Politics Post Trump

Out of all the post-impeachment theater, one moment stood out for me... as Republican Party committees and caucuses all over rallied for Trumpism by attacking defectors, like the (slightly) Magnificent Seven senators who (for a brief moment) put country and honor above lickspittle cravenness, what stood out was this news from Utah.

The Utah Republican Party released a statement Monday accepting the different votes of the state's Senators Mitt Romney and Mike Lee in last week's impeachment trial, marking a stark contrast with how some other state and county GOP party operations have pursued censure against Republicans who voted to impeach or convict former President Donald Trump.

"Our senators have both been criticized for their vote," the Utah GOP wrote. "The differences between our own Utah Republicans showcase a diversity of thought, in contrast to the danger of a party fixated on 'unanimity of thought.' There is power in our differences as a political party, and we look forward to each senator explaining their votes to the people of Utah."

Set aside the almost certainty that Sen. Lee is just another Foxite nutjob shill for Putinism and treason. The fact that the Utah GOP is even willing to entertain the possibility of anything other than pure Nuremberg-rally discipline in support of treason is actually quite telling. I said it in Polemical Judo and repeat it... Democrats should reach out to Utah! 

"We know you will never be majority-liberal. But you represent the kind of conservatism we can negotiate with and that will negotiate with us, dropping the demonization... an almost vanished American conservatism that's ethical, moral, principled, and willing to test its polemic against things called actual facts. 

"Your dilemma isn't unprecedented! In 1947 the Democratic Party split over whether or not to continue believing the monstrous lies of Joseph Stalin. We passed that test (with flying colors!) and we pray that American conservatives will pass this one. If enough of them do - sufficient to save the movement of rational citizens like Barry Goldwater and Robert Heinlein, then we expect one major center of that rejuvenation and rebirth of sane conservatism to be Utah."

== Stop Sweating Joe Manchin ==

Everyone's talking about the Senator from West Virginia. The deal-maker who sends liberals tearing their hair out... but who has mostly been there, when needed. And yes, he represents a state that is culturally deep, deep red, even when that runs against the actual best self-interest of WVa voters. Luring them back into the Union that their ancestors so bravely joined, in 1861, will take savvy and effort and we need to make allowances for Manchin's role in that project.

And yet, we also need for him to keep stepping up! So, get him to truly commit to the filibuster 'compromise' he spoke of, on-and-off:

 1- All future filibusters must be talk style like in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, with no yielding to colleagues or breaks... and the chair can force the speaker to "stay germane."   Manchin might agree that saves face, because that's what the public already thinks 'filibuster' means.

2- Adjust rules so that cloture (stopping debate) must be assertively STOPPED by 41 senators of the minority, instead of demanding that 60 senators to actively invoke cloture. The burden is on them. Do that and we'll manage.

3- Each Senator gets one per session, or per year.

These are measures that Manchin could get as part of his deal to "save" the filibuster. And yes, he has a point about 'minority rights... or would have a point, if McConnell's GOP ever intended to play fair, ever, even once, at all. Ever. Of course they don't.

But hen, let's test Joe M's sincerity. Do you actually want to ensure minority rights for legislators in a way that reduces partisan discipline and enhances the old American tradition of autonomous representatives and senators? Possibly freeing more Romneys and Murkowskis to grow the kind of courage shown by Adam Kinzinger? Well then... Included in my long to-do-list of proposed judo moves is this one that Nancy Pelosi could use to change Congress in ways that benefit us all. And especially Democrats... whether in the majority or some future minority.

Give every member of Congress a permanent right to issue one subpoena per session, to use as she or he sees fit!

Sure, some would donate theirs to their committee chairs. Most would hoard theirs to summon some witness for 3 hours of testimony to impress voters, back home. 

But many would use this power to investigate some unsual thing. And it would mean that Democrats would never again be unable to probe while in the minority. And it would be seen as utterly revolutionary and there will be no way for Foxites to bad-spin it.

 (Will goppers try to use it to clog things while they are in the minority? Sure, a bit, but surprisingly little. LIGHT unevenly helps justice. Anyway, many members will hoard their subpoenas, regaining a habit of defying their party leaders.)

