...................................................................................................................................................................
So, did or did he not know? Here is the 1990 article about it.
...................................................................................................................................................................
Trump Says He Didn't Know He Employed Illegal Aliens
By Dean Baquet, July 13, 1990
Donald J. Trump took the witness stand yesterday to deny seven-year-old charges that he knowingly used 200 undocumented workers to demolish the old Bonwit Teller building to make way for Trump Tower, the glittering centerpiece of his real-estate empire.
Testifying in a case that has survived years of legal challenges, Mr. Trump said he did not know the workers were undocumented and that the demolition in the summer of 1980 was delegated to a contractor, Kaszycki & Sons Contractors, which did all the hiring.
The lawsuit, by some members of Housewreckers Local 95, charges that Mr. Trump, desperate to meet deadlines on a vast project whose intricate financing was partly dependent upon them, overlooked the use of undocumented Polish immigrants, who allegedly worked round-the-clock and even slept at the site.
The lawsuit, being heard in United States District Court in Manhattan, pits Mr. Trump's word against those of union members and a labor consultant turned F.B.I. informant who claims he was a close Trump adviser.
Threats of Deportation Alleged
The union members, led by a retired demolition worker, Harry Diduck, charge that by using undocumented workers Mr. Trump avoided paying their pension fund. They say he should now pay $1 million, including interest.
They also contend that Kaszycki & Sons never paid the workers all they were owed, and that Trump subordinates threatened deportation when they tried to collect.
Mr. Trump was cool and confident in a case that comes to court just after he faced severe cash shortages in his real-estate and casino empire. He said he rarely visited the demolition site and knew little about its details.
But Daniel J. Sullivan, a labor consultant and sometime informant for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, testified that he advised Mr. Trump on the demolition and that the developer knew about the undocumented workers.
'I Think You Are Nuts'
By Mr. Sullivan's account, Mr. Trump called in a panic in the summer of 1980 and told him that the workers were slowing his project because of payment problems, and that they were even threatening to hang the Trump employee monitoring the demolition.
When Mr. Trump told him of the undocumented workers, Mr. Sullivan said he responded: ''I think you are nuts. You are here negotiating a lease in Atlantic City for a casino license and you are telling me you have got illegal employees on the job.''
Mr. Trump testified that Kaszycki & Sons fell behind, and that he only vaguely recalled complaints of payment problems. He said he did not remember threats against an employee.
He also said that Mr. Sullivan was a peripheral adviser.
Using the Name John Baron
Asked whether he knew about undocumented workers, Mr. Trump said, ''I really still don't know that there were illegal aliens.''
In earlier testimony to show the Trump organization knew about the undocumented workers, John Szabo, an immigration lawyer who represented them, said someone who said his name was Mr. Baron telephoned on behalf of the Trump organization in 1980 and threatened to sue him if he did not drop the workers' claims of back payments.
Mr. Trump acknowledged yesterday that he and one of his executives have used the name John Baron in some of their business dealings. He did not explain. And he was not asked about Mr. Szabo's allegation.
Mr. Szabo said his clients told him that to complete the demolition, they worked seven days a week, 12 hours a day. During a transit strike, some of them walked from the Greenpoint section of Brooklyn to the Fifth Avenue job site, he said. Many of them were never paid all that was owed them, he said.
A Tight Deadline and Concern
Mr. Trump acknowledged that his deadline was tight, and that he became greatly concerned when Kaszycki & Sons fell behind. He said that he considered pulling them off the job, but realized it would cost him months. So he decided to put more money into their contract so they would have enough to move faster.
Mr. Sullivan, who testified on July 6, said that meeting deadlines was crucial for Mr. Trump to keep the tax abatements that he and his partners received on Trump Tower.
Mr. Trump's lawyers have sought to portray Mr. Sullivan as a hanger-on who has served jail time for income-tax evasion.
Mr. Sullivan testified that he has provided the F.B.I. with information about more than 100 people, including ranking labor union officials involved in activity alleged to be corrupt.
Yesterday, Mr. Trump said Mr. Sullivan may have had a minor role in advising him on Trump Tower, but that Mr. Sullivan was ''a man who constantly tried to ingratiate himself.''
...................................................................................................................................................................
Friday, February 26, 2016
"Trump, for his part, maintained at the time that he didn’t know he was employing 200 undocumented workers." Whether you did or not, Donald, the fact is that the buck stops with you, and you are responsible.
...................................................................................................................................................................
The Story Behind Donald Trump’s Undocumented Polish Workers
By Emily Atkin, February 25, 2016
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) took some unexpected digs at billionaire Donald Trump during the CNN Republican presidential debate on Thursday, the most provocative of which surrounded Trump’s past employment and alleged mistreatment of undocumented immigrants.
The attack on Trump came during a discussion of immigration policy. Trump was defending his plan to deport all 11 million undocumented people in America, but keep the “really good” ones. The billionaire said he alone was responsible for bringing the issue of immigration into the presidential race — and Rubio wasn’t having it.
“If you’re going to claim that you’re the only one that lifted this issue into the campaign, then you acknowledge that, for example, you’re the only person on this stage that’s ever been fined for hiring people to work on your projects illegally,” he said.
Trump fired back almost immediately: “No, I’m the only one on the stage that’s hired people. You haven’t hired anybody.”
“Yeah, but you hired a thousand people from another company, another country … he hired workers from Poland and he had to pay a million dollars or so in a judgement,” Rubio responded. “That’s a fact. People can look it up — I’m sure people are googling it right now.”
Watch:
The issue came up a few more times in the debate. At one point, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) jumped into the mix. “Anyone who really cared about illegal immigration wouldn’t be hiring illegal immigrants,” he said.
Trump brushed off the claims, at one point accusing Rubio of lying and then sticking with the counterargument that he’s the only one who has actually created jobs. But Rubio wasn’t lying — Over 30 years ago, Trump’s company did hire undocumented workers from Poland to build Trump Tower. Eventually, in 1983, they sued him for poor working conditions.
The Daily Beast’s Michael Daly has a thorough account of what happened. From his story:
Trump, for his part, maintained at the time that he didn’t know he was employing 200 undocumented workers.
Still, the 1983 case is not the only time Trump has been accused of employing undocumented people to work on his projects. This past summer, the Washington Post reported that several undocumented workers were doing construction at Trump’s $200 million hotel project in Washington, D.C.
...................................................................................................................................................................
The Story Behind Donald Trump’s Undocumented Polish Workers
By Emily Atkin, February 25, 2016
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) took some unexpected digs at billionaire Donald Trump during the CNN Republican presidential debate on Thursday, the most provocative of which surrounded Trump’s past employment and alleged mistreatment of undocumented immigrants.
The attack on Trump came during a discussion of immigration policy. Trump was defending his plan to deport all 11 million undocumented people in America, but keep the “really good” ones. The billionaire said he alone was responsible for bringing the issue of immigration into the presidential race — and Rubio wasn’t having it.
“If you’re going to claim that you’re the only one that lifted this issue into the campaign, then you acknowledge that, for example, you’re the only person on this stage that’s ever been fined for hiring people to work on your projects illegally,” he said.
Trump fired back almost immediately: “No, I’m the only one on the stage that’s hired people. You haven’t hired anybody.”
“Yeah, but you hired a thousand people from another company, another country … he hired workers from Poland and he had to pay a million dollars or so in a judgement,” Rubio responded. “That’s a fact. People can look it up — I’m sure people are googling it right now.”
Watch:
The issue came up a few more times in the debate. At one point, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) jumped into the mix. “Anyone who really cared about illegal immigration wouldn’t be hiring illegal immigrants,” he said.
Trump brushed off the claims, at one point accusing Rubio of lying and then sticking with the counterargument that he’s the only one who has actually created jobs. But Rubio wasn’t lying — Over 30 years ago, Trump’s company did hire undocumented workers from Poland to build Trump Tower. Eventually, in 1983, they sued him for poor working conditions.
The Daily Beast’s Michael Daly has a thorough account of what happened. From his story:
The 200 demolition workers—nicknamed the Polish Brigade because of their home country—worked 12-hour shifts, seven days a week with no overtime to knock down the old Bonwit Teller building and make room for Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan.What’s unclear is Rubio’s claim that Trump was fined $1 million for hiring those workers. The lawsuit was eventually settled in 1999, and then sealed — there is no record of a fine. The workers did, at one point, request $1 million, including interest, for their troubles. But it’s not clear if that was the outcome of the settlement.
According to testimony in a protracted civil suit in federal court, the laborers were paid $5 an hour or less when they were paid at all. Some went unpaid after the contractor had financial troubles. A few never received even the paltry sum that was owed them for their dirty and hazardous efforts preceding the construction of Trump’s monument to his own wealth.
“They were undocumented and worked ‘off the books,’” Manhattan federal Judge Charles Stewart said of the workers after they became the subject of a 1983 lawsuit. “No records were kept, no Social Security or other taxes were withheld.”
Trump, for his part, maintained at the time that he didn’t know he was employing 200 undocumented workers.
Still, the 1983 case is not the only time Trump has been accused of employing undocumented people to work on his projects. This past summer, the Washington Post reported that several undocumented workers were doing construction at Trump’s $200 million hotel project in Washington, D.C.
...................................................................................................................................................................
"The conservatives have no concept of freedom. Listen to them, the world is great if you agree, but what if you don't?"
...................................................................................................................................................................
COMMENTS:
* Conservatives "believe" their rights are absolute and everyone else's are subject to their "approval" or to veto by small minded 'christian' bigots. They are contemptible and unAmerican and need to be reminded that other countries share their concept of "religious freedom" --- countries like Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Iran or groups like ISIS, the Taliban and Hamas. Just because Conservative 'christians' wave their Bibles instead of Korans doesn't mean that the mindset isn't based on the same sick ignorance and arrogant notion that their religion is somehow binding on others despite the Constitution stating the exact opposite
* GOP redefinition: religious liberty: freedom for me to force my religious beliefs on everyone else
* We could all get along if evangelicals, jihadists, and the orthodoxy would stop trying to make their religious beliefs Law of the land. I respect you living your life by your religious faith, but please stop making those of us who do not partake in your faith prisoners of your religious doctrine.
* I do not understand how anyone could respect any religion. I used to but not anymore. However there is a big difference between religion and some of the good philosophy some of it puts forth which in itself is just decent human behaviour
* While on the subject, Ben, I think the Republican field is a few apples, bananas, grapes and oranges short of a fruit salad.
* Freedom for some is not freedom. There is no freedom without equality to create the best life possible. The conservatives have no concept of freedom. Listen to them, the world is great if you agree, but what if you don't? Can you look at a Muslim family and them they they don't have the right to raise their children according to their religion, when you are raising your children according to yours? Can you look them in the eye and tell them the Constitution doesn't apply to them? If you can you don't deserve its protections.
...................................................................................................................................................................
GOP Candidates Are All About Religious Liberty, As Long As You Don't Ask About Muslims
The issue of religious liberty is not very broad in the GOP.
At Thursday's Republican presidential debate, candidates were asked who could be most trusted to appoint judges who would defend the first right laid down in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Their answers centered entirely around Christianity, the right to discriminate against gay people and fruit salad.
Billionaire real estate mogul Donald Trump, who has proposed a complete shutdown of all Muslim immigrants into the U.S. and targeting of mosques, claimed he would stand up for religious liberty. Then he attacked Texas Sen. Ted Cruz for supporting Chief Justice John Roberts' nomination to the Supreme Court more than a decade ago.
This touched off a prolonged back and forth, in which Cruz appeared to suggest he may be a "crazy zealot" for religious liberty, as long as the religion in question isn't Islam -- Cruz has also called for increased monitoring of the Muslim community.
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who accused President Barack Obama of "pitting people against each other" by visiting a mosque, chimed in to attack Trump for being a former liberal who supports Planned Parenthood.
Ohio Gov. John Kasich bravely argued that Christian bakers should just go ahead and make cupcakes for gay weddings already.
"If you're in the business of commerce, conduct commerce," he said. "And if you don't agree with their lifestyle, say a prayer for them when they leave and hope they change their behavior."
The last word went to retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, who claimed that giving the LGBT community equal rights was actually giving them extra rights. He then promised that if voters gave him the duty of appointing judges, he'd make sure to take a long, hard look at "the fruit salad of their life" before making any final decisions.
What further concerns could anyone possibly have about religious liberty?
...................................................................................................................................................................
COMMENTS:
* Conservatives "believe" their rights are absolute and everyone else's are subject to their "approval" or to veto by small minded 'christian' bigots. They are contemptible and unAmerican and need to be reminded that other countries share their concept of "religious freedom" --- countries like Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Iran or groups like ISIS, the Taliban and Hamas. Just because Conservative 'christians' wave their Bibles instead of Korans doesn't mean that the mindset isn't based on the same sick ignorance and arrogant notion that their religion is somehow binding on others despite the Constitution stating the exact opposite
* GOP redefinition: religious liberty: freedom for me to force my religious beliefs on everyone else
* We could all get along if evangelicals, jihadists, and the orthodoxy would stop trying to make their religious beliefs Law of the land. I respect you living your life by your religious faith, but please stop making those of us who do not partake in your faith prisoners of your religious doctrine.
* I do not understand how anyone could respect any religion. I used to but not anymore. However there is a big difference between religion and some of the good philosophy some of it puts forth which in itself is just decent human behaviour
* While on the subject, Ben, I think the Republican field is a few apples, bananas, grapes and oranges short of a fruit salad.
* Freedom for some is not freedom. There is no freedom without equality to create the best life possible. The conservatives have no concept of freedom. Listen to them, the world is great if you agree, but what if you don't? Can you look at a Muslim family and them they they don't have the right to raise their children according to their religion, when you are raising your children according to yours? Can you look them in the eye and tell them the Constitution doesn't apply to them? If you can you don't deserve its protections.
...................................................................................................................................................................
GOP Candidates Are All About Religious Liberty, As Long As You Don't Ask About Muslims
Religious liberty for some, miniature American flags for others.
By Nick Wing, February 25, 2016The issue of religious liberty is not very broad in the GOP.
At Thursday's Republican presidential debate, candidates were asked who could be most trusted to appoint judges who would defend the first right laid down in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Their answers centered entirely around Christianity, the right to discriminate against gay people and fruit salad.
