Ask Arthur 2025, Part 2: Rogues gallery

This is the final post answering questions in this year’s “Ask Arthur” series. A (very) short series, I know, but it is what it is.

This years' fiinal question is again from Roger Green, who wrote:

I'd like you to analyze the Worst of the Worst: your least favorite members of the regime and why. Don't feel limited to the executive branch; if you want to dis Mike Johnson or John Roberts, please feel free.

It would be much easier to list who among the regime’s inhabitants I like, or, at least, can tolerate, because that list would be empty. This is a first for me: Even when I’ve strongly disagreed with whoever was in the Oval Office, there nearly always was someone that I could at least tolerate—and that even includes the Convicted Felon’s first occupation of the White House. But that’s absolutely not true this time.

Most of the regime is made up of utterly incompetent, even demonstrably stupid, people, which has probably been the main thing that’s kept the USA from going fully fascist so far. There are, however, several people who are beneath contempt, the sorts who better pray every day that there are no Nuremberg-style trials once the regime is finally gone.

The worst of the worst are, in my sincerely held opinion, anyone and everyone who is any way attached to to the Department of “Homeland” Security, its secretary and the head of the ICE Gestapo, chief among them (I will refrain wherever possible from using the rogues’ names because refusing to utter someone’s name is probably a human’s greatest gesture of contempt). They have all broken numerous federal and state laws, violated the rights of thousands of people, and committed the sorts of crimes against humanity that in the Beofre Times would get a country on a US government watchlist.

The individual who outranks all of them in this list, though, has to be the guy often called “The Shadow President”, Herr Miller, who is the architect of the regime’s racist, inhuman, and inhumane war against immigrants, regardless of legal status. The Convicted Felon’s personal Stellvertreter, in the more appropriate German, has made deliberate cruelty the focus of his work, though ensuring maximum profits for the corporations that run the detention facilities is also a strong driving motivation for the regime—though much of that speaks to the regime’s general corruption, not merely its evil intent. His sick racist Christmas tirade is just another symptom of his moral depravity.

Also in the rogues gallery would be the head of the Department of Defence who has (allegedly) violated international law and (allegedly) committed war crimes. Beyond that, his open racism, misogynistic sexism, and homophobic über-bigotry make him incredibly gross—at the very least. But it’s his (alleged) crimes against humanity that could cause him the most problems after the regime ends.

Similarly, the Secretary of State has been shockingly disgusting. Was the guy the Felon used to call “Little” always so sick and twisted, or did joining the regime give him permission to stop pretending he was ever anything other than sick and twisted? Maybe one day a Truth and Reconciliation Commission can find out.

Although generally notable mostly for incompetence, the “Attorney General”, so-called, is in the gallery because she’s been tripping over herself to eagerly do whatever her Felonious Lord and Master demands, no matter how illegal or unconstitutional it is. She better hope someone gives her a pardon.

Finally, among the denizens of the cabinet/politburo is the weird and flaky guy in charge of health. Were he merely a crackpot shouting on the Internet, he could be safely ignored. Instead, his actions will result in the deaths of tens of thousands of people before everything he’s done can be reversed when sanity finally returns.

The next group in the rogues gallery are sort of second-string players, though still central to the regime’s fascistic dreams. First, there’s the Shady VP who lately has been desperately trying to convince the Republicans that he alone can be the successor to their God-King. What places him in this gallery, apart from his aggressively boorish behaviour, is that he’s now trying to convince the cult that white supremacism has a place in their cult, the very thing that’s causing deep divisions precisely because so many cultists are saying, “Nah, bro, that’s too racist even for me”.

Special mention, too, goes to the two Roger specifically mentioned, starting with Maga Mike, the worst House Speaker in my lifetime, and that includes his fellow Republican who was convicted of historic sexual abuse of young people. For a man who’s so arrogantly smug all the time, he never seems to know anything whenever he’s asked about the latest crimes or excesses committed by the regime—though perhaps he gets that from his God-King, because he, too, always lies that he doesn’t “know anything about that”. Worse, for someone who constantly parades his supposed religious beliefs, often seemingly performatively, he has done more to not just reject the message of the Jesus he claims to follow, he actually chooses to do the exact opposite. There are rumours that his slavish devotion to the God-King is because the regime has something on him, but it the real explanation is probably just he’s this awful because it’s his nature.

John Roberts gets here, too, but only as an associate member of the rogues gallery, and that, in turn, is only because three of his fellow Republicans are far, FAR worse. Mostly, he’ll go down in history as being singularly responsible for destroying all public respect for the Court, something he seems to actually care about. If he really does, maybe he’ll do better, and reject the authoritarianism of the regime, even if that means he’s in the minority in a ruling.

The one who tops them all is, of course, the Rogue in Chief: Conman, grifter, utterly devoid of any compassion, morality, or ethics, he’s overseeing a deliberate campaign to destroy freedom, democracy, and human rights, all so he can get ever more huge piles of money for himself that he’ll never live long enough to spend. If the rot starts at the top, if the most important organised crime figure is the boss, then he has to have a tier in the rogues gallery all to himself.

Thanks to Roger for participating! Hopefully my response doesn’t make him regret doing so—though it does demonstrate why I almost never talk about politics anymore. Still, it was cathartic.

I don’t know whether I’ll do an “Ask Arthur” series next year or not. I suppose it’ll depend on how well 2026 goes. Thankfully, that decision is nearly a year from now.

All posts in this series are tagged “AAA-25”. All previous posts from every “Ask Arthur” series are tagged, appropriately enough, ”Ask Arthur”.

Previously in the 2025 series:

”Doing the annual inquisition AAAgain?” – The first post in this year’s series.

”Ask Arthur 2025, Part 1: Popping bubbles?”

I do also see good news…

There was good news this week, and, even better for me, it was something I correctly predicted. These days, it’s probablty a good idea for us all to take the wins when we get them.

This week, the US Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal incuding a request to overturn the Court’s 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges ruling that legalised same-gender marriage throughout the USA. This is exactly what I expected to happen. In fact, a couple days or so before the decision to decline the petition was announced, I said this in a Facebook comment to a friend:

As you can probably guess, I’m following this closely, but I doubt this case will succeed. The plaintiff and her case are both deeply flawed and problematic, and the Court has already lost most of its credibility in the eyes of the public because of their idiotic decisions, like the Dobbs case, inventing presidential “immunity” out of nothing, and constantly ruling to help the Republicans’ God-King and others in their party, especially through the slimy Shadow Docket. They won’t want to make yet another idiotic decision that would help Democrats in 2026, and they may be betting that if they lay low now, maybe real elections won’t happen after 2026, and they can then let their christfascism run free. At the very least, with so much disgust with the court right now, they’re most likely to wait for a better case, one with a plaintiff that can be more successfully marketed as a “victim”.

All up, it’s more likely they’ll decline to take the case, without comment, and bide their time.

I elaborated on this in a follow-up comment:

I don’t know if [marriage equality opponents] can get four votes to proceed—not impossible, but unlikely. Barrett has said people’s lives depend on the ruling standing, which, historically, has been a big reason for the Court to avoid overturning a ruling, and even Alito—a stinging critic of Obergefell—has said that, too. Roberts is the one MOST worried about how awfully most Americans see the Court. That leaves only Thomas, Kavanaugh, and Gorsuch to possibly vote to hear the case. But, whatever happens, we’ll probably never know who wanted to hear the case and who didn’t, though we can be sure that at least Thomas will vote to proceed. The other two could well see what a sham this particular case is and wait for a stronger one to use to destroy the human rights of married same-gender couples and LGBTQ+ people in general.

That second comment has the one thing I may have been wrong about: “We can be sure that at least Thomas will vote to proceed”. He may well have wanted to do so, for all we know, but the petition was rejected without dissent, so if Thomas did argue in favour of it, he didn’t officially register that opposition. That aside, it’s probably a good idea to elaborate on what I said. First, the issue wasn’t that Davis personally refused to allow a same-gender couple to legally marry after the Obergefell ruling, it’s that she forbade anyone in the office with complying with the law, and that’s where she crossed the line. She was found personally responsible for denying a gay couple’s right to marry, and that was later increased to $360,000. The original appeal was trying to get her out of having to pay the judgement, but her appeal said the issue was her supposed “religious liberty [sic]” to discriminate against gay couples, and that’s the main angle her petition to the Supreme Court took, and their justification for why the Court should reverse itself.

The professional anti-LGBTQ+ industry pushes supposed religious "liberty” in opposing anything pro-LGBTQ+ in part because those activists know that the far-right Republicans in various courts, including the Supreme Court, will usually back anything that claims to be upholding/promoting religious “liberty”.

