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Category: Politics & Law

Representatives

If we don’t pay congressfolk enough, then only the rich will be congressfolk

Freezing congressional salaries, as inflation has slashed their income over time, while they must maintain two homes and work in one of the pricier cities in the nation, is a great way to ensure that only independently wealthy folk run for Congress.
https://t.co/GAqcTYwN2p

We already have a problem with Congress being the playground of millionaires (of both parties); freezing congressional salaries (which has a knock-on effect on the salaries of aids, too) only makes this problem worse.

Yeah, I know, everyone hates Congress. But we’re stuck with it as an institution, and the public always seems much more eager to vote out other folks’ reps than their own. Given that, is Congress likely to improve if it’s only the realm of the independently wealthy, folk who don’t need to care about what congressional salaries are?

Consider that working as a Representative or a Senator means having to maintain two households, one at the home district and one in DC. Yeah, being a congresscritter has a lot of perqs, but it also carries a lot of expense — something that “ordinary” people might not be able to swing if the salary doesn’t support it.

Congressional salaries are supposed to include a Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) to keep up with inflation and avoid arguments about Congress getting raises. But congressfolk who are (a) sensitive to optics or (b) wanting to be seen as fiscal hawks, as well as (c) not dependent on those raises … they’ve have kept that from happening.

Lawmakers have voted since 2009 to block their annual pay raise, which some are now trying to change this year since the cost of living has skyrocketed since then. […] The Congressional Research Service estimated that, when adjusted for inflation, lawmaker salaries have decreased 15 percent since the last pay increase in 2009.

Again, you don’t like Congress? They serve two-year or six-year (depending on the chamber) contracts — feel free to give them their walking papers at that time if they aren’t doing the job you want them to. But choking off their pay isn’t going to make them any better — it’s just going to make them less representative.

Which, y’know, kind of defeats the purpose.

Do you want to know more?

Two notes from the Twitter comments:

  1. If Congress came with a housing stipend (adjusted for real estate inflation), that would cover much of my concern here.
  2. Alternately, if we built a Congressional Dormitory, I see sitcom gold!

And They’ll Know We Are Christians by Our Love

Except for those ostensibly Christian leaders who want to execute LGBTQ people. Yeesh.

I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.
— John 13:34-35

(Not to mention a hymn I grew up with.)

Two stories I ran across today. First:

Authorities ‘looking into’ pastor’s church sermon calling for execution of LGBTQ people | TheHill

Here’s Pastor Grayson Fritts, preaching at All Scripture Baptist Church:

“Here’s how it should work. It shouldn’t work when we go out and we enforce the laws, because the Bible says the powers that be are ordained of God and God has instilled the power of civil government to send the police in 2019 out to these LGBT freaks and arrest them,” Fritts said in his June 2 sermon.

“Have a trial for them, and if they are convicted then they are to be put to death … do you understand that? It’s a capital crime to be carried out by our government.”

Do we feel more comfortable that Pastor Fritts is a detective in the Knox County Sheriff’s Office?

The next headline is relatively innocuous in its text …

Christian Hate-Preachers Are Hosting a “Make America Straight Again” Event | Hemant Mehta | Friendly Atheist | Patheos

… until you start reading about these preachers who, remarkably, don’t include Pastor Fritts, above.

There’s Steven Anderson, who celebrated the [Pulse Nightclub] massacre as soon as it happened because there were “50 less pedophiles in this world.” He added that he’s “not gonna sit here and cry about it and say it’s a tragedy, because it’s not.” He’s also said if he could push a button and kill every homosexual, he would “push it until it breaks.”

There’s Roger Jimenez, who said the worst thing about the massacre was that the shooter “didn’t finish the job.” He also longed for the government to round up all the gay people, “put them up against a firing wall, put a firing squad in front of them, and blow their brains out.”

There’s Tommy McMurtry, who wishes we could go back to the time when society put gay people in their place: “six feet under.”

[…] The man hosting the conference is Patrick Boyle of Revival Baptist Church in Orlando, so it’s presumably at his church or somewhere close by. Boyle, by the way, insists he’s just echoing the Bible when he says gay people “are worthy of death.”

Those folk are preachers at Faithful Word Baptist, Verity Baptist, and Liberty Baptist Church, and Revival Baptist Church.

Three points.

First, I am not suggesting this is the “Christian,” or even “Baptist” attitude toward LGBTQ folk. I know too many Christians, and read too many more, to make such an assertion.

Second, I am always seriously reluctant to brand people as not being “Christian.” That’s a tactic that’s been used by tyrants and theocrats down the centuries to discredit and persecute folk of all stripes.

But I find it impossible to reconcile the gleeful homophobic bloodthirstiness of these self-identifying Christian preachers with anything in the Biblical teachings of Christ, let alone the beliefs of many Christians I know.

Third, whenever there is a terroristic crime, or even violent sentiment of precisely this sort, by self-identifying Muslims, there is a public demand that other Muslims pointedly condemn such things, so as to demonstrate that they don’t support such sentiments (and, even then, law enforcement is encouraged and follows through on efforts to monitor Muslim organizations and gathering places to ensure we’re not seeing a terror attack in the making).

It would not be inappropriate, given these particular individuals, to similarly insist that Christians condemn their sentiments, lest people draw the conclusion that this is how all Christians feel (and, presumably, want to act upon), or even use as a justification to put Baptist congregations under police and FBI observation.

Consider this my own condemnation of same.  This is, as I said, antithetical to my own religious beliefs, and my understanding of Christianity, not to mention my beliefs as to how a civil society operates in general, and how America operates specifically.

I would say more about the individuals involved … but it would involve language that doesn’t seem particularly loving. Because some folk make it very difficult to love them, Jesus’ dictates or not.

