“It’s Getting A Little Silly”: Perry Finds A Way To Blame Obama For Indictments
After Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) was unexpectedly indicted late Friday, the Republican governor discovered some unexpected allies: observers who generally don’t care for Perry blasted the charges against him.
MSNBC’s Ari Melber, for example, characterized the case against the Texas governor as “weak.” Jon Chait called the charges “ridiculous.” Rick Hasen and David Axelrod reached similar conclusions. Scott Lemieux, summarizing the thoughts of many, added, “I’m as contemptuous of Perry as anyone, but this seems really thin.”
Benjy Sarlin joked, “It’s hard to believe an issue would get liberal commentators rallying on Rick Perry’s side, but this indictment seems to be doing it.”
And while the Republican governor and likely presidential candidate is clearly pleased by his reluctant backers, he doesn’t exactly look above the fray when he blames President Obama for an indictment handed down by a Texas grand jury.
The governor, who appeared on “Fox News Sunday,” also used the occasion to criticize President Obama, saying he was responsible for a national erosion of the “rule of law.” […]
Mr. Perry repeatedly invoked the “rule of law,” suggesting that it had suffered under Mr. Obama, whether in the scandal over the Internal Revenue Service, enforcement of border security or surveillance by the National Security Agency.
Look, if the governor wants to mount a proper defense against the pending felony counts, fine. Apparently, he’ll even enjoy a fair amount of support from the left.
But if Perry wants to position himself as a responsible chief executive, who’s been targeted for petty and partisan reasons, his baseless complaining about the president won’t help his broader public-relations cause.
For one thing, there is no IRS scandal; border security has never been stronger; and it’s Perry’s party that supports expansive NSA surveillance. If this is the best the governor can do to offer proof of Obama eroding the “rule of law,” he’s going to need a new talking point.
For another, let’s not forget that the Obama administration has literally nothing to do with Perry’s indictment. The Texas grand jury was empaneled by Texas prosecutors scrutinizing Texas law.
But taking a step back, it’s hard not to notice the pattern: when Republicans find themselves in a difficult position, they reflexively try to blame the president whether it makes sense or not. Eric Cantor lost a primary? Blame President Obama. John Boehner failed to pass immigration bills? Blame President Obama. Bob McDonnell was indicted on corruption charges? Blame President Obama. Sam Brownback fared much worse than expected in a GOP primary? Blame President Obama. Chris Christie’s plan screwed up New Jersey’s finances? Blame President Obama.
It’s getting a little silly.
By: Steve Benen, The Madow Blog, August 18, 2014
“Republicans Embrace Their Phoniness”: The Truth Is Catching Up To Them
The Republican Party has finally admitted what has been fairly obvious for much of the past six years: It produces fake news.
This is not an earth-shattering revelation to anybody who has been paying attention, but, still, it’s an important step for the party to embrace the phoniness.
“NRCC Launches Fake News Sites to Attack Democratic Candidates” was a headline in the National Journal on Tuesday.
As Shane Goldmacher reported, “The National Republican Congressional Committee, which came under fire earlier this year for a deceptive series of fake Democratic candidate websites that it later changed after public outcry, has launched a new set of deceptive websites, this time designed to look like local news sources.”
These two dozen sites, with names such as “North County Update” and “Central Valley Update” look like political fact-checking sites; the NRCC’s spokeswoman, Andrea Bozek, called it “a new and effective way to disseminate information.”
An NRCC official told me the sites are legal because, if you scroll all the way to the bottom, you’ll find, “Paid for by the National Republican Congressional Committee” in small print. “They’re not fake Web sites,” the official said. “These are real attack Web sites.”
Real attacks, but fake news: This is a fairly accurate summary of what the GOP’s scandalmongers have been purveying during the Obama years.
There was the assertion that the White House was covering up high-level involvement in Operation “Fast and Furious,” a gun program under the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco Firearms and Explosives that went awry. No evidence was found.
