Has U.S. Democracy Been Trumped?

[Al_U_Card]

Guest post from Jonathan Bernstein at Bloomberg:

Gee, open and candid comments, MUCH worse than subterfuge and obfuscation? Refreshing (if somewhat disquieting) change. Up front, up close and personal, no wonder the swampsters hate him so much. Court of Louis XVI anyone? The wonks are in disarray.

[Winstonm]

If there was any question about whether or not Attorney General is another sycophant, this should make that question moot:

 

In a significant shift, the Justice Department now says that it backs a full invalidation of the Affordable Care Act, the signature Obama-era health law.

 

And an attorney who interprets the law to mean that the president cannot obstruct justice is one who adheres to a philosophy of a quasi-imperial president. "I was just following orders" has a nasty ring to it - more so when the country's top law enforcement agency is expected to display blind loyalty to a single individual.

[Winstonm]

Guest post from Jonathan Bernstein at Bloomberg:

 

What Bernstein describes is classic demagoguery - the more outrageous and undignified he acts, the more the deluded masses adore him. A demagogue who surrounds himself with sycophants, stacks the courts with sycophants, and has a compliant Congress is indeed dangerous to a degree that can threaten an entire nation.

 

I would expect the next step is a now unrestrained assault on the treasury via cutouts and conduits tied to legal businesses and other countries.

[Winstonm]

This from The Atlantic helped me understand a lot:

 

Frank Figliuzzi, a former assistant director for counterintelligence at the FBI, said he “never envisioned” that Mueller would bring a conspiracy charge—and that focusing on the absence of criminal indictments for conspiracy is unproductive. “If all we do is apply criminal standards to investigative findings, we are missing the point,” Figliuzzi told me. He noted that the vast majority of counterintelligence cases never result in criminal prosecution. Instead, he said, “they’re about determining the degree to which a foreign power has targeted, compromised, or recruited” the subject. “This thing started as a counterintelligence investigation,” Figliuzzi said, “and it needs to end as a counterintelligence investigation.”

 

The real question is what happened to that counterintelligence investigation?

[y66]

Guest post from Paul Krugman at NYT:

 

Like many people, I’d like to know what the Mueller report actually says. In case you haven’t noticed, we don’t; all we know is what a couple of Trump appointees claim the report says. But meanwhile, a lot of other things are happening. And on the issue that actually dominated Democratic campaigning in the 2018 midterms — health care — the big news is that the parties are farther apart than ever.

 

I’m not talking about the debate within the Democratic party about what its grand vision should be for the long-term future of health reform — Medicare for All, Medicare for America, whatever. Instead, I’m talking about the health reform we have: the Affordable Care Act, which Democrats enacted in 2010, Republicans tried but failed to repeal in 2017, but which has a fate that’s still very much up in the air.

 

 

As the figure shows, the A.C.A. led to a dramatic reduction in the number of Americans without health insurance; around 20 million people who wouldn’t have had coverage without the act now do. Obamacare comes in for a lot of criticism, but it’s hard to think of a piece of legislation since the enactment of Medicare, more than half a century ago, that has done so much to improve the lives of so many.

 

But gains in health coverage have stalled out under Trump, partly because of administration sabotage, but also because subsidies designed to make insurance affordable turn out to be unavailable or inadequate for many middle-class families.

So House Democrats are introducing legislation with a goal of resuming stalled progress on health care, both by blocking the Trump administration’s sabotage efforts and by closing some of the gaps in subsidy coverage. The thing to realize here is that while this legislation obviously won’t be enacted as long as Republicans control the Senate and White House, it could very well become law very quickly if Democrats win control next year. And given past experience, it would probably mean health insurance for millions more Americans.

 

Meanwhile, for its part, the Trump administration has just filed suit in federal court calling for the abolition of the entire Affordable Care Act. If that suit prevails, around 20 million people would lose coverage right away.

 

So as I said, there are other things going on beyond the question of how far Trump scandals reach and who, exactly, did what to and for whom. I don’t know whether the 2020 election, like the 2018 midterms, will be largely about health care — but if the election is about what will directly affect people’s lives for better or worse, it should be.

[cherdano]

This is hard to respond to. I don't want to just ignore it but I also don't feel like mounting a defense of myself. I acknowledge your comments. I'll leave it at that.

