Win by stalling

Mark Sumner of Daily Kos reported that US District Judge Tanya Chutkan ruled that the nasty guy cannot invoke executive privilege to keep documents out of the hands of the House committee investigating the Capitol attack. Her ruling included the great line: “But Presidents are not kings, and Plaintiff is not President.” Of course the nasty guy team immediately appealed. Sumner wrote:

But Trump doesn’t have to win. As with the battle over subpoenas, what Trump is mainly trying to accomplish is simply stalling. How long it will take for the appeals court to hear the case isn’t clear. And if that court rules against Trump—which is almost certain—then comes the wait for the Supreme Court, which is unlikely to hurry in hearing this case. Should Trump manage to drag this out until January of 2023, he stands a good chance of laughing as the whole case dissolves under a Republican majority. Even if he is unable to delay for that long, every month extracted from the calendar is another month in which the select committee is unable to examine the documents or act on the information they contain.

Sumner mentioned one more possibility: When it gets to the Supremes (and it will) they may say this has nothing to do with legislation, or nothing to do with current legislation. Yeah, that would end Congress’ oversight of the executive branch. The Goddard School District in Kansas pulled 29 books from its school libraries based on one parental complaint. The question is whether the disappearance is temporary or permanent. We’re not at all surprised that most of the pulled books won awards for portrayal of LGBTQ and minority people. Interesting to see these two situations in the same day. First: Joan McCarter of Kos discussed that the more extreme right Republican members in the House have been issuing death threats to other members. Some threats are to progressive Democrats, other threats are to the thirteen Republicans who voted for the infrastructure bill that got bipartisan support in the Senate. And what did Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy do? He certainly didn’t say anything about death threats not being how House members should behave as professionals going about the public’s business. He certainly didn’t expel them or threaten committee assignments. What he did was endorse candidates for next year’s House races that are as vile as the ones who issued death threats. Second: Kerry Eleveld of Kos reported that New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu (R) was being recruited to run for the Senate next year. He has good name recognition and a good chance to flip the seat. But Sununu announced he is running for a fourth term as governor. In his announcement he said:

I'd rather push myself 120 miles an hour delivering wins for New Hampshire than to slow down, end up on Capitol Hill, debating partisan politics without results. That's why I'm going to run for a fourth term.

Yup, said Eleveld, that describes Moscow Mitch and his caucus. Sununu may be the best known, but he is just one of a few Republicans who turned down the chance to be a colleague of Mitch with strings pulled by the nasty guy. Those who are interested in running are the ones with extreme positions. And while House members can be extreme and still win because their districts are gerrymandered, that’s not as possible for senators who have to appeal to entire purple states. Thankfully. Michael Harriot commented on then quoted a headline from CNN and a tag from CBS News.

The entire Critical Race Theory debate in one tweet: “Black newborns more likely to die when looked after by white doctors.” “How young is too young to teach kids about race?”

Another from Harriot:

Ironically, a lot of Black people who used the term “woke” before white people Columbused it… Find white people referring to themselves as “woke” to be equally as annoying as the white people who are annoyed by the term “woke.” I am “a lot of Black people”

Hmm, “Columbused” as a verb... Bakari Sellers, former member of the South Carolina House, tweeted:

Y’all went from “OMG George Floyd” to “you negroes too woke” in 16 mos.

Harriot wrote an article for The Root titled Hogwarts for Wypipo where he can indulge his spot on sarcasm. Part of the article’s introduction:

Are you tired of educational institutions that handicap their students by centering the learning environment around fact-based education? Does your university refuse to allow diet white supremacist speakers on campus just because the people who pay tuition and taxes don’t want their money used to support white supremacy? Well, now there’s a school for you!

Harriot then discussed the University of Austin, which is looking for land to buy. He provided enough links I suspect that much and a bit more is true. However, I suspect his proposed course offerings are part of that sarcasm (we’d be in a heap of trouble if not). A selection from the curriculum:

Political Pseudoscience 112: This freshman-level course will teach students how to suppress Black voters, why vote totals don’t matter and why Jesus wants them to vote Republican. Wypiponomics 210: Students learn why welfare and government handouts will bankrupt America but tax loopholes, farm subsidies and zero-interest loans eventually “trickle down.” Religion 400: Covers the four major white religious deities: Jesus Christ (the white one), the Founding Fathers, Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump. White History 101: This class teaches why the Constitution wasn’t about white supremacy just because it made white people supreme. Students will also discover how the brave men of the South won the War for States’ Rights and how the Democratic Party was responsible for slavery even though it didn’t start until 1828.

And one more tweet from Harriot:

According to the current narrative, Black people somehow secretly gained control of America’s education system. But instead of addressing disparities in funding, resources & access to advanced courses Apparently, we just decided to make white kids cry during social studies class.

Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri is most famous for raising a fist in salute to the crowd during the Capitol attack. So it is no surprise that he gave a keynote speech at the National Conservatism Conference last month. Steve Inskeep of NPR listened to some of what Hawley said, then brought in a dissenting voice. The page for this segment is written as a news story rather than a transcript, so Hawley’s words are not in one chunk. I didn’t want to do the transcribing, so here’s a paraphrase of what he said:

The left is seeking to redefine traditional masculinity as being toxic. I call for a revival of strong healthy manhood in America. This is an effort that the left has been at for years now and they have had alarming success. American men are working less, they are getting married in fewer numbers, they're fathering fewer children, they're suffering more anxiety and depression, they're engaging in more substance abuse. The left wants to define traditional masculine virtues as courage, independence, and assertiveness as a danger to society. Can we be surprised that after years of being told they are the problem, that their manhood is the problem, more and more men are withdrawing into the enclave of idleness, and pornography, and video games? Millions of men are idle in part because of liberal policies.

This will be his big campaign message. I’ll skip over the lies and projection and move on to the dissenting voice. That came from Kristin Kobes Du Mez, a gender studies professor at Calvin University and author of the book Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation. Some of her points: There are expectations of masculinity that might be inappropriate and outmoded that might be making this crisis worse. There are aspects of liberal policy, such as paternity leave, that strengthen fathers. Hawley doesn’t define masculinity beyond being a father, husband, one who takes responsibility, one who protects family, faith, and culture. That draws on the conservative Christian idea that men and women are distinct and opposite. Men are protectors, women are to be protected. Hawley’s language is militant and that militancy sanctions violence. All that resonates powerfully with Christian conservatives. Today is Kurt Vonngut’s 99th birthday. In honor of that, Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos included a few quotes from the birthday boy. Here are a couple:

There is no reason why good cannot triumph as often as evil. The triumph of anything is a matter of organization. If there are such things as angels, I hope that they are organized along the lines of the Mafia. No matter how corrupt, greedy, and heartless our government, our corporations, our media, and our religious and charitable institutions may become, the music will still be wonderful. If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph: The Only Proof He Needed For The Existence Of God Was Music.