Mostly Monday Reads: Coping with Crazy

Posted: January 27, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Colombia, Democratic Backsliding, kleptocracy | Tags: , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

“It just comes naturally, “John (repeat1968) Buss
@johnbuss.bsky.social

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

Well, one of the most unqualified, mediocre white men ever started a full-scale attack on our troops and their morale as the American Defense Secretary.  He’s lowering troop morale. My Daddy didn’t tell me many stories about his time bombing NAZIs while based in Ipswich, England. His favorite story was that the crew was on a mission one day, and the mission commander was Jimmy Stewart. Can you imagine hearing that voice issuing orders from your radio?  My High School Russian History teacher was taken prisoner during the Battle of the Bulge. He wrote a memoir and it’s sitting in the National Archives. The one thing that really defines the Boomer generation is the war and the stories of our family members, who were all involved in one way or another. My Grandfather was in charge of War Bonds at the Kansas City Fed.  My other Grandfather worked for the Railroad, where troops and supplies were vital. One of my uncles was in the Navy, and the other was in Army Intelligence. They all had stories about that time. There were all kinds of people doing all kinds of things to save the American Way and its democracy.

If you ever find your way to New Orleans, I highly recommend the National World War 2 Museum. When the daughters and I took Dad there, it was very new. Dad was given hero treatment.  They only had their European theatre displays up, but there are more now.  Their big feature was the Higgins boats that stormed the beaches during D-Day that were made in New Orleans. Never in a million years would I expect some of the most honored war heroes to be erased from the textbooks of the military, the USAF’s military curriculum. This is from WSAF Channel 12 in Montgomery, Alabama.  A historic city for many reasons, but a lot of it comes from essential changes that improved the status of black Americans. You undoubtedly know their story. “Defense secretary orders immediate reversal of USAF’s removal of Tuskegee Airmen from the curriculum,”

Newly-confirmed Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth confirmed Sunday in a social media post that the U.S. Air Force will continue teaching about the famed Tuskegee Airmen.

In a statement posted Sunday afternoon, Sen. Katie Britt said she has “no doubt” Hegseth will “correct and get to the bottom of the malicious compliance we’ve seen in recent days.”

Senator Katie Boyd Britt immediately sent this out to what’s left of Twitter.

“Little Big Man” Walt Handelsman,  https://www.nola.com/opinions/walt_handelsman/ 

Newsweek has more details here. 

The Air Force says it has reinstated training material on the Tuskegee Airmen and Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs) after a brief delay to revise it in line with the Trump administration’s rollback of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies.

In a post on X (formerly Twitter) on Sunday, Hegseth clarified that any attempt to cut the Tuskegee Airmen training material had been “immediately reversed.”

The decision resolves a controversy that emerged as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth began his first day at the Pentagon.

After announcing this intervention, the country’s worst mediocre white christianist nationalist man in an office he’s got no busy holding making completely insulting and inappropriate decisions.  This happens when people are hired based on skin color, religion, and favoritism from the boss. We get the rule of mediocre white men and their misplaced confidence that makes the rest of us do the work so the entire outfit doesn’t go down the shitter.

Trump is also announcing big changes for the military comprised of volunteers who may soon be volunteering their asses straight back to being civilians at all this moral-lowering hate. It wasn’t enough that he summarily ousted the first woman Coast Guard Chief on his first full day in the office. This is what CNN has in its big story today. “Trump expected to sign executive orders to reshape the military, including banning transgender troops.”  This is the man who called people in the military “suckers” and “losers.”  Let’s just call all this for what it is.  It is racist.  It is misogynistic.  It defines every person by their sex and not by their gender identity or sexual preferences.  In short, it demeans every human being who is not a white male christianist and strips them of their Constitutional rights..

President Donald Trump on Monday is expected to sign four executive orders that would reshape the military, including banning transgender service members from serving in the US armed forces, gutting the military’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs, and reinstating with back pay service members who were discharged for refusing to get vaccinated from Covid-19, two White House officials told CNN.

The orders, which were first reported by the New York Post, come as Trump’s nominee to lead the Pentagon, Pete Hegseth, was sworn in as secretary of defense on Saturday. Hegseth has long stated he planned to implement major cultural changes to the military, including ending DEI practices and removing “woke” service members.

Moments after his arrival at the Pentagon on Monday, Hegseth told reporters that there are “more executive orders coming.”

