Month: September 2017

Trump just had to rip off the scab and poured salt into the wound


by digby

I wrote about Trump’s latest tantrum for Salon this morning:

Have you ever noticed that whenever President Trump gets a slight bump in the polls he goes on a tear as if to prove once again that he is the baddest of bad boys and nothing will ever tame him? He clearly yearns desperately for approval but unless that approval is wrenched from people against their will in defiance of everything they have previously believed in, he’s left unsatisfied.

But who knows what really drives the man? All we can do is observe his behavior and hope he doesn’t completely go off the deep end. This past week-end, he came close.

First, Trump tweeted out the scariest tweet of his long twitter career and that’s saying something. He threatened to murder millions of people if the North Korean foreign minister said something he didn’t like:

Just heard Foreign Minister of North Korea speak at U.N. If he echoes thoughts of Little Rocket Man, they won’t be around much longer!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 24, 2017

Meanwhile, when he wasn’t threatening Armageddon, he decided that the one pressing issue he absolutely had to address was the protests by NFL players against police violence against African Americans. That he decided to do it in the same week there were large demonstrations in St Louis over the not guilty verdict for a cop who was filmed planting a gun on a suspect after he was taped saying he was “going to kill this motherfucker ” was probably not an accident.  After everything that happened after Charlottesville, he just had to rip off the scab and pour salt into the open wound.

This is what the president of the United States said at a rally in Alabama last Friday night:

“Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, ‘Get that son of a bitch off the field right now, out, he’s fired. He’s FIRED!’ You know, some owner is gonna do that. He’s gonna say, ‘That guy disrespects our flag; he’s fired.’ And that owner, they don’t know it. They don’t know it. They’re friends of mine, many of them. They don’t know it. They’ll be the most popular person, for a week. They’ll be the most popular person in this country.”

It should be noted that this isn’t the first time Trump has sneered at this protest that began with former San Francisco Quarterback Colin Kaepernick using the sports ritual of “taking a knee”when a comrade in down on the field to protest the death of unarmed black men at the hands of police.  In Louisville Kentucky last March he was going on about how he was going to fix the inner cities and promised that people who go “from welfare to work” there will “find a rebirth of hope, safety, and opportunity” when he abruptly digressed to talk about the “San Francisco Quarterback” who he claimed nobody wanted to hire because it would get them a nasty tweet from Trump. He said many times that the NFL’s ratings were down because of Kaepernick’s protest.

After his comments on Friday before his adoring all white Alabama crowd, NFL players and owners were hugely insulted.
After all, he called these athletes “son of a bitches” and used the bully pulpit to agitate for them to be fired from their jobs for failing to stand for the national anthem. This is, to say the least, unusual. Or it was until the Trump administration which has been making a habit of calling for black people to be fired if they say or do something Trump doesn’t care for. (Using foul insulting language at rallies is nothing new for him. Recall that he once even called Ted Cruz a pussy.)

When the most popular athlete in the country, Stephen Curry said he wouldn’t go to the White House with his Warrior teammates because he objected to the president’s rhetoric and attitude, Trump angrily tweeted in response:

Going to the White House is considered a great honor for a championship team.Stephen Curry is hesitating,therefore invitation is withdrawn!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 23, 2017

In response to this bizarre presidential twitter tantrum many more players took a knee during the anthem on Sunday, some teams didn’t even come out of the locker room until it was over, some sat on the bench and still others, including team owners, linked arms in solidarity with those who were protesting. It was an intense moment and even people who don’t care about sports knew that an extraordinary cultural event was taking place.

