"The Voice of the New Due Process Army" ————– Musings on Events in U.S. Immigration Court, Immigration Law, Sports, Music, Politics, and Other Random Topics by Retired United States Immigration Judge (Arlington, Virginia) and former Chairman of the Board of Immigration Appeals PAUL WICKHAM SCHMIDT and DR. ALICIA TRICHE, expert brief writer, practical scholar, emeritus Editor-in-Chief of The Green Card (FBA), and 2022 Federal Bar Association Immigration Section Lawyer of the Year. She is a/k/a “Delta Ondine,” a blues-based alt-rock singer-songwriter, who performs regularly in Memphis, where she hosts her own Blues Brunch series, and will soon be recording her first full, professional album. Stay tuned! 🎶 To see our complete professional bios, just click on the link below.
Some young spring breakers insist the party’s on and they’re planning to keep at it despite pleas from health authorities to help stop the spread of the coronavirus.
“If I get corona, I get corona,” Brady Sluder, an Ohio resident on spring break in Florida, told Reuters. “At the end of the day, I’m not gonna let it stop me from partying.”
He was hardly alone.
Footage from Florida over the weekend showed packed beaches even though last week the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other authorities issued warnings to avoid crowds and keep in small groups as “social distancing” measures to hinder the spread of the virus.
Early reports suggested that younger people may be less susceptible to COVID-19. However, new data from the CDC showed that nearly 40% of those who required hospitalization for the infection were between the ages of 20 and 54. Even if they don’t get sick, people in this age group could pass the virus on to more vulnerable populations, especially older people.
“You have a responsibility ― a societal responsibility ― to protect the vulnerable,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said on CNN on Wednesday. “You do that, interestingly, by not letting yourself get infected.”
As of Wednesday, more than 9,400 Americans have been infected and 150 have died.
Interviews with some of the spring breakers showed that they didn’t seem too concerned.
. . . .
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Read the complete article, along with interviews of some of the “dumbest of the dumb” at the link.
How very discouraging! And, to me, rather surprising, yet enlightening. Usually, I’m a “dissenter” when groups of “my generation” criticize the younger generations.
I deal with students on a regular basis as an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown Law, and as a guest lecturer at colleges, universities, and seminars. Many of them are also “in touch” with me through “Courtside.” They form the core of the “New Due Process Army.”
These are the kinds of young people who spend spring break helping migrants at the border, summers in refugee camps, and internships giving “know your rights” presentations in migrant detention centers.
A number of them have volunteered to serve in “high risk locations” where most of us would fear to go, to help their fellow human beings and make the world a better place. Many of them are multilingual and also engaged in research and scholarship in human rights. I remember having interns at the Arlington Immigration Court whose lists of publications and achievements would have made many professors envious.
Indeed, one of our former interns organized an “Alternate Spring Break” at her law schoolconsisting of lectures and panel discussions with immigration experts that I was privileged to be a part of. Another helped start an Immigration Law Group at her school and led them on a spring break trip to the Southern Border to help organizations assisting detained asylum seekers.
I also saw many young migrants who came before me in court. A number of them had made death-defying journeys to get here, had mastered English in a short time, were doing well in school, and also working jobs and helping take care of their families. Some of them even found time to engage in extracurricular activities.
Of course, I also saw a few “bad actors” who had “gone off the path” and gotten themselves into detention. But, these were certainly the minority.
Guess I’m just “out of touch” with the “clueless Spring Break crowd.” Probably just as well. What horrible role models! And, I predict that many of these selfish nincompoops will live to regret the moronic interviews and videos now posted all over the internet.
Due Process Forever. Selfish, Clueless Spring Breakers, Never!
“Clueless Spring Breakers” get this week’s coveted “Courtside Five Clown Award,” marking the first time this prestigious award has ever been given to a person or group who was NOT a member of the Trump regime!
The Justice Department wants to dramatically increase fees for immigrants trying to fight deportation— including nearly $1,000 to appeal an immigration judge decision, according to a proposed Executive Office for Immigration Review rule.
Between the lines: It currently costs around $100 for immigrants to begin to legally fight deportation orders. If implemented, the new rule would raise fees to at least $305 and as much as $975, depending on the appeal.
By the numbers: In the rule, the administration argues that the discrepancy between fees collected and the processing costs “has become more of a burden on the immigration adjudication system as aliens overall have begun filing more of these fee-based forms and motions.”
They estimate that immigrants appealing deportation orders given by an immigration judge cost taxpayers $27.6 million in FY 2018. The rule proposes that fees be raised so that immigrants cover the total cost, which is how the $975 fee came about.
What they’re saying: When hearings are set two or three years in advance, immigrants have time to save for the fees. But with many new immigration judges and a rise in fast-track cases, that may no longer possible, immigration lawyer Jeffrey Chase, a former judge and senior legal advisor at the Board of Immigration Appeals, told Axios
Former immigration judge Paul Schmidt, who retired in 2016, told Axios in an email the proposed rule is “outrageous.”
He said correcting errors through the appeals process is one of the most important government functions. “That’s particularly true when the public segment ‘served’ is generally limited income individuals and getting results correct could be ‘life determining.’”
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Here’s my complete commentary on EOIR’s latest shady maneuver:
In a single word, “outrageous.”
As set forth in the notice, EOIR is an “appropriated agency.” It was never supposed to recoup its costs, nor does it need to.
Correcting errors on appeal is probably one of the most important functions the Government performs. That’s particularly true when the public segment “served” is generally limited income individuals and the getting results correct could be “life determining.”
Applications, as opposed to “appeals,” also serve a critical public function in insuring that those who qualify under our laws to remain in the U.S. are permitted to do so. That’s a “winner” for everyone.
The astronomical proposed fee increase is particularly absurd in the current context. EOIR is actually cutting corners and has reduced the quality and accuracy of its work product. Why should the public pay nearly 10X more for a rapidly deteriorating product?
Moreover, given the “captive” nature of the courts and the illegal and unethical interference in their operations by the Attorney General and other political operatives at the DOJ, the only chance at fair and impartial “justice” for many individuals is to petition the Article III Courts. That requires going through EOIR, even when EOIR’s biased and unfair adjudication procedures make the results inevitable. It’s called “required exhaustion of administrative remedies.”
Sure, folks can continue to seek “fee waivers.” But, I’ll bet that the procedures for those will become more bureaucratic and unduly restrictive, and that many will be improperly denied. How does someone with no money appeal a wrongful denial of a fee waiver? He or she can’t. They are denied justice!
That gets us to the real point here. In an era and an area of the law where “access to justice” is everything, this is another blatant attempt by the White Nationalist regime to restrict access to justice. In real world terms, the claimed cost savings (and we should never accept the regime’s often flawed and manipulated calculations) here are peanuts compared with the human interests at stake. The regime wastes more than this every week on unneeded and unauthorized walls that blow down in the wind and overpriced golf security for Trump.
Senate chaplain Barry Black began Wednesday’s session of President Trump’s impeachment trial by praying for God to give senators “civility built upon integrity.”
It was too much to ask.
Just minutes into the session, as lead House impeachment manager Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) presented his opening argument for removing the president, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) displayed on his desk a hand-lettered message with big block letters pleading: “S.O.S.”
In case that was too subtle, he followed this later with another handwritten message pretending he was an abducted child:
“THESE R NOT MY PARENTS!”
“PLEASE HELP ME!”
Paul wrote “IRONY ALERT” on another scrap of paper, and scribbled there an ironic thought. Nearby, a torn piece of paper concealed a crossword puzzle, which Paul set about completing while Schiff spoke. Eventually, even this proved insufficient amusement, and Paul, though required to be at his desk, left the trial entirely for a long block of time.