This is a purge and a crusade. We need to know more to protect ourselves, our loved ones, and our country.

That same FARTUS, the mediocre white man-in-chief, had a hissy fit at Colombia over the weekend.  The BBC reports today.“Colombia yields on US deportation flights to avert trade war.  Today’s lesson is not to surrender in advance. All those coffee-drinking Americans would not like the result more than Colombians. You have no idea how reliant we are on Colombia for goods. And to top it off, he couldn’t even spell the country’s name correctly in his Social Media Barf zone.  You can read about that at the BBC link.

A looming trade war between the US and Colombia appears to have been averted after the Colombian government agreed to allow US military flights carrying deported migrants to land in the Andean country.

The spat erupted on Sunday when President Gustavo Petro barred two military planes carrying Colombians deported from the US from landing.

The Trump administration responded by threatening to slap punitive tariffs on Colombian exports to the US.

President Petro at first said Colombia would retaliate by imposing tariffs on US goods, but the White House later announced that Colombia had agreed to accept migrants – including those arriving on US military aircraft – “without limitation or delay”.

The White House hailed the agreement with Colombia as a victory for Trump’s hard-line approach, after the country’s two leaders had exchanged threats on social media on Sunday.

“Today’s events make clear to the world that America is respected again,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt wrote in a statement.

She added that the tariffs and sanctions which the Trump administration had threatened to impose on Colombia, should it not comply, would be “held in reserve, and not signed, unless Colombia fails to honour this agreement”.

She also said that President Donald Trump “expects all other nations of the world to fully co-operate in accepting deportation of their citizens illegally present in the United States”.

A cornerstone of Trump’s immigration policy is removing unlawful migrants from the US, with the promise of “mass deportations”.

It seems even the legacy media of the UK are weasel-wording his insanity.  A “spat”?  Look at those words as what we are talking about: human beings being herded around like cattle.

How do we cope with all of this? According to sociologist Jennifer Walter we must understand what is happening in this country and what to do about it. It is all about overwhelming our feelings, responses, and lives.

 As a sociologist, I need to tell you:
 
𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘄𝗵𝗲𝗹𝗺 𝗶𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗴𝗼𝗮𝗹.
 
1/ The flood of 200+ executive orders in Trump’s first days exemplifies Naomi Klein’s “shock doctrine” — using chaos and crisis to push through radical changes while people are too disoriented to effectively resist. This isn’t just politics as usual — it’s a strategic exploitation of cognitive limits.
2/ Media theorist McLuhan predicted this: When humans face information overload, they become passive and disengaged. The rapid-fire executive orders create a cognitive bottleneck, making it nearly impossible for citizens and media to thoroughly analyze any single policy.
3/ Agenda-setting theory explains the strategy: When multiple major policies compete for attention simultaneously, it fragments public discourse.
Traditional media can’t keep up with the pace, leading to superficial coverage. The result? Weakened democratic oversight and reduced public engagement.
What now?
1/ Set boundaries: Pick 2-3 key issues you deeply care about and focus your attention there. You can’t track everything — that’s by design. Impact comes from sustained focus, not scattered awareness.
2/ Use aggregators & experts: Find trusted analysts who do the heavy lifting of synthesis. Look for those explaining patterns, not just events.
3/ Remember: Feeling overwhelmed is the point. When you recognize this, you regain some power. Take breaks. Process. This is a marathon.
4/ Practice going slow: Wait 48 hrs before reacting to new policies. The urgent clouds the important. Initial reporting often misses context.
5/ Build community: Share the cognitive load. Different people track different issues. Network intelligence beats individual overload.
 
Remember: They want you scattered. Your focus is resistance.

You may read many sources to get you to focus on how they will continue to manipulate you if you let them. This one actually comes from the period of the first adventure of FARTUS (Felon, Adjudicated Rapist, and Traitor of the US)  in 2018. “The Authoritarian Regime Survival Guide” is posted on  Verfassungblog.   It’s written by Martin Mycielski, who studies Democratic Backsldiing

1. They will come to power with a campaign based on fear, scaremongering and distorting the truth. Nevertheless, their victory will be achieved through a democratic electoral process. But beware, as this will be their argument every time you question the legitimacy of their actions. They will claim a mandate from the People to change the system.

Remember – gaining power through a democratic system does not give them permission to cross legal boundaries and undermine said democracy.

