Seven Score And Nineteen Years Ago

Abe Lincoln delivered the greatest political speech ever - except possibly for most of his other speeches.

The guy could speechify.

We could prob'ly do with a few more like The Gettysburg Address, since way too many people are expecting (ie: fearing) another American civil war, and the same number seem to be eagerly anticipating (ie: fomenting) it, convinced it's just something we need to do once in a while to give ourselves a good "cleansing" - or whatever fuckin' rationalization they've cooked up today.

Enter the brewing power struggle between Article 1 and Article 3.

Shit just gets weirder.

Senior Democratic lawmakers demand answers on alleged Supreme Court leak

Whitehouse and Johnson warn chief justice that if he won’t investigate, Congress will.

Two senior Democrats in Congress are demanding that Chief Justice John Roberts detail what, if anything, the Supreme Court has done to respond to recent allegations of a leak of the outcome of a major case the high court considered several years ago.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) are also interested in examining claims about a concerted effort by religious conservatives to woo the justices through meals and social engagements. They wrote to Roberts on Sunday, making clear that if the court won’t investigate the alleged ethical breaches, lawmakers are likely to launch their own probe.

The pair of lawmakers also criticized the high court’s response to a letter they sent Roberts in September, seeking information about the court’s reaction to reports in POLITICO and Rolling Stone about a years long campaign to encourage favorable decisions from the justices by bolstering their religiosity.

A Supreme Court ethics attorney replied on Roberts’ behalf earlier this month, recounting some of the court’s policies and practices in the area, but offering no specifics about the lobbying drive.

“A response pointing out the existence of rules is not responsive to questions about whether those rules were broken,” Whitehouse and Johnson wrote in their new letter Sunday, which was obtained exclusively by POLITICO. “It seems that the underlying issue is the absence of a formal facility for complaint or investigation into possible ethics or reporting violations. …. If the Court, as your letter suggests, is not willing to undertake fact-finding inquiries into possible ethics violations that leaves Congress as the only forum.”

A Supreme Court spokesperson did not immediately respond to a message Sunday evening seeking comment on the letter.

The lawmakers said their latest missive to Roberts was triggered in part by a report Saturday in the New York Times about a former anti-abortion activist’s claim that he got advance word about the outcome in 2014 of a case of acute interest to social conservatives. The case, Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, led to a ruling written by Justice Samuel Alito that religious owners of closely held businesses did not have to comply with all of the Affordable Care Act’s requirements for contraception coverage.

Rev. Rob Schenck, a former evangelical minister who has since switched denominations, said he was alerted to the outcome of the case and Alito’s authorship of the opinion several weeks before the opinion was released by the court. Schenck said his information came from a dinner a wealthy couple had with Alito and his wife, Martha-Ann Alito, at the Alitos’ Virginia home after making significant donations to the Supreme Court Historical Society.

Alito adamantly denied that he or his wife were responsible for any leak. One member of the couple who dined with the Alitos that night, Gayle Wright, has also denied she conveyed the outcome of the case to Schenck. Her husband, Ohio real estate developer Don Wright, died in 2020.

POLITICO investigated the alleged leak for several months and was unable to locate anyone claiming direct knowledge of a premature disclosure of the outcome of the Hobby Lobby case from Justice Alito or his wife. However, there is circumstantial evidence that Schenck had, or believed he had, advance word about the outcome of the case and who was writing it.

Schenck wrote to Roberts in July, conveying word of the alleged leak eight years ago. He said the court might wish to evaluate that episode as it considers how to deal with the far more publicized disclosure in May by POLITICO of a draft Alito opinion overturning Roe v. Wade.

The court has not commented on Schenck’s letter or whether any investigation was conducted into the 2014 leak, but the new letter from Whitehouse and Johnson asks Roberts to explain whether the court has “reevaluated any of its practices, procedures, or rules related to judicial ethics, or the justices’ receipt and reporting of gifts and travel” as a result of the recent news reports and Schenck’s letter.

Whitehouse and Johnson also expressed concern that some donors to the Supreme Court Historical Society, a nonprofit educational organization with close ties to the court, have tried to use the society’s events to cozy up to the justices.

“Who is responsible for policing the relationship between the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court Historical Society to ensure that paid membership in the Society is not used as a means of gaining undue influence?” the lawmakers asked.

A society official did not immediately respond to a request for comment Sunday evening.

Whitehouse, a strident critic of what he contends is politicization of the Supreme Court, is positioned to pursue those concerns in his capacity as chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Federal Courts, Oversight, Agency Action, and Federal Rights

Johnson heads up a similar subcommittee on the House side, but his ability to probe the matters may soon be limited with Republicans set to take over control of House committees in January due to the outcome of the midterm elections earlier this month.

Coming To A Head

I'm reminded of the scene in Gandhi when the government of South Africa is struggling to "control" the population.

