Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
Driving home last night, I heard on the radio a clip of a Republican congressman at the House Judiciary Committee impeachment hearing deriding the proceedings for having no memorable catchphrase. He recalled (inexactly) Republican Senator Howard Baker’s famous question from the Nixon impeachment inquiry, “What did the President know, and when did he know it?”, and from the Clinton impeachment, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman.”
He wondered what phrase could possibly epitomize the Trump impeachment inquiry, offering some line about there being no impeachable offenses. It’s hard to know what combination of cluelessness, motivated reasoning, and lack of attention could lead him to arrive at this statement, for the catchphrase immediately leapt to mind. For the Trump impeachment, Trump himself has already produced the memorable phrase by which his impeachment will undoubtedly be remembered: “I would like you to do us a favor, though”.
If you’re looking for a quid pro quo, quod erat demonstrandum.
When I first heard that Trump wanted to buy Greenland from Denmark, I thought it was a joke. It wasn’t; he wants its natural resources and its strategic location, though there’s already a big air base there with listening posts. Read and weep:
Well, of course Denmark won’t sell it, so Trump doesn’t get the chance of buying a country that could become a state (can you imagine?). So Trump does what any child would do: postpones (indefinitely) a meeting with Denmark’s and Greenland’s Prime Ministers, a meeting scheduled for September in Copenhagen.
….The Prime Minister was able to save a great deal of expense and effort for both the United States and Denmark by being so direct. I thank her for that and look forward to rescheduling sometime in the future!
As I noted this morning, Trump, or rather his minion Dana Boente, asked 46 US Attorneys to resign, cleaning house of Obama’s appointees. Those included the well-respected US attorney in Manhattan, Prett Bharara, who had previously had assurance from Trump that he’d stay. Well, Trump lied and asked Bharara to resign.
The thing is, Bharara won’t resign, as noted in this CNN bulletin I just received. This sets the stage for a cool stand-off, and Trump will have to tell him, “You’re fired!”
Bharara, who had been told after a meeting with the President-elect in November that he would stay on, felt blindsided by the move, the sources said.
According to a source familiar with the meeting between Trump and Bharara in November at Trump Tower, the President-elect asked Bharara to stay on the job and they shook hands. Trump directed Bharara to go out to the cameras and tell them, “I asked you to stay.”
The White House has not responded to a request for an official comment on the matter.
What an administration, and good for Bharara! Make the Donald fire him and then let Sean Spicer explain it.
I’ll be brief; we have two items, one good and one bad. Good one first.
1.) After a federal judge struck down two provisions of Trump’s anti-immigration bill, the Department of Justice appealed the decision. They lost, so the travel bans are still blocked. The upholding was done by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco, which added that a response from the Trump administration was due tomorrow. (The provisions struck down included the 7-nation “Muslim ban” and the new limits on overall immigration.) This one may go all the way to the Supreme Court, which, in the absence of Trump’s nominee, is in a 4-4 liberal/conservative split. The New York Times reports that the new judicial decisions are nebulous:
Judge Robart’s order left many questions, said Josh Blackman, a professor at South Texas College of Law in Houston.
“Does the executive order violate the equal protection of the laws, amount to an establishment of religion, violate rights of free exercise, or deprive aliens of due process of law?” Professor Blackman asked. “Who knows? The analysis is bare bones, and leaves the court of appeals, as well as the Supreme Court, with no basis to determine whether the nationwide injunction was proper.”
Now the bad news, but I suspect it won’t come to fruition:
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) has drafted a bill to “completely abolish” the Environmental Protection Agency, according to an email obtained by The Huffington Post.
The freshman congressman sent the email on Tuesday morning to lawmakers who might co-sponsor the legislation, which would shutter the EPA by the end of next year.
“Our small businesses cannot afford to cover the costs associated with compliance, too often leading to closed doors and unemployed Americans,” Gaetz wrote. “It is time to take back our legislative power from the EPA and abolish it permanently.”
. . . For Gaetz, that wouldn’t go far enough. In his email to lawmakers, he cited a statistic from the American Action Forum, a conservative policy group launched in 2010 by Republican heavyweights, stating that “it would take more than 94,200 employees working full-time to complete one year of EPA paperwork.”
“Today, the American people are drowning in rules and regulations promulgated by unelected bureaucrats,” Gaetz said, “and the Environmental Protection Agency has become an extraordinary offender.”
Gaetz has a history of opposing environmental regulations. He began fighting to repeal a requirement that all gasoline in Florida contain ethanol when he first took office as a Florida state lawmaker in 2010. When his bill finally passed in 2013, he called it “one more mandate off the books.”
Here’s the entire text of the bill from Congress.gov. It’s short, and I’m betting it dies in committee. (Of course, I also bet that Trump would lose the election.):
This transcript was tw**ted by Daniel Dale, Washington correspondent for the Toronto Star, as “the full transcript of President Trump’s speech to his Black History Month event.”
