Trump is widely understood to hold a rather juvenile, simple-minded form of transactional philosophy. It’s basically just a view that “fairness” means anything that might be seen as negative for him or the country must be balanced by something negative about the other party, whether it’s the Democrats, the so-called “deep state” or a foreign country. His trade deals, for instance, aren’t actually about trade as it’s understood in the modern world. He believes that if a country sells the US a certain product it is “unfair” if the US doesn’t sell an equal number of the same product back to them. That’s not how this works. It’s not how any of this works.
Recently, we have seen that he and his henchmen apply this same playground logic to the rule of law. If he or his associates are found guilty of a crime, it means that one of his political enemies must also be found guilty of a crime. Otherwise, the law is unjust.
Here’s one on Fox News this morning:
WALLACE: One of the president’s friends, Roger Stone, was sentenced this week to 40 months in prison for lying to congress, for obstruction, and for witness tampering. Here was the president’s reaction.
TRUMP: I’d love to see roger exonerated. and I’d love to see happen because I personally think he was treated very unfairly.
WALLACE: So here’s the question, Stone was convicted, specifically, for lying about the fact that he in fact was trying to get information from Wikileaks about what they were going to do with the thousands of hacked Democratic emails. Why does the president — and it was a treasure trove of evidence that indicated he had lied about the fact that he was trying to find out from Wikileaks what they were going to do with the emails. Why does the president think you should be exonerated?
SHORT: You know it’s possible he will get exonerated Chris…
WALLACE: I’m asking you, why does the president think he should be?
SHORT: I have no interest in being a character witness for Roger Stone. I don’t know Roger Stone. I think that lying to federal investigators, he should be prosecuted for and that’s what the Department of Justice did. But I think the president’s frustration is, you see a Department of Justice that comes in with the original sentencing guidelines four years beyond what it’s supposed to be for sentencing guidelines for his offenses. And yet when you see people like Andy McCabe, who also lied to federal investigators, referred for investigation, what they get is a lucrative contract at CNN. That doesn’t seem to be equitable justice. I think that’s what the president’s primary frustration is.
WALLACE: But, he’s not saying he got sentence for too long. Incidentally, he didn’t get the 7-9 years, he got three and a half years, roughly. Here’s what the president’s own Attorney General William Barr said.
BARR: I think it was established, he was convicted of obstructing Congress and witness tampering, and I thought that was a righteous prosecution, and I was happy that he was convicted.
WALLACE: And the judge in the case, said this about Stone.
“He was not prosecuted, as some have complained, for standing up for the president. He was prosecuted for covering up for the president.”
So when the president talks about wanting to see Roger Stone get off, to be exonerated, and even raises the possibility that he might pardon him, is that because Roger Stone protected him in the Mueller investigation?
SHORT: I don’t think so, Chris. I think the president again is frustrated in seeing what he thinks is an equitable system of justice. I think what he’s seeing is the Roger Stone investigation was born out of the Mueller Report, what’s there it started from. The reality is that the Mueller Report, as we’ve seen, did not show Russia collusion. It would seem to our minds…
WALLACE; You have the Attorney General saying it was a righteous prosecution.
SHORT: And I’ll just share with you that I think it should be prosecuted as well. I think that people who lie to Congress should be prosecuted Chris… and so… but I think that what’s unfair in the system, is that those who also were trying to prevent this president from being elected inside their position at the Department of Justice, lied about it, leaked information. The Inspector General refers them for prosecution and what they get is a lucrative contract at a TV network. How is that equitable justice?
WALLACE: Well, I suppose one of the arguments would be just because one guy gets off, doesn’t mean the other person should.
SHORT: And I’ve said multiple times on your network that he should have been prosecuted. And so we will see what happens with the second round.
This is a whining five-year-old’s definition of fairness. But that’s how Trump views everything from the simplest aspect of everyday life to monumental national security and foreign policy. He’s a fool. But you knew that.
I don’t know this for a fact but I’m reasonably certain that Matthews, back in ’16 when Donald “very fine people on both sides” Trump was sewing up the nomination, never dared compare his rise to that of the Nazis. But that is exactly what he did tonight when it became clear Sanders would win:
The most jaw-dropping [comment] came from MSNBC host Chris Matthews, who said he was reading about the fall of France to the Nazis in 1940, and it reminded him of what was going on with Sanders appearing more likely to win the nomination.
“I’m reading last night about the fall of France in the summer of 1940, and the Gen. [Louis] Renault calls up [British Prime Minister Winston] Churchill and says, ‘It’s over.’ And Churchill says, ‘How can it be? You got the greatest army in Europe. How could it be over?’ He said, ‘It’s over.’ So I had that suppressed feeling,” Matthews said.
And let’s be perfectly clear about this:
Sanders’ spokesman Mike Casca tweeted after the segment that he “never thought part of my job would be pleading with a national news network to stop likening the campaign of a jewish presidential candidate whose family was wiped out by the nazis to the third reich. but here we are.”
