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You are here: Home / Politics / America / North Carolina Legislative Coup Under Cover of Law is Underway

North Carolina Legislative Coup Under Cover of Law is Underway

by Adam L Silverman|  December 14, 201611:06 pm| 220 Comments

This post is in: America, Domestic Politics, Don't Mourn, Organize, Election 2016, Open Threads, Politics, Post-racial America, Ever Get The Feeling You've Been Cheated?, Our Awesome Meritocracy, Our Failed Political Establishment

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North Carolina’s GOP majority state legislature and its outgoing Republican Governor Pat McCrory are attempting to overturn McCrory’s loss through legislative shenanigans. Their intention is to so weaken the governorship and the now Democratic majority NC Supreme Court so that neither the incoming Governor or the new Democratic majority on North Carolina’s have any power or authority to actually exercise. Rick Hasen from Electablog has all the details.

under the NC elections bill it would take 6 of 8 votes to get anything done /2

— Rick Hasen (@rickhasen) December 15, 2016

the NC bill strips or makes more difficult appeals to the state Supreme court raising constitutional claims /3

— Rick Hasen (@rickhasen) December 15, 2016

In short, this is the definition of chutzpah, and court packing plan was apparently a distraction, though it could also still come 6/6

— Rick Hasen (@rickhasen) December 15, 2016

As Hasen elaborates on his site:

While many people were worried about whether there would be a court-packing plan for the NC Supreme Court (about to have a majority of Democratic members)  in the special session on disaster relief that NC Governor Pat McCrory had called, it seems that NC GOP legislative leaders had a different trick up their sleeve: they have called a special session to start now at the end of the session called by the governor, and the plan seems to be to propose measures to cut the power of the incoming Democratic governor Roy Cooper.

Among the bills that have now been filed is one that would move from giving the state board of elections and county election boards a majority of seats for the sitting governor, to one which would make the sessions be evenly divided on a bipartisan basis.  So a partisan advantage was good enough when there was a Republican governor, but no longer.

In the meantime, NC Democrats are claiming that the call for the special session was itself unconstitutional, potentially rendering any bills from the session invalid.

And here’s the kicker: any lawsuit over these alleged rules will end up before the state Supreme Court with its new Democratic majority, unless the special session itself produces a court-packing plan, and if that happens the Court itself would have to resolve a key question about its own membership.

Democratic representative Darren Jackson on the special session: ““This is why people don’t trust us. This is why they hate us.”

Ow.

UPDATE:

It is much, much worse than it looks now that the bill is posted. The Democratic party appointees to the election board would chair in odd numbered years, and the Republican party appointees would chair in even numbered years (see page 4 of the bill), meaning that they would chair in each of the years in which there are legislative, congressional, and presidential elections.

The state supreme court would be limited in reviewing state constitutional and federal challenges, giving the power instead first to an en banc panel of intermediate appellate court judges (who of course are Republican majority) and limiting appeals as of right (see from pages 20 on in the bill).

If the bill passes in this form, I could see potential Voting Rights Act and federal constitutional challenges here, in part because the legislature would potentially be diluting minority voting power and making minority voters worse off, just at the time that their candidate of choice (Gov. Cooper) is poised to assume power.

The Reverend Dr. Barber and his Moral Monday’s movement is on the job and have already begun the response, including legal pushback if necessary.

Happening now: @RevDrBarber is on @maddow with @JoyAnnReid @MSNBC talking about the political hijacking in #NorthCarolina #MoralMondays

— RepairersOfTheBreach (@BRepairers) December 15, 2016

"The @NCGOP has entered 15 bills in their special session that was supposed to have been for hurricane relief!" –@RevDrBarber

— RepairersOfTheBreach (@BRepairers) December 15, 2016

"This is extremism run amuck!" –@RevDrBarber #MoralRevival #MoralMonday

— RepairersOfTheBreach (@BRepairers) December 15, 2016

This is obviously a fluid situation and will be a quickly moving story, so expect information to change as today turns into tomorrow, pressure is brought to bear, and the GOP majority in the North Carolina legislature have to bring their actions into the light of day.

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Reader Interactions

220Comments

  1. 1.

    James E Powell

    December 14, 2016 at 11:09 pm

    I got $50 that says they pretty much get away with it. When Trump appoints his second supreme court justice, it will be all over but the cryin’

  2. 2.

    fuckwit

    December 14, 2016 at 11:15 pm

    If you study US history, the last time you saw all of this desperate holding on to straws like this, was in the decade or two before First American Civil War.

    The Missouri Compromise, Fugitive Slave Act, Dred Scott, all of that horseshit.

    We are well on our way.

  3. 3.

    Mnemosyne

    December 14, 2016 at 11:16 pm

    In other clusterfuck news, it’s now being reported that Vladimir Putin was personally involved in fucking up our election.

    And the MSM and Republicans are going to keep acting like this is all totally normal and we’ve always been allies with Eastasia Russia. Remember when we fought WWII together? That was awesome!

  4. 4.

    Yarrow

    December 14, 2016 at 11:16 pm

    @fuckwit: Yep. I was thinking the same thing. I don’t think we’ll get out of this without violence.

  5. 5.

    Suzanne

    December 14, 2016 at 11:18 pm

    @Mnemosyne: Is there ANYHING we can do about this? Any damn thing?

  6. 6.

    Carolina Dave

    December 14, 2016 at 11:18 pm

    Yee Haw! I’m choosing to not go to Holiday parties where R’s are the majority. Thank goodness for a new Democratic Governor & AG.

  7. 7.

    Adam L Silverman

    December 14, 2016 at 11:19 pm

    @Mnemosyne: Yep, I was going to post that, but decided to do this one right now. Putin can wait till tomorrow. And this isn’t breaking news. Kurt Eichenwald actually broke this story back in October before the election and I wrote about it at the time. What is news is how little the network news/TV news was paying attention to this story so that they think they’ve just done original reporting when they’re almost 2 months behind.

  8. 8.

    Adam L Silverman

    December 14, 2016 at 11:21 pm

    @Suzanne: Go to the Repairers of the Breach’s website:
    http://www.breachrepairers.org/subscribe

    And they’ll give you updates and information on what is being done, what you could do to help out, things like that.

  9. 9.

    Eljai

    December 14, 2016 at 11:21 pm

    @fuckwit: When we win the next civil war (I still have hope!), we need to make sure the confederates are shamed into admitting their wrongs and make reparations, since they’ve clearly never gotten the lesson.

  10. 10.

    danielx

    December 14, 2016 at 11:21 pm

    @fuckwit:

    Afraid so. I’ve been afraid for a while that – one way or another – people are going to die as a direct result of this election. I have no idea how, or when, or where, but this is like Abe Lincoln’s evil alter ago was elected in the 1860 election.

  11. 11.

    khead

    December 14, 2016 at 11:22 pm

    It’s not that I don’t care about the republic, it’s just that I am tired tonight and want to share some fireplace kittehs.

  12. 12.

    EBT

    December 14, 2016 at 11:22 pm

    Said they were going to steal it.

  13. 13.

    Mnemosyne

    December 14, 2016 at 11:23 pm

    @Suzanne:

    I honestly have no clue. This is not a situation anyone seems to have anticipated.

    As I was saying in another thread, I almost can’t be mad at Putin. He has no responsibility to us. There’s no reason he should be expected to safeguard our democracy. I’m pissed at the fucking Republicans who spent the last 30 years hollowing our country out and sowing division to the point that they actually prefer us to be run by a foreign dictator than a Democrat.

  14. 14.

    Another Scott

    December 14, 2016 at 11:24 pm

    I’ve got family in W-S. This is horrible.

    I hope these anti-democratic machinations are slapped down quickly and hard.

    Thanks for the pointers to the ElectionLawBlog. It looks to be an important resource.

    Donate to the NC NAACP.

    Donate to the NC Democratic Party.

    Thanks Adam. This needs wide visibility and quickly.

    :-(

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  15. 15.

    MomSense

    December 14, 2016 at 11:24 pm

    @Mnemosyne:

    I’m beside myself. I can’t believe we are going to just let this happen. When I was in a car accident two years ago, I could see the oncoming car cross the median and drive directly at us for what seemed like an agonizingly long time. That’s what this feels like.

  16. 16.

    bmoak

    December 14, 2016 at 11:25 pm

    I’ve read that the NC lege has also stripped the governor of the power to appoint more than 1,000 statewide positions, which means that pretty much all of McCrory’s appointees will stick around.

  17. 17.

    Adam L Silverman

    December 14, 2016 at 11:25 pm

    @efgoldman: Hasen thinks it will. Its the 4th Circuit. Its going to go before the same judge that has been ripping the NC legislature’s actions to shreds. And remember, they have to redo the redistricting in 2017 under his order to undo the gerrymandering at both the state and Federal level for the 2018 election. This is a last gap attempt at obstructionism under cover of law.

  18. 18.

    Mnemosyne

    December 14, 2016 at 11:25 pm

    @Adam L Silverman:

    I went onto Facebook to post about it and saw a post from Fisher House where they’re auctioning off a signed MAGA hat.

    Fuckem. I unfollowed them and left a comment saying why. They don’t get another dime from me. They may not care if our soldiers get sent off to do Putin’s bidding, but I do.

  19. 19.

    burnspbesq

    December 14, 2016 at 11:26 pm

    Over the river and through the woods,
    To Federal Court we go

    Guess we will soon know whether the Constitutional guarantee of a “Republican form of government” means what it says.

  20. 20.

