The Three Free Votes

Credit should be given to Republican senators Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and Mitt Romney of Utah for deciding to vote to confirm the nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson to the US Supreme Court. The Washington Post noted that 47 Republicans had voted against confirmation

But to three Republican senators, the narrative that Jackson was a partisan extremist did not ring true. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said Jackson had the “experience, qualifications, and integrity” to merit confirmation and, in backing Jackson, appealed to her colleagues to step back from the partisan brinkmanship that has increasingly dominated Supreme Court confirmations.

 Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said much the same, decrying the “corrosive politicization of the review process for Supreme Court nominees, which, on both sides of the aisle, is growing worse and more detached from reality by the year.” Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), meanwhile, declared Jackson to be “a well-qualified jurist and a person of honor.”

You can be forgiven if you believed those GOP votes were pivotal, or even significant.  Collins made her announcement on March 30, thereby, as The Post noted, "becoming the first Republican senator to publicly back President Biden’s nominee and all but guaranteeing Jackson will become the first Black female justice in history. "

The following Monday, Senator Murkowski announced that she would vote for Jackson and Senator Romney followed a couple of hours later.

That was all for show.  The real news had come five days before Collins' statement when on March 25 Senator Joe Manchin announced

that he will vote for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to be confirmed to the Supreme Court, clearing the way to an all-but-certain confirmation.

The West Virginia Democrat has become a pivotal vote in the evenly divided Senate, as he often sides with Republicans, and his opposition could have blocked Jackson from becoming the first Black woman to sit on the bench.

President Biden needed support from all fifty Democrats, thus ensuring approval of the nomination with the tie-breaking vote of Vice-President Kamala Harris.

Harris was present on Wednesday to preside over the Senate but her vote would not be needed because of support of the three GOP senators. However, their vote became moot once Joe Manchin gave his thumbs-up. It was only then that Senator Collins, followed by senators Murkowski and Romney, decided to throw in with the majority and be on the winning side.

Republicans don't suffer apostates gladly. Of the GOP House members who voted to impeach Donald Trump after January 6, 2020

in the year since the deadliest attack on the Capitol in centuries, none of the 10 lawmakers have been able to avoid the consequences of a fundamental miscalculation about the direction of their party. The former president is very much the leader of the Republicans, and it is those who stood against him whom the party has thrust into the role of pariah.

Since they cast their impeachment votes on Jan. 13, Representatives Anthony Gonzalez of Ohio and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois have announced their retirements amid death threats from voters and hostility from colleagues. Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming has gone from a star in the House Republican leadership to an exiled party gadfly and truth teller.

Representatives Jaime Herrera Beutler of Washington, Peter Meijer of Michigan and Fred Upton of Michigan have Trump-endorsed primary challengers on their heels and uncertain political futures. Four others — John Katko of New York, Dan Newhouse of Washington, Tom Rice of South Carolina and David Valadao of California — have gone to ground, silent if not silenced, in the apparent hope that the entire episode will be forgotten.

But what has been the reaction of politicians or voters of the Republican Party? Thus far, at least: crickets.  Confirmation of Judge Jackson was, as Joe Biden would have put it at a younger age, "a big f-"- well, you know the rest. For the media and much of the Democratic base, it was a big deal because Ketanji Brown Jackson thus became the first black woman on the Supreme Court.  For those less impressed by an individual's pigment or chromosomal makeup, it is because the Court has gained another liberal voice, and a highly impressive one at that.

Nonetheless, senators Collins, Murkowski, and Romney have not incurred criticism for breaking ranks with their party colleagues and the betting here is that they will face little or none. Those 47 other Republican senators and the GOP members of the House- including such luminaries as Lauren Boebert, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Matt Gaetz, and Paul Gosar- know the score. So does Donald J. Trump, who generally tolerates no disloyalty. They knew the die was cast when Joe Manchin decided to back Jackson.

It's likely that had Manchin declared opposition to the nomination, neither of the three Republican senators who voted for the judge would have done so.  Any Republican who dared to cross the GOP leadership would have provided the Democrat's crucial 50th vote in the Senate, and none would have done so. Senator Manchin ultimately was responsible for three votes aside his own.

Having cast their irrelevant votes, Collins, Murkowski, and Romney will return to voting as right-wing party loyalists.  Joe Manchin will continue to be Joe Manchin, who is no prize. But in the matter of filling out the Court with someone so worthy, the West Virginia senator did come up big as the 50th Senator Ketanji Brown Jackson, Joe Biden, and the country needed.

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The Show

Alert the FBI. Someone has kidnapped the invariably progressive and realistic Robert Reich and is tweeting from his account.

Susan Collins joined John Lewis in Selma for the 50th Anniversary of Bloody Sunday. Lisa Murkowski is the only Republican who voted to bring the John Lewis Voting Rights Act to a vote last fall. And Mitt Romney voted to convict Trump in the first impeachment trial.

Worth a try.

— Robert Reich (@RBReich) January 11, 2022

President Biden is still afraid of the reaction from the "defeated president" if he dare to utter the name "Donald Trump." But he continually called Republicans when in Georgia he remarked

The Vice President and I have supported voting rights bills since day one of this administration.  But each and every time, Senate Republicans have blocked the way.  Republicans oppose even debating the issue.  You hear me?...

Not a single Republican has displayed the courage to stand up to a defeated president to protect America’s right to vote.  Not one.  Not one....

The filibuster is not used by Republicans to bring the Senate together but to pull it further apart.

Maybe there is nothing to lose by trying to court Republicans, although it's unlikely to bear fruit. Susan Collins' photo-op in Selma for the 59th anniversary of Bloody Sunday and Mitt Romney's vote to convict Donald Trump in one of two impeachment trials should give no encouragement.

Susan Collins marched in Selma to demonstrate her "disappointment" because she's always "concerned," though rarely enough to deviate from the Trump Party line.  And Mitt Romney marched in a Black Lives Matter protest so he can be seen at a time when anyone who is anyone was on the black lives matter train (now, not so much).  There is little to show for that concern while Romney remains dead set against reforming the filibuster.

"You will recognize them by their fruits," Jesus Christ reportedly warned.  Mitt Romney and, especially, Susan Collins put on an act. They're there for the photo-ops and the quotes of little substance. (Lisa Murkowski is more low-key.) But they are, like 48 of their GOP colleagues, aware that their party will gain a majority, and power in Congress and the White House, only if individuals are discouraged from voting. 

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Courage, At The Moment

Walter Shaub, head of the Office of Government Ethics under President Obama who usually is right on target:

No points for the couple Republican Senators who only now say they'll vote for witnesses. Rather than putting pressure on their colleagues by declaring their position earlier, they waited until it was clear their vote wouldn't change the outcome. "Best of both worlds" they think.

— Walter Shaub (@waltshaub) January 31, 2020

Media personality Soledad O'Brien, who has it right a little less often, evidently agrees with Shaub with

He could do so much more. This is absurd. https://t.co/NDz8VrRATe

— Soledad O'Brien (@soledadobrien) January 31, 2020

Romney may or may not vote to convict the President in his impeachment "trial." However, if he does, he imperils his re-election prospects in Utah. If instead he decides to walk away from the Senate, his opportunity to be a GOP talking head or lobbyist declines significantly. Two weeks ago, the Salt Lake Tribune reported

Mitt Romney’s approval among Republicans and independents appears to be slipping as he heads into the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump, where the Utah Republican is breaking with the president and GOP leaders by calling for at least one witness, former National Security Adviser John Bolton, to testify.

Romney, though, appears to be gaining traction with Democrats who are giving him better marks.

A Morning Consult poll shows an 18 percent drop of Romney’s approval rating among Republicans in the last four months of 2019 as compared to the quarter before that. And 9% of independents swung to disapproving of Romney quarter over quarter, the poll found.

This is Utah. If Mitt Romney is re-nominated, he is re-elected. He does not need support among Democrats in Utah, in which Republicans outnumber Democrats by more than 3-1. 

The former Michigan governor needs only limited support among Unaffiliated voters (and none among Democrats), probably a majority of whom in conservative Utah oppose conviction of the President. He must win a primary and opposition to Donald Trump makes that much harder. The tweets would not be kind and the rallies for his opponent would sting.

That's a different situation than faced Senator Susan Collins. The main obstacle to re-election of the Main incumbent is the general election. Moreover, she notably waited until the last minute to make her decision, and Howard Dean understands

She is not break ranks. She cooked a deal with Moscow Mitch to help her preserve her seat after Lamar killed witnesses. The people of Maine are sick of this. She should have left after two terms as she promised she would. https://t.co/RbxWWwBfPt

— Howard Dean (@GovHowardDean) January 31, 2020

Mitt Romney believes there should be witnesses, urged by the prosecution to prove (further) its case. Defenders of the President, his team of attorneys, argued against it and won the day because neither integrity nor courage is in big supply in the GOP caucus.

Nonetheless, as irrational as it would be, it is possible that the Utah senator will vote to acquit Donald Trump. However, in this one moment, on Thursday, January 30, Senator Mitt Romney showed some courage, and did so alone among his Repub colleagues.

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Very Effective Myth

As someone who believed Mitt Romney and Hillary Clinton would square off in the 2008 presidential primary, I recognize- at least in hindsight- a bad prediction when I see one.

A couple of hours after Senator Susan Collins delivered her stunningly disingenuous or remarkably naive speech endorsing Brett Kavanaugh, Slate's legal editor, Mark Joseph Stern, demolished her argument. However, when Kavanaugh buddy Ed Whelan speculated that Dr. Ford's allegation of attempted rape was all a matter of mistaken identity, Stern wrote

If the people who helped construct and hype this notion really thought it would work, then this nomination is in on the verge of collapse. Whelan’s theory is astonishingly desperate, an outlandish and potentially defamatory Hail Mary that no rational person would find persuasive. His willingness to humiliate himself and destroy his reputation in a calamitously misguided effort to push Kavanaugh over the finish line speaks volumes. Hard as it may be to believe, this is apparently the best they’ve got.

The best thev've got (or the grammatically correct "the best they have") has proven to be quite enough. Several Republicans picked up on it and as Chris Hayes would tweet, "the Ed Whelan theory (or some version of it) has basically become the default consensus of the GOP." An hour or so later, Whelan's theory reached its apogee in Senator Collins' speech endorsing Kavanaugh when, in high hypocrisy, she stated

Mr. President, I listened carefully to Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony before the Judiciary Committee. I found her testimony to be sincere, painful, and compelling. I believe that she is a survivor of a sexual assault and that this trauma has upended her life. Nevertheless, the four witnesses she named could not corroborate any of the events of that evening gathering where she says the assault occurred; none of the individuals Professor Ford says were at the party has any recollection at all of that night.

Those four do not include Mark Judge, the individual identified by Dr. Ford as having participated in the (alleged) attempted rape. Nor did any state that the assault did not happen.

Republicans don't expect quite to co-opt #MeToo. But they do want to defuse the movement. They can't do that by charging that the woman- any woman- is lying or that a devastating incident never happened. So they claim they believe the "testimony" is "sincere, painful, and compelling." But, poor dear, she doesn't realize it was some other guy who did it to her.

It is a disingenuous, dishonest, even sexist, argument. Women are separated from their own agency. They do not have the capacity of lying, which normal, autonomous beings are able to do. They are mistaken or deluded.

They care so much for Christine Blasey Ford. Collins added "Watching her, Mr. President, I could not help but feel that some people who wanted to engineer the defeat of this nomination cared little, if at all, for her well-being.". Then she announced she will vote to put onto the Supreme Court for life the man whom the poor dear credibly maintains attempted to rape her. Forty-eight of her GOP colleagues, given cover by the Whelan theory, will do so, too,

Ed Whelan was ridiculed in some quarters when he floated his theory. But truth be damned, so Republican senators unwrapped this present, applied more discreet, tasteful gift wrap, then re-gifted it.

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No Red Line There

Mark Warner, ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, means well.  He has tweeted "any attempt to remove the Special Counsel, pardon key witnesses, or otherwise interfere in the investigation, would be a gross abuse of power" and "all members of Congress, from both parties, have a responsibility to our Constitution and to our country to make that clear immediately."

Nonetheless, the Virginia senator also tweeted "I've said it before, and I am saying it again: firing the Special Counsel is a red line that the President cannot cross." 

Saying it repeatedly, unfortunately, won't make it magically happen, though perhaps Warner meant that this President cannot cross a red line with Mueller any more than the previous one did with Syria, which meant nothing, notwithstanding helping defeat Hillary Clinton.

As Natasha Bertrand has noted, "Trump asked Comey for loyalty; asked him to drop the Flynn probe; fired Comey; pressured Sessions not to recuse; pressured Sessions to fire McCabe; pressured Coats, Rogers, Pompeo & multiple congresmen to say he wasn't under FBI investigation; and tried to fire Mueller."(He also fired Sally Yates.)

Trump calls the investigation a "witch hunt" and has such members of Congress  as Senators Cornyn and Johnson criticizing the FBI and Representative Trey Gowdy undermining the FBI. Devin Nunes has beeen such a toady for Dear Leader that if he isn't being paid a salary as a member of the President's communications team, he should sue. (Meanwhile, Martin Luther King's birthday came and went without a hint of criticism from them over FBI surveillance of the Reverend Dr.; can't imagine why.)






But the best evidence that firing Mueller is no "red line" that cannot be crossed ironically comes from the Senator who at one time seemed exorcised by the possibility. The Daily Beast's Betsy Woodruff reports

Sen. Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican in his first term, made headlines over the summer when he signed on to legislation with Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) that would have shielded Mueller from being fired. But Tillis has largely abandoned the push to move that legislation forward while conceding that the bill doesn’t have the support to get through Congress. His office says he still supports the bill, but that the matter isn’t urgent since Trump says he doesn’t plan to fire Mueller....

