Thursday Reads: Another Crazy Day in Trump World
Posted: May 30, 2019 Filed under: Foreign Affairs, morning reads, U.S. Politics | Tags: Donald Trump, iran, Iraq War, John Bolton, John McCain, MAGA patches, Mike Pompeo, Robert Mueller, shock and awe, Twitter, USS John McCain, USS Wasp 20 CommentsGood Morning!!
Trump apparently worked himself up into a frenzy last night. He woke up an sent out a series of angry tweets, in one of which he admitted for the first time that Russia helped him get elected. He actually deleted the first tweet but sent out another in which he made the same admission.
A little later Trump emerged from the White House and unleashed a rage-filled 17 minute rant in which he angrily denigrated Robert Mueller. He also contradicted his own tweet, claiming that Russia didn’t help him in 2016.
The Washington Post: Trump attacks Mueller, says he would have brought charges if he had evidence of a crime.
“Robert Mueller should have never been chosen,” Trump said of the former special counsel, who was appointed by former deputy attorney general Rod J. Rosenstein, a Republican Trump appointee.
Trump told reporters that he considered Mueller “totally conflicted” because he had discussions about the position of FBI director early in the Trump administration and is friendly with former FBI director James B. Comey, whom Trump fired in 2017.
“He loves Comey,” Trump claimed. “Whether it’s love or a deep like, he was conflicted.” [….]
Trump also cited a “business dispute” with Mueller on which he did not elaborate. In the past, White House aides have pointed to an alleged dispute over membership fees at Trump National Golf Club in Northern Virginia….
“You know who got me elected? I got me elected,” he said. “Russia didn’t help me at all. Russia, if anything, I think, helped the other side.” [….]
In his comments to reporters, Trump downplayed the prospect of impeachment. A growing number of Democrats were advocating that course on Wednesday after Mueller’s appearance.
“It’s a dirty, filthy disgusting word and it has nothing to do with me,” Trump said. “There was no high crime and there was no misdemeanor.”
This morning’s rant continued as Trump unleashed a number of insults about McCain and how Trump was “never a fan.” He also denied demanding that John McCain’s name be hidden on the U.S. Navy battleship named after McCain’s father and grandfather while Trump was in Japan.
The New York Times: White House Asked Navy to Hide John McCain Warship During Trump’s Visit.
The White House asked the Navy to hide a destroyer named after Senator John McCain in order to avoid having the ship appear in photographs taken while President Trump was visiting Japan this week, White House and military officials said Wednesday.
Although Navy officials insisted they did not hide the ship, the John S. McCain, they did give all of the sailors aboard the day off on Tuesday as Mr. Trump visited Yokosuka Naval Base.
USS Battleship John McCain
Two Navy sailors, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly, said that the McCain sailors were not invited to hear Mr. Trump speak that day aboard the amphibious assault ship Wasp, while sailors from other American warships at the base were.
A Navy service member based on Yokosuka said that all of the American warships in the harbor were invited to send 60 to 70 sailors to hear Mr. Trump’s address, with the exception of the McCain. When several sailors from the McCain showed up anyway, wearing their uniforms with the ship’s insignia, they were turned away, the service member said.
White House aides, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not permitted to speak publicly, confirmed the request was made but said that Mr. Trump did not know about it. A United States official said on Wednesday that the White House sent an email to the Navy with the request on May 15.
[Emphasis added] Raise your hand if you believe Trump had nothing to do with the request.
On the other hand, sailors wearing MAGA patches in support of Trump were allowed to attend the speech.
CNN: Navy reviewing ‘Make Aircrew Great Again’ patches worn by sailors during Trump visit.
The Navy is conducting a review to examine whether President Donald Trump-themed patches worn by sailors on their uniforms during the President’s visit to the USS Wasp violated Navy rules.
“Navy leadership is aware of the incident and reviewing to ensure the patch doesn’t violate DoD policy or uniform regulations,” US Navy spokesperson Lt. Sam Boyle told CNN.Several service members aboard the USS Wasp were seen wearing the patches when Trump addressed sailors on Tuesday. The patches showed a Trump-like image and the slogan “Make Aircrew Great Again.” [….]Close-up of the MAGA patch
Military personnel often wear unofficial unit patches, sometimes imbued with humorous images, as part of an effort to build unit cohesion and morale.
However, service members are prohibited from exhibiting political messages while in uniform.Unit commanders are usually responsible for ensuring that the unofficial patches do not violate military regulations.Department of Defense guidelines say that “active duty personnel may not engage in partisan political activities and all military personnel should avoid the inference that their political activities imply or appear to imply DoD sponsorship, approval, or endorsement of a political candidate, campaign, or cause.”
