Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

Their iron law of force

“[W]e live in a world, in the real world … that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world that have existed since the beginning of time.” — Stephen Miller

He’s a Nazi. Prove me wrong, the late Charlie Kirk might say.

Marcy Wheeler put up a long post on Friday that you really ought to read on Stephen Miller’s theory of power. And about steps taken by AG Pam Bondi, Harmeet Dhillon, and Kash Patel in attempting “their own version of subjugation” in Minnesota. In the process of kidnapping people from their homes, abusing the citizens of the Twin Cities, and repeatedly violating half a dozen constitutional amendments, the Department of Justice has had to drop cases against drug traffickers for lack of prosecutors to manage the caseload. Nearly everyone with a conscience and commitment to the rule of law rather than the rule of Trump has left the department.

In making false statement after false statement about cases they’ve charged, and in violating court order after court order, Trump’s DOJ has gutted its own credibility and the government’s presumption of regularity with the courts.

Wheeler writes that Chief Judge Patrick Schiltz listed 96 orders ICE had blown off, and demanded that ICE start following the law:

This list should give pause to anyone—no matter his or her political beliefs—who cares about the rule of law.  ICE has likely violated more court orders in January 2026 than some federal agencies have violated in their entire existence.  The Court warns ICE that future noncompliance with court orders may result in future show‐cause orders requiring the personal appearances of Lyons or other government officials.  ICE is not a law unto itself.  ICE has every right to challenge the orders of this Court, but, like any litigant, ICE must follow those orders unless and until they are overturned or vacated.

Except becoming a law unto itself is the entire Trump administration’s raison d’etre. It is no accident that Miller’s beliefs echo Hitler’s. Back in Cold War days, right wingers might have called them fellow travelers.

Marcy brings receipts, as she does, as well as this summary:

Homeland Security Czar Stephen Miller’s attempt to impose his power in Minnesota, the same guy murderboating fishermen who might be carrying cocaine in the Caribbean in the name of halting fentanyl trafficking — has led to the collapse of drug trafficking cases because his attempt to subdue Minnesota by force has instead destroyed the Federal tools to impose order by law.

And now the one case Pam Bondi has prioritized over those drug trafficking cases, the Don Lemon case, threatens to become an indictment of Harmeet Dhillon’s misconduct in pursuing the indictment, her platforming of racist AI slop and gambling discussions before, then potentially misleading a grand jury so as to get her trophy in the form of one of Donald Trump’s Black adversaries.

None of this is good. None of it mitigates the damage Stephen Miller willfully did to Minnesota.

Minnesota lost and  Stephen Miller lost. Everybody loses under Miller’s barbaric theory of power.

It’s our job to outwit, outplay, and outlast the barbarians inside the gate. Minnesota showed the way.

Where’s the dog, Kristi?

It’s not fascism. No. It’s simply Donald Trump’s bootlicks paying attention to this matter. And to that matter. And the other matter. And especially to your matter (The New York Times):

The Department of Homeland Security is expanding its efforts to identify Americans who oppose Immigration and Customs Enforcement by sending tech companies legal requests for the names, email addresses, telephone numbers and other identifying data behind social media accounts that track or criticize the agency.

Sources tell the Times that Team Dogslayer is hitting major social media companies (but not X) with hundreds of administrative subpoenas. DHS is asking for identifying details about anonymous accounts that track and criticize ICE. Google, Meta and Reddit have complied with some requests per four government officials and tech employees. The Times has seen two sent to Meta in the last six months.

Taking more liberties

The tech companies, which can choose whether or not to provide the information, have said they review government requests before complying. Some of the companies notified the people whom the government had requested data on and gave them 10 to 14 days to fight the subpoena in court.

“The government is taking more liberties than they used to,” said Steve Loney, a senior supervising attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania. “It’s a whole other level of frequency and lack of accountability.” Over the last six months, Mr. Loney has represented people whose social media account information was sought by the Department of Homeland Security.

A little double entendre there with “taking more liberties.” (No mention of WordPress or our hosting service, so I guess we’re safe here. For now.)

The department said it had “broad administrative subpoena authority” but did not address questions about its requests. In court, its lawyers have argued that they are seeking information to help keep ICE agents in the field safe.

ICE agents in the field simply open fire.

The Trump administration has aggressively tried tamping down criticism of ICE, partly by identifying Americans who have demonstrated against the agency. ICE agents told protesters in Minneapolis and Chicago that they were being recorded and identified with facial recognition technology. Last month, Tom Homan, the White House border czar, also said on Fox News that he was pushing to “create a database” of people who were “arrested for interference, impeding and assault.”

