Grounds for Recusal

 

Judge Tamara Barringer

NC Supreme Court Chief Justice Paul Newby’s wife, Macon Newby, contributed $6,400 to Jefferson Griffin’s campaign in June 2023. and Griffin has described Newby as his "mentor."

Brent Barringer, Associate Justice Tamara Barringer’s husband, also gave Griffin at least $6,400 for his Supreme Court campaign, according to campaign finance records.

These people will ultimately determine who won the Supreme Court election between Griffin and Allison Riggs. They're not about to acknowledge any factors that would seem to demand recusal because of campaign contributions given in the name of their spouses.

Trump's "Make Yourself a Snitch" Order

 

I don't care if you think the much-maligned Federal workforce should be fired in toto because you hate their meddling ways, but the squeal-on-your-colleagues order that Trump issued last Wednesday is pure police-state bullshit. Trump's ExecOrder threatened federal employees with “adverse consequences” if they fail to report on colleagues who defy orders "to purge diversity, equity and inclusion efforts from their agencies."

Lovely. We're advancing very plainly to a dictatorship, where snitching and ratting out are virtues. The firing of inspector generals was not even the first indication.

There's an election (theoretically, at the moment) in less than two years.

Coming to the U.S. Supremes -- Another Opportunity To Destroy the Separation of Church and State

 

St. Isidore of Seville

Amy Coney Barrett has already recused herself from St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School v. Drummond, the church/state case arising out of Oklahoma which the Supreme Court decided on Friday to put on its docket. Oklahoma, even more problematic than my native Texas, has that statewide Superintendent of Schools who wants to include mandatory Bible reading in every curriculum of every public school in the state. No, really. So it's not necessarily shocking that the St. Isidore case would be Oklahoma-born.

St. Isidore, owned by the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City, would become the nation’s first religious charter school, plus it would be entirely online, and its curriculum "would embed [Roman Catholic] religious teachings throughout lessons, including in math and reading classes. As a charter school, it would be run independently from traditional public schools. But public taxpayer dollars would pay for the school, and it would be free for students to attend" (Troy Closson).

The Archdiocese made application to the 5-member state board of education in June 2023. It proved controversial. The board ultimately voted 3-to-2 to approve it, but the Oklahoma Supreme Court blocked its creation:

"Justice James Winchester wrote in the majority opinion that state law requires a public charter school to be nonsectarian, arguing that the Oklahoma Constitution prohibits the state from using public money for the benefit or support of any religious institution. A 2016 ballot measure in the state would have repealed that measure, but voters rejected that effort." (OSV News)

So now it's before the Alito Court (who is himself Catholic), supported by all kinds of people who see no problem forcing the Christian religion into people's faces. Barrett was previously a law professor at Notre Dame who recused possibly because she is close friends with a Notre Dame law professor who has helped advise the St. Isidore team.

The Drummond who's defendant is Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond.

The Purge of Whistleblowers

 

Late Friday night -- while the media was least likely to notice -- Trump fired the independent inspectors general of at least 14 major federal agencies -- the departments of Defense, State, Transportation, Labor, Health and Human Services, Veterans Affairs, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Energy, Commerce, and Agriculture, as well as the Environmental Protection Agency, Small Business Administration and the Social Security Administration.

According to the WashPost, "the dismissals appeared to violate federal law, which requires Congress to receive 30 days’ notice of any intent to fire a Senate-confirmed inspector general."

Now why would Jethro want to do a thing like that? “Whoever Trump puts in now will be viewed as loyalists, and that undermines the entire system,” said one of the fired inspectors general. "Another fired inspector general learned of his ouster by reading the email for the first time while on the phone with a Washington Post reporter who had called to ask about it. The person reacted by saying the new administration 'does not want anyone in this role who is going to be independent.' ”

“It’s a purge of independent watchdogs in the middle of the night,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren said last night in a post on social media. “Inspectors general are charged with rooting out government waste, fraud, abuse, and preventing misconduct. President Trump is dismantling checks on his power and paving the way for widespread corruption.”

Jethro intends that there'll be no one left in government to say, "Wait just a good goddamn minute there!"

The system of Senate-confirmed inspectors general at large agencies was established in the late 1970s, after the Watergate scandal, to conduct independent investigations and audits of federal spending and operations and report the findings to Congress and the public.

Trump ousted five watchdogs in quick succession during his first term in 2020, starting with Michael Atkinson, the intelligence community inspector general who alerted Congress to the whistleblower complaint that led to Trump’s first impeachment. Trump had appointed Atkinson.

In fact, many of the 14 purged inspectors from last night were appointed by Trump in his first term, before he learned that even some loyal Republicans tend to be honest, dammit. 

Scarier and scarier, this guy.

NC Supremes Drag Allison Riggs

 

Okay, a thing happened last Wednesday at the NC Supreme Court that I kind of ignored even though the headline writers opted for calling it a defeat for Jefferson Griffin (who's been trying to purloin a Supreme Court seat for himself. Where have you been?), but the Court's refusal to grant Griffin an order to fast-track throwing out legal and legitimate votes incrementally until he can achieve the desired majority over Allison Riggs -- the Court's denial of Griffin was accompanied by a refusal to lift the stay preventing certification of the race by the State Board of Elections. The Court is throwing the case back for trial to the lower courts -- first Superior, then Court of Appeals, and thence, finally, to Paul Newby's coven of partisans for the ultimate decision: Shall we continue to have Allison Riggs on the Court, or will Jefferson Griffin succeed in undermining the democratic rule of law and eternally besmirch the Court?