Trump faces more legal trouble about that massage parlor owner in Florida Cindy Yang.
The Miami Herald: Federal prosecutors demand Cindy Yang records from Mar-a-Lago, Trump campaign.
Federal prosecutors in Washington, D.C., this week sent subpoenas to Mar-a-Lago, President Donald Trump’s private club in Palm Beach, and Trump Victory, a political fundraising committee, demanding they turn over all records relating to Republican Party donor Li “Cindy” Yang and several of her associates and companies, the Miami Herald has learned.
Cindy Yang with Donald Trump
Yang, a South Florida massage-parlor entrepreneur, is the target of a public corruption investigation seeking to determine if she funneled money from China to the president’s re-election campaign or otherwise violated campaign-finance laws. She became a GOP donor in the 2016 election cycle and opened a consulting company that promised Chinese businesspeople the chance to attend events at Mar-a-Lago and gain access to Trump and his inner circle. Some of those events were campaign fundraisers that required guests to buy tickets for entry, payments that are considered political contributions. Foreign nationals are prohibited from donating to U.S. political campaigns.
Investigators are seeking evidence from Mar-a-Lago and Trump Victory as they build a potential case against Yang and possibly others close to her. The president’s club and the fundraising committee are not the targets of the investigation. The subpoenas cover records from January 2017 to the present. A spokeswoman for Yang did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
One subpoena, issued by a federal grand jury in West Palm Beach, compels Mar-a-Lago to turn over all documents, records and communications relating to Yang, as well as 11 other people, one charity and seven companies affiliated with her, according to a person familiar with the investigation who asked for anonymity to discuss an ongoing probe. The people named in that subpoena include Yang’s family members, former employees at her massage parlors and several donors to Trump Victory. Prosecutors were trying to serve the subpoena to Mar-a-Lago through a South Florida law firm, the source said.
Click the link to read the rest.
As Trump focuses on attacking the people on his enemies list, John Bolton and Mike Pompeo are moving us closer to war with Iran.
USA Today: Escalating Iran crisis looks a lot like the path US took to Iraq war.
March 20, 2003 – War With Iraq – Shock & Awe . . . And Then Invasion.
The U.S. military’s guided bombs brought “shock and awe” to Baghdad in 2003 when American forces invaded Iraq 16 years ago to hunt for weapons of mass destruction. They never found any. Many observers, today, consider that war a failure.
Now, half of all Americans believe the U.S. will go to war with Iran “within the next few years,” according to a Reuters/Ipsos public opinion poll released in late May amid increased tensions between the two countries, longtime geopolitical foes.
The escalating Tehran-Washington crisis comes as the White House claims, without providing detail or public evidence, that Iran poses an increased threat to American forces and facilities in the Middle East – one year after Trump withdrew from an accord between Iran and world powers aimed at limiting Tehran’s nuclear capabilities.
Is Iran doomed to be an Iraq redux? This is just one of the questions raised by a crisis that has eerie parallels to the missteps that led to the Iraq War in 2003, where the buildup to conflict was precipitated by faulty intelligence and confrontational foreign policymakers such as John Bolton in President George W. Bush’s administration.
Read all about it at the link above. Meanwhile, does anyone know what Trump foreign policy is?
Fred Kaplan at Slate: Who Speaks for the United States?
Tuesday’s New York Times story on the serious disagreements between President Donald Trump and national security adviser John Bolton misses the bigger picture—namely, that Trump is having disagreements with his entire foreign policy team. To put it another way, it is impossible to say just what U.S. foreign policy is—or, to put it more starkly still, the United States has no foreign policy.
The Times story focuses on disputes over Iran and North Korea.
Bolton has described North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s latest short-range missile tests as violations of a U.N. Security Council resolution; Trump says they’re no big deal. Bolton has called for regime change in Iran; Trump said last week in Japan that he’s fine with the current regime, as long as it stays away from nuclear weapons.But this dispute involves more players than Trump and Bolton. State Department spokespeople, as well as National Intelligence Director Dan Coats, have said—in agreement with Bolton—that the North Korean tests violated a Security Council resolution. Trump stands utterly alone in his view that Kim is an honorable, trustworthy partner.
On Iran, in contrast with what Trump says now, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo recently laid out 12 preconditions for holding talks. Among the demands were that Tehran stop testing ballistic missiles, stop assisting militias in the region, and make several other concessions that would amount, in effect, to a regime change.
And of course, there are his long-standing disputes, over a host of issues, with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, various combatant commands, and pretty much the entire intelligence community.
Imagine if you were a world leader who wants to align, or improve relations, with the United States. What do you do? Do you agree with—and act in ways that advance the policies of—the president, the secretary of state, or the national security adviser? It’s impossible to placate all of them simultaneously. So you begin to wonder: Who speaks for the United States?
