A Man Is Only As Good As His Word? So How Do Closet Cases, Like Lindsey Graham Survive In Electoral Politics?

 

I'm gay. When I realized it, I was living in Amsterdam. I went to a psychologist and told him. He looked at me oddly and said, basically, "So? You need me to give you the addresses of gay bars?" Then I flew to the U.S., for my first visit back home in 4 years, to tell my mother. Her response was to tell me I couldn't borrow her wigs. Years later my first corporate job was working for a gay man. My sexuality never held back my career and I rose to be president of the parent company. I'm glad I never went down the closet road. People in closets live a life reflexively and usually increasingly dishonest. They lie about who they are, what they are and, eventually, about everything and start living a life where serial dishonestly becomes the essence of being, more so than any semblance of honesty. It's the slipperiest of slopes to start down and so, so tragic for so many people.

It's the slope poor Lindsey Graham felt he had to go down if he was going to be a successful politician in South Carolina. And, his life has been one gigantic lie, both professionally and personally. "Everyone knows" and even colleagues and acquaintances who find him likable, simpatico and amusing, all tend to pity him. And now it may be catching up with him politically, as an unlikely Democratic opponent has him locked in a what should be an easy reelection campaign but is basically tied and too close to call.

On Saturday, Washington Post reporters Sean Sullivan and Seung Min Kim wrote that 4 and a half years ago Lindsey "sat across a conference table from his colleagues and issued them a dare. 'I want you to use my words against me,' said Graham, a South Carolina Republican with a flair for drama. Pointing with his index finger, Graham continued: 'If there’s a Republican president in 2016 and a vacancy occurs in the last year of the first term, you can say Lindsey Graham said let’s let the next president, whoever it might be, make that nomination.' On Saturday, Graham was singing a different tune, pledging support for President Trump in 'any effort to move forward regarding the recent vacancy created by the passing of Justice Ginsburg.' The stark turnabout from 2016 marked the latest chapter in Graham’s dramatic reinvention of himself during the Trump presidency, morphing from an old-school Senate institutionalist and bipartisan dealmaker into a stalwart soldier for the president’s agenda."

Democrats and other opponents of The Donald very much would like to take Graham up on his offer-- to hold his words against him. I don't know how effective this Lincoln Project ad will be with South Carolina voters, but I suspect someone will figure out exactly how to hold his words against him in a way that will cause him no end of political pain. After all, no one likes a liar... well, except for Republicans who apparently love liars:





"Graham," our Post duo reminded us, "is chairman of the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee charged with processing Supreme Court nominees, and he is in the midst of a competitive reelection campaign that could factor closely into the fight for control of the upper chamber. His comments Saturday, coming after less-decisive statements in the hours after Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death Friday, amounted to the latest indication of how Republican leaders are rallying quickly around a strategy of seeking to fill her seat this year. That prospect has stoked widespread outrage among Senate Democrats, who are calling Republicans hypocrites for the move after blocking President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee in 2016 because they said the president chosen by voters that fall should make the pick.

“There’s no doubt everything will be sort of on the table if we’re thrown into a world where you can’t trust somebody’s word and precedents get changed at will to fit your priorities of the moment,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) said in response to Graham’s decision to align behind Trump and go back on what he said in 2016.

During Saturday’s call, Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-NY) used similar language, saying that if Senate Republicans move forward with whoever Trump nominates, “nothing is off the table for next year” should Democrats win control of the chamber. That appeared to be a reference to structural changes to the court proposed by liberal activists such as expanding the number of justices-- a proposal that has sparked some disagreements among Democrats.

Republican leaders appeared determined to press ahead swiftly to fill the court vacancy with a conservative jurist. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) promised Trump during a Friday phone call that his nominee would get a vote in the Senate, according to people familiar with their conversation who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the private conversation.

Trump told McConnell he liked Judge Amy Coney Barrett of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit and Barbara Lagoa of the 11th Circuit, according to two people briefed on the discussion.

“We were put in this position of power and importance to make decisions for the people who so proudly elected us, the most important of which has long been considered to be the selection of United States Supreme Court Justices,” Trump wrote on Twitter Saturday. “We have this obligation, without delay!”

...Less clear is how rank-and-file Republican senators will respond, with many in tough reelection races in states where Trump is not popular. Republicans hold a 53-to-47 majority in the Senate, meaning they can afford to lose no more than three members in a confirmation vote, should the entire Democratic caucus unite against Trump's nominee.

They have already lost one.

“I do not believe that the Senate should vote on the nominee prior to the election,” Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who is in a tough reelection fight, said in a statement. “In fairness to the American people, who will either be re-electing the President or selecting a new one, the decision on a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court should be made by the President who is elected on November 3rd.”

Collins’s reservations contrasted sharply with the comments from Graham, who is seeking a fourth term in the Senate. The contest has been tougher than many expected in a ruby-red state Trump won easily in 2016, with recent polls showing Democrat Jaime Harrison in close competition with Graham.

Now Graham will be at the center of what will likely be one of the most contentious confirmation battles in history, affording him an opportunity to demonstrate his loyalty to Trump. But some Democrats say his position could help amplify the arguments against his reelection.

“A lot of folks miss the Lindsey of old-- and that’s why this race is so competitive,” said Steve Benjamin, the Democratic mayor of Columbia, S.C. “When it comes time to do what’s right and maybe not popular,” Benjamin said, “it can be difficult for some.”

Harrison, one of his party's fast-rising African American stars, sounded similar notes. “My grandpa always said that a man is only as good as his word. Senator Graham, you have proven your word is worthless,” he wrote on Twitter.

Writing for The Atlantic, Edward-Isaac Dovere offered a glimpse into what Republican senators are saying in private and off the record. "Whispering Republicans," as he termed them, talk about how they hate The Donald and then back him in public-- to the media and, of course, with their votes. The GOP is absolutely one of the country's two spineless, jellyfish parties. "The secretly apostate Republican senators," wrote Dovere, "have two choices: They can support a president they think is a threat to American democracy while also violating Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s invented 2016 rule about not confirming justices in an election year, or they can oppose Trump, enraging both him and their progressively cultish base while giving up what might be their last chance to secure a conservative majority for a generation."

Notice The Donald's Chamber of Commerce retweet from Sunday morning, signally he's ready for war with Alaska senior Senator Lisa Murkowski, who is not up for reelection in November and is not up for giving Trump a third Supreme Court pick.

For McConnell, this is principle versus power, and the golden rule is “Whoever has the gold makes the rules.” And it’s happening as the next generation of ambitious Republicans looks to a future in which Trumpism remains a dominant force within the party no matter what happens in November.

Don’t expect many Republicans-- even those who want to stick it to Trump-- to be direct with their commitments. “If they try to shove something through, I think you’re going to see some of these Republicans who hate Trump fall on the horrible sword of ‘This country is dangerously divided right now; the hypocrisy is horrible; if we do something like this, it will tear the country apart,’” says Joe Walsh, the former Republican representative from Illinois, who briefly ran a primary campaign against Trump that went nowhere earlier this year. Based on conversations he’s had, Walsh estimates that, of the current Republican senators, “if you put a gun to their head privately, I would say more than 40 of the 53 would like to see him lose.”

