In the aftermath of Trump's Muslim ban

Kevin Drum has missed more often than he's made over the past year or so, but he strikes this one dead solid perfect.  Opening with an excerpt:

Harold Pollack on President Trump's immigration fiasco:

The President’s team had months to prepare this signature immigration initiative. And they produced...an amateurish, politically self-immolating effort that humiliated the country, provoked international retaliation, and failed to withstand the obvious federal court challenge on its very first day.

Given the despicable nature of this effort, I’m happy it has become a political fiasco. It also makes me wonder how the Trump administration will execute the basic functions of government. This astonishing failure reflects our new President’s contempt for the basic craft of government.

This sure seems to be the case. For the barely believable story of just how incompetent the whole exercise was, check out this CNN story. It will leave your jaw on the floor. And yet, there's also one tidbit that makes me wonder if the chaos attending the rollout was quite as unintended as we think:

Friday night, DHS arrived at the legal interpretation that the executive order restrictions applying to seven countries — Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Sudan and Yemen — did not apply to people who with lawful permanent residence, generally referred to as green card holders.

The White House overruled that guidance overnight, according to officials familiar with the rollout. That order came from the President's inner circle, led by Stephen Miller and Steve Bannon. Their decision held that, on a case by case basis, DHS could allow green card holders to enter the US.

The decision to apply the executive order to green card holders, including those in transit, is almost insane. Whatever else he is, Steve Bannon is a smart guy, and he had to know that this would produce turmoil at airports around the country and widespread condemnation from the press.

Why would he do this?

I'll answer that (first, with respect to Trump): In addition to being a racist, a misogynist, and a sexual fetishist, our new president has now revealed himself to be a sadist.  Update: This is not hyperbole, not exaggeration.  Sadist.

"It’s working out very nicely,” (Trump) said on Saturday afternoon as he signed his latest batch of executive actions. “You see it in the airports.”

Bannon, for his part, is both Neo-Nazi and nihilist.

Not today. #JFKTerminal4 #NoBanNoWall pic.twitter.com/uON20Jod3V

— NYCLU (@NYCLU) January 28, 2017

In cases like this, the smart money is usually on incompetence, not malice. But this looks more like deliberate malice to me. Bannon wanted turmoil and condemnation. He wanted this executive order to get as much publicity as possible. He wanted the ACLU involved. He thinks this will be a PR win.

Liberals think the same thing. All the protests, the court judgments, the press coverage: this is something that will make middle America understand just what Trump is really all about. And once they figure it out, they'll turn on him.

In other words, both sides think that maximum exposure is good for them. Liberals think middle America will be appalled at Trump's callousness. Bannon thinks middle America will be appalled that lefties and the elite media are taking the side of terrorists. After a week of skirmishes, this is finally a hill that both sides are willing to die for. Who's going to win?

This is indeed chaos theory as applied to governance.  While the media's attention was focused on the protests, Bannon was appointed to the National Security Council (along with Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner and chief of staff Reince Priebus), replacing the Director of National Intelligence and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

That is some kind of hubris.  I'd say we're now headed pell-mell toward both a civil war and a nuclear war -- remember, the North Koreans have been bragging about their new missile and restarting their reactor -- and the reaction from the Chinese seems to be "let's get it started".

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!  There may not be many more in our future!

Sunday Alternative Funnies

People growing angrier at Democrats

An update at the end of this post on Trump's SCOTUS nominee, which is reportedly coming early next week, expanded on the frustration in some quarters with how Democrats -- mostly of the upper chamber variety -- have responded to the Trump agenda.   I wrote there I could have made that its own post; now it is.  A summary of reading since then:

-- Nathan Hevenstone, for one, is hyper-ventilating about Elizabeth Warren's tortured defense via Twitter of her vote to confirm Ben Carson as chief of HUD.

-- Angry Bear, for another, in regard to an old e-mail crime/coverup in the W administration that went unprosecuted by Obama's.

-- And Osita Nwanevu at Slate doubles down on irritation at the senators:

As anyone who has been awake for the past eight years should be well aware, the notion that the Republican Party will reward Democrats in the future for their deference now is utterly laughable.

So just what the hell is going on in the Senate?

Her answer: "The broader truth is this: the Democrats, unlike the Republican Party, haven’t a clue how to build and wield power."  And then publishes the names of all the Democrats who have voted 'aye' on Trump's nominees so far.  It is a remarkably disgraceful list, in particular those senators who occupy safe blue seats.  The most appalling of all is Bernie Sanders voting to confirm John Kelly as director of Homeland Security ...

... even though (Kelly) has pledged to go after sanctuary cities and declined to give a clear answer as to how he would deal with DREAMers(.)

