So interesting to see “Progressive” Democrat Congresswomen, who originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe, the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world (if they even have a functioning government at all), now loudly……
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 14, 2019
….and viciously telling the people of the United States, the greatest and most powerful Nation on earth, how our government is to be run. Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came. Then come back and show us how….
….it is done. These places need your help badly, you can’t leave fast enough. I’m sure that Nancy Pelosi would be very happy to quickly work out free travel arrangements!
Category Archives: Off the Rails
The President Jokes with Putin about Russian interference in the election
“Donald Trump joked with Vladimir Putin about getting rid of journalists and Russian meddling in US elections when the two leaders met at the G20 summit in Japan.
As they sat for photographs at the start of their first formal meeting in nearly a year, the US president lightheartedly sought common ground with Putin at the expense of the journalists around them in Osaka. . . .When journalists asked Trump just before he left for Japan what he would like to talk to Putin about, he told them it was “none of your business”. As they sat alongside each other, a reporter asked whether he was going to tell Putin not to meddle in the 2020 election.
Trump said: “Yes, of course I will,” drawing a laugh from Putin. Then, without looking at Putin, Trump said briskly: “Don’t meddle in the election, please,” and then repeated the phrase with a mock finger wag as Putin and the US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, smiled broadly.” – The Guardian
Pure spite denies medical care for the rural poor in red states
Quote of the day comparing states that accepted Medicaid expansion and states that refused to do so:
Adam Schiff: Bill Barr is the second most dangerous man in the country
“But I do want to, before we move on from the subject of Barr and contempt, talk about, I think, the most grave concern about Bill Barr. And that is, during his Senate testimony, he opined that the president could have made the Mueller investigation go away any time he wanted because he thought it was unfair. That’s his view of the unitary executive.
Under that view a president is truly above the law. Because what president would not think an investigation against him or her was unfair? It also means that the president can make go away any of the investigations that were farmed out to any of the other elements of the Department of Justice. And, because they are stonewalling us on just about everything, it also means that we might not know – unless whistleblowers step forward – whether Bill Barr is abusing his authority even beyond the fundamental abuse by trying to exonerate the president on obstruction of justice.
And so we find ourselves, I think, for the first time with an attorney general who really is the president’s defense lawyer and spokesperson. And who’s quite good at it. And has the veneer of respectability to camouflage what he’s doing. He is not the sophist that Giuliani is. He’s much more dangerous. And I think he’s the second most dangerous man in the country for that reason.
When you listen to his interviews and you listen to the way he dissembles—when he was asked, even on Fox News, about, well, Didn’t Don McGahn call for Mueller to be fired? His answer was, No, he called for him to be removed, as if that’s a distinction that really makes a difference here. When he was asked, Well, you said that the president fully cooperated, but the president wouldn’t even sit down for an interview. No, no, I said the White House fully cooperated.
When you have an attorney general willing to dissemble that way. When you have an attorney general—and I hesitate to use the word, but there’s no other word that seems to apply here—that lies to Congress as he did when Charlie Christ asked him about whether he was aware of these revelations that had been reported about the Mueller team, and he said that he was not. That’s a very dangerous situation.
And as someone who came out of that department—I spent six years with the Justice department. I venerate the department. To think that it is being led by someone this way—you know, it breaks my heart for the department, but it’s profoundly concerning for the country.” – Congressman Adam Schiff on Attorney General Bill Barr, Council on Foreign Relations, June 4, 2019
Ryan Goodman, at Just Security, provides a side by side comparison of Barr’s and Mueller’s statements about the Special Counsel Report. Goodman comments:
“Whether or not Mueller was intentionally trying to correct the record, the differences between what he and Barr said are, in many cases, stark. Some of the differences involve near complete contradictions—in other words Mueller’s statement and Barr’s statements cannot both be true. Other differences are more a matter of emphasis or tone (e.g., references to the threat posed by the Russian operations, descriptions of the qualities of the special counsel staff).
