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Month: June 2019

Hearing highlights

Published by digby on June 10, 2019

Hearing highlights

by digby

Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida has embraced a role as one of President Donald Trump’s most aggrieved and petulant defenders, apparently banking his political fortunes on the tactic of portraying the commander-in-chief as a victim. But during a House Judiciary Committee hearing on Monday, the limits of the stance became obvious.

Democrats called former federal prosecutors and President Richard Nixon’s former White House Counsel John Dean — who played a key role in the hearings against the disgraced president — to testify before the committee. Dean was upfront that he has no new facts to contribute to Congress’s investigation of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report, but he said he was there to provide historical context for Trump’s actions. He identified parallels between Nixon’s obstruction during Watergate and Trump’s obstruction during the Russia investigation.

But these comparisons obviously chafed Gaetz, who was clearly irritated with Dean when he began his questions. As an adversarial questioner, the goal is to damage the witness’s testimony or credibility and to poke holes in their story, which Dean is certainly susceptible to. And Gaetz also had an opportunity to question the whole basis of the hearing, the utility of which was doubted even by some supporters of the Democrats, given its lack of a direct link to Mueller’s work. And yet when Gaetz tried to pursue this strategy, he completely botched his opportunity, clearly becoming irritable and defensive, and ended up humiliating himself much more than Dean.

Gaetz tried to argue that Dean lacked credibility because he has previously claimed that other presidents, not just Trump, showed parallels to Nixon.

“Throughout history, you accuse presidents of acting like Richard Nixon, and you make money off it, right?” said Gaetz.

“Not all presidents, no,” said Dean.

“But a few more than one!” said Gaetz.

“Those who do act like him, I point it out,” said Dean.

“Let me ask you this question: How do Democrats plan to pay for Medicare-for-All?” Gaetz said, switching his approach. “I figured if we were going to ask you about stuff you don’t know about, we’d start with the big stuff. So do you know how they’re going to pay for Medicare-for-All?”

“Who?” said Dean, throwing Gaetz off once again. “The Democrats? Or, which candidate? Could you be more specific?”

“Well, let’s get specific to Nixon, since that appears to be why you’re here,” replied Gaetz.

“Well, actually, Nixon did have a health care plan,” said Dean, not-so-subtly drawing a contrast with the Republican Party’s complete dearth of ideas on health care. The committee room broke into laughter at the remark.

And, oh dear …

Rep Jim Jordan, a Freedom Caucus member who only likes to investigate and interrogate Democrats and those FBI and intelligence members investigating the Trump administration tried to claim that Chairman Nadler and his caucus and colluded during his unhinged questioning of John Dean.

After he ranted about the investigators investigating Trump, Jordan brought up Emmett Flood’s letter, complaining that “we got memorandums of understanding between the chairman.”

After Rep Jordan’s time expired, Chairman Nadler quickly corrected the record and pointed out that Rep. Jordan disparaged John Dean and his committee, after lying about Dean going to prison.

“I want to point out that this committee has no memorandum of understanding with any of the committee with reference to any other investigations. So I don’t know…(Rep. Jordan then tried to interrupt him)

Nadler continued, “this committee has no memorandum of understanding and not aware of any others — but this Committee has no such Memorandum of Understanding. Number two, since the gentleman from Ohio cast aspersions on the witness I will remind everyone –“

Off-camera, Jordan tried to deny what he previously said just moments ago.

‘No, I didn’t Mr. Chairman, I read his statement,” he insisted.

Nadler banged the gavel.

Jordan continued, “I did not cast aspersions, I read –“

At that point, Jordan’s microphone was cut, Nadler finished his statement, and moved on to the next questioner.

Jordan is playing for Fox News and Trump only and he looked like a fool.

I’ll add more here as I find them.

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They should have just given Trump a check

Published by digby on June 10, 2019

They should have just given Trump a check

by digby

He would have liked that better anyway:

A tree gifted by French President Emmanuel Macron to President Donald Trump as a symbol of the “ties” that bind them has died, according to French daily newspaper Le Monde and Agence France-Presse.

Though much fanfare was made over the Macrons and the Trumps shoveling dirt onto the oak sapling, it was soon removed to be put in “quarantine” which then-French Ambassador Gérard Araud said is standard for plants brought into the U.S.

