Cover Your Neighbor’s Ass as You Would Cover Your Own.

Two people who should be out of a job.

Kevin McCarthy is screwed.  

Rightly so. How is he screwed? He just showed the country and his own party just how weak a ‘leader’ he is. He sent Rep John Katko (R-NY) to negotiate with the Democrats over the makeup and reach of the January 6th commission, adding a bunch of demands that McCarthy figured the Democrats would never go for; equal representation, subpoena power for both parties, with both the chair and vice-chair having to agree on the issuing of the subpoenas, you know stuff the GOP would never agree to. You just have to look at the biased Benghazi ‘investigations’, controlled by a Republican majority and designed to drive down Hilary Clinton’s polls numbers (which McCarthy admitted) for proof of what McCarthy thinks is a ‘fair’ committee. He figured the Democrats wanted a political witch hunt, because that’s exactly what he would do, so he would undermined it from the start.

While Katko negotiated in good faith, McCarthy gave him nothing but a bottle of what he figured were poison pills to offer the Democrats. The problem was, McCarthy was too cynical for his own good. He figured the whole investigation was a show, ‘insurrection theatre’ designed to just embarrass the GOP. He was wrong. The Democrats actually accepted the GOP demands. They wanted a bi-partisan commission, and they agreed to just that. Katko succeeded when he was supposed to fail, so that when he failed, McCarthy could show that the whole thing was a cynical ploy by Pelosi and the Democrats. Checkmate!

The political cynicism though was all on McCarthy, like pie on Stan Laurel. His version of 3-D chess was actually one-finger checkers, and he had just jumped himself. Hard. Now, he had to deny his own deal, lie about it, calling it a one-sided sham (it wasn’t), and throw his own hand-picked negotiator under the bus. And then back it up over him. He demanded his members vote against the bill, and the GOP House Whip, Steve Scalise announced he would whip his members against the commission.

Kevin and Steve failed.  

35 Republicans broke with their leadership to support the commission. 35. Might not seem a huge number (it should be much bigger, really) but to the credibility of McCarthy’s leadership, and to the extreme partisanship of the GOP, this is a foghorn, a wrecking ball, a Spinal Tap goes-to-eleven feedback blast.

It’s an embarrassment. And all poor Kevin’s fault.

Word is leaking out that many members were pissed off over McCarty’s shameful treatment of Katko, and they just couldn’t go along with the transparent nonsense of ‘peaceful tourists’ invading the Capitol on January 6th to take selfies and admire statues. They remember hiding behind seats, barricading themselves in their offices, fearing for their lives while armed officers kept the insurrectionists at bay with pointed weapons on the floor of the US House of Representatives. They remember calling family to tell them they loved them one last time.

Like the Democrats, those 35 Republicans want answers, Kevin McCarthy be damned.

But…

Oh, there’s always a ‘but’ with today’s GOP, isn’t there? 175 Republicans — That’s 84% of the Republican conference — voted to memory-hole the insurrection. Voted to shrug and walk away. Like they did at both impeachments, like they’ve done over and over since 2015 when Trump descended that ridiculous gold escalator and started his campaign against democracy. A campaign that in January turned into open warfare.

175 Republicans who would rather let Trump and his insurrections control their party than stand up for democracy, stand up to the very people who came to kill them. Make no mistake, the people who stormed the Capitol, by their own account, were armed and looking for blood. Trump has sent out his orders about the commission on his pitiful little blog calling it a “democrat trap” to “shut it down” and they bowed and tried.

Then Mitch McConnell joined in. Both McConnell and McCarthy after the insurrection, blamed Trump. Both said he was culpable. Both have now forgotten all about that, preferring to toe the Trump line and undermine democracy. It’s what Donny would do (is doing), after all. McConnell will now direct the Senate to vote against the commission because… vague reasons. He cited overlap with the DOJ investigation, which he knows is a criminal one, not one into the origins of the mob and the violence. He has no real reason or excuses, except protecting the guilty infesting his own party.

Cover your neighbor’s ass as you would cover your own.

It is essential not only for the GOP to kill the commission, but to hide why they want to kill it. They love to go on about ‘re-litigating 2020’ (isn’t that what these Republican demands for recounts are?), but what they’re really afraid of isn’t exposing the past, it’s the threat of daylight on their on-going campaign against democracy, to undermine confidence in our elections and their fairness. They are laying the groundwork, right in the open, to deny the electoral victory of a Democratic candidate and install a losing Republican one, regardless of the outcome.