    Yarrow

    December 14, 2016 at 11:28 pm

    For those people who have been talking about California seceding (#Calexit), the separatist movements are supported by Russia. The head of the California initiative apparently lives in Moscow. Breaking up the USA is a goal of the Kremlin. It’s not something we probably want to support. You can read this thread for more info:

    Here's a recent shot of California and Texas separatist leaders meeting in Moscow: https://t.co/0pKymGb3Gk— Casey Michel (@cjcmichel) November 14, 2016

  21. 21.

    Wag

    December 14, 2016 at 11:28 pm

    We are so fucked if Obama and Biden don’t pull the rug out from under trump/Putin.

    I gotta think that they’re laying groundwork for something big. Friday afternoon is my bet.

  22. 22.

    Mnemosyne

    December 14, 2016 at 11:28 pm

    @khead:

    Thank you. I needed some kitteh bellies right about now.

  23. 23.

    Jeffro

    December 14, 2016 at 11:30 pm

    So they’ve basically gone EVEN MOAR bananas in NC, but none of it will stand once it hits the courts?? Why is this a bigger story than Putin personally directing the 2016 hacking and oppo distributions?

  24. 24.

    Adam L Silverman

    December 14, 2016 at 11:30 pm

    @bmoak: They haven’t done anything yet other than file the bills. All action on them will not take place till tomorrow. The Democratic caucus in the NC legislature has stated that because of how this additional special session was called, it is actually unconstitutional according to the NC state constitution. So there may be, I would argue there should be, an attempt to get a court order first thing tomorrow AM preventing any legislative activity until the constitutionality of the GOP majority’s actions can be determined.

  25. 25.

    Yarrow

    December 14, 2016 at 11:31 pm

    @Wag: You know, Friday afternoons have been amazing all throughout the election. All sorts of stuff happening on Friday afternoons…

  26. 26.

    Adam L Silverman

    December 14, 2016 at 11:32 pm

    @Yarrow: As I’ve written here several times: every state secession movement in the US, though usually we’re discussing Texas’s, are supported by Russia. Every secession movement, every breakaway movement, every neo-nationalist movement just about everywhere right now is backed by, financed by, and/or supported by Putin in some way, shape, or form.

  27. 27.

    Yarrow

    December 14, 2016 at 11:32 pm

    This NC stuff really is a last gasp of the desperate. I hope it pisses off the judge.

  28. 28.

    Adam L Silverman

    December 14, 2016 at 11:32 pm

    @Jeffro: Because that story was broken in October by Kurt Eichenwald in Newsweek and I wrote about it here at the time.

  29. 29.

    Omnes Omnibus

    December 14, 2016 at 11:33 pm

    @Mnemosyne: Adam probably is working up something detailed and interesting. Give him some time.

  30. 30.

    James E Powell

    December 14, 2016 at 11:33 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: @efgoldman:

    Once Trump appoints the deciding justice, it won’t matter what district or circuit courts do. They are going to shut down the democracy by permitting states wide latitude in deciding how to conduct elections.

    We, the Democrats, have got nothing.

  31. 31.

    Yarrow

    December 14, 2016 at 11:35 pm

    It boggles the mind that Lindsey Graham is the strongest patriotic voice in the Senate.

    If you don't go after Russia for hacking during 2016 election you're inviting other bad actors (China, N. Korea, Iran, etc.) to do the same.— Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) December 14, 2016

    @Adam L Silverman: Yes, they are supporting secession around the globe. Anything to destabilize.

  32. 32.

    Mnemosyne

    December 14, 2016 at 11:35 pm

    @Yarrow:

    Honestly, the California secessionists are very nutty. Nobody listens to them. But forming some kind of consortium between CA, OR, WA, HI, and NV could probably do some good in resisting Trump, even if it’s not an actual secession.

  33. 33.

    khead

    December 14, 2016 at 11:36 pm

    @Jeffro:

    Because the NC overreach is very easy to understand and doesn’t involve a “conspiracy theory” about Putin controlling the 2016 election.

  34. 34.

    Adam L Silverman

    December 14, 2016 at 11:36 pm

    @James E Powell: States already have wide latitude in deciding how to conduct elections.

  35. 35.

    khead

    December 14, 2016 at 11:37 pm

    @Mnemosyne:

    No problem. Everyone needs some kitteh belly.

  36. 36.

    Yarrow

    December 14, 2016 at 11:37 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: I think what is slightly different is that the White House is escalating the rhetoric.

  37. 37.

    Mnemosyne

    December 14, 2016 at 11:38 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    I know. I needed to vent somewhere other than the house thread. I didn’t want to ruin that safe space for everyone else.

  38. 38.

    amk

    December 14, 2016 at 11:38 pm

    8 years of burn it to the ground obstructionism rewarded/encouraged/ignored by voters. What else you expect?

  39. 39.

    Adam L Silverman

    December 14, 2016 at 11:39 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: That too. I’ll do something on it tomorrow. Had I not seen the NC thing, I probably wouldn’t have done a post tonight.

    I also expect that the leaks from senior officials are going to continue. They will drip out every day, each one building on and bigger than the last one. All so that so much pressure builds that either a Congressional Special Investigative Committee is established prior to the inauguration or a special commission, like the 9-11 commission, is created and the investigation is taken out of the hands of the Congress.

  40. 40.

    rikyrah

    December 14, 2016 at 11:39 pm

    This is who they are.

  41. 41.

    Adam L Silverman

    December 14, 2016 at 11:40 pm

    @Yarrow: I’m not surprised. I don’t agree with Senator Graham on most things in terms of domestic politics, but he doesn’t play a lot of games on national security, foreign, and defense policy.

  42. 42.

    Mnemosyne

    December 14, 2016 at 11:41 pm

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Every secession movement, every breakaway movement, every neo-nationalist movement just about everywhere right now is backed by, financed by, and/or supported by Putin in some way, shape, or form.

    But not Bernie Sanders’ campaign manager. That would just be a step too far, even for Putin. //

    (Sorry, dragging an ongoing argument up here. But, seriously, it’s like the time I tried to explain to a young male friend in college that the girls in pron magazines were Photoshopped and he was having NONE of it.)

  43. 43.

    SiubhanDuinne

    December 14, 2016 at 11:41 pm

    @Adam L Silverman:

    What is news is how little the network news/TV news was paying attention to this story so that they think they’ve just done original reporting when they’re almost 2 months behind.

    As rikyrah would say:

    uh huh

    uh huh

    PHUCK. OUTTA. HERE.

    (I adore rikyrah, and every time I quote her it is homage and high tribute.)

  44. 44.

    Adam L Silverman

    December 14, 2016 at 11:42 pm

    @Yarrow: Yep. As I wrote in reply to Omnes in comment 40:

    I also expect that the leaks from senior officials are going to continue. They will drip out every day, each one building on and bigger than the last one. All so that so much pressure builds that either a Congressional Special Investigative Committee is established prior to the inauguration or a special commission, like the 9-11 commission, is created and the investigation is taken out of the hands of the Congress.

  45. 45.

    Adam L Silverman

    December 14, 2016 at 11:42 pm

    @Mnemosyne: No worries, knock yourself out!

  46. 46.

    Yarrow

    December 14, 2016 at 11:42 pm

    I hope they are able to stop this NC power grab. I really admire Rev. Barber. I hope people from all across the country and going and learning from him how to do the same in their own states and cities.

    @James E Powell: Speaking of Trump appointing Justices. What’s to stop him from deciding that the Supreme Court needs to have 11 or 13 Justices on it and then just keep appointing them, each worse than the last.

  47. 47.

    GregB

    December 14, 2016 at 11:43 pm

    Watching Trump’s mouthpiece Scaramucci on Brian Williams.

    Starting to backpedal on Trump’s attacks on the CIA.

  48. 48.

    Kay

    December 14, 2016 at 11:43 pm

    in part because the legislature would potentially be diluting minority voting power and making minority voters worse off, just at the time that their candidate of choice (Gov. Cooper) is poised to assume power.

    That’s the problem with trying as hard as you can to suppress the votes of a huge group of your citizens. Sometimes they win anyway, and then you have to ratchet it up to hold onto power or risk losing it all.

  49. 49.

    Shalimar

    December 14, 2016 at 11:44 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: Democrats said rules were violated in getting the bathroom bill through both houses and signed by the governor on the same day too, but nothing ever came of it. We will see what the federal court does, because Republicans obviously don’t give a crap about public opinion.

  50. 50.

    Adam L Silverman

    December 14, 2016 at 11:45 pm

    @Mnemosyne: I believe that’s airbrushed, its what I’ve heard…

    As for Devine, my understanding is he was working over there, including doing some advising work for Yanukovych, but that his operation was small fry and he wasn’t very well connected. If this is accurate then he was a bit player, unlike Manafort and his partners and staff.

  51. 51.

    Yarrow

    December 14, 2016 at 11:45 pm

    @Mnemosyne:

    it’s like the time I tried to explain to a young male friend in college that the girls in pron magazines were Photoshopped and he was having NONE of it.)

    LOL. Seriously?

  52. 52.

    Adam L Silverman

    December 14, 2016 at 11:46 pm

    @Shalimar: I am just relating what Hasen read. He’s far more the expert on this stuff than I am.

  53. 53.

    Yarrow

    December 14, 2016 at 11:47 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: I really hope you’re right. I’d prefer the electors get briefed on this before they vote. I’d also like another vote, but given how Democrats vote in midterms, I’m not sure how well a special election would work.

    If President Obama appoints a special commission, what’s to keep President Trump from just canceling it once he’s in office. Dictators don’t follow laws they don’t like.

    The whole thing is really a mess.

  54. 54.

