Has U.S. Democracy Been Trumped?

[Winstonm]

This is also good to know considering the current AG.

 

Ken Starr’s 440 page report was released concurrently with his report to Congress, including all grand jury transcripts.

 

Also, recall: Brett Kavanauagh leaked secret Grand Jury transcripts to the media during the Ken Starr investigation to embarrass President Clinton.

[rmnka447]

Mueller is an institutionalist and, as such, restricted the scope of his investigation quite narrowly.

The only things that he reported on was

 

1. Did the Russian government attempt to effect the outcome of the 2016 Election?
   
2. Did the Trump campaign conspire with the Russian government in any such efforts
   
3. Did Trump attempt to obstruct justice
   

 

To which Mueller answered

 

Yes

Not willing to bring charges

Not willing to bring charges

 

In the course of these investigations, Mueller and Co identified a whole bunch of other stuff that Mueller choose to remand to other organizations such as the SDNY and Virginia.

While some of this is public, there's a whole lot else that isn't.

 

Simply put, your claim that Mueller was expected to get to the bottom of all wrong doing seems specious...

 

Mueller's main focus was to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 election and whether the Trump campaign colluded with the Russians. To wit, the Mueller report quote provided in the Barr summary said "The investigation did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its interference activities."(1)

 

In the footnote Barr further explained --

 

(1) In assessing potential conspiracy charges, the Special Counsel considered whether members of the Trump campaign "coordinated" with Russian interference activities. The Special Counsel defined "coordination" as an "agreement -- tacit or express -- between the Trump campaign and the Russian government on election interference."

 

Barr went on to further elaborate on what the Special Counsel found on Russian interference activities. He summarized that the Special Counsel found two areas of interference:

 

1) The Russians attempted to spread disinformation through an entity called the Internet Research Association. Barr summarized Mueller's finding about any Trump campaign involvement (Barr's words) -- " As noted above, the Special Counsel did not find that any U.S. person, or, Trump campaign official or associate conspired or knowingly coordinated with the IRA in its efforts although the Special Counsel brought charges against a number of Russian nationals and entities in connection with these charge."

 

2) The Russians hacked and disseminated e-mails from the DNC and various other Democrats. Barr summarized Mueller's finding about any Trump campaign involvement with this (Barr's words) -- "But as noted above, the Special Counsel did not find that the Trump campaign, or anyone associated with it, associated, conspired, or coordinated with the Russian government in these efforts, despite multiple offers from Russian-affiliated individuals to assist the Trump campaign."

 

Mueller didn't just not "charge" the Trump campaign, but affirmed that the campaign rebuffed efforts by the Russians to get them to "collude" with them. No collusion. No conspiracy. No credibility for the collusion mongers.

 

In any case, the major claim of the left for the past 2 years has been that it was a slam dunk that Trump colluded with Russia. Robert Mueller's investigation has apparently found that those claims were baseless. Fortunately, I think the country may be able to recover from the damage foisting this hoax on our country has done to our democracy.

 

If you want to claim that Barr is misleading the public with his summation, go ahead. Barr impresses me as a very straight shooter who wouldn't tarnish his already illustrious reputation by trying to hoodwink the public about what Mueller came up with when that information will eventually become public.

[hrothgar]

 

If you want to claim that Barr is misleading the public with his summation, go ahead. Barr impresses me as a very straight shooter who wouldn't tarnish his already illustrious reputation by trying to hoodwink the public about what Mueller came up with when that information will eventually become public.

 

Barr just invented a legal claim that there can not be obstruction without an underlying crime.

 

His reputation has long been that of a hack who was best known for covering up the Iran Contra affair.

 

It will be interesting to see what the Mueller report actually says and how much of it gets released.

[Winstonm]

Mueller's main focus was to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 election and whether the Trump campaign colluded with the Russians. To wit, the Mueller report quote provided in the Barr summary said "The investigation did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its interference activities."(1)

 

In the footnote Barr further explained --

 

(1) In assessing potential conspiracy charges, the Special Counsel considered whether members of the Trump campaign "coordinated" with Russian interference activities. The Special Counsel defined "coordination" as an "agreement -- tacit or express -- between the Trump campaign and the Russian government on election interference."

