Has U.S. Democracy Been Trumped?

[y66]

Former President Donald Trump, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell and their GOP colleagues tried their best to leave the federal judicial bench as full as possible before Democrats took control of the White House and Congress this month. Trump’s speed in nominating judges was one of his strengths as a president. Yet vacancies remained and new ones have already opened up.

 

Huffpost’s Jennifer Bendery has the story: Thirteen judges have already retired since the November election. Five of those left during the first week of the Joe Biden presidency. Five were chosen by President George W. Bush. That’s the most interesting part. It’s not surprising that judges selected by Democrats would wait until Trump was out of the White House to retire, but apparently a handful of Republican-nominated judges either preferred being replaced by a Democrat to having Trump pick their successor, or at least were willing to let that happen.

 

The first challenge for Biden concerning judicial appointments will be to move as fast as Trump did, rather than revert to the slower nomination pace of President Barack Obama. Biden knows that the Democrats’ Senate majority is as tenuous as it can be, and may not last long. He knows, too, that in 2015-2016, Senate Republicans used their majority to shut down judicial nominations, notably by refusing to consider Obama’s choice of Judge Merrick Garland to fill the Supreme Court seat vacated by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, but extending to federal appeals court and district court nominations as well.

 

The Bush nominees who retired recently suggest another tough set of decisions for Biden. His administration so far has been filled with mainstream liberals. Most Democrats will expect the same from the judges he selects, and it certainly seems likely that the majority of Biden’s judicial choices will reflect the party’s philosophical preferences. No doubt his Supreme Court choice, if he gets one soon (with Justice Stephen Breyer a good bet to retire strategically with a Democrat in the White House), will be very liberal.

 

But ideology has typically been less of a requirement at the district court level. It seems possible that if Biden shows more diversity of approaches in his picks there, he might induce more Republican-nominated judges, especially those who are unenthusiastic about the current radicalization of their own party, to retire sooner. Or Republican-nominated judges who are ready to retire but might otherwise hang on through the 2024 elections might instead allow Biden to replace them. It’s unclear how many judges fit in that category, but I suspect there are some, especially after the last 10 weeks of Trump’s presidency.

 

The flip side of that approach is that Biden wouldn’t be maximizing the ideological advantages the party could get from the vacancies that show up early. So it’s not easy to know what the best path might be. Other than one thing that is certain: Whatever choices he makes, keeping judicial nominations a priority and filling them quickly is the best strategy.

Being a judge definitely beats being a coal miner.

[Winstonm]

For those whose belief is that presidents are responsible for the economy’s growth, in 2020 the economy shrank 3.5%.

[Winstonm]

Here is part of an article from Yahoo about a Catholic priest who live-streamed an exorcism to rid the demons involved in the election process:

 

 

 

In one of the live-streams, Rev Zuhlsdorf said: "I think it's amply clear, there's enough evidence to demonstrate that there was fraud in some places, and people had to commit that fraud, it didn't happen by itself."

 

He added: "As exorcists will confirm, the demons are very good with electronic equipment," seemingly referencing false claims from Mr Trump's allies that voting machines were rigged in favour of President Joe Biden on 3 November.

 

Despite the repeated claims from Mr Trump and several prominent Republican figures, there is no evidence of widespread fraud in last year's election.

 

my emphasis

 

 

Just Quit. Quit saying "no evidence"!. When you do that, you suggest in might have happened if only..... So just knock it off.

 

There was no fraud - it's bullhockey. That's all you have to write or say. Period.

 

"No evidence" helps keep The Big Lie alive and kicking. So quit it.

[barmar]

For those whose belief is that presidents are responsible for the economy’s growth, in 2020 the economy shrank 3.5%.

Of course if you ask Trump, he'll point out that the economy was booming for the first 3 years of his administration, then China sent the coronavirus and there was nothing he could do about that.

[Winstonm]

Of course if you ask Trump, he'll point out that the economy was booming for the first 3 years of his administration, then China sent the coronavirus and there was nothing he could do about that.

 

Why would you ask a pathological liar what he thought?