Please read the whole thing.
So . . . that’s what’s happening so far this morning. What stories are you following?
Tuesday Reads: The Pariah “President”
Posted: August 28, 2018 Filed under: Afternoon Reads, U.S. Politics | Tags: Donald Trump, John McCain, pariah president 25 Comments
Trump refuses to answer repeated questions about the late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). (Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images)
Good Afternoon!!
I know no one here will find this statement surprising, but Trump has no clue what being “president” is all about. The traditional job of president is not to alienate our country’s closest allies, gin up racism and hatred, inflame partisan divisions, attack freedom of speech and press, and disrespect anyone who refuses to genuflect before him. Presidents are supposed to try to unite the country, heal divisions, and show leadership in difficult times. Not this so-called “president.”
Ashley Parker at The Washington Post: President non grata: Trump often unwelcome and unwilling to perform basic rituals of the office.
Shunned at two funerals and one (royal) wedding so far, President Trump may be well on his way to becoming president non grata.
The latest snub comes in the form of the upcoming funeral for Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), which, before his death, the late senator made clear he did not want the sitting president to attend. That the feeling is mutual — Trump nixed issuing a statement that praised McCain as a “hero” — only underscores the myriad ways Trump has rejected the norms of his office and, increasingly, has been rejected in turn.
Less than two years into his first term, Trump has often come to occupy the role of pariah — both unwelcome and unwilling to perform the basic rituals and ceremonies of the presidency, from public displays of mourning to cultural ceremonies.
In addition to being pointedly not invited to McCain’s funeral and memorial service later this week — where former presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush will both eulogize the Arizona Republican — Trump was quietly asked to stay away from former first lady Barbara Bush’s funeral earlier this year. He also opted to skip the annual Kennedy Center Honors last year amid a political backlash from some of the honorees and has faced repeated public rebuffs from athletes invited to the White House after winning championships.
“We’re not talking about a president going and having a rally in a state that voted against him,” said Tim Naftali, a presidential historian at New York University who previously served as the director of the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum. “We’re talking about a president who can’t even go and participate in a ritual where presidents are usually welcomed, and that is one of the consequences of his having defined the presidency in a sectarian way.”
Noah Bierman at The LA Times: Two funerals and a wedding: The shunning of Donald Trump.
Sen. John McCain’s decision to exclude President Trump from his funeral is an extraordinary moment on its own, a posthumous rebuke from an American icon who regarded the presidency as sacred, and believed its current occupant defiles that office.
Yet Trump’s exclusion from such high-profile events of mourning and celebration — where American presidents are typically counted on to stand in for an entire nation — is emerging as a pattern over his 19 months in office.
In April, Trump was asked to stay away from the funeral of Barbara Bush, wife to one president and mother of another, leaving it to former Presidents Clinton and Obama to serve as national consolers to the Bush family. In December, he opted to skip the president’s traditional attendance at the annual Kennedy Center Honors gala after several of the artists being feted threatened a boycott.
The British royal family dispensed with inviting foreign dignitaries to Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s wedding in May partly to avoid having to invite Trump, whom Markle had attacked as “divisive” and “misogynistic.” Trump canceled the usual White House celebration for the NFL’s Super Bowl champions when he learned most of the Philadelphia Eagles players were unwilling to attend. Only months earlier the Golden State Warriors had passed on their own invitation to celebrate their 2017 NBA championship title at the White House.
Bierman notes that Trump rants about his rejections by “elites,” but at the same time he’s wounded by them.
The baby-man “president”
Trump’s pique “is genuine. None of it is a put-on,” said Michael Caputo, a former political advisor. “He has the same deep and abiding disdain for the elites that each and every one of the ‘deplorables’ have today.”
The resentment was a constant throughout his career in business and entertainment, where he was dismissed as more of a boastful, tabloid-seeking showman than the serious mogul he believed himself to be.
“I am sure that he is aggravated that the political establishment still will not accept him,” said one longtime friend who asked not to be identified given the sensitivity of the subject. “What he really doesn’t understand is that their objection is cultural as well as political and that they will never accept him.”
But critics say Trump created the isolation by his occasionally outrageous behavior, by reveling in a politics that feeds conspiracy theories, humiliates rivals and disdains basic notions of civility.
“He lacks any kind of humility. He kind of takes pride in kicking people around. So when people then strike back, he shouldn’t be disappointed, because in many ways he’s asked for it,” said Leon E. Panetta, who served in Congress and in the Clinton and Obama cabinets.
Just look at his childish reaction to the death of John McCain.
