Just ignore the Supreme Court

The Supremes batted away the nasty guy’s desire to put a citizenship question on the 2020 census. Those who work for and understand the census says such a question is a bad idea because minorities will be less likely to fill out the form, leading to an undercount (which, according to uncovered memos, is the reason why the question was proposed). Alas, the Supremes didn’t say you can’t do that. They said the nasty guy’s stated reasons were contrived. So the nasty guy’s lawyers spent the holiday weekend trying to contrive a reasons that wasn’t so obviously contrived.

And along comes Attorney General William Barr to say there really is a legal way to get the citizenship question onto the census. Translation: this president can ignore the Supreme Court. That prompted Melissa McEwan of Shakesville to respond:

See, when there's no one empowered to hold the president accountable who is willing to do it, what happens is that the president turns the Justice Department into a rubber stamp for his authoritarianism.

Commenter Widminter shares an idea heard elsewhere. So what if some of the census forms are already printed? Not everyone in the country has to get the same form. Perhaps the forms with the question go to the states with the most immigrants.



McEwan does a summary of the nasty stuff perpetrated by the nasty guy and the GOP. She titles them with the number of days the nasty guy has been in office. Today is day 900. Yeesh!

In today’s summary she notes an article by Drew Harwell at the Washington Post describing how the FBI and ICE have turned to state drivers license databases and facial recognition software into a gold mine. This has become “the bedrock of an unprecedented surveillance infrastructure.” McEwan responded:

A lot of folks will read headlines about this item, see "ICE," and assume the technology is only being used to "nab illegals." It isn't. It's already being used against citizens. And, even if it were only being used against undocumented immigrants, that's bad enough. But the population's indifference to abuses against undocumented immigrants will mean this surveillance programs expands without much pushback. So, let's make some noise.

You do know your representative and your Senators. Don’t you?



Sarah Kendzior tweeted in response to an AFP news agency story:

At least 15000 media jobs will be eliminated this year, over three times as many as in 2017, and the most since 2009

Kendzior studies authoritarianism and knows they don’t like independent journalists. Even if independent media companies fire people for economic reasons, it fits a nasty guy plan.