Despite many of the Republican Supreme Court judges far-right views on religious “liberty”, they all nevertheless knew that because the case was originally about damages the plaintiff was charged by Kentucky courts, and was basically rebranded as being about religious “liberty”. So, its claim to actually be about religious “liberty” was dubious. This means that even if the far-right Republican majority really does want to overturn Obergefell, this case wasn’t the right case to do that because it would destroy way too much of what little legitimacy the court still has in the public’s eyes, and fall or dubious reasons. However, the professional anti-LGBTQ industry is nothing if not persistent, so if a case comes along that’s “cleaner”, one that doesn’t have a problematic plaintiff or origin, it could give the most hard-right justices an opportunity they may want—but not for at least a couple years.

It’s also worth noting that despite his many (many, many…) failings, the Felon in Chief has never expressed a desire to overturn marriage equality, but he did talk endlessly about overturning Roe v. Wade, appointed Supreme Court justices certain to do that, and then took personal credit for it when they did overturn Roe. The fact that he hasn’t said anything about ending marriage equality suggests he's not interested in it, and that would make it harder—though not impossible—for his vassals in the Republican Party to make that an actual priority, as opposed to just another attack line.

Some folks may point out that the Felon has repeatedly attacked trans people, his vassals have then followed suit, and all have taken concrete action to attack trans people. History shows us that it could merely be their opening act, and an attack on marriage equality is inevitable. Maybe so—but today is not that day, and right now the important thing is to focus on threats on freedom and liberty that are already underway.

Also, it's important to celebrate when there's good news, and the bottom line is that the Supreme Court declining to accept the case without dissent is definitely good news.

The unsupremes ruin everything

Friday evening is normally a relaxing time for me. Sometimes I get together with family for dinner, which is always nice, and then I settle in to watch some TV for the rest of the evening. But this past Friday, as I was beginning to wind down for bed, I got an alert on my iPad that the US “Supreme” Court had struck yet again dismantled more of the human rights of LGBT+ Americans. The ruling—yet another far-right ideologically-driven decision—is part of the Republican far-right majority’s agenda: Make America 1883 Again.

Like most people on the centre and left of US politics, I have zero respect for the far-right Republican majority of the court, precisely because they’ve worked so very hard to destroy the court’s reputation: Instead of standing up for justice and fairness and for ordinary people, and instead of ruling in accordance with the law and the US Constitution, the far-right Republicans are instead engaged in “comforting the comfortable and afflicting the afflicted,” as journalist Ian Millhiser put in the subtitle of his 2015 book Injustices

The Court’s latest ideologically-driven decision, 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis (21-476) [PDF of the decision], involved a fundamentalist “christian” web designer who thought one day she might like to create wedding websites, but her religious views compelled her to refuse to create a website for a same-gender couple, in the event she ever started providing such services, of course, and if a theoretical same-gender couple ever tried to hire her services. While the supposed “injury” to her was entirely hypothetical, she sued the State of Colorado, anyway—well, the ultra-far-right “Alliance Defending [sic] Freedom [lol]" sued on her behalf.

The extremist group has long shopped around for “victims” they can represent in their constant efforts to overturn all legal protections for LGBT+ people—and everyone else they don’t like. They have several suits at various stages of litigation at any given time, and it’s entirely likely that when the Court’s the far-right Republican majority inevitably strikes down Obgergefell v. Hodges, Lawrence v. Texas, Griswold v. Connecticut—and possibly even Loving v. Virginia—the A”D”F will be behind it one way or another.

What’s extraordinary about this decision, and two others just released, is that there was no one who had suffered actual legal “injury” that needed to be remedied. Instead, the Court decided to “afflict the afflicted” in order to “comfort the comfortable” by imposing their own ideological agenda onto everyone else. That could not possibly be more obvious than in this particular case.

When the plaintiff’s firm filed the lawsuit against Colorado, there was no possibility of harm because she wasn’t doing the sort of work she didn’t want to have to do for people she objected to. It’s clear that Colorado didn’t think she had legal standing to sue the state, and part way through the process it emerged that, allegedly, someone named “Stewart” had contacted her through her website’s contact form to try to hire her web services for his marriage to his “husband”. The problem was, the whole thing was faked by someone: He had been married to a woman for 15 years, and even if he was gay, he was actually a designer himself, so he wouldn’t need her services. He also had no idea his name and details had been used in a Supreme Court case.

The plaintiff's legal team claimed, “it’s undisputed that the request was received,” however, it appears that no proof of that has been made public. Still, assuming it really did happen—and, to be clear, it may have happened—it proves nothing whatsoever. The lawyer suggested it could have been a troll, which is possible, but that raises questions, like, who did it and what was their motivation? Mischief or malice? Was it done to strengthen the web designer’s case? We’ll never know because at no point did anyone ever check to see if it was a legitimate request, which is… odd. A legitimate request may have actually bolstered her case if she refused, but not even checking to find out if the request was legitimate just sounds… odd.

The lawyers claimed it wasn’t actually part of the case, anyway, which is technically true (at least, from their perspective), but the fact remains that the one thing that could have suggested real potential “injury” to the plaintiff was never vetted. Even so, the lawyers were happy to continue using the apparently faked contact, arguing after the ruling that “any claim that [the web designer] will never receive a request to create a custom website celebrating a same-sex ceremony is no longer legitimate because [the designer] has received such a request.” Did she, though? And if so, how do we know it wasn’t from a supporter trying to shore up her legally non-existent argument? This just sounds like spin. Obviously, either side in a political dispute like this may try to spin the results to their benefit, but that doesn’t make claims of relevancy valid. [See also: "Legitimacy of ‘customer’ in Supreme Court gay rights case raises ethical and legal flags" by Alanna Durkin Richer and Colleen Slevin, Associated Press]

This same thing—litigants who haven’t experienced any actual legal “injury” runs through two other recent decisions. In Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College (20-1199) [PDF of the decision], which overturned affirmative action in university admissions, the driver was a long-time agitator against affirmative action, not a student. Similarly, in Biden v. Nebraska et al (22-506) [PDF of the decision], the decision that stopped President Biden from forgiving some student loan debt, the supposedly injured parties—six Republican-controlled states—were not actually injured (except for their feelings, perhaps). One state agency that handles student loans didn’t want to be part of the lawsuit (not the least because they stood to make more money if the debt relief plan had been permitted), but was forced into it, anyway, by Republican state officials who used their power to act on behalf of the plaintiff because it was a state agency. In all three of these cases, dubious—at best—speculative claims were accepted by the Court’s Republican far-right majority as legitimate and as good reasons to further erode the rights and freedom of ordinary people in order to, yet again, comfort the comfortable—and to advance a far-right Republican agenda.

For the web designer’s case, the whole rightwing argument was, as it has been in similar cases, about supposed “speech”: They argue that forcing a fundamentalist “christian” to “participate” in a same-gender wedding requires the creative professional to make “symbolic speech” in support of something they oppose on religious grounds. As someone who has worked in creative industries for decades, I think this argument is profoundly stupid: They’re hired to do a job, end of story.

The real issue here is that the rightwing wants their particular religious beliefs to always cancel out the human and civil rights of people they don’t “agree with”, which, of course, is code for, shall we say, “people they dislike very much”. I think that’s stupid, too, because it only ever works in one direction: If a graphic designer, photographer, cake baker, florist, or other creative professional refused to provide services to an opposite-gender fundamentalist “christian” couple because it would mean providing “symbolic speech” endorsing the couple’s religious views that ran counter to the creative professional’s, I feel certain that the current Supreme Court would never permit that objection. Turnabout is not fair play—it’d be prohibited.

The court’s far-right Republican majority is doing the one thing that Republicans have long pretended was an unpardonable sin: They’re legislating from the bench [See: “The Supreme Court’s conservatives are doing exactly what they claim to detest” by MSNBC Columnist Michael A. Cohen]. They’re doing this legislating from the bench in order to force a hard-core ideologically-driven agenda onto everyone. In so doing, the court’s far-right Republican majority is reversing decades of slow, often tortured and halting, progress toward more fairness, equity, and safety for ordinary people, and are instead working hard to raise elites above ordinary Americans—and ordinary people are very ones who  need the protection of the Constitution.

So, yet again, the Supreme Court’s Republican far-right majority has dismantled a bit more of the civil and human rights of LGBTQ+ people. This is far from the last time they’ll do that, and each attack will be just as ideologically driven. This is why defeating all Republicans everywhere is, for now, the only hope for saving democracy, the Constitution, and the rule of law. The Supreme Court’s Republican far-right majority has yet again reminded us: Elections have consequences.

Abhorrent law is dead—but the zombie may return

Today, President Biden signed HR8404, the “Respect for Marriage Act,” repealing the last of remnant of the infamous federal law, the Defense [sic] of Marriage Act (DOMA). The new law also provides certainty for married same-gender and inter-racial married couples. How long that will last is the question now.

