Month: July 2016

These people supposedly love babies

by digby

You may remember this from a couple of weeks ago:

The rapidly spreading Zika virus — which can be transmitted sexually and by mosquitos — is most dangerous for pregnant women. But Republicans in Congress on Thursday released a funding proposal limiting the distribution of contraceptives and preventing family planning organizations like Planned Parenthood from participating in the effort to help women in Zika-affected areas delay pregnancy.  

The House passed a proposal that allocates $1.1 billion to fight the Zika virus — just over half the amount the Obama administration requested four months ago to stop the epidemic.  

Democrats are furious that Republicans short-changed the president’s funding request. They are particularly upset that the bill excludes $50 million in requested funds for maternal and child health and blocks supplemental funds from going to Planned Parenthood for birth control services. The bill mandates that the Zika funds be prioritized for mosquito control programs, vaccines and diagnostics, leaving no resources for contraceptives or condoms.  

“It is unthinkable that in the face of a public health emergency, Republicans chose to pass a hyperpartisan proposal that doubles down on using women’s health as a political football by restricting access to women’s health care, like contraception, which is especially critical to preventing the spread of this virus,” said Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), ranking member on the Senate Health Committee.

House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said the bill would sufficiently address the crisis.

“It is a responsible plan that assures the administration will continue to have the needed resources to protect the public,” he said.

And:

They went a step further last week, proposing to eliminate the Title X Family Planning program, which provides low-cost family planning and health services.

At Wednesday’s hearing, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) expressed her frustration with the situation, urging her colleagues to help women in Zika-affected countries access free contraception.

“We can’t have one hand tied behind our back by saying, as the House said, that none of this money can be used for non-governmental organizations to provide birth control, which is so critical,” Boxer said.

“Countries think they solved a problem when they just tell the women, ‘Don’t get pregnant,’” she added. “There’s something wrong with that on so many levels.”

Republicans refused to back down and put this inadequate bill back on the floor today. From NARAL:

For the second time in two weeks, Senate Republicans put their dangerous response to Zika on the floor for a vote. The bill fails to protect women and the children they may wish to have by inserting funding restrictions on family planning. Just yesterday in a U.S. Senate hearing, officials from the Centers for Disease Control and USAID confirmed the need for women and men to have access to family planning information and services during this time—yet Senate Republicans refuse to follow their recommendation.

They really don’t give a damn. If they can make a political point about women being sluts, they’re happy to do it even if it means babies being born with catastrophic birth defects. It’s as sickening as it gets. And keep in mind that people are not talking about abortion here. They are blocking funds for contraception too. It’s about sex. But then it always is. They never really cared about babies.

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If it is indeed Pence

by digby

… and I won’t be surprised if it turns out that The Donald has faked out the press corps and will pick one of the others. But in case anyone thinks the conservatives will all be jumping with joy if Pence is chosen, think again. Here’s Richard Viguerie:

The deafening silence the national media heard from the conservative movement when word leaked out from the Trump campaign that Indiana’s Governor Mike Pence is among the final three candidates Donald Trump is considering as his running mate speaks volumes about how far Pence has fallen in the estimation of conservatives since he left a safe seat in Congress to run for Governor of one of the country’s most reliably Republican states.

When Pence left Washington he was known as one of the original insurgents against the John Boehner – Donald Trump Mike PenceDennis Hastert Republican establishment.

Pence served as chairman of the Republican Study Committee when it truly was the voice of conservatives in the House, and he parlayed that into election as chairman of the House Republican Conference, a position often viewed as the fourth-ranking leadership position in the House.

And Mike Pence, unlike many other successful conservatives in DC, did not surrender to the inside-the-Beltway political consulting class: He built a team of cultural conservative political operatives to help him run the House Republican Conference and the Republican Study Committee.

Pence is known as a deeply religious man, a staunch social conservative and devout evangelical Christian who was a regular attendee at a Capitol Hill Bible study group that includes members of Congress.

