#conservative malarkey on the supreme court

[el-ffej]

LIVE CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS REACTION:

[somethingusefulfromflorida]

13 Keys to the White House: UPDATE

The original post can be read here, I wrote it a day before George Floyd was murdered, and the political landscape has shifted SO MUCH since then.

There are 13 questions that define which party will win the presidential election based on how well the incumbent and challenging parties have fared over the last four years.  The incumbent party needs 8 out of 13 to be true to win, while the challengers need 6 or more to be false.  As of May 25, it stood, in order of severity

FALSE

FALSE

FALSE

Almost certainly false

Probably false

Maybe false

Unclear

Maybe

Maybe true

True as of right now

TRUE

TRUE

TRUE

Biden and Trump both has 3 solid keys in their field, with three more teetering on either side, and one tossup in the middle.  It was anybody’s game, though Biden had a slight edge because he only needs 6 to Trump’s 8.

Not everything has changed in the last week, but just enough to solidify some of the less certain keys

Party Mandate:  After the midterm elections, the incumbent party holds more seats in the U.S. House of Representatives than after the previous midterm elections.  FALSE (Democrats won more in 2018 than Republicans won in 2014)

Contest:  There is no serious contest for the incumbent party nomination. TRUE (Donald Trump faces no real challengers)

Incumbency: The incumbent party candidate is the sitting president.  TRUE (barring the coronavirus, or a heart attack brought on by all the fast food he eats, Donald Trump will be the nominee this November)

Third party:  There is no significant third party or independent campaign. TRUE (Amash has dropped out, and the Libertarians have nominated a nobody who chose an even smaller nobody as her running mate.  But then again, the election is 5 months away, which in 2020-months is approximately 9000 years away; a lot can change between now and then.  I mean, just 5 months ago the coronavirus hadn’t spread outside of China yet.  Maybe a conservative spoiler will gain traction.  Maybe some disillusioned republicans will rally behind a write-in candidate.  Maybe an asteroid hits and we all have to move underground and evolve into C.H.U.D.s to survive.  Anything goes in 2020.  Blow on them dice, LUCK BE A LADY)

Short-term economy: The economy is not in recession during the election campaign.  FALSE (The Great Shutdown, the second once-in-a-lifetime economic collapse in less than 15 years. We’re only four months into it right now; things are going to get so much worse before they get better.)

Long-term economy:  Real per capita economic growth during the term equals or exceeds mean growth during the previous two terms.  Almost Certainly False (Unemployment continues to rise at record breaking levels. Civil unrest is widespread in all 50 states, several territories, and even international cities in solidarity with the cause.  The pandemic is far from over, and we are on the verge of a second wave..  There’s no chance in hell the economy will grow this year.  2020 is the Spiders Georg of years; it is a statistical outlier, it’s so low it’ll bring down the rest of the whole term, wiping out all growth since 2017.  I mean, Republicans wanted trump to run the country like one of his businesses, and he’s giving them exactly what they wanted.  This is his MO; run it into the ground, declare bankruptcy, don’t pay anyone, move onto your next failed project.  Same shit as always)

Policy change: The incumbent administration effects major changes in national policy.Unclear  (He hasn’t kept many of his campaign promies, but he has enriched himself and his colleagues, abusing the power of the executive for personal gain, which is a pretty major change.  This key will come down to the Supreme Court decisions on his tax returns; if they decide in favor of the president, they are saying that he doesn’t have to obey subpoenas anymore, expanding the powers of the president and getting rid of legislative oversight, checks and balances; this would be a HUGE policy change akin to declaring him a king, as it would mean he is no long capable of being held accountable for anything.  If they decide against him though, a lot of skeletons will come bursting out of his closet, which may or may not damage him politically.  Let’s be honest, they won’t.   Nothing ever does.  The tax returns could reveal that he has been paying a Russian company called “WE MEDDLE, YOU WIN, GUARANTEE” for thirty years, and he and his cronies will still spin it as a positive thing.  Nothing ever hurts this guy, so I wonder why he even gives a shit about hiding his taxes anymore.  All we know is that he has to be hiding something BIG if he’s going this far to try and cover it up,  Could this take him down?  Probably not, but fingers crossed.)

