Heather Cox Richardson Hits It Out Of The Park

Click here for a particularly good HCR column, October 26, 2021. Her introduction:

For all the news stories that seem to tug us in one direction or another, there is just one overarching story in the news for Americans today.

We are in an existential fight to defend our democracy from those who would destroy it.

People seem to hark back to films from the 1930s and 1940s and think that so long as we don’t have tanks in our streets, our government is secure. But in this era, democracies die more often through the ballot box than at gunpoint.

She emphasizes the usurpation of power that has taken place in Hungary over the last decade or so under Viktor Orbán. Orbán was elected in 2010, and has consolidated his power since then to the point where:

On paper, Hungary is a democracy in that it still holds elections, but it is, in fact, a one-party state overseen by one man.

Ten short years, from democracy to absolute power. This is the path the United States is beginning to take. If gerrymandering, voter suppression, and control of the election count/certification process can win power for the Republicans in at least the House -- and possibly the Senate as well -- in 2022, that will be the end of bodies such as the January 6 committee. Republicans will be able to pass federal laws cementing their control of the election process at a federal level, mimicking the partisan manipulation they are in the process of carrying out in Republican states.

In their embrace of the illiberal democracy of Hungary, those on the right argue that they are defending traditional American values. 

Like Orbán, they focus relentlessly on immigration; “caravans” of immigrants have once again made the right-wing news, as they always do before an election. They worry that traditional families are under attack, hence Texas’s S.B. 8, which outlaws the constitutional right of abortion by empowering vigilantes. They insist that “real” America is being destroyed by multiculturalism; hence the hysteria over Critical Race Theory, an obscure legal theory from the 1970s that is not taught in K–12 schools, and the calls for “patriotic education.”  

And, crucially, those on the right are openly embracing voter restrictions and the replacement of nonpartisan election officials with partisans.

There have been 33 new election laws passed in 19 Republican states which are designed to replace the idea of democracy with a hierarchy in which a Republican minority will determine the outcome of elections.

Republicans today are not trying to win the next elections, in 2022, by contrasting their ideas for the future of the country with Democratic ideas; they're actively trying to rig the outcome.  

When the Founders declared it “self-evident, that all men are created equal,” they were making a bold declaration about the nature of governments that flew in the face of western tradition and thought. They denied that some individuals were better than others and had an inherent right to rule the rest. Governments, the Founders said, derived legitimacy not from religion, or heritage, but instead were legitimate only to the degree that those who lived under them consented to them. “[T]o secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,” the Founders said.

This was a truly revolutionary idea in the age of the absolute monarchy. But HCR points out that this viewpoint can be shaken by determined forces, and possibly even overturned. On the brink of civil war, Southern demagogues were declaring:

"... that Jefferson’s belief that all men are created equal was ​​“an error” and that anyone who still adhered to that idea was an insane 'fanatic.' Stephens [Alexander Stephens of Georgia, who would soon be the vice president of the Confederate States of America] told listeners: 'Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.'"

HCR says:

And there it was: the replacement of the idea that all people are created equal with the idea that some people are better than others, and that those people, who truly understand God’s laws, should rule.

 

Colin Powell, R.I.P.

Click here for an article at The Intercept by Peter Maass, entitled "Colin Powell Was a Nice Man Who Helped Destroy Iraq." It's a clear-eyed assessment of Colin Powell's place in history, including the blot on his record which was his performance at the U.N., urging prosecution of the Iraq war.

January 6: The New Lost Cause

Click here for an article in The Atlantic by David A. Graham entitled "The New Lost Cause," subtitled "Republicans are holding up the January 6 insurrection—an effort to overthrow the American government—as the high-water mark of patriotism."

He begins by telling of a rally in Virginia for Republican gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin, a hardcore Trump guy (Trump didn't attend the rally, but he phoned in). At one point, an emcee introduced a speaker by saying, “She’s carrying an American flag that was carried at the peaceful rally with Donald J. Trump on January 6.”

So now the Republicans are venerating objects associated with January 6, a day they are celebrating, rather than condemning it as a violent, treasonous attempt to overthrow a legitimately elected government.

"The Lost Cause" is the name Republicans give to the Southern attempt to overthrow a legitimately elected government in 1861; they glorify Southern actions in the Civil War.

Elevating this banner to a revered relic captures the troubling transformation of the events of January 6 into a myth—a New Lost Cause. This mythology has many of the trappings of its neo-Confederate predecessor, which Trump also employed for political gain: a martyr cult, claims of anti-liberty political persecution, and veneration of artifacts.

