More Dirty, Rotten Politics in Raleigh

Bill Rabon

Some Republicans in the NC General Assembly want to change the state's constitution to force judges at all levels, including the Supreme Court, to run for reelection every two years. That would in effect put judges into constant campaign mode and further erode the independence of the state's judiciary.

The constitutional amendment filed by Rep. Bill Rabon of Bladen County is intended as a direct slap at judges who have found so much legislation passed by this General Assembly plainly unconstitutional. If judges uphold new Republican laws, they're acting like wise judges, but if they strike laws down, then they're "legislating from the bench."

Republican Rep. David Lewis (Harnett County) underscored the political calculations behind the Rabon amendment in a comment he made to WUNC: "If you’re going to act like a legislator, perhaps you should run like one” -- that is, run every two years like members of the General Assembly do.

One of the last principled Republicans in the state, former Supreme Court Justice Bob Orr, has already come out strongly against the Rabon amendment:

“It’s just wrong,” he said in a phone interview Tuesday.

Bob Orr

Orr said the amendment sends the wrong message to the judiciary that if judges won’t rule the GOP’s way, lawmakers will retaliate. 

“That’s just fundamentally repugnant to everything I believe,” he said....

“Not only [are two-year terms] a bad idea, it’s just fundamentally a bad policy. I don’t think the legislators or the public want judges to be full-time candidates.”

The General Assembly has adjourned until January, so perhaps Dictator Phil Berger and Go-Along House Speaker Tim Moore won't call another special session to ram this thing through prior to the first of the year.

In the meantime, people need to let Jonathan Jordan (Jonathan.Jordan@ncleg.net) and Deanna Ballard (Deanna.Ballard@ncleg.net) know that the Rabon amendment is dirty, rotten politics.

Phil Berger to Governor Cooper: "We'd Prefer That You Pound Sand"

Gov. Roy Cooper should not have
to put up with the detestable Phil Berger

Having watched the voters of North Carolina replace the blithe Republican non-entity Pat McCrory with Democratic Governor Roy Cooper last fall, Republican Dictator and Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger launched his McConnellizing project of thwarting the new governor in every way conceivable, taking away as much of his appointment power as possible and then refusing to confirm or even consider confirming Cooper's appointments to important boards and commissions that handle much of the public's business.

How many special sessions now has Berger called and participated in and yet failed to call up Cooper's appointments for confirmation? There are ten pending Cooper appointments to the North Carolina Utilities Commission, the Teachers' and State Employees' Retirement System Board of Trustees, and the State Board of Education.

The governor says there's no reason for the delay other than "an obvious effort by the General Assembly to undermine my administration's ability to ensure faithful execution of the laws." Berger sez, "Oh, you wanted those people confirmed? Why haven't you been begging me to take action, then? It's a good governor who begs. Maybe we'll get around to those confirmations some day -- say, January -- but right now we're busy overriding your vetoes. And, by the way, eat shit!"

Sue their asses, Governor. It's the only action they still fear.

The Ritual Humiliation of Mitch McConnell

Yesterday in the Rose Garden,
Mitch McConnell agreed to put his
testicles into an undisclosed location

A couple of hours before Trump was claiming McConnell as his bestest friend evah yesterday, he was blaming McConnell for all the dysfunction in the Trump administration at a cabinet meeting.

In the Rose Garden, with McConnell shrinking beside him: McConnell's a "friend of mine for a long time," said Trump, and we're "closer than ever before."

At the Cabinet meeting earlier in the day: Trump said he was frustrated that Republicans had not accomplished more of his agenda but added that he's "not going to blame myself, to be honest."

If I were Mitch McConnell, I think I'd be very careful about that "closer than ever before." Especially with Trump's other (truer) BFF Steve Bannon delivering a blunt warning to McConnell in front of iPootValues conservatives over the weekend: “Up on Capitol Hill, it’s the Ides of March .... They’re just looking to find out who is going to be Brutus to your Julius Caesar.”