    GregB

    December 14, 2016 at 11:47 pm

    Trump and his follower’s hubris are going to be their undoing. I just think that Giuliani eagerly and creepily rubbing his hands on Fox News about the pending November surprise rafucking by Comey.

    There is also going to be an insider playing the John Dean role.

  55. 55.

    Hellbastard

    December 14, 2016 at 11:49 pm

    Seriously thinking about tooling up. Sick and tired of being treated like a second class citizen in this country. Would they try this stuff if they knew dems would descend on the state capital looking like an open carry rally?

  56. 56.

    Yarrow

    December 14, 2016 at 11:49 pm

    @GregB: Who’s going to play the Woodward and Bernstein roles?

  57. 57.

    NotMax

    December 14, 2016 at 11:50 pm

    Must have been hastily cobbled together. Don’t see anything about separate bathrooms for Repubs (fully fixtured) and Dems (second-hand unlighted Port-A-Potties)..

  58. 58.

    Omnes Omnibus

    December 14, 2016 at 11:50 pm

    @Mnemosyne: Do you think that Bernie was influenced by the Russians during this election? I do not. I have my issues with him, but I think this one is silly.

    Edited slightly.

  59. 59.

    James E Powell

    December 14, 2016 at 11:51 pm

    @efgoldman:

    SCOTUS can’t just say “hey let’s open this book of old cases and revisit them.”

    Are you sure? I’m thinking if they’ve got five votes, they’ve got five votes. And it could be six sooner than we think fear. You think some principle is going to stand in their way?

  60. 60.

    Adam L Silverman

    December 14, 2016 at 11:52 pm

    @Yarrow: The President wouldn’t appoint one, rather it would have to be created by Congress. They’d do the enabling legislation and he’d sign it.

  61. 61.

    Shalimar

    December 14, 2016 at 11:53 pm

    @Yarrow: Trump’s electors are dependable Republicans. Show them pictures of Trump fucking a horse, and they would start talking about how manly he is not to be afraid of the horse kicking him. Nothing is going to keep them from voting for the sociopath. At most, you might get half a dozen voting for Pence or Cruz instead.

  62. 62.

    NotMax

    December 14, 2016 at 11:54 pm

    @Adam L. Silverman

    He has been consistently vocal when it comes to being anti-torture, back into the previous administration.

  63. 63.

    GregB

    December 14, 2016 at 11:54 pm

    @Yarrow:

    We can rule out Hannity and Halperin.

  64. 64.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    December 14, 2016 at 11:54 pm

    @efgoldman: They did with Citizen’s United.

  65. 65.

    Kay

    December 14, 2016 at 11:55 pm

    “I think to be candid with you, that you will see the General Assembly look to reassert its constitutional authority in areas that may have been previously delegated to the executive branch,” House Rules Committee Chairman David Lewis told reporters earlier in the day, adding that legislators will “work to establish that we are going to continue to be a relevant party in governing this state.”

    We tried to stop black people from voting, they voted anyway, and now we’re scared they’ll throw the rest of us out.

    I feel like once you’re a lawmaker who works as hard as you can to stop people from voting, all bets are off and anything goes. “Void the elected governor’s powers? Sure! Why not? It’s no worse than the voter suppression we tried last year.”

  66. 66.

    Omnes Omnibus

    December 14, 2016 at 11:55 pm

    @James E Powell: No, they can’t. Stop fucking panicking. Cases come to the Court by a certain procedure.

  67. 67.

    Yarrow

    December 14, 2016 at 11:56 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: Well, that’s not comforting. It’s easy to change that law if you’re controlling both houses of Congress. And then the presidency.

    WASF.

  68. 68.

    MomSense

    December 14, 2016 at 11:57 pm

    Nate Silver and the Clinton campaign have said that Comey really turned the election. Silver thinks Clinton was on track for a five point win.

    WTF is up with Comey? He was advised by his superiors not to write that letter. It went against FBI policy about interfering in an election. He chose not to discuss the Manafort investigation so as not to interfere. It really was an unprecedented action and he did so after the intel briefings about Russian interference in our election. Why would he do this? Partisanship? Russia found some juicy stuff in his emails? I just can’t get past this.

  69. 69.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    December 14, 2016 at 11:57 pm

    @GregB: There’s a safe bet.

  70. 70.

    Adam L Silverman

    December 14, 2016 at 11:57 pm

    @NotMax: Yep. What really bugs me the most is that its clear from watching him that he knows what the right things to do are on a lot of topics, but he just can’t bring himself to actually break with the GOP leadership in the Senate on domestic issues. This, I think, is different than Senator Collins who is just in the fence straddling for the attention.

  71. 71.

    Shalimar

    December 14, 2016 at 11:57 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: The question she’s posing isn’t whether Bernie was directly influenced by the Russians. She’s suggesting that Jeff Weaver was influenced by Russian desire to trash Clinton and he in turn directed campaign strategy. I wouldn’t put it past Weaver either.

  72. 72.

    Adam L Silverman

    December 14, 2016 at 11:59 pm

    @BillinGlendaleCA: Not really. They had a case before them, Chief Justice Roberts decided, however, to broadly expand what the actual case was about.

  73. 73.

    opiejeanne

    December 14, 2016 at 11:59 pm

    @Yarrow: I am beginning to feel damned violent.

    But nothing public will come of it. I’ll rant online and take it out on my family. Meh.

  74. 74.

    Yarrow

    December 14, 2016 at 11:59 pm

    @MomSense: Russia must have something on him. I’ve been saying this for awhile now. Why else would he do it?

    Trump is just so gross. This whole thread:

    In researching my book it's increasingly obvious that one of Trump's strengths is how utterly bankrupt he is morally and ethically 1/— Jared Yates Sexton (@JYSexton) December 14, 2016

  75. 75.

    Betsy

    December 15, 2016 at 12:01 am

    I’ve been reading some of the bills that were filed. 15 were filed at the last minute tonight. Ad the filing deadline was extended to allow more to come in. Of the handful that I’ve read thoroughly, they include a regulatory reform act that does all kinds of things do environmental, coastal management, water resources, and many other matters. The number and complexity and finished quality of the bills — especially the regulatory reform bill — indicates that this was a coordinated effort, that legislators or their staff members or corporate lobbyists and other stooges were working on these bills long before the session started.
    this is not stuff that could’ve been put together an afternoon.

    We also now find out that the signatures and requests for the special session that started today were made on December 12 (Monday) — so while the legislators were refusing to answer questions about the rumored special session and keeping everything under wraps, they were indeed planning and plotting to do this session in secret. And they must’ve been tipping off their political allies only, to prepare their bills for filing in this Lame duck session

    The changes to the authority of the courts and to the governor’s powers and staffing levels amount to basically an anti-democratic putsch. I mean anti-democratic as in against the will of the people not against Democrats

    Sorry for dictation errors it’s late and I’m so tired

  76. 76.

    James E Powell

    December 15, 2016 at 12:01 am

    @efgoldman:

    The supreme court has ways of getting the cases they want to decide. There are several organization who are more than willing to file suits that we might believe to be wholly unfounded, but nevertheless the right judge will agree. See, e.g., every case finding something unconstitutional about Obamacare.

  77. 77.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    December 15, 2016 at 12:02 am

    @Adam L Silverman: I believe they reconsidered it, yes with the Chief expanding the scope.

  78. 78.

    Omnes Omnibus

    December 15, 2016 at 12:02 am

    @Shalimar: I know that. I just think she is wrong by even mentioning any non-Democratic Russian involvement.

  79. 79.

    Yarrow

    December 15, 2016 at 12:02 am

    @Betsy: No surprise. That’s how they usually do these kinds of things. If the Democrats were half as organized we’d be in a much better position.

  80. 80.

    Adam L Silverman

    December 15, 2016 at 12:03 am

    @Yarrow: I think I was unclear. What I think the plan is is to have the pressure build very quickly so that such an action is taken before the inauguration. An attempt to then get rid of either a Special Committee or a Commission is hard to accomplish because it would suddenly prompt everyone’s favorite question: what are they trying to hide? Remember its never the crime, its always the coverup.

  81. 81.

    Betsy

    December 15, 2016 at 12:04 am

    Here is the list of bills filed so far if anyone is interested in parsing. Thank you
    http://www.ncleg.net/gascripts/applications/billswithaction/?biennium=2015E4

  82. 82.

    Steeplejack

    December 15, 2016 at 12:04 am

    @GregB:

    Scaramucci (paraphrased): Mr. Trump takes these allegations very seriously and will look into them, and if there is any substance to them he will not be pleased.

    Me to Brian Williams: Ask him how Trump can credibly “look into” this when he’s the one who fucking benefits!

    Brian Williams: Herp-de-derp.

  83. 83.

    mk3872

    December 15, 2016 at 12:04 am

    Why not? I mean the Dems, the press and voters are powerless to stop it. I would probably do it, too, if i could. Besides, GOP voters will ALWAYS vote GOP, no matter what crazy brazen things their GOP politicians say or do.

  84. 84.

    Adam L Silverman

    December 15, 2016 at 12:04 am

    @MomSense: There’s this:
    http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a51446/what-was-comey-thinking/

    And this:
    http://www.newsweek.com/judge-may-unseal-fbi-search-warrant-clinton-emails-531898

  85. 85.

    Mnemosyne

    December 15, 2016 at 12:04 am

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Do you think that Bernie was influenced by the Russians during this election?

    I think Bernie was influenced by someone he didn’t realize was influenced by the Russians. It was awfully convenient that his accusations against Hillary and the DNC just happened to dovetail with Trump’s accusations, and that the Wikileaks emails just happened to seem to confirm Bernie’s complaints.