 

It is interesting to not that Konstantin Kilimnik, whom Manafort passed internal polling data to, Julian Assange, who released the hacked emails, Erik Prince, who met with Rwssians in the Seychelles, or Roger Stone, who may have coordinated with Assange, nor any other Russian cutout are not part of the "Russian government" and thus by Barr's definition coordination by or with them would not count.

 

Barr went on to further elaborate on what the Special Counsel found on Russian interference activities. He summarized that the Special Counsel found two areas of interference:

 

1) The Russians attempted to spread disinformation through an entity called the Internet Research Association. Barr summarized Mueller's finding about any Trump campaign involvement (Barr's words) -- " As noted above, the Special Counsel did not find that any U.S. person, or, Trump campaign official or associate conspired or knowingly coordinated with the IRA in its efforts although the Special Counsel brought charges against a number of Russian nationals and entities in connection with these charge."

 

2) The Russians hacked and disseminated e-mails from the DNC and various other Democrats. Barr summarized Mueller's finding about any Trump campaign involvement with this (Barr's words) -- "But as noted above, the Special Counsel did not find that the Trump campaign, or anyone associated with it, associated, conspired, or coordinated with the Russian government in these efforts, despite multiple offers from Russian-affiliated individuals to assist the Trump campaign."

 

Again, notice the quite lawyerly way in which Barr really says nothing - the campaign did not conspire with the Russian government - but not not a word whether the campaign conspired with the "Russian-affiliated individuals".

Mueller Barr claimed didn't just not "charge" the Trump campaign, but affirmed that the campaign rebuffed efforts by the Russians to get them to "collude" with them. No collusion. No conspiracy. No credibility for the collusion mongers.

FYP

 

In any case, the major claim of the left for the past 2 years has been that it was a slam dunk that Trump colluded with Russia. Robert Mueller's investigation has apparently found that those claims were baseless. Fortunately, I think the country may be able to recover from the damage foisting this hoax on our country has done to our democracy.

That would mainly be Hannity's claim about those with whom he disagrees.

 

If you want to claim that Barr is misleading the public with his summation, go ahead. Barr impresses me as a very straight shooter who wouldn't tarnish his already illustrious reputation by trying to hoodwink the public about what Mueller came up with when that information will eventually become public.

 

Then you are really naive if you think Barr is a straight shooter. Do you also believe in an imperial presidency, which is close to what you get if you accept Barr's unitary executive theory, which is the basis for his claim that no obstruction occurred.

 

It will be interesting to see whether or not Barr's claims are substantiated when we actually get to read the report. For now, though, ask yourself why Barr is refusing to release the entire report to Congress? Congress has a duty to oversee the executive branch, and without the totally unredacted reported, to which they are entitled, including Grand Jury testimony, they are unable to come to any decisions.

 

Congress can't reach a decision? Perhaps that is the reason Barr is blocking the release.

 

And it is not "the left" who thinks this stinks. Here is what conservative write Jennifer Rubin says:

 

The weeklong, premature victory lap by Trump and his vicious assault on Congress and the press were possible only because Barr made it seem as if Trump had gotten a clean bill of health. Tribe argues that, in his first letter, Barr was “exploiting legalistic formulas — like saying Mueller hadn’t been able to ‘establish’ conspiracy with Russia — to help Trump create the impression that no treacherous collusion took place and that there is no substantial evidence of Trump’s improper coordination with the Kremlin — much of it in plain view.”

 

When the entire report comes out, both Barr and Trump may appear to have misled the public. Mueller, we know, did not exonerate Trump of obstruction and his report will provide us with hundreds of pages explaining why and, further, enlighten us as to why Trump, for example, hid from voters his attempt to pursue a lucrative deal with Russia during the campaign and why so many in his campaign had so many contacts with Russians, contacts they tried to cover up.

 

 

Whatever the temporary political benefits to him and his boss, Barr has permanently stained his reputation and politicized the Justice Department. He adds his name to a long list of people who have tossed away their credibility to protect the most unfit president in history.

[Al_U_Card]

Despite the redactions, Rosenstein got pretty specific in his recommendations

 

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4429989-Rod-Rosenstein-memo-outlining-scope-of-Mueller.html

 

Based on the leanings of the investigators, if they failed to find "something" it was likely not there.

