Census Cynicism

I haven't understood why the administration has been so insistent on putting a question about citizenship on next year's census form.

The New York Times reports that documents discovered on a hard drive of late GOP operative Thomas B. Hofeller reveal that he "wrote a study in 2015 concluding that adding a citizenship question to the census would allow Republicans to draft even more extreme gerrymandered maps to stymie Democrats."

But here's the really galling news:

The documents also show that Hofeller wrote a portion of a draft letter sent to the Department of Justice during [von Clownstick's] presidency that argues the citizenship question is necessary to protect the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

Update (June 28):  In a 5 to 4 ruling, the Supreme Court has blocked the citizenship question. But Sophia Tesfaye notes this may only be temporary since Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the opinion.

Roberts essentially stated that the citizenship question was legitimate — but that the government had to come up with a better excuse for it.

Update (July 3):  The Administration has abandoned efforts to include the citizenship question. I guess that means they're satisfied the gerrymandering decision will produce sufficient voter suppression.

And because chaos reigns supreme:

[Fuckface] said on Wednesday he was moving ahead with adding a contentious citizenship question to the 2020 U.S. census, contradicting statements made a day earlier by his own administration including Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross that the plan had been dropped.

The Young Turks argue that Dear Leader just says things to keep the base happy and it doesn't matter to them if it's really a lie. And yet, the actual printing might be thrown out.

Update (July 11):  It now seems that the question will not be included on census forms. But that doesn't mean Dear Leader isn't still looking out for the "voting rights" of white people. Other federal agencies will be ordered to turn over citizenship data to the Department of Commerce.

Some states may want to draw state and local legislative districts based upon the voter eligible population. Indeed the same day the Supreme Court handed down the census decision, it also said it would not review certain types of districting decisions, which could encourage states to make such decisions based on voter eligibility.

That intent likely violates the Fourteenth Amendment.

Energizing the Base

Democrats fear impeachment would stir up Dear Leader's followers. But Cody Fenwick reports that Republicans may have overreached.

Anti-abortion activists are newly emboldened. Alabama’s new draconian law placing severe restrictions on abortion — not even allowing them in the cases of rape or incest — and levying stunning prison sentences on those who violate the ban is only the latest salvo in their campaign.

But for some conservatives who seek to limit abortion, it’s not all going according to plan. Many fear that the new push is too fast, too aggressive, and too extreme — and that it risks sparking a powerful backlash.

Alabama's law is designed to be overturned so they can figure out what it takes to get five votes at the Supreme Court. But that does take time and Erick Erickson is worried.

Decisions that would preserve Roe, particularly with a [von Clownstick] pick joining the majority, would depress some segments of the conservative movement that totally invested in the line that holding their noses to vote for [Orangeman] would see Roe overturned.

And that will matter in 2020.

World in Crisis

Dear Leader seems to be looking for an excuse to start a war.

Speaking to reporters on Monday, [Fuckface] said he's "hearing little stories about Iran"—apparently referring to U.S. intelligence officials' unsubstantiated claim that Iran was behind [reported attacks on Saudi and UAE oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz over the weekend]. Iran has denied any involvement.

Thomas Klikauer says the right wins power by telling people they are being attacked. Klikauer argues that the global rise of right wing politics is due to "capitalism’s global effort to take our attention away from the impending environmental annihilation caused by capitalism".

That we see the global rise of nationalistic populism right now is a sure sign of the seriousness of what capital has understood is coming. The inevitable conclusion is nationalistic populism will continue to grow. And it will increase in ferocity. It may even end in a similar way to the first wave, outright Fascism. Given the recent history of capitalism, one should never totally discount such a possibility. This is not to argue that 2019 is 1933. It is not. What is coming will be worse. The looming fight will be worse and even if we win, the outcome will be horrendous.

Update (May 19):  Citing the work of Crawford Brough Macpherson, Ian McKay contends that liberal democracy, "a contradiction in terms", is in crisis around the world. Classic liberals were concerned with individual rights, but "[t]he key was property. Society was little more than an agreement among the privileged to respect each other's property rights." The advent of neo-liberalism over the past few decades only illustrates Macpherson's point "that the acquisitive drive of unfettered capitalism poses a stark challenge to liberty and democracy".

Update (May 24):  Right wing prime minister Narendra Modi of India wins re-election by a large margin.

