United States Congress of Fail (Part 3)

[GrumpyGran]

1 hour ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Interesting op-ed from George Will: "The GOP has become the party of the grotesque"

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BIRMINGHAM, Ala.

Southern Gothic is a literary genre and, occasionally, a political style that, like the genre, blends strangeness and irony. Consider the current primary campaign to pick the Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Jeff Sessions. It illuminates, however, not a regional peculiarity but a national perversity, that of the Republican Party.

In 1986, Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III — the name belongs in a steamy bodice-ripper, beach-read novel about Confederate cavalry — was nominated for a federal judgeship. Democrats blocked him because they considered him racially “insensitive.” In 1996, he got even by getting elected to the Senate. Twenty years later, he was the first senator to endorse Donald Trump, who carried Alabama by 27.7 points. Sessions, the most beloved Alabaman who is not a football coach, became attorney general for Trump, who soon began denouncing Sessions as “beleaguered,” which Sessions was because Trump was ridiculing him as “weak” because he followed Justice Department policy in recusing himself from the investigation of Russian involvement in Trump’s election.

On Aug. 15, Alabama’s bewildered and conflicted Republicans will begin picking a Senate nominee. (If no one achieves 50 percent, there will be a Sept. 26 runoff between the top two.) Of the nine candidates, only three matter — Luther Strange, Roy Moore and Rep. Mo Brooks.

Strange was Alabama’s attorney general until he was appointed by then-Gov. Robert Bentley to Sessions’s seat. Bentley subsequently resigned in the wake of several scandals that Strange’s office was investigating — or so Strange’s successor as attorney general suggests — when Bentley appointed him. The state Ethics Commission, which had scheduled an Aug. 2 hearing into charges of campaign finance violations by Strange, recently postponed the hearing until Aug. 16, the day after the first round of voting.

Twice Moore has been removed as chief justice of the state Supreme Court. In 2003, removal was for defiance of the U.S. Supreme Court regarding religious displays in government buildings. Reelected, he was suspended last year for defiance of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision regarding same-sex marriages.

Yet Brooks is the focus of ferocious attacks on behalf of Strange, who ignores Moore. The attacks are financed by a Washington-based political action committee aligned with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). This Washington Republican establishment strenuously tried but fortunately failed to defeat now-Sens. Marco Rubio and Ben Sasse, of Florida and Nebraska, respectively, in their 2010 and 2014 primaries. (The Rubio opponent the PAC favored is now a Democratic congressman.) The attacks stress some anti-Trump statements Brooks made while chairman of Ted Cruz’s 2016 presidential campaign in Alabama. For example, Brooks criticized Trump’s “serial adultery,” about which Trump has boasted. The PAC identifies Brooks, a conservative stalwart of the House Freedom Caucus, as an ally of Nancy Pelosi and Elizabeth Warren. Another ad uses Brooks’s support for Congress replacing the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force with an updated one, and his opposition to interventions in Libya and Syria, to suggest that Brooks supports the Islamic State.

Brooks contributed financially to Trump’s general-election effort and has named his campaign bus the “Drain the Swamp Express.” He says he supports Trump’s “agenda,” including potentially its most consequential item — ending Senate filibuster rules that enable 41 senators to stymie 59. Strange sides with McConnell against Trump in supporting current rules. Yet the PAC’s theme is that Brooks’s support of Trump is insufficiently ardent. Such ardor is becoming the party’s sovereign litmus test.

In one recent poll, the three candidates are polling in the 20s. Moore is leading; the PAC’s attacks are driving some Brooks voters to Moore. Among voters who say they are familiar with all three, Strange is third. A runoff seems certain, and if Moore (sometimes called “the Ayatollah of Alabama”) is in it and wins, a Democrat could win the Dec. 12 general election.

“Anything that comes out of the South,” said writer Flannery O’Connor, a sometime exemplar of Southern Gothic, “is going to be called grotesque by the Northern reader, unless it is grotesque, in which case it is going to be called realistic.” But, realistically, Alabama’s primary says more about Republicans than about this region. A Michigan poll shows rocker-cum-rapper Kid Rock a strong potential Republican Senate candidate against incumbent Debbie Stabenow. Rock says Democrats are “shattin’ in their pantaloons” because if he runs it will be “game on mthrfkers.”

Is this Northern Gothic? No, it is Republican Gothic, the grotesque becoming normal in a national party whose dishonest and, one hopes, futile assault on Brooks is shredding the remnants of its dignity.

I don't agree with everything, but he is so right that the Repugs have shed the last of their dignity.

Brooks' ads aren't exactly better. He says he helped save Steve Scalise's life with his belt-I kid you not- and then yells about the liberal media attacking the NRA right after. 

[fraurosena]

Looks like Zinke is in trouble.

Interior Dept Watchdog Launches Probe Into Zinke Calls To Alaska Senators

Quote

The Interior’s Department’s Office of the Inspector General has launched a “preliminary investigation” into Secretary Ryan Zinke after he reportedly threatened Alaska senators last week in an attempt to get them to support an Obamacare repeal push.

Reps. Frank Pallone (D-NJ) and Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ) sent a letter to the Inspector General on July 27, asking the office to look into Zinke’s calls to Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Dan Sullivan (R-AK).

“The OIG is undertaking a preliminary investigation into this matter. We will advise you about what further action the results of this inquiry lead the OIG to take,” Deputy Inspector General Mary Kendall said Thursday in a written response to Pallone and Grijalva.

Sullivan told the Alaska Dispatch News that Zinke called ahead of the Senate’s Obamacare repeal vote last week and threatened to sanction Alaska on energy policy if both senators didn’t vote in favor of repeal.

Murkowski had long expressed publicly that she was opposed to all the Senate GOP’s repeal proposals. She confirmed that she received a call from Zinke, but said he only told her that the President was unhappy with her vote against a motion to proceed to open up Obamacare repeal for debate on the Senate floor.

Zinke previously said claims of a threat were laughable, and on Thursday tweeted a photo of himself and Murkowski drinking a beer.

