We Know Exactly Who The Democrats Want To Bail Out-- They Passed A Bill Months Ago... What About Trump And The Republicans?

Lambchop by Nancy Ohanian

Doesn't it seem like the GOP actually wants to inflict misery on the working class? It seems that way because it is that way. McConnell purposely let the eviction moratorium and enhanced unemployment benefits expire before allowing even a discussion in the Senate about what to do to alleviate Trump's COVID-economy. While flaming asshole and coke freak Larry Kudlow was on the elitist Fox Business channel promising GOP donors "increased business deductions for meals and entertainment"-- long a self-serving priority for Trump-- as part of the relief package being thrashed out in Congress, Mnuchin told reporters that McConnell's and his proposal would reduce the expanded $600 weekly unemployment benefit to $200 a week. Asked about Mnuchin's announcement, Kudlow called it just a "technical adjustment." Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) called it something else:

Erica Werner, Jeff Stein and Seung Min Kim, reporting for the Washington Post, wrote that "Senate Republicans want to reduce the $600 payment to $200 until states can implement a new approach that would pay the unemployed 70 percent of the income they collected before they lost their jobs. The states are supposed to phase in the new formula within two months under the new GOP plan, though it’s unclear how cumbersome that process could prove to be. Many state unemployment systems are expected to have difficulty implementing the more targeted program, so the $200 weekly payment would be designed to serve as a bridge until the other changes are made. The $200 would come on top of whatever unemployment benefits states already pay, which vary but generally replace 45 percent of a worker’s wages before they lost their job." Reducing that $600 payment has been a key GOP focus of both Trump's, the Senate Republicans' and Republicans in the House.

In addition to the reduced unemployment benefits the legislation is expected to include a new round of $1,200 checks to individual Americans, billions of dollars for schools with some of the money aimed at helping classrooms reopen, and a five-year liability shield for businesses, health-care providers and others.

The legislation also includes at least $100 billion more for the small-business Paycheck Protection Program. It does not contain any new money for state and local governments-- a key Democratic demand-- but instead gives state and local leaders additional flexibility in spending the $150 billion approved in the Cares Act in March.

...“We have unemployment running out, we have renter protection running out, we have state and local governments going into a new month and won’t have the money and will lay off thousands and thousands of people,” Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-NY) said Monday morning on MSNBC. “We’re at all these cliffs and we still at this very moment don’t have a plan from the Republicans. We want to sit down and negotiate. But you can’t negotiate with a ghost.”

...Congressional Democrats oppose both GOP plans to curb the benefit amount and to transition the payment system to the new model. Critics point out state unemployment offices have already been overwhelmed. The National Association of State Workforce Agencies has warned in a memo circulated on Capitol Hill that targeted wage replacement could take most states “8 to 20 weeks or more” to implement from the date of the Labor Department’s guidance.

“We are skeptical that state UI infrastructure has improved dramatically since the CARES Act given how overloaded the system has been,” Evercore ISI, which conducts market research, said in a Monday note.

Julie Oliver (TX) and Kara Eastman (NE) are both running against Trump enablers who the came close to dislodging in 2018. Each has a great chance to do so in November. I asked them to give me their takes on the way the relief package is moving. "Pay and benefits for tens of millions of American workers," said Julie, "was too low before the pandemic. Millions of people have lost their jobs. Now, instead of getting Texans the relief necessary to stay afloat, Roger Williams wants to end the $600 UI extension and let your boss allow you to get coronavirus. And that's after he funneled millions in undisclosed taxpayer bailout funds to his own personal business in Weatherford. We need real relief, and we need it now. Direct cash payments, moratorium on evictions and foreclosures, and a suspension of consumer debt collection, rent and mortgage payments. We're facing an unemployment crisis, eviction crisis, a health crisis, a child care crisis, and a business failure crisis, all feeding each other at once. We need someone fighting for the people in this district in Congress, not someone only in it to help himself.

Kara Eastman's incumbent is a lot like Julie's-- a big waste of a seat. She told that "Unfortunately, Rep. Bacon is aligned with the Republican approach. He voted 'no' on the HEROES Act, and has repeatedly stated that the government is spending too much on COVID relief. That's funny, because he seemed to be fine with the $1.5 trillion giveaway to corporations and wealthy interested in the 2017 tax bill. He voted 'yes' then and still brags about it. My approach is different: we need to listen to the people who are struggling because they can't pay rent, are losing their unemployment, and are juggling between putting food on the table and paying bills."

Cathy Kunkel is running for office for the first time. Republicans in West Virginia would be smart to hear what she's saying: "Thousands of West Virginians are still struggling in this ongoing economic depression-- and as WV utilities start processing shutoffs over the next month, this pain will intensify. Now is not the time to cut pandemic unemployment compensation. Clearly Senate leadership is more interested in pursuing their ongoing war on working class and poor Americans than in getting us out of this economic depression-- which requires getting money into the hands of people who will actually spend it, not Wall St billionaires."

We Have A Traitor In The White House... And Then There's The NRA, A Russian Front Operation!

In the interview above on CNN, you can watch Carl Bernstein explaining why Trump is "unravelling both factually and also temperamentally... [Trump] recognizes that there is, in this whistleblower's documents terrible evidence of the president's corruption, of his willingness to undermine the free electoral system in this country, to involve foreign powers in our election..."

The Washington Post reported that over 300 former national security and foreign policy officials have signed a statement warning that President Trump’s actions regarding Ukraine are a profound national security concern. They served both Democratic and Republican administrations and all support an impeachment inquiry by Congress to determine the facts. "To be clear, we do not wish to prejudge the totality of the facts or Congress' deliberative process. At the same time, there is no escaping that what we already know is serious enough to merit impeachment proceedings."

Trump may have changed his endless screeches of "No Collusion! No Collusion!" to "No Pressure! No Pressure!" but his NRA allies are drowning in collusion, as Mark Maremont and Julie Bykowicz of the Wall Street Journal pointed out yesterday. First off, the NRA "paid for lodging and travel of Russian nationals throughout 2015 and 2016, as part of a relationship that allowed foreign actors looking to influence the U.S. election, including now-convicted Maria Butina, to infiltrate the gun-rights group." Secondly, "NRA leaders traveled to Moscow in December 2015 partly on the NRA’s dime, even though some went there to pursue their own personal business opportunities. This raises questions... about whether they violated laws on how nonprofit funds can be used. The trip to Moscow gave Russians an opening to the organization as the election was ramping up, as well as access to other events involving Republican party leaders."

All this comes from a well-documented, 76-page report published by Senate Finance Committee Democrats, led by Ron Wyden (D-OR).

Looking At Gun Legislation by Nancy Ohanian

The Democrats’ report also documents a parallel effort by then-Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak to build relationships with NRA officers. It says the NRA delegation in Moscow met with more senior officials than previously known, including multiple oligarchs close to President Vladimir Putin, two sanctioned individuals, and a person Ms. Butina claimed was Mr. Putin’s campaign manager.

Ms. Butina, a Russian gun enthusiast, was sentenced to prison in April after pleading guilty to conspiring to influence U.S. politics. She and a Russian official named Alexander Torshin helped organize the 2015 Moscow trip and developed close relationships with NRA leaders, the report says.

As a nonprofit organization, the NRA is not supposed to use its funds for insiders’ personal benefit. The NRA already is being buffeted by allegations of spending abuses and cozy vendor dealings that have benefited CEO Wayne LaPierre and other top officials or their family members.