Just... think about it. Someone. (Anyone?) It's in Polemical Judo.

== Simple. Un-Redact! ==

ONE THING Biden's folk can do right now that will have aggressively political effects without seeming ostensibly aggressive will be to without much fanfare just UN-REDACT the MUELLER REPORT! Or rather, leave redacted only those parts that the intel community and prosecutors actually asked to have redacted. Let us all see the portions William Barr chose to exclude, in service to his  patrons!

In a terrific twist, this move would call attention exactly to the parts Barr wanted to hide. They would leap off every page. And prosecutors would be asked to think again about their redactions, too.

Time for this delayed-fuse bomb to go off. Now.

== The Russian Connection ==

An ex-KGB agent spills the beans about how early Trump was groomed for his role, as detailed in Craig Unger's American Kompromat. Though I yawn at how “of course” it all is. What’s more significant is how few defectors we get these days. Ex-KGB colonel Putin knew that was a fatal flaw in the old Cold War and he has systematically terrorized potential defectors and used agents like Trump to wreck our biggest draw... the moral high ground.

Robert Mueller - whose nitpicking to evade decisive results caused us so much frustration... while unleashing other prosecutors to charge and convict a myriad trumpists... said repeatedly that he would have charged Donald Trump, if he had not been president. Here he also says decisively that the Russians had plenty of material to blackmail Trump, even without a ‘pee tape” or the Deutsche Bank money laundering papers. 

== And political miscellany ==

A U.S.-bound caravan thwarted in Guatemala as pressure against migrants continues. 

One win-win aspect to Biden addressing immigrations problems would be simple. Go after the oppressive ruling elites and the criminal gangs in Honduras and other mafia states, who terrorize their people and turn many into refugees. Assisting local democracy activists to establish justice and rule-of-law would help make up for past US crimes in the region, it would burnish our rep, it would do tons of pragmatic good…. and it would dry up sources of refugees, thus luring some others of our own US neighbors out of their paranoid “MAGA” funk.

Amanda Gustafson wrote on my FB thread: “I recently learned that Fox News gets a big part of its funding by being part of cable channel bundles. What if a bunch of us reached out to our cable providers and said we don't want it as part of our bundle and that we do not want to pay for it? and that we will shift cable unless they take us seriously? what if Fox news was something that people had to pay extra for like the fringe it is?”

It’s not too soon for at least some of us to note the lineup that is forming for 2024, and there is zero doubt in this observer’s mind that Nikki Haley sees herself seizing the helm of the Republican Party, whatever the anointed prince-in-waiting – Paul Ryan – has to say about it.  

One of you observed that “totalitarianism in general is predicated on the assumption there's one born every minute - and I suspect we won't find the folks with whom the BS is originating putting up stakes.  In fact, I wouldn't be at all surprised if some of the folks in whatever constitutes the 'QAnon Core' have been making a bit of side money betting against their own prophecies.”  

And it’s all of a similar mindset overseas. Rob Atkinson offers a cogent comparison of Germany’s trade predation 1900-1945 to similar tactics being used today. The number of blatant overlaps makes for riveting reading. “In writing about Germany in 1941, Douglas Miller, former U.S. commercial attaché to Germany, could easily have been writing about China today: “We must get this straight once and for all: There is no such thing as having purely economic relations with the totalitarian states. Every business deal with them carries with it political, military, social, propaganda implications.” 

The economy has fared far better under Democrats. The gap, as one academic paper puts it, is “startlingly large.” A key element: 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. Find it all here.

Mueller Fundamentals

There’s so much Mueller analysis out there. (A searchable/if redacted version.) But you know I offer angles you'll not get elsewhere. Here are digest-fundamentals that shine through Attorney General William Barr's sycophant spin. 

1. The importance of specific intent. Our rule of law is rightfully biased against prosecution, especially near the borders of free expression. Hence, in each instance of collusion or obstruction, there must be simultaneous actions and specified types of intent.

2. The Report details many acts that were clear obstruction, but Barr several times said illegal intent was missing because D. Trump was enraged and unaware of implications, while uninterested in cogent legal advice. This defense doesn’t work for assault or murder, but several times Barr leaned explicitly into this Rage and Stupidity Defense*.

