Month: July 2019

Punching ourselves in the face to save the Republicans from ruining their manicures

by digby

“Restoring bipartisan traditions” means:

1. Granting unrequested amnesty to Republicans for stealing the Supreme Court (and, given what we know about how Trump got elected, the entire judiciary).

2. Making it impossible for Dems to fill any vacancies without a supermajority. https://t.co/cI1nnofweH

— Brian Beutler (@brianbeutler) July 22, 2019

If you wonder why I think it’s more likely than not that a new Democratic administration will let Trump completely off the hook for all of his crimes (and why I think an impeachment vote is the only accountability he will ever see) this is why. Democrats are more concerned with being seen as hypocrites than they are in seeing justice done and these cowardly, white nationalist Republicans fully defeated:

Republicans are steamrolling Democrats on judges. But the question of whether to be as cutthroat as the GOP is already splitting the party as the 2020 campaign ramps up.

The left has been radicalized by the Republican offensive, with activists and several presidential candidates eager for payback against Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell the next time Democrats take power.

But centrist Democrats and the handful of institutionalists still roaming the Capitol want the party to set a different example than the GOP, not mimic it.

“When you think about Merrick Garland and what McConnell has done to the Senate, there’s a lot of feelings of vengeance and revenge,” said Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the No. 2 Senate Democrat. “We just hope the better angels of our nature will prevail.”

The party doesn’t have to settle the question just yet. But if Democrats take the Senate and the White House in 2020, their choice will determine whether the party can begin to reshape the federal judiciary after President Donald Trump and the GOP spent years stocking it with young conservatives.

And if Democrats do decide to embrace the playbook deployed by their Republican counterparts, it will ensure the Senate’s unique traditions continue their long erosion.

“I wish we could also get back to 60 votes,” said Sen. Doug Jones (D-Ala.), who needs to appeal to Republicans to win reelection next year. “We need to aim higher. We need to get back to that.” Restoring the 60-vote threshold to confirm nominees would make it even harder to bend the judiciary leftward.

Liberals, meanwhile, are weighing whether to gut the few bipartisan norms still standing by expanding the size of the Supreme Court and completely eliminating the ability of senators to have a say on judges from their home states.

“Democrats should not play by a different set of rules from Republicans,” argues Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), a 2020 candidate and member of Democratic leadership. “We can’t live in a world where the Republicans twist everything their way whether they’re in the majority or the minority and the Democrats just keep trotting along. That’s not working.”

Democrats are still seething over McConnell’s decision to block Garland, President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, from even getting a hearing. They’re also mourning what they say is a breakdown of other Senate customs, particularly on the so-called “blue slip” process that allows each senator a chance to veto nominations for judges in their home states.

McConnell has prioritized the courts in a way that’s essentially unheard of, first by stopping Obama from filling vacancies, then by prioritizing them over difficult legislative gambits. He’s also unilaterally changed Senate rules through the “nuclear option” to speed up confirmation of Trump’s judges.

Even as Trump captured the nation’s attention last week with his attacks on four Democratic congresswomen, the Senate quietly confirmed its record-setting 43rd circuit judge. Incredibly, there are now only four Circuit Court vacancies and Republicans are shifting to filling the lower, 111 District Court vacancies.

The aggressive push has left Democrats smarting and powerless until they can grab back power. They concede that there’s not much they can do right now to stop Republicans from putting their stamp on the federal judiciary.

But the party is tossing out ideas both within the Senate and on the 2020 trail for how to reverse Trump’s influence on the courts, ranging from changes to the Supreme Court to pledging to only nominate judges who would uphold the landmark abortion ruling Roe v. Wade to pressing conservative groups like the Judicial Crisis Network to reveal their donors.

“I don’t consider it vengeance,” said Sen. Mazie Hirono “I consider it doing something about the reality of what’s happening to our courts.” | Zach Gibson/Getty Images

“I don’t consider it vengeance,” said Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii). “I consider it doing something about the reality of what’s happening to our courts.”

