LIVE: Public Hearings of the January 6th House Select Committee Continues

by Nomad

The second House Committee hearing on the January riots at the Capitol will deal primarily with evidence that Mr. Trump knowingly spread the lie that the 2020 election was stolen from him in an attempt to overturn his defeat.

Coronavirus Comes to Washington

by Nomad

Embed from Getty Images

US President Donald Trump speaks during the daily briefing on the novel coronavirus, COVID-19, at the White House on March 22, 2020, in Washington, DC. (Photo by Eric BARADAT / AFP) (Photo by ERIC BARADAT/AFP via Getty Images)

History Has Shown Us the Dangers of a Weak Congress and Where It Leads

by Nomad

When the Democratic-led House of Representatives was attempting to investigate the allegations against President Trump in drawing up articles of impeachment, there was no mistaking contempt the president's and his allies had for Congress.

When Congress called key witnesses to testify, the president ordered them to ignore subpoenas. It was, Trump claimed, a witch hunt. Congress quite rightly pointed out it was simply fulfilling its legitimate, constitutional oversight role.
The House could have issued criminal and civil fines, including jail time. Instead, it allowed the president to block the inquiry with impunity. Wasn't this an unequivocal act of obstruction? No, said the administration, it was an assertion of executive privilege.

The Joseph Maguire Testimony: A Trump Official Under the Spotlight

by Nomad

This morning, Joseph Maguire will be testifying before the House Intelligence Committee, regarding his decision not to release the whistleblower's complaint about questionable- and possibly impeachable- activities by the president and close advisors.

Maguire is the current Director of the National Counterterrorism Center. He retired from the United States Navy as a Vice Admiral in 2010 after 36 years of military service.

The committee is expected to ask Macquire why he refused to release to congressional intelligence committees the report of the independent inspector general, Michael Atkinson, who deemed it "credible and urgent."

Under mounting pressure from both parties, the Trump administration backed down on Wednesday and handed copies of the complaint to House and Senate intelligence committees.

Live: Trump's Lawyer Testifies Before Congress

by Nomad

Donald Trump's former lawyer, Michael Cohen, will testify before the House Oversight Committee. As Vox notes:

While questions specifically about Russia will be off the table due to special counsel Robert Mueller’s continuing investigation, Cohen will be questioned about Trump’s business practices and hush money payments to women who alleged affairs with Trump during the 2016 campaign.

Congress Demands Legal Justification for Trump's Syrian Missile Attack

by Nomad

Dear Mr. President

You might not have seen the joint press release from Congressman Adam Schiff and Senator Tim Kaine issued yesterday. It was in regards a letter they sent to the Trump administration concerning legal matters and the Syrian missile attack earlier this month.

An interesting letter it was, too.

Washington, DC – Yesterday, Congressman Adam Schiff (D-CA), Ranking Member of the House Intelligence Committee, and Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA), a member of the Senate Armed Services and Senate Foreign Relations Committees, sent a letter to President Trump asking that he detail the legal basis for the strike against, which has yet to be provided to Congress and the American people.
Schiff and Kaine stated that a full understanding of the domestic and international legal basis for the strike is of great importance to Congress in exercising its constitutional responsibilities.

As the letter states, “By articulating a legal basis for military action, as well as laying out a strategic vision for such action, a president provides a justification for the use of the momentous power to commit American lives to a cause, but also an understanding of the limits of those powers.”
Both Schiff and Kaine believe that Bashar al-Assad must be held accountable for his atrocities and war crimes, but have argued that the missile strikes on the Syrian regime without congressional approval were unlawful.
The full text of the letter is below:

Dashed Hopes for Increase in Federal Minimum Wage May Be Just the Start of Hard Times

by Nomad

On 29 November, some 40 people were arrested at a protest outside a McDonald’s restaurant in Detroit. They had gathered to demand wage increases. With picket signs and a loudspeaker, hundreds of workers demanded a minimum wage increase to $15 an hour. Said one protesting worker:

“They are a multi-billion dollar company and they can afford to help us support our families. I cannot support my family on $8.50.”

On that day, there were similar demonstrations in hundreds of US cities, including the commercial hubs of New York City, Chicago, and Los Angeles.
The protests were put together as part of the "Fight for $15," a US-based international movement seeking a minimum wage of $15-per hour for low-paid workers.

Given the outcome of the last election, few expect these nationwide protests to have any impact.

Efforts to raise the federal minimum wage may, in fact, come to a crashing halt the very moment President Trump is inaugurated. 

During the campaign, he made the off-hand remark that wages were too high. He said:

"Taxes too high, wages too high. We're not going to be able to compete against the world. I hate to say it, but we have to leave it the way it is. People have to go out, they have to work really hard and they have to get into that upper stratum. But we cannot do this if we are going to compete with the rest of the world. We just can't do it."

It was a truly insulting thing for a man of Trump's wealth to say.

