Bolstering Trump

In a truly insightful piece, Politico editor-in-chief Peter Canellos argues that the depiction by Saturday Night Live's Alec Baldwin of Donald Trump has inadvertently reinforced a favorable impression of the President.  Baldwin very much dislikes Trump, but the attacks on his "intelligence and competence," Canellos understands, have had the perverse effect of humanizing the President and

What appears to be authenticity is one of Trump’s greatest electoral calling cards, and Republicans tend to take it at face value. He’s an amateur in a professional game, and that explains why he sometimes breaks the rules. There’s a kind of everyman logic behind his actions, and his supporters want him to shake up the system. Despite their antipathy toward him, there are many Democrats who assess him on similar terms.

Typically, Democrats believe Trump is "dangerously unqualified for the presidency but that he’s not fundamentally ill-intentioned." It's a misconception which runs counter to

other, much harsher assessments of Trump. One, suggested by the Mueller report, is of a man who willfully used the tools of his office for his personal benefit, who demanded illegal and unethical acts from his subordinates, threatened them and tried to replace them when they refused to go along and shredded legal and political norms in the process. In trying to save himself, that version of Trump isn’t some rogue elephant acting on instinct, but a narcissist who puts his own interests ahead of the country’s. There is, presumably, no twinkle in Trump’s eye when he orders his Treasury secretary to refuse a congressional subpoena of his tax records, no sharp intake of breath when he invokes executive privilege to shield an investigation into his own campaign. His mouth doesn’t twist into a petrified O when he maligns Robert Mueller or calls on Republican appointees of the Supreme Court to protect him.

And so Canellos concludes

This Trump isn’t the stuff of caricature, or the hapless figure of fun portrayed on “SNL.” He’s the one who shows up on TV nearly every day, president of the United States despite the disdain of all those knowing elites, bending Washington to his will.

That has been the fundamental character of the Trump Administration, one in which the elites excoriated by the President bend to his will. That includes not only Trump TV (formerly GOP TV, sometimes known as "Fox News"), GOP members of the House and the Senate, and House Democrats, terrified of the I (impeachment) word. It extends even to Democratic presidential candidates, only four of whom (Warren, Moulton, Massam, and Harris) have called for impeachment.

And then there is William Barr, whose obsequiousness to the President is brazenly unprofessional, unpatriotic, and dangerous. 

Midway through is article, Canellos asks "Is Trump calculating, or is he improvising?" From tweet to tweet, the President may be impulsive. However, the rhetoric and actions are less accidental than cunning, undertaken by a canny President empowered by an unparalleled ability to fake authenticity.

Share |

Slightly Trumpesque

It was the day before the Super Bowl in February, 2017, when dedication to self over country  was a little less clear that

President Donald Trump appeared to equate US actions with the authoritarian regime of Russian President Vladimir Putin in an interview released Saturday, saying, "There are a lot of killers. You think our country's so innocent?"

Trump made the remark during an interview with Fox News' Bill O'Reilly, saying he respected his Russian counterpart.

"But he's a killer," O'Reilly said to Trump.

"There are a lot of killers. You think our country's so innocent?" Trump replied.

A clip of the exchange was released Saturday and the full interview aired Sunday before the Super Bowl.

It was an unusual assertion coming from the President of the United States. Trump himself, however, has made similar points before.

"He's running his country and at least he's a leader, unlike what we have in this country," Trump told MSNBC's "Morning Joe" in December 2015.

He continued, "I think our country does plenty of killing also, Joe, so you know. There's a lot of stupidity going on in the world right now, a lot of killing, a lot of stupidity," Trump said.

Moral equivalence can be result from being compromised by a foreign power, as likely in the case of Trump, or instead merely ignorant, naive, or wrong-headed. Campaigning in the first primary state

Biden responded to one question from a reporter at his event in Hampton, N.H., today. It was about the trade war with China. Transcript attached. pic.twitter.com/8SqZkQGGGp

— Daniel Marans (@danielmarans) May 13, 2019

You say that anything has to be owned 50 percent by Chinese to invest in China, guess what? bears an eerie similarity to "our country does plenty of killing also, Joe." Biden probably is referring to regulations which went into effect last October which require foreign investors to notify the Treasury Department that they are trying to obtain a stake in an American company. The Department then could review the deal if it determined the investment a national security threat.

Be wary of a presidential candidate who compares American concern over national security with appropriation by the Chinese government of intellectual property by forcedtechnology transfers, espionage and theft. The source of Trump's benevolence toward the Russian government may be family business ventures in Russia, while Biden may be simply wrong. However

Hunter Biden’s investment company in China, known as Bohai Harvest RST, has pooled money, largely from state-owned venture capital, to buy or invest in a range of industries in the U.S. and China. Bohai Harvest has put money into an automotive firm, mining companies, and technology ventures, such as Didi Chuxing Technology, one of the largest ride-hailing companies in the world after Uber....

