Mitch McConnell’s wife, Elaine Chao, just resigned as Secretary of Transportation instead of facing the possibility of doing the right thing and being part of a 25th Amendment solution. I think she’s the longest-serving Trump cabinet member and, more importantly, she’s been confirmed. There’s some question if Trump’s unconfirmed fill-ins in the cabinet can really vote to invoke the 25th.
If you wanted any clearer signal that the 25th ain’t gonna happen, look no further.
Can you imagine being married to Mitch? Jesus.
Update: This:
The scales Elaine Chao welded to her eyes have fallen.
— Dan Savage (@fakedansavage) January 7, 2021
Raven
It wasn’t going to happen anyway.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I know high-ranking Bushies have ranged from never-trump to all-in to keep your head down. I don’t know where Chertoff, who as I recall was pretty authoritarian while in office, has been.
Alison Rose
I can’t imagine anyone, including Jesus himself, wanting to be within 10 feet of McConnell, let alone laying a single finger on him.
Except possibly to punch him in the teeth.
Martin
Yep. I said yesterday it was a prisoners dilemma. If they resign, they can’t do the 25th. If you think the 25th is still in play, you have to stay in office.
With Chao out, it signals the 25th won’t happen, which also frees up everyone to resign.
Ball’s in your court Ms. Smash.
Wapiti
She took the coward’s way out. She ‘s rich as fuck and doesn’t need to work another day in her life. She could call Pence and say, “Let me know what you want. Otherwise, I’m doing transition stuff.”
natem
Don’t worry, I’m sure Bernie Dead Enders will find a way to blame Dems for failing to invoke the 25th
gene108
I have very little hope Trump will be forced out of office before his term ends.
House will pass articles of impeachment
GOP Senate will do everything possible to run out the clock and not have a vote on it.
As far as 25A goes, who the fuck qualifies as a Cabinet Secretary these days given how many are “acting Secretary of ______”.
Another Scott
Raven’s right, I suspect.
Donnie only has bottom of the barrel people working for him in appointed political positions. We’ve known this for years. They aren’t going to do what’s best for the country – they (almost) never have.
There isn’t One Weird Trick that’s going to save us. Not the 25th Amendment, not Impeachment, not Donnie’s doctors saying he had a medical condition and has to be put in a medically induced coma. We have to fight them every day and power through the next 310+ hours.
Hang in there.
Cheers,
Scott.
AWOL
Tell ’em, Joe.
But arrest and prosecute starting January 20.
mrmoshpotato
No, and you can’t make me.
Elizabelle
Fuck Mitch. Fuck Elaine Chao. But:
Joe Biden is on now. Won’t speak on 25th Amendment today, but going strongly after Trump. Rhetorically, anyway.
gene108
@Wapiti:
I wonder what she and Mitch discussed to reach this decision.
If Mitch wanted Trump removed, she would be whipping votes for the invocation of the 25A.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@gene108: I agree, I still hope for impeachment as a sign of Constitutional hygiene. I’ll take a motion of censure, anything. Articles drafted and some kind of symbolic vote that they can do without giving Gym Jordan and the new Qanon members to take to the floor
Biden is pulling no punches. I’m gonna want to go over a transcript of these remarks, taking it back to 2016, Helsinki, the Lafayette Square brutality, “even holding a Bible upside-down!”
Martin
Well, there is, but we don’t solve problems that way.
MisterForkbeard
@natem: I’m seeing a lot of normally very sensible people pissed that Pelosi and Schumer are only threatening impeachment right now instead of just doing it.
“just words” is the phrase I’m seeing. And there’s a point there. They’re right to push for the 25th, but the House should ABSOLUTELY push for impeachment and get the Republicans on record about it. It’d be tough, because they need every Democrat to vote for it in the House and that’s probably what’s causing delays now.
schrodingers_cat
@Raven: All the calls for impeachment and the 25th are fantasy land options given the Republicans in Congress and senate
Martin
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: That was a bit of an unforced error. The Bible wasn’t upside down. It looked that way, but it wasn’t.
mrmoshpotato
@natem: “Unicorn butlers would’ve prevented all of this, you establishment corporate whores!”
gene108
@AWOL:
And don’t prosecute for bullshit property damage crimes. This was a coup. Throw the book at them, including whatever laws apply to sedition.
Jail them for life.
Every person who set foot in the Capitol needs to be made an example of.
japa21
Joe is pissed.
Super Dave
It wasn’t gonna happen anyway.
Elaine, if you’d waited a little longer, tRump would probably have pardoned you for your insider trading crimes. Guess you just couldn’t wait that long.
