"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross."
-- Sinclair Lewis
Thursday, September 17, 2020
President Herd Mentality Faces Undecided Voters In Pennsylvania-- It Goes As Badly As You Might Expect
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Trump did a 90 minute town-hall event on ABC-TV Tuesday night in Pennsylvania. It went so badly that on Fox Laura Ingraham called it "an ambush." Sure, letting Trump speak off the cuff is always tantamount to an ambush from a right-wing perspective. He's a doofus and he sounds like a doofus. Example, he said he has absolutely no regrets for anything he's done in handling the pandemic and wouldn't have done anything differently. Fine, that alone could lose him the election. This week an intense state by state COVID survey was released by Harvard, Rutgers, Northwestern University and Northeastern University. Overall, it shows most Republican governors continuing to lose support because of the way they've handled the pandemic-- exceptions being the anti-Trump Republican governors in Vermont, Maryland, Ohio and Massachusetts. There is not one state where over 50% of voters (as of late August) approved of Trump's handling of the pandemic! Even the solid red states with large zombie Trump electorates most people do not approve of his pandemic approach. There were the 10 states that gave Trump his biggest margins in 2016 along with his pandemic approval today:
Those are the uncontested states that automatically wind up in Trump's column no matter how disastrous the election is for him. But what about the swing states? These are the 10 states Trump won in 2016 that he's most likely to lose in November-- along with his approval numbers for his handling of the pandemic:
And the Trumpist governors who adhered most closely to Trump's partisan and ideological anti-Science approach to dealing with the pandemic are, according to the survey, are seeing their political careers evaporate. These are their approval numbers in late April to ---> late August. The Trumpist mass murderers:
• Kim Reynolds (R-IA)- 52 ---> 26% • Rick DeSantis (R-FL)- 46 ---> 29% • Doug Ducey (R-AZ)- 56 ---> 30% • Brad Little (R-ID)- 64 ---> 34% • Tate Reeves (R-MS)- 56 ---> 34% • Kevin Stitt (R-OK)- 51 ---> 35% • Greg Abbott (R-TX)- 61 ---> 35% • Brian Kemp (R-GA)- 53 ---> 36% • Henry McMaster (R-SC)- 51 ---> 36% • Mike Parson (R-MO)- 60 ---> 39% • Pete Ricketts (R-NE)- 63 ---> 40% • Bill Lee (R-TN)- 62 ---> 40% • Asa Hutchinson (R-AR)- 65 ---> 43% • Kay Ivey (R-AL)- 60 ---> 44% • Gary Herbert (R-UT)- 60 ---> 44%
Your president: "It would go away without the vaccine… but it’s going to go away a lot faster with it... with time, it goes away; you’ll develop like a herd mentality. It’s going to be herd-developed, and that’s going to happen, that will all happen... But I really believe we’re rounding the corner." His proof: "a lot of people agree with me." There were over 52,000 cases of COVID-19 reported-- a huge spike-- the same day as Trump predicted "herd mentality" would solve everything. One of my own favorite moment's was Trump blaming Biden for not instituting a national mask mandate. One of the undecided voters asked Señor Trumpanzee why he still hasn’t instituted a national mask mandate and why he has largely refused to wear masks himself even though his top public health officials urged the public to do just that. His response was classic Trumpanzee: "Well, I do wear them when I have to and when I’m in hospitals and other locations. But I will say this. They said at the Democrat convention they’re going to do a national mandate. They never did it, because they’ve checked out and they didn’t do it. And a good question is, you ask why Joe Biden-- they said we’re going to do a national mandate on masks." Biden responded on Twitter:
Trump added that "a lot of people think the masks are not good." As Trump was speaking, the U.S. death toll from the Trump Pandemic crossed the 200,000 mark and now stands at 201,193. The 10 states with the most active cases right now-- in other words, states where the death tolls will be highest between now and November 3rd-- include three swing states that could be deadly to Trump's reelection hopes if votes in any of them abandon him:
Trump Continues Making The Impact Of The Pandemic Worse
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The COVID-King
Remember when the White House was telling everyone masks don't work and not to get them. At the time, we warned DWT readers they were lying and that it was only a matter of time before masks became compulsory. They became compulsory in L.A. last Friday. The country is still a long way off for that to become national policy-- but the Trumpist regime has never been serious about flattening the curve anyway. But what the Washington Post did expose yesterday is that they were lying their asses off about the effectiveness of masks, just as we warned you in February. Carol Leonnig wrote that "In mid-March, a National Security Council team rushed to fix what they saw as a threat to the U.S. government’s ability to function amid the advancing pandemic: a lack of masks to protect enough staff on the White House complex. Alarmed by the small cache and the growing signs of an acute shortage of protective gear in the United States, a senior NSC official turned to a foreign government for help." Trump has made every wrong decision at every interval since the first days of the pandemic. It's who he is and who he has always been and who he will always be. Bill Gates warned us about the latest misstep: defunding the WHO. (Note the brainless Trumpists with their foolish comments protecting their would-be führer.)
