“Responsibility, Duty And Honor”: GOP Leaders; Put Your Country Before Your Party
He can’t do it, Republicans. It’s time for you to admit that Donald Trump is incapable of even pretending to be an acceptable candidate for president. The question is which side of history you want to be on.
Are you going to stand with him as the balloons drop on the last night of the convention, knowing he shares neither your views nor your values? Are you going to work your hearts out this fall to put an unstable bully in charge of our national defense? Is party unity so much more important to you than trifles such as responsibility, duty and honor?
Leading Republicans should pay attention to what Sen. Mike Lee (Utah) told a reporter for the conservative Newsmax website: “What I am saying is Donald Trump can still get a vote from a lot of conservatives like me, but I would like some assurances on where he stands. I would like some assurances that he is going to be a vigorous defender of the U.S. Constitution. That he is not going to be an autocrat. That he is not going to be an authoritarian. That he is not somebody who is going to abuse a document that I have sworn an oath to uphold and protect and defend.”
Lee, who has not endorsed Trump, specifically mentioned “the fact that he accused my best friend’s father of conspiring to kill JFK” — referring to Trump’s scurrilous and unfounded charges about the father of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) — and also Trump’s history of making “statements that some have identified correctly as religiously intolerant.”
My only question for Lee is why Trump might still get his vote. I realize that Hillary Clinton is a Democrat, but no one has suggested that she might shred the Constitution or that she is a religious bigot. I thought the oath to “protect and defend” meant putting country before party.
To be sure, some leading Republicans are doing just that. Mitt Romney, the party’s 2012 nominee, is one of the loudest and most consistent “Never Trump” voices. The Bush family, which incarnates the GOP’s recent history, is boycotting the convention. My colleague George F. Will, a principled conservative if ever there was one, said last week he had left the Republican Party because of Trump.
But most GOP luminaries are like Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.), who has obvious reservations about his party’s presumptive nominee but supports him nonetheless. McConnell said this week that “people are looking for a level of seriousness that is typically conveyed by having a prepared text and teleprompter and staying on message.”
In other words, McConnell hopes Trump can at least pretend to be serious and stable long enough to make it through the general-election campaign.
Asked Wednesday if he agreed, Romney said no. “I think Mr. Trump has demonstrated who he is by virtue of what he said in the process to this point,” he explained. “What he says from this point forward may paper over that.”
I’ve had the same worry — that Trump would appear to be more statesmanlike and fool voters into thinking he had changed. With every passing week, however, I become less concerned about this scenario. Trump is who he is.
Every time Trump gives a prepared speech in which he manages to stay on message, drawing praise from the party establishment, he negates it by reverting to his old self. His address on foreign policy a couple of months ago, for example, was wrongheaded but basically mainstream. This week, however, he has been ranting about how the United States needs to use waterboarding and other torture techniques against suspected terrorists.
And you’re going to vote for this guy, John McCain? You, a former prisoner of war who was tortured by the North Vietnamese? You, the Senate’s most outspoken opponent of the practice?
McConnell said he hoped that Trump “is beginning to pivot and become what I would call a more serious and credible candidate for the highest office in the land.” Asked whether this was happening, McConnell replied, “He’s getting closer.”
But he’s not, and McConnell surely knows it. So does House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (Wis.), who will preside over the convention at which Trump is set to be nominated. So do many Republicans who, when I ask them about Trump, either sigh, shrug or run away.
We are talking about the presidency of the United States, Republicans. You are about to nominate and support a man you know to be dangerously unworthy. Some loyalty.
By: Eugene Robinson, Opinion Writer, The Washington Post, June 30, 2016
“So Many Secret Accounts”: Republican Doom Talk Helps Enable Big-Time Tax Evaders
So the first impulse is to discuss these Panama Papers in terms of the big crooks like Valdimir Putin. But let’s hope they get some traction on the presidential campaign trail and put the issue of tax havens at the center of the debate.