The tree was reportedly never planted and died in quarantine.

The White House did not confirm the tree’s death.

Since the ceremonial planting, relations between Trump and Macron have become strained as they disagreed over climate change and trade.

France is America’s oldest ally.

Sad.

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Where we are going if we don’t stop it now

Published by digby on June 10, 2019

Where we are going if we don’t stop it now

by digby

Josh Hawley is a Harvard educated, fascist barbarian. He is the future of the Republican Party:

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), a fierce defender of President Donald Trump, is very upset that the House Judiciary Committee will hear testimony from a Watergate-era figure on Monday about presidential obstruction. His reasoning: Watergate happened a long time ago.

John Dean, who was White House counsel for President Richard Nixon in the 1970s, will testify before the panel as part of a hearing entitled “Lessons from the Mueller Report: Presidential Obstruction and Other Crimes.” In 1974, the same committee approved articles of impeachment against Nixon alleging obstruction of justice. (Nixon resigned before the full House of Representatives could vote on impeachment.)

In his final report on Russian interference, which was made public in April following a nearly two-year long investigation, special counsel Robert Mueller documented at least 10 instances involving President Donald Trump which may have constituted obstruction. Though he did not refer any indictments against the president, Mueller effectively handed the reins over to Congress to take the next step — widely accepted to be impeachment proceedings.

Rather than learning from history, however, Hawley, 39, thinks it would be better to simply ignore it.

Asked by Fox News on Monday about the Dean hearing, Hawley decried it as a “ridiculous” waste of time and “theater to distract” from prescription drug prices and border security.

“Talk about living in the past,” he said. “The Democrats want to talk about Watergate? I mean this happened before I was born! This is a total waste of time. It’s a total waste of time.”

Despite his insistence Monday, Hawley has not always objected to learning about things that happened before his birth.

Just last week, he joined Trump on a trip to Normandy, France, to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the D-Day invasion. In a video, he said it made him “think about how we should honor that sacrifice.”

“What are we gonna to do in our day and in our time to carry forward their legacy to protect freedom in our country and around the world?” he asked.

Right. And then there’s the Bible. A very old book which Hawley believes should guide every aspect of people’s lives.


Josh Marshall has some thoughts:

The Trump phenomenon has raised some very big questions about the future of our democracy. Many of us have been talking about this for a very long time in various ways. We’ve criticized the Democrats for their willingness to adopt the so-called “neoliberal” views that helped realize the dominance of our economic life by the upper 1% and their subsequent capture has enabled the right (preferred by rich people everywhere)

we’ve had a running discussion in recent years over how much Trump is a new thing – some decisive break with the US politics that preceded him or whether he is the logical culmination of the evolution of the Republican party over the last two generations. Complicated question but generally I put myself in the latter camp.

Still, as the Republican party has become increasingly synonymous with Trump, staying in pretty much lockstep support both at the level of elected officials and Republican voters, this raises the question for Republicans, what’s the theory behind our support? If we’re calling the press the “enemy of the people”, embracing ethno-nationalism and an increasingly authoritarian view of politics, what part of it lasts past Trump? For commentators and intellectuals, if we’re now in the business of permanent zero-sum fights with an opposition we brand as enemies, what’s the platform beyond Twitter outbursts.

Ed Kilgore published an article last week arguing that Josh Hawley, the freshman Senator from Missouri, could be the face of the post-Trump right. Hawley has a prestige Ivy league education and is couth in all the ways Trump is uncouth. But I confess I didn’t realize until I read Ed’s piece just how far right Hawley is. This goes beyond just voting records. Ed finds a series of speeches in which Hawley argues pretty straightforwardly that what we call civic republicanism or classical liberalism is only valuable or worthwhile to the extent it supports God’s mandates and the kind of society demanded by traditionalist Christianity.

That article picks up on a new debate on the right between a guy named Sohrab Ahmari, opinion editor at the NY Post and David French, an anti-Trump conservative at The National Review. (If you follow political Twitter you’ve probably seen at least some of this discussion over the last week or so.) The main document is this fusillade by Ahmari against French in First Things. It in turn builds off this “manifesto” that Ahmari and others published in the same publication earlier this year. There’s also this interview which The New Yorker’s Isaac Chotiner did with Ross Douthat from the Times opinion page where he discusses this debate and adds in some of his own ideas.