(paraphrasing):

"They can fire me from me job. They can arrest me. They can torture me. They can beat me to death. At which time they'll have my dead broken body. But they will never have my obedience."

45* is doing what that kind of dishonorable asshole always does - he's occupying Smarmspace, looking for the part where "it doesn't say specifically that I can't do it, so that's what I'm gonna do."

WaPo:

D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser and President Trump were engaged in an escalating contest over control of Washington streets when the email from a military planner set off new alarms in the mayor’s office.

The official was seeking guidance Wednesday afternoon for the U.S. Northern Command in determining “route restrictions” for the “movement of tactical vehicles” and “military forces” from Fort Belvoir, Va., into the city to assist in “Civil Disturbance Operations.”

To Bowser’s aides, the request smacked of an imminent escalation in the federal force Trump had marshaled to quell the large street demonstrations over police brutality near the White House — the centerpiece of his bid to project the image of a strong leader who would establish “law and order” where local leaders had failed across the nation. Days earlier, Trump had falsely accused Bowser (D) in a tweet of refusing to allow D.C. police to assist in crowd control in Lafayette Square.

“The last time they asked us about that was in preparation to move tanks to the city for the Fourth of July” celebration last summer, said one D.C. government official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the private request. “We don’t want it to happen.”

- and -

During a news conference Thursday, Bowser said she was alarmed by the growing presence of federal security authorities in the city and declared she wants federal “troops from out of state” kept out of the District. She also expressed concern that the Trump administration's move to extend security barriers beyond the White House perimeter to encircle Lafayette Square, closing it to the public, could become permanent.

“Keep in mind that’s the people’s house,” she said. “It’s a sad commentary that the [White] House and its inhabitants have to be walled off.”

There's a bad feeling of "crossing the Rubicon" in all of this. Caesar entering the city at the head of his army signals the collapse of the republic.

One Pretty Good Take

New Yorker Magazine, John Cassidy:

For the past two and a half years of Donald Trump’s Presidency, I have consoled myself with the argument that, despite all the chaos and narcissism and racial incitement and norm-shattering, the American system of government is holding itself together. When Trump attempted to introduce a ban on Muslims entering the country and sought to add a citizenship question to the census, the courts restrained him. When he railed at nato and loyal allies like Germany’s Angela Merkel, other members of his Administration issued quiet reassurances that it was just bluster. When the American people had the chance to issue a verdict on Trump’s first two years in office, they turned the House of Representatives over to the opposition party.

All of this was reassuring. But, while watching what happened on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, when Robert Mueller, the former special counsel, testified before two House committees, I struggled to contain a rising sense of dread about where the country is heading. With Republicans united behind the President, Democrats uncertain about how to proceed, and Mueller reluctant to the last to come straight out and say that the President committed impeachable offenses, it looks like Trump’s blitzkrieg tactics of demonizing anyone who challenges him, terrorizing potential dissidents on his own side, and relentlessly spouting propaganda over social media may have worked. If so, he will have recorded a historic victory over the bedrock American principles of congressional oversight and equality before the law.

- and -

...Toward the end of the morning session, Hakeem Jeffries, a Democrat serving Brooklyn and Queens, seemed to get Mueller to confirm that Trump’s effort, in the summer of 2017, to have Don McGahn, then the White House counsel, fire him satisfied the three requirements for a criminal indictment: an act that is obstructive, a link to an official proceeding, and corrupt intent. Also, Lieu twice got Mueller to say that the reason he didn’t press charges was the Justice Department’s guideline that rules out such a course of action. Unfortunately for the Democrats, Mueller subsequently clarified this statement, which went further than anything he had said in his earlier answers, or in his report. “That is not the correct way to say it,” he said at the start of his afternoon appearance before the House Intelligence Committee. “As we say in the report, and I said at the opening, we did not reach a determination on whether the President committed a crime.”

Even after this clarification, however, the overriding impression that Mueller left was that the President knowingly attempted to obstruct his investigation, and that such attempts can be criminal even if they don’t succeed. In the afternoon session, he also left hanging the question of whether Trump made false statements to the investigators, affirming “generally” that the President’s written answers to his questions weren’t always truthful.

But Nancy Pelosi still insists on waiting for the outcome of some pending court decisions, and going forward with the "strongest possible case".

I think we can be sure that there's a whole fuckload of shoes that have yet to drop. There's something - prob'ly lots of somethings - that we regular folk don't get to know about right now, that have to be considered before pulling the trigger on removing 45* from office.

I hate the feeling that we have to trust politicians with such enormously important decisions, but such is the paradox of self-government.

Democracy relies on a well-informed electorate, but in too many cases and in way too many ways, too many people in seats of power believe democracy must be served by wholly un-democratic means.

