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Category Archives: Donald Trump
Donald Trump’s Bad Day
This day started out bad for Donald Trump. He went to bed with President Obama having gotten under Donald Trump’s skin by calling out Trump’s wanna-be authoritarian tendencies.
And the day has only gotten worse. On the one hand, Divine Providence/Nature has followed through on what everyone thought was possible when the Republicans named Jacksonville as their back-up site for the RNC. This is the current five day forecast for Tropical Depression 13:
While a lot can change in five days (and five day forecasts have a good margin of error), there is a real possibility that the RNC will be dealing with a hurricane striking Florida on Monday when there convention is supposed to start. Hurricanes have been a recurring problem for the Republican Convention multiple times in the past four cycles. Of course, nobody would think to be concerned about a hurricane hitting Florida in late August.
Also posted in 2020 General Election
Tagged 2012 Democratic National Convention, Biden Acceptance Speech, Jacksonville Convention, Tropical Storm Forecast, Trump Financial Records
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The President and Subpoenas
Recently, the United States Supreme Court issued two opinions concerning the ability of different entities to issue subpoenas to a president. As the two cases involved different entities issuing subpoenas, the opinions treated them very differently.
The first case, Vance, involved a state grand jury subpoena. Over the years, the Supreme Court has considered a significant number of cases involving subpoena. Some involved subpoenas issued to private parties. Others considered federal criminal subpoenas issued to the president. The Supreme Court has also considered federal civil cases involving a president. The sum total of these prior cases is that there are rules limiting the issuance of a subpoena. In light of these cases, the Supreme Court decided that there was no blanket exemption that permitted a president to challenge a state grand jury subpoena. Nor is there a significantly different standard when the case involves a president. Instead the ordinary considerations (whether the subpoena is appropriately designed to seek information relevant to the inquiry) usually control. However, while it is not a heightened standard, a court should consider the degree to which the subpoena may interfere with presidential duty in determining whether to grant any relief from the subpoenas. In other words, the State does not need to make a different showing to justify a subpoena to a president than it would to justify a subpoena to an average business, but the president may have unique grounds that he can raise to block the subpoena.
The judge hearing the case seeking to quash the grand jury subpoena has already begun the process for considering any new objections that the president may raise (and the Supreme Court has issued its judgment in that case early). So we may get a final decision soon. However, the material will then be part of the confidential grand jury case. Thus, any financial records will not be public in the near future.
Also posted in House of Representatives, Judicial
Tagged Supreme Court, Trump subpoenas
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Supreme Court — Trump’s Position Loses; Trump wins
I will have further details on what the Supreme Court held about Trump’s taxes when I have a chance to digest everything from yesterday. But in practical terms, there are two ways to view the decision.
On the one hand, Trump’s current arguments were soundly rejected by a 7-2 vote in both cases. The president is not above the law and has to respond to proper subpoenas (with some caveats about the needs of courts to consider the burden on the presidency and the necessity of the subpoena).
On the other hand, Trump’s tax returns are still secret for the next several months. In all of the cases, as I feared, the Supreme Court sent the case back to the lower courts to take another look at the motions to quash in light of the Supreme Court’s instructions.
Also posted in Elections, Judicial
Tagged business records, subpoenas, tax returns, Trump Organization
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Religious Freedom (for some) — Supreme Court Overtime Edition 2
The big news out of the Supreme Court today is that Thursday is the last opinion day of the court. Under normal practice, the justices would hold a public session in their courtroom to announce the opinions. Opinions would be announced in reverse order of seniority (with some exceptions for companion cases) with the justice who wrote the opinion reading a brief summary of the opinion and (sometimes) a dissenting justice reading a statement as well (but such a statement is a rare event). With the Supreme Court not being open to the public (and no public information office handing out copies to reporters), the opinions are merely being posted on-line but at roughly the same pace (one every ten minutes) as would be true if the Supreme Court was actually proceeding as normal with the opinions being released in the courtroom. As we have already seen this term, sometimes the Supreme Court’s website is not quite up to the traffic associated with a major opinion. But, if you wish to go to www.supremecourt.gov at 10am EDT and repeatedly refresh, you can see the opinions as they are being released. As discussed further below, my expectation is that the Chief Justice will have one of the two (or maybe both) of the Trump tax cases. If that is the case, I would expect the Oklahoma opinion to be released at 10 (regardless of who has the opinion) followed by two Trump tax cases at 10:10 and 10:20., but there is a chance of one of the two Trump tax cases at 10:00 followed by the Oklahoma case at 10:10 and the Chief Justices opinion at 10:20. It all depends on how closely connected the holding in the two Trump tax cases are.
