A Dark and Stormy Night in TrumpWorld

The phrase "it was a dark and stormy night" is a much-parodied line evoking florid prose of a certain level of ridiculousness--of course, nights are actually dark.  "Stormy" is just added as convenient foreshadowing. Things dark and stormy--news at 11! But this being the darkest timeline, "dark and stormy" is now completely accurate for the US state of affairs--the gulf coast of Texas, home to tens of thousands of people and about a third of our oil refining capacity, is bearing the brunt of a category 4 hurricane. The potential for massive flooding, power outages, mass human displacement, loss of life, property loss, and environmental disaster are all laid out there--and on his way to Camp David, President Trump entirely gave his thumbs-up assurance that things would be okay and wished folks in the path of the disaster "Good luck".

I have problems with the response, but whatever. For one thing, you can't begrudge the guy a trip to Camp David, because he naturally needs to rest between vacations, and I personally have come to the conclusion that if he actually sleeps at the White House, he gets visited by the ghosts of Presidents past.

(SCENE:



RN: Dooonald.

DT: Who is that?

RN: This is Richard Nixon, Donald, and I have a message for you.

DT: Richard Nixon? What are you doing here?

RN: Enjoying the air conditioning. The message is: there is no air conditioning where you're going.

END SCENE.)

For another thing, can you expect empathy for people who will suffer at his potential reputational expense? I mean, here they are, poised to lose their property and lives, but has anyone considered how this will make Trump look? Because Trump has.

And while you were looking at the hurricane, here is what Trump is up to:

President Trump is a Complete Horror-show

While being broadcast live on camera, President Trump claims media cameras are being turned off https://t.co/cf0mASESyI

— CNN (@CNN) August 23, 2017

Lying about something as basic as whether the cable news organizations are even covering him while they are actually covering him, is pretty much the stellar, stand-out example of how much Donald Trump, actual President of the US, actually holds your (meaning you--a sentient person) intellect in contempt. He is going to lie about things and his lies will be manifestly untrue. He will say there are no protestors (yep, many). He will say there is such a huge crowd (eh!) And then he goes on to insult the intelligence of intelligent people in other ways.

Does he continue to think his response about Charlottesville was genius--yes, he doubles down. Does he threaten to shut down the government to fund his border wall with Mexico? Mmmm-hmm. Both houses of Congress are held by his party and this idea is stupid, but he thinks it is great. He implies he will pardon Sheriff Joe Arpaio, birther, self-proclaimed "concentration camp" runner. He praises Jeffrey "Sieg Heil" Lord.

And now,because he's a fuckwit and doesn't understand that words have meanings, there will be more agitation--because he doesn't know how to pour oil on troubled waters. He sets shit on fire and thinks this is his tribute, his sacramental flame.

Nothing about this is okay. Nothing. Nothing at all.

(Also, Ben Carson, Hatch violation--this is a campaign rally, and he had no business being there.)

Damn, Justice Scalia, be more obvious.

So, here's just some observations based on this piece from TPM.

First--state sovereignty just isn't what it used to be for about 150 years, give or take two or three, but that Justice Scalia mentioned it in his 22-page dissent is interesting.  I think he's throwing the kitchen sink, the detergent and the dishrag at the Obama Administration, actually.

Now, I'm no constitutional scholar, nor even a lawyer--I'm just a blogger with what I hope is a reasonable grasp of history. I get antsy when someone makes a statement like:

 “We are talking about a federal law going to the core of state sovereignty: the power to exclude.”


Maybe this has a different meaning for him than the meaning that comes to my mind when one refers to the history of exclusion in this country which included state laws directing the removal of freed slaves , for example.  My worry is that the interpretation of the Tenth Amendment that usually gets used in these arguments weakens the protections of the Fourteenth. I dunno. I just think that if individual states get to make their own laws regarding immigration, they muddy the issue of jurisdiction in providing due process. Say that a given state does “identify a removable alien and hold him for federal determination” .  And the federal government says "To do what, now?"