Now sounds like a good time to invest in anti facial recognition makeup. But then again, no.

Some good news for a change:

It is a very sad thing to realise that a species is no more, that the last member of its kind has now gone. Once a species has become extinct there is no bringing it back. However, sometimes, just sometimes, they can surprise us.

There are a number of species that were once thought to be long gone that have popped up again to astonish us, revealing that they were never really gone at all.

Attenborough’s long-beaked echidna:

This curious little mammal is one of only three species in its genus. Like all echidnas (of which there are not many), long-beaked echidnas are monotremes and lay eggs. In fact, aside from platypus’ they are the only mammals on earth to do so. And that’s not the only strange thing about them.

They are also covered in protective keratinous spines and have a long protuberant snout with which they forage for insects. Although all echidnas are rare, this particular species has proved more elusive than most.

It was first described and collected in 1961 and had not been seen since, leading many to think it had died out. Until last year that is… In November 2023 footage of this incredible mammal was captured in its home, the Cyclops Mountains of Indonesia, more than 60 years after it was last seen.

Read the full story of its rediscovery here.

Victorian grassland earless dragon

Another 2023 rediscovery, this Australian lizard was unseen by scientists for more than 50 years. Once common in the state of Victoria, the species became critically endangered in the 1960s due to extensive habitat destruction, with the last confirmed sighting before now happening in 1969.

Based on this a study published in 2019 suggested it may have sadly become extinct. Nevertheless, hope remained for its survival due to various unconfirmed sightings, and in the end, these hopes were borne out, with an ecological survey rediscovering the first individual just last year. Subsequent fieldwork has resulted in the collection of 16 individuals who are now in a breeding programme at Melbourne Zoo.

Australia’s earless dragon is so rare it was thought extinct, until two ecologists came across one in the wild

Coelacanth  

(I wrote a report on this one when I was in the 4th grade. 🙂

The next on our list is perhaps the archetypical Lazarus animal, and unlike the echidna, it was not “lost” for decades but millennia! Known from fossil records since the 19th Century, these ancient fish were thought to have become extinct at the end of the Cretaceous period, some 66 million years ago.

However, much to everyone’s surprise, a live specimen was brought up from the depths by a local fisherman off the coast of South Africa in 1938.

The fisherman himself had no idea of the great significance of his catch, but luckily a museum employee, Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer, happened to examine the fish and knew she was looking at something special. This serendipitous discovery is now considered to be one of the most important zoological findings of the twentieth century.

Chacoan peccary

Like the coelacanth, for a long time this pig-like ungulate was known from fossil records alone. Again, it was thought to be long extinct, existing as paleontological evidence only, and was declared as such.

In 1971 however, a team of biologists decided to follow up on rumoured sightings by locals and “discovered” the species living in the hot and dry Chaco region of Argentina. It should probably be noted that this local knowledge of existence is probably common to many of the animals on this list and when we speak of a species being lost, that could well just mean “lost to Western science”!

Cuban solenodon

New Guinea big-eared bat

Lost for over a century, this bat was first collected in 1890, named (after its massive ears) in 1914, and then… wasn’t seen again. That is until 2012, when two very lucky University of Queensland PhD students collecting bats of many species found one they couldn’t easily identify. They then commenced some rigorous detective work.

After careful examination and comparison with museum specimens it was found to be a female of the long thought extinct big-eared species. This came as a very pleasant surprise to conservationists who had thought it wiped out by habitat loss and human encroachment.

I just love the idea that the MAGA weirdos in the Congress think that bringing Bill and Hillary Clinton in to testify on Epstein will somehow help their cause. In fact, it will create the biggest sideshow since Trump’s fraud trial or the January 6th Committee. The entire media world will be focused on Epstein for days leading up to it, people will talk of nothing else. Bring it on. Every day brings something more, especially with the sloppiness of the release of the documents. The cover up is laughably obvious.

Meanwhile, grand jurors aren’t buying what they’re selling in other cases either:

In Washington, a grand jury refused to return a felony indictment against a man who threw a sandwich at a Customs and Border Protection officer during a crackdown ordered by President Trump. In Chicago, grand jurors have declined to indict in several felony cases stemming from a similar operation; prosecutors seemed to get the message and dismissed additional cases. In Minnesota, federal prosecutors have charged some demonstrators with misdemeanors in cases involving encounters with federal agents — and it is very likely that they did so in some cases because the prosecutors expected grand juries would reject felony charges.

