#will Trump declare a national emergency to build the wall?

[youthkenworld]

Eleven GOP senators voted to cancel President Donald Trump’s declaration of a national border emergency and his subsequent transfer of agency funding to build the border wall.

[fzzh001]

5G wars: the US plot to make Britain ditch Huawei

GCHQ was confident it could work safely with the Chinese tech firm. An American official thought otherwise — and, in a Cabinet Office meeting, shouted about it for five hours

Donald Trump’s arrival in Washington in 2017 had quickly united the Five Eyes spy network against the misinformation emerging from the White House. The assurances given by US agencies to their counterparts in the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand proved that the preservation of intelligence-sharing should be safeguarded from politics.

It was a laudable effort — until the CIA and National Security Agency (NSA) sided with White House officials on matters relating to Huawei, the Chinese tech firm with links to the Chinese Communist Party. Britain was determined to engage with Huawei based on a recommendation made by Ciaran Martin, whose team at GCHQ had made detailed intelligence and technology assessments.

A White House delegation arrived in London in May 2019 on a policy-disruption mission. Their brief was to oppose a British plan that would allow Huawei limited access to help build the country’s next-generation 5G cellular data network.

Within minutes of the delegation’s arrival at the Cabinet Office, Martin and other senior officials, including the deputy national security adviser, Madeleine Alessandri, were effectively shouted at by one of their guests for five hours.

That guest was Matthew Pottinger, a former US Marines intelligence officer parachuted into the White House in early 2017 to become the National Security Council’s director on Asia. He was known for his distrust of China’s authoritarian regime, a sentiment shaped during his previous life as a foreign correspondent for The Wall Street Journal in Beijing, where he had been subjected to surveillance and physically attacked by the authorities.

Pottinger’s influence on US policy towards China was immediate on taking up his role. He was described by Steve Bannon, the former White House chief strategist, as “one of the most significant people in the entire US government”. One year into his role, Pottinger had played a key role in the White House’s decision to impose tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese goods. Trump had already declared that “trade wars are good, and easy to win” when he had decided to punish China over, as he saw it, the American jobs being lost to its cheaper workforce. Beijing retaliated with its own tariffs on US products.

While Pottinger and Martin were both in their mid-forties and equally influential in their respective governments, that was pretty much where the similarities ended.

“We were keen to work with the US to counter [China’s strategic] ambitions,” Martin recalled. “The problem was, on our side, we didn’t think Huawei’s limited involvement in UK 5G was the most important thing in a much wider strategic challenge — whereas the US were only interested in that part of the problem, for reasons we couldn’t fathom.”

A British intelligence official who was at the meeting said: “Pottinger just shouted and was entirely uninterested in the UK’s analysis. The message was, ‘We don’t want you to do this, you have no idea how evil China is’. It was five hours of shouting with a prepared, angry and weirdly non-threatening script. We tried to offer a policy discussion but Pottinger didn’t care. We even said that we didn’t contest the analysis of the Chinese threat and explained our technicalities, but the US officials weren’t interested in that. Pottinger was continuously and repeatedly obnoxious.”

Martin had anticipated a debate with the visitors — if not the shouting. The Trump administration had expressed its disapproval of the British plan after details, which should not have been made public for almost another year, were leaked to The Daily Telegraph two weeks earlier by Theresa May’s then defence secretary, Gavin Williamson. He was sacked , despite repeatedly denying being the leaker. He was among a small but vocal group of Conservative MPs who vehemently opposed any involvement from Huawei in the creation of Britain’s 5G network.

Ten years’ distrust

Washington’s hostility to Huawei could be traced back to 2012, when an investigation by the US House intelligence committee concluded that it was a national security threat, because it was unwilling to “provide sufficient evidence” regarding its “relationships or regulatory interaction with Chinese authorities” in Beijing. The Obama administration banned Huawei and another Chinese firm, ZTE, from bidding for US government contracts. Five years later, the Trump administration warned that China’s 2017 National Intelligence Law, which states that organisations must “support, co-operate with and collaborate in national intelligence work”, could force Huawei to snoop for Beijing on countries in which it was operating.

US intelligence agencies and White House officials had repeatedly lobbied all members of the Five Eyes to ban Huawei on national security grounds. While New Zealand had followed Australia and banned the Chinese telecoms company in November 2018, Canada was still considering its options, and would not announce its intention to ban Huawei until May this year. The US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo — a director of the CIA during the early days of the Trump administration — had declared in a thinly veiled warning to Britain in February 2019 that countries using Huawei equipment were a risk to the US. Staff from his office were also reminding their counterparts in Britain that they were risking their place in the Five Eyes should the UK decide to approve Huawei.

In May 2019 — the same month Pottinger flew to Britain for the meeting at the Cabinet Office — the US president signed an executive order to prohibit Chinese companies, including Huawei, from selling equipment in America because of the “undue risk of sabotage” and “catastrophic effects” on communications systems and infrastructure. The Department of Commerce placed Huawei and 68 of its affiliates on a trade blacklist for “activities contrary to the national security or foreign policy interests of the United States”.

Martin gave Pottinger assurances that Huawei’s work on the 5G network would not compromise the UK’s intelligence-sharing channels with the Five Eyes, government systems or nuclear facilities, because such sensitive areas were linked to computer networks inaccessible to Huawei. Such guarantees were not enough to appease their Americans during — or after — their meeting in London.

Lord Darroch, who served as Britain’s national security adviser before becoming the UK’s ambassador in the US in January 2016, said the US delegation “didn’t really have any compelling technical arguments that undermined the GCHQ case. I remember GCHQ seeming pretty unimpressed. The encounter exposed that the US case was really political, not technical. So GCHQ stuck to their guns, and, initially, so did the prime minister.”

Theresa May, who was prime minister until July 2019, said: “Any decision taken by a politician can by definition be described as a political decision, but this was not a decision based on politics. It was based on the fact that we believed that . . . we had the capability of ensuring that we could protect what needed to be protected.”

The unshakable position on Huawei held by the US officials was particularly insulting to their British colleagues, because GCHQ had spotted a technical threat in the Chinese company’s products two years before the company had been banned by the White House. In fact, GCHQ had created an oversight facility in Banbury, Oxfordshire, to identify any risks associated with Huawei’s products. The only reason for not excluding the Chinese company altogether was because its products were significantly cheaper than those of its competitors, Nokia and Ericsson.

The CIA tried to discredit the UK’s position on Huawei in the eyes of its European allies. Officers from the agency’s Belgium station met their counterparts in the French, German, Italian and Norwegian intelligence services, among others, to express their concerns about the UK’s “misjudgment”. British intelligence officials were outraged by what they described as a “black ops” mission facilitated by the CIA — some even calling it a betrayal of friendship. Yet again, the special relationship between London and Washington had been strained and risked being permanently disrupted.