At The Guardian, Helen Davidson reported that many public health experts see Trump's move to defund the WHO a crime against humanity. Hoping to deflect from his own criminal mismanagement of the crisis, Trump is trying to blame the WHO.
The move also drew a rebuke from the head of the United Nations, who said the WHO was “absolutely critical to the world’s efforts to win the war against Covid-19.” Late on Tuesday Trump declared US funding would be put on hold for 60-90 days pending a review “to assess the World Health Organization’s role in severely mismanaging and covering up the spread of the coronavirus.” The US is the single largest contributor to the WHO.
Richard Horton, the editor-in-chief of the Lancet medical journal, wrote that Trump’s decision was “a crime against humanity … Every scientist, every health worker, every citizen must resist and rebel against this appalling betrayal of global solidarity.” Antonio Guterres, the UN secretary general, said it was “not the time” to cut funding or to question errors. “Once we have finally turned the page on this epidemic, there must be a time to look back fully to understand how such a disease emerged and spread its devastation so quickly across the globe, and how all those involved reacted to the crisis,” said Guterres. “The lessons learned will be essential to effectively address similar challenges, as they may arise in the future. But now is not that time … It is also not the time to reduce the resources for the operations of the World Health Organization or any other humanitarian organization in the fight against the virus.” ...Trump’s pronouncement came amid sustained criticism of his failure to prepare for the epidemic, which has infected more than 600,000 people and killed more than 24,000 inside his country. The US is the worst affected country in the world in terms of infection numbers. On Wednesday it was reported that $1,200 relief cheques for as many as 70 million people could be delayed for several days because Trump wanted his name printed on them.
Of course, there are always worse things that Trump can come up with. In fact, Washington Post reporters Philip Rucker, Robert Costa, Ashley Parker wrote that he's made up his mind to try to force the country open on the arbitrary May Day. They wrote that "Impatient with the economic devastation wrought by social distancing and other mitigation measures-- and fearful of the potential damage to his reelection chances-- Trump has been adamant in private discussions with advisers about reopening the country next month. Yet within Trump’s circle, officials say, there is acknowledgment that it will not be possible for the president to simply flip a switch...Trump said Tuesday night that he plans to ask the governors of all 50 states later this week to implement “a very powerful reopening plan” in their states at whatever time they deem appropriate. He said more than 20 states are in “extremely good shape” and are poised to reopen their economies very soon, “maybe even before the date of May 1... A return to normal likely would take many months, administration officials said, and should be orchestrated methodically and guided by medical data. For instance, officials are considering beginning with areas deemed to have the lowest risk of a major outbreak." Like Minnehaha County, South Dakota?
These are the numbers of confirmed cases in each state as of this morning:
Where does Trump plan to open up business? In Alaska and Wyoming, where virtually there are no closed down businesses on a significant national scale? Although I hear the Alaska cruising industry is huge. And by the way, I imagine this guy is going to get fired soon:
[A] team of government officials led by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has created a public health strategy to combat the coronavirus and reopen parts of the country, according to a draft memo obtained by the Washington Post. The strategy contains detailed instructions for a phased reopening of institutions such as schools, child-care facilities, summer camps, parks, faith-based organizations and restaurants. ...In late March, Trump was persuaded by the two physicians on his coronavirus task force, Anthony S. Fauci and Deborah Birx, as well as other advisers to extend the federal social distancing guidelines for an additional 30 days, through the end of April. Since making that decision, however, Trump has been agitating to find ways for businesses to reopen, mindful that he could end up paying a political price for the staggering number of unemployed Americans. Inside the White House, it has been clear to officials since last week that there is no longer much of a debate-- at least with the president-- about starting the reopening process May 1, said numerous current and former senior administration officials, most of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to candidly discuss the state of play. “He desperately wants to reopen as much as possible on May 1,” said one former official briefed on internal discussions. “He’s been that way from the beginning, and he has not wavered. He seems determined to do it. But there’s a growing realization that you won’t be able to open everything up by May 1. Even he realizes that’s a bad idea.” Rather, the debate this week has been over how to implement the return, what data could be used to justify the decision, and how to build public support for it to provide the president maximum political cover, according to one senior administration official involved in the discussions and a second person who has been briefed on them. Trump’s advisers are trying to shield the president from political accountability should his move to reopen the economy prove premature and result in lost lives, and so they are trying to mobilize business executives, economists and other prominent figures to buy into the eventual White House plan, so that if it does not work, the blame can be shared broadly, according to two former administration officials familiar with the efforts. ...Some executives are wary the White House plan could backfire if it proves premature and leads to a public health catastrophe, according to three people familiar with the effort. Some also are concerned that under federal law, the contents of the meetings would have to become public, should the body meet a certain number of times. Conservative advocacy groups such as FreedomWorks and the American Legislative Exchange Council are also mobilizing to help push the White House and Republican lawmakers to relax public health restrictions. Informally, they have started calling their group “Save Our Country,” although the project has no official name. The Heritage Foundation is launching a parallel set of working groups that is expected to deliver its recommendations on reopening the economy to Vice President Pence. One idea that has emerged among these conservative groups is to push a liability shield for businesses that would insulate them from lawsuits if their employees get the coronavirus while at work, according to two people familiar with internal discussions.
