Vote, Dammit!

I don't want to hear any bellyaching from the Democrats about the Supreme Court upholding the travel ban on Muslim-majority countries or anything else the Court does.  Because they brought it on themselves.

Blaming the victim, you say?  You bet!  For decades, Republicans have kept their eye on the federal judiciary and have been systematically been packing it with conservatives, while Democrats have been too wimpy to retaliate much. And when they do retaliate,  they play checkers while Republicans play chess.  Democratic Party voters haven't been very engaged either.  Because they failed to come out in the 2014 midterm elections, the Republicans took over the Senate and then blocked President Obama - whom Democratic congressional candidates in 2014 (most of whom lost) refused to link themselves to - from making a Supreme Court appointment.  A Democratic Senate being seated in 2017 could have approved an Obama pick for the Supreme Court in the waning days of his administration, but the Democratic electorate largely stayed home in 2016 and let the Republicans keep the Senate.  And the Democratic National Committee gave the Presidency to Donald Trump by promoting Hillary Clinton.

Maybe Democrats - which I am not one of - should start voting more regularly.  Otherwise, the party will be so weakened and beaten up that it is going to be doomed to Whig-like extinction.       

Travel News

The partial travel ban that the Supreme Court allowed to go into effect this past week allows people from the Muslim-majority countries of Syria, Iran, Yemen, Sudan, Somalia and Iran to come into the country as long as they have immediate family members, have a job, or are enrolled as students in an U.S. college or a university, as well as people from these countries who have already been approved for a short-term visa (or have already begun applying for visa), and people already approved as refugees. Grandparents, aunts, uncles and first-time tourists from these countries can't come, though fiancés have since been allowed in.  The Supreme Court will look at the entirety of the  travel ban and rule on it accordingly in the fall.  Three justices are on record as saying that would uphold the whole ban.  One of them was Neil Gorsuch.  (The others were Justices Thomas and Alito.)  Yeah, the whole damn thing is going to be upheld.    

As if the ban hasn't made a mockery out of out foreign-office apparatus, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is getting pretty steamed, as are many congressional Republicans,  over the 31 percent spending cut the Trump White House is planning for the State Department.  Several key positions remain unfulfilled, and Tillerson - who's lost arguments on key foreign policy positions to Steve Bannon, the dark overlord of the Trump White House - wants to know how he can do his job.  So do I.  But he seems like he's inclined to tough it out and make the best out of a bad situation.

In the meantime, I got my new passport, much sooner than expected.  Thanks, Uncle Rex.  I have a feeling I'm going to need it very, very soon.  But in the meantime, I have a nice little folder to smooth out my receipts in.           

Explaining the Trump Administration

"Hey Rube!"

"Hey, Elvin, it's been awhile.  I was out of the country, I was in France teaching the locals how to grow genetically modified tomatoes."

"The French don't eat genetically modified tomatoes, Rube." 

"Oh, they don't want them to eat.  They want to grow these really big tomatoes to throw at politicians.  Speaking of which, I ain't kept with politics back here  in the States.  So how's President O'Malley doin'?"

"I got bad news for you, Rube.  Our candidate never even got the Democrat nomination.  Hillary done got it and lost in the electoral college despite winning the popular vote."

"Serves her right, nasty woman, the way she made fun of Marty at the debate.  So a Republican's President, eh?  That don't bother me none, so long as it ain't Donald Trump."

"Rube, I got bad news for ya . . .."

"Trump is President, Elvin?"

"Didn't ya read them French papers?"

"I don't understand French."

"Anyway, Rube, Trump done all sorts of foolish things, but the biggest damn fool thing he done is ban people from seven countries where everyone's a Moslem from comin' here."

"He can't do that!"

"That's what the courts said.  So he appealed."

"Ugh."

"It gets worse here, Rube.  He done nominated that old bigot Jeff Davis Sessions as attorney gen'ral, even though he don't know nothin' bout no civil rights."

"Triple negative there, Elvin."

"Well, so is Sessions.  Also Betsy DeVos, dumb as cow pie, big Republican donor got to be Secretary of Education."

"And the Democratic Senate approved all these 'pointments?"

"How do I break this to you, Rube?  Dem Dems was supposed to get back the Senate but they done lost it again, 52 Republicans to 48 Dems.  They gonna vote for confirmin' Sessions, see, but Liz Warren wasn't allowed to speak on it because of some letter from Coretta Scott King she read, about Sessions being a threat to civil rights when he was appointed to be a judge but didn't get the seat.  Disrespectful to Senate colleagues, they told her."

"Geez!"

"But she persisted to get the letter out in the open.  And, Rube, Dems got a chance to stop DeVos when two lady GOP senators came out against her.  They needed one more Republican to stop her, just one more."

"Well I'm glad they stopped her."

"They didn't, they tied on her, Vice President Pence cast the tie-breaking vote--"

"Mike Pence, that fool from Indiana?"

"The same, Rube, now we got an idiot running the Education Department.  And Sessions is in the Justice Department on a party-line vote!  And we may get a new Supreme Court justice to replace Antonin Scalia, he died last year."

"Last year?  Why din't Obama fill that seat then, Elvin?"

"You don't wanna know the story about that, Rube.  Anyone, Trump's choice, Neil Gorsuch, is a purty rightie kind of guy, but when the court ruled aginast Trump's travel ban, Trump blasted the judge that done handed down the rulin,' and even Gorsuch didn't like that.  Seems this guy may have a conscience at least.  Folks in the White House sure as hell don't.  One White House aide done endorsed Trump's daughter's clothing line, violatin' gubmint rules.  Even the GOP chairman of the House Oversight Committee was appalled.  N Trump's press secretary, he lies like a dog, makes up terror attacks in America to justify this here travel ban . . . Rube, I tell you, it's a mess."

"I knowed itted be, Elvin. Worse than I ever thought."

"Just a minute, Rube, my cell phone done pinged . . ..  Well!  That's good news.  Trump lost his appeal on the travel ban!  The system works!  By the way, you got one of those genetically modified tomaters on ya, I'm hungry."

"Here, Elvin, but you shouldn't eat genetically modified vegetables."

"First of all, tomaters are fruit, Rube.  Secondly, genetically modified fruits and veggies are done good fer ya, I read it in a book."

"What was the book called, Elvin?"

"'Alternative Facts.'"

Stay

A federal judge (or so he's called ;-) ) in Seattle - James Robart, a judge appointed by noted liberal George Walker Bush - blocked Trump's executive order banning people from seven Middle Eastern countries and refugees from Syria in particular from entering the country.  Wow, it was temporary! :-D

The administration tried to get the stay on the order overturned on appeal, but another judge sided with Robart.  It could go to the Supreme Court now, given all of the efforts for and against the order churning in the system.  Theoretically, by the time it reaches that court, it could be after the ban was set to have expired.  Needless to say, this only underscores why the Democrats - and whatever party replaces them after the 2018 midterms (the Dems are headed for Whig-like extinction, remember) -will be hell-bent on stopping Neil Gorsuch or anyone else Trump appoints for Antonin Scalia's Supreme Court seat for the next four years.  

Meanwhile, people from the affected countries are coming to America again. It looks like Trump may not win this battle.  But the war has only begun.

And am I upset that Trump's favorite football team has won the Super Bowl?  No, because I'm not a football fan.  If I were, though, I'd be even more upset that a rock and roll band - a real rock and roll band, not a light-rock ensemble like Coldplay - can't get a Super Bowl halftime gig anymore because the NFL has decided instead to book dance-pop divas for them from now until the end of time (which, thanks to Trump, could arrive before the next Super Bowl).