On July 14, 2019, two months after his team clashed with Pottinger in London, Ciaran Martin travelled to Washington with Britain’s national security adviser, Mark Sedwill, to meet US officials at the White House. Among those present were Pottinger and John Bolton, Trump’s latest national security adviser. Notably missing was Sir Kim Darroch, the ambassador, who had been handling the crisis behind the scenes but had been forced to resign a few days earlier after leaked emails revealed he had described Trump as “incompetent”, “insecure” and “inept” in cables he had sent to London shortly after the president had been elected to office.

During the hour-long meeting, Bolton reassured Martin and Sedwill that he was sympathetic to the UK’s assurances and said he would ask members of his own security council to devise a plan that would help resolve their differences over Huawei. Pottinger seemed largely deferential to Bolton during the meeting, and the aggression he had shown in London had all but disappeared. Perhaps it was because he knew the US had a trick up its sleeve.

The new prime minister, Boris Johnson, had supported Martin’s recommendations on dealing with the Chinese telecommunications giant. In January 2020, he gave Huawei limited approval to build the 5G network, but with more limitations, excluding it from access to military and nuclear sites and national infrastructure. Huawei would be allowed to build only the parts of the network that connected equipment and devices to phone masts.

Britain’s defiance was met with the ultimate checkmate. Trump introduced further sanctions in May 2020 that banned Huawei from using US-made chips in its equipment. As a result, Martin could no longer guarantee the security of Huawei’s products, and two months later, in a remarkable public U-turn, Johnson finally banned Huawei from operating in Britain. His move would delay the country’s 5G rollout by up to three years and cost it at least £2 billion to remove all Huawei 5G equipment from its networks by 2027.

Pompeo welcomed Johnson’s decision, saying: “The UK joins a growing list of countries from around the world that are standing up for their national security by prohibiting the use of untrusted, high-risk vendors.” Pottinger must have also been cheering. Not only had his opposition to Huawei’s role in Britain come to fruition, but by the time it did, Trump had promoted him to deputy national security adviser.

“There was a lot of media speculation and parliamentary interest in whether we would ban Huawei or not,”’ said Darroch. “In my time, GCHQ had led on detailed analysis about the risk from Huawei kit on the communications network and had concluded that, provided it was not at the core of the network, it was OK. This analysis was a central part of the discussion at the national security council and key to the then-agreed outcome that Huawei equipment could be used in certain parts of the network. It was basically driven by the analysis of GCHQ . . . It would be legitimate to do it [drop Huawei] for political reasons, or because it was so important to the Americans, or as an expression of Five Eyes solidarity, or whatever. But it shouldn’t be dressed up as technical.”

Martin stepped down as head of GCHQ’s National Cyber Security Centre in September 2020 to become a professor at Oxford University’s Blavatnik School of Government. He maintains that his confidence in the plan for Huawei to help build the country’s 5G network had always been underpinned by technical assessments, and he had been under no illusions about the potential risks that Huawei posed.

“In reality, anyone can have a go at hacking anything,” he said. “We in the UK, thanks to the US sanctions, are now entirely dependent on Nokia and Ericsson. For sure, we trust their boards of directors. But are we seriously saying that just because they’re not Chinese, they can’t be hacked? By neighbouring Russia, for example? Or China?”

[trueconservativepundit]

Obstructionist Pelosi says no Wall Funding - Can Trump Build the Wall Without Declaring a National Emergency?

Obstructionist Pelosi says no Wall Funding – Can Trump Build the Wall Without Declaring a National Emergency?

By Jon Dougherty, editor-in-chief for The National Sentinel

The clock is ticking on the 21-day stopgap funding measure Congress passed and POTUS Donald Trump signed to reopen government a week ago, but it doesn’t look like he’s any closer to getting the House to pass a measure providing him with his requested border wall funding.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has doubled and now tripled down on…

[marylemanski]

I have been sharing a list of civil & human rights rollbacks by the Trump administration. Here is a list from the 1st quarter of Trump’s third year in office. During this time, Republicans attacked women, people of color, the LGBTQIA community, refugees, voting rights, consumer protections, women’s healthcare, background checks, labor rights, Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, SNAP, and the Affordable Care Act, all while they stopped responding to UN investigators over potential human rights violations and declared an emergency at the Southern border.

On January 3, The Washington Post reported that the Trump administration is considering rolling back disparate impact regulations that provide anti-discrimination protections to people of color, women, and others.

On January 4, The Guardian reported that the Trump administration has stopped cooperating with and responding to UN investigators over potential human rights violations in the United States.

On January 23, the Department of Health and Human Services granted a waiver to South Carolina to allow state-licensed child welfare agencies to discriminate in accordance with religious beliefs.

On January 25, the Department of Homeland Security began implementing the Migrant Protection Protocols – also known as the Remain in Mexico policy – which forces Central Americans seeking asylum to return to Mexico, for an indefinite amount of time, while their claims are processed.

On January 29, the Department of Justice reversed its position in a Texas voting rights case, saying the state should not need to have its voting changes pre-cleared with the federal government. Career voting rights lawyers at the department declined to sign the brief.

On February 6, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) – under the direction of Trump-appointed Director Kathy Kraninger – released its plan to roll back the central protections of the agency’s 2017 payday and car-title lending rule.

On February 15, Trump announced that he would declare a national emergency on the southern border – an attempt to end-run the Congress in order to build a harmful and wasteful border wall.

On February 22, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued a final rule to significantly undermine the Title X family planning program’s ability to properly serve its patients and to provide its hallmark quality care. The rule’s provisions will have far-reaching implications for all Title X-funded programs, the services provided, and the ability of patients to seek and receive high-quality, confidential family planning and preventive health care services.

On February 25, the White House issued a Statement of Administration Policy opposing H.R. 8, the Bipartisan Background Checks Act, which The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights supports.

On February 26, the White House issued a Statement of Administration Policy opposing H.J. Res. 46, a resolution terminating the national emergency on the southern border declared by President Trump, which The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights supports. On September 25, the White House issued a statement opposing the Senate’s companion resolution.

On March 5, the White House issued a Statement of Administration Policy opposing H.R. 1, the For the People Act, which The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights supports.

On March 7, the Department of Labor issued a proposed revision to the overtime rule, which proposes to raise the salary threshold to an amount ($35,308) far lower than the Obama Labor Department’s previously finalized rule ($47,476).

On March 11, the Trump administration released its FY 2020 budget proposal, which requested $8.6 billion for a southern border wall, requested an inexplicably and irresponsibly low figure for 2020 Census operations, and proposed deeply troubling cuts to the social safety net – including cuts to Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, and SNAP.

On March 12, the Department of Defense issued guidance for enacting the transgender military ban to begin in 30 days.

On March 25, the Trump administration said in an appeals court filing that the entire Affordable Care Act should be struck down.

Source: https://civilrights.org/trump-rollbacks/#2019

[feelingbluepolitics]

Useful lessons from history:

"Many presidents have declared national emergencies, including George W. Bush after 9/11 and Barack Obama during the swine flu outbreak in 2009.

