GOP Senate Walked Out of DC for a Reason: Voter Foreclosure, 2020 Edition [UPDATE-1]

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[NB: Check the byline, thanks!  Updates at bottom of post. /~Rayne]

Come on, media. You’re still screwing up coverage of BOTH the pandemic economy and the general election.

The bothsides-ism the media clings to so desperately as a norm does not work when one party consistently makes bad choices, or no choices with the same effect as bad choices. There is no bothsides when one side acts in bad faith.

Think about it: making no choice is a choice. Taking no action is a choice. The outcome from no-choice/no-action can be very bad; making no decision to rescue a drowning person yields the victim’s death.

In the case of the stimulus and aid bill, it’s NOT the Democrats in Congress who are the impediment. Stop portraying that way.

Start digging into the why behind the White House and the GOP senators resistance to the economic aid in the bill — money which would be plowed back into the economy and ultimately into their donors’ pockets as profits.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren has a bead on one reason: a portion of the investor class wants real estate values to crash so they can sweep in and buy distressed properties.

… The Wall Street Journal recently reported that investors are “preparing for what they believe could be a once-in-a generation opportunity to buy distressed real-estate assets at bargain prices.” This profiteering is far from “once-in-a-generation” though: It’s straight out of private equity’s playbook during the 2008 financial crisis. We all know what happened then: Homeowners targeted by predatory mortgages lost their homes to foreclosure, and private equity swept in to buy those homes at depressed prices. Communities of color were hit fastest and hardest. Just a handful of years after Black homeownership hit its highest point, the devastating waves of foreclosures wiped out nearly all of the growth in Black homeownership since the Fair Housing Act repealed Jim Crow redlining in 1968. …

“Once-in-a generation opportunity”? Meaning an even more dramatic plummet of property values compared to the 2008 crash a dozen years ago?

We can see the crash coming with an impending 30-40 million Americans on the verge of eviction but neither the White House nor the GOP senate feel a sense of urgency. This is NOT bothsides but one, and one which is and has been comfortable with vulture capitalism.

One side led by a man who claimed to be a billionaire based in no small part on his real estate development business.

This no-choice/no-action is intended to both evict roughly 12% of Americans from their homes, forcing their relocation or homelessness, while a small segment of the investor class reaps benefits.

The rest of the investor class which relies on stability in order for consumption to remain constant or increase won’t benefit. Their values will drop off as they did in 2008 during the crash.

Why are the White House and the GOP senate proceeding as if it doesn’t matter if they come to an agreement on the aid and economic stimulus package?

We’ve seen this before, though; the difference was that the crash hadn’t yet been fully set in motion as it is this time with the pandemic.

~ ~ ~

In 2008 with an evenly split Senate, the 110th Congress faffed around from June to early September, happy with irrationally high oil price which were hurting consumers badly while paying inadequate attention to investment banking and credit markets. Congress threw crappy legislation at the problem of subprime mortgages while the financial sector floundered.

When consumers had to choose between paying for gasoline to get to work or paying their crappy adjustable rate mortgage, they paid for the former rather than the latter hoping to catch up on the latter at a later date. But for many consumers there wasn’t a later date — they were foreclosed upon and evicted.

The Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 passed in late July 2008 did far too little, far too late, and for the wrong end of the economic food chain.

Congress should have learned from this experience. Some of the GOP senators were in office when the 2008 crash happened. They know better.

In September 2008 as the crash loomed days away, a GOP county party chairman in Michigan admitted to a reporter that the GOP was going to use a list of foreclosed homes and addresses to “make sure people aren’t voting from those addresses.”

The Obama campaign and the Democratic National Committee sued the GOP; the Republican National Committee, Michigan Republican Party, and Macomb County Republican Party settled, acknowledging the existence of an illegal scheme by the Republicans to use mortgage foreclosure lists to deny foreclosure victims their right to vote.

At the time the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division told Congress it would monitor for the use of foreclosure records to contest voters’ ballots though it wouldn’t dispatch DOJ personnel to the polls.

But everything is different under the Trump administration. The GOP may try to use foreclosure records this election because they may be able to get away with it after setting a foreclosure crisis in motion.

The DOJ’s Civil Rights Division is helmed by a Trump appointee; can we be certain they will see the use of foreclosure records the way the Civil Rights Division did in 2008?

A Trump appointee may be the U.S. attorney for each state most at risk — they may be more loyal to Trump and the GOP than to the law.

A Trump appointee may be the judge overseeing any case brought to them about voter foreclosure.

And the GOP is desperate, more so than it was in 2008 because both the White House and the Senate are now at risk if a blue wave sweeps them as a rejection of Trump and his policies.

They’re planning ahead for something, because the GOP has amassed a $20 million legal fund for the election. For what do they need such a big legal fee kitty?