There were two reasons this law was urgent. First, the far-right extremist Republicans on the US Supreme Court will probably overturn Obergefell v. Hodges, the 2015 ruling that established the right to same-gender marriage throughout the USA, and they may also overturn Loving v. Virginia, the 1967 ruling that established the right to interracial marriage. If they do, then the new law ensures that all US states will be required to recognise same-gender and interracial marriages performed in other states, even if a state decides to outlaw such marriages being performed in their states.

Another important aspect is that the new law ensures that such marriages will be legal under federal law for federal matters—taxes, inheritance, medical care, immigration, etc. This is another ring of protection for same-gender and interracial marriage.

However—and there’s always a “but” central to any talk of progress for justice and fairness in the USA—all of this may still be undone, and we can be absolutely certain that Republicans will at least make a show of trying. It’s what the party now is and does.

First, the far-right Republican radicals on the Supreme Court could breach the bulwark the new law provides by giving states permission to refuse recognition of marriages legal in other states but not their own. They could do this when they overturn Obergefell, but I doubt that they would do that specifically if they overturn Loving (because of optics, not just because Clarence Thomas is in an interracial marriage). More than likely, they’d seek to do that when overturning Obergefell and then just allow it to apply to interracial couples, too (if they overturn Loving).

To be sure, the Supreme Court can’t give states an exemption from the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the US Constitution without effectively declaring that parts of the Constitution itself are “unconstitutional”. That’d be a nonsense, obviously. Instead, they’d be more likely to declare that Congress overstepped its powers (or something similar) in passing the Respect for Marriage Act.

The biggest, most obvious, easiest and fastest threat could come from Congress: It passed the infamous Defense [sic] of Marriage Act (DOMA) in the first place, of course, and it took a somewhat more sensible Supreme Court to overturn part of it—the part that singled out same-gender couples for animus-based discrimination under federal law; equal protection of the law mattered at the time [the case was United States v. Windsor].

If Republicans have unified control of government after the 2024 elections, all they’d need to do is pass a new version of DOMA, repealing the Respect for Marriage Act. If the radical Republican Supreme Court also overturns Obergefell, as seems likely, then states would be free to ban all recognition of same-gender marriage, and such couples would also lose federal recognition, too.

To reiterate what I said when I last talked about this law, “it’s highly improbable that any US state would try to enact an outright ban interracial marriage”. However, political realities could lurch dramatically to the far-right in the future, and that brings up the most important point of all: Elections have consequences.

If Republicans win unified control of government in 2024, the end of marriage equality for same-gender couples will be inevitable. Being legally allowed to marry in rational, reason-based states will mean little if those marriages aren’t recognised—or of if they’re even criminalised—in other states. And if the federal government also refuses to recognise such marriages, then same-gender married couples in free states could become effective prisoners in their state’s island of freedom.

If Republicans get the power to do so, they absolutely will end marriage equality for same-gender couples. They may also end the nationwide right to interracial marriage, too, though they’d never admit that was a goal until they’re in power, unlike ending marriage for same-gender couples in ever state, something they’ve long and proudly promised to do.

As precedent, look at abortion rights: For years Republicans and their evangelical base promised to overturn Roe v. Wade, and far too few people took their threat seriously—until Republicans succeeded in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision. THEN the people who didn’t pay attention to Republicans’ vows suddenly finally understood that Republicans really did intend to make abortion illegal, without exception, in all of the USA, and they now understand that if Republicans get the power to do so, they absolutely will follow through on their promise. Similarly, those same Republicans have always promised to end marriage for same-gender couples, and it’s about damn time people started paying attention. As Maya Angelou is said have put it, "When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time."

Here’s the hope: Republicans are not yet invincible. In this year’s midterm elections they suffered a catastrophic failure in a year in which they SHOULD have had a massive victory. Despite everything in their favour this year, they failed and Democrats had unprecedented success against all the odds. One of the main reasons for that is that Republicans focus ONLY on radicalised divisiveness and culture wars, and have absolutely no policy proposals whatsoever, nor even the tiniest hint of how they might deal with problems facing Americans. This year, voters massively rejected Republicans’ extremism, and the party has responded by doubling down on that extremism. Republican politicians cannot do any differently: "When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time."

The enactment of the Respect for Marriage Act protects couples in an interracial and/or same-gender marriage for now. To prevent Republicans from achieving their goal of destroying such marriages, it will be important to elect only Democrats in the 2024 elections. Republican politicians have shown us who they are over and over and over again. It’s about damn time we believe them. I do.

Imperfect, but still a win

Yesterday, the US Senate voted 61-36 to pass the “Respect for Marriage Act” which will protect same-sex and interracial marriages in the USA from destruction by radical judges on the US Supreme Court. The bill now goes to the US House for it to pass the amended bill. The need to pass the legislation became urgent when the Supreme Court’s radical majority voted to end a 50-year-old constitutional right to abortion, paving the way for more rights to be taken away. The bill is not perfect—no bill ever is—however, it’s still a major victory for fairness, justice, and common sense, which makes it worthy of praise.

The new law, if, as expected, passes the House and is signed by the president, will protect same-gender and interracial marriages, even if the radicals on the Supreme Court overturn rulings that established those rights. To understand what the bill will do, and why it’s necessary, we first need to review how we got to this point.

Ever since the Supreme Court handed down the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, which established a constitutional right to abortion, hardcore conservatives worked and schemed to find a way to overturn it. They slowly packed the Supreme Court with far-right extremist justices, finally adding three more such extremists during the term of the Republican occupant of the White House 2017-2021, done prior to his huge election loss in 2020.

In June of this year, all that cynical political manoeuvring by Republican extremists paid off in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision, which took away the 50-year-old constitutional right to abortion. The radical Republicans emphasised they were far from finished with taking away people’s rights.

The decision, written by Samuel Alito, who has often expressed his utter contempt for anyone who doesn’t share his peculiar far-right religious views, blandly claimed the decision wasn’t related to any other decision, though no rational person believed he actually meant it. He’s used every opportunity to trash all the legal precedents on which the Roe decision was based—and those same precedents also underpinned several other constitutional rights guaranteed by Supreme Court rulings. The relevant decisions, and the rights they guaranteed, now at risk of being overturned are:

Griswold v. Connecticut: The 1965 ruling established the right to use contraception, underpinned by a right to privacy;

Loving v. Virginia: The 1967 ruling established the right to interracial marriage, underpinned by a right to privacy, as well as the Griswold ruling;

Lawrence v. Texas: The 2003 ruling established the right of same-sex couples to have intimate relationships, and was underpinned by a right to privacy, and the Griswold and Loving rulings.

Obergefell v. Hodges: The 2015 ruling established the right to same-gender marriage, underpinned by a right to privacy, as well as the Griswold, Loving, and Lawrence rulings.

Of those rulings, the Respect for Marriage Act will help secure the right to marriage enshrined in both Loving and Obergefell, but will do little to help preserve the right to contraception or private intimate relations, nor can it protect the actual rulings in both Loving and Obergefell. It’s important to note that the radicals on the Supreme Court may still overturn all of those decisions, and that would allow states to make contraception, interracial marriage, private intimate relations, and same-sex marriage illegal in those states. The Respect for Marriage Act can only partially preserve part of the constitutional rights that US citizens now have because of all those rulings that are currently in grave danger.

Here’s how the Respect for Marriage Act can help.

The first thing it will do is repeal the infamous “Defense [sic] of Marriage Act”, a 1996 law that declared in Section 3, “the word 'marriage' means only a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife, and the word 'spouse' refers only to a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or a wife.” Section 3 was ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 2013 in United States v. Windsor, based on the Equal Protection clause of the Constitution, however, the rest of the law remained in place, and Section 2 was a huge threat if Obergefell is overturned:

No State, territory, or possession of the United States, or Indian tribe, shall be required to give effect to any public act, record, or judicial proceeding of any other State, territory, possession, or tribe respecting a relationship between persons of the same sex that is treated as a marriage under the laws of such other State, territory, possession, or tribe, or a right or claim arising from such relationship.

This section was intended to void the Constitution’s Full Faith and Credit Clause as it relates to same-gender marriage. By repealing what’s left of DOMA, same-gender marriages will remain legal, even if the Supreme Court overturns Obergefell.

The Respect for Marriage Act will also require states to recognise legal marriages performed in other states, and they can’t discriminate “on the basis of the sex, race, ethnicity, or national origin of those [married] individuals”, and that “only the law of the jurisdiction applicable at the time the marriage was entered into may be considered,’’ and, further, a marriage performed overseas would also be valid if “the marriage could have been entered into in a State”. This is at the core of the whole issue: The Loving case happened in the first place, after all, because an interracial couple, Richard and Mildred Loving, were married in the District of Columbia, where interracial marriage was legal, and went back to Virginia, where it absolutely was NOT.

