Trump 23: The Death Eaters Have Taken the Fucking Country

[GreyhoundFan]

"Will Hurricane Harvey prompt a Trump ‘reset’? His megalomania probably won’t allow it."

Spoiler

When disasters strike the United States, we generally are treated to not one, but two, rituals. The first unfolds around the president’s efforts to project an empathizing, unifying, consoling, competent, stabilizing presence. The second unfolds around the press corps’ collective rumination on whether the president passed the “test” posed to him by that imperative role and what impact that will have on his political fortunes going forward.

President Trump on Tuesday is set to visit Hurricane Harvey’s devastation — “Leaving now for Texas!” he just tweeted — which means both these rituals are getting underway. Indeed, multiple articles this morning are asking not just whether Trump will rise to the occasion but also whether this will afford him the opportunity for a reset of sorts amid the tumult, scandal and racial strife of his first seven months.

A number of GOP strategists tell NPR that they are hoping Trump will today resist his usual instinct toward self-aggrandizement and distracted bluster, and instead will demonstrate empathy, competence, a healing tone and a relentless focus on the disaster’s practical challenges and impact on its victims. One says this could be a “very important moment in his young presidency,” and another sees an opportunity to harness the “nation’s unity and goodwill” in a new direction. Meanwhile, Trump aides tell the New York Times that they believe the disaster has made Trump more detail-oriented and less prone to destructive outbursts and mood swings — in other words, a new, emerging Trump.

Hopefully, Trump will rise to the occasion today, and management of the disaster response will continue to go as smoothly as possible. But beyond these things, questions about whether this will afford Trump a “reset” opportunity seem deeply flawed. They reflect an inability to reckon with the true depths of Trump’s megalomania, disengagement from policy details and utter detachment from any sense of responsibility to the public — and with the degree to which those things are deeply intertwined with all of the racial divisiveness and abuses of power that continue to rot away at this presidency.

Consider where we are right now. Just yesterday, Trump reaffirmed his pardon of Joe Arpaio, and the details of how he did so are important. Trump effusively praised Arpaio, saying he has “done a great job” and has been “strong on illegal immigration.” This is an implicit endorsement of the very conduct for which Arpaio was held in criminal contempt of court (defying a judge’s command that he remain constrained by the Constitution from violating the rights of Latino immigrants) and for which he has been roundly criticized (the serial abuse and humiliation of inmates).

Incredibly, Trump also defended the pardon by recalling that the crowd at his rally in Arizona “went absolutely crazy” when he spoke up for Arpaio. Trump has now essentially confirmed that he pardoned Arpaio, at least in part, because he agreed with the goals of Arpaio’s abuses and flouting of the Constitution and because his base cheered him over it. As Michael Gerson points out, the pardon must be seen as an effort to normalize and entrench bigotry at precisely the moment — in the aftermath of Charlottesville — when he should have done the opposite. Trump’s weak condemnation of white supremacy was steeped in megalomania, in a desire not to be seen capitulating to his “enemies,” and in his eagerness to please his base. The Arpaio pardon simply builds on those things. The impact on the rest of the nation of all of this is beside the point entirely.

A similar situation looms in the form of Trump’s desire for a border wall. He has already threatened to force a government shutdown to compel Congress to fund his wall. This standoff was itself created by Trump’s initial folly in proposing this absurd idea and suggesting Mexico would pay for it, which he believes has saddled him with the need to save face by getting it done. Now Trump’s vow to build that wall is set to get tied up in the fight over government funding — and by extension, over the funding of Harvey disaster relief. But if Trump is truly “resetting” after Harvey, then surely he will not force this battle to a head. Right?

One hopes so. But recall that, while majorities oppose the building of a wall, his shutdown threat, too, was cheered by his Arizona rally crowd. And Trump’s former chief strategist, Stephen K. Bannon, privately urged Trump not to back down on the wall, because his base could not stand to see him suffer the ignominy and humiliation of not getting his way on it, after having failed to repeal Obamacare.

It’s very likely that Trump will cave on the wall once again. But it is easy to envision a lot of Trumpian ugliness unfolding before that happens. Whatever Trump achieves in the way of a reset, it will soon come under immense strain from the same old megalomaniacal and racially divisive impulses that have rotted away at his presidency all along.

...

Any "reset" will be temporary as long as the orange menace is occupying the White House.

[Howl]

So here we are in Texas.  We have the identical twin Castro brothers, Julián and Joaquín,  one of whom will likely be a primary contender for democratic presidential nominee in 2020.  Julián was in the Austin paper today; he's taken a position at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the Univ. of Texas at Austin, teaching a graduate seminar and hoping to inspire graduate students to public service.  He was Secretary of Housing and Urban Development under Obama, and before that, the mayor of San Antonio.  His brother is currently elected to the US House of Representatives from San Antonio.  Both are Stanford undergrad/Harvard Law.  They are both 42.  

Anyway, now that they've been introduced to you, I'd  like to let you know that  Julián tweeted this about Twitler: "Trump's Arpaio pardon another example of just how morally bankrupt Trump is. What a national embarrassment they both are. #failedPOTUS"  Then  Julián added: "Trump in one word tonight: #pendejo".   The article said that pendejo is slang for a contemptible person, a jerk, but it is really much, much more insulting than that.  Pendejo, technically, refers to a pubic hair.  So there ya go.   Julián Castro exquisitely nailed Trump in exactly one word, using Trump's preferred medium.  This made me smile so big. 

 

[Cartmann99]

1 hour ago, Howl said:

 I'd  like to let you know that  Julián tweeted this about Twitler: "Trump's Arpaio pardon another example of just how morally bankrupt Trump is. What a national embarrassment they both are. #failedPOTUS"  Then  Julián added: "Trump in one word tonight: #pendejo".

I love it! Castro 2020! 

[GreyhoundFan]

An interesting analysis: "A common refrain on Team Trump: The real power is outside the White House"

Spoiler

The circumstances of Sebastian Gorka's departure from the White House are in dispute (anonymously sourced reports say he was fired; he says he resigned), but this much is clear: Gorka wasn't getting much done on the inside.

“It is clear to me that forces that do not support the MAGA promise are — for now — ascendant within the White House,” he wrote Friday in a letter to President Trump. “As a result, the best and most effective way I can support you, Mr. President, is from outside the People's House.”

That final sentiment — it is possible to accomplish more by not working in the administration — has become a common refrain among members of Team Trump.

When White House rapid-response director Andy Hemming left one day before Gorka, press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told Politico that Hemming and the White House had reached a “mutual decision that he could best help promote the president’s agenda on the outside.”

A week earlier, outgoing White House chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon told the Weekly Standard that he was now “free.”

“I can fight better on the outside,” he said. “I can't fight too many Democrats on the inside like I can on the outside.”

Trump's former campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, consistently pops up in news reports as a possible addition to the administration, yet he has remained in the private sector.

“I can be very, very helpful from the outside — maybe much more so than even on the inside,” Lewandowski explained to Fox News host Tucker Carlson in May.

Another campaign fixture, spokeswoman Katrina Pierson, initially accepted a role in the president's press shop but backed out before his inauguration.

“I made a personal decision to remain on the outside for now,” she told the Daily Beast in March. “I have plenty of time to serve.”

Former House speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), an informal Trump adviser who never joined the administration, talked up the benefits of staying out of the White House, in an April interview with The Washington Post.

“There is some virtue in being your own person,” he said. “It allows you to render independent judgment, to not have to say black is really green or red is really purple. When you are in the White House, any White House, you can get isolated from the larger world.”

After expressing interest in the White House press secretary gig during Trump's transition into office, radio host and LifeZette founder Laura Ingraham told administration officials that she preferred her role on the outside, when the position appeared on the verge of reopening in the weeks before Sean Spicer's resignation.

Sean Hannity, another informal Trump adviser, has said that he would never accept a role in the White House.

There is surely a lot of spin in these statements.

That job I didn't get or just lost? I didn't want it, anyway! I'm actually more powerful without it!

Riiight.

Still, the notion that certain Trump allies can be more effective on the outside is not total baloney. I have argued that is the case for Bannon and Ingraham, for example.

Most of the people named above have two things in common: They are in the media game, and they are, to borrow Gingrich's term, pirates. They are the folks who helped elect Trump by saying provocative things in the press, occasionally while wearing a necklace made of bullets.

Basically, they are better suited to campaigning than governing. A president — any president — needs a team outside of government to run a perpetual campaign while others help him run the country.

Trump's outside team is probably more influential than most because Trump is so often part of their audience, watching on TV or scrolling through Twitter. Proximity to the president is only useful if the president listens. Bannon and Gorka, marginalized when they held fancy titles, might have a better shot to sway Trump through Breitbart's tweets than they did in the West Wing.

Hannity, Ingraham, Gingrich and Lewandowski might hold Trump's attention longer on Fox News than if they were to join the administration.

When these people say they can do more outside the White House, they have a point.

It is amazing that everything with this sham administration is bassackwards.

[onekidanddone]

We all know he wants to.

