May 3, 2019--Contempt For Congress

Because he refused to turn up for a hearing Thursday before the House of Representatives' Judiciary Committee, Attorney General Barr will for certain be subpoenaed to appear and if he still refuses to do so will likely be cited for contempt of Congress. 

What this ultimately means, how it will play out is uncertain.

Following Trump's lead, the president's latest flunky (how he attracts a stream of them is unfathomable), Barr, will not be fined nor tried in court, nor will he be sent to jail.

The way these matters are traditionally worked out is by the various parties making a deal. I'll agree to appear if you, the committee, agree to certain ground rules such as which lines of questions are permitted and which others will be overlooked. And apparently in the current case, who will do the questioning.

Deals are ultimately necessary because there is nothing in the Constitution that requires anyone to appear before Congress. Including members of the country's administration (read the president his staff, and his appointees). And there are no real consequences for not participating. The worst that happens is that those who refuse to cooperate go down in history as having been held in contempt by Congress.

Two things--

In spite of all the claims that Congress has an "oversight" role, that Congress is a coequal part of the government--with the federal courts and the administration being the other two branches-- there is also nothing in the Constitution about oversight nor is there anything about coequalness. The way the government functions in this regard is codified in various rules and precedents. Not in the Constitution.

If this sounds incorrect you can check me by reading the first three Articles of the Constitution. 

Someone like Trump or Barr, both of whom have contempt for Congress, being cited by Congress for contempt would likely be viewed as having earned a badge of honor. Therefore, such citings have little persuasive power.

With Congress having approval ratings in the low teens and more than half the population not supporting impeachment (the one intra-governmental constitutional power the Congress does in fact have), Trump and his enablers are not concerned about the public demanding they be brought to justice.

Things have come to this.

When reviewing Barr's equivocating and lying to Congress, political analysts have been worrying about how this is contributing to the further erosion of our democracy, noting that as a result we are experiencing a "constitutional crisis."

One thing overlooked by most is that though we may very well be facing a crisis it is not strictly speaking constitutional.

Recall, our Founders did not favor democracy. In fact, they worried that a democratic government, government of and by the people, would quickly deteriorate to anarchy as the unwashed would dominate and bring us down. And so they adopted a representative republic with whatever votes that were allowed granted only to property owners. And of course, white people.

Current day conservatives, including Barr do not believe in the rights of "ordinary" people. Voter suppression legislation, for example, is not just about helping Republicans control the government and political process but is also to limit the voting power of "the people," the same kinds of people Jefferson and Madison did not want to grant voting rights to.

These are some of the powerful forces and traditions we are confronting. On an intuitive level Trump has figured out much of this. To prevail we have to be even smarter.

March 10, 2014--Amerika

I've been rethinking what I wrote the other day about Vladimir Putin. When I speculated that he would back off from a full-scale crisis in Ukraine because the Russian economy is now fully globalized, billionaire kleptocrats within Russia are worried about the value of their ill-gotten assets, and Putin likes being a part of the post-modern civilized world and doesn't want to be tossed out of the G-8 club.

That was last week.

This week he seems to have no problem dispatching Russian troops to Crimea (albeit without the uniform patches that would identify them as Russian); racing ahead with a referendum there that would allow Crimea to secede from the rest of Ukraine; and he is not hesitating to push back against American sanctions pressure, even, in uncensored ways, calling us hypocrites for lecturing him and Russia about human rights violations and acting, by annexing Crimea, unconstitutionally and in violation of international law.

How constitutional is it, he is chiding President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry, to move quickly to recognize the new government in Ukraine, a government that seized office two weeks ago by ousting the admittedly corrupt but legitimately elected president, Viktor Yanukovych? That does not sound constitutional, much less consistent.

And, as to international law, Putin is enjoying poking us by asking what's worse--Russia sending a few thousand troops to Crimea or the United States launching a full-scale "preemptive war" against Iraq? A war that not only led to the overthrow and execution of Saddam Hussein and the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, but also to the military occupation of a sovereign nation for nearly a decade by the U.S. military

Putin also seems fed up being hectored by Obama and Kerry about democracy and human rights when, he points out, we continue to have and use our prison in Guantanamo Bay and in many states, abetted by our Supreme Court, efforts are vigorously underway to deny voting rights to people of color.

And, while he's at it, Putin has taken to pointing out that our vaunted free market economy is not as open or free as we claim. It is getting more difficult in the U.S. to move upward socioeconomically, gaps between rich and the rest of us are widening, and for many who have been most successful it is because the system is substantially rigged in their favor.

As unsavory as Putin may be, he has a point.

Not only has he had it with us, but, sadly, many others around the world are also tired of our holding ourselves up as the governmental and economic model to which everyone else should aspire.

Now that we are virtual paper tigers--unable, really, to impose our will anywhere--nations big and small are feeling no hesitation to expose our inconsistencies and internal contradictions.

We appear to be interested in directing Putin to an "off ramp," a way to back down without feeling humiliated. But it may be that we too need an off ramp of our own.