..."The National Emergencies Act contains a mechanism for Congress to overrule the president by passing a joint resolution out of the House and Senate. With Democrats in control of the House, it would presumably pass there easily, and Ackerman, the Yale professor, says he believes it could pass the Senate too."

"[D]ue to a 35-year-old court case, Congress might not be able to override [a] president that easily. In the 1983 case Immigration and Naturalization Service v. Chadha, the Supreme Court decided that a one-house legislative veto violated the Constitution. After that, the National Emergencies Act was amended to require the joint resolution to override the president’s declaration — like a typical law, it requires a simple majority in the House and Senate and the president’s signature.

"[t]rump would probably not be willing to sign a joint resolution to reject his own emergency declaration, so that means that Congress would need to override him with a two-thirds majority in each chamber."

trump's situation was tenuous because, in point of fact, there was no emergency at the border as he alleged. And yet, along with a month-plus government shutdown, he did declare his emergency, and then swiped military construction funding from other projects, mostly in red states, for his wall funding. His tethered Senators stuck with him anyway, and of course, as long as they did, they faced no consequences from their trump-insane voters.

Now we have Biden, and as was discussed at the time, even a moderate Democrat ought to take a look at presidential emergency powers.

Because of trump's complete fabrication, there were issues of abuse of power. For example, could the climate crisis really be declared an emergency, having built up foreseeably? That is, forseeable by all but climate denying Republicons? But abuse of power now would be a pathetic argument after trump, and after trump, multiple emergencies are dire.

- Covid, due to trump's horrific malmanagement, is an emergency. It's two: medical and economic, system wide. We have states and local governments facing financial failure and projected to be unable to provide basic services! This pandemic has also exposed the state of emergency of the nation's public health measures.

- Gun control was absolutely an emergency before, based on mass casualty events such as school shootings killing Americans. It's more so now, because trump incited violent insurrection, and his militias and crazies are heavily armed.

- Racism is another. The on-going incidents of murder committed by law enforcement which set off national and international BLM protests prove it, as does the trump-inflamed white supremacy movement which has been officially flagged as high-threat domestic terrorism.

- The climate crisis may have been building up over time...but as a result of trump's intentional escalation of acute environmental damage, and the direly foreshortened time of response, and the immense costs burdens we already face from recent manifestations of climate damage, "emergency" is more than appropriate.

See:

- Immigration. Since an emergency declaration worked for trump's utter bullshit wall, it's more than reasonable that emergency corrective response is necessary against trump's human rights violations, from border refugee camps, to separated families, to long-term detained people in documented grossly abusive circumstances, as well as the rogue and racist trump-infested government entities with dangerous precepts and astounding budgets.

- Hunger, poverty, and the inherently unstable and extreme wealth imbalance have escalated to emergency conditions.

- Lies and misinformation about our election, as well as the planned escalation by Republicons of even worse voting rights abuses, puts reforming our elections to secure that they are free and fair, as well as establishing and enforcing political ethics measures, into emergency territory right now. And by the way, our nation's entire cyber security status is in a screaming state of emergency after trump let Russia rummage freely for years.

That's a solid start on our current plate of emergencies.

There's talk about "bipartisanship," and there's great deal of talk about the filibuster. Note that with or without the filibuster, Republicons can vote for democratic legislation, but just don't. In fact, they could more easily do so without the fibuster in place, as holding out then would be fruitless as well as unpopular.

But we have a miscount that's causing frustration and confusion. We don't really have a Democratic majority in the Senate until we have 52, to render our defectors Sinema and Manchin expendable on crucial votes.

Of course we can and will continue to look at Congressional parliamentary options.

But we do have emergencies, and a large majority of Americans want them addressed now. The point to keep in mind is really that Republicons absolutely don't have two-thirds majorities in both chambers.

[antoine-roquentin]

Koppel asked, "Several times during his administration, President Trump has made allusions to secret powers that he has that we don't know about. Is he making that up?"

"Well, not exactly," Goitein replied. "And what's alarming about that is that no one really knows what the limits of those claimed authorities might be, because they are often developed and kept in secret."

Goitein says what little we do know about PEADs comes from references to them in other documents, some of which are now declassified.

"They originated in the Eisenhower administration as part of an effort to try to plan for a potential Soviet nuclear attack," Goitein said. "But since then, they've expanded to address other types of emergencies as well. No presidential emergency action document has even been released, or even leaked. Not even Congress has access to them, which is really pretty extraordinary when you consider that even the most highly-classified covert military and intelligence operations have to be reported to at least eight Members of Congress, the 'Gang of Eight.'"

"You're saying they are not consulting with Congress?" Koppel asked.

"Exactly," said Goitein. "Congress is not aware of these documents, and from public sources we know that at least in the past these documents have purported to do things that are not permitted by the Constitution – things like martial law and the suspension of habeas corpus and the roundup and detention of people not suspected of any crime."

Hart said, "The reason these documents are secret is, for 11 administrations, people in power did not want to frighten the American people, or to demonstrate what might happen to their constitutional rights and liberties.

"Every administration, including Democratic administrations, has revised and updated these powers. I started contacting friends of mine, of both parties, who had been in senior positions, and I got two responses, or one response which is, 'I've never heard of these powers' (and these are people in senior cabinet positions), or, I got no response at all. And it was the no-response-at-all from people I knew that began to worry me. Because there not only is secrecy around these powers, there is mystery around the secrecy."

"I think I know as much about the PEADs as any other American citizen, which is almost nothing at all," said David Cole, national legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union – and he is concerned about the vast array of presidential emergency powers that we do know about.

Under the National Emergencies Act of 1976 alone, the president can declare a national emergency just by signing a proclamation.

Cole said, "We've got a president who, in his first week in office, essentially declared an emergency to ban Muslims from coming into the country. More recently, [he] declared a widely understood to be a fake emergency in order to build a border wall when Congress told him they would not give him the funds to create a border wall.  

"And most recently, [he] has declared that he may need to delay the election, which would be an emergency authority that doesn't even exist. So, I think you have to be very concerned."

ironically, for someone who complains about the deep state so much, use and abuse of continuity of government powers is the very core of the american deep state

[newstfionline]

Monday, March 22, 2021

Under Biden, A New Kind of Family Separation (Politico) The door to the U.S. has been shut tight to asylum seekers since last March, when the Trump administration issued an order at the onset of the coronavirus pandemic that every migrant—child or adult—would be immediately “expelled” back to Mexico or their home country if they attempted to cross the border, without even a chance to make a case that the persecution they face qualifies them to stay. After he took office this year, Joe Biden kept the policy largely in place, but began to admit unaccompanied minors even while continuing to expel both adults and children who enter with families. Since the shift in policy, some parents and guardians have made the devastating decision, calculated only out of desperation, to send their children off ahead of them, alone, to cross the border. The result is a new form of family separation—but instead of happening at the hands of federal agents in American government facilities, it’s taking place family by family. The fact that minors won’t be expelled like everyone else has rapidly spread by word of mouth across the length of the border. And while many families choose to stick together, the pressure to separate weighs heaviest on the most vulnerable—families who fear death, whether from persecutors who have followed them to the border, or from extreme hunger. One immigration official said, “This kind of information spreads like wildfire: If you hear about a child successfully making it, and your kids are desperate or sick or in danger, there are a lot of reasons why you would make that incredibly difficult decision.”

