would be smart, practical politics, but allowing his corruption to go unchecked would harm our democracy. Sometimes you have to take a stand.

The testimony of courageous former federal officials before the House Intelligence Committee persuaded me Democrats are right to hold the president accountable for his conduct regarding Ukraine.

The House will vote on two articles of impeachment -- abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

“They said these two things – they’re not even a crime!” Trump shouted Tuesday at a rally in Pennsylvania, apparently disappointed Democrats didn’t hit him with more. He sees impeachment as a political plus.

The constitutional standard for impeachment includes “high crimes and misdemeanors,” which Congress, not criminal statutes, defines.

Democrats charge he abused the power of his office when he tried to force a foreign government to help him gain personal advantage over a political opponent, and he obstructed Congress in its investigations.

Trump has continually flouted norms of personal behavior with impunity. Now, House Democrats are saying we have a president, not a king, and no one is above the law.

Reflecting our hyper-polarized country, almost all House Democrats will vote for impeachment while House Republicans en masse likely will vote no.

The Republican-controlled Senate will hold a trial after the first of the year. Whether it will be the longer show trial Trump wants or a shorter one favored by some senators isn’t clear.

Under the Constitution, removing the president from office requires a vote of two-thirds of the Senate. The Senate will vote to acquit Trump, keeping him in office.

He then will declare vindication and play the victim to rally voters next November.

Public opinion hasn’t changed much over the last six months. Last June, 54% opposed Trump’s impeachment and removal from office while 41% favored it, CNN reported.

That was after Robert Mueller’s report investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election was released. Mueller’s report did not exonerate Trump, as he and his allies repeatedly claim. Nor did it move public opinion.

Since then, news broke of a whistleblower’s complaint about Trump’s July 25 phone call to Ukraine’s new president, Volodymyr Zelensky, and the House Intelligence Committee held hearings that laid out the case against Trump.

Trump asked Zelensky for “a favor”: investigate leading Democratic presidential contender Joe Biden and his son Hunter, who had served on the board of a Ukrainian gas company.

Trump also held up hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid to Ukraine, releasing the funds only after he learned of the whistleblower’s complaint.

Support for impeachment has inched up.  For example, 45% of voters believe Trump should be impeached and removed from office, but 50% say he should not, the latest Monmouth University Poll reported Wednesday.

Trump remains defiant, insisting he has done nothing wrong, stonewalling congressional investigations of his actions. That suits his coalition just fine.

Evangelicals like his Supreme Court and other judicial appointments. The rich like his tax cut and their healthy stock portfolios. Gun makers and enthusiasts like his stand against gun control. Business likes his rollback of environmental laws and other regulations.

Even vapers like Trump because he walked away from his promise to ban some flavored e-cigarette products.

In the past, Republicans would have been uncomfortable with the president’s coziness with Russia – especially as it interferes in another election. But Trump’s “America first” policies make it OK to be isolationist and anti-immigrant.

So, yes, Trump will survive impeachment. Ultimately, history will judge whether  Democratic or Republican lawmakers did the right thing.  

But will voters reward him with a second term? That depends on the Democrats’ choice as their presidential nominee and how well the candidate withstands the vile campaign of innuendo, misrepresentations and outright lies Trump will wage to ruin his opponent.

Sad to say, we ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

©2019 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

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`The Body' -- Don't take it for granted -- Dec. 5, 2019 column

By MARSHA MERCER

Right now, your body may be doing something even more amazing than breathing in and out 20,000 times and your heart beating 100,000 times in one day. 

Every day, up to five of your cells turns cancerous, and your immune system captures and kills them. 

“Think of that. A couple of dozen times a week, well over a thousand times a year, you get the most dreaded disease of our age, and each time your body saves you,” Bill Bryson writes in “The Body,” a 450-page, head-to-toe tour of the mysterious and miraculous “warm wobble of flesh” we mostly take for granted.

If you need a break from impeachment hearings or holiday stress, you could do worse than to spend time with Bryson, an amiable guide and meticulous researcher known for his smart and witty books about hiking the Appalachian Trail, his other travels and popular histories.

Reading “The Body,” you may discover a sense of awe about being here at all, an appreciation of scientists you’ve never heard of, and even the resolve to treat yourself better. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

“The Body” is a compendium of facts, figures, oddities, history and fascinating characters engagingly told. For doubters and those who want to dig deeper, Bryson includes extensive source notes and a robust bibliography. 

“Our bodies are a universe of 37.2 trillion cells operating in more or less perfect concert more or less all the time,” he writes, and, while more than 8,000 diseases could kill us, “we escape every one of them but one.”

Often likened to a machine, the body is so much more, he argues. 

It “works 24 hours a day for decades without (for the most part) needing regular servicing or the installation of spare parts, runs on water and a few organic compounds, is soft and rather lovely, is accommodatingly mobile and pliant, reproduces itself with enthusiasm, makes jokes, feels affection, appreciates a red sunset and a cooling breeze.

“How many machines do you know that can do any of that? There is no question about it. You are truly a wonder,” Bryson writes. “But then so, it must be said, is an earthworm.”

All is not always wondrous, of course. A lot can, and does, go wrong with the intricacies of the body. 

“We choke to death more easily than any other mammal.” 

