Category: Bad Politics

The GOP Is the True Anti-Business Party

GOP elephant
GOP elephant
Source: Republican Party (US), via Wikimedia Commons.

It doesn’t take a genius to realize that the Republican Party cares only about the Republican Party. The party, which once stood in opposition to slavery, now stands in favor only of the next election cycle.

Consider this, from Paul Krugman:

Republican politicians are at odds with corporate America on crucial issues. It’s not just vaccines. Corporate interests also want serious investment in infrastructure and find themselves on the outs with Republican leaders who don’t want to see Democrats achieve any policy successes. Basically, the G.O.P. is currently engaged in a major campaign of sabotage — its leaders want to see America do badly, because they believe this will redound to their political advantage — and if this hurts their corporate backers along the way, they don’t care.

Just to be clear, corporations aren’t being good guys. They support vaccine mandates and infrastructure investment because they believe that both would be good for their bottom lines. They’re still for the most part opposed to the rest of the Biden agenda, including — unforgivably — efforts to fight climate change, because they don’t want to pay higher taxes.

Still, the conflict between the G.O.P. and corporations is a striking new turn in American politics. And I wonder if some corporate leaders find themselves asking, in the privacy of their own minds, “My God, what have we done?”

And that’s the big question: What have they done? Corporations are quickly realizing they have little to no voice now in the party they bankrolled for generations.

When will donors to the GOP finally jump ship and side with the Dems? Like them or not, the Dems listen to everyone.


Giuliani Makes Up Date Mueller Probe Will End

Rudy Guiliani

Rudy Guiliani

Rudy Guiliani

The president’s “lawyer” Rudolph W. Giuliani said the special counsel plans to wrap up its investigation of whether President Trump obstructed the Russia inquiry by September 1.

Guillani made his remarks Sunday, according to the New York Times, saying “that waiting any longer would risk improperly influencing voters in the midterm elections in November.”

Somehow I don’t believe Rudy Guiliani, nor do I believe that Robert Mueller’s primary concern is the midterm elections.

Rudy doesn’t pass the smell test, again.

How did he come up with the date of September 1? Likely he said it many times during the “negotiations” with Mueller’s team, finally convincing himself that the special counsel’s office agreed to that date.

In short, he made it up.

The NYTimes reports:

The office of the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, shared its timeline about two weeks ago amid negotiations over whether Mr. Trump will be questioned by investigators, Mr. Giuliani said in an interview. A spokesman for the special counsel’s office declined to comment.

Mr. Giuliani’s comments were an apparent attempt to publicly pressure Mr. Mueller amid their interview negotiations.

Most relevant from this report?

“A spokesman for the special counsel’s office declined to comment.”

That’s all we need to know. Guiliani runs at the mouth every time he gets before a camera or microphone. No doubt this time he is simply playing parrot to what President Trump would like to be true. Mr. Mueller works in a political void — so it seems to me. Let his work continue until it has reached its natural conclusion, and a real report can be prepared.

Bring on the midterms.


North Korea Is Pulling Out: How Will Trump Trump Obama’s Nobel Now?

Crazy Donald Trump

Crazy Donald TrumpThe talks between North and South Korea have collapsed.

The summit between President Trump and Kim Jong-un are collapsing as we write.

How will Donnie T. trump President Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize now?

It’s all going up in smoke.

For a while, I was thinking, “Only Nixon could go to China. Maybe only Trump can go to North Korea.” Except that appears less and less likely as time goes on.

From the New York Times:

North Korea threw President Trump’s planned summit meeting with its leader, Kim Jong-un, into doubt on Wednesday, threatening to call off the landmark encounter if the United States insisted on “unilateral nuclear abandonment.”

The statement, made by the North’s disarmament negotiator, came hours after state media warned that the summit meeting might be canceled to protest a joint military exercise between the United States and South Korea that began this week.

The warnings caught Trump administration officials off guard and set off an internal debate over whether Mr. Kim was merely posturing in advance of the meeting in Singapore next month or was erecting a serious new hurdle.

Sic transit gloria mundi.