Billionaire real estate mogul Donald Trump, who has proposed a complete shutdown of all Muslim immigrants into the U.S. and targeting of mosques, claimed he would stand up for religious liberty. Then he attacked Texas Sen. Ted Cruz for supporting Chief Justice John Roberts' nomination to the Supreme Court more than a decade ago.
This touched off a prolonged back and forth, in which Cruz appeared to suggest he may be a "crazy zealot" for religious liberty, as long as the religion in question isn't Islam -- Cruz has also called for increased monitoring of the Muslim community.
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who accused President Barack Obama of "pitting people against each other" by visiting a mosque, chimed in to attack Trump for being a former liberal who supports Planned Parenthood.
Ohio Gov. John Kasich bravely argued that Christian bakers should just go ahead and make cupcakes for gay weddings already.
"If you're in the business of commerce, conduct commerce," he said. "And if you don't agree with their lifestyle, say a prayer for them when they leave and hope they change their behavior."
The last word went to retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, who claimed that giving the LGBT community equal rights was actually giving them extra rights. He then promised that if voters gave him the duty of appointing judges, he'd make sure to take a long, hard look at "the fruit salad of their life" before making any final decisions.
What further concerns could anyone possibly have about religious liberty?
...................................................................................................................................................................
Thursday, February 25, 2016
That wouldn't surprise me.... how about you?
...................................................................................
"It’s not easy making Trump look good, but this week, Washington Republicans have pulled it off."
...................................................................................................................................................................
Senate Republicans Make Donald Trump Look Good
Fights over the Supreme Court and Guantanamo Bay are bringing out the worst in the GOP—and that’s really saying something.
By Michael Tomasky, February 24, 2016
When a presidency is winding down we start to think there probably isn’t that much to fight over. Yet here are the Republicans acting like it’s 2009 all over again, and more. These moves on the Supreme Court situation and Guantanamo Bay aren’t just obstructionist. They are certifiably insane.
No hearing for the nominee? Not even a courtesy call? They’ve really gone ’round the bend. Look, there’s hypocrisy to go around on Court stuff. Reverse the situation, and a lot of people saying A now would be saying Not A. I get that. Although I don’t get what in the world that 1992 clip of Joe Biden that everybody’s showing and re-showing has to do with anything. He was speaking hypothetically. There was no nominee. The one time in Biden’s tenure as Judiciary Committee chairman that there was a flesh-and-blood nominee, Anthony Kennedy, the committee and the full Senate passed him through unanimously, and in an election year.
But since you brought up the old days, let’s talk Robert Bork. Bork was a crazy radical extremist. He saw no constitutional justification for the civil rights bill. He also thought states should be free to criminalize the purchase of contraception by married couples. Off the charts, that guy. But he was the president’s choice. The Democrats gave him a hearing.
Say what you want, conservatives, but I feel pretty confident that if the situation were precisely reversed, the Democrats would be going through the process. At the end of the day, a majority of them would presumably vote against a conservative, balance-tilting nominee in a presidential election year. So, you might say, it amounts to the same thing.
No. It doesn’t amount to the same thing. One approach is called respecting the Constitution. The other approach is called taking a shit on the Constitution.
I suppose I could be wrong about what my hypothetical Democrats would do. But I don’t think so. Why? Because the liberal-left base, while certainly ideological and often choleric, just isn’t the same thing as the right-wing base. The right-wing base, led by Limbaugh and all those blowhards, is the reason McConnell said what he said while Scalia’s body was still warm. The liberal groups would not have demanded of Democratic leaders that they just shut the process down.
And if I am wrong about the Democrats, I can 100 percent guarantee you this: I would have written a column calling their behavior shameful. Vote against the person in the end, I’d have written, but for Chrissakes, respect the constitutional process, you bunch of morons. And I think every other prominent liberal columnist I can think of would have done the same. I don’t recall these last few days seeing any of our conservative counterparts calling out the Republicans.
Obama and the Democrats better find a way to make them pay. Nominate an unimpeachably qualified Latino or African American, and let Latinos and/or black voters watch as the GOP stonewalls this person for months, and run 3,000,000 attack ads on ethnic radio stations. (This is the paragraph where conservatives on Twitter will say “There goes that hack Tomasky making everything racial again.” Right. Whereas the guy who wants a brown-shirt police force to go in and break up Latino families, no, he’s not making anything racial. And the party that’s passing law after law to see to it that voting is made as hard as it can be for black people, no, they’re not making anything racial either. Just me. I get it.)
It’s such scandalous behavior. But because it’s them, and it’s all anyone expects out of them, it’s not even scandalous anymore. Which brings us to the Gitmo situation. If anything, this is even worse.
Let me ask you this, reader. Do you have the slightest idea where the nearest supermax prison is to your house? Of course you don’t. Oh, a few of you do—you live in a town where it’s a big employer, your cousin works there, like that. But I’d wager that 98 percent of Americans have no idea where the nearest supermax prison is. There appear to be around 50 (some are wholly supermax, some partly). I bet thousands of people drive past one every day without even knowing it.
And of the 2 percent who do know, do they have any idea who’s in there? How many murderers, rapists, drug kingpins, Bernie Madoffs? Of course they don’t. And the reason they don’t is that the prisoners inside these prisons have zero impact on their lives. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, Zacarias Moussaoui, and Mahmud Abuhalima, terrorists all, live in a supermax prison in Florence, Colorado. Do the good people of Florence ever see them? They don’t even see each other. They spend 23 hours a day alone in a cell the size of a typical upstairs-hallway bathroom. And almost nobody ever escapes from these places. You know how your chances of being killed by a terrorist as an American are one in 3.5 million? Well, the odds of you being killed by a terrorist who escaped from a supermax prison have to be considerably longer than even that. Anyone in Florence, Colorado, and environs who sits around worrying that one of these guys is going to come pounding on their screen door is a paranoid lunatic or an idiot.
And that’s what the Republicans want us to be, a nation of paranoid lunatics and idiots, because paranoid lunacy and idiocy tend to benefit the Republican Party at the polls. So this is what we get stuck with. We keep open this facility (Gitmo) that’s notorious around the world—the Arab world and the entire world—that gives America a horrible reputation and whose very existence provides rhetorical fodder for our foes, so we don’t run the “risk” of putting terrorists inside facilities they’ll never get out of and where their movement the rest of their lives will be limited to maybe four rooms.
The Republicans won’t pay any political price for this, because the mere word terrorism turns most Americans into quivering little poltroons. But we as a country pay a price when an argument that is so galactically far removed from objective reality carries the day. And we pay a price when a constitutional norm is flouted and no one even cares because everyone has long since stopped expecting anything more. It’s not easy making Trump look good, but this week, Washington Republicans have pulled it off.
...................................................................................................................................................................
Senate Republicans Make Donald Trump Look Good
Fights over the Supreme Court and Guantanamo Bay are bringing out the worst in the GOP—and that’s really saying something.
By Michael Tomasky, February 24, 2016
When a presidency is winding down we start to think there probably isn’t that much to fight over. Yet here are the Republicans acting like it’s 2009 all over again, and more. These moves on the Supreme Court situation and Guantanamo Bay aren’t just obstructionist. They are certifiably insane.
No hearing for the nominee? Not even a courtesy call? They’ve really gone ’round the bend. Look, there’s hypocrisy to go around on Court stuff. Reverse the situation, and a lot of people saying A now would be saying Not A. I get that. Although I don’t get what in the world that 1992 clip of Joe Biden that everybody’s showing and re-showing has to do with anything. He was speaking hypothetically. There was no nominee. The one time in Biden’s tenure as Judiciary Committee chairman that there was a flesh-and-blood nominee, Anthony Kennedy, the committee and the full Senate passed him through unanimously, and in an election year.
But since you brought up the old days, let’s talk Robert Bork. Bork was a crazy radical extremist. He saw no constitutional justification for the civil rights bill. He also thought states should be free to criminalize the purchase of contraception by married couples. Off the charts, that guy. But he was the president’s choice. The Democrats gave him a hearing.
Say what you want, conservatives, but I feel pretty confident that if the situation were precisely reversed, the Democrats would be going through the process. At the end of the day, a majority of them would presumably vote against a conservative, balance-tilting nominee in a presidential election year. So, you might say, it amounts to the same thing.
No. It doesn’t amount to the same thing. One approach is called respecting the Constitution. The other approach is called taking a shit on the Constitution.
I suppose I could be wrong about what my hypothetical Democrats would do. But I don’t think so. Why? Because the liberal-left base, while certainly ideological and often choleric, just isn’t the same thing as the right-wing base. The right-wing base, led by Limbaugh and all those blowhards, is the reason McConnell said what he said while Scalia’s body was still warm. The liberal groups would not have demanded of Democratic leaders that they just shut the process down.
And if I am wrong about the Democrats, I can 100 percent guarantee you this: I would have written a column calling their behavior shameful. Vote against the person in the end, I’d have written, but for Chrissakes, respect the constitutional process, you bunch of morons. And I think every other prominent liberal columnist I can think of would have done the same. I don’t recall these last few days seeing any of our conservative counterparts calling out the Republicans.
Obama and the Democrats better find a way to make them pay. Nominate an unimpeachably qualified Latino or African American, and let Latinos and/or black voters watch as the GOP stonewalls this person for months, and run 3,000,000 attack ads on ethnic radio stations. (This is the paragraph where conservatives on Twitter will say “There goes that hack Tomasky making everything racial again.” Right. Whereas the guy who wants a brown-shirt police force to go in and break up Latino families, no, he’s not making anything racial. And the party that’s passing law after law to see to it that voting is made as hard as it can be for black people, no, they’re not making anything racial either. Just me. I get it.)
It’s such scandalous behavior. But because it’s them, and it’s all anyone expects out of them, it’s not even scandalous anymore. Which brings us to the Gitmo situation. If anything, this is even worse.
Let me ask you this, reader. Do you have the slightest idea where the nearest supermax prison is to your house? Of course you don’t. Oh, a few of you do—you live in a town where it’s a big employer, your cousin works there, like that. But I’d wager that 98 percent of Americans have no idea where the nearest supermax prison is. There appear to be around 50 (some are wholly supermax, some partly). I bet thousands of people drive past one every day without even knowing it.
And of the 2 percent who do know, do they have any idea who’s in there? How many murderers, rapists, drug kingpins, Bernie Madoffs? Of course they don’t. And the reason they don’t is that the prisoners inside these prisons have zero impact on their lives. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, Zacarias Moussaoui, and Mahmud Abuhalima, terrorists all, live in a supermax prison in Florence, Colorado. Do the good people of Florence ever see them? They don’t even see each other. They spend 23 hours a day alone in a cell the size of a typical upstairs-hallway bathroom. And almost nobody ever escapes from these places. You know how your chances of being killed by a terrorist as an American are one in 3.5 million? Well, the odds of you being killed by a terrorist who escaped from a supermax prison have to be considerably longer than even that. Anyone in Florence, Colorado, and environs who sits around worrying that one of these guys is going to come pounding on their screen door is a paranoid lunatic or an idiot.
And that’s what the Republicans want us to be, a nation of paranoid lunatics and idiots, because paranoid lunacy and idiocy tend to benefit the Republican Party at the polls. So this is what we get stuck with. We keep open this facility (Gitmo) that’s notorious around the world—the Arab world and the entire world—that gives America a horrible reputation and whose very existence provides rhetorical fodder for our foes, so we don’t run the “risk” of putting terrorists inside facilities they’ll never get out of and where their movement the rest of their lives will be limited to maybe four rooms.
The Republicans won’t pay any political price for this, because the mere word terrorism turns most Americans into quivering little poltroons. But we as a country pay a price when an argument that is so galactically far removed from objective reality carries the day. And we pay a price when a constitutional norm is flouted and no one even cares because everyone has long since stopped expecting anything more. It’s not easy making Trump look good, but this week, Washington Republicans have pulled it off.
...................................................................................................................................................................
Ah, Donald, you've reaped what you sowed. You're the one who should apologize to all of Mexico as well as the U.S.
...................................................................................................................................................................
COMMENTS:
* Serious question: Can someone please explain how Trump or anyone can build a wall (or anything unilaterally for that matter) in one country and charge another country for it? Since this Mexican president commented that they will not pay for it, so it's really possible to charge another sovereign nation for whatever and expect to be paid by them? How does that work?
* It's so obvious ... Trump is expecting the Mexican government to fall down in the utter glory of Trump's greatness! LOL!
* Trump can't demand Mexico or any foreign country to pay for something the US needs. That's called extortion
* I never liked Fox. I like him now. My favorite part about this whole mess is that Trump's supporters are so easily led and suggestible that they actually think Trump could somehow force a sovereign state to pay for his ridiculous wall. Guess what, Trump supporters: if you want a wall, you'll be paying "big government" taxes to pay for its construction.
* The Birther’s feigned outrage is hilarious. It’s not as if the Birther does not use obscene language, and, even when he is not using obscene language, the Birther’s ideas are obscene. The Birther tweeted that former Mexican President Fox should apologize. That is equally hilarious. The Birther never apologizes for his obscenities. Maybe, he will threaten to sue Fox. Fox’s response should be a one-finger salute, a response that the Birther should understand.
* my favorite thing about trump is his all-inclusive incoherence
...................................................................................................................................................................
Former Mexican President Vicente Fox on Donald Trump: 'I'm not going to pay for that f------ wall'
By Matt Pearce and Alexandra Zavis, February 25, 2016
The former president of Mexico Vicente Fox has a blunt rebuttal to Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s plans to build an enormous wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.
“I’m not going to pay for that f------ wall,” Fox said in an interview with Univision's "Al Punto" set to air Sunday, in which he called Trump a "crazy guy" who resembled neither Republican nor Democrat. "He's just himself. He's egocentric."
“He should pay for it. He’s got the money.”
Trump took notice of the rebuke and gave his own response on Twitter on Thursday afternoon.
Trump went even further when Fox’s remarks came up during Thursday night’s Republican presidential debate. “The wall just got 10 feet taller!” Trump said.
Mexico’s current officeholders have been more tempered on Trump’s grand claims, while still dismissing them.
