Free Speech, Maybe

Signs are everywhere.

Politico'a Rachel Blade has found "that Capitol Hill Republicans have papered over their not-insignificant policy differences with Trump, shying away from any statement about the president-elect that might possibly be construed as critical." One example she cites is how

In early December, Rep. Bill Flores made what seemed like an obvious observation to a roomful of conservatives at a conference in Washington. Some of Donald Trump’s proposals, the Texas Republican cautioned, “are not going to line up very well with our conservative policies," though he quickly added that there was plenty the incoming president and GOP Congress could accomplish together.

Little did Flores realize the hell that would soon rain down from Trump's throng of enforcers.

Breitbart seized on Flores' remarks a few days later, calling them proof that House Republicans planned to “isolate and block President Donald Trump’s populist campaign promises.” A conservative populist blogger for the site TruthFeed then warned Flores on Twitter to "get ready for a shit storm," and posted a headline that read: “BREAKING: Rep. Bill Flores Has CRAFTED a PLAN to BLOCK Trump’s Immigration Reform.”

Sean Hannity jumped in, too, featuring the Breitbart post on his syndicated radio show. That only further riled the impromptu anti-Flores mob.

"@RepBillFlores get in @realDonaldTrump way & we will burn your career down until you are reduced to selling life insurance,” tweeted one person. "@RepBillFlores you can go hang yourself!!" another wrote.

Most Republicans understand what they're dealing with in Trump and his supporters:

It's a novel form of party message discipline that stems from Trump but doesn't necessarily require the president-elect to speak or tweet himself. Plenty of others are willing to do it for him.

Evidently, many cautious Republicans have taken out a kind of inexpensive life insurance policy in which

Since the election, numerous congressional Republicans have refused to publicly weigh in on any Trump proposal at odds with Republican orthodoxy, from his border wall to his massive infrastructure package. The most common reason, stated repeatedly but always privately: They're afraid of being attacked by Breitbart or other big-name Trump supporters.

Little seems to have changed from early in the campaign, when at a rally in Texas the future President stated

I have respect for Jeff Bezos, but he uses the Washington Post to have political influence and I got to tell you, we have a different country than we used to have. He owns Amazon, he wants political influence so that Amazon will benefit from it. That’s not right. And believe me, if I become president, oh do they have problems, they are going to have such problems.

Trump probably can take little anti-trust action against Amazon, and most likely has little interest in doing so. But he already has signaled that he's going after the press. Robert Reich on Democracy Now! recently explained

There is no reason to believe that the Post's reporting turns upon Jeff Bezos's concern about Amazon and any antitrust issues. But, you see, by creating this kind of conspiracy theory or this kind of paranoid notion about the press and planting it in the public’s mind, the public, or at least a portion of the public, is led to think that anything that The Washington Post, or another paper whose credibility the president-elect tries to undermine, says is [not] justified or is [not] true. And again, that is terribly dangerous in a democracy....

He’s signaling to the press that he also has the power, whether it’s antitrust or it is the IRS or the FBI or whatever, whatever he is going to be directly or indirectly in command of, he is also signaling to the press that he has that kind of power.













President Trump will have the armies to do it. What the Secret Service is unable, unwilling, and legally barred from doing, the President may be able  to accomplish with his

private security and intelligence team at his victory rallies, and he is expected to keep at least some members of the team after he becomes president, according to people familiar with the plans.

The arrangement represents a major break from tradition. All modern presidents and presidents-elect have entrusted their personal security entirely to the Secret Service, and their event security mostly to local law enforcement, according to presidential security experts and Secret Service sources.

But Trump — who puts a premium on loyalty and has demonstrated great interest in having forceful security at his events — has opted to maintain an aggressive and unprecedented private security force, led by Keith Schiller, a retired New York City cop and Navy veteran who started working for Trump in 1999 as a part-time bodyguard, eventually rising to become his head of security.

A President with his own private security force? That can be especially effective when you've claimed the media "poisons the mind of the American voter" and your rallies have been characterized by supporters who have "flipped middle fingers and lashed out in tirades often laced with profanity" at journalists who are present.  Not yet in power, he has merely asked for "equal time" because he was ridiculed in a comedy skit; significantly, not for himself but "for us," as if all his supporters had been maligned.

