1/14/21: Was the Capitol Insurrection Pre-Planned?

The FBI is investigating whether the takeover of the US Capitol was pre-planned. Some of the particularly worrisome rumors and tips suggest that certain Capitol Police officers and certain Congresspeople collaborated with the insurrectionists. One officer has been arrested and two others have been suspended, but is the evidence conclusive? We don't know -- yet.

The Washington Post reported this Wednesday that a right-wing activist named Ali Alexander claimed he had organized the Capitol takeover with the help of three Congresspeople. Is he telling the truth?

Congressperson Ayanna Pressley’s Chief of Staff claims all of the “panic buttons” in Pressley’s Capitol office had been destroyed prior to the Capitol takeover. 

Forbes rather boldly reports that some Congresspeople took Trump fans on “Reconnaissance Tours” of the Capitol in the weeks before the event. Is it true?

Some of the insurrectionists brought weapons. One brought Molotov cocktails. That is an indication that the participants were prepared to commit violence. 

There has also been significant reporting explaining why so few Federal troops were present. If a lack of troops was part of a plan, that certainly would be important. 

It looks as though President Trump has been thinking about the invasion of the Capitol building for a long time.  During the sole 2020 Presidential debate, Donald Trump told the Proud Boys to “stand by.”

Then, on December 19th, Donald Trump asked his fans to come to Washington, DC on January 6th. He promised “It’s going to be wild!”

And it certainly was. 

What does it mean if the Capitol attack was pre-planned?  

We’d love to know what you have learned that hasn't been exhaustively covered in the news already. Can you share that information with us? If you don’t have access to links, that’s okay - just describe what you heard, and not whether you got it from a reliable source, or whether it’s rumor. 

https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/13/politics/capitol-riot-investigation/index.html

1/10/21: Impeach Trump NOW!

Getting our duplicitious, sanity-challenged President out of power is an outright emergency. He cannot be trusted not to pull more strings, throw more flaming darts, gin up more emotion to use on his hapless followers. The House should be back in their seats already -- not on Monday, a full five days since the riot on Capitol Hill.

I have yet to hear any knowledgeable person say that the impeachment can be completed after Biden's inauguration. That would probably clinch Trump's conviction. But at this point, even old Turtleman McConnell wouldn't vote to keep Trump in office. 

Donald Trump has been the worst president in US history, and by a spectacularly wide margin. But Wednesday's disaster is beyond imagination -- and the more we know, the worse it looks. Today, video emerged of a Capitol policeman being squeezed in a doorway by oncoming thugs. The rioters knew exactly where Jim Clyburne's and Nancy Pelosi's offices were.  We've seen at least three people carrying zip ties for binding the hands of ... whom? I can't even.  

Donald Trump watched the crowd break in, and he loved it. No sane human being who loves the USA can even imagine what damage Trump could think up next. 

We can wait on the Senate to censure and expel Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz, along with nine other senators who challenged electoral college results. We can wait for the federal representatives who fell for the dark side to get their well-earned metaphorical bops on the head (or prison terms). 

But Trump needs to be booted out as soon as humanly possible. NOW. 

https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_5ff93b1bc5b6c77d85e6df60

1/4/21 Congressional Coalitions Play Tug-o-War Over An Untried Election Strategy

On Wednesday, the day after Georgia's two senators are chosen, the Vice President is slated to count the votes of the electors in Congress. 

Thanks to Trump's bullying, scheming, cajoling, and threats over his fans' failure to reelect him, this year's count will be nothing like the usual quadrennial snoozefest. 

Many GOP lawmakers plan to object to the results because they don't like the outcome of the most thoroughly vetted vote in U.S. history. They're pandering to their voter base, a group that on the whole seems to have slept through high school civics.  

Josh Hawley (R-MO) is carrying the GOP flag in the House. There could be 100 or more members who will join him in objecting to the election results. Louis Gohmert (R-TX) is even saying that if Biden's win is upheld, the only response is violence. On the other hand, seven conservative House members say they won't challenge the results.

The loudest coalition is probably the twelve senators led by Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) -- loudest because, well, it's Ted Cruz.

 A bipartisan group of eleven Senators is urging the objectors to knock it off. "Further attempts to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the 2020 Presidential election are contrary to the expressed will of the American people ..." they said as a group. Other GOP Senators agree, but they're agreeing on their own. 