Rick Wilson is a GOP strategist and consultant who ran George W. Bush's campaign in Florida and moved to NYC to run Giuliani's mayoral campaign. He's probably best known now as an inveterate Trump-hater on cable TV. He's also author of the best-selling Everything Trump Touches Dies. Yesterday the Daily Beast published a piece by Wilson, Every Member of Team Trump Is Now Enabling Treason. "When," wrote Wilson, "Donald Trump was asked Wednesday by ABC’s George Stephanopoulos if he’d accept intelligence and campaign help from a foreign power, he blew up Washington and gave us a sharp insight into the true Trump. This was no fifth-dimensional chess move; it was the commander in chief saying the quiet, treasonous part out loud. Set aside that accepting such help is illegal—after all, the laws are for the little people in Trump’s Great America-- it was Peak Trump."
Talking about Large Adult Son Don Jr. testifying before the Senate again about his infamous Trump Tower meeting with a Russian emissary promising dirt on Hillary Clinton (“If it’s what you say, I love it!”), Trump replied: “I think I’d take it.” In Trump speak, that was, “Please send Biden oppo to Donnie@StableGenius.com asap!!” Rest assured, Don’s not calling the FBI, so bring it on! Mr. “No Collusion” on Wednesday welcomed collusion with and aid from any and all hostile foreign powers to ensure his re-election in 2020. Trump invited all comers to fuck America, good and hard, if it means he gets the goods-- again, I may point out-- on his Democratic opponent. Trump proved Wednesday exactly what we’ve known about him for quite some time-- he combines treachery, stupidity, and villainy in equal measure. After his disgusting performance in the Oval Office on Wednesday, I’d call Trump a political whore for foreign powers, but that would give whores a bad name.
This is nothing new. Let’s not forget, Trump requested this kind of help in 2016. It wasn’t a joke. It wasn’t “Trump being Trump.” It was Trump on live television soliciting Russian intelligence service help in defeating Hillary. He received that help through the GRU’s subsidiary WikiLeaks within hours of his ask. All Vladimir Putin has received in return is an American president who lets the Russian leader run wild, who sides with a former KGB officer over American intelligence services at every turn, and who displays utter obeisance to the Russian leader. Kak skazat’, “Return on investment?” We live in a world of counterfactuals, hypotheticals, and more tu quoque scenarios than a reasonable person can process. That said, I have to beg my Republican friends to imagine-- just for a moment-- what you’d be doing if Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama said they would accept the help of a foreign power in a campaign and not report it to the FBI. I’ll tell you what you’d do: You’d lose your fucking shit. You’d spurt blood from your goddamn eyes. You’d corner the market on guillotine, tumbrel, and pitchfork stocks. A gibbet would appear in Lafayette Park. Fox News producers and on-air talent would grind out weeks of videos until they collapsed, as sick and exhausted as they keep saying Trump’s opponents must be. They’d work like galley slaves, a nearly naked Lou Dobbs beating a massive kettle drum to keep them producing screeching agitporn. Entire forests would be leveled and pulped to write the condemnatory articles and books. The lights would dim on the Eastern Seaboard, and nuclear power plants would be brought online to support the massive surge of electricity needed to power a hundred thousand new servers hosting the hundred million articles and videos you’d make condemning this outrageous act. You’d demand not only impeachment, but also drawing, quartering, and the wholesale razing of the villages of everyone involved. You’d call anyone else doing this a traitor, a villain, and the worst person ever to hold the office of president. But we all know what’s going to happen to Trump, don’t we? It’s already happening: Not a goddamned thing. A few Republicans in the Senate will-- ever so briefly-- furrow their brows. Some will issue anodyne comments that if you squint and look really closely could be vaguely suggestive of something in the general vicinity of an elliptical criticism of Trump’s invitation to foreign governments to fuck us. In the House, the Clown Caucus will run around with their dicks out, as per normal, and bleat about Jim Comey or Chris Steele or Bruce Ohr or Peter Strzok or whatever imaginary Deep State conspiracy they’re trying to froth into existence today. They’ll race to Fox shows like Bonfire of the Hannity to bellow about witch hunts and reap millions from the boob donors on their email lists: Help me fight the Deep State and protect President Trump from Soros-Clinton-Hussein Obama Witch Hunt Sharia Lesbianism. Bill Barr’s Trump Family Legal Defense and Obstruction Center will do exactly fuck-all. Nothing, exactly nothing will be said or done about this outrage. A real attorney general would demand a private meeting in the Oval Office and would give President Fuckwit both barrels. A real attorney general would nut-punch a president who so obviously invites foreign intelligence services to compromise the so-called leader of the free world. Bill Barr is not a real attorney general. He is a family retainer for Trump Inc., a small man in a big job without the moral compass or legal sensibility God gave the common rat.
