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Donny Filled Up the Swamp (or: For Lulz)

(To the tune of “When Johnny Comes Marching Home.” (Wikipedia: “When Johnny Comes Marching Home”))

They all voted for Donald Trump
For lulz, for lulz
They all chanted out “Lock her up!”
For lulz, hurr durr
They all voted for Donald Trump
To give the lib-ruls a big ol’ thump
But they all got trolled hard
Donny filled up the swamp.

They said he gonna build the wall
For lulz, for lulz
They said he gonna stop ’em all
For lulz, for lulz
They said he gonna build the wall
It couldn’t stop a tennis ball
They all got trolled hard
Donny filled up the swamp.

They thought when he got to Beijing
For lulz, for lulz
They heard trade wars are easy wins
For lulz, hurr durr
They thought when he got to Beijing
China would be their new plaything
And they all got trolled hard
Donny filled up the swamp.

The rich got tax cuts to the bone
For lulz, for lulz
The debt shoots up to the ozone
For lulz, for lulz
The rich got tax cuts to the bone
And now the country’s rent-to-own
See they all got trolled hard
Donny filled up the swamp.

They said Muslims ain’t welcome here
For lulz, for lulz
They said it with a racist sneer
For lulz, hurr durr
They said Muslims ain’t welcome here
But lied in court when they appeared
Well they all got trolled hard
Donny filled up the swamp.

The dictators are gaining ground
For lulz, for lulz
Killing reformers the whole world round
For lulz, for lulz
The dictators are gaining ground
While Donny’s spine, it cain’t be found
They all got trolled hard
Donny filled up the swamp.

The hurricanes done gotten worse
For lulz, for lulz
The Koch Brothers sponsored this verse
For lulz, hurr durr
The hurricanes done gotten worse
The mercury’s fixin’ to burst
They all got trolled hard
Donny filled up the swamp.

Donald Trump—the man’s a fraud
For lulz, for lulz
And money is his only god
For lulz, for lulz
Donald Trump—the man’s a fraud
Fred spoiled the child to spare the rod
How they all got trolled hard
Donny filled up the swamp.

The election is two weeks away.
Remember, voting in elections where fewer people vote gives you more power. It’s the nitrous boost of voting.

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Do: There is a Bomb

Do: There is a bomb. We should defuse it.

Re: There is no bomb.

Do: It’s right here. I’m touching it. I can feel the ticking with my fingers.

Re: There is no bomb.

Do: If we defuse it, we won’t get blown up.

Re: There is no bomb.

Do: The paper beside it says, “This is a bomb.” Oh! And here’s a defuse kit.

Re: It’s not a bomb.

Do: What is it, then?

Re: It’s not a bomb, whatever it is. And it’s too far away to do any harm.

Do: It’s right here. You could touch it if you tried.

Re: I could not touch it. See?

Re reaches eir hand toward the bomb while taking a step backward.

Do: You stepped backward!

Re: I did not. If anything, it moved away from me.

Do: The bomb’s timer says three minutes. We should defuse it.

Re: It’s not a bomb.

Do: You’ll be sorry when you’re bleeding to death from shrapnel wounds.

Re: I most certainly will not. I will heal and the scars will make me stronger.

Do: I thought you said it’s not a bomb?

Re: It’s not a bomb.

Do: Of course it is. All these wires and the explosives! If that’s not a bomb, what is it?

Re: I’m not qualified to talk about it.

Do: Let’s ask them. Do points to a bomb expert hotline number on the bomb defuse kit’s case. E pulls out eir phone and calls.

Mi: Bomb expert hotline. This is Mi. How can Mi help you?

Do: We think we have a bomb here.

Mi: Describe it for Mi, please.

Do: It’s a big mess of wires with a clock and what looks like paper-covered blocks that say C4 on them.

Mi: Does sound like a bomb to Mi. Anything else?

Do: There’s a piece of paper that says it’s a bomb.

Mi: Yes, Mi thinks it’s a bomb. You should defuse it.

Do hangs up.

Do: She says it’s probably a bomb and we should defuse it.

Re: There are many other experts that say it’s not a bomb.

Do: Please help me defuse it.

Re: Don’t! The bomb is good for us. We should speed the timer up.

Do: Speed the timer up—are you mad?! We’ll be killed, both of us.

Re: I have some bomb timer grease.

Do: Bomb timer grease?! I thought you said it wasn’t a—

Re squirts bomb timer grease into the bomb timer’s gears.

Do: Good God! We only have a minute left! Quick, you have to help me isolate the timer from the primary charge.

Re: Nope. We’ll be better off. Just you watch.