Federal grand juries in Virginia twice decided not to indict Letitia James, the New York attorney general, after a judge dismissed an initial case against her. Another federal grand jury in Virginia declined at least one charge against James Comey, the former F.B.I. director; the prosecutor later improperly filed a version of the indictment the full grand jury never saw.

This week, a grand jury rejected an effort by the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington to indict the six members of Congress who appeared last year in a video underscoring the obligation of service members to refuse illegal orders.

The incompetence may be the only thing that will save us. They don’t seem to realize that just because Donald Trump orders his enemies to be punished, it doesn’t make it so. Average Americans aren’t having it and they still have something to say about all this.

Even Axios notices:

• ⚖️ Retribution: A federal grand jury unanimously rejected the Justice Department’s attempt to indict six Democratic lawmakers over a video they made urging service members to refuse unlawful orders. It’s at least the fifth time that charges against Trump’s adversaries or protesters have been turned away by a grand jury — virtually unheard of in modern federal prosecutions. A federal judge also shut down Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s attempt to punish Navy veteran Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) over his role in the video, accusing the Pentagon of unconstitutional retaliation.
• 🚨 ICE raids: Trump’s border czar Tom Homan announced an end to the 10-week ICE surge in Minneapolis following the fatal shootings of two U.S. citizens, which drew mass protests and rare rebukes from corporate America. The president acknowledged his mass deportation campaign could use a “softer touch,” as private and public polls point to a sharp decline in support for his immigration policies.
• 🪖 National Guard: Trump also withdrew all federalized National Guard troops from L.A., Chicago and Portland after repeated legal defeats and opposition from state and local leaders, dealing a blow to his efforts to crack down on crime in Democratic-run cities.
• 📦 Tariffs: Six House Republicans joined Democrats to pass a resolution rescinding Trump’s tariffs on Canada. The vote became possible only after a smaller group of Republicans staged a floor rebellion against GOP leadership, opening the door for Democrats to force more politically painful votes on Trump’s trade agenda.
• 🗂️ Epstein files: Trump’s push to shut down MAGA’s Jeffrey Epstein obsession backfired in spectacular fashion. The Justice Department is still grappling with daily backlash after releasing more than 3 million documents, with Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) voicing rare criticism over revelations that DOJ tracked what lawmakers searched while reviewing the unredacted files.
• 📽️ Racism: A chorus of Republicans, led by Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), condemned Trump’s reposting of a video that depicted Barack and Michelle Obama as apes. The White House initially defended the post before deleting it and claiming an aide shared the clip.
• 🇩🇰 Greenland: Trump dominated Davos last month with his threats to seize Greenland by any means necessary — only to retreat amid market turmoil, European fury, warnings from congressional Republicans, and a vague “deal” promising the U.S. greater access to the Arctic territory.
• 🏦 Fed: The DOJ’s criminal investigation of Federal Reserve Chair Jay Powell has drawn deep skepticism from Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), who has vowed to block confirmation of Powell’s successor, Kevin Warsh, unless the probe is dropped. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent privately proposed shifting the investigation to the Senate to placate Tillis, who swiftly threw cold water on the idea.

Trump doesn’t like this but he knows that he can always just self-soothe by saying that the news is fake, the polls are rigged and the elections have been stolen — and tens of millions of Americans will go along with him. I’m beginning to wonder if he doesn’t actually prefer to lie about his failures so that he can see people bowing and scraping, pretending that they believe him. Knowing that people are licking your boots, pretending that they agree with you when it’s patently obvious that you are lying is a very real form of power.

On another level, he’s convinced himself that he is the world’s greatest victim and it’s only because of his very, stable genius that he’s ascended to the presidency twice. And frankly, you can’t blame him. He has never been held accountable for any of his failures, crimes and grotesque behaviors and he’s done it all out in public right in everyone’s faces. You can see why so many people think he is a magic man. Who else could get away with all that?

But that’s a subject that historians, psychologists and political scientists will wrestle with for centuries (if we last that long.) How on God’s green earth did this very sick, inept, stupid man manage to do what he has done?

Calling Hannah Arendt’s ghost…

Update: Krugman weighs in with Pam Bondi’s bizarre performance before the Judiciary Committee, particularly when she objected to any questioning about the Justice Department when the stock market is up:

This plumbed new depths of moral bankruptcy, effectively saying: “How dare you complain about child rape when the stock market is up?”

