Has U.S. Democracy Been Trumped?

[Winstonm]

Rudy Giuliani had told CNN on Sunday that "no one signed" the letter of intent to go forward with the Moscow project....

 

Giuliani reversed course in comments to Reuters on Wednesday....

 

"If I said it, I made a mistake," Giuliani said....

 

So did we.

 

Yours truly,

U.S. Electoral College

[Winstonm]

The Treasury Department announced Tuesday that it will lift sanctions on three companies linked to Oleg Deripaska, the Russian billionaire who was punished for Russian interference in the 2016 election.

 

WASHINGTON, Dec 19 (Reuters) - The United States said on Wednesday it has begun withdrawing U.S. forces from Syria while U.S. officials said Washington was considering removing all its troops as it winds up its campaign to retake territory once held by Islamic State.

 

A decision to pull out completely, if confirmed, would raise doubts about how to prevent a resurgence of the militant group, undercut U.S. leverage in the region and undermine diplomatic efforts to end the Syrian civil war now in its eighth year.

 

It's certainly good there was NO COLLUSION! otherwise we might give in to all of Russia's wish list. B-)

[johnu]

Rudy Giuliani had told CNN on Sunday that "no one signed" the letter of intent to go forward with the Moscow project....

 

Giuliani reversed course in comments to Reuters on Wednesday....

 

"If I said it, I made a mistake," Giuliani said....

Obviously Rudy would not have lied if he knew CNN had a copy of a signed letter of intent. It was an outstanding lie by a White House level liar that would have gone undetected if facts didn't get in the way. Rudy's only mistake was getting caught lying.

 

Poll question

 

Who is the better liar?

 

a) Dennison

b) Giuliani

[johnu]

The Treasury Department announced Tuesday that it will lift sanctions on three companies linked to Oleg Deripaska, the Russian billionaire who was punished for Russian interference in the 2016 election.

 

An obvious move by Dennison. Deripaska needs time to get ready for the 2020 US elections.

[johnu]

Poll question

 

Who is the better liar?

 

a) Dennison

b) Giuliani

Maybe I should have included c) Sarah Huckabee Sanders?

 

Probably unfair to the first 2 because that's her full time job so she's lost her amateur status, even though the other 2 are exceptionally highly qualified by any standard.

[y66]

From So Long Paul Ryan, You Won’t Be Missed by Jonathan Bernstein at Bloomberg:

 

Paul Ryan gave a farewell speech to the House of Representatives on Wednesday. He won’t be missed. Ryan was badly cast as speaker of the House from the start, and failed to ever really grow into the job. But that wasn’t the worst of it.

 

One problem for Ryan was honesty. For me, the core example was his convention speech in 2012 as a vice-presidential candidate. That Ryan acted as an attack dog and exaggerated some facts was no big deal. But what was unusually dishonest was a particular attack on President Barack Obama: “He created a bipartisan debt commission,” Ryan said. “They came back with an urgent report. He thanked them, sent them on their way, and then did exactly nothing.”

 

This was extraordinary. Ryan himself was not only on that bipartisan commission, he was the one who torpedoed the “urgent report,” which never reached the president because of Ryan’s own actions. It’s one thing to push the boundaries of the truth or to engage in clever spin, but Ryan’s attack was pure fantasy that transferred his own actions to his opponent.

 

A second problem was that Ryan’s reputation for policy expertise was mostly a fraud. The same people who celebrated him as a wonk – something he never has been, as Paul Krugman and others have pointed out for years – have also declared President Donald Trump’s clearly inadequate policy knowledge to be sufficient. It’s not just about false perceptions: One of the main reasons that Ryan’s agenda has gone nowhere, despite his ascent in the House and his party’s unified control of government, is precisely that Republicans didn’t have well-developed policy options ready to go. That was true for all of Ryan’s supposed areas of interest, from entitlement reform to immigration to poverty, and of course it was very much true of health care.

 

As speaker, finally, Ryan was just a terrible match for the job. Political scientist Dave Hopkins gets it right: The people who have thrived in that role are the pure politicians, not the wonks or ideologues, and certainly not those with higher ambitions. So Tip O’Neill, John Boehner and Nancy Pelosi. Paul Ryan, by contrast, “risked his party in order to protect himself.” The most important example of that tendency was Ryan’s decision not to fight Trump at the 2016 Republican convention. Had he and Reince Priebus, then the party chairman, done so, it certainly would’ve been ugly, and Ryan might have lost the support of many party voters. It’s possible (though hardly certain) that they could’ve cost Republicans the election. But there’s a good chance that they would’ve succeeded, and if they had, the party would be in far better shape than it is now.

