That Didn't Last Long: Raleigh Lawyer Josh Howard Leaves Trump Defense Team

 

White-collar defense lawyer Josh Howard was only hired about three days ago as a part of Donald J. Trump's impeachment trial defense team. Maggie Haberman reported this morning that Howard has abruptly left the team, one of five who discovered they couldn't work with Trump's insistence that there was mass election fraud and that the election was stolen from him. The legal team apparently wanted to focus on the legality of convicting a president after he's left office. "Trump was not receptive to the discussions about how they should proceed in that regard" (CNN).

"You Told Them Lies; The Lies Incited Violence"

 

The Republican Accountability Project is also behind the billboards targeting Madison Cawthorn and Dan Bishop in North Carolina (along with other Trumpist members of Congress in other states). The above commercial debuted Thursday night and is also scheduled to run in those same congressional districts on Fox and Friends and Hannity.

"The Republican Accountability Project is being spearheaded by Bill Kristol and Sarah Longwell, a Republican consultant who has long been critical of Trump. The effort is also being led by two former Trump administration officials, Elizabeth Neumann and Olivia Troye, both of whom have emerged in recent months as fierce critics of the president." (The Hill)

Trump's Legacy and McConnell's Dick-in-a-Box

 

McConnell forced the confirmation of some 226 Trump-appointed Federal judges, and those surprise packages have already started doing what they were put on the bench to do.

Judge Drew Tipton

At the urging of the Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is himself under investigation for bribery and abuse of power, Trump-appointed Federal Judge Drew Tipton put a restraining order on Biden's "pause" to immigration deportations for “a review of policies and practices.” That thwarting of Biden policy came just six days into the new president's term.

According to Elie Mystal, the Biden order "wasn’t radical; it didn’t change the policy about who can be deported. It aimed simply to stop the government from shuttling as many people as possible out of the country as quickly as possible while the new administration tries to figure out which deportations should take priority and whether the people facing deportation received due process of law as opposed to whatever the hell Trump was doing."

Mystal summarized Judge Tipton's restraining order thusly: "He ruled that Texas had standing to sue the Biden administration (which is wrong). He also ruled that the Department of Homeland Safety likely exceeded its authority by implementing the pause — which is both wrong and ludicrous in light of the Supreme Court’s decision in the DACA case last year, which reaffirmed the executive’s broad authority to determine who should be deported and when they have to leave. At Slate, Mark Joseph Stern went into detail about Tipton’s 'bizarre decision,' writing, 'Tipton does not appear to have a rudimentary understanding of either immigration law or the practical realities of the immigration system.' ”

More of this to come, no doubt, with the biggest of McConnell's dicks-in-the-box sitting on the Supreme Court at the top of the legal heap.

This Woman Wants To Be Governor of Virginia

The Virginia State Senate just censured Amanda Chase. The vote was bipartisan, 24-9, with several Republicans either voting "yea" or abstaining to signal their disapproval of her.

"Trump in High Heels,"
Amanda Chase.
Photo: Bob Brown, Richmond
Times-Dispatch

She's a long story. She was initially famous for wearing a .38 special on her hip in the Virginia Senate chamber. Check. You recognize her willingness to bully, right, as the hallmark of a Trumpist (even before there was a Trump on the national scene)? She especially savored, like Trump, defecating on the Republican "establishment." 

She was subsequently removed from three of her Senate committee posts last year "after her decision, in late 2019, to quit the Senate Republican Caucus to protest the reelection of caucus leaders who had criticized her after a string of controversies, including cursing at a Capitol Police officer over a parking spot."

A week ago she lost her last committee. The full Senate voted to dump her ass.

And now this. Censure, by a vote of 24-9, with at least eight fellow Republican senators aligned against her.

The censure resolution catalog: "Chase accused Democrats of 'treason' for their role in a 'stolen' presidential election; dismissed the seriousness of the coronavirus pandemic; used social media to launch attacks on members of both parties that allegedly led to threats from the public; and said Sen. Jennifer L. McClellan (D-Richmond), who is also running for governor, couldn’t represent all Virginians because she helps lead the Black Caucus."

One of Chase's fellow Republican senators, who abstained from the vote, said that Chase's actions “represent to me a bit of a call for help, and I hope that she gets that help.”

 

She attended the Stop the Steal rally with President Trump at the Ellipse on January 6th but is said to have left before the storming of the Capitol. After she heard about the riot, she called the participants "patriots" and otherwise blamed all the violent acts on Antifa (who were presumably "in deep cover").

Shortly before the censure vote yesterday, and

at the urging of other lawmakers, Chase did, finally, denounce any white supremacists who might have had a role in the attack on the Capitol. And she said she was “sorry that I’ve hurt a lot of your feelings.”

But it was not enough to head off the vote.

 

Her Campaign for Governor

She first announced for the governorship almost a year ago, in February of 2020.  “I can’t take it anymore,” she said at the time, referring to “the liberal, socialistic agenda that has taken control of the Capitol.” Since then, she's expanded the things she can't take any more to establishment Republicans, and perhaps sensing that maybe she's a total longshot in a Republican primary, she says she'll run as an independent if the Republicans don't want her.

The Republicans of her Senate District 11 (mainly Chesterfield County, south of Richmond) seem to want her. They returned her to Richmond for a second 4-year term in 2019 with 54.5% of the vote. She attributes her staying power to being Trump "in heels" and plays to the authoritarian mindset: “People look at me and they say, ‘You know what? This girl’s got some brass balls,’ ” she said to laughs. “So you can throw whatever you want at me. ... I know with God, all things are possible and I won’t back down for anybody.”

As far as I can find, she has no campaign website (yet?), but she does have a Twitter account, where she suggests that we can best follow her on Parler.

Here's the Proposition and the Question

Looks like a purge of Trumpism by the Republican establishment in Virginia. If Virginia traditional Republicans get away with this, without suffering either physical or electoral damage, it would send a message to other Republican establishments in other purple-to-blue states that there really can be an end to "Trumpism" after all.

Josh Howard Joins Trump's Legal Defense Team. He was Chair of State Board of Elections During Four Eggers' Attempt to Suppress AppState Votes in 2013

 

Everything old is new again.

Josh Howard was very much in the cast of characters during Stacy C. "Four" Eggers' seizure of the Watauga County Board of Elections in 2013 (using his younger brother as surrogate) and the attempt to shut down voting on the AppState campus.