The Wall Street Journal reports:
President Trump reversed course and ordered that the U.S. flag be flown at half-staff for the rest of the week to mark the death of John McCain, after drawing fire from lawmakers and veterans groups who said the Republican senator hadn’t been appropriately honored….
White House battled with Trump over whether to keep the flag lowered until McCain’s burial.
The White House initially lowered its flag to half-staff on Saturday but returned it to full-staff by Monday morning. It was lowered to half-staff again Monday afternoon, shortly before Mr. Trump released his statement. The president’s proclamation covers the White House as well as all federal buildings, military bases and embassies.
White House officials said they prodded Mr. Trump for two days to put out a kind word about Mr. McCain. Mr. Trump resisted, and viewed the news coverage of the former senator’s death as over-the-top and more befitting a president, according to people familiar with the situation. They said cable networks’ focus on the flag controversy came at the expense of more coverage of Mr. Trump’s trade deal with Mexico.
Trump is wrong, of course. The flag has been kept at half-staff until the interment of other prominent Americans, most recently for Senator Ted Kennedy and former First Lady Barbara Bush.
One of the reasons Trump despised John McCain was because of his vote against repealing the ACA, but why is he given all the credit for the bill’s defeat? If it hadn’t been for two Republican women, Susan Collins and Lisa Merkowski, McCain’s no vote would have been meaningless. That’s one of the simple truths about the lionizing of McCain that Holly Baxter points out at The Independent: Why can’t anyone be honest about John McCain’s legacy?
It is difficult to encapsulate a political legacy without sliding into enraged hyperbole or saccharine fawning. With John McCain, it is even harder.
That’s because we’re not in Kansas anymore, politically speaking: in the surreal presidential landscape we’ve found ourselves in, it seems almost quaint to refer to McCain as a dinosaur or a right-wing reactionary, or to say that his cruel streak could sometimes be shocking. After all, he called his wife a “c***” on the campaign trail only once (reportedly reacting to being gently teased about his thinning hair); he only joked about the teenage Chelsea Clinton being the “ugly” love child of Hillary Clinton and Janet Reno. It’s not like he said he could grab any woman “by the pussy” because he was famous; it’s not like he dismissed Mexicans as “rapists”. So what’s the problem?
Republican presidential candidate John McCain waits to be introduced at a campaign rally at the Crown Center in Fayetteville, North Carolina on October 28, 2008. AFP PHOTO / Robyn BECK (Photo credit should read ROBYN BECK/AFP/Getty Images)
The very fact that a sitting US president made such shocking remarks, however, shouldn’t blind us to the fact that McCain had some very serious flaws. His Chelsea/Hillary Clinton barb continues a long tradition of dismissing women in politics because of their perceived bad looks. (Remember the “plain facts and plain faces” propaganda against women’s votes during the Suffragette movement, and the depictions of them as ugly harridans who wanted to participate in democracy because they couldn’t get husbands?) Needless to say, the memory of McCain’s mean jibe very probably underpins the reason Chelsea Clinton recently defended Barron Trump against media nastiness, tweeting pointedly that he should be “allowed to have the private childhood he deserves”.
Words are just words, but McCain’s voting record where women’s rights are concerned speaks for itself. He voted to restrict abortion and, in 2015, to defund Planned Parenthood if it carried on providing abortions to women with unwanted pregnancies. We know that votes like these can lead to serious consequences: deaths from backstreet abortions, increased levels of poverty, the perpetuation of cycles of social and economic inequality. McCain also voted against the Protect Women’s Health from Corporate Interference Act in 2014: the bill was an effort to ensure women could access contraception and gynaecological services without being denied healthcare benefits by their providers because of those providers’ “beliefs”. Nor was he prejudiced against women only when it concerned contraception or abortion: he also voted against a bill that would have made it illegal to discriminate against female employees with the same experience being paid less their male counterparts doing exactly the same job.
Read the rest at The Independent.
More articles to check out, links only:
Literary Hub: Rebecca Solnit: Why the President Must Be Impeached.
NYT: Bruce Ohr Fought Russian Organized Crime. Now He’s a Target of Trump.
NYT: Kushner Companies and Michael Cohen Accused of Falsifying Building Permits to Push Out Tenants.
Natasha Bertrand at The Atlantic: Devin Nunes’s Curious Trip to London.
Vice News: This toddler got sick in ICE detention. Six weeks later she was dead.
What else is happening? What stories are you following today?
Sunday Reads: Heartwarming Images and RIP John McCain
Posted: August 26, 2018 Filed under: morning reads, open thread, Republican politics, U.S. Politics, Women's Rights | Tags: John McCain 17 Comments
That there…I mean what a fucking bully…what an asshole!
(See, I say that with expression…like it deserves an exclamation point.)