[y66]

Is capitalism committing suicide? From David Leonhardt at NYT:

 

Peter Georgescu — a refugee-turned-C.E.O. who recently celebrated his 80th birthday — feels deeply grateful to his adopted country. He also feels afraid for its future. He is afraid, he says, because the American economy no longer functions well for most citizens. “For the past four decades,” Georgescu has written, “capitalism has been slowly committing suicide.”

 

Those are some strong words, so I want to tell you Georgescu’s story – and about what he thinks needs to be done.

 

He was born just before World War II in Romania, where his father was a businessman and his maternal grandfather was a politician opposed to both the Nazis and Communists. His parents were traveling in the United States in 1947 when the Iron Curtain came down, and American officials told them they would be killed if they returned home. Peter and his brother went to live with their grandparents in Romania’s Transylvanian countryside.

 

One day a couple of years later, they found their dogs dead, from poisoning. The next night, government agents entered their home and arrested Peter’s grandfather. “We never saw him again,” Georgescu told me recently. “They killed him in prison.”

 

Peter was 10 years old, and his brother, Constantin, was 15. The government moved them and their grandmother to a town near the Russian border. They slept on hay in a single room, inside an otherwise normal house, watched by a guard. Instead of going to school, Peter cleaned sewers. He was later promoted to a job turning off streetlights before dawn and digging holes for electric poles.

 

In the early 1950s, a Romanian diplomat approached Peter’s father in New York, where he was living with Peter’s mother. The diplomat brought a recent photo of the boys, both teenagers, and pressured the father to spy for Romania. He went to the F.B.I. instead, and the F.B.I. encouraged him to go public with the blackmail attempt. It would make the Soviet empire look bad.

 

The plan worked. The “Georgescu boys” became a media sensation. Frances Bolton, an Ohio congresswoman, took up their cause and interested President Dwight Eisenhower in it. Romania eventually freed the boys, as part of a prisoner exchange, and they landed in New York at Idlewild Airport — today’s J.F.K. — on April 13, 1954. (Their grandmother was not allowed to leave until years later.)

 

From there, Georgescu’s life moved quickly. The headmaster of Phillips Exeter offered him a spot at the school even through he spoke no English and hadn’t attended any school for much of his boyhood. After college and business school, Georgescu joined the advertising firm Young & Rubicam. He spent 37 years there, the last seven as chief executive.

 

“The hero of my story,” Georgescu said to me “is America.” Over and over, he said, people who didn’t have any obvious reason to care about him helped him: the congresswoman who didn’t represent his parents’ district; the headmaster who’d never met him; the ad executives who mentored him.

 

All of them, he believes, were influenced by a post-World War II culture that (while deeply flawed in some ways) fostered a sense of community over individuality. Corporate executives didn’t pay themselves outlandish salaries. Workers enjoyed consistently rising wages.

 

Things began to change after the 1970s. Stakeholder capitalism — which, Georgescu says, optimized the well-being of customers, employees, shareholders and the nation — gave way to short-term shareholder-only capitalism. Profits have soared at the expense of worker pay. The wealth of the median family today is lower than two decades ago. Life expectancy has actually fallen in the last few years. Not since 2004 has a majority of Americans said they were satisfied with the country’s direction.

 

“Capitalism is a brilliant factory for prosperity. Brilliant,” Georgescu says. “And yet the version of capitalism we have created here works for only a minority of people.”

 

In his retirement, when he’s not spending time with his family, Georgescu has been trying to agitate other corporate leaders. He has published a book, called “Capitalists, Arise!” He has written op-eds and given talks. He talks about the signs of frustration, in both the United States and Europe. He has seen societies fall apart, and he thinks many people are underestimating the risks it could happen again. “We’re not that far off,” he told me.

 

Some other business leaders are also worried about rising inequality. Warren Buffett is. So are Martin Lipton, the dean of corporate lawyers, and Laurence Fink, who runs the investment firm BlackRock. “There’s class warfare, all right,” Buffett has said, “but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning,”

 

Georgescu believes that business, more than government, can solve the problem. He told me that executives should resist pressure to maximize short-term profits. Companies could make even more money if they invested in their workers and became more productive and innovative, he says. Costco is a favorite example of his.

 

I’m skeptical that corporate America will voluntarily fix the situation, because the last four decades have been very lucrative for top executives and investors. To my mind, government action — including higher taxes on the rich and more bargaining power for workers — is necessary to bring back broad-based prosperity.