What’s going on legally is that the Respect for Marriage Act will enshrine in law that for federal purposes the standard for a valid marriage will be “place of solemnisation” (also called “place of celebration”), not “place of residence”. This means that an interracial or same-gender marriage performed in a state (or foreign country) where it’s legal will have to be recognised as legally married in states where it’s not legal. So, if (when?) the Supreme Court overturns Obergefell, a same-gender couple married in, say, New York will still be legally married if they move to Texas, a state absolutely certain to outlaw same-gender marriage if Obergefell is overturned (assuming their previous ban isn’t automatically reinstated).

There will be many thorns on the path to preserving liberty: A backward state might defy the Respect for Marriage Act and refuse to recognise an out-of-state same-gender marriage, for example, leaving it up to the Supreme Court to enforce it—if, in fact, the radicals do enforce it, because they could strike down the Act, or even just the full faith and credit provision. Or, backward states may simply refuse to recognise a same-gender marriage where one or both of the individuals are citizens of and/or ordinarily resident in their backward state, but travelled to a free state to marry. The Supreme Court might side with such a backward state.

Those risks aside, the Respect Marriage Act is currently the best hope to protect the constitutional right to interracial and same-gender marriage from the radicals on the Supreme Court. A stronger solution would be to pack the Supreme Court with rational, sensible, non-partisan, non-sectarian justices who actually believe in the rule of law and who would be certain to uphold their oath to defend the US Constitution, and so, its protection of individual freedom and liberty. That seems unlikely to happen, which leaves the Respect for Marriage Act as the best option there is until a brighter, saner day in the future when christofascism is defeated.

Some critics are upset about the carve-outs for conservative religionists (specifically allowing them to not participate in same-gender marriages without legal recourse for any couples discriminated against), and, yeah, I completely get that; I personally abhor special rights for rightwing religionists to impose their beliefs on everyone. However, I have ALWAYS believed that taking 75% of what we want now is FAR better than rejecting that and risking losing 100%.

I saw a commentator say that the better option would be to work to amend state constitutions, like a few states are doing on abortion rights. That’s a lovely idea that will do absolutely nothing right now. The Respect for Marriage Act is the only shot we have at preserving, protecting, and defending a nationwide constitutional right to same-gender marriage. If both Obergefell and the Respect for Marriage Act are struck down, same-gender marriage in free states would still be legal. Sure, if the radicals on the Supreme Court threw out Obergefell, Republicans would propose a nationwide legislative ban on same-gender marriage, but promising a nationwide ban on abortions in the wake of the Dobbs decision hurt the party in the recent US Midterm Elections; a clear majority of Americans appears to oppose Republicans’ culture war attempts to destroy constitutional rights and liberties.

Finally, while the Respect for Marriage Act would protect interracial and same-gender marriages, it’s important to note that it’s highly improbable that any US state would try to enact an outright ban interracial marriage: All states that had such laws in 1967 have repealed them (in 2000, Alabama became the last state to repeal a ban on interracial marriage). For that situation to change, things would have to have become very dire, indeed, and there would probably be a long list of threats to liberty and freedom if that was to happen.

The Respect for Marriage Act, then, is currently the best hope for preserving the right of same-gender couples to marry if the radicals on the Supreme Court overturn Obergefell. It doesn’t compel states to perform marriages for same-gender couples, as Obergefell does, but it’s not clear that a federal law could do that. It also has carve-outs for conservative religionists that, while distasteful, are quite common (they exist in many laws around the world, including New Zealand’s). And, of course, it does nothing to preserve the right to access contraception or the right to have intimate personal relations, which are also under threat from the radicals on the Supreme Court, because both of those are beyond the scope of a law about marriage—and any bill protecting both those rights would attract fierce opposition from far-rightwing politicians and lobby groups.

So, yeah, the Respect for Marriage Act is not perfect, however, it’s still a major victory for fairness, justice, and common sense. It’s entirely worthy of praise.

See also: "The fine print of the Respect for Marriage Act" from CNN, which has a really good summation of how far this USA has evolved on the issue.

‘No religious Test shall ever be required’

Times have changed at the Capitol: Some of the holy books for new member’s swearing ins, including a Quran, Buddhist Sutra and Hindu Vera (and two Constitutions for the atheists) pic.twitter.com/KES1JKnqP9

— Matt Laslo (@MattLaslo) January 3, 2019

The US Constitution is very clear and unambiguous: “No religious Test shall ever be required,” it says, “as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.” That’s Article VI, Clause 3 of the US Constitution. Despite all that, some Christians want there to be a very specific qualification for office: Adherence to their religion alone. The Tweet above shows how things are nevertheless starting to change, despite the anti-American attitudes of a few who don’t understand how America's democracy or Constitution works.

The Tweet above is from Matt Laslo, a journalist with VICE, The Daily Beast, NPR, and Rolling Stone, among others, and the photo shows the diversity of religious (or not) texts chosen by US Representatives for their ceremonial re-enactments of their swearing-in yesterday. It’s a small sign that the USA is slowly moving forward, despite those who would stop or reverse that progress.

Naturally, no good deed goes unpunished, and certain Christians went apoplectic. As they always do when their worldview is challenged.

In January 2007, former US Representative Keith Ellison (D-MN, now the state’s Attorney General-elect) was sworn in as the US House’s first Muslim Member of Congress, and he chose Thomas Jefferson’s 1734 copy of the Koran. Some Christians and conservatives criticised him for that. One crackpot Republican issued a breathless fundraising letter declaring that Ellison’s use of the Koran threatened "the values and beliefs traditional to the United States of America”. Whatever.

12 years later, US Representative Rashida Tlaib, a newly-elected Democratic Congresswoman from Detroit, announced that she, too, would use Jefferson’s copy of the Koran. The headline for a piece on Patheos accurately said “Christian Heads Explode” when they heard the news. Many of the responses were flat out unhinged, which is absolutely no surprise, but some responses overall have indicated an extreme ignorance of how US democracy, and its Constitution, works.

It’s important to note that the ceremonial swearing-in is merely that: Ceremonial, a photo op, and nothing more. The actual and official swearing in of House Members is done en masse—swearing in 435 Members individually would take forever. Absolutely NO religious text of any kind is used for the official swearing in. None. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Afterward, Representatives pose for a photo with their partner or other chosen person holding the book of their choice.

It is unconstitutional, and therefore illegal, to compel ANYONE holding office in the United States to profess a belief in or opposition to any religion, or to compel them to use ANY religious text when taking that oath. Similarly, no one can be compelled to say “so help me god” at the end of their oath—and that includes the US president, of course.

The main reason for all this is that Article VI of the Constitution prohibits ANY religious test for any public office. It, combined with the Establishment Clause in the First Amendment, means that no person can be compelled to adhere to or oppose any religious belief system or symbols, including religious texts.

Initially, the prohibition applied only to federal offices, but two Supreme Court decisions changed all that. The first was Everson v. Board of Education (1947), in which the Court ruled 5-4 that the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause applied to the states, not just the Federal government.

The second case was a unanimous 1961 decision, Torcaso v. Watkins, which built on the Everson decision, making clear that the First Amendment and Fourteenth Amendment banned ALL religious tests for all public offices, whether federal or state.

Taken together, Article VI, Clause 3 of the Constitution, the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, along with the Everson and Torcaso decisions make the prohibition of all religious tests for public office absolute and unambiguous. This is not up for debate.

Instead, the “debate”, so-called, can only be on whether this ought to be the fact for the USA. Here, too, the answer is clear and unambiguous: Yes, this ought to be the case, and no religious test can ever be allowed.

Certain Christians live with the myth that the USA was founded as a “Christian nation”, which is utter nonsense, of course, as history clearly documents. But the myth nevertheless makes some Christians feel they’re losing “their” country when their religion isn’t, and never was, mandatory. They can’t seem to grasp that nothing has changed except that people being elected to various offices in the USA are becoming more diverse in their beliefs, which everyone ought to be able to agree is an undeniably good thing.

Naturally, some people cannot or simply will not agree that it’s a good thing. There’s a lot of “whataboutism” that follows whenever anyone asserts the fundamental Constitutional principle of freedom of religious belief—which also includes non-belief, obviously. Certain Christians, so-called, like to say that such-and-such religion is automatically “anti-American” and, therefore, all of its adherents are, too. Using that same logic, however, all Christians would have to be seen as “anti-American” because some of them wish to oppress and exclude people they see as in conflict with Christianity (this isn’t even getting into the extremist minority of Christians who want to imprison or even execute those they see as apostates). From a purely rational perspective, there is no difference if their logic is to be used, well, logically.

That’s precisely why the Founders of the USA put religious freedom into the First Amendment and prohibited religious tests within the Constitution itself. They knew about all the centuries of bloodshed that had happened because of religious conflict, and that even the USA’s parent, England, had experienced it because it had an established religion that at various points oppressed—sometimes violently—those who believed differently. They wanted the new United States to be able to avoid those centuries-old religious hatreds.

