Malcolm Nance: “The United States is now a partner in the destruction of Western democracy and the Atlantic Alliance.”

   The headlines have given me yet another chance to point out that Susan Collins is not a reliable ally of anyone except herself.  She was reported by CNN to be meeting in the White House with Donald Trump last night along with others who might be considered potential votes against Trump’s new Supreme Court Nominee.  Don’t count on Susan Collins for anything even though she’s “nice.”

Susan Collins, Senate, Wealth of Congress, Rich Congresspersons, but she’s got a great smile…

Not all politicians come to congress wealthy, but many leave that way.  Susan Collins is cited as one of the “Top 10 winners of the past decade.”  Her average wealth is listed as 223,000 in 2005.  By 2015, her average wealth had risen to $3,726,000.  That is a 1570.9% increase.  At openserets.org you can check out the financial interests of your congressperson.

https://www.opensecrets.org/personal-finances

 

Recently, I have been astounded by liberal women who casually toss into a conversation the statement that they “love” Susan Collins.

First of all, I would like to point out that Susan Collins is a Republican.  She votes with the Republicans most of the time, and supports Republican policies.  Second, she is not a moderate even though she has tried repeatedly over the years to portray herself as such.

There are two recent votes that tell you everything you need to know about Susan Collins.  First, she provided what David Leonhardt of the New York Times (12/10/17) called a “crucial vote” for the criminal GOP tax bill which benefited the obscenely rich in this country at the expense of all the rest of us.  The second was a yes vote on Gina Haspel, a woman who was complicit if not directly participated in the torture of other human beings.  When Haspel was told to torture, she tortured, and when she was told to destroy the evidence of that immoral behavior, she sent out directions to do so.  And, then, in her confirmation hearings she promised not to do it again.  What kind of person tortures other human beings and what kind of person believes the promises of a person who destroys crucial and incriminating evidence on command.  Various Democrats argued that Haspel would “stand up” to Trump.  On what evidence?  She tortured when told to and destroyed the evidence when she was told to.  What makes anybody think that she will do any differently now?

Those two votes alone should tell anyone that Collins is not an acceptable candidate for anything or even someone whose positions should be taken seriously as anything other than part of this right-wing Republican take-over of democracy.  Collins just tries to make herself appear friendly and reasonable and honorable.

If you want another example, there’s Jeff Sessions:

In an article in the Nation entitled “Susan Collins Just Disgraced Herself at Jeff Session’s Confirmation Hearing,” John Nichols pointed out that Collins had been not merely a neutral observer of the Sessions hearings, she was an “ardent partisan” for Sessions.  She also did her “best to dismiss credible criticisms of the nominee.”  She maintained, according to Nichols that people who opposed Sessions did so because they just didn’t know him.  She described him as a “genuine, fair-minded person” and a “decent man.”  She also maintained during the hearing that Sessions was “not motivated by racial animus.”

The Tax Bill

Collins’ behavior regarding the rip-off tax bill passed by Republicans is especially revealing of her propensity of conning her constituents and everybody else and trying to make herself seem free of the Republican crazy-taint.  Collins voted for the GOP tax bill, after assuring her constituents that she had secured an “ironclad” agreement with Mitch McConnell and Vice President Pence, that legislation would be passed by the end of 2017 that would fill the gap that repealing the individual mandate in the ACA would leave.  She expressed concern that the Tax Bill would mean devastating changes in existing health care plans.  But, in her wisdom she had secured promises, promises, that this would all be fixed.

Not only were these promises on their face almost impossible to make (McConnell couldn’t assure anybody that a particular bill will pass), but according to the editorial board of the Washington Post (12/11/17) the bills in question would not have stabilized the obamaCare premiums even if passed.

So, Collins publicly weaseled about her vote saying that Republican leadership had promised to fix any problems.

Within days of the passage of the tax bill on the Senate floor, Republicans started saying that they didn’t give a damn about Collins’ deal (Leonhardt, 12/10/17).  Then, when they didn’t fulfill their end of the bargain, Collins was said (Bolton, 12;21/17) to have been “disappointed.”