No one expected senators truly to honor their oath to be impartial. But Paul and some of his Republican colleagues aren’t even pretending to treat the proceedings with dignity.
Minutes before the trial opened in earnest on Wednesday, Paul took Trump up on the president’s stated wish to watch the trial from the “front row.” Paul tweeted a photo of a gallery ticket and said, “Mr. President, would love to have you as my guest during this partisan charade.”
Trump retweeted the message. (Unlike during President Bill Clinton’s impeachment, gallery tickets make no mention of an impeachment trial.)
Some of Paul’s Republican Senate colleagues were only slightly better behaved as the House managers presented the evidence.
Opinion | Trump’s impeachment defense could create a dangerous precedent
President Trump doesn’t have to commit a crime to be impeached, says constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley. (Joy Sharon Yi, Kate Woodsome, Jonathan Turley/The Washington Post)
Marsha Blackburn (Tenn.) and Joni Ernst (Iowa) read press clippings. (Blackburn had talking points on her desk attacking the whistleblower.) Sessions begin with an admonition that “all persons are commanded to keep silence, on pain of imprisonment,” but Ernst promptly struck up a conversation with Dan Sullivan (Alaska), who talked with Ron Johnson (Wis.). Steve Daines (Mont.) walked over to have a word with Ben Sasse (Neb.) and Tim Scott (S.C.), who flashed a thumbs-up.
Lindsey Graham (S.C.) variously shook his head in disagreement with the managers, picked his teeth and yawned. Tom Cotton (Ark.) ordered up a glass of milk, then another, then unwrapped a chocolate bar to share with Ernst. An aisle over, James Risch (Idaho), who fell asleep during Tuesday’s session, talked loudly enough to be heard in the press gallery.
“Mr. Chief Justice, I do see a lot of members moving and taking a break,” said House impeachment manager Jason Crow (D-Colo.), who was trying to speak. “Would you like to take a break?”
“I think we can continue,” replied Chief Justice John Roberts, who had been perusing printouts of emails.
In fairness, the proceedings were lengthy, and tedious. When Schiff, after two hours, uttered the phrase “now let me turn to the second article,” the press gallery erupted in groans. Democrats appeared restless, too; Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) slouched low in his chair, head resting on chest, forehead in hand.
Some might have nodded off entirely but for Rives Miller Grogan, a conservative activist who burst into the chamber at 6 p.m. and screamed “Jesus Christ!” before police shoved him out. Grogan’s continued screaming — something about Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) being the devil — could be heard in the chamber, where senators, jolted to alertness, shared a bipartisan chuckle.
Roberts only once rebuked the behavior in the chamber. As Tuesday’s session bled into the early hours of Wednesday, impeachment manager Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) warned senators against making a “treacherous vote” for a “coverup.” White House counsel Pat Cipollone, a member of Trump’s defense team, said Nadler “should be embarrassed” and called on the Senate to “land this power trip.”
Roberts, admonishing both sides “to remember that they are addressing the world’s greatest deliberative body,” cited the lofty example of a 1905 impeachment trial when use of the word “pettifogging” — defined as the bickering over trivialities — was disallowed as too pejorative.
Now, the world’s greatest deliberative body has devolved into a palace of pettifoggery.
Nadler was in the penalty box. When a reporter asked a question of Nadler at a news conference Wednesday morning, Schiff interrupted: “I’m going to respond to the questions.” Later, on the floor, a contrite Nadler thanked senators for “your temperate listening and patience last night.”
Patience, however, was in short supply as Schiff and his team made their case. Ignoring the impeachment managers, and the silence requirement, Graham chatted with Sen. John Barrasso (Wyo.). Sen. John Boozman (Ark.) had a word with Sen. John Hoeven (N.D.), while Sen. David Perdue (Ga.) talked with Sen. Ted Cruz (Tex.). And on, and on.
Reading from Federalist 65, Schiff quoted Alexander Hamilton: “Where else than in the Senate could have been found a tribunal sufficiently dignified” to conduct an impeachment trial with “the necessary impartiality”?
Clearly, Hamilton couldn’t have imagined this Senate. S.O.S.!
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And, today, Milbank royally “nailed” the anti-democratic death spiral of American institutions that J.R. and his GOP colleagues have helped create.
John Roberts comes face to face with the mess he made
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In an image taken from video, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. presides over the impeachment trial of President Trump on Thursday in the Senate chamber. (Senate TV via AP)
There is justice in John Roberts being forced to preside silently over the impeachment trial of President Trump, hour after hour, day after tedious day.
The chief justice of the United States, as presiding officer, doesn’t speak often, and when he does the words are usually scripted and perfunctory:
“The Senate will convene as a court of impeachment.”
“The chaplain will lead us in prayer.”
“The sergeant at arms will deliver the proclamation.”
Otherwise, he sits and watches. He rests his chin in his hand. He stares straight ahead. He sits back and interlocks his fingers. He plays with his pen. He takes his reading glasses off and puts them on again. He starts to write something, then puts his pen back down. He roots around in his briefcase for something — anything? — to occupy him.
Roberts’s captivity is entirely fitting: He is forced to witness, with his own eyes, the mess he and his colleagues on the Supreme Court have made of the U.S. political system. As representatives of all three branches of government attend this unhappy family reunion, the living consequences of the Roberts Court’s decisions, and their corrosive effect on democracy, are plain to see.
Ten years to the day before Trump’s impeachment trial began, the Supreme Court released its Citizens Uniteddecision, plunging the country into the era of super PACsand unlimited, unregulated, secret campaign money from billionaires and foreign interests. Citizens United, and the resulting rise of the super PAC, led directly to this impeachment. The two Rudy Giuliani associates engaged in key abuses — the ouster of the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, the attempts to force Ukraine’s president to announce investigations into Trump’s political opponents — gained access to Trump by funneling money from a Ukrainian oligarch to the president’s super PAC.
Opinion | The chief justice presides over impeachment, but don’t expect a lot from him
Columnist Ruth Marcus explains what the chief justice may or may not do in President Trump’s Senate impeachment trial. (Video: Danielle Kunitz, Joy Sharon Yi, Kate Woodsome/Photo: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
The consequences? Falling confidence in government, and a growing perception that Washington had become a “swamp” corrupted by political money, fueled Trump’s victory. The Republican Party, weakened by the new dominance of outside money, couldn’t stop Trump’s hostile takeover of the party or the takeover of the congressional GOP ranks by far-right candidates. The new dominance of ideologically extreme outside groups and donors led lawmakers on both sides to give their patrons what they wanted: conflict over collaboration and purity at the cost of paralysis. The various decisions also suppress the influence of poorer and non-white Americans and extend the electoral power of Republicans in disproportion to the popular vote.
Certainly, the Supreme Court didn’t create all these problems, but its rulings have worsened the pathologies — uncompromising views, mindless partisanship and vitriol — visible in this impeachment trial. And Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), no doubt recognizing that the Supreme Court’s conservative majority is helping to preserve his party’s Senate majority, has devoted much of his career to extending conservatives’ advantage in the judiciary.
He effectively stole a Supreme Court seat by refusing for nearly a year to consider President Barack Obama’s eminently qualified nominee, Merrick Garland, to fill a vacancy. And, expanding on earlier transgressions by Democrats, he blew up generations of Senate procedures and precedents requiring the body to operate by consensus so that he could confirm more Trump judicial appointees.