Yeah, we all know about Swiss banks and the Cayman Islands, and just figure that rich people have this wired and this is how it will always be. But it doesn’t have to. In fact, it has changed a little bit for the better recently. Wanna take a guess who’s been trying to do the changing, and who’s stood in the way?
First, a little background. The best estimate for the kinds of tax havens discussed in the Panama leaks is that they drain about $165 billion a year from federal revenue coffers. Gabriel Zucman, a leading expert on them, estimates that the U.S. government loses $35 billion from individual tax evaders, and $130 billion from corporate evaders. (His new book was just well-reviewed by Ethan Porter in Democracy, the journal I edit.)
One hundred and sixty-five billion dollars is a fair amount of money—more than you and I shelled out for any of the following categories of federal expenditure in 2015: health care and health research ($122 billion), transportation ($107 billion), education ($90 billion), or science-environment-energy ($70 billion). So we could use it.
In Europe, efforts started in the aughts to do something about this. The Bush administration wasn’t going to do much, of course. But after Barack Obama came in and the Democrats had control of both houses of Congress, Democrats—notably Michigan Sen. Carl Levin, but others too—sought to move legislation to address tax evasion.
And… they did! You probably didn’t hear about it at the time, because the effort didn’t generate nearly as many headlines as the Democratic effort to reform the financial system, address climate change, or pass a health care reform law. But note: The Democrats used their brief two-year period of total control of both the White House and Congress to address head-on about a half-dozen problems, and tax evasion was one of them.
The bill was called the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, or FATCA; how they managed not to tag that final “T” on there at the end is beyond me, someone was really asleep at the wheel. But anyway it passed. In the Senate, it actually enjoyed a modicum of bipartisan support, as 11 GOP senators voted for it (as opposed to 28 who opposed; Democrats backed it 55-1). But in the House, not a single Republican voted for the bill, as Nancy Pelosi let 38 nervous blue-dogs go and join all 174 Republicans.
So what did the bill do? Well, a lot of complicated things, some good, some bad, but in the main, it gave the IRS more authority to look abroad through global financial databases and figure out who might be a U.S. citizen and if so, what they might be owing Uncle Sam that they weren’t paying. It also required foreign financial institutions to report such relevant information about U.S. citizen residents to the U.S. government.
Sounds like a pretty legit thing for the government to be doing, if you ask me. But it involved the hated IRS, so naturally, you had all these hideous predictions from Republicans and conservatives about what FATCA was going to lead to. It was going to make presumptive criminals out of all U.S. citizens living abroad. It was going to compromise the privacy needs of banks. Best of all, FATCA, once fully implemented in July 2014, was going to bring about the official demise of the U.S. dollar. Snopes.com rated that one false.
The charge is being led by just the people you’d expect. Sen. Rand Paul introduced the bill to repeal FATCA, and sued the Treasury Department over it. Utah Sen. Mike Lee went on a barnstorming tour of Europe to drum up momentum for a repeal (that doesn’t seem to have to worked too well—the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development issued its own tax-haven enforcement guidelines, which are for the most part tougher than FATCA’s).
But it isn’t just the fringy, von Mises-y, gold-standard crowd that’s worked up about FATCA. The Republican National Committee officially passed a resolution supporting its repeal (PDF). Interestingly, I looked at the RNC’s official resolutions from 2013-2016 inclusive, and for those four years, FATCA is the only piece of legislation singled out for a specific resolution of repeal. If that’s the case, FATCA must be doing something right.
FATCA and the OECD regs represent first steps in a process that’s going to take 20 or 30 years, if it succeeds even then. And the Democrats of course aren’t perfect on this. But at least most of them acknowledge this as an issue and are trying to do something about it.
On this point, I feel certain you’re going to be reading this week a lot about how Hillary Clinton supported a free-trade deal with Panama, the notorious tax haven whence these leaked documents came to us. This is true, but as a secretary of state working for a president who backed the deal, she could scarcely have done otherwise. And two other points are salient: one, trade deals are negotiated by the U.S. Trade Representative, not the Department of State, and two, the USTR did seek and obtain a tax information exchange agreement before the Obama administration was willing to cut the deal with Panama.
