Wednesday, July 21, 2021
The Envy of the Trump
The idea was to prove at every foot of the way up that you were one of the elected and anointed ones who had the right stuff. . . .
—Tom Wolf. The Right Stuff (1979)
His anger has been fueled by the fact that what was accomplished in Haiti was accomplished by what might be described as a rag-tag group of people with no weapons other than guns, whereas the people the trump demanded support him and keep him in office included the vice president of the United States and members of Congress, who the trump believes, clearly had the power to block the certification of Electoral College votes for Joe Biden as president, thereby permitting the trump to retain lawful possession of the White House and its accompanying perks. The fact that it ended badly for Christian Emmanuel Sanon, the man who organized it in Haiti, did not lessen the trump’s anger. What mattered was that Sanon’s goal of removing Jovenel Moïse as president of Haiti had been achieved and President Moïse is no longer in office. Mike Pence and the trump supporters in the United States Senate and House of Representatives, on the other hand, lacked the will and/or the skill to keep the trump in office and Joe Biden became, and remains, the president.
According to reports, the change in leadership in Haiti was orchestrated by Christian Emmanuel Sanon, a Haitian born citizen who had lived in Florida for more than 20 years. He describes himself as a “Medical Doctor and Christian Minister who is providing Leadership for Haiti through a life of positive action and absolute integrity.”
Dr. Sanon had not started his effort to replace President Moise with the intent to resort to violence, any more than the trump initially intended to have to threaten to sponsor a coup d’etat in order to remain in office as we have now learned he contemplated. The move to prevent Joe Biden from assuming office would, if the trump’s wishes were honored, take place in a proceeding before the members of the United States Senate and the House of Representatives who were assembled in the House Chamber to certify the election results in a proceeding presided over by Vice President Pence.
The plan to remove President Jovenel Moïse began with a quiet meeting in an elegant meeting room overlooking the courthouse in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
Participants at the meeting were told that Dr. Sanon’s goal in assembling the group was to turn “Haiti into a free and open society.” Dr. Sanon presented the participants with a redevelopment plan for Haiti. Among other things it included retaining a private security force that would protect Dr. Sanon until he became Haiti’s new president. Following his installation he would, of course, have no further need for protection by an outside firm since state security forces would assume that function. According to a spokesman for the firm that was retained by Sanon to provide him with protection, Sanon “expressed an intention to help bring about a peaceful change in the leadership of Haiti in order to improve the living conditions for Haitians.” The spokesman said the company was providing private security for Sanon and other Haitian dignitaries. Like Sanon, the trump only wanted to remain in office in order to continue to improve the living conditions for all who lived in the United States.
As events unfolded the Haitian transition in July turned out not to be peaceful and President Moïse was assassinated. The good news, as far as Sanon was concerned, was that his goal of preventing President Moïse from remaining in office was successful. The bad news was that instead of moving into the presidential palace he is in jail in Haiti and may face charges of having arranged the assassination of the president.
As we now know, the trump was not only angered by the vice president’s refusal to follow the trump’s instructions as to how the proceedings on January 6 were to be conducted in order to prevent Joe Biden from becoming the president. Following that failure to follow instructions, as it were, we have now learned that just as removing President Moïse from office in Haiti became violent notwithstanding the original intent of those organizing his removal, the trump was also considering resorting to violence in order to achieve what his vice-president had refused to effect.
According to a new book by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley, General Milley was fearful that the trump and his followers might attempt a coup or take other steps in order to stay in power. According to the book, General Milley told his staff that “he believed trump was stoking unrest, possibly in hopes of an excuse to invoke the insurrection Act and call out the military.” As we now know, it didn’t happen and the trump is now nothing more than another golfer on one of his many courses. And unlike Sanon, he’s not in jail. At least not yet.
Thursday, July 15, 2021
The Abbott and the Tort
When men drink, then they are rich and successful and win lawsuits and are happy and help their friends.
— Aristophanes, Knights, 424 b.c.
