Trump NYT Interview: Incoherent, Authoritarian and Uninformed

Der Trumpenführer gave an interview to the New York Times after being told that the interview was being recorded.   The results of the interview have many further convinced that not only is Trump unable to speak coherently, but he is authoritarian and shockingly uninformed on a host of issues.  Worse yet, some mental health experts believe he is mentally ill.   I have thought the latter for a long time and believe it should have been obvious to anyone not charmed by his call outs to racists and promises to religious extremists.  A piece in Vox concludes that Trump is not well mentally.  The take away is that sane and rational Americans - and the entire world - ought to be very, very afraid with Trump in the White House.  Here are article excerpts:

The president of the United States is not well. That is an uncomfortable thing to say, but it is an even worse thing to ignore.

Consider the interview Trump gave to the New York Times on Thursday. It begins with a string of falsehoods that make it difficult to tell whether the leader of the free world is lying or delusional. Remember, these are President Donald Trump’s words, after being told a recording device is on:

Virtually every Democrat has said there is no collusion. There is no collusion. And even these committees that have been set up. If you look at what’s going on — and in fact, what it’s done is, it’s really angered the base and made the base stronger. My base is stronger than it’s ever been. 

It almost goes without saying that literally zero congressional Democrats have said that there was no collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign during the 2016 election. Zero.

What key Democrats are actually saying is closer to the opposite. On December 20, for instance, Sen. Mark Warner, the vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee and thus the Senate Democrat leading the investigation into collusion, said, “despite the initial denials of any Russian contacts during the election, this Committee’s efforts have helped uncover numerous and troubling high-level engagements between the Trump campaign and Russian affiliates — many of which have only been revealed in recent months.”

Nor is Trump’s base strengthening, or even holding steady. In a detailed analysis of Trump’s poll numbers, FiveThirtyEight’s Harry Enten concluded that the president is losing the most ground in the reddest states . . .

CNN took a different angle on the same question and also found slippage among Trump’s base. It looked at the change in Trump’s approval ratings from February to November among the demographic groups that formed the core of Trump’s electoral coalition — in every group, there’d been substantial declines. Trump’s numbers have fallen by 8 points among Republicans, by 9 points among voters over 50, by 10 points among whites with no college, by 17 points among white evangelicals.

As for Trump’s contention that “it’s been proven that there is no collusion,” it’s hard to even know how to begin responding to that. In recent months, Trump’s former campaign manager and national security adviser have both been charged with crimes by Robert Mueller, and the investigation is not just ongoing but apparently widening in its scope and ferocity. . . . . Sen. Feinstein has not said that she, or any of the ongoing investigations, has concluded that there was no collusion. What she has said is that investigators believe Trump may have obstructed justice in his efforts to derails inquiries into collusion . . .

It would be comforting, on some level, to believe that Trump is simply lying, that he is trying to convince us of what he knows to be untrue. It is scarier to believe that Trump is delusional, that he has persuaded himself that Democrats have said things they’ve never said, that his base has strengthened when it has actually weakened, that it’s really his opponents under investigation for collusion, that his campaign has been cleared of wrongdoing when the circumstantial case for collusion has only grown stronger.

But that is far from the end of the interview.   Trump: “I have absolute right to do what I want to do with the Justice Department”

Read Trump’s phrasing carefully: “I have absolute right to do what I want to do with the Justice Department.” It’s a statement that speaks both to Trump’s yearning for authoritarian power and his misunderstanding of the system in which he actually operates.

And it’s followed by something yet scarier. “For purposes of hopefully thinking I’m going to be treated fairly, I’ve stayed uninvolved with this particular matter,” he says.  . . . . He appears to believe that he is engaged in some explicit or implicit quid pro quo with the Department of Justice: He doesn’t fire Jeff Sessions, or demand prosecution of his political enemies, or whatever it is he imagines doing with his “absolute right to do what I want to do,” so long as they treat him and his associates “fairly,” which likely means protecting him from Mueller’s investigation.