Social unrest:  There is no sustained social unrest during the term.  FALSE  (I made this post before the George Floyd protests began, but there’s no ambiguity about it now.   The cracks in the system have been expanding for years, and now the dam has finally burst.  And rightfully so; riots are the language of the unheard.  My only concerns are that if the protests continue into November, a bunch of republican lawmakers are gonna use it as an excuse to stop people from voting. ”Curfew begins at 8PM, anyone still in line at their polling places will be arrested and/or shot”)

Scandal:  The incumbent administration is untainted by major scandal.  FALSE (there’s only so much you an handle before you drop all pretenses and say “this is no longer subjective, this is objectively scandalous.”  Everything they do is designed to get as big a reaction as possible, they pick the objectively worst people and take the objectively worst positions on everything because they’re trying to stoke controversy.  Russia, Ukraine, carrots and potatoes.  The real meat are all the domestic scandal.  Turning off the White House lights and hunkering in a safe space underneath it like  PUNK ASS BITCH?  Mobilizing the National Guard around the country?  Teargassing protestors so he can pose with a Bible he’s never read in front of a church he’s never attended, holding it up like it’s some annoying obligation of his, “see? See, I like the Bible. Look, I’m holding it up.  Why would I be holding it up if I didn’t just LOOOOOVE it?  Can everybody see?  I’m holding it out at arms length and waving it back and forth just to make sure all the cameras know, I want then to get a good shot of it. I will shortly give it to an aide and be taken home in my limo, at which point I will forget the Bible exists because my brain is turning to jelly and I’ve lost the concept of object permanence.”)

Foreign/military failure:  The incumbent administration suffers no major failure in foreign or military affairs. Maybe (on the one hand, Iran didn’t retaliate when we killed their general, but on the other hand we retreated out of Syria, let thousands of ISIS fighters go, and aided the Turks in a Kurdish genocide.  The tit-for-tat sanctions against China threatened to crash the global economy, but then the coronavirus came in and did that all by itself, so it’s unclear whether we’ve “failed” or simply “not succeeded.”)

Foreign/military success:  The incumbent administration achieves a major success in foreign or military affairs. Maybe false? (for the same reason as above, it is hard to judge what is or isn’t a success.  USMCA is unpopular and small potatoes.  The North Korean talks are all show with no substance; Kim will never get rid of his nukes.   We’re still caught up in W’s endless wars, and I don’t see an end in sight, so I’d say this is definitely not a success. I have no doubt in my mind the October Surprise is gonna be another bombing in Iran to kill the ayatollah. The Iran War will start on November 3, same day as the election, there will be the first draft since Vietnam, a bunch of POCs will be forced into the military as cannon fodder; it’ll be a bloodbath for both sides)

Incumbent charisma: The incumbent party candidate is charismatic or a national hero.  FALSE (Trump is revered as the Second Coming of Christ by his base, but they make up less than 40% of the total country; other Republicans tolerate him at best, and all Democrats hate him. He has never had majority approval, he will never go down with the likes of the universally beloved Washington, Lincoln, and the Roosevelts.  The most surprising thing of the last six months has got to be the emergence of the Lincoln Project, a coalition of Republicans who have finally grown spines, guts, and balls to stand up against trump and actively campaign against him.  He doesn’t have total party control anymore, the Republicans are eroding, though to be fair the Democrats eroded a long time ago; the Republicans are a crumbling cairn, longstanding but now weakened and in danger of falling over, while the Democrats are a nice gravel walkway that everyone steps on and complains about even though the walkway is a nice addition to the park; it really ties the negative space together, linking the tennis courts with the pull-up bars.  I’ve lost the thread of this analogy)

Challenger charisma:  The challenging party candidate is not charismatic or a national hero.  TRUE (Joe Biden is the Walter Mondale of Al Gores.  Republicans hate him,  even though he’s a moderate an would almost certainly try to reach across the aisle to compromise with them.  Which is exactly why about half of Democrats don’t really like him; he’s too moderate and would work with Republicans.  He’s old and senile, he keeps making gaffe after gaffe after gaffe, and doesn’t seem to know how the game is played anymore.  Someone needs to find Grampa a nice home so he can retire and talk to his nurse about how he used to get into fist fights with ne’er-do-wells, “buncha malarkey, I tell ya”)

This gives us, from best to worst:

FALSE

FALSE

FALSE

FALSE

FALSE

Almost Certainly False

Maybe false

unclear

Maybe

TRUE

TRUE

TRUE

TRUE

Incumbent Trumps needs 8 true to win.  Challenger Biden needs 6 false to win.

Biden definitely has 5, he only needs 1 more to claim it, and there are two good keys that are leaning heavily in his favor; trump’s long-term economy is in the tank, and he hasn’t had any victories overseas.  Biden has this one in the bag [don’t grow complacent, there’s still plenty of fuckery to be had from here to November]

Trumps would need to flip four keys to win, only one of which leans in his favor, one is unclear, and two are in Biden’s court.  The economy is in ruins, he hasn’t set up any real domestic Trump Doctrine, and the military has neither succeeded nor failed in any meaningful way these last four years.  He’s going into November with a major disadvantage, perhaps the only time in his life he has ever not had an advantage.

