The Atlantic: Boycott the Republican Party

By khaavren  

Monday Feb 12, 2018 · 1:58 PM USMST

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Jonathan Rauch and Benjamin Wittes, in today’s issue of The Atlantic, call for a total boycott of the Republican Party. These are not bleeding-heart Liberals, or even NeverTrump Conservatives. Both Rauch and Wittes are respected for their non-partisan positions, and are fellows of the Brookings Institution.

This, then, is the article we thought we would never write: a frank statement that a certain form of partisanship is now a moral necessity. The Republican Party, as an institution, has become a danger to the rule of law and the integrity of our democracy.

Their article makes a desperate but reasoned appeal for everyone to abandon nuance and go all-out against every Republican candidate.

We’re suggesting that in today’s situation, people should vote a straight Democratic ticket even if they are not partisan, and despite their policy views. They should vote against Republicans in a spirit that is, if you will, prepartisan and prepolitical. Their attitude should be: The rule of law is a threshold value in American politics, and a party that endangers this value disqualifies itself, period. In other words, under certain peculiar and deeply regrettable circumstances, sophisticated, independent-minded voters need to act as if they were dumb-ass partisans.

The discussion that makes up the meat of the article is worth reading. To summarize:

• This is not about the Republican party’s extremism or even about policies.
• This is not about Trump being awful (though he is), but about the Republican party being unwilling to check his abuses of power
• Anti-Trump forces in Republican party have been shut out, and Trump owns the base now

This presents the Republican party as not just complicit by inaction, but actively operating to support Trump and his program of political destruction.

Here is their logical conclusion:

(1) The GOP has become the party of Trumpism.
(2) Trumpism is a threat to democratic values and the rule of law.
(3) The Republican Party is a threat to democratic values and the rule of law.

And the final appeal:

We understand why Republicans, even moderate ones, are reluctant to cross party lines. Party, today, is identity. But in the through-the-looking-glass era of Donald Trump, the best thing Republicans can do for their party is vote against it.

We understand, too, the many imperfections of the Democratic Party. Its left is extreme, its center is confused, and it has its share of bad apples.

But the Democratic Party is not a threat to our democratic order. That is why we are rising above our independent predilections and behaving like dumb-ass partisans. It’s why we hope many smart people will do the same.

I hope this appeal gets some traction. We saw NeverTrump Republican Max Boot express a similar sentiment at the end of last year, that he hopes all Republican candidates lose. But seeing this from people who have based their careers on being non-partisan seems like a step forward.

Former Navy SEAL who killed bin Laden: Trump's military parade is 'third world b*llsh*t'

By Jen Hayden  

Thursday Feb 08, 2018 · 11:18 AM USMST

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A string of heavy-hitting military veterans are hammering Trump over his ill-conceived idea to blow an estimated $20 million or more to line our troops up and force them to march down Pennsylvania Avenue, saluting him in his private box outside the White House.

First, Major General (Ret) Paul Eaton, the former commander of the U.S. Army Infantry Center and the man dubbed the “father of the Iraq Army” for his work training Iraqis after the U.S. invasion, released an absolutely blistering letter calling Donald Trump a 'wannabe banana republic strongman.'

Then Admiral (Ret) James Stavridis released a public letter saying the troops don’t need a 'puffy parade,’ they need real-life support like higher wages, better veteran care, and the weekend off to rest, not wasting their time in the summer heat inflating Trump’s ego.

Adding to the list is Robert J. O’Neill, the former Navy SEAL who shot Osama bin Laden in 2011.

Robert J. O'Neill ✔ @mchooyah

A military parade is third world bullshit. We prepare. We deter. We fight. Stop this conversation.

9:53 AM - Feb 8, 2018

The list of people objecting to Trump’s costly parade is growing by the minute. The D.C. City Council also weighed in on the idea of tanks rolling through the streets of D.C. and said "tanks, but no tanks."

Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) — whose administration is responsible for much of the city services associated with a parade — was skeptical about the idea.

“We would always be concerned about the impact on the city, the impact on safety, the impact on pulling personnel, the impact on our roadways, and quite frankly, the attention it would attract,” Bowser said Wednesday.

“Usually when you see big military parades, it’s celebrating an end of a war, and I don’t think that’s been announced.”

Her spokeswoman, Anu Rangappa, added that the city would have more to say once it hears from the Pentagon or the White House. “In the meantime, we do know that just like the wall, he will have to pay for it,” she said.