After the Congress refused to pass the bills in question (the ones Collins assured everybody would fix the problem) she didn’t even accuse Mitch McConnell of breaking his pledge.  When journalists pointed out that nobody but an idiot would have believed McConnell and Pence and that she had been “duped,” Collins whined that the coverage was unfair and “unbelievably sexist.”  As a woman, that particularly offends me.

One of the things Collins said she wanted in this “ironclad agreement” was for congressional leaders to promise “to undo Medicare cuts automatically triggered by the deficit from the tax cut.”  Collins even said that the deal wasn’t for show (Leonhardt, 12/10/17).  She promised that it would protect Medicaid and Medicare.  On Meet the Press, Collins said: “I also got an ironclad commitment that we’re not going to see cuts in the Medicaid/Medicare program as a result of this bill.”  (Leonardt, 12/10/17).  But, Republicans, including Paul Ryan have repeatedly said that they intend to use the deficits created by the tax bill to justify cuts in Medicare and Medicaid.  Ryan cited them as a top priority for 2018.

In an article in Splinter News (12/12/17) Emma Roller writes about the Collins promise scam:

“Any Senate Republican who has been semi-conscious for the past eight years should know there is zero to no reason to trust Mitch McConnell to follow through on his promises….”

“Further, it’s effectively impossible for McConnell to promise to pass any legislation that requires making it through the House, where Republican leadership has been clearly in thrall to its most extreme members for years. Did Collins really think McConnell could speak for the intentions of the House Freedom Caucus, a gang not even House Speaker Paul Ryan can get to fall in line?

“To assume that Collins was “duped” into voting for the tax bill requires thinking that she is profoundly stupid. She might be, but I don’t think she is. An alternate analysis is that Collins is not naive; that she knew all along that McConnell’s promises were worthless; and that she simply wanted a reason to justify (to constituents or to herself) voting for the tax bill. Vote for the bill, then perform disappointment when McConnell pulls the rug out from under you or the House refuses to even consider the “deal” you claim you were promised.”

“…McConnell and Ryan too — have moved sharply to the right. They are rushing through a bill without the normal procedures. They are making verifiably false claims about it. And they have decided that taking health insurance away from Americans is a core Republican principle.

Reporters like Leonhardt assume “…Collins is telling us her plans in good faith, and extrapolating from there. But maybe Occam’s Razor holds here. Maybe the simplest answer is the correct one. Maybe Collins didn’t make a mistake in voting for the tax bill on December 2. Maybe she voted for the tax bill because she wanted to vote for the tax bill.”

“Susan Collins is not an innocent bystander to the country’s destruction by her party, and it’s time for political commentators to stop treating her as such.”

Leonhardt, David (12/10/17) “Susan Collins’s Big Mistake,” New York Times.

Nichols, John (1/10/17) “Susan Collins Just Disgraced Herself at Jeff Session’s Cinformation Hearing.  The Nation.

Roller, Emma (12/12/17) “Susan Collins Ins’t Being Duped Into Anything,” Splinter News.

Washington Post Editorial Board (12/11/17) “Susan Collins is Getting it Wrong.”

Tony Schwartz, writer of The Art of the Deal

“If Trump had the power that Kim Jong-Un does, the authoritarian power and the lack of consequences if he breaks the law, I believe…I believe he would be murdering as many enemies as Kim Jong-Un does.”

“…we are counting on the America people, our fellow Americans, to climb this learning curve to realize what a threat this is…”

One more…

In an article in the Atlantic, the wonderful reporter Natasha Bertrand quotes Caroline Polisi, a defense attorney in federal and white collar cases.  Bertrand asked her why Manafort would contact potential witnesses in his case.

“They can’t get it through their heads that they are not above the law and that the government is constantly monitoring them.  They also can’t come to terms with the fact that they are no longer in control.”