    I don’t know who Bernie was listening to after he was mathematically eliminated in May, but that person gave him very, very bad advice when s/he told him to keep talking about how corrupt the Democratic Party was. The question in my mind is, was it just ordinary bad advice, or something more?

    Tad Devine’s long record as an amoral shill who follows the money doesn’t give me a lot of confidence that he had anyone’s best interests at heart but his own, and I’m suspicious of where he thinks his best interests lie, especially given how much money Putin has been spreading around.

  86. 86.

    Adam L Silverman

    December 15, 2016 at 12:05 am

    @Shalimar: Not Weaver. Weaver worked at a comic book shop. Tad Devine.

  87. 87.

    Yarrow

    December 15, 2016 at 12:06 am

    @Adam L Silverman: I hope you are right. I do agree it’s always the cover up. I don’t think Trump is skilled enough to hide things really well. And he’s got enough enemies that someone will spill the beans at some point.

  88. 88.

    Mnemosyne

    December 15, 2016 at 12:06 am

    @MomSense:

    Live boy or dead girl?

  89. 89.

    Steeplejack

    December 15, 2016 at 12:06 am

    @Yarrow:

    Wasn’t the 9/11 commission mostly a toothless whitewash?

  90. 90.

    Omnes Omnibus

    December 15, 2016 at 12:09 am

    @Mnemosyne: I do not disagree with you. OTOH, I don’t think that this argument will get converts.

  91. 91.

    BintheD

    December 15, 2016 at 12:10 am

    @Mnemosyne:

  92. 92.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    December 15, 2016 at 12:10 am

    @Steeplejack: OT: I have a question for you about the S2’s sd card slot. Does it require a special tool?

    My Note 8 died and I’ve got a gold S2 on order from Costco, but that was in one of the reviews.

  93. 93.

    GregB

    December 15, 2016 at 12:12 am

    @Steeplejack:

    I agree but that is a big shift from Trump’s ‘fuck the CIA’ attitude.

    The cracks are beginning.

    Hopefully Trump will have Greg Stillson moment that will collapse him into an irredeemable shit-heap.

  94. 94.

    Adam L Silverman

    December 15, 2016 at 12:13 am

    @Steeplejack: Blue Ribbon Commissions usually are. I’m not advocating for that. What I’d like to see is a select investigative committee convened in the Senate with Graham as the chair and Senator Franken or Murphy or Peters or Warren or Senator-elect Duckworth as the ranking Democratic member. It is far harder to knuckle a Senate select investigative committee. And there should not be one in the House. It will be too easy to monkey wrench one in the House.

    I just think there are two options: select investigative committee in one or both chambers of Congress, Blue Ribbon Commission, or Special Prosecutor. A commission is too easy to monkey wrench and a special prosecutor is too easy to get rid of by the Executive.

  95. 95.

    Steeplejack

    December 15, 2016 at 12:15 am

    @MomSense:

    I have posted it a couple of times before: check out this November 2 MarketWatch piece. All the points are well documented. Comey has always been a partisan Republican fixer and operator.

  96. 96.

    Omnes Omnibus

    December 15, 2016 at 12:16 am

    @Adam L Silverman: Harrumph!

  97. 97.

    Yarrow

    December 15, 2016 at 12:16 am

    He is such a needy toddler. Today’s meeting with the tech people.

    “This is truly an amazing group of people,” Trump told them. “I want to add that I’m here to help you folks do well.”

    “And you’re doing well right now and I’m very honored by the bounce,” Trump continued.

    “They’re all talking about the bounce. So right now everybody in this room has to like me — at least a little bit — but we’re going to try and have that bounce continue.” “There’s nobody like you in the world. There’s nobody like the people in this room.”

    …

    It’s not clear what he meant. Maybe the “bounce” referred to the chief narcissist’s perception of his popularity as unscientifically gauged on the internet.

  98. 98.

    Steeplejack

    December 15, 2016 at 12:17 am

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Agree completely. And Mitch McConnell needs to be kept as far away as possible.

  99. 99.

    Adam L Silverman

    December 15, 2016 at 12:17 am

    @Omnes Omnibus: Tracking.

  100. 100.

    Omnes Omnibus

    December 15, 2016 at 12:18 am

    @Adam L Silverman: LOL

  101. 101.

    Adam L Silverman

    December 15, 2016 at 12:19 am

    @Steeplejack: Yep. I think that’s partially why he looked like he’s been kicked in the gut when he made his statement the other day. He knows he can’t prevent this, just try to delay it as long as possible. And the more and faster the drips come, the sooner he’s going to cave.

  102. 102.

    NotMax

    December 15, 2016 at 12:19 am

    @Yarrow

    Not much can be done to squelch such a move if it has Congressional backing*. Supreme Court membership has been set by law at as many as 10 and as few as six at various times since its inception.

    *FDR’s so-called court packing plan never garnered much popular support and was opposed by many of his fellow Dems in Congress as well as by his own V.P.

  103. 103.

    Betsy

    December 15, 2016 at 12:21 am

    @Jeffro: because of the bellwether effect, and the coordination by outside dark money that is behind the North Carolina putsch. North Carolina, like Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania, was is a reliably purple state that was turned red — NOT IN THE LAST ELECTION but starting two mid-term cycles ago,after Citizens United allowed dark outside money to take over. It is part and parcel of the same Union-weakening, democracy-destroying govenrmental capture by a coalition of corporatists and globalists.

    The way it is playing out here in N.C. Is highly relevant and predictive of what!/ next even for some blue states.

    It’s also an excellent way to weaponize the weakening of the nation at the state level. Remember, we have two levels of sovereignties in our federal system: the national government has things over which it is sovereign, as do the states, as established by the Constitution. Effective weakening of the U.S. has to include state soups as well as national takeover.

    In fact having articulated it now,I can hardly see how the issue in North Carolina could be any more important or less important than what is happening with Putin, Russia, and the federal takeover

  104. 104.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    December 15, 2016 at 12:21 am

    @Steeplejack: Maybe the Russians have ol’ Mitch’s dd-214.

  105. 105.

    Yarrow

    December 15, 2016 at 12:22 am

    @Adam L Silverman: So you agree with me that McConnell looked really different that day he made his statement? It was really obvious to me, but no one else seems to have mentioned it.

  106. 106.

    Steeplejack

    December 15, 2016 at 12:22 am

    @BillinGlendaleCA:

    The S2 comes with a tool for the microSD slot. It looks like a hollow version of the Google Maps “you are here” icon. I think the hole is too small for a paper clip, but a needle might work. I intend to hang onto the tool, and I have been trying to think of a place to put it where (a) I will remember to look for it and/​or (b) I won’t run across it one day, forget what it’s for and throw it away.

    ETA: I have been loving the S2. My only quibbles are that the voice-to-text function and the autocorrect function don’t work quite as well as those on my Moto X phone.

  107. 107.

    Kay

    December 15, 2016 at 12:23 am

    @MomSense:

    WTF is up with Comey?

    I don’t know but once he jumped into an election I feel as if he forfeited the protections from political and public accountability he is afforded in that job. He’s hiding behind the same norms and rules he himself violated. That isn’t how this is supposed to work. He injected himself into an election. That he now goes silent because the FBI isn’t “political” is just unfair to the public. He can’t have this both ways. The norms and protections were supposed to work both ways- to protect the political process from FBI interference and to protect the FBI from political blowback. He violated that bargain. Now he owes the public an explanation for his actions. He can’t retreat to norms and rules now. He blew that.

    We have the worst of both worlds. We have an FBI that interferes in an election and they have no duty to explain anything they did to the public because they’re not “political”. That’s nice for them, but what about us?

  108. 108.

    Yarrow

    December 15, 2016 at 12:23 am

    @NotMax: No Republicans would oppose a court packing plan today. They’re Republicans first and Americans second.

  109. 109.

    James E Powell

    December 15, 2016 at 12:23 am

    @MomSense:

    WTF is up with Comey?

    He wanted to harm the Clinton campaign. I’m inferring he’s more of a Clinton-hater than a Trump-lover. I have no doubt he did it deliberately. Contrary to all the boot-licking excuse-making for him, there was no reason he had to write that letter at all. There was no reason not to wait until they reviewed what was on the hard drive.

  110. 110.

    Steeplejack

    December 15, 2016 at 12:25 am

    @BillinGlendaleCA:

    It would be irresponsible not to speculate.

  111. 111.

    Yarrow

    December 15, 2016 at 12:27 am

    @Betsy: Agreed. The actions at the state levels need to be closely watched. What happens in NC today will happen in MI or WI next time. And then they’ll try a more reliably blue state.

    Whoever takes over the DNC needs to be focusing on helping states rebuild their parties. Every race, no matter how small, needs to have a Democratic candidate running in it. All races need to be contested. Build the bench.

  112. 112.

    Steeplejack

    December 15, 2016 at 12:27 am

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Yeah, he’s realizing that it’s so big now that he won’t be able to slow-walk it and hide it behind his usual cornpone smoke and mirrors.

  113. 113.

    James E Powell

    December 15, 2016 at 12:29 am

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    I’m familiar with supreme court jurisdiction. The string of ridiculous Obamacare cases provides a good illustration of exactly how the court gets cases that it wants. See also Shelby County.

    And I’m not panicking. I’m sulking.

  114. 114.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    December 15, 2016 at 12:29 am

    @Steeplejack: Thanks. That was pretty much what the reviewer said. I don’t use the voice to text feature on any of my machines(android or windows), that that’s not a show stopper.

  115. 115.

