Month: April 2016

Chuck Grassley’s coup
by Tom Sullivan

President Obama took Senate Republicans to school yesterday in a speech at the University of Chicago Law School where he taught constitutional law for a dozen years. He spoke on the intransigence of Senate Republicans in refusing to give a hearing to his Supreme Court nominee, Illinois native Merrick Garland:

“If you start getting into a situation where the process of appointing judges is so broken, so partisan, that an eminently qualified jurist cannot even get a hearing, then we are going to see the kind of sharp partisan polarization that has come to characterize our electoral politics seeping entirely into the judicial system …”

“That erodes the institutional integrity of the judicial branch. At that point, people lose confidence in the ability of the courts to fairly adjudicate cases and controversies. And our democracy cannot afford that …”

Video here.

The Chicago Tribune reports:

Obama described the Republican leadership’s attempts to block Garland as “a circumstance in which those in the Senate have decided that placating (their) base is more important than upholding the constitutional and institutional roles in our democracy in a way that is dangerous.”

Supreme Court watcher Dahlia Lithwick looks at how the Senate Judiciary Committee led by Sen. Chuck Grassley has stonewalled the process. Citing a recent floor speech, Lithwick takes Grassley to task for how shifty the Iowa Republican has been in how he views the court:

But the extra special hypocrisy sauce here is that Grassley now says that the only way to depoliticize the court would be to appoint nominees who conform their political views to those of the Republican Party. “Justices appointed by Republicans are generally committed to following the law,” he said. And then he argued that the court is too political because Republican nominees don’t act sufficiently politically. “There are justices who frequently vote in a conservative way,” he said. “But some of the justices appointed even by Republicans often don’t vote in a way that advances conservative policy.”

Wait, what? So the problem for Grassley isn’t “political” justices—it’s justices appointed by Republicans who don’t advance “conservative policy” 100 percent of the time. And with that, he revealed his real issue. His Senate floor attack isn’t about depoliticizing the court at all. It’s about calling out Roberts for being insufficiently loyal to the Tea Party agenda when he voted not to strike down Obamacare.

What is really being said here is that there is only one way to interpret the Constitution and that is in the way that “advances conservative policy.” According to Grassley’s thinking, a justice who fails to do that in every single case before him or her is “political” and damaging the court. By this insane logic, the only way to protect the court from politics is to seat nine Chuck Grassleys and go home. And to achieve this type of court he will stop at nothing, including trash talking the entire institution from the Senate floor and threatening the chief justice who will, because he is chief justice, decline to respond.

Grassley, who once claimed the Supreme Court “does not have seats reserved for one philosophy or another” apparently meant, Lithwick writes, There is only a single judicial philosophy and if I don’t get a nominee who shares that philosophy, I’ll happily slander the whole court.

In addressing the issue in Chicago, Obama took the opportunity to begin a debate on the role of the Supreme Court, admitting that politics has an influence on rulings. It is a debate Grassley’s aides say he welcomes. Yet he refuses to budge.

Lithwick caustically observes that the proper venue for such a debate is a confirmation hearing, “But Grassley doesn’t want a debate. He wants a coup.”

Plutocrats. Their faith in the Constitution is a mile wide and an inch deep. They don’t really like the idea of democracy. Democracy means they sometimes lose to people who, let’s face it, really are their inferiors. It means sharing power with the wrong people, with the unworthy and the Irresponsibles.

Obamacare embarrasses the right

by digby

Oh my, it’s actually working:

And if you want to know why the right hates it so much, look at this:

It’s the poor, the young, African Americans and Latinos who have benefited the most. These are people the right believes are getting something for nothing at their expense. A whole lot of white people have benefited too, but lately they’re considered undeserving as well.  It’s the same old story.

At some point, however,  many more people will cycle through the Obamacare system as they lose or change jobs or start a business or get too sick to work for a while. Maybe the attitudes will change then. But it’s going to take time. This attitude is baked in the American cake and it’s going to take time to change it.

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by digby

As a surrogate for Trump, he’s perfect:

Berman asked Carson if Corey Lewandowski should remain in charge of the Trump campaign in light of his arrest for allegedly grabbing the arm of a former Breitbart News reporter. He noted many people cited Lewandowski’s battery as a credible reason to dismiss the top aide. 