During Pence’s chairmanship the House Republican Conference was a veritable conservative policy factory turning-out conservative position papers and talking points that guided Republican communication and legislative opposition to the Obama – Pelosi – Reid agenda during the first two years of Obama’s presidency.

In the waning days of the George W. Bush administration while Democrats and President Bush pushed for what eventually became the car company bailout and the Wall Street bailout Pence showed real courage and principle.

Mike Pence led the House opposition to TARP, and to the auto bailout, even though Indiana is an automobile manufacturing-heavy state. He circulated a “Dear Colleague” letter, urging GOP members to vote “no” on the bailout; “Nationalizing every bad mortgage in America is not the answer,” Pence wrote to colleagues.

Facing down the President and Speaker, and threats from the House Republican leadership and Wall Street to initially defeat the bill, Pence remained among the principled Republican opponents even as a half-dozen House members switched their votes to help the bill pass,

That took real courage and the willingness to put it all on the line for principle – which makes Mike Pence’s lack of courage as Governor of Indiana so strange.

After the Indiana General Assembly passed a Religious Freedom Restoration Act that Mike Pence had initially supported, he caved-in to the radical homosexual lobby and abruptly demanded amendments to the bill he had just signed.

But Mike Pence’s betrayal of conservative principles, and his conservative supporters, after selling himself to the public as a limited government constitutional conservative and supporter of traditional values really should not have come as a surprise to conservatives.

Mike Pence did much the same thing on Common Core and earned the enmity of Indiana’s grassroots local control and education reform movement in the process.

And while we conservatives need to continue to educate Donald Trump on our issues, no one doubts that Trump has the courage to stand for what he believes, no matter who or what the opposition.

The same cannot be said for Governor Pence who, although already well-versed in limited government constitutional conservative policy principles and Christian thinking about government, abandoned those principles in the face of opposition from radical homosexuals and principle-free business interests.

Frankly, the spineless retreat of Mike Pence in the face of pressure from the radical homosexual lobby is indicative of a problem we face throughout our culture, and especially in the conservative movement, and that is a lack of moral courage in the face of evil.

Then again, if we Christians won’t speak-up and say we stand only with those who are willing to put their political careers on the line to defend us, what should we expect from malleable elected officials like Governor Mike Pence?

Donald Trump could do a lot worse than Mike Pence as his running mate. However, if he expects that the selection of Pence will close the deal with conservatives he is sadly mistaken, because Pence has shown that he lacks one of Trump’s most admirable qualities; the willingness to fight for what he believes in.

Mike Pence as Governor of Indiana has not been a fighter for our values. While many in the conservative movement think well of him for his leadership in Washington, before we can be fully on board with him as Donald Trump’s running mate we need to hear that Governor Pence recognizes his errors, particularly on RFRA, that he wants forgiveness and our support, and most importantly, that he has recovered his moral compass and will rejoin the fight for our values.

Pence really lost his chance to run for President when he supported the original “religious liberty” bill. His pragmatic walk-back cost him conservative cred.

It’s hard out here for a wingnut.

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Where’s the Queen of the Arctic?

by digby

Trump’s explanation for why Palin isn’t coming to the convention is so patently ridiculous that I have to wonder what really happened:

Former vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin isn’t included in the official list of speakers for the Republican National Convention next week, and Donald Trump suggested in an interview that her absence is because she lives too far from the venue.

“She was asked,” Trump told the Washington Examiner in a phone interview on Thursday. “It’s a little bit difficult because of where she is. We love Sarah. Little bit difficult because of, you know, it’s a long ways away.”

This is the supposedly savvy businessman who’s going to out-negotiate the rest of the world and he can’t come up with something believable? Seriously?

It will come out eventually. Everything leaks from the Trump campaign.