    Hellbastard

    December 15, 2016 at 12:32 am

    @Betsy: My favorite proposal is that the two parties would take turns chairing an election committee… with the repubs just so happening to chair it during election years and dems in the off years.

  116. 116.

    Adam L Silverman

    December 15, 2016 at 12:34 am

    @Yarrow: @Steeplejack: I do and yep. I mentioned it the other night in comments. I think its partially what I described above, that he knows he can’t hold this off indefinitely and its threatening what he planned to do as the profit from his strategy of obstructionism since January of 2009. And part of that, of course, is its now out that he impeded a stronger domestic response before the election, which just adds to the pressure on him because of the party over country aspect of this. And his was the only name leaked on that. I also think he’s very worried about just what the Russians have on GOP officials, whether any of it is on him, and whether it could get out.

    Finally, given that the story from October about Putin’s personal involvement has been belatedly picked back up, these hacks – the Russian influence operation and kompromat operations – are, based on US military doctrine acts of war with the battlefield/terrain being the cyber domain. I do not expect Congress to declare war, but President Obama can issue a finding that we have been attacked by a hostile power, which is true, and use his executive authority to authorize retaliatory action, both in the cyber domain, in the more traditional domains of air, sea, and land, and across elements of national power from military to economic. Then the question that hangs over him is about aid and comfort to the enemy.

    If you watch how Senator McConnell operates three things are very, very clear. 1) He’s passive-aggressive in his tactics. 2) He’s risk averse in his strategy and tactics. 3) He’s a coward. When he’s pushed and he can minimize his risk and he can’t get out of the bind by being passive-aggressive, he caves – quickly and quietly. This ongoing and developing situation is not conducive to those three dynamics.

  117. 117.

    Betsy

    December 15, 2016 at 12:35 am

    @Betsy: all kinds of typos in there, “soups” for coups and even an html command by accident

  118. 118.

    Steeplejack

    December 15, 2016 at 12:35 am

    @GregB:

    Wasn’t disagreeing, just venting about the part that enraged me most.

  119. 119.

    Miss Bianca

    December 15, 2016 at 12:38 am

    So I took a break from politics to watch “White Heat” tonight. Now I have a terrible feeling that every time I hear more evidence of the absolutely naked evil – actually evil – shitshow that is the modern Republican Party grabbing power in every way shape and form that it can, I may end up climbing up on the nearest prominence and start screaming, “TOP OF THE WORLD, MA!”

    Just keep me away from the firearms and propane tanks…

  120. 120.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    December 15, 2016 at 12:39 am

    @Adam L Silverman: For a second, when you “these hacks”, I thought you were talking about the press.

  121. 121.

    Kay

    December 15, 2016 at 12:39 am

    @Mnemosyne:

    He’s so bad, Bernie. He’s setting up this big fight between Perez and Ellison with Ellison as the Bernie candidate and Perez as the Obama/ Clinton candidate. Perez is a liberal. His sin was supporting TPP. He was in the Obama Administration. He could hardly come out against TPP.

    Bernie is the worst Democrat ever and he’s not even a Democrat. I don’t understand the obsession with Party machinations among Bernie and his supporters. It’s as if the fights they want to win are intra-Party positioning. Wouldn’t it be more productive to find and run Left-labor candidates and win some actual elections? They’d be more than powerful within the Democratic Party. They’d have some actual political power. They could run, oh, a state or something, instead of conquering the DNC. If they ran a candidate and won a governor’s race in Wisconsin they wouldn’t have to seize power in the DNC. Their theory would be proven and the DNC would come to them.

  122. 122.

    Yarrow

    December 15, 2016 at 12:42 am

    @Adam L Silverman: Thank you for your insightful comment. I wasn’t sure if the other night when you commented you were agreeing with my interpretation or just acknowledging that you’d seen him give his statement.

    I completely agree with your analysis of how McConnell operates. Yes, absolutely, he’s passive-aggressive, risk averse and a coward. No wonder I find him repugnant. Given the ongoing situation and the drip-drip of daily info, how can he cave quickly and quietly? It’s not going to be quiet. He’s the Senate Majority Leader! And he’s been mentioned by name, as you said. He’s all mixed up in this and has nowhere to hide.

    I think he’ll do what he can to throw Trump under the bus before he has to take the fall for any of this. At least that will be kind of fun to watch.

    You are a treasure, Adam. Thanks for your posts here.

  123. 123.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    December 15, 2016 at 12:43 am

    @Kay: Bernie is an unreconstructed Marxist, he thinks the power is in the party.

  124. 124.

    Adam L Silverman

    December 15, 2016 at 12:44 am

    @BillinGlendaleCA: Either way. An unintentional, but effective double entendre.

  125. 125.

    Yarrow

    December 15, 2016 at 12:45 am

    @Kay: You are absolutely right, Kay. I’ll just say it’s been my observation that Bernie’s supporters are just as authoritarian as a lot of people on the right. And authoritarians like to control things from the top down.

  126. 126.

    Adam L Silverman

    December 15, 2016 at 12:45 am

    @Yarrow: You’re welcome. Thanks for the kind words.

  127. 127.

    Adam L Silverman

    December 15, 2016 at 12:48 am

    @Kay: I think part of the larger issue is that TPP is not, despite its name and what’s in it, a trade agreement. Rather its a coalition building foreign policy agreement that was primarily meant to contain the PRC. By camouflaging it as a trade deal the idea was it would be less likely to trigger a PRC response.

  128. 128.

    Adam L Silverman

    December 15, 2016 at 12:49 am

    @BillinGlendaleCA: The power is in the vanguard of the proletariat. Or so I’ve read…

  129. 129.

    Mnemosyne

    December 15, 2016 at 12:49 am

    @Kay:

    He only wants to be part of the club if he gets to run it. Otherwise, he’s taking his ball and going home.

    I like (some of) Bernie’s ideas, but not enough to let him run the whole party that he’s too precious to permanently join.

  130. 130.

    Morzer

    December 15, 2016 at 12:49 am

    Y’all better read this and think about it:

    http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2016/12/nbc-news-putin-personally-directed-anti-clinton-hacking

    Two senior officials with direct access to the information say new intelligence shows that Putin personally directed how hacked material from Democrats was leaked and otherwise used. The intelligence came from diplomatic sources and spies working for U.S. allies, the officials said.

    Putin’s objectives were multifaceted, a high-level intelligence source told NBC News. What began as a “vendetta” against Hillary Clinton morphed into an effort to show corruption in American politics and to “split off key American allies by creating the image that [other countries] couldn’t depend on the U.S. to be a credible global leader anymore,” the official said.

    Looks to me like Putin basically conducted an act of war against the US and one of our political parties is just fine and dandy with that.

  131. 131.

    Yarrow

    December 15, 2016 at 12:52 am

    @Morzer: Party first.

  132. 132.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    December 15, 2016 at 12:53 am

    @Adam L Silverman: Ah, reminds me of my college days studying Soviet politics and economics.

    ETA: (Looks and bookshelf and sees a tome entitled “Politics and Society in the USSR”.)

  133. 133.

    MomSense

    December 15, 2016 at 12:53 am

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Ok you’ve touched on something I’ve wanted to ask you. If the Russian hacking operation is designated an act of war (cyber attacks) then aren’t we talking about possible treason charges? The other night the opinion here seemed to be that we weren’t at the treason level because we aren’t at war.:

  134. 134.

    Steeplejack

    December 15, 2016 at 12:53 am

    @BillinGlendaleCA:

    I find voice-to-text and autocorrect useful on my phone and tablet to cut down on blundering thumb typing. Then I go back and edit the rough output. The S2 has a tendency to drop words here and there, whereas the Moto X usually gives me at least an incorrect word as a place-holder. And the S2’s autocorrect options are surprisingly unsatisfying—not very numerous and often dull-witted. I guess I’m spoiled by the Moto.

    On the other hand, I didn’t even bother using voice-to-text on the old Nexus 7; the processor and the RAM just weren’t up to it.

    The big things about the S2 are that it’s fast, fast, fast and the screen is beautiful.

  135. 135.

    Mnemosyne

    December 15, 2016 at 12:54 am

    @Yarrow:

    Here’s the really fun thing that may finally be occurring to McConnell and the smarter Republicans: Putin has no loyalty to them, or to the United States. Quite the opposite, in fact. So if Putin decides to release the information about his contacts with Republicans, or information about Republicans conspiring to prevent minorities from voting, what’s going to stop him?

    The Republicans thought they were working with Putin, but it turns out they were working for him, and they’re expendable. Nobody likes a traitor, especially the people who convinced them to turn traitor.

    I would be making popcorn if I didn’t live within reach of China’s nukes.

  136. 136.

    Steeplejack

    December 15, 2016 at 12:58 am

    @Betsy:

    all kinds of typos in there, “soups” for coups and even an html command by accident.

    Delete your Balloon Juice account!

  137. 137.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    December 15, 2016 at 12:58 am

    @Mnemosyne: China’s nukes make popcorn for you.

  138. 138.

    MomSense

    December 15, 2016 at 1:00 am

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Exactly

  139. 139.

    Mnemosyne

    December 15, 2016 at 1:01 am

    @Morzer:

    Kevin seems to have the same take I do:

    So yes, Putin got lucky. But that’s the way intelligence operations work. You try a lot of stuff and hope that a fraction of it pans out. This probably seemed like a low-cost-low-probability exercise when it was first started, and ended up succeeding beyond anyone’s wildest dreams.

    It’s not that Putin is so nefarious that he planned for it to happen this way. It’s that he hedged his bets in every direction and then watched as they paid off in perfect order. What’s that horseracing thing where you win a jackpot by picking the first through fifth place horses because almost no one can do it? That’s what Putin did — he backed every horse in sight and watched them all cross the finish line.