“Well, I mean, a lot of people have been charged with various things,” Carson responded. “That doesn’t necessarily mean we need to demonize them. You’ve probably been charged with something too, maybe with a misdemeanor or something. It doesn’t mean you’re an evil, horrible person.” 

Bolduan and Berman looked at each other with disbelief for a few seconds after Carson suggested Berman had a criminal record. 

“I actually haven’t, as far as I know,” Berman then chimed in as Carson continued to talk over him.

The vast majority of Americans have never been charged with a crime.  But then Carson has a unique worldview. Most people have never tried to hit their mother with a hammer or stab a schoolmate either.

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Cruz is like Mitt Romney?

by digby

Ann Coulter thinks so:

“Even if he won the nomination, Cruz is a stiffer, cornier, less likable version of Romney. He couldn’t pick up one state Romney won, and might lose a few. And even if none of that were true, the Supreme Court will rule that Cruz [a Canadian] is ineligible to be president. They’ve already ruled nearly a dozen times on what constitutes a ‘natural born citizen’ — a legal term of art going back a few centuries in British Common law, and a constitutional requirement to be president. Cruz isn’t that, he was indisputably born in Canada to non-military, non-ambassador parents. He’s also easily the most boring candidate of my lifetime.”

Is it possible that she’s ratfucking here? Using the fact that she’s a bomb-throwing right wing provocateur to make Cruz look … normal?

I don’t know any other way to explain this …

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GOP: Democracy isn’t working for us

by digby

This really says it all. As the wingnuts get more and more desperate, they simply have to choice but to rig the game as much as possible. Via TPM:

A former top staffer for a Republican legislator in Wisconsin suggested this week that GOP legislators were motivated to pass the state’s tough photo voter ID law because they believed it would help them at the ballot box, an account he expanded on in a Wednesday interview with TPM.

Todd Allbaugh, who served as chief of staff for state Sen. Dale Schultz (R) until the legislator retired in 2015, first made the claims in a Tuesday Facebook post that caught the attention of national voting rights experts.

In the post, Allbaugh recalled a 2011 caucus meeting of GOP state senators about the voter ID legislation. Allbaugh said during that meeting, some Republicans were “giddy” over the legislation’s “ramifications” and the effect it would have on minority and young voters.

Once he left politics, Allbaugh opened a Madison, Wisconsin, coffee shop, where TPM reached him over the phone and he elaborated on those claims.

“It just really incensed me that they started talking about this particular bill, and one of the senators got up and said, ‘We really need to think about the ramifications on certain neighborhoods in Milwaukee and on our college campuses and what this could do for us,’” Allbaugh said. “The phrase ‘voter suppression’ was never used, but it was certainly clear what was meant.”

While Schultz, Allbaugh’s former boss, has notably spoken out against more recent restrictions on voting, he voted for the 2011 bill. According to Allbaugh, at this point in the point of meeting, Schultz brought up his own concerns with the voter ID legislation.

“He was immediately shot down by another senator who said, ‘What I am interested in is getting results here and using the power while we have it, because if the Democrats were in control they would do they same thing to us, so I want to use it while we have it,’” Allbaugh said.

Allbaugh said Schultz left the meeting in frustration after that, while he stayed behind to continue taking notes.

“It left a pit in my stomach to think that a party that I had worked for for years and years and years was literally talking and plotting to deny someone, a fellow citizen, their constitutional right,” Allbaugh said.

My favorite thing is that they claim the Democrats would do the same thing to them. But they wouldn’t, seriously. It’s not that they are so honest and uncorrupted. It’s that they have created a truly diverse coalition of voters that mirrors the country as a whole. There is no advantage in keeping people from voting because they have no way of knowing which people could be in their camp. That’s the multi-ethnic, multi-cultural future of America. Republicans are a party of the past and the only way they can bring it back is to deport millions of people from the country, ban millions of people from entering the country and stop millions of people who don’t already vote for them from voting.

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What is this SuperPAC you speak of?

by digby

I know it’s hard to believe, but it looks as though Donald Trump is a hypocritical liar. Shocking for sure:

Donald J. Trump has made his disdain for “super PACs” a central part of his stump speech. He criticizes candidates who get support from these outside groups, and his campaign sent a cease-and-desist letter to one super PAC that used his campaign slogan, and whose strategist had ties to his campaign manager.

