Mitch McConnell – Forecast: partly sunny with a chance of cataclysms

Cannot Indict a – What?

“Impermissible” – You Gotta Be Kidding Me

Key to Attorney General William Barr’s prevarications about the culpability of Donald Trump, is the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel’s (OLC’s) official policy that the indictment of a sitting president is “impermissible” because it would “unconstitutionally undermine the capacity of the executive branch to perform its constitutionally assigned functions.”

How does that square, Mr. Barr, with Donald Trump’s boast in January 2016, “I could stand in the middle of Times Square and shoot somebody and not lose any voters?”

Trump apologists will say the latter was merely a comic metaphor just to illustrate the utter loyalty of Trump voters. He “didn’t really mean it.”

But what was it he didn’t really mean? Just the shooting part, or the idea that his followers absolutely believed he was above the law? Or the implication that, if he acquired enough loyal followers, that he really would be above the law?

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Trump Gets Pushback from the Senate; Mitch McConnell Calls Dysfunction Dysfunctional; Reagan Anti-Government Crusade Marches On

McConnell implies Trump may have gone a step too far

While Senate Republicans cast about for some legislative hodgepodge to satisfy both President Trump and House Democrats in order to prevent another government shutdown, Mitch McConnell was saying, publicly, that he was “for whatever works that prevents the level of dysfunction we’ve seen on full display here the last month.” This not only addressed the narrow matter of the border wall standoff, but also spoke to calls from Democrats and some Republicans to create a legislative mechanism to prevent both the President and the legislature from using government shutdowns as a bargaining tool on any legislation. McConnell, with the weight of 35 years in the Senate and at least six government shutdowns behind him, commented, firmly “I don’t like shutdowns. I don’t think they work for anybody.”

If such a mechanism could be put in place, that would take away what Trump feels is his strongest bargaining chip. His other chip, the declaration of a national emergency, is proving so far to be too hot for even Trump to handle.

This would be the closest thing to a public rebuke of Donald Trump that Mitch McConnell has delivered since the Republican primary season in 2016 when McConnell supported Rand Paul and made evident his disdain for the eventual winner. He is now, obliquely, standing up to Trump’s cavalier use of the federal government as a hostage in his all-or-nothing campaign to get $5.7 billion for an expansion of the magnificent border wall.

By framing the shutdown dilemma as a matter of process rather than substance, McConnell may dodge a counterattack by the President. He may think Trump owes him something for his month-long refusal to bring to the Senate floor a veto-proof bill to re-open the government. He may think that Trump himself believes he owes McConnell something. Enough to keep his trap shut for a few hours.

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Supreme Court Delivers Big for the Ruling Class

What do you get when you add 5 to 4 to 5 to 4 to 5 to 4?

(a) 27

(b) 5/9 + 5/9 + 5/9 = 15/9 = 1.6666666 . . .

The answer is all of the above, but (c) is the most important, if . . .

You take a look at three Supreme Court decisions made in May and June by the notorious 5 to 4 margin, it all adds up.

Foremost, in Janus v. AFSCME, decided in June, the Court eviscerated public sector unions by gifting nonmembers within a unionized workplace an exemption from paying “fair share” fees. Those are the fees charged to nonmembers who refuse to pay dues while still getting the workplace benefits obtained by the union. That is, a means by which to make free-riding by nonmembers a little less free. Now the Supreme Court says free-riding is A-OK in the disingenuous name of “right to work.”

That’s the short version. For the long version, see this excellent piece in Slate.com: Crushing effect of Janus vs AFSCME decision

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