Tag Archives: GOP

national news

Hey, hasn’t the GOP formed a ‘mob’?

Donald John Trump and his Republican pals in both chambers of Congress have latched onto a new term to describe Democrats and assorted other political foes.

They’re called “a mob.” They refer to the so-called “mob mentality” that developed during the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee prior to the new Supreme Court justice taking his seat. They talk about progressive “mobs” seeking to outshout them.

Hold on a minute, eh?

Didn’t the Republicans form “mobs” at their 2016 presidential nominating convention when they began yelling “Lock her up!” while referring to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s email controversy?

And … what about the cheering, hollering campaign crowds at Trump campaign events? Don’t they also constitute a “mob” by yelling “Build that wall!”?

What’s more, the GOP mobs are still at it and they’re being encouraged to behave in a mob-like fashion by the president of the United States of America.

Now the Republicans have gotten indignant because their political foes are formulating some organizational opposition to, um, a Supreme Court justice who’s been accused of sexually assaulting at least three women when he was younger and, uh, much friskier.

This is what happens when short-term memory loss kicks in. Even the leaders of a once-great political party need to be reminded of their not-so-distant past behavior.

national news

Kavanaugh joins high court with zero political capital

Now that we’ve established — at least in my humble view — that the U.S. Supreme Court has become the third political branch of government, it’s worth examining briefly the cache that the court’s newest member brings to his post.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh has none. Zero, man!

Is that important, given that he is now charged with interpreting the constitutionality of federal law? Yep. It is. Why? Because the new justice takes office by the thinnest of political margins.

The U.S. Senate voted today 50-48 to confirm him. The previous narrowest confirmation belonged to Justice Clarence Thomas, who was approved 52-48 in 1991. Move over, Justice Thomas. There’s a new Bottom Dog in town.

I will acknowledge that at least the confirmation vote for Justice Kavanaugh wasn’t an entirely partisan affair; Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin voted with the majority to confirm Kavanaugh, and no doubt all but sealed his re-election to the Senate from West Virginia, a state that Donald Trump carried by more than 41 percentage points in 2016 over Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Kavanaugh has pledged to rule with impartiality and independence. He did so in an op-ed piece written for the Washington Post. It was a remarkable pledge, given his fiery — and highly partisan — rebuttal to the criticism that exploded in the wake of the sexual assault allegation leveled against him by Christine Blasey Ford.

This justice takes his lifetime appointment seat amid continuing question and a good bit of recrimination over the manner in which the Senate shoved his confirmation across the finish line.

I now am going to rely on my limitless optimism that Justice Kavanaugh will deliver on his promise to be independent and impartial as he takes on the huge challenges of constitutional interpretation.

Don’t mess up, Mr. Justice.

national news

Two votes not cast … to what end?

I admit to being slow on the uptake. Thus, someone will have to explain how this works.

The U.S. Senate today confirmed Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court. The tally was 50-48.

Two senators’ votes weren’t recorded. Sen. Steve Daines, a Montana Republican, was absent, attending his daughter’s wedding. Daines would have voted “yes” on Kavanaugh’s nomination. The other non-vote came from Sen. Lisa Murkowski, an Alaska Republican, who declared her opposition to Kavanaugh; she voted “present” when they cast the roll-call vote.

There’s a Senate custom that enables senators to pair their votes with those who cannot cast their votes in person. Murkowski teamed up with her friend Daines.

But … why? If Murkowski had voted “no” on Kavanaugh’s nomination, the tally would have been 50-49; Kavanaugh still gets confirmed. Therefore, this vote pairing had no tangible impact on the outcome of the Senate.

I guess I need to study more carefully the rules and customs that govern the World’s Most Deliberative Body. This one is a bit of a head-scratcher.

legal news, national news

Kavanaugh headed to SCOTUS?

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The fix is in. The deal appears to be done. Barring some remarkable change of mind and heart among key U.S. senators, a deeply flawed nominee is heading for the ninth seat on the U.S. Supreme Court.

Federal Judge Brett Kavanaugh stands accused — still! — of sexual assault by a woman who accused him of attacking her when they were teenagers.

Christine Blasey Ford testified to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee that Kavanaugh did as she has alleged. She said she is “100 percent certain” her attacker was young Brett.

Kavanaugh denies it.

He disqualified himself, though, in my mind with his highly partisan attack on those who have opposed his nomination by Donald J. Trump. He blamed those who seek “revenge” on behalf of Bill and Hillary Clinton and then said their effort was being financed by “left-wing” political interest groups.

Senate Republicans led by Mitch McConnell are delivering the mother of all bum’s rushes in pushing this nomination forward. The FBI conducted a perfunctory examination of Kavanaugh and the allegation against him. It didn’t bother to talk to Ford, which I would have thought would have been a no-brainer.