But Mr. Trump’s campaign has been less vocal about the Great America PAC, which was formed months ago under a different name and which says it spent more than $1 million in ads to support the candidate, although media trackers say they have seen no sign of that spending.

When Mr. Trump staged his own event with veterans instead of attending a Fox News debate in Iowa in January, a consultant named Eric Beach was in attendance. Mr. Beach, a veteran Republican operative from California who at the time was a supporter of Senator Rand Paul, is now overseeing fund-raising for Great America PAC.

The Trump campaign sent letters to other super PACs last year urging them to shut down after questions emerged about the ties of its strategist to Mr. Trump’s campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, and for using Mr. Trump’s campaign slogan to call itself, Make America Great Again PAC.

But the Great American PAC, which Mr. Beach is working for, received no such letter, according to the group’s lawyer, Dan Backer. A top ally of Mr. Paul, Jesse Benton, recently joined the super PAC.

Mr. Beach, in an interview, said that the group is augmenting what the candidate is doing, not just through ads but also with a delegate operation to help bolster Mr. Trump’s chances of getting the nomination. It also will focus on raising smaller donations, Mr. Beach said.

“The art of the super PAC really is to drive a message and to drive a narrative and capture a movement — it’s not to try to control what the candidate’s doing, and we fit that bill,” said Mr. Beach, who added that the goal is to capitalize on momentum.

The super PAC is a hybrid, not only promoting the candidate, but also raising small-dollar donations that it sends directly to the campaign.

And here we thought he was only spending his own money …

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The GOP establishment’s odious choice

by digby

I wrote about the Cruz plan to take over the world (well the Republican convention anyway) for Salon today:

Back at the beginning of the year before any of the primaries, I wrote here on Salon that the Republican race would end up being between Donald Trump and Ted Cruz. Despite the GOP establishment’s blithe assurance that one of the golden boys of the “deep bench” would inevitably prevail, it always seemed unlikely to me. A majority of Republican voters are now extremists of one kind or another and Trump and Cruz are their logical representatives. It’s democracy in action.  I said at the time, “the establishment is going to have a big decision to make. Do they back the hated Cruz to stop the loathsome Trump? Or do they back the detestable Trump to stop the odious Cruz? What a choice.”

Well, here we are in April and we’re looking at the potential of a contested convention and possible riots in the streets. Nobody knows if Trump can eke out enough delegates to get a majority before the convention and he’s made so many enemies along the way that it’s impossible to believe that that any of his former rivals like Rubio or Kasich would endorse him and voluntarily turn their delegates into his. Cruz has no chance to win enough delegates to win on the first ballot and he’s not any more popular with the establishment players. So it’s very likely we are talking about a whole lot of cajoling, seducing, bribing, arm-twisting and deal making to decide the nominee. We might even be talking about threats, blackmail and physical intimidation.

There’s a lot of talk about how the Republicans will be unable to wrest the nomination away from Trump if he just comes close but it important to remember that this is the GOP. The GOP that seized the presidency for George W. Bush with a dubious lead of 535 votes in his brother’s state and a 5-4 majority on the Supreme Court after losing the national popular vote by half a million voters. Don’t tell me they can’t do it because they are committed to democratic principles. Please. No, the only reason they won’t do it is if they unable to orchestrate a successful coup and install a “fresh face”.  If they can’t get that done the the only question remaining for the Republican elites is whether it will be better for the party to get thumped with Trump or lose with Cruz.

It’s hard to imagine how galling it must be for the GOP officials and big money donors to be in this position.  A year ago they had Walker, Rubio, Bush, Christie, Perry, Jindal, Huckabee, all Governors and Senators with high national profiles and impeccable conservative credentials. Any one of them could have easily unified the party after a hard fought primary campaign. And it’s come down to a street fight at the convention between a crude Bond villain and a man who would be the most extreme nominee since … well, ever. It couldn’t be a worse outcome.

Say what you will about Ted Cruz, that he has a uniquely unctuous personality that’s so unlikable he literally seems to have no friends, but there is no denying that he’s very smart, hard working and strategic. And while his original plan to take the lead with a strong showing in the southern states didn’t pan out he didn’t give up and now finds himself in the position of possibly becoming the establishment choice by default and in the weird position of having to appeal to the people he’s been calling corrupt liars and hacks for years to try to line up support for his cause.

