Why Democrats must filibuster Gorsuch
by digby
"what digby sez..."
Month: February 2017
Trump’s first payback to the evangelicals who voted for him. Will it be enough?
by digby
It looks like the Christian Right has real clout with the Trump administration. Will they use their power for good? I wrote about it for Salon this morning:
Many theories floating around the internet attempt to explain the appallingly inept rollout of the flurry of executive orders issued during Donald Trump’s first few days in office. One is that Trump strategist Steve Bannon believes the most important first step is to thoroughly secure the Trump base’s undying loyalty by addressing every campaign promise as quickly as possible. In my opinion, this is as unlikely as the theory that he’s implementing a cunning Machiavellian plan to use each new order as a shiny distraction from the last disastrous one. The Trump people are bold, but they’re not that organized.
But the fact that the Trump team moved the announcement of the new Supreme Court nominee earlier to Tuesday night from its previously scheduled time on Thursday may lend some credence to both theories. The base was starting to get restless after watching the pandemonium of the first few days and needed calming. There’s nothing like a young, far-right Supreme Court justice in waiting to bring together the GOP coalition.
Trump staged the announcement with a corny and manipulative “suspense” plot by calling the two reported finalists to Washington so no one would know who “won” the job until he announced it before the nation at a prime-time ceremony in the White House. Trump obviously plans to run his administration like a cheap reality-TV show, so we’d better get used to this sort of thing.
By now you know that the lucky winner was Judge Neil Gorsuch, a man described by court watchers as having a judicial philosophy to the right of the late Justice Antonin Scalia, whose seat he would be filling. As the son of Anne Gorsuch Burford, the notorious anti-environmentalist EPA administrator from the Reagan administration, he comes from noble GOP stock — and in this case the apple does not fall far from the tree. Let’s just say the business community would have no complaints about his tenure over the next few decades.
But that’s not the constituency Trump was concerned about soothing so much that he hurried the announcement forward by two days and staged a stilted prime-time pageant to take everyone’s mind off his slow-motion train wreck. The constituency that was starting to get a bit shaky was the evangelical Christians, who have backed him to the hilt despite his libertine ways.
Recall how odd it seemed, during the Republican primaries, that Trump received such a large percentage of the vote of conservative evangelicals when they had true believers with strong track records — most notably Sen. Ted Cruz — to choose from instead. Indeed, Cruz had a sophisticated strategy to win the nomination, predicated on the idea that he would lock up the evangelical vote in an early Southern sweep and make it impossible for anyone to catch up to him. That didn’t work out when Trump separated the Republican evangelical community down the middle, appealing to the more modern “prosperity gospel” types while Cruz sewed up the traditional conservatives.
When Trump won and turned to the general election, there was understandable concern among Republicans that those traditional Cruz voters would not be able to stomach voting for someone with such obvious moral failings. That’s when the conservative movement stepped in, specifically the Heritage Foundation in conjunction with the Federalist Society. They saved Trump’s bacon among the faithful, making up a list of rabidly anti-choice potential Supreme Court nominees for him to choose from if elected. At that point it was clear there would be at least one seat available, since Republicans had decided to stonewall president Barack Obama’s nominee, Judge Merrick Garland. So this was a live issue for those on Christian right, who were still feeling bruised by the high court’s marriage equality decision.
Over the past couple of weeks some loud rumblings have been heard from the evangelical community. A post from the Institute on Religion and Public Life’s First Things about Trump’s insistence that “torture works” relayed some serious concerns among Christians on this topic, saying, “It is a central principle of the Christian ethic that one must not do evil that good may come.” Even more worrisome for the Trump team had to be the pushback from religious leaders over the administration’s ban on travel and immigration from certain Muslim countries. The National Evangelical Association said:
Christians and churches have been welcoming refugees for 2,000 years, and evangelicals are committed to continue this biblical mission. Thousands of U.S. evangelicals and their churches have welcomed hundreds of thousands of refugees over the past 40 years through World Relief and other federally approved resettlement agencies. We don’t want to stop now. The Trump administration’s plans to make severe cuts to the admission of refugees are alarming. We call on President Trump to declare his support for the continuation of the U.S. refugee resettlement program, which is critical at a time when the world faces a significant refugee crisis.
It wasn’t just conservative evangelicals who objected. Even reliably conservative Catholic bishops were appalled, promising that their church would continue to offer help to refugees and calling the order “shameful” and un-American.
It doesn’t take too much imagination to surmise that someone told the administration it needed to do something quickly to quell this uprising. Judge Gorsuch’s appointment will definitely relieve the anxieties of Christian conservatives, at least for a while. He is their dream justice.
Ian Millhiser of Think Progress described Gorsuch as a hard-core culture warrior who could carry on the legacy of Antonin Scalia well into the second half of the 21st century.