The special counsel’s Report also contradicts some of Barr’s statements (such as his claim that the Report found no evidence of “collusion,” his suggestion that difficult issues of law and fact stopped the special counsel from concluding the president engaged in criminal obstruction, his claim that the President cooperate fully with the investigation). The following analysis, however, does not include the Report. Instead, it focuses only on Mueller’s public statement and how it compares to statements made by Barr between March 22 (the date that the special counsel handed his final report to the attorney general) and May 29 (the date of Mueller’s statement). This includes statements made by Barr in his 4-page summary submitted to Congress, a formal press briefing, and three congressional hearings, but it does not include Barr’s interviews with Fox News and the Wall Street Journal.”
Good grief. Bill Barr can hardly sink any deeper into the tank for this president
“I think one of the ironies today is that people are saying that it’s President Trump that’s shredding our institutions. I really see no evidence of that, it is hard, and I really haven’t seen bill of particulars as to how that’s being done. From my perspective the idea of resisting a democratically elected president and basically throwing everything at him and you know, really changing the norms on the grounds that we have to stop this president, that is where the shredding of our norms and our institutions is occurring.” – Attorney General Barr on “CBS This Morning”
For a bill of particulars, of course, we need look no further than the Mueller Report (as if we needed that report as evidence of Trump’s off the rails behavior). And, in the world according to Barr, it’s the opponents of the President who are shredding norms.
The Attorney General’s interview with CBS, following Bob Mueller’s brief public statement earlier in the week, continues his ongoing misrepresentation, obfuscation, and validation of baseless conspiracy theories to subvert the rule of law, undermine our law enforcement and intelligence agencies, and shore up Trump’s political position.
(Full disclosure: the first two words of the headline were inspired by Barr’s hapless mien, reminiscent – to the editor – of Charlie Brown.)
Profound ignorance: why Fox News and the conservative media bubble are critical to the GOP
NBC News reported on Congressman Justin Amash’s first town hall meeting back in his district after coming out in favor of the impeachment of Donald Trump: “Cathy Garnaat, a Republican who supported Amash and the president said she was upset about Amash’s position but wanted to hear his reasoning. She said that she will definitely support Trump in 2020 but that Tuesday night was the first time she had heard that the Mueller report didn’t completely exonerate the president.”
“I was surprised to hear there was anything negative in the Mueller report at all about President Trump. I hadn’t heard that before,” she said. “I’ve mainly listened to conservative news and I hadn’t heard anything negative about that report and President Trump has been exonerated.”
Republicans have become as thoroughly shameless as the President they defend
As the Washington Post headline reminds us, the lack of shame confers political advantage. Donald Trump is shameless. Republicans’ defense of Trump – of his assault on truth, the rule of law, and institutional safeguards that preserve our democracy – is not possible without shedding all sense of shame.
In 2015 Jack Shafer of Politico, analyzing Trump’s “ability to wipe yesterday’s slate clean but suffer little political damage,” observed, “You can’t shame a shameless man.” In 2017, Jack Goldsmith of the Atlantic wrote, “A corollary to Trump’s shamelessness is that he often doesn’t seek to hide or even spin his norm-breaking.” The Republican Party circa 2019, the party of Trump, is all-in with the shameless trashing of democratic norms.
After delivery of a searing report by Robert Mueller (a man with a sterling career of public service, from Marine Corps officer in Vietnam to Director of the FBI, whose integrity was accepted by both Republicans and Democrats in Washington) concluded, “The Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election in sweeping and systematic fashion,” and “established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome,” Republicans (once the party of ‘law and order’ and of staunch opposition to U.S. adversaries abroad) are now undaunted by the spectacle of a lawless president elected with the help of Russia.
William Barr, the consensus view had it, was a well-regarded, old-school institutionalist returning to the Justice Department as he neared retirement. Certainly, he would be concerned with his reputation and place in history. He would step up to embrace the role of Attorney General of the United States at a time – with a president, hostile to the rule of law, who had attacked the FBI, the intelligence agencies, Justice Department, and even the courts – when the nation needed a reassuring presence. Didn’t happen. Barr chose another course.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, ignoring a heretofore unimaginable number of contacts between Russian agents and Trump campaign operatives, and ten prima facie episodes of obstruction of justice by the President, declares, “Case closed. Case closed.” (McConnell, of course, may be the political archetype of the shameless partisan.)