Uh….let me show you what I mean:
Now, see that exclamation point? “Our hearts and prayers are with you!” That is pure tRump….
Even though prior to the death of John McCain, WaPo came out with this article:
So let’s take a look at some reactions to the death of John McCain:
And don’t forget, McCain did not want tRump at his funeral… Obama, Bush to give eulogies at McCain’s eventual funeral: report | TheHill
Meanwhile, the same old shit continues to carry on:
How Christlike, this candidate is…truly she is imbued with the power of Geezus.
tRump doesn’t know what the US flag looks like either.
Let’s go back to that first image above…perhaps the little girl was questioning tRump’s loyalty and smarts…because at the time he was coloring an American Flag…Russian:
Or is that Finland?
On the latest tRump bastard news:
Just a few more observations:
If only…that would mean Pence is gone too.
I hate this fucking state.
A couple of tweets about women’s issues:
Well, that one above has racist connotations if you ask me! <—— Yes, that is an exclamation point.
Ending with some beauty:
Have a good Sunday, this is an open thread.
Wednesday Reads: Are we there yet?
Posted: October 26, 2016 Filed under: 2016 elections, Barack Obama, open thread, Republican politics, U.S. Politics | Tags: 2016 Hillary Clinton, GOP Obstructionism, John McCain 10 Comments
Hello…
Hey ho, just a couple of more weeks to go…
and now that the swinging dicks of DC have come to the conclusion that their rapey tangerine-tinted fascist is getting his bigly answer coming Nov. 8th…”WRONG” (Tradmark, haha)… it seems they are focusing their eye of Shitfire, I mean Sauron, on Hillary.
A few days ago, this came out of John McCain’s mouth:
An issue that has been mostly absent from this year’s Senate campaigns — the fate of the Supreme Court — suddenly erupted Monday after Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., indicated during a talk-radio appearance that Republicans would move to block any high court nominee made by a President Hillary Clinton should the Democratic nominee win.
McCain made his remarks on WPHT-AM radio in Philadelphia, during an interview in support for fellow Sen. Patrick Toomey, R-Pa.: “I promise you that we will be united against any Supreme Court nominee that Hillary Clinton, if she were president, would put up,” he said. “I promise you. This is where we need the majority, and Pat Toomey is probably as articulate and effective on the floor of the Senate as anyone I have encountered.”
Of course, he backed down later in the day…John McCain backs off promise Republicans would block Clinton Supreme Court nominees – Chicago Tribune
The remark immediately raised hackles of Democrats, who have complained about GOP treatment of President Obama‘s judicial nominees — most prominently, Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland, whose nomination has sat in limbo for more than six months after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., resolved to save the pending vacancy for the next president.
McCain’s comments raised the prospect that the vacancy could extend much longer than that, particularly if Republicans maintain their control of the Senate. Even if Democrats win the majority, they would still need a handful of GOP votes to confirm any Supreme Court nominee — current Senate rules require 60 senators to close debate and move to an up-or-down vote.
If Republicans were in fact “united against any Supreme Court nominee that Hillary Clinton . . . would put up,” that could mean the Supreme Court would remain an eight-member body indefinitely — and perhaps force a change to Senate rules allowing for simple-majority confirmation of Supreme Court nominees.
McCain’s office issued a statement Monday afternoon backing off his pledge of blanket opposition.
“Senator McCain believes you can only judge people by their record and Hillary Clinton has a clear record of supporting liberal judicial nominees,” spokeswoman Rachel Dean said. “That being said, Senator McCain will, of course, thoroughly examine the record of any Supreme Court nominee put before the Senate and vote for or against that individual based on their qualifications as he has done throughout his career.”
Y’all must keep in mind this swinging dick is facing some competition in his current run for the senate.
But this notion that the senate will block yet another president from nominating (yeah…not appointing ya Trump bastard) is something that makes me sick…in a pissy sort of way.
I mean like come on…
Wasn’t it enough that the GOP handed Trump his golden ticket as nominee of their fucking fucked up party?
If that wasn’t a pure example of the dysfunctional party’s complete lack of credibility, this latest Freudian slip is just the tip of what could become another political bed of impotent alpha males banging their chest while the people don’t get served.
Take a look at these words from Evan Culbertson, over at Paste Magazine: John McCain’s Supreme Court Obstructionism is Tantamount to Treason ::: Paste
It was less than two hours after Justice Antonin Scalia’s death was reported in February that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell began his crusade to prevent the appointment of his replacement on the Supreme Court. From the outset, McConnell’s insistence was that the next president—by the will of the American people—would have the privilege of selecting a new ninth Justice. This outstanding vacancy, as well as the potential for several other vacancies to open up over the next few years, has become a major issue in the presidential election. Meanwhile, President Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland, has languished in limbo awaiting a confirmation hearing.