 

Ryan wasn’t the worst of the modern speakers; he had more competence and nothing like the sheer destructiveness of Newt Gingrich. And, to be fair, the Republican caucus he presided over would’ve been a challenge for anyone. But things got even worse with Ryan in charge than they had been during Boehner’s tenure, and that’s at least partially on him. As is the least productive period of unified party government in decades.

 

He was unusually dishonest, a fraud as a wonk and a terrible match for the job. Good riddance.

[Winstonm]

Maybe I should have included c) Sarah Huckabee Sanders?

 

Probably unfair to the first 2 because that's her full time job so she's lost her amateur status, even though the other 2 are exceptionally highly qualified by any standard.

 

Answer: C) President Deacon Blues

[barmar]

For Sale, 98% off: The Trump Foundation's Signed Tim Tebow Helmet and 2 Portraits of the President Are for Sale

 

Even though these were illegal purchases by the Trump Foundation, Dennison is the world's greatest businessman. His motto "Buy high, sell low" are words to live by.

I thought I heard that one of the portraits has simply been lost, and that's why it's worth zero. But maybe they were talking about something else.

[y66]

From A Supreme Court Divided. On the Right. by Linda Greenhouse at NYT:

 

Is there a split among conservatives between ideology and the court’s long-term legitimacy?

 

Last week, after the Supreme Court turned down appeals by two states that had tried to terminate Planned Parenthood’s status as a Medicaid provider, much of the commentary understandably centered on the implications of the court’s action for the future of abortion rights. My interest here is the implication for the future of the Roberts court.

 

The Supreme Court’s docket-setting process, by which it selects less than 1 percent of the appeals that reach it every year, is a black box. The justices almost never explain at the time why they agree to hear one appeal or turn down another. But in the case of the efforts by Louisiana and Kansas to “defund” Planned Parenthood — shorthand for disqualifying a health care provider from reimbursement eligibility under a state-administered Medicaid program for low-income individuals — the court’s three most conservative justices did us a great favor.

 

In a dissenting opinion that can only be described as snarky, Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch did more than permit some light to enter the black box. They trained a spotlight on the court’s most private proceeding, the weekly closed-door conference at which the justices, unaccompanied by law clerks or secretaries, meet to set the country’s legal agenda.

 

Based on the court’s online docket, we could deduce during the run-up to last week’s action that the cases were controversial inside the court. The Louisiana petition, Gee v. Planned Parenthood of Gulf Coast Inc., went to the conference eight times since the current term began. It was nine times for the Kansas petition, Andersen v. Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri. In a typical case, one or two conferences suffice for the justices to decide what to do. Extended review typically means one of three things: three or fewer justices want to hear the case and are trying to find the necessary fourth vote; those justices have given up on that effort and are working on a dissent to be circulated internally and then published to the world; or the court as a whole regards the case as so easy that it can be decided in conference without full briefing and oral argument. In the Planned Parenthood cases, it’s safe to assume that the third explanation was never on the table. What we most likely had was a failed search for a fourth vote that turned into the revealing dissent.

 

Who might have provided a fourth vote? Chief Justice John Roberts, obviously, or the newest justice, Brett Kavanaugh, the successor to Justice Anthony Kennedy, whose votes in favor of maintaining the right to abortion were reluctant but fairly steady. Following the court’s normal practice, Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Kavanaugh kept to themselves their reasons for not voting to hear the cases. It was Justice Thomas, in a dissent joined by Justices Alito and Gorsuch, who broke the norm by accusing his two colleagues of “abdicating our judicial duty.”

 

As a formal matter, the state’s appeals presented simply a jurisdictional question. The Medicaid law contains what’s known as the “free choice of provider” provision, entitling Medicaid recipients to obtain care from any provider who is both qualified and willing. The issue in the cases was whether this provision gives Medicaid patients the right to sue to keep a provider on the list. Five United States Courts of Appeals have said yes, including those for the Fifth and Tenth Circuits in these cases, while the court for a sixth circuit, in a decision last year, said no. A conflict among the federal circuits is a typical indication that an issue is worthy of the Supreme Court’s attention, although a lopsided 5-to-1 split is not the kind of entrenched conflict that makes a grant of review nearly automatic.

 

Stressing the circuit conflict, Justice Thomas asked: “So what explains the Court’s refusal to do its job here? I suspect it has something to do with the fact that some respondents in these cases are named ‘Planned Parenthood.’ That makes the Court’s decision particularly troubling, as the question presented has nothing to do with abortion.”