President Enrique Peña Nieto has said Trump’s comments about Mexico were “very unfortunate,” but added, “I don’t want to contribute to or make the fat broth for someone who is just vying to become a candidate,” according to the Atlantic.
"He knows very well that what he is saying is false," Mexico’s ambassador to the United States, Miguel Basanez, said during a confirmation hearing before the Mexican Senate in August. "He knows very well he will apologize to Mexicans."
But Fox’s successor, Felipe Calderon, who is also out of office, was similarly emphatic on the subject last week.
“Mexican people, we are not going to pay any single cent for such a stupid wall!” Calderon told CNBC on Feb. 8. calling Trump a “not very well-informed man.”
“The first loser of such a policy would be the United States," Calderon said. "If this guy pretends that closing the borders to anywhere either for trade [or] for people is going to provide prosperity to the United States, he is completely crazy."
In Fox’s interview with Univision anchor Jorge Ramos, Fox said “I’d like to know” who the Latinos were who voted for Trump in the Nevada caucuses.
“They’re followers of a false prophet and he’s going to take them to the desert,” Fox said of Latinos who voted for Trump. “And if they think that they will benefit with an administration led by Donald Trump, they’re wrong. They must open their eyes.... This nation is going to fail if it goes into the hands of a crazy guy.”
...................................................................................................................................................................
COMMENTS:
* Serious question: Can someone please explain how Trump or anyone can build a wall (or anything unilaterally for that matter) in one country and charge another country for it? Since this Mexican president commented that they will not pay for it, so it's really possible to charge another sovereign nation for whatever and expect to be paid by them? How does that work?
* It's so obvious ... Trump is expecting the Mexican government to fall down in the utter glory of Trump's greatness! LOL!
* Trump can't demand Mexico or any foreign country to pay for something the US needs. That's called extortion
* I never liked Fox. I like him now. My favorite part about this whole mess is that Trump's supporters are so easily led and suggestible that they actually think Trump could somehow force a sovereign state to pay for his ridiculous wall. Guess what, Trump supporters: if you want a wall, you'll be paying "big government" taxes to pay for its construction.
* The Birther’s feigned outrage is hilarious. It’s not as if the Birther does not use obscene language, and, even when he is not using obscene language, the Birther’s ideas are obscene. The Birther tweeted that former Mexican President Fox should apologize. That is equally hilarious. The Birther never apologizes for his obscenities. Maybe, he will threaten to sue Fox. Fox’s response should be a one-finger salute, a response that the Birther should understand.
* my favorite thing about trump is his all-inclusive incoherence
...................................................................................................................................................................
Former Mexican President Vicente Fox on Donald Trump: 'I'm not going to pay for that f------ wall'
By Matt Pearce and Alexandra Zavis, February 25, 2016
The former president of Mexico Vicente Fox has a blunt rebuttal to Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s plans to build an enormous wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.
“I’m not going to pay for that f------ wall,” Fox said in an interview with Univision's "Al Punto" set to air Sunday, in which he called Trump a "crazy guy" who resembled neither Republican nor Democrat. "He's just himself. He's egocentric."
“He should pay for it. He’s got the money.”
Trump took notice of the rebuke and gave his own response on Twitter on Thursday afternoon.
Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump"He must apologize!" he declared.
FMR PRES of Mexico, Vicente Fox horribly used the F word when discussing the wall. He must apologize! If I did that there would be a uproar!
12:27 PM - 25 Feb 2016
Trump went even further when Fox’s remarks came up during Thursday night’s Republican presidential debate. “The wall just got 10 feet taller!” Trump said.
Mexico’s current officeholders have been more tempered on Trump’s grand claims, while still dismissing them.
President Enrique Peña Nieto has said Trump’s comments about Mexico were “very unfortunate,” but added, “I don’t want to contribute to or make the fat broth for someone who is just vying to become a candidate,” according to the Atlantic.
"He knows very well that what he is saying is false," Mexico’s ambassador to the United States, Miguel Basanez, said during a confirmation hearing before the Mexican Senate in August. "He knows very well he will apologize to Mexicans."
But Fox’s successor, Felipe Calderon, who is also out of office, was similarly emphatic on the subject last week.
“Mexican people, we are not going to pay any single cent for such a stupid wall!” Calderon told CNBC on Feb. 8. calling Trump a “not very well-informed man.”
“The first loser of such a policy would be the United States," Calderon said. "If this guy pretends that closing the borders to anywhere either for trade [or] for people is going to provide prosperity to the United States, he is completely crazy."
In Fox’s interview with Univision anchor Jorge Ramos, Fox said “I’d like to know” who the Latinos were who voted for Trump in the Nevada caucuses.
“They’re followers of a false prophet and he’s going to take them to the desert,” Fox said of Latinos who voted for Trump. “And if they think that they will benefit with an administration led by Donald Trump, they’re wrong. They must open their eyes.... This nation is going to fail if it goes into the hands of a crazy guy.”
...................................................................................................................................................................
"For this former Republican, and perhaps for others, the only choice will be to vote for Hillary Clinton. The party cannot be saved, but the country still can be."
...................................................................................................................................................................
Donald Trump is the GOP's Frankenstein. Now he's strong enough to destroy the party.
By Robert Kagan, February 25, 2016
When the plague descended on Thebes, Oedipus sent his brother-in-law to the Delphic oracle to discover the cause. Little did he realize that the crime for which Thebes was being punished was his own. Today's Republican Party is our Oedipus. A plague has descended on the party in the form of the most successful demagogue-charlatan in the history of U.S. politics. The party searches desperately for the cause and the remedy without realizing that, like Oedipus, it is the party itself that brought on this plague. The party's own political misdeeds are being punished in a bit of cosmic justice fit for a Greek tragedy.
Let's be clear: Trump is no fluke. Nor is he hijacking the Republican Party or the conservative movement, if there is such a thing. He is, rather, the party's creation, its Frankenstein monster, brought to life by the party, fed by the party and now made strong enough to destroy its maker. Was it not the party's wild obstructionism — the repeated threats to shut down the government over policy and legislative disagreements; the persistent call for nullification of Supreme Court decisions; the insistence that compromise was betrayal; the internal coups against party leaders who refused to join the general demolition — that taught Republican voters that government, institutions, political traditions, party leadership and even parties themselves were things to be overthrown, evaded, ignored, insulted, laughed at? Was it not Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, among many others, who set this tone and thereby cleared the way for someone even more irreverent, so that now, in a most unenjoyable irony, Cruz, along with the rest of the party, must fall to the purer version of himself, a less ideologically encumbered anarcho-revolutionary? This would not be the first revolution that devoured itself.
Then there was the party's accommodation to and exploitation of the bigotry in its ranks. No, the majority of Republicans are not bigots. But they have certainly been enablers. Who began the attack on immigrants — legal and illegal — long before Trump arrived on the scene and made it his premier issue? Who was it who frightened Mitt Romney into selling his soul in 2012, talking of "self-deportation" to get himself right with the party's anti-immigrant forces? Who was it who opposed any plausible means of dealing with the genuine problem of illegal immigration, forcing Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., to cower, abandon his principles — and his own immigration legislation — lest he be driven from the presidential race before it had even begun? It was not Trump. It was not even party yahoos. It was Republican Party pundits and intellectuals, trying to harness populist passions and perhaps deal a blow to any legislation for which President Barack Obama might possibly claim even partial credit. What did Trump do but pick up where they left off, tapping the well-primed gusher of popular anger, xenophobia and, yes, bigotry that the party had already unleashed?
Then there was the Obama hatred, a racially tinged derangement syndrome that made any charge plausible and any opposition justified. Has the president done a poor job in many respects? Have his foreign policies, in particular, contributed to the fraying of the liberal world order that the United States created after World War II? Yes, and for these failures he has deserved criticism and principled opposition. But Republican and conservative criticism has taken an unusually dark and paranoid form. Instead of recommending plausible alternative strategies for the crisis in the Middle East, many Republicans have fallen back on a mindless Islamophobia, with suspicious intimations about the president's personal allegiances.
Thus Obama is not only wrong but also anti-American, un-American, non-American, and his policies — though barely distinguishable from those of previous liberal Democrats such as Michael Dukakis or Mario Cuomo — are somehow representative of something subversive. How surprising was it that a man who began his recent political career by questioning Obama's eligibility for office could leap to the front of the pack, willing and able to communicate with his followers by means of the dog-whistle disdain for "political correctness"?
We are supposed to believe that Trump's legion of "angry" people are angry about wage stagnation. No, they are angry about all the things Republicans have told them to be angry about these past 7 1/2 years, and it has been Trump's good fortune to be the guy to sweep them up and become their standard-bearer. He is the Napoleon who has harvested the fruit of the Revolution.
There has been much second-guessing lately. Why didn't party leaders stand up and try to stop Trump earlier, while there was still time? But how could they have? Trump was feeding off forces in the party they had helped nurture and that they hoped to ride into power. Some of those Republican leaders and pundits now calling for a counter-revolution against Trump were not so long ago welcoming his contribution to the debate. The politicians running against him and now facing oblivion were loath to attack him before because they feared alienating his supporters. Instead, they attacked one another, clawing at each other's faces as they one by one slipped over the cliff. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie got his last deadly lick in just before he plummeted — at Trump? No, at Rubio. Jeb Bush spent millions upon millions in his hopeless race, but against whom? Not Trump.
So what to do now? The Republicans' creation will soon be let loose on the land, leaving to others the job the party failed to carry out. For this former Republican, and perhaps for others, the only choice will be to vote for Hillary Clinton. The party cannot be saved, but the country still can be.
...................................................................................................................................................................
Donald Trump is the GOP's Frankenstein. Now he's strong enough to destroy the party.
By Robert Kagan, February 25, 2016
When the plague descended on Thebes, Oedipus sent his brother-in-law to the Delphic oracle to discover the cause. Little did he realize that the crime for which Thebes was being punished was his own. Today's Republican Party is our Oedipus. A plague has descended on the party in the form of the most successful demagogue-charlatan in the history of U.S. politics. The party searches desperately for the cause and the remedy without realizing that, like Oedipus, it is the party itself that brought on this plague. The party's own political misdeeds are being punished in a bit of cosmic justice fit for a Greek tragedy.
Let's be clear: Trump is no fluke. Nor is he hijacking the Republican Party or the conservative movement, if there is such a thing. He is, rather, the party's creation, its Frankenstein monster, brought to life by the party, fed by the party and now made strong enough to destroy its maker. Was it not the party's wild obstructionism — the repeated threats to shut down the government over policy and legislative disagreements; the persistent call for nullification of Supreme Court decisions; the insistence that compromise was betrayal; the internal coups against party leaders who refused to join the general demolition — that taught Republican voters that government, institutions, political traditions, party leadership and even parties themselves were things to be overthrown, evaded, ignored, insulted, laughed at? Was it not Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, among many others, who set this tone and thereby cleared the way for someone even more irreverent, so that now, in a most unenjoyable irony, Cruz, along with the rest of the party, must fall to the purer version of himself, a less ideologically encumbered anarcho-revolutionary? This would not be the first revolution that devoured itself.
Then there was the party's accommodation to and exploitation of the bigotry in its ranks. No, the majority of Republicans are not bigots. But they have certainly been enablers. Who began the attack on immigrants — legal and illegal — long before Trump arrived on the scene and made it his premier issue? Who was it who frightened Mitt Romney into selling his soul in 2012, talking of "self-deportation" to get himself right with the party's anti-immigrant forces? Who was it who opposed any plausible means of dealing with the genuine problem of illegal immigration, forcing Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., to cower, abandon his principles — and his own immigration legislation — lest he be driven from the presidential race before it had even begun? It was not Trump. It was not even party yahoos. It was Republican Party pundits and intellectuals, trying to harness populist passions and perhaps deal a blow to any legislation for which President Barack Obama might possibly claim even partial credit. What did Trump do but pick up where they left off, tapping the well-primed gusher of popular anger, xenophobia and, yes, bigotry that the party had already unleashed?
Then there was the Obama hatred, a racially tinged derangement syndrome that made any charge plausible and any opposition justified. Has the president done a poor job in many respects? Have his foreign policies, in particular, contributed to the fraying of the liberal world order that the United States created after World War II? Yes, and for these failures he has deserved criticism and principled opposition. But Republican and conservative criticism has taken an unusually dark and paranoid form. Instead of recommending plausible alternative strategies for the crisis in the Middle East, many Republicans have fallen back on a mindless Islamophobia, with suspicious intimations about the president's personal allegiances.
Thus Obama is not only wrong but also anti-American, un-American, non-American, and his policies — though barely distinguishable from those of previous liberal Democrats such as Michael Dukakis or Mario Cuomo — are somehow representative of something subversive. How surprising was it that a man who began his recent political career by questioning Obama's eligibility for office could leap to the front of the pack, willing and able to communicate with his followers by means of the dog-whistle disdain for "political correctness"?
We are supposed to believe that Trump's legion of "angry" people are angry about wage stagnation. No, they are angry about all the things Republicans have told them to be angry about these past 7 1/2 years, and it has been Trump's good fortune to be the guy to sweep them up and become their standard-bearer. He is the Napoleon who has harvested the fruit of the Revolution.
There has been much second-guessing lately. Why didn't party leaders stand up and try to stop Trump earlier, while there was still time? But how could they have? Trump was feeding off forces in the party they had helped nurture and that they hoped to ride into power. Some of those Republican leaders and pundits now calling for a counter-revolution against Trump were not so long ago welcoming his contribution to the debate. The politicians running against him and now facing oblivion were loath to attack him before because they feared alienating his supporters. Instead, they attacked one another, clawing at each other's faces as they one by one slipped over the cliff. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie got his last deadly lick in just before he plummeted — at Trump? No, at Rubio. Jeb Bush spent millions upon millions in his hopeless race, but against whom? Not Trump.
So what to do now? The Republicans' creation will soon be let loose on the land, leaving to others the job the party failed to carry out. For this former Republican, and perhaps for others, the only choice will be to vote for Hillary Clinton. The party cannot be saved, but the country still can be.
...................................................................................................................................................................
"Republicans, for their part, are trying to box Obama into a compromise pick, all while maintaining their resistance to considering a nominee this year."
...................................................................................................................................................................
