In an alternate universe, Fox News spent the day arguing that President Hillary Clinton deserves to be impeached for preferring hot sauce over Miracle Whip.
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Cēterum cēnseō factiōnem Rēpūblicānam dēlendam esse īgnī ferrōque.
“All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind.” -Adam Smith
.@realDonaldTrump intervened in plans to turn the FBI HQ across the street from his luxury hotel into a construction zone, then invoked executive privilege to block inspector general from learning what he said in meetings. https://t.co/H4sBeMXZ0Apic.twitter.com/gwqtItP4NJ
So an outgoing president can't nominate a supreme court justice, but a president under investigation can. It's almost as if that whole line was bullshit and the GOP will do or say anything to stay in power.
The biggest takeaway from today's drama is the reaffirmation that Donald Trump does not negotiate in good faith and all nations of the world should plan accordingly.
When the Nazis removed Jews from villages in Poland, their property was distributed to loyal locals. Winning popular support for genocide while looted Jewish wealth paid for it.
Seems GOP is fishing for a LatinoISIS and another war in a chaotic oil nation.
Marco Rubio says there is a “very strong” argument to be made for considering a military option in #Venezuela. That’s a terrible idea. https://t.co/H7gYP5bVW9
See, this is why y'all need to show up at mid terms. Else you get judicial nominees like this:
Here’s the video: @fred_guttenberg tells Kavanaugh that his daughter "was murdered in Parkland” and holds out his hand to Kavanaugh. Kavanaugh - a father himself - gives Fred a contemptuous look before turning his back on him and walking away. pic.twitter.com/l4WSQjEMTs
I can't tell if this is a big deal or a just a side-show. For a start, just how unprecedented is it? Merk'ns, speak!
This is more documents than most nominees.
However, most nominees never worked in the White House and had far fewer documents to request in this manner. Judicial rulings and such would all be public record and not require requests to access. However, the last nominee who worked in the White House, Elena Kagan, had her White House documents requested. Obama did not withhold any of them due to "executive privilege".
Also of interest is that Republicans even requested, and received, records from Sotomayor's time on the board of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, even though she had a record on the bench already. They wanted anything they could get their hands on that might damage her. Now they act like asking for Kavanaugh's records as a government lawyer in the White House are not relevant to how he would behave as a judge.
So the GOP sought, and mostly received, basically any documents they could claim were pertinent to those nominations. But they think that they should pick and choose what anyone gets to see about Kavanaugh.
The fact that Kavanaugh has a more extensive paper trail than most nominees is unprecedented. But that's their problem for picking him. The people ought to be able to see a representative cross-section of his record. The easiest way to do this is to simply release all of it that can be released. I'd rather that they release 50,000 randomly selected documents from Kavanaugh's entire record, than let them pick and choose but release all but 50,000 documents.
It doesn't matter if they release a million pages of records if they have excluded anything that's not anodyne or routine. It is the process of selecting what to release that is secretive and deceptive. Releasing more documents doesn't make it more transparent unless those documents are representative of his whole record. And you can be sure that they are not choosing what to release with purely non-political considerations.
See, this is why y'all need to show up at mid terms. Else you get judicial nominees like this:
[snip]
For the NEXT 40 YEARS. Give or take a few.
In fairness, I'm pretty sure that, nowadays, "Completely lacking in any sense of morality, basic human decency, or compassion for others" is a required qualification for anyone who aspires to a high-ranking position in the Republican Party.
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“The greatest way to live with honor in this world is to be what we pretend to be.”
Zina Bash, who worked for Kavanaugh was seated behind him making the "white power" symbol with her hand for the camera to catch, so every neo-Nazi knows this is their man.https://t.co/39RFUH6eIo
Some excerpts from Woodward's new book have emerged, and it sounds like Infrastructure Week is going to be a rousing success. Kelly calls this the worst job he's ever had and the president* an idiot, amongst other highlights.
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Cēterum cēnseō factiōnem Rēpūblicānam dēlendam esse īgnī ferrōque.
“All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind.” -Adam Smith
President Trump is facing a test to his presidency unlike any faced by a modern American leader.
It’s not just that the special counsel looms large. Or that the country is bitterly divided over Mr. Trump’s leadership. Or even that his party might well lose the House to an opposition hellbent on his downfall.
The dilemma — which he does not fully grasp — is that many of the senior officials in his own administration are working diligently from within to frustrate parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations.
I would know. I am one of them.
To be clear, ours is not the popular “resistance” of the left. We want the administration to succeed and think that many of its policies have already made America safer and more prosperous.
But we believe our first duty is to this country, and the president continues to act in a manner that is detrimental to the health of our republic.
That is why many Trump appointees have vowed to do what we can to preserve our democratic institutions while thwarting Mr. Trump’s more misguided impulses until he is out of office.