They’ll do it, or will at least try.

That’s why the commission must die.

With the bill for the commission now passed in the House, it will go to the Senate, where it will surely be filibustered. If all the Democrats vote for it, that means they have to get 10 Republicans to cross party lines for it to pass. Don’t hold your breath. McConnell has a much better hold on his caucus than McCarthy, and few have shown much will to buck him. I can see a few that might; Romney, Murkowski, maybe Collins. Maybe there are enough secret, closeted Republican senators that will put country over party.

This is where we are, hoping that sanity will break out in the GOP, and enough will step forward to actually do the right thing.

This is where we are.

The Republicans Hate Our Democracy, They Just Hate it.

The poor, harried and over worked election officials of Clark County listen while a fool Trump supporter goes off on an angry, incoherent rant. They’s been hearing this cap all night at this point. He went away and they went on with their business.

2020, the year the GOP stopped trying to hide their slow destruction of democracy, and openly took sledgehammers, jackhammers, and bulldozers, setting them loose on the foundation of our country; specifically, our right to vote and have that vote counted.   

This is not new, the GOP has been suppressing votes and intimidating voters for decades (the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, William Rehnquist, used to challenge Latino voters who would dare to try and vote in Arizona back in the 1960’s), in fact, this was the first time in decades that the GOP wasn’t under consent decree to not intimidate voters. Oh, you don’t know about that? Okay, let’s have Politico explain it to you:

“The decree, which dated to 1982, arose from a Democratic National Committee lawsuit charging the RNC with seeking to discourage African-Americans from voting through targeted mailings warning about penalties for violating election laws and by posting armed, off-duty law enforcement officers at the polls in minority neighborhoods.” 

Yep, that’s true. The GOP posted armed ‘watchers’ at ‘certain’ (read ‘Black or minority) communities and were righty slapped down for it. 2020, that didn’t apply anymore, because (as Chief Justice Roberts reasoned in gutting the Voting Rights Act), since it worked, it’s not needed anymore. We don’t need to protect the votes of Black folks because you know, racism is gone, everyone will play fair and do the right thing… right?

Right.

As soon as that ruling was published, states rushed to pass laws they’d already written, restricting voting; shortening, or taking away early voting, requiring voter ID’s, requiring street addresses, passing ‘exact match’ rules on voter registration, blatant gerrymandering by race, doing away with polling places in poor and minority neighborhoods, all affecting those non-White voters who stubbornly refuse to vote for the one-true party, the GOP.

Trump has been setting his plan in motion for months by crippling the United States Post Office, lying about the ‘dangers’ of vote by mail, refusing to say whether he would abide by the results of the vote, questioning whether ‘late’ ballots (those postmarked by election day and arriving during the legal window) should count, and if we should just stop counting altogether at the stroke of midnight. He wants to disenfranchise millions of legal votes, and many ion the GOP are either actively helping, and trying to ignore it.

It’s insanity, and we would never allow any elected official to go off like this without serious consequences. Yet, there’s Trump, running down democracy for all the world to see. And the world is watching and wondering what the hell is wrong with us.  

Now, we and the world are seeing Trump not only refusing to concede an election he lost by 7 million votes, he is actively undermining the election and the election officials themselves by claiming massive ‘vote fraud’ (really election fraud) perpetrated by Democrats and Republicans somehow working with the Democrats (yet, somehow, the Democrats weren’t able to steal the senate outright? And down ballot races the GOP won are still good?). And he has plenty of help from far-right media such as NewsMax (rapidly growing as Fox can’t lie fast enough anymore) and OAN, an outlet that will say or do anything to support far-right power and Trump. The fact that this threatens to tear the country apart seems to be the goal; grab and hold to power, no matter what.  

For the Republicans, it’s always about power, whether that power be in the form of money, influence, threats, or armed far-right terrorists in the streets. Right now, they still control the presidency and the senate and will use them both as weapons against democracy. This minority government will work to undermine confidence in the vote, in elections, in government, in democracy itself because those institutions are a threat to their power, and a constraint on their permanent hold on that power.

Burrowing in for destruction

How will they continue their destruction once they are out of power? By making sure they are never out of power. They have been constructing a minority government and judiciary, impervious to votes and who or what the majority wants. Running down and choking the vote is just one way of doing it. Another is to take over the government itself without have to win any votes. To this end, Trump has stripped by Executive Order, thousands of civil servants of their job protections (ones that protect them from political whims) claiming them to be 'policy making' positions. Trump then demanded lists of those workers made up that fit his new guidelines. These lists are due by January 19th, the day before inauguration. The goal here is the mass firing of thousands of essential government workers, to be replaced by 'presidential appointments', basically turning purposely non-partisan positions into politically partisan ones. It is called 'burrowing', placing political allies into civil positions, but this is on a mass scale unlike anything ever done before, and of questionable legality.