 

[You can] Read the letter from the Office of the Inspector General [included in the article]

Dude, having a beer together (and when was that pic taken anyway?) doesn't make your threats against her (and Sullivan) any less atrocious or wrong.

[AmazonGrace]

Mitch is unhappy and that's always a good thing:

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/senate-majority-leader-mitch-mcconnell-vents-trumps-excessive/story?id=49093130

[GrumpyGran]

35 minutes ago, AmazonGrace said:

Mitch is unhappy and that's always a good thing:

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/senate-majority-leader-mitch-mcconnell-vents-trumps-excessive/story?id=49093130

Well, you could do something about it, Mitch. Just sayin'.

[GreyhoundFan]

Excellent Jennifer Rubin piece: "The party of whiners"

Spoiler

The Hill reports:

House Republicans have launched a new website that slams the media for focusing on “chaos” instead of what they see as a productive first 200 days.

The website, “Did You Know,” claims that media coverage doesn’t focus on the issues important to Americans. It also calls out the press for not writing more about the legislative achievements of the House GOP. . . . The House GOP website rips the media’s coverage of Trump, arguing its focus on investigations into Russia have unfairly overshadowed legislative work.

This is a pathetic, counterproductive exercise that underscores the sorry state of the GOP.

To begin with, Republicans control the White House, Senate and House but they are still blaming the media for their problems? It seems that President Trump’s war on the press and persistent sense of victimhood have now been adopted by the party as a whole. Whining about stories not covered (but that appear on the front pages of major papers) and suggesting there is a long list of hidden accomplishments (Tell us about them!) are the tactics of an exhausted party. Had the GOP put up a neon sign exclaiming “GOP is Weak!” it could hardly have conveyed a greater sense of  ineptitude and self-pity.

“This is the fallacy of Trump Republicanism writ large,” GOP strategist and Trump critic Rick Wilson remarks. “A con artist, reality TV clown, and scenery-chewing blowhard can get away with this. Rank-and-file Republicans will still have to answer to their constituents for a year of wheel-spinning as their president’s daily rage-tweeting, witch-hunting, and lunacy leads them down the broad road to political hell.”

Moreover, there could hardly be a worse example of “Don’t think about pink elephants” psychology. The GOP’s biggest problem is that it’s accomplished so little. (The House cannot even claim Neil M. Gorsuch’s confirmation to the Supreme Court as its own.) Republicans have done nothing on health care or infrastructure. Tax reform has been put off again and again; smart money would say nothing significant gets done on that front either. The wall hasn’t been built. It’s not the media that has prevented them from preparation to raise the debt ceiling or from completion of a budget. Listen, when you’re under assault for getting nothing done it’s bad form to say, “Yeah, but not our fault!”

“No one in any relationship likes a needy whiner,” observes GOP veteran operative and former adviser to Ohio Gov. John Kasich’s presidential campaign, John Weaver. “Goes for potential spouses and for voters. They need to grow up, get off the playground and actually accomplish something for America.”

With regard to the new website, it is hard to figure out to whom this stuff is meant to appeal. Trump’s base already hates the media, but voted for Trump because he promised to put them in their place. If Trump is just another weak victim of elite media — like all the other Republicans whom they have blamed for not winning the presidency — what good is he?

Moreover, by complaining about what the press hasn’t covered, Republicans are failing to play their strongest card — the general state of the economy. Democrats will rightly argue this is the economy Trump inherited, but the GOP at least has an argument that Trump’s pro-business tilt and deregulation have pumped up the stock market and induced some optimism. Instead, they are down in the dumps because CNN isn’t cheering their success.

Thinking ahead to the 2018 midterms, this tactic surely doesn’t set the stage for a compelling message or argument for reelecting GOP majorities. “Out-snookered again by cable TV,” is not going to cut it with voters who see infighting, lack of a coherent message, a dearth of smart policy ideas and no inspiring leadership. As they continue to complain about the media (despite their advantage in virtually controlling Fox News and talk radio coverage) Republicans avoid the harder questions: What is their health-care solution? How do they justify tax cuts for the rich? Where are the manufacturing jobs in the Midwest they promised?

Democrats might want to seize on this latest GOP ploy as an admission of failure. The biggest problem for Republicans has been their failure to deliver on exaggerated, non-fact based promises. Do they really want to fight the 2018 election on “Why was it the GOP failed?” Democrats, who have been pilloried for being inept and insufficiently tough themselves, have the chance to turn the tables on the GOP and shame them for whining about press coverage. As Harry S. Truman said, if Republicans can’t stand the heat . . . . you know the rest.

 

[fraurosena]

1 hour ago, AmazonGrace said:

Mitch is unhappy and that's always a good thing:

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/senate-majority-leader-mitch-mcconnell-vents-trumps-excessive/story?id=49093130

He's just whining because none of his evil ploys to repeal Obamacare came to fruition.  Sorry, McTurtle, that egg on your face is entirely your own doing. Now that you've failed so spectacularly, you're just running along the tracks and trying to jump on the 'we hate the presidunce train' that has already left the station.

[onekidanddone]

4 hours ago, AmazonGrace said:

Mitch is unhappy and that's always a good thing:

Just give Mitch his binky and a cup of warm milk and put him to bed.

[GreyhoundFan]

"Paul Ryan To Face Debt Ceiling Dilemma"

Spoiler

When Congress returns in early September, Republicans and Democrats will only have a few short weeks to raise the debt ceiling. House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) faces a problem: The gap between what House conservatives want for raising the debt limit and what they can actually get is looking increasingly vast ― and Ryan may pay a price if he simply turns to Democrats and passes a clean raise to the government’s borrowing authority.

House Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) told HuffPost this week that conservatives have proposed a menu of options to GOP leadership. Their ideas include adding debt prioritization language to a limit increase, which would prioritize Treasury debt payments ahead of other spending, and codifying the Trump administration’s informal rule ― one regulation in, two out. Freedom Caucus Republicans are also open to making around $250 billion in mandatory spending cuts, as well as attaching a debt ceiling raise to their health care bill.