But then again, there’s always the possibility that it could be a 2000/2016 repeat, where Biden wins the popular vote but Trump ekes by with the electoral college victory yet again.  This model doesn’t take that into account because the popular vote winner almost always wins the EC too.

Trump is not more popular today than he was 4 years ago.  He’s never had majority approval.  While his base loves him more now than ever, they represent a minority of voters, and pretty much everyone else hates him.  Anyone who was on the fence in 2016 is definitively over the fence in 2020.  If he “wins,” it’s not going to be a 1972/1984 blowout, that’s just not gonna happen, too many states hate him too much.  It will be very close; I will not rule out the possibility of a 269-269 tie in the electoral college, triggering a contingent election where the House of Representatives has to pick the president.  Democrats have a majority in the House right now, but in contingent elections they don’t vote as 435 individuals, they vote as 50 state blocs; even though there are more Democrats than Republicans, they’re packed together into as few states as possible, giving Republicans over 26 stateside majorities, enough to ensure they would pick Trump in a contingent election.

It’s a bullshit system, and I pray it doesn’t come to that.

[go-redgirl]

By Deroy Murdock Thursday, 20 February 2020 05:07 PMCurrent | Bio | Archive

Justice for Stone Does Not Mean Undue Leniency or Cruelty

"Equal Justice Under Law."

What a joke!

Those four stirring words atop the U.S. Supreme Court’s portico, were transformed into a punchline Thursday.

U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson sentenced President Donald J. Trump’s friend Roger Stone to three years and four months in prison for witness intimidation and lying to Congress. Stone’s penalty emerged just six days after the Justice Department (DOJ) dropped its inquiry into Trump foe, former acting FBI director Andrew McCabe.

Never mind that Justice filed a criminal referral when it "became concerned that McCabe may have lacked candor when questioned . . . "

So, 40 months behind bars for Stone, while McCabe enjoys air time and paychecks as a CNN commentor and royalties from his book, "The Threat: How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and Trump."

This is Washington’s nauseating new reality — A two-track justice system offers political insiders on the left impunity and income from publishing and broadcast deals.

However, political outsiders on the right face crippling legal fees and incarceration.

Consider:

•President Trump’s former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, is doing 7.5-years for his pre-Trump tax and bank fraud.

•Former campaign aide George Papadopoulos served 12 days in the slammer for false statements to FBI officers. His steep legal bills and spooked clients drove him back into his parents’ house.

•Former national security adviser Michael Flynn awaits sentencing, and wants his charges dropped, after pleading guilty to false statements. Flynn reportedly took a plea after selling his house to pay his lawyers. DOJ prosecuted Flynn, even though McCabe acknowledged that "the two people who interviewed [Flynn] didn’t think he was lying . . .  " Flynn stillcould wind up on ice.

Compare the plight of these Trump allies with the charmed lives of just a few of his and the Right’s tormentors.

•Former FBI director James B. Comey was the subject of a criminal referral by DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz. Comey removed several memoranda from his office related to his conversations with Trump. Comey then sent one memo to his friend, Columbia University Law Professor Daniel Richman, specifically so that he would leak it to the media and trigger a special-prosecutor probe.

The OIG concluded: "Comey violated applicable policies and his Employment Agreement" and spilled state secrets.

So, is Comey breaking rocks?

"He’s been traveling the country giving six-figure paid speeches on leadership." Business Insider’s Alex Morrell reported. Comey also secured a $3 million contract to write the best-selling "A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies and Leadership." "And then there’s the forthcoming CBS Studios miniseries," Morrell added, "in which he’ll be portrayed by actor Jeff Daniels."

As for legal trouble, Comey is all smiles.

• Despite 588 security violations that the State Department attributed to Hillary Clinton and her associates in the E-mailgate scandal, as well as her role in purchasing the "dirty dossier" that triggered the Russia hoax, the former first lady has suffered zero consequences for an entire career of professional misconduct. And she always gets paid.

Her 2014 book "Hard Choices" scored her some $14 million. In 2015, Business Insider reports, Hillary made $12 million in speaking fees to well-connected organizations including:

-Biotechnology Industry Organization: $335,000

-Qualcomm Incorporated: $335,000

-GTCR Private Equity: $780,000

• Lois Lerner ran the IRS unit that perpetrated the systematic political profiling of conservative groups that sought tax-exempt designation. Lerner supervised this virtual gag-the-right scheme. When GOP congressional overseers sought Lerner’s hard drive, they learned that it was shredded.