How the pardon power could end Trump’s presidency

Quote

President Trump’s pardon of former Arizona sheriff and civil rights abuser Joe Arpaio raises the question of whether the president may act with impunity to pardon individuals caught up in special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation of the Trump campaign’s dealings with Russia. Based on my experience studying the pardon power during the Watergate investigation, I believe the answer is no.

Almost certainly, a presidential decision to preemptively pardon any of those caught up in Mueller’s investigation, whether former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, former national security adviser Michael Flynn or Donald Trump Jr., would be effective and would spare those pardoned from prosecution, at least on the federal level.

So Trump may be tempted to use this mechanism to extricate himself from what he calls derisively “the Russia thing.”

But issuing pardons to his own friends, associates and relatives could be a perilous path for Trump, creating additional exposure on two levels, criminal and political — both flowing from an important proposition that is often overlooked in the debate over presidential power. Our legal system provides mechanisms for probing the intent and motives behind the exercise of power. The president may have the power to grant effective pardons in the Russia investigation, but both Congress and the federal prosecutor are entitled to determine whether the exercise of that power violates constitutional and statutory norms.

The most obvious constraint is the authority of the House of Representatives to determine whether an effort to squelch an investigation into criminal misconduct by people close to the president constitutes an impeachable offense. The core concept behind “high crimes and misdemeanors” is abuse of political power in violation of the best interests of the nation. Thus, it would not be necessary for the House to conclude that the decision to issue pardons constituted a conventional “crime.” All that would be required would be to find that the motive for pardons was to protect the president’s personal interests and political future by cutting off the investigation into the misdeeds of those around him.

While impeachment remains an unlikely political prospect at the moment, so it was during Watergate — until the “Saturday Night Massacre” dramatically changed the political landscape. A decision by Trump to pardon his close friends and associates for any complicity in colluding with a hostile foreign power could easily trigger a similar firestorm, with comparable political consequences.

But Trump should not ignore the potential criminal pitfalls of exercising his pardon power in this context. As with any other presidential power, the power to pardon is constrained by the ordinary requirements of federal law applicable to all public officials. For example, if representatives of a pardon-seeker arrived in the Oval Office with a bundle of cash that the president accepted in return for a pardon, there is little doubt that the president would be guilty of the crime of bribery.

More apt than bribery in the current context is the array of federal statutes that make it a crime to “obstruct justice.” Those statutes turn on the motive behind a person’s action, even if the person otherwise has the power to take the action. For example, under Section 1503 of the federal criminal code, any person who “corruptly . . . influences, obstructs, or impedes, or endeavors to influence, obstruct, or impede, the due administration of justice” commits a felony. If Trump were to pardon any of the figures in the current Russia investigation, his action would certainly impede or obstruct the due administration of justice, as the courts have broadly construed that standard.

It would not be difficult to imagine Mueller making the case that the motive behind such interference was “corrupt.” As the Founding Fathers made plain, the purpose behind the pardon power is to extend mercy to those who have offended and have demonstrated remorse. Using the pardon power to protect the president’s own interests against embarrassment or exposure is not legitimate. Rather, a crassly self-interested exercise of presidential power to impede the due administration of justice is the very antithesis of the president’s most solemn oath — “to take care that the laws be faithfully executed.”

And that is why Trump should take care — to make sure that wielding his pardon power, however tempting, does not blow up in his face. An attempt to use pardons to defend his presidency may end up imperiling it instead.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Trump’s default response to tragedy: Politicize, promote and provoke"

Spoiler

With President Trump's visit to Texas on Tuesday come stories about how Hurricane Harvey is an opportunity — a chance to be “presidential” and to unite the country in a way he never has before (and hasn't really even seemed to want to).

NPR asked, “Can Trump Show A Nation He Cares?” The New York Times said that “Harvey gives Trump a chance to reclaim power to unify.” The Times's Glenn Thrush reports that “this time is different, people around Mr. Trump insist.” Those people say he gets the severity of the situation and has been engaged in an unprecedented way. Thrush's piece is well worth a read, and it's notable because anonymous White House aides have just as often been willing to dish about Trump not getting it — about him failing basic tasks involved in the presidency.

We shall see. But whatever Trump sees in Harvey as far as a test of presidential leadership and a time for solemnity, his past begs for skepticism. That's because Trump's penchant for controversy has never really taken a break in the face of tragedy. Faced with gravity, Trump's response has almost always been to try to defy it.

Perhaps the most telling example, of course, was just a few weeks ago when a white supremacist allegedly drove a car into a crowd in Charlottesville, killing one and injuring many others. Trump's first response was to blame “many sides.” When he was criticized for that, he briefly corrected course but then returned to the “both sides” rhetoric that has even his aides publicly breaking with him.

When tragedy struck in Orlando at the Pulse nightclub in June 2016 — the worst mass shooting in U.S. history — Trump's initial response was to claim credit for having predicted it.

...

His response to the Brussels attacks in March 2016 was similar, claiming prescience about the whole thing. In tweets and interviews, he would go on to talk about how the city had decayed — nodding to his nationalistic supporters. “Brussels was a beautiful city, a beautiful place with zero crime, and now it's a disaster city. It's a total disaster,” he told Fox News. “We have to be very careful in the United States. We have to be very vigilant as to who we allow in this country.”

...

On a smaller scale, Trump also claimed credit for his prescience when NBA star Dwyane Wade's cousin was fatally shot in Chicago last August, tweeting that it was “just what I've been saying.” He then turned it into a campaign appeal: “African-Americans will vote TRUMP!”

...

After the 2015 terrorist attack in San Bernardino, Calif., Trump frequently repeated a dubious claim that people saw the attackers building bombs but didn't turn them in for fear of being seen as racially profiling them. He also blamed the Muslim American community for not informing on fellow Muslims. “How about the person who knew what was going on said they didn't want to report them because they think it might be racial profiling, did you see that?” Trump said. “We have become so politically correct that we don't know what the hell we're doing.”

After the attacks in Paris in April, Trump was quick to say it looked “like another terrorist attack” before French authorities had even labeled it as such. He was similarly ahead of the authorities when he declared that a bomb had gone off in New York City in September.

The point is that Trump's default is not to wait and see how a situation shakes out or to be excessively cautious; it's to try to take credit and to politicize it.

That's not so much a judgment as it is a statement of fact. Politicizing stuff for what you see as a good cause — such as preventing future terrorist attacks or getting elected — is clearly justifiable in Trump's mind and to his supporters. But one thing it doesn't do is unify anybody. Other politicians are much more careful about trying to insert themselves into tragedies or trying to gain some advantage from them, even if it appears shameless and insensitive. Trump seems to believe tragedies are opportunities to No. 1 Talk about himself, No. 2 Provoke and/or No. 3 Push his agenda.

In that way, it's possible Harvey could be different. Unlike these terrorist attacks and Charlottesville, which ignited all kinds of passions about who is responsible and what might have prevented it, there is no obvious hot-button political cause presented by a natural disaster. It's about saving lives and recovery.

But we've already gotten a taste for how Trump could take this into very disunifying territory. First he lodged his hugely controversial pardon of Joe Arpaio on Friday night, just as the storm was beginning to hit Texas, and then he explained Monday that he did it so ratings would be better. (That sure doesn't suggest he's terribly concerned about being seen as exploiting Harvey.) He's also sent tweets playing up the severity of the storm — tweets that suggest he has his eye very much on how much credit he's about to get for dealing with this natural disaster.

... < unlike the other tweets in this article, this tweet is fabulous >

Those around Trump may truly believe he finally gets it. As always, they are also one wayward comment away from being very wrong.

Best, and most accurate line: "Trump seems to believe tragedies are opportunities to No. 1 Talk about himself, No. 2 Provoke and/or No. 3 Push his agenda."

[GreyhoundFan]

Countdown to tweetstorm: "Mattis freezes Trump’s ban on transgender troops, calls for more study"

Spoiler

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis announced Tuesday that he is freezing President Trump’s ban on transgender people serving in the military, saying that he will first establish a panel of experts to provide advice and recommendations on how to carry out Trump’s directive.

The Pentagon confirmed the move in a statement attributed to Mattis, saying that the Pentagon will develop a study and implementation plan “as directed.” Soon-to-be arriving political appointees at the Defense Department “will play an important role in this effort.” The plan will address both the potential for transgender people looking to serve in the military for the first time, and transgender troops who already are serving.

“Our focus must always be on what is best for the military’s combat effectiveness leading to victory on the battlefield,” Mattis said. “To that end, I will establish a panel of experts serving within the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security to provide advice and recommendations on the implementation of the president’s direction.”

Mattis added that panel members “will bring mature experience, most notably in combat and deployed operations, and seasoned judgment to this task.” The panel will “assemble and thoroughly analyze all pertinent data, quantifiable and non-quantifiable.”

The Pentagon chief said that after the panel makes its recommendations and he consults with the secretary of homeland security, he will provide his advice to Trump. In the meantime, policy regarding transgender service members will remain in place, Mattis said, meaning that those serving can continue to do so.