Jason Briefel, director of policy and outreach for the Senior Executives Association, a professional organization for senior civil servants, called the order “a constitutional dumpster fire that everybody’s going to have to figure out how to put out together.”

Trump soaks the place in gasoline and throws a match on the way out the door.

Boom. Doesn’t care. Anything he and the GOP can do the destroy the place, our place, our democracy, they will do. It’s what they do.

This is a Republican takeover of the government, a government-wide minority power grab of a government they, by democratic vote, lost. They have to be called out, exposed, dragged into the sunlight to show everyone what they have been doing and how close we could be to losing our democracy.

The Republicans don't care about democracy if it gets in the way of their power. They will choose power over country every time.

They Can Run…

Mitch, in the shadows, ready to jump out at democracy.

The GOP is showing how scared they are…

Right now, 66% of Americans want the selection of the next Justice for the Supreme Court to be done after the election, by the next president. 50% of Republicans think so as well. That’s according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released Sunday.

It’s pretty obvious most American do not want Donald Trump anywhere near the next SCOTUS pick. Rushing a new nominee, and shoving it though in what would have to be record speed is incredibly unpopular. In fact, it’s suicidal to the GOP senate majority. This most shows the Republicans not only to be blatant hypocrites, but not caring in the least about the will of the people in replacing the most admired Justice on the Supreme Court. Don’t care, gonna do it anyway, screw you.

The GOP majority is near and dear to McConnell, why would he throw that away, and cause a (hopefully) ton of bricks to fall on him and his precious majority?

Joe Biden is ahead in the polls by 7 points, and he’s been leading since he secured the nomination. Trump has never led in the polls, unlike 2016 where it was close and leads traded a few times.

Never once.

That’s why: they think Trump is going to lose. Big time. If you going to get evicted anyway, why not burn the house down on the way out?

Over the weekend, from Friday when Justice Ginsburg’s death was announced and McConnell’s callus announcement minutes later that he planned to move forward with a nomination vote, ActBlue, a non-profit dedicated to helping Democratic candidates fund elections, raised over 100 million dollars. Individual Democratic candidates around the country saw their fundraising numbers shoot up. The GOP is defending 23 Senate seats this election year, with an incredibly unpopular president whom they cannot let go or their Trump loving base will turn on them. Many of those seats are underwater; Arizona (Martha McSally), and Colorado (Cory Gardner) look to be lost, Maine (Susan Collins) is behind, others like South Carolina (Lindsey Graham) are tied. South Carolina! With so many seats up, so many close or look to be gone, why do something that will make an already angry electorate even angrier?

Well, if you’re being evicted, and you are burning it anyway, might as well have something to show for it. The control of the Supreme Court, something the right has been wanting to decades, is that thing. McConnell must believe it’s worth killing his majority for that control (Trump doesn’t think that far ahead, it’s Mitch calling this one). Now comes the best, biggest, and baddest ‘own the libs’ campaign ever. They don’t need a senate majority now, they can have the SCOTUS kill anything the Democrats might pass.

This now puts them in place to destroy the ACA and take insurance away from millions, to finally kill abortion rights, the minimum wage, and all the other far-right things they have been promising since the formation of the Birch Society and the Goldwater campaign. I imagine they’ll try to repeal the entire Civil Rights Era, especially voting laws. Expect nothing the least bit progressive to be allowed to live for a generation. At least.

The problem is (there are many, but this is the biggest) these are popular programs with majority support. This new SCOTUS will not be the least bit interested in justice, but settling grievances with ‘libs’ and ‘atheists’ and host of others they feel have harmed them or their community. They will be going down a long list of perceived slights, gathered over decades, and start ticking them off one-by-one. We will have a Supreme Court not answerable to the will of the people, and, frankly, not ready paying any attention to precedent or settled law. It will be a far-right organization bent on repealing as much of the 20th century as it can get its hands on.

It’s Minority rule, basically what we’ve had in government for the past four years, but this time write large and lasting for decades. Now the GOP, who never liked governing anyway, can sit back while the SCOTUS, and all the federal judges they’ve appointed, do their work.

They don’t need a majority anymore.

