The Fix Is In
You can tell who's in and who's out at the court of the Boy King these days. These guys are out:
"Some Republican strategists are increasingly upset with what they consider the overconfidence of President Bush and his senior advisers about the midterm elections November 7–a concern aggravated by the president's news conference this week.
"'They aren't even planning for if they lose,' says a GOP insider who informally counsels the West Wing."
Contrast that to the guys who really know what's going on:
"Amid widespread panic in the Republican establishment about the coming midterm elections, there are two people whose confidence about GOP prospects strikes even their closest allies as almost inexplicably upbeat: President Bush and his top political adviser, Karl Rove.
[snip]
"The official White House line of supreme self-assurance comes from the top down. Bush has publicly and privately banished any talk of losing the GOP majorities, in part to squelch any loss of nerve among his legions. Come January, he said last week, 'We'll have a Republican speaker and a Republican leader of the Senate.'"
Rational observers -- those who spend their time in the real world rather than in the hot-house environment of the Royal Court -- suggest His Imperial Cluelessness and his Popeil Pocket Machiavelli are quite simply, out of touch with reality. Well, DUH! They are famously disconnected from the world where the rest of us live.
That doesn't mean they don't have designs on -- and for -- that world. I'm with Steve Soto on this one. The Torturer-in-Chief isn't overconfident. He simply knows what the rest of us do not -- the fix is in. The Royalist machine simply cannot lose on November 7th, no matter the outcome of the election (assuming, against all evidence, there will be one).
So let's play a little game, shall we? It's called "Guess How They'll Do It". I've explored some of the possible ways the Royalists could thwart the will of the American people before. Recently, though, I have hit upon an idea that I think would appeal to the apparatchiks of Pennsylvania Avenue. It is based on the ideas expressed by both The Pretender and his Texas Rasputin. As the Washington Post reports:
"But party operatives say Rove is predicting that, at worst, Republicans will lose only 8 to 10 seats -- shy of the 15-seat threshold that would cede control to Democrats..."
The most recent polls suggest Anti-Royalists will gain significantly more than the 15 seats needed to retake control of the House. As Charlie Cook puts it:
"I think a 30-seat gain today for Democrats is more likely to occur than a 15-seat gain, the minimum that would tip the majority. The chances of that number going higher are also strong, unless something occurs that fundamentally changes the dynamic of this election. This is what Republican strategists' nightmares look like. "
If what "party operatives" tell the Post is true, Rove is ready to concede up to 10 seats. With three incumbent Royalists already behind bars and a fourth safely tucked away in rehab (with, one would hope, little or no Internet access), that means he only has to let six additional seats fall by the wayside to hit his number. I suspect he already has those seats picked out. So now he need only find a way to meddle in five (at a minimum) to 20 (at a maximum) races and he'll achieve the Royal Court's goal.
And they need not steal all of those races, though I'd be thoroughly unsurprised if they did. No, they only need to gum up the electoral machinery a bit. A well-timed call to Diebold would do it. If I was him, I'd have a congressional district map already marked with stars to denote which 20 races will be targeted. (Okay, maybe 30, just to be safe.) The Royalists have a powerful weapon as they hatch this plot: Bush v. Gore. In that case, the Surpreme Court was asked to take the extraordinary step of halting an election because -- and this was the most salient point -- someone might lose. Not just any "someone," of course. It was the "someone" to whom most of the Justices had sworn fealty. The actual ruling hides that issue in a blizzard of contradictory and obfuscatory legalese, but the petition (.pdf) filled on behalf of George W. Bush and Richard Cheney nakedly states their cause of action:
"A stay pending this Court’s review of these substantial federal questions is
essential to prevent Applicants from suffering irreparable injury..." (emphasis added)
The injury, in this case, was losing the election. The Busheviks were fully aware that if there was a fair and accurate count of the votes cast in Florida, they would lose. The Supreme Court dutifully accepted this argument and issued a stay, halting the Florida recount. Once the stay was issued, there was no chance in hell the votes would ever be counted. Game over.
It worked then, and there's no reason to believe it won't work again. After all, the Supreme Court is, if anything, more compliant now than it was in December of 2000. So all it will take to prevent the Anti-Royalists from claiming the majority in the House (or, for that matter the Senate, but let's focus on the lower chamber for simplicity's sake) on November 7 is a few dozen legal challenges, based on the same argument -- counting the ballots will cause "irreparable injury" to the losing candidates.