The issue has been especially sensitive since Trump announced on Twitter on July 26 that “after consultation with my Generals and military experts,” he would not allow transgender people to serve in the the U.S. military “in any capacity.” White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders clarified later that day that no change would be made until an implementation policy was developed.

Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, added the following day that transgender service members already serving will be treated with dignity and respect as the Pentagon sorts out its new policy, but that it would carry out Trump’s directive.

Mattis had left the door open to some transgender service members continuing to serve, referring Aug. 14 in remarks to Pentagon reporters to Dunford’s statement when asked whether any transgender people would be forced out of the military.

“The chairman immediately went out and said immediately, ‘Everyone stand fast until we get the direction,’ ” Mattis said. “I understand that this is probably more about your suspicion about what could be coming, but the fact is we have received no direction that would indicate any harm to anybody right now.”

The Obama administration repealed its ban on transgender service member serving in July 2016. A Rand Corp. study commissioned by the Pentagon found that there were between 2,500 and 7,000 transgender people among the 1.3 million on active duty, but Mattis has questioned whether the study is accurate.

 

[VixenToast]

13 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Countdown to tweetstorm: "Mattis freezes Trump’s ban on transgender troops, calls for more study"

  Reveal hidden contents

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis announced Tuesday that he is freezing President Trump’s ban on transgender people serving in the military, saying that he will first establish a panel of experts to provide advice and recommendations on how to carry out Trump’s directive.

The Pentagon confirmed the move in a statement attributed to Mattis, saying that the Pentagon will develop a study and implementation plan “as directed.” Soon-to-be arriving political appointees at the Defense Department “will play an important role in this effort.” The plan will address both the potential for transgender people looking to serve in the military for the first time, and transgender troops who already are serving.

“Our focus must always be on what is best for the military’s combat effectiveness leading to victory on the battlefield,” Mattis said. “To that end, I will establish a panel of experts serving within the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security to provide advice and recommendations on the implementation of the president’s direction.”

Mattis added that panel members “will bring mature experience, most notably in combat and deployed operations, and seasoned judgment to this task.” The panel will “assemble and thoroughly analyze all pertinent data, quantifiable and non-quantifiable.”

The Pentagon chief said that after the panel makes its recommendations and he consults with the secretary of homeland security, he will provide his advice to Trump. In the meantime, policy regarding transgender service members will remain in place, Mattis said, meaning that those serving can continue to do so.

The issue has been especially sensitive since Trump announced on Twitter on July 26 that “after consultation with my Generals and military experts,” he would not allow transgender people to serve in the the U.S. military “in any capacity.” White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders clarified later that day that no change would be made until an implementation policy was developed.

Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, added the following day that transgender service members already serving will be treated with dignity and respect as the Pentagon sorts out its new policy, but that it would carry out Trump’s directive.

Mattis had left the door open to some transgender service members continuing to serve, referring Aug. 14 in remarks to Pentagon reporters to Dunford’s statement when asked whether any transgender people would be forced out of the military.

“The chairman immediately went out and said immediately, ‘Everyone stand fast until we get the direction,’ ” Mattis said. “I understand that this is probably more about your suspicion about what could be coming, but the fact is we have received no direction that would indicate any harm to anybody right now.”

The Obama administration repealed its ban on transgender service member serving in July 2016. A Rand Corp. study commissioned by the Pentagon found that there were between 2,500 and 7,000 transgender people among the 1.3 million on active duty, but Mattis has questioned whether the study is accurate.

 

Warning: Toothache and painkillers. Rufus forgive my numerous grammatical and basically everything errors. And the rambling. Gahhhh.

Yay! As a firm supporter of LGBT and Human rights, this makes me smile. Those assholes don't realize that gender is irrelevant in the military. Perhaps the only thing I can agree with them on is it isn't prudent to have soldiers that require daily medication (diabetes, lupus, mental illness, hormones, etc.) and yes I am aware that the percentage of trans in the military needing hormones is soooo much lower than what the right seems to believe, as many are pre-op. They shouldn't be banned, not one of those people needing medicine. They might be used for back up or a myriad of other necessary things. A big military is good for us, it's what has kept us hovering near the top. Soldiers are soldiers. Not men. Not women. They are soldiers. 

Ooh, speaking of soldiers.... what if these undocumented immigrant hating bastards tried actually trying to encourage citizenship? What if an immigrant were to serve X amount of years in our military in exchange for citizenship? Like, wouldn't that be fucking amazing? Two birds, one stone, muthafuckaaaaaaaaaaaa. Cut down on illegal immigrants in the country AND boost the military? Like two of their fucking talking points right there's.

I recently took a test trying to figure out what kind of democrat I am, because I sometimes feel like I don't fit in lol. I guess I left of center..... verrrrrrry tiny bit left of center. Why am I still too "liberal" for the BTs? Every other effing republican and I can get alongside relatively well as long as they have a kind, loving heart and are open minded. Do any other moderates feel confused at the new labels? Ughhhh.

very rambly. So sorry. My teeth are rotting out of my head and the damned vidcodin has only taken the edge off even though it has been an hour and a half. Also, I feel very silly and loopy. Soooooo I LOVE YOU EVERYBODY! All my FJers, all the moderators, all the lurkers. I love all of you! Keep being amazing, intelligent hoomanns. 

 

[Howl]

Here ya go! 

Naturalization Through Military Service: Fact Sheet

Special provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) authorize U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to expedite the application and naturalization process for current members of the U.S. armed forces and veterans. Generally, qualifying military service includes service with one of the following: Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, Coast Guard and National Guard. In addition, spouses of members of the U.S. armed forces who are or will be deployed may be eligible for expedited naturalization. Other provisions of the law also allow certain spouses to complete the naturalization process abroad.

[apple1]

@VixenToast

I strongly disagree with the comment that people who require medication for diabetes (or several other meds) shouldn't serve in the military.

I have no idea if our military service actually refuse to have diabetes enlist. Plenty of long-time military members end up on diabetes meds and continue to serve quite successfully. There may be people with co-morbidities who should not serve, but as such, it's just like service members who serve successfully but take a daily med for, say, blood pressure or some such. If our military were to prohibit all people who take any medication - we would not have a military. And prohibition of all meds would only drive problems underground. A person who needs many of these basic meds is healthier when they are compliant with taking the appropriate med. Their health becomes an issue when they are non-compliant. All of this should be individual medical decisions.

FTR - I am not diabetic. My husband is, for many years (he is not in the military). I am also - (yes, I know, FJ joke) an allied health professional, with a health professional's perspective on this.

My perspective.

[GreyhoundFan]

"Why the Trump administration’s accomplishments are driving the president crazy"

Spoiler

One of Spoiler Alerts’ running themes this summer has been the historic weakness of Donald Trump as president. As I noted four weeks ago:

So, to sum up: President Trump cannot get major pieces of legislation through Congress, cannot seem to get his own Cabinet officials to respond to his whims, cannot give a speech without his hosts distancing themselves from his rhetoric, and cannot get foreign countries to defer to U.S. leadership.

Other than that, everything is peachy.

Things have gotten worse for Trump since then. His foreign economic policy has hit multiple snags. He is woefully behind in staffing his administration. His polling numbers have continued to trend south. Trump’s own Cabinet officers and White House staffers are now publicly distancing themselves from his rhetoric. Despite reports of Trump’s frustration with these public rifts, he has yet to fire anyone this week. Indeed, as Politico pointed out earlier in the week, Trump is too politically weak to fire anyone:

Said Rich Lowry, editor of National Review, “In the normal course of things, a secretary of state would be fired an hour after saying such a thing on national TV.”

The president, whose approval ratings have dropped into the 30-percent range and who has lost a raft of senior staff members, is loath to get rid of anyone right now, one adviser said. Some close to Trump note that he needs Cohn and Tillerson, seen as stabilizing forces in his administration, more than they need him at this point.

So it would seem that this is the weakest president that the country has experienced since the days of John Tyler. Which would help explain why FiveThirtyEight’s Julia Azari compared Trump to “a throwback to a previous era: Trump is — in some ways — a normal 19th-century president.”

But at this moment, it is worth pausing to appreciate that even a commander in chief as weak and feckless as Trump still has policy accomplishments. For example, Vox’s Matthew Yglesias thoroughly documented the considerable deregulatory efforts earlier this month:

Trump doesn’t tweet about it much, but it turns out that making it harder for people to avoid financial rip-offs is something of a passion for the Trump administration. He has, for example, gutted enforcement of an Obama-era rule that would have made it illegal for financial advisers to deliberately rip off their customers …

At the behest of the chemical industry, the Trump Environmental Protection Agency has approved the continued sale of a pesticide that poisons children’s brains, and at the behest of for-profit colleges, the Trump Education Department is rolling back regulations offering debt relief to students misled by scam schools.

The rollback of Obama-era regulations has continued apace. Indeed, this might be the Trump administration’s most significant policy achievement to date.