 

But I am grateful for Georgescu’s efforts, because the culture and values of corporate America have a big effect on society. Not so long ago, top executives made decisions that took into account not just their own bank accounts but also their workers, their communities and their country. Georgescu is asking them to do so again.

[y66]

Guest post from Jonathan Bernstein at Bloomberg:

 

It terms of substance, the conclusion of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation was good news for Donald Trump. Not as good as Trump claimed. Not, perhaps, as good as Attorney General William Barr suggested in his summary of the case. Overall, though, the story of Mueller’s probe surely looks better for Trump now than it did 10 days ago.

 

But the politics? There the news is all bad for Trump. A week after Barr’s summary – and after some pretty successful spin from the Trump team that produced a lot of favorable coverage – there’s been no reaction at all from the electorate.

 

On March 22, the day Mueller’s report was delivered, FiveThirtyEight estimated that Trump’s approval rating was at 41.9 percent and his disapproval at 52.9 percent. By March 31, he had inched up to 42.1 percent approval and stayed flat at 52.9 percent disapproval. It’s possible that the mix of polls or random fluctuations are masking a small improvement. It’s also possible that the news has been slow to reach those who pay less attention to politics. But those theories are increasingly difficult to buy as the days go on and the story fades. Nor are polls about the investigation showing any radical shift toward Trump. So it seems likely that Mueller’s report isn’t changing many minds.

 

Here’s why that’s bad news for Trump. His approval rating is the second-worst of any president on record after 801 days in office, which is where Trump was on Sunday. Only Ronald Reagan, at 41.1 percent, was worse. Trump is dead last in disapproval rating. No other president was over 50 percent. He’s also last in net approval (that is, approval minus disapproval) at -10.7.

 

Trump’s numbers have been unusually steady. His poor rating, and his low ranking among the 13 presidents of the polling era, isn’t a temporary fluke caused by recent bad news. It’s just where he always is. He’s been net negative since the earliest days of his presidency, and his disapproval has been over 50 percent for two years now. In fact, he’s been last in disapproval for all but about a month of his presidency.

 

Things could change, of course. When Reagan’s numbers dipped to this level, he had just started a comeback, which eventually delivered him a huge landslide in 1984. Bill Clinton’s comeback was well underway by April 1995. Barack Obama still hadn’t hit his first-term low at this point in 2011, but he too rallied and his ratings were pretty good by Election Day in 2012.

 

So there’s plenty of time for Trump to recover. It’s just hard to imagine what exactly could spark a strong approval rally for him. Reagan, Clinton and Obama were all hurt by the economy early in their terms, then benefited from recoveries. It’s technically possible that the economy will improve in 2020, but it doesn’t seem likely that such a long expansion will suddenly pick up steam. Nor is it likely that perceptions of the economy – already strong – will start to improve dramatically.

 

Clinton also benefited when some scandals from the early days of his administration started to fade away. That’s why I think it’s a particularly bad sign for Trump that good news on his most visible scandal had no immediate effect.

 

The truth is, we don’t know why Trump is so unpopular, especially at a moment of relative peace and prosperity for the U.S. It could be the various scandals. It could be his refusal to behave like a normal president. It could be that his divisive campaign permanently alienated a lot of people. It could also be the specific unpopular public-policy positions he holds, whether it’s the tax law, health care, immigration, his border wall or some combination.

 

But whatever the reason, it’s hard to believe that a president could be reelected when more than half the country thinks he’s doing a bad job. And if nothing so far has shaken Trump’s unpopularity, what’s going to happen in the next 19 months to do so?

What's going to happen in the next 19 months? Perhaps Trump's past behavior is a clue.

[kenberg]

Is capitalism committing suicide? From David Leonhardt at NYT:

 

 

 

I really liked this article. My immediate reaction was that Peter Georgescu and I would get along just fine. That doesn't mean we would always agree, of course not.

 

I share Leonhardt's skepticism that corporate America will voluntarily fix the situation. He speaks of Georgescu's view of corporate America of the 50's. : "All of them, he believes, were influenced by a post-World War II culture that (while deeply flawed in some ways) fostered a sense of community over individuality.". This could be overstating history a bit. I do believe that there was a different culture, but let's not get too rosy about it.