All Trump's and the GOP's tactics are bad sportsmanship, and more than one dance on the edge of -- well, treason. 

But Democrats are not even talking about bringing these wrongheaded folks to heel. Pro-Trump protests are still heated, and too many of those protestors have guns.  The last time lawmakers were charged with treason and expelled from Congress, those lawmakers were from the south, and they wanted to secede. 

We'd just as soon not have civil war, thank you very much. I'm not worried, though. I think that we're looking at paper tigers, not only in Washington DC, but spread across the country, unmasked, and spewing a democracy-threatening sickness into the air. 

Where will we be as a country a month -- or a year -- from now? What will the militias like the Proud Boys and the Michigan conspirators be doing? 

How long do you think the country should wait before prosecuting today's treasonous lawmakers? 

Does Joe Biden have the chops to bring the country back to some form of unity? 

1/1/21: 2020 Wasn't ALL Bad

Anyone scanning Facebook these days has seen the Christmas ornaments for 2020: The mask drawing labeled Year of the Mask; the Mask Angel (made of two used masks); the "2020, Meh," by a star of Shitt's Creek; and last and worst, the silhouette of a dog who is divesting itself of an object labeled "2020." 

So: Was it really that bad? 

Yes. Yes it was. But there were still some good developments in the world. The Huffpost article below gets the ball rolling. 

-- With everyone staying home instead of commuting, global greenhouse gas emissions fell by about 2.4 billion tons this year -- the largest decline on record. Yep, breathe that in. 

-- 45 rhinos have been saved from poachers with a program using trained dogs. In addition, a program involving cameras hidden around a South African wildlife park has enabled rangers to hop in a helicopter and stop poaching just before it happens. 

-- Dogs and cats are happy; they've had their favorite people at home most of the year, and more animals have been sprung from shelters to "forever" homes than ever before. A Nielsen survey found that pet adoptions more than quadrupled over the same three-month period in 2019. 

-- Police are having to take the civil rights of Black people more seriously than ever before. It took several deaths, an ocean of tears -- and thousands of protestors persevering under tear gas and violent attacks from extra-legal thugs. Still, it was a start toward justice. 

-- Many Americans got to spend time with family and build on their relationships. 

-- You didn't have to spend time with ALL your family. 

-- A foreign-language film won the Oscar for Best Picture. 

-- DACA was upheld by the Supreme Court. Trump's attempt to bully his way back into office was smacked down by the Supreme Court -- and countless other courts, from federal on down to local.

-- Crayola now has 40 "flesh-colored" shades of crayon! 

-- Scotland decided to provide menstrual supplies (tampons and pads) free to all who need them. They also oppose Brexit. Who knows? Maybe, for the first time since Bonnie Prince Charlie, Scotland will pull itself together and become independent again. Is that a good thing, or no? 

Can you think of any other good things that happened in 2020? Don't leave yourself out! How is YOUR health? How is YOUR livelihood? How are the people in YOUR family? 

And a Happy New Year to us all! 

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/good-things-happened-2020_l_5feb660fc5b6ff7479847494

12/31/2020 In 20 States, a Happy New Year for Minimum Wage Workers

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/20-states-raising-minimum-wage-2021/

Note: I wrote this piece. The text is a photo of a .pdf of the Facebook page on which it appears. 

12/29/20: Death Threats Are "Destructive for our Democracy," says Acosta

Yes, he gets death threats from Trump fans, says Jim Acosta, a CNN correspondent. So do plenty of other newspeople covering the White House. 

Right-wing anger about the press comes from the President's attitudes, Acosta said on a CNN show, Reliable Sources, on Sunday. "It is just a pervasive hostility and anti-democratic hostility towards the process that I just hope we never receive the likes of ever again." 

Acosta wrote a memoir, "Enemy of the People," last year. The title is one of Trump's descriptions of journalists. 

"We can't be at a place in this country where political reporters, White House correspondents, need bodyguards to cover political campaign events," Acosta said. 

We couldn't agree more! 

https://thehill.com/homenews/media/531812-cnns-acosta-says-a-number-of-us-get-death-threats-from-trump-supporters

12/29/20: A $2,000 Stimulus Bill Puts McConnell on a High Wire

If Donald Trump could turn Mitch McConnell over his knee and paddle him for admitting that Biden won the election, he probably would. 

