The NY Times is having a complete meltdown over the Manafort guilty decisions and Cohen pleading guilty, along with his accusations. Because this was the entire point of Muellers misbegotten investigation. There was no collusion to find. If there was, you’d think they would have had something by this point. So, we get
- Congress, Do Your Job by the Editorial Board which features the hateful racist Sarah Jeong
- Search Your Souls (what’s left of them), Republicans by Excitable Charles Blow
- Donald Trump’s High Crimes and Misdemeanors by anti-Trump “conservative” Brett Stephens (I’ve yet to see anything conservative from him)
- Can Michael Cohen Bring Down Trump? by Trump hater Ken White
all based on process crimes, most of which have zero to do with Trump. But, they won’t give up, because Trump beat Hillary fair and square according to the rules, and they just cannot get over it. But, there’s another opinion piece at the Times of interest by Charles R. Kesler
Breaking Norms Will Renew Democracy, Not Ruin It
Hardly a day goes by without President Trump being accused of breaking a presidential norm or two, doing something that no president has ever done — nor, it’s implied, ever ought to do.
He tweets. He runs down the F.B.I., the intelligence community, his own attorney general. He makes fun of other politicians. He hires and fires cabinet secretaries, lawyers and communications people with abandon. He revokes a former C.I.A. director’s security clearance. He fails to disclose his tax returns. He picks his Supreme Court nominees from a list prepared by outside groups. He alternately threatens and sweet talks foreign despots.
Guilty as charged — but so what? All norms are not created equal. Hence breaking norms is neither good nor bad except as the norms themselves are good or bad. We elect presidents partly to separate the wheat from the chaff: to energize government by shedding or retiring norms that no longer serve the public good, and by adopting fresh ones that do.
What follows is a discussion of the U.S., the Constitution, and norms and conventions. For instance, Thomas Jefferson decided that giving a yearly speech to Congress was to monarchy, and just sent his yearly address on paper. Presidents did the same for the next 112 years. Most presidents didn’t leave the nation to conduct diplomacy. And much more, worth the read. Then we get to
Most of Mr. Trump’s alleged transgressions, measured by those standards, seem picayune. They offend against the etiquette of modern liberalism and modern liberal governance, not the Constitution. For example, choosing from a list of potential Supreme Court nominees prepared by outside experts at his request, before deliberating with his advisers and interviewing several finalists, hardly amounts to a dereliction of presidential duty. And haven’t several Democrats subsequently called for a new court-packing plan to retake control of the judiciary — a far greater norm-buster than anything Mr. Trump has done or proposed?
Disturbing our NATO allies’ slumber seems more like due diligence than recklessness. Mr. Trump’s manner of treating members of his own administration is often regrettable, but then for his entire term so far he has been entangled in a pitched battle with elements of the executive branch nominally under his own authority — a frustration no previous president has had to face. Must he, in addition, acquiesce in the permanent security clearances of the previous administration’s spymasters, when they seek to wield these as licenses to kill his foreign policy and his whole presidency? Hard to imagine Jackson or F.D.R. sitting still for that.
Besides, future presidents will be free to ignore or repudiate Mr. Trump’s views and his blunt manner of doing business. This occupant of the White House seems to enjoy breaking norms, and he has been conspicuously more successful at breaking them than at devising and blessing new ones for our troubled times.
At the end of the day, Liberals are just unhinged that Trump is in the White House and doing things they do not like. Because they are only tolerant when people toe their rigid line.
The left if they win the midterms will impeach Trump. With enough votes from the never trumpers in the senate he is gone.
I surmise this will be the beginning of the end for the United States of America. The right Represented from Alaska Through the entire Midwest down to Texas and across to South Carolina and Florida will most likely rebel in a way never before seen in the history of this nation.
I would suggest to all Right leaning citizens as well as those who do not want to see their social security, welfare and Veterans benefits along with military retirements in addition to pensions collapse and disappear. I would suggest that you flood the polls this November and tell the Communists on the left. No they are not socialists. Tell them no only no in a non violent, constitutionally approved METHOD. VOTE.
The Dems will not impeach tRump when they win the House, unless even worse crimes are uncovered (which is likely). What’s the point unless they find 67 Senate votes?
TRump and his loyalists are busy “working the refs” in the media. tRump is obviously panicked about what Mr. Mueller knows, and is panicked about the bombshells coming. He’s trying to figure how to land when the shitstorm hits. The Cohen disclosures are minor compared to what’s in store, and tRump knows it. He admitted to the Cohen claims, he admitted that his campaign colluded with the Russians (the tRump Tower meeting including Russian officials, his son, son-in-law AND Campaign Chairman Manafort – remember him?).