There was the accusation that the Obama White House pushed through money for Solyndra to pay the president’s political cronies even though officials knew the solar-energy firm was going bankrupt. Didn’t happen that way.
Accusation: Obamacare would bring about the collapse of the American health-care system and replace it with socialized medicine and death panels. No such thing has occurred.
The IRS scandal, it was alleged, could be traced back to the White House, which targeted Obama’s enemies for political reasons. Nope.
The actual truth of the allegations doesn’t matter. Each one sullied President Obama’s name, and investigators’ failure to deliver the goods did little to remove the taint. That’s why fake news works: Falsehoods can drive a president’s approval rating into the cellar while the truth is still getting out of bed.
And now we have the Benghazi exoneration.
For nearly two years, Republicans have been alleging all manner of scandal involving the 2012 attacks on U.S. facilities in the Libyan city. That somebody — Hillary Clinton? — issued a stand-down order to prevent help from getting to American officials under fire; that Clinton rejected pleas for more diplomatic security in Libya; and that the Obama White House pushed false talking points to play down the terrorist attacks before the election.
The accusations have been roundly debunked, most recently in military officers’ testimony released by the GOP-controlled House Armed Services Committee.
Now there’s a bipartisan report, adopted unanimously by the GOP-controlled House Intelligence Committee on July 31, awaiting declassification by the administration. It throws yet another bucket of cold water on the conspiracy theories. In a statement, the top Democrat on the panel, Dutch Ruppersberger (Md.), said the report finds that:
“[T]here was no intelligence failure surrounding the Benghazi attacks.”
“[T]here was no ‘stand down order’ given to American personnel attempting to offer assistance that evening, and no American was left behind.”
“[T]he talking points reflected the conflicting intelligence assessments in the days immediately following the crisis.”
“[T]here was no illegal activity or illegal arms sales occurring at the U.S. facilities in Benghazi.”
“And there was absolutely no evidence, in documents or testimony, that the intelligence community’s assessments were politically motivated in any way.”
The report is not yet public, and Republican sources indicate that there is more disagreement in the report than Ruppersberger’s statement indicates and that the report is not as exculpatory as he implies. But there has been no challenge from the Republican side to the accuracy of the findings Ruppersberger detailed in his statement.
Now that the truth is catching up to them, House Republicans will need to stay one step ahead. Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), chairman of the select committee on Benghazi, told CNN’s Deirdre Walsh last week that, despite what the Intelligence Committee found, “there is more work to be done and more to be investigated.”
Excellent. Maybe he can post his phony accusations on some fake news Web sites.
By: Dana Milbank, Opinion Writer, The Washington Post, August 13, 2014
“Losing Their Minds”: Why The Republican Freak-Out Over Obama’s Immigration Order Is Both Dumb And Inhumane
Like it or not, these are the facts: There are 11.7 million undocumented immigrants living in United States. The U.S. Immigrant and Customs Enforcement only has the capacity to remove about 400,000 per year. That’s less than 4 percent of the total undocumented population.
Keep these facts in mind as President Obama prepares to announce an executive action to protect certain classes of undocumented immigrants — and as Republicans lose their minds over it. Obama’s expected move isn’t a sinister example of “domestic Caesarism,” as Ross Douthat would have it, or “stealth amnesty,” in the words of Reihan Salam. It is an eminently reasonable response in the face of congressional inaction, while the conservative opposition puts them on the wrong side of both basic humanitarian instincts and public welfare.
The executive action is expected to expand deferred action to more undocumented immigrants. Deferred action provides an assurance to certain immigrants that they won’t be pursued for deportation. With it comes work permits, so those who won’t be deported can pursue legitimate work.
The legal basis for deferred action is grounded in prosecutorial discretion — the authority of law enforcement agencies to determine how and when to enforce the law. Such discretion is necessary given scarce agency resources. It’s why police and prosecutors devote most of their time to pursuing serious offenses rather than going after every crime on the books. It would be a waste of resources to charge and punish jaywalkers or adulterers, for instance.