On Thursday night, The New York Times reported that Trump tried to fire the special counsel last summer. (Tillis spokesperson Daniel) Keylin told The Daily Beast that despite the revelation, Tillis continues to trust that the president isn’t planning to fire Mueller, who is leading an investigation into potential coordination between the Trump campaign and the Russian government during the 2016 election.

The Senator is blowing smoke up our posterior or, as the commercial puts it, our kiester (Wisconsin).  Woodruff further explains

the dialing back of the Senator's support is significant. Unlike Graham, who veers between bashing Trump and golfing with him, and Coons and Booker—both Democrats—Tillis could bring the legislation to shield Mueller serious bipartisan bona fides. When he introduced his bill, Tillis similarly didn’t believe that a firing of Mueller was near, but he pitched the legislation as a precautionary measure.

“I don’t have any evidence to suggest the White House had any intention of doing it [firing Mueller], but it’s a helpful way for us to take it off the table,” he explained.

Now the proposal has been all but taken off the table- not because firing Mueller is a longshot but because it would put congressional Republicans into a bind.  They would have to choose between giving to Trump a pass on an act which would instantly incite massive demonstrations nationally or angering the President's base, much of which is unyielding. Republicans who would vote in favor of Tillis-Coons also would be subject to Trump's angry and derisive tweets, and Republicans don't like to get their feelings hurt.

And then there is the matter of taxes for the wealthy, which Sarah Ellison described in August as it pertained to Paul Ryan, who had condemned Donald Trump for his 7/15 charge that Mexico was sending "their rapists" to the USA; allegation that Judge Curiel was biased because his descendants were from Mexico;  travel ban; and comments on the Access Hollywood tape. Nevertheless the House Speaker has made a

bargain (which) is clear—it’s the one spelled out by Grover Norquist back in 2012, when Norquist defended the choice of Mitt Romney by saying he’d also have endorsed a monkey, a plate of lasagna, or a potted plant. All Norquist wanted was “a Republican with enough working digits to handle a pen” to sign legislation. Ryan wants to gut the safety net for the poor and cut taxes for the wealthy, and believes that with Trump he can do that. He said recently that he had dreamed of cutting Medicaid since his keg-drinking days. Having Trump’s digits on the Resolute Desk—whatever the existential risk to the principles of the country as a whole—is a small price to pay.

Of legislation protecting Robert Mueller, Maine Republican senator Susan Collins in December remarked "I haven't seen the need for that because I really don't think the President is going to fire Mr. Mueller.  But certainly the introduction of the bill sends a strong signal." It certainly did. And its virtual withdrawal has sent an even stronger one.




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Bipartisanship Follies


Every week brings a new benchmark in bipartisanship.

For the new START Treaty, there have been at least two. Earlier this month the Wall Street Journal reported

The Senate's No. 2 Republican said Tuesday that he opposed a vote this year on President Barack Obama's signature arms control treaty, dealing a blow to a top White House foreign policy priority and possibly to U.S.-Russian relations.

Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl of Arizona said there wasn't time to deal with his concerns over a treaty that would cut U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear weapons deployments by about one third and restore weapons inspections that were halted nearly a year ago. Treaty ratification requires 67 votes in the Senate. Mr. Kyl's decision likely pushes a vote to next year, when the Senate Democratic majority shrinks to 53 from 58.

Mr. Kyl's announcement took the White House by surprise. A White House official said that just last Friday, officials from the Defense Department, the National Nuclear Security Administration and the U.S. Strategic Command briefed the senator and offered an additional $4.1 billion over the next five years that he had demanded to modernize the remaining nuclear arsenal.

Kyl (allegedly) didn't like the deal, demanded a concession (more money for nuclear weapons), and got it. Now those goalposts are being moved again for, according to The Washington Post

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who has reserved judgment on how she will vote until the resolution comes to the floor, said it could make a difference if Obama could get George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush, both former presidents, to appear with him in support of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or New START.

Neither Bush has taken a public position on the pact, which would continue trends they established with the original START agreement signed in 1991 by the elder Bush and the Moscow Treaty approved by the younger Bush in 2002.

The New START treaty continues most verification procedures established in the 1991 agreement that ended last December while adding new ones; it also lowers slightly to 1,550 the deployed warheads allowed under the 2002 pact, which were 1,700 to 2,200.