The report now is in the hands of senators, Democrats and Republicans. It needs to be made public, given that Kavanaugh appears headed to a lifetime post on the nation’s highest court — which is paid for with money that comes out of my pocket … and yours!

The very best I could have hoped for would have been for Kavanaugh to set aside politics as he pondered how to rule on cases that come before the court. His performance at the supplemental hearing dashed that hope for me.

Newspapers are editorializing against Kavanaugh’s nomination. A retired Supreme Court justice, John Paul Stevens — confirmed in 1975 after being nominated by President Ford — said he has changed his mind and now opposes him. Demonstrators are marching in streets. Politicians are making speeches opposing Kavanaugh.

Will any of this matter? Will anyone’s minds be changed? Probably not. I’m left, therefore, to say a prayer for us as we recover from the circus we’ve just witnessed.

national news

Mitt was right: Trump is a first-class ‘fraud’

The next U.S. senator from Utah, Mitt Romney, was absolutely spot on when he delivered that blistering speech two years ago about Republican presidential nominee Donald John Trump Sr.

Romney, the 2012 GOP presidential nominee, called Trump a “phony” and a “fraud” in a 17-minute tirade against the man who would become the 45th president of the United States.

I have just read that lengthy New York Times investigative article about how Trump acquired his wealth. It is quite clear, based on some of the most exhaustive reporting I’ve ever seen in a newspaper article, that Trump is the farthest thing possible from a “self-made” billionaire, which is how he presented himself while running for the presidency.

Read the NY Times piece here. Make sure you have a good bit of time to read this piece.

What will happen with this information? Will it change minds? Probably not.

I am an avid Trump critic. This report merely cements my own view of what I and many others have suspected all along about the president, and which comports with Mitt Romney’s view: that the man is a charlatan and a bald-faced liar.

Trump’s “base,” though, will see it differently. They’ll take aim at The New York Times, which they’ll contend is a “mainstream liberal media outlet” that is out to “get” Donald Trump. They will disbelieve the meticulous reporting by a team of journalistic professionals and choose to side with a man known to be a liar.

Such is the state of play on today’s political landscape.

I’ll just declare once again that Mitt Romney had it right in 2016. If only his fellow Republicans would have listened to him.

national news

Perjury: a SCOTUS dealbreaker for certain

The FBI has embarked on an investigation into whether Brett Kavanaugh is a suitable choice to take his seat on the U.S. Supreme Court.

The nominee stands accused of sexual assault. He has denied it vehemently. His accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, has affirmed her allegation with equal vehemence. He said, she said … blah, blah, blah.

The fate of Kavanaugh’s court nomination, however, might hinge on whether he lied to the Senate Judiciary Committee about how much beer he drank while he was in high school. No kidding, man! That’s the deal — maybe, perhaps, possibly.

If the FBI determines that he lied under oath to the Senate panel, well, it’s over. Kavanaugh shouldn’t be seated on the nation’s highest court.

Let us also remember that in 1998, the U.S. House of Representatives — led by its Republican majority — was looking for a reason to impeach President Bill Clinton. The president gave it to them when it was determined he lied — also under oath — to a federal grand jury about whether he had a sexual relationship with a White House intern.

The House impeached the president. The Senate tried him, but he was acquitted.

The clear lesson here for Judge Kavanaugh is that the oath he took to tell the whole truth before the Senate committee is every bit as binding as the oath that President Clinton took to tell the truth to the grand jury.

political news

Trump admits to preferring ‘Democrat Party’ epithet

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Donald J. Trump flew off the rails on one of those impromptu campaign-rally riffs in West Virginia … and proceeded to acknowledge what many of us have known all along.

Republicans like referring to their political foes as members of the “Democrat Party,” even though the party to which they refer is the Democratic Party.

Trump said he likes using the term “Democrat” as an adjective because it grates on Democrats and because their party — according to Trump and other Republicans — isn’t too democratic these days.

It’s an idiotic and feeble attempt to stick it in the eye of those who oppose GOP doctrine and the rants of the Republican (In Name Only) in chief, Donald Trump.

And that brings me to what’s so damn funny about Trump’s association with the once-great Republican Party. He’s the classic RINO, the very personification of the term that hard-core Republicans used to describe the more moderate members of their political party.

Trump had zero political grounding prior to announcing his candidacy for the presidency. He wasn’t involved in partisan politics. His entire adult life was dedicated to one thing only: Trump’s personal enrichment.

