Month: February 2020

Well, in Louisiana anyway:

The same Louisiana Republican Party that 30 years ago refused to censure former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke decided last Saturday to censure Sen. Mitt Romney.

The Republican State Central Committee, the elected body that controls the internal governance of the state party, essentially said Romney for too long has been mean to poor, defenseless President Trump. The censure resolution blamed Romney for such transgressions as “allowing conservative spoiler candidate Evan McMullin to lease his 2012 campaign e-mail list,” writing an anti-Trump column for the Washington Post, and continuing “to deliver belligerent statements and comments about President Trump while largely ignoring far more egregious conduct and obnoxious rhetoric” by various Democrats.

The horror, the horror.

The resolution made no mention of Romney’s vote to convict Trump in the Senate trial that concluded last week, but resolution sponsor Mike Bayham admits it received “a lot more votes” at the RSCC because Romney broke ranks on impeachment. The resolution passed overwhelmingly by voice vote.

I wonder where they got that idea?

This story by a CIA employee who worked under Pompeo says what we all kind of knew about how the government works under Donald Trump. He tells the story of an operation overseen by his boss at the time:

 Unfortunately, on this evening, at some level within the Pentagon, there was a perception that the CIA had not been fully transparent, and was unnecessarily sidelining finite military resources needed to continue counterinsurgency efforts against Taliban units engaged with Afghan partner forces. At least, that was the message that had made it to Pompeo from a frustrated senior Pentagon official. This prompted the director to call my boss and unleash a verbal barrage of insults, humiliations and curses more familiar from my days as a Marine recruit on Parris Island’s drill deck as opposed to coming from a member of the president’s Cabinet. 

The revealing and most disconcerting aspect of this episode was not that Pompeo presumed the worst from his workforce before getting the full story, nor his vicious dressing down of a dedicated senior official and decorated officer. Rather, it was what caused him to be so furious in the first place: The director was worried that the news would come to President Donald Trump’s attention. Anything that could somehow embarrass the president, or make him appear weak, had to be avoided in order to insulate those in his orbit like Pompeo, who had his eyes on yet bigger and better things.

The president’s advisers knew their own political futures depended on staying in Trump’s favor and providing him with so-called “successes.” Therefore, Pompeo prioritized shielding Trump from news he didn’t want to hear, an approach to the job that sometimes subjugated the country’s interests to those of the president. Concerned more about his own standing with the president, Pompeo also refused to provide the CIA workforce with any words of support in the face of Trump’s repeated attacks on it, fearing such encouragement would anger Trump.  

This dynamic continues under the more qualified Gina Haspel which explains her clapping like a trained seal at Trump’s State of the Union address last week.

I know this seems obvious. After all, we see them all laughing and cheering for him over the stupidest things and going out of their way to lick his boots whenever possible. But it is nonetheless chilling to see this playing out in these national security and law enforcement areas. He is a vindictive barbarian and there is no doubt in my mind that if he gets a second term we could all fall in their crosshairs. And I don’t think there will be anyone within the government who will even try to go around him.

He’s changed the entire culture and people are getting used to it.

There has been an endless about of chatter about how Trump is riding high from his impeachment acquittal. And it’s true that he is turning his administration full fascist.

But a new national poll shows that any of the top Democratic candidates can beat Trump:
Quinnipiac poll Feb 5-9:

Bloomberg beats Trump 51-42
Sanders beats Trump 51-43
Biden beats Trump 50-43
Klobuchar beats Trump 49-43
Warren beats Trump 48-44
Buttigieg beats Trump 47-43

Yes, yes, I know that national polls mean nothing and that it’s all about the only states that matter in the Electoral College. Still, it’s interesting to know that if the United States was a real democracy Trump would be facing a huge uphill climb with any of the Democrats is worth pondering.

He is weak, he isn’t strong. On the other hand, he cheats. No one can afford to go to sleep on him and his henchman.

People were rightfully appalled when Trump dismissed the head injuries suffered by US troops in the Iranian missile counter-attack last month by calling them mere “headaches.” Now it appears that nearly a hundred soldiers were affected and we don’t really know what the severity of these injuries will end up being:

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity ahead of an announcement, said there were over 100 cases of TBI, up from the 64 previously reported last month. The Pentagon declined to comment, but in the past had said to expect an increase in numbers in the weeks after the attack because symptoms can take time to manifest and troops can sometimes take longer to report them.