2. They will divide and rule. Their strength lies in unity, in one voice and one ideology, and so should yours. They will call their supporters Patriots, the only “true Americans”. You will be labelled as traitors, enemies of the state, unpatriotic, the corrupt elite, the old regime trying to regain power. Their supporters will be the “People”, the “sovereign” who chose their leaders.

Don’t let them divide you – remember you’re one People, one Nation, with one common good.

You may read a lot more at that link.  So, the most recent rabbit hole I went down deals with learning more about Global Backsliding. I thought I’d share some reads for you. The first comes from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.  “Understanding and Responding to Global Democratic Backsliding. As the world faces a democratic recession, many of the most common explanations fall short. But looking more closely at antidemocratic leaders’ motivations and methods reveals valuable insights about different types of backsliding and how international actors should respond.” The paper is written by by Thomas Carothers and Benjamin Press. This is its summary page.

Over the past two decades, democratic backsliding has become a defining trend in global politics. However, despite the extensive attention paid to the phenomenon, there is surprisingly little consensus about what is driving it. The most common explanations offered by analysts—ranging from the role of Russia and China and disruptive technologies to the rise of populism, the spread of political polarization, and democracies’ failure to deliver—fall short when tested across a wide range of cases.

A more persuasive account of backsliding focuses on the central role of leader-driven antidemocratic political projects and the variety of mechanisms and motivations they entail. This paper identifies and analyzes three distinct types of backsliding efforts: grievance-fueled illiberalism, opportunistic authoritarianism, and entrenched-interest revanchism. In cases of grievance-fueled illiberalism, a political figure mobilizes a grievance, claims that the grievance is being perpetuated by the existing political system, and argues that it is necessary to dismantle democratic norms and institutions to redress the underlying wrongs. Opportunistic authoritarians, by contrast, come to power via conventional political appeals but later turn against democracy for the sake of personal political survival. In still other backsliding cases, entrenched interest groups—generally the military—that were displaced by a democratic transition use undemocratic means to reassert their claims to power. Although motivations and methods differ across backsliding efforts, a key commonality among them is their relentless focus on undermining countervailing governmental and nongovernmental institutions that are designed to keep them in check.

As international democracy supporters continue to refine their strategies of responding to democratic backsliding, they must better differentiate between facilitating factors and core drivers. Such an approach will point to the need for a stronger focus on the nature of leader-driven antidemocratic projects, identifying ways to create significant disincentives for backsliding leaders, and bolstering crucial countervailing institutions. Moreover, they should deepen their differentiation of strategies to take account of the diverse motivations and methods among the three main patterns of backsliding. Only in this way will they build the needed analytic and practical capacity to meet the formidable challenge that democratic backsliding presents.

The concept that grabbed me was the type of backsliding and the first type, grievance-fueled illiberalism, which sounds pretty spot on for what we are enduring and fighting against now. You’ll notice our new technologies are helping these movements spread.  It helps to see where else this has happened. I have no doubt FARTUS, and his close relationship with Erdogan are that of student and mentor.

Some backsliding leaders employ a grievance-centered strategy: they mobilize a widely held sense of frustration to justify dismantling the existing set of democratic norms and institutions, which they blame for having created the conditions that gave rise to the grievance. The grievances they embrace are diverse—ranging well beyond core economic conditions to include racial, religious, and ethnic marginalization and public frustration over corruption, crime, or general governance fecklessness.

A grievance-fueled illiberal drive typically begins with a political figure articulating and politicizing a grievance. In some cases, this grievance is widely and openly shared, especially in cases where corruption or misgovernance has disillusioned many with the existing political system and inspires a search for political alternatives. In Hungary, for example, Orbán and his Fidesz party came to power in 2010 by appealing to the widely held frustration among Hungarians with the previous Socialist government and its perceived mishandling of the economy and its inability to address the devastation of the 2007–2008 global financial crisis. Similarly, in Brazil, Bolsonaro exploited widespread citizen outrage at the Brazilian political class for its pervasive corruption, which had been put on vivid display during the mid-2010s by a series of prominent scandals and investigations.

