Month: January 2017

Resistance Saturday
by Tom Sullivan

Those of you in the Eastern Time Zone not already at the Women’s March on Washington are probably already heading to your local sister marches. Those further west still have a bit more time to make your local events.

For those of us on the front lines in North Carolina, another important event is just over the time horizon. Three weeks from today on Saturday February 11, the Forward Together Movement gathers in Raleigh, NC at 8:30 a.m. for the 11th annual HKonJ rally (Historic Thousands on Jones Street) led by the Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, II.

The last time I attended HKonJ in 2014, the rally was tens of thousands and, save for The Nation‘s Ari Berman, received little national press. Gov. Pat McCrory’s legislature had passed the most restrictive new voting law in the country the summer before. Since then, McCrory got turned out of office in a Republican sweep year, largely because of the persistent Moral Monday protests led by Barber and the NC NAACP. In the Trump era, this year’s rally should be even larger. And after the international spectacle now former governor McCrory and the Republican-dominated legislature staged in December, the national press has its eyes on North Carolina. Barring a tasty, 3 a.m. tweet by Trump I the night before, there will be press.

To refresh:

Part of what makes Moral Mondays successful is that it is a nonpartisan, “fusion politics” movement, a populist coalition in which a host of issues move “Forward Together,” as the movement’s name suggests, and no one’s pet issue takes precedence. Don’t expect Moral Mondays to go away because Pat McCrory did. Newer and bluer oranger Meanies have been sighted in the vicinity of the nation’s capitol. Barber’s is a successful template for taking them on.

Barber has succeeded in something at which many in the progressive movement regularly fail: getting progressive issue advocacy groups to work collaboratively rather than competitively. For Forward Together, an attack on one coalition member is an attack on all, and all respond. Sort of a nonviolent NATO. Ordinarily, advocacy groups worry about defending their turf and their donors. In campaign work, organizers worry about having another campaign “poach” their volunteers. The donor/volunteer pie is fixed in size, supposedly, and Group A worries that gains by Group B will come at A’s expense. It’s been a zero-sum world. Except it’s not. And it needn’t be. Not now. People (mostly women) are still leaving telephone messages, almost desperate to do something/anything to push back against the Orange Meanie. They’ll be out in force this morning. Donald Trump just “made the pie higher,” to borrow from Bush II, but in a different sense. The volunteer pie is growing, not fixed.

A few days ago, I wrote about Trump’s threat to evict the press from the White House and how that might actually lead to better reporting. But the competitive nature of news gathering works against that in the same way that competing rather than cooperating for scarce resources weakens issue advocacy groups. The Competitive Enterprise Institute may believe competition “answereth all things,” as prosperity gospel con men say about money, but not here. Not now. Ahead of press conferences (assuming Trump has any more), reporters ought to meet to assemble a list of key questions the public wants answered, and when Trump blows off one reporter or evades answering, the next reporter called should ask the same question and so forth until he answers. Only then would they move on to the next question. But that would take, you know, cooperation.

Friday Night Soother

by digby

I love all the White House pets, but these two … oh my. They were the best dogs ever.

I will miss them. Now we have Jared.

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America, we hardly knew ye

by digby

The last official pic by Presidential photographer Pete Souza Our official government bio of our new president:

In case you forgot:

Hillary Clinton: 227 electoral votes; 65,845,063 (48.03%)
Donald J. Trump: 304 electoral votes; 62,980,160 (45.94%)

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Shorthand for American carnage

by digby

In case you missed the speech, this will give you the basic gist:

During his speech in Washington D.C., now President Donald Trump quoted an unusual villain. Prior to capping the speech with his signature, “And, yes, we will make America great again!” the President quoted a line from Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy finale: The Dark Knight Rises.

As you can see in the video below, President Trump promised to give America back to the people, saying “We’re giving it back to you, the people.”

In The Dark Knight Rises, Bane freed prisoners in Gotham City and stood atop a car to address the citizens, saying, “And we give it back to you, the people.”

The uncanny parallel can be seen in the video below.

pic.twitter.com/dYECwneW1R

— Timothy Burke (@bubbaprog) January 20, 2017

Today is Inauguration Day. And Donald J. Trump is going to be sworn in as the 45th president of the United States. I never dreamed — or hallucinated — that I would type those words, but here we are. We are about to go on a wild ride unlike anything we’ve ever experienced before.