Rather than try to calm the waters, the president spent the day tweeting complaints about the player protests being unpatriotic and telling fans to boycott the games. A non-profit group that supports Trump immediately took up the cause buying ads accusing the NFL of “disrespecting the country” and called the protesters “hateful individuals.” And in one of his greatest acts of chutzpah yet, he pretended that all the people who linked arms during the anthem were doing it to show solidarity with the anthem, not the protesters:

Great solidarity for our National Anthem and for our Country. Standing with locked arms is good, kneeling is not acceptable. Bad ratings!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 24, 2017

Trump personally spoke to the press and reiterated his position three times on Sunday in addition to the more than a dozen tweets over the week-end. It was all he could talk about.

But he couldn’t spare a moment to address the catastrophe that is unfolding for 3 million Americans in Puerto Rico in the wake of hurricane Maria.Not one word in his torrent of tweets and press appearances for what officials are describing as “apocalyptic” conditions. The whole island is still without power and little hope of repairing it any time soon. Food is scarce. Dams are breaking and towns are flooding. It is an emergency.

It’s possible that Trump doesn’t even know that the people on this devastated island are Americans. It’s probable that if he does know that, he thinks they shouldn’t be. They are all Latinos and they speak Spanish, after all, which he thinks disqualifies people from American citizenship. He certainly isn’t giving them the same kind of attention he gave to Texas and Florida when they were hit by hurricanes and he raced to the scene with his wife by his side to offer solace to the victims. These Americans got one perfunctory tweet last week that was likely written by a staff member.

To add insult to injury, late Sunday night Trump announced a new indefinite travel ban that includes people from North Korea and Venezuela in a nakedly superficial attempt to pretend that it isn’t based on religion. Apparently, the new policy is to ban people from the United States for any reason he likes now.

Donald Trump got good reviews for briefly acting like a normal president. He knows what it will take to raise his poll numbers and he has good reason to believe that his supporters will stick with him not matter what. But he simply cannot stop being divisive. It is the single defining feature of his presidency. He is threatening the world and tearing the country apart and it’s not getting better. It’s getting worse.

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There used to be this thing called “principles”

by digby

The following is from David Leonhardt in the NY Times:

“To disagree well you must first understand well,” my colleague Bret Stephens argued in a Saturday speech titled, “The Dying Art of Disagreement,” which I encourage you to read. “You have to read deeply, listen carefully, watch closely.”

I’m guessing that many readers of this newsletter instinctively agree with the pro athletes who have criticized President Trump. But how much have you thought about why so many of your fellow Americans disagree with those athletes’ protests?

Clearly, racism plays a role, at least in Trump’s case. But the debate isn’t only about race. If nothing else, listening to the other side will sharpen your own counterarguments.

At National Review, Rich Lowry said the N.F.L. controversy was an example of Trump’s “gut-level political savvy” and highlighted “why he’s president.”

“He takes a commonly held sentiment — most people don’t like the NFL protests — and states it in an inflammatory way guaranteed to get everyone’s attention and generate outrage among his critics,” Lowry writes. “When those critics lash back at him, Trump is put in the position of getting attacked for a fairly commonsensical view.”

Patrick Ruffini, a conservative political strategist who’s worth following on Twitter, wrote: “A lot of people are operating under the assumption that Kaepernick’s protest is popular. It isn’t.” Ruffini added: “False assumptions about public opinion make opposition to Trump less effective.”

And Ben Shapiro, the conservative writer, tweeted: “What the left sees: People kneeling to protest in favor of the right to kneel. What viewers see: People kneeling during the anthem.”

For smart takes from the anti-Trump side, try John Legend (yes, that John Legend) in Slate, Jamelle Bouie on Twitter, Lindsay Gibbs at Think Progress, Jelani Cobb in The New Yorker and Samuel Freedman and Charles Blow in The Times.

Ok. I read those right wing views. Yes, kneeling for the flag is unpopular among a bunch of people. I’m sure all protests against things people like or respect make some people angry. Likewise, protests against things that upset people are popular among the people who agree with them.

So what else is new? If protests didn’t make some people unhappy there probably wouldn’t be a need for them in the first place.

