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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 3 years

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LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

January 8, 2021

Heather Cox Richardson

More information continues to emerge about the events of Wednesday. They point to a broader conspiracy than it first appeared. Calls for Trump’s removal from office are growing. The Republican Party is tearing apart. Power in the nation is shifting almost by the minute.

[Please note that information from the January 6 riot is changing almost hourly, and it is virtually certain that something I have written will be incorrect. I have tried to stay exactly on what we know to be facts, but those could change.]

More footage from inside the attack on the Capitol is coming out and it is horrific. Blood on statues and feces spread through the building are vile; mob attacks on police officers are bone-chilling.

Reuters photographer Jim Bourg, who was inside the building, told reporters he overheard three rioters in “Make America Great Again” caps plotting to find Vice President Mike Pence and hang him as a “traitor”; other insurrectionists were shouting the same. Pictures have emerged of one of the rioters in military gear carrying flex cuffs—handcuffs made of zip ties—suggesting he was planning to take prisoners. Two lawmakers have suggested the rioters knew how to find obscure offices.

New scrutiny of Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally before the attack shows Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani, Representative Mo Brooks (R-AL), Don Jr., and Trump himself urging the crowd to go to the Capitol and fight. Trump warned that Pence was not doing what he needed to. Trump promised to lead them to the Capitol himself.

There are also questions about law enforcement. While exactly what happened remains unclear, it has emerged that the Pentagon limited the Washington D.C. National Guard to managing traffic. D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser requested support before Trump’s rally, but the Department of Defense said that the National Guard could not have ammunition or riot gear, interact with protesters except in self-defense, or otherwise function in a protective capacity without the explicit permission of acting Secretary Christopher Miller, whom Trump put into office shortly after the election after firing Defense Secretary Mark Esper.

When Capitol Police requested aid early Wednesday afternoon, the request was denied. Defense officials held back the National Guard for about three hours before sending it to support the Capitol Police. Maryland Governor Larry Hogan, a Republican, tried repeatedly to send his state’s National Guard, but the Pentagon would not authorize it. Virginia’s National Guard was mobilized when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called the governor, Ralph Northam, herself.

Defense officials said they were sensitive to the criticism they received in June when federal troops cleared Lafayette Square of peaceful protesters so Trump could walk across it. But it sounds like there might be a personal angle: Bowser was harshly critical of Trump then, and it would be like him to take revenge on her by denying help when it was imperative.

Refusing to stop the attack on the Capitol might have been more nefarious, though. A White House adviser told New York Magazine’s Washington correspondent Olivia Nuzzi that Trump was watching television coverage of the siege and was enthusiastic, although he didn’t like that the rioters looked “low class.” While the insurrectionists were in the Capitol, he tweeted: “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution, giving States a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously certify. USA demands the truth!” Even as lawmakers were under siege, both Trump and his lawyer Rudy Giuliani were making phone calls to brand-new Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) urging him to slow down the electoral count.

After Trump on Wednesday night tweeted that there would be an “orderly” transition of power, on Thursday he began again to urge on his supporters.

With the details and the potential depth of this event becoming clearer over the past two days—Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s wife, Virginia, tweeted her support, and state lawmakers as well as Republican attorneys general were actually involved—Americans are recoiling from how bad this attempted coup was… and how much worse it could have been. The crazed rioters were terrifyingly close to our elected representatives, all gathered together on that special day, and they were actively talking about harming the vice president.

By Friday night, 57% of Americans told Reuters they wanted Trump removed from office immediately. Nearly 70% of Americans disapprove of Trump’s actions before the riot. Only 12% of Americans approved of the rioters; 79% of Americans described the rioters as “criminals” or “fools.” Five percent called them “patriots.”

Pelosi tonight said that she hoped the president would resign, but if not, the House of Representatives will move forward with impeachment on Monday, as well as with legislation to enable Congress to remove Trump under the 25th Amendment. The most recent draft of the impeachment resolution has just one article: “incitement of insurrection.” As a privileged resolution, it can go directly to the House without committee approval.

In the Senate, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has no interest in further splitting the Republicans over another impeachment, or forcing them onto the record as either for or against it. Timing is on his side: the Senate is not in session for substantive business until January 19, so cannot act on an impeachment resolution without the approval of all senators. It can take up the resolution then, but more likely it will wait until Biden is sworn in, at which point the measure would be managed not by McConnell, but by the new House majority leader, Chuck Schumer (D-NY). A trial can indeed take place after Trump is no longer president, enabling Congress to make sure he can never again hold office.

Whether or not the Senate would convict is unclear, but it’s not impossible. Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), for one, is so furious she is talking of switching parties. “I want him out,” she says. Still, Trump supporters are now insisting that it would “further divide the country” to try to remove Trump now, and that we need to unify. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), who led the Senate effort to challenge Biden’s election, today tweeted that Biden was not working hard enough to “bring us together or promote healing” and that “vicious partisan rhetoric only tears our country apart.”

Trump, meanwhile, has continued to agitate his followers, and today began to call for more resistance, while users on Parler, the new right-wing social media hangout, are talking of another, bigger attack on Washington.

Tonight, Twitter banned Trump, stating: “we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence.” As evidence, it cited both his claim that his supporters would “have a GIANT VOICE long into the future,” and his tweet that he would not be going to Biden’s inauguration on January 20. Twitter says that Trump’s followers see these two new tweets as proof that the election was invalid and that the Inauguration is a good target, since he won’t be there. The Twitter moderators say that “plans for future armed protests have already begun proliferating on and off-Twitter, including a proposed secondary attack on the US Capitol and state capitol buildings on January 17, 2021.”

Twitter also took down popular QAnon accounts, including those of Trump’s former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn and his former lawyer Sidney Powell, who is having quite a bad day: the company that makes election machines, Dominion Voting Systems, announced it is suing her for defamation and asking $1.3 billion in damages. After taking down 7,000 QAnon accounts in July, Twitter continued by today taking down the account of the man who hosts the posts from “Q.”

While Twitter officials might well be horrified by the insurrection, the ban is also a sign of a changing government. With the election of two Democratic senators from Georgia this week, the majority goes to the Democrats, and McConnell will no longer be Majority Leader, killing bills. Social media giants know regulation of some sort is around the corner, and they are trying to look compliant fast. When Twitter banned Trump, so did Reddit, and Facebook and Instagram already had. Google Play Store removed Parler, warning it to clean up its content moderation.

Trump evidently couldn’t stand the Twitter ban, and tried at least five different accounts to get back onto the platform. He and his supporters are howling that he is being silenced by big tech, but of course he has an entire press corps he could use whenever he wished. Losing his access to Twitter simply cuts off his ability to drum up both support and money by lying to his supporters. Another platform that has dumped Trump is one of those that handled his emails. The San Francisco correspondent of the Financial Times, Dave Lee, noted that for more than 48 hours there had been no Trump emails: in the previous six days the president sent out 33.

This has been a horrific week. If it has a silver lining, it is that the lines are now clear between our democracy and its enemies. The election in Georgia, which swung the Senate away from the Republicans and opens up some avenues to slow down misinformation, is a momentous victory.

—-

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#quote #quotes #election 2020 #Heather Cox Richardson #Letters From An American #political #insurrection

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herbertandlom · 3 years

Quote

January 8, 2021 (Friday) More information continues to emerge about the events of Wednesday. They point to a broader conspiracy than it first appeared. Calls for Trump’s removal from office are growing. The Republican Party is tearing apart. Power in the nation is shifting almost by the minute. [Please note that information from the January 6 riot is changing almost hourly, and it is virtually certain that something I have written will be incorrect. I have tried to stay exactly on what we know to be facts, but those could change.] More footage from inside the attack on the Capitol is coming out and it is horrific. Blood on statues and feces spread through the building are vile; mob attacks on police officers are bone-chilling. Reuters photographer Jim Bourg, who was inside the building, told reporters he overheard three rioters in “Make America Great Again” caps plotting to find Vice President Mike Pence and hang him as a “traitor”; other insurrectionists were shouting the same. Pictures have emerged of one of the rioters in military gear carrying flex cuffs—handcuffs made of zip ties—suggesting he was planning to take prisoners. Two lawmakers have suggested the rioters knew how to find obscure offices. New scrutiny of Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally before the attack shows Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani, Representative Mo Brooks (R-AL), Don Jr., and Trump himself urging the crowd to go to the Capitol and fight. Trump warned that Pence was not doing what he needed to. Trump promised to lead them to the Capitol himself. There are also questions about law enforcement. While exactly what happened remains unclear, it has emerged that the Pentagon limited the Washington D.C. National Guard to managing traffic. D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser requested support before Trump’s rally, but the Department of Defense said that the National Guard could not have ammunition or riot gear, interact with protesters except in self-defense, or otherwise function in a protective capacity without the explicit permission of acting Secretary Christopher Miller, whom Trump put into office shortly after the election after firing Defense Secretary Mark Esper. When Capitol Police requested aid early Wednesday afternoon, the request was denied. Defense officials held back the National Guard for about three hours before sending it to support the Capitol Police. Maryland Governor Larry Hogan, a Republican, tried repeatedly to send his state’s National Guard, but the Pentagon would not authorize it. Virginia’s National Guard was mobilized when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called the governor, Ralph Northam, herself. Defense officials said they were sensitive to the criticism they received in June when federal troops cleared Lafayette Square of peaceful protesters so Trump could walk across it. But it sounds like there might be a personal angle: Bowser was harshly critical of Trump then, and it would be like him to take revenge on her by denying help when it was imperative. Refusing to stop the attack on the Capitol might have been more nefarious, though. A White House adviser told New York Magazine’s Washington correspondent Olivia Nuzzi that Trump was watching television coverage of the siege and was enthusiastic, although he didn’t like that the rioters looked “low class.” While the insurrectionists were in the Capitol, he tweeted: “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution, giving States a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously certify. USA demands the truth!” Even as lawmakers were under siege, both Trump and his lawyer Rudy Giuliani were making phone calls to brand-new Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) urging him to slow down the electoral count. After Trump on Wednesday night tweeted that there would be an “orderly” transition of power, on Thursday he began again to urge on his supporters. With the details and the potential depth of this event becoming clearer over the past two days—Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s wife, Virginia, tweeted her support, and state lawmakers as well as Republican attorneys general were actually involved—Americans are recoiling from how bad this attempted coup was… and how much worse it could have been. The crazed rioters were terrifyingly close to our elected representatives, all gathered together on that special day, and they were actively talking about harming the vice president. By Friday night, 57% of Americans told Reuters they wanted Trump removed from office immediately. Nearly 70% of Americans disapprove of Trump’s actions before the riot. Only 12% of Americans approved of the rioters; 79% of Americans described the rioters as “criminals” or “fools.” Five percent called them “patriots.” Pelosi tonight said that she hoped the president would resign, but if not, the House of Representatives will move forward with impeachment on Monday, as well as with legislation to enable Congress to remove Trump under the 25th Amendment. The most recent draft of the impeachment resolution has just one article: “incitement of insurrection.” As a privileged resolution, it can go directly to the House without committee approval. In the Senate, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has no interest in further splitting the Republicans over another impeachment, or forcing them onto the record as either for or against it. Timing is on his side: the Senate is not in session for substantive business until January 19, so cannot act on an impeachment resolution without the approval of all senators. It can take up the resolution then, but more likely it will wait until Biden is sworn in, at which point the measure would be managed not by McConnell, but by the new House majority leader, Chuck Schumer (D-NY). A trial can indeed take place after Trump is no longer president, enabling Congress to make sure he can never again hold office. Whether or not the Senate would convict is unclear, but it’s not impossible. Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), for one, is so furious she is talking of switching parties. “I want him out,” she says. Still, Trump supporters are now insisting that it would “further divide the country” to try to remove Trump now, and that we need to unify. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), who led the Senate effort to challenge Biden’s election, today tweeted that Biden was not working hard enough to “bring us together or promote healing” and that “vicious partisan rhetoric only tears our country apart.” Trump, meanwhile, has continued to agitate his followers, and today began to call for more resistance, while users on Parler, the new right-wing social media hangout, are talking of another, bigger attack on Washington. Tonight, Twitter banned Trump, stating: “we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence.” As evidence, it cited both his claim that his supporters would “have a GIANT VOICE long into the future,” and his tweet that he would not be going to Biden’s inauguration on January 20. Twitter says that Trump’s followers see these two new tweets as proof that the election was invalid and that the Inauguration is a good target, since he won’t be there. The Twitter moderators say that “plans for future armed protests have already begun proliferating on and off-Twitter, including a proposed secondary attack on the US Capitol and state capitol buildings on January 17, 2021.” Twitter also took down popular QAnon accounts, including those of Trump’s former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn and his former lawyer Sidney Powell, who is having quite a bad day: the company that makes election machines, Dominion Voting Systems, announced it is suing her for defamation and asking $1.3 billion in damages. After taking down 7,000 QAnon accounts in July, Twitter continued by today taking down the account of the man who hosts the posts from “Q.” While Twitter officials might well be horrified by the insurrection, the ban is also a sign of a changing government. With the election of two Democratic senators from Georgia this week, the majority goes to the Democrats, and McConnell will no longer be Majority Leader, killing bills. Social media giants know regulation of some sort is around the corner, and they are trying to look compliant fast. When Twitter banned Trump, so did Reddit, and Facebook and Instagram already had. Google Play Store removed Parler, warning it to clean up its content moderation. Trump evidently couldn’t stand the Twitter ban, and tried at least five different accounts to get back onto the platform. He and his supporters are howling that he is being silenced by big tech, but of course he has an entire press corps he could use whenever he wished. Losing his access to Twitter simply cuts off his ability to drum up both support and money by lying to his supporters. Another platform that has dumped Trump is one of those that handled his emails. The San Francisco correspondent of the Financial Times, Dave Lee, noted that for more than 48 hours there had been no Trump emails: in the previous six days he sent out 33. This has been a horrific week. If it has a silver lining, it is that the lines are now clear between our democracy and its enemies. The election in Georgia, which swung the Senate away from the Republicans and opens up some avenues to slow down misinformation, is a momentous victory.

Heather Cox Richardson https://www.facebook.com/heathercoxrichardson/posts/2563012823842768

#Heather Cox Richardson #important #trump #coup attempt #more information #stop the steal #jan 6 2021 #jan 6 insurrection #where we are #jan 8 2021 #twitter #long read

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somerandomg33k · 4 years

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I still don’t know who to vote for?

This election is going to be a weird and frustrating one. It is the first presidential general election where I am an Anarcho-Syndicalist. And this election in the darkest timeline has a Fascist as the incumbent. But the candidate that is opposing Donald Trump is Joe Biden. Almost everyone's last pick in the primary. The only worst candidate during this primary was Michael Bloomberg, who was trying to buy his way into the election. Possible to take votes away from Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, but that is damning with faint praise that Joe Biden is better than Michael Bloomberg.

The most likely results of this election are either the continued reign of a dictatorial Fascist, causes and continuing chaos and mayhem, or just straight up Neo-Liberalism. We are going back to a normal under Obama, which was terrible as well. Just not as awful as under Fascism. And we won't fix the problems that allowed Trump to rise to power. Since those are core systematic problems that the current Democratic Establishment is not interested in correcting. And the Republican party is just worse as they are OK with Fascism. Some of them want Fascism.

And let's not forget, serval people have very good personal reasons not to vote for Joe Biden. Joe Biden helped co-wrote the 1994 crime bill. In some issues, he was to the right of Regan on drug enforcement of the Drug war. He was always the most conservative Democrat in the Senate during his time there. He voted against busing 19 times. That is why many Leftists say that Joe Biden is Republican-lite. He is just the 'correct' color for Liberals and is the candidate the Democratic party chooses. So yea, there are two Republican tickets this election. The difference is one is not Fascist. Liberals know this. They are just in denial or flat out refuse to believe it. Because boy, don't say that Joe Biden and his running mate are anything but Progressive to them. Because they really hate that. "I think it is unfair to Joe Biden to judge him by International standards. I would prefer that he is judge by American Political standards," one Liberal said. Why can't Liberals admit that America's Political standards are shit?

Liberals have to believe that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are progressives because they can only think of voting for progressives and progressive causes. They can't accept they are voting for a Conservative on the Democrat ticket, because they would have to admit that the Democratic party has moved towards the right as has American's Overton Window. Joe Biden is against Medicare 4 All. On that issue, he is to the right of Boris Johnson and other conservatives of the UK and Canada. Liberals have to believe they are voting for progressives on the Democrat ticket. Because if they didn't, they would lose faith in the whole Ameican Electoral system as well as Reform. It is almost like Capitalist Realism. People can imagine the end of the World before they can imagine the End of Capitalism. Liberals probably have an easier time visualizing the end of the World before they could imagine a different system than the current governance of Liberal Capitalist Democracy.