In other words, maybe they can just keep Riggs off by dragging out the process for years.

Jeffrey Billman published in The Assembly an intense unpacking of the stuff that the judges wrote in their unanimous decision to deny Griffin's fast-track scheme -- all five Republican judges and Anita Earls, the lone Democrat, wrote their own opinions. Earls dissented on the refusal to lift the stay on declaring a winner. Earls, who gets under Newby's skin faster than any chigger, points out in her opinion that under state law (Billings includes a link) leaving a temporary stay in place for a trial indicates that “the petitioner is likely to prevail” -- kind of a dead give-away that her Republican colleagues are sending a message to the lower courts of their desired outcome.

Newby flashed his conspiratorial backside in his concurring opinion, according to Billings, called it “highly unusual” that Griffin was ahead on election night but fell behind when all the votes were counted. "It’s unclear whether Newby meant to raise the possibility of fraud or vote-counting improprieties—which Griffin has not alleged—but it’s not unusual for late absentee and provisional ballots to shift leads in close elections."

Newby’s comments “show a complete lack of understanding of how elections are conducted,” said Gerry Cohen, a Wake County Board of Elections member and former General Assembly special counsel. [Cohen is the authority on NC election law, since he helped draft most of it.]

Billings draws attention to why last Wednesday's decision doesn't look like any kind of victory for Riggs:

Newby also chided Griffin’s critics for accusing him of trying to “disenfranchise” voters. He called Griffin’s complaints “valid” and said they “may affect the outcome of the election.” Barringer and Justice Phil Berger Jr. cosigned.

That's some kind of a signal, no?

But wait! Parallel but separate legal action is also proceeding in the Federal system. The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals has been petitioned by Riggs to take the case away from the state on the basis that Griffin's request would retroactively disenfranchise voters and thereby "violate numerous federal civil rights laws,” including the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the National Voter Registration Act of 1993. Oral arguments in this case begin tomorrow.

Trump Is Really the Golden Calf

 

Addison McDowell, holding pitchfork and 
a can of Zyn. 2024 campaign video

Addison McDowell, the Zyn master who used to be a lobbyist for Blue Cross Blue Shield and who beat Bo Hines for the 6th Congressional District seat with Trump's blessing, introduced a bill in the US House to rename Dulles International Airport outside DeeCee the Donald Jethro Trump International Airport.

There was a former Republican bill attempting to do this very thing in April 2024, which went nowhere. But now the Jethro cult rules everything. So they just might do this.

About the previous attempt to rename Dulles, Virginia Democrat Gerry Connolly, who represents part of Dulles, said: “Donald Trump is facing [88] felony charges. If Republicans want to name something after him, I’d suggest they find a federal prison.”

Some social media reactions to McDowell's bill were more amused than outraged: "Has McDowell ever been to Dulles? Is he trying to embarrass Trump?"

Dulles is the main terminal for foreign flights into and out of the country, was designed in the 1960s using huge, 4-wheeled "people movers" that rumble out of the terminal to the far-parked planes with hundreds of travelers standing, packed in like beef sticks. "The WORST airport in the country," according to a Reddit string. 

"Forget that the design is outdated, the airport tram is actually slower then walking in most situations, and if you have a late night international flight nothing is open after 9pm, the customs and immigration at Dulles are embarrassing."

Come to think of it -- with Jethro's disdain for immigrants -- perhaps Dulles, which admits people to DeeCee from all points on the Globe, is perfectly fit to be renamed "Trump International." Might as well let the immigrants know what they're in for in Trump's country.

Fear Is His Game

 

We heard the Episcopal Bishop of Washington ask for mercy on those who are now afraid of what he'll do to them, the most vulnerable sitting ducks (for a tyrant who's never hesitated to kick a cripple).

But no one knows fear like a Republican senator or congressman who thinks Trump is a dumb jerk, but who can't say so or push back or object -- for fear of being primaried and kicked out of office by Trump's cult.

Among his other ExecOrders on Day One, Trump demanded that federal officials overseeing government D.E.I. efforts be put on leave. Diversity/Equality/Inclusion -- programs meant to give the chance for advancement to people whose color or other distinguishing features have kept them down. "Woke!" the enemies of being awake call it. Woke as a verbal weapon is pretty much the equivalent of "commie," for those of us who remember the '50s -- meant to label quickly and efficiently and to instill hatred and fear.

So Donald Jethro Trump yelled "woke!" and revoked an executive order signed in 1965 that prohibited discriminatory hiring and employment practices for private government contractors. "Perhaps most alarming for business leaders was the order’s focus on private corporations, whether they do business with the government or not" (Emma Goldberg).

Whether they do business with the government or not. This right here -- it's Project 25 shit.

But it's also, sadly, the reason why, according to an article in the NYTimes, "nearly a dozen companies did not respond to requests for comment on the future of their D.E.I. programming, and some declined to comment citing fear of attracting attention to their work."

Everybody's afraid of the tyrant. 

Jethro's cult members like to label, as we know, and they label people like me as suffering from "Trump derangement syndrome." Wikipedia: "The term has mainly been used by Trump supporters to discredit criticism of him, as a way of reframing the discussion by suggesting that his opponents are incapable of accurately perceiving the world."

