Trump's Lies About Arpaio Being "Convicted for Doing His Job"

Any sentient, non-racist person should know by now that, if Der Trumpenführer's lips are moving, it's a near guarantee that he is lying.  His remarks about convicted former sheriff Joe Arpaio when he spoke to a rally of his racist, white trash supporters, however, brought the lies to levels shocking even for the narcissistic, pathologically lying Trump.  Trump's claim that Arpaio had been convicted for "doing his job" was not only untrue, but also white washed a track record of abuse and of Arpaio's failing to do his job.  By pardoning Arpaio, Trump clearly confirmed that he himself is a white supremacist who is perfectly fine with the mistreatment of minorities - something that even extends to members of the LGBT community.   Stories in The Atlantic and the Seattle Times look at Arpaio's record of abuse and malfeasance in office - things that Trump has now lauded.  First, these highlights from The Atlantic:

The pardon that Donald Trump granted Joe Arpaio, the former sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona, sends this message to American law enforcement: if you violate the civil rights of Latinos while enforcing immigration law, the president of the United States approves—and even if you’re one of the vanishingly few sheriffs or police chiefs that the Department of Justice charges with a crime, he’ll intervene to spare you.

The pardon is thus a slap in the face to Latinos, and ought to be an affront to all fair-minded Americans who value the Constitution, the rule of law, and the legitimacy of the system.

 In America as a whole, Sheriff Arpaio is a figure in the culture wars best known for putting prison inmates in pink underwear and insisting Obama was a secret foreigner. In Arizona, where voters only recently turned him out of office after tiring of his actions, his record is better known. I summarized its low points in 2012:

• "Sheriff Joe Arpaio's Phoenix-based department repeatedly arrested Latinos illegally, abused them in the county jails and failed to investigate hundreds of sexual assaults, the Justice Department charged after a three-year civil rights investigation," the Los Angeles Times reported. The investigation found "432 cases of sexual assault and child molestation, often involving Latinos, that were not properly investigated over a three-year period." Additionally, "one Latino was intentionally hit by a patrol car and dragged, with instructions for other deputies to 'leave him there ... A Latino motorist was incarcerated for 13 days for not using his turn signal. Emails written by deputies caricatured Mexicans as being from 'Mexifornia,' and deputies derided Latino inmates as 'wetbacks,' 'Mexican bitches,' 'stupid Mexicans' and other epithets."(The Los Angeles Times)

• "Maricopa County Sheriff's officials misspent $99.5 million in restricted jail funds over the last eight years ... discrepancies existed for years between sheriff's employees' actual duties and the duties reported in county payroll records." (The Arizona Republic)

• "A federal judge has sided with inmates' claims that conditions in Maricopa County jails continue to violate their constitutional rights." (The Arizona Republic)

• "The Maricopa County Sheriff's Office failed to adequately investigate more than 400 sex-crime cases, including dozens in El Mirage, over a two-year period because of poor oversight and former Chief Deputy David Hendershott's desire to protect a key investigator from bad publicity, according to documents pertaining to a recent internal investigation released by the Sheriff's Office." (The Arizona Republic)

• "A federal investigation found that deputies had used stun guns on prisoners already strapped into a 'restraint chair.' The family of one man who died after being forced into the restraint chair was awarded more than six million dollars as the result of a suit... The family of another man killed in the restraint chair got $8.25 million in a pre-trial settlement. (This deal was reached after the discovery of a surveillance video that showed fourteen guards beating, shocking, and suffocating the prisoner, and after the sheriff's office was accused of discarding evidence, including the crushed larynx of the deceased.) To date, lawsuits brought against Arpaio's office have cost Maricopa County taxpayers forty-three million dollars, according to some estimates. But the Sheriff has never acknowledged any wrongdoing in his jails, never apologized to victims or their families. In fact, many of the officers involved have been promoted." (The New Yorker)

• "The Phoenix New Times ran an investigation of Arpaio's real-estate dealings that included Arpaio's home address, which he argued was possibly a violation of state law. When the paper revealed that it had received an impossibly broad subpoena, demanding, among other things, the Internet records of all visitors to its Web site in the previous two and a half years, sheriff's deputies staged late-night raids on the homes of Michael Lacey and James Larkin, executives of Village Voice Media, which owns the New Times. The deputies arrested both men for, they said, violating grand-jury secrecy. The county attorney declined to prosecute, and it turned out that the subpoenas were issued unlawfully." (The New Yorker)

• On numerous occasions Arpaio put political opponents in his cross-hairs, eventually prompting an FBI investigation that began in the last days of the Bush Administration.

That was a highly abridged account of Sheriff Arpaio’s misdeeds. But it gives a sense of the man that Trump pardoned––a man every bit as cruel, immoral, and flagrant in his disregard for the rule of law and basic standards of propriety as Trump himself.

The Seattle Times piece looks further at the costs incurred by Maricopa County as a result of Arpaio's civil rights and physical abuses: 

 Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio has made a name for himself on the national political stage with his crackdowns on illegal immigration and tough jail policies.

But his efforts have also have cost Maricopa County tens of millions of dollars in court cases. Several people who were the target of Arpaio’s investigations have sued the county and walked away with large checks.