3. Other acts of blatant obstruction DT did knowingly order, in order to obstruct. But he gets off some of those because underlings refused to carry them out! So, we had intent, but without the fully-completed act. See: “Don McGahn may have single-handedly saved Donald Trump's presidency.”

4. As for Collusion, Mueller does not exonerate. He only says “not decisively-proved” regarding specifically 2016 Trump campaign conspiracy with the Russians. 

Nothing to do with Putin-conniving after Trump became president. Events in 2017 and 2018 are still on our doorstep, including major counter-intelligence investigations, and the paper bag is aflame.

As for 2016 collusion, Mueller reports that the Trumpists:

(a) both openly and privately encouraged crimes and acts of war against us by hostile foreign powers. (Mueller separately indicted 16 Russian nationals, many of them oligarchs with blatant-smelly ties to Trump.)

(b) openly expressed gladness to benefit from those crimes and acts of war, and

(c) maintained highly suspicious contacts both during and after, and

(d) did virtually nothing to ensure these acts of war won’t be repeated. 

You or I would call that a closed loop of treason. But Mueller's team - guided by prim U.S. definitions - needed a fact (e) that clearly was there, but they could not prove.

See it explained in an appraisal from Lawfare: 
    "This report shows that the Trump campaign was reasonably aware of the Russian efforts, at least on the hacking side. They were aware the Russians sought to help them win. They welcomed that assistance. Instead of warning the American public, they devised a public relations and campaign strategy that sought to capitalize on Russia’s illicit assistance. In other words, the Russians and the Trump campaign shared a common goal, and each side worked to achieve that goal with basic knowledge of the other side’s intention. They just didn’t (provably) agree to work toward that goal together."

Wow, isn’t western jurisprudence… well… prudent? You or I would call all that a huge pile of smoking guns. But our rule of law – gleefully used by enemies against us – requires rock solid proof of coordination during 2016. 

Hey, while we all know that coordination happened, this is not Russia, and hence what “we all know” doesn’t convict. The state must prove things beyond doubt. (Again, coordination with the Kremlin after 2016 is the treason that’s absolutely blatant in front of everyone’s eyes. It has been passed to other investigations. But the most blatant treason of all is the way that Fox and every single Fox watcher makes writhing excuses for all this.)

5. Can a sitting president be indicted? Mueller cites the infamous Justice Dept. Office of Legal Counsel's (OLC) opinion paper – not a law, regulation, ruling or precedent, just an opinion -- that indictment would unduly constrain a president's ability to govern, and hence can’t be allowed.

This is insane. It gives any president who has a McConnell in the Senate carte blanche to proclaim himself above the law. Sure, frivolous court actions could harass a constitutional chief executive – it’s what Trump tried doing to Obama with ‘birther’ lawsuits. 

In fact, the same protection could be afforded by "slow indictments" that are constrained so that -- audited by a court -- the president only spends say a maximum of ten hours a week on legal defense. Oh, sure, that too could be abused in stall tactics. But at least the principle is defensible. Depositions and due process could grind forward. And stalling can be fought. A never-indict precedent can’t be.

(Applying the OLC opinion to a president who spends almost no time governing is amazing.)

6. The Mueller report left clear that this is not over. There are at least a dozen ongoing federal investigations. Moreover, New York State will – Madison willing -- ensure that justice still prevails over many of Trump’s eventual pardons.

7. The power of removal. Mueller also added a searing paragraph making clear that Congress can constitutionally correct this travesty… though elsewhere I’ve given many reasons why I oppose impeachment. For now. Hey, I like Elizabeth Warren and the dems should have attack dogs shaking this bone. But McConnell.   

(An aside: See below in notes how Barr's Rage and Stupidity Defense reopens discussion of the 25th Amendment.)

8. Poison fruit. The top rationalization pouring out of Fox and Kremlin basements,  repeated by ol' Two Scoops? The original Steele Dossier - plus a few FBI agents - were biased against Trump!!  Hence the long scroll of subsequent investigations, FISA warrants, revelations, indictments, convictions and lies should be tossed. 