When I was a kid flag-waving was just a big a thing as it is today and there were protests that makes these look puny, like the March on Washington for instance. They made some people very angry too. But what has held the country together through these fights has been the corny line by Patrick Henry (and Voltaire) “I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend your right to say it.” It’s something even little kids understand.

Trump doesn’t agree with that. He’s an authoritarian president calling for people to be fired and blackballed for saying something he doesn’t agree with. It won’t take much for him (and his little dog Jeff Sessions) to decide that “something needs to be done” legally because it’s a threat to the nation. He’s working on “the Antifa threat” as well. He’s already banning Muslims refugees and building invisible walls.

There have always been plenty of people in this country who think free speech is only for me and not for thee. What’s different here is that we have a president who isn’t even trying to maintain the larger principle and is instead promoting the idea that some people should be shut up by any means necessary.

He wouldn’t fight to the death to your right to say anything he doesn’t agree with. In fact, he’s one step away from declaring that everyone must agree with him.

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A faith not so deep and abiding
by Tom Sullivan

A mile wide and an inch deep. How many times have I written that phrase to describe our conservative opponents’ commitment to their vaunted principles? Sen. Chuck Grassley, Republican of Iowa, admitted to reporters his caucus wants to pass an Obamacare repeal this
week — this particular unscored and hated Obamacare repeal — strictly to protect their political fortunes [timestamp 5:17]:

“I could maybe give you ten reasons why this bill shouldn’t be considered. But Republicans campaigned on this so often, that you have a responsibility to carry out what you said in the campaign. That’s pretty much as much of a reason as the substance of the bill.”

Millions of Americans health? Collateral damage. Acceptable losses. Not as important as political careers.

Paul Waldman found as much days ago:

If you ask Republicans why exactly they support the Graham-Cassidy health-care bill that is their last chance to repeal the Affordable Care Act, they’ll struggle to offer a specific reason. These are not, after all, a group of people who know much about health care or feel it necessary to understand what they’re voting on. But after some casting about, they’ll probably settle on the fact that the bill sends authority and money from the federal government down to the states, and doing so is always an unalloyed good.

“As a general rule the states do things better than the federal government does,” says Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.). “Our states — our 50 states — are very flexible, very innovative. Much more so than we are here,” says Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.). “It’s about moving power to the states, where money can be spent much more effectively,” says Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.). “I like the idea of sending money back to the states and letting each state experiment with what’s best for their citizens,” says Sen. Luther Strange (R-Ala.).

This is a core part of contemporary Republican philosophy, that whenever possible we should devolve power away from out-of-touch bureaucrats in Washington and send it closer to the people, to those at the state and local level who understand their citizens and can craft the best solutions for them. You’ve probably heard this idea articulated so many times that you don’t even question it. But there are two problems: There’s no evidence it’s true, and Republicans themselves don’t even believe it.

It’s like their standard stump speech line condemning “the failed policies of the past.” It is cynically vague. They know listeners will fill in the blank themselves so they won’t catch hell by naming government programs their audiences actually like and use. (I’ve heard Democrats use that line, but rarely.) Complaints of federal “waste, fraud, and abuse” serve the same function. Fill in in the blank yourself.

As for pushing the decisions back to the state level, national Republicans won’t have to take the heat for draconian decisions made by their less circumspect compatriots in state legislatures.

Waldman continues:

If you listen closely, you’ll notice that Republicans always express this belief that states work better than the federal government without getting specific. What you won’t hear is anything resembling evidence that on the whole, states actually do things better. It isn’t that you can’t find innovative state programs or effective state administrators, because you can. But you can find those things on the federal level, too. And there is precisely zero reason to believe that as a group states are more efficient, spend money more wisely, design better programs, or serve citizens better than the federal government does. The next time somebody says that they do, ask them how they know. If they say “It just makes sense,” that means they have no evidence.