There was an unmistakable stench of desperation in Bondi’s tantrum. And it fooled no one. The cracks are showing, as some congressional Republicans have now voted against Trump’s tariffs, Justice Department lawyers are quitting en masse or just plain cracking up, and attempts to weaponize prosecutions keep failing.

Now Tom Homan says that the ICE surge in Minnesota will be wound down — an ignominious retreat if true — while Democrats are standing firm on refusing further DHS funding without significant reforms. And Bondi’s yelling isn’t making Epstein go away.

But let’s examine Bondi’s demand that Americans ignore the omnishambles because stocks are up. It’s morally depraved, but what about the economics? Yes, stock prices are up. As any economist can tell you, however, the stock market is a poor indicator of the economy’s overall health. Paul Samuelson famously quipped that the market had predicted nine of the last five recessions.

Furthermore, stock prices are up almost everywhere — and up more in other countries than they are in the United States. The chart at the top compares stock prices in the U.S. and in the euro area; since the latter is measured in euros, and the euro has risen against the dollar, Europe has substantially outperformed America.

And if we go beyond the stock market and look at what really matters to most Americans — affordability and jobs — the Trump economy isn’t delivering. Inflation remains stubbornly elevated. Despite one good month, employment growth has shriveled. And it keeps getting more difficult to find a job.

Here’s one measure I find useful, the Conference Board’s “labor market differential” — the difference between the percentage of Americans saying that jobs are plentiful and the percentage saying that jobs are hard to find:

This is certainly not a great economy. It’s not even a healthy economy. And Americans are not buying the administration’s lies.

Remember how all the big conservative Christians and the MAGA right have been screaming about antisemitism, even going so far as to strong arm all of America’s major universities into crushing free speech on campus in order to stop it? Yeah, I thought you would.

Apparently, a little antisemitic banter is just fine on Fox News, though. All in good fun. When sprinkled in with a dash of misogyny and pedophilia it’s comedy gold:

JESSE WATTERS (CO-HOST): But if you read the Epstein files — the Journal has done a great job at this — Epstein got his money from two Jewish billionaires, [Les Wexner] and Leon Black, and a little bit of money from the Jewish banking dynasty, the Rothschilds in Europe. And it looks like he’s mostly just a fixer, a guy who advises. He helps people with their problems, sometimes those problems are you need a girl, and —

LISA KENNEDY MONTGOMERY (CO-HOST): Or some penicillin.

WATTERS: Or some — If you need it, he’s got it.

GREG GUTFELD (CO-HOST): He’s a sex rabbi.

WATTERS: He should perform at the halftime show next year.

Doing the old Jewish banker, Protocols of the Elders of Zion thing is fine. That’s just reality, amirite? It’s only when you say that Palestinians have rights that you are being antisemitic.

It’s all about gas prices

Price changes over last year (January CPI report)
Gas Utilities: +9.8%
Electricity: +6.3%
Food away from home: +4.0%
Medical Care: +3.9%
Shelter: +3.0%
Overall CPI: +2.4%
Food at home: +2.1%
Transportation: +1.3%
New Cars: +0.4%
Used Cars: -2.0%
Fuel Oil: -4.2%
Gasoline: -7.5%

— Charlie Bilello (@charliebilello) February 13, 2026

Meanwhile:

12.7% of credit card balances in the US are now 90+ days delinquent, the highest since 2011.

5.2% of auto loan balances are now 90+ days delinquent, the highest since 2010.https://t.co/l5IYmkf6Ih pic.twitter.com/n5PRktSDXy

— Charlie Bilello (@charliebilello) February 12, 2026

Americans are shouldering almost all of President Donald Trump’s import tax surge, a report,from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York said on Thursday.

The bank said 90% of the tariffs imposed by the president on imported goods are borne by American consumers and companies. The report pushes back against the Trump administration’s argument that the levies are paid by foreigners.

Oops.

There’s lots more like that. Which is one big reason why Trump’s latest approval rating in the AP-NORC poll is down to 36%

Just an astoundingly bad AP poll for Trump

• 36% overall job approval
• 72% disapprove of Greenland threats
• 66% describe economy as doing poorly
• 60% unfavorable view of ICE

Cannot stress enough: the vast majority of Americans think this presidency is a failure.

— Matt McDermott (@mattmfm) February 13, 2026

It is a failure. But then we knew it would be, however you measure it, simply by virtue of the fact that it’s headed by a very psychologically damaged malignant narcissist. How could it be anything else?

