Month: April 2017

Be the Party of Equality

https://theestablishment.co/the-far-left-is-still-out-of-touch-with-black-voters-90194cfddba6

The Democratic Party needs to make itself the party of equality – not just say it, but actually be it. Not just the party of fair compensation and taxation, but also of stopping racism, sexism, homophobia, and every other form of bigotry. For those experiencing them, the myriad ways bigotry manifests in their daily lives is at least as significant to their lives as their economic situation – and often has a direct impact on that, too.

Donald Has a Sad

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-39743712

He could always resign. I think just about everyone would be happier that way (including most Republicans). He could take a page from Sarah Palin – she was clearly much happier after leaving office, and it had the added bonus of allowing her to escape the looming shroud of investigations into her official misconduct Something I bet Trump himself could also relate to.

Properly Conducted Vetting Can Find a Hell of a Lot, Jeff Sessions

https://www.yahoo.com/gma/michael-flynn-attorney-general-sessions-says-vetting-cant-115151592–abc-news-topstories.html

Given how many questions were being raised about Flynn while he was just a campaign advisor, before he had even been named to any official role in the then-nascent administration, that’s a ridiculous and heavily revisionist position to take. Never mind that, had he actually been vetted, one of the first questions they should be asking of a prospective National Security Advisor is “do you have any reason to have divided loyalties to the United States and a foreign power?” but beyond that, people without any access to classified information had already found a wealth of evidence that he had, at best, a questionable business relationship with Russian interests, and was possibly quite literally compromised by involvement with the Putin oligarchy.

There are, quite simply, only 2 reasonable explanations for his placement in the administration in the first place: Trump and his inner circle already knew about Flynn’s Russian entanglements because they were also a part of them, or they were stunningly and thoroughly lacking in even the most basic sense and failed to conduct any sort of vetting process whatsoever on one of the most powerful unconfirmed nominations the President can make.

Are We Willing to Let Trump Evolve?

https://www.yahoo.com/news/willing-let-trump-evolve-090022380.html

Given that there’s mounting evidence that he is a literal traitor, no, not really. Given that he rode to victory on the coattails of racism, xenophobia, and isolationism, and every dram of success he achieves now validates those toxic attitudes, no, not really. Given that any success he manages empowers the Republican Party to continue being the party of corruption and kleptocracy, no, not really.

I want him to fail. I want him to be covered in shame and ridicule. I want the Republican Party to be forced by political necessity to abandon him, oust him from office, and in the process cripple themselves. I don’t want this out of some twisted need for schadenfreude, or vengeance out of quixotic loyalty to the Democratic Party, but because I think short-term upheaval of this sort is necessary at this point to avert much deeper disasters later.

O’Reilly No More

https://www.yahoo.com/tv/fox-news-fires-bill-oreilly-amid-sexual-harassment-storm-183851947.html

Better late than never.

Though I don’t doubt he’ll bring a significant fraction of his audience with him whatever less reputable outlet picks him up. He’s probably done on actual television, but a radio or internet thing is likely. Plus he’ll certainly keep writing his revisionist history books.

The Reverse Godwin

https://www.vox.com/world/2017/4/11/15262100/sean-spicer-assad-hitler-holocaust-gas

Rule of thumb: if you are considering making an analogy where you are about to compare anybody unfavorably to Adolph Hitler, don’t.

It is just barely possible, depending who you have in mind, that you are right. But the odds are massively, massively against you. If the target of your analogy is anybody currently living, the chances of you getting out of such a comparison without looking like a complete moron are so vanishingly small that you’re better off just punching yourself in the eye – it’ll hurt less.

Gorsuch and the Filibuster

There’s no shortage of other crappiness to distract from this right now, but this is going to be an enduring problem. And not just Justice Gorsuch himself, but the dissolution of any remaining veneer of bipartisanship in the US Senate. I knew the Democrats’ move to eliminate the filibuster for non-Supreme Court nominees was a mistake when they did it, because it set the precedent in the first place that the filibuster itself was no longer off-limits. It was inevitable that McConnell would move to chip away at it further once he gained the majority, and so he has. I expect it’s now only a matter of time before it’s also eliminated for regular legislation, and simple majority rule becomes the order of the day in both Houses. Which, of course, will further exacerbate the blind partisanship of American politics.