Trump also threw Christopher Wray under the bus Wednesday, spitting “The FBI director is wrong” for saying a person should call the FBI if a foreign government offers them information intended to sway our elections. But Wray won’t quit. Neither will Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats or CIA Director Gina Haspel. No one will. They tell themselves a pretty lie that their replacements will be worse and that they’re the last ones standing between Trump, compromise, and chaos. They’re wrong. Every one of them is now an enabler at best or a co-conspirator at worst. These are fearful, honorless men and women serving the most honorless man ever to besmirch the office of the president. What is even more mind-boggling is that Trump uttered this line of utterly treasonous bile while sitting behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office. Trump solicited foreign help while he sat behind the desk where Obama was briefed on the raid that would capture and kill Osama bin Laden. The desk where George W. Bush spoke to the nation in the hours after the 9/11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, D.C. It was the desk where George Herbert Walker Bush helped end the Cold War without firing a shot and where Reagan plotted the end of Soviet communism. It was where JFK faced down Castro and Khrushchev as they tried to install nuclear weapons 90 miles south of Miami. Trump’s ichor, his slimy amorality, his reek of greed and treason is an insult to the work, legacy, and memory of the men of both political parties who put America before their own egos, their own political fortunes. The sense of anger, outrage, and disgust on the part of Americans with the slightest sense of conscience is palpable and justified. That is directed not only at Trump but all those who serve and enable him, and dare call that public service. Trump took an oath-- the most sacred oath in our nation. You know it: “I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” On Wednesday, Trump confirmed for the world that the oath of office is like every other oath he’s ever sworn, every wedding vow and promise he’s made, and every contract he’s ever signed. Trump views it-- and us-- as purely contingent, solely about his personal (and now) political benefit. It holds up only so long as he’s getting laid or getting paid.
John Oliver was never a Republican strategist or consultant. The night before last he explained on his show why he thinks impeachment is now the inevitable way to go. I hope Pelosi and Hoyer watched that HBO show-- or that someone suggests to them, what I'm suggesting to you: Watch:
Trump's Over-Hyped ABC News Interview Bombed-- Is No One Paying Attention To The Liar-In-Chief Anymore?
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Trump and ABC News expected a ratings bonanza for last Sunday's hour-long special with George Stephanopoulos. It sure wasn't Game of Thrones; instead it was a stinker. It came in 3rd in the time slot, with just 3.91 million viewers. By way of comparison, the big ratings winners that night were the 2019 U.S. Open Golf Championship (7.29 million) and 60 Minutes (4.67 million in the same time slot). Trump managed to beat out a rerun of America’s Funniest Home Videos (3.50 million). The week before, ABC had run Celebrity Family Feud in the slot and that had 6.1 million viewers. Anyone think Trump gives a hoot about ratings? He's bigger than that, right? The BBC review was interesting. Their DC correspondent, Anthony Zurcher, noted that when Trumpanzee started waxing eloquent about his tax returns, his chief of staff coughed to warn Trump to be careful. Trump reacted badly. "When Mick Mulvaney, acting White House chief of staff," wrote Zurcher, "coughed in the background of the Oval Office interview, Mr Trump became visibly upset and asked his top aide to leave the room. 'Let's do that over, he's coughing in the middle of my answer,' Mr Trump said. 'I don't like that, you know. I don't like that. If you're going to cough, please leave the room,' the president added, pointing and shaking his head in disapproval. 'You just can't, you just can't cough.' The exchange happened as Mr Trump defended his decision not to turn over his "fantastic financial statement" to the US Senate, adding that he 'might' reveal it someday." For people waiting for the flat-out lies... well, they didn't have to wait long. [PolitiFact hasn't gone through all the lies yet, but they did publish an essay on how GOP pundits have been lying about the interview in an attempt to make Trump's comments and behavior look less criminal and treasonous but if you're interested, you'll have to avail yourself of the link and check it out yourself. Time to get back to the BBC and one of the mega-whoppers of the hour.]
The Trump campaign has fired several of its hired pollsters after leaks showed Mr Trump losing to Democrats next year in several key battleground states, according to US media. But in the interview, Mr Trump denied there were any unflattering popularity figures, maintaining that his team's internal polls "show I'm winning everywhere." He dismissed leaked opinion surveys showing Democratic White House hopeful Joe Biden leading in swing states such as Michigan and Wisconsin. Mr Trump stated that "those polls don't exist." On Monday, he returned to the theme on Twitter, saying: "Only Fake Polls show us behind the Motley Crew"-- a reference to the crowded Democratic presidential field. Trump argued that no president has ever been as mistreated as himself, including Abe Lincoln, who was shot dead. "If you can believe it, Abraham Lincoln was treated supposedly very badly," he said. "But nobody's been treated badly like me." Mr Trump, who calls himself a student of history, has previously drawn comparisons with the 16th president. During a rally last September in Montana, Mr Trump said Lincoln's legendary Gettysburg Address "was excoriated by the fake news." And during his first election campaign, Mr Trump claimed: "With the exception of the late, great Abraham Lincoln, I can be more presidential than any president that's ever held this office." Trump smiled and shrugged when ABC asked about reports of Navy pilots seeing unidentified flying objects.