The GOP will do nothing unless they see the tide of American opinion shifting – a sweep in the House elections in Nov might wake them up. At that time they MAY do what they did to Nixon, i.e., persuade him to resign. Dems alone have no power.
WHEN tRump resigns it will only be with an agreement with Pence to be pardoned immediately for ALL previous crimes committed (much like Nixon’s deal with Ford). Otherwise, if he stays in office and loses in 2020, he will be indicted the day Michelle Obama is inaugurated. Remember, the Special Counsel cannot ignore crimes uncovered during the investigation, even if they are not related to a criminal conspiracy with the Russian government. Marshalls will arrest him on TV.
He is going to resign with a deal. He has little choice.
Any “businessman” such as Manafort has the same skeletons as Manafort, but they are never investigated. tRump’s background is ten times worse. And as NuCons like to point out, the law is the law, even occasionally for rich white men.
Boy, they really have you brainwashed.
There will be on resignation because this was the best Mule Ears had, and it flopped. The “convictions” will be overturned on appeal since Manafort was exonerated on them 8 years ago.
So, no, Mule Ears really doesn’t have any goods on anybody.
if he stays in office and loses in 2020, he will be indicted the day Michelle Obama is inaugurated
Damn, it must be swell inside your mind living with Peter Pan and the Easter Bunny. Mike Obama Preezy? Not even black people like her.
The GOP will do nothing unless they see the tide of American opinion shifting – a sweep in the House elections in Nov might wake them up.
Good luck on that one. Even Lefty paradises like Oregon are fed up with all the Lefty tantrums.
MAGA: Making America Go Away…
So sad.
Yes, we know, that’s what you want more than anything.
We’re tired of tRump who doesn’t understand America, doesn’t understand Americans and doesn’t care.
We’re going to take America back from the criminal right.
See this is the kind of rhetoric that has both sides ready to explode in rage and violence.
I would beg to differ on the Dems impeaching Trump. They are running on the platform of the first thing they do when they win back the house is Impeach trump.
But despite every bit of that. If the Democrats are serious about running on OPEN borders and allowing the nation to be flooded with immigrants from everywhere so the left can change America into a socialist nation without borders then I would point out my above premise to be true in so many ways.
America will rebel on a level unheard of if the Democrats continue on this path of communist open border massive tax hikes for all. One only has to look around the nation to states where they have raised the minimum wage to 15 bucks per hour. Stores are closing, people are being laid off. Where once there was 20 employees there are now 12-15. Where a hamburger was once 5 dollars its now 7.50. Even Leftist corporations in Seattle are threatening to leave because they were hit with higher taxes by the city forcing them to lay people off.
With Democrats back in power and no longer hiding their true agenda of socializing America, nationalizing corporations and opening up the borders to massive influxes of Immigrants, the red states in this nation will rebel.
Antifa will have gotten their way. Anarchy and civil war.
,
The Democrats are against impeachment talk, although it’s clear that tRump is a criminal, possibly a traitor. We all recognized he was morally, intellectually and psychologically unfit to be President, but he was elected anyway (with the help of Russia and his own campaign violations). But Hillary!!
Democrats are not proposing open borders but total immigration reform. If there are 11,000,000 undocumented immigrants in the US and ICE handcuffs 100 a day, it will only take 110,000 days to get rid of them, while disrupting American life the entire time. That’s 301 years. The Earth will be 3C warmer by then and Americans will have all moved north to Canada.
So get serious. tRump is playing you with a PR stunt regarding immigration. His “Wall” is nothing more than a totem for his base to worship.
Democrats do not support socialism, unless you consider Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, highways, unemployment insurance, clean air, public schools, clean water and the military to be socialism. We used to think that all Americans had the same ideals but just different strategies for getting there. Now we’re not so sure. Don’t we agree that the richest nation in the history of nations should not have people living in poverty? Should not have school shootings? That having affordable access to healthcare, education and especially jobs that pay a living wage is an enviable objective? Democratic socialists are not communists any more than Sweden, Denmark, Israel, Japan and France are communist nations.
The New Conservative movement (even before the tragedy called tRump) was moving away from helping the working classes to giving absolute fealty to the wealthy. And the Dems have been little help. Every policy enacted supports the wealthy and corporations at the expense of the working classes.
The other day the angry little black fella was asked what crimes the President has committed.
He couldn’t come up with any.
He still can’t.