Trump does not know what he doesn’t know, and he overestimates what he does know:

I know more about the big bills. … Than any president that’s ever been in office. Whether it’s health care and taxes. Especially taxes. And if I didn’t, I couldn’t have persuaded a hundred. … You ask Mark Meadows [inaudible]. … I couldn’t have persuaded a hundred congressmen to go along with the bill. The first bill, you know, that was ultimately, shockingly rejected ... I know the details of taxes better than anybody. Better than the greatest C.P.A. I know the details of health care better than most, better than most. And if I didn’t, I couldn’t have talked all these people into doing ultimately only to be rejected.

In psychology, there’s an idea known as the Dunning-Kruger effect. It refers to research by David Dunning and Justin Kruger that found the least competent people often believe they are the most competent because they “lack the very expertise needed to recognize how badly they’re doing.” This dynamic helps explain comments like the one Trump makes here.

Over the course of reporting on the Trump White House, I have spoken to people who brief Trump and people who have been briefed by him. . . . In all cases, their judgment of Trump is identical: He is not just notably uninformed but also notably difficult to inform — his attention span is thin, he hears what he wants to hear, he wanders off topic, he has trouble following complex arguments. Trump has trouble following his briefings or even correctly repeating what he has heard.

As the Dunning-Kruger effect suggests, he doesn’t know how much he doesn’t know, and that, combined with his natural tendency toward narcissism, has left him dangerously overconfident in his own knowledge base.

Whatever the cause, it is plainly obvious from Trump’s words that this is not a man fit to be president, that he is not well or capable in some fundamental way. That is an uncomfortable thing to say, and so many prefer not to say it, but Trump does not occupy a job where such deficiencies can be safely ignored.

James Comey’s Abuse of Power

While many have let out a sigh of relief that the FBI and U.S. Department of Justice will not be seeking indictments against Hillary Clinton, some are saying that by abusing his power and not complying with past FBI practices, Director James Comey - a Republican - gave the Hillary haters in the GOP precisely what they wanted.   Typically, if the FBI fails to find adequate evidence to indict, the investigation simply quietly goes away, sometimes without even an official announcement.  I this know from personal experience in both instances where I have an outside expert for the FBI and where I have testified as a witness in FBI/Justice Department prosecutions. An op-ed in the Washington Post by Matthew Miller, the director of the Justice Department’s public affairs office from 2009 to 2011, tears Comey apart shows the irregularity of Comey's behavior.  Here are op-ed highlights:

When FBI Director James B. Comey stepped to the lectern to deliver his remarks about Hillary Clinton on Tuesday, he violated time-honored Justice Department practices for how such matters are to be handled, set a dangerous precedent for future investigations and committed a gross abuse of his own power.

Some have praised Comey’s remarks as much-needed truth-telling from a fearless, independent law-enforcement authority, an outcome Comey no doubt had in mind. But in fact, his willingness to reprimand publicly a figure against whom he believes there is no basis for criminal charges should trouble anyone who believes in the rule of law and fundamental principles of fairness.

Justice Department rules set clear guidelines for when it is appropriate for the government to comment about individuals involved in an ongoing investigation, which this matter was until prosecutors closed it Wednesday. Prosecutors and investigators can reassure the public that a matter is being taken seriously, and in some rare cases can provide additional information to protect public safety, such as when a suspect is loose and poses a danger.

And when the department closes an investigation, it typically does so quietly, at most noting that it has investigated the matter fully and decided not to bring charges.

These practices are important because of the role the Justice Department and FBI play in our system of justice. They are not the final adjudicators of the appropriateness of conduct for anyone they investigate. Instead, they build cases that they present in court, where their assertions are backed up by evidence that can be challenged by an opposing party and ultimately adjudicated by a judge or jury.

In a case where the government decides it will not submit its assertions to that sort of rigorous scrutiny by bringing charges, it has the responsibility to not besmirch someone’s reputation by lobbing accusations publicly instead. Prosecutors and agents have followed this precedent for years.

In this case, Comey ignored those rules to editorialize about what he called carelessness by Clinton and her aides in handling classified information, a statement not grounded in any position in law.