West of the Rockies
McConnell is a grotesque road. Chao is nothing more than a mildly attractive mannequin, an empty pant-suit.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Another Scott: there is trump’s cardio-vascular system, which Biden is taking direct aim at here, over and over again.
Martin
@schrodingers_cat: A lot of government is the demonstration of process. There’s no real doubt which candidate is going to win California or Alabama, but we still spend the money and go through the process.
Laws only matter if you use them. You don’t need to always succeed, but you need to always use them.
AWOL
@gene108: I’ve watched GOP fuckers skate since 1974.
I’m hoping Harris focuses Biden on the past, not the future. There is no future if we don’t finally rectify the past.
Ruckus
No one on the maladministration side wants to take responsibility.
None of them ever have, they aren’t going to start now. They seem to be the kind of people who always get backed into corners, always by their own actions/words and they always fail/avoid taking responsibility, so nothing ever gets fixed. It gets papered over with dollar bills if anything at all, but never actually fixed.
They point fingers, at most, and rarely that, but they always walk away without taking responsibility.
shitforbrains is their leader because he’s practiced the art of never, ever, taking responsibility his entire life, and used other people’s money to paper over the effects. He ran for president to use our money to paper over the previous 70 yrs of his life of failure.
Baud
“Justice Garland”
Good Bidenism.
Martin
@gene108: Pretty sure you can be convicted of murder if someone is even accidentally killed in the commission of a felony. The AG/USAs should have lots of options here.
JoyceH
If the family was smart, they could do an unofficial 25th. Get a WH doctor onboard, make some vague but ominous statement, irregular heartbeat, whatever, and whisk him away to Walter Reed ‘out of an abundance of caution’ for observation – for two weeks. (Once there, give him sedative shots, or at least get him off the steroids that I’m sure he’s been on since the last time he was at Walter Reed.)
Elizabelle
Fresh thread about Biden and Pelosi.
This one stinks of corruption and cowardice. (Speaking of McConnell and Chao, not jackals.)
I hope Pelosi does not begin hers until Biden finishes his. Would like to see both in real time.
NotMax
There’s no questions about that. The text of the amendment refers to heads of executive departments, period. Silent as to whether they must have been confirmed for the position.
An Acting Secretary is by dint of the position the principal officer. If the topmost departmental position is vacant, the next in line within the department’s structure is the principal officer.
Stacib
@mrmoshpotato: funniest thing I’ll read all day.?
Nicole
@Ruckus:
Yup. As AWOL said, been watching them do it since 1974, so why would they stop now? (I was a little young to remember 1974, but I remember Iran Contra very well, and how I just could not believe Reagan said, “I didn’t know!” and the media went, “Oh, that’s okay then. He didn’t know.”
schrodingers_cat
The last 4 years have been a nightmare. He started wreaking havoc the week he was elected. He first targeted immigrants and long term visa holders trying to return home after the winter break who ran afoul of the his Muslim ban. There were scenes of utter chaos at the airports. Were the people whose green cards were seized ever returned? What happened to those people. Were they ever interviewed by the media doing innumerable interviews of white Republican voters in diners.
I guess the rest of you native born white folk now understand the anxiety and the constant low grade dread immigrants and those on long term visas, and other minorities have felt for the last 4 years under the Orange Bigot’s reign.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@JoyceH:
they are all, to different degrees, deeply damaged people. The boys were almost certainly physically abused, we’ve all seen the pictures of Ivanka sitting in Daddy’s lap at an inappropriate age. They all know their father raped their mother in a fit of rage over his bald spot. I’m not excusing them. They’re adults who have chosen to go back for more. But they are damaged.
patrick II
Mitch is trying to avoid having his members vote on impeachment. Perhaps the first thing Harris should do as Senate president is submit a “Sense of the Senate” echoing the House impeachment article holding Trump responsible for the riots on 1/6/21. Make them commit.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Nicole:
and more importantly, the American people, collectively, said the same thing.
mrmoshpotato
@Stacib: Trying find some humor in the final days of this four-year, fascist shitshow. :)
Ceci n est pas mon nym
25th Amendment, impeachment, censure, or simply lock him in the bathroom in the White House residence. I don’t care. I just want him neutered between now and Jan 20.
L85NJGT
@JoyceH:
He’s off to Camp David tomorrow.
Take away his social media, have the docs give him a mild sedative, and everybody “knows” to check with the VP if they get a nutty phone call from Trump.
Nicole
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
God, I remember that. My teenaged self could not understand it. Reagan and Bush just absolutely skated by. And Bush went on to be President, even.