House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA) was on Fox News this morning warning of what will happen if the Democrats nominate the socialist Bernie Sanders but also what will happen if they don’t. Message: he cares.
The following is according to Breitbart news:
House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA), a victim of politically motivated domestic terrorism nearly three years ago, warned of the dangers associated with Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-VT) supporters, both ideologically and what might happen if the Democratic Party rigs the process against Sanders during an interview on Fox News on Saturday.
According to the Louisiana congressman, those supporting Sanders’ candidacy have a very different vision in mind for the country.
“You can see from his rallies, his supporters are very rabid, strong supporters of Bernie,” he said. “But they want something very different than Americans, as you and I know it. I mean, they truly do want socialism. Least of all Democrats on that stage, he’s maybe the most genuine because he’s at least articulates and defends socialism, while the others want to move a socialist agenda but talk as if they’re mainstream, and they’re not. And so, those are dangerous policies. Go to another country, and I’m sure none of them would want to live for a month or two months in any of those socialist countries that exist today because they’re disasters. We’re not going to let that happen to America.”
Scalise acknowledged there was some benefit to the Democratic Party candidates’ exposure to the public, which he said revealed their support of socialism.
“I think more and more people are seeing the dangers of socialism,” he said. “I mean, look, I hope they have a debate every single night because if you look at the last debate they had, you literally had Bloomberg criticizing socialism and communism. They’re saying it is OK to be socialist. Then they try to criticize communism as if there is much of a difference at this point between the things that they are talking about.”
Scalise went on to add Sanders’ supporters recognized Democrats were trying to rig the process once again, as they were alleged to have in 2016 to favor Hillary Clinton. He said that would be a “disaster” for the Democratic Party.
“Again, have a fair process,” Scalise added. “Whoever wins your nomination, you’re going to have to own that. I think they’re scared to death. They want to quietly embrace socialism. But they don’t want anybody else to talk about it. Look, the public is paying attention. They see what is going on.”
Republicans are very confused. Their plan is to run against socialism/communism (you know they’ll go there) but they can’t explain at the moment why there are Democrats who oppose Bernie Sanders. All people who are planning to vote against Donald Trump must be, by definition, socialist, so this is the best they can do.
I think this sort of thing may just end up backfiring on the Republicans. I know Trump believes his relentless “memeing” (“No collusion”, “lock her up!” “witch hunt!”) is the most effective way to make them believe him or believe their eyes, but it also has the opposite effect. It will end up normalizing the word, even among people who currently see “socialism” in a negative light. We are all socialists now.
Results are still trickling in from the Nevada caucuses. After Iowa’s debacle, the state party there would rather be slow and accurate than fast and wrong. What’s clear is that Bernie Sanders won a blowout victory there, leaving his Democratic-ticket rivals in the dust.
While the state is small, turnout of over, 100,000 is considered “enormous,” Politico reports:
But the Sanders victory still exploded a lot of myths. He was said to have a ceiling of 30% or so. Remarkably, against a much larger field of candidates Sanders is poised to come close to the same level of support as he did in 2016 in a one-on-one race against Hillary Clinton, to whom he lost 47%-53%. (He was at 46% with a quarter of precincts reporting as of this writing.) He was said to be unable to attract anyone outside his core base. But he held his own with moderate voters (22%) and won across every issue area except voters who cared most about foreign policy, who went with Biden.
Young, Latino and liberal voters delivered big for Sanders on Saturday. And after his public dispute with the leadership of the Culinary Union in Las Vegas, Sanders won about a third of union members’ support.
Sanders won just under half (49%) of all caucus-goers who ranked themselves “very liberal,” per another Politico account. He won white voters (28%) and finished second behind former Vice President Joe Biden with black voters (27% to Biden’s 36%). There remains a gender gap, Politico’s Steven Shepard writes, with Sanders drawing “8 points better among men (38 percent) than among women (30 percent).” But he pulled in strong support from Latinos. “The more estimated Hispanic voters in a precinct, the better Sanders did,” Nate Cohn reported for the New York Times. In a state with a third of its people from racial minorities, Sanders won a majority (53%) in a crowded field of candidates. In second place, Biden won 16 percent.
Rather than simply tossing off a few phrases in Spanish, Sanders ran a campaign that drew the most financial support from Latinos ( $8.3 million in 2019) of any Democrat in the race. He not only knocked over 200,000 Nevadans’ doors in the last 2-1/2 weeks, he won support among Latinos with small-scale, direct contact.
