{"id":8669,"date":"2020-08-19T17:11:11","date_gmt":"2020-08-19T17:11:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/adhc.lib.ua.edu\/pandemicbook\/?page_id=8669"},"modified":"2021-11-15T02:49:23","modified_gmt":"2021-11-15T02:49:23","slug":"08-19","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/adhc.lib.ua.edu\/pandemicbook\/08-19\/","title":{"rendered":"08-19"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Wednesday, August 19<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tUS Cases 5.53 million
US Deaths 173,288<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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Aug 18: Democrats formally nominate<\/a> Joe Biden for president. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy says that he is suspending changes to the U.S. Postal Service<\/a>, including removal of collection boxes and mail sorting equipment, until after the November election. “To avoid even the appearance of any impact on election mail, I am suspending these initiatives until after the election is concluded,” California’s governor declares<\/a> an emergency due to wildfires.<\/p>

Aug 19: Attorney General William Barr announces<\/a> that 1,485 people have been arrested in Operation LeGend, a Trump initiative to send federal law enforcement agents to assist in stopping crime in areas that are “all run by liberal Democrats.” President Trump praises<\/a> followers of the far-right QAnon conspiracy theory, which centers on a false narrative that Trump is leading a secret fight against a criminal band of pedophiles and satanic worshippers. The Government Accountability Office declares that two Homeland Security Secretaries were inappropriately appointed.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\tFrom the Cutting Room Floor...\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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It pains me to say this, but I am gradually coming to the exceedingly uncomfortable realization that it would have been better to have Jefferson B. Sessions III continue as Attorney General instead of Bill Barr. I didn\u2019t feel this way two years ago when Sessions was summarily dismissed because he refused to un-recuse himself from the Muller Investigation.<\/span>[1]<\/a> But after reading through some of the Senate Intelligence Committee (SSCI) report released today, it seems like current AG Barr\u2019s knee-bending to the president has done immeasurable damage to the country.<\/span>[2]<\/a> <\/span>The fifth (!) volume of the SSCI report (116-XX) looking at the connections between foreign actors and the Trump 2016 campaign screams \u201ccollusion,\u201d even more than the Muller Report did.<\/span>[3]<\/a> But Americans in August 2020 are not focused on this much, if at all.<\/span><\/p>\n

I suppose that\u2019s understandable. Everyone is tired and, moreover, it seems like we’ve already been down this road. We went through a House trial and the president was impeached. The Senate was never going to convict one of their own, but one brave member of his party did vote to remove him. The Muller Report was the topic of podcasts, investigative journalism deep dives, and countless news stories. The desire to relitigate the last few years, even if we now know suspicions about foreign interference and the current occupant\u2019s openness to it in 2016 were correct, now seems too little, too late.[4]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

[read_more id=”1″ more=”Read more” less=”Read less”]<\/p>\n

In fact, AG Jeff Sessions seems to belong to a quaint era wherein we believed Republicans would steadfastly hold to rules and traditions that they had held onto for generations, some of which date all the way back to the Constitution. Not because it served them politically but because it was part of the job description, or because it was just the right thing to do. But that’s been falling apart for years now. Take Senate approvals of presidential appointments, for instance. Hundreds of cabinet members and agency directors and subdirectors are required to come before the Senate.[5]<\/a> The current administration manipulates this time-honored balancing of power by appointing loads of \u201cacting\u201d directors and \u201cofficial overseeing the duties assigned to\u201d and so on.[6]<\/a> The Republican-controlled Senate does nothing to curtail this, such that now even parts of the Department of Defense are run by \u201cacting\u201d personnel loyal not to the country, but to the person who appointed them.[7]<\/a> This definitely seems like one of those issues earlier Americans would not have tolerated.<\/span><\/p>\n

Today the Government Accountability Office declared that Homeland Security Secretaries or people acting like it, Wolf and Cuccinelli, were never<\/i> legally appointed.[8]<\/a> Nor was their predecessor, former acting head Kevin McAleenan, appointed after Kirstjen Nielsen resigned\u2014who was the last Secretary actually approved by the Senate. This state of affairs certainly makes the anti-immigration policies prosecuted by this administration seem pretty outside the bounds, then.[9]<\/a> What\u2019s more, Ken Cuccinelli, the person acting like a deputy head of DHS, was also illegally appointed to his last<\/i> job as acting director of US Citizenship and Immigration Services. In the just-under-six months he spent at that job, he made life more difficult for immigrants. First, he cut a program used at some detention facilities to explain legal rights to asylum seekers. Then, he slashed the amount of time asylum seekers have to consult with their attorneys from 48 to 24 hours or less before their \u201ccredible-fear\u201d interviews\u2014which is what determines whether they get asylum. And he removed the ability for those seeking asylum from obtaining continuances of that time in most circumstances.[10]<\/a> Like the kids in cages, Cuccinelli\u2019s policies are tinged by notion that asylum seekers are faking it, that they don\u2019t deserve or need to be in the USA. And, if I didn\u2019t know better, I\u2019d say these policies grow from the soil of the \u201cdisgust\u201d reaction psychologists and philosophers identify in racial bigots.[11]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