Katie Glueck and Burgess Everett at Politico reported yesterday that Cruz has launched a Washington offensive using surrogates like former Texas Senator Phil Gramm and the two current Senators he has already secured, Senator Mike Lee of Utah and Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. Apparently nobody is trying to make the case that Cruz is warm and fuzzy but rather that he’s the best bet to beat Trump at the convention. And they all seem to agree that Cruz’s extremist far right agenda is not an impediment:

“When this is over, we need to be together on a set of issues we agree on,” Gramm said, characterizing the message he relayed to McConnell and others in Senate leadership. “The good news is, while people may have had conflicts with Ted, our basic leadership totally agrees with him on the issues. It’s a huge difference with Trump, but basically we’re all together.”

That’s chilling.  Political scientists Keith Poole, Howard Rosenthal and Christopher Hare rank Cruz as the most conservative senators based on their analysis of every roll call vote taken. The American Conservative Union gives Cruz the only perfect score of 100 while the average GOP Senator gets a 79.  The Club for Growth worships him. He wants to return to the gold standard. On foreign policy he’s been calling for the US to carpet bomb the middle east and see if “sand glows in the dark.” He’s a genuine dominionist theocrat, (just listen to his victory speeches if you doubt it.) And yet the major objection to him isn’t any of that, it’s that he doesn’t play well with others.

Cruz probably will get some support from the DC elites to pull off this miracle but it’s hard to know how much he really needs it. His rude and nasty behavior toward them may actually be the key to his success.  As Nate Silver pointed out yesterday the actual delegate selection process is geared toward the kind of Republicans who like Ted Cruz just fine: hard core conservatives. Treating the “Washington Cartel” like dirt is what they love about him. All along he’s been working the delegate system, assiduously courting them in the committees and state conventions to see him as their second choice should there be more than one ballot.  And according to Silver’s numbers he’s been working that angle much more successfully than Trump.

As Newt Gingrich told Politico, Trump has done the impossible — he’s made “Cruz appear normal.” He laid it out this way:

“What Cruz of course has done, very intelligently, is he has gone out and he has poached on the delegates that are going to be bound to Trump legally on the first vote, but they’re not bound after the first vote,” he said. “So what he’s trying to do is win elections in Louisiana, in Georgia, etc., where he picks up people that are pledged to help him once they meet their legal obligations. So Cruz, I think, will tell you he will actually get stronger on the second and third ballots. Trump probably won’t. Trump really has to rush to victory on the first ballot, I think.”

So this may all come down to a bunch of very right wing conservative delegates picking an ultra- conservative nominee for what has become a far right minority party in defiance of what their establishment elites want. Unfortunately, that scenario is what Donald Trump defines as “stealing the election” and he threatening all kinds of repercussions. Nothing about this is going to be easy.

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Maybe they’ll have to drink the water?
by Tom Sullivan

Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder has even more legal trouble coming his way:

A federal racketeering lawsuit by hundreds of resident in Flint, Michigan, is alleging the city’s two-year water crisis was the result of an“intentional scheme” crafted by state officials and Michigan’s governor, Rick Snyder, to balance the city’s budget.

In a press conference announcing the 17-count racketeer influenced and corrupt organizations (Rico) complaint on Wednesday, attorneys said the state of Michigan ran Flint’s day-to-day operations through an emergency manager, who prioritized balancing the city’s budget through a cost-cutting measure: switching Flint’s water source in April 2014 from Lake Huron, which serviced the city for more than 50 years, to a local river.

With adults and children essentially poisoned by lead, a neurotoxin, the damages could go on “for generations,” said attorneys about the suit filed in U.S. District Court in Flint.

The attorneys asserted that the legal doctrine of governmental immunity will not be an issue in the Rico case, as the numerous state officials have been named as defendants individually – not in their official capacity. The attorneys declined to estimate the possible financial damages associated with the lawsuit, but said repayment for water bills alone to Flint residents could exceed $50m. Appropriate damages determined by the court will be tripled, as stipulated under civil Rico statute, said [attorney Chet] Kern.

The lawsuit also requests a jury and seeks compensatory damages for future medical costs and legal fees, and treble damages for property damages, loss of business and financial loss.

