Black Stoles?

In Wednesday's post, I noted that the clergy presiding over the post-inaugural prayer service for Trump's second inauguration wore black stoles. This puzzled me, because I was an Episcopalian for over 30 years, and I've been a Roman Catholic for a dozen, and the liturgical colors for The Episcopal Church follow those of the Catholic Church. The current Catholic liturgical season is "Ordinary Time", for which the color is green. The Episcopal Church regards this season as an extended "Epiphany" that lasts until Ash Wednesday, but its liturgical color is also green.

Thus a priest or deacon presiding over a normal eucharist or prayer service at this time of the year would wear a green stole, not a black one, and black isn't normally listed as a liturgical color -- just red, white, purple, rose, or green.

According to Wikipedia, in Roman Catholic practice, which Episcopalians have followed since the Oxford Movement,

For the celebration of the Mass, the principal celebrant as well as concelebrants wear the stole over the alb but under the chasuble. Likewise, the deacon wears the stole over the alb but under the dalmatic. The stole is also worn over the surplice or alb for the distribution and reception of Holy Communion.

The priest or deacon who presides in paraliturgical celebrations, such as the Stations of the Cross, usually wears the stole over the surplice (or alb), and always under the cope.

As far as I understand this, backed up by a fast-forward review of the service on YouTube, this was an Episcopalian Morning Prayer service that did not include a eucharist. Thus the priests who presided over it were wearing surplices, not chasubles, with stoles worn over the surplice. But as we see in the photo above, the stoles were black, not green, as would be appropriate for the liturgical season. I was a little surprised that there was even such a thing as a black stole, but I found at stoles.com:

Mourning is symbolized by the color black. Contrary to popular opinion, black or purple uniforms may be dressed at funeral Masses.

Except that this wasn't a funeral mass; liturgically it was Morning Prayer. I briefly thought the clergy might have been displaying some sort of mourning over the inauguration of Trump, but then I looked for photos of prior post-inaugural services and found this one above left of the 2009 service for Obama (click on the image for a larger copy). Yup, black stoles, even for a liberal Democrat. However, the clergy representing other faiths on the dais are wearing either red stoles or no stoles.

I found this at a commercial vestment site:

The Importance of Black Vestments: Black is one of the most powerful, yet underrated, colors in Christian tradition. It’s not just about mourning—it’s about reflecting on the deeper mysteries of life, death, and redemption.

. . . Black makes a statement without needing to shout. It’s timeless, solemn, and speaks to the gravity of the moments it’s worn. It serves as a visual reminder of Christ’s sacrifice, the reality of our mortality, and the hope we find in resurrection.

. . . Fun fact: Did you know that during the Reformation, black became widely used as a liturgical color in some Protestant denominations? Reformers like John Calvin favored black vestments to emphasize simplicity, humility, and repentance, stripping away the more elaborate colors and fabrics of the Catholic Church.

So all I can tentatively conclude is that the black stoles here are an area where the Episcopalians are asserting their Protestantism despite otherwise affecting Catholic liturgical forms, and the black is intended to emphasize the solemnity of the occasion. It isn't meant to disrespect Trump, even though the context of Bp Budde's homily may have led some to believe it might have been.

I'll greatly appreciate corrections and clarifications via e-mail or in the comments -- this was a strange rabbit hole. I'll post any corrections or clarifications here.

Splitsville For Doug And Kamala?

Via the UK Daily Mail,

Kamala Harris was all smiles and affection for her 'beloved' second gentleman Doug Emhoff in the immediate aftermath of her crushing presidential election defeat.

But now that President Donald Trump has been sworn into office, for sore loser Harris, it is now all about the blame game, and her target has flipped to her 'dead weight' husband.

And as she weighs her political future – maybe a 2026 run for Governor of California or another try for the nation's top job two years later – she has to consider whether Emhoff is an asset or a liability.

. . . Despite their brave united front at the inauguration and at President Jimmy Carter's January 9 funeral, those close to the couple believe all is not 'hunky dory' between them.

And word is the husband of California girl Kamala has already signed up for a job with a Big Apple law firm which would require them to split their time between New York and Los Angeles.