It’s right there in their selection of no-choice/no-action toward economic aid and stimulus.

The entire GOP, from Trump on through the GOP congressional caucus, want to foreclose on Americans’ homes and then their votes.

~ ~ ~

If the media was to stop bothsides-ing their reporting, was to stop treating the GOP’s bad faith as if it were legitimate, the GOP might reverse its position.

Might — don’t hold your breath, though.

For some Americans it’s already too late. They are already behind on rent or mortgage payments, and/or their household isn’t getting enough to eat. Innocent children are suffering for this. Their parents feel compelled to send them to schools which can’t handle COVID-19 conditions because it may mean a meal for their kids they might not get at home.

But the GOP continues to walk away from doing what it takes to ensure American families get the care they need, let alone that the public is able to safely ride out the time between now and an effective vaccine while socially distanced and masked.

The GOP senate caucus has chosen since May to load up their bill with funding for military equipment the public can’t eat or use to pay their mortgage, and let protections against evictions expire without replacement.

The reason is evident in the results, and the media needs to do a better job of holding the one party accountable for them.

Why isn’t there protection against evictions?

Because the GOP — from White House to the Senate — wants evictions and foreclosures.

Why isn’t there financial aid for Americans who have lost their jobs, are behind on their rent, need food?

Because the GOP wants these particular Americans to suffer enough that they are disenfranchised.

Why doesn’t the GOP save the person from drowning?

In the absence of acting to reach for their hand and pull them from the water, we can only assume it’s because the GOP wants the flailing victim dead.

The media needs to stop bothsides journalism and get the GOP on the record. Ask them why they are clinging to funding military spending instead of financial and food aid, why the GOP isn’t preventing evictions and foreclosures with a moratorium.

Ask the GOP whether they are going to attempt to foreclose on voters to save Trump’s ass this November.

.

UPDATE-1 — 08-AUG-2020 12:25 P.M. EDT —

Three lies in three minutes. The lie about COVID-19 was bad enough on a day when over 1200 Americans died of the disease. The other two lies though…the GOP senate hadn’t budged yesterday. These two issues, both unemployment benefits and an eviction moratorium, can’t be resolved with an executive order which he doesn’t even claim he’ll try to use.

 

Call it what it is: gaslighting the American public.

I don’t know why his Bedminster course members are willing to pay hundreds of thousands for memberships so they can be gaslighted in person, but rich people do all kinds of stupid shit.

.

This is an open thread.

Killer Clown Attacks American’s Freedoms…and Dr. Fauci

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Rep. Jim “Begged Witness Not to Squeal” Jordan went off on Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, during the first round of questioning of Friday’s House Select Committee on COVID Oversight hearing.

The point of the hearing was to address the lack of a national strategy to contain COVID-19.

Jordan, as usual, derailed the hearing’s focus to score political points with Trump.

Fauci can’t say that any crowd is better than another at this point, not just because he’s supposed to provide ideology-free advice as a medical professional — not to mention Fauci can’t advocate shutting down an exercise of the First Amendment when Jordan asks “Should we limit the protesting?”

The doctor can’t say anything which would encourage activity in groups even with masks because it’s just too risky right now.

But Jordan, being the circus clown he is, continues to harangue Fauci in pursuit of usable digital content to help Trump’s agenda. Content later used like this idiotic context-sanitized bullshit:

Take a look around the internet; the right-wing horde seized on Jordan’s clown show with ALL CAPS and wrestling-action verbs like EXPOSES, HAMMERS, PRESSES, CRUSHES to describe Jordan’s antics. (Sadly, C-SPAN used “grills” which isn’t neutral.)

Fauci was too nice and too cautious on this point; he could have pointed to Trump’s misbegotten Tulsa campaign rally and Herman Cain’s subsequent death from COVID-19 but he didn’t.

Nor did Fauci refer to the study later submitted to the record which analyzed COVID-19 case counts after anti-racism protests.

The study found the protests did not result in increased COVID-19 cases.

Source:

Dave, Dhaval and Friedson, Andrew and Matsuzawa, Kyutaro and Sabia, Joseph and Safford, Samuel, Black Lives Matter Protests, Social Distancing, and COVID-19 (June 2020). NBER Working Paper No. w27408, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3632635

So no, Killer Clown Jordan, protests in the streets against systemic racism in policing by mask-wearing participants do not increase COVID-19 cases or deaths.

If you want to be technical about it, there have been too many anecdotes of events indoors like church choir practices which have resulted in clusters of COVID-19 cases and deaths. These kinds of meetings needed to be outdoors with participants wearing masks, even if socially distanced and washing hands as appropriate. Being indoors was the key problem along with not wearing masks.

But there’s one more problem with the clown show Jordan put on.