Plus, Waldman observes, politicians convinced states are somehow more “innovative” and that the federal government is awash in waste, fraud, and abuse don’t want to confront the fact that there is actually more corruption going on at the state level. He cites a few statistics just to drive home the point. Thus demonstrating that “government closest to the people” is stump-speech rhetoric not supported by reality. Nor by their own actions:

In the last few years, Republican-run states have been rushing to pass “pre-emption” laws that bar cities and towns from passing certain kinds of liberal measures, despite their alleged belief that the officials closest to the people know what’s best for them. According to a recent report from the National League of Cities, 24 states have forbidden municipalities from raising their minimum wage, 17 won’t allow measures on paid family leave, and 17 forbid municipalities from setting up their own broadband systems (a result of intense telecom company lobbying). Dozens of states pre-empt local gun laws — and Republicans hope to pass a federal law mandating “reciprocity,” meaning that if you have a gun permit in any state you can bring your gun to any other state, which effectively robs each state of its ability to decide what kind of gun laws should prevail within its borders.

Perhaps the best recent example of GOP hypocrisy on the federalism question comes from Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), who will be introducing an amendment to Graham-Cassidy to forbid states from setting up their own single-payer systems. Apparently, Republicans want states to experiment and innovate in health care — as long as it involves things like booting people off Medicaid and cutting back benefits. But if they start to get liberal ideas, then the heavy hand of the federal government is going to have to come down.

Speaking of … come on down to the home of the bathroom bill repeal, you pikers, and let the NCGOP show you how it’s done. From their perches in the state capitol, they’ll preempt democracy, preempt equal treatment, preempt a living wage, preempt control of municipal infrastructure, etc. They’ll even threaten to preempt your entire city. But it’s the feral gummint that is oppressive, dontcha know?

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Request a copy of For The Win, my county-level election mechanics primer, at tom.bluecentury at gmail.

Lock him up

by digby

The good news is that Jared’s use of private email isn’t suspicious because it’s not as if he’s tried to communicate on back channels with say … Russia or anything.

Jared Kushner has used a private email address to conduct government business at the White House, Politico reported Sunday afternoon.

During the 2016 campaign, Donald Trump repeatedly and aggressively attacked Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while secretary of state. This new report suggests that Kushner — Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser — may have engaged in similar behavior, using the private email account to write messages about “media coverage, event planning and other subjects.”

Politico reports that it has reviewed two dozen emails involving Kushner’s correspondence. Kushner has used the private account to trade emails with former White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, National Economic Council director Gary Cohn, and former chief strategist Steve Bannon.

He created the private email just before he went to the White House.

You can’t make this stuff up.

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Fox newsers dancing on the head of a pin

by digby

Trump didn’t say what he said so it’s all fake news:

HOWARD KURTZ (HOST): The president is clearly tapping into resentment among a lot of sports fans and others toward these multi-million dollar athletes who they think should be playing instead of protesting.

CHERYL CHUMLEY: Well, I just want to take a little bit of disagreement with what you said.

KURTZ: Please.

CHUMLEY: First off, I think it is fairly simple for journalists to look at this issue in a light that isn’t covering it just from the day-to-day rapid reaction. First off, Trump didn’t call anyone an S.O.B. He came out and said, “What if the coaches called these players S.O.B’s?” And I think that —

KURTZ: A fine distinction I think.

CHUMLEY: It is a fine distinction, but it’s the difference between truth and not truth. And I think as journalists, we are in the business of reporting truth as we see it down the line.

Here’s what he said:

“Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, ‘Get that son of a bitch off the field right now’?”

I know I don’t have to explain this.

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Oh heck, Puerto Rico is destroyed. The president can’t be bothered.

by digby

I’m pretty sure the president doesn’t consider Puerto Ricans to be Real Americans what with their “foreign” language and all. But he could at least show some mild interest in the fact that 3 million people are living in what is being called apocalyptic conditions.

(CNN)Days after Hurricane Maria pounded the island of Puerto Rico, killing at least 10 people, authorities are starting to see firsthand the scope of devastation that left the US territory off the grid.