The best way to perceive the world is through demonstrable facts. I will cling to facts as long as there are facts to cling to, until fear among the people who own the newspapers shuts down the reporting of those facts. (Jeff Bezos at the WashPost has shown them the way, hasn't he, and got a front-row seat at Jethro's coronation).

Tillis Disapproves of the Blanket Pardons

 

This is about as bold as Thom Tillis gets, in between bouts of kissing royal ass:

"It was surprising to me that it was a blanket pardon." Weak tea.

Congressional reporter Lisa Desjardins (PBS News Hour) got Sen. Tillis to go that far on the record about Trump's sweeping pardon of 1,600, some of them Grade A police-beating thugs. 

But Tillis also said this:

"I'm about to file two bills that will increase the penalties up to and including the death penalty for the murder of a police officer and increasing the penalties and creating federal crimes for assaulting a police officer. That should give you everything you need to know about my position."

There's always a chance that someday in the next four years, Thom's testicles will fully descend, and he'll deepen his squeaky voice.

What Can He Get Away With?

 

A president who intends to govern based on what he can get away with.

--Ezra Klein

As long as Congress is dominated by Republicans, Congress will let him get away with anything and everything. (NB All members of Congress will be up for election in 2026, and a third of the Senate.) That leaves the courts, and we've already witnessed the Supreme Court give him free reign. He's not subject to prosecution. Therefore the law means nothing. The last remaining force that might not let him get away with it is you, the public, the voters, the citizens of the Republic who once upon a time overturned a king and don't especially want another one.

King Trump simply declared birthright citizenship invalid, unilaterally changing the clear language of the Constitution. He is giving TikTok a reprieve from the clean language of the law that Congress passed and Joe Biden signed and the Supreme Court upheld -- so he can figure out a way to save it and simultaneously perhaps enrich himself. (Just a wild guess.) He used his king-like pardoning power to elevate his troop of J6 thugs into a new vigilence posse. He sez he's unilaterally renaming an ocean and a mountain in Alaska, and he sez he wants to simply annex Canada as the 51st state and grab back the Panama Canal, by force if necessary.

Ezra Klein: "The scale of the graft and the grift right now -- it’s astonishing, and it’s all out in the open.

The Trump family launched a "memecoin" in their own name. "You can’t spend it. This isn’t a currency or a piece of decentralized financial infrastructure meant to offer services to the unbanked or commerce to the metaverse. It’s just a way to invest in Trump’s fortunes and invest in Trump. The memecoin shot to more than $70, and the Trump family and its partners seem to own about 80 percent of the coins — making their holdings worth, notionally, tens of billions of dollars."

Then Melania launched her own memecoin after she sold her biopic and another project to Amazon, on which she is an executive producer, for $40 million.

You ain't shit for a king if you can't turn your kingdom into a cash cow.

Trump's Not So Puzzling FlipFlop About TikTok

 

In his first term, Donald Jethro Trump made no bones about wanting TikTok banned in the U.S. as a threat to national security. On January 6, 2020, in an ExecOrder he invoked his emergency economic powers to impose broad sanctions against TikTok, "a move that steps up pressure on the Chinese-owned app to sell its U.S. assets to an American company."

He has now, of course, and illegally it appears -- a president can't just rewrite Congressional legislation on a whim -- become TikTok's savior. Trump instructed prosecutors not to enforce the ban. What turned him around?

Two things. March 2024. Jeff Yass, a billionaire investor and Republican megadonor who owns a significant share of TikTok's parent company ByteDance, visited Trump at Mar-a-Lago. This visit appears to coincide with Trump's change of attitude toward TikTok. Did you not notice the adjective megadonor appended to Yass's name? Jethro is not nothing if he isn't a total whore for money.

Second thing: Summer 2024. A dude who actually works for Jeff Yass at his trading firm Susquehanna International Group and is a Trump insider -- Tony Sayegh -- talks Trump into joining TikTok for the sake of his campaign, and now Trump has 14 million followers and has publicly acknowledged TikTok's part in his winning reelection. ("TikTok Butters Up Trump," Jan. 19)

Back to the Original Q: What's Dangerous About TikTok?

In its unanimous decision upholding the banning of TikTok unless it's sold to new, non-Chinese owners, the Supreme Court just three days before Trump's inauguration cited reports that the data TikTok collects from users includes ages, phone numbers, contacts, internet addresses, exact locations, and contents of private messages sent through the app.

TikTok didn’t dispute the data collection in the Supreme Court case. Hilariously, it claimed it was “unlikely” that the Chinese government would force the company to hand over information, to which you could hear even Clarence Thomas stifling a guffaw. Chinese companies are required by law to cooperate with State Security.

I think -- and you might think too -- as a casual user of TikTok, you're not personally threatened by any surveillance the Chinese secret police puts on you. So what? How is my piddling life, with its boring routines, of any use to the Chinese? But just consider, brother, the possibilities that other civilians -- a lot of them, actually -- could present to a foreign adversary determined to cause us trouble:

"If I were China’s minister of state security, I would be asking about any TikTok accounts of Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s four children. I’d also inquire about accounts of children of people across the government and military, looking to turn phones and laptops into microphones and cameras, as well as track locations, find blackmail material and locate still more targets." (Nicholas Kristof)

Hadn't thought of that, had we?

According to Kristof, "about 40 percent of young adults in the United States regularly get news from TikTok, and researchers find evidence that TikTok’s algorithm systematically manipulates information to present users with a pro-China view of the world."