O n President’s Day, Daniel Parra met a group of friends at Eldorado High School, in East Las Vegas. The Bernie Sanders campaign was holding a soccer tournament there that a friend of Parra’s had posted about on Snapchat. Under a bright morning sun, with Frenchman Mountain soaring in the background, some forty mostly Latino soccer aficionados gathered on one of the school’s fields. Many of the players had brought their parents, brothers, and sisters along, and spectators sat on the scorched grass beneath the branches of an ash tree. A Mexican woman in her sixties with an ice-cream cart and two taco vendors with a spread of carnitas, asado, and pastor would soon be selling food, as arranged by the campaign. Dozens of cobalt-blue Bernie signs, including one, which read, “Unidos con Bernie” fluttered on the field’s wire fence. Parra, who is nineteen, tall, and slender, spoke with conviction about his support for Sanders. He hoped to transfer to Colorado State University from the community college he was attending nearby, and said that the senator’s promise of making university tuition free resonated strongly with him. But something else had drawn him to the field that morning. “I see that he’s actually trying to look after the smaller communities, not just going after the big audience,” Parra said. “Doing something like this means a lot to people like us, because we don’t really get looked upon.”
Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York City appeared for the campaign at the soccer field.
Sanders had used a similar approach in in Des Moines, Iowa. He won 430 of 480 Latino voters at Spanish-language satellite caucuses state Democrats organized for the first time. Statewide, he drew over 60 percent of the vote in Latino precincts. Food, music, and family are key elements to his campaign’s outreach. Other candidates hire Mariachi bands for campaign events. Sanders’ campaign recruits student bands. Their parents come to watch them play.
At a high-school rally over a week ago, Taladrid met a Sanders supporter from back east:
Belem Orozco, a single mother in her twenties, told me that she was a volunteer with Make the Road who had travelled from Allentown, Pennsylvania, for the event. A DACA recipient, Orozco was born in Mexico and had migrated north with her family in the early two thousands. “I think other candidates are dealing with us how they usually do, which is just tokens,” she said. “Bernie sees us. Especially with the current President right now, who is essentially dehumanizing us, he brings the human back in us.” She said that, as an undocumented person, she had dealt with uncertainty for her entire life. “I definitely want to see Bernie in office, because we believe that he will finally bring some peace of mind to immigrant folks like myself,” she said. “We’re not fighting for him, we’re fighting with him.”
Ryan Grim (via Twitter) points to Sander’s victory speech (from San Antonio) as demonstrating another element Sanders gets right. Sanders told his rally:
The American people are sick and tired of a government, which is based on greed, corruption, and lies. They want an administration which is based on the principles of justice. Economic justice, social justice, racial justice, and environmental justice. Now Trump and his friends think they are going to win this election. They think they’re going to win this election by dividing our people up based on the color of their skin or where they were born or their religion or their sexual orientation. We are going to win because we are doing exactly the opposite. We’re bringing our people together. We are bringing our people together, black and white and Latino, Native American, Asian, gay and straight.
Hilary Clinton in 2016 name-checked minority groups she would fight for in her speeches. Grim observes, “The list got so long that if your own identity wasn’t on it it became conspicuous, like the one cousin not invited to the wedding.” Sanders is doing something subtly different, Grim tweets. “It’s not that he’ll fight for somebody because they are X identity, but rather he’s calling out Trump for trying to use race, gender etc to divide and conquer working people.”
where she’d call out a slew of identity groups and talk about how she was going to fight for each one. The list got so long that if your own identity wasn’t on it it became conspicuous, like the one cousin not invited to the wedding. Sanders approach is different /2
The only age* demographic Sanders did not win Saturday was the 65-and-up vote. They vote heavily while younger voters historically do not. If Sanders can change that fact, expand the electorate, he changes the game. If he rallies supporters who in the end don’t vote, his support amounts to vaporware. The James Carvilles of the world will say I told you so, as he was doing on MSNBC Saturday.
Whatever the punditry’s and the party bigwigs’ misgivings, Sanders is clearly gaining strength. He’s doing something right while they stew. Next Saturday: South Carolina.
Update:Age demographic.
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For The Win, 3rd Edition is ready for download. 2,600+ counties contacted, roughly 900 “opens,” over 400 downloads. (It’s a lead-a-horse effort.) Request a copy of my free countywide election mechanics guide at ForTheWin.us. This is what winning looks like.
Clearly, I was diggin’ the super sounds of the 70s. On shift at KFAR-AM, ca. 1978
I'm livin' in the Seventies Eatin' fake food under plastic trees My face gets dirty just walkin' around I need another pill to calm me down
- from "Living in the 70s" by Skyhooks
If
you’ve grown weary of your hippie grandparents getting misty-eyed over “the 50th
anniversary of the Beatles on Sullivan”, “the 50th anniversary of
the Summer of Love” or “the 50th anniversary of Woodstock”, I have
good news for you. The 60s are finally
over.
The
bad news is …welcome to the 1970s!
When
it comes to music, the 1970s were pretty, pretty, good. In fact, I have to say
that some of the finest music known to humanity was produced during that
decade. Now there are some who subscribe to the theory that one’s “musical
taste” is formed during high school and thenceforth set in stone. Full
disclosure: I graduated from high school in 1974.
I still say some of the finest music known
to humanity was produced during that decade.
