THIS WEEK IN POLITICAL NEWS -- 12/22/16

First, a welcome to my new readers. I am so glad you’re joining us, and as always, I will happily accept all feedback, story ideas, and suggestions for links)! Note that, unless something crazy happens, I’ll be taking next week off and will return in 2017.

NORTH CAROLINA -- AUTOCRATIC BLUEPRINT: First up, let’s pick up where we left off last week in North Carolina. The legislature did end up passing, and the GOP lame duck governor did end up signing, the autocracy-creating bills we discussed last week. The bills strip the incoming Democratic governor of his power to appoint a majority of the State Board of Elections and to appoint trustees to the boards of the UNC schools; limits the authority of the soon-to-be-Democratically-controlled Supreme Court to hear appeals; drastically reduces the number of appointees the Democratic governor can make; and requires all of the governor’s appointed agency heads to be approved by the Senate. This is a really, really, REALLY big deal -- mostly because the GOP is going to get away with this, and there seems to be little that anyone can do to stop them. I do not see how the national Republican party will not look to North Carolina as a blueprint going forward. Indeed, the only thing that has ever really stopped one party that has temporary power from shutting out the other party entirely and creating a perpetual autocracy are democratic norms, not laws -- and we know what has happened to norms this year. After all the democracy-threatening crazy, the NC GOP was also set to repeal the anti-gay/anti-trans bill that many credit with leading to Gov. McCrory’s defeat -- but then all hell broke lose yesterday and the legislature refused to repeal the law. Remember that this all started when Charlotte chose to pass its own city-wide non-discrimination ordinance, and Republicans were so outraged about people choosing to prohibit discrimination in their own city that they passed a statewide law forbidding cities from making that choice. So hell broke loose Wednesday because Charlotte was supposed to repeal its local anti-discrimination ordinance in exchange for repeal of the pro-discrimination statewide law, but instead the city repealed only part of the ordinance, leading the totally sane and not at all batshit crazy state GOP to put out this statement: “The HB2 blood is now stain soaked on their hands and theirs alone.” I know it’s Christmastime and I should charitable, but good god, these people are the worst.

COMEY COST HILLARY THE ELECTION -- AND FOR NOTHING: Hey, remember that time the director of the FBI gave an unprecedented news conference lambasting a presidential candidate for behavior that was legal, normal, and not at all nefarious? And then remember how, two weeks before election day, that same FBI director sent a cryptic note suggesting that new illegal emails (as opposed to the old emails that were not illegal or improper) had been found? And remember how that “reopening” of the investigation likely cost Hillary Clinton the election and paved the way for our descent into autocracy and the end of our American way of life as we know it? Yeah, turns out all of that was based on nothing. Literally nothing. (For those who want a really good, super clear [and absolutely enraging] explanation of the REAL STORY behind Hillary’s emails -- something I never fully understood at the time -- please listen to this This American Life piece, and also check out this short Kevin Drum rundown.) Anyway, the FBI’s search warrant for the new round of emails was released yesterday, and it shows that the entire basis for the warrant was simply the facts that (i) Huma Abedin was married to Anthony Weiner and (ii) Huma and Clinton emailed daily. Based on those two facts, the FBI declared that there may be illegal emails on Weiner’s computer (despite the fact that, again, they had found nothing illegal in their earlier exhaustive search). Clinton’s lawyer said that what is “unassailably clear . . . is that as the sole basis for this warrant, the FBI put forward the same evidence the Bureau concluded in July was not sufficient to bring a case — the affidavit offered no additional evidence to support any different conclusion.” So, yeah. That happened.

GREATEST THING EVER: Sweet jesus we need a break from the grim. So I’m just going to quote liberally from this Washington Post story, because it is the most hilarious thing I read all week and we need a good laugh:

Trump’s closest aides have come to accept that he is likely to rule out candidates if they are not attractive or not do not match his image of the type of person who should hold a certain job. “That’s the language he speaks. He’s very aesthetic,” said one person familiar with the transition team’s internal deliberations who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “You can come with somebody who is very much qualified for the job, but if they don’t look the part, they’re not going anywhere.” Several of Trump’s associates said they thought that John R. Bolton’s brush-like mustache was one of the factors that handicapped the bombastic former United Nations ambassador in the sweepstakes for secretary of state. “Donald was not going to like that mustache,” said one associate, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak frankly. “I can’t think of anyone that’s really close to Donald that has a beard that he likes.”

Hahahahahahaha this man is going to be the leader of the free world. Hahahahahaha we’re all going to die.

‘FIRST AMENDMENT’ BULLPUCKY: One of the first bills to get to Trump’s signature may be the Orwellian-named First Amendment Defense Act, a bill written by those stalwart protectors of civil rights, Senators Ted Cruz and Mike Lee. The bill would bar the federal government from taking any action against any entity that refuses to serve LGBTQ people based on the entity’s or employee’s belief that marriage can only be heterosexual, and that “sexual relations are properly reserved to such a marriage.” This would mean that the government could not, for example, refuse to contract with companies that discriminate. This is a national version of the Indiana bill that made Mike Pence famous last year (and which he soon had to revise after widespread protests and boycotts). The bill poses a broad threat: “FADA’s logic could also be used to justify pharmacies refusing to fill birth control prescriptions, businesses not offering health benefits to a same-sex marital partner, adoption agencies discriminating against gay families, and even hospitals turning away LGBT people or their children.” For those looking for a target for activism in the days after January 20, targeting your congressmen and women about this bill will be a necessary (and potentially effective, given the effectiveness of activism on this issue at the state level) outlet for your energy.

Must Read of the Week: Chait (who else) on Trump’s pick to lead the Council on Economic Advisors: “What is remarkable about Kudlow is not just how flamboyantly and demonstrably wrong he has been, but that his influence over the Republican agenda has actually increased.”

Apocalypse Watch: Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker asks Trump to allow the state to bar refugees and to drug test welfare recipients.  

Fun Video of the Week: SNL + Love Actually + HRC = genius. (Bonus: SNL’s 90s-rap-inspired tribute to Obama’s last Christmas, or rather to our last Christmas with Obama.)

Bonus Books Recommendations: Entirely separate from politics, many of you have asked me for good book recommendations for the holidays. The best novel I read this year, by far, was Anthony Marra’s A Constellation of Vital Phenomena. Also great was Commonwealth (by Ann Patchett), Homegoing (by Yaa Gyasi), and The Tsar of Love and Techno (also by Marra). Good nonfiction I enjoyed this year was Ghettoside (by Jill Leovy) and Love Warrior (by Glennon Doyle Melton). I also finally read Dreams From My Father, and holy god that book is good. Can’t believe we got to have him as our president for eight years. We did not deserve him.