The Moscow travel “was an official trip undertaken so NRA insiders could get rich-- a clear violation of the principle that tax-exempt resources should not be used for personal benefit,” said Sen. Ron Wyden, of Oregon, one of the Democrats who has been probing the NRA’s ties to Moscow.

The report calls on Congress to “explore options to reform tax-exempt laws to protect against foreign threats,” but it is unlikely to provoke any immediate legislative impact. Republicans hold a majority of Senate seats, and the party has expressed its continued support of the NRA and has shown little interest in tightening restrictions on tax-exempt organizations.

The Democrats’ report includes new details about the relationship between the NRA and the Russian nationals, pushing back on the gun group’s early assertions that it was not working with them in an official way. The report documents formal communications with the Russian nationals and details how NRA funds ended up in a shell company set up by Ms. Butina to reimburse her for costs associated with the 2015 Moscow trip.

The gun group’s leaders introduced the Russian nationals to Republican Party leaders at its annual meetings and board meetings and helped them gain access to other conservatives at events such as the National Prayer Breakfast, the report says.

“NRA resources appear to have been used to pay for membership and registration fees to third-party events for the Russian nationals as well as to arrange for transit to and lodging for many of those events throughout 2015 and 2016,” the report says.

The report suggests at least somebody associated with the NRA had misgivings about Ms. Butina. After she was introduced to Donald Trump Jr. at the 2016 NRA annual meeting, this person texted the younger Mr. Trump: “I understand that someone introduced a Russian gal to you this week. I’ll fill you in this week but I would steer clear if she tries to reach out to you.”

The previously undisclosed text message was provided by the NRA, the report says, adding that the group didn’t identify the sender or respond to other questions about the message.

A spokesman for Donald Trump Jr. declined to comment.

The new report digs into the origins of the December 2015 NRA trip to Moscow, and what happened afterward. Although the NRA has claimed the members who traveled to Russia were not authorized to do so in an official capacity, the Democrats’ report provides evidence to the contrary.

The report says NRA then-President Allan Cors withdrew from the trip, but wrote Mr. Torshin, the Russian official, on his NRA letterhead designating others as representing “the NRA and our five million members.”

After the Treasury Department cautioned then-NRA Vice President Pete Brownell against meeting with U.S.-sanctioned Russians while abroad, the compliance director of Mr. Brownell’s private company assured him such meetings would be permissible because “he planned to do so as part of a cultural exchange in his official capacity as a member of the NRA’s delegation.”

Mr. Brownell agreed to go on the trip only because his gun-retail operation, Brownells Inc., had business interests in Russia, the report alleges. “I am not interested in attending if just an nra trip,” Mr. Brownell wrote his compliance director, saying the trip was “an opportunity to be hosted in Russia to broaden our business opportunities.”

A representative of Mr. Brownell didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Mr. Brownell and Ms. Butina traveled around Russia together for three days to explore business opportunities before the rest of the NRA delegation arrived in Moscow, the report says.

The Republican rebuttal says Mr. Brownell’s dual-purpose trip “appears to be entirely normal behavior for a CEO of a major firearms retailer, as the facts show Mr. Brownell started his December 2015 trip to Russia for this personal-professional purpose and then concluded it with an NRA-focused goodwill purpose.”

Mr. Brownell initially picked up some of the trip costs, including a $6,000 payment to Ms. Butina’s shell company, and shortly afterward was reimbursed by the NRA, the report says. When the trip came under scrutiny in early 2018, Mr. Brownell repaid $17,000 to the NRA as a way of “getting the trip off the NRA’s books,” Mr. Brownell’s counsel told investigators.

How Closely Together Did The Kremlin And The NRA Work To Saddle America With Trump? Follow The Money

As we've reported for months, the Kremlin operations to saddle America with the most incompetent president in history included money laundering millions of dollars into his campaign through the NRA. The mainstream media is starting to sniff around a story that's been out there for quite some time-- the Putin-Torshin-NRA-Trumpanzee connection. CNN took a look on Friday evening, reporting that the NRA is collecting internal documents related to its role in Putin-Gate, at the request of congressional investigators, certainly pointing to the fact that Mueller has already been there.

The NRA has faced fresh scrutiny from congressional investigators about its finances and ties to Alexander Torshin, one of the 17 prominent Russian government officials the US Treasury Department recently slapped with sanctions. The gun-rights group has said it is reexamining its relationship with Torshin, who is a lifetime NRA member, in the wake of the sanctions.

The renewed attention has highlighted the close-knit if sometimes uneasy alliance between top NRA officials and Torshin-- a relationship that ensnared members of Trump's team during the presidential campaign, inviting further congressional scrutiny.

Those inquiries could shed light on the tightly held fundraising practices and political activities of the NRA. The political powerhouse shelled out more than $30 million in 2016 to back Donald Trump's candidacy-- more than it spent on 2008 and 2012 political races combined, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Vice President Mike Pence is slated to speak at the National Rifle Association's annual convention in Dallas next Friday, an official told CNN.

The NRA recently found itself facing allegations that the FBI was investigating whether Torshin illegally funneled money through the group to bolster Trump, according to a McClatchy report. The NRA has publicly denied any contact from the FBI and insisted it hasn't accepted illegal donations.

Despite the public denials, officials at the gun-rights group have been anxiously preparing as if they were already under investigation, sources said. Some employees have been tasked with preserving years of documents mentioning Torshin or his associate, Maria Butina, who runs a pro-guns group in Russia, a source familiar with the situation said. Privately, some officials have expressed anxiety about a potential investigation and the group's Russian ties.

The NRA's precautions could be little more than due diligence as the group faces inquiries from congressional investigators and the media about its relationship with Torshin. But the feeling among some officials internally is that the group appears to be readying for an investigation.

"True believers to the cause are getting very antsy," said a person privy to the NRA's internal deliberations. "They were definitely preparing, they were bracing themselves."

The NRA declined to comment.

Torshin, the deputy head of Russia's central bank who served for years as a senator in the Russian parliament, began making inroads into the NRA with the help of Tennessee lawyer G. Kline Preston. Preston, who said he has known Torshin for about a decade, said the Russian wanted to meet the leadership of the NRA, so Preston cold-called then-NRA President David Keene. In other media interviews, Preston said that call took place around 2011.

"I can certainly say without any reservation that Torshin's intent was purely about helping with the expansion of gun rights," Preston said. "Infiltrating to influence the NRA politically is a red herring."

But even some within the NRA viewed the partnership warily.

When Donald Trump Jr. arrived for a dinner on the sidelines of the NRA's 2016 annual meeting in Louisville, some attendees-- including NRA officials-- were startled to discover Torshin and Butina already present at the restaurant where the reception was being held, according to sources familiar with the event. Torshin and Butina weren't invited to the dinner, but they were asked to stay and speak anyway.

"Donald J. Trump Jr. was attending an NRA convention and having dinner when an acquaintance asked him to say hello to Torshin and made an introduction," said Alan Futerfas, an attorney for Trump Jr. "They made small talk for a few minutes and went back to their separate meals. That is the extent of their communication or contact."

The seemingly impromptu encounter left some officials at the gun-rights group wondering whether it was a setup by the Russians, sources said.