Some Democrats see the prospect of changes to Senate tradition as a balancing act.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), a 2020 candidate and a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, blamed Republicans for changing Senate rules and called many of Trump’s nominees “really problematic.” When asked if she would consider rotating or expanding the Supreme Court, Klobuchar said she was “open to looking at those” but also said that as president she hopes “to put forward good strong nominees that are going to follow the law and get [bipartisan] support.”
[…]
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who is in line to be Judiciary Committee chairman if Democrats win the Senate, said she hasn’t “thought about it. Because that jinxes it for sure.”

But Feinstein also signaled her reluctance to duplicating the GOP approach.

“I’m not into payback. I never have been. And I’d just do it as fairly as I possibly could, that’s all,” she said. Whether to sideline Republicans “has never been discussed. Much to our credit.”

“I’m not into payback. I never have been. And I’d just do it as fairly as I possibly could, that’s all,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein said. Whether to sideline Republicans “has never been discussed. Much to our credit.”

Brian Fallon, executive director of Demand Justice, a liberal advocacy organization focused on the courts, said that Feinstein should be using her leverage now as the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee to remind Republicans that Democrats will borrow their tactics if and when they return to power.

“She won’t say that, she won’t threaten that, because she wants to preserve the option of punching ourselves in the face again and let Sen. Graham veto President Warren or President Harris’ judicial picks,” Fallon said, referring to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham.

You think he won’t?

Another issue that’s talked about less often on the national stage but is crucial on Capitol Hill is the blue-slip process.

Republicans have all but done away with that senatorial prerogative for circuit court judges, who represent multiple states, prompting a stark increase in “no” votes from Democratic senators, among the rank-and-file and presidential hopefuls.

Democrats are unsure whether they would restore that tradition to the appellate courts should they regain power or perhaps do Republicans one better and scrap the practice for lower level courts, too.
[…]
Republicans are skeptical that Democrats would even consider restoring the Senate’s judicial traditions and have attacked them for being the first to go “nuclear.” A Democratic majority eliminated the 60-vote threshold for most judicial nominees in 2013; McConnell triggered the nuclear option on Supreme Court justices four years later.

When asked if Senate Democrats would restore blue slips for circuit judges, Graham replied: “Absolutely not.”

“They’re the ones that changed the rules to go to the majority vote,” Graham said. “We couldn’t get 60 votes for anybody for the circuit court and the Supreme Court. Those days are over.”

I wouldn’t count on it. Democrats want to be seen as the courtly statesmen who never stoop to the level of the right-wing barbarians. But it’s not a responsible or intelligent way to deal with the current political crisis. If they win in 2020, it may be their last chance to administer the coup de grace and end this dangerous escalation of partisan warfare. If they lie down, they will likely not get another chance. The GOP has some fascist pieces of work waiting in the wings — guys like Josh Hawley and Tom Cotton. If the Democrats don’t understand what they are dealing with by now … well, let’s just say the prognosis for our democracy is not good.

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Trump”s Friends and Advisors

by tristero

Convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein was a good friend of Donald Trump. They partied together. They were so close that at least once, they were the only two males at a party with over 24 women.

Sebastian Gorka, who was a top counterterrorism advisor for Trump in the White House, wore a medal associated with a  group tied to Nazis at Trump’s inaugural. The group said they were “proud” about that.

Prior to joining Trump’s transition team another top advisor, George Nader, was arrested and served time for sexual contact involving underaged boys in the Czech Republic.  He’s just been arrested on new charges of transporting a minor “with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity” and possession of child pornography.

These are Trump’s friends and advisors. They are typical friends and advisors. There have been a considerable number of Trump’s friends and advisors who have been involved in sex crimes, multiple cases of physical abuse, and/or associated with Nazi and neo-Nazi organizations.

A man who chooses to regularly associate himself with pedophiles and Hitler lovers has no business being the president of the United States.

This is not a difficult argument to make.

Of course, they did
by Tom Sullivan

The Illinois Republican Party declared “unauthorized” the posting of a movie poster-style image depicting the four freshman Democrats known as “The Squad” as jihadi terrorists, reports the Chicago Tribune. The image of U.S. Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts (smiling while pointing a handgun) posted to the Illinois Republican County Chairmen’s Association Facebook page Friday night.