As a candidate, he developed a blacklist of news outlets and accused The New York Times and The Washington Post of being "dishonest." "They're going to have a lot of problems," he promised, and stated he would "open up our libel laws" so "we can sue them and win lots of money."

Fortunately, Trump's series of Nuremberg rallies- uh, er, "Thank You Tour"- has ended. However, as U.S. Representative Mark Sanford, wary of the President-elect's propensity to demand unquestioning fealty, has said, "Free speech is one of the hallmarks of our republic. If people are afraid to say what they think based on fear of reprisal.... that's not free speech."

GOP Idiom

In an interview with NPR, President Obama recognizes, among the reasons Democrats have so much trouble winning the the votes of rural residents

Some of it is the prism through which they're seeing the political debate take place. They may know less about the work that my administration did on trying to promote collective bargaining or overtime rules. But they know a lot about the controversy around transgender bathrooms because it's more controversial, it attracts more attention.

But then the President went completely astray, commenting

I think that on something like the Affordable Care Act, you have people who are benefiting right now from Obamacare who either don't know it's Obamacare or consider that as a given and then end up voting on Second Amendment rights. 

"Second Amendment rights?"  After noon on January 20, Barack Obama can be immediately hired by Frank Luntz, for he has adopted the jargon of the anti-gun control crowd.    One conservative columnist argues "Support for the Second Amendment is one of the few issues where Republicans on Capitol Hill consistently show backbone" and must continue to "stand firm in defense of the Second Amendment" against Senators who would "decimate the Second Amendment."  

Donald Trump's campaign website has an entire section entitled not "gun control" or even "gun rights" but "Second Amendment Rights."  It begins (however falsely) "The Second Amendment to our Constitution is clear. The right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed upon. Period. The Second Amendment guarantees a fundamental right that belongs to all law-abiding Americans."

The only right the Second Amendment guarantees is the right to bear arms for someone who is in a militia. Still, "Second Amendment rights" is a rallying cry for the pro-gun lobby, used by the left only defensively, to assure listeners that they are not being critical of  the Constitution.

Obama's use of "Second Amendment rights" harkens back to November 3, 2010, when he declared Democratic congressional candidates suffered a "shellacking," which further undermined the Democratic Party's credibility, in the previous day's election. A guy who writes a portion of  some speeches and is as adept as he at stringing words and phrases together should know "shellacking" plays into the hands of political opponents, and that "Second Amendment rights" could be easily replaced by "gun safety rights" or at least the more neutral "gun control."

The President does concede that after he leaves the White House "I'm less likely to get involved in all the nuts and bolts of electioneering. In that realm, I'm much more likely to just give advice."  Perhaps he can learn from his own mistakes and help the Party avoid its descent since he took over:

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A Secret, Not Best Kept

Either President Obama has a very bad memory or he's blowing smoke up a portion of our bodies.And he always has had a very, very good memory.

Interviewed by NPR's Steve Inskeep, Obama was asked "To what extent are you suggesting some kind of cooperation between the president-elect and Russian officials here?" He replied

Well, I'm, I'm not suggesting cooperation at all. Keep in mind that those statements were in the context of everyone now acting surprised by the CIA assessment that this was done purposely to improve Trump's chances. And my only point was that shouldn't be treated as a blockbuster because that was the worst kept secret in this town.

The worst kept secret? Not even close, Mr.  President.  It was largely a secret. Admittedly, on Friday, October 7 The New York Times reported

The Obama administration on Friday formally accused the Russian government of stealing and disclosing emails from the Democratic National Committee and a range of other institutions and prominent individuals, immediately raising the issue of whether President Obama would seek sanctions or other retaliation.

In a statement from the director of national intelligence, James R. Clapper Jr., and the Department of Homeland Security, the government said the leaked emails that have appeared on a variety of websites “are intended to interfere with the U.S. election process.”

The emails were posted on the well-known WikiLeaks site and two newer sites, DCLeaks.com and Guccifer 2.0, identified as being associated with Russian intelligence.