This is why if the Democrats get control, they need to kill the filibuster, admit DC and Puerto Rico, and even the Virgin Islands as states, expand the federal judiciary, pass laws to kill partisan gerrymandering, and yes, expand the SCOTUS. The GOP will jump up and down, screaming, but let them. They don’t matter.

As they taught us, if you have the majority, the other side loses. Make them feel it.

More Than Roe…

Many will tell you that nominating a new Justice for the Supreme Court is just about filling one seat, that’s all. No big deal, right? What’s the fuss?

Either they have no idea what they are talking about, they are deliberately distorting the situation, or they are lying. This is not about ‘one seat’. This the culmination of a near 50-year campaign to turn the court, to finish the politicization, (or the ‘right-ization’) begun under Reagan. Some say it started earlier, under Nixon. The court right now sits as one of the most far-right courts in history, at an ideological 5-4 split, with Chief Justice John Roberts a sometime swing vote. That is/was until the death of RBG. That now all changes with a Trump appointee.

The right has insisted on basically one test for their increasingly far-right judges, ‘will you kill Roe v Wade?’, so the center-to-left has to play that game and ask them ‘will you overturn Roe v Wade?’, and that has been the test to get on the court since the 80s. From both sides.

So, here we are. With the death of Justice Ginsberg, and before her admirers are even allowed to morn, we have the Trump and McConnell GOP rushing at full speed to shove someone, anyone as far right as they can, into that seat, NOW. No idea if McConnell will even allow the whole kabuki dance of hearings or not. I’d be somewhat surprised if he did, but I assume they’ll have to do something to sell whatever nominee they choose to a public that is now more divided than ever. Even if it means destroying the legitimacy of the Court, something they really don’t care about anyway (that took a big hit with the stealing of a seat from Obama).

But this is much more than just Roe v Wade, for Republicans and Democrats, this is about the changing demographics and the shifting society. The Republicans know that their time as a national force is limited by the fact that America is becoming less White, less Christian, over all less religious, and less rural. This is the GOP’s base, the ones they have relied on for decades, and they are becoming a minority. Instead of trying to expand that base, as their own research showed they needed to do (the famous ‘autopsy’ in 2013) they instead decided to keep people out. They turned their back on anyone not White, not Christian, and doubled down on what was left.

The GOP gave up on outreach, and instead went with fear, went with hate, and since they could not grow their base, they made sure anyone not part of it wasn’t allowed to vote, to thrive, to grow.

But to achieve this, they needed the courts.

Every year, the number of people voting for the GOP declines, it’s a fact. So you gerrymander, you put restrictions on voting; who can vote, where they can vote, how they can vote. Now, for the most part, judges don’t like these kinds of tactics, and the Voting Rights Act was often cited. In fact, the VRA was passed specifically to stop those sorts of tactics. So, you get Justices who will kill the enforcement part of the VRA, you get far-right judges appointed who will agree with your ‘these people shouldn’t vote’ philosophy, you couch it in enough legalese, or hide your true motives just enough to give cover to their rulings.

The GOP has giving up governing, given up legislating, (what great bill has McConnell passed? What grand compromise has he made?) given up caring about anything but getting massive amounts of far-right judges appointed. Compromise, and learning to work with the other side is difficult, it’s a lot of work and you probably won’t get the result you wanted, so just get the courts. They know they’ll soon not be able to win national elections (they’ve recently had two presidents who’ve served without winning the popular vote) and might be soon reduced to a regional party. But if they can appoint enough judges, that won’t matter. If they can’t get national electoral power, they’ll rule though the courts. Long after the country has changed, long after the White majority is no longer the majority, the GOP can hold power over a country that has rejected their ideals by capturing, and keeping, the courts.

More than Roe, that is what this is about.

This is why the Democrats will need to appoint more Justices. They will never be anything slightly left of center upheld by the conservative SCOTUS, never. And a conservative court will then start on killing the entire Civil Rights Era. It’s been on the GOP list for years, and they’ve been itching to do it. Anything that might smell of progress will be slapped down, if it even gets past the GOP/Trump circuit and appeals courts. 2-4 new seats will restore balance. The Democrats will also need to expand the number of Federal judges as well, (they could use it) to rebalance a system that has been purposely skewed, to ensure justice.

 And that’s what this needs to be about, justice.

None of this will be easy, but if McConnell pushes this through, it will not only be needed, it will be necessary.

What is Legal, and What is Just.

Lady Justice, blindfold in place and holding her scales high.