“Political jihad is their game,” the post said. “If you don’t agree with their socialist ideology, you’re racist.”

Illinois state chair Tim Schneider called the post “bigoted rhetoric,” the Tribune reports:

“The recent social media post coming from the IRCCA does not reflect my values or the Illinois Republican Party’s values,” Schneider said in a statement. “My intense disagreement with the socialist policies and anti-Semitic language of these four congresswoman has absolutely nothing to do with their race or religion. I urge everyone who opposes them to keep the rhetoric focused on policy and ideology.”

The acting president (and Republican surrogates) has focused attacks on the four women for over a week, perhaps to knock the Jeffrey Epstein scandal off the front pages. The scandal involving sex-trafficking of underage girls could yet implicate several other prominent men from Trump’s social circle.

Pressley urged Americans a week ago “to not take the bait.”

As for the socialism charge, the GOP might have chosen Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren if they wanted to attack socialists, one Twitter user offered. Instead, “they picked Black and Brown women … to gin up the base.”

The party followed its Southern Strategy from “ni**er, ni**er, ni**er” to racist dog whistles, to birtherism, to “palling around with terrorists,” and finally to a Republican demagogue psychologically and morally unfit to be president who has repurposed the Red Scare as a brown one.

The self-professed party of family values fell right into line behind him. “Small government” conservatism was a sham, as was the party’s pretensions of fiscal responsibility. Only a few deficit dead-enders are left. What the GOP base really wanted was a racist P.T. Barnum. When they finally got one, the rest fell away like a stripper’s dancewear. Bigotry is all that’s left underneath.

Katie Porter FTW

by digby

During my questioning, @jpmorgan CEO Jamie Dimon said he didn’t know if all my numbers were accurate. Here’s the math so he can check. pic.twitter.com/OIDkrWfASC

— Rep. Katie Porter (@RepKatiePorter) April 10, 2019

CNN profiled California congresswoman Katie Porter:

When Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 presidential election, a California law professor named Katie Porter — who had been expecting to join Clinton’s transition team to advise on housing policy — thought she would sit the next four years out of government.

She figured she’d wind up working for Elizabeth Warren, her former Harvard law school professor, or Kamala Harris, who in 2012 appointed Porter to be California’s monitor of a nationwide mortgage settlement, to run for president.

Instead, she ran for Congress in 2018, winning a Republican seat and joining the “blue wave” of Democrats taking over the House.

[…]

Porter, 45, isn’t part of “The Squad” — the four-woman group of freshman progressives of color who were attacked this week by President Donald Trump. But she’s emerged as a viral star when it comes to how banks and the government treat the working poor and puncturing Trump’s claims about the economy.

Her targets so far have included major Wall Street players like JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, Equifax CEO Mark Begor and now-former Wells Fargo CEO Tim Sloan.

“I remember saying to Elizabeth Warren — she called me a couple weeks after I got here — and talking to her and saying, ‘I don’t feel like I’ve found my voice,'” Porter told CNN in an interview this week in her Capitol Hill office. “And then a couple weeks after that she called me after Tim Sloan testified and retired and she was like, ‘You so found your voice!’ She was so happy.”

A spokeswoman for Warren didn’t respond for a request to comment.

A lawmaker asked Carson about foreclosure properties. He thought she was talking about Oreos.
It was March when Porter grilled Sloan — who was already facing calls from Warren and others to step down — at a House Financial Services Committee hearing about Wells Fargo’s numerous scandals over fake accounts, inappropriate mortgage fees, and charging borrowers for auto insurance they didn’t need.
When it came her turn, Porter began by asking why the public should trust Sloan’s promises that Wells Fargo was changing its ways. Then, she ducked under the table to bring up a poster board printed with huge text, displaying what Wells Fargo attorneys had said in court.