Throughout the campaign, a number of people made overtures to Trump campaign aides on Torshin's behalf. Those emissaries sometimes touted their NRA connections as they aimed to helped Torshin quietly facilitate a relationship between then-presidential candidate Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

In one such email, a conservative activist reached out on Torshin's behalf to say his goal was "cultivating a back-channel to President Putin's Kremlin."

The activist added, "Putin is deadly serious about building a good relationship with Mr. Trump," according to the House Intelligence Committee reports.

The outreach efforts reached Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner, campaign manager Paul Manafort, his deputy Rick Gates, then-campaign adviser Rick Dearborn and Jeff Sessions, then a foreign policy adviser and now the attorney general, according to emails reviewed by the House Intelligence Committee.

In at least some of the cases their overtures were rebuffed. Torshin was unable to schedule a meeting with candidate Trump at the 2016 NRA meeting, but ultimately managed to meet Trump Jr.

Trump Jr. told congressional investigators he didn't speak to Torshin about the upcoming presidential election, according to the House Intelligence Committee's Russia report.

In an interview with Bloomberg News nearly a year after the event, Torshin touted his dinner with Trump Jr. at the NRA meeting and claimed he had known Trump for nearly five years.

It's unclear whether the outreach to Trump aides attracted the attention of special counsel Robert Mueller. But he and his team have been delving into the possibility that Russians may have injected foreign money into the 2016 race to influence the election.

The White House did not respond to requests for comment. A spokesperson for the Trump campaign declined to comment.

The skepticism among some NRA officials about the pair of gun-loving Russians may have been well-founded.

Torshin's years-long involvement with the NRA had all the hallmarks of a Russian influence operation, Russia experts said. Russian operatives often look to build relationships with polarizing groups -- on either end of the political spectrum-- to breed division and advance the Russian agenda.

"We could give them the benefit of the doubt and say this is just a natural interest and affinity; this guy Torshin and this woman Butina are just gun aficionados," said Alina Polyakova, a Russia expert and foreign policy fellow at the Brookings Institution.

But given Torshin's stature-- a former Russian senator and now a deputy head at the Russian central bank-- that is exceedingly unlikely, experts said.

"To me this seems like part and parcel of an influence operation," Polyakova said.

Torshin did not respond to requests for comment.

Prolific on Twitter, he has tweeted that the report of an FBI investigation was little more than a rumor. Preston, the Tennessee lawyer, said Torshin was similarly dismissive of those reports when the two men saw one another on Preston's recent trip to Moscow.

"A lot of it, I think, he sees as comical," Preston said of Torshin's reaction. "It's absurd."

If some NRA officials were surprised to encounter Butina and Torshin awaiting Trump Jr. at that private event in 2016, one prominent NRA official was not: David Keene.

Keene, now an NRA board member, said there was a small birthday dinner for him that evening, which Torshin and Butina attended. It happened to take place at the same restaurant as the NRA gathering, he said, and someone brought Trump Jr. by to say hello.

Keene played a central role in fostering the relationship between Torshin and the NRA.

In 2015, Keene brought a delegation of NRA backers to Moscow for a flurry of events with Torshin and Butina, who had founded her own version of the NRA-- Right to Bear Arms-- in Moscow.

The group went sightseeing, toured a Russian gun manufacturer and met with Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin -- one of the first Russians the Obama administration slapped with sanctions after Russia annexed Crimea. One of the members of the tour group, former Milwaukee Sheriff David Clarke, rose to become a prominent Trump surrogate during the campaign. In an ethics filing, he disclosed that the Russian Right to Bear Arms group shelled out $6,000 for his meals, lodging and excursions on the trip.

Butina shared a photo of the group of Facebook, which described the excursion as an official visit from an NRA delegation.

That's exactly what the NRA's leadership was hoping to avoid.

Ahead of the trip, top NRA officials had expressed concern that the Moscow visit could invite political backlash, according to sources familiar with their thinking. They pulled the NRA president at the time from the trip, which he was slated to attend, and encouraged Keene to treat it as an independent excursion.

Keene declined to comment on the Moscow trip.

In a recent letter to Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat who is examining the NRA's finances, the NRA once again downplayed its association with the 2015 Moscow junket. It insisted one of the attendees-- a top NRA donor-- traveled to Russia "in his personal capacity," rather than as a representative of the organization. The GOP-controlled committees have shown little interest in investigating the NRA, but some Democrats are clamoring for additional information.

Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee "refused to investigate whether Russian-linked intermediaries used the NRA to illegally funnel money to the Trump Campaign, to open lines of communication with or approaches to Trump or his associates, and how those approaches may have informed," Russian interference in the 2016 election, Democrats on the committee wrote in their rebuttal to their GOP colleagues' assessment that there was no collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.

Meanwhile, Russia experts said the Russian gun-rights group appears to mainly be a facade to build ties with the NRA. It has little influence in Russia, which has strict gun laws and little public support for loosening them.

"It doesn't exist really in Russia," Anders Aslund, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and an expert on economic policy in countries including Russia, said of the group. "This is the old Soviet fashion of operating through front organizations. The purpose is to infiltrate the NRA and, probably, also transfer money."

By 2016, both Torshin and Butina had become fixtures at the NRA's high-dollar donor events, according to attendees.



The pair has popped up at the Golden Ring of Freedom Dinner, an exclusive event for donors who have given $1 million or more, and hospitality suites for lifetime members. Butina has also attended the women's luncheon hosted by the wife of Wayne LaPierre, the NRA's executive vice president. Tickets start at $250 a head, according to sources familiar with the event.

Sometimes the Russians attended as guests of other members or alongside corporate sponsors.

As for Keene, he said he was not aware of any donations to the NRA from either Torshin or Butina. He said he has not been contacted by the FBI.

The NRA has said that Torshin paid membership dues but said he has not made any additional contributions.

The NRA has also acknowledged that it accepts donations from foreign donors and entities, which it is legally allowed to do. The group would only run afoul of US law if it used foreign donations for certain election-related purposes. In the letter to Wyden, the NRA said it found "no foreign donations in connection with a United States election, either directly or through a conduit."

The NRA's general counsel also said no Russian nationals have ever been members of the Golden Ring of Freedom program for million-dollar donors, according to the letter to Wyden.

Wyden appeared unconvinced, peppering the group with an additional round of questions.

In its latest response, the NRA said it no longer plans to cooperate with Wyden's inquiries.

Was there ever a CSpan White House Correspondents' Dinner like this before Putin put Trump into the White House? This was last night... and pretty amazing and unique. Just watch it.

The Trumpezoic Era

Sidd Bikkannavar

One of my friends is a senior VP at one of the major American investment firms. A couple of years ago her company took all the senior officers for a convention in China. They were instructed to leave their cell phones and computers at home and were all give clean electronics with no data. That seemed extreme to me. I recently spent a day in the Beijing airport. A friend of mine from one of the big Silicon Valley tech firms warned me to not turn on my phone unless I didn't mind all the data being compromised instantly. So I kept it powered down; never turned it on for a second. About a month later I got a bill for over $100 for calls from Beijing. I explained to my service provider that I never even turned the phone on in Beijing and after almost an hour of arguing with a couple of agents, they wiped the $100 off the bill. But they refused to discuss how the charges got there.