 

PS: the booming economy turns out to have boomed about as much as the Obama economy - although neither president really has a causal relationship, just an anecdotal one. But for grins consider this:

 

employment per month average-----------Annual GDP-------------------------------------------------------------S&P Level

2012 -181 2016 -195 ------------------- 2012 -2.2 2016 - 1.7---------------------------Obama takes office: 805-------------Trump takes office: 2271

2013 -192 2017 -176 ------------------- 2013 -1.8 2017 -2.3----------------------------Obama leaves: 2271------------------Trump leaves: 3444

2014 -250 2018 -193 ------------------- 2014 -2.5 2018 -3.0

2015 -227 2019 -178 ------------------- 2015 -3.1 2019 -2.2

 

Great economy? Best of all time?

'Billy, look, you just tell them and they believe it. That's it: you just tell them and they believe. They just do.'"

[pilowsky]

There was a film many years ago called 'The Ruling Class'.

In the film, a man - who believes - (probably falsely) that he is Jesus Christ - becomes the Lord of a large estate in Britain.

Nothing unusual there I hear you cry, well apparently his relatives disagreed.

They called in a psychiatrist.

 

The psychiatrist suggested that they find another person who also believed he was Christ and put them together in the same room.

The two would then realise that logically it was impossible for two people to be Christ and they would both be cured.

 

Incredibly it worked! The Lord decided that obviously, he wasn't Jesus Christ, he must be Jack the Ripper instead.

 

In America when this happens he would be banished to a golf course in Florida.

 

You might think this story is fanciful. My Father (an actual psychiatrist) told me that the film was based on a true story.

 

In real life, both men (of course they were men) just sat at opposite ends of the room, because obviously, the other one was completely mad.

 

You can watch the whole film here: http://bit.ly/TheRulingClass1972.

 

In real life, neither of the men had to go to Florida.

[y66]

Cruise and Zellweger preenact McCarthy's meeting with Trump:

 

https://youtu.be/NpWAlvWNZj0

[Winstonm]

Cruise and Zellweger preenact McCarthy's meeting with Trump:

 

https://youtu.be/NpWAlvWNZj0

 

No, I think

.

[Winstonm]

Tommy Tubberville, about Alabama, should quote Victor Mollo's foreward to The Bridge Menagerie:

 

If they have picked the wrong man, the blame is theirs, not mine. I have weighed all the facts carefully and I acquit myself unanimously.

[Zelandakh]

It is good to see that traditionally repressive countries like Myanmar are now following the American model of democracy. We should all congratulate DJT and the GOP on making the USA once more a shining beacon for other countries around the world.

[Winstonm]

It is good to see that traditionally repressive countries like Myanmar are now following the American model of democracy. We should all congratulate DJT and the GOP on making the USA once more a shining beacon for other countries around the world.

 

Of course, Myanmar is better at coups - their's was successful. Guess they didn't have a Loser in charge.

[y66]

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/01/us/politics/republicans-trump-ronna-mcdaniel.html?searchResultPosition=1

 

WASHINGTON — Knute Buehler, who led Oregon’s Republican ticket as the candidate for governor in 2018, watched with growing alarm in recent weeks as Republicans around the nation challenged the reliability of the presidential election results.

 

Then he watched the Jan. 6 siege at the United States Capitol in horror. And then, to his astonishment, Republican Party officials in his own state embraced the conspiracy theory that the attack was actually a left-wing “false flag” plot to frame Trump supporters.

 

The night after his party’s leadership passed a formal resolution promoting the false flag theory, Mr. Buehler cracked open a local microbrew and filed to change his registration from Republican to independent. “It was very painful,” he said.

 

His unhappy exit highlighted one facet of the upheaval now underway in the G.O.P.: It has become a leaderless party, with veterans like Mr. Buehler stepping away, luminaries like Senator Rob Portman of Ohio retiring, far-right extremists like Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia building a brand on a web of dangerous conspiracy theories, and pro-Trump Republicans at war with other conservatives who want to look beyond the former president to the future.

[y66]

Has the economy fared better under Democratic presidents or Republican presidents over the past century? The sensible answer might seem to be: It’s probably been similar.

 

Presidents, after all, have only limited control over the economy. They don’t have much influence over the millions of decisions every day, made by consumers and business executives, that shape economic growth, jobs, incomes and stock prices. Over the course of a century, it seems logical that the economy would have performed similarly under Democrats and Republicans.