COMMENTS:
* Republicans continue to prove themselves the dumbest animals on the planet.
* Did Democrats refuse to consider the nominee of any Republican President? Did Democrats leave a seat on the court vacant for 15 months?
* Dems didn't refuse to even consider a nominee before he/she was named. ...
* The trial balloon of Sandoval shows just how tricky it's going to be for Obama. If he nominates a progressive it's DOA. If he nominates a moderate he'll take substantial flak from the left. And he'll never nominate a conservative. No one who identifies as Republican is going to accept a nomination nor is anyone who has a real, legitimate ambition to serve on the Court. This is shaping up to be a cluster-f*** of epic proportions.
* The average length of time for a modern Supreme Court confirmation process is 67 days. The president's current term has over 300 days remaining. There is no reason for obstructionism by Republicans other than petty unAmerican politics. They are dishonorable.
* Americans already DID decide who should nominate the replacement for Scalia - when they elected President Obama for the SECOND TIME.
...................................................................................................................................................................
Democrats escalate Supreme Court shame campaign
Sen. Leahy accuses GOP rivals of an ‘unrelenting and cynical campaign’ to delegitimize Obama.
By Sarah Wheaton, February 25, 2016
Democrats escalated their grievances against Republicans in the Supreme Court fight on Thursday, accusing rivals of being motivated by the same dark impulses that have driven continual efforts to delegitimize the president.
Even as they kept up the drumbeat against “obstructionist” Republicans who are refusing to consider any nominee in an election year, Democrats in the Senate and on the campaign trail sought to capitalize on their base’s long-simmering resentment at perceived race-related slights of President Barack Obama.
“Let’s be blunt,” said Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) on Thursday. “Some of the pressure on the Senate to ignore its duty to fairly consider a nominee to fill the Supreme Court vacancy comes from the unending campaign outside the Senate to de-legitimize this President’s authority.”
Leahy, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said that efforts to block any Obama nomination to fill the vacancy left by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia stem from the same “unrelenting and cynical campaign” that began with the so-called “birther” movement that questioned Obama’s American citizenship.
The new line of argument came as Democrats lost a different political weapon on Thursday. Nevada’s Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval, whose name had been floated for a Supreme Court nod, said he wasn’t interested in the job.
Obama’s congressional allies also amplified their more established efforts to shame Senate Republicans who are refusing to entertain a nominee.
“We felt it was extremely important to make sure the American people understand that we have obstruction that is on steroids,” said Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid on Thursday afternoon, joined by more than a dozen other Democrats for 20 minutes of public GOP scolding in front of the high court.
“We want them to do their jobs,” Reid continued. “That’s all we ask.”
Democrats have been methodically building an argument this week that the GOP is in the wrong after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Judiciary Committee members announced on Tuesday that they would not hold hearings on Obama’s forthcoming nominee, and probably wouldn’t even hold a private meeting with the person.
Scalia’s death earlier this month has injected a high-stakes showdown into an already intense political season. And as Democrats wait for Obama to name his nominee — a process that’s expected to take another few weeks — they are promising to spend that time reminding their base that Republicans are blocking their president’s mission.
It’s becoming a rallying point on the campaign trail, especially in the South. Bill Clinton’s call on Thursday for Obama to “do his job” and nominate a successor drew “Hallelujahs” from a crowd in Rock Hill, South Carolina, where the former president is stumping for Hillary Clinton ahead of the Democratic primary there on Saturday.
And Leahy gave voice to the whispers that have swirled around the lightning-fast Republican resistance to Obama’s right to name a nominee.
“Even before President Obama took office, and ever since then, there has been an unrelenting and cynical campaign by some hyper-partisans to de-legitimize this president’s authority,” Leahy said in his statement Thursday afternoon. “There were the birthers, and there have been and still are spurious slurs of all kinds. Outside of the Senate, the efforts to undermine President Obama’s constitutional authority to fill this Supreme Court vacancy draw some of this vehemence and venom from these dark corners.”
Republicans, however, are arguing that American voters deserve a voice on an appointment that could drive American jurisprudence for a generation.
“That’s why my Republican Senate colleagues and I will exercise our constitutional authority to withhold consent on any Supreme Court nominee made by this president during a heated presidential campaign,” Sen. Chuck Grassley, the Judiciary Committee chairman, wrote in USA Today on Wednesday.
Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) responded with mockery targeted at a left-leaning sense of humor. “The Constitution also says that the president has a four-year term. And scientists tell us that there are almost 11 months left in the president’s second term,” he wrote on Facebook.
Democrats on the Hill had briefly rallied around a more consensus-oriented strategy, with some embracing the Sandoval trial balloon. Prior to his step back on Thursday, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi told reporters that it’s a “good idea for the president to consider a Republican, or a Democrat.”
Reid submitted his home-state governor’s name to the White House, according to a source familiar with the process, and news reports surfaced on Wednesday that he was being vetted — a move that helped Obama look open-minded and nonpartisan.
But by Thursday afternoon, the moderate Republican announced that he had taken himself out of the running.
“Earlier today, I notified the White House that I do not wish to be considered at this time for possible nomination to the Supreme Court of the United States,” Sandoval said in a statement. “I have also spoken to Senators Reid, [Dean] Heller and McConnell and expressed the same desire to them. The notion of being considered for a seat on the highest court in the land is beyond humbling and I am incredibly grateful to have been mentioned.”
But other prominent Democrats warned against the possibility of Obama offering a lifetime appointment to a Republican who has called Obamacare unconstitutional.
Hillary Clinton, who has faced sharp criticism from rival Bernie Sanders about her progressive credentials, questioned the wisdom of nominating someone like Sandoval. "I know the governor has done some good things,” Clinton said on Thursday, campaigning in South Carolina. “But I sure hope the president chooses a true progressive who will stand up for the values and the interests of the people of this country."
The progressive group Democracy for America threatened to mobilize its members against a Sandoval nomination, and the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence blasted the Nevada governor as “unfit” for the Supreme Court based on his veto of background check legislation, as gun control has become a major issue in the Democratic primary.
Republicans, for their part, are trying to box Obama into a compromise pick, all while maintaining their resistance to considering a nominee this year. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) recounted his meeting with Obama on the sidelines of an unrelated White House gathering on Wednesday.
“He told me he’ll send somebody that’ll be moderate,” Hatch said. “And, we’ll wait and see. It will be interesting to see.”
White House press secretary Josh Earnest refused to confirm the details of the president’s conversation with Hatch, noting the lack of a “transcript,” and referred reporters to Obama’s recent post on SCOTUSblog about what he’s looking for in a nominee.
“Politics are going be part of” the confirmation process, Earnest acknowledged, “particularly in an election year.”
However, Earnest added, “’What political party do you support?’ will not be one of the questions” Obama asks a potential nominee.
The White House and Senate Republicans have managed to reach at least one point of consensus on the confirmation fight. Both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue have been squabbling about scheduling an in-person meeting among the president, the top Senate leaders and the chairman and ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee.
“We’re pleased that after a number of conversations, some more awkward than others, that the president will be convening a meeting on Tuesday,” Earnest announced.
McConnell and Grassley confirmed their plans to attend.
“We look forward to reiterating to him directly that the American people will be heard and the next Supreme Court justice will be determined once the elections are complete and the next President has been sworn into office,” they said in a joint statement. “And we welcome the opportunity to further discuss matters of mutual interest, like the drug epidemic that’s tearing communities apart across our country.”
...................................................................................................................................................................
COMMENTS:
* Republicans continue to prove themselves the dumbest animals on the planet.
* Did Democrats refuse to consider the nominee of any Republican President? Did Democrats leave a seat on the court vacant for 15 months?
* Dems didn't refuse to even consider a nominee before he/she was named. ...
* The trial balloon of Sandoval shows just how tricky it's going to be for Obama. If he nominates a progressive it's DOA. If he nominates a moderate he'll take substantial flak from the left. And he'll never nominate a conservative. No one who identifies as Republican is going to accept a nomination nor is anyone who has a real, legitimate ambition to serve on the Court. This is shaping up to be a cluster-f*** of epic proportions.
* The average length of time for a modern Supreme Court confirmation process is 67 days. The president's current term has over 300 days remaining. There is no reason for obstructionism by Republicans other than petty unAmerican politics. They are dishonorable.
* Americans already DID decide who should nominate the replacement for Scalia - when they elected President Obama for the SECOND TIME.
...................................................................................................................................................................
Democrats escalate Supreme Court shame campaign
Sen. Leahy accuses GOP rivals of an ‘unrelenting and cynical campaign’ to delegitimize Obama.
By Sarah Wheaton, February 25, 2016
Democrats escalated their grievances against Republicans in the Supreme Court fight on Thursday, accusing rivals of being motivated by the same dark impulses that have driven continual efforts to delegitimize the president.
Even as they kept up the drumbeat against “obstructionist” Republicans who are refusing to consider any nominee in an election year, Democrats in the Senate and on the campaign trail sought to capitalize on their base’s long-simmering resentment at perceived race-related slights of President Barack Obama.
“Let’s be blunt,” said Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) on Thursday. “Some of the pressure on the Senate to ignore its duty to fairly consider a nominee to fill the Supreme Court vacancy comes from the unending campaign outside the Senate to de-legitimize this President’s authority.”
Leahy, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said that efforts to block any Obama nomination to fill the vacancy left by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia stem from the same “unrelenting and cynical campaign” that began with the so-called “birther” movement that questioned Obama’s American citizenship.
The new line of argument came as Democrats lost a different political weapon on Thursday. Nevada’s Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval, whose name had been floated for a Supreme Court nod, said he wasn’t interested in the job.
Obama’s congressional allies also amplified their more established efforts to shame Senate Republicans who are refusing to entertain a nominee.
“We felt it was extremely important to make sure the American people understand that we have obstruction that is on steroids,” said Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid on Thursday afternoon, joined by more than a dozen other Democrats for 20 minutes of public GOP scolding in front of the high court.
“We want them to do their jobs,” Reid continued. “That’s all we ask.”
Democrats have been methodically building an argument this week that the GOP is in the wrong after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Judiciary Committee members announced on Tuesday that they would not hold hearings on Obama’s forthcoming nominee, and probably wouldn’t even hold a private meeting with the person.
Scalia’s death earlier this month has injected a high-stakes showdown into an already intense political season. And as Democrats wait for Obama to name his nominee — a process that’s expected to take another few weeks — they are promising to spend that time reminding their base that Republicans are blocking their president’s mission.
It’s becoming a rallying point on the campaign trail, especially in the South. Bill Clinton’s call on Thursday for Obama to “do his job” and nominate a successor drew “Hallelujahs” from a crowd in Rock Hill, South Carolina, where the former president is stumping for Hillary Clinton ahead of the Democratic primary there on Saturday.
And Leahy gave voice to the whispers that have swirled around the lightning-fast Republican resistance to Obama’s right to name a nominee.
“Even before President Obama took office, and ever since then, there has been an unrelenting and cynical campaign by some hyper-partisans to de-legitimize this president’s authority,” Leahy said in his statement Thursday afternoon. “There were the birthers, and there have been and still are spurious slurs of all kinds. Outside of the Senate, the efforts to undermine President Obama’s constitutional authority to fill this Supreme Court vacancy draw some of this vehemence and venom from these dark corners.”
Republicans, however, are arguing that American voters deserve a voice on an appointment that could drive American jurisprudence for a generation.
“That’s why my Republican Senate colleagues and I will exercise our constitutional authority to withhold consent on any Supreme Court nominee made by this president during a heated presidential campaign,” Sen. Chuck Grassley, the Judiciary Committee chairman, wrote in USA Today on Wednesday.
Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) responded with mockery targeted at a left-leaning sense of humor. “The Constitution also says that the president has a four-year term. And scientists tell us that there are almost 11 months left in the president’s second term,” he wrote on Facebook.
Democrats on the Hill had briefly rallied around a more consensus-oriented strategy, with some embracing the Sandoval trial balloon. Prior to his step back on Thursday, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi told reporters that it’s a “good idea for the president to consider a Republican, or a Democrat.”
Reid submitted his home-state governor’s name to the White House, according to a source familiar with the process, and news reports surfaced on Wednesday that he was being vetted — a move that helped Obama look open-minded and nonpartisan.
But by Thursday afternoon, the moderate Republican announced that he had taken himself out of the running.
“Earlier today, I notified the White House that I do not wish to be considered at this time for possible nomination to the Supreme Court of the United States,” Sandoval said in a statement. “I have also spoken to Senators Reid, [Dean] Heller and McConnell and expressed the same desire to them. The notion of being considered for a seat on the highest court in the land is beyond humbling and I am incredibly grateful to have been mentioned.”
But other prominent Democrats warned against the possibility of Obama offering a lifetime appointment to a Republican who has called Obamacare unconstitutional.
Hillary Clinton, who has faced sharp criticism from rival Bernie Sanders about her progressive credentials, questioned the wisdom of nominating someone like Sandoval. "I know the governor has done some good things,” Clinton said on Thursday, campaigning in South Carolina. “But I sure hope the president chooses a true progressive who will stand up for the values and the interests of the people of this country."
The progressive group Democracy for America threatened to mobilize its members against a Sandoval nomination, and the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence blasted the Nevada governor as “unfit” for the Supreme Court based on his veto of background check legislation, as gun control has become a major issue in the Democratic primary.
Republicans, for their part, are trying to box Obama into a compromise pick, all while maintaining their resistance to considering a nominee this year. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) recounted his meeting with Obama on the sidelines of an unrelated White House gathering on Wednesday.
“He told me he’ll send somebody that’ll be moderate,” Hatch said. “And, we’ll wait and see. It will be interesting to see.”
White House press secretary Josh Earnest refused to confirm the details of the president’s conversation with Hatch, noting the lack of a “transcript,” and referred reporters to Obama’s recent post on SCOTUSblog about what he’s looking for in a nominee.
“Politics are going be part of” the confirmation process, Earnest acknowledged, “particularly in an election year.”
However, Earnest added, “’What political party do you support?’ will not be one of the questions” Obama asks a potential nominee.
The White House and Senate Republicans have managed to reach at least one point of consensus on the confirmation fight. Both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue have been squabbling about scheduling an in-person meeting among the president, the top Senate leaders and the chairman and ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee.