But none of those options are looking all that likely, with any borrowing limit increase needing the sign-off of at least eight Senate Democrats. And with Republicans controlling Congress and the White House, there’s little incentive for Democrats to give Republicans any concession.

If anything, Democratic aides insist, it’s Republicans who will have to give in to Democratic demands. One possible option would be to couple the debt ceiling with funds to reimburse health insurance companies serving poor customers. The Trump administration has threatened to withhold those funds, which were promised to insurance companies as part of the Affordable Care Act, but Congress could guarantee the payments.

One senior Democratic aide told HuffPost that negotiations haven’t really begun at this point, but a lot of Democratic members are uneasy about approving more debt only to allow Republicans to cut taxes for the wealthy as a result. At this point, another senior aide said, Democrats are taking a “wait and see” approach.

Ryan’s office said it’s too early to comment on the negotiations or his position on the debt ceiling. But there’s a growing sense among conservatives that Ryan’s position is more tenuous than he anticipates, especially if he passes a clean debt ceiling raise with the help of almost every Democrat and a small coalition of Republicans.

“It would be extremely difficult for a Republican speaker to put forward a clean debt ceiling and look his conference in the face and believe he’s done a job well done,” Meadows told HuffPost.

What exactly that means is unclear ― Meadows wouldn’t say more. But Republicans speaking on the condition of anonymity were more candid, with one member saying that if Ryan puts forward a clean debt ceiling raise, “it becomes the start of the end for the Ryan speakership.”

Another conservative member summed up Ryan’s position this way: “He doesn’t get it. He’s not going to make it to tax reform if he doesn’t get through this.”

If conservatives actually make the debt ceiling a litmus test for the speaker, Ryan may resist the pressure from Democrats ― and, potentially, the White House and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) ― to simply raise the limit without changes. But taking a hard stance could have serious economic implications, calling into question the United States’ ability to pay its bills and raising interest rates for future government borrowing. In effect, playing a political game of chicken with the debt ceiling may end up costing the government, and taxpayers, more.

But if you believe some Republicans, Ryan isn’t going to cave.

“I would be surprised if Paul Ryan thinks we should do a clean debt ceiling increase,” former Freedom Caucus Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) told HuffPost. “Frankly, I can’t believe the speaker of the House is going to go along with a clean debt ceiling increase.”

Jordan insisted that Republicans, with control of Congress and the White House, had to get some concession for raising the debt limit. “The idea that we’re going to raise the debt ceiling and not do anything structurally on the long-term debt concerns just makes no sense,” he said. Jordan pointed to other deals in the past to argue that Republicans had to get something.

“Even if it was ‘no budget, no pay,’” Jordan said, referring to a gimmicky 2013 law that placed future restrictions on congressional salaries if lawmakers didn’t agree to a budget, “Republicans always get something.”

But part of the problem for Republicans is they’re still negotiating with themselves. Based on conversations with conservatives this week, even if Republicans secured some small concessions, it seems unlikely they’d get the support of every conservative. Even if they did, it still wouldn’t be enough in the Senate. And some Republicans are just apt to vote against more debt.

“It doesn’t make any difference to me whether it’s Barack Obama or John Boehner as president and speaker of the House; my position is unchanged,” Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.), who is running for Senate, told HuffPost. “I will not vote to raise the debt ceiling unless there is a serious effort to address the underlying cause of the problem.”

Brooks said a “clean debt ceiling raise” was actually a “dirty debt ceiling raise,” because lawmakers would be putting the country on a path to insolvency and bankruptcy, leading to the gutting of Medicaid, food stamps and national security.

“That seems like a pretty dirty thing to do to our kids and grandkids and our country,” Brooks said.

Asked what increasing the limit without any concessions would mean for the speaker, Brooks danced around the topic, but he suggested that no reforms would be a problem for him.

“I like Paul Ryan personally,” Brooks said. “I’m gonna limit this discussion to public policy, and an increase in the debt ceiling without any substantive effort to fix America’s deficit problem is a betrayal of America’s future and our children and grandchildren.”

Rep. Dave Brat (R-Va.) had a similar thought.

“It’s not about Paul Ryan,” he said. “It’s about the Republican brand and fiscal responsibility. Why would we put a clean debt ceiling increase without any reforms whatsoever on a Republican president’s desk?”

Brat continued that he had not seen any provision in the Republican platform calling for “$600 billion deficits as far as the eye can see and the bankruptcy of America on the backs of our children.”

Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.) told HuffPost that lawmakers needed “some sort of Spend-aholics Anonymous, a 12-step plan, and possibly an intervention in order to end the Congress’ propensity to spend money that we don’t have.”

But if Republicans can’t get Democrats to go along with the sort of sweeping ― or even more limited ― reforms they want in exchange for raising the debt ceiling, would Republicans actually let the government default?

President Donald Trump has recently settled on stock market gains as a signature achievement. The pressure to raise the debt ceiling would intensify quickly once markets start reacting to a default crisis. Already, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin says Congress ought to just pass a clean bill.

That message, however, has been muddled elsewhere in the administration. For one, Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney ― himself once a fierce Freedom Caucus member who has voted against raising the debt ceiling ― has said he’d like to see spending cuts or debt prioritization changes before Congress raises the borrowing limit.

Trump hasn’t weighed in himself, but it’s easy to imagine him refusing to sign a bill that, say, continues government funding, raises the debt ceiling, excludes money for his wall along the southern border, and includes Obamacare-related funding. And with government funding running out at the end of September, around the time that Congress would have to increase the debt limit, it’s easy to see all those issues getting rolled into one debate that Ryan, or McConnell, or Trump, or conservatives, or Democrats could derail.

Freaking teabaggers.

[fraurosena]

Thank goodness there are still congressmen with logic and reason:

Let's hope this gets some traction. Soon.

[apple1]

http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/08/politics/lawmakers-trump-fire-fury-north-korea-mccain/index.html

 

Senate Armed Services Chairman John McCain said he took exception to Trump's comments, warning that the President might not be able to follow through with the threats he is making.