Friday night, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg passed at the age of 87. She was a legal giant, beloved by people everywhere, an icon. Hell, she’s on t-shirts, earrings and brooches! One of the greatest legal advocates for women of the 20th century until two days ago.

The reaction was immediate; tributes poured in from friends, colleagues, and admirers… and then many from the right started in calling her ‘baby killer’, celebrating her death, and calling for her immediate replacement. Within an hour of her death.

She had stated, shortly before her death that she did not to be replaced before the election, it was her dying wish. It will likely be ignored by the GOP, who has vowed to forget about the bogus ‘McConnell Rule’ they used to block a nominee under Obama, and push through a nominee at lighting speed. Thus, stealing a second Supreme Court seat. They will jam though the farthest right judge they can find, designed to dishonor and undo as much of Justice Ginsburg’s legacy as possible.

Is that legal? Yes.

Is it just?

No.

There is a difference between what’s legal, and what's just. So far, the GOP has stolen one seat by extra-legal means, and not paid any sort of price for it. Now, they propose to throw out the slim 'justification' they use to steal that seat to, basically, steal this one. This may be ‘legal’, but it is not 'just'.

If they do this, and they will, as being hypocrites is their preferred managerial style, they will tear the country apart and destroy the reputation and authority of the SCOTUS, probably forever. They should understand they are finally freeing the Democrats to ignore any objection the GOP will have when the GOP is, inevitably, back in the minority. And if polls are correct, that day may be soon. The Democrats will have to make the GOP pay for their destroying of the moral guidelines of the government, and they will have to put in place rules, with consequences, to make sure the behavior of the McConnell years does not happen again, to make sure a Trump can’t thumb his nose at the law again.

The entire country is living the nightmare many warned about during 2016. We are on a precipice right now, threatening to tip over into minority, authoritarian rule. We can work to right and then fix the nation, or we can tear the place down and wander the ruins. These are the choices; is it legal, or is it just?

It is time for justice.

They Just Don’t Care About You

Mitch McConnell, looking to get the F’ out of Dodge.

Congress has left town. They left for a ‘vacation from… what? The House has actually been doing something, they’ve passed some 400 bills that Mitch McConnell is using to hold up his TV so he and Lindsey can watch their ‘stories'. Not read the bills, not allow them to go to an up or down vote… nope, just sit there while Mitch puts up his feet and laughs. Now, they’re gone. They packed up their little brief cases and figured out ways to avoid their voters. Vacation until September 8th.

Of course.

So, no covid relief bill, Right now, the GOP is pretending to be ‘concerned’ about ‘spending’. They’re a couple months early, they usually only get concerned when a Democrat is in the White House. They probably wanted to be back in practice as they have faced the probable reality of Trump going down in a crushing Blue Wave (gonna capitalize that, yep). Maybe the GOP will lose the senate as well.

So, what happened? The GOP did. They’re busy denying the pain of millions of unemployed so they can politicize the virus even further. They don’t care. They will use the virus to pass tax cuts, to deregulate our water, air, and land, to try and protect companies from any responsibility for their re-opening and the safety of their workers, but they won’t help the ordinary people, you know, the people who can’t afford their own politician. They didn’t even bother to start ‘work’ on one until a couple days before the last one ran out. They don’t care.

Well, what about the Democrats? What have they been up to, huh? Yeah, huh? What?!!

Well, the Democrats passed a bill, two months ago that would help with virus relief. It's a big and pretty thorough bill with money for schools, cities, states, individuals, and extends the unemployment payments. But the bill would do something else; it would help Donald Trump.

Yep, it would help Donny.

 You get money out to people, they will spend it; pay bills, pay rent, buy food, the money going right back into the economy. This is what Trump supposedly wants, get the economy going or at least in a place where it's not going down anymore.

And he said 'no.'

And the GOP backed him up. Mark Meadows, professional bomb-thrower is supposedly 'negotiating' a deal. This is a guy who have never saw in deal in congress that he didn't blow up, and he's doing the same here. The whole Tea Party DNA is deep with this one.

The whole thing is not only against the interest of the people, but against the interests of Trump and the GOP as well. His policy of, basically, letting people die and now making sure those still here will be as miserable as possible is hurting us and hurting him. It's building a huge blue wave that is coming right at them. Their actions seem to welcome it.

And now congress has left town. Even the latest Fox News poll tells us people are hurting and need help. This would have made Trump and the GOP look good. For a change.

But… No.

The whole thing is insane. I'm not being cute calling it that, it is literally not sane.