Has U.S. Democracy Been Trumped?

[hrothgar]

Your argument might hold some water if the pick were a right wing ideologue instead of a respected, independent conservative jurist. It looks to me that it's a like for like pick, if anything. I guess you forgot that Justice Kennedy took a conservative view of the law more than 75% of the time.

 

 

In what world is Kavanaugh not a right wing ideologue? There is a reason why Schumer called him the Zelig of young conservative lawyers.

 

With this said and done, from my perspective, the main reasons to block his appointment are

 

1. Kavanaugh may very well be placed in a position to rule on issues such as "Can the President pardon himself", "Can the President be impeached for obstruction of justice", or "Can the President be impeached for commiting felonies". As such, there is an incredible conflict of interest in allowing Trump to stack the judges in this sort of case. (Personally, I think that Trump's decision to appoint Kavanaugh has much more to do his opinion in these areas than any silly little issues like Roe versus Wade

 

2. For all intents and purposes, Trump bridged Kennedy to leave the Supreme court, with the appointment of Kavanaugh being the payoff. This can not be allowed to stand.

 

3. Kavanaugh lied under oath during his last confirmation hearing

[barmar]

Trump is taking his SCOTUS marching orders from the Federalist Society. So even if Cavanaugh doesn't get confirmed, the candidates waiting in the wings are probably just as bad.

[Winstonm]

In my view, he chose Kavanaugh because of Kavanaugh's ideas about the president being immune from any legal actions other than impeachment.

[hrothgar]

Trump is taking his SCOTUS marching orders from the Federalist Society. So even if Cavanaugh doesn't get confirmed, the candidates waiting in the wings are probably just as bad.

 

Yes

 

this is why i don't much care about Kavanugh's position on most issues.

However, his opinions wrt impeachment and the unitary executive are an outlier.

 

Next time we have demodratic majorities, we'll just increase the number of justices to 13 or 15 or some such and repeal any decisions this incarnation of the court reaches

[johnu]

Even Dennison has an unintended sense of humor. The Manchurian President had this to say about Germany:

 

Breakfast Rant: ‘Germany Is A Captive Of Russia’

 

The irony of a Russian sock puppet saying this was completely lost by Dennison.

[barmar]

Well, isn't that special!

snopes.com has an article on this. Ivanka's clothing line wasn't singled out, all clothing items are excluded from the tariffs. The explanation given by the administration was that they chose to put tariffs on items that were less likely to have direct consumer impact:

Trade analysts from several U.S. Government agencies identified products that benefit from Chinese industrial policies, including Made in China 2025. The list was refined by removing specific products identified by analysts as likely to cause disruptions to the U.S. economy, and tariff lines that are subject to legal or administrative constraints. The remaining products were ranked according to the likely impact on U.S. consumers, based on available trade data involving alternative country sources for each product. The proposed list was then compiled by selecting products from the ranked list with lowest consumer impact.

35% of all imported apparel comes from China, so the explanation is realistic.

 

The fact that it spares his daughter is likely just icing on the cake.

[Aberlour10]

Even Dennison has an unintended sense of humor. The Manchurian President had this to say about Germany:

 

Breakfast Rant: 'Germany Is A Captive Of Russia'

 

The irony of a Russian sock puppet saying this was completely lost by Dennison.

 

German media are laughing Donnie Rumble out of court for it... all day long..

[barmar]

The irony of a Russian sock puppet saying this was completely lost by Dennison.

I think if someone created a website full of Trump's unintended irony, Google would have a hard time indexing all of it.

 

Remember, he hires the "greatest people". That must be why his administration is such a revolving door. And then he used similar language to describe Cavanaugh during Monday's announcement. While that opinion is shared by many legal scholars, but when it comes out of Dennison's mouth it loses all credibiilty. Everything he says is either incredible hyperbole or out-and-out lies.

[cherdano]

3. Kavanaugh lied under oath during his last confirmation hearing

What's this about?

[hrothgar]

What's this about?