On Monday, records released by county officials show a four-year political feud with county officials in which Arpaio was a central player has cost taxpayers $38 million.The following is look at some of Arpaio’s legal costs over his 21-year tenure as sheriff. 

OFFICIAL CHARGED — $3.5 MILLIONMaricopa County taxpayers paid former Supervisor Don Stapley $3.5 million to settle his abuse-of-power lawsuit against Arpaio. Stapley’s lawsuit arose out of two failed criminal cases brought against him by the sheriff and an Arpaio ally who was then the county’s top prosecutor. Both criminal cases collapsed in court, without either case ever going to trial. Stapley contended that he had been wrongfully targeted, while Arpaio and his ally maintained they were trying to root out corruption in county government.

POLICE DOG’S DEATH — $775,000The county agreed to pay $775,000 to settle a lawsuit that alleged Arpaio violated Chandler police Sgt. Tom Lovejoy’s rights by arresting him on an animal-abuse charge after the officer’s police dog died from excessive heat in August 2007 after being left in a hot police vehicle for 12 hours. Lovejoy was acquitted of the misdemeanor charge and accused Arpaio of trumping up the criminal case so the sheriff could exploit the publicity. The sheriff argued the arrest was constitutional because investigators had probable cause to arrest Lovejoy.

RACIAL PROFILING — $21 MILLIONArpaio’s office estimates that it will cost taxpayers more than $21 million over the next 18 months to pay for changes required by a judge who found the agency had systematically racially profiled Latinos in patrols. The compliance costs including hiring a court-appointed official to monitor the agency’s operations, installing video cameras in hundreds of the agency’s patrol vehicles and carrying out additional training to ensure officers aren’t making unconstitutional arrests. Arpaio has said he doesn’t regret getting involved in immigration enforcement and is appealing the judge’s racial-profiling ruling. He has asked the federal government to pick up the compliance tab.

JAIL DEATH — $3.2 MILLIONThe county paid $3.2 million to settle a lawsuit by a diabetic woman’s family members who alleged she was denied medical treatment while incarcerated in one Arpaio’s jails. Deborah Ann Braillard was brought to the jail in January 2005 and died more than two weeks later at a hospital. The lawsuit alleged that detention officers and health workers within the jail system knew of her condition but did nothing to treat her. Braillard received no insulin or a diabetic diet after she was brought in the jail system and was found face-down her cell after her daughter called the jail. She died 18 days after she was taken to hospital, the lawsuit said. Lawyers for the county said Braillard failed to advise the jail of her condition and denied that she complained about her condition.

RESTRAINT CHAIR DEATH — $8.25 MILLIONThe county and its excess insurance carrier shared the costs of an $8.25 million settlement in a wrongful-death lawsuit filed the family of a man who died in 1996 during a struggle with detention officers who forced him into a restraint chair and pushed his head into his chest. A medical examiner ruled that Scott Norberg died accidentally by “positional asphyxia.” The lawsuit alleged that Arpaio’s officers suffocated Norberg and the medical examiner’s office covered up evidence of a beating. Federal investigators dropped their investigation of Norberg’s death, saying the evidence is consistent with the opinion of medical examiner. Arpaio said he was confident his officers didn’t do anything wrong and that he believes the Justice Department’s decision exonerated his officers.

One reporter I heard on satellite radio said that Arpaio had costs the county in over $100 million in judgments.  And that doesn't include misuse of nearly $100 million in funds.

Trump's pardon of Arpaio speaks volumes about Trump, none of it good.

Is Trump’s Pardon of Joe Arpaio an Impeachable Offense?

There is no debate as to the power of the president to grant pardons.  However, some are making the case that there are improper uses of such power and that Der Trumpenführer pardon of white nationalist Joe Arpaio is so inappropriate that it constitutes an impeachable offense. One piece appeared in the New York Times.  Another can be found at Slate where the author takes the position that Trump has perverted and abused the powers of his office - one of the very things that the Founding Fathers fear having thrown off the rule of an absolute monarch, George III.  Here are excerpts from the piece:

The founders included in the Constitution a congressional power to impeach presidents primarily to respond to misuse by the president of express or implied powers given him elsewhere in the document.

Presidents and other officials can be impeached for conduct not involving the exercise of a specific official power if it intrudes somehow into the sphere of public duty. And impeachment can be proper in the case of a heinous private criminal offense that so far undercuts the moral authority and personal credibility of the offender that he can no longer effectively perform his office.

But, to the founders, the main point of impeachment was that there must be a remedy when a president perverts the powers of his office, either for personal or political self-aggrandizement or, regardless of motive, when the president’s acts threaten the proper distribution of authority among the coordinate branches or otherwise offend either law or fundamental governing norms.

The pardon of Arpaio plainly falls within this core conception of properly impeachable offenses.

• It is an impeachable offense precisely because it involves the exercise of a constitutionally created presidential power.

• The use of the pardon power in this case is a direct assault on core constitutional rights, statutory civil rights laws of the United States, and the authority of courts to enforce those laws.

