US Politics: The Transition Continues

[butterbumps!]

fwiw, the case against Jeff Sessions isn't limited merely to racist offhand remarks made 30 years ago.   The issue is really that the Attorney General is supposed to ensure basic liberties for all Americans, yet Sessions has repeatedly proved unsympathetic- to- hostile toward women, the LGBTQ+ community, and people of color.     The Atlantic gives a thorough rundown that I think should make clear to anyone holding doubts that he's precisely the wrong person for the job, especially in an administration already seen as threatening to the aforementioned groups.  Some highlights:

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The Justice Department does far more than prosecute federal crimes. It is the primary federal agency responsible for ensuring that Americans’ rights are protected regardless of race, religion, disability, or gender. It ensures that Americans have the right to vote; that they can find a place to live, work, or get an education without discrimination; that local law enforcement agencies do not violate the constitutional rights of the communities they police; and that the nation’s civil-rights laws are defended and preserved in court.

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Since becoming a senator, Sessions has denounced federal efforts to protect the rights of marginalized Americans as intrusive, decried the extension of equal rights to gays and lesbians as a threat to Western civilization, and fought to preserve punitive laws in the face of a bipartisan trend toward criminal-justice reform. Sessions’s selection as attorney general augurs an era in which the federal agency charged with protecting the rights of women, ethnic and religious minorities, and LGBT Americans will be led by a man who has been openly skeptical of, if not opposed, to  its past efforts to do so. Which means that Sessions’s tenure as attorney general could leave some of the most vulnerable Americans defenseless, should he conclude that the civil-rights laws that protect them are not worth enforcing.

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Under the Obama administration, enforcement of the nation’s civil-rights laws again became a top priority, with the division taking on the racially discriminatory financial practices that lead to the 2008 financial crisis, more forcefully enforcing and defending votingrights laws, and moving against anti-LGBT discrimination, particularly in schools.

Under Sessions, all of those efforts would likely be curtailed. In 2015, Sessions complained that "there is a perception, not altogether unjustified, that this department's civil-rights division goes beyond fair and balanced treatment, but has an agenda."

 

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Sessions was one of the first backers of Trump’s proposed ban on Muslims entering the country. He was opposed to the Supreme Court’s decisions striking down laws banning homosexual sex, saying the ruling “divorced morality from law.” Sessions referred to the Obama administration’s decision to stop defending the law banning the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages, a law ultimately struck down by the Supreme Court, as a “shameful and disgraceful and an abandonment of the rule of law.” When the Supreme Court decided that same-sex partners had a right to marry, Sessions said that the Court had “disregarded the men and women whose convictions have defined the course of western civilization.”

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Though he ultimately voted for the [voting rights] Act, Sessions argued, like Chief Justice John Roberts ultimately did, that re-authorizing preclearance did “little to acknowledge the tremendous progress made over the past 40 years in Alabama and other covered jurisdictions.” In 1986 Sessions acknowledged that he believed the law that made it possible for black Americans to vote in the South was “intrusive”; two decades later he was saying the same thing.

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Sessions could also shift the resources of the Justice Department towards a crackdown on immigration. As attorney general, Sessions could choose to prosecute undocumented immigrants who return to the United States after being removed, putting them in federal prison instead of deporting them.

“Instead of re-deporting them, if instead the choice is made to prosecute them, you could have thousands and thousands and thousands of immigration crimes being prosecuted criminally, and they could fill up the federal prisons,” said Margo Schlanger, a professor of law at the University of Michigan and former head of civil rights at the Department of Homeland Security under Obama.

 

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Confronted with Trump’s remarks about grabbing women by their genitals, Sessions said it would be a “stretch” to “characterize that as sexual assault.” Sessions voted against the 2013 reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act. The law  had become controversial because Republicans opposed provisions offering federal grants only to domestic violence organizations that don’t discriminate against LGBT Americans, strengthening domestic violence protections for Indian women on reservations, and adding more visas for undocumented women who are survivors of abuse.