The piece goes on to mention that Emhoff chose to forego his legal career to support Kamala's presidential aspirations:

Emhoff famously stepped away from his own prominent career as an attorney in California to fully support Harris' political ambitions in 2020 – becoming hell-bent on perfecting his image as a 'wife guy'.

But now that Kamala is out of power for the foreseeable future, Emhoff is going to have to find other ways to cash in. I looked at Emhoff's prior legal career in this post, where I relied heavily on an entry in Britannica. He graduated from USC Law School in 1990 and was presumably admitted to the California bar soon afterward.

Emhoff subsequently embarked on a career in entertainment law. He worked at the firm Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman and later joined Bingham McCutchen. In the late 1990s he moved to Belin Rawlings & Badal. His clients there included Hollywood Video, a rental chain that he defended after Fox Entertainment Group accused it of underreporting sales and rentals.

In 2000 Emhoff cofounded the firm Whitwell Jacoby Emhoff.

. . . In 2006 Whitwell Jacoby Emhoff was acquired by Venable LLP, and Doug Emhoff became head of that firm’s Los Angeles branch and later manager of its West Coast operations.

This covers the period of his first marriage, to Kerstin Mackin in 1992, which ended in divorce in 2010 amid allegations of infedelity with their children's nanny in 2008. Following the divorce, there were allegations of sexual harassment against him in his position as Venable LLP's manager of West Coast operations, including playing favorites in case assignments with female attorneys who would flirt with him and holding all-male after-hours drinking parties.

May 2012 was also when a New York attorney who was dating him alleged that he slapped her while they waited in a valet parking line at a French film festival.

However, in 2013, he met Kamala on a blind date and married her in 2014. At that time, she was California Attorney General; she was elected US Senator from California in 2016. This appears to correspond with Emhoff's move to a new law firm. Britannica continues,

In 2017 he joined the global firm DLA Piper, where he represented such clients as big-box store Walmart, arms dealer Dolarian Capital, and pharmaceutical company Merck.

. . . In 2016 when Harris, a Democrat, ran for the U.S. Senate, Emhoff maintained a relatively low profile during the campaign. She ultimately won, and the couple moved to Washington, D.C. Emhoff took on a more public role during the 2020 presidential election, as Harris first ran for the party’s nomination before dropping out and then becoming Joe Biden’s running mate. Biden and Harris ultimately defeated the Republican ticket . . . . During the campaign Emhoff stopped practicing law, and he later began teaching at Georgetown University’s law school.

But it's hard to avoid thinking that being married, first to the California Attorney General, and then to a US Senator, was good for Emhoff's legal career. A partner in a law firm is valuable only insofar as he can bring in clients, and if Emhoff had the ear of a US Senator in particular, he'd bring in clients. Thus he'd be valuable to DLA Piper -- or so you'd think. So why did he stop practicing law just when he was on the verge of cashing in even more?

Exactly why isn't clear -- certainly it was never an obstacle to Hunter Biden's law practice that his father was either a US Senator or vice president. My suspicion all along has been that the firms that hired him soon enough discovered he wasn't all that valuable and edged him out, and that probably included DLA Piper. And the question for me continues to be how Emhoff can bring in major clients now if his only claim to fame is that he was house hubby to an ex-vice president and out of the law business entirely for four years.

According to, New York Magazine,

The couple has been seriously exploring the Manhattan apartment market so they can become a bit bicoastal. They have considered different kinds of uptown units — “Page Six” was recently tipped off to Emhoff’s tour of a big condo near Lincoln Center — and have been working through logistical questions, including security concerns. (Former vice-presidents get six months of Secret Service protection, but that can occasionally be extended depending on risk levels.)

A secondary East Coast base may be helpful for their travels. Harris is likely to give some paid speeches, and she’s already fielded inquiries about writing a book. Emhoff, a lawyer, has spoken about taking on clients again and maintaining a public profile so he can keep up his work combating antisemitism.

This looks like it's mostly smokescreen, and the Daily Mail interprets it as more likely an indication that they'll be living separate lives. And the mention of Emhoff keeping up his work combating anti-Semitism is off the wall -- neither Kamala nor his first wife was Jewish, his children weren't raised as Jews and don't identify as Jews, and Emhoff himself doesn't appear to be observant, other than for occasional staged campaign-related events with Kamala. It's hard to imagine any Jewish organization taking him seriously as a spokesperson.