“Human life is fundamentally and inherently valuable,” Gorsuch wrote in his book, adding that “the intentional taking of human life by private persons is always wrong.”
As Ed Whelan, a former law clerk to Justice Scalia who writes frequently on the courts puts it, “Gee, might that principle have any application to abortion?”
Trump said he would appoint “pro-life” justices to the Supreme Court and he has fulfilled that promise to a valuable constituency. If social media is any gauge, members of the conservative Christian community is thrilled with the Gorsuch nomination. It remains to be seen if that will be enough to keep them on board the Trump train as he continues to test their moral integrity and religious commitment with cruel and un-Christian policies. They’ve obviously got some clout. If they decide to use it, it might just make a difference.
Try not to weep as you read Trump’s “I Have A Dream ” speech
by digby
Trump kicked off Black History Month this morning with this inspiring and memorable tribute.
Well the election it came out really well. Next time we’ll triple the number of quadruple it. We want to get over 51, right. At least 51.
Well this is black history month so this is our little breakfast, our little get-together. And just a few notes. During this month we honor the tremendous history of the African Americans throughout out country. Throughout the world, if you really think about it, right And their story is one of unimaginable sacrifice, hard work, and faith in America. I’ve gotten a real glimpse during the campaign. I’d go around with Ben to a lot of places I wasn’t so familiar with. They’re incredible people and I want to thank Ben Carson who’s going to be heading up HUD, and it’s a job that’s no only housing, it’s mind and spirit, right? And you understand that. Nobody’s going to be better than Ben.
Last month we celebrated the life of Reverend Martin Luther King Jr whose incredible example is unique in American history. You read all about Dr Martin Luther King a week ago when somebody said I took the statue out of my office and it turned out that was fake news. The statue is cherished, it’s one of the favorite things and we have some good ones. We have Lincoln, we have Jefferson and we have Dr. Martin Luther King. And we have other. But they said the statue, the bust, of Dr Martin Luther King was taken out of the office and it was never even touched. So I think that was a disgrace. But that’s the way the press is. It’s very unfortunate.
I’m very proud that we have a museum, National Mall, where people can learn about Reverend King, so many other things, Frederick Doug, Douglass, is an example of somebody who’s done an amazing job that is being recognized more and more I notice. Harriet Tubman, Rosa parks and millions more black Americans who made America what it is today.I’m proud to honor this heritage and will be honoring it more and more.
Folks at the table in almost all cases have been great friends and supporters. And Darrell, I met Darrell when he was defending me on television. And the people that we on the other side of the argument didn’t have a chance, right? And Paris has done an amazing job in a very hostile CNN community. He’s all by himself, seven people and Paris. I’ll take Paris over the seven. But I don’t watch CNN so I don’t get to see you as much. I don’t like watching fake news. But Fox has treated me very nice, wherever Fox is, thank you.
We’re going to need better schools, and we need ’em soon, We need more jobs, we need better wages, a lot better wages. We’re going to work very hard on the inner city. Ben’s going to be doing that, big league, that’s one of his big things that we’re going to be looking at. We need safer communities and we’re going to do that with more law enforcement. We’re going to make it safe. We’re going to make it much better than it is right now. Right now it’s terrible.
I saw you talking about it the other night, Paris, on something else that was really — you did a fantastic job the other night on a a very unrelated show. I’m ready to do my part and I will this, we’re going to work togethr. This is a great group and group that’s been so special to me, you really helped me a lot. If you remember I wasn’t going to do well with the African-American community and after they heard me speaking and talking about the inner city and lots of other things, we ended up getting, I won’t go into details, but we ended up getting substantially more than other candidates who had run in the past years. And we’re going to take that to new levels. I want to thanks my television star over here — Omarosa’s actually a very nice person. Nobody knows that. I don’t want to destroy her reputation. She is a very good person and she’s been helpful right from the beginning with the campaign and I appreciate it, I really do. Very special. So I want to thanks everybody for being here.
It makes you proud to be an American doesn’t it? Where else could a man with mind of an eight year old become president?
To be honest, that isn’t even funny. There’s something wrong with this man and the people he has around him are no better. It’s getting scarier by the day.
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By any means necessary
by Tom Sullivan
Along with the ongoing protests, Republican legislatures across the country over a period of weeks have announced measures to quell protest. Of course, they target particular kinds of protests engaged in by particular kinds (and colors) of people. But they also shine a light into just what “values” these lawmakers hold dear and just whose lives and concerns they believe matter.
North Dakota, for instance. This from KTLA Los Angeles:
Rep. Keith Kempenich introduced the bill, which states that if a driver “unintentionally” causes injury or death to someone blocking traffic on a roadway, then the driver will not be liable for damages.