Now I am sure there are earnest fans of deregulation happy about the Trump administration’s accomplishments in this area. Ironically, however, one Trump supporter who will not be enthused by any of this is … Donald Trump.

...

Trump craves big, tangible achievements as bright, shiny objects to brag about. He craves them so much that he does not necessarily care what is in the bills he wants passed. He has displayed a willingness to bargain badly just to try to get a such accomplishments. But his offensive rhetoric, bullying demeanor and complete lack of strategic thought handicaps him so badly that he will be unable to get anything good passed by Congress or agreed upon by other countries.

All Trump can proclaim as a success is the deregulatory efforts of his executive branch. These are negative rather than positive accomplishments, in that they reverse what prior presidents have done. They are still achievements, but they are not sexy, and they’re not exactly populist either. As Yglesias writes, “The winners here are not ‘anxious’ working-class heartlanders, but the owners and managers of big companies who have the government off their backs and barely even need to defend their stances in public with Trump’s antics sucking up the bulk of attention.”

Trump is a weak president, but even his administration has accomplished some things. But they are not things Trump can brag about publicly.

This must drive him crazy.

I hope congress doesn't give him a single significant legislative victory.

[GreyhoundFan]

This is a good op-ed: "Who Decides Whether Trump Is Unfit to Govern?'

Spoiler

The mental health of Donald Trump has been under scrutiny since he began running for president. Now 28 Democratic Congress members have signed on to a bill, introduced in April, that could lead to a formal evaluation of his fitness.

The bill seeks to set in motion a part of the 25th Amendment that empowers Congress to establish a body to assess the president’s ability to govern. The commission created by the bill would have 11 members, at least eight of whom would be doctors, including four psychiatrists. If the commission doctors found Mr. Trump unfit to govern and the vice president agreed, the vice president would become acting president. Since the 25th Amendment was written to address temporary disability, it allows the president to announce that he has recovered — presumably Mr. Trump would do so immediately — and force a congressional vote on the finding of unfitness.

The role of psychiatry in this process would be problematic. One of us is a lifelong Democrat, the other a Republican (if an increasingly ambivalent one). But as psychiatrists and citizens, we agree on this point: The medical profession and democracy would be ill served if a political determination at this level were ever disguised as clinical judgment.

Much has been written lately about the Goldwater Rule, the American Psychiatric Association’s prohibition against members’ evaluating anyone they have not personally examined. The rule dates to 1973, when analysis of patients’ unconscious processes drove diagnosis. Today, diagnosis is often linked to observable traits, making evaluation at a distance plausible. Even if Mr. Trump refused to cooperate, diagnosis might be the easy part — perhaps too easy. Whether or not they can say so, many experts believe that Mr. Trump has a narcissistic personality disorder. He is grandiose, entitled, desperate for admiration and so on.

But any number of presidents have remained in office despite some level of mental impairment. Historians believe that Abraham Lincoln, for example, had clinical depression. A president can have a mental disorder and, overall, function admirably. In the absence of disability, a president may be inexperienced, indecisive or inept. Psychiatrists would be alarmed if mental illness were considered an absolute bar to public service.

The 25th Amendment is imprecise, but clearly the intent is to cover impairment arising from illness. Once an impairment is diagnosed, doctors on the panel would need to determine whether the president is incapacitated and whether the incapacity results from the disorder. For grave conditions like psychotic episodes, severe dementia or massive strokes, the connection is easy. But what of less automatically disqualifying ailments?

The traits that might earn Mr. Trump a diagnosis of personality disorder were on display during the election campaign. His supporters judged that egotism was compatible with leadership. He is governing as he campaigned. He is impulsive, erratic, belligerent and vengeful.

But is Mr. Trump unfit to govern in the meaning of the 25th Amendment? If so, its provisions might have been invoked the day he took office. If not, when did the incapacity arise? Would the commission monitor a president’s behaviors, judging which is the last straw?

In practical if perhaps not in moral terms, these decisions might be less troubling if Mr. Trump were found, say, to have Alzheimer’s disease, with a resultant coarsening of longstanding personality traits. To the extent that the president’s supporters accepted expert opinion, they might be less resistant to the removal of a demented commander in chief than a narcissistic one.

But considering personality disorder only: How does it relate to fitness? Can erratic behavior be strategic? Decisions at this level of refinement become ever less scientific, less medical.

However flawed, the Goldwater Rule saves psychiatrists from the temptation to misuse diagnosis for partisan purposes. The establishment of a standing oversight commission reintroduces this concern, in spades. Assuming that doctors confirmed that Mr. Trump was egotistic, would they then declare him unfit based on established patterns of conduct — on Trump being Trump?

That result would strike those who elected him as elitist and anti-democratic. Don’t the people have the right to choose an exceedingly narcissistic leader?

For a president who is unfit but not impeachable and who still has the support of his cabinet, the Constitution offers Congress only this one way out, a declaration of impairment presented by a deliberative body of its choice. But that body need not be dominated by doctors. Senator Birch Bayh, the Indiana Democrat who drafted the 25th Amendment, which was ratified in 1967, specifically opposed relying on physicians to make what he considered a political determination.

If the time comes that Congress finds Mr. Trump unable to discharge his duties, its members should appoint a bipartisan commission dominated by respected statesmen to set the removal process in motion. Obviously, if a president’s health deteriorates drastically, medical consultants should be called in. But when the problem is longstanding personality traits, a doctor-dominated commission simply provides cover for Congress — allowing legislators, presumably including those in the majority, to arrange for the replacement of the president while minimizing their responsibility for doing so.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Nope: "With Trump leaving tax reform to Congress, does the buck ever stop in the Oval Office?"

Spoiler

President Trump flew to Missouri on Wednesday to advocate for a reform to the tax code. The issue has been a frequent subject of his rhetoric both as president and as a candidate. His remarks focused on his push to “un-rig” the economy so that average Americans see more benefit.

He did not, however, actually outline a policy proposal.

Policy has never been Trump’s thing. On the campaign trail, he embraced the idea that detailed policy white papers weren’t interesting to voters — an idea that, to be fair, is probably correct. More broadly, he talked about policy issues only in sweeping and often internally contradictory ways, preferring not to negotiate between competing interests but to instead promise that the competing interests would all emerge with a victory.

For example: Health care would cover everyone with more benefits at a lower cost! When it came time to refine those broad strokes, though, Trump didn’t have a plan. Congress developed legislation that independent analysis said would cover fewer people with fewer benefits at a higher cost, and Trump championed it. The White House argued that they’d been involved in crafting the House legislation, but after it was passed — and after Trump invited House Republicans to the White House to celebrate its passage — Trump derided it as “mean.”

President Harry Truman had a sign on a desk that famously came to symbolize the role of the presidency. It said, simply, “The buck stops here.” At the end of the day, the final decision was the president’s. The president drove the bus.

That’s not the Trump way. Whether out of indifference, a lack of familiarity with the machinations of Washington or thanks to his historically low popular support, on many issues Trump finds himself riding as a passenger.

The House health-care bill is one example. The Senate version is another. Even after Trump called the House bill mean, Senate Republicans introduced much the same legislation. As it faltered, senators flirted with perhaps simply repealing the Affordable Care Act and replacing it at some point in the future. Trump didn’t care which approach they took, alternately arguing for one or the other depending on which appeared to be most likely at any given moment. Ultimately, it came down to this:

...

Repeal it, or repeal and replace it, whatever! Just do something, and I will sign it.

When it didn’t happen, Trump assumed none of the blame. He’s repeatedly disparaged Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for allowing the bill to fail, attacked Sen. John McCain (though not by name) during a rally in McCain’s home state of Arizona and bashed Democrats for unilaterally refusing to back the Republican health-care efforts. The buck stopped with them — McCain, McConnell, the Democrats — not with Donald Trump.

(It’s impossible to avoid mentioning another bit of context. Trump made an unusual promise during the campaign: That he alone could fix the problems of Washington. It seems he can’t.)

Policy isn’t the only place where Trump’s following someone else’s lead. There was a little-noticed anecdote reported by the Washingtonian in July that raises the question of how much ownership Trump has over the military.

Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) was speaking to attendees of a fundraising event last month when he relayed a story told to him by Trump about a phone call with Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis. Mattis had called Trump, Graham said, seeking authorization to send 50 soldiers into a town in Syria.

“Why are you calling me?” Trump replied. Because it’s what had been done for eight years, Mattis explained.

Trump asked who was asking to go into the village. A major who’d graduated West Point, Mattis said. “Why do you think I know more about that than he does?” Trump asked, and then, according to Graham, hung up.

One can read this as an effort by Trump to return microcosmic control of the military back to its commanders. One can also read this as Trump being asked by his secretary of defense to make a call about a critical operation in the fight against the Islamic State and finding the request bizarre. And, what’s more, telling the story to others in an effort to evoke the same response.

Bafflement at the request is not an unreasonable reaction outside of the context of the presidency, certainly. Were an Army officer to ask me my opinion of an operation, I’d similarly defer to his expertise. Were it to go poorly, I’d point out that this wasn’t really something that fell under my area of expertise. But then, I am not the commander in chief of the United States military. Trump is the figurative head of the Republican Party and its efforts to pass legislation. He is the literal head of our armed forces.