 

In several instances, Comey made assertions that are outside the authority of the FBI. He inserted himself into a long-standing bureaucratic battle between the State Department and the FBI and intelligence agencies, making claims about classification practices at the State Department that do not fall under his jurisdiction. He raised the possibility of administrative sanctions that could be taken, another decision that is not his to make — any such sanctions, if appropriate, would be decided by the State Department, not the director of the FBI.

 

Comey argued that his statement was appropriate because this case was a matter of unusual public interest. But the department investigates cases involving extreme public interest all the time — suspected terrorist acts, alleged civil rights violations by police and possible crimes by financial institutions, for example. It is for precisely these situations that the rules exist, so that the department cannot speak outside the bounds of court when it does not bring charges.

Imagine a situation in which the Obama Justice Department investigates major conservative activists such as the Koch brothers for possibly violating the law, but finding no reason to bring charges, the attorney general holds a news conference to outline all of the ways in which she finds their conduct deplorable. 

While Clinton shouldn’t have received special treatment, she does not deserve worse treatment from her government than anyone else, either. Yet by inserting himself into the middle of a political campaign and making unprecedented public assertions, that is exactly what Comey provided.

The entire exercise seemed designed to protect Comey’s reputation for integrity, while not actually demonstrating integrity. Real integrity is making a decision, conveying it in the ordinary channels, and then taking whatever heat comes. Generations of prosecutors and agents have learned to make the right call without holding a self-congratulatory news conference to talk about it. Comey just taught them a different lesson.

Another Dead Black Man and No Indictment

After the evens in Ferguson and the blatant manipulation of the grand jury process to basically insure that no indictment would be handed down, it's stunning to see the same apparent result happen in New York City where police who basically strangled to death Eric Garner, a 43-year-old asthmatic, will faces no charges whatsoever - not even involuntary manslaughter.  No charges at all.  It's sadly part of a long trend where police avoid the charges that would be handed against the rest of us.  And for many blacks, it is yet further proof that their lives mean nothing in America's justice system.  A column in the Washington Post looks at this latest grand jury fiasco.  Here are highlights:

After a New York grand jury failed to indict a police officer in the death of a Staten Island man, protesters hit the streets of Manhattan and at least seven other U.S. cities. There were no reports by early morning Thursday of significant violence, in contrast to the looting and arson that broke out Nov. 24 in Ferguson, Mo., after a grand jury there declined to indict Darren Wilson, the officer who fatally shot unarmed teen Michael Brown on Aug. 9.

A wave of protests erupted from Manhattan to Oakland, Calif. Thousands in New York marched in support of Eric Garner, a 43-year-old asthmatic who died after being put in a chokehold by officer Daniel Pantaleo on July 17.

They shut down the Lincoln Tunnel. They shut down the West Side Highway. They shut down the Brooklyn Bridge, where officers threatened them with arrest if they did not move as a helicopter hovered above.

And they chanted the slogan heard around the country after Brown was killed by Wilson in Ferguson — “Hands up, don’t shoot” — as well as what may have been Garner’s last words: “I can’t breathe.”
“The lives of black young men, black children, they matter,” protester Florence Johnson told CBS at Times Square.

Garner, a father of six and grandfather of two, died July 17 after Officer Daniel Pantaleo placed him in what appeared to be a chokehold during an arrest that was recorded on videos that have been widely seen and have contributed to the public anger.

The grand jury decision that prompted Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. to announce the opening of a federal civil rights investigation.

President Obama, speaking earlier at an event in Washington, declined to comment specifically about the Staten Island case, referring instead to his plans to promote better relations between police and those they serve.
“I came down here because I’m disgusted about what happened,” said Edward Collins, a 19-year-old protester, told the San Francisco Chronicle. “It’s beyond a race thing to me. No matter what race you are, no one has the right to murder you.”

“Black lives do not matter in this system,” Dean Steed, one of the organizers of about 150 protesters in Atlanta, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “And we’re out here for black lives.”