Now attorney Howard has joined the Donald J. Trump defense team for the February 8th trial in the US Senate. The News and Observer calls him a "white-collar defense lawyer" with a definite partisan lean:

"He was part of the team that investigated Democratic President Bill Clinton in the 1990s — both for the Whitewater financial scandal and the Monica Lewinsky affair. And he represented former Rep. David Lewis, once one of the most powerful Republicans in the state legislature, when Lewis was charged last year with federal crimes in a campaign finance scheme."

Josh Howard's a lucky lawyer, mainly because he's going to win this case before the Senate. Whether the Character Formerly Known as Twitterman actually pays him is another question.

 

 

Thom Tillis -- Trump Bootlick -- Votes To Keep the GOP the 'Party of Violent Insurrection'

 

In a vote in the US Senate yesterday, on a motion by Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky to dismiss the impeachment trial against Donald J. Trump, some 45 Republican senators made common cause with far-right insurrectionists and white supremacists and other followers of the big lie.

Senator Thom Tillis was one of them.

According to Tillis and the other 44, holding responsible the inciter of that attempted coup is nothing but politics and a "dangerous precedent."

We've seen several dangerous precedents since November 3rd, and none of them were an attempt to seek justice for the man who almost single-handedly ended our constitutional Republic.

Jeff Jackson Is In

 

State Senator Jeff Jackson of Mecklenburg County is announcing today that he's a candidate in the 2022 Democratic primary for US Senate.

Jackson is 38 and was just elected to his fourth term in the NC Senate. He and his wife have three small children. He is a former Gaston County prosecutor and a captain in the U.S. Army Reserve. He served in the Afghanistan war.

Former state Senator Erica Smith, who ran in the Democratic primary for US Senate last year, has also already announced for 2022, and there will probably be others, along with several Republicans including one of Trump's daughters-in-law.

Jackson has built a reputation in the NC Senate as a progressive warrior. Here he is speaking clearly on "what's wrong with politics in North Carolina."

Sen. Bob Steinburg -- Ass Or Idiot?

NC state Senator Bob Steinburg is aiming to break all previous records for stupid (and dangerous?) public speech. After the November elections, Steinburg, who represents Senate Dist. 1 down on the coast, wanted Trump to declare martial law and suspend habeas corpus, and he also wanted Chief Justice John Roberts investigated for suspected involvement in the plot to steal the election.

On Inauguration Day, first on Twitter and then in a fulminating video posted on Facebook, Steinburg offered new provocation: “This election was stolen – no one – no one will ever convince me otherwise," he wrote on Twitter. "I, like many of you, probably 75 million or more of you, who do not believe that Joe Biden actually was elected” -- the very first words uttered in the video.

He's a nasty piece of work, this senator, staking his reputation (and his sacred honor) on the big lie. But here's the question: Does he actually believe the lie that Trump was defrauded out of a second term, or is he merely posturing to gild his popularity with the Trumpists? That is to say, is he ass or idiot? And which would be preferable in a duly elected public official, especially a state senator?

Steinburg's Inauguration Day project was shocking enough that WRAL reporter Travis Fain reached out to other Republican senators, including Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger, to see if they would defend Steinburg. Most ducked the question. 

WRAL News reached out via email Thursday morning to all 27 other Republicans in the state Senate, seeking to determine how widespread these beliefs may be. None responded, beyond a statement from Senate President Phil Berger's office: ... "We are not in the business of policing the speech of other members, who are responsible only to the voters who elected them."

Berger's spokesman then went on to write out the indisputable facts that Trump had appropriately exhausted all his legal options and that no evidence of fraud had been proven in any qualified court (including ones presided over by Trump appointees) and that therefore Joe Biden was and is the duly elected president. 

All of that quiet put-down of Steinburg communicated via email. Fain wasn't satisfied. He placed personal phone calls to some seven Republican senators. Only one of them would talk to him about Steinburg -- Sen. Warren Daniel of Burke Co., who said, "I’m a lawyer, and I’d like to see evidence before I take a position on an issue.” Meaning, precisely, that anyone who believed as Sen. Steinburg believes might just be an idiot. "We need to move on."

There's the split in the NC Republican Party, such as it is, the clown-show of Trumpist cheerleaders on the one hand (and don't forget Madison Cawthorn in the NC-11), overwhelming the weak signal from sane and traditional Republicans rapidly falling out of love with Trump. There'll be no Trumpist purge in the NCGOP, mainly because Trump won the state (so no need for reprisals), though we've witnessed a minor wave of volunteer defections. In the week following January 6, some 2,879 Republicans re-registered as Not Republican (many if not most, Unaffiliated) in North Carolina. Steinburg (and Cawthorn) don't stem that tide.

Biden Boldness Is the Way

 

Having fallen in line behind Trump, and having opposed Obama in near-unanimous fashion, do [Congressional Republicans] now feel any responsibility to help create a new political climate?

--Dan Balz

 

The answer to your question, Dan, is no. A thousand times no. Or at least 261 times, the current number of Republicans in both houses of Congress. Despite a double national crisis -- an increasingly virulent virus and the loss of so many jobs -- key Republicans have already raised their voices in the face of any available camera that President Biden's COVID relief package is dead on arrival. That's how it's going to be. Republicans are reverting to what they do best -- kick the dog and block every door to the kitchin.

Bless their hearts. Yes, their inherited genes demand "no" for an answer. Add to that genetic predisposition toward pain and obstruction the terrors of The Purge now -- the lingering (and fulminating?) power of Trump to impose obedience and punish deviation. Like in Arizona, where the Trump-endorsed state GOP Chair Kelli Ward led a censure vote against prominent state Republicans Jeff Flake and Cindy McCain and also censured their sitting Republican Gov. Doug Ducey. His great sin? He riled up the Trumpists by imposing emergency COVID rules. (And that, O my brethren, is just how pathetic the political divide has become under Trump.)

Trumpists wanted a civil war. Looks like they're getting it on the rebound:

In recent weeks, Trump has entertained the idea of creating a third party, called the Patriot Party, and instructed his aides to prepare election challenges to lawmakers who crossed him in the final weeks in office, including Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R), Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Rep. Tom Rice (R-S.C.), according to people familiar with the plans.

Caitlin O'Hara, WashPost

Multiple people in Trump’s orbit, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations, say Trump has told people that the third-party threat gives him leverage to prevent Republican senators from voting to convict him during the Senate impeachment trial. [Dawsey and Scherer]

Scaring those senators out of voting to uphold constitutional democracy by convicting Donald J. Trump will probably work. They won't convict the sonovabitch out of fear that The Purge will finger them too (except for maybe a few exceptions who have less to lose and a smidgin more of internal fortitude -- Mitt Romney, Richard Burr ... Mitch McConnell?).