Today, the Supreme Court released the two remaining “religion” cases. The first case, written by Justice Alito, concerned the “ministerial exception” as it applies to school teachers. The ministerial exception has its roots in the Free Exercise Clause. Basically, under the Free Exercise Clause, the government has no power over the religious leaders of a religious organization. Courts only play a limited role in deciding intra-faith disputes and only when the issue to be resolved is a secular matter like which group of opposing claimants to leadership actually has title to the assets of a religious organization (including the right to use the name). Today’s case, however, takes the exception to (and arguably past) the breaking point. The issue is whether teachers at a parochial school are covered by the ministerial exception. On the one hand, teachers at a parochial school — especially an elementary school where one teacher handles all subject matters — do teach some religious materials and are expected to comply with a code of conduct. On the other hand, many parochial schools — while having a preference that teachers belong to the same sect that runs the school — do not expressly mandate that teachers are members of the religious group running the school. The majority — in a 7-2 decision — essentially held that all teachers in religious schools are minister based solely on the school’s assertion that it views them as ministers and that the decision to fire was based on non-religious grounds. As the purpose of the ministerial exception is to avoid courts from having to decide whether a particular minister is sufficiently “orthodox,” this broadening of the exception is significantly divorced from the purpose behind the exception. In this consolidated case, the two teachers claimed that they were fired based on age (violating the law against discriminating based on age) and medical condition (breast cancer, violating the laws governing medical leave). The schools — while asserting an absolute bar to proceeding on the merits due to the ministerial exception — asserted that they were fired because they were not good teachers. In short, religious issues had nothing to do with the case, and a court could have decided which secular reason was the main motivating factor in the decision to fire these two teachers.
The other case involved the contraception mandate. Amazingly, the majority opinion by Justice Thomas only made a passing reference to the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Instead, the gist of the opinion was whether the Affordable Care Act gave the government discretion to create a religious exemption to the contraception mandate. Technically, the majority opinion does not resolve the final issue of whether the current regulation is valid. Instead, it merely held that the Affordable Care Act granted the government the discretion to create an exception for religious groups (and private companies) with moral objections to the mandates and that the government complied with the procedural requirements of the Administrative Procedure Act. The case is sent back to the lower court to decide if the regulation was adequately supported by the administrative record. (Which means that the future of the contraceptive mandate and this religious exemption depends on the results of the election.)
Also posted in Judicial
Tagged Affordable Care Act, Contraceptive Coverage, employment discrimination, Free Exercise Clause, Native American Rights, Supreme Court, Trump Financial Records, Trump subpoenas
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Trump, Mueller, and the Supreme Court
Earlier today, the Supreme Court issued an order list covering several cases. For political junkies, the big news from the list concerned Department of [Obstructing] Justice vs. House Committee on the Judiciary. The issue in this case is whether the House can get access to the grand jury proceedings from the Mueller investigation. Technically, the issue is whether the House’s investigation of whether Trump committed potential impeachable offenses is a “judicial proceeding” for the purposes of the Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure’s exception to the general rule of grand jury secrecy.
The big impact of today’s order is that it extends the hold on the release of those proceedings. And, given the other cases already on the docket for the Fall, it is likely that the Supreme Court will not hear arguments on this matter until December. In short, this decision means that those records will not become public until after the election.
Now how this reflects on the Supreme Court depends upon what happens in the election. If Trump loses, arguably, the case would be moot as any opinion would not come until after Trump leaves office and could no longer be impeached. It is possible that the Supreme Court could reach this issue on the theory that, given the time that it takes for the grand jury to investigate followed by the time that it takes for impeachment, the issue is capable of recurring yet escaping review (as the delay all but guarantees that any president’s term will expire before any future case with similar issues could be resolved). This exception to mootness probably better applies to the claim that the House and Senate are no longer conducting impeachment proceedings.
Also posted in House of Representatives, Impeachment, Judicial
Tagged Grand Jury, Impeachment Hearings, Judiciary Committee, Robert Mueller, Russia Investigation
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Supreme Court and Trump’s Financial Records
As I noted on Friday, the Supreme Court is nearing the end of its terms and has, at least, two opinion days for this week. Whether the two days will see all of the opinions or some will be issued after the Independence Day celebrations remains to be seen.
While there are many cases that will have impact long after this year, five cases (representing four argument slots) could directly impact this election. Two of them — the Faithless Elector cases — are about the election itself. But the other three — involving the Trump financial records — could shape the campaign.
While, technically, there are three cases, the Supreme Court consolidated argument on the two cases involving subpoenas issued by Congressional committees and are likely to issue one opinion on those two cases. The other case involves a state grand jury subpoena and will probably result in a separate opinion.