"They do say, I mean, I've seen and I've read and I've heard, and I did have one very brief meeting on it," said the president. "But people are saying they're seeing UFOs. "Do I believe it? Not particularly." When ABC asked him if the US president would be made aware if there was evidence of extraterrestrials, Mr Trump did not directly answer the question. He said: "Well, I think my great pilots, our great pilots would know. And some of them really see things that are a little bit different than in the past, so we're going to see, but we'll watch it." With election season nearing, the Republican president indicated he would launch a new plan to revamp the nation's healthcare system. "Obamacare has been a disaster," Mr Trump told ABC as he was driven in the presidential limousine dubbed The Beast. He promised that the plan for "phenomenal healthcare" will be unveiled "in about two months, maybe less." Mr Trump last week teased details at an unrelated White House event, saying: "Nobody knows what it is. It's going to be a big surprise, but it's going to be a very pleasant one." Trump, who once promised to completely eliminate the national debt over two terms in office, defended its continued climb under his own watch. "They doubled the debt on nonsense," he said of the Obama administration. But when the interviewer noted the debt has not stopped accumulating during Mr Trump's presidency, he responded: "Sure. But I have to rebuild the military." He added: "We have beautiful new F-35s and F-18s and new rifles, new uniforms." Since Mr Trump took office, the US has added over $2tn (£1.6tn) to the federal debt, and it now stands at more than $22tn.
Another stiff: Hillary and Clinton the Broadway show, starring Laura Metcalf and John Lithgow folded after just over 100 performances, a month early. Reason: underwhelming ticket sales. The play, which cost $4.2 million to produce, began performances in March and drew mixed-to-positive reviews, but has struggled to fill seats, reaching only 36 percent of its gross potential in the last two weeks. Its cumulative box office stands at $4.7 million. That wasn't the first indication the public has had enough of the Clintons for a while. Recall last December when ticket prices for the Bill and Hillary 13-stop paid speaking tour were cut in half, and then in half again-- and in the futile hope to have some people in the seats, sold for just 10% of the original asking price? People are not happy about politicians in general and have the feeling that we're being ripped off by then. A few, here and there, have been shot. That's a little extreme but ignoring them? Sounds about right, especially when it comes to putting more of our money in their pockets.
Barbara Lee is ready for impeachment proceedings to begin.Thursday, she told her constituents that "The Trump administration’s corrupt behavior surrounding the Mueller report has been startling to say the least. Both Trump and his right-wing surrogates have pushed blatant lies, twisting the truth in a thinly-veiled cover-up. After a nearly two-year long investigation into the Trump campaign’s criminal behavior, Special Counsel Robert Mueller made it clear: 'If we had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so.' This is a big deal. After two years' worth of extensive interviews, intense background checks, and multiple convictions of Trump’s closest allies, Mueller could not clear Trump of any wrongdoing. And just last night, Trump admitted he would use dirt on political rivals from foreign governments. That’s right, Trump just welcomed foreign governments to interfere in our elections-- again... Mueller and his report gave the House everything we need to start impeachment proceedings." Jonathan Chait's headline was a provocative Trump Goes on TV to Solicit 2020 Foreign Collusion. "Trump," he wrote, "continues to show every sign of hoping and expecting to benefit from foreign collusion in 2020. In May, he intended to send Rudy Giuliani to Ukraine to pressure the government to supply dirt on Joe Biden. He and his ally, Mitch McConnell, are blocking measures (including ones with bipartisan support) to help safeguard elections against foreign attacks and social-media propaganda. His message to Russia, or any other government that wants a close relationship with him, is obvious: Do anything you can to help me win. Trump also said the whole Republican caucus takes foreign dirt on their opponents. "When you go and talk, honestly, to congressmen, they all do it, they always have, and that’s the way it is. It’s called oppo research." That has made-- this whole controversy has made-- Republicans on Capitol Hill very nervous. McCarthy is trying, absurdly, to blame it all on Adam Schiff! Less sleazy Republicans than McCarthy-- pretty much meaning any other Republican-- are taking this more seriously. Tom Cole (R-OK): "I don’t think it’s appropriate to ever do anything like that and I think you have an obligation to pick up the phone and call the FBI if we know this is from a foreign government. I am just worried about the general carelessness of that remark. I don’t think that’s going to sit well with most Americans. It shouldn’t. It’s just not an appropriate way to behave in a political campaign." Mike McCaul, one of the most vulnerable Republicans being targeted for political extinction is 2020, said "I wouldn’t accept it,” said Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX), adding, “I don’t trust Russians." Mike Siegel, the progressive Democrat who nearly defeated McCaul in 2018-- with no help from the DCCC-- is going to finish the job next year. He noted that "McCaul's refusal to criticize the President, even when Trump flouts the rule of law and undermines the foundations of our democracy, is unfortunately par for the course. If McCaul and his Republican buddies would use their power to keep the President in line-- instead of occasionally distancing themselves through ineffectual comments-- we would not be in the position we are in now. Instead, we have an out-of-control President, openly courting foreign interference in our elections. Again."
