Politics Plus

There always seems like so much to do . . . and today is the dreaded task — laundry.  At least I’ll get some exercise going down two flights of stairs to the basement and that will keep me warm!  It has been very frosty the past 3 days — down to -6C (21F) at night.  Generally, that is not cold to me but here on the coast, it is a very damp cold that cuts through to the bone.  Today it is pouring rain!  There is supposed to be sleet tonight, but we’ll have to wait to see how accurate the forecast is.  When it is like this, my three cats love to crawl into bed with me at night.  It sure does get crowded.  I am going to a potluck supper at my church tonight so I’m getting this done early.  My contribution will either be English Trifle or pie.  Have a great weekend and I’ll be back tomorrow.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 5:31 (average 6:02). To do it, click here. How did you do?

TC’s took me  4:01 (5:40 average).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes

Newsweek — “The floor of Congress is now going to look like an Islamic republic,” E.W. Jackson said on the radio show Urban Family Talk on Wednesday. “We are a Judeo-Christian country. We are nation rooted and grounded in Christianity and that’s that. And anybody that doesn’t like that, go live somewhere else.”

The pastor continued, adding: “It’s very simple. Just go live somewhere else. Don’t try to change our country into some sort of Islamic republic or try to base our country on Sharia law.”

Jackson’s remarks came in response to reports that Democrats were attempting to change legislation that bans the wearing of headscarves and hijabs on the floor of the House of Representatives. The proposal was made to accommodate incoming lawmaker Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, one of the first Muslim women to serve Congress in U.S. history along with Representative-elect Rashida Tlaib of Michigan.  …

The proposed rule change was co-authored by Nancy Pelosi, the current House Minority Leader and likely the next speaker of the chamber when Democrats take back the majority in January. Along with the changes to the ban on headscarves, Democrats are also proposing rule changes to ban LGBTQ discrimination and the creation of an independent office to promote diversity when it comes to hiring House staffers.

A copy of his remarks as presented by Right Wing Watch .

While the rule change proposed by Democrats would exempt religious headwear, including yarmulkes, Jackson is outraged that it will be used to accommodate Ilhan Omar, a Muslim woman who wears a headscarf for religious reasons who was recently elected to Congress.

This man, although he holds a divinity degree, is not an authentic Christian.  In the first amendment of the US Constitution, freedom of religion is guaranteed as is the call for the separation of church and state.  Conservative evangelical pseudo Christians seem to think that if a person does not worship like they do, that person is impinging on their right to freedom of religion.  Malarkey!!!  This is not the first time that Jackson has stirred the pot.  WWJD?  The authentic Jesus would rebuke Jackson.

DC Report — You may recall that former FedEx Ground safety director and Chamber of Commerce favorite Scott Mugno was nominated by Trump in October 2017, has survived a Senate confirmation hearing and has been approved by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pension (HELP) committee (twice) on party-line votes. But Mugno’s nomination has never come to a final vote on the floor of the Senate.

Politico’s Morning Shift reminded us last week that the nomination of Mugno, as well as the nominations of Cheryl Stanton for the agency’s Wage and Hour Division, William Beach at the Bureau of Labor Statistics and Gordon Hartogensis with the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation continue to be mired in a fight over the confirmation of two Democratic favorites: Mark Gaston Pearce to be reconfirmed for a seat on the National Labor Relations Board and Chai Feldblum to be reconfirmed for a seat on the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. …

Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), ranking member of the HELP committee reemphasized last week that Democrats would continue to block the Labor Department nominees until the Senate confirms Pearce and Feldblum.

Click through for a Democrat strategy playing with the rules as they exist.  Good play Democrats.  As if EW Jackson isn’t enough, Senator Mike Lee is outraged with Feldblum’s reconfirmation to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, calling her a “threat to religious liberty and the institution of marriage.”  There’s that religious liberty misnomer again.

National Law Journal — Some U.S. Supreme Court justices think “original understanding” is the “alpha and omega of every constitutional question,” Justice Elena Kagan said Thursday, but “there are other people on this bench who do not.” She and others indicated they would need more justification for throwing out a court-created doctrine in a case that has potential consequences for special counsel-related prosecutions. …

… counsel to Terance Gamble, an Alabama man who was convicted and sentenced in state and federal prosecutions for the same crime: felon in possession of a firearm. Gamble is asking the justices to overrule a 170-year-old doctrine that is known as the “separate sovereigns” exception to the Fifth Amendment’s double jeopardy clause. That clause prohibits more than one prosecution or punishment for the same offense.

Gamble’s case has drawn considerable attention because of its possible import for Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation and prosecutions of Russian interference in the 2016 election and involvement of the Trump campaign. Elimination of the separate sovereigns exception could bar states from pursuing certain prosecutions under their state laws. Mueller’s investigation did not come up during Thursday’s arguments.

If the exception was overruled, and a new precedent set (although as I understand from some of my reading, an exception can be made without setting a precedence under certain conditions, but don’t ask me what those conditions are as I cannot remember), this could mean that, for example, Trump could not be tried under federal laws and state laws, for example NY laws, for the same crime.

