Thursday, February 09, 2017

Sessions confirmed

Senator Jeff Sessions was confirmed on Wednesday as President Trump’s attorney general, capping a bitter and racially charged nomination battle that crested with the procedural silencing of a leading Democrat, Senator Elizabeth Warren.

Mr. Sessions, an Alabama Republican, survived a near-party-line vote, 52 to 47, in the latest sign of the extreme partisanship at play as Mr. Trump strains to install his cabinet. No Republicans broke ranks in their support of a colleague who will become the nation’s top law enforcement official after two decades in the Senate.

Some people might dispute the party affiliation of Joe Lieberman Manchin, who was the only Democrat who voted for Sessions.  On the other hand ...

That kind of Democrat -- Manchin, Gilberto Hinojosa, James Cargas, etc. -- is precisely the reason why I'm no longer a Democrat.

Wednesday, February 08, 2017

DeVos confirmed, Warren silenced, more scattershots

Like I said before, skip a blogging day and it's hell catching up.

-- Mike Pence broke the tie, and thus we now have a Dominionist who knows nothing about, indeed is opposed on religious grounds to public education, in charge of public education.

How long do you think it will be before your children and grandchildren are kneeling in prayer following the National Anthem and the Pledge of Allegiance?  How long before intelligent design is taught in favor of evolution, like it is in church schools?  How long before -- never mind.  The answer is that it won't be long at all.

The whole reason private education came into existence is so that religious dogma wouldn't be forced on kids at taxpayers' expense.  Conservatives have evolved to the point that the answer is to strangle public schools.

-- Elizabeth Warren was silenced by Senate Republicans because she dared read a letter from Coretta Scott King criticizing Jeff Sessions.  During Black History Month.  The power play is backfiring on Mitch McConnell.

Republicans can't help being racists; it just comes so naturally to them.  Of course it might be sexist instead.  My guess is it's both.

-- Bernie Sanders and Ted Cruz had a debate on healthcare.  Generally speaking, both men lost.  Cruz because of his typical smarmy, condescending style and lack of facts; Sanders because ... well, he's always talking at us and not with us.  Cruz can at least feign empathy.  Update: Awkwardly.

Sanders doesn't really believe in the ACA; he's a proponent of 'Medicare for All' or universal single payer.  But he has to play this goddamned Democrat game of supporting some half-measure that until recently had Obama's name on it.  Because he doesn't want to rile up the Shrillarians too much.

This is the dilemma when you're trying to foment a revolution inside the castle walls.  And also why that never succeeds.

-- Trump offered to ruin an unnamed (but identified by gender) Texas state senator who has introduced legislation eliminating asset forfeiture to law enforcement by suspected criminals.  If you rule out Konni Burton on the basis of "him", they're talking about one Democrat -- Chuy Hinojosa -- or Bob Hall or Don Huffines, members of the Senate's Tea Party caucus.

Grits was first to see the irony.

Meanwhile, conservative groups like the Texas Public Policy Foundation, the Heritage Foundation, the Institute for Justice, and others have been pushing forfeiture reform hard for the last few years. So this is an area where Trumpian authoritarianism finds itself at odds with traditional, property-rights rooted conservatism and small-government distrust of government power.  There are dozens such fracture points emerging where Trumpism  diverges from traditional conservatism, so this issue arises as part of a larger debate: Will there continue to be a place for small-government conservatism in the Trumpian era? D.C. Republicans probably cannot resist his Big-Government siren song. But here in Texas, perhaps those values are a little more deeply rooted. Burton's SB 380 would be a good opportunity to express them. 

Update: The Statesman feels confident in naming Bob Hall as the object of Trump's scorn.

Let's hope some of our corporate media Capitol bureau contingent can formulate a pointed question to ask a few senators.  Something like: "Yes or no on SB 380?"

-- Two steps for free and fair elections; one backward ...

The same day that Mike Pence became the first Vice President in American history to be summoned to break a 50-50 split in a Cabinet confirmation vote for Betsy DeVos, members of the Committee on House Administration advanced two pieces of legislation to repeal laws that safeguard the integrity of elections.