The seismic rupture in the GOP should be good for Democrats, but as a Democrat, I know very well to expect too much thinking and not enough doing. Democrats tend to think too much, and the thought they're thinking about too much right now is "unifying the country" -- at least, so far as Congress is concerned. You can't unify that Congress. The flurry of Biden's executive orders plus his fully fledged and carefully drafted legislative packages to fix some of the current sicknesses in this country -- that was the kind of boldness I want. Given he's got only two guaranteed years of shared power in Congress, Joe Biden's got to reach for more than he grabs.

Is the 5th District of NC Getting Its Own Madison Cawthorn?

 

Young Republican Bo Hines has launched a campaign to unseat Virginia Foxx in the NC-5. His video message offers several triggers open to interpretation. He says he wants to fight "against tyranny of mobs and big tech giants looking to take away our God given rights." That word "mobs" might make you think he's aligning against insurrectionists, but we suspect the "mobs" he's talking about are Antifa and BLM. The reference to "big tech giants looking to take away our God given rights" is a trigger for coming to Twitterman's defense against social media platforms who've kicked him off. (Did you know you had a God given right to be on Twitter? Neither did I.) Here's Bo Hines's Twitter account. He's Trumpist, all right.

He incidentally seems most offended by Foxx's turning her incumbency into great wealth. Yeah, we're offended by that too.

The Gaston Gazette says he lives currently in Forsyth County (presumably in order to attend Wake Forest School of Law), but I haven't found him in the NC voter file -- not under the name "Bo," which is no doubt a nickname. The northern part of Forsyth is still in the 5th District, though Wake Forest campus isn't.

The Gaston Gazette reports that Hines "was once a highly touted freshman wide receiver at North Carolina State University .... After a prep career at Charlotte Christian, Hines earned Freshman All-American honors as a wide receiver for the Wolkpack in 2014 before transferring to Yale University."

Madam Foxx has never had a Republican challenger like Hines, and she's always been ripe for the plucking if she got the right opponent. Hines's pointing out that she's mainly made herself rich while in Congress, while doing little for her constituents, could be a winning message.

Here's his Facebook page. His introductory video is posted on both Facebook and Twitter.

CORRECTION

None of Forsyth County is currently in the 5th District.

Is He Really Gone?

 

"But the same pathologies that abetted Trump’s political rise, animated his followers and became hallmarks of his turbulent single term have now, in the twilight of his presidency, left him a man diminished."

--Rucker, Parker, and Dawsey

Is that true? Is Donald J. Trump "diminished"? What about his mob of  insurrectionists? Are they diminished? Are they even embarrassed?

The Federal prosecution of members of the mob might take some of the starch out -- one arrested in Kernersville yesterday, the first North Carolinian taken in on Federal charges; also the uncovering of actual conspiracies coordinating the presence of militia members with "combat techniques" taught by members of the US military. The FBI's knocking on doors all over the nation may sap some of that vim for putting yourself on Facebook while ransacking the seat of constitutional government. Prosecution of federal conspiracy charges -- Jeez. As Dr. Samuel Johnson is famous for saying, “Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.” 

The anger behind that mob -- a reaction to perceived victimhood -- ain't diminishing. It's probably just going into hiding -- with the FBI on the hunt -- going underground to fester, resupply, and snipe. Or, on the other hand, it's going into the sick ward. In a Marist poll, only 39% of Trump voters said they would get a COVID vaccine. Thinning the herd via pandemic seems like the ultimate cult devotion.

Trump himself gets it that the Republican Party is done with him, so he intends to be done with them first. The Wall Street Journal got the story yesterday that Trump had spoken out loud the bright idea of starting a brand-new political party, "and we'll call it The Patriot Party." Who didn't show up to see him off at Joint Base Andrews early yesterday morning? None of the Republican Party grandees, McConnell, McCarthy, even Pence wasn't there, and McConnell is sounding more and more like a vengeful man who intends to leave the bark on.

"It is unclear whether such an effort at a new party would involve the recruitment and running of candidates or serve as a media and merchandise empire for the former president." We're betting the latter. Third parties often start off with a bang and then fizzle. There would certainly be a bang for the Patriot Party, fer sure, with an equally and opposite debilitating impact on the GOP, but unless Tramp himself -- or a Trump -- is on the ballot, not sure this movement, based on resentment, has staying power.

My number one question in watching Trump helicopter into retirement: What sort of factor will he be in elections going forward -- if any -- and how durable is the "Trump effect" that foiled Democratic ambitions last November, if Trump isn't on the ballot?

How Joe Biden Will Begin To Reverse Trump Policies

We expect the newly inaugurated president to sign some 15 separate executive orders this afternoon, with more promised in the next weeks.  The collective effort was characterized by Biden's aides as “undoing” and “reversing” policies implemented by Trump that were “harmful” or “inhumane.” 

The Pandemic

Swiftly following his swearing in, President Biden plans to sign executive actions that will require masks on all federal grounds, and he will ask agencies to extend moratoriums on evictions and on federal student loan payments. He will urge Americans to don face coverings for 100 days while reviving a global health unit in the National Security Council — allowed to go dormant during the Trump administration — to oversee pandemic preparedness and response. He will also begin to reverse steps taken by President Trump to withdraw from the World Health Organization by dispatching Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s top infectious-disease official, to speak at the international group’s executive board meeting tomorrow. He will create a White House Covid-19 response team that will coordinate across the federal government and with states on ramping up vaccinations, distributing more masks and gloves, expanding testing capacity, reopening schools and more. 

Immigration

The new president will sign an order repealing the ban on travel from several majority-Muslim nations. Another order will call on the Department of Homeland Security to continue an Obama-era initiative protecting “dreamers” from deportation and issuing them work permits as long as they qualified under the requirements laid out when the program, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, began in 2012. Biden will also end the national emergency over the border that Trump declared as a way to circumvent Congress when lawmakers would not grant him funding for his wall. He also promises to repeal the Trump administration’s interior immigration enforcement order that sought to withhold federal funds from cities that shielded undocumented immigrants. And he will halt construction on the border wall. 

The Census

The new president will nullify the Trump administration’s directive that attempted to exclude the counting of noncitizens from the U.S. census.

Climate

President Biden plans to sign an order revoking the permit, issued by the Trump administration, that allowed for the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, and he will sign an order to rejoin the Paris climate accord. The United States will officially be part of the 189-country climate agreement in 30 days.

Racial Equity

President Biden plans to rescind the “1776 Commission” established by the Trump administration to push a much more conservative (lily white) version of American history in public schools. That commission issued its report only this week to widespread scorn from historians because of its soft-soap on the history of American slavery. In other orders promised for coming days the president-elect has promised to root out systemic racism from our institutions, holding the federal government accountable for advancing equity for families across America.