The Bush v. Gore case sped through the federal judiciary in 38 days. Any challenges based on the same reasoning this fall will, no doubt, take a more leisurely stroll through the courts. (Bob Dornan, a proto-Royalist defeated for re-election in 1996, was still trying to wrest his seat back from its lawful holder more than a year after the ballots were counted.) It is well within the realm of possibility that 20 or 30 House seats will still be contested when Congress reconvenes in January. That raises the intiguing spectre that the Royalists could -- in effect -- prevent Congress from doing any work, indefinitely.
Providing they can convince federal judges of the pressing need for a Royalist majority...ahem, I mean, that Royalist candidates would suffer irreparable injury if all the votes are counted, the Bushies can deny their opponents a majority on the opening day of the new Congress. This is a key element to the scheme. The Rules of the House require a quorum to conduct any business, including the election of a Speaker. Under the Rules of the House, a quorum consists of 218 members*. Should the Royalists manage to bottle up several -- or several dozen -- elections after the November election, they can ensure that, on the first day of the new congressional session, there won't be 218 Anti-Royalists on hand. All the Royalists need do then is retreat en masse to someplace outside Washington.
Don't laugh. There's nothing outlandish about using this tactic. In fact, it was done recently in Texas, when Anti-Royalist lawmakers decamped across the Red River in an (ultimately unsuccessful) attempt to stop a patently illegal Royalist plan for congressional redistricting. (Needless to say, the Supreme Court later ruled it almost-perfectly legal.)
If there aren't 218 members of the House present, no legislation can be enacted. No Speaker can be elected. No subpoenas can be issued. No committee investigations can be launched. Any action taken by the Senate is be irrelevant, since it cannot be considered by the House. In other words, Congress simply doesn't exist.
No Congress -- the ultimate Royalist wet dream. King George will be free to rule by fiat and there's no one to stop him.
God bless America.
* There are contingency plans for conducting House business in the absence of a quorum. They are only exercised, however, on the order of the Speaker. If there's no Speaker, QED, no one can "pull the trigger" to put them into effect.
"Some Republican strategists are increasingly upset with what they consider the overconfidence of President Bush and his senior advisers about the midterm elections November 7–a concern aggravated by the president's news conference this week.
"'They aren't even planning for if they lose,' says a GOP insider who informally counsels the West Wing."
Contrast that to the guys who really know what's going on:
"Amid widespread panic in the Republican establishment about the coming midterm elections, there are two people whose confidence about GOP prospects strikes even their closest allies as almost inexplicably upbeat: President Bush and his top political adviser, Karl Rove.
[snip]
"The official White House line of supreme self-assurance comes from the top down. Bush has publicly and privately banished any talk of losing the GOP majorities, in part to squelch any loss of nerve among his legions. Come January, he said last week, 'We'll have a Republican speaker and a Republican leader of the Senate.'"
Rational observers -- those who spend their time in the real world rather than in the hot-house environment of the Royal Court -- suggest His Imperial Cluelessness and his Popeil Pocket Machiavelli are quite simply, out of touch with reality. Well, DUH! They are famously disconnected from the world where the rest of us live.
That doesn't mean they don't have designs on -- and for -- that world. I'm with Steve Soto on this one. The Torturer-in-Chief isn't overconfident. He simply knows what the rest of us do not -- the fix is in. The Royalist machine simply cannot lose on November 7th, no matter the outcome of the election (assuming, against all evidence, there will be one).
So let's play a little game, shall we? It's called "Guess How They'll Do It". I've explored some of the possible ways the Royalists could thwart the will of the American people before. Recently, though, I have hit upon an idea that I think would appeal to the apparatchiks of Pennsylvania Avenue. It is based on the ideas expressed by both The Pretender and his Texas Rasputin. As the Washington Post reports:
"But party operatives say Rove is predicting that, at worst, Republicans will lose only 8 to 10 seats -- shy of the 15-seat threshold that would cede control to Democrats..."