On Tuesday, Trump gave us direct evidence of his contempt toward the most foundational precept of our democracy-- that no person, not even the president, is above the law. He filed a brief in the nation’s second-most-important court that takes the position that Congress cannot investigate the president, except possibly in impeachment proceedings. It’s a spectacularly anti-constitutional brief, and anyone who harbors such attitudes toward our Constitution’s architecture is not fit for office. Trump’s brief is nothing if not an invitation to commencing impeachment proceedings that, for reasons set out in the Mueller report, should have already commenced. The case involves a House committee’s efforts to follow up on the testimony of Trump’s now-incarcerated former attorney, Michael Cohen, that Trump had allegedly committed financial and tax fraud, and allegedly paid off paramours in violation of campaign finance laws. The House Committee on Oversight and Reform subpoenaed Trump’s accountants in mid-April for relevant documents, and Trump tried to block the move, only to be sternly rebuked in mid-May by a federal judge in Washington. The appeals brief filed Monday by Trump attacks that decision. But to describe Trump’s brief is to refute it. He argues that Congress is “trying to prove that the President broke the law” and that that’s something Congress can’t do, because it’s “an exercise of law enforcement authority that the Constitution reserves to the executive branch.” But in fact, Congress investigates lawbreaking, and potential lawbreaking, all the time. Mobsters, fraudsters, government employees, small companies, big companies-- like it or not, all types of people and businesses get subpoenaed from time to time so that Congress can figure out whether current laws are effective, whether new laws are needed, whether sufficient governmental resources are being devoted to the task, whether more disclosure to the government or the public is required, or greater penalties, and so on. To this, Trump’s brief complains that “Congress could always make this (non-falsifiable) argument” to justify any investigation. But that’s simply the result of the fact that, as the district court explained, Congress’s “power to investigate is deeply rooted in the nation’s history.” Congress, relying on English parliamentary tradition, has performed this function since the founding. To accept Trump’s argument to the contrary-- to say Congress can’t look into matters that might involve crimes-- would in many cases gut Congress’s ability to gain information it needs to legislate. And perversely, in Trump’s case, it makes a virtue of the fact that he has been accused of committing crimes. Which brings us to the main point: England’s King George III was above the law, but the founders of our republic wanted a system that would divide power and have the branches check one another. The idea that only the president can investigate the president is an argument for autocrats, not Americans. Trump says “trust me,” but that was exactly the argument the founders rebelled against. They knew that public officials would not always be angels, and that power had to be checked and dispersed. As James Madison put it in Federalist No. 51, “It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government.” The only redeeming quality of Trump’s legal brief is its seeming, grudging acknowledgment that Congress’s powers might be greater in an impeachment proceeding. That has things only half-right. Yes, Congress could investigate Trump’s finances in an impeachment proceeding, but it can do so without launching the formal process of impeachment. That said, Trump’s brief can be construed as an invitation to commence impeachment proceedings. In those proceedings, Trump’s attitudes toward our Constitution’s checks and balances, in addition to evidence of obstruction of justice, must play a key role. Indeed, the third article of impeachment against President Richard M. Nixon, adopted by the House Judiciary Committee in 1974, charged him with defying lawful subpoenas issued by the House Judiciary Committee. Not only has Trump done that, but he has also demonized judges who disagree with him and insulted the press (despite its constitutional status) for calling him to account. Other leaders around the world may behave this way, but these are not proper actions of a president of the United States. What makes the United States exceptional is its commitment to its constitutional architecture, particularly divided powers. For the past three decades, many constitutional law classes have begun with Nixon’s breathtaking statement to David Frost in May 1977: “Well, when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal.” Generations of students have gasped, shocked that a former president could say such a thing. This time, it’s not a former president but a sitting one. Every principle behind the rule of law requires the commencement of a process now to make this president a former one.
As the morning crew at Politico pointed out, Trump handed those who want to impeach him a gift. "far be it for us to divine why the president said this," they wrote, "and what exactly is going through his head. But the people we spoke to Wednesday night said it is rooted in a win-at-any-and-all-costs mentality -- a life-is-complicated vibe that tries to paint everyone else as rubes, and yet ignores the guts of American law. Furthermore, it reflects his thinking that he hates the idea the 2016 election was stolen from him, so he tries to rationalize the very things he and his campaign stand accused of doing. In our time covering Congress-- going back a decade-- we’ve never heard anyone ever even privately say they would accept foreign assistance in an election. Ever. And a lot of members have said crazy stuff to us privately!... If you are a Republican or a Democrat and you'd like to defend the president here, drop us a line. OK... how about a floor objection from Trump puppet Marsha Blackburn? Pelosi's comment was some bullshit about what a bad boy Trump is but said Democrats are "no closer" to impeaching him. At Bloomberg News, Jonathan Bernstein wrote that Trump's Awful Comments Need a Real Response. He wants Republicans to take a stand, reminding his readers that Senor Trumpanzee supplied "a helpful reminder on Wednesday that he’s entirely unfit for the office he holds by once again welcoming foreign interference in U.S. elections... How bad is all this? Most of the comments I’ve seen condemning Trump’s remarks-- none, I should note, from Republicans in Congress, although perhaps I missed some-- treat it as grievous misbehavior for a political candidate. True enough. But it’s considerably worse coming from a sitting president. Trump’s obligations in office extend far beyond following campaign laws. He’s the country’s commander in chief and top diplomat, and as such responsible for making clear to all foreign nations and other groups that messing with the internal affairs of the United States will have serious consequences. Instead, he’s basically inviting everyone in."