Chairman Lindsay Graham of the Senate Judiciary Committee, once a Trump critic and a loud, proud defender of national security, is on the same page as McConnell. “The Mueller Report is over for me. Done.”
While Graham and McConnell feign an interest in repelling foreign interference in American elections, the President’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, doesn’t bother. He publicly announced – never mind that he walked it back, a Giuliani mannerism: he has already signaled to our foreign foe what he wants – that he intended to press the Ukrainian government to open an investigation into a Democratic presidential contender:
“There’s nothing illegal about it,” he said. “Somebody could say it’s improper. And this isn’t foreign policy — I’m asking them to do an investigation that they’re doing already and that other people are telling them to stop. And I’m going to give them reasons why they shouldn’t stop it because that information will be very, very helpful to my client, and may turn out to be helpful to my government.”
And this week, when information came to light that the Senate Intelligence Committee – which traditionally has functioned in a bipartisan way, because the nation’s security is not a partisan issue – has subpoenaed Donald J. Trump, Jr. to return as a witness (after apparent conflicts in his previous testimony with other witnesses and documented evidence, and DJTJ declined to return voluntarily), so the committee can clarify the role of Russia in the attack on our country, Chairman Richard Burr was pilloried by a host of his fellow Republicans in the Senate and the House. That doesn’t happen very often, but defense of Trump requires it. The mob included Senators Rand Paul, Tom Tillis, and John Cornyn, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, and Chairman of the Freedom Caucus in the House, Mark Meadows.
When Trump’s campaign began, most Republican leaders kept their distance (and a modicum of self-respect). At the beginning of his presidency, Trump still faced occasional push-back from Congressional Republicans, among others, who valued their professional reputations. Post-Mueller, the Trumpification of the Republican Party is virtually complete.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell decries “unhinged partisanship”
Mitch McConnell has a brazen, unwavering message to every Republican – from U.S. Senators to voters across the country. Get on board. This is where we make our stand. We lock arms with Trump and Fox News Channel and every other person, group, and institution that is with us.
McConnell, who knows a thing or two about unhinged partisanship, is reinforcing the party line.
This is tribal warfare. Republican leaders will put aside the nation’s welfare, fidelity to truth, defense of the Constitution, and commitment to the rule of law to dismiss the Mueller report. The courts must be packed with rightwing ideologues (to preempt any meaningful progressive policies in the foreseeable future); tax giveaways must be dished to corporations and the wealthiest Americans; and when the fiscal crisis finally comes, there is a social safety net to defund.
This has been Bill Barr’s signal – from his 4-page summary of the Mueller report, to his news conference at Justice, to his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee. This was Lindsay Graham’s signal, when he declared after the committee hearing, “I’m all good. I’m done with the Mueller report.”
These are the tribal chieftains of the Grand Old Party – the ones a notch below Trump, but folks who are more entrenched; who play the game much better; who have been doing it for generations; and – along with others moving up in the hierarchy – will be doing it after Trump is gone.
And if Republican leaders stay on script — Attention to the Mueller report, concern with Presidential wrongdoing, commitment to traditional Congressional oversight are nothing more than unhinged partisanship — then this becomes an effective message for folks outside (or on the periphery of) the GOP tent. This message — repeated by party leaders and amplified by the mainstream media — will have far greater bandwidth than any Trump tweet or Fox News Channel broadcast.
Republicans who aren’t plugged into Hannity or Limbaugh; folks who voted for Obama in 2012 and Trump in 2016; low information voters, who don’t especially like Trump, but who don’t know why Congress can’t get anything done: they will hear a message that the dispute over the Mueller report is all just more bickering between the parties.
Mitch McConnell embraces the principle that bipartisanship harms the Republican agenda (see January 2011 quotation below). His signal to Republicans seeks to ensure that partisanship (which he is pretending to decry) is amplified. That intense partisan message helps Republicans muddy the waters regarding Trump and his Congressional enablers.