Update (May 26):  An open letter to the president from 76 retired generals, admirals, ambassadors, and diplomats argues against war with Iran.

A war with Iran, either by choice or miscalculation, would produce dramatic repercussions in an already destabilized Middle East and drag the United States into another armed conflict at immense financial, human, and geopolitical cost.

Update (June 4):  Unfortunately, war with Iran is still a possibility.

Update (June 18):  Still itching for war. Will it be Iran or China? Michael Klare:

[T]he Pentagon’s main focus is a rising China, the power believed to pose the greatest threat to America’s long-term strategic interests.

Update (June 19):  Erin Banco reports that

the president has asked officials to tone down their heated rhetoric on Iran, despite the attacks on tanker ships in the Gulf of Oman that Washington has blamed on Tehran. The president has previously said he is less hawkish on Iran than some of his advisers and this week, in a Time magazine interview, said the attacks on the tankers were "very minor."

Update (June 20):  The possibility of war heats up.

[Dear Leader] authorized U.S. military strikes against Iran on Thursday, but officials abruptly pulled back from carrying them out just hours later, The New York Times reported.

Nick Visser gives the background.

On Thursday, Iran shot down an unmanned American spy drone that was flying over the Strait of Hormuz. The Iranian government said the aircraft had flown into the country’s airspace, although [Fuckface von Clownstick] said the drone was "clearly" in international waters.

"We have it all documented. It’s documented scientifically, not just words."

Update (June 21):  Apparently Dear Leader himself called off the attack.

[The president] claimed on Friday morning that he’d canceled the strike 10 minutes before its launch out of concern that the likely death toll would not be proportionate to the loss of the unmanned drone.

Heather Digby Parton notes that everyone surrounding Fuckface is for war.

[He] really only cares about one thing: re-election. If they want to convince him to let the bombs fly to prove he's got brass, his hawks are going to have to convince him that his base will love it. They will, of course. They are America's most fervent supporters of military action and if [Manbaby] does it they'll love him all the more.

Also, The Young Turks debate whether this madman deserves credit for stopping a crisis he created.

Update (June 22):  Shep Smith says the president's explanation "just doesn’t make sense". Chris Wallace elaborates:

[D]on’t send mixed messages that confuse not only your enemies but even your allies and people here in this country, as to what you’re going to do.

Biden adviser Colin Kahl adds:

Can any of us take at face value [von Clownstick's] portrayal of events? We don’t even know what the real story is. We have a president who basically runs the same play over and over again, which is: He lights everything on fire and then he pretends to put the fire out and take credit for it.

Update (June 25):  This pattern with Iran is a well-established tactic: since right and wrong don't matter any more, Fuckface is free to manipulate any situation to his political advantage as described by Ari Melber.

It often begins with some kind of tough talk, then a reaction, concern over the public plan announced by a president, but often, in the end, it doesn’t happen. Tweet, hype, but then fold.

The message itself can be the political playoff. [Dear Leader's] base wants to hear about ICE raids, about people being round up, so he gave them days of that message and perception. He may have already decided nothing was going to actually happen, but he gave his people some of the politics they want to hear.

Update (June 28):  John Atcheson notes the tragedy of having solutions in hand, but living in a world that increasingly rejects reality.

At a time when we have to navigate using empiricism, data, observation and skepticism in order to preserve some part of the progress we’ve made, and some of the natural life support systems we rely on, we are increasingly reverting to teleological reasoning in the pursuit of nonsense.  

And so, John Feffer concludes, "voters have gravitated toward right-wing politicians who promise fast results and easy solutions, however illusory those might be".

There are no instruction manuals on how to fix hardware and software simultaneously, on how to address climate change at the same time as fixing the political systems that have hitherto failed to tackle the problem.

Update (January 5, 2020):  We're at renewed risk of war with Iran after Fuckface von Clownstick ordered the assassination of Iranian military leader Qassem Soleimani. There is scant evidence for an imminent attack against U.S. forces. But there's plenty of evidence of projection in a tweet from October 22, 2012:

Don't let Obama play the Iran card in order to start a war in order to get elected--be careful Republicans!

Update (January 7, 2020):  It's saying something about how dangerous a war with Iran would be and how much the country doesn't want war when even Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham speak out against it.

Republic in Crisis

The House Judiciary Committee voted to hold Attorney General William Barr in contempt of Congress. Chair Jerrold Nadler:

The ongoing clash between congressional Democrats and [Fuckface von Clownstick] over the Mueller report has turned into a full-blown constitutional crisis.