Why GOP Complaints about Pharma Price-Gouging of Vets is a Hypocritical Smokescreen

by Nomad

One Republican complaints against a drugmaker's price-gouging may be applaudable. As long as you have only half of the facts. 

In yet another example of mainstream media failing to properly inform the public, we can point to CNN and its posting of US Rep. Jeff Miller's op-ed piece. The article demonstrates how, when critical information is left out of a story, the news becomes nothing less than a lie.

The subject of Miller's piece is price-gouging by pharma companies, particularly when it comes to medication for veterans. The company in question, Gilead Sciences, has been scrutinized on several occasions in this blog. (here, here and here)

In his article, the Congressman for Florida's First district writes:

If not for the service and sacrifice of those who have worn the uniform, the United States would not be the extraordinary place it is today. Unfortunately, this concept seems lost on the people at drugmaker Gilead Sciences.

Whenever we try to qualify patients by who "deserves" life-saving treatments more, we run into ethical questions. It is all in keeping with Republican efforts to be percieved as actually caring about veterans.
The record tells a different story. In fact, the GOP has a fairly dismal record when it comes to veterans. Last year, the House Appropriations removed more than $1.4 billion from President Obama’s proposed 2016 budget. As one source notes:

As a result of the cuts, it was estimated that 70,000 fewer veterans would be able to receive needed care.

Unitary Executive Theory: How the GOP in Congress is Destroying Cheney's Life Work

 by Nomad

Former vice president Cheney must be watching in dismay as the Republicans in Congress are tearing apart a doctrine that he has spent his whole life promoting.

The now-infamous letter of the 47 Senators  may not be treasonous although some on the Left may think so. The  unsolicited advice to the Iranians may not be a violation of the Logan Act and some lawyers might disagreed.

Nevertheless, in one aspect, there is something distinctly peculiar about what Congress did and has been doing since President Obama took office.

This new activism is a reversal of policy that has been the long standing hallmark of conservative principles. That principle is known as the Unitary Executive Theory and one of its chief promoters has always been former Vice president Dick Cheney.

According to this doctrine, all executive authority must be in the President’s hands, "without exception." The President and other members of the executive branch have special rights and privileges that come with the office. And the legislative branch, according to the proponents, has no authority to question presidential power. The president as the head of state and  that preeminence required Congress to recognize its lesser position.

How Boehner's Phony Search for Common Ground has Led the GOP Absolutely Nowhere

by Nomad

Since Obama took office, Speaker of the House, John Boehner has been searching for "common ground." Through crisis after crisis, the same phrase has emerged from his lips. Meanwhile the President has single-handedly pulled the economy out of its swamp.

No wonder his approval ratings are climbing and Congress remains at all time lows.

 Still struggling with his own narrative, Speaker John Boehner this week made some astonishing statements. The remarks probably won't sit well with Tea Party Republicans either. 

In a Wednesday interview on Fox News (where else?) when he was asked if he could hold the GOP together, Speaker of the House John Boehner said "I was the Tea Party before there was a Tea Party."

Seriously?

He sympathized with them to a degree... but not much.

“I understand their concerns, I understand their frustrations. But we have a Constitution that we abide by and we’re going to live by it. And that means we have separate, equal branches of government. And whether people like it or not, Barack Obama is going to be the president for the next two years.”

In other words, Boehner was telling the Tea Party Congress that he was their master and to "suck it up." Get used to it.
He also added that he had no plans to leave his position anytime soon. This wasn't going to be his last term. He said 

“No, no, no. I'll be here for a while,"

The Tea Party have very little choice but to endure Boehner's arrogance, having lost any opportunity to replace him.

Boehner, Netanyahu and George Washington's Farewell Warning

by Nomad

Without consulting the White House or the State Department, House Speaker Boehner has invited Israeli PM Netanyahu to address a joint session of Congress in less than a month.
George Washington in his last official statement had a thing or two to say about allowing our allies from too much interference in US foreign policy.

Time of Challenge

As most of you have heard, House Speaker John Boehner has invited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to speak before Congress next month. Presumably Netanyahu will attempt to scuttle extremely negotiations with Iran on its nuclear weapons/energy program. In a statement Boehner explained his reasoning.

“Prime Minister Netanyahu is a great friend of our country, and this invitation carries with it our unwavering commitment to the security and well-being of his people. In this time of challenge, I am asking the prime minister to address Congress on the grave threats radical Islam and Iran pose to our security and way of life.”

The statement should be read very carefully. It seems to be speaking on behalf of the US government. The term "unwavering commitment" might sound great on paper but it can sound very different to the people to whom it applies.

In any case, the White House wasn't impressed. Press Secretary Josh Earnest described it as a breach of typical protocol since the White House wasn't consulted or involved in the decision. Said Earnest, it has been standard procedure for a nation's leader to contact the White House before planning a visit to the United States. 

In this case, however, the White House heard about the invitation  not from the Israelis but from Boehner's office,. Some would call that breach a sign of disrespect for the president and the executive office in general.