McConnell is a master of this game:
May 7, 2019 – on unhinged partisanship:
“This investigation went on for two years. It’s finally over. Many Americans were waiting to see how their elected officials would respond. With an exhaustive investigation complete, would the country finally unify to confront the real challenges before us? Would we finally be able to move on from partisan paralysis and breathless conspiracy theorizing? Or would we remain consumed by unhinged partisanship, and keep dividing ourselves to the point that Putin and his agents need only stand on the sidelines and watch as their job is done for them?”
March 24, 2019 – on Russian interference:
“It is deeply disturbing that the Obama administration was apparently insufficiently prepared to anticipate and counter these Russian threats,”McConnell said in a Senate floor speech. “It was hardly a secret prior to November 2016 that Putin’s Russia was not and is not our friend. And yet, for years, the previous administration ignored, excused and failed to confront Putin’s malign activities, both at home and abroad.”
Both former vice president Joe Biden and Obama White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough have accused McConnell of looking to soft-pedal their warnings about Russia interference before the election.
Date uncertain – on Russian interference: Here’s a quotation from Greg Miller’s book, The Apprentice, on McConnell’s role in squelching a bipartisan Congressional statement on intelligence officials’ conclusion that Russia was actively interfering with the 2016 election: “You’re trying to screw the Republican candidate,” declared Senator McConnell.
August 6, 2016 – on hijacking the Merrick Garland nomination:
“One of my proudest moments was when I told Obama, ‘You will not fill this Supreme Court vacancy.’”
January 4, 2011 – on saying ‘No’ to every single Obama legislative initiative for eight years:
“We worked very hard to keep our fingerprints off of these proposals,” McConnell says. “Because we thought—correctly, I think—that the only way the American people would know that a great debate was going on was if the measures were not bipartisan. When you hang the ‘bipartisan’ tag on something, the perception is that differences have been worked out, and there’s a broad agreement that that’s the way forward.”
October 23, 2010 – on his paramount goal for the country after the 2008 election:
“The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.”
(Image: screen grab of McConnell’s remarks.)
Democrats disagree about political strategy: Is Trump the problem or the GOP?
“I feel like the party went through this and the 2016 election showed that Trumpism isn’t just Donald Trump — it’s the entire Republican Congress, too. Until there is someone in the Republican Party who can stand up to Trump, then none of them are better than Trump.” — Rebecca Katz, Democratic strategist
(“Biden Thinks Trump is the Problem, Not All Republicans. Other Democrats Disagree,” Shane Goldmacher, New York Times, May 4, 2019)
Joe Biden is running on the conceit that Donald Trump is an aberration. And that he, Biden, can reach across the aisle to work with a cooperative Republican Party.
The former Vice President is either making a clever (if not quite factual) electoral pitch (which, while it may sound reassuring, is hardly something we can bank on), or he has a very short memory — because Joe Biden was there when Barack Obama was greeted with absolute, across-the-board opposition from the Republican Party.
Let’s recall:
Michael Grunwald, speaking of his book, “The New Deal: The Hidden Story of Change in the Obama Era,” recounts a now familiar plot line for Time magazine (when the United States was poised to plunge into a depression):
It reveals some of my reporting on the Republican plot to obstruct President Obama before he even took office, including secret meetings led by House GOP whip Eric Cantor (in December 2008) and Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (in early January 2009) in which they laid out their daring (though cynical and political) no-honeymoon strategy of all-out resistance to a popular President-elect during an economic emergency. “If he was for it,” former Ohio Senator George Voinovich explained, “we had to be against it.”
Grunwald goes on to relate that Biden was aware of this scorched earth strategy:
Vice President Biden told me that during the transition, he was warned not to expect any bipartisan cooperation on major votes. “I spoke to seven different Republican Senators who said, ‘Joe, I’m not going to be able to help you on anything,’ ” he recalled. His informants said McConnell had demanded unified resistance. “The way it was characterized to me was, ‘For the next two years, we can’t let you succeed in anything. That’s our ticket to coming back,’ ” Biden said. The Vice President said he hasn’t even told Obama who his sources were, but Bob Bennett of Utah and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania both confirmed they had conversations with Biden along those lines.
“So I promise you — and the President agreed with me — I never thought we were going to get Republican support,” Biden said.