Good God. Has ever a threat of lethal backstabbing been more publicly delivered?

Okay, I'm really delighted that Bannon read Julius Caesar in high school. I'm delighted that anybody in the Trump administration reads anything beyond their Q-Rating. But if I were Mitch McConnell, who scarcely a day after that Bannon attack was standing in dagger distance of Trump, I would not be locked in any embrace with the man who always turns on his friends when he needs to blame someone for his own failings.

True, McConnell has so richly earned all this grief from the leader of his own party, who understands nothing about legislating and cares even less. McConnell punished Obama for eight years by obstructing everything, and now he must endure the idiot in the Oval Office who's pulling down the temple on all their heads.

As you should know by now, I'm a connoisseur of political irony, and at this moment I find the circle closing like a snap purse. Consider the ads McConnell ran in 1984 to defeat Democratic Senator Dee Huddleston and thus began his rise to this present moment. You indeed can't run from your record, Mitch.

Trump's Sycophants

sycophant, noun: a person who acts obsequiously toward someone important in order to gain advantage. Synonyms: yes-man, bootlicker, brown-noser, toady, lickspittle, flatterer, flunky, lackey, spaniel, doormat, stooge, cringer, suck, suck-up

“[Trump Treasury Secretary Steven] Mnuchin may be the greatest sycophant in Cabinet history.”
--Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers

What earned Mnuchin that title? He went out of his way recently to praise Trump's equivocation about race-haters in Charlottesville and also said he totally agreed with Trump that football players shouldn't take the knee (unless they were bowing to Trump). Neither issue has anything to do with Mnuchin's business at Treasury, but Trump needs constant praise and Mnuchin knows how to dish it.

In the famous June 12th Cabinet meeting, a landmark in lickspittle scrambling, Trump insisted on hearing praise of himself from every single official sitting at that large table. Only Defense Secretary Jim Mattis refused to play, praising the men and women of the armed forces instead. From all the others, Trump heard "thank you soooo much for the opportunity and blessing that you’ve given us to serve your agenda" and “It’s an honor to be able to serve you” and “I am privileged to be here -- deeply honored” and “What an incredible honor it is to lead the Department of Health and Human Services at this pivotal time under your leadership,” said the now disappeared Tom Price.

Trump listens to praise
on June 12th

The photograph of Trump's face while that fawning festival proceeded perfectly captures his needy babyhood. Tell me more about how great I am, because I am just that seriously damaged as a human being and insecure because my mother never loved me and my father never hugged me.

The "adult day-care workers" in the Trump White House, the lowly staffers who don't own a cabinet rank and don't get to travel on chartered jets, know who they're working for. They praise and fawn and lick that spittle while the country goes to hell on impulse.

According to Ashley Parker, "when his advisers hope to prevent Trump from making what they think is an unwise decision, they frequently try to delay his final verdict — hoping he may reconsider after having time to calm down."

Put the baby in "time out." And always -- always -- tell him what a good boy he is.

"One defining feature of managing Trump is frequent praise, which can leave his team in what seems to be a state of perpetual compliments. The White House pushes out news releases overflowing with top officials heaping flattery on Trump .... Especially in the early days of his presidency, aides delivered the president daily packages of news stories filled with positive coverage and Trump began meetings by boasting about his performance, either as president or in winning the White House...."

A boasting man, surrounded by sycophants, does not ground this country in any useful reality.

The Teacher Who Is Running Against Phil Berger

NC Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger is the acknowledged dictator of North Carolina. He runs the NC Senate, which means he runs North Carolina. He ran over Republican Governor Pat McCrory for four long years and is partially responsible for making the "toe-stepping" McCrory a laughingstock. And just to show him who's Boss, Berger's crippled the governorship of Democrat Roy Cooper.

Berger wanted to make Phil Berger Jr. a congressman in Washington, his greatest failure to date. Still, he could make Junior a judge as consolation, and now Junior sits on the bench.

