LiLSpeedy's Blog

Even if House Republicans get a new speaker this week in Paul Ryan, they're not going to get what they really need: a new strategy.

The core problem that afflicted John Boehner during his tenure in office remains in place — a band of hard-line conservatives routinely insists that the GOP use routine but critical pieces of must-pass legislation (debt ceiling bills, government funding bills, etc.) as "leverage" to secure ideological concessions from the White House. The plan fundamentally doesn't make sense and can't work, which most Republicans know but aren't willing to say. It's a recipe for disaster, and it hasn't changed one bit. And in some ways, things may be worse than ever under Ryan, who isn't really a practitioner of the kind of crass transactional politics that Boehner used to make it work.

So while the personal drama is fascinating on its own terms, it's irrelevant in terms of the larger structure of American politics or the consequences for ordinary people. Ryan is setting himself up for a world of tumult, intra-caucus conflict, and talk radio denunciations. The country, meanwhile, can expect a continued spell of unnecessary (and economically damaging) political crises, which it's already endured for the last four and a half years.

The big GOP divide

The unexpected drama around John Boehner stepping down — Kevin McCarthy's exit from the race, the effort to recruit Ryan to jump in, Ryan's conditions, and their quasi-acceptance — distracts from the real issue. Boehner dropped the gavel over a fundamental disagreement over strategy. The push to use must-pass bills as leverage has divided the caucus into three rough camps, and bridging the gap between them came to be too exhausting for Boehner.

Enterprising members of Congress have long tried to use must-pass bills to smuggle the occasional idiosyncratic priority or interest group giveaway into law. But what's dividing Republicans is the notion that they ought to try to use must-pass legislation to pass big partisan and ideological priorities — whether that's something grand like comprehensive entitlement reform, something petty like defunding of Planned Parenthood, or something in between like rolling back Obamacare.

There are basically three schools of thought on this:

1. The Pragmatists agree with the vast majority of non-Republicans that this strategy doesn't make sense. Reasonable people do not expect Barack Obama to compromise his core values in order to maintain the basic functions of government, so Republican demands that he do so merely bring the GOP into disrepute. What Republicans ought to do is pocket the gains they have already made and try to win the 2016 election.
2. The Fire-Eaters see the Obama presidency as in some important sense illegitimate, and Congress as a crucial check on his unwarranted use of power. On this view, to approve an increase in the debt ceiling without fundamentally altering America's fiscal trajectory is to become complicit in that trajectory. To pass an appropriations bill that fails to defund Planned Parenthood is to be complicit in Planned Parenthood's activities.
3. The Timids compose the center of gravity in the Republican Congress. They think the Pragmatists are right, but they don't want to say they think the Pragmatists are right. They would like the Fire-Eaters to go away, but they don't want to denounce them publicly. They are essentially paralyzed by twin fears. On the one hand they worry that if the Fire-Eaters get their way, the result will be a disaster for America that gets blamed on the GOP. On the other hand, they worry that if they break with the Fire-Eaters, talk radio hosts will denounce them and they'll be vulnerable to a defeat in a primary campaign.

Ryan's demands evaded the core issue

Much of the coverage of Paul Ryan's demands before agreeing to serve as speaker focused on his personal desire for family time and relief from the speaker's traditional fundraising obligations. The rest focused on two demands related to congressional procedure — he wanted the backing of all the GOP's subcaucuses, and he wanted to curb the use of a procedural motion (the motion to vacate the chair) that backbench right-wingers used to harass Boehner. It seems that Ryan did not fully get his way on the procedural motion issue.

But to even frame it this way was an evasion of the central conflict inside his caucus. Boehner's problem wasn't that he was beset by a particular procedural motion. His problem was that several dozen members of his caucus fundamentally disagreed with him about strategy, and dozens more wouldn't publicly admit that they didn't disagree with him. Ryan has not solved this problem.