Robert Draper’s book, “Do Not Ask What Good We Do,” describes the Republican strategizing at the January 20, 2009 meeting:
“The only way we’ll succeed is if we’re united,” Ryan told the others. “If we tear ourselves apart, we’re finished.” But, he added, he liked what he was hearing now. Everyone at the table sounded like a genuine conservative. It was a place to start.
“If you act like you’re the minority, you’re going to stay in the minority,” said Kevin McCarthy. “We’ve gotta challenge them on every single bill and challenge them on every single campaign.”
…
The dinner lasted nearly four hours. They parted company almost giddily. The Republicans had agreed on a way forward: Go after Geithner. (And indeed Kyl did, the next day: “Would you answer my question rather than dancing around it — please?”)
Show united and unyielding opposition to the president’s economic policies. (Eight days later, Minority Whip Cantor would hold the House Republicans to a unanimous No against Obama’s economic stimulus plan.)
Begin attacking vulnerable Democrats on the airwaves. (The first National Republican Congressional Committee attack ads would run in less than two months.)
Win the spear point of the House in 2010. Jab Obama relentlessly in 2011. Win the White House and the Senate in 2012.
“You will remember this day,” Newt Gingrich proclaimed to the others as they said goodbye. “You’ll remember this as the day the seeds of 2012 were sown.”
Here is how Mitch McConnell summed up the strategy on everything Obama proposed:
“We worked very hard to keep our fingerprints off of these proposals,” McConnell says. “Because we thought—correctly, I think—that the only way the American people would know that a great debate was going on was if the measures were not bipartisan. When you hang the ‘bipartisan’ tag on something, the perception is that differences have been worked out, and there’s a broad agreement that that’s the way forward.”
Why?
Want another example? There was Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi: the Republican never-ending cycle of hearings to politicize the deaths in 2012 of Americans at the Libyan embassy. Why? For political advantage, of course, as Kevin McCarthy (then House Majority Leader; now House Minority Leader) explained in an interview with Sean Hannity:
“Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right?” McCarthy asked. “But we put together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping. Why? Because she’s untrustable. But no one would have known any of that had happened, had we not fought.”
“I give you credit for that,” said Hannity. “I’ll give you credit where credit is due.”
The obstructionist strategy played out in the bipartisan negotiations leading to passage of the Affordable Healthcare Act in 2010, Obama’s major legislative accomplishment, without a solitary Republican vote in favor. Democrats made numerous compromises with Republicans (this is why we don’t have a public option*) before Republicans revealed their unanimous, remorseless opposition to ACA:
… [W]ith Obama’s blessing, the Senate …became the fulcrum for a potential grand bargain on health reform. Chairman Max Baucus, in the spring of 2009, signaled his desire to find a bipartisan compromise, working especially closely with Grassley, his dear friend and Republican counterpart, who had been deeply involved in crafting the Republican alternative to Clintoncare. Baucus and Grassley convened an informal group of three Democrats and three Republicans on the committee, which became known as the “Gang of Six.” They covered the parties’ ideological bases; the other GOPers were conservative Mike Enzi of Wyoming and moderate Olympia Snowe of Maine, and the Democrats were liberal Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico and moderate Kent Conrad of North Dakota.
Baucus very deliberately started the talks with a template that was the core of the 1993-4 Republican plan, built around an individual mandate and exchanges with private insurers—much to the chagrin of many Democrats and liberals who wanted, if not a single-payer system, at least one with a public insurance option. Through the summer, the Gang of Six engaged in detailed discussions and negotiations to turn a template into a plan. But as the summer wore along, it became clear that something had changed; both Grassley and Enzi began to signal that participation in the talks—and their demands for changes in the evolving plan—would not translate into a bipartisan agreement.
What became clear before September, when the talks fell apart, is that Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell had warned both Grassley and Enzi that their futures in the Senate would be much dimmer if they moved toward a deal with the Democrats that would produce legislation to be signed by Barack Obama. They both listened to their leader. An early embrace by both of the framework turned to shrill anti-reform rhetoric by Grassley—talking, for example, about death panels that would kill grandma—and statements by Enzi that he was not going to sign on to a deal.
