What we’ve been waiting for.
This post is in: America, Best President Ever, Domestic Politics, Don't Mourn, Organize, Open Threads
by Adam L Silverman| 190 Comments
This post is in: America, Cat Blogging, Faunasphere, Nature, Open Threads
Apparently everyone’s a wee bit stressed out, which is understandable. So rather than explaining the vetting process* on how a series of white supremacists, plagiarists, conspiracists, economic illiterates, white collar criminals, and some, I assume, are good people, I thought something relaxing might be in order. Everyone say awwww!!!!
Open thread.
* I have a bit of inside insight here, which I won’t go into, but basically the vetting is done based on expressed and perceived loyalty to the President. Republicans, former Republicans, and self described conservatives who were NeverTrumpers or who ever wrote or said anything negative about the President on social media or on TV or on talk radio are excluded unless they take great pains to get right with the President. The same loyalty test applies to professionally non-partisan subject matter experts who did similar things out of their professional concern over what was observable during the campaign and has been happening ever since.
How About We All Take a Deep Breath and Go Awwwwww!Post + Comments (190)
by Adam L Silverman| 160 Comments
This post is in: 2020 Elections, America, Domestic Politics, Election 2018, Events, Foreign Affairs, Open Threads, Politics, Popular Culture, Silverman on Security
Here’s the live feed of Senator McCain’s funeral service in Arizona before his body is flown to Washington, DC to lie in state in the Capitol and a second funeral service on Saturday at the National Cathedral and his final, private funeral service and interment on Sunday at the Naval cemetery at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, MD.
I’ve got the live feed set to start with Vice President Biden’s eulogy, but feel free to go back or forward. Larry Fitzgerald’s eulogy, given just before VP Biden’s, was very, very nice.
Open thread!
Vice President Biden’s Eulogy for Senator McCainPost + Comments (160)
by Adam L Silverman| 98 Comments
This post is in: America, Domestic Politics, Foreign Affairs, Military, Open Threads, Politics, Silverman on Security
(Insignia of Attack Squadron/VA 163 – The Saints)
Over the decades and the wars that span them, new verses have been written for the Navy Hymn expanding it to cover new naval occupations and their accompanying hazards. There are two verses of the Navy Hymn that were written for naval aviators. The first by Mary C. D. Hamilton in 1915 and the second by Emma Mayhew Whiting in 1943.
Lord, guard and guide the men who fly
Through the great spaces in the sky.
Be with them always in the air,
In darkening storms or sunlight fair;
Oh, hear us when we lift our prayer,
For those in peril in the air!
Mary C. D. Hamilton (1915)
Oh, Watchful Father who dost keep
Eternal vigil while we sleep
Guide those who navigate on high
Who through grave unknown perils fly,
Receive our oft-repeated prayer
For those in peril in the air.
Emma Mayhew Whiting (1943)
And here is the traditional/original version of the Navy Hymn performed by the US Naval Academy Glee Club.
Fair winds and following seas…
Fair Winds and Following Seas to Senator McCainPost + Comments (98)
by Adam L Silverman| 61 Comments
This post is in: 2020 Elections, America, Domestic Politics, Election 2016, Election 2018, Foreign Affairs, Grifters Gonna Grift, Open Threads, Politics, Popular Culture, Post-racial America, Not Normal
A top QAnon promoter met briefly with Trump in the Oval Office on Thursday https://t.co/qmIcFHkjdA pic.twitter.com/odd4jLVtWU
— Will Sommer (@willsommer) August 24, 2018
We haven’t been able to get to the bottom of this yet, but of the 4 senior WH aides we asked about how Trump ended up in a photo op w/ this prominent QAnon guy in the Oval, they all pleaded ignorance. 2 of them audibly could not contain their laughter. https://t.co/DLcpcqvcJc
— Asawin Suebsaeng (@swin24) August 24, 2018
The QAnon conspiracy monger in the picture goes by the name of Lionel (he’s the one with the beard). He is an attorney from the Tampa area – not sure if he lives in Hillsborough or Pinellas County – who had a local call in radio show where he was pretty left of center. He then went to Air America for a bit and is now in syndication. Or he went to syndication, then Air America, and then back to syndication. And he was on CourtTV for a while too. And my Dad knew him – at one time way back in the day he took one or more of my Dad’s classes in the criminology/criminal justice program at USF. I had no idea he’d undergone an ideological inversion or become a conspiracy theorist and monger.