Walsh insists that Republicans didn’t want this vacancy-- not now. “This is political death for the Republicans,” he told me.

This is not the time for Republicans to insist that they haven’t “seen the latest tweet.” This is where they either will or will not give Trump the boost that he needs weeks before the election. Now, more than ever, they are either with him or against him. “This,” Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, a Democrat, said on CNN last night, “is my colleagues’ moment of reckoning.”

...Senator Joni Ernst, in a tight reelection race in Iowa, said in July that she would support a nomination process if an opening occurred. But that puts her at odds with her fellow Iowa senator, Chuck Grassley, who said in August that he couldn’t support a confirmation in an election year if he was going to be consistent with the position he took in 2016. He stood then with McConnell’s adamant refusal to give Merrick Garland a hearing after Antonin Scalia’s sudden death in 2016, though Garland was nominated nine months before Election Day. Of course, the question becomes whether Grassley will hold to his position now that the question is no longer theoretical.

...Late yesterday, I asked a former Republican House member what an anti-Trump Republican senator would do when facing a choice that sounds more out of a novel than anything Goethe might have come up with if he’d ever wandered around Capitol Hill.

“The Republican senator,” said the person, who requested anonymity to speak directly about old colleagues, “will do what they must in the name of self-preservation.”

“Guess what?” the former House member said of Graham. “He’s going to do it. You know he is. He’s up for reelection in South Carolina. He needs his base. He’ll flip on this.”

McConnell, in his Rube Goldberg–machine statement explaining why Trump’s nominee will get a vote on the floor of the Senate but Obama’s didn’t, left the door open to having a vote in a potential lame-duck session after the election.

Maybe it’ll all come down to Senator Mitt Romney, who is publicly offended by pretty much everything Trump stands for but whose spokesperson shot down rumors last night that he would oppose a confirmation before the election. Or maybe, if Mark Kelly wins his Senate race in Arizona, it will all hinge on a legal dispute over whether he would get to immediately be sworn into the seat because his opponent was appointed to it. Or maybe by then we’ll be in a country where the November 3 votes are taking weeks to count, rioters and militias are out on the streets, and, as in 2000, the election will head to the Supreme Court, which now is without a tiebreaker vote.

In 2016, from the minute he learned of Scalia’s death, Obama knew that Republicans would try to prevent him from appointing a justice and flipping the balance to a 5–4 liberal majority. He nominated Garland anyway and threw himself into the fight, daring the GOP senators to oppose a middle-of-the-road, accomplished judge whom so many had voted for in his confirmation to a lower court. Working the phones for a few senators he dreamed might buck McConnell, he pleaded with them: Don’t do this.

I remember speaking with one of the Republican senators struggling with breaking the process then. The senator, though torn, ultimately did not say anything publicly, and didn’t invite Garland in for a meeting.

Last night, Obama closed his statement mourning Ginsburg with, “As votes are already being cast in this election, Republican senators are now called to apply that standard.” Don’t hold a confirmation hearing, he said. Always an institutionalist with his eye toward history, Obama was admitting that the process breakers had won.

Now the question is, what else will Trump, the ultimate process breaker, win?

David Frum offered up 4 reasons to doubt McConnell’s power. He asked himself 4 questions:

• Does McConnell really command a Senate majority?

The polls do not favor Susan Collins, Cory Gardner, or Thom Tillis--senators from Maine, Colorado, and North Carolina up for reelection this cycle. Yet these competitors may not be ready to attend their own funerals. They may regard voting against McConnell's Court grab as a heaven-sent chance to prove their independence from an unpopular president-- and to thereby save their own seats... (Martha McSally of Arizona, however, is likely a safe vote for McConnell. The deadest of the Senate's dead ducks surely must be focused on retaining national Republican support for her post-Senate career. Mitt Romney of Utah is a more open question: His strong sense of fairness will push him against confirmation; his consistent support for conservative judges will pull him in favor.)

• Does McConnell really have a nominee to advance?

Any last-minute Trump nominee will face a gantlet of opposition in the Senate, a firestorm of opposition in the country, and probably a lifetime of suspicion from the majority of the country.

Can McConnell and Trump find an appointee willing to risk all that for the chance-- but not the guarantee-- of a Supreme Court seat? Specifically, can they find a woman willing to do it? The optics of replacing Ginsburg with a man may be too ugly even for the Trump administration. And if they can find a woman, can they find a woman sufficiently moderate-seeming to provide cover to anxious senators? The task may prove harder than immediately assumed.

• Will Trump balk?

Until now, judicial-nomination fights have mobilized Republicans and conservatives more than Democrats and liberals. The fight McConnell proposes may upset that pattern. Trump's hopes for reelection depend on suppressing votes and discouraging participation. The last thing he needs is a highly dramatic battle that could mobilize Democrats in states including Arizona and North Carolina-- even Georgia and Texas.

The smart play for Trump is to postpone the nomination to reduce the risk of Democratic mobilization, and to warn Republicans of the risks should he lose. Trump’s people do not usually execute the smart play. They are often the victims of the hyper-ideological media they consume, which deceive them about what actually is the smart play. This time, though, they may just be desperate enough to break long-standing pattern and try something different.

• Will the conservative legal establishment play ball?

The judicial status quo enormously favors conservatives. Even should Democrats win big in November, it will take many years for them to catch up to the huge Republican lead in judicial appointments. By then, who knows, the GOP may have retaken the Senate, and of course it may well find a way to hold on in 2020.

But a last-minute overreach by McConnell could seem so illegitimate to Democrats as to justify radical countermoves should they win in November: increasing the number of appellate judges and Supreme Court justices; conceivably even opening impeachment hearings against Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

McConnell may want the win badly enough to dismiss those risks. But many conservative-leaning lawyers in the country may be more cautious. And their voices will get a hearing in a contentious nomination fight-- not only by the national media, but by some of the less Trump-y Republican senators. This could be enough to slow down a process that has no time to spare.

Mitch McConnell has gotten his way so often that it’s hard to imagine he might ever lose. But the political balance of power is shifting this fall, and for once, McConnell may be on the wrong side of a power dynamic.

Republicans Are Desperate To Shift The Blame For Their Catastrophic Response To The Pandemic-- How About China?

Above you see a Joe Biden ad that will run in 6 swing states that both sides think will determine the 2020 election, Arizona, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin-- cumulatively 111 electoral votes. (Bernie should tell Biden that he's making a mistake by not targeting Ohio and Iowa. And he might consider including Georgia and Montana as well.)