It’s a symbiotic relationship. On the day the impeachment trial opened, the Roberts Court rejected a plea by Democrats to expedite its consideration of the latest legal attempt by Republicans to kill Obamacare. The court sided with Republicans who opposed an immediate Supreme Court review because the GOP feared the ruling could hurt it if the decision came before the 2020 election.
Roberts had been warned about this sort of thing. The late Justice John Paul Stevens, in his Citizens Uniteddissent, wrote: “Americans may be forgiven if they do not feel the Court has advanced the cause of self-government today.”
Now, we are in a crisis of democratic legitimacy: A president who has plainly abused his office and broken the law, a legislature too paralyzed to do anything about it — and a chief justice coming face to face with the system he broke.
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Profiles in Fecklessness
By Paul Wickham Schmidt
Exclusive for Courtside
Jan. 24, 2020
“World’s Greatest Deliberative Body,” indeed! It’s the GOP Clown
Show with the complicit Chiefie presiding.
Milbank doesn’t even get to the absolute unconstitutional carnage and unending human misery the “Roberts Court” has created with its complicity in the Trump regime’s White Nationalist immigration agenda: a religiously-biased “Travel Ban” — fine with us; bogus invocation of “national emergencies” to illegally misappropriate money for a wall and otherwise dump on migrants’ rights — “no problema;” unconstitutional, unnecessary, and inhumane “civil” detention — no need to rush to judgment; illegal rewriting of asylum laws by Executive fiat — “right on;” disenfranchisement of African-American and Hispanic voters — not our problem; unwarranted shooting of an unarmed Mexican teenager by U.S. agent — tough luck, kid, your life is worthless to us; lawless and irrational termination of DACA — let’s let the kids twist in the wind for awhile; lies and pretexts for a racially motivated attempt to undercount people of color in the census — “tisk, tisk, naughty to lie to courts” (but, others among J.R.’s GOP judicial stooges where anxious to sweep the whole thing under the rug), disingenuous pleas by the Solicitor General to short-circuit the normal Federal Court litigation rules for the benefit of the regime — bring it on, and on an on.
Every day, the Trump regime conducts itself with disregard for the law and contempt for Federal Courts. The nation’s largest and, in many ways, most important Federal “court” system — the U.S. Immigration Court — isn’t a “court” at all, within any normal understanding of the word. Its structure and operation is blatantly unconstitutional — dissing the Due Process requirement for fair and impartial quasi-judicial adjudicators for “enforcement agents in robes” beholden to Chief Trump Toady Billy Barr, and, through him, to DHS Enforcement. J.R. and his “Complicit Five” are above it all.
The only human lives and rights for which the Supremes’ majority evinces any particular concern are the lives of the unborn and the rights of citizens to assault each other with high-power weapons. Only corporations appear to have rights worth protecting under J.R.’s skewed view of America. What’s wrong with this twisted and nonsensical picture of our once-proud legal system?
The only good news: America will have a chance (perhaps out last clear one) to vote at least some of the GOP clowns out of office in November!
Of course, J.R. and his GOP robed sell-outs are immune from accountability and far above the daily unfolding of the unconscionable legal, moral, and human disasters and tragedies they have countenanced and enabled. But, they are not immune from the judgment of history!
The Constitution requires the Chiefie to preside over the rest of the GOP Clown Show and “validate” the pre-announced violation of their oaths as openly biased jurors like Graham, McConnell, Paul, Cruz, and the other GOP Trump toadies have already flaunted in J.R.’s face.
Respect has to be earned. Unless and until the Chiefie starts enforcing the law, upholding Due Process in the face of Trump’s scofflaw behavior, and saving a few lives of the most vulnerable among us, J.R. will see a continued deterioration of his reputation and a harsh historical judgment of his complicity in the face of anti-American tyranny.
As MLK, Jr., once said: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” I’m sure that J.R., student of history that he is, has read that quote; but, tragically, it seems to have gone in one ear and out the other! You don’t have to look very far or be #1 in your class at Harvard Law to see the Constitutional mockery and grotesque injustices, not to mention rudeness and inhumanity, taking place in our Immigration Courts, at our borders, and in our overall immigration system every day!
Time to wake up, get involved, and end the Clown Show, Chiefie! That’s what life-tenure is supposed to be about! That’s what courageous and exemplary historical legacies are built upon!
Due Process Forever; Feckless & Complicit Courts, Never!
An asylum-seeker from Honduras who presented himself at the southern border this summer seeking protection was forced to wait in Mexico until his court date in the United States. In case the government needed to contact him, a Border Patrol officer listed an address on his forms: “Facebook.”
The man, who asked to only be identified by his last name Gutierrez, told BuzzFeed News that shortly before he was sent back to Mexico along with his family, a Border Patrol agent asked him to confirm that a shortened version of his name was indeed the one he used on Facebook.
“I said ‘Yes, why?'” Gutierrez recalled. “The agent told me ‘Because that’s how we’re going to send you information about your court case.’ I thought that was strange, but what could I do?”
The form Gutierrez was given, called a Notice to Appear (NTA), is a charging document issued by the Department of Homeland Security that includes information on where an immigrant must present themselves for their first court hearing, and critically, should include an address where the applicant can be contacted if the time, date, or location of the hearing is changed.
If an immigrant fails to appear at court hearings they run the risk of being ordered deported in absentia by an immigration judge, which makes having accurate and detailed information on the forms crucial for asylum-seekers.
Gutierrez said he was never contacted about his case via Facebook and it’s unclear how DHS officials would contact an immigrant via social media.
A US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) spokesperson did not respond to questions about why an agent would write “Facebook” as a known address, or whether the agency was using immigrants’ social media accounts as a way to inform them of any changes or updates to their hearings.
Attorneys and advocates working with asylum-seekers at the border, including those forced to wait in Mexico under the Trump administration’s Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) said they’ve seen other notices with “Facebook” addresses, or no address at all.
“‘Facebook’ is the most egregious example of the Department of Homeland Security doing away with the aspect of proper notice,” Leidy Perez-Davis, policy counsel at the American Immigration Lawyers Association told BuzzFeed News. “Facebook is not an adequate way to serve an NTA.”
Perez-Davis said she’s heard from other attorneys who had viewed documents from immigrants with improper or inadequate addresses such as shelters, which are often already full or only allow immigrants to remain there for a few days. Asylum-seekers are often given initial US court dates months in the future.
“This is procedurally incorrect, but DHS has been doing it anyway because there hasn’t been oversight on insufficient NTAs,” Perez-Davis said.
An immigrant in Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), shows documents to a US border agent at Paso del Norte border bridge to attend a court hearing for asylum seekers.In June 2018, the Supreme Court ruled that an immigrant’s notice to appear was invalid because it didn’t have the date or location of his scheduled court appearance. Attorneys have pointed to the ruling to argue that NTAs with inadequate information should also be invalid.
The Trump administration policy, also known as “Remain in Mexico,” has seen more than 47,000 asylum-seekers sent back to the country, straining local resources that help immigrants in the border communities. In addition to facing violence, kidnappings, and discrimination, some immigrants live on the streets and rely on donations to feed themselves.
If an immigrant receives an improperly addressed notice to appear, they can challenge whether it was legally serviced in court, Perez-Davis said, giving an immigrant the chance to reopen their case if they do not appear at their scheduled hearing and are ordered removed in their absence.
“It goes back to the issue of due process,” Perez-Davis said. “They can’t initiate proceedings without telling someone the details of the proceedings.”
Zoe Bowman, a law student who interned with Al Otro Lado, a binational border rights project and legal service provider, said she saw at least five immigrant NTAs that had “Facebook” listed as the known address. The first of which she saw in May or June of this year.
“It’s wild,” Bowman told BuzzFeed News. “Some wouldn’t have any addresses listed at all.”