This is the unhinged ravings of a narcissist, ranting about fake news, Omarosa (one of the people on The Apprentice), etc. What an insult to black Americans—and to the world. What have we done?
Can Sean Spicer (Trump’s Press Secretary and Director of Communications) even comprehend when he’s being mocked? Here’s tw**t he issued:
Well, perhaps—à l’Onion—Spicer was just playing a huge trick on America. Regardless, this tw**t, which appears to have been emitted on Saturday, is unseemly for a man in Spicer’s position.
Spicer also appears to have accidentally tweeted out two of his passwords (from The Independent):
Despite some grousing that I should spend more time criticizing Donald Trump than the Regressive Left, my feelings toward the Trumpster have always been clear (I despise his views), I’ve gone after him a number of times, and, most important, there are plenty of other bloggers out there engaged in taking him down. (Also, read the Roolz: I’m not to be told to write about X rather than Y.)
Nevertheless, I woke up this morning both dispirited and heartened by the news. As you know, on Friday Donald Trump signed an executive order on immigration, putting on hold for four months the entry of all refugees to the U.S., suspending refugees from Syria indefinitely, and, for 90 days, prohibiting citizens of seven countries that are predominantly Muslim from entering the U.S.: Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen (why not Saudi Arabia?). He also promised “stringent vetting” of refugee applicants in the future—probably those from Muslim lands.
This caused pandemonium. Some refugees were sent back from the U.S., others weren’t allowed on planes to the U.S. (these included holders of green cards that allowed them to live and work here, as well as foreign students already attending American universities), and some holding valid visas were detained for hours at airports.
This is unconscionable, for not only does it prohibit legal residents from returning to the U.S., but also, despite Trump’s claims, constitutes a form of religious discrimination against refugees. It also tars the reputation of the U.S. as a historical home for refugees. It is merely one of many actions Trump will take that are repugnant and contrary to the values of our country. And remember, he’s barely been in power for a week!
I’ve always thought that both demonstrations (including peaceful ones that constituted civil disobedience) and legal action were the best way to blunt Trump’s actions, and in this case they succeeded. Many of my countrymen showed up at airports, protesting the executive orders; these included Senator Elizabeth Warren, who showed up at Boston’s Logan Airport to protest. Peace be upon her! Note that she predicts that Trump’s orders will be overturned, and I suspect this video was taken before the judge’s decision (see below).
But more important, as has been widely reported, Judge Ann M. Donnelly of the Federal District Court in Brooklyn (you can see her short court order here) temporarily blocked Trump’s order, or at least part of it:
The judge’s ruling blocked part of the president’s actions, preventing the government from deporting some arrivals who found themselves ensnared by the presidential order. But it stopped short of letting them into the country or issuing a broader ruling on the constitutionality of Mr. Trump’s actions.
The high-stakes legal case played out on Saturday amid global turmoil, as the executive order signed by the president slammed shut the borders of the United States for an Iranian scientist headed to a lab in Massachusetts, a Syrian refugee family headed to a new life in Ohio and countless others across the world.
. . . Judge Ann M. Donnelly of Federal District Court in Brooklyn, who was nominated by former President Barack Obama, ruled just before 9 p.m. that implementing Mr. Trump’s order by sending the travelers home could cause them “irreparable harm.” She said the government was “enjoined and restrained from, in any manner and by any means, removing individuals” who had arrived in the United States with valid visas or refugee status.
The ruling does not appear to force the administration to let in people otherwise blocked by Mr. Trump’s order who have not yet traveled to the United States. [JAC: That’s bad, for many of those are legal residents]
The judge’s one-page ruling came swiftly after lawyers for the A.C.L.U. testified in her courtroom that one of the people detained at an airport was being put on a plane to be deported back to Syria at that very moment. A government lawyer, Gisela A. Westwater, who spoke to the court by phone from Washington, said she simply did not know.
This was followed by another ruling against Trump’s order:
Minutes after the judge’s ruling in New York City, another judge, Leonie M. Brinkema of Federal District Court in Virginia, issued a temporary restraining order for a week to block the removal of any green card holders being detained at Dulles International Airport.
In the meantime, the Department of Homeland Security has said it will continue to carry out Trump’s orders, excluding those that have been put on hold by the courts. Trump’s actions have created chaos, and I’m delighted to see some American protesting his actions, as well as the courts overturning them. But what will happen when the Supreme Court once again attains a solid conservative majority, as it undoubtedly will?
Protests and recourse to the law: these are the two weapons we liberals have against the actions of the Trump administration. Protests are fine, and I hope they change people’s minds, but for sheer effectiveness there’s nothing like a court order.
Here’s a photo of Donnelly donning her judicial robes in 2015, right after being sworn in as a federal judge:
