Facilitating A Sham

We must stop fronting for these frauds.

In February, Politico's Tim Alberta interviewed South Carolina senator Mark Sanford and gushed

then he does the strangest thing of all: He lays waste to the president of his own party.

Most Republicans in Washington are biting their tongues when it comes to Donald Trump, fearful that any candid criticisms of the new president could invite a backlash from their constituents or, potentially worse, provoke retribution from the commander in chief himself.

Mark Sanford is not like most Republicans in Washington.

His policy résumé is beyond reproach to those on the right: He was D.C.’s dashing fiscal hawk during his first stint in the House...

In May, the Washington Post's Ed O'Keefe remarked that Senator Jeff

Flake (R-Ariz.) isn’t afraid to buck President Trump — or to defy the Republican orthodoxy in Washington that the agenda is proceeding apace. He did it last year, refusing to support Trump for president, and he’s doing it again now by publicly doubting that the GOP can revamp the nation’s health-care system.

Last month, New York Magazine's Eric Levitz referred to

the tune that GOP leaders have been singing to their party’s few sincere deficit hawks. And those lonely fiscal scolds know they’re being lied to.

“The savings, the score, it just isn’t valid because you know that they’re not going to follow through,” Arizona senator Jeff Flake said recently. “You can’t assume that we’ll grow a backbone later. If we can’t do it now, then it’s tough to do it later.”

Flake isn’t the only Senate Republican who isn’t crazy about drastically expanding the debt that his party spent the past eight years decrying. 

Levitz then cited Flake's Arizona colleague, John McCain, as well as senators Bob Corker (Tennessee), Todd Young (Indiana), and James Lankford (Oklahoma) as among the GOP's "deficit hawks."  For real.  (Video below is from October, 2017.)





These five Republican senators- as well as Representative Sanford- have something in common. They all supported the Corporate Tax Scam of 2017.

John McCain, at home recuperating from surgery for a brain tumor, did not vote but already had made it known that he would support the legislation. The others actually voted in favor of  a bill expected to increase the debt by $1,440,000,000,000.

Corker and Flake, who already have announced their retirement, are probably merely cashing in, anxious to sell themselves to the highest-bidding conservative think tanks, which in turn may enjoy the honor of billing themselves "fiscal hawks" while being fiscally reckless.

Levitz at least acknowledged that only by voting against the tax scheme would GOP senators be putting "fiscal responsibility above upward redistribution."

Lankford, Young, Sanford, and other Republicans may be afraid of a primary challenge or of the tweets- or mere disapproval- of Donald J. Trump. Or they may be living the dream of Paul Davis Ryan, eager to run the deficit up so he may complain later that Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, and other pillars of the social safety net must be sacrificed in the name of "fiscal responsibility."

Their motives are not fully known and may be varied. But we do know that they are not fiscally responsible, are not "fiscal conservatives" or "deficit hawks," and are carrying water for President Trump. They are getting are a major break from a media unwilling to acknowledge that GOP talk about debt and deficits was, is, and always shall be all talk and no action.


To Christians: Merry Christmas
     
                   To Jews: Belated Happy Chanukah
\                                 
                                     To Donald Trump:  Happy Holidays!

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Let's Call It A "Boot."

We don't know how the vote will proceed on the Corporate Tax Scam of 2017 once it's reconciled but as for now, good on you, Bob Corker. And John McCain gets a pass, even though he was captured because, well, because he was captured, tortured, and then he refused release.  But....

as for you, Ben Sasse:  candidate Donald J. Trump tweeted "@Ben Sasse looks more like a gym rat than a U.S. Senator. How the hell did he ever get elected?"





as for you, Marco Rubio: candidate Donald J. Trump tweeted "Little Marco Rubio the lightweight no show Senator from Florida is just another Wahington politician." (Rubio reportedly is 5'10"; the average American male, 5'9").

as for you, Rand Paul: candidate Donald J. Trump: Donald J. Trump tweeted "Why would anyone in Kentucky listen to failed presidential candidate Rand Paul re: caucus. Made a fool of himself (1%.) KY his second choice!"  (Translation: "get rid of him, Kentucky voters.")

as for you, Ted Cruz: candidate Donald J. Trump tweeted "Wow, Lyin' Ted Cruz really went wacko today. Made all sorts of crazy charges. Can't function under presure- not very presidential! Sad!" (Also, he linked your father to assassination of John F. Kennedy.)

as for you, Lindsey Graham: candidate Donald J. Trump gave out your cell phone number and publicly called you an "idiot" and "lightweight." (In fairness, you have tried to prove him right.)





as for you, Dean Heller:  President Trump at a White House luncheon quipped "You weren't there (on ACA repeal) but you're going to be." After the desired laughter, it was "Look, he wants to remain a senator, doesn't he?" (Nice little Senate seat you have there. Be a shame if something happened to it.")

as for you, Jeff Flake:  President Trump tweeted "Great to see that Dr. Kelli Ward is runing against Flake Jeff Flake, who is WEAK on borders, crime and a non-factor in Senate. He's toxic!" ("WEAK on crime" from a guy accused of sexual assault (by conservative definition, not this one) at least twice and sexual harassment several times.)

as for you, Lisa Murkowski: President Trump tweeted "Senator @lisa murkowski of the Great State of Alaska really let the Republicans, our our country down, yesterday. Too Bad!" (Admittedly, a relatively mild rebuke for voting to uphold the ACA. He's a misogynist; of course he treats women differently than men.)

And so you have it.  Forty-two Republicans, including the sainted Susan Collins, voting for the Corporate Tax Scam of 2017 because, as Graham and Rep. Chris Collins admitted, they're scared of their donors or, as Rubio revealed, it will create the pretext for going after Medicare and Social Security.

Then there were the other senators, who will give all manner of excuses. However, there is one thing certain: each was humiliated, receiving a boot up their rear end by Donald J. Trump. All of them now have voted to enhance the prestige and power of that same man by simultaneously voting for his unpopular tax cut plan and health care mandate repeal.  There are eight GOP senators (seven if Lisa M. is generously excluded) who have no spine but like the feel of the Timberland up their rear end.




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What Trump Had In Mind

Some reporters and pundits believe that the Senate Minority Leader and the House Minority Leader made a strategic error in refusing to meet with President Grump over the government shutdown. However, Lawrence O'Donnell explains (segment from the beginning, quote from 4:03, of the video below):

Paul Ryan  and Mitch McConnell knew exactly why Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi weren't there today and they would have done exactly the same thing if it could have happened to them, which of course it never could because no Democratic president in history would ever insult the leadership of the other Party publicly when he was expecting to see them at a meeting in the White House. And so Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan knew the instant they saw the latest lie-filled Trump tweet this morning what was probably going to happen.

"Meeting with 'Chuck and Nancy' today about keeping government open and working. Problem is they want illegal immigrants flooding into our Country unchecked, are weak on Crime and want to substantially RAISE Taxes. I  don't see a deal." 

And so for what- the idiot presidency that has been firing off lie-filled tweets at members of Congress in both parties (who) all year paid a very serious price today for the idiocy and for the lying. And we can only hope for the sake of the country, for the sake of sanity in government, that as a condition for re-entering the White House or any room to participate in any form of conversation with Donald Trump, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer will make it an absolute requirement that the President apologize for lying about them and their Democratic colleagues by saying that they want illegal immigrants flooding into the country unchecked and for saying that they are weak on crime and for saying that they substantially want to raise taxes.

Donald Trump will not apologize. He apologized once in his life- for saying what he was caught on the Access Hollywood tape boasting about- and now is reportedly claiming that the voice on the tape was not his own. Further, if he can claim with impunity that Doug Jones is weak on crime, he can say it about anyone. Immigration is his signature issue. It is the big lie of the GOP, repeated since at least the lying days of Ronald (6) Wilson (6) Reagan (6), that Democrats want to raise taxes. Without it, they have nothing.

O'Donnell realizes that Trump will not apologize but that the Schumer/Pelosi strategy nonetheless is necessary. He recognizes

Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer now have the most powerful leverage anyone has ever had over Donald Trump to force him to retract lies, important lies. The President of the United States is lying about what is at stake in his discusssions with the Democrats. The President of the United States is lying that the Democrats want to substantially raise taxes, and so if  the Democrats reach any kind of legislative deal about anything that does not raise taxes, then Donald Trump will play them for suckers and claim that he won in that deal, whatever that deal might be becuase it does not raise taxes. 

The President is as of this moment playing Lindsey Nelson and Bob Corker, two Senators who have been vicioously attacked and publicly humiliated by Donald Trump, but who voted in the Budget Committee to pass on to the floor the tax bill Trump desperately wants. But the two top Democrats are not so easily used and abused and

Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi did not get played today by Donald Trump. If they and their advisers understand the importance of the moment than Trump has now given them. Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer will make Donald Trump pay for his lies in a way that is not settling some petty score but an important lesson about the real governing questions involved in funding the government.

Americans have reason to fear tonight that the Trump insult machine has become so normalized in Washington that Nancy Pelosi and Donald Trump will not demand a retraction from Donald Trump as a condition for dealing with him and if they don't, the truth will suffer once again and the future of governance in this country will take a turn for the worse. It is against most politician's nature to be confrontational in these situations.  They are compromisers by nature, especially in the congressional leadership and especially when the rationale for compromise is for the good of the country as it always is when trying to prevent a government shutdown, which is now eleven days away if Congress does not pass some kind of spending bill.

The government may stop operating in the short term. However

sometimes what is more important to the good of the country is not what happens if the government doesn't function properly tomorrow but what happens to the fundamental integrity of the governing process and that has been irredeemably corrupted by the lies of Donald Trump- the daily, unceasing lies of the President of  the United States about large and small times. And this time fighting against lies is more important than fighting to keep the government open because the Republicans don't know how to do that for themselves.





There isn't even much wailing and gnashing of teeth from Republicans. Mostly, there are GOP members of Congress telling receptive reporters that they really, really don't like the President's behavior. Nevertheless, they will (as the psychologists call it) "enable" him, encourage his lies and tweets and insults and threats by voting to give him a win in the House and the Senate.

Trump says the Democratic leaders "want illegal immigrants flooding into our Country unchecked, are weak on crime and want to substantially raise taxes." And he acknowledged that nothing would be accomplished by a meeting because "I don't see a deal."

Imagine you're a married couple invited for dinner at the home of an individual with whom you've had a tenuous relationship. The morning of the appointed day, your prospective host tells everyone- your friends, antagonists, and others- that you "are fine with the neglect of children and want to see them abused. I don't think we're going to get along."

Imagine, additionally, that you're a Repub member of Congress. You will moan and groan, express discomfort with your host, and go to the dinner, only to be humiliated then or at a later date.

Now imagine that you are Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi. You refuse, maintain your dignity and the dignity of your family, and demonstrate that you will not be played or manipulated.  That's leadership.




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Trump A-OK With Them

In early August, CNN political analyst Julian Zelizer wrote

Many Republican legislators have been reluctant to tackle the Russia problem, while only a handful of Republicans actually voted "no" on the health care bill despite all the fireworks about the revolt of the moderate three in the Senate. A surprising number of House Republicans outside the Freedom Caucus voted in support of an extraordinarily conservative bill. As Jennifer Senior wrote in her New York Times review of Sen. Flake's new book: "But Flake has also cast most of his votes in favor of Trump's policies."

Almost no Republicans have objected to the extreme measures that President Trump has been pursuing through executive action, such as rolling back regulations to curb climate change or ramping up border security.

There was little pushback when the President responded to his week of crisis by supporting legislation to severely cut down on immigration and "joked" about wanting more police brutality, all of which were meant to be part of what amounted to "Don't Worry, I'm a Conservative Republican Week." 

Two months later, and it's more of the same.  Politico reports

House Speaker Paul Ryan on Wednesday downplayed the ongoing feud between President Donald Trump and GOP Sen. Bob Corker, advising the two men to talk through their differences but also joking that he’s been there, too.

The Wisconsin Republican, known for his no-drama approach to Trump, quipped that “I’ve had my share too” when asked about the Corker-Trump spat. Trump often hit Ryan last year for initially refusing to endorse his candidacy and then later refusing to campaign with him following Trump's “Access Hollywood” scandal.

No. President Obama was "no drama Obama." The Speaker of the House is "Donald, may I kiss your ass Ryan."

Ryan is a member of the House of Representatives, almost required by law to chide Senators.  But the other chamber is bringing to itself no glory as yesterday we learned

The standoff has Senate Republicans forced to choose between a senior senator and the president of their own party. And it's exacerbating the perception of Republican dysfunction at a time that the party's agenda is stalled on Capitol Hill and a slate of outsiders is threatening primaries against GOP incumbents.

The Corker-Trump tussle has been playing out for months, but it ratcheted up after Corker announced his retirement two weeks ago.

Trump “needs to stop. But I wish Bob would stop too. Just stop,” said Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) in an interview Tuesday. "We’ve got so many other things that we need to be focusing on right now. We need to look ahead, not reflect on anything that’s been done or said in the past.”

Suggesting an equivalence between President Trump and Senator Corker- or between Donald Trump and almost anyone not actively associated with organized crime- is an example of moral equivalence, which conservatives of an earlier generation would decry. However, the GOP, Senator Ernst contends, should "be focusing on right now" and must "look ahead."

So here is something for Joni Ernst to focuse on now- the war the President is coaxing Kim Jong Un to begin. She can look ahead, even, to the hundreds of thousands of Korean lives which probably would be lost.

But she won't, will she? GOP senators, willing to sell their country out for tax cuts for the wealthy under the banner "tax reform," are ethically bankrupt. Bob Corker is no profile in courage, yet is beginning to look like a fortress of bravery compared to his colleagues.

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Uncorking Criticism

On Sunday morning, Tennessee Republican Bob Corker tweeted "It's a shame White House has become an adult day care center. Someone obviously missed their shift this morning."

On "Fox and Friends," Conway blasted the Senator's tweet as "incredibly irresponsible" which "adds to the insulting that the mainstream media and the president's detractors ... to their ability and their cover to speak about the president of the United States ... in ways that no president should be talked about."

You do realize what you're saying, don't you, Kellyanne Fitzpatrick Conway?

That same president has derided "cryin' Chuck, " "crazy Mika," "psycho Joe (Scarborough)," and "very WEAK" Jeff Sessions. Before taking office, he ridiculed a major opponent as "little Marco" for an allegedly small penis, and an American POW and US Senator as "not a hero" because he "was captured" before he was given a room to be tortured at the Hanoi Hilton. (There are many more examples.)

House Freedom Caucus chairman Meadows tweeted "it's easy to be bold when you're not coming back," tacitly acknowledging that he (as well as virtually every other Republican) is holding his fire because he's afraid of a primary challenge from the right or of a temper tantrum from the President.

You do realize what you're saying, don't you, Mark Meadows?

Corker had been prompted by a Sunday morning tweet from Trump in which the President falsely accused the Senator of having "begged" him for an endorsement and falsely (and bizarrely) of having been "largely responsible for the horrendous Iran Deal!" In remarks he made to the New York Times published Sunday night, Corker maintained Trump "would have to concern anyone who cares about our nation" and "every single day at the White House, it's a situation of trying to contain him." He behaves "like he's doing 'The Apprentice' or something," the Senator maintained.





Although he has been a fairly consistent vote for Trump's extremist agenda, in speaking truth to power, Corker has done what few Republican members of Congress have done.  It can be awfully lonely, even if not running for re-election, to be out on the limb, here other Republicans can cut it off.

On Monday night, Steve Bannon argued on Fox News "if Bob Corker has any honor... he should resign," a clear sign the Senator should stick it out until his term ends, and encourage his colleagues to join him in admitting the emperor has no clothes. It's not up to him now to be the voice crying out in the wilderness, but for other Republicans to show some backbone they lack.





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Nothing New Under The Sun. Or With McCain.

Give a Republican some credit. The ranking Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, Tennessee Senator Bob Corker, has remarked

I regret the situation in Iraq has devolved to where it is and the many decisions and circumstances that have led us to this point. While I support the administration's short-term actions to respond to the current crisis, I expect them to lay out in the coming days the objectives they hope to achieve and the related time frame.

President Obama ought to offer the nation a forthright explanation of our objectives.  Certainly, he hopes- and expects- the military involvement in Iraq he recently announced to be of limited duration or, as the Tennessee Repub put it, "related time frame."

But two other Republicans have reacted as one would expect.  House Speaker John Boehner, with neither a clue nor a guiding principle, remarked "The president’s authorization of airstrikes is appropriate, but like many Americans, I am dismayed by the ongoing absence of a strategy for countering the grave threat ISIS poses to the region.”

John McCain, always with more principle than common sense, has commented to The Daily Beast of the smart bombs dropped on ISIS convoys approaching the capital city of Iraqi Kurdistan

This is a pinprick... it’s almost worse than nothing because I fear the president is threatening and then he won’t follow through....It’s the weakest possible response and we cannot allow them to take Erbil. What [the administration has] done so far is almost meaningless.

McCain, who advocates more airstrikes against ISIS in Iraq and Syria and arming the Kurdistan resistance, added "We are paying the price for inaction and we are paying the price for withdrawal.  [Doing more] would contradict some of the fundamentals of [Obama’s] national security policy. But it’s just tragic.”

It is indeed tragic that the Arizona Senator is still beating that dead horse, still evidently unaware that we are not paying the price for withdrawal but for the initial invasion of Iraq- and despite conventional wisdom, for the surge that McCain loves more than life itself.

The primary challenge to the Beltway wisdom that the Surge was a success has been from a few foreign policy experts who argue the Anbar Awakening was more instrumental in reducing the level of violence in Iraq.  However, last month Adam Barr explained

It cannot be denied that the surge and Anbar Awakening were successful in decreasing the levels of violence in Iraq, both against Iraqi citizens and coalition forces. However, I will show that the surge and the U.S. sponsoring of the SOI in the Anbar Awakening held only short-term benefits for Iraq that paved the way for U.S. withdrawal. These short-term benefits of violence reduction came at the cost of long-term stability in Iraq after the U.S. forces withdrew, due to the bottom-up approach that the surge and Awakening took, which was “adopted for near-term advantage by a frustrated administration” (Simon, 2008: 58). The bottom-up strategies of the surge and Awakening fostered the retribalisation of Iraq, undermining the authority of the central government and the cohesion of the country; encouraged the growth of warlordism – especially amongst the Sunni tribes; and failed to address the driving forces behind much of the sectarian violence, instead providing a short-term ‘band aid’ approach to the problem. Moreover, the U.S. failed to use its leverage against the Maliki government to pursue a top-down approach to stabilising the country in the long-term, which should have focused on repatriating the Sunnis back into the political process at an earlier date and brokered a more sustainable power sharing agreement. By addressing these issues, it is apparent that when it withdraws from Iraq, the

“United States will be leaving a country more divided than the one it invaded – thanks to a strategy that has systematically nourished domestic rivalries in order to maintain an illusory short-term stability” (Simon, 2008: 70).

And so it goes. Notwithstanding the apparent departure of al-Maliki (photo below from AFP/Getty via Foreign Policy blog The Cable), the situation in Iraq likely will remain unstable through the next presidential election. There will be no avoiding the issue for either side and it is no more likely the GOP presidential candidate or congressional candidates will blandly refer to "circumstances" than the Republican Party will assume blame for lighting the fire itself in Iraq.

Bob Corker's statement is an outlier. Complexity is as foreign concept to its side as the nation of Iraq itself. John McCain is paving the way for Republican candidates in at lest the next two election cycles to pound on the themes of premature withdrawal, "inaction," or "weakness," It's how they play the game, and the canard of Republican strength and Democratic weakness dies hard.

