HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

AUG 5, 2023

Army Chief of Staff General James McConville, the 40th person to hold that position, retired today. Because Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) has put a hold on military promotions for the past 8 months, there is no Senate-confirmed leader to take McConville’s place. There are eight seats on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the group of the most senior military officers who advise the president, homeland security officials, the secretary of defense, and the National Security Council. Currently, two of those seats are filled by acting officials who have not been confirmed by the Senate.

Politico’s defense reporter Paul McLeary wrote that as of today, there are 301 senior military positions filled by temporary replacements as Tuberville refuses to permit nominations to go through the Senate by the usual process. Two more members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff will retire before the end of September. 

Politico’s Pentagon reporter Lara Seligman illustrated what this personnel crisis means for national security: “U.S. forces are on high alert in the Persian Gulf,” she wrote today. “As Tehran attempts to seize merchant ships in the Strait of Hormuz, the U.S. is sending warships, fighter jets and even considering stationing armed troops aboard civilian vessels to protect mariners. Yet two of the top senior officers overseeing the escalating situation aren’t where they’re supposed to be.”

Two days ago, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin wrote in a memo that the “unprecedented, across-the-board hold is having a cascading effect, increasingly hindering the normal operations of this Department and undermining both our military readiness and our national security.” Today he reiterated: “The failure to confirm our superbly qualified senior uniformed leaders undermines our military readiness.” He added, “It undermines our retention of some of our very best officers. And it is upending the lives of far too many of their spouses, children and loved ones.”

Tuberville, who did not serve in the military, likes to say “there is no one more military than me.” And yet, thanks to him and the Republican conference that is permitting him to hold the nominations, we are down two chiefs of staff tonight.

Meanwhile, on July 26, when soldiers took charge in Niger, a country central to the fight against Islamic terrorists and the security of democracy on the African continent, the U.S. had no ambassador there. Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) was blocking the confirmation of more than 60 State Department officials the same way that Tuberville was blocking the confirmation of military officials. 

Paul claimed he was blocking State Department confirmations because he wanted access to information about the origins of COVID, but Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the department had “been working extensively” with Paul, providing the documents and other information he had requested. “But unfortunately, he continues to block all our nominees.” Paul complained that he had  been only given private access, and wanted to “take those documents out.” 

As of July 17, the current Senate had confirmed only five State Department nominees. On that day, Blinken wrote to each senator to express “serious concern” about the delays. He told reporters that he respects and values the Senate’s “critical oversight role…[b]ut that’s not what is happening here. No one has questioned the qualifications of these career diplomats. They are being blocked for leverage on other unrelated issues. It’s irresponsible. And it’s doing harm to our national security.”

Ambassadors “advance the interests of our country,” he said, and not having confirmed ambassadors “makes us less effective at advancing every one of our policy priorities—from getting more countries to serve as temporary hubs for [immigrant visa] processing, to bringing on more partners for global coalitions like the one we just announced to combat fentanyl, to support competitive bids for U.S. companies to build…critical infrastructure projects around the world.”

Our adversaries benefit from these absences, not only because they offer an opening to exploit, but also because “[t]he refusal of the Senate to approve these career public servants also undermines the credibility of our democracy. People abroad see it as a sign of dysfunction, ineffectiveness—inability to put national interests over political ones.”

Blinken noted that “[i]n previous administrations, the overwhelming majority of career nominees received swift support to advance through the Senate by unanimous consent. Today, for reasons that have nothing to do with the nominees’ qualifications or abilities, they are being forced to proceed through individual floor votes.” More than a third of the nominees had been waiting for more than a year for their confirmation. 

Late on July 27, the day after the conflict began in Niger and the day before the senators left for their summer recess, Paul lifted his hold, tweeting that the State Department and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), an independent agency that administers foreign aid, had agreed to release the documents he wanted. The Senate then confirmed career diplomat Kathleen A. FitzGibbon as ambassador to Niger, as well as ambassadors to other countries including Rwanda, the United Arab Emirates, Georgia, Guyana, Ethiopia, Jordan, Uganda, and Italy. 