Even on some of his executive orders, Trump has seemed oddly distant from the decision-making process. In February, the New York Times reported that Trump was angry that he hadn’t been “fully briefed on details of the executive order he signed” appointing Stephen K. Bannon to the National Security Council. After his team’s second pass at banning immigrants from predominantly Muslim countries was rejected by the courts, Trump blamed the Department of Justice for the failure.

...

This was Trump’s call! Even more than the House health-care bill, this was something over which Trump had control. But when it failed, the buck stopped at the desk of Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

There are certainly issues in which Trump has provided guidance and direction, perhaps even areas in which he’s proposed specific changes. What we’re repeatedly seeing, though, is a president very interested in enjoying the benefits of serving in that role — but fervently disinterested in the criticisms that can result.

The president’s pitch on tax reform in Missouri included this telling section:

“I am fully committed to working with Congress to get this job done. And I don’t want to be disappointed by Congress, do you understand me?”

If tax reform — whatever it ends up being — doesn’t end up passing, it’s because Congress let Trump down. The buck? Oh, that ground to a halt at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue. It zipped through the Oval Office unimpeded.

 

[SassyPants]

On 8/29/2017 at 2:12 PM, Cartmann99 said:

I love it! Castro 2020! 

I was hoping Clinton would pick him as her running mate in 2016-

[WiseGirl]

6 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

This is a good op-ed: "Who Decides Whether Trump Is Unfit to Govern?'

 

Pick me! Pick me! I've decided he's unfit to govern. He has got to go. For some reason he is especially annoying me today. Oh yeah maybe because he's an ass that turns a tour of an area in crisis into being all about him. Really wearing a hat he sells on his website?

On 8/29/2017 at 9:19 PM, GreyhoundFan said:

Best, and most accurate line: "Trump seems to believe tragedies are opportunities to No. 1 Talk about himself, No. 2 Provoke and/or No. 3 Push his agenda."

To me, Trump seems to believe everything is an opportunity to talk about himself. By push his agenda, do they mean push his agenda to make $ for himself and family? Stoke his frail little ego? Anything but lead the USA with any sense of dignity?

[Howl]

Was talking to a family member yesterday when the conversation veered briefly to Trump. I laughed and told this thoughtful life-long Republican that I'd make a Democrat out of him yet. He told me he's no longer a Republican; he's an Independent now.   He's abandoned the Republican party because he's disgusted by them as well as Trump; he doesn't think the Trump administration is an anomaly that he'll just wait out.  His life-long political affiliation is in the rear-view mirror. I wonder how many others are making this decision?  If Independents can mount a viable candidate like Evan McMullin,  Republicans should be very, very worried. Were the MSM to start discussing Independents as a viable option, I'm sure many people would begin to seriously consider it.  Right now, I don't think many people are even aware of it as an option. 

Right now Trump is saying that talking with North Korea is past -- extremely provocative language.  Mattis then DIRECTLY contradicted Trump, by clearly stating that diplomacy is always an option. 

[GreyhoundFan]

Excellent piece by Jennifer Rubin: "Trump may get bitten by his own abuse of the pardon power'

Spoiler

On Wednesday, we reported on two surprising developments relating to the pardon of ex-sheriff Joe Arpaio: a challenge to the president’s pardon power and a court’s decision to hold a hearing rather than summarily dismiss the case. Even if you believe there is no effective limit on presidential pardons (e.g., the president could pardon every white cop who kills an African American youth), the Arpaio pardon has opened a can of worms — and previewed the firestorm that would erupt if Trump tried to pardon associates and family members with regard to the Russia investigation.

To begin with, a pardon only gets one off the hook for federal criminal matters. The Arpaio contempt order, for example, stemmed from a civil suit brought by the ACLU. Any orders or remedies obtained in that action are unaffected by a pardon. Likewise, as Lawfare blog recounted earlier this summer, there is a “sleeper” civil suit against the Trump campaign and Roger Stone over the Russia scandal:

The suit alleges that the campaign and Stone conspired with the Russians to release information about the plaintiffs—who are not public figures—in a fashion that violates their privacy rights under D.C. law. and intimidates them out of political advocacy. . . .

There’s just no question that this complaint alleges injury in fact or that it seeks relief of a type courts normally grant. What’s more, the case does not present in any sense a political question or a matter that courts are likely to duck. And cleverly, it also doesn’t name the President himself as a defendant, so there’s no argument—as there is with some other cases—that the suit cannot proceed because of presidential immunity.

In short, Arpaio may still face civil lawsuits from those he harmed. In the Russia scandal, a presidential pardon won’t prevent the Russia lawsuit (complete with discovery including depositions) from going forward.

In addition, state criminal prosecutions can certainly attach to much of the behavior that may be at issue. Arizona prosecutors so far aren’t proceeding with any state law prosecutions, but it’s not impossible to imagine state indictments for assault, false imprisonment, etc. In the context of the Russia investigation, Trump’s family and associates would be subject to the eagle eye of New York state and city prosecutors for example, who might explore possible financial crimes and state laws prohibiting obstruction of justice, perjury and other potential claims arising out of the subsequent investigation by the FBI and the special prosecutor. According to NBC News, use of state criminal law is already under contemplation:

According to U.S. intelligence and public accounts, Russian efforts included criminal hacking into Democratic National Committee emails, a conspiracy to distribute that stolen material, and separate computer intrusions into state election systems. That activity could form the basis of felony cases in several states, and conspiracy charges if any Americans were found to be involved. Local prosecutors have not disclosed investigations of such conduct. Typically, state and local prosecutors defer to federal investigators, especially in national security cases. But pardons could change that. According to a source with knowledge of one state attorney general’s preparations, the office is already studying its potential state jurisdiction for Russia-related crimes.

Now civil suits and state law prosecutions against those pardoned are one side of the coin, but there are also dire consequences for Trump that may flow if he decided hand out pardons.

For one thing, the courts may push back, as Josh Blackmun writes:

At bottom, the pardon amounts to an executive nullification of a district judge’s finding of criminal contempt of court. There is no allegation that the district court erred, or that Arpaio was the victim of a miscarriage of justice, or that the sentence was unjust (for, indeed, no sentence had even been imposed). To the contrary, as far as I understand, most of Arpaio’s most egregious conduct will go unpunished. Combined with his frequent attacks on the judiciary, this latest episode will no doubt harden Pharaoh’s proverbial heart. The consequences are predictable. This coming term at the Supreme Court is shaping up to be an incredible blockbuster season, with decision after decision affecting the scope of the President’s powers. The Solicitor General’s task becomes even more intractable as a result of this presidential action. Further, lest we forget, Justice Anthony Kennedy’s decision about whether to retire or not may well be conditioned by the current state of affairs at term’s end.

Moreover, pardoning associates to hide one’s own misconduct is precisely the sort of thing that would fall under “high crimes and misdemeanors,” keeping in mind that impeachment does not require any finding of criminal liability. Certainly if the Democrats take the House majority in 2018, impeachment would proceed. But a flagrant attempt to evade investigation by firing both the FBI director and the special prosecutor (in the vein of the Saturday Night Massacre during Watergate) might convince even squeamish Republicans to exercise their constitutional responsibilities.

Congress is not without power to act now — and in this case Democrats have. On Wednesday, all House Judiciary Committee Democrats wrote to the committee’s chairman, Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), asking him to hold an oversight hearing:

We ask for several reasons. The pardon sends an unequivocal signal that institutionalized racial profiling as practiced by Sheriff Arpaio is acceptable; the pardon is disrespectful to the rule of law in general and to the federal courts in particular; and the President issued the pardon in the complete absence of any advisory role by the Department of Justice and after the President had already asked Attorney General Sessions to drop the case completely.  As you are well aware, although the President has wide constitutional authority to issue pardons, there is also ample precedent for our Committee to review pardons as controversial as this one.

(They of course refer to hearings after President Ford’s pardon of Richard Nixon and after President Clinton’s pardon of Marc Rich.)

The Democrats cite the injury to the rule of law as one reason to examine the pardon. (“The pardon not only disregards the rule of law, it directly flouts the courts themselves by signaling that it is acceptable for parties to ignore court orders.  President Trump regularly and needlessly criticizes both the judiciary in general and specific judges on a personal basis.”) But then comes the most important reason, namely that Trump in pardoning Arpaio called attention to his own effort to get the attorney general to drop the case. And that seems awfully similar to Trump’s effort to get former FBI director James B. Comey to lay off Michael Flynn:

Although Department leadership is to be commended for advising the President that his request was inappropriate, the conversation fits into a larger pattern of improper contact between the Trump White House and the Department of Justice. Our Committee has long defended the view that presidents should avoid involvement in specific criminal cases in order to avoid even the perception of politicizing the administration of justice.  President Trump regularly ignores that standard.  If our Committee is unwilling to even debate the matter, what is to stop this president—or any other president—from doing so again?