Terms of Engagement

The US wants to Europe to spend more on defense … or, rather, on US weapons.

The Trump Administration wants Europe to spend more money on defense … but only if they are buying weapons from the US. Yeesh. https://t.co/Ijx53aijh7

Donald Trump has long lambasted our NATO allies for not spending more of their own money on defense, rather than letting the US do so. There’s some fairness in that, though it’s distorted by the degree to which the US has wanted to maintain bases in the NATO nations (in our own opposition to the Soviet Union, and then Russia), and the degree to which the US feels it needs to spend more money on defense than the next eight biggest spenders on the planet.

But, hey, the NATO nations have apparently been convinced that Donald might desert them if they don’t pay the US more (a model which doesn’t actually exist) or if they don’t boost their own spending (as, again to be fair, they have previously agreed to).

Except … they’re not doing it the way Donald wants.

The New York Times reported last week that Michael J. Murphy, a top official in the State Department’s Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs, “lectured” European Union ambassadors about their attempt to launch a new program that would exclude “third parties”—including the United States—from participating in cooperative military projects unless absolutely necessary.

Murphy was so angry about the issue, the Times reports, that he left no time in the session for discussion after his remarks. A “similar but less aggressive meeting” took place at the Pentagon, where discussion was allowed.

At his meeting with the ambassadors, Murphy accused the EU of “pursuing an industrial policy under the veneer of a security policy.”

We (the US) want them to spend more … but, apparently just as important, we want to profit from that spending. If they decide to boost their own military industry through defense spending (like we do in the US), well … that’s just … not … fair.

So, let’s summarize the messages that the Trump Administration is sending here to our European allies:

  1. The US is spending more on defending our European allies than we think they are worth.
  2. The US wants to make a lot more money off of our European allies.

I’m sure I read all about just that kind of tactic in How to Win Friends and Influence People.

Back to the Bad Old Days

The Supreme Court is returning to its classic role of protector of the status quo and its power interests.

For over half a century, SCOTUS has been a key in enabling social change and promoting justice for the weak. Prior to that, it was more often a protector of the status quo and powerful, a conservative opponent to progress. We’re headed that way again.
https://t.co/yxVs5dqHmS

Since, oh, the days of the Warren court, the Supreme Court has, imperfectly and to very broadly generalize, found ways that the words and principles of the Constitution protected those who needed protection. Brown vs. Board of Ed, Roe v. Wade,  Gideon v. Wainwright, Engel v. Vitale, New York Times v. Sullivan, Miranda v. Arizona, Loving v. Virginia, Texas v. Johnson, Lawrence v. Texas, United States v. Nixon,  Obergefell v. Hodges … the Court has found profound ways the Constitution protects individual freedom and equality under the law.

What most people today don’t realize is that, for much of its existence, the Supreme Court usually served as a conservative force for the status quo, protecting majorities and power structures and the establishment. This was not a matter of “activism” vs. “non-activism” (if the meaning and bounds of the Constitution were obvious and inarguable, then we wouldn’t need a Supreme Court, or we would need a court of one justice). It was the culture of what was expected of the Court, and resulted in everything from Dred Scott v Sanford to Plessy v. Ferguson to Korematsu v. United States.

Since the 1980s, conservatives in the US have been playing a long game to roll back the clock to those Bad Old Days. The nomination and (usual) confirmation of more ideologically reliable justices was part of that, and the strategy culminated in Mitch McConnell asserting a brand-new (and admittedly disingenuous) tradition of Never Letting a President Appoint a New Justice [When It’s Not One Of Our Presidents] to deny Obama a replacement on the Court.

The point of the article (link repeated below) is that the result is likely to be not only a return to a Supreme Court that protects the powerful interests within the US and majority sentiments over minority rights, but one that will eagerly roll back the last 60-70 years of precedent (stare decisis be damned). Those who find protections of free speech, of minority rights, to be of value, will need to consider how to protect them against a conservative majority that wants to turn the judicial clock back to the 1940s, if not the 1840s.

Do you want to know more? We need to prepare for a complete reversal of the role the Supreme Court plays in our lives – The Washington Post

On demolishing Columbine High School

The proposal seems driven part by safety, party by fear.

There is apparently very serious talk about tearing down Columbine HS, not all that far away from where I live. Though it’s been twenty years (!) since the mass shooting at the campus, it remains an icon of … admiration? … among some disturbed folk, and the idea is that tearing down the school will break that cycle by, um, removing it as a focal point, a pilgrimage site for folk unhealthily obsessed and admiring of the killings by the Klebold kids.

Except … yeah, not so much.

First, while the 1999 killings placed an indelible stain upon the name and site, the school itself has been in operation since 1973. That’s nearly a half-century (!) of students, whose heritage would be torn down — including the heritage of the last two decades of community coming back from something so awful.

Second … the proposal is acting by half-measures. The idea is to tear down almost all of the school, but leave the library, and then build a new school adjacent to that on the property, but still call it Columbine … and still have the memorial at the site.

Um … and this is going to somehow keep the whackadoodles from being attracted to the place … how now?

It’s not like we’re Pharaoh, ordering all evidence of Columbine HS to be eradicated. I mean, if you’re going to do this, you raze the whole place, sell the property to a commercial developer, build a new school someplace nearby, call it something different … and, yeah, you probably want to get rid of the memorial, too. You erase everything, and so there’s nothing there for the disturbed to relate to.

Conversely, third … why would you give the Klebold kids the final victory, destroying the place they wanted to make their violent heritage in shooting up?

When terrorists took down the World Trace Center, proposals to leave the site in a flattened condition were roundly, and rightly, rejected. Tearing down Columbine HS, under the proposal, is a halfway measure at best, and sends precisely the wrong message.

Ultimately, it’s not my decision. It’s the decision of the people of and around the school. I hope they choose wisely.