"I take exception to the President's comments because you've got to be sure that you can do what you say you're going to do," the Arizona Republican said in an interview with Phoenix radio station KTAR. "The great leaders I've seen don't threaten unless they're ready to act and I'm not sure President Trump is ready to act."

[fraurosena]

38 minutes ago, apple1 said:

http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/08/politics/lawmakers-trump-fire-fury-north-korea-mccain/index.html

 

Senate Armed Services Chairman John McCain said he took exception to Trump's comments, warning that the President might not be able to follow through with the threats he is making.

"I take exception to the President's comments because you've got to be sure that you can do what you say you're going to do," the Arizona Republican said in an interview with Phoenix radio station KTAR. "The great leaders I've seen don't threaten unless they're ready to act and I'm not sure President Trump is ready to act."

I'm not sure I agree with McCain saying this. I agree with his sentiments, but saying it, and saying it to the press? That could backfire spectacularly. The presidunce just might get it into his head to take him up on this percieved dare...

[GreyhoundFan]

"The Daily 202: The GOP congressional majority may be too strong for Trump to break"

Spoiler

If you really want to know why the Republican majority in the House has been so strong, the answer lies in these six states: Michigan, Indiana, Ohio and Pennsylvania — across the Rust Belt — and Virginia and Florida down South. 

After the 2008 elections, those six states sent a combined 97 members to the House and Democrats held a 51-to-46 edge over Republicans among the lawmakers representing them. The disastrous 2010 showing for Democrats resulted in a net GOP gain of 21 seats in those states, 67 Republicans to 30 Democrats, and that margin has remained remarkably steady ever since. Today, after decennial reapportionment reduced those combined seats by two, there are now 64 Republicans to 31 Democrats in the House from those six states. It's a bulwark created partly by Republican control of most of those states during the 2011 redrawing of the congressional districts —  and partly by the House Democrats' inability to field candidates who appeal voters beyond the inner suburbs (see this year's battle over whether the Democratic Party should back candidates who don't support abortion rights). 

That's one of the most fascinating findings of the political gold standard, the "2018 Almanac of American Politics," set to be released in September (preorder your copy here). A must-read for political fanatics since its first edition in 1972, the latest version is sure to be in greater demand this year because of the way President Trump rearranged political plate tectonics in 2016 and won the White House by upending, or accelerating, past voting patterns. Its authors — Richard Cohen, James A. Barnes, Charlie Cook, Michael Barone, along with Lou Jacobson — are among the smartest political reporters in town. In an era where armchair pundits pull their analyses off websites aggregating polling data, these writers have done the spade work in the data weeds for decades. 

The opening chapters of this year's book, several of which we got a sneak peek at, read like a road map for understanding how we got to this point and provide a possible route to the pivot points of where things might change. 

Cohen slices and dices the numbers to show just how much the nation “split into two political nations,” one a Republican red wall stretching from the Deep South into the Mountain West; the other two areas of coastal terrain running from Maine to Virginia and from California to Washington. “The split between the two parties has become so clear-cut and overwhelming that the numbers are easy to present and describe,” Cohen writes. 

That Republican coalition, made up of 24 states, delivered all of its 219 electoral votes to Trump last year, sends 43 Republicans (and just five Democrats) to the Senate, and has a House delegation tilted toward the GOP by a 132-to-39 margin. 

...

The Democratic coalition, made up of 16 states, gave all 203 of its electoral votes to Barack Obama in 2012 and 182 of them to Hillary Clinton; 30 of its 32 senators are Democrats; its House delegation tilts to Democrats by a 113-to-55 edge.

...

Some might quibble with the inclusion of Florida and North Carolina in the GOP stronghold, along with Pennsylvania and Virginia in the Democratic camp, but the numbers are otherwise pretty clear. The question in 2018 is whether Trump's presidency, at historic levels of unpopularity, will grow the number of swing states and put the GOP majority at risk jeopardy in states that could suddenly turn blue.

Cook analyzes 39 midterm elections since the end of the Civil War — according to him, the president's party has lost seats in the House 36 times, with average losses of 33 seats — that's nine more seats than Democrats currently need to retake the majority. BUUUUT, all midterms are not created equal. First-term midterms are traditionally kinder to the ruling party, with presidents suffering an average loss of 26 House seats represented by lawmakers from the same party, Cook writes. If that trend held true next year, Democrats would retake the House majority, but it would be with an insanely narrow margin: 220 Democrats to 215 Republicans.

Jacobson, an expert on state and county governments, highlights how different the Two Nations theory became under Trump. It's long been noted how much polarized the nation's politics have become, but the Trump-Clinton race so accelerated the changes that vast swaths of the nation did actually flip party alignment last year. Every county in Iowa along the Mississippi River supported Obama in 2012, but in 2016 Trump won all but one of those counties and narrowly lost the other. 

...

These shifting trends have left House Democrats more isolated in coastal and urban areas than at any time in party history. 

Of the six states that Cohen singles out as being the foundation for the House GOP majority, all 31 Democratic seats come from big cities or very close-in suburbs. Republicans hold every exurban and rural district in this collection of states. One of Cook's smartest proteges, David Wasserman of the Cook Political Report, has tracked this development closely and also published his own account this week of how bad the congressional map has become for Democrats. 

Cohen notes that the Democratic problem is deeper than just the district lines. “Only a handful of House districts in those six states have been competitive since 2012, even though many of them have been competitive in presidential elections,” he writes. 

Those include a trio of seats in the Philadelphia suburbs where Clinton won or was virtually tied with Trump, yet the GOP won the House seats by embarrassingly large margins. If they don't field strong enough candidates, or reconfigure their agenda to specifically appeal to these voters, Democrats might find themselves stuck in the minority again for another two years. 

Cook believes the “potential for losses clearly exist” for House Republicans and could “endanger their majority,” but he writes that Trump has so rewritten the rules of politics that no one can be certain of anything. For starters, Trump is so unique in voters' minds, no one can be certain that voters will associate their local Republican congressman with his presidency. 

“This most unconventional of candidates has become the least conventional president in history and many of the normal rules won't apply,” Cook concludes. 