President Trump is already flouting virtually every previous norm, rule and custom against corruption and nepotism. His understanding of and relationship to the rest of the world is shallow and ill-considered. We will find out whether our institutions are strong enough to withstand the American democratic system making such a terrible mistake. The stakes could not be higher.

One of the great misconceptions about Donald Trump throughout the presidential campaign was the mistaken idea that because he said kind words about Vladimir Putin and insisted he had been against the Iraq invasion that he was an old-school isolationist. For some reason these people ignored the fact that Trump’s stated philosophy of life is very consistent and very explicit:

Get even. When somebody screws you, screw them back in spades. I really mean it. I really mean it. You’ve got to hit people hard and it’s not so much for that person; it’s that other people watch.

He believes in demonstrating power against people who “disrespect” him personally and who, in his mind, disrespect the United States. Over many years he has said that he believes the rest of the world is laughing at us and he is determined to make them stop.

On Thursday, The Huffington Post reported that Trump had very much wanted to stage a major military parade for his inauguration, something that has always been associated with counties like North Korea, Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and the Soviet Union. The brass apparently told him that tanks and missile launchers would destroy the streets because they’re too heavy. So he had to settle for a full military flyover, which hasn’t been done since Harry Truman was inaugurated. He told The Washington Post yesterday that he planned to hold them in the future, however:

We’re going to show the people as we build up our military, we’re going to display our military. That military may come marching down Pennsylvania Avenue. That military may be flying over New York City and Washington, D.C., for parades. I mean, we’re going to be showing our military.

He is rather childlike in many respects, so watching things that go boom undoubtedly excites him. But other countries have done this to prove their military superiority and that’s surely what Trump thinks is necessary as well. He truly does not understand that there is no doubt in anyone’s mind that the United States has the mightiest military on Earth. Indeed, a decision by the U.S. that it needs to “show” this would probably be seen as a sign of insecurity and weakness, if it weren’t for the fact that everyone can see that the country is now being led by the American version of Kim Jong-un.

With all the hubbub around the inauguration, a lot of things that would normally call for scrutiny and discussion are falling through the cracks. A story in The New York Times about newly released documents from the George W. Bush administration’s torture program is one of them; that’s unfortunate. After all, our new president isn’t just a man who believes waterboarding is a regrettable necessity. He’s a big fan as he has said:

They asked me, What do you think about waterboarding, Mr. Trump? I said I love it. I love it, I think it’s great. And I said the only thing is, we should make it much tougher than waterboarding, and if you don’t think it works folks, you’re wrong.

There is no evidence that “it works.” In fact, all the scholarship says the opposite. Torture is counterproductive. Trump was told this by his incoming secretary of defense, James “Mad Dog” Mattis, and he was surprised to hear it. But he didn’t change his mind.

Trump has, of course, promised from the very beginning that he planned to bring back torture. He has said he wants to do “much worse” than waterboarding, even implying at one point that he believes the U.S. should “chop off heads” in order to fight fire with fire.

As one might expect, it’s not just a matter of trying to obtain information. There’s no need for “ticking bombs” to justify using it. Trump has said he wants to use torture as punishment:

It works. And if it doesn’t work, they deserve it anyway for what they do to us.

The outgoing administration of Barack Obama had insisted on keeping the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence report on the use of torture during the Bush years under wraps. Even the release of the summary was fraught with controversy. The reasons for refusal are unclear but it’s reasonable to assume Obama officials believed it would implicate certain government employees and officials in war crimes, and would also serve as useful propaganda for ISIS.

Civil libertarians generally do not find this rationale to be acceptable. The lack of punishment and accountability for the torture program removed the taboo against it. Now we have a new president who unapologetically promises to revive it and revitalize it with tactics that are even more cruel and inhumane.

Yesterday, according to The New York Times, a federal judge ordered the report to be preserved and placed in the hands of the judiciary by Feb. 10 for safekeeping. There is apparently some suspicion that this report may be destroyed in the same way those videotapes of CIA torture sessions were destroyed. If it happens now, the perpetrator will be in contempt of court.