 

At any rate, I had not previously heard of him and I appreciate the article.

 

[hrothgar]

I apologize about this comment. I thought I was being funny, but I realize I wasn't.

 

FWIW, I found it amusing....

[y66]

NYT reported this today:

 

President Trump on Monday is expected to host about 300 guests, including convicted felons, at the White House for the “First Step Act Celebration,” a party intended to bring attention to a rare piece of bipartisan legislation he passed last year, and which he plans to highlight on the campaign trail.

 

But some activists who helped work on the legislation — which would expand job training and early-release programs, and modify sentencing laws, including mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug offenders — have expressed concern that Mr. Trump is more attuned to the political opportunities the law offers him, rather than with ensuring it is enacted effectively.

 

Despite the high-profile party and round tables — and the White House releasing a presidential proclamation declaring April “second chance month” — Mr. Trump’s budget, released last month, listed only $14 million to pay for the First Step Act’s programs. The law passed in December specifically asked for $75 million a year for five years, beginning in 2019. The funding gap was first reported by The Marshall Project.

[barmar]

NYT reported this today:

As I understand it, the President's budget is mostly meaningless. Congress makes the budget, and the President's proposal is just suggestions that are regularly ignored.

[kenberg]

NYT reported this today:

 

 

 

NYT reported this today

President Trump on Monday is expected to host about 300 guests, including convicted felons, at the White House for the "First Step Act Celebration," a party intended to bring attention to a rare piece of bipartisan legislation he passed last year, and which he plans to highlight on the campaign trail.

 

But some activists who helped work on the legislation — which would expand job training and early-release programs, and modify sentencing laws, including mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug offenders — have expressed concern that Mr. Trump is more attuned to the political opportunities the law offers him, rather than with ensuring it is enacted effectively.

 

Despite the high-profile party and round tables — and the White House releasing a presidential proclamation declaring April "second chance month" — Mr. Trump's budget, released last month, listed only $14 million to pay for the First Step Act's programs. The law passed in December specifically asked for $75 million a year for five years, beginning in 2019. The funding gap was first reported by The Marshall Project.

I don't know if I can clearly explain how offensive I find this.I imagine myself as one of the invited felons. Of course I am glad that I have not been forgotten and maybe I can have a future outside of prison. But I am also sure I would realize that I am being used as a political prop. I find this repulsive.

 

Carefully applied, I think trying to help people who have made mistakes is a very sound idea.Caution and realism are necessary, but I can see strong merit in this idea. But not this way. Treating someone as if he were a circus freak put out for display is not the way to start a rehabilitation process.

 

And yes, I often feel the same way about the various displays at State of the Union Addresses by various presidents. And here in the gallery is a beautiful cow from a dairy farm supported by your tax dollars. Say moo for the nice tv audience. To put it very mildly, it lacks class.

 

 

[jjbrr]

FWIW, I found it amusing....

[y66]

Guest post from Jonathan Bernstein at Bloomberg:

 

I can’t manage to put aside an Axios item about President Donald Trump from last Friday. Jonathan Swan reported that “administration officials past and present have told us that Trump savors news coverage that shows him acting unilaterally.” Swan was focused on Trump’s habit of overruling and humiliating his staffers and appointees, which is partly why his administration has had record turnover and why the applicant pool is so small for open jobs. But the point about acting alone is worth delving into.

 

For one thing, Trump often seems to confuse acting with talking. Take the Special Olympics. Trump claimed to be overriding Education Secretary Betsy DeVos last week when he said he “just authorized a funding of the Special Olympics.” The only problem? Trump didn’t authorize anything. Instead, he contradicted his own budget request to Congress, which had in fact slashed funding for the Special Olympics and which Congress was going to ignore anyway. It’s not just that Trump’s reversal had no effect. It’s that Trump, after hiring extreme cost-cutters to write his budget and then (apparently) ignoring what they produced, was reversing himself without seeming to realize it. His pretense of unilateral action ended up being a substitute for doing the job in the first place.