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Corkernomics

Josh Israel (emphasis his) at Think Progress quotes Senator Bob Corker contending on GOP News Sunday

I think there–by the way–is a chance on a deal. I know the president is saying the right things and we have an opportunity over the next four-to-five months. I think that we’ll know when the president is serious by virtue of a process is setup where he is actually at the table or he has a designee and whether he begins to say publicly to the American people, to all Americans, that he understands that Americans are only paying one-third of the cost of Medicare and that has to change for the program to be here down the road. But look, Chris, I think Republicans — if they saw true entitlement reform — would be glad to look at tax reform that generates additional revenues. And that doesn’t mean increasing rates, that means closing loopholes. That also means arranging our tax system so that we have economic growth. And I think we’ve been saying that from day one.

The Tennessee Republican has come up with an ingenious and pretty clever way of recommending that Medicare be slashed.  Don't recommend a cut to Medicare- urge that Americans pay a greater share of the program.  But Medicare is effective, providing health care for less than does private insurance and far less than when an individual privately pays, precisely because it is a government program. It's difficult to determine whether Corker wants simply to slice and dice the Medicare program or instead to push individuals out of Medicare and into Medicare Advantage or other private programs.  Either would jack up the cost of health care overall because consumers would not have the benefit of the federal government's ability to bargain with providers.   But it would please the health care industry, which in the 2010 election cycle gave Corker more than any but five U.S. Senate candidates.

The alternative, Corker claims, is "for the program (not) to be here down the road."  It's only with earned benefits- Medicare and Social Security- that it is argued the program can survive only if it is cut.  "We must reduce the cost of defense  to the American people if it is to survive" is a claim yet to be made.

Israel fails to emphasize Corker's last sentence "And I think we've been saying that from day one."  But that's a pity because it lays bare the Senator's meaning.   Republicans from day one have not been saying that additional revenues or fewer loopholes have been needed.  Instead, they have been peddling at least since a meeting in 1974 among Arthur Laffer, Jude Wanniski, and Dick Cheney.  They believe that reducing revenues through tax cuts magically increases revenues.  And they believe, contrary to most evidence, that reducing taxes substantially increases economic growth.   The New York Times' David Leonhardt explained in September

When the top marginal rate was 70 percent or higher, as it was from 1940 to 1980, tax cuts really could make a big difference, notes Donald Marron, director of the highly regarded Tax Policy Center and another former Bush administration official. When the top rate is 35 percent, as it is today, a tax cut packs much less economic punch.

“At the level of taxes we’ve been at the last couple decades and the magnitude of the changes we’ve had, it’s hard to make the argument that tax rates have a big effect on economic growth,” Mr. Marron said. Similarly, a new report from the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service found that, over the past 65 years, changes in the top tax rate “do not appear correlated with economic growth.”

The minimal correlation between low tax rates and economic growth has been a negative one.   The author, "an engineer turned math teacher" of conceptualmath.org, presents four graphs/tables (below).  The first two, he observes, demonstrate "low taxes correlate to slow growth. When marginal taxes on the rich were below 40% growth remained below 4.5%. When top taxes were above 65% growth tended to be higher, even going above 6%. Historically, higher taxes on the rich have correlated to higher growth."   The last two indicate, on average, that in the year following a tax cut, there has been a slight decline in employment or gross domestic product.

Making the comparison:

	Max Tax below 40%	Max Tax above 65%
Average Growth	3.0%	3.5%
25 percentile	2.5%	2.0%
75 percentile	4.0%	5.7%
Maximum Growth	4.5%	8.7%

Year of tax cut GDP growth Employment growth before after change before after change 1964 4.6% 5.7% +1.1 No Data 1971 2.9% 2.6% -0.3 0.6% 2.3% +1.7 1981 2.8% 3.5% +0.7 1.8% .1.4% -0.4 1987 3.7% 2.3% -1.4 2.6% 1.1% -1.5 2001 3.3% 2.7% -0.6 1.2% -0.4% -1.6 Typical change -0.25% -0.6% Year of tax increase before after before after 1993 1.9% 3.7% +1.7% 0.8% 2.5% +1.7% All that, of course, matters little in a deficit-crazed environment in which one party is unconcerned about the deficit or the debt and merely is determined to shrink the size of government so it can be drowned in a bathtub.

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