Ken, this Democratic primary is unusually focussed on policies. From Kamala Harris over Amy Klobuchar to Elisabeth Warren, they have competed in hauling out policies that would try to address the typical concerns of actual human beings living in the US - from healthcare to affordable housing, from teacher pay to the problems with big tech companies or the financial industry ripping off customers. As far as they have talked about Trump, it was mostly to highlight his corruption, and how he has not actually been working to help his voters.

This has all been covered extensively in many media outlets - NYT, Washington Post, Vox.com. If you are genuinely interested in learning about them, it is a bit puzzling that you aren't making the choices that would lead to that.

 

In other words, your stated preference is to be informed about actual policy proposed by Democratic candidates, and for their concrete claims explaining how they'd be a better president than Trump. Your revealed preference is to be uninformed.

 

Here is a random starter to help you match these up better:

https://www.google.com/search?ei=GF2aXKPaLY6F8APA6afYCQ&q=vox.com+Kamala+Harris&oq=vox.com+Kamala+Harris

[y66]

From Democrats Pivot Hard to Health Care After Trump Moves to Strike Down Affordable Care Act by Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Robert Pear at NYT:

 

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration’s decision to ask a federal appeals court to invalidate the Affordable Care Act has given House Democrats a new opening to pursue what they see as a winning political strategy: moving past talk of impeachment to put kitchen-table issues like health care front and center.

 

The notice to the court, filed late Monday by the Justice Department, could not have come at a more opportune time for Democrats. The finding by Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel, that there was no evidence of a criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia, dashed the hopes of the most partisan Democrats that the House would impeach the president.

 

Speaker Nancy Pelosi — who celebrated her 79th birthday on Tuesday — had already planned to move to change the conversation with the unveiling of the Democrats’ own health care plan on Tuesday. The Democrats’ bill aims to lower health insurance premiums, strengthen protections for people with pre-existing medical conditions and ban the sale of what Democrats call “junk insurance.”

 

The Justice Department’s move gave the unveiling an urgency that not even she could have anticipated.

 

“The Republicans did say during the campaign that they weren’t there to undermine the pre-existing condition benefit, and here they are, right now, saying they’re going to strip the whole Affordable Care Act as the law of the land,” Ms. Pelosi told reporters Tuesday, adding, “This is actually an opportunity for us to speak to the American people with clarity.”

 

More

Dems pivot hard to issues? Good idea, as has been suggested by at least one poster in the water cooler, without sarcasm even, and by another, if somewhat petulantly and obliquely, that this is indeed something Pelosi and many of her colleagues who are running for president have been trying to do and are happy to have this new opportunity to do.

[jjbrr]

Hands down, this is one of the most meta exchanges that I have ever seen on Bridgewinners,

 

Ken, I can't help but not that this looks like another in a never ending series of exchanges in which you complain about the Democrats not spoon feeding you with policy information whilst demonstrating that you expend zero effort to actually look at anything that is presented to you...

 

hrothgar, you are the smartest dumbass i've ever encountered. I know it's working for you, but lol...

[y66]

hrothgar, you are the smartest dumbass i've ever encountered. I know it's working for you, but lol...

Speaking of stuff working / not working, what does it mean that chas_p's prayers for hrothgar have not been answered? Is there a minimum sincerity requirement? That seems too conditional.

[Winstonm]

Speaking of stuff working / not working, what does it mean that chas_p's prayers for hrothgar have not been answered? Is there a minimum sincerity requirement? That seems too conditional.

 

I always get a kick out of the answered prayer meme that claims prayers are always answered with one of three responses: Yes, no, or not now, seeing as those are the only three outcomes possible, whether praying to a deity or a rock.

[Winstonm]

Amazing, even Fox News is not sold on Barr's explanations.

 

We saw on Sunday a four-page summary of a 700-page report,” Napolitano explained. “The 700-page report is a summary of two million pages of documents, of raw evidence.”

 

The analyst went on to insist that the report “undoubtedly” details “some evidence of a conspiracy and some evidence of obstruction” by President Donald Trump.

[Winstonm]

Mick Mulvaney and Individual-1 just gave 30 million voters a reason to vote them out.

 

Across the country, 29.8 million people would lose their health insurance if the Affordable Care Act were repealed—more than doubling the number of people without health insurance.

 

[

Donald Trump Individual-1 reportedly decided to go ahead with his push to repeal the Affordable Care Act in spite of criticisms from his vice president, attorney general and White House counsel.