The US asylum process is not set up for cases to be fought from Mexico, making the issue uncharted territory for the US government, immigrants, and attorneys, Bowman said.
“The issues with the NTAs is just one branch of that,” Bowman said. “People are having to make things up as they go along.”
Many of the other asylum-seekers returned to Mexico along with Gutierrez left for their home countries almost immediately. Gutierrez tried to wait for his court date, but only lasted three weeks in Tijuana. Facing a months-long wait for their first court hearing without money or space in a shelter, Gutierrez said he decided to go back to Honduras with his family.
“Tijuana is dangerous, I can’t be traveling with my family to the bridge at 4 a.m.,” Gutierrez said of the early hour he was expected to appear at a border crossing for his hearing. “We were in Mexico without money or a place to stay, I couldn’t make my daughter suffer through that.”
Yup! This won’t go down as one the finest moments for America, the Executive, the Article III Courts, or any of the folks involved in implementing what can only be termed a program of blatantly illegal and overt human rights abuses.
Those of us fighting for our Constitution, human life, and the true rule of law appear to be losing the battle for the time being, given the cowardly and inept performances of those few institutions like Congress, the Supremes, and Article III Appellate Courts who could put an end to these travesties and require reform and compliance with the Constitution and the rule of law respecting treatment of refugee applicants.
But, we are making a legal and historical record of who stood up for human rights and who planned, executed, and enabled what can only be termed “crimes against humanity.”
This week’s coveted “Five Clown Award” goes jointly to the Supremes and Congress for their joint catastrophic failure to put an end to this illegal nonsense and reestablish Due Process and the Rule of Law.
Donald J. Trump Clown in ChiefJohn Bolton Former National Security Clown
CLOWN REPORT:WORST PRESIDENT IN HISTORY FIRES WORST NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR IN HISTORY!
By Paul Wickham Schmidt
“Johnny B” was ousted by “Don the Con” short of his lifelong dream of starting World War III. But, remember who appointed this clown in the first place, knowing full well his record of dangerous and senseless saber rattling.
Undoubtedly, Johnny’s successor will be equally or almost as unqualified. It’s hard to imagine anyone being worse than Bolton, but if anyone could pull it off, it would be “Don the Con.” Rest assured, however, that no matter who gets the nod, the unrelenting “Clown Show” will continue under the “Big Top” (the building formerly known as the “White House”) with the security of the world at stake.
Truly, our Republic is in clear and present danger every day this unstable, ignorant, and spectacularly unqualified imposter remains in office, impersonating a President.
Annie Karni and Ana Swanson report for the NY Times:
WASHINGTON — President Trump said Thursday that he planned to impose a 5 percent tariff on all imported goods from Mexico beginning June 10, a tax that he said would “gradually increase” until Mexico stopped the flow of undocumented immigrants across the border.
The announcement, which Mr. Trump hinted at on Thursday morning and announced on his Twitter feed, said the tariffs would be in place “until such time as illegal migrants coming through Mexico, and into our Country, STOP.”
In a presidential statement that followed, he said that tariffs would be raised to 10 percent on July 1 “if the crisis persists,” and then by an additional 5 percent each month for three months.
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Wow! Just think of how far we have fallen as a nation. Let’s imagine that Obama, Bush, or Clinton proposed such idiotic, incoherent, nonsense, blatantly exhibiting something between total derangement and gross incompetence.
Journalists would be stunned, economists horrified. Politicians of both parties would be “talking 25th Amendment!”
Yet with Trump, it’s merely “ho hum, another day in nut-land” with only our country’s and the world’s future at stake. After all, he’s always threatening to take utterly insane, totally illegal actions. And, he only follows through about half the time.
Can we really survive this type of Clown Kakistocracy? Why won’t Mexico, China, Canada, India, and the EU just get together, negotiate some sound trade agreements based on real economics and sane diplomacy, and let the U.S. wander off into never-never land?
Yeah, I know, the economy continues to blaze away, markets are high, and unemployment low. But, remember the little warning line at the bottom of the prospectus of your most successful financial investment: Past results are not a prediction of future returns.
Well, there is some good news. At least there won’t be any suspense on who gets the “Courtside Five Clown Award” for this week. Who else but the Chief Clown! He’s earned it, and you can’t say that about much else in his tawdry life.
Half or a quarter of the way through this interesting experiment with an incessantly splenetic presidency, much of the nation has become accustomed to daily mortifications. Or has lost its capacity for embarrassment, which is even worse.
If the country’s condition is calibrated simply by economic data — if, that is, the United States is nothing but an economy — then the state of the union is good. Except that after two years of unified government under the party that formerly claimed to care about fiscal facts and rectitude, the nation faces a $1 trillion deficit during brisk growth and full employment. Unless the president has forever banished business cycles — if he has, his modesty would not have prevented him from mentioning it — the next recession will begin with gargantuan deficits, which will be instructive.
The president has kept his promise not to address the unsustainable trajectory of the entitlement state (about the coming unpleasant reckoning, he said: “Yeah, but I won’t be here”), and his party’s congressional caucuses have elevated subservience to him into a political philosophy. The Republican-controlled Senate — the world’s most overrated deliberative body — will not deliberate about, much less pass, legislation the president does not favor. The evident theory is that it would be lèse-majesté for the Senate to express independent judgments.
And that senatorial dignity is too brittle to survive the disapproval of a president not famous for familiarity with actual policies. Congressional Republicans have their ears to the ground — never mind Winston Churchill’s observation that it is difficult to look up to anyone in that position.
The president’s most consequential exercise of power has been the abandonment of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, opening the way for China to fill the void of U.S. involvement. His protectionism — government telling Americans what they can consume, in what quantities and at what prices — completes his extinguishing of the limited-government pretenses of the GOP, which needs an entirely new vocabulary. Pending that, the party is resorting to crybaby conservatism: We are being victimized by “elites,” markets, Wall Street, foreigners, etc.
After 30 years of U.S. diplomatic futility regarding North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, the artist of the deal spent a few hours in Singapore with Kim Jong Un, then tweeted: “There is no longer a nuclear threat from North Korea.” What price will the president pay — easing sanctions? ending joint military exercises with South Korea? — in attempts to make his tweet seem less dotty?
Opinion | Trump owns the Republican Party, and there’s no going back
President Trump has irreversibly changed the Republican Party. The upheaval might seem unusual, but political transformations crop up throughout U.S. history.(Adriana Usero, Danielle Kunitz, Robert Gebelhoff/The Washington Post)
By his comportment, the president benefits his media detractors with serial vindications of their disparagements. They, however, have sunk to his level of insufferable self-satisfaction by preening about their superiority to someone they consider morally horrifying and intellectually cretinous. For most Americans, President Trump’s expostulations are audible wallpaper, always there but not really noticed. Still, the ubiquity of his outpourings in the media’s outpourings gives American life its current claustrophobic feel. This results from many journalists considering him an excuse for a four-year sabbatical from thinking about anything other than the shiny thing that mesmerizes them by dangling himself in front of them.
Dislike of him should be tempered by this consideration: He is an almost inexpressibly sad specimen. It must be misery to awaken to another day of being Donald Trump. He seems to have as many friends as his pluperfect self-centeredness allows, and as he has earned in an entirely transactional life. His historical ignorance deprives him of the satisfaction of working in a house where much magnificent history has been made. His childlike ignorance — preserved by a lifetime of single-minded self-promotion — concerning governance and economics guarantees that whenever he must interact with experienced and accomplished people, he is as bewildered as a kindergartener at a seminar on string theory.