  140. 140.

    Adam L Silverman

    December 15, 2016 at 1:01 am

    @MomSense: No. Omnes will have a better take on the legal issues here should he decide to way in (or any of our other legal eagles), but even if the President signs a finding that an act of (cyber) war was committed here, we are not technically, in the Constitutional sense, at war unless or until Congress passes a Declaration of War and the President then signs it.

    This gets to a larger issue that has become almost farcical: the US has been at war since 2001 without officially being at war according to US law. In fact we haven’t been officially/legally at war since 1945. Sure we’ve made war on drugs, obesity, poverty, illiteracy, teen pregnancy, and a number of other things since 1945, but we’ve not actually been at war in the Constitutional/official sense in over 70 years.

  141. 141.

    Steeplejack

    December 15, 2016 at 1:02 am

    @Mnemosyne:

    It’s not even his ball!

  142. 142.

    Seebach

    December 15, 2016 at 1:02 am

    Remember how Democrats donated to the NCGOP because their HQ was firebombed? That was a good idea.

  143. 143.

    Mnemosyne

    December 15, 2016 at 1:02 am

    @BillinGlendaleCA:

    We live within 5 miles of each other, laughing boy. ?

  144. 144.

    James E Powell

    December 15, 2016 at 1:04 am

    @Kay:

    Wouldn’t it be more productive to find and run Left-labor candidates and win some actual elections?

    In my entire life in and around political activity, I have never met a Real Leftist® who showed any interest in winning actual elections. It always goes something like:

    1) Attack Democrats who are not Real Leftists® and avoid voting.

    2) ???????????

    3) The United States become an Olof Palme inspired Scandinavian social democratic paradise.

  145. 145.

    GregB

    December 15, 2016 at 1:04 am

    There is a Mother Jones piece on the Russian hacking. Here is the salient quote from the commentariat.

    ” Obama cared what they( Republican Leadership) think because he felt a response to a hostile foreign power trying to disrupt an election should be bipartisan. McConnell disagreed and said the administration should go ahead on its own — and that he would criticize their actions as partisan. In other words, Obama invited McConnell to join in him condemning terrorism against the election and McConnell said, I’m not interested in joining that cause. The Obama administration then went ahead and put out a statement from US intelligence agencies in early October.”

    McConnnell is up to his sunken chin in the cover-up.

  146. 146.

    Steeplejack

    December 15, 2016 at 1:04 am

    @BillinGlendaleCA:

    Well played.

  147. 147.

    opiejeanne

    December 15, 2016 at 1:04 am

    @Adam L Silverman: What is PRC?

  148. 148.

    Adam L Silverman

    December 15, 2016 at 1:05 am

    @Mnemosyne: Its not China’s nukes you need to worry about.

  149. 149.

    Adam L Silverman

    December 15, 2016 at 1:08 am

    @opiejeanne: The People’s Republic of China.

    Unless you’re reading a gun blog, then its the People’s Republic of Commifornia. I wish I was kidding…

  150. 150.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    December 15, 2016 at 1:10 am

    @opiejeanne: Peoples Republic of China.

  151. 151.

    Yarrow

    December 15, 2016 at 1:11 am

    @Mnemosyne: Absolutely right. He’ll use them right up until they are no longer useful to him. I hope they’re realizing this.

    In related news, hacked Republican emails were released.

    A website tied to the hacking scandal of the Democratic Party has now posted a small batch of leaked emails from Republican campaigns and state GOP staffers.

    The emails on the site, known as DCLeaks, appear to be from state party officials and campaign staff, including that of former presidential candidate Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.). The messages range from June to October of 2015.

    The DNC hacker or hackers known as Guccifer 2.0 used DC Leaks to promote leaks from a Clinton staffer’s email to The Smoking Gun, though the hacker claimed not to have been involved with the theft of the messages.
    Most of the messages coordinate campaign activities, solicit funds, or invite or RSVP to events. The archive is largely the procedural minutia of running campaigns or state parties

    .

    Also from the article, Huckabee is just begging to be hacked and his emails and anything else posted all over the internet.

    But that there was a leak at all runs counter to a Republican narrative that the DNC is particularly susceptible to data breaches (“What is it with Democrats that they can’t maintain basic email security?” Mike Huckabee asked on Facebook).

  152. 152.

    jl

    December 15, 2016 at 1:11 am

    @Adam L Silverman: I have relatives in certain areas of the country who have refused to come to California for some time They say that they won’t come here if they can’t bring their guns.

  153. 153.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    December 15, 2016 at 1:11 am

    @Adam L Silverman: We had a Republican Governator less than 8 years ago. Now the People’s Republic of Santa Monica, that’s a whole different story.

  154. 154.

    sukabi

    December 15, 2016 at 1:12 am

    @Yarrow: so, given that what are the odds that Russia messed with the U.K. Brexit vote?

  155. 155.

    Steeplejack

    December 15, 2016 at 1:12 am

    @Mnemosyne:

    Equally well played.

  156. 156.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    December 15, 2016 at 1:13 am

    @jl: Sounds good to me.

    ETA: If they’re here and really want p*n*s extenders, they can go to “The Pleasure Chest” in West Hollywood, they have a great selection; or so I’ve heard.

  157. 157.

    Yarrow

    December 15, 2016 at 1:15 am

    @Adam L Silverman: Which nukes do they need to worry about then?

    Edit to fix typo.

  158. 158.

    Mnemosyne

    December 15, 2016 at 1:17 am

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Whose nukes should I be worried about?

    Also, too, in other but possibly related news, my nephew who was going to join the Marines has backed out. I am very glad right now. I think I’m going to encourage him to finally get diagnosed with ADHD just in case.

    (I’m pretty sure he has an undiagnosed case, especially since his older sister has been diagnosed, but it was never pursued because he wanted to join the Marines and you can’t be on ADHD meds and join up.)

  159. 159.

    Yarrow

    December 15, 2016 at 1:18 am

    @sukabi: Very high odds.

  160. 160.

    opiejeanne

    December 15, 2016 at 1:19 am

    @Mnemosyne: At the cabin in Blue Jay, CA I’m probably safe (according to a fun little gizmo that calculates if you’d survive an atomic bomb at the nearest large), but everyone on the mountain will quickly run out of food. At home in WA my goose is quite literally cooked, unless they mistake Bellingham for Bremerton.

  161. 161.

    Mnemosyne

    December 15, 2016 at 1:20 am

    @Yarrow:

    The emails on the site, known as DCLeaks, appear to be from state party officials and campaign staff, including that of former presidential candidate Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.). The messages range from June to October of 2015.

    So by posting the emails of the one Republican on record as trying to stand up to the Russians, is DCLeaks basically admitting they’re run by the Russians?

  162. 162.

    Adam L Silverman

    December 15, 2016 at 1:20 am

    @Yarrow: Those were actually leaked a while back. DCLeaks had a small batch/cache of GOP emails that were leaked as the DNC/DSCC/DCCC/Podesta and related Democratic material was being leaked. It never got much coverage and no one seemed to care that GOP leaders and organizations were also, obviously, hacked too. Because Clinton emails!

  163. 163.

    Mnemosyne

    December 15, 2016 at 1:21 am

    @jl:

    So, they need a safe space?

  164. 164.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    December 15, 2016 at 1:22 am

    @Adam L Silverman: There’s nothing more important than (a) grandma’s emails.

  165. 165.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    December 15, 2016 at 1:23 am

    @opiejeanne: No problem, the fallout would probably get ya up there.

    Speaking of nukes, when they were above ground testing at the Nevada test site, you could see the sky light up here in LA. I’ve seen some pics over at the Noir LA site I’ve been reading.

  166. 166.

    Adam L Silverman

    December 15, 2016 at 1:23 am

    @jl: They’re just worried they’d get lonely if left alone for too long.

  167. 167.

    opiejeanne

    December 15, 2016 at 1:23 am

    @Adam L Silverman: Oh, FFS!
    None of those macho men would know a Communist if it bit him on the butt; anything they don’t like is called “commie”. California’s a wonderful state, and they’re just jealous. I’ve seen their type and how they behave when they get here, star-struck and more than a little insane. Some of them were relatives and I’ve observed at close hand.

  168. 168.

    Yarrow

    December 15, 2016 at 1:24 am

    @Adam L Silverman: Yes, I misread the date. It’s 8/12/16 and my brain turned that into December 12 somehow. I believe Graham was asked about it today so that may be why I saw it linked.

    @Mnemosyne: Yeah, except as Adam pointed out, this is older news. I think Graham was asked about it today.

  169. 169.

    Mnemosyne

    December 15, 2016 at 1:26 am

    @Adam L Silverman:

    You mean you can’t hire a gun sitter to go play with them every day while you’re out of town?

  170. 170.

    Adam L Silverman

    December 15, 2016 at 1:26 am

    @sukabi: It financially backed UKIP. As was the case here, they do not appear to/its highly unlikely that they actually did anything to mess with voting equipment, the tallies, etc. Rather they ran influence operations and kompromat operations to influence the outcome by influencing public opinion. And its important to remember that Bannon’s lead at Breitbart UK is a top UKIP bubba. So is this fellow travelers with Bannon’s interests or he’s a useful idiot or he, himself, has been compromised? That I cannot answer.

  171. 171.

    opiejeanne

    December 15, 2016 at 1:27 am

    @jl: They can bring their guns, they just can’t wave them around like they do at home, can’t toddle into the local supermarket with an assault rifle slung over their shoulder. They need a permit for concealed carry and those are not given out lightly.