 

 

  While everybody else is acting like this photo-op in Singapore is a serious negotiation, Bernie Sanders is tweeting:

“Since 1995, Boeing, Lockheed Martin and United Technologies have paid nearly $3 billion in fines or related settlements for fraud or misconduct.  Yet, those three companies alone received about $800 billion in defense contracts over the past 18 years.”

This is why I supported Bernie Sanders.

That means we’re no better than anyone else!  Cry, whine, bleat.

 

The Democratic Party is fighting over what to do with the hated superdelegates.  Politico has reported an angry confrontation on Tuesday between Tom Perez and the House Democrats over plans to change the method of allowing the superdelegates to vote.

Infuriated over a plan that wouldn’t allow the “superdelegates” to vote on the first ballot, Tom Pascrell (D-N.J.) issued the quote of the day.  If this goes into effect (eliminating the superdelegates until the second ballot) Pascrell wailed “We’re no better than anybody else…”

YES, IDIOT, THAT’S THE IDEA.  IT’S ABOUT TIME YOU FIGURED IT OUT.  That’s what democracy is and what the Democratic Party is supposed to stand for.

 

Politico Article: https://www.politico.com/story/2018/06/06/superdelegates-house-democrats-630357

 

The Ezra Klein Show

This is another great podcast.  The most recent interview is with journalist Jane Mayer who broke the story about the sexual abuse of Eric Schneiderman.  She also wrote a must-read book about the Mercer family “Dark Money.”  Years ago I read her book about the Clarence Thomas hearings “Strange Justice: The Selling of Clarence Thomas” (1994).

While we’re on the subject of Clarence Thomas, Mayer mentions in this interview and we all need to remember that Joe Biden made a decision during the hearings to not allow several other women Clarence Thomas had abused to testify.  This one decision could have gone a long way to changing the way women were treated and Biden is responsible for it.  There are things you can’t apologize for.  This is one of them.  The thought of Biden running for president in 2020 makes me sick at my stomach.

The Ezra Klein Show:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-ezra-klein-show/id1081584611?mt=2

 

The Reality Winner Prosecution Relies on Secrecy and Fearmongering

 

The Intercept podcast is always interesting, always new.  If you think you’ve heard all the arguments, you haven’t.

Podcast:

http://dcs.megaphone.fm/PPY2471205263.mp3?key=28adf140c6ec1f16e4ab51a31c38d3dd

Jeremy Scahill

I’m having a hard time getting back to writing these days.  There is just so much information all the time, washing over me.  I am overwhelmed.  I am outraged.  I am despondent.

I read an article yesterday in which the reporter was saying that all of us keep waiting for some incident, some event to happen that we can mark as the coup (the firing of Mueller, for example).  But the coup has already happened.  We are just documenting, bearing witness, to the slide into kleptocracy.  I am no longer convinced that we will emerge from the Trump presidency with anything like a workable democracy.  There is too much at stake for the Republicans, the Trump, Inc. people and the Russians to allow themselves to lose.  And they have already demonstrated that they are willing to do anything, anything, to win.  And, the forces against them are too weak, too compromised, too ambitious to make careers and money off the proceeds, too mannered, too deluded about how the institutions (or Bob Mueller) are going to save us.  Everyone keeps asking why the Republicans enable this.  It’s easy.  The Republicans are up to their eyeballs in Russian or dirty money.  They can’t afford to stand up to Trump, Inc. because they are completely owned subsidiaries of Trump, Inc.  They are not cowards.  They are part of the scam.

These are just a few of the things that are pissing me off today:

-Stephanie Ruhl and Ali Velshi (MSNBC) posing in a gushing, hugging photograph with Sarah Huckleberry Sanders at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.

-Ali Velshi posting in response to the criticism for the photo that they had also posed with Kathy Griffin.  The fact that he thinks this makes everything alright just demonstrates that they don’t get it.

-Mark Warren for voting to confirm the torture Queen Gina Haspel.  I phoned his Senate office and told them I felt betrayed, heartsick and furious.