As NBC News' Sahil Kapur reported yesterday, the pandemic has turned "China" into a big campaign issue, one where even a corpse-like Biden can crush the credibility-free Trump. Trump's SuperPAC, America First Action, fired the first shot last week with $10 million worth of dishonest ads in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania attempting to project his own malfeasance with China onto Biden. The ad above is the Biden campaign's response. This ad by American Bridge-- $15 million worth but pretty weak-- is also on the air in swing states:





The context Kapur gave the story is that "The COVID-19 crisis has rocketed to the forefront of voter concerns as the official U.S. death toll tops 33,000 and sets up a battle over which candidate, Trump or Biden, can address public concerns about China as favorable opinions of the country nosedived in Gallup tracking polls. A Harris poll taken April 3-5 found that 72 percent of Americans believe China inaccurately reported the impacts of the coronavirus. It found that 69 percent favor Trump's trade policies against China and most want him to take a tougher position with that nation. A majority of Americans even said China should be required to pay other countries to compensate for damage and suffering caused by the spread of the virus. In the 2016 election, Trump successfully weaponized misgivings about China's trade practices, insisting that previous U.S. presidents, including his opponent Hillary Clinton's husband, had allowed the country to rip off Americans. He has slapped tariffs on Chinese products, which have at times drawn public resistance, in pursuit of overhauling trade relations with the country. Trump's strategy is to place a simple contrast in the minds of voters. In a recent fundraising email to supporters, he proclaimed, 'I am TOUGH ON CHINA and Sleepy Joe Biden is WEAK ON CHINA.'" But Trump's strategy is backfiring on him.

Snopes did some fact-checkin' last week:

In mid-April 2020, social media users shared a comment made by U.S. President Donald Trump at an April 14 press briefing and contrasted it with a previous tweet of Trump’s in an effort to highlight the president’s flip-flopping narrative on the Chinese government’s handling of the COVID-19 coronavirus disease outbreak in late 2019 and early 2020.

During the April press briefing, amid strong criticism of his own administration’s response to the pandemic, Trump announced he was planning to halt U.S. funding for the World Health Organization (WHO), strongly criticizing it for taking China’s assurances about its handling of the coronavirus outbreak “at face value” and for praising China’s “so-called transparency” in that regard.

In light of that, CNN White House Correspondent Kaitlan Collins pressed Trump about a January 2020 tweet in which he, too, praised the Chinese government’s “transparency” in handling the crisis at that early juncture.

Snope contrasted that Trump lie with this Trump lie to find the statement true and the Trump[ist claims flat out false.

Meanwhile, New York Times reporters Jonathan Martin and Maggie Haberman noted that the Republican Party Blame China strategy is being undermined by Trump's bumbling and incompetence. Voters blames the horribly dysfunctional GOP for the failed response to the pandemic-- which has led to more deaths in America and in any other country-- and with continued failure, to even bleaker prospects for the future. Martin and Haberman wrote that its a botched attempt "to divert attention from the administration’s heavily criticized response to the coronavirus by pinning the blame on China... Republicans increasingly believe that elevating China as an archenemy culpable for the spread of the virus, and harnessing America’s growing animosity toward Beijing, may be the best way to salvage a difficult election." Hence the deceitful campaign ad from Trump's SuperPAC... and it's a party wide endeavor.

Republican senators locked in difficult races are preparing commercials condemning China. Conservatives with future presidential ambitions of their own, like Senators Tom Cotton and Josh Hawley, are competing to see who can talk tougher toward the country where the virus first emerged. Party officials are publicly and privately brandishing polling data in hopes Mr. Trump will confront Beijing.

...But there is a potential impediment to the G.O.P. plan-- the leader of the party himself.

Eager to continue trade talks, uneasy about further rattling the markets and hungry to protect his relationship with President Xi Jinping at a moment when the United States is relying on China’s manufacturers for lifesaving medical supplies, Mr. Trump has repeatedly muddied Republican efforts to fault China.

Even as the president tries to rebut criticism of his slow response to the outbreak by highlighting his January travel restrictions on China, he has repeatedly called Mr. Xi a friend and said “we are dealing in good faith” with the repressive government. He also dropped his periodic references to the disease as “the China virus” after a telephone call with Mr. Xi.

Yet in private, he has vented about the country. Senator Kevin Cramer of North Dakota said he informed Mr. Trump in a Thursday telephone conversation that the meat processing plant in South Dakota suffering a virus outbreak is owned by a Chinese conglomerate. The president responded, “I’m getting tired of China,” according to Mr. Cramer.

It remains to be seen whether Mr. Trump’s conflicted messaging on China will hurt him with voters, who have repeatedly seen the president argue both sides of issues without suffering the harm that another politician would. And while Mr. Trump’s team knows that his own words will be used against him, they believe they can contrast his history favorably with that of Mr. Biden.

On Tuesday, at his daily briefing, Mr. Trump was candid about the transactional rationale behind his stance toward China. Pressed on how he could criticize the World Health Organization for what he called pushing “China’s misinformation,” after he had also lavished praise on Beijing’s purported transparency, he responded, “Well, I did a trade deal with China, where China is supposed to be spending $250 billion in our country.”

“I’d love to have a good relationship with China,” he added.

On Friday, however, he incorrectly posited that China must have the most deaths from the coronavirus-- the United States does-- and later said, “I’m not happy with China.”

...Candidates of both parties have targeted China in past campaigns. But with the United States entering a presidential election season as the Wuhan-borne contagion spreads across the country, the rhetoric this time is far more pointed-- with concern growing that it will fan xenophobia and discrimination against Asian-Americans.

It is especially striking to see a primarily internationalist Democratic Party and the traditionally business-friendly G.O.P. attempt to portray the other as captive to Beijing-- yet that only illustrates the electoral incentives at play.

...Trump’s clashing comments on China illustrate not only his unreliability as a political messenger but also his longstanding ambivalence over how to approach the world’s second-largest economy. He ran for president four years ago vowing to get tough with China, but his ambition was not to isolate the Chinese but to work with them-- and especially for the United States to make more money from the relationship.

This goal has prompted him to often lavish flattery on Mr. Xi, most memorably when Mr. Trump rhapsodized about the way they bonded over “the most beautiful piece of chocolate cake you’ve ever seen” at his Mar-a-Lago resort in 2017.

The president’s hopes for securing a major trade agreement with China have been reinforced by a coterie of his advisers, including Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who have often prevailed in internal battles over White House hard-liners.

But with the coronavirus death toll growing and the economy at a standstill, polls show that Americans have never viewed China more negatively.

In a recent 17-state survey conducted by Mr. Trump’s campaign, 77 percent of voters agreed that China covered up the extent of the coronavirus outbreak, and 79 percent of voters indicated they did not think China had been truthful about the extent of infections and deaths, according to a Republican briefed on the poll.

Yet those polling numbers also come as 65 percent of Americans say they believe that Mr. Trump was too late responding to the outbreak, according to a Pew Research Center survey this past week.

More ominous for the president are some private Republican surveys that show him losing ground in key states like Michigan, where one recent poll has him losing by double digits, according to a Republican strategist who has seen it.

So as Mr. Biden unites the Democratic Party, Mr. Trump’s poll numbers are flagging and G.O.P. senators up for re-election find themselves significantly outraised by their Democratic rivals. That has led to a growing urgency in Republican ranks that the president should shelve his hopes for a lucrative rapprochement with China.