What Jordan did with his usual ignorant and loud routine was not to educate the public, not to encourage an improvement in services from NIAID or CDC or Dr. Fauci.

What Jordan did with his typical filibuster is to continue to obstruct development of a national response to COVID-19.

What Jordan did was to continue the political genocide and ethnic cleansing of Americans by ensuring federal services are withheld under a national response to the pandemic.

Jordan denied Americans, particularly those in blue cities and minority communities, honest goods and services to which they are entitled. He’ll get away with it, though, because his circus act will fall under Speech or Debate.

Jim Jordan, killer clown, in name and in fact.

 

This is an open thread.

Three Things: Look Over There, Not at Trump’s Failures [UPDATE-1]

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[NB: Updates will appear at the bottom of this post. /~Rayne]

Trump’s Thursday morning tweet stirred up people more than his average tweets do — which is saying a lot since his average tweets are pretty annoying.

But this one crossed a line by suggesting a potential violation of the Constitution.

This tweet could be taken in isolation, but it really shouldn’t be. There were other things which Trump wanted us to ignore so he lobbed a massive turd in the punch bowl.

From what was he trying to redirect our attention?

~ 3 ~

You probably already know these two facts about COVID-19:

— The U.S. passed the 150,000 benchmark this week; Americans are 23% of the total COVID-19 deaths globally;

— Herman Cain, business man, Tea Party activist, and 2016 GOP presidential candidate died of COVID-19 today after more than a month in ICU. Cain had attended Trump’s Tulsa rally and did not wear a mask.

All these deaths including Herman Cain’s are due to Donald Trump’s gross negligence and malfeasance.

A Vanity Fair article published today also suggests that Trump did nothing about COVID-19 because it initially impacted blue states most heavily.

In other words, Trump committed and continues to commit political genocide.

Herman Cain was collateral damage.

Is it possible that Trump had been informed of Cain’s death before the public was notified, and wanted to get out in front before the public focused heavily on Cain’s death by COVID-19?

~ 2 ~

Economic data released Thursday showed a dramatic -10% drop in quarterly GDP, equivalent to -32.9% annualized rate. It’s the worst drop ever recorded in U.S. GDP.

The unemployment rate tracks with this plummet, with 47.2% Americans unemployed as of the end of June.

None of this had to happen. It was entirely preventable had Trump dealt effectively with COVID-19 beginning in Jan-Feb but killing off blue state voters and blaming their governors was more important to him for his re-election prospects than protecting the country’s economic well being.

~ 1 ~

After multiple repeated attempts to delay or obstruct their release, the Ghislaine Maxwell papers were released as ordered by Judge Loretta Preska on Thursday evening.

Papers can be found via this link to Courtlistener.

Courthouse News’ Adam Klasfeld made a first pass through the documents and filed a report.

In two separate tweets, Klasfeld noted the documents are not entirely new material.

… Multiple documents in the #MaxwellFiles data dump tonight are either old documents or previously released, making the rounds as though new. …

… Some old documents have nuggets of newly unsealed information contained within them, but the files themselves are being rediscovered as though new. …

Also noted: Maxwell lied to the court.

There will be more analysis and more bullshit thrown in the air by the White House and proxies to obscure details in the papers apart from content further compromising former president Bill Clinton and other Democrats like former governor Bill Richardson. You can bet those points will be boosted to fuzz the links between Trump, Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s lawyer Alan Dershowitz, Jeffrey Epstein, and Ghislaine Maxwell.

Some of the obscuring may already have begun with Trump’s fascistic tweet.

~ 0 ~

Trump doesn’t have the power to delay elections. We went all through this back in April when it came up. What should happen now — and we should look for it and insist on it — is that journalists should get every Republican on record about Trump’s election delay tweet.

We as citizens should be asking them as our congressional representatives where they stand on the election delay suggested by Trump, since Congress and not the Executive Branch has the power to delay the election.

We should also check with our state election officials since they can mess with the conduct of the elections. Recall after delaying their primary because of COVID-19, Kentucky shut down all but one voting place for its primary in the most populated portion of Louisville, attributing the change to pandemic safety.

States could do this for the general election which will already have been affected by the U.S. Postal Service’s Trump-crony slow down of first class mail.

Work on this now before the tangerine hellbeast in the White House tweets out something outrageous to throw us off our mission to ensure a safe, secure, and timely general election.

This is an open thread.

UPDATE — 10:00 A.M. ET —

Hearing now underway this morning:

NIAID Director Dr. Fauci along with CDC Director Dr. Redfield & HHS ADM Giroir will appear before Select Committee on COVID Oversight beginning at 9:00am ET to discuss the urgent need for a National Strategy to contain COVID-19.

