“The FAKE NEWS media (failing @nytimes, @NBCNews, @ABC, @CBS, @CNN)
is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American People!”
Donald Trump, February 17, 2017
A discussion of the most interesting, useful and entertaining recent articles and observations on Trump, the Republicans, and politics generally from the enemies of the American People:
Holy shit. Our Joan McCarter reports that House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. David Nunes (R-CA) actually threatened the press with this:
I'm sure some of you are in contact with the Russian embassy so be careful what you ask for here, because if we get —if we start getting transcripts of any of you or other Americans talking to the press, then we can, do you want us to conduct an investigation on you or other Americans because you were talking to the Russian embassy? I just think we need to be careful.
This stuff can’t be gossip fodder. This is a disqualifying statement. Let’s hope that Dems begin calling for the resignation of Nunes as Intelligence Committee Chairman. Gasping at this stuff, but then effectively doing nothing, is the last vital step in the Republicans’ plan to eliminate any notion of standards. You don’t get Jeff Sessions to recuse himself unless you start and keep up the fight. Same here.
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Trump’s “practice” State of the Union. Jonathan Bernstein was not impressed:
There was simply nothing in this speech to break the deadlock Republicans in Congress are facing on health care. Nothing to reconcile Trump's instincts for promising huge tax cuts and huge new spending with budget realities, let alone with his complaints about the debt. He talked big on infrastructure, but we know the Republican leadership in Congress has already indicated they have no interest, and it's hard to see anything in this speech to change that. And the immigration section followed a day of flipping and flopping around on the topic.
Meanwhile, there was hardly anything on foreign and national security policy. Or trade policy. Oh, he used the words "radical Islamic terrorism," and he complained as always that everyone is taking advantage of the United States on trade. But he didn't, for example, say anything about what new trade deals he might want, or how he would propose to fix the ones he considers unfair. On Islamic State, he merely said he had asked the Pentagon for a new plan to defeat it.
However, with this speech I saw some of the more terrible possibilities we could face with Trump. By simply modulating his tone, reading off a teleprompter, and repeating the usual Republican mixture of outright lies, half-truths and easy bromides, Trump served the more traditional (and maybe natural) role of an empty-suit, Salesman-in-Chief for Republican policies. It is far better when Trump’s mania serves as a vehicle to discredit Republicanism. Early results following the speech confirm this unfortunate possibility:
A new CNN poll finds that nearly 7 in 10 who watched said Trump’s proposed policies will move the country in the right direction:
“On specific issues, Trump scored the highest marks for his proposed policies on the economy, with 72% saying those went in the right direction. Almost as many, 70%, said the same about his terrorism proposals. Slightly fewer, but still a majority, felt his policies on taxes (64%), immigration (62%) or health care (61%) were heading in the right direction.”
Our own Mark Sumner argues that the reaction was decidedly less enthusiastic. And WashPo reporter Robert Costa adds an important warning: “Some sources in WH are frankly surprised at how pundits are warming to the speech. Say Trump has not changed, no big shift in policy coming.”
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Dem response to Trump’s national speech. Some were perplexed by the choice of former Kentucky governor Steve Beshear to deliver the official Democratic response to Trump’s Tuesday night speech. Dem leaders explained:
Democratic leaders are determined to make health care — particularly Medicare and the Affordable Care Act — the centerpiece of their attacks against Republicans leading into next year’s midterm elections. And as Mr. Beshear alluded to, he has a compelling story to tell about the effect of the health law in a conservative-leaning state.
We will see how that works out. I think that many might have been looking for this response instead:
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Quotables.
- "This was a mission that was started before I got here. This was something that was, you know, just they wanted to do. They came to see me. They explained what they wanted to do, the generals, who are very respected. My generals are the most respected that we've had in many decades I believe. And they lost Ryan." — President Donald Trump
- “Nearly every recent president, Democrat and Republican, has faced that moment of going before the public and saying, “I ordered this operation, and it failed. It’s on me.” But Trump, as we well know, is incapable of taking responsibility. He had his first chance, and his answer was to blame it on the military, then use the sacrifice of a dead SEAL and his widow for his own benefit.” — Paul Waldman.