 

Of course, the cases had everything to do with abortion in a real-world sense. The attack on Planned Parenthood by red states — 16 had signed a friend-of-the-court brief — was fueled by a fraudulently obtained and dishonestly edited video purporting to show that Planned Parenthood clinics sell body parts of aborted fetuses. As lower courts have found, the accusation is false.

 

“It is true,” Justice Thomas continued, “that these particular cases arose after several states alleged that Planned Parenthood had, among other things, engaged in ‘the illegal sale of fetal organs’ and ‘fraudulent billing practices,’ and thus removed Planned Parenthood as a state Medicaid provider. But these cases are not about abortion rights.”

 

Without bothering to mention that the allegation against Planned Parenthood has been thoroughly debunked, Justice Thomas went on: “Some tenuous connection to a politically fraught issue does not justify abdicating our judicial duty. If anything, neutrally applying the law is all the more important when political issues are in the background.”

 

Quoting Number 78 of the Federalist Papers, Justice Thomas lectured his colleagues: “The Framers gave us lifetime tenure to promote ‘that independent spirit in the judges which must be essential to the faithful performance’ of the courts’ role as ‘bulwarks of a limited Constitution,’ unaffected by fleeting ‘mischiefs.’ We are not ‘to consult popularity,’ but instead to rely on ‘nothing but the Constitution and the laws.’”

 

In other words, we have three conservative justices calling out two other conservative justices as wimps at best, unprincipled strivers for public approval at worst. And this may be just the tip of the iceberg. Now in recess until the second week in January, the court has issued only two opinions in argued cases since the current term began on Oct. 1, a slow start that makes it much too early to take the court’s temperature. But it’s notable that a similar split emerged last month in response to the Trump administration’s effort to enlist the court in stopping a trial on the legality of the disputed decision to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census. Only three justices voted to grant the administration’s request: Justices Thomas, Alito and Gorsuch.

 

Where were the chief justice and Justice Kavanaugh then? The answer is unknowable from the outside, but the question is crucial. Has it occurred to the Thomas three that something more significant may be at stake than dragging the court into ideological battle? Something like the court’s own short-term welfare and long-term legitimacy?

 

We know Chief Justice Roberts is concerned about public perception of the Supreme Court, and of all federal courts, as tools of political partisanship. That concern, which he has expressed repeatedly, finally led him to push back last month against President Trump’s latest attack on federal judges. We also know that despite his usually genial demeanor, the chief justice is an isolated figure, scorned on the right as a traitor for having saved the Affordable Care Act and mistrusted on the left for having eviscerated the Voting Rights Act, among other decisions. It’s odd to think of this most powerful person in the federal judiciary, 13 years into his tenure, as needing a friend, but perhaps he does, and just maybe Brett Kavanaugh is it.

 

Clearly, there is concern on the right about that very prospect. In a recent blog post on the website American Greatness, a conservative lawyer named Mark Pulliam, who describes himself as having “fled California” for his current home in Texas, addressed such fears and sought to allay them. “Commentators are reading all kinds of silly things into Kavanaugh’s failure to join Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch” in the Planned Parenthood cases, Mr. Pulliam wrote in an essay titled “Kavanaugh: Too Soon to Be Reading Tea Leaves.” “Good grief,” Mr. Pulliam exclaimed. “He’s only been sitting on the court for a couple of months — still learning where the bathrooms are.”

 

If despite Mr. Pulliam’s fondest wish the newest justice proves an ally for a chief justice caught in the middle, the real test may come when last week’s aggressively implausible decision purporting to render the Affordable Care Act unenforceable reaches the court. If there’s any fun to be had these days in contemplating the march of events, The Wall Street Journal’s editorial response to the decision is not to be missed. That newspaper has been relentlessly anti-Obamacare for years. Now its editorial board is nervous. “Texas Obamacare Blunder,” the editorial’s headline read, along with, “A judge’s ruling will be overturned and could backfire on Republicans.” The editorial warned that Democrats would use the decision “to further pound Republicans for denying health insurance for pre-existing conditions,” an issue that proved an albatross for Republican candidates in this fall’s midterm elections.

 

And here’s the really fun part. Back in 2012, Chief Justice Roberts saved the Affordable Care Act from the Republicans. Now influential voices on the right are being raised in prayer for him to save the law for the Republicans.

Cue: You've Got a Friend.

[johnu]

I thought I heard that one of the portraits has simply been lost, and that's why it's worth zero. But maybe they were talking about something else.

I thought the story was hilarious in spite of the criminal accusations of Dennison and his family.

 

I have no idea why one of the painting is worth $zero. Maybe it's even worse that the Foundation lost a $20,000 painting/investment if that's what happened. You would think that somebody has to pay for a $20,000 mistake if that's what happened.