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/04/washington/04judge.html

[Winstonm]

On a different note, how about an examination of Dennison's loud claim that Germany is "totally controlled" by Russia due to Germany's imports of natural gas from Russia.

 

Let's see, Germany uses natural gas for 40% of its energy needs, and it imports 10% of its natural gas from Russia, meaning that Germany is "totally controlled" by Russia because it depends on them for 4% of its energy needs. Seems quite a stretch - maybe Dennison is one of "The Incredibles"?

[barmar]

https://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/04/washington/04judge.html

From that article:

Senator Leahy said that Judge Kavanaugh had given him a similarly misleading answer at the hearing and that the Justice Department should investigate to see if any laws were broken involving lying to Congress.

Did that investigation occur, and if so, what was the finding? Hopefully this incident will come up again in his SCOTUS confirmation hearing.

 

But we're living in a post-truth era -- does anyone in the government really consider "misleading answers" to be a serious offense these days?

[Cyberyeti]

Another bit of self-delusion, Trump said today "I think they like me a lot in the UK", where on earth does he get that from ? I would suggest the like/hate axis at least 80:20 against him. Is he really being told this by the yes men around him ?

[Winstonm]

Another bit of self-delusion, Trump said today "I think they like me a lot in the UK", where on earth does he get that from ? I would suggest the like/hate axis at least 80:20 against him. Is he really being told this by the yes men around him ?

 

No, just the voices inside his head. ;)

[Winstonm]

From that article:

 

Did that investigation occur, and if so, what was the finding? Hopefully this incident will come up again in his SCOTUS confirmation hearing.

 

But we're living in a post-truth era -- does anyone in the government really consider "misleading answers" to be a serious offense these days?

 

It is not so much the era but what group is in power.

[kenberg]

From that article:

 

Did that investigation occur, and if so, what was the finding? Hopefully this incident will come up again in his SCOTUS confirmation hearing.

 

But we're living in a post-truth era -- does anyone in the government really consider "misleading answers" to be a serious offense these days?

 

As to eras:

It was some fifty years ago that Iwas a witness in a divorce hearing. Before we went into court the lawyer explained to me that I must tell the truth but there are a variety of ways to tell the truth. Yes, yes, I got that. But for someone nominated for the SC, I would hope for better.

 

And sometimes there are small things, such as Kavanaugh saying the the search for a nominee had been the most thorough ever. It sounds like something Trump would write. Highest IQ, best health, biggest crowds, etc etc. I expect a nominee to say "I am honored by this nomination and I look forward to answering any questions that the Senate may have". Something like that. Skip the butt kissing. And I am glad he loves his mother but I have never thought that to be a major concern in a nomination. .

 

Trump was elected, Kavanaugh will be confirmed. There is an election coming and candidates need to explain why we should vote for them. If people are happy with how things are going, then we will have more of it.

 

[Winstonm]

Does anyone happen to be informed about this person?

 

This is what media bias check says:

 

LEFT-CENTER BIAS

These media sources have a slight to moderate liberal bias. They often publish factual information that utilizes loaded words (wording that attempts to influence an audience by using appeal to emotion or stereotypes) to favor liberal causes. These sources are generally trustworthy for information, but may require further investigation. See all Left-Center sources.

 

Factual Reporting: HIGH

 

Notes: Empty Wheel is a news and opinion website founded by Marcy Wheeler who is best known for her coverage of the Scooter Libby trial. Empty Wheel presents news with a left center bias in reporting. Most stories favor the political left, but are always factually sourced. There is moderate use of loaded words, but not significant enough to classify this site as purely left biased. (5/27/2017

[hrothgar]

Does anyone happen to be informed about this person?

 

This is what media bias check says:

 

I believe that she used to post at Fire Dog Lake back in the day.

 

Sarah Kendzior retweets her content with some frequency.