“We’re pleased that after a number of conversations, some more awkward than others, that the president will be convening a meeting on Tuesday,” Earnest announced.
McConnell and Grassley confirmed their plans to attend.
“We look forward to reiterating to him directly that the American people will be heard and the next Supreme Court justice will be determined once the elections are complete and the next President has been sworn into office,” they said in a joint statement. “And we welcome the opportunity to further discuss matters of mutual interest, like the drug epidemic that’s tearing communities apart across our country.”
...................................................................................................................................................................
Walker doesn't feel ANY sense of shame!
...................................................................................................................................................................
COMMENTS:
* The noise inside my head that I can not stop is, apparently, screaming coming from my dying sanity. Walker is a disgrace of a Human Being.
* Holy jumping Jebus fucking Christ! Why aren't Wisconsinites storming the capitol building and the residence of this son of a bitch, torches and pitchforks at the fore? I cannot believe this, and I've stayed in Wisconsin a few times and marveled at the support this dickhead Walker has in the rural areas. I'll remind those retrograde bastards up there in the northland that they elected a man whose new election rules preclude votes from Iwo Jima veterans, and I'll do it loudly and clearly at every possible occasion. See what they fucking think about that....
* They have, repeatedly. It made no difference whatsoever. Walker and his buds rampage on.
* ... C'mon, Charles. Can you really believe these people have any sense of shame?
* It is well to remember that it's not just corruption and greed that harm us, sheer incompetentcy plays a major role too.
* Republicans like Scott Walker and his cabal are a disgrace to all good thinking Americans. The lesson is to never vote Republican.
...................................................................................................................................................................
A 90-Year-Old Iwo Jima Veteran Couldn't Vote in Scott Walker's Wisconsin
This should be a message to the DNC. Will Debbie Wasserman Schulz hear it?
By Charles P. Pierce, February 25, 2016
Life's tough and getting tougher out in that Midwest subsidiary formerly known as the state of Wisconsin, where goggle-eyed homunculus Scott Walker remains the managing director. Now, it seems casting your ballot in a state election has become harder than surviving the slog up Mount Suribachi was.
...................................................................................................................................................................
COMMENTS:
* The noise inside my head that I can not stop is, apparently, screaming coming from my dying sanity. Walker is a disgrace of a Human Being.
* Holy jumping Jebus fucking Christ! Why aren't Wisconsinites storming the capitol building and the residence of this son of a bitch, torches and pitchforks at the fore? I cannot believe this, and I've stayed in Wisconsin a few times and marveled at the support this dickhead Walker has in the rural areas. I'll remind those retrograde bastards up there in the northland that they elected a man whose new election rules preclude votes from Iwo Jima veterans, and I'll do it loudly and clearly at every possible occasion. See what they fucking think about that....
* They have, repeatedly. It made no difference whatsoever. Walker and his buds rampage on.
* ... C'mon, Charles. Can you really believe these people have any sense of shame?
* It is well to remember that it's not just corruption and greed that harm us, sheer incompetentcy plays a major role too.
* Republicans like Scott Walker and his cabal are a disgrace to all good thinking Americans. The lesson is to never vote Republican.
...................................................................................................................................................................
A 90-Year-Old Iwo Jima Veteran Couldn't Vote in Scott Walker's Wisconsin
This should be a message to the DNC. Will Debbie Wasserman Schulz hear it?
By Charles P. Pierce, February 25, 2016
Life's tough and getting tougher out in that Midwest subsidiary formerly known as the state of Wisconsin, where goggle-eyed homunculus Scott Walker remains the managing director. Now, it seems casting your ballot in a state election has become harder than surviving the slog up Mount Suribachi was.
In her letter, Bradley said her uncle had fought at Iwo Jima, the bloody World War II battle that was immortalized in a photo of the U.S. flag being raised on the tiny Pacific island. Tuesday marked the 71st anniversary of the 1945 flag raising. Bradley's uncle, Leo Olson of Reedsburg, tried to use his veterans ID card to vote in last week's primary for a seat on the state Supreme Court, but that form of identification can't be used under the state's voter ID law. Olson does not have a driver's license. That could soon change because of legislation the state Senate is to take up next month. Even if approved, it may not be in place for the April 5 election, when voters will decide the state Supreme Court race and cast ballots in the presidential primaries. "He considers voting part of his patriotic duty," Bradley wrote to Walker. "Yet, last week this proud patriot of 90 years of age was embarrassed and confused when he went to the polls and was denied his right to vote. Then he presented his veterans administration card with his picture on it, he was told that the card was not listed as 'acceptable' proof of his identity. He responded: 'You mean veterans can't vote?'"I guarantee you that there are hundreds of examples of things like this out there. Veterans. Grandparents. Honor students. Cops. Nurses. Each one of them could be used to shame the people who are writing and passing voter-suppression laws all over the United States. These examples could provide an endless stream of campaign commercials that would have the advantage of actually being true. However, this would require competent, forward-thinking leadership at the Democratic National Committee which is, at the moment, being run by someone whose primary concentration apparently is ensuring herself good seats at the 2017 inauguration.
...................................................................................................................................................................
Wednesday, February 24, 2016
Isn't it obvious?
..................................................................................
"The Supreme Court, under the Constitution, has no specific guarantee of protection against the actions of the other two branches of government that might make the Justices’ job a lot harder."
...................................................................................................................................................................
COMMENTS:
* At All Costs is what the Republicans are willing to do to get their way. Even at the cost of America.... God help us.
* Typical of our useless do nothing but whine about Obama and play footsie with extremist rights and corporate lobbyist congress.
* Depending on who Obama nominates the Republicans are taking an awful chance. If he picks a moderate and they don't confirm the candidate and lose the Presidential election then they will be stuck with another left-wing partisan liberal.
* Because Roberts and Kennedy never flip? I think people read the situation wrong. There's 4 liberals, 2 conservatives, a right-leaning moderate, and a moderate conservative. Everything favors progressives, big picture and small. We get a lot of left leaning rulings, Rebunglecan misplaying of the nomination issue kills the fools this cycle, and we end up with a progressive WH, Senate, and SCOTUS. Win-win-win.
* ... just because they're not YOUR morals doesn't mean anything is declining. You simply proclaimed yourself God, and threw a hissy fit when your Divine Will turned out to be just another guy who thinks he has a right to control the lives of strangers. You're what's wrong with America, and thank goodness your ilk is dying out. Good riddance to bad rubbish.
* Scalia's death was a God Send...........Thank you Lord for this gift and sending this Italian bigot down to meet his originalist guiding master.
...................................................................................................................................................................
Constitution Check: Could the Supreme Court end Senate gridlock on the vacant seat?
By Lyle Denniston, February 24, 2016
Lyle Denniston, the National Constitution Center’s constitutional literacy adviser, looks at how Supreme Court nominee gridlock could lead to a very unlikely, but not unprecedented, option for the Chief Justice.
THE STATEMENT AT ISSUE:
“Under the particular circumstances under which this vacancy arises, we wish to inform you of our intention to exercise our constitutional authority to withhold consent on any nominee to the Supreme Court submitted by the President to fill Justice Scalia’s vacancy. Because our decision is based on constitutional principle and born of a necessity to protect the will of the American people, this Committee will not hold hearings on any Supreme Court nominee until after our next President is sworn in on January 20, 2017.”
– Excerpt from a letter by all 11 Republican members of the majority of the Senate Judiciary Committee to the Senate majority leader on February 23, outlining their decision to take no action even to consider a nominee by President Obama to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia – no hearings and no votes.
WE CHECKED THE CONSTITUTION, AND…
The Supreme Court, under the Constitution, has no specific guarantee of protection against the actions of the other two branches of government that might make the Justices’ job a lot harder. And that means that, if the Senate does indeed get gridlocked over replacing one of its members who has died or retired, the court’s work very likely will be seriously affected by the predictable problems of operating with one Justice short.
There is no existing forum where the Justices could go to complain about the impact on their work. It is true that the court does talk to Congress about the work of the Justices and of the lower federal courts, and some of the Justices regularly go before legislative committees to explain how the courts will spend the money that they ask Congress to appropriate to fund their operations But the court is very reluctant to engage in anything like lobbying that would seem outside its purely judicial role. It well understands the constitutional idea of separation of powers.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., recently complained in a public speech about what he saw as a perception among some in the public that the court is a political institution, operating as the other two branches do. It is thus hard to imagine him having any role in trying to get the Senate to move along the nomination of a new Justice to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia.
But once in history, faced with what it considered to be a threat to its very existence, the court did get involved in a subtle gesture of lobbying, and it is one that historians have ever since debated as to its propriety. In 1937, President Franklin Roosevelt, frustrated by repeated decisions of the Supreme Court striking down key features of his New Deal program to help the country get through the Depression, sent to Congress what came to be known as the “court-packing” plan. For every Justice over the age of 70 who chose to remain on the court, the president would have been allowed to name a new Justice, potentially adding six new members to the court – and, of course, assuring that the remainder of the New Deal initiatives would be upheld. The main argument the president and his aides made for the proposal was that the court was over-worked, and needed some new help.
At a strategic point in the Senate’s consideration of the plan, Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes, in a series of private meetings with senators, agreed to write a letter to the Judiciary Committee, explaining that the court was current in its work and needed no additional Justices. The letter landed in the committee like a bombshell. Historians, as would be expected, are divided over whether this was the decisive move that ultimately led to the demise of the Roosevelt plan, but it certainly had some impact, even if not the decisive one.
In the court’s present situation, following the death of Justice Scalia, the members of the court are likely to try to work out ways to cope with the vacancy and with it, the potential for a series of 4-to-4 decisions, that essentially decide nothing. But if the vacant seat remains unfilled for an extended period – say, for a full year or more – the court may find itself out of options to delay review of major cases, and may have to give in to issuing a series of 4-to-4 outcomes. Major issues, broadly affecting American life and culture, could go undecided in a final way.
Assuming that prolonged delay in the Senate would begin to actually disrupt the court’s operations, especially in dealing with major constitutional questions, would the court then feel compelled to tell the Senate that it genuinely needs a ninth Justice? If such a message were sent discreetly, perhaps in a letter quietly solicited by some senator, would Chief Justice Roberts be inclined to do it? He probably would not even consider doing it unless the institution he heads had begun to flounder in its constitutional task.
It would be certain, though, that Roberts would not make the one crucial mistake that Chief Justice Hughes did in 1937, failing to consult with all the members of the court at that time before sending the letter. That omission undercut the strength of the Hughes letter, making it seem that the whole court was not behind it. It thus looked to be more politically calculating, and may even have harmed the court’s reputation – at least with some historians.
Would there be a political calculation in it if Roberts did agree to take some action? In other words, would he rather not have an Obama nominee taking the Scalia seat because that might shift the court in a more decidedly liberal direction? It does seem improper even to suggest it, especially given Roberts’ current worry about how the public views the court in the midst of a deeply polarized Washington establishment. But there no doubt would be suspicions along those lines anyway, and that reality probably provides another reason to assume that the Chief Justice would stay out of the fray.
All such considerations, however, might begin to lose their force if the eight Justices did, indeed, find themselves stymied in major ways by the continuing effect of one empty seat. Propriety might then have to give way to necessity.
...................................................................................................................................................................
COMMENTS:
* At All Costs is what the Republicans are willing to do to get their way. Even at the cost of America.... God help us.
* Typical of our useless do nothing but whine about Obama and play footsie with extremist rights and corporate lobbyist congress.
* Depending on who Obama nominates the Republicans are taking an awful chance. If he picks a moderate and they don't confirm the candidate and lose the Presidential election then they will be stuck with another left-wing partisan liberal.
* Because Roberts and Kennedy never flip? I think people read the situation wrong. There's 4 liberals, 2 conservatives, a right-leaning moderate, and a moderate conservative. Everything favors progressives, big picture and small. We get a lot of left leaning rulings, Rebunglecan misplaying of the nomination issue kills the fools this cycle, and we end up with a progressive WH, Senate, and SCOTUS. Win-win-win.
* ... just because they're not YOUR morals doesn't mean anything is declining. You simply proclaimed yourself God, and threw a hissy fit when your Divine Will turned out to be just another guy who thinks he has a right to control the lives of strangers. You're what's wrong with America, and thank goodness your ilk is dying out. Good riddance to bad rubbish.
* Scalia's death was a God Send...........Thank you Lord for this gift and sending this Italian bigot down to meet his originalist guiding master.
...................................................................................................................................................................
Constitution Check: Could the Supreme Court end Senate gridlock on the vacant seat?
By Lyle Denniston, February 24, 2016
Lyle Denniston, the National Constitution Center’s constitutional literacy adviser, looks at how Supreme Court nominee gridlock could lead to a very unlikely, but not unprecedented, option for the Chief Justice.
THE STATEMENT AT ISSUE:
“Under the particular circumstances under which this vacancy arises, we wish to inform you of our intention to exercise our constitutional authority to withhold consent on any nominee to the Supreme Court submitted by the President to fill Justice Scalia’s vacancy. Because our decision is based on constitutional principle and born of a necessity to protect the will of the American people, this Committee will not hold hearings on any Supreme Court nominee until after our next President is sworn in on January 20, 2017.”
– Excerpt from a letter by all 11 Republican members of the majority of the Senate Judiciary Committee to the Senate majority leader on February 23, outlining their decision to take no action even to consider a nominee by President Obama to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia – no hearings and no votes.
WE CHECKED THE CONSTITUTION, AND…
The Supreme Court, under the Constitution, has no specific guarantee of protection against the actions of the other two branches of government that might make the Justices’ job a lot harder. And that means that, if the Senate does indeed get gridlocked over replacing one of its members who has died or retired, the court’s work very likely will be seriously affected by the predictable problems of operating with one Justice short.
There is no existing forum where the Justices could go to complain about the impact on their work. It is true that the court does talk to Congress about the work of the Justices and of the lower federal courts, and some of the Justices regularly go before legislative committees to explain how the courts will spend the money that they ask Congress to appropriate to fund their operations But the court is very reluctant to engage in anything like lobbying that would seem outside its purely judicial role. It well understands the constitutional idea of separation of powers.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., recently complained in a public speech about what he saw as a perception among some in the public that the court is a political institution, operating as the other two branches do. It is thus hard to imagine him having any role in trying to get the Senate to move along the nomination of a new Justice to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia.