We are certainly providing America's enemies with plenty of propaganda to throw back when America tries to criticize human rights abuses in other countries.  I suspect that Vladimir Putin has a huge smile on his face right now. 

Obama’s Next Choice on Gay Marriage: His DOMA Brief

It is expected that the Obama administration will file a brief to the U. S. Supreme Court supporting the lower court rulings that DOMA is unconstitutional (the deadline for filing a brief supporting DOMA has already passed).  The question becomes how strong of an argument against DOMA the Obama administration will make.  One observe believes that a forceful argument should be expected.  A column in The New Yorker looks at the situation.  Here are excerpts:

Ever since President Obama’s sweeping embrace of gay equality in his recent Inaugural Address, the question for legal observers has been whether his Justice Department will follow up with Supreme Court arguments to match. The Court is scheduled to hear arguments in two potentially seminal gay-marriage cases next month, and the Administration is facing an important strategic legal decision. In its Supreme Court arguments, should the government align itself with the most aggressive gay-rights advocates or, alternatively, position itself as a more neutral or disinterested gay-marriage observer? It doesn’t have long to decide: briefs are due on February 28th.

The question, as Jeffrey Toobin wrote last month, is whether he and his Administration “believe that gay people have the constitutional right to marry, whether or not state legislators grant it to them”—whether the federal government should just abide by state laws legalizing same-sex marriage, by overturning the Defense of Marriage Act, or, more powerfully, by saying that every American has that right. The president’s speech last month raised the stakes, and it now appears likely that Obama will choose the bolder course and submit an aggressive brief in favor of full gay equality. The reason is as much political as it is legal: the importance traditionally placed on having the legal arguments made by the Justice Department line up with the President’s broad policy formulations.

If Obama’s Justice Department acts boldly, it could have sweeping legal and political implications for years to come. If it doesn’t, the Court will wonder why he is reluctant to back up his policy ideas with legal arguments to match. It will likely send a message that the President questions whether the country is ready for gay marriage, and send a signal that a more cautious approach by the Court is acceptable to the White House.

One of the cases up for review is not really a gay-marriage case at all. The question before the judges in Edith Windsor vs. United States is whether the government can deny federal recognition to otherwise valid, state-sanctioned same-sex marriages. Because a federal law (namely, DOMA) is being challenged, the federal government is a party to the case and has had to take a position. The Department of Justice first defended the law, then reversed course and now supports Windsor—a sympathetic and charismatic widow who had to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxes because the federal government, unlike the State of New York, did not recognize her marriage. Republicans in the House of Representatives have now stepped in to organize a defense of the law. 

The important issue here, in technical terms, will be what standard of legal review is articulated, and whether DOMA passes it. The government has now taken the position in Windsor that sexual-orientation classifications, when challenged on constitutional grounds, should be examined very carefully by courts and set aside unless a strong argument can be made in their defense. This is what is sometimes called a “heightened scrutiny” test, and its application most often determines the outcome.

The Justice Department has three different arguments it can make in favor of affirming the lower courts’ rulings overturning Prop 8, and it can advance all three, as will the plaintiffs in the case.

One argument is narrowly procedural. It involves the legal doctrine known as “standing,” which essentially requires the entity bringing the appeal to have a sufficient and legally cognizable interest in the outcome.

A second line of argument would result in a substantive ruling—but one with limited scope. It is that the Supreme Court should merely affirm the limited reasoning of the intermediate appellate court’s ruling in the case, which held not that there was a constitutionally guaranteed right to same-sex marriage but that the State of California acted impermissibly in withdrawing that right by way of a state constitutional amendment after it had previously granted it. This argument also means that same-sex marriage returns only to California.

The third argument is sweeping, in tune with the President’s Inaugural Address, and, if accepted by the Court, would lead to the eventual overturning of all state-level anti-gay-marriage laws. It would involve the government arguing, as in Windsor, that the heightened-scrutiny test should be applied to Proposition 8, the logical extension of which is a rejection of Prop 8’s marriage restriction, as its only justification is based on the weak rationale of custom or, worse, prejudice.
That argument, I believe, is one the Justice Department will boldly make to the U.S. Supreme Court in the Proposition 8 case.

