Month: February 2020

Manchin Comes Crawling Back After Trump Guilty Vote

Posted on by LifeZette

By David Kamioner | February 14, 2020

By making the vote to acquit the president a partisan affair, and making the guilty vote a bipartisan action with the Romney defection, Joe Manchin had to know there would be a price to pay.

We did a piece on it in LifeZette. It was obvious, as he had teased he might vote to acquit. So now his olive branches to the White House just look like pathetic groveling.

Also, according to LifeZette sources on Capitol Hill, the phones have been ringing off the hook in Manchin’s office and the response to his guilty vote has not been pretty. Calls are running over 2 to 1 for the president and against Manchin on the vote.

MORE NEWS: Disturbing new report reveals FBI had multiple informants in Trump’s presidential campaign

Oh no, says Joe. Everything is hunky dory. He and president will soon be buds again.

So not to burden with a lot of his blather, his rationale for the optimism is that when Trump did his best to unseat Manchin in 2018 they had lunch a week after his reelection. The insinuation is that this is just a game on the part of the president and soon bygones will bygones.

But hold on.

Manchin said one of the reasons he voted guilty was because he didn’t like the president’s message at the State of the Union address the night before his impeachment vote, “I saw the State of the Union, and I said: ‘It’s not who we are.’ There’s so many good things that we can do better. I hope he changes,” he told Politico. “I’m looking for that person that has heart and soul and compassion.”

So the president does not currently have “heart, and soul and compassion” according to the senator.  But Manchin expects it to suddenly appear in his case? Oh, of course. That’s a gimme because we all know Donald Trump is politically easygoing. Doesn’t hold grudges at all. Nahhhh…

MORE NEWS: Biden stuns New Hampshire voter by calling her a ‘lying, dog-faced pony soldier’

Lindsey Graham is trying to smooth over feathers between the two. He correctly points out that the GOP, with 53 votes, will need Democrat votes to achieve 60 and get GOP and presidential legislation out of the Senate and to the president’s desk for signature into law.

That’s true. But it may be up to the GOP Senate to make nice with Manchin right now. If Trump acts like Trump, always a good bet, then Manchin still has some time left in the dog house.

This piece originally appeared in LifeZette and is used by permission.

Read more at LifeZette:
Mitt Romney hit with new Republican resolution that would force him to support Trump or give up his seat
CNN’s Brian Stelter tries to attack Fox News for ignoring major Trump story – it immediately backfires
Challenger DeAnna Lorraine charging hard against Nancy Pelosi

The post Manchin Comes Crawling Back After Trump Guilty Vote appeared first on The Political Insider.

Well, impeachment didn't work – how else can Congress keep President Trump in check?