Do you want to know more?

Bang! Zoom! Straight to the Moon!

Donald is a bold, inspiration leader … in whatever direction Fox is talking about today.

Oh, look. President Random-Neuron-Firing is making arbitrary and inconsistent policy statements on Twitter. Again. I offer a shiny nickel to the first person who can identify the Fox News, etc., item that triggered him. #nasa #moon #trumptantrum https://t.co/AwbZH9gt9m

After months of proudly proclaiming that NASA was going to put us back on the Moon, for long-term occupation and exploration (said statements then faithfully echoed by NASA itself, as well as by VP Pence and other administration members), all of a sudden, Trump blurted this out yesterday:

Why the sudden change of heart? As far as anyone can tell, because an hour earlier, His Closest Advisors (Fox) said that the Moon was for chumps (and a bright, shiny nickel has been delivered to Stan for spotting this).

We literally have a president whose mood and policies on any given day are influenced by Fox News and Fox Business News. No matter what he’s said, even assuming he remembers it, a critique on Fox is enough to get him to pivot in another direction.

That would be annoying enough if we were just employees of his company (yes, I’ve worked for bosses like that). But as President of the United States? Yeesh.

The Cheese Stands Alone

Maybe Donald thought he was putting his name on a school paper.

This is a joint D-Day proclamation by the world leaders who were present at the 75th anniversary commemoration of the event.

And, yes, that’s Donald’s signature, way at the top.

Who signs a document, all by itself, at the very top, when everyone else is signing it, together, at the bottom the way one does? Why would he do that?

I can think of only three reasons.

  1. He was the last to sign and there was no room left at the bottom. This seems unlikely. I cannot imagine Trump allowing himself to be the last to sign the document after all those other people. He’d elbow his way to the front. He’d pitch a fit because, as the President of the United States, reasons, reasons, reasons.
    But even if he was the last to sign … there was plenty of room in the margins, as at least two other signatories demonstrated.
  2. As President of the United States, he decided his name needed to be in top. Preferably in lights. I’m surprised he didn’t ask for another, brighter color pen, plus a highlighter to draw a circle around his Most Important Signature.
  3. People who are suffering from cognitive problems sometimes have problems figuring out where they are supposed to sign something. Especially when there’s not a big line with an X in front of it.

Of course, I also don’t believe that Donald agrees with half the sentiments in that proclamation, assuming he even read it. “Democracy, tolerance, and the rule of law”? “Shared values”? “Work together as allies and friends”? “Work constructively as friends and allies to find common ground where we have differences of opinion”? “Work together to resolve international tensions peacefully”? Does any of that sound like Donald Trump or what passes for his foreign international economic policy?

I suppose we’re lucky he decided to sign it at all.

Democratic Race 2020 Potpourri

Some interesting articles, and my current candidate thoughts (for what they’re worth)

These were a few interesting articles I’ve run across the past few days (followed by my early candidate preferences):

The first post-9/11 vets are running for president. Do voters care? – POLITICO — Apparently Dems are a lot less impressed by military credentials than they used to be when sizing up presidential candidates. I know for myself I find it an interesting datum, but more for how they relate it to their life’s experience, service, concern over putting contemporary troops in harm’s way, etc.

Which 2020 Candidates Are More (Or Less) Popular Than They ‘Should’ Be? | FiveThirtyEight — Polling right now is … of dubious value for identifying the winners, but it is kind of interesting in looking at trends — whose numbers are moving, whose aren’t, and whose are moving in the wrong direction.

I expect things to shake out a lot more after the debates rumble through and people actually start paying attention, at least at the sound bite level.

Presidential historian: Democrats’ ‘conventional wisdom’ on picking nominee is ‘all wrong’ | TheHill — The DNC (and a sizeable array of media punditry) seem convinced that the only way to win is to nominate a comfortable centrist. While Biden’s initial surge in the polls seems to support that, this historian notes that the Dems have won in the last half-century with outsiders and non-centrists, and when they’ve gone for moderate candidates (who are lambasted as radicals by the GOP anyway), they haven’t fared so well.

2020 Democratic Debates Guide – POLITICO — Given the gobsmacking number of candidates, it’s little wonder that, even with pre-planning, the selection criteria for the debates is resulting in a lot of shouting and stomping of feet.

Oh, and since the question has come up elsewhere, here are the only candidates I have much interest (one way or the other in) at the moment:

Biden — He’s an entire political generation (or two) behind. I don’t think he’s the awful person some folk are trying to paint him as, but I don’t think he’s the Great Moderate Hope who can beat Trump. I want someone a bit –fresher.

Sanders — Frankly, I find the guy irritating, perpetually angry and scolding and shouting and scowling. He’s done a tremendous service in raising a lot of ideas that have gone from zany-and-way-out-there in 2016 to what most of the Democratic candidates are standing behind this election. All credit to him for that. Now I wish he’d go away and throw his weight behind the nominee.

Warren — Wonky and feisty and, from what I can see, earnest. I like her. She’s older than I’d prefer (as are the other two mentioned above, and their presumed opponent this election), but she has a heck of a spring in her step, and I can see her going toe-to-toe with Trump.

Buttigieg — I’ve yet to hear him say anything I didn’t like. I’m a scosh hesitant about promoting someone from mayor to president, but on the other hand he’s got actual executive experience (if on a far smaller scale). I want to see more of him.

O’Rourke — I’d have love to have seen him boot Ted Cruz out of the Senate, and mad props to him for getting so close, but that’s about the best I can say for Beto. I don’t have a sense of much substance on issues here, just a lot of charisma. I’m still willing to listen.

Booker — My sense from having seen him interviewed a lot over the past several years is that he’s a political hack. I might be wrong, but he’s just seemed to be light on policy, heavy on partisanship.