No one can beat Phil Berger for his NC Senate seat, which includes parts of Guilford and Rockingham counties. At least that's the conventional wisdom. In fact, to oppose Berger or his lieutenants can figuratively land a horse's head in your bed, so to speak, and according to Greensboro News&Record Editor Allen Johnson.

Jennifer Mangrum

But lookie here at who's rising up to challenge Berger, not because she thinks she can win but because sometimes you just have to stand up to abusive power, no matter the odds.

Jennifer Mangrum is the child of two public school teachers and a lifelong educator herself. She taught elementary school in North Carolina for 14 years, and for the last nine years she's been teaching other public school teachers how best to teach (as a professor of education at UNCG).

She was until recently a lifelong Republican. The power-madness of King Berger (among other actions) changed her mind:

“I’m open. I was a Republican, I need to tell you that. I had a father who fought in World War 2, Vietnam and Korea, and when I registered to vote in the ‘80s, if you were military then the Republican Party was the party that you felt was going to take care of your family .... The party has changed so much since I registered. I’m also really embarrassed that leaders in the Republican Party represent us in the way they do, but I was a voter who looked at the person.” (The Carolinian)

I've only just started following her on Twitter (@jrmangru), and she doesn't appear to have launched a Facebook feed yet (though she's promised one), so I don't yet find a lot of "platform" on-line. But I did find this:

...why do we allow Phil Berger to remain in power? He does not work to insure that all men are created equal. In fact, he does the opposite. He creates laws that discriminate, he defunds schools so that children don’t have the same opportunities when they grow up, and he rules the NC Senate as though he were King, grabbing power from our executive branch and ignoring the consent of the governed.

Mangrum is just beginning to find her political voice, and we hope she'll campaign. That'll take money.

One Part of the Obama Legacy Trump Will Never Be Able To Erase

President Obama left the White House last January with an approval rating of 59%. We can argue all day about what caused that, but I think it was because he was a good man. He was a good man during a hard time, and people honored his character (even though I had my moments of rage at him).

He had and has good character. Scandal knows him not. He has a sense of humor and patience like Griselda. He possesses unmistakable respect for other people, some of whom exhibited nothing but hatred and contempt toward him. (The man Obama graciously ushered into the White House last January 20th had rather recently led a "birther" movement which had questioned Obama's legitimacy to even be in this country, let alone sitting on the throne of the nation. That man had much more recently conceded that birtherism has no basis in fact after all, yet he could not bring himself to apologize to the de-legitimized man who was now extending his hand in comradeship.)

Obama had character. He wasn't one.

He could speak in whole sentences, which built themselves into paragraphs, which often led upward in sense and substance toward what was possible, not backward to petty grievances and grudges. His respect for other people would not allow him to pitch a public fit over his political enemies, who were everywhere and powerful. (Robert Draper found out that some 15 Republican Congressional leaders -- including Bob Corker -- met in the Capitol on the night of Obama's first inauguration and discussed how they would oppose everything Obama wanted. Obama certainly knew or would soon understand their intransigence, yet he did not carpet-bomb them with tweets.)

Opposed in all things, Obama continued to seek compromise. Trying to get health insurance reformed in this country, he sought bi-partisanship for way too long, which only complicated and handicapped the product. (The source of a large part of my personal rage.)

Some times accommodation is not really prudent. Curiously, that goes for Trump too, who'll sign any goddamn thing Congress wants to pass -- whether its pushed through by the Republicans or the Democrats or a tribe of elves -- and he doesn't really care what happens next. That's accommodation that shows a lack of character.

Peckerhead's Gonna Peck

Nothing cheers up Republicans like throwing
people off their health care.
Photo: Doug Mills, NYTimes

Trump decided yesterday -- Thursday -- to stop paying subsidies to insurance companies that cover many low-income Americans.

Sweet!

This action will cause insurers to leave some Obamacare markets, causing higher premiums, among other consequences. 