Earnest said the White House is reserving judgment about the invite until U.S. officials talk to their Israeli counterparts. Boehner's office confirmed that Netanyahu has accepted, and will give a speech to a joint session of Congress on Feb. 11. The date is significant: It's the 36th anniversary of the Iranian Revolution.

Boehner said in a statement that he had invited Netanyahu to speak on "the grave threats radical Islam and Iran pose to our security and way of life." Yet, critics would counter that there were plenty of other experts available, with much more unbiased sources, to speak on such matters.

The Importance of Impeachment: How the Tea Party is Abusing Constitutional Procedure

by Nomad

Since the first presidential impeachment in 1868,  the procedure has proved to be a terribly imperfect tool. However, even when not applied, its existence is essential for the Republic. 

David Stewart's book, Impeached: The Trial of President Andrew Johnson and the Fight for Lincoln's Legacy is a fascinating study of a constitutional crisis. The book is set against the period immediately after the war of rebellion when the nation was attempting somehow to put the country back together. Just to show you how easily things can go terribly wrong, Lincoln's best intentions turned out to be a colossal misjudgment.

Not many historians have pointed out that Lincoln was, in fact, neither Republican nor Democrat in this second term. He was the candidate for the National Unity Party and he chose as his vice-president, Andrew Johnson, was a Southern Democrat. (Imagine that? A single ticket made of both parties?) 

Had Lincoln not been murdered, the constitutional crisis of presidential impeachment would have been avoided. However, the new president's suspected loyalty to the defeated South, his position that states had the right to their sovereignty- even after what most saw as outright sedition- were too much for some in Congress to bear. When faced with an unyielding Republican minority (every bit as querulous and uncompromising as today's Tea Party) determined to unseat the president by hook or crook, the 17th President's arrogance and stubbornness made impeachment unavoidable. 

It's a good read. And the story of how and why the Radical Republicans attempted to use the process of impeachment to remove President Johnson gives a lot of insight into the ways elected representative under partisan stress can lose track of their primary mission.

To the Fiscal Brink: Will the GOP and the 1% now destroy the US economy?

by Nomad

B

rinkmanship is defined by Wikipedia as ”the practice of pushing dangerous events to the verge of disaster in order to achieve the most advantageous outcome.” 

When it comes to the US economy- which has been hobbling along like a forsaken three-legged dog- both parties have been testing the wills of their opposition and how it will end is, at the moment, anybody’s guess. What started out as intransigence on the part of the Republicans soon became open obstruction not only to the president’s proposals but to any good-faith negotiation at all. But sometime last year, things took a strange turn. 
To understand how this escalation happened, we need to return to Wikipedia:

In order for brinkmanship to be effective, the threats used are continuously escalated. However, a threat is not worth anything unless it is credible; at some point, the aggressive party may have to back up its claim to prove its commitment to action.

For the last year- but mostly all through Obama’s first term- the Republican refused to budge when it came to the budget. Austerity ( at least, selectively defined), they claimed, was the only way out of this national debt problem. With the impending automatic and across the board budget cuts called sequestration, that threat is very creditable indeed. 

How the nation could have found itself in such a mess is perhaps an example of the breakdown in the political system. With the defeat of their candidate in the election, the Republicans now find themselves in a bind, an inexcusable situation, largely of their own making. 

The Angry Right Wing Voter: Have We Gone Too Far? 1/2

by Nomad

Just look around. It’s easy to see that America is seething. From the Tea Party to the Occupy movement, voters are infuriated with the direction of the country. In itself, that’s not news. With the economy the way it is, that's hardly a surprise. 

And Americans tend to take a personal interest in politics- despite the fact that only 54% of the population voted in the last presidential election. (And that's a high figure from previous elections too!) 

Of course, politics in the US has never been known for its calm reflection and careful thoughtful approach. However, what seems to happening with each election cycle is becoming a matter of concern. No matter what the outcome, growing numbers of Americans are automatically rejecting the results. This in turn pushes the anger to the next level. 

Obama’s Impeachment: Mr. Jones and the War Powers Act 2/2

by Nomad

In the previous post in this series, we examined in detail the resolution put forward by Republican Congressman Walter B. Jones of North Carolina charging President Obama with impeachable acts for his handling of the incidents in Libya last year. For the most part, we have seen them to be specious and without any real foundation. As I mention at the close of that post, there still seemed to be something I was overlooking. We'll begin with a closer look at the law.

The War Powers Act as Written

source:

To understand more about the War Powers Act, we need to take a small step back in time. 

In an attempt to put in practice the lessons learned from the Vietnam War, in 1973 Congress established the War Powers Resolution (later called the War Powers Act) which attempted to limit the president’s ability to wage undeclared wars; more precisely to limit the president’s ability to conduct a protracted military engagement without the authorization of Congress.

The act also attempted to clarify the ambiguity on the Constitution which considers the president the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces while at the same time, gives Congress the power to declare war and to provide the funding.