Month: January 2016

And more conservatives begin the process of reconciling themselves to Trump

by digby

Here’s Reformicon Reihan Salam at Slate:

If there is one thing that GOP primary voters know about Trump, it is that he intends to build a wall along the southern border of the United States and that he will somehow strong-arm Mexico into paying for it. If there’s another thing those voters know, it’s probably that Trump favors barring Muslims, or at least some Muslims, from entering the U.S. “until we can figure out what’s going on”—the centerpiece of his first TV campaign advertisement. But Trump has also drawn attention to the U.S. trade deficit with China, shaking a metaphorical fist at the Asian superpower since at least 2011. And as of this week, according to a report by Maggie Haberman of the New York Times, Trump is calling for a 45 percent tariff on Chinese imports. Though Trump insists that he is “a free trader,” he argues that China’s trade practices are so egregiously unfair that the U.S. has little choice but to retaliate.

The candidate’s detractors will no doubt see his China-bashing as another example of Trumpian buffoonery. Most students of U.S.-China trade will tell you that both countries benefit from the flow of goods and services across the Pacific, and that although China is guilty of imposing nontariff barriers, subsidizing its exporters in violation of global trade rules, and failing to respect the intellectual property rights of U.S. entities, the pros for American investors, workers, and consumers massively outweigh the cons. There is a problem with that view, however.

Regardless of the effect of Chinese import competition on the U.S. economy as a whole, there is no question that its impact on some regions, and some groups of workers, has been devastating. Everyone understands that free trade will be a boon to some and a burden to others. But it is the job of government to ensure that the “losers” from Chinese import competition are given the help they need to adjust to global economic integration. And it seems pretty clear that our government hasn’t done this job terribly well.
[…]

Does this mean that the U.S. would have been better off had we walled ourselves off from Chinese imports, or had we imposed Trump-style 45 percent tariffs decades ago? I seriously doubt it. Yet it is striking to consider just how indifferent Republican and Democratic elites have been to the devastating effects of deindustrialization.

I don’t suppose it’s necessary to point out his call for Mexican deportation and building a wall, the Muslim ban and the China bashing might have in common for all these conservative white workers. Somehow I don’t think it’s trade policy.

Reihan Salam is right that the inability or unwillingness to deal with the plight of workers whose jobs have been outsourced to China is a moral blight on the American political system, particularly on the GOP which has fetishized free markets with religious fervor. But excusing the demagoguery of Donald Trump (and yes, the willingness of his followers to believe that all their problems stem from foreigners and people of color) is an equally deplorable moral blight. If Trump’s campaign has had the salutary effect of opening people’s eyes to the way unfettered capitalism is screwing ordinary workers, that’s terrific. But I’m going to guess that’s not the lesson people are taking from Trump’s bellicose thundering about “the cunning Chinese” and our “stupid leaders.”

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Another good guy with a gun

by digby

I’m going to guess that the number of “good guys” accidentally killing innocent citizens compared to “good guys” killing bad guys is astronomical. This one is lucky he didn’t murder someone, he just got drunk and shot a total stranger by mistake at “13 Hours” over the week-end.

But hey, she should be grateful to live is a country that protects that man’s freedom to carry a loaded gun around to make sure the bad guys don’t shoot her. Or, you know, whatever.

Police say the man suspected of accidentally shooting a stranger at a Renton movie theater told them he carried a firearm because he feared mass shootings.

Dane Gallion, 29, told officers he took the gun to Regal Cinemas 14 at the Landing on Thursday night because he was “concerned about recent mass shootings in public places,” according to a police account in a probable-cause statement released Saturday.

That same anxiety prompted him to keep the gun unholstered in his waistband, the statement says.

The shooting victim, a woman who was wounded in the shoulder, was in stable condition Saturday, according to a nursing supervisor at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle.

Gallion had his first court appearance Saturday. The prosecutor said the state was considering third-degree assault charges, and requested $35,000 bail.

Gallion’s attorney, David Allen, asked for $10,000 bail, arguing that Gallion, who is the son of a retired Air Force colonel, married and working toward a master’s degree at the University of Washington, has “very strong ties to the community” and no criminal record.

“We’ll make sure he stays at home,” Allen said. “He’ll be closely monitored by his family.”

Bail was set at $25,000, and Gallion was ordered to surrender all firearms to a family member and to stay away from alcohol and controlled substances. He will have a second appearance Tuesday at the Maleng Regional Justice Center in Kent.

In an interview, Gallion’s attorney said the incident had been “a terrible accident,” and there was “no intent involved.”

According to the police account, Gallion gave inconsistent descriptions of how his firearm discharged while at “13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi.”

His father, Donald Gallion, had called the King County sheriff’s dispatch to say his son had returned home extremely upset, claiming the gun had fallen out of his pocket and gone off, police said.

Dane Gallion later told the arresting officer that another moviegoer reached for his crotch and that’s when he accidentally fired the gun, according to the probable-cause statement. Gallion said he fled the theater immediately because he didn’t want to be taken for a mass shooter.