Trump can't bounce McConnell out of office the way he did AG Bill Barr, who committed a similar “crime” against the Trump Republic. So Trump settled for giving the whole Republican Party a metaphorical wedgie. 

That's certainly the impact of Trump's demand for a $2,000 stimulus payout for nearly every adult or underage American citizen. The Senate can bump up the payout by more than triple the $600 it agreed to -- anathema to conservatives -- or else it can look like the Grinch Who Stole 2021. 

To do that between now and the Georgia senate runoffs on January 5 is ... unattractive to Republican Senators trying to appear fiscally conservative. 

Republicans don't want to look bad. They have enough trouble with Republican (and QAnon) candidate Kelly Loeffler yammering on about how the little people should live within their means while she simultaneously pockets millions in federal farm aid. 

House Democrats, meanwhile, jumped on the Republican dilemma as if it were a summer trampoline. Trump signed the budget bill Sunday night; the House passed a bill for $2,000 stimulus payments on Monday morning. 

The same day, the Senate went in and out of session in LESS THAN 30 SECONDS so that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer couldn't get a word in edgewise about the bill. 

We'll see how Mitch McConnell manages to tap dance around this one. Whoever said politics is boring? 

https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/28/politics/stimulus-checks-politics-trump-mcconnell/index.html

12/28/20: Shame Them When It Counts? Let Them Improve?

Here's the story of a guy who saw a video of a blond, white classmate saying "I can drive, N-.” Face to the camera, three seconds, freshman year. The video circulated around their high school but no farther. 

Jimmy Galligan copied the video and waited for the right moment. When they were both seniors, Amy Groves was accepted to the University of Tennessee, her dream school, because she loved its cheerleading program. 

The moment Galligan chose was right after Grove had posted an Instagram message supporting Black Lives Matter. He messaged her, "You have the audacity to post this, after saying the N-word,” and posted the video to several social-media sites. 

It went viral immediately. Not only that, but it spurred students across the country to call out fellow students for racist behavior. 

Not long afterward, UT's admissions department pressured Groves to give up her spot at its campus. She acquiesced rather than fighting. 

Galligan wanted Groves to understand how damaging the slur really was. It certainly did damage Grove in a way that she will live with for a long while, or forever. 

Did Galligan do the right thing in revealing Groves's racism? Do you think Galligan is a hero, or that he was just plain vindictive? 

Do you think Groves is an oblivious throwback to the days before the Civil Rights movement? A bigot in her own time? A victim? All of these, at different times? Who deserves praise and who deserves blame? 

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/26/us/mimi-groves-jimmy-galligan-racial-slurs.html?campaign_id=2&emc=edit_th_20201227&instance_id=25436&nl=todaysheadlines&regi_id=51034037&segment_id=47867&user_id=29358ec44bd220bacacbe23cfbabee7e

12/27/2020: All Capitol Hill Can Agree -- Let's Help People with Disabilities Find Jobs!

There's one goal that Democrats and Republicans can get behind: Helping people with disabilities who are currently drawing Social Security to find paying work. 

The Biden campaign outlined several proposals to benefit Americans with disabilities -- starting with enforcing laws already on the books. Biden's disability goals include a whole section on expanding "competitive, integrated employment opportunities for people with disabilities." 

That's a welcome change. The Trump administration said that the country could save $49 billion over five years if only disabled Americans could join the work force and stop taking Social Security benefits. 

That figure is more like $3.5 billion over five years, according to Social Security expert David Weaver. "The vast majority of beneficiaries do not [work] for the simple reason that their health prevents them from working," he writes. 

Still, it's an attractive goal, if only to give people with disabilities the independence and agency many long for. 

But how do we do it? Weaver touts tweaking an existing program as a route to bipartisan action. That program is ‘Ticket to Work,’ created in 1999. 

TTW helps with planning (via Work Incentives Planning and Assistance organizations -- WIPAs -- who know the legal ropes), and job preparation and placement. 

The WIPAs guide the would-be working disabled through a mess of work incentives and another mess of tax regulations for the impact of earned income on Social Security benefits, among other things. 

Job prep and placement once went exclusively through state Vocational Rehabilitation agencies. [Full disclosure: I use two excellent hearing aids that were provided to me through a Texas VR program.] The TTW program added the option of using private-sector Employment Networks for job placement. 

