The more I look into the political crystal ball stretching a few weeks to a couple of months ahead, the more despairing I become as to the future of our democracy. The prospects for our nation under the present administration and its GOP supporters are NOT good and looking worse day by day. Herewith, just a few of the appalling possibilities:
By a wide variety of measures, Democrats have been taking heart in mounting data suggesting that the GOP is in awful shape heading into next Fall’s mid-term elections. They range from the lack of planning and coordination by Republicans, the stunning results of the Virginia elections this fall, the possibility that Doug Jones just might pull off a win in Alabama, and the steady decline of Trump and the GOP in polls nationwide, especially among women.
Meanwhile, a number of major court cases at the state and federal level are challenging the GOP’s long-standing success in holding onto their power with heavy reliance on gerrymandering. They are obviously fighting efforts to create citizen panels for future redistricting and are praying they have enough votes on the Supreme Court with Gorsuch cemented in place to fend off challengers, but the risks are growing.
No doubt, the Republicans are growing increasingly frantic.
But, you haven’t been hearing a lot from Trump’s Voter “Fraud” Investigation Panel, headed by former Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, and assisted by his partner in crime Hans Von Spakovsky, but they are out there. With so much else going on politically and economically, their work is not getting strong coverage in the media. But one reason it is under the radar is that the Commission is doing its work largely in secret.
A member of President Donald Trump's commission on voter fraud sued in federal court on Thursday, alleging that the commission is violating federal law by excluding him and others from participating and refusing to provide documents available to other members
The lawsuit, filed by Maine Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap in Washington, D.C., claims violations of the Federal Advisory Committee Act. It asks the court to compel the commission to hand over all documents he's requested, share all future documents, to include him in all communications and to prevent the release of any final report until he has had a chance to review it.
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Dunlap's lawsuit said Trump, Pence and Kobach included the four Democrats serving on the 11-member panel "to provide a veneer of legitimacy by making the commission's membership bipartisan." Instead, the lawsuit said, "the Commission and its staff have compromised the legitimacy of any findings that may emerge from this process."
While there have been isolated cases of voter fraud in the U.S., there is no evidence of it being a widespread problem.
Bottom line, I strongly suspect that this “commission,” operating in secret, holding meetings without all members (particularly Democrats) being involved, inviting witnesses whose participation is only revealed the days they actually appear, and producing agendas the same way, is heading towards the following scenario:
Suddenly announcing its conclusions including a series of recommendations that constitute a major set of restrictions aimed at disenfranchising as many potential Democratic votes as possible nationwide. (As always Democrats will not be singled out, but the groups targeted for measures like restrictive Voter IDs will clearly be largely Democratic votes.)
Coordinating with the GOP Congressional majority on an action program that produces specific legislation to achieve these goals ready for Congressional action almost simultaneously with the bogus commission’s report. (Note Dunlap’s concern that the committee of which he is a supposed member, might release its findings before he even gets a chance to review it.)
Holding minimal hearings with witnesses largely limited to GOP shills.
Ramming the bill through both houses in record time before opposition can form.
DISCREDITING ROBERT MUELLER AND THE FBI AS PART OF A TRUMP DEFENSE:
The alarm buttons are going off all over DC and the GOP’s tactics re. the Mueller investigation into Trump, his business practices and the involvement of his administration in a wide range of crimes and misdemeanors including clear collusion with Russia to affect the outcome of last year’s elections are now crystal clear — attack Mueller and with him, the FBI — charging them with being biased, unprofessional and unethical.
At a House hearing yesterday, FBI Director Christopher Wray was subjected to a barrage of hostile questions about these subjects with the questions all suggesting these themes. Louis Gohmert (R-TX) long known as one of the most rabid of the GOP’s ideological attack dogs, even demanded that Wray vouch for the reputations of a specific set of FBI agents….by name (much like McCarthy-era attacks on specific government staff as being soft on communism.) This strongly suggests that we are going to be hearing these names again, and with them specific but largely bogus charges and innuendos designed to discredit each of them and by association, the FBI and the investigation.
The tone and content of these attacks makes it clear they are part of a coordinated GOP plan. The language, the charges and the insinuations are the same. No evidence is offered of bias….just insinuation, including suggestions that because Mueller dismissed a member of his team for writing text messages critical of Trump, his entire investigation is riddled with bias and must be shut down.
Right now, many observers are asking a critical question: Will Trump decide to fire Mueller if his investigation starts getting too close to home.?
With each day, new evidence is becoming public and reports on the progress of the investigation indicate that Mueller is digging heavily into Trump’s finances with demands for documents from Deutsche Bank and the very real possibility that he already has copies of his tax returns to go with them. However, based on Nixon and Watergate, Trump supporters clearly know that firing Mueller outright could create a firestorm so intense that it could lead directly to impeachment proceedings.
Instead, consider the possibility that they do NOT plan to fire Mueller, but instead to maintain a steady storm of innuendo from their members and allies in the media designed to plant seeds of doubt, and distrust and arm their base with arguments to discredit Mueller’s final findings and recommendations.
Teacherken in a diary yesterday pointed to Eugene Robinson’s WaPo column raising just such a scenario:
We need to prepare for the eventuality that the Mueller probe catches President Trump, family members and associates red-handed — and Republicans in Congress refuse to do anything about it.