TruthOfAngels
Nancy speaking, ‘Get him out, Pence, or we’re going to impeach the motherfucker.’
Ruckus
@Nicole:
Any even casual look at US history will show you this about conservatives, no matter what they called themselves. Actually I believe that if you study history you will find that this is the actual definition of conservatism – no responsibility for anything.
Conservatism can’t be wrong, only wronged.
Conservatism can never be wrong, people screwed up.
Conservatism can never be wrong, it was never actually properly practiced.
All excuses that we’ve heard in some form or another.
This is what they do, they are the political party of irresponsibility.
Leto
@Nicole: and then pardoned most of the ring leaders of that fiasco. God it’s good to be a Republican… /vomit
mali muso
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
I like the cut of your jib.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Nicole: from memory, on the old This Week show, Sam Donaldson said something about in spite of the evidence, the President has won the hearts and minds of the American people on this issue, To which David Brinkley drawled, “Well he’s won their hearts, if not their minds…”
and a few years later, a pretty blatant case of Poppy Bush abusing the pardon power to save himself from a cut and dried case of perjury, but he was the nice old gent who jumped out of airplanes.
Z. Mulls
This is from the whitehouse.gov website, it is the full official cabinet. I put the Acting heads at the bottom. I am not convinced that Acting heads could vote — they have not received Senate confirmation, so don’t have any writ to participate in a Constitutional removal of head of state?
Vice President Michael R. Pence
Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue
Director of the Central Intelligence Agency Gina Haspel
Secretary of Commerce Wilbur L. Ross, Jr.
Secretary of Education Elisabeth Prince DeVos
Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette
Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency Andrew Wheeler
Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar
Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Benjamin S. Carson, Sr.
Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt
Secretary of Labor Eugene Scalia
Director of the Office of Management and Budget Russ Vought
Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe
Administrator of the Small Business Administration Jovita Carranza
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
Secretary of Transportation Elaine L. Chao
Secretary of the Treasury Steven T. Mnuchin
U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer
Secretary of Veterans Affairs Robert Wilkie
White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows
Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen
Acting Secretary of Defense Christopher C. Miller
Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wol
I figured Chao, Mnuchin, Azar and Haspal would be probable Yes votes, and Meadows, DeVos, Pompeo and Ratcliffe were probable No votes. Can’t figure how the others would go
patrick II
I believe you can include a restriction on the ability to run for public office again an impeachment article. I think Senate Republicans should consider that a little more than they have been.
L85NJGT
The idea of fleeing to Scotland isn’t normal even for a crook looking to avoid prosecution. That’s time to take the keys away behavior.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Z. Mulls: thanks for that, I’ve been meaning to google it, at least out of curiosity
Ruckus
Conservatives/republicans don’t want shitforbrains removed because that would prove that they backed a piece of shit, with shitty concepts of, well everything, and that they have no fucking idea what a realistic government, governing, responsibility, or even humanity actual is. They hate humans that have darker skin, they hate taxes because properly done that reenforces political views that value money not as a thing to be hoarded but as a means of purchase, they hate actual thought because they aren’t capable of it, they hate democracy because it makes them like everyone else – possibly logical. (a major improvement, but they are too stupid, selfish and illogical to understand that)
gvg
@MisterForkbeard: Tell them you have to start with words because legislative bodies involve lots of people agreeing to vote the same way. We don’t have a king and don’t want one.
The exact wording is going to matter to people who vote so you have to start feeling out how all the other people in Congress feel in order to write legislation that will actually pass. They can write something and ask how Congress people think of it and then they have to re write probably a bunch of time.
They also need to bring the public along that this needs to be done and that is really important in this exact context. Most people and Congress were thinking up till yesterday, nah countdown till Biden. Now we have to rethink, and not everybody was even watching the news.
A democracy is supposed to be a lot of talking to be honest.
Ruckus
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
Physically/actually, as a part of the process would be best.
Delk
Mr & Mrs Corpse Hands
Ruckus
The 25th and impeachment are actual pillars of responsibility in our government.
Which is exactly the reason that republicans do not want to do either. Responsibility is a foreign concept to their entire pile of political concepts. It registers with them as an impossibility, a thing they don’t understand or even have any desire for. They don’t see how to make money off of it.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Ruckus: No argument from me. Is Joni Ernst still in the Senate?
Booger
@NotMax: Yep. And what if the acting deputy assistant to the acting undersecretary for trivial niceties votes for removal? Do you think someone is going to take them to court and have the USSC rule on it?