US businesses near border struggle with boundaries’ closure (AP) Evan Kory started calling brides in Mexico’s northern Sonora state last March, asking if they wanted to get their wedding gowns from his Arizona store just before the U.S. closed its borders with Mexico and Canada because of the coronavirus. His namesake shop in the border town of Nogales was popular among brides-to-be in northern Sonora for its large, affordable inventory, said Kory, the third-generation proprietor. Located steps from the border fence, Kory’s has been in business for half a century but has been closed for a year because of the pandemic, with its main customer base—Mexican day-trippers—largely unable to come to the U.S. and shop. In border towns across the U.S., small businesses are reeling from the economic fallout of the partial closure of North America’s international boundaries. Restrictions on nonessential travel were put in place a year ago to curb the spread of the virus and have been extended almost every month since, with exceptions for trade, trucking and critical supply chains. Small businesses, residents and local chambers of commerce say the financial toll has been steep, as have the disruptions to life in communities where it’s common to shop, work and sleep in two different countries.

Miami Beach mayor declares emergency as ‘wall-to-wall’ crowds descend on city, sparking virus fears (The Week) Miami Beach, Florida, Mayor Dan Gelber on Saturday declared a state of emergency, set an 8 p.m. curfew, and closed roads in the entertainment district as large crowds arrived in the city, sparking fears of another coronavirus surge. Law enforcement officials said people flocked to Miami Beach because they were looking for a place with fewer pandemic restrictions—Florida reopened earlier than most states—but city leadership thinks it’s gone too far, The New York Times reports. “Too many people are coming, really, without the intention of following the rules, and the result has been a level of chaos and disorder that is just something more than we can endure,” Gelber told CNN, adding that at night the city “feels like a rock concert, wall-to-wall people over blocks and blocks.” Raul Aguila, the interim city manager, said “you couldn’t see pavement, you couldn’t see grass.”

Eruption of Iceland volcano easing, not affecting flights (AP) The eruption of a long-dormant volcano that sent streams of lava flowing across a small valley in southwestern Iceland is easing and shouldn’t interfere with air travel, the Icelandic Meteorological Office said Saturday. The eruption is “minor” and there were no signs of ash or dust that could disrupt aviation, the agency said. In 2010, an eruption of the Eyjafjallajokull volcano in Iceland sent clouds of ash and dust into the atmosphere, interrupting air travel between Europe and North America because of concerns the material could damage jet engines. More than 100,000 flights were grounded, stranding millions of passengers.

Protesters Across Europe Clash With Police Over COVID-19 Lockdowns (NPR) Anger at restrictions imposed to contain the coronavirus pandemic swept into the streets of Europe on Saturday. German police used water cannons, pepper spray and clubs on protesters rallying over the coronavirus lockdown in the town of Kassel in central Germany where demonstrators numbered some 20,000. Protests against government measures to rein in the pandemic were also reported in Austria, Britain, Finland, Romania and Switzerland. Protesters held placards that read, “Fear Westmonster, Not the Virus, and “Stop Destroying Our Kids’ Lives” as they marched in central London along Oxford Street, the Embankment and Parliament Square before heading up to Whitehall.

Europe’s COVID-19 setbacks risk another summer travel washout (Reuters) Europe’s airlines and travel sector are bracing for a second lost summer, with rebound hopes increasingly challenged by a hobbled COVID-19 vaccine rollout, resurgent infections and new lockdowns. Airline and travel stocks fell on Friday after Paris and much of northern France shut down for a month, days after Italy introduced stiff business and movement curbs for most of the country including Rome and Milan. The setbacks hit recovery prospects for the crucial peak season, whose profits typically tide airlines through winter, when most carriers lose money even in good times. Airlines that have already racked up billions in debt face further strain that some may not survive without fresh funds.

Massive religious gathering worries India as COVID-19 cases surge (Reuters) India’s health ministry warned on Sunday that a huge gathering of devotees for a Hindu festival could send coronavirus cases surging, as the country recorded the most new infections in nearly four months. The ministry said up to 40 people were testing positive for COVID-19 daily around the site of the weeks-long Mahakumbh that began this month and peaks in April in the Himalayan holy town of Haridwar, next to the Ganges. The festival is held only once every 12 years. Organisers have said here more than 150 million visitors are expected, as many Hindus believe bathing in the river during this period absolves people of sins and bring salvation from the cycle of life and death.

Myanmar Protesters Answer Military’s Bullets With an Economic Shutdown (NYT) Bank tellers’ windows are gathering dust. Cargo at the port sits uncollected. And in grand government ministries in Naypyidaw, the capital of Myanmar, stacks of documents are curling in the humidity. There are few people to process all the paperwork. Since the military seized power in a coup last month, an entire nation has come to a standstill. From hospitals, railways and dockyards to schools, shops and trading houses, much of society has stopped showing up for work in an attempt to stymie the military regime and force it to return authority to a civilian government. While demonstrators continue to brave bullets—at least 220 people have been killed since the Feb. 1 coup, according to a local group that monitors political imprisonments and deaths—the quiet persistence of this mass civil disobedience movement has grown into a potent weapon against the military. For all the planning that went into the putsch, the generals seem to have been utterly unprepared for the breadth and depth of resistance against them. The effect of millions of people refusing to do their jobs has been dramatic, even if the military is built to withstand pressure. Up to 90 percent of national government activity has ceased, according to officials from four ministries.

N. Korean diplomats leaving Malaysia after ties are severed (AP) North Korean diplomats vacated their embassy in Malaysia and prepared to leave the country Sunday, after the two nations cut diplomatic relations in a spat over the extradition of a North Korean criminal suspect to the United States. Ties between North Korea and Malaysia have been virtually frozen since the 2017 assassination of the estranged half brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at Kuala Lumpur International Airport. Two days after Kuala Lumpur extradited a North Korean man to the U.S. to face money laundering charges, a furious North Korea on Friday announced it was terminating ties with Malaysia. Malaysia denounced the decision and in a tit-for-tat response, gave North Korean diplomats 48 hours to leave.

Strong quake shakes Japan; minor injuries, no major damage (AP) A strong earthquake struck Saturday off northern Japan, shaking buildings even in Tokyo and triggering a tsunami advisory for a part of the northern coast. No major damage was reported, but several people had minor injuries. The U.S. Geological Survey put the strength of the quake at magnitude 7.0 and depth at 54 kilometers (33.5 miles). The shaking started just before 6:10 p.m. The quake was centered off the coast of Miyagi prefecture, in the country’s rugged northeast, which was heavily damaged during the huge earthquake and tsunami of 2011 that left more than 18,000 people dead. The strong temblor caused a temporary blackout in some areas and suspended bullet train services in the area, according to the East Japan Railway Co.

