Struggling out of the quagmire
The Roberts Supreme Court Court and its obstructions ... Gerrymanders could see the Republicans take back the House ... Members of the "sedition caucus" to testify before January 6 committee ... Big money behind the claims of election fraud ... Trouble ahead for Trump lawyers ... Roger Fitch, Our Man in Washington, reports
An "impulsive, mentally unstable and unbalanced individual who suffers from an inferiority complex" - psychological assessment of Donald Trump provided to Vladimir Putin in January 2015.
"Rating Outlook is Negative ... The failure of the former president to concede the election and the events surrounding the certification of the results of the presidential election in Congress in January, have no recent parallels in other very highly rated sovereigns. The redrafting of election laws in some states could weaken the political system, increasing divergence between votes cast and party representation. These developments underline an ongoing risk of … difficulty in formulating policy and passing laws in Congress…" - Fitch Ratings, July 2021.
Perhaps the potential loss of America's treasured Triple-A sovereign Issuer Default Rating could make the country's seditious insurgents reconsider their goal of permanent, one-party government.
Or maybe not. The Democrats seem too compromised and supine to either stop the new Jim Crow voting rights restrictions sweeping Trumpland, or - before there's another Putsch - invoke the 14th Amendment and exclude Trump from public office based on, e.g, his traitorous interference in the Justice Department.
Perhaps the pending January 6 hearings will uncover sufficient treachery to justify such disqualification of Trump by states and congress.
* * *
As expected, senate Republicans filibustered the Democrats' signature voting rights act for the usual (racist) reasons, and because of their well-founded expectation that stonewalling reforms will produce enduring one-party government at the next election.
If only the Democrats could carve out an exception for the filibuster, limited to constitutional issues, but that's difficult, due to rats in Democrat ranks.
Filibusters aside, Biden and his party - with the vice-president's vote - have a working majority in the upper house, but they suffer from two backsliders, West Virginia's plutocrat senator Joe Manchin, and the slippery Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona. Sinema is so conservative that an Arizona Republic writer queried why she hasn't joined the Republican Party.
Senate Democrats have additional ideas for getting voting laws through the upper house, but a determined and mischievous conservative majority on the supreme court might still strike down new voting rights laws.
Since the ascension of Chief Justice John Roberts, the decisions of the court's right-wing majority have increasingly aligned with the agenda of the Republicans who appointed them, in "total war" on congress, evident in Brnovich v DNC, the latest judicial attack on voting rights in the supreme court.
There's a new book out on the groundwork that the Roberts Court laid for the current Republican assault on voting rights - obstructed throughout American history by the court - and a vast suite of civil rights laws. A Progressive writer has a damning list of the worst decisions of the Roberts Court since the chief justice's appointment in 2005.
The supreme court has been blessing gerrymanders since at least the notorious "second" decennial Texas redistricting of 2003 (heard and decided by the court in 2006).
That was preceded by a Texas Democrat walkout, a tactic deployed again this year. It's a shame Obama didn't act in January 2009 - the last time Democrats had a filibuster-proof congress - to pass laws preventing such shocking gerrymanders as that of Texas in 2003.
Now Republicans are on the brink of retaking the house of representatives through gerrymanders that the supreme court effectively approved. Only four Republican-controlled southern states are needed to do it. One hopes that Biden's AG will meanwhile vigorously enforce existing laws abandoned by Trump's AG.
The only place safe for voting rights legislation now is in the state houses, where a newly-blue Virginia has gone from nearly worst, to one of the best.
* * *
In the lead up to the House of Representatives inquiry into the January 6th Capitol riot and insurrection, Just Security has created a "January 6 clearinghouse" site coordinating information relating to the event.
We already know that forewarnings of the insurrection were missed or ignored, and Jane Mayer, one of America's best investigative journalists, has a long read in the New Yorker on the big money behind Trump's ludicrous post-election fraud claims that culminated in the Capitol attack.
Justice Department leaks had already revealed the efforts of Trump to have DoJ assist in the overthrow of the election results. Now, career Justice Department officials are testifying to the machinations of Trump and his acolyte Jeffrey Clark (see below).
The committee's subpoenas can't be resisted: the Attorney General has decided there will be no DoJ interference with subpoenas to former officials of the Trump administration.
Trump's man Brooks: sued for incitement to violence
Nor will DoJ intervene to defend individual Republican congressmen who abetted the insurrection, e.g. Rep "Mo" Brooks who is being sued by Democrat Rep Eric Stalwell for his incitements to violence at the rally preceding the mob attack.
As DoJ opined, "Inciting or conspiring to foment a violent attack on the United States Congress is not within the scope of employment of a Representative - or any federal employee".
Eventually, members of the Republican "sedition caucus" will be called to testify before the January 6 committee, and there's a precedent for that: the demands of Jefferson Davis, the future president of the Confederacy, when he was in the Senate.
Attorney General Garland had already released the astounding draft brief that the Trump White House wanted the Justice Department to file in the supreme court, seeking to reverse the election.
Garland has since issued restraints on communications between DoJ and the White House. That's important in the light of the improper actions of Jeffrey Clark, the Justice underling who openly assisted Trump's efforts; notes exist attesting to their conspiratorial conversations.
* * *
Trump administration lawyers are struggling to find jobs in Big Law, which is now accused of being left-wing by conservative groups like the Koch-funded right-wing New Civil Liberties Alliance.
Some of the tainted attorneys have been parachuted into conservative sinecures and "think tanks" (there's a new Trump-Tank in California). Clark himself landed on his feet in a Republican safe house: a rightwing law shop fighting mandatory Covid injections at Indiana University despite 7th circuit and supreme court decisions upholding compulsory vaccinations.
On the civil side, Trump's lying lawyers are in well-deserved disrepute and professional strife, in New York, Michigan (more here) and Colorado.
Commercially, times are tough for Trump himself, and it's not just litigation. Party baksheesh and backhanders are in steep decline at the various enterprises he owns or promotes. Perhaps that's why America's crassest president is now reduced to using the presidential seal at his golf courses. There must be some intellectual property transgression there.
Meanwhile, presidential historians have been asked to rank America's presidents, again. Incredibly, there have been three worse than Donald Trump.
The mind boggles.
No comments:
Post a Comment