 

I actually think the paintings and helmet are worth a lot more. Dennison was going to make so much money on the Moscow Tower project that he could afford to give Putin a $250 million dollar penthouse. Dennison was given a $500 million loan from China after the ZTE incident. Certainly for some billion dollar government contracts or presidential pardons, those paintings and helmet could be worth millions or even tens of millions on the open market.

 

For something on the relatively up and up, Dennison could bring those items to one of his pep rallies and auction them off to some of his fanatical followers. (Maybe he could also auction off some surplus Dennison steaks, vodka, magazines, etc, or maybe free tuition to Dennison University) Surely the Foundation could recoup the money spent on those items from an auction like that. Toss in something like an official state dinner at the White House or government function and the bidding will be frenzied.

[Winstonm]

From A Supreme Court Divided. On the Right. by Linda Greenhouse at NYT:

 

Is there a split among conservatives between ideology and the court’s long-term legitimacy?

 

 

Cue: You've Got a Friend.

 

Well, they'll take your soul if you let them

so, don't you let them

[hrothgar]

And Mattis is out...

[ggwhiz]

Hard to see the GOP initiating impeachment proceedings but no longer impossible. A bipartisan effort in that direction is on the way at least.

 

This guy is heading towards more of a threat than the Cuban missile crisis was. I'm watching Leon Panettas take on this and the look on his face is one of impending doom.

[johnu]

re: Paul Ryan

 

He was unusually dishonest, a fraud as a wonk and a terrible match for the job. Good riddance.

 

While some would also add that he was a coward who was afraid to stand up to Dennison, and his ideas were complete crap, I can't let this go without defending Paul Ryan.

 

In Ryan's defense, he has better hair than Dennison and isn't nearly as orange. This may not be a popular defense, but I believe in telling the truth as I see it. B-)

[jjbrr]

And Mattis is out...

 

Donald J. Trump

‏Verified account @realDonaldTrump

 

Congratulations to Chuck Hagel on one of the shortest tenures as Sec. of Defense. Another terrible appointee by Obama.

11:45 AM - 24 Nov 2014

[y66]

Quote of the day:

 

“Wheels are coming off” seems to be the operative phrase on MSNBC. My thought: There were wheels? -- Karen Tumulty at WaPo.

[johnu]

A Dennison Call That Went Rogue Hands Erdogan a Surprise Win on Syria

 

Donald Trump was supposed to tell his Turkish counterpart to stop testing his patience with military threats in Syria. That is, if the American president stuck to the script.

 

Instead, during a lengthy phone call earlier this month, Trump shocked even those in his inner circle by yielding to a suggestion from Recep Tayyip Erdogan to reverse the Pentagon’s Syrian strategy, handing the Turkish president his biggest diplomatic victory ever.

 

Then the American president dropped a bombshell, asking National Security Adviser John Bolton -- whom he addressed as “Johnny” -- about the feasibility of an immediate pullout, according to two of the people. He got a reassuring “yes” in response and the ball started rolling, the people said.

 

Not just a total victory for Erdogan, but Putin as well. And in return, the US gets absolutely nothing. I hope Dennison at least gets an Ankara Dennison Tower and both a Moscow Dennison Tower and a St Petersburg Dennison Tower for selling out the US. Thank God Dennison is so skilled at making deals. Can you imagine what would have happened if Dennison was a bad negotiator?

[kenberg]

The situation in a nutshell:

 

Trump ignores the advice of Jim Mattis but when Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh tell him what to do he hops up and does it.

 

I plan on taking a long nap, wake me when this is over.

 

GHWB liked to go skydiving to defy his age, I had the more restrained plan of going ice skating at the rink by the National Art Gallery but I guess that will be closed now. We have larger problems.

 

[johnu]

Solution to the Mexican Border Wall

 

This solution is so brilliant and good for the country that I am offering it to the stable genius for the same amount he got for taking responsibility for shutting down the government, and unilaterally withdrawing from Syria, absolutely nothing.

 

Step #1) The US sets up a checking account to only pay bills to build the wall

Step #2 Dennison deposits $5 billion into the account, no problem because he is worth many times that amount.

Step #3) The US pays for the wall construction from this checking account

Step #4) Mexico voluntarily pays Dennison directly to reimburse him for building the wall plus a little more for "expenses"

 

The US gets a new border wall, Dennison is happy and makes some profit, the American people don't have to pay anything, Mexico is happy to follow orders from Dennison. Seems like a win-win-win-win solution to me.