Justice Department Intervenes In Gay Rights Suit

In a surprising move, the Obama justice Department has intervened in a lawsuit brought by an upstate New York and his family against a public school division that has allowed the student to be constantly bullied by anti-gay bigots. In truth, the reality why so many school systems either have no anti-bully policies in place or do not bother to enforce them is because all too often there is no consequence that hits home for such inaction. NPR reports that the the case represents the first time in a decade that Justice Department lawyers have moved to intervene in a lawsuit on behalf of a gay high school student who was beaten up for being effeminate. Moreover, the case marks a novel interpretation of the Title IX statute, which prohibits discrimination against students on the basis of gender. In my view, affording gays equal protection and equal rights is a trial of whether the USA actually is what it likes to see itself as. All too often, the promise of the U.S. Constitution leaves us out. Here are some highlights from the NPR story:
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The case centers around a 15-year-old named Jacob who lives in the town of Mohawk in upstate New York. His family requested that Jacob be identified only by his first name.
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Sullivan described taking his son to the hospital: "It was a really bad sprain. They put a cast on it, gave him crutches. And shortly after that, I found out that it didn't happen at the party. It happened at the school, because somebody had pushed him down the stairs."
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Over two years, Sullivan went to his son's school three or four times a week to talk with the principal. According to court papers, officials did nothing. The harassment became so bad that Jacob changed school districts. With the help of the New York Civil Liberties Union, Sullivan eventually sued.
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School superintendent Joyce Caputo was at a conference Friday and was unavailable for comment. In August, she told the local newspaper, "Our district has not and will not knowingly tolerate discrimination or harassment of its students by anybody."
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Now the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division has asked a judge for permission to intervene on Jacob's behalf. "We haven't seen this kind of involvement in quite some time," says Hayley Gorenberg of Lambda Legal, a national gay rights legal organization. "It's a long time coming, and we really need it."
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Republicans who worked in the Civil Rights Division under previous administrations agree that this is a case conservatives generally would not make. The Justice Department's argument hinges on a broad reading of the law known as Title IX. Title IX is typically used to protect students from gender discrimination, but in this case, Obama administration lawyers argue that the law also covers discrimination based on gender stereotypes — that is to say, boys who are beaten up for being effeminate.
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"We have clear interpretations out of many federal courts that clearly set forth that Title IX protects against sex stereotyping," she [Gorenberg of Lambda Legal]says. While some courts have ruled that Title IX covers gender expression and sexual orientation, the law remains murky in this area. Gay and lesbian advocates hope this will be the case that establishes the principle more firmly.

Regent Law School Grad at Center of Justice Department 'Misconduct'

While I have and continue to know some very capable and ethical graduates of Regent Law School, many others are in my opinion right wing ideologues, religious fanatics and/or in a few case outright crooks who hide behind a smoke screen of religion to lure prey whom they can fleece of their money. Thus, it is no surprise that as reported by the Washington Post and the Virginian Pilot, the Office of the Inspector General and Office of Professional Responsibility have found that Regent Law grad, Monica Goodling, was at the center of the illegal activities within the selection process of personnel at the Justice Department. Goodling apparently cared nothing about complying with the law and did everything to select conservative political hacks and Christianist nutcases for appointments.

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Sadly, in my opinion, this is all too typical of these "Christians" who are some of the biggest frauds and hypocrites one can ever encounter. Virginia's extreme right wing Attorney General, Bob McDonnell, is a Regent Law grad and he definitely seems incapable of separating far right religious dogma from his civil law duties. That Regent Law School produced Goodling and others of her ilk is to me not the least bit surprising. I believe that sadly Goodling is representative of the typical Regent Law School graduate notwithstanding that some honest and capable attorneys have managed to come out of the school. One can only hope that Goodling and others involved will be prosecuted and convicted for their subversion of the law. Goodling - and McDonnell for that matter - in my view is Exhibit A as to why Christianist should not hold public office since they cannot separate their extreme religious views from the civil laws. Disbarment might be an appropriate punishment as well. Here are some highlights from the Pilot's coverage:

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For nearly two years, a young political aide sought to cultivate a "farm system" for Republicans at the Justice Department, hiring scores of prosecutors and immigration judges who espoused conservative priorities and Christian lifestyle choices. That aide, Monica Goodling, a 1999 graduate of the Regent University School of Law in Virginia Beach, exercised what amounted to veto power over a wide range of critical jobs, asking candidates for their views on abortion and same-sex marriage and maneuvering around senior officials who outranked her, including the department's second-in-command.