Which is why this fountain of self-refuting boasts (“I have a very good brain”) lies so much. He does so less to deceive anyone than to reassure himself. And as balm for his base, which remains oblivious to his likely contempt for them as sheep who can be effortlessly gulled by preposterous fictions. The tungsten strength of his supporters’ loyalty is as impressive as his indifference to expanding their numbers.
Either the electorate, bored with a menu of faintly variant servings of boorishness, or the 22nd Amendment will end this, our shabbiest but not our first shabby presidency. As Mark Twain and fellow novelist William Dean Howells stepped outside together one morning, a downpour began and Howells asked, “Do you think it will stop?” Twain replied, “It always has.”
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Stripped of its detracting “jabs at the opposition” and the “obligatory swat” at the essential safety net that actually keeps America functioning, even in tough political times like these, Will largely has Trump “pegged.” As others and I have said, the Trump Administration is “Kakistocracy in action.”
But, what took you so long, George, to “get religion?”For years, the GOP has been pushing a “soulless,” intentionally divisive, program of “beggar thy neighbor” and promoting the “worst in America.”
It’s not like equally sad and unfit GOP politicos such as Steve King, Tom Trancedo, Roy Moore, Jeff Sessions, Steve Bannon, Kris Kobach, Corey Stewart, and Stephen Miller just “hatched” during the Trump regime. Trump is the logical outcome of a “valueless conservatism” that has embraced some of the vilest individuals and ideas in modern American political history in a (somewhat successful) minority attempt to seize power from the majority of Americans and to govern against the overall public interest.
No surprise that a party bankrupt of both constructive conservative ideas and morality should end up installing a sad an unqualified character like Trump as its “Supreme Leader.” Trumpism is deeply rooted in modern American conservatism, not the “compassionate” kind of Bush I (which unfortunately was “DOA” within the party) but the vile brand that glosses over its racial and class overtones and its erroneous conception that the rich have every right to loot America and leave the crumbs to everyone else.
Yes, I think that America needs and deserves a credible “conservative movement” to engage in an honest governing dialogue with the Democrats. What might that conservative movement look like:
Constructive concern about runaway deficits and borrowing from the PRC;
Recognition of the threat that Russia and the PRC are to America’s future;
Commitment to secular governing principles (perhaps embodying, but not improperly favoring, some religious values) and support of the rights of all covered by our Constitution regardless of status;
Encouraging and enabling all qualified Americans to vote;
Congress retaking the authority to declare war and pass budgets and restricting Executive overreach (by both parties) in these areas;
Prudence in entering into future “foreign military adventures;”
A robust, effective, and efficient national defense that is held accountable for expenditures, strategies, and results;
Maintenance, funding, improvements, and accountability mechanisms for adequate safety net programs including social security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Obamacare;
An end to unnecessary tax breaks for the rich that strip the U.S. Treasury of necessary revenues without advancing any national agenda;
An end to “Government shutdown” forever and a pledge to respect the contributions of “America’s Crown Jewel:” our nonpartisan, professional, honest Civil Service;
Return of some authority to states, not as a device for “bogus” budget savings and to screw the poor and minorities, but to recognize and take advantage of areas where states are committed to actually funding and carrying out programs that produce better (not just cheaper) results than the Feds can;
Much more robust legal immigration and refugee acceptance programs;
A sharp reduction in wasteful funding for Federal detention of all kinds (including immigration detention) and the mandated use of alternatives that will work and benefit society;
Encouraging educational and economic development initiatives by the private sector in economically depressed areas (such as the Midwest and Appalachia) ;
Encouraging a robust trade agenda that provides mutual benefits to both the U.S. and our trading partners.
That would involve not only ditching Trump, but also abandoning the racially charged, fiscally wasteful, White Nationalist agendas that drive both him and his base and committing to governing in the public interest — in and of itself a key conservative principle.
We need an end to the “Clown Kakistocracy.” And, that will require some honest conservative support by a “new conservative” movement. I doubt that it can be headed by Trump sycophant, xenophobic enabler, and far right religious bigot Veep Mike Pence. Perhaps, however, folks like George have a constructive role to play in fashioning, inspiring, and leading it!
Washington used to know how to have a serious debate about border security.
Republicans demanded more money for Border Patrol agents and necessary fences. Democrats argued for better surveillance technology and more resources at the ports of entry. The two parties squabbled over how much to spend, how to pay for it and how it all fit into the broader struggle to overhaul the nation’s broken immigration system.
But President Trump has demolished the decades-old, bipartisan understanding about how to bargain over the border. In Mr. Trump’s world, there are no alternatives that can form the basis of a legislative give-and-take, much as his allies and adversaries might hope for them. For the president, the only way to stop what he calls an “onslaught” of illegal immigrants is to erect a massive, concrete or steel barrier across the nearly 2,000-mile border with Mexico.
“Drones and all of the rest are wonderful and lots of fun, but it is only a good old fashioned Wall that works!” he tweeted last month.
By conjuring images of a towering stone edifice around a medieval fortress — and branding those on the outside as invaders threatening to bring crime, drugs and disease to the United States — Mr. Trump has transformed what used to be a complicated, nuanced negotiation into a take-it-or-leave-it demand, laced with xenophobia, that has shuttered nearly a quarter of the government for weeks.
“He turns a debate that is fundamentally about more or less, measured in dollars, and makes it a debate that is wall or not,” said Frank Sharry, a pro-immigration activist who has battled over border security for decades in the nation’s capital. “It’s become cartoonish.”
For decades, immigration has been an emotional and bitterly fought battle in Washington and around the country. But even so, there has been a consensus among most Republicans and Democrats that securing the southern border requires a mix of costly strategies. That included a large number of Border Patrol agents posted at key points along the vast stretch of land from San Diego to Brownsville, Tex., fences in urban areas and barriers to stop vehicles from crossing and high-tech surveillance gear to alert the Border Agents to the presence of migrants and drugs.
Until Mr. Trump was elected, the sticking points had largely been about other parts of the broader immigration debate — cracking down on people who stay longer than their visas allow; preventing companies from hiring illegal immigrants; expanding opportunities for legal immigration; and providing status to those already in the country illegally, including immigrants brought to the United States as children.
Such a comprehensive deal is completely out of reach now. But Mr. Trump’s behavior during the past several weeks suggests that even reaching a smaller, more targeted agreement on security arrangements at the border is more elusive than ever before.
The current government shutdown, which began just before Christmas, is now the longest one ever in United States history. In the 22 days since the government shut down, there have been virtually no negotiations by congressional lawmakers or the White House. There have been no marathon, pizza-fueled sessions in back rooms at the Capitol. Lawmakers have not traded detailed proposals with each other. Mr. Trump refused to give an inch in his Oval Office speech, and has spent more time in an extended photo-op at the border than he has at the negotiating table.
It has all left veterans of past border debates exasperated and frustrated.
“We know how to secure borders,” said Alex Conant, a Republican strategist who was a top aide to Senator Marco Rubio in 2013 when the Republican senator from Florida helped lead the last major, bipartisan effort to overhaul immigration. “The 2013 immigration plan had what everybody agreed was the most effective way possible to secure borders and other points of entry.”
With the backing of President Barack Obama, a bipartisan group of eight senators that year succeeded in passing a comprehensive overhaul of the nation’s immigration system. But the legislation, which passed with 68 votes, prompted fierce opposition from conservative Republicans, who condemned it as amnesty for 11 million undocumented immigrants. It was never brought up for a vote in the House.
Still, the Senate legislation was an indication of where the two parties could agree on border security. It doubled the number of Border Patrol agents, from 19,000 to almost 40,000, an increase that even the authors of the proposal agreed was overkill but was designed mostly as an enticement to win Republican support.