NotMax
@Z. Mulls
Problem is the 25th was designed to apply in cases of severe or extreme physical incapacity (stroke, coma, etc.) and not chronic mental unsuitability, imbalance or diminishment.
Citizen Alan
@Z. Mulls: Jesus, just reading all those names in one place! It’s like the introductory scene of the Legion of Doom from the first episode of Challenge of the Super Friends! Pure concentrated evil!
jonas
Chao was in it purely for the grift anyway, so with two weeks to go, this was no big deal. Maybe she thought that if she pretended to show some spine now, the incoming Dem Congress would look the other way on all this corrupt shit she’s been up to the past four years.
Nice try.
lee
Internet Constitutional Lawyers have been having a field day with the bolded part of this phrase.
Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide.
I would think the ‘principal officers’ would be whomever is in the position regardless if they are confirmed or not.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Citizen Alan: Not familiar with that, but the bad guy lineup from Blazing Saddles works for me.
schrodingers_cat
@Martin: Oh I don’t disagree. They should do it even if it has no chance of success.
The Moar You Know
@Z. Mulls: you aren’t getting 10% of that band of rejects to sign on to the 25th. No way. I didn’t realize it was that bad. Thank you for the list.
kindness
MoscowMitch won’t lift a finger to remove a Republican from office. But he will vote to impeach a President who lied about consentual adultery.
That’s Mitch’s rules.
ET
CNN is reporting that the House Sargent at Arms is submitting their resignation. The head of the USCP should as well.
Just Some Fuckhead
Hmm
Nicole
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
God, that’s right. I’d forgotten.
The GOP rank-and-file are so willing to forgive anything, as long as it’s their guy doing it. Which Democrats do not do. I also get so enraged when I hear “both sides are the same!” No, no they’re not. To some extent, we’re always screwed because we really do hold our representatives to a higher standard.
There’s a crazy right-winger whose FB page I occasionally peek at, and yesterday he, in the midst of wailing about the Senate, etc., brought up that he’s aware of Trump’s behavior; he just doesn’t think the President has an obligation to set an example with his behavior. He’s fine with how he acts. Ladies and gentlemen, the rank-and-file Republican.
Ruckus
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
The pig slicer? Yes she is. An appropriate choice….
Just Some Fuckhead
States, most seditious to least seditious based on reps/sens voting to overthrow democracy divided by total electors. Where does your state rank?
1. Alabama %77.78
2. Oklahoma %71.43
3. Kansas %66.67
3. Mississippi %66.67
5. Tennessee %63.64
6. Louisiana %62.5
7. Missouri %60
8. South Carolina %55.56
9. North Carolina %46.67
10. Florida %44.83
11. Texas %44.74
12. Pennsylvania %40
12. West Virginia %40
14. Georgia %37.5
15. Arizona %36.36
15. Indiana %36.36
17. Montana %33.33
17. Utah %33.33
17. Wyoming %33.33
20. Virginia %30.77
21. Ohio %27.78
22. Idaho %25
23. Colorado %22.22
24. Minnesota %20
24. Nebraska %20
24. New Mexico %20
24. Wisconsin %20
28. Michigan %18.75
29. Arkansas %16.67
30. Oregon %14.29
31. New York %13.79
32. California %12.73
33. Kentucky %12.5
34. Illinois %10
34. Maryland %10
36. New Jersey %7.14
37. Alaska %0
37. Connecticut %0
37. Delaware %0
37. Hawaii %0
37. Iowa %0
37. Maine %0
37. Massachusetts %0
37. Nevada %0
37. New Hampshire %0
37. North Dakota %0
37. Rhode Island %0
37. South Dakota %0
37. Vermont %0
37. Washington %0
randy khan
@Z. Mulls:
I don’t think Meadows is on the 25th Amendment list because he’s not the head of a principal government department (and, not incidentally, is not confirmed by the Senate).
BTW, Chao’s resignation is effective Monday, so she still can sign on for a 25th Amendment action.
Ksmiami
@MisterForkbeard: Remember though if the Senate GOP chickens out of impeachment conviction and something truly catastrophic happens, the party is finished so self preservation may kick in here. Technically Chao stays in till Monday so…
randy khan
@ET:
Pelosi has said the chief of the Capitol Police should resign, so I’m guessing whoever it is will be out pretty soon.
Just Some Fuckhead
It shouldn’t really be 25th anyway. Trump isn’t incapacitated. He’s just a hideous being.
Impeach and remove.
Z. Mulls
@randy khan: You may be right about Meadows. This is the official list of the “Cabinet” so there may be some statutory definition of Chief of Staff as a Cabinet position, which would put him on the list. Tough to say.
