So… what’s Eric Holder been up to ever since he left the Obama administration? I assume he’s been out there fighting crime in some other fashion, perhaps with some sort of mechanized superhero suit. But no! It turns out that he’s gearing up to battle another sort of evil entirely… the incoming Trump administration. That’s right, kids. We’re still more than two weeks away from the inauguration, but California has brought in Holder as a hired gun to sue the heck out of the next President for whatever awful plans he may or may not have in mind. (LA Times)

Bracing for an adversarial relationship with President-elect Donald Trump, the California Legislature has selected former U.S. Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. to serve as outside counsel to advise the state’s legal strategy against the incoming administration.

The unusual arrangement will give Holder, leading a team of attorneys from the firm Covington & Burling, a broad portfolio covering potential conflicts between California and the federal government.

“He will be our lead litigator, and he will have a legal team of expert lawyers on the issues of climate change, women and civil rights, the environment, immigration, voting rights — to name just a few,” Senate leader Kevin de León (D-Los Angeles) said in an interview.

Wait a minute… wouldn’t that normally be the job of the state Attorney General? Usually it would, but their old AG, Kamala Harris, was just sworn into the Senate. Her expected replacement, Democratic Representative Xavier Becerra, is expected to be along shortly, but apparently Jerry Brown doesn’t have enough faith in him to entrust the new guy with a job this big. After all, as Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon informed the public, the grave threat posed by Donald Trump is a danger to the very lives of all Californians.

“While we don’t yet know the harmful proposals the next administration will put forward, thanks to Donald Trump’s campaign, cabinet appointments and Twitter feed, we do have an idea of what we will be dealing with,” Rendon said in a statement.

“The Covington team will be an important resource as we work with the governor and the attorney general to protect Californians,” he added.

This brings up two rather obvious points to consider. First of all, if this is the sort of job that Holder was champing at the bit to take, how “unbiased” do you think he actually was when he was serving as the AG for the nation under Obama? Yeah… that’s pretty much what I thought also.

But perhaps even more to the point, what does this say about the state of California’s government at the moment? Barack Obama is still the president for another sixteen days and they are already hiring someone to sue Donald Trump. I get that we’re talking about the liberal left coast and all, but aren’t we all supposed to at least pretend that we’re going to take a shot at working together under the new administration? California’s government clearly has no intention of doing so and is prepared to obstruct the federal government at every turn now that one of their friends isn’t going to be in charge.

Perhaps the President Elect should simply take California at their word and allow this to be the tone coming out of Washington from day one. I know there were a number of proposals which would affect them directly, including cutting off federal funding to all of the sanctuary cities and states. Since the Golden State is gearing up for a fight, it seems to me that we should accommodate them and ring the bell for round one before the month is out.