- “On the whole, Trump’s agenda shows a president who has not departed from the plutocratic agenda that has dominated his party for a quarter-century, but only added grotesque, cruel, racist, and deeply stupid selling points. He has nothing to offer a party not enamored of the opportunity to carry out a massive and historic upward redistribution of wealth.” — Jonathan Chait
- “The big news from last night’s speech is that our pundits is not learning. After all the debacles of 2016, they swooned over the fact that Trump — while still lying time after time and proposing truly vile initiatives — was able to read from a teleprompter without breaking into an insane rant. If American democracy falls, supposed political analysts who are actually just bad theater critics will share part of the blame.” — Paul Krugman
- “What Trump didn’t do was reprise his assault on the press corps, which he has described as an “evil” “enemy of the people.” For that simple omission, Trump was able to deliver a tour de force of lies and insincerity, and be rewarded[.]” — Brian Beutler
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“All those short phrases and mini-sentences that follow declarative statements in your standard Trump speech—“so true,” “believe me,” “big league”—rhythmically reinforce whatever he just said, kind of like the bah-DUH-bah a drummer will use to punctuate a comedian’s joke. Devoid of that device, and taken in contrast with his usual style, a speech like the one the president delivered last night is too easily deemed “presidential” for simply adhering to the stylistic norms of the chamber in which it was delivered.
But with his speech, Trump again called for the deportation of millions of Americans, falsely claimed that only immigrants who committed crimes were being thrown out of the United States, promised a massive increase in military spending, and exploited the pain of a family grieving the loss of Chief Petty Officer William Ryan Owens, Navy SEAL, in a raid gone awry in Yemen[.]” — Adele M. Stan
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This is really funny. Democrats’ refusal to clap for Trump during his Tuesday speech “forced” Trump to turn his gaze only to the Republican side — an observation from none other than Karl Rove:
Former George W. Bush aide Karl Rove said Wednesday that Democrats' less-than-enthusiastic responses to President Donald Trump's speech to Congress "affected his delivery."
"You could tell it affected his delivery a little bit," Rove said Wednesday in an interview on Fox Business Network. "He started reading almost exclusively from the panel to his left, which allowed him to look at the right side of the chamber, which were the Republicans."
Maybe that is why Trump couldn't see his missing Inaugaral crowds.
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Trump’s lies remain breathtaking and corrosive. For example, Steve Benen highlights:
In his address to Congress last night, Donald Trump said all kinds of things that were
ridiculously untrue, but for me, this one rankled the most.
“Tonight, as I outlined the next steps we must take as a country, we must honestly acknowledge the circumstances we inherited. 94 million Americans are out of the labor force. Over 43 million people are now living in poverty.”
. . . . But it’s the “94 million Americans are out of the labor force” line that gets to me. He’s
used this line before; he knows it’s brazenly deceptive; and he keeps saying it anyway.
The truth, whether Trump likes it or not, is that the “94 million” statistic
includes retirees, students, the disabled, and stay-at-home parents. He uses the figure to make it appear that the nation is facing some kind of jobs crisis, but to think there are 94 million Americans eagerly trying to find a job is plainly ridiculous.
Obviously, we’ve had Presidents who have lied before. But before those were mostly garden-variety lies, defensive or about unrealistic future plans: “I did not have sex with that woman.” Or, “Read my lips: no new taxes.” Trump is maybe the only President we have had who routinely lies about basic facts of reality.
The above lie about the 94 million people being out-of-work is truly disturbing because it is so easily debunked, ludicrous on its face, has been corrected numerous times, and — yet — was included in a functional State of the Union address. That indicates a malicious and deliberate lie, something that is unquestionably nefarious. It is an attempt to subvert reality itself and to actively misinform the electorate. Like the problems with Sessions and Nunes above, this should be discussed and reported as a genuine scandal, and not relegated to the back-waters of “fact checker” columns. Unless we have given up on the notion of any standards, Trump’s lies should have drowned out any other media reaction to his speech. Instead, the overall media reaction was guarded praise.
Having said that, Amanda Marcotte at Salon rightfully points out that Trump’s all-lies-all-the-time is the outgrowth (or perfection) of a Republican party that has found itself routinely operating in a made-up world of lies:
Under the circumstances, it’s tempting to treat Trump as an anomaly and to view his mendacity as some sort of new development in conservative circles. But while Trump has introduced a new level of dishonesty into the world of White House communications, the grim reality is that his duplicity builds on years — decades, really — of movement conservatism honing lies as a major and, in some cases, central public relations tactic . . . .
That’s why Trump isn’t an anomaly. Instead, he’s just someone who correctly assessed that the Republican Party has no problem with lying as a strategy and has taken that observation to its logical conclusion.
Trump and the Republican party are awash in lies because the press has decided that it is “rude” to continually point that out. It would be as if the entire medical profession had tacitly decided to stop treating certain illnesses.
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Military spending is hundreds of billions more than reported. As President Trump proposes to increase annual defense spending by $54 billion (with another $30 billion in supplementary military spending for fiscal 2017), now is a good time to raise a pet peeve of mine. The grotesque amounts of our national military spending is consistently underreported by hundreds of billions. Typically, we see reported a baseline number, such as $523.9 billion. However, the number is much higher:
The U.S. military budget is $773.5 billion. That's the budget for Fiscal Year 2017 (October 1, 2016 through September 30, 2017). There are four components. First is the Department of Defense (DoD) base budget ($523.9 billion). Second is the Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) for DoD to fight ISIS ($58.8 billion).
But there's more to military spending than the Department of Defense. Many other agencies are involved with protecting our nation.
These expenses total $175.9 billion. They include the Department of Veterans Affairs ($75.1 billion), the State Department ($37.8 billion), Homeland Security ($40.6 billion), FBI and Cybersecurity in the Department of Justice ($9.5 billion), and the National Nuclear Security Administration in the Department of Energy ($12.9 billion). There is also $14.9 billion in OCO funds for the State Department and Homeland Security to fight ISIS.
But . . . even that quoted number is too low. Any first year accounting student could tell you that the annual interest on the national debt should be apportioned based on the underlying spending amounts. For example, Social Security is fully funded and so no percentage of the national debt is attributable to it. Not one nickel. But a very significant percentage of annual debt interest is the result of past unfunded military spending - just like your mortgage interest consists of your housing spending (and not your education spending or just “spending”).
Beyond this, I also don't see included above the vast amounts spent for the CIA, NSA, and myriad other intelligence agencies that have grown exponentially. Crowd source request: rather than “defense spending,” call all of this “national security spending.” Can someone smarter than me arrive at a cumulative estimate of what we spend on the more encompassing “national security”? (I tried something close to this once, and the reporting is amazingly (deliberately) confusing. )
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How are we doing? (foreign policy edition). The above, eye-popping military spending raises an obvious question: how are we doing after all this spending? Daniel Larison argues, “Not so well”:
I defy anyone to make the case that the U.S. is better off or more secure than it was when it embarked on the last fifteen-plus years of constant warfare. Lumping that period in with the relatively more peaceful decade before it helps Kagan to muddy the waters, but that doesn’t fool anyone. At best, the U.S. has been able to absorb the costs of huge strategic blunders because it enjoyed such a privileged position at the start of the century, and at worst it has frittered away both resources and missed opportunities while it has waged pointless wars that it didn’t have to fight. If that’s not disastrous, what is? It has been enormously costly, it has consumed a disproportionate share of the resources and attention of our government, and many of the policies in question have clearly failed on their own terms.
If the U.S. hasn’t suffered a debacle on the same scale as Vietnam in the last generation, it isn’t for lack of trying.
Robert Malley and Marc Lynch in Politico argue for the Progressive alternative in foreign policy:
So what might a progressive alternative look like? For starters: a refusal to measure U.S. power by the frequency of its military actions or engage in open-ended military adventures for the sake of chimerical “credibility”—the feared loss of which has justified countless past injurious armed interventions; belief in U.S. leadership and unapologetic support for human rights and political freedoms abroad, tempered by humility about America’s ability to shape others’ politics; embrace of multilateralism and of the need to work with partners, joined by a recognition that backing an ally ought not mean granting it a blank check, and certainly not a green light to embroil us in their wars; the honesty to put terrorism in perspective, a threat but not an existential one, and one that ought not be used as reason for throwing all else (civil rights at home or diplomacy abroad) overboard; and an uncompromising line against anything that could undo the Iran nuclear deal or, worse, plunge the U.S. into a confrontation with Tehran.
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Republicans can’t stop confusing poverty with sinfulness. I noticed Ross Douthat last week, in “A Time for Immodest Proposals,” proposed a “radical,” “emergency” public policy program to reduce joblessness. His central premise, however, seemed to be that the unemployed don't want to work (or to have a family):
So an emergency response would set a more ambitious goal: a swift boost in work force participation and family formation, using a few sticks and a lot of very expensive carrots.
The carrots would include a large wage subsidy and a large per-child tax credit and a substantial corporate tax cut and an employer-side payroll tax holiday to encourage hiring. They would also include an infrastructure bill written to include a certain amount of make-work spending, and an increase in government hiring in traditionally-male fields — more military spending earmarked for recruitment, more federal cash for hiring cops.