 

If for some unknown reason, Mexico refuses to reimburse Dennison, Dennison can get his money by threatening to negotiate with them. They should be very afraid.

[Winstonm]

Solution to the Mexican Border Wall

 

This solution is so brilliant and good for the country that I am offering it to the stable genius for the same amount he got for taking responsibility for shutting down the government, and unilaterally withdrawing from Syria, absolutely nothing.

 

Step #1) The US sets up a checking account to only pay bills to build the wall

Step #2 Dennison deposits $5 billion into the account, no problem because he is worth many times that amount.

Step #3) The US pays for the wall construction from this checking account

Step #4) Mexico voluntarily pays Dennison directly to reimburse him for building the wall plus a little more for "expenses"

 

The US gets a new border wall, Dennison is happy and makes some profit, the American people don't have to pay anything, Mexico is happy to follow orders from Dennison. Seems like a win-win-win-win solution to me.

 

If for some unknown reason, Mexico refuses to reimburse Dennison, Dennison can get his money by threatening to negotiate with them. They should be very afraid.

 

If they don't pay, he can sick his "fixer" on them. B-)

[barmar]

Quote of the day:

Did she get it from Jimmy Kimmel, or vice versa?

 

Of course, sometimes a joke is so obvious. In fact, when Jimmy showed the MSNBC clip, I thought the same thing.

[jjbrr]

Representative-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called for Congressional salaries to be furloughed during government shutdowns after the Senate and House failed to pass a spending bill on Friday.

 

While I respect her attempt to effect change, her inexperience is showing in a bad way. She is advocating for the very situation that would disadvantage her, a newbie without tremendous independent wealth, without any real upside for herself except the perception of cooperation.

 

What she meant to suggest is that they shouldn't be allowed to recess (president included) until a resolution is achieved. It works with elementary students.

 

Or charge a fine proportional to their wealth every day they fail to do their job. They work for us, the people. They should be held accountable.

[Winstonm]

McConnell's claims that the Democrats refusal to add additional money for a border wall to the continuing resolution to fund the government equates to the Democrats being weak on border security is such a disingenuous and fallacious argument I don't know how he can say it out loud without vomiting down his shirt.

[barmar]

McConnell's claims that the Democrats refusal to add additional money for a border wall to the continuing resolution to fund the government equates to the Democrats being weak on border security is such a disingenuous and fallacious argument I don't know how he can say it out loud without vomiting down his shirt.

That only happens to people with souls. Very few people can be in the Senate this long and maintain their soul (assuming they had one when they entered). The few I can think of included John McCain and Ted Kennedy (and even his was kind of threadbare, after Chappaquidick).

 

Statements like his are just par for the course in American politics. It's like hearing someone propose background checks for gun purchases, and characterizing it as wanting to repeal the 2nd Amendment. Or single-payer healthcare = communism.

 

And ever since Trump first mentioned the wall during his campaign, the GOP has been equating anything less as being for open borders and inviting MS13 in.

[johnu]

Dennison keeps on hiring the "best" people.

 

Mulvaney: Dennison's Syria Withdrawal Hated By Officials, But ‘Ordinary’ People Love It!

 

White House budget director Mick Mulvaney on Sunday admitted President Donald Trump’s sudden decision to withdraw American troops from Syria is extremely unpopular with lawmakers and Defense Department officials. But that’s OK, because “ordinary” people love it, he said without evidence.

 

Ok, forget the career military people and others who have extensive foreign service experience. Let's base our international policies based on "ordinary" people's opinions. :rolleyes:

 

Wallace interrupted, “With all due respect to democracy ... do they really know what the stakes are of pulling U.S. troops out and leaving the Syrian defense force to the Turkish slaughter, and what the impact is going to be on Iran? I mean, really, we’re going to make this a plebiscite?”

 

Mulvaney dismissed the suggestion that the average American knows enough to advise Trump on foreign policy, despite suggesting just that moments earlier.

 

“Ordinary Americans have no idea about those things,” Mulvaney said. “They elect a president so that he does.”

 

Apparently Mulvaney is going to be very good as Chief of Staff. He is already an accomplished liar.

 

Mulvaney’s claim that Americans support the withdrawal appears at odds with several public opinion polls, which give little indication the public wants U.S. military action against the self-described Islamic State in Syria to wind down, The Washington Post reported Thursday.

 

A July poll by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs found that 57 percent of Americans overall (including 69 percent of Republicans) favored using American troops “to fight against violent Islamic extremist groups in Iraq and Syria.”

 

Hmmm, who are these ordinary people? I guess Fox Propaganda personalities have been demoted to "ordinary" people.

 

The White House has become the full time Clown House.