But agents sure as hell got acculturated

Top Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials testified on Thursday before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. They no doubt enjoyed the roasting (New York Times):

Testifying before the Senate panel, Todd Lyons, the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement [ICE], repeatedly said he could not offer comments on the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti because of continuing investigations. But asked by Senator Maggie Hassan, Democrat of New Hampshire, if they were “domestic terrorists,” a label that Trump administration officials used to describe them shortly after their deaths without providing evidence, Mr. Lyons said he did not have knowledge that they were.

Ongoing investigations and all that.

Mr. Lyons and Rodney S. Scott, the commissioner of Customs and Border Protection [CBP], were also pressed about Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s description of Mr. Pretti as a domestic terrorist. In response, they said their agencies did not provide her an assessment that Mr. Pretti was engaged in domestic terrorism.

Democrats condemned random violence by CBP/ICE agents. Republicans focused on reinforcing the White House’s “Democrat-run cities” run amok narrative.

Then came Kentucky Republican Rand Paul’s turn, along with Democrat Gary Peters of Michigan:

Mr. Paul and Senator Gary Peters of Michigan, the top Democrat on the committee, played a video analysis of the moments leading up to Mr. Pretti’s killing, stopping at various frames to question Mr. Scott and Mr. Lyons about their agents’ conduct.

“It’s clearly evident that the public trust has been lost,” Mr. Paul said. “To restore trust in ICE and Border Patrol, they must admit their mistakes.”

“No one in America believes shoving that woman’s head and her face in the snow was de-escalation,” said Paul, reacting to witness videos.

Asked if it was appropriate for federal officers to beat someone with a pepper spray canister, Mr. Scott placed blame on Mr. Pretti. He said the video showed that Mr. Pretti was “not compliant, he’s not following any guidance, he’s fighting back nonstop.” But Mr. Scott would not answer whether it was appropriate, given that federal investigations into the shooting were ongoing.

But this the money exchange:

under questioning by Rand Paul, ICE officials confirm that yelling at officers is not assault and recording officers is not a crime pic.twitter.com/7Q9Td0Mjtz

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 12, 2026

Epstein liked to cosplay as smart

Why is this not surprising? Discovered among the millions of Epstein documents (The Atlantic):

Promoting contemptible perspectives on race is probably nowhere near the most depraved things Epstein did; he was, after all, a registered sex offender charged with child trafficking. But Epstein’s views are notable given his long-standing influence on some of the most powerful and influential Americans. His conversations from a decade ago provide clues as to how race science was picked out of the boneyard of history and reanimated into a force that’s influencing U.S. politics right now.

I’d say rather that race science was never consigned to “the boneyard of history” any more than fascism. The graveyard of the undead, perhaps. Paul Krugman might call it “a zombie lie — something that keeps coming back no matter how many times it’s killed by evidence.”

As other emails suggest, Epstein enjoyed in a dilettantish way to rub elbows with people known more for their brains. Him being filthy rich, intellectuals tolerated his inquiries about ideas more than they would give the time of day to the average schlub. It seems Epstein came across Noam Chomsky that way and recommended to him “Race and IQ: Genes That Predict Racial Intelligence Differences” from a white supremacist website. Epstein repeatedly attempted communication with Charles Murray of “The Bell Curve” infamy. Murray tells Ari Breland that it’s possible they met at a conference somewhere, but he has no recollection.

Other such characters from the fringe pop up in Epstein’s emails. But let’s get to how these ideas reach into the highest echelons of government and public policy.

In the past several years, race science has gained traction on the right and in parts of Silicon Valley’s elite circles. Elon Musk, for example, has repeatedly replied to the @cremieuxrecueil account, run by Jordan Lasker, an independent researcher who has been credited by a right-wing publication for tracing “the genetic pathways of crime, explaining why poverty is not a good causal explanation.” Musk has also engaged with an account that posted statistics supposedly illustrating the inferiority of Black people. In November, The Guardian reported that perspectives defending race science were embedded in Musk’s Wikipedia competitor, Grokipedia. Musk and his representatives did not respond to a request for comment.

In 2023 and 2024, respectively, Charlie Kirk and Tucker Carlson interviewed Steve Sailer, a prominent race-science proponent. President Trump—who once considered Epstein a close friend and is referenced in many emails—has toyed around with the concept for years. In a November 2024 interview with the right-wing radio host Hugh Hewitt, Trump said that some of the migrants coming across the southern border were genetically inferior. “How about allowing people to come to an open border, 13,000 of whom were murderers? Many of them murdered far more than one person, and they’re now happily living in the United States,” Trump told Hewitt, citing an incorrect number. “You know, now a murderer—I believe this—it’s in their genes. And we got a lot of bad genes in our country right now.” When I reached out to the White House, the spokesperson Abigail Jackson told me in an emailed statement that “President Trump is right—dangerous criminal illegal aliens exploited Joe Biden’s open border and flooded our country.”