Posted on by Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines

Well, impeachment didn't work – how else can Congress keep President Trump in check?Donald Trump’s removal of impeachment witness Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman from the White House and intervention in his friend Roger Stone’s sentencing have prompted concern that the president’s acquittal in his recent impeachment trial may embolden him to further expand executive power while avoiding accountability.But the conclusion of the trial in the Senate should by no means end congressional oversight of the executive branch. As a legal scholar and political scientist, I know that a healthy, stable democracy depends on people knowing what their government is doing so they can hold elected officials accountable through elections. Our constitutional system ensures transparency and accountability by authorizing legislative branch oversight of the executive.This is more important now in the aftermath of the first ever presidential impeachment trial to take place without witness testimony or a full investigation of the facts. Oversight is one way to ensure government transparency. The Constitution authorizes Congress to exercise oversight as part of the carefully crafted balance of powers among the three branches of government.Impeachment is an important check on presidential power. However, it is the most rarely used of the multiple tools Congress has to review, monitor and supervise the executive branch and its implementation of public policy.Congress can also exercise oversight through the power of the purse, which allows it to withhold or limit funding. And it can use its power to organize the executive branch, which it uses to create and abolish federal agencies.In addition, Congress makes laws, confirms officials and conducts investigations. Shining a lightThe tool Congress is most likely to use – investigations – is also the most likely to be affected by the impeachment trial. Investigations can be an effective mechanism for ensuring governmental transparency because they publicize what government agencies have, or have not, been doing. Both the House and the Senate have broad investigative powers implied in the Constitution that have been used to probe the executive branch and private sector over the years. Each chamber has wide powers in setting out the parameters and expected outcomes of an inquiry. Either the House or the Senate can direct staff to obtain documents and interview potential witnesses. These efforts usually culminate in committee hearings and a report made available to the public. Congressional investigations have effectively shined light on questionable executive branch conduct in the past. They exposed the Reagan administration’s diversion of funds from sales of arms to Iran to aid the Nicaraguan Contras, George W. Bush administration’s misrepresentation of intelligence to justify the Iraq War, and President Nixon’s attempts to cover up the Watergate scandal.They have also revealed waste and abuse by federal agencies, including corruption related to the FBI’s use of confidential informants and mismanagement by leadership in the Department of Justice’s Environmental Crimes Program.In addition to fostering transparency and governmental accountability, investigations alert Congress to gaps in the law. For example, the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations’ inquiry into the 2008 financial crisis led to greater consumer protection and regulation of the banking sector in the Dodd-Frank Act. Existing oversight investigations into Trump’s policies and him personally will continue. The House Subcommittee on Oversight and Reform has at least two pending investigations. One is looking into the Department of Education’s policies on federal student loans, campus sexual harassment and protections for students at for-profit colleges. Another is investigating the Trump administration’s decision to add a citizenship question to the census. Meanwhile, investigations into Trump’s borrowing and banking practices prior to becoming president will continue. So will efforts to compel the Treasury Department to release Trump’s tax returns. Impeachment’s shadow?But as the impeachment trial shows, the president can stonewall efforts to hand over information. Currently, federal courts are hearing multiple court cases in which House committees have sought information from or about the president.More disputes between Congress and the executive branch are likely. Recently, the House Committee on Oversight and Reform threatened to subpoena Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos after she refused to attend a public hearing. And Attorney General William Barr agreed to testify before the House Judiciary Committee about the Department of Justice’s reversal of its sentencing recommendation for Roger Stone. Trump’s acquittal may embolden him to persist in his arguments for absolute immunity and reassert them if, for example, DeVos is subpoenaed or Barr testifies. But ultimately, the courts may have more impact on future oversight than the impeachment trial as they have the power to order disclosure of information. Left in the darkCongress is not limited to investigations when it comes to holding the president accountable. Congress persists in its attempts to use its war powers to restrict Trump’s actions in Iran. The House recently passed a measure requiring congressional pre-approval before any money was spent on attacking Iran and voted to repeal the 17-year-old authorization for the Iraq War, which the Trump Administration used to justify the assassination of Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani. And the Senate passed a resolution to limit President Trump’s ability to use force against Iran.Congress has several other mechanisms for exercising oversight. It can defund, redirect, or even eliminate federal agencies and refuse to confirm presidential appointments. But it remains to be seen whether it will continue to pursue vigorous oversight. The impending election could distract or deter Democrats, who want to refocus their line of attack on Trump by disputing his record on the economy. Meanwhile Republicans, who fear electoral repercussions if they alienate the president’s base, are unlikely to seek more oversight.Without oversight, people are left in the dark about what their government is doing. And a misled or uninformed public weakens the only other mechanism available to hold the executive branch accountable: elections.[You’re smart and curious about the world. So are The Conversation’s authors and editors. You can get our highlights each weekend.]This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts.Read more: * After the trial of Donald Trump, impeachment has lost some of its gravitas * This is how ancient Rome’s republic died – a classicist sees troubling parallels at Trump’s impeachment trialKirsten Carlson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.


Posted in Uncategorized

Abbreviated Pundit Round-up: Nevada and South Carolina await

Posted on by Greg Dworkin

The Abbreviated Pundit Round-up is a daily feature at Daily Kos.

With New Hampshire and Iowa in the rear view mirror, next up is Nevada, Feb 22 and South Carolina, February 29. 

Watch for the “national polls mean nothing” folks to suddenly discover national polls 🤔. But perhaps more interesting in the new Morning Consult poll — all interviews post-NH — is support by race. Bernie is doing great there, 30 (Black) and 48 (Hispanic), but the numbers that also jump out are Pete’s 4 and 8 and Amy’s 1 and 3. They aren’t encouraging if you want to be the nominee of the Democratic party. Mike Bloomberg, by way of contrast, is 19/17, Biden 34/13.

Why all of a sudden the chatter about Bloomberg? My guess is there are lots of folks unsettled and downright unhappy about the remaining choices (including Bloomberg). I think it’s going to be one of those elections, with tough choices to make. Buckle up, we have work to do.