The suit alleges mail fraud and wire fraud by officials for mailing bills and accepting payments for what they knew was a toxic product:

The case is the first time the RICO Act has been used in a lawsuit regarding the city’s water crisis.

The RICO act, most notably used to take on the mafia in criminal cases, has targeted everything from the Gambino Family to the Hells Angels. However, it can also be used civilly by citizens to try and recoup damages for wrongdoing.

The Detroit Free Press reports:

Along with Snyder, the suit names as defendants the state of Michigan; the departments of Environmental Quality and Health and Human Services; and a number of state officials, along with emergency managers whom Snyder appointed to oversee the city. Also named are the city of Flint, two of its utility officials and three consulting companies that advised them.

How’s that “reinventing Michigan” working for ya?

Walkin’ on the fightin’ side

by digby

I’ve never been totally sure if Merle Haggard (who was actually from California) was being ironic or not. He told different stories about that at different times. But you can be sure that his fans took it deadly seriously at the time.

Go to a Donald Trump rally today and you’ll find these sentiments are nearly unchanged. He was singing for most of them before they were born.  It’s been nearly 50 years since he wrote those songs. And over 150 since the Southern states seceded, lamenting over the same things. It’s as American as it gets.

RIP Merle Haggard. I always liked him in spite of all that. His music is part of the soundtrack to my life.

Update: This piece at Wonkette about Haggard and Nixon is just great:

Pat Nixon’s birthday party at the White House on March 17, 1973? Not merely because it wasn’t really her birthday — she was born March 16, but the Nixons always celebrated it on Saint Patricks’ Day — but because Merle Haggard was 1) a bit out of place in his boots and cowboy hat, while everyone else was wearing tuxedos, and he was 2) — gasp! — a convicted felon whose biggest hit was 3) an anti-hippie protest song. As Rick Perlstein recalls in The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan (his excellent follow-up to Nixonland, which should be mandatory reading for everyone), everything felt a little weird, even to Haggard himself, who was invited to play his odes to the common man and patriotic indignation “Okie From Muskogee” and “The Fightin’ Side of Me”:

He later said it felt like performing to mannequins. Came the dramatic highlight: a giant American flag rose from the back of the stage. Haggard swung into his law-and-order hit, “Okie from Muskogee.” 

The New York Times observed an incongruity: the president had three days earlier sent his message asking Congress to attack crime “without pity,” but Haggard was a felon, convicted for robbery. The next week the Chicago Tribune ran a query from a reader: “Do you know whether he’s the first ex-convict to perform in the White House?’” 

It spoke to an emerging dilemma: when people thought of the White House, crime was the image coming to mind.

Haggard was always coy about just how straight “Okie From Muskogee” was meant to be taken, but he was happy to perform for Nixon — not just at the White House, but at the Grand Ole Opry in 1974, where Tricky Dick himself stiffly sat at the piano and banged out a couple tunes — those great Country tunes “Happy Birthday” and “My Wild Irish Rose.” Haggard also played the White House for Ronald Reagan in 1982, which was sweet for Haggard since Reagan had pardoned him while he (Haggard) was doing three years in San Quentin for attempted burglary.

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Inappropriate about daughter number 2 too

by digby

Donald Trump is a very creepy dad. He’s on record more than once talking about how he’d probably be “dating” his daughter Ivanka if he wasn’t her father and commenting lewdly on her great body. But this, via TPM, is really gross:

A 1994 clip of Republican frontrunner Donald Trump describing his 1-year-old daughter left “Daily Show” host Trevor Noah speechless Tuesday night.

The clip is from an episode of “Lifestyle of The Rich And Famous” and is not available online, according to Noah.

“Donald, what does Tiffany have of yours and what does she have of Marla’s?” the show’s host, Robin Leach, asked, referring to Trump’s second wife Marla Maples.

Trump’s answer to the “innocent question” left Noah speechless.

“I think she’s got a lot of Marla, she’s a beautiful baby. She’s got beautiful legs. We don’t know if she’s got this part yet,” Trump said, as he cupped his hands under his chest to signify breasts, “But time will tell.”

Who says something like this? Even a baby girl is nothing more than a sex object to him. There’s something very wrong with him when it comes to women. This is not normal, even for an old-school misogynist.

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