“We believe, based on the scope and sensitivity of these efforts, that only Russia’s senior-most officials could have authorized these activities,” the statement said.

However, on that same date The Washington Post printed a much juicier, and (literally) sexier, story, finding

In that audio, Trump discusses a failed attempt to seduce a woman, whose full name is not given in the video.

“I moved on her and I failed. I’ll admit it,” Trump is heard saying. It was unclear when the events he was describing took place. The tape was recorded several months after he married his third wife, Melania.

“Whoa,” another voice said.

“I did try and f--- her. She was married,” Trump says.

Trump continues: “And I moved on her very heavily. In fact, I took her out furniture shopping. She wanted to get some furniture. I said, ‘I’ll show you where they have some nice furniture.’”

“I moved on her like a bitch, but I couldn’t get there. And she was married,” Trump says. “Then all of a sudden I see her, she’s now got the big phony tits and everything. She’s totally changed her look.”

The rest is history, with Trump's numbers nosediving- but only temporarily.  Russian interference in the election took, generously speaking, a back seat.

Q:  What were the three most interesting, controversial, or followed stories on October 7, 2016?

A: The Access Hollywood Tape, the Access Hollywood tape, and the Access Hollywood tape.













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Conway Emulating Trump

On his way to the presidency, Donald Trump told lie after lie, including about the Clinton Foundation. However, as Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon noted twenty months ago, no one "ever produced a shred of evidence supporting the theory that Hillary Clinton ever took action as secretary of state to support the interests of donors to the Clinton Foundation.”

We're still waiting, even after an appearance Sunday on CBS' Face the Nation, when Kellyanne Conway stated

When it comes to Russia and coziness, let’s not forget it was Hillary Clinton through her craven foundation requests -- Bill Clinton got a million bucks to give a speech in Russia. And then she turned over 20% of US uranium rights. So let’s be honest about who for money, and who for power, and who for access has cozied up to the Russians.  

That's one powerful Secretary of State.  As explained in factcheck.org when Peter Schweizer made a similar claim in his hit job, "Clinton Cash"

The fact is, Clinton was one of nine voting members on the foreign investments committee, which also includes the secretaries of the Treasury, Defense, Homeland Security, Commerce and Energy, the attorney general, and representatives from two White House offices — the United States Trade Representative and the Office of Science and Technology Policy. (Separately, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission needed to approve (and did approve) the transfer of two uranium recovery licenses as part of the sale.)

Additionally, fact-checker Snopes pointed out

By law, the committee can't veto a transaction; only the president can. According to The New York Times, Clinton may not have even directly participated in the Uranium One decision. Then-Assistant Secretary of State Jose Fernandez, whose job it was to represent the State Dept. on CFIUS, said Clinton herself "never intervened" in committee matters.

The "million bucks" Bill Clinton got for a speech in Russia turns out to have been $500,000, and The Wall Street Journal reportedly "found no evidence that speaking fees were paid to the former president in exchange for any action by Mrs. Clinton."

Mrs. Conway did not explain how Mrs. Clinton "who for access has cozied up to the Russians" (cartoon below from Signe Wilkinson, The Philadelphia Inquirer).  Nor did she explain why Clinton would want to gain access to the Russians, nor whom "the Russians" she was referring to are.  And former President Clinton earned $500,000 rather than $1,000,000 for a speech to "Russians." (If that seems a mere technical point, please mail me a half million dollars and I'll respond with a gracious thank-you note; no personal checks, please.)

That's par for the course for Conway, however.  When Obama press secretary Josh Earnest recently noted Russian influence in the election, Conway commented

That is just remarkable. That is breathtaking. I guess he’s auditioning to be a political pundit after his job is over soon. That is incredibly disappointing to hear from the podium of the White House press secretary. Because he basically — he essentially stated that the president-elect had knowledge of this, maybe even fanned the flames. It’s incredibly irresponsible and I wonder if his boss, President Obama, agrees.

Jonathan Chait countered with

Notice, Conway isn’t directly challenging the truth of the allegation, she’s just calling it “remarkable” and “breathtaking” and “disappointing” and “unfortunate” that people mention it in public. That’s how professional liars in Washington do it. 