“Why Mr. Sloan, if you don’t mind me asking, are your lawyers in federal court arguing that those exact statements I read are quote ‘paradigmatic examples of non-actionable corporate puffery, on which no reliable investor could rely,'” she asked.

“I don’t know why our lawyers are arguing that,” Sloan responded.

Porter kept going.

It’s convenient for your lawyers to deflect blame in court, and say your rebranding campaign can be ignored as hyperbolic marketing, but when then you come to Congress, you want us to take you at your word,” she said. 

“And I think that’s the disconnect, that’s why the American public has trouble trusting Wells Fargo.”
Two weeks later, Wells Fargo announced Sloan was out.

Porter has targeted top Trump administration officials, too. She whipped out a copy of the text book she wrote, “Modern Consumer Law,” to quiz Consumer Financial Protection Bureau chief Kathy Kraninger. She then posed a hypothetical math problem: A single mom takes out a two-week $200 payday loan with an origination fee of $20, at a rate of 10%. What is the APR? One of Porter’s aides handed Kraninger a calculator.

She didn’t do the math, even after Porter repeated the question, asking her to ballpark the calculation.
“I understand where you’re getting. At the end of the day, the issue is certainly: When you actually are able to repay that loan and whether or not you take out an additional loan,” Kraninger said.

“This is not a math exercise, though. This is a policy conversation,” she added.

This week, in her office, Porter said she hopes the video clip gets people thinking about the issue.

“Like, what does it mean that calculating the APR is so hard that the vast majority of us can’t do it? I guess it means that those disclosures that do it for you are pretty useful,” she said.

In June, Porter asked Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson why the Federal Housing Administration is “lousy at servicing mortgages.” When Carson said he had not had any discussions about that issue but that he would “look it up,” Porter pushed further, asking him to explain the rate of foreclosures among those with mortgages backed by his department. She used the term REO — which stands for real estate-owned, and refers to properties owned by a lender after an unsuccessful foreclosure — an acronym she didn’t expect to stump the head of the agency tasked with monitoring them.

“Do you know what an REO is?” Porter asked Carson.

Carson replied, “An Oreo?”

“No, not an Oreo,” Porter said. “An R-E-O. REO.”

Video of the exchange went viral and Carson attempted to laugh it off by sending the Congresswoman a box of the cookies.

Porter says her goal isn’t to highlight incompetence, but instead to make esoteric topics more accessible — like she did in the consumer finance law classes she taught at the University of California, Irvine.

“What I did as a professor is not that different than what I do in hearings,” Porter said this week.

An average voter might not be able to articulate their position on payday loans, she said, “but when you start talking about that hypothetical exchange I had with Kraninger, people began to engage.”

Like Warren, she believes that debates about protecting the ability to make a living, buy a home, and afford college are really conversations about the “heart and soul of America.”

Her back-and-forth with Dimon, she said, was meant to highlight the issue of CEO pay disparity. Porter ran through a hypothetical Chase bank employee’s budget, this time with a white board.

“She’s short $567, what would you suggest she do?” asked the bank CEO.

“I don’t know, I’d have to think about that,” Dimon said.

Whether or not the professor-turned-congresswoman can turn her unique way of questioning government officials and Wall Street executives into making real legislative change remains to be seen. 

A bicameral bill she brought forth with Democratic Sens. Warren, Sherrod Brown of Ohio, and Tom Udall of New Mexico would bolster the power of the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau so that it could oversee student loan servicers. Porter has also introduced legislation with Harris that would strengthen the power of state attorneys general to monitor banks.

So far none of these bills have major support from Republicans. But a bill she introduced that would raise the civil penalties assessed to security law violators was marked up by committee last week and a similar Senate bill is cosponsored by Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley. Two of her other bills — one on mental health and the other addressing homecare for seniors — have some support from across the aisle.

The Democrat could be vulnerable in her reelection bid. When she won in 2018, it was the first time her Southern California district had gone blue since its creation in 1983. That was in part because two-term incumbent Republican Mimi Walters was consistently voting in line with Trump in a district Clinton won by five percentage points.