The committee, chaired by Mississippi House Rep Gregg Harper, voted 6-3 along (shocker!) partisan lines to advance the Election Assistance Commission Termination Act, ThinkProgress reported. This act of termination would kill off the bipartisan commission that was formed in the wake of the debacle of the 2000 election to ensure that states were making it easier and more transparent to vote. It also oversees voting machines to make sure they don’t get hacked. According to its government website, the commission “is charged with supporting state and local election officials in their efforts to ensure accessible, accurate and secure elections.”

The commission was designed as oversight for the implementation and compliance with the Help America Vote Act. It’s worth noting that Republicans held the White House, the House and 50-50 control with the VP’s tie-breaker in the Senate when HAVA was signed into law in October, 2002. This goes to show how radically far the GOP has declined in its moral compass in the last 15 years. Republicans are voting to repeal legislation that their party wrote and enacted the last time they held unified control of the federal government.

... and one forward.

In blunt and highly critical language, a federal judge on Wednesday blasted the Federal Election Commission (FEC) and issued a ruling that lays the groundwork for removing the primary obstacle to a serious independent running for president in 2020.

In her 28-page decision, U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan said that, in rejecting a complaint by Level the Playing Field, a group seeking to change the rules for participation in the final fall debates, the FEC had acted in a manner that was “contrary to law.”

The FEC was the defendant in the case, but the real villain in the story is the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD), a private organization that is dominated by Democratic and Republican party stalwarts.

You might recall that a different federal judge ruled against the minor parties trying to crack open the debates last August, which sealed our crappy duopolist fate (again).

The CPD’s rules – mainly the 15% threshold late in the election cycle for admission — have effectively excluded independent candidates from participating in the September and October debates, thus denying them the chance to become president — even though polls clearly show Americans want that choice.

Fix it or the plaintiffs will be able to fix it themselves, wrote the judge.

In one important passage of her opinion, the judge referred to evidence submitted by the plaintiffs and wrote:

“Given these expert analyses, the evidence that since 1988 only one non-major-party candidate, Ross Perot, has participated in the debates, and only then at the request of the two major parties, and the evidence that the CPD’s chairmen and directors are actively invested in the partisan political process through large donations, the court is perplexed that the full extent of the FEC’s analysis consisted of no more than a footnote stating that even if the fifteen percent threshold excluded third-party candidates, this still did not indicate that it was not an objective criterion. This begs the question: if under these facts the FEC does not consider the fifteen percent polling criterion to be subjective, what would be?”

The judge concluded by ordering the FEC to “reconsider the evidence and allegations and issue a new decision consistent with this Opinion within 30 days.” Otherwise, she wrote, the plaintiffs “may bring…a civil action to remedy the violation involved in the original complaint.”

STOP and then GO, democracy!

-- Democrats in Congress are at least trying to remove Steve Bannon from the National Security Council seat he secured for himself.

While national security lawyers argue over whether Steve Bannon’s appointment to the National Security Council is legal or not, members of Congress are pushing back to close whatever statutory loophole even might render legal what is clearly a violation of long-standing national security norms.

In one of last week’s most under-reported stories in the major press, bills were introduced into both the House of Representatives and the US Senate this past week, each designed to clarify the composition of the NSC and Principals Committee, ensure Senate oversight over appointments, and, in the case of HR 804, “To Protect the National Security Council from Political Interference.” As of today, the House bill has 85 co-sponsors.

No GOP signatories yet, and Trump could veto it if it came down to that, but this is more meaningful than another protest or petition or phone call to a full voice mailbox.  Cruz and Johns Cornyn and Culberson ought to be able to go along with the premise that a Democrat could do this in four years, which is why they should act now.

Send an email to your Congress critter through the contact form on their website (the best).

Monday, February 06, 2017

The Super Bowl Hangover Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance passes along the press release from Melissa McCarthy Sean Spicer that the Atlanta Falcons won the popular vote in last night's most Super of Bowls, and in other news, Jill Stein is accepting donations for a recount of just the Patriots' passes.  Only one, actually.


Here's your blog post roundup!