Paul Blumenthal lists nine areas where the administration is resisting oversight.

The [Barr] confrontation is just one example of [Dear Leader's] unprecedented blanket obstruction of congressional investigations. The president’s declaration that he will fight “all the subpoenas” has caused his administration to disobey laws requiring the transmission of executive branch information to Congress. And the president has personally sued to prevent third parties from giving documents to Congress.

Igor Bobic notes that Speaker Pelosi agreed with Nadler's characterization.

But as much as Pelosi and other top Democrats ratchet up the rhetoric ― railing against the unprecedented nature of a president bent on ignoring just about every means of congressional oversight ― they remain hesitant about actually opening impeachment proceedings, the most powerful tool at their disposal.

And Dahlia Lithwick consults several experts on whether "constitutional crisis" is the appropriate terminology. She quotes Carolyn Shapiro:

Sadly, I think we have several interrelated constitutional and democratic crises. First, we have aggressive partisan gerrymandering, voter suppression, and lame duck lawmaking designed to remove power from incoming officials (as in Wisconsin and North Carolina after recent GOP losses in statewide elections), all of which undermine representative democracy. Second, we know that a foreign adversary has tried and intends to try again to disrupt our elections, but Republican leaders appear unconcerned at best. And third, we have [Fuckface's] myriad misdeeds, which—at a minimum—demand a thorough and public investigation if not impeachment. I see these all as related because they all involve contempt for representative democracy, an unwillingness to tolerate the possibility of losing or sharing power with one’s political rivals, and an utter disdain for the Constitution.

Update (May 15):  Andrew O'Hehir figures "if you have to keep asking [whether we're in a constitutional crisis or not] — and parsing the term ever more finely — it may already be too late" to do anything about it. He sees the "injuries to democracy" as a global phenomenon.

[Democracy] isn’t failing because [Fuckface von Clownstick] is a sadistic moron who praised the Charlottesville Nazis. It’s failing because large numbers of people believe it’s a cynical sham that doesn’t represent them or benefit them. That’s a bigger, deeper systemic problem that no one election and no single candidate can fix.

Update (May 26):  Paul Rosenberg says Democrats need to exercise their power.

[T]he American people deserve a full and vigorous investigation by the House, so that the full extent of this president's lawlessness can be driven home, and the norms he's so gleefully violating can be forcefully reaffirmed and restored.

Democrats control the House. It's their stage for the show of their own choosing, which then forces everyone else to react.

Should it be grounded in facts? Absolutely! Grounded in expertise? Absolutely! Informative and dramatic? Absolutely once again! Should it be scripted in fear of how [Fuckface], [MAGA] voters or some other bogeyman might react? Absolutely not!

But Andrew O'Hehir thinks impeachment plays only a small part in our need to rebuild democracy.

So much of our so-called democracy has become a pro forma exercise, sound and fury signifying nothing, a hallowed ritual performed by doddering, drunken priests who have long since forgotten the meaning of the ancient texts they mumble.

[I]f impeachment becomes a magical process devoted to erasing or negating one malign individual, or a liberal-inflected version of the crusade to make America great again, it will accomplish nothing. The ... administration’s sustained assault on damn near everything — democracy, press freedom, the constitutional separation of powers and, for that matter, the basic precepts of truth and knowledge on which those things depend — demand exposure, consideration and as much deep historical reflection as we can manage.

Update (May 27):  John Grant urges Congress to fight back in defense of the U.S. Constitution.

Whether or not the Senate convicts, if the House doesn’t step up to its constitutional responsibility to impeach a president like this, his punking of that institution will continue, and increase with success, to the point, by 2020, the institution would be a living joke.

Yet Cody Fenwick thinks Democrats may have waited too long to effectively use impeachment powers. Fenwick argues it would have been "much easier to make a case that the president should be impeached for committing criminal obstruction of justice, based on the evidence laid out in the Mueller report, than it would be to say that defying congressional subpoenas is an impeachable offense".

[T]he release of the Mueller report provided the perfect moment for Democrats to start rallying the base and making the arguments in favor of impeachment.

Democrats may be able to seize another moment if they leverage hearings and their investigations correctly. But every day they wait, the case gets harder to make. I don’t buy the argument that the 2020 election can take the place of an impeachment process, but the hearings will inevitably take time, and the case for just waiting for Election Day gets stronger with each passing week.