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Indulging His Bipartisan Fetish

At his year-end news conference, President Obama was talking tough, remarking

What I was concerned about in particular was making sure [the DNC hack] wasn't compounded by potential hacking that could hamper vote counting, affect the actual election process itself.  So in early September when I saw president Putin in China, I felt that the most effective way to ensure that that didn't happen was to talk to him directly and tell him to cut it out and there were going to be serious consequences if he didn't. And in fact we did not see further tampering of the election process.

But back home in early September, the President's tone was different as he aimed for "a show of solidarity and bipartisan unity." Homeland security adviser Lisa Monaco, FBI Director James Comey, and Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson were sent to Capitol Hill to meet with leading Republican and Democratic members of Congress to urge a united front against “the threat posed by unprecedented meddling by a foreign power in our election process.”

While the Democrats were all in,

According to several officials, McConnell raised doubts about the underlying intelligence and made clear to the administration that he would consider any effort by the White House to challenge the Russians publicly an act of partisan politics. at least two Republicans balked, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who raised doubts about the underlying intelligence and made clear to the administration that he would consider any effort by the White House to challenge the Russians publicly an act of partisan politics.

Two months after the President backed down, Donald Trump was elected President and Republicans maintained control of the Senate, which throughout the year had been considered up-for-grabs. And now this:

"Recently, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence has received requests from Members of Congress, several electors of the Electoral College and the general public for additional information on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election," the office said in a statement.

President Barack Obama has ordered a "deep dive" on that alleged Russian interference that will be completed before he leaves office on Jan. 20.

"Once the review is complete in the coming weeks, the intelligence community stands ready to brief Congress and will make those findings available to the public consistent with protecting intelligence sources and methods," the DNI statement reads.

No one believes Donald Trump is going to be denied, or even nearly denied, the presidency when the electors meet on Monday. Nevertheless, they are not bound by law or the Constitution to vote for the individual who prevailed in the states whose electoral votes exceed 269. They ought to know who it is they're voting for and should not be given the privilege of plausible deniability when (if ever) the intelligence community deigns to inform the public.

President Obama should not be given a free pass, either. When Mitch McConnell stood up to him, he responded as if McConnell were Bashir Assad. In his own defense, Obama maintains

I wanted to make sure everybody understood we were playing this thing straight. That we weren't trying to advantage one side or another but what we were trying to do is let people know that this had taken place. Part of the goal here was to make sure we did not do the work of the leakers for them by raising more and more questions about the integrity of the election right before the election was taking place at a time when the president-elect himself was racing questions about the integrity of the election.






If President Obama had set out to lend credibility and prestige to Donald J. Trump, he could  not have done a better job.  He states "the president'elect himself was raising questions about the integrity of the election." Yet, Trump at the time was a candidate, not a president-elect, the latter an effort to upgrade his status and givinghim credibility for questioning the election's integrity.

The President  wanted "to make sure everybody understood we were playing this thing straight. That we weren't trying to advantage one side or another but what we were trying to do is let people know that this had taken place. "

Nonetheless, to "let people know that this had taken place" would enhance one of Donald Trump's central claims, that the election was "rigged."  However, informing the voting public additionally that a consensus of the intelligence community had concluded that the intent of any "rigging" was to weaken Trump's opponent would have increased the range of data available to the public and empowered voters.

Instead, the President released limited information, thereby "advantaging" one side, that of Donald Trump and his Party. Unable to predict the pivotal role of the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Obama may have calculated that Hillary Clinton was a strong favorite to be elected, whatever approach the President would take toward Russian incursion into the American electoral process.

Obama's approach would undermine the Democratic Party's effort to retake the U.S. Senate. However, even with a Republican Senate (and House), the Affordable Care Act, President Obama's greatest legacy, would be protected from repeal and Obama's legacy largely protected. Were it to have subverted Hillary Clinton's presidency, so be it.

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Accurate And Not Very Unfortunate

One of the disappointments of the 2016 presidential election is that we were deprived of the opportunity of seeing Kelly Ann Fitzpatrick Conway slink back into the sewer she came out from.

