Has U.S. Democracy Been Trumped?

[kenberg]

Making America Great?

From NYT

 

 

I had not heard about this but I have w looked up a further instance in Minnesota:

 

https://www.mprnews.org/story/2019/03/07/students-stunned-argosy-closure-eagan

If federal money was sent to the school, designated for students but did not go to students, it seems to me that somebody needs to go to jail.

And the school has a Ph.D. program? Really? There is a lot of stuff going on in certifying programs. The students sound like they were more than willing to buy into something that offered a phony degree in exchange for cash. If their loans are forgiven, it won't be their cash. But it will be their time.

[johnu]

Just an interesting example of the theory of 6 degrees of separation:

 

Trump cheered Patriots to Super Bowl victory with founder of spa where Kraft was busted

 

The woman who snapped the blurry Super Bowl selfie with the president was Li Yang, 45, a self-made entrepreneur from China who started a chain of Asian day spas in South Florida. Over the years, these establishments - many of which operate under the name Tokyo Day Spas - have gained a reputation for offering sexual services.

After Robert Kraft was busted for soliciting sex at one of these spas, he may be also severely punished by the NFL, possibly forced to relinquish control of the Super Bowl champ NE Patriots.

[johnu]

Another possible impeachment charge:

 

Scrutiny intensifies into Trump’s role in FBI headquarters controversy

 

Today, the Chairs of five House Committees and Subcommittees sent a letter demanding documents that are currently being withheld by the Trump Administration relating to the decision to block the longstanding plan to relocate the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) headquarters to a suburban location – which would have allowed commercial developers to acquire the existing site and compete directly with the Trump Hotel across the street on Pennsylvania Avenue – and instead raze and rebuild at the existing location.

The gist of this inquiry is that Dennison has abused his presidency to enrich himself by eliminating a potential competitor to his own hotel just a block away, while costing taxpayers (possibly hundreds of) millions of dollars by not building a new FBI headquarters building in the suburbs as recommended by expert planners in the government.

 

There should not be any surprise that Dennison would seek to personally make money in any way possible as president. No amount is too small

 

The Trump Files: The Easiest 13 Cents He Ever Made

 

Spy correspondent Julius Lowenthal wanted to know just how cheap some of the city’s richest figures were. So he set up a company, called the National Refund Clearinghouse, and sent letters with checks for $1.11 enclosed, “for services that you were overcharged for.” The letters went out to 58 “well-known, well-heeled Americans,” 26 of whom promptly cashed them. Curious as to how low they might go, Lowenthal sent those 26 “nabobs” a second refund check, for $0.64. This time, 13 people cashed them.

 

Finally, he sent those 13 respondents a check for $0.13. This time, only two people cashed the check. One was an arms dealer. The other was Donald Trump, whom the magazine identified as a “demibillionaire casino operator and adulturer.”

In this case, opening up a new luxury hotel with a block of Dennison's existing hotel could worst case force his hotel into bankruptcy once he leaves office and the foreign and corporate lobbyists and government officials have no need to try to bribe him by paying super premium prices, and 2/3 (non-Dennison supporters) of the regular business travelers refuse to patronize Dennison's hotel.

[y66]

From The Case for Reparations by David Brooks at NYT:

 

Nearly five years ago I read Ta-Nehisi Coates’s Atlantic article “The Case for Reparations,” with mild disagreement. All sorts of practical objections leapt to mind. What about the recent African immigrants? What about the poor whites who have nothing of what you would call privilege? Do we pay Oprah and LeBron?

 

But I have had so many experiences over the past year — sitting, for example, with an elderly black woman in South Carolina shaking in rage because the kids in her neighborhood face greater challenges than she did growing up in 1953 — that suggest we are at another moment of make-or-break racial reckoning.

 

Coates’s essay seems right now, especially this part: “And so we must imagine a new country. Reparations — by which I mean the full acceptance of our collective biography and its consequences — is the price we must pay to see ourselves squarely. … What I’m talking about is more than recompense for past injustices — more than a handout, a payoff, hush money, or a reluctant bribe. What I’m talking about is a national reckoning that would lead to spiritual renewal.”

 

We’re a nation coming apart at the seams, a nation in which each tribe has its own narrative and the narratives are generally resentment narratives. The African-American experience is somehow at the core of this fragmentation — the original sin that hardens the heart, separates Americans from one another and serves as model and fuel for other injustices.