Goodlatte is a pro-Trump loyalist so do not expect him to grant the request. But the Senate is another matter. And of course the special prosecutor may find interesting a pattern of attempts to prevent prosecution of the president’s pals.

In sum, controversial pardons will only spare Trump’s friends and family from federal prosecution, not from civil suits and state prosecutions. Moreover, his actions will certainly be included in any impeachment effort. And if you think a president can be prosecuted for actions in office, then Robert S. Mueller, one would think, could certainly construct a compelling case for obstruction of justice that includes the president’s desire to shut down the case against Arpaio.

Goodlatte won't move against the orange menace, but I'm glad others are trying.

[GreyhoundFan]

"Fact-checking President Trump’s speech on his tax plan"

Spoiler

President Trump on Wednesday delivered an address on his “principles” for a tax plan in Springfield, Mo., though he provided few details. He also shifted from extolling how well the economy is doing to language that suggested the United States was suffering terribly. As usual, some of the president’s  facts and figures were a bit fishy, so here’s a roundup of 10 of his claims.

“In the last 10 years, our economy has grown at only around 2 percent a year.”

This is misleading. By going back 10 years, Trump includes the worst recession since the Great Depression, which brings down the 10-year average. This chart shows that that quarterly average since the recession was well above 2 percent, even hitting 5 percent in the third quarter of 2014. The GDP growth rate for the United States averaged 3.22 percent from 1947 to 2017.

...

“We just announced that we hit 3 percent in GDP. Just came out. And on a yearly basis, as you know, the last administration, during an eight-year period, never hit 3 percent.”

Trump plays some sleight-of-hand with the numbers. He first cites an annualized quarterly figure — 3 percent GDP growth in the second quarter of 2017 — and then compares it to what appears to be calendar-year figures for former president Barack Obama.

As the chart above shows, the economy grew better than 3 percent in eight quarters during Obama’s presidency, most recently in the third quarter of 2016. (Technically, this is known as “annualized quarterly change” or SAAR — seasonally adjusted at annual rate.) Trump gets his terminology wrong, using the phrase “yearly basis,” which could mean from the third quarter of 2015 to the the third quarter of 2016, which case Obama easily exceeded 3 percent numerous times. On an annual basis, Obama’s best year was 2015, when annual growth was 2.6 percent.

“If we achieve sustained 3 percent growth, that means 12 million new jobs and $10 trillion of new economic activity over the next decade. That’s some numbers.”

With this statement, Trump downgrades promises he made during the 2016 campaign — he said he would achieve 4 percent GDP growth and 25 million jobs over 10 years.

“In 1935, the basic 1040 form that most people file had two simple pages of instruction. Today, that basic form has 100 pages of instructions, and it’s pretty complex stuff.”

Trump is correct that in 1935, the basic 1040 individual income tax form had two pages of instructions, but this claim needs historical context.

There are many reasons the instructions were so simple back then — including that just about 4 percent of the population paid the federal individual income tax. In 1935, the individual income tax largely was a tax on the wealthy. In fact, the top rate in 1935 was 63 percent — and President Franklin D. Roosevelt raised it to 75 percent later that year.

This changed with World War II. “Driven by staggering revenue needs, lawmakers in both parties agreed to raise taxes on everyone: rich, poor, and — especially — the middle class,” wrote John Thorndike, director of the Tax History Project.

“The tax code is so complicated that more than 90 percent of Americans need professional help to do their own taxes.”

This is misleading. The 90 percent figure he is referring to includes people using tax software, such as Turbo Tax, which helps people file their taxes on their own. According to the National Taxpayer Advocate’s 2016 report, 54 percent of individual taxpayers pay preparers and about 40 percent of individual taxpayers use software that costs about $50 or more.

Yet later during the speech, he made it sound as if the “professional help” is only referring to hired accountants: “That is why tax reform must dramatically simplify the tax code … and allow the vast majority of our citizens to file their taxes on a single, simple page without having to hire an accountant.”

“Our last major tax rewrite was 31 years ago. It eliminated dozens of loopholes and special interest tax breaks, reduced the number of tax brackets from 15 to two, and lowered tax rates for both individuals and businesses. At the time it was really something special … In 1986, Ronald Reagan led the world by cutting our corporate tax rate to 34 percent. That was below the average rate for developed countries at the time. Everybody thought that was a monumental thing that happened. But then, under this pro-America system, our economy boomed. It just went beautifully right through the roof. The middle class thrived, and median family income increased.”

Trump heaped praise on Reagan’s Tax Reform Act of 1986, which simplified tax brackets and eliminated tax shelters; it also lowered the top individual tax rate to 28 percent but raised the capital gains rate to the same level, giving them parity. But this is a rather strange flip-flop because Trump always has been a fierce critic of the bill, blaming it repeatedly for the savings and loan crisis, a decline in real estate investing and the 1990-1991 recession.

“This tax act was just an absolute catastrophe for the country, for the real estate industry, and I really hope that something can be done,” Trump told Congress in 1991. In a television interview with Joan Rivers, he said: “What caused the savings and loan crisis was the 1986 tax law change. It was a disaster. It took all of the incentives away from investors.”

Trump also frequently attacked one of the Democratic sponsors of the bill, Sen. Bill Bradley (D-N.J.), such as in a Wall Street Journal commentary in 1999. “Mr. Bradley’s last big idea to be enacted into legislation was also one of the worst ideas in recent history,” Trump wrote, saying Bradley was responsible for the elimination of a tax shelter for real estate investments. (He said the good parts of the bill could be attributed to Reagan.)

“We lost the jobs. We lost the taxes. They closed the buildings. They closed the plants and factories. We got nothing but unemployment. We got nothing.”

As Trump frequently notes, the unemployment rate in July was 4.3 percent — the lowest level in 16 years. So this overwrought language seems misplaced.

“We have gone from a tax rate that is lower than our economic competitors, to one that is more than 60 percent higher. … In other words, foreign companies have more than a 60 percent tax advantage over American companies.”

The United States certainly has one of the highest statutory corporate tax rates in the world, currently pegged as high as 39.1 percent when including state taxes. (The federal rate is 35 percent.) Trump says it is 60 percent higher than “our economic competitors,” comparing 39.1 percent to the average rate for the other members of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, which is 25.5 percent when not weighted for GDP. (It is 29.6 percent when weighted for GDP.)

But the official rate does not necessarily tell the whole story. What also matters is the actual tax a company pays, after deductions and tax benefits. That is known as the effective tax rate, which can be calculated differently depending on the survey. According to the Congressional Research Service, the effective rate for the United States is 27.1 percent, compared to an effective GDP-weighted average of 27.7 percent for the OECD. “Although the U.S. statutory tax rate is higher, the average effective rate is about the same, and the marginal rate on new investment is only slightly higher,” the CRS says.

The Congressional Budget Office, when it examined the issue, said the U.S. effective tax rate was 18.6 percent, which it said was among the highest of the biggest economic powers, the Group of 20.

Trump, naturally, used the numbers that suggest the difference is really huge.

“Today, we are still taxing our businesses at 35 percent, and it’s way more than that. And think of it, in some cases, way above 40 percent when you include state and local taxes in various states. The United States is now behind France, behind Germany, behind Canada, Ireland, Japan, Mexico, South Korea and many other nations.”

As we noted, the statutory federal corporate tax rate in the United States is 35 percent, making the United States the highest among G-20 countries, including the countries Trump listed. But the effective corporate tax rate in the United States in 2012 was 18.6 percent, making it the fourth highest among G-20 countries, behind Argentina, Japan and Britain, according to the CBO.

“Because of our high tax rate and horrible, outdated, bureaucratic rules, large companies that do business overseas will often park their profits offshore to avoid paying a high United States tax if the money is brought back home. So they leave the money over there. The amount of money we’re talking about is anywhere from $3 trillion to $5 trillion.”

There are no official, current numbers on the profits held overseas by U.S. companies, just estimates. The White House would not respond to a query on where Trump is getting these numbers, but his high-end figure appears to be an exaggeration. The Internal Revenue Service in 2012 said the figure was $2.3 trillion, and the Joint Committee on Taxation estimated that it had risen to $2.6 trillion in 2015. There are other estimates as well, but none top $2.8 trillion, according to PolitiFact.

They didn't assign Pinocchios, but there was definitely some misleading crap spewed by the orange menace.

[fraurosena]

Trump Pitches Tax Reform—But Again Provides No Actual Plan

Quote

President Donald Trump made his case for tax reform on Wednesday, relying heavily on populist themes to tout a broad plan that claims to boost the American economy and deliver a “big fat beautiful paycheck” to the middle class. 

“We’re here today to launch our plans to bring back Main Street by reducing the crumbling burden on our companies and on our workers,” Trump said in a speech inside a manufacturing plant in Springfield, Missouri. “The foundation of our job creation agenda is to fundamentally reform our tax code for the first time in more than 30 years.” 

There were few new details about the plan, beyond the brief, one-page outline his administration unveiled in April that was heavily criticized as a boon for corporations and the wealthiest Americans.