French is basically a very conservative classical liberal, in the sense of someone who believes in pluralism, rule of law, etc. Ahmaris argues that’s a dead end for real conservatives, that a pluralist, classical liberal model is one in which conservatives will always be being pushed out of the public square. As the argument goes, they now have to accept gays, abortion, trans-rights. Where does it end? Of course, ultra-orthodox Jews seem to get by all right living in one of the more liberal parts of the country here in New York City. How do they manage? Look a little closer and the key is that the trend of American society seems to be one where their traditionalist Christian vision won’t be backed by the state or set the tone for society at large.

The ideas this group is pushing basically go back to what is often called “Catholic integralism”. (Most of the players are Catholic, though Hawley comes from the Protestant side of this traditionalist grouping.) This is a form of anti-pluralist Catholic political ideology most associated with quasi-fascist governments in Spain and Portugal and political movements in France (Vichy being the example in power) and other European countries. The basic thrust is a political vision that prioritizes hierarchical social cohesion and has the government takes a leading role enforcing traditionalist cultural and social values and keeping conservative Christianity as the taproot of the state. Church and state are both on the same team and working, collaboratively, toward the same end. The pluralist vision of the state most of us are familiar with, in which it is a semi-neutral arbiter between lots of different visions of how people should live their lives, is anathema.

How this would all play out in an American context which is based on significantly different ideas about government is anyone’s guess. But the more immediate impetus and focus of these writers is a bit different. As others have noted, the idea is that the culture war and the related battle for an ethno-nationalist identity are simply too important, immediate and dire to have any time to worry about things like the rule of law or even democracy. Read through these different pieces and you’ll also get a strong feel for the priority of fighting, that these folks are driven by a desire to fight their liberal enemies on all fronts at all times and that this is the core of political action.

This is heady and scary stuff. But reading through it you can see how Trump fits into the contemporary right. The things that far him are probably congenital and characterological – the need to dominate, the fidgety and febrile need to fight at all times to keep enemies off balance, the love for tough guys and violence. A lot of this is about Trump’s own personal psychodrama. But they fit like hand in glove for many ideological trends in the American right. He exists politically because he fit into that mindset and he’s in turn catalyzed it.

Take a moment to read some of the links above. We’ll discuss more.

Read the Kilgore piece if nothing else. Josh Hawley is your future unless the American people take it upon themselves to stop it, right now. There is no more time to waste. The planet’s burning up and the right’s ascension is gaining steam.

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The immigration solution

Published by digby on June 10, 2019

The immigration solution

by digby

Immigration is a complicated issue for most Democrats. A lot of people are frustrated by it and the Republicans have stoked the paranoia to a fever pitch. But there are some solutions to the current influx (still much less than many times in the past) and they should be more forthright about talking about them. Beto O’Rourke’s answer here is a good one:

And here’s Elizabeth Warren explaining to people in Iowa why we can’t seem to get anything done on the issue:

This is obviously going to be a big issue in the upcoming campaign because Donald Trump wants it to be. Democrats need to have a clear answer about how we got here, how Trump and the Republicans are making it worse. And they have to answer about what to do about it. Passing CIR will be at the top of the list. The House just passed the DREAM Act last week. But they also have to admit that this problem is caused by serious systemic issues in Central America and it won’t get solved unless we address that as well. O’Rourke is talking about that and I think that’s something the nation needs to hear. We aren’t alone on this continent and we’re not going to build that stupid wall. So there is a foreign policy element that has to be dealt with if the Democrats hope to gain an advantage on the issue.

Update

Paul Waldman’s analysis is excellent:

Note that O’Rourke used this situation as a window into a much broader indictment of Trump’s nationalist agenda. He stressed that the threat of tariffs against Mexico is only serving to “jeopardize” our “most important trading relationship”; that this places at risk markets that our farmers have cultivated; and that they are already taking a beating from Trump’s trade wars with China.