Ratification of the agreement has been endorsed by several individuals who have served a Republican administration, each of whom probably knows more about national defense and nuclear proliferation than the oil industry executives, the profession of the 41st and 42rd presidents. Consider: Senate Foreign Relations Committee Ranking Member Dick Lugar; former Bush-41 National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft; former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger; former Secretary of State James Baker; former Secretary of State George Schultz; Reagan Chief of Staff Kenneth Duberstein; Reagan Chief of Staff Howard Baker; and former Secretary of State Colin Powell.

They all may be wrong, of course, but they all are Republicans which, in normal times, would be considered bipartisan support. This apparently is insufficient for Collins, who says "It would be wonderful if President [George H.W.] Bush would come out for the treaty. That would be so powerful and definitely help."

Nor, apparently, is it enough for David Broder, who maintains Senate Minority Whip Jon

Kyl and Obama have been negotiating through intermediaries and have satisfied each other on most but not all points.

The Republicans could ask Obama to sit down directly with Kyl and see if they can compromise on the rest. That would be a fair first test of Obama's sincerity.

Polls generally show most Americans opposing repeal of health care reform and extending the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy. Yet following the recent election which will result in his elevation to Speaker of the House, Ohio's John Boehner warned "I think it is important for us to lay the groundwork before we begin to repeal this monstrosity" of health care reform. The returning Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, meanwhile offered "if there's some tweaking we need to do with the healthcare bill, I'm ready for some tweaking" and "if we need to work something out with the people who are really rich (on tax cuts), I'll have to look at that."

For his part, the President, who acknowledged a "shellacking" in November and promised "to do a better job," has said also "what I've tried to suggest is that this is one of those times where we've got to put that kind of (partisan) behavior aside, because the American people can't afford it." In February, 2009, as he began his presidency, with big majorities in both chambers of Congress.

It is a strange and wondrous bipartisanship that has Democrats reaching out to the GOP while some Republicans are defiant and media-anointed "moderates" such as Susan Collins are willing to consider supporting a treaty only if an ex-President of her own party gives his blessing. This won't, unfortunately, stop David Broder and others in the media from complaining, after Barack Obama caves, that liberals won't allow the President to compromise.

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The Bipartisan Susan Collins

O.K., in the interests of bipartisanship (and that, we know, is next to godliness), we'll stipulate the following:

- the swine flu outbreak is not, fortunately, at least as of now, a pandemic;
- so far, as the spokesman for Senator Susan Collins (R.-Me.) says, "There is no evidence that federal efforts to address the swine flu outbreak have been hampered by a lack of funds."
- spending on public health does not fit the GOP's theme of contempt for science;
- Senator Collins was not trying to kill off Americans, or even Mexicans.

Still, Senator Collins played a major role (video below) in stripping from the economic stimulus bill nearly $900 million in pandemic flu preparations, boldly declaring "Does it belong in this bill? Should we have $870 million in this bill? No, we should not."

Granted, Senator Collins, short of sound judgement, as of now has had the integrity? courage? to leave on her website a Wall Street Journal article from February 5 (before final approval of the package):

After meeting with Mr. Obama, Sen. Collins expressed concern about a number of spending provisions, including $780 million for pandemic-flu preparedness. "I have no doubt that the president is willing to negotiate in good faith, that he wants to have a bipartisan bill," Sen. Collins said.

Collins joined with Repub Senators Snowe of Maine and Specter of Pennsylvania in forcing cuts to the stimulus package in return for their "aye" vote. Collins claimed that such spending on public health would not create jobs, that eliminating it "would step back from spending projects that don't immediately lift the sagging U.S. economy." Still, Collins' opposition was, not coincidentally, consistent with Karl Rove's complaint that the bill included "$462 million for the Centers for Disease Control, and $900 million for pandemic flu preparations."

But enough of the Rove-bashing- I'll leave it to others. Commenting on Hardball tonight, Ryan Lizza probably was closer on motive when he "semi-defended" Collins by saying in part "Susan Collins through that whole process had no coherent argument. She just wanted to knock down the total so she could be viewed as a moderate Senator." And the piece in the WSJ only substantiates Lizza's theory: the writer approvingly referred to "Sen. Collins, a centrist with allies in both parties...."

Centrist! Bipartisan! Few adjectives are more lovingly bestowed by the mainstream media, and probably few more coveted by politicians, than these. The grandstanding Susan Collins, earlier this year, portrayed herself as a responsible, independent-minded public servant- while doing it all for the political benefit it bestowed as she charmed the Fourth Estate. She may have, as Lizza maintains, "a long history of funding for flu outbreaks, flu money" and, a celebrated "centrist," she can avoid the media ridicule others would face if she maintains: "I voted for it before I voted against it."