• It therefore threatens constitutional civil liberties generally, as well as the viability of congressionally authorized statutory law, and it is a direct attack on the constitutional powers of the judiciary as a coordinate branch of government.

• Accordingly, this pardon threatens to undercut one of the indispensable, foundational norms of American constitutional order: the rule of law.

One could, of course, make some version of the foregoing argument about many presidential pardons. Every pardon undercuts a prior judicial decision and vitiates a court’s judgment that the defendant violated a criminal statute and ought to be punished. But here, as elsewhere in the impeachment realm, context and motive matter.

In deciding whether this pardon is impeachable, it matters that its effect is to devalue constitutional and statutory protections of a vulnerable minority. It matters that its effect (and rationally inferable purpose) is precisely to undercut the power of the judiciary to enforce the law against officials who believe they can violate it with impunity. And it matters that President Trump’s motive in issuing the pardon is so transparently political. This is not a considered judgment that a particular individual has been unfairly treated by corrupt judges, a flawed process, or an unjust law. It is, instead, a transparent pander to a politician’s political base.

The fact that the Constitution grants the president the theoretical power to behave in this way does not deprive Congress of the power to conclude that the exercise of that power is so contrary to constitutional principles and democratic norms that it constitutes an impeachable offense.

[T]he Republicans controlling both houses have so far shown no disposition to take these steps. But, should that political obstacle ever dissolve, there is now at least one constitutionally sound basis upon which impeachment could be based. 

Trump, Joe Arpaio and the End of Constitutional Rights

The Roman Republic did not end with one single act.  Rather numerous acts and the eventual seizure of power by Octavian Caesar - renamed Augustus - while maintaining the outward trappings of the Republic, in particular the Roman Senate led to the empire and imperial power.  Along the way the rule of law ended and some became above the law.  In pardoning Joe Arpaio, Der Trumpenführer has signaled that his supporters can trample on the constitutional rights of others with impunity.  John McCain issued a statement that sums up the danger well:

“No one is above the law and the individuals entrusted with the privilege of being sworn law officers should always seek to be beyond reproach in their commitment to fairly enforcing the laws they swore to uphold. Mr. Arpaio was found guilty of criminal contempt for continuing to illegally profile Latinos living in Arizona based on their perceived immigration status in violation of a judge’s orders. The President has the authority to make this pardon, but doing so at this time undermines his claim for the respect of rule of law as Mr. Arpaio has shown no remorse for his actions.”

The main editorial of the New York Times today follows up on this theme and the danger that Trump's action signals.  In the world of Trump and his racist, homophobic, anti-immigrant base, some people have rights and others don't, namely those who are black, Hispanic, non-Christian, and non-heterosexual.  As noted in numerous post, in the case of LGBT Americans, Trump is waging an unrelenting war against us.  It will likely only get worse if the trend is allowed to continue.  Here are editorial excerpts: 

It would be difficult for President Trump, who has insulted judges and tried to interfere with a federal investigation, to show much more disrespect for the rule of law. But if he makes good on his implicit vow to pardon Joe Arpaio, the disgraced former sheriff of Maricopa County, Ariz., Mr. Trump would be scorning the Constitution itself.

Mr. Arpaio, an anti-immigrant hard-liner who served 24 years in office before voters tossed him out last November, was convicted in July of criminal contempt of court for disregarding a federal judge’s orders to stop detaining people based solely on the suspicion that they were in the country illegally.

The Constitution gives the president nearly unlimited power to grant clemency to people convicted of federal offenses, so Mr. Trump can pardon Mr. Arpaio. But Mr. Arpaio was an elected official who defied a federal court’s order that he stop violating people’s constitutional rights. He was found in contempt of that court. By pardoning him, Mr. Trump would show his contempt for the American court system and its only means of enforcing the law, since he would be sending a message to other officials that they may flout court orders also.

Mr. Arpaio could not be less deserving of mercy. In addition to the dragnets of Hispanic-looking people that ultimately led to his contempt conviction, he racked up a record of harassment, neglect, mistreatment and other flagrant abuses of office that should have ended his career years ago.

Both men [Trump and Arpaio] built their brands by exploiting racial resentments of white Americans. While Mr. Trump was beginning his revanchist run for the White House on the backs of Mexican “rapists,” Mr. Arpaio was terrorizing brown-skinned people across southern Arizona, sweeping them up in “saturation patrols” and holding them in what he referred to as a “concentration camp” for months at a time.

It was this behavior that a federal judge in 2011 found to be unconstitutional and ordered Mr. Arpaio to stop. He refused, placing himself above the law and the Constitution that he had sworn to uphold.

[A] grant of mercy from Mr. Trump would also go against longstanding Justice Department policy, which calls for a waiting period of at least five years before the consideration of a pardon application and some expression of regret or remorse by the applicant. Mr. Arpaio shows no sign of remorse; to the contrary, he sees himself as the victim. “If they can go after me, they can go after anyone in this country,” he told Fox News on Wednesday. He’s right — in a nation based on the rule of law, anyone who ignores a court order, or otherwise breaks the law, may be prosecuted and convicted.

Mr. Arpaio has always represented what Mr. Trump aspires to be: a thuggish autocrat who enforces the law as he pleases, without accountability or personal consequence.