Let's not forget, something we already know, that Joe Biden is a bit creepy. He is a Patriarch and treats women differently than men. Whenever he meets families at the White House who have sons and daughters, he would say to the sons, "You have a critical job. You got to protect your sister from all of the boys. That is something my Dad told me." The women must be protected, and it is the men who must do the protecting. Joe Biden has a habit of creepily smelling women and girls' hair and touching their bodies on the waist and shoulders. Serval women have said that Joe made them feel uncomfortable. And this was all before Tara Reade allocations. #IBelieveTaraReade.

As for Kamala Harris, she did put trans women in men's prison, which resulted in one of them getting killed. "Kamala Harris couldn't do a thing." Is something Liberals need to stop saying. What they really mean is, "Kamala Harris choose to uphold an unjust system by blindly following rules instead of using her power and influence to change them." She attempted to block two Trans women's requests to get gender confirmation surgeries. Which, as far as I know, she hasn't really made amendments for. She wasn't good about slowing down The New Jim Crow. She was fierce to Sex Workers too. One of my comrades said, "As a trans woman and a Sex Worker, how should I feel about voting for Kamala Harris." She increased convictions for things like merely drug procession. She also wanted to jail parents for truancy. She has been called the Democrats Top Cop. Someone who is "Tough on Crime." Just like how Bill Clinton and Joe Biden were in the 90s. And that still has devastating effects on Black and Brown communities.

So many people have many good reasons not to want to vote for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. And Liberals want to think that they simply "have their flaws." Again, I think it is just all to make it easier for them to be excited to vote for them. All of those issues, including their voting record on increasing Military spending too, are "merely flaws." And they will also shame people into voting for Biden/Harris with, "It is the lesser of two evils." Which again, is more of an indictment of the system we have. "But we have an election, and we should all vote." So we can't talk about changing the system right now during an election. So when can we talk about change this entire system? And Just like with 2016, "A vote for a third party or a no vote is a vote for Trump."

Further shaming us into voting for Biden/Harris. "Do you want four more years of Trump?" FUCK YOU AND SHOVE THAT DISINGENUOUS QUESTION UP YOUR ASS!!

Merely bringing up all of these complaints are being associated with supporting Trump. Another by-product of the binary way of thinking with the Two-Party system and First Past the Post voting. Liberals have 'accepted' Biden/Harris is the ticket. And they honestly wish we do too. And since we are vocal with our complaints, they hate us for not 'accepting' Biden/Harris is the ticket. They hate us for not 'accepting' the way the system is as it is. "I have accepted all of this. Why haven't you?" This can explain how so many Liberals would go "URG" at the thought of Joe Biden as President back in January during the Primaries to skipping to the polls to vote for Biden for the General Election. "Well, he won the primary." "I get to vote Trump out of Office" is more what it is about and not how great Biden is. They tell themselves how great Biden and Harris will be as a recon.

And with all of the shaming us into voting for Biden/Harris, instead of voting for the Green Party or not voting, it completely ignores the fact we did vote for Hillary in 2016. She 2.8 million more votes. But it is the Electoral College that gave Donald Trump in the win. Plus, in Washington State, my state, four of the Electors didn't vote for Hillary Clinton when they were 'supposed to.' Washington State is likely to go blue again. So I don't know if it is essential for Me to vote for Biden/Harris. The fivethirtyeight poll from Sept. 22 shows Washington voting for Biden at 58% vs Trump at 36%. A 22 point difference. I think I can safely vote for Howard Hawkins and feel like I didn't help Trump win. But that won't be what Liberals think.

Now with all that said, Donald Trump is still a Fascist wannabe Dictator. He is almost the worst. His administration is just letting massive amounts of people died because of Covid-19. He is encouraging people to shoot BLM protestors. He told the Proud Boys to "stand back and stand by," at the first Presidential Debate. He said there wouldn't be a peaceful transferal of power because there won't be a transferal, but a continuation. Donald Trump has sewn doubts about voting by mail. He will doubt any kind of election results where he doesn't win. So Liberals argue we most vote in such high numbers to show that it is the will of the people they want him out of office. To which he can easily say "Fake News." He did doubt the 2016 popular vote results claiming 3 million "illegals" cast fraudulent votes.

Another convincing argument is we most show that Trump's ideas can't win elections. Because if it continues to win elections, more people will adopt Trump's views and policies. It is sort of convincing. But since a Qanon supporter will win a seat in the House of Representatives, becoming a rising star in the GOP Party. The GOP Party has backed Trump throughout his time in office, Trump's views and policies will continue whether he wins or not. Even if Trump loses, we are not out of the woods yet. Not by a long shot. Trump base will still be here in this White Supremacist CisHetro Patriarchal Ableist country of the United Corporations of Imperialism. Who will always vote for the GOP and are not going away. Many Democrats will even speak highly of them. Nancy Pelosi prays for the Republicans. Liberals believe having an opposition is part of a functioning Democracy. Will the GOP no longer be Fascist? I doubt it.

"We have to get rid of Trump at all costs." I understand that urge. But the system gave us Trump and protected him. So how is voting and participating within the same system supposed to help? I know that Liberals think voting is very powerful because "So many people had to fight for their basic right to vote." And that is all true. The GOP only wins because of dirty tricks like gerrymandering and voter suppression. Hence, Trump is encouraging his base to watch the polling stations for "suspicious people wanting to commit voter fraud" and "rig" the election. It is straight voter intimidation and is happening already in Virginia. Part of the convincing reason to get Trump out of the White House. Biden will not encourage White Supremacist of all types to commit acts of violence against "The Radical Left terrorists" and "Antifa." Antifa is not an organization; it is an idea. Even Biden got that right.

Knowing how terrible Trump is, brings me back to Biden and how bad he is. Not as bad. Trump and Biden aren't the same. Trump is a Fascist while Biden is a Neo-Liberal, and Neo-Liberalism isn't Fascism. Neo-Liberalism just leads to Fascism, as we have already seen with Trump. I simply see Neo-Liberalism worse than how Liberals see it. Not enough to make a false equivalent, but still. Remember, if Trump loses, he could pull a Grover Cleaveland and run again in 2024. Imagine that.

What bothers me the most about Liberals changing their opinion of Biden, by the mere fact he won the primary, is that Biden is granted votes from Democrats and Leftists. I am sure Democrats do love old Uncle Joe. There were a lot of memes from the Obama years. And many Liberals just love Obama. Even though they fully well know about his War Crimes. It is that acceptance that I don't have in me. "Well, he is the candidate. So I will support him to get rid of Trump." And what makes it worse, Biden isn't really offering anything as well. He is against the Green New Deal. He is against Medicare-4-all, even during a Pandemic. What is Biden/Harris offering? Even Biden, when asking these questions and about his record, says, "If you are questioning whether to vote for me or not, you ain't black."

So Leftists will get nothing and will receive all of the blame for of Trump winning if we don't vote for Biden. "If you are questioning whether to vote for Biden or not, you must want Trump for four more years."

Remember, I live in Washington State. A super blue State. If I live in any battleground state, even within a ten points difference, I would vote for Biden/Harris. But since Biden is ahead by 22 points in my state, and I don't see that changing anytime soon, I am considering voting for a third party. Howard Hawkins of the Green and Socialist party is closer to my position. I would prefer there is no State at all and no President at all. Especially no single person having that much power, especially being the 'leader of the "Free" world' by virtue of being the President of the United Corporations of Imperialism. If the President of the United Corporations of Imperialism is the 'leader' of the 'free world,' then how come the World doesn't get to vote in this election. The UCI, Imperialtopia bombs the hell out of the middle east so much, I think the middle east has a right to have a say in our elections.

I do have to acknowledge those platform holders, people with a Youtube channel, a Podcast, or have a large following on Social Media, feel the need to tell people to "to out and vote. Vote as if your life depends on it because for some, it actually does matter." Although for some people, much won't change materially for their lives, like the impoverished and the disabled. For some, it is life or death. For others, it is a shit show, regardless. But platform holders want Trump out of the White House. They don't know who lives in what state. They don't know if their audience's votes matter or not. Since they are speaking to a vast audience, and they must keep it simple, they have to say, "VOTE! VOTE! VOTE!"

But, I am thinking, if they acknowledge that some votes are more important in some states than others, they will have to admit the whole in the United Corporations of Imperialism is unjust. Votes are weight more heavily in some states than in others. The whole system has to change. But that can't happen in a year. However, folks can vote on Election Day. So, it is easy to encourage people to vote instead of organizing to abolish the Electoral College. It would take too long to do it. It would take a lot of effort. So even bother trying. Liberals would rather pretend that isn't the case and just badger and shame people into voting for a candidate they have 'accepted' won the primary, even though Biden was one of the worse candidates in that field. Everyone's tenth or so pick.

With all that said, vote for whoever you want to or whoever you feel comfortable voting for. I won't vote shame anyone. Except if you vote for Trump and the GOP. Then you are a Fascist because you are voting for a Fascist and the Fascist party. Pure and simple.

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kob131 · 4 years

Text

https://dudeblade.tumblr.com/post/614400525499252736/what-if-trump-decides-to-save-republicans-but-not

It is shocking to see just how low the Trump Administration has brought American democracy in a few short years. Holding aid to an ally to invent dirt on a Democratic opponent was alarming enough to force the hand of Democratic leaders to impeach the president, even though it was clear they didn’t actually want to. And conservative policy has always been generally hostile to the lives, health, and voting rights of people it doesn’t consider part of the Republican coalition.

You know, because it’s okay to have a politician get away with something the other guy is supposedly getting IMPEACHED for (and I say supposed because Russia was cited a fuck ton during the impeachment. You know, the country the UKRAINE OPPOSES) because he has a D next to his name.

And you wanna try selling that ‘conservative policy is hostile to non conservatives’ horseshit when you aren’t surrounded by people who are hostile to conservatives and anyone NOT far left while the conservatives are the only ones with STANDARDS?

But the prospect of an American president using vital resources in a pandemic to curry political favor, keep his supporters alive and let his opponents die in the thousands is something unprecedented in all of American history.

You know, except for MOST PRESIDENTS. Aand is also unproven since there are NO SOURCES in the article to back this shit up.

With all due respect to the reporters who worked hard on this story-

All 0 of them because the only sources in the entire article cite THE FUCKING SAME SITE, something no reporter would do out of fear of being laughed out of the field.

the phrase “they do not appear to follow discernible political or geographic lines” seems comically wrong. Massachusetts, Maine, and Colorado are blue states getting severely shafted. Florida is a swing state that leans red, and it is getting everything it asks for and more. If these figures are part of a larger pattern, it looks very much like political favor currying for some, and vindictive neglect for others

Yeah yeah Nixon, keep telling us about all that proof on that blank sheet of paper of yours.

It looks especially bad in light of the days-long campaign of not-so-subtle extortion of Democratic governors to praise Trump more and take more of the blame themselves if they want their citizens to receive direly needed medical supplies from the same federal government that is outbidding them.

Ah yes, like all those nasty republicians....not taking their vacations to draft a bill to help the American people...and then Nancy Pelosi stopped it....held the aid hostage...until she could extort unpopular bills in exchange for the lives of the people she is suppose to represent....

... Ah shit, reality got in the way. Better gouge out them eyeballs and fall deeper down the rabbit hole huh?

The president’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani even went on Fox News to tell infuriated governors that they should “Take the blame when you have to … when you play with your boss, sometimes it’s better when you don’t win the golf game. He’s the boss, he’s got all the resources.”

You know, citing a NOTHING TWITTER ACCOUNT CITING AN OUT OF CONTEXT CLIP WITH NO SOURCE.

We don’t even know what was said BEFORE HAND.

Right now, Republicans are less concerned about coronavirus than Democrats because the virus is mostly impacting urban areas so far. Many Democrats have been expecting that once red states and rural areas start feeling the heat of the pandemic, the conservative movement and the White House will start to take matters more seriously and the ground will shift.

Sorry, we don’t listen to people without eyeballs.

Because the Republicans didn’t stop a bill from helping the US citizens, the Democrats did. The Republicians didn’t hold us hostage to get unwanted bills passed, the Democrats did. The Republicians didn’t risk lives, YOUR FUCKING PARTY DID.

Go eat shit.

So what did Dudeblade say?

Easy! We start corralling republicans into the camps that they praised, and gun them down with the same guns that they were willing to let the children die to protect.

Ah yes, because when someone lies through their teeth: we kill the victims right?

Oh wait, this is coming from the same guy who says minorities who vote for Trump are brainwashed and thus can’t possibly have free will and must be wrong while being a horrendous shit,

Tell me Dudeblade, how many of those children were shot in gun free zones because a mediated murderer won’t give a fuck about gun laws and no one could stop the shooter?

How many of those camps were under Obama, the man you defend as Jesus even as it’s proven HE started most of the shit Trump gets berated for?

How much would you give a shit if those kids were from Covington Catholic, even though those kids were victims of racial attacks themselves?

How much would you actually care if those kids liked Trump?

How much would you care if the virus WAS affecting rural areas or would you clap for joy because you revel in the pain and misery of people who disagree with you?

I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again, you are a FAR worse person than I am. And considering how deeply disturbed I am: that is saying a fucking lot huh?

You disgust me Dudeblade. And the fact that you hate me so much pretty much informs me that I have some kind of redeemable quality. Because being hated by someone who barely even ACTS HUMAN ANYMORE is a compliment.

Oh by the way, I see that new tag. “Conservatives shouldn’t be allowed to live in peace.” Can't wait for a time machine to appear so I can dumb your ass in Nazi Germany and FORCE you to get some damn perspective.

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idairsauthor · 5 years

Text

This Fcking Impeachment: Episode One, The Fire of Union

PLAIDDER: Hello and welcome to This Fucking Emergency’s exciting new spinoff: This Fucking Impeachment. With me in the studio today is the happiest imaginary man in the world. Please welcome the unpublished-fictional man, the very little-known myth, the only-to-the-select-few legend, Conn mac Emer!

CONN: WOOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

PLAIDDER: I see Conn has already started celebrating...and for the first but probably not the last time, please welcome to the show another imaginary politician, the Nation’s own Gill Nileton.

GILL: I thought Ideirens couldn’t drink.

CONN: We can’t.

GILL: You kind of SEEM like you’ve been--

CONN: The exalted mood you observe in me, friend, is not the artificial product of poisonous libations, but the exhilaration of LINN SHANGHLAIM! YEEEE HAAAAAA!!

GILL: I know you told me what that means, but--

PLAIDDER: It’s an Old Tongue phrase that sort of translates as “the fire of union.”

GILL: I still don’t know what that means.

PLAIDDER: As I understand it, linn shanghlaim is used by members of the Seated Leaders to describe the experience of spontaneously and rapidly coming together to support a single piece of legislation or course of action.

GILL: Nothing’s spontaneous in politics.

CONN: Spoken like a man who’s lived all his life under a two-party system. The Seat doesn’t have parties. We have a bunch of people who each only care about what happens in their home district. BUT. Once in a while, something happens that’s so important, for reasons either venal or noble, that everyone puts that petty local tarbfnaa aside and comes together to deal with it. And that’s linn shanghlaim, and it is the reason I get up in the thurking morning. WOOOOOO!!!

GILL: I have literally never seen you this happy.

PLAIDDER: Well you have to understand, Nancy Pelosi announced yesterday that they’ve launched an impeachment inquiry.

GILL: Impeachment. This is the thing that happened to this “Bill Clinton” that I’m supposed to have been based on.

PLAIDDER: Yes. But you see, it’s also a thing that ALMOST happened to a guy named Richard Nixon that neither of you have ever heard of.

GILL: I still don’t understand.

PLAIDDER: Our...president...has just admitted that he abused the power of his office to force a third party to dig up dirt on someone who was quite possibly going to be running against him for president.

GILL: And?

PLAIDDER: And that’s Watergate. For 40 years now every political scandal has had “gate” attached to it, in honor of the Watergate scandal. But this is actually the only scandal since Watergate that actually deserves that suffix. Because this...president...has just done EXACTLY what the House was prepared to impeach Nixon for back in 1974, only in a MUCH WORSE way. All this time everyone’s known that this jackass should be impeached but they’ve been afraid to do it because so much of this stuff is unprecedented and because this...asshole...has been using his power to gaslight everyone into thinking well, maybe this ISN’T really an impeachable offense. But here is something that everyone knows, from history, actually IS an impeachable offense and furthermore is serious enough that the prospect of getting impeached for it forced that son of a bitch to resign.

CONN: And so as soon as that became clear...WHOOSH! The fire of union!