Weaver says TTW could use more funding for WIPAs and a way for young people with disabilities to transition into the program. 

Sounds good to us! Let's get on our phones to Congress starting January 21st. 

Do you think that disabled people on Social Security who can work, even if it's menial work, should be required to take jobs? (We suspect that this was the unstated goal of Trumpian "reforms" in Social Security for the disabled.) If not, how can we make sure that the work option remains voluntary? Do you think people with disabilities should get a special boost when it comes to finding work -- i.e. employment incentives for the company that hires these people?

https://thehill.com/.../531698-bipartisan-reforms-could...

12/26/20: Enemy Gravestones Draw Neo-Patriots' Ire

Of all the gravestones in all the military graveyards in the United States, a total of three have borne swastikas -- two in Texas and one in Utah. All three represent German POWs who died before WWII ended. 

The inscriptions on the pair in Texas include an Iron Cross with a swastika inside, along with these words: "He died far from his home for the Leader (Führer), people and fatherland." 

The third headstone has a similar graphic. It's on the grave of a German POW in Fort Douglas Post in Salt Lake City. When he died in 1944, fellow POWs paid for his stone's inscriptions out of their 50-cent-a-day allowance. 

There the gravestones have stood, next to other POWs' graves, for more than 70 years. Was anyone offended? Probably. Why were the gravestones allowed there? A wild guess: With Germany defeated, Americans may have seen the Texas POWs as victims of a treacherous national government. Sorrow breeds compassion, and many sons and brothers had died. 

But then, another reaction is rage. In May 2020, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation and the Southern Poverty Law Group made strongly worded appeals to the Veterans Administration. The MRFF, highly offended, wrote, "In light of the shocking and inexcusable existence of these Nazi-adorned gravesites ... MRFF demands that Secretary Wilkie issue an immediate and heartfelt apology to all United States veterans ...." 

The SPLG asked, in a press release, "Have they forgotten the millions of Jews who died in the Holocaust?" and noted that "documented antisemitic incidents in the United States have reached a new high" since Donald Trump was elected. 

It's a new zeitgeist for the VA. At first, the agency said Nope, sorry. "The National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 assigns stewardship responsibilities ... to protect historic resources, including those that recognize divisive historical figures or events," they announced -- in the magazine Salon.com, of all places. 

That didn't last long. On May 25th, the Veterans Affairs secretary received a letter from a group of House Representatives, saying that "symbols and messages of hatred, racism, intolerance, and genocide is especially offensive to all the veterans who risked, and often lost, their lives defending this country and our way of life," and calling the symbols "a stain on the hallowed ground..." 

In June, the Jewish War Veterans of the United States, who worked with MRFF, announced that the VA had reversed course. 

On December 23rd, the Department of Veterans Affairs finally removed the two headstones in Texas. There was no word on what would replace them, or on the headstone in Utah. 

What do you think about these gravestones bearing Swastikas? Can, or should, they be allowed to stay that way? 

Is getting rid of the Swastika-bearing headstones a form of intolerance of its own? Or is it about time they were removed? 

https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/25/us/va-cemeteries-swastikas-headstones-removed-trnd/index.html

12/23/20: Trump's Dangerous Last Weeks

The White House is getting crazier by the day, as Donald Trump refuses to hear any narrative that doesn't end with him getting a second term. That leaves a handful of far-right fantasists to advise him. 

An Oval Office meeting last week devolved into shouting and chaos over advisor Mike "the Felon" Flynn's suggestion of martial law. Trump is also listening to fringe-theorist Sidney Powell, a former member of Trump's election-fighting lawyer team, who was in that meeting. Meanwhile, Trump is considering firing longtime White House lawyer Pat Cipollone, who added a voice of constraint that day. 

Trump is seriously considering having the military seize voting machines. He has already asked about getting state legislatures to rescind their electoral votes, according to Jon Swan of Axios, but Trump has been told he can't. 

"We cannot stress enough how unnerved Trump officials are by the conversations unfolding inside the White House," Swan writes. 

When even the pliable Bill Barr walks away, you know it's dire. 

Now the most ardent Trump loyalists are in Trump's angry laser beam. Mitch McConnell, who recently stated that Biden won the election. Trump trolled him by emailing a timeline graph to Republicans on Capitol Hill, calling McConnell "the first one off the ship," and claiming credit for McConnell's re-election. 