Senators from both parties also agreed on money for technological improvements along the border. The bill allocated $3.2 billion for drones, infrared ground sensors and long-range thermal imaging cameras to give Border Patrol agents advance notice when migrants cross illegally, especially at night. It also included money for an electronic employment verification system for all employers and upgrades at airports to catch immigrants who overstay their visas.
And the consensus included some physical barriers — what Mr. Trump might call walls and others would call fencing. Years earlier, the Secure Fence Act of 2006 allocated money to build about 650 miles of barriers along the border. The 2013 bill, had it been signed into law, would have increased that total to almost 700 miles, mostly along the eastern half of the border with Mexico.
Almost all of the fencing that Congress has approved has already been built. In populated areas, the fence is tall and steel or chain-link and designed to keep people out. In other places, the barrier is nothing more than short, metal poles spaced out to keep vehicles from driving through, or low, wooden fences that run alongside pedestrian paths.
In 2011, a Government Accountability Office report concluded that despite 649 miles of completed fencing, the “the southwest border continues to be vulnerable to cross-border illegal activity, including the smuggling of humans and illegal narcotics.”
The report recognized that barriers have mostly not been built in the vast, empty stretches in Texas, where rivers and mountains as natural borders have prevented cars from crossing into the United States and made the trek by foot difficult, if not impossible. But Mr. Trump seizes on conclusions like the G.A.O. report’s about the continued influx of illegal immigrants at the southern border as proof that he is right in demanding a continuous wall.
In remarks to reporters after a meeting with Democrats at the White House earlier this month, Mr. Trump insisted that the only way to prevent immigrants from crossing between the 25 official ports of entry is to erect fences everywhere else.
“We can’t let gaps. Because if you have gaps, those people are going to turn their vehicles, or the gangs — they’re going to coming in through those gaps,” the president said. “And we cannot let that happen.”
But there continue to be questions about the wisdom of building a wall from “sea to shining sea,” even from inside Mr. Trump’s administration.
A different G.A.O. report, released last year, examined the preliminary cost estimates by Customs and Border Protection of what it would cost to extend the wall along the entire border. The report criticized the border agency, saying that the cost estimates did not take into account that costs would vary depending on the kind of terrain where they were built.
In recent days, the rhetoric between the two sides has become more strident than ever. Mr. Trump and his Republican allies have pointed out that Democrats supported fencing in the past, though they purposefully ignore the context of those votes and the difference between the fencing that Democrats supported and the all-or-nothing wall that the president has demanded.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California has called the wall “immoral,” cementing her position against it.
“At this point, the idea we could overlook the rhetoric and get a deal done is much harder,” Mr. Sharry, the pro-immigration activist, said.
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No surprise that the “Clown in Chief” has turned the dialogue “cartoonish” in the words of Frank Sharry.
“The Wall” has become a symbol for racism, xenophobia, the White Nationalist restrictionist agenda, immoral Government expenditures, and pandering to Trump’s political “base.” That makes it difficult for the Dems to give Trump what he wants unless they get something equally big and symbolic in return (e.g., Dreamer relief).
And, what Pelosi says makes perfect sense: If Trump couldn’t get “the Wall” when the GOP was in change, it’s unrealistic to think that the Democrats, having finally regained control of the House, are going to give it to him. Not to mention that the Wall is unpopular with the majority of Americans.
President Donald Trump played a key role in silencing porn star Stormy Daniels and model Karen McDougal, who both claimed to have had affairs with the president.
Media executive David Pecker met with Trump multiple times to discuss using the National Enquirer tabloid to buy the silence of women he allegedly slept with, according to a new report from The Wall Street Journal. The publication said it spoke to three dozen people with direct knowledge of the payments.
The U.S. Attorneys Office in Manhattan now has evidence of Trump’s role in the hush payments, according to the WSJ. He previously denied having knowledge about the payments.
In October 2016, when discussing making a payment to Daniels, Trump told his then-attorney Michael Cohen to “get it done.”
”President Pinocchio” and the regime of sleaze. Always thought Stormy was much more credible and a heck of a lot smarter than Trump. Just can’t figure out how a smart fundamentally nice person like her got mixed up with a total creep like Trump. But, it was consensual, and they are both into self promotion. Still, Trump’s lies about both his obvious involvement with Daniels & McDougal, combined with the stupidity of getting himself in that position in the first place, earns him a mixed “Three Pinocchio/Two Clown” Award!
WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Calling it a “medical mystery of the first order,” scientists are baffled by the ability of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan to stand upright without the benefit of spines.
Doctors at the University of Minnesota Medical School, who have been studying the skeletal structures of both Republicans for months, believe that their ability to stand, walk, and even break into a brisk trot when confronted by reporters’ questions is “virtually inexplicable.”
“The fact that they can do these things without the aid of spines makes McConnell and Ryan anomalies in the animal kingdom,” said Dr. Davis Logsdon. “According to everything medical science teaches us, their bodies should be collapsing to the ground in two heaps.”
As the Minnesota scientists have struggled to solve the medical conundrum presented by the two invertebrate leaders, one theory that has gained traction is what Logsdon calls “the startled-deer hypothesis.”
“Just as a deer freezes in the headlights of a car and briefly appears statue-like, we believe that Ryan and McConnell’s bodies may retain their rigid structure out of terror alone,” he said. “In other words, fear is performing the function that a spine performs in other people.”
Calling it “just a theory,” Logsdon said that the anatomies of McConnell and Ryan require further study, and that there was growing public support for both men to be dissected.
“A wise person once said, of working in the White House: “It’s worse than you can imagine. An idiot surrounded by clowns . . . I am in a constant state of shock and horror.” Whether or not that description can be attributed to Gary Cohn or is simply “representative” of his views, we may never know, but it’s obviously a good summation of what life is like inside the capsizing Carnival cruise ship that is the West Wing, particularly over the last 24 hours.
To recap, on Wednesday night, The Washington Post reported that Donald Trump was expected to announce major tariffs on aluminum and steel on Thursday, a development that apparently caught administration officials completely off guard. Though Trump has been itching to start a trade war since he announced his candidacy for president, virtually all of his advisers, outside the truly batshit insane ones, strongly advised against such punitive measures, as they could ultimately hurt many U.S. allies and provoke retaliation by U.S. trading partners, among other terrible consequences. During a June meeting with his Cabinet to discuss the issue, a whopping 22 people were said to be against Trump’s wishes, to the three who weren’t: Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, then-senior adviser Steve Bannon, and Trump himself. Unhappy that more people weren’t on his side, Trump reportedly screamed, “I want tariffs. And I want someone to bring me some tariffs!”
With Bannon’s departure, there was a thought that sheer numbers, if not sanity, would prevail. In addition to Cohn, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, and Secretary of Defense James Mattis have all strenuously argued against the tariffs, warning that they could hurt the global economy, damage key relationships, and threaten national security. That was obviously wishful thinking, though, given that 1) when Trump gets an idea in his head, no matter how dumb it is, he doesn’t let it go, and 2) the president has recently been taking the advice of Peter Navarro, a hard-line trade adviser who makes Bannon look like a “globalist cuck.” (For reference, Navarro wrote a book called Death by China, has encouraged Trump to go after freaking Canada, and thinks the North American Free Trade Agreement is responsible for an increase in spousal abuse, divorce, and infertility.) Considering Navarro’s growing influence in the White House, in retrospect it probably shouldn’t have come as a shock that this afternoon, this happened:
President Trump said on Thursday that he will impose stiff and sweeping tariffs on imports of steel and aluminum as he moved to fulfill a key campaign promise to get tough on foreign competitors.Mr. Trump said he would formally sign the trade measures next week and promised they would be in effect “for a long period of time.” The trade measures would impose tariffs of 25 percent on steel and 10 percent on aluminum. It is unclear whether those would apply to all imports or be targeted toward specific countries, like China, which have been flooding the United States with cheap metals.