  Frighteningly, we are seeing the death of the rule of law before our eyes.  Be very afraid.

Will Trump's Wall Lunacy At Last Cause Republicans to Hit Back?

Among Der Trumpenführer's racist, ignorance embracing base, building a physical wall along the U.S.- Mexico border is of top importance for several reasons, not the least of which is that such a wall would be a tangible monument to their hatred of brown skinned people. To reverse Robin Hood Republicans like Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell who prize tax breaks to the wealthy above all else, Trump's demand for a anti-Mexico means little or nothing other than to the extent they like to throw some occasional bones to the most lunatic elements of the party base.   The question of the hour after Trump's unhinged rant in Phoenix is whether or not Trump is truly willing to force a government shit down over his demands for an anti-Mexico wall. If a government shutdown occurs that can be clearly blamed on Trump and/or Republicans and it will be tantamount to handing every statewide office in Virginia to the Democrats.  Between all of the federal workers in Northern Virginia and the military personnel in Hampton Roads who would find themselves with no income, the vengeance that would fall on the GOP would be enormous,.  A piece in Slate looks at whether Congressional Republicans are on the verge of drop kicking Trump.  Here are excerpts:

President Trump, having secured no “wall money” in the last Congressional funding fight in April, vowed to try again before federal appropriations expire at the end of September. At his Phoenix rally on Tuesday night, the president promised the crowd that, even “if we have to close down our government, we’re building that wall.” As if a lapse in appropriations automatically converts into wall funding, as opposed to a tedious federal standoff that damages the unified governing party.

The reaction on the Hill to Trump’s threat has been a chorus of bless his heart. [For non-Southerner's, "bless his heart" is a kin to saying he can go f*ck himself or he's totally crazy] Both House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, recognizing that the wall is not a priority outside of Trump’s base, are comfortable with their leverage. “If the President pursues this path, against the wishes of both Republicans and Democrats, as well as the majority of the American people,” Schumer said in a terse statement, “he will be heading towards a government shutdown which nobody will like and which won’t accomplish anything.”

Senate and House Republicans claim that they’re trying to help Trump get his wall money, but they’re hesitant to commit to how far they’re willing to go.

When asked for his response Wednesday to Trump’s threat, our techno-pumping, wall-loving, bad-ass House speaker said that “I don't think a government shutdown is necessary and I don't think most people want to see a government shutdown, ourselves included.”

Meanwhile, Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn said Wednesday that he viewed Trump’s threat as him “laying down the tough line,” i.e. a negotiation tactic. “Obviously, we need to get the border secured, and we’ve come up with a plan to do that. And we need to pass that legislation, I think, and then we can go back and appropriate the money to complete the bill on the incremental basis.” Translation: There is not much appetite within the Senate Republican caucus for shutting down the government over the wall.

[B]oth Hill Democrats and Hill Republicans seem to think that a government shutdown over the wall would fare poorly for Hill Republicans. Worsening Republicans’ conundrum, the shutdown will be extra bad when Trump tells his base to blame the mess on the GOP Congress . It’s almost like Republican lawmakers just can’t win with this guy in office.

The real discussions between Democrats and Republicans, once Congress returns after Labor Day, will be about finding some compromise that allows Trump to save face and Democrats to declare victory. That could mean funding certain Democratic policy priorities, like the Affordable Care Act’s cost-sharing reduction payments, while giving the president additional funds for replacement fencing or other border security technology. If Trump demands a concrete wall, it is hard to see Democrats agreeing to it or Republicans going to bat for it.

If Trump’s ultimatum is that it’s either a wall or shutdown, we could see the standoff end with the first major legislative break—i.e., not just the occasional Twitter bickering—between congressional Republicans and the president. Given the president’s tendency to hold a grudge, such a break could set the tone for the rest of his term.

House and Senate Republican leaders, recognizing that a shutdown could be punishing for their majorities, might decide to send Trump a bipartisan bill to the president’s desk that dodges hot-button issues altogether. That would put ownership of a prolonged shutdown squarely on the president’s shoulders if he chose to veto it.

Will the Government Shut Down Over Border Wall Funding?

Donald Trump is sticking with his "build the wall" con which his ignorant voters fell for during the election.  Missing, of course, from the carnival barker's calls is any serious recognition of (i) the true cost, or (ii) just how long any construction would take given the need to first go through lengthy and time consuming condemnation proceeds to acquire the needed land in many border areas. Seemingly, even some Republican members of Congress recognize the impracticality, true cost and time line of Der Trumpenführer's wall along the Mexico border even if his cretinous supporters do not.  Now, signs are that a federal government shut down may occur if Trump continues to demand funding for his exercise in placating racists.  A piece in the Washington Post looks at the possible show down.  Here are highlights (don't believe Trump's 3.5 year construction schedule since condemnation cases, if appealed, alone could take longer):

President Trump and White House officials pressed congressional Republicans on Sunday to use the looming threat of a government shutdown to win funding for a wall along the border between the United States and Mexico, a top priority for the administration as it nears the symbolic 100-day mark.