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Is everyone happy now?

by digby

“On reflection, my recent remarks in response to press inquiries were ill-advised and I regret making them,” Ginsburg said in a statement. “Judges should avoid commenting on a candidate for public office. In the future I will be more circumspect.”

Trump responded by pulling together his rent garment and releasing the pearls he’d been clutching tightly in his tiny hands and said:

The Supreme Court is above that kind of rhetoric, those words,” he said. “But she acknowledged she made a mistake and I’ll accept that.” 

“It wasn’t really an apology, but we have to move on anyway. It’s just something that should not have taken place.”

Apparently, Justice Ginsburg will not be receiving an apology for Trump saying her “mind is shot.” But that’s how these things work. As Josh Marshall says, with Trump “it’s always and only about dominance.” And Villagers are always ready to submit.

The good news is that liberals can now relax and give themselves a big high five for their brave willingness to chastise their own icons for saying something mean about Donald Trump.

Now we’re getting the press in on this little game:

Hillary says “I have to do better” on being too partisan, then pivots and savages Trump in her usual way: He’s divisive, dangerous, etc.

— Patrick Healy (@patrickhealynyt) July 13, 2016

I sure hope everyone joins in on that bandwagon and tells the Democratic Presidential candidate that it’s being “too partisan” to attack the proto-fascist Donald Trump at a time when the nation needs “healing.” But hey, it’s all good. Mitt Romney and Stuart Stevens are out there making the case against Trump so maybe Clinton can follow the advice of the sage liberal commentariat and spend all of her time groveling like a dog and begging for forgiveness. That’s very inspiring.

Also, since she’s so incredibly boring I understand she needs to “do something” to make sure she gets her ratings up like Trump’s. I’m thinking a Cercei Lannister style “walk of shame” (without the nudity, needless to say) where everyone gets to spit on her and call her names would be good. Democrats especially enjoy that and I have no doubt the networks would cover it gavel to gavel. It’s not as great as listening to Trump recite the gripping story of his primary victory in New York for the thousandth time — nobody can beat that. But it might boost her TV ratings a little bit. Trump’s ratings are through the roof! And that’s what it’s all about.

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Larry and David

by digby

Alex Shepard at The New Republic ran down former UK Prime Minister David Cameron’s last day spent “doing what he does best — roasting Jeremy Corbyn and lying about his cat.” You can click over to see the stuff about Corbyn. Here’s the bit about the cat:

Cameron took some time to sign on to Twitter and lie about his relationship with his cat, Larry, who is being left behind at 10 Downing St. because Cameron hates animals and only got the cat because he was widely seen as being hopelessly out of touch by the British public.

Proof… pic.twitter.com/UZVXn6WcUw

— David Cameron (@David_Cameron) July 13, 2016

This is proof of nothing. First of all, if this grainy, out-of-focus shot is the best available evidence that David Cameron loved his cat, then David Cameron did not love his cat. Second, Cameron looks like he’s asking his butler to “get this thing” off of him in this picture—he seems baffled by the very concept of cats and the concept of affection between humans and animals in it. Cameron’s true last act as prime minister is abandoning a helpless animal that he hates, which is oddly fitting.

meow.

Kris Kobach: A True Trumpie


by digby

I wrote about him for Salon this morning:

If by some chance Donald Trump were to actually become president, one of the people he would undoubtedly tap for a role in his administration would be Kansas Secretary of state Kris Kobach, a hardcore right wing activist with a particular expertise in anti-immigrant legislation. Before he ran for office in Kansas he helped Republican state legislatures write anti-immigrant legislation, most famously Arizona’s “show me your papers” law which was thankfully tossed out by the federal courts.