But FitzGibbon did not arrive in Niger before the U.S. government on Wednesday ordered “non-emergency U.S. government personnel” and their families to leave the country out of concerns for their safety. 

The attack on our nation by individual Republicans seems to be a theme these days. After yesterday’s arraignment on charges that he conspired to defraud the United States, conspired and attempted to obstruct an official proceeding, and conspired to overturn Americans’ constitutionally protected right to vote, Donald Trump today flouted the judge’s warning not to try to influence jurors. He posted on social media: “IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I’M COMING AFTER YOU!”

Prosecutors from the office of Special Counsel Jack Smith tonight alerted the court to Trump’s threat when they asked the court for a protective order to stop him from publishing information about the materials they are about to deliver to his lawyers. They expressed concern that publishing personal information “could have a harmful chilling effect on witnesses” or taint the jury pool by telling potential jurors too much before the trial. 

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Notes:

https://www.army.mil/article/268883/40th_chief_of_staff_of_the_army_final_message_to_the_army_team

https://www.military.com/daily-news/2023/06/02/650-military-promotions-threatened-senator-shows-no-signs-of-relenting.html

https://www.npr.org/2023/07/15/1187530846/tuberville-senate-rules-abortion-military

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/08/04/tuberville-hold-as-james-mcconville-retires-00109833

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/08/04/persian-gulf-tuberville-hold-00109909

https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/04/politics/lloyd-austin-tommy-tuberville-memo/index.html

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/senate-foreign-relations-chairman-criticizes-sen-rand-paul-holding-nom-rcna95387

https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/28/politics/senate-confirms-ambassador-nominees/index.html

https://www.congress.gov/nomination/118th-congress/43

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/08/02/united-states-embassy-niger-coup-00109408

Civil Discourse with Joyce Vance

“If you go after me…”

Today, Donald Trump issued what can only be construed as a shot across the bow, after the Magistrate Judge Moxila Upadhyaya admonished him during arraignment yesterday that he must not commit any new crimes while on a pre-trial bond—the thing that’s keeping him out of jail before trial—and that efforts to influence or intimidate witnesses, jurors or oth…

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11 days ago · 421 likes · 44 comments · Joyce Vance

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Story by Thom Hartmann •4h

Benito Mussolini used fascist film propaganda to create the myth of his Blackshirts’ famous entry into Rome© provided by RawStory

Rosaline is a 60-year-old Floridian who hopes she doesn’t get seriously ill because she’d be wiped out by the increase in her already burdensome medical debt. She has no insurance, and won’t qualify for Medicare for another 5 years.

Ron DeSantis is just fine with this. Cruelty is his trademark.

During the pandemic, Congress appropriated billions to help states expand their Medicaid programs. That money is coming to an end this year, meaning Florida — which refused to expand Medicaid with the federal subsides offered by the Affordable Care Act — is set to throw another 2 million or so residents off their only possible source of health insurance.

Still, Ron DeSantis refuses to expand Medicaid, even though 93 percent of the cost is covered with money from Washington, DC. It’s the principle of the thing, apparently: he’s one of 11 red state governors who believes that working poor people simply shouldn’t get health coverage. After all, they didn’t have the good sense to be born into a wealthy family!

Michael, 30, lives in Orlando and has asthma, but running his little business buying and selling used furniture hasn’t earned him enough to cover his medical bills and to pay rent. He recently got an eviction notice, telling the Florida Health Justice Project:

“I was given a list of homeless shelters to choose from but I hope it doesn’t come to that.”

Ron DeSantis is just fine with this. Cruelty is his trademark.

Violence, hate, bigotry, and cruelty are the four cardinal points of fascism. Compassion and concern for the greater good, for the poor and weak, for the victims of fate and accident have no place in the fascist world.

Historians and political observers have been predicting that America would get our very own Mussolini ever since the days of Barry Goldwater. And there’s been no shortage of candidates: bribe-taking Nixon; Central American fascist-loving Reagan; Gitmo torturing and war-lying Bush; and, of course, Trump.