Greg Abbott, the governor of Texas, was formerly best known as the man who took advantage of the tort laws to set himself up financially for the rest of his life. It began when he had the great misfortune to be hit by a limb that snapped off a large oak tree. The bad outcome of that event was that it crushed his spine and damaged his kidneys. The good outcome was that he never again had to worry about his financial security. That is because he successfully sued the homeowner on whose land the tree had lived its life and the tree doctor who had cared for the tree. No current figures are public as to how much he has received to date from the settlement that ended the lawsuit. A 2013 report in the Dallas Morning News says that a settlement of the lawsuit had, as of that date, paid him $6 million dollars and continued to provide him with a 6 figure annual income that he will receive for the rest of his life. By the time Abbott attains age 65 it is estimated he will have received more than $9 million and the payments continue and increase in amount until he dies.
As a result of his experience and the financial windfall the tree fall landed on him Abbott realized the need for tort reform in Texas so others would not have such exaggerated benefits from injuries they suffer. As governor he was the enthusiastic supporter of tort reform that, among other things, limited the amount a person could recover for pain and suffering and for economic damages. The terms of the Abbott settlement have not been disclosed so it is not possible to know how his settlement would have been affected had tort reform been in place. There is a strong likelihood it would have been considerably less.
It is not only plaintiffs in personal injury actions for whom Abbott has little sympathy today. In May he joined other states in announcing that effective June 26, 2021, Texas would no longer accept the $300 supplemental federal unemployment benefits that were to continue at least through September 6. Among the recipients of those payments were gig workers and self-employed Texans who did not qualify for state unemployment benefits. The federal payments to Texas came to an end on June 26.
From the foregoing a reader would be forgiven for assuming that Abbott is opposed to helping any citizen make money as a result of benefits provided by the legal system. That would be wrong. Contrary to his earlier efforts to make it harder for ordinary citizens get money thanks to the legal system, or more recently to obtain unemployment benefits, he has thrown his support behind a bill almost completely eliminating the ability of a woman in Texas to obtain an abortion that, in addition, provides the ordinary citizen the ability to earn good money by enforcing the new anti-abortion statute.
The new Texas law bans abortions after six weeks and imposes civil liability on those who violate its provisions. The Texas statute provides that “any person performing or inducing an abortion after six weeks” in violation of the statutory prohibition is subject to civil liability. In addition any person who “knowingly engages in conduct that aids or abets the performance or inducement of an abortion” can be liable. Someone who drives a woman to an abortion clinic for an abortion, for a example could be civilly liable for having rendered that service to the pregnant woman since the transportation clearly aided the performance of the abortion.
The great news for the average Texas citizen is that the state of Texas depends on that citizen to enforce the new abortion laws. The statute specifically says that the new law may not be enforced by “this state, a political subdivision, a district or county attorney, or an executive or administrative officer or employee of this state or a political subdivision against any person. . . .” Lest the average citizen wonder how the statute can be enforced given that statutory injunction against governmental enforcement of its provisions, the following section of the statute answers that question. It provides that legal action against a person violating the statute can be brought by anyone other than “an officer or employee of a state or local governmental entity in this state.” Thus, enforcement depends on the ordinary citizen. And therein the good news for the ordinary citizen. The statute provides that if the ordinary citizen who brings such a suit is successful, the court shall, among other things, award the ordinary citizen: “statutory damages in an amount of not less than $10,000 for each abortion that the defendant performed or induced. . . and for each abortion that the defendant aided or abetted.”
In the future it is likely that abortion opponents s in Texas will, among other things, sit in front of abortion clinics writing down the license numbers of cars bringing patients to the clinic and use their photographic devices to photograph the driver. With that information it should be fairly easy for them to take steps that will permit them to collect the $10,000.000. That is, of course, only one of the opportunities afforded them by the new legislation. There are many other way a person can be culpable for having abetted someone seeking an abortion- just as there were many different claims Governor Abbott almost certainly made when he sued the home owner and the tree doctor, claims that provided him with a life time of financial security.
Thursday, July 1, 2021
Where's Stevie
Happily the government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction . . . requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.