[y66]

From What Europe Can Teach America by Edward Luce at FT:

 

With the exception of soccer, many Americans believe they have little to learn from Europe. Donald Trump’s continuous sniping taps into a deep-seated stereotype about Europeans. They talk a big moral game. But they cannot walk the geopolitical walk. Much of this is true. No European carrier group patrols the Pacific — nor is ever likely to again. In terms of defence, no country matches the 3.6 per cent of GDP that America spends. But some of it is plain wrong.

 

On foreign aid, the picture is the opposite. Members of the OECD club of rich countries have long pledged to give 0.7 per cent of their GDP in aid — in much the same way that Nato members commit to spending 2 per cent on defence. The US spends just 0.18 per cent of its GDP on aid — and Trump is looking to slash that by a third. The UK spends exactly 0.7 per cent and Germany is just shy at 0.66 per cent. Between them, Germany and the UK’s aid budgets dwarf America’s. Spending on diplomacy is also going in the other direction. Again, Trump wants to eviscerate the state department’s presence in the world.

 

Who cares, Trump supporters ask. The answer starts in the Pentagon. Jim Mattis, Trump’s increasingly sidelined defence secretary, speaks for most of America’s generals when he argues that aid is a far cheaper alternative to weaponry. “If you don’t fund the state department fully, then I need to buy more ammunition,” he told Congress. The 1947 Marshall Plan may have been the biggest aid programme in history. But it cost a fraction of what it would have taken to reverse Joseph Stalin’s inroads into western Europe. Today’s challenge is more complex. It comes in two forms. First, migrants are heading north into Europe and the US and fuelling the fires of populism. Second, China is winning the soft power great game in much of the developing world — from Africa to Latin America — with its infrastructural largesse. At the turn of the century less than a fifth of development financing came from China. That has risen to three quarters. The rest of us, including the World Bank, are now minnows by comparison.

 

This is where Europe’s plans are relevant to the US. The European Commission has pledged to increase its aid spending by 30 per cent between 2021 and 2027 — mostly to stem the flow of migrants through north Africa. Some of this may be questionable — not least the idea of setting up “processing centers” in countries such as Libya. Anything that is enthusiastically endorsed by Italy’s Matteo Salvini should give us deep pause. But it is going up. Making it work is essential to Europe’s regional security. By contrast, Trump wants to cut US aid by the exact same amount. US programmes in countries such as El Salvador and Honduras, which are blighted by kleptocracy and gang warfare, would be hard hit. More humans would travel north. More humanitarian catastrophes would pile up on America’s borders. Trump also wants to link foreign aid to countries’ voting records at the UN, such as whether they endorse the US embassy’s move to Jerusalem. Of course, China does much the same (which is why the number of countries that recognise Taiwan is dwindling fast). But it is doing so on a larger and rising budget. When he was trying to sell his plan to a sceptical public, George C Marshall said: “Our policy is directed not against any country or doctrine but against hunger, poverty, desperation and chaos.” He might also add that it was cheaper than war. As Ronald Reagan said when he directed aid to Marxist-run Ethiopia: “A hungry child knows no politics.” Trump is breeding a global generation of anti-Americans.

[y66]

Guest post from Jonathan Bernstein at Bloomberg:

 

We’ve had three years now of Donald Trump as a politician, almost half of that as president. I think we’ve collectively just about failed in one thing: how to deal with a leading politician who just doesn’t bother telling the truth.

 

I think most people understand that’s the case, although hard-core Trump supporters aren’t likely to say so. Anyway, if you want further evidence, the fact-checkers at the Washington Post went through one Trump rally speech and assessed just how many of his claims were “false, misleading or unsupported by evidence.” The answer? About three-quarters of them.

 

Of course, people are going to argue about any particular count. I’d question the very first one, in which the Post calls Trump “misleading” for calling Montana Democratic Senator Jon Tester “liberal” when he’s really, they tell us, on the moderate side of Senate Democrats. To me, that’s well within the normal bounds of political rhetoric; we could debate it, but it’s not a clear factual stretch.