The Daily Beast has the details:
On Thursday, President Donald Trump posed for an Oval Office photo with one of the leading promoters of the QAnon conspiracy theory, which claims that top Democrats are part of a global pedophile cult.
YouTube conspiracy theorist Lionel Lebron was in the White House for an event on Thursday, according to a video Lebron posted online. During the visit, Lebron and his wife posed for a smiling picture with Trump in the Oval Office.
Lebron is one of the internet’s leading promoters of QAnon, the pro-Trump conspiracy theory based on a series of anonymous clues posted to internet forums. QAnon believers have interpreted the clues, which they claim without evidence are coming from a highly placed source in the Trump administration, to mean that Trump and the military are engaged in a high-stakes shadow war against a supposed globalist pedophile cult. The conspiracy theory has caught on with Trump supporters, who have held up QAnon-related signs and wear QAnon shirts to the president’s rallies.
Lebron claimed to have received a “special guided tour of the White House” before posing for pictures with Trump. In a video posted Friday, Lebron said he didn’t use the brief encounter with the president to ask Trump about QAnon or its slogan, “Where we go one, we go all.”
“I think we all know he knows about it,” Lebron said in the video, sipping from a coffee mug he claimed to have received as a gift at the White House.
I am obviously still trying to get a straight answer out of someone, anymore who will simply explain how exactly they got in there with Trump. It’s just so… fucking weird!
— Asawin Suebsaeng (@swin24) August 24, 2018
Crazy days!
Open thread.
Floriduh! Man Goes to the White House: QAnon EditionPost + Comments (61)
by Adam L Silverman| 103 Comments
This post is in: 2020 Elections, America, Domestic Politics, Election 2016, Election 2018, Foreign Affairs, Open Threads, Politics, Popular Culture, Post-racial America, Silverman on Security, Not Normal
The President, Vice President and all Civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors. — Article II, Section 4 of the US Constitution
There has been a lot of discussion in both the comments sections here, as well as by various knowledgable and in some cases unknowledgable commentators in the news media, about whether a sitting president, specifically the current President, can be indicted. A lot of this discussion – and I’m going to attempt to not create a straw man here – defaults to a sitting president cannot be indicted because the only way to remove a sitting president is through impeachment and that this is Department of Justice policy. The better or, perhaps, more accurate answer is that this is actually an unsettled question and we really do not know.
There is, without any doubt, a 1973 Department of Justice memo that issued the guidance that a sitting president could not be indicted. The Watergate Special Prosecutor’s team, however, prepared a legal brief arguing that this was not the case, but never actually fought the issue. Though they did include the argument in their brief regarding subpoenaing the Nixon’s White House tapes. My professional assessment as a political scientist and criminologist is they chose not to have that fight at that time because they didn’t have to as Congress had begun impeachment. During the Clinton administration, the Whitewater Independent Counsel’s team also prepared a legal brief challenging the 1973 guidelines and arguing that a sitting president could be indicted, but here too they never pushed the issue. My professional assessment is that it was for the same reason – the Republican majority Congress had made it clear that they would begin the impeachment process. In both cases, two different legal teams dealing with two different presidents from two different parties accused of engaging in very different types of improper conduct chose not to pick a fight that would have likely gone to the Supreme Court, risking a ruling that would enshrine the 1973 DOJ guidance as constitutional and limiting the power of future prosecutors dealing with future presidents’ bad acts. You can find all of these legal memos at this link (and I’ll upload the whole pdf at the bottom of the post).
That lawyers actually involved in either setting these guidelines or challenging them disagree is significant, but it doesn’t get us very far. Neil Katyal, former Acting Solicitor General of the United States, who wrote the most recent Department of Justice Office rules for a special prosecutor, had this to say about this issue (emphasis mine):
It is true that the special counsel regulations (which I drafted in 1999 for the Justice Department) generally require the special counsel to obey Justice Department policy. And it is also true that Justice Department policy is that a sitting president cannot be indicted. But the regulations contemplate that a special counsel could, in appropriate circumstances, depart from Justice Department policy.