Given these constraints, officials have prioritized certain classes of immigrants for removal. ICE specifically targets three categories of undocumented immigrants: those who present national security or public safety risks; those who have recently entered; and those who have reentered after being removed.
These targets guide immigration enforcement actions. In 2013, there were 368,644 removals. Ninety-eight percent met one of ICE’s three priorities. Of these, 235,093 were removed while trying to enter at the border. Among the 133,551 removed while living inside the United States, 82 percent had a previous criminal conviction.
Just as there are removal targets at the top of ICE’s list, there are non-targets at the bottom. These are classes of undocumented immigrants that agents opt to ignore. These categories, outlined in the 2011 Morton Memo, include U.S. military veterans, minors, elderly persons, and pregnant women, among others.
This list broadly tracks the immigrants that we may see benefit from expanded deferred action under Obama’s executive order. As Eric Posner argues, Obama’s order would in many respects do little more than bless preexisting policy. But it would also give some legal guarantee to peaceable immigrants at the distant, unreachable bottom of ICE’s priority list, allowing them access to aboveboard work in the process.
Conservatives will undoubtedly seethe over Obama’s unilateral action. But once they exhaust their procedural objections, any substantive opposition to the policy itself is either cruel or dangerous.
On the one hand, conservatives could object to a codification of ICE’s existing practices. Under this argument, it’s not selective enforcement of the law that’s the problem, but explicitly telling immigrants who arrived in the country illegally that they’re in the clear. Keeping the law hazy would subject law-abiding immigrants to an illusory fear, supposedly discouraging migrant flows.
This is a deeply inhumane tactic. Their preference would be for millions of immigrants to needlessly live with the specter of deportation hanging over their heads. This would condemn them to living in the shadows and working in tenuous, often-exploitative conditions — even though immigration officials have no interest in deporting them.
The other objection — rejecting prosecutorial discretion outright — isn’t any more heartening. This would involve ICE pursuing every undocumented immigrant with equal zeal.
This would be a policy that jeopardizes national security and public safety. Short of expanding enforcement capacity by a factor of 30, time spent expelling military veterans or parents would allow more gang members and felons to slip through the cracks of strained budgets. As John Sandweg, former Homeland Security general counsel, said, “If we eliminated all priorities, and treat [all undocumented immigrants] equally, you are going to make the country less safe, and make the border less secure.”
When he announces his executive action, Obama should remind the country that prosecutorial discretion in immigration keeps us safe. Deferred action is a fairly minor step to provide some peace of mind to those that our immigration system already doesn’t care about deporting, making it easier for them to live freely and work productively. If conservatives still object, it will be clear that they remain far from being fit to step in and lead as moral and protective stewards for our country.
By: Joel Dodge, Member of the Boston University School of Law’s Class of 2014; The Week, August 12, 2014
“We Have To Impeach Someone!”: The Right’s Competing Targets For An Impeachment Drive
The Republican message on impeachment is something of a mess. For every GOP leader who dismisses such talk as a Democratic “scam,” there are two more Republicans taking the idea seriously. For example, in Alaska last week, two GOP Senate candidates touched on the idea – and the more credible of the two, former state Attorney General Dan Sullivan, said he would take impeachment “very, very seriously” if elected and “would focus on it” if it reached the Senate.
So much for the notion of a Democratic “scam.”
Mike Huckabee is further helping exemplify the confusion. Last week, the former Arkansas governor said President Obama “absolutely” deserves to be impeached, adding there’s “no doubt that he has done plenty of things worthy of impeachment.” And then over the weekend, Huckabee added, “Let me be very clear. I never said he should be impeached.”
While Republicans work on sorting this out, some of their brethren are prepared to move on – not to other issues, but to other executive-branch officials they’d like to see impeached.
Senator Ted Cruz (R., Texas) doesn’t want conservatives to try to impeach President Obama, but he supports targeting Attorney General Eric Holder.