So, when certain Christians melt down because a duly and democratically elected official chooses to be sworn in on anything other than a copy of the Christian Bible, including copies of the US Constitution (which, full disclosure, would be my personal choice) or even law books, they’re the ones being un-American and even anti-American. It doesn’t matter in the least what they think of the fact that the USA has enshrined religious freedom (the real and genuine kind, not the fake kind extremist Christians promote as a way to allow them to discriminate against those they hate). It doesn’t matter what their feelings are, nor whether they’re personally offended or upset that someone doesn’t use their Bible in a ceremonial photo op. The law and the Constitution are very clear that their feelings are irrelevant.

There is an extreme irony here. Obviously those who really do believe that the USA ought to become a “Christian nation”, or that only Christians should be allowed to hold elected office, etc., are absolutely free to express those beliefs. They’re also free to vote for candidates who believe the same thing, or to run for office themselves. And, if elected, such a person is free to try to advance that belief into law. But the reason all those freedoms exist in the USA is because of the same parts of the US Constitution, and the very same Supreme Court decisions, that established that people have both freedom of belief and freedom from religious tests.

Freedom means freedom for all, or it’s not freedom at all. Freedom to choose what text one uses when sworn into elected office is no different.

Related: "Faith on the Hill – The religious composition of the 116th Congress" from Pew Research

The coming defeat

Tomorrow, unless a miracle happens, the United States and its democracy will suffer a huge defeat when the most UN-qualified Supreme Court nominee in US history is approved by the narrowest possible margin. It will take generations to undo the damage the Republicans are about to do to the Republic—if it can ever be fixed. But if democracy in the United States is to survive, it will require a massive victory by Democratic candidates at the federal, state, and local levels. That alone will save the USA.

The victory of extremist Republican Brett Kavanaugh was assured when Maine’s Republican Senator, Susan Collins, indicated she’d vote for the Republican Supreme Court nominee, as everyone knew all along she would. Collins has often claimed that upholding Rove v. Wade was non-negotiable for her, but if she was ever telling the truth about that, she was certainly lying this time: It is an absolute certainty that Kavanaugh will vote to overturn Roe as soon as possible. And it will be her fault—some legacy!

Collins’ betrayal was so keenly felt that a site set up to collect pledges of money for a primary challenger to Collins in 2020 crashed within minutes of her announcement. Hopefully, she won’t run again in 2020.

Meanwhile, Act Blue is already raising money for the eventual Democratic challenger to Collins in 2020. Americans of conscience need to give generously to that campaign, because getting a Democrat in that seat is more important than defeating her in a primary.

“Democratic” US Senator from West Virginia, Joe Manchin, also announced he’d vote for the Republican Supreme Court nominee. A conservative, Manchin was always assumed to be voting for the Republican, but it was thought that if Collins, Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski and Arizona’s Jeff Flake, all Republicans, had voted against Kavanaugh, Manchin might join them and the Republican might lose. Murkowski voted “No” on cloture, but has since said she’ll vote “Present” on the actual vote, effectively a “yes” in this case.

Flake is the real odd one in this group. Swayed by protesters, he backed an FBI investigation, but what eventuated was set up by Republicans to ensure that the truth would never be found out—until after Kavanaugh is on the bench. Numerous private individuals have come forward to say publicly that Kavanaugh lied under oath in his testimony, but the FBI didn’t talk with any of them—because Republicans wouldn’t let them.

Even so, Flake is leaving the Senate, and the current occupant of the White House has relentlessly bullied him. He has absolutely NO reason to remain loyal to the Trumpublican Party, so why not go out with an act of defiance? I won’t say why I think it is he’s folding because it’s a harsh judgement of his character, which I suspect is missing.

So, that appears to be that. Republicans will get a hard-right extremist majority on the Supreme Court for many, many years to come. If Republicans retain the US Senate in the midterm elections, the party will order Clarence Thomas to retire from the Court so they can replace him with an even more hard-right extremist justice. If any of the four remaining moderate justices retire or die with Republicans in control of the Senate, It would lock-in radical rightwing control of the Court for more than a generation, and that could utterly destroy democracy in the USA.

However, if Democrats regain control of the Senate and any justice retires or dies, then they should use the Mitch McConnell rule and hold any seat open until after the next presidential election. The precedent has been set, and Democrats must use it.

The most important thing of all is also the hardest: Defeat Republicans at every election possible. It’s not just the US House and Senate, but also state legislatures and governorships. The more Democrats are elected, the harder it will be for Republicans to force their extremist agenda on ordinary Americans, even with the Republican-controlled Supreme Court trying to do so.

This is the last chance to save America, and the slogan is now a simple one: Save America—Vote for Democrats.

Republicans’ Constitutional gamble

Every day we can see political memes shared on Facebook. Most of them don’t bother to provide a source, which makes it much harder to verify the claims made. For me, that generally means I just ignore whatever the meme is, but I decided to check out one I saw today (at left). It turns out, it’s true.

The meme talks about a pending Supreme Court case, Gamble v United States, and one possible implication is exactly what the meme suggests: It could wipe out two centuries of legal tradition in the USA and, oh, you know, just purely coincidentally, of course, make it possible for the co-conspirators of the current occupant of the White House to avoid ANY prosecution for their crimes if the current occupant pardons them.

However, for the current occupant, it’s not really about his co-conspirators, it’s about his family. Assuming that his kids and/or son-in-law are indicted and convicted of crimes, the current occupant could pardon them and ensure they’d face no charges in state courts, either. It would be the ultimate “get out of jail free” card.

Curiously, on September 11 troglodyte Republican US Senator Orrin Hatch filed an amicus brief arguing in favour of the position that would help the current occupant. In a piece in The Atlantic—“A Supreme Court Case Could Liberate Trump to Pardon His Associates”—an employee of Hatch “denied that his brief was inspired by the Mueller investigation”, though that’s clearly not actually true, because that’s exactly what this is all about and we all know it.

And that’s one of the reasons Republicans want to ram their guy’s nomination through the Senate as quickly as possible. That, and the certainty that he’d rule that a sitting president cannot be indicted (if they’re Republican…) means that all hope of bringing the current occupant to justice would be cut off.

That’s on top of the radical rightwing agenda they all know he’ll help them lock in for at least a generation.

Confirming the Republican extremist to the Court is key to everything they all want. We must all hope they never get what they want.

I have no idea who originally made the meme above, so I can't give them credit.

That viral mash-up meme

The very brief video above is a copy of a viral video apparently shared originally on Facebook, and it’s a mash-up of Kavanaugh's testimony with the hamburger scene From Pulp Fiction, complete with “naughty” words. Apparently, no one knows who made it originally, but the video made a lot of people laugh at a time they needed it most.

Let’s be clear: The video doesn’t tell us any truths, doesn’t reveal any new information—or any information at all. Instead, it just takes two unrelated things and throws them together in a way that makes people laugh—though I bet that some Republicans might not think it’s funny, convinced that Democrats/Liberals/whatever are being mean to them. This isn’t actually partisan as we normally understand or use that term, but is the sort of topical parody that once was common in the days before everyone, Right and Left, became such delicate flowers.

If we really wanted to mock Republicans and their bald attempts to fix the confirmation process in their favour, we might point out that someone using a computer in offices of the US House of Representatives edited a Wikipedia page in an attempt to make it match the falsehood Kavanaugh said in his testimony that’s since become a huge topic of mockery all over the Internet.

Whatever, the meme’s just funny.

Justice begins

This is an important moment for New Zealand: Today Justice Minister Andrew Little announced that the first two men convicted under now repealed laws against men having sex have had their criminal convictions expunged—it’s as if the convictions never happened. It won’t take away the pain or suffering caused by the injustice, but it is nevertheless a huge step forward.

The Criminal Records (Expungement of Convictions for Historical Homosexual Offences) Act 2018 received its First Reading in Parliament on 6 July 2017, which I blogged about at the time. The bill had its third and final reading on 3 April 2018, and Royal Assent on the ninth of that month.

When I talked about the bill’s First Reading last year, I noted:

“The convicted men would be obligated to reveal their conviction for any number of reasons, such as applying for some jobs or for visas to visit foreign countries. Having the law on the books also left gay men open to blackmail and extortion.”

In the USA, expungement is even more important, because the men convicted under the archaic laws were usually required to register as sex offenders. Many of them are elderly now: Imagine an elderly man applying to live in an assisted living facility, and when they ask if he’s a registered sex offender, he’d have to answer yes, and be denied. All US states need to expunge these wrongful convictions.

However, there’s a problem here, beyond politicians’ reluctance to right historic wrongs, and that’s the fact that things could easily go backwards if the Republicans get to install one or two more extreme radical rightwingers onto the US Supreme Court.