Most people involved in this issue are fearful that Trump will destroy the report anyway but I have my doubts. Indeed, I think there’s a chance he’ll release it publicly. This would not be because he believes in transparency or thinks the torturers and officials who ordered the practice should be punished. I expect he would want them celebrated by their countrymen as heroes.

After all, Trump wants to parade tanks and missiles through the streets of our cities. He wants to demonstrate American military prowess to prove to the world that he’s the toughest leader of the richest, most powerful nation on Earth. But nothing says “tough guy” like openly celebrating torture. We should be careful what we wish for.

by digby

There is a gap between those who think that Trump is fit for the presidency, in mind and character, and those who don’t. That gap is damn near unbridgeable.  

To my ears, Trump’s address was nasty and borderline un-American — for all it’s talk of patriotism and “America First.” 

My favorite part of the address was its brevity.

Bill Moyers? Michael Moore?

Nope. Jay Nordlinger, columnist for The National Review.

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The American Carnage Speech

by digby

It’s done.

“Chief Justice Roberts, President Carter, President Clinton, President Bush, President Obama, fellow Americans and people of the world, thank you.

We, the citizens of America, are now joined in a great national effort to rebuild our country and restore its promise for all of our people.

Together, we will determine the course of America and the world for many, many years to come. We will face challenges. We will confront hardships. But we will get the job done.

Every four years we gather on these steps to carry out the orderly and peaceful transfer of power.

And we are grateful to President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama for their gracious aid throughout this transition.

They have been magnificent.

Thank you.

Today’s ceremony, however, has a very special meaning because today we are not merely transferring power from one administration to another or from one party to another, but we are transferring power from Washington, D.C., and giving it back to you, the people.

For too long, a small group in our nation’s capital has reaped the rewards of government while the people have bore the cost. Washington flourished, but the people did not share in its wealth. Politicians prospered but the jobs left and the factories closed.

The establishment protected itself, but not the citizens of our country. Their victories have not been your victories. Their triumphs have not been your triumphs. And while they celebrated in our nation’s capital, there was little to celebrate for struggling families all across our land.

That all changes starting right here and right now, because this moment is your moment.

It belongs to you.

It belongs to everyone gathered here today and everyone watching all across America.

This is your day.

This is your celebration.

And this, the United States of America, is your country.

What truly matters is not which party controls our government, but whether our government is controlled by the people.

January 20th, 2017, will be remembered as the day the people became the rulers of this nation again.

The forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer. Everyone is listening to you now. You came by the tens of millions to become part of a historic movement, the likes of which the world has never seen before.

At the center of this movement is a crucial conviction that a nation exists to serve its citizens. Americans want great schools for their children, safe neighborhoods for their families and good jobs for themselves.

These are just and reasonable demands of righteous people and a righteous public.

But for too many of our citizens, a different reality exists.

Mothers and children trapped in poverty in our inner cities, rusted out factories scattered like tombstones across the landscape of our nation.

An education system flush with cash but which leaves our young and beautiful students deprived of all knowledge.

And the crime and the gangs and the drugs that have stolen too many lives and robbed our country of so much unrealized potential. This American carnage stops right here and stops right now.

We are one nation, and their pain is our pain.

Their dreams are our dreams, and their success will be our success. We share one heart, one home and one glorious destiny.

The oath of office I take today is an oath of allegiance to all Americans.

For many decades we’ve enriched foreign industry at the expense of American industry, subsidized the armies of other countries while allowing for the very sad depletion of our military.

We’ve defended other nations’ borders while refusing to defend our own. And we’ve spent trillions and trillions of dollars overseas while America’s infrastructure has fallen into disrepair and decay.

We’ve made other countries rich while the wealth, strength and confidence of our country has dissipated over the horizon.

One by one, the factories shuttered and left our shores with not even a thought about the millions and millions of American workers that were left behind.

The wealth of our middle class has been ripped from their homes and then redistributed all across the world. But that is the past, and now we are looking only to the future.

We assembled here today are issuing a new decree to be heard in every city, in every foreign capital and in every hall of power. From this day forward, a new vision will govern our land.

From this day forward, it’s going to be only America first, America first. Every decision on trade, on taxes, on immigration, on foreign affairs will be made to benefit American workers and American families. We must protect our borders from the ravages of other countries making our product, stealing our companies and destroying our jobs.