And I didn’t even know Gloria was sick. (h/t Mel Brooks)


Donald Trump’s Dangerous Reality Show

Rex Tillerson

Rex Tillerson, official portrait.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is the latest to find himself outside the revolving door of the Trump White House. CIA Director Mike Pompeo will replace Tillerson, according to reports.

Trump treats his White House as a reality TV show. He treats national security as a TV reality show. The number of firings, resignations, etc., of the “best people” is staggering. The number of positions not yet filled, numbering in the hundreds, is very troubling.

The federal government employs 2 million civilian workers nationwide, but many positions at the top of the food chain remain empty a year into the Trump presidency. Of more than 600 key jobs filled by presidential nomination, more than half of them are currently vacant awaiting confirmation or have no nominee.

We are in crisis. Our government is in crisis. Our national security is in crisis. The man at the top thinks he is running a TV reality show.

I must say it again. I have no other explanation. He thinks this is all about him.

And we are suffering, will suffer, for this.


Undocumented Immigrant Trump Trashed Acquitted in Killing of Kate Steinle

Jose Ines Garcia Zarate

Jose Ines Garcia Zarate (SFPD)

An undocumented immigrant from Mexico who Donald Trump trashed in an August 2016 campaign speech has been found not guilty of murder and manslaughter charges in the killing of Kathryn Steinle.

The man on trial, Jose Ines Garcia Zarate, was found guilty only of possession of a firearm by a felon.

The jury also found him not guilty of assault with a firearm.

From the New York Times:

The backlash to his release into the community crescendoed when Donald J. Trump invoked Ms. Steinle’s killing as he campaigned for president. Mr. Trump rallied national support for his hard-line immigration agenda, which ultimately helped to catapult him into office.

In a major speech on immigration in August 2016, Mr. Trump argued that “countless innocent American lives have been stolen because our politicians have failed in their duty to secure our borders and enforce our laws.”

Mr. Trump then named several young people who he said had become victims of policies he considered failures. Among those he named was Ms. Steinle, who Mr. Trump said had been “gunned down in the sanctuary city of San Francisco, by an illegal immigrant, deported five previous times.”

“And they knew he was no good,” Mr. Trump said of the man who had shot her.

Except The Donald was wrong.

Again.

And again.


Donald Trump Betrays America. He Must Be Stopped.

The GOP must get on board with stopping Donald Trump. The man is selling out this country piece by piece.

He must be impeached. As soon as possible.

From his Twitter rants today.

Trump’s latest Tweets

Trump’s latest Tweets

Why does Trump want to be Kim Jong-un’s friend?

why does he trust Putin over American intelligence?

Why is he still obsessed with Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama? Why does he feel so inadequate?

Why is he still in office?


Rolling Stone Ranks Anthony Scaramucci’s 10 Days in the White House

Anthony Scaramucci

Anthony Scaramucci

Anthony Scaramucci

Yes, it happened.

Turning Left readers are always very well informed, so this is not a breaking story.

Anthony Scaramucci was fired by President Donald Trump.

Rolling Stone ranks his 10 days in the White House, from “biblical murder analogies to denials of auto-fellatio, the Mooch’s brief tenure will be, at the very least, memorable.”

There was a false report today that Scaramucci’s wife was leaving him, filed for divorce, because he posted nude photos of her and loved politics more than she.

But that was satire.

What’s real?

Anthony Scaramucci lasted 10 days in the White House.

Here are notable firings and resignations from the Trump Administration, from our friends at LATimes.com:

  • Anthony Scaramucci, Director of communications (fired), 10 days
  • Reince Priebus, White House chief of staff (resigned), 189 days
  • Derek Harvey, National Security Council Middle East advisor (fired), 186 days
  • Michael Short, Assistant press secretary (resigned), 186 days
  • Sean Spicer, White House press secretary, White House director of communications (resigned), 182 days
  • Walter Shaub, Director of the Office of Government Ethics (resigned), 180 days
  • Robert Iger, Advisory council (resigned), 133 days
  • Elon Musk, Advisory council (resigned), 132 days
  • Mike Dubke, Director of communications (resigned), 85 days
  • K.T. McFarland, Deputy national security advisor (reassigned), 177 days
  • James B. Comey Jr., FBI director (fired), 109 days
  • Angella Reid, White House chief usher (fired), 105 days (and the only Person of Color on the list)
  • Katie Walsh, Deputy White House chief of staff (resigned), 69 days
  • Craig Deare, National Security Council senior director for Western Hemisphere affairs (fired), 26 days
  • Mike Flynn, National security advisor (resigned), 22 days
  • Sally Yates, Acting attorney general (fired), 10 days

That’s a list to rival, well, any previous administration.