PLAIDDER: Because now, by impeaching him, they’re not repeating the Clinton impeachment, they’re repeating the Nixon one. That’s what Pelosi and friends have been worried about all this time. When the Republicans impeached...let’s say, your namesake...

GILL: This Clinton.

PLAIDDER: Yes. When they impeached him, it was over a single instance of perjury, in which he lied about the fact that he had drawn a 22 year old intern into a sexual relationship with him.

GILL: I thought they impeached him over the sex.

PLAIDDER: No. Technically, the High Crime and Misdemeanor at stake there was his lying about it under oath.

GILL: But your president lies--

PLAIDDER: Exactly. Exactly. But, you see, the Clinton impeachment was clearly politically motivated. The Republicans wouldn’t accept the fact that they’d lost the White House, so they investigated Clinton until they turned up something they could use. This, by the way, is exactly what Buttercup’s defenders are always saying the Democrats are doing now.

GILL: Which they actually are.

PLAIDDER: The difference, Gill, is that Buttercup actually is unfit to hold this office in every measurable way. He’s constantly abusing his power--not just in this phone call, but in every action he takes as President. He lies like he breathes. He upended the FBI and the Department of Justice to try to stop the Mueller investigation. He fires everyone who displays a shred of integrity or an ounce of loyalty to anything other than himself. He encourages foreign governments to bribe him by using his hotel properties. He embezzles taxpayer money by directing government entities to use his hotel properties. I cannot even list all the ways in which he has proved that he acts always and only in his own interests, even when that goes against the interests of the country he supposedly governs. He illegally blocks money that Congress has appropriated for things he doesn’t want to do or redirects money that Congress appropriated for some other purpose. He refuses to obey the law whenever it contravenes his needs, desires, or even whims. He has corrupted the entire Department of Justice and turned the Attorney General of the United States into his personal defense lawyer. He accepted help from fucking Vladimir Putin in the 2016 election and NOW--as a fucking SITTING PRESIDENT--he is actively soliciting help from Zelensky in the upcoming 2020 election. And that’s just the illegal stuff. Do not get me STARTED on the profoundly immoral things he has done with this office and to this country. He is not a president. He is a mob boss. He richly deserves to be impeached, and now at last he will be.

CONN: Look at you, drawing up the articles of impeachment already!

PLAIDDER: Every right-minded citizen of this country has had their own personal articles of impeachment drawn up for at least a year now.

GILL: I feel your pain--

PLAIDDER: Please let me never hear you say that again--

GILL: --but this seems very risky to me. They’ve already released the transcript of the phone call; and they’re right, there’s no explicit quid pro quo.

CONN: Oh friend. Do you think a man as practiced in extortion and bullying as this gleachinai is would be stupid enough to use the if-then formula? He blocks their aid, then calls--

PLAIDDER: REGARDLESS! Holding up the aid that Congress had voted to the Ukraine--for ANY reason--was ILLEGAL! He doesn’t get to DECIDE whether he disburses that aid or not! He is supposed to EXECUTE the laws that Congress passes, that is why they call it the fucking EXECUTIVE branch. He is not supposed to LEGISLATE. That’s not how this works. THAT’S NOT HOW ANY OF THIS WORKS.

GILL: I think you should maybe go to commercial, stranger, you’re getting very excited.

CONN: Clearly, you’ve never watched a single episode of this show.

PLAIDDER: Fucking with that aid money is IN ITSELF an impeachable offense! We don’t even need to GET to the question of whether he did it as a quid pro quo.

CONN: Right. Just like the fact that he asked a foreign head of state to go after his political opponent is impeachable in itself, whether or not he ALSO bribed or extorted him to do it.

PLAIDDER: Thank you. I only wish we’d done this sooner.

CONN: I don’t.

PLAIDDER: And now we come to it. You’re about to tell me that Pelosi has been playing seven-dimensional Dubh Solus all this time, aren’t you?

CONN: Yes I am.

PLAIDDER: Oh Lord.

CONN: I kept saying, not yet, not yet. And would you listen to me?

PLAIDDER: No.

CONN: No, you would not. Look. Your people don’t exactly have the concept of linn shanghlaim, but your Nancy Pelosi has been in politics all her life. She knows the fire of union when she sees it. And she also knows when she doesn’t see it. The Mueller investigation did not light that fire. Even if there hadn’t been all the chicanery around releasing the report, the fact that it was so inconclusive just threw water on everything. But she let him think he was winning. Because she knew that if he did, he’d do something worse and more dramatic. And now he has.

PLAIDDER: But Conn...linn shanghlaim is supposed to include everybody. It’s supposed to cut across existing...well, you don’t have formal political parties, but let’s say factional divisions. But there are no Republicans on fire right now. It’s 199 Democrats and Justin Amash.

CONN: I know. We cannot expect miracles.

PLAIDDER: But Pelosi did! She kept saying she wouldn’t do this until she had bipartisan--

CONN: Friend, do you seriously believe that she ever thought for a moment that impeachment would have bipartisan support? She works with those people EVERY. DAY.

PLAIDDER: Well then why--

CONN: Because waiting for this “bipartisan support” which was never going to appear allowed her to delay impeachment indefinitely UNTIL the right moment came along. Which is this one.

PLAIDDER: You can’t prove any of this.

CONN: Look at the results. Instead of dragging a bunch of reluctant, scared, misgiving-filled people behind her into an impeachment half of them don’t want, she’s barely one step ahead of a charging horde, all lit up with the fire of union. This is going to be unstoppable.

GILL: But isn’t thing going to play into your president’s hands? He’s supposed to love conflict, and drama, and his people are always saying impeachment is a political winner for them, and--

CONN: Gill. Friend. Stop. You’re embarrassing yourself.

GILL: I beg your--

CONN: LOOK AT THE RESULTS. For months now, Congress has been demanding documents and testimony and what have you and this administration’s response has been, sue me for it. Word gets out that impeachment is actually in motion and what’s the first thing that happens? The transcript of that call has been released. The whistleblower complaint is maybe going to come out tomorrow. What does that tell you?

GILL: That they’re scared.

CONN: Yes. It tells you that impeachment was the ONLY thing this crew ever took seriously. It’s the ONLY thing that was ever capable of forcing them to obey the law. They never wanted this. They feared it. That “it helps us politically” stuff was pure tarbhfnaa put out by his minions to stave it off.

PLAIDDER: Pelosi also said that’s what he--

CONN: Because she was ALSO trying to stave it off. It was convenient for her to pretend to believe their tarbhfnaa as long as she didn’t think the time was right. But she never did.

PLAIDDER: So she lied to us.

CONN: Friend, not all good women are shriias.

GILL: Now THAT’S the truth.

PLAIDDER: Oh boy.

CONN: Watch her and learn, Gill. Watch and learn.

PLAIDDER: Well, we’ll all be watching. It’s time to wrap up this episode of This Fucking Impeachment...but there will be more!

CONN: WOOOOHOOO! HYA GLEACH! HYA GLEACH! HYA GLEACH!!

GILL: Where in this studio can a man get a DRINK?

#this fcking emergency #this fcking impeachment #conn mac emer

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theliberaltony · 5 years

Link

via FiveThirtyEight

Welcome to Pollapalooza, our weekly polling roundup.

Poll(s) of the week

President Trump’s decision to declare a national emergency in order to build more physical barriers on the U.S.-Mexico border was generally unpopular, but polls suggest the move has very high support among Republicans. That dynamic could be important as Trump seeks to overcome challenges to his new policy both on Capitol Hill and in the courts.

Two polls conducted entirely after the emergency declaration show a majority of Americans don’t like it: An NPR/PBS Newshour/Marist poll that came out Tuesday showed a 61-36 split against Trump’s policy, and a Morning Consult/Politico poll released on Wednesday found 39 percent in support, 51 percent opposed. A HuffPost/YouGov survey conducted the day before and the day of the emergency declaration found similar results — 37 percent of Americans said they approved of the move, compared with 55 percent who disapproved.

These numbers don’t surprise me — they generally mirror Trump’s overall job approval ratings. For much of the past two years, around 40 percent of Americans have approved of the president’s performance, while a clear majority has disapproved.

Similarly, overall support for the national emergency declaration is in the upper 30s in the polls we have so far. That’s because Republicans have lined up solidly behind it, according to both polls conducted after the declaration was made — the NPR poll found 85 percent support within the GOP, and the Morning Consult survey found 77 percent support. The HuffPost/YouGov poll found that 84 percent of Trump voters supported the declaration, although that poll was already underway when the declaration was made, so some respondents were asked about the move before it became official while others were asked after the announcement.

It’s not surprising that large numbers of Republicans supported Trump’s decision to declare a national emergency — GOP voters overwhelmingly approve of him. But high party support for a Trump policy is not always a given. For example, the policy of separating immigrant children from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border was significantly more unpopular within the party than the emergency declaration is — a FiveThirtyEight average of polls found that only about half of Republicans were on board with the separations. And while a majority of Republicans supported both the failed 2017 health care bill meant to replace Obamacare (67 percent) and the GOP tax plan passed the same year (64 percent), they did so at rates 10 to 20 points lower than we’re seeing on the national emergency policy.

Being backed only by Republican voters still isn’t great for the president. His base alone likely won’t be sufficient to win re-election. But in terms of policy, Trump tends to reverse himself only if there is a breadth of opposition that encompasses more than just Democrats and independents. That kind of opposition tends to create a feedback loop that’s hard to ignore — so, for example, the media criticizes something Trump does or says, establishment Republicans join in, and then the media prominently features those GOP critics in its coverage. Some Republican elected officials were initially wary of Trump declaring a national emergency, but I wonder if they will reconsider that posture after seeing these polls. And with few prominent Republicans willing to cast the national emergency policy as an “extraordinary violation of constitutional norms,” as The New York Times described it last week, I suspect the media will feel pressured to cover this debate as a traditional partisan dispute and so will back off from sharper condemnations of Trump.

Like the media, the courts are sometimes hesitant to take strong stands on partisan disputes. So they may be more reluctant to strike down Trump’s policy than they would be if it had gotten more of a mixed reaction from both sides of the aisle.

But the biggest reason these polls matter is they can affect what happens on Capitol Hill. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced this week that the House will likely hold a vote to overturn the emergency declaration. If such a measure passed both houses of Congress but was vetoed by Trump, Congress would need a two-thirds majority of both chambers to override the veto. That would require 53 Republicans in the House and 20 in the Senate to break with the president. I thought that was unlikely even before these polls came out. Now, seeing almost universal support for Trump’s declaration among Republican voters, it’s even harder to imagine a large bloc of Republicans in Congress breaking with the president, which means this policy is likely to survive.

Other polling nuggets

Former Vice President Joe Biden, who has not announced whether he will enter the 2020 Democratic presidential race, leads in South Carolina with 36 percent of the vote, according to a new Change Research survey that was provided to the Palmetto State-based Post and Courier newspaper. Also in double digits were Bernie Sanders (14 percent), Kamala Harris (13 percent) and Cory Booker (10 percent). Twelve other Democrats who either have officially entered the race or are rumored to be considering presidential runs were in single digits.

Biden is also ahead in New Hampshire, with 28 percent of the vote, according to a University of Massachusetts, Amherst, poll. Sanders is in second place with 20 percent, and Harris is in third with 14 percent. Seven other Democrats that were included in the survey are in single digits.

An average of 54 percent of white Democrats identified as politically “liberal” during the six-year period from 2013 to 2018, according to data released by Gallup this week. That compares with 38 percent of Latino Democrats and 33 percent of black Democrats. There was also variation by education level — Democrats with postgraduate degrees were the most likely to describe themselves as liberal (65 percent), followed by Democrats with undergraduate degrees (58 percent), those who attended college but don’t have degrees (45 percent) and those with high school educations or less (32 percent).

The same Gallup survey found major differences among liberal and conservative Democrats on a few issues: 81 percent of liberal Democrats think marijuana should be legal, for example, compared with 44 percent of conservative Democrats. Sixty-four percent of liberal Democrats oppose the death penalty for people convicted of murder, compared with 39 percent of conservative Democrats.

45 percent of Democrats said they would be somewhat or very unhappy if their son or daughter married a supporter of the Republican Party, according to a PPRI/Atlantic survey released this week. Thirty-five percent of Republicans said they would be unhappy if their child married a Democrat. Higher shares of Republicans were concerned about their child marrying someone of the same gender (58 percent unhappy) or someone who identified as transgender (70 percent).

More than 60 percent of Americans said that the government should pursue policies to reduce the wealth gap and that they support a 2 percent tax on wealth above $50 million, according to a survey conducted by SurveyMonkey that was published by The New York Times this week. Opinion is more divided (51 percent support, 45 percent oppose) on a marginal tax rate of 70 percent on income above $10 million a year.

Just 17 percent of Virginians said they approved of the job performance of the state’s embattled governor, Ralph Northam (who has denied that he was in a racist photo on his page in his medical school yearbook but has admitted to wearing blackface in the 1980s), according to an Ipsos/University of Virginia Center for Politics survey released this week. Thirty-four percent said they disapproved of Northam, while 44 percent said they neither approved nor disapproved. The good news for Northam is that only 31 percent of Virginians said they think he should resign, compared with 43 percent who said they don’t think he should resign. Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax, who has been accused by two women of sexual assault, has a slightly worse standing — 35 percent of Virginia residents said they think he should resign, while 25 percent said that he shouldn’t. (The other 40 percent are in neither camp.)

A new Quinnipiac University survey of Virginia voters found better job approval numbers for Northam (39 percent approve, 44 percent disapprove). And in this poll too, a plurality (48 percent) of Virginians said he shouldn’t resign.

Trump approval

According to FiveThirtyEight’s presidential approval tracker, 42.5 percent approve of the job Trump is doing as president, while 53.2 percent disapprove (a net approval rating of -10.7 points). At this time last week, 41.5 percent approved and 54.1 percent disapproved (for a net approval rating of -12.6 points). One month ago, Trump had an approval rating of 40.0 percent and a disapproval rating of 55.3 percent, for a net approval rating of -15.3 points.

#IFTTT #FiveThirtyEight #politics #538 #Perry Bacon Jr.

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bigyack-com · 4 years

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Trump’s Trade Deal Steals a Page From Democrats’ Playbook