Indeed, he's exacerbated it by focusing the conversation on the motion to vacate the chair rather than on the underlying conflict about strategy. Rather than get the Timids to come out of the closet as Pragmatists, he indulged their desire to signal pragmatism to insiders without admitting it to the public.

Ryan is facing an inevitable cycle of betrayal

The good news for Ryan is that he starts the relationship with a clean slate. He is well-liked by the right wing of the conference in a way that Boehner wasn't. The bad news for Ryan is that he's set himself to develop a toxic relationship with conservative media figures and the Fire-Eaters.

Like Boehner before him, he's set himself up to be a patsy for the Timids' own dysfunctional timidity. Here's how things are going to go:

• During a caucus discussion of a must-pass vote, the Fire-Eaters will propose doing something crazy.
• The Timids will complain about it off the record to Politico reporters, but publicly line up behind the demand.
• Ryan, acceding to the stated wishes of his conference, will line up behind the demand even though neither he nor anyone else thinks it makes any sense.
• Obama will refuse to cave.
• After a bunch of posturing, the Timids will signal privately to Ryan that they wouldn't mind seeing a clean version of the must-pass bill brought to the floor.
• Ryan will bring a clean version of the must-pass bill to the floor, where a coalition of Democrats and Pragmatists will pass it over the real objections of the Fire-Eaters and the fake objections of the Timids.

Conservatives will go crazy over why their leaders have betrayed them again. This is how Boehner did things, and for all his hemming and hawing, Ryan hasn't actually done anything to change the dynamics that pushed Boehner in this direction.

Why things could be even worse for Ryan

John Boehner, looking bemused. Saying to himself with a smirk, Ryan you don't have a Plucking clue about what these wolves and back-biters are going to do to you.

One saving grace of Ryan's approach is that before his ascension to the speakership, Boehner's "brand" in Washington was of being a low-key, lobbyist-friendly transactional politician. The bizarre parliamentary two-step he found himself inevitably employing to ease the tensions inside his caucus ultimately served to prove that he was a very skilled transactional politician, and he leaves the job with a better reputation than he started with.

By contrast, there are already two polarized narratives about Ryan. To his admirers in the press, Ryan is a courageous visionary leader who's not afraid to tackle the big questions head on. To his detractors, he's simply a fraud.

The Boehner Way of Legislating is essentially fraudulent, but since Boehner never tried to get anyone to believe he was visionary it did his reputation no harm. But Ryan is supposed to be a Big Ideas guy. Sinking down to the level of doing the dirty work of covering for the Timids' timidity will rapidly burn years of time spent burnishing his credibility, while reluctance to do national fundraising will reduce members' loyalty to his leadership.

Tuesday, October 20, 2015

Nationwide — If you haven’t heard by now, there are some racist “Star Wars” fans that are trying to organize an online boycott of the upcoming Star Wars: Episode VII film due in theaters this coming December. They are apparently upset about the fact that one of the lead characters, Finn, is played by 23-year old actor John Boyega, who is African American.

It may not be that many of these racist fans, but its enough of them where it is being noticed by national media and it is definitely buzzing on all the social media hotspots.

 

But here are five reasons why it really doesn’t make any sense:

#1 – George Lucas, the creator of the Star Wars franchise, is married to Melanie Hobson – a Black woman.

#2 – In the 1970’s, when the Star Wars films were first released, the character of Darth Vader was voiced by James Earl Jones, an African American actor.

#3 – Actor Billy Dee Williams starred in at least two of the Star Wars films, and was credited for attracting a larger amount of African American fans to the franchise (especially women).

#4 – Master Yoda, himself, once told Luke Skywalker in one of the films: “Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.”

 

#5 – Although actor John Boyega is a leading character in the film, he’s still one of very few African Americans in the film. But others do include actors Dante Briggins and Phoenix James, who both play storm troopers. And also, actress Crystal Clark, whose character is currently unknown. (So, if you’re more interested in seeing the white characters in the film, you won’t be disappointed!)

 

So if you have a problem with Black people being a part of the Star Wars franchise, you should have never become a fan in the first place because they’ve been there all along!