In
the several years following the release of the Beatles’ game-changing Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album
in 1967, the genre broadly referred to as “rock ‘n’ roll” progressed by leaps
and bounds. You could say it was “splintering”. Sub-genres began to propagate;
folk-rock, blues-rock, progressive rock, country rock, hard rock. By the time
the new decade rolled around, you could add more variations: Latin rock,
jazz-rock, funk-rock, and polar extremes that would come to be dubbed as “soft
rock” and “heavy metal”.
I’ve lost my curly locks (ditto aviator glasses) and there are a few more lines on my face, but I’d guess around 70% of the music that I still listen to was created in the 1970s. (Oh god here he goes now with the anniversary mention) It’s hard to believe that 1970 was (ahem) 50 years ago …but there you have it. With that in mind, here are my picks for the 10 best rock albums of 1970, a year that offers an embarrassing wealth of damn fine LPs.
All
Things Must Pass– George
Harrison
1970
was an interesting year for the four artists formerly known as “The Beatles”.
The belated release of the less-than-stellar Let it Be (actually recorded prior to 1969’s Abbey Road) was overshadowed by solo album debuts from all four ex-bandmates.
While John Lennon’s Plastic Ono Band,
Paul McCartney’s McCartney, and Ringo
Starr’s Sentimental Journey certainly
contained fine material, I don’t think anybody
saw this one coming (always watch out for the “quiet ones”). George Harrison
had been “quietly” stowing away some very strong material for some time-at
least judging by this massive 3-record set (although one could argue that the 3rd
LP, comprised of 4 meandering jam sessions, was excess baggage). Produced by
Phil Spector and featuring a stellar list of backing musicians (Eric Clapton, Ringo
Starr, Badfinger, Billy Preston, Gary Wright, Bobby Keys, Peter Frampton, Gary
Brooker, Alan White, Ginger Baker, Dave Mason, et.al.) Harrison delivers an
astonishing set of songs, many of which have become classics.
Choice cuts: “I’d Have You Anytime”, “My Sweet Lord”, “Isn’t it a Pity (Version One)”, “Let it Down”, “What is Life”, “Beware of Darkness”, “All Things Must Pass”, “Art of Dying”.
Bitches
Brew– Miles
Davis
Miles
Davis is considered a “jazz” artist, but first and foremost he was an artist; one who defied categorization throughout
his career. The influence of this 2-LP set on what came to be called “fusion”
cannot be overstated. But be warned: this is not an album you put on as background;
it is challenging music that demands your full attention (depending on your
mood that day, it will sound either bold and exhilarating, or discordant and
unnerving). Miles always had heavyweight players on board, but the Bitches Brew roster is legend: including
future members of Weather Report (Wayne Shorter, Joe Zawinul), Return to
Forever (Chick Corea, Lenny White) and The Mahavishnu Orchestra (John
McLaughlin, Billy Cobham) – who are all now acknowledged as key pioneers of fusion.
Album
1, side 1, cut 1: Howling wind, driving rain, the mournful peal of a bell, and
the heaviest, scariest tri-tone power chord intro you’ve ever heard. “Please God help meee!!” Talk about a
mission statement. Alleged to have been recorded in a single 12-hour session,
Black Sabbath’s eponymous debut album blew teenage minds, scared the bejesus
out of the clergy and ushered in a genre of rock that showed no fear of the
dark.
Simon
and Garfunkel went out on a high note with their swan song album (figuratively
and literally…if you factor in Art Garfunkel’s soaring vocal performance on the
title cut). The album not only features one of Paul Simon’s finest and most
enduring song cycles, but outstanding production as well by engineer and
co-producer Roy Halee. Halee picked up a Grammy for Best Engineered Recording;
the album was festooned with an additional 5 Grammys (including Album of the Year
and 4 wins for the title track alone). Simon went on to enjoy a highly
successful solo career, and while Garfunkel continued to record and perform
(including a reunion or two with Simon), his focus shifted to acting.
Choice cuts: “Bridge Over Troubled Water”, “El Condor Pasa”, “Cecilia”, “So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright”, “The Boxer”, “The Only Living Boy in New York”.
Greg Lake was not only one of the gods of prog-rock, but for my money, owned the greatest set of pipes in any musical genre.
That voice has captivated me from the first time I heard “In the Court of the Crimson King” wafting from my radio back in 1969. Even through a tinny 4″ speaker, that beautiful, cathedral voice shot directly through my medulla oblongata and took my breath away.
Prog-rock’s
first super-group not only had “that voice”, but the keyboard wizardry of Keith
Emerson (The Nice) and the precise drumming of Carl Palmer (The Crazy World of
Arthur Brown and Atomic Rooster). ELP’s eponymous debut showcases the trio’s virtuosic
musicianship and seamless blending of folk, rock, jazz and classical
influences.
Choice cuts: “The Barbarian”, “Take a Pebble”, “Knife-Edge”, “Lucky Man”.