WASHINGTON — House Democrats return to Washington on Monday facing a difficult choice: Should they hand President Trump a victory in the midst of a heated impeachment battle or walk away from one of the most progressive trade pacts ever negotiated by either party?The Trump administration agreed with Canada and Mexico on revisions to the North American Free Trade Agreement one year ago, but the deal still needs the approval of Congress. A handshake agreement with the administration in the coming days would give the Democratic caucus a tangible accomplishment on an issue that has animated its base. It could also give Democrats a chance to lock in long-sought policy changes to a trade pact they criticize as prioritizing corporations over workers, laying the groundwork for future trade agreements.Those factors have coaxed Democrats to the table at an improbable moment, when Washington is split by partisan fights and deeply divided over an impeachment inquiry. After months of talks, including through the Thanksgiving break, both sides say they’re in the final phase of negotiations. But Democrats insist the administration must make more changes to the labor, environmental and other provisions before Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California will bring legislation implementing the new United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement to a vote.“By any standard, what we’ve already negotiated is substantially better than NAFTA,” said Representative Richard E. Neal of Massachusetts, who is heading the Democratic group negotiating with the administration. “Labor enforcement, in my judgment, is the last hurdle.”The deal presents a dilemma for Democrats because it contains measures they have supported for years, from requiring more of a car’s parts to be made in North America to rolling back a special system of arbitration for corporations and strengthening Mexican labor unions.In borrowing from the Democrats’ playbook, the revised pact reflects Mr. Trump’s populist trade approach — one that has blurred party lines and appealed to many of the blue-collar workers Democrats once counted among their base. It also reflects a broader backlash to more traditional free trade deals, which have been criticized for hollowing out American manufacturing and eliminating jobs.“Taken as a whole, it looks more like an agreement that would’ve been negotiated under the Obama administration,” said Senator Rob Portman, Republican of Ohio and a former trade representative during the George W. Bush administration, who supports the pact. “There are some aspects to it that Democrats have been calling for, for decades.”In fact, it goes so far to the left of traditional Republican views on trade that some congressional Republicans only grudgingly support it — or may vote against the final deal. Senator Patrick J. Toomey of Pennsylvania, one of the most ardent Republican critics of the deal, has called the pact “a complete departure from the free trade agreements we’ve pursued through our history” and urged fellow Republicans to vote it down. “If we adopt this agreement, it will be the first time that I know of in the history of the Republic that we will agree to a new trade agreement that is designed to diminish trade,” Mr. Toomey said at a hearing in July, sitting next to a large red sign that said: “NAFTA > U.S.M.C.A.”Still, most Republicans have supported the pact and urged rapid action. If the deal is not approved soon, proponents fear it could become the target of more frequent attacks by Democratic presidential candidates, making it even more difficult for Democrats in Congress to vote for the pact.Mr. Trump has spent weeks accusing Ms. Pelosi of being “grossly incompetent” and prioritizing impeachment over a trade deal that could benefit workers. “She’s incapable of moving it,” Mr. Trump said last week, warning that a “great trade deal for the farmers, manufacturers, workers of all types, including unions” could fall apart if the Democrats don’t take action. While long demonized by Mr. Trump, Democrats and labor unions, NAFTA has become critical to companies and consumers across North America, guiding commerce around the continent for a quarter century. Entire industries have grown up around the trade agreement, which allows goods like cars, avocados and textiles to flow tariff free among Canada, Mexico and the United States. But Mr. Trump and other critics have blamed the deal for encouraging companies to move their factories to Mexico. The president has routinely called NAFTA the “worst trade deal ever made” and promised during his campaign that he would rewrite it in America’s favor — or scrap it altogether.The revised pact took over a year of rancorous talks to complete, resulting in a complex 2,082-page agreement covering a wide range of topics. While much of it simply updates NAFTA for the 21st century, it also contains changes intended to encourage manufacturing in the United States, including by raising how much of a car must be made in North America to qualify for zero tariffs. The new agreement requires at least 70 percent of an automaker’s steel and aluminum to be bought in North America, which could help boost United States metal production. And 40 to 45 percent of a car’s content must be made by workers earning an average wage of $16 an hour. That $16 floor is an effort to force auto companies to either raise low wages in Mexico or hire more workers in the United States and Canada, an outcome Democrats have long supported.It also rolls back a special system of arbitration for corporations that the Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren has criticized as allowing companies to bypass the American legal system and Trump administration officials describe as an incentive for companies to send their factories abroad.The pact also includes, at least on paper, provisions that aim to do away with sham Mexican labor unions that have done little to help workers by requiring every company in Mexico to seek worker approval of collective bargaining agreements by secret ballot in the next four years. Some Democrats are skeptical that the Mexican government will allocate the necessary funds to ensure that companies are complying with these changes. But if the rules are enforced, Democrats say they may help stem the flow of jobs to Mexico and put American workers on a more equal footing. Several sticking points remain, including a provision that offers an advanced class of drugs 10 years of protection from cheaper alternatives, which Democratic lawmakers say would lock in high drug prices. Other Democratic proposals aim to add teeth to the pact’s labor and environmental provisions. Democrats want to reverse a change made by the Trump administration that they say essentially guts NAFTA’s enforcement system. They are also arguing for additional resources that would allow customs officials to inspect factories or stop goods at the border if companies violate labor rules. Mr. Neal told reporters late last month that he believed House Democrats could soon work out their differences with Robert Lighthizer, Mr. Trump’s trade representative. Ms. Pelosi, who has continued to suggest that she wants to “get to yes” on the deal, responded to Mr. Trump’s rebuke last week by saying that she needed to see the administration’s commitments in writing before moving forward. The agreement still has skeptics, including labor leaders and others on the left.“Unless Donald Trump agrees to add stronger labor and environmental standards and enforcement, and secures progress on labor reforms in Mexico, NAFTA job outsourcing will continue,” said Lori Wallach, the director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch. “And the Big Pharma giveaways Trump added must go: They make U.S.M.C.A. worse than NAFTA.”But Democrats say that if the additional changes they are seeking get made, the deal would be more progressive than the original NAFTA and the Trans-Pacific Partnership — both of which were negotiated by Democratic administrations. Mr. Trump pulled the United States out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership within days of taking office.Jesús Seade, Mexico’s chief negotiator for the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, said many tweaks Democrats want are “improvements.” “If the amendments suggested are acceptable improvements, then there’s no reason we should not be shaking hands next week,” he said on Friday, after meeting with Canadian officials.Some congressional Republicans, who generally oppose unions and believe the deal’s new rules could burden auto companies, have been taken aback by how far the administration has gone to woo Democrats. At a private lunch on June 11 at the Capitol, Republican senators peppered Vice President Mike Pence with questions about why the administration was not lobbying Democrats harder to back the deal. Mr. Pence claimed that it already had the support of 80 Democrats, a high number that caught some Republicans by surprise, according to a person familiar with the meeting who spoke on condition of anonymity. “What’s in it for Pelosi?” asked Senator Ben Sasse, Republican of Nebraska. Mr. Pence responded that the pact had the most aggressive labor and automotive standards ever put in a trade agreement — an admission for some Republicans in the room that it was the worst trade agreement they had been asked to support.Jennifer Hillman, a trade expert at the Council on Foreign Relations, said many of Mr. Lighthizer and Mr. Trump’s views on trade “are basically borrowing what Democrats have said for many, many years.”“To the extent that Trump gained votes in the industrial Midwest, it was by espousing Democratic trade ideas,” she said. Throughout the negotiations, Mr. Lighthizer has kept up a steady dialogue with labor unions like the United Steelworkers and Democrats like Ms. Pelosi, Mr. Neal and Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio. At times, Mr. Lighthizer appeared more at odds with congressional Republicans and traditional allies like the Chamber of Commerce, who he said should give up “a little bit of the sugar” that had sweetened trade agreements for multinational corporations.“If you can get some labor unions on board, Democrats on board, mainstream Republicans on board, I think you can get big numbers,” Mr. Lighthizer said in January 2018. “If you do, that’s going to change the way all of us look at these kind of deals.” Source link Read the full article

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cle-guy · 4 years

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I Pity Progressive Social Discourse

OK, I had the misfortune of reading an article posted by a friend which is basically a lengthy diatribe about the numerous evils of the DNC (and the Democratic Party in general). If you feel like torturing yourself (which I suppose I do), feel free to read the article here. In short, it’s a poor excuse for political analysis which takes a conclusion: that the DNC screwed Bernie out of the nomination which was rightfully his (and hates him), and then tries to find evidence to support it. In short, it’s the exact opposite of what progressives outside the Democratic Party should be doing right now.

However, out of amusement, I decided to take a look at some of the claims in this article (which are common in some Bernie circles) and critique them.

Argument 1: The DNC Forced the Primaries to Continue During a Dangerous Pandemic

The article begins with a disappointing rant about how the primaries continued despite Covid-19.

Forcing the March 17 primaries in Florida, Arizona and Illinois to go forward, despite reports of exceedingly low turnout throughout the day (which miraculously and quite expectedly turned into higher turnouts than 2016 in both Florida and Arizona by the time the final reporting came in), was the last straw. This farce occurred despite the Ohio governor postponing their primary on the same day. This slap in the face of voters was then compounded by the even worse parody of the April 7 Wisconsin primary being allowed to go ahead at the peak of the pandemic, with polling stations vastly reduced (from 180 to just 5 in Milwaukee alone) and absentee ballots often not received or recorded, while maintaining the pretense that somehow all of this constituted a legitimate election.

Where to begin? First: the primaries in Florida, Arizona and Illinois are ran by the states themselves. Florida & Arizona are ran by Republicans, Illinois by Democrats. The DNC had no influence over whether two out of the three states were going to hold those primaries. Ignoring, of course, that the Ohio delay was challenged in court and questionable at best. The Wisconsin primary was held both because Tony Evers couldn’t stop the GOP legislature from holding the primary, and the Supreme Court stepped in to ensure it occurred. The DNC, in short, had nothing to do with the delay of these primaries.

Finally, Illinois had local elections it had to hold, which was why their primaries were scheduled to go on time.

The author goes on to say the DNC threatened states who attempted to delay their primaries:

Furthermore, the DNC threatened the remaining primary states against postponing their elections for health reasons, preempting moves similar to those made by Louisiana, Georgia and others

Which goes to my second point: the rules for the primaries were set long before Covid-19, and the DNC was reminding the states of said rules. The deadline of June 9th exists to ensure delegates can be chosen prior to the convention. The DNC was not attempting to force states into holding votes. This is a falsehood.

Finally, the author argues that the DNC was hellbent on speeding up the primaries to kill off Bernie’s movement:

In the middle of the pandemic, with the entire nation considering a de facto lockdown and many communities already there, the DNC was hell-bent on driving the final nail in the coffin of the youth movement, even though the Sanders campaign had suspended GOTV efforts, for obvious reasons, and even if Biden never really had a presence in any of the latest round of states.

Thirdly, this is ridiculous. First the authors of the article the author sites are former governors Terry McAullife (VA) and Tom Ridge (PA...Ridge is a Republican). Neither have any ties to the DNC. Secondarily, neither are calling to speed up the primaries to stop Sanders, but to ensure the integrity of our elections. Furthermore, the main point of the article was to use this crisis as an opportunity to upgrade how we conduct our elections in the first place.

Overall, the main first claim of the author is a conspiracy, with zero evidence, based on complaints which belong in the court of the state governments (which involved heavy Republican influence). The DNC had nothing to do with why the primaries were delayed.

Argument 2: the DNC Knows a Non-Progressive Candidate Will Lose and Wants This Result

Sigh. This argument is a doozy, and ridiculous on its face. Does anyone really believe Nancy Pelosi (who served as Speaker of the House during Obama’s presidency and was instrumental in passing numerous progressive bills) REALLY wants to serve under Donald Trump? Does anyone truly fathom that Chuck Schumer enjoys wielding little power in the Senate under Mitch McConnel? I guess some do, here’s the author again:

When they stopped counting the vote in Iowa, depriving the leading candidate of essential momentum, it was a clear indication that once again the party establishment would do everything to manipulate results in favor of yet another neoliberal avatar bound to lose to Trump in an ignominious landslide—which is actually what the Democratic party establishment wants, four more years of their demonized opponent rather than the tiniest return toward social decency. Nothing about the coronavirus changes this essential dynamic.

Emphasis mine. First, the author cites facts not in evidence. Second: if the DNC wanted to stop a progressive candidate from running and tilt the results in favor of a “neoliberal avatar” why did they let Bernie run in the first place? Bernie is not a member of the Democratic Party, he is owed nothing by the DNC. Furthermore: Bernie Sanders is a smart man. If he felt the DNC wanted Trump to win, I do not believe he would be running to take over the party. I don’t agree with Bernie much, but I respect the man enough to know he isn’t stupid. I find this argument so absurd on its face.

Argument 3: Joe Biden does not represent Progressive values and will not compromise at all

Recent events cast this position into doubt immediately. But, before we get to that the relevant argument:

Biden has already made it clear that he’s not the least bit interested in making any real overtures toward bereft progressives, just as Hillary wasn’t after her forceful seizure of the nomination in 2016.

As I show with the links above: this is bullshit. On its face. Biden moved to the left before the campaign began, and has now adopted policies from both Elizabeth Warren & Bernie Sanders. He has, in fact, endorsed more plans from Bernie & Elizabeth before they endorsed him than he did for Mayor Pete or Amy Klobuchar after they endorsed him. It is absurd to make this claim on its face (unless you’re not arguing in good faith that is, in which case everything goes I suppose).

Furthermore, the Democratic Party has moved to the left and embraced ideas from its Progressive Wing in recent years. From a $15/HR minimum wage, to basically decriminalizing the border: Progressives successfully moved the Democratic Party leftward since 2016.

I have sympathy for the opinion (which the author does not discuss here) that Biden is an imperfect vehicle for progressive goals. Biden likes to stick his finger in the wind and see where it blows before taking a position. This is not popular with a constituency which supports an astonishingly consistent politician in Bernie Sanders. On the flip side of the coin consider Elizabeth Warren’s words on Biden: he listens. Its why he was a bipartisan deal-maker for four decades in the Senate. As I have already shown: he’s done some listening already.

Argument 4: the DNC rigged the vote for Biden to stop Bernie

This is another doozy, but some relevant text:

To recap some of what we have seen from the great minds trying to herd us all into submission toward Hillary 2.0, the dementia version:

Herd 29 Trojan horses into the race, all pretending to be some version of or alternative to the clear ideological victor from 2016, and all of them unmasking themselves at appropriate stages of the race (three of them at the last moment before South Carolina) in order to maximize damage to one candidate alone.

The reason why 29 “Trojan horses” ran is because Biden was a weak front runner who frequently made verbal gaffes. The campaigns of both Kamala Harris & Cory Booker were predicated on when Biden faltered. Contrary to the author’s argument: the big field indicates that the DNC did little to stop Bernie. Bernie’s strategy was based on winning in a wide field.

To ask a question: if the DNC wanted to stop Bernie Sanders, why would they throw dozens of candidates against him? This divided the field in Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada and handed Bernie first narrow wins, and then a big one. It was only when Biden consolidated the field after winning in South Carolina that the moderates consolidated (besides Michael Bloomberg). Furthermore: if the plan was to get to Biden all along, why have Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, and others attack Biden all of 2019 ahead of the 2020 primaries? How does that help their end game? This argument is evidence that the DNC allowed the primary to work itself, not pull the lever against Bernie.

Insist on a series of parodic debates orchestrating various degrees of hostility toward the lone populist, and focusing outlandish attention on marginal candidates rather than giving the front-runner his due.

The debates were one of the big things going for Bernie Sanders. They also showed off one of Biden’s biggest weaknesses. This argument is stupid, on its face.

Engineer the Iowa vote-counting catastrophe without anyone taking responsibility, and DNC chair Tom Perez not only not resigning but feeling empowered to engender further chaos. Repeat all the instances of voter suppression in close simulation of all the 2016 states, as if to thumb their noses at any semblance of voting integrity.

Where is the evidence that the DNC deliberately manipulated the vote, and suppressed the vote, to elect Biden? I see no evidence here, just meaningless speculation.

Be part of closely coordinated media campaigns harping on electability, centrism and moderation, to the point where the liberal media (the Times, CNN, MSNBC) become indistinguishable from campaign opponents and the party apparatus. For the first three months of the year, the New York Times turned into a chorus of single-minded “Never Bernie” propaganda, exceeding even their “Never Trump” loathing of four years ago.

A few things here: 1) David Brooks is a conservative and not a member of the DNC, nor is he connected. 2) was the media obsessed with electability or was the electorate obsessed and the media reported on it? Both are quite plausible explanations. Furthermore: those anti-Bernie media outlets were quite happy to post stories about Biden’s past comments when it suited them. The New York Times endorsed Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar and called Biden too old. I do not doubt much of the mainstream media was less than excited about Bernie: but they did not tip the scales.

Recruit Barack Obama to save Biden’s hide when he remained the last one standing, with the same ominous figures from 2016 (Jim “there will be no free education” Clyburn, Harry “get the culinary workers to caucus for Hillary” Reid, and others) reprising to the finest detail the same walk-on bits they played last time.

The fact Joe Biden got people to endorse him is not evidence of DNC collusion. Were AOC, and the rest of “The Squad” part of a conspiracy to elect Bernie Sanders? No: this is how politics works. The fact Biden got Clyburn to endorse him shows how Biden operates as a politician by building coalitions. Bernie had four years in Congress to convince Clyburn to support him (or at least not support Biden) he chose not to do it.

Additionally: Barack Obama and Harry Reid did not endorse Biden before the primaries. Obama did not coerce anyone to endorse Biden. Biden was much closer to Mayor Pete and Amy Klobuchar, and worked himself to get them to endorse him, which is why it occurred. I will add: Elizabeth Warren did not endorse Bernie. This indicates to me that Bernie struggles to play this game.

Keep changing debate rules, by permitting entry to a last-minute white knight in the form of Michael Bloomberg, and the more recent rule change to prevent Tulsi Gabbard the opportunity of taking down Biden.

Bloomberg got on stage because he spent a billion dollars and out polled most people in the debate. The DNC changed the rules to winnow the field. Considering Tulsi Gabbard couldn’t take down Mayor Pete: I struggle to see how she’d do against Biden. This is a stupid argument.

Is this enough manipulation for you?

Yes, I like no manipulation.

Conclusion

The author rambles on for several paragraphs. I wont bother repeating his same arguments anymore. Overall, he presents conclusions as if they’re facts, and refuses to accept anything other than his opinion as the truth. The reality is: Bernie lost because voters voted against his message and his candidacy. There is no shame in that, and if I were the left I would be asking why Bernie was rejected. If a majority exists for Bernie’s policies (as the author claims) then why did the pick a candidate who did not run on that platform? Or, maybe that majority does not exist? If so, how can the left create a consensus to make that happen? Those would be worthwhile discussions. I am sympathetic to some of the progressive platform, and I wish they were better at pushing it; it would make defeating Trump easier.

#politics #2020 election

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bountyofbeads · 5 years

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For #Trump, ‘a War Every Day,’ Waged Increasingly Alone https://nyti.ms/2RinWS8

For Trump, ‘a War Every Day,’ Waged Increasingly Alone

At the midpoint of his term, the president has grown more sure of his own judgment and more isolated from anyone else’s than at any point since he took office.