Trump wants funding to be included in a spending measure that would keep the government open past April 28, a determined effort that has prompted a possible standoff with lawmakers in both parties, who hope to avert a federal closure next weekend.

Trump’s push for fast action on his pledge to build the border wall is part of a mounting and, at times, tense scramble inside the administration to kick-start the president’s agenda, even if it risks dire political consequences.

White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus said in an interview Sunday with The Washington Post that the president and his advisers remain “strong” in their commitment to securing funding for border security and a wall.

“This is what the president ran on,” Priebus said. “We want to get to a place this week where ­border-security money is being directed to the Department of Homeland Security so that we can begin surveillance and preliminary work, and then we will keep working on getting DHS what it needs for the structure.”

The Senate returns Monday night, and the House returns Tuesday from a two-week recess, leaving just three days when both chambers will be in session to wrangle out a funding agreement. Negotiators worked throughout the break, but thus far a deal has not been struck.

The wall, which experts say would cost $21.6 billion and take 3½ years to construct, has emerged as a crucial sticking point for the White House, with the president insisting privately and publicly that progress toward its funding and eventual construction must be showcased this week.

It remained unclear Sunday whether moderates within the GOP could persuade the White House to avoid a shutdown. Democrats have insisted that they will not vote for any spending bill that gives the White House money or flexibility to begin construction of a border barrier. They believe that the GOP will have to either abandon Trump’s demand or assume political responsibility if a shutdown occurs.

“The burden to keep it open is on the Republicans,” House ­Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “Building a wall is not an answer.

The tweets did little to assuage concerns created earlier in the day when White House budget director Mick Mulvaney suggested that Trump might not sign a spending bill that does not meet his demands.

Democrats believe that voters will blame Trump for a shutdown, particularly if congressional leaders omit wall funding from a spending deal. Democrats and GOP leaders appeared to be nearing a spending agreement last week before Trump ramped up his demands.

Democrats and Republicans maintained common ground. One clear area of agreement was not to include border funding in the stopgap budget. Democrats agreed to include other border-security measures, including money for new drones to patrol the border, but it was agreed that the wall itself should be debated separately, after the government is kept open.

Mulvaney’s hard-line stance is also odds with a White House faction convinced that a government shutdown would be cataclysmic for an administration already struggling to prove its ability to govern, according to GOP aides in the White House and Congress who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the ongoing talks.

Republican leaders have signaled that they will concentrate this week on keeping the government open, even if that means ignoring White House calls for action on other major priorities, such as rewriting the tax code and overhauling the ACA.

If federal workers end up staying home next week, the blame will be on Trump and the GOP.  The GOP controls all branches of the federal government and still cannot get anything done.  Mexico may be laughing loudly this time next week. 

Mexico’s Revenge on Trump - and His Supporters

While Donald Trump's attacks on Hispanics and non-whites in general has played well with the most most ignorant - evangelical Christians are the least educated of any religious group in America - and racist/xenophobic elements of his base, the economic results could prove catastrophic if Mexico decides to exact revenge against Trump's America.  Already, talk of Mexico shifting its agricultural purchases to Argentina and Brazil has Mid-West farmers sweating bullets at the prospect of severe economic and financial damage.  Indeed, the repeal of NAFTA, one of Trump's favorite whipping boys, does not play well in these farming states. But Mexico's revenge could prove even more damaging.  In addition to Mexican intelligence services ending their cooperation with their American counterparts - something that could increase illegal immigration into America - Mexico could tilt toward China as its new found favorite trading partner.  Needless to say, the ignorant, loud mouthed, bullying, narcissist in the White House has never thought of these types of  consequences.  A long piece in The Atlantic looks at the Mexican revenge Trump may be setting into motion. Here are highlights:

When donald trump first made sport of thumping Mexico—when he accused America’s neighbor of exporting rapists and “bad hombres,” when he deemed the country such a threat that it should be contained by a wall and so clueless that it could be suckered into paying for its own encasement—its president responded with strange equilibrium. 

Since then, the Mexican political elite has begun to ponder retaliatory measures that would reassert the country’s dignity, and perhaps even cause the Trump administration to reverse its hostile course. With a presidential election in just over a year—and Peña Nieto prevented by term limits from running again—vehement responses to Trump are considered an electoral necessity. Memos outlining policies that could wound the United States have begun flying around Mexico City. These show that Trump has committed the bully’s error of underestimating the target of his gibes. As it turns out, Mexico could hurt the United States very badly.

The Mexico–U.S. border is long, but the history of close cooperation across it is short. As recently as the 1980s, the countries barely contained their feelings of mutual contempt. Mexico didn’t care for the United States’ anticommunist policy in Central America, especially its support of Nicaraguan rebels. In 1983, President Miguel de la Madrid obliquely warned the Reagan administration against “shows of force which threaten to touch off a conflagration.” 

The grandiose promise of trade is that it binds countries together, breeding peace and cooperation. This is a risible overstatement when applied generally to the world. But in the case of the countries separated by the Rio Grande, it has proved wondrously true. A generation after the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement, the United States and Mexico couldn’t be more interdependent. Anti-Americanism, once a staple of Mexican politics, has largely faded. The flow of migrants from Mexico to the U.S. has, more or less, abated. Economic ties have fostered greater intimacy between intelligence services and security agencies, which are today deeply enmeshed in each other’s business. 