This stall tactic was offensive enough, but all of the Senate Republicans’ bluster may have spun into something much more sinister. Last Monday, Senator John McCain made a bold and injurious claim: that the GOP “will be united against any Supreme Court nominee that Hillary Clinton, if she were president, would put up.” In other words, McCain, McConnell, and Co. have changed their tune—President Obama’s “lame duck” nomination isn’t the problem at all; instead, they refuse to allow any nominee from a Democrat that will, as McCain put it, “change this country for decades.” And with most polls pointing to a likely Clinton presidency, Republicans appear to be scrambling to salvage any party unity they can from the scorched earth Donald Trump is leaving in his wake.
[…]
…McCain’s promise that Republicans would indefinitely blockade any SCOTUS nominations made by a President Clinton isn’t just irritating, it’s downright dangerous. If only Republicanpresidents get to select Supreme Court justices, then the implication here, of course, is that a Democratic president is not a legitimate president. And if you’re disquieted by that last sentence, you should be: It challenges the very fundamentals of our democracy.
[…]
The fact that McCain (a well-respected 30-year Senator who has formally unendorsed Trump for his behavior) is trying to undermine the authority of the President is far more terrifying. If we take McCain at his word, then the GOP’s new strategy appears to be dismantling the government from the inside out. Much has been made of the Senate’s refusal to hold hearings for Merrick Garland over the past seven months, but now, they’re actively refusing to do their jobs for another four-to-eight years.
As you could probably imagine, this is unprecedented: the longest vacancy in Supreme Court history came during the Tyler and Polk presidencies and lasted 841 days (or a little over two years, from April 1844 to August 1846). The longest in modern history was during the Nixon administration, and lasted “only” 391 days before Harry Blackmun was sworn in. McCain has now promised to leave the seat vacant for at least five years, and possibly longer, depending on the outcome of the 2020 election.
To be perfectly frank about it, this threat is tantamount to treason—Congressional Republicans are refusing to recognize the legitimacy of a democratically-elected President and crippling the effectiveness of the Judicial branch in the bargain. Imagine what could happen if, as many anticipate, two or three additional Justices retire in the next four-to-eight years. There seems to be no valid reason for Republicans to continuously refuse legitimate appointments made by a President Clinton, other than a purely selfish attempt to hold onto some semblance of power. Looking ahead in this scenario, if the Republicans do manage to win the Presidency in 2020 or later… why wouldn’t Democrats return the favor? It’s not that difficult to imagine the left retaliating with similar pettiness, leaving our country in perpetual constitutional crisis. Even if the scenario doesn’t end up being so grave, this effort will only serve to neuter the Supreme Court and diminish its authority, throwing our already-delicate legislative balance of powers into complete disarray.
All of this doomsday prophesying aside, the fact is that Congress has a constitutional obligation to maintain the Supreme Court, whether they like it or not. If Senate Republicans refuse to do the jobs for which they were elected, then not only are they stalling our nation’s progress—they’re delegitimizing the very Constitution that they’re sworn to uphold.
I can tell you, obstructionism from the GOP is treason in my opinion. That goes back to Grover Norquist (Remember that fuckwad?)… and further still to the meeting the GOP members had while Obama was being sworn in.
Well, fuck them. Those Fuckers!
Yeah, this is a fucking open thread…post whatever the fuck you want!
Lazy Saturday Afternoon Reads: Deja Vu All Over Again
Posted: February 21, 2015 Filed under: morning reads, public education, racism, Republican politics, U.S. Politics, Voter Ignorance | Tags: America love it or leave it, american exceptionalism, chickenhawks, communism, Dick Cheney, draft deferments, draft dodgers, Frank Marshall Davis, George McGovern, George W. Bush, Jeb Bush, Jeremiah Wright, John Kerry, John McCain, Koch Brothers, Megyn Kelly, privatization of education, Rudy Giuliani, Saul Alinsky, Scott Walker, socialism, Vietnam War 44 Comments
Good Morning!!
Rudy Giuliani is old. He was born in 1944–too soon to be a baby boomer. He’s a throwback to the Vietnam era, and like quite a few old Republicans, he seems never to have grown emotionally or intellectually since that long-ago time.
This man is clearly a racist, a hater who holds ugly, judgmental attitudes toward anyone who doesn’t agree with him on every issue. He’s an unreconstructed George Wallace caricature. But even George Wallace developed some self-awareness late in life.
As everyone is aware by now, on Wednesday Giuliani gave a repulsive speech in which he attacked President of Obama’s patriotism and slimed Obama’s mother and grandparents. Politico reported: Rudy Giuliani: President Obama doesn’t love America.