“At this moment in time a trade deal is not the right topic of discussion,” said Senator Steve Daines, Republican of Montana, who said the pandemic had highlighted the country’s reliance on China in the same painful fashion that the oil crisis of the 1970s revealed how it was at the mercy of the Middle East. “This has exposed our dependency on China for P.P.E. and for critical drugs.”

...Few Republicans have been more outspoken than Mr. Cotton, an Arkansan who was warning about the virus at the start of the year when few lawmakers were paying attention, and has been urging Senate candidates to make China a centerpiece of their campaigns.

“China unleashed this pandemic on the world and they should pay the price,” Mr. Cotton said. “Congress and the president should work together to hold China accountable.”

Fortified by private polling his campaign conducted last year for his own re-election showing bipartisan disdain for China, Mr. Cotton’s top aides approached aides to Mr. Trump’s campaign last month and told them they planned to air an ad in Ohio, a few days before its scheduled primary, attacking Mr. Biden over China. But, according to Republicans familiar with the conversation, Mr. Trump’s campaign expressed little interest in coordinating with them.





Now, though, Mr. Trump’s campaign is effectively repurposing Mr. Cotton’s ad and lashing Mr. Biden in a commercial targeting the former vice president and his son.

The super PAC supporting Mr. Trump, America First, is airing ads on the same theme in swing states, showing video of Mr. Biden in 2011 saying that “a rising China is a positive development.”

And the president’s eldest son, Donald Jr., posted the spot on Twitter and sought to stamp a new nickname on the former vice president: “BeijingBiden.”

Brian O. Walsh, the president of America First Action, said the strategy builds on years of voter concerns about China.

“The China piece of this was part of the overall thinking far before coronavirus, because we knew its potency and its relevance,” Mr. Walsh said. “This just made it more potent and more relevant.”

Who Is More Likely To Have Been Created In A Right-Wing Super-Lab, Fox-bot Marie Bartiromo Or Arkansas Closet Case Tom Cotton?

The Democratic Party is giving far right extremist crackpot Tom Cotton a free ride this cycle, not bothering to run an opponent against him, although Dan Whitfield, who calls himself a "progressive independent," is running on an independent line. Cotton has raised $7,583,447 for his reelection campaign. Whitfield hasn't raised the $5,000 that would trigger an FEC report. Cotton, who had presidential ambitions before he was outed as a closet case, is a garden variety Trumpist with nothing to recommend him.

Sunday, the NY Times noted that he's been spreading a conspiracy theory that the coronavirus was manufactured in a high-security Chinese biochemical weapons lab near Wuhan, although he admits he has no proof of this. The Times noted that "The rumor appeared shortly after the new coronavirus struck China and spread almost as quickly: that the outbreak now afflicting people around the world had been manufactured by the Chinese government. The conspiracy theory lacks evidence and has been dismissed by scientists. But it has gained an audience with the help of well-connected critics of the Chinese government." It looks like another psychopath from TrumpWorld, Stephen Bannon, started it.

Cotton has been carrying on about it for weeks and Maria Bartiromo had him on her show Sunday to spread it further, despite the rumor having been debunked by the scientific community. Yesterday, for example, Chemical Biology Professor Richard Ebright (Rutgers University) told the Washington Post that "there's absolutely nothing in the genome sequence of this virus that indicates the virus was engineered. The possibility that this was a deliberately released bio-weapon can be firmly excluded."

Cotton on Fox: "We don’t know where it originated, and we have to get to the bottom of that. We also know that just a few miles away from that food market is China’s only biosafety level 4 super laboratory that researches human infectious diseases. We don’t have evidence that this disease originated there but because of China’s duplicity and dishonesty from the beginning, we need to at least ask the question to see what the evidence says, and China right now is not giving evidence on that question at all." This of course, is a perfect explanation to a typical low-IQ Fox TV viewer incapable of independent thought.

Russian versions of Tom Cotton are blaming the U.S. in the same way he is blaming China.

[I]n Russia the misinformation has been particularly pointed. Russia’s spin doctors have capitalized on the fear and confusion of the epidemic to point the blame at the United States, following a well-established pattern of previous Russian disinformation campaigns and evoking a Cold War-era plot by the KGB to paint HIV as a U.S. biological weapon... [I]n Russia these theories are appearing on prominent mainstream news discussion shows such as Big Game and Time Will Tell on Channel 1, rather than just being confined to squalid corners of the internet. In late January, the firebrand leader of the far-right Liberal Democratic Party of Russia party told a Moscow radio station that he thought coronavirus was an American bioweapon or a big plot by pharmaceutical companies to get richer.

...The overarching theme of the stories that appear across the Russian media, from fringe websites to prime-time television, is that the virus is the product of U.S. labs, intended to kneecap China’s economic development. Some articles have flirted with the idea that Bill Gates or Kremlin nemesis George Soros might have had a hand in the outbreak. In one of the more bizarre turns, a host on Russia’s state-funded Channel 1 floated the idea that the name “coronavirus,” is a veiled reference to its American origins, because U.S. President Donald Trump once handed out crowns at beauty pageants, and corona means crown in Latin. (Coronaviruses are, in fact, a well-established group of viruses whose name is a reference to their shape.)

There is, however, no agreement between Russia’s propagandists about who foretold the virus, with some claiming it was Nostradamus, others say it was the blind Bulgarian mystic Baba Vanga, or maybe even Stephen Hawking.

The Russian messaging fits a now well-established pattern in that it doesn’t look to persuade audiences of a single alternative truth. That would take effort, planning, and persuasion. Modern-day Russian propaganda has instead been described by the Rand Corp. as a “firehose of falsehood,” a steady stream of underdeveloped, sometimes contradictory conspiracy theories intended to exhaust and confuse viewers, making them question the very notion of objective truth itself.

Right now, the main audience is largely domestic, with a sprinkling of conspiratorial reports across the different language services of Sputnik, the more tabloid of Russia’s international broadcasters. The conspiracy theories haven’t featured prominently on English-language Russian government-backed international broadcasters such as RT and Sputnik, however, according to Bret Schafer, a fellow at the German Marshall Fund’s Alliance for Securing Democracy who studies disinformation. While these channels have historically played around the edges of conspiracy theories, “they still want that veneer of being a legit international broadcaster,” Schafer said.

...[W]hile the Russian media has speculated wildly about the virus, the Russian government has taken the threat seriously, closing its land borders with China and checking the temperatures of reporters and officials at events attended by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Two people in Russia were diagnosed with the virus, having contracted it on trips to China, but they are reported to have since recovered. While disinformation doesn’t appear to have hamstrung Russia’s response to the virus, the lasting danger may be in its continued erosion of trust in the notion of truth itself.

“Where I do think is it’s unhelpful is that it flies in the face of facts and science,” said Schafer. “The real danger is more the impact it has on trust in information.”

I wonder if someone has been whispering in Trump's ear yet that this could be a plausible excuse to cancel the 2020 elections.