As the political scientist Jennifer Victor says: “Democracy happens when people use a legitimate process to select leaders from among its citizens. If people from another country influence the selection of leaders, the sovereignty of the democracy is eroded. If foreigners affect an election, the results are comprised.” The flip side is that the U.S. government is supposed to conduct foreign policy on behalf of the nation, not on behalf of the personal interests-- political and private-- of the president. So what should happen now? For one thing, it would be helpful for Wray to speak up and explain why Trump is wrong. If he doesn’t do so on his own, perhaps the House Judiciary Committee could invite him to explain it to them. This would be an appropriate time, too, for former President George W. Bush to say something. (Whatever one thinks of Bush’s terms in office, it’s hard to imagine him inviting a foreign nation to disrupt our elections.) The same for any former FBI directors, secretaries of defense and state, and other heavyweights, especially Republicans. But we all know the truth: This is really on the current Republicans who could do something about it. That includes the people at Fox News and other Republican-aligned media, who don’t actually have to pretend that encouraging foreign nations to influence U.S. elections is exemplary behavior for a president. And it includes Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and other congressional Republicans, who have the ability to put an end to this if they want. As long as they’re all willing to join Trump in this kind of despicable behavior, there’s no reason to expect him to stop.
Notice, in the video, how agitated Trump got at the mention of the FBI chief-- the one he hand-picked as head of the FBI? According to reporting from Darren Samuelsohn and Natasha Bertrand yesterday, Trump's willingness to accept foreign assistance has essentially invited overseas spies to meddle with 2020 presidential campaigns, undoing months of work. They wrote that "Nearly two years ago, FBI Director Chris Wray set up an office tasked solely with stopping the type of Russian interference efforts that infected the 2016 campaign. On Wednesday night, President Donald Trump undercut the whole operation in a matter of seconds... America’s enemies will see Trump’s comments and likely 'come out of the woodwork like never before to try to influence the president,' said longtime FBI veteran Frank Figliuzzi, who served as the bureau’s assistant director for counterintelligence until 2012. 'And it’s going to be more difficult to defend against because they’ll try harder than ever to mask their attempts.'"
Rand Paul And Justin Amash-- Sticking It To Trump?
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Rand Paul frequently makes constitutional arguments against Trump's behavior and huffs and puffs about voting against them... but in the end, he's a pretty dependable Trump enabler. Murkowski and Collins have bigger balls than he does. Yesterday the Bowling Green Daily News in his home state that reported that Paul announced at the Southern Kentucky Lincoln Day Dinner that he "can’t vote to give extra-Constitutional powers to the president." In a speech that started off praising Trump's supposed accomplishments to the crowd of nearly 200 Republican officeholders and supporters, Paul surprised the room by interjecting his opinion that Trump’s declaration of a national emergency at the Mexican border is a dangerous precedent. He said "I can’t vote to give the president the power to spend money that hasn’t been appropriated by Congress. We may want more money for border security, but Congress didn’t authorize it. If we take away those checks and balances, it’s a dangerous thing." Since Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Susan Collins (R-ME) and Thom Tillis (R-NC) have already announced they're voting for the Resolution of Disapproval, Paul's vote would pass it-- as long as Schumer can force Arizona Democratic Trump ally Kyrsten Sinema to vote with the Democrats for a change. Justin Amash (R-MI) already voted for the same bill in the House, one of just 13 Republicans who did:
• Justin Amash (R-MI) • Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) • Mike Gallagher (R-WI) • Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-WA) • Will Hurd (R-TX) • Dusty Johnson (R-SD) • Tom Massie (R-KY) • Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) • Tom Rooney (R-FL) • Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI) • Elise Stefanik (R-NY) • Fred Upton (R-MI) • Greg Walden (R-OR)
Amash is a pretty strict constitutionalist. On State of the Union, Jake Tapper asked him if there's a national security crisis on the border, which is what Trump is claiming.