Who wants to live in a country like that? Have you heard about Sidd Bikkannavar? Although the name might give him a problem, Bikkannavar is entitled to run for president of the U.S. Unlike Ted Cruz, he was born in the U.S. He's an optics technology scientist working at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. Last month he was in Chile racing solar-powered cars in Patagonia. But when he tried returning home, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agents at Houston's George Bush Intercontinental Airport apparently didn't like his South Indian last name. They detained him and demanded he hand over his phone's access PIN. The phone is NASA property and included sensitive data so he was reluctant to turn it over. The agents informed him they could detain him until he complied with their request which he eventually did. They took his phone (and PIN) away and returned it after getting whatever they wanted from it.

As The Verge reported, Bikkannavar is enrolled in Global Entry-- a Customs and Border Patrol program that allows individuals who have undergone background checks to have expedited entry into the country and made a strong case that there was no other reason to detain and search him other than illegal ethnic profiling.

“I asked a question, ‘Why was I chosen?’ And he wouldn’t tell me,” he says.

The officer also presented Bikkannavar with a document titled “Inspection of Electronic Devices” and explained that CBP had authority to search his phone. Bikkannavar did not want to hand over the device, because it was given to him by JPL and is technically NASA property. He even showed the officer the JPL barcode on the back of phone. Nonetheless, CBP asked for the phone and the access PIN. “I was cautiously telling him I wasn’t allowed to give it out, because I didn’t want to seem like I was not cooperating,” says Bikkannavar. “I told him I’m not really allowed to give the passcode; I have to protect access. But he insisted they had the authority to search it.”

Courts have upheld customs agents' power to manually search devices at the border, but any searches made solely on the basis of race or national origin are still illegal. More importantly, travelers are not legally required to unlock their devices, although agents can detain them for significant periods of time if they do not. “In each incident that I’ve seen, the subjects have been shown a Blue Paper that says CBP has legal authority to search phones at the border, which gives them the impression that they’re obligated to unlock the phone, which isn’t true,” Hassan Shibly, chief executive director of CAIR Florida, told The Verge. “They’re not obligated to unlock the phone.”

Nevertheless, Bikkannavar was not allowed to leave until he gave CBP his PIN. The officer insisted that CBP had the authority to search the phone. The document given to Bikkannavar listed a series of consequences for failure to offer information that would allow CBP to copy the contents of the device. “I didn’t really want to explore all those consequences,” he says. “It mentioned detention and seizure.” Ultimately, he agreed to hand over the phone and PIN. The officer left with the device and didn’t return for another 30 minutes.

Eventually, the phone was returned to Bikkannavar, though he’s not sure what happened during the time it was in the officer’s possession. When it was returned he immediately turned it off because he knew he had to take it straight to the IT department at JPL. Once he arrived in Los Angeles, he went to NASA and told his superiors what had happened. Bikkannavar can’t comment on what may or may not have been on the phone, but he says the cybersecurity team at JPL was not happy about the breach. Bikkannavar had his phone on hand while he was traveling in case there was a problem at work that needed his attention, but NASA employees are obligated to protect work-related information, no matter how minuscule.

Yesterday Ron Wyden (D-OR), a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, sent a letter to John Kelly, Trump's new Secretary of Homeland Security about the incidents forcing Americans to unlock their phones. "These reports are deeply troubling, particularly in light of your recent comments suggesting that (Customs and Border Protection) might begin demanding social media passwords from visitors to the United States. With those passwords, CBP may then be able to log in to accounts and access data that they would otherwise only be able to get from Internet companies with a warrant. Circumventing the normal protections for such private information is simply unacceptable... In addition to violating the privacy and civil liberties of travelers, these digital dragnet border search practices weaken our national and economic security. Indiscriminate digital searches distract CBP from its core mission and needlessly divert agency resources away from those who truly threaten our nation. Likewise, if businesses fear that their data can be seized when employees cross the border, they may reduce non-essential employee international travel, or deploy technical countermeasures, like 'burner' laptops and mobile devices, which some firms already use when employees visit nations like China." Wyden's letter makes it clear that he is about to introduce legislation that will ensure that the "4th Amendment is respected at the border."

The term "Trumpezoic Era" comes from Alan Grayson. It's his idea. It came in a note to his supporters yesterday, a note about how, specifically, he would have made a difference in the Senate had the corrupt and stupid DSCC-- he blames Reid; I blame Schumer-- not sabotaged his campaign on behalf of yappy blue chihuahua, Patrick Murphy, Wall Street's favorite candidate of 2016 (FL- $2,161,722). Grayson, who once told me to expect that all the phone calls between him and I are monitored, wrote that he has a favorite drinking game-- "not taking a drink every time Donald Trump makes a fool of himself. That would make me an alcoholic overnight. The game is noting each time I would have altered the outcome if I had been elected to the Senate last year. So far, in Month One of the Trumpezoic Era, I count three instances."

Number One (Jan. 6):

When the Presidential electoral votes are counted, there is an opportunity to object in writing, and demand a House vote on the objection. By statute (3 USC 15), the objection can be on any grounds. There is only one catch: the objection has to be signed by at least one Congressman and one Senator. (FWIW, this is the only time I know when this particular 1+1 can do anything in our government.) There was no shortage of gutsy Representatives on the day of the Trump electoral vote count: Reps. McGovern, Raskin, Jayapal, Lee, Jackson-Lee, Grijalva and Waters all objected. (Waters also objected in 2000, to George W. Bush’s coronation.) Waters declared, pointedly, "I wish to ask: Is there one United States senator who will join me in this letter of objection?” The 48 Democratic Senators sat stone-silent.

If I had been in the Senate, I would have objected to the investiture of Donald Trump.  You bet your patootie I would have.

Number Two (Jan. 4):

Senators normally require sixty votes to clear their throats, blow their noses, etc., but there are a few exceptions. One of them is called “reconciliation,” The Congressional Budget Act of 1974 limited Senate debate on the annual budget bill to “only” twenty hours-- 20 very boring hours. A filibuster, in contrast, means unlimited Senate debate, terminable only by sixty Senate votes. Since the Congressional Budget Act limits Senate debate automatically, it prevents a filibuster for certain budget bills, known as reconciliation bills. Knowing this, right after the new Congress was sworn in on Jan. 3, the Senate GOP wasted no time and put a budget resolution to repeal Obamacare to a vote on Jan. 4. But on Jan. 4, the President was named “Obama,” and the Veep was named “Biden.” There were 52 GOP Senators on Jan. 4, but Rand Paul (R-KY) voted against the resolution. If a certain Senator Grayson had been there in lieu of a certain Senator Rubio, there would have been only 50 votes to begin the repeal of Obamacare, and the 50-50 tie would have been broken by Vice President Biden, sending the resolution to repeal Obamacare down in flames.

If I had been in the Senate, I would have voted to prevent the repeal of Obamacare, just as I did on 63 occasions in the House. You bet your patootie I would have.

Number Three (Feb. 7):

It irks me that Betsy DeVos testified that student loans increased by 980% during the past eight years, while Sen. Franken pegged the actual figure at 118%. Percentages-- isn’t that something that you learn by fifth grade? However, if gross inaccuracy doesn’t disqualify you to be President-- let us pray for the victims of Muslim terrorism in Sweden, amen!-- then why should it disqualify you from being Education Secretary? No, what really chaps my lips is the point that Sen. Sanders made about DeVos, which is that she can wear this t-shirt with pride:

“My Family Gave $200 Million to the GOP, and All I Got Was This Lousy Cabinet Post.”