But the Trump administration has come dangerously close to trashing the relationship—and, in the process, unleashing a terrifying new reality.

The Chinese invested heavily in places like Peru, Brazil, and Venezuela, discreetly flexing soft power as they funded new roads, refineries, and railways. From 2000 to 2013, China’s bilateral trade with Latin America increased by 2,300 percent, according to one calculation. A raft of recently inked deals forms the architecture for China to double its annual trade with the region, to $500 billion, by the middle of the next decade. Mexico, however, has remained a grand exception to this grand strategy. 

Mexico also happens to be the one spot in Latin America where the United States would respond with alarm to a heavy Chinese presence.

That sort of alarm is just the thing some Mexicans would now like to provoke. What Mexican analysts have called the “China card”—a threat to align with America’s greatest competitor—is an extreme retaliatory option. Former Mexican Foreign Minister Jorge Castañeda told me he considers it an implausible expression of “machismo.” Unfortunately, Trump has elevated machismo to foreign-policy doctrine . . . And while a tighter Chinese–Mexican relationship would fly in the face of recent economic history, Trump may have already set it in motion.

The painful early days of the Trump administration have reminded Mexico of a core economic weakness: The country depends far too heavily on the American market. “Mexico is realizing that it has been overexposed to the U.S., and it’s now trying to hedge its bets,” says Kevin Gallagher, an economist at Boston University who specializes in Latin America. “Any country where 80 percent of exports go to the U.S., it’s a danger.” . . . . The presence of Trump, with his brusque talk of tariffs and promises of economic nationalism, makes that an urgent task.

Until recently, a Mexican–Chinese rapprochement would have been unthinkable. . . . . But China has played the long game, and its patience has proved farsighted. The reason so many Chinese are ascending to the middle class is that wages have tripled over the past decade. The average hourly wage in Chinese manufacturing is now $3.60. Over that same period of time, hourly manufacturing wages in Mexico have fallen to $2.10. Even taking into account the extraordinary productivity of Chinese factories—not to mention the expense that comes with Mexico’s far greater fidelity to the rules of international trade—Mexico increasingly looks like a sensible place for Chinese firms to set up shop, particularly given its proximity to China’s biggest export market.

Let’s pause to consider the illogic. Trump says that China is a grave threat, both militarily and economically. He has accused China of “rap[ing] our country.” That’s not the way most analysts would put it, but a fairly broad bipartisan consensus holds that China’s expansionism should be contained and its mercantilism checked. Barack Obama’s vaunted “pivot” to Asia tried to keep China’s neighbors from succumbing to its gravitational pull. Thanks to Donald Trump, China is now better positioned to execute the most difficult maneuver in its own, North American pivot—pushing the U.S. and Mexico further apart.

What seems more likely is that relations between the security agencies will slowly decay, as trust between the two countries evaporates and warm feelings give way to tensions.

Trump’s rush toward hard-line immigration policies could yield a grim bonanza of other unintended consequences. Mass deportations of Mexicans could uproot hundreds of thousands and deposit them on the other side of the border, forcing their reintegration into lives they left, many of them long ago. Perhaps the Mexican economy, the 15th-largest in the world, has the capacity to absorb these refugees from Trump’s America. But it’s equally easy to imagine a scenario in which they inundate the labor market. And even that possibility doesn’t begin to capture the likely economic costs of deportation. The Mexican economy would be deprived of the remittances that immigrants send back to their relatives. It’s hard to speak hyperbolically about the importance of these transfers—in 2016, Mexican Americans sent $27 billion back to their Mexican families, more than the value of the crude petroleum Mexico exports annually. 

[W]ith Trump’s angry talk and the Mexican resentment it stirs, the best hope for the persistence of this improved relationship is inertia—the interlocking supply chain that crosses the border and won’t easily pull apart, the agricultural exports that flow in both directions, all the bureaucratic cooperation. Unwinding this relationship would be ugly and painful, a strategic blunder of the highest order, a gift to America’s enemies, a gaping vulnerability for the homeland that Donald Trump professes to protect, a very messy divorce.

The perverse part of me would love to see Mexico shift its agricultural product purchases from Mid-West sources.  The cretins in these states who put Trump in office deserve to suffer greatly.  As for the rise of China-Mexico relations, if it happens, it will be the fault of Der Trumpenführer.

California and President Trump Are Going to War

As is his standard mode operation - and that of many bullies - Donald Trump's approach to anyone and anything that doesn't support his grandiose view of himself and/or his policies is to lash out, attack them/it and/or to claim their positions are false.  Be it polls that show he is the least popular president in modern history, news reporters that run stories on facts that Trump finds inconvenient or diminish to his inflated ego, their are attacked and depicted as liars, false news, or worse. Among Trump's favored targets is the State of California which voted resoundingly for Hillary Clinton, is thriving economically by employing approaches anathema to Trump/GOP failed policies, is on the forefront of environmental protection, and which sends more money to the federal government than it receives in return.  A piece in the Washington Post ooks at Der Fuhrer's vendetta with California.  Here are highlights:

President Trump had harsh words for one of his most fervent opponents during the pre-Super Bowl interview with Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly that aired Sunday. Not President Vladimir Putin, mind you, whose alleged unpleasant habit of murdering journalists met with a shrug from the president. No, Trump lashed out at the nation’s largest state, California.