But once in history, faced with what it considered to be a threat to its very existence, the court did get involved in a subtle gesture of lobbying, and it is one that historians have ever since debated as to its propriety. In 1937, President Franklin Roosevelt, frustrated by repeated decisions of the Supreme Court striking down key features of his New Deal program to help the country get through the Depression, sent to Congress what came to be known as the “court-packing” plan. For every Justice over the age of 70 who chose to remain on the court, the president would have been allowed to name a new Justice, potentially adding six new members to the court – and, of course, assuring that the remainder of the New Deal initiatives would be upheld. The main argument the president and his aides made for the proposal was that the court was over-worked, and needed some new help.
At a strategic point in the Senate’s consideration of the plan, Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes, in a series of private meetings with senators, agreed to write a letter to the Judiciary Committee, explaining that the court was current in its work and needed no additional Justices. The letter landed in the committee like a bombshell. Historians, as would be expected, are divided over whether this was the decisive move that ultimately led to the demise of the Roosevelt plan, but it certainly had some impact, even if not the decisive one.
In the court’s present situation, following the death of Justice Scalia, the members of the court are likely to try to work out ways to cope with the vacancy and with it, the potential for a series of 4-to-4 decisions, that essentially decide nothing. But if the vacant seat remains unfilled for an extended period – say, for a full year or more – the court may find itself out of options to delay review of major cases, and may have to give in to issuing a series of 4-to-4 outcomes. Major issues, broadly affecting American life and culture, could go undecided in a final way.
Assuming that prolonged delay in the Senate would begin to actually disrupt the court’s operations, especially in dealing with major constitutional questions, would the court then feel compelled to tell the Senate that it genuinely needs a ninth Justice? If such a message were sent discreetly, perhaps in a letter quietly solicited by some senator, would Chief Justice Roberts be inclined to do it? He probably would not even consider doing it unless the institution he heads had begun to flounder in its constitutional task.
It would be certain, though, that Roberts would not make the one crucial mistake that Chief Justice Hughes did in 1937, failing to consult with all the members of the court at that time before sending the letter. That omission undercut the strength of the Hughes letter, making it seem that the whole court was not behind it. It thus looked to be more politically calculating, and may even have harmed the court’s reputation – at least with some historians.
Would there be a political calculation in it if Roberts did agree to take some action? In other words, would he rather not have an Obama nominee taking the Scalia seat because that might shift the court in a more decidedly liberal direction? It does seem improper even to suggest it, especially given Roberts’ current worry about how the public views the court in the midst of a deeply polarized Washington establishment. But there no doubt would be suspicions along those lines anyway, and that reality probably provides another reason to assume that the Chief Justice would stay out of the fray.
All such considerations, however, might begin to lose their force if the eight Justices did, indeed, find themselves stymied in major ways by the continuing effect of one empty seat. Propriety might then have to give way to necessity.
...................................................................................................................................................................
"Could it be that the Republican Party's capacity to walk in lockstep off a cliff ... has now surpassed the Democratic Party's capacity to step on its own dick when presented with a political opportunity?"
...................................................................................................................................................................
COMMENTS:
* Because the Democrats, ultimately, believe in the Constitution, in good governance, and a functoning government - of which the SCOTUS is an integral part. They will always, ultimately, be reasonable. They are adults.
* That hits upon a key difference between Republicans and Democrats. Republican fear-and-loathing is all based upon what they think Democrats might do - hypotheticals that exist only in their fevered imaginations. Democratic fear-and-loathing is all based on what Republicans have done, are doing, and thus will continue to do.
* The difference being the Democrats don't claim to be orginalists!!!! If you say something like the Constitution is an originalist document and you do something that someone else would do not what the constitution says - how are you an orgininalists. Obviousy you don't believe what you profess to believe. Do as I say not as I do? Come guys - you are or you're not!! In this case and most cases the republicans profess one ideology and practice a completely different one. Can't deny it; they even publically aclaim their non-compliance to their "bedrock" belief. Hows that for truth in politics.
* Despite what you non-regulars who have wandered in here may say, there NEVER has been a time, in more than 226 years, that the Senate has refused even to consider a President's nominee to fill a vacancy on the Court. No matter what you point to, it was not this. Nor even close to this. What are the GOP Senators, and you guys afraid of, that the American People might support the nominee after seeing how he or she conducts himself or herself at a hearing? I thought you want the American People to be involved. Well, why must we wait a year??
* Ron Thompson LBJ signed the Civil Rights bill in 1964 and said he knew it would turn the south against the democrats for years, but he knew it was right and he had the balls to do it. What the Reps ar doing is just obstructing, not getting anything done for anyone.
* Brilliant. Hoist them from their own petard. The American people have already chosen the president to nominate the next Supreme Court justice with the reelection of President Obama. To say anything else is pure political posturing. Make them explain why they are not doing their Constitutional duty.
...................................................................................................................................................................
Now President Obama Must Play It Cool While the Republican Party Walks Off a Cliff
The Supreme Court fiasco gets more fiasco-er.
By Charles P. Pierce, February 23, 2016
Remember just Tuesday morning, when we were discussing how Republican senators in purplish states were taking a big gamble if they agreed to stonewall the president's constitutional duty to appoint a replacement for Antonin Scalia?
Remember this scene from the most underrated American film of all time, Little Big Man?
Well, you go down there, if you got the nerve, Senator.
He finds the most ridiculously qualified candidate he can find among whatever demographic or social group is most disadvantageous to the Republicans, and he puts that candidate up as quickly as possible. He does event after event, with the candidate by his side. He campaigns for Senate candidates in New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Illinois, all places with vulnerable Republican incumbents, and he brings the nominee along with him.
To elect a Democratic president in the fall is to elect this wonderfully qualified person, a credit to the American dream and to our greatness as a people, to the Supreme Court as well. Could it be that the Republican Party's capacity to walk in lockstep off a cliff–known to medical science as The Schiavo Syndrome–has now surpassed the Democratic Party's capacity to step on its own dick when presented with a political opportunity? If the president has brought about that turn of events, his whole two terms have been worth electing him in the first place.
...................................................................................................................................................................
COMMENTS:
* Because the Democrats, ultimately, believe in the Constitution, in good governance, and a functoning government - of which the SCOTUS is an integral part. They will always, ultimately, be reasonable. They are adults.
* That hits upon a key difference between Republicans and Democrats. Republican fear-and-loathing is all based upon what they think Democrats might do - hypotheticals that exist only in their fevered imaginations. Democratic fear-and-loathing is all based on what Republicans have done, are doing, and thus will continue to do.
* The difference being the Democrats don't claim to be orginalists!!!! If you say something like the Constitution is an originalist document and you do something that someone else would do not what the constitution says - how are you an orgininalists. Obviousy you don't believe what you profess to believe. Do as I say not as I do? Come guys - you are or you're not!! In this case and most cases the republicans profess one ideology and practice a completely different one. Can't deny it; they even publically aclaim their non-compliance to their "bedrock" belief. Hows that for truth in politics.
* Despite what you non-regulars who have wandered in here may say, there NEVER has been a time, in more than 226 years, that the Senate has refused even to consider a President's nominee to fill a vacancy on the Court. No matter what you point to, it was not this. Nor even close to this. What are the GOP Senators, and you guys afraid of, that the American People might support the nominee after seeing how he or she conducts himself or herself at a hearing? I thought you want the American People to be involved. Well, why must we wait a year??
* Ron Thompson LBJ signed the Civil Rights bill in 1964 and said he knew it would turn the south against the democrats for years, but he knew it was right and he had the balls to do it. What the Reps ar doing is just obstructing, not getting anything done for anyone.
* Brilliant. Hoist them from their own petard. The American people have already chosen the president to nominate the next Supreme Court justice with the reelection of President Obama. To say anything else is pure political posturing. Make them explain why they are not doing their Constitutional duty.
...................................................................................................................................................................
Now President Obama Must Play It Cool While the Republican Party Walks Off a Cliff
The Supreme Court fiasco gets more fiasco-er.
By Charles P. Pierce, February 23, 2016
Remember just Tuesday morning, when we were discussing how Republican senators in purplish states were taking a big gamble if they agreed to stonewall the president's constitutional duty to appoint a replacement for Antonin Scalia?
Remember this scene from the most underrated American film of all time, Little Big Man?
Well, you go down there, if you got the nerve, Senator.
"We believe the American people need to decide who is going to make this appointment rather than a lame duck president," said Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-TN). When asked if they would start the process after the new president took office or if they would consider doing it in the lame duck session, Cornyn replied "No, after the next president is selected. That way the American people have a voice in the process." The Republican members of the Judiciary Commitee were unanimous in agreeing not to move forward with any Obama nominee for the Supreme Court, said Cornyn, who was in the meeting. Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN), who was not in the meeting, later said that GOP senators were told at their weekly lunch that the Judiciary Committee Republicans were in unanimous agreement on the strategy. Meanwhile, Judiciary Committee Chair Charles Grassley (R-IA) and the rest of the committee Republicans sent a letter to McConnell outlining their plan to block any Obama nominee for Scalia's seat. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said that "there's no use starting a process that's not going to go anywhere and we are going to let the next president decide," when asked why there would be no hearings. When TPM asked if he had political concerns about the decision not to move forward with a nominee, Graham responded."I have zero concerns politically." "I think this is what they would do," Graham said referring to Senate Democrats. "For them to say they wouldn't do this is a lie."The president's next move is obvious.
He finds the most ridiculously qualified candidate he can find among whatever demographic or social group is most disadvantageous to the Republicans, and he puts that candidate up as quickly as possible. He does event after event, with the candidate by his side. He campaigns for Senate candidates in New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Illinois, all places with vulnerable Republican incumbents, and he brings the nominee along with him.
To elect a Democratic president in the fall is to elect this wonderfully qualified person, a credit to the American dream and to our greatness as a people, to the Supreme Court as well. Could it be that the Republican Party's capacity to walk in lockstep off a cliff–known to medical science as The Schiavo Syndrome–has now surpassed the Democratic Party's capacity to step on its own dick when presented with a political opportunity? If the president has brought about that turn of events, his whole two terms have been worth electing him in the first place.
...................................................................................................................................................................
"The person who becomes 'the anti-Trump' may emerge too late and too weakened to stop Trump in his hostile takeover bid of the Republican Party."
...................................................................................................................................................................
What do conservatives stand to lose with a Trump nomination? Nearly everything.
By Michael Brendan Dougherty, February 23, 2016
There is an odd hush that is falling over the high place in America's conservative movement after the South Carolina primary.
The nomination fight is not quite over, but Donald Trump is positioned for a near-sweep of the upcoming contests. His two most viable challengers scored roughly evenly in the last primary. Gaming it out, it is easy to see how Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio continue to fire on each other, while Trump continues to win a strong plurality. The person who becomes "the anti-Trump" may emerge too late and too weakened to stop Trump in his hostile takeover bid of the Republican Party.
A Trump nomination, at first blush, looks like a disaster for the organs of the conservative movement, whether think tanks or magazines. The importance of these institutions in the national firmament is premised on the idea that the Republican nominee for president must come up to snuff as a "true conservative," or that reading them gives you some insight into the thinking and operation of the next Republican administration. A Trump win, at least temporarily, threatens the conservative movement because it threatens to expose how inessential its ideas are to holding together the party.
The great drama of the 2012 election was whether Mitt Romney could convince conservatives he was truly on their side. The great drama of 2016 is whether Trump needs any conservatives on his side at all. Perhaps he doesn't.
Trump, as a general election candidate, may try to reach out to some Republicans and reunite the coalition he shattered. Already there are reports that he sounds out Rudy Giuliani, Art Laffer, and Bill Bennett. Those men roughly represent the three "legs" of the stool that is the conservative movement: an assertive foreign policy, free-market economics, and social conservatism. He will reach out to others as well.
Will policy minds on the right be willing to work with him, though? Each policy wonk, or professional political class worker that a Trump campaign approaches faces a difficult choice: Do you throw in with Trump in the hopes of retaining some conservative influence over the Republican nominee? Or do you risk looking like someone who abandoned the GOP in an hour when it needed to unite to defeat Hillary Clinton? If you join Team Trump and he fails miserably, will your colleagues in the movement view you with suspicion?
If Trump captures the nomination, it will also be a disaster for the relationship of pro-lifers with the Republican Party. Unless Trump picks someone with the most rock-solid pro-life credentials as his running mate, it is very likely that a solid chunk of important pro-life activists will seek out a viable third party candidate, or throw their support behind the nominee of a tiny pro-life party, like the Constitution P arty. In fact, there is good reason to believe that a Trump nomination may bring out a retired Republican congressman to run on the Constitution Party's ticket. Trump may say he is against abortion, but his conversion on the issue is far less convincing than those of previous nominees like Mitt Romney or George H.W. Bush.
The Republican Party has never exactly fought with everything it had to confirm enough originalists to overturn Roe V. Wade and thereby return lawmaking on abortion to the states. But in order to keep its coalition from really cracking up, it has to at least be a plausible vehicle for the aspirations of these voters. With Trump at the top, it won't be.
For Republican elites who may be pro-choice and for grassroots activists who believe they cannot support a party that wobbles on this issue, a Trump nomination shatters a mutual illusion: that the pro-life grassroots and the Republican elite need each other. In fact, absent major scrambling by a third party candidate, Trump's nomination all but guarantees that conservatives will be reduced to a tiny rump on a consolidated, progressive Supreme Court.
Even though I have wanted to see the GOP address the voters that Trump is courting with more substantial policies, I have serious doubts about whether the Republican coalition can so easily be re-assembled under Trump or after him. The one truly great thing about American political parties is that they are so big that their members must accommodate each other and moderate their demands and appetites. For too long, an elite financial wing of the Republican Party got immoderate about its demands, and the party caved to them. Trump is the understandable immoderate counter-reaction. Who or what can possibly reconcile these factions to one another?
...................................................................................................................................................................
What do conservatives stand to lose with a Trump nomination? Nearly everything.