Donald Trump is inescapable. If you're not keeping up with the Republican race, chances are you probably saw Trump piñatas at the USMNT-Mexico game. Maybe reality shows, politics, and soccer aren't your thing. Trump has you covered if you're into boxing, too.

On Saturday, Donald Trump visited boxer Gennady Golovkin's locker room before the middleweight's big fight against David Lemieux. The encounter was light and very amicable, but boxing fans at Madison Square Garden didn't reciprocate the good vibes.

In fact, they booed Trump relentlessly as video of the locker room was shown on the big screen. Trump was probably confused as to why boxing fans would attend a Triple G fight only to boo him.

Charles Rex Arbogast

An attorney for Dennis Hastert has told a federal judge that the former House speaker intends to plead guilty in a federal hush-money case.

John Gallo said during a brief hearing Thursday that he expects to have a written plea agreement by Monday. And he asked the judge to set a date for a change of plea. The judge scheduled an Oct. 28 hearing.

Gallo did not mention any of the terms, including what counts Hastert would plead guilty to.

A plea deal would avert a trial and help keep any potentially embarrassing secrets quiet.

The 73-year-old Illinois Republican is charged with breaking banking laws and lying to the FBI in efforts to pay someone $3.5 million to hide claims of past misconduct. (AP)

 

Anyone in that position who had unlimited financial resources and who truly wanted to win the nomination would have already unleashed wall-to-wall ads in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada, and would be assembling a massive ground-game in those states.

Why? Because if Trump won those primaries convincingly, it would be all over but the shouting.

Such a candidate would also be fielding ads and building organization in the compressed March 1-15th states where delegates will be handed out proportionally to build an uncatchable lead.

No one else can do this because they are donor-dependent and the donors want to see evidence of feasibility in early states to hedge their bets.

But, the Donald's only donor is himself. And, it does not seem that himself is taking the Donald's candidacy seriously enough to invest.

Two hundred million deployed now could wrap it all up for him.

Think of it. The obligatory fluff piece introducing a "Donald no one knows" would be airing in those states. In Iowa it would show him castrating hogs, patting cows and pitching hay (on his golf courses?), and dutifully attending church with his (current) family in tow. In New Hampshire, where Pat Buchanan scored well against George H.W. Bush, he would show his populist roots. In Nevada he would be talking about how much he loved the Hispanics and in South Carolina he would go back to church and complain about the political correctness forcing the confederate flag off the state capitol, and so forth.

He would also unleash his "bash-o-rama." Some ads would show him in triumphant moments at the debates, others with large crowds in Texas. He would also dump on his rivals as being part of the problem or not up to the job or lacking energy or being a failed CEO.

He could, perhaps rightly, proclaim a growing flock of followers, and demonstrate how much he cares for all of us by showing how much of his own money he is spending.

The bash-o-rama would not be Trump if he did not dump on immigrants while proclaiming his love for them.

And, of course, the polls. He could, perhaps paradoxically, use the ad buys to show that he surged to the top without spending a dime, showing poll after poll after poll. He could also repeat constantly that he takes no money from anyone, that he, unlike all his opponents, is his own man. He need not whisper a single syllable in support of campaign finance reform because he is free from any influence.

As his expenditures demonstrated his commitment to the race, all the best field operatives would take jobs with him. Indeed, he could tout their skills as proof that he attracts only the best, so he would get a double-whammy out of it.

The other candidacies would, as Newt Gingrich wished for medicare and social security respectively, wither on the vine and twist slowly in the breeze. If Trump deployed $200M, how many big donors would support the others?

But, Trump is not doing any of this. Nor will he. He either does not have the money he proclaims or he is too cheap to spend it, or both.

Reporters should ask Trump three questions: i) why, having sat atop the heap now for months, is he not overwhelming the others with cash expenditures to win it all, and quickly? ii) recount all the times he has alluded to "people saying things" and ask him to name the people who have actually said it; and iii) show him a copy of Ted Cruz's birth-certificate and ask if Ted Cruz is disqualified from serving as president.