Rather than providing specifics, Trump on Wednesday appeared to frame his pitch as a challenge for Congress to be responsible for fulfilling the goal of tax reform.

“I don’t want to be disappointed by Congress—do you understand me?” he said, in comments that appeared to echo his criticism for the Republican failure to repeal the Affordable Care Act. 

“I think Congress is going to make a comeback—I hope so,” Trump continued. “I’ll tell you what, the United States is counting on it.”

He also singled out Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), telling the crowd to vote her out of office if she did not support his push for tax cuts.

For more on how Trump’s proposal benefits the richest Americans, head to our explainer here.

He's using the bullying tactics against Congress again, I see. Like that will work... 

I do wonder what McCaskill said or did lately that he had to single her out so specifically.

Oh, just saw this tweet. So true, this should be pointed out endlessly:

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Don’t buy the latest round of laughable Trump White House spin"

Spoiler

Donald Trump is suddenly overcome with a profound sense of concern over the possibility that he may be abusing his own power as president. No, really, this is what multiple news organizations are now reporting — and asking us to believe.

But, given Trump’s track record when it comes to constraining his authority thus far, perhaps a hint of skepticism is in order?

The president is nearing a very difficult decision on the fate of some 800,000 people who were brought to this country illegally as children. He has to decide whether to end the Obama-era executive action that shields those people, the “dreamers,” from deportation and permits them to work, which is called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals.

From news reports, we are now getting a deeper glimpse into the deliberations of Trump and his top advisers on this dilemma. Axios reports that the White House is keenly aware that ending DACA would create major complications for businesses that employ these people. Some White House staffers are also worried about facing scalding criticism for ending the program, which would uproot the lives of many people who were brought here through no fault of their own, who are thoroughly American and who want to contribute positively to American life. Staffers view the opprobrium they would face as akin to that which met Trump’s thinly veiled Muslim ban; his pullout from the Paris climate deal; and his failure to unambiguously condemn the Charlottesville white supremacists.

In other words, some people in the White House appear to believe that (just as in those other cases) ending protections for the dreamers risks putting them on the wrong side of a deeply consequential moral dilemma — and would have terrible practical consequences for the country as well. But according to Axios, Trump may pull the plug on DACA because the prevailing White House view is that continuing it would be illegal:

Senior officials tell us the majority view inside the Trump administration is that DACA is illegal, and the only way to deal with the problem of illegal immigrants who arrived here as children is for Congress to act.

The Associated Press similarly reports that Trump is expected to end the program. Sources tell the AP that the administration is deeply split between those who argue for keeping the program (Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump) and the immigration hard-liners who have argued that it is unconstitutional (Stephen Miller, Jeff Sessions, the now-departed Stephen K. Bannon). So Trump is likely to side with the immigration hard-liners, who are leaking that they believe keeping this executive action violates the Constitution — and this will be the defense for ending it.

Are you freaking kidding me? Are we really supposed to believe the constitutionality of the program is weighing on Trump or will be instrumental in shaping his final decision?

It is a truly shocking coincidence that the same advisers who are telling Trump that DACA is unconstitutional were also the ones most responsible for the disguised Muslim ban and also pushed Trump to pardon Joe Arpaio. Bannon and Miller were key drivers of the ban’s original rollout. They both reportedly favored pardoning Arpaio. My point is not just that this strongly suggests their view of DACA’s constitutionality is rooted in their hostility to immigrants, though it does.

It’s also that this hints at an amusing double standard on the part of the White House’s immigration hard-line faction when it comes to the care with which they approach Trump’s exercise of his authority. Bannon and Miller’s haste to rush out the travel ban led them to trample all over the proper legal process for such measures, which in turn helped lead to its initial blockage by the courts. Bannon and Miller also appear to have privately told Trump that pardoning Arpaio would please his base, which only underscores how cavalier they were about a major decision with serious separation-of-powers implications. While Trump’s pardon power is quasi-absolute, there is widespread agreement that this nonetheless constituted an abuse of his power, something that plainly did not concern Bannon and Miller.

Nor was Trump remotely concerned about the legal details surrounding his use of executive authority to institute the veiled ban on Muslims, or about the prospect that pardoning Arpaio might constitute an abuse of his power. And do we really need to remind you of Trump’s abuses of power and lawlessness in other areas — the emoluments clause violations; the firing of the FBI director over the Russia probe after demanding his loyalty; the rage at his attorney general for failing to protect him from that probe; and the obvious use of the Arpaio pardon to signal that more pardons on Russia may be coming?

To be clear, I’m not arguing that there is not a legitimate debate over whether DACA is constitutional. There is. My own view is that DACA and Obama’s attempted expansion of it, which was blocked by the courts, are legitimate exercises of executive discretion. But it’s not really that unreasonable to argue that they aren’t. DACA and its expansion did push hard into new legal territory. It is plausible that the courts would strike DACA down. This would not be a wildly absurd decision. Similarly, though some conservatives like to pretend DACA’s unconstitutionality is an easy call, this is actually grounds for a legitimate legal dispute in both directions. Indeed, four Supreme Court justices and a host of legal experts, including ones who lean to the right, did not see Obama’s expansion of it as illegal. Many argue DACA is legal.

So this is not a slam-dunk case in either direction. But does anyone really believe that Trump, Bannon or Miller, of all people, are motivated by any good-faith effort to determine whether DACA constitutes an abuse of the president’s power? Come on now. Seriously?

...

I don't think I'd believe most members of this administration if they told me Thursday follows Wednesday.

[VixenToast]

 @apple1 haha, yeah, rereading that I should clarify that what was floating around my Loopy brain was in situations of active combat where there might not be access to those neccessary medications and end up hurting that service member. Of course the military should take care of its members, medication included, and those who require daily medication shouldn't be barred from service. Those people say that trans need hormones and medicines and if they ran out of meedicine it would be bad for the platoon, stupid crap. And I'm here thinking, okay, what about others who take meds daily? They still serve. Fuck, those BTs are so cruel. Saying things like they don't want people who are confused about themselves defending their country. I should then ask them when they intend to enlist, shouldn't I?

FWIW, I am bipolar and take meds every day. Also, I ought to resist the urge to PainKill and FJ lol.

[TeddyBonkers]

Late to the party, but wanted to mention that I had a First Sergeant who was diabetic. (I'm not sure if he enlisted with it, or it manifested during his time in service.) ANYWAY, he had diabetes and was still able to deploy to Iraq. Good guy.

I have a lot of respect for Mattis. A fuck of a lot more than I have for Trumpf.

[GreyhoundFan]

"Trump fatigue comes early"

Spoiler

Americans eventually tire of the presidents they elect. The political skills that fuel the rise of Roosevelts, Reagans and Obamas always seem to lose their allure over time as the promise of “Morning in America” and “Hope and Change” devolves into the cynicism of “Been There, Done That.”

Lyndon Johnson won in a landslide in 1964 but was pushed out of office four years later. Ronald Reagan breezed to reelection by winning 49 states in 1984, but two years later his power of persuasion was gone. In 1986, the Great Communicator couldn’t persuade voters living through the last days of the Cold War to support anti-communist allies in Central America. Even in the afterglow of Barack Obama’s 2012 reelection, the biggest political star in the world couldn’t pass gun reforms that 90 percent of Americans supported following the Sandy Hook massacre.

President Trump is, of course, the most radical example of this negative political phenomenon. Seven months into his maniacal presidency, Trump is driving his approval ratings to record lows and causing friends and foes alike to experience premature presidential fatigue.

Former allies on the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal and Washington Examiner now criticize Trump for leadership failures and his abuse of power. Republicans on Capitol Hill more frequently call out the president’s aberrant behavior. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) questions the president’s ability to survive. The chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee questions Trump’s stability.

By now, the president’s low poll numbers rarely raise an eyebrow. Newspapers have repeated ad nauseam that Trump is saddled with the worst approval ratings in U.S. history at this stage of his presidency. But this week, those lame approval ratings collapsed to a new low of 34 percent. A Fox News poll released Wednesday found that nearly 6 in 10 Americans believe Trump’s presidency is “tearing America apart.” And only 20 percent of younger voters now support the 71-year-old former reality television star.

And even Trump’s famously forgiving base is growing tired of the commander in chief’s reckless routine. Trump supporters in a Pittsburgh focus group talked about how their patience with the petulant president was reaching an exhausting end. “Everybody knew he was a nut, but there comes a point in time where you need to become professional. He’s not even professional let alone presidential. Chill out, man,” was a woman’s advice. Another Trump supporter said that Trump’s manic need to dominate news cycles was driving him crazy. “He’s on the television all the time.” Another weary supporter said, “He’s such an incredibly flawed individual who has articulated many of the values that I hold dear and the messenger is overwhelming the message.”