 

But it hasn’t.

 

The economy has fared far better under Democrats. The gap, as one academic paper puts it, is “startlingly large.” Here are the headline numbers:

 

 

And here is a ranking of presidents by average annual G.D.P. growth:

 

 

The gap exists not only for G.D.P. and jobs but also for incomes, productivity and stock prices. The gap also exists if you assume that a president’s policies affect the economy with a lag and don’t start his economic clock until months after he takes office. Virtually any reasonable look at the data shows a big Democratic advantage.

 

My colleague Yaryna Serkez and I have just published a piece documenting the pattern and the potential reasons. A few possibilities are easy to reject. It’s not about congressional control, nor is it about Democrats running up larger budget deficits. (Republican presidents have run up larger deficits in recent decades.)

 

Coincidence surely plays some role — but it’s highly unlikely to account for the entire gap, given its size, breadth and duration. Yaryna’s and my piece explores some of the most plausible explanations:

• Republican presidents have been slow to respond to recessions and other crises — Donald Trump and both George Bushes being examples. (Herbert Hoover was too, and the partisan gap would be even bigger if the data went back far enough to include him.)
  
• Recent Democratic presidents have been more pragmatic, willing to listen to the evidence about when the economy would benefit from deficit reduction and when it needs government support for education, infrastructure, scientific research and more.
  
• Republican presidents over the past 40 years have pursued one economic policy above all other — tax cuts, skewed heavily toward the affluent — and there is little evidence that they do much for economic growth.
  

Our piece has more details and charts, as well as comments from both conservative and liberal economists. Find it all here.

[y66]

The Senate has three choices for how to organize the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump. Two of them make sense.

 

The Washington Post’s Greg Sargent lays out the case for one of the sensible plans: Begin the impeachment in committee. As Sargent explains, that would offer an opportunity to present the evidence in depth, and to put it on the public record — all without threatening the ability of the full Senate to get things done. Remember, this isn’t just about the events of Jan. 6. The article of impeachment covers Trump’s entire scheme to undermine the legitimate election results, eventually including inciting insurrection. Some of those details are well known, such as Trump’s call to Georgia’s secretary of state asking him to “find” votes. Some of them are just emerging now. Some of the key players haven’t talked for the record at all, and certainly not under oath.

 

The second good option? The Senate could do what it did in Bill Clinton’s impeachment trial. Back then, the Senate took depositions from witnesses, and then the House managers and Clinton’s lawyers were able to play video excerpts during the trial. A fully transparent committee would be better, but at least the Senate in this scenario could do the necessary fact-finding outside of the formal trial setting.

 

The worst option, unfortunately, appears to be where we’re headed. That would be rushing through a trial that has no new fact-finding process and does very little to illuminate how the assault on the Capitol actually happened.

 

Yes, 45 Republicans have already gone on record to say that Trump can’t be convicted in an impeachment trial after leaving office. (Technically, they voted against tabling — or stopping consideration of — Senator Rand Paul’s point of order, and haven’t yet voted directly on the underlying claim.) That makes conviction unlikely. But that’s all the more reason to construct a very public, and reasonably detailed, record of exactly what Trump did wrong.

 

After all, there’s no real rush to complete this process, as long as the procedures can be arranged so that it doesn’t interfere with the other important business of Congress. And it shouldn’t. Remember: The Constitution is clear that both chambers make their own rules. Given that the subject of impeachment is in large part the former president’s role in sparking an assault on those chambers, it’s only proper that they create processes that fulfill their interests — and the interests of the United States.

 

The Senate should slow down and get it right.

[y66]

re: Where Republicans’ $618B coronavirus relief proposal differs from Biden’s $1.9T plan (WaPo)

 

I was looking to see which areas Republicans prioritize over direct payments, state governments, UI, schools, and child poverty but it turns out the answer is nothing.

 

There is no area where they want to do more to help. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[johnu]

re: Where Republicans’ $618B coronavirus relief proposal differs from Biden’s $1.9T plan (WaPo)

 

A compromise proposal would be something like a 1.5 trillion or 2.5 trillion bill. Something close to the original Democratic bill. .6 trillion is 1/3 the size of the original proposal, an absolute joke, an obviously fake attempt at a compromise when the clear conclusion is that it isn't a legitimate attempt at a compromise, but a cynical bungled attempt to create a fake talking point that the Republicans offered a compromise that the Democrats rejected.