And it does pretty much look like the days of Emhoff and Kamala celebrating Passover as a family are over. If anything positive comes out about either one of them, I'll have a really hard time believing it.

The National Cathedral, The Establishment Clause, And The Lady Bishop

The intgriguing thing about Episcopalian Bishop Marianne Budde's homily at yesterday's National Prayer Service is how many people it confused. Just for starters, DeVory Darkins, the YouTube commentator in the clip above, says at 2:35,

I didn't know you could be a bishop as a woman, I'm just being honest here, I'm not too familiar with the Catholic religion, I'm a Christian. . .

The commenters quickly explained that Bp Budde isn't Catholic, she's Episcopalian -- but nevertheless, aren't the Episcopalians hitchhiking once again on Catholic prestige here? She's vested in a strange mishmosh of a surplice-cum-black-stole that's at least reminiscent of Catholic tradition, and the service is conducted in a faux Catholic-style cathedral with faux medieval stonework and a rose window, which calls itself the National Cathedral. Wikipedia says,

The Cathedral Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul in the City and Diocese of Washington, commonly known as Washington National Cathedral or National Cathedral, is a cathedral of the Episcopal Church. The cathedral is located in Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States.

Its website says,

Washington National Cathedral holds a unique place at the intersection of sacred and civic life. As the Cathedral of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, we strive to serve God and our neighbors as agents of reconciliation, a trusted voice of moral leadership and a sacred space where the country gathers during moments of national significance.

Wikipedia goes on,

From its earliest days, the cathedral has been promoted as more than simply an Episcopal cathedral. Planners hoped it would play a role similar to Westminster Abbey. They wanted it to be a national shrine and a venue for great services. . . . Contrary to popular misconception, the government has not designated it as a national house of prayer.

You'd better bet it hasn't -- the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment says "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof". Declaring that there's a national house of prayer that's part of The Episcopal Church. or indeed, any national house of prayer at all, would directly contradict the Establishment Clause. In effect, there's some sort of gentlemen's agreement that the National Cathedral is a sorta-kinda venue for presidential funerals and inaugural prayer services, but not every presidential memorial service has been conducted there, and not every president has had an inaugural prayer service there.

It's all sorta-kinda, not quite national, not quite Catholic, just maybe seems that way. But very prestigious.

Actually, the National Cathedral at this point is an artifact, as is The Episcopal Church. Wikipedia says,"Construction started on September 29, 1907, with a ceremonial address by President Theodore Roosevelt and the laying of the cornerstone." This was a period where The Episcopal Church was at the peak of its prestige, with wealthy and influential families like the Vanderbilts, the Morgans, the Harrimans, the Mellons, the Astors, the Roosevelts, and the Peabodys prominent among their numbers.

This has been part of the confusion that's been tolerated all along that, at least for a time, worked to the benefit of the Establishment and the Episcopalians. If there was a certain amount of confusion whether a bishop was Catholic or Episcopalian, or for that matter a priest, so much the better. If it was felt that the country's official spirituality was Episcopalian, so much the better. And especially when the official teachings of most Christian denominations on matters like marriage and sexuality, or even the ordination of women, were mostly consistent, it didn't matter too much.

But in Trump's second inaugural ceremonies Monday and yesterday, we're beginning to see the schism. We may assume that Cardinal Timothy Dolan and Dr Franklin Graham were specifically invited by the Trump team to deliver the invocations before the oath of office. Cdl Dolan has had nice things to say about Trump in the recent past, and Dr Graham specifically endorsed him. And as I watched the ceremony Monday, I noted that Rome's Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith might have vetted each of their invocations for consistency.

They both preached on the subject of God as the source of wisdom. They urged our civic leadership to pray to God for wisdom, as figures from King Solomon to General Patton have done. There were no potential disputes over church governance, the number and nature of the sacraments, or the exclusive authority of scripture. Indeed, both were ordained and consecrated ministers of the gospel, and they were both male. The level of unanimity was simply remarkable. The Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church might have been able to join them, at least several generations ago.