Importantly, O’Rourke made the case that precisely the opposite approach — strengthened, reality-based international integration — is the answer both on trade and on immigration. O’Rourke called for trade arrangements in farmers’ and workers’ interests and for increased investments in Central America “to ensure that no family has to make that 2,000-mile journey.”

A better Democratic response

This hints at the outlines of a better Democratic response to Trumpian nationalism in 2020. Trump’s trade war with China is dragging on and harming his own constituencies. This, combined with the chaos attending the threats against Mexico, gives Democrats a good argument: that in practice, Trump’s nationalism is reckless, often driven by impulse and rage, and out of sync with the complex realities of international diplomacy and the global economy.

As Neil Irwin argues, Democrats can pledge to move away from two-country tariff wars and instead toward mobilizing an international response with allies against China’s trade abuses. Similarly, Democrats can argue for renegotiated trade deals that raise wage, labor and environmental standards, with the goal of helping U.S. workers via a sensible internationalism in contrast to Trump’s erratic nationalism.

Joe Biden has already started road-testing such an argument. And O’Rourke’s new comments move in this direction as well.

Indeed, the way O’Rourke wove in his arguments on immigration also underscores the point. Democrats can argue for improved regional cooperation on the asylum crisis, including investments in Central America and policies to encourage in-country application for asylum to reduce the impetus to such migrations. They can combine this with a refusal to back off our international humanitarian commitments, as O’Rourke gave voice to, while reminding everyone of Trump’s horrific family separations.

This again would contrast with the recklessness and impulsiveness of Trump’s nationalism, which has led Trump to cut off aid to Northern Triangle countries and try to dissuade migrations with ever-mounting cruelties and “toughness,” an approach that’s largely failing.

One can see such a Democratic argument appealing to both working people (who might have once thrilled to Trump’s anti-China bluster, but are taking hits from Trump’s trade wars and are uncomfortable with Trump’s more grisly immigration horrors) and to college-educated whites who are already alienated by the hideous realities of America First-ism — and are likely comfortable with internationalist solutions on both issues.

Now that Trump has once again threatened Mexico with more tariffs, Democrats have a new opening to press this case more comprehensively.

Who loves impeachment more than anyone? You might be surprised.

Published by digby on June 10, 2019

Who loves impeachment more than anyone? You might be surprised.

by digby


My Salon column this morning:

The Democrats have held the majority in the House for five months and the only public oversight hearing to shine a light on the administration’s behavior happened four months ago. I’m speaking of Michael Cohen’s testimony in which he figuratively pointed a finger at the Republicans and said:

I’m responsible for your silliness, because I did the same thing that you’re doing now for 10 years — I protected Mr. Trump for 10 years. Everybody’s job at the Trump Organization is to protect Mr. Trump. Every day, most of us knew we were coming in and we were going to lie for him on something. And that became the norm. That’s exactly what’s happening right now in this country, and it’s exactly what’s happening here in government.

It was riveting testimony from a witness who was anxious to testify against the president. He was probably the last of those. Trump’s other accomplices have shown no inclination to see the error of their ways. As Cohen was when he worked for the Trump Organization, they are fully committed to protecting the boss. They also seem to be quite sure they won’t end up like Cohen if they refuse to cooperate with Congress and they don’t seem to fear of other legal consequences. If you didn’t know better you’d think they were part of a mob syndicate that has the system wired and all the important people in their pockets.

There have been some exciting moments since the Democrats took over the House, such as the flurry of activity around Robert Mueller’s report and his recent press conference. But mostly what the public has seen is Democrats arguing among themselves over whether or not to initiate an impeachment inquiry and news stories about haggling between the Congress and the White House over testimony and documents, with the White House stonewalling absolutely everything.

Finally, that seems about to change. Today the House Judiciary Committee will begin a series of hearings on the Mueller report. They are starting out with testimony from former prosecutors and former White House counsel John Dean, of Watergate fame, to talk about “presidential obstruction and other crimes” as laid out in the Mueller report. The next day the House will vote on whether to authorize contempt charges against Attorney General William Barr and former White House counsel Don McGahn for failing to comply with subpoenas. On Wednesday, the House Intelligence Committee will also open a series of hearing it’s calling “Lessons from the Mueller Report: Counterintelligence Implications of Volume 1.”