Transgender Rights

The new president plans to revoke "in coming days" the ban on transgender people from serving in the military.

Abortion Rights

President Biden intends to reverse the so-called "global gag rule" (the "Mexico City policy") that blocks U.S. aid to organizations abroad that perform abortions or offer counseling on the procedure.

Thom Tillis -- Creampuff on Milquetoast

 

In an online lunchtime chat with the John Locke Foundation's Donna Martinez that was streamed live yesterday, Senator Thom Tillis claimed that he had not read the five paragraphs in the House's impeachment article against Donald Trump.

Asked whether he'd vote to convict the president, Tillis -- an overcooked noodle, sliding off the spoon -- wouldn't answer yes or no.

Tillis said there are "a lot of questions that I’m still getting legal advice on."

"Legal advice" -- under the rubric of "Do I dare to eat a peach?"

Tillis also questioned the ramifications of a potential second vote in the Senate to bar Trump from holding elected office in the future. Tillis noted that, while conviction requires a two-thirds majority in the Senate, a subsequent vote to bar him from running again would require only a majority vote.

“I’ve got to wrap my head around that," he said.

Anything as mushy as that Tillis noggin ought to be pretty easy to warp into any shape you want.

Hattip: Travis Fain.

The Body Count -- Steven Dillingham, Census Bureau Director

 

A Reoccurring Feature on Who's Jumping Off Luxury Liner Trump

Steven Dillingham, director of the U.S. Census Bureau, announced his resignation yesterday in the wake of allegations that he had supported a partisan push to deliver data on undocumented immigrants to President Trump before the president leaves office.

Reports last week from bureau whistleblowers said political appointees were pressuring staff members to release state tallies of undocumented immigrants by Jan. 15, regardless of their accuracy, to boost Trump’s effort to exclude them from congressional apportionment. Those reports prompted calls from civil rights groups and Democratic lawmakers for Dillingham to resign.

Dillingham was appointed director two years ago as the bureau was embroiled in lawsuits over the Trump administration’s push to add a question about citizenship to the 2020 Census, an effort that was ultimately blocked by the Supreme Court. His appointment had been set to last until the end of 2021.

Trump Leaves a Ticking Time Bomb in the NSA

 

This guy. Michael Ellis, a lawyer and Trump loyalist, who had been an operative for Republican Rep. Devin Nunes and then graduated to the Trump White House in various roles (a lawyer for the National Security Council and then the White House’s senior director for intelligence), where he did what he could to stop the publication of John Bolton's book, "The Room Where It Happened." Ellis is said to have overruled the decision by a career official to clear Bolton’s book for publication, even though he had no formal training in the classification of national security information. Then the William Barr Justice Department, under pressure from Trump, sued Bolton to recoup his profits from the book.

Anyway ... this guy ... Michael Ellis has been forced on the National Security Agency in the last days of the Trump administration as the NSA's general counsel. Trump's last (acting) defense secretary ordered the NSA to hire Ellis, something the director of the NSA clearly didn't want to do -- to embed this political punk into the ranks of the Senior Executive Service, which will protect his job from a political firing by the Biden administration (though they can reassign his ass to a place where he can't continue to spy for Trump).

Mr. Ellis is seen as a smart lawyer. But the push to install him in a permanent government job puzzled some. According to former officials, he is likely to enter the general counsel’s office under a good deal of suspicion and will have an uphill battle to win the confidence of [NSA Director] General [Paul] Nakasone.

Mr. Ellis will be a member of the Senior Executive Service, a Civil Service job that has strong protections against firing. However, civil servants can be easily moved in the Defense Department, so he could be given a legal job elsewhere in the sprawling department — overseeing compliance with environmental regulations at a remote military base, for example. [NYTimes]

Gotta ask why Trump and his minions were so determined to give one of Twitterman's loyal foot soldiers such a prominent perch in the national spy agency. Gosh, it's almost like Trump wants to keep an eye on how, say, Russia may be faring under the new Biden administration.

And how many other Trump moles have been similarly installed for longterm spying in other government agencies?

Inside the Insurrection

 

A New Yorker reporter's footage from inside the Capitol riot is chilling, especially for revealing how the insurrectionists see themselves and congratulate their own testosterone.

The crisis in our nation wasn't just for that one day. Their devotion to the big lie becomes an enduring burden for the survival of the Republic.

We Need Another Stacey Abrams in North Carolina

 

Next month, the state executive committee of the North Carolina Democratic Party will vote on a new chair for the state party. The only announced candidate for the job right now is Bobbie Richardson, who is currently 1st vice chair and a former member of the NC House. She was appointed to the Dist. 7 House seat in 2013, won reelection in 2014 and 2016 but lost her seat (by a large margin) in the elections of 2018, after redistricting dissolved her old constituency and replaced it with a much whiter, more Republican electorate. 

(The old Dist. 7 had been considered one of the most racially gerrymandered in the state. While redistricting generally across NC in 2018 made Democratic gains in the General Assembly possible, that redistricting hurt a handful of Democratic incumbents, and Richardson was one of those.)

Could Richardson be our Stacey Abrams? Would she have the vision and the juice to mount aggressive voter registration and outreach to find and motivate the people who haven't been participating in our civic contract? While Black voter turnout in North Carolina increased 4.1 points last fall over 2016, it wasn’t enough for Democrats to flip the state for Biden or to flip at least one chamber in the General Assembly. Some 68.4% of North Carolina’s Black voters cast a ballot in the 2020 elections, compared to 78.8% of white voters. That's the winning margin right there, all those votes left untapped.

Richardson spent 35 years teaching in North Carolina schools, with a wealth of preparation behind her including a doctorate in education leadership from UNC-Chapel Hill. She's been a stand-out leader in her community (which is clear from reading her bio), but can she bring a Stacey Abrams level of organizing and reform to the North Carolina Democratic Party?

Donald Trump Should Beware of Cosmic Irony

 

I heard Fran Lebowitz say she worries about dying in such a manner that people will laugh. It's called "cosmic irony," that force in the universe looking to embarrass you in your last minutes. Like Nelson Rockefeller, dead of a heart attack in the secret apartment of his very young mistress. Like Sir Francis Bacon, a most arrogant but scientific Elizabethan, dead of pneumonia after stuffing a chicken with snow. Like Draco of Athens, literally killed by kindness, suffocating under a pile of gifts showered on him by grateful citizens. I could go on.

People laughed.

Like, say you're a proper and judgmental church lady. A garbage truck with your name on it may be stalking you in the streets. People will laugh, most likely in private but still.