...

The article includes some good graphics to illustrate the points being made.

[GrumpyGran]

4 hours ago, fraurosena said:

Thank goodness there are still congressmen with logic and reason:

Let's hope this gets some traction. Soon.

Yesterday would not have been soon enough.

Why do these over-paid "servants" get to go on vacation with a debt-crisis looming? Every damn year. Then, hurry, hurry, hurry, something has to be done. How about they get to go on vacation after they do their job? Some of these people have been in their jobs for six months. And already a two-week(?) paid vacation? It's easy to see why politics is an aspiration for so many. Quite the benefit package there.

[Childless]

4 hours ago, fraurosena said:

I'm not sure I agree with McCain saying this. I agree with his sentiments, but saying it, and saying it to the press? That could backfire spectacularly. The presidunce just might get it into his head to take him up on this percieved dare...

The problem is that Trump is ready to follow through because he's a lazy idiot who doesn't bother to think about the consequences of his actions.

1 hour ago, GrumpyGran said:

Yesterday would not have been soon enough.

Why do these over-paid "servants" get to go on vacation with a debt-crisis looming? Every damn year. Then, hurry, hurry, hurry, something has to be done. How about they get to go on vacation after they do their job? Some of these people have been in their jobs for six months. And already a two-week(?) paid vacation? It's easy to see why politics is an aspiration for so many. Quite the benefit package there.

They aren't supposed to be on vacation though.  They are on a congressional break.  The purpose of these breaks is to go back to their states and districts and interact with their constituents and ensure they are working in their best interests within the federal government.  The problem is that many of them consider this a vacation and not a chance to reach out to their constituents.

[fraurosena]

1 minute ago, Childless said:

The problem is that Trump is ready to follow through because he's a lazy idiot who doesn't bother to think about the consequences of his actions.

Yes! Exactly. 

This is what is so terrifying about him. Couple that with the lack of impediments in the whole process of launching an attack, who is to stop him when he gets the sudden inclination to flex his nuclear muscles?

 

[sawasdee]

From the CNN article cited above

Quote

diplomacy requires more than a Twitter account and some bravado -- you need to have real experienced diplomats coordinating all these messages."

Yes. And the State Department has been steadily stripped of experienced diplomats, and a large percentage of Ambassorships are vacant.

I live in Asia, not the US, and I'm scared  - as I think half the world is.

[GreyhoundFan]

SERIOUSLY? "Nine months after Election Day, probes of Clinton and her campaign continue"

Spoiler

Nine months after Donald Trump upset Hillary Clinton to win the presidency, congressional Republicans and conservative legal watchdogs are continuing to probe the scandals that dogged the Democratic campaign. And in conservative media, the churn of possible investigations has created a news cycle that operates independently of the one seen in most of the press.

The latest round of pressure for new investigations gained steam last week, when Judicial Watch and then the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) released the latest fruit of a federal lawsuit against the Justice Department — email traffic inside the agency about the June 2016 decision by Bill Clinton to walk across the tarmac at Phoenix’s Sky Harbor airport and have a conversation with then-Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch. The meeting, first reported by a local news station that also reported being told not to photograph Lynch or Clinton, caused an instant scandal, despite a hasty attempt by Hillary Clinton’s campaign to describe the meeting as nonpolitical.

On Nov. 2, six days before the presidential election, ACLJ chief counsel Jay Sekulow announced that he would be suing for documents after the Justice Department and FBI claimed that a Freedom of Information Request turned up nothing. On Friday, Sekulow, who is now a member of the president’s legal team and a frequent advocate for him on television, reported that the lawsuit had turned up hundreds of pages of emails.

“It is clear that there were multiple records within the FBI responsive to our request and that discussions regarding the surreptitious meeting between then AG Lynch and the husband of the subject of an ongoing FBI criminal investigation reached the highest levels of the FBI,” Sekulow wrote. “There is clear evidence that the main stream media was colluding with the DOJ to bury the story.”

In a pattern similar to the long-running investigation of the September 2012 attacks in Benghazi, the emails have turned up not the redacted talking points but evidence that public affairs officers in the Justice Department, FBI and White House were communicating on how to spin the story. (The ACLJ has also “unmasked” an email pseudonym Lynch sometimes used, though that’s not uncommon for high-profile public officials, and the emails were obviously discoverable as part of lawsuits.) On Monday night, Sekulow appeared on Fox’s “Hannity,” which frequently editorializes on the need for more Clinton investigations, to share the findings.

“Does this potentially expose its own version of collusion that they’re trying to cover up the fact they were in the fix, if you will, for Hillary Clinton and they didn’t want it exposed?” asked Sean Hannity. “And add to that that it’s not an investigation, it’s a matter? That seems to be building a case.”

Sekulow said: “Yes, but add to that also, Sean, that the basis upon which James Comey said he went public was because of these meetings that we’ve got the documents on now. That’s the reason he said he made that public statement, because he said the integrity of the agency, the FBI, was put at risk, and the Department of Justice, by Loretta Lynch’s action. But remember that she never recused herself from the actual outcome of the proceeding.”

On the Tuesday episode of his radio talk show, Rush Limbaugh focused on the dismissive tone reporters used to ask questions of the government spinners and the Lynch email alias. “It turns out these people are using aliases, fake names so that they would not be discovered,” he said, overstating the meaning of the attorney general’s dummy email. Later in the day, the president himself drew attention to the lawsuits, without naming them.

... < tweet from twitler >

Separately, the Senate and House judiciary committees have been carrying out or exploring investigations into aspects of the 2016 campaign and Clinton’s years at the State Department. In July, before the start of the August recess, the House committee hollowed out a Democratic resolution intended to expand the investigation of Comey’s firing and replaced it with one demanding answers about Clinton. On July 26, Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) held hearings on the Foreign Agent Registration Act, suggesting that as an aide to Clinton at the State Department, Sidney Blumenthal carried out lobbying activity but never registered.