If anyone is expecting the president to walk back his remarks I think he will do the opposite. He thinks brain injuries are for sissies:

“Because you know, today if you hit too hard — 15 yards! Throw him out of the game. They had that last week, I watched for a coupled of minutes. Two guys, just really, beautiful tackle. Boom! 15 yards. The referee goes on television, his wife’s so proud of him. They’re ruining the game! They’re ruining the game,” 

If he thinks that about football imagine what he thinks about soldiers who complain. He has no reverence for anyone in the military who isn’t one of his Praetorian Guard. He called the generals dopes and babies and is so snide when he spits out the “Lt Col” part of Vindeman’s title that he appears almost to gag on it.

I have a feeling we’ll be hearing from the WH leakers any day now all about Trump’s disgust with the weaklings who complained about their “headaches.”

The purge continues. And it’s picking up steam:

White House counselor Kellyanne Conway on Monday hinted that additional officials could be forced out of their roles following the ousters last week of Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman and Ambassador Gordon Sondland — both high-profile witnesses in the impeachment investigation of President Donald Trump.

She defended the removal of the Vindeman brothers and said that Trump was just being nice in employing Gordon Sondland in the first place, explaining that he was a “reluctant” Trump supporter which is, apparently, a firing offense. The fact that Trump had used him as his personal instrument to smear Joe Biden wasn’t mentioned.

Meanwhile, there’s this from the Washington Examiner:

President Trump is making good on his promises to “drain the swamp” and cut Obama-era holdovers from his staffs, especially the critical and recently controversial National Security Council.

Officials confirmed that Trump and national security adviser Robert O’Brien have cut 70 positions inherited from former President Barack Obama, who had fattened the staff to 200.

Nothing but toadies and assassins need apply.

None of this is a coincidence:

Both Gordon Sondland and Lt. Col. Alex Vindman had seen their standings diminished significantly after they appeared before Congress and under subpoena to discuss the hold on military assistance to Ukraine. Because of that, both had been quietly planning to leave their positions after the impeachment trial wrapped up, three sources tell CNN.

Officials told the President this was likely and advised him to let them just leave on their own so he would spare himself the criticism of firing impeachment witnesses. But Trump didn’t want them to go quietly, according to one person familiar with his thinking.

The reason kings and revolutionaries alike put heads on pikes is to send a message to everyone about what happens to those who oppose them.

Vindeman and the others are all being smeared as traitors to King Trump. I can’t imagine what effect this has on the morale of the military but there’s actually a fairly good chance that most of them are members of the Trump cult and have no problem with this, just as officials of the Republican party have fallen into line and are now full-fledged accomplices in whatever Trump decides to do.

The fight for our country isn’t just about Trump. He really does have a movement now — he’s fully incorporated both the conservative movement and the GOP establishment —and it’s gaining steam, not losing it. This stuff is happening in plain sight.

Unfortunately, the Democrats appear to me to be focused on waging an election that’s happening in another dimension so I’m not sure how the opposition is preparing to fight this particular fight. At this point, I’m just pinning all my hopes on the common sense of the American people. There was a time when I believed a lot more of us had it. Now, I’m just praying there are enough for the Democrats to win big enough so the Republicans can’t steal it.

QOTD: Donald Trump, when asked about the Wuhan coronavirus

A lot of people think that goes away in April with the heat. As the heat comes in. Typically that will go away in April. We’re in great shape, though.

Well ok then. It’s all good.

If you would like to get good information on this subject instead of insane ramblings from an imbecile, you can click on this from time to time.

Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina told Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade last week “When I go to meet God at the pearly gates, I don’t think he’s going to ask me, ‘Why didn’t you convict Trump?'” He may be right about that but only because he’s likely to first be asked to explain what he did afterward. Graham has become Trump’s instrument of revenge in the Senate and he isn’t making any bones about it.

Appearing on Judge Jeanine Pirro’s Fox show on Saturday night, Graham made it clear that the president being impeached for coercing a foreign government to smear his opponent isn’t the end of that story. They’re just bringing their bag of dirty tricks back home where Trump partisans in the US Government can get the job done right.