Without power and communications in much of the island, millions of people, including city leaders and first responders, have been cut off from the world since Maria hit Wednesday.

Authorities flew over the island Saturday, and were stunned by what they saw. No cellphones, water or power. Roads completely washed away and others blocked by debris, isolating residents.
“It was devastating to see all that kind of debris in all areas, in all towns of the island,” Jenniffer González, the island’s non-voting representative in Congress told CNN.

“We never expected to have a lot of debris in so many areas. A lot of roads are closed, older ones are just gone,” she added.
At least 10 people have been confirmed killed by the storm, according to Gov. Ricardo Rosselló’s office.

Roselló met with more than 50 mayors and representatives from across Puerto Rico on Saturday. Some described the conditions in their communities as “apocalyptic” and said there have been incidents of looting in both homes and stores.

“We know a little more today than we did yesterday,” Rossello said. “This is going to be a long road.”

A dam is in danger of collapsing, adding to the crisis.

He tweeted about how the NFL should fire players who take the knee 12 times so far this week-end. He excoriated John McCain for failing to vote for the monstrous repeal of health care for 30 million people. He is engaged in playground name calling with the North Korean dictator and told his foreign minister that if he says something he doesn’t like “they won’t be around much longer!”

Not one word about Puerto Rico. Nothing.

This is stupid as well as heartless. His numbers go up when he pretends to be a president and acts as though he cares about people after a natural disaster. He’s not very good at it but the citizens seem to appreciate the effort.

But Puerto Ricans are Latino and they can’t vote for president they just don’t even rate a mention.

To donate to help:

Unidos por Puerto Rico

“Unidos”: A Hurricane Relief Fund for Hurricane Maria Victims in Puerto Rico

And this from Jezebel:

If you live in the Miami area, the Puerto Rican Leadership Council is accepting donations of nonperishable food, water, and clothing at several locations beginning on Friday, with details and timing over at the Miami Herald. The Miami Foundation created the US Caribbean Strong Relief Fund to raise money supporting hurricane relief efforts in Caribbean nations and territories affected by Irma and Maria. Philadelphia-area nonprofit El Concilio has launched Unidos PA’ Puerto Rico to raise money for hurricane relief. The Salvation Army is accepting hurricane relief donations, and GlobalGiving has a Caribbean Hurricane Irma & Maria Relief Fund, which will initially steer funding towards immediate needs like food, clean water, and shelter, and will later shift toward supporting local organizations’ recovery efforts. Volunteer disaster relief organization All Hands is headed back to the US Virgin Islands for Hurricane Irma and Maria Response, and there is a crowdfunding effort by the Dominica London High Commission to raise money for basic relief materials on Dominica, which has been left in “war zone” conditions; you can donate to that effort here. ConPRmetidos, a Puerto Rico-based nonprofit, is accepting donations here.

79% of Republicans think Trump is taking the country in the right direction

by digby

…. but everyone hates the GOP congress:

Fewer than three in 10 Americans — 29% — hold a favorable view of the Republican Party according to a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS. That is down 13 percentage points from March and is the lowest mark for the GOP since CNN began asking the question in 1992.

The previous low point for the GOP was 30% — hit twice — in October 2013 following the federal government shutdown over President Barack Obama’s health care law, and December 1998, in the wake of the House of Representatives approving two articles of impeachment against

then President Bill Clinton.

Why should they care? They still get elected. And if they can’t quite get enough votes they cheat. It’s been working for them quite well.

meanwhile, they have a strong vision for the future:

Republicans are signaling they prefer President Donald Trump’s vision for the party, with 79% saying he is taking it in the right direction. A majority of GOP voters — 53% — believe Republican leaders in Congress are taking the party in the wrong direction.

Apparently Republicans want war — a race war at home and a nuclear war with North Korea. The latter will make the former unnecessary but they obviously want to make sure we have a backup.