Naturally he enthusiastically endorsed Trump and has even gone so far as to take credit for Trump’s plans to “make Mexico pay for the wall,” in which the US government can supposedly use a provision of the Patriot Act to stop undocumented workers from transferring money to their families over the border. Since Trump estimates that the border wall will cost 10 billion and the estimated amount of money that flows over the border is 20 billion per year, Trump and Kobach believe that the Mexican government will be so frightened by the prospect of losing all that money that they will agree to pony up the 10 billion just so they don’t lose it all. Kobach told the Topeka Capitol Journal that Trump is “an excellent negotiator and he looks for opportunities to put pressure on opposing parties in negotiations and this fits the bill.” (As we now know, Trump’s reputation for business savvy is just a tad overblown so he is likely too optimistic in that regard.) 

President Obama called Trump’s plan “half-baked” and told reporters, “the notion that we’re going to track every Western Union bit of money that’s being sent to Mexico — good luck with that.” Others pointed out that, if it were to be found a legal application of the Patriot Act, which is doubtful, it would simply create a shadow money transfer system which would end up making it much harder to track legitimate criminal money laundering.  And it’s highly likely that former president of Mexico Vicente Fox spoke for every member of the Mexican government when he said, “I’m not going to pay for the f**king wall,” anyway. 

Kobach is such a leader in the anti-immigrant circles that he was pushed for the VP slot  by Trump’s nativist fans. As Zachary Roth at MSNBC reported last May:

The nativist website VDARE.com has promoted Kobach as a veep selection for Trump. Peter Brimelow, the site’s founder, called Kobach’s endorsement of Trump “a very brave move,” adding: “Kobach for veep.” The Southern Poverty Law Center describes VDARE, which has regularly published writing by white nationalists and anti-Semites, as a hate group. It’s named for Virginia Dare, said to be the first English child born in the New World.

When Kobach appeared on a PBS program defending Trump against former RNC chief Haley Barbour, the website was delirious in its praise:

“In a GOP party that was living up to its professed principles, people like Kobach, and not Barbour, would be running things,” a writer for the site enthused, describing Kobach as “a stalwart warrior against the illegal immigrant invasion.” The post also appeared at the neo-Nazi site The Daily Stormer, whose founder has endorsed Trump.

As you can see Kobach and Trump have a lot in common.

Kobach did not appear on any list for VP, but he was an important voice at the recent platform drafting committee meetings where he made sure that his draconian immigration agenda was adopted thus ringing another death knell for any hope of Republican outreach to the Hispanic community.He was adamant about Trump’s wall, insisting that it “must cover the entirety of the southern border.” And he was very clear about what kind of wall it has to be. According to The Wichita Eagle:

Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry said this week that Trump’s wall will actually be a “digital wall” meant to prevent immigration, rather than a physical barrier. Kobach rejected that notion. 

“The wording I chose makes very clear that it must be a physical wall,” Kobach said, explaining that under President George W. Bush, some officials supported the use of electronic sensors at the border instead of a physical wall, an idea he deems insufficient.

“There’s no metaphors. We’re talking an actual, physical barrier,” Kobach said.

There’s no word on whether upon hearing Perry’s suggestion that he wasn’t serious,  Trump repeated his favorite line, “the wall just got 10 feet higher.”

But building the wall is not the only issue on which Trump and Kobach are simpatico. Kobach served in the Bush administration and was instrumental in the implementation of the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System, the post 9/11 requirement that all Muslims and Middle Eastern citizens in the country on visas register and file their fingerprints with the government. With his plans to deport Syrian refugees, ban Muslims from immigrating and surveilling mosques, Trump could certainly use a man with that kind of expertise on his team.

Kobach’s other area of interest is on the subject of vote suppression where he has also had great influence on the state level by helping to draft laws to thwart non-existent voter fraud, an issue Trump has also said he considers to be a serious problem. He has said, “I want to see voting laws so that people that are citizens can vote, not so people that can walk off the street and can vote, or so that illegal immigrants can vote…You’ve got to have real security with the voting system. This voting system is out of control. You have people, in my opinion, that are voting many, many times.”