The sticks would include cuts to disability and unemployment benefits and tighter Medicaid eligibility rules for the able-bodied — not as “pay fors,” but simply to make sustained worklessness less pleasant.
The goal would be to see whether over some period — call it a “five-year plan,” because why not? — trying very directly to pull and push people back to work could make a sustained difference in employment and family formation both.
Let’s see — a long overdue infrastructure investment program, increased government hiring, and a combination of stimulus and social safety-net tax and spending policies? (Oh, and cuts to benefits and healthcare expressly not tied to rational policy needs, but to make life “less pleasant” for recipients.) Democrats would be on-board with some version of that progressive agenda, and have been proposing variants of such for years. But Douthat — a mild Republican — has to pretend that he is proposing a moral crusade against the idle poor (coincidentally fueled by wage subsidies, corporate tax cuts, and an employer-side payroll tax holiday).
Which means that, absent full Democratic control, we will never see common sense policies enacted, but will likely see Republicans running, forever, on the parenthetical nonsense. And, as if we need any further proof, check out these recent comments from Republican Congressman Roger Marshall (Georgia), a leading member of the Republican caucus on repealing the ACA:
“Just like Jesus said, ‘The poor will always be with us,’” he said. “There is a group of people that just don’t want health care and aren’t going to take care of themselves.”
Pressed on that point, Marshall shrugged.
“Just, like, homeless people. … I think just morally, spiritually, socially, [some people] just don’t want health care,” he said. “The Medicaid population, which is [on] a free credit card, as a group, do probably the least preventive medicine and taking care of themselves and eating healthy and exercising. And I’m not judging, I’m just saying socially that’s where they are. So there’s a group of people that even with unlimited access to health care are only going to use the emergency room when their arm is chopped off or when their pneumonia is so bad they get brought [into] the ER.”
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A disturbing development: “Republican lawmakers introduce bills to curb protesting in at least 18 states.” It is unbelievable how little these “patriots” understand our Constitution, or that their personality type is the precise reason that a Bill of Rights was needed. It is also important to understand this in historical context:
This is by no means the first time in American history that widespread protests have inspired a legislative backlash, says Douglas McAdam, a Stanford sociology professor who studies protest movements. “For instance, southern legislatures — especially in the Deep South — responded to the Montgomery Bus Boycott (and the Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education) with dozens and dozens of new bills outlawing civil rights groups, limiting the rights of assembly, etc. all in an effort to make civil rights organizing more difficult,” he said via email.
“Similarly,” he added, “laws designed to limit or outlaw labor organizing or limit labor rights were common in the late 19th/early 20th century.”
The most important, largely unremarked upon story is the South’s total capture of the Republican party, turning the GOP into essentially a Neo-Confederate political party. As in the past, this Neo-Confederate party continues to do tremendous damage to our country with bills like this, as well as the government shutdowns, debt ceiling default threats, filibuster abuse, the (nonexistent) “Hastert Rule” in the House, voter suppression, nullification efforts, stealing a Supreme Court seat, and so on. Let’s face it: we are in a Cold Civil War:
This, then, remains a country in a Cold Civil War – not far off the geographical contours of the first, but with the inheritors of the Confederacy concentrated in the South and now also with serious pockets of absolutists in the more rural parts of the country as a whole . . . .
.And it's true that if they simply retain total unity and resist any compromise on anything, [Republicans] can help destroy this country's economy – and the world's. The Constitution gives them that power, even though the founders warned precisely against the kind of purism and factionalism that now threatens the stability of the entire country.
Great . . . now we are engaged in a twilight struggle with both Russia and the old Southern Confederacy.
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Is Nick Kristof right? Are Trump voters not all that bad? Nick Kristof of the NYT wrote an admittedly inflammatory column titled, ”Trump Voters Are Not The Enemy”, in which Mr. Kristof urged Democrats to criticize the bigotry of President Trump, but to recognize the non-prejudice and goodness of many (if not most) of Trump’s voters:
Go ahead and denounce Trump’s lies and bigotry. Stand firm against his disastrous policies. But please don’t practice his trick of “otherizing” people into stick-figure caricatures, slurring vast groups as hopeless bigots. We’re all complicated, and stereotypes are not helpful — including when they’re of Trump supporters.