Fire
and Water– Free
On an episode of his AXS-TV interview series, former AC/DC lead singer Brian Johnson described the voice of his guest Paul Rodgers thusly: “Velvet chocolate, with a splash of whiskey if required.” Perfect. Speaking of “perfect”, Free’s third studio album is damn-near. Fire and Water is an apt title for this strong set of elemental R&B-flavored blues-rock; propelled by Simon Kirke’s powerful drumming, Andy Fraser’s fluid bass lines, and Paul Kossoff’s spare yet dynamic guitar playing, topped off by Rodgers’ distinctive vocals (possessing a voice like that by 21 can only be attributed to “a gift from beyond”).
Choice cuts: “Fire and Water”, “Oh I Wept”, “Mr. Big”, “Don’t Say You Love Me”, “All Right Now”.
Led
Zeppelin III – Led Zeppelin
For
their third album (my favorite), Led Zeppelin continued to draw from the well
of Delta blues, English folk and heavy metal riffing that had informed the
“sound” of Led Zeppelin and II the previous year, but indicated they
were opening themselves to a bit of new exploration as well. Robert Plant and
Jimmy Page were taking an interest in Eastern music, most evident in the song
“Friends” which features an exotic string arrangement that hints at future
forays into world music like “Four Sticks” (on IV) and “Kashmir” (on Physical
Graffiti). While not bereft of straight-up rockers, this album is also
their most “acoustic”, with folk and country-blues influences sprinkled
throughout (Page even throws in some banjo for their arrangement of the
traditional folk ballad “Gallows Pole”).
Choice cuts: “Immigrant Song”, “Friends”, “Since I’ve Been Loving You”, “Gallows Pole”, “Tangerine”, “That’s the Way”, “Bron-y-aur Stomp”.
The
Man Who Sold the World– David
Bowie
You
could say that David Bowie invented
the idea of “re-invention”. It’s also possible he invented a working time machine,
as he was always ahead of the curve (or leading the herd). He was the poster
boy for “postmodern”. If pressed, I’d have to say my favorite Bowie “period”
would be the Mick Ronson years (1969-1973). When he released his third album in
1970, Bowie was on the precipice of outer space and transitioning to a harder
rock sound. Mick Ronson’s crunchy power chords and fiery solos feel like a
warmup for Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders
from Mars, which was just around the corner.
Choice cuts: “Width of a Circle”, “All the Madmen”, “Black Country Rock”, “After All”, “Running Gun Blues”, “The Man Who Sold the World”.
Rides
Again– The James
Gang
One
of the most majestic and melodic hard rock albums of the 70s, in a realm with Who’s Next. It was the second of three
studio albums with Joe Walsh on lead vocals, guitar, and keyboards (Walsh
departed the band in 1972, and bass player Dale Peters and drummer Jim Fox
would go on to recruit several more guitarists and lead vocalists throughout
the decade, including the late great Tommy Bolin). This is one of Walsh’s
finest moments; especially in the Abbey
Road-style suite on side 2 (Walsh continued a partnership with producer
Bill Szymczyk; working with him on 7 of his solo albums between 1972-1992).
Choice cuts: “Funk #49”, “The Bomber: Closet Queen”, “Tend My Garden”, “Garden Gate”, “There I Go Again”, “Thanks”, “Ashes, the Rain and I”.
Tea
for the Tillerman– Cat
Stevens
To paraphrase from one of the tunes on this album, Cat Stevens had “come a long way” from his first charted hit “I Love My Dog” in 1966 to this beautifully crafted song cycle in 1970. After a life-threatening bout with TB in 1969 that left him hospitalized for months, Stevens went through a spiritual and creative transformation that ultimately inspired him to produce an amazing catalog of compositions within a short period of time (his 1971 follow-up Teaser and the Firecat is equally outstanding). Several songs from this album ended up on the soundtrack for Hal Ashby’s 1971 film Harold and Maude.
Choice cuts: “Where Do the Children Play?”, “Wild World”, “Miles From Nowhere”, “On the Road to Find Out”, “Father and Son”, “Tea for the Tillerman”.
Bonus Tracks!
Here are 10 more 1970 releases worth a spin:
After the Gold Rush – Neil Young
Alone Together– Dave Mason
Benefit – Jethro Tull
Ladies of the Canyon – Joni Mitchell
Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs – Derek and the Dominos
Lola vs. Powerman and the Moneygoround – The Kinks
The New York Times does a nice wrap-up on where are with all that:
Even for an administration that has been a revolving door since Day 1, this has become a season of turmoil. At a moment when first-term presidents are typically seeking a stable team to focus on their re-election, President Trump has embarked on a systematic attempt to sweep out officials perceived to be disloyal.
The headquarters of the nation’s intelligence apparatus roiled with the ouster of the acting director Joseph Maguire and his replacement by a sharp partisan amid a dispute over Russian election interference. The Justice Department remained on edge with whispers of further resignations, including perhaps even that of Attorney General William P. Barr, after the president’s intervention in a case involving one of his friends. Witnesses from the impeachment inquiry into Mr. Trump have been summarily dismissed. Dozens of policy experts have been cleared out of the National Security Council staff as part of a restructuring that will mean fewer career professionals in range of the president. A deputy national security adviser dogged by innuendo about disloyalty was exiled to the Energy Department. A Trump appointee’s nomination for a top Treasury Department post was pulled. The No. 3 official at the Defense Department was shown the door.