A Lincoln Project ad saying that Pence is backing away from Trump has made Trump believe that Pence will certify the election results for Biden (a betrayal in Trump's mind). 

After visiting Trump recently, Overstock .com founder Patrick Byrne, one of Trump's fringe friends, also fed into Trump's craziness by tweeting that Trump's advisers "want him to lose and are lying to him," adding "For the first time in my life I feel sorry for Donald Trump. He is standing up to his waist in snakes. Trust Rudy and Sidney only." 

Writes Chris Cilliza of CNN, "In his moments of deepest denial, Trump has told some advisers that he will refuse to leave the White House on Inauguration Day, only to be walked down from that ledge," CNN reports. 

The problem is that Trump is still President. He has the rights to the nuclear football. He can still rule by fiat -- to some extent -- through executive action. 

If Trump goes to Mar-a-lago for his usual January vacation, he'll be doing government work, including making phone calls and taking meetings, without commonsensical advisors hovering nearby. 

That prospect should scare all of us. 

Do you think Trump's advisors will be able to keep him hemmed in till January 20th? How? 

Do you think that the 25th amendment is worth a try at this late date in Trump's presidency? 

What will happen at the end of Trump's ongoing tailspin? 

https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/21/politics/trump-white-house-sidney-powell/?hpt=ob_blogfooterold

12/21/20: Oval Office Meeting Becomes a GOP Slugfest

An Oval Office meeting Friday turned into a verbal melee among Trump, pardoned felon Michael Flynn, White House counsel Pat Cippolone, chief of staff Mark Meadows, Rudy Giuliani (who joined by phone) and, finally, QAnon believer and election-conspiracy theorist Sidney Powell. 

The points discussed: 

-- Flynn urged Trump to impose martial law and re-do the election so Trump would win. 

-- Trump talked about naming Sidney Powell as Special Counsel (bypassing Attorney General Barr, who shuffles out of office on Wednesday). 

-- Rudy Giuliani advised against elevating Powell. She was fired from the Trump election-fighting legal group because of her wildly imaginative ideas about election fraud. (It was an apparent case of "it takes one to know one.") 

-- Cippolone and Meadows argued furiously against both martial law and Powell. 

These people were screaming at each other in the Oval office! You'd be hard put to find a bunch of greedier, seedier people outside a prison yard. 

White House Security may need to call the National Zoo for a tranq gun to stop the GOP elephants from charging each other indoors. Otherwise, they might break the furniture.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/sidney-powell-special-counsel-trump-election_n_5fde93ecc5b6a7df6664fb15

12/21/20: Look! The US is Going to Work on Climate Change!

Biden's climate team is all lined up and ready to run. "Today’s nominees are ready on day one, which is essential because we literally have no time to waste,” Biden said at recently at an event in Wilmington, Del. 

They will indeed have a lot to do. They'll have to stop the progress of oil leases on Arctic National Wildlife Refuge lands. They'll have to hunt down and counter all the self-dealing and friend-dealing rules put in place in the last four years. Not least, they'll have to smooth the way for the U.S. to rejoin the Paris Climate Accords. 

The six people aren't well-known by those who aren't deep into environmentalism, but to that bunch, they're a great group. 

Some require confirmation -- Biden bypassed one star lawyer from California, Mary Nichols, who might be too controversial. Others might meet friction during confirmation, such as Regan and Haaland. 

That said, here are the climate heroes of the next administration:

-- Ex-Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm for Energy secretary -- Rep. Deb Haaland (D-N.M.) will be Interior secretary. Her nomination has a lot of people rejoicing, and not just because she is the first Native American in that position. 

-- Former EPA chief Gina McCarthy is the new National Climate Adviser, with a New York State environmental official, Ali Zaidi, as her deputy 

-- Michael Regan, a North Carolina regulator, for EPA administrator -- Longtime environmental lawyer Brenda Mallory as chair of the Council on Environmental Quality 

We wish them luck and quick progress! 

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/12/19/biden-climate-team-announcement-448717

12/20/20: Microsoft Unleashes the Death Star. Why Didn't the President?

Many of us suspect that Trump's cozy ties with Vladimir Putin are due to Putin's offering Trump a bailout from his multibillion-dollar debts. It's like a movie. Putin says, "Be President and work for us, and we'll take care of you." 