He’s a perfect choice for a Trump administration. Indeed, his other contribution to the platform draft could have come right out of the Trump campaign itself. As the president was giving his eulogy for the five slain police officers in Dallas this week, Kris Kobach offered a provision that states that the Republican Party opposes all laws that would restrict magazine capacity, ban AR-style rifles or “deprive a person from the right to keep and bear arms without the right to due process.” It passed without debate.

Kobach said the provision is a “reaction to what some Democrats have been doing every time there’s a terrorist attack in the United States. Instead of talking about defeating ISIS, they use the terrorist attack as an excuse to go after Americans’ guns.” Trump couldn’t have said it better himself.

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Guardian or warrior?
by Tom Sullivan

Photo from LifeLine Training, Inc. Facebook page. “Street Survival” seminar.

Yikes. The Minneapolis Star-Tribune reports that the officer who shot and killed Philando Castile last week during a traffic stop had taken several courses critics say make police officers “paranoid”:

Amid intensifying demands for changes in police training in the wake of the shooting deaths of Castile and others, such “survival” courses for officers are flourishing nationally. But some in law enforcement are distancing themselves from the approach.

The Houston Police Department, for example, won’t pay for its officers to attend the Bulletproof Warrior seminar, which is put on by an Illinois for-profit company called Calibre Press.

And the leader of an international police training association said he thinks some seminars like those offered by Calibre and other firms foster a sense of paranoia among officers.

Jeronimo Yanez, the St. Anthony police officer who shot Castille, had taken several courses from Calibre. Under criticism, Calibre has renamed “The Bulletproof Warrior” training “Interaction and Influence.”

The paper cites Michael Becar, executive director of the International Association of Directors of Law Enforcement Standards and Training. Becar believes police training has become too militaristic. He has attended Calibre classes:

“Everything they were doing made the police officers very paranoid,” Becar said. “At some point they wouldn’t even stop a car without three backups.”

The Houston Police Department will not pay for officers to attend the Bulletproof Warrior seminar, said Houston police spokesman Kese Smith. Officers can go on their own time and expense, he said.

Seth Stoughton, a former police officer teaching law at the University of South Carolina, has been a critic of the “officer survival movement.” He wrote this week on “the significant tensions that exist between the Black Lives Matter movement and the Blue Lives Matter movement”:

Both communities feel embattled and victimized. Both are angry. The sad truth of the matter is that there are good reasons for both to feel the way they do. Meanwhile, the consequences of this mistrust are draining and pernicious.

The safety of officers and civilians alike depends, in large part, on the strength of the relationship between the police and the public. Public distrust of the police can decrease cooperation with law enforcement, which can, in turn, lead to an increase in violent crime and resistance. Police distrust of the public, in turn, can lead to an increase in officer misconduct and the use of force, as well as the adoption of aggressive, “zero tolerance” tactics that further exacerbate the tension, perpetuating a downward spiral.

These days, when I hear the phrase, “Be careful out there,” I’m not sure whether to think of police or civilians.

The Republican mainstream

by digby

A questioner at Paul Ryan’s CNN infomercial last night: I cannot and will not support Donald Trump, and it concerns me when the Republican leadership is supporting somebody who is openly racist and has said Islamophobic statements, wants to shut down our borders. Can you tell me, how can you morally justify your support for this kind of candidate, somebody who could be very destructive for our nation.

Paul Ryan: Well first of all that basically means that you’re going to help elect Hillary Clinton. And I don’t think Hillary Clinton is going to support any of the things that you stand for if you are a Republican.

What he’s saying is that racism, Islamophobia, xenophobia and all the other nutty things Trump says aren’t deal breakers. So what would be one? Trump’s said he won’t take nuclear war with Europe off the table. He’s said he wants to steal the oil of sovereign countries. He’s for much more brutal torture even than what we’ve done in the past and has strongly implied that the USA should behead ISIS terrorists because we “have to fight fire with fire.” He wants to change the libel laws so that he can stop publishers and others from saying critical things about him. With all the sophistication of an 8 year old he fatuously declares that he will build the military so big that no one will ever mess with us. He said he will retire the national debt in 8 years.Those are just off the top of my head.