 

The need now is to consolidate all the different narratives and make them reconciliation and possibility narratives, in which all feel known. That requires direct action, a concrete gesture of respect that makes possible the beginning of a new chapter in our common life. Reparations are a drastic policy and hard to execute, but the very act of talking about and designing them heals a wound and opens a new story.

[kenberg]

From The Case for Reparations by David Brooks at NYT:

 

 

The case against is pretty straightforward: We are not going to do it.

 

Of course you could say that this is an argument that we will not do it, not an argument as to why we should not do it, and technically that's of course correct. But arguing for a fantasy that will not happen distracts from serious discussion of what could happen. And, in a strange way, it is condescending. It accepts that providing opportunity will not suffice. Most everyone is at least open to the idea that the country will be better, everyone will be better, if everyone here can see a way forward. Most would agree that education, broadly speaking so that this includes carpentry, mathematics, artistic skills, wherever talent lies, would be included. I imagine most everyone can see ow this approach has worked within their own families, reparation gives up an such an approach.

 

 

But really the bottom line is that there is not a chance in hell we would do such a thing.

 

Of course I have been wrong before. I guess we will see. It would not have my support, of that I am certain.

 

[akwoo]

It accepts that providing opportunity will not suffice.

 

The underlying theology of Evangelical Christianity in the US has, since the early 19th century, been Wesleyan/Arminian - some people are predestined for salvation and have an easier path to it but everyone can work towards it and make it to heaven by working hard at building their faith.

 

If you're paying attention to Evangelical circles, you'll have noticed a considerable uptick in the popularity of Calvinism - God has predestined everyone either to heaven or to hell.

 

I think there is a reason.

 

A few will, through some combination of birth and early childhood environmental factors, have some talent that enables them to do something no machine can do.

 

Everyone else will be made economically obsolete by automation.

 

I've said this before - I think it's more likely than not I will die as a result of nuclear war, because what I've described above is not a stable social dynamic.

[cherdano]

Ken, I am not surprised, but still disappointed by your post. At some point, I'll try to respond thoroughly. In the mean time, some quick comments:

The case against is pretty straightforward: We are not going to do it.

That seems a little disingenuous, as you are clearly against it also on the merits. Why don't you tell us why?

 

It accepts that providing opportunity will not suffice.

No, it accepts that in the current USA, opportunity depends on your parents income and wealth. Do you disagree? If you don't, do you have plans to change it?

[johnu]

In another example of no lie too small and no lie to big for Dennison to tell:

 

Katy Tur Busts Trump’s Latest Lie ― And She’s Got The Video To Prove It

 

Trump on Saturday claimed he was “in an arena” at the time, telling a joke, being “sarcastic” and “having fun with the audience” when he called on Moscow to hack his campaign rival in the now-infamous moment.

Is this the 9,000th or the 10,000 lie since the king of liars was elected?

 

But as MSNBC’s Katy Tur pointed out on Monday, none of that is true.

 

Trump didn’t make the comments at a rally, and he wasn’t “having fun with the audience.”

 

He made the comments at a news conference. And when given an opportunity at the time by Tur to back away from calling on a foreign power to help his campaign against Clinton, Trump didn’t indicate he was joking at all.

This was very unfair of Katy Turic to use actual video of Dennison to prove yet another lie. And Turic seems to have forgot to include the fake laugh track of the audience laughing at Dennison making a joke. Totally not sporting at all to prove Dennison has lied yet again. Really, this is the equivalent of the Dennison boys going hunting and then shooting big game that are enclosed in cages. What's the challenge in that?

[nige1]

Upon reflection I decided to delete this.

To save time, you can use the new delete button

[Winstonm]

In another example of no lie too small and no lie to big for Dennison to tell:

 

Katy Tur Busts Trump’s Latest Lie ― And She’s Got The Video To Prove It

 

 

Is this the 9,000th or the 10,000 lie since the king of liars was elected?

 

 

This was very unfair of Katy Turic to use actual video of Dennison to prove yet another lie. And Turic seems to have forgot to include the fake laugh track of the audience laughing at Dennison making a joke. Totally not sporting at all to prove Dennison has lied yet again. Really, this is the equivalent of the Dennison boys going hunting and then shooting big game that are enclosed in cages. What's the challenge in that?

 

 

I find it odd that Individual-1 is even bothering to try to spin this episode as joking around. The Russians (likely due to translation problems B-) ) took his words seriously:

 

As it turns out, that same day, the Russians — whether they had tuned in or not — made their first effort to break into the servers used by Mrs. Clinton’s personal office, according to a sweeping 29-page indictment unsealed Friday by the special counsel’s office that charged 12 Russians with election hacking.