Wary Philippines says 200 Chinese vessels at disputed reef (AP) The Philippine government expressed concern after spotting more than 200 Chinese fishing vessels it believed were crewed by militias at a reef claimed by both countries in the South China Sea, but it did not immediately lodge a protest. A government body overseeing the disputed region said late Saturday that about 220 Chinese vessels were seen moored at Whitsun Reef on March 7. It released pictures of the vessels lying side by side in one of the most hotly contested areas of the strategic waterway. The reef, which Manila calls Julian Felipe, is a boomerang-shaped and shallow coral region about 175 nautical miles (324 kilometers) west of Bataraza town in the western Philippine province of Palawan. It’s well within the country’s exclusive economic zone, over which the Philippines “enjoys the exclusive right to exploit or conserve any resources,” the agency said in a statement. China, the Philippines and four other governments have been locked in a tense territorial standoff over the resource-rich and busy waterway for decades.

Heavy rains in Australia’s east bring worst floods in 50 years (Reuters) Heavy rains along Australia’s east coast over the weekend have brought the worst flooding in half a century in some areas, authorities said on Sunday, forcing thousands to evacuate and damaging hundreds of houses. New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian said the downpour across the state, Australia’s most populous with 8 million people, was worse than initially expected, especially for low-lying areas in Sydney’s northwest. People in parts of Sydney’s northwest were ordered to flee their houses in the middle of the night as fast-moving waters caused widespread destruction. Late on Sunday, about another 1,000 people were asked to evacuate, after Berejiklian said that some 4,000 people may be asked to leave their houses.

Pope Struggles to Contain Conservative-Liberal Tensions in Catholic Church (WSJ) Pope Francis is struggling to manage powerful bishops in the U.S. and Germany, two groups at opposite ends of the ideological spectrum, as he tries to advance his progressive agenda without jeopardizing the unity of the Catholic Church. The election of President Biden, a progressive Catholic whom some U.S. bishops want to censure for his support of abortion rights, has exacerbated longstanding tensions between the pope and the largely conservative American episcopate. U.S. church leaders have resisted promoting the pope’s priorities of social and economic justice and care for the environment over opposition to abortion and defense of religious freedom. On the left, the pope is trying to rein in German bishops who—encouraged by the pope’s liberalizing gestures on topics including sexuality, ecumenism and the role of women—are pressing for changes that go further than Pope Francis is comfortable with, and that conservatives warn could cause a schism. Each country presents “a different set of issues, a different set of struggles but I think some of the underlying dynamics are the same,” said Adam DeVille, a professor of theology at Indiana’s University of Saint Francis. “In both cases, the pope I think is really trying to say, ‘come on guys, let’s rein it in here, let’s get back into the same lane all together.’”

[mindblowingscience]

Three environmental groups are suing President Donald Trump's administration to stop further construction on the southern US border wall, arguing that it threatens endangered wildlife such as jaguars and wolves.

The lawsuit was filed Tuesday in US federal court in Washington by Defenders of Wildlife, Center for Biological Diversity and the Animal Legal Defense Fund.

Building a wall on the Mexican border was one of Trump's key campaign promises and has been one of his top government priorities.

When the US Congress failed to allocate enough funds for wall building, Trump declared a national emergency and re-allocated funds from the military.

Tuesday's lawsuit argues that environmental harm "includes construction on protected federal lands including National Forests, and adverse impacts to threatened and endangered species listed under the Endangered Species Act, as well as their designated critical habitat."

Continue Reading.

[theculturedmarxist]

The fascist insurrection in Washington DC—which resulted in the storming of the US Congress, the panicked dispersal of terrified senators and members of the House, the delay of the official validation of Joseph Biden’s Electoral College majority, and even the occupation of the office of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi—is a turning point in the political history of the United States.

The hoary glorifications of the invincibility and timelessness of American democracy have been totally exposed and discredited as a hollow political myth. The popular phrase “It Can’t Happen Here,” taken from the title of Sinclair Lewis’ justly famous fictional account of the rise of American fascism, has been decisively overtaken by events. Not only can a fascist coup happen here. It has happened here, on the afternoon of January 6, 2021.

Moreover, even if the initial effort has fallen short of its goal, it will happen again.

What occurred yesterday was the outcome of a carefully planned conspiracy. It was instigated by Donald Trump, who has been working with a gang of fascist conspirators strategically positioned within the White House and other powerful institutions, departments and agencies of the state. Wednesday’s operation carries with it the overwhelming stench of the Trump sons, close aides like Stephen Miller, and numerous others working behind the scenes within the military, the National Guard and the police.

The conspiracy utilized the well-known techniques of modern coups. The plotters identified the meeting of the Congress to ratify Biden’s Electoral College majority as the propitious time for action. The assault was prepared by weeks of lying claims by Trump and his minions that the 2020 election had been stolen. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell rendered critical service by withholding Republican recognition of Biden’s election for weeks, thus providing time and legitimacy to Trump’s efforts to discredit the election with totally fraudulent claims of ballot fraud.

A majority of Republican congressmen and a substantial number of Republican senators orchestrated Wednesday’s political debate at which the legitimacy of the Electoral College vote was challenged, to provide the necessary pretext for the planned right-wing uprising. The final signal for the storming of the Capitol building was given by Trump himself, who delivered an insurrectionary harangue to his supporters, who—one can be certain—were directed by elements with police, military and paramilitary training.

It has already been widely noted that the fascist gangs encountered virtually no resistance as they stormed the Capitol. In the most critical and vulnerable areas of the Capitol building, the police were hardly to be seen. To politically evaluate the police response on Wednesday, one has only to recall the violence deployed last June against a peaceful anti-police brutality demonstration in Lafayette Park.

Had a left-wing protest been called in Washington to protest Trump’s efforts to overthrow the results of the election, the demonstrators—as everyone knows—would have been met with a massive show of force by the police and National Guard. There would have been police sharpshooters placed strategically on every building in the vicinity of the protesters. Military helicopters and drones would have been circling overhead. The slightest unauthorized movement by the crowd, however peaceful, would have been met with demands for its immediate dispersal, followed within minutes by the launching of barrages of tear gas cannisters. Hundreds, if not thousands, would have been kettled and arrested.

The response of the Democratic Party to the coup has been a pathetic display of political spinelessness. The first hours of the insurrection passed without a single prominent Democratic leader issuing a clear denunciation of the conspiracy, nor did any prominent Democrats call for popular resistance to the coup. Former President Obama and the Clintons, who are followed by millions on Twitter, remained silent throughout the day.

As for the president-elect, Biden waited hours before finally appearing before the public. After describing the attack on the Capitol as sedition, Biden made this extraordinary appeal to the leader of the conspiracy: “I call on President Trump to go on national television now, to fulfill his oath and defend the Constitution and demand an end to this siege.”