It's a bastard version of the “fruit of a tainted tree” doctrine that prevents cops from ignoring our fourth and fifth amendment rights. Evidence derived from a blatantly illegal search is “tainted fruit.” We’ve all seen this in cop shows, though legal folks are starting to realize there are now better ways to curb bad police behavior than letting felons go free on a technicality.

First irony: Republicans have long howled against the tainted fruit doctrine! 

Second: there is no doctrine against police evaluating biased tips that come through no outright illegality of their own. Nor are cops forbidden to have opinions, or to open investigations based on hunches. (They are forbidden from lazy-ass prejudice and profiling.) 

Note this well: it is juries and judges and courts who need to eliminate all bias. In our adversarial justice system, prosecutors and law officers are allowed to say: “I think this jerk is guilty and I will follow where the evidence leads.”

Third: The harpy screech of Hannity, Pirro and ilk is "stop looking!" Stop Mueller, stop SDNY and New York. Stop Congressional hearings! Despite their own Clinton-Obama investigations costing half a billion dollars of our money, that across 25 years total found less criminality than we're finding in the GOP daily. 

Stop looking? What do innocent people say, vs criminals, when investigation looms? The Clintons, despite their tediously dramatic eye-rolling - never cried "stop looking." 

I could go on with this thread for pages. But suffice it to say, you need to have an answer, when your confederate uncle trots out this Putin-Fox talking point about FISA warrants and Steele Dossiers and biased FBI agents. It's all Kremlin basement stuff and they should be ashamed.  

9. The likely reason why so many are betraying their country and our future. Okay, it’s my job to point at aspects that you’ll see nowhere else. Is it because I think outside the box? Because I am mad? 

Either way, to me the most striking-bizarre aspect of this whole frenzied “Mueller Month” has been the behavior of Attorney General William Barr.

Oh, Barr was a partisan attack dog going back many decades, and a hypocrite, applying opposite standards to Democrats vs. Republicans. Still, he always seemed to stand on just this side of law, honor and prudence. But that’s not what we’ve been seeing lately. Indeed, stop and think. There’s no way that Donald Trump -- after his experience with Sessions, Rosenstein, McGanh etc. -- would appoint anyone without a very taut leash. 

Now admit it… what we just saw from William Barr is a fellow who is very well at-heel.

This is not the only case of someone displaying bizarre obedience to those who are stage managing our national calamity. Am I the only one to smell something funny in the abrupt resignation of Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy? 

I've hollered for twenty years about what I deem to be the greatest weapon used by our enemies against us, a beloved tool of the KGB all the way back to the czarist Okrahna.

And all it would take is one true hero – just one - to bring it crashing down.  If you haven’t read this, you need to.

MUELLER CONCLUSIONS (for now): I am in no position to dissect the Report in detail. There are skilled men and women out there doing their jobs. Moreover, the newly liberated and assertively constitutionalist House of Representatives is back at work on our behalf. (Oh, the advantages of a parliamentary system!) 

But what’s already clear is that the answer must eventually be political.

== Trump’s best defense: polarization and civil war ==

What hope have we for resolution, if the Law is so prim that herds of Trump’s hapless aides get nailed, but never him? When his own microcephalic obduracy and rage is his best defense?

And our own stupid  inability to use the weapons he gives us? Take the fact that he’s been “betrayed” by more appointees than all other presidents combined! It shows at-minimum that he’s a terrible judge of character – no Foxism can evade that polemical knife.

Alas, Robert Mueller, consummate professional has appropriately punted this to us. As posited above, the way to punish all this is politically.

But as investment guru Russ Daggatt recently put it: “the biggest development over the past two years was Trump’s success in rallying his party behind him and making the investigation, led by a lifelong Republican who was probably the most highly respected law enforcement official in the country, yet another matter of partisan polarization.

“Trump spent two years attacking Mueller and his team, seeking to discredit the investigation, calling it a “Witch Hunt” over 170 times. Just today, he called the investigation an “Illegally Started Hoax that never should have happened”  (see point #8), with the “Crazy Mueller Report ... written by 18 Angry Democrat Trump Haters” containing “total bullshit”.  Sadly, it worked. By the time the (redacted) Report was made public yesterday, Republicans were fully invested in defending him from anything it might contain. Leading that defense is Attorney General Barr.” (See point #9.)