“I just spent the week in California,” O’Reilly said. “As you know, they are now voting on whether they should become a sanctuary state. So California and the U.S.A. are on a collision course. How do you see it?”

“Well, I think it’s ridiculous,” Trump replied. “Sanctuary cities, as you know I’m very much opposed to sanctuary cities. They breed crime, there’s a lot of problems. We have to well defund, we give tremendous amounts of money to California . . . "

We’ll note first of all that sanctuary cities do not “breed crime.” Analysis of FBI data shows that crime in sanctuary cities is generally lower than in non-sanctuary cities. But that’s beside the point.

More importantly, Trump says two things. First, that California is “out of control.” Second, that he doesn’t want to yank federal funding from the state, but he will if he has to.

California is one of the few states where federal funding isn’t that great a point of leverage. In 2015, California generated $405 billion in tax revenue, more than $100 billion more than the next-closest state. It consumes a lot of federal funding, too, mind you. But data from Pew Research for 2014 compared to 2014 IRS data shows that California gives the federal government more than it takes. . . . . Most states take more than they generate in taxes.

What’s more, data from the Tax Foundation indicates that federal funding makes up far less of California’s total state revenue than most other states’. 

Trump is mad about California because voters there overwhelmingly rejected Trump in November. Trump supporters have repeatedly tried to affix an “except California” asterisk to the popular vote result since, were it not for California, Trump would have prevailed on that metric. Saying “except California” has the tricky flaw of equaling “except for 12 percent of the American population,” 

Last week, Trump’s war with California took the form of attacking its public college system. After violent protests erupted on the campus of U.C. Berkeley, Trump suggested that he would pull funding from the school, which a) punishes the wrong party, since it wasn’t as though the school asked people to riot and b) can’t be done by executive order anyway.

On Monday, The Washington Post reported that the most visible manifestation of the California economy — the tech industry — had broadly united to file a joint amicus brief in opposition to Trump’s executive order on immigration. The tech industry employs a lot of immigrants to the United States, so there’s clearly a business motivation to take such a stand.

So this is the Cold Civil War that’s erupted. Trump threatens California’s funding; California threatens to pack up and go. Neither is likely to happen. But still — if you predicted that a president’s relationship with the Golden State would be rockier than his relationship with Russia, I’d like to ask your help with some lottery numbers.

 Trump is simply unfit for office.  #NotMyPresident.

Trump to Screw American Consumers with Proposed 20% Import Tax on Mexico

It is increasingly difficult to keep up with the lies and utter misogyny spewing forth from Der Fuhrer. Sadly, much of the media is still allowing itself to be used by Trump to distract the public from the harmful and regressive policies that his narcissistic majesty is unleashing.  His latest attempt to dupe the white supremacists and low information voters - read cretins - that comprise much of his base  is to announce that he will build a $15 billion wall along the Mexico/U.S. border and "make Mexico pay for it" by imposing a 20% import tax on goods imported into America from Mexico.  Even a Economics 101 course would predict the actual outcome: higher prices for American consumers and businesses. Trump obviously believes that his base of support is too stupid to figure out this basic economic reality.  The Dallas Morning News is having none of the lie and is correctly calling Der Fuhrer for his duplicity.  Here are some article highlights:

The White House floated the idea Thursday of imposing a 20 percent tax on Mexican imports, arguing that would be more than enough to pay for a controversial border wall — then quickly downplayed the idea as one of many under consideration.

Such a tariff on goods and services would be paid by U.S. consumers and businesses — people buying anything from avocados and tequila to automobiles. Energy companies, big retailers and other major business interests oppose such an import tax, arguing that it would drive up prices in the United States, curb demand, and erode profits. 

On its face, that doesn't appear to fulfill President Donald Trump's oft-repeated vow to force Mexico to pay for the barrier, which Mexican leaders have made clear they don't want and certainly won't agree to pay for. 

If anything, it's a tacit admission that the Trump administration can't cajole or coerce Mexico into paying for the project, at least in the near term.

Texas imported $84 billion from Mexico in 2015. With a 20 percent tariff, Texas businesses and consumers would have paid an extra $16.8 billion for the same goods and services. . . . a tariff that high would drastically suppress trade in both directions, and have other repercussions.

"The notion that a Mexican tariff of 20 percent represents the Mexicans paying for the wall is a flawed understanding of how tariffs work," said David French, a senior vice president at the National Retail Federation. "That would be a huge increase on prices paid by U.S. consumers."

Alfredo Duarte, president and co-founder of Dallas-based Taxco Produce Inc., said the proposed import tax will hurt American consumers more than anyone - especially anyone with a year-round appetite for tomatoes and avocados.

"We don't produce any vegetables here in the states" during the winter, he said. "We have to import vegetables. If people are still wanting to eat guacamole on Super Bowl day, we'll just go back to the time when we were paying $80 a case for avocados from California about 15 years ago." . . . He added that many large scale avocado and tomato growers in Mexico are owned by American companies.