Credit where it’s due – Mitch McConnell is a duplicitous, amoral lizard of a man, but he knows how to play the long game better than just about anybody else in Washington. He spearheaded near-uniform opposition to the Obama agenda from the minority through unprecedented abuse of the filibuster, transforming it from a seldom-used tactic to prevent majority extremism into a part of standard operating procedure almost overnight. In doing so, he goaded his Democratic opponents into shooting themselves in the foot and changing Senate rules to limit it’s use first – thus providing himself with political cover now and in the future when he does it himself. Then on gaining the majority he maintained his caucus’ unity through the remainder of the Obama administration and kept control of the Senate, so as to seize power now. I think I’d even go so far as to say that MCConnell is now, effectively, the most powerful elected official in the United States. Ryan is crippled by an intractable and fractured caucus he cannot control, and is driven by ideology that only a tiny minority of the public actually likes when they see it in action. The White House is full of incompetents, outsized egos, terminally thin skins, and a complete lack of a coherent plan. But McConnell knows exactly what he wants: more power for himself. He’s got a very clear understanding of exactly what he can and cannot get away with at any given moment, how to marshal his strength when it will be most useful, and how to bide his time and let his enemies waste their energy. He is not driven by any real ideology – he believes whatever is politically expedient at the time, and is perfectly comfortable changing his position with new circumstances, and far better at dodging the “flip-fllopper” label than almost anybody else I’ve seen in modern professional politics – he has no need for the attention and pomp that comes with the Oval Office – he’s comfortable wielding his power largely behind the scenes. And once he’s cast the husk of the filibuster for regular legislation aside too, he’ll be the functional equal of the Speaker of the House in terms of legislative influence, and with a majority behind him that he actually controls.

How Safe Is Mike Pence?

Regarding just how “inside” Mike Pence is in Trump’s inner circle:

Given the word at the time of his announcement as the VP candidate (Trump almost cancelled the meeting he was supposed to have with Pence ahead of time, and was said to be strongly leaning towards other options), and how favored Pence was and remains by the Republican establishment (he was a favorite name for the 2016 presidential race until he signed anti-homosexual legislation into law, and the massive negative press he got as a result prompted him to shut down his exploratory committee), it is extremely likely that Pence was more or less forced on Trump by Reince Priebus, Paul Ryan, and Mitch McConnell, as insurance for them in case he actually won.

Those three don’t like Trump, but are willing to use him to advance their own agendas for so long as he’s more useful than embarrassing. And Pence is there so that when Trump does become more trouble than he’s worth, they’ve got a reliable, biddable backup waiting in the wings to salvage as much of their agenda as they can (being forced to impeach a president nominally from their own party will gut any semblance of party unity they still retain, and destroy most of their remaining popular support, so they’ll lose most of their momentum, and probably their Congressional majority at the next election).

Meanwhile, it’s Trump loyalists that have been making nice with Russia. People who have either been part of his inner circle for many years, or joined the campaign early to explicitly support him, not merely after he won the nomination. They’re most of them not that bright, but they wouldn’t have brought someone they don’t trust themselves into something even they knew was treason.

Flynn was clearly in Putin’s pocket before becoming a Trump surrogate. So was Manafort. And I believe both joined the Trump campaign as part of the Russian operation to disrupt the 2016 election (though I do not think they expected it to result in an orange president – I think it was just to sew chaos and weaken Clinton).

I suspect, though have far less evidence supporting the belief, that Trump himself was also already co-opted. I think if we ever learn the whole story here, it’s going to turn out that Putin, through his surrogates and subordinates, decided to make Trump his personal American political spoiler sometime around 2011-2012. Maybe before Donnie-boy started bloviating about President Obama’s birth certificate, maybe after – doesn’t matter. But I think a big part of why Trump woudn’t release his tax returns is because they would show just how entangled he is with the Russian oligarchy, financially. I think the chances are good they bailed him out of his last bankruptcy, and they’ve certainly funneled a lot of money through him in shady real estate deals – he was probably at first just being used as a money laundering vehicle before becoming a political tool as well. Whether the golden shower story is true or not, it is almost certainly not the most substantive thing the Russians have to control Trump.

All that said, this is seriously explosive stuff, if it does come out, and I doubt very much that the number of people now in the administration that are actually involved in is that large. Trump himself, his lawyer buddy Cohen, Manafort, Flynn, son-in-law Kushner probably, maybe Ivanka, and some of the people close to or working for those people. I’m a little doubtful even Bannon was in on that side of things, though it’s certainly possible he was for his own reasons. By now there are probably quite a few more with some inkling of what’s happened, possibly including Pence, but they’re more the rats on the sinking ship, unsure how to get off now that it’s in deep water, than helping to pilot it into the reef.