Was Lerner punished?

Lerner was placed on administrative leave. She received her $177,000 annual salary at home. According to The Washington Post, "Lerner has received a $100,000 annual pension since retiring from the IRS in September 2013."

America needs equal justice, but neither undue leniency nor undeserved cruelty toward Stone. Given his sentence, McCabe, Comey, Clinton, and Lerner should be locked up.

But since those four got zero prison time, plus book and TV deals and a hefty pension, Roger Stone deserves no less.

Bucknell University’s Michael Malarkey contributed research to this opinion piece.

[hellofastestnewsfan]

It’s Monday, December 2. The Supreme Court heard arguments for the first gun-rights case in a decade. The fact that it even took this case is consequential.

In today’s newsletter: borrowing from the field of psychology, a fascinating theory on Trump’s unwavering base. Plus, John Kerry’s World War Zero.

*

« TODAY IN POLITICS »

(Louisa Bertman)

“I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters.”

Of all the Trump-isms regularly quoted today, perhaps none has proved more prescient than the president’s own 2016 boast about his rock-solid support.

1. It’s all about his base.

Unlike all modern presidents, President Donald Trump’s approval rating hasn’t cracked 50 percent since he took office.

But among those who voted for him in 2016, upwards of 90 percent are still on board the Trump Train.

My colleague Peter Nicholas, one of our White House reporters, has heard firsthand from the president’s supporters on this seemingly unassailable appeal.

“You ask what appeals to me [about Trump],” one 47-year-old business owner told Peter at a July rally in North Carolina. “The easiest way to say it: everything. Everything about him.”

“Everyone loves our president,” the chief executive officer of My Pillow told Peter at an October rally in Minnesota. “Some just don’t know yet it.”

2. It’s … not all about his base.

Playing only to the base might not be the most politically astute gambit for Trump in 2020, Ron Brownstein writes.

Around 16 to 19 percent of voters approve of Trump’s handling of the economy, but still disapprove of his overall job performance.

This voting bloc could be key to whether Trump wins another term.

3. Can understanding how narcissists attract—and then repel—people help explain Trump’s relationship with his base?

The psychologist Dan P. McAdams has a new theory for why Trump’s base has never abandoned him—even as the president cycles through advisers and Cabinet members more quickly than predecessors:

The millions of American voters who adore the president do not have to interact with him directly.

Unlike the White House staff, they do not have to endure Trump’s incendiary outbursts or kowtow to his unpredictable whims. As anonymous members of a television audience, they can gaze upon their hero from afar.

The full piece is full of fascinating research. Read it here.

—Saahil Desai

*

« SNAPSHOT »

(Bryan Snyder / Reuters)

Joe Biden makes a stop today at a cafe in Emmetsburg, Iowa as part of his new “No Malarkey” bus tour. (Need a refresher on the origins of Biden and “malarkey?”)

*

« IDEAS AND ARGUMENTS »

Former White House Counsel Don McGahn (Jim Bourg / Reuters)

It’s a big week for impeachment as the inquiry wends its way to the House Judiciary Committee. Here’s where sparks might fly.

1. Experts are now eyeing the relationship between Trump and the Court.

The U.S. Supreme Court is a check on executive power—but the conservative majority on the current bench has been reluctant to break with Trump, Ron Brownstein writes, leaving one man in a central (pun intended) position.

2. Will Robert Mueller return?

Didn’t mean to startle you—we mean, return in the form of details from his 448-page multipart report, released earlier this year.

The Judiciary Committee will have to decide how much of the special counsel’s findings to include in its final recommendation for impeachment, setting up a “question of goals of [Jerry] Nadler, Nancy Pelosi, and the Democratic caucus,” Benjamin Wittes and Quinta Jurecic write.

3. Have the normally forceful forces of subpoenas lost their bite?

Among the evidence Democrats are using to build a possible obstruction of justice charge against Trump is his office’s extensive use of executive privilege to defy Congressional subpoenas.

“The House should fight hard for access to the full story about the president’s Ukraine shenanigans,” Kim Wehle argues, “and not let the executive branch win by default.”

*

« EVENING READ »

(Hamilton / Rea / Redux)

The former secretary of state has been at the forefront of major climate negotiations around the world, from the 1997 Kyoto Protocol to the 2015 Paris Agreement.

He’s now taking another approach: a new bipartisan, celebrity-studded climate initiative called World War Zero.