I don't know if Donald Trump worries. Pariahs often don't. Pariahs lack the self-reflection to recognize any ironies, let alone the cosmic variety, but he should, if he could, avoid living in such a way as to invite the flying fickle finger of fate. Self-absorption paves the road for cruel hilarity.

Say, he blunders into Melania's bedroom in the middle of the night, and she mistakes him for a Mexican rapist and puts a bullet through his heart. Say, a judgmental young woman grabs him by the privates and precipitates an exploding aneurysm in his femoral artery. Say his smartphone catches fire and he's wearing clothes fashioned out of cellulose fibers, designed and sold as a brand by Ivanka.

Dreaming up those scenarios could be a parlor game. I remember when we had a similar one for Dick Nixon: "I won't be satisfied until he ________." It's a ghastly theater of revenge porn, not entirely unlike the scenarios the mob at the Capitol last week were playing in their heads as they went hunting for traitors. 

The Youngest Member of Congress Reveals His Character

 

Newly elected NC-11 Congressman Madison Cawthorn spoke at the Ellipse rally of Trumpists last Wednesday. Cawthorn said in part: “The Democrats, with all the fraud they have done in this election, the Republicans, hiding and not fighting, they are trying to silence your voice. Make no mistake about it, they do not want you to be heard. But my friends, when I look out into this crowd, I can confidently say, this crowd has the voice of lions. There is a new Republican Party on the rise that will represent this country, that will go and fight in Washington, D.C.”

Henderson County Sheriff George Erwin, who had worked hard for Cawthorn's election, couldn't stand it. He said about Cawthorn's speech, “Words mean things. You can inflame a group and you can calm a group by the words you used. To me, he inflamed,” Erwin said. “.... You rile people up and then afterwards, you’re going to say, ‘Well, this is appalling. This is appalling and I back the blue.’ No, you don’t. You fired these people up and the first line of defense was law enforcement. People are dead. You can’t take that back.”

Whoa.

Sure enough, Cawthorn waited until the next day to tweet his disgust with the insurrectionists -- "it wasn’t patriotism it was thuggery.” And then he told a WLOS reporter that he didn't feel any responsibility for what happened. No responsibility. "I'm not responsible at all." That's it, that's the same Trumpist inability to see self, to see clearly what you did and to know it for what it was, and to admit it, at least to yourself.

Sheriff George Erwin

Sheriff Erwin shared his shame that he had worked so diligently to get that young man elected: “This is all on me. Calling all these people, getting them to endorse, introducing him to county commissioners, law enforcement officials. That is all on me. I’m a big boy. I’ll take my punishment. I am not happy with what I’m seeing. I think this is just going to be the tip of the iceberg. I don’t think it’s going to get any better.”

Indeed, there's a Cawthorn contrail going all the way back to election night -- "Cry more lib" -- as he plays to a national hardcore audience. He wants to be their new star. Speaking at the Republican National Convention went to his head, and now he's all about the tough guy act. On Dec. 21, at a speech before the young conservative group Turning Point USA, Cawthorn said that if other Republicans were not on the record “calling for fair, free and just elections” he would come to their districts and fund primary opponents. Call your congressman and feel free, you can lightly threaten them and say, you know what, if you don’t start supporting election integrity, I’m coming after you, Madison Cawthorn is coming after you, everybody’s coming after you,” Cawthorn told the group.

His character comes out in other ways, too: "Erwin said Cawthorn’s hiring and his treatment of people in the office turned him off, as did the new congressman’s seeming priority for a national spotlight over district concerns."

The sheriff isn't the only Republican in the 11th District to speak out against Cawthorn. Eddie Harwood, a Buncombe County conservative, posted this on Facebook: “But after his role in inciting this mob violence we saw at the Capitol, my worst fears about his immaturity and willingness to pander to the worst instincts of the right-wing fringe were realized,” Harwood wrote. “Make no mistake: There is blood on his hands. He played a role in encouraging the violence and attack on our democracy, going to get his picture taken and trying to get on the right-wing news by whipping up the crowd that attacked our democracy and our constitutional process. It was disgusting.”

Whoa, again. (Harwood's full post is a doozy. You should read it.)

The Trumpists probably outnumber the Sheriff Erwins and the Eddie Harwoods of the 11th District, and the Trumpists in the 11th District are still jazzed by their RINO-hunting last week and aren't about to let anything bad (or even "adult") happen to Madison Cawthorn. Consider the threatening phone call to the Haywood County Democratic Party: "Are you the fuckers that are calling for Madison Cawthorn to resign? We're coming after you." Then a brick went through their HDQs window.

That's the situation in the 11th District. That's the shape of the Republican Party. Cawthorn is probably going to be their burden until 2022, when the potency of Trump's bullying may be gone. We'd love to see Col. Moe Davis run for that seat again.

Read more here: https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article248418675.html#storylink=cpy

Biden's Choice To Head the CIA

William J. Burns, to head the Central Intelligence Agency

Burns has been a career diplomat in the State Department. He led secret talks with Iran that led to the famous nuclear deal that Trump promptly destroyed. Burns has a reputation for nonpartisanship and has held key diplomatic posts in both Democratic and Republican administrations.

NYTimes: Mr. Burns also served as the ambassador to Russia from 2005 to 2008, making him a keen observer of President Vladimir V. Putin. Russian interference in American elections has been one of the most important intelligence issues in recent years. In all, Mr. Burns did two tours in Moscow and speaks Russian. Mr. Burns, currently the president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, has been vocal in his belief that American diplomacy has been damaged during the Trump administration.

 

5th District Democrats Blast the Sedition of Virginia Foxx

 

Intercepted email: Democratic officials in the 5th District of N.C. have drafted a letter address to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, urging disciplinary action against Congresswoman Virginia A. Foxx for her activities last Wednesday. This is part of the letter:

Ms. Foxx has claimed to object “out of an abiding respect for the Constitution” in reflection of supposed “violations of Article II, Section I of the Constitution” in which there is no stated direction as to how the states’ manage their election process regarding Presidential electors.  The reality is that the Republican Members’ publicly stated goal in raising multiple objections to states’ electors certification was to overturn the election in favor of the defeated President Trump. This action goes against the intent of the Electoral Count Act of 1887, which sought to minimize Congressional involvement in election disputes. This grossly un-democratic attempt to subvert the will of the people reflects a violation of her duty as called to in the Amendment XIV of the Constitution, Section 3:

 

“No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States,shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.”