Normally, when confronted with an attempt to overthrow the constitutional regime, the political leader threatened by the conspiracy must immediately seek to deprive the traitors of all access to the mass media and a nationwide audience. But Biden, instead, called on Trump to appear on national television—to call off the insurrection he himself had organized!

Biden concluded his remarks with the following clarion call. “So, President Trump, step up.” This bankrupt appeal to the would-be fascist dictator will go down in history as Biden’s “Hitler, do the right thing” speech.

The Democrats, let alone the media, have no intention of exposing the full depth of the conspiracy and holding its plotters and organizers responsible. The effort to cover up the crime has already begun, with the media bloviating on the need for Democrats and Republicans “to come together in bipartisan unity.”

The decision of the House and the Senate, in the evening hours, to uphold Biden’s election is not the end of the crisis.

Appeals for “unity” with the conspirators clear the path for the next effort to carry out a fascist coup d’état. This is the lesson of the invasion of the state Capitol last April by armed fascist thugs in Lansing, Michigan and the subsequent conspiracy in the autumn of 2020 to kidnap and assassinate the Democratic governor of the state, Gretchen Whitmer. The Democratic Party and media quickly suppressed coverage of these crimes and hardly defended Whitmer against the attack. The plotters, thus far, have received little more than a slap on the wrist.

The Democrats’ response to the fascist conspiracy is not dictated merely by cowardice or stupidity. Rather, as representatives of the financial-corporate oligarchy, they are frightened that the exposure of the criminal conspiracy and its political aims would ignite a mass response within the working class that would spiral into a movement against the capitalist state and the interests it serves.

The effort to conceal the conspiracy must be opposed. Workers must take up the demand for the immediate removal and arrest of Trump. He cannot be allowed to remain in office, utilizing the immense power of the presidency to continue his plotting. His retention of the White House represents a massive threat to the people of the United States and the world. Trump still has the power to declare a national emergency and even launch a war. His finger remains on the nuclear trigger.

Nor should his co-conspirators be left in office. The Republican senators and congressmen involved in the conspiracy must be likewise removed from the Senate and Congress, arrested, placed on trial and sent to prison.

The continuing reference by the Democrats to their “Republican colleagues” is itself a mockery of democracy.

The demand must be raised for a public investigation with open hearings, aimed at identifying all those involved in the conspiracy, leading to their arrest and imprisonment.

Absolutely no confidence should be placed in the in-coming Biden administration—assuming that his inauguration is not blocked by a further uprising—to hold the conspirators to account and defend democracy.

It must never be forgotten that Biden and the Democrats represent nothing more than another political faction of the same ruling class. As Obama declared immediately after Trump’s election, the conflict between the Democrats and Republicans is nothing more than an “intramural scrimmage,” i.e., a friendly fight between members of the same team. In a statement issued Wednesday evening, Obama singled out Republicans for praise, writing obsequiously: “I’ve been heartened to see many members of the president’s party speak up forcefully today.” The only purpose of such a statement is to conceal the truth about the extent of the fascist coup.

The events of January 6, 2021 must be taken as a warning. The working class must elaborate a political strategy and plan of action to defeat future efforts to impose a dictatorship.

The political and economic dynamic of capitalist reaction and counterrevolution will continue, even with Trump out of office. This dynamic will not abate after January 20. The Democratic Party, whose congressional and senatorial delegation is stacked with millionaires and people with the closest ties to the CIA and the military, are no less capable than the Republicans of organizing a conspiracy to suppress democratic rights.

In any event, the policies of the Biden administration, which will pursue policies set by Wall Street and the military, will perpetuate and escalate the anger and frustration exploited by the fascists.

Throughout the past year, as it has conducted an unrelenting struggle against the ruling class policy of herd immunity, the Socialist Equality Party has shown in detail the connection between the ruling class’s inhuman response to the pandemic and the Trump administration’s assault on democratic rights.

The danger has not passed.

It is essential to build a network of rank-and-file committees in factories and workplaces capable of organizing broad-based popular resistance through the mobilization of all sections of the working class.

Above all, workers must understand that the disintegration of American democracy is rooted in the crisis of capitalism. In a society riven by staggering levels of social inequality, it is impossible to preserve democracy.

Draw the lessons of January 6!

Take up the fight for socialism and the defense of democratic rights by joining the Socialist Equality Party.

[nigerianeye]

Trump declares national emergency to build a wall https://nigerianeyez.blogspot.com/2019/02/trump-declares-national-emergency-to.html

[ingek73]

Joe Biden has marked the start of his presidency by signing a flurry of executive orders on a suite of issues, including Covid-19, the environment, immigration, and ethics.

Some of the executive actions undo significant actions from Donald Trump’s administration, including halting the travel ban from Muslim-majority countries, and ending the declaration of a national emergency used to justify funding construction of a wall on the US-Mexico border.

Biden returns US to Paris climate accord hours after becoming president

He also signed an order allowing the United States to rejoin the Paris climate agreement and end the Trump administration’s efforts to exclude undocumented immigrants from the census data used to determine how many seats in Congress each state gets.

The president also moved quickly to address Covid-19, signing orders to mandate mask wearing and social distancing in federal buildings and lands and to create a position of a Covid-19 response coordinator.

In other moves, Biden also revoked the permit granted for the controversial Keystone XL pipeline and instructed all executive agencies to review executive actions that were “damaging to the environment, [or]unsupported by the best available science. Biden also ordered all executive branch employees to sign an ethics pledge and placed limits on their ability to lobby the government while he is in office. The new president also ordered federal agencies to review equity in their existing policies and come up with a plan in 200 days to address inequality in them.

[danwhobrowses]

A General Reminder for America

A week from now the General Election will have ended, the votes will be counted and a winner declared via the Electoral College. So for anyone who hasn’t already

Please Vote

The next 4 years are gonna be a pretty important time, not just for America but the world, we hope that it’ll start with coming out of COVID but then lies the issues of reshaping the way the world responds to pandemics, economy and employment will also be very important in the coming years, this election is very important for your country. And if you’re having some doubts on who to choose, I would still suggest Biden. I could go on an effective tirade of all the shit Trump has done in this past 4 years including but not limited to ending the Clean Power Plan, withdrawing from the Paris Agreement, Calling Climate Change a Hoax, saying that COVID is ‘going away’ as over a thousand Americans die of it daily, shut down the government and declared national emergency just to build a wall, was impeached (and only got not guilty because 99% of the Republicans who voted outnumbered the 2 Republicans and all Democrats and Neutral Party voters who all voted him guilty), prohibited transgenders from military service unless they serve in their ‘original sex assignment’ and when given the platform to condemn racism instead said ‘stand down and stand by’ among many many others but one does not have the time. Instead I’ll put it plainly. You have two candidates in this race: One is endorsed by 2 presidents, 2 VPs and several nobel prize winners - and when I say several I mean it’s close to 100. The other is endorsed by 1 VP, he’s also endorsed by Vladimir Putin, the Grand Wizard of the KKK, and the Taliban, no nobel prize winners. If you’re drawing a blank the first guy is Biden and the second guy is Trump Choose Wisely: Vote.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Private equity looting public health in a pandemic

During a 2007 trip to NYC, while taking long walks from one indie bookstore to the next, lugging increasingly heavy bags of pressed vegetable matter, I stumbled on Simon Lovell's HOW TO CHEAT AT EVERYTHING at the St Mark's Bookshop.

https://www.runningpress.com/titles/simon-lovell/how-to-cheat-at-everything/9781560259732/

Despite the title, its really about about NOT getting cheated: anatomical dissections of scams that show you how they work. One thing that stuck with me from all that is how to spot a dirty "proposition" bet, a variable-odds bet on a specific outcome from a range of outcomes.