And thank you for that point about Chao. If she is putting a few days before her resignation then yes she could. She would be one of the only definite Yes votes to remove that I can see
Alce_e_ardillo
What was said of Thomas and Jane Carlyle equally applies to McConnell and Chao:”It was very good of God to let Carlyle and Mrs Carlyle marry one another, and so make only two people miserable and not four”
Chief Oshkosh
@NotMax: So, why not approach those who are still standing, whether confirmed or not? In fact, some of these may be happy to help with the 25th.
BigJimSlade
@Wapiti: This came to mind (Monty Python, Brave Sir Robin):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZwuTo7zKM8
NotMax
@Chief Oshkosh
Because it would be an extremely short-lived measure in a worst case (and not fantastical) scenario.
1) Veep and majority submit the required letter to Congress. Veep becomes Acting President upon its receipt.
2) President submits letter of objection to Congress, resumes powers of the office upon its receipt.
3) President fires those (aside from Veep) who voted against him and replaces them with more acquiescent flunkies before Veep and the others can complete the next step in the process to Veep resuming Acting status.
4) Game over.
Obdurodon
Congress can designate some body other than the cabinet which, in concert with the vice president, can fulfill both phases of the 25th’s requirements. Pelosi even proposed, back in October I think, a bill to define such a body. If people in congress were really serious about doing the right thing here, they wouldn’t need to rely on a group of people already under Trump’s thumb. The bigger obstacle is the 2/3 majority (of “both houses” which I assume means both separately though in plain English it could mean both together) requirement.
NotMax
@Obdurodon
It means separately. The chambers do not conduct votes jointly.
Obdurodon
@NotMax: They do in the case of responding to an objection to electors. It’s a rare case, which is why I don’t consider it likely, but it’s not unprecedented.
Remfin
@NotMax: When the President submits the letter of objection, it starts a 4 day clock for the VP & Cabinet to re-confirm. The VP is still the AP during that clock. At that point, it starts a 21 day clock to vote on a final outcome, but Pelosi could just put it in a drawer
Obdurodon
@Remfin: I think as a practical matter she’d need the cooperation of her co-presiding senate counterpart, but yeah.
NotMax
@Obdurodon
The chambers adjourn to separate sessions in order to vote on objections to electors.
@Remfin
Nope. The text (emphasis added):
“Thereafter, when the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall resume the powers and duties of his office unless the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive department or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit within four days to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.”
Obdurodon
@NotMax:
…unless…
https://law.yale.edu/sites/default/files/area/clinic/document/mn082208_ls_readerguide_interior_final.pd
I direct your attention to page 38 specifically. There’s even a diagram. Also, the entire section of text beginning on page 47.
Remfin
@NotMax: I understand why you’re reading it that way, but that’s not how it works. The clause is put first in the sentence to emphasize it’s the default effect if action is not taken, but the actual effect is the VP has 4 days. Otherwise, as others have pointed out, it would make zero sense at all (fire all your cabinet officers, lock up the VP would invalidate the whole 4th part of the 25th). The legislative history on what they were writing was clear, since someone proposed a change that would make it work the way you think and it was voted down
WaterGirl
@Just Some Fuckhead: I would argue that he is mentally incapacitated and is incapable or making reasonable decisions.
NotMax
@Remfin
As it has never been invoked, what interpretations and applications there are remain murky and there is no precedent to go by. This is really not a time to conduct beta testing on an amendment.
Obdurodon
@NotMax: Doesn’t that apply to your interpretation as well? Remfin at least provided compelling arguments, consistent with those of the experts I cited. Where are your compelling arguments? Unsupported certainty is not an argument.
NotMax
@Obdurodon
If citing the actual text of the amendment as a basis for interpretation isn’t enough….
NotMax
@NotMax
Addendum.
As it has never been put to the acid test, never put forth that my interpretation is the only one. Just the reading I happen to find the most logical.
(And as have said many times, IANAL.)
Obdurodon
@NotMax: You didn’t read the cite, did you? They address this.
A footnote points out that even advocates for an opposing view have conceded that the legislative-history argument is persuasive.
Again, where’s your argument? The text disagrees with you. This is law, and either a plain-English or legal parsing of it leads to a conclusion other than yours. Hasty conclusions and hostility aren’t going to carry the day.
NotMax
@Obdurodon
Yeah, I scanned through it. Disagree with what constitutes a natural reading; the textual wording is cloudy construction. I read it as an escape hatch, as the word unless begins a subordinate clause.
In any case, persuasive is not definitive without having been put into practice and duly adjudicated.