Off the Kuff interviewed Jose Garza, counsel for the Mexican American Legislative Caucus (MALC), about the ongoing voter ID litigation.

Libby Shaw at Daily Kos reports on her street activism in Houston. Together We Are a Formidable Force. #Resistance #Indivisible #DailyAction.

Socratic Gadfly takes note of two pieces of transgender news this week and connects some snarky dotes to the bathroom bill sponsored by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and state Sen. Lois Kolkhorst.

With Trump's Nixon impersonation just a week old, and more cabinet nominee confirmation votes coming this week, PDiddie at Brains and Eggs hopes the Democrats have a Patriot-like comeback performance in them.

Mindful of the key role in the Trump White House played by white supremacist Steve Bannon, Neil at All People Have Value visited the Houston Holocaust Museum. APHV is part of NeilAquino.com.

In the immediate wake of Trump's 'travel' ban, Texas Leftist posted about the outpouring of support for Texas Muslims at the Capitol in Austin on their biennial lobby day.

Ted at jobsanger sees the lawsuits against the Trump administration start to pile up.

MOMocrats documented what happened on the eleventh day of Trump.

Texas Vox has a new director of Public Citizen's Texas office: Adrian Shelley, the former head of Air Alliance Houston.

Two city officials in Lewisville, a city councilman and a 911 dispatcher, passed away within the week, reports the Texan Journal.

===================

More stories from around Texas!

R. G. Ratcliffe at Burkablog is rounding up his own collection of Lone Star news and stories every Friday, and his latest covers the border wall, NAFTA, the changing faces of Dallas minority leadership, and media fatigue.

Julie Chang at the Austin American Statesman wonders why so many Texas teachers accused of improper relationships with students are never charged.

Eva Moravec, writing for the Houston Chronicle, takes note that some Texas police are failing to follow the law that requires them to report shooting incidents.

Alex Samuels at the Texas Tribune sees that with Trump on their side, Ted Cruz and Greg Abbott are bullish on term limits.

Elise Hu shares the story of her father and his journey to the United States as a refugee.

Grits for Breakfast calls on the Lege to raise the age for adult crimes from 17 to 18.

Jay Blazek Crossley criticizes the Houston-Galveston Area Council for lack of diversity on its transportation policy committee.

The TSTA Blog bemoans Dan Patrick's dishonesty on vouchers, and Scott Braddock reports that Patrick and Steven Hotze are still besties.

Chris Hooks at the Texas Observer thinks the left in Texas need their own Tea Party, and DBC Green blog says that kind of revolution won't go nearly far enough.

Paradise in Hell delivers the National Prayer Breakfast speech Trump meant to give, and Somervell County Salon collected some of the bigger laughs the new administration earned over the past seven days.

And Dave Zirin, writing for both The Nation and The Rag Blog, covered the partying and the protesting at the Super Bowl.

Saturday, February 04, 2017

Starring Conway as Goebbels

The trouble with documenting the atrocities in TrumpWorld is that if you skip a day, he's already on to the next one.   Same goes for his propagandists.


#BowlingGreenMassacre trended all day and into the night, spawning a "We Are All Bowling Green" vigil for victims and a spoof website, courtesy the ACLU (which had previously shattered donation records).  Bowling Green Massacre survivors are now marking themselves safe on Facebook.  So with all of that snark in full bloom, it's no longer timely -- and maybe a little Godwin-esque -- to point out the disturbing similarities between Kellyanne Conjob and the original Minister of Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels ...


... but we may not have to wait long for her next alternate fact.  Tomorrow is Sunday, the a.m. talking heads can't stop putting her on despite her whining about not getting any sleep for months, and even with some big football game happening, she -- or some other needy attention-grabber in the two-week-old administration -- isn't going to be able to tolerate having the spotlight shining elsewhere besides on them.

Hat tip to a fatigued Field Negro, who worked in a mention of Trump's doctor and his reference to President Hair Furor's male baldness pills, and their being implicated in sexual dysfunction and depression, along with Howard Stern's worry that Trump is, you know, appearing mentally unstable.

So if we can get him out of office before Steve Bannon convinces him to start a war with China ...