The announcement capped a frenetic and chaotic morning inside the White House as Mr. Trump summoned more than a dozen executives from the steel and aluminum industry to the White House, raising expectations that he would announce his long-promised tariffs. However, the legal review of the trade measure was not yet complete and, as of Thursday morning, White House advisers were still discussing various scenarios for tariff levels and which countries could be included, according to people familiar with the deliberations.
It’s hard to overstate how bad of an idea this is. In addition to going against the advice of nearly all of his advisers and most people on Capitol Hill, essentially flipping off the World Trade Organization, and likely alienating important allies, the “JOBS JOBS JOBS” president is putting countless “JOBS” at risk in sectors like the automotive industry that obviously rely on aluminum and steel to manufacture their products. (According Axios’s Jonathan Swan, a report put out by Wilbur “wake me when the meeting is over” Ross that recommended imposing tariffs enraged Cohn because it didn’t factor in such collateral damage. Cohn and other staffers were also reportedly irked by the fact that the report suggested Trump’s fantasy of a manufacturing Renaissance could come true, when everyone knows it’s never gonna happen.)
To give you an idea of how unpopular today’s announcement was, even the Brothers Koch have come out against it, calling the tariffs, via their Americans for Prosperity mouthpiece, “a misguided approach that will hurt American businesses and families by increasing costs and undermining the tax relief just delivered by Congress and President Trump.” Larry Kudlow, whose name as been floated as a possible replacement for Cohn, and who is a huge fan of Trump’s, slammed the move, too, saying “All that will happen with steel tariffs is you will raise prices for all import users and that includes businesses and of course consumers. You will wind up hurting millions of people to help 140,000 people in the steel industry.” But don’t take their word for it. Here’s how Trump’s favorite metric responded:
(For those of you who are not visual learners, what we’re saying is: the Dow plunged 550 points on the news, closing the day down more than 400 points. For a stock-market obsessed president, that’s gotta hurt.)
Scott Pruitt, risking his life, will fly coach
Earlier this month, Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruittcame under fire for routinely flying first or business class when coach would have sufficed. His excuse? That “we live in a very toxic environment politically, particularly around issues of the environment,” and one time someone went up to him in the airport and uttered completely factual statements to his face. From there on out, his security detail decided that flying at the back of the plane was too much of a risk, and that Pruitt’s safety could only be ensured in the part of the aircraft where the booze is on the house. Today, however, this hugely brave American announced that those days are over.
During an interview with CBS News, Pruitt said that he has told his security detail “to accommodate those security threats in alternate ways . . . up to and including, flying coach going forward.”
Perhaps showing why we have the Trump “Clownocracy” in the first place, some Dems actually enthusiastically endorsed Trump’s idiotic move. As the late great Casey Stengel might have said, “Can’t anyone here play this game?” Guys, we need steel and aluminum, and we import one heck of a lot more than we make. Even an “economic dummy” like me knows that. So, a trade war that hurts American consumers and manufacturers who use steel and aluminum is going to be a big loser for us. Countries like ours that are, and almost certainly always will be, net importers rather than exporters can’t afford trade wars (particularly with our, perhaps soon to be former, “friends” like Canada & the EU)!
Finally, a “too bizarre not to be true rumor” sweeping the “world of inside the Beltway punditry” is that “Don the Con Man” will fire “Mr. Magoo” (a/k/a “Gonzo Apolyptco,” a/k/a “Jeff Sessions”) and temporarily replace him with the ethically challenged Scott “First Class” Pruitt for long enough to completely dismantle the Justice Department and our system of justice just as he did with our environment and the EPA. Talk about the “GOP Wrecking Crew” and the not-so-smart minority of folks who voted them into power. Vladi must be laughing his tail off!
In the final weeks of the 2016, election, Donald Trump’s behavior toward women became a topic of national interest. The Access Hollywood tape had just been published, leading to a slew of allegations from more than a dozen women that Trump had engaged in unwanted touching and sexual advances. Amid the charged atmosphere, The Wall Street Journalreported that American Media Inc., the publisher of the National Enquirer, paid $150,000 in August for exclusive rights to a story about a former Playboy model’s alleged affair with Trump, which it never ran. (A.M.I. C.E.O. David Pecker is a close friend of the president.) Now, details of the relationship have been made public, revealing a pattern of behavior when it comes to the sitting president of the United States.
While Karen McDougal story was buried, the New Yorker’s Ronan Farrow obtained an eight-page handwritten document outlining her interactions with Trump, which McDougal confirmed she had written. According to Farrow’s report, McDougal and Trump first met at a party at the Playboy Mansion in June 2006, after a taping of The Apprentice. McDougal wrote that Trump “immediately took a liking to me, kept talking to me—telling me how beautiful I was, etc. It was so obvious that a Playmate Promotions exec said, ‘Wow, he was all over you—I think you could be his next wife.’” At the time, Trump had been married to Melania for less than two years, and his son, Barron, was months old.
After the party, McDougal said that she and Trump began an affair. Trump reportedly met McDougal at the Beverly Hills Hotel when he was in Los Angeles and regularly flew her to public events, but without leaving a paper trail. McDougal alleges that Trump once tried to pay her for sex: “He offered me money,” she wrote. “I looked at him (+ felt sad) + said, ‘No thanks—I’m not ‘that girl.’ I slept w/you because I like you—NOT for money’—He told me ‘you are special.’” McDougal is the second woman to make such allegations on the record. (In a statement, the White House called McDougal’s allegations “an old story that is just more fake news” and said the president denied there was a relationship.)
Though certain details of the report are more eyebrow-raising than others—McDougal allegedly ended the affair due in part to Trump’s “offensive” comments about African-Americans—the most serious ramifications are a matter of national security. While some of the seedier allegations in Christopher Steele’s Trump-Russia dossier have not been verified, the central thesis of the dossier seems increasingly likely: that Trump’s long history of alleged affairs make him uniquely susceptible to blackmail. Pecker’s A.M.I. told The New Yorker, “the suggestion that A.M.I. holds any influence over the President of the United States, while flattering, is laughable.” But the real worry isn’t whether the president’s friends, like Pecker or attorney Michael Cohen—who told the Hive he spent $130,000 to keep another alleged affair quiet—have power over the president. It’s whether additional alleged affairs and cover-ups are known to foreign governments, like Russia. If Rob Porter’salleged history of domestic abuse and Jared Kushner’smountains of debt were concerning enough to delay their ability to get permanent security clearances, then Trump’s history is a five-alarm fire.
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As some of you might remember, I’m willing to give Stormy Daniels credit for being 1) smarter than Trump; 2) no less honest; and 3) a heck of a lot better “entrepreneur.” I have my doubts about Karen, however. On the other hand, I acknowledge she did eventually get paid $150K for a “tell all” story that was never told. So, perhaps she’s not so dumb after all. Still, consensual sex with the Orange Mop has to raise serious judgment questions.
All things considered, I’d vote for Stormy over Trump or Karen. That is, unless I find out that Stormy is a racist/White Nationalist, which most of those having “close contact” with Trump appear to be. We’ve actually come to the sad point in our wounded democracy when a porn star in the White House would be a “step up” from the sleazy destructive TV reality show con-man who now occupies the position even if he is incapable of actually performing the functions.