Rudy Giuliani went straight for the jugular Wednesday night during a private group dinner here featuring Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker by openly questioning whether President Barack Obama “loves America.”
The former New York mayor, speaking in front of the 2016 Republican presidential contender and about 60 right-leaning business executives and conservative media types, directly challenged Obama’s patriotism, discussing what he called weak foreign policy decisions and questionable public remarks when confronting terrorists.
“I do not believe, and I know this is a horrible thing to say, but I do not believe that the president loves America,” Giuliani said during the dinner at the 21 Club, a former Prohibition-era speakeasy in midtown Manhattan. “He doesn’t love you. And he doesn’t love me. He wasn’t brought up the way you were brought up and I was brought up through love of this country.”
After the Scott Walker event, Giuliani elaborated on his remarks about the President.
“What country has left so many young men and women dead abroad to save other countries without taking land? This is not the colonial empire that somehow he has in his hand. I’ve never felt that from him. I felt that from [George] W. [Bush]. I felt that from [Bill] Clinton. I felt that from every American president, including ones I disagreed with, including [Jimmy] Carter. I don’t feel that from President Obama.”
Giuliani then recalled his own comments condemning several major episodes from the early 1990s when Jews were targeted in Argentina and the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn. That hard-line approach, Giuliani said, stands in contrast to the way Obama touched off a storm earlier this month during the National Prayer Breakfast by citing the Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition as Christian examples of the way many religions have perpetrated horrible acts throughout history.
The older and meaner Rudy gets, the more his “smile” looks like a rictus.
After pushback from Democrats and some writers, Guiliani only doubled down on his nasty characterizations of Obama’s thought and feelings. He’s a mind-reader, you see. Politico’s Nick Gass: Rudy Giuliani floods the zone with Obama attacks.
The former New York mayor and sometime presidential hopeful appeared on Fox News’ “The Kelly File” on Thursday night, and when asked by host Megyn Kelly whether he wanted to apologize for his comments, he declined.
“Not at all. I want to repeat them,” he said. “The reality is, all I can see from this president, all I have heard from is he apologizes for America, he criticizes America. He talks about the Crusades and how the Christians were barbarians, leaves out the second half of the sentence that the Muslims were barbarians also.” [….]“He sees Christians slaughtered and doesn’t stand up and hold a press conference, although he holds a press conference for the situation in Ferguson,” he said. “He sees Jews being killed for anti-Semitic reasons, doesn’t stand up and hold a press conference. This is an American president I’ve never seen before.”
Well, that’s true anyway. None of us had ever seen a black POTUS until 2008. Yes, even Fox News host Megyn Kelly apparently was shocked by Giuliani’s attacks on Obama’s patriotism. Mediaite reported:
Rudy Giuliani continued to defend his comments about President Barack Obama not “loving” America during a combative appearance on Fox News with Megyn Kelly Thursday night….
“To say that he doesn’t love america, I mean, that he could view foreign policy as a Democrat might view it and through a different lens than you or a Republican might see it, you can understand the differences between you,” Kelly said to Giuliani. “But to condemn his patriotism? To question his love of America?”
Giuliani insisted that he was not condemning Obama’s patriotism, but instead said he wanted to hear more from the president about how “exceptional” this country is.
“A lot of liberals don’t believe in American Exceptionalism,” Kelly shot back, “but that doesn’t mean they don’t love America.”
Giuliani went on to bring up Obama’s maternal grandfather, who fought in World War II, as someone [who] introduced the president to “communist” ideas and then shifted gears to revive the 2008 uproar over Reverend Jeremiah Wright.
The Communist Party
Mediaite left out the supposed source of those “communist ideas” Rudy was referring to. Unbelievably, the former NYC mayor actually brought up Frank Marshall Davis, a man Obama met when he was a child in Hawaii. Davis became an obsession among the RWNJ’s during the 2008 campaign Guiliani apparently believes all the garbage about Obama’s youth floating around right wing sites on the internet. Celeste Katz at the NY Daily News:
Trying to explain his controversial comments that President Obama doesn’t love America, Rudy Giuliani said Friday that he believes the President has been influenced by communism and socialism.
“Look, this man was brought up basically in a white family, so whatever he learned or didn’t learn, I attribute this more to the influence of communism and socialism” than to his race, Giuliani told the Daily News.
“I don’t (see) this President as being particularly a product of African-American society or something like that. He isn’t,” the former mayor added. “Logically, think about his background. . . The ideas that are troubling me and are leading to this come from communists with whom he associated when he was 9 years old” through family connections.
When Obama was 9, he was living in Indonesia with his mother and his stepfather. Giuliani said he was referencing Obama’s grandfather having introduced him to Frank Marshall Davis, a member of the Communist Party.