Apparently none of that is a deal breaker for Mr Reasonable Paul Ryan. Indeed, it evidently pales in comparison to someone who promises to raise the minimum wage and cap child care expenses at 10% of any parent’s income. The menace of the Democratic platform to restore voting rights and offer free college tuition at state schools is so great that Trump’s torture thing is a compromise he’s willing to make.

He did say that he was worried that Clinton wouldn’t enact the Republican agenda and  he’s probably right about that. Clinton isn’t going to privatize social security, one of Ryan’s most important agenda items. Oh wait, Trump isn’t for that either. She’s come out against he TPP which Ryan believes is vital. And Trump isn’t for that either. She’s unlikely to enact a big tax cut or get rid of the Department of Education which Trump might actually do. But other than that, it’s really unclear just how many of the things Ryan wants to do are at the top of Trump’s agenda either.  He’s buildin’ a wall and abrogating treaties and banning Muslims and rousting undocumented families and telling the police to take the gloves off  and “bombing the shit out of ’em” long before he gets to any boring stuff like that.

So really, it’s obvious there is literally nothing Trump could do that would make him worse for America than Hillary Clinton. That’s your reasonable mainstream Republican position in 2016.

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What Charlie Said

by digby

I am totally unsurprised that the Republicans are having a field day with the Ginsburg comments.  It’s also sadly predictable to see the same pile on from people who should be happy to see people in positions of respect stand up and denounce that fascist, orange demagogue Donald Trump. But they are.

Pierce says it best:

This is one of those days on which I’m glad I was raised Catholic and, therefore, was schooled in the difference between venial and mortal sin. Because anyone who thinks that RBG’s honest assessment of the vulgar talking yam is on a par with A.) Antonin Scalia’s hunting trips with Dick Cheney, or B.) the majority in Bush v. Gore including one justice (Scalia) whose son got a job with the administration that poppa helped install and another (Thomas) whose wife did, too, needs to seriously examine their consciences more than they did. 

I will be told that I am a Bad Analyst because I am essentially arguing that multiple wrongs make a right, but I don’t really care. Leave aside the historic reality that the Court always has been politicized, sometimes garishly so, but we are now at the end of a 30-year process in which a well-financed conservative infrastructure restructured the federal court system from top to bottom, seeding it with reliable judges who supported dubious interpretations of laws to which their ideological sponsors were unfriendly. 

Ginsberg is not intolerant of conservatives; she and Scalia were opera buddies. But she’s 83, sharp as a tack, and a survivor of pancreatic cancer, which generally gives you the same odds as stepping in front of a westbound freight. Her big bag of fcks was empty long ago. She’s seen what’s happened to the courts first-hand, and she is right to warn us that a Trump administration is just as likely to put the gardener at Mar-A-Lago on the bench as not. Liberals, of course, are supposed to make sure they use the right fork when they sit down to dinner with barbarians.

And if what Mark Joseph Stern says in Slate is true then she’s an even greater hero in my eyes:

Given all of these compelling reasons that Ginsburg should have refrained from speaking her mind about Trump, why did she take the risk? It seems clear that Ginsburg has made a very conscious decision to cash in her political capital after years of holding her fire. The justice is 83, and while she remains healthy and sharp, she probably won’t sit on the court for much longer. She won’t be impeached—Supreme Court justices must do much worse to suffer that sorry fate—and she can’t be voted out. In effect, Ginsburg has nothing to lose but her good name. And that, it seems, is what she has decided she is willing to risk if it might potentially rally her admirers against Trump’s looming peril.