 

As constituents of Ms. Foxx, we want to be very clear that we do not feel adequately represented by an individual who would publicly stand with insurrectionists. We want to make clear that this is not done in hopes to undermine the recent election that Rep. Foxx fairly won despite many similar election process changes in our great state of North Carolina that were done in Pennsylvania. The sheer hypocrisy in challenging the results of Pennsylvania, where Biden won, but not North Carolina, where Trump was victorious, is obvious in their ultimate intentions: disregarding the will of the majority of Americans as reflected in the Electoral College totals. We recognize that due to targeted gerrymandering by the NCGOP-lead NC General Assembly any replacement for Ms. Foxx in the Fifth District would come from special election that a Republican candidate is favored to win.

Therefore, we respectfully request that the House of Representatives conduct an investigation for Ethics Violations regarding Ms. Foxx’s aforementioned Acts of Sedition. If the 2/3rds vote necessary for expulsion cannot be secured, we request that the House of Representatives formally censure Ms. Foxx on behalf of her constituents in the 5th Congressional District.

 

Biden Made His Choices for Labor, Commerce Departments

 

Martin Walsh, to be Secretary of Labor

Currently and for the last seven years, the mayor of Boston and a former top union leader (the Boston Building and Construction Trades Council, an umbrella group for unions). He's a personal friend of Joe Biden.

Virginia Foxx, who has a limited vocabulary, immediately attacked Biden's choice: “Marty Walsh’s background in organized labor signals that he will work to deliver on left-wing campaign promises.” Imagine that! Delivering on campaign promises.

Boston Globe: "Organized labor has played a pivotal role in Walsh’s life and political rise. He was 21 years old when he became a member of the Laborers’ Union Local 223 in Boston, which his father had joined in the 1950s after emigrating from Ireland and his uncle later led. Walsh, who was a state representative for 16 years, went on to also serve as president of the union, then was the head of the Building and Construction Trades Council. When he first ran for mayor in 2013, unions fueled his campaign with financial contributions and volunteers."

Gina Raimondo, to be Secretary of Commerce

Currently and since 2014, the governor of Rhode Island. 

Politico: Raimondo is a former venture capitalist who worked at a fund backed by Bain Capital. She also started her own venture firm in Rhode Island, where she worked before being elected general treasurer of Rhode Island in 2011. During the presidential primary of 2020, she threw her support behind former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, serving as national co-chair for the well funded but ill-fated campaign.

Raimondo, if approved by the Senate, will preside over a sprawling, diverse department, whose functions include forecasting the weather, managing ocean fisheries, and setting international product standards. She will also be landing in the middle of several international trade disputes that were begun during the tenure of Trump's Secretary Wilbur Ross.

 

Joe Biden's Justice Department

 

Merrick Garland, to be Attorney General of the United States

Garland, 68 -- most famous probably for being the Supreme Court nominee who never got a hearing, an early casualty of Trump-style bullying and a pelt on McConnell's shield.

Garland first worked at the justice department in 1979 as an assistant to Attorney General Benjamin Civiletti. He later became a federal prosecutor and in the Clinton administration served as a senior Justice Department official. Clinton appointed him to the D.C. bench of the US Court of Appeals.

He knows violent white supremacists. He played a leading role in the investigation and prosecution of Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols for the Oklahoma City bombing. His grandparents, Russian Jews, fled the Tsar's pogroms in the early 20th century. Garland was raised in conservative Judaism where he learned caring and protection for the weak. In 1983, as a lawyer in private practice, he won the case in the Supreme Court which mandated seat belts in all autos.

He looks too moderate for some progressives, but he looks foursquare to me. Nina Totenberg described him as "a moderate liberal, with a definite pro-prosecution bent in criminal cases." For post-Trump, that sounds promising. SCOTUSblog: "Judge Garland's record demonstrates that he is essentially the model, neutral judge. He is acknowledged by all to be brilliant. His opinions avoid unnecessary, sweeping pronouncements." Garland has a reputation for collegiality, and according to Wikipedia, his opinions rarely draw a dissent. "Some Biden advisers have come to view him as well-suited to restore norms of nonpolitical decision-making at the Justice Department" (WashPost).

 

Lisa Monaco, for the No. 2 position of Deputy Attorney General

She, too, is a department veteran. She served as the Assistant Attorney General for National Security from 2011 to 2013 and as the Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General. Before that she worked as a prosecutor, then served as a senior adviser to Robert Mueller when he was FBI director. She also served in the Obama White House as the chief counterterrorism advisor to the president. 

She worked as a research coordinator for the Senate Committee on the Judiciary from 1992 to 1994 under then chairman Joe Biden, where she especially worked on the Violence Against Women Act. As a member of the Justice Department's Enron Task Force, she led the trial team in the prosecution of five former Enron executives. (Corporate corruption has got to be a target-rich area after four years of Trump.)

For the Russian interference she's well equipped. She was President Obama's chief cybersecurity advisor and drove the policy decision to create the Cyber Threat Intelligence Integration Center under the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in 2015.

Vanita Gupta, for the No. 3 position of Associate Attorney General

Wikipedia: President and Chief Executive Officer of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. Previously the Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General and appointed to head of the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice by Barack Obama, a position she held until January 20, 2017 (ahem). 

Before all of that, she was a civil rights lawyer and the Deputy Legal Director of the American Civil Liberties Union, where she oversaw its national criminal justice reform efforts. She also served as assistant counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. Throughout her career, she has drawn support from a wide range of liberal and conservative activists, as well as law enforcement leaders, for building collaborative support and finding common ground on policing and criminal justice reform.

I happen to know something about Gupta's very first case as a young lawyer working for the NAACP, because it involved people of color just 25 miles from where I grew up in the Texas Panhandle. She defended some 40 African Americans and six white or Latino people who were romantic partners of African Americans in Tulia, Tex., seat of Swisher County and a little town well known to me because it had a public swimming pool. The 40 Tulia defendants had been convicted by all-white juries on drug dealing charges. In almost every case, the only evidence was the testimony of an undercover agent, Tom Coleman. Coleman did not use wiretaps or marked money, and records showed that he had "filed shoddy reports." He had previous misdemeanor charges for stealing gasoline from a county pump and "abuse of official capacity." Gupta won the release of her clients in 2003, four years after they were jailed, then negotiated a $6 million settlement for those arrested.

Gupta's previous tenure at the Department of Justice was marked by several high profile matters that included the investigations of the Ferguson, Baltimore, and Chicago police departments; the appeals of the Texas and North Carolina voter ID cases; the challenge to North Carolina’s HB2 law and other LGBTQ rights litigation; enforcement of education, land use, hate crimes, and other statutes to combat Islamophobia and other forms of religious discrimination; etc.