So far, none of the hearings will feature any of the main players in Mueller’s report, but it’s clear that the point of all this is to lay the groundwork for Mueller’s eventual testimony either by a voluntary appearance or subpoena. And despite the endless haggling over impeachment, if reports about House Judiciary chair Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., and House Intelligence chair Adam Schiff, D-Calif., are correct, these steps are likely intended to lead to an impeachment inquiry. You don’t have John Dean open the testimony if you are planning to avoid that topic.

The president isn’t happy:

Irony has long been dead and buried and it rolled over in its grave and shrieked when it heard that the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, Rep. Doug Collins of Georgia, had warned chairman Nadler that “Democrats need to be civil when speaking of the president.” Seriously. Collins called it a “mock impeachment hearing,” explaining that only if you are conducting the real thing can you accuse the president of a crime. He said, “it is out of order for a member of Congress, in debate, to engage in personalities with the president or express an opinion, even a third party opinion, accusing the president of a crime. The rules are clear on this point.”

I’ve made the case before that I don’t think Trump really wants impeachment. He can barely even say the word and when he does he calls it “dirty, filthy and disgusting.” His people are trying to psych out the Democrats. But if it sounds as if Collins is telling them they need to start impeachment hearings or they won’t be able to make their case, he probably is. There is a group of Republican House members, some of whom are on the Judiciary Committee, who positively love impeachment and are apparently dying to get one going, even if it’s one they have to fight.

I’m speaking, of course, of the Freedom Caucus, Donald Trump’s most loyal House henchmen. They have opened more impeachment proceedings in just the last few years than any other group in history. As HuffPost has noted, the Freedom Caucus tried to impeach a whole bunch of Obama administration officials, including Attorney General Eric Holder and EPA head Gina McCarthy. They even drew up articles of impeachment against Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who is of course a Trump appointee, just last year.

They almost succeeded in impeaching the head of the IRS over that bogus claim that the agency had targeted conservative groups for audits. It was absurd, particularly since the man they intended to impeach had not been in the job at the time the alleged targeting took place. But they were very, very concerned about some emails that went missing (yes, more emails!) and believed that the IRS commissioner had obstructed justice. Remember, in those days, members of the Freedom Caucus were self-styled guardians of the Constitution, standing against presidential tyranny.

Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, proclaimed at the time, “Here is the standard for removing someone from office: Gross negligence, breach of public trust, dereliction of duty.” Rep. John Fleming, R-La., who is now in the Trump administration, defended the prerogatives of the legislative branch by declaring, “Congress has shriveled up and atrophied so much, the American people have given up on Congress ever doing anything about corruption at high levels of our government.”

Those were the days. I don’t think you’ll hear any of them making similar remarks in the upcoming proceedings. We can expect Jordan and Freedom Caucus chair Mark Meadows, R-N.C., to be among Trump’s staunchest advocates in these hearings and certainly in any impeachment proceedings. Hypocrisy is a concept they only recognize in their political rivals.

The Democrats are finally moving forward with hearings in hopes that they will be able to educate the public about the seriousness of the Mueller report. The Freedom Caucus and the rest of the Republicans will be closely monitoring their language to ensure they don’t say anything uncivil about our president. They’re sticklers for civility. Fortunately for Donald Trump, when it comes to high crimes and misdemeanors, they’re a little bit more flexible.

A poor country of its own kind by @BloggersRUs

Published by Tom Sullivan on June 10, 2019

“A poor country of its own kind”
by Tom Sullivan

The late, great, American middle class is broke. “America is the world’s poor rich country,” writes Umair Haque at Medium. “Not a poor country like poor countries, but a poor country of its own kind.”

A study released in May by United Way’s ALICE Project reports 51 million American households are Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed. The figure includes 16.1 households officially poor plus another 34.7 million ALICE families. That is, while they may exist above the official poverty level, managing to pay for housing, food, transportation, child care, health care, and essential technology remains a daily struggle. Every month they face trade-offs. With no savings, they are one car repair or medical bill away from financial crisis. That’s 43 percent of American households.

These are Americans living on a survival budget. CNN’s Tami Luhby writes, “Many of these folks are the nation’s child care workers, home health aides, office assistants and store clerks, who work low-paying jobs and have little savings, the study noted. Some 66% of jobs in the US pay less than $20 an hour.”