 

The New York Times reported that Trump’s plan to repeal Obamacare is backed by acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and Joe Grogan, the man Mulvaney chose to lead the Domestic Policy Council.

[Winstonm]

Rather amazing that Fox News still allows Judge Napolitano airtime as he is not following the script.

 

Fox News senior judicial analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano defended embattled House Intelligence Committee chairman Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) Thursday, stating the Democratic lawmaker is likely correct to insist there will be evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia in the still-unseen Mueller report.

[kenberg]

I wouldn't want to leave the impression that Barr's summary can be the end of the story. I said I thought it was a good start, that probably some small parts of the full report will need to be edited out for legal or security reasons, and that then, except in places where there is large agreement about the redaction, we need to see the whole thing. And it shouldn't take forever. It's a long report, so some care is needed, but it needs to be moving along. I'm ok with taking care as long as we are getting it done.

I do very much think it is time to drop the impeachment idea. I was not fond of it to start with. "High crimes and misdemeanors" does not have a clear definition, but whether we are speaking of Nixon or Clinton, or of Andrew Johnson who was actually before my time, I prefer to let voters choose unless the situation clearly requires doing otherwise. I am not expecting that to be the case.

 

I am by nature a cautious person. When I started at the University of Minnesota all entering Freshmen were require to take the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory. I insisted later that they tell me what it said about me. They resisted, I can imagine they did not want several thousand of us coming i for discussion, but they gave a summary, including "You are not a gambler". That's true literally, and probably also metaphorically. I just think of it as saying that I am not stupid.

 

I mention caution because the Dems are currently celebrating the Trump attack on the ACA. I recommend holding off on the champagne. Yes this presents an opportunity. Opportunities can be squandered, and frequently are. And yes, I realize that I should read the position papers of each of the dozen or so candidates and offer a learned critique of each of them along with innovative suggestions for improvement. Maybe tomorrow, I've got a bridge game to go to today.

 

 

[Winstonm]

So much of the problem with messaging in politics is due to the complexities of the message compared to the vehicles of delivery.

 

When we look at history, the 1700s and 1800s were periods where the written word dominated - and I would argue that the electorate was much better informed about their local and state politicians and what they stood for. Long essays were the norm. Try to present a lengthy essay today about any complex subject and I doubt more than 5% of the population would read it or even part of it.

 

Our failures to maintain the advantages across the board to all members of society placed us in a position where a demagogue could win a following. That a demagogue was elected president and still retains a remarkable amount of support shows how far we have fallen as a country.

 

It is still remarkable to me that the same people who clamored for repeal of "Obamacare" were horrified by the idea of repealing the ACA, too ill-informed to know they were the same thing.

 

How do you turn those people back toward facts?

[Winstonm]

And this is a really good explanation why the person in the White House does what he does.

 

The lesson of the Mueller investigation isn’t that Trump is less treacherous than his critics feared. It’s that he’s more treacherous. He’s been selling out his country to a series of dictators. Don’t take it from me. Don’t even take it from Mueller. It’s all in the public record, one damning story after another. Here are four of them....

 

....When Trump negotiates with men like Kim or Erdogan, he claims to do so on behalf of Americans. But in truth, he sees himself as part of a club of CEOs: heads of state. In that club, little people like Khashoggi and the Kurds don’t count. And helping your fellow CEO by hacking the Democratic Party of the United States—in Trump’s view, the real opposition—isn’t an assault on democracy or American sovereignty. It’s a favor.

[Al_U_Card]

And this is a really good explanation why the person in the White House does what he does.

Obama bowed to King Faud, W held his hand. Superman doesn't appear to be available and Mother Theresa had a dark side so, Trump might actually be working for the US. Self-aggrandizement does not preclude that eventuality. Since no one kept their promise to leave the US if DT was elected, what will happen when he is re-elected? Is head-explosion insurance available?

[jjbrr]

hrothgar, you are the smartest dumbass i've ever encountered. I know it's working for you, but lol...

 

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

[barmar]

So much of the problem with messaging in politics is due to the complexities of the message compared to the vehicles of delivery.

 

When we look at history, the 1700s and 1800s were periods where the written word dominated - and I would argue that the electorate was much better informed about their local and state politicians and what they stood for. Long essays were the norm. Try to present a lengthy essay today about any complex subject and I doubt more than 5% of the population would read it or even part of it.

Was that really the case?