 

It’s a reminder of what the political scientist Richard Neustadt explained decades ago: that presidents are at their weakest when they try to act on their own, and that doing so imposes heavy costs down the line. Every president gets rolled by the bureaucracy. To Trump, it happens repeatedly, in public, over an enormous variety of things. Every president gets frustrated when faced with stubborn staffers, selfish members of Congress, interest groups that refuse to compromise, and a court system that denies them what they think they’re entitled to. But every other modern president has understood that accomplishing anything requires dealing with all of those legitimate parts of the public-policy process and more. Which means bargaining, cajoling, politicking and horse trading. Two years in, Trump still hasn’t learned the basic rules of the game.

 

His decision this week to champion a (still nonexistent) health-care bill offers a good example. Republicans in Congress couldn’t wait to tell reporters that they had no interest in the plan, which produced yet another Trump retreat on Monday. Trump “acted” unilaterally and it got him nothing. It’s possible that he could’ve achieved his goal if he had worked with the allies he was going to need; or perhaps he would’ve gauged the intensity of their opposition and backed off quietly. Instead, he loses publicly once again.

 

There’s an old saw that applies here about how it’s easy to get things done as long as you’re willing to give the credit to someone else. (I’ve seen it, with various wordings, attributed to different presidents.) Trump obviously isn’t the first politician to have an exaggerated sense of his own importance, and he isn’t the first to want to hog credit for everything. But again, most successful politicians realize that there’s a lot more to the job.

[kenberg]

Guest post from Jonathan Bernstein at Bloomberg:

 

 

 

I agree with Bernstein, it represents my view of Trump from the beginning. But the guy is still president, he still seems to have a lock on much of his party, and I wouldn't bet the house on him losing in 2020. We need to think if how this can be.

 

I think back to 2016 when there was talk of how he used bankruptcy laws to make money while letting others pick up the pieces. He presented this as evidence of his skills. It reminded me of a story I have mentioned before. There was a newatory about a guy being arrested for scamming. He told investors that he was really good at hiding money in off shore untraceable accounts and they shouold give him their money and he would do this with it. So they gave him their money and he hid it in offshore untraceable accounts! With Trump we have a guy who is very proud of how his ability to humiliate others scam others, and generally screw others. For some reason people believe that this skill will be used in their favor, against others. Even if i wanted some scam artist to use his skills in my favor against others, I think there is reason to be suspicious of such an offer.

 

[Winstonm]

I agree with Bernstein, it represents my view of Trump from the beginning. But the guy is still president, he still seems to have a lock on much of his party, and I wouldn't bet the house on him losing in 2020. We need to think if how this can be.

 

I think back to 2016 when there was talk of how he used bankruptcy laws to make money while letting others pick up the pieces. He presented this as evidence of his skills. It reminded me of a story I have mentioned before. There was a newatory about a guy being arrested for scamming. He told investors that he was really good at hiding money in off shore untraceable accounts and they shouold give him their money and he would do this with it. So they gave him their money and he hid it in offshore untraceable accounts! With Trump we have a guy who is very proud of how his ability to humiliate others scam others, and generally screw others. For some reason people believe that this skill will be used in their favor, against others. Even if i wanted some scam artist to use his skills in my favor against others, I think there is reason to be suspicious of such an offer.

 

I like your reminder of the scammer and his willing victims. What turns my stomach is when the U.S. president calls predominantly black countries "shitehole counties", cuts off aid to Central American countries, cages like animals the children of asylum seekers, and says that some who marched through Charlottesville, chaning "Blood and soil" were "good people".

 

What is truly disheartening, though, is that my reactions are what makes the base happy and supportive.

[kenberg]

I like your reminder of the scammer and his willing victims. What turns my stomach is when the U.S. president calls predominantly black countries "shitehole counties", cuts off aid to Central American countries, cages like animals the children of asylum seekers, and says that some who marched through Charlottesville, chaning "Blood and soil" were "good people".

 

What is truly disheartening, though, is that my reactions are what makes the base happy and supportive.

 

Maybe a winning campaign slogan for 2020 would be "We are better than this".

[y66]

Even if i wanted some scam artist to use his skills in my favor against others, I think there is reason to be suspicious of such an offer.

This lack of suspicion and judgment by Trump's fan base is bewildering, as if Trump's favorite parable about the snake did not apply to his fellow snakes.

[y66]

From Forget collusion, the problem is corruption and complacency by Isabel Sawhill at Brookings:

 

Robert Mueller has reported. There was no collusion. There is instead corruption and complacency.