Lovell's rule of thumb is the more complicated a bet is, the scammier it is. If it pays 2:1 for one outcome, 5:1 for another, and 100:1 for a third, it's probably a scam. Complexity confounds your ability to match odds to payouts - to intuit whether it's a good bet.

I remember being at Defcon one year and going into a Vegas casino and asking a craps croupier to explain how the game worked, and as he rattled off the different odds on the different paylines, I was like, Ohhhhh, I get this. This is a scam.

The next time I had that feeling was during the financial crisis, when I started to learn about CDOs and other complex derivatives, and how their originators presented them to investors, using esoteric math to prove they were safe. Ohhh, I thought. Oh, I get it.

The more I learned about finance, the more this insight came back to me. Because so often the complexity was revealed to be an ornament, a form of dazzle there to confuse the eye about the true shape of the transaction.

The rococo equations where set-dressing to support the idea that mere mortals are disqualified from discussing,  understanding, or regulating the finance industry. And nowhere is that more in evidence than in the private equity world.

Because the underlying scam is pretty simple, tbh. Borrow money using the company you're acquiring as collateral (that's right: you're using an asset you don't own as collateral to acquire it - like a mortgage, except the transaction is nonconsensual for the "seller").

Sell off the company's assets, especially real-estate holdings, so the company now has to pay rent for its own buildings (this is very popular with PE takeovers of chain restaurants, exposing them to rent-shocks).

Eliminate cost-centers that provide long-term value to the company, but whose absence isn't felt in the short term - like buying up newspapers and firing the local sales staff who know local merchants, consolidating sales to a national office.

(If you think Google and Facebook killed newspapers, you're not wrong, but you're not right either: they'd been consolidated and asset stripped for decades, had their cash reserves, plant and real estate sold off, and were weak and flailing when the internet came along)

Declare a special dividend for the PE owners and their investors, in which the cash you realize from the selloffs disappears into offshore tax-havens, leaving behind a damaged, failing business.

When the company fails, restructure it through bankruptcy. Take special care to zero out obligations to suppliers (the entire US independent toy industry was annihilated by the PE shutdown of Toys R Us) and workers (bye, Sears pensions).

Engage in predatory conduct. Buy doctors' groups that serve hospital emergency rooms and opt them out of all insurance plans. Stick people who show up in ambulances, unconscious or in extremis, with titanic bills. $5k for an icepack? Why not!

Make minimal payments to the creditors who loaned you the money to do the leveraged buyout. Maybe buy the debt from them at pennies on the dollar and start extracting debt payments from the company - predatory behavior can help with this!

Hospitals and newspapers are really great for this, because they're important so they get bailouts. Canada's giant newspaper bailout will direct millions in taxpayer funds to the US vulture capitalists who tanked Postmedia and the National Post.

Hospitals are an AMAZING storefront for this kind of long-con, especially in a crisis. There are so many ways to cash out. They're like the craps-table of The Pandemic Casino, a moneyspinner for the casino boss.

Like, if you happen to own a beloved low-income hospital that has served poor people in a city with some of the worst poverty in America, you can offer to rent it to the city for $1m/month!

https://pluralistic.net/2020/04/02/eff-livestream-today/#joel-kills

Or if you're a PE company that staffs about half of the country's hospitals (especially their front-line ER docs and nurses), you can slash their pay and benefits and they'll keep showing up for work!

https://pluralistic.net/2020/04/01/pluralistic:-01-apr-2020/#private-equity

Or you can just demand a bailout. Steward is a PE-backed hospital chain whose debt-loaded acquisition of Easton Hospital in Lehigh Valley (PA) left the region's major hospital saddled with so much debt it was already on the brink of collapse.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/04/03/hospital-bailouts-begin-for-those-owned-by-private-equity-firms/

It's owned by Cerberus, a giant and notorious PE looter. Cerebus is about to pocket $8m in bailout money approved by PA governor Tom Wolf, who was responding to Steward's threat to shut down the hospital effective Mar 27 if it didn't get a payout.

https://www.lehighvalleylive.com/coronavirus/2020/03/easton-hospital-owner-to-proceed-immediately-on-closure-without-state-takeover-by-midnight.html

The $8m is a downpayment, and there's $24m more to come. It's true that when Cerebus bought Easton Hospital, it was struggling...because it had ALREADY been debt-loaded by another PE looter, Forstmann Little & Co.

And while Cerebus's investors have made huge profits from the transaction, the Steward hospitals are the worst-performing in PA, with $592m in losses in 2017/8.

http://www.chiamass.gov/assets/Uploads/mass-hospital-financials/2018-annual-report/Acute-Hospital-Health-System-Financial-Performance-Report-FY2018.pdf

When PE companies acquire doctors' groups, they argue that they're merely investing in the front-line caregivers, and that these are still owned and representative of those doctors who save our lives. But that's a lie.

Dr Ming Lin is a 17-year ER veteran who was just fired from Bellingham, WA's  Peacehealth St. Joseph Medical Center after going public about the lack of PPE and the unsafe conditions for caregivers and patients at his hospital.

The company that fired him is Teamhealth, owned by Blackstone. the largest PE company in the world. Teamhealth says that the doctor's practices it owns are actually run by doctors, but has refused to publish the operating agreements it has with those docs.

Docs like Ming Lin. If you believe Teamhealth practices are run by docs, then you have to believe that Ming Lin fired himself. Otherwise, Blackstone fired him.

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2020/04/what-wall-street-doesnt-want-you-to-know-about-hospital-emergency

Blackstone has ordered ALL of its docs to be silent on lack of PPE, on pain of immediate dismissal. Its CEO, Stephen Schwarzman, is a Trump insider, and the order protects Trump from negative news stories that reveal his complicity in the negligent homicide of Americans.

Private equity is a scam. The math that shows that it's providing value - as opposed to helping socially useless parasites loot real businesses that provide real value - is a window-dressing, like fraudulent bond ratings that were used to sell CDOs.