 

But others are indisputable. Trump, for example, now has a regular riff in which he claims to have been the first Republican “since Dwight Eisenhower in 1952” to have won Wisconsin, when in fact Republicans won it six times from 1956 through 1988. Perhaps that’s not important, but it’s something he now repeats regularly. Another example that I find particularly annoying: Trump regularly claims that winning the Electoral College was more challenging for Republicans than winning the popular vote, despite the obvious fact that he and George W. Bush both did the former while failing to do the latter.

 

And there’s evidence that Trump’s failure to tell the truth is getting worse, not better, over time. Trump dishonesty chronicler Daniel Dale finds that he went from an average of about three false claims a day in 2017 to five a day in 2018, with peak numbers over two recent weeks.

 

As I’ve said, what’s different about Trump is his apparent utter indifference to the truth. He doesn’t lie like a politician, carefully parsing his words so that there’s a case to be made that what he said was accurate from the right point of view, or at least wasn’t clearly inaccurate. He lies like the proverbial used-car salesman, just saying whatever will make the customer happy for the short period of time he is on the lot, regardless of what he thinks three days or even three hours after the sale goes final.

 

The question remains what anyone can do about it. No one really has come up with anything. Sure, there’s a case to be made that the cable news networks should dial back on taking his speeches live since they know they’ll be misinforming their viewers. And I do think that the fact-checkers, including the ones I’ve mentioned above, are overall doing good work. But it’s pretty clear that nothing the media or anyone else has done has convinced Trump to stop doing it.

 

Nor, for that matter, has the damage it’s done to his presidency convinced him to change. No one he deals with trusts anything he says, making negotiation with him virtually impossible. It’s one of the reasons that, despite his claims of being a brilliant deal-maker, he’s come up basically empty in making deals so far.

 

For a normal president, I’d hold out hope that a Democratic landslide in November could convince him to try a different path — and I’d urge his closest advisers to push him to see electoral defeat as a signal to that effect. Unfortunately, I’m fairly certain that Trump will hold himself blameless if Republicans do get clobbered. For that matter, he’ll probably make up some statistic “showing” that his party did far better than those of other presidents at their midterm elections. And then we can add that one to the continuing false statement counts, and nothing will change.

Who you gonna call?

[Winstonm]

I believe that she used to post at Fire Dog Lake back in the day.

 

Sarah Kendzior retweets her content with some frequency.

 

Thank you, Richard. Do you have any ideas about the meaning of this part of her article?

 

And that realization I had and the government surely also had would have changed the importance of evidence Mueller received via means unrelated to Peter Strzok.

 

That evidence likely implicates the President directly.

[hrothgar]

Thank you, Richard. Do you have any ideas about the meaning of this part of her article?

 

Nope. I saw similar comment made by here last week. Spent 20 minutes or so trying to figure out what she was talking about and then gave up.

[barmar]

Guest post from Jonathan Bernstein at Bloomberg:

This is exactly what I meant about us being in a post-truth era while Trump is in charge. The nature of his lies is a quantum change from traditional politics. He doesn't just shade the truth, omit unfavorable details, or spin things -- he just makes stuff up and talks total BS.

 

And it's not just in his speeches. Remember when he signed that executive order to stop separating kids from their parents? I heard that the number actually increased by 50% (from about 2000 to 3000) since that. But it could be just because we didn't have accurate earlier numbers, and the updated number is higher.

[barmar]

Another bit of self-delusion, Trump said today "I think they like me a lot in the UK", where on earth does he get that from ? I would suggest the like/hate axis at least 80:20 against him. Is he really being told this by the yes men around him ?

They must love him, they made a blimp of him. We love all the charaters represented as blimps in the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade, don't we?

[Aberlour10]

Another fake news by the great leader of the free world lol .He claimed that "Germany is getting 60 to 70 per cent of their energy from Russia and a new pipeline" - in reality around 23 per cent of German energy use is from oil and gas imports from Russia.Does he really belive that his mobster methods to pressure Gemany to buy US fracking gas will be successfull?

 

There were doubts in the german goverment concerning the North Stream 2 pipeline. After this NATO summit and the terrific appearance by Mr Trump, this project will be realized for sure,.