 

The reason the Founding Fathers instituted a representative democracy was because they didn't expect the general electorate to be knowledgeable about all the things that are important when running a country. They just expected them to know their community, particularly the character of the people they voted for to represent them in Congress.

[awm]

Was that really the case?

 

The reason the Founding Fathers instituted a representative democracy was because they didn't expect the general electorate to be knowledgeable about all the things that are important when running a country. They just expected them to know their community, particularly the character of the people they voted for to represent them in Congress.

 

In the early days of the US, each Congressman represented something like 30-50,000 Americans. Campaigning could mean actual one-on-one contact, and many people had met their Congressman face-to-face and could personally lobby him on issues. Today, each Congressperson represents 500,000 to a million Americans (the average is around 750k but it depends on the state). This is a big difference (caused by the combination of population growth and a 1929 law capping the size of the House). In fact the US has the largest number of citizens per representative in the federal government of any major democratic nation (we're number one!? but not really a good thing). I wonder what fraction of Americans can even name their representative, much less have met the person face-to-face.

 

The founders presumed that most voters would "know" their representative (and their elector in the electoral college), whereas the presidential candidates (who might be from far away) would be less known. These days it's the opposite; few people know their representative by more than a name and basically no one knows who the electors are -- but changes in technology combined with the two-party system (another thing the founders didn't want, but which happened within most of their lifetimes) mean that a lot of people know quite a bit about the presidential candidates. Good reason to get rid of the electoral college, but like most things that directly help one party and hurt the other it's basically a dead issue no matter how reasonable.

[Winstonm]

Was that really the case?

 

The reason the Founding Fathers instituted a representative democracy was because they didn't expect the general electorate to be knowledgeable about all the things that are important when running a country. They just expected them to know their community, particularly the character of the people they voted for to represent them in Congress.

 

The written word was the only form of communicating ideas outside of the range of a person's voice. While it is true that the education level was such that not nearly as many people read well or at all, still, they could listen while someone else read out loud. This meant that information was slow moving - the spread of news took a person on horseback delivering hand-written letters.

 

Until the advent of the wire, the populace was dependent on the written word.

[Winstonm]

WaPo points out that the problem of the Mueller effort is that the most disturbing aspects of Individual-1 and his ties to Russia are not illegal:

 

That criminals with ties to Russia bought Trump condos, partnered with Trump and were based at Trump Tower — his home, his place of work, the crown jewel of his empire — should be deeply concerning. It’s not hard to conclude that, as a result, the president, wittingly or not, has long been compromised by a hostile foreign power, even if Mueller did not conclude that Trump colluded or conspired with the Russians.

 

Let’s go back to 1984, when David Bogatin, an alleged Russian gangster who arrived in the United States a few years earlier with $3 in his pocket, sat down with Trump and bought not one but five condos, for a total of $6 million — about $15 million in today’s dollars. What was most striking about the transaction was that at the time, according to David Cay Johnston’s “The Making of Donald Trump,” Trump Tower was one of only two major buildings in New York City that sold condos to buyers who used shell companies that allowed them to purchase real estate while concealing their identities. Thus, according to the New York state attorney general’s office, when Trump closed the deal with Bogatin, whether he knew it or not, he had just helped launder money for the Russian Mafia.

 

And so began a 35-year relationship between Trump and Russian organized crime. Mind you, this was a period during which the disintegration of the Soviet Union had opened a fire-hose-like torrent of hundreds of billions of dollars in flight capital from oligarchs, wealthy apparatchiks and mobsters in Russia and its satellites. And who better to launder so much money for the Russians than Trump — selling them multimillion-dollar condos at top dollar, with little or no apparent scrutiny of who was buying them.

 

 

Over the next three decades, dozens of lawyers, accountants, real estate agents, mortgage brokers and other white-collar professionals came together to facilitate such transactions on a massive scale. According to a BuzzFeed investigation, more than 1,300 condos, one-fifth of all Trump-branded condos sold in the United States since the 1980s, were shifted “in secretive, all-cash transactions that enable buyers to avoid legal scrutiny by shielding their finances and identities.”

 

The Trump Organization has dismissed money laundering charges as unsubstantiated, and because it is so difficult to penetrate the shell companies that purchased these condos, it is almost impossible for reporters — or, for that matter, anyone without subpoena power — to determine how much money laundering by Russians went through Trump-branded properties. But Anders Aslund, a Swedish economist, put it this way to me: “Early on, Trump came to the conclusion that it is better to do business with crooks than with honest people. Crooks have two big advantages. First, they’re prepared to pay more money than honest people. And second, they will always lose if you sue them because they are known to be crooks.”