“Twenty years ago, about 5,000 genetic diseases were known. Today it’s 7,000.”

“Some 40 percent of us will discover we have cancer at some point in our lives. Many, many more will have it without knowing it and will die of something else.” 

When it comes to health care, America spends more than any other nation – and 2 ½ times more per person than the average of all the developed nations in the world. And yet we are 31^stin global rankings of life expectancy. Why?

“We live in an age in which we are killed, more often than not, by lifestyle,” he writes. 

After reading his take on sugar, I took a look at the label on a bag of spice drops, one of my guilty pleasures, and felt more guilt than pleasure. I lost my taste for the sweet, nutrition-free treat. 

A pleasure of Bryson’s book is learning about obscure heroes of scientific research. Most have been men, and many saw their discoveries ridiculed or themselves cheated out of their rightful place in history. 

One such sad case was microbiologist Albert Schatz, who discovered streptomycin, the first antibiotic to treat such deadly diseases as tuberculosis.

Selman Waksman, Schatz’s supervisor at Rutgers University, took credit for the 20^thcentury breakthrough and pocketed profits from the patent. Schatz sued and received a portion of the royalties, but his lawsuit made him persona non grata in academia. 

Waksman won the 1952 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine alone and when he died was lauded as the “father of antibiotics.” 

Not until 20 years later did Schatz finally receive recognition. The American Society of Microbiology gave him its highest honor -- the Selman A. Waksman medal. 

“Life sometimes really is very unfair,” Bryson observes.

©2019 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

30

Does money talk? Bloomberg's in -- Nov. 28, 2019 column

By MARSHA MERCER

An earthquake named Bloomberg shook up the Democratic presidential race this week.

“I think there’s a greater risk of having Donald Trump reelected than there was before,” former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Monday in Norfolk, a day after he announced his candidacy, adding, “And in the end, I looked in the mirror and said, `You just cannot let this happen.’”

Thus did Bloomberg acknowledge the donkey in the room. With no clear frontrunner and several Democratic candidates still bunched together in the polls, many Democrats fear none of their contenders has “it” – or enough “it” to dump President Trump.

Also sensing Democrats’ agita at this relatively late stage is former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick.

“I recognize running for president is a Hail Mary under any circumstances,” Patrick told reporters Nov. 14 in New Hampshire, as he launched his long-shot campaign. “This is a Hail Mary from two stadiums over.”

One enormous difference between the latecomers is that Bloomberg could buy the stadiums and pay cheering fans to fill them without blinking an eye, while Patrick is begging for money online. Nobody said politics was fair.

Bloomberg, cofounder of the financial information and media company Bloomberg LP, is personally worth a cool $55 billion, making him the ninth richest person in the world, according to Forbes magazine.

He has tapped his fortune previously to win elections, dropping at least $261 million of his own money on his three successful campaigns for mayor, The New York Times reported. Bloomberg plans to self-fund his presidential bid and is not accepting donations.

Anyone who lived through the 2016 presidential election knows better than to dismiss any candidate out of hand, but it’s not clear what Patrick brings to the field, except more moderate positions than those of Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. Isn’t that what Joe Biden is for?

As for Bloomberg, his great wealth automatically makes him a formidable presence. He quickly dumped $37 million on TV ads over two weeks.

And yet a snarky question hangs over him and Trump: Is this the best presidential choice America can muster: two 70-something white guy billionaires from New York?

Bloomberg is no Trump. He has more money and has given away billions – with a B – to causes he believes in. He gave $1.8 billion to Johns Hopkins University last year, after giving $1.5 billion earlier to his alma mater. He founded a gun control group and supports climate-related and other environmental projects.

Bloomberg and his media company are rightly taking criticism, though, for a memo from Bloomberg’s editor in chief.

Bloomberg reporters will continue to refrain from investigating him, his family or foundation and will extend the blackout to his Democratic rivals, the memo said, but they’ll continue to dig into Trump. What? A reputable news organization, which Bloomberg is, should act like one and put journalism first.

Naturally, the Democrats who have been on the campaign trail for months, if not years, lashed out at Candidate Deep Pockets.

“Michael Bloomberg is making a bet about democracy in 2020. He doesn’t need people; he only needs bags and bags of money,” Warren said in Iowa.

Sanders also complained that Bloomberg is trying to buy the election.

“We do not believe that billionaires have the right to buy elections,” Sanders said in New Hampshire, predicting Bloomberg is “not going to get very far in this election.”

History indicates Sanders may be right. In his 1992 presidential bid as an independent, Ross Perot spent $63.5 million of his own money -- $97 million adjusted for inflation, Real Clear Politics reports. Perot won 19 percent of the popular vote but not one electoral vote.

Steve Forbes’s 1996 and 2000 failed attempts to win the Republican presidential nomination cost him $70 million.

Bloomberg reportedly will skip the first four contests to focus on Super Tuesday, March 3, when 14 states will vote, including the delegate-rich states of California and Texas, as well as Virginia.

His big ad buys will make Bloomberg a household name, but that doesn’t guarantee Democrats will like Mike enough to support him.

To inspire Democrats, Bloomberg will need more than appealing videos and a catchy slogan – “rebuild America.” He’ll need solid ideas if he hopes to win votes – especially next November.

©2019 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.