Protection will lead to great prosperity and strength. I will fight for you with every breath in my body, and I will never ever let you down.

America will start winning again, winning like never before.

We will bring back our jobs.

We will bring back our borders.

We will bring back our wealth, and we will bring back our dreams.

We will build new roads and highways and bridges and airports and tunnels and railways all across our wonderful nation.

We will get our people off of welfare and back to work, rebuilding our country with American hands and American labor.

We will follow two simple rules: Buy American and hire American.

We will seek friendship and goodwill with the nations of the world, but we do so with the understanding that it is the right of all nations to put their own interests first.

We do not seek to impose our way of life on anyone, but rather to let it shine as an example.

We will shine for everyone to follow.

We will re-enforce old alliances and form new ones and unite the civilized world against radical Islamic terrorism, which we will eradicate completely from the face of the earth.

At the bedrock of our politics will be a total allegiance to the United States of America, and through our loyalty to our country we will rediscover our loyalty to each other.

When you open your heart to patriotism, there is no room for prejudice.

The Bible tells us how good and pleasant it is when God’s people live together in unity. We must speak our minds openly, debate our disagreements honestly, but always pursue solidarity. When America is united, America is totally unstoppable. There should be no fear. We are protected and we will always be protected. We will be protected by the great men and women of our military and law enforcement. And most importantly, we will be protected by God.

Finally, we must think big and dream even bigger. In America, we understand that a nation is only living as long as it is striving. We will no longer accept politicians who are all talk and no action, constantly complaining but never doing anything about it.

The time for empty talk is over. Now arrives the hour of action.

Do not allow anyone to tell you that it cannot be done. No challenge can match the heart and fight and spirit of America. We will not fail. Our country will thrive and prosper again.

We stand at the birth of a new millennium, ready to unlock the mysteries of space, to free the earth from the miseries of disease, and to harness the energies, industries and technologies of tomorrow.

A new national pride will stir ourselves, lift our sights and heal our divisions. It’s time to remember that old wisdom our soldiers will never forget, that whether we are black or brown or white, we all bleed the same red blood of patriots.

We all enjoy the same glorious freedoms and we all salute the same great American flag.

And whether a child is born in the urban sprawl of Detroit or the windswept plains of Nebraska, they look up at the same night sky, they fill their heart with the same dreams and they are infused with the breath of life by the same almighty creator.

So to all Americans in every city near and far, small and large, from mountain to mountain, from ocean to ocean, hear these words: You will never be ignored again. Your voice, your hopes and your dreams will define our American destiny. And your courage and goodness and love will forever guide us along the way.

Together we will make America strong again, we will make America wealthy again, we will make America proud again, we will make America safe again.

And, yes, together we will make America great again.

Thank you.

God bless you.

And God bless America.”

Politicians and dictators and the guys with the dough
by Tom Sullivan

Ukrainian S-300P launchers during the Independence Day parade in Kiev, Ukraine in 2008. Photo via Wikimedia Commons.

As world meets Trump today, Eugene Robinson hears echoes of the past:

I feel as though I’ve seen this movie before. This reminds me of the Nixon years, when the “silent majority” felt itself assailed by the counterculture of hippies, minorities and uppity women. This time, though, the Trump loyalists are a clear minority; he lost the popular vote, and his approval rating is shockingly low for a new president. And the counterculture is now the mainstream: Some of those marching against Trump this weekend haven’t taken to the streets since the days of Vietnam.

Republicans celebrate their victory today, such as it is. Democrats lost the White House in 2016, but so did they. Trump defeated the entire GOP and now has it prostrating itself before him. Robinson elaborates:

Trump has no fixed ideology. Once a Democrat, he commandeered the Republican Party the way a bank robber might hijack the nearest car to make his getaway. The GOP is Trump’s vehicle, not his cause, and there is a chance that some of his policies — perhaps even in health care — will give more heartburn to conservatives than to progressives.

To be determined, of course. “Admit it, you have no idea what a Trump administration will actually be like,” Robinson writes. “[N]one of us knows what is going to happen,” Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.) tells Politico.