Live stream at https://youtu.be/YkP1t_2u5B0

Joe Biden must be watching the hearing:

Republicans are doing their best to whitewash Trump’s failures — nauseating, I must say. I do feel for Rep. Walorski (Republican, IN-02) who is trying to discourage anti-vax propaganda with her line of questioning, might be the only GOP questioning of late which hasn’t been intended to prop up Trump.

Impoverished Teachers Or The Rich Bitches Of Professional Sports?

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Which side are you on? I have been an avid, if not rabid, sports fan since I was a little kid. Still am. It would be great to have sports back on a full scale.

But at what cost? How important is it really?

The NFL, MLB, NBA and NHL are all demanding daily testing, even when they are, as Amy Trask has coined it, “enbubbled”.

Not all the athletes are millionaires, many are not paid near that and are just trying to hang on and make a living for themselves and their families. That is a good thing. But even the common professional athlete makes many times more than a teacher.

Who is more important to society in the long run? The league personnel and athletes are getting tested and traced relentlessly in their bubbles and training camps because billionaire owners, TV platforms and gambling lobbyists demand it. They are tired of their gravy train being interrupted. An understandable thing if in their shoes. But 99.9% of the citizenry is not in their shoes.

Teachers and their schools are being ordered to open with nothing in place for their, or their students’, safety. How many teachers in Florida could be tested in Florida if the insane capacity being expended in the Magic Kingdom on the NBA were reallocated to a better benefit? How will that play out with that which is allocated to the NFL, MLB and NHL were reallocated across the country?

Where are the real priorities in a time of pandemic this country, and this world, has not seen in the last 100 years?

I want to reemphasize, would love for all the sports to be back. That would be wonderful. Especially when we all are sequestered unnaturally in our own homes.

But maybe teachers and their students….our children….and the future of all are more important than the current demand for sports.

The Covid danger is real, it is not a joke. It is not partisan politics. Here is a heartbreaking story. This man ran through my neighborhood to a win. The young and strong are in danger, not just the old and infirm.

Maybe, at least temporarily, our priorities ought change. Maybe LeBron James and Tom Brady should give their daily test to a teacher.

The Good Trouble of John Lewis

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Another lion has left the earth. John Lewis. And that damn bridge in Selma needs to be immediately renamed for him, as has been discussed for years. Do it now. But finally abolishing the name and specter of the Edmund Pettus Bridge will not be enough. Structurally, the Pettus is not very large, it only has four piers, but it spans the arc of civil rights. The very civil rights still at issue today. John Lewis is the epitome of that arc.

From the New York Times:

Representative John Lewis, a son of sharecroppers and an apostle of nonviolence who was bloodied at Selma and across the Jim Crow South in the historic struggle for racial equality and who then carried a mantle of moral authority into Congress, died on Friday. He was 80.
……
Mr. Lewis’s personal history paralleled that of the civil rights movement. He was among the original 13 Freedom Riders, the Black and white activists who challenged segregated interstate travel in the South in 1961. He was a founder and early leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, which coordinated lunch-counter sit-ins. He helped organize the March on Washington, where Dr. King was the main speaker, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

Mr. Lewis led demonstrations against racially segregated restrooms, hotels, restaurants, public parks and swimming pools, and he rose up against other indignities of second-class citizenship. At nearly every turn he was beaten, spat upon or burned with cigarettes. He was tormented by white mobs and absorbed body blows from law enforcement.

This day was clearly coming, it was widely known Lewis was not well and in the throes of cancer. The death also comes as the racist cancer in society he fought so hard as a youth is center stage yet again. Not just in the abuse in the streets by police, not just in the Black Lives Matter movement, but in the despair of the poor and downtrodden. And, importantly, in favor of all citizens voting.

As Barack Obama said:

“Generations from now,” Obama said when awarding him a Medal of Freedom in 2011, “when parents teach their children what is meant by courage, the story of John Lewis will come to mind — an American who knew that change could not wait for some other person or some other time; whose life is a lesson in the fierce urgency of now.”

The fierce urgency of now is every bit as critical as at any time in history.

Trump’s Rump Coverer’s Other Mission: Militarized Voter Suppression [UPDATE-3]

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[NB: Updates at bottom of post. /~Rayne]

We all know Bill Barr has been hard at work covering Trump’s ass since he was sworn in February 14th last year. What a nasty Valentine’s Day present for us.

His lies have been ridiculously egregious, from the manner in which he misled the public about the findings in the Special Counsel’s Report, to his lies to broadcast media about the election.

He’s also obstructed justice by politicizing and obstructing investigations, including removal of personnel overseeing their conduct.

A particularly low point in Barr’s tenure was his deployment of federal personnel to harass and intimidate peaceful protesters so that Trump could get a photo-op, occupying a church without clerical permission so Trump could wave a Bible upside down on camera.

It’s all of a piece, and it’s getting worse.