No longer. The following day, confusion reigned. There was a woman bishop who had nothing in particular to say about God, nor anything about prayer or wisdom, and nobody was quite sure what religion this was in any case. But most importantly, she spoke out for luxury beliefs:

In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now. There are gay, lesbian and transgender children, and Democratic and Republican and independent families, some who fear for their lives.

This is peculiar indeed. In the face of increasing recognition that measures like life-changing surgery or puberty blockers are inappropriate for treating gender uncertainty in minor children, the bishop appears to be advocating just these measures, suggesting that withholding castration or mastectomy from these children is somehow ungodly. The standard line here is, after all, that unless transgender kids get surgery, they'll commit suicide. This also neglects the entirely reasonable view that parents who virtue-signal over their children's gender identities are engaging in Munchausen syndrome by proxy, making a self-serving display of their luxury beliefs.

Her sympathy for the immigrants who pick crops and wash dishes is also tempered by the fact that the elite families who employ these immigrants as domestics often don't pay their social security -- indeed, they can't if they're illegal. The current illegal immigration status quo simply enables exploitation of the poor by the wealthy and entitled, among whom are Bp Budde's flock.

According to the link,

Trump did not appear to take Budde’s words to heart. Upon his return to the White House, Trump told a reporter that the service was “not too exciting.”

There's an easy solution to this problem: eliminate the confusion. Follow the Constitution and don't attend any more inaugural prayer services at the so-called Natiomal Cathedral. One option would be to begin to rotate the venues for such services -- the chapels at American University and George Washington University could be other choices, or the Roman Catholic Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception -- or an Evangelical facility in the area.

There'd be much less confusion in any of those venues and much more chance of hearing the gospel preached.

Is LA Mayor Bass A "Dead Woman Walking"?

According to Joel Kotkin, Los Angeles Mayor Karen

Bass “is a dead woman walking”, as a union organiser friend told me this week. The revelations of incompetence, poor planning, and awful communication, combined with the fact that the LA mayor was partying in Ghana when wildfires started in her city, have worked against her, and yesterday angry protestors gathered outside her home. Some charges made by Donald Trump and Elon Musk tying the disaster to DEI and climate policies are exaggerated. But Bass’s lack of interest in public safety mirrors the new progressive script which prioritises “social justice” over actual justice, racial quotas over merit, and climate alarmism over common sense.

I'm not so sure about this. The Eaton Fire, one of the two that dominated last week's news, was entirely outside the LA city limits. The Palisades Fire, though, was mainly within city limits, but the part within city limits was Pacific Palisades:

If you were meeting a talent manager for lunch but neither of you wanted to make it a big deal, you met in the Palisades. If you were in the checkout line at the Gelson’s supermarket on Sunset—gone now—you might, as I did years ago, bump into a network executive and find out that your show is about to be cancelled. The Palisades was the central nervous system for show business. It’s anyone’s guess where that will be now that the Palisades is a pile of ashes and embers.

The average annual household income in Pacific Palisades is $359,451, while the median household income sits at $198,550 per year. Residents aged 25 to 44 earn $220,770, while those between 45 and 64 years old have a median wage of $228,849. In comparison, the median household income of Beverly Hills is $116,771. The median household income of Bethesda is $185,546.

Pacific Palisades isn't just the 1%, it's the .01%. The people there don't think much about Karen Bass one way or another; she's elected by the rest of the city, the San Fernando Valley, South Central, San Pedro, East LA, Hollywood. In fact, it's likely that the people who lost their homes in Pacific Palisades won't even live there by the time Bass is up for reelection next year, while the people who voted for her in 2022 will still live in the rest of the city.

So I'm not as sanguine as Joel Kotkin. In fact, the political oucome of the fires is so far inchoate.

On Friday, a union representing more than 3,000 Los Angeles city firefighters gave its full-throated support for Fire Chief Kristin Crowley, who was reportedly called into Democrat Mayor Karen Bass’ office last week to be fired, though she ultimately kept her job.

Mayor Bass and Crowley have been at odds while the city of Los Angeles battles historic wildfires that have so far killed 25 people, and others remain missing. Additionally, Crowley was recently the subject of an anonymous letter from “retired and active LAFD chief officers” condemning her performance as chief, and specifically her decision to call out Mayor Bass on television.