By Peter Baker and Maggie Haberman |Dec. 22, 2018 |New York Times | Posted December 22, 2018 |

WASHINGTON — When President Trump grows frustrated with advisers during meetings, which is not an uncommon occurrence, he sits back in his chair, crosses his arms and scowls. Often he erupts. “Freaking idiots!” he calls his aides. Except he uses a more pungent word than “freaking.”

For two years, Mr. Trump has waged war against his own government, convinced that people around him are fools. Angry that they resist his wishes, uninterested in the details of their briefings, he becomes especially agitated when they tell him he does not have the power to do what he wants, which makes him suspicious that they are secretly undermining him.

Now, the president who once declared that “I alone can fix” the system increasingly stands alone in a system that seems as broken as ever. The swirl of recent days — a government shutdown, spiraling scandals, tumbling stock markets, abrupt troop withdrawals and the resignation of his alienated defense secretary — has left the impression of a presidency at risk of spinning out of control.

At the midpoint of his term, Mr. Trump has grown more sure of his own judgment and more cut off from anyone else’s than at any point since taking office. He spends ever more time in front of a television, often retreating to his residence out of concern that he is being watched too closely. As he sheds advisers at a head-spinning rate, he reaches out to old associates, complaining that few of the people around him were there at the beginning.

Mr. Trump is said by advisers to be consumed by the multiplying investigations that have taken down his personal lawyer, campaign chairman, national security adviser and family foundation. He rails against enemies, who often were once friends, nursing a deep sense of betrayal and grievance as they turn on him.

“Can you believe this?” he has said as he scanned the torrent of headlines. “I’m doing great, but it’s a war every day.”

“Why is it like this?” he has asked aides, with no acknowledgment that he might have played a role. The aides, many of whom believe he has been treated unfairly by the news media, have replied that journalists are angry that he won and proved them wrong. He nods in agreement at such explanations.

As the president vents, he constantly rattles off what he sees as underappreciated accomplishments. “Look what I did for Mexico and Canada,” he has told allies. “Look what’s happened with terrorism.”

The portrait that emerges from interviews with about 30 current and former administration officials, personal friends, political allies, lawmakers and congressional aides suggests a president who revels in sharp swings in direction, feels free to disregard historic allies and presides over near constant turmoil within his own team as he follows his own instincts.

White House officials did not respond to requests for comment. But as the president struggles to find a way forward, the path is about to become much more hazardous. As tumultuous as events have been so far, Mr. Trump’s first two years may ultimately look calm compared to what lies ahead.

In less than two weeks, Representative Nancy Pelosi of California will take the speaker’s gavel held until now by Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, and subpoena-wielding House Democrats will be empowered to investigate Mr. Trump’s family, business, campaign and administration. At some point after that, he will face the results of whatever Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel, finds about campaign ties to Russia and obstruction of justice.

At some point after that, Ms. Pelosi may come under enormous pressure from her liberal base to open an impeachment inquiry, and many Republicans anticipate a battle over whether Mr. Trump committed high crimes and misdemeanors even if they hold enough votes in the Senate to block removal. Amid all that is a rising budget deficit that will shrink Mr. Trump’s domestic options and signs of a possible economic downturn that would undercut his most potent bragging point.

“Nothing he’s going to face in the next two years is going to be like the challenges of the previous two years,” said Michael Steel, a longtime adviser to Republicans like Mr. Ryan and former Speaker John A. Boehner. “Given the staff turnover and the increasing feeling that the president is encircled or cornered by legal and political enemies, it’s entirely possible it gets worse, not better.”

Yet even with a 38 percent approval rating in Gallup polling, Mr. Trump has dominated the national conversation as no other modern president has, and his base thrills at his fights with the establishment, seeing him as a warrior against self-satisfied elites who look down on many Americans. Determined to maintain that base, he has insisted — despite the seemingly long odds — on his pledge of a border wall, aware that abandoning his signature campaign promise would make him less authentic, the quality that his voters often cite as his appeal.

As a result, a partisan war may be just what he wants. He has privately told associates that he is glad Democrats won the House in last month’s midterm elections, saying he thinks that guarantees his re-election because they will serve as a useful antagonist. That may be bravado, but history provides some support. Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, his Democratic predecessors, both endured even bigger midterm setbacks and went on to win re-election.

“It’s absolutely fair to say that it’s better to have Nancy Pelosi as a foil than Paul Ryan as a foil,” said Marc Short, the president’s former legislative affairs director. “It’s better for the party and it’s better for unity.” He added, “The reality is the Democrats could overplay their hand.”

Both sides gamely talk about possible cooperation on issues like rebuilding the nation’s tattered network of roads, bridges and other infrastructure. “The opportunity in the era of divided government is to work with both sides to get something done for the country,” said Representative Josh Gottheimer, Democrat from New Jersey and co-chairman of the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus.

Recent days showed the possibilities when Congress overhauled the criminal justice system, the most significant bipartisan domestic legislation of Mr. Trump’s tenure. Mr. Trump has hopes of winning bipartisan support for his new trade deal with Mexico and Canada. But one congressional Democrat said the party has gone from thinking it could make discrete deals with Mr. Trump to believing he must be stopped at all costs because he is so dangerous.

Mr. Trump has struggled with fellow Republicans lately, too. They objected loudly to his decisions to draw down troops from Syria and Afghanistan and pushed through a Senate resolutionessentially rebuking his handling of Saudi Arabia after the assassination of the dissident Jamal Khashoggi. The departure of Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, who protested the troop pullouts and Mr. Trump’s cavalier approach to America’s alliances, sent shudders through Republican ranks.

House conservatives, meanwhile, revolted against Mr. Trump when he seemed to retreat on his demand for border wall funding to avert a government shutdown. At the same time, Senate Republicans, who had voted unanimously to keep the government open without the wall money Mr. Trump had demanded, were angry when he reversed course and refused to sign such a measure.

Such conflict comes with a cost. Mr. Trump has a way of stepping on his own successes. The border wall fight overshadowed his signing of the criminal justice overhaul. The abrupt way he decided to withdraw from Syria overshadowed the military victories against the Islamic State. Mr. Trump’s focus during the midterm campaign on a caravan of migrants overshadowed the positive economic story he had to tell before the latest stock market gyrations.

“When he’s talking about the economy, he’s gotten a much more positive reaction,” said David Winston, a Republican pollster. “Obviously on other topics he hasn’t been able to get it to the point where he’s able to create an overall job approval. The question is, do you address weaknesses or do you play to your strengths?”

Always impulsive, the president increasingly believes he does not need advisers, according to people close to him. He is on his third chief of staff, third national security adviser, sixth communications director, second secretary of state, second attorney general and soon his second defense secretary. Turnover at the top has reached 65 percent, according to the Brookings Institution.

Some left in a cloud of corruption allegations, including his health and human services secretary, his Environmental Protection Agency chief and, most recently, his interior secretary. Others left after clashing with Mr. Trump. Mr. Mattis was the last of the so-called axis of adults seen by some as tempering a volatile president, following the ouster of Rex W. Tillerson as secretary of state, H. R. McMaster as national security adviser and John F. Kelly as chief of staff.

“Rex Tillerson and Jim Mattis are two of the finest people ever to serve in government,” said Steve Goldstein, who was under secretary of state until he was fired along with Mr. Tillerson. “They were very close and worked hard at trying to do what was best for the country, and sometimes that meant being brutally honest with folks at the White House.”

But Fred Fleitz, who worked for nearly six months this year as chief of staff for John R. Bolton, the current national security adviser, said the new team is more cohesive and better suited to Mr. Trump than one constantly undermining him.

“He came in as the ultimate outsider and he brought in some unorthodox policies that worked and he tried some things that didn’t work, and one of the things that didn’t work was bringing in some staffers who didn’t work, like McMaster and Tillerson,” Mr. Fleitz said.

In a recent public talk, Mr. Tillerson said out loud what others say in private, that Mr. Trump often pushes for actions that exceed his authority and does not like it when told he cannot do something. He bristles at constraints and expresses envy of autocrats like President Xi Jinping of China who do not have to deal with independent power centers like the Federal Reserve or the courts.

In recent days, Mr. Trump has asked aides whether he can fire Jerome H. Powell, the Fed chairman he appointed, telling advisers that Mr. Powell will “turn me into Hoover,” a reference to the Great Depression-era president. During a meeting with German car executives this month, Mr. Trump threatened to impose higher fuel efficiency standards on their imported cars than required on American vehicles even though aides told him he could not do that.

And he can be hard on his staff. He regularly curses at them, some say. Even his humor can be abrasive. When Larry Kudlow, his economics adviser, returned after a heart attackthis year, the president ribbed him in front of aides. “Larry, you’re here six weeks and you had a heart attack?” Others laughed uncomfortably.

More recently, the president has told associates he feels “totally and completely abandoned,” as one put it, complaining that no one is on his side and that many around him have ulterior motives. That extends even to his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who was credited for helping push through the criminal justice bill, praise that Mr. Trump took note of.

Longtime associates said Mr. Trump’s relationship with his children has grown more removed and that he feels he does not have a friend in the White House. He disagrees with Mr. Kushner and Ivanka Trump much of the time, but cannot bring himself to tell them no, leaving that instead to Mr. Kelly, according to former aides. That made Mr. Kelly the heavy, they said, and therefore the target of their ire until he was finally forced out.

Mr. Trump has spent far less time lately with older friends. The sense of isolation was on display at this month’s holiday parties when he appeared for a few minutes, took a few perfunctory photographs with preselected guests and then disappeared back upstairs rather than mingle. He spent part of this preholiday shutdown weekend alone until Melania could return from Florida.

Mr. Trump still views the presidency through the lens of a television showman. He told his staff that he wanted a fireworks display over Mount Rushmore. Before signing the farm bill, he posted a goofy video of himself at the 2005 Emmy Awards dressed in overalls and a straw hat, holding a pitchfork and singing the theme song to the old television show “Green Acres.”

For election night in November, he insisted on throwing a lavish party in the East Room and originally wanted aides to be on display for his guests, a simulation of officials gathering election return information like aides did at Trump Tower in 2016. When White House officials warned that a party would look discordant given the likelihood of losing the House, he insisted on going forward anyway.

By all accounts, Mr. Trump’s consumption of cable television has actually increased in recent months as his first scheduled meetings of the day have slid back from the 9 or 9:30 a.m. set by Reince Priebus, his first chief of staff, to roughly 11 many mornings. During “executive time,” Mr. Trump watches television in the residence for hours, reacting to what he sees on Fox News. While in the West Wing, he leaves it on during most meetings in the dining room off the Oval Office, one ear attuned to what is being said.

Of late, allies concede, the news has been particularly grim. He was infuriated by his former personal lawyer, Michael D. Cohen, who pleaded guilty to organizing an illegal scheme to pay hush money to women to keep quiet about alleged affairs with Mr. Trump before the 2016 election, a scheme he said Mr. Trump had directed.

Still, for all the reports of a fuming president alarmed at possible impeachment, Mr. Trump rarely expresses such specific anxiety out loud, associates said. Instead he expresses frustration, anger, mania — all of which aides read like tea leaves to discern what lies beneath.

“It will be a challenge not to be consumed by it,” Mr. Short said. “It would only be human when it’s the coverage leading the news every day to be distracted, but it will be important to have the internal discipline not to be.”

No one outside of Mr. Mueller’s office, of course, knows for sure what he will report, but so far he and other prosecutors have drawn a devastating picture of a president surrounded by people who have lied to the authorities, cheated on their taxes, skirted campaign finance laws and secretly worked for foreign interests. The question is what Mr. Mueller will say about Mr. Trump.

“Does he create a story that the man never put the presidency first?” asked Doris Kearns Goodwin, whose newest book, “Leadership: In Turbulent Times,” chronicles four presidents. “There has to be a narrative. The individual things may not hit the people who support him, but if there’s an overall narrative, people may understand.”

Mr. Trump has not helped himself with decisions that opponents use to draw a narrative of a president unusually deferential to Russia, including his withdrawal of troops in Syria, which drew the public approval of President Vladimir V. Putin.

“Mueller will decide whether there’s collusion with the Russians on the election,” said Mayor Rahm Emanuel of Chicago, a former White House chief of staff to Mr. Obama. “But we can now say there’s collusion with the Russians on foreign policy, and it’s not to America’s benefit.”

More recently, Mr. Trump has taken to spending time reminiscing about the happier days of his candidacy and his 2016 victory. He spent the fall showing different groups of visitors what he calls his love letters from North Korea’s iron-fisted dictator, Kim Jong-un, expressing admiration for Mr. Trump. And he still takes joy in aspects of the job, primarily those that demonstrate power. “The roads closed for me!” he declared to friends this year after a motorcade ride.

But those highs have been hard to recapture. The days are filled with conflict, much of it of his own making. More advisers are heading for the door. The divisions are widening, not closing. If it is a “war every day,” there are no signs of peace.

#donald trump #politics #trump administration #president donald trump #TrumpResign

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avanneman · 5 years

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O My Democratic Party, Where the F*ck Art Thou?

Well, good question. If Happy Days aren’t here again, and they aren’t, life is better, definitely. To have the House of Representatives back in Democratic hands after eight long years is definitely a pleasure if not a treasure. As one representative put it “Being in the majority is a thousand times better.” Furthermore, the party’s position at the state level, particularly in the Midwest, except for Ohio, has improved from Obama disaster levels to “not terrible”.

The fantasized “blue wave” failed to materialize, of course, but the thirty-plus seat gain in the House is more than gratifying. It was beginning to seem that Republicans had a lock on the House similar to the Democratic lock that prevailed, with only two interruptions, from 1932 until 1994. But now it appears that the Democrats can win the House without both a hurricane and a war. And it also appears that the party has made significant, though still limited, progress from the woeful downticket performance of the Obama years, to which, as I’ve frequently complained, Obama himself contributed himself to a painful degree, both in terms of policy and administration. Now we’re starting to look like a normal party again.

So what’s next? I recently opined that Old Lady Pelosi held most of the cards, if not the answers, in the upcoming power struggles. It’s true that a number of new reps made it a talking point that they wouldn’t vote for Pelosi, but luckily for Pelosi if no one else, she faces divided forces. A lot of the talk against Pelosi is that she’s “too California” and that we need some Midwestern blue-collar muscle rather than Silicon Valley slickness to win in Trump’s America. But there’s another big batch of energy coming against Pelosi from the new kids, saying she ain’t woke, or at least she’s so old you can’t tell if she’s woke or dead. I confess I’m not up on which wave of feminism we’re up to these days, but obviously Nancy ain’t current with the current current, you know what I’m sayin’? So some are sayin’ she’s too coastal, and others are sayin’, not enough. And if you give an old war horse like Nancy an opening like that, she’s liable to run right through it, which is precisely what she is doing.

As I also previously opined, Nancy’s strongest card is the one she never flourishes in public, money. Decades of successful politicking have given her a whatever it is the kids call a Rolodex these days to die for. Nancy knows moolah, and she knows how to dish it out, but will her cash “moderate” the Democratic Party enough to keep Neoliberal Nancy in control? And even if it does, how much can Nancy do as a mere faute de mieux (aka “lack of a better”)? I think the big issue for the Democrats to address is income inequality, but the “answers” suggested by Bernie Sanders in 2016, and very popular with both the “blue collar” and “woke” wings of the Democratic Party, strike Neoliberal Alan as absolutely the wrong way to go.

The “unifying factor” for Democrats on the campaign trail in 2016 largely seemed to be “Medicare for All,” the original Bernie riff, which appeals to old Paleolibs like Thomas Frank and Michael Moore, who think they’re helping the party return to its New Deal roots, as well as the new kids, like the famously famous (and no doubt privately envied and resented) Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who would be rockin’ that socialism, if they knew what it was. The problem is, as representatives who actually represent blue-collar districts know, real blue-collar folks don’t want Medicare for All. They want Medicare for themselves, for those who have “earned it” and not for those who haven’t—you know, the “Government, hands off my Medicare” crowd, who love “white socialism” but hate “welfare”.1

“White socialism” includes employer-provided health insurance, which is, of course, highly subsidized, because it’s effectively tax free income, though most people tend to think of it as entirely free—at least it ought to be.2 I think, when push comes to shove, that voters with employer-provided health insurance will not be enthusiastic about either giving up what they have for whatever “Medicare for all” would be, nor do I think that those on the current Medicare program will be interested in “sharing”. Certainly, the Republican “war” on the Affordable Care Act should be reversed, and the Act itself strengthened, but the Democrats need to address the broader issue of income inequality, and income stagnation, beyond health care alone, if the Democrats are going to reclaim a respectable share of the “less than college” white vote. But how?