To Trump and his followers, "January 6 was a righteous attempt by brave patriots to take back an election stolen from them. The day’s events produced a martyr—Ashli Babbitt, an Air Force veteran shot and killed by a Capitol Police officer as she tried to enter the Speaker’s Lobby of the House. The rioters who remain imprisoned, meanwhile, are “political prisoners.” Now objects carried that day have become sacred too."

Ashli Babbitt's death saddens me. It should never have happened. She was duped by Trump and his minions into believing she was doing a good and patriotic thing, when she was led to her death by unscrupulous, traitorous cowards.

Graham concludes:

The problem with these myths, the Lost Cause and the New Lost Cause, is that they emphasize the valor of the people involved while whitewashing what they were doing. The men who died in Pickett’s Charge might well have been brave, and they might well have been good fathers, brothers, and sons, but they died in service of a treasonous war to preserve the institution of slavery, and that is why their actions do not deserve celebration.

The January 6 insurrection was an attempt to subvert the Constitution and steal an election. Members of the crowd professed a desire to lynch the vice president and the speaker of the House, and they violently assaulted the seat of American government. They do not deserve celebration either.

Bill Maher: The Slow-Moving Coup

Click here for Bill Maher's monologue from October 8, 2021, entitled "The Slow-Moving Coup."

Trump and his minions are laying the groundwork to steal the congressional elections in 2022 and the presidential election in 2024. If Trump's efforts to rig the election fail and the Democrats win, Trump will declare the election fraudulent, and this time his followers will use violence to try to overthrow the legitimately elected government. Maher lays out a frightening scenario of what might happen.

Chris Cuomo Nails The Degradation Of The Republican Party

Click here for Chris Cuomo's opening monologue from October 11, 2021, asking how history will judge this era in American politics, when the Republican Party is going all in on a lie, purely for the sake of gaining power.

"I often wonder if people who are living during times that will be historic know it. Because we sure are. Do you realize that? Do you realize that people will be talking about this period in American history for decades and decades to come?"

Yes, they'll be talking about it, and it won't be in a good way . . .

Is Bannon Fomenting Revolution? And More, From Heather Cox Richardson

Click here for Heather Cox Richardson's "Letters from an American" post for October 8, 2021.

The first thing that caught my eye was a quote from Steve Bannon:

Bannon told his podcast audience that he will have 20,000 “shock troops” ready to take over the country. “We control this country,” he said. “We have to start acting like it.”

Bannon has been subpoenaed by the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, and is scheduled to appear on October 14. Outcome to be determined ... 

In further news, apparently a treasure trove of Trump documents has been released by the National Archives, as Trump's opposition has been defeated:

Today, the pressure on the former president got higher when the White House declined to assert executive privilege over some of the documents requested by the January 6 committee. Former president Trump’s attorneys had requested that the Biden administration withhold documents about Trump’s actions on January 6. NBC News reported this afternoon that White House Counsel Dana Remus has sent a letter to the National Archives saying that “President Biden has determined that an assertion of executive privilege is not in the best interests of the United States, and therefore is not justified as to any of the documents.”

“These are unique and extraordinary circumstances,” Remus added. “Congress is examining an assault on our Constitution and democratic institutions provoked and fanned by those sworn to protect them, and the conduct under investigation extends far beyond typical deliberations concerning the proper discharge of the President’s constitutional responsibilities. The constitutional protections of executive privilege should not be used to shield, from Congress or the public, information that reflects a clear and apparent effort to subvert the Constitution itself.”

According to MSNBC, those documents include Twitter messages, phone and visitor logs, videos and photos of Trump’s events, all documents and communications related to Vice President Mike Pence’s movements and security, the planning around the counting of the certified votes, and any other documents concerning either the rally at the Ellipse or the Capitol riot.

 

Is The U.S. Secretly Being Led By Trump And The Military?

Click here for an article at vice.com by David Gilbert, entitled "How a Truly Unhinged QAnon Conspiracy Went From Telegram to Fox News." (Telegram is a messaging app where anyone can post.)

In the days after Biden was inaugurated, as all hope that former President Donald Trump would somehow overturn the election results had evaporated, QAnon supporters came up with a theory to allow them to perpetuate the myth that Trump was still somehow in charge.

The claim was as follows: Biden was simply acting as the president, filming his addresses to the nation in a Hollywood studio set dressed to look like the Oval Office. This, the conspiracy theory claimed, was all being controlled by Trump and the military, who had in fact arrested Biden but were maintaining the lie that he was president in order to lure the rest of the traitors into their trap.