Harris, Gillibrand, Castro, Klobuchar — I haven’t heard enough of to really get excited or outraged, just enough to recognize their names.

Hickenlooper, Bennet — Yeah, they’re from my home state. Um, yay, team?

And All the Rest — Enjoy your 5 minutes in the spotlight (if you are lucky). I don’t see anyone from that far down in the pack getting anywhere except to use this run as a publicity springboard for further office-seeking.

And with that said, here’s the biggest caveat: Short of learning about something profoundly horrible in their past (or present) — I mean of the “eats live puppies with guacamole” level of horrible — there’s not a single one of the people on this list I would not vote for to get Trump out of office. There are some I’d prefer to vote for to that end, but when it comes to November 2020, I’m there for whomever is on the Democratic ballot. And that’s not just about partisanship — it’s about literally saving this country (and possibly human civilization).

That’s hyperbole of the sort I have usually rolled my eyes at in the past. I fully believe it when it comes to the 2020 election.

Alabama’s draconian abortion law made one unanticipated demographic happy: rapists

And the state’s done the minimum amount to fix that.

Alabama has been an outlier in the US for allowing rapists to assert parental rights — child custody, visitation, etc. — over the offspring their assaults result in.

That particular bit of local charm slipped lawmakers’ minds when Alabama gleefully passed its new anti-abortion law, which provides no exception for cases of rape. The state legislature has since had to scramble to put some sort of provision into state law to deal with the presumed increased number of cases where women who are raped are forced to carry their baby to full term … and then potentially forced to associate with their rapists for the next couple of decades.

Scramble they did, and now Alabama will prevent that from happening. Kind of. Sometimes. Maybe. Their new “Jessi’s Law” only allows a court to terminate or restrict parental rights of rapists when there’s a conviction for first degree rape or incest.

Given the dramatic underreporting of rape, and the low numbers of convictions even when reported, that dependency on conviction makes it a minor comfort indeed.

And the limitation to first degree rape means second degree sexual assaults — which includes statutory rape — are excluded from the law. So when Mom’s skeevy boyfriend assaults and impregnates her 13-year-old daughter, he can still ask for parental rights for the baby (or, more likely, threaten to do so to get them to drop any possible charges).

Huzzah for family values!

Do you want to know more? Alabama Banned Abortions. Then Its Lawmakers Remembered Rapists Can Get Parental Rights. – Mother Jones

Donald Trump revisits why he banned transgender folk from the military

Which is, at best, delusional. At worst, it’s simple self-justified prejudice.

Oh, you British press. You don’t sweat over whether you’ll be invited to the next US Presidential Press Conference, so you’re free, free, to ask irritating questions …

On his trip to the UK, Donald granted a single interview. It was to Piers Morgan (a one-time “Celebrity Apprentice” contestant), who actually raised some difficult issues for Donald to answer.  While his farcical answers about climate change drew the most national press attention, I found his answers about transgender folk in the military to be even more indicative of … well, something unpleasant.

Morgan pressed Trump about his self-trumpeted support for LGBT* folk, in the face of multiple actions against that community, in particular transgender people, and specifically booting them out of the military.

Trump trotted out a singular reason — the incredibly high cost of dealing with transgender folk in transition. The problem is, not only is that not what his administration argued in court about the ban, it’s also simply not true.

Quoth Donald:

Because they take massive amounts of drugs — they have to — and also, and you’re not allowed to take drugs, you know, in the military, you’re not allowed to take any drugs, you take an aspirin. And they have to, after the operation, they have to, they have no choice, they have to. And you have to actually break rules and regulations in order to have that.

When Morgan noted that the costs of hormone therapy were relatively small, and less than the amount the Pentagon spends on Viagra prescriptions, Trump went on:

Well, it is what it is. Look, massive amounts, and, also, people were going in and then asking for the operation, and the operation is $200,000, $250,000, and getting the operation, the recovery period is long, and they have to take large amounts of drugs after that, for whatever reason, but large amounts, and that’s not — the way it is. I mean, you can’t do that. So, yeah, I said, when it came time to make a decision on that, and because of the drugs, and also because of the cost of the operation, people were going in —

Morgan noted the number of transgender folk who had served with distinction. Trump replied:

Well, I’m proud of them, I’m proud of them, I think it’s great, but you have to have a standard, and you have to stick by that standard. And we have a great military, and I want to keep it that way, and maybe they’d be phenomenal, I think they probably would be. But, again, you have very strict rules and regulations on drugs and prescription drugs and all of these different things and — they blow it out of the water.

How many ways is this inaccurate? Let me hit a couple, speaking in the context of having a transmale son who is going through treatment, etc., at the present time.

  1. Actively serving military personnel are, in fact, “allowed to take drugs” that are prescribed. To take a simple case, military personnel can be diabetic and still serve, even as they have to take insulin.Indeed, the Trump Administration’s own self-justifying re-study of transfolk in the military found that “roughly three times more cisgender men want testosterone supplements than transgender patients.” And, of course, most famously (and as Morgan points out), the Pentagon spends significantly more on Viagra for serving personnel than it has ever spent on hormone treatment for trans folk.

    Speaking anecdotally, the required hormone treatment is not “massive,” and is, in fact, not even all that frequent. It’s certainly less obtrusive or regular than insulin shots.

  2. In no world except, perhaps, high fashion is gender reassignment surgery — “the operation” — a six-figure number, even a low six-figure number. That’s an order of magnitude higher (based on the Pentagon’s own numbers) than even full-blown surgery, something that not all transgender folk go in for.
  3. The idea that transgender folk are enlisting in the military in “massive amounts,” just to get gender reassignment surgery — which doesn’t remove from them the obligation to serve, potentially in combat zone — seems … a bit far-fetched. Okay, it seems like a paranoid delusion.On the other hand, is it any different from someone saying, “I’m going to join the Army so I can get trained for free in XYZ … and so that I get access to VA benefits for the rest of my life”?