In 2003, the US Supreme Court’s ruling in Lawrence v Texas struck down all remaining state sodomy laws. While some states repealed their laws after the Lawrence ruling, there are some 17 states that have not repealed or appropriately modified their laws to reflect the Lawrence ruling, including three—Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas—that specifically outlaw gay sex. This means that if a future Court reverses Lawrence, those laws will be in force once again. If that happens, free states should refuse to recognise those convictions, since they couldn’t happen in free states.

None of that can happen in New Zealand. The country’s sodomy law was repealed in 1986, and now men convicted under the old can apply to have their records expunged. It is so much better here.

This matters, too

The questions about the current nominee to the Supreme Court are piling up, and the allegations of attempted rape are only among the latest. But those allegations matter a lot, not the least because the hearings next week will tell us a lot about Kavanaugh’s character. But the biggest reason of all for why this matters is that this is a lifetime appointment—there is absolutely no reason to hurry this.

We need to know what happened, and at the moment we have a “she said/he said” situation. We have every reason to believe the victim, while the Republican propaganda on this simply isn’t believable at all.

It is extremely rare for a victim of sexual assault, attempted or actual, to lie about it. In this case, the victim has no reason to lie because she’d get nothing for doing so. In fact, she originally wanted to remain anonymous because she knew the abuse she’d be subjected to, and she was right: The rightwing’s attack machine has been operating at full throttle.

The Republican propaganda has been transparent in its mendacity. I heard Republican Senator Lindsey Graham claim that Republicans had only heard of the allegations a few days ago, and he apparently expects us to believe that’s true; he thinks we’re incredibly stupid. The allegations were made public, and within 24 hours Republicans produce a list of 64 women who, they claimed, knew it was a false allegation. 24 hours to line up all those women, despite name changes in the 36 years since the alleged attempted rape. Right.

Republicans have also tried to make an issue of the fact that Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein was alerted to the letter in July but said nothing. That’s irrelevant. She was protecting the victim who didn’t want to become attacked.

The Republicans have also attacked the fact the victim hired an attorney and took a polygraph test which, they’re trying to imply, was evidence of some sort of plot. That’s defamatory nonsense. She no doubt realised that sooner or later her identity would be revealed (not the least because Washington leaks like a sieve), and she needed protection. She has no firm evidence, apart from telling her husband and a therapist some six years ago, so the polygraph was a good idea. Would Kavanaugh be willing to take a polygraph on this?

There are other issues that should be settled before the Senate votes. There are millions of pages of documents that the White House flat out refuses to release. They’re being sued on that right now, but the wheels of justice grind slowly, even when justice is at stake. However, there are already allegations that Kavanaugh may have lied to the Senate Judiciary Committee, and the documents the White House is hiding may well provide evidence of perjury. No one can know without looking at those documents.

We know for sure that the hearing on Monday could well prove to be the single decisive moment in this battle. He’s adamant it never happened, and denied it even though the victim never said where, precisely, the alleged rape happened. If he follows that line and it’s proven that he was there, that undermines everything he’s said about it.

If he attacks the victim, especially if he belittles the lasting effects of such a crime against a 15 year old, that will create a huge public backlash mere weeks before the midterm elections. This is not 1991, and neither Republicans nor Kavanaugh can afford to do this victim what Republicans and Clarence Thomas did to Anita Hill back then. Even the newsmedia is seeing the “Echoes of Anita Hill in allegations against Kavanaugh”.

Republicans definitely want this to all just go away—the old white men who run their party didn’t want there to be any hearings on the allegations, and they had to be shamed into it (though troglodyte Senator Orrin Hatch apparently didn’t get the change of strategy memo fast enough).

Democrats want to stop the nomination, as anyone paying even the barest attention knows. But Republicans’ attempt to spin that fact into an imaginary “plot” to somehow “sully” Kavanaugh is flat out offensive. The victim must be heard, and even Republicans know that—sort of.

There’s no way to know how this will end. Republicans may very well steamroll over all opposition and all the serious questions about the nominee’s character to ram the confirmation through the Senate. Or, they may decide doing so will cause too much damage to their party’s chances in the midterms, and they may delay action until the lame duck session following the elections, underhanded as that would be.

But the bottom line is still this: It’s a lifetime appointment. We have every right to fully judge the nominee, and so far the Republicans have done everything in their power to ensure that can’t happen. It’s about time we found out the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

They call him a flipper

The news that the former campaign manager for the 2016 Republican candidate has flipped, pleading guilty to the charges against him in a plea deal that guarantees full cooperation with the Mueller investigation, is likely to prove to be far more important than many people realise. The unindicted co-conspirator in the Oval Office must be wearing clothes soaked in sweat. He should be.

Manafort knows the full details of the Republican campaign’s collusion with the Russian government. He knows what happened before the infamous meeting at Trump Tower, and he was at that meeting and can attest to what really happened. Don Jr. and Jared should be worried.

Manafort also single-handedly chose Mike Pence to be the Republican Vice Presidential nominee. Why? Why Pence, specifically? Manafort—who was doing the bidding of the Russian government—knows. Pence went on to completely direct the transition, including who would take on what jobs. Pence should be worried, and many of those same officials still in office should be worried, too.

In the run-up to the 2016 Republican National Convention, the campaign changed one—and ONLY one—item in the Republican Platform, and that was a plank on Ukraine, which they wanted changed to a pro-Russian position (a 180-degree change). The platform was changed. Paul Manafort was responsible for the change, so he’ll know why it was the only thing they cared about. Everyone in the current regime, potentially, should be worried.

Meanwhile, the former personal lawyer of the current occupant of the White House has pled guilty and is also cooperating with federal investigators. Everyone in the Trump organisation and family should be shit scared about that, because he knows where all the bodies are buried, so to speak.

So far, every single one of the people charged in connection with the Mueller investigation has pled guilty, and any of them who know anything material are also fully cooperating with federal investigators. This cannot end well for the unindicted co-conspirator in the Oval Office, but how, exactly, will it end?

It is unlikely to be impeachment. Even if Democrats re-take the US House of Representatives, where impeachment begins, they will not have the votes in the US Senate to remove him from office, even if they take control of that body, too.

However, that could change if Democrats take control of the US House and their thorough investigations turn up more damning information about the corruption and criminality of the current regime. That could be enough to convince Republicans to act against the current occupant—or to use if for political justification for acting.

It’s also possible—probable, in fact—that the Congressional investigations will cause the current occupant to launch into increasingly, unhinged tantrums and even more bizarre behaviour than usual, and that could embolden Pence and the cabinet he installed to remove the current occupant under the 25th Amendment. This is not as difficult to do as some pundits have been saying in media reports, but would be easier if Republicans in Congress overwhelmingly back it, and if they can lay out a convincing case that “the president is absolutely nuts”, they just may get away with it.

The Republicans need only two more things from this regime and its leader. First, the confirmation to the Supreme Court of their ultra rightwing extremist, and that will happen before the November elections. He, in turn, is absolutely guaranteed to help overturn reproductive choice in the USA, as well as to cement the power of corporations over real people, both of which are top priorities for the Republicans and the tiny numbers in the special interests they actually serve. Their Supreme Court pick is also a sure vote to prevent the current occupant of the White House from being indicted for his crimes while in office, which could buy them time to make the case to remove him.

The second thing Republicans in Congress want to do is to make their tax cut scam permanent, to keep taxes cut for the rich and for corporations, while allowing taxes to go back up for working people and middle class people. They’ll wait to do this in the lame duck session after the midterms, if the Democrats win, or any time after that if they don’t (though it may still be in the lame duck session to inoculate incoming Republicans from voter backlash in 2020). This is also certain to happen.

One option that could be off the table is resignation. The current occupant’s malignant narcissistic personality disorder could well prevent him from agreeing to resign. However, if Democrats start making the case for impeachment, he may agree to go in exchange for a pardon to protect him from federal prosecution, though it would do nothing to protect him from charges in the several states where he’s done business.

The Republicans’ actions will be dictated on calculations of how much damage acting against the unindicted co-conspirator will do to them with the frothing fanatical fans of their party’s current leader, weighed against how much damage NOT acting will do to them with the VAST majority of voters who are not Republican. This is why a convincing case that “the president is absolutely nuts” is so important for them.

Failing that, they’ll have to try to continue the flow of negative propaganda on their party’s TV channel, Fox “News”, in order to try and turn Republicans’ opinions against their leader. That would take a lot of work.

For Democrats, there’s a positive aspect to not being able to remove the current occupant from office: To fix all the damage the current regime has done, it will take a massive change in Congress, and 2020 will be better for that. The current occupant’s inevitable unhinged tantrums and even more bizarre behaviour than usual will help Democrats win in 2020. Meanwhile, Democrats will be in a position to block all of the current occupant’s worst legislative agenda impulses, and to preserve, protect, and defend the US Constitution—and the republic itself.