By Michael Brendan Dougherty, February 23, 2016
There is an odd hush that is falling over the high place in America's conservative movement after the South Carolina primary.
The nomination fight is not quite over, but Donald Trump is positioned for a near-sweep of the upcoming contests. His two most viable challengers scored roughly evenly in the last primary. Gaming it out, it is easy to see how Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio continue to fire on each other, while Trump continues to win a strong plurality. The person who becomes "the anti-Trump" may emerge too late and too weakened to stop Trump in his hostile takeover bid of the Republican Party.
A Trump nomination, at first blush, looks like a disaster for the organs of the conservative movement, whether think tanks or magazines. The importance of these institutions in the national firmament is premised on the idea that the Republican nominee for president must come up to snuff as a "true conservative," or that reading them gives you some insight into the thinking and operation of the next Republican administration. A Trump win, at least temporarily, threatens the conservative movement because it threatens to expose how inessential its ideas are to holding together the party.
The great drama of the 2012 election was whether Mitt Romney could convince conservatives he was truly on their side. The great drama of 2016 is whether Trump needs any conservatives on his side at all. Perhaps he doesn't.
Trump, as a general election candidate, may try to reach out to some Republicans and reunite the coalition he shattered. Already there are reports that he sounds out Rudy Giuliani, Art Laffer, and Bill Bennett. Those men roughly represent the three "legs" of the stool that is the conservative movement: an assertive foreign policy, free-market economics, and social conservatism. He will reach out to others as well.
Will policy minds on the right be willing to work with him, though? Each policy wonk, or professional political class worker that a Trump campaign approaches faces a difficult choice: Do you throw in with Trump in the hopes of retaining some conservative influence over the Republican nominee? Or do you risk looking like someone who abandoned the GOP in an hour when it needed to unite to defeat Hillary Clinton? If you join Team Trump and he fails miserably, will your colleagues in the movement view you with suspicion?
If Trump captures the nomination, it will also be a disaster for the relationship of pro-lifers with the Republican Party. Unless Trump picks someone with the most rock-solid pro-life credentials as his running mate, it is very likely that a solid chunk of important pro-life activists will seek out a viable third party candidate, or throw their support behind the nominee of a tiny pro-life party, like the Constitution P arty. In fact, there is good reason to believe that a Trump nomination may bring out a retired Republican congressman to run on the Constitution Party's ticket. Trump may say he is against abortion, but his conversion on the issue is far less convincing than those of previous nominees like Mitt Romney or George H.W. Bush.
The Republican Party has never exactly fought with everything it had to confirm enough originalists to overturn Roe V. Wade and thereby return lawmaking on abortion to the states. But in order to keep its coalition from really cracking up, it has to at least be a plausible vehicle for the aspirations of these voters. With Trump at the top, it won't be.
For Republican elites who may be pro-choice and for grassroots activists who believe they cannot support a party that wobbles on this issue, a Trump nomination shatters a mutual illusion: that the pro-life grassroots and the Republican elite need each other. In fact, absent major scrambling by a third party candidate, Trump's nomination all but guarantees that conservatives will be reduced to a tiny rump on a consolidated, progressive Supreme Court.
Even though I have wanted to see the GOP address the voters that Trump is courting with more substantial policies, I have serious doubts about whether the Republican coalition can so easily be re-assembled under Trump or after him. The one truly great thing about American political parties is that they are so big that their members must accommodate each other and moderate their demands and appetites. For too long, an elite financial wing of the Republican Party got immoderate about its demands, and the party caved to them. Trump is the understandable immoderate counter-reaction. Who or what can possibly reconcile these factions to one another?
...................................................................................................................................................................
Tuesday, February 23, 2016
I think it would be a good idea.
...................................................................................
"Is it surprising that a devoted supporter of Donald Trump would conduct himself so horribly as to draw a disqualification from a national cable channel? Not at all — just listen to Trump himself talk ..." (Must we?)
...................................................................................................................................................................
COMMENTS:
* Trump is an entertainer rather than a politician. Part of his entertainment is to tell stories. One story he told was that Kasich caused the Great Recession when he worked at Lehmann Brothers. What did Kasich do at Lehmann Brothers? Whatever, it is doubtful that Kasich caused the Great Recession. Same with that wall... the Mexicans certainly are not going to pay for it. It is all a joke, get it?
* Why don't they ban Trump, then? He's just as nasty.
* I clicked the links, and this guy sounds like a real nasty piece of work. No wonder Trump supporters like him. And judging by all the blatant, easily refutable B.S. Trump spews that his supporters lap up, the average Trumpite wouldn't know a lie if it bit him in the as$.
* After reading a few of the postings, it appears the Trump supporters are more than "off the reservation." they're plain sociopaths who feel Trump's hateful monotonous rhetoric somehow gives them license to crawl out of all corners to spew their own venom. Trump winning the GOP nomination will be the death nail of that party.
* Perhaps. His winning the presidency would definitely be the death knell of the country though.
* Trump's cult of supporters, are naive, gullible FOOLS!!... He is a pandering savant, using them to help him pump up his ultra narcissistic but fragile ego... However, they're so busy being scared of progress and tolerance, til their too dumb to see it. And the worst part is that we may ALL pay for their ignorance!... Just like when we trusted Cheney and his stooge Dubya'.
...................................................................................................................................................................
CNN bans Trump supporter Roger Stone after nasty, bigoted tweets
By Erik Wemple, February 23, 2016
On Sunday, Roger Stone, an outspoken supporter of Donald Trump, appeared on CNN’s “Reliable Sources” with Brian Stelter to chat about the media’s coverage of the Republican candidate. Stelter teed up a clip of Trump speaking to an audience on the campaign trail. Referring to an apocryphal story about U.S. General John J. “Black Jack” Pershing killing Muslims in the Philippines, Trump riffed, “He took fifty bullets, and he dipped them in pig’s blood. And he had his men load his rifles and he lined up the fifty people, and they shot 49 of those people. And the fiftieth person he said ‘You go back to your people and you tell them what happened.’ And for 25 years there wasn’t a problem, okay?”
There was only one problem: The story is not true.
When asked about the importance of truth in campaigning, Stone responded, “Whether it’s accurate or whether it’s apocryphal is really beyond the point. The point he’s making, of course, is that Trump is more realistic about the dangers of radical Islam than, say, our current president….By the way, is this any less egregious than the president saying if you like your health care plan you can keep your health care plan?”
It is far more egregious, considering that it’s essentially an endorsement for indiscriminately slaughtering Muslims.
Roger Stone will no longer be making such comparisons on CNN. “He will [no] longer appear as a guest on CNN,” says a network spokesperson about the author and former Trump adviser.
Just yesterday, Media Matters for America hammered CNN for according airtime to Stone even though he has used his Twitter account to launch nasty and racial attacks on network talent. “As Media Matters continues its campaign to highlight the worst of Roger Stone’s history, we encourage other networks to follow suit and agree to keep this notoriously controversial figure off of their airwaves moving forward,” said Media Matters President Bradley Beychok.
To the everlasting lament of the Erik Wemple Blog, we cannot repeat here the specifics of Stone’s nastiness, but summaries are available here and here. Gawker headlined a story on the matter, “CNN Should Stop Inviting This Horrible Bigot to Talk on TV.” We’ll try to get this one past the copy desk, however: In a tweet, Stone called CNN commentator Ana Navarro an “Entitled Diva Bitch.”
The practical implications of this move? Likely more airtime for CNN commentator Jeffrey Lord. A former Reagan White House political director, Lord is identified on air as a Trump supporter and surfaced on the CNN payroll with the apparent sole purpose of defending the candidate. From his perch in Pennsylvania, Lord — somehow — manages to craft pro-Trump positions without joining Stone in the gutter. At one point, Lord, using his grasp of history, researched a defense of Trump’s Muslim ban — a defense that Trump himself deployed.
For his part, Stone tweeted:
COMMENTS:
* Trump is an entertainer rather than a politician. Part of his entertainment is to tell stories. One story he told was that Kasich caused the Great Recession when he worked at Lehmann Brothers. What did Kasich do at Lehmann Brothers? Whatever, it is doubtful that Kasich caused the Great Recession. Same with that wall... the Mexicans certainly are not going to pay for it. It is all a joke, get it?
* Why don't they ban Trump, then? He's just as nasty.
* I clicked the links, and this guy sounds like a real nasty piece of work. No wonder Trump supporters like him. And judging by all the blatant, easily refutable B.S. Trump spews that his supporters lap up, the average Trumpite wouldn't know a lie if it bit him in the as$.
* After reading a few of the postings, it appears the Trump supporters are more than "off the reservation." they're plain sociopaths who feel Trump's hateful monotonous rhetoric somehow gives them license to crawl out of all corners to spew their own venom. Trump winning the GOP nomination will be the death nail of that party.
* Perhaps. His winning the presidency would definitely be the death knell of the country though.
* Trump's cult of supporters, are naive, gullible FOOLS!!... He is a pandering savant, using them to help him pump up his ultra narcissistic but fragile ego... However, they're so busy being scared of progress and tolerance, til their too dumb to see it. And the worst part is that we may ALL pay for their ignorance!... Just like when we trusted Cheney and his stooge Dubya'.
...................................................................................................................................................................
CNN bans Trump supporter Roger Stone after nasty, bigoted tweets
By Erik Wemple, February 23, 2016
On Sunday, Roger Stone, an outspoken supporter of Donald Trump, appeared on CNN’s “Reliable Sources” with Brian Stelter to chat about the media’s coverage of the Republican candidate. Stelter teed up a clip of Trump speaking to an audience on the campaign trail. Referring to an apocryphal story about U.S. General John J. “Black Jack” Pershing killing Muslims in the Philippines, Trump riffed, “He took fifty bullets, and he dipped them in pig’s blood. And he had his men load his rifles and he lined up the fifty people, and they shot 49 of those people. And the fiftieth person he said ‘You go back to your people and you tell them what happened.’ And for 25 years there wasn’t a problem, okay?”
There was only one problem: The story is not true.
When asked about the importance of truth in campaigning, Stone responded, “Whether it’s accurate or whether it’s apocryphal is really beyond the point. The point he’s making, of course, is that Trump is more realistic about the dangers of radical Islam than, say, our current president….By the way, is this any less egregious than the president saying if you like your health care plan you can keep your health care plan?”
It is far more egregious, considering that it’s essentially an endorsement for indiscriminately slaughtering Muslims.
Roger Stone will no longer be making such comparisons on CNN. “He will [no] longer appear as a guest on CNN,” says a network spokesperson about the author and former Trump adviser.
Just yesterday, Media Matters for America hammered CNN for according airtime to Stone even though he has used his Twitter account to launch nasty and racial attacks on network talent. “As Media Matters continues its campaign to highlight the worst of Roger Stone’s history, we encourage other networks to follow suit and agree to keep this notoriously controversial figure off of their airwaves moving forward,” said Media Matters President Bradley Beychok.
To the everlasting lament of the Erik Wemple Blog, we cannot repeat here the specifics of Stone’s nastiness, but summaries are available here and here. Gawker headlined a story on the matter, “CNN Should Stop Inviting This Horrible Bigot to Talk on TV.” We’ll try to get this one past the copy desk, however: In a tweet, Stone called CNN commentator Ana Navarro an “Entitled Diva Bitch.”
Roger Stone @RogerJStoneJrIs it surprising that a devoted supporter of Donald Trump would conduct himself so horribly as to draw a disqualification from a national cable channel? Not at all — just listen to Trump himself talk about women, Muslims, Mexicans and others unlike him. Defending the indefensible is tough to do without veering into the indefensible.
Why do all the make-up people and hair-stylists at CNN New York HATE @anaNavarro ? Entitled Diva Bitch
8:14 PM - 18 Feb 2016
The practical implications of this move? Likely more airtime for CNN commentator Jeffrey Lord. A former Reagan White House political director, Lord is identified on air as a Trump supporter and surfaced on the CNN payroll with the apparent sole purpose of defending the candidate. From his perch in Pennsylvania, Lord — somehow — manages to craft pro-Trump positions without joining Stone in the gutter. At one point, Lord, using his grasp of history, researched a defense of Trump’s Muslim ban — a defense that Trump himself deployed.
For his part, Stone tweeted:
Roger Stone @RogerJStoneJr...................................................................................................................................................................
Funny - seems the Clintons have ordered CNN not to interview me in the future because I am not PC #censorship http://mediamatters.org/blog/2016/02/23/cnn-trump-supporter-roger-stone-will-no-longer/208751 …
11:49 AM - 23 Feb 2016
"Perhaps the correct question is the one we should ask of ourselves -- have we always told the truth, the full truth, and what would our own lives look like if we had?"
...................................................................................................................................................................
No Secretary of State or other diplomat would accomplish anything if she/he always told the "truth".
...................................................................................................................................................................
COMMENTS:
* My comment to this is: She has a high security clearance. There are times that she could not be forthright and tell everything she knew. That she had to be careful what was said in the public arena to protect the information she had. So it is possible she did try to tell the truth as best she could, but had to withhold information, and therefore the answer you got. Also sometimes you see things a different way. Is that lying?
* Hillary has been the subject of the most attacks of any woman in politics, Why? Because the right wing knows she will be a powerful president. It's a shame that many so-called progressives, in their lust for a Sanders presidency, have climbed aboard this slimy train. She has the respect and trust of all Democrat notables, organization, and authorities who have worked with her. Sanders lacks such endorsements.
* Finally, an article that has hit the nail on the head. There is not now nor there has ever been a politician or anyone else for that matter that has always told the truth and never lied. That includes Bernie, whom his followers attest to his truth telling. He has spun a web of unrealistic goals that he knows he will never be able to fulfill. The republicians have tried so hard to portray Hillary as untrust worthy, yet I trust her more than any other candidate at this point to run the country. Trump and Bernie are two sides of the same coin, both extreme in opposite directions.
* Who cares! Are we now holding her to puritanical levels of lady like behavior. Trump spews profanity left and right but in him that conveys strength. In Hillary we should clutch our pearls because she swears in private? /eyeroll
* Absolutely. It's called the 'double standard'.
* Why don't they ever ask any of the Republicans that question? They lie more than anyone so please News people or reporters be consistant across the board.
...................................................................................................................................................................