"Trump is taking a shot at our jobs," warned Texas Democratic Party executive director Crystal Perkins. "Texas' working families and our economy depend on a strong relationship with Mexico. Minority President Donald Trump's 20-percent tax will kill Texas jobs, raise the price of goods for Texas families, and slaughter Texas' relationship with its largest trading partner."

Everyday I find it more difficult to see Trump as anything other than a dangerous, lying pile of human excrement. That 81% of evangelical Christians voted for him says all one deeds to know about the moral bankruptcy of the "godly folk."  

The GOP is Past the Point of No Return

As noted in numerous posts, I believe that the Republican Party is beyond the point of no return.  The cancer of Christofascists, white nativists, and outright open racists within the party - and its local city/county committee base - has metastasized to a point where there is no realistic possibility of reform.   The GOP faces either a slow and agonizing death or perhaps a massive flame out in the wake of what will be a historic defeat for Donald Trump and, with luck, many down ticket Republicans.  A piece in Slate looks at the spectacle of the death of a major political party.  Here are highlights:

For most of the now almost-forgotten vice presidential debate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence kept his cool, ignoring, deflecting, or outright denying any effort by Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine to tie him to his running mate, Donald Trump. But it’s hard to keep your composure for the length of a debate. It takes work. And toward the end of the 90-minute showdown, Pence began to falter, and then with a single infelicitous phrase he evoked the only wall Trump will ever build: the one between the Republican Party and Latino voters. It happened after Kaine returned to Trump’s rhetoric, pressing Pence to answer for his running mate’s insults and bigotry. “When Donald Trump says women or Mexicans are rapists and criminals … or John McCain is not a hero, he is showing you who he is,” said the Virginia senator, to which Pence had a reply. “Senator,” he said, “you’ve whipped out that Mexican thing again.” Adding, “There are criminal aliens in this country, Tim, who have come into this country illegally who are perpetrating violence and taking American lives.” That Mexican thing. That Mexican thing, to be precise, is Trump’s anti-Hispanic demagoguery, which stretches back to the beginning of the campaign. . . . They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.” Hispanic voters, who see Trump as an unacceptable risk. This is no small thing. Political parties can make inroads with groups that disagree with them—that’s just persuasion. But it’s difficult, if not impossible, to make gains with groups that see you as a danger to their futures. By placing Donald Trump at the top of the ticket and indulging his nativism and xenophobia, the Republican Party has said with its actions that it doesn’t want Latinos in its tent. Republicans may thus end up estranged from another group of nonwhite voters. . . . . the GOP has shown itself hostile to the idea of a pluralistic, multiracial America with room and opportunity for Americans of all origins.
 For Trump, Latino immigrants join Muslims and Syrian refugees as potential threats, fundamentally incompatible with American life. If they’re here, they have to be removed, and if they’re not here, they need to be kept out. In turn, for Latino Americans and their families, this makes Trump an existential threat to their lives and livelihoods. Only 21 percent of Latinos say the GOP cares about their community, and 70 percent say that Trump has made the Republican Party more hostile to them. . . . . Eighty-two percent of respondents agreed with the first statement, that Trump makes them fear for their families and their country. The repudiation of Goldwater [in 1964] would be the last step in a realignment of black Americans that had begun in the days of Franklin Roosevelt. From then on, the national Republican Party would struggle to crack double digits with black voters, despite the strength of traditional beliefs and practices among black communities, from religious practice to traditions of self-help and self-reliance. The reason was straightforward: Goldwater wasn’t just offensive; he articulated a vision of national life that would inevitably leave black Americans on the margins as second-class citizens, subject to the whims of segregationists and their allies. And if Goldwater didn’t see it, his explicitly anti-black allies did. Republican politics—is a white ideology. Unresponsive to the particular concerns of nonwhites—around issues of discrimination and racial inequality—it is a drive to preserve a status quo built around the political and economic dominance of white Americans. This is more explicit in the age of Donald Trump, but it’s always been true, from Goldwater to the present.  The Great Recession supercharged anti-immigration—and anti-immigrant—sentiment among GOP voters, and Republican lawmakers followed along, passing restrictive new laws after the party swept statehouses in the 2010 midterm elections. Indeed, we saw an inkling of rising anti-Latino sentiment in 2009, when Obama’s nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court was met with a wave of racist criticism.  [V]oting and party affiliation are habits. Once set, they tend not to change. And looking forward from the present, there’s a real chance that Latino voting takes the same path as black voting, with routine and overwhelming support going to Democratic presidential candidates. Again, California gives us a glimpse of what this looks like. Following Republican Gov. Pete Wilson’s anti-immigrant crusades in the 1990s, Latino Californians moved decisively into the Democratic column. By the end of the last decade, the state was a Democratic stronghold, . . .
 And for those Republicans who don’t want Trump or Trumpism? It may be too late. The thing about a lily-white Republican Party is that it doesn’t have the diversity it needs to resist white resentment and white rage. Republicans crossed a point of no return. Raw ethnonationalism is their future, even if they don’t want it.