“News articles reported that Mr. Blumenthal transmitted documentation to Secretary Clinton on behalf of the Georgian Dream, a political party in the country of Georgia,” Grassley said. “The Justice Department never explained why it failed to require Mr. Blumenthal and his partner, John Kornblum, to register under FARA.”

In a letter, which he copied to The Washington Post, Blumenthal demanded an apology from Grassley, saying he had never represented Georgia Dream or partnered with Kornblum.

“You have a responsibility to yourself as well to me and to the American public to determine who gave you this false information, encouraged you to make your recent statement and the reason why,” Blumenthal wrote. “In light of current events, it appears to have been instigated as a means to distract and diminish the public attention from the Russian intervention in the presidential election of 2016.”

In an emailed statement, Grassley spokesman George Hartmann said that the fault was with Blumenthal for declining to explain himself.

“Senator Grassley has publicly written the Justice Department several times since 2015, citing news reports about Mr. Blumenthal’s alleged activities with respect to foreign interests, and never received any contact from Mr. Blumenthal about it until now, nor any substantive response other than the Justice Department’s noting that its Foreign Agents Registration Act Unit was aware of the news reports,” Hartmann said. “In his letters, and at the recent hearing on the Justice Department’s failure to adequately enforce the Foreign Agents Registration Act, Senator Grassley cited news reports and noted that if Mr. Blumenthal did not have to register, the Justice Department should explain why not in order to be fair to him. Mr. Blumenthal should direct his attention to the news reports and the Justice Department rather than a senator who cited the reports in the context of whether the Justice Department has been as transparent as it should be with the American people’s business.”

Blumenthal’s letter is below.

To Senator Charles Grassley:

You owe me an apology for lying about me.

On July 26, 2017, you made a public statement about me that was completely false in every particular.

You stated: “News articles reported that Mr. Blumenthal transmitted documentation to Secretary Clinton on behalf of the Georgian Dream, a political party in the country of Georgia. The Justice Department never explained why it failed to require Mr. Blumenthal and his partner, John Kornblum, to register under FARA.”

In fact, I have never represented Mr. Bidzina Ivanishvili or his political party, Georgia Dream, or any other foreign entity, nor rendered them any services. I have had no contact with Mr. Ivanishivili, or his political party Georgia Dream, and made no agreement with anyone, ever, to represent him or his party. I have received no payment or benefit from Mr. Ivanishvili, his political party Georgia Dream, or any other foreign entity for representation or rendering of services covered by the Foreign Agent Registration Act.

Indeed, I have received no payment or benefit from Mr. Ivanishvili or any person I have reason to believe associated with him or his political party, ever. I have made no agreement, written or oral, with any foreign entity, at any time, relating to any matter covered by the Foreign Agent Registration Act.

Nor was John Kornblum my “partner.” We have never had any business or financial relationship of any kind. Ambassador Kornblum is one of the most distinguished diplomats to have served the United States. I first met him in 1986 when he was the U.S. Consul-General in Berlin and I was a reporter for the Washington Post. He played an instrumental role in the creation of President Reagan’s speech calling on the Russians to tear down the Berlin Wall. He also served as the U.S. ambassador to Germany.

I forwarded to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Ambassador Kornblum’s personal observations on the 2012 Georgian election and a letter from Mr. Ivanishvili that Ambassador Kornblum informed me he had already sent to Secretary Clinton. I made a point of writing Secretary Clinton that I was sending them to her “without comment.”

I also included an article from The Economist, reporting on the “blood feud” of “Georgian politics,” that contained negative facts about all sides, including concerning Mr. Ivanishvili. I neither expected a response from Secretary Clinton, nor received one.

Nor were there, as you claimed, any “news stories,” because there are no facts. There can be no “news” without facts. Whatever you may have read could only have been baseless smears.

Thus, there is not a scintilla of evidence for your statement. Nor would it ever be possible to have such evidence because there is none.

Whoever provided you with this false information was harming you and your reputation as well as intending to harm me.

You have a responsibility to yourself as well to me and to the American public to determine who gave you this false information, encouraged you to make your recent statement and the reason why. In light of current events, it appears to have been instigated as a means to distract and diminish the public attention from the Russian intervention in the presidential election of 2016.

I request that you therefore investigate the sources of the false information to determine whether they have been engaged in an attempt to mislead the Congress and obstruct the ongoing investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

I look forward to your early reply.

Sincerely,

Sidney Blumenthal

I swear, if Hillary passed away today from a heart attack, they'd say it was suicide over the guilt she carried from Benghazi, or her "acid washed" emails, or killing Vince Foster, or some other nonsense.

[47of74]

Fuck you Senator Johnson

Quote

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) says Sen. John McCain’s brain cancer may have factored into the Arizona Republican's stunning vote last month that sunk the GOP effort to repeal and replace ObamaCare.

“He has a brain tumor right now, that vote occurred at 1:30 in the morning. Some of that might have factored in,” Johnson said in an interview on 560AM, “Chicago’s Morning Answer.”

The answer prompted a surprised response from Amy Jacobson, the show’s co-host. 

“Really?” she said. “I mean he did get out — just had recovered from getting the brain tumor removed and then flew all the way to Washington, D.C., but do you really think that played a factor in his judgment call?”

 

[sawasdee]

Maybe the surgery reconnected his humanity and empathy genes? Then it could have factored in...

[GreyhoundFan]

Teabagger Brat doesn't want to hear pushback: "Activists invite Va. congressman to hold town hall"

Spoiler

RICHMOND — Progressive activists, eager to sustain their momentum after helping to torpedo GOP efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act, invited Rep. Dave Brat (R-Va.) on Monday to hold a town hall meeting on health care.

“We’re concerned because it’s like the zombie bill,” said Carolina Lugo, a leader with Together We Will RVA, noting that Republican legislation to repeal and replace the federal health-care law keeps getting “resurrected . . . when it appears to most rational people that it is done.”

But Brat, who was jeered and shouted down during the two town hall meetings he presided over earlier this year, said he will not attend.