 

After Trump World Tower opened in 2001, Trump began looking for buyers in Russia through Sotheby’s International Realty, which teamed up with a Russian real estate outfit. “I had contacts in Moscow looking to invest in the United States,” real estate broker Dolly Lenz told USA Today. “They all wanted to meet Donald.” In the end, she said, she sold 65 units to Russians in Trump World Tower alone.

 

The condo sales were just a part of it. In 2002, after Trump had racked up $4 billion in debt from his disastrous ventures in Atlantic City, the Russians again came to his rescue, by way of the Bayrock Group. At a time when Trump found it almost impossible to get loans from Western banks, Bayrock offered him enormous fees — 18 to 25 percent of the profits — simply to use his name on its developments.

 

So how did all this go unchallenged? According to Jonathan Winer, who served as deputy assistant secretary of state for international law enforcement in the Clinton administration, one answer may be lax regulations. “If you are doing a transaction with no mortgage, there is no financial institution that needs to know where the money came from, particularly if it’s a wire transfer from overseas,” Winer told me in an interview for my book. “The customer obligations that are imposed on all kinds of financial institutions are not imposed on people selling real estate. They should have been, but they weren’t.”

[Al_U_Card]

WaPo points out that the problem of the Mueller effort is that the most disturbing aspects of Individual-1 and his ties to Russia are not illegal:

Wasn't Mueller, despite being a typical career insider, considered a paragon of virtue as well as a hard-edged investigator who would tenaciously get to the bottom of all wrong-doing? (Mostly Trump's but even others if so involved...) Perhaps the whole idea, assuming he would know about legalities and such having been head of the FBI, was to mud-sling as much as possible and sully Trump to the extent that his Presidency would be completely tainted?

Business, as a corporate-legal-political function, is pretty low down and dirty (Blankfein and Paulsen etc) so this "investigation" may well have succeeded if not with the results hoped for.

[hrothgar]

Wasn't Mueller, despite being a typical career insider, considered a paragon of virtue as well as a hard-edged investigator who would tenaciously get to the bottom of all wrong-doing? (Mostly Trump's but even others if so involved...)

 

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...

[Winstonm]

Wasn't Mueller, despite being a typical career insider, considered a paragon of virtue as well as a hard-edged investigator who would tenaciously get to the bottom of all wrong-doing? (Mostly Trump's but even others if so involved...) Perhaps the whole idea, assuming he would know about legalities and such having been head of the FBI, was to mud-sling as much as possible and sully Trump to the extent that his Presidency would be completely tainted?

Business, as a corporate-legal-political function, is pretty low down and dirty (Blankfein and Paulsen etc) so this "investigation" may well have succeeded if not with the results hoped for.

 

You seem to be relying on the carefully crafted disclaimer from AG Barr "that the SCO did not establish an coordination between any member of the campaign and the Russian government."

 

It is interesting to note that Konstantin Kolimnik is not a member of the Russian government, but Paul Manafort met with him in a clandestine manner and handed over campaign polling data that the SC attorney in court said, "goes to the very heart of the Special Counsel's investigation."

 

Roger Stone was not a "campaign member". Julian Assange is not a part of the Russian government.

 

In short, just with these people mentioned there could have been enormous coordination and "links" that do not match Barr's definition.

 

Finally, I am not surprised by the findings of the SCO - this was, as Benjamin Wittes at Lawfare wrote, a counterintelligence investigation and any criminal matter would have arisen from that.

 

In other words, Mueller wasn't charged with looking for crimes - he was only allowed to prosecute crimes he found through his counterintelligence investigation.

 

Which then goes to my post above - unless Mueller found the attack on our election was somehow related to the Russian mafia laundering money there would be no reason from Mueller to look at those claims - not true of the many other investigations that are still open, though.

 

Bottom line: we will see. But the Barr non-summary summary was created to bait the media into a premature announcement of vindication. That's why he is already backing off from it.

 

A very troubling aspect we should all care about is Barr's claims that private individuals information should be redacted - who makes that call of what can be seen and what cannot? And into what category would someone like Erik Prince fall into?

 

The only genuine solution is for Barr to go to court and authorize the release of GJ testimony to Congress, and allow Congress to see everything that Mueller found. In only that way can checks and balances work.