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Sunday’s Forum
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9 responses to “Sunday’s Forum”
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I woke up this morning to read this from Heather Cox Richardson:
On Thursday, in The New Republic, conservative judge J. Michael Luttig published a dire warning to the Republican Party…and to all Americans. In the piece, Luttig outlined how Republicans could refuse to seat elected Democrats in January after a Democratic victory in the 2026 midterm elections of November. “The coming crisis,” the piece says, would be “The Final Battle for America’s Democracy.”
Luttig spelled out that Trump is fighting a war against America’s democracy. While the refusal of Vice President Mike Pence to assist his power grab made it fail in January 2021, Luttig notes, today Trump and his Republican congressional allies are more determined than ever to take over the country.
Luttig focuses on the ability of House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) to prevent the recognition of duly-elected Democratic representatives on January 3. Johnson has the power, Luttig says, to remove the current House clerk, Kevin McCumber, and replace him temporarily with a MAGA loyalist who will refuse to list Democrats on the roll of those elected to the 120th Congress.
In this scenario, once Democrats are eliminated, they will have to get a federal court to order the temporary clerk to list their names. If a court does so, another crisis point will arrive if the clerk simply refuses to obey the order. Then it’s possible the courts will stay out of the fight until the 120th Congress formally convenes and the Republicans vote not to seat the Democrats. That vote would be reviewable by the courts, including the Supreme Court.
But that review would take weeks, if not months, paralyzing the United States and leaving the country “helplessly vulnerable to all the world’s evil, as it would have been in January 2021 had Mike Pence not thwarted Donald Trump’s plan to overturn the 2020 presidential election.” And at that point, how would the current Supreme Court answer the question: “Is the United States of America a democracy, in which ‘We the People’ elect our representatives to the Congress and to the presidency, or is it not?”
The Final Battle for America’s Democracy
Happy Sunday.
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In a similar vein, read David French’s column in the NYT.
It’s only September, and America just barely averted the first constitutional crisis of this year’s midterm elections.
French went on to describe the incredible MAGA machinations to subvert Missouri election law.
He concludes:
Whenever I write about potential MAGA efforts to steal the 2026 midterms, I’m assured that those efforts will fail. That the law is against MAGA. That the voters (at this point) seem to be against MAGA. I agree that the law and the voters stand against MAGA, but they did in 2020 as well. As you may recall, that was the year we were one Mike Pence yes away from the gravest constitutional crisis since the South Carolina secession convention of December 1860 effectively launched the Civil War.
The corrupt machinations of the Missouri case reveal that MAGA’s perfidy is limited only by its creativity. And while we keep dodging MAGA’s legal bullets, I fear that it is only a matter of time before one hits.
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After I cooked a turkey earlier this year, I was so tired from all that it required that I decided never to attempt it again. In addition to butchering the turkey, I also reduced the fat and drippings for gravy, roasted the bones, and made stock. It took the whole day.
Then two days ago I took the last of the turkey stock out of the freezer and used it to make beans. Not bean soup this time, but a side dish of beans, in a thick broth that’s almost a sauce, to go with the chilaquiles entre.
It was so good, I wondered when I could take the time to make turkey stock again… I’m doomed to repeat my culinary hits.
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The USA appears to be in retreat mode. A month ago, the annual joint military exercises with South Korea were curtailed. A week ago, the Saudis were told that they were on their own in their war with the Houthis. Yesterday, I saw a clip of Trump speaking in front of the Irish prime minister saying that he had spoken to the Houthis on the phone, and the US and Houthis were not going to be using force on each other. In other areas, NASA is withdrawing participation in ESA’s Venus mission. The government is not making any recommendations about COVID vaccination. To me it all smacks of weakness.
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Smacks of, reeks of, and is abounding in weakness. From the US point of view, the Houthis are letting most ships go through, so everything is fine. From Fortune,
Trump, speaking in Dublin, where he met Irish leaders, also said his administration has “had discussions” with the Houthis, though he did not provide details on when those talks took place.
“The Houthis called us, and they don’t want to fight with us,” Trump said. “They would much prefer not having us involved, and they’re letting most ships go through.”
Asked about a recent call with Saudi’s crown prince, Trump said: “He’s a good friend of mine, and I can just say everything’s going to work out fine and dandy. It’s going to be very good.”
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