More details here.

Candidate Donald Trump, The Don, Donnie “Make-America-Great-Again” T., boasted that he knew the best people. He would hire only the best people.

But he’s treating the West Wing like an episode of that little-watched The Apprentice, even calling the Cabinet Room as the “boardroom.”

Donald Trump, the most insecure man in America, governing, if you can call it that, out of spite for President Obama.

Who is next to go?

Bingo, anyone?

next to go, Trump administration

Who will be next to go in the Trump Administration.


Donald Trump Calls Out Pittsburgh, and Pittsburgh Responds

Donald Trump smug smile

Donald Trump mentioned Pittsburgh today, and that was a mistake.

The Bumbler In Chief called out Pittsburgh today when he announced that he would ditch the Paris Agreement.

The reaction from Pittsburgh has been a fast and furious rebut.

From the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

Pittsburgh is hogging the national spotlight, and it’s being shone on the city courtesy of President Donald Trump, who in a climactic moment about the climate, made the alliterative assertment that, when it comes to which accords he’ll agree to, he “was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris.”

Which was surprising to Pittsburghers, because It’s worth noting that in November’s presidential election, Allegheny County and Pittsburgh were won by Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.

So far, reaction has been swift.

And then there were the tweets, these from Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto:

And the voices go on from there.


Trump Sells Out Israel To Impress Russians

Donald Trump smug smile

Donald Trump smug smileThe secret intelligence Donald Trump boasted about in front of his Russian buddies?

It came from Israel.

Israel.

The lives that could be lost. The dangers we could face.

From the NYTimes:

The classified intelligence that President Trump disclosed in a meeting last week with Russian officials at the White House was provided by Israel, according to a current and a former American official familiar with how the United States obtained the information. The revelation adds a potential diplomatic complication to the episode.

Israel is one of the United States’ most important allies and a major intelligence collector in the Middle East. The revelation that Mr. Trump boasted about some of Israel’s most sensitive information to the Russians could damage the relationship between the two countries. It also raises the possibility that the information could be passed to Iran, Russia’s close ally and Israel’s main threat in the Middle East.

The potential for catastrophic fallout from the child in the White House, the child dying to impress others, is incredible.

I’m scared now.


Daniela Vargas Released From ICE; SPLC, Others, Celebrate

Daniela Vargas

Daniela Vargas

No doubt to the consternation of President Donald Trump (it still aches to type that, to say it), Daniela Vargas has been released from ICE. The freedom of the 22-year-old #Dreamer was heralded by the Southern Poverty Law Center:

We’ve just won an important legal victory.

Today, Daniela Vargas, a 22-year-old aspiring math teacher, was released from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody. A week ago, she had been detained by immigration agents moments after speaking publicly about immigrants’ rights.

It was a transparent attempt to chill free speech and intimidate immigrants who speak up. We filed a habeas petition to force her release and to stop her deportation.

“We’re joining the community in celebrating the release of our client, Dany Vargas,” said SPLC Deputy Legal Director Naomi Tsu.

“But we will continue to challenge the unconstitutional actions of ICE agents in this case and will not rest until she is no longer under threat of deportation. It is counterproductive and harmful to our communities for ICE to be targeting aspiring young people in this country and we urge ICE to release other immigrant youth held in detention.”

Read more about Dany’s case and the SPLC’s efforts to ensure detained immigrants have access to counsel.

Sincerely,

Your friends at the SPLC

“A transparent attempt to chill free speech and intimidate immigrants who speak up” indeed. This was ugly and wrong.

As is the Trump-declared war on immigrants.

It must stop.

More about Dany’s case here. Read. Celebrate tonight. Remember the many, many who do not make the news.