[johnu]

Usually when Dennison denounces something, he is really denouncing himself for exactly the thing he accuses other people.

 

Analysis: Trump says the Democrats are ‘anti-Jewish.’ The numbers don’t bear that out.

 

The anti semite Manchurian President had this to say:

 

On Friday, President Trump criticized Democrats for broadening the focus of their anti-hate measure. “I thought yesterday’s vote by the House was disgraceful,” the president told reporters as he left the White House to assess tornado damage in Alabama. “The Democrats have become an anti-Israel party. They’ve become an anti-Jewish party, and that’s too bad.”

Of course, Dennison is defacto head of the anti semite wing of the Republican party.

 

... the president has come under fire for remarks that some found anti-Semitic.

 

After white nationalists marched through Charlottesville, chanting “Jews will not replace us,” Trump called some of the protesters “very fine people,” a comment that drew harsh condemnation.

 

During the 2016 campaign, the president defended the use of an image of a six-point star, which resembled the Star of David, over a pile of $100 bills. The image was part of an attack against Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton; many Jewish leaders said it was anti-Semitic. At a speech to the Republican Jewish Coalition in 2015, Trump made comments that reinforced stereotypes about Jewish people. And in the final days of the campaign, he made headlines for running an ad that referenced the “global power structure” attempting to control the world through Clinton while featuring images of prominent Jewish leaders like George Soros.

Indeed, Dennison like to propagate scare stories about the globalists

 

Conspiracy theories about Soros aren’t just false. They’re anti-Semitic.

 

This rhetoric echoed in a speech in which Trump declared that he was a “nationalist,” not a “globalist” — delivered on the same day Soros received a mail bomb. The term “globalist” is frequently used as a euphemism for Jew, including by far-right news site Breitbart, which surrounds Jewish former Trump economic adviser Gary Cohn’s name with globe emoji, for “globalist.”

[johnu]

Has American become a banana republic with no respect for the rule of law? Only since Dennison became president.

 

It Exists: DOJ Finds Letter Ordering Scrutiny of Uranium One, Hillary Clinton

 

After it claimed no such document existed, the Justice Department just unearthed a letter Matt Whitaker delivered to the Utah U.S. attorney directing a review of how the department handled the Clinton Foundation and the Uranium One issues.

 

Then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions wrote the letter on Nov. 22, 2017 for Utah U.S. Attorney John Huber.

The existence of a letter documenting Sessions’ directive that the DOJ revisit probes of Trump’s top political foe is a surprise because a department lawyer said in court last year that senior officials insisted it didn’t exist. The liberal nonprofit American Oversight obtained the letter through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request they filed on Nov. 22, 2017––the same day Whitaker emailed Sessions’ letter to Huber.

Justice department officials apparently committed perjury in covering up this letter and investigation. What else is new? :rolleyes:

[Winstonm]

Has American become a banana republic with no respect for the rule of law? Only since Dennison became president.

 

It Exists: DOJ Finds Letter Ordering Scrutiny of Uranium One, Hillary Clinton

 

 

 

Justice department officials apparently committed perjury in covering up this letter and investigation. What else is new? :rolleyes:

 

This is awful, but at the same time I think it is important not to exaggerate accusations: perjury only applies to knowingly lying under oath. If you are not under oath, you may be guilty of making false statements but not perjury.

 

I'm not sure where this episode lands, but I don't know of anyone other than Whitaker (Big Dick Toilet Salesman) who testified under oath, and I'm not sure if he was asked this question even.

[kenberg]

The underlying theology of Evangelical Christianity in the US has, since the early 19th century, been Wesleyan/Arminian - some people are predestined for salvation and have an easier path to it but everyone can work towards it and make it to heaven by working hard at building their faith.

 

If you're paying attention to Evangelical circles, you'll have noticed a considerable uptick in the popularity of Calvinism - God has predestined everyone either to heaven or to hell.

 

I think there is a reason.

 

A few will, through some combination of birth and early childhood environmental factors, have some talent that enables them to do something no machine can do.

 

Everyone else will be made economically obsolete by automation.

 

I've said this before - I think it's more likely than not I will die as a result of nuclear war, because what I've described above is not a stable social dynamic.

 

 

There is a danger in getting off topic here but it's a lazy Sunday morning and I found this post interesting so a few thoughts.