The root of the problem is the president’s amorality. Anyone who works with him knows he is not moored to any discernible first principles that guide his decision making…
Given the instability many witnessed, there were early whispers within the cabinet of invoking the 25th Amendment, which would start a complex process for removing the president. But no one wanted to precipitate a constitutional crisis. So we will do what we can to steer the administration in the right direction until — one way or another — it’s over.
This is not normal. I feel that can't be repeated often enough. None of this is normal. Nothing about this administration* is normal.
I may have more to say when I can access the internet from an actual computer, but I can't promise anything.
... and this from historian Eric Rauchway, which it's my inclination to agree with:
Quote:
Let’s put it this way: declining to use the Constitution and instead using unconstitutional means to run the executive branch is, very much, a Constitutional crisis.
Even a quite short list of things that are not constitutional crises would, I think, have to include “doing what the constitution instructs.”
So for example: sending the Army to Little Rock to enforce _Brown v. Board_ was not Eisenhower precipitating a constitutional crisis. Eisenhower was enforcing the Supreme Court’s (unanimous) ruling on what was in the constitution. He was exercising his constitutional authority.
It was the Arkansas government that, acting in *defiance* of the constitution, precipitated the crisis.
If you want to avoid a constitutional crisis, you should act within the confines of the constitution, not outside them.
__________________
Cēterum cēnseō factiōnem Rēpūblicānam dēlendam esse īgnī ferrōque.
“All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind.” -Adam Smith
President Trump is facing a test to his presidency unlike any faced by a modern American leader.
It’s not just that the special counsel looms large. Or that the country is bitterly divided over Mr. Trump’s leadership. Or even that his party might well lose the House to an opposition hellbent on his downfall.
The dilemma — which he does not fully grasp — is that many of the senior officials in his own administration are working diligently from within to frustrate parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations.
I would know. I am one of them.
To be clear, ours is not the popular “resistance” of the left. We want the administration to succeed and think that many of its policies have already made America safer and more prosperous.
But we believe our first duty is to this country, and the president continues to act in a manner that is detrimental to the health of our republic.
That is why many Trump appointees have vowed to do what we can to preserve our democratic institutions while thwarting Mr. Trump’s more misguided impulses until he is out of office.
The root of the problem is the president’s amorality. Anyone who works with him knows he is not moored to any discernible first principles that guide his decision making…
Given the instability many witnessed, there were early whispers within the cabinet of invoking the 25th Amendment, which would start a complex process for removing the president. But no one wanted to precipitate a constitutional crisis. So we will do what we can to steer the administration in the right direction until — one way or another — it’s over.
This is not normal. I feel that can't be repeated often enough. None of this is normal. Nothing about this administration* is normal.
I may have more to say when I can access the internet from an actual computer, but I can't promise anything.
I see. Another example of the "Vichy New York Times" in action, eh?
President Trump is facing a test to his presidency unlike any faced by a modern American leader.
It’s not just that the special counsel looms large. Or that the country is bitterly divided over Mr. Trump’s leadership. Or even that his party might well lose the House to an opposition hellbent on his downfall.
The dilemma — which he does not fully grasp — is that many of the senior officials in his own administration are working diligently from within to frustrate parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations.
I would know. I am one of them.
To be clear, ours is not the popular “resistance” of the left. We want the administration to succeed and think that many of its policies have already made America safer and more prosperous.
But we believe our first duty is to this country, and the president continues to act in a manner that is detrimental to the health of our republic.
That is why many Trump appointees have vowed to do what we can to preserve our democratic institutions while thwarting Mr. Trump’s more misguided impulses until he is out of office.
The root of the problem is the president’s amorality. Anyone who works with him knows he is not moored to any discernible first principles that guide his decision making…
Given the instability many witnessed, there were early whispers within the cabinet of invoking the 25th Amendment, which would start a complex process for removing the president. But no one wanted to precipitate a constitutional crisis. So we will do what we can to steer the administration in the right direction until — one way or another — it’s over.
Dear Vice President Pence -
You are a coward and are also complicit. No anonymous op ed can redeem your sins or wash away the taint. Also, if the only reason the cabinet doesn't invoke the 25th is to avoid a constitutional crisis, that means you are in a constitutional crisis. You are too much a coward to react.
Quote:
This is not normal. I feel that can't be repeated often enough. None of this is normal. Nothing about this administration* is normal.
No, I suppose not. More or less since I became a functioning human I have not believed in fate or destiny or sin, but I have embraced a new kind of fatalism in this administration. I have come to hold the opinion that Donald Trump is the leader that we, as a country, deserve, and this administration is expiation for some tiny portion of the accumulated weight of our very great sins. I am not too caught up in intraparty squabbles or the day to day of November. I will wait to see if we survive our just deserts.
I have come to hold the opinion that Donald Trump is the leader that we, as a country, deserve, and this administration is expiation for some tiny portion of the accumulated weight of our very great sins.
I would feel happier about this were it not for the fact that so very many others are suffering for our very great sins -- and will continue to suffer for our sins for the foreseeable future.
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“The greatest way to live with honor in this world is to be what we pretend to be.”
About that dementia
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