The most recent polls suggest Anti-Royalists will gain significantly more than the 15 seats needed to retake control of the House. As Charlie Cook puts it:
"I think a 30-seat gain today for Democrats is more likely to occur than a 15-seat gain, the minimum that would tip the majority. The chances of that number going higher are also strong, unless something occurs that fundamentally changes the dynamic of this election. This is what Republican strategists' nightmares look like. "
If what "party operatives" tell the Post is true, Rove is ready to concede up to 10 seats. With three incumbent Royalists already behind bars and a fourth safely tucked away in rehab (with, one would hope, little or no Internet access), that means he only has to let six additional seats fall by the wayside to hit his number. I suspect he already has those seats picked out. So now he need only find a way to meddle in five (at a minimum) to 20 (at a maximum) races and he'll achieve the Royal Court's goal.
And they need not steal all of those races, though I'd be thoroughly unsurprised if they did. No, they only need to gum up the electoral machinery a bit. A well-timed call to Diebold would do it. If I was him, I'd have a congressional district map already marked with stars to denote which 20 races will be targeted. (Okay, maybe 30, just to be safe.) The Royalists have a powerful weapon as they hatch this plot: Bush v. Gore. In that case, the Surpreme Court was asked to take the extraordinary step of halting an election because -- and this was the most salient point -- someone might lose. Not just any "someone," of course. It was the "someone" to whom most of the Justices had sworn fealty. The actual ruling hides that issue in a blizzard of contradictory and obfuscatory legalese, but the petition (.pdf) filled on behalf of George W. Bush and Richard Cheney nakedly states their cause of action:
"A stay pending this Court’s review of these substantial federal questions is
essential to prevent Applicants from suffering irreparable injury..." (emphasis added)
The injury, in this case, was losing the election. The Busheviks were fully aware that if there was a fair and accurate count of the votes cast in Florida, they would lose. The Supreme Court dutifully accepted this argument and issued a stay, halting the Florida recount. Once the stay was issued, there was no chance in hell the votes would ever be counted. Game over.
It worked then, and there's no reason to believe it won't work again. After all, the Supreme Court is, if anything, more compliant now than it was in December of 2000. So all it will take to prevent the Anti-Royalists from claiming the majority in the House (or, for that matter the Senate, but let's focus on the lower chamber for simplicity's sake) on November 7 is a few dozen legal challenges, based on the same argument -- counting the ballots will cause "irreparable injury" to the losing candidates.
The Bush v. Gore case sped through the federal judiciary in 38 days. Any challenges based on the same reasoning this fall will, no doubt, take a more leisurely stroll through the courts. (Bob Dornan, a proto-Royalist defeated for re-election in 1996, was still trying to wrest his seat back from its lawful holder more than a year after the ballots were counted.) It is well within the realm of possibility that 20 or 30 House seats will still be contested when Congress reconvenes in January. That raises the intiguing spectre that the Royalists could -- in effect -- prevent Congress from doing any work, indefinitely.
Providing they can convince federal judges of the pressing need for a Royalist majority...ahem, I mean, that Royalist candidates would suffer irreparable injury if all the votes are counted, the Bushies can deny their opponents a majority on the opening day of the new Congress. This is a key element to the scheme. The Rules of the House require a quorum to conduct any business, including the election of a Speaker. Under the Rules of the House, a quorum consists of 218 members*. Should the Royalists manage to bottle up several -- or several dozen -- elections after the November election, they can ensure that, on the first day of the new congressional session, there won't be 218 Anti-Royalists on hand. All the Royalists need do then is retreat en masse to someplace outside Washington.
Don't laugh. There's nothing outlandish about using this tactic. In fact, it was done recently in Texas, when Anti-Royalist lawmakers decamped across the Red River in an (ultimately unsuccessful) attempt to stop a patently illegal Royalist plan for congressional redistricting. (Needless to say, the Supreme Court later ruled it almost-perfectly legal.)
If there aren't 218 members of the House present, no legislation can be enacted. No Speaker can be elected. No subpoenas can be issued. No committee investigations can be launched. Any action taken by the Senate is be irrelevant, since it cannot be considered by the House. In other words, Congress simply doesn't exist.
No Congress -- the ultimate Royalist wet dream. King George will be free to rule by fiat and there's no one to stop him.
God bless America.
* There are contingency plans for conducting House business in the absence of a quorum. They are only exercised, however, on the order of the Speaker. If there's no Speaker, QED, no one can "pull the trigger" to put them into effect.
posted by wally at 3:01 PM
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