"If you're paying attention to Evangelical circles," As the little pig said to the big bad wolf, not by the hair of my chinny chin chin

 

"you'll have noticed a considerable uptick in the popularity of Calvinism - God has predestined everyone either to heaven or to hell.". Yes, but they don't really mean it. I was confirmed in the Presbyterian Church when I was 13, I went every Sunday, I worried about whether I should pluck out my eye because it is better to lose an eye than to have my body cast into hell. When I was 14 the minister took me aside to explain that I had to get my parents to attend church more regularly so that they wouldn't burn in hell. Had been more theologically inclined I would have advanced the pre-destination argument to show that it didn't matter, but I took a more experimental approach. I found an isolated spot and shouted obscenities at God for five or ten minutes and when I wasn't struck dead I figured well, that's that, and I never went back to the church.

Actually, this might, in its own way, be on topic. I'm fine with religion, I believe in faith hope and charity, I even believe the greatest of these is charity, I just don't much care for being condemned to hell. I am also fine with providing opportunity, but I am not fond of being condemned for writing off some progressive ideas as not sensible. Whether a church or a political party, we might go a little easy on burning heretics, metaphorically or otherwise. People can, and do, walk away.

 

 

 

 

 

[Winstonm]

This from Adam Gopnik reminded me of Ken:

Pragmatism is not a way of negating principle but, rather, the realist’s way of pursuing principle.

[Winstonm]

This explains so much, almost as if Gordian's knot had been attacked with a sword.

 

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Backers of a U.S.-Russian plan to build nuclear reactors across the Middle East bragged after the U.S. election they had backing from Donald Trump’s national security adviser Michael Flynn for a project that required lifting sanctions on Russia, documents reviewed by Reuters show.

[y66]

That Adam Gopnik quote reminded me of David Brooks.

[y66]

From The “dignity of work,” Sherrod Brown’s plan for Democrats to win back working-class voters, explained by Dylan Scott at Vox:

 

The senator from Ohio won’t run for president in 2020. But his economic platform is still inspiring Democrats.

 

Sherrod Brown is preaching a message he believes can win working-class voters for Democrats in 2020: the dignity of work.

 

“Work hasn’t been rewarded in this country the way we like to think it was historically,” Brown told me in a recent interview. “No job is menial if you make an adequate wage. You really start with that. One job should be enough.”

 

Brown is trying to bring back an old-fashioned, worker-centered populism to the Democratic Party. But he has decided that he won’t do that by running for president himself. The senator announced on Thursday that he would fight for the “dignity of work” from the United States Senate instead of pursuing the White House in the 2020 campaign.

 

“I will keep calling out Donald Trump and his phony populism. I will keep fighting for all workers across the country. And I will do everything I can to elect a Democratic President and a Democratic Senate in 2020,” Brown said in a statement. “The best place for me to make that fight is in the United States Senate.”

 

His lane in the presidential race would have been narrow one: He didn’t have the established base of Bernie Sanders, the popular charisma of Kamala Harris, the profile of Elizabeth Warren, or the Obama mantle of Joe Biden. His message will still have a place in the Democratic primary, however, as some of those candidates pick up the “dignity of work” rhetoric.

 

“The more they mention it, the better it is. I’m glad they’re mentioning it,” Brown told me before he had made his decision. “We knew that if I didn’t run, it’d still have an impact on the debate.”

 

Brown says this ethos is drawn from the words of Martin Luther King Jr., who once said that “all labor has dignity.” It is a belief that anybody who works a full-time job should be able to live a middle-class life — and a recognition that there are many kinds of “work” that we don’t treat as such.

 

Brown has drawn from a half-century of economic data and liberal theory to formulate a comprehensive and accessible narrative about how the American economy has changed. Productivity and wages had once increased in parallel, but that connection broke starting in the 1970s. American workers kept increasing their productivity, but real wages have fallen.

 

In short, work isn’t worth as much as it used to be. Brown lays the blame at the feet of corporations and their embrace of the gospel that their duty is to maximize their stock value. He says they’ve marginalized workers by eroding their collective bargaining power and through other forms of exploitation. He sees the worker-employer relationship as a fundamentally adversarial one.

 

“Something changed with Milton Friedman’s preaching ... Friedman preached that companies had one loyalty and that is to stockholders,” Brown tells me. “It probably gave employers some economic and moral justification for doing what they might have wanted to do.”

 

His prescription is a thorough yet knowingly practical one: a tax overhaul, a minimum wage hike, and a strengthening of worker rights.

 

More

[barmar]

\But really the bottom line is that there is not a chance in hell we would do such a thing.

While I'm generally a believer in pragmatism, too, there's a case to be made for dreaming. I'll bet many people thought the same way about the end of slavery, women's suffrage, civil rights, perhaps also gay marriage.