United Firefighters of Los Angeles City Local 112 condemned the letter admonishing Crowley, which they said was signed by “disgruntled and anonymous individuals.” The union also thanked Crowley for being “willing to fight” for her staff and the agency’s budget, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Rick Caruso, who ran unsuccessfully against Bass in 2022, losing by a 10% margin, is thought to be a potential candidate to run against her in 2026 or possibly an earlier recall, but his positions so far are also incoherent:

Former L.A. Mayoral candidate Rick Caruso appeared on Real Time With Bill Maher on Friday to warn the city to be smart about rebuilding after the disastrous wildfires, and noted that Donald Trump was correct when he criticized officials for their lack of dead brush removal policies.

. . . Caruso agreed that Donald Trump issued the right warning about the lack of effective dead brush removal policies in California. The former Republican mayoral candidate also noted that power lines should be buried to prevent sparking wildfires.

On the other hand, in the same program, he apparently thought Trump shouldn't force these policies on the state:

Caruso was razor blunt when it came to threats from Congressional Republicans and President-elect Donald Trump that future federal aid to California for these recent wildfires and future wildfires might not be delivered with such an open hand anymore.

“This idea that the federal aid is going to come with conditions …it’s bullshit,” Caruso blurted out. “Bullshit!”

So which is it? If the state, county, or city won't follow prudent brush removal policies, how else can the federal government enforce them? It's hard to avoid a feeling that Caruso hasn't thought things through; serious opposition to Bass is going to need a more comprehensive agenda that goes beyond brush removal and advocates policies that benefit the rest of the city, which otherwise will see no benefit in electing a mayor who will just keep the wildfires out of the Palisades.

The only good sign here is that Trump is going to visit Los Angeles, apparently later this week:

President Donald Trump’s first official trip after returning to the White House will be to the Los Angeles areas that have been devastated by fires, according to a new report. The news was reported by NewsNation, which cited two unnamed sources for their reporting.

. . . Trump has laid the blame for the destruction on California Governor Gavin Newsom.

“One of the best and most beautiful parts of the United States of America is burning down to the ground,” Trump posted to Truth Social earlier this month. “It’s ashes, and Gavin Newscum should resign. This is all his fault!!!”

It seems to me that Trump has considerable leverage, partly in placing conditions on disaster aid, partly in insisting that the state apply consistent forest management practices on the enormous acreage of federal forest in the state, and partly in enforcing the Supremacy Clause of the US Constitution over California environmental legislation.

In fact, I suspect that Trump will wind up enforcing the authority of the federal government in ways not seen since U S Grant and Reconstruction.

The Other California Fire

A second California fire that's been edged out of the news by the ones in the Los Angeles area is a fire at a battery storage facility at Moss Landing near Monterey on the Central Coast.

The site's battery energy storage facility is the largest commercial battery energy storage facility in the world. The energy storage facility stores excess daytime electrical energy for later use during periods of lower electricity production (usually at night.) Such excess energy is typically produced by renewable energy sources such as solar and wind.

. . . Utilities in California are required by a 2013 law to provide significant battery storage by 2024. The Moss Landing Power Plant site has since been chosen as California's primary location to provide battery based energy storage in order to better utilize renewable energy sources such as solar and wind on a grid-wide commercial scale. On June 29, 2018 Vistra Corp announced that it planned on building at the Moss Landing Power Station site, what became the world's largest commercial electric battery energy storage site.

The point of this is to overcome the disadvantage of solar and wind generated power, that it works only when the sun is shining or the wind is blowing. A giant battery storage facility will store surplus power generated when the sun shines and the wind blows and return it to the grid when the sun isn't shining and the wind isn't blowing. At least, that's the idea. But:

Power company Vistra​’s flagship grid battery project, housed in and around a historic power plant dating back to 1950, erupted into flames Thursday night [January 16] and prompted nearby residents to evacuate from Moss Landing, California.