Also posted in Judicial
Tagged bank records, financial records, subpoenas, Trump Organization
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People I Hate Today
Yeah, I know, “hate” is bad….but it’s that kind of morning.
I’m starting with supposedly Democratic Congressmen Dan Lipinski and Collin Peterson who yesterday joined with the Republicans in sending an Amicus brief to the Supremes asking for Roe v Wade to be rescinded. Our tent is not that big. Legalized abortions don’t cause abortion, just make the abortions that would occur otherwise less likely to kill the woman.
And then there’s Kevin McCarthy, who has been in Congress long enough to know that when the person in the Oval Office is going to start a war, PRIOR to launching a murderous drone attack, the Gang of Eight needs to be notified. And I’m thinking about the US Constitution, Article 1, Section 8, paragraph 11, which gives Congress (and only Congress) the right to declare war. Now, to be honest, it doesn’t directly call out “CAUSING” a war, but I think the implication is inherent.
Also posted in Democrats, Disaster, House of Representatives, National Security, Politics, Rant, Republicans, War
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Today’s Voter Engagement Story
I spend a lot of time engaging strangers to the end of getting them to the polls, and hopefully voting for the candidate of my choice. But this was different. In fact, this is the first time in my life that a Republican reached out to me about something like this.
A few days ago, I received a message from someone that I took a course with about 20 years ago. We hadn’t really kept up, but we “see” each other occasionally on Facebook. He said he knew I knew a lot about voter registration, and wanted to know if I knew anything about politics. His issue involved a murdered 7 year old girl, and potential legislation that could protect other kids in the same situation.
If you know me at all, you know I’m all in on something like this.
Also posted in Disaster, GOP, Impeachment, Syria, War
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Running Government Like a Business
Conservatives often put out the mantra that we need to run government like a business. The problem with that concept is that there are many different business models. What it takes for a business to be successful depends to a large degree on the products that the business made and the structure of that business. For the past several years, we have seen what happens when the government is run like the Trump Organization, and it has not been pretty.
The business model of the Trump Organization had several major features. First, and most importantly, it is a privately held organization in which Donald Trump is the primary owner. In short, the Trump Organization was for over forty years the alter ego of Donald Trump. He had complete control and did not answer to anybody. Second, in the commercial real estate business, debt is not a bad thing. It is not unusual for the purchase of a building to be financed with large loans (i.e. mortgages) that are refinanced when they come due (with very little payments made toward the principal and the debt only fully paid off when the building is sold). Third, and pretty much unique to the Trump Organization, the far-flung nature of the holdings meant that the business rarely worked with other companies — beyond its bankers — on repeat occasions. This lack of an on-going relationship with local contractors meant that Trump was able to break deals with the companies that he hired to work on his properties without having to worry about the need to make future deals with the same contractors.
Over the past several months, we have seen Trump repeatedly return to his practices from his time as a high risk real estate developer. He has treated the U.S. government as if he were the sole owner making decisions for his personal benefit rather than the good of the country. In particular, he has used his power to make the U.S. government and foreign governments deal with the Trump Organization — rerouting government flights so that U.S. personnel have to stay at Trump properties while staying overseas and he has proposed holding international summits at Trump properties.
Also posted in GOP, Rant
Tagged Climate Change, Deficits, Impeachment, Kurds, Trump Organization, Trump Self-dealing, Ukraine
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Jewish in America: 2019
I have a friend named Jane. We met in the first grade. She is smart and talented, and I’m happy that we still get to chat all these years later. Back in late 2016, we talked about the threat to Jews from the election of Cheeto Führer. We anticipated that there would eventually be camps. Yes. Like in the 1930’s. We further posited that we Jews would not be tops on the Immigrant-Bashing Carnival Barker’s list because most of us were lighter-skinned than others and he worshiped Sheldon Adelson’s money.
And here we are. Yesterday, any doubt that ANYONE (I’m talking to you Sheldon) had about Trump’s anti-Semitism was permanently put to rest. This is not a surprise to any Jews with the exception of the far right uber-Orthodox, who have an absurd view of the world.
The response has been singular from Democrats, Republicans, people across the spectrum: condemnation of the anti-Semitic trope. There has been a certain amount of silence from the Klan, and the Proud Boys and the other White Nationalists because even they realize that it’s not a great idea to proclaim your hatred for Jews publicly. But they certainly got the message, (again) and we can expect EVEN MORE desecration of Jewish cemeteries, swastikas spray painted on synagogues, and then, the shootings.
Also posted in Anti-Semitism, The Politics of Hate
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