The other point worth noting is that this is only a small fraction of the arguments previously raised by Trump’s Administration in court as to why they couldn’t possibly have trans folk serving (even though they’ve been serving with distinction). Those arguments included:

  • Arguments about “unit cohesion” in the face of transwomen being grouped with ciswomen (or transmen being grouped with cismen) — an argument a federal judge noted echoed arguments as to why blacks couldn’t possibly serve alongside whites, or why women couldn’t possibly be admitted into the military.
  • Arguments (based on debunked studies) about whether trans folk were mentally or emotionally stable.

Despite Donald’s expressed sentiment that trans folk would be “phenomenal” in the military, despite fact checking by the interviewer, despite the noted track record of openly trans folk serving in the military … Donald just won’t have it.

Which raises the question: is it simply because he personally thinks trans folk are icky and deluded and unfit (no matter what he says publicly)? Or is it because he feel he can score points among supporters who think trans folk are icky and deluded and unfit (no matter what he says publicly)?

Neither says much about the coherence of Donald’ statements or his moral leadership.

Do you want to know more?

What does “Contempt of Congress” really mean?

Ultimately, Congressional checks are limited against an Administration without shame.

Faced with an Executive Branch that’s basically putting its fists on its waist and saying, “Nuh-uh” to legal requests from the House, Democrats in Congress have a limited number of options. As the article below notes, it’s ultimately limited to (and these are the big guns it can use):

  1. Declare administration figures in Contempt of Congress and (since simple shaming is useless against that gang) take the next logical and legal step of asking the Justice Dept. to fine and/or arrest the offending parties. Which, as we all realize, will be similarly declined.
  2. Sue the administration to comply with what is being requested. The results of that is a court order … which will, presumably, be ignored. Followed by a contempt of court ruling … which will, presumably, be defied (or, more likely, subjected to endless appeal).
  3. Actually send the House’s Sergeant-at-Arms to arrest the offending parties, who can then be tossed in some sort of lockup or another. It’s legal (per SCOTUS, assuming the current edition wouldn’t simply override that precedent). That some Dems are actually muttering about this as an option is a sign as to how far this has gone, and how very few options Congress has in the face of an intransigent President.

There are really only two other powers the House can exert here:

First, it can simply use the power of the purse to shut administration down. That’s highly dangerous, if the citizenry doesn’t see it framed appropriately, especially given the overall damage it can do to innocent bystanders.

The second is impeachment. That’s got high stakes as well, and is further complicated by, well, this kind of blanket obstruction by the executive branch, which has decided obstruction is a winning strategy.  Even investigation as part of a (thoroughly constitutional) process leading toward impeachment proceedings would be hampered by Trump et al. simply saying, “Nuh-uh.”

Because, ultimately, who can compel him to do otherwise?

The GOP in the Senate has already declared any impeachment indictment from the House would be DOA — indeed, that they would make it as quick and kangaroo of a dismissal as humanly possible. Which means impeachment is largely for making the case to the public that, in 2020, they must force Trump to go (and, ideally, the Senate GOP majority).

Assuming Trump doesn’t say “Nuh-uh” to that (“Fake voters! Fraud! SCOTUS, back me up there!”), too.

I’ve often said (over the last two years) that our system has depended on people, if not wanting to do what is right, at least being blocked by shame from being seen to do what is wrong. The Trump Administration, led by the man at the top, has decided that shame is for suckers, have basically set up a challenge to our system. “Nuh-uh. What you gonna do about it?” Trump gets away with it backed now by a friendly Senate and having gotten enough trucklers (confident in possible pardons in extremis) into important roles in Justice (and, he presumes, SCOTUS), has essentially declared himself beyond any checks from Congress, even when backed by force of law (and certainly if backed by tradition and public shaming).

Interesting times.

Do you want to know more?  Contempt of Congress: the House will vote next week – Vox

The new Cold War with China

Team Trump’s actions toward the PRC are becoming more aggressive.

Mike Pompeo’s blistering condemnation of China’s past actions on this 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre[1] — and China’s double-barreled retort — highlight a steadily deteriorating relationship between the US and China. It’s occasionally belied by the “Xi is my bestest friend (after Kim!)” rhetoric from the President but, coupled with the escalating trade war and tensions in the South China Sea, it’s more than a little ominous.

With this President, though, one always has to wonder. Would these storm clouds disappear if China satisfied Trump on something flashy, like trade? Or, conversely, is it setting up Trump to be the Great Hero against the Chinese Menace (since support for his escalating tariffs and and their economic disruption is tepid at best)?

In other words, how much of this is driven by authentic resistance to actual deplorable behavior by China — on human rights, on maritime law, on economic issues — and how much is a convenient excuse to beat the war drums (against yet another nation) so as to rally the country just in time for a presidential election …?

We will, doubtless, find out in the coming several months.

Do you want to know more? 

[1] To be fair, an absolutely legit statement on Pompeo’s part.

The Oil (and Gas) Must Flow

Should disrupting pipeline construction draw multi-decade jail terms? (No.)

I have no great problem with punishing those who vandalize pipelines, either during construction or, especially, during operation.

States and the feds moving to punish protesters that impede or disrupt construction with multi-decade prison terms? Yeah, that seems (sadly typical) pressing of the government’s thumb down on the scales in favor of a highly lucrative (and controversial) big business.

I mean, it’s not like there aren’t other laws on the books — for vandalism, for trespass, etc. — that can address such protesters in a more balanced fashion. But twenty years? That’s beyond penalties for Assault with a Deadly Weapon (felony) using a machine gun.