A Heat-Seeking Missile to the Heart of Trump's Biggest Fears and Vulnerabilities

Dan Rather. (photo: USA Today)

By Dan Rather, Dan Rather's Facebook Page

11 February 18

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he Rob Porter wife beating scandal that has the White House under siege is a heat-seeking missile to the heart of many of President Trump's biggest fears and vulnerabilities.

It reminds everyone that:

- Mr. Trump too has been credibly accused of assault (by multiple women).

- there have been several other people close to Trump accused of sexual and physical assault.

- there are dozens of people working in the White House without full security clearances (including his son in law).

- a chief of staff who was brought in to create order is now spreading chaos.

- Mr. Trump's vow to bring in only the "best people" to work with him rings hollow, and the administration is having a tough time finding people to work in the White House.

Meanwhile the incredible cocoon of privilege and ego with which the President envelopes himself blinds him to the sheer horror of his statements in defense of Mr. Porter. He rails against the injustice of these "accusations" (this from a man who accused President Obama of being a foreigner). He talks about how "Peoples lives are being shattered and destroyed by a mere allegation" but says nothing about the WOMEN victims. What about the lives of these women? Have they not been "shattered and destroyed"? And what about the lives of all of the women (and men) suffering in domestic violence situations?

Mr. Trump once again proves he is indifferent to the fate of anyone other than himself. This is a low for this country that is nothing about politics. We can debate tax cuts and immigration policy and how we fund education. We can disagree about the size of our military or the best balance for protecting the environment. That is democracy.

Debating whether credibly accused wife beaters should be allowed the honor (and that is what it is) to serve in the White House isn't democracy. It's madness - and a moment of sadness for the country.

20 Signs of Impending Tyranny

 

By Robert Reich, Robert Reich's Facebook Page

09 February 18

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s tyrants take control of democracies, they typically:

1. Demand personal loyalty from all appointees.


2. Organize military parades and other choreographed shows of force.


3. Threaten to fire independent prosecutors who get too close to the truth.


4. Spread conspiracy theories about "deep state" forces seeking to oust the tyrant.


5. Refer to top-ranking military leaders as "my" generals.


6. Threaten to jail political opponents.


7. Claim to have won an election by a landslide even after losing the popular vote.


8. Stoke tensions abroad, even the specter of nuclear war, to distract from the tyrant's efforts to consolidate power at home.


9. Circumvent the independent press and communicate directly with followers.


10. Vilify legislators and judges who are critical of the regime.


11. Repeatedly claim massive voter fraud in the absence of any evidence, in order to restrict voting in subsequent elections.


12. Turn the public against journalists or media outlets that criticize the regime, calling them “deceitful” and “scum.”


13. Repeatedly tell big lies, causing the public to doubt the truth and to believe fictions that support the tyrants’ goals.


14. Blame economic stresses on immigrants or racial or religious minorities, and foment public bias and hatred against them.


15. Threaten mass deportations, registries of religious minorities, and the banning of refugees.


16. Attribute acts of domestic violence to “enemies within,” and use such events as excuses to beef up internal security and limit civil liberties.


17. Appoint family members to high positions of authority.


18. Draw no distinction between personal property and public property, profiteering from public office.


19. Make personal alliances with foreign dictators, but express indifference if not defiance toward leaders of democracies.


20. Maintain a powerful propaganda arm that claims to be "fair and balanced" but only amplifies the tyrant's lies and accusations.

Everyone Is Mocking Trump’s Parade Idea (even Fox & Friends!)

Could Fox News kill the military parade?

“I don’t know. It seems like a waste of money,” said “Fox & Friends” co-host Brian Kilmeade on Wednesday morning.

Later in the morning, retired Lt. Col. Ralph Peters, a Fox News strategic analyst, blasted the idea in a chat with host Bill Hemmer. After Hemmer took a shot at the media for comparing a U.S. military parade to similar spectacles in Russia and North Korea — and pointing out that the model is non-authoritarian France — Peters said: “Bill, I served in the military for almost 22 years, enlisted man and officer. Let me tell you: I value our tradition of civilian control of the military. . . . I don’t like the image of heavy weapons parading through our streets and the streets of American cities. . . . We would throw the training schedules out the window.”

Moving right ahead, retired Gen. Jack Keane summed up his feelings this way: “We don’t parade. We train and we fight, all right?” he told host Jon Scott.

Jennifer Griffin, Fox News’s national security correspondent, appeared on air at least twice Wednesday afternoon to note that Pentagon officials had responded with a “collective eye-roll,” and had initially regarded the whole idea as a joke. Military brass, said Griffin, have “much more pressing issues” in front of them than “planning a parade.”