DeVos paid good money for that cabinet position.

Which begs the question: America, oligarchy or plutocracy? We report, you decide. Because I remain uncomfortable with the concept that public office can be bought, I would have voted against Betsy DeVos for Secretary of Education. (I reserve judgment as to whether I would vote for her for Secretary of Religion, which probably is the gig she really wants.) And with Senator Grayson serving in lieu of Senator Rubio, Betsy DeVos would have lost. That would have taught her a lesson.

If I had been in the Senate, I would have defeated the nomination of Betsy DeVos. You bet your patootie I would have.

Oh, and while we are on the subject of nominees, I sure wouldn’t have opened the 115th Congress with those first few appeasement votes we saw on Trump nominees, until rank-and-file Democrats evinced their displeasure with that approach. I would have put the screws to every one of them.

Alas, I haven’t had that opportunity, because the corrupt Democratic Party leadership (first name, Harry) was enchanted, mesmerized, spellbound, bewitched and enthralled by the promise by my primary opponent’s father to provide $10 million for his vicious, vacuous campaign. (In the end, his father gave $500,000, not $10 million, and it sure was much-fun to watch my beclowned party cancel those TV buy reservations, week by week, waiting for Daddy’s money to show up.) I would say that the rest is history, but actually, the Trumpocalyptic history still unfolds, moment by moment, vote by vote, and drink by drink.

How Much Democratic Cooperation Is Collaboration?

Cops with attitude in Donald Trump's world (source; click to enlarge)

by Gaius Publius

A reasonably short piece, but one that poses a key set of questions for our "next six months" watch over the revival or demise of the Democratic Party. As I wrote earlier:

America is in a pre-revolutionary state. If it weren't for the DNC, its manipulation of the process, and the many closed (to independents) primaries it ran, Sanders would have won. Ask yourself, perhaps as you watch the first three minutes of the clip above, how someone who can fill football stadiums was beaten by someone who can't fill a high-school gymnasium. ...

No matter who won the general election in 2016, Establishment Clinton or faux–Change Agent Trump, it wouldn't have taken much under either administration to tip the balance toward revolt, since under either the suffering were going to keep suffering beneath the boot of the bankers and CEO class. Only a Sanders presidency would have lowered those odds significantly. It certainly won't take much to tip the balance toward revolution, with Donald Trump grinding people's gears.

Our job: Make sure when Trump voters' gears are being ground, we offer highly popular Sanders Wing policies to them, and nothing else.

I think Establishment Democrats have at most six months from now to surrender to the Sanders faction (which, as the big losers of 2016, they should do). If they don't surrender, they will make themselves an irrelevant minority party for the rest of this generation. Or until full-blown climate chaos hits and no one on the globe talks elections. Or both.

You heard it here first. Six months max for the Party to reform itself. Sinon ça, le déluge.

I said "surrender" above for a reason. Because I think if the Democratic Establishment doesn't voluntarily surrender — if they put up a big and obvious fight against Sanders forces (for example, by elevating Chris Van Hollen to DSCC Chair, which they've done, or failing to elevate Keith Ellison to DNC Chair, which both Clinton forces and Obama forces are strongly opposing) — they will be tarred forever, or into the next generation, as hopelessly corrupt, at least in Sanders supporters' eyes.

Which means that for anyone hungry for Sanders-style change, the answers to what tortures the nation will have to come from somewhere else. A Sanders wing split from the Party is possible. Much more likely, though, is chaos in the streets, a running urban mélée between the black, brown and angry white #NeverTrumpists — and Trump-branded tanks and Trump-armored "cops with attitude."

To avoid what may well look like a modern, asymmetric civil war, we need to look carefully at the Democratic Party as it adapts to Trump. Will it reform itself or continue to serve the same moneyed interest that the Republicans serve (though a different faction of it)?

In other words, how will the Democratic Party act in the Age of Trump? How should it act for the nation to avoid the worst kind of upheaval?

Bringing a Butter Knife to a Gunfight

The bottom line question for Democrats, with Trump and the Republicans in full control, can be expressed this way: How much cooperation is collaboration?

I want to offer first this meditation by David Dayen, then some thoughts of my own. The core of Dayen's piece is a look at Obama's appointment of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court, and how, no matter what you think about Garland (I was strongly opposed to him), the nomination was stolen by the Republicans from Obama, who, as sitting President, rightly "owned" the appointment.

Dayen's question is similar to mine — What should the Democrats do in response to such a blatant, high-value theft? After airing the particulars of the Garland case, he writes more generally (emphasis mine throughout):

The fact that Democrats prefer to maintain governance norms, even while Republicans break them time and again, inescapably pushes the policymaking apparatus of the country to the right. ...

Keep those two concepts in mind:

• Democrats prefer to maintain (be limited by) governance norms.
• Republicans, to gain more power, break them all the time.

This is more than a Merrick Garland problem. This is a general problem, a guaranteed Democratic strategy for losing — all the time. Dayen continues:

Republicans have absolutely no problem breaking any norm in their path to power. They turned the filibuster from a seldom-used tool to a routine exercise. Tom DeLay saw advantage in doing a second redistricting in Texas in 2003 to pick up extra GOP seats, even though states normally redistrict every 10 years; he succeeded. Congress typically passes the debt limit without comment, but Republicans took the country to the brink of its first default, extracting concessions in the process. A minority of the Senate prevented the confirmation for years of any director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau simply because they didn’t like the agency. The opposition party would never attempt to conduct foreign policy that differed from the president’s, until Republican senators tried it before the Iran deal.

And, of course, the year-long blockade of Garland, who has not even received a hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee, violated a long-standing norm.

He concludes:

There are consequences to one party being more aggressive about defying governing norms. If liberal legislation can’t break a Republican filibuster, but Democrats don’t offer the same resistance, the playing field is tilted to conservative policy. If Republicans use any maneuver to get appointees in place, and Democrats don’t, conservatives become more likely to be ensconced at executive agencies. If Republicans are willing to blackmail the government and Democrats aren’t, they get more concessions from that blackmail. If Republicans use gerrymandering and voter suppression and every available tool more sharply than Democrats, we get conservative government even if we vote for a liberal one.

Democrats, in short, bring a butter knife to a gunfight.

Forget the point about enabling "conservative" policy. It's now about enabling Donald Trump's policy. There are "consequences" (Dayen's word) to that as well, and they go far beyond the policies themselves, to the life or death of the Democratic Party and, as noted above, the face and shape of the inevitable resistance to Trump in this country.

Will the nation's resistance to Trump continue to be electoral? Or will the voters abandon elections (and the Democrats) and take increasingly to the streets, to be faced by Trump's "cops with attitude"? The extent to which the Democratic Party performs the role of real opposition will help determine the answer to those questions.

When Does "Cooperation" Become Collaboration? And What Should We Do About It?

In order to begin to tease out an answer, I want to make three points, raise three more sets of questions. (I'll offer an actual answer later.)

First, Democrats will show cooperation with Trump by their actions and by their inactions. Support for Trump's deeply flawed infrastructure bill, for example, is cooperation by action. Negotiating with Trump to get a "less deeply flawed" infrastructure bill, then helping Republicans pass it, is also cooperation by action.

Are these actions also collaboration, in the fully-loaded, WWII-sense of the word?