Kristen Clarke, to be Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights

Clarke's parents immigrated to Brooklyn from Jamaica. She got her B.A. from Harvard and her law degree from Columbia. After graduating from law school she joined the Department of Justice as a prosecutor and a trial lawyer on voting rights, hate crimes, and human trafficking cases. She won a landmark decision in the D.C. Circuit that found hateful on-line trolling a compensible tort.

 

They Won't Stop

 

More a student of politics than a student of government, so I'd rather speculate on what now happens to the Republican Party than on how our system survives for the next dozen days. (Yes, I could also speculate on what now happens to the Democratic Party, but I don't write romance novels.)

You know what else was going on in this nation on Wednesday? The winter meeting of the Republican National Committee, at an expensive venue on Amelia Island, Florida. (I'm told a mere jigger of good Kentucky whiskey cost $24.) And do you know what Donald J. Trump was doing Thursday morning? He was all rah-rah-team on a speakerphone direct to the winter session attendees and also in a later canned video. Curiously, the events of the day before no longer existed anywhere in the universe. Poof. No national emergency, no potential public embarrassment for politicians who condoned the mob. During the breakfast session on Thursday morning, Trump complained about the media and never once mentioned the storming of the Capitol.

Trump also sent along to the winter meeting a 2-minute video of himself standing in the White House colonnade. He bragged about the popularity of the party, about his 74 million votes, about women (of all things) who won seats in the House, and about the expedited coronavirus vaccine. Again, he did not mention the insurrection meant to keep him in the White House.

In other words, Jesus! Not only did Trump lie by omission, like Land O Lakes wouldn't melt in his mouth, but he also displayed his total lack of interest in self-examination. His crippling ineptitude with self-awareness is the hallmark of this very stable genius. He seemed not to know yesterday what he now looks like. He doesn't understand that many of the delegates attending the winter meeting were already secretly disgusted with him, some of them beginning to speculate on whether the Trump blessing in 2020 might be a liability or no advantage for a candidate. 

Self-examination? That video speech "to the nation" yesterday evening, which Trump let his daughter Ivanka talk him into, included these words:

"America is and must always be a nation of law and order. The demonstrators who infiltrated the Capitol have defiled the seat of American democracy. To those who engaged in the acts of violence and destruction, you do not represent our country. And to those who broke the law, you will pay."

This is what we get from a president who can't see himself and for whom none of what he said is true -- its insincerity underlined by his monotone while reading it.

Here's the political question: Just how much of what's left of the GOP can actually see itself any clearer than Trump sees himself? Does the wider GOP, not just the Party brass on Amelia Island, see that its brand has become so hated by voters that the Party is forced to suppress the vote of those who hate them in order to win elections -- imposing hurtles like photo I.D., doing purges of voter rolls, moving precincts and limiting access to early voting, drawing maps that divide and conquer?

Maybe in states of the former Confederacy, where Trumpism is strongest -- like North Carolina -- the adherence to Trump's big lie may hang on longer than in the Midwest and the industrial North. (Incidentally, I operate with this definition: belief in Trump's lies plus a proclivity for bullying equals "Trumpism.") I hear that the braggadocio of the Capitol stormers sprouts today on social media, with more and more of the guys (and a few of the gals) posting selfies of their brave deeds taken while trashing the Capitol. They clearly think they're totally in the clear and unaccountable. Because they're white.

Is that the Republican Party of 2022?

It's worth noting that at the winter meeting in Florida, the crowd of GOP leaders "had a lackluster response" when former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley criticized Trump. “He was badly wrong with his words yesterday,” Haley said. “And it wasn’t just his words. His actions since Election Day will be judged harshly by history.” Judged harshly by history -- who he? -- but not necessarily openly dissed by the GOP's top officials. The all-in Trumpist cheerleader, National Chair Ronna McDaniel, has been endorsed by Trump for another term, which she ardently desires, and she therefore has no rivals to head the Party for another two years.

Where do the Larry Hogans of the Republican Party go? Where do the Bob Orrs?

The Body Count -- The Raft Is Getting Crowded

 

A Reoccurring Feature on Who's Jumping Off Luxury Liner Trump

Hard to keep up in the aftermath of Trump's attempt on Wednesday to overthrow the democratic government of the United States.

Mick Mulvaney

Dr. Elinore F. McCance-Katz, assistant secretary for the Department of Health and Human Services, resigned yesterday, writing in her resignation letter that she had planned to stay on until the next administration but her "plans abruptly changed" Wednesday evening when she saw "the violent takeover of the Capitol building." "I believe that this behavior was totally unacceptable and, in my own heart, I simply am not able to continue," she wrote.

Anthony Ruggiero, senior director for counterproliferation and biodefense at the National Security Council, resigned in protest of the President's incitement of insurrection.

Matt Pottinger, Trump's deputy national security advisor.

Mick Mulvaney, former White House chief of staff and currently special envoy to Northern Ireland, told CNBC in an interview Thursday morning that he called Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday night to resign. "I can't do it. I can't stay," Mulvaney said in the interview.

John Costello, the Commerce Department's deputy assistant secretary for intelligence and security.

Ryan Tully, senior director for European and Russian Affairs at the National Security Council.

Tyler Goodspeed, the acting chairman of the Counsel of Economic Advisers.

The Body Count -- Two Trump Cabinet Secretaries

 

A Reoccurring Feature on Who's Jumping Off Luxury Liner Trump

Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao (and wife of Mitch McConnell) and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos are resigning over the Trump-inspired insurrection Wednesday at the US Capitol.

Chao wrote that she will resign effective Monday and was "deeply troubled" by the "entirely avoidable" events at the Capitol building.

DeVos submitted a letter of resignation to Trump on Thursday, calling Wednesday's events "unconscionable for our country."

"There is no mistaking the impact your rhetoric had on the situation, and it is the inflection point for me," she wrote. "Impressionable children are watching all of this, and they are learning from us. I believe we each have a moral obligation to exercise good judgement and model the behavior we hope they would emulate. They must know from us that America is greater than what transpired yesterday."

The Body Count -- Some Top White House Staffers

 

A Reoccurring Feature of Who's Jumping Off Luxury Liner Trump

Stephanie Grisham, a longtime Trump family loyalist who served as White House press secretary and most recently as the first lady’s chief of staff; and Anna Cristina Niceta, the White House social secretary, separately announced their resignations last night.

Deputy White House press secretary Sarah Matthews also announced her resignation last night, saying she was honored to serve the Trump administration but “deeply disturbed” by the storming of the Capitol.