Image: Lisa Brewster https://www.flickr.com/photos/sophistechate/2670946312

CC BY-SA https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/

[trueconservativepundit]

Congressional Democratic Leaders Ignored the Experts Concerning the Border Wall - the U.S. Border Patrol

Congressional Democratic Leaders Ignored the Experts Concerning the Border Wall – the U.S. Border Patrol

By Jon Dougherty for The National Sentinel

After Democratic leaders claimed they would ‘listen to the experts’ when deciding on wall funding, the head of the Border Patrol’s union said this week that lawmakers ignored them completely by agreeing to less than $1.4 billion in the new funding bill.

The National Border Patrol Council has consistently supported POTUS Donald Trump’s call for new border…

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

March 16, 2021

Heather Cox Richardson

Today, I’m watching some stories that have immediate significance, but also indicate larger trends.

First, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) has asked the Justice Department, now overseen by Attorney General Merrick Garland, to look into the unusual circumstances through which Brett Kavanaugh’s large debts disappeared before his nomination to the Supreme Court. While this question is important to understanding Kavanaugh’s position on our Supreme Court, it is more than that: it is part of a larger investigation into the role of big money in our justice system.

Last May, Whitehouse, along with Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) and Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY), released a report titled “Captured Courts: The GOP’s Big Money Assault On The Constitution, Our Independent Judiciary, And The Rule of Law.” It outlined how the “Conservative Legal Movement has rewritten federal law to favor the rich and powerful,” how the Federalist Society and special-interest money control our courts, and how the system benefits the big-money donors behind the Republicans.

On March 10, Whitehouse began hearings to investigate the role of big money in Supreme Court nominations and decisions. Aside from Chief Justice John Roberts, every Supreme Court justice named by a Republican president has ties to the Federalist Society, a group that advocates an originalist interpretation of the Constitution, which prohibits the use of the courts to regulate business or to defend civil rights.

So while it is the Kavanaugh story that is getting media attention, the longer story is about whether our courts have been bought.

Another story on my list is that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell today warned Democrats in the Senate not to get rid of the filibuster to pass voting rights legislation. “Nobody serving in this chamber can even begin, can even begin, to imagine what a completely scorched-earth Senate would look like,” he said. But, in fact, they can, because it was McConnell himself who got rid of the filibuster to hammer through Trump’s Supreme Court nominees, and who pushed through Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, which benefited only the very wealthy, by using a technique that avoided the filibuster.

McConnell warned that, without the filibuster, he would defund Planned Parenthood, pass anti-abortion legislation, and create national concealed-carry gun laws. But all of these measures are quite unpopular in the nation, so it’s not clear that these are threats the Democrats want to avoid. It’s entirely possible that permitting the Republicans to push through those measures would hurt the Republicans, rather than the Democrats.

Democrats are talking about reforming the filibuster because they are keen on passing H.R. 1, the voting rights act that would defang the voter suppression measures Republicans are pushing in 43 states. If those measures become law, it will be hard for the Democrats ever again to win control of the government, no matter how popular they are. H.R. 1 will level the democratic playing field, so both parties compete fairly. But fair elections will disadvantage Republicans, who have come to rely on voter suppression to win.

Hence McConnell’s threats.

For his part—in a third story I’m watching-- Biden is reaching out to Republicans with an infrastructure package. Republicans were caught wrongfooted when they all voted against the enormously popular American Rescue Plan, and he is offering them an infrastructure bill at the same time Democrats have gotten rid of a ban on so-called “earmarks,” local spending funded in a federal package. Earmarks tend to increase bipartisanship by enabling lawmakers to go home to their constituents with something tangible in hand in exchange for their vote on a bill. Infrastructure spending is popular among voters in both parties, so this approach might break the united front of Republican lawmakers to oppose all Democratic policies.

Finally, I am fascinated by the Democratic-led, bipartisan move among congressional leaders to repeal the 2002 authorization for the Iraq War. President Biden has called for a “more narrow and specific” authorization of military force (AUMF), and 83 Democratic lawmakers and 7 Republicans agree. Their dislike of the AUMF comes from its expansion under former president Trump, who used it to justify the assassination of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani—an official from a country with which we are not at war—saying that Soleimani was undermining efforts to stabilize Iraq’s government. This was an expansion of military action that legal analysts think might well have been illegal.

In the past, Congress had justified AUMFs with the idea that they could control the president by controlling the money behind military actions, but Trump commandeered money to build his wall by declaring a national security emergency, buying time to do what he wished by forcing Democrats to take him to court to stop him. This opened up concerns that the power of the purse was really no power at all if a president chose to undermine it.

The willingness to hand to the president the power to engage us in military action illustrates the dangerous growth of power in the executive branch. I will follow with interest whether Biden’s interest in returning us to the traditional forms of the Constitution extends to reducing the power of the president to assume Congress's role in taking us into war.

—-

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[igarinsmusings-blog]

The United States In Disarray | WhiteHouse | President - Trump

Does this make sense to anyone? A man is elected president, -Trump-, despite insulting a national hero late Senator John McCain, making fun of a handicapped reporter, stating that because he is famous, he can grab women by the crotch and they won’t mind, referring to people coming across our border as being criminals.  Using hyperbole as the means by which to make sense of statements that in spite of number words, still remain nonsensical, childish and at times ignorant at best.  A man three-times divorced due to infidelities, a man involved in innumerable lawsuits from people who had done honest work for him and yet he had decided not to pay them their due.  A man who had in the past been accused of racism by not allowing African-Americans to rent in his properties.

Upon taking office, lies poured out of the White House including the meaningless size of the crowd at his inauguration which indeed was one of the smaller crowds for such an event.  Many of those handpicked by the newly elected president have resigned under a cloud of mystery or to avoid being looked into and perhaps questionable deeds found out, nine others have been indicted for crimes related to the Trump campaign and connections with Russia, something that for those who are unable to understand the extent of which is treason.

The man campaigned on a promise to build a wall at the southern border with funds that Mexico would provide…Well, of course this didn’t pan out, so 34 days ago he closed the government because the House will not approve of $5.7 billion that can be used for far more important things and will not be allocated for building this wall that was to be funded by Mexico, so now, does anyone else see the contradiction and outright nonsense behind this?

While in office, Trump has referred to those marching in a white supremacist rally as fine, and that makes him a racist.  He has taken the word of Putin a known dictator and assassin of his opponents, over the findings of our intelligence agencies regarding Russian meddling in the 2016 election, and this makes him a traitor.  He has stated he had no business in Russia, then stated that this was not done while campaigning, then went on to state that these negotiations were no longer entertained upon taking office, that makes him a liar.

And now, after reopening the government with a 21-day timeline in which he will get his $5.7 billion for this idiotic wall or barrier, otherwise he will shut down the government again and declare a national emergency.  What in the world is this? How can this great nation be at the mercy of this individual who sits in the White House only because 62,985,105 people who just wanted to see a Caucasian man in the White House, who believed or turned a blind to the reality before them, that they were voting for a corrupt, unprincipled and outright disgusting individual.  This is absurd and ludicrous and if this was happening in another country, we would be throwing our arms in the air stating how ridiculous this is that a nation would allow their elected officials to be such scum.