In other cases, entrepreneurial illiberal political actors articulate grievances that have festered below the political surface for some time. Advancing such grievances may, at first, seem taboo. But as they tap into that grievance, they normalize it and thus reframe what is politically possible. In Turkey, for example, Erdoğan found electoral success in the early 2000s by making appeals to conservative religious values, in a break from long-standing norms of the staunchly secular Turkish Republic. As he appealed to the latent sense among many Turkish citizens that religion had been unduly displaced from public life, he normalized increasingly explicit calls to revisit the principles underlying liberal democracy, including strict separation of religion and public life, respect for religious minority groups, and an equal playing field for opposition. Similarly, in India under the BJP, Modi has articulated a novel vision of Hindu nationalism and directly confronted the country’s liberal founding ideas by arguing that a single religious group should hold a special place in sociopolitical life. And in the United States, Trump appealed to racial and social class grievances that had long simmered below the surface of the country’s politics, normalizing discriminatory speech and stoking anti-minority sentiments as well as anti-elite anger. In still other cases, political leaders politicize frustrations that had not previously been salient. In the Philippines, for example, Duterte played up the threat of drug use and trafficking, which until his campaign had not registered among voters’ major concerns.35

The next phase of the grievance-fueled illiberal drive entails linking the grievance with democratic norms and institutions. In many cases where the grievance is explicitly directed at the governing class—as in Brazil or Hungary—this process is relatively straightforward. But in others, some political maneuvering and artfulness are required to make this link. In India, for example, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, a Hindu nationalist organization, and the BJP, its political wing, spent years arguing that the country’s Hindu majority was being unfairly oppressed by the country’s long-standing liberal, secular political order and that correcting this wrong would require a wholesale reform of norms and institutions. And in the Philippines, Duterte argued during his campaign that drug use was enabled by political elites who didn’t do enough to punish them. He ran on a campaign of rooting out corruption and circumventing democratic norms and institutions that would stop him from solving the problem—namely by killing criminals.

If and when such drives yield an electoral victory, the government then sets about confronting the norms and institutions that have putatively perpetuated the grievance.

You may read more at the link if you want to. I’m beginning to feel like I’m assigning homework, which is not my intent.  I think, though, we must embrace the concept that this was the plan all along, and there were a lot of organizations and people enabling our slide. My hope is that through knowing these things, we can deal better with what is going on around us.  I still believe that knowledge is power.

So, it’s finally thawed out here. Temple and I can take our usual walks.  There’s a lot of mess to clean up because most of the plants will need a good few whacks with my machete. I really hope that you are doing every self-care trick that you know and that you can discover new, more powerful ones.

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

Mostly Monday Reads: “I was entitled.”

Posted: January 8, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: just because | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 11 Comments

“Carry yourself with the confidence of a mediocre white man.”

“The only thing great about a trump rally is the end. I always laugh and laugh.” John Buss @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

The entire eastern half of the United States seems inundated with some kind of precipitation.  New Orleans has pretty much shut down while awaiting an afternoon and evening of heavy rains and likely tornadoes.  I’m sitting in the very dark, quiet before the storm. It’s a bit of a metaphor for what’s going to be a tumultuous year.  I started with this quote today because mediocre white men are still ruining the country.  Louisiana inaugurated one as its Governor yesterday, who’s a pallbearer for the Christian White Supremacists we already have terrorizing the country. LSU–supposedly our flagship university–is already cleansing itself of professors who are experts in climate change and white-washed its student recruitment outreach through its renamed Office of Diversity and Inclusion and its Mission.

Jeff Landry with the Sword of Mediocre White Men. The sword was his prop for his inaugural speech.

Former AGA Landry, now Governor, was elected by only 10% of the Louisiana electorate. A low voter turnout handed him the office.  He gave his inaugural address from behind a sword. It’s going to get ugly here. There were literally a handful of people at the ceremony. Speaker of the House Ayatollah Mike Johnson was there. So was Sleazy Steve. All the short little bully guys were there.  This is from the AP.

 

Louisiana Gov.-elect Jeff Landry, a Republican endorsed by former President Donald Trump and known for his conservative positions on issues like abortion, was inaugurated Sunday evening — marking a political shift of leadership in a state that has had a Democratic governor for the last eight years.

During his 30-minute speech, Landry called for unity and expressed his love for the Bayou State while also laying out some of his priorities, including an aggressive response to addressing “uncivilized and outrageous” violent crime and safeguarding schools from “the toxicity of unsuitable subject matter.”

Walt Handelsman, political cartoonist for The Advocate and Times Picayune, has some really great takes on the radicalism of Landry

We know him.  He hates New Orleans and will likely throw the state’s power into eliminating the independence that our charter provides.  He does not want unity.  He wants compliance and complacency.  The First Amendment means nothing to him.  You already see LSU scramble to be compliant.