Do you want to know more?  Trump pushes up to 20 years in prison for pipeline protesters – ThinkProgress

The Art of the Deal-Breaking

Trump is an unreliable advisor, because he’s an unreliable person.

How can the Brits possibly trust a potential future deal with the guy who says he’d walk away from any deal he didn’t like? https://t.co/Egf0IEfj9W

Trump advises the Brits to ditch the EU without a deal, but then suggests he has a great deal for them.

Why would anyone trust someone who suggests that deals can and should be broken if you don’t like them to make a deal with you that you can count on?

Party does make a difference

Partisan politics are problematic. But there is a difference between the GOP and Dems in the policies they pursue.

Americans tend to love to hate politicians. “Politicians! They’re all alike! Interested in power and lobbyist money and prestige!” This usually then diverges into chants of “Drain the swamp!” or “Up the people!” or something like that.

Political parties get similar lambasting. Which usually ends in cynical / angry / bitter mutterings about how “They’re all the same.”

I’m not going to defend politicians or political parties, except to note that, from a policy standpoint, they’re not “all the same.” As FiveThirtyEight points out, looking at states which are dominated (both legislative chambers and the governorship) by the GOP or by the Democrats, the legislation and policies being pursued are quite different.

And that doesn’t even count legislation around abortion.

One can argue whether these are profound enough differences to ignore the ways that political parties are similar (“Send us your money!”), and one can point to plenty of places where the political parties fail to live up to their philosophical standards. And, as the article notes, even these issues are not wholly partisan.

But, comparing these two, I know which states I want to live in (and, in fact, I do live in one of them). The two major parties might not differ enough in all the ways I want them to, but they differ more than people making glib condemnations would have you think.

Do you want to know more?  What Republicans And Democrats Are Doing In The States Where They Have Total Power | FiveThirtyEight

Case NOT closed

Mueller’s verbal summary of his own report demonstrates the need for more investigation, if not impeachment.

Robert Mueller, in the process of announcing his retirement from the Department of Justice today, also gave a brief summary of what his team’s report said:

  1. Russia interfered with our elections.
  2. The investigation did not identify active collaboration between Trump’s campaign and Russian efforts at interference.
  3. Though that might be in part because of attempts to obstruct the investigation.
  4. The President did a bunch of obstructive things but, because of DoJ rules, Mueller could not actually file any charges.[1]
  5. “If we had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said that.”

Which has magically transformed into the President, and his collaborators in the Senate GOP Majority, into “Innocent! Exonerated! No collaboration! No obstruction! CASE CLOSED!”

No, literally. That was the phrase that both the President tweeted …

… and his inexplicable Newest Closest Bestest Senator Friend, Lindsey Graham declared

Today’s statement by Mr. Mueller reinforces the findings of his report. And as for me, the case is over. Mr. Mueller has decided to move on and let the report speak for itself. Congress should follow his lead.

Graham’s statement makes little sense. Mueller’s report — and his statements about it — make it clear that Congress should do anything else but move on. If the Justice Department is prevented by internal regulation from indicting the President, it is clear from Mueller’s words in both media that he is passing on to Congress to determine if their Article II, Section 4 powers need to come into play.

Of course, it’s also worth noting that Trump’s message has, at least in this instance, changed a little bit. He used to be all “NO OBSTRUCTION! NO COLLUSION!” in his cloudcuckoo-land summary of the Mueller Report. Now he’s sounding like a cheap lawyer. “Insufficient evidence!” “Therefore, in our Country, a person is innocent!”

Of course, Trump’s avid watching of Perry Mason should have told him that’s all factors in an actual trial. It doesn’t really apply to an investigation, especially one where the person in question cannot be actually tried (according to those DoJ rules).

Still, the tweet is oddly defensive. It doesn’t assert complete exoneration, just … “Well, they couldn’t make a strong enough case.”

Sounds like a challenge.

Graham, wanting to hustle on but at least acknowledge he read and wants to address part of the Mueller Report, added:

It is now time to move on and to work together in a bipartisan fashion to harden our election infrastructure against future attempts by Russia and other bad actors.

Which would be a fine sentiment … if his Senate GOP colleagues weren’t standing in the way of that, too. Well, one of them, at least, but he’s the only one who really counts.

The reason, said Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) on Wednesday, is that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has decided not to bring any election security bills to the floor for a vote. Blunt’s remark occurred during a hearing of the Rules and Administration Committee, which has oversight of election administration. When Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) asked Blunt, the chairman, whether he was planning mark-ups of any of the several election security bills pending before the committee, Blunt responded that it would be fruitless to advance legislation that McConnell would not allow to come up for a vote.

“I don’t see any likelihood that those bills would get to the floor if we marked them up,” Blunt said. After prodding from Durbin, Blunt explained, “I think the majority leader just is of the view that this debate reaches no conclusion.”

Well, if Mitch says there’s no value in Congressional action on election security … I guess … we can all sleep well? One assumes Mitch is following through on Donald’s cue: the President really dislikes discussion of Russian interference in the election (it’s the one part of the report he never discusses, let alone creatively reinterprets), probably because he feels it makes his Biggest Victory Ever seem somewhat sketchy.

Indeed, it’s worth noting that, even if the Mueller Report didn’t find any active collaboration / conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russian interference, it did note that the campaign and the President welcomed and took advantage of that interference — and Trump’s mantra since it was first discussed — has been denial about it. It didn’t happen. If it happened, it might not have been the Russians. Maybe the Chinese. Maybe some fat guy in a basement. But not the Russians. Vladimir told me. Yeah, the intelligence guys say otherwise, but what do they know? 