This publication never has taken the Trump candidacy seriously. Neither have I.

Nor should anyone.

A true winner, as Trump claims himself to be in life, would go all-in. Now. Immediately.

But, Trump is not a true winner. He is an insecure, whining showman. A wimp.

Time for Trump to put-up-or-shut-up.

Donald Trump’s tax plan was revealed with a message for millions of Americans: “You win!”

But like everything linked to taxes, not everyone would win equally under his plan, which the Republican presidential candidate says is geared toward providing tax relief for the middle class and giving the U.S. economy a boost by lowering business income taxes.

To be sure, there’s a long road ahead before the general election in November 2016, but Trump’s proposal raises evergreen questions about the country’s tax system, such as why it’s so complicated and whether struggling middle-class families should get more of a break. Trump’s plan is geared to appeal to his supporters, one-third of whom earn less than $50,000 a year -- the group that the candidate claims would benefit the most from his plan.

Related: Trump Vows Lower Tax Rates, Deep Spending Cuts

Yet the biggest winners under Trump’s plan would be, well, people just like Trump: America’s richest citizens. That’s because he’s proposing a big reduction in income taxes for married couples earning at least $300,000, as well as a plan to eliminate the estate tax, which only kicks in at about $10 million per couple, said Edward Zelinsky, a law professor at the Cardozo School of Law, who specializes in tax issues.

“The truth is most lower income folks don’t pay tax in our system today anyway,” Zelinsky said, who added that Trump is claiming to remove people from the tax rolls who already don’t pay much, if anything, in federal tax. “Thanks to the earned income tax credit and standard exemptions, roughly half of Americans don’t pay significant income taxes.”

Trump’s plan is “really good for high income tax payers,” he added.

One caveat: Trump’s four-page proposal is short on details. As a result, some issues are unclear, such as his assertion that many deductions would be eliminated, although his plan maintains deductions for charitable giving and mortgage interest, which are two of Americans’ most popular deductions.

Related: Trump vs. Conservative Media: The War Is On

“This is a surprisingly vague proposal,” Zelinsky added.

Here’s how different groups would fare under his proposal:

The 1 percent. The top 1 percent of taxpayers -- the Trumps of America -- would see the biggest benefits. With an average income of $1.79 million, the top 1 percent of income earners would see their tax bill plunge by $184,268, according to Citizens for Tax Justice. They would take home one-third of the tax cut proposed by Trump, excluding the estate tax elimination.

Households in the next 4 percent. With average incomes of $323,000, these earners would see their tax bill shaved by $18,158, accounting for about 13 percent of Trump’s tax cut, according to Citizens for Tax Justice.

Upper middle income groups. Americans with average earnings of $148,100 (the 80 to 95 percent) would see savings of $7,500, or 21 percent of Trump's tax cut. Earners making an average of $84,800 (the 60 to 80 percent) would pay $4,943 less in taxes, or 18 percent of the tax cut.

Related: Trump, Obama and Bush Agree: Close the Carried Interest Tax Loophole

The middle class and the poor. Do these groups really see a benefit, as Trump claims? Well, not so much. These groups would see a small tax benefit that pales in comparison to those that would be enjoyed by the wealthy. The middle 20 percent of American earners would see their taxes decline by $2,571, while the poorest residents would only pay $250 less in taxes – accounting for just 4 percent and 1 percent of Trump’s tax cut respectively, the CTJ noted.

Freelancers: Trump is proposing to lower the corporate tax rate to 15 percent for all businesses, including mom-and-pop stores and independent contractors. Because large corporations already use complex tax strategies to lower their tax bills, small businesses and freelancers might see the biggest benefit. The downside, said Zelinsky, is that Trump’s plan incentivizes employees to strike out on their own as independent contractors. A worker earning more than $150,000 as an employee would be taxed at 25 percent, but that would be lowered to 15 percent if she went out on her own. “I’m struck by the fact that this is very unfair,” Zelinsky added. 