My Universe

Posted to Care2 HERE

Well it is Friday and the weekend is nigh!  For we retirees, every day is a weekend so I am oft reminded by my working friends.  Sometimes I am busier now than I was when I was working.  TomCat moved yesterday and is busy getting his new digs organised, and organised he’ll have to be since the new place is smaller.  He’ll likely be a few days yet before he is back online.  TGIF!!!

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:09 (average 5:07). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Yesterday’s took me 3:57 (average 4:48). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes

AlterNet — While Fox News hosts often beat the drum for Donald Trump’s administration, during a segment on “Outnumbered” Monday, the hosts Lisa Kennedy Montgomery and Harris Faulkner (who were joined by Melissa Francis and Marie Harf) appeared to briefly acknowledge that special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation isn’t without merit.  …

“There might be something there,” Montgomery asserted. “There absolutely might be something there. We don’t know what Mueller has; he might have something. Things are starting to seem a little weird.”

Stop the presses!  Stop the presses!  A Faux Noise commentator does not want to be Trump’s carnival barker and actually thinks it is prudent to wait to see what Mueller has.  I think I’ve got the vapours . . . I’m in shock.  David Cay Johnston’s 2016 book “The Making of Donald Trump” is excellent in its description of Trump’s  association with unsavoury characters throughout his career.  He recently updated the afterword to include the first year of Trump’s régime.  Below is a video of Johnston in discussion with Joy Reid talking about Trump.  Please note that this episode of AM Joy is from January 2018.

May more of the Faux Noise commentators come to their senses as Mueller’s investigation continues to unfold.

Daily Beast — Mueller? Mueller? Act 1 Full Frontal 05 December 2018

Later, she added, “One Trump associate after the other is turning out to be in deep, deep trouble. So this holiday season, as the Trumps gather around the blood tree, Trump will probably be at least a little afraid that it will be his last Christmas in the White House.”

Barf Bag Alert!!!

Don Trump Jr’s Christmas tree topper as they all sit around the blood tree.

Picture from AlterNet

I cannot bring you the rest of the show as I can’t find it on-line.  However, Sam is on the mark isn’t she!

Daily Beast — Sources close to the president say he has repeatedly shrugged it off, implying that he doesn’t have to worry about the money owed to America’s creditors—currently about $21 trillion—because he won’t be around to shoulder the blame when it becomes even more untenable.

The friction came to a head in early 2017 when senior officials offered Trump charts and graphics laying out the numbers and showing a “hockey stick” spike in the national debt in the not-too-distant future. In response, Trump noted that the data suggested the debt would reach a critical mass only after his possible second term in office.

“Yeah, but I won’t be here,” the president bluntly said, according to a source who was in the room when Trump made this comment during discussions on the debt. …

“That was why, when he was confronted with these nightmare scenarios on the debt, I think he rejected them, because if you grow the economy… you don’t have a debt problem,” Moore continued. “I know a few times when people would bring up the enormous debt, he would say, ‘We’re gonna grow our way out of it.’”

Moore has since championed this approach to tackling the debt as a key part of “Trumponomics,” …

Trumponomics???  In Trump’s business life, he has had 6 bankruptcies as outlined in PolitiFact but while various different scenarios were at play, the one common thread was Trump.  He seems to me to have a rather cavalier attitude towards debt.  Now that attitude is showing up in his role as POTUS and his lack of concern about the national debt.  “Yeah, but I won’t be here,” being his reply.  The minority shareholders, the American people, are the ones left to shoulder the debt.  From MarketWatch:

As you can see, Americans own the majority of the debt.  This complicated topic is not easy to discuss and understand, but clearly Trump does not have a clue, and what’s worse, he appears not to care.  Republicans, who were so quick to attack Obama on the national debt levels, need to put Trump on an economic leash and walk back the corporate tax breaks which corporations are squandering rather than re-investing, just for starters.  I am sure more extreme proposals are in the offing from Republicans.  So buckle-up!!!

Cartoon — Let’s ensure this does not happen again!  Enough war!  Enough death and destruction!

My Universe  (…or is this TC’s Universe?)

TomCat moving!

Posted to Care2 HERE

TC will be offline for a few days as he moves.  He did provide an “Emergency Update”.  Although the move was anticipated, he thought it would be another week before moving day arrived.  He said there was a bit of a snafu for the internet connection, but he will definitely be back in a few days.  So you know what that means — you will have to put up with me and my crazy cat universe for a few days.  JD and Nameless will be on hand, and I hope Lona with her View From Afar too.  Thanks to everyone for checking out our posts.  You are the reason we are here Fighting Rightwing InsaniTEA, one day at a time.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:45 (average 7:27). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes

AlterNet — As the dust refuses to settle from the 2018 midterms, there are stubborn reminders that there really are two Americas when it comes to voting and elections.

This week, Republican-majority legislatures in Michigan and Wisconsin—both created by GOP-led extreme gerrymanders in 2011—are trying to rush through legislation to strip power from Democratic statewide winners of executive branch offices in November.