The former mayor also brought up Obama’s relationship with “quasi-communist” community organizer Saul Alinsky and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
If you do a google search for Frank Marshall Davis, you’ll find that many right wing sites even claimed Davis was Obama’s real father!
Back in the Vietnam War era, during which Giuliani’s stunted brain apparently stopped developing, “America: love it or leave it” was a comment refrain used by right wingers to attack people who wanted to bring American troops home rather than let them continue to die year after year in a pointless war in distant jungles. Many of those “love it or leave it” shouters were chicken hawks like Giuliani, former President George W. Bush, his brother Jeb Bush, and former Vice President Dick Cheney. In contrast, men like George McGovern and John Kerry who had served in foreign wars were viciously vilified for telling the truth about Vietnam.
Oh yes, Rudy could have fought in Vietnam, but instead, he obtained multiple deferments. From New York Magazine in 2007, Rudy and ’Nam:
Rudy Giuliani, speaking about terrorism and the Iraq war, said last week, “It is something I understand better than anyone else running for president.”
That was when Rudy was running for president against actual war veteran John McCain!
To recap: After receiving several deferments as a student, Giuliani applied for an occupational deferment as a law clerk, but his application was rejected. Giuliani appealed their decision, and asked the federal judge he was clerking for to petition the draft board for him. Which the judge did. When his deferment expired in 1970, Giuliani became susceptible to the draft. He received a high number and was never called. Giuliani “has made it clear that if he had been called up, he would have served,” says Katie Levinson, Giuliani’s spokesperson. He was opposed to the war in Vietnam on “strategic and tactical” grounds, she says. Asked to clarify what tactics Giuliani opposed, Levinson declined to offer specifics. “Voters will choose the next commander-in-chief based on their whole record, and we believe the mayor’s record speaks for itself.”
Yes, it certainly does.
Those of us who grew up in the 1950s and ’60s went to schools where we studied American history and were required to take “Civics,” so we could understand the basics of how our government worked. That’s no longer happening in much of the country. We have billionaires like the Koch brothers working to limit kids’ educational opportunities and fill their textbooks with lies. Many younger people don’t have the educational foundation to understand and give context to Giuliani’s hate-filled words. I fear that in my lifetime I’ll never see the end of the social and ideological divisions that began when I was just a kid and the Vietnam war was raging.
Yesterday, Dakinikat posted a link to this NY Daily News op-ed by Giuliani biographer Wayne Barrett. Everyone should read this amazing takedown: What Rudy Giuliani knows about love — a response to his ‘doesn’t love America’ critique of Obama.
Ask Regina Peruggi, the second cousin he grew up with and married, who was “offended” when Rudy later engineered an annulment from the priest who was his best man on the grounds, strangely enough, that she was his cousin. Or ask Donna Hanover, the mother of his two children, who found out he wanted a separation when he left Gracie Mansion one morning and announced it at a televised press conference.
Or ask Judi Nathan, his third wife, whom he started dating while still married to Hanover and New York mayor. In two SUVs, he and an entourage of six or seven cops traveled 11 times to Judi’s Hamptons getaway at a taxpayer cost of $3,000 a trip. That’s love.
In response to Giuliani’s claims about Obama’s upbringing, Barrett wrote:
Giuliani went so far as to rebuke the President for not being “brought up the way you were and the way I was brought up through love of this country,” a bow no doubt to the parenting prowess of Harold Giuliani, who did time in Sing Sing for holding up a Harlem milkman and was the bat-wielding enforcer for the loan-sharking operation run out of a Brooklyn bar owned by Rudy’s uncle.
Though Rudy cited Harold throughout his public life as his model (without revealing any of his history), he and five Rudy uncles found ways to avoid service in World War II. Harold, whose robbery conviction was in the name of an alias, made sure the draft board knew he was a felon. On the other hand, Obama’s grandfather and uncle served. His uncle helped liberate Buchenwald, which apparently affected him so deeply he stayed in the family attic for six months when he returned home.
Please go read the rest at the Daily News link.
Here are some more responses to Giuliani’s hateful attacks for your Saturday reading pleasure.
Two from Jonathan Capehart: Rudy Giuliani dives into Dinesh D’Souza’s anti-Obama dumpster and Giuliani continues his ugly race to the bottom against Obama.
David A. Graham at The Atlantic: What Does It Mean for Obama to Love or Hate America?
Amy Davidson at The New Yorker: Rudy Giuliani and the Meaning of Love.
Jeffrey Toobin at The New Yorker: The Paranoid Style of Rudy Giuliani.
Philip Bump at The Fix: Rudy Giuliani and the ‘love it or leave it’ view of America.
So that’s my take on the Rudy ruckus. What stories are you following today?
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