Republican candidates should not only be asked about Cruz's eligibility, but pressed for an answer. And, not only pressed for an answer on Cruz, but asked why none of them stepped forward during the birtherism campaigns. During those days, they were writing into state laws requirements for producing birth certificates, and an Israeli-born dentist claimed she had proof of Obama's foreign birth.

Why did they not step forward and state that Obama's place of birth did not matter because his mother was an American citizen? For Cruz to be eligible, that is what they have to believe. Let them say it...now.

Especially Donald Trump. Why? Because Trump's message for years was President Obama's eligibility for the White House was based upon his place of birth. Never once, at least of which I am aware, was Trump or any of the other nut jobs asked why it mattered.

After all, no one doubted who his U.S.-born mother was, and, if having at least one parent who is a U.S. citizen, satisfies the "naturally born" criterion, then even the most idiotic of idiots -- e.g., Steven King (R-IA) who surmised that Obama's birth information was faxed to Hawaii (before faxes existed of course, but never mind) -- would have had to concede that the entire charade of de-legitimizing Obama's presidency had no foundation, no-way, no-how.

Moreover, on the right there was an entire cottage industry devoting itself to undermining Obama's entire persona. When birtherism seemed to be going nowhere, one group decided to question not Obama's place of birth, but who his true father was, claiming that Obama had a nose-job (I kid you not) to avoid looking like his "real" father who was a communist.

Then, it was all conflated. Obama became a Kenyan communist, named after someone who was not his biological father to plot a successful presidential run decades later, using the middle name of Hussein, so as to undermine the entire fabric of society. Before dismissing this as too absurd for anyone to say or believe, recognize that more than 50% of Republicans still believe Obama was born outside the U.S.

Trump cannot answer the Obama place-of-birth question because he would either have to lie outright, or state that Ted Cruz is ineligible to run for president.

Trump likes Cruz. He does not want to have to say that. But, he must, or admit that his entire Obama birth certificate campaign was a complete scam.

Or, as the Donald would put it, "entertainment". Entertainment at the expense of fooling millions of republicans who would likely recoil at the recognition they had been deliberately led astray.

Entertainment at the expense of undermining the honor and dignity of the presidency.

The two former representatives, Todd Courser and Cindy Gamrat, who are both Republicans and Tea Party members, apologized during a special House committee hearing this week for using their staff members to try to cover up their affair.

Courser resigned around 3 a.m. Friday, following a whirlwind session that centered on his possible expulsion. Gamrat was removed from office by a vote of the full House about an hour later.

They had both asked to be censured, which would have allowed them to remain in office.

The two Democrats on the six-member special committee abstained from the panel's vote to expel Courser and Gamrat, contending their Republican counterparts had rushed the House investigation for political reasons.

But early Friday, Republicans had secured enough support to meet the two-thirds majority of affirmative votes in the full House required to remove a lawmaker.

Courser then tendered his resignation, effective immediately, before the Republican-led legislature could vote on his expulsion.

Democrats agreed to expel Gamrat once Republicans offered support for a resolution to have the state police investigate the matter. Republicans needed Democrats to reach the two-thirds threshold.

Michigan State Police said in a statement that it would "honor the requests made by the Legislature ... to investigate potential criminal wrongdoing by Representative Courser and Representative Gamrat." A police official declined further comment.

Governor Rick Snyder, a Republican, said he supported the state police probe.

"This matter needs to be resolved and an investigation by MSP will provide further clarity," he said in a statement. "I hope this investigation helps bring closure to the issues for all involved."

Gamrat becomes just the fourth lawmaker in Michigan history to have been expelled, dating back to 1887.

Gamrat and Courser could not be reached for comment on Friday.

Michigan Lieutenant Governor Brian Calley said in a statement that a primary election would be held on Nov. 3 and a general election on March 8, 2016, to fill the seats.