We've always had that Checks-n-Balances thing working for us, but I'm afraid we're seeing how plutocrats have neutralized parts of the system and are using it against the public's best interests.

Always expect better. Always prepare for worse.

The Whole Standing Army Thing

The debate had begun to rage as I entered high school - All-Volunteer vs Conscription-Augmented.

We're seeing the reality of what both the Founders and the Wacky Hippie Alarmists tried to warn us about.

The Brookings Inst:

The gap in civilian and military experiences in the United States over the 17 years since 9/11 has led to persuasive, persistent, and unrealistic myths that have eroded faith in civilian leadership of defense policy. Among these myths are the superior virtue of military over other kinds of public service; that battlefield experience is the most authoritative source of military policy expertise; and that an exclusively civilian background is inadequate for strategic defense leadership. In the United States, these myths are nurtured and perpetuated by both military and civilian communities and affect general public opinion as well as the attitudes of national security professionals. These myths are also corrosive. Unless they are acknowledged, addressed, and challenged, future civilian leaders may struggle to control the use of force—a profound problem for a democratic system. Downgrading civilian leadership will weaken U.S. national security and the military itself.


It's easy for a Boomer like me to have a knee-jerk reaction against reinstating the draft.  "My war" was Viet Nam, and by the time it was my turn to sweat the lottery, I knew it was already very unlikely that I'd ever be anywhere near the joint, even if I hadn't beaten the 4-1 or 5-1 odds against being selected in the first place (my magic number was 239 in a year when they were "only taking" 1-95).

Anyway, fast forward to other wars of choice - Afghanistan and Iraq - and we see a very familiar variation on the theme of how fucked it all gets if we're not careful. 

During Viet Nam, the draft system got totally corrupted because the "privileged white" kids who had access to lawyers and doctors and other influencers could practically opt out of the draft while the poorer kids - ie: black kids, and others from the lower rungs of the socio-economic ladder - ended up being way over-representated.

In the 2000s, you start out with a really solid military - fairly representative of the American society as a whole. But once it's clear that Afghanistan and Iraq are turning sour, the military starts to run dry (because people do wise up eventually), and we get a lower quality product as a result of the same piss poor management that gets us into stoopid-ass wars to begin with.

I won't recount all the shitty things we've done to our people in uniform (and continue to do to them). Suffice to say that I hope we've relearned the lessons of the founders - that we understand that it's a bad idea to let anybody with guns and tanks and airplanes have too much unchecked power to make the decisions on how they use all that shit.

And the draft? No matter how you try to unrig it, there will always be major problems with a conscripted military. But if we allow the military to be part of a Plutocratic system of government (that a professional military always pushes towards), we let ourselves in for problems that pose the same level of existential threat to the democracy that having no military at all would pose.

Any professional military - standing army or otherwise - is a danger to democratic self-governance.

I think it all goes back to the basics of how we build in the checks and balances. The system that makes sure we maintain the appropriate separations of power. 

And all of that depends on a well-informed public.

It's The Daddy State

...but (so far) without the usual efficiencies that go along with such evil-doing.

Charlie Pierce:

So, as two frenzied days begin here, we see that the substantial Republican majorities in both Houses of the Congress have completely abdicated their constitutional functions simply because the Republican Party can’t get out of its own way, and because the president* is a grandiose simpleton who could be talked into cutting off his own head. Both McConnell, and Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, the zombie-eyed granny starver from Wisconsin, theoretically could get pretty much anything they want passed. But Ryan has the Freedom Caucus leading him around by the nose, and McConnell is pretending that the White House has to move first, which turns the constitutional order on its head.

What the GOP is doing is not governance - they hate government, remember? What they're doing is called extortion.

They believe if they cause us enough pain and anxiety, we'll knuckle under and go along with whatever Daddy State bullshit they feel like dictating to us - because of course, it's for our own good.

Nobody deserves to feel like they're being forced to live their lives at the broken end of a bottle.

GOP:

The assholes who make my mom cry almost every day because she's scared of the shit they threaten to do.

hat tip = driftglass & Blue Gal

Today's Today

1975 - Reykjavik

Not to put it too terribly indelicately, ladies, but you own half of the wealth and all of the pussy, which puts you in a fairly powerful bargaining position.

Sometimes we push back really hard because whether we care to admit it or not, we're listening. And what many of us hear you saying sounds pretty scary.

But we're learning. Don't give up on us just yet.

1975 Icelandic women's strike:

On October 24, 1975, Icelandic women went on strike for the day to “demonstrate the indispensable work of women for Iceland’s economy and society”[1] and to “protest wage discrepancy and unfair employment practices.”[2] Ninety percent of Iceland’s female population, led by women’s organizations, did not go to their paid jobs and did not do any housework or child-rearing for the whole day.[1]

A Faint Glimmer

Always looking for the light on the horizon that might suggest we ain't dead yet:

As I outlined a while back, Democrats have their work cut out for them if they want to win back the Senate in 2016. Two of the best bets to flip a seat from Red to Blue are Rep. Tammy Duckworth in Illinois and Russ Feingold in Wisconsin. A new poll has both Democrats leading in the early stages of their respective races.