Sanders' statement on his votes:

“We must vigorously defend DACA and the young people in that program. We must continue the fight for comprehensive immigration reform and a path toward citizenship for 11 million undocumented immigrants. General (James) Mattis (who is now Secretary of Defense) and General Kelly may not be the nominees I would have preferred for the departments of Defense and Homeland Security, but in a Trump cabinet likely to be loaded up with right-wing extremists, all of whom I will oppose, I hope General Mattis and General Kelly will have a moderating influence on some of the racist and xenophobic views that President Trump advocated throughout the campaign. ..."

So.  Hope for a moderating influence overcomes the hypocrisy of his votes contradicting his 'vigorous' beliefs.  Wish I could be as hopeful.  Of greater encouragement, though, is the remarkable legal interpretation that Trump's anti-Muslim immigration policy -- poorly disguised as an anti-refugee executive order -- crashes on the rocky shoals of Justice Samuel Alito's vaguely worded anti-abortion decrees, also known as SCOTUS majority opinions.  So there's that.

And according to Al Franken, we should take solace that all Senate Democrats will oppose Betsy DeVos for education secretary, even Joe Lieberman Manchin.  I'll believe it when I see it.

For readers attending or watching the livestream of today's DNC Future Forum, keep all of this in mind as you hear the candidates discuss their views, policies, and plans of action.

Update: What Bill Maher said.

DNC candidates come to H-Town

They probably won't have time for any Super Bowl parties.  As a follow-up to Tuesday's post that had some thoughts on this election, I'm kinda surprised there's not more local news or even blogging about this gathering.

There will be 11 people at a DNC forum in Houston Saturday, including a new batch of lesser-known candidates.

Here's more about the event, from an e-mail by soon-to-be-former HCDP chairman, Lane Lewis.

The DNC Future Forum will be a full-day affair, with a break for lunch. The morning portion will feature opening remarks by DNC Chair Donna Brazile, Reverend Dr. William Barber, II of North Carolina, Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner and Texas Democratic Party Chair Gilberto Hinojosa. There will be a polling presentation by Maria Teresa Kumar representing Voto Latino. The candidate forums, moderated by Evan Smith of the Texas Tribune, will take place during the afternoon portion of the day.

The forum will be open to the press and the public and will be livestreamed as well. Click here to access the livestream link. 

Now that the Boston Globe's lede has been exhumed, note that the reporter, James Pindell, is forecasting gloom, and maybe doom, for Dems.

Following GOP victories in the 2016 elections, Democrats have descended to their lowest levels of power in Washington, D.C., and capitals across the country since the Hoover administration. And with the Clintons and Obamas exiting the stage, there is no natural leader to take the party forward.

Unfortunately for Democrats, the race for Democratic National Committee chairman — one of the party’s most powerful open posts in D.C. — is unlikely to give much clarity to their conundrum. The DNC chairman’s race features no clear front-runner and, so far, little debate about the soul and direction of the party.

For the first time in a dozen years, there is an open race to run the party [...]

The DNC chairman’s election will be held in late February in Atlanta, and it’s really anyone’s guess who will win. Party members anticipate several rounds of ballots, during which deals will be made between the candidates until someone wins a majority.

Keith Ellison and Tom Perez, re-litigating the 2016 primary with the same hissing animosity from the Hillbots toward the Sandernistas, yaddayaddayadda.

(W)ith the Clinton/Sanders divide in the race, no candidate has been able to lock up enough votes to win. Both Ellison and Perez have endorsements from unions, governors, mayors, and senators ...

But (Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren) and other high-profile endorsers are not among the DNC’s 447 voting members — nearly half of whom are state Democratic chairs and vice chairs. The rest are mostly longtime party activists from nearly every state. Not even Bill or Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama gets a vote.

“Endorsements don’t mean anything unless they are from voting members,” said Elaine Kamarck, an at-large DNC voting member who is backing Perez. “I don’t think anyone has a really good read on this race right now.”

According to internal counts from three of the campaigns, roughly 150 members have committed to a candidate — and the rest of the votes are up for grabs. 

My state senator Borris Miles is hosting a reception this evening for Ellison at his cigar bar, Our Legends.  (You might need your invite for this; while it opens occasionally for political events, it is private membership only.)  Claude Cummings of the CWA has endorsed Ellison as well.  Update: Bobby Cervantes at the Chron sees Miles' predecessor and now Harris commissioner, Rodney Ellis, former Bayou City Mayor Annise Parker, and a handful of others falling in behind Perez.  This is a good litmus test for real (Dem) progs versus alt-progs.

Once more, you can sign up to attend this forum at the Granville M. Sawyer Auditorium on the campus of Texas Southern University tomorrow -- note as indicated at the top, it lasts all day but the candidates won't be appearing until after lunch -- at this link.  No charge but you must RSVP, and seating is first come, first served.  It'll probably be a full house.