In Wisconsin, the GOP wants to limit the power of the incoming Democratic governor and attorney general over how public benefit programs can be run, and on how regulations can be implemented—the fine print of governing. In Michigan, where voters elected a Democratic governor, attorney general and secretary of state, it’s even worse, as GOP legislators want to limit the attorney general’s power to litigate (and to create a new legislative power to do so) and to pre-empt campaign finance regulation.

“They lost and they’re throwing a fit,” was how Jon Erpenbach, a Wisconsin Democratic state senator, put it to the New York Times.

But that’s not quite correct. In many otherwise purple states, the GOP has been rejecting political norms—such as respecting popular vote outcomes—and grabbing power in any manner it can for years. The Wisconsin and Michigan moves echo what North Carolina Republicans have pursued since 2016 after that also GOP-gerrymandered state elected a Democratic governor, where its legislature targeted gubernatorial powers, state election boards and even its state judiciary.

Click through for the rest of this article on, in my words, the decline of American democracy.  On 14 July 1933, the German Nazi Party banned the formation of any other political party.  Prior to this, in February 1933, as borne out by history and as recorded in finding Dulcinea, 

“The following day [28 February 1933], Hitler issued a decree “for the Protection of the People and the State,” commonly known as the Reichstag Fire Decree. It stripped citizens of their constitutional liberties and allowed the Nazi government to arrest communist leaders. Many historians believe that the Reichstag fire was started by the Nazis to justify the decree. [emphasis added]

Hitler’s coalition government would gain a small majority in the March general elections and, with communist officials in prison, pass the Enabling Act on March 23. It stripped the Reichstag of its legislative powers and created the legal basis for Hitler’s dictatorship.” [emphasis added]

I am not particularly given to closely comparing Trump to Adolf Hitler, but when I can recall easily from my history studies such a similar track, I am going to mention it.  Is it any wonder why here at PoliticsPlus we refer to the current Republican Party as the Republican Reich!  As seen in states such as Wisconsin, Michigan and North Carolina to name just a few, Republicans are trying to stay in power any way they can by any means they can dream up.  Republicans have not as such declared the Democrat Party illegal, but they are certainly moving to limit its influence in various states.  American democracy is in trouble.  Rise up!  Resist!!!

Politico — Triumphant California Democrats returned to the state capitol in Sacramento this week with a mandate and a mission: defying President Donald Trump, whose enduring toxicity in the state helped power historic gains in the legislature and Congress.

Two years into a presidency whose policies are anathema to California’s dominant party, Democrats are picking up where they left off: challenging the Trump administration in policy and rhetoric as they seek to make America’s most populous state apart a counterexample to the dysfunction in D.C.

Newly introduced bills seek to rebuff the Trump administration on immigration and the environment while again working to pry loose his tax returns. Ambitious health care proposals seem guaranteed to energize the state’s liberal base, offering Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom an early opportunity to advance his oft-stated goal of making the state a shining alternative to Trumpism.

Even before they had been formally sworn in, Democratic legislators were rallying against the Trump administration’s proposal to bar immigrants who use public services from obtaining legal status.  …

“I was struck by not only have California legislators passed an agenda to counter what was done by the Trump administration but how much they ran on it and won,” Wright said. “It’s not just that California policymakers are taking a different direction than the Trump administration, it’s that the voters have endorsed and voted to take a different direction.”  (emphasis added)

Do you want that resistance supersized?  It appears good things are happening in California and Trump will not like that!  Go California!!!

Global News — In late 2015, as Europe grappled with a migration crisis of a scale not seen since the Second World War, the United Nations decided to convene a meeting to address how member nations can respond.

A year later, 193 member countries signed on to the New York Declaration, which called for the adoption of a migration pact by the end of 2018.

As a result, the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration was born. A draft of the pact was agreed upon by UN members — except for the United States — in July.

Here’s a look at the UN’s unprecedented international migrant pact, its objectives and arguments for and against adopting it:

What are the pact’s objectives?

The Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration purports to set out “a common understanding, shared responsibilities and unity of purpose regarding migration.”

It claims to be rooted in a shared understanding that better international cooperation is needed to handle migration in a way that’s fair to states, but protects the human rights of migrants and refugees.

To that end, the pact proposes a “360-degree vision of migration” that recognizes that better cooperation is needed to facilitate safe and orderly migration.

That “vision” is laid out in the form of 23 objectives.

The GLOBAL COMPACT FOR SAFE, ORDERLY AND REGULAR MIGRATION can be viewed HERE.  Pages 5 and 6 list the 23 objectives.  It should be noted that the document clearly states that the document is non binding, and it “reaffirms the sovereign right of States to determine
their national migration policy and their prerogative to govern migration within their jurisdiction,
in conformity with international law”, two very big concerns for many countries.  I am not a solicitor, but I do not see why a country would balk at signing on.  The US was the only country saying no initially but a few more are now not signing as well.  If we as part of the human family can’t come together to solve the problems that initiate migration, what are we prepared to do?

My Universe

TC getting some paperwork done while

exercising in preparation for his move!

Posted to Care2 HERE