Rushin’ To Destruction, 2019 In Review Part 9-- Quotes From The Front

-by Noah

1. Sarah Huckabee Sanders:

President Trump has a different leadership style and the results speak for themselves. While he spends much of his average day in scheduled meetings, events, and calls, there is time to allow for a more creative environment that has helped make him the most productive president in history.

Sarah, you are to be commended for being able to pack such a staggering amount of bullshit into such a brief statement. I note that, just a few days before, you claimed, with a straight face, that Trump was chosen by God. Charlie Manson’s girls said the same about their guy.

2. Donald Trump:

An economic miracle is taking place in the United States and the only thing that can stop it are foolish wars, politics or ridiculous partisan investigations. If there is going to be peace and legislation, there cannot be war and investigation.

Donnie, I’d like to remind you of what another crook of a president, Richard Nixon, said back in 1974 when he had put himself in a similar predicament:

I believe the time has come to bring that investigation and the other investigations of this matter to an end. One year of Watergate is enough.

Both presidents were speaking during their State Of The Union addresses. Trump’s 2020 address promises to be a real ratings winner, complete with pardoned war criminals in the Be Best seats in the House.

3. More Donald Trump: 

Speaking of State Of The Union speechifying, here’s more President Mental Case during his 2019 “speech:”

If I had not been elected President of the Untied State, we would right now in my opinion be in a major war with North Korea.

4. $enator Tom Cotton:

Not surprisingly, the Republican $enator from Arkansas has a disgraceful defense of his idol’s tariffs and how they hurt American farmers. He sees nothing shameful about using our dead war heroes in the cause. This is one sick asshole.

There will be some sacrifice on the part of Americans, I grant you that. But also I would say that sacrifice is pretty minimal compared to the sacrifices that our soldiers make overseas, that our fallen heroes who are laid to rest in Arlington make.

Well, Tom Cotton, how about you make a sacrifice. Maybe you’d like to sacrifice some money from whatever bribes you’ve taken in this year under the guise of “campaign contributions” or otherwise. Or, maybe you could donate a couple of your limbs. C’mon, Tom, at least a kidney and a few fingers!

5. Republican Strategist Rick Tyler:

Back in March, Tyler claimed to be upset at what he’d just heard from Trump at CPAC, an annual confab of conservatives. He also claimed to be upset and even surprised about the enthusiastic reception that his boy received.

I thought of saying conservative nutjobs but, really, the word nutjobs isn’t necessary. It’s a give now whenever describing today’s conservatives. Tyler, who obviously lacks the ability or desire to be honest with himself, would like us to forget that it is conservatives who nominated Trump to head their party, nominate far right judges, push a white supremacy agenda, push the biggest tax scam of all time, etc.

It’s interesting about CPAC. It used to be the confab of conservatives who would get together once a year but it’s not CPAC anymore, it hasn’t been since 2016. It’s now Trump-pac and should be TPAC. The people there talk about pro-tariffs, anti-justice, anti-law enforcement, anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, pro-Russia, pro-autocrat. It’s unrecognizable what Donald Trump has done to the party and what he’s done to the conservative movement. It’s a shame.

Let’s hear it for the sincerity of conservatives everywhere.

6. House Minority Whip Steve Scalise: 

As the meme above shows Scalise, a republican from Louisiana, is a top-level hypocrite. In July, he took exception to Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, and Ayanna Pressley staging a July press conference to call for the impeachment of his beloved president.

We expressed our disagreements in a respectful way.

Scalise said he felt that “The Squad” was being disrespectful but he was, of course, wrong. “The Squad” was being respectful of the Constitution and the oath that they swore, something Scalise and his kind seem incapable of. Scalise’s own squad certainly wasn’t at all respectful of President Obama when they called him a liar, even during one of his State Of The Union speeches, and sent each other emails with picture of President Obama with a bone in his nose or carrying a watermelon, plus going on FOX “News” to push their birther conspriracy.

7. Donald Trump, Again:

We’re doing tremendously well. Our consumers are rich. I gave a tremendous tax cut and they’re loaded up with money.

Really? Are all those MAGA hat-wearing loons at his rallies feeling loaded up with money? Really? The saddest and most frightening thing is that they hear this from their god Trump and they cheer.

8. Stephanie Grisham, Current White House Press Secretary:

Stephanie Grisham is a one-woman insane quote machine. For whatever reasons, she doesn’t appear in public like her predecessor, but she’s at least the equal of Sarah Huckabee Sanders when it comes to “the crazy.”

I worked with John Kelly, and he was totally unequipped to handle the genius of our great president.

Tom Cotton, David Perdue And Josh Hawley Introduce Trump's Anti-LEGAL Immigration Bill

3 modern day Know Nothings-- Cotton, Trump, Perdue

In 2017 two virulent Republican xenophobes, Tom Cotton (AR) and David Perdue (GA), tried drastically cutting back on legal immigration with their RAISE Act (Reforming American Immigration for Strong Employment). It failed to get out of the Senate Judiciary Committee, so Cotton introduced it again six months later with a big public push from Trump and his two neo-Nazi pals, Stephen Miller and Steve Bannon. (It was before Bannon was fired for being mean to Ivanka.) The bill was meant to cut legal immigration in half and to severely limit the number of refugees the U.S. admits. (Remember, Trump thinks the country is "full"; it isn't.) Although 3 right-wing Democrats-- Donnelly, Machin and Heitkamp-- backed it, it was defeated 60-39, with Republicans Barrasso (WY), Collins (ME), Cruz (TX), Daines (MT), Enzi (WY), Jeff Flake (AZ), Inhofe (OK), Kennedy (LA), Lee (UT), Moran (KS), Murkowsky (AK), Paul (KY), Sasse (NE), and Thune (SD) crossing the aisle to vote with the rest of the Democrats.

Cotton and Perdue and back with the bill and they found another bigot, Missouri GOP freshman Josh Hawley, to co-sponsor it. Last time, the bill was panned by economists who predicted it would slow growth and have a negative impact on the GDP.

Immigrants are responsible for nearly half the population growth of the United States, and by extension that also means they are a sizable part of the growth in the U.S. labor force.

“It’s half of labor force growth today. Going forward it’s a bigger drag. We have yet to meet the critical mass of baby boomers retiring. That’s still ahead,” said Diane Swonk, chief economist at DS Economics.

Statistics provided by the U.S. Census Bureau on assumptions about population growth and immigration are rolled into economists’ forecasts for GDP. Economists say there are already worker shortages in some areas, and the problem could get worse quickly.

Macroeconomic Advisers co-founder Joel Prakken says the economy should grow at about 2 percent next year, but already it could see a dent if immigration is slowed. “What’s behind that projection is the assumption of labor force growth and productivity growth ... that is a combination of assumptions about the participation rate and the growth of the population. Our assumptions of the population come from the Census Bureau,” he said.

“If you cut the labor force growth in half you probably take two to three tenths of a percentage point off GDP growth every year over the next decade,” Prakken said. He said that would also impact the 3 percent growth pace the Office of Management and Budget is forecasting for 2020 and beyond. The Trump administration forecasts 2.4 percent growth next year.