The cause of the fire is not known, but local authorities have reported that much of the building that housed the batteries was destroyed as of Friday morning. That makes this by far the most destructive of the four battery fires that have afflicted the small coastal town since it became a linchpin in California’s clean energy overhaul. And the dramatic conflagration complicates the energy-storage industry’s efforts to win community support for more large batteries, which are seen as crucial to cleaning up the electrical system.

Lithium batteries in particular have developed a reputation for catching fire. There have been previous fires at the Moss Landing facility; the one last week is only the most severe. However, lithium-ion batteries of the type used in large-scale storage facilities are difficult to extinguish:

A large Li-ion fire, such as in an EV, may need to burn out. Water with copper material can be used, but this may not be available and is costly for fire halls. Increasingly, experts advise using water even with large Li-ion fires. Water lowers combustion temperature but is not recommended for battery fires containing lithium-metal.

In fact, the local fire deparment at Moss Landing had experience with battery fires at the faciity and discovered that no amount of water would extinguish such a fire. Last week, they simply stood by and let the fire burn itself out after destroying the facility over a period of several days. Exactly how or when it can be returned to service is unclear, especially since the basic design of the facility may have been part of the problem.

Statements from utility officials in the wake of the fire have referred to it as a "wake-up call" for the industry, since it reflects basic questions of both safety and reliability for basttery storage facilities, and these in turn are integral to the reliability of renewable electric power sources. If the wind doesn't blow or the sun doesn't shine, electricity needs to be stored, but if the storage systems aren't safe or reliable, it throws the whole idea of renewable energy into question.

This is just one instance where the federal government may need to find an opportunity to inject common sense into California politics.

More Dribbles Out On Joe Biden's Decline

Speaker Mike Johnson reveals just how out of the loop and cognitively impaired Joe Biden was as President after meeting with Biden and discussing his LNG Executive Order:

“Biden was not lying to me. He genuinely did not know what he had signed.”

Scary.
pic.twitter.com/Clbytug8e3

— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) January 18, 2025

All of a sudden, Speaker Mike Johnson and Democrat Leader Schumer are getting in line to say they knew all along that Joe wasn't running on all cylinders. This suggests to me that even more will be coming out as Trump's staff gains access to White House records, but it's nevertheless significant that the House Speaker and then-Senate Majority Leader were aware of serious problems with Joe's ability to perform his duties but nevertheless did nothing, at least partly because they currently have no constitutional ability to initiate any sort of action.

Sen Schumer is now trying to cover himself by claiming he met with Joe on July 13 of last year, just before the failed assassination attempt on Trump in Butler, PA, but after the problem had become clear to the whole country in the June 27 debate:

Schumer told Joe Biden that top Democrats in the House and Senate had lost faith in him and warned if he lost to Trump, Democrats would lose the Senate and wouldn’t take back the House.

“If you run and you lose to Trump, and we lose the Senate, and we don’t get back the House, that 50 years of amazing, beautiful work goes out the window,” Schumer said, according to The Times. “But worse — you go down in American history as one of the darkest figures.”

“If I were you,” Mr. Schumer said to Biden around 5 o’clock in the evening on July 13, “I wouldn’t run, and I’m urging you not to run.”

But it's transparently clear that the big confab with the top congressional Democrats came only in the wake of the June 27 debate and the episodes in Europe. The problem wasn't that Joe was losing it; the problem was that they could no longer cover it up. This is clear from Speaker Johnson's account of his experience the previous January, as quoted from the interview embedded at the top of this post:

They wouldn't let me meet with him, and his staff kept giving me excuses. This went on for like eight or nine weeks, "I'm sorry Mr. Speaker, he doesn't have time." What are you talking about? I'm second in line to the presidency, he has time. I need to talk to him. We had, I can't say the classified parts, but we had some big national concerns at the time that I was losing sleep over. Finally, I just went to the whole press corps and said the president is not being allowed to meet with the speaker so they start putting pressure on him.

Long story short, they finally relented, they invited me to the White House, I show up and I realize it's actually an ambush because it's not just me and the president. It's actually Kamala Harris, Chuck Schumer, Hakeem, the CIA Director, and everybody, and then so I walk into the Oval, and I say, "Ah, I know what this is. . ."