Follow us below the fold for more.

We are just two election nights into this whole Dem nomination, but the once crazy idea of a Bernie vs. Bloomberg matchup looking more real by the day. https://t.co/ncuBD2hUMM

— amy walter (@amyewalter) February 14, 2020

Why have I been throwing Bloomberg’s name around? This is why:

When they (whomever they may be) finally engage with him in the run up to Super Tuesday, it'll be too late for things to really sink in; 2/3 of the delegates are going to be awarded in March.

— Sean T at RCP (@SeanTrende) February 14, 2020

Is it working? Well… look.

New national poll of the Democratic primary from @MorningConsult, fielded entirely after New Hampshire. Support + change vs pre-NH Sanders: 29% (+4) Biden: 19 (-3) Bloomberg: 18 (+1) Buttigieg: 11 Warren: 10 (-1) Klobuchar: 5 (+2)https://t.co/00YEl7Zd2g

— G. Elliott Morris (@gelliottmorris) February 13, 2020

Sanders' numbers call to mind the "rainbow coalition" Jesse Jackson tried to assemble in the '80s, built around leftist/working class politics. But while he got ~95% of the black vote, Jackson's ceiling with whites was around 10% with many more refusing to even consider him.

— Steve Kornacki (@SteveKornacki) February 13, 2020

Norm Ornstein/Daily News:

Learn to get comfortable, voters: Weaning ourselves off instant gratification on election night

The New Hampshire primary played out the way journalists and pundits love: as a close contest with excitement, and a declared winner before the night was out. Contrast that with Iowa. The night of the Iowa Caucuses saw television anchors, reporters and analysts openly angry in a way we rarely see them. The anger was in part at the Iowa Democratic Party’s comedy of errors, a Gang that Can’t Shoot Straight creating havoc and uncertainty that still reverberates. But a good share of that anger was from the frustration that their coverage had no conclusion, no opportunity to declare winners that night and then do their panel evaluations of what it all means. They wanted results and wanted them now.

I will give no aid and comfort to Iowa’s Democratic Party. But the fact is that with a complicated process, including the party’s commitment to report every column of results in the caucus version of rank-choice voting, where initial supporters of one candidate would move to their second choices if their first did not cross a threshold of 15% support, it could well have taken a day or more to sort out winners and losers, even without an app disaster and backup-phone-line gridlock

In the “most important news” category, unhappiness with Bill Barr at DOJ bubbled over and forced a farce:

"The most important role of the attorney general is to protect Department of Justice from improper political influence, including from the president... https://t.co/6RJzMEIrP7

— Rachel Maddow MSNBC (@maddow) February 13, 2020

And here is an instructive tweet with a lot of truth:

I am one of those people who: -thinks the health care debate is the most instructive difference between Dem presidential candidates -doesn�t think there�d be much governing difference between them on health care because Congress Embrace the paradox.https://t.co/ZY29Tc8s5X

— Matt Fuller (@MEPFuller) February 13, 2020

On coronavirus:

LA Times:

How deadly is the new coronavirus? Scientists race to find the answer

Of all the questions scientists hope to answer about the new coronavirus sweeping across the globe, the most pressing is this: How deadly is it?

The only way to know is to figure out how many people have been infected — and that’s the real challenge.

More than 60,000 infections have been confirmed, but experts are certain there are at least tens of thousands more. Some cases haven’t been counted because patients didn’t have biological samples sent to a lab. Some never saw a doctor, and others had such mild symptoms that they didn’t even know they were sick.

Without a true picture of the total number of cases, it’s impossible to calculate a fatality rate. That’s why scores of epidemiologists and mathematicians are working to solve one of the most complex modeling problems of their time.

About six weeks ago, China was reporting on the first 41 cases of confirmed #coronavirus in that country. Singapore and Hong Kong have now each hit 50 cases. Modeling suggests that the time from first introduction to epidemic spread is about 10 weeks. https://t.co/YvYRjjFFeS

— Scott Gottlieb, MD (@ScottGottliebMD) February 12, 2020

Nate Cohn/NY Times:

The Math That Could Add Up to a Sanders Nomination

Why 15 percent is so important to him, and how Bloomberg could scramble those calculations.