“It is clear these individuals are more interested in scoring political points with TV cameras running than in having a constructive dialogue about issues,” Brat said in an email. “I will not spend 90 minutes being shouted at by individuals who have already demonstrated they have no interest in a productive exchange of ideas.”

The invitation came from Lugo’s group, three Richmond-area Indivisible chapters and the Culpeper Persisters. They asked Brat to attend a town hall meeting they scheduled for later this month in Henrico County, part of his suburban Richmond district. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which would like to see Brat defeated in the 2018 election, also weighed in.

“Dave Brat should get good and used to hearing from his constituents, whether he shows up to listen or not,” DCCC spokesman Cole Leiter said.

Since the election in November, Republican lawmakers increasingly have encountered constituents at town hall meetings who are angry about the proposed repeal of President Barack Obama’s sweeping health-care law and other issues. Many Republicans have decided to avoid such confrontations.

Brat, an Obamacare critic and former professor who defeated then-House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in a 2014 primary upset, has not spent the August congressional recess in hiding.

His Facebook posts chronicle appearances around his district, some open to the public and announced in advance, such as a National Night Out event in Chesterfield County. But at least so far, Brat has not offered himself up for freewheeling question-and-answer sessions.

“To best engage and listen to the concerns of constituents across a diverse political spectrum in a rational manner, I am spending the month of August traveling throughout the 7th District to meet directly with hundreds of individuals at local events, community gatherings, and busi­nesses,” he said in his email.

He can't take the criticism, so he shouldn't be a "representative".

[GreyhoundFan]

Good grief: "Why the GOP might kill the filibuster after all"

Spoiler

As if Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) weren’t miserable enough over his failure to repeal and replace Obamacare, President Trump has been badgering him on Twitter about eliminating the 60-vote Senate filibuster.

According to Trump, this procedural relic was to blame for stalling his legislative agenda in Congress: “Republicans in the Senate will NEVER win if they don’t go to a 51 vote majority NOW. They look like fools and are just wasting time…..”

As is often the case, Trump did not entirely grasp the relevant nuances: McConnell tried to pass an Obamacare repeal under a special “reconciliation” rule requiring just 50 votes plus Vice President Pence’s, but couldn’t even muster that many due to defections in his own caucus. The majority leader thus seemed understandably exasperated with the president Wednesday, citing his “excessive expectations.”

And, of course, McConnell shows no signs of agreeing to the rule change Trump impatiently favors.

Still, there is a reasonable case to be made that it would be in the GOP’s interest to do what Trump says — if not immediately, then certainly if the Republicans manage to overcome Trump’s declining approval numbers and do well in the 2018 midterm elections.

GOP senators have made two main arguments against such a power grab: It would be bad for the Senate, and hence the country, to convert the “world’s greatest deliberative body” into the plaything of shifting majorities. And it would be unwise for the Republicans to risk a rule change that the Democrats could turn to their advantage by regaining control of the chamber, possibly in as little as two years.

However, the second of those two arguments may be getting less compelling for the GOP: It’s eminently foreseeable that not only the gerrymandered House but also the Senate will remain in GOP hands for at least the next half-decade — and maybe longer.

This is due not only to the fact that the 2018 Senate electoral map favors Republicans, in that they only have to defend eight of the 33 seats at stake, while 25 Democrats are up for reelection, 10 in states Trump carried in 2016.

Even more striking is the developing and seemingly durable GOP edge in rural states, which have two Senate seats each just like the heavily populated coastal states that Democrats dominate.

Republican Trump carried 26 states (that’s 52 senators’ worth) with a share of the vote at least five percentage points larger than his national vote percentage, according to an analysis by Dave Wasserman of the Cook Political Report.

By contrast to these deep-red strongholds, there are only 14 states (with 28 senators) in which Democrat Hillary Clinton beat her national share by at least five points. Wasserman counts 10 remaining “swing” states (20 senators).

Overall, the statistical “pro-GOP bias” of Senate races is at its highest level since the direct election of senators became the law of the land in 1913, Wasserman notes. And the 2020 map looks only slightly less favorable to the GOP than the 2018 one.

The temptation to do away with the legislative filibuster could therefore prove irresistible if 2018 produces another GOP majority of fewer than 60 votes, especially if Republicans also retain the House.

Certainly Trump might see a once-in-a-generation opportunity to transform a whole host of policies — taxes, spending, regulation, immigration — in ways Democrats could not reverse until that far-off day when they manage to capture both houses of Congress and the executive branch.

To be sure, this scenario depends on a long series of assumptions, the most important of which is that public dissatisfaction with Trump, or some Trump-triggered crisis, doesn’t drag the whole GOP down to defeat in the midterms.

It would also depend on McConnell’s willingness to repudiate declarations of high principle he and other members of his caucus have made, seemingly sincerely, to the effect that the filibuster protects minority rights and fosters compromise. Democrats certainly made that easier for him by eliminating the 60-vote threshold for judicial and executive branch nominations when they were last in the majority.

Then the decision would come down to what McConnell’s gut tells him about the state of national politics and the likelihood of a Democratic comeback in Washington.

By nature, McConnell is “not optimistic,” Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) recently told U.S. News & World Report. “He’s not pessimistic. He’s a poker player.”

For the majority leader, abandoning the filibuster could be the ultimate partisan gamble — high risk, but also, under the right circumstances, high reward.

For the author to write McTurtle's name in the same sentence as the words, "high principle", is absolutely laughable. McTurtle wouldn't know principles if they bit him in the hiney.

[onekidanddone]

Trump couldn’t have picked a dumber fight

Will these ass hats ever learn? Trump will turn on anybody who is not family, and even then I can see him tossing Jared under the bus).  I am also impressed by Michael Steel's use of the word "gobsmackingly". It made me think of our very own @Gobsmacked who rocks.

Quote

“Attacking Mitch McConnell is the most gobsmackingly stupid thing the president has done yet. And that’s saying quite a bit.” That’s how Michael Steel, former spokesman for ex-House speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), described President Trump’s attack on the Senate majority leader. Trump on Wednesday had taunted McConnell on Twitter for not delivering the votes for Trumpcare. (“Why not done?”) McConnell, it seems, had set the president off with remark delivered Monday to a Rotary Club in Kentucky. “Our new president, of course, has not been in this line of work before and, I think, had excessive expectations about how quickly things happen in the democratic process,” McConnell observed.