I get why Scalia brings up the recent change in enforcement--Arizona's scheme doesn't work unless the federal government is happy to play along.  ("Why yes, we'll be quite happy to round up and deport your deportables--thank you for the collection thereof.")  This case even being brought plus the Homeland Security change indicate it is not--and so then what? Would Arizona maintain the authority to detain indefinitely or deport people on its own? 


(Talk about allocation of resources--if allocated to the states, let's just have a nation of Sheriff Arpaios using state tax money to enforce increasingly "exclusionary" ideas about who is desirable as an inhabitant of any given state. And naturally a supporting state apparatus for oversight--due process!)


But regarding the "dangers" of non-enforcement (of young people who basically are here in American through no fault of their own, are not criminals, etc?) and, what I think is my favorite line, the determination of Justice Scalia that the Obama administration: “desperately wants to avoid upsetting foreign powers.”  Really? The perceived dangers (as politically determined by a given state) of people determined not to be dangerous by the federal government (thus the non-enforcement of deportation, unless he thinks the federal government has gone dangerously cuckoo--which he's hinting at--don't be shy, Tony!) and the possibility that immigration decisions might be made in the national interest? 


If I were an Originalist Gangster, I might assume these were indications of why so much immigration authority was entrusted to the feds in the first place. 


Eh. It's late. I could be over-thinking it. I just can't wait to see what comes out about Thurday's announcement of the ACA decision.

Sheriff Arpaio Gives a Press Conference Regarding a Fraud

That's right. Sheriff Arpaio has been talking about himself again--that's quite the fraud!

Anyhow, he claimed today that after a six-month investigation by his crack cold-case squad, he's pretty sure that Obama's birth certificate is some kind of fraud because it was printed out on some kind of printer or something.  Because everyone knows that real birth certificates issued by the state of Hawaii are carefully copied by quill-bearing scribes on parchment, I guess. It's kind of obnoxious, actually--because if he has a top-notch cold-case squad, why doesn't he have those thumb-sitters investigate the backlog of rape and domestic abuse cases they've got hanging around?

(That was rhetorical--obviously that kind of work would never get him national attention!)

What a jerk.

Do these Jackboots Make me Look Tough on Immigration?

Ah, it seems like only yesterday that TX Governor Rick Perry was under fire for referring to other Republicans as "heartless" for their hard-line positions on immigration.  And yet as of yesterday, he's named Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio as his campaign's chairperson in AZ.

Now, Sheriff Joe might be a little busy, what with running for his sixth term in this position (even if it sometimes seems like he's not all that great at the job, actually) but I don't really think he's going to have to do much for the candidate, anyway, except look tough. He looks tough, doesn't he?

Well, there you go.

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio Continues To Suck

Sheriff Joe Arpaio was recently found by the US Justice Department to have violated the rights of Latinos and has fired back in typically "it's all about me" fashion by claiming that it's his civil liberties that are being violated by being called accurate descriptors like racist and incompetent.

As I've covered before--incompetent is probably a kind way of describing his performance as a lawman.  

Anyway, even presidential politics are playing a part in Sheriff Joe's drama. He's accused the Obama Administration of concentrating on him because an attack on him is somehow going to win Latino votes. (Which of course is what the rancher stepped in, as TPM, who've been all over this, remind, the Justice investigation began during the Bush Administration.)   But at least one GOP presidential hopeful loves Sheriff Joe enough to climb into the muck:

Rick Perry:

“I don’t know what all the details are, but I do know this: nothing surprises me out of this administration. This administration oversaw ‘Fast and Furious,’” Perry said during an interview with Fox News on Thursday. ”I would suggest to you that these people are out after Sheriff Joe. He is tough.”


(Snip.)

“When I’m the president of the United States, you’re not going to see me going after states like Arizona or Alabama; suing sovereign states for making decisions, particularly because the federal government has been an abject failure at securing the border,” he said.

Sovereign states, eh? Such neo-Confederate Tenther tripe. As for the "abject failure" nonsense, the Obama Administration has overseen an increase in deportations, while illegal immigration to the US is slowing. 

Wow, it's just like Rick Perry has no idea what he's talking about, and is supporting a right-wing racist jerk-machine just because it sounds all tough and law-and-order-y! Imagine that!