As a result of Trump’s vociferous denials that interference occurred, or, if it did, that it came from Russia, next year’s elections remain vulnerable to interference. That represents, at the very least, a serious lapse in duty — and, to the extent that one can presume Russia’s interference will again be in favor of Trump, it represents yet another case of Trump welcoming, if not actively conspiring, with foreign interests.

So, then, what to do?

There’s a growing belief amongst the Democrats that the magnitude of the charges against Trump — in the remit of Mueller’s investigation, in his less covert activities, and in other areas hinted at but not investigated by Mueller (such as Trump’s financial shenanigans) warrant, if not current articles of impeachment, then impeachment-directed investigation. Indeed, given the argument by Trump’s personal attorneys that various straightforward and legal inquiries and subpoenas from various House oversight committees have been met with challenges as to whether they are based on legitimate legislative purposes or simply rank “Presidential Harassment!” (as the snowflake president occasionally tweets).

Investigation as part of an impeachment inquiry is constitutionally protected behavior for Congress, backed by substantial case law (and the GOP’s own behavior toward far less grotesque behavior by Bill Clinton).

Against that growing tide for impeachment or impeachment-directed investigation are two arguments.

The first is that the GOP in the Senate — holding the majority in a chamber that would need to vote 2/3 in favor of conviction in an impeachment trial — has gone on record that it will simply quash any such quixotic effort by the House.

“I think it would be disposed of very quickly,” said Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.). “If it’s based on the Mueller report, or anything like that, it would be quickly disposed of,” he added.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), an adviser to McConnell’s leadership team, said “nothing” would come of impeachment articles passed by the House.

Second, there are concerns that moving for impeachment against Trump will rile up the GOP base, come across as a purely political attack that will rally support for Trump and the GOP, and win him re-election in 2020 … especially if the Senate “acquits” him.

I don’t buy either of those arguments.

  • While arguably impeachment proceedings will further enliven Trump’s true fans, they might have a similar effect upon those who oppose him, especially if impeachment-related hearings drag out further Trump crimes.
  • Lack of action — letting Trump get away with it, especially out of fear, is bound to dampen enthusiasm on the Democratic side, and make the whole thing seem more political. It also gives him the argument of, “Well, if I did something wrong, why didn’t they do anything about it?>
  • While there are arguments that it will help the GOP, there are counter-arguments that it will help the Democrats. So … since it comes down to conclusions drawn by the same folk who declared that Trump could never win in 2016 … maybe dropping all the meta-pragmatic analysis is a better approach.
  • In which case, what is the right thing to do? When faced with crimes against the nation, corruption and complicity in attempts to subvert our democracy … then at a minimum, investigating to establish further evidence is a moral (and pragmatic) imperative.
  • And if it rises to the (subjective standard) of “high crimes and misdemeanors” … then act on it, and shame the devil.
  • And if the Senate GOP majority ignores compelling evidence — indeed, fails to even consider such evidence in their haste to quash any embarrassment to Their Man in the White house … then fine. Don’t let those poor citizens dictate the course of action. The voters will judge, or history will. (Might I recommend JFK’s (ghost written) Profiles in Courage as useful reading material in this context?)
  • Just as with Mueller, faced with (among other parts of his remit) dealing with potential crimes by a man he believed he could not indict, found value in identifying the crimes involved, so, too, the House should consider the value of identifying and revealing the crimes they believe are there, whether to educate the voters of November 2020, or for posterity.

Do you want to know more?

——

[1] Ironically, those same rules theoretically should have kept Attorney General Barr from weighing in on the issue. Go figure.

In case there was any doubt, Mitch McConnell is a partisan hack

His reversal on SCOTUS appointment timing settles it.

On 13 February 2016, Justice Antonin Scalia died.

It is a Constitutional power of the President of the United States to nominate justices to the Supreme Court, with the advice and consent of the Senate. The Senate has not always approved the nominees of the President — though that’s been a very rare thing in the past — but in the case of President Obama and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, things didn’t even get that far.

McConnell never even let Obama’s nominee — a very intentionally selected centrist, Merrick Garland — be debated on the Senate floor. McConnell instead presented a brand-new Senate “tradition,” that the President should not be able to select a new SCOTUS justice in an election. No, no, McConnell pontifacted nobly: we should let the People speak, through that election, so that the next President gets to make the choice.

There really wasn’t any such tradition, but any grave and serious straight-faced pundits and ordinary Americans — all of them Republican — defended this stance with a straight face and, in many cases, with a sincere heart. The Supreme Court is a lifetime appointment, with profound national effect, they said. Why not, indeed, why not let the People speak, and then let the winner of their will make that appointment.

To all of you who made that argument in a sincere and heartfelt fashion: Mitch McConnell just spat in your face and laughed.

Speaking at a Paducah Chamber of Commerce luncheon in Kentucky, McConnell was asked by an attendee, “Should a Supreme Court justice die next year, what will your position be on filling that spot?”

The leader took a long sip of what appeared to be iced tea before announcing with a smile, “Oh, we’d fill it,” triggering loud laughter from the audience.

Well, you might say, surely there must be some profound, grand, philosophical, nay, existential reason why McConnell has done a 180 on what he put forward as a deeply respected and utterly essential Senate tradition!

David Popp, a spokesman for McConnell, said the difference between now and three years ago, when McConnell famously blocked Judge Merrick Garland’s ascension to the Supreme Court, is that at that time the White House was controlled by a Democrat and the Senate by Republicans. This time, both are controlled by the GOP.

I.e., it has nothing to do with “tradition,” or “proper governance,” or “the will of the people.”  It comes down to bald partisanship. It comes down to, “Because we can.”

Please remember that the next time Mitch McConnell makes some appeal to tradition and principle, and tries to talk you into defending his actions on that basis. It’s only party politics for him, and while he’s more than happy to dress it up as something people will defend, he doesn’t believe a word of it, and he’ll leave you with egg on your face and your principled arguments in the dirt.