Well, no one ever accused Trump of stopping while he was behind. His “gobsmackingly stupid” indictment of the majority leader continued Thursday morning. He tweeted, “Can you believe that Mitch McConnell, who has screamed Repeal & Replace for 7 years, couldn’t get it done. Must Repeal & Replace ObamaCare!” Let’s count the ways in which this is unhelpful to the president.

First, Congress is already ignoring him; Republicans have made clear they are moving on from health care and his peevish rant won’t change their minds. When they continue to ignore his heckling, it will be Trump who, once again, looks impotent.

Second, in a week in which much of the country is disturbed that the president lacks the gravitas, discipline and judgment to be commander in chief, Trump’s attack reinforces the idea that he is motivated by personal pique and is incapable of dispassionate strategizing.

Third, McConnell has resisted naming a select committee to investigate the Russia scandal. He and his Senate Republicans have been utterly uninterested in examining Trump’s conflicts of interest and potential violations of the emoluments clause. McConnell could decide at any moment to pursue those lines of inquiry.

Fourth, to the extent Trump makes Senate Republicans the enemy, he helps Democrats who, until now, were thought to have only a remote chance of winning the Senate majority. Losses by Sens. Jeff Flake of Arizona and Dean Heller of Nevada in 2018 would leave the Senate split 50-50, with Vice President Pence essential to break ties. A single retirement or defection (anyone certain Lisa Murkowski of Alaska or Susan Collins of Maine would never, ever flip parties?) would give Democrats the majority. And with Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) potentially absent due to his medical treatment, Democrats could have the upper hand even without a midterm retirement or defection. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee should send Trump flowers and chocolates to show their gratitude.

And finally, if the House ever impeaches Trump, the Senate tries the president. Does Trump really want to convince the “jury” that it would be better off without him?

In sum, in Trump’s mind, the categorization of someone as friend or foe depends almost entirely on whether they support and lavishly praise him. He cannot comprehend that legal or ethical rules (as Attorney General Jeff Sessions followed in recusing himself from the Russia affair), allegiance to democratic institutions, or personal principle (!) might have a greater hold on others. In Trump’s mind, there are no excuses for defying or criticizing him. Now, it would be one thing if Trump’s poll numbers were high and he was helping to enact a GOP agenda. He is doing neither. This latest tantrum should serve to remind Republicans: They’d be better off without him.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Whoopsie: "'Rep. John Conyers might have broken rules with staffer’s pay, watchdog says"

Spoiler

An independent ethics monitor said in a report released Wednesday that there is strong reason to believe Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) violated House rules by authorizing pay for a senior staff member when she was apparently not performing official work.

Cynthia Martin, Conyers’s former chief of staff, received compensation between April and August 2016 despite statements from other staff members that she no longer worked in the office at the time, according to the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE).

Conyers denied wrongdoing, claiming through a lawyer that the compensation provided to Martin constituted severance and accrued annual leave.

“Today’s release does not itself indicate that any violation has occurred,” Conyers spokeswoman Shadawn Reddick-Smith said in a statement. She added the office has “worked diligently at all times to comply with the rules.”

The report is the latest headache related to Martin’s employment for Conyers, the leading Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee and the longest-serving member of Congress.

In March 2016, Martin pleaded guilty to a charge of receiving stolen property after $16,500 was mistakenly transferred to her bank account and she initially refused to return the funds. Conyers, 88, officially terminated her employment in October 2016.

The OCE report was released by the House Ethics Committee, which said it is reviewing the allegations. The panel did not open an investigative subcommittee to look into the matter, and it is unclear if or when it might release its own report.

“The Committee notes that the mere fact of conducting further review of a referral, and any mandatory disclosure of such further review, does not itself indicate that any violation has occurred, or reflect any judgment on behalf of the Committee,” the ethics panel said Wednesday in an unattributed statement.

The questions surrounding Conyers’s decision to continue compensating Martin underscore the lack of clarity about the issue of severance for departing congressional staff members. The House Ethics Manual appears not to allow severance, stating that aides can be paid “only for duties performed within the preceding month” and only if the aide “has regularly performed official duties commensurate with the compensation received.”

But multiple members have sought to justify their awarding of severance-like payments to staffers, arguing that federal law and regulations from the Committee on House Administration are on their side.

Conyers’s situation echoes that of Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), who came under similar scrutiny from the OCE last year after awarding a three-month severance package to his former chief of staff. Meadows denied wrongdoing, and his case is still pending before the Ethics Committee.

Separately, the OCE concluded Wednesday that Michael Collins, a top aide to Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), might have violated House rules and federal law when he received compensation from Lewis’s campaign for work that seemed to involve fiduciary duties.

Collins, who has denied wrongdoing, said through a lawyer that he served as voluntary treasury and political consultant for Lewis’s campaign but was only compensated for his consulting work. The Ethics Committee said it is reviewing the matter.

Lewis communications director Brenda Jones said the existence of a review does not mean rules were necessarily broken.

“Our substantive response, which is included with the materials released by the Committee, refutes the OCE’s findings and legal conclusions and establishes that no violation occurred,” Jones said in a statement.

I think they need to clarify the rules, so this doesn't keep happening.

[Gobsmacked]

 Thankyou onekidanddone. 

On 9 August 2017 at 6:32 PM, fraurosena said:

Yes! Exactly. 

This is what is so terrifying about him. Couple that with the lack of impediments in the whole process of launching an attack, who is to stop him when he gets the sudden inclination to flex his nuclear muscles?

 

How many people have to be present/ hold keys or codes to start a nuke strike? 

[GreyhoundFan]

29 minutes ago, Gobsmacked said:

How many people have to be present/ hold keys or codes to start a nuke strike? 

Here's an interesting article from Politico on that topic. It's from last year, but I don't think the facts have changed.