 

[Ormond]

I think this article has some very important things to say to "progressives" about working class people in states like Ohio;

https://www.thenation.com/article/why-do-white-working-class-people-vote-against-their-interests-they-dont/

It hasn't been on my radar screen for years, but I remember when I was younger being strongly in favor of the diea of worker-owned companies. It is really sad to learn that the attempt to create worker-owned steel mills in Youngstown back in the late 70s foundered on the opposition of both the steel corporations and the Steelworkers Union, who thought worker-owned companies would somehow dilute their power. The demise of unions since then seems to show they made the wrong decision. 

It also points up the paradox that places that actually have the fewest immigrants tend to have people who are most against immigration and who believe that immigrants just "take their jobs." Many fewer people in places with vibrant economies worry about that.

I don't think Trump's policies are likely to revitalize places like Youngstown. I am afraid, though, that if "progressives" don't take to heart critiques like this one that he will be able to blame the failure of his policies on liberal elites and immigrants and so will not pay a penalty at the ballot box. The Democrats need to develop policies that will address the fears of these people, not dismiss them as being expendable in the modern economy.

[LongRider]

35 minutes ago, Dr. Pepper said:

The Hamilton cast delivered a message to Mike Pence when he attended the play yesterday.  Basically it was "hey, we're scared.  We hope you uphold American values and protect us."  

Today Trump has not only demanded an apology, but suggested the theater should have been a safe space for Mr. Pence.  Oh, the irony.  

Quote

“The Theater must always be a safe and special place,” Trump tweeted as a follow-up. “The cast of Hamilton was very rude last night to a very good man, Mike Pence. Apologize!”

 

Will Trump also ask the people in the audience who booed Pence to apologize too?  How rude of the them! ==eyeroll==        But otherwise Mr. Pence, how did you enjoy the play?    

[White Walker Texas Ranger]

Maybe this is all just part of Bannon's master plan to drum up outrage and distract from actual policy stuff.

[James Arryn]

The Ugly American (perjorative): 

...is a perjorative term used to refer to perceptions of loud, arrogant, demeaning, thoughtless, ignorant, and ethnocentric.

[KingintheNorth4]

16 minutes ago, LongRider said:

Will Trump also ask the people in the audience who booed Pence to apologize too?  How rude of the them! ==eyeroll==        But otherwise Mr. Pence, how did you enjoy the play?    

What's even funnier is #BoycottHamilton is trending on Twitter. Looks like Trump supporters are thin skinned just like their leader.

 

 

[maarsen]

1 hour ago, Ormond said:

I think this article has some very important things to say to "progressives" about working class people in states like Ohio;

https://www.thenation.com/article/why-do-white-working-class-people-vote-against-their-interests-they-dont/

It hasn't been on my radar screen for years, but I remember when I was younger being strongly in favor of the diea of worker-owned companies. It is really sad to learn that the attempt to create worker-owned steel mills in Youngstown back in the late 70s foundered on the opposition of both the steel corporations and the Steelworkers Union, who thought worker-owned companies would somehow dilute their power. The demise of unions since then seems to show they made the wrong decision. 

It also points up the paradox that places that actually have the fewest immigrants tend to have people who are most against immigration and who believe that immigrants just "take their jobs." Many fewer people in places with vibrant economies worry about that.

I don't think Trump's policies are likely to revitalize places like Youngstown. I am afraid, though, that if "progressives" don't take to heart critiques like this one that he will be able to blame the failure of his policies on liberal elites and immigrants and so will not pay a penalty at the ballot box. The Democrats need to develop policies that will address the fears of these people, not dismiss them as being expendable in the modern economy.

Immigration creates jobs. If the reverse was true, the whole of North America would be a complete wasteland of destitute Europeans sponging off the original First Nations inhabitants.

[OldGimletEye]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trumps-big-infrastructure-plan-its-a-trap/2016/11/18/5b1d109c-adae-11e6-8b45-f8e493f06fcd_story.html?utm_term=.63e8d2e5d451

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First, Trump’s plan is not really an infrastructure plan. It’s a tax-cut plan for utility-industry and construction-sector investors, and a massive corporate welfare plan for contractors. The Trump plan doesn’t directly fund new roads, bridges, water systems or airports, as did Hillary Clinton’s 2016 infrastructure proposal. Instead, Trump’s plan provides tax breaks to private-sector investors who back profitable construction projects. These projects (such as electrical grid modernization or energy pipeline expansion) might already be planned or even underway. There’s no requirement that the tax breaks be used for incremental or otherwise expanded construction efforts; they could all go just to fatten the pockets of investors in previously planned projects.