In addition to Ellison and Perez, the field includes Sally Boynton Brown, the executive director of the Idaho Democratic Party; Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Ind.; Jehmu Greene, a Fox News analyst; Raymond Buckley, chairman of the New Hampshire Democratic Party; and Jaime Harrison, chairman of the South Carolina Democratic Party.

That field is nothing if not diverse. Among the candidates are an African-American man, an African-American woman, an African-American who is Muslim, a white woman, a Hispanic man, and two gay white men.

[...]

“It is important that we don’t try to control the chaos,” Brown said.

Let's hear for it chaos, everybody!

Who do you think El Patron de la Partido Democratico de Tejas is supporting?  Probably has nothing to do with la raza.  I've given ol' Gil a bad time for a long time, and he has honestly earned every bit of it (to say nothing of the ill repute he's dishonestly earned).

As a former Democrat, I have no horse in this race.  But my space is reserved and I'll be live-Tweeting the proceedings.

Trump's Supreme Court nominee

In an alternative universe where Democrats have a spine or at least a Senate majority, they might be able to do what the Republicans did in 2016 and block a nominee, especially since they can't stop any of Trump's appalling cabinet of conservative extremists.  Very, very low odds of that happening in actual reality, so let's take a look at who might get tapped next week.  President Twitler apparently has his selection narrowed down to three white male federal appeals court justices, all of them W. Bush appointees and all millionaires.

L to R: William Pryor, Neil Gorsuch, Thomas Hardiman

Those reportedly on Trump’s short list to fill a vacancy created by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia are all federal appellate judges: Judge Neil Gorsuch of the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver, 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Thomas Hardiman, based in Pittsburgh, and 11th U.S. Circuit Court Judge William Pryor, who works in Birmingham, Alabama.

Financial profiles of each appear there.  The favorite seems to be Gorsuch.  Edith Roberts at SCOTUSblog adds some linkage.

At Bloomberg, Greg Stohr reports that “the president is a week away from nominating someone who would become a core member of the court’s conservative wing,” and that each of “four appellate judges in contention for the slot, including front-runners Neil Gorsuch and Thomas Hardiman, would fit neatly into the ideological mold of the man they would succeed, the late Justice Antonin Scalia.” In The National Law Journal (subscription or registration required), Tony Mauro reports that Gorsuch is “no fan of class actions,” having “criticized what he viewed as baseless litigation by shareholder classes,” and that he is “not big on agency deference either.” At PrawfsBlawg, Richard Re discusses recent remarks by Gorsuch in which the judge stressed the importance of the federal judicial oath, asserting that whoever “the nominee turns out to be, I hope that the resulting confirmation hearings spend some time exploring what it means to do ‘equal right to the poor and to the rich.’”

The son of Reagan's EPA director Anne Gorsuch Burford receives the early and favorable media vetting.  This excerpt from Ariane de Vogue of CNN digs deeper into his judicial philosophy.

Gorsuch, 49, has been on the radar of some judicial conservatives for some time. He has long been a favorite of legal thinkers at the Federalist Society and the Heritage Foundation.

Conservatives welcome his opinions on religious liberty. For instance, he has sided with closely held corporations who argued that the so called contraceptive mandate violated their religious beliefs. In another opinion, he challenged the notion that courts should defer to administrative agencies when they interpret the law. It may seem like a dry legal issue but it is central to many conservatives, including Justice Clarence Thomas.

"Judge Gorsuch has been a stern critic of a fixture of the Supreme Court's administrative law jurisprudence -- the idea that, where a federal agency is enforcing an ambiguous statute, courts should defer to how the agency understands the statute even if the courts read it differently," said Stephen I. Vladeck, CNN Supreme Court contributor and professor of law at the University of Texas School of Law.

"If he were to form part of a majority to scale back that principle, it would be a major sea change in the relationship between the executive branch and the courts, and one that would likely impose significant new constraints on the scope of federal regulatory authority on all topics -- from immigration and criminal law enforcement to environmental protection, consumer product safety, and drug regulation," Vladeck said.

"His position on this is more extreme than Justice Scalia," said Dan Goldberg of the progressive Alliance for Justice. "It would be hard to overstate the damage it would cause this nation and the American people."

Pryor is super-freak right; his hearings for the post he currently holds were contentious.

Pryor, 54, was subject to a years-long fight when Bush appointed him to the 11th Circuit, not least because of statements that Roe v. Wade is "the worst abomination in the history of constitutional law," and that it has "led to the slaughter of millions of innocent unborn children." He also purposely rescheduled a family trip to Disney World to avoid attending during "Gay Day", and as attorney general of Alabama wrote an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to uphold laws banning gay sex.