Obama’s not the enemy here. Nor is Clinton. The people on the wrong side of this one are the same people who always are, and whose dire predictions of economic catastrophe, whether about this or raising the minimum wage or anything else, almost never seem to come to pass.
By: Michael Tomasky, The Daily Beast, April 5, 2016
“Cruz, Trump Pray Each Other Away In SC”: There Isn’t A Whole Lot Of Love-Thy-Neighbor Going On
Mike Lee wants you to know that Ted Cruz prays a lot.
The Utah Republican senator told a packed room at a barbecue joint in Easley, S.C., that in Washington, when “all the powers in the world” seem to have turned against people who believe in liberty, freedom, and Jesus Christ, Cruz is always there.
“In those moments, Ted is among the first to suggest we pray together,” he said.
In the final days before Palmetto Staters decide who will win their long-coveted support, the timbre of the race here has taken a distinctly Bible-Belt tone. Instead of speaking to pragmatic New England sentiment and detailing how he plans to win in November, the Texan is explicitly appealing to South Carolinians’ Protestant Evangelical sensibilities.
And Donald Trump, in his own very special way, is making a similar pitch.
But between their supporters on the ground, there isn’t a whole lot of love-thy-neighbor going on.
When asked at the barbecue place about tension between their supporters, Easley resident and staunch Cruz backer Scott Watkins chuckled.
“You mean other than the fistfights?” he said, grinning.
Emotions are particularly frayed in a small-ish region of the densely Evangelical state called the Upcountry, which has become ground zero of the Trump/Cruz Battle Royale. It’s where the pair—and their very passionate supporters—are waging a holy war of Old Testament proportions.
And as is the case with any war, geography matters. The northwest corner of the state is overshadowed by the Appalachian Mountains, and what it lacks in glitz (think Charleston) or policy-making clout (that would be Columbia, smack-dab in the center), it makes up for in religious faith and conservative single-mindedness. About 40 percent of the state’s Republican primary voters live in this Appalachian region, and their support helped save George W. Bush and George H.W. Bush’s then-flagging presidential bids. The forces that dominate Upcountry politics are also ones that outsiders find totally perplexing—and none less so than Bob Jones University. The school has just 3,000 students—one-third of whom were homeschooled—and it’s so conservative that they aren’t allowed to watch any movies above a G rating without a faculty member present (seriously). It’s also a popular pilgrimage location for Republican presidential contenders, since the school’s community is highly organized and politically active.
So while Lee was focused on praying, and Watkins joked about fistfights, others cast the disagreements in more ominous tones. Joanne Meadows, former president of the Greenville County Republican Party, said conflict over whether to back Cruz or Trump had strained some families.
“There are a lot of houses that have been divided,” she said soberly. “There’s a lot of emotion in this.”
She added that she’s backed Cruz since meeting him at a Republican Party dessert social, and that she’s had some very involved debates about her pick with skeptical neighbors.
In this part of the state, though, it isn’t just a question of neighbors sniping at each other over glasses of iced tea. Cruz’s foes have gone after him in labor-intensive ways. Dan Tripp, South Carolina state director for the pro-Cruz Keep the Promise super PAC, emailed over pictures of numerous large Cruz road signs with smaller “TRUMP MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” signs stapled all over them. One sign had the words “CHEAT,” “FUCK,” and “CHEATER” scrawled on it in orange spray paint.
Tripp estimated that upwards of one-third of the super PAC’s large pro-Cruz highway signs had been stolen or defaced. Even in an ugly South Carolina presidential primary, he added, that’s a lot.
Trump’s messaging to Evangelicals focuses less on his personal faith and more on Cruz’s alleged lack thereof; the mogul has spent the past few weeks questioning the Texan’s devotion to Christianity.