Bohai Harvest operates and works with a number of funds to make its various investments, a tangled business structure that has brought Hunter Biden into close proximity to influential Chinese government and business figures, according to a review of Chinese business filings by The Intercept.

This is not enough to conclude that the former vice-president is compromised with Xi's mainland China to nearly the extent that President Trump is with Putin's Russia.   But Donald J. Trump has set the bar very low, and raising it a little with Joseph R. Biden is insufficient.

Share |

That Notorious Justice

There was a time when nominees for the United States Supreme Court did not routinely lie, mislead, or fail to answer the questions upon testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee. And so it was that when Ruth Bader Ginsburg was tapped by President Barack Obama for a seat on the United States Supreme Court, she stated

The decision whether or not to bear a child is central to a woman’s life, to her well-being and dignity. It is a decision she must make for herself. When government controls that decision for her, she is being treated as less than a fully adult human responsible for her own choices.

That might not have seemed a revolutionary statement at the time. But it is now that

Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey on Thursday signed the nation’s most restrictive abortion law, setting up a court fight that Republicans hope will end with the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade.

“To the bill’s many supporters, this legislation stands as a powerful testament to Alabamians’ deeply held belief that every life is precious and that every life is a sacred gift from God,” Ivey said in a statement.

The state Senate on Tuesday approved the legislation, which prohibits abortion at any point during pregnancy, even in cases of rape and incest. The bill, which was easily approved by the Republican-dominated House last month, does make an exception if the pregnancy poses a health risk to the mother.

Leana Wen, president of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, earlier Thursday vowed a legal challenge, saying the law violates the landmark 1973 Roe ruling guaranteeing a woman’s right to an abortion until a fetus is viable.

The Republicans who pushed for and passed the legislation are hoping for just that. They believe the Supreme Court's new conservative majority offers the anti-abortion movement its best chance in a generation to overturn Roe.

Just this year, four states, including Georgia last week, banned abortion once a fetal heartbeat is detected — about six weeks into a pregnancy. But Alabama’s law goes even further. This measure prohibits abortion at any point during the pregnancy and while a woman can’t be prosecuted, a person who performs the abortion can be convicted of a Class A felony and be imprisoned for up to 99 years in prison — essentially a life sentence.

Of course he- or she- can.  Activists and their allies want to threaten only the doctor with prison because it is relatively safe politically.  They realize that were the individual (woman) who wants, seeks, obtains, and pays for an abortion to be held accountable for what they consider "murder," there would be public revulsion.

Moreover, they want to threaten only the doctor with prison because in so doing they remove from the woman all agency.   They deny her the ability to consider herself a fully adult human responsible for her own choices. And that is a very, very good day for the forced-birth movement.

Share |

It's About Woman

At a campaign rally Monday in Hampton, New Hampshire

Shirley Sylvester, a retired project manager from Hampton, said she believed that Hillary Clinton’s 2016 loss demonstrated that the country “wasn’t ready for a woman.” And while she said she likes South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg (D), she fears that the country isn’t ready for a gay man, either.

“Joe’s the only one that can give Trump a run for his money,” she said. “After having Donald Trump in office, a lot of even the Republicans will want to go back to just where we were before we became this country that we are now.”

Mindy Musumeci, a construction contractor who, along with her husband Jim, drove up from Bentley, Massachusetts, to see Biden in Hampton, offered a similar assessment.

“I feel like the country is broken right now. And we need somebody who can win and then heal it,” she said.

Asked for her opinion of her home-state Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Musumeci responded, “I like Elizabeth Warren and this is really hard for me to say as a woman, but I just don’t think the U.S. is ready for a woman president.”

Maybe it is Mindy Musumeci and Shirley Sylvester, rather than the country, who aren't ready for a female president.

Or maybe it's another contingent, as we learned yesterday from Politico:

Kamala Harris used humor to swat aside the chatter about her becoming Joe Biden’s running mate: Maybe it should be the other way around, she said Wednesday, given Biden’s experience in the No. 2 job.

But inside her campaign and among allies, such talk is not a laughing matter. They're rankled by the suggestion, privately venting that it’s demeaning to a woman of color and perpetuates an unfair critique that she’s somehow not prepared for the job she’s actually seeking.

"It's infuriating," a Harris confidant fumed several days before the idea began taking hold in the media.