Shep Smith: Give Trump 'little mini replicas' of tanks instead of parade

Fox News host Shep Smith on Wednesday mocked President Trump’s request for a military parade, saying he could instead be given plastic replicas of military equipment.

His comments came after Fox News correspondent Jennifer Griffin reported that she’s heard from military officials that they have “more pressing and important issues on their plates, and planning a parade is not one of them.”

“He could go see the tanks at a military base if he wanted to,” Smith responded.

“Or they could give him replicas, little mini replicas. I mean, he wants to see what he has,” he added.

"You can get the little plastic ones and lay them out on the table and say ‘here you go.' "

D.C. politicians to Trump on military parade: 'Tanks but No Tanks!'

“Thanks but No Tanks!"

That's what the D.C. Council, Washington's local legislative body, had to say about President Trump's plans to host a military celebration in the nation's capital.

Much of Congress is not on board with Trump's parade

Republican Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi, also a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, was not enthusiastic about Trump's idea for a parade.

"It hadn't been a priority at all," he told CNN. "If it would save money not to do it, we probably ought to look at that."

Lawmakers balk at potential cost of Trump’s military parade

Durbin wrote a letter to Defense Secretary James Mattis requesting an explanation on how much a military parade would cost taxpayers, which Democratic Sens. Gary Peters of Michigan, Jack Reed of Rhode Island and Patrick Leahy of Vermont also signed.

“At a time of war, with American service members serving in harm’s way, such a parade seems to be inappropriate and wasteful,” the senators wrote.

This Is A Bad Idea,' Retired Army General Says Of Trump's Call For Military Parade

retired Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, who served during Operation Iraqi Freedom, says Trump’s idea is “not about the military.”

“This is about assuaging a fragile ego that we’ve got with this commander in chief,” Eaton tells Here & Now‘s Robin Young.

'Napoleon in the making': Trump's military parade plan sparks backlash

Democratic lawmakers leaped to pillory Trump's plan as an "idiot" and "authoritarian" idea from a "Napoleon in the making."

Meanwhile support was thin on the ground, even among Trump's advocates in Congress.

A sign of weakness’: Lindsey Graham thumps Trump for ‘cheesy’ military parade

The South Carolina Republican told CNN’s Manu Raju that parades celebrating the military aren’t necessarily bad, but he rapped Trump’s plan for a display of military hardware in Washington, D.C.

“(It’s) kind of cheesy and a sign of weakness,” Graham told the reporter.

GOP Leaders' Complicity Grows as Their Members Undermine the Rule of Law

Paul Ryan. (photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

By The Washington Post Editorial Board

08 February 18
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FOREIGN power interfered in the 2016 presidential election. U.S. law enforcement is trying to get to the bottom of that story. Congress should be doing everything possible to make sure the investigation can take place. Instead, to protect the president of their party, who may or may not be complicit, Republican leaders in Congress are allowing and encouraging the baseless slander of the investigators.

It is a new low for the leadership, and one that could do lasting harm to the nation.

Cravenness in the Republican leaders’ response to Donald Trump is nothing new.  During the presidential campaign, few stood up to his nativism and ugly ethnic slurs.

Since he became president, even fewer have stood by their previous commitments to U.S. leadership abroad and fiscal responsibility at home. As he has trampled long-established norms, such as releasing annual tax returns, we’ve heard not a peep from the Article I branch.

But this moment is different. Republicans have embarked on a smear campaign of the FBI that can end only in a dangerous erosion of trust in law enforcement, the subjugation of law enforcement to partisan interests or both. For Republican leaders — House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (Wis.), Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.), Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (Tex.), Vice Chairman of the Senate Republican Conference Roy Blunt (Mo.) — to remain silent is to be complicit.

These men could, tomorrow, end this nonsense of secret societies, phony memos and missing text messages and let professionals such as special counsel Robert S. Mueller III do their jobs. Instead, they are allowing Fox News personalities, the president and loose cannons such as House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (Calif.) and Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Ron Johnson (Wis.) to turn the United States into a country where law enforcement becomes another pawn in the partisan war.

Mr. Johnson irresponsibly recycles nonsense about corruption “at the highest levels of the FBI,” offering no evidence because of course there is none. Mr. Nunes abuses his access to classified information as Intelligence Committee chairman, a title Mr. Ryan long ago should have revoked, to manufacture dark conspiracies.