[Winstonm]

A compromise proposal would be something like a 1.5 trillion or 2.5 trillion bill. Something close to the original Democratic bill. .6 trillion is 1/3 the size of the original proposal, an absolute joke, an obviously fake attempt at a compromise when the clear conclusion is that it isn't a legitimate attempt at a compromise, but a cynical bungled attempt to create a fake talking point that the Republicans offered a compromise that the Democrats rejected.

 

The entire purpose was to establish for the orchestrated right-wing-media a talking point justification for stonewalling all future attempts at compromise. Mission accomplished.

[y66]

The trial brief submitted by Donald Trump’s lawyers on Tuesday leans heavily on the claim that a former president, having been impeached, is no longer subject to a Senate trial. That’s not a particularly strong argument, but it is a legitimate one with some scholarly support, and in practical terms it’s clearly the best they have — given that 45 Republican senators have already indicated that they’re inclined to buy it and clearly would rather talk about such constitutional provisions than about what Trump did in the final 10 weeks of his presidency.

 

What I found more interesting in the brief was an argument that, if we attribute it to Trump (and not just to lawyers throwing anything they have at the wall and hoping it sticks), helps underline exactly why he was such a bad president. What’s fascinating here is a “free speech” claim: that Trump’s various attempts to subvert the election were protected by his First Amendment rights, and therefore not subject to legitimate impeachment.

 

Jonathan Adler knocked this argument down last month:

 

The Amendment does not generally protect speech uttered in the course of one's employment, and even if a government employee engages in protected speech in a private capacity, off the job, on a matter of public concern, it may still be sanctioned if the government has interests that sufficiently outweigh the employee's interest in speaking freely. So, for instance, if a police officer engages in otherwise protected speech off-the-job, it could still result in that officer being fired if the speech might compromise the ability of the officer to perform his or her job, or call the officer's fitness into question. So, while racist speech may be protected, police departments can still discipline officers for off-duty racist speech.

Adler was focused on the government here. But it’s obviously more broadly true of any employer. Of course employees can be fired for spreading lies about the organization they work for while neglecting the duties they were hired to perform. Of course First Amendment rights offer no protection for employees who do that. No one who has ever held a job would doubt that.

 

And there’s the problem: Trump treated the presidency as a prize he had won, but in fact it was a job he was hired to do. Yes, the Constitution gives great latitude to the occupants of the office as to exactly how they perform their duties. And yet at the end of the day, the president is only an employee — and he or she is only one of many people hired to collectively govern the nation. Trump never seemed to understand that.

 

Perhaps that’s why he accomplished so little over his four years in office, with most of his achievements already melting away. Oh, the judges he appointed will stay put for a while. And he (along with a Republican Congress) can take credit or blame for a big tax cut and some upgraded border fencing. But otherwise, he achieved little of substance and plenty that has already been overturned by Joe Biden. As Jonathan Chait has argued, that’s in strong contrast to the enduring accomplishments of Barack Obama’s administration (although to be fair, the 111th Congress also deserves much of the credit or blame for them, and Trump had to work with much less capable Republican majorities).

 

We don’t have a final verdict on Trump’s presidency. To the extent that he accelerated the antidemocratic tendencies of the Republican Party, his legacy may well loom large — especially if the radicals he elevated wind up taking down constitutional government after all. But even that was almost incidental to his presidency. The truth is, he just didn’t do the job, and now he’s brazen enough to use that as a defense in his second impeachment trial.

[johnu]

Of course if you ask Trump, he'll point out that the economy was booming for the first 3 years of his administration, then China sent the coronavirus and there was nothing he could do about that.

And Bush II kept the homeland safe from terrorism, except for that 9/11 thing.

[Chas_P]

And Bush II kept the homeland safe from terrorism, except for that 9/11 thing.