  172. 172.

    Mnemosyne

    December 15, 2016 at 1:28 am

    @Yarrow:

    Ah, so it was more of a ploy from Guccifer2 of, See, we did so hack the Republicans and they only talked about boring stuff, unlike this BLOCKBUSTER risotto recipe from John Podesta!

  173. 173.

    Adam L Silverman

    December 15, 2016 at 1:29 am

    @Yarrow: @Mnemosyne: The only countries I worry about right now in terms of doing something with a nuke is North Korea. And, depending on what’s going on, India and Pakistan. Nothing I’ve seen of the Chinese makes me worried that they’d escalate in that way. And yes, I’m aware of the reported flyover last week.

  174. 174.

    Adam L Silverman

    December 15, 2016 at 1:30 am

    @Mnemosyne: The lack of ADHD meds for Marines would seem to explain a lot in regard to a number I’ve worked with.//

  175. 175.

    EBT

    December 15, 2016 at 1:32 am

    @Adam L Silverman: Would explain why so many end up tweekers too.

  176. 176.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    December 15, 2016 at 1:32 am

    @Mnemosyne: It was a really good recipe.

  177. 177.

    Yarrow

    December 15, 2016 at 1:32 am

    So I see the strategy to deal with the Russian hacking is going to be to call the media corrupt and say they got everything wrong and can’t be trusted. And to say anyone in the briefings can’t be trusted because they’re leaking info to everyone. Projection much?

    President-elect Donald Trump’s top aide Kellyanne Conway on Wednesday said that Americans should be “concerned” by leaks to the media about intelligence agencies’ findings on Russian interference with the election.

    When asked about a Friday story in The Washington Post that reported that CIA believes the Russian government attempted to help Trump win the election by hacking emails of numerous Democratic officials, Conway said that she is concerned about such press coverage of secret intel.

    “We should all be very concerned about that because you had a closed-door House Intelligence Committee briefing, and no sooner do people walk out apparently then some folks were talking to the media,” Conway said in an interview with Fox News’ Megyn Kelly.

    “That’s unfortunate and at some level, maybe not it this instance, Megyn, but at some point it could put all of us at risk. And for what purpose? To politicize or to curry favor with the mainstream media? None of that is worth leaking secrets,” she added.

    Conway also warned against trusting the media accounts of the intelligence reports, stating that most of them are not accurate.

    “If you read some of these news accounts in mainstream papers where people are reading something saying, ‘It must be true, I just read five paragraphs strong where there is an intonation or an outright assertion that Russian interference changed the election result’ — that is just not proven, that is just false and its dangerous to our democracy,” Conway said.

  178. 178.

    Yarrow

    December 15, 2016 at 1:34 am

    @Adam L Silverman: The North Koreans seem really unstable. But then, once Trump gets in, I think the US will appear that way to the outside world.

    Question: If someone tweets something at Trump and he gets really angry about it and decides he wants to nuke them, can anyone stop him?

  179. 179.

    Mnemosyne

    December 15, 2016 at 1:34 am

    Okay, I finally had to look it up: in racing parlance, Putin hit the Superfecta.

  180. 180.

    sukabi

    December 15, 2016 at 1:35 am

    @Adam L Silverman: given political leanings, and personal predilections-excesses he’s probably a willing tool that’s gotten in over his head…

    Doesn’t make him any less of a seditious ?ass?

  181. 181.

    Adam L Silverman

    December 15, 2016 at 1:37 am

    @Mnemosyne: Business development opportunity?

  182. 182.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    December 15, 2016 at 1:37 am

    @Yarrow: How does Ms. Conway know this, does she now have a security clearance?

  183. 183.

    Mike J

    December 15, 2016 at 1:39 am

    Sonic Youth’s Teanage Riot was written about a alternate reality utopia where J Mascis was president.

  184. 184.

    Mnemosyne

    December 15, 2016 at 1:39 am

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Our cat sitters leave a note for every day they stop by while we’re out of town. What notes would gun-huggers leave to tell the owners that their AR-15 was really well-behaved that particular day?

  185. 185.

    Adam L Silverman

    December 15, 2016 at 1:41 am

    @Yarrow: 1) I guarantee these leaks are authorized. I can’t prove it, but it wouldn’t be happening like this if it wasn’t. 2) Conway is not an intelligence officer. Has never been an intelligence officer. Does not now, nor has she ever had a clearance. As someone who was, technically because of where the funding was coming from for the first five or six years that I worked for the Army – on both contracts and term civil service appointment under the Intergovernmental Personnel Act, one even though that wasn’t my actual job and has the clearances I can honestly state she has no idea what she’s talking about.

  186. 186.

    Adam L Silverman

    December 15, 2016 at 1:43 am

    @Yarrow: The President officially controls the ability to deploy US nuclear weapons. Unofficially, word may go out to the actual nuclear weapons officers, including the targeteers, that all orders are to be verified through someone else. If I’m recalling correctly this has been done at least once before – think it was under Nixon, but don’t quote me on it.

  187. 187.

    Yarrow

    December 15, 2016 at 1:44 am

    @BillinGlendaleCA: I haven’t the slightest idea. I don’t think she knows what she’s talking about at all. But she can see that the pressure is building on this issue and they want to point the finger at someone, anyone, else.

    @Mnemosyne: What kind of irresponsible gun owner would leave their gun at home alone?! Don’t they know that guns must be on their owners at all times?

  188. 188.

    Adam L Silverman

    December 15, 2016 at 1:44 am

    @Yarrow: The US appearing unstable and unreliable was Putin’s primary objective. He has achieved the strategic effect he wanted to achieve.

  189. 189.

    Adam L Silverman

    December 15, 2016 at 1:45 am

    @Mnemosyne: Stayed in safe. Did not negligently discharge. Did not take itself to the supermarket or a school or a Starbucks and threaten innocent bystanders.

  190. 190.

    Mnemosyne

    December 15, 2016 at 1:46 am

    @efgoldman:

    I don’t know, all our cats are neutered.

  191. 191.

    Yarrow

    December 15, 2016 at 1:47 am

    @Adam L Silverman: So if he decided he wanted to bomb Beijing because they were mean to him, it could be arranged that the orders have to be verified by someone else? Does the someone else have to approve it? Or just say, “Yeah, that’s what he said.”

    Ugh. WASF.

  192. 192.

    gene108

    December 15, 2016 at 1:48 am

    @Yarrow:

    Most of the messages coordinate campaign activities, solicit funds, or invite or RSVP to events.

    Most of Hillary’s emails were/are boring as fuck, but it did not stop months of crazed speculation about her and what she’s hiding.

    I hope the Republicans are subjected to the same witch hunt level is scrutiny.

    But those fuckers are going to benefit from the MSM finally realizing they were duped by the Russians, and so the MSM will down play those emails, which will benefit Republicans.

    Plus Hillary’s emails were never hacked. She voluntarily released them to comply with a State Department directive after she left office.

  193. 193.

    Mnemosyne

    December 15, 2016 at 1:48 am

    @Yarrow:

    I guess leaks aren’t so reliable when they run against you, eh, Kelly?

  194. 194.

    lol chikinburd

    December 15, 2016 at 1:53 am

    @efgoldman: (IANAL etc.) This talk about appellate and original jurisdiction reminded me of a thing: when the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled upholding Act 10 in 2011, they did a thing to get around jurisdictional issues like the “original”-“appellate” distinction.

    Yet the following appeared at 4:45 p.m. on June 14, in an unsigned order of the court but reputedly the handiwork of Mike Gableman:

    On June 6, 2011, this court … heard argument addressing whether the court should accept either the certification or the petition for supervisory/original jurisdiction or both; the court also heard argument on the merits of the pending matters.

    The certification was a separate case, and was dismissed. The forward slash conjoining ‘supervisory’ to ‘original’ is a fabrication from whole cloth. So-called conservative jurisprudence by typographical insertion.

    Don’t know how this connects with how a Trump-stuffed SCOTUS might operate, but.

  195. 195.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    December 15, 2016 at 1:57 am

    @Adam L Silverman: It was done under Nixon, IIRC it was Henry the K’s call.

  196. 196.

    Yarrow

    December 15, 2016 at 2:07 am

    @efgoldman: Seems like for using nuclear weapons it shouldn’t be only one person who gets to decide to use them. Maybe a panel of people have to sign off on it. Or they can only be used if we have declared war – that harkens back to Adam’s comment above pointing out that we haven’t formally declared war in 70 years or so, despite having all sorts of “wars” of various kinds.

    The idea that the president could just decide to nuke some poor person because they called him out on Twitter is terrifying.

  197. 197.

    Adam L Silverman

    December 15, 2016 at 2:12 am

    @Yarrow: Technically/officially he can nuke whatever he wants whenever he wants. A verify order via someone else would mean to do that. Then it becomes whether someone higher up the food chain (secretary and/or four star level) decides they’re willing to end their career to prevent the unthinkable from happening.

    Worrying about this is, I think, one of the less productive things to worry about with the incoming administration. Yes, it is the worst possible thing that could happen, but I think its well down the list of things that might.

  198. 198.

    Adam L Silverman

    December 15, 2016 at 2:15 am

    @BillinGlendaleCA: Couldn’t remember if it was Kissinger or the SecDef at the time Melvin Laird.

  199. 199.

    Adam L Silverman

    December 15, 2016 at 2:20 am

    I’m to bed with visions of nuclear sugarplums dancing in my head…

  200. 200.