Fortunately, though, she has done a minimum of  gloating, instead preferring whining. Politico reports

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest’s assessment that President-elect Donald Trump may have known about Russian cyberattacks targeting the U.S. electoral process was “breathtaking” and “very unfortunate,” Trump’s senior adviser Kellyanne Conway said Thursday morning.

Speaking at his daily press briefing, Earnest referenced a remark Trump made at his most recent formal press conference, held in July, when he publicly invited Russian hackers to search for emails deleted from the personal server of Hillary Clinton.

Trump later said he was being sarcastic when he made the remark, but Earnest said Wednesday that the comment “might be an indication that he was obviously aware and concluded, based on whatever facts or sources he had available to him, that Russia was involved and their involvement was having a negative impact on his opponent’s campaign.” Conway took exception to the press secretary’s comment in an interview Thursday morning on Fox News’s “Fox & Friends.”

“That is just remarkable. That is breathtaking. I guess he's auditioning to be a political pundit after his job is over soon. That is incredibly disappointing to hear from the podium of the White House press secretary,” she said. “Because he basically — he essentially stated that the president-elect had knowledge of this, maybe even fanned the flames. It's incredibly irresponsible and I wonder if his boss, president Obama agrees.”

Evidently, it takes very little to take away Mrs. Conway's breath. During the campaign, her boss pleaded "Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing.... They probably have them. I’d like to have them released” She is deeply offended- offended!- that the statement could possibly be interpreted as Trump encouraging a foreign power to undermine his nation's electoral system by continuing to hack e-mails of a political party and release them to the public.

Conway, noticing effort of the Hamilton Electors, fears for the legitimacy of  Mr. Trump's election, hence, his presidency.  Politico contines

As she and other members of the president-elect’s team have done regularly, Conway said any suggestion that Russian cyberattacks aided Trump’s win is simply the latest excuse from Democrats upset by the election’s outcome.

“I think coming from the podium and basically trying to relitigate a political campaign when the president and the president-elect and their senior staff are trying to work together very closely to have a peaceful transition of power in a great democracy with just about a month plus ago, I find it to be very unfortunate,” Conway said.

The impact upon the election of  the hacked e-mails, unlike the clearly determinative effect of FBI director Comey's actions, is nearly impossible to determine.  Matthew Yglesias explains

it's challenging to know with any certainty what did and did not move votes. What's more, the election was so close in the three crucial swing states that essentially anything could have been the difference maker. It does seem, however, that Clinton was hurt very badly by late-breaking revelations from the FBI that it had uncovered new emails related to the investigation into her private email server — emails that later turned out to be irrelevant or duplicates.

But there was something more insidious in Conway's remarks than her feeble attempt to refute the notion that the emails influenced voters. The well-spoken Conway, carefully choosing her exact words as always, claimed (emphasis mine) "he essentially stated that the president-elect had knowledge of  this, maybe even fanned the flames."

Notwithstanding first glances, he actually said no such thing.  Earnest had stated

There was ample evidence that was known long before the election, and in most cases long before October, about the Trump campaign in Russia, everything from the Republican nominee himself calling on Russia to hack his opponent. It might be an indication that he was obviously aware and concluded, based on whatever facts or sources he had available to him, that Russia was involved and their involvement was having a negative impact on his opponent's campaign.







Earnest did not "essentially state" Trump knew. He stated it "might be an indication," which, given the facts known, is far less accusatory than it could have been.

More significantly,  Earenest referred to the pre-election period, when the individual was candidate Donald J. Trump running for political office. He was not President-elect Trump, eleccted by the American people (albeit without a plurality of the vote) to be their next President.

It is a crucial distinction, given the greater credibility and legitimacy of someone given the nod for President rather than a candidate spinning every which way in order to win an election. The choice of "President-elect" rather than Trump or- the more precise "candidate Trump"- was not accidental.

Kellyanne Conway knows the distinction and spoke accordingly in order to de-legitimize the words of the President's spokesman. And there should be little doubt where the truth lies when considering her words against those of someone who is, well, Earnest.