::If only Scranton Joe had been at the helm! We could have all lived happily ever after. ::::::::::sigh:::::::::::

[y66]

https://messaging-custom-newsletters.nytimes.com/template/oakv2?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20210203&instance_id=26745&nl=the-morning&productCode=NN&regi_id=59211987&segment_id=50971&te=1&uri=nyt%3A%2F%2Fnewsletter%2F1624fb7c-b611-55fd-9aea-214b49527976&user_id=2d8b72dd84a9ff194896ed87b2d9c72a

 

The Lucy theory of politics

To understand the back and forth over President Biden’s coronavirus relief bill, it helps to look back at a little history.

 

In Bill Clinton’s first weeks as president, he pushed for legislation meant to reduce the deficit, bring down interest rates and spark the economy. It received no votes from Republicans in the House or the Senate and passed only when Vice President Al Gore broke a 50-50 Senate tie.

 

In Barack Obama’s first weeks as president, he pushed for legislation to halt the financial crisis and revive the economy. It received no votes from House Republicans and only three from Senate Republicans, one of whom (Arlen Specter) soon switched parties.

 

This week, when I first saw the Biden administration’s unenthusiastic reaction to a coronavirus proposal from Senate Republicans, I was confused. Biden views himself as a dealmaker, and a president typically benefits from forging a bipartisan compromise.

 

So why isn’t Biden pursuing a two-step strategy — first pouring himself into a bipartisan deal and then following up with a Democratic bill that fills in the pieces he thinks were missing? Why does he instead seem to be leaning toward a single bill that would need only Democratic support to pass?

 

The answer has a lot to do with history: For decades, congressional Republicans have opposed — almost unanimously — any top priority of an incoming Democratic president. Biden and his aides believe they will be playing Charlie Brown to a Republican Lucy if they imagine this time will be different.

 

The parties aren’t the same

Democrats, of course, also tend to oppose Republican presidents’ policies and often try to obstruct them. But on the question of legislative compromise, there really has been a recent difference between the parties. (Which can be a difficult thing for us journalists to acknowledge: We’re more comfortable portraying the parties as mirror images of each other.)

 

In 2001, George W. Bush’s tax cut was supported by 12 Democrats in the Senate and 28 in the House. His education bill also received significant Democratic support, as did multiple virus relief bills during Donald Trump’s presidency. Some Democrats saw these bills as opportunities to win policy concessions.

 

Republicans have a taken different tack. Perhaps the clearest example is Obamacare, the final version of which received no Republican votes even though it included conservative ideas and Obama was eager to include more in exchange for Republican support. But top Republicans, led by Senator Mitch McConnell, thought that any support of the bill would strengthen Obama and weaken them.

 

“It’s either bipartisan or it isn’t,” McConnell told The Times in 2010, explaining the strategy.

 

Counting to 10

On the surface, this time seems different, given that 10 Republican senators went to the White House on Monday to talk with Biden about a compromise virus bill. But that meeting may have been as much about show, on both sides, as substance.

 

Of the 10 Republicans, a few — like Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski and Mitt Romney — have occasionally sided with Democrats on a major issue. Others, however, have not — including Jerry Moran of Kansas, Mike Rounds of South Dakota and Todd Young of Indiana. And Biden would need at least 10 Republican votes to overcome a filibuster. With any fewer, he would be back to pursuing the same 51-vote strategy (known as reconciliation) he now seems to be pursuing.

 

Democrats’ central fear is a repeat of Obamacare, in which months of negotiation in 2009 nonetheless ended without Republican support. Biden would have then wasted his first months in office — and the country would have gone without additional money for vaccination, virus testing, unemployment insurance and more.

 

As Carl Hulse, The Times’s chief Washington correspondent, told me: “Democrats, including many now in the White House, remember 2009 very clearly, and they fear being strung along for months only to come away empty-handed. That’s not to say Republicans aren’t bargaining in good faith, but holding that 10 together could be difficult.”

 

Biden himself has made the same point in private conversations. “He said, basically, ‘I don’t want to go down the path we went down in 2009, when we negotiated for eight months and still didn’t have a product,’” Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia said on “Morning Joe” yesterday.

 

One more point: Neither side is committing itself to a strategy yet. If Democrats proceed with the reconciliation approach, they and Republicans can continue negotiating over the substance of the bill. Bush used reconciliation for his 2001 tax cut and still received 40 votes from congressional Democrats in the end.