-Michael Cohen and his lifetime of sleaze.  You must listen to Trump, Inc. a podcast that details Cohen’s career of sleazy behavior.  Almost everybody he’s ever worked with has been disbarred, arrested, had their medical license taken away.  His whole career has been working with people who were con artists.  Natural he would land up with Trump.

-Jennifer Rubin for arguing that Nikki Haley and Salley Yates should run for president on the same ticket.  Nikki Haley just walked out on the Palestinian ambassador when he started speaking at the UN.

-People who think that voting for women is the answer to all our problems.  I lived in Scotland during the reign of Margaret Thatcher.  Tell me about how naive that is.

-Yamiche Alcindor for asking Bernie Sanders if he wasn’t a sexist for running against Hillary Clinton.  And she has made a career off it when I’ve never heard her say anything that was remotely interesting.

The Things that are keeping me Sane.

-The ruby-throated hummingbird who comes to my bedroom window feeder now at least ten times a day.

-My mouse-gray Burmese cat, Little Neal, who sleeps in my arms, watches hours of news every day with me, makes me take a walk with him by pulling my glasses off my head with his teeth, hates taking his potassium medicine but doesn’t run (which he could) and takes it anyway, who has loved me and been my constant companion for the better part of twenty years.

-J.P. Morgan, the new feral cat (or at least we think he’s feral, or sort of).  He comes around every few days, but we can’t find his parents.  He’s too fat to be homeless.  This guy has never met a stranger, including the guy who delivered rocks the other day.

-The sunshine filtering through the Spanish moss in our back yard.

-The three tiny squirrels who have made our upstairs deck their feeding station three times a day and who sit on the back of the outside sofa and look at me while I’m reading or writing or cursing at Trump, Inc.

 

 

 

 

In a HuffPost/YouGov poll taken just after the sexual assault allegations against Harvey Weinstein, 8%, just 8% of the supporters of Trump believed that he had been guilty of sexual assault even though the Access Hollywood tape had already been released.

There’s a reason why evangelicals flock to Trump.

The History Extra Podcast is made by the BBC.  

500 Years of medicine

Were the Suffragettes terrorists?

1983: The Cold War almost goes nuclear

Africa’s Contested past

Shakespeare’s Greatest Actor

The Vietnam War on Film

Medieval mystics

 

If you haven’t got the podcast habit yet, this is a great place to start.  Listen in the car, while exercising and most importantly when you can’t sleep.

 

   Ruth Ellis was the last woman hung in Britain.  Ellis, beaten cruelly by her lover, David Blakely,on several occasions, was beaten so badly that she miscarried a few weeks before the killed Blakely.  She was condemned to death in less than 15 minutes.  Ellis was not only a successful model and business woman, she refused to adopt a  penitent pose in Court.   Statistically, she is the kind of woman who still gets the death penalty – unrepentant and challenging conventional female stereotypes.  Class was a salient issue in the trial.  Ellis was a lower class single woman who was having an affair with a wealthy man.  She was seen as a social climber who expected to marry a wealthy man above her station. 

Se was the last woman hung in Britain.

 

   

“The Ruth Ellis Files” can be seen on BBC.  And there is an article about her in the BBC History Magazine.

 

In the 1920s, Sinclair Lewis enjoyed a brilliant career “portraying and satirizing what he regarded as the mediocrity, materialism, corruption, and hypocrisy of middle-class life in the United States.”  His major novels of the 20s – Main Street, Babbitt, Arrowsmith, Elmer Gantry, and Dodsworth were all best sellers.  Then came the Stock Market Crash of 1929.  The middle class was no longer interested in being satirized.  Lewis had to look for new material.

With the rise of Hitler and Mussolini, Lewis began to focus on the discussion of whether fascism could rise in the U.S.

Quote from It Can’t Happen Here

“Windrip (the authoritarian candidate) will probably get elected and then drag us into a war just to prove our masculinity and toughness.”  Sinclair Lewis