Kempenich said he was spurred to act after Dakota Access Pipeline protesters last year moved to block public roadways, scaring some of his constituents.
“It turned from a protest to basically terrorism on the roadways, and the bill got introduced for people to be able to drive down the roads without fear of running into somebody and having to be liable for them,” he told CNN.
If such a bill had been in place when I rode a bicycle in dayglo spandex, more than a few drivers angry about … that is, terrorized by having to slow down behind me might have “unintentionally” run me over and been held blameless under law.
More from Iowa:
A bill in Iowa was inspired by a protest against Donald Trump shortly after the November election. More than 100 demonstrators blocked traffic on Interstate 80, just outside Iowa City, Iowa, stopping traffic on the busy trucking route for almost a half-hour.
(Or about the amount of time I was stopped on I-26 when President Bush flew in for a speech in Columbia, SC.)
“You’re not just stopping traffic,” said Republican state Sen. Jake Chapman about his bill, which would apply to people blocking highways with speeds posted above 55 mph. Violators could get a felony and spend five years in prison, plus a fine of up to $7,500.
“You’re impeding law enforcement ability to get to call where there could be serious life-threatening situations,” said Chapman, who also works for an ambulance service.
The Intercept summarized bills by five states:
In North Dakota, for instance, Republicans introduced a bill last week that would allow motorists to run over and kill any protester obstructing a highway as long as a driver does so accidentally. In Minnesota, a bill introduced by Republicans last week seeks to dramatically stiffen fines for freeway protests and would allow prosecutors to seek a full year of jail time for protesters blocking a highway. Republicans in Washington state have proposed a plan to reclassify as a felony civil disobedience protests that are deemed “economic terrorism.” Republicans in Michigan introduced and then last month shelved an anti-picketing law that would increase penalties against protestors and would make it easier for businesses to sue individual protestors for their actions. And in Iowa a Republican lawmaker has pledged to introduce legislation to crack down on highway protests
Since then (January 19), at least five more states have proposed legislation targeting protest.
The Washington state bill is particularly illuminating (emphasis mine):
Sen. Doug Ericksen (R-Ferndale) doesn’t like what he sees out of recent anti-Trump protests. The Washington State lawmaker is seeking to criminalize what he calls “economic terrorism.” But, experts we spoke to question whether the bill would pass constitutional muster.
“The measure would allow felony prosecution of those who intentionally break the law in an attempt to intimidate or coerce private citizens or the government by obstructing economic activity,” his office said in a news release publicized Tuesday.
Thus, someone’s “right” to make money (enumerated in the Bill of Rights somewhere?) would be considered superior to another’s exercising 1st Amendment rights, both according to state law and Ericksen’s values. If the protesters carried guns, it would become a 2nd Amendment issue and a different matter altogether. Ericksen was Donald Trump’s deputy campaign director in Washington.
But even more noteworthy is a bill introduced last month in Indiana:
A bill that would require public officials in Indiana to dispatch law enforcement swiftly to remove any protesters blocking traffic by “any means necessary” prompted uproar on Wednesday.
Opponents of the bill, introduced by a Republican state senator, rushed to the general assembly in Indianapolis on Wednesday afternoon to attend a hearing for the legislation, arguing that it could give a green light to the police to shut down protests harshly “even to the point of costing lives”.
The proposed law, simply labelled Senate Bill 285, or SB 285, and designed to deal with “traffic obstruction by protestors” would go into effect in July if passed.
State senator Jim Tomes’ past bills, reports the Guardian, include “making it easier for drunk drivers to get a gun license and a proposal to jail transgender people for up to a year” for using a bathroom of a gender not on their birth certificates.
Tomes’ “any means necessary” bill is currently in committee. A man of his talents may have a future in the Trump administration.
I wonder does Tomes have any clue where that phrase entered contemporary popular culture?
A Real American tells it like it is
by digby
Enough is enough. It’s time to push back…..hard. @Zane_Michaels @wraithvenge @Norman_Outdoors @nikkitur @Grace_Asher1 @MasterGuns1313 pic.twitter.com/yGHkZzKHNj— Trucker Norm (@truckinwithnorm) January 29, 2017
He seems nice.
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The first 8 days
by digby
Trump’s approval rating since inauguration:
That’s, uhm, not good.
By contrast, George W. Bush, who also lost he popular vote and took office under dubious circumstances had a 57% approval rating at this point in office. Trump can’t get above his popular vote total.
At this point it doesn’t mean anything because he’s got the same amount of power and ten times the ego of a president who did win in a landslide and he’s determined to use it to do everything he wants. But you can see why he’s hurrying so fast. In some polls he’s in the mid-30s and it’s hard to see how he can keep Republicans on board if he continues to sink.
Of course, they’re all obviously terrified of him because he’ll call them names on twitter so maybe that’s not really an issue.
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