 

The latest: Biden met with congressional Democrats at the White House yesterday. He said he was open to restricting eligibility for his proposed $1,400-per-person checks but not to reducing the maximum amount. “I’m not going to start my administration by breaking a promise to people,” Biden reportedly said.

[kenberg]

The very last part is the key

The latest: Biden met with congressional Democrats at the White House yesterday. He said he was open to restricting eligibility for his proposed $1,400-per-person checks but not to reducing the maximum amount. “I’m not going to start my administration by breaking a promise to people,” Biden reportedly said.

I suppose if someone wants to give me $1400 I'll take it. But I would be hard-pressed to give an argument as to why the government should do so. Others need it. Some desperately. If Re[publicans cannot bring themselves to acknowledge this, it is hard to take them seriously.

[shyams]

The very last part is the key

The latest: Biden met with congressional Democrats at the White House yesterday. He said he was open to restricting eligibility for his proposed $1,400-per-person checks but not to reducing the maximum amount. “I’m not going to start my administration by breaking a promise to people,” Biden reportedly said.

 

I suppose if someone wants to give me $1400 I'll take it. But I would be hard-pressed to give an argument as to why the government should do so. Others need it. Some desperately. If Re[publicans cannot bring themselves to acknowledge this, it is hard to take them seriously.

I agree. There is another thing that President Biden did which can be used as a political escape route while leaving the GOP looking bad.

 

That was when those GOP Senators met up with the President and his key advisers. These Senators were present on behalf of the entire GOP and they categorically said that only $600 is possible. This allows the Dems to claim something like "Look, the other side was insisting we compromise at $600 but we refused to settle for anything less than what we asked for in the first place." What remains to be seen is whether the Dems will use such (somewhat dicey) positioning statements to obtain political mileage with the voters.

 

Also, Sen Schumer has begun Senate proceedings to include many of the President's promises as Budget Reconciliation. This is a very good development. They now have to keep the pressure on those 2-3 wavering Dems to ensure that the unamended Budget Reconciliation passes through the Senate. From what I read, the process is slow but at least it is guaranteed to succeed --- provided all Dems vote in favour of the main Budget and against any wrecking amendments introduced by the GOP.

[johnu]

::If only Scranton Joe had been at the helm! We could have all lived happily ever after. ::::::::::sigh:::::::::::

Your ignorance is stunning, but completely expected. The FBI arrested the so called 20th hijacker Zacarias Moussaoui on August 16, 2001 after a tip from a suspicious flight instructor. If you are date challenged, this was almost a month before September 11, 2001. Bush II received presidential briefing about Bin Laden planning to hijack commercial airliners in August 2001.

 

At the time, Bush was on vacation on his Texas ranch doing very important things like clearing brush and doing photo ops. (for students of history, he was also busy doing "important" things on his ranch when Hurricane Katrina was destroying New Orleans and the gulf coast). Nobody can tell for sure if the 9/11 hijackings could have been prevented if added security measures were rushed into place, but we all know what happened when there was absolutely zero response at all.

 

Even something as non-technical and taking zero money and resources such as having a press conference and announcing to the public and law enforcement that bin Laden was planning to hijack airliners may have been enough to prevent 9/11, or maybe just stop 1 plane from being hijacked.

[pilowsky]

The speed at which important 'things' are achieved by Democracy in America is reflected in the amount of time it takes the House of Representatives to vote on anything.

I am now watching 'in real-time' the vote on whether or not to remove the Green troll from its committee appointment.

Yea=217 Nay=92 Pres=0 and NV= 22

 

It looks like a competition to see what comes first - the end of the vote or Passover.

 

Imagine how long it will take them to do something of actual value to the world economy, climate change, war or pestilence.

 

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. What a Karr crash, it's enough to make you doubly critical.

Only ~11,000 viewers.

Started more than 5 hours ago.

 

Apparently, in the House voting is compulsory. I wonder what America would be like if the same applied at elections.

If 'management' of voting times. methods and boundaries could not be used to disenfranchise voters.

Nearly done!

230 vs 199 - the resolution is adopted.

Here it is: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/117/hres72/text