Do: Dead? You’re crazy. I’ll defuse it myself.

Do starts tracing the wires with eir hands, but Re slaps eir hand away.

Do: Quit! This is serious!

Re: I didn’t do anything.

The bomb explodes.

The bomb is a metaphor, principally for climate change.

It’s three short weeks until we get to vote in the 2018 midterms.

The planet needs your help in defusing the bomb.

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Where are the Goalposts?

Senator Mitch McConnell recently accused opponents of Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court of moving the goalposts. While he did not elaborate, what the phrase means is something like, “They believe that their current efforts to thwart the nomination will fail, so now they are opening new attacks in an effort to stop him.”

The problem for McConnell and Kavanaugh and all of us is that there is only one set of goalposts. They don’t move. They are: have a good government. But what does that mean?

Below I will outline the facets required for a legitimate and useful justice, which can also serve as a place to look back for future nominations so that McConnell and his spawn cannot say the goalposts have moved.

The list:

  1. Legally qualified
  2. Of good character
  3. Relatively non-partisan

Legal Qualifications

A justice or judge should have a solid understanding of the Constitution and the law. E should know that the law is not always adequate and be willing to admit that. E should be also willing to admit that e is not perfect at interpreting. But their record as legal professionals should show distinction and merit as contributors to a diverse and ingenuitive body.

Character

E should lack moral turpitude, and be repentant for past mistakes and malfeasance. E should be respectful of the other branches of government, of eir critics, and of eir colleagues. E should be candid when questioned.

Non-partisanship

Especially in these times, when Republicans fail to credit the Democrats for having a tough time dealing with an outrageous administration, and Democrats feel particularly vulnerable and overreact in some cases, the judiciary should not be partisan. It should recognize that it is holding a pair of scales, not a paper fan emblazoned with a candidate’s name.

A judge (again, this speaks to character) must know when to bite eir tongue. Nobody expects em to be wholly disinterested in the political environment, but e should be measured eir interest, and e should refrain from partisan attacks entirely. If speaking about a political figure, a judge may comment on the person, but should not connect that to the party.

Re: Judge Kavanaugh, he possesses a useful measure of legal qualifications and experience. There are some spots of trouble, usually in dissents, which is where they usually are. There are political concerns about how he would approach some issues. But those are politically contentious issues, and like it or not, we will have to find political solutions to them. People will be harmed in the process, but I do not find that a per se reason to disqualify him.

Abortion, for example. Judge Kavanaugh would likely weaken women’s rights. Republicans like that about him. Democrats dislike it. They can and should vote accordingly, as Republicans know that if he does rule in that fashion in a future case, it will cost them politically. Just as Democrats knew that trying to open access to healthcare would cost them and moved forward anyway.

On the matter of character, Judge Kavanaugh has a mixed record. There are spots of trouble alleged in his formative years and in college. His professional record remains relatively clean by the available information (which is, unfortunately, artificially constrained and therefore not reliable). And his behavior in response to allegations against him showed some glaring examples of bad behavior.

At the very least, he showed disrespect to the country in his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, and while he apologized to a senator, he has not apologized to the nation. As the Senate represents the nation, it is owed an apology unto itself.

Of non-partisanship, the man can make no claim to it. He served as a heavy-handed partisan on multiple occasions, and his public behavior at the hearing was overtly partisan in the most egregious fashion. It would be a gross mistake, as it has been in the past, to install a partisan hack as a justice.

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Accusations in a Vacuum

Update: a back-room agreement seems to have been made by Jeff Flake to see at least some investigation done by the FBI. We’ll see if that happens, but it would be a step in the right direction even if it is not definitive.

The failure of the White House to have the FBI to investigate the accusations against Judge Kavanaugh, alongside his own failure to publicly call for said investigation, and the failure of the GOP to call for an investigation, means I have no choice but to believe the accusations. They are credible based on the available evidence, and any evidence that could have impugned them is left ungathered.

There is sufficient evidence that Judge Kavanaugh lacks credibility:

  1. Unexplained discrepancies between earlier testimony and the limited documents released on his record from his time working in the government under the Starr investigation, in the Bush administration, and regarding his correspondence or other knowledge of Judge Alex Kozinski’s abuses.
  2. A lack of specificity regarding his debts.
  3. His lack of candor in the Fox News interview regarding his high school behavior.
  4. His failure to call for an investigation that could plausibly clear his name.
  5. His lack of candor in the hearings on Thursday.
  6. His indulgence in right-wing conspiracies regarding the process.

Meanwhile, the only accuser given the chance to testify, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, has had a consistent recollection of the incident going on some six years. She called for the FBI to investigate. There is no offered evidence that impeaches her telling.