Almost half of Americans are working to support an economy that isn’t working to support them. They live and die in debt, Haque observes. They are effectively Neo-serfs:

Americans aren’t poor because they don’t work, they don’t work hard enough, or they don’t work long enough. They’re poor even if they do. In that sense, the final idea in the phrase ALICE is underwhelming, inadequate — it fails to really get to the root of the problem here. If the majority of people in a rich society are poor now…even though they’re “employed”…then clearly the problem isn’t the people…it’s the system.

Another study released in May, this one from the Federal Reserve, examines the economic well-being of American households. Alexia Fernández Campbell explains what the gig economy means for those “independent contractors” working for “themselves,” that is, for companies like Lyft and Uber:

Here is one of the most shocking statistics: 58 percent of full-time gig workers said they would have a hard time coming up with $400 to cover an emergency bill — compared to 38 percent of people who don’t work in the gig economy. Both numbers are alarming, but the gap suggests that this informal economy is far more destabilizing than Silicon Valley investors care to admit.

In fact, a substantial number aren’t using these jobs to supplement their incomes. These jobs are their incomes:

Economists at the New School and the University of California Berkeley published a report in July with some limited pay data, and discovered something alarming: Driving for ride-hailing apps in New York City is not really a part-time gig for people who want to earn extra cash.

More than half of their drivers are ferrying around passengers on a full-time basis, and about half of them are supporting families with children on that income. Their earnings were so low that 40 percent of drivers qualified for Medicaid, and about 18 percent qualified for food stamps.

The New School believes companies could “easily absorb an increase in driver pay with a minimal fare adjustment and little inconvenience to passengers.” But that would mean more money for “employees” and less for investors.

This “poverty of decline, degeneration, decay” has not been seen since the Weimar Republic, Umair Haque believes. It is a predatory form of capitalism in which people tell themselves they are not really poor, but are never really secure either. They know things are not working, but since poverty is so stigmatized by our bootstraps economic theology, they keep playing. Like gamblers at a slot machine, running low on money, they think if they can just stay in long enough they can hit a big score. All the while, the odds favor the house. That’s how the system is designed.

Haque wonders where this all leads:

There’s a place where pride becomes hubris. Where stoicism becomes vanity. Where self-reliance becomes ignorance of the common good. Americans are at that place right now, in this moment.

American poverty — a middle class falling into ruin, the majority of people now effectively poor — is what gave rise to today’s problems: Trumpism, extremism, fascism, theocracy. It’s what drives religious fervour — save me, someone! It’s what ignites the spark of racial hatred all over again.

And until and unless this problem is addressed, my friends, in a tough and gentle and sane way, America is going to stay where it is. People that really understand political economy have a saying: “capitalism implodes into fascism.” That’s because it produces mass poverty, not riches, decline, not upward mobility — and the new poor then turn on everyone, neighbours, friends, allies, values, morals. If that sounds eerily like America today…then you should be able to see America tomorrow, too.

This can only go on so long. Already, there are concentration camps on the southern border. Capitalism needs an upgrade and soon. One hundred years ago, Americans created a “civilized capitalism that protects people against the worst vicissitudes of the free market.” That lesson has been forgotten. We need to relearn it. As the WWII song goes, we did it before.

It’s enough to make you feel crazy

Published by digby on June 9, 2019

It’s enough to make you feel crazy

by digby

TPM reports:

The top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee sent its Democratic chair a troll-y letter expressing concern that committee members might break certain House rules when it holds its hearing next week on special counsel Robert Mueller’s report.

Ranking member Rep. Doug Collins (R-GA) pointed specifically a House rule barring “Personal abuse, innuendo, or ridicule of the President.” The letter seemed to preview what Republicans may harp on during the hearing, which will include testimony from Watergate figure John Dean.

Collins requested that Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-NY) remind committee members of the rule before Monday’s hearing, which Collins alleged appeared to be “part of a strategy to turn the Committee’s oversight hearings into a mock-impeachment inquiry rather than a legitimate exercise in congressional oversight.”

“Conducting such hearings inevitably sets this Committee on a collision course with the longstanding Rules of the House, which you have apparently alluded to as recently as this week,” Collins said.