In a separate action on Wednesday (the signing of the Executive Order pictured to the left), Trump asked the Labor Department to loosen rules that permit small companies to band together to form associations and buy the kind of coverage available to larger businesses (that is, insurance governed by federal employment law, not state insurance regulations, which means cheap prices, poorer coverage, and denied claims).

What Trump did last night -- ending subsidy payments -- he could do because of a flaw in the language of one section of the Affordable Care Act. The ACA created the subsidies but did not clearly fund them, leaving subsidies in a weird legal pickle. Insurers are still required to offer discounts to customers who qualify. And the insurance companies may sue the administration to recoup the funds. But insurance providers will lose money in the short term, and in the long term, they'll raise their premiums to make up for the losses. That could also actually hurt higher-income customers who pay full price.

In theory, precipitously ending the subsidy payments could lead to "catastrophic market failures."

Oh whatever. It's a knee-capping of at least a fair number of Trump voters who have been turned into applauding bots when Trump attacks "Obamacare." Those voters need health insurance too, and Trump is not their friend. He is a termite, chewing at the struts that prop them up.

No law has been repealed.

But it's being pecked at by a Peckerhead who'll hurt the very people he's somehow convinced that he's some kind of genius who actually cares about them.

What Are Bill Aceto and Nathan Miller's Chances of Stopping Early Voting in the ASU Student Union?

Stella Anderson with her lawyers,
Wednesday in Raleigh

As you should know, Stella Anderson won her suit in Wake Superior Court on Wednesday: Judge Graham Shirley II ordered an Early Voting polling site on the ASU campus beginning on October 26 and running every weekday through November 3, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., thus overriding the intransigence of Board of Elections Republican Chair Bill Aceto.

Bill Aceto was able to "intervene" in the case on Wednesday via lawyer (and Watauga Republican Party Vice Chair) Nathan Miller, and according to the Watauga Democrat, Nathan Miller has declared that they will be appealing Judge Shirley's order to the NC Court of Appeals

How likely is Nathan Miller to impress the higher court panel of three, considering that Judge Shirley was not at all impressed by the coherence of his argument on Wednesday?

The Odds of Aceto&Miller Prevailing on Appeal

1. Aceto via his attorney Miller was granted "permissive intervention" last Wednesday at the discretion of the judge rather than "intervention as of right," which means that Aceto has no legally protectable interest in the case. (Aceto asked to intervene as an individual and not under color of representing the majority on the Watauga Board of Elections.)

2. On appeal, Aceto can ask the NC Court of Appeals for a stay of Judge Shirley's order.

3. The State of North Carolina, which is actually the defendant in Stella Anderson's case, has opted not to appeal. (Josh Lawson, chief counsel for the State Board of Elections, has said that he's happy with the judge's Order.) Without an appeal from the state, it will be much harder for Aceto to win because, although intervenors have all the rights of the parties, the Court of Appeals will understand that he is a permissive intervenor. Under those circumstances, lawyer Miller's argument to the Court panel will likely be even less coherent than it was last Wednesday before Judge Shirley. Miller will not have the State's argument to piggyback on.

4. The Town of Boone's request and funding responsibility should tip the scale here in favor of Judge Shirley's Order. Plus, a stay would upend the desire of the majority of the Watauga Board, since Republican member Nancy Owen voted with Stella Anderson for her Early Voting plan which included the ASU Student Union.

Finally, Some Good News

Headline in USA Today: "Yellowstone super volcano may blow sooner than thought — and could wipe out life on the planet."

The last eruption of the super volcano underlying all of Yellowstone National Park happened over 630,000 years ago. The Yellowstone caldera is 40 miles across. The entire area has bulged up some ten inches, "an extraordinary uplift," suggesting an enormous build up of pressure from accumulated magma.

When it blows ... well, you can kiss your sweet ass goodbye. "It has the ability to expel more than 1,000 cubic kilometers of rock and ash at once — 2,500 times more material than erupted from Mount St. Helens in 1980, which killed 57 people. That could blanket most of the United States in a thick layer of ash and even plunge the Earth into a volcanic winter" (Shannon Hall).