DHS, CBP, and other agencies overseen by \u201cacting\u201d leaders loyal only to Trump are also the agencies sending paramilitary units into the nation\u2019s cities to \u201cquell unrest.\u201d I\u2019m alarmed that we do not even have Senate control, such as it is, over individuals who seem to be operating outside of any checks-and-balances. Of course, even confirmation doesn\u2019t guarantee much these days, when non-career officials decide to delegate spending decisions usually left to apolitical laborers to hard-core partisan appointees, as brand new Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought is doing. Vought has long been a shill for Heritage Action, the democracy-restricting arm of the Heritage Foundation and refused to obey a House subpoena in the impeachment trial.[12]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

The United States seems like it\u2019s \u201cby the people, for the people\u201d less and less these days.<\/span><\/p>\n


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<\/p>\n

Notes<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Adam K. Raymond, \u201cTrump Told Lewandowski to Do His Dirty Work, Thwart Mueller Probe,\u201d Intelligencer<\/i>, April 18, 2019, https:\/\/nymag.com\/intelligencer\/2019\/04\/trump-told-lewandowski-to-do-his-dirty-work-thwart-mueller.html<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Ryan Goodman, \u201c\u2018He\u2019s Lying.\u2019 New Book Reveals Havoc Bill Barr Wrought Inside Congress,\u201d Just Security<\/i>, July 28, 2020, https:\/\/www.justsecurity.org\/71714\/hes-lying-new-book-reveals-havoc-bill-barr-wreaked-inside-congress\/<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Report of the Select Committee on Intelligence United States Senate on Russian Active Measures, Campaigns, and Interference in the 2016 U.S. Election, \u201cCounterintelligence Threats and Vulnerabilities,\u201d August 2020, https:\/\/www.intelligence.senate.gov\/sites\/default\/files\/documents\/report_volume5.pdf<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Franklin Foer, \u201cRussiagate Was Not a Hoax,\u201d The Atlantic<\/em>, August 19, 2020, https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/ideas\/archive\/2020\/08\/russiagate-wasnt-a-hoax\/615373\/<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> Christopher M Davis and Michael Greene, \u201cPresidential Appointee Positions Requiring Senate Confirmation and Committees Handling Nominations\u201d (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, May 3, 2017).<\/span><\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> Amanda Becker, \u201cTrump Says Acting Cabinet Members Give Him \u2018More Flexibility,\u2019\u201d Reuters<\/em>, January 6, 2019, https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/us-usa-trump-cabinet-idUSKCN1P00IG<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

[7]<\/a> Lara Seligman, \u201cTrump Skirting Congress to Install Loyalists in the Pentagon,\u201d Politico<\/i>, July 17, 2020, https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2020\/07\/17\/trump-loyalists-pentagon-366922<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

[8]<\/a> Thomas H. Armstrong, \u201cDecision Matter of: Department of Homeland Security\u2014Legality of Service of Acting Secretary of Homeland Security and Service of Senior Official Performing the Duties of Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security,\u201d US Government Accountability Office, August 14, 2020, https:\/\/www.gao.gov\/assets\/710\/708830.pdf<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

[9]<\/a> Pete Williams, \u201cCongressional Watchdog Finds Acting DHS Chief Wolf and Senior Aide Cuccinelli Not Legally Qualified to Hold Their Jobs,\u201d NBC News, August 14, 2020, https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/politics\/politics-news\/congressional-watchdog-finds-acting-dhs-chief-wolf-senior-aide-cuccinelli-n1236735<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

[10]<\/a> John Lewis, Benjamin Seel, and Nitin Shah, \u201cL.M.-M. v. Cuccinelli: Trump\u2019s Preference for Acting Officials Hits A Wall,\u201d Lawfare<\/i>, April 23, 2020, https:\/\/www.lawfareblog.com\/lm-m-v-cuccinelli-trumps-preference-acting-officials-hits-wall<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

[11]<\/a> Emilio Comay del Junco, \u201cFour Types of Racism,\u201d in The Empire of Disgust: Prejudice, Discrimination, and Policy in India and the US<\/em>, ed. Zoya Hasan et al. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018), https:\/\/oxford.universitypressscholarship.com\/view\/10.1093\/oso\/9780199487837.001.0001\/oso-9780199487837-chapter-4<\/a>; Kathrine Vitus, \u201cRacial Embodiment and the Affectivity of Racism in Young People\u2019s Film,\u201d Palgrave Communications<\/em> 1, no. 15007 (April 2, 2015): 1\u20139, https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1057\/palcomms.2015.7<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

[12]<\/a> Ryan Grim, \u201cThe Trump Administration Is Giving Political Appointees Power Over Apportioning Federal Funds,\u201d The Intercept<\/i>, August 20, 2020, https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2020\/08\/20\/federal-funds-omb-apportionment-trump\/<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

[13]<\/a> Victoria Bekiempis, \u201cSteve Bannon Pleads Not Guilty to Fraud after Arrest on Luxury Yacht,\u201d The Guardian<\/em>, August 20, 2020, sec. US news, https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/2020\/aug\/20\/steve-bannon-arrested-charged-fraud-we-build-the-wall<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

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“In this election, we have a chance to change the course of history,\u2019 says Kamala Harris,” PBS NewsHour, Aug. 19, 2020. https:\/\/youtu.be\/FVKIBINAiw0<\/a><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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“Northern California wildfires evening update,” ABC10 Northern California, Aug. 19, 2020. https:\/\/youtu.be\/sxWQny6UuXM<\/a><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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