His letter rattled off a number of comments about the President— such as, that he is a liar, crook, a draft-dodger, and a racist — that Collins claimed would break this rule.

“Finally, and most timely, the title of this hearing, if read during debate, would tread alarmingly close to the prohibition against engaging in personalities against the President due to its mere suggestion the President committed ‘obstruction [of justice] and other crimes,’” Collins said.

Under Collins’ interpretation of the rules, the only way Nadler can get away this restriction on this kind of rhetoric is to open a formal impeachment inquiry — something that Nadler is reportedly lobbying a reluctant Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) to do.

“Should you choose to forego your obligation to enforce the Rules and ensure the Committee conducts itself in a dignified manner, please know those transgressions will not go unnoticed or unremarked upon by Republican Members,” Collins said.

Meanwhile, Trump can call everyone in the book a disgusting, crazy, crooked, low I.Q, stone-cold loser in public and on social media and it’s cool.

And yes, I know they are trolling. I think the Dems should give them what they’re asking for.

Maybe they really do want it — so what? They’re not the sharpest tools in the shed.

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Who says cheaters never prosper?

Published by digby on June 9, 2019

Who says cheaters never prosper?

by digby

This piece by Virginia Heffernan says it all:

The Mueller report amply chronicles President Trump’s staggering, decades-long crime spree. Like an iron skillet to the head, the extent of Trump’s corruption seems to have stupefied voters, legal scholars and, of course, Congress, all of whom are currently at a loss for a remedy.

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, in her run for the Democratic nomination for president, put it best: “If he were any other person in the United States, based on what’s documented in that report, he would be carried off in handcuffs.”

But because our norms appear to be inadequate to the current catastrophe in the White House, Trump is not yet in handcuffs. So while Congress equivocates about the Mueller report and its implications for impeachment, voters ought to recognize a more homespun truth that it doesn’t take a degree in con law to understand.

The president is a cheater.

We all know cheaters. Cheating falls into the you-know-it-when-you-see-it family of misdeeds, a set of dishonest strategies used to gain unfair advantage in endeavors that are bound by rules, customs, principles and mores.

Cheating takes many forms: nepotism, cronyism, plagiarism, deck-stacking, table-tilting, cherry-picking, data-fudging, doping, calling bogus outs and fouls. Most cheating is an honor offense, punished not legally but socially — and often after a single offense — with banishment from the tribe.

Think of these notorious cheaters: cyclist Lance Armstrong, the Russian athletes at the Sochi Olympics, the research-faking anti-vaxxer Andrew Wakefield, fabulist Stephen Glass, the all-in parents and the witting students in the college admissions scandals. They’ve been benched by society under a cloud of dishonor.

Cheaters are especially malevolent actors in a social system because they paralyze competitions and contracts, demoralizing both their teammates and their opponents. But cheaters only win when they destroy the integrity of a whole game. To prevent that from happening, we strip the medals and titles of known cheaters, and pock their names with asterisks.

If you make out with your husband’s brother, consult crib notes during a math test, shortchange your employees and pad your expenses, there may be no record book to correct, but, in a working social system, you’re shamed as faithless and suspect. You’ve proved you’re so incompetent that you can’t succeed without tilting the board.

But the cheater in the Oval Office seems to be wired for shamelessness.

Trump seems to have internalized the first rule of teen video gamers: “Cheating is gameplay.” Most people outgrow this adolescent logic, or get flunked out of geometry class for it.

Not Trump. We know Trump’s history. We’ve heard about his life of deceit and absence of honor from his former lawyer, Michael Cohen. He’s a rich man who pays no taxes (“that makes me smart,” he says). He’s been caught cheating on his wives, ritually humiliating his first wife, Ivana, his third wife, Melania, and the two women’s children — Don Jr., Ivanka, Eric and Barron.

And, though the president denies it, it appears he cheats at golf. According to the eye-popping new book “Commander in Cheat: How Golf Explains Trump,” by Rick Reilly, Trump kicks his ball so often from the rough to the fairway that caddies have nicknamed him Pele, after the legendary Brazilian footballer.

And now we can say that Trump won at the ballot box with the wrong kind of help. He was, at the very least, a beneficiary of cheating — and, in most contests and social circles, that would make him a cheater himself.