Trump's need for an adoring audience and his ambition to make us all bend the knee will make good opportunistic use of TikTok.

The Money Count

 

"The Money Count" is a reoccurring feature, as outrage and/or hilarity demand.

Tech executives have rushed to show their support for Trump in hopes of currying favor and shielding themselves from regulatory retaliation. They have donated millions to his campaign and inauguration.

In addition to media mogul Musk (who's given at least $250 million to Trump), OpenAI’s chief executive, Sam Altman, attended the inauguration, along with the CEOs of Google, Apple. and Meta. 

The day after Inauguration, Trump had Sam Altman by his side again, along with the chiefs of SoftBank and Oracle, to announce a joint venture calling itself "Stargate" between OpenAI, SoftBank and Oracle to create at least $100 billion in computing infrastructure to power artificial intelligence. Some 10 enormous data centers are already under construction in Texas.

During a news briefing Tuesday, Mr. Trump said he would remove barriers to allow for the creation of more data centers. He said he would make “emergency declarations” to allow Stargate to generate its own electricity, without providing details. (NYTimes)

"Microsoft, which is OpenAI’s largest investor, provided data center infrastructure needed to power the start-up. But as the ChatGPT maker struggled to get enough computer power from Microsoft, the two companies agreed that OpenAI could seek additional data centers built by Oracle."

Why would Trump be so hot for AI? Are you kidding? What is more appealing to a con-man than total fake reality? Even more pertinent, think of the "reality" that Trump's beholden tech billionaires can dish out to the MAGA crowd and to everyone else.

Look Who Killed the Electric Car This Time (And Where Is Elon Musk on This?)

 

Among the many other ExecOrders (EOs) that Trump signed Monday, he erased tax credits for electric-vehicle (EV) purchases, he ended federal grants for chargers, and he shitcanned subsidies and loans to help retool assembly lines for EVs and to build battery factories -- a sweeping repudiation, in other words, of a centerpiece of Joe Biden's multibillion-dollar Inflation Reduction Act to address climate change by limiting what comes out of your tailpipe. Who knows if these backward and malicious EOs can survive legal challenges.

Biden’s initiative provided tax credits of up to $7,500 for buyers of new electric vehicles and $4,000 to buyers of used models. The credits effectively made the cost of buying some electric cars roughly on par with prices for cars with gasoline or diesel engines. Those are ended, if Trump gets his way.

Those EOs also (just incidentally) penalize American automakers that have invested billions in designing and building electric vehicles. The Biden administration had encouraged them to. They are now collateral damage to Trump's determination to stamp out even the memory of the man who beat him in 2020.

According to the NYTimes, Trump's orders "could cause U.S. carmakers to fall behind ... Asian and European automakers .... Already, 50 percent of car sales in China are electric or plug-in hybrids, and Chinese automakers like BYD are selling more cars around the world, taking customers away from established car companies, including American manufacturers."

The oil and gas guys are obviously very happy with Trump. Elon Musk on the other hand went very quiet, which makes one wonder. According to Jack Ewing, "There is no sign that Elon Musk (CEO of Tesla) is using his influence to blunt the attack on electric vehicles. Tesla accounts for slightly less than half the electric cars sold in the United States, and almost all its vehicles qualify for $7,500 tax credits .... analysts note that Tesla’s sales and profits would be hit hard if Mr. Trump successfully repealed or truncated the electric-vehicle tax credit, California’s clean-air waiver and other such policies. Tesla did not respond to a request for comment."

Odd. Maybe there's an angle for Musk I'm not seeing, or he's way too obsessed with the Conquest of Mars.

The Money Count

 "The Money Count" is a reoccurring feature, as outrage and/or hilarity demand.

How much money does Elon Musk stand to make on Trump's promised conquest of Mars? The government contracts! New merchandise! Exclusive rights!

Last September, Musk said that SpaceX would launch five Starships to Mars in 2026, unmanned, to test the entry through "the thin Martian atmosphere and to arrive on the surface in one piece." He promises to have manned flights by 2028.

Trump nominated Jared Isaacman to head NASA, a billionaire who has flown two private astronaut missions on SpaceX rockets and who is a close associate of Musk.

What a team! Musk and his best bud Isaacman, spending the Republic's treasury on an adventure to Mars. Did you ever see a table-setting as conducive for a big fat gourmand's meal?

This is How He Sics His Bullies

O he can't take it! Any push-back enrages him. Truth-telling is neither welcomed nor tolerated. The MAGA mob that will now give the side-eye to Reverend Mariann Budde, the Episcopal Bishop of Washington, and who will want to hurt her in some tangible way for the sermon she delivered to Trump yesterday, won't even know -- because of the tweet below -- that Bishop Budde practically pleaded with Trump in the quietest and most respectful way to “have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now,” the LGBTQ and immigrant young people who "are now afraid" for their future because of new ExecOrders directly targeting them. That sermon -- and you can easily access it on YouTube -- was about as far away from "nasty in tone" -- what Trump alleges -- as you can get and still speak in a barely audible voice. 

But nasty falls out of Trump's mouth easily. We do consider the source.

It All Lands on Merrick Garland's Doorstep

 

The incomparable Michael Schmidt interviewed Alex Aronson, a young attorney who's expert on judicial ethics and so-called "dark money" in politics, asking for his analysis of how Trump managed to skate away from legal accountability for his biggest apparent crimes. 