Ultimately, what happens will depend on two things. First, what information, precisely, will Manafort and the others provide to investigators? That could speed everything up by emboldening Republicans to act. Second, what will happen in the midterm elections? The stronger the position of Democrats in the new Congress, the more likely an early resolution will be.

There is only one thing that is absolutely certain beyond any doubt: It’s time to pop the popcorn, because this show is about to get really interesting.

Photo above assumed to be by Logicaldisaster~commonswiki (based on copyright claims). [GFDL or CC-BY-SA-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons.

Toward better Supreme Court nominees

The upcoming debate over the nomination to the Supreme Court will be epic. Those of us who are opposed are adamantly opposed, and the folks in favour have too much to gain to offer anything other than fevered, fervent support along with bullying of opponents. It really doesn’t have to be that way.

A real-life friend posted something on Facebook that struck a chord with me:

Am I the only one who thinks that the Supreme Court should be totally Bi Partisan? No Liberal and No Conservative, No Republican, No Democrat. They should prove that they make decisions based on right and wrong and leave their personal biases at the door when they put on their robes. That should be the litmus test of how we select who gets on the Supreme Court. Then it wouldn't matter who selects them because we would have selected honorable people who hold the Constitution to a higher standard.

In a perfect world, Supreme Court justices would be NON-partisan, not bi-partisan, and they would interpret the Constitution according to the rule of law, not politics. But the reality is that that ship sailed decades ago when Ronald Reagan nominated the hyper-partisan ideologue Robert Bork to the Supreme Court. He was responsible for implementing Richard Nixon’s “Saturday Night Massacre”, the event that assured Nixon would have been impeached and then removed from office if he hadn’t resigned. [See also "Not borked", my recollections about the battle to stop Bork].

Supreme Court nominations have been more or less politicised ever since Reagan, with presidents looking, at the very least, for nominees who can be confirmed, not who is the best possible candidate. Things are worse now than ever, with the current terrible purely political nominee being a prime example of that.

Senate Majority Leader, Republican Mitch McConnell, weaponised Supreme Court nominations when he flat out refused to allow Merrick Garland to get a fair hearing in the Senate because he wanted only a Republican President to be able to nominate someone. In fact, McConnell and every senior Republican in the Senate vowed that if Hillary Clinton was elected president in 2016 they would refuse to consider ANY Supreme Court nominee from her, ever. That’s just pure partisan political gameplaying, and it betrays the Constitution and the American people.

So, the precedent of Supreme Court nominations being nothing but hyperpartisan games has now been set. Given the precedent Republicans have set, Democrats could easily choose to do the same thing if they win control of the Senate in November, and then the Republicans will do it again when they gain control, and so on.

The worst thing is, there’s not much that can be done about it. Going to some sort of merit selection of justices would require changes that are impossible, particularly the need for politicians to give up power. It would probably also require a Constitutional Amendment, something that’s so difficult to do that it’s nearly impossible.

If we change the way the US House is elected to make it better reflect the will of the people, that’s something that will eventually filter up to the Senate. Aside from that, we can hold politicians accountable: We must never—ever—let them get away with talking in slogans or pandering to people’s basest feelings. We must constantly ask them, “how?” How are they’re going to do what they say, because more often than not they—Republicans in particular—can’t answer without resorting to mere slogans and more empty blather.

What I’m saying is simple: If we want a better class of Supreme Court justices, we’re going to have to start with electing a better class of politicians.

And that’s the hardest job of all.

This post is based on a comment I was originally making to my friend’s post. For some reason, Facebook wouldn’t let me post it. It’s here instead, revised and expanded from the original version.

The Constitutional Con

The video above is the latest from Robert Reich and talks about the biggest threat to American democracy. The threat could throw the entire US Constitution out the window, or just some of Americans’ most cherished rights. The most important point about this: Reich's absolutely right.

The USA has never had an Article V constitutional convention, but the clear consensus is that it would be IMPOSSIBLE to control or limit once it's called, not the least because it’s not even clear that limiting the call to only one topic can actually be made binding. Similarly, it’s not clear that states can rescind their request for a convention.

I first heard about this idea in the 1970s when conservatives wanted a "Balanced Budget Amendment" (and they still do). When Congress didn’t act, they called for a convention. During the debate and discussions, and especially by the mid-1980s, it became clear that a constitutional convention couldn't be limited to one topic, and interest in a convention waned. By then I’d begun warning about the dangers of a constitutional convention because it couldn’t be limited, and it posed a very real threat to LGBT+ Americans in what was a very hostile time. Little has changed since then.

Rightwingers, who know what they're really up to, often feign shock when faced with mainstream opposition to a constitutional convention, and ask with fake surprise, "What're you so afraid of?" The answer is obvious: Because delegates would probably be elected within the various states. The US election system is rigged to favour Republicans and the rightwing in general, so that, together with Russian hacking that we still have no defence against, means the convention elected would be skewed pretty dramatically to the Right. And THAT would mean the end of reproductive choice (not just abortion, but probably even most birth control), an end to marriage equality (and possibly reinstatement of laws criminalising gay people), repealing laws protecting racial and ethnic groups from discrimination (in other words, an end to equal justice under law), and establishing the USA as an officially "Christian" nation. The possibilities after that are even more dark, such as, no more freedom of speech or of the press unless licensed/permitted by the government.

The drive for a convention has little to do with the current regime in the White House, but everything to do with the dark forces backing it. Oligarchs like the Koch Brothers want all sorts of Far Rightwing measures enacted that could never happen through normal democratic means, so they know that a constitutional convention is their best shot. That's why the Rightwing wants it, too: Most of what they have on their agenda would never get through the normal democratic processes.

If it came down to a handful of states that rescinded their call for a convention preventing one from being called, it's certain that the Rightwing US Supreme Court would rule that states cannot rescind their call, something that would be an absolute certainty if the Koch’s property is confirmed to the Court as Republicans demand.

All of which is why this threat could result in the end of American democracy.

There is a chance—a very small and remote chance—that normal people might prevail in controlling the convention, and we could enact changes that would horrify the Right every bit as much: Overturning Citizens United, requiring non-partisan commissions to draw election boundaries, abolishing the Electoral College, outlawing "dark money" and all PACs, public financing of Congressional elections, ensuring a firm separation between church and state, common sense gun control, and so on. At the moment, that seems VERY unlikely to happen.

However, if the Right gets the needed number of states on board for a constitutional convention, and the Supreme Court does indeed rule that states cannot rescind their call for a convention, then the ONLY alternative will be to fight like hell to get control of the convention. Success or failure would determine whether the end result is the United States of America or the Republic of Gilead—or maybe many new countries popping up where the USA once was.

With a threat so dire, it’s something that people need to be warned about. We must all do our part to make sure that happens.

As bad as it seems

The retirement of Supreme Court Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy, and the vacancy on the court that it creates, is every bit as bad news as it seems, and it really is quite possibly catastrophic. That doesn’t mean that all hope is lost, however, because there are solutions to protect Americans from a rampaging far-right Supreme Court. But time is running out.

I’ve been warning about this for many, many years, about how elections have consequences and how Democrats and mainstream Independents had one important reason to vote against Republicans: The Supreme Court. Them not bothering to vote in 2014 and 2016 has put the entire country in jeopardy, which is why if they don’t vote in November, then all hope will be lost.

We’re in this mess because in 2014—another Midterm Election like this year—Democrats and mainstream Independents couldn’t be bothered to vote, not even when warned about the Supreme Court, and that cavalier attitude gifted huge victories to Republicans who then blocked a moderate replacement for Antonin Scalia when the hard-right Justice died. We ended up with Neil Gorsuch, who is very far to the right of the hardline Scalia, and without the intellect of Scalia.

We saw the same indifference, this time combined with petulance, in just the right states in 2016, and that helped elect the current occupant of the White House, that darling of the far-right, who then appointed Gorsuch and who will now nominate someone equally as hard-right, or, more likely, far more so. Republicans plan to push through the appointment as quickly as possible, and odds are they will succeed.

That’s how we got into this mess, and we were on track to see a repeat this coming November. There are three issues I particularly care about where this matters—abortion rights, the right to privacy for LGBT people, and marriage equality—but even for these issues it’s not clearcut what this new reality will mean in practice. There are other issues where the danger is MUCH more clear and present.

First, though, those “big three” issues—and pour yourself a cuppa, because this will take awhile.

Roe v. Wade

The mainstream newsmedia has been talking a lot about how Roe v. Wade, often to the exclusion of all other issues that could be affected. To be sure, overturning that 1973 decision has been the MOST IMPORTANT goal of the “Christian” Right that now completely controls the Republican Party. But what happens after that isn’t as clear-cut as either the Left or the Right like to claim.