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Of Little Or No Help

Politico's Edward-Isaac Dovere details the infighting among the Clinton camp, organized labor, the DNC, and state organizations in the Midwest which contributed to triumph on November 8 for someone clearly unqualified, corrupt, and misogynist.

Ultimately, Clinton did not win because she failed to win in either Pennsylvania or Florida, which states she lost narrowly, but whose results do not appear to have been brought about by a dysfunctional campaign. Without victory in one of those states, the Democrat could not have prevailed, even if she had carried Michigan and Wisconsin.

The failure in Michigan was both remarkable and unavoidable, with one factor particularly intriguing. Dovere writes

Sanders threw himself into campaign appearances for Clinton throughout the fall, but familiar sources say the campaign never asked the Vermont senator’s campaign aides for help thinking through Michigan, Wisconsin or anywhere else where he had run strong..... People who asked for Vice President Joe Biden to come in were told that top Clinton aides weren’t clearing those trips.

The failure to approve a visit by the Vice-President was emblematic but not determinative, while the failure to get Senator Sanders involved in Wisconsin and Michigan may have been both.  And there seems an assumption that Clinton could have been dragged across the finish line in the latter state if the campaign had gotten President Obama more involved. Dovere adds

It was already November when the campaign finally reached out to the White House to get President Barack Obama into Michigan, a state that he’d worked hard and won by large margins in 2008 and 2012. On the Monday before Election Day, Obama added a stop in Ann Arbor, but that final weekend, the president had played golf on Saturday and made one stop in Orlando on Sunday, not having been asked to do anything else. Michigan senior adviser Steve Neuman had been asking for months to get Obama and the first lady on the ground there.

According to Dovere, internal numbers from Clinton's campaign headquarters in Brooklyn, NY showed the Democrat ahead by five points in Michigan on the morning of November 8. Nonetheless, by early afternoon, campaign headquarters found "urban precincts" (were) down 25 percent.

Urban precincts, dominated by black voters, were down disastrously- after an appearance by President Obama two days earlier, who presumably would have helped considerably there.  In Pennsylvania, a state the campaign was confident of carrying, a massive rally featuring the candidate and her husband, Bruce Springsteen, Jon Bon Jovi, and Mr. and Mrs. Obama was held the evening before the election.  (This may have been spurred by the strategy of acting DNC chair Donna Brazile to run the vote up in cities so as to prevent Trump from winning the popular vote while Clinton won the electoral vote, thereby jeopardizing a mandate. Seriously.)

Clinton lost Pennsylvania the following day, by a little more than she lost Michigan, in what everyone- no matter other disagreements- agrees was a "change election."  Massive amounts of people fed up with "Obamacare" and believing the country was on the "wrong track" rather than the "right track" either rushed to the polls to vote for Donald Trump or were adequately disillusioned not to vote for either major party candidate.

Gallup polls imply that President Obama had a 56% or 57% approval rating on the day of the election.   However, reliable polls also suggested that Clinton would win the national popular vote by more than she did, and state polls had her running significantly stronger in such swing states as North Carolina and Florida, as well as the aforementioned Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan.  And those polls were not asking people what they thought of the first black President, whose election some voters insist proved that America is not "racist."

Amidst all the explanations- and there are a lot, mostly legitimate, of them- of Trump's victory, there is one missing. President Obama may have ultimately damaged Mrs. Clinton's chance of prevailing in a "change election." Clinton grabbed hold of President Obama, hung on tight, and lost a race that could not be lost.

Hillary Clinton may have done better acknowledging the problems with the Affordable Care Act and aggressively promoted solutions.  She might have acknowledged the long-term decline of the middle class and emphasized the importance of unions (which President Obama has failed to do) in maintaining an adequate standard of living.  She could pointed to the role of free and unfair trade pacts, promoted by the incumbent President, in the loss of American jobs.

It might not have worked, and would have been a major gamble in a race she was heavily favored to win, and very likely would have in the absence of voter suppression, voting irregularities, and GOP operative Jim Comey.  However, as people point to Hillary Clinton as representing the political establishment and embodying the status quo, they ought to admit that the popularity of the incumbent Democratic President may not only not be transferable, but may be highly overstated.












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