Aronson put his finger on the exact problem that too frequently characterizes Democrats in a political crisis -- their timidity, their evident afraidness of what people will say, what reprisals will come if they take bold and appropriate action. Democrats seem sometimes to be burdened by a debilitating self-consciousness. How many campaign tribunals have I sat in and heard a candidate say about a proposed bold message, "But that might upset so-and-so!" when upsetting said Mr. So-and-So is exactly what needs to happen. Show some courage of your convictions. Take a lesson from Donald Jethro Trump.

Aronson's analysis:

The repeated failures by Democrats and the Justice Department to hold Mr. Trump accountable — whether that was during his first term or when he was indicted twice when he was out of office — [those failures created a bigger monster] .... Biden should have clearly signaled on his first day in office that his administration would aggressively pursue accountability for wrongdoing .... Biden and the rest of his administration, including Merrick B. Garland, ... were far too focused on restoring norms than trying to hold Mr. Trump and his administration accountable .... “Garland’s hesitation to pursue accountability out of fear of Trump’s inevitable baseless accusations ultimately helped Trump delay accountability until he escaped it altogether.”

 O hindsight, you are so magical and always right.

The Money Count -- "No Kidding!" Edition

 

"The Money Count" is a reoccurring feature, as outrage and/or hilarity demand.

Scenes from the swearing in in the Capitol Rotunda:

Musk’s schoolboy grin when Trump promised to go to Mars. I completely endorse going to Mars as a national project, but when that also means that billions of dollars may flow into the pockets of Trump’s wealthiest supporter, it reeks of potential corruption and graft.

--David French, NYTimes

It was very telling that the tech oligarchs had front-row seats, in front of the cabinet. The age of algorithmic feudalism has begun.

--Michelle Goldberg, NYTimes

[NYTimes headline] Trump Takes Office as a Newly Minted Crypto Billionaire

The Trump family’s new crypto tokens are worth well over $10 billion on paper, after a frenzied rally pushed up the value of the digital assets in the days before the inauguration.

The so-called memecoins got another boost on Monday when Robinhood, the trading platform that made a big donation to Mr. Trump’s inauguration fund, began letting its customers trade the $TRUMP coin. Memecoins, a type of cryptocurrency tied to an online joke or a celebrity mascot, are not often available to trade on major platforms.

Mr. Trump announced the launch of the new token, known as $Trump, on Friday night. Another token, $Melania, went on sale late on Sunday. Trump affiliates appear to control a majority of the tokens, which will be released gradually over the coming years.

Before the tokens started trading, Forbes had listed Mr. Trump’s net worth as $6.7 billion, most of that coming from Trump Media and Technology Group, which runs the social media platform Truth Social.

Ethics watchdogs have warned of deepening conflicts of interest as Mr. Trump returns to the White House, with the tokens creating new opportunities for executives, crypto traders and companies inside and outside the United States to curry favor with the Trump administration.

A onetime crypto skeptic, Mr. Trump embraced the digital currency industry last year, promising to turn the United States into the “crypto capital of the planet.” In September, he and his sons helped start a crypto business, World Liberty Financial. He has also tapped advocates for looser regulation of crypto to key regulatory and advisory positions in his administration.

Crypto markets have risen sharply since Mr. Trump’s election victory. The price of Bitcoin hit a fresh record high on Monday, jumping above $109,000.

 

Jeff Jackson Joins 17 Other Attorneys General

 

ttorneys general from 18 states sued Tuesday in Federal District Court in Massachusetts to block President Donald Trump's move to end a policy known as birthright citizenship guaranteeing that U.S.-born children are citizens regardless of their parents' status. North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson joined in the suit.

The states view Trump’s attempt to limit birthright citizenship as “extraordinary and extreme,” said New Jersey’s attorney general, Matthew J. Platkin, who led the legal effort along with the attorneys general from California and Massachusetts. “Presidents are powerful, but he is not a king. He cannot rewrite the Constitution with a stroke of the pen.”

Trump Hates NC's Offshore Wind Energy

 

Kitty Hawk offshore wind energy

WRAL reported that "offshore wind development has gained momentum in North Carolina. The Kitty Hawk Offshore Wind farm near Corolla and two planned wind farms off Brunswick County are key to the state’s clean energy goals. Together, they could generate enough power for over 1.4 million homes by the 2030s. North Carolina aims for 2.8 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2030 and 8 gigawatts by 2040, per former Gov. Roy Cooper’s 2021 executive order. Duke Energy plans to add 2.4 gigawatts of offshore wind to its grid by 2035."

However, the trumpman sez, "We're not going to do the wind thing." He actually said those words, shortly before signing an executive order yesterday that "prevents consideration of any area in the OCS [Outer Continental Shelf] for any new or renewed wind energy leasing for the purposes of generation of electricity."

Because among his best billionaire buds are numerous oil and gas guys. There doesn't appear to be a Wind Energy Oligarch.

Dictator Needs His Violent Bully Boys

 

We see exactly where this is headed: "MAGA, any action you take in my name, to uphold my greatness or smash my enemies, you will be forgiven. Go, thou, and do it!"

“By pardoning and commuting the sentences of those who participated in the January 6 insurrection — including violent organizers convicted of seditious conspiracy — Trump has both legitimated the insurrection and signaled to supporters that there will be no price to pay for pro-Trump political violence,” said Nicole Hemmer, a Vanderbilt University professor and the director of its Center for the American Presidency.