Federal personnel without clear identification have been snatching people off the street in Portland, Oregon.

Read the entire Twitter thread. This is like Pinochet’s Carabineros de Chile and secret police, disappearing civilians. It’s not clear what has happened to these people who’ve been grabbed — they aren’t Mirandized in public view, they aren’t told why they are being dragged away.

And the state and local government didn’t ask for this federal intervention, just as Mayor Bowser didn’t ask for Barr to deploy Department of Justice personnel in Washington D.C. to ensure Trump could get his obscene photo-op.

Worse, we can’t be certain exactly who it is pulling people off the streets. It could be white nationalists in cosplay.

Why aren’t local law enforcement demanding more accountability from Barr and his Stasi?

Oregon’s Senator Ron Wyden has been asking for answers after federal employees shot unarmed peaceful protesters hitting one in the face:

This is a clear violation of citizens’ First Amendment rights. But Wyden hasn’t yet asked about these secret federal police who are acting without state or local authorization, snatching citizens off the streets.

Trump has been warning/threatening to send federal agents to cities in blue states — this is pointed politicization of law enforcement, and more since these states have not requested federal help in policing protests.

But these Stasi aren’t there to de-escalate tensions. They’re deployed instead to suppress citizens trying to exercise their right to vote, like these National Guard in Philly’s streets on primary election day:

There’s no way around it: Bill Barr is setting up a secret federal security force which may end up working like death squads targeting anyone who protests Trump or his administration, particularly citizens in cities which vote for Democrats.

The threats are getting worse, what with White House press doofus implying Chicago may be targeted next.

Mayor Lightfoot isn’t having any of it, but where is Congress?

Both houses need to address this immediately before it gets any worse. Congress needs to investigate Bill Barr’s use of armed federal personnel who are not clearly identified while policing without the request of states and cities, violating citizens’ rights in the process.

GOP senators may argue they aren’t affected but can they really afford to lose any more votes because Barr overreached and suppressed their voters, too?

There’s enough here apart from Barr’s obstruction of justice that Barr should be impeached and removed from office.

 

UPDATE-1 — 10:00 P.M. ET —

Which agencies? Is it just U.S. Marshals Special Operations Group and Customs and Border Protection’s BORTAC or are there more involved so far? We need answers from their leadership about the lack of identification.

Portland’s mayor wants the feds out.

The federal agencies’ presence is not making things better, it’s making things worse.

Perhaps like Trump’s response to COVID-19 that’s the point: it’s about making things worse.

 

UPDATE-2 — 10:45 P.M. ET —

Not getting better. It looks like it’s getting rapidly worse. Somebody in DOJ or DHS want to explain why this vehicle is in Portland?

 

UPDATE-3 — 11:23 P.M. ET —

That’s it? That’s all DHS would provide? The utter arrogance of a department funded by our tax dollars.

Persons garbed like federal agency personnel are kidnapping American citizens off the street without any explanation and this is all the information the feds will share?

Bullshit. Unacceptable.

Happy ‘PRESIDENTIAL HARASSMENT’ Day! [UPDATE-5]

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[NB: Updates at bottom of post. /~Rayne]

We’ve been waiting too long for this day.

Not this day:

But this day:

UPDATE-1 — 11:05 a.m. ET —

A reminder not to get too excited about tax documents being produced before November:

And Rep. Ted Lieu continues to press for expanded inherent contempt powers:

UPDATE-2 — 11:43 a.m. ET —

Could Trump be indicted by Vance’s office before November?

Fingers crossed.

UPDATE-3 — 11:58 a.m. ET —

Yup…and a specific reason why we can’t expect a speedy resolution.

This will have to work its way through the system.

UPDATE-4 — 2:08 p.m. ET —

Rep. Adam Schiff’s take on SCOTUS’ decision:

Another important SCOTUS decision today, which should not be lost to the hubbub over Trump v. Vance:

In a 5-4 decision, the Muscogee tribe of eastern Oklahoma has won in McGirt v. Oklahoma. Justice Gorsuch wrote the majority opinion.

JUSTICE GORSUCH delivered the opinion of the Court.
On the far end of the Trail of Tears was a promise. Forced to leave their ancestral lands in Georgia and Alabama, the Creek Nation received assurances that their new lands in the West would be secure forever. In exchange for ceding “all their land, East of the Mississippi river,” the U. S. government agreed by treaty that “[t]he Creek country west of the Mississippi shall be solemnly guarantied to the Creek Indians.” Treaty With the Creeks, Arts. I, XIV, Mar. 24, 1832, 7 Stat. 366, 368 (1832 Treaty). Both parties settled on boundary lines for a new and “permanent home to the whole Creek nation,” located in what is now Oklahoma. Treaty With the Creeks, preamble, Feb. 14, 1833, 7 Stat.418 (1833 Treaty). The government further promised that “[no] State or Territory [shall] ever have a right to pass laws for the government of such Indians, but they shall be allowed to govern themselves.” 1832 Treaty, Art. XIV, 7 Stat. 368.
Today we are asked whether the land these treaties promised remains an Indian reservation for purposes of federal criminal law. Because Congress has not said otherwise, we hold the government to its word.