And, let’s not forget the Senate’s refusal to hold hearings for Obama Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland. Mitch McConnell is especially pleased with himself for putting President Obama in his place: “One of my proudest moments was when I told Obama, ‘You will not fill this Supreme Court vacancy.'”
When I asked McConnell how he felt about his legacy and Trump’s being so closely linked, he rejected the premise. “I don’t think so,” he said. “I think the most consequential call I made was before President Trump came to office.” I asked what he meant. “The decision not to fill the Scalia vacancy,” he said. “I think that’s the most consequential thing I’ve ever done.”
Remember: not a single Republican Senator moved a finger to ensure hearings for Obama’s choice (though there were ineffectual murmurs of complaint — I recall Senator Susan Collins murmuring — just like Jeff Flake and Bob Corker’s mild criticism of Trump, while voting consistently in support of Trump and the Republican leadership).
This, the Garland blockade, McConnell believes, will be his lasting legacy as Senate Majority Leader:
When I asked McConnell how he felt about his legacy and Trump’s being so closely linked, he rejected the premise. “I don’t think so,” he said. “I think the most consequential call I made was before President Trump came to office.” I asked what he meant. “The decision not to fill the Scalia vacancy,” he said. “I think that’s the most consequential thing I’ve ever done.”
Count me in the Democratic camp that thinks that Trump is only a symptom of an off-the-rails Republican Party.
*After posting this, I recalled Joe Lieberman’s threat to kill the public option. I don’t wish to let him off the hook for his misdeeds, but if Republicans hadn’t played Max Baucus for months on end with meaningless negotiations and compromises, the ACA would have passed with Ted Kennedy’s vote.
(Image: McConnell, Ryan, Trump, and Pence celebrating the Republican tax bill.)
Attorney General Barr’s disinformation campaign: the definitive assessment
Quote of the day from Benjamin Wittes, Editor in Chief of Lawfare, who reviews the Attorney General’s wrenching mischaracterizations to protect the President from March 24, when Barr sent his first letter to Congress, to yesterday’s testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee:
Barr did not lie in any of these statements. He did not, as some people insist, commit perjury. I haven’t found a sentence he has written or said that cannot be defended as truthful on its own terms, if only in some literal sense. But it is possible to mislead without lying. One can be dishonest before Congress without perjury. And one can convey sweeping untruths without substantial factual misstatement. This is what Barr has been doing since that first letter. And it is utterly beneath the United States Department of Justice.
Wittes, who after initially granting Barr the benefit the doubt has concluded that his actions regarding the Mueller report have been catastrophic, analyzes “seven different layers of substantive misrepresentation, layers which build on one another into a dramatic rewriting of the president’s conduct—and of Mueller’s findings about the president’s conduct. It is worth unpacking and disentangling these misrepresentations, because each is mischievous on its own, but together they operate as a disinformation campaign being run by the senior leadership of the Justice Department.” (“The Catastrophic Performance of Bill Barr,” Benjamin Wittes, The Atlantic, May 2, 2019)
Years ago I recall hearing an expression, which was attributed to the speaker’s mother: ‘You can tell a lie with what you say and you can tell a lie with what you don’t say.’ Bill Barr, clever lawyer and ruthless political operative, has mastered the latter technique (albeit not altogether convincingly). I regard Benjamin Wittes’ analysis (as of this morning) as the definite assessment of Barr’s disinformation methodology vis-à-vis the Mueller report. I highly recommend spending a few minutes to read it. A couple of brief quotations hardly do the essay justice.
I’ll offer one more quote, where Wittes offers a link to another assessment (also worth a read):
The dishonesty only begins with the laughably selective quotation of Mueller’s report in Barr’s original letter, the scope of which Charlie Savage laid out in a remarkable New York Times article shortly after the full report was released. I urge people to look at Savage’s side-by-side quotations. The distortion of Mueller’s meaning across a range of areas is not subtle, and it’s not hard to understand why Mueller himself wrote to Barr saying that the attorney general’s letter “did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance of this Office’s work and conclusions.”
(Image: Pinocchio via wikipedia.)