Pirro asked Graham if they could expect the Intelligence and Judiciary Committees to take a look at the whistleblower and the Bidens and get to the bottom of this world-shaking conspiracy. Graham replied:

GRAHAM: So, we’re are not going to live in a world where as a Republican you get investigated from the day you get sworn in, three years later they are still coming after you. Here’s what amazes me. The Russian investigation. What happened? Half the people behind the Russian investigation are going to go to jail and Trump was cleared.

PIRRO: Hopefully.

GRAHAM: Well, just hang tight.

The people going to jail are all Trump associates and Trump was anything but cleared. But if you watch Fox you probably don’t know that.

Graham declared that he’s sending a list of witnesses to the Justice Department, including all the case agents who were involved in the Russia investigation, and that’s not all:

I don’t believe… I want to know what Obama knew about this investigation. I want to call Rosenstein, Sally Yates, Comey and McCabe, all the people who worked on this case to find out how it got so off the rails and make sure it never happens again. And I want to know who in the White House knew about this counter-intelligence investigation against the Republican nominee.

As I have noted before, Graham has been making these noises for a while Last weekend, as the final impeachment vote neared, he appeared on Fox and made a similar vow:

“We’ll deal with the whistleblower … we’ll deal with Joe Biden’s conflicts of interest. (The) Judiciary Committee will deal with all things FISA. Let me tell Republicans out there — you should expect us to do this. If we don’t we’re letting you down.”

He’s had a full year as Judiciary Chairman so you’d think he would have made his move by now. On the other hand, I suspect that he promised Trump he would follow through if Trump would give up the idea of witnesses so maybe he’s on the spot now.

On Sunday he appeared on Face the Nation and basically made the same promise with just a slightly smaller portion of right-wing red meat. But he added some details that were quite alarming.

Margaret Brennan asked Graham about the firing of Lt. Col. Alexander Vindeman and Graham was either egregiously misinformed or outrageously lying when he said that Vindeman had never been asked tough questions such as “did you leak to the whistleblower.” Of course, he was asked. Trump minion Jim Jordan, R-OH, asked him and Vindeman replied under oath, “I never did. I never would. It is preposterous that I would do that.”

And Graham sounds as paranoid as the looniest Q-Anon conspiracy theorist here:

Asked whether the summary firing of LTC Alexander Vindman was justified Graham says Vindman was part of broader plot against President Trump by FBI Agents, CIA Agents and DOJ Lawyers. pic.twitter.com/AwgimKjlky

— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) February 9, 2020

But Graham may have revealed something much more important about the Biden issue when he said that he’d spoken with Attorney General William Barr on the subject just that morning and was assured that Barr had set up “a process “by which Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani could funnel information directly to the Department of Justice. What an interesting development, particularly since Barr has just issued an order saying that he must personally sign off on all investigations of political campaigns.

Graham said he was doing this out of concern that the Russian government was feeding Giuliani disinformation. But in the course of all that he blithely announced to the world that the DOJ is now involved in an investigation of Joe Biden — just as they had tried to get the president of Ukraine to do last summer.

Brennan: "This sounds alot like this is in some ways a taxpayer funded oppo research operation against Joe Biden. Isn't this exactly what was at the heart of the impeachment probe to begin with?" pic.twitter.com/SYQDjAbT0j

— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) February 9, 2020

Graham is all over the place, clearly unclear about the facts and just trying to appease the president.

I don’t think Trump is going to be appeased.

Trump tweeted before the Face the Nation appearance that Graham needs to get cracking with his Judiciary Committee saying “he must start up Judiciary and not stop until the job is done. Clean up D.C. now, last chance!” And then, this:

Yes!!!!! https://t.co/9ERa0atGOX

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 9, 2020

He wants his pound of flesh. He is determined to make Biden — and by extension Obama — pay.

Although it is looking more and more unlikely that Joe Biden will get the nomination, the Senate Republicans have also staked everything on being “right” about Biden being the most corrupt politician in America. They are now fully implicated in everything Trump has done and will do going forward. They are made men and made women.

And if there’s one thing we learned from the impeachment it’s that as much as people may try to circumvent his crazy schemes and ridiculous orders, if he wants it done there are people in his orbit who will do it. Now that there’s absolutely no oversight, he has no limits.