The opinion is filled with remarkable little bites which have pointed teeth, like the first sentence in Sect. II:

Start with what should be obvious: Congress established a reservation for the Creeks. In a series of treaties, Congress not only “solemnly guarantied” the land but also “establish[ed] boundary lines which will secure a country and permanent home to the whole Creek Nation of Indians.” 1832 Treaty, Art. XIV, 7 Stat. 368; 1833 Treaty, preamble, 7 Stat. 418. …

Right there, in the text of the law, even.

And then this closing in the last graf of the majority opinion — whew, this seems like a message to another audience altogether:

…If Congress wishes to withdraw its promises, it must say so. Unlawful acts, performed long enough and with sufficient vigor, are never enough to amend the law. To hold otherwise would be to elevate the most brazen and longstanding injustices over the law, both rewarding wrong and failing those in the right.

This decision will likely result in a few death sentences being overturned, according to Sister Helen Prejean.

One might wonder at the impact on the ongoing threat to the Mashpee Reservation.

 
UPDATE-5 —  by Ed Walker, a very long comment

SCOTUS handed down two decisions in cases involving Trump’s tax returns: Trump v. Mazars USA, LLP, the House subpoena case, an Trump v. Vance, the New York State subpoena case. Here are some preliminary thoughts.

1. In both cases SCOTUS is forced to pretend that Trump is a normal President. This is from Vance, discussing Clinton v. Jones, the case about Clinton’s sex life.

The Court recognized that Presidents constantly face myriad demands on their attention, “some private, some political, and some as a result of official duty.” Id., at 705, n. 40. But, the Court concluded, “[w]hile such distractions may be vexing to those subjected to them, they do not ordinarily implicate constitutional . . . concerns.” Ibid.

No one thinks Trump is normal. His only time constraint is his TV schedule, and his need to spend quality time with his friends at Fox News. So, when reading these cases we have to remember that they apply to normal presidents of both parties, mostly, at least we hope so.

2. In Mazars, Roberts says that Congress can only issue subpoenas in pursuit of information needed for legislative purposes. Therefore, the only issue is whether this subpoena exceeds the authority of the House, considering that it makes demands on a different branch of government. SCOTUS makes up some considerations for balancing the need for information with the demands on the President. This makes sense in the normal run of things. As the Courts says, prior demands have been resolved without the courts. However a normal President doesn’t hide his tax returns, and doesn’t have significant business dealings with traditional enemies of the US.

This case exposes the Democrats as failures. They had information suggesting that Trump or his businesses or both had extensive business dealings with Russians, including some connected to Putin, and had reason to suspect that those relationships affected his official actions towards Russia. Two obvious points: Trump ignored and denied Russian meddling in US elections; and Mike Flynn explicit kowtowed to Putin over sanctions. Why wasn’t this the explicit rationale for the subpoena for his transactions with Deutsche Bank, which is thought to be the vehicle for those transactions. The grounds would be impeachment, which is a power solely reserved for Congress, and one in which the role of SCOTUS would be severely reduced.

This was a specific decision by Speaker Pelosi and the rest of the House Leadership Gerontocracy. Pelosi resisted demands for an investigation of the lies of the Bush/Cheney administration that led to the sickening attack on Iraq. She resisted any effort at serious investigation of Trump, and had to be forced into investigating the extortion of Ukraine.

3. The underlying problem in Mazars is the weakness of Congress. Trump and his contemptible lackeys refuse to cooperate with Congress. Bill Barr thinks the President has absolute authority, and can ignore Congress.

The Constitution provides that each house sets its own rules. Each house could easily set up its own rules about subpoenas and enforcement of subpoenas. One possibility would be that an administrative official who refused to comply with a subpoena could be held in contempt, and then that person and all underlings would lose all authority to act under any law or regulation.

4. The delay issue in Vance is similar. We’ve wasted a year on arguments that had no possibility of success except in the minds of Presidential absolutists. Now we can expect Trump to move to quash the Vance subpoena in New York state courts, starting the whole thing over. Neal Katyal disagrees; he thinks the matter can be settled quickly in New York courts. We’ll see.

5. Trump has damaged America and Americans while this case stumbled along. One obvious remedy is a law that Congressional subpoenas are deemed enforceable by Congress unless there is a final court decision within a short period, say two months. Current court rules ignore the speed with which legal matters can be handled with the internet. Legal research is easier and quicker, filing is trivial, and video-conferencing solves all travel and scheduling problems. The rest of us have had to speed up. So should Courts.