“How can Ted Cruz be an Evangelical Christian when he lies so much and is so dishonest?” he tweeted last week.
There’s a reason Trump singles out Evangelicals; South Carolina is one of the least Catholic states in the nation —2010 data shows only Mississippi and Tennessee have a smaller percentage of Catholics—and Evangelicals made up 65 percent of 2012’s Republican primary voters.
And it could be a winning strategy.
“There are Evangelicals that are extremely skeptical of any politician who tells them exactly what they want to hear, appearing to be too perfect in their philosophy and faith,” said Robert Cahaly, an Atlanta-based consultant who does work in South Carolina.
“As Carson, Trump, Rubio, and the media continue pointing to examples of tactics and actions which are inconsistent with Cruz’s carefully crafted persona, they actually erode the fundamental essence of his support,” he added.
Thus far, it’s working out. Recent CNN and PPP polls show Trump is leading among Palmetto State Evangelicals.
That may be why churches are now battlegrounds. The South Carolina politics blog FitsNews posted pictures of fliers that reportedly blanketed Upstate churches on Wednesday evening (when many host Bible studies and mid-week services). Churchgoers returning to their cars found fliers under their windshields highlighting recent reports that Cruz doesn’t tithe very much.
“Canadian-born Ted Cruz may not even be eligible to be president,” read one flier, next to a picture of the Texan with a Pinocchio nose. “Has a habitually habit of lying and spreading falsehoods on the campaign trail, all while waving a Bible around, taking selfies of himself praying and even signing autographs in the Lord’s House.”
Cruz’s explicitly religious pitch brings its own risks. And if those attacks work and Cruz loses badly in South Carolina, he may have trouble resurrecting his campaign elsewhere.
“If Trump wins South Carolina by double digits in spite of Scalia’s death and the renewed emphasis on the need for a conservative Supreme Court, it calls into serious question Cruz’s ability to rally evangelical voters—the lynchpin of his base,” emailed Robert Jeffress, a pastor from Dallas who has opened several Trump events in prayer but hasn’t endorsed.
That said, Cruz’s backers believe God is on their side. Maryanna Tygart, a retired nurse, traveled from her home in Indiana to South Carolina to volunteer here for Cruz.
“It was so crowded this morning, I tell you what, I was almost in tears,” she said as she waited to get her picture with him at a Republican Women’s Club event in Greenville. “We didn’t even have room big enough or enough phones for people to work, and there were so many people going out door-to-door and canvassing—and it was like, yes! Praise the Lord.”
By: Betsy Woodruff, The Daily Beast, February 19, 2016
“Another Train Wreck For McConnell”: Wow, Republicans Revolting Against The Elimination Of Medicaid Expansion. Imagine That!
You might remember that back in early 2010 Senate Democrats used a rule called budget reconciliation to by-pass a Republican filibuster and tweak their version of the Affordable Care Act to make it consistent with the one in the House. As a result, Republicans had a bit of a hissy fit, making the dubious claim that a simple majority vote in the Senate signaled the end of democracy as we know it.
In a move that should break all of our irony meters, Senate Republicans will soon attempt to use that same budget reconciliation rule in an attempt to dismantle the Affordable Care Act with a vote on a bill that has already passed the House. And we wonder why the practice of politics gets a bad name.
But hold onto your hats. This one is running into some trouble because, even with 54 Republicans in the Senate, McConnell is going to have trouble rounding up the 51 votes he needs.
The first problem comes from the Senate’s version of insurgents – Cruz, Rubio and Lee – who say that simply throwing a monkey wrench into Obamacare is not enough.
“On Friday the House of Representatives is set to vote on a reconciliation bill that repeals only parts of ObamaCare. This simply isn’t good enough. Each of us campaigned on a promise to fully repeal ObamaCare and a reconciliation bill is the best way to send such legislation to President Obama’s desk,” the three senators said.
The House version of the bill also contains provisions that defund Planned Parenthood – which is a problem for some Republican Senators representing more moderate states.