I can see what Graham may be trying to do. He’s more than willing to throw Joe Biden to the wolves and degrade every institution in America to keep Trump happy and assure his own re-election. But he is concerned that Trump is being manipulated by the Russian government through his henchman Rudy Giuliani and he thinks that he and Bill Barr can keep a lid on it. But Bill Barr has his own agenda and I’m not sure it’s the same one.

Trump has purged the party of anyone who would defy him and his White House is now only staffed by sycophants and assassins. It’s become commonplace to discuss siccing the Justice Department on political enemies:

McCarthy: Nancy Pelosi committed a felony
Jeanine: Is she going to be prosecuted?
McCarthy: The AG should give an opinion pic.twitter.com/wWl07lHNox

— Acyn (@Acyn) February 9, 2020

Yes, they are all clowns, from Trump to Graham to McCarthy. But don’t take any consolation from that They are very powerful clowns and there is nothing to hold them back:

“Totalitarianism in power invariably replaces all first-rate talents, regardless of their sympathies, with those crackpots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity is still the best guarantee of their loyalty.” —Hannah Arendt, “The Origins of Totalitarianism”

That perfectly describes the Trump party.

Update:

Utterly insane. He’s reportedly under investigation for this influence peddling scheme in one district, two of his assistants have been indicted, and he’s being encouraged to pursue it by headquarters. https://t.co/coNJuO4Qxt

— southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) February 10, 2020

Here it is:

AG Bill Barr: "We had established an intake process in the field so that any information coming in about Ukraine could be carefully scrutinized by the department … including anything Mr. Giuliani might provide." pic.twitter.com/9wmnbR63yy

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 10, 2020

My Salon column reprinted with permission

NBC’s Chuck Todd on “Meet the Press” Sunday pressed Sen. Bernie Sanders on how he would respond to Republican charges of being a socialist.

“Democratic socialist,” Sanders corrected. (What that means in the U.S. is contested.)

It’s a distinction Sanders should make more often. However, for Republicans and for Trump voters, it may be a distinction without a difference. For them it’s not a question about political philosophy. For people whose politics were formed in the Cold War, socialism is 21st- century shorthand for commie, pinko, red, “ain’t one of us,” whatever. It’s a rock handy for bashing in opponents’ heads. What type of stone, what shape or color, is irrelevant.

Sanders’s problem is when the topic comes up, he’s playing defense when he should be playing offense.

Sure, Sanders could mention that social democracies — countries like Finland, Denmark, and Norway — top the list in the UN’s annual World Happiness Report while in the U.S. discontent grows. But Americans in their discontent hate being told they are not #1 in everything. And they hate people who remind them they are not.

Sanders could remind Americans that beloved programs like Social Security and Medicare are social welfare programs. But they hate being told that for the same reasons. It sounds like “free stuff” for lesser-thans who don’t deserve it. That’s why Republicans condemn universal health care as “socialized medicine.” Let the sick and poor die and decrease the surplus population, eh?

Socialism : bad. Capitalism : good. Yes?

But if any form of socialism is bad, conservative critics should have to defend socialized spending they approve. Sanders should ask the Chuck Todds what color their aircraft carrier is.

Where do you harbor your personal carrier strike group?

How much profit did your carrier strike group bank in the last quarter? Can I invest?

Did you buy your carrier strike group retail, or did you order it Capitalist Prime, 2-day delivery from Amazon?

And by the way, Chuck, where does Arlington, Virginia let you park your M1A2 Abrams tank? (At 0.6 mpg, I hear fuel costs are brutal.)

When was the last time Republicans demanded the Pentagon turn a profit? When was the last time they insisted the Pentagon is “broke” because it spends more than it takes in? Because it’s been broke now for over 75 years.

America-firsters, patriots that they claim, loathe any form of socialism. Make them defend socialism they like.

“Not a single Democrat will openly denounce socialism or a socialist candidate. This is the true Democratic Party,” tweeted America First PAC during Friday night’s Democratic presidential debate. Chaired by Linda McMahon and with Sean Spicer listed as senior adviser, America First PAC describes itself as “the only Official Pro-Trump Super PAC.”

If Sanders wins in New Hampshire tomorrow, we’ll hear plenty more of that BS. Republicans don’t do it to promote healthy political debate, but to shut it down. And to shut up Sanders and his Democratic “comrades” with him. But if you are explaining, you are losing, it’s said. Make them do the explaining.