Amash: I think there's a fair debate that there are big problems on the border. Some people would call it a crisis. But that has to go through Congress. So, we have a legislative branch, Congress, that handles these issues. And the president doesn't get to decide that he can override Congress simply because Congress doesn't do what he wants. I know that there are a lot of people in the country who agree with the president, and that's why we have Congress, so we can debate these issues. And if there were an emergency in the sense that the president is describing, there would be a lot more consensus. When a house is on fire, nobody is debating whether they should go into save people or whether they should put out the fire. Everyone understands that's an emergency. The fact that there's a debate going on here, and there is not consensus, indicates it's not an emergency in the sense that the president is describing, and he can't just go around Congress. Tapper: You tweeted this week-- quote-- "If you think my job is to support the president 100 percent, then you don't understand what it means to be a representative in Congress. My job is to support the Constitution 100 percent" -- unquote. Do you think that Republicans who are supporting this national emergency are abdicating their responsibilities to the Constitution? Amash: I think so, yes. I don't think that they are all intending to do that. I think many of them are making arguments. They're trying to make legal arguments. They say, well, Congress has passed legislation giving the president this power. So I don't think that they are thinking to themselves, oh, I just want the president to violate the Constitution. But I think the president is violating our constitutional system. And I don't think Congress can grant legislative powers to the president by statute. You can't just pass a statute that says, the president now has appropriations power and bypass Congress. I don't think that's-- that's allowed under our constitutional system. And the best check on the president's action is Congress. It's not the courts. Our system is not designed so that the courts are going to resolve these disputes all the time between the legislative branch the executive branch. We have to protect our own power. And that's what I'm doing. And I'm hopeful many Republican senators will agree.
A lot of people I hired to play concerts at Stony Brook died young and not long after they played their shows-- Jim Morrison (27), Jimi Hendrix (27), Janis Joplin (27), Otis Redding (26), Tim Buckley (28). Tim Hardin died in 1980, age 39, still young, still tragic... but at least not right after his concert at my school! Last Thursday on Nicole Sanders'
show I held the phone up to me speakers and let her listeners hear at little of "Reason to Believe," my favorite Tim Hardin song. I did it because a member of Congress, in response to me asking about Jerry Nadler having said "I view this president and his conduct as the greatest threat to the democratic system and to the constitutional government since the Civil War, whether it’s threatening the newspapers or threatening the judiciary or calling people who criticize him treasonous," told me to be sure to watch Nadler on Sunday. The implication was that he would announce that the preliminary steps towards impeachment hearings were beginning.
(Unless ABC News has removed it, as they've been doing all day), this is a video of George Stephanopoulos' whole show, but don't worry-- Nadler was the first guest. In the intro-- with Nadler sitting right across from him-- Stephanopoulos used the "I" word. First question: "Did you learn anything from the Michael Cohen hearing this week that would lead you to open an impeachment investigation?" Listen to how Nadler-- no doubt having gone over the wording carefully with Pelosi-- handled the question. He didn't flat out say "yes," as he should have, but gave us plenty of reason to believe.
Stephanopoulos was trying to get him to admit they were beginning the impeachment process. Nadler deftly danced around it, although he said, flatly-- seemingly in contradiction of the bullshit Pelosi has been spouting all year-- that what his committee has to do is not sit around waiting for Mueller. "Crimes and impeachable offenses are two different things. There can be crimes that are impeachable offenses and impeachable offenses that are not crimes. They’re just two different tests. But we have to lay out for the American people and we can’t depend on the Mueller investigation for this. The Mueller investigation, number one, we don’t know when it’s ending despite lots of rumors, number two it’s focused on specific crimes. And we have to focus much more broadly on abuses of power and what I said a moment ago... We are starting this investigation, we will-- tomorrow we will be issuing document requests to over 60 different people and individuals from the White House, to the Department of Justice, Donald Trump Jr., Alan Weisselberg to begin investigations to present the case to the American people about obstruction of justice, corruption and abuse of power... [W] will be releasing the list tomorrow."
He aded that his committee's investigation will go "far beyond collusion. We’ve seen all the democratic norms that we depend on for democratic government attacked by the administration. We’ve seen attacks on the freedom of the press, the press called the enemy of the people, we’ve seen attacks on the Department of Justice, attacks on the FBI, attacks on-- on judges. All of these are very corrosive to liberty and to the proper functioning of government and to our constitutional system. All this has to be looked at and the facts laid out to the American people." When Stephanopoulos asked him if he thinks Trump obstructed justice, Nadler sad, flatly, "Yes, I do... It’s very clear that the president obstructed justice. It’s very clear-- 1,100 times he referred to the Mueller investigation as a 'witch hunt,' he tried to-- he fired-- he tried to protect Flynn from being investigated by the FBI. He fired Comey in order to stop the 'Russian thing,' as he told NBC News. He-- he’s dangled pardons... he’s intimidated witnesses in public... We have to do the investigations and get all this. We do not now have the evidence all sorted out and everything to do-- to do an impeachment. Before you impeach somebody, you have to persuade the American public that it ought to happen. You have to persuade enough of the-- of the opposition party voters, Trump voters, that you’re not just trying to... We may or may not get there but what we have to do is protect the rule of law."
All the members of the Judiciary Committee I spoke with are eager to get going with this. Ted Lieu was in Selma, Alabama with John Lewis yesterday, but when he got back this morning, he told me that "Unlike last term, the House Judiciary Committee will actually conduct oversight over the Executive Branch. Instead of holding stupid hearings about why Republican legislators don't get enough likes on Facebook, we will be holding hearings on whether any crimes were committed by Executive Branch officials and those within their orbit. We have launched a massive investigation into Trump, his family and his associates. We do not work for Trump. We are part of a separate and coequal branch of government. And we intend to honor our oath of office."