So now that he has hijacked the Republican Party, he claims to be a political purist, the standard-bearer of a party that once stood for inclusion and that once joined hands with a Democratic president — Lyndon Baines Johnson — in advancing the cause of civil rights and voting rights for African-Americans.

Listening to Trump proclaim his desire to refer to those on the other side of the aisle as belonging to the “Democrat Party” tells me only one thing: He is pandering to that shrinking, but still vocal, political base that hangs on this carnival barker’s every word.

national news

Sen. Flake admits it: Lame-duck status enabled compromise

Jeff Flake has admitted something many of us knew already but it still is a bit of a surprise to hear him actually acknowledge it out loud — and on national television to boot!

Sen. Flake, an Arizona Republican, appeared tonight on “60 Minutes” in the wake of his stunning proposal to delay a Senate vote on Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court. He pitched the idea that the FBI needs to conduct a week-long investigation into allegations that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted a woman when he and the accuser were teenagers.

The senators agreed with him. Flake then voted “yes” along with his 10 GOP colleagues on the Senate Judiciary Committee to recommend Kavanaugh’s confirmation.

Then came the question from “60 Minutes” correspondent Scott Pelley: Could he have made that proposal were he running for re-election? Flake said “no.” There was no chance he could — or would — do such a thing, he said. The mood on Capitol Hill just doesn’t allow compromise. The mood is too toxic, too divisive.

Flake announced several months ago that he would leave the Senate. Since his announcement he has become a staunch critic of Donald Trump and many of his fellow Republicans. He blames the president for fomenting the politics of anger and lays blame on congressional Republicans for refusing to stand up to the president.

He talked about his week-delay compromise with a good Senate friend, Democrat Chris Coons of Delaware.

This is how it has come down. Senators and House members are having to declare their intention to retire from public life for them to show the kind of courage they ought to show even when they must face the voters at election time.

It’s a sad time, ladies and gentlemen.

national news

Trump’s amorality on full display

Donald J. Trump has earned the title of Most Amoral President in U.S. History.

It is with that dubious distinction that I find it amazing, astonishing and altogether outrageous that this president can speak to any issue involving sex, sexual assault or sexual harassment.

It’s all on the front burner these days as the U.S. Senate considers whether to confirm a Trump nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court. Judge Brett Kavanaugh is under some intense scrutiny these days as he seeks confirmation to the highest court after at least three women have accused him of assaulting them sexually.

I am left to wonder: What has become of our moral compass?

An admitted sexual assailant was elected president in 2016; he once bragged about grabbing women by their “pu***” because his “celebrity status” allowed him to get away with it. He acknowledged walking in on half-dressed women during his days as proprietor of a beauty pageant.

Now he has nominated someone to the high court who stands accused of attacking a woman when they were both teenagers. Judge Kavanaugh has denied the accusation in the most fervent manner possible. The FBI is now looking into the pending accusations before the Senate will consider voting on whether to confirm him.

I keep circling back to the president. He has attacked the credibility of one of Kavanaugh’s accusers, much as he has done with the many women who have accused him of groping them. He stands foursquare with men who have faced credible charges by women who accuse them of sexual misbehavior; he is doing so yet again with Judge Kavanaugh.

And then we have the likes of the Rev. Franklin Graham, one of Trump’s more ardent evangelical supporters, saying something truly astonishing, that what Kavanaugh allegedly did to Christine Blasey Ford doesn’t really matter because they were teenagers at the time.

What in the name of sexual assault is Rev. Graham talking about?

I’ve long thought of the Republican Party as an organization that stood tall and firm on the side of moral rectitude. Yet, Republican No. 1, the president of the United States, assumed office after blazing a career-long trail of sexual misconduct.

Dear reader, we have entered a strange new world. Man, oh man. I need to find a way out of here.

national news

Senate causes heads to spin

My noggin is spinning.

The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee has voted 11-10 — along partisan lines — to recommend confirmation of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court.

But, man, there’s a major catch in that vote.

One of the committee Republicans, Jeff Flake, wants the FBI to conduct an investigation into the allegation that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted Christine Ford when they were in high school; he wants the Senate to delay its full floor vote for a week to enable the FBI to learn more about what allegedly happened.

It’s now up to Donald Trump, the president of the United States, to issue the order to the FBI.

Without an investigation, Flake might become a “no” vote if a full Senate vote occurs with an FBI probe. So might two other key GOP senators, Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins.

I’m doing the math. That leaves the Senate GOP with 48 votes to confirm Kavanaugh.

They need50.

Are we clear now? Clear as mud?

I’m thinking now of Winston Churchill’s classic analysis of democracy, how it’s the “worst system” of government ever devised … but it’s the best system we can have.

It’s messy, folks.