GOP presidential candidate Mike Huckabee blasted the Supreme Court on Tuesday for allegedly going beyond its authority to interpret the Constitution and making law. His listeners were a crowd rallying in support of Kim Davis, the recalcitrant Kentucky county clerk just released from jail. 

Hopefully, they didn't believe what Huckabee told them.

"We do not want this country to become the smoldering remains of what was once a great republic, where the people rule," the former Arkansas governor told the crowd. That vision of America should not be "exchanged for a place where five unelected lawyers think that they can rule," he said.

"We're here to say, 'No, they cannot,'" Huckabee declared.   

He was referring to the Supreme Court's June decision finding that gays and lesbians have a constitutional right to marry. Davis has famously -- or infamously -- opposed that ruling in her refusal to issue marriage licenses to all comers in Rowan County. 

Huckabee's mention of "five unelected lawyers" was borrowed from the landmark decision itself. In his dissenting opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that the "five lawyers" -- otherwise known as his fellow justices -- who ruled in favor of gay couples "have closed the debate and enacted their own vision of marriage as a matter of constitutional law."

"Stealing this issue from the people will for many cast a cloud over same-sex marriage, making a dramatic social change that much more difficult to accept," Roberts wrote.

It's not clear that a more majoritarian process, such as the Kentucky state legislature passing a law, would have persuaded Davis to go along with the new legal reality. But not even the Roberts Court was willing to suggest her religious liberty arguments sounded good. Last week, the high court declined to get involved in her case and to let her disobey a federal judge's order. Defiance of that order was what ultimately landed Davis in jail for contempt of court.

Though the Supreme Court's refusal to intervene last week was issued without an explanation, it at least indicated that the justices aren't eager to advance the culture war between gay rights and religious rights that Huckabee is pushing.

Nodding to the separation of powers and "the genius of our Constitution," Huckabee told Davis supporters on Tuesday that the Supreme Court's power is "limited" and that it "can only review a law." Reasonably true.

But then came his warning that "the founders never gave that one branch of government the power to make a law."

Huckabee added, "That is reserved for the representatives of the people. Our founders were so concerned that they said that should we ever come to the place that we allow a court to run amok of its purpose, then we would be living under what is no less than judicial tyranny."

Huckabee was thin on the specifics of how to tell when a court is running "amok." But it can be gleaned from his comments Tuesday -- and a January interview with talk show host Hugh Hewitt -- that he thinks that Supreme Court rulings on constitutional issues aren't final and that state officials may flout them when they disagree.

In the Hewitt interview, Huckabee said there has to be an "agreement" between the Supreme Court and "the other two branches of government" for something to become the law of the land. Anything less, he said, could potentially lead to a "confrontation."

That thinking reveals a clear misunderstanding of basic civics, not to mention Arkansas' own appalling constitutional history.

This is U.S. History 101: It was settled over two centuries ago that the Supreme Court is the final arbiter on the meaning of the Constitution and of the constitutionality of any laws that may conflict with it. The text of the Constitution provides that it is "the supreme law of the land" and that all other sources of law -- including the states and their constitutions -- are bound by it.

Alternatively, Huckabee could look to a gubernatorial predecessor of his for clues on how misguided his comments are.

Following the Supreme Court's 1954 ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, Arkansas and its governor, Orval Faubus, stood in staunch opposition to desegregating the state's public schools. They claimed that Brown didn't bind them.

That resistance led to the Supreme Court's ruling four years later in Cooper v. Aaron, which directly involved the Little Rock, Arkansas, school district. With one voice, the justices declared that Brown was  indeed "the supreme law of the land."

Why? Because the Supreme Court's interpretation of the Constitution, they said, is "of binding effect on the States."

In addition, the court pointed out that state officials take an oath to support the Constitution. No official can later wage a battle against that Constitution "without violating his undertaking to support it."

That's awfully reminiscent of what Kim Davis is doing with her opposition to issuing marriage licenses -- which, in the view of one scholar, may be a sinful act in and of itself. And it's a constitutional lesson that should make Huckabee think twice before he tells people that a Supreme Court ruling doesn't bind them.