And Johnny McEntee, a 29-year-old loyalist just installed to take over the Office of Presidential Personnel and reporting directly to Mr. Trump, has ordered a freeze on all political appointments across the government. He also convened a meeting to instruct departments to search for people not devoted to the president so they can be removed, according to people briefed about the session, and informed colleagues that he planned to tell cabinet secretaries that the White House would be choosing their deputies from now on.
“Trump appears to be launching the biggest assault on the nation’s civil service system since the 1883 Pendleton Act ended the spoils system,” said Paul C. Light, a New York University professor who has studied presidential personnel.
But career professionals are not the only ones in the cross hairs. Also facing scrutiny are Republican political appointees considered insufficiently committed to the president or suspected of not aggressively advancing his agenda.
[…]
Nonetheless, the tumult and anxiety come at a time when the Trump administration confronts enormous challenges, including the coronavirus outbreak, Iranian and North Korean nuclear development and Russian determination to play a role again in America’s next election. Democrats, for example, have expressed concerns about the administration’s ability to respond if there were a severe coronavirus outbreak in the United States, noting that a global health security expert position on the National Security Council has been left vacant for almost two years.
With a more loyal team in place, he hopes to make more progress on initiatives that have been slow-walked by institutional inertia or resistance like tougher rules on trade and immigration. But it could mean less dissent and less open debate with surviving officials fearing the loss of their jobs if they are seen as stepping out of line.
From the beginning, his administration has been a turnstile of people who fall in and out of favor with the president. Including those with “acting” designations, he is on his third chief of staff, his fourth national security adviser, his fourth defense secretary, his fifth secretary of homeland security, his sixth deputy national security adviser and his seventh communications director.
According to data compiled by Kathryn Dunn Tenpas, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, turnover among what she calls Mr. Trump’s “A team,” meaning his senior staff, has hit 82 percent, more in three years than any of the previous five presidents saw in their first four years. Moreover, the Trump administration has been notable for a high level of serial turnover, with 38 percent of the top positions replaced more than once.
“Many key departments and White House entities have been hollowed out,” Ms. Tenpas said. The president has thus been left with acting officials in many key areas. “He seems completely unbothered,” she said. “He claims that actings give him flexibility, but fails to see that temporary leaders cannot advance his policies nearly as well as a Senate-confirmed appointee who has the stature and all the powers to do so.”
He isn’t really interested in advancing his policies. He’s interested in getting re-elected and being loved by his base. He has learned that he doesn’t really have to deliver anything because he can just say he did and they will believe him.
Consider this:
When President Trump’s national security adviser, Robert C. O’Brien, convenes meetings with top National Security Council officials at the White House, he sometimes opens by distributing printouts of Mr. Trump’s latest tweets on the subject at hand.
The gesture amounts to an implicit challenge for those present. Their job is to find ways of justifying, enacting or explaining Mr. Trump’s policy, not to advise the president on what it should be.
That is the reverse of what the National Security Council was created to do at the Cold War’s dawn — to inform and advise the president on national security decisions. But under Mr. O’Brien, the White House’s hostage negotiator when Mr. Trump chose him to succeed John R. Bolton in September, that dynamic has often been turned on its head.
Mr. O’Brien, a dapper Los Angeles lawyer, convenes more regular and inclusive council meetings than Mr. Bolton. But developing policy is not really Mr. O’Brien’s mission. In the fourth year of his presidency and in his fourth national security adviser, Mr. Trump has finally gotten what he wants — a loyalist who enables his ideas instead of challenging them.
Does that make you feel saif? That the US government is being run by someone who takes his marching orders from Donald Trump’s tweets?
I suspect that Trump will spend the next four years wreaking vengeance on his enemies, destroying what’s left of the institutional world order and that’s about it. Of course, having him in office for another four years will also allow more court-packing and de-regulation. Also a free-for-all of corruption. And, needless to say, if there is a crisis, there’s no telling what he’ll do but whatever it is will assuredly be wrong.
I don’t know if this Washington Post story is balanced but if it is, it presents something new to worry about. One of the most terrifying aspects of a Donald Trump second term is the prospect of a major terrorist attack — and what he would do in return. By building up the military to an absurd level, denigrating diplomacy and alliances and then basically inviting groups like these to launch new attacks,
Groups linked to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State, at war with each other in the Middle East, are working together to take control of territory across a vast stretch of West Africa, U.S. and local officials say, sparking fears the regional threat could grow into a global crisis.
Fighters appear to be coordinating attacks and carving out mutually agreed-upon areas of influence in the Sahel, the strip of land beneath the Sahara desert. The rural territory at risk is so large it could “fit multiple Afghanistans and Iraqs,” said Brig. Gen. Dagvin Anderson, head of the U.S. military’s Special Operations arm in Africa.