After all, Donald Trump is not an ordinary presidential candidate, or an ordinary Republican. He is a racist, misogynistic, xenophobic bigot. He has proposed banning Muslims from entering the United States; called Mexican immigrantsrapists and criminals; supported the deportation of 11 million undocumented immigrants; routinely treated women with sexist disdain; advocated for torture of suspected terrorists; and generally dismissed the rule of law. He is, as my colleague Jamelle Bouie lucidly explained, a fascist, in a completely different category from previous Republican presidential nominees.

Romney and McCain had qualities and policies that Ginsburg surely loathed as well. But they always had America’s best interests at heart. That is altogether untrue of thesinister and self-interested Trump. For Ginsburg to treat Trump with the same respect—that is, complete silence—that she afforded previous Republican nominees would acquiesce to the premise that his candidacy is just like theirs. It would suggest that this is an election like any other, a run-of-the-mill election rather than a battle for America’s soul. It would legitimize a fascist.

And so, sensing the menace that Trump undoubtedly poses to her country, Ginsburg abandoned judicial propriety to wrestle in the mud with a candidate she detests. It is not pretty, it is not pleasant, and it may not even be that smart. But it may be the one thing the justice can do to help prevent a President Trump. And to her mind, that alone may make it worthwhile.

That is correct. To stay silent is to acquiesce to the fatuous and dangerous premise that his candidacy is normal. To condemn her is akin to calling for the smelling salts when that sophomoric conman dressed up in a pimp suit and showed a bunch of doctored ACORN videos to Fox news. Pierce is right. Breaking the so-called “norm” against partisan activities among the court (the big exception being that one where they literally chose the president… but whatever) is a venial sin compared to the catastrophe of Donald Trump.

If Ginsburg is willing to get down and dirty to help expose that, good for her. She has more guts than 90% of the Republican Party and apparently a good part of the Democratic Party too. No surprise there.

Also, what Brian Beutler said. He examines the issue in depth and has a more nuanced view than I do, but I think on this we agree:

Context matters here, too. Is a Supreme Court justice obligated to remain in the realm of subtext no matter how great she imagines the danger facing the country to be? What if a presidential candidate is campaigning on a promise to ignore congressional and judicial limits on his power, and she is planning to retire no matter who wins the election? Or what if there is a significant bipartisan and cross-ideological consensus that the candidate is a dangerous threat to our democracy?

Well, here we are: a situation none of the justices has encountered before and hopefully won’t encounter again. If Marco Rubio had become the GOP’s nominee and Ginsburg said the same things, the new precedent would be obvious and unfortunate, and there might be no going back.

But extraordinary circumstances can limit the reach of new precedents, and Ginsburg has the wisdom and breadth of experience to make us question our reflexive sense that we understand governing norms better than she does.

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The sleaze campaign

by digby

The GOP must be swelling with pride as they go into their big convention next week. Via TPM:

Donald Trump is suing former aide Sam Nunberg for $10 million over a breach of confidentiality agreement, according to a Wednesday Associated Press report.

Trump’s suit charges that Nunberg leaked confidential information to reporters.

In a court filing obtained by the AP, Nunberg accuses Trump of filing the lawsuit to silence him “in a misguided attempt to cover up media coverage of an apparent affair between senior campaign staffers.” The document reportedly referred to a New York Post story about a public quarrel between two staffers.

The Post’s Page Six filed an item in late May about Trump press secretary Hope Hicks and former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski engaging in a screaming match on a Manhattan street corner.

Lewandowski was fired by the Trump campaign in late June.

Nunberg was dismissed by the campaign last August after journalists surfaced racist Facebook messages he had written about President Barack Obama and Rev. Al Sharpton’s daughter.

Nunberg said at the time that he did not remember writing the posts, in which he referred to Sharpton’s daughter as a “ni**er” and called Obama a “Socialist Marxist Islamo Fascist Nazi Appeaser.”

Lovely people he has working for him. And he’s such a good manager …

Meanwhile, the rumor is that Trump is still paying Lewandowski even though he’s signed on with CNN.  I wouldn’t b surprised.

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