 

It probably won't happen, but if we don't try it definitely won't happen.

[y66]

While I'm generally a believer in pragmatism, too, there's a case to be made for dreaming. I'll bet many people thought the same way about the end of slavery, women's suffrage, civil rights, perhaps also gay marriage.

 

It probably won't happen, but if we don't try it definitely won't happen.

I was blown away by Brooks' op-ed. My first thought was that he's been experimenting with ayahuasca which seems only slightly more likely than Americans ever agreeing to reparations. I'm looking forward to hearing more about his epiphany.

[johnu]

This is awful, but at the same time I think it is important not to exaggerate accusations: perjury only applies to knowingly lying under oath. If you are not under oath, you may be guilty of making false statements but not perjury.

 

From the article,

 

“It strains credulity to believe that the Justice Department didn’t know about this letter when they swore under penalty of perjury that it didn’t exist–you don’t exactly forget about a formal directive to investigate Hillary Clinton signed by Jeff Sessions,” he added

 

This quoted person was Austin Evers, who heads American Oversight, who filed the FOIA request. True, the actual person making the sworn testimony may not actually have known about the letter, but the higher ups who covered up the existence of the letter could be guilty of obstruction of justice (or perjury).

[johnu]

Just an interesting example of the theory of 6 degrees of separation:

 

Trump cheered Patriots to Super Bowl victory with founder of spa where Kraft was busted

 

The woman who snapped the blurry Super Bowl selfie with the president was Li Yang, 45, a self-made entrepreneur from China who started a chain of Asian day spas in South Florida. Over the years, these establishments - many of which operate under the name Tokyo Day Spas - have gained a reputation for offering sexual services.

After Robert Kraft was busted for soliciting sex at one of these spas, he may be also severely punished by the NFL, possibly forced to relinquish control of the Super Bowl champ NE Patriots.

 

Even fewer degrees of separation than first reported:

 

Massage parlor magnate helped steer Chinese to Trump NYC fundraiser, attendee says

 

In defense of Dennison, money is money and it spends nicely no matter where it comes from. Certainly no worse than taking money from Russian oligarchs.

[kenberg]

While I'm generally a believer in pragmatism, too, there's a case to be made for dreaming. I'll bet many people thought the same way about the end of slavery, women's suffrage, civil rights, perhaps also gay marriage.

 

It probably won't happen, but if we don't try it definitely won't happen.

 

I am not in favor. I'll try to explain. I am on decent terms with both of my ex-wives. I rarely hear from either, but my first wife called recently with some questions and we had a decent conversation, My two kids actually seem to like having me around. I am grateful. These are people who, if they were to say that I owed them something for my past, I might well agree. And I can think of a few other people in my past where I could understand them not speaking highly of me. .Afaik, no one has a legal claim that would stand up, and I really don't see that anyone, black, white, red, whatever, has a personal claim against me that would stand up. So the claim has to be a group claim based on the fact that I am white. In a word: No way. Ok, that's two words. I enthusiastically support efforts to provide opportunity for everyone. I have no plans whatsoever to give, say, 50K to someone because he is black and I am white. Make out of this whatever you will, I am not doing it, at least not willingly.

[Winstonm]

From the article,

 

 

 

This quoted person was Austin Evers, who heads American Oversight, who filed the FOIA request. True, the actual person making the sworn testimony may not actually have known about the letter, but the higher ups who covered up the existence of the letter could be guilty of obstruction of justice (or perjury).

 

I stand corrected.

[Winstonm]

This may seem an innocuous story, but from my perspective it shows the incredible risk of having a malignant narcissist as president.

 

Republican donors present at the RNC fundraiser with President Donald Trump confessed that they don’t understand why the president would lie about flubbing Apple CEO Tim Cook’s name.

 

During a fundraiser where Trump ranted about Democrats hating Jews and made jokes about blackface, the president also announced that he actually said “Tim Cook Apple.” The president explained he said the name really quickly and said “Cook” very quietly, so no one could hear it, Axios reported.

 

The video shows a different story. Presumably, even if Trump had said “Cook,” his lips would have moved. They did not.

 

Two donors at the event told Axios they didn’t understand why Trump would lie about something so ridiculous, particularly when it was captured on video.

 

“Nobody cared, they said, and Tim Cook took it in good humor by changing his Twitter profile to Tim Apple,” Axios reported.

 

“I just thought, why would you lie about that,” on donors told Axios. “It doesn’t even matter!”

 

Why would Individual-1 lie about this? Because he has to. He has no choice.