“What we’ve seen is not just random acts of violence under a terrorist banner but a deliberate campaign that is trying to bring these various groups under a common cause,” he said. “That larger effort then poses a threat to the United States.”
The militants have wielded increasingly sophisticated tactics in recent months as they have rooted deeper into Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso, ambushing army bases and dominating villages with surprising force, according to interviews with more than a dozen senior officials and military leaders from the United States, France and West Africa.
The groups are not declaring “caliphates” to avoid scrutiny from the West, officials said, buying time to train, gather force and plot attacks that could ultimately reach major international targets.
They know that Donald Trump is very proud of having eliminated “the caliphate” and so they aren’t using that word.
Maybe this is just hype. I hope so. And I don’t pretend to have the answer to what to do about the threat other than I know Trump is the worst person in the world to deal with it.
A great (and long overdue) story about Barr’s tenure in the Justice Department. It starts out with him expressing to his aides how difficult it must be for Mike Pompeo having been thrust into politics during the impeachment. Apparently, Barr is very short on self-awareness, which isn’t surprising.
After a year on the job, Barr’s strategy of cultivating a close relationship with Trump has worn thin among many rank and file Justice Department employees, and given rise to suspicions that the attorney general has put the President’s political interests above those of the department, according to multiple DOJ officials.
Last week, that problem sprung to life in stunning fashion. Barr’s decision to overrule the sentencing recommendation from four career federal prosecutors in the Roger Stone case, and their subsequent resignation from the case, led to a rare public display of internal discord from the Justice Department that dominated the news cycle for days.
It’s not unusual for top Justice officials to overrule career lawyers in sentencing decisions, but the department’s move to publicly disavow the prosecutors — via an unnamed Justice official who told Fox News and other news media before the attorneys were even notified — was a sharp rebuke that offended career employees who worry Barr is under undue political influence from the President .
The public disunity was again on display Thursday at Stone’s sentencing hearing, when prosecutor John Crabb Jr., the prosecutor left to handle the case, appeared to buck his bosses and sided with his colleagues’ original, stiff sentencing request.
A Justice Department official said Barr felt vindicated after Stone was ordered to prison for just over three years — in line with what the attorney general had been telling associates would be fair, and far less than what prosecutors had originally requested.
He really is a Trumpie. If he had just STFU, the judge would have reached the decision without his turning the DOJ upside down. But he wanted to show Trump he was a good boy which is really what that whole thing was all about.
But according to this article, the department has been chafing at his leadership from the beginning:
While Barr’s issues have only recently spilled into the open, the disquiet in the ranks started much earlier, officials inside the department say. Among some of the issues: a top-down management style, with the micro-managing Barr notorious for weighing in on matters usually left for less-senior officials, and a focus that broadly appears more centered on matters in Washington — and more specifically things the President cares about.
Current and former Justice officials describe an attorney general who doesn’t readily take advice and is prone to right wing conspiracies that he reads in fringe conservative sites on the Internet…
The FoxNews brainrot diagnosis has been confirmed. Not that we couldn’t see all the symptoms. But this is the first time I’ve seen actual evidence that he indulges in the wingnut fever swamp.
He’s the most powerful law enforcement person in the world. I’d really like to hear more about this.
Anyway:
After taking office last February, Barr quickly became a Trump favorite. His success in steering the President through the end of the Mueller investigation– and his public comments that minimized the findings damaging to the president — solidified Barr’s standing. The President respects and feels comfortable around Barr, current and former Justice and White House senior officials who have observed their relationship.
Of course. They are both conspiracy nuts.
Despite the rumors that he was threatening to quit, apparently he and Trump are solid and he assured the troops he isn’t going anywhere. Surprise. But the department is still restive, worried particularly about the fallout from the interference in the Stone case which went against DOJ policy.
Democrats have long accused Barr of taking instructions from Trump. But Barr’s allies described a reverse dynamic— Barr was one of the adults in the administration, one of the few people who could deftly manage the mercurial president, they said.
One such episode occurred at an Oval Office meeting in recent months. Trump along with top immigration and Justice officials had gathered to discuss whether to designate Mexican drug cartels as terrorist organizations. Barr took other officials in the meeting by surprise when he aligned himself with Trump, despite other officials warning it would create diplomatic problems with Mexico.
Even inside Justice, senior officials had told Barr such a move was not only impractical but would likely backfire on the border, according to people familiar with the discussions. One source reacted with astonishment, saying “Barr knew better,” adding “I remember thinking he can’t possibly agree with that” but noted he never said it publicly.
The source also thought it seemed Barr simply was placating Trump in a room where others appeared to be ganging up on the President, knowing the issue would likely die.
After flying to the Mexican capital in December to meet with top leaders there on the issue, Barr briefed Trump back in Washington. The terrorist designation didn’t occur.
I see. Barr is actually running the country and manipulating Trump? Considering what Trump does every single day, I don’t think that actually reflects well on Barr, despite this one episode.
We’ve heard all that before. Reports that staff have ignored Trump or manipulated him into doing the right thing is not uncommon. If that’s how our country is being run under this barbaric imbecile, it’s not something to brag about.