That focus group sounded a lot like recent phone calls I had with friends in Pensacola and Birmingham who have been Trump supporters from the start. Not long ago, most were telling me that I needed to back off the president and give him a chance to succeed. But after Charlottesville, that began to change. One friend after another tells me they have had enough of Trump’s self-destructive behavior and are tired of the president being his own worst enemy. Like the focus group, my Republican friends are growing impatient with the man they once believed could change Washington and make America great again.

The president keeps bleeding support, Democrats remain rudderless, Washington is still gridlocked, and the problems that propelled Trump to the presidency are getting worse. From Pittsburgh to Pensacola, many Trump voters would prefer a leader who stops attacking allies, stays off Twitter and lets Congress get something done before Democrats retake control.

I had Drumpf fatigue before he even considered running.

[GrumpyGran]

1 hour ago, GreyhoundFan said:

“Everybody knew he was a nut, but there comes a point in time where you need to become professional. He’s not even professional let alone presidential. Chill out, man,” was a woman’s advice.

Whaaaat? Isn't that like saying "I shot myself in the foot but I thought it would be okay. Damn, though, that thing's starting to look baaad!"

In my limited experience, it's a bit silly to expect a 70 year old to "become" professional.

[GreyhoundFan]

"During a summer of crisis, Trump chafes against criticism and new controls"

Spoiler

President Trump spent the final days of August dutifully performing his job. He tended to the massive recovery from Hurricane Harvey. He hit the road to sell his tax-cut plan. And he convened policy meetings on the federal budget and the North Korean nuclear threat.

Behind the scenes during a summer of crisis, however, Trump appears to pine for the days when the Oval Office was a bustling hub of visitors and gossip, over which he presided as impresario. He fumes that he does not get the credit he thinks he deserves from the media or the allegiance from fellow Republican leaders he says he is owed. He boasts about his presidency in superlatives, but confidants privately fret about his suddenly dark moods.

And some of Trump’s friends fear that the short-tempered president is on an inevitable collision course with White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly.

Trump chafes at some of the retired Marine Corps general’s moves to restrict access to him since he took the job almost a month ago, said several people close to the president. They run counter to Trump’s love of spontaneity and brashness, prompting some Trump loyalists to derisively dub Kelly “the church lady” because they consider him strict and morally superior.

“He’s having a very hard time,” one friend who spoke with Trump this week said of the president. “He doesn’t like the way the media’s handling him. He doesn’t like how Kelly’s handling him. He’s turning on people that are very close to him.”

Aides say Trump admires Kelly’s credentials, respects his leadership and management skills, and praises him often, both in private meetings and at public events. In a tax policy speech Wednesday in Missouri, Trump singled out Kelly’s work to decrease the number of illegal border crossings when he was secretary of homeland security.

Meanwhile, people close to the president said he is simmering with displeasure over what he considers personal disloyalty from National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn, who criticized Trump’s responses to a deadly white supremacist rally in Charlottesville on Aug. 12. He also has grown increasingly frustrated with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who has clashed with the president on issues including Afghanistan troop levels, the blockade on Qatar and Cuba policy.

This portrait of Trump as he enters what could be his most consequential month in office is based on interviews with 15 senior White House officials, outside advisers and friends of the president, many of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to be candid.

In September, Trump will face deadlines to raise the federal debt ceiling and pass a spending bill possibly tied to his campaign promise to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border; make his first big push for tax cuts; and oversee a potentially historic disaster recovery in Texas and Louisiana.

If Trump’s 75-minute rally performance on Aug. 22 in Phoenix served as a public testimonial to his rage over the media and Congress, he is agitating privately about other concerns, as well.

Trump lashed out at George Gigicos, one of his original campaign staff members, for what the president considered unflattering television camera angles at the Phoenix rally, which Bloomberg News first reported. The president also was distressed by a New York Times report that was posted a few hours before the event documenting the turmoil between him and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

Trump was especially angered by something he learned at his stop earlier in the day, a border visit in Yuma, Ariz., several of his associates said.

A group of Border Patrol agents who had endorsed him and become campaign-trail buddies initially were blocked by the Trump administration from attending. Although the agents eventually were allowed into the event, the president made his displeasure about their treatment known to Kelly, said people who were briefed about the incident. Two of those people said Trump raised his voice with his chief of staff, whom he faulted for trying to restrict outside friends from having direct access to him.

That evening in Phoenix, Trump attempted to call Kelly onto the stage. “Where’s John?” he asked. “Where is he? Where’s General Kelly? Get him out here. He’s great. He’s doing a great job.”

Kelly did not join his boss in front of the crowd.

“It is not unusual for staffers to hear him bluster about things,” said Barry Bennett, a former campaign adviser. “That doesn’t mean it’s real. There were people on the campaign staff that he said to fire a dozen times, but he never did it. It was just bark. And some people don’t know the difference between the bark and the bite.”

Kelly took the job with the express goal of implementing strict order in a West Wing that had become rife with turmoil, infighting and damaging leaks to the media.

Friends used to be able to call the White House and be patched directly through to Trump; now those calls are routed through Kelly and do not always make it to the president. Friends used to drop by the West Wing when they had time to kill, wandering to the Oval Office to say hello; now they must have an official appointment — and a clear reason — to visit.

The changes are largely welcomed by senior administration officials, who say the president’s time is too valuable to be wasted on chitchat and hangers-on.

But Trump sometimes defies — and even resents — the new structure. He has been especially sensitive to the way Kelly’s rigid structure is portrayed in the media and strives to disabuse people of the notion that he is being managed. The president continues to call business friends and outside advisers, including former chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon, from his personal phone when Kelly is not around, said people with knowledge of the calls.

“Donald Trump resists being handled,” said Roger Stone, a former Trump adviser and longtime confidant. “Nobody tells him who to see, who to listen to, what to read, what he can say.” Stone added, “General Kelly is trying to treat the president like a mushroom. Keeping him in the dark and feeding him s--- is not going to work. Donald Trump is a free spirit.”

Kelly has told colleagues that he has no intention of controlling what Trump says or tweets. Although he has tried to manage the information the president receives, Kelly recognizes that there are limits to what he can do, according to White House officials.

“The president can turn on the television, the president can call people, and the president can read the newspaper,” said a Republican close to the White House who added that the onus is on Trump, not his staff, to control his impulses.

Trump has jettisoned some of the more controversial figures in his administration this summer. For instance, the firing of Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci after just 10 days earned the flamboyant aide the moniker “suicide bomber” in the West Wing for having taken down with him Chief of Staff Reince Priebus and press secretary Sean Spicer. Trump also parted ways with Bannon, who often channeled the president’s nationalist instincts.

More changes may be afoot under Kelly, who is continuing his personnel review and is said to be targeting aides without clear portfolios of responsibility.

On Tillerson, Trump has come to see his top diplomat’s approach to world affairs as “totally establishment,” in the words of one Trump associate. Several people close to Trump said they would be surprised if Tillerson stays in his post past his one-year mark in January. They hinted that his departure may come far sooner, with one describing it as “imminent.”

And some who have recently seen Tillerson say the former ExxonMobil chief executive — unaccustomed to taking orders from a superior, let alone one as capricious as Trump — also seems to be ready to end his State Department tenure. He has grumbled privately to Kelly about Trump’s recent controversies, said two people familiar with their relationship.

Others, however, caution that Tillerson remains fully enmeshed in the administration. After having lunch with the president Monday, Tillerson sat in the front row of Trump’s joint news conference with the president of Finland and was a key member of Cabinet discussions focused on handling Hurricane Harvey.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters Wednesday that Trump “absolutely” has confidence in Tillerson.

Tillerson made headlines over the weekend when he was asked on “Fox News Sunday,” in the context of Charlottesville, whether Trump speaks for American values. “The president speaks for himself,” Tillerson told anchor Chris Wallace.

Many Trump insiders were aghast at the diplomat’s apparent denunciation of the president, but several senior White House officials said Trump’s frustration with Tillerson has been about specific policies. The Fox interview did not bother Trump, one official said, even though the president was upset about Cohn’s scolding of him to the Financial Times.

Trump was especially upset that Cohn went public with his complaints about the president’s handling of Charlottesville, even after Trump listened to Cohn vent during a private meeting on Aug. 18 in Bedminster, N.J.

The president has been quietly fuming about Cohn for the past week but has resisted dismissing him in part because he has been the face, along with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, of the administration’s tax-cut strategy.

Still, Trump has other ways to slight Cohn. The economic adviser traveled with Trump on Wednesday to Springfield, Mo., for his speech about tax reform, yet when the president ticked through “the many distinguished guests” in attendance, he did not mention Cohn. Afterward, Ivanka Trump, the president’s daughter, tweeted a call for tax reform with a picture of Trump backstage flanked by her and Mnuchin. Notably absent was Cohn, the plan’s co-architect.

Asked about the perceived insults, Sanders told reporters aboard Air Force One on the flight home to Washington that it was “pretty standard tactics” for Trump not to call out staff members in his remarks.

Pressed on the state of Trump and Cohn’s relationship, Sanders said only that both men are committed to tax reform.

“Well, look,” she said, “Gary is here. The president is here.”

Poor widdle TT, he doesn't like to be "managed".