This is consistent with reports from the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal in prior weeks that Biden's inner circle worked to minimize his contacts with outsiders:

At least one Cabinet member stopped asking for calls with Biden "because it was clear that such requests wouldn’t be welcome," a source told the Wall Street Journal. Cabinet members with particularly infrequent access to Biden reportedly included Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.

Donors also noticed how staffers worked to mask signs of Biden's "decline," the Wall Street Journal reported.

Johnson continued in the interview,

We sit down, we're in the midst of it and I'm saying, "We don't need to have this conversation." The president reaches over, just like this, we were sitting right next to the fireplace in the Oval, and he says, "The Speaker and I just need a couple minutes together. We y'all just leave us alone?" And I looked up on the faces of some of staff standing around the wall, and they were like, "No, he did it."

He called it, he's the commander in chief, so everybody leaves, and he and I are standing awkwardly in the middle of the Oval Office right over the rug by that coffee table, and I said, "Mr. President, thanks for the moments, you know, this is very important, I've got some big national security things I need to talk to you about that I've heard, and I think you know, but first, real quickly, Mr. President, can I ask you a question?"

"I can't answer this for my constituents in Louisiana. Sir, why did you pause LNG exports? Liquified natural gas is in great demand by our allies, why would you do that? Cause you understand, we just talked about Ukraine, you understand you're fueling Putin's war machine?" And he looked at me, stunned, and he said, "I didn't do that." And I said, "Mr. President, yes you did, it was an executive order like three weeks ago." He said, "No, I didn't do that," he was arguing with me.

As best anyone could tell, Biden was told that what he was signing only authorized some sort of LNG study, not a pause in LNG exports:

I said, "No you're not sir, you paused it, I have the terminal, the export terminal in our state, I talked to those people this morning. This is doing massive damage to our economy, to our national security."

I thought, "We are in serious trouble." Who's running the country?" I don't know who put the paper in front of him, but he didn't know.

Given the circumstances, it would be perfectly reasonable for Speaker Johnson to conclude the country's in "serious trouble" -- but, er, given that, what did he do? And this was in late January 2024, five months before the June 27 debate that finally convinced Leader Schumer and Speaker Emerita Pelosi that they couldn't cover Joe's condition up any longer -- so they resorted to extraconstitutional means to push him out as a presidential candidate. Let's recall that Section 4 of the 25th Amendment provides:

Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.

Thereafter, when the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall resume the powers and duties of his office unless the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive department or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit within four days to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.

Let's recall that the House Speaker in the first half of 2024 was Mike Johnson; the President pro tempore of the Senate was Patty Murray. But they would have had a completely passive role in removing Biden under the 25th Amendment; the reponsibility was on the Vice President and a majority of the cabinet simply to notify Johnson and Murray of Biden's inability. But neither Johnson, Murray, Harris, nor anyone in the cabinet was involved in sidelining Joe, at least from the self-serving accounts we've had so far from Schumer and Pelosi.

So, exactly what happened? One part of the question hasn't been answered at all, which is who was actually running the country? Whose decision was it, for instance, to write an executive order pausing LNG exports but to tell Joe he was signing something else? Were any laws broken?

But then there's a whole set of additional questions. The 25th Amendment was written and ratified principally to solve the problem of how to replace a vice president who succeeds to the presidency and leaves the vice presidency vacant until the next presidential election. But its provisions for removing an incapacitated president are apparently not workable; the vice president and the cabinet clearly have too much interest in keeping an incapacitated president in office as long as possible. There need to be additional checks and balances.

This is just one more on a long list of items Trump and Congress will need to address in the new term.

The LA Recall Election Of 1938

The self-satisfied gent with the fussy Hitler mustache in the photo is Frank L Shaw (1877-1958), who was mayor of Los Angeles fron 1933 to 1938. He was the only mayor of LA ever to be recalled, and in my view, he'll likely keep that distinction barring major changes -- as Greg Gutfeld puts it about the current situation, lots of ash, no phoenix. The newspaper story below (click on the image for a more legible copy) gives the outline of the story that led to his recall, but as Wikipedia points out, "His administration was seen as one of the most corrupt in Los Angeles history, although he had some defenders and was never charged officially with any crime."