Several years ago, investing in high growth infrastructure projects was a no brainer, given low government borrowing cost and fiscal multipliers that were likely over 1.

And those public investments would have stayed on the public balance sheet.

Also the further issuance of safe assets might have helped to bring down equity premiums and pushed up the natural rate of interest, a good thing.

But "The Party of Business" said "no".

But now the Trumpster is all about infrastructure projects. Peter Navarro has struck again with his infrastructure plan. According to him, with 137 Billion dollar tax credit you get about $1 trillion in spending.

A fiscal multiplier of about 7!!!!!

What's the difference?

Well, I guess when a Democrat is in office, the multiplier is about 0. Fuck it may be even less than 0 when a Democrat is in office.

But, when a Republican is business then it's about 7 or so cause you know they're "The Party of Bidness!!!!"

So what is really the conservative or the Trumpster "secret sauce" here?

Basically, its an accounting trick. They are just taking pubic assets and putting them on private balance sheets and then giving them a 137 Billion dollar tax credit with it. They would like us to think, I believe, that their little accounting trick here has little cost.

Oh but it does. 

The public will have to pay the private owners for the use of these new infrastructure projects. And the cost may well be higher to the public than if these projects had been publicly financed.

And had we pursued these high yield investment projects years ago, we may have avoided Trump in the first place*.

Sigh.

* Of course who knows with the "fake news" effect and invented scandals about people's emails.

[Ormond]

19 minutes ago, maarsen said:

Immigration creates jobs. If the reverse was true, the whole of North America would be a complete wasteland of destitute Europeans sponging off the original First Nations inhabitants.

I realize that, but that isn't the experience of people who live in places like Youngstown, Ohio, as the article points out. When jobs are decreasing in your community, it is hard to make the argument to people that things would be even worse without immigration -- especially when they actually run into very few immigrants compared to what people do in other areas. 

[Martell Spy]

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I realize that, but that isn't the experience of people who live in places like Youngstown, Ohio, as the article points out. When jobs are decreasing in your community, it is hard to make the argument to people that things would be even worse without immigration -- especially when they actually run into very few immigrants compared to what people do in other areas. 

Yeah, but Trump promised to bring back steel. In about a year when it doesn't happen and the jobs don't return, these people are going to turn on Trump.

[LongRider]

7 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

The public will have to pay the private owners for the use of these new infrastructure projects. And the cost may be well be higher to the public than if these projects had been publicly financed.

Public financing of private greed leading to privatization leading to the public paying, and paying and paying for these forever.

How quaint.

[TrueMetis]

30 minutes ago, maarsen said:

Immigration creates jobs. If the reverse was true, the whole of North America would be a complete wasteland of destitute Europeans sponging off the original First Nations inhabitants.

Well from a certain point of view they are sponging off the original First Nation inhabitants.

[Arch-MaesterPhilip]

1 hour ago, Ormond said:

The Democrats need to develop policies that will address the fears of these people, not dismiss them as being expendable in the modern economy.

I see some of  liberal friends sharing a meme basically saying coal workers are ridiculous for being concerned about what happens to them after their industry is killed. 

I agree that any Democrat planning to run in the midterm elections and for President needs to come up start working on a way to deal with that. 

[James Arryn]

21 minutes ago, TrueMetis said:

Well from a certain point of view they are sponging off the original First Nation inhabitants.

We're gonna build a Giant Teepee!

Virginians will pay for it, too. 

[Altherion]

10 hours ago, mormont said:

So Donald Trump has appointed an Attorney-General who was declined from a previous role over alleged racist comments, who thinks the NAACP is anti-American and who opposes even legal immigration, and the reason for that is... people complaining about racist Halloween costumes.

Do you guys even listen to what you're saying?

Yes and it makes perfect sense. I like to represent it as a hypothetical dialogue between the media/elites (ME) and random Americans (RA) where the selection is first from a randomly selected state and then within the state:

-----

ME: People dressed up in certain Halloween costumes are racist!

RA: Really? We've been doing that for years and nobody cared before.