The basis for these claims were pictures of some of Biden’s early speeches from the Oval Office. QAnon followers cited new wallpaper, strange views from the windows, and claims that Trump himself could be seen in the background of some of the pictures. All of these claims have been thoroughly debunked, but they’ve persisted anyway.

 Even by QAnon standards, this conspiracy was so unmoored from reality that some adherents to the movements pushed back, saying there was no evidence to back it up.

Staunch believers have continued to push this nonsense, in hopes that evidence would emerge supporting their theory.

And that’s what happened this week, when pictures emerged of Biden speaking from a virtual set in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, located just west of the White House. 

The South Court Auditorium set, which features a digital window pane mocked up to look like the Rose garden, is frequently used for news events and photo ops, but for some QAnon followers, this was the proof they had been waiting for. 

“In case you needed any more proof you are definitely watching a movie with a fake president,” John Sabal, known online as QAnon John, told his 70,000 followers on messaging app Telegram. Sabal is the person behind the large Patriots Roundup QAnon conference that is set to take place in Las Vegas later this month, featuring not only a who’s who of QAnon stars, but also at least five sitting GOP lawmakers.

“Look no further,” Sabal continued. “I challenge you to find me one picture like this while Trump was at the White House...I'll wait.”

Of course Sabal could have simply searched online and he would have found an array of pictures of Trump using the very same set.

This nutso theory was picked up and given support by Tucker Carlson on Fox News on Thursday, October 8:

But the fact that Trump used the set during his tenure did stop Carlson from alluding to the QAnon conspiracy about Biden during his highly-rated show on Thursday night, and asking: “If he’s not running the government, then who is?”

Here's another interesting passage:

The claim that Biden is a fake or illegitimate president began life as a QAnon conspiracy theory, but it has seeped into mainstream Republican orthodoxy in recent months, with lawmakers across the country openly claiming, without any concrete evidence, that the election was rigged and that Trump should be reinstated. 

And in some cases, even the full, unvarnished QAnon conspiracy has been repeated by Republicans. 

Like Patricia Silva, a Republican candidate for the local assembly in Fairbanks, Alaska, who recently said: “Of course, we’ve heard about Castle Rock, the studio where Hollywood stars do a lot of their productions. If you’re not aware they have a scene, a set that is the White House, And inside there are rooms that are set up like the Oval Office and such. It’s my opinion that’s where he filmed his inauguration.”

It's beyond disgusting that Carlson should be lending legitimacy to these fantasies, which are so easily debunked -- and have been, repeatedly.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

161 Carve-Outs In The Filibuster Rule

Click here for an article available at The Brennan Center by Tim Lau entitled "The Filibuster, Explained." It's a short, clear explanation. I was shocked to hear that far from being sacrosanct and inviolable, there have been 161 exceptions to the filibuster's supermajority requirement ... between 1969 and 2014.

So how about one more for voting rights? Here's an excerpt, a short piece headed "What's the history of the filibuster and its supermajority requirement?"

Under original Senate rules, cutting off debate required a motion that passed with a simple majority. But in 1806, after Vice President Aaron Burr argued that the rule was redundant, the Senate stopped using the motion.

This change inadvertently gave senators the right to unlimited debate, meaning that they could indefinitely delay a bill without supermajority support from ever getting to a vote. This tactic is what we now know as a filibuster.

In 1917, the Senate passed Rule XXII, or the cloture rule, which made it possible to break a filibuster with a two-thirds majority. In 1975, the Senate reduced the requirement to 60 votes, which has effectively become the minimum needed to pass a law.

There are, however, exceptions to the filibuster rule. Perhaps the most notable recent example pertains to presidential appointments. In 2013, Democrats changed the Senate rules to enable the confirmation of executive branch positions — including the cabinet — and of non–Supreme Court judicial nominees with a simple majority. Four years later, Senate Republicans expanded the change to include Supreme Court appointments. Both changes invoked what is known as the nuclear option, or an override of a rule to overcome obstruction by the minority.

At times, the Senate has also exempted certain types of legislation from the cloture rule. For example, Congress’s annual budget reconciliation process requires only a simple majority vote and cannot be filibustered. Likewise, trade agreements that are negotiated using fast-track rules cannot be filibustered. Other exemptions apply to measures that involve, for example, military base closures or arms sales. In total, 161 exceptions to the filibuster’s supermajority requirement have been created between 1969 and 2014, according to an analysis by the Brookings Institution’s Molly Reynolds.