The regulations had to be written that way. Those of us who created them could not foresee all the possible permutations of law and facts that would unfold in the years to come. If congressional leadership, for example, was in criminal cahoots with the president, no one would want the special counsel to be powerless to indict or to report information to the full Congress for impeachment.
Accordingly, the regulations permitted the special counsel to seek a departure from Justice Department policy, by going to the acting attorney general (in this case, Rod Rosenstein) and requesting it. The idea was that if responsibility for decision-making was vested in Justice Department leadership, decisions to protect the rule of law were more likely to be made. And as a safeguard against wrongdoing by Justice Department leadership, the regulations require transparency in the process: If the acting attorney general refuses a special counsel request, he must notify the majority and minority parties in Congress.
In this way, the regulations put a thumb on the scale in favor of having Mr. Mueller seek an indictment if he finds evidence of criminal wrongdoing by Mr. Trump. Unlike the Independent Counsel Act, a predecessor to the special counsel regulations that required the prosecutor to write a detailed final report to Congress, the regulations require only a substantive report when the acting attorney general overrules the special counsel. The acting attorney general is free to write one otherwise, but the only way Mr. Mueller can ensure such a report is written is to make a request that is overruled.
Thus the various pieces of the constitutional and regulatory scheme work together: If indictment is off the table, then impeachment must be on it; and (perhaps in a future setting) if impeachment is off the table because of nefarious congressional activity, then indictment must be on it. That is the genius of our system, and the only way to ensure we remain a government of laws which no one is above.
Katyal has, I think, identified the real issue here that has driven the Department of Justice guidance going back to 1973 on this issue: that indictment is off the table for actual criminal acts if Congress has deemed them to be high crimes and misdemeanors and begun impeachment. Since Congress had done that during both Watergate and as a result of the Whitewater Independent Counsel’s report, the prosecutors tasked with holding a sitting president accountable to the rule of law chose not to pick a fight they weren’t sure they would win, even if they believed they were right on both the constitutional and statutory legal issues.
Other than what is in the actual impeachment clause, the Constitution is actually silent on this issue. And the question of impeachment is always a political one. So the Founders and Framers are not silent on the political process for removing a president, which is impeachment. But impeachment is a political process for what any specific Congress decides is a political problem that equates to high crimes and misdemeanors, not a criminal process. And despite Hamilton’s Federalist paper on this topic, I find it very, very, very hard to believe that the Founders and Framers, who had been so concerned about the crimes committed by a sovereign that they revolted and then created a system of laws, not men, would create such a system with the intent that it placed the president above those laws.
We are, unfortunately, in uncharted territory. Largely because the Founders and Framers never believed that should a president commit significant crimes while in office, or commit them to obtain the presidency, that Congress would fail to do its constitutional duty, fail to deem these to be high crimes and misdemeanors, and impeach that president in the House and convict him in the Senate and thereby remove him from office. They did not make this explicit because they could not imagine they needed to. The Founders and the Framers could not and did not envision every problem that their fledgling nation would face and where they did not or could not, the Constitution itself, as a record of their guidance, is silent.* It could not be otherwise. But just because they were not explicit, because they did not think they needed to be, and, as a result, the Constitution really does not deal with actual criminal crimes committed by a president, as opposed to actions that include criminal crimes, that any given Congress decides are high crimes and misdemeanors, does not mean that the rule of law does not apply or any president is above the law.
Right now we have congressional majorities that by and large not only do not wish to deal with these issues, but are actively working to obscure them and direct attention away from them in an attempt to preserve their majorities and their power. To adapt my oft used phrase, the current Republican majorities in the House and the Senate are off the looking glass and through the map. The Founders and Framers did not provide guidance for what to do under these circumstances because they, themselves, could not envision these circumstances. If you had explained to them that a future Congress might fail to actually do its constitutional duties because of rank partisanship and the pursuit of power, they would have looked at you as if you were crazy. The idea itself was simply so far outside of their ken as to be incomprehensible. As a result we are in uncharted territory and anyone who tells you definitively that X will happen or Y won’t happen should be taken with an Adam sized grain of salt (that’s more like a salt boulder than a grain, but you get the idea).