Has Hillary Ever Lied? Wrong Question
By Ted Gup, February 23, 2016
Last week, candidate Hillary Clinton was asked by CBS's Scott Pelley if she has always told the truth. Her answer was less than straight-forward. She said she had always tried to tell the truth. Some, including many a conservative and Republican operative, as well as mainstream media like the Washington Post's Chris Cillizza, immediately pounced on the response as an act of equivocation, a parsing of words. (For that, her husband Bill Clinton, is the poster child -- he who in 1998 said "depends on what the meaning of "is" is.)
The Washington Post headline read "Hillary Clinton's terrible, horrible, no good, very bad answer..."
Now, no one can quarrel with the observation that Hillary has a trust problem. A small minority of New Hampshire voters said they trusted her. But I would like to take the hazardous position of defending her response -- and no, I am not a Hillary supporter -- at least, not yet.
What Hillary said is she has always tried to tell the truth. The correct answer, her critics argue, is "Yes, I have always told the truth." But had she said that she would, in my view -- and I suspect, many others -- have lost all credibility. Why? Because no one always tells the truth, and especially not politicians. This is not a cynical view, it is a realistic one. Non-politicians are constantly lying, if for no other reason, to spare the feelings of loved ones and friends, to conceal a dreaded diagnosis, to minimize a spouse's weight gain. But "white lies" are lies. (And who among us has not lied for other, less noble reasons of self-interest?) Were I asked the Hillary question, I hope I would have had the courage to respond as Hillary did, that I have always tried. But the truth is that I have not always told the truth. Twisted as it may sound, such an admission may not be a sign of deceitfulness, but of honesty.
Particularly in the political arena, the occasion -- nay, the demand -- to lie is constant. Giving in to it is but one measure of spine and character. But leaving it at that is too simplistic a view. The absolute truth-teller in politics is doomed from the get-go. We celebrate a politician's vision, one who can articulate broad ambitions and lofty goals, and we penalize those who are mired in details and candid in handicapping their chances of success. And we extol those who possess the diplomatic trait -- but a part of diplomacy and negotiation is often the ability to gain advantage without showing one's entire hand. The bluff, familiar to every card player and pol, is an act of posturing that is well short of truth.
We have a phrase for those who do not "mince words," a phrase which itself telegraphs a certain bluntness and lack of civility. We call them "brutally honest." It is a trait that suggests the speaker is offensive and insensitive to those he or she addresses. In the public realm, such brutal adherence to truth alienates others (I will get to Trump in a moment,) obliterates the chances for compromise and reconciliation, and leaves lingering resentments.
And when we speak of lying we usually limit our discussion to talk of crimes of commission -- saying something false, a fabrication. But truth-telling involves more than the absence of a lie -- it necessarily calls for a responsibility to provide a full and honest response. Withholding vital information or proper context from citizens is itself an act of deception. Such crimes of omission are common among politicians. Honoring matters of classification and national security, privacy, personnel issues, and a host of other concerns -- not to mention that rarity, good taste -- often means a politician will "skirt the truth" -- a lovely and delicate term that means something other than truth itself. Amazing the number of synonyms and euphemisms we have developed to draw distinctions between outright condemnation and flexibility when it comes to truth-telling. Most politicians have the wisdom and good sense not to respond honestly to inquiries that are out of bounds. Those of a certain age may remember Jimmy Carter confessing to Playboy magazine back in 1976 that he had committed mental adultery many times -- what today would be called "TMI."
I am not defending Hillary Clinton. That is something she can do for herself -- or not. What concerns me is the creation of a bogus standard, one that is unattainable in both the private and public realm, and one which ironically invites lying and misrepresentation. Demanding that a politician swear to a lifetime of fidelity to truth does nothing but set the stage for inevitable disappointment and disillusionment. The slick are rewarded, the honest penalized.
What we ask of them is that they always try to tell the truth, that that is their default position. But to ask them to unfailingly and indiscriminately utter the truth in all its full glory on all occasions is to ask them to commit personal and political suicide and to sacrifice all prospects for comity and bipartisanship. Another self-sanctimonious politician is the last thing we need. They may appeal to the smug and hypocritical, but ultimately they do not usher in an age of candor -- just more rancor and disharmony.
Which brings me to Donald Trump. Perhaps it is his willingness to blurt out whatever comes into his combed-over head, his contempt for the feelings of others, his willingness to lay waste to the landscape as he vents his true feelings (although the trueness of those feelings leaves many, including myself, in doubt) that is his appeal to voters who mistake rudeness for candor. The scourge of political protocol and verbal restraint, he is the embodiment of that fantasy figure -- the political truth-teller. To that class of citizens who crave candor above all else in a candidate -- and I do mean all else -- perhaps Trump is The Man. To me, he is a caricature of the truth-teller, someone who has parlayed the middle finger into a campaign promise. And, I fear -- or is it, I hope? -- the biggest liar of them all, cloaked as he is in the mantle of the One True Honest Politician. Ask him if he has always told the truth, and I suspect -- depending on the day -- he would not hesitate to say "yes" -- if that is what we want him to say.
Credit Hillary that she did not.
I am not oblivious to the dangers of my own argument. It opens the door to putting the ends above the means, to lying for the greater good, to leaving truth in the hands of the beholder. But alas, that door has always been open, and for good reason. We are human. That is not an excuse, it is a condition. There's a reason that fact-checkers like Politifact and those of other major news organizations are fully employed - and why no candidate has fully passed muster. There is also a reason why citizens have developed what the writer Ernest Hemingway once called a "shock-proof B_ _ _ S _ _ _ detector." As citizens, we have learned to bake such liberties with the truth into our assessments, to discount them as we do when we hear an ad. I do not condone such license-taking and I shudder to start separating out the acceptable lies from the unacceptable, but I also do not want one candidate held to a standard that no other can pass or to set a verbal trap for anyone with half a conscience.
As for Hillary's answer, I would not say it was the most artful, ("artful" too can be code for ambiguity and dissemblance) but it did get at something of the complexity of the issue. It is a complexity that is toxic on the campaign trail, and particularly to Hillary who inadvertently raised it in her response. But to insist upon the simplicity of a statement that she never lied, comforting as it may be to some -- and preposterous as it would have been to others -- is not the outcome we should seek from those running for office. Perhaps the correct question is the one we should ask of ourselves -- have we always told the truth, the full truth, and what would our own lives look like if we had?
...................................................................................................................................................................
No Secretary of State or other diplomat would accomplish anything if she/he always told the "truth".
...................................................................................................................................................................
COMMENTS:
* My comment to this is: She has a high security clearance. There are times that she could not be forthright and tell everything she knew. That she had to be careful what was said in the public arena to protect the information she had. So it is possible she did try to tell the truth as best she could, but had to withhold information, and therefore the answer you got. Also sometimes you see things a different way. Is that lying?
* Hillary has been the subject of the most attacks of any woman in politics, Why? Because the right wing knows she will be a powerful president. It's a shame that many so-called progressives, in their lust for a Sanders presidency, have climbed aboard this slimy train. She has the respect and trust of all Democrat notables, organization, and authorities who have worked with her. Sanders lacks such endorsements.
* Finally, an article that has hit the nail on the head. There is not now nor there has ever been a politician or anyone else for that matter that has always told the truth and never lied. That includes Bernie, whom his followers attest to his truth telling. He has spun a web of unrealistic goals that he knows he will never be able to fulfill. The republicians have tried so hard to portray Hillary as untrust worthy, yet I trust her more than any other candidate at this point to run the country. Trump and Bernie are two sides of the same coin, both extreme in opposite directions.
* Who cares! Are we now holding her to puritanical levels of lady like behavior. Trump spews profanity left and right but in him that conveys strength. In Hillary we should clutch our pearls because she swears in private? /eyeroll
* Absolutely. It's called the 'double standard'.
* Why don't they ever ask any of the Republicans that question? They lie more than anyone so please News people or reporters be consistant across the board.
...................................................................................................................................................................
Has Hillary Ever Lied? Wrong Question
By Ted Gup, February 23, 2016
Last week, candidate Hillary Clinton was asked by CBS's Scott Pelley if she has always told the truth. Her answer was less than straight-forward. She said she had always tried to tell the truth. Some, including many a conservative and Republican operative, as well as mainstream media like the Washington Post's Chris Cillizza, immediately pounced on the response as an act of equivocation, a parsing of words. (For that, her husband Bill Clinton, is the poster child -- he who in 1998 said "depends on what the meaning of "is" is.)
The Washington Post headline read "Hillary Clinton's terrible, horrible, no good, very bad answer..."
Now, no one can quarrel with the observation that Hillary has a trust problem. A small minority of New Hampshire voters said they trusted her. But I would like to take the hazardous position of defending her response -- and no, I am not a Hillary supporter -- at least, not yet.
What Hillary said is she has always tried to tell the truth. The correct answer, her critics argue, is "Yes, I have always told the truth." But had she said that she would, in my view -- and I suspect, many others -- have lost all credibility. Why? Because no one always tells the truth, and especially not politicians. This is not a cynical view, it is a realistic one. Non-politicians are constantly lying, if for no other reason, to spare the feelings of loved ones and friends, to conceal a dreaded diagnosis, to minimize a spouse's weight gain. But "white lies" are lies. (And who among us has not lied for other, less noble reasons of self-interest?) Were I asked the Hillary question, I hope I would have had the courage to respond as Hillary did, that I have always tried. But the truth is that I have not always told the truth. Twisted as it may sound, such an admission may not be a sign of deceitfulness, but of honesty.
Particularly in the political arena, the occasion -- nay, the demand -- to lie is constant. Giving in to it is but one measure of spine and character. But leaving it at that is too simplistic a view. The absolute truth-teller in politics is doomed from the get-go. We celebrate a politician's vision, one who can articulate broad ambitions and lofty goals, and we penalize those who are mired in details and candid in handicapping their chances of success. And we extol those who possess the diplomatic trait -- but a part of diplomacy and negotiation is often the ability to gain advantage without showing one's entire hand. The bluff, familiar to every card player and pol, is an act of posturing that is well short of truth.
We have a phrase for those who do not "mince words," a phrase which itself telegraphs a certain bluntness and lack of civility. We call them "brutally honest." It is a trait that suggests the speaker is offensive and insensitive to those he or she addresses. In the public realm, such brutal adherence to truth alienates others (I will get to Trump in a moment,) obliterates the chances for compromise and reconciliation, and leaves lingering resentments.
And when we speak of lying we usually limit our discussion to talk of crimes of commission -- saying something false, a fabrication. But truth-telling involves more than the absence of a lie -- it necessarily calls for a responsibility to provide a full and honest response. Withholding vital information or proper context from citizens is itself an act of deception. Such crimes of omission are common among politicians. Honoring matters of classification and national security, privacy, personnel issues, and a host of other concerns -- not to mention that rarity, good taste -- often means a politician will "skirt the truth" -- a lovely and delicate term that means something other than truth itself. Amazing the number of synonyms and euphemisms we have developed to draw distinctions between outright condemnation and flexibility when it comes to truth-telling. Most politicians have the wisdom and good sense not to respond honestly to inquiries that are out of bounds. Those of a certain age may remember Jimmy Carter confessing to Playboy magazine back in 1976 that he had committed mental adultery many times -- what today would be called "TMI."
I am not defending Hillary Clinton. That is something she can do for herself -- or not. What concerns me is the creation of a bogus standard, one that is unattainable in both the private and public realm, and one which ironically invites lying and misrepresentation. Demanding that a politician swear to a lifetime of fidelity to truth does nothing but set the stage for inevitable disappointment and disillusionment. The slick are rewarded, the honest penalized.
What we ask of them is that they always try to tell the truth, that that is their default position. But to ask them to unfailingly and indiscriminately utter the truth in all its full glory on all occasions is to ask them to commit personal and political suicide and to sacrifice all prospects for comity and bipartisanship. Another self-sanctimonious politician is the last thing we need. They may appeal to the smug and hypocritical, but ultimately they do not usher in an age of candor -- just more rancor and disharmony.
Which brings me to Donald Trump. Perhaps it is his willingness to blurt out whatever comes into his combed-over head, his contempt for the feelings of others, his willingness to lay waste to the landscape as he vents his true feelings (although the trueness of those feelings leaves many, including myself, in doubt) that is his appeal to voters who mistake rudeness for candor. The scourge of political protocol and verbal restraint, he is the embodiment of that fantasy figure -- the political truth-teller. To that class of citizens who crave candor above all else in a candidate -- and I do mean all else -- perhaps Trump is The Man. To me, he is a caricature of the truth-teller, someone who has parlayed the middle finger into a campaign promise. And, I fear -- or is it, I hope? -- the biggest liar of them all, cloaked as he is in the mantle of the One True Honest Politician. Ask him if he has always told the truth, and I suspect -- depending on the day -- he would not hesitate to say "yes" -- if that is what we want him to say.
Credit Hillary that she did not.
I am not oblivious to the dangers of my own argument. It opens the door to putting the ends above the means, to lying for the greater good, to leaving truth in the hands of the beholder. But alas, that door has always been open, and for good reason. We are human. That is not an excuse, it is a condition. There's a reason that fact-checkers like Politifact and those of other major news organizations are fully employed - and why no candidate has fully passed muster. There is also a reason why citizens have developed what the writer Ernest Hemingway once called a "shock-proof B_ _ _ S _ _ _ detector." As citizens, we have learned to bake such liberties with the truth into our assessments, to discount them as we do when we hear an ad. I do not condone such license-taking and I shudder to start separating out the acceptable lies from the unacceptable, but I also do not want one candidate held to a standard that no other can pass or to set a verbal trap for anyone with half a conscience.
As for Hillary's answer, I would not say it was the most artful, ("artful" too can be code for ambiguity and dissemblance) but it did get at something of the complexity of the issue. It is a complexity that is toxic on the campaign trail, and particularly to Hillary who inadvertently raised it in her response. But to insist upon the simplicity of a statement that she never lied, comforting as it may be to some -- and preposterous as it would have been to others -- is not the outcome we should seek from those running for office. Perhaps the correct question is the one we should ask of ourselves -- have we always told the truth, the full truth, and what would our own lives look like if we had?
...................................................................................................................................................................
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)