Landry has vowed to call a special legislative session in his first few months in office to address the issue. He has pushed a tough-on-crime rhetoric, calling for more “transparency” in the justice system and continuing to support capital punishment. Thank goddesses that my LSU alumni daughters have left the state.

“I pledge to do all I possibly can to make our state safer and to bring an end to the misguided and deadly tolerance for crime and criminals that plague us,” Landry said Sunday.

Landry, who has served as the state’s attorney general for eight years, won the gubernatorial election in October, beating a crowded field of candidates and avoiding a runoff. The win was a major victory for the GOP, reclaiming the governor’s mansion. Edwards was unable to seek reelection due to term limits.

Landry, 53, has raised the profile of attorney general since taking office in 2016, championing conservative policy positions. He has been in the spotlight over his involvement and staunch support of Louisiana laws that have drawn much debate, including banning gender-affirming medical care for young transgender people, the state’s near-total abortion ban and a law restricting children’ access to “sexually explicit material” in libraries, which opponents fear will target LGBTQ+ books.

“Our people seek government that reflects their values,” Landry said Sunday. “They demand that our children be afforded an education that reflects those wholesome principles, and not an indoctrination behind their mother’s back.”

Ever notice how these guys just ooze white male privilege while screaming they are the most persecuted people on the planet?  WBUR interviewed author Ijeoma Oluo in 2020 to explain the Mediocre White Man Syndrome.  She also explains how dangerous it is.

White male mediocrity protects the belief that white men are perceived as stronger and more successful than women and people of color regardless of skill or achievements, she says.

“It’s a system that protects mediocrity, that sets [mediocrity] as the goal,” she says. “And the idea that anything would ask for more of our systems — let alone the people within these systems — becomes a threat to the status quo and to our systems of power.”

This ideology serves as one of capitalism’s primary protections by convincing people to participate in the system, she says.

White men believe that greatness and prosperity are coming despite the realities of their financial situation or career, she says. But when the paycheck doesn’t come, white men often blame women and people of color for taking it away.

Every person deserves to feel safe and thrive, she says, but society’s leaders need to show they can make that happen.

“Who leads us and [who] we reward for their contributions should actually be making meaningful contributions that improve the lives of people in our society,” she says, “should be leaders that can effectively lead and bring prosperity to everyone, regardless of race and gender or skill or talent.”

In the book, Oluo highlights key moments to show how this system works from the way women were kicked out of the workforce after the Great Depression, to how women of color in politics are challenged for holding different views on equity than their white male colleagues.

While she says she could write 100 books on this topic, Oluo started by asking “fundamental questions about white male identity in America as a political and social construct” throughout history. She collected hundreds of stories and looked for common threads.

So, I buried the lede.  Yes!  I did.  That quote up top is from the former guy for whom even mediocre is a struggle.  This is from USA Today. “‘I was entitled’: Donald Trump previews his Tuesday courtroom appeal on presidential immunity. Trump is juggling court hearings in criminal and civil cases while also campaigning for the White House.”

Donald Trump is opening 2024 in what is likely to be a familiar place for him this election year: the courtroom.The former president and 2024 GOP frontrunner previewed on social media Monday his reasons why he should be shielded from charges of election interference. The crux of his argument, which his lawyers will make in a D.C. appeals court hearing Tuesday: he was president when the events occurred, so he is immune.

“Of course I was entitled, as President of the United States and Commander in Chief, to Immunity,” Trump said in a post Monday on Truth Social.

The case just one of the matter’s on Trump’s courtroom docket for the week. On Thursday, lawyers will make their closing arguments in the New York real estate fraud case in which $370 million in damages are at stake.

Don’t expect Trump himself to take the stand in either case this week. That’s for the lawyers, with lots of questions from the judges. But Trump may weigh in outside the courtroom, and most certainly will make his case on social media.

Given that, expect a fiery rebuttal Tuesday from one of Trump’s chief legal adversaries. Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith has argued that Trump’s logic would allow a president to commit crimes like bribery, murder and treason without consequence.

This argument is basically the mantra of the mediocre white man.  This is from CNN. “Trump wants Georgia election subversion case dismissed, arguing he has presidential immunity.”  If anyone would’ve thought this was a rational, legal argument, it would’ve been Richard Nixon.  He just up and quit in the face of charges.  Trump seems to be confused between the DOJ policy of avoiding election cycles and the U.S. Constitution.  He seems to think he has a “Get out of Jail Free” card.  It does appear that way with all of the things he’s done the normal person out awaiting trial would not.