Filibustering the AG appointment of racist Jeff Sessions is obstruction by action. Not filibustering Jeff Sessions is cooperation by inaction. Is not filibustering Sessions — or any of the other horrible, filibusterable, appointments that Trump will make — also collaboration, in the fully-loaded sense of the word?

Sanders supporters who didn't vote for Clinton — will they see attempts at cooperation as collaboration, and discard the Party as useless? (Early indications are that many already do and have; see below.)

Second, there will be literally dozens, and perhaps hundreds, of Trump actions and legislation that must be opposed to the bitter end, opposed just on principle alone, opposed just because the consequences will be so bad. It's certainly true that many stalwart Democrats will oppose them all, but again, "all" is a lot of opposition. Will enough Democrats oppose them, and will enough Democrats oppose them all, to be, and look like, an effective party-in-opposition?

In other words, will the Party as a whole be willing to undertake that level of obstruction, if that level of obstruction is warranted? After all, if Trump and the Republicans are as terrible as many people anticipate, a truly obstructionist Democratic Party will soon look like Mitch McConnell's Republicans under Obama. Do the Democrats as a whole have the (unbought) stomach for that kind of fight?

More: Even if the Party "wants" to obstruct to this degree ("wants" is an odd word when you're talking about people who hoover up money like they do), can they?

Starting in 2017 the Republicans will likely control 52 seats in the Senate, plus have the vice-president's tying vote. (I'm assuming the Republican will win the runoff election in Louisiana.) This means that if only eight Democrats vote with the Republicans, any Democratic filibuster can be broken. Joe Manchin and Claire McCaskill look like they're already on board the Trump "bipartisan" train, with many others queued up. Ron Wyden wanted to work with Paul Ryan (yes, Paul Ryan) to "reform" Medicare. Thirteen Democratic senators voted to pass Fast Track, two of them in exchange for passage of the gift to Boeing known as the Import-Export Bank. Money trading favors for money. One of those two, Patty Murray, was and is still in Senate leadership.

Democrats always seem to find just enough "bipartisan" votes when both parties' bipartisan money is on the line. Corporate-funded Democrats (some call them "Schumercrats") may, for the entirety of the next four years, decide to play "whose turn is it this time to betray the working class, so the rest of us don't have to?" After all, playing that game pays very well for the Party as a whole.

Yet if the Party does continue to play this game, there will be continued electoral consequences. Betraying the working people's interests for the sake of campaign donors, time after time, not only makes the whole party look complicit, it makes the whole party vulnerable to even more of the Sanders-supporter hatred they're already subject to. Again, Democrats lost in the worker-heavy Rust Belt for a reason: voter anger. A party that brands itself as complicit with anti-worker pro-Trump policies will not be seen as a solution when the non-racist Trump voters wake up.

And frankly, Democrats are in the absolute governmental minority now. At what point do Sanders-supporting voters give up entirely on the Democrats as a vehicle for Sanders-style change and make them a permanent minority?

You read my bottom line above: "Six months max for the Party to reform itself. Sinon ça, le déluge." Democrats as a party may be on a very short leash with these voters.

Finally, how should we deal with real Democratic "collaborators," the Joe Manchins and Claire McCaskills (and Ron Wydens and Tim Kaines) of the world, should they stray from the anti-Trump reservation? Should they be left alone, to live and dine large on their high-table DC status, because someone like Manchin, for example, can only be replaced by a Republican (as one Democrat told me)?

Or should they be sent off to K Street regardless of the price, as a message to "our" new minority party to get its act together or stay in the minority forever?

I'll offer my thoughts later on all these questions, plus a much larger one, in a later piece. Keep in mind though, this reticence of mine, this willingness to thoughtfully consider, is not is shared by everyone. Others — many others — have already made up their minds, starting with the 2016 election. Here's Caitlin Johnstone, for example, with a meme that looks back at that trainwreck Clinton loss with this comment:

"We told them the choices — 'Bernie Or Bust.' They chose 'Or Bust'" (source).

That's not me smiling that evil smile. But the feeling is shared by a whole lot of others. Just to give you a taste, the title of the source piece is "Yes, We Cost Hillary The Election. You're Welcome." You don't have to share this thought to recognize it as a critical problem for Democrats. This is the crossroads they face in the Age of Trump. This is the anger the Party is up against.

When does cooperation become collaboration? How much collaboration is too much for the Sanders voters and non-voters who helped them to their defeat? The Party needs to decide soon. I give it six months, and then the book on the Party will be closed, perhaps for a very long time.

GP
 

TPP Has Picked Up a Powerful Enemy — Black Lives Matter

The thirteen Democratic Senators who helped Obama break the filibuster on Fast Track. Some, for example, Ron Wyden and Patty Murray, run as progressives back home. One, still senator and current VP candidate Tim Kaine, says he's now opposed to TPP, which the Fast Track vote was meant to enable.

by Gaius Publius

President Obama and all of his corporatist buddies, including some, but not all, in the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), are hell-bent on passing the TPP in the lame duck session of Congress just after the election but prior to Obama's leaving office. It's reasonable to speculate why, and we did so here:

TPP, the Democratic Party, and Obama's Presidential Library

As to the timing, the choice is obvious. First, there's the unusual composition of a lame duck Congress. As Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, wrote recently in The Hill (my emphasis):

So [TPP] is looking like a very close vote. (For procedural and political reasons, Obama will not bring it to a vote unless he is sure he has the necessary votes). Now let's look at one special group of Representatives who can swing this vote: the actual lame-ducks, i.e., those who will be in office only until Jan. 3. It depends partly on how many lose their election on Nov. 8, but the average number of representatives who left after the last three elections was about 80.

Most of these people will be looking for a job, preferably one that can pay them more than $1 million a year. From the data provided by OpenSecrets.org, we can estimate that about a quarter of these people will become lobbyists. (An additional number will work for firms that are clients of lobbyists).

So there you have it: It is all about corruption, and this is about as unadulterated as corruption gets in our hallowed democracy, other than literal cash under a literal table. These are the people whom Obama needs to pass this agreement, and the window between Nov. 9 and Jan. 3 is the only time that they are available to sell their votes to future employers without any personal political consequences whatsoever. The only time that the electorate can be rendered so completely irrelevant, if Obama can pull this off.

The lame duck session, in other words, is the only time when Obama and the corporatists in both parties can appeal to House members and senators who are still in office, yet completely untethered from any responsibility to anything but their personal ambition and future paychecks — completely untethered, since they will likely never face voters again in another election.

There's a second reason as well. If Obama pulls this off, getting the TPP passed, it's Obama's trade deal, not the next president's (though that president, should she or he be opposed, could immediately execute the Withdrawal clause and renegotiate).

Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in 2008 each promising to use the threat of unilateral withdrawal to force renegotiation of NAFTA.

Remember, it only took 28 Democrats (or "Democrats") in the House to pass Fast Track when it came up for a final vote, and only 13 Democratic senators.