But last month, Porter became one of the first Democrats who won Republican districts in 2018 to come out in support of impeaching Trump. The move seemed to win her some support. Her campaign brought in more than $1 million in the second quarter, out-fundraising many other vulnerable Democrats.

Porter said she is working to be a voice for families concerned about how they’re going to pay the bills, something she believes Trump’s candidacy also tapped into.

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They aren’t sending their best …

by digby

Stephen Miller claims the difference between Trump's criticism of the US and "the squad"'s is that Trump is uphold "the principles of Western civilization" pic.twitter.com/UnArEyosvT— TPM Livewire (@TPMLiveWire) July 21, 2019

He sure doesn’t uphold the principle of the rule of law.

More from Miller:

Astounding, shameless gaslighting – after Stephen Miller echoes Trump & smears @AOC for calling America "garbage," Chris Wallace recites her exact quote, in which she didn't at all call America "garbage."

Miller's response? "It's literally impossible to read the quote that way" pic.twitter.com/ZeUVpPJkMu— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 21, 2019

Stephen Miller defends birtherism (!!!): "They raised questions about John McCain's circumstances of birth … I fundamentally disagree with the view that if you criticize somebody & they happen to be a different color skin, that makes it a racial criticism." pic.twitter.com/Ozp1OC50A1— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 21, 2019

FOX NEWS: *plays Stephen Miller a montage of the most racist stuff Trump has said over the years – birtherism, Muslim ban, etc*

Why shouldn't people see that as racist?

MILLER: The term 'racist' has become a label that's deployed to suppress speech the left doesn't want to hear pic.twitter.com/mmbEqvrzDv— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 21, 2019

And here we have another delightful spokesperson for Trumpism and the GOP:

😬 pic.twitter.com/zcs9tAmCVo— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 21, 2019

She seems nice.

They’re all so nice.

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His base is with him and that’s all he believes he needs

by digby

A majority of Americans (59%) disagree with what the president said in his tweets last week about four Democratic congresswomen of color, including 44% who disagree strongly with what he said. But 40% of the country agrees with what Mr. Trump said. 

“‘Progressive’ Democratic Congresswomen” should “go back” to their countries, he tweeted last Sunday. 

And in a nation which nine in 10 Americans believe is divided along racial lines, sharp partisan and racial differences define their views. Among Democrats, disagreement with what the president said runs high, at 88%. Most of those in agreement with the president are from his party, with 82% of Republicans agreeing, including 47% who strongly agree with the statements. Independents mirror the country overall — 58% disagree, including 41% who strongly disagree.

The current CW seems to be that he has 2020 in the bag as long as his base of Real Americans sticks with him in the only states that matter. (The rest of us just don’t count at all…)

So, despite the fact that the majority of the country is appalled, this could be working for him.

Got democracy?

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QOTD: Elijah Cummings

by digby

He said this on “This Week ” with George Stephanopoulos:

CUMMINGS: “George, no matter where I go, what I’m hearing over and over again from my constituents is, “Please save our democracy. Please save our country.” And you know something else they say, George? They say “I’m scared.” I have never, in my total of 37 years in public service, ever heard a constituent say they were scared of their leader.”

Racial minorities have always had reason to be afraid of the white supremacists among us. But this is different.

. 

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They love him because he hates who they hate

by digby

Just thought I’d share these thoughts from someone who once had to run a campaign against David Duke:

Tim Wise

@timjacobwise

1/ If the Dems blow this election it will not be because they were “too far left on policy” or because they “weren’t left enough.” It will have little to do with policy at all. They are making a mistake caused by traditional consultant theory that does not apply here…

What Makes This So Hard? 

by tristero

Frank Bruni’s op-ed in the Times today is a pretty good summary of how to go forward. Tom Sullivan’s discussion of it is excellent and worth reading. But here, I’d like to suggest a very simple two-stage strategy for Democratic victory:

What we do now
by Tom Sullivan

The electoral college margin in 2020 could be razor-thin.