And what then do we say about the career criminal Trump’s genes, or the pedophile Epstein’s?

Arguing that intelligence and adjacent traits are biologically determined served a clear function for a man like Epstein, who treated women as disposable and subordinate. And it’s equally unsurprising that the powerful people with whom he cultivated relationships might attempt to come up with a natural, objective explanation and rationale for their perch at the top of society.

That perch has more to do with how in our culture wealth inordinately confers more status than one’s intelligence and humanity. Empty vessels possessing only the former enjoy cosplaying as though they accrued their wealth-status through native intelligence. Drug kingpins and warlords make no such pretensions. Perhaps the Epstein class should study instead the genetic origins of cunning and amorality.

The Trump administration: Q.E.D.

Them: If you're so smart, why aren't you rich?Me: If you're so rich, why aren't you smart?Looking at you, Bessent.

— Tom Sullivan (@tmsullivan.bsky.social) 2026-01-19T01:29:48.211Z

Everyone wondered what the government had uncovered that would have justified the warrant to seize the ballots in Fulton County. Well, they released the affidavit the FBI submitted to the judge and it’s as outrageous as we might have imagined. Philip Bump reports:

By the bureau’s own admission, the recent FBI search of the Fulton County, Georgia, elections office did not center on uncovering evidence that the 2020 presidential election results there were tainted by fraud. The release of the affidavit submitted in support of the warrant makes that clear. The document argues that the potential illegality requiring federal intervention involved “many allegations of electoral impropriety relating to the voting process and ballot counting” in the county. It also claims that if failures on the part of election officials were “the result of intentional action,” a crime might have occurred.

The affidavit offers no evidence of intentionality, though. Instead, it centers primarily on rehashing existing, broadly debunked claims about purportedly dubious activity in the county at the time of the election. There is no evidence in the affidavit that the election was dishonest; there’s not even any evidence of significant, suspicious activity.So why does the affidavit exist? The direct answer to that question is offered by the affidavit itself. 

“The FBI criminal investigation originated from a referral sent by Kurt Olsen, Presidentially appointed Director of Election Security and Integrity,” FBI Special Agent Hugh Raymond Evans writes.

Olsen is not an objective party here. At the time of the 2020 election, he worked for President Donald Trump’s campaign, leading efforts to overturn the results of a contest that Trump lost. He’s identified in the final report of the House select committee that probed Trump’s efforts as having “authored a memo urging Vice President [Mike] Pence to adjourn the joint session of Congress without counting electoral votes.” Trump tapped Olsen last year essentially to resume his work.

Of course it was at the hands of the coup plotters. How could it not be?

Bump points out that this about “proving” Donald Trump was right about everything but it’s also about rigging elections going forward. I’m very worried about this as I’m sure you are too. I know the blue states will hold the line. But states like Georgia, Arizona, Nevada, Ohio, North Carolina, which are at least partially run by Republicans, are going to be under tremendous pressure to go along.

There is a lot of talk about the nightmare scenario in which Mike Johnson refuses to give up control and won’t seat enough “contested” Democratic victors to give them the majority, but that isn’t the problem. Mike Johnson is not the speaker on January 3rd, when the new Congress convenes. The Congress is not a continuing body. Nothing happens until the new Congress elects a new speaker.

However, that doe not mean that there isn’t a potential problem. Ned Foley at electionlawblog explains here:

On January 3, 2027, the House will have to organize itself by first having the Members-elect vote in a new Speaker. If there is contestation over enough seats to determine which party has a majority of Members-elect for the purpose of holding the vote on who is the new Speaker, that contestation can stymie and delay the Speakership vote and prevent the organization of the House.

It’s a situation very much to worry about, but not in the way Graham describes. It wouldn’t be the Republicans giving themselves the majority by seating two more Republican members instead of the two Democrats who were certified by the state to have won the election. It would be much messier and more complicated than that. (As a general rule, the Clerk of the House is supposed to identify as a Member-elect a candidate who presents a prima facie valid certificate of election from the state, history shows that it is not always that simple.)

They’re going to do something. We just have to hope that the Democrats are prepared for anything.