The online teaser for Paul Krugman’s New York Times column this morning reads, “The new president will be corrupt and crazy, but he’ll also be incompetent.” Krugman writes about Trump’s team:

So the typical Trump nominee, in everything from economics to diplomacy to national security, is ethically challenged, ignorant about the area of policy he or she is supposed to manage and deeply incurious. Some, like Michael Flynn, Mr. Trump’s choice as national security adviser, are even as addicted as their boss to internet conspiracy theories. This isn’t a team that will compensate for the commander in chief’s weaknesses; on the contrary, it’s a team that will amplify them.

Not to worry, because strong, eh? Trump wanted missile launchers and tanks coming down Pennsylvania Avenue for his inaugural parade so he could show the world how great his military is:

During the preparation for Friday’s transfer-of-power, a member of Trump’s transition team floated the idea of including tanks and missile launchers in the inaugural parade, a source involved in inaugural planning told The Huffington Post. “They were legit thinking Red Square/North Korea-style parade,” the source said, referring to massive military parades in Moscow and Pyongyang, typically seen as an aggressive display of muscle-flexing.

Planners shot down that idea as not structurally sound:

“I could absolutely see structural support being a reason [not to use tanks],” a Department of Defense official said. “D.C. is built on a swamp to begin with.”

But of course, as a master builder, Trump knew that. He’ll get military flyovers instead.

And the vampire squid is back in business in Washington (as if it ever left). As Steve Benen wrote, “[I]t’s almost hard to believe how many Goldman Sachs veterans he’s adding to his administration’s team.” Benen notes ironically, “About a year ago, Edward Snowden characterized the 2016 presidential election as ‘a choice between Donald Trump and Goldman Sachs.’ Oops.”

In a display of a different kind of strength, many of my friends are headed to Washington today, not for the inauguration but for the Women’s March on Washington tomorrow. A little Todd to send them off. Todd works whenever I need my spirits lifted:

Underneath it all we are here together

The owners are back in charge

by digby

When Bush and Cheney seized office under dubious circumstances, the Villagers all crowed that the “grown-ups” were back in charge.

Well, the grown-ups screwed the pooch. Now the owners are taking personal control:

“My family is the biggest contributor of soft money to the Republican National Committee. I have decided to stop taking offense,” she wrote, “at the suggestion that we are buying influence. Now I simply concede the point. They are right. We do expect something in return. We expect to foster a conservative governing philosophy consisting of limited government and respect for traditional American virtues. We expect a return on our investment.” — Betsy DeVos

It is not a new idea. The first Chief Justice of the United States John Jay said it from the beginning:

Those who own the country ought to govern it.

I sure hope all those angry Real Americans knew what they were doing.

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A “blank pardon”

by digby

Yes, she’s dumb, but she swims in the same fever swamp as millions of other Trump voters:

Speaking with “Trending Today USA” host Rusty Humphries yesterday, former Republican congresswoman and presidential candidate Michele Bachmann declared that Hillary Clinton should be in jail and said she “would not be surprised” if President Obama issues a “blank pardon” for Hillary, Bill and Chelsea Clinton before leaving office on Friday. 

Bachmann objected to Obama’s commutation of the sentence of Chelsea Manning, whom she referred to as Bradley Manning, and claimed that Clinton’s use of a private email server when she was secretary of state “most likely” caused “America’s most vital secrets” to be “intercepted” and “released to the world.” 

“We had the worst intelligence failures ever in the history of the United States under Barack Obama,” she said, “by Bradley Manning, by Edward Snowden and by none other than our secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, who because of her selfishness in having an unsecured server set up in her home had America’s most vital secrets intercepted, most likely, by our enemies and released to the world. Barack Obama should be ashamed, Bradley Manning should be in jail and Hillary Clinton, in my opinion, should be there with him.” 

“I would look for a pardon coming for Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, Chelsea Clinton and the Clinton Foundation before noon on Friday,” she said, noting that people not charged with crimes can be “pre-pardoned.” 

“I would not be surprised if we don’t see Barack Obama issue a blank pardon for anything Bill, Hillary, Chelsea or the Clinton Foundation has done,” she said.

Just so you know going in — all the emerging information about Trump’s corruption is going to be met with the inane response that Crooked Hillary was worse, with veiled threats to throw her in jail or worse.

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