Think Trump didn’t know he was getting a shady assist? You decide. Here’s Mueller: “The investigation established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome, and that the Campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts.” Italics added.

The report by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III also says criminal conspiracy can’t be charged, but we know Trump and his cronies rolled out the red carpet for Russian military intervention into American democracy. And thus Trump became president in an election in which he overwhelmingly lost the popular vote, profited from voter suppression and gerrymandering, and from a military attack designed to throw the election to him.

Fair play has been absent from the White House for so long we are beginning to forget what it looks like. But that doesn’t mean the American people are powerless. We can, and should, pressure Congress to hold Trump accountable as a cheater.

When Trump owned his failing casino, the Taj Mahal, you better believe he didn’t think cheating among the hoi polloi at the tables was just gameplay. Casinos treat cheating with deadly seriousness, and void the victories of people who do so much as play with an unshuffled deck.

Oh, and casinos really don’t like it when a player “expects to benefit” from a dealer’s help. This kind of cheating usually happens with winks and hand signals. It’s hard to prove, but when it is discovered, it’s punished with particular severity because it compromises the reputation of a house so thoroughly.

There’s a term for that particular brand of casino cheating: “collusion.”

He’s the King Cheat, but the party that supports him aren’t slouches. Just look at how they’re working overtime to keep people from voting. And they seem remarkably unconcerned about foreign countries intervening in the elections, naturally leading one to wonder if they have some knowledge about how that’s going to go. They cheat. It’s part of their DNA.

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Trump makes a lot of money playing golf

Published by digby on June 9, 2019

Trump makes a lot of money playing golf

by digby

A million here a million there, and pretty soon you’re talking about real money:

The former White House ethics chief is sarcastically proposing a “Golf on Your Own Damn Dime Act of 2019.”

Walter Shaub, who served under President Barack Obama before leaving his post a few months after Donald Trump took office in 2017, pitched the mock law in response to Trump’s record number of golf trips to his own resort properties — even during official trips abroad.

The tab for Trump’s visit earlier this week to his golf resort in Doonbeg in Ireland — at least $3.6 million — was particularly steep because he brought along a substantial entourage following his official state visit in London. The club used Trump’s stay to try to drum up business for the money-losing operation by tweeting about his visit — something the Trump Organization had pledged would never happen because of ethics concerns. The golf course removed the tweets following questions about them from HuffPost.

The former White House ethics chief is sarcastically proposing a “Golf on Your Own Damn Dime Act of 2019.”

The taxpayer tab for president’s pricey golf outings is now up to nearly $106 million, according to a HuffPost analysis. But what’s unique for a golfing president is that Trump owns the resorts he’s visiting, so the publicly funded trips also serve to finance and advertise his private businesses.

Shaub’s facetious new act would require any POTUS to “pay for all costs” for a golf outing “incurred by the entourage from the minute he/she left the White House until he/she is back inside the White House.”

SCREEN SHOT/TWITTER/INTERNATIONAL GOLF LINKS/DOONBEGThis is one of the tweets the Doonbeg course removed after questioned by HuffPost.

Trump used to regularly attack Obama for his golf outings, saying they were expensive for taxpayers and that he was taking too much time off. Trump took to Twitter 27 different times to direct such criticisms at Obama.

Since Trump became president, he has now spent part of 181 days on a golf course — all but two of which have been on his own properties. That’s more than twice the days Obama spent golfing. And except during vacations he took, Obama played almost all of his golf at military bases a short drive from the White House. Those trips cost taxpayers little beyond motorcade gas and some staff overtime.

Upon entering the White House, presidents traditionally divest from their businesses or place their assets in a blind trust because of ethics concerns that the office could be used to benefit a private business. People could also spend large amounts of money at a president-owned business to gain special treatment. Trump has neither divested from his businesses nor placed assets in a blind trust.

“America should have the right to know what the motivations of its leaders are, and they need to know that financial interests, personal financial interests, aren’t among them,” Shaub said when he resigned from the Trump administration.

I think that ship sailed with the Trump administration. He’s running his businesses out of the oval office.  And as long as he doesn’t use a personal email server it’s just fine.