Despite that extensive social conservative pedigree, some conservatives are reportedly pushing against Pryor as a pick because of a pro–transgender rights ruling he made in 2011.

With all of the left and some of the right disapproving of Pryor, Mitch McConnell and Mike Pence may be whispering to Trump that a Senate fight over this guy is one they could easily lose.  There are fuller profiles of all three at this Vox link, and more like that from Politico.  Minority Leader Schumer has promised a hard line on any nominee, but he was with the Senate delegation that met with Trump on Tuesday to discuss his choice, a group which included Charles Grassley and Diane Feinstein, the ranking members of the Judiciary committee.

I'd say the options for Democrats are limited to stalling a confirmation as long as possible.

Updates:  The odds may have moved.

Trump is now focused on another judge with a working-class background: Thomas Hardiman. As a former attorney, Hardiman has been less vocal about his personal views.

“Our role as judges is to interpret the law,” Hardiman said.

Still on the now very short list for the current vacancy is federal appeals judge Neil Gorsuch. But with Justice Anthony Kennedy likely to retire soon, Gorsuch could become a leading favorite for Mr. Trump’s second nomination.

And Trump favors employing the nuclear option to get his pick confirmed, if that's what it takes.

(Trump) would favor Senate Republicans changing voting rules to allow a simple majority of the Senate to approve his nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court if Democrats block his choice, he said in an interview airing on Thursday.

“I would. We have obstructionists,” Trump told Fox News, referring to possible use of the so-called nuclear option that would overturn Senate rules requiring 60 votes to overcome a procedural hurdle, or filibuster, for Supreme Court nominees.

There are currently 52 Republican senators in the 100-seat chamber.

[...]

Assuming all 52 Senate Republicans back Trump's nominee, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell would either need to lure eight Democrats to his side or change the rules and ban the filibuster for Supreme Court nominations.

Last, in what could have been a blog post all its own, Ryan Cooper at The Week excoriates Senate Democrats for their timidity to this point in opposing Trump's cabinet picks.

Senate Democrats are ... the first target of liberal outrage, since they have to vote on Trump's cabinet nominees. They don't control the chamber, so it mostly doesn't matter in substantive terms how they vote — but it's still a powerful symbolic act. (Though they could have come close to picking off the wretched Mike Pompeo as CIA director, since Rand Paul voted against him.)

But not a single Democratic senator has voted against every nominee, as Paul Blest points out. Only Kirsten Gillibrand and Tom Udall have come close, voting against five of six. Six other caucus members have voted against four of six: Bernie Sanders, Cory Booker, Richard Blumenthal, Jeff Merkley, Ron Wyden, and Elizabeth Warren. On the other hand, fully 14 Democrats had voted for all six of Trump's nominees — and some of those in safe blue states, like Dianne Feinstein (California), Brian Schatz (Hawaii), Sheldon Whitehouse (Rhode Island), and Chuck Schumer (New York) — who is also the Minority Leader.

[...]

Republicans mounted total procedural obstruction to Democrats and President Obama, and it only worsened as his presidency passed. The goal, as then Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said in 2010, was to "deny President Obama a second term." They filibustered nearly every bill, even ones that would go through 100-0, simply to gum up the calendar and eat up precious floor time. They filibustered nearly every judicial nominee (until Senate Democrats scaled back the filibuster), to keep liberals out of the courts — and last year, when Antonin Scalia died, Senate Republicans refused to even consider Obama's Supreme Court nominee for an entire year, in hopes that Trump would be able to fill the seat. That has literally never happened before.

This has been a nihilistic, will-to-power struggle for years now, and obviously so. Republicans now control the whole government due to happenstance and the idiotic Electoral College, but they're not moderating their policies to the slightest degree out of some sense of decorum. Instead, they're going to ram through their agenda as fast as possible, and try their utmost to disenfranchise enough liberals and rig the election procedures such that America becomes a permanent one-party state.

Harsher than most anything I've written.

It only takes one party to start a fight, and when you're already in one compromise is a guaranteed way to lose. Ordinary Democrats are finally seeing this truth, as shown by the gigantic marches all over the country during inauguration weekend, and later ones in Philadelphia and New York against Trump's anti-Muslim policies. Not even a week into his presidency and Trump is already facing massive unrest.

Elected Democrats are going to need to ditch their usual cringing, timid, compromising ways if they want to have a chance at a political career in the future. Even fairly milquetoast liberals are crying out for some sort of firebrand to lead a ferocious, determined resistance. If, say, Tom Udall or Kirsten Gillibrand can realize this, their national profile will quickly grow.

But those who vote for Jeff Sessions to become attorney general might face a primary challenge instead.

So let it be done.