Thursday, February 02, 2017

"Fascism Forever"


This is going to confuse those Republicans who've insisted that fascism is leftist.


Supreme Court Justice nominee Neil Gorsuch founded and led a student group called the ‘Fascism Forever Club’ at his elite high school, DailyMail.com can reveal.

The club was set up to rally against the ‘left-wing tendencies’ of his professors while attending a Jesuit all-boys preparatory high school near Washington D.C.

Although it's explainable as youthful impetuousness, this may help pull Senate Democrats out of whatever quagmire it is that they've gotten themselves into.

Gorsuch founded the ‘Fascism Forever Club’ during his freshman year at Georgetown Preparatory, a now-$30,000-a-year private Jesuit school that is one of the most selective in the United States.

[...]

The yearbook described the ‘Fascism Forever Club’ as an anti-faculty student group that battled against the 'liberal' views of the school administration.

‘In political circles, our tireless President Gorsuch’s “Fascism Forever Club” happily jerked its knees against the increasingly “left-wing” tendencies of the faculty,’ said the yearbook.

The sort of undergraduate objection long in the running.  Shades of Ted Cruz, in fact.  But it looks the same when you hold it up to a mirror, too.  Why, I'm so old I remember when a wee neoliberal attending Brandeis University couldn't abide living in the Democratic People's Republic of Boston, and had to scurry back home to Texas so that he could wear his cowboy boots to class without being laughed at.  (Cringing duopolists on both sides of the aisle, as we know, are a-skeered uh soshulism.)

Alas, and paraphrasing Donald Rumsfeld, you go to war with the Democrats you have, not the Democrats you want or might wish to have at a later time.  So the battle to confirm or reject GorsuchaScalia is joined.  Let's see if something interesting happens.

Update: Can the Senate Dems successfully filibuster the fascist club founder?  Magic 8-Ball says "better not tell you now".

Wednesday, February 01, 2017

These nominees and this process, tho...

-- I blogged about SCOTUS potentials this time last week, and except for Trump's "Apprentice"-like charade, there's nothing new to report.  Except for this.

"The reality is that to the best of my knowledge (Judge Thomas Hardiman) never left the state of Pennsylvania," White House spokesman Sean Spicer said Tuesday night after the announcement. "He never was in DC, nor did he ever leave the commonwealth."

The Trump administration was taking extraordinary measures to build suspense and keep the final selection for its Supreme Court nominee under wraps for as close to the announcement as possible. Hardiman and Neil Gorsuch, both federal appellate judges, were the established favorites.

[...]

White House sources acknowledged Tuesday night they left the impression with reporters that he was coming to Washington. Hardiman appeared to play along. One source said Hardiman was given the sense that there could be a spot for him should another vacancy open up.

Sources inside the White House and close to Hardiman said earlier Tuesday that Hardiman was asked to come to Washington. Other news outlets reported before the announcement that Hardiman was going to be at the White House event, though CNN was never told that was the intent.

After he was seen leaving his Pittsburgh home, a CNN producer last saw Hardiman again at a highway gas station more than 100 miles east of Pittsburgh in the direction of Washington.

But earlier in the day, sources told CNN that both finalists were being brought to Washington ahead of Tuesday's White House announcement.

One source said that Gorsuch was told it was likely him. Those close to the process warned that until it was announced, Trump could change his mind.

"He likes a contest," one person close to the process said of Trump.

Two packets of briefing materials were being prepared to give senators Tuesday night: Gorsuch and Hardiman. But one person said the "Gorsuch packet" was full and complete, while Hardiman's was little more than biographical.

One person close to the process said Trump doesn't view runner-up as a bad thing. "There will be other openings on the court, so the person not picked will be runner-up," this person said.

I didn't ride along with the farce by watching the teevee, and Tweeted once just a few minutes prior to the announcement.  Homie ain't gonna play like that in the future, either.

-- I'll just keep looking ahead, now with the latest on the Treasury nominee's foreign money...

