Democrats Stand Up Against . . . Democrats, Plus

The funniest description yet of the Fuchsia Revolution, plus the courts, plus music

Construction or demolition, depending (credit Weldon Berger)

Before we get to the performance of Democratic legislators at the SOTU address and after: I’ve been saying that this country was founded upon the agreement between the federal courts and the executive branch that the latter will abide by the rulings of the former, and that it’s evident that the agreement is if not dead, at least deathly ill.

The courts have been routinely ruling against the regime on a number of counts involving firing federal workers, impounding congressionally mandated funds, and effectively dismantling federal agencies. The regime’s fealty to these rulings has ranged from attenuated to outright disobedience, but regime opponents are cheering them regardless, and saying that they show both the independence of the judiciary and the limits of the regime.

Well they don’t show either of those things. It happens that the cases brought against the regime have avoided the Trumpiest appeals courts, and that the supreme court have not taken up any cases that could spell the end to their authority.

I mention this because Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the U.C. Berkeley law school and historically a man of measured rhetoric, wrote an op-ed for the NY Times today—under the headline The One Question That Really Matters: If Trump Defies the Courts, Then What?—in which he addresses the real possibility of losing the courts and what it would mean.

It is not hyperbole to say that the future of American constitutional democracy now rests on a single question: Will President Trump and his administration defy court orders?

Federal judges have issued more than a dozen temporary restraining orders and preliminary injunctions against Trump administration actions. But it is unclear whether the government will comply, and in at least two cases, judges have said their orders were ignored.
. . .
[T]he hard truth for those looking to the courts to rein in the Trump administration is that the Constitution gives judges no power to compel compliance with their rulings — it is the executive branch that ultimately enforces judicial orders. If a president decides to ignore a judicial ruling, the courts are likely rendered impotent.

Welcome to the fold, Mr. Chemerinsky. It’s a discouraging row to hoe for people whose lives are wholly invested in the rule of law.

Democrats Stand Up Against . . . Democrats

In the wake of House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries’ plea for decorum in advance of the most hateful, reality-challenged SOTU address ever—the flavor of which everybody knew was coming—10 House Democrats joined every House Republican in censuring Texas representative Al Green, who at age 77 offered the most vigorous Democratic response to Trump’s bullshit and was ejected from the chamber early on during the speech.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and his leadership team had a highly scripted plan for how the party’s reaction would go. Party leaders urged rank-and-file members to show restraint and not mount a high-profile protest. Members were told no signs, no props and no attention-grabbing stunts that could be seized upon by the GOP.

Honest to whatever you hold holy, I thought the pinkness and bidding paddles were sanctioned in the good way by Jeffries et al, but they evidently weren’t up for even the mildest of objections to the overthrow of our struggling little democracy.

The funniest description yet of the Fuchsia Revolution

I’d like to have thought that the Democratic leadership’s preemptive objections to those milquetoast protests were based on the existential silliness of them, but alas. The color-matched outfits worn by some of the women and the auction paddles wielded by others were just such a weak response, but it was clearly too much for party leaders preserved in the La Brea Tarpits of politics.

Lots of people mocked the enfeebled spirits of the protesters, but the funniest description came from Monica Hesse at The Washington Post.

One presumes that the paddles, which members held up discreetly at sporadic intervals through the address, were intended to be pointed but also somber. But the overall effect of the whole scene was “On our way to Barbenheimer, we were kidnapped by Sotheby’s and forced to bid on our dignity.”

Really, that’s maybe the kindest interpretation, especially when one considers that the cameras (I’m told; as usual I didn’t watch this shit) never panned to show these most discreet objections.

I wrote somewhere—I’m always writing things somewhere, sometime—that we need a color revolution like those inaugurated to various degrees of success in other countries, but this retread of 2016-2017 did not spark one. Maybe we should go with a fabric revolution instead, like the Velvet Revolution in then-Czechoslovakia; maybe sackcloth, or glad-rag, or Kevlar.

The Velvet Revolution link is to Wikipedia, which is under assault from the regime and could really use even the smallest of donations.

Music

I only listened to one album while writing this, so I’m throwing in some between-times stuff too. The one:
Cannonball Adderly & Milt Jackson, Things Are Getting Better, “Things Are Getting Better;”

The album also features Percy Heath, Art Blakey, and Wynton Kelly. From the same disk: “Sidewalks of New York;”

Meantimes I listened to Alabama 3’s near-perfect album, Exile on Coldharbour Lane, “Mao Tse Tung Said,” which is the only tune I’ve heard incorporating audio from dissociating preacher Jim Jones;

and the compelling full version of the Sopranos theme song, “Woke Up This Morning.”

A foreshortened version of “Whipping Post” (a mere 11 minutes and change) from Live at the Fillmore East by The Allman Brothers Band features the most anguished guitar you’ll find, from Duane Allman and Dickie Betts, along with a nerve-wracking bassline from Berry Oakley. Allman once said “I’m the famous one, but Dickie is the good one;” obviously they’re both great.

From the same album, “Drunken Hearted Boy” featuring Elvin Bishop on vocals and fabulous blues solos from Betts and Allman;

Pale Blue Eyes, Souvenirs, “Globe.”

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Take care; be well.