"Authoritarian tendencies"?

Members of trump sycophants, the Proud Boys, returned to Washington yesterday to march through the nation’s capital, "sending what extremism researchers called a brazen message to other far-right groups." “Whose streets? Our street,” the group’s members chanted, holding a banner that said, “Proud Boys did nothing wrong.”

“They are emboldened,” said Heidi Beirich, a longtime hate monitor who co-founded the nonprofit Global Project Against Hate and Extremism. “They’re back, and I think it means that their ranks are going to grow, and we’re going to see them involved in all kinds of pro-Trump and other white supremacist activity and their slate has been cleaned.”

In the lead-up to yesterday's executive pardons, Vice President J.D. Vance had told Fox News, “If you committed violence on that day, obviously you shouldn’t be pardoned." Vance was clearly miffed at the question: "How dare you suggest that Donald Trump would forgive rioters who attacked police!" Now Vance must contemplate a mob turning on him, should he ever again show himself a weak cuck.

We knew these times would be dark. But ... fuck!

The Money Count: Billionaire Boys

 

"The Money Count" is a reoccurring feature, as outrage and/or hilarity demand.

"Billionaires are signing seven-figure checks and jockeying for space at the inaugural ceremony." (NYT, 20 Jan. 2025)

Elon Musk, who spent more than $250 million to help Trump win, is expected to have an office in the White House complex, possibly the West Wing. About which Michael Waldman, president and chief executive of the Brennan Center for Justice, quipped: “It’s tempting to liken this to the Gilded Age, but John D. Rockefeller didn’t actually run McKinley’s campaign or move into the White House.” Musk already has billions of dollars in contracts with the Federal government.

Trump's Billionaire Boys Club “would like to get the policies they believe in from the federal government — more oil drilling, easier antitrust policy, more favorable crypto policy, less bank oversight." (NYT, 19 Jan. 2025)

An Epitaph for Trump: "One Thing Leads To Another"

 

Spencer Cox of Utah

Gov. Spencer Cox of Utah, my homeland once-upon-a-tale, is trying to curry favor with Donald Jethro Trump. Gov. Cox ordered the flags in the state that have been at half-staff for the passing of Jimmy Carter to go to full staff today for the Inauguration. "Did you see, Sir? Did you see what I did in your honor?"

This may seem like a small thing, but the problem is that, with President-elect Trump, one thing leads to another .... When Trump first ran for president, other Republican politicians excused his bluster. Then, it was his immorality. Finally, it was his criminality. The result was Republican politicians, including some from Utah, defending behavior by Trump they would likely never do themselves and, in the process, urging other Americans to malign the justice system that all Americans should respect.

--Richard Davis, a professor emeritus at BYU, in the Salt Lake Tribune

 

His Vice Is Not Porn Stars. It's Filthy Lucre

 

Mr. Trump knows that he has never had as much power as he does right now. He intends to make the most of it, to extract its full financial value.

--Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman, NYTimes

Oh he's rolling in the dough, you bet. Corporate execs and numerous billionaires are shoveling it his way, under cover of financing his inauguration celebration or simply out of deep concern that Don have enough pocket money.

"The money is just pouring in at Mar-a-Lago. Trump doesn't have to lift a finger. Everyone's coming to him," a Trump adviser told Axios. "We're looking at half a billion [dollars] by June, and we're on track," this adviser said.

Donald Jethro Trump is pure transaction, and it's all money in, nothing out. He's a back-country carnival barker who never went broke underestimating the intelligence of his public.

Trump Saved TikTok and He Expects His Cut

 

Trump tweet from yesterday. Notice especially the 3rd paragraph and its quivering lust for the "hundreds of billions, maybe trillions of dollars" to be siphoned, sucked, or swindled in the deal.

If the United States is to have half-ownership of TikTok, in a trump-inspired deal, who do you think will be calling the shots? Trump himself intends to be master of TikTok, to have his own social media kingdom and to be like Musk with his own captive audience. 

One Wrong Man for a Right Important Job

“He brought 'norms' to a trump fight and democracy suffered.”

--Democratic lawyer Marc Elias describing why Biden's A.G. Merrick Garland was the “wrong man for the job” 

Trump’s nominee for Attorney General Pam Bondi testified at her Senate confirmation hearing that the Justice Department’s prosecutors had in her opinion targeted what she identified as "political opponents" by whom she meant trump. “That’s what we’ve seen for the last four years in this Administration,” she said.

So we know what's coming. Pam Bondi will conduct the first purge of trump2.0, the first of several, we would guess, as cabinet departments important for allowing the loot to leave the building will be firing or sidelining any career lawyers/scientists/experts who seem likely to resist dictatorship, question lies, or refuse unlawful orders. He intends to clear out the Justice Department, the CIA and other intelligence agencies, law enforcement itself, and foreign service, as he tightens his grip on anyone who can oppose him in a meaningful way.

Merrick Garland was a crucial misfire. Garland actually lived the famous moral dilemma -- would you kill the baby Hitler in his cradle if you could? He could have killed the future of trump during the last four years, and saved the world the pain and the disgrace. Instead, we're to be ruled by Colonel Blimp, the convicted felon of enormous appetite and zero ethics or moral qualms. 

Merrick Garland may have single-handedly let the dictator loose when he could still have been confined.

Thom Tillis Gets His First Republican Primary Challenger

 

Andy Nilsson is a bit of a head-scratcher. The Tillis campaign immediately labeled him a "never Trumper," and Nilsson does have a somewhat puzzling history of bucking the trumpist majority. "In 2019, he joined former N.C. Supreme Court justice Bob Orr [who left the Republican Party because of Trump] in trying to organize an alternative GOP convention to the Republican National Convention scheduled in Charlotte in 2020" (WRAL). Nilsson told the Charlotte Observer in 2019, “I’m doing all I can do to preserve the Reagan-Bush legacy of the Republican Party against the Trump takeover.” 

Going apparently for full-on cognitive dissonance, Nilsson told WRAL that he supports Trump, "but he was disturbed to see Republicans in some states cancel their GOP presidential primaries in an effort to protect the president." Nilsson is challenging Tillis "because he doesn’t believe the incumbent can be relied upon to fully support Trump’s America-first agenda," Nilsson’s campaign said.

This guy is confusing the hell outta me. In some ways -- the gingerly waffling all over the place about Trump -- he seems like another Thom Tillis.

He has a decades-ago history of running furniture companies in NC, moved to Australia in 2002 and didn't return to North Carolina until 2023. "Nilsson is a Cincinnati native whose family moved to Catawba County when he was a child. He graduated from Winston-Salem’s Reynolds High School in 1985 and Davidson College in 1989. Nilsson now works in special education at Reynolds High Schools, where he’s a teacher assistant and assistant football coach." He once upon a time -- 2000 -- ran unsuccessfully in the Republican primary for lieutenant governor.

Jefferson Griffin Blinks in the Most Pathetic Way Imaginable

Judge Jefferson "Crazy Eyes" Griffin

Trying to keep up with all the moving parts of Jefferson Griffin's scheme to steal the Supreme Court election from Allison Riggs.

Recall the posting here on January 8th: "Conservative Majority on NC Supreme Court Fractures Over Griffin Attempt To Steal the Election." The Republican who disagreed most vociferously with Griffin's proposal to throw out over 60,000 legitimate votes, Associate Justice Richard Dietz, wrote

“Permitting post-election litigation that seeks to rewrite our state’s election rules—and, as a result, remove the right to vote in an election from people who already lawfully voted under the existing rules—invites incredible mischief."

Anderson Reports has out this morning news of an updated court filing from Griffin in which he blinks in the most pathetic way imaginable:

Seeming to recognize Dietz’s criticism, Griffin on Tuesday asked the state Supreme Court to consider a phased ruling, where it would first direct the 5,509 ballots from overseas voters without photo ID be tossed out first. If a retabulation showed Griffin overtaking Riggs’ 734-vote lead, Griffin would want the election to be certified in his favor. If a retabulation showed Riggs still ahead, however, Griffin would want the Supreme Court to proceed to the issue of 267 overseas voters who don’t reside in North Carolina and the 60,273 voters with incomplete registration, if necessary.

In other hilarious words, just toss out ballots until I say quit, and maybe it won't take disenfranchising the full 60,000 to give me Seat 6.

If I were a standup comic, I'd be exploiting this lame slug of a politician for big laughs. 

BREAKING -- The Street Theater of Kate Barr

 

One of my favorite, disruptive Democrats of 2024, Kate Barr, is right now, on Tuesday, January 14, reading aloud the over 60,000 names of legitimate voters Jefferson Griffin intends to disenfranchise to grab a seat on the NC Supreme Court. Kate is standing in front of the Supreme Court bldg in Raleigh, with a podium and a microphone. She began reading all 60,000 names this morning at 6 a.m. and expects to finish by 11 p.m. tonight.

It's a new public way to protest the outrageousness of Griffin's determination to win at all costs, including throwing out thousands of legitimate votes. Griffin is currently begging the Paul Newby Supreme Court to ignore the actual vote count -- Allison Riggs won by over 700 votes, after two different recounts -- and simply give Supreme Court Seat 6 to him.

Griffin is a special kind of sinister. Why is he a judge at all? (He currently sits on the 15-member Court of Appeals).

More about Kate Barr under this photo.

Kate Barr should be familiar to WatWatch readers. In 2024 she ran a funny, satiric, self-deprecating NC Senate campaign for District 37 (mainly deep-red Iredell). Her self-mocking motto: "Clear Eyes, Full Heart, Can't Win!" Indeed, she couldn't. But she generated something of a movement anyway, raising both money and some justified hell, and her rallying of progressive voters in such a district also helped a statewide candidate like Supreme Court Justice Allison Riggs to win.

You go, Kate!

"Unprecedented Criminal Effort"

Special prosecutor Jack Smith's REPORT ON EFFORTS TO INTERFERE WITH THE LAWFUL TRANSFER OF POWER FOLLOWING THE 2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OR THE CERTIFICATION OF THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE VOTE HELD ON JANUARY 6, 2021 has finally been released to the public. You can read it for yourself. It's full of solid evidence and coruscating truth. We are about to be governed again by a man who respects no laws, who doesn't understand the Constitution or our Republic of checks and balances, who runs his mouth and his petty desires like any downtown mob boss.

Part of Smith's summary of Trump's (alleged, yeah, right!) criminal activity leading up to the January 6th insurrection:

In 2020, then-President Donald J. Trump ran for reelection against Joseph R. Biden, Jr. Mr. Trump lost. As alleged in the original and superseding indictments, substantial evidence demonstrates that Mr. Trump then engaged in an unprecedented criminal effort to overturn the legitimate results of the election in order to retain power. Although he did so primarily in his private capacity as a candidate, and with the assistance of multiple private co-conspirators, Mr. Trump also attempted to use the power and authority of the United States Government in furtherance of his scheme.