The Enormity Of It All

e·nor·mous  adj. 1. Very great in size, extent, number, or degree. 2. Archaic Very wicked; heinous.

This guy on Chris Hayes last nite used that word a buncha times, and I'm wondering if his usage was just supposed to indicate 'big', or if he meant to include the 'heinous' implication as well.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Ed Note:
I realize I've been a little heavy on the MSNBC material lately, but y'know - when I test this stuff for fact-worthiness and reasonableness, and I filter out the partisanship, I notice that even while a lot of the 'lefties' are twisting sideways trying to defend Obama's administration, Rachel and Chris et al are reporting the shitty things that happen right beside the stuff that's OK and/or Pretty Decent and/or Wow-Ain't-That-Fuckin'-Awesome (there's really not a lot that falls into that last category - but still).

Anyway, I haven't gotten to many solid conclusions yet on what's been going on with National Security the last 20 years or so.  I can say there's something about anything called "The Department of Homeland Security" that feels creepy and sinister - it just goes against every impulse I think every American is practically born with - or at least should learn and understand as we grow up.

I don't know how much of The National Security Machinery needs to be dismantled and  discarded, but I think we have to understand that putting that kind of power in too few hands always gets us trouble, so we'd better figure it out.  Too Big To Fail is a major problem when it comes to business; when we're talking about Government, you're always in danger of creating something that becomes Too Big To Fuck With.

Is It Really Real? - updated

So, right on schedule, The Curse of the Second Term comes home to Obamaland.

The IRS thing is a bit lame when I stop to think that every Prez (at least since Kennedy) has used the threat of an IRS audit to fuck with their political enemies.

And scooping up the AP phone records has a good solid stink to it too, even tho' it's pretty easy to remember how lotsa people tho't that was just peachy under FISA and USA PATRIOT Act.  Yeah, it sucks, but c'mon.

I'm not saying we shouldn't slap some people around if they've pulled some shit - but I will say a coupla things that I think oughta get said.

First, this is a game of power.  If you give anybody the power to fuck with people, you'll need to try a little harder not to act surprised when they start fucking with people. Power will be abused.

Second, stop giving them that kinda power.  The laws they're hiding behind can be changed.  We can do that here in God's America.  Maybe we could try evoking a little of that Star-Spangled American Exceptionalism we hear so much about (that nobody seems to understand very well).

ie: These little games are played everywhere, all the time - we're supposed to be THE EXCEPTION.  See how that works?

NYT Late To The Party - Again

Some pretty decent analysis from Numerian at The Agonist, on the main reason our 4th estate is in the middle of an Epic FAIL.

As an ex-subscriber to The New York Times, I too have been outraged by such stories, but not because I read them in the paper of record, which is not simply very late to the game of reporting on this phenomenon - it is too late. I’ve been outraged by these stories because I have been reading about this for years on internet blogs. Some of the most persistent reporters and analysts who write about this problem include Glenn Greenwald at Salon.com, Yves Smith at the Naked Capitalist blog, and Karl Denninger at the Market Ticker blog. All three of these writers have no doubt lost some readers over the years because they write about these stories over and over, and manage to maintain a sustained fury over the debasement of the rule of law that is evidenced by the way the big banks operate, and the inability or refusal of the government to do much about it.
These are the sort of people who have been criticized for years by The New York Times for sloppy reporting because they don’t have to live by the strict journalistic standards that are upheld every day by the mainstream media.

Whether or not this is true – and for the most part these writers have been careful about ensuring that the facts they present are verified – it is definitely the case that mainstream media reporters and analysts have not taken the angry, vituperative, and in some cases vulgar tone that bloggers take when talking about the collapse of the rule of law.

Therein lies a problem, and it is one that the mainstream media is only now beginning to comprehend. The undermining of the US Constitution and the laws as passed by Congress, and the refusal by government to investigate or prosecute these violations, which are now rife, represent some of the most serious challenges imaginable to a democracy based on a republican form of government. Anyone who takes their responsibilities as a citizen of the US seriously should be outraged by these circumstances.

Maybe we're starting to see some signs of revolt from inside the closed-loop crony-driven system which has tied Business, Government and Press together into a neat little bundle. We need that rebellion because we've allowed our little experiment in self government to slip into the oldest game in the world - ie: once everybody's guilty, nobody can be held responsible.  We have to figure out how to split it all up again, and put clearly discernible dividers back into place.  Balance has gone out of the system and must be reestablished.