But with Ron DeSantis, we may finally be facing an all-American politician who has Mussolini’s guile, ruthlessness, and willingness to see people die to advance his political career, all while being smart and educated enough to avoid the easily satirized buffoonishness of Trump.

Mussolini was a famously short man who strutted with his muscular chest pushed out and his chin jutted forward, just like DeSantis, who Trump says is musclebound, likes to do.

Both men were socially awkward, craved power, lacked empathy, displayed casual cruelty, sucked up to the wealthiest men in the nation, and demonized opposition politicians — literally calling or implying their fellow citizens are “the enemy” (a favorite trick of Hitler and Orbán, as well) — to encourage their followers to support them or entertain the rhetoric of violence and threats of violence to achieve political ends.

Miriam, a single parent of two young children, discovered a lump in her breast but postponed visiting the doctor for months because she had no health insurance with her job as a housekeeper.

Finally, she realized the potential gravity of her situation.

“I needed to live to be there for my children,” she said.

She got treatment through the charity ward of a hospital, but even that treatment came with a cost of $2,183. She slipped behind in the $200 monthly payments when her job vanished with the pandemic and now she’s struggling to pay the $1783 she still owes in co-payments from her treatments. She’s been sent to collection and is living in fear of what’s next when the court finally comes after her.

Ron DeSantis is just fine with this. Cruelty is his trademark.

George Washington, in his Farewell Address, warned us of the possible rise of politicians like DeSantis who would suggest other Americans are enemies of the nation’s values, who would exaggerate policy differences in war-like terms, and who would ascribe the most evil of motives and intentions to simple political opponents.

“The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism.”

But it wasn’t just that calling other politicians enemies or attributing evil motivations to them produced dissension and could tear a society apart, although those concerns were at the top of Washington’s mind.

He also knew that such rhetoric was the platform from which a literal strongman could arise in America, destroying the democracy he’d fought the Revolutionary War to create:

“But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism,” he told the nation. “The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.”

Such a warlike approach to politics, Washington said, could only lead in one direction:

“It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection.”

Such rhetoric, Washington argued, produces:

“A fire not to be quenched, it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into a flame, lest, instead of warming, it should consume.”

It’s been 225 years since George Washington uttered those words. And now we’re here.

Hipolito, the father of four, is worried about his life’s partner, the mother of their children.

“My wife has been in pain for weeks now but we can’t afford to find out why,” Hipolito told the

. “I swear, I’m very afraid. She is pale and suffering every day.”

He notes that his wife hasn’t visited the doctor because their family can’t afford the expense when they must also house, feed, and clothe their kids on his job as a cook.

Ron DeSantis is just fine with this. Cruelty is his trademark.

Arresting black men for voting, terrifying them and ruining their lives while making sure they all get paraded in chains before the cameras.

Threatening public school teachers with prison for simply teaching history.

Lying about medical science regarding vaccines to suck up to the Trump base, resulting in fewer Floridians being protected from a disease that is killing literally hundreds of Americans every day.

Using rhetoric that feeds bigotry and hate against gay, lesbian, and trans people.

Intimidating the college board so they strip the Black Lives Matter movement out of their advanced placement African-American Studies curriculum.

Lying to asylum-seekers to get them on a plane to Martha’s Vineyard as a stunt to elevate his own political fortunes.

Ron DeSantis is just fine with all of this. Cruelty is his trademark.

Ignoring the health and safety of his state’s citizens, DeSantis led Florida into a veritable Covid Armageddon, letting (as of January 16) 84,176 of his citizens die from the disease. As former FDA commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb told CBS’ Face The Nation:

“They let the virus spread largely unchecked in terms of personal mitigation. People weren’t wearing masks. They weren’t encouraged to wear masks. Vaccination was encouraged for the elderly population, but not widely… So they made policy choices, and the consequence was an infection that largely engulfed most parts of the state.”

After this orgy of death and disease, at the end of 2021 about 12 percent of Florida’s population — almost 2.6 million — still lacked any form of medical insurance because of DeSantis’ refusal to expand Medicaid for low-income people.