Kristof’s column was facially reasonable, measured and, in many respects, practical. But Kristof weakly engages in some well-worn apologist threads, such as You don't know any Republicans and my Republican family or hometown is not racist!
Liberals purport to champion these people, but don’t always understand them.
In Yamhill, plenty of well-meaning people were frustrated enough that they took a gamble on a silver-tongued provocateur. It wasn’t because they were “bigoted unthinking lizard brains,” but because they didn’t know where to turn and Trump spoke to their fears.
To which I politely respond, “Screw you. I know plenty of Republicans and, yes Nick, your Republican grandmother or ‘hometown’ is racist too.” I understand Republicans. Most of my old friends, current neighbors and co-workers are Republicans. I know they are racist because (if you are also White) most of them will tell you that they are racist. This is isn't some small, quirky and antiquated force among a large number of White people; it is a hugely prevalent and animating force. And those Whites vote Republican.
To avoid this truth, Kristof must argue that Trump voters are really motivated by economic anxiety. No, for the most part they are not. First of all, most Trump voters are well-off. They are Republicans living in the suburbs and exurbs, and driving shiny cars, while accumulating large retirement savings. What is their excuse? And, the many “working class White” Republicans I’ve known, if anything, are more candidly motivated by bigotry because they aren't benefitting economically from Republican policies.
But can we be sure of this? Well, one way we can know is that in his very next column titled ”Trump Voters, Your Savior is Betraying You,” Mr. Kristof had to write an open letter to Trump voters, wondering why they don't seem to notice that his economic policies are not beneficial to them and begging them not to “cheer or acquiesce” in Trump’s “boasts of targeting Muslims, refugees and unauthorized immigrants.” It seems like Kristof knows the truth here. Yet, again, his framing of of Trump voters remains imaginary. Trump has not “betrayed” his largely affluent electorate with his pro-rich economic policies, and his bigotry thrills his voters at all economic levels. (Contrary to Kristof, I’ve asked if it is even possible to be a Trump supporter and not be a racist?)
Is it necessary or wise to point out the racism of Trump voters in every policy discussion? No, and I don’t think Dems remotely do that. What Republicans (and their apologists) want is for us to never acknowledge their obvious bigotry. Uh-uh. It is more important to guard against efforts by folks like Kristof that seek to whitewash and apologize for the real threat of Republican bigotry. Long before and after Trump, that evil will remain, particularly if we all pretend otherwise.
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Even Trump’s “fake news” quote at the top has its own Russian pedigree. The background is in this NYT article:
“The formula ‘enemy of the people,’” Mr. Khrushchev told the Soviet Communist Party in a 1956 speech denouncing Stalin’s cult of personality, “was specifically introduced for the purpose of physically annihilating such individuals” who disagreed with the supreme leader.
It is difficult to know if President Trump is aware of the historic resonance of the term, a label generally associated with despotic communist governments rather than democracies. But his decision to unleash the terminology has left some historians scratching their heads. Why would the elected leader of a democratic nation embrace a label that, after the death of Stalin, even the Soviet Union found to be too freighted with sinister connotations?
For those interested in a deep-dive on Trump’s Russian connections, I recommend Trump, Putin and the New Cold War, written by Evan Osnos, David Remnick and Joshua Jaffa for The New Yorker.
In addition, this extraordinary NYT story, detailing the efforts of Obama administration personnel to prevent Trump from destroying evidence of his Russian contacts, really reinforces the mystery — What exactly is going on here?
As Inauguration Day approached, Obama White House officials grew convinced that the intelligence was damning and that they needed to ensure that as many people as possible inside government could see it, even if people without security clearances could not. Some officials began asking specific questions at intelligence briefings, knowing the answers would be archived and could be easily unearthed by investigators — including the Senate Intelligence Committee, which in early January announced an inquiry into Russian efforts to influence the election.
At intelligence agencies, there was a push to process as much raw intelligence as possible into analyses, and to keep the reports at a relatively low classification level to ensure as wide a readership as possible across the government — and, in some cases, among European allies. This allowed the upload of as much intelligence as possible to Intellipedia, a secret wiki used by American analysts to share information.
There was also an effort to pass reports and other sensitive materials to Congress.
Finally. For the first time, I am seriously thinking that someone has to ask Supreme Court nominee Gorsuch whether he has ever met with a representative of the Russian government. Who knows what the answer might be?
Please add your thoughts, comments, links and any other items that caught your eye this week. (For those interested, previous “Dispatches” are here, here, here and here.)