Former President Donald Trump is seeking to have the sweeping criminal conspiracy case against him in Georgia thrown out by arguing he is protected from prosecution under presidential immunity.

Trump’s immunity claims in the Georgia case, filed on Monday as part of a motion to dismiss state-level criminal charges against the former president, are similar to those argued by his defense team in the federal election subversion case.

“The indictment in this case charges President Trump for acts that lie at the heart of his official responsibilities as President. The indictment is barred by presidential immunity and should be dismissed with prejudice,” the motion filed by Trump’s lawyer in the Georgia case reads.

Monday’s filing in the Georgia case reiterates what the former president’s lawyers have repeatedly asserted – that Trump was working in his official capacity as president when he allegedly undermined the 2020 election results and therefore has immunity.

Entitlement just oozes from these guys. This is from the Washington Post. “Business Insider story on Harvard antagonist’s wife draws owner’s scrutiny. The news site’s German owner, Axel Springer, plans to review a story about alleged plagiarism by former MIT professor Neri Oxman, whose billionaire husband, Bill Ackman, sought to oust Harvard’s president for similar academic transgressions. Its editor defends the story.”  The hypocrisy is evident when the spotlight is turned on them.

Business Insider and its German parent company appear to be at odds over its reporting on plagiarism allegations against the wife of a high-profile hedge fund manager.

The financial news site published two stories last week alleging that Neri Oxman, a prominent former Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor, had plagiarized repeatedly in her academic work, including lifting from Wikipedia more than a dozen times in her dissertation.

Those stories came after her husband, billionaire investor Bill Ackman, spent weeks pressuring his alma mater, Harvard University, to oust its president — initially over his contention that she had mishandled incidents of antisemitism on campus but later over reports that she had committed plagiarism earlier in her career. At one point, Ackman wrote that a Harvard student who committed “much less” plagiarism than Claudine Gay would be forced out of the university. Gay resigned from the presidency last week.

But when Business Insider raised plagiarism concerns about his wife’s work, Ackman excoriated the publication, accusing it of unethical journalism, promising to review its writers’ work and predicting that it would “go bankrupt and be liquidated.” In one social media post, he implied that Business Insider’s investigations editor (whom he called “a known anti-Zionist”) may have been “willing to lead this attack” because Oxman is Israeli.

Neither Ackman nor Oxman, whose companies didn’t respond to requests for comment, have pointed to any factual errors in the articles.

Remember this?  It’s like the patented hand shake of thee Mediocre White Man Club. This is from Newsweek. “Donald Trump Moves To Cash In on Brett Kavanaugh.”

Donald Trump’s lawyer Alina Habba has said that Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh would be among the judges to throw out the decision disqualifying the former president from the ballot in Colorado as Trump “went through hell” to get him to the bench.Speaking to Fox News‘ Sean Hannity, Habba singled out Kavanaugh as one of those on the SCOTUS bench who will “step up” for Trump after the Colorado Supreme Court made a historic ruling in December to ban Trump from running for president in the state over violating the Constitution’s insurrection clause around the January 6 attack.

Trump has appealed the decision to the Supreme Court and has denied that his actions related to the Capitol riots violated Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. The section, brought in after the Civil War, states that a person who “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” after taking an oath of office to support the Constitution cannot run for office again.

The conservative majority Supreme Court bench, which includes three justices nominated to the bench by Trump—Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett, and Neil Gorsuch—is expected to take on the case, and rule on whether to allow or throw out the Colorado decision.

Habba predicted that the Supreme Court would make a “slam dunk” ruling in Trump’s favor while suggesting Kavanaugh is one of the nine justices who will want to overturn the decision to ban Trump from running for office in Colorado.

“People like Kavanaugh, who the president fought for, who the president went through hell to get into place, he’ll step up,” Habba said.

“Those people will step up, not because they’re pro-Trump, but because they’re pro-law, because they’re pro-fairness and the law on this is very clear.”

Here are legal sources with annotations on  Article 2, Section 3 of the U.S Constitution on the idea of Presidential Immunity from Judicial Direction.  This has been a topic considered the Court for some time.  Some of the Presidents who have taken the concept to court include Richard Nixon, Bill Clinton and Andrew Johnson. These are annotations from Justia. on the Johnson case and the Nixon case.  It’s elucidation in the court on Article Two, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution about Presidential responsibilities which includes the State of the Union  Address from Court Cases.