Prior to Roe, abortion was completely legal in only four states. It was legal under some circumstances in 15 more states: One only in cases of rape, two only in case of danger to the woman’s health, and 12 “in case of danger to woman's health, rape or incest, or likely damaged fetus”, as Wikipedia put it. That means that—in 1973—abortion was totally illegal in 31 states. Since then, however, some states have repealed or modified their abortion bans, including my native Illinois (which was one of the 31 in 1973).

Currently, eight states have “trigger laws” stating that if Roe is overturned, abortion will be completely illegal in their state. A further 27 US states have a “trigger law” that will ban so-called “late-term abortions”. That means that, thanks to the “trigger laws”, some 35 US states will make abortion completely or partially illegal the moment Roe is overturned. Interestingly, and unusually these days, Illinois’ current Republican Governor Bruce Rauner signed a bill that ensures abortion remains legal in the Illinois if Roe is overturned, but also, and rather extraordinarily, also allows “women with Medicaid and state-employee health insurance to use their coverage for abortions.”

As it is right now, though, US state abortion laws are a patchwork with all sorts of restrictions and impediments added to try and make abortions almost impossible to get. Some of these restrictions might remain in place even if the state doesn’t have a “trigger law”.

Part of the underpinning of Roe was the decision in Griswold v. Connecticut (1965), the ruling thart first established the right to privacy. While Griswold itself is safe for now, it, too could be challenged in the future. My bet, however, is that Griswold won’t be challenged, but Roe will be overturned.

Strategy for the centre and left: Elect liberals and moderates to state legislatures and as governors, because when Roe is overturned, the battles will be in state capitals. In some of the states in question, this will be extremely difficult, or even impossible.

Right to privacy for LGBT people

Lawrence v. Texas (2003) struck down anti-sodomy laws throughout the USA. The laws, even if rarely enforced, provided potential justification for harassment of and discrimination against LGBT people, gay men in particular. At the time of repeal, 15 states still criminalised consensual sex between people of the same gender (and, usually, the same activity by heterosexuals). Of those, only four states have since repealed their bans, which means that should Lawrence be overturned, 11 states would re-criminalise consensual sexual relations between adults, and two of those only criminalise sex between same-gender couples. Overturning this decision has never been a top priority for most of the Right precisely because of the few states it would affect, but it’s nevertheless one of their goals and the Right will look to do it after their big two.

Part of the underpinning of this case, as it was for Roe, was the decision in Griswold v Connecticut. The Lawrence ruling overturned Bowers v. Hardwick, the 1986 ruling that found, in essence, that gay people had no right to privacy. Because Lawrence overturned Bowers, it’s unlikely that Lawrence would be overturned, however, it could be a very specific overturn, say, lowering the bar for states to show a “compelling interest” in making it a crime for consenting gay adults to have sex.

Strategy for the centre and left: Elect liberals and moderates to state legislatures and as governors, because if Lawrence is overturned in whole or in part, the battle will shift to state capitals. In some of the states in question, this will be extremely difficult, or even impossible, given their anti-gay animus.

Marriage equality

After overturning Roe, overturning Obergefell v. Hodges, the 2015 ruling that established marriage equality in all 50 states, is at the absolute top of the Right’s agenda. At the time of the Obergefell ruling, 35 US states licensed marriages for same-gender couples. At the same time, seven states still had bans on the books, at three had partial bans. The remaining five states had bans that had been overturned, but the decision was stayed indefinitely.

If Obergefell is overturned entirely, the bans in those seven states would go back into effect, and the stay on the five would have to be revisited, meaning those states could be embroiled in court action for years, however, if the cases got to the Supreme Court, it’s reasonable to expect that all 15 states that had some sort of ban in place or in limbo would ultimately get their bans reinstated. That doesn’t mean, however, that states might not then choose to enact marriage equality, and some would.

The bigger issue is federal recognition, because of United States v. Windsor, the 2013 case in which the Supreme Court ruled that Section 3 of the infamous “Defense” of Marriage Act was unconstitutional because it restricted federal marriage benefits to married opposite-gender couples only. By then several states had enacted marriage equality, and that meant there were gay US citizens being denied the rights of marriage available to opposite-gender couples living right next door.

If Obergefell is overturned, then Windsor could be, too, but I think that’s unlikely. I think what’s more likely to happen is that the federal government would change its definition of marriage to recognise only “place of domicile”, rather than the current standard for most federal policies and rights, “place of celebration”. That matters because with Obergefell gone, and marriage for same-gender couples re-banned in some states, married same-gender people living in those states would then lose their federal rights under law, including taxation, immigration, and other issues. To the Radical Right, taking away the legal rights of marriage for some gay people is better than nothing, even as they work to repeal marriage equality at the state level.

Obergefell is strongly underpinned by the Lawrence decision, as well as Griswold. If either of those two are overturned, Obgergefell is on far shakier ground. My hunch is that neither Lawrence nor Griswold will be challenged for now, but Obergefell will be and will likely be overturned, or be so limited as to be effectively overturned.

Strategy for the centre and left: Elect liberals and moderates to state legislatures and as governors, because if Obergefell is overturned in whole or in part, the battle will shift to state capitals. As with the other issues, in some of the states in question, this will be extremely difficult, or even impossible, given their anti-gay animus. However, for this issue electing liberals and moderates to Congress and as President is important for ensuring that “place of celebration” is the standard used to recognise marriages under federal law, and to ensure that married same-gender couples aren’t discriminated against by the federal government.

Other issues with a clear and present danger

Voter suppression: The current Court has been moving toward endorsing Republican voter suppression efforts—basically, their legislative plot to keep poor non-whites, who usually vote Democratic, from being able to vote. A far more conservative Court will make it easier for Republicans.

Gerrymandering: This is what allows Republicans, a minority party, to have power far beyond its small numbers. The courts were starting to fight back, the current Court was starting to move toward allowing it. Expect a hard-right Court to allow Republican gerrymandering.

Economic rights: A more hard-right Court is likely to expand the power of corporations, to greatly accelerate the weakening of unions, and to allow rollbacks of health, safety, and even environmental protections, all because corporations want all that.

Expanded discrimination: It is inevitable that a hard-right Court will rule that people and businesses can discriminate against LGBT+ people as long as they can pretend they’re doing it for “sincerely held religious beliefs”, and this is regardless of whether or not Obergefell or Lawrence have been overturned. Eventually, even that religious pretense won’t be needed. The question here is how far the Court will go in allowing other people to be discriminated against: Race? Religion (or lack of)? National origin? The list is actually endless, and just needs the right case.

The biggest threats remaining

Two of the four “liberal” justices are quite old, and may not live or wish to serve until a rational president takes office in 2020 or 2024: Ruth Bader Ginsburg is 85, and Stephen Breyer is 79. If the current regime gets to replace them, too, the court will have SEVEN far-right justices against only TWO rational opponents, Sonia Sotomayor (65), and Elena Kagan (58). And, it would be that way for a generation or more.

On the other hand, rightwing judge Clarence Thomas is 81. If he was to die or retire when a Democrat was president with a Senate controlled by the Democrats, then this could swing the balance back toward the moderates, as well as make it safe for Ginsburg or Breyer to retire. But that doesn’t help until January 2021, when we can replace the current occupant of the White House with a sane and rational replacement—although that assumes the current occupant loses a reelection bid, which is by no means a sure thing.

Also, there’s also no guarantee that, seeing the writing on the wall, Thomas won’t retire before 2020 to assure the rightwing majority continues. It is absolutely certain that if the Republicans retain control of the US Senate after the November elections, then the most powerful rightwingers in the USA will pressure Thomas to retire as soon as possible so they can hedge their bets and make sure they keep the Court rightwing.

So, the strategy for the centre and left: Elect Democrats to the US House of Representatives and the US Senate this November to ensure that if a vacancy happens before 2020, Republicans won’t be able to fill it. Then, in 2020, they must elect more Democrats to Congress and as president to make it safe for Ginsburg and Breyer to retire and be replaced by liberals.

The current reality

There’s little or nothing that can be done now to save the Supreme Court: It WILL tilt sharply rightwing. However, it’s still possible to prevent it from toppling over the edge, and maybe even to restore the balance. To do that, it’ll be necessary to organise in all 50 states to elect more Democrats, ideally Progressive Democrats, to make it possible to ensure actual liberals are appointed to the Court. That’s also necessary to protect the people who will be hurt as the Right overturns landmark Supreme Court cases.

In other words, the power is still in our hands. However—and this is a HUGE caveat—if Democrats and centrist Independents don’t vote in November, there’s really no hope of stopping the slide toward rightwing authoritarianism.

Like many other people, I’ve been warning about this for many, many years. Americans had better finally pay attention.