Since then, the chorus of Democrats sizing up her run and concluding she’d be perfect as Biden’s running mate has rapidly gone from whisper campaign to national narrative. They include some fans of the California senator: Last week, members of the influential Congressional Black Caucus floated Biden and Harris as a “dream ticket.” That put her in the uncomfortable spot of trying to delicately push back on it without offending the group, of which she’s a member.

Talk of a Biden-Harris ticket more than half a year before the first vote is cast is foolish. A candidate who is ultimately unsuccessful but racked up a lot of popular support on the way to Charlotte 2020 may be the obvious choice for the second spot. And it is probably 22-24 months before it becomes clear who that individual is.  It may be Harris, Pete Buttigieg or anyone- even Joe Biden.

But it also is condescending and offensive, as the Harris camp recognizes. And as it realizes, it need be careful about fingering the culprit.

Three days before observing reaction of the Harris camp, Politico had reported

Some black lawmakers are agonizing over whether to back Biden or two members of the close-knit caucus — Sens. Harris and Cory Booker — who also are vying for the White House, according to interviews with a dozen CBC members.

But with the former vice president jumping out to a huge, if early, lead in the polls, several CBC members are warming to the idea of a Biden-Harris ticket to take on President Donald Trump.

“That would be a dream ticket for me, a dream ticket!” said Rep. Lacy Clay (D-Mo.). “If she is not the nominee, that would be a dream ticket for this country.”

Wet dreams of installing Harris as #2 are interesting, given that not she but Bernie Sanders currently is second to Biden in national polls of Democrats. (Harris, Warren, and Buttigieg seem to be neck-and-neck for #3 nationally.)

It's curious also given that at this stage- May of 2012- twelve years ago, Hillary Clinton was the favorite for the Democratic presidential nomination.  Of the eight polls taken during the first two weeks of that month, Hillary Clinton led Barack Obama by two points in one- and by a substantial amount in the other seven.

Yet, there was no talk then of "Clinton-Obama." There is, however, talk now of "Biden-Harris," at least by the Congressional Black Caucus. (Below: Harris is right; also, not ready for the question.)

The reason is obvious. Such speculation is patronizing toward the trailing candidate- and undermines her effort to be considered for the top job. It helps shape perception of voters to a desired outcome. (Think Donald Trump's early and frequent complaints of a Mueller "witch hunt.")

This is being done to Kamala Harris, member of an ethnic minority and a woman.  It was not done to Barack Obama, member of an ethnic minority but a man. (Some prefer colored person/"person of color," which finally became unacceptable 40-50 years ago but has returned.)

The difference obviously is gender. One was (well, still is) a man and the other is a woman.  The Congressional Black Caucus, as well as others which might follow its lead, should check its values at the door.

Share |

He Should Know

Your mission, readers, if you choose to accept it, is to identify the name of the Democratic politician whose name I have omitted from the following excerpt from page 207 of Michael Grunwald's The New New Deal, published in August of 2012. (Unavoidable hints appear in various place.)

______ says that during the transition, he was warned not to expect any cooperation on many votes. “I spoke to seven different Republican Senators, who said, ______ I’m not going to be able to help you on anything,’ he recalls. His informants said McConnell had demanded unified resistance. “The way it was characterized to me was: `For the next two years, we can’t let you succeed in anything. That’s our ticket to coming back,’” ______ says.

______ says he hasn’t even told Obama who his sources were, but Bob Bennett of Utah and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania both confirmed they had conversations with ______ along these lines.

______, of course, has a history of outsized comments. But two former Republican Senators are confirming the gist of the charges (though both have their reasons for holding a grudge against the GOP). Meanwhile, former Senator George Voinovich also goes on record telling Grunwald that Republican marching orders were to oppose everything the Obama administration proposed.

“If he was for it, we had to be against it,” Voinovich tells Grunwald. And at another point, characterizing a strategy session Republicans and McConnell had held in early January of 2009, Voinovich said: “He wanted everyone to hold the fort. All he cared about was making sure Obama could never have a clean victory.”

As a reader of this blog, you doubtless are politically sophisticated and thus realize that the omitted name is the same as in the subject of this story from Politico on Tuesday:

Former Vice President Joe Biden said Tuesday he expects Republicans will have an "epiphany" when President Donald Trump leaves office, and will embrace working with Democratic colleagues.

"I just think there is a way, and the thing that will fundamentally change things is with Donald Trump out of the White House. Not a joke. You will see an epiphany occur among many of my Republican friends," Biden said during a campaign stop in New Hampshire. "It's already beginning in the House now ... If we can't change, we're in trouble. This nation cannot function without generating consensus. It can't do it."