Daggatt refers back to March 22, 2017, when Mueller was appointed special counsel to oversee an investigation into allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

“Mueller’s (redacted) Report quotes Trump saying at that time, “Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I’m fucked.”  (Needless to say, not the reaction of an innocent person.)… Trump had repeatedly insisted there had been no contacts between Russia and his campaign. He had told the American people he had no business dealings in Russia. Trump even refused to acknowledge that Russia interfered in the election to benefit his campaign (“It also could be somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds, ok?”). That was the starting point of Mueller’s investigation, which initially had strong bipartisan support.”

He continues: “Two years later, there is no doubt whatsoever of the role Russia played in the campaign. As Mueller states, “The Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election in sweeping and systematic fashion.” And there has been documented over 140 contacts between Trump and at least 18 of his associates with Russian nationals and WikiLeaks, or their intermediaries, during the 2016 campaign and presidential transition. Their scope is staggering.” 

Daggatt asserts that across the last two years, while the Republican voter base has shrunk, what remains has rallied every-more volcanically behind Trump, till almost no Republican will dare say a word amid a giant Nuremberg rally of outthrust salutes. (My metaphor, not Russ’s.)

== Stark jibbering… ==

  

Red-Fox America’s reflexive excuse-making for this tsunami of treason – along with all-out war against every fact-using profession -- can only end at the ballot box, and that repudiation must be overwhelming, or Putin and Murdoch will then turn to their last resort: spurring a more violent phase of civil war.

Each of us knows RASRs – Residually Adult-Sane Republicans – who are writhing unhappily, wallowing in “whatabout” rationalizations and “I know my side’s gone nuts, but democrats are just as bad” incantations. If just half a million of these at-core-decent neighbors get cornered, forced to face the full monstrosity of it all, and peeled away from the Putin-Fox coalition, then a Big Tent can welcome them. A tent of national and world salvation that’s broad enough to offer safety and a voice to Eisenhower… and yes, even Reagan… conservatives. If only they will help.

But first they must be hammered. Grabbed by the lapel. Read-to aloud. As with this article: “Here's the 1 thing the Mueller report proves beyond a shadow of a doubt.” Its most telling excerpt is about White House press secretary Sarah Sanders, who, in May 2017, said this in the wake of the firing of FBI Director Comey:

"The President, over the last several months, lost confidence in Director Comey. The DOJ [Department of Justice] lost confidence in Director Comey. Bipartisan members of Congress made it clear that they had lost confidence in Director Comey. And most importantly, the rank and file of the FBI had lost confidence in their director."

Pressed by reporters on that that last comment -- about the "rank and file" losing confidence in Comey -- suggesting that the rank and file were supportive of Comey, Sanders responded this way: "We've heard from countless members of the FBI that say very different things."

Ah, but here's what Mueller wrote about the episode: "Sanders told this Office that her reference to hearing from 'countless members of the FBI' was a 'slip of the tongue.' She also recalled that her statement in a separate press interview that rank-and-file FBI agents had lost confidence in Comey was a comment she made 'in the heat of the moment' that was not founded on anything."

When your RASR shrugs over things like this, counter with WODI: “What If Obama Did It?”

(Someone out there! Take a dozen damning Mueller Report passages and change the names from Trump etc. to Obama/Clinton, with appropriate-minima tweaks. Offer it to us: Benghazi! We can show to our RASRs so they’ll be enraged at that a democratic president did such things! Then spring the trap: “Oops, that wasn’t Obama, after all. Why weren’t you enraged that a GOP president actually did this?”  All right, that’s too-clever, by half. So then stick with facts… and wagers (they always run.)

You need to be part of this.  Yes, you.

If “all Heaven rejoices over a repentant sinner,” then all of America, civilization and all future generations depend on the RASRs we peel off. Them… plus the non-voters, who are actually worse in their smug, dullard-cynicism.

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Notes:
If Rage and Stupidity are now the dfense points held by the US AG, then why aren't we talking again about the 15th Amendment. The House + a critical mass of GOP senators need to slip into a bill some kind of "commission of national sages" for some advisory matter... then add "The Vice President may appeal to this council as an "other body" established by Congress for purposes of the 25th Amendment."