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An extensive report by the department's Office of the Inspector General and Office of Professional Responsibility concluded Monday that Goodling and others had broken civil service laws, run afoul of department policy and engaged in "misconduct," a finding that could expose them to further scrutiny and sanctions. The report depicted Goodling as a central figure in politicizing employment decisions at the Justice Department during the Bush administration.

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Thirty-four candidates told investigators that Goodling or one of her deputies raised the topic of abortion in job interviews and 21 said they discussed same-sex marriage, the report said. Another job applicant said he admired Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, only to watch Goodling frown and respond, "But she's pro-choice." She and her aides regularly gave candidates for career civil service jobs a form designed for political appointees that sought information on party affiliation and financial contributions. When job seekers sometimes raised objections, Goodling replied that the form was a mistake, showing that she was "aware that it was improper," the report said.

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Current and former department lawyers said they were appalled by the deep reach of the political hiring, which affected hundreds of rejected job seekers and as many as 40 immigration judges who were recruited under the political criteria. Those judges may remain on the bench because their career civil service jobs carry significant employment protections.

Justice Dept. Reshapes Its Civil Rights Mission - More Focus on Christianist Agenda

The New York Times has an article on what the Bush Administration has done to the Justice Department and how the civil rights of various groups is now a lower priority so that efforts can be directed toward matters on the Christianists' agenda of giving their version of Christianity special status, even when accepting federal tax dollars derived from all taxpayers http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/14/washington/14discrim.html?_r=1&hp=&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1181834971-iCGYKPZXuq/7ymJ/mK8aWw). The changes are evident in a variety of actions:

**Intervening in federal court cases on behalf of religion-based groups like the Salvation Army that assert they have the right to discriminate in hiring in favor of people who share their beliefs even though they are running charitable programs with federal money.

**Supporting groups that want to send home religious literature with schoolchildren; in one case, the government helped win the right of a group in Massachusetts to distribute candy canes as part of a religious message that the red stripes represented the blood of Christ.

**Vigorously enforcing a law enacted by Congress in 2000 that allows churches and other places of worship to be free of some local zoning restrictions.

**Taking on far fewer hate crimes and cases in which local law enforcement officers may have violated someone’s civil rights. The resources for these traditional cases have instead been used to investigate trafficking cases, typically involving foreign women used in the sex trade, a favored issue of the religious right.

**Sharply reducing the complex lawsuits that challenge voting plans that might dilute the strength of black voters. The department initiated only one such case through the early part of this year, compared with eight in a comparable period in the Clinton administration.

The last item, of course, dove tails nicely with the GOP goal of suppressing the vote of groups that may be inclined to vote against GOP candidates. Equally frightening is the following:

Along with its changed civil rights mission, the department has also tried to overhaul the roster of government lawyers who deal with civil rights. The agency has transferred or demoted some experienced civil rights litigators while bringing in lawyers, including graduates of religious-affiliated law schools and some people vocal about their faith, who favor the new priorities. That has created some unease, with some career lawyers disdainfully referring to the newcomers as “holy hires.”

Figures provided by the department show that from 2003 through 2006, there was a notable increase of hirings from religious-affiliated institutions like Regent University and Ave Maria University.

Both of the above named law schools are bottom tier institutions and certainly do not produce the number of capable graduates as a Harvard or Yale. But as we have learned with Chimperator Bush and his deputies, competency is never an issue. Only ideology and loyalty to the far right of the GOP matter. If this trend is not stopped, I fear for this country.