Update (July 11):  Aaron Belkin says Republicans are effectively out to destroy democracy.

[I]f Democrats fail to take dramatic action in 2021, it will not matter if they occasionally win elections, because Republicans will continue to control the country, even when they are not in power:

1. Thanks to gerrymandering, dark money and voter suppression, it will remain very difficult for Democrats to capture the levers of power. They will require wave elections to do so;

2. Thanks to the GOP’s unprecedented willingness to obstruct, it will remain almost impossible for Democrats to pass laws, even when they win elections;

3. Thanks to the theft of the Supreme Court, Justice Roberts and his colleagues will shred or sharply curtail the few laws that Democrats manage to pass. When a party has a tough time winning elections, even when it captures (far) more than 50% of the vote; when that party is not allowed to govern even when it wins at the ballot box; and when that party’s laws are shredded by stolen courts even when it manages to govern, that’s not democracy. That’s single-party rule.

If corrective action is not taken soon, white minority rule could endure for decades, if not longer. Even though Republicans may lose elections from time to time, democracy effectively will be dead. Under this scenario, the country could even experience a real or manufactured crisis, prompting lawless GOP leaders to suspend the Constitution. At that point, all bets will be off.

Update (July 21):  It's not a study about Congress, but it still doesn't bode well for representative democracy. Author Ethan Porter:

[W]hen we randomly provided some state legislators across the country information about their constituents' policy preferences, we found those legislators largely unwilling to access that information, and among those who did access the information, we found them unaffected by it, in the sense that that information did not make them have more accurate perceptions of their constituents' preferences.

Update (September 2):  Though the consequences seem "unimaginable", that doesn't mean events heading in that direction aren't happening. Andrew O'Hehir makes the effort to "to marshal the evidence that what is happening right now in the United States is a slow-motion coup — an attempt to abolish democracy not all at once but little by little and step by step, until we barely notice it is gone".

[Fuckface von Clownstick] has become the central totem of the American push toward fascism or authoritarianism, and the Republican Party has emerged from its chrysalis of self-torment reborn and reinvigorated as a far-right white nationalist party. But I remain agnostic about how much [Orangeman] is leading this movement, how much he is surfing a tide of toxic white resentment and racist populism, and how much he is being driven by others toward consolidating a caste system that in fact already exists.

Those are questions we should think about far more deeply than we’re doing right now. I get why they may not seem urgent or particularly meaningful: For many Americans, likely a large majority, the priority is to get [Dear Leader] out of office and replace him with almost anyone who has a vaguely normative understanding of democracy. But unless and until we grapple with the fact that [Fuckface] did not personally create the conditions for his ascent to power; that the decay of democracy is nothing new, and has been aided and abetted by both political parties and numerous other factors; and that the racial, economic and cultural caste system of America is in many ways the material basis of our democracy, then our nation is unlikely to escape this crisis in anything resembling its current form.

Update (November 10):  Bob Cesca sees an increasing threat from the fabrications coming out of the White House.

We’re far beyond partisanship now. The existential debate of our time isn’t about right versus left. We’ve found ourselves locked in a fight to defend the very fabric of reality itself.

Savior?

There is no question Fuckface von Clownstick is the enemy of the republic.

Senate and House Republicans have enabled and abetted a man who believes he can govern the country by monarchial fiat, as [Dear Leader] has long run his family’s now four-generation criminal enterprise. He embraces bigotry. He incites violence. He ignores Congress. He insults the courts. He flouts every check and every balance imposed on his office. That is the constitutional crisis of our time.

And I appreciate David Crook's argument that George W. Bush is in a unique position of influence.

Today, you, Mr. President, are the only person in the country with the moral authority and the political influence to stop [Manbaby's] dismantling of our republic. Other Republican leaders won’t do it. They demonstrated over the first two years of the [Orange] era that they have no honor, no integrity and no fealty to our way of government. And no Democrat can pierce the miasma of right-wing propaganda to muster the moral outrage of Republican voters and [the] MAGAloids. They will dismiss any calls for [Dear Leader's] removal made by Nancy Pelosi, Charles Schumer, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, any Democrat now on the national stage.

Your voice denouncing [Fuckface] and calling for his removal from office could not be ignored.

Not going to happen. If we have to rely on W to save us, we are screwed.