Sanders should make opponents defend socialism for the rich and metastasized capitalism for the rest. He should make conservative critics defend why they support socialized national defense and other forms of collective spending they never mention. He should ask them, “What color is your aircraft carrier?”

It won’t change any minds, but with enough repetition it might change the conversation.

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For The Win, 3rd Edition is ready for download. Request a copy of my free countywide election mechanics guide at ForTheWin.us. This is what winning looks like.

Yes, he said he would protect Social Security and Medicare at the State of the Union and he’s been tweeting drivel like this ever since:

We will not be touching your Social Security or Medicare in Fiscal 2021 Budget. Only the Democrats will destroy them by destroying our Country’s greatest ever Economy!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 8, 2020

There’s a reason nobody believes him (aside from the fact that he just lies about everything.) Remember just a month ago he said this:

During an appearance on CNBC, Trump was asked if restructuring entitlement programs would ever be on his plate. “At some point, they will be,” Trump said from Davos, Switzerland, where he attended the World Economic Forum.

Trump cited the “tremendous growth” in the economy and suggested that would make it easier to change entitlement programs. “At the right time, we will take a look at that,” he said. “You know, that’s actually the easiest of all things.”

He even implied that he was talking about some privatization scheme he’d obviously been getting an earful about from the real billionaires at Davos who were buttering him up to his face and laughing about him behind his back.

Still, he walked it back shortly afterward:

Democrats are going to destroy your Social Security. I have totally left it alone, as promised, and will save it!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 23, 2020

He’s all over the place on this mostly because he just says he won’t cut social security and medicare in order to get elected. He could not care less about it one way or the other.

Check out his new budget:

The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday that the White House is expected to propose a $4.8 trillion budget that aims to slash these popular programs while increasing spending on NASA, defense, and veterans:

The White House proposes to cut spending by $4.4 trillion over a decade. Of that, it targets $2 trillion in savings from mandatory spending programs, including $130 billion from changes to Medicare prescription-drug pricing, $292 billion from safety-net cuts—such as work requirements for Medicaid and food stamps—and $70 billion from tightening eligibility access to federal disability benefits.

While this reported budget is sure to fail—Democrats control the House, after all—it’s still striking to witness the vast gulf between Trump’s stated pledges and his actual priorities. If Trump does unveil his budget tomorrow as expected, it will have been less than a week since his State of the Union address where he vowed to protect Medicare and Social Security. That itself was a galling shift from what he had said just two weeks before, when he publicly threatened to go after those very programs.

He can say anything. The thing to keep in mind is that his henchmen have a real agenda and when he is no longer seeking re-election there is every reason to believe they will get it done.

The numbers have been adjusted and it looks like the economy has been coasting the whole time. Even his tax cuts did nothing:

President Donald Trump has always exaggerated the strength of his jobs record, claiming to have brought about an unprecedented hiring boom when, in fact, payrolls have been growing at a somewhat slower pace than they had been during Barack Obama’s final years in office. But it turns out, the reality of it was even weaker than the official data let on.

On Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released its latest batch of employment numbers, along with its annual benchmark revisions adjusting its estimates from prior months. Before, the government believed that the U.S. had added 223,000 jobs per month in 2018, the year that the GOP’s tax cuts and new, higher spending levels took effect. It has now lowered that estimate to 193,000 per month, a significant drop.

With today’s benchmark revision, there was still a modest increase in payroll growth in 2018 over 2017. The 2019 average was essentially unchanged. Job growth has been remarkably steady for the past four years.

Here’s how this changes the story of the past few years. Based on the old numbers, it looked like Trump had inherited a steady economy but gave hiring a boost in 2018 through some deficit-fueled stimulus. Based on the new numbers, it looks like he inherited a steadily growing economy and didn’t do much at all. Trump’s deficits likely juiced employment growth a bit, while his trade war likely undercut it. (The Federal Reserve’s interest rate hikes probably muted growth in 2018 a bit too.) In the end, the economy has added fewer jobs in every year of his presidency than it did during Obama’s final one. There never was much of a Trump bump.

I think that people were stunned by the financial crisis and didn’t feel things getting better until quite a while after it happened. Trump got lucky as he has so often in his life.

Look for the economy to tank as soon as he leaves office. It almost makes you wish that he’d be in there to deal with it. Almost.

But it’s not worth it.