Senate Democrats are raising questions about whether Steve Mnuchin, President Donald Trump's treasury secretary nominee, deliberately misled lawmakers at his confirmation hearing. The concerns center on the extent of foreign investment in a series of finance entities Mnuchin helped manage, including one based offshore in the Cayman Islands ...

The focus has trained on a series of finance entities, all offshoots of the hedge fund run by Mnuchin up until he was selected as Trump's pick to be the country's economic point person.

Asked specifically about the investment makeup of the offshore entity during his hearing, Mnuchin repeatedly said it was created to provide opportunities for pension funds and non-profits to invest. There were also "a small number of foreign investors," Mnuchin told lawmakers.

But the offshore entity and a series of other finance vehicles, some of which weren't originally disclosed by Mnuchin during the financial disclosure process, hold gross assets of more than $240 million, according to an SEC filing reviewed by CNN. Significant percentages of each were held by foreign investors, according to the filing, and one was 100 percent owned by foreign investors.

Mnuchin's failure to initially disclose his relationship with the funds, along with his minimizing the scope of foreign investment in them during the hearing, has Democrats questioning whether it was part of a deliberate effort to steer them away.

"Misleading -- and that's the most charitable way you could say it," Sen. Ron Wyden, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, said of Mnuchin's explanation during an interview. "You walked away thinking that almost the only people were churches and pensions (investing in those entities.)"

There's also evidence that Mnuchin has lied to the Senate committee about one of his company's robo-signing on mortgage contracts.  Does perjury count as a crime in Trumpland?  Can Democrats stop -- or God forbid, delay -- this nominee?  How they stand up to Jeff Sessions is probably key.


-- How about Betsy DeVos and her plagiarism?

Betsy DeVos, Donald Trump's Education Secretary nominee, appears to have lifted quotes in at least two instances in written answers submitted to the Senate committee tasked with approving her nomination.

After DeVos' confirmation hearing was limited to one round of questions by Sen. Lamar Alexander, chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, Democrats submitted hundreds of questions to the nominee. In response to a question from Sen. Patty Murray, the top Democrat on the committee, on bullying of LGBT students, DeVos almost directly -- and uncited -- quoted Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Vanita Gupta, head of Obama's Civil Rights Division at the Justice Department.

Looks like Obama's team was good for something after all.

Trump education adviser Rob Goad described the plagiarism allegations as "character assassination."

"To level an accusation against her about these words included in responses to nearly 1,400 questions -- 139 alone from the ranking member -- is simply a desperate attempt to discredit Betsy DeVos, who will serve the Department of Education and our nation's children with distinction if confirmed," said Goad, who sits on the White House Domestic Policy Council.

Sen. Patty Murray said Tuesday she is reviewing written answers the Michigan billionaire provided to the Senate that may include plagiarized material.

In another instance, DeVos' appears to have lifted language from the Department of Education website.

Do they still discipline kids for copying their homework from someone else?  How about you just report to the assistant principal's office, lady.  Oh wait ...

(DeVos) is also not the first Trump staffing pick to face plagiarism allegations since the President's election.

Conservative author Monica Crowley stepped away from her appointment to a senior communications role in Trump's then-incoming administration after CNN's KFile uncovered multiple instances of plagiarism.

Examples of plagiarism were found in her 2012 book, multiple columns for The Washington Times and her 2000 Ph.D. dissertation for Columbia University. The former Fox New contributor was chosen to be the senior director of strategic communications for the National Security Council.

So it looks like somebody in DeVos' family is going to have to write larger checks to more Republican incumbents in order to keep this con going.

Brave new world!  How's everybody adjusting so far?  Got your shelter built and your fire going?  Ready to go scavenge for food?  Or would you rather keep whining about the Russians, James Comey, Bernie Sanders, and/or everybody who voted for Jill Stein?

You gonna march again this weekend?  Sign a petition to John Cornyn and Ted Cruz DEMANDING they vote against Sessions, or DeVos, or Tom Price or Scott Pruitt (here's your chance, Schumer) or any of the rest of these clowns?  Make a few phone calls to full voice mailboxes?

Maybe you could, I don't know, start thinking about how you might assist in organizing your precinct or something.  Just a suggestion.