Prakken said immigrants are probably a bigger portion of the growth in the labor force, since the U.S. population is aging, immigrants are generally younger and many come to the U.S. specifically to work. Industries that could see big impacts would be agricultural, leisure and hospitality and construction, he said.

“There would be spot shortages,” he said.

He said one adverse impact could be that companies in some industries could move operations outside the U.S. if they can’t find enough workers, which would be opposite the Trump administration’s efforts to attract more jobs.

“It’s another one of these cases where [a law] could have adverse consequences that move in the opposite direction of some other initiative the administration is trumpeting,” he said.

...“The real issue is what would it do to potential growth in an economy where we need more people to replace retirees,” said Swonk. “You’re closing another door to offset the drag from an aging population.”

Speaking for most Democrats, Richard Blumenthal (CT) noted that Cotton's bill was "nothing but a series of nativist talking points and regurgitated campaign rhetoric that completely fails to move our nation forward toward real reform." Lindsey Graham (R-SC), a former member of the Gang of Eight, also attacked the bill-- which he later voted for anyway, saying it would be "devastating" to South Carolina's economy.

The Anti-Defamation League was one of dozens of groups to come out against the bill. Their CEO, Jonathan Greenblatt issued a statement: "This proposed legislation is cruel, anti-family and un-American. These are the types of policy markers that exacerbate immigrant bashing and nativist attitudes in this country. We support an immigration policy that is comprehensive, protects our security, reunites families and improves our economy while honoring our values as a nation of immigrants. Diversity is our country’s strength and immigration has made America great."

The U.S. has a long sordid history of nativist bigots in the political realm. In 1855 the Native American Party changed it's name to the American Party and made some real headway, particularly in the South, of course, where, known as the Know Nothing movement, they preached hatred, racism and xenophobia. Cotton, Hawley and Perude come straight out of the strain of American politics. The #1 target of the Know Nothing movement were Catholics. The Know Nothings even elected dozens of congressmen (52 at their high-mark) and one, Nathaniel Banks of Massachusetts, served as Speaker of the House for one year, from February 1856 to March of 1857, although after he switched the become a Republican. They also had 5 U.S. senators at their peak. In fact at that point, nativism became a new American rage and with it came Know Nothing candy, Know Nothing tea, Know Nothing toothpicks and a 700-ton freighter christened Know Nothing. Like Trump supporters today, they were proud of the bigotry and proud of their stupidity. They even had an American president in their camp, Milliard Fillmore. You thought Trump was the first?

When Will There Be Real GOP Opposition To Trump And The "Permanent Damage" He's Doing To America?

Two very different visions for Wisconsin by Nancy Ohanian

Want to get into the time machine for a moment? Not ancient Egypt or a chance to hear Socrates or even a look at the French declaring human rights while chopping off the heads of their oppressors . Glorious moments in the history of man, but our trip is just two years ago-- to July, 2006. John Harwood had interviewed the very right-wing senator from Arkansas, Tom Cotton, who he dubbed "a leading Republican voice on foreign policy and potential future presidential candidate." Neither Harwood nor Cotton knew at the time, of course, but a few months after the interview, Trump went on to win Arkansas' 6 electoral votes by defeating Hillary in the state where she was once First Lady, 684,872 (60.6%) to 380,494 (33.7%).

Harwood's first question-- and Cotton's response-- probably didn't sound as important then as it does now. "One of the questions that has been raised about Donald Trump is, "Is he more friendly with Russia than it is in America's best interests to be?"

Republican foreign policy wonk Cotton glibly responded that "Putin was a KGB spy and he never got over that. He does not have America's best interests at heart and he does not have any American interests at heart. I suspect, after this week, when Donald Trump is the nominee and he begins to receive classified briefings, similar briefings to what I receive as a member of the Intelligence Committee, he may have a different perspective on Vladimir Putin and what Russia is doing to America's interests and allies in Europe and the Middle East and Asia."

Is Cotton living in a dazed and confused Republican world today, where he is now part of the Grand Enablement Brigade? Cotton's Trump affinity score is a hearty 92%. When the media speculates about who among Republican senators might stand up for the American people against Trump's insane rush towards fascism, Cotton's name is never mentioned, never. Susan Collins (R-ME), Jeff Flake (R-AZ), Bob Corker (R-TN), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), John Kennedy (R-LA), Mike Lee (R-UT), Ben Sasse (R-NE), Corey Gardner (R-CO), James Lankford (R-OK) all have lower affinity scores than Cotton and all are denounced by hard core Trumpists on the fringes as being traitors to the Great Leader, and all are occasionally mentioned as possibly bulwarks against Trumpist extremism-- but the most any of them ever does is grumble and grouse.

The Harvard-educated and closeted Cotton is still laying low., still hoping his party will come to him one day (perhaps in 2024) with a presidential nomination. This guy:

HARWOOD: His criticism of John McCain. You asked him to retract and apologize. He said that President George W. Bush lied to get us into war in Iraq and didn't protect us because 9/11 actually happened?

COTTON: Well, I disagree with those statements and I said them at the time. But I think that Donald Trump and a Republican Congress will have an agenda that's better for the American people. And, you know, Hillary Clinton has a lot of things to answer for as well, to include direct lies to the American people and the FBI director has now corroborated that.

HARWOOD: but you're willing to live with those things that are distasteful to you because of Hillary Clinton?

COTTON: Well, I mean, the Clintons have set some of their own standards for low conduct in office.

HARWOOD: Right, but what do you think of his standards?

COTTON: Well, again, I've said that I disagree with those statements you cited, at the time, and I still disagree with them. I don't think they're helpful to the campaign. You know, the Republican Party is bigger than any one man. It's bigger than Donald Trump. It's bigger than me. I think that Donald Trump, like all Republicans, should be focused on the issues that matter to the American people.

Oops. Luckily, Senator Cotton only wants to be a post-thump presidential nominee, not a tea leaf reader.

If anything, Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson is even further right than Cotton, a real kook with a crazy extremist ideology. Yesterday he went on-air with conservative radio host John Catsimatidis on New York's AM 970. Johnson, considered even less likely to utter any anti-Trump syllable than Cotton said that right for Harley-Davidson to respond to Trump's trade war by moving production to other countries. "Because of the beginning of the trade war... our state has been particularly targeted. Harley-Davidson has been targeted, our cranberry industry, our ginseng industry... We're a big steel-using state. Steel tariffs are hitting us pretty bad, pretty hard. That raises the costs of American-manufactured products, of Wisconsin-manufactured products... What happened with Harley basically is the trade war. They were paying 6% tariffs [to get] into Europe, now it's 31%! If they manufacture in another country they can enjoy the lower steel prices and remain competitive... So they really don't have a choice."



The media takeaway will be Johnson saying that Trump's trade policies are doing "permanent damage." Permanent damage is a big deal. It feeds right into Randy Bryce's campaign down in the southeast part of the state, where he's already chased Paul Ryan out of Congress and is now running against a hand-picked Ryan clone, Bryan Steil.