“We learned today about information that in the immediate aftermath of his election, there may have been a ‘secret society’ of folks within the Department of Justice and the FBI . . . working against [Mr. Trump],” Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-Tex.) says.

Then he adds: “I’m not saying that actually happened.”

No matter; the purpose is achieved. Doubts are planted, and a share of the country will discount anything federal law enforcement says about Mr. Trump.

These men are destroying something that won’t be easily recovered: faith in the idea of impartial law enforcement. It amounts to an assault on the rule of law. Mr. Trump openly wishes for an attorney general who will protect him, asks law enforcement officials whom they voted for, and fires or attempts to fire those he deems disloyal. He does not believe that FBI agents or anyone else is motivated by public-spiritedness or respect for the law, only by self-interest and personal loyalty to his or some other clan.

If Mr. Ryan, Mr. McConnell and others continue in their acquiescence, his cynical view may come closer to reality.

Trump's Desire for a Military Parade Reveals Him as a Would-Be Despot

Donald Trump and Emmanuel Macron. (photo: Michel Euler/AP)

By Jonathan Freedland, Guardian UK

07 February 18

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If the president insists on flexing his muscles on the streets, the opposition should have an alternative parade to mock his strongman tactics

he genius of Donald Trump, it has long been observed, is to turn subtext into text. What was hinted at or hidden is, with him, brought shamelessly to the surface.

So it is with his latest scheme, his instruction to the top brass of the US armed forces to lay on a military parade in the nation’s capital, perhaps on 4 July. He’d been nagging the generals about this for a while but, according to the Washington Post, he gave the order at a meeting at the Pentagon last month.

No need for us to deconstruct the motive behind this instruction. It came after Trump was the guest at France’s Bastille Day parade, where he stood at Emmanuel Macron’s side and watched tanks, gun trucks and column after column of starchly uniformed soldiers. “We’re going to have to try and top it,” Trump said afterwards. (The actual order to military chiefs was phrased in the language of a spoiled child: “I want a parade like the one in France.”)

By his own admission, then, Trump is engaged in a familiar, mine’s-bigger-than-yours, macho competition, with military hardware his chosen measure. Recall the equally uncoded tweet directed at Kim Jong-un last month, when the US president urged someone to tell the North Korean dictator that Trump’s “nuclear button” is a “much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my Button works!”

Opponents can react to this in one of two ways. Mockery is the obvious response, seeing in Trump’s desire to display US tanks and rocket launchers on Pennsylvania Avenue the same transparent insecurity as the mid-life crisis neighbour who suddenly turns up with a Ferrari in the driveway.

Or we can be more sober, and regard this as just the latest and potentially most spectacular demonstration of Trump’s authoritarian instincts. Just as he has repeatedly expressed admiration for strongmen in the Vladimir Putin mode, just as he regards the machinery of the state as his personal staff – casually referring to “my justice department” or “my generals” – and just as this week he suggested that those who refuse to applaud him are “treasonous”, so this is yet more proof that Trump’s instincts are those of the autocrat. Little wonder that he wants to take the salute at the kind of military display more associated with Moscow or Pyongyang than Washington DC.

The trouble with both those responses, however, is that they fail to take account of the fact that many millions of Americans might well like such a show. While progressives might complain about the banana republic militarism, while fiscal conservatives will worry about the huge cost of diverting all that kit to the capital and while the city itself frets about the damage 70-tonne tanks are liable to do to its roads, a large chunk of US society will want to rise to its feet and applaud.

That would be true of any event involving the military, whose place in American national life is now all but sacred. Fox News, the Republicans and the conservative media-industrial complex will waste no time in saying the parade is a celebration of the troops – and therefore any critic is really criticising “the young men and women who heroically defend America’s freedom and put themselves in harm’s way”, or words to that effect.

It means opponents will have to be canny. A counter-demonstration could easily be cast as unpatriotic, hostile to those in uniform, rather than to the commander-in-chief (who, of course, dodged military service himself, later claiming his battle to avoid contracting a sexually transmitted disease despite intense promiscuity was his “personal Vietnam”). But there is an opening here nonetheless.

If Trump wants to show his strength on the streets, the opposition can do the same.

Perhaps it could organise an alternative parade, whose theme is mockery of the would-be despot. And given the neurotic insecurity we know propels this man, I have an idea for the central display. While the armoured cars rumble down Pennsylvania Avenue and fighter jets fly over the Washington Monument, the rival procession could feature a giant effigy of Donald J Trump – with tiny, tiny hands.