And now as many as 2 million more Floridians will join the ranks of the uninsured in the coming months.

Ron DeSantis is just fine with this. Cruelty is his trademark.

Recommended Links:

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On July 9, 1868, Americans changed the U.S. Constitution for the fourteenth time, adapting our foundational document to construct a new nation without systematic Black enslavement. 

In 1865 the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution had prohibited enslavement on the basis of race, but it did not prevent the establishment of a system in which Black Americans continued to be unequal. Backed by President Andrew Johnson, who had taken over the presidency after an actor had murdered President Abraham Lincoln, white southern Democrats had done their best to push their Black neighbors back into subservience. So long as southern states had abolished enslavement, repudiated Confederate debts, and nullified the ordinances of secession, Johnson was happy to readmit them to full standing in the Union, still led by the very men who had organized the Confederacy and made war on the United States. 

Northern Republican lawmakers refused. There was no way they were going to rebuild southern society on the same blueprint as existed before the Civil War, especially since the upcoming 1870 census would count Black Americans as whole persons for the first time in the nation’s history, giving southern states more power in Congress and the Electoral College after the war than they had had before it. Having just fought a war to destroy the South’s ideology, they were not going to let it regrow in peacetime.

Congress rejected Johnson’s plan for Reconstruction.

But then congressmen had to come up with their own. After months of hearings and debate, they proposed amending the Constitution to settle the outstanding questions of the war. Chief among these was how to protect the rights of Black Americans in states where they could neither vote nor testify in court or sit on a jury to protect their own interests. 

Congress’s solution was the Fourteenth Amendment.

It took on the infamous 1857 Dred Scott decision declaring that Black men “are not included, and were not intended to be included, under the word ‘citizens’ in the Constitution, and can therefore claim none of the rights and privileges which that instrument provides for and secures to citizens.” 

The Fourteenth Amendment provides that “All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” 

The amendment also addressed the Dred Scott decision in another profound way. In 1857, southerners and Democrats who were adamantly opposed to federal power controlled the Supreme Court. They backed states’ rights. So the Dred Scott decision did more than read Black Americans out of our history; it dramatically circumscribed Congress’s power. 

The Dred Scott decision declared that democracy was created at the state level, by those people in a state who were allowed to vote. In 1857 this meant white men, almost exclusively. If those people voted to do something widely unpopular—like adopting human enslavement, for example—they had the right to do so. People like Abraham Lincoln pointed out that such domination by states would eventually mean that an unpopular minority could take over the national government, forcing their ideas on everyone else, but defenders of states’ rights stood firm. 

And so the Fourteenth Amendment gave the federal government the power to protect individuals even if their state legislatures had passed discriminatory laws. “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws,” it said. And then it went on to say that “Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.” 

The principles behind the Fourteenth Amendment were behind the 1870 creation of the Department of Justice, whose first job was to bring down the Ku Klux Klan terrorists in the South. 

Those same principles took on profound national significance in the post–World War II era, when the Supreme Court began to use the equal protection clause and the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment aggressively to apply the protections in the Bill of Rights to the states. The civil rights decisions of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, including the Brown v. Board of Education decision outlawing segregation in public schools, come from this doctrine. Under it, the federal government took up the mantle of protecting the rights of individual Americans in the states from the whims of state legislatures.

Opponents of these new civil rights protections quickly began to object that such decisions were “legislating from the bench,” rather than permitting state legislatures to make their own laws. They began to call for “originalism,” the idea that the Constitution should be interpreted only as the Framers had intended when they wrote it, an argument that focused on the creation of law at the state level. Famously, in 1987, President Ronald Reagan nominated Robert Bork, an originalist who had called for the rollback of the Supreme Court’s civil rights decisions, for a seat on that court. 

Reacting to that nomination, Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) recognized the importance of the Fourteenth Amendment to equality: “Robert Bork’s America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens’ doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists could be censored at the whim of the Government, and the doors of the Federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens for whom the judiciary is—and is often the only—protector of the individual rights that are the heart of our democracy….”

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