“But Dave, he’s only doing that because he truly believes that only Republicans should ever be able to nominate justices and judges, because only Republicans are right-thinking and virtuous and truly American!” Fine. Let him say it. Let him be honest and up-front about it. Don’t make excuses. Don’t appeal to “traditions” and “the Voice of the People.” Have the guts to be honest about it.

“But Dave, we already knew Mitch was a partisan hack. He famously declared his number one goal was to make Obama a one-term president.” Yeah, but he at least he didn’t dress that up in principle. He didn’t fool people of his own party into thinking that there some higher morality at work, some principle of better governance, arguing that all presidents should only serve a single term. He didn’t then get people to argue the principles of it all on his behalf, and then turn around and smirkingly change his public opinion, leaving others wondering why they had ever believed him.

Do you want to know more?

The End of Marriage in Alabama (not really)

Dropping most state marriage paperwork is a good thing for sketchy reasons.

Alabama is ending state marriage licenses and ceremony requirements. File an affidavit and you’re hitched. Apparently a way to keep some judges from getting pissy about having to issue same-sex marriage licenses, but whatever.
https://t.co/fa7mfaiVwY

So this is kind of interesting. Alabama has been still struggling with government workers — probate judges in particular — refusing to sign marriage licenses for same-sex couples, even though it’s been established as  completely legal. Somehow they feel they are going to get sodomy cooties or something by “participating” in a marriage between two people of the same gender, even though there’s no sign that they do any similar vetting of all the other marriages they are willing to sign off on.

(Judicial signing of a marriage license indicates that it is a lawful marriage, not necessarily a moral one or praiseworthy one or attractive one or one that meets one’s interpretation of God’s approval. If the latter were the case, I would expect a whole lot fewer marriages, and a lot less patience for judges.)

Current Alabama law only says that a judge may sign licenses, so county probate judges who object to gay folk getting married have been refusing to sign any licenses, meaning people are sometimes forced to drive to another county to get their paperwork done, regardless of their sexual orientation.

Ew! Gay wedding cake cooties!

Rather than telling people to do their job or get fired for it, Alabama is pulling an end run: they’re getting rid of marriage licenses and compulsory marriage ceremonies altogether. Now nobody has to “sign off” on a marriage except the participants.

That’s actually not a bad thing, even if it’s for, um, dubious reasons. Couples wanting to marry will now need only sign an affidavit that they are legal to do so. Zip-zoom, you may kiss your partner. No judges required to sign on the license. No officiant “solemnizing” and signing off that they witnessed the ceremony as an official witness. Like any other legal contract (which, from the perspective of the state, marriage is), the participants sign on the dotted line and it’s done.

It’s expected most folk will still want a wedding ceremony of some sort — gloom and doom predictions about the death of the marriage industry in Alabama seem wildly exaggerated to me. And now those probate judges who don’t want to sully their fingers dealing with Those People and Their Unholy Alliances (at least until there are wills to be probated) can remain ritually pure and pretend to virtue.

Would you like to know more?

The Procuring President

Whatever Donald wants, Donald expects to get. And people know that.

I’ve worked for federal contractors, so I know how stringent and neutral the procurement process is. But why bother when you can get free airtime on Fox News and convince the President to personally intervene in contract awards on your behalf? #Trump https://t.co/qwiXsmmrpk

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it (too many times) again: Donald Trump sees no difference between being President of the United States and being the head of his own privately held company. If he gets an idea in his head, whether spontaneous or instilled there by someone, he wants action take RIGHT NOW, and just what he wants. The ideas of personal constraints, tradition, regulation, or the law mean little to him — they are only obstacles for his lackies to overcome to serve him as he wants to be served.

The federal procurement process is lengthy, complex, and onerous, but it is 100% designed to do exactly what Donald Trump does not want: to be utterly neutral, fair, and immune to influence and corruption. It is by no means perfect, even in this, but that is its goal, to ensure that our tax dollars are spent, not on something that will enrich a friend or reward an ally, but on the best product / service that meets the exhaustively described parameters.

So, of course, Donald is perfectly happy to ignore that and put his thumb on the scales, influenced by an insidiously clever campaign on all the news outlets he sees, unable to understand why he can’t just say, “I like that guy, and that product,” and have the coffers open up to make it so. Process is for bureaucrats, regulation is for the weak — when you’re the smartest guy in the room and the most powerful, why can’t it just be the way you want it?

That, in and of itself, is bad enough. The inevitable icing on the cake is when someone figures out how to exploit that impulse.

Yeah, it didn’t quite work here. So far. Where else has it worked that we don’t know of (or have already forgotten in this shit-show administration)? Where else will it be tried? And does anyone really think that Donald Trump has absorbed and accepted the lesson ‘”that the president could not just pick a company” to get the contract in defiance of the federal procurement process”?

Do you want to know more? How one company used a Fox-centric PR strategy to try to get Trump to give it a lucrative federal contract

The “Do Nothing” Democrats

It’s a fascinating, if maddening, case of “The Big Lie”

Current propaganda from #FoxNews and #Trump is that the Dems aren’t passing any legislation because of “wasting” all their time on investigations of the President. Not surprisingly, Fox News and Trump are lying. https://t.co/qHXnVcSYk3

In reality, of course, the Dems have passed a variety of bills since taking the majority in the House, from the trivial to significant items like electoral reform. The issue is not that the Dems haven’t been passing anything, but that the GOP in the Senate (let alone That Guy in the White House) aren’t paying any attention. On any number of large legislative initiatives coming from the House, Mitch McConnell and the GOP have not only not bothered to show how the Republicans think problems should be solved, Mitch has kept even debate about it off of the Senate floor.

And now Trump is trying to pretend it isn’t happening.