The Democrats’ dilemma is discussed, not too intelligently, in a recent post appearing in Slate, written by an unenthusiastic Jordan Weissmann, “Kamala Harris’ Big Policy Idea Is Even Worse Than I Thought”, going after the “LIFT The Middle Class Act” being pushed by California Senator Kamala Harris. Okay, the name’s not catchy, and it’s scarcely more than an expanded version of the Earned Income Tax Credit, and it’s too generous, providing as much as $6,000 a year to couples with an income of less than $100,000 a year, but, to my mind, it’s very much a step in the right direction.

Weissmann’s first complaint–and his take is not nearly as “outraged” as the headline would suggest–is that too many U.S. households–almost 30% of them–are above the $100,000 a year figure to make this a winner. Bernie Sanders, he says, was smarter, promising free college tuition for everyone, even if your daddy is a billionaire. My reaction is just the other way–that we shouldn’t be boosting the income of households who are making more than the national average. Catering to kids who think that socialism means that everything is free isn’t going to win back blue-collar workers in the Midwest.

A bit surprisingly–and showing how the Democratic Party has “drifted”–Weissman doesn’t emphasize what would be an “old Democrat’s” immediate complaint–that the bill wouldn’t do anything to help the non-working poor, the group that so many liberals insist on always going to bat for–see, for example, the recent “outrage” over proposed changes in the food stamp program voiced by Paul Krugman.

It’s certainly “arguable” that the food stamp proposal, if it had passed, which it did not, could have been administered in a punitive manner at the state level, but the main criticism voiced by Krugman and others was the mere idea that poor people should be forced to do anything, that cutting benefits to an able-bodied person simply on the grounds that they refused to look for a job3 was the ultimate in Republican villainy. Many Democrats continue to insist on throwing themselves into the “welfare trap” that Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan dug for them so long ago, while Weissman wants to dig a new welfare trap–welfare for the upper-middle-class. Harris, at least, is trying to craft something that will reach the “real” middle class.

Working to expand the notion, and respectability, of outright income redistribution should be a major Democratic endeavor over the next two years. The Earned Income Tax Credit, because it’s tied to employment, because it provides people with cash, because it’s “invisible” (unlike food stamps), and because it “travels” across state lines, unlike eligibility for most assistance programs, all make the EITC a near perfect vehicle for addressing the “shocking” fact that the free enterprise system, while the only system capable of creating the kind of economic growth that can actually provide a decent standard of living for all people, is not in any sense of the word “fair”. I subscribe, at least in part, to the various theories floating around arguing that the “happy times” of declining income inequality following the two world wars until recently were the product of a variety of factors extraneous to capitalism itself. Today capitalism is continuing to better the lives of millions, and even billions, around the globe, but while the globalizing of capitalism is great for the Third World folks,4 it’s “disruptive” here, now that U.S. corporations can no longer get away with charging monopoly (or at least oligopoly) prices and thus can no longer afford to pay monopoly wages.

The decline in wages for many Americans is popularly regarded as the result of imports, but in fact it’s the decline in bargaining power for American workers now that they are competing with a global work force almost as skilled and ten times larger. Automation, not imports, is destroying the old manufacturing jobs that paid union wages—wages that were high because of the unions, not because there is some magic to manufacturing jobs that lets blue-collar workers earn white-collar salaries. As the manufacturing jobs disappear, workers find new ones, but they aren’t joining unions. Unions have nothing to offer private-sector workers these days because they can’t protect them from international competition.

Hatred of international competition and immigrants drove the Bernie boom in the Democratic primaries in 2016.5 Pelosi’s California money, and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s New York money, won’t fund a Democratic Party that runs on Bernie’s issues. If Democrats are going to be competitive in the big Midwestern states that they lost to Trump in 2016, they have to address the issue of income inequality, and a massive expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit, so that it pushes millions into the middle class, is the most direct and effective way to do it, a way that is politically acceptable to lower- and middle-income whites, and a way that is compatible with coastal priorities—i.e., a globally competitive economy, which, if you actually care about reducing poverty worldwide, instead of engaging in moral posturing, is absolutely the only way to go. Unfortunately, “the left” is much more inclined to posture.

Income stagnation and growing inequality strike me as the great domestic issue that the Democrats need to address to recover some ground in the Midwest, particularly the rural areas, where we’ve been losing by massive margins, as I’ve discussed earlier. I obviously don’t think the party can win by going further left, which would only increase our margins where we’re already winning. Health care is closely related to income stagnation, since people are paying more and more for it. Whether cutting the rate of increase for health care costs—correctly identified by President Obama as the “real” crisis, rather than the increases in entitlement costs—can be dealt with in a politically palatable is a (very) open question. But at least proposing a meaningful plan of income redistribution tied to employment would put the Democrats in good position for a decent shot at unseating President Trump. And, barring nothing but good luck as a result of well-deserved investigations into this grossly corrupt presidency, we’re going to need all the good positioning we can get.

Afterwords I’m going to skip moaning about the dangers of getting into fights over impeachment (a terrible idea no matter what, because the Republican Party is as corrupt as Trump is, or rather as corrupt as Trump needs it to be) and engaging in excessive “wokeness”, since I have a general aversion to culture wars. There are a variety of other policies for increasing incomes for lower and middle income folks, which I’ve discussed here, and here. A particular policy, to be pursued at both the federal and state level, is the diminution and (dream on) eventual end to the “War on Drugs”, which gives hundreds of thousands of young black and Hispanic men criminal records while wasting billions on police, prisons, courts, etc. This is the best thing Democrats can do to improve the situation of blacks and Hispanics in this country.

I discuss “white socialism”—the deliberate tailoring of all the major New Deal programs to exclude as many blacks as possible—here in the course of a beatdown administered to poor, pitiful Paulie Ryan and here, in the course of an extended beatdown administered to the poor, pitiful Democratic Party. ↩︎

AARP has an ad showing old folks talking about the issues, and what this country “really” needs, and the closer is provided by an old broad who says in a grandly self-satisfied voice “affordable health care!”, as though the viewer is supposed to exclaim “Affordable health care! Affordable health care! Of course! Why didn’t I think of that?” Because of course what people mean by “affordable health care” is free health care. ↩︎

The bill, which passed the House but never would have passed the Senate, had a number of waivers that made the bill sound much more “reasonable” (though, again, the impact of these provisions would likely depend on administration at the state level). But what enraged Krugman et al. was the notion that self-sufficient employment was considered a more desirable outcome that unrestricted welfare dependency. Because for Krugman et al. the real purpose of these programs is to allow “us” to prove how generous “we” are, not to improve people’s lives. ↩︎

Great, but, uh, massively destabilizing, for both First and Third World countries, which is why virtually everyone is seeking protection of some sort from global economic forces, often with strong nativist overtones. ↩︎

Sanders was, of course, not at all racist, but he did originally advocate shutting off immigration—an easy position to take in Vermont, one of the whitest states in the union, and very few immigrants, legal or no. Pressure from Hillary drove Bernie to the left on immigration. ↩︎

#Democratic Party #economic growth

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theconservativebrief · 6 years

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Paul Ryan, in his final year in Congress, has done an impressive job of building a reputation as the figure responsible for the substantive conservative bills of the Trump administration — the tax cuts, repeal of the individual mandate for health care, boosts to military spending — while somehow escaping being implicated in President Trump’s most egregious wrongdoing: the financial crimes and possible collusion with Russia that special counsel Robert Mueller is investigating.

Ryan rebuffed Trump after Trump praised Russian dictator Vladimir Putin at a summit in Finland, saying, “The president must appreciate that Russia is not our ally,” he refused to allow Putin to address Congress if he visits Washington, and he declared after the summit that “[Mueller] should be allowed to finish his investigation and carry out his work.”

He has also endeavored to shore up a reputation as a serious statesman interested in discourse, not a partisan bomb-thrower. In a talk to congressional interns, he admonished the young ’uns that “Snark sells, but it doesn’t stick,” telling them to “think about what you’re doing to kind of poison the well of society.”

This is important for Ryan’s potential future career as a lobbyist, think tank denizen, highly paid corporate speaker, or what have you. If Ryan is perceived as an enabler and co-conspirator with a fundamentally corrupt administration, some of those doors could close.

The problem is that Ryan’s prepared image is a lie. He has failed to take modest, reasonable steps to protect the Mueller investigation and hold the Trump administration to account. Even worse, he’s actively empowering forces in the House — most prominently Rep. Devin Nunes (CA) — who are conspiring to disrupt the investigation and protect Trump.

The clear goal is to delegitimize the Mueller investigation, to ensure that its conclusions are perceived as mere partisan propaganda rather than fact-finding by reputable investigators. That will enable Republicans in Congress to ignore any wrongdoing Mueller discovers, no matter how egregious, and ensure that efforts to impeach or remove Trump or any of his aides will fail.

It’s some of the most valuable work being down to protect Trump in all of Washington, and Ryan is right at the center of it.

In a rare failure of message discipline, or perhaps an effort to satisfy the administration at the expense of his reputation outside a narrow circle of Trump loyalists, Paul Ryan in May offered comments on Robert Mueller and said the quiet part loud.

“I think he should be free to do his job,” Ryan said, “but I would like to see it get wrapped up, of course.” He supports the investigation, sure, but he doesn’t want Mueller to keep digging for too much longer, regardless of how much wrongdoing he uncovers.

Then during his lecture in front of interns Wednesday, when a Democratic intern accused him of not standing up to Trump by defending the Mueller investigation, Ryan impatiently cut him short (so much for discourse) and responded, “Let me ask you this, is it still going on? It is, isn’t it? It hasn’t been ended; it’s still going on.”

This is a clever out for Ryan. While using the fact that the investigation hasn’t yet been scuttled as cover, Ryan is actively enabling efforts by his colleagues in the House to undermine and discredit it, and to, by extension, protect Trump. The investigation isn’t dead, but it’s weaker due to Ryan’s actions.

His greatest service to undermining the investigation has been through his empowering of and continued support for Devin Nunes. Nunes, the chair of the House Intelligence Committee, has been the Trump administration’s most effective and indefatigable supporter on this issue.

In February, Nunes released the infamous memo detailing claims of FBI bias against the Trump administration. The memo alleges that the FBI’s usage of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrants to monitor Carter Page, the Russia-linked former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser, was not properly vetted, and relied too much on the Steele dossier, the research for which was partly financed by the Clinton campaign, without discussing Steele’s possible bias.

The allegations are wildly misleading. Steele was originally contracted by the conservative Washington Free Beacon, a number of his findings have since been confirmed (suggesting it’s a valid basis of intelligence), and, most importantly of all, the FISA warrants contained a page-long footnote explaining all the ways Steele might be biased. The core allegation of the Nunes memo — that the FBI relied uncritically on Steele without considering his possible bias — was just a lie.

The memo’s release was a ridiculous partisan effort to discredit Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein (who signed off on one of the warrants) and, by extension, the Mueller investigation that Rosenstein oversees. “The campaign to release the memo was part of a much larger conservative effort to discredit the Mueller investigation,” my colleagues Zack Beauchamp and Alex Ward explained when the memo came out in February. “Its release could end up serving as pretext for removing those responsible for the Mueller probe.”

The latter hasn’t happened yet, but the memo has become powerful ammunition for Trump, his allies in pro-regime press outlets like Fox News and the Federalist, and other Trump loyalists in Congress to claim that the entire investigation is a deranged witch hunt perpetrated by “deep state” enemies.

Ryan has not only done nothing to rein Nunes in, he has actively defended Nunes and insisted that he’s done nothing wrong.

In February, faced with calls by Democratic leaders Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer to remove Nunes, Ryan replied, “I think they’re just playing politics and I think they’re looking for a political distraction, is what I get out of that. Look, the tax cuts are working, tax reform is working, we’ve got ISIS on the run, things are going well, economic confidence is at a 17-year high. I think they would love nothing more than to play politics and to change the subject.” This was his response when asked about the Nunes memo, a memo that Trump’s own FBI chief argued never should have been released.

“This does not implicate the Mueller investigation,” he continued, which is a bit like arguing that the Saturday Night Massacre didn’t implicate the Watergate investigation.

A couple of months later, Ryan carried even more water for Nunes. In early May, “senior FBI and national intelligence officials” warned the White House that Nunes was seeking information from the DOJ that “could endanger a top-secret intelligence source” and potentially “risk lives,” according to a report by the Washington Post. The White House agreed to hold back the information, which was also disclosed to the Mueller investigation.

In that moment, Nunes was going further than the White House in obstructing the investigation, to the point of threatening to hold Attorney General Jeff Sessions in contempt. And Ryan was right there with him, telling the Post, “We expect the administration to comply with our document requests.”

In the face of House pressure — pressure Ryan did nothing to allay — the Justice Department partially complied with the subpoena in late June. But it wasn’t enough. Ryan held a floor vote on a resolution calling for more documents as part of the Nunes inquiry, which passed on party lines. Asked if he supported the idea of holding Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein in contempt of Congress if he didn’t comply, Ryan simply answered, “We expect compliance.”

Just this past Wednesday, two of the most vicious opponents of the Mueller investigation in the House, Reps. Mark Meadows (R-NC) and Jim Jordan (R-OH), introduced a resolution to impeach Rosenstein, with their stated reasons all relating to their ongoing effort to delegitimize the Mueller investigation. They fault Rosenstein for not appointing a second special counsel to investigate FBI/DOJ misconduct in investigating Trump and Hillary Clinton and in surveilling ex-Trump adviser Carter Page, and for redacting too much of a document given to Congress on the scope of Mueller’s investigation.

Ryan announced that he opposes the impeachment effort because, among other reasons, it could “dramatically delay” Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the Supreme Court if the Senate has to vote on the issue (ah, the reasoning of a man of principle). Ryan was sure to emphasize, however, that his beef with the Department of Justice was not over. “Republicans have been getting a lot of compliance from [DOJ] on the document request,” he said, but “we do not have full compliance. And we have to get full compliance.”

No, Ryan didn’t endorse a brazen effort to depose the official overseeing the Mueller investigation, but you do not, under any circumstances, gotta hand it to him. He is still collaborating in efforts to intimidate the Justice Department, and he has still done a tremendous amount to empower Nunes, Meadows, Jordan, and others in their efforts to undermine Rosenstein and Mueller.

This delegitimization effort really, really matters. If the Mueller investigation uncovers wrongdoing by Trump or senior officials, whether or not Trump and those officials stay in office is entirely dependent on the actions of congressional leadership. And casting the investigation, from the beginning, as a political witch hunt is a prophylactic measure meant to ensure that no matter what the investigation finds, it will not be interpreted as grounds for impeachment or removal.

Far more numerous, however, are Ryan’s sins of omissions: things he could have done to strengthen the Mueller investigation, protect it from interference, and subject the Trump administration to real scrutiny.

Ryan could have blocked Nunes from releasing that memo in the first place, and removed him from his chairmanship. He did not.

Ryan could condemn House Oversight Committee Chair Trey Gowdy and House Judiciary Committee Chair Bob Goodlatte for holding farcical hearings on FBI agents Lisa Page and Peter Strzok meant to cast the whole effort to investigate Trump’s Russia conduct as a witch hunt.

He could threaten to strip Gowdy and Goodlatte of their chairmanships unless they commit to launch investigations into Trump’s fraudulent charity, into his potentially corrupt real estate deals abroad, and into the possibility that Trump actively collaborated with Russian intelligence, WikiLeaks, or both. He could urge them to subpoena Trump’s tax returns and search them for irregularities. He has not done any of that.

Ryan could bring the Special Counsel Independence and Integrity Act, a bipartisan bill that would protect Mueller against arbitrary firing, to the House floor for a vote, or force House Goodlatte to consider it in committee. He has not; he hasn’t even endorsed the bill.

Ryan could force a floor vote on the Protecting Our Democracy Act, a bill with 200 co-sponsors (two of whom are Republicans) to create a National Commission on Foreign Interference in the 2016 Election to investigate what exactly happened with Russia’s interference. He hasn’t endorsed the bill, let alone brought it up for a vote.

Ryan could also force a floor vote on a version of the Senate’s Secure Elections Act, which would get rid of paperless electronic voting machines that are hackable and push states to engage in routine audits to verify election results are legitimate. Mainstream Republicans like Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) are on board. Ryan is not.

A recent report by Politico Playbook suggested that congressional Republicans think all the criticism they’re receiving for carrying water for Trump is unfair. The message, Playbook reported, boiled down to, “WHAT THE HELL DO YOU WANT US TO DO?” They claim they’ve held sufficient hearings and slapped enough sanctions on Russia.

The litany above is what I want them to do, and the person who could make them do it is Paul Ryan. He could remove Devin Nunes with the stroke of a pen. He could bring floor votes on the above legislation whenever he wants. He could whip votes for the legislation too, and push Mitch McConnell to move it in the Senate.