Finally, at the Renton police station, he told another officer that a man had been bothering him, but declined to go into the details, according to the statement. Gallion alleged the gun accidentally went off and scared him, prompting him to leave; he denied having handled the gun. The officer wrote in the report that he didn’t notice any powder burns or injuries to Gallion.

Officers discovered a 9-mm magazine in a trash can at the theater, according to the probable-cause statement, and a single spent shell casing and an unfired bullet under a seat. The injured woman had been sitting in front of that spot.

Police said Gallion told them he had taken medicine for anxiety in the morning and that he’d had a pizza and a 22-ounce beer before the movie.

All these good guys with guns are going to be the death of us. Literally.

QOTD: President Obama

by digby

He said a lot of things in his interview today, much of which I co-sign. But none more than this:

PRESIDENT OBAMA: “I”— you know, “I’m here to help move the country forward.” And so I think it’s a healthy dynamic. So, to me, the relevant contrast is not between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton, but relevant contrast is between Bernie and Hillary and Donald Trump and Ted Cruz and the vision that they’re portraying for the country and where they want to take us and how they think about everything from tax policy to immigration to foreign policy, and that gap is as wide as I’ve ever seen. You know, you think about it.

GLENN THRUSH: Right.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: When I ran against John McCain, John McCain and I had real differences, sharp differences, but John McCain didn’t deny climate science. John McCain didn’t call for banning Muslims from the United States. You know, John McCain was a conservative, but he was well within, you know, the mainstream of not just the Republican Party but within our political dialogue. And that’s where, ultimately, any voter is going to have to pay attention is the degree to which the Republican rhetoric and Republican vision has moved not just to the right but has moved to a place that is unrecognizable.

GLENN THRUSH: Where does it end? I mean, the thing — you know, you were about civility in, you know, your first inaugural [address], I recall. This — where does it — what do you think this Trump thing really means, and where do you think it ends, and how do you think it stops?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, my hope — not just for me or the Democratic Party but for the Republican Party and for America – is that this is an expression of frustration, anger that folks like Trump and, to some degree, Cruz are exploiting. It’s real within the Republican Party and the Republican base, but that after this venting, Republican voters will settle down and say, “Who do we want actually sitting behind the desk, making decisions that are critical to our future?”

And I’ve always said I want a healthy, two-party system where there’s vigorous debate but both parties are contributing to a constructive vision of the country and help us make progress. And it will be interesting to watch, during the course of this campaign, whether or not Republican voters steer back towards the center.

“Interesting” yes. The way watching a train derail is interesting. More like scary as hell.

He’s wrong about one thing. The Republican party’s rhetoric and vision is unfortunately very recognizable. It’s just not something the advanced democracies have seen in over 80 years.

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The Republican Party is coming apart at the seams

by digby

I wrote this for Salon this morning:

Voter ID goes to court in NC
by Tom Sullivan

Rev. William Barber speaking at Moral March on Raleigh
2015. Flickr photo by AGFE via Creative Commons

U.S. federal Judge Thomas Schroeder in Winston-Salem, North Carolina today hears a case against the state over its sweeping voter ID bill. HB 589 changed overnight from about 17 pages to over 50 in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Shelby County v. Holder that weakened the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The NAACP, the U.S. Justice Department and others claim the photo ID requirement unduly burdens black and Hispanic voters:

The trial over North Carolina’s voter ID law is set to begin Monday in front of Schroeder, a federal judge since 2008 who was appointed to the bench by President George W. Bush.

The legal battle is one of several being watched across the nation as the courts address questions of the fairness and lasting impacts that ID laws have on voting rights.

In North Carolina, voters will be required this year to use one of six specified IDs when they cast ballots — unless they can show they faced a “reasonable impediment” for getting one.

Schroeder already ruled that the ID requirement could be in effect during the upcoming March 15 primary. The leader of the Moral Mondays/Forward Together movement tells the Guardian:

“We see this as a fundamental attack on our democracy which we are fighting with everything we have,” said the Rev William Barber, president of the North Carolina NAACP. “Extremists in the North Carolina legislature have been working feverishly to keep African Americans, Latino families, students and seniors from the ballot box.”

[…]

North Carolina’s law, HB 589, is among the sharpest assaults on voting rights that have been introduced by Republican-controlled legislatures in the wake of Shelby. The supreme court ruling removed an obligation on largely southern states to seek federal government approval before they made any changes to voting procedures.

The end of so-called “pre-clearance” effectively gutted the Voting Rights Act that for 50 years had stood as a bulwark against the widespread disenfranchisement of black voters in the deep south in the days of segregation.

Republicans in North Carolina moved swiftly to introduce an expanded version of HB 589 just days after the Shelby ruling came down. Other provisions in the legislation, that were subject to a previous trial last July in which a ruling is still pending, included reducing the number of early voting days, ending same-day registering to vote, abolishing out-of-precinct voting and prohibiting campaigns encouraging young people to sign up to vote before their 18th birthday.