Trump's response to the SolarWinds hack doesn't exactly blow away that narrative. Trump has done nothing -- not even saying "These evildoers are evil!" So yes, we're living in a movie that's miles scarier than The Manchurian Candidate. It's practically unbelievable, yet it seems to be true. 

With our federal government getting no orders from the top, it has largely fallen to the private cyberexperts of America to defend the country. 

Microsoft, for example. MICROSOFT! 

I got my first Mac in 1985, when I was living on the Stanford campus. Like any other sucker, I fell for Apple's marketing. We were the rebels, nimble and cool. 

To this day it seems weird that Microsoft could do anything more than walk in a straight line (as long as they weren't chewing a Juicy Fruit). All through Microsoft's existence, when they wanted to stomp on a Bambi, the legal team was Godzilla. 

That's why the GeekNews article below is such a surprise. According to this guy, Microsoft is saving America from the Solar Winds hack by unleashing the DEATH STAR. It's the best Christmas present ever. 

Microsoft's OS, or an iteration of it, is on practically every computer in government and business. That's why this works.

Starting on December 13, when the hack became public: 

Microsoft stripped the digital certificates from the infected files. That means every one of the infected files waves a red flag. 

The company updated Windows Defender to create an alert whenever an infected file is used. 

Microsoft then went to court (go lawyers!) to take over the domain (address) that the malware makers use. The tactic is called "sinkholing." Apparently, Microsoft does this frequently with malware. When the infected files go back to ask the domain for instructions, they're identified and severed from the malware site. 

Finally, the company changed its default action for infected files from "Alert" to "Quarantine." As GeekWire put it, "Microsoft basically changed its phasers from "stun" to "kill." 

It's another scene from the same movie. The President, like another virus, stops the government response. There are no government heroes. No military patriots. No unsung saviors (that we know of). It was all private enterprise -- if indeed, Microsoft succeeded. 

In Star Wars, the bad guys had the Death Star; and in fact, Microsoft was working the gig economy before anybody else thought of it, so the shoe fits. Presumably Macs are still the rebels. 

In this movie, though, the President seems to be working for the enemy. 

Do you think that Trump has committed treason in this matter? 

Is it possible that American capacities for cyber warfare are really too weak to fight back against Russia, or for that matter, China? 

Doesn't the US have its own skunkware factory somewhere? It's not as if China, for instance, was making its cyber warfare a big secret. On the first web host I ever used for my web sites, which was free, there were frequent DOS attacks from China. If I knew that in 2007, the government knew it too.

https://www.geekwire.com/.../microsoft-unleashes.../...

12/19/20: Right-Wing Justices Drop-Kick a Case About the Census

Since the election, we've all (admit it!) been snorting and chortling over the goofy lawsuits brought by Trump's legal team to get the election results overturned. No evidence! Unconstitutional request! Logical holes so egregious that Priscilla, Queen of the Desert could drive through them with the freak flag flying high!

Turns out liberals can do that too. In a hugely important case centering on whether to include undocumented immigrants in Census results, the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups tried to block Trump's plan to leave out of the Census results the millions of undocumented people who work and live in the US of A.

The conservative justices said that the implications and possible results of inclusion versus exclusion just weren't spelled out clearly enough in the suit.

Breyer, Kagan, and Sotomayor, the three liberal justices, wrote that the issue is too important for the Court to pass up the case.

They got outvoted. In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court refused to hear the case. That leaves the issue unsettled in the very teeth of redistricting.

Many or most of WRP's members will see Trump's effort to exclude undocumented immigrants as a blatantly unconstitutional effort to deny federal funding to states that allow them to live in peace within their borders. After all, the Constitution says they're supposed to count "the whole number of persons in each State."

Trump notes that including the undocumented would give an unnamed state (whisper: California) two or three more Congressional seats during redistricting. Can't have that, can we?

It seems that Trump wants to punish liberal states for tolerating illegal residents -- and especially for giving them benefits such as food stamps and Medicaid.

The ACLU says it's barely begun to fight.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/supreme-court-census-ruling-too-early-undocumented-immigrants/?fbclid=IwAR2c_eJCtLzK9Zor0-zNPG5yBRHttdyk6SUGuN95eZdkSrNW9gnzmUtuiaA