But if the Planned Parenthood provision is in the final bill — Senate Republican aides say no final decisions have been made — a handful of votes from the moderate wing could also break away. They include Murkowski, and Sens. Mark Kirk of Illinois and Susan Collins of Maine.
And now a third front of opposition has opened up.
“I am very concerned about the 160,000 people who had Medicaid expansion in my state. I have difficulty with that being included,” said Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, a Republican from West Virginia…
Sen. John Hoeven (R), who represents North Dakota, where an estimated 19,000 people gained access to Medicaid after Republican Gov. Jack Dalrymple decided to broaden the program, said he was unsure about repealing the expansion.
“I respect the decision of our legislator and our governor on Medicaid expansion,” said Sen. Steve Daines (R) of Montana, which has a Democratic governor. “I’m one who respects their rights and voices.”
Wow, Republicans revolting against the elimination of the Medicaid expansion. Imagine that!
When you risk losing Republicans from red states like West Virginia, North Dakota and Montana, just imagine what that means to incumbents running for re-election in places like Illinois, Ohio, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania.
Mitch McConnell proved himself to be a master at corralling Republicans into line to obstruct everything the Democratic majority tried to do for six years. But the job of getting them together to actually pass legislation has proven to be a much more difficult task. The fact that this particular effort will simply result in a presidential veto – even if successful – shouldn’t be lost on anyone. It is increasingly looking like another train wreck for McConnell.
By: Nancy LeTourneau, Political Animal Blog, The Washington Monthly, November 12, 2015
“The Party That Couldn’t Kabuki Straight”: Prone To Fights To The Death Over Strategy, Tactics And Above All, Symbolism
If you have been following the intra-GOP brouhaha in the U.S. House semi-carefully, you probably realize that much of the conflict between Freedom Caucus bravos and the other Republicans has been over how much hysteria to expend on efforts to force presidential vetoes of prized legislation instead of letting their bills succumb to Senate filibusters. Perhaps some of these birds actually do believe Obama would allow them to kill funding for Planned Parenthood or revoke his executive actions on immigration or mess up Obamacare in the face of a government shutdown or a debt limit default. But for the most part they seem to think there’s vast electoral or psychological or moral gold to be mined from showing exactly what they would do if one of their hirelings was in the White House.
Presumably that’s why the Kabuki Theater exercise of sending Obama a budget reconciliation bill–which cannot be filibustered–that “defunds” Planned Parenthood and repeals key parts of Obamacare has run afoul of right-wing opposition, per a report from Politico‘s Seung Min Kim:
[T]hree conservative members of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s conference — Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas, Marco Rubio of Florida and Mike Lee of Utah — have already vowed to vote against the current reconciliation package that repeals major parts of Obamacare, arguing it doesn’t go far enough. If those votes don’t budge, McConnell can’t afford to lose any more votes from his 54-member ranks.
Meanwhile, a provision in the reconciliation bill that defunds Planned Parenthood for one year could cause some heartburn for moderates who don’t support stripping money from the women’s health group.
A draft bill did pass the House on Friday, but over the opposition of Heritage Action, which will make another effort to blow it up in the Senate unless the Obamacare repeal language is broader. But that could make the bill vulnerable to a parliamentarian’s ruling that it violates the Byrd Rule limiting reconciliation bills to provisions germane to the federal budget.
You will note that Marco Rubio, the smart-money favorite to become the Republican Establishment’s darling and win the GOP presidential nomination, is right there with Ted Cruz on obstructing any bill that leaves any significant element of Obamacare standing–on paper, of course. This is presumably a gesture by Rubio to reassure ideologues he would make the executive branch an instrument of their will should they allow his name to grace the top of the ballot next year.
This is the congressional party Paul Ryan will apparently try to lead as Speaker–one prone to fights to the death over strategy, tactics and above all symbolism.
By: Ed Kilgore, Contributing Writer, Political Animal Blog, The Washington Monthly, October 26, 2015
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