Trump
Gary Younge warns that we haven’t been staying outraged enough.
During the presidential election the Huffington Post’s US site carried the following editor’s note at the end of every story about the Republican nominee: “Donald Trump regularly incites political violence and is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist and birther who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims – 1.6 billion members of an entire religion – from entering the US.”
Shortly before 6am on that long election night – in between Trump’s winning Iowa and being declared the victor in Pennsylvania – the Washington bureau chief announced that the note would be removed, “in respect for the office”, and that it was time for a “clean slate”.
That action, and similar actions from almost every major media outlet didn’t just happen on election night. They’ve happened over and over. They’re still happening. Of everything that’s happened since election day, the inability of the media to remain outraged, to stay focused on any issue and stop treating each new day as if it were the first day of sanity, is the most frustrating.
During the primaries former Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney tweeted: “If Trump had said 4 years ago the things he says today about the KKK, Muslims, Mexicans, disabled, I would NOT have accepted his endorsement.” Almost two years later, Romney decided to run for the Utah senate seat and Trump endorsed him. “Thank you Mr President for the support,” he responded.
It’s not supposed to be this way. There are supposed to be checks and balances. But the Congress is owned by Republicans, the courts are owned by Republicans, the White House is owned by Republicans. And the media is desperately wedded to the idea that things can still be normal, if they just treat it as if it’s normal.
Richard Wolffe wants Donald Trump held responsible for the horror of what has happened in Puerto Rico.
This is a collective sickness that extends far beyond the very stable genius at the top of the executive branch. And it matters far more than whether Trump himself cares about the lives of American citizens, or can be bothered to tweet about them.
For this is a group of so-called leaders who ran the most powerful government in the world while at least 1,400 – and more likely as many as 5,000 – of their own citizens died on their watch.
But … see the comments around Younge’s column. The only mention of Puerto Rico in the Guardian today, is Wolffe’s column. It’s not on the cover of the Washington Post. Or the New York Times. There’s not a mention on the main page of CNN. Despite the word less than a week ago that the deaths resulting from Hurricane Maria likely exceeded 4,000 Americans, that news is … old news. Trump can’t be held to account for something that doesn’t rate an inch of column space.
“We really appreciate the job you’ve done,” Trump said in front of the TV cameras. “It’s been amazing, and you really have kept quite busy, I would say, unfortunately. We had no choice. We were hit hard. But you’ve done a fantastic job.”
A fantastic job of watching thousands of Americans die. Not in the high winds and floods, but in the disastrous aftermath, when Fema and the federal government were the most powerful people in Puerto Rico. A heckuva job, as George W Bush would say.
Dick Thornburgh makes an appeal for Republicans to protect the Mueller investigation.
As a lifelong Republican, I am proud that my party has consistently revered the rule of law as a central tenet of our country’s values. I have been honored to serve under seven presidents, including as U.S. attorney general under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. I know from experience that the Justice Department effectively performs the awesome responsibility of enforcing our laws and assuring that justice is provided equally and fairly to all.
There’s a lot of problems with this, not the least of which is that the Reagan administration included a massive scandal in which the soon-to-be president illegally conducted foreign policy, and everyone from Reagan down to his assistant’s assistants maneuvered to evade, ignore, and outright violate the law. It was a perfect demonstration that, far from being chastised by Watergate, what Republicans learned was just to bull ahead and never confess to anything.
Many recent comments about special counsel Robert S. Mueller III and his investigation have been regrettable and undeserved. I was surprised to see President Trump’s lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, a respected former U.S. attorney, suggest this week that Mueller is “trying very, very hard to frame” the president, echoing comments made by the president himself that the investigation is “a Witch Hunt.” Those comments are the antithesis of who Mueller is and how he operates.
It’s no doubt a heartfelt appeal. But who is Thornburgh appealing to? He’s not a Republican. He’s someone who used to vote for a party with that name.
Ruth Marcus on why the Justice Department’s refusal to defend the ACA is about more than health care.
This is a huge deal. First, if the administration’s position prevails, millions of Americans will lose the protections they thought they had against being denied coverage if they suffer from preexisting conditions. Second, and perhaps even scarier, the administration’s behavior sets a dangerous precedent about the obligation of this and future presidents to follow their constitutional duty to faithfully execute the laws enacted by Congress.
Again, this is an extraordinary breach, an action that absolutely rends the responsibilities of the executive. A direct attack on the rule of law. And it’s getting exactly as much coverage on the front page of the paper Marcus writes for as the deaths in Puerto Rico.
The Gish Gallup may be a nice bit of alteration, and Trump has clearly adopted it as his life motto. But if the media doesn’t figure out some way to cover the current news without forgetting yesterday’s existential threat, we’re going to be … right where we are.
Ken Gormley on what happens if Trump pulls the self-pardon switch.
President Trump’s firebrand attorney, Rudolph W. Giuliani, would be wise to warn his client to avoid, at all costs, flirting with the idea of pardoning himself. A little-known U.S. Supreme Court case from a century ago, Burdick v. United States, makes clear that acceptance of a pardon is a legal admission of guilt.
And then? Trump has gone beyond stating that committing murder wouldn’t hurt his election chances. He declared himself beyond the reach of the law a week ago … and since then, exactly nothing has happened.
If Trump went down the self-pardon path out of contempt for special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation, he could paint himself into a dangerous corner: He’d admit being guilty of serious crimes that match the classic definition of an impeachable offense.
The Ford-Nixon era provides valuable clues for Trump’s lawyers.
We are so far from the nation that held NIxon to blame for his actions and Ford to account for protecting him. The only good news is that those worrying that Trump pardoning himself would bring on a constitutional crisis can relax. We already had the constitutional crisis.