Suspicion abounds that other plausible candidates (and a few implausible ones) such as Pete Buttigieg, Beto O'Rourke, and Cory Booker believe the GOP is hankering to return to normalcy, which it began to abandon (along with patriotic duty) around the time Richard Nixon sabotaged the Paris Peace Talks.

But Cory Booker and Beto O'Rourke have not been vice-president and Buttigieg hasn't even served in

Washington, D.C.

Biden has been there. And as the incoming vice-president, he was told by Republicans he trusted "we can't let you succeed in anything."

Grunwald would note 4+ years later, in December 2016- before approval of Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh to the High Court-

This strategy of kicking the hell out of Obama all the time, treating him not just as a president from the opposing party but an extreme threat to the American way of life, has been a remarkable political success. It helped Republicans take back the House in 2010, the Senate in 2014, and the White House in 2016. This no-cooperation, no-apologies approach is also on the verge of delivering a conservative majority on the Supreme Court.

Buttigieg is not in a position to know, and O'Rourke, Booker (and a few others) did not witness their own boss being sliced and diced by Republicans.  Hence, their perspective is redeemable. However, Biden, who swears that we "will see an epiphany occur among many of my Republican friends," was there for all eight years of the Obama presidency

Those are his friends, whom he appears unaware will slit his throat, politically and ideologically. That is, of course, unless he is totally aware of their intentions and quite comfortable with their agenda supporting mammoth financial institutions and  opposing the health and safety of consumers, preservation of the environment, and the rights of women and minorities.

Oh, and Merrick Garland.

Share |

Sanders Joins The Throng

Say it ain't so, Senator.

Vermont senator Bernie Sanders has been criticized in the 2020 campaign, as he was in the 2016 campaign, for devaluing the importance of race, allegedly failing to acknowledge the connection between race and class.  For example, after Sanders announced his candidacy, MSNBC political analyst/contributor tweeted "OK, 23 minutes in Bernie finally mentions race and gender."  

Maxwell later acknowledged that she had overlook Sanders' mention of "racism" and "sexism" earlier in his statement. Nevertheless, her critique of the preoccupation (recognition of, in my view) with class has been a common complaint against the candidate.

However, on Monday the Senator, who has been an official presidential candidate for nearly three months, became also an unofficial Democratic candidate for the office. On Monday morning, the current occupant of the presidency:

Democrat Rep. Tlaib is being slammed for her horrible and highly insensitive statement on the Holocaust. She obviously has tremendous hatred of Israel and the Jewish people. Can you imagine what would happen if I ever said what she said, and says?

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 13, 2019

On Monday afternoon, the Vermont senator, heretofore the Democratic candidate who best understood the primacy of class in American society and politics:

Mr. President: Stop dividing the American people up by their religion, their race or their country of origin--and stop your ugly attacks against Muslim women in Congress. You are taking Rep. @RashidaTlaib's comments out of context and should apologize. https://t.co/QlYNn46zXQ

— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) May 13, 2019

No, Senator, just no. The play is that

1- The President of the United States in America is best situated to set the tone for religious and racial understanding in America; 

2- The President of the USA has made it clear that he is biased against Islam- and even against Christianity:

3- For all his statements ridiculing Christianity, the President retains the support of a large number of Christians;

4- Bias against Muslims, Jews, Christians, and people of any (or lack of) faith must end.

Instead, Senator Sanders slammed President Trump's criticism of Representative Rashida Tlaib's "tremendous hatred of Israel and the Jewish people" as among his "ugly attacks against Muslim women in Congress."

The congresswoman's remark was anti-Israel and anti-Jewish but, admittedly, if one wants to bend over backwards and strain the lumbar, it may be interpreted otherwise.

Nonetheless, Trump simply said nothing about Tlaib being Muslim, obviously avoiding linking Tlaib's opinions to her religion. And not only did the President not mention that Tlaib is a woman, it's hard to understand how her gender would determine her view of the Israel-Palestinian conflict or related issues.   (Presumably, lots of Palestinian-American men also oppose a Jewish state in the Mideast.)

Sanders' rebuke of President Trump is akin to what would be expected of any of the other candidates for President, who (apart from Elizabeth Warren) seem oblivious to the reality of two Americas, one for the rich and one for the rest of us.  It is a remark which has the odor of pandering on an ethnic basis which has become almost de rigueur among Democratic candidates. (Admittedly, they want also white male votes, which are referred to as "rural" or "working men and women" or "Michigan.")

There is already a president who divides people on the base of religion or race, as Sanders notes. However, Donald Trump did not do that in this tweet that set Sanders off and the latter's response will reinforce the perception of many voters of a Democratic party overly anxious to play the race and gender card.