What we do now will define who we are as a people for generations. One of America’s major political parties has degenerated into a cult of personality. The acting president is a failure at the job, a failure at business, a failure as a human being and as a father. If his Department of Justice does not succeed in quashing investigations into him, his business, and his seedy circle of friends, we are likely to find out they are the least of his problems, and ours.

One of Donald Trump’s few talents is for picking fights he thinks he can win. Often, he picks new fights to get himself out of fights he thinks he’s losing. To stop him, Democrats need to stop taking the bait.

Democrats’ lack of discipline could hand Donald Trump a narrow victory in 2020. He’s running an even more demagogic game this time. An openly racist one. His rally Wednesday in Greenville, NC demonstrated that.

Decent Americans, horrified, recoiled at the Trump cult chanting “Send her back! Send her back!” about Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.). Omar is all the cult’s hates and fears rolled into one, as Adam Serwer observed. She is a Somali immigrant who arrived a refugee not heir to a fortune. She is black, a woman with courage Trump lacks, and a progressive member of Congress wielding power.

In attacking her and the other women of color in The Squad, Trump is just getting warmed up. No one should be surprised if “Send her back!” morphs into “Build the camps!” before the GOP’s nominating convention next year in Charlotte.

Frank Bruni offers Democrats some blunt advice on responding to that:

If Trump has his way, this campaign will be a bogus referendum on a bastard definition of patriotism. It will be a race-obsessed and racist jubilee. Don’t play along.

Respond to his depredations once, loud and clear. “Maybe say it twice. Then move on,” Bruni writes. “Stop talking so much about the America that he’s destroying and save that oxygen for the America that Democrats want to create.”

Bruni suggests Democrats stick to the center, avoid issues such as single-payer health care, and look more to “more restrained” Democrats who turned out Republicans in 2018 as models. Blue Dog Abigail Spanberger of Virginia, for example. I disagree. But his point about not playing Trump’s game on Trump’s terms is spot on. So is his pitch for Democrats emphasizing the America they want to create.

Trump throws out red meat for his base. But he also throws red capes in front of the left, knowing instinctively we’ll be unable to resist responding, and that we’ll keep responding for days. He stays on the attack. Democrats stay on defense. He stays on the front pages. Democrats’ plans stay below the fold or buried.

Ron Brownstein believes Trump’s electoral path is narrow and getting narrower. He’s done little to expand his base. He’s simply working to consolidate it:

Trump’s victory in 2016, and his consistent support in polls from about 40-45% of the population, shows there is a significant audience for his hard-edged message on immigration and demographic change more broadly. But there is also a clear cost. In effect, Trump’s bruising racially-infused nationalism is forcing the GOP to trade support among younger voters for older ones; secular voters for the most religiously conservative, especially evangelical Christians; diverse voters for whites; white collar whites for blue-collar whites; and metro areas for non-metro areas.

[…]

In 2018 House races, Republicans suffered only very modest losses outside of metropolitan area districts. And they gained three Senate seats in states with large populations of white voters who are rural, blue-collar, or evangelical Christians: North Dakota, Indiana and Missouri. But the party was routed in metropolitan House seats that contained significant populations of minorities, immigrants, singles, college-educated white voters, or all of the above. After sweeping losses in suburban districts from coast to coast, the GOP under Trump has been almost completely exiled from the dynamic metropolitan areas that account for the nation’s vast majority of job growth and economic output.

That means two things. Democrats need to be less worried about attracting Obama-Trump voters than promoting policies that will energize their own base to turn out in blue, urban areas. Especially younger voters who have more “skin in the game” than many realize. They have the power to change the game. They have the numbers to be in control. They just have to reach out and take it. The Squad did.

Second, Trump’s electoral path was desperately close in 2016. It could be even tighter in 2020. Democrats need to place more focus on competing in rural areas and rural states they’ve too long conceded to Republicans. They don’t have to win there, and many won’t expect to. But narrowing Trump’s margins there (via Democratic coattails) could mean not only denying him Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, but picking up seats in (and even flipping) state legislatures that will draw new districts in 2021. Republicans strategists attempt almost nothing that’s not at least a twofer. It’s time Democrats tried.