{"id":34295,"date":"2018-11-09T13:10:32","date_gmt":"2018-11-09T21:10:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=34295"},"modified":"2018-11-09T13:14:38","modified_gmt":"2018-11-09T21:14:38","slug":"open-thread-11-9-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2018\/11\/09\/open-thread-11-9-2018\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread &#8211; 11\/9\/2018"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">Please pardon my brevity.\u00a0 It&#8217;s one of those days.\u00a0 I&#8217;m as busy as a hooker at a Republican pseudo-Christian convention.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong>Jig Zone Puzzle<\/strong>:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">Today&#8217;s took me 3:44 (average 5:53).\u00a0 To do it, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jigzone.com\/puzzles\/2018-11-09-CE2504A965A9\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">click here<\/a>.\u00a0 How did you do?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong>Short Takes<\/strong>:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">From <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=_pi_0RIq2qw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">YouTube<\/a> (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/user\/msnbcleanforward\/videos\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">MSNBC Channel<\/a>): <\/span>Donald Trump Hand-Picked Acting-AG Raises New Obstruction Questions (20 min.)<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube-nocookie.com\/embed\/_pi_0RIq2qw\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">I hope someone is filing a legal action to prevent Whitaker from keeping the office. <strong>RESIST<\/strong>!!<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">From <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2018\/11\/08\/opinion\/trump-attorney-general-sessions-unconstitutional.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">NY Times<\/a>: <\/span>What now seems an eternity ago, the conservative law professor Steven Calabresi published <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/articles\/muellers-investigation-crosses-the-legal-line-1526233750\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">an op-ed<\/a> in The Wall Street Journal in May arguing that Robert Mueller\u2019s appointment as special counsel was unconstitutional. His article got a lot of attention, and it wasn\u2019t long before President Trump picked up the argument, <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/realdonaldtrump\/status\/1003637916919320577?lang=en\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">tweeting that<\/a> \u201cthe Appointment of the Special Counsel is totally UNCONSTITUTIONAL!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Professor Calabresi\u2019s article was based on the <a href=\"https:\/\/constitutioncenter.org\/interactive-constitution\/articles\/article-ii\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Appointments Clause<\/a> of the Constitution, Article II, Section 2, Clause 2. Under that provision, so-called principal officers of the United States must be nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate under its \u201cAdvice and Consent\u201d powers.<\/p>\n<p>He argued that Mr. Mueller was a principal officer because he is exercising significant law enforcement authority and that since he has not been confirmed by the Senate, his appointment was unconstitutional. As one of us argued at the time, he was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lawfareblog.com\/terrible-arguments-against-constitutionality-mueller-investigation\">wrong<\/a>. What makes an officer a principal officer is that he or she reports only to the president. No one else in government is that person\u2019s boss. But Mr. Mueller reports to Rod Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general. So, Mr. Mueller is what is known as an inferior officer, not a principal one, and his appointment without Senate approval was valid.<\/p>\n<p>But Professor Calabresi and Mr. Trump were right about the core principle. A principal officer must be confirmed by the Senate. And that has a very significant consequence today.<\/p>\n<p>It means that Mr. Trump\u2019s installation of Matthew Whitaker as acting attorney general of the United States after forcing the resignation of Jeff Sessions is unconstitutional. It\u2019s illegal. And it means that anything Mr. Whitaker does, or tries to do, in that position is invalid.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">Click through for much more.\u00a0 If it was legal, Republicans would not do it. <strong>RESIST<\/strong>!!<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">From <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/humor\/borowitz-report\/trump-unable-to-stop-caravan-of-democratic-women-invading-washington\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The New Yorker<\/a>: <\/span>Donald J. Trump warned on Wednesday that a caravan of Democratic women was heading toward Washington, D.C., with the explicit goal of invading the nation\u2019s capital.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking at a press conference at the White House, Trump acknowledged that he had failed in his bid to stop the caravan, which is on schedule to arrive in Washington on January 3, 2019.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Democrats are responsible for sending this caravan, and, frankly, it\u2019s a disgrace,\u201d he said. \u201cThey are sending some dangerous women.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Elaborating on the threat posed by the caravan, Trump said, \u201cSome of these women have fought in wars. They have fired guns. One of them is a mixed-martial-arts specialist. These are women who will kick your ass without hesitating.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">Amen Andy! May the caravan keep growing! <strong>RESIST<\/strong>!!<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong>Cartoon<\/strong>:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"background-image: none; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-width: 0px;\" title=\"1109Cartoon\" src=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/1109Cartoon.jpg\" alt=\"1109Cartoon\" width=\"650\" height=\"350\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Please pardon my brevity.\u00a0 It&#8217;s one of those days.\u00a0 I&#8217;m as busy as a hooker at a Republican pseudo-Christian convention. Jig Zone Puzzle: Today&#8217;s took me 3:44 (average 5:53).\u00a0 To do it, click here.\u00a0 How did you do? Short Takes: From YouTube (MSNBC Channel): Donald Trump Hand-Picked Acting-AG Raises New Obstruction Questions (20 min.) I <a href='https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2018\/11\/09\/open-thread-11-9-2018\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,3,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-open-thread","category-personal","category-politics","category-35-id","category-3-id","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34295","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34295"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34295\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}