Share |

Bigotry Not Exclusively In The Executive Branch

Among the tweets about a remark made by Democratic Representative Rashida Tlaib:

Anti-Semitism is on the rise in our country but it has nothing to do with Congresswomen Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar whose words are being maliciously twisted. It has everything to do with Trump’s white supremacy which is emboldening racist domestic terrorists and mass shooters.

— Eugene Gu, MD (@eugenegu) May 13, 2019

Dr. Gu is correct. The increase in anti-Semitism is probably attributable to Donald Trump and is most assuredly not resulting from anything pertaining to Michigan's Rashida Tlaib or Minnesota's Ilhan Omar.

But at least in the case of Rashida Tlaib, it is not for want of trying. CNN reports

Speaking on an episode of Yahoo News' "Skullduggery" podcast that was released Friday, Tlaib was asked about her support for a one-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. She began by noting the recent observance of Holocaust Remembrance Day before veering into the historic position of the state of Israel.

"There's kind of a calming feeling I always tell folks when I think of the Holocaust, and the tragedy of the Holocaust, and the fact that it was my ancestors, Palestinians, who lost their land and some lost their lives, their livelihood, their human dignity, their existence in many ways, have been wiped out, and some people's passports," Tlaib said.

She continued, "I mean, just all of it was in the name of trying to create a safe haven for Jews, post-the Holocaust, post-the tragedy and the horrific persecution of Jews across the world at that time, and I love the fact that it was my ancestors that provided that, right, in many ways. But they did it in a way that took their human dignity away, right, and it was forced on them. And so when I think about a one-state, I think about the fact that, why couldn't we do it in a better way?"

When asked whether advocating for a one-state solution could be seen as reckless, Tlaib replied, "No, I'm coming from a place of love, for equality and justice, I truly am."

"I want a safe haven for Jews," she added. "Who doesn't want to be safe? I am humbled by the fact that it was my ancestors that had to suffer for that to happen, but I will not turn my back and allow others to hijack it and say that it's some extremist approach because they're coming from a place of... whatever it is... of division, inequality." Tlaib responded

Policing my words, twisting & turning them to ignite vile attacks on me will not work. All of you who are trying to silence me will fail miserably. I will never allow you to take my words out of context to push your racist and hateful agenda. The truth will always win.

Tlaib was accused by Israel's ambassador to the United Nations of "trying to rewrite history," by Wyoming senator Liz Cheney for "vile anti-Semitism" for "thinking the Holocaust provides her a 'calming feeling,'" and by President Trump for "horrible and highly insensitive" comments which demonstrated a "tremendous hatred of Israel and the Jewish people."

The President recently implied that Jews harbored a dual loyalty when at a meeting of the Republican Jewish Coalition he referred to Benjamin Netanyahu as "your prime minister" and claimed a Democratic victory in 2020 "would cripple our country and very well could leave Israel out there all by yourselves." He did not say "you Jews care as much about Israel as about our own country." Politicians, even the forever crude Donald Trump, are not that explicit.

Neither was Tlaib, but she was awfully close.  "When I think of the Holocaust," the Michigan Democrat stated, she is reminded of " the fact that it was my ancestors, Palestinians, who lost their land and some lost their lives, their livelihood, their human dignity, their existence in many ways, have been wiped out, and some people's passports..."  "You say the Holocaust was bad," she might have well said, but "look what happened to the Palestinians!"

Palestinian Arabs fled Palestine, leaving the land to the Jews, in 1949 under controversialcircumstances.   Yet, Tlaib clearly believes Jews were responsible because "they did it in a way that took their human dignity away." (Tlaib here seems to be referring to Jews as "they." Referring to an ethnic group one loathes as "they" is an old tradition.)

To be sure, the Michigan congresswoman does want to assure us that she is exceedingly modest, "humbled by the fact that it was my ancestors that had to suffer for that to happen." We did Jews such a favor, she wants us to know, sacrificing to the point of death for their sins.

Tlaib had previously stated that she opposes a two-statesolution, one Jewish and the other Palestinian Arab. Therefore, when she stated on Skullduggery, "when I think about a one-state, I think about the fact that, why couldn't we to it in a better way?" she is hanging out a "no Jews need apply" banner.

In her defense, Representative Tlaib, oddly admitting to a "calming feeling," may have only a working knowledge of the English language and thus may have meant something different than what she stated. And of course, the federal government's leading bigot is one Donald J. Trump. However, Tlaib now is competing with Steve King (R-IA) as the leading voice of prejudice in the United States House of Representatives. Let's hope she is "humbled."

Share |