Given the gravity of the alleged behavior, high school or not, it is damning if true. But we don’t have the luxury of deciding truth. We have to choose who we believe. In a natural vacuum, you might believe Ford or Kavanaugh. But we have here an artificial vacuum, created by the reluctance of the GOP, including Kavanaugh himself and the man who nominated him, Mr. Trump, to have the matter professionally investigated by the FBI. That artifice must weigh heavily against Kavanaugh.

The GOP in the Senate is now on trial. If they vote to consent to his appointment with the bad process, they will thereby sign a statement of their own incompetence at governing. They will disqualify themselves from the claim to legitimacy that is vital to the functioning of a democratic republic. All of this is a result not of Judge Kavanaugh’s alleged crimes, but of the very real process failures at the hands of the Trump administration and the Senate GOP.

There are sufficient leads for an FBI investigation to be conducted, even at this late date. They might find exculpatory evidence. They might find corroborating witnesses or facts. They might decide to have Mark Judge testify. The GOP’s failure to have the matter investigated requires a jaded eye fall on Kavanaugh’s rebuttal testimony. He is unfit to serve on the Supreme Court purely due to the process failures here.

If the president chooses, withdraw and renominate him with an FBI background check that encompasses these allegations. But, where we are today, any Senator worth eir salt will vote against Kavanaugh unless and until the public facts are improved. The damage of doing otherwise is a major blow to the integrity of our institutions.

2018 midterms are in five weeks.

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A Member-Oriented Legislature

One of the big problems with how both chambers operate is the heavy reliance on the leaders to set the agenda for the majority. Things like McConnell’s decision to block an election-year recess so that Democratic senators can’t campaign for reelection, or McConnell’s decision to block a constitutionally mandated duty of the Senate to advise on a judicial nomination. Or Paul Ryan pulling a fast one on Republicans in the House who wanted a vote on DACA.

You have a situation where, by virtue of not wanting to cooperate with the other party, members are forced to adhere to leaders that do not serve their interests or their states’ or districts’ interests. Members of both houses subordinate themselves to the leaders and the leaders’ priorities. The chief priority is to retain power, which is not something anybody outside of those relying on power for political patronage cares about. Down here at sea level, far below the peak of Mount Congress, we just want good governance.

In a better world, the leadership’s chief goal would not be retaining power, but in increasing the liquidity of legislation and making it easier for members to accomplish the work of their constituents. This kind of member-oriented legislature would put work ahead of elections. It would devolve leadership power to members.

Ah, but we have this pesky Nash equilibrium to deal with. The Republicans won’t lend the Democrats a cup of sugar, and the Democrats have been burned too many times by trusting the Republicans. If the party in power relinquishes the stranglehold, and still loses the next election, they will have squandered their fleeting chance to do anything to further their agenda. And even if they retain power, the other side will use the increased power to obstruct!

But the reality is that we’re approaching a breaking point with partisan greed. The Republicans took up where the Democrats left off in torching the filibuster on appointments. The president has openly blathered about abolishing the filibuster full stop. With the Senate so narrowly divided, there’s a maximal tendency for McConnell to try to change the rules so that instead of saying “Nay” to vote against a bill, Democrats will have to say, “Trump MAGA Wall” to vote against a bill.

One option to fix the logjam is to require committee-driven quotas for legislation. That each major committee shall produce and shall have voted on no fewer than five major proposals per session, or whatever works. A force-flow of legislation, functioning much like a writer setting a daily goal even if they have to write “Al lwor kan dnopl aymak esjacka dul lboy” over and over to make the nut.

Another quota system would require at least one minority piece of legislation per five majority pieces.

Yes, the majority would invariably vote the legislation down. But making the votes mandatory at least puts them on the record against expanding Medicaid to cover tofu baths or against requiring firearms to be referred to as, example, “The Honorable AK-47.”

Another important option would be to either term-limit leadership terms, so that different members would have to become leaders, impose limits based on poor performance, or simply require mandatory votes to continue leadership.

Leadership is one of the big problems, so changes that increase turnover or at least put more pressure on leaders to get things done in a bipartisan manner would be welcome. The main criticism here would be that it could force good leaders out prematurely. At this point in America’s political decline, that criticism would be much like panning ice cream for its propensity to melt.

There has to be some way to entice cooperation and better legislative flow. The decision not to do anything about infrastructure, for example, is approaching the threshold of gross negligence on the part of congress. There are other major priorities that keep taking a back seat to silly things like charging a trillion dollar tax cut onto Uncle Sam’s credit card.