ME: Yes, really. It's "cultural appropriation" and if you disagree with us you're racist!

...

ME: All white people have to acknowledge their privilege.

RA: What privilege? Decent jobs are really rare around here anymore and the elites openly discriminate against white people.

ME: Doesn't matter. If you can't see how minorities are worse off, you are racist!

...

ME: Donald Trump has said some bad things about Mexicans. He's racist!

RA: "Mexican" isn't even a race, it's a nationality.

ME: But we all know what he really means. He's racist!

RA: (inaudible) ...is he?

...

ME: Trump is going to nominate Sessions for attorney general. He is racist!

RA: Look, aren't you getting a bit tired of this? You've been throwing around accusations of racism left and right.

ME: But Sessions really is racist! Even the Republican Senate during the Reagan admini...

RA: Enough! You've opposed Trump the entire time (nearly openly!) and you're still trying to smear him now. You. Lost. We're not going to listen to this drivel anymore.

-----

Of course, there are many Americans who don't feel this way, but enough people do for Trump and the Republicans to implement their policies regardless of the loud whining.

[OldGimletEye]

22 minutes ago, Arch-MaesterPhilip said:

I see some of  liberal friends sharing a meme basically saying coal workers are ridiculous for being concerned about what happens to them after their industry is killed. 

I agree that any Democrat planning to run in the midterm elections and for President needs to come up start working on a way to deal with that. 

I agree with this. Just like Democrats need to think seriously about what it's going to do about people that have lost their jobs through free trade.

Part of the problem here, I think, is that labor markets may not be able to adjust easily. Perhaps, one of the biggest problems will be educational barriers to entry. It's one reason that I think something like Bernie's or Hillary's college plan could make sense.

Of course, it helps if you keep high pressure labor markets. Which why it was good that the goal of full employment came back into the Democratic Party platform. It should have never went away.

[James Arryn]

1 minute ago, Altherion said:

elites 

You made like an entire 2 paragraph post yesterday without using the e-word, I was mildly concerned but on my phone so couldn't address it; glad to see you're ok. 

Meanwhile, your random American seems fairly specific to me, but I get that's how you see the world. I'm happy for you that Trump as opposed to your other Champion of anti-E-ism (Bernie) won for your sake, as it doesn't seem as though Bernie is as concerned with rectifying be the unholy crime of classifying some nativist/ethnocentric bigots as racist/ethnocentric bigots. 

Some people, and I believe Bernie might be among them, would see this inverted holocaust as somewhat less pressing than the racism and/or nativism itself. Thankfully you didn't have to choose between them...I can't imagine which way you'd have gone.

[White Walker Texas Ranger]

http://www.vox.com/2016/11/19/13685762/donald-trump-hamilton-distraction

Quote

Here are a few news stories that broke between the time I left work a little early on Friday afternoon and the time my toddler went down for his midday nap on Saturday:

• Foreign diplomats are booking rooms at Donald Trump’s hotel in Washington, DC because they believe that directly putting money in the pocket of the President-elect of the United States will serve as a bribe that helps them curry favor with him and influence foreign policy.
• Congress’s phones got jammed by citizens calling in and asking members to do something about Donald Trump’s financial conflicts of interest.
• Donald Trump paid $21 million to former students of his fake university who he allegedly defrauded.
• Donald Trump got into a Twitter war with the cast of Hamilton.

 

[OldGimletEye]

Well, I guess it makes sense that a guy that won because of "fake news" would have a "fake university".

[Arch-MaesterPhilip]

9 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

I agree with this. Just like Democrats need to think seriously about what it's going to do about people that have lost their jobs through free trade.

Part of the problem here, I think, is that labor markets may not be able to adjust easily. Perhaps, one of the biggest problems will be educational barriers to entry. It's one reason that I think something like Bernie's or Hillary's college plan could make sense.

Of course, it helps if you keep high pressure labor markets. Which why it was good that the goal of full employment came back into the Democratic Party platform. It should have never went away.

You're absolutely right about that. Sometimes I think they aren't as sensitive as they should be to that.

Increased vocational training needs to happen in addition to making higher education more accessible. College just isn't for everyone.  

I hope it stays in the platform gping forward.