The Statue Donald Trump Has Overturned

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I apologize for my scarcity over the last week. I’ve got a bunch of personal things going on — I expect to be fairly scarce for the next week or so yet.

Thanks to Rayne, bmaz, and Ed for picking up the slack.

I’m having a particularly hard time with our nation’s celebration this year. It’s not just the things Trump is doing. It’s not just the many visible signs of where we’ve fallen short of the ideals our nation aspires to (though I double down on the idea that a Trump Effect, in which he makes things that have long been a problem visible, may serve us if and when we recover from his presidency).

This year, I’m wondering, myself, if I could have done anything more to serve the ideals of this country.

The same things that have kept me from writing saved me from watching yet another race-baiting speech from the President last night.

That said, I couldn’t help but observe, amid the coverage of his claim to be protecting the nation’s statues honoring dead racists rather than human beings facing a deadly disease, that there actually is a,

better place to celebrate America’s independence than beneath this magnificent, incredible majestic mountain and monument to the greatest Americans who have ever lived.

Sure, Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln are key (and flawed) figures who have guided our country.

But the more obvious statue symbolizing our nation is the one sitting in New York harbor, the female figuring inviting your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free to be part of the great experiment that is our country, the one that welcomed so many immigrants who became key contributors to our nation.

It is that idea, the idea that any person, no matter how humble, can join this nation that has been so powerful an idea, when when he have fallen short from delivering on that dream.

And yet there was zero chance that Trump would have given a speech with that great female figure behind him, in the city he has fled (in part to hide his financial state). There’s no chance Trump would pay tribute to the abstract idea of freedom. There’s no chance Trump would risk a speech in a Blue State.

There’s sure as hell no chance that Trump would do anything to recognize how immigrants are the strength of this country.

Long before protestors started overturning statues honoring traitors to the United States, Trump overturned an ideal. He might well have held the Statue of Liberty underwater, shaking her violently as she drowned.

Donald Trump wants to run against those who’ve dared overturn those statues to traitors.

And yet he has betrayed the statue that better symbolizes what this country might be.

Maybe Trump Really Is Never Going To Leave

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Now that Rayne has you all festive for the holidays, I am gonna leave you with one more little nugget of joy. Trump really is planning on not leaving even if he loses badly to Biden. I have kind of poo poohed this kind of talk, but this morning on Morning Joe, there was a discussion with former Colorado Senator Tim Wirth and Tom Rogers, a journalist and original founder of both CNBC and MSNBC. These are two very smart and credible people, and they are pretty convincing. If you can find a video clip of their appearance, post the link and I’ll add it in to the post, it is harrowing.

But they have an article out together now in Newsweek entitled “How Trump Could Lose the Election—And Still Remain President”. Also harrowing, and they are convinced that this is really Trump’s plan.

Wirth and Rogers lay out two paths they expect Trump to take. The first is the obvious one pretty much everybody is aware of, severe voter suppression and goon poll watchers challenging voters pretty much anywhere and everywhere, along with claiming fraud as to the vote by mail. But it is the second path that is truly frightening.

This spring, HBO aired The Plot Against America, based on the Philip Roth novel of how an authoritarian president could grab control of the United States government using emergency powers that no one could foresee. Recent press reports have revealed the compilation by the Brennan Center at New York University of an extensive list of presidential emergency powers that might be inappropriately invoked in a national security crisis. Attorney General William Barr, known for his extremist view of the expanse of presidential power, is widely believed to be developing a Justice Department opinion arguing that the president can exercise emergency powers in certain national security situations, while stating that the courts, being extremely reluctant to intervene in the sphere of a national security emergency, would allow the president to proceed unchecked.
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With this, Trump has begun to lay the groundwork for the step-by-step process by which he holds on to the presidency after he has clearly lost the election:

1. Biden wins the popular vote, and carries the key swing states of Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania by decent but not overwhelming margins.

2. Trump immediately declares that the voting was rigged, that there was mail-in ballot fraud and that the Chinese were behind a plan to provide fraudulent mail-in ballots and other “election hacking” throughout the four key swing states that gave Biden his victory.

3. Having railed against the Chinese throughout the campaign, calling Biden “soft on China,” Trump delivers his narrative claiming the Chinese have interfered in the U.S. election.

4. Trump indicates this is a major national security issue, and he invokes emergency powers, directing the Justice Department to investigate the alleged activity in the swing states. The legal justification for the presidential powers he invokes has already been developed and issued by Barr.

5. The investigation is intended to tick down the clock toward December 14, the deadline when each state’s Electoral College electors must be appointed. This is the very issue that the Supreme Court harped on in Bush v. Gore in ruling that the election process had to be brought to a close, thus forbidding the further counting of Florida ballots.