We’ve elected the “Confederacy of Clowns.” 🤡 🤡 🤡 Vladi couldn’t be happier. Just like he drew it up!
WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—In comments to reporters at the White House on Friday, Donald J. Trump stirred controversy by lavishing an alleged wife beater with praise that he historically has reserved for child molesters and Nazis.
Reporters who heard the President’s comments were taken aback since, in the past, the President had given no indication that he held wife beaters in the same high esteem in which he holds supporters of child abuse and white supremacy.
“We knew that President Trump considered child molesters and Nazis very fine people, but this was the first time he had put wife beaters up there, too,” Tracy Klugian, a member of the White House press corps, said. “We wanted clarification as to whether he considered wife beaters as fine as those other two groups, or finer.”
John Kelly, the White House chief of staff, accused reporters of attempting to drive a wedge between three of the President’s most cherished constituencies.
“Donald Trump has made it very clear that he can be the champion of wife beaters, child molesters, and Nazis at the same time,” Kelly said. “He doesn’t play favorites.”
“She is perhaps the most successful Federal Reserve chair in modern history and the first woman to hold the job, yet her contributions are ignored
@JillAbramson
The strength of the economy was the keystone of President Trump’s State of the Union speech. There was no need to exaggerate how good things are – low inflation, lower unemployment, soaring stock market. Nonetheless, as usual, he had to inflate his boastful claims with hot air.
There were so many encomiums for various Americans in the president’s speech that the personal, anecdotal stories blurred into each other. But there was no word of thanks for the person most responsible for the strong economic winds keeping the Trump administration afloat.
Janet Yellen, perhaps the most successful Federal Reserve chair in modern history and the first woman to hold the job, was completely unrecognized. President Trump gave her the boot, making her the first Fed leader not to be renominated for a second term. All of her predecessors were renominated by presidents of the opposite party. But not Yellen, whom President Barack Obama appointed in 2014 and whose last day on the job is 3 February.
Yellen was denounced by some of the Republican lawmakers who clapped thunderously as the president bragged about the 2.4m jobs created during the first year of his presidency. Conservatives in the Congress lambasted Yellen in her early days for her singular focus on job creation and her tenacious loyalty to the bond-buying program known as quantitative easing.
As a member of the Fed board of governors, Powell had supported virtually all of Yellen’s key decisions. It’s telling that the president had to embroider the already impressive economic gains the country had enjoyed during his first year in office.
“Since the election, we have created 2.4 million new jobs, including 200,000 new jobs in manufacturing alone,” he boasted. But according to Pro Publica, only 206,000 real jobs have actually been created so far and only 63,000 of those can be attributed to President Trump.
As for manufacturing jobs, the president began his tenure by anointing himself as the savior of a Carrier plant in Indianapolis, Indiana. But only two weeks ago, 200 workers at the plant lost their jobs. And it took $7m in tax breaks and other goodies just to get Carrier to back off from its plan to move to Mexico.
The New Yorker published the anguished stories of some of those being laid off earlier this month, just as President Trump began drafting his speech. The magazine gathered with a group of about-to-be former Carrier employees at Sully’s, a local bar. They expressed their sense of having been had by Trump.
Among those who spoke at the gathering was Chuck Jones, the former president of United Steel Workers Local 1999, in Indianapolis, who disputed Trump’s initial claims about the Carrier deal and was attacked by Trump on Twitter as a result. “Trump is a liar and an idiot,” Jones told the crowd, adding, “He’s a con man, pure and simple, who sold us a bag of shit.”
The 2.4m new jobs figure Trump trumpeted for 2017 is accurate. But it’s also less than the 2.7m jobs created during President Obama’s last year in office. The president’s “Happy Days Are Here Again” economic picture hinges on what he described in his address as “the biggest tax cuts and reform in history”.
Actually, the Trump tax cuts are only the 12th largest in history. Ronald Reagan’s 1981 rate cuts were the largest. Everyone knows that the tax bill that was the president’s signature achievement in 2017 is a wet kiss to the billionaire class and robs the poor and many members of the middle class. Nonetheless, Trump and the Republican party believe the tax cuts may be the only thing standing between them and Armageddon in the 2018 elections.
The Koch Brothers, among the chief beneficiaries of the bill, just announced their intention of asking their donor network to spend $400m to beat back an expected Democratic wave in congressional races. They more or less sat out those races in 2016 and were lukewarm to Trump. With the tax bill gift, they are lukewarm no more.
Trump also repeated the most cynical boast of all – that he’s responsible for improving the economic standing of black Americans. He was stung by criticisms from Jay-Z and tweeted: “Somebody please inform Jay-Z that because of my policies, Black Unemployment has just been reported to be at the LOWEST RATE EVER RECORDED!”
Black unemployment has been declining steadily for the past seven years. It is now at its lowest rate – below 7%, but it is still more about double the 3.7% rate for white Americans, hardly something to brag about.
Before the speech, pundits debated whether the president would be “Twitter Trump” or “Teleprompter Trump” for his State of the Union. The angry, dark president on view a year ago on Inauguration Day was replaced by the calm reader. Also on display, to good reviews, in Davos.
But substance, not presentation, is what’s important. And it was really the same Donald Trump standing in the well of the House of Representatives, the man who regularly does set a record: for untruths uttered by an American president.
Jill Abramson is a Guardian columnist”
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You can be pretty sure that when the inevitable financial crisis comes, both Trump and “The Munchkin” will be clueless about what to do. After all, this is a dude whose formula for dealing with his own business incompetence was “stiff the suppliers, screw the workers, and declare bankruptcy!” We all have to hope that new Fed Chief Jerome Powell turns out to be smarter and more “Yellen-like” than the clowns who ousted her.
And, of course, when the tough times come, Trumpie will blame the Democrats, “sanctuary cities,” Barak Obama, Hillary Clinton, Mexico, Canada, California, New York, The New York Times, CNN, NBC News, or just about anybody, rather than accepting any personal responsibility. That’s just not in the Con-Man’s makeup. But, when things look good again, you can bet that The Donald will take all the credit and stiff the “real heroes” no matter who they are.
Michael S. Schmidt and Maggie Haberman report for the NYT:
“WASHINGTON — President Trump ordered the firing last June of Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel overseeing the Russia investigation, according to four people told of the matter, but ultimately backed down after the White House counsel threatened to resign rather than carry out the directive.
The West Wing confrontation marks the first time Mr. Trump is known to have tried to fire the special counsel. Mr. Mueller learned about the episode in recent months as his investigators interviewed current and former senior White House officials in his inquiry into whether the president obstructed justice.
Amid the first wave of news media reports that Mr. Mueller was examining a possible obstruction case, the president began to argue that Mr. Mueller had three conflicts of interest that disqualified him from overseeing the investigation, two of the people said.
First, he claimed that a dispute years ago over fees at Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Va., had prompted Mr. Mueller, the F.B.I. director at the time, to resign his membership. The president also said Mr. Mueller could not be impartial because he had most recently worked for the law firm that previously represented the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Finally, the president said, Mr. Mueller had been interviewed to return as the F.B.I. director the day before he was appointed special counsel in May.
After receiving the president’s order to fire Mr. Mueller, the White House counsel, Donald F. McGahn II, refused to ask the Justice Department to dismiss the special counsel, saying he would quit instead, the people said. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because they did not want to be identified discussing a continuing investigation.”
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Read the complete story at the link.
More “not-so-bright Third World dictator” than “stable genius.” The minority of Americans who voted for this evil clown have debased our once-great nation! And the GOP continues to enable the destruction of American democracy and values.
T