Randy heard the same Catsimatidis radio broadcast that I did, after he  addressed the AFT convention in Pittsburgh yesterday. I asked him what he thought about it and how it might impact his own race in southeast Wisconsin. This is what he told me:

Ron Johnson admits Donald Trump is responsible for permanent damage yet he seems to be just fine with that. I’m guessing it would be a different tune if the plastics company that he married into would be affected-- but why would it? He uses prison labor to help him make a profit. Also, a decent percentage of his workers depend on BadgerCare due to the fact that he doesn’t care about their health. Ron Johnson has never been accused of being brilliant. He’s also never been accused of looking out for others.

Reminds me of another guy in Wisconsin who is running around trying to convince people he’s a “problem solving manufacturer.” We’re talking about Paul Ryan former staffer Bryan Steil who is committed to carrying on for the fleeing Paul Ryan. Steil actually is responsible for helping a manufacturer outsource hundreds of jobs to Mexico. That’s how he solves problems. As for manufacturing, he is good at fabricating BS. We won’t get fooled again. What we’ve built is a Movement in southeast Wisconsin. 

I think we're still a long way off from Republicans in Congress standing up to Trump. It's going to take an ass-whipping in November before that happens. But that's coming. Trump beat Hillary in Ryan's district by just over 10 points, 52.6% to 42.3%. That could well be the margin by by Bryce beats Steil in November. And Bryce isn't running some kind of Republican-lite DCCC campaign. He's a full-on progressive, campaigning with Bernie and on Bernie's populist issues.

Meanwhile, more muttering:

The Coming Civil War-- Inside The Republican Party

If conservative Republican journalist Jennifer Rubin keeps attacking Trump so vociferously, the DCCC will soon recruit her to run for Congress-- or fellow Beltway journalists will rebrand her a rising star in the fight for the Democratic presidential nomination. after all, being against Señor Trumpanzee seems to trump any and all other qualities. Yesterday Rubin wrote that Ending DACA would be Trump’s most evil act, "Some in the media," she wrote, "take seriously the notion that he is 'conflicted' or 'wrestling' with the decision, as though Trump were engaged in a great moral debate. That would be a first for Trump, who counts only winners and losers, never bothering with moral principles or democratic norms. The debate, if there is one, is over whether to disappoint his rabid anti-immigrant base or to, as is his inclination, double down on a losing hand.

[L]et’s not think Trump-- who invites cops to abuse suspects, who thinks ex-sheriff Joe Arpaio was “doing his job” when denying others their constitutional rights and who issued the Muslim ban-- cares about the Constitution (any of the “twelve” articles). Trump says, “We love the dreamers. … We think the dreamers are terrific.” But in fact he loves the applause he derives from his cultist followers more than anything. Otherwise he’d go to the mat to defend the dreamers and secure their legal status.

...[I]f Trump cancels DACA, it will be one more attempt to endear himself to his shrinking base with the only thing that truly energizes the dead-enders: vengeance fueled by white grievance. And it will also be an act of uncommon cowardice. (“Should Trump move forward with this decision, he would effectively be buying time and punting responsibility to Congress to determine the fate of the Dreamers,” writes The Post.) Dumping it into the lap of the hapless Congress, he can try evading responsibility for the deportation of nearly 800,000 young people who were brought here as children, 91 percent of whom are working. (And if by chance Congress should save DACA, it will be Trump who is the villain and they the saviors, an odd political choice for a president who cares not one wit about the party.)

As for Congress, House Speaker Paul Ryan, who talks about sparing the dreamers, will be sorely tested to overcome the objections of the hard-line anti-immigrant voices in his conference. Does he have the nerve to bring to the floor a bill that lacks majority support among Republicans? Tie it to a must-pass bill (e.g., Harvey funding, the debt ceiling, funding for the government)? In the Senate, will opportunistic right-wingers such as Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) grandstand, perhaps filibustering a measure into order to out-Trump Trump?

However this turns out, the GOP under Trump has defined itself as the white grievance party-- bluntly, a party fueled by concocted white resentment aimed at minorities. Of all the actions Trump has taken, none has been as cruel, thoughtless or divisive as deporting hundreds of thousands of young people who’ve done nothing but go to school, work hard and present themselves to the government.

The party of Lincoln has become the party of Charlottesville, Arpaio, DACA repeal and the Muslim ban. Embodying the very worst sentiments and driven by irrational anger, it deserves not defense but extinction.

As it turns out, the crackpot far right Cotton wasn't the best example, even if he is a vicious xenophobe. Byron York reported for the right-wing Washington Examiner website that Cotton "would support the legalization of all current DACA recipients-- nearly 800,000 of them-- if Congress would at the same time pass measures to protect Americans workers from the effects of that legalization."

"We ought to take care of them," Cotton said in a telephone conversation Sunday, noting that DACA recipients arrived in this country illegally "through no fault of their own."

"In any legislative fix, I would like to see them receive a green card," Cotton said. At the same time, he continued, "We ought to recognize that giving them legal status has two problems. First, it creates a whole new class of people who will then be eligible for a green card and citizenship-- namely, the extended family members of those who will receive legal status who can, through chain migration, get legal status themselves."

"Second," Cotton said, "it will encourage more illegal immigration.

The first problem can be fixed by passing the RAISE Act, Cotton said-- the bill Cotton has sponsored with fellow GOP Sen. David Perdue that would strictly limit chain migration as well as re-balance current immigration policy in favor of skilled immigrants.

The second problem could be addressed by extending E-verify across the country, which Cotton called "the best way to reduce more illegal immigration."

All that said, let's forget Cotton and Rubin and get to Kurt Schlichter's piece for Townhall about who the "real" conservatives are, the neo-Nazis and racists who support Trumpanzee or the greed-and-selfishness GOP establishment types who loath Trumpanzee nearly as much as normal people do. Herr Schlichter's perspective is somewhat different than my description might suggest. He's one of the Trumpists and a dedicated Paul Ryanphobe. And he gets right into it: "After two years of lectures about 'principles' and 'the Rule of law' by the establishment-loving hacks furious that normal Americans rejected them and elected Donald Trump, their performance last week demonstrated that their high-minded dedication to conservatism is all a fraud. It’s not about 'principles' or 'the Rule of Law.' It’s only about holding on to power-- theirs." And that was right under a goofy photo of Speaker Ryan. Remember this isn't by someone supporting-- as far as I know-- Randy Bryce's crusade to repeal and replace Ryan in southeast Wisconsin. This is by someone who's premise is that Ryan isn't right-wing enough. [You can contribute to Stop Paul Ryan here, regardless of your reasons why.]

Let’s take the latest in a seemingly endless series of #fails from that smarmy dope Paul Ryan, King of the Fredocons. First, he rushed to help out the liberals with their ridiculous narrative about how Donald Trump is a “Nazi” (Wait, I thought the narrative memo had him being a Russian fifth columnist-- damn, our president sure is versatile!). You couldn’t keep Ryan from eagerly jumping in with his usual more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger-about-Trump thing to help the left push its latest meme. Antifa though? Not so fast! Ryan, the poodle that he is, obediently waited until Nancy Pelosi led the way and offered some tepid words about these commie blackshirts and their thirst for blood before Brave Sir Ryan ran out and offered some tepid words about these commie blackshirts and their thirst for blood.

Paul Ryan is a guy who can’t even take his own side in a fight-- or, more to the point, our side in a fight. Now, a quick quiz: When Donald Trump proposed to keep his promise to the Republican voters who elected him and end the unconstitutional DACA program that the Obama administration enacted to ignore duly-enacted immigration laws, what did Passive Paul do?

A. Ryan immediately offered his support for the president undoing this Rule of Law abomination that Ryan expressly called “unconstitutional” on Fox back in October 2014.

B. Ryan immediately demanded the president not undo this Rule of Law abomination that Ryan expressly called “unconstitutional” on Fox back in October 2014.

C. Ryan immediately asked someone to explain what the phrase “keep his promise to the Republican voters who elected him” means.

D. B and C

So, for the benefit of us suckers, basically Ryan was against DACA when it couldn’t be undone, but is now panicking when it can be undone because it might actually be undone-- unless President Trump lets Ryan roll him, in which case he deserves to be laughed at in exactly the way his Never Trump enemies will laugh at him.

Gosh, this DACA two-step kind of reminds me of Obamacare and how gung-ho the True Conservatives were to repeal it when they couldn’t repeal it and how suddenly they turned ungung-ho when they actually could. Weird. If I was cynical, I’d say that it seems like the establishment GOP has been lying to our faces for years and years, but that couldn’t be true because our establishment betters have principles and stuff.

Of course, it’s not just the Wisconsin Wimp shifting into conservagimp mode. Soon-to-be-former Senator Jeff Flake, that braying doofus, naturally joined the cave-in chorus. Ben Sasse, Flake’s braying doofus doppelgänger, probably joined in, but I refuse to spend valuable time looking at his tedious Twitter feed to find out. And since it involved betraying Republicans, you have got to assume John “Blue Falcon” McCain is in on it too.

Yeah, because “principles” and stuff. Because enforcing the law is the most important thing there is, except for doing what the rich guys who fund the establishment want. That’s really the most important thing.

Yeah, so after nearly two years of tiresome finger-wagging about “the Rule of Law” and how we need to put our “principles” above our desire for “winning,” the whole sordid scam we always knew it always was is revealed for the world to see. They can’t hide it anymore and they aren’t even trying. Their glorious “conservative principles” aren’t principles at all but a skeevy ploy designed to tie our hands and keep us from pursuing policy goals our establishment coalition partners disfavor. They want open borders. They want illegals. They want cheap foreign labor that doesn’t get uppity to man their donors’ corporations so the Captains of Crony Capitalism don’t have to fuss with American workers who won’t tolerate being treated like chattel. Yeah, “we’re better than that” all right-- if you mean that we are better than enforcing the laws the American people passed through a constitutional process if the ruling class decides it doesn’t like them.

“The Rule of Law” is for us, not for them. “The Rule of Law” was supposed to be a shield to protect us from the ravages of the powerful, but our Truer-Than-You Cons use it as a sword to cut our legs out from under us and keep us from defending our own interests.

Oh, you can’t possibly exercise the power against our leftist enemies that they always exercise against you. Because principles.

Oh, you can’t possibly be uncouth and actually fight back against our enemies. Because principles.

Oh, a principle is getting in the way of something the establishment wants? What’s a principle?

So now, suddenly, Congress is moving to try and keep DACA alive through-- gasp!-- legislation, though that’s probably not going to happen since most GOP legislators understand that amnesty is ballot box poison. See, that’s why they loved DACA-- they can’t pass it as a law, so they simply feigned outrage for the benefit of us rubes when Obama did exactly what they wanted with his pen.

And in the most Congressional GOP move of all possible Congressional GOP moves, they now want to try to pass a proposed DACA fix using Democrat votes and so their proposed deal to the Democrats-- who really, really want 800,000 future voters-- is to trade it for…wait for it…still waiting…nothing. The GOP isn’t asking for anything. No new limits on immigrants, no reform of chain immigration, certainly no wall. Nothing. I hope the dealer tries out this innovative new negotiation strategy on me the next time I bargain to lease a fine German sports sedan.

Actually, the GOP does get something-- shafted, as usual. Yeah, their deal is we give you Democrats what you want and, in exchange, you call us racists when Elizabeth Warren proposes to declare all these middle-aged Dreamer kids US citizens. Because, you know, they had dreams and stuff.

Pathetic. You know, it’s becoming clearer and clearer that the real reason the Republicans don’t want to end the filibuster to allow them to pass legislation is that they would then be expected to pass legislation that their voters want and the GOP establishment doesn’t.

Here’s the thing. There are two parties in America, one to the right and one to the left. The left/right spectrum used to be the only axis that mattered, and the coalitions within the parties fit pretty well, if not perfectly. But the bipartisan establishment, the meritless meritocracy that rules us, grew more arrogant even as it grew more inept. It ignored problems and troubling trends even as it cashed-in for itself over the decades. I remember working in Congress back in Washington in 1986, and the region was not rich and it was not fancy. But now it’s fantastically rich and fantastically fancy. But the establishment ignored the normals out in America as it gorged on the fruits of the normals’ labor, and that’s why a second axis arose and intersected with the American politician spectrum. This new axis measures pro- or con- regarding the status quo and the ruling class. So now there are really four political parties stuffed into two political party infrastructures:

1 Right, pro-establishment (The RINOs)
2 Right, anti-establishment (The Trump voters)
3 Left, pro-establishment (Hillary’s snobby urban corporatist jerk corps)
4 Left, anti-establishment (The Bernie/Warren/Stalin Axis of Venezuela)

This explains why we see the DC establishment unifying to protect its power and privilege-- and holding us normals in utter contempt. Most Democrat senators and Republican senators have much more in common with each other than with us-- to the GOP establishment, Trump’s clearly the bigger threat than a counterpart across the aisle. It also explains why you hear about Bernie supporters who went for Trump instead of Felonia von Pantsuit. That’s the fault line-- the desire to keep or destroy this monstrous status quo. This new axis will reshape the political parties as their uncomfortable coalitions jockey for control of their respective party’s infrastructure (Yeah, the Dems have big problems too). Hell, it may reshape-- violently-- our whole country if we aren’t careful.

The fact is that the establishment doesn’t care about “the Rule of Law” or “principles”-- it cares about its own power and maintaining the status quo. So keep that in mind the next time you hear some establishment snob lecturing you on how you are morally obligated not to do anything to advance you own interests because of “principles.”

It’s all just another lie.

I wonder if Schlichter would short circuit if someone pointed out that there were around 3 million more Hillary voters than Trumpy-the-Clown voters. After all, he seems so enamored of the will of "the voters," he should keep a post-it note on his computer that reminds him that although 65,853,516 votes cast their ballots for Hillary, just 62,984,825 voted for Señor Trumpanzee.