This is beginning to look like a possible or even probable outcome. With a cravenness matched only by its arrogance, the GOP is Trump’s party now. It no longer has any claim to be Lincoln’s.
In other words, Mueller issues his report including charges that would support the start of impeachment proceedings, but Trump’s GOP allies in Congress use their smokescreen of lies about Mueller and the FBI to argue that the investigation was biased, part of the deep state’s efforts to undercut Trump and then refuse to proceed.
STARTING A WAR AS PART OF THE RESHAPING THE NATION’S BUDGET PRIORITIES AND TAX STRUCTURE:
The GOP is well on its way to achieving many of its goals. They are on the verge of a massive shifting of wealth to the wealthiest, vastly increasing the national debt and penalizing the poor and middle class. And while they failed to kill Obamacare by a single vote, they have, ever since then been instituting measures designed to achieve that end, and without any pretense at a replacement.
Scott Pruitt is savaging regulations on the environment and favoring fossil fuel industries at every turn.
Control of the financial industry is also being gutted with the replacement of Richard Cordray at the Consumer Protection agency by Mick Mulvaney, the head of Management and Budget (who keeps both jobs.) That is resulting in the hacking of most regulations on banks, consumer protections, and fraudulent businesses. Watch for the GOP soon to change the funding mechanism for the agency to allow Congress to control its budget and strangle it silently.
Tillerson’s actions, or lack of them are hollowing out our State Department and National Security apparatus. Doing so places more and more reliance on defense as opposed to diplomacy in dealing with global challenges.
Immediately ahead, in plain sight, a GOP push to increase defense spending, while at the same time, slashing spending on domestic programs….particularly Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, children’s health, food stamps and energy assistance, and benefits to the elderly and disabled (because we can’t afford both.)
Speaker Ryan has made it clear that in order to address the deficit and boost defense spending (wait a minute...didn’t you tell us this tax bill was going to pay for itself and be revenue neutral?) we are going to HAVE to cut social safety net programs.
And he wants to get this done as soon as possible. He knows that the GOP control of Congress might disappear next year.
Donnie is clearly itching to start a war somewhere. He keeps ordering joint maneuvers around North Korea and making all sorts of threats, trying to get “Little Rocket Man” to do something stupid he can use as an excuse to attack them. His decisions to keep US troops in place in a growing global arena of hotspots is stretching us thin and leading to accidents and embarrassing failures, but it is all good because it helps justify more defense spending.
And now, against almost universal advice not to do so, he has sided with Israel in recognizing Jerusalem as their capitol, thus stirring the fires of opposition throughout the Middle East.
As if the Middle East isn’t already going to be royally ripped as they become aware of what apparently were the administration’s (or at least Mike Flynn’s) plans for their region…..construct a welter of Russian-backed nuclear power plants in the area, defend them with US troops, and use that as a pretext for maintaining US troop presence throughout. As Charlie Pierce at Esquire explains:
(A whistleblower’s letter sent to Democratic Representative Elijah Cummings) described a plan to build nuclear reactors in the Middle East with Russian help. Naturally, this would require the lifting of the sanctions on Russia put in place by the previous administration. According to Cummings’ letter, the whistleblower was hanging with a guy named Alex Copson on Inauguration Day. Copson was the head of something called ACU Strategic Partners, which was planning to partner with the Russians on the reactors once the sanctions were gone. According to the letter, Flynn texted Copson while the inauguration was going on that the project was “good to go.”
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According to the letter, Copson also said Flynn had promised that the sanctions would be “ripped up” almost immediately. The whistleblower said that he then asked Copson why in hell anyone would put nuclear reactors in the Middle East and the answer that the whistleblower said he got from Copson is nothing short of astounding.
Mr. Copson explained that the U.S. would provide military support to “defend these installations.” He also explained that this would provide a pretext for placing U.S. military forces in these countries. During his conversation with the whistleblower, Mr. Copson described the citizens of these foreign countries in highly derogatory terms. He explained his view that “they will be better off when we re-colonize the Middle East.” The whistleblower was extremely uncomfortable with this conversation.
And you also have Eric Prince wandering the globe, chatting with the Russians and coming back to DC with plans to create his own military arm and intelligence group reporting directly to Donnie and avoiding all those messy questions from the civilians who are supposed to have control over the military and intelligence, specifically because of folks like Mr. Prince and his allies. What could possibly go wrong with making Prince head of the CIA AND the State Department?
As the noose tightens and the sounds of tumbrels grow louder, the lure of starting a military conflict as a diversion and as a defense that you can’t hamper the President and his role as commander in chief in times of national peril, becomes ever more dangerous.
What is the answer to all of this? Clearly, (and I worry that it may be the only chance to avoid what will otherwise be a long-term and baked in disaster) will be an electoral tsunami for Democrats next November. Another year-plus of Trump, given the support he is getting from too much of the Congressional GOP and right wing media, and frankly ongoing from the Russians and their bot farms, is a vast gulf between here and sanity.
Time for more packing of the courts,
time for more efforts to control state houses in advance of 2020 redistricting and maintaining gerrymandering,
time to ram through more restrictive restrictions on voting,
time to cripple and eliminate agencies and programs that “steal wealth from the deserving rich.”
It’s a race against time and victory is by no means certain. But it may be the only hope we have.