As set forth in the original and superseding indictments, when it became clear that Mr. Trump had lost the election and that lawful means of challenging the election results had failed, he resorted to a series of criminal efforts to retain power. This included attempts to induce state officials to ignore true vote counts; to manufacture fraudulent slates of presidential electors in seven states that he had lost; to force Justice Department officials and his own Vice President, Michael R. Pence, to act in contravention of their oaths and to instead advance Mr. Trump's personal interests; and, on January 6, 2021, to direct an angry mob to the United States Capitol to obstruct the congressional certification of the presidential election and then leverage rioters' violence to further delay it. 

 

Jeff Jackson vs. Predatory Landlords

 

Attorney General Jeff Jackson filed on January 7th a pretty damn impressive civil suit against six mega-landlords and the software company RealPage, which illegally uses data to help the mega-landlords fix predatory rental rates. Jackson joined nine other attorneys as well as the antitrust division of the U.S. DOJ. Jackson and his fellows "allege that six corporate landlords are trading private information and manipulating vacancies to boost rents." As Ned Barnett, lead opinion writer at the NandO, put it today, "Jeff Jackson is off to an encouraging start" (Barnett). 

No kidding. Predatory renters and their unfair tactics have long invited a comeuppance, and perhaps this will be a start. The six landlords being sued collectively manage hundreds of thousands of apartment rentals (no, really), which undoubtedly makes them big, bigger targets for prosecution. What about the ugly landlords in, say, university towns who don't rent hundreds of thousands of apartments, but who rent out certainly scores of them and hundreds and maybe thousands? There seems to be a universal principle of greed that can't resist exploiting the young.

To be clear, Jackson is amending with this new suit an action first researched and taken by former A.G. Josh Stein last March, when there were seven other attorneys general joining the suit against RealPage. No mention back then of the six landlords Jackson's amended suit adds, though Stein certainly knew where they were. At a news conference last August, Stein said three of the top 10 markets that RealPage has been exploiting are in Charlotte, Raleigh, and Durham/Chapel Hill, and Jackson's suit notes that none of the big landlords operating in NC are actually headquartered in NC. They're from all over, from Dallas to Chicago to Atlanta to Charleston, etc. Out-of-state corps exploiting the natives with the help of a clever software company.

Jackson’s office alleges that the singled-out landlords have allegedly used RealPage’s algorithm "to set rents for almost one-third of one-bedroom and two-bedroom apartments in each of the three metro areas" (Avi Bajpai). 

Anderson Clayton Makes an Endorsement, Anita Earls Launches Reelection Bid, and Wiley Nickel Acts the Gentleman

 

A. NC Democratic Party Chair Anderson Clayton has endorsed Ben Wikler to head the DNC:

B. NC Supreme Court Associate Justice Anita Earls has begun raising money for what is expected to be a fierce reelection fight in 2026. Her new website went live on January 9th.

C. Former NC Congressman Wiley Nickel, whose district was gerrymandered to guarantee a Republican would win, decided against running for his 13th CD seat (now occupied by Republican Brad Knott). Instead, he announced that he would run for Thom Tillis's U.S. Senate seat in 2026. On December 15, he filed a statement of candidacy with the FEC.

Ex-Governor Roy Cooper has pointedly told reporters that his own candidacy for Tillis's seat is definitely "on the table," though he hasn't announced anything concrete yet. But Wiley Nickel, knowing that the much better known Cooper would beat him in a primary, has told Bryan Anderson that he's "waiting in the wings and developing something of a contingency plan should Cooper decide not to run."

Wise move.

Ray Pickett and Hurricane Relief

 

Rep. Ray Pickett

Newly installed Speaker of the NC House, Destin Hall, notable lawyer of Caldwell County and olympic gerrymanderer (who moved Watauga's Blue Ridge Precinct out of Ray Pickett's Dist. 93 and gave it to himself in Dist. 87, where those Blue Ridge progressives wouldn't be much of an annoyance in that otherwise blood-red district) -- but I digress. That squirt Destin Hall appears to be moving fast to funnel actual dollar bills toward the victims of Hurricane Helene -- to make up in some sense for the passage of S 382 back last November, which masqueraded as a hurricane relief bill but was actually a naked power-grab. Just announced yesterday, Hall has appointed a "Select Committee on Hurricane Helene Recovery" to make recommendations, write legislation, lay the groundwork -- quickly -- for specific appropriations.

To the Select Committee, Hall appointed the three mountain guys who initially raised hell over S 382 for the fakeout in its title -- "Hurricane Relief" -- because it offered zero relief. Those guys quickly folded and voted for the bill in the veto override, but not before (probably) getting some promises for their own districts. There must have been strategy in their caving, or else they're just bully-bait. I prefer my politicians cynical rather than craven.

Hall also appointed Ray Pickett to the Select Committee, who without any visible protest -- no indignant speaking up for constituents wiped out by flood, no symbolic no vote -- rather voted for S 382 at first sight. Voted for the same bill the three other guys had rightly called a notorious fraud. Those guys likely made a bargain or got a promise or leveraged their yes votes on the veto-override for specific economic relief to their constituents. What did Watauga and Ashe counties get for Ray Pickett's complicity?