That he doesn’t do any of that, and in fact actively enables the cover-up, is telling. Ryan genuinely believes that the cause of slashing corporate taxes and tax rates for rich Americans is worth collaborating with a reckless administration in an elaborate attempt to cover up wrongdoing. He makes that choice every day, and it should blacken his historical legacy.

Original Source -> Paul Ryan is helping Trump undermine the rule of law

via The Conservative Brief

#IFTTT #The Conservative Brief

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tortuga-aak · 6 years

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The breakneck speed of the Republican tax bill is angering Democrats and increasing its odds

Alex Wong/Getty Images

Republicans have hastily moved their tax reform bill, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, through both the House and Senate.

The speed of the battle has caused analysts to raise expectations for passage.

It has also cracked open even more serious divisions between the GOP and Democrats.

In just two weeks, Republicans in the House were able to introduce their massive tax bill, get it through the tax-writing committee, and pass it through the full chamber.

Similarly, the Senate has moved its version of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) out of the Finance Committee just a week after its introduction.

The unusual speed of this legislative push is raising analyst and Wall Street economist expectations for the bill's chances of passing. It is also creating distinct fault lines on Capitol Hill.

Republicans say that the speed is the culmination of years of effort and is necessary to ensure tax relief comes as quickly as possible. Democrats argue the speed is being pursued by the GOP to get a legislative win on a bill they believe doesn't meet muster.

Need for speed

The simplest explanation for the GOP's speed on the legislation: They have promised to get it done by the end of the year. President Donald Trump has been adamant that the bill will be on his desk "by Christmas." Republicans are following a pace that meets that self-imposed deadline.

Chris Krueger, an analyst at Cowen Washington Research Group, said the sudden speed of the tax reform bill also has a political necessity: Republicans need a win. After a series of electoral missteps and concerns over the special Senate election in Alabama, the party — and Trump — needs a victory it can point to ahead of the 2018 midterms.

"Since [the Virginia and New Jersey] election drubbing and the Alabama Senate race debacle, the Congressional GOP is in a full-blown hurry-up offense," Krueger wrote in a note to clients. "No amendments, closed rules, rigid party discipline, and very little understanding of the legislation."

Things are looking up for the tax bill

The fast-track effort, and its relative success over the past few weeks, has analysts starting to believe the GOP can get it to Trump's desk.

Alec Phillips, a political economist at Goldman Sachs, recently raised his odds of a tax reform bill passing soon due to how quickly the TCJA advanced through the House and Senate committee process.

"The tax reform debate is moving forward faster than we or most other observers expected," Phillips wrote Tuesday. "While there are a number of issues that could still slow it down, or stop it altogether, we believe the odds that tax reform will be enacted by early 2018 — already our base case — have risen to 80% (from 65% previously)."

Krueger agreed, saying the speed and relative ease with which the legislation has moved has left the GOP in a better position.

"The tax process is much further down field than we ever anticipated — particularly on the Senate-side," the analyst said. "This has probably been the best 10-day policy stretch for Congressional Republicans all year."

Drew Angerer/Getty ImagesFast track or years in the making?

Democrats have complained throughout the markups in both the House Ways and Means and Senate Finance committees that they were not allowed enough time to study the bill and the potential impact of various provisions.

"Reforming the entire tax code in a matter of weeks is insanity," a senior Democratic aide told Business Insider on Wednesday. "Today in the Finance Committee, Democrats are considering a bill that was released last night. Last night. Tomorrow, the Committee will vote yes or no, less than 48 hours after the bill came out."

While Democrats have grumbled about the lack of hearings prior to the markups, Republicans have argued that the bill has emerged from years of hearings on various proposed changes to the tax code.

"These policies have been debated and vetted for quite some time now," a GOP aide told Business Insider. "The current effort in Congress is simply taking the groundwork that was laid and turning it into action."

GOP Senate Finance Committee Chair Orrin Hatch and other GOP leaders have pointed to numerous hearings on general tax reform proposals that studied how various types of cuts would affect the economy. Democrats note that those hearings did not pertain to the particular legislation at hand.

Don Stewart, a spokesperson for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, said Democratic hemming and hawing is mostly designed to slow down the pace of the bill and delay any tax reform until 2018.

"Of course it’s an attempt to delay tax relief for next year," Stewart told Business Insider. "If 70 hearings aren’t enough, I’m not sure what to say."

The Obamacare and Reagan tax cuts comparison

But to Democrats, the speedy process stands in direct contrast to tax cuts enacted under President Ronald Reagan. Republicans point to the 1986 legislation — the last major overhaul of the federal tax code — as a reason new reforms need to be enacted. But Democrats say the current process in nothing like those negotiations.

"President Reagan’s 1986 reform took two years, but Republicans know that their bill can’t withstand that much public scrutiny so they’ve got to rush it though," one senior Democratic aide said.

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Republicans say their tactics on tax reform are at the very least no worse than the debate over the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, which passed through a Democratic-controlled Congress in 2010.

"We've heard criticisms from a former majority in this very room moved through the Affordable Care Act and then Speaker [Nancy] Pelosi said, 'This is the bill we have to pass so you know what's in it,'" GOP Rep. Peter Roskam said during the markup of the TCJA in the Ways and Means Committee. "So the sanctimonious, self-righteous, retroactive nostalgia about process, I think we can dismiss."

Democrats counter that the ACA was debated for more than three months after the initial text of the legislation was released before it got its first House vote, and amendments offered by Republicans were added to the bill.

A Senate slowdown

It appears that the only thing that could slow down the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act's progress is the Republican Party itself. Based on recent developments in the Senate, that could happen.

Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin came out Wednesday as the first member to publicly defect on the tax bill. As many as five other members have concerns on various aspects of the bill.

Trying to address all of these concerns and ensure the bill qualifies under Senate rules could be a difficult, particularly because one of Johnson's major concerns was the speed of the process.

"I don't like that process," Johnson told The Wall Street Journal. "I find it pretty offensive, personally."

Slowing the bill down, even a little, to satisfy some members could hamper its chances, given the looming deadlines ahead for Congress over government funding, immigration legislation, and more.

"Until 50 Republican Senators can agree on anything other than judges, we will remain on our lonely island that believes the Congressional GOP will fail on taxes," Cowen's Krueger said Friday.

NOW WATCH: The 4 best memes from Trump's trip to Asia

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everettwilkinson · 6 years

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TRUMP offered to meet with IRAN’s ROUHANI — WASHINGTON ON EDGE: tax bill, Fed chair, indictment all in one week — TIM ALBERTA’s must-read Boehner profile — RAND talks to KASIE about TRUMP in 2020 — B'DAY: Ivanka

BREAKING LAST NIGHT — “Iran Says Its President Turned Down a Meeting With Trump,” by Bloomberg’s Zaid Sabah: “Iranian President Hassan Rouhani rebuffed a request from U.S. President Donald Trump to meet at the United Nations in New York in September, a day after the Trump made a speech highly critical of the Islamic republic, the state-run Fars News Agency said. ‘A request indeed was made by the U.S. side but it wasn’t accepted by President Rouhani,’ Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Bahram Ghassemi said at a press conference on Sunday, according to Fars. The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.” https://bloom.bg/2iLtkgO

Good Monday morning. WASHINGTON ON EDGE — An incredibly momentous week ahead: An indictment is almost certain to be unveiled today as part of Robert Mueller’s investigation. A tax bill — Republicans’ top legislative priority — will be released this week. The president is expected to announce his choice for chairman of the Federal Reserve, a decision Wall Street is watching closely. And, President Trump leaves for Asia, amid heightened fears of nuclear North Korea.

Story Continued Below

CHEAT SHEET — GARRETT GRAFF in Wired, “How to Interpret Robert Mueller’s New Charges”: “1) The FBI takes down whole organizations. … 2) Don’t hold your breath for ‘collusion.’ … 3) There are many threads, including some likely unrelated to others. … 4) The first charges are only a starting point—but don’t necessarily wait for the dramatic Perry Mason-style trial. … 5) Bob Mueller is after federal crimes, not political problems.” http://bit.ly/2z3dWmc

**SUBSCRIBE to Playbook: http://politi.co/2lQswbh

READ THIS ENTIRE THING — THE POLITICO MAGAZINE PROFILE — TIM ALBERTA on JOHN BOEHNER — “John Boehner Unchained”: “To outsiders, Boehner might just be the happiest man alive, a liberated retiree who spends his days swirling merlot and cackling at Speaker Paul Ryan’s misfortune. The truth is more complicated. At 67, Boehner is liberated — to say what he spent many years trying not to say; to smoke his two packs a day without undue stress; to chuckle at the latest crisis in Washington and whisper to himself those three magic words: ‘Not my problem.’ And yet he is struggling—with the lingering perception that he was run out of Congress; with his alarm about the country’s future; and with the question of what he’s supposed to do next. After leaving office, Boehner says a longtime family friend approached him. ‘You’ve always had a purpose—your business, your family, politics,’ the friend said. ‘What’s your purpose now?’ Boehner says the question gnaws at him every day.” http://politi.co/2hmHb9J

— BEHIND THE SCENES: TIM ALBERTA emails us: “I wanted to write something big and comprehensive on Boehner’s speakership since the day he left — not just about what happened to him, but using his story to explain what happened to the party and the Congress and the country itself. He wanted nothing to do with the media in retirement, however, and I was too busy covering the campaign. Then, this spring, having heard rumors that he wasn’t going to write a memoir, I approached several of his former staffers to take their temperature on such a project. They weren’t bullish, but agreed to ask—and to our surprise, Boehner said he was ‘interested.’ He wanted to meet at Alberto’s on May 16.

“That meeting hadn’t guaranteed his participation — he wanted to feel me out first. Michael Steel, his longtime flack who joined us, warned me beforehand that Boehner might very well only agree to a 30- or 45-minute discussion on the record that same night — giving me limited access to write from. But after I pitched Boehner, and said the piece would work best if I could capture him in his element — perhaps on the golf course in Ohio? — he ordered another bottle of wine and smiled: ‘OK. Come on out. I’ll put you up.’

“I didn’t stay at Boehner’s house. But over the next four months we spent more than 18 hours together on the record in three different states, and the only restrictions he placed on anything were a half-dozen requests to keep something off the record. What I found was John Boehner Unchained; his liberation was apparent from our first meeting at Alberto’s. When it became apparent that night that he was willing to participate in extensive interviews for the story, Steel began discussing logistics and intermediaries to arrange things. Boehner waved him off and told me that we’d communicate directly. And then, in a move that set the tone for the piece, he looked at Steel and grunted: ‘You f***ing guys, still trying to manage me. Don’t you get it? I don’t want to be managed anymore.’”

WSJ’S RICH RUBIN — “GOP Plan for a Speedy Tax Overhaul Faces Uncertain Road: After the bill is proposed, a sweeping passage is possible, but a compromise or a total collapse could happen just as easily”: “The plan is to keep the tough trade-offs in the bill secret until after Halloween, then reach Thanksgiving with bills passed by the House and Senate and hit New Year’s Day with a bill on Mr. Trump’s desk. That’s close to financial-crisis speed, pushing Congress into a kind of emergency lawmaking mode it typically uses only when inaction means cataclysm.

“Republicans note that they’ve been working on a tax code overhaul for more than six years, holding hearings, airing concepts and receiving input from lawmakers and constituents. ‘The timeline is aggressive, but definitely possible,’ says Michael Steel, who was an aide to former House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio.) There are three possible paths forward: A rousing victory for Republicans, a scaled-back compromise or collapse. Consider it even odds right now for any of these scenarios.” http://on.wsj.com/2yVwGUR

— SPEAKING OF TAX REFORM … TAX REFORM 101: How does our tax system really work? Who pays what—and how does it all add up? And how does the America tax system compare to international competitors? POLITICO’s new explainer video series has you covered. Tax Reform with Bernie Becker is the first of an issue based animated video series that pairs expert reporters with Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist, Matt Wuerker, to provide you with a new way of digesting the news. Watch it http://politi.co/2ls0rHq

****** A message from BP: We produced and refined 1.3 million barrels per day of oil and natural gas last year – enough energy to light the entire country. Flip through our Economic Impact Report to learn more. ******

YOU’RE INVITED — KEVIN BRADY, the chairman of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee, will sit down with Jake and Anna FRIDAY (Nov. 3) at noon to discuss the Republicans’ tax plan. The bill will be introduced this week, so we’ll have plenty to talk about. The event will be at THE NEWSEUM (555 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW). RSVP http://bit.ly/politicobrady Outside cameras welcome!

FOR YOUR SITUATIONAL AWARENESS — There are 20 DAYS with both chambers in session before government funding expires on Dec. 8.

****** A message from BP: We generated about $67 billion in economic value for the U.S. last year. Take 15 seconds to see what that means to American jobs and businesses. ******

NEXT UP… SENATE MAJORITY LEADER MITCH MCCONNELL makes the case for confirming federal judges in the National Review http://bit.ly/2gWz2Me

FIRST IN PLAYBOOK — Posting Tuesday, along with a big new POLITICO Magazine piece, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi did two sessions with Isaac Dovere for the “Off Message” podcast. On Trump versus Obama: “He has a bit of a different complexion,” she said, “whatever it might be.” On whether she’s seen a case to try impeaching Trump: “I’m not going to that place.” On cursing: “Suppose I did, if I cursed in public. Oh my gosh. It’s amazing how they judge women in a different way than men.”

On White House legislative affairs director Marc Short denying she said over dinner with Trump last month and his staff, “Excuse me, Do the women get to talk here?”—“I don’t think that was sexism. I think it was just plain rude.” “Clueless; clueless. But I didn’t say it. Whoever said it said it a little bit wrong. They said, ‘Does a woman get a chance to talk around here?’ I think I said, ‘Does anybody listen when women talk around here?’” Subscribe here to get it as soon as it posts: http://apple.co/2e2dLvm

FOR YOUR RADAR — “Russia Uses Its Oil Giant, Rosneft, as a Foreign Policy Tool,” by NYT’s Clifford Krauss: “Russia is increasingly wielding oil as a geopolitical tool, spreading its influence around the world and challenging the interests of the United States. But Moscow risks running into trouble, as it lends money and makes deals in turbulent economies and shaky political climates. The strategy faces a crucial test this week in Venezuela, a Russian ally that must come up with a billion dollars to avert defaults on its debts.

“Russia has been making a flurry of loans and deals all centered on the Venezuelan oil business, money that could make the difference between the government’s collapse and its survival. In return, Moscow is getting a strategic advantage in Washington’s backyard. President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela was all smiles this month on a visit to Moscow seeking fresh financial backing, thanking Vladimir V. Putin ‘for your support, both political and diplomatic.’” http://nyti.ms/2ie3HBp

— NEW SUSAN GLASSER PODCAST – “‘The Russians Have Succeeded Beyond Their Wildest Expectations’: Former intelligence chief James Clapper says President Trump is dead wrong about Russian interference in America’s elections. And they’re going to get away with it again, he warns”: “Clapper is sticking with his view that the allegations are “worse than Watergate,” given that the Russiagate investigation involves ‘a foreign adversary actively and aggressively and directly engaging in our political processes to interfere with them and to undermine our system, whereas in Watergate you were dealing with a two-bit petty burglary, domestic only.’” http://politi.co/2yenXO7

THAT WAS FAST — “Puerto Rico moves to cancel contract with Whitefish Energy to repair electric grid,” by WaPo’s Steven Mufson, Arelis Hernández and Aaron Davis: “Puerto Rico’s electric company moved Sunday to cancel a $300 million contract with a small Montana firm for repairs to the territory’s hurricane-ravaged electrical grid, saying controversy surrounding the agreement was distracting from the effort to restore power. The contract with Whitefish Energy — a firm that had just two employees the day the storm hit — had drawn blistering criticism from members of Congress for days. And on Friday the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which has a large role in determining government reimbursements, said it had ‘significant concerns’ about how the contract was secured.” http://wapo.st/2z261W9

2020 WATCH — SEN. RAND PAUL (R-KY.) says he isn’t sure Trump will run for reelection, and talks about a primary challenge to the president to MSNBC’S KASIE HUNT. Video http://bit.ly/2zhrUBU

TRUMP’S MONDAY — Trump is meeting separately with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Defense Secretary James Mattis. He will have lunch with Vice President Mike Pence and Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Tonight, he and First Lady Melania will participate in Halloween at the White House.