The prevailing "whig history" view of the episode portrays it in pure good-guy-vs-bad-guy terms: Fletcher Bowron, a Superior Court judge, ran against Shaw on a so-called "fusion ticket" of all good elements to recall Shaw, and he won. He was characterized by Time as "a fiercely honest man, and is eternally intent on protecting Los Angeles from itself." According to Wikipedia, he:

earned the reputation of being lawful, unlike his predecessor. This was part of what he called the Los Angeles Urban Reform Revival.

Los Angeles grew enormously during the war years, with very large defense industries. After the war Bowron began construction of the Los Angeles International Airport and the 1st phases of the elaborate freeway system. . . . A high priority was eliminating organized crime from the city's police department. He forced the resignation of numerous officers, and prevented Los Angeles from becoming a wide open town. Bowron ran on nonpartisan fusion tickets, but his popularity declined in his 4th term. The Los Angeles Citizens Committee demanded his recall, claiming he was responsible for high taxes and continued police corruption. In 1952 he lost his reelection bid in the Republican primary to Norris Poulson, a conservative opponent of public housing.

Much of the reform in the police department, however, came via his appointment of William H Parker as police chief, which he did in 1950, only three years before he left office. Parker, who was behind popular television shows that portrayed Los Angeles police like Dragnet, vied with J Edgar Hoover as the public face of law enforcement throughout the 1950s, well after Bowron's retirement.

In fact, the urban reform movement was never quite happy with Bowron. Clifford Clinton, a good-government advocate who'd been a Bowron ally in the 1938 recall, broke with him and ran against him in the 1945 mayoral election:

By the early 1940s, Clifford Clinton had become disenchanted with reform Mayor Fletcher Bowron. . . . [A] poll of potential voters revealed strong support for Clinton as a mayoral challenger.

Clinton initially refused. When liberal county Supervisor John Anson Ford announced he would challenge Boweon, Clinton reconsidered because he didn't believe Ford could win. Ford had lost to Mayor Shaw in 1937.

He joined the race and published a treatise of his plan for the city in a 14-page pamphlet, "The Clock Strikes Twelve: It's Time To Act." During the campaign, Clinton pushed for better leadership to deal with ongoing corruption, infrastructure, and racial polarization.

On election night, Clinton came in a distant second, losing to Bowron.

In fact, Bowron turned out to be a politician much like any other. He ran for reelection in the spring of 1941, only months before Pearl Harbor, and he actively sought the support of Japanese-Amnerican voters:

During the 1941 municipal election, Bowron campaigned in Little Tokyo, and John Aiso was among those who tried to attract Japanese American voters for Bowron. He won the election with an estimated 55% of the vote.

Following Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, Bowron reassured listeners on his weekly radio program that there was no threat of an attack on Southern California shores. However by January 1942, Bowron became one of the early elected officials to call for the incarceration of Japanese Americans, urging that Japanese Americans be moved several miles inland and be put to work for the war effort, such as raising food.

On January 27, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors discharged all Japanese American county employees and adopted a resolution, urging the federal government to remove Japanese Americans from the coastal areas. Bowron took similar steps and forced all Los Angeles City employees of Japanese descent to take a leave of absence. Bowron's office also embarked on a propaganda campaign to try to control the Japanese American population by encouraging the community to inform on each other and by emphasizing dire consequences for anyone caught committing acts of sabotage.

. . . When the federal government started releasing Japanese Americans from the incarceration camps in 1943, Bowron used his radio program to vehemently oppose their return to Southern California. He felt there could be an outbreak of violence and emphasized that the city could not provide housing or police protection to any returning Japanese Americans. He also continued to publicly advocate that all Japanese Americans should have their U.S. citizenship revoked.

The bottom line is that at least the old-fashioned urban reform movement, grounded in the Progressive era that gave us putative reforms like the recall, didn't cure much of anything that ailed LA. Even if it were possible to recall the current Mayor Bass -- which I very much doubt; a change of heart among the 1% in Pacific Palisades isn't enough to swing an election -- based on the historical record, it isn't going to change much of anything. A new populist coalition, on the other hand, that united the aspirations of the working and middle classes of all backgrounds, might be a different matter.

That wouldn't be a repeat of 1938. Nevertheless, so far, lots of ash, no phoenix.