 

Hold Accountable Those Who Incited The January 6 Insurrection

 Click here to play a video clip describing Paul Gosar's (R-AZ) involvement in the January 6 insurrection (including scathing statements from his siblings, who banded together to oppose his election, and remain hostile to his antics in Congress).

Click here to play a video clip describing Andy Biggs' (R-AZ) involvement in the January 6 insurrection.

Click here to play a video clip describing Mo Brooks' (R-AL) involvement in the January 6 insurrection.

Click here to play a video clip describing Andrew Clyde's (R-GA) involvement in the January 6 insurrection.

 Click here to play a video clip describing House Minority Leader Kevin McCArthy's (R-CA) involvement in the January 6 insurrection.

Click here for more of these videos available at a site called Respectful Dialogue.

Click here for Heather Cox Richardson's diary entry for September 30. Some excerpts:

Tonight, President Joe Biden signed into law a bill that extends funding for the government until December 3, 2021. The government won’t shut down tomorrow.

In the Senate, Republican Tom Cotton (R-AR) tried to amend the measure to stop aid for Afghan refugees who were evacuated to the United States. That amendment reflected the demands of former president Donald Trump, who insisted that Republicans should oppose the bill, calling it “a major immigration rewrite that allows Biden to bring anyone he wants from Afghanistan for the next year—no vetting, no screening, no security—and fly them to your community with free welfare and government-issued IDs.” Trump suggested they would bring “horrible assaults and sex crimes” that would be “just be the tip of the iceberg of what’s coming if this isn’t shut down.”

For all their talk of concern about taking care of our Afghan allies during the evacuation of Afghanistan, all 50 Republican senators voted for Cotton’s measure. Democrats killed it on a strict party line vote.

Senator Roger Marshall (R-KS) also tried to amend the bill. He wanted to prohibit the use of federal funds to implement vaccine requirements for the coronavirus. This failed, too, but only after all Republicans voted for it.

So the Republicans are opposed to helping the Afghans who worked with U.S. troops and whose lives are in danger at home. Trump turns on his firehose of lies, as usual, with his groundless horror stories demonizing immigrants. He's so predictable.

Here's a piece on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). The Republicans have always been totally opposed to the CFPB, which stands up for the little guy against corporate malfeasance. When it was established, private citizen Elizabeth Warren was proposed as its head, but Republicans blocked her; she responded by running for and winning a Senate seat in Massachusetts.

The Senate went on today to confirm Rohit Chopra to direct the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) for a five-year term. Chopra worked with Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) to establish the CFPB after the financial crisis of 2008, and in its first five years it recovered about $11.7 billion for some 27 million consumers. Former president Trump appointed former South Carolina representative Mick Mulvaney to head the bureau while he was also the director of the Office of Management and Budget; when he was in Congress, Mulvaney had introduced legislation to abolish the bureau. At its head, Mulvaney zeroed out the bureau’s budget and set about dismantling it.

When he took office, Biden began to rebuild the bureau and, in mid-February, appointed Chopra to head it, but Republicans objected to him. Now, more than seven months later, with Republicans insisting he would be anti-business, Vice President Kamala Harris cast the deciding vote to confirm his appointment.

Trump appointed Mulvaney CFPB head after he had introduced legislation to abolish it! Mulvaney proceeded to damage the CFPB as much as he could, but it's back in business.

Congress is wrangling over the $3.5 trillion (over 10 years) Democrat plan, which amount is roughly half what the U.S. spends on the military, and which will not add to the deficit because it's covered by "clawing back some of [Trump's] cuts to corporate taxes and [increased] income taxes on the nation's highest earners." Surprise, surprise: The nation's highest earners are opposed -- and so are their Republican lapdogs.

In contrast, though, Congress spends very little time discussing the defense budget, which, at its current rate, would cost $7.78 trillion over the next ten years. That amount is significantly higher than the defense spending of any other nation in the world. In 2020, the U.S. spent $778 billion on defense, making up 39% of our overall spending. China, the country with the next highest defense budget, spent 13% of its overall spending on defense at $252 billion, India spent 3.7% at $72.9 billion, Russia spent 3.1% at $61.7 billion, and the United Kingdom spent 3% at $59.2 billion.

At the heart of the question of how we spend our tax dollars, of course, is who pays those tax dollars. The Biden administration wants to fund the Build Back Better plan not by borrowing, but by closing tax loopholes and clawing back some of the 2017 cuts to corporate taxes and income taxes on the nation’s highest earners. At Rolling Stone today, reporters Andy Kroll and Geoff Dembicki wrote that political groups funded by the network of right-wing libertarian billionaire Charles Koch, who is deeply invested in fossil fuels, are pouring money and effort into killing the Build Back Better plan.