Kerry spoke with our climate writer Robinson Meyer about 2020 and the work left to be done on climate change:

The fact that emissions are going up in the United States, they’re going up in Europe, they’re going up in China, they’re going up in India, they’re going up in countless countries in the world, that is just—I could use an expletive, but it’s really unacceptable. It’s outrageous.

Read what Kerry said would set his new organization apart.

*

Today’s edition of our daily newsletter of political ideas and arguments was written by Saahil Desai, an editor on our politics desk, and Christian Paz, a politics fellow. It was edited by Shan Wang.

You can reply directly to this newsletter with questions or comments, or send a note to politicsdaily@theatlantic.com.

Your support makes our journalism possible. Subscribe here.

from The Atlantic https://ift.tt/2qcFGTa

[duanecbrooks]

Be Thankful for What Trump Is Not BY ANDREW KLAVAN  I sometimes wonder: How many people are really stupid enough to believe in the insane religion of the left? Outside of our idiot intellectual elite, I mean. Outside of the knuckleheads on the New York Times op-ed page, or the buffoons who give literary awards to Ta-Nehisi Coates, or the jackasses who serve as administrators of universities. I can't believe that any substantial number of regular people are as moronic as these folks, that any substantial number really believe that, say, gender is a social construct or Islam is a religion of peace or socialism improves lives or man-made climate change threatens the existence of humanity. This week, I entertained myself for an idle hour with some leftist reactions to President Trump's withdrawal from the environmentally useless and economically harmful Paris climate accord. "A traitorous act of war against the American people," thoughtfully opined leftist billionaire Tom Steyer. "Your kids are gonna die from climate change," was the sober judgement of Vice News editor Chelsey Coombs. "The United States resigned as leader of the Free World," was the sage assessment of CNN's Fareed Zakaria. And sure, their leftist tears made a fine salty seasoning for my afternoon omelet. But still, I wonder: how many actual, common sense human beings buy into their silliness? Not many, polls suggest. A lot of people may mouth agreement, but I suspect many even of these know leftism is largely a virtue-signaling, power-grabbing scam. But the problem is, a few dopey intellectuals and their absurd little notions can have outsized power: the power of the echo chamber, the power of fashionable acceptance, the power of creating the atmosphere within the Beltway Bubble. And while Republicans frequently strut and fret about their opposition to leftist malarkey, they just as frequently acquiesce to it in the event. Witness their inability to stem the disaster of Obamacare now that they finally have the chance. Which is why this au revoir to Paris is so encouraging. By withdrawing from the accord, Trump proves he is not susceptible to the influence of the usual knuckleheads. He seems deaf to the echo chamber, indifferent to media acceptance, immune to the atmosphere. In fact, some of the very things that make Trump unappealing to gentle folk like me — his belligerence, his recklessness, his bullish and even bullying insistence on his own vision — are also what sometimes lift him above the Leftist Crazy that so addles the intelligentsia. How important is that? Very. The other day on my podcast, I interviewed free-speech hero, attorney Floyd Abrams. Abrams earned the hostility of conservatives by working for the right of the New York Times to publish the Pentagon Papers; and he earned the hostility of leftists by successfully arguing for Citizens United. Reading his excellent book The Soul of the First Amendment opened my eyes to the dangers even a few intellectual doofuses can create and (though this is clearly not the book's intention) strengthened my wary support of the president. The money portion of the interview was where I questioned Abrams about the First Amendment approach of leftist Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer as Breyer laid it out in his dissent on a campaign finance case: Abrams: What... Breyer was saying was: the First Amendment is not just an individual right, that it exists to assure that the government actually represents the views of the people by being sure that the people can speak out, etc....  But I think it's very dangerous to start talking about the First Amendment as being focused on making the government work better or be more responsive. The First Amendment is a limit on the government.... The purpose of the First Amendment is to avoid censorship by the government of views, most of all, about the government. Klavan: Right. Because otherwise the government would be deciding what was good for the government. Abrams: Absolutely. Klavan: So how many justices on the Supreme Court, do you think, are sympathetic to Breyer's argument? Abrams: Well, four of them signed on to that opinion. As to whether they all would really do so in a later case, it's hard to say... Klavan: So it's possible that if Scalia had not been replaced with a conservative, the First Amendment would've completely changed its meaning, basically. It's possible. Abrams: Well, yes, it's possible. I don't want to blow this out of proportion. This is edited for brevity, so listen to the whole thing (and read the book). But with the Supreme Court taking on the role, as it has, of super legislature, all it requires is five idiot intellectuals who believe in leftist crap for us to lose the right to speak free — which, let's face it, is inseparable from the right to live free. Because Trump is what he is — and because of what he is not — we have preserved that precious right for another day. For that alone, he deserves our thanks and support.