 

The corruption is obvious. It is why so many of President Trump’s associates have been indicted and some are going to prison. It’s why there has been so much turnover in the cabinet. It’s why the President continues to put his own interests above those of the country.

 

Complacency, in contrast, has gotten less attention. It’s more about sins of omission than of commission. It’s more about us than about the president. It’s not just what we, as a people, have done, but about what we have failed to do. As Congressman John Delaney puts it, “the cost of doing nothing is not nothing.” The Mueller investigation can’t address these sins of omission. The problems are far deeper and more long-standing.

 

From the end of World War II until about 1980, democracy worked reasonably well because we were less complacent and more interested in institution building. To be sure, Vietnam and Watergate roiled the country but were resolved through political action. Young people fought for civil rights and marched against the Vietnam War. A president resigned. The economy produced rising incomes but other “indispensable” institutions, such as unions, business leadership, community organizations, as well as government, itself, worked hand in hand with the market to ensure that prosperity was widely shared. Market failures—such as the degradation of the environment—were restrained.

 

Then the cold war ended and later generations tended to take peace and prosperity for granted. They turned inward and focused more on getting ahead. They watched while our leaders cut our taxes, deregulated for both good and bad reasons, made union organizing more difficult, and allowed businesses to become bigger and less competitive. They worried too little about the effects on people’s lives and the ultimate sustainability of democracy itself. Inequality grew, those affected by trade and technology were left to struggle on their own. Floods and droughts multiplied, and the opioid epidemic devastated communities. The ability of social media to use our personal data to manipulate opinions and affect electoral outcomes was not recognized until it was too late. Our current president may not have colluded with the Russians but he has ignored the threat to the integrity of our elections. The growing influence of money in politics has meant that even though a strong majority supports higher taxes on corporations and the wealthy, tax policy has moved in just the opposite direction. Tax cuts under Reagan, under Bush, and under Trump not only deprived us of the resources we needed to fix some of these problems but were an indictment of democracy itself, a sign that it was out of step with public opinion. Although fiscal and monetary policy saved us from the Great Recession, their ability to do so in the future is now in question.

 

This complacency has both global and domestic variants. My colleague at Brookings, Robert Kagan, has laid out the global story well. He argues that authoritarianism is a big threat to liberal democracies, that Russia and China are in a stronger position than ever to challenge the United States—and to become models for other nations. Again, the period from the end of World War II until the end of the Cold War was unique; it required U.S. leadership and a willingness to use our resources and power to check tyrants and encourage democracy around the world. Without a commitment to provide that kind of “indispensable” leadership going forward, a liberal world order and democracy itself are at risk. It is a mistake, in Kagan’s view, to assume that a liberal world order can be sustained without American leadership. It is a mistake, in my view, to assume that a liberal democracy at home can be sustained without an active citizenry and a different kind of leadership.

[y66]

Guest post from Mayor Pete:

 

Amazingly, the chyron is not the most foolish thing about this picture.

 

To get ahead of a potential refugee crisis caused by great suffering in Central America, it would make sense to use our resources to help reduce that suffering.

 

This is self-defeating.

 

[y66]

re: the strange lack of suspicion of Trump by his base -- Max Fisher at NYT has an explanation that sounds right to me:

 

From Brexit Mess Reflects Democracy’s New Era of Tear-It-All-Down:

 

LONDON — If you ask British voters what sort of plan for leaving the European Union they support, you tend to get hesitant, vague answers.

 

But ask them what they oppose and you hear forceful clarity. No to Prime Minister Theresa May’s deal. No to leaving the European Union without a deal. No to “remoaners,” as tabloids call those who want to stay in the bloc.

 

No to Ms. May herself, whose approval ratings are deeply negative. No to her rival and leader of the Labour party, Jeremy Corbyn, whose poll numbers are even worse.

 

In a recent YouGov poll asking Britons whether Ms. May or Mr. Corbyn would make the better prime minister, the runaway winner was “not sure.”

 

British politicians turn out to have a similar problem making any choice at all. On Wednesday, lawmakers said they would seize control of Brexit by holding votes on eight different ways forward — then voted them all down.

 

Like the electorate, Parliament turned out to oppose everything. The result is chaos and drift.