“It is clear, with the Harry Reid Senate, impeachment of the president is not going anywhere,” Cruz told National Review Online during an interview at the 2014 RedState Gathering in Fort Worth, Texas. “If the House of Representatives were to impeach the attorney general, that process would shine much needed light on the indefensible abuse of power by the attorney general,” he says.
And what, pray tell, is the evidence of Eric Holder abusing his power? Cruz says he’s still outraged by the IRS “scandal,” a controversy that evaporated a year ago when no one could find any evidence of wrongdoing by anyone. The far-right senator nevertheless suspects Holder of “obstruction of justice” for reasons he has not been able to explain.
(Others on the far-right have different targets in mind. Rep. Michele Bachmann last week raised the prospect of impeaching Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson.)
No good can come of this.
To be sure, Cruz conceded that he doesn’t expect Holder to be removed from office by the Senate, even if House Republicans impeach him. But the Texas Republican – who has a little too much influence over the direction of the lower chamber – told National Review he’d like to see the House pursue articles of impeachment against the Attorney General anyway in order to “shine a powerful light” on whatever it is Cruz finds important.
If this sounds familiar, it’s because far-right GOP lawmakers have been slowly moving in this direction for a long while. In November 2013, some House Republicans began pushing for Holder’s impeachment. A month ago, a House GOP leadership aide said that the impeach-Holder caucus has “been picking up a lot recently.”
As we talked about at the time, this seems to be the manifestation of a bizarre sort of frustration. “We may not be able to impeach the president,” some GOP lawmakers appear to be arguing, “but gosh darn it we’re going to have to impeach someone.”
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, August 12, 2014
“We Need More Voting, Not Less”: Republicans Are Gaming The Electoral System By Suppressing The Vote
For decades, we in America have lamented our voter turnout. There has been widespread concern about not only the 60 percent participation in presidential elections, but the drop-off to about 40 percent in off years and the miserable turnout for local elections and primaries that often doesn’t reach 20 percent. So why do Republicans in key states seem intent on preventing certain citizens from voting?
The critics of our system cite European countries that continuously have turnout numbers between 70 percent and 80 percent. (Austria, Sweden and Italy usually hit the 80 percent mark.) They point to how hard we make it for citizens to register, the problem with requiring additional documents at polling places and the recent passage of laws to combat so-called “voter fraud.”
We can go one of two directions in this country: We can make voting easier or we can make it harder. It is difficult to understand why some Republicans desire to make it harder. It is even more difficult to understand their desire to stop African-Americans, Hispanics and young people from voting, unless, of course, you take the view that Republicans have cynically decided to suppress the vote of these more Democratic-leaning groups.
The New York Times editorial board today pointed to those who are trying to make voting easier and those who are trying to make it harder. It cited six states that have recently created online registration systems and four that have either allowed voters under 18 to pre-register or put in place election day registration or expanded early voting.
Sadly, the Times also pointed to the 15 states that have passed new restrictions on voting that are mostly controlled by Republicans. 11 states have put in place restrictive voter ID laws, reduced time for early voting was passed in eight states, and some students are being prevented from voting where they reside for college.
According to he Times, 10 states have made it more difficult to even register to vote. A total of 34 states now have restrictive voter ID laws.
One of the most outrageous aspects of this movement by Republican operatives is that it is combating a problem that doesn’t exist. Voter fraud is not a serious problem in our elections, but preventing key groups of minorities, poor people and the young from exercising their constitutional rights certainly is becoming one.
We need to open up our electoral system, not close it. We need to have universal voter registration at 18. We need to have more early voting, not less, more vote by mail, not less, more consolidation of voting days, not less, and more use of technology to provide online registration. We need to explore weekend voting and also new ways to clean up voter lists and keep them current.
At the end of the day, it is time for Republicans to stop trying to game the system and win elections by denying citizens the right to vote. It will only come back to bite them – and bite them hard.
By: Peter Fenn, U. S. News and World Report, August 12, 2014
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