    Yarrow

    December 15, 2016 at 2:24 am

    @Adam L Silverman: Yes, I’m not really worried about it. More like a proxy for how unstable Trump is, how easily goaded he is, what dumb decisions he can make and how we’re all at risk because of it. Using nuclear weapons is down the list of things likely to happen, but that doesn’t mean it’s not possible, and we seem to have few safeguards for it except to hope the president is rational.

  201. 201.

    joel hanes

    December 15, 2016 at 2:25 am

    @Hellbastard:

    Seriously thinking about tooling up

    Almost never produces the positive outcomes envisioned at the time of purchase, and often catalyzes negative outcomes.
    One of the most common is that it gets stolen; thieves adore guns, for which there is a lucrative black market, with the profit margin common to most black markets.

  202. 202.

    J R in WV

    December 15, 2016 at 2:43 am

    @BillinGlendaleCA:

    If it uses a MicroSD Card you need a SD card blank with a holder for the MicroSD card to work in devices that use plain SD Cards.

    But it doesn’t take a tool to insert or remove a MicroSD card. They’re just really small and easy to lose track of when removed from either the SD card sized holder or from the electronic device that they fit into.

  203. 203.

    Raoul

    December 15, 2016 at 2:44 am

    I asked the other day, and will do it again now: Join me, I gave $100 to the N.C. NAACP. They really, really need our support. We raised over $50K during the election. We can do a real mitzva here, too. Thank you.

  204. 204.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    December 15, 2016 at 2:53 am

    @J R in WV: I should have said MicroSD, apparently you need a tool to open the MicroSD card slot on the S2 which Steep confirmed. Not really a showstopper, since I rarely change the cards.

  205. 205.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    December 15, 2016 at 2:56 am

    @J R in WV:

    Read the rest of the thread, old-timer.

    The Samsung Galaxy Tab S2, like a lot of tablets and cell phones, does require a tool (or a needle) to open up the microSD card slot. The tablet is about a quarter of an inch thick, and the slot cover is flush to the edge.

  206. 206.

    NotMax

    December 15, 2016 at 3:15 am

    @Adam L. Silverman

    Perhaps some Tom Lehrer as an accompanying soundtrack.

  207. 207.

    J R in WV

    December 15, 2016 at 3:20 am

    @Adam L Silverman:

    I am working on a note to our financial advisor, our questions and issues may be past her level of expertise, I would appreciate any advice on wording or other places these questions might be better placed, from anyone but particularly from you, Adam:

    “We’ve been quite shocked by the election. Then watching the Stock Market continue to make record gains after the election of Mr. Trump.

    We feel there may be a bubble developing, when one is prepared this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. We are however, somewhat at a loss for the proper strategy to follow to offload assets we aren’t sure of and what to shift those funds into as a place of protection when we fear the collapse of many typical shelters under the new government.

    I feel very much as if we are on the brink of political and financial collapse, intentionally developed to benefit certain groups of investors at the expense of others. But with no one actually in control who understands how to change behavior in a very volatile market.

    Has there been much discussion along these lines in your circles? Other people asking these kinds of questions?

    We are inclined to pay off loans soon on our home base property here in WV to avoid being subject to pressure from that direction. Perhaps it would be better to keep those funds liquid rather than invested in real estate? It isn’t a whole lot of money at this point, and the interest rate is under 4% fixed. 3.5% maybe? Something like that.

    Let us know if you have any thoughts along these lines. Where to turn to for a shelter in perilous times. As if we were talking about this in 2007, with more freedom to refocus investments than we had at that time; but with higher potential danger of losses.”

    Any advice or thoughts, anyone?

  208. 208.

    Ian

    December 15, 2016 at 3:49 am

    @Yarrow:
    Fornier and Halperin.

  209. 209.

    TheMightyTrowel

    December 15, 2016 at 5:03 am

    @Raoul: Got my paycheck this week so I matched your donation

  210. 210.

    Shalimar

    December 15, 2016 at 6:01 am

    @Adam L Silverman: Thanks. I googled campaign manager, and knew that sounded wrong. Devine is who I was thinking of.

  211. 211.

    tybee

    December 15, 2016 at 6:02 am

    @J R in WV:

    yes, share the results of that conversation.

  212. 212.

    PIGL

    December 15, 2016 at 6:43 am

    @Yarrow: at some point citizens of those states will have to to decide to do what’s best for them and not worry about how it affects foreign nations. If the alternatives are only a) surrender to the grip of a death cult or b) leave and strengthen and indirectly the position of a foreign power—that simply shows that Russiat has developed a very effective strategy such that his side benefits the matter what we do.

  213. 213.

    Pogonip

    December 15, 2016 at 7:40 am

    @Yarrow: Why in the world would they want the U.S. to break up? That would be incredibly dangerous as there’s no way to predict who’d get the nukes. I think it more likely they just want the Americans too busy squabbling amongst themselves to bother Russia. Knowing that state-secession movements are fringe movements they probably figure there’s no harm, and some benefit, in encouraging them.

  214. 214.

    Chris

    December 15, 2016 at 9:29 am

    @MomSense:

    WTF is up with Comey? He was advised by his superiors not to write that letter. It went against FBI policy about interfering in an election. He chose not to discuss the Manafort investigation so as not to interfere. It really was an unprecedented action and he did so after the intel briefings about Russian interference in our election. Why would he do this? Partisanship? Russia found some juicy stuff in his emails? I just can’t get past this.

    Like I said at the time: I think the moral of the story is simply that the FBI never stopped being the snake pit that J. Edgar Hoover created it as, and due to the evolution of American politics, they’re no longer content to simply ratfuck social movements and blackmail politicians: now they’re looking at swinging entire presidential elections.

  215. 215.

    Another Scott

    December 15, 2016 at 9:46 am

    Dead thread, but…

    @J R in WV: There’s a huge amount of money in the US economy and it’s back-stopped by a Federal Reserve that has shown that it will not allow the the US economy to collapse.

    It’s very, very hard to time the market, and we don’t think rationally when we’re afraid.

    The best thing to do is be diversified if you can. “Dollar cost averaging” is your friend.

    We paid off our mortgage (a 30 year that we planned to pay off in 20) 5 years earlier, for the peace of mind. If you’re able to do that, and that peace of mind is important to you, then it’s worth doing. But there is a risk in doing so (as you mention, it can be harder to get money out of real estate if you need it quickly, especially if all your neighbors have the same idea due to some panic or other).

    It’s really hard to know what’s going to happen because Donnie and the Teabaggers are saying contradictory things (bigly infrastructure! no infrastructure! repeal Obamacare! repeal later! huge defense buildup! cut F35! etc.).

    If you get out, when will you get back in?

    I recall friends talking about getting out of investments and into cash when the DJIA was around 800…

    If the economy tanks, the wealthy are going to find ways to hold onto their wealth, and they will get out of “investments” like modern art, rare coins, huge real estate developments, etc. You’ll see Van Gogh prices crash (at least, if the auction houses aren’t messing with the market (any more than usual)). There will be indications, and I don’t think we’re there yet.

    I know it’s scary, but I don’t think Donnie’s billionaire friends will let him and the Teabaggers destroy the economy. If things start to decline, they’ll suddenly become fans of JMK – just watch.

    (Of course, things would be much, much better for the economy under HRC, but that isn’t to be.)

    My $0.02.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  216. 216.

    Chris

    December 15, 2016 at 9:55 am

    @Kay:

    Bernie is the worst Democrat ever and he’s not even a Democrat. I don’t understand the obsession with Party machinations among Bernie and his supporters. It’s as if the fights they want to win are intra-Party positioning. Wouldn’t it be more productive to find and run Left-labor candidates and win some actual elections?

    Yep. This is what I find unforgivable about the campaign. Taking the general economic left/populist momentum of the last eight years and turning it mostly into an intra-partisan movement obsessively focused on the rest of the Democratic Party as opposed to, you know, the people who are actually doing the bulk of the damage (and are currently gearing up to gut the ACA, Medicare and Social Security).

    There’s nothing wrong with some of it – pulling the Democratic Party further left should be a thing, and I don’t think most people are crying over, say, the TPP being scuttled – but the fact that it’s become so single-mindedly obsessed with the Dems to the point that most of the diehards see no difference between Hillary and Trump and are continuing to excuse a ton of the latter’s voters as Economically Anxious says a lot about how over the top the campaign went.

  217. 217.

    cmorenc

    December 15, 2016 at 10:26 am

    @efgoldman:

    SCOTUS can’t just say “hey let’s open this book of old cases and revisit them.”

    That’s EXACTLY what Roberts and his four henchmen on SCOTUS did with the Voting Rights Act. Justice Kennedy is conservative, but with some notable exceptions (e.g. Bush v Gore in 2000), has principles, By contrast, Roberts has sometimes been cautious about explicitly departing from established case law, out of concern for appearing principled (which is not the same thing as actually being principled) – precisely because he wants SCOTUS as an institution to retain its credibility, which is a requisite for the court to retain its power to be respected by the other two branches of government. And so, don’t count on the weight of precedent to stop determined ideological assault – take the late Antonin Scalia as an example of shameless mendaciousness masquerading as principled constitutional legal analysis.

  218. 218.

    Tenar Arha (same Tenar, more Nameless Ones)

    December 15, 2016 at 11:13 am

    I just keep thinking of the historical parallels. This is how Reconstruction was dismantled legally at the state & later the federal level. Terrorize & cheat to win or simply break all pre-existing norms, change the laws, then enforce the new ones with extreme prejudice & fight all the way to the conservative Supreme Court.

  219. 219.

    Justin

    December 16, 2016 at 9:07 pm

    @burnspbesq: Pretty sure the NC Republican Party is making sure North Carolinans have a “Republican” form of government whether they want it or not.

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