My professional assessment is that Special Counsel Mueller is both an institutionalist and a honest broker when it comes to the pursuit of justice. That if he feels the pursuit of justice means that he must follow the existing Department of Justice guidance, then he will and if he feels that the pursuit of justice means that he needs to challenge them, then that is what he would do. In other words: I have no idea. And, to be honest, neither does anyone else that is not Special Counsel Mueller, members of his team, and possibly Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein. Special Counsel Mueller finds himself in that area that Neil Katyal described at the end of his op-ed about the rules he wrote for special counsels. A grey area where either impeachment must happen or indictments must happen in order to keep a president from being above the law or, perhaps, a law unto themselves.
Open thread!
* I’m not a lawyer, just a political scientist and criminologist by education, but this is one of the major reasons that I find the originalist argument of constitutional interpretation and law to be unconvincing. Moreover, President Jefferson put paid to this idea of originalism back in his letter to Samuel Kercheval in July 1816, which is also inscribed in really big letters on the southeast portico of the Jefferson Memorial in case Justices Alito, Gorsuch, and Thomas are having trouble finding his thoughts on this matter!
I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions, but laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as a civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.
by Adam L Silverman| 138 Comments
This post is in: America, Domestic Politics, Election 2016, Open Threads, Politics, Popular Culture, Post-racial America, Not Normal
Florida GOP candidate wants to move Trump’s Walk of Fame star his state: Mike Hill, a former state representative in Florida who is running for the Republican nomination for a House race in the state, wants to bring President Trump's Hollywood Walk of… https://t.co/RRqF7szpm6 pic.twitter.com/uyXJqKaf4l
— Patrick (@cahulaan) August 23, 2018
Plaza named for Robert E. Lee? Check!
Confederate monument? Check!
Fake mockup of the President’s Hollywood Walk of Fame star? Check!
Wingnut running for elected office? Check!
Pensacola News Journal take it away!
A former state representative and current candidate for Florida House District 1 wants to bring President Donald Trump’s Hollywood Walk of Fame star to Pensacola.
Mike Hill announced via a Facebook Live video Wednesday that he wanted to put the Trump Hollywood star in Pensacola.
“Pensacola, the first settlement in America, is also going to be the city that is going to bring the Trump Hollywood star here to Pensacola,” Hill said in the video. “I want you to join me, Pensacola.”
Hill made the announcement while holding a life-size photo of the Trump star in front of the Confederate monument in Lee Square in downtown Pensacola with a campaign sign for his state House run placed next to him.
“When I’m in office, I’ll be able to do even more to make sure that this star gets here and stays here,” Hill said in the video. “Let’s go, Pensacola. Let’s make this work.”
Hill told the News Journal on Thursday that the video was not a political stunt.
“I did not create the timing of when the star was destroyed in Hollywood,” Hill said. “… Even if I were not running for office, this would be something that I would do because I so support our president Donald Trump and what he is doing.”
Hill is running for the Republican nomination for House District 1. The seat is being vacated by Rep. Clay Ingram, who is term limited. District 1 covers much of Escambia County, mostly north of the city limits of Pensacola.
Hill said he would raise the money for the star through donations and possibly hold an online contest to pick a location for the star.
Once a location is decided, Hill said he would petition the city of Pensacola to place the star at that location.
Hill said the decision to make the announcement in front of the Confederate monument was just where he happened to be when he met a friend to shoot the video, but he added that he supports keeping the Confederate monument.
“History is what makes us up as a people,” Hill said. “The good, the bad and the ugly, and we learn from it, and we move on, getting better from it. Not tearing it down and trying to forget it.”
Hill said he thought putting the Trump star in Pensacola hits all three levels of government.
“It’s a national issue: showing support for our president and what he’s doing,” Hill said. “It’s a state level issue: respecting our monuments as they are erected, including perhaps a Trump star, and at the local level: where we decide where it’s going to be placed as a people.”
Supporting treason in the defense of slavery is no way to go through life, let alone seek public service.
Open thread!