The likes of Barr and Pompeo and most of the congress seem to be on Trump’s page anyway.
While Barr has cultivated a reputation for being overly focused on Washington, his absence isn’t universally seen as a bad thing. One senior Justice official says that in many districts, avoiding attention from Washington is welcome. There is however one time a year every summer when top prosecutors descend on Washington for the annual US attorney conference.
It’s usually a bond-building exercise, where top prosecutors get to rub elbows with their bosses. Attorneys general usually have a closed-door meeting with top prosecutors from around the country, giving them a chance to talk about issues they are facing.
But last year, they didn’t get such a gathering with Barr, and several complained about the lack of attention.
Instead, the Barr gathering last June, the only event at which all the US attorneys met with him, included the media. And it became a spectacle, when Barr entered from behind a curtain wearing a kilt and playing bagpipes.
As Democrats in Nevada today choose which candidate to run for president in November, there will be no choosing for Republicans. They have one “choice” and it has been made for them. Republican Party leaders there cancelled their presidential caucus last September. A star with Donald Trump’s name is embedded in the pavement outside the doors of the Nevada Republican Party headquarters. He didn’t exactly pee on the doorposts, but he’s marked his territory well.
It is not the only mark Trump has left on this country. Even now, the man who once tried to extract a pledge of personal loyalty from head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation has White House agents seeking out and eliminating appointees suspected of insufficient loyalty:
Johnny McEntee, Trump’s former personal aide who now leads the effort as director of presidential personnel, has begun combing through various agencies with a mandate from the president to oust or sideline political appointees who have not proved their loyalty, according to several administration officials and others familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.
Trump fired his acting director of national intelligence, Joseph Maguire, this week after the DNI’s election security expert, Shelby Pierson, warned the House Intelligence Committee that Russia is interfering in the 2020 election to aid Trump’s reelection. Pierson added that Russia is also interfering in the Democratic primaries. That was last week. By Wednesday, Maguire was gone, dismissed for transmitting damaging information to House impeachment manager Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), perhaps public enemy No. 1 on Trump’s enemies list.
The purges come on the heels of Attorney General William Barr personally intervening in the pending sentencing of Trump’s longtime adviser and career dirty trickster, Roger Stone. Over two thousand former Department of Justice employees signed a letter calling for Barr’s resignation. “The rule of law and the survival of our Republic demand nothing less,” than for the Department’s career officials to uphold their oaths to the Constitution.
Barr is still there, the purges continue, and White House threats to investigate and prosecute Trump’s enemies multiply. There is not a star with Trump’s name embedded yet in the pavement outside the DOJ. But it is understood.
At this rate, Trump’s likeness will soon decorate the sides of the Washington Monument like a celebrity’s stories-tall image at Caesar’s Palace or building-sized images of leaders in less-American regimes.
It is again “a time for choosing,” as Ronald Reagan’s 1964 Republican convention speech is known. “You and I have a rendezvous with destiny,” he said, invoking Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Advocating the nomination of Barry Goldwater in the depths of the Cold War, America faced a choice, Reagan said. A choice between a comfortable peace with communist despots and defending with blood and treasure, if need be, “the last best hope of man on earth.” In his overwrought view, electing a “Great Society” Democrat meant bending a knee to tyranny.
Decades later, we are at a moment in our nation’s history more defining than that, facing an existential threat not a continent or an ocean away, but in the nation’s capitol.
Rev. Jim Wallis reflected on how the Republican Party and the religious right, in alliance since the 1970s, have twisted the meaning of patriotism and Christianity in defense of a political philosophy that betrays both. Facing South asked Wallis to reflect on the state of Christianity in the age of Trump. Wallis said:
I say don’t go left, don’t go right. Go deeper. Our democracy’s literally at stake, I think, and the integrity of faith is at stake. In this crisis, we’re going to figure out who we are. Trump didn’t cause all this. He’s just a consequence. He reveals.
White evangelicals have struck a Fustian bargain with a president whose every interaction is transactional:
“Give us our judges and we’ll ignore everything you’re doing” — that’s the will to power itself. I got on the phone with a bunch of evangelicals after the election. I have the white evangelicals saying on the phone, “Well, we didn’t vote for him because of his racial bigotry, but because of other moral issues.” And then a black evangelical woman says, “So racial bigotry isn’t a deal breaker for you.” And that was the end of the conversation.
There are cracks in the wall, Wallis says, as younger and suburban Christian women break with hard-right orthodoxies. What we all lose sleep over is whether it will be too little too late.
“I think the religious right, the white religious right, white evangelicals, they might rise and fall with Trump,” Wallis says. “They could be the chaplains for what would be an American brand of fascism.”
It would not be the first time Americans flirted with that. But if we don’t rise to meet that challenge, flirting could be the least of our troubles. “In this crisis, we’re going to figure out who we are,” Wallis says. We already know who some of us are. It’s up to the rest of us to make sure America’s place in history is not further degraded by them.
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