Not content to try to win seats by gerrymandering, Republicans are not only trying to suppress votes -- they're removing nonpartisan election officers and replacing them with Trump toadies who will surely seek to nullify any Democratic wins:

Meanwhile, the Senate still has not taken up either of the two voting rights acts passed by the House or the Freedom to Vote Act hammered out this month by Democratic senators led by Manchin.

Yesterday, the nonpartisan Voting Rights Lab released a report that noted the new voter suppression laws in place in 18 Republican-dominated states but focused instead on 17 new election subversion laws in 11 of those same states. Those new laws put into place the policies former president Trump’s campaign demanded in 2020. They threaten election officials with prosecution if they send out mail-in ballots to anyone who has not requested one, require legislatures to agree to changes in election rules, transfer control of elections or reporting results from nonpartisan officials to political operatives, and allow candidates to demand recounts at will.

A new law in Arizona, for example, “shifts control of election litigation from the secretary of state (currently a Democrat) to the attorney general (currently a Republican). The provision is designed to sunset on January 2, 2023, when a new attorney general potentially takes office.”

“When Voting Rights Lab launched a few years ago, we knew we’d be busy tracking many disturbing, and oftentimes veiled efforts to suppress the vote of historically excluded Americans,” the report concludes. “What we couldn’t have anticipated at that time was that current officeholders would warp the election process itself….”

Sometimes I despair.

 

 

 

 

Methinks Alito Doth Protest Too Much

Click here for an article at cnn.com by Ariane de Vogue entitled "Justice Samuel Alito says Supreme Court is not a 'dangerous cabal.'"

Alito defends the court against recent attacks, especially over the way it handed the preposterous bounty-hunting abortion law in Texas with the "shadow docket."

He said the recent criticism was geared to suggest "that a dangerous cabal is deciding important issues in a novel, secretive, improper way, in the middle of the night, hidden from public view."

Justice Elena Kagan had a few things to say about the Texas decision:

She noted that the law was written to block Texas officials from enforcing it, and instead allows anyone to bring civil suit against an individual that may have helped someone obtain the procedure.

"Without full briefing or argument, and after less than 72 hours' thought, this Court greenlights the operation of Texas's patently unconstitutional law banning most abortions," Kagan said.

She said the court's ruling illustrated how far the Court's 'shadow docket ' decisions may depart form "the usual principles of appellate process."

She noted the ruling was of "great consequence" but that it had only been "hastily" considered by the court. She said the majority barely bothered to explain its conclusion "that a challenge to an obviously unconstitutional enforcement scheme is unlikely to prevail."

"In all these ways, the majority's decision is emblematic of too much of this Court's shadow docket decision-making -- which every day becomes more unreasoned, inconsistent, and impossible to defend, " she said.

UNREASONED, INCONSISTENT, AND IMPOSSIBLE TO DEFEND -- thank you, Justice Kagan!

On Twitter, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) said:

Nope, just random that we churned out 80 partisan 5-4 decisions for Republican donors, opened dark money floodgates, crippled the Voting Rights Act, unleashed partisan bulk gerrymandering, and protected corporations from court. Pure coincidence. 

Click here for more commentary on Alito's whining. In an article entitled "Alito's political broadside against Supreme Court critics -- and how it misfires," Aaron Blake at The Washington Post says: 

“Democrats are fond of concocting ominous terms like ‘dark money’ and ‘shadow docket,’ ” Cruz maintains. Alito calls it a “catchy and sinister term” used to paint a picture of a “dangerous cabal that resorts to sneaky and improper methods to get its ways.”

The Trump administration kick-started the frequent use of the shadow docket:

According to data kept by University of Texas law professor Stephen Vladeck, the Trump administration dramatically increased its emergency requests relative to its predecessors — from just eight in the previous 16 years — one every two years — to 41 in four years.

Blake goes on:

And those requests were largely successful. As Vladeck testified earlier this year, “Not counting one application that was held in abeyance and four that were withdrawn, the Justices granted 24 of the 36 applications in full and four in part.”

That success rate is pretty extraordinary. Numbers crunched by Reuters show that in 2020, the court granted 10 of 11 emergency requests from the Trump administration and 10 of 15 from religious groups, but only about one-third of requests from state and other government groups, and precisely zero out of 97 from other private parties.

Is this a reflection of the politicization of SCOTUS? Heaven forfend.