How Virginia Foxx Voted on the Two Objections to Electoral College Votes

 

Representative Virginia Foxx straddled, an awkward position for a supposedly dignified 70-something congresswoman to take.

On the first objection to the Electoral College votes from Arizona, following debate which resumed after the insurrection last night, Foxx voted not to sustain the objection. On the second objection to the Electoral College votes from Pennsylvania, Foxx voted "yea" to sustain the objection. That vote in the US House didn't happen until almost 4 a.m. this morning.

The congresswoman wants to have it both ways. But we feel sure she'll be soliciting those presidential autographs from Joe Biden.

Sore Losers Become Active Threats to Our Democracy

 

What happened yesterday at the Capitol is the culmination of Trump's morally defective presidency. His supporters who stormed and ransacked the building believed his lies and became complicit in his attempt at a coup.

Trump stoked his ego by causing thousands to break the law for his sake and in his name. He must have reveled in the scene, until the scene became too stomach-churning even for him -- if it ever did.

“Statistically impossible to have lost the 2020 Election,” Trump lied in a tweet on December 20. “Big protest in DC on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!” They showed up by the thousands for a rally on The Ellipse, as did Trump, who urged them repeatedly to march on the Capitol. He even said he'd be marching with them. He didn't. He retreated to the warmth and safety of the White House while an insurrection unfolded on Capitol Hill.

Liz Cheney: "We just had a violent mob assault the US capitol ... No question the President formed the mob, the President incited the mob, the President addressed the mob. He lit the flame."

He should be removed from office now, forcefully, not in two weeks, and that could happen if Vice President Pence and members of the Cabinet invoked the 25th Amendment. They won't. They remain as morally vacant and complicit as always, though many of them are now tut-tutting. "Thoughts and prayers!"

This Trump-inspired insurrectionist has his foot up on Nancy Pelosi's desk.
He later had his photo taken holding up a piece of her mail he had stolen from the office.

Historians are saying that this is likely the first time that the flag of rebellion
has been paraded through our Capitol. It was a white people's insurrection yesterday,
and their essential coddling by law enforcement was the height of white privilege.

They think they are doing something righteous.
That delusion and abandonment of reality will be the great burden
of the Biden administration and will weigh heavily on all of us.

Thank You, Stacey Abrams!

 

A 50-50 split in the US Senate, with Vice President Kamala Harris the tie-breaker, and Mitch McConnell no longer the 500-pound tortoise sitting on every progressive initiative. This morning may be the first time I've really felt hopeful in months. 

The apparent wins of Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff are particular triumphs of the amazing Stacey Abrams, who after she lost the Georgia governor race in 2018 against Brian Kemp, what did she do? She started Fair Fight and began the voter registration and get-out-the-vote drives that first turned Georgia blue for Joe Biden and then made it possible for him to get his cabinet confirmed and his appointments of federal judges approved.

I'm hearing Abrams may run for Georgia governor again in 2022.

The Man Who Tried To Stop Trump

 

NYTimes reporter Michael Schmidt has written the best book I've read on the Trump era, or ever hope to read -- "Donald Trump v. The United States: Inside the Struggle To Stop a President." Schmidt hasn't just written a kind of political thriller based on his granular Washington reporting, coupled with amazing access to a particular White House official, White House Counsel Don McGahn. McGahn was trying to herd the wrong man who had gotten himself into the wrong place at the wrong time, a new president who was trying to wield absolute power like the monarch he was in his own mind. That's a sizzling tale in Schmidt's handling. But his book seems greater than that. It's grade A history and will live as a valuable chronicle of what we've been through as a nation. Schmidt's style -- crystalline, propulsive, clarified like the best basting butter.

He tells the tale of more than just McGahn. Other Trump administration figures also attempted to restrain Trump, like James Comey, who didn't last too long. We have to admit that those attempts to restrain Trump were largely unsuccessful-- Trump still got himself impeached and is right now plotting God knows what for this coming Wednesday. Last Saturday, Trump, with North Carolinian Mark Meadows on the line, solicited Georgia elected officials to commit electoral fraud. 

But for a time -- the heart of Schmidt's book -- Don McGahn attempted to hold Trump back. He was the one top aide who could have a shouting match with Trump and keep his job. He called Trump "King Kong," and not as a complement. In McGahn's eyes, Trump became just another celebrity bimbo, susceptible to flattery and lacking a moral core. McGahn was particularly repulsed when Trump pardoned a woman because fellow celebrity Kim Kardashian made the suggestion. In the end, and because Trump's first set of defense team lawyers (John Dowd and Ty Cobb) had offered Mueller total access to White House aides -- because Trump had told them he'd done nothing wrong and they chose to believe the biggest liar in the Western Hemisphere -- McGahn covered his butt and told the Mueller team everything he thought the Mueller team was going to find out eventually anyway. Plus McGahn had come to the conclusion that Trump was setting him up to take the fall. McGahn blabbed in secret to Mueller's team for over 30 hours and just incidentally implicated Trump in criminal obstruction of justice. Whether any Federal prosecutor anywhere, even six months from now, chooses to pursue charges on that evidence is a forlorn hope.

Trump has been a threat to democracy itself and essentially unstoppable (except for the intercession of the voters, a fact that Donald Trump doesn't accept and that right now he's scheming to overturn). Schmidt sums up the Trump persona better than anyone: "He was thin-skinned, but somehow impervious to things that would -- and did -- destroy more normal candidates. He couldn't take a punch, yet he could survive a beating better than anyone else."

Now this McGahn fellow ... not someone I intend to heroize. He's a libertarian, apparently a pretty notorious one. He wanted to see government regulation dismantled and the Wild Wild West restored to capitalism, and he had extracted a promise from Trump to take the job of White House Counsel: Trump had to give McGahn a free hand to select Supreme Court nominees, along with all Federal district judgeships. McGahn came up with the names and McConnell pushed them through, often over the objection ("Not Qualified") of the American Bar Association. Trump got through a staggering 230+ judicial nominees, almost all of them McGahn's personal picks.

Schmidt understands The Trump Way -- "a cascading chaos" of daily whims and petty grudges, distractions and head-scratching detours and deadends. That daily churn of novelty actually "dulls the senses" for us bystanders, and normal people with allegiance to normal values forget to be shocked.

Schmidt ends his account in the summer of 2019 with Attorney General William Barr's commandeering of the Mueller report to Trump's benefit. Schmidt's book went into production months before the November election, and it was published last August. Schmidt didn't know how the election would turn out, but he seems resigned that Trump will survive yet again. I'm prepared to say he hasn't. And I can only hope that Michael Schmidt is already prepping a volume two, to get us all the way through this aberration.