Democratic Pro-Fast Track Votes in the House

Here's the House list, in order by state. I've highlighted a few of the names:

Terri Sewell (AL-07)
Susan Davis (CA-53)
Sam Farr (CA-20)
Jim Costa (CA-16)
Ami Bera (CA-07)
Scott Peters (CA-52)
Jared Polis (CO-02)
James Himes (CT-04)
Debbie Wasserman Schultz (FL-23)
Mike Quigley (IL-05)
John Delaney (MD-06)
Brad Ashford (NE-02)
Gregory Meeks (NY-05)
Kathleen Rice (NY-04)
Earl Blumenauer (OR-03)
Kurt Schrader (OR-05)
Suzanne Bonamici (OR-01)
Jim Cooper (TN-05)
Rubén Hinojosa (TX-15)
Eddie Johnson (TX-30)
Henry Cuellar (TX-28)
Beto O'Rourke (TX-16)
Gerald Connolly (VA-11)
Donald Beyer (VA-08)
Rick Larsen (WA-02)
Suzan DelBene (WA-01)
Derek Kilmer (WA-06)
Ron Kind (WI-03)

These 28 Democratic Yes votes were needed because 50 Republicans voted No. The bolded names — Earl Blumenauer, Suzanne Bonamici, Suzan DelBene — claim to be progressives when they campaign back home. The bold-italicized representatives — Terri Sewell, Gregory Meeks, and Eddie Bernice Johnson — are CBC members.

Democratic Pro-Fast Track Votes in the Senate

On the Senate side, 13 Democrats voted to make sure TPP would get a Fast Track vote by voting to close debate (voting for cloture):

Michael Bennet, Colorado
Maria Cantwell, Washington
Tom Carper, Delaware
Chris Coons, Delaware
Dianne Feinstein, California
Heidi Heitkamp, North Dakota
Tim Kaine, Virginia
Claire McCaskill, Missouri
Patty Murray, Washington
Bill Nelson, Florida
Jeanne Shaheen, New Hampshire
Mark Warner, Virginia
Ron Wyden, Oregon

In both houses of Congress, these were the barest of margins — 218 Yes votes in the House and 60 Yes votes in the Senate, in each case exactly the minimum required for passage. Another indication of how toxic this "trade" bill is. No Democrat dared touch it who didn't want to or have to.

Black Lives Matter and the TPP

And now the TPP has become even more toxic, since the Black Lives Matter (BLM) social-justice movement has endorsed the anti-TPP position. Politico Pro has this (sub. required; my emphasis):

Obama's latest TPP foe: Black Lives Matter
By Andrew Hanna
Monday, Oct. 31, 2016

The Obama administration will face an unexpected adversary as it gears up for what could be a blockbuster lame-duck fight over the Trans-Pacific Partnership: the Black Lives Matter movement.

The group — best known best for its protests of police shootings of African-Americans — has joined the fray over the Asian Pacific trade deal as part of its growing focus on economic issues, contending the pact would lead to greater racial injustice. It ties past trade deals to the closures of factories that have hurt black workers disproportionately and increased black poverty.

Its involvement could influence the votes of a handful of wavering Democrats, should Congress tackle TPP during the lame duck.

"There are groups that are going to pay a lot of close attention to what they say, especially the Congressional Black Caucus," said Bill Reinsch, a fellow at the Stimson Center and close trade-vote watcher.

Only a small band of 28 House Democrats voted to give the president fast track authority to complete TPP, including three members of the Congressional Black Caucus: Reps. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.), Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Texas) and Terri Sewell (D-Ala.). A fourth black caucus member, Republican Mia Love of Utah, also voted for fast-track authority.

With anti-trade fervor whipped into a fever pitch by the presidential election campaign, their votes are considered key to passage of the pact — and all are under increasing pressure to abandon the president should the pact come to a ratification vote.

The pretend reason, of course, for TPP support is support for a major legacy "want" by the first black president. The pro-Clinton members of the Democratic Platform Committee, for example, resisted to the end any explicit language about TPP on the grounds that the Party must support its president.

Democrats Prioritize Party Unity Over Including Stand Against TPP In Platform

Members of the Democratic National Convention Platform Committee shot down an attempt to include specific opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal in the platform, despite the fact that both Democratic presidential candidates have taken positions against the TPP.

The attempt failed because members appointed by Hillary Clinton and DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz claimed it was improper to oppose the TPP when President Barack Obama fervently believes in the agreement. However, by putting party unity before taking a firm stand against the trade agreement, the door was left open for Clinton to go back to supporting the TPP, which was the case when she was secretary of state.

“It is hard for me to understand why Secretary Clinton’s delegates won’t stand behind Secretary Clinton’s positions in the party’s platform,” Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders said....

Even platform committee chair, Representative E.J. Cummings [normally progressive on trade issues], chose to vote against the resolution. He, too, bragged about not voting for trade agreements.

“I don’t want to do anything as he ends his term to undercut the president of the United States. I’m just not going to do it. And that’s where I stand,” Cummings proclaimed.

That's the pretend reason — supporting the first black president — for most of them anyway. The real reason is different and not unexpected — money and everything money can buy. The Democratic Party as it's currently configured exists to enable the fire hose flow of corporate and big-wealth dollars into its coffers. Opposing that flow gets you the "Sanders treatment," but I'm not spilling any new beans in saying that.

This move by Black Lives Matter takes away the pretend reason and thus puts some careers at risk. BLM has high visibility at the moment. It will be worth watching the result, the actual TPP vote, as this plays out later.

What to Watch For in the Lame Duck

Once the Democrats figure out how many Republicans will defect from their leadership in each house of Congress (there were 50 House Republican defections last time plus six not voting, and five Senate defections plus two not voting), they'll know how many Democrats will have to "take one for the team" — vote Yes on TPP so others with reputations to protect (like Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi) don't have to.

The numbers needed to pass TPP in the Senate have changed this time. Only 51 votes are needed there now (that's part of what "fast track" means). Finding 50 No votes in the Senate is not an impossible task, but it's a very high bar — depending on the way Republicans vote, as few as four "Democrats" like Ron Wyden could guarantee passage.

So the greatest vulnerability for TPP is in the House. Can Democrats again muster something like 28 pro-corporate votes? Which Democrats will chose to take the fall a second time? Corporatists like Ron Kind will eagerly comply. But will Oregon's Earl Blumenauer (bow-tie bicycle guy)? Will CBC members Sewell and Johnson, with BLM lobbying hard against them? Or will other House Democrats be needed (and willing) to take the fall so Pelosi can move TPP across the line?

Again, Fast Track passed the House with zero votes to spare. What if the Republican opposition — including the opposition to Speaker Ryan in the wake of the Trump debacle — swells to more than 50? This could be a very close vote.

TPP, Obama's Legacy and "A Glide Path to His Life as an Ex-President"

The Politico article quoted above helpfully notes this about Obama's legacy:

If successfully pushed through Congress, ratification of the trade accord would be the last major piece of legislation of the Obama presidency. The prospect that black lawmakers and activists could help to hand him a defeat is complicated by Obama's position as the first black president.

"This is part of President Obama's legacy," said [CBC member Gregory] Meeks.

Will Barack Obama get his legacy wish, along with his legacy library and foundation? The New York Times a few weeks ago told us this about Obama's future plans and needs:

Publicly, Mr. Obama betrays little urgency about his future. Privately, he is preparing for his postpresidency with the same fierce discipline and fund-raising ambition that characterized the 2008 campaign that got him to the White House.

The long-running dinner this past February is part of a methodical effort taking place inside and outside the White House as the president, first lady and a cadre of top aides map out a postpresidential infrastructure and endowment they estimate could cost as much as $1 billion. The president’s aides did not ask any of the guests for library contributions after the dinner, but a number of those at the table could be donors in the future....