THE JUICE …

— LATINO VICTORY PROJECT is going up with a new ad “American Nightmare” against Ed Gillespie in the Virginia governor’s race. The ad is the capstone of the group’s $400,000 Virginia program to mobilize Latino voters. It will run Monday through Election Day with a heavy focus on Hispanic affiliates in D.C., and Richmond, as well as primetime spots on MSNBC and CNN. The ad http://bit.ly/2b1Hcgw

— NY MAG COVER STORY — “In Conversation: Jimmy Kimmel,” by David Marchese: “Talking to the comedian and talk-show host about becoming a target of the right, not knowing if things are going to be okay, the state of late-night TV, and why it’s time to reboot The Man Show.” http://nym.ag/2loWPpz

PHOTO DU JOUR: Former Speaker of the House John Boehner relaxes in a chair, cigarette in hand. Read Tim Alberta’s profile of Boehner in POLITICO Magazine. | Mark Peterson for POLITICO

DAVE LEVINTHAL in POLITICO Magazine, “Scofflaw political committees ignore federal fines — with few consequences: Wait long enough and the federal government usually gives up”: “In July 2016, the Federal Election Commission slapped the 60 Plus Association with a $50,000 fine, charging that it hadn’t revealed its donors as legally obliged. The penalty — along with fines assessed to two other politically active nonprofit groups likewise connected to billionaire brothers David and Charles Koch — represented one of the most decisive decisions this decade at an FEC best known for intramural bickering and ideological gridlock. Government reformers rejoiced. But 15 months later, the Virginia-based 60 Plus Association has only paid one-tenth of its fine. …

“The FEC, meanwhile, isn’t forcing the 60 Plus Association’s compliance — or anything close. The 60 Plus Association has plenty of debt-dodging company: More than 160 political committees and similar groups together owe the government more than $1.3 million worth of unpaid fines, according to a Center for Public Integrity analysis of Federal Election Commission and U.S. Treasury records since 2000. … Many cases concern all-but-forgotten also-ran political candidates, but others involve political luminaries — the Rev. Al Sharpton, MSNBC host Joe Scarborough and Green Party presidential nominee Jill Stein, among them.” http://politi.co/2zZ5a6H

WHAT JOHN WEAVER IS READING – “John Kasich Is Already Running,” by Lisa Miller in New York Magazine: “For the Ohio governor, the campaign against Trump never stopped. And it won’t till 2020.” http://nym.ag/2gLqcxb

COURT WATCH — “Menendez formally seeks mistrial in bribery case,” by John Bresnahan: “Lawyers for Sen. Bob Menendez – on trial in federal court for bribery and other corruption charges – formally declared in a new court filing Sunday that they will seek a mistrial, declaring the judge overseeing the case is biased and has prevented the New Jersey Democrat from presenting his case. … During a contentious hearing Thursday, defense attorneys repeatedly challenged U.S. District Judge William Walls and said they would file a motion for a mistrial. Walls is almost certain to rule against them. Menendez and Melgen’s attorneys, however, are clearly setting up grounds for an appeal if they are convicted at the end of this trial. Arguments over the defense motion will take place this week.” http://politi.co/2zgGE3D

SEXUAL HARASSMENT IN THE STATES — “Sexual Misconduct in California’s Capitol Is Difficult to Escape,” by NYT’s Jess Bidgood, Miriam Jordan and Adam Nagourney: “Since the disclosures about sexual harassment cases involving Harvey Weinstein, the powerful producer, there have been reports of misconduct in state capitals in Illinois, Iowa, Nevada, Oklahoma, Oregon and Rhode Island, among others, though the situation in California, the nation’s most populous state, appears particularly dire. That reflects what even today is the male dominance in positions of power in government — 80 percent of the lawmakers in California are men — and the statehouses filled with lobbyists seeking influence and younger legislative aides and interns launching their careers.” http://nyti.ms/2gWsm0C

— “Florida congressional candidate: ‘I was Harvey Weinsteined’,” by POLITICO Florida’s Marc Caputo: A top congressional candidate in one of the nation’s marquee races for Democrats is accusing a political ally she once supported of exposing himself to her — and he’s countering that she might be lying to gain attention for her campaign. The lurid dispute between Miami Beach City Commissioner Rosen Gonzalez and progressive activist Rafael Velasquez — a city commission candidate she had endorsed — marks the latest scandal nagging Florida Democrats amid the national debate about sexual harassment sparked by accusations from multiple women against movie producer Harvey Weinstein. “I was ‘Harvey Weinsteined’ by Rafael Velasquez, the candidate I have been supporting and raising money for in the Miami Beach commission race,” Rosen Gonzalez said in a text message to POLITICO Florida. http://politi.co/2xyVgHb

— “Hamilton Fish of The New Republic Goes on Leave After Women’s Complaints,” by NYT’s Sydney Ember. http://nyti.ms/2yYVlpm

FLASH BRIEFING: POLITICO and The Information are partnering to offer an insider flash briefing and Q&A for real-time analysis, key takeaways, and the impact that Congressional testimony about Russian involvement in the 2016 Election by executives from Facebook, Google, and Twitter will have. The conversation, hosted by Jessica Lessin, POLITICO’s Nancy Scola and The Information’s Cory Weinberg, will detail how the hearings will impact the Honest Ads Act, take you inside the latest intel about possible connections to the Trump and Clinton campaigns, and outline how these tech giants are responding to Russian propaganda arms like RT. Sign up for the Flash Briefing http://bit.ly/2zQfeOo … Sign up for POLITICO’s Morning Tech for all latest tech news in your inbox each morning http://politi.co/2gVhVuj

MEDIAWATCH — “‘These Are Aliens from Mars Landing on Earth’: Inside CNN and Time Warner, Fear Simmers as the AT&T Merger Looms,” by Joe Pompeo in Vanity Fair: “The question has been hanging in the air for the better part of a year inside the Time Warner Center at Columbus Circle: will AT&T leave CNN President Jeff Zucker in his job when—if—it completes its acquisition of Time Warner? For months, AT&T, a Dallas-based telecom giant with no news or entertainment experience to speak of, has been evasive about this question. …

“Part of this concern has to do with an incipient culture clash. AT&T is a decidedly less fashionable operation. Randall Stephenson, its C.E.O., likes to talk (in his Oklahoma accent) about the virtues of the Boy Scouts. John Stankey, who will oversee Time Warner’s media businesses if the deal goes through, is at least from Los Angeles, but he’s worked at AT&T for three decades. The company can seem a long way, at least culturally, from the kinds of products Time Warner makes at places like HBO, Turner Broadcasting and Warner Bros.” http://bit.ly/2iewBkQ

CHRIS FRATES interviews L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti “about being a big city mayor in the age of Trump and whether he’ll challenge the president in 2020. Plus, Frates talks with Sen. Maria Cantwell about climate change and what it’s like being a woman in the ultimate boys’ club. ‘Politics Inside Out’ airs Monday at 2 p.m. on SiriusXM channel 124 and on demand on the SiriusXM app.” Clips for Playbookers — Cantwell on women in the Senate https://goo.gl/Nw2foc … Garcetti on whether he’ll run for president https://goo.gl/6xQ1Aa

SPOTTED: former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) getting his shoes shined in the Charlotte airport on Sunday morning

OUT AND ABOUT — Robert De Niro, Chef Nobu Matsuhisa, Abeer and Yousef Al Otaiba, Meir Teper, and James Packer hosted a sake ceremony last night at Nobu in D.C. Pic of some of the hosts http://bit.ly/2yYPRgG SPOTTED: Fred Hochberg, Robert and Elena Allbritton, Wolf Blitzer, Reggie Love, Patrick Steel and Lee Satterfield, Alan Fleischmann, Bret Baier, Steve Clemons and Andrew Oros, Jeremy and Robyn Bash, Sam Feist, Bob Barnett, Adrian Fenty, Heather Florance, Riley Brands, Tom Nides, Dylan Glenn, Emanuel Gonzalez-Revilla, Jennifer Maguire and Chris Isham.

TRANSITIONS — Margie Omero has been hired as a partner at GBA Strategies. She previously worked on public affairs research at both PSB Research and Purple Strategies and is also the creator and co-host of the podcast “The Pollsters.”

WEEKEND WEDDINGS – ROMNEY ALUMNI — Chris Maloney, SVP at the Black Rock Group, married Britt Becker, senior manager at Asurion, Saturday at Alexandria’s Christ Church. “Guests danced the night away at historic Decatur House on Lafayette Park. … They met on the first Romney campaign, though the relationship didn’t begin until the Florida primary, right at the end of the campaign. Carl Forti is responsible for getting the two of them together. He was the matchmaker.” Pics http://bit.ly/2hlTBPf … http://bit.ly/2xw8Jzu … http://bit.ly/2yVBZDP

SPOTTED: Carl and Sandy Forti, Brian and Emily Jones, Mike Dubke, Nick Kalman, Andrew Rafferty, Anna Epstein, Jahan Wilcox, Devin O’Malley and Amanda Kitchen, Jamie Rhoades, Emily Stier, Dan Knight, Izzy Santa, Ali Lockwood, former Rep. Tom Reynolds (R-N.Y.), and JT Jezierski, Mike McElwain, Sally Vastola.

–Emmy Ruiz, a political consultant in Austin and former Colorado state director for Hillary, on Saturday married Steffi Grabow, who works in hospice, in a ceremony in Austin. Pic http://bit.ly/2ls4aEM

BIRTHDAY OF THE DAY: Andrea Mitchell, NBC News chief foreign affairs correspondent and anchor of MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports”. She celebrated over the weekend with her husband “by going to our very favorite place, the Inn at Little Washington, where we were married.” How she got her start in journalism: “I got my start in journalism after winning a competition in elementary school to cover school news for my hometown newspaper, New Rochelle’s The Standard-Star – and then at WXPN-FM, the radio station at the University of Pennsylvania – which in turn led to my first real job as a copyboy at KYW Newsradio in Philadelphia.” Read her Playbook Plus Q&A: http://politi.co/2ltdND5

BIRTHDAYS: Ivanka Trump is 36 … Maggie Haberman … former Rep. Bruce Braley (D-Iowa) is 6-0 … Scott Fay … Facebook’s Nu Wexler … Mitch Stewart, founding partner at 270 Strategies … Paul Rosen, partner at Crowell & Moring in LA and former DHS chief of staff (h/t Todd Breasseale) … Rebecca Schieber of Locust Street Group (hat tips: boyfriend Fred Brown and Kelly Klass) … Lauren Zelt, managing director of public affairs at FP1 Strategies, who celebrated over the weekend with bowling at the White House and dinner at Old Ebbitt Grill with friends (h/ts Jen Wlach, Alice Stewart and Ryan Williams) … Washingtonian’s Laura Mullen … David Beckwith … former Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich.) is 64 … Tim Roemer, senior counselor at APCO Worldwide and former U.S. Ambassador to India, is 61 (h/t Anthony DeAngelo) … Jeff Larson, former CEO of the RNC’s 2016 National Convention … David Krone …

… Lizette Alvarez, Miami bureau chief of the New York Times … Ally Mutnick, House reporter for NJ and Hotline, is 25 (h/t Hanna Trudo) … Politico’s Bill Mahoney … Alexandra Viers, gov’t relations specialist at Boeing and CSIS alum, is 26 (h/t Glenn Viers)… former Rep. Joe Heck (R-Nev.) is 56 … Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. (D-N.J.) is 66 … Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.) is 62 … AARP’s Josh Rosenblum … Christine Zdelar … Connor Brantley … Jeremy Seth Gold … James Richardson, managing director at Dentons … Edwin Foulke … Michael Petricone, SVP of gov’t affairs at the Consumer Electronics Association … Romney alum Samantha Turner … Media Matters alum Jeremy Holden … Joe Sterling is 67 … Ruth Tecle … Brian Schildroth … Justin Hage … Ian Millhiser, justice editor at ThinkProgress … Lauren Callahan … Sam Bilotta … Evan Reese … Christine Holbrook … Nicholas Watson (h/t Teresa Vilmain)

SUBSCRIBE to the Playbook family: POLITICO Playbook http://politi.co/2lQswbh … Playbook Power Briefing http://politi.co/2xuOiqh … New York Playbook http://politi.co/1ON8bqW … Florida Playbook http://politi.co/1OypFe9 … New Jersey Playbook http://politi.co/1HLKltF … Massachusetts Playbook http://politi.co/1Nhtq5v … Illinois Playbook http://politi.co/1N7u5sb … California Playbook http://politi.co/2bLvcPl … London Playbook http://politi.co/2xfDPuK … Brussels Playbook http://politi.co/1FZeLcw … All our political and policy tipsheets http://politi.co/1M75UbX

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How Many Republicans In The New Senate

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/how-many-republicans-in-the-new-senate/

How Many Republicans In The New Senate

How Mitch Mcconnell And Senate Republicans Learned To Stop Worrying About A Biden Victory And Love The Infrastructure Bill

What happened Tuesday in the Senate might seem like nothing short of a political miracle: Nineteen Republican senators, including Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, joined with Democrats to pass a $1?trillion infrastructure bill, advancing President Biden’s top domestic priority.

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But those Republicans said there was nothing mystical about it. The vote was the result of a carefully calibrated alignment of interests, one shepherded and ultimately supported by a group of senators isolated from the immediate pressures of the GOP voter base, which remains loyal to former president Donald Trump, who repeatedly urged the bill’s defeat.

Among those interests is a strategic one, McConnell and other Republicans said. By joining with Democrats in an area of mutual accord, they are seeking to demonstrate that the Senate can function in a polarized political environment. That, they believe, can deflate a Democratic push to undo the filibuster — the 60-vote supermajority rule than can allow a minority to block most legislation — while setting up a stark contrast as Democrats move alone on a $3.5?trillion economic package.

“I’ve never felt that we ought to be perceived as being opposed to everything,” McConnell said in an interview Tuesday, before commenting on the slender nature of the Democratic congressional majorities, then rattling off bipartisan bills that passed during his time as party leader under two previous presidents.

Grist Is The Only Nonprofit Newsroom Focused On Exploring Solutions At The Intersection Of Climate And Justice

Our team of journalists remains dedicated to telling stories of climate, justice, and solutions. We aim to inspire more people to talk about climate change and to believe that meaningful change is not only possible but happening right now. Our in-depth approach to solutions-based journalism takes time and proactive planning, which is why Grist depends on reader support.

Right now, we set a goal to raise $20,000 by this Sunday, August 15 to help support our wildfire coverage. As of today, we’re currently at 95% of our goal. Consider becoming a Grist member today by making a monthly contribution to ensure this important work continues and thrives.

Republicans Senate Wins Will Help President Trump His Judicial And Cabinet Nominees And Gop Chances In 2020

WASHINGTON – Republicans held on strongly Tuesday to their second-most important bastion of power: the United States Senate.

That means President Donald Trump, who holds the most important power center, can continue getting conservative federal judges confirmed – something he has done in record numbers already. And he is in a strong position should another vacancy materialize on the Supreme Court.

It means Trump’s anticipated shakeup of his administration should go relatively smoothly: Senate Republicans will be able to rubber-stamp new Cabinet nominees for posts ranging from attorney general to, possibly, defense secretary.

It means that no matter what the new Democratic House of Representatives does in terms of investigating Trump, the Senate is poised to beat back impeachment, as it did for President Bill Clinton in 1998.

And by gaining rather than losing Senate seats, it means Republicans have a vastly improved chance of keeping control through 2020, when they will be defending 22 of 34 seats up for grabs. That represents a table-turning from this year’s election, when Democrats had to defend 26 of 35 seats.

Even Sen. Mitch McConnell, the normally stone-faced GOP leader of the Senate, showed a glimpse of glee Wednesday.

“I had one of the cable networks on this morning, and they said, “This is probably a rare opportunity to see McConnell smile,’” the Kentucky Republican told reporters.

Republicans Are Expected To Gain Seats In Redrawn 2022 Congressional Maps But Democrats Could Be Worse Off

U.S. Census data released Monday will shift political power in Congress, reapportioning two House seats to Texas and one each to Florida, North Carolina, Oregon, Colorado, and Montana — and stripping a seat from California , New York , Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, and West Virginia. Florida, Texas, and Arizona — each controlled entirely by Republicans — had been expecting to pick up an additional seat.

“On balance, I think this reapportionment offers a small boost for Republicans, but the bigger boost is likely to come from how Republicans draw these seats in Florida, Texas, North Carolina, and Georgia,” the Cook Political Report‘s Dave Wasserman tells Axios. “Reapportionment itself means little compared to the redistricting fights to come.” It won’t exactly be a level playing field.

“Republicans control the redistricting process in far more states than do Democrats, because of GOP dominance in down-ballot elections,”The New York Times reports. “Democrats, meanwhile, have shifted redistricting decisions in states where they have controlled the government — such as California, Colorado, and Virginia — to independent commissions intended to create fair maps.”

House seats broken down by final redistricting authority :

– Republican: 187

— Dave Wasserman April 26, 2021