Yeah, it’s a crisis

I finally went out to see the latest Star Wars movie. During my intensive (for me) movie watching over the last month other movies had higher priority. I knew this one would be around for a while.

Yeah, it was violent. Expected for a movie with “war” in the title. A complaint: It was not nearly as much fun as many of the others. A complement: I thought it was much more psychologically complex than most movies.

Another complaint (spoiler alert): A female officer is left on the big rebel ship as everyone else makes their escape. Why did she wait for so many of the escape ships to get blown up before she used her ship as a weapon?

I’m going to miss Carrie Fisher who isn’t around to be in Episode 9.



When is a crisis in the government a constitutional crisis? That term can get overused and thrown about over a situation that is bad, but doesn’t actually threaten some or all of the Constitution.

For example, the nasty guy issuing a travel ban against Muslim countries is not a constitutional crisis. It is indeed bad, but the Constitution provides remedies through Congress and the Courts.

In contrast, if, after impeachment, the nasty guy were to barricade himself in the Oval Office, that would be a constitutional crisis.

I wrote about whether a crisis imperils the Constitution back in May. This was the time that Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller was appointed to investigate the links between the nasty guy and Russia. At the time there was already talk of the nasty guy obstructing justice and there was already obvious inaction by Congress. This is what I wrote at the time:

What about now with evidence of obstruction of justice? I would say no, because the Constitution lays out the remedy of impeachment.

So, take another step: What about a lawless president and a Congress refusing to step in with the Constitutional remedy?

In my opinion: Yes. Now the Constitution itself is in peril.

I bring all this up because, alas, there are a couple more examples that happened this week.

First up: Last summer Congress passed a bill calling for sanctions against Russia. The bill passed with such huge majorities (House and Senate combined voted 517-5) that the nasty guy felt forced to sign it. Even if he hadn’t there were way more than enough votes to override his veto.

Earlier this week, at the deadline for implementing the sanctions, the nasty guy informed Congress that the sanctions had not been implemented and would not be. He claimed that sanctions weren’t necessary.

Which means the executive branch has overruled the legislative branch.

When these sanctions were passed Vladimir Putin threatened painful retaliations if they were implemented. And that means the nasty guy caved to Putin’s bullying.

This is a constitutional crisis because: (1) the president is doing the bidding of a foreign power to the detriment of the country he is supposed to lead, (2) in doing so, the president is refusing to implement a law passed by Congress, and (3) Congress has done nothing in response to the defiance.

Hmm. The nasty guy is more afraid of consequences from Putin than from Congress.

Second example: I’ve reported about a “classified” memo that Rep. Devin Nunes created that supposedly proves that the FBI is hopelessly corrupt and totally biased against the nasty guy. The FBI director says the memo leaves out enough facts that the memo can no longer be considered accurate. The nasty guy says he will release it anyway. The Dems have written a memo that debunks the Nunes memo, and the GOP leaders are blocking its release.

Part of this is to undermine the Mueller investigation into the nasty guy’s Russian connections – no matter what Mueller comes up with, people will have justification of declaring it fake news. And part of this…

Leah McElrath on Twitter adds:

Trump’s attempts to delegitimize the IC [Intelligence Community] and FBI have laid the groundwork for an eventual purge of those bodies and replacement of their staff by “his” people.

McElrath includes tweets in which Speaker Paul Ryan is quoted as using the word “cleanse” with the FBI, the nasty guy considering using private security companies to replace the IC, and Kellyanne Conway admitting the nasty guy has plans to replace the IC with “his own people.”

Melissa McEwan of Shakesville tells us this is a constitutional crisis because: (1) the president is trying to shut down an investigation into the subversion of our democracy by a foreign government, (2) he is aided by a majority in Congress – no checks and balances here, and (3) this is now an open conflict with the minority party and the IC.

Now take a moment to think about what it means if the FBI is replaced with “his people.” First, it means we’ve lost a critical check on a lawless president. Second, think KGB.

G. Willow Wilson used a Twitter thread to add an important point:

It's a mistake to think a dictatorship feels intrinsically different on a day-to-day basis than a democracy does. I've lived in one dictatorship and visited several others--there are still movies and work and school and shopping and memes and holidays. The difference is the steady disappearance of dissent from the public sphere. Anti-regime bloggers disappear. Dissident political parties are declared "illegal." Certain books vanish from the libraries. … People still have rights, in theory. The right to vote, to serve on a jury, etc. The difference is that they begin to fear exercising those rights. Voting in an election will get your name put on "a list." So if you're waiting for the grand moment when the scales tip and we are no longer a functioning democracy, you needn't bother. It'll be much more subtle than that. It'll be more of the president ignoring laws passed by congress. It'll be more demonizing of the press. Until one day we wake up and discover the regime has decided to postpone the 2020 elections until its lawyers are finished investigating something or other. Or until it can 'ensure' that the voting process is 'fair.'

Your friendly neighborhood anti-regime blogger is right here keeping you informed for as long as possible.