It had been thought that Mr. Biden could perform well in more diverse states like Nevada and South Carolina to consolidate the moderate wing heading into Super Tuesday. But it is not at all clear whether he is strong enough to take advantage of more friendly terrain, as Hillary Clinton did in 2016. His standing in post-Iowa national polls has taken a far greater hit than Mrs. Clinton’s four years ago, and his standing could drop further after New Hampshire.

His collapse in New Hampshire and Iowa certainly offers additional reason to think he could fade down the stretch, whether it’s because he has been outspent on advertising, because some of his rivals have gained as they have become better known, or because his performances on the debate stage and stump have raised doubts among his supporters.

Even if one of the three moderate candidates emerges as plainly the strongest of the bunch, it remains unclear whether any has the resources or broad appeal necessary to reunite the disparate elements of the typical establishment-friendly coalition.

Striking chart in this @foxjust Bloomberg piece on Trump's steel tariffs. There are less people employed in the steel/primary metals industry than there were before the tariffs were announced in March 2018... https://t.co/U5QX75h5Sk pic.twitter.com/l23vLkITl7

— Shawn Donnan (@sdonnan) February 13, 2020

Greg Sargent/WaPo:

Time for Democrats to get much tougher with William Barr

This leaves Democrats no choice but to escalate their oversight of Barr in any way they can. Democratic strategist Simon Rosenberg, who has been prodding them on this, suggested to me that a handful of leading Democrats should devote themselves to going on the airwaves and “hounding Barr from office.”

This is so utterly weak. You don�t get to work closely with Trump in implementing some of his most indefendible policies, stay silent for a year after leaving, wait until AFTER the president has been acquitted, and then expect applause when you speak up https://t.co/97rsCCxCTM

— Quinta "Pro Quo" Jurecic (@qjurecic) February 13, 2020

There is this odd phenomena among those who work for Trump and later try to spin what they did. It�s as if they think integrity and decency are items that can be sold to a pawn shop and reclaimed at a later date unharmed and no one will notice.

— stuart stevens (@stuartpstevens) February 13, 2020

WaPo Editorial:

The degradation of William Barr’s Justice Department is nearly complete

The most important role of the attorney general is to protect the department from improper political influence, including from the president. Mr. Barr should have ensured that Mr. Stone’s case was handled with strict professionalism, as the career prosecutors sought to do, and shielded them from White House pressure, direct or indirect. To all appearances, he did the opposite. Mr. Trump evidently thinks so: “Congratulations to Attorney General Bill Barr for taking charge of a case that was totally out of control and perhaps should not have even been brought,” he tweeted.

White House officials say since President Trump's acquittal on impeachment charges, he is determined to assert an iron grip on government, pushing his Justice Department to ease up on friends while exacting payback on real and perceived foes. https://t.co/6XwztcOeTq

— AP Politics (@AP_Politics) February 13, 2020

Nieman Lab:

McClatchy files for bankruptcy, likely ending 163 years of family control and setting up more consolidation in local news

The hedge fund that will likely soon control America’s second-largest newspaper chain, Chatham Asset Management, is also majority owner of the National Enquirer and Canada’s largest newspaper chain. It is advancing its “fundamental thesis on late-stage media consolidation in North America.”

And McClatchy’s own Sacramento Bee, the newspaper that started the chain in 1857:

The Chapter 11 filing will allow McClatchy to restructure its debts and, it hopes, shed much of its pension obligations. Under a plan outlined in its filing to a federal bankruptcy court, about 60 percent of its debt would be eliminated as the news organization tries to reposition for a digital future.

The likely new owners, if the court accepts the plan, would be led by hedge fund Chatham Asset Management LLC. They would operate McClatchy as a privately held company. More than 7 million shares of both publicly available and protected family-owned stock would be canceled.

“While this is obviously a sad milestone after 163 years of family control, McClatchy remains a strong operating company and committed to essential local news and information,” said Kevin McClatchy, chairman of the company that has carried his family name since the days of the California Gold Rush. “While we tried hard to avoid this step, there’s no question that the scale of our 75-year-old pension plan — with 10 pensioners for every single active employee — is a reflection of another economic era.”

(It’s oddly comforting that the McClatchy story is by far the best and most detailed of the bunch.)

Jim Jordan's name comes up during Statehouse testimony on an OSU abuse victims bill. "Jim Jordan called me crying, groveling� begging me to go against my brother�That's the kind of cover-up that�s going on there." https://t.co/KJ3ofDhsQW

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) February 13, 2020