 

There is more than indecision or gridlock at play here. Britain’s breakdown, though particularly acute, represents a much wider phenomenon.

 

Across Western democracies, politics are increasingly defined by opposition — opposition to the status quo, to the establishment and to one’s partisan rivals.

 

People have always organized more easily around what they’re against than what they’re for, but this is different. Politics have grown viscerally tribal and voters instinctively destructive.

 

This trend, driven by social change, economic upheaval and technological disruption, is worsening some of democracy’s gravest problems.

 

It is feeding partisanship’s rancor and intransigence, as voters organize around opposing the other side. It is deepening instability, with elections that fracture parties and eject whoever holds power. And it is driving populist revolts, as citizens clamor to tear down establishments and status quos.

 

Across Europe, mainstream parties have splintered, weakening centrist leaders and empowering hard-line populists. In the United States, all-out partisan warfare has made cooperative governance unthinkable.

 

The trend is captured best by France’s “Yellow Vest” protesters, who can agree only on their anger at their status quo and distrust of institutions. Their tear-it-all-down ethos has left them, despite their impressive power to mobilize, politically inchoate.

 

“This is happening everywhere,” said Steven Levitsky, a Harvard University political scientist, referring to the collapse of what scholars call Schumpeterian democracy, named for the Austrian theorist Joseph Schumpeter. Long the basis of modern democracy, in which establishments managed popular will and sought a common good, it is giving way to a new system that is both primal and distinctly 21st century.

 

“For better and worse, the moderation, policy stability and informal checks imposed by the establishments’ monopoly over access to elected office are disappearing,” Mr. Levitsky said. With social distrust and political chaos rising, he added, “This is going to be a major challenge going forward.”

Good summary of what everyone who has been paying attention has figured out. I like Mr. Levitsky's optimistic note in "for better and worse".

[kenberg]

I just looked up "chyron". It might be nice to have a president that occasionally uses words that I have to look up. There are a lot of other things about this guy that I like. Apparently I am not the only one. We will see where this all goes.

[johnu]

In the past, golf has been called the gentleman's game.

 

Donald Trump Cheats At Golf In Some Really Ridiculous Ways: Sports Writer

 

Soccer/futbol/football fans might like this comparison:

 

“He [Trump] cheats like a mafia accountant. He cheats crazy. He cheats whether you’re watching or not. He cheats whether you like it or not,” Reilly said. “He kicks the ball out of the rough so many times the caddies call him Pelé.”

In defense of mafia accountants, many top mafia golfers scrupulously adhere to the rules of golf (getting shot, stabbed with a knife, or having their car blown up by a disgruntled opponent may have something to do with this B-))

 

This was unbelievably weird,

 

“He said when he buys a new course, he plays the first round by himself and calls that the club championship,” Reilly said. “So I started calling around, people said, ’Yeah, one day he was at Trump Philly, and we played the club championship at Trump Bedminster, and he called and said, ‘Who won the championship?’ They said ‘Joe Shmoe’ shot 76, Trump goes, ‘I shot 73 up here at Trump Philly, make me the champion.’

“When he started campaigning on this as ‘I’m a winner, I can close out, I’ve won 18 club championships, and that’s against the best players,’

Another case of no lie to small, and no lie too big for Dennison.

[Winstonm]

This Lawfare article makes, I think, an important point.

 

The special counsel’s prosecution and declination decisions tell only a small part of the story that all Americans, and their elected representatives, should care deeply about. After all, criminal culpability is not the standard by which someone’s fitness to be elected to the office of president of the United States, or in this case to remain in that office, should be judged. As some observers have correctly explained in recent days, this distinction goes to the heart of the difference between a criminal investigation, on the one hand, and a counterintelligence investigation, on the other. Barr’s summary speaks only to the former and omits any facts, findings or conclusions from the latter. Counterintelligence is always where the action was going to be.

[y66]

re: cheating at golf -- I played a lot of golf over the years with my dad who was a very competitive golfer. He got into and out of a lot of tough spots over the years and never doubted that he could thread a 4-iron through a 3 foot opening between two trees. No guts, no glory was one of his favorite sayings. I remember playing with him at Army Navy in Arlington and seeing then President Clinton slice a drive into the trees on an adjacent hole and then kicking it out into the rough. We both just shook our heads. You can learn a lot about people on the golf course.