This is bad, folks. It’s not a joke. The opposition needs to focus on the clear and present danger we face. But they won’t:

Going forward, 74% of Democrats say the party should mainly work with Republicans to try to get some of the party’s ideas into law while 23% say the party should mostly work to stop the GOP agenda.

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Trump’s history as a football team owner

by digby

I had only known some of the details about his football league con until I read this Esquire story. Naturally, he bankrupted others and barely escaped with his own skin:

Before barreling through what he dismisses as his loser, low-energy, blood-coming-out-of-their-whatever opposition and shaking up politics as usual, Donald Trump was trying to shake the high holy shit out of professional football. He was just 37—a budding rogue rich guy with flyaway sandy (not yet orange) hair and a trophy first wife named Ivana. He’d just built a 68-story glass tower in the middle of Manhattan and, to make sure people noticed, put his name on it. In bronze. He’d soon open his first Atlantic City casino, slapping his name on that, too. Even back then, Trump wanted what he still wants most: more.

So in 1983 he bought a football team, joining a confederacy of other rich rogues who had just completed their first season of the United States Football League. The business plan: compete with the NFL—sport’s one true, grim superpower, whom USFL owners mocked as the No Fun League—but not directly against it. The twelve-team USFL played its games in the spring, encouraged excessive end zone celebrations (the NFL penalized them), and allowed both replay challenges and two-point conversions after touchdowns (the NFL still didn’t permit either). Games were televised on ABC and an upstart cable channel called ESPN.

Trump purchased the New Jersey Generals from J. Walter Duncan, a laidback Oklahoma oil tycoon who got homesick travelling each weekend to watch his team play (“You weren’t going to outsmart him,” one observer said of Duncan. “But you might be able to out-talk him”). With Heisman Trophy winner Herschel Walker already in the backfield, the Generals had been the league’s flagship underachiever. They won just six games against opponents that stretched from Tampa Bay (whose halftime promotions included seven-car giveaways and the burning of mortgages) to Birmingham to Los Angeles, where the league eventually took over a team almost nobody came to watch. By the next season, when Trump bought in, the league swelled to eighteen cities—a money grab by owners to collect millions in franchise fees and soften their growing losses.

The Generals’ fortunes rose instantly, but the league’s did not. The USFL collapsed after just three seasons. Yet its Trumpian storyline hews eerily close to today’s. The Donald made a media-inhaling, savior-is-born entrance; surged beyond expectations; then went all in on his attempt to upend the entrenched NFL by pushing his fellow owners to move games to the fall in hopes of inciting a merger. The bet brought the league, already in failing health, crashing down. Critics blame Trump’s hubris. Haters wait for a similar last act in the upcoming Republican primaries.

“You can cut and paste the USFL and the GOP and it’s the same damn story,” says Charley Steiner, radio voice of the Generals and now play-by-play man for the Los Angeles Dodgers. “It’s all about him and the brand and moving on to the next thing if it doesn’t work out.”

Read the whole thing. He pretty much destroyed the whole league. Now he’s using that unique talent to destroy the whole country.

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Can you see what’s wrong with this picture?

by digby

Here’s the treasury secretary talking about the NFL players protest:

Sec. Mnuchin to @MarthaRaddatz: “It’s not about free speech.” NFL players “can do free speech on their own time.” https://t.co/SfzYXbpSYR pic.twitter.com/DurESiYsNT

— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) September 24, 2017

“They can’t do free speech on their own time.”  See, you shouldn’t be able to say whatever you want on the job.

Then:

Sec. Mnuchin on Pres. Trump’s rhetoric on NFL players: “I think the president can use whatever language he wants to use.” #ThisWeek pic.twitter.com/JN3iGLy9Qi

— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) September 24, 2017

He’s special.

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The first team to take the knee together

by digby

…. were these professional athletes:

Back in 2016, the Indiana Fever

More to come…

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