Michael McConnell shows that there are plenty of people ready to hand people that switch.
When President Trump tweeted that he has the constitutional authority to pardon himself, he likely weakened his case in the minds of most ordinary people. Why would he talk about pardons if he hasn’t done anything for which he might need one? But as a legal and constitutional matter, Trump is not wrong. Presidents do have the constitutional authority to pardon themselves, albeit at the considerable risk of impeachment if they do so.
Yeah. Except. No. The contention that Trump can pardon himself, puts McConnell not just at odds with the vast majority of legal scholars, but with the analysis of the Justice Department under Nixon.
But thee’s little doubt that most of the folks the Hoover Institution, where McConnell is a senior fellow, would agree with him. And enough Republican ‘experts’ can no doubt be turned up, that the whole idea that this is another position can be easily ignored once Trump takes this step. Which he will.
Dana Milbank insists we can make through this.
It was another one of those weeks in which the wheels seemed to come off the axle of the American motor coach.
President Trump speculated about his power to pardon himself for crimes, and his lawyer said the president could shoot the now-former FBI director with legal impunity.
Trump is feuding with Canada and our closest allies in Europe, but is looking forward to “friendly” talks with North Korea, which, according to the CIA, has no intention of denuclearizing but is willing to open a hamburger restaurant.
Trump, inflaming racial tensions, disinvited the Super Bowl champions from a White House celebration and instead hosted a “loud” display of patriotism during which he muffed the words to “God Bless America.”
The administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, it was learned, tried to use his position to get a position at Chick-fil-A for his wife, scented lotion from the Ritz-Carlton and a used mattress from the Trump International Hotel.
That’s just this week. Just the new stuff that piles on top of the old stuff. And we can’t lose sight of the old stuff.
Trump will not destroy American democracy.
Trump is a symptom of problems, more than the cause.
We’ll solve these problems — eventually.
Trump is making a really, really good run at it. And if there are Republicans ready to kick him to the curb and return to the land of the sane, they’ve yet to make themselves known. But, yep, let’s hope. Let’s stay outraged and hope.
Trade and Foreign Relations
John Barber on why Trump rails about dairy tariffs.
Whatever understanding Canada and the US may (or may not) have come to on their high-value trade in lumber or auto parts, they remain implacably opposed on the comparatively minor matter of milk. ...
But the Canadians are no less determined to retain one of the last vestiges of their otherwise-abandoned collectivist traditions. Canadian cows are sacred, and the farmers who care for them enjoy outsized influence in national politics. Expert observers have said that Justin Trudeau’s government would abandon the treaty altogether before sacrificing supply management.
90 percent of Canadian diary farms have disappeared in the last few decades. US dairy farms haven’t done a lot better. In both countries, smaller farms have dropped like flies in the face of large scale, industrialized competition and transport of “ultrafiltered” milk solids that have generated a global “milk glut.” Canadians, like Americans, tend to romanticize the few remaining dairy farms. The image of farmers who rise with the dawn, and get out their buckets and short-legged stools may be inaccurate, but it’s indelibly etched on both sides of the border. That’s why Trump keeps hitting the topic. And why Canadians are just as adamant about doing what they can to save the farms that are left.
Anne Applebaum on why NATO is once again preparing for a Russian invasion.
The Green Berets have been thinking about how to deter invasion in Europe since the 1950s, though for the past 20 years, their attention has mostly been elsewhere. More recently, the Russian military buildup, the Russian invasion of Ukraine (Ferguson describes that as a “wake-up call”), as well as the intensification of anti-European propaganda in the Russian media and a series of large-scale Russian military exercises, have set off warning bells in NATO capitals. That is especially true here in the Baltic region, because when the Russian military exercises, it practices an invasion of the Baltic states.
If this seems like a good time to be practicing against this possibility, that’s a thought shared by people on both sides of that potential invasion.
It is no secret that, looked at from a greater distance, the Western alliance is in deep trouble, maybe never more so than this weekend. The American president has used a Group of Seven meeting to stage a public fight with Canada and his European allies; he has set out, deliberately, to undermine Western trade. A part of the European political class is already asking whether Russia might be a better partner than the United States. For the foreseeable future, the news coming out about U.S.-European relations is going to be bad — maybe very bad.
Hope. Remember the hope.
Scott Pruitt
The Washington Post uses Scott Pruitt as exhibit one.
With the Trump era’s constant churn and chaos, what would be career-ending scandals in any other time do not get the sustained attention they deserve. The proof: Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt, who continues to serve though seemingly every day a new story emerges about his petty corruption, almost comical were it not so contemptuous of ethical public service.
I may have already said this, but … it would be nice if someone had, say, a newspaper to do something about that.
The Human Condition
David Von Drehle on the required level of happiness.
Disappointment is a uniquely human condition, the flip side of our capacity for creativity and invention. Only humans “dream things that never were” and “say ‘Why not?’ ” as George Bernard Shaw famously put it. This capacity gives us flying machines and pocket computers. It also gives us rising suicide rates in countries around the globe, from the United States to India to New Zealand.
To be unhappy enough to end it all, a person must first imagine a condition of greater happiness, then lose hope that the greater happiness can be achieved. Anyone this side of Dr. Pangloss in his best of all possible worlds can start down this dismal path. Because there is no limit to human imagination, there is never a shortage of greener pastures. Though we’re shocked when the rich and famous kill themselves, the Kate Spades and the Anthony Bourdains, we shouldn’t be. Neither wealth nor celebrity nor any other endowment quiets the human impulse to wish some things were different than they are.
Sad, but required reading this morning.