— George Washington, Letter to the Jewish congregation of Newport, Rhode Island, 1790
It’s just a different venue. And it is nothing more than a coincidence that he reappeared on the front page of the New York Times on the same day that the trump made his first 2022 campaign appearance. That trump appearance was, unsurprisingly, in support of Max Miller who, like trump lives in the fantasy world in which the trump won the election. Max is hoping to unseat Anthony Gonzales. Representative Gonzales is the current member of Congress from Ohio’s Sixteenth District, and a member of the actual world whose inhabitants are able to separate fact from fiction, a skill unknown to trump and his supporters. He was one of ten Republican House members who joined the Democrats in voting to impeach the trump because of the trump role in the January 6 riots. The goblin who has reappeared on the national scene is none other than Stephen Miller.
When he had barely attained age 30, Stephen was serving as the communications director for Jeff Sessions, then the junior senator from Alabama. In 2016 he left Sessions’ office to join the trump presidential campaign as its communications director. That became the jumping off point for a successful career as a right-wing nut job. Following the election of the trump he became the senior advisor to the trump and in that capacity was able to promote some of his own, and the trump’s, favorite policies.
Stephen supported the travel ban for Muslims, helped design the policies that reduced the number of refugees admitted to this country, and made it more difficult for those already here to obtain green cards. He was an enthusiastic supporter of construction of the border wall and supported the policy that resulted in the children of illegal immigrants being separated from their parents.
When Stephen’s enabler moved to Mar a Lago, Stephen, ever creative, found a new way in which to give voice to his bigotry. He created America First Legal (AFL.) Lacking legal training, Stephen created the firm with the help of lawyers now working for the firm. AFL gives Stephen a platform that promises to be just as effective in promoting his racist views as the platform he enjoyed when working for the trump. In the brief time since it was formed in late March 2021, its goals have become clear.
AFL has joined a lawsuit attacking the provisions of the Affordable Care Act that require private insurers to cover “preventive care” without any cost sharing arrangements. It has submitted a Freedom of Information Act to obtain all documents, communications and records relating to the vetting and appointment of Biden’s judicial nominees, appointments that have been rapidly confirmed during the early days of the Biden administration.
AFL has made Freedom of Information Act requests pertaining to the ouster of Rodney Scott, the former Border Patrol Chief and his deputy, Bob Perez. As AFL Vice-President and General Counsel Gene Hamilton explained, “ Removing them from their posts only highlights the extent to which this Administration is engaged in a scorched-Earth campaign to advance an open borders agenda.” Filing the FOIA could similarly be said to highlight Stephen’s anti-immigrant stance.
On June 23, 2021, AFL joined the state of Texas in asking a Federal Judge to immediately halt the Biden administration’s “Catch and Release” policies at the border. As Stephen explained: “The Biden Administration has laid siege to America’s sovereignty and waged merciless assault against our borders. We are fighting back alongside the State of Texas in federal court to save our country from destruction. . . .In this existential legal battle, we are immensely honored to partner with the truly courageous Ken Paxton, the Attorney General of Texas. Together, AFL and the State of Texas are suing the Administration to stop its deadly erasure of our borders and immigration laws, At the heart of this case is the Administration’s illegal policy of Catch-and-Release on our Southern Border—constantly freeing countless illegal aliens into the United States after they are apprehended by Border Patrol. . . .”
At the end of April AFL began a suit against the Agriculture Department over a $4 billion debt relief plan that was designed to assist socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers. The program did not include debt relief for white farmers and that was the essence of the AFL suit. Two federal courts have ordered the Agriculture Department to end the program that forgave the debts of Black and other minority farmers to make up for years of discrimination. The struggle to correct these wrongs continues. Stephen has vowed to continue AFL’s opposition to them.
Commenting on his nephew’s immigration policies as a trump advisor, Stephen’s uncle, David Glosser, said of Stephen’s work: “I have watched with dismay and increasing horror as [Stephen] . . . has become the architect of immigration policies that repudiate the very foundation of our family’s life in this country.” He could have been speaking for all of us. Stephen is back. We are all the worse for his return.