6. All four swing states have Republican control of both their upper and lower houses of their state legislatures. Those state legislatures refuse to allow any Electoral College slate to be certified until the “national security” investigation is complete.

7. The Democrats will have begun a legal action to certify the results in those four states, and the appointment of the Biden slate of electors, arguing that Trump has manufactured a national security emergency in order to create the ensuing chaos.

8. The issue goes up to the Supreme Court, which unlike the 2000 election does not decide the election in favor of the Republicans. However, it indicates again that the December 14 Electoral College deadline must be met; that the president’s national security powers legally authorize him to investigate potential foreign country intrusion into the national election; and if no Electoral College slate can be certified by any state by December 14, the Electoral College must meet anyway and cast its votes.

9. The Electoral College meets, and without the electors from those four states being represented, neither Biden nor Trump has sufficient votes to get an Electoral College majority.

10. The election is thrown into the House of Representatives, pursuant to the Constitution. Under the relevant constitutional process, the vote in the House is by state delegation, where each delegation casts one vote, which is determined by the majority of the representatives in that state.

11. Currently, there are 26 states that have a majority Republican House delegation. 23 states have a majority Democratic delegation. There is one state, Pennsylvania, that has an evenly split delegation. Even if the Democrats were to pick up seats in Pennsylvania and hold all their 2018 House gains, the Republicans would have a 26 to 24 delegation majority.

12. This vote would enable Trump to retain the presidency.

Is this nuts? Sure. Is it possible? Yes, given who and what Trump and Barr are, it may well be.

The Chicks Are Owed An Apology

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Once upon a time, back when the United States was under the leadership of another fairly incompetent Republican President (yes yes, Bush and Cheney look a little better now compared to Trump and Pence, but only because they were actually semi-competent in their evil, but they were still very evil), there was was sensationally good crossover country/pop group known as the Dixie Chicks.

They were country, but never of the “stars and bars” Dixie kind. It was simply an appellation. In fact, they were all pretty forward and progressive thinking and talking. And man did they get in trouble for it. I guess the new term of the day is “cancelled”, which is kind of an idiotic term, but the howlers really did try to obliterate Natalie Maines, Emily Strayer and Martie Maguire. From Wiki:

On March 10, 2003, nine days before the invasion of Iraq, the Dixie Chicks performed at the Shepherds Bush Empire theater in London, England. It was the first concert of their Top of the World tour in support of their sixth album, Home. Introducing their song “Travelin’ Soldier”, Maines told the audience the band they did not support the upcoming Allied invasion of Iraq and were “ashamed” that President George W. Bush was from Texas. Many American country music listeners supported the war, and Maines’s remark triggered a backlash in the United States. The Dixie Chicks were blacklisted by thousands of country radio stations, and the band members received death threats. Maines issued an apology, saying her remark had been disrespectful; in 2006 she rescinded the apology, saying she felt Bush deserved no respect. The backlash damaged sales of their music and sales of their next album and tour.

In a September 2003 interview, Maguire told the German magazine Der Spiegel: “We don’t feel a part of the country scene any longer, it can’t be our home anymore.” She noted a lack of support from country stars, and being shunned at the 2003 ACM Awards. “Instead, we won three Grammys against much stronger competition. So we now consider ourselves part of the big rock ‘n’ roll family.” Some fans were dismayed, but the group made no clear response.

If you have forgotten, which is awfully easy to do in these pandemic days of Trump, this was a huge deal at the time. The United States government under the Bush/Cheney regime, and the entire country music scene hated on them and ostracized them. It was one of those kind of fulcrum moments. It was not just the Iraq war, it was torture, the unitary executive, free speech, protest…..everything was wrapped up, in a cultural way, in the actions of the Dixie Chicks. It was symbolic of the divide.

But Natalie Maines, Emily Strayer and Martie Maguire were bad ass and stuck to their morals and thoughts. They got hammered at the time, but they hung in and are still here bigger and badder ass than ever. They are now just The Chicks, having dumped the Dixie part of their original name. The Chicks are owed a debt of gratitude and an apology for the idiocy and bigotry they faced from the howlers during the Bush/Cheney years, and they are here to let you know they are still on the good side of the cutting edge.

The Chicks have a new song and video out. “March March”, and it is truly awesome. A song for this time. I saw it last night at Atrios’ joint, and it is really superb. Take a look. Expand it and watch it full screen, it is worth it. This is the music of protest, and in the best way. Music was key in the 60’s and it is key now. It spreads far and wide what people feel, whether they are in the streets or at home. The “at home” part seems even more pertinent now in the time of unabated pandemic at the hands of yet another evil Administration. And that is our trash talk for this weekend, get on it!