In Mississippi v. Johnson,807 in 1867, the Court placed the President beyond the reach of judicial direction, either affirmative or restraining, in the exercise of his powers, whether constitutional or statutory, political or otherwise, save perhaps for what must be a small class of powers that are purely ministerial.808 An application for an injunction to forbid President Johnson to enforce the Reconstruction Acts, on the ground of their unconstitutionality, was answered by Attorney General Stanberg, who argued, inter alia, the absolute immunity of the President from judicial process.809 The Court refused to permit the filing, using language construable as meaning that the President was not reachable by judicial process but which more fully paraded the horrible consequences were the Court to act. First noting the limited meaning of the term “ministerial,” the Court observed that “[v]ery different is the duty of the President in the exercise of the power to see that the laws are faithfully executed, and among these laws the acts named in the bill. . . . The duty thus imposed on the President is in no just sense ministerial. It is purely executive and political.”

“An attempt on the part of the judicial department of the government to enforce the performance of such duties by the President might be justly characterized, in the language of Chief Justice Marshall, as ‘an absurd and excessive extravagance.’”

“It is true that in the instance before us the interposition of the court is not sought to enforce action by the Executive under constitutional legislation, but to restrain such action under legislation alleged to be unconstitutional. But we are unable to perceive that this circumstance takes the case out of the general principles which forbid judicial interference with the exercise of Executive discretion.” . . .

“The Congress is the legislative department of the government; the President is the executive department. Neither can be restrained in its action by the judicial department; though the acts of both, when performed, are, in proper cases, subject to its cognizance.”

“The impropriety of such interference will be clearly seen upon consideration of its possible consequences.”

“Suppose the bill filed and the injunction prayed for allowed. If the President refuse obedience, it is needless to observe that the court is without power to enforce its process. If, on the other hand, the President complies with the order of the court and refuses to execute the acts of Congress, is it not clear that a collision may occur between the executive and legislative departments of the government? May not the House of Representatives impeach the President for such refusal? And in that case could this court interfere, in behalf of the President, thus endangered by compliance with its mandate, and restrain by injunction the Senate of the United States from sitting as a court of impeachment? Would the strange spectacle be offered to the public world of an attempt by this court to arrest proceedings in that court?”810

Rare has been the opportunity for the Court to elucidate its opinion in Mississippi v. Johnson, and, in the Watergate tapes case,811 it held the President amenable to subpoena to produce evidence for use in a criminal case without dealing, except obliquely, with its prior opinion. The President’s counsel had argued the President was immune to judicial process, claiming “that the independence of the Executive Branch within its own sphere . . . insulates a President from a judicial subpoena in an ongoing criminal prosecution, and thereby protects confidential Presidential communications.”812 However, the Court held, “neither the doctrine of separation of powers, nor the need for confidentiality of high-level communications, without more, can sustain an absolute, unqualified Presidential privilege of immunity from judicial process under all circumstances.”813 The primary constitutional duty of the courts “to do justice in criminal prosecutions” was a critical counterbalance to the claim of presidential immunity, and to accept the President’s argument would disturb the separation-of-powers function of achieving “a workable government” as well as “gravely impair the role of the courts under Art. III.”814

Present throughout the Watergate crisis, and unresolved by it, was the question of the amenability of the President to criminal prosecution prior to conviction upon impeachment.815 It was argued that the Impeachment Clause necessarily required indictment and trial in a criminal proceeding to follow a successful impeachment and that a President in any event was uniquely immune from indictment, and these arguments were advanced as one ground to deny enforcement of the subpoenas running to the President.816 Assertion of the same argument by Vice President Agnew was controverted by the government, through the Solicitor General, but, as to the President, it was argued that for a number of constitutional and practical reasons he was not subject to ordinary criminal process.817

Oops, I’m down a history rabbit hole now.  I guess it’s time to close.  I love the song “Call me Rose” by Bruce Cockburn because of it’s implied karmic rebirth of Richard Nixon as a single woman on welfare with a child.

Anyway, this week should be another show stopper.  Take care!  I see the rain has started here.  I wonder if BB is still getting that snowstorm.   Bet thing to ponder is when exactly is this Former Guy shitstorm ending?

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?