So far, Mr. Obama has raised just over $5.4 million from 12 donors, with gifts ranging from $100,000 to $1 million. Michael J. Sacks, a Chicago businessman, gave $666,666. Fred Eychaner, the founder of Chicago-based Newsweb Corp., which owns community newspapers and radio stations, donated $1 million. Mark T. Gallogly, a private equity executive, and James H. Simons, a technology entrepreneur, each contributed $340,000 to a foundation set up to oversee development of the library.

The real push for donations, foundation officials said, will come after Mr. Obama leaves the White House.

Shailagh Murray, a senior adviser, oversees an effort inside the White House to keep attention on Mr. Obama’s future and to ensure that his final 17 months in office, barring crises, serve as a glide path to his life as an ex-president.

"A glide path to his life as an ex-president." I guess you could call him, after his 2008 trademark, "ever hopeful and looking for change." Interesting times indeed.

GP
 

Democratic Senators Who Need to Be Lobbyists in 2017

Each of these Democrats need to be turned into lobbyists at the earliest opportunity. For three of them, that's January 2017 (click to enlarge and share).

The Senate held its final cloture vote on Fast Track, and after a lot of wheeling and dealing over amendments — whose will get a vote and whose won't — the Democrats above voted to help grease the next NAFTA treaty's passage into law.

Pro-TPP writer Alex Rogers, in the National Journal (Ex-Im means "Export-Import"; my emphasis throughout):

Ex-Im Bank Deal Gets Trade Bill Moving

Last-minute floor trading on reauthorizing the bank secured the votes to proceed on fast-track measure.

The Senate advanced a major trade bill Thursday, after a last-minute deal on a vote to reauthorize the Export-Import Bank prompted Sen. Maria Cantwell and others to break away from a powwow on the chamber floor to say, "Aye." ...

The vote, 62 to 38, came over the objections of [anti-TPP] senators, who claimed that the Senate GOP leadership—President Obama's strange bedfellows on free trade—had throttled debate, allowing only two votes so far despite around 200 amendments filed.

"The last time we did fast-track legislation on the Senate floor it was three weeks of debate," said Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown. "This is about three days."

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had set up the procedural vote Thursday despite other time-sensitive deadlines determining the National Security Agency's bulk-collection authority and highway funding. But he seemed aware of the possibility of failing on Wednesday afternoon. "Well we're going to grind on and finish TPA," he said, "if those who say they're for it end up voting for it."

Those members included Washington state Sens. Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray as well as Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who formed a tight circle with McConnell on the floor to hash out an agreement for a future vote on authorizing the Export Import bank, whose charter expires at the end of next month.

What's the Export-Import bank? A slush fund for companies like Boeing and the CEOs who draw their pay from them:

The bank, which helps finances U.S. businesses' exports, is synonymous with "crony capitalism" by conservatives and many House Republicans who wish to kill it. But the bank is also popular with many Senate Republicans, including Graham, who—like the Washington state senators—represents a state with a significant stake in the success of Boeing.

Fast Track is as good as done in the Senate. On to the House.

The Democrats' Trade — Your Rich People for Mine

So here's the trade Maria Cantwell, Patty Murray and the other pro-TPP Democrats made. They will vote to give money to rich people who will benefit from TPP. In exchange other senators will vote to give money to rich people who run companies like Boeing. There were a bunch of trades like this in the Yes-on-TPP camp. Who said there's gridlock in DC?

What did we get? If Fast Track passes the House, we get TPP, the next NAFTA, and the one after that, TPIP, the same bad deal on the Atlantic side. These senators, of course, will do quite well in any case.

A Tale of the Rich and the Rest

The TPP story isn't about the U.S. and the world. It's about the rich and the rest, also known as "capital and labor," as this excellent piece by Harold Meyerson explains:

A trade deal at what cost?

So what gives with the American people? Don’t they realize, as my colleague Charles Krauthammer argued last week, “that free trade is advantageous to both sides”?

The sides to which Krauthammer referred, of course, are nations. But perhaps those who’ve experienced such free-trade consequences as factory closings and lower-paying jobs are thinking about two entirely different sides — capital and labor. ...

When advocates make the case for Congress expanding free trade with Pacific Rim nations by passing the “fast-track bill” currently before it, they cite the U.S. industries that the deal will benefit. A recent Wall Street Journal editorial, for instance, acknowledges that, while U.S. exports to South Korea have hardly increased since we signed a trade accord with that nation in 2011, our service-sector growth there has been substantial. Our international law firms can now practice there, the Journal proclaims, and “American investors can now own telecom operations in that country.”

A great deal for international lawyers and investors — two groups of embattled U.S. proletarians who clearly needed our government’s help.

For other American workers, not so great. The treaty was promoted as benefiting the U.S. auto industry, but since its enactment Korean auto imports to the United States have boomed while sales of U.S.-made cars to South Korea remain all but nonexistent.

Is it any wonder, then, that virtually the entire base of the Democratic Party opposes the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the fast-track bill that would ease its enactment? From coast to coast, Democrats are doing their damnedest to raise the very wages that globalized capital has depressed.

But what about restraining the power of China? Meyerson delivers the knockout blow:

Of all the developments that led to the increase in China’s power and the diminution of ours, the one that definitively did both was Congress’s enactment of permanent normal trade relations with China in 2000. That led to a flood of U.S. companies shuttering their domestic plants and shifting production to China. When Beijing insisted that the price of doing business there was the transfer of proprietary high-technology techniques to China, many of those companies complied.

So a trade deal benefiting U.S. investors at the expense of U.S. workers created the rise in Chinese power, and now, we’re told, a trade deal benefiting U.S. investors at the expense of U.S. workers will help us keep Chinese power in check.

"A trade deal benefiting U.S. investors at the expense of U.S. workers" — an apt description in both cases. A tale of the rich and the rest (meaning us).

If Democrats Want to Lobby for Rich People, They Should Register

And you can help by moving them out of their current job and putting them on the labor market. These TPP Democrats are up for reelection in 2016:

▪ Patty Murray — 202-224-2621 — Now deep in Senate "leadership" and apparently hungry for more of that Schumer-Murray magic.

 

▪ Michael Bennet — 202-224-5852 — Mr. Bipartisan. As chair of the DSCC, he oversaw the 2014 election losses, then afterward said he worried that Republicans would be mad at him.

 

▪ Ron Wyden — 202-224-5244 — The worst. As Ranking Member of the Finance Committee, he was lead perp in the Senate, patient zero for the fatal infection. He deserves an expensive lobbyist office filled with very uncomfortable chairs — soon.

Their phone numbers are above. Do you vote in Washington, Colorado or Oregon ? Are you a donor to senatorial campaigns? Feel free to pick up the phone and speak your mind. They've certainly spoken theirs, or the minds of their "investors," to borrow Meyerson's phrase.

But What About the Senate?

But what about "the Senate," you ask? First, is this a Senate worth fighting for? Second, with votes like these, do you think candidates like these are more likely or less likely to continue the party debranding that led to the 2014 results?

U.S. trade deficit since 1960. That "steep NAFTA slide" starts in 1994, one of Bill Clinton's signature accomplishments.

Frankly, if you really want a better Senate (I do), abandon all twelve names on the graphic above — let their "investors" take care of them — and elect Blue America candidates like Alan Grayson, Donna Edwards, Russ Feingold and P.G. Sittenfeld. You can help by contributing here.

GP