The NC NAACP and a broad coalition of groups opposed to the sweeping rightward shift of the state since Republicans gained control in 2010 will again hold a mass rally in the state capital on Saturday February 13. Barber lays out his blueprint “to mobilize in the streets, at the polls, and in the courtroom” at AlterNet.

The NCGOP has thrown so many curve balls at voters that there could be a great deal of confusion at the polls in November. The March 15 primary will be a trial run for seeing just how much.

Moral March on Raleigh 2014. Flickr photo by A Jones
via Creative Commons

She’s not ready to make nice

by digby

Some scary stats

by digby

The latest Fox poll has Trump gaining a ton of ground in Iowa over the past two weeks since he went nuclear birther on Cruz. The Washington Post beraks it down:

And to think nobody bothered to go nuclear negative on Trump until now and it’s an outside group with limited buy. So weird.

But that isn’t the whole story. The voting pool in that poll has changed too:

Two weeks ago, the percentage of respondents saying they would “definitely” go out and caucus on Feb. 1 was 59 percent. In this new poll, that dropped to 54 percent, meaning a 10-point swing toward those who would say they will “probably” go to the caucus. Two weeks ago, Trump trailed Cruz by six points among those who would probably vote. Now he leads with that group by 15 — more than his overall lead against Cruz.

But that’s risky for him. As we’ve noted, self-reporting of whether people will get to the polls is not always accurate and tends to depend on past voting behavior more than anything. In the new Fox poll, Trump gets 34 percent of Iowans, but 43 percent of those who will be going to caucus for the first time. Perhaps they will. But people who haven’t voted before are a lot less likely to vote than people who vote all the time, for perhaps obvious reasons.

By all accounts Trump does not have the kind of ground game in place that will ensure all these first time caucus goers actually go. But who knows, maybe they are so excited by the idea of deporting Mexicans and banning Muslims that they’ll make the effort. Or maybe they’ll just get drunk instead.

But it is interesting that Trump just cannot be too negative for these Republicans. I think he’s right. He could shoot someone on 5th Avenue and he’d go up in the polls. He’d skyrocket if the person he shot was black or brown. Extra credit for a Muslim.

And his other rivals are helping. Get a load of this from one of the Rubio PACs:

Gotta love all of these idiots empowering Trump.

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A Muscle Gap?

by digby

I know I’m still being naive, but I simply cannot get over the fact that people don’t realize how idiotic this puerile drivel is:

I will make our Military so big, powerful & strong that no one will mess with us. #Trump2016 https://t.co/fxgCl9J1Wf pic.twitter.com/PJECpbmkSE

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 24, 2016

Look at that stupid thing. He’s going to “Trump the Military”? WTH? That’s nonsensical.

And his notion that a) we don’t have the strongest military already and that b) he’ll make it so strong “nobody’s gonna mess with us” sounds like it’s coming out of the mouth of a child.

It’s hard to believe that any adult hears that and thinks, “damn right” after 9/11 but apparently lot of people aren’t very bright.

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QOTD: The Nuge

by digby

I think this says it all:

NRA’s Ted Nugent: “Trump is as close to Ted Nugent as you are going to get in politics.” https://t.co/Yu8A8I2GaR pic.twitter.com/lpRIYFEId7

— Media Matters (@mmfa) January 24, 2016

He literally shot himself in the foot

by digby

And it’s damned lucky he didn’t hurt someone else:

A man accidentally shot himself in the foot in a church in Sulphur Springs, Texas, on Wednesday evening, police told the Longview News-Journal.

The man accidentally discharged his pistol in the Davis Street Baptist Church’s family life center, according to the News-Journal. He sustained minor injuries, and nobody else was hurt, police said.

Texas’ new open carry law went into effect in at the beginning of this year.

This fool is the guy everyone expects to save to save them from ISIS when they burst through the door and start shooting everyone in the church. Actually, it will more likely be a right wing fanatic. They’re the ones with the history of shooting people in churches.

Yeah, I think I’d still duck and cover rather than count on this fine fellow to protect me. In fact, I’d probably attend services elsewhere. These people are idiots.

Update:

A father and son were killed in a shootout with another man and his son at a gun store Saturday in Pearl River County’s Henleyfield community.

Pearl River County deputies responding to the shooting on Mississippi 43 about 3:15 p.m. found the store owner and his son dead in the store, Chief Deputy Shane Tucker said.

The owner’s wife was working at the store when two customers, a man and his son, entered to pick up a firearm that had been repaired.

“There was some contention about a $25 fee,” Tucker said.

In an attempt to clear up the dispute, the woman called her husband, who later arrived with his son. An argument ensued between the owners and the customers.

“During this argument, we believe there might have been some pushing and shoving,” Tucker said. “One of the customers and one of the owners produced firearms. We don’t know who shot first.”

All four men were shot. The two customers were airlifted to a hospital with life-threatening injuries, Tucker said.

